Light Orchestra

Long time since Sennen Light Orchestra played.

There I was walking down a lane to the clifftop houses overlooking the Atlantic on a grey August evening surrounded by memories of long ago some good some not I’ve not been there for a long time but I am around for a few days now and Nigel is there in the parking spaces next to the start of nothing with a LandRover surrounded by stuff; the music starts to play:

 “Hey buddy Tony is looking for you are you going down?” 

“Ye I’m on my way to make some noises.”

“How are you with snakes; he has one in the house.”

“Fine what kind?”

“Its an adder, its big its been there a week, he has been wearing wellies a lot, he thinks its gone but its still there living under the bath.”

Then a sweet coda closes the piece:

 “He doesn’t have a mouse problem.”

“K, I won’t take a bath then.”

Nigel gets on with what he has to do and I head down the steep winding uneven steps no one the same as the next one. The paths the same the bushes are a bit bigger. Even in August the spring is pooling by the door and the door is open as always. The floor still slopes towards the cliff edge, I adjust my balance and avoid running down hill. Tony has a banjo in his hand looking at it like it has just been talking to him and he doesn’t know what to say back again. The tamarisk waves outside the window a seagull shouts at something, it doesn’t matter about the shouting but it keeps it up for a long moment, all the seagulls that have ever shouted are part of it.

“I’m just tuning everything I’ll just get on, its my routine, don’t mind me” Says Tony. 

He makes some noises, nice ones, electric bottleneck chorusy delay ones, I pick up the old blue pot, it makes its tabla like sounds for me and time moves past slipping behind us. The house is the same but with more instruments, banjos, mandolins, guitars, a piano, Hammond organ and all sorts of other odd ones. Time slips by he sings about good friends old friends and I am tongue-tied we keep making noises, he gives me the guitar and pours something golden into glasses, it does delay things I don’t understand and I don’t make many good noises.

“What about…” Says Tony.

So I play something free and mindless and that wonderful thing that happens sometimes happened then. Tony picks up a harmonica and it still works then I play piano on we go flying together in some bluegreenseaplaces.

“Long time since Sennen Light Orchestra played.” Says Tony.

We talk without words for some hours, some noises we say are good some are not good, we move around from instrument to instrument blending discord and harmony some go well together some don’t, some of the time is perfect; that’s the way it is with good friends and good conversations.

“Its time.” I say, the Tamarisk waves outside the window.

“Bye”            We say.

learning in the garden

I am learning about people who come to look at our house, after 20 years it is for sale. Lots of people say our garden is like a lot of rooms and I guess they are right it is long and sloping in jumbled interlocking terraces with shrubs and granite walls of varying sizes from knee high to over head high, there are defined spaces, half hidden spaces, some ancient some more recent but all with wilderness in their spirit. Ones who don’t really bond but like the garden well enough stomp fairly rapidly and boldly glancing at the edges as they head to the far end then back up taking in a few details, general dimensions, the pond, banana plants, sunshine, privacy. Others stop on the first step holding back but leaning forward peeping into a potential world of treasure, they sometimes hold their breath and become light for a short time before gently stepping down between walls of fuchsias and under the canopy of an ancient apple tree. The lady today turned left onto an old brick path leading past an ancient bay tree to a couple of small half overgrown ponds under deep tree cover. She stepped slowly and graciously along the old path, placing her feet precisely, measuring and understanding each step and pausing before putting her whole weight forward like on a slippery stepping stone, hesitant feeling her presence deeply assessing her impact, waiting to soak up what has been and join it to her present being before imagining times she might feel here. She stops at the end unsure if it is the end looking for something to do some one to be. Her stance strengthens she makes contact with the space, listens to the air, grounds herself, soaks it up, makes the kind of approving noises we don’t realise we utter. Then a firm “yes” to the world and herself but not to us - in answer to an inner question. She breathes, turns and again makes her cautious delicate journey back to the main path. Reaching out and touching plants, her eyes both intent and distant she basks in the space, approaches me for interesting intermittent conversations about sun, wind and shade, oleanders and roses, about traces of times gone by, life’s goals and achievements, its down times too, and things left still to do, a privileged insight into each others lives is exchanged, they won’t buy it but it wasn’t a waste of time for either of us, my understanding of what is to be gained when selling a house has altered considerably.

waiting room

I didn’t seem to fit the waiting room today, wasn’t part of the crowd, no common ground, everyone else there first already bonded in silence, packed in too close for comfort, everyone seemed in their own little world, withdrawn, introspective, intense, a nurse took one down the corridor, 10 mins pass I look at their shoes a surprising amount of new ones not many of any quality but mostly clean and newish there is a lot of neatness about you can almost taste it. I wonder what others are thinking about me because I am certainly making conjectures about them, rhymes arrive,
what will their guesses be ?
How far from reality
will they be placing me?
How far from their reality
Are the guesses that come from me?

