Taste and Trust

This week has been full of the scandal surrounding horsemeat masquerading as beef. I am a natural vegetarian. I never liked the taste and texture of meat as a child and growing up in the hippy era, it was easy to avoid it once I left home. I have eaten meat to avoid embarrassment when it has been cooked for me. I know it doesn't make me ill or sick. When I worked in Morocco I would be invited home by some of the students, and meat was what was served to guests. I have cooked chicken and bacon for my children. It's a matter of taste most of the time, and ethics some of the time. Vegetarian cuisine is so much more varied and international, and because I am squeamish easier for me to cook. I appreciate that the powers that be are saying horsemeat isn't harmful. The jury still seems to be out on whether it might sometimes contain potentially harmful drugs.I also recognise that there are many creatures that provide food in different cultures, including squirrels, rabbits, ostriches, hares and even rats and dogs. It's a cultural thing.When I lived in Casablanca there was a horse butcher's stand in the Marchee Central with a beautiful plaster painted model of a horse's head to advertise its wares. When my friend's son made the connection he turned vegetarian. Meat was raw there- exposed to the flies, out on the street, whole sheep or goats slaughtered in public, bunches of chickens hanging from their legs on motorbike handles. In this country we have become very distanced from our food sources, not least because of the popularity of processed food, especially meat products. At boarding school we were served beef and gravy that came out of a tin. I am convinced that those slices of meat were horse. I have never seen beef with that sort of muscle fibre. Years later on family holidays in Anglesey, I was aware that some of the horses grazing in the fields next to the caravan site were on their way from Ireland to the continent as a food product. Not so many years ago I was told I could purchase a rescue pony for my children via the business connection of a friend. The business sent horses and ponies from the UK to the continent for slaughter. Earlier this week, with all the fuss about horsemeat, I wondered if I had remembered this offer correctly. The local press ran an article today about proposed protests at a Bakewell based business, doing just this, so I guess that would have been the source of my rescue pony. We don't eat choose to eat horses here - at least not knowingly. While I am sure there are meat eaters who would be curious or unconcerned if they did, this is about trust. It's not just about whether anyone has been harmed by it. It's about food being what it claims it is, doing what it says on the tin. In this time of banking scandals and government spin and u-turns we are treated as fools in so many ways, but please don't assume we are foolish.I will never forget reading a very small article in a national paper when the scandal of BSE broke. I was weaning my daughter on home cooked vegetarian food at the time. Heinz had released a statement to reassure customers that their baby food did not contain brain or spinal cord. I wonder how many of us had ever considered that it might.

Family history

I went to a good friend's 60th birthday party at the weekend. I have to say that 60 must be the new 40. None of us look our age! Or maybe it's more about not acting the age you once thought 60 represented! Everyone there was young at heart and having a great and lively time. Tamla Motown to dance to and a very nice live band to listen to,featuring my friend's husband and fellow blues musicians. Friends are the family you choose for yourself or so they say. That's how it feels for me, and there were people there I have known for more than forty years. It's a different style of family history. When we were young we called our parents' friends by the title of Aunty or Uncle. That tradition seems to have been lost, but there's nothing to replace it. Some of my good friends play that role in my youngest son's life, and have helped him to find a full time job with their caring and practical support. Family history for my youngest son is already turning out to be a very different experience too. His father has children by 3 different women, so my son has 5 half siblings who share his father, as well as his brother and sister who are my older children from my marriage. When his father left us, I never imagined that we would connect with the oldest family of siblings, but one night Charlie was watching his dad's performance at a folk club on YouTube. He posted a comment about his dad. Within minutes someone else had posted, that's my dad too! You must be my younger brother! And so Charlie connected with a whole bunch of half brothers and sisters, in-laws , cousins and nephews.My daughter is working on some aspects of our family history, and I used to help people trace theirs when I worked in the local library. I can't imagine how future generations will unpick their family stories, though I am sure the Internet will help, perhaps in some unexpected ways.

Flog It! Blog It!

