One of my students has just sent me a message:
Look who's coming to the MMU. Caryl Phillips
22 October, 2010, MMU, Geoff Manton Building, Manchester
Novelist and Yale University professor Caryl Phillips. Talk and questions.
***
Having gratuitously decreed (in spite of protests from more forward-thinking minds than theirs) that I'm too old to any longer be a member of their teaching staff, the MMU have added insult to injury by following this up with the hiring Prof. C. Phillips to come to the MMU in Manchester as a special celebrity writer and academic.
***
For those of you new to this blog, Caryl Phillips is the bloke who (shall we say) leaned so heavily – without acknowledgement - on my book Battling Jack for the text to the Made in Wales section of his book Foreigners that I thought his publishers, Random House, would be as shocked and disgusted as I was when the similarities were pointed out to them.
I truly thought that they might panic when they concluded that if Caryl Phillips had done produced his writing in this way on this occasion, then perhaps this was the way he had always worked. ‘Wow!’ I thought they would think, ‘This puts the whole canon of Phillips’s work into question!’
NOT A BIT OF IT, me old chinas. NOT A BIT OF IT
In the course of my protestations, Phillips’s legal representative at Random House actually warned me that I was making statements ‘injurious to Mr. Phillips’. 'Hmmm,' I thought at the time, 'that ain’t quite the same as saying the statements I'm making are untrue though, is it?
The upcoming MMU event is so close on the heels of dear old Jack Turpin’s funeral that it is especially upsetting to his family just as it is to me.
FOR THE PURPOSE OF ACADEMIC ENQUIRY ONLY I’ll give you an example of the textual similarities which have caused the upset.
Please note that BlogSpot though perfectly fine for blogging has certain limitations of presentation which prevent me from laying out the following text in the precise positions they hold in their publications. The statue inscriptions, for instance, are centred in the books. You would be advised to look at the published books to get the full weight of similarity.
Here is my text, in Jack’s voice, from Battling Jack published in 2005:
“. . . There was me brother, middleweight champion of the world, the man who’d brought about the twentieth century’s biggest upset in boxing, in his moment of triumph, standing 8 ft 6 in. tall, on a 5-ft stone plinth. On the bronze plaque below his feet:
In Palace, Pub, And Parlour,
The Whole Of Britain Held Its Breath
I thought to meself, ‘You’ve done a marvellous job there, Terry. That’s just right.’
Underneath that it’s got:
Celer Et Audax.
Latin for ‘Swift and Bold’ – the motto of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps who me dad fought with for the freedom of all British people, . . .”
*
Here is Phillips’s text in the Made in Wales section of his book Foreigners published two years later in 2007:
“. . . In 2001, exactly fifty years after Turpin shocked the world and defeated Sugar Ray Robinson, an imposing 8’6” statue of Randolph Turpin in boxing pose, on a five feet high stone plinth, was unveiled in the centre of Warwick. On the bronze plaque below his feet are inscribed the words:
In Palace, Pub, And Parlour The Whole of (sic) Britain
Held Its Breath.
And beneath this ‘Celer Et Audax’ – Latin for ‘Swift and Bold’ – the motto of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps with whom Turpin’s father served during the First World War . . .’
*
To me, that not only sounds similar, it looks similar too.
This posting by someone called Dave appeared on the Leamington Guide website on 19th October 2008, 12:37 am:
‘. . . i (sic) went to my local library to see what this "Battling Jack" was about... where in this book does it state that it's "non-fiction"? there is a book by Caryl Phillips titled "Foreigners" that she (the ‘she’ Dave refers here to is Jack’s granddaughter Lydia) should read as there are passages identical to that in Batttling Jack so who copied who? . . .”
I think you’ve got your answer, Dave.
Now then, I wrote Battling Jack in Jack’s voice because not only are Jack’s life and Jack’s life stories his own intellectual property, but my aim and intention was to recreate for the reader what it was like, in my experience, to spend time with Jack as his audience, friend and confidante.
Here's something for Mr. Phillips, his researcher, his Random House editor and his Random House legal team:
When I asked Jack what he thought were the proportions of Randolph’s statue, his estimate was that the bronze figure was 20-ft high and stood on a ten foot plinth.
It was clear to me that his perceived exaggeration of the size of the tribute to the brother he loved was a psychological measure of the huge love and esteem he held his brother in.
Jack straightway realised his own fairly wild over-estimate of Carl Payne’s creation and modified it to, ‘Well, no, I should say it’s about 8’ 6” for Randolph and 5 foot for the plinth.’
I left it at that.
