Fifth series, episode 13

All five series are available here on the HebWeb.

In the latest episode, George Murphy remembers a wedding, samples the last heatwave of the summer in York, recalls hot times in Sowerby Bridge, considers the political scene, explains his fitness regime, shares a new tale and sings a song about a dance.

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I did it for the cake

52 years ago, we couldn’t afford a professional photographer. We got married in a Registry Office, where the Po Faced registrar caught us giggling and said, “This is a very serious matter.” How right she was, the office was opposite Durham gaol. A few years ago, a guy asked me how long I’d been married and when I told him, he said, “Murderers get less.”
Our Wedding Reception was in Bowburn Working Men’s Club, and I paid for a round of drinks for the forty or so people there. It came to £15. PW’s Aunty Belle paid for the cake.

The Hottest Summer

With four heat waves, a hose pipe ban and reservoirs less than half full, forecasters are predicting 2025 will be the hottest year since records began.

Our honeymoon was in York, where we sometimes return to celebrate our anniversaries. This year we had great Italian and tapas meals and met our friend Jenny, who lives just outside  the city. York has a lot going for it in terms of historical sites, shopping and cultural events, but, like Hebden, it gets packed at weekends and on bank holidays.

We had a drink at The House of Trembling Madness, where the Gents has prints of classic nudes on the walls including The Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet and the Ladies has classical close ups of male members, so to speak. Walking along those ancient streets, we noticed the stink from the drains, in this parched season. 

Bottoms up!

A  memory cropped up on social media:

When out walking, I occasionally call in at hostelries, as I did one swelteringly hot day in the early 90s in Sowerby Bridge. Whilst choosing my pint, I became aware of a charged atmosphere. A group of 20 or so locals had formed a semicircle around a black guy and a young Asian woman.

There are times when a good Guardian reading man has to stand up to be counted. So, I nonchalantly took my Timmy Taylor’s over and sat next to the besieged couple, like the cool cowboy in a new wave western. They stared at me, looking surprised. But then the landlord's voice boomed through a mic.

"And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! Page 3 stunner, Lovely Lavinia is here to entertain you."

Seductive music started, referencing 1001 Nights in the Harem. And it turned out that ‘Lovely Lavinia’ was the lass who was sitting next to me. Lavinia stood up, turned her back to her audience and her front to me, and undid her top, revealing small, but perfectly formed breasts, decorated with tassels. She swung these adornments around in a rhythmical fashion, a few inches above me, and, momentarily mesmerised, I admit I may have unwittingly circled my head in a clockwise fashion.

Reader, I would have made my excuses and left, but felt trapped, as I still had the best part of my pint to drink.

Nelson’s column

Fraser Nelson, the former Editor of The Spectator, the Conservative house magazine, is an unexpected defender of the Labour government. He points out that there is less crime in Britain these days. The Crime Survey for England and Wales shows a decline by 80% since 1995, despite a large increase in immigration.

Nigel Farage has argued that the survey doesn’t include shoplifting because it records crimes affecting people, not businesses. But Nelson responds that hospital admissions for acts of violence have also gone down. Air pollution is at historically low levels and breast cancer mortality has declined. He thinks it’s the best period ever to live in Britain.

Nelson’s critics in The Telegraph, point out that growth in the economy has only increased by 6% since the banking crash in 2008. But Nelson, the renegade Tory, concedes that Brexit and ten years of austerity, failed to improve the economy.  And Lockdown further impacted on people’s sense of well-being. We’re better off than we think we are.

Doing the Murph

God, I used to be fit. Here’s two of my star pupils  who attempted one of my workouts, but then they couldn’t stand up straight for a week. I charged a thousand dollars for the full workout, but an  undercover reporter from The Times warned her readers, "Don’t try this at home!"

In real life, I overdid things, got pneumonia aged 25 and in my early 30s packed in running because of a run-down thyroid system. Dave Jackson, my old running buddy, thought The Murph could have been one of our schoolboy training sessions: :Was it 12x440 yards full out with 3 mins jog recovery, all on ploughed fields? All within a 2 hour run?"

I replied, "We also ran through a pond. I vividly recall your shock one time when we climbed over a farm gate and landed next to a dead cow. Perhaps that’s why you became a vegan in your later life?"

What I’m reading

I think Sons and Lovers might be DH Lawrence’s best novel. Novels based on a writer’s own experiences seem to hold an extra power. Such as in the brilliant, honest but horrifying chapter of Ursula’s teaching experiences in The Rainbow. But in Sons and Lovers, even recapturing the boyhood memory of being ill whilst finding comfort in the sounds and rhythms of his mother ironing has a captivating power.

