Their Daughter's First Day & A Long Farewell In Perry Barr

 When We Say "Farewell" But In Our Heart, We Know It's "Goodbye"

Here's part of what once was Birmingham City University's "City North" campus in Perry Barr. As I write, it has been leveled and a new housing scheme is part of the developments that are in progress right now. The original intention was for an "Athlete's Village" for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Spiraling costs and other challenges meant that Athlete's Village proposal was abandoned and that the area will be part of the Perry Barr Regeneration Scheme. 

Places hold memories  

This is Perry Barr from the 1930's and I lived there in the late 50's early 60's. We lived in the house in the right foreground. It was the Caretaker's House for a Primary and Secondary Modern schools campus. They, together with everything else in view, have gone

So let's fast forward-it's September 2016 and I'm working at the BCU City North site. It's Welcome Week at the University for first year students. At the bottom of this building there was a cafe with some outdoor seating and I am watching the parents of student hang on to every minute they could before saying goodbye to their daughter. It is a hard watch: they are in deep pain.

Perhaps having lived there and my first school was on the same site (Birchfield Road Primary School), I felt keenly the longing for being in a place where change didn't have to happen and all the good things stayed visible, reachable and could be savoured in a second.

Would my dad come around the corner and catch me playing on the flat-roof of a building adjacent to the science block on the old secondary school site? Could I climb down the drainpipe that was hidden from view, would someone tell him that they'd seen me up there? Even now, some 58 years later, I am confident that I can describe the layout of our house, the school buildings and playgrounds: emotions and memories; they're powerful companions.

So back to that day in September 2016-I wrote a couple of notes that grew into this-it was re-discovered yesterday-19/12/2020 and I've rephrased a couple of lines today.

The Deferred Farewell

They talked,

Well, she talked

He heard and didn't listen

Or listened and didn't hear

Whichever it was

Deferred responses holding a Silence

That was holding an Ache

That was holding a pain that was

Heart and Soul deep

And still, she talked.

They stayed to make sure that her room

Their child's new home for....?

It seems like forever.

Hey! It's just three years

That's what we said,
In the empty one back home

Both spaces in which soon

Together or apart

Each newly, lonely heart will break.

When I was looking for some images of Perry Barr, this came up. It's the Blazer Badge of the 

Secondary Modern School that once shared the site and provided me with an adventure playground. The power of the motto the context of the poem and all it means to me isn't lost!

jd. 20.12.2020

My Dad and A Monument Made In Wood and Painted Blue

When My Dad Retired (1979)

He left the UK to return to Ireland and my mother went with him, even though she didn't much want to go. The whole experience didn't work out well and they were back in the UK in around 18 months.

He'd been a school-caretaker since the late 1940's/early 1950's and he began what turned out to be his final caretaking job in 1962, the first caretaker at one of Birmingham's flagship comprehensive schools, Perry Common Comprehensive. So, when he left in 1979 an appropriate and respectful series of celebrations and presentations took place. He'd been asked what he wanted as a retirement gift and had replied that he wanted some DIY tools, including a two-speed, hammer action Black & Decker drill. They'd bought a house in the countryside between Mullingar and Athlone and it needed work doing on it.

When they returned to the UK, they brought back everything they took with them, some shattered dreams and determination to be independent of anyone. I'll discuss this in another post at some future point.

Dad's childhood had been a "waste not want not" creative approach to the crushing poverty that had stalked Ireland for too many people for too many years. It grew in him an approach to making use of materials that in our  throw away society, would have been scrapped. He was also a permanently busy man. A lot of energy, driven (I think) by the determination to make the best of every situation with the resources to hand

Dad died in 1999 and my mom , broken hearted, carried on for four more lonely, sad years. "Broken Heart" doesn't figure on Death Certificates and whatever was written as the cause was in my view, an effect.

Clearing out your parents' house is awful. If you have, you'll know what I mean and if you haven't, I don't envy you. They die again. But you touch on stuff and keep it and then, out of the blue (literally and you'll find out why soon enough), its significance hits you in the core of your being and so it was with the two-speed, hammer action Black & Decker drill.

It was in a box!

and I can tell you for a fact that my dad would have made that box from "scrap" wood and the handle has been repurposed from a piece of leather. He had the means to buy a new and shiny one but his choice was I believe, driven by the "joy of making," thrift had developed into creativity and without knowing it, re-cycling!

...and on the inside...

As you can see-there's a box within the box

And look how well the drill fits around it-it effectively locates the drill and holds it steady when carried

and when you open the inner box-

there are the drill bits-

it's a dual-purpose piece of "making"

And so here we have it. Some spare timber, hinges and paint, all of it assembled around a well measured framework and the use of the inner space is a great piece of design.

My dad went to secondary school only when it rained, the rest of the time he worked, often labouring alongside his father. He never had a formal carpentry lesson in his life!