The lady next to me too near for me to have looked closely at her yet whispers “boring isn’t it” I say yes not even a fish-tank”
She says something about us having to bring our own, we feel a little less uncomfortable but don’t speak for a while. Then two more arrived one small wizened but sharp confident lady in a yellow cardigan over a puce dress with her man in a wheelchair, loud she was, feeling important about knowing the specialist ‘he will remember me he couldn’t forget me. Did you pass water in the other room with the nurses ?” she said, he said nnnnnhhhhhwhat ? she said louder “ when they took you away they wanted you to pass water to have a wee, did you manage ?” a few more goes and he says “yes and I didn’t wet any nurses this time” he seems quite pleased with himself and not at all self conscious however feet shuffle, magazines are turned and the lady next to me seems to have shrunk and is making teeth sucking noises, the pair move on to focus on spotting important people in this grubby paint peeling, be careful our corridors are narrow, back end of an almost closed vital service. “Hello, there he is, do you remember me ?” “Yes hello dear how are you “ in his eyes it looks like he doesn’t remember but he plays the game.
A man tries to shush his mother who is ruminating intermittently on their debts in a loud enough voice. Silence again for a few mins then some one who works here passes by and knows the man’s mother and the man too, they are a very loud three, talking about cruises and I can’t fly it would kill me see so we have to drive 900 miles to India to get on this special cruise ship because the last holiday they went on was ruined by Germans, behaving like pigs they were, you couldn’t get at the food or at the pool for Germans I have met a few nice ones but there aren’t many” the lady next to me does more teeth sucking then hissing then starts speaking in German, then she says to me “I have to behave don’t I; I don’t usually manage I don’t like behaving” The three eventually stop talking about the germans and justifying their hatred and move on to more acceptable topics of the we have got more money than you variety, the teeth sucking German speaking lady says to me “you don’t need a fish tank in here” I say “its like being in a radio play right in side one.” We smile and sit in contented silence for a while. The floor show is eventually over just us two left then a nurse asks me if I am in for my feet, no I say, she goes away and another one comes along and asks who I am, I tell her and she tells me I should have logged my visit at reception I explain that I did not see reception I had been directed from far away to the waiting room and had not seen a reception but had come across the waiting room so had done the correct thing and waited in it.
“ Ah” she says “you must have come the other way there is no sign from that direction most people come this way.”
“I didn’t come that way, shouldn’t there be two signs ?”
“Why ? Most people come the other way.” she said. “But I didn’t…”

I give up she is not really listening and prob has better things to think about but I do begin to have some concerns about the capabilities of the staff and get to wishing it was a play I was in rather than a rather shabby real reality show.
Eventually after an increasingly morbid conversation with my sole surviving waiting friend where it turns out that it is her partner who is with the chap I need to see and it would be hard to be alone he has been with the specialist for ages …if its bad news I might get a cat…. you need somebody or something to care for keeps you moving keeps you going” my turn then into see a new man, I was not impressed with the last one and hoped for better this time. Sitting in a room told “He will be 5 minutes just finishing off with another patient” poor soundproofing I thought as snatches of conversation drift from the consulting room then the door opens a white bearded man loud and busy grins at me “We cant find anything wrong with you your scan is clear” a nurse tells him it is the other door his patient is waiting behind and he apologises and withdraws. “oh dear dear ruuuuuaaaaahhhhhhhhrrrrr “ seeps through to me under the door – its been one of those days for him I thought. At least the entertainment is better in this particular corner of the hospital but I am not confident and it does not feel real at all like when I was four and had been asleep on the cold bus coming back from a winter visit to Rowland’s Gill and was woken to get off the bus and walk the few hundred yards to Newcastle train station, my legs wouldn’t walk then we were waiting in the station cold night air, starlings in their thousands settling down, that layer of tobacco smoke that used to lie permanently in public spaces here mixed with diesel, then a train seat and my head bumping and vibrating against the glass snatches of reflections and water drops till sleep catches me again. Waking next morning the train station walk is like a dream half real, something that might have happened, that is what the waiting room was like was it yesterday or today it is so unreal I can no longer remember. Who had a scan? Life seems to be becoming more absurd as I get old rather than more understandable as I gain the wisdom of age.