Flog It! Blog It! In early October BBC’s Flog It! got in touch with Haddon Hall, where I work, to discuss the possibility of filming in November. Members of the production team came to have a look at our facilities and to discuss how Haddon could be used for a Flog It! Valuation Day. The proposed date of filming came during what is now laughingly known as our closed period in November. They came at the end of a week that had included a two day Rowan Yarns photoshoot and a TV shoot for David Starkey’s new series ‘Music and Monarchy’. The Hall may have been closed to the public, but it was certainly open for business. When Flog It! choose a venue they have to be sure that everything from power supplies, parking and refreshments can be provided, as well as a steady stream of people with items they would like to have valued and ultimately sell. One of the attractions for Haddon was that the programme is due to be aired in March or April 2013 – ideal publicity at the start of the season. They make 5 episodes from each venue, and then they repeat and repeat and repeat – you get the picture! I am involved with the Old House Museum in Bakewell, an award winning independent museum, run by volunteers. The Museum is part of the Bakewell and District Historical Society and had been left a very generous bequest by a former member of the Society. There were some interesting antique items and a decision had been made to keep the Blue John and Ashford Marble pieces as they could be included in the Museum’s collection, but the ivory pieces were more problematic. I realised that I could take them to Flog It!’s valuation day, and possibly get some publicity for the Museum into the bargain! At this point we weren’t sure when the pieces dated from, and the magic year is 1947. After that CITES rules came in, and ivory can’t be sold on. Some of the pieces were a mystery – a long stick, and an elongated dragon carving looked as if they might have belonged together once, but been broken. There was also a small round ivory container with a lid – the kind of thing that might have once been part of a dressing table set. The two main pieces were carved groups of figures – an Indian god and his rather voluptuous attendant, and some Chinese or Japanese boys playing with a horse. Having dropped various hints to the researchers, I didn’t get an offer to be fast-tracked, so at 10am on Saturday November 17th I joined a long queue of hopefuls outside Haddon Hall. It was great fun, because everyone had a story, and in the two hours it took to get through the main queuing process I heard them all! Paul Martin, the presenter, was filming short pieces to camera, and I am always amazed by the tediousness of a presenter’s job! It’s a lot of repetition and re-takes. I have seen the Antiques Roadshow being recorded several times, and was once on a TV quiz, as well as on a Time Team dig. To me there’s nothing glamorous about it! As lunchtime approached James Martin, Bamford’s auctioneer came and asked if anyone had items they definitely wanted to put forward for auction. Some people go for the valuation and information, but don’t wish to sell. Unlike the Antiques Roadshow, Flog It! depends on people going to auction for its entertainment value. I was able to catch his eye, and Michael Froggatt , their expert on ivory, came over to have a quick look at the carvings. I was then taken into another waiting area – where hot drinks and sandwiches were provided! - and again was there for a couple of hours. More interesting people with fascinating stories, especially when they came back to report on their valuations. On the Antiques Roadshow you get taken into hair and makeup before filming – even the men - but there was no such preparation here! Eventually Michael Froggatt sat down at a table with me and told me about the pieces, repeated a couple of times for the camera. All were pre-1947, which was good news. The Indian god was Krishna, and was probably 1930s. It was very good quality ivory. He turned the Japanese carving upside down to show me that it was carved from a walrus tooth. There was even a little design underneath to disguise the soft centre of the tooth, and the artist had followed the curves of the natural tooth. To my surprise he told me the ivory ‘sticks’ weren’t connected. One was Indian and possibly ceremonial. The other was Chinese, and was probably a parasol or walking stick handle. He painted a lovely picture of a woman strolling in Shanghai in the late 19th century with a beautiful parasol, its handle formed from an exquisite ivory carving of a dragon with the pearl of immortality in its mouth. He gave me valuations too, and guide prices for auction. The pieces were signed for and taken away to be photographed and catalogued for the sale that would take place at Bamfords new salerooms at Peak Village, at the beginning of December. I was glad I didn’t have any attachment to them. Michael’s enthusiasm for them and the information he gave would have made me want to keep and appreciate them! The Flog It! team kept in touch with me about arrangements for the auction on December 5th. There were several familiar faces from Haddon and the Old House Museum, as well as new acquaintances from the valuation day. Everything was behind schedule, but eventually it was my turn. Huddled in front of the camera with Paul Martin and Michael Froggatt, with a massive stuffed animal display cabinet as backdrop, there was hardly time to think as the bidding for the Indian figures started. No second takes here, I was disbelieving as the bidding soared past the estimated £120 to a magnificent £340! Unbelievable! The Japanese figure reached its top estimated price of £120, but sadly the group of bits and bobs, including the parasol handle didn’t attract any bids. The parasol handle had become a favourite for Michael and I. Bamfords offered to put it into the next sale, so perhaps by now it will have found a loving home. The programmes will be broadcast in March or April. I was aware that Paul Martin was trying to give the museum a plug during the auction, so I hope it doesn’t get edited out!

