Of Lords, a Baroness, Old Friends And Voices From The Ether

Well that was a weird day. I spent the most of the day in Committee Room 4 with assorted members of the House of Lords. When I switched my phone back on a text message popped up from a friend and colleague from Storyboat days (check the link on the right). Then as I was walking back to where I was staying in West Hampstead I thought I heard a voice call my name ...

The encounter in The House of Lords was the latest round in my opposition to the Middle Level Bill. It had its first readings in the Commons in 2017 and I attended and spoke at the Committee stage in January 2018. My own MP has never responded to anything I have addressed to him over the years, including three e-mails regarding this Bill. In the Commons debates our opposition attracted a little minority support, but each debate was upstaged by something to do with the European Union - one being on the day Article 50 was "triggered". The second reading fell foul of Theresa May's ill-judged vanity election in 2017 when one of our two most outspoken supporters, Stewart Jackson (Con - Peterborough) lost his seat. I rather hoped that would be the end of the Bill, but it wasn't. The incoming Labour MP, Fiona Onasanya, appeared to have other priorities and we never felt she understood or supported the arguments we were presenting. This meant that, when the second reading eventually took place last October, we had just one MP up to speed with our case, although a few props to the new MP for Cambridge who did speak out too. Unfortunately, as it was to prove, our robust supporter was the infamous Sir Christopher Chope (Con - Christchurch). During his thirty years or more as an MP, I have rarely considered myself in agreement with his point of view on anything. It was a difficult pill to swallow to realise that he was our main support in the Commons, but I remain grateful for that support and for the clear way in which he presented his and our objections. That makes it more of a pity that his demand for closer scrutiny of the Voyeurism (Offences) Bill, expected by many to pass through unopposed, will end up being the one thing for which he is likely to be remembered when his Parliamentary career eventually comes to an end.

The Middle Level Bill was passed through to, and debated in, the Lords and was sent through to Committee to undergo scrutiny. A couple of weeks ago I attended the House of Lords Opposed Private Bill Committee, this time for four days (which proved not to be long enough so the Committee had to be reconvened last week), and once again I was called upon to explain my opposition to the proposals, which I did in my forty-five minute presentation before the Lords Thomas, Hunt, Tree and Brabazon and Baroness Bakewell. It was an interesting experience and I'm going to come back to the Bill in a future post. For now I just want to get some new diary entries up and visible.

On the Tuesday about which I started writing this essay the Committee finished at 1pm. Their Lordships were otherwise engaged for the remainder of the day. Our little crew went down to the commoners' café to discuss our progress and buy our expensive sandwiches and herbal infusions - not for the users of this café the fabled subsidies afforded to members of both Houses. I switched my mobile phone back on and up popped a text message from Andy, my friend from Storyboat days. We hadn't seen each other for a couple of decades and hadn't even spoken on the telephone for many years. His message was reaching out to me in the hope that I was still using the same number. Of course I am and that was how we found ourselves chatting in a West Hampstead coffee shop later that same afternoon. I love meeting old friends. People sometimes express surprise that I am still in regular contact with friends from my school days and from college. I don't see anything odd in that at all. If they were good enough to be my friends all those years ago the least I can offer is to remember something of the experiences we may have shared and solidarity during the experiences our adult lives have brought. These days such contact is so much easier than it has ever been before the world wide web brought us all closer together. Admittedly friends drift apart for many reasons and there are many with whom I have not maintained contact. That's okay too. I daresay some of them would be horrified to see how I live these days.

Walking back to M's flat (another friend from my school days) where I was staying during the week, I thought I heard someone call my name. I turned to see a cyclist some way down the street resting with one foot on the ground and another on a pedal. I didn't recognise anyone and another man was walking by so I assumed they knew each other. As I turned to continue on my way I distinctly heard my name being called and turned again. This time the cyclist headed my way. This was weird, I don't know anyone in this part of London ... surely? He started talking and it was clear he knew me from somewhere. Damn my prosopagnosic tendencies. There was something about his manner and his voice, but naturally I could not recognise his face at all, so I had to ask. It turned out to be George, a composer I met at a composers' forum last year. He stopped me a couple of months later in Tate Modern. This was now a year after that our only prior contact being those two short conversations a long time ago. It doesn't make sense to me. I am in awe of how some people remember faces. I wish I could do it, but I seem quite unable to do so.

