On the fringe - or - never able to arrive at the truth

It is a universal truth - though largely ignored by some die-hard archaeologists - that there is no known culture in the world without religious beliefs (Terence Meaden, Archaeologist, Oxon). An interesting observation - some would say it is because there is a "God shaped hole" in everyone.

I have a rich Christian heritage but more to the point where am I now? Like in "But whom do you say that I am?".

I remember cringing when someone we used to visit would ask me "and what has God being doing in your life?" - because I could never think that there was anything in particular.

My earliest church memories were of Alresford Congregational church. Later we went by train to Winchester Baptist Church where I, tacet, would sometimes sit beside my father on the polished organ bench. His own folk were at various times nonconformist evangelical, Baptist and Peculiar and his father was at one time a reverend.

Winchester Baptist Church

Speaking of which, the ‘The Peculiar People’ were initially quite a fiery bunch but, doubtless after a generation, their zeal diminished. They later changed their name to the ‘Union of Evangelical Churches’ and their web site now says "divine healing does not now have such prominence..." If folk really were healed once, this seems a strange statement to make. Like, we don't want any of this getting better stuff.

My parents then joined NFC from whence stem most of my childhood church memories. Here I went to Sunday School and later the Adventurer's Club, was baptised, and first spoke (briefly and timidly) in public. Open Brethren based, I am thankful for the good knowledge of the Bible that NFC instilled in me, but I must have been suitably indoctrinated because, when I left home for college, I naively considered all other churches inferior and probably heretical and was surprised when I discovered committed Christians from other persuasions. In my final year I agreed to become the OICCU "Rep" for my college and, under considerable duress, was obliged to sign a statement of doctrine. It wasn't that I had a problem with anything there but I disagreed strongly (and still do) with the need to sign.

Whilst in Oxford I tried various church flavours including the James Street brethren assembly (now re-branded "evangelical") - the folk there were very friendly but I didn't fit in. Plain contrary to my upbringing I ended up most at home in the reasonably high Anglican college chapel - because the chaplain cared about my well being, because it was local and because I found I could worship God there. Despite the occasional smells and bells.

On finding my feet in my first job I started to attend CBC where I met and married Ali, and when we both wanted to be involved in young people's work we first had to become church members which implied signing up to their doctrine, which I once again did under much duress.

Both Ali and I wanted more than CBC appeared to offer and thus we met together with like-minded folk of similar age. One year the group had a holiday-cum-conference hosted by a Christian community in Eastleigh and this was our first introduction to communal living and The Move.

You can Google The Move and its founding leader Sam Fife and you'll find a lot of nonsense as well as some truth. And sure there was some nonsense, doubtless because of People. We had our share of this nonsense but thankfully nothing serious - because we were on the fringe.  The Wikipedia link is rather dated and things have changed, mellowed - a bit like the Peculiar People I wonder?

That Sam Fife (who I never met) was a "one man ministry", or at least the dominant leader, did raise warning bells in me but, hang it all, wasn't Jesus also a "one man ministry"? The thing is, some of what Fife preached his followers now don't go along with - at least they no longer emphasise - like "people of God we are not going to die" and the "wilderness message". If those radical areas that so intrigued his followers are now mellowed, do we revert to being plain evangelicals?

Probably not - Ali's parents were, for a time, Exclusive Brethren. When they left, not being able to stomach some of the more radical and intrusive teachings, her father could never feel at home in any other church flavour, none of which had the same sense of family and depth of conservative doctrine, so ended up without christian fellowship for the rest of his life.  I think I might have done similarly.

Seen in Texas 3 days ago

A recent guest on the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE-radio-1 told how, when he was about six, he saw an angel standing beside his bed.  He hadn't told anyone else for years but much later his younger brother (who had shared the bedroom and would have been less than two at the time) asked him if he remembered the angel. So did that really happen?

I once saw an angel. I was a child sitting up in my bed at home. The angel was standing on top of a chimney stack on a building opposite my bedroom window: much taller than a human, with wings and shining white. Certainly not a cloud formation! But it might have been a dream - I cannot remember clearly: did that really happen?

My Aunt Mary claimed she had seen angels. She claimed all manner of things, mind you, but it would be wrong to discredit her experiences just for that reason.

If we cannot confirm whether recent extraordinary things like these really happened, what chance have we of confirming stories about a man who lived 2,000 years ago?  Most historians concede that the man Jesus existed - but they get woolly about the miracles. Did they really happen?  On the other hand why would anyone writing a Gospel account chose to blatantly lie?

Along with many others, I have a burden for a child with leukaemia and have earnestly prayed for his complete healing. His father is a Methodist minister and he also is praying for total healing: I would interpret this as "faith". But whilst there has been good medical progress, currently there has been a relapse. I am at least encouraged when I read "See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven". It's not the end of the story, of course, but I had hoped... But maybe I am missing something, maybe his being healed now would spoil some vast eternal plan?