It's a new year

I claimed in a recent blog that I could probably remember most of the Christmases in my life. I love Christmas as a time to get together and celebrate mid winter. I find New Year just as meaningful now. It' s a time to review what's gone, leave behind what you don't want to carry with you, and a chance to look forward to the adventures and changes to come. Looking back over the years, and all the New Year's Eves I can recall I would struggle to choose a favourite. As children my sister and I would leave a stocking at the end of the bed. In the morning there would be some sweets and an orange in it. What a lovely tradition to raise the spirits after all the excitement of Christmas seemed to be over.Family parties before my father left to work in Nigeria were another highlight.He made ham and pea soup in a pressure cooker and created multi layered club sandwiches, cut like a cake. I heard She Moves Through the Fair sung for the first time by Angela Mangan, not much older than me. When my parents lived in Sarawak I had a couple of strange equatorial New Year Eves.For one I was so ill with a tropical fever that I watched sunrise to sunset flash past my bedroom window in a matter of minutes. After I left school I had difficult few months, and was whisked off to Devon by an older and very kind friend. We went to stay at an amazing manor house outside Barnstaple with a well known band he was doing some work for. Wives,parents, children and friends made it an unforgettable house party, and at midnight on New Years Eve we rang the bells of the private chapel in the grounds. Another year,when my family were back in England I got a New Years Eve transatlantic phone call from a boyfriend in San Francisco telling me he was coming home because he missed me so much. He didn't materialise, but my dad did make me my first Rusty Nail. I didn't know alcohol could be so delicious!I saw my first New Years Eve fireworks in Casablanca, and heard the ships blow their foghorns in the port there at midnight. I saw Christmas tree bonfires in Rotterdam. What a practical way to celebrate a New Year. Once I had my own children, there were New Year Eves with young babies, coughs and colds, and occasionally friends and their offspring gathered round for impromptu parties when none of us could afford or secure babysitters. We always stay up until midnight, and first footing is part of the tradition most years. A dark haired person sent to stand outside in the cold at five to twelve, with a lump of bread, a piece of coal and a coin.It seems important to be with the people you want to be with, whether family, friends or very occasionally one significant other, and in a place that feels like home, my own or someone else's . Pubs, clubs and hotels don't work for me, and I don't like kissing strangers !My father died in the early hours of New Years Day 2010 and some of the family spent New Years Eve at the nursing home with him. My mother was there with him to the end. It was a blue moon, the second full moon in a calendar month that year, and I thought it was a very good time for him to leave us. The following year I spent New Years Eve watching TV with my mum, quiet and cosy.Nowadays its Jools Holland and his Hootenany (recorded in September I am told!) rather than Andy Stewart's White Heather Club.Last year I spent it in a remote country cottage with someone who I thought was going to be significant in 2012, but like the Californian boyfriend, it didn't materialise. This year I was with good friends and my daughter and her partner. It was lovely. My youngest son had a gig, and I remembered the frustration of his father having a New Years Eve gig when he was a baby and we were left home alone.That's the beauty of looking back. Every year starts with hopes, resolutions and expectations, and then life intervenes, and I go through the whole process again 12 months later.Happy New Year!

Give me that old time religion

As a lapsed Catholic, with a very intense religious education at convent boarding school, church services are not part of my Christmas celebrations. I have a crib on display, I appreciate other people's religious observances, and I don't buy into Christmas as a blatantly commercial time of year. I had bought some DVD box sets for my children as presents at their request,Father Ted and Rev.We all watched Call the Midwife, with its wise and pragmatic nuns. The Sound of Music filled most of yesterday afternoon. We may still get the chance to watch Sister Act, though we have missed The Vicar of Dibley. You can see there's a theme developing here. I am not sure if it's significant or just a coincidence.