As for the sexual aspect that most people refer to when discussing Lawrence these days, I remember a comment by Ernest Hall, the self-made millionaire, entrepreneur, composer and pianist, who owned Dean Clough, when he gave the eulogy for his first wife June in Ripponden Church. He said, in their courtship and sex life they were inspired by the writings of DH Lawrence.  I admired his candour and his awareness of how sensitively, Lawrence treated romance and passion.

A day in the life

Friday, 29th August. In our carers' role, we were advised that people with enduring conditions would receive their usual benefits, but we had to fill in the extensive claim form for the last time. Jude’s mum did that. My job was just to show my ID, as appointee, and Jude’s bankcard details at the jobs centre in Halifax.

I turned up at what used to be the Employment Exchange but is now Council Offices. They sent me to the new Exchange near Ebenezer Church. When I arrived, a polite security man on the door asked me to come back two hours later. He said, the jobs centre is understaffed.

I dodged the roadworks and returned at 14:00 exactly. The staff at the Exchange were charming, and not just to me but also to the other people applying for benefits. It seemed a far cry from the approach used a few years ago, when an American team was paid bonuses to get people off welfare by using crude tick lists.

Sam’s dad wor summat big in t’ City,
He rarely saw him, more’s the pity.
But when Sam passed his driving test,
His dad said he deserved the best.
At great expense, some thought obscene, he
Bought his son a Lamborghini!

Sam set off that fateful day,
Hair streaming back in his Cabriolet,
Speeding through land his father owned,
And when a startled jogger moaned,
Waved her arms and shouted, “Pig!”
Road hog Sam didn’t give a fig.
In his open top car, up a Pennine hill,
He put his foot down, just for t’ thrill,
Then sped round t’ bend, young Mr. Big,
And crashed into an enormous pig.

When t’ police arrived they thought it weird:
Sam Binns’s body had disappeared!
His car wor smashed, a prize pig wor dead,
They reckoned Samuel Binns had fled:
Frightened of his father’s wrath,
Left his crumpled car and scooted off.

But, this notion locals began to query,
When a vet at t’ pub shared his pet theory.
“What if Sam thought it old fashioned
To drive fast with his seat belt fastened,
And that crash gave him such a jolt,
It sent him flying in a somersault,
Landing in t’ field with an almighty splat,
Face first in pig muck and cowpat,
Right next to a pig swill trough,
Where free range pigs enjoyed a scoff …
I reckon, boars, sows, an’ piglets beside ‘em,
All had bits of Sam inside them!”

After which, at Grange Farm Shop,
Their takings took a substantial drop.
And t’ local mayor, a leading Rotarian,
Announced that he’d gone vegetarian!
And at Grange Farm Café,  their confidence shaken,
Customers ordered their full English
Minus sausages and bacon!

So young drivers, your temperament sweeten,
Slow down on our roads - and avoid being eaten.

Flag waving

Immigration to the UK is falling, so Reform, the right wing press and the Opposition focus on the minority of illegal immigrants who arrive in small boats. Nigel Farage has commanded attention this hot summer by announcing  plans for mass deportations, but so far only the Taliban has agreed to work with him on his repatriation plan. Meanwhile, media attention is drawn away from this summer’s wild fires in Europe and on our moorlands. The hottest ever summer in the UK has failed to prompt a rethink on Reform’s policy to ‘drill baby drill’ for North Sea oil, resume fracking for shale gas and oppose the installation of new wind turbines.

James Ball in The Independent has noted that Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, with a vast social media following on X, thinks Farage isn’t extreme enough. He prefers the policies of Tommy Robinson and Advance UK. South African born Musk is part of a family that supported apartheid and the Nazis, and Ball thinks Farage is at risk from "the exact same pincer movement that brought the Conservative Party to the brink of extinction".

The people in far right groups who have been distributing flags are led by Robinson and Andrew Currien, head of security for the Britain First group. Currien was jailed in 2009 for his part in the death of a man in a racist attack. The Daily Mail has referred to those wielding the flags as ‘an army of patriots’.

Several mainstream commentators have pointed out the costs and impracticalities of the Farage plan.  He talked about 600,000 deportations, but there are only 110,000 illegal immigrants. Perhaps he was hoping to get back in Musk’s good books by deporting immigrants who have British citizenship, or those from a different ethnic background who happened to be born here, as Theresa May did with some members of the Windies community.

Acapella feller …

I wrote this song to celebrate people in long term relationships, married or unmarried and definitely not for us, as we haven’t danced fast or slow since back in our college days.

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