The Farewell From Helene Hanff

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

On Tuesday I'd finished Helene Hanff's book of her Woman Hour pieces in the eighties Letter From New York about living in one of the world's iconic cities. I loved it. I consider her to be Alan Coren's and Sue Townsend's American cousin that you think of as a friend.She painted a picture of the city as if you were there with her even though I've never been to America let alone the big apple.

And the point I forgot to mention when I finished the Helene Hanff omnibus (which of course wasn't an omnibus as it didn't include this book) was that she seemed to be that rare thing a writer who was a reader like you. There was a sense that she could instantly turn off being a writer and read a book as anyone else whatever their profession would. To a reader she was relatable.

But all of this is bittersweet. Because unusually for me I've now read every book she's written that has been published in the UK. Although I reread 84 Charing Cross Road as it was part of the omnibus I won't be rereading anymore of her books (too many books too little time). So in a way to me she died on Tuesday.

So thank you Helene for making me smile and being a reader as well as a writer. Most of all thank you for being a friend even though we never met.

Until the next time.

The Football Book For Everyone

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

When I started the exercise on reading every football book in the Bridgend library area I never expected to be able to recommend one that could appeal to those who loved,hated or was just plain indifferent to the sport. Forever Young by Oliver Kay proved me wrong.

Obviously a knowledge of football helps in it's reading. But the key point in this book is the universal issue, not just in football but in other walks of life as well as life itself where you have an ambition and a talent to reach the pinnacle of that ambition only to have it suddenly and irrevocably taken away.

It's the story of the life of Adrian Doherty. A young man whose talent led him from Northern Ireland to the Manchester United youth team of the early nineties alongside people around that time as Beckham. the Neville brothers and particularly Ryan Giggs (a player who he was often compared more favourably than).Why he didn't reach that level I won't spoil. Let's just say that there's no stain on his character.

If you just read an outline of his life you would have then thought that it was one of tragic decline whilst people who had equal and/or lesser talent achieved superstardom. You would have also thought that Aiden Doherty would've lived the rest of his life racked with bitterness and resentment (I know I would have been). Oliver Kay shows that this wasn't case. Partly due to a quietly resilient personality and also because he had other passions to fall back on when football was no longer an option. And to those non sporting people his post football life takes up about half of the book.

Towards it's end Kay discusses a disturbing issue with regard to why Adrian Doherty left football. Again I won't spoil things by discussing it here, suffice it to say that it deserves an answer.

And how good is the book? If I was just to say I read in a two day period and was gripped perhaps that would be enough. It's a tribute to Oliver Kay's writing and of course the hero that is Aiden Doherty.

I won't be able to go to the library again until Monday so a new non Penguin/Pelican paperback is required. The book from the great unread is:

Helene Hanff - Letter From New York

This is from a series of monthly of broadcasts that the author of 84 Charing Cross Road did for BBC's Woman's Hour in the late eighties. When I finish reading it I think I'd have finished all of her books, certainly those published in Britain.

Until the next time.

In Which I Journey Back To Bridgend, Chat About Helene Hanff and Reminisce On Charing Cross Bookshops In The Eighties

Hello there, Hope you're feeling well today.

Well much as this weekend was both enjoyable,emotional,sentimental and nostalgic it was time to leave for Wales. I started at Epping station which I rather like as it has a quaint village feel to it.

Excuse the fingers

I deliberately left at nine thirty in the morning to avoid the rush hour. A strategy which for once in my life actually worked as the journey to Victoria was fine. During this trip I finished the Helene Hanff omnibus which I'll chat about later.

On arrival at Victoria I had a quick early lunch at Subway (Breakfast melt with orange juice) and then made the short walk to the coach station. There was time so went to the toilets. I won't go graphic with the descriptions or provide pictures, but let me say this, You have to pay to use the facilities,but it was I who should have had danger money.