As a post-script, while writing this I have been popping out of the boat to push it away from the landing stage when another boat comes by. I've tried tightening my mooring ropes, but the river rises and falls according to the whims of the engineers at the big sluice gates into The Wash, so tightening my lines is often unproductive and occasionally dangerous. The wind and the wash of passing boats rub my boat against a couple of fenders I have in place to keep me from scraping off even more paint. I have tried yelling at people to slow down and it really doesn't make either of us feel any good, so these days I just climb out and attempt to hold the boat away from the side. If they really are going too fast I make a slowing down gesture like I learned to do when I was learning to drive. Most people just give a cheery wave back. I also avoid eye contact, because I am pretty sure I would be glaring at them and I don't really want to be that mad, angry boat bloke. Tilly 2 just came by and Paul, the owner said, "You don't remember me do you?" Of course I didn't ... argh! We met last summer, when we shared adjacent moorings in town and later in the boatyard when he had engine problems while I was in for a service. Apparently I gave him a cd. He said he showed it to some other people and they said they knew me. We talked about the Middle Level Bill and he thanked me for taking the trouble to stand up for boaters.

As a post post-script, I've just had a text message from another school friend. I think every time I have seen him since we left school he has been married to someone different, which is neither here nor there, but I can't help thinking about the heartache he must have experienced, although we all find excitement in our own special ways I suppose. Again I haven't seen him for years and he's coming over on Wednesday. I'm attending a Prom Concert tomorrow at the Albert Hall. I have a great life.

Of Boats And Fantasies

I've lived on the river for nearly three-and-a-half years.  I'd entertained a fantasy about living on a narrowboat for a long time.  For several years my favourite time of the year was was always the one week when I would be invited to come and be part of the crew for the "Summer Storyboat".

The Rose of Essex

The Storyboat started out as a project organised by a group of literature-loving teachers and librarians in Hertfordshire some time during the 1980s.  They formed a working committee and hired the county's 72' Youth and Community Services narrowboat, "Belfast" for the week and took to the Grand Union Canal spending the week stopping off at several points between Watford and Bulbourne.  The first year must have been successful, because they repeated the project and it ran for several years.  I think I became involved after the project had already been running for two or three years.  When the committee changed, as invariably happens, and a majority of the fresh members lived and worked on the opposite side of the county the group decided to change waterway.  This was a big decision and I don't think things were ever the same after that.  They found "The Rose of Essex", owned by Essex Youth Service, and we took her along the Rivers Stort and Lee to run the week's activities between Hertford and Waltham Abbey.

My unique role on both routes turned from just leading a bit of community singing to providing musical continuity between performances by some of this country's most gifted authors of children's

In typical pose?

tales, illustrators and storytellers.  I was also quite useful when we needed to divert people away from areas of the site to move heavy equipment about.  I'd start singing and people would come.

The week was hard work - long days, hard on the voice, physically demanding, always having to think on the fly, but so satisfying.  The reward was partly seeing the families that used to turn up at the same riverside patch of green as us.  Sometimes they would follow us along the river and we'd see them several times during the week.  I don't really know where they came from.  The whole process struck me as akin to magic.  The biggest rewards, though, were more personal including actually being on the canals and rivers, seeing a very different-looking world from the water, seeing my first kingfisher in real life, being allowed to "drive" and learning the mysteries of negotiating locks.  Something bit me then and didn't let go.  I think it was a vision that peace was a possibility.

June Counsel

I met some inspiring people and was privileged to work alongside some brilliantly creative minds.  I hope I shall never forget the after-work wind-down at Waltham Abbey one year where June Counsel and Julia Jarman sat in the shade of the hawthorn hedge and decided to weave a story spontaneously.  They didn't do it for an audience, most of whom had gone home for tea anyway, but simply because they could. I don't remember the plot or the characters, but I do remember watching and listening to the twists and turns of their separate imaginations and wondering how they managed to think of such things, seemingly plucking them from the air without faltering.  It was like a game of "let's pretend", but on a far more sophisticated level.

