BROWN BLOG 2021

 Blog December 2020 to November 21

• More defined by what hasn’t happened rather than what has… Christmas lunch for two was unusual, but may have made a change for dutiful children- We do miss theatres- music, plays, events, a sense of occasion- in one sense pleased to have done all that we did in previous years, store of precious memories (supported by a screensaver with over a thousand items that randomly trigger other memories……but in no sense aggrieved by the fact we can no longer charge around doing what we please when we please.
• Gill and I have both had 2 Covid jabs and the ‘ booster’. We have also had our ‘flu’ jab. 
• And centrally, the death this year, of a colleague and a friend of so many years. Gareth, who Gill has worked with and who recently joined  the village pantomime group, Denstone Players. This was a wasteful Covid death. Alan Hulme had been part of our lives since we were teenagers. In fact, shaped the way we lived our lives. This was not a Covid death and it was expected. But both increase a sense of isolation in a crowd. 
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• Rosie, our grand daughter, now a nursery-going one year old and ‘toddler’. We are preparing for a day’s ‘minding’ each week from September. Again, getting used to the amazing rate of development young children demonstrate.
• Sam and Andrea announce their engagement from the top of Scafell Pike with a Facebook picture, and future marriage plans are underway for a ‘castle’ wedding. The family expands in some most delightful ways.
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• Together we have spent the first half of the year writing and developing a new Pantomime. ‘Big Nose - the adventures of Pinocchio'. A lot of research and preparation means we have a ‘quirky’ version of a difficult story to fit into a panto framework’….. although I think we are leaving the whole idea of the traditional and what has become a ‘tawdry’, theatrical event, which is almost not suitable for children. I think we may just be writing ‘a family show’ with a proper story and integrated characters. Anyway, it’s a lot of fun to work together on a project where I feel I can pull my weight- even if Gilly does win most of the executive arguments. Discussions now centre around, ‘how to make a nose change to three different sizes’ and whether it is immoral to cut up ancient fur coats to make donkey ears!
• Own health - I will try not to dwell overmuch. Mesothelioma remains unchanged for the year, although the body that carries it around seems noticeably weaker, quicker to tire and less responsive than in the past. I’ve started to use a walking stick to help me keep my balance, not giddy or dizzy, just off balance. I struggle with my hearing aids although in the last few weeks I have made progress. I still walk a mile (often indoors) and try to help around the house. Gill has become very protective (which is lovely) but I feel that I am contributing less and less to our partnership. Gill has picked up the reins, which is a huge relief to me. Either Lockdown or my own psyche has dictated a raise in anxiety levels and a loss in self-confidence. No help at all when there’s dental work due but not dated, and some work outstanding on a clutch of facial melanomas discovered by my dentist and dealt with by the dermatology department in Stafford. Plus, plus, plus, I’m so b****y tired, part of which may be the medication I take for anxiety/tension….. but it seeps into my mind and sometimes it’s as much as I can do to watch the cricket. Fearful, lacking confidence driving the car. A risk to others? My world is changing. 
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• ‘Gill’s reins’ have also included organising a new, more reliable water supply for Windy Arbour, changing the heating source in one of the cottages and the conservatory, bags of new ‘white goods’ for the cottages, new sections of mains electricity in the main house, a new tarmac drive around the house and chippings on our drive down into the village, a new front door, a garden makeover, which has included a new metal shed, the removal and disposal of the old buildings, creating a haven seating area in an unused corner of a bordering field. We planted a couple of cherry trees and bought a seat for this ‘private place’, mentally a final resting place. The creation of a raised ‘allotment’ vegetable area and removing the tops of thirty years old leylandii trees has given more light to the conservatory and more space in the garden. The new beds are filled with dozens of blooms of the most mind blowing colours. Sam worked on the new website for Sarah Raven, a little discount and suddenly we have a garden which is a stunning pleasure to be in and can only go from strength to strength.
  
  
  
• The trees became mounts and stands for metal sculptures created by David Cartlidge. They are outstanding pieces of art which give us immense pleasure. We bought a ‘warrior’ figure from him, then realising that we had over 20 ‘sculptures’ in and around the garden . We devised a questionnaire/can you find, sheet for the children of our cottage guests. The cottages have been so busy since it became possible and feasible to reopen them (thanks to Sam’s advice to use Airbnb as a booking agency. We find it is virtually foolproof and easy for Gill to manage)
• We have employed a second cleaner to ensure that Gill doesn’t ‘knock herself out’ but also to spread the money we’re earning, just from living in a place that we love, which sometimes feels vaguely immoral.
  
