Carol's Five Year Diary

Over the past few weeks I have had the pleasure of getting to know Carol better due to her washing machine breaking down, beyond repair. It has brought home to me how much we take for granted the machines that are now necessities and that, when you cannot afford to replace these expensive items, life becomes a losing battle.

In the course of discussions about the whys and wherefores, Carol produced her Five Year Diary. And then her Overflow Diary. Both were made from lever arch files carefully covered in hand stitched appliquéd pillowcases and bulging with the record of her everyday life.  Every event recorded, memento stored, letter filed against a daily paragraph on the progress of her life.

The theft of her handbag containing credit union loan, her phone, bus pass and other life support resources was documented alongside visits to the singing group,  poetry class and the knit and knatter lunch club that break her isolation.

Carol is disabled, depressed and dyslexic. Her handwriting is difficult to read, her spelling creative yet her words so carefully chosen, her life so full of challenges that this and other volumes are unique masterpieces. The journal   describes in expressive detail a slice of life our Chancellor should be forced to experience before he slashes benefits any further.

After two months trying to resolve the washing machine crisis without plunging Carol further into debt, the chapel committee decided to cover the cost of a bargain new, but slightly scratched ex - catalogue Swan machine.  There were tears in her eyes when I told her she didn't have to squeeze the cost out of her benefits.

So tonight she will have written in her diary that she has a shiny new, if slightly scratched,  washing machine in her kitchen. For me that is worth all the things I haven't done before setting off on my trip to the other side of the planet this weekend.

My reward was a glimpse of the inspiring but overwhelming, Five Year Diary, one of many under Carol's bed. A collection that should be published..

The slipstream of history

The Liverpool skyline widens until the stump of the Anglican cathedral, the shining pierhead towers and the slowly spinning blades of the wind turbines shrink into the past as the fastcraft flies along the alarmingly arrow channel out into Irish Sea. Sunlight catching the spray and showers rainbow fragments across the foamy wake.

Leaving of Liverpool

The fabulous Liver Building, gracing Liverpool pier head,  was the departure point for countless thousands of emigrants over centuries. We are only sailing to the Isle of Man, but for me too there was a sudden flash of  apprehension.

To Liverpool with love

Tonight I am lying in bed, wide awake, like a child waiting for Christmas to come.

Tomorrow I will be back in Liverpool and I will be Granny Penny pushing a buggy, feeding the ducks and eating ice - cream. On Saturday I will be on a boat, sailing to the Isle of Man. Four days to explore an island. How very exciting.

Technology has moved on and now I can post from my pretty smart phone so I need neither netbook nor laptop. 

But first to Liverpool to see my lovely family. Lizzy has a little brother Seth now. Tom and Fran are engaged.

Everything moves on.

Hope

This image has self-selected and the text is self centering And underlining itself.   I shall choose my words with care so as not to waste any.  This is Liverpool. The field of Hope in Sefton Park. I have hope.

Another Journey

The book that is yet to be

Once more I am keeping vigil thorugh the early hours. Although I am many miles away I am conscious that later today Peter's archive starts its journey from Kent to Beirut and that in some strange way he will be travelling with it.

How could he not be?  Life for him was an ongoing journey - the imagery runs throughout his work. He collected ideas, information and inspiration from around the world, even sending himself a postcard from China with his thoughts and observations.

Early journey - 10 years old.

The fascination with travel and transport started early and stayed with him. The little blue truck with the sign "Rea's Contractors" in his early painting is almost empty.  He spent his life making sure his truck would stay full and he trundled the tools of his trade - books, pens, computers and large quantities of paper - from place to place.  He kept every sketch, tracing, rough, proof and spare copy.  He brought back his teaching plans, magazines, examples of his students' work and many hundreds of photo transparencies.

In his final doodle he described himself as the journey man on the road, an apt pun as he was not ony an international traveller, but a journey man artist - available for hire by the day.  While at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1960 with "The Circus"a show he devised and wrote with Mary, he managed to pick up some additional work for Edinburgh Gateway Theatre designing their posters and programmes.

Alongside his design work ran his career as a teacher and   writer.  There are articles in books, journals, reviews in newspapers, papers for universities.  He coined the phrase Advanced Typographical Design and used typography as a medium for stunning artwork.