My belief is that a reader of Battling Jack with any empathy and intelligence at all will quickly catch on to Jack’s vibe and instinctively know when Jack is exaggerating and when he is not. Just like you would do if you had actually met up with him for a chat (which Prof. Phillips has not).
Mr. Phillips is apparently not such a reader as Mr. Phillips is repeating Jack’s exaggerations as if they are fact and is repeating them in his own voice - the voice of a sober academic, a now Professor of Yale University. Doh!
The real measurement of Carl Payne’s bronze stature is: 6' 7" from the top of the stone plinth to the top of Randolph’s head. The plinth is 4-ft high at the front and 4 ft 2" at the back.
These proportions have long been known to me. Carl is a family friend. I was in at the beginning of his statue commission and followed it all the way through. It is through my involvement with Carl's commission that I met Jackie Turpin.
Adrian Bush, President of the Randolph Turpin Memorial Fund, decent fellow that he is, climbed up on the Warwick statue on a rainy day recently to verify these measurements, so: Doh! again Professor.
Ah, but there are many other examples of similarity between the two texts that I will not bore you with here.
During the course of my written exchange with Prof. Phillips, he claimed that Randolph’s two elder daughters are happy with his Made in Wales section of Foreigners.
I spoke to them both at Jack’s funeral – and wonderful women they are too, Randolph would have been really proud of them – and told them I had been in communication with a friend of theirs, Caryl Phillips.
‘He is no friend of ours,’ I was quickly told by the first daughter in tones that left me in absolutely no doubt of her sincerity. The second daughter came in with, ‘In fact we are very cross with Mr. Phillips.’
They went on to describe how Caryl Phillips had published things they had told him only in confidence and did so even after they had secured a promise from him that he would remove them from his final text. Doh! yet again Prof.
So, Prof., if you are reading this, and I hope you are, have a good gig at the MMU on the 22nd. You will easily recognise the Geoff Manton Building: It’s 4,078’ 9 ½” high standing on some 867-foot stone steps. Mind how you go.
***
The inscription on Carl Payne’s statue of Randolph, by the way, is a line taken from my song, Champion of the World, my personal tribute to Randolph’s great achievement in 1951. Come along to a StringFing gig. We often include that one.
***
Got to shoot off now. I promise a happier posting next time about an old mate of Lynda's and mine showing up at my National Poetry Day gig.
Tra a bit,
Terry
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Sunday, 3 October 2010
X-FACTOR: EX-FACTOR
Hooray! I’ve finally been cured of my need to watch X-Factor! Hooray, hoorah, and hooray again!
I had been compelled by its magnetic ugliness for far too long.
X-Factor is staged with the sole aim of producing a TV show with money-makingly high ratings and hugely profitable spin-off merchandising opportunities.
Its participants are pawns in a giant game of chess. On one side of the table are the ever-hungry Mr. Cowell and his cohorts, and on the other side is the ever-hungry British TV-viewing public.
As every chess player knows, you have to sacrifice a few pawns in the pursuit of every win (and occasionally a queen, Lynda suggested when she read this).
Some of those taking part in X-Factor Chess might happen to receive benefit – even great benefit - from occupying the board, but, make no mistake, that is NOT the point of play. The point is, of course, the cheque, mate.
Embarrassingly, a couple of X-Factor victims have been students of mine from the MMU (you know who you are, M and D. Well no, sadly, you don’t, do you? You wouldn’t have done the X-Factor in the first place if you did).
But, ha!! No more shall I succumb to its guilt-inducing shows that have had me chuckling at its exploitation of the mentally ill.
No longer shall I have to hang my head in shame after finding myself laughing along with the bullyboy’s gang as the spotlight is turned on the next deluded one to be shoved out to croak and squirm under the hot, panting breath of the judges, and the cold, unforgiving eye of TV cameras.
Never again shall I have to witness the false bonhomie of the X-Factor's unenviable pontificating panel to whom fame and money are never enough; to whom the prospect of getting old is so terrifying they have themselves surgically disguised as younger people.
CUE: StringFing playing the intro to Somewhere in the Night
ENTER: The GRIM REAPER. He speaks from deep within his hood.
“Ah, but inside yourselves, my starry-starry doods, inside yourselves you are older than ever before, and so it goes on and on and on and on like that until you are mine.”
Curtains close as the skeletons in the cupboards of past X-Factor contestants sing: ‘Somewhere in the night violins are playing / The melody lingers, but it won’t be staying’.
If you can’t live with death, you can’t live with life, I say (Oooops! There wasn’t a faintly pleading quality to my voice just then, was there?).
How has this cure of mine been so dramatically accomplished?