• Gill’s also restarted her ‘silver swans’ dance class. ‘Ballet moves’ as exercise for the over 50’s. She thrives on all the stuff she has had to ‘pick up’. Last year I bought her a toolkit that she could easily carry around the house. Now she’ll tackle anything, within reason. Luckily we seem to be surrounded by folks prepared to help, lend a hand or simply lend their skills and knowledge to situations that are beyond us. Like when the power went off because some of the wiring is over 80 years old!
• Gill’s 70th Birthday in October - now there’s a cause for a celebration.The party was a pleasure, with local members of the family getting together for the first time in two years. Lots of warm feelings and the notion that life was getting better.
• We also went out for a meal (first in 18 months) with the boys to the Queens at Freehay.The following week with Steve and Jan - friends from forever.
• I’m reading an author called  David Abuliafa, a historian with a take on the way that the oceans have shaped civilisation and how it has changed and developed. Really got into him after a brief flirtation with ‘The Crusades', which led on from some bits of reading I was doing on ‘Pirates’. I am attracted like the proverbial moth to any mention of pirates!!! If we write another show together it may well feature some of the cracking and almost unbelievable stories associated with pirates, their kith and their kin.
• I had a model kit of a Roman Bireme, a war galley, and spent the first three months of the year working alternately on it and on some highly detailed ‘painting by numbers’, which was also a Christmas present. Completed painting ‘works’ are now spread around the family, covering stains on obscure walls. The kit making gives me immense pleasure, but, the Bireme, although beautiful, in it’s own way did not have the ‘romance’ of the three mast galleon. 
• Bedtime reading is audiobooks of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey /Maturin series of maritime yarns. These satisfy a need I seem to have developed for tales of the sea and historical novels, and this from a reader steeped in Fantasy and Science Fiction. But, I have found a kit of a Caribbean sloop called ‘Jamaica’, which is to be a Christmas present this year (already bought and stashed) so linking pirates and reggae. Does this imply shrinking horizons? ….. or expanding?
• I’m afraid that I am drawn more and more to this ‘stream of consciousness’ style of writing. If it irritates, then I’m sorry.
• OcCre is a Spanish firm who make and sell these model kits. I find them hugely therapeutic, allowing me to buy and use specialist tools and craft things in ways I never thought I would be able to. Rewarding without being too niche or twee. I spoke with people at DAST (local support group for Mesothelioma) who encouraged, me to share these thoughts with other members of the support group. Then, a blinding flash of inspiration. Could I get the folks at OcCre to support the therapy side of their business. Google ‘translate’ allowed me to contact the firm. They were hugely supportive, suggesting a competition. DAST thought this could be something they would like to be involved in. A competition was duly organised and advertised. OcCre were generous in offering to judge photographs of the models made and to provide some very valuable prizes. The end of August was the finishing date. It came and went without a single entry, I couldn’t for shame enter my Bireme…..lessons well learned……sauce for the goose……one size fits all…..I did make a friend of my contact at OcCre, who just happened to be the son of the managing director.
• We’ve watched a lot of cricket. Passionately supporting strange sounding teams in the INDIAN PREMIERE LEAGUE and talking a lot of nonsense about players we know very little about. Television arm chair pundits. Our cracking new TV and Soundbox have been a revelation. The amount of stuff that is available….. how far you can reach back in time…… series items available in sequence and immediately, voice search that works….
• Still, it staves off the realities of ‘lockdown’. I have been in a state called ‘shielded’, as a citizen who is deemed to be at high risk and vulnerable. This ended in mid October when I presumably became ‘normal’- sorry but my world doesn’t work like that…. wrapped up in a fuzzy, cotton wool for 18 months …….and now you’re not - be normal.
• Still retain some aspects of my ‘gadget man’ identity - I’m revelling in a new ipad ‘Air’, which was bought on the slimmest of excuses. Gill wanted my old ipad and keyboard ( ‘cause she strained her eyes writing at any length on her phone) , and I also bought a DJI Gimbal camera, which I am pretending to use, on the grounds that I will master it’s potential. (Watch this space). Sam, slowly and with that halting style of speech you use with the ‘bewildered and aged’, told me that I can buy a battery pack which you can use with the video camera on an iphone to prevent it running out of charge at a critical moment. I bought one, and in experimenting with it I rediscovered the joys of timelapse and hyperlapse in film….. I feel a new project coming on!!!

………. and it’s only the 24th of October!!!

BLOG 2020

 Rosie Victoria Brown was born - 21st May- she is the second child born to our son Tomas and his wife Aimi and our second grandchild.

New jobs this year for both Tom and Sam, they continue to work for the same firms, Tom as a Fraud Investigator for Bet365 and Sam as a Technical Lead with Space 48, line managing developments in an e-commerce firm. Higher responsibility, more stress and money!

Sam and Andrea sold their houses in Manchester and moved into a very large, old house in Newcastle which once was part of theTrentham Estate - very salubrious.

 A Pandemic of Covid 19 struck the world. It’s effects range from, very mild to death. It generates different categories of risk. DB is most, highly vulnerable/shielded. GB only slightly less at risk, as she has  a fully functioning immune system and all of her lung tissue (as well as being two years younger - drat !!**!!)

This old, long married couple’s decision, with bags of ‘risk assessment’ experience, was to go into full ‘lockdown’ earlier than national requirement by government. This was tough as Rosie hadn’t been born yet and it was difficult to support Tom and Aimi at arms length, no hugging, kissing, stay two metres apart, wear a mask, stay at home, wash your hands while singing the whole of ‘happy birthday’...... take it seriously, because other people’s lives are at stake.Will the NHS be overwhelmed? Instant Nightingale hospitals, lockdowns, ‘circuit breaker’ restrictions, shortage of Personal Protective Equipment, care homes compromised, unrest, unease, basic freedoms challenged, the rights of the individual..... and all the while thousands, around the world, died.

We stopped watching the News at Ten.

Instead, recording ‘The News at Six’ and watching it when it suited us - oddly this seems to generate a feeling of calm and being in control.

The First hundred days were the worse for Gill (she just couldn’t come to terms with the radical changes that the pandemic had brought about, the Second hundred were worse for me - anxiety/ fear/and tears called for a bit of chemical management from our GP. I write this in late November, Gill is agonising about losing the notion of a ‘family Christmas’ (something of a tradition with us’) due to government restrictions on who can and cannot meet over a nominal five day relaxation of rules. So far we have survived it, and there’s talk of a vaccine in the next few months.......we shall see.

I am gently moving forward, trying to complete a written ‘life story’ (n my defence, this is not a vanity project but is a result of being asked to recall interesting stories from our younger days by DAST, the mesothelioma support group we belong to and also the notion I have,  that I wish my Dad and Grandad had written such a thing. I would love to have read them).

We met with my thoracic specialist, at Leicester, after my ‘drain site’ which had ‘healed’ but decided to burst again, leaking infected goo. Gill did her usual perfect nurse role, cleaning and bagging the new wound site.We asked for advice from the specialist nurse and were granted an appointment. The outcome was a choice, no time constraint, of two operations/procedures or the option of doing ‘nothing’ and perhaps let it become an infection/‘breaking waters’ cycle with the risk that any infection brings. We have a meeting with my oncologist in January so we will delay a decision until we know how the futures of chest cavity and cancer overlap or otherwise. Hard choices, but we have already done better, in survival terms, than expected.

Health-wise, this year has been good to moderate, Gill has taken the reins of our joint life. She brilliantly involves me, but my contribution is very limited. Physically, I’m as weak as a kitten and I am easily breathless, clumsy, sleepy, cough like a ?. (please insert a suitably humorous image here.)

