Postscript: Time and the Aftermath of War

A noticeable side-effect of growing older is the way one's sense of time collapses inwards. Events that seem to have happened relatively recently become talked about by a younger generation as if they were ancient history.

The upcoming 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings may start a trickle of TV documentaries on World War 2. All will doubtless claim to offer new insights, which Saturday's 'Bloody Omaha' on BBC2 certainly did. It followed a standard pattern of running for a hour whether the material needed it or not, and was padded out with the usual narrative repetition, familiar-looking old newsreel footage and colourful comments from two or three photogenic veterans.

It is the current fashion for programmes like this to be fronted by popular celebrities rather than knowledgeable experts. Richard Hammond, clown and professional semi-yob, bless him, hardly brought gravitas to this sombre subject. Instead, it was slightly surreal to hear him discussing the war with a youthful academic for whom the war seemed to be a matter of records and statistics to be interpreted whichever way one chose.

Although I'm not old enough to have experienced WW2 itself, I was born in the aftermath and grew up in a world in which its scars and consequences were all around us. Not just the physical scars of bombsites and material deprivation, but the psychological scars on the adult survivors. So it created a strange kind of deja-vu to hear the war being talked about in a way that seemed so detached from the physical reality itself. It illustrates, maybe, how the prism of historical analysis can rob events of life and context, turning them into neutral abstractions to be manipulated to suit any convenient theory.


The spur to say these things was the email I blogged about yesterday, in which I noted the enthusiastic support of corporal punishment in the schools of my childhood. Perhaps the key to understanding this is to remember the proximity of war. As I suggested at the beginning of this post, a decade or so to an adult is only a short span. Not enough time perhaps to heal hidden signs of trauma. Some of the men who taught me had seen active service and may have slaughtered other men or at least lived in daily fear of being slaughtered themselves. In their own warped thinking, it perhaps seemed right that us boys should learn that life was hard and that they should be the ones to teach us that lesson. Having survived the war, there was perhaps some faith in the Nietzschean apophthegm, "what does not kill me makes me stronger". Hmmm...

The Happiest Days of Whose Life?

In quick succession, I have received another invitation to consider the past. The PTA at my old secondary school wanting to collect memories for a projected book. I'm not the one to ask, I reckon. Anyway, it made me collect my thoughts on the matter, so here's what I wrote in reply:


Thank you for inviting me to contribute to your History of King's School project. Unfortunately, I am not the best person to ask as my memories of King's are largely memories of five years of misery. Excuse me if I explain why.

The boys who were my fellow pupils were all full of ideas, energy and enthusiasm. The late 50s and early 60s were a time when we were all drunk with the idea that we could build a new world for ourselves. Not only were we discovering the attractions of the opposite sex, we would spend our free time walking and talking about new and radical thinking. It was through swapping and trading stuff in the quad that I got hold of my first copies of Ginsberg and Kerouac, that I learned about Angry Young Men such as Pinter and Osborne, that I got second-hand 45s by obscure American bands. It was only the sharing of ideas by so many like-minded spirits that made school anything more than a repressive grind.

To be fair, there were clubs and societies that were worth joining, a Chess Club, Music Society, Boxing. The CCF allowed us to don ex-WW2 uniforms and re-enact in our heads our fathers' wartime experiences. We let ourselves be bullied by NCOs in the name of discipline and spent field-days crawling around in the undergrowth of Sherwood Forest or Belton Park.

The counter-point to this was the unforgivably harsh culture of corporal punishment, particularly when it was allowed to be administered by senior boys, some of whom clearly took a sadistic delight in administering or observing it. The process went completely unmonitored and ignored by staff. Maybe I was unfortunate in being assigned to Newton House. Experience showed it to be a house that cherished its sporting achievements, something that I lacked the competitive drive to excel in. Had I done so, it would have offset some of the "stars" that some teachers liked to regularly set against my name. Stars meant "lack of effort" and resulted in being summoned to appear equally regularly before the House Prefects to be beaten, or "codded" with a gym shoe.

All this happened, of course, under the headmastership of Mr Huggins, whose memory some people seem to revere. I believe things improved under Mr Goodban, who came in too late to be of any benefit to me. Indeed, I left the school as soon as I could, after gaining my O Levels at sixteen. As someone whose interests were artistic rather than academic or sporting, the school had no more interest in keeping me on than I had in staying. Careers advice consisted of trying to persuade people like me to join the local civil service, that is, become a post office clerk.

