Bookshelves of Possibility

Sometimes I wonder if I am really awake or just fumbling my way through a dream.  I live in two cities and have two lives.  I only have one precious family whom I love with all my heart so there is no sinister subterfuge, just a compulsion to do as much as possible and keep all my plates spinning while I add yet another.  

I have extraordinary friends who offer me shelter and listen to my rambling plans.  My activities are interesting and bring me into contact with the most inspiring people but I find it difficult to make sense of it all and understand why I do what I do.  So I thought I might use this forgotten blog to explore it and record my situation.  I think only a trusted few people, if any, read it and you already know how close to the edge I am.

Tonight I am staying in Andrea and Roger's beautiful Moscar Gables in Hollow Meadows halfway between Sheffield and Manchester on the A57. The room in which I sleep is probably the same size as my own little house, upstairs and down.

In this room are two bookcases full of treasure. It has to be enough to gaze longingly at them and read the spines because at present I am not reading much, possibly because my eyes are changing, which in itself is the best reason for reading, before it is too late.  

I have been staying here a few days every month for about two years and have read several of the books, including Hilary Mantel's A Greater Place of Safety which pitched me headlong into the French Revolution.  But there are so many more books here that open doors into other worlds, other times and lives as incomprehensible as my own.

While I am staying here I usually go to Wincobank Chapel and Zion Graveyard, visit Marie and meet up with Bridget, drop into Meadowhall and rake the tram into Sheffield City Centre.  I go to planning meetings or help with children's activities which I have organised from Liverpool.  It is always a packed agenda. 

If there is time and the weather is good I walk with Andrea in her garden which is the size of a small park. I transplanted three fir trees from my garden at Newman Road when I first moved to Sheffield in 2004. Two are still growing and loving the space.  

 

There is a story to this beautiful house which once belonged to Horatio Bright of Brightside and was bought by Andrea's father at auction in the 1950s. There was subsidence,  no electricity and no running water.  Now it has been restored to its magnificence and I love it.

Tomorrow I will drive back to Liverpool and live my other life in my very small home until I come back again.

  

Christmas Came

Christmas, in the form of many packages from Up North, came to Liverpool. It is not what is in the parcels that matters. It is the message they bring. There is plenty of North further Up and in the East from whence came our gifts. It is 20 years since I left Tyneside for Sheffield. Since then, many changes, adventures, achievement,  some joy, much grief.  But Christmas still comes, bringing to each of us a flood of memories and mixed emotions. And love that lights dark nights.

This year it is hard to hear angel voices

through the agony in Gaza, the anger of Israel,  fear in Ukraine, desperation in Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and in the heaving English Channel. Yet in the middle of our dreary winter which is getting warmer year on year, this is a moment to stop and nurture the light of hope lodged deep within that gives a reason to keep going, to still be here,  to hear the angels sing.

Long Distance Logans

Today, at my niece Rebecca's Shrewsbury home,  I met for the first time my lovely Canadian second cousin Jo-Ellen Logan and her jovial Welsh husband David. 

My mother, born Elsie Logan, was one of six chdren so we have a lot of Logan cousins who we have kept in touch with since we were small, but my mother's father was also one of six.  

His brother, my Great Uncle Archie, sailed for Canada in 1909 leaving behind a wife and two children but taking with him his pregnant ladyfriend Edith. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that she took him having sold her Lambeth sweet shop to pay for the ticket.

Archie and Edith's new family knew nothing of their London life  and Archie's  son Harry never found out where his father went. It took over a hundred years, some tenacious research and a contact by Rebecca through Ancestry DBA for the truth to emerge.

Archie's wife Charlotte had eventually married again, her first husband presumed dead but Archie never married Edith although their children believed they had.

In a time when divorce for ordinary people was nearly impossible many unhappy marriages ended in emigration with confused children left to try and piece together their fragmented memories.

This renewed Logan connection is too late for anyone who knew the story. But I have a new cousin who is as easy to talk as the rest of the family and despite being the same age as me, brought back faint memories of my aunties.

And she lives in Thunder Bay.

Another mountain to climb

Liverpool Mountain by Ugo Rondinone on the Albert Dock beside Liverpool Tate. It matches the iconic Las Vegas Mountains.