We humans are rum creatures. We think we know so much and yet we know so little. Our understanding of science, when descriptive and thus concerning things we can measure now, is all very well. But when it becomes inferential, concerning things long ago or yet to come or far, far away or far too small, who knows whether we have it right? I sometimes wonder whether, if you look hard enough with a preconceived dogma, nature will oblige. Thus the double slit experiment which could be thought to answer to two apparently contradictory theories.

There's people who genuinely think the earth is flat. Or this guy who goes along with the electric sun hypothesis and writes:

Yet, here is an incredible thing. Even though the theories of Newton, Einstein, and Twentieth Century astronomy are blown to pieces on almost a daily basis by what is actually out there, yet modern man has refused absolutely to let go of those dis-proven ideas... And so to explain how "gravity" can do all these wondrous things, the mathematicians have pulled out of their hats such unprovable bits of nonsense as "dark matter," and "black holes," and "string theory," and "nuclear fusion," and so on. None of these fantastical ideas ever find their way into a practical laboratory because all engineers know they are complete fabrications. Governments have spent untold billions of dollars to duplicate "nuclear fusion" on earth to complete and continuing failure. Why? Because there is no such thing. That's why it takes government money to build the huge "super colliders." No private business would waste a penny on such nonsense. So, let's look at astronomy as it really is. The universe is electrical. The sun is a large solid ball of rock that sustains a vast and continual electrical arc lamp discharge above its surface exactly like the electrical arc used by welders. That electrical arc is fed by huge currents of electricity that flow down the arms of the Milky Way to its center.

His position is gently ameliorated here but, honestly, with things we can, at best, hardly detect, who can say whether our theories are correct?

In our early community years we were already convinced about home schooling our kids. We listened to a CLA teaching about legal cases where the US child protection authorities took kids from their parents and, on their advice, we decided to eschew child benefit to cut one possible hold the government might have on our kids. Years later I think of all that cash we didn't get and see all the young parents here taking child benefit without a thought. And yet I read the other day Norway's hidden scandal - so were we so stupid? I certainly have no regrets about home schooling. Our four children have not grown up with carbon copies of their parents strange beliefs as some think home schooled kids will, but each are now making their own choice as to how they should live and what they should belief, as is right and proper. And I am proud of them.

I like to think that I am searching for truth (though probably not nearly hard enough as in strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able).  But I am allergic to religious or hypocritical sort of "truth". Like in the parable of the leaven in all three measures of flour: I suppose the Kingdom of God must attract error.

In searching for truth I find myself coming back, again and again, to the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. I try to read them without the preconceptions I grew up with, and I find a very human man with emotions and a sense of humour, who enjoys a good meal, who gets tired and thirsty after a long journey. Here I might add (though the accounts leave it out) that doubtless his body sweated and needed washing, that he had to go to the loo, cut his finger nails, and all the basic stuff we experience but don't generally advertise. But in this human frame he did only what he understood his Heavenly Father wanted, and thus he wrought amazing miracles, and he was crucified and died "to make us good".  And I get goose-bumps when I sing:

...Risen with healing in his wings 

Mild he lays his glory by, 

Born that man no more may die: 

Born to raise the son of earth, 

Born to give them second birth...
[Charles Wesley]

and

There is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified,

Who died to save us all

We may not know, we cannot tell,

What pains He had to bear;

But we believe it was for us

He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiven,

He died to make us good,

That we might go at last to heaven,

Saved by His precious blood.

There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin;

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven and let us in.

O dearly, dearly has He loved,

And we must love Him, too,

And trust in His redeeming blood,

And try His works to do.
[Cecil Frances Alexander]

Interestingly Cecil Frances Alexander, née Humphreys, second daughter of the late Major John Humphreys, Miltown House, co. Tyrone, Ireland, b. 1823, also author of All things bright and beautiful... The purple-headed mountain, the river running by might well have lived at or at least been associated with Humpreystown House, in which case those purple headed mountains are the ones we see across the lake at this time of the year, and the river might be the Liffey or Kings River.

Peculiar people

Evangelical church, St Annes Rd, Southend

I'm trying to piece the facts together because at the time I was just a boy and church politics was hardly one of my interests. But I do have some memories which may be worth sharing.

The building in the picture used to belong to the Peculiar People, as in you are a chosen generation, a Royal priesthood, an holy nation, a Peculiar People, a denomination that seems to have been restricted to the Essex area and started by one James Banyard. My father's parents and Aunty Mary used to attend another church in Southend but at some point the two churches joined forces. I remember attending meetings when both pastors, one from each church, were in operation. I think they took it in turns to preach. One was Pastor Danes and the other Pastor Peters. I do not know which one was "peculiar". But I do vividly remember Pastor Peters reading the passage from John 20 with such passion that I felt like I was an onlooker...