Being mechanically minded I drifted into various local garages as a "grease monkey", or apprentice motor mechanic, where I could indulge my passion for fast motorbikes. It was chance discussions with tutors at Grantham College three years later (where I attended engineering classes on day release) that my talent for draughtsmanship was explained to me and I was advised to improve my career prospects through full time study. At least King's had given me the five O Level minimum I needed, so I went to Lincoln Art School to get a couple of A levels and take an Art Foundation Course. From there I went to Sheffield Polytechnic for three years to get my DipAD/BA in Fine Art (Painting) followed by a three year postgraduate scholarship to the Royal College of Art to gain my MA. A circuitous route, perhaps, but at least I got to where I was happiest in the end.

Sorry I can't be more positive about King's but that's how it was for me.

Times Past: Time's Passed

The River Nene at Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire

It was great to hear from an old friend this week, even though he had to tell me the sad news about another friend's death. It got me thinking about things as I put a few words together in reply. It became a sort of statement about my life as it is at the moment. This is what I wrote back to him.

Hi Vince.
Great to hear from you, even if you were the bearer of sad news. Poor Dave, it was no age to go. Was it the big C? I don't know about you, but I've recently become much more aware of how little time our generation has got left - the future no longer stretches into infinity. I often read obituaries of men who I've always thought of as my generation. Blowing away like leaves on a windy day.
I lost my own Mum earlier this year. She lived with me for the past ten years or more since my Dad died, and as she drifted into her nineties became more incapacitated, immobile as well as virtually blind. Because of having to care for her, I shed more and more of my teaching work until this year I've only been teaching two mornings a week. I couldn't bear to give it up completely. If I did, I don't think it it would be long before I joined the two Daves. Quite honestly, teaching and keeping up with what the new generation is doing is the only thing that keeps me focussed on life. (The extra bit of spending money is nice too!)
Anyway, on a more cheerful note, I wonder what did become of Shirley Lee. I find it hard to imagine she's still around. She must be a very old lady if she is. I often think back to those days and often regret that we let life move us on. I often say to people that the years in Lancashire were the happiest years of my life. Perhaps it was because we were fresh from the RCA, green but full of confidence in what life was going to offer us. I often wonder about other people who crossed our path in Preston. I remember Roger Swanborough (who had also been behind us at the RCA), Sylvia Lees whose husband Peter had been at the RCA at the same time as us, and there was a nice girl Linda who taught fashion. I also have fond memories of Stan Hogg, who ran the printing trade courses. He must surely be dead by now. Lots of the students linger in the memory too because their quirky character. I've still got one or two photographs of that time that bring it all back.
It would be nice to make time to renew old friendships. You're clearly much better at it than me. Although I've loved friends dearly, I seem to spend my life with my head down, burrowing away without looking to right or left and abandoning everything I've left behind me. Not really a good trait, but I've learnt to live with it.

Times Past: A Snowy Day

Now that Spring is in full swing, it's easy to forget the snow we had in February. Here's a little reminder of a trip we made to meet up with Will and his family. Though they weren't in, we found them snugly settled in the lounge bar of the village pub. The snow had tempted them into making their own Arctic expedition. With snowfalls like this now so uncommon, even nine-year old Sol had never seen so much!

Naughty Fun? My very own barrel of monkeys.

Took in this homeless bunch, who look as though they've been living rough. They don't seem very house-trained and need a good wash and some clean clothes. Plastic surgery in some cases. (Greg the Bunny has some useful advice on cosmetic surgery) Still, they make me laugh and are good fun to have around. I'm sure we'll get along just fine.

A Trip to New Lanark

New Lanark. To someone who doesn't know about it, it's hardly a name to conjure with. Just another name signposted off the busy M74 linking Glasgow to Carlisle and the M6.

Not a bit of it, I knew it would be worth seeing. When I taught the contextual history of early photography, I used to show my students an engraving of New Lanark as it looked in 1816. We would then look at prints of industrial scenes of the mid-nineteenth century, sparking a lively discussion of the changes that took place in that extraordinary time. Changes that continue to resonate through the environmental issues we wrestle with today.