Another performance I found totally absorbing was James Mayhew telling the story of the Firebird.  He spoke very quietly, so we had to draw close.  He had a sketch book on his lap and while he was telling the story he drew a most beautiful illustration of the Firebird ... but from his point of view he was drawing it upside down so we could all see the picture.

The wonderful John Ryan was another regular.  He showed us how he created the early BBC animations for Captain Pugwash from his books.  He always went through the same routine, but I never tired of hearing and watching him.  An absolute gentleman at all times I was really angry when characters with sexualised names became part of popular culture and everyone thought it was him, which it most certainly was not.  I think he was deeply hurt by all the smutty innuendo.  I take every opportunity to defend his honour when anyone brings up those characters whom he never invented and who never appeared in his stories.  I have one of his drawings of Captain Pugwash.  I wish I'd asked him to sign it.

One year on Boxmoor Common, Jan Pienkowski turned up to supervise the painting of a 16'x4' painting on sheets of hardboard.  One of my closest musician friends now, here in the Fens, was a child at the time and was there too, although I didn't know that at the time.

Some encounters were a little offbeat.  When Colin and Jacqui Hawkins turned up one day at Berkhamstead (Colin dressed in full pirate outfit, of course) I seemed to spend most of my spare moments chatting to Jacqui about considerations for choosing schools for children.  I realise that we may have been talking about their daughter, Sally, who is now enjoying a successful acting career.  Errol Lloyd and I worked up a double act.  He would tell his Caribbean stories and I would bring out my West Indian song repertoire.  He'd bring his flute and we'd sing and play "Linstead Market" and "Dis Long Time Girl".  Grace Hallworth, the grandmother of the storyteller revival was another wonderful lady who referred back to her Caribbean culture.  We worked together a few times outside of Storyboat time too.  One or two writers were not really suited to the chaos of the Storyboat routine and one in particular needed "medicinal help" before doing her routine.  It was terribly sad that some people are forced into roles by their publishers for which they are not suited .

I don't think I have ever laughed so much as the time Tony Ross and Andrew Davies shared the community picnic lunch.  Brilliantly funny people.  Some authors expected an annual invitation and were such good value that they received it.  Unfortunately for us, Andrew became much too busy and famous after a while, outgrowing his stories of Marmalade Atkins, but it was certainly fun while it lasted.

I was in awe of Jan Mark.

Jan Mark

Sometimes one meets someone who knows a lot about a few things, or someone who knows a few things about a lot of subjects.  Jan knew a lot of things about a lot of subjects.  I felt like an intellectual toddler in her company.  One of my most treasured possessions is a photocopy of a two-stanza poem she wrote under the shade of a tree when we were moored at Ware one year.

Where?

The Storyboat has berthed at Ware,
The handsome Colin West is thare,
And Robert Leeson bright and fare,
And also I, with windswept hare.
At Ware.

The handsome Colin West

The second stanza followed the same form, but was mainly about me, the mis-spellings being a reference to the spelling of my surname.

Mick Gowar with Robert Leeson, "bright and fare", in repose 

Robert Leeson stayed on The Rose of Essex with the crew one year.  He wanted to research life aboard for a book he was writing in a series called "The Zarnia Experiment".  I don't think he enjoyed it very much, but a year later the fifth book in the sextet, "Hide and Seek" was published and featured every member of the crew under other names.  I became "Sam" who seemed always to be dressed in red t-shirt and rainbow braces and singing the Jan Holdstock song, "Buttercup Farm".  Bob thought the song was traditional, so he quoted it freely throughout the book.  The description of me was pretty accurate for the time though.

I made some friendships on the Storyboat that have lasted; others never really were, have faded or people have passed away.  I still see Mick Gowar and occasionally Rob Lewis.  I met Kevin Crossley-Holland on a train back from London and we talked the whole way back.  I am in contact with the man who first got me involved.  He is a head teacher in Tower Hamlets now.  We first met when I went into his school and ran some music workshops.  He also owns a narrowboat, but hasn't taken the plunge to live afloat.

Mick Gowar liked using my guitar.  He said it had a "fifth gear"