And another great effort will be required when we hear what tomorrow's new  restrictions will bring. Yesterday I went with soon-to-be-six Seth and his family for his earlly birthday treat - a meal at Pizza Express, just in case it was closed by his birthday next weekend. It was a nice meal but a sad experience. The Albert Dock is deserted, the usually busy restaurant more than half empty. All staff masked and the atmosphere strangely chilly. This establishment and so many others, can't last long like this. In the seven months since the first lockdown in March 2020 over 42,000 people in the UK have died from or after having tested positive from Covid -19. Across the world over one million. The summer lull gave us a false sense of security. There is a long climb ahead.

Wincobank to Dingle and back

Mum's camellia, my Holystone apple tree grown from a pip and various other bedraggled
potted plants have moved to Liverpool and so has half of me. And most of my possessions.  The little house is now full.

It is full of joy as my family come to call, and some drama as I lock myself out at night without keys, phone, money or coat while Steve sleeps soundly upstairs.

Back in Sheffield we are installed in a fully refurbished Connie's house and the garden is springing into life.

I'm not sure how this Wincobank to Dingle week will work or how we will ever unpack all the boxes and fit all the shelves to be filled by the beautiful books and odd ornaments that escape the charity shop bag, but a new chapter begins.

Reader, we bought it.

Signing the contract 25 January 2018

To cut a long story short - with the help of donations from many hundreds of well-wishers and several charities including the Heritage Lottery Fund, we formed an incorporated company and bought the graveyard to stop it being sold to a car salesman who was going to incorporate it into the car sales pitch on the site of the old church.  The full story has been documented on Facebook: Friends of Zion Graveyard, and on our website www.ziongraveyard.btck.co.uk.
Buying a graveyard wasn't in my plan for the year, but it has certainly been an adventure which continues as we navigate legal issues around access, charitable status and the neighbouring car sales planning application.  This photo was taken by Joseph Desforges, Media & Marketing Manager of Voluntary Action Sheffield who has lived up to his job title by designing us a beautiful logo and is working on a commemorative plaque.

Graveyard for Sale

It all started when my partner Steve brought me a newspaper cutting from the Sheffield Telegraph.
"Is this your Mary Anne's graveyard?" he asked."It's up for sale."
"I don't think so" I said. "It can't be"
"I think it is"
"You'll be sorry" I said.

A few emails later, two newspaper articles written, some phone calls made and I am on an expedition with several others through a jungle in industrial Attercliffe. Soon, despite all the odds, I find myself staring down at the inscription on the two enormous memorial stones that cover the family vault of the Read family of Wincobank Hall.

Eight members of this extraordinary family are interred there,safe beneath those heavy stones. Apart from a baby,  all were  involved in the fight against slavery, notably Mary Anne Rawson who campaigned both on the doorstep to persuade the women of Sheffield to boycott sugar from the colonies and by writing letters to royalty, politicians and celebrities of the day, entreating them to lend their voices to the campaign.  Most did, although Wordsworth, happy in his Lakeland idyll, politely declined.

Wincobank Hall stood at the top of my road until it was demolished in 1925.  Mary Anne Rawson founded the little school which later became Upper Wincobank Chapel as well as a teacher training college in Jamaica, one of the first in the world.

You can read more if you like, in the articles I was asked to write for the Sheffield Telegraph. The links are below.  I think there will soon be a third article - what to do with an overgrown, unwanted graveyard...

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/nostalgia-the-changing-face-of-wincobank-hall-1-8403171

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/whats-on/arts/heritage-the-wonder-women-of-wincobank-hall-1-8427858

Connie

Connie Wheeliker, nee Bell

Steve and I are moving into Connie's house soon.  

So who is Connie and where did she go?

I first met Connie Wheeliker nine years ago when I was summoned to her house just ten doors down from mine. My reputation as the history hunter of High Wincobank had reached her and she wanted to hand over the baton. She showed me her old photographs and told me that her ancestors, the Bells, were from one of the oldest families in the area. 

She had been born in the house that stands at the end of my road, on the site of the gatehouse of Wincobank Hall.  

Connie's Family Album

I later returned to receive cherished treasures: her local studies file, an enormous slide projector, a map of the Ancient Parish of Ecclesfield and a photo scrapbook she had made for the Wincobank Chapel archives. 

She showed me a painting in her hallway of the the old Newman Road farm surrounded by open fields.  Until that moment I had only thought of this  the plot of land opposite her house as a scrap yard stuck in the middle of housing. It brought a whole new perspective to the evolution of the area. 