But for me, little projects, which are manageable, occupy most of my time, making model ships, writing bits and pieces, working with photos and videos... keyboards whether connected to a pad, a Mac or a games machine are all pleasures, We talk, incessantly sometimes about important things sometimes to be comfortable in our bubble (a phrase/idea which has been in family use for nearly forty years)

Gill’s pleasure this year has been the garden which has been a glorious display from Spring to Autumn. 

Trees have been felled, tarmac has been laid, two of the cottages have been open since August and our gardener and house- keeper have been fully employed, during the pandemic. The felled trees have provided the materials for a new raised bed, dozens of logs and perches for two ‘big birds’ which have taken up residency in the garden. If you wanted to idle away a few minutes then birds, garden and tarmac are captured in short videos on our YouTube channel.

windyarb,YouTube

If you had more time to spare..... well, Gill and I wrote a pantomime, together. This is a first!

‘Cobblers- the story of the elves and the shoemaker’ was performed to ‘sell out’ audiences at Denstone Village Hall in February this year. Gill, directed and choreographed the whole thing. I helped with set design and artwork.

Even our sons got involved. Tom created a DJ who linked the various sections together and Sam vectorised our back cloth designs and took videos of the performances. We were delighted with the results and ever so slightly pleased with ourselves. The performance and rehearsal footage is on the Denstone Players YouTube

You Tube

Denstone Players’ Archive

......that took us through to the beginning of lock down at the beginning of March (we started on 13th March).

We devised a Timetable, early on in the pandemic for cleaning the house and to keep ourselves amused/sane, to give our lives a bit of structure. Lots of materials were streamed live, or free to air so there was plenty of choice. Gill started knitting and then discovered bigger projects that she could ‘get her teeth into’.

Sam, don’t you wish he’d propose to Andrea, they are just happy being partners.... both sold their houses in Manchester and bought jointly a mansion of a place in Newcastle under Lyme, with enough spare cash to do it up into something very special, a delight the way they both look to Gill for some advice,  good parenting vibes for both of us.

Pauline Marsden, my cousin, on my mum’s side, and her partner Tony, celebrated with a Civil ceremony on 21st October, which took place in Bakewell.

Our Niece, Amy was due to marry Tom, the son of one of our friends from the days of ADAPT, support group for Alton Holiday accommodation on 5th April. The Marriage was postponed until 31st August but has since been put back a year and moving into their new house similarly delayed.

Gill, worked with Sam and Andrea on ideas for ‘taming’ their large, new park- fringed garden and on shelving and fittings for Sam’s’ work from home ‘ study.

We followed the Indian Premier League 20/20 cricket competition, on television, avidly. Each member of the family supporting a different team. The highest finisher won a prize. Replica kit shirts became my ‘ must have’ birthday present - Sam’s team came highest (second) - he won a bottle of wine ( other prizes included, two bottles of the same poor wine and three bottles of the same.

Gill discovered ‘ Call the Midwife’, so for the first time in our lives we are ‘binge watching’ all the episodes for both that and ‘ All Creatures Great and Small’ and thoroughly enjoying the guilt free experience. I am listening to the audiobook versions of the Patrick O’ Brian series of books called Aubrey/ Maturin- they based the film ‘Master and Commander’ on one of them. I think there are fifteen volumes in the series, so plenty to go at.

My model ship this year was HMS Terror, lost in the Arctic looking for the North West Passage along with HMS Erebus. 300 hours to build but I decided then to ‘distress’ it into an Arctic context with modelled ice and snow....  steep learning curve! But I was delighted with the  results.

Shared pictures with kit makers, OcCre- a firm based in Barcelona - some interchange of ideas in terms of model building as therapy - involved DAST, our support group and there could be a crafting competition, sponsored by OcCre and hosted by DAST. ‘Hands across the water’ and thank goodness for Google Translate. I enjoyed being able to facilitate this.

Competitions.....I entered a photograph of young swallows being fed, in a competition themed around the idea of ‘Support’ and it became the cover picture for a 2021 calendar.

Actually, it’s been an eventful year...... I wonder how history will remember it?

Motivation to do anything, for the whole year has been difficult. But, in the last few weeks we have begun discussing ideas for a pantomime  based on the story of Pinocchio, looking at possible settings and listening out for appropriate music.... perhaps the stirrings of new growth and the excitements for all our futures ?

Our Christmas, this year, could be  the smallest version of the family ‘bubble’ that we have experienced since we were married, nearly fifty years ago.

.......and yet, with mobile phones, the internet, ‘Zoom’, ‘Face time’, ‘Whatsapp’ and thirteen thousand channels of Sky, Amazon  and Netflix.....it could also be one of the widest reaching.

A merry Christmas and a peaceful and disease free New Year to you all.

Dave and Gill.

November 28th 2020. 

THE SEVEN AGES - The fifth Age.

 The Justice

‘Beard of formal cut’

40 to 55

Background music is available here

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/50OoqkzDCmmzGvRZKMGLnC?si=zIIJGPKjRNqU0DSvOf-rLg

‘Balance’will be the problem with this section. For me, it is dominated by the fact that I became the Head Teacher of Great Wood County Primary School and stayed in that post until I took early retirement at 55.

Meanwhile in the same fifteen year period Gill became the Assistant Head of Blurton High School. Tomas and Sam, well, they became university educated men of whom we are extremely proud. Windy Arbour eventually expanded to become Guest Accommodation for Alton Towers and the surrounding area of Staffordshire, Derbyshire and the Peak District, -  three rooms and three self contained ‘cottages’. 

Beginning with the mundane and trying to explain the contents of the Playlist.

BCA, ‘Book Club Associates’, sent a booklet, once a month, advertising a hundred or so ‘special edition’ books at very reasonable prices. You chose or declined their offer and returned your choices in an envelope, provided.

If, however, you failed to return the envelope then you received the ‘Editor’s Choice’ and by default felt obliged to purchase it. 

One such Editor’s Choice was ‘Bob Marley’ by T E White and a boxed set of his ‘Greatest Hits’. I had no interest in Marley. I thought he was a Motown star and had turned down tickets to see him at Stafford. I read the book, cover to cover, in a summer’s weekend with the albums playing in the background. 