that thing

There is a thing not in my pocket but it is different to all other things it’s a thing I remember when I am in places where I can’t write things down it is only one thing sometimes when I try and write it it feels like it was a bit like a farm gate or a corner of somewhere some times it feels wetter like fresh morning dew in early summer when cold is still there but moving away it is a hollow thing like the inside of a bubble of air in a marble but as big sounding as inside a cathedral it has colour too like mid morning in the autumn skies and silvery white moorland grasses the kind that is creamy thick jersey milk yellow when you get close there is texture too like sheep’s wool stranded on gorse nestled in hollows it is an important thing to me at least perhaps private only to me although there were birds there to see it too I might be disappointed if I ever get to write it down hold captive on a page it will cease to be a free spirit for me but will be free to flow out to you do you have a thing like that too should we capture them and keep them trapped in words on white squares in eternal stasis or let them live free and die alone with us ?

running and a man

Underfoot danger from damp sycamore leaves some soggy and disintegrating some with scrunchy edges on past the blackened church and little dark graveyard nestled unsettlingly in to a corner of this ever growing suburbia blackened bark on holly trees shadowy shabby cousins of their countryside relations a sight of the sea greybluewhite spitting wild strip in the distance running now against the wind head down pace fitting the size of the paving stones mum talked a lot about a time when she always wanted to walk along a railway track then when they closed all the railways she did it near Starward peel and it was hard work no one quite managed to match the spacing of the sleepers and the gravel was scrunchy and tiring like waking on angry sand she said big wide slabs laid across the path now heavy to move they must be every other one a stepping stone land in the middle not in the puddle then smooth hard tarmac soft underbarefoot on hot days and sometimes golden in summer sunlight and cold hard black and incandescent with dazzling neon reflections of street-lights and shop signs on wet nights but today just grey and smooth and dead and slowly more and more sandy at first bits at the edges mixed with dirt then more and more spread over the road until it covers the roaddirt and piles like snow against the kerb slippery on corners and downhill the wind is in the East and was blowing strong all night now just a cold breeze enough to ruffle but not to excite the sea down down down the long ramp the first 20 yards are fine then over the next I pick up speed another 20 and I am cruising then it gets faster and more uncomfortable toes pushing hard into the front of my shoes at first then hurting burning every impact like a hammer blow upwards on the ball of my foot the laces lashing and the front of my foot pushing against the tongue as I try to slow and stumble taking giant steps so that’s why they made us do them in infants school banging about on a dark honey gold parquet floor to Mrs Chapman's penetrating grenfil like commands that practice helps me now make it down the ramp to slide and tumble onto the almost deserted beach different world down here it smells of stale and fresh at once the sea trying to be clean the river and us giving it more than it can cope with down through the soft sand onto the hard flat sand by the waters edge golden even in this grey light and the sea piling up waves higher than I am if they are up hill why don’t they flood me cold seeps into my feet first through the bottoms like it does when you stand at a buss stop too long on a frosty night then round the sides as the damp slowly penetrates the soft leather little toes getting numb chanting run faster get warmer run faster get warmer then a change of pace hot chocolate drinking chocolate hot chocolate drinking chocolate hot chocolate drinking chocolate run faster get warmer run faster get warmer it almost works but the relentless bitter East wind sapps the heat from my legs and my ears I am freezing at the end of the beach I climb the boulder clay where the prom ends sheltered at last the climbing and the shelter sent warmth almost too much warmth rushing through every blood vessel in my body I am glowing knowing it wouldn’t last I look out over the headland little cove fishing boats hugging the coast sheltering against the sea waiting for the waves to abate so they could venture out further eee petunia look at that man ees waving at us, wave back look he’s gone for a swim you wouldn’t want to do that on a day like this slithering down muddy clay paths on the back of the camel’s hump I set off lolloping across the shore rocks feeling their rhythm dancing to their placing in time and space I know all the routes there must be loads of rocks like this round here big as 6 football pitches this bit is at least and thousands of rocks faster faster then little bounces to slow down for a large flattish bright green sea lettuce covered slab of russet and gold Permian sandstone slowly carefully sliding now skirting rock pools where green and red crabs live and shiny top shells that sometime s hold a hermit crab and starfish and anemones that squirt when you press picking up speed now safe ground round boulders with dry tops flyingdancing hardly touching the rocks like when a bike gets up speed and you hardly have to pedal to keep it singing along flying on elflight feather feet the world moving below me and I just dancing on the spot harmony in motion music in motion is this like when they walk on clouds in films and books like jack and the beanstalk and like angels feel on clouds looking down on another world and up to the beach hut on square concrete stilt legs under which we sheltered in a 1963 thunderstorm lightning slashing the sky waiting for the rumble and learning to count past 5 she never missed an opportunity my mum remember that day now as I run just around when I was starting school I found a man late one afternoon on the rocks here on the south side of Cullercoats a hundred yards or so east of the pier I had run ahead of my mum and dad leaping from rock to rock while they progressed at a more stately pace looking in rock pools collecting winkles in a plastic bag they were soft sandy yellow rocks with russet tones in some layers and grey in others here and there brown nodules peppered the surface along with limpets and barnacles the sea was still restless but less angry than it had been the day before it had been raging and the wind tore shreds and streaks of the sea from the tops of huge waves then now it was grey and choppy with two or three foot waves half heartedly rushing at the rocks and spluttering spray and grey foam into the wind the man had brown wet trousers one shoe and a yellowish cardigan with a dark waistcoat his skin was grey and sallow and he was the wrong shape too relaxed head down partially lying in a gully he only had one eye I think he had been dead for some time I didn't know he was dead then and my dad ignored me and mum couldn’t understand why she should go and see him but when she did she did lots of waving and ran back with her hand to her mouth then my dad ran back towards the pier and the road and a little while later police and ambulance people arrived it started raining and we took shelter under the green painted shiplap cloaked swimming club hut it was a huge hut built on concrete legs mum and me watched lightning tear the skies apart a few weeks earlier while hiding under there the rain pounded down lashing the top of the hut and fell like a curtained water fall from the walls above us the streams of water incandescent intense blue white with each bolt and sometimes seemed to stop frozen in time I could momentarily see reflections of the world around us in the drops then they would rush past at breakneck speed again but this time the rain was light and the air was clammy people lit cigarettes and the smoke winding through the people and swirling round the pillars provided some distraction to an otherwise boring wait there were other smells too sweet pipe smoke stale alcohol old people radox fish seaweed peppery damp duffel coats mints there wasn’t much talking mostly mumbles and whispers and a few kids voicing then being shussed eventually some people talked to my mum and dad then to me about us finding the man and it got dark and we went home we didn’t take the winkles they wouldn’t taste good my mum said.
I learned about the breathing noises and the faces people make when things go wrong and words cant help anymore.