And she (Mary Magdelene) saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.  They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."  Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

I remember a man in the congregation, Smee by name. He had a boil or pimple on his face (children remember such things) and sang the hymns lustily but, being tone deaf, totally out of tune. Someone commented on this and he responded that he did not care what he sounded like - nobody was going to stop him praising his Lord. That anyone could have such devotion meant a lot to me at the time.

There was Renee who sang Oh Holy Night with my Aunt. Renee would dig into her handbag and fetch out little bits of paper with maybe a picture and a Bible verse written on them for us children. I don't rightly remember what we did with them: her intentions were no doubt good but I cannot recall the verses changing my life in any way.

The church had a choir, composed mainly of older folk, indeed the whole congregation was mainly older folk. Every Sunday meeting the choir would sing an anthem. I used to enjoy this simply because it was variation, but what relevance the anthem had to the rest of the meeting alluded me. Apart from that it was the usual "hymn sandwich" with a lengthy sermon thrown in towards the end.

My grandfather used to play the pipe organ with me sharing the organ bench, but maybe this was before the merge.

I found this picture on the internet, it being the closest I could find to another memory. My Aunt took me to a meeting in a dusty church hall, I know not where. There were wooden chairs arranged in a circle and a harmonium, and everything was dusty and looked like it was a relic from some bygone era. My grandfather was into mending organs and I have inherited from him a harmonium reed puller which is a very useful though simple tool for getting things out of awkward places. A harmonium is a reed organ (aka pump organ) with bellows operated by the feet and a number of "stops" which all sound much of a muchness because there is not a lot you can do to alter the noise a brass reed makes. They were quite common in small chapels at the time. Anyway, back to the meeting, I think we sang a hymn (possibly Mary played the harmonium) and otherwise it was a prayer meeting which, if you are a child, is hardly the most interesting of activities. It is often not much better when you grow up.

When I read, in my link to the Peculiar people, mention of a Mr William Perry of Southend my memory was once again tickled.  My grandmother, who owned and drove their Ford motor (Ginty never learnt to drive), often spoke of Mr Perry who ran a car sales and repair business and I wonder if it he was the one healed?  Which reminds me of another instance when she was driving us back from church and did something silly like running a red light and explained afterwards that she had panicked so closed her eyes and prayed and hoped for the best. The best apparently happened for here I am to tell the tale.

In 1956 the Peculiar people were renamed the 'Union of Evangelical Churches" and, like so many other movements started by a particular individual, waned in popularity and extremism. This site says only 15 churches remain open within the UEC.

Dartford crossing

Dartford crossing's tunnels and bridge today

The Dartford crossing joins the two ends of the M25 orbital motorway around London where otherwise the Thames estuary would get in the way. It now provides four lanes in either direction using two tunnels (North bound) and the Queen Elizabeth bridge (South bound) and has just been fitted with automatic toll collection. The crossing was opened in stages. The west tunnel was opened first in 1963 providing just one lane in each direction. That was long before the M25 was even a twinkle. And that's where I come in. I must have been about 11 then. My parents were in the habit of making the journey to visit my Dad's folk in Rayleigh, Essex maybe twice a year and this post is going to be all about the various routes we used. So prepare to be very, very bored or maybe stop reading at this point.

I explained here and here a bit about Rayleigh. My older sister and I used to dread going there. The feeling of dread started about half the way along the Arterial road - but I am racing ahead of myself. Suffice it to say that the destination was dreadful but the journey I loved. I have always loved journeys (whether driving or as a passenger) - and generally like the journeying somewhat more than the destination, the destination being a sort of necessary evil means to an end.  Whereas for Ali it is the opposite.

Google maps reckons a 2 hour drive from Alresford to Rayleigh. Back in those days it was more like 4 hours. Before 1963 the only way to get to Rayleigh was by going through London. The Dartford tunnel provided a route that happily avoided London altogether.

For the sake of those my readers (if anyone has made it this far) who might not be cognisant with South East England geography, here is a summary of the various routes on a modern map (there were no motorways in this area back then).

The various routes highlighted (click to enlarge)

The green and magenta routes were two ways of approaching London. Once in London you either went through the centre (imagine contemplating central London as a through route now!) or the North Circular road (shown in red). There was a South Circular but it was (and I believe still is) single carriageway and tortuous, so we rarely used it. And then the new Dartford route shown in blue.

After 1963 we almost always used the Dartford route, so my memories of the other routes must be from before I was 11.

We generally approached London on the A30 (green route). I am not quite clear on exactly how we jumped from the A31 (the magenta route and which goes through Alresford) to the A30. Either it would have been via Basingstoke as shown, or more likely further to the right through Aldershot (A331). It matters little because my memories are from further along.

We (I include my older sister, the younger one not yet having a say) used to beg my dad to go through central London because then we would get to see the pièce de résistance Piccadilly Circus with its amazing neon advertisements and the statue of Eros in the centre of the road back (as it was back then).

Piccadilly Circus and Eros

But again I am racing ahead. The A30 around Staines area passes through some very beautiful countryside. Indeed the very name "A30" is to me evocative of every good thing as (going in the opposite direction) it took us to our beloved Devon or Cornwall for our annual holiday.