How have I, apparently magically, been released from enslavement to my hideous and boorish tippex-toothed master?
I’ll tell you how:
he has brought Sharon Osbourne back in,
that’s how.
Once glimpse of her, one note of her voice was the combined emetic and enema this patient needed. A single moment of chain-shattering (yes, the resonance is intentional), unutterable horror, then: CURED! Wonderful!
Now then, I wonder if there are any crane flies handy that need their legs pulling off?
Tra-abit,
Terry
I had been compelled by its magnetic ugliness for far too long.
X-Factor is staged with the sole aim of producing a TV show with money-makingly high ratings and hugely profitable spin-off merchandising opportunities.
Its participants are pawns in a giant game of chess. On one side of the table are the ever-hungry Mr. Cowell and his cohorts, and on the other side is the ever-hungry British TV-viewing public.
As every chess player knows, you have to sacrifice a few pawns in the pursuit of every win (and occasionally a queen, Lynda suggested when she read this).
Some of those taking part in X-Factor Chess might happen to receive benefit – even great benefit - from occupying the board, but, make no mistake, that is NOT the point of play. The point is, of course, the cheque, mate.
Embarrassingly, a couple of X-Factor victims have been students of mine from the MMU (you know who you are, M and D. Well no, sadly, you don’t, do you? You wouldn’t have done the X-Factor in the first place if you did).
But, ha!! No more shall I succumb to its guilt-inducing shows that have had me chuckling at its exploitation of the mentally ill.
No longer shall I have to hang my head in shame after finding myself laughing along with the bullyboy’s gang as the spotlight is turned on the next deluded one to be shoved out to croak and squirm under the hot, panting breath of the judges, and the cold, unforgiving eye of TV cameras.
Never again shall I have to witness the false bonhomie of the X-Factor's unenviable pontificating panel to whom fame and money are never enough; to whom the prospect of getting old is so terrifying they have themselves surgically disguised as younger people.
CUE: StringFing playing the intro to Somewhere in the Night
ENTER: The GRIM REAPER. He speaks from deep within his hood.
“Ah, but inside yourselves, my starry-starry doods, inside yourselves you are older than ever before, and so it goes on and on and on and on like that until you are mine.”
Curtains close as the skeletons in the cupboards of past X-Factor contestants sing: ‘Somewhere in the night violins are playing / The melody lingers, but it won’t be staying’.
If you can’t live with death, you can’t live with life, I say (Oooops! There wasn’t a faintly pleading quality to my voice just then, was there?).
How has this cure of mine been so dramatically accomplished?
How have I, apparently magically, been released from enslavement to my hideous and boorish tippex-toothed master?
I’ll tell you how:
he has brought Sharon Osbourne back in,
that’s how.
Once glimpse of her, one note of her voice was the combined emetic and enema this patient needed. A single moment of chain-shattering (yes, the resonance is intentional), unutterable horror, then: CURED! Wonderful!
Now then, I wonder if there are any crane flies handy that need their legs pulling off?
Tra-abit,
Terry
Friday, 1 October 2010
Jo Bell. Have a Go Jo, Come and Have a Go . . .
Hey ho doods, turns out that they have finally given the Year 1 poetry strand of my old MMU job to Jo Bell. It’s Jo’s first venture into higher ed tutoring, apparently, so all good wishes to her from me. I’ve met Jo a few times and she looks young enough not to have to tread in fear of the MMUC's ageist policy – for a year or two anyway :-)
ON A NEW YEARS DAY
People have been asking for the lyric to this song of mine about the Sneyd Colliery Explosion in 1942.
This event, although belonging to what feels like an entirely different world, is still in living memory. I recently met a fella who was a 17-year-old lad at the time of it and remembers it well as well he might. He escaped the tragedy as he worked a different shift to the victims.
I know I told the story of the Sneyd disaster in an earlier blog, but did not (in so far as I can remember and I'm feeling far too idle right now to check it out) actually post the words, so here they are:
ON A NEW YEARS DAY
He who dares cut the coal, old pitmen say,
On a New Years Day
Has a wife make his snappin’, a widow take his pay
On a New Years Day
Bomber planes are flying, back to work it is
On a New Years Day
Sally stop your crying, give me one more kiss
On a New Years Day
The winding wheel is turning, the cage at the drift
On a New Years Day
Collier lads and Bevin Boys start their morning shift
On a New Years Day
At the Banbury Crut jig a rope begins to fray
On a New Years Day
The air is choked with powdered coal, the coal tubs runaway
On a New Years Day
The first down-coming tub scrapes up a spark
On a New Years Day
A coal dust blast rips apart the dark
On a New Years Day
At the pithead wives are waiting in sorrow and in grief
On a New Years Day
Their silence only broken by words of disbelief
On a New Years Day
Collier wives and Bevin Boys and boys in soldier suits
On a New Years Day
When bells ring out for war, we are all recruits
On a New Years Day
When the names are numbered, the roll of honour called
On a New Years Day
To the spoil heaps of the battlefields add fifty-seven more
On a New Years Day
© W. Terry Fox
If you want to actually hear this song sung, come to see StringFing at the New Inn, Derby Street, Hanley, on the evening of Thursday, October 21st. I have promised to put OANYD into our programme. Come down anyway even if you don’t want to hear it sung. You’ll be among some of the finest people walking this whole round earth – excluding the band of course.