Newman Road Farm

Last Christmas, when I came back from Hawaii I found that she was in hospital.  In her final six months spent in and out of hospital I saw more of her than I had ever done.  

She loved the home where she had lived for 64 years and the garden with its birds and tenderly nurtured plants.  She did not want to leave it, but eventually conceded defeat.  After several visits to hospital she asked to be moved to the nursing home where she died a few weeks later from cancer of the colon, something she had hardly ever mentioned. 

Connie was a character, very particular but with a great sense of humour. We made a great little film of her talking with her old friend Brendan Ingle who just happens to be a trainer of world champion boxers.  They had so much to say.    https://youtu.be/AV1uF3-h2UY  If the Youtube link does not work just cut and paste it into your browser.

A downhill adventure

If you look carefully you can see Steve outside our new home.  We're not living there yet because the decorators are in, stripping the walls.  Tomorrow the electrician and the joiner, the builder, the plasterer and the heating engineer will be joining in the party. I shall take chocolate biscuits to eat amidst the dust.
Where is it?  About 100 yards downhill from my present lovely little home, still in Wincobank.
So here's to a new adventure, a new chapter.

The house has a sweet garden, and beyond the green gate there is a further enclosure, a grassy area which will soon be a vegetable garden bringing forth cabbages and leeks, rhubarb and delicious strawberries, beans, onions and potatoes.

This was Connie's garden.   She loved her garden. She fed the many birds, tended the plants and I can imagine her still sitting in the swing seat enjoying the summer sunshine.

Lizzy and Seth like our new home.  They will love the garden and when they visit they will be able to play in the little camp that we will make at the back of the vegetable garden in the deep hedge, with a secret gate through to the woodland beyond.
I used to visit Connie and she would tell me about her long life.  I would tell her about little Lizzy and Seth so she saved the children's booklets from the People's Friend for me to take to Liverpool and I feel as though they almost know each other.

From Ancient to Modern

Warkworth Castle, home of, among others, Sir Harry Percy, aka Harry Hotspur after whom Tottenham Hotspurs  was named. A smart des res, refurbished in the 19th Century but looking rather draughty now.

Return of the Vikings. Coble Quay development on Amble Harbour. A resdential factory themed implant from Scandinavia, hi-tech living with a spectacular view across the North Sea. All apartments sold out now but plenty of traditional stone built terraces left in this coal port resort.

Going North

We are heading north to spend a few days with Steve's family in a cottage by the North Sea.  We stopped to eat lunch by the Angel and discussed the tricky question: Where is North?

Certainly the North is north of Watford, but is Sheffield in the north?  Does the Angel's gaze extend that far? I chose to live in Sheffield because it seemed to be in the middle of England and therefore as easy or as difficult to reach my scattered family and friends, but it doesn't feel to me like the Midlands.

There is a view that the River Don splits the country and that Wincobank Hill stands on the southern frontier of the Beautiful North.  That will do for me.  I am a Londoner, a migrant to the North.  I am a visitor but it feels like Home.

I am driving back in time, passing my past home, over that iron bridge over the big river and onward along the long road I travelled every day to work, further north than even the Angel can see.  To the north of North.

The leaves are golden, flame red, sunshine yellow.  Winter is coming and the sky is blue.

A Remarkable Day in June

Two notable actions occurred on Saturday 4th June 2016:
1, Fran and Tom married.
2. I met Vivien for the first time.

The year-long build up to the ceremony had run in parallel with Tom's PhD deadline. Now both have passed. My mother once showed me that when she left work to be married in 1935 an elderly Polish colleague had written in her autograph album "This too, will pass". A strange wedding blessing, but one that she clung to through all the ups and downs of her life - the war, the birth of six children and the loss of two, the unexpected terminal illness of my father and the myriad trials set by we four remaining children.

Tom did not relish the prospect of a religious ceremony as he thinks of himself as aestheist, but he entered into the process with integrity, declaring his concerns from the start.  He said that he could not stand up and say words he did not believe, but it seems there was no need for anxiety. The marriage service was surprisingly simple, recently revised and beautifully choreographed by a smiling Catholic priest.