Let's start at Camberley - I think my father was born (or something like that) there. Next comes Virginia Water. We would sometimes stop there to stretch our legs and it remains in my memory as a mystical place of dreams. That such a beautiful place (and name) should exist purely for the sake of enjoyment amazed me.

The cascade, Virginia Water

Totem pole, Virginia Water

The soil is sandy in this part of Surrey. Grey sand. The sort (my parents told me) that snakes liked, so we were to be careful on a hot day (because apparently snakes like to sun-bathe). The only poisonous snake we have in the UK is the Adder and it can be recognised by the "V" on its head. I think I have only seen one once in the wild and it was not at Virginia Water.

Shortly after this the fairy-tale red-brick building which is the Royal Holloway university rose above the tree tops on our right. Much more recently my niece was a student there, lucky thing.

Royal Holloway

And then, on the left, the water meadow Runnymede, another possible halt for a leg stretch or sandwich and, by coincidence, the place where King John signed the Magnacarta on the 15th of June, 1215. A bit before my time. And further to the left the vast reaches of the Royal Windsor Park and its famous castle.

We pass through Egham which always brought a chuckle (my father repeated his jokes often, it is a senile weakness I find myself slipping into) and Staines and then pass by two giant reservoirs on our left. All I can see from the road was a high, neatly grassed bank, but my father says there is water on the other side. So now I look out for these landmarks whenever I fly into Heathrow.

The road now hugs the edge of Heathrow airport and we see the giant tail-fins of parked aircraft and hope to get a close view of an aircraft taking off or landing. There are gigantic hangers marked BOAC or BEA.

After Heathrow the A30 joins the A4 "Great West Road" which is our artery into the depths of London. But this time we turn left and follow the North Circular Road (A406) which, back then, was single carriageway with only limited stretches of dual carriageway further along. It starts as Gunnersbury Avenue opposite Gunnersbury Park where we stop for mum to do some unspecified business with a charity there. It seems to take her ages while we have to wait in the car with nothing to do.

All these roads in and out of or around London suburbia have endless rows of semi-detached houses either side. I found it hard (and still do) to imagine how there could be so many people and why-ever they would want to live nose-to-chin along busy roads like these?  I do not remember much else about the North Circular - it was mostly boring houses, but there were some interesting bridges especially where it crosses the river Lee.

1952 map of the North Circular (A406) crossing river Lee and Gants Hill

Gants Hill underground station

Gants Hill sticks in my memory: it is where we turned onto the A12 eastbound and so was the beginning of the end of London. I think we stopped there once for a bite to eat or maybe the loo. I remember the London Underground signs there although am not sure why this station of all the hundreds should be so special. Today the North Circular has been re-routed and passes to the west of Gants Hill.

Flyover at Gallows Corner

Miles upon miles of suburbia followed, punctuated only by the round-about at Gallows Corner where we turned onto the Southend arterial road (A127). It seemed to take forever to get London behind us. I can recall my father's pleasure when, in 1970, a flyover was erected over this round-about to favour traffic on the arterial road. The flyover was made of prefabricated units rather in the way I might have made a bridge using toy bricks. One ascended at constant slope, then suddenly the angle changed to horizontal and then suddenly again to the descent. Apparently this flyover was meant to have a lifetime of 15 years but it is still in use today.

And then the arterial road. In my time it was dual carriageway all the way past Rayleigh to Southend. It was, we were told, a marvel of engineering. Originally a single carriageway, it was largely built by hand in 1920 as the first road in this country made specifically for motorised vehicles.

Half way from London to Southend

As we travel from Gallows Corner towards Rayleigh the hedgerows seem to get shabbier and shabbier and that feeling of dread in the pit of the stomach becomes more and more evident. Dad points out the Halfway House which seems to me a mild wonder for just happening to be exactly half way. I do not think we ever patronised the place.

Basildon onion

The next landmark we look for is the Basildon "onion" which, my father informs us, is a water tower. Which in itself sets me thinking: how could such a small structure contain enough water for a town like Basildon? The new town Basildon with its high-rise flats was, Ginty told us, something out of the Apocalypse. This made it all the more interesting to us children even though we had little idea what he meant.

Recent view of "the cutting" A127 ascent to Rayleigh

1955 photograph of the Weir round-about

We are now dangerously close to Rayleigh. I try to suppress the fact and at least enjoy the last few remaining miles which end in the cutting as we climb the hill on which Rayleigh is built. At the Weir round-about (it now has an underpass) we turn left, then right along Glasseys Lane and right again into Weir Gardens. Number 10 was almost at the end on the left. The picture below is from Google street view and shows the property still standing but sadly overgrown now that my aunt has died.

