What keeps me in this tourist town?

Paraphrasing Joni Mitchell for my song link for this last post in February. Not sure if I'll keep the song lyric links going, but I have enjoyed the way they appeared so effortlessly. Bakewell is a tourist town now - far more so than when I moved here in 1993. It's all year round, though it all looks a bit miserable in bad weather, and there are too many cafes and outdoor clothing shops all selling the same thing. The charity shops are good though. The ducks, geese and seagulls by the river can get you down too - all that bird shit everywhere.
No cinema, but there is a film society. No theatre, but there is a stage in the Town Hall and a Youth Theatre. No art gallery, but there is an independent museum. The best book and music shop you could wish for anywhere - Bakewell Books.
Houses are expensive, schools are good, the countryside is lovely, job prospects are limited, the public transport is limited too, though there is a National Express bus to and from London which passes through daily - maybe a relic of coaching days - it certainly takes hours to get there.Chatsworth House and Haddon Hall are on the doorstep. Good Farmers' Market once a month, weekly stall market, well dressings, carnival, Bakewell Show, Bakewell puddings (not tarts).
I'm ready for a change, I have never lived in the same place, let alone the same house, for so long, but at the moment friends, family and work keep me here - the usual story - and whilst I imagine a life elsewhere it's not going to happen for a few years.
There needs to be a bit more water under Bakewell Bridge. It's a young families/retirement town and I have a horrible feeling I'm going to move seamlessly from one to the other once my youngest leaves home.

As Time Goes By (or Rock the Casbah)

The song made famous in the film 'Casablanca'. There was a great item about Casablanca on John McCarthy's Radio 4 programme Excess Baggage yesterday. The writer (and blogger) Laila Lalami talked about the reality and image of Casablanca, the setting for her new novel.I lived there in 1980/81. I ran away from cold wet Manchester and unemployment - the funding had run out on my job as a language teacher in an Asian women's refuge. I'd rowed with my boyfriend, and decided to use what little money I had to go to the nearest exotic place. I persuaded a friend to come with me, and bought coach tickets from London Victoria to Algerciras. We then took the ferry to Tangier, and then the Marrakesh Express to Casa. I realised money wasn't going to last long, my friend decided to return to England, and I went in search of a job in a language school. I'd thought to take a photocopy of my degree certificate, and I'd arrived just as autumn term started, so I found a job, found a flat and someone to share it with, and settled in. I loved the whole experience of Maroc. I didn't do as much travelling round as I would have liked but having a job gave me a great insight into real life. Students became friends, I sang in a band made up of Moroccan,English and American musicians. I co-directed Hamlet and played Ophelia in a production organised by the language school. I'd never lived anywhere so full of contrasts - and Laila echoed some of my thoughts and feelings. In Casa great wealth and poverty live side by side. A walk to work was like passing through at least four centuries simultaneously. There was a Rick's bar, run by an American woman. I met members of the Moroccan royal family. I went to a circumcision party. I saw the Queen and the Royal Yacht on the famous visit where she was kept waiting for hours. I loved the medinas, the architecture - Moorish and Art Deco French, the bargaining, the everyday life in the area where I lived.It was too different to feel like home, but it was so attractive that I didn't want to leave.I came back to England to sell my house, but met my husband to be instead and have never been back.
And the story about the king and his fighter pilots in Rock the Casbah was true....

Fashion

Last night I thought about writing about my relationship with clothes, and the David Bowie song came to mind.
This morning the fantastic BBC radio series,The History of the World in 100 Objects began with the same word.
The object was a piece of Peruvian embroidery, part of a mummy wrap (dead bodies, not live mothers), and various contributors discussed the role of clothing and textiles in ritual, society and archaeology.
I was trying to draw some threads together, having written about fashion and the Cuban Missile crisis yesterday. Coincidentally, the man credited with advising Kennedy through that crisis came from the village of Over Haddon and was the uncle of my unpleasant ex. I occasionally do talks about his life and career, and sometimes take a guided walk round the village called 'Celebrities, Spies and Heroes' - more of that another time.
I love clothes - they are my weakness - I don't drink, smoke or spend money on drugs, but I love fashion. I had very little disposable income as a teenager (not a lot different now), and the hippy fashion for second hand and ethnic clothes suited me. Long before 'vintage' was acceptable and mainstream, my friends and I were buying from charity shops and jumble sales. I used to work for some friends who had second hand clothes shops in Manchester, and learnt a huge amount about fashion and textiles from them. I don't buy on e bay, but I look out for the occasional find in my local charity shops and dress agency. It's still amazing what you can get. I do buy new clothes too, often in sales, and there are some labels and looks I particularly love.
My first ever second hand dress cost 75p from a charity shop in Eccles, and was bought for me by my friend Gina Broughton.I was 18 and it was early 1972.
I wouldn't wear it out as it has started to fray, but I can still get into it for a photo. My latest buy is a lovely mock brocade late 1950s coat with three quarter sleeves,very fitted, with big buttons and no collar. I took a risk and washed it - successfully! It was £10 from a local charity shop.
Last year I read a book called The Thoughtful Dresser by Linda Grant which really helped me to understand the role of clothes and fashion in my own life, and the way that both are so tied up with image and self esteem. How you choose to dress can be a creative statement. Some people I know are chameleons, changing their look daily or weekly, refusing to accept limitations of age and conventionality in their appearance - and I'm not talking about inappropriate fashion here.