Words rang true, voices sang strong and Tom's own music resounded from the church organ sending tingles down my spine. Such powerful uplifting music composed by my first born, once the tiny fragile premature baby I was so scared would fall ill, who nearly drowned when I dropped him in the sea, whom I nearly ran over when he pedalled behind my car as I was reversing. And now I saw a man, his university work complete and a new life ahead with a beautiful wife who spoke her vows clearly and earnestly. I am so looking forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold.

If  Tom and Fran had not married, I would not have met Vivien.  For eight years I have had to imagine her, snatching at shady clues dropped in passing references.  And now I have sat and made polite conversation and I don't need to imagine any more. It is so lovely to see Rosy with her dad and we were all pleased to see him again and I hope I will see them both again from time to time.

Steve came too so there was a perfect symmetry. I feel a relief that another milestone has been passed and a bridge has been crossed.

And now that I am a mother-in-law as well as a granny I feel really free. My shoulders feel light so I can play and have fun.  There will be trials ahead no doubt, but those too will pass. Oh lucky me. I am so alive.

Daisy Villa

Goodbye Ransley Oast, Hello Daisy Villa.  Today Ian and Brad from Stranks Removals, Ashford unloaded Rebecca's much  increased worldly possessions into her  new home in Shrewsbury. And a new chapter opens.

Celebration 2015

Lovely to be in Liverpool to celebrate Christmas with my little family. It has been wonderful. So sorry for others who are affected by rising floodwater tonight.

Interlude

Short interlude for Christmas!  A quick turnaround but all now wrapped - but oops! No labels! This should be interesting. ..

Lawai beach

Also opposite but to the left - the slightly larger Lawai beach where the water was warm and salty but oh so blue.  We swam here most days but only on the last did Beth and I get around to hiring snorkeling gear so that we could see exactly with what we were sharing our patch of ocean.

Apart from Nemo's entire extended family there were some very pretty characters but also a big black grumpy looking fish skulking along the bottom, round my feet. In front of my eyes, a shoal of tiny needle fish fluttered around.

It really was amazing although rather alarming. Not so frightening a sight however, as the be-flippered me splodging up the beach in mask and snorkel to deposit my wrist watch in my bag before I plunged into three foot of water to survey the competition.

On my desert island

Back home in grey December Hawaii seems a long way and an age away so it is a bonus that due to a technical problem I was unable to upload photos to share while in our luxury apartment on the smaller island of Kauai. Now I have a reason to revisit and trawl through my album to find my favourites.  

This tiny beach is just opposite our appartment. Sheltered by a reef of black volcanic rock, it is home to a host of tiny creatures and the best place to sit at night and look at the stars, which you will just have to imagine.

California dreaming

I'm on my way home and already my time away seems like a dream. But the imagination and inspiration of my Santa Cruz friends sticks to the images that come with me :
   My cosy bed in the corner of the living room with the beautiful hummingbird quilt handcrafted by North American Indian women.
    The very effective and beautiful gas fired stove that pumps out so much heat I thought I was still in Hawaii.
     Pure sweet-tasting drinking water collected from the mountain source.
     Sharing the shower with buckets to recycle water (remember to place only one foot in a bucket).
      The Peace Pole on our Christmas  table,  a full size pole out in the community. No maypole for dancing, just for contemplating Peace.
       Bicycles with baskets and crates to carry the groceries, and tall flags on the back for added safety.
        The tiny hummingbirds on the bush outside the kitchen window.
         The cheeky squirrel munching his nut on the ledge then having a sneaky pee.
          The room full of glowing Tibetan singing bowls rescued from meltdown and waiting for new owners to claim and cherish them.
           The inscription above the door "Only the brave" - an invitation to step out of your comfort zone - to take the risk and do things differently.

     

Greens

Greens, onions, mushrooms, beans, berries and seeds. That is pretty much what Corrina and Ryan live on. They generally eat small amounts of fresh fruit, when they please, sometimes at home,  sometimes at the wholefood store which here in California is the size of a supermarket, sometimes buying and eating fresh vegetarian food at the farmers market and at other rustling up soup or salad in their kitchen.

Tonight, my last night we had Christmas dinner of soya turkey beautiful greens, potatoes and onions with delicious thick gravy followed by a creamy dessert of wild cherries blended with cashew nuts.

Food for thought.

Corrina took me for a walk

My words cannot describe the grandeur but we stepped closer to heaven ...