10 Weir Gardens, from Google street view

We park and ring the doorbell. The door opens and out wafts that Rayleigh smell followed by a gushing Aunt Mary, Nana and Ginty and a jumble of dogs intermingled with the odd cat. Perfunctory kisses are exchanged (how I hated them). We bring in our stuff and then sit down to eat watery boiled smoked fish with bread-and-butter and start counting the days until we leave.

As there is probably a rule about how long a blog-post can be I will have to tell the rest of this story in a future post.

Aunty Mary

The story of my Aunty Mary is a sad one.

She was my father's only living sibling. In her parents' eyes she was second-class compared with the older, blue eye'd Ted. When the war started she wanted to join the land army, but her parents said she should be a nanny and so a nanny she became even though she didn't particularly like children. She fell in love with a dutch man who promptly got killed in the war and she never got over that loss. Apart from times when she lived in as a nanny, she lived with her parents and, after her father died, ended up nursing her mother through neglected breast cancer to her death. It seems that, all through her life, she thought that other people made decisions for her or circumstances dictated her actions at variance with her own desires and she allowed this to make her bitter.

The top picture is the earliest I have of Mary, as a bridesmaid at my parents wedding.  In the next picture, taken at Longleat, she is the one looking sideways at my mum, my mum being the one holding onto the good-looking chap in the front.

She was at one time a heavy smoker but successfully gave it up - I remember tales of how she gorged on chocolate to thwart the withdrawal.

After her nanny years she tried various low grade jobs (I remember being taken to a Rubbolite factory where her job was to file off molding flash, and gratefully taking away seconds in various colours), but she could never hold a job down for more than a few months. I was too young at the time to ask exactly why she so often got sacked, but I imagine it was because she was so hard to work with. It was not that she was not willing to help: just that she had to do it her way. This used to drive my mother to distraction when they came to stay at 16 Broad Street. There is truth in the adage that "if you want a job done properly, do it yourself".

Mind you, there were some things she excelled in. She was very capable at flower arranging and, I think, at gardening generally.

Us children have vibrant memories of her intolerance of noise or vibration - like being snapped at for merely allowing one's shoe to touch a leg of the chair she was sitting on in church. Those were the days when children were to be seen and not heard!

In the back garden at 10 Weir Gardens

It wasn't all bad, though. I think Mary took this picture, and I think it was she who found the set of wheels at my request. Giving me a set of wheels to make a go-cart was on a par with giving a modern child an i-Pad.

My own children have similar memories of when Mary would visit us in Ireland, though I think that they were more able to dismiss Mary's antics for what they were than we were able.

She would bring presents for our children and, just the same as she did with us when we were children, she would often choose totally unsuitable things.  Like a join-the-dots book for a 15 year old. These presents would be selected from a vast stock she had acquired when, long ago, she worked for Woolworths. On one occasion I remember opening a present to find a box on which the manufacturer had boldly claimed "3 men's handkerchiefs" of which she had crossed out the "3" and written beside it "2".

I took this picture on my first camera. Mary is in blue and Nana is adoring, I suppose, my son Jonathan, and the location is the front room at 16 Broad Street. Behind Mary you can see the map of Narnia I drew, which picture has become a family icon. I hate knitted dresses.

Ginty died suddenly of a heart attack. In contrast Nana suffered from cancer for many years. Nana's death must have been a great anticlimax for Mary after she had given all those last years to caring for her and then - nothing. She remained at 10 Weir Gardens until she was no longer able to look after herself.

Mary played organ at the Grange Free Church and insisted that I try my hand

Mary tended the garden outside the 'Grange church'

We occasionally visited Mary during this time. On the occasion of the pictures above she took us to see the church she had taken possession of. She could be very possessive of things and people. So at the time this was "her" church and "her" organ and I had to play it. I am not sure what Jonathan and Chris made of it (I regret I am not much of an organist).

Mary greeting me with bags of useful things

Mary liked to collect "useful things" and would present me with bags of same whenever I visited. In her eyes, moulded by her upbringing, men needed such things and could work wonders with them. She was just a woman and would never understand how. The bags contained rusty nuts and bolts, bent bits of metal, and such like: mostly picked up off the street. The vast majority went straight in the bin after I left Mary, and I am not one for throwing anything away that might possibly have some future use.

The contents of Ginty's workshop (a garden shed made by my father) were sacrosanct, especially his tools, although towards the end she weakened and allowed me to take some of his stuff as I have recollected elsewhere.

10 Weir Gardens

At Thorpe Esplanade, Southend-on-Sea, 
possibly on an outing  from the nursing home

As time went on 10 Weir Gardens went from bad to worse. When our parents died we children agreed to spend some of our inheritance to replace the roof and to have the piano overhauled. The latter because Mary has always loved music so we figured she would enjoy "tinkling the ivories" in her dotage. But from that time on she never once even touched the piano. She was ruled by horribly restrictive laws entirely of her own making.