Anyway once done you joined the queue for your coach. People pushed in. The coach was late. You get irritated. Eventually it came. Five minutes late.

And we're off....eventually

The journey was OK aside from the man in front of me who wanted to use his seat like a transatlantic night fleet and kept pushing it back making me push to back towards him. Of course had he insisted I'd have given in. Given that he was a young tall skinhead with a hoodie. He was the cliche potential hoodlum. I was the guy in glasses.

The further West along the M4 we went the weather seemed to worsen, wetten and darken. This was Swindon.

Gloomy times

And across the Severn Bridge.

The Way To South Wales

Eventually I arrived in Bridgend. Wales: Cold,damp.and grey. Also known as home.And i was happy.

As previously mentioned the five books on the Helene Hanff omnibus were read, I enjoyed them all. The only suggestion I would give you is not to read The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street or Q's Legacy before you read 84 Charing Cross Road as it will make no sense.

84 Charing Cross Road is of course the book Helene Hanff will always be remembered for. It's about the correspondence between Ms Hanff and various people linked to the bookseller Marks & Co, mainly Frank Doel. To me it comes under the category of a quiet little pleasure. It's a book which shows two decent people living their lives with the shared passion for books.I've always felt she was not just a writer but also a reader. And when I mean reader I mean that she could relate to us ordinary souls who just love reading. 84 Charing Cross Road is one of my favourite books of all time.

Though set in the fifties and sixties it reminded me of the Charing Cross bookshops I went to in the eighties. There was for example one, whose name I cannot recall, that sold left wing books which attracted me as it seemed exotic and different. I remember Books Etc. A chain which could also sell bargain books and Sportspages which was pioneering in the way it stocked a wide variety of sports books and fanzines which were popular in the eighties but seemed to die out in the age of the internet and podcasts in particular.

There was one I hated. Foyles. It struck me as large and impersonal. There was no love in the place. You'd buy a book and go to a small cell structure where inside was a lonely soul who probably would hate books for the rest of her (and it would always seemed to be a her) life.

I do wonder what Charing Cross would look like now if I returned. Would there be any bookshops there at all? Perhaps if when I next returned I should have a look one last time. The literary Upton Park of books.

Until the next time.

London/Epping Part Two: In Which I Make A Belated Goodbye To The Boleyn, Go To The Orient And Buy Some Books

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Unusually for me. I actually had a plan for a Saturday when not working. The first part was simple. It had been the first opportunity to go to Upton Park and visit the Boleyn Ground since it's closure and West Ham's move to the Olympic Stadium.Pathetic though it sounds, especially for a fifty two year old man I wanted to say goodbye personally.

It was a grey day but thankfully did not rain which was fine with me. The underground journey was surprisingly swift and soon I was out of the station and face to face with an old friend.

Memories are made of this

Of Brooking and Bonds,Dicks and Cottee to name but a few. This was a place that once had a big part of my life when I was much younger.

A small tear was shed....in a manly East End way of course.

A Wistful Moment

Closest I could get

Nearby there is a statue of the legendary 1966 West Ham World Cup heroes. Had to get a picture of that as well.

The Heroes

And opposite the statue there is...

The Newham Bookshop !!!

Which is organised in the same higgledy piggeldy way I like bookshops to be. So that you, the reader,can revel in discovery.

The Search For Reading Treasure Begins

Unfortunatly wasn't sure what I was going to spend in the next main stop I was going to visit so couldn't splash out. So just bought a few individual essays by George Orwell and Anne Patchett

Today's trio

Upton Park is very much a multi cultural area as it was when I was young. So I didn't think that much had changed. Queens market for example.

Not that much different from when I was here last

So it was coming up to twelve o'clock. Hungry. What shall I have? A Subway? A Greggs? Ethnic cuisine? Well as it happened when I saw this it became a no brainer.

The Legend That Is Percy Ingle

I remember their cream doughnuts as a child....as you do.