May your steps be light and lead you along the road to happiness,
Terry
ON A NEW YEARS DAY
People have been asking for the lyric to this song of mine about the Sneyd Colliery Explosion in 1942.
This event, although belonging to what feels like an entirely different world, is still in living memory. I recently met a fella who was a 17-year-old lad at the time of it and remembers it well as well he might. He escaped the tragedy as he worked a different shift to the victims.
I know I told the story of the Sneyd disaster in an earlier blog, but did not (in so far as I can remember and I'm feeling far too idle right now to check it out) actually post the words, so here they are:
ON A NEW YEARS DAY
He who dares cut the coal, old pitmen say,
On a New Years Day
Has a wife make his snappin’, a widow take his pay
On a New Years Day
Bomber planes are flying, back to work it is
On a New Years Day
Sally stop your crying, give me one more kiss
On a New Years Day
The winding wheel is turning, the cage at the drift
On a New Years Day
Collier lads and Bevin Boys start their morning shift
On a New Years Day
At the Banbury Crut jig a rope begins to fray
On a New Years Day
The air is choked with powdered coal, the coal tubs runaway
On a New Years Day
The first down-coming tub scrapes up a spark
On a New Years Day
A coal dust blast rips apart the dark
On a New Years Day
At the pithead wives are waiting in sorrow and in grief
On a New Years Day
Their silence only broken by words of disbelief
On a New Years Day
Collier wives and Bevin Boys and boys in soldier suits
On a New Years Day
When bells ring out for war, we are all recruits
On a New Years Day
When the names are numbered, the roll of honour called
On a New Years Day
To the spoil heaps of the battlefields add fifty-seven more
On a New Years Day
© W. Terry Fox
If you want to actually hear this song sung, come to see StringFing at the New Inn, Derby Street, Hanley, on the evening of Thursday, October 21st. I have promised to put OANYD into our programme. Come down anyway even if you don’t want to hear it sung. You’ll be among some of the finest people walking this whole round earth – excluding the band of course.
May your steps be light and lead you along the road to happiness,
Terry
Monday, 27 September 2010
NATIONAL POETRY DAY
Hey, like I said before, on NATIONAL POETRY DAY – Thursday October 7th 2010 – I will be giving a reading at NANTWICH LIBRARY on this year’s theme of HOME.
This means I will be reading poems of my nearest and dearest, and reading from Village Verse my collection of poems about my beloved Mow Cop.
The event will begin at 2pm and extend for about an hour.
You will be made most welcome and I am looking forward to a good time there.
I just wanted to remind you to come along.
***
Each year for the past five years, on the Friday of Fresher’s Week, along with my Writing colleagues at MMU Cheshire, I have had the joy of taking the new intake of Writing undergraduates to Mow Cop and Mount Pleasant Village Hall to give a short talk on the history Mow Cop and to read them some of my Mow Cop poems.
We then all troop up to the top of Mow to have a look at the places the poems have been about. The students take notes and then we all pile off back to the village hall for them to do some writing of their own.
It’s all to do with having a larf, facilitating them getting to know each other, and to remind all us writers of the importance of a sense of place in our writing. It is always a pleasure and good fun to boot and this year's do (Friday 24th September) was no exception.
It was a particularly poignant occasion for me seeing as ‘ow I’ve been forbidden any teaching on campus any more. This year’s students are a great bunch – more of them than usual too – and I really really envy my colleagues teaching them.
Only me and Julie could make it up there this year. I managed to seriously mis-direct the coach driver by taking him up the wrong road for a coach and getting us stuck. The driver was a top human being – stoic and patient – and with great skill, managed to bale us out of the predicament I had placed us in with a 1,000 point turn and a bit of pavement scraping.
The photo was taken on an earlier Mow Cop expedition by my friend and colleague Heather. One of the figures is known locally as: The Old Man of Mow.