I became a huge fan. Reggae became the background music of choice, and often still is. I used it at school, used Marley’s life story in many assemblies, wore reggae colours and tee-shirts (I have had conversations with ‘locals’ all over the world usually instigated by Marley’s image), visited his mausoleum/celebration site at Nine Mile in Jamaica, used reggae as the background music to breakfast when we provided breakfast for our guests... genuinely music that changed my life.

as did -

Just the simple notion of heading up my own school.

A small village school, Upper Tean in Staffordshire Moorlands. Seven Primary classes and a Nursery on two sites separated by a road.The Upper building was built in 1856. Originally a school for the ‘poor’ children of the parents working in the village tape mill, owned by the Phillips family and ultimately gifted to the evolving Staffordshire Education Committee.

Chair of the Governing Body that appointed me was Margaret Phillips, an octogenarian, living in Heath House. Her family home on the nearby Phillips Estate. 

An Aside.

...the story is that in the dim and very distant past,  monks in the area grew the very best damsons in the county. A medieval ‘cottage industry’ in dyeing already existed, linked to skills developed locally which involved the disposal of bones, from butchered farm animals, in furnaces. This produced a powder which could be used to ‘fix’ colours in dyed materials. Hence the ribbon and tape mill in Tean. Damson skins produce a deep red colour...the most famous export of the mill - ‘red tape’, which was needed ‘by the mile’ around all the government departmental documents in the empire. The school existed from these delicate threads.

The lower site, built in the sixties, one-storied, flat roof and the home of the nursery children and Key Stage One (Infants). It was set in extensive grounds for games, fringes of ‘wild areas’ and well-planned and positioned hard, all weather play areas. Ancient and Modern. I moved between the two sites each day. I hope I visited each class every day. Every child knew they were valued. All the staff, both teaching staff and support staff, were ‘on board’, moving in the same direction, unbelievably satisfying.

I had super County inspectors and advisors. They encouraged, guided and supported us as we moved our children forwards. Governors and parents were welcoming and hugely supportive. We were very much, a village school. We did ‘stuff’ for the village. The school was ‘tied in’ to all the other aspects of village life. Working was a series of pleasures and I was privileged to watch my own children work through the Primary phase of their education.

There were - dozens of ‘Reasons to be cheerful’-

• We had an Army helicopter, travel over from Ireland to land, children watching, on the centre circle of the playing field. Which they were later allowed to climb into.(the helicopter, not the centre circle!)
• All the children wore the same ‘badged’ royal blue uniform. Early on the PTFA - Parents, Teachers and Friends - decided that cost would never be a block to any Great Wood child taking part in something. The priority for their fundraising and other activities was to ensure that all children had the kit they needed, went on all the trips and visits and were in no way ‘picked out’. This was often cleverly managed. Staff could wear the same kit. I revelled in being able to work in a zippered fleece.
• There was music, where and when appropriate, throughout the school. Background music in the Main Hall, often music to ‘work to’....
• We didn’t have a Summer Fete, but instead had ‘Midsummer Madness’. All the usual stalls and money makers but with costumes and teams playing in a series of ‘It’s a Knockout’ games and contests. Head’s fancy dress -obligatory.
• Similarly we hosted the village bonfire (there was a patch of grass on the main playing field which never managed to grow properly from one year’s end to the next!) - Peter, my brother, and I became pyrotechnicians for the evening, blithely launching hundreds of pounds worth of specially crafted, lethal, Kimbolton Fireworks to appreciative “oohs” and “aahs”.
• The school had an ‘ambiance’ of cheerfulness, being child-centred, village ‘ownership’ and an ‘up-beat’ feel - which was often commented on, unsolicited, by visitors and local and national inspectors.
• Groups of actors, musicians, artists and cultural ambassadors came into school (financed by the PTFA) to extend the horizons of all the children. All Key Stage Two children (8 - 11) visited local theatres, relevant exhibitions and concerts. We prided ourselves that the children were outward looking. Sammy Laryea, a Ghanaian Potter, artist and storyteller, became a family friend after he stayed with us during an extended period as ‘artist in residence’ in local schools. Through my brother’s connections (he by this time is now deeply into teaching as a profession) we welcomed Ashley Hutchins into school. Ashley is a ‘living legend’ for  me - a founder member of ‘Fairport Convention’. He has a passion for preserving the legacy of traditional song and dance. And what better way than directly involving the youth of the country. 

• We ran a film club. We had termly Discos. We has Jumble Sales. We had harvest festivals and delivered harvest baskets to identified local people. We linked with the local church for major festivals. 
• Year Six had a week’s camp in an LEA Outdoor Centre. One of the activities was caving. Full kit, coveralls, helmets and lights - I joined one of the expeditions when I visited for a day. I became ‘stuck’ in a narrow tunnel called the ‘worm squirm’, had to pretend I was OK while mentally writing the headlines for local newspapers, it still makes me break out into a cold sweat when I think of it.
• Another Year 6 Treat was to visit Heath House for an afternoon. They had orange juice served to them, after playing ‘golf’ on the croquet lawn by Mrs Phillips’ butler. They climbed the tower and walked the maze.
• The PTFA financed and installed a full computer network around the upper school. The authority helped create a fifteen station computer area  using half of an unneeded classroom. The children were using computers across the curriculum a couple of years before government finance was made available for this development in all schools. I have always been an advocate of computers in school. I see them as a creative tool for learning, in all areas. I’d had a project published at my previous school, a database search of ‘cat criminals’ created by the children and based on a dance piece to the music of Andrew Lloyd Weber. 
• So it was not a surprise to be contacted by English Heritage who wanted  to ‘write up’  a project, throughout the school. We had a ‘whole school theme’  for part of the Summer Term based on the history of the village. My Year 5 teacher had combined a data search of Census data for the previous century with the School Record Book for the same period and found children in school who were living in the houses and pupils from the past. We developed a teacher training video for ‘Citizenship in the historic environment’. The teacher and I were invited to talk about the project in Birmingham and English Heritage supported us in several direct ways.
• A visit by a glass artist, a creator of stained glass windows, produced a window, designed by the children, installed in each building (and paid for by the authority as ‘replacement windows’. We were on very good terms with the building inspector, and budgets had to be fully spent by the end of the financial year!
• There are certain characteristics of village life for which the school became a focus, positively harnessed, this feeds it’s ambience/ethos. From ‘school gate meetings’ and ‘carol services in the church’ to ‘Bingo’ for the pensioners and drug awareness meetings for the community. The ‘family feel’ permeates all levels. I was proud that the ‘scariest’ warning I could utter was “I’ll tell your Mum” and the child knew that I could and I would. 
•   On one afternoon, I got a telephone call from my ‘Crossing Lady’ to say   that she couldn’t get in for the end of the school day. I telephoned the school authority - there was not enough time to get a replacement. I put the ‘phone down and went off to find the fluorescent coat, hat and ‘lollipop’ to do the duty and see my children safely across the road between the two buildings. Much humorous banter for thirty minutes. Day over - but the following day the Health and Safety Authority tore several strips off me for acting without training. It sort of defines ‘village school’ and it’s special nature.
• This one is hard to explain. Easy to justify in that I followed through on what I often asked of Great Wood children - to ‘be true to themselves’, this was a theme of many assemblies. I’d lost the dark suit as uniform for the Head. Somehow I decided that in my imagination my self-image still had long hair. So if I was going to be true to myself I needed to have hair that matched that self image. Albeit I was beginning to go bald, ‘thinning’ as they say. It may have been a villain in a James Bond film, I really can’t remember, but the look was short and tidy from the front with a high pony tail reaching below the shoulder line. I’m still working on the length  but the ‘look’ began to take effect about ten years into my Headship, with the foreknowledge of parents, governors, staff and children. 
• Great Wood only ever reduced me to tears once. 