Can't say anything has changed since I last went into a Percy Ingle. But nostalgia won. Ordered a cheese roll and a Lucozade.....living on the edge.

It was eventually time to go. Given that I'm living in Wales it's unlikely I'll be visiting Upton Park ever again unless there's a major unexpected swerve in my life. So thankyou Boelyn and Upton Park for the memories. I will always appreciate them.

Thankyou

Sadly No More

Given that it was one of the few times I'm in the area West Ham uncharitably were playing away at West Bromwich Albion. What that meant was that to watch a football match I had to go to the Orient.....Leyton Orient.

What I've realised recently is that Leyton Orient was the precursor to my views on Cardiff City,Swansea City and Newport County in that to me they were like being very friendly with a woman but not having an affair as you're faithful to your wife. It's the only English club I feel that way about. My views normally are mainly neutral (including Millwall) moving to dislike (Tottenham) and absolute hatred (Arsenal).

I regularly visited Brisbane Road when West Ham were playing away. The last time though was about 1996/1997 before I moved to Wales. The O's were playing Merthyr Tydfil in the third round of the FA Cup and I thought it would be a good idea to take the wife there given that she's Welsh. Who says I don't know how to treat a woman?

Anyway they were playing Yeovil Town FC and I made up my mind to go to BRISBANE ROAD (I really can't call it The Matchroom Stadium). I was in for a few shocks firstly ...

These are apartments around the ground

And then ...

All very modern

Went into the club shop (or Superstore as clubs like to call it now). Bought an Orient football shirt for my collection which I'll tell my wife is a Christmas present from her to me (I'll reveal it then), a pen and a match programme.

On paper, by which I mean the match programme, the Os were in the top half the division whilst Yeovil were in the bottom three position. So this should've been an easy victory for the home side.

Before I say anything else let me just say that I hereby claim to be the first person to read a Helene Hanff book during the breaks in a game at Leyton Orient. Here is the proof;

I rest my case

Obviously Leyton Orient were aware I'd last visited about twenty years back. What other reason could there be for the fact that the pre match music came from the Now That's What I Call Nineties back catalgue. Fatboy Slim anyone? Or perhaps you feel you want to "Jump Around"?

(A quick digression. The biggest cheer of the game came at half time when the announcer told the crowd that West Ham were losing three nil (eventually to lose 4-2). Obviously I'm bothered but will always keep the faith. That said. there will need to be a turnaround soon or else the situation will get worse and quickly.)

So to the match. In the first half Orient dominated but just could score. Yeovil occasionally moved forward but it had been mainly the home team. The second half seemed to go exactly the same way. Orient were by far the better team except in finishing. Either a pass went to fresh air or a shot to goal was so wayward the players must have thought that the ball was installed with Satnav so that it could be guided through the net.

BRISBANE ROAD!!!

And there was this. 

"MOVEMENT!"

A guy a few rows behind me kept shouting this throughout the match. And he had a point. What seemed to happen was that Orient would start to attack but whoever had the ball would stop as the player didn't seem to know what to do next. By the time he did the moment was gone.

"MOVEMENT!"

The guy shouted this so often I did wonder whether in a parallel universe he was a ballet teacher.

A draw seemed to be the inevitable result..... until in the seventy sixth minute Yeovil had a corner which they took short. The resulting cross reached the head of Tom Eaves and the away team had scored.

One nil then to Yeovil. With the first and only time in the entire game they showed a genuine piece of skill.

There was of course uproar with the home support. Some people even decided that there was about thirteen minutes left it was time to leave. Orient did try to gain a late equaliser and had a chance kicked off the line but it was to no avail. They had lost.

Boos rang out around the ground.

The player sitting down did not escape abuse

The fans anger then turned towards their owner Francesco Becchetti. "Becchetti out" came the cry. From an executive box he emerged and just waved the fans away as if they were peasants. The Roman Emperor approach it appears.