Edinburgh Art (3): Claire Barclay at the Fruitmarket Gallery

A visit to the Fruitmarket Gallery is worth making for the cafe alone, I was told. Award-winning coffee and irresistable home-made cakes. A great little bookshop too, specialising in hard-to-find art books and small-press books and zines. The Gallery's position nicely complements the City Art Centre, which is directly across the road in Market Street.

The current exhibition, running until 12th April, is by Scottish installation artist Claire Barclay. The piece in the photograph, which is called Subject to Habit, is fairly typical of her preoccupations. It mixes ready-made objects with specially designed, machine-made objects that seem oddly familiar but which defy absolute categorisation. For instance, the black gym mats in this piece trigger an association which determines how we read the other objects, which in turn are clearly not the objects our conditioned responses would lead us to think they should be. All the work in the show plays on the ambiguity of forms, carrying contradictory connotations such as malevolence and benevolence in an uneasy balance.

An informative video interview with the artist was looping in an upstairs room and the show was supported by a series of talks and a seminar. Edinburgh is indeed a lucky town.

Edinburgh Art (2): The City Art Centre

It's always a slightly frustrating pleasure to discover a great exhibition just before it closes. No time for a second look or sharing your discovery with friends. Visual Arts Scotland's 2009 Annual Open Exhibition at the City Art Centre was a luxurious warm wallow in the best contemporary art that Scotland has to offer. Sadly, this year's show closed after a six-week run on 19th March. Every 2 and 3-d medium (and style) seemed to be represented in more than 300 artworks displayed over two floors of this beautiful gallery.

I clearly wasn't the only one to fall in love with Kenneth Le Riche's large oil painting, The Conversation. This detail was used as the front cover design of the catalogue. To the left of this cropped image a shadowy male figure stands outside on a balcony, glimpsed through an open doorway. A well-deserved prizewinner.

Two floors down was the show that brought me here, drawn by my curiosity to see Bob Dylan's Drawn Blank series of paintings (also ended on 19th March). As the archetypical hero and spokesman of my generation as it grew into maturity, Dylan can still do no wrong. His 2006 album Modern Times is as hauntingly memorable as any of his earlier work. But with Dylan, there is always the hidden side where man and myth blur - and nothing is quite what it seems.


I have to say I quite like the work. Stylistically, it is fauve, with loose drawing and flat, vibrant colour. Echoes of Matisse or Dufy.The original drawings are said to have been made when Dylan was on the road and show a world in motion, of short stops and sidewalks, casual acquaintances and cafe tables. There is, in his subjects, none of the sensual intimacy of the original Fauves. Dylan's drawn line is much more fragmentary, angular and broken.

Key to interpreting the work, for me, is understanding that it is a composite of scanned drawings and painted modifications made more than a decade later. Like the mystery of the man himself, it is a subtle layering of reality and fiction.

Edinburgh Art (1): Calum Colvin at the Royal Scottish Academy

Natural Magic, on show until 5th April, is Calum Colvin's ideosyncratic tribute to Sir David Brewster, the eminent Victorian scientist/inventor whose researches into light and optics made an important contribution to the development of photography.

It's a fun, interactive show that needs you to press your nose against mirrors or look through coloured spectacles. An aesthetic Fun Factory for grownups. The catalogue is an elegant piece of affordable design, with a white-on-white cover and the handmade look of a brass screw post binding. As a bonus, there is a free stereoscopic viewer inserted in the back cover which is used to view the side-by-side stereoscopic illustrations.

London to Edinburgh by Train

The golden rule is always to sit on the right side of the train facing forwards, preferably in Coach B (the Quiet Coach). There you see most of what this wonderful journey has to offer as you speed through Northumberland and the Scottish Borders: Holy Island/Lindisfarne, the righthand sweep across the viaduct at Berwick-upon-Tweed and the wild romantic views of the North Sea, with its fishing boats and lonely ruins. To see all this and then to arrive at Waverley Station. Train journeys don't get any better than this!

Lindisfarne, seen from a train.

In Memoriam

Jocy Doreen Rita Pearson
(née Edlington)
30th September 1916 – 15th February 2009

How long will it take to come to terms with Mum's absence? Happy memories – here on holiday in 2004 with Florence in Villedieu-les-Poëles, Normandy, France. Happy days indeed.

One Day in Prague

At last I've finished putting together the video clips from our weekend break in Prague. A collage of some of the more memorable sights and sounds. So glad to have had the chance to go back to the city of dreams.