On one occasion my older son and I manfully agreed to do a makeover in her kitchen. We spend a week and did a very passable job (sorry, no photographs were taken). She really did appreciate this at the time. Amazingly we even ate from her "table" (eating at 10 Weir Gardens was always somewhat hazardous, but verged on being dangerous towards the end).  The sleeping arrangements were more akin to camping than accommodation and there were no washing facilities apart from a bowl of water and a cold tap, so we took off to the local swimming pool at the end of each day for a shower (and a swim).

But the new kitchen soon deteriorated. Mary apparently did not believe in washing up, or cleaning the cooker or, indeed, anything else. She would buy things impulsively and then not know what to do with them, and never threw anything away, so the house gradually became a refuse bin.  Before people started noticing and there came a time when she had to be admitted to a nursing home.

My last picture of Mary, taken in the nursing home

Once it was clear that Mary would never return to 10 Weir Gardens my older sister and I had the job of clearing it out and disposing of anything of any value.  Towards the end Mary lived in the kitchen and slept I know not where. All other rooms were dumping grounds, so much so that in some rooms we had to use shovels to remove well over a foot deep of rotting papers and material. Let's hope somebody keeps me in check in my later life and prevents anything similar happening!

The one-time sacrosanct music room:
the unplayed piano is under wraps on the left

'Miss Knight's room' 
Mary's former bedroom, stuff up to 2ft deep in places

Another view of 'Miss Knight's room'

The living room.

The living room seemed so small when filled up with junk like this. To think that in better times my parents, sisters and I, Nana, Ginty and Mary would have sat around the table to eat Christmas dinner in this room. With two armchairs either side of the fireplace you can see. Ginty's chair on the left (no-one else sat there: he had a gadget that clipped to the right arm of the chair on which could be placed his ginormous mug of tea and a small plate). There were two polished brass shells from WW1 on the fireplace one about 1" diameter, the other about 2". They used to tell me that at least one of them was live. And father Clovis. Clovis was a small pottery figure of a monk. There was a real Clovis but what the connection I know not...

Ginty

Bailey family at 10 Weir gardens

From left to right we have yours truly, my dad, Ginty, my mum, my older sister Margaret, Aunty Mary and Nana behind the camera.  I started by writing about my father but soon discovered that a necessary precursor was an introduction to his family and in particular his father who we children called 'Ginty'. Ginty is an Irish name (as in Paddy McGinty had a goat) but it does not appear to mean grandfather as I had imagined.

Prior to meeting Nana Ginty worked on the railroads in Canada and it was in a sawmill there that his lost two fingers on his right hand. This did not stop him being a reasonably accomplished church organist and carpenter. He passed on his love of organs to his son and grandson.

He also played the violin.

On returning from Canada Ginty could not have had much money because it was a Miss Knight, who I think was Nana's aunt, who put forward the money to buy 10 Weir Gardens. Although she passed away before I came on the scene, she exists in my memory as a kind of dark but necessary shadow over the Bailey side of the family.

My father had a younger sister, my Aunty Mary, whose influence on my life deserves a post of its own, and an even younger brother who died in early childhood. Mary cared for Nana through her final years suffering with breast cancer which she had refused to disclose to the medical profession until it was too late, and continued to live at 10 Weir Gardens until she was too frail to look after herself.

Our family would alternate between spending Christmas at Rayleigh or having them stay with us. The latter arrangement almost drove my poor mother insane, and being at Rayleigh was little better. We children also suffered but differently. It was not exactly that they disliked children - it was more that they made us feel like we were a nuisance. As a result we hated going to Rayleigh. Even when visiting Mary in her later life, as soon as I came within about five miles of Rayleigh a terrible feeling of desolation and foreboding came over me, as if the very air had become heavy and grey.  Even the place names still seem grey to me: Essex, Billericay, Wickford, Eastwood, Rochford, Chelmsford.

I have mentioned before that there were five dogs and cats without number. The cats had free access 24/7 to the kitchen (a window was left open) and this included all the work surfaces. So dog or cat hairs in the food were par for the course. And the washing up facilities were best not thought about - if it wasn't that hunger lends a rosy tint I might not have eaten at all whilst there. Actually this was more my mum's and my sister's experience as I was too young to make the connection. I could never understand then why Ginty always did the washing up - but I think I know now.

My memories of food at Rayleigh include smoked fish with bread and butter (swimming in the juice) - often a quick meal on arrival after a day long drive from Alresford (no motorways in those days). Nana's steak and kidney pie had a totally different taste to my mother's and yet it was one of her better meals in spite of the cat hairs. On one occasion I remember my sister and spreading butter on our toast and, on tasting, finding the butter was way off - I can vividly remember the taste being similar to strong blue cheese. When we pointed this out the grown ups told us there was (of course) nothing wrong with it and forced us to eat it (which we kind of did) - but curiously recanted when they got to taste it!

Unlike our visits to granddad's house or to Aunty Bee and Uncle Elf we were not showered with toys when we arrived at Rayleigh. Having said that there was the monkey up a palm tree - he would jiggle down the trunk when placed at the top; and a trolley on a ramp that would fill with sand (it had to be dry and clean) from a hopper, then run down the ramp under gravity, deposit its load and return to the top.  Both were made of tin plate and had to be constantly supervised by grown ups which lessened their usefulness as toys.