I'd enjoyed today. Aside of course from the results.

Until the next time.

London/Epping Part One: In Which I Travel To Epping Via Cardiff,Newport,London And Two Sore Feet

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

So the weekend with my mother begins. Brought on, I should explain now, by the fact that it's twenty five years since my father's death and I wanted to visit his grave to pay my respects.

Had a very early bath. Worked the afternoon/evening shift yesterday and had overslept. This meant that mentally and physically I was in a zombie mindset. Awake physically but my mind still in the land of nod.

Although I'd planned this visit as early as February the timing had proved to be unfortunate as a friend of my wife's was moving house today and would've been helping out otherwise. The wife was going to spend the day with her anyway. As it was Cardiff though was going to catch the London coach there.

My wife's friend is a perfect example of how life can throw you curveballs when you least expect. About two and a half years ago she was married and comfortable. Then she discovered her husband was having an affair. She is now divorced and moving outside of Cardiff. This is in no way putting myself on a patronising pedestal above her. For she has shown a resilience in the face of a personal crisis that I didn't show when made redundant.

I remember when she first told my wife when she first realised her now ex husband's infidelity. Assuming they were going to chat about things that wouldn't interest me I was in her living room reading (The Heart Of The Matter by Joseph Conrad as it happens. Didn't like it) whilst they were outside chatting. Goes to show that occasionally reading isn't important as the world immediately around you. It was also rather ironic as told my wife I'd suspected (though did not know) that he'd been having an affair months earlier.

Which is why just before 11am my wife took me to the Cardiff and not Bridgend coach stop in Sophia Gardens.

Bright in Cardiff

Coach Action

So off we go. A pre recorded message informs us that there are two "emergency exits" at "the front and the back". The one in the front being how I entered the coach and would leave it many hours later in Victoria. How then is that an "emergency exit"? 

We're also advised that there is a toilet at the back of the coach. What we're not advised was how the toilet door made an indiscreet noise horror film style to signal to everybody in the coach that it's being used.

Five minutes later we're in Cardiff castle for another pick-up point. Five minutes after that we're in the university section for another pickup point. I'd feel irritable but I was in the stage of being half asleep and half awake. There would I knew be a moment when I would nod off.

Not before stopping at Newport though

There was a woman on the coach who started to moan about the stiffness of the chairs and the length of time it took the good people from Newport. Was expecting her to moan about the crying baby as well but that didn't happen. Suspect she knew the limits.

No more stops now before London. Explains why soon after we left the stop I entered the land of nod. Half an hour later woke up.....in England.

Passed Membury services. There was still a long way to go. I tweeted that Memburies are made of this. Would've got my coat there and then for that remark if I wasn't on the coach.

The lady next to me is reading a book. I'm envious. If I tried it then the coach would resemble a scene from the exorcist with the carsick vomit that would spew from my mouth.She then starts eating. Which a) makes me hungry and b)reminds me that the first thing I'd need to do on arriving in London is to arrange for a payday loan to buy a sandwich.

Eventually we approach London. The traffic jams begin and the weather is so grey that the coach's lights are switched on.

All very neon

And to show how grey things were

London is very fast becoming Blade Runner Country

Eventually we get to Victoria coach station through the streets of Kensington and Chelsea. Some of which looked surprisingly shabby (though presumably expensively so). I would've taken a picture but my phone was running out of charge.

Got out. Wanted a sandwich but couldn't see anything. Bought a peanut Lion bar instead. Walked outside and eventually went into a shopping centre which sold all manor of things before revealing itself to be Victoria train station .

The underground journey was surprisingly easy. The two trains I needed to take came quickly, to the stops I needed and amazingly of all I had seats. From Victoria to Epping  started to read the Helene Hanff omnibus. Finished the first book, Underfoot In Show Business and now rereading 84 Charing Cross Road. Thankfully it's still as good as I remembered it to be the first time

(A quick digression. When I was a London Underground commuter if a train stopped a relevant station we were advised to "Mind the gap". Now the voice says "Mind the gap between the train and the station". What other gap could it be?)