Born in 1914, he left Ireland in his early 20's, having made and sold a couple of pieces of furniture to finance his journey to England, He arrived at New St Station with 2/6 pence (12.5 pence) and started work soon after, working every day until his retirement (Holidays and illness notwithstanding!)

And so back to the box. It is a memory, a metaphor and a monument and when I open it, a drill comes out and love flows in. It's a good box, he was a good man.

Trust, Numbers and The Repair Shop

Things feel a little this way at the moment

The last few months have been great haven't they? We have more or less been able to get to a place that is "normal enough" and now we're not there anymore. The unpalatable truths about Christmas cancelled, plans in abeyance and increased financial insecurity are hitting home hard and often right now. 

One of the great T.V comforters is a programme called "The Repair Shop." Members of the public present items of great emotional meaning and the experts (and they are!) fix them. 

The emotions at the point of handing back a thing of great significance: that is "restored enough" is the emotional high point of the programme. There are generally 3 and I'm pretty much wrecked by the second one!

When a piece is handed in for repair, it is clear that its meaningfulness transcends value. Memories and moments are handed across too and a very special thing happens. The experts honour the meaning and memory and ask the owner what after restoration, they would like their treasured item to look like. The public don't want or expect "perfect." They want sympathetic restoration, something that speaks to the object's journey and its relationship to the owner'

So the experts then acknowledge and honour a relationship they can't see but can experience and then they do their work. Trust is key here: under-promise, over deliver: it works every time and it constructs the narrative for a perfect modern metaphor, the scaffolding of which is here.

• The public trust the experts.
• The experts share their thoughts about meaningfulness-they can feel how much it matters.
• There's consensus on what "fixed" might look like.
• Often the experts collaborate, skill sets, ideas and creativity blend well together and produce great outcomes.
• The experts can get on with their jobs because that have what they need to hand
• They are consulted, not supervised.
  
• The experts have experience.
• The experts are well-resourced.

They produce great differences but never, it seems "as new." The blemishes are part of the story. The trust shown by the members of the public is rewarded.

So how would it be if the true story was one of broken promises, poor restorations and shattered expectations. If the producers had no regard for expertise or time for the creative, what would the end products look like? The Repair Shop wouldn't function. 

Whether it wants to be or not, our government is our repair shop. The certainties, realistic aspirations and beliefs that held things together have been damaged and damage in my view, turned into near destruction when in the Rose Garden of Number 10, an unelected influencer placed himself above the reach of the very behaviours he and his ilk insisted others follow. Behaving without precaution or humility he effectively waved away what was by then, thousands of people with the shattered remnants of their dreams for their now deceased lived ones and he did this with impunity.

Let's be clear, I believe the virus is real. I question some of the assumptions we've been encouraged to agree to. Let's look at outdoor gatherings. We were told that mass events would lead to mass contamination but here's a thing

This link takes you to the daily recorded cases

https://tinyurl.com/y5hqumme

The current trend seems to suggest that mass public behaviour, pubs, raves, etc are significant, together with families mixing in houses.

However, if we accept the best given knowledge, that the virus has a 14 day incubation period, we can ask some interesting questions. 

• Pubs opened on 4th July I can see no national peak.
• Liverpool won the PL on the 25th of June-big celebrations-dire warning, no significant spike
• Leeds United won the EFL on the 18th of July-  big celebrations-dire warning, no significant spike
• WBA won promotion on 22nd July-  big celebrations-dire warning, no significant spike
• Bournemouth Beach 25th July- -dire warning, no significant spike 
• ...and on it goes.
• Until September and then....up it goes!

The more recent increase-and I take into account that increased testing will bring increased positive results- makes uncomfortable reading. If we look at the accelerated curve, it starts to gain in steepness around 14 or so days after children went back to school.

It would be naive to attribute the increase to a single event, however the possible association between this and other "spreading opportunities" needs to be introduced into the public arena. Right now the climate seems to be in danger to shifting to one of blame, "othering," inflated claims about what is achievable, a fogging of earlier mistakes and misinformation, accompanied by dire warnings of what might happen if we don't all behave. This is not how a repair shop works.

Where has this got us? The sum total of this is that preventive behaviour is more or less where it was 6 months ago and the economy might see "stagnation" as an aspirational target! Our National Repair Shop needs to do better. That means:

• Talk to us not at us and talk sense
• Explain variations in predicted to actual outcomes and if you can't, say so
• Wherever you can, give a time frame and describe how things will look at the end of each frame
• Give jobs to experts-The Repair Shop does not, as far as I'm aware anyway, give a precious thing to someone because they are "well connected and might knock a tune out of it,"
• Understand, one of your bigger battles is to restore credibility, your credibility. Choose your themes and words well.

Unlike those who hand over a precious object to a staged but beautifully engaging programme, we have no choice with our lives and those of our loved ones. The job of Government is to protect the people it serves; the task is to show them how it's being done.

Here's How I'd Like Things To Feel

And I'd like to close with my observation that in fixing their precious items, the owners are to some degree, fixed too.

jd 24/9/2020