In the twelve years of Windows on Design and the Profile Intermedia conferences he relentlessly argued the case and place for graphic design in the new digital world, conscious that with the advent of desktop publishing and computer technology, the skills of the typographer could become redundant. He did not have the answers but he brought together a dazzling array of exciting and influential designers to inspire the next generation



In the Pickford's container with his life's work will go a box of Letraset, his set square and rulers, a small cardboard box of cars, trucks and trains, a series of typewriters, the ARD sound system that he designed, a music system and some of his favourite jazz LPs.
But the VW Campervan is staying with me, right here on my mantlepiece.
And his Amerikarma book is still on the list of things to do...

A winter postcard

I have been having a winter break. No hazardous sporting adventure for me though - I am of the opinion that extreme exercise can be very bad for your health.  I am happy to be a spectator. And it is not everyday that you see a lot of small people with large ears, long beards and wearing pointy hats ski-ing down a roof top, Here in Cologne the poor things are frozen mid-stride.

At first I thought these were Snow White's friends - they look similar but there are eleven, Then I realised that these could the celebrated Heinzelmännchen of old Cologne who once dedicated their nights to aiding the good citizens in their chores until a curious tailor's wife tripped them up by scattering peas and so offended them that they deserted the town and never agin returned to help.  So whilst this year the citizens of Cologne struggled to prepare for Christmas these rascals must have been having a great time ski-ing over the rooftops.  I will create a comfy corner in my kitchen and go to bed early in the hope that a Heinzelmännchen or two, or even a few Brownies, will take up residence.

I was staying with Sue and Klaus whose home is so beautiful and hospitality so perfect that they must surely have a team of secret helpers. Smiling Sue is my second cousin.  Our George grandparents were brother and sister, but we would never have known each other were it not for our shared obsession with family history and the steaming search engines of Genes Reunited.

Our current project is to discover whether our four times great grandmother, Mary Lodge was related to the Williams family of Aberpergwm. There is a well-argued theory that this branch of the Williams family was not only descended from a number of difficult to pronounce Welsh princes, but also from one of the main contenders for the very personage of King Arthur. Now that would be an interesting addition to our family tree.

And - Sue has now found me the name of another living cousin on the Rea side of my family.  I am still having a little trouble tracking him down but it is just a matter of time... What a delight he has in store when he discovers his new family...

Sue and Klaus live by The Rhine, This used to be the diplomatic quarter of the capital of West Germany.  Imposing buildings face out on to the riverside and look over to a fairy tale landscape on the other bank which is a popular destination for tourists from the Netherlands who come searching for hills. Chamberlain once met with Hitler in the white hotel at the top of the hill.  At night the illuminated building floats eerily in the darkness, looking so close.

Klaus's daughter Ana is a secondary teacher and gave me an excellent  detailed commentary on our tour.  A highlight, she promises, is the Carnival season which runs through the winter and culminates in an intoxicated frenzy on Shrove Tuesday.  One for the diary.

 But for now - it is still the Christmas season and in the great cathedral of Cologne light studded Christmas trees stand behind the altar and visitors peer with curiosity at the Shrine of the Wise Men where the bones of all three are said to be entombed. What mishap befell them that they all perished at once and how their remains ended up in Cologne can only be imagined.  I do not recall any account of a final show down with Herod or tale of a further expedition to the West where some boating  accident on the Rhine may have occurred.  However, the spectacular gold casket shines with a brilliance that brings warmth to the cold stone space and one can quite see why Midas wanted more of the stuff.

At the opposite end of the long nave visitors crane their necks to peer at the imaginative, interpretation of the traditional Nativity Crib  The  question is posed "Where are you in this scene ? If Christmas came again, what would you do? - Football fan, council worker, school child? "

But for me, best of all, was the Nativity centre piece of the Market Square the local town of Bad Godesberg. On New Year's Eve passers by were still stopping to gaze in at the fabulously detailed figures, recreated with care and arranged with a compelling dramatic artistry that keeps you walking round the entire installation to find out what happens next.  And then round again, just to make sure.

 

And so back home to England, to my own festive display of the many Christmas greeting cards from my friends near and far.  Each year they arrive they remind me that my virtual world is full with so many family and friends that we could fill a village as busy as the Bethlehem of Bad Godesberg. Little angels everywhere bring hope for the future.   Peace and joy to all.  Penny x