***
So get along to Nantwich Library on National Poetry Day if you possibly can.
In the meantime, may all your roads be smooth, well-lit, safe and wide enough; may all your loads be light.
Terry
This means I will be reading poems of my nearest and dearest, and reading from Village Verse my collection of poems about my beloved Mow Cop.
The event will begin at 2pm and extend for about an hour.
You will be made most welcome and I am looking forward to a good time there.
I just wanted to remind you to come along.
***
Each year for the past five years, on the Friday of Fresher’s Week, along with my Writing colleagues at MMU Cheshire, I have had the joy of taking the new intake of Writing undergraduates to Mow Cop and Mount Pleasant Village Hall to give a short talk on the history Mow Cop and to read them some of my Mow Cop poems.
We then all troop up to the top of Mow to have a look at the places the poems have been about. The students take notes and then we all pile off back to the village hall for them to do some writing of their own.
It’s all to do with having a larf, facilitating them getting to know each other, and to remind all us writers of the importance of a sense of place in our writing. It is always a pleasure and good fun to boot and this year's do (Friday 24th September) was no exception.
It was a particularly poignant occasion for me seeing as ‘ow I’ve been forbidden any teaching on campus any more. This year’s students are a great bunch – more of them than usual too – and I really really envy my colleagues teaching them.
Only me and Julie could make it up there this year. I managed to seriously mis-direct the coach driver by taking him up the wrong road for a coach and getting us stuck. The driver was a top human being – stoic and patient – and with great skill, managed to bale us out of the predicament I had placed us in with a 1,000 point turn and a bit of pavement scraping.
The photo was taken on an earlier Mow Cop expedition by my friend and colleague Heather. One of the figures is known locally as: The Old Man of Mow.
***
So get along to Nantwich Library on National Poetry Day if you possibly can.
In the meantime, may all your roads be smooth, well-lit, safe and wide enough; may all your loads be light.
Terry
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Replies to Messages
This is a first: 2 days blogging on the trot! Told you it was becoming an obsession. Soon I'll only have time for writing my blog which will, of course, consequently be mainly about writing my blog. Just wanted to say:
Angie from Neston: Thanks, mate, I'm glad you like StringFing.
Paddy: Email me about your poetry evening. I'll make it if I can.
Robert from Stoke: Thanks Robert. I'm really pleased you like StringFing. May your lum reek too me old sunshine.
Angie from Neston: Thanks, mate, I'm glad you like StringFing.
Paddy: Email me about your poetry evening. I'll make it if I can.
Robert from Stoke: Thanks Robert. I'm really pleased you like StringFing. May your lum reek too me old sunshine.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
The Tortoise and the Twizzlebird
You know that old story about the tortoise who was mugged by a gang of slugs? When the police interviewed him afterwards they asked him to describe exactly what had happened. The tortoise said, ‘It’s difficult to say, really. It all happened so fast.’ Well, that’s me and this blog. It’s difficult to say what’s been going on in my life as it all happens so fast.
I told the above joke when StringFing went to Neston Library up on the Wirral near Parkgate. Some jokes come to my mind and I hear myself telling them over and over. It must be cuz I'm a dad - comes with the territory. I love the people on the Wirral and I'm particularly fond of Neston Library and its staff.
Parkgate is the scene of what must be the biggest heist in history: One dark night, some Welsh geezers tip-toed over to Parkgate and nicked the River Dee. If you don't believe me go to Parkgate and have a look.
***
Way back to my last entry, the world had just lost my mate Jackie Turpin. I promised to post what I said at his funeral:
FOR JACK
He was not a boastful man, John Matthew Turpin Senior, Battling Jack. When he spoke to me of his professional boxing career it was to tell me how good his brothers Dick and Randolph were, or to tell me something to make me laugh.
When he told me about his service with the Royal Navy in the Second World War, on a destroyer ploughing through the Arctic seas guarding the Russian convoys, it was to tell me how brave he had NOT felt in the face of the horror of it all . . . and to tell me something to make me laugh.
When he spoke of his post-professional boxing career it was to tell me how good his son John Matthew Turpin Junior was; how good the amateurs were he selflessly trained; how proud he was of his wife, Bet, his daughter Georgina, his granddaughter, Lydia, and, of course, to tell me a tale that would make me laugh.
I met Jack in 1998 through my involvement with Randolph Turpin’s Memorial statue as a friend of the sculptor Carl Payne. For me it was as if someone had opened a door and let in a small whirlwind. Me and Jack got on instantly.
