Sixth series, episode 9
All six series are available here on the HebWeb.
George Murphy writes, "In this early June episode, I bemoan wet, overcast weather and subsequent valley fever and remember the school trips of my youth. I worry about the power of malign social media, and their role in recent riots. But, I also celebrate a local hero and an artist who brought colour into our lives - whatever the weather." There's also Reform on Education, Sikhs in the UK, the Belfast Riots, the World Cup and more.
The Skircoat Lodge trial
On June 8th, at Bradford Crown Court, Malcolm Phillips, the former manager of a care home for children in Halifax was found unfit to stand trial due to old age and ill health and given an absolute discharge. Lisa Brunning 67 was found guilty of indecently assaulting a boy and helping Phillips sexually abuse another boy in the 1980s and 90s. In an earlier trial, deputy manager Andrew Shalders was imprisoned for his vicious assaults on boys, but has since died.
In the 80s and 90s, the Lodge was screened off behind trees from the Teachers' Centre where I worked. A teacher at the special school in the grounds took a class on a nature walk close to the lodge causing the manager to throw the door open and swear at the kids. She reported his behaviour to a higher authority, who told her she must have been mistaken, saying Mr Phillips loved children was always polite and engaging.
When children ran away from the care home, police caught them and took them back. A BBC investigation has discovered that over the years, 135 former residents have applied for compensation. So far, 7 have been awarded.
School trips
It's that time of year, when kids go on school trips. Back in the 60s, I went on trips to the continent. On the first one, along with some older lads, I bought duty free cigars, packets of woodbines and a pin up magazine from a spiv as we crossed the channel. I must have been all of 13. That evening, before lights out, I was appraising the photos in the girlie mag with a cig between my lips, boasting, "I can't wait to light up!"
This was met with silence.
Looking round, I noticed the rest of the lads had pulled their bedclothes over their heads.
I slowly turned my head.
Our English teacher, Mr Kenny, was in the doorway, eyeballing me. He slipped into the room, shut the door behind him and said, "Your cigarette's the wrong way round, George. You light up the other end." Then he confiscated my new possessions.
Next morning, I was summoned to see Pop, the Deputy Head, a fierce little guy who looked like a square jawed Charlie Drake. Pop rolled one of my fat cigars between his fingers, sniffed it, then laid it on the table next to my packets of Woodies and my copy of Parade. Our eyes met.
"Where did you buy these, Murphy?"
Fortunately, I'd had time overnight to prepare my alibi.
"Me dad gave them to me, as a going away present, Sir."
Don't think he believed me.
Let the train take the strain
Eva and Adam*
The Thompsons are off on a mini break,
Just look at his thousand yard stare,
Down the tracks to the vanishing point,
Doesn't he know it's not there?
She's made the arrangements, I reckon,
Not one for illusions is Eva,
Wi' tickets tucked safely inside her bra,
Whilst Adam's more like a school leaver.
Sometimes they tour round cathedrals,
Where folks pray to a guy who's not there.
Perhaps she might light up a candle,
That's the closest they get to a prayer.
Or happen they'll go to the seaside,
Where he'll dip his toes in the sea.
Though t' weather feels more like October,
Why he bother's a complete mystery.
Truth be told, it's hardly Majorca,
Three nights in a boutique hotel,
But when they get back from their travels
You'd think they were under a spell.
They look like they're still on holiday,
That's one thing I'll never quite fathom.
And if I chose which drugs to get high on,
I'd say, "Same stuff as Eva and Adam."
*Commissioned for passengers at
Hebden Bridge Station (2024)
Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling …
Reform UK on education
Having spent more than fifty years of my life in education, I've been looking into Reform's views on the subject. Melissa Benn, an advocate for comprehensive schools, believes Nigel Farage and his new Education Minister, Suella Braverman, if elected, would bring back the 11 plus. Although in parts of Calderdale it never went away. PW and I failed our 11 plus, and are amongst a tiny minority of 1 in 22,000 who went on to get Masters degrees.
In a speech at a Christian college in Michigan, Farage claimed that education in the UK is under the control of the 'Marxist left'. Under a Reform government, inspectors would check that history courses celebrated Britain's Empire.
Sikhs in the UK: In The Times online, Sikh writer Sathnam Sanghera, as well as highlighting the huge role played by Sikhs in the armed forces during two world wars, discussed the horrific murder of Henry Novak in Southampton last December at the hands of Vikram Digwa, who lied to police that the 18 year old student had racially abused him.
Despite pleas from Henry's father, Nigel Farage said the right response to the murder was "pure, cold rage." Tommy Robinson subsequently led rioters to attack police in Southampton. But, as Sanghera points out, 'Digwa no more represents our small community than white Britain is represented by the man who was recently given a life sentence for raping a Sikh woman in her home while subjecting her to her to a tirade of religiously aggravated abuse."
In response to the events, I reposted my interview with a local Sikh hero, our sub postmaster Satnam Singh.
Some readers responded:
Heather Wilson: 'Another brilliant interview … and the biggest thanks go to Satnam, who is an absolute treasure. What great stories, and you, and your team at the post office are brilliant! I remember the Boxing Day floods so well, my shop was on Market Street and the calcite people were so wonderful. We sat in the town hall, eating Curry from a huge VAT the ladies had prepared, that was the best thing I'd ever had and was made by angels! Thank you xx
Christina Longden: Cracking interview. And his wife is sensible for falling for the Yorkshire accent. Plus... He spends loads of time in Huddersfield! Excellent citizen!