I had to exclude a pupil. 

This I took as a personal failure even though it was done to protect other children, because it was the only occasion that I had to resort to this most blunt of ‘controlling’ strategies.

• Mrs. Phillips, Chair of Governors - “Are all your ducks, swans ? Mr Brown?”

Tomas and Sam had their primary education at Great Wood. They had no issues or problems because their Dad was the Head. The occasional moan, that they were never favoured, in fact, just the opposite ! I loved being able to watch them grow on a day by day basis.

Like express trains - toddlers became teen-agers.

Happiest of friends, bitterest of, usually sport related, enemies. They played in the same, and in different bands - some of their various musics I appreciated, some ... I was just at a loss - on one of their discs Sam was responsible for ‘screaming vocals’!

We were, transport to gigs (all over the country) and a base for storing masses of gear and rehearsal rooms. Music making still goes on. 

There was a point 2004 or 2005, when I heard them comparing the costs of Christmas Presents. Needless to say we had always been scrupulously fair. I went quietly into ‘solve this now!’ mode. Family ‘talk’- one chose a book, the other a page, then a line, then a word, then a letter within the word - the result.

“From now on, you will receive four Christmas presents and you will give four presents. The total cost of presents should be modest and affordable. Each present will begin with the same letter, and this year the letter will be ‘F’.  We will use  that letter to theme any games we play.”

Stunned silence - then agreement. I heard Tomas explaining the new regime to a relative who responded with “... but there’s no ‘F’ in Christmas.”

Now celebrated in chocolate and hanging on the wall.

We continue this tradition to this day. This year’s letter is ‘U’.

They both went to a local High school in Cheadle, and then on to universities in Liverpool (Tom) and Manchester (Sam). Tom initially went into banking and pursued an interest in ‘Fraud Analysis’ and now works for ‘bet365’. Sam worked for and trained in e-commerce for ten years with ‘Regatta’ and now works as a Technical Lead in an award winning e-commerce agency.

During this period both Dad’s had died (Tomas Till 1908 - 1977), (Edwin Brown 1915 -1989). My Mum entered what we now know were the early stages of dementia. She needed support, living alone was not her strength. She came to live with us at Windy Arbour. We had had two outbuildings converted into self-catering accommodation now we converted a third into a ‘granny flat’. She never used it. She lived with us for 4 years, gradually becoming more and more mentally disoriented. She was supported by social services who took her out for an afternoon per week to give us respite. Eventually her mental world seemed to collapse into panic, fear and anxiety. Her dependency on us increased to a point where she required 24 hour care.

We were also supported by Social Services who explained that Hazel’s condition would only get worse and her life more fraught. She needed more care and calm than we could provide. We were advised to seek out a care home that we thought would fit her needs and personality. Peter and I visited five or six before settling on one near Uttoxeter race course called High Barrow. They suggested that she trialled a room for a couple of weeks while we went on holiday. The ‘couple of weeks’ became permanent residency, going with the flow rather than stopping, coming back to Windy Arbour, and then going back into care when needs arose.

This was a privately owned ‘home’. Any issues, and you dealt with the owner. We, and Hazel, were very happy with care and ‘quality of life’. It was only towards the end of Hazel’s life that the home was sold. It became  ‘managed’ and we felt that ‘the personal touch’ had gone and it had lost it’s personal feel, becoming more of an institution with ‘workers’ rather than a home with ‘caring friends’. Is it about

Gill, by now, is Assistant Head at her school. They would never let her leave. Blurton High is a tough school, but gradually, through hard work, dedication and thoughtful care for the children she became a well-respected senior teacher. Any issues and problems I may have had, simply paled into insignificance. when compared with hers. We tended not to talk ‘school’.

Simply, there is a huge gulf between Primary and Secondary education.

Different ‘worlds’.

....and the Government had decided that schools needed to be more formally inspected against a set of Nationally agreed levels. The National Curriculum was born. Great Wood had to subtly change it’s nature, ambiance and style if it was not to loose children/finance to neighbouring schools which were closer to the inspectors ideal model. 

We did, however, talk about re imagining our lives.

We had taken guests. There was Rafael, a french assistant, and Sammy, a Ghanaian Artist and storyteller. We offered them rooms and the option to live with us for a while at Windy Arbour. The house just expanded to let them ‘do their thing’, which included some almost legendary African cooking and getting inside information on the correct use of a machete when preparing coconuts, and trips to see bands I had never heard of - Todd Rundgren’s Utopia and the reason why the French don’t queue.

...and the ghost of an idea emerged.

THE SEVEN AGES - The fourth Age.