The influences that shaped him go way beyond his mother Beatrice’s stately Leamington Spa and Warwick back streets, far across the sea to that land of his father Lionel – three generations out of slavery – in the then ‘British Guyana’ in South America and from there to the golden sands and talking drums of West Africa. I was so affected by Jackie Turpin I wrote a book about him.
He was a better boxer than he ever said he was. He was a better trainer than he ever gave himself credit for. He was a better brother, husband, father and grandfather than he ever measured himself to be. He was a better friend than he ever imagined he was.
He once told me I was like another brother to him - a feeling that was reciprocated for Jack became like the older brother I never had.
John Matthew Turpin Senior, the little featherweight with the heart of a giant, Battling Jack, was, is, and will always be a hero to me.
***
As I explain in my last blog the MMUC HR TWATS have flatly refused to employ me as a lecturer anymore (lets hope they think me also too old to be sued). I’m glad to be free of the yoke in some ways – it allows me to refer to them as TWATS for a start - but I have to say, though, it’s coming up for the new academic year and I’m feeling the pull of the campus. There is something utterly brilliant about teaching poetry, creative writing, writing for performance and journalism that is out there on its own.
StringFing is my big fing now, with Adam and Emily. I call our music Folk Beat. It’s a synthesis of all the music I have ever put my mind and fingers to from the 60s beat scene through skiffle, blues, N.O. Jazz and traditional Anglo-Celtic music. It’s folky electro-acoustic stuff with an edge. It ain’t no faux-pure bollix, it struts its influences.
We have started a new residency at The New Inn, Derby Street, Hanley, Stoke on Trent on the 3rd Thursday of the month. It’s a big, warm, comfortable pub with well-kept beer and friendly hosts. We had a great time there last week. We’re there next on Thursday 21st October. Come along and join the merry throng. People will only talk about you if you don’t.
***
Our Amy and her partner Dave have launched their own web design business:
http://www.twizzlebird.co.uk/
They have created a brill website for my Woodlanders Country Dance Band. Have a gander at it:
http://www.thewoodlanders.net/
They are busy helping companies in the North West make the best use of the internet with their Twizzlebird Creative hot designs.
***
I had a nice surprise tonight in the form of a phone call from my old mucker Henri Harrison. I love Henri. We go back a long, long way. The Cops n Robbers was Henri’s band and we did a lot of well-documented cool stuff with that outfit, but we played music together before that – New Orleans jazz.
Henri was gigging in Watford the other evening and bumped into an erstwhile great mate of Lynda’s and mine: the inimitable Johnny Johnson. Johnny is a great singer. When Lynda and Johnny and me were knocking around together Johnny played 12-string guitar and sang solo. He can switch from a soul number to a music hall song in a flick of his plectrum and do them brilliantly.
Johnny’s got a six-piece band now, Henri says. Johnny always had a big repertoire of jokes, guaranteed to make you laugh. Oh yeah, I remember his paintings too – wonderful! Of all the geezers I know, Johnny is the more comfortable in his skin. I wrote a song about him once called, ‘Johnny Walks Easy Down the Street’. I’ve no idea now how the song went anymore. I just recall writing it and what the title was. I wonder if he remembers it?
***
National Poetry Day is on Thursday 7th October. I’m doing a gig at Nantwich Library starting at 2pm. The theme this year is ‘Home’ so I’ll be doing some of my Mow Cop poetry and some poems about my nearest and dearest. It would be triffik to see you there. Please come along if you possibly can.
Hey that wasn’t bad for me: only a matter of weeks since my last posting rather than the more-usual months. I’m getting almost obsessive with it, aren’t I?
Yours truthfully truly,
Terry
I told the above joke when StringFing went to Neston Library up on the Wirral near Parkgate. Some jokes come to my mind and I hear myself telling them over and over. It must be cuz I'm a dad - comes with the territory. I love the people on the Wirral and I'm particularly fond of Neston Library and its staff.
Parkgate is the scene of what must be the biggest heist in history: One dark night, some Welsh geezers tip-toed over to Parkgate and nicked the River Dee. If you don't believe me go to Parkgate and have a look.
***
Way back to my last entry, the world had just lost my mate Jackie Turpin. I promised to post what I said at his funeral:
FOR JACK
He was not a boastful man, John Matthew Turpin Senior, Battling Jack. When he spoke to me of his professional boxing career it was to tell me how good his brothers Dick and Randolph were, or to tell me something to make me laugh.
When he told me about his service with the Royal Navy in the Second World War, on a destroyer ploughing through the Arctic seas guarding the Russian convoys, it was to tell me how brave he had NOT felt in the face of the horror of it all . . . and to tell me something to make me laugh.