Some sort of ghost story

The rain lashed against the window and the trees bowed in the wind. The attic windows creaked, and there were strange knockings, coming from the central heating pipes. It was a gloomy March evening, and my friends and I were in an attic bedroom, high up in an Edwardian family house that came straight off the opening credits of the Addams Family. In reality it was a warm and friendly family home, five brothers and one sister, my friend Marianne. We had met on our first day at school. There were pictures on the walls, guitars in the living room and an Airedale dog in the hallway. Her Irish mother was the most welcoming of hostesses. On this March evening we were both aged eighteen, and our friend Debbie, who lived next door, was sixteen. For some reason we had decided to try a ouija board séance. I am not sure who had the idea, and looking back it was slightly out of character for any of us. Marianne and I had been brought up Catholic, and all three of us were down to earth. It didn’t take long to write out some cards, letters of the alphabet and Yes and No. Sitting round a small table we carefully placed our fingers lightly on the glass. ‘Start with some simple yes or no questions’, suggested Debbie. ‘OK’, said Marianne. ‘Am I a girl?’ The glass swerved to Yes and we all looked at one another. After that it was addictive. We must have asked the most banal of questions, but as our confidence grew, so did our curiousity. Who are you? Thomas Wilson. The glass flew round the table, spelling out the name. When were you born? 1774 Where were you born? Manchester What did you do? Draper Where? Market Stead I am certain we found out more about him and his family, but these were the facts I wrote in my little notebook. I worked at Salford Central Library at the time, and knew about local studies collections. On my next day off work I went to the archives at Central Reference Library in St Peter’s Square. We had no idea where Market Stead was, but it turned out to be the top end of market St, where Piccadilly Gardens are now. I discovered entries in the rolls for Thomas Wilson and his shop. At this point I questioned what we were doing. As friendly and helpful as Tom was, it didn’t seem right to be contacting him from beyond the grave to ask if someone fancied you! As I said to a friend recently, why didn’t we just ask the boy in question?! Why call back a spirit from the eighteenth century to sort out our love lives?I went off to university and gave up the ouija board, though I believe my friends continued to contact Tom occasionally. Debbie became a very successful television playwright. I once asked her if she had ever been tempted to use our ouija board experience in one of her plays. ‘Oh no – it was way too far fetched’, she said.

Christmas Past

It's almost 2 years to the day that I last posted on this blog, in response to the news of the death of Captain Beefheart. In turn, that inspired my most prolific blog - a Historic Gig Guide, but it feels time to go back to this one. Maybe it's because I go to see less live music in the winter months, but I also consider and write about other subjects - I just haven't been sharing them in a blog. So Christmas is a time for reconnecting and reflecting. There are many ways to spend Christmas and I have had more than my fair share. In the tropics with my parents, back in the late 60s, we sweltered in equatorial heat as we recreated a traditional Christmas dinner in a house on stilts. In the early 70s I took home an unsuitable older boyfriend who wore a kaftan and a greatcoat through the Christmas meal. He did take off his hippy hat though. By the mid 70s I was married and I started many years of a two centre Christmas, travelling across the Pennines between my parents in Sheffield, and my in laws in Chester. Sometimes I was ill, coming down with the seasonal Christmas cold, and we would stay over. Other times we made a late journey home, fingers crossed that the old Ford Capri, Morris Traveller or Velocette motorbike, whatever the vehicle of the year was, would make it home. Late 70s and I was divorced. My boyfriend was Dutch and we celebrated St Nicholas on December 6th, leaving our shoes out for Saint Nick, his white horse and Black Peter. 1980 came and I was teaching English in Casablanca. My flat mate and I took off to the Canaries for Christmas. We were offered the use a town centre apartment in Santa Cruz de Tenerife by one of her former colleagues. Somewhere along the way, perhaps at the airport in Las Palmas, or on the ferry from Gran Canaria to Tenerife we met up with an American teacher. He joined us and organised a quick trip round the market, purchasing the last available chicken on Christmas Eve. We went to Midnight Mass in a beautiful Spanish cathedral. We drank absinthe cocktails in lively bars. We spent Christmas Day on a nudist beach, just outside the main port. The plump German tourists, slick with sun tan oil and breaded by sand, reminded us to go home and put the chicken on. Marriage and children followed, and once more I found myself travelling back and forth across the Pennines between parents and in laws. This time the car was a reliable Subaru estate. Sometimes the dog was carsick, and the children were home sick. Occasionally their roles reversed. Christmas only comes but once a year, and if I put my thinking cap on I can remember something of each one. Over recent years, and especially since I have been single, a lovely informality has developed, as my children gather round the kitchen table for our now traditional vegetarian Christmas dinner. Except it’s not quite as informal as I imagine. My easy going Christmas has become a tradition they cling to and expect! I still have an unfulfilled ambition for Christmas Day, inspired by a teenage friend who was the daughter of a Bishop in Manchester. As a family they spent Christmas Day serving dinners in the Salvation Army Hostel, and I fully intend to do something similar one Christmas Day soon.