Don't fear the reaper

Blue Oyster Cult connect to Patti Smith, who in turn connects to Robert Mapplethorpe. I had hoped to go into Sheffield today to see a touring exhibition of his photographs at the Graves, but have decided it makes more sense right now to rest my foot and get it better before I hit the city pavements. I did go into Sheffield on Saturday to celebrate my son Jamie's birthday. We watched Tom Ford's film 'A Single Man'. I'd seen a great interview with Mark Lamarr and Tom Ford on the Culture Show about the film - I have never seen Mark Lamarr so coy! I haven't read the Christopher Isherwood story the film is based on. It was very poignant, especially after the sad news of Alexander McQueen's death. My former husband was in the fashion business, and I still subscribe to Vogue. I'd followed his career from early days, and felt he was a courageous and innovative designer. Sometimes suicide is a cry for help, sometimes it's a brave decision. I have known people who have approached it in those different ways. I can't help feeling that McQueen's was an act of courage after the loss of his great friend Isabella Blow, and more recently, his mother. Who am I to think that when it must be so desperate for his family and friends, but it's what I feel. There's so much in the air at the moment about assisted suicides, mercy 'murders'- not a day goes by without something in the news. Colin Firth's portrayal of a man preparing for suicide was amazing, and it was a thought provoking film with a sense of redemption. A timely blend of the worlds of fashion and film exploring such a topical subject, even though it's set in the 60s during the Cuban Missile crisis when life felt particularly fragile.

Who wrote the book of love?

Post Valentine's Day, and I got a Valentine card - very unexpected in the circumstances. One of my close friends recently sent me a birthday card with the message 'better to have loved and lost than to live with the psycho the rest of your life' (or words to that effect).Perhaps psycho isn't the right description, con man might be closer. I was telling another friend about the circumstances of our break up, nearly two years ago now. She writes detective fiction, and we both agreed that you could begin to understand why wives and partners may claim ignorance of the secret life of their criminal husband or boyfriend. I certainly didn't put two and two together, though I knew something wasn't right after 10 years. The fact that we didn't live together made it much easier for him to maintain the deceptions. I was aware that the shock of the discoveries could have destroyed me, and was determined that it wasn't going to happen because of him. I haven't lived the life I have lived and faced the challenges it's presented to be destroyed by a someone like that. It does mean I don't whole heartedly enjoy living here - neither of us has moved away, I still see his family, who don't know the whole story and wonder why we split up. I'll write more about the circumstances some other time.
So...to get a Valentine card was both unexpected and mysterious - as it should be.
In the mid 70s I sang in a rock'n'roll revival group, Drive in Rock and the Rockettes. Inspired by Sha Na Na, we only performed 50s songs. We had a good time playing the college circuit for a few years.Some of the band are still my good friends, one is no longer with us, another recently got in touch on facebook.
When I was a teenager I always had a song lyric for any situation - I had completely forgotten about it until I started this blog. Each post seems to echo a song, so I am going to see how long I can keep it going without it being too contrived - maybe only until the end of February - maybe forever!