When he spoke of his post-professional boxing career it was to tell me how good his son John Matthew Turpin Junior was; how good the amateurs were he selflessly trained; how proud he was of his wife, Bet, his daughter Georgina, his granddaughter, Lydia, and, of course, to tell me a tale that would make me laugh.
I met Jack in 1998 through my involvement with Randolph Turpin’s Memorial statue as a friend of the sculptor Carl Payne. For me it was as if someone had opened a door and let in a small whirlwind. Me and Jack got on instantly.
The influences that shaped him go way beyond his mother Beatrice’s stately Leamington Spa and Warwick back streets, far across the sea to that land of his father Lionel – three generations out of slavery – in the then ‘British Guyana’ in South America and from there to the golden sands and talking drums of West Africa. I was so affected by Jackie Turpin I wrote a book about him.
He was a better boxer than he ever said he was. He was a better trainer than he ever gave himself credit for. He was a better brother, husband, father and grandfather than he ever measured himself to be. He was a better friend than he ever imagined he was.
He once told me I was like another brother to him - a feeling that was reciprocated for Jack became like the older brother I never had.
John Matthew Turpin Senior, the little featherweight with the heart of a giant, Battling Jack, was, is, and will always be a hero to me.
***
As I explain in my last blog the MMUC HR TWATS have flatly refused to employ me as a lecturer anymore (lets hope they think me also too old to be sued). I’m glad to be free of the yoke in some ways – it allows me to refer to them as TWATS for a start - but I have to say, though, it’s coming up for the new academic year and I’m feeling the pull of the campus. There is something utterly brilliant about teaching poetry, creative writing, writing for performance and journalism that is out there on its own.
StringFing is my big fing now, with Adam and Emily. I call our music Folk Beat. It’s a synthesis of all the music I have ever put my mind and fingers to from the 60s beat scene through skiffle, blues, N.O. Jazz and traditional Anglo-Celtic music. It’s folky electro-acoustic stuff with an edge. It ain’t no faux-pure bollix, it struts its influences.
We have started a new residency at The New Inn, Derby Street, Hanley, Stoke on Trent on the 3rd Thursday of the month. It’s a big, warm, comfortable pub with well-kept beer and friendly hosts. We had a great time there last week. We’re there next on Thursday 21st October. Come along and join the merry throng. People will only talk about you if you don’t.
***
Our Amy and her partner Dave have launched their own web design business:
http://www.twizzlebird.co.uk/
They have created a brill website for my Woodlanders Country Dance Band. Have a gander at it:
http://www.thewoodlanders.net/
They are busy helping companies in the North West make the best use of the internet with their Twizzlebird Creative hot designs.
***
I had a nice surprise tonight in the form of a phone call from my old mucker Henri Harrison. I love Henri. We go back a long, long way. The Cops n Robbers was Henri’s band and we did a lot of well-documented cool stuff with that outfit, but we played music together before that – New Orleans jazz.
Henri was gigging in Watford the other evening and bumped into an erstwhile great mate of Lynda’s and mine: the inimitable Johnny Johnson. Johnny is a great singer. When Lynda and Johnny and me were knocking around together Johnny played 12-string guitar and sang solo. He can switch from a soul number to a music hall song in a flick of his plectrum and do them brilliantly.
Johnny’s got a six-piece band now, Henri says. Johnny always had a big repertoire of jokes, guaranteed to make you laugh. Oh yeah, I remember his paintings too – wonderful! Of all the geezers I know, Johnny is the more comfortable in his skin. I wrote a song about him once called, ‘Johnny Walks Easy Down the Street’. I’ve no idea now how the song went anymore. I just recall writing it and what the title was. I wonder if he remembers it?
***
National Poetry Day is on Thursday 7th October. I’m doing a gig at Nantwich Library starting at 2pm. The theme this year is ‘Home’ so I’ll be doing some of my Mow Cop poetry and some poems about my nearest and dearest. It would be triffik to see you there. Please come along if you possibly can.
Hey that wasn’t bad for me: only a matter of weeks since my last posting rather than the more-usual months. I’m getting almost obsessive with it, aren’t I?
Yours truthfully truly,
Terry
Friday, 2 July 2010
Hey Doods
I'm just no good at regular stuff, innit? - 5 months since I posted anything on this site. Thing is, too much happens all the time for me to be able to separate anything out for special attention. The passing away of me dear old mate Jackie Turpin, he of Battling Jack fame, has got to be one exception, of course. The nature of Jack's illness meant that anyone beyond the periphery of his absolutely nearest and dearest faded from his vision, so he was lost to me a while before he died, but all deaths are sudden and each death of a loved person is a shock. I spoke at his funeral and I will post (at a later date) what I said in his honour.