reality check

Intro
In attempting to graple with the complexities of any human behaviour that is beyond the parameters of our personal ethos or that which we define as acceptable and understandable, we observe, record, search for patterns, think about what we already know, look at pupil teacher interactions and relationships, we aim to train our teachers in techniquess for dealing with specific types of pupil, we devise and employ behaviour modification strategies, and for a significant proportion of young people our strategies work.

There is always a proportion for whom nothing seems to work, the full support system is happening, everyone involved in the education and welfare of these young people "knows" the family background, the academic and behaviour record, even the knowledge of abuse can have a wide audience and still years go by and with some we make steps forward and back again but very little progress. Discussions, special provision, one to one support, sanctions, negotiations, suspensions, exclusion, home provision...and when that fails where next? Alcolol, drugs , the street, young offenders institutions, prison, hospital, an early grave? All very real and tangible realities.

What drives this process that diverges some young people from positive futures? At what point do we intervene? How do we intervene? can we intervene without provoking more disruption ? How do we break the cycle; change the vector of this life line ? All questions that are hard to answer, to meet the needs of each child we need a deep understanding of the influences that are causing their unnaceptable social behaviour. We "know their social circumstances" but do we ever stop and feel what it might be like to experience them ?..........

Reality check

Imagine you are 7

your reality

your morning starts with finding dad toltally out of it on the sofa with another man you have never seen before, empty cans, and the bits and pieces that go with drug use on the floor and on top of you school books on the table. At least they are asleep, in the adjoining kitchen (door long broken and dumped) is your school uniform, buried in a pile of stale dirty laundry that should have been washed over the weekend, yesterday the cat was sick on the shirt, you cant wash it off as the taps squeal when you turn them on, and you really dont want to wake your dad. you wipe off the cat sick as well as you can. The smell of toast, the clink of a spoon on a cereal bowl might wake them so you dont eat. Already the adreneline fills you and you are hurting inside eating is not needed on this pain. You have no money so have to walk to school - a good excuse to escape, you cant take your books they are burried under noisy cans and cups and bottles, and you really dont want to wake your dad. On the way out you rip your trousers on the broken door frame exposing a triangle of the underwear you have been wearing for two days and nights, you creep out unwashed.