 The Soldier

‘Seeking the bubble reputation’

30 to 40 (1980- 1990)

There is a Spotify playlist for this section here - 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ivVFdT94CqsH4G4a9zGfu?si=ocnqhAhqRMysEav_hyx8Mw

Springcroft was  an education - dealing with teachers who have more experience than you do. John Lloyd took a risk appointing me. He was the first Head of this newish school in the fashionable suburb of Blythe Bridge. Serving the whole area but dominated by a vast new estate. Latch key children, the place was a desert in the daytime, both parents working....high expectations of the new primary school, feeding into a high school with glowing credentials. 

Staff, hugely experienced and comfortable in their ways. I think the ‘Boss’ thought that his ten-year plan needed a flick or two of a ‘progressive’ feather-duster of educational philosophy, which is where I was coming from. 

No pressure then for a new, young Deputy Head.

I tried, and was tolerated, but it was not until staff changes tipped the balance towards teachers trained at the same time or later than me that the ‘Boss’ got the blend he wanted, and more importantly the ‘brand’ he wanted. Schools are funded, in part, by number of children attending, so it’s an important management skill to ‘out do’ the competition.

Primary education in the 60’s and 70’s was moving towards a more child-centred approach, a concentration on the developing individual. ( although good teachers from earlier eras would rightly claim they had always intuitively done this!). There was a redefining of the purpose of education away from the ‘World of Work’  and more towards realising the potential of each child. Given my history and training I found this comfortable.

And gradually, oh so gradually I became established, more than tolerated, had a fortnight when I actually ran the school.

I was settled, Gill was Head of the Maths Department and developing a reputation for directing  school musicals. She also ran an evening class, Blurton Theatre Workshop. When Alan and Barbara gave up the directing of their group the two were amalgamated as Nucleus Theatre Workshop. We shared duties with this group, who had the advantage of having a really strong youth component. I was encouraged to write ‘one-acts’ after success with  a rewrite of the college rag review in the local theatre festival. Gill was encouraged to direct ever more exciting musicals, including, ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ and ‘The Boyfriend’, the ‘dance’ component of these shows and those she did at school, and still does with the village theatre group (Denstone Players) just has to be seen to be believed. Spectacular they most assuredly are.

Oddly, towards the end of the nineties, we became increasingly frustrated with the world of ‘amateur dramatics’. Probably a combination of seeing too many professional productions (doing things we could never achieve), family commitments and school responsibilities. We withdrew from the fray. Gill only doing a couple of musicals for school, making fifteen in total.

But... when we retired, well - straight back in. 

“I’ll just go and be an ‘indian’ I don’t need all that responsibility.”

Lots of teachers in the ‘Denstone Players’ , Gill’s reputation was known. She now happily performs in, directs and writes for the group. She is on her sixth pantomime with them.

There’ supporting evidence both for our family and theatrical exploits here:-

https://www.youtube.com/user/windyarb

and here:-

https://youtube.com/channel/UCAmHg56wDYgrky-jNGYKuNg

Meanwhile…

 … back in 1978 we  were paying more for the car than the mortgage - so we had moved !

The House at Alton - Glen Drive. I guess we thought this is as good as it gets. Large, four bedroom, new build on a very small ‘estate’. Two car family, rising through the ranks, developing solid reputations, season ticket  for the Royal Ballet, frequent trips to the theatres in London and Stratford. Money to burn...time on our hands...and, after a thoroughly thorough check-up which identified the fact that my sperm count was missing a zero - hundreds not thousands !... a child-free, professional couple - the world was our oyster…

STOP!

We did!

- in our tracks - two boy children born within a couple of years of each other. The first, Tomas, born during one of the coldest winter’s on record and just a few months after we’d moved again, into a very old and challenging,  isolated farmhouse on the outskirts of a village called Denstone. We set this very adventurous ‘ move’ upon the back of the ‘no children on the horizon’ notion. 

Gill was three months pregnant when we took possession.

 

Windy Arbour- ultimately, our haven of peace, financial security and a family home. But, in the early days (and we’ve been here for over thirty years) something of a challenge in terms of our DIY skills, our finances when the mortgage rate soared (we had stretched ourselves to the limit ) and we needed expert help to- 

replace the rotting wooden windows,

make a smokey Aga work at the times we were in and awake.

create a garden,

everything else we did ourselves, from exposing ancient beams to sweeping chimneys - Peter, my brother, fell through a bedroom ceiling when we were trying to remove wind blown snow from the loft space.

We coped, we learned new skills, we exercised old ones, we worked together sometimes, long shattering hours. But, gradually house and garden. came good - our home. Probably a good place to die!

Certainly a super place to bring up children. It was safe to explore, it was huge, space for everyone to do their particular thing from pretending to be Michael Jackson to full blown ‘band’ rehearsals. 

The children thrived. We were extremely fortunate, we were guided towards a child minder in the next village, Alton, the wife of a local police-man, two children of her own and a heart of gold. She loved our children and they had a second ‘family’ where they were secure and comfortable. Minimum maternity leave and then straight back into the teaching world.  Long school holidays and weekends allowed us to follow our careers and do our parenting. It seemed to work. Tom and Sam followed the same path, village playgroup, nursery school in Blurton (near to Gill) and then both to the Primary School where I worked. They spent the Fridays of their pre-school life being spoiled by their Grandparents in their new bungalow in Stockton Brook. We picked them up at the end of the day and stayed on for a family meal and ‘catch-up’. Predictable, stable, ...we called it the family ‘bubble’.It ‘was’ and ‘is’ hugely important. Fridays were family days

We invested in camping gear and a trailer - most holidays found us on the Welsh coast, often with 0ur college friends, Steve and Jan, who also had two sons, just a year older than ours. We had good sites but also we found  others by accident. I never got the hang of reversing a car with a trailer (which had everything in it including a  cooker, ‘fridge, awnings, ‘vango’ tents for the boys, gas bottles....) so I would drive miles trying to avoid the dreaded three- point turn!

In winter, we would often walk the local byways while the boys buzzed around on tricycles, scooters, skateboards, mountain bikes or whatever the currently favoured mode of transport was. Footpaths and disused railway lines led to woods, lakes, hillsides .... a veritable fairyland. On one heart - stopping moment Tomas skipped out onto a frozen lake surface at  Dimmingsdale....I knew that the ice would not take my weight...with a smile he skipped back into waiting arms. Not understanding the reason for the strength of the hug he got. 