It is my theory that the dark side of my memories came from the Knight influence. I have often wondered what Ginty made of all this. An example of the strangeness of Nana and Mary was that both appeared to dislike female company but positively adored both Ginty and my dad: they could do no wrong in their eyes. As a child one did not question such behaviour and yet it left a bad taste. It was OTT.

10 Weir Gardens had a very distinctive smell - a Rayleigh smell. It was a small house and rather too full of stuff, not to mention the dogs and cats which doubtless helped the smell along. And not just the house - the garden also smelt. It was an untidy garden, as if whatever you did in the way of weeding and edging it would still remain untidy. At the end of the back garden there was a stream - more mud than stream and also untidy as was the undergrowth beyond this through which you could get to the field beyond.

Interestingly my younger sister (seven years younger) does not have the same memories.

But the subject of this post is Ginty. He was the most normal Rayleigh-ite. He played music, kept a bevy of tape recording machines and made things out of wood. Although he, too, was somewhat distant from us children he did at least try to make me feel at ease.

When I was a bit older I overheard a conversation in which Ginty was telling my dad about meeting a man who spoke in tongues. I pricked up my ears and was pleased to find that Ginty had an open mind about such things: this raised him a peg or two in my estimation.

Ginty never learnt to drive (I know not why) and Nana's driving was hardly up to long distance so it was not unusual, when we were staying there, for my parents to take us for a drive and thus escape from the tendrils of 10 Weir Gardens. But everywhere I remember going in Essex was flat and dull and grey. Here is Nana in a typical stance on one such trip at Maldon, a particularly grey spot in my memory. Maybe that's why this slide has become so moldy. One bright memory though - here it was that Mary might possibly have saved my life - I had wandered out into the vast areas of mud and had started to sink: I wailed (I was very small at the time and knew no better) and it was she (may God rest her soul) who ran to my rescue.

I think I may have mentioned that Ginty loved organs. His ambition was to build an organ, but he neither had the financial resources nor the space to do this. He did make a few organ pipes and kept books on the subject, and during outings in the car would want my father to stop at random churches to check out their organs.  I have in my possession a hand-written copy he made of the 1887 book 'Organ Building for Amateurs' by Mark Wicks. Strange to think that even photocopying was not an option then and yet you can now download this book for free from the 'net.

For interest here are some pages from the downloaded version compared with Ginty's copy.

Ginty's title page

Sample pages

I hope you can tell which is the original!

I used to have a book entitled something like "1001 things for a boy to do" which came from the same era - one of the things a boy could apparently do was to build a fully working steam engine from scratch. The nearest most children get to this sort of thing now-a-days is to create virtual civilisations using high-level tools in a computer game. Unobtainable as making a real steam engine might seem, some young people really do make organs and have found this book invaluable, see for example:

I found this invoice in Ginty's copy of the book.  Nice to see pounds, shillings and pence again.

As for the violin... the house had only two bedrooms and a small bathroom upstairs so getting us all bedded was a challenge: typically I would be on a camp bed in Nana and Ginty's room, under which was the back room aka music room. There was a large wall clock at the foot of the stairs with a large tick and a loud and creepy chime on the quarter. It was here that I learnt how to not be able to get to sleep - I lay there unable to shut out the wailing violin downstairs punctuated by chimes and loud ticks and fearful of steadily approaching midnight when, I had helpfully been informed, all the woodwork in the house would come to life and would start to move around. Children can believe that stuff. The same as I seriously believed that (back at home) our neighbour (who shot game on Alresford lake) might shoot us when he mock brandished his shot gun, and for a while I lived in fear of meeting him in case he had his gun.

I am glad to report that I have since learnt to be able to get to sleep - but it took a fair bit of unlearning what Rayleigh had taught me.

Eschatology was another bee in Ginty's bonnet and another bee that my father inherited. On one occasion I begged to differ from my father in his eschatological beliefs and got such an ear-full that it has affected my opinion of the subject ever since. Here is the only other tangible memory I now have of Ginty (apart from a reed puller which is very useful for getting things out of small spaces): this time not a copy. Amazingly you can still buy this book and it is still highly regarded.

Frontispiece (click to view larger version)

This book is full of complex charts of which I include only one. I cannot claim to have read the whole book as it somewhat blows my mind: it is not that I necessarily either agree or disagree but rather that it is, well OTT.  Here is the chart in question:

It is an explanation of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed (Daniel 2:31). Ginty made a humongous  copy of this picture and coloured it beautifully, doubtless using it as a sermon aid (yes, I forgot to say, he was a Reverend for part of his life). Some while after his death Mary decided to give this masterpiece to my older sister, possibly because her husband is a Baptist pastor and she though he could or perhaps should use it. I have to record that in the course of time my sister disposed of said artifact. To Mary this was an unforgivable sin, such was her adoration of all things Ginty. This adoration was, well, OTT. It was not worth discussing anything that Ginty had done or made because it would almost certainly be taken the wrong way.