You're out, got through the first 30 mins unscathed tobday,walking to school is a fearful activity , prior experience gives less that you a 50-50 chance of making it without incident. Today the rain soaks you icy and intimate like a harsh friend there is laughter a scuffle in the playground and a few new bruises in places the teachr won't see. No big deal, it happens, maybe you deserved it for being stupid and not looking after your clothes...maybe if you had those cool trainers this would not happen to you...that is it those things are the key to love and acceptance

In class you start to dry out, to steam stale sweat, stale urine and cat-sick; those around you cover their noses, giggle, it gets worse two of them ask loudly if they can sit somewhere else as you stink. A strange teacher makes it worse telling them not to be rude dragging it out..How much stress are you coping with now? Later when you are wondering why you are not allowed to see your mum anymore,where he went and that time she hugged you so hard it hurt then went in a car and out of your life your head is down and tears are in your eyes the teacher's voice breaks in on your world "Hello anyone in there ? Come on stop daydreaming; I have written some sentences on the board you come up to the front and fill in the missing words in the first one". The class giggles, as you walk forward you are franticly thinking what were they talking about? you can see one of erly words on the board has an F shape at the begining it could be Farmers, that would mean they werer talking about hings like crops, harvesting, amimals ....so maybe the sentence is "Farmers harvest their crops" you can do it, the teacher will be pleased, you are going to try writing "harvest" in the first space and "crop in the second" You pick up the stick, you have never really been able to figure out how people make writing come out of the end of sticks, your hands are shaking but you have seen a solution and are going to have a go. You are concentrating so hard that the world fades away. There is emotion, a thudding heart, the teachers presence invokes a vague notion that the leaning tower of Pizza is standing next to you about to topple on top of you, think hard think hard, think about you and the words nothing else matters this is my chance to shine.....marks scrape and squeeal across the board.....there it is Harvest is done, you can hear a burbling noise going on around you but it is all mixed up swirling in your head. Someone in the class has shoutes out "he cant write miss he is stupid".

You have heard laughter and the words "he's stupid"from the class. You feel alone, You turn round and look again at what you have written, you are sure it must be right but cant find it on the board, there seem to be more spaces than there were and more words too, your heart and spirit sink. A voice from the front row shouts" I can see your dirty pants stinky". Panic starts glands pumping, the adreneline overload turns your body to what it does best when it is on the edge of panic when the world is nor right- movement, the teachers hand on your shouder is pushed aside desks go over, things happen noisey things then you are outside being whisked along a coridor.

another reality you left behind

Back in the classroom on the board, in a space in a sentence, are three squiggles with a horizontal line through them that was the cross bar of that very important "t" in harvest, in that very important sentence that might have read "The farrmers harvest their crops".

The sentence now reads as "1. In_____(your three squiggles)_____the coal industry suffered its worst year with ______ miners being made redundant. The three squiggles mean HARVEST and were meant to go near the beginging of the first sentence that was about where the coal fields were mostly located. The great 'F' letter that clued you into the meaning of the sentence was that tricky number 1 that signified this is sentence number 1. in today's lesson.

And now mum is not only awake she is coming to school to take you home...again, caught between two perilous places you hunt for a chance to move into a better world when it comes you and run, you run like the wind, you are the wind, no one can touch the wind only the rain can touch the wind, no one can catch the wind, you can't catch me for a penny cup of tea.....