The Belfast Riots
A video by a local woman, who witnessed the vicious attack on Stephen Ogilvie after being attacked by suspect Hadi Alodid quickly reached Tommy Robinson, who has 2 million followers on X.
He wrote, 'Horrific scenes in Northern Belfast tonight as an invader was caught trying to behead a man in the middle of the street!' This post has been seen 6 million times. Robinson was in Moscow with Elon Musk's father. Like other far right activists, Robinson admires Putin, writing, 'Russia is not the enemy of Britain.'
The day after the attack, Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, posted that if his party were in power, the individual who committed the stabbing would be executed.
Lowe's post was shared by Elon Musk and has been viewed 63 million times. In the days following the Belfast stabbing, a pogrom was committed against local immigrants in Belfast by potestant teenagers.
In response, one of Northern Island's female politician's commented that the province has its share of murders each year, but they're mainly behind doors, when men kill their partners; however, the murders that make the news broadcasts happen outside.
Tir-An-Noag
This tale has long been told in Ireland, and follows the pattern of The Land Where No One Ever Dies, an Italian folk tale collected by Italo Calvino in Italian Folktales (1956).
When I told the Italian tale to my class in Mixenden, their hands became blurs as they wrote their version of the Italian tale, or they confidently joined in the class's retelling.
In Usheen (or Oisin) the Irish folktale, three brothers go out hunting and chase after an elusive stag, even leaping onto a rock set in swirling waves in pursuit, and then are carried by the stag to 'the land of the ever young'.
As in the Italian tale, the youth yearns to revisit his home and he is given a horse for his journey, but is warned not to dismount, for if he does he will disintegrate into dust.
I first heard the Italian tale from Betty Rosen in the late 80s and the Irish version in 1991, at an Association of English teachers away weekend, where Betty challenged us to rewrite the tale in the following hour! The Troubles were still ongoing and I thought of my annoyance at the way the two sides in Northern Ireland wouldn't move on from their murderous histories.
My retelling was collected in Shapers and Polishers: teachers as storytellers Betty Rosen, Mary Glasgow Publishers (1991). Here's an extract:
Now, Liam and his brothers Declan and Sean lived in a lush green valley in Tir-An-Noag, where everything was provided for them. But in his dreams, Liam dreamt of a different world where he was once again a hunter.
One day, a stranger, who called himself Usheen, rode through the valley. Liam decided to accompany him on his journey, despite Usheen's warning, "You must not join me, for the people in my land have a terrible knowledge … and all the people in that country would like to live here."
When they reached Usheen's home country, Liam heard a drumming sound and it wasn't like the music he'd learnt in Tir-An-Noag. This music did not dance and meander and make you clap and pluck up your heels and grab hands and wheel your partner round to its beat. This drumming was staccato and insistent and repetitive …
He saw men all wearing the same dark clothes: with dark headgear with holes cut out to allow them to see. And Liam ran towards the men, thinking they were hunters. To stop him, Usheen rode forward on his horse.
The men with balaclavas raised their guns and pointed them at Usheen. For they recognised him.
Wasn't this the man their enemies spoke of? Wasn't this Usheen whose spirit would live forever? Didn't his name live on in the legends of their enemies?
And they fired.'
In her book, Betty wrote, "We are not told the fate of the fictional Liam. Whatever it might have been is of little consequence compared with the fate of an oppressed Irish nation. That, without a doubt, played no part in my rendering of the magical story which triggered this one."
RIP David Hockney
Exhibition at Salt's Mill, July 2023
Living in West Yorkshire, we've had the rare advantage of admiring his paintings at Salts Mill and, more recently, a retrospective of his early work at The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield.
A former colleague told me he once attended a talk by an alumnus of Bradford Grammar School. The speaker did the Art course in the sixth form and one of his mates in the class said, "Shall we each sign one of our paintings to share amongst us, in case we become famous?"
To which he replied, "Don't be stupid, Hockney!"
One hand clapping
Most mornings, I wake up at approximately 2.15 am. This is mainly because I need a wee, as old men do in the early hours, but also because the dull ache in my injured wrist has cut short my dream time. Sometimes I can't doze off again, and if I'm too agitated to write or read, the soccer World Cup is perfect for tuning in and taking my mind off my discomfort.
Between games, I make myself a brew, eat a bowl of PW's homemade granola, take my codeine tablets and mute the pre match pundits on the telly. Concentration on other people's passions takes the pain off my mind, so I enjoy watching the pleasure and the pain of the winning and losing fans.
Thanks to the many people who help me overcome my temporary one handedness when I venture into town. Especial thanks to Jack, who has had a metal plate in his arm since an early motor bike accident and Maggy, who happened to be on the next table at the Old Gate one evening and spurred me to keep soldiering on with the NHS exercises, as she had once done, and Sarah Rae, who sent me ideas for less painful ways of regaining my two handedness.
Staycation
During Wakes weeks, mill workers round here travelled en masse to Blackpool. But more recently, Fred and Bev met for a romantic weekend in that most famous of Northern seaside towns.
Fred, who had two faces on his head
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