I have mentioned in a previous post the way Ginty saved my face when I fell into the watercress beds and wetted my "pants" as he called them: this above all other memories is when I started to respect him.

He had a particular smell: odd the things children remember.

Before 10 Weir Gardens and before my time they lived in a timber structure they called the "Cottage" in The Chase. Here it was that Ginty and my dad made wooden toys for a living. My own workshop in the Top Garden at home was a section of a larger workshop in which were cupboards full of half finished wooden trains and suchlike, left over from those days.

In my time Ginty had a workshop - it was only a small garden shed but it packed with floor to ceiling with boxes of this and that and all in perfect order. These things suffered from damp and neglect after his death so by the time I got to being offered anything there was little of any value, but I do still have some brass chain and some brass gimp pins from his collection.

On one occasion, when they were visiting us at home, I was drawing one of my marvelous mechanical inventions in my random free-hand style and Ginty saw it and tried to teach me how to draw proper engineering drawings using a ruler and a scale. On another occasion I was making a small box to house a battery and lamp to illuminate a china model lighthouse I had been given, and Ginty gently scolded my imprecision and helped me joint the corners properly.

Thus I have some fond memories of Ginty mingled with the horrors of Rayleigh.

Ginty died peacefully whilst sitting in his chair in the back room. They say he had some premonition and put his affairs in order beforehand. He lay in his coffin in the back room for several days before the funeral, Irish style - it was so when we arrived from Alresford for the funeral and I found the idea of a dead body in the house somewhat horrific. This was the first funeral that I experienced emotional feelings in.

Waterworks and Watercress

I went to a school in Winchester - more about that in a later blog maybe.  In a geography lesson the question was asked where was the watercress 'capital' of the UK?  I had not a clue that it was my hometown Alresford!  Nowadays a major attraction in Alresford is the Watercress Line.

I have never been too partial with green food with the possible exception of peas and lime ice cream.  Watercress as a food item has thus passed me by.  But the watercress beds in Alresford were quite another matter.  That they were used to grow watercress in was to me more of a nuisance and at best a bye-product.

The beds that my past were entwined with are along the Little Weir (extension of Mill Hill) and are visible from Google Maps Streeview and in the pictures below (not my own).

These two pictures are both recent.  They are looking back from very close to the first ram pump location (which is behind the camera) in my previous post and looking towards Mill Hill and Alresford proper.  The Great Weir is on the left.  The footpath to the right is the Little Weir.  The beds are demarcated by low concrete walls and fed from the river on the left.  Note the gap in the foreground of the top picture - the groves either side allow wooden slats to be inserted to control the water flow.  The amazing thing is that these concrete walls - and that gap in particular - look exactly as I remember them some 50 years ago.  We (my sister and I) used to jump over the gaps and wall along the walls.  It was something one had to do every time one was taken on this particular walk.

Thankfully the owners generally turned a blind eye to our escapades.  Of course we were careful to respect their property.  It has always been my principle to respect another person's property when I trespass on it, and I firmly hold to this day that trespassing is not an offence unless damage is done. My understanding is that such behaviour is upheld in English law. If a land owner expressly wants privacy then it is their duty to erect a suitable child-proof fence. It is of course foundational to the working of the web of public rights-of-way (footpaths, tracks, bridlepaths) that criss-cross the English countryside sometimes to the aggravation of the landowner.  This principle is another reason why I would find living in America so difficult where, it appears, the landowner has the right to kill you simple because you accidentally set a foot on his land. Here in Ireland the attitude is subtly different - for insurance reasons and because apparently the Irish will sue at any opportunity, land owners are very wary of trespassers.  If you ask permission to cross a neighbour's land the answer will invariably be "no - but if you hadn't asked then it would have been alright".  Therefore the thing to do is to make sure no one sees you trespassing, and certainly not to draw attention to it, and then nobody will mind at all.   Here in Ireland there are also far fewer rights-of-way across people's land and I find this hard: I long for the English system. Thankfully I live close enough to the Wicklow mountains where you can generally walk freely.

Coming back to the watercress beds - some of the gaps had a wooden plank "bridge" over them and I can distinctly remember when I found the owners had tacked some new looking chicken wire over the plank to give some grip and thinking what a good idea this was, although also thinking it was an overkill because wasn't part of the fun being wary of the slippery surface?

On one occasion my grandfather 'Ginty' was taking me on this walk "round the river" - my sister was not, I think, with me on this occasion.  I did my usual wall expedition and fell off and drenched my (short) trousers and must have come back to Ginty wailing, for I remember him calmly telling me not to worry - I was not hurt, I had only made my 'pants' wet.  Obviously I was expecting him to be angry, for I remember immediately becoming calm and forever after I have blessed him for the way he dealt with the situation.