Feats don't fail me now

I had intended to write something every day, but on my way home from Writers in the Peak - the writers' group I joined last September and hope to write about someday soon - I became aware of a tearing pain in my right foot and had to hop home hanging on to the wall!. I hoped the pain might disappear overnight but it didn't, so I made an appointment at the doctors and called my mother for help. I'd arranged for a presenter from Radio Derby to come over and meet some of the writers' group to record some real life stories for a feature they do twice a week - "did I ever tell you about the time'... it was great fun, in the bar of the Rutland Hotel in Bakewell where we meet anyway on a Tuesday evening. The hotel is full of ticking, chiming clocks, sirens sounded outside as the snow fell and presumably accidents happened. Quite surreal, especially as there was a memorial service that afternoon for a notable Bakewell resident 'Granny' Pulford. He had died at the end of October, but last Wednesday would have been his 70th birthday . There must have been hundreds at the wake held in the hotel as we finished our recording. I'd always wondered where his nickname came from - middle name 'Granville' - I should have guessed. If the walls of the Rutland could talk there would be plenty of tales about him I'm sure. If they could really talk we might get to the truth of whether Jane Austen really did stay there when she saw Chatsworth, the inspiration for Pemberley. I just remembered that it's where I first saw - and ate- chicken in a basket on the way back to boarding school in Matlock, around 1970/1971. Whatever happened to chicken in a basket? Is it time for a revival?
Back to feet - walking is such a part of my life - guided walks, walking for pleasure - I can't bear the thought that this might affect any of that - it's plantar fasciitis - more commonly known as 'policeman's heel'!It is common, and there is treatment and advice out there on how to get over it. One of my friends from the writers' group recommended latin mistress shoes - I had a vision of lovely tango shoes, but she meant Latin schoolmistress - not quite the same!
I bought some Clarks black lace ups that look like Charlie's school shoes from when he was about 8, but are part of this season's ladies shoes from Clarks. Fingers and toes crossed they work.
And Little Feat are one of my forever favourite bands, and I was lucky enough to see them with Lowell George in Manchester back in the 70s.

New boots and pans

Didn't actually get new boots but couldn't resist the  Ian Dury reference, especially with the film just out.

I met him twice many years ago - in the early 70s with friends from the Edgar Broughton Band backstage somewhere in a London theatre, and later at a friend's funeral - it was this time of year in the late 70s. Les Prior had been part of Alberto y los Trios Paranoias, one of the best musical pastiche and parody bands ever. Les died of cancer and is buried in Heptonstall churchyard, as is Sylvia Plath. The Albertos had been on Stiff records and Ian was a friend. It was a memorably good funeral, with the sense that Les would have loved it. The fake green grass that the gravediggers used to cover the soil looked particularly incongruous against the snow. It was the first funeral I had been to where there was a sense of the person in the proceedings. I have been to many 'good' and one or two 'bad' funerals since, and they will come up for discussion here at some point.

Anyway - the new pans were in the sale at one of Bakewell's most popular shops - Sinclairs- which is about to close in just over a week. They have had an amazingly busy closing down sale going on for about 18 months (no kidding!) The pans were less than half price and very pretty - even my 16 year old son used that word to describe them! A photo will follow. This is an attempt to satisfy my desire to completely change my house as I have been in one place too

 long - nearly 17 years. But I can't afford to change it in any significant way - so some new pans help. I could remember when and where I was when I last bought a new SET of pans - 1988, living in Todmorden. Charlie was impressed at my recall, but those sort of memories are hooked in to other life events! Maybe it's just me.....

Firesign Theatre LP cover

The plumber fixed the fire, so it was worth the wait

Waiting for the electrician or someone like him

Any closet Firesign Theatre fans may get the reference.

They were a comedy group from America, late 60s, early 70s - very irreverent, very inventive. On one of their albums they created a spoof game show called Beat the Reaper. Contestants were given a disease at the beginning of the show and had to guess what it was. If they guessed right they got the antidote, if they didn't they died! I keep expecting to see it on TV... maybe it could replace Big Brother.

Anyway, today I am waiting for my friend the plumber who is coming to fix my gas fire. It gave up the ghost on Christmas Day. I was reduced to tears. I'd just been to see my father in the nursing home he had moved to, and the reality of his fragile state of health was really brought home to me. So the loss of the main source of heat in my living room was the last straw.

So I was crying for him, but the fire was an excuse.

I got through the funeral, and all the preparations for it, without tears. Less than a week later it was my birthday, and for the first time ever my father's name wasn't on the card. Some years my mother had signed for him - when he was working abroad, and when his handwriting became too shaky, but this was the first card in 55 years that wasn't from him.

The plumber has just arrived...... fingers crossed

Where to begin

I have wanted to set up a Peak District blog for a while, partly to create a different slant on tourism in this area. I have been a local guide for nearly ten years, developing ghost walks and local history walks in the area. More recently I have been a part time guide at Chatsworth. But there's so much more to living in the Peak District. And there's so much more to learn here.

I was going to call this Life Love and Death in the Peak District, but love of the romantic variety  headed out of my life about this time two years ago, and I'll write about it soon because it was quite an exit! Life is what happens here every day - friends, family, work. Death delayed this first post when my father died on the morning of New Year's Day - January was the funeral month, as well as a family birthday month.

So this blog will be about me, my family, my interests now and my adventures in the past, and about one real life in the Peak District.