And we could get, and on occasions still do get snow to brag about. However as Windy Arbour is on a hill the snow usually drifts in the wind which leaves the leeward clear. We never failed to get to work due to weather...in fact we never failed to get to work.  

NOT TRUE.

I was once ‘doctor’s rested’ for three days when, ‘jogging’ around the frozen field edges I managed to stumble  and put out a disc in my back. Bored out of my skull, I put on an old coat and hat (It was cold out) and hanging onto door frames and window ledges made a slow circuit of the house. Our next-door-neighbour, half a mile away, was soon checking to see who the ‘tramp’ was on our property. True ‘good neighbours’.

All around us are working farms. Crops, stock and machines. The children played indoors with farm models, DUPLO, LEGO, fantasy models, moved on to table top wargaming and ultimately various on-line games . Besides all the outdoor games they could invent.

Mortgage rate soared.....during our first couple of years, but somehow we managed to cling on. 

  

SEVEN AGES OF MAN . The Sixth Age.

The Sixth Age.

2000. - 2014.

The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound.

There is a spotify playlist which accompanies this age. It reflects the way in which our awareness of what “The World” means...... we don’t understand all the words either but that really doesn’t seem to matter.

Spotify Playlist. ‘The sixth Age. A world too wide’

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2b11QU6maDTQr4f8r8LGqS?si=1UechiB9RAi_ALTeIuXy7w

“...they do say.”, although who ‘they’ are and where they actually said it is open to debate - that the ‘rot’ started when every M.P. was issued with a copy of Microsoft’s ‘Encarta’. A bang up to date encyclopaedia instantly accessible from the new-fangled personal computers which were ‘de rigour’ for any politician ‘worth their salt’. They could challenge each other with facts, figures and (increasingly) data drawn instantaneously from their PC’s. 

A series of startling facts showed that the Brits were not top of every ranking in many areas. This led to a scrutiny of educational achievement world-wide. The Brits were not top of any ranking in educational matters. Almost instant demands for change across the Parliamentary floor. Change in schools, change in what children were taught, change in how they were taught.......and to generate ‘change’?.........competition, with monetary rewards...... a National Curriculum..... what is to be taught and how it is to be assessed nationally, standardised across the country. Ofsted - a national inspectorate, tasked with assessing the ways school worked and naming and shaming, local news, national rankings....... those schools who were not following the new methodology. 

Somewhere in amongst all this flurry of activity proven ‘good practice’ and ‘the individual child’ sank beneath the rising tide of implementation, documentation and record keeping, league tables and all the training, materials and ‘focus groups’ that accompanied it.

Thirty years earlier a class of students had laughed out loud at the notion that in France, every child, of a certain age, would be working from the same page, in the same book.  Thirty years - for me, happily piloting my own school, using a methodology tried tested and crafted by experts to match the needs of individual children and the needs of creative teachers. This was a branch in the road.

DB- Gill, what do you think about ‘early retirement’?

GB - Yes, sounds like a good idea, I know you’re not a ‘happy bunny’. Give it a couple of years and I’ll join you.

D.B - Yes?

GB - Yes!

So we did.

Aside #1

One of the gifts I received, when I retired, was a trip in a Hot Air balloon. It wasn’t until the treetops turned into broccoli and I had an almost uncontrollable urge to leap out and rejoin solid ground, that I discovered I had vertigo.... My fingernails left marks in the back of Gill’s hands that lasted for weeks.

Aside#2

I attended a ‘Long Service Award Ceremony” just before I retired. I gently ‘buttonholed’ the Chief Education Officer and asked him if he would like to know why I had chosen to retire early. He smiled, looked me in the eyes and just shook his head.

I had a need to do something useful.

I joined The Samaritans on the strength of me thinking that I was able to ‘problem solve’ and use a telephone. Samaritan Training quickly re-educated me. It involved twelve weeks of intensive, theory and practice to a depth which was, at times, too realistic. I ‘passed’, joined the Monday Team and committed to a weekly three hour session and one monthly overnight.Towards the end of my ten year stint I was part of the training team where some of my skills were actually useful. Samaritans is a brilliant support organisation. I learned a great deal about those I share the world with and I also learned a great deal about myself.

I did a bit of ‘cycle training’ around the county, then after two years Gill fully retired (having done some part-time) and ‘Windy Arbour, Accommodation Provider’, came ‘on-line’ .

Hazel, my Mum, sold her bungalow in Stockton Brook, and came to live with us. ‘The World’ was getting too much for her to cope with alone. (We didn’t realise that these were early signals of dementia. She lived with us for several years  until she required the specialist provision of a ‘care home’ and the experts they employed. She had split her ‘worldly wealth three ways, which meant we had funds, we converted a shed and an adjoining stable into a ‘Granny flat’/holiday cottage. We were, at this time, also in the process of having  a barn converted into a holiday let and  managed to buy a strip of land with a wreck of a shed on it from our local farmer. We had the ‘wreck’ converted into our final holiday cottage. Windy Arbour had four rentable bedrooms and three cottages ‘Dove’, ‘Bouquet’ and ‘Peacock’. A total of twenty four paying guests. We were up and running!.

This reads as if it was planned and happened quickly, it was far more protracted, and the ‘right’ people and funds being in the ‘right’ places at the ‘right’ times. I think this is when the word ‘serendipity’ crept into the ‘much used’ section of my vocabulary.

We had our own website. (since redesigned/improved by Sam.)

www.windyarbour.co.uk.

We joined our local group of accommodation providers, for Alton Towers and the surrounding area.

We attended Local Government classes on Tax, Health and Safety and Fire Regulations.  (I invited the local fire chief, to come and informally ‘inspect’ us, I knew him from school. That visit cost us the first year’s profits!!!) - Windy Arbour became a business.

- and guests, flocked in. 

Famously Sir Christian Bonnington (whose signature we had seen on a table in the Rum Doodle Bar  - a mountaineeers’ ‘hangout’ in Nepal), David Solomona, Professional Rugby Player, a BBC filming team and the Llanelli Police Male Voice Choir, who arrived on Harley Davidsons, frightened the pants of us and then performed around our piano late into the night.