Another couple of exceptions are: The MMU Cheshire has finally binned me on age grounds
TWATS!
I was touched by the reaction of the staff and students towards the refusal of the management to renew my contract and I shall miss the Creative Writing team and the students shed loads. Our Amy and Dave are moving and will soon be a lot nearer to me and Lynda - YAY! As the result of a triffick collection of writing the staff and students did for me as a leaving gift, I am back in email contact with my old friend and teaching colleague, Heather. She is a top person and an awesome writer with great clarity of thought and expression. She is also humourous and kind.
Anyway, I'm off out. Here's a new song:
DOWN ON POISON FARM
On Poison Farm the crops are in
The fields are stripped; the yields are slim
Let the Harvest Home begin
Down on Poison Farm
The cock won’t crow at the break of day
The five-bar gate is crumbling away
The scarecrow has been scared away
Down on Poison Farm
Slates are falling from the roof
The horse has gone and cracked his hoof
The milkmaid’s in love with Beowulf
Down on Poison Farm
The wind blows cold over the hill
On the ploughboy strung from the window sill
Time is all there is they will not kill
Down on Poison Farm
Once there was . . . on a May morning - g . . .
Once there was . . . when small birds sing - g . . .
Once there was . . . in the grrreen rrrushes o . . .
Once there was . . . in the long, long ago - oh . . .
The milk’s going sour in the can
Peter Pan said to The Elephant Man
There’ll be no more bread – the mill’s got jammed
Down on Poison Farm
The cornfield crows are ready to fly
Mr B is keeping his powder dry
With an odd look in his one good eye
Down on Poison Farm
Farmer Brown went to town
Looked the pretty girls up and down
Got caught with his trousers
Down on Poison Farm
Trouble an’ strife, the farmer’s wife
Cut off his tail with her carving knife
You can see such things every day of your life
Down on Poison Farm
Once there was . . . on a May morning - g . . .
Once there was . . . when small birds sing - g . . .
Once there was . . . in the grrreen rrrushes o . . .
Once there was . . . in the long, long ago - oh . . .
The setting sun is sinking fast
Your silhouette’s sharp in the shadows cast
If they had a flag it’d hang half mast
Down on Poison Farm.
© W. Terry Fox
Keep having a larf. See you later.
Terry
Another couple of exceptions are: The MMU Cheshire has finally binned me on age grounds
TWATS!
I was touched by the reaction of the staff and students towards the refusal of the management to renew my contract and I shall miss the Creative Writing team and the students shed loads. Our Amy and Dave are moving and will soon be a lot nearer to me and Lynda - YAY! As the result of a triffick collection of writing the staff and students did for me as a leaving gift, I am back in email contact with my old friend and teaching colleague, Heather. She is a top person and an awesome writer with great clarity of thought and expression. She is also humourous and kind.
Anyway, I'm off out. Here's a new song:
DOWN ON POISON FARM
On Poison Farm the crops are in
The fields are stripped; the yields are slim
Let the Harvest Home begin
Down on Poison Farm
The cock won’t crow at the break of day
The five-bar gate is crumbling away
The scarecrow has been scared away
Down on Poison Farm
Slates are falling from the roof
The horse has gone and cracked his hoof
The milkmaid’s in love with Beowulf
Down on Poison Farm
The wind blows cold over the hill
On the ploughboy strung from the window sill
Time is all there is they will not kill
Down on Poison Farm
Once there was . . . on a May morning - g . . .
Once there was . . . when small birds sing - g . . .
Once there was . . . in the grrreen rrrushes o . . .
Once there was . . . in the long, long ago - oh . . .
The milk’s going sour in the can
Peter Pan said to The Elephant Man
There’ll be no more bread – the mill’s got jammed
Down on Poison Farm
The cornfield crows are ready to fly
Mr B is keeping his powder dry
With an odd look in his one good eye
Down on Poison Farm
Farmer Brown went to town
Looked the pretty girls up and down
Got caught with his trousers
Down on Poison Farm
Trouble an’ strife, the farmer’s wife
Cut off his tail with her carving knife
You can see such things every day of your life
Down on Poison Farm
Once there was . . . on a May morning - g . . .
Once there was . . . when small birds sing - g . . .
Once there was . . . in the grrreen rrrushes o . . .
Once there was . . . in the long, long ago - oh . . .
The setting sun is sinking fast
Your silhouette’s sharp in the shadows cast
If they had a flag it’d hang half mast
Down on Poison Farm.
© W. Terry Fox
Keep having a larf. See you later.
Terry
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