My mother picked me up at Epping station. Wish I could say I did constructive things that evening but was nodding off most of the time. 

Besides my feet felt sore.

Until the next time.

How To Make Aneurin Bevan Boring And Other Books

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well the two library books I took out about three weeks ago have now been finished. The first of which was Nye:The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan by Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds.

As I understood this book from the introduction it's mentioned to be relatively neutral from the biographies that preceded it. Well in that it succeeded.so much so that it should be subtitled Fifty Shades Of Dull.

What this is essentially is a ponced up essay with a foreword by Lord Kinnock . A man whose socialist legacy is so great his Labour MP son takes his daughter to private school.

It is too short. Two hundred and sixty pages is just not even scratching the surface of a life such as Bevan's. There were many moments in this where the phrase "in one bound he was free" came into my head as it whizzes through his political career yet in a style where you could see more emotion in a tombstone.

For example the creation of the National Health Service is given a chapter of just eighteen pages. Eighteen? Even eighty would've probably been not enough.

As for the book being "the political life" of it's subject. The author is happy to go into tittle tattle. He mentions that Bevan was not the love of his wife's Jennie Lee's life (apparently that as a man who died earlier) something I don't remember when reading her book My Life With Nye in the eighties (read in London then when moving to Wales would've never entered my head). Furthermore he says they had an "open marriage". I won't question that statement,I don't know. What I will condemn him for is immediately afterwards mentioning that Bevan got on well with Barbara Castle but saying that there was no record of an affair. Why mention it then? Is it because she was probably the most successful female British politician before Margaret Thatcher?This was just plain petty.

Speaking personally whether it is pro or anti my political beliefs I want political books to have a political belief powering them or else it's just ends up like this. The most pointless political book I've ever read.

The only good thing I will say about this books is that it inspires me to read Michael Foot's biography which I already suspect will be miles better

The other book, which of course could not be more different was My Life In Football by Trevor Brooking. I loved this book. But I think you could realise from my idolatry when borrowed that it would have taken a great deal for me to have disliked it. I am biased I admit it. The only slight minus point was that it was the second best football book I've read this year. Alan Stubbs is still so far the best.

As I wont be able to go to the library until Tuesday it means I need new non Penguin to read. Tomorrow I'm off to Epping for the weekend for reasons I'll explain on Sunday or Monday. I'm not taking the Fatima Meer autobiography of Nelson Mandela because I'll probably finish it before this trip ends and then I would probably have to watch Midsomer Murders with my mother (that is digital hell let me tell you). So the next book(s) I'll be taking there are.

The Helene Hanff Omnibus

This is an omnibus of her books other than the one I bought in Bridgend a few weeks back. I've read 84 Charing Cross Road before and loved it. Will reread that again.

Until the next time.

In Which Books Are Bought, Borrowed And Discarded And How Labour Is Further Destroying Bridgend Town

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well I wish I could say we as a family went out on Tuesday but due to various reasons, mainly due to daughter's sudden and deep attachment to the land of nod we didn't. Ironically the only person who went out today was me. Though that was because I'd things to do.

First port of call was Porthcawl to bring back and borrow books from the library. Before that though went into the Porthcawl Animal Welfare Shop (PAWS) to see whether I could get any vintage Penguin Paperbacks.

I was lucky. There were two.

1682 - Laurie Lee - Cider With Rosie

This is the classic book about the author's childhood in a Cotswold village. Would recommend it. Did enjoy it. Though not I suspect as much as others did.

Obviously you can guess by now that I've read it. The other Penguin paperback is on the bookshelf as I'm writing this. But that one is not a pre ISBN vintage Penguin paperback. That one has to go.