We have always been able to work as a team. So we divided the responsibilities responsibly.

An insight

Breakfast.

Tables checked, they were reset the previous day. Orange Juice, butter jams and honey, milk, stocked fridge of prepared fruit and yoghurts, individual cereal choices.

Move to kitchen, prepare, sausages, bacon, beans and tomatoes.

Quiet, gentle reggae music.

Take orders from arriving guests (Breakfast served between 8.00am and 10.00pm)

Prepare individualised breakfasts with choice of fried, scrambled or poached fresh eggs (we had acquired some chickens), oatcakes ( a Staffordshire speciality of a cheese-filled rolled, savoury, oat pancake) - or toast, yoghurts and fruit for those who wanted something a little less daunting than one of our cooked breakfasts.

Coffee, tea and chat.

We served breakfast in our conservatory, which on a sunny morning could often take a while to empty.

Clear, dishwasher, clean conservatory. Settle bills with those leaving. Do the ‘meine host’ thing.

Strip and clean all rooms and cottages which were going to be newly used.

Washing and ironing laundry as required. A press and an audiobook player made this one of my jobs..

Check and clean, stay overs and the rest of the house.

Reset for breakfast.

Shop for provisions when required.

Through the season, this was often seven days a week  eight months of the year. (And never a cross word) . We always employed both a gardener and a house-keeeper.

We were open from Easter until after Alton Towers lit their final firework and scared (‘Scarefest’) their last customer.

We had ‘repeat bookings’..... we had “sorry no vacancy’ digital messsages....... things were going well, we had spare cash... we decided to spend it on seeing the world.... 

 - so, we took two extended holidays a year, either tours or cruises, sometimes with friends, sometimes just each other.... and we visited the ‘four corners of the earth’.

Highlights would have to include,

• Kilimanjaro with a large herd of elephant walking into the sunset.
• Varanasi, on the Ganges. Aarti, the ceremony of the setting sun.
• Everest as we flew out of Kathmandu where we drank in the Rum Doodle Bar.
• The temple of Abu Simbel from the Nile.
• The Victoria Falls and lightning over Rourke’s Drift,
• Samba school floats in Rio de Janeiro at Mardi Gras.
• Chilean Glaciers  after visiting Machu Picchu.
• Cliff-top, sun setting traditional dance and thieving monkeys stealing sunglasses in Bali.
• Taj Mahal and Delhi traffic.
• Crossing a bridge into Hoi An, a Vietnamese evening market, with candle lit lanterns reflected in the river.
• Photographing a cheetah and a seventeen strong pride of lions from an open land rover where you could see, hear and smell the wildlife.   
• A Zanzibar spice farm.
• Hummingbirds in Cuba, alligators in the Everglades and flying fish in the Caribbean.
• Cliff divers in Acapulco.
• Getting lost in the Angkor Wat temple complex.
• San Franciscan trolley cars, ‘tuk-tuks’ in Goa, elephants to the Red Fort and jeapnees in Manilla.
• L’Hermitage, the Vatican, and Venice- ‘art for art’s sake’
• Kumari, the ever living goddess in Nepal.
• The Peace Park - Nagasaki.   

 

Our world is a vast and wonderful place.

No apologies for this. We did what we did, when we did it. We, I believe, became better people with a more focussed and pragmatic view of the world, by talking to and ‘rubbing shoulders’ with the people in the countries we visited.

We did feel a little uncomfortable when the swing for recommended accommodation in our area began to be focussed on those premises which could be identified and visibly “badged” as ECO-FRIENDLY.

Our carbon footprint in terms of air and sea miles travelling for ten years, always more than counterbalanced any eco-savings we made!!!

Ten years on and we were working harder than we worked when we were ‘full time educators’ in schools. We employed a gardener and a house-keeper/cleaner. We decided to close the Bed and Breakfast side of the business and just rent out the three cottages for self-catering accommodation.

In 2010, under the auspices of the National Garden Scheme, we opened Gill’s garden to the public, took their donations, gave guided tours and provided cream teas. Over three years their charities funds were swelled by over £2000 and we felt shattered and righteous.

On several occasions whole families took Windy Arbour over, en-massse. Usually for weddings or family celebrations. These were exciting and  ‘full on’ times. We made new friends. Sometimes staff on limited contracts from JCB would join us for extended stays and sometimes parents and family of children attending Denstone Collage would do the same. Life was hectic and varied.

As Mum’s Dementia became more apparent and less easy to manage we were supported by Staffordshire Social Services. Ultimately, we knew that we needed a level of ‘care skill’ that we did not have in a setting which was more settled than neither our house nor Peter’s could provide. Peter and I spent time ‘checking out’ local care and after visiting, and spending time in several homes chose a specialist home in Uttoxeter. High Barrow, a home with a country setting, a county registration, specialist staff, an open-approach to visitors and in which Hazel seemed calm and cared for. It was run by a husband and wife team who, for us, ‘pressed all the right buttons’. Hard time and hard decisions. 

Time off from the day to day running of the business and less  need to ‘be there’ for Hazel began to be filled with the village, it’s people and activities. Gill, joined the W.I., an organisation not high on her list, but one which was on the fringes of interest. Through that contact we were asked to show pictures of our travels, with a joint commentary, to the Tuesday Club, an afternoon for the community’s pensioners. Gill, joined the Denstone Players, a theatre group performing in the village hall two or three times a year, she joined as an ‘indian’ but soon became a ‘chief’ when they discovered that she was responsible (directing and choreographing) the celebrated school productions of over a dozen front line musicals and her work with various amateur groups in Stoke-on -Trent. Now, in her seventh year, she produces, directs and choreographs the village annual pantomime.  Often also appearing in other productions that the group creates, Gill also runs the ‘Silver Swans” - an exercising, ballet class for mature ladies as well as the Denstone Theatre Workshop which creates a range of the props, scenery and costumes required for her increasingly mind-blowing productions.

The village and it’s community have become an important focus for the first time. We have made some good friends. We have shared in the village’s life and ‘touched’ the idea of roots and belonging.

We had been chasing our own success. We needed the time not the money, as we were  to discover.