What i learned

the wind is wonderful and powerful, it takes things away

life is hopeless unless you are alone

430

4.30 is too early so why do I keep waking up then the whole of my life inside my head running over and over random shots from the past mixed with today’s worries and celebrations a bush in Preston graveyard the bark worn away exposing dark core wood like the image of bits of people sticking up out of the mud at Ypres and paschendale on the wall of 2R Marden high school Mr Heinzman passionate about modern history two world wars graphically illustrated on the wall images I can never forget although the chalk blackboard maps sometimes three or four in a lesson are only remembered for their artistry not their message that lovely blue and green those pink and orange arrows like dad's army intro map but beautiful they were how could they represent all that horror the corner of a brick wall where Ray bumped his chin in 1975 blood on the pavement my action man in snow suit and skiing outside on the ramp down from our drive to the road in deep cold snow and years earlier cleaning the snow from the path at the side of our house with an old bettaware floor mop one of those with a sponge on the bottom that you could squeeze by pulling on a lever metallic blue green the handle was and the lever chrome and shining in the dark way higher than me by the yellow street lights as I scraped beautiful shapes in the snow and made the path safe for granddad and gran to come down in the morning flakes floating and dancing on no wind huge ones soft and warm and stuck to each other the little crystals interlocked in my blue hands was I five maybe no earlier than that I had not started school white light through a warm white blanket seeing just out past the edge one eye glued shut with sleep waiting waiting and absorbing the world until someone comes and moves the white aside and sunlight floods in then my other eye being wiped crunchy tugging pains then slowly opening and the world flooding in noises warm loving noises around me legs too hot tummy too empty but this will pass I know and sure enough I am moved and food arrives a little time later weetabix some soggy some crunchy and mum doing something else and the crunchy dry stuff going down my top and itching and in my mouth crackling and crunching then accumulating and compacting into solid goopey lump too big to swallow too big to spit out nose blocked I have to suck air past this lump and again I wait gagging on sustenance until a flurry of fingers tate of salt and flour and soap on fingers I move through the air and things happen and laughter and no longer am I gagging bug giggling and smiling and drinking gulping glorious orange juice incandescent with light and energy and the sun so golden and the brick wall so red and rough I look at it and it tastes of dust and it sounds like shivers jenifer was a nice girl she lived round the corner and was old enough and sensible and could push my pram and smiled and had long brown hair and bright eyes I remember you jenifer do you remember that baby in Victoria road wallsend heading round to the park on a dark frosty afternoon but we never got there or we did but I didn’t experience it because I fell asleep and only remember coming back looking up at a skewed rectangle of a world visible past my pram hood blue black and stars then bright lamps on tall posts with a little crossbar for the lamp lighter to rest his ladder against in times before the lectric arrived bumping and jiggling by a bottle green door jenifer walking away in a green cardigan where did she go where is she now me bouncing and bumping into a hall then lifted flying through the air to look down on aunty jean rolling pastry with a milk bottle for a rolling pin red writing and a picture of a hen on the milk bottle on a table covered in green plastic with white stars on it such a cacophony of smells sweet and bitter blue and red and green smells overwhelming my senses and the taste of flour dust and cigarette smoke in the air then I am on the floor playing under the table holding the crossbars between the legs and trying to pull myself up up chin on a chair levering away keeping me on my feet to see and smell and taste the pastry smell and taste at once overwhelming without anything in my mouth so mixed up were senses back then look at something and experience the taste, smell it and I can feel texture, my legs twitching involuntatily reacting to all the stimulation trying to tell the world and the people how wonderful this all is and not the words to do so so legs twitch and wiggle and I smile and gurgle and bump my chin on the char then I am down on the floor again nice noises arrive I have done a good thing and up in the air sugar and butter arrive in my mouth horribly rich and fatty but sweet too I don’t really like it but there it is needing swallowed smooth with bits in it and all part of this rich unexpected exciting adventure and how hard things were back then how little money and so much love and living how much fun we had life is for fun and joy life is what you make it money doesn’t make you happy little things are huge if you care hard times are only hard if you let them be…1960 was a good year an optimistic one it felt good being one back then we used to set out just to have a laugh in the 70s what are we going to do today let’s have a laf and off we would go out for a few hours just looking to see the funny side in everything we did everything we saw we hadn’t had a good time if we came back home without sore sides it wasn’t often laughter at the expense of others usually it was just to do with the way the world is like the time when michael and I crossed the road and the banana flavoured ice cream bought from the Italian ice cream van that parked out side out school every dinner time slowly slid down it stick and fell in a splatter on the red felsite flecked road as intent 12 year old young scientists the only obvious explanation we came up with was causal related to increased heat encountered as we crossed the road moving in a southerly direction at mid day being fractionally nearer the sun we had crossed some kind of physical barrier one of those fine tuned ones where almost insignificant changes can have tangible or even catastrophic consequences that ‘the world’ should pick on us to demonstrate this relationship was marvellous indeed and that we had the knowledge to notice the demonstration was something to be proud of but mixed with huge laughter at ourselves for devising such an obviously flawed pseudoscientific explanation in this juvenile rehearsal of real world thinking we didn’t need to see some one make a fool of themselves or exert our dominance over other groups to feel good just being aware of our existing in a world full of beauty and absurdity and the unknown at a time when exciting things were being found out space was being conquered the power in an atom was wonderful and where post war optimism was mixed with cold war despair was enough fun to hurt with laughter I wish people would put laughter and joy on the agenda way above war and strife…why do they like fighting so much?