I'll make sure that it goes to a good home that I promise, Next time I'm in Porthcawl I'll let the PAWS people get their paws onto it. They're good with books and as the orange spined Penguin is in good condition they won't put it down.

2787 - John Galsworthy - Over The River

I have read two John Galsworthy books. In Chancery and The Silver Spoon. Both, in particular The Silver Spoon, were so awful they should have come into the so bad it's riveting category. So you see don't hold much hope when I get round to reading it.

Later in Porthcawl it was time for the library. The football book was not an easy choice. Nothing seemed to grab my attention. Was going to plum for Sven Goran Erricsson's autobiography when all of a sudden another book caught my eye and there became no contest.

Trevor Brooking - My Life In Football

For me Trevor Brooking was when I was growing up the West Ham player of his generation. A polite, measured man he was one of the few footballers where you could use the word cultured to describe his play without appearing poncey. He was always modestly brilliant. If I had the talent he was the player I wish I could become. And he married a blonde Scandinavian. For a teenage boy what better role model could there be?

That though was not the only book I borrowed.

Nye - Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds

Aneurin Bevan was the sort of politician that believed in social justice for everybody and not just the few. It was people like him that still give the Labour party in Wales a residual loyalty amongst the Welsh voter that their current bloated,incompetent smug selves no longer deserve.If he was alive today I believe Nye Bevan would have voted Plaid Cymru.

I'm looking forward to reading both library books. But let's continue with the current state of the Labour party in Wales and in particular an onward theme of this blog the decaying state of Bridgend town thanks to sleep apnoea way they've been running it. On Monday the local BBC Wales news had a report that the Labour council had decided, subject to a consultation and a considerable cost, depedestrianise those parts of the town centre that was pedestrianised around the millennium, The idea being that it would help the local retail businesses.

A round of applause you might think, at least for the fact that the Labour council had made a decision whilst fully awake. However that should be tempered by the fact that it was the Labour council,at considerable cost and despite protests from traders, that made the decision to pedestrianise those very same streets in the first place.

Personally I doubt that depeedstrianism will stop the town's decline. A start might be car parking. If you lower the prices that might help persuade people to stay around, go to restaurants etc. instead of just going into the free ASDA car park (for I think a two/three hour limit -  and closed late evening) to do a few essentials and then straight out again.

I look at Pontypridd which is a fair comparison and don't see a decline. Perhaps the councillors should raise themselves and travel up the Valleys to have a look. Bet they'd move swiftly if I'd suggested the Caribbean instead.

And now the latest potential Bridgend Town victim.

The ground floor of the building to the right is the main Post Office. But not for much longer it appears. The proposal, subject to consultation, is to move it to the nearby branch of W H Smith early next year.

The confirmation

Now I'm not sure but I suspect that the Post Office would take over the basement floor of the current W H Smith building, given that this was the scene when I went there at around three pm yesterday.

Empty at three pm!

If I'm right then let me tell you that it's less space than the main Post Office uses now.

Again I blame the Labour council for this situation. You might ask why. You may say that Post Offices throughout the country are closing down or merging with W H Smiths and this would be true. Would have to also point that the only time I'd been using it recently is to pay our car tax bills.

However the Labour council has allowed Bridgend council to decline. When a town declines fewer people want to go there as often as they did in the past. Consequently more businesses close even fewer people come and so a vicious circle begins.

As a consequence the Post Office can if not close then severely maim their presence citing financial pressures without expecting a great deal of protest. Thus a major town hub is weakened and another building (the offices above are for let) becomes completely derelict.

Well done Labour. Falling asleep on your laurels again.

Let's end with another book I bought at a charity shop in Bridgend Town...and it's not a Penguin.

Helene Hanff - Letter From New York

Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road, wrote a series of essays on living in New York in the late seventies and early eighties for BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour. This is the book of those talks. As 84 Charing Cross Road will always be a favourite of mine I just could not resist buying it.

Until the next time.