This Time it's Personal ~ part 7

So, thinking about it, what I've tried to do over these last six postings is set out the problem. The first five were a bit chaotic but looking back on it, that's how scientific exploration works. There is a phase of observation to begin with - the explorer looks at how things appear and simply collects observations.
This stage can be summarised as 'Wow! Look at all this stuff!" It's the 'Naturalist' phase of the process.
The next stage is coming up with hypotheses - attempts at explanations of at least some of the observations - how it all fits together, what is the result of what. Ideally these are based on established knowledge - the hypotheses should be consistent with what we already know and not totally fanciful but often the established knowledge is itself tested by the new observations just as much as the new observations are illuminated by the established knowledge.
The third stage involves testing the hypotheses with experiments to see which fits best. This is always a problem in any science that studies people, and doubly so with anything psychological.

How is this relevant here? Well, that last (sixth) entry I think sets out an hypothesis - that the difficulties I still experience are a result of my unusual, almost Kaspar Hauser, infancy. I set out a story which is based on facts (I didn't meet any other children until I went to school) and which is at least plausible. It doesn't require any completely made up events (maybe I was sexually or physically abused. I don't remember anything like that but it's possible) and it fits with history - in particular - what roles boys and men were expected to fill back then, and how children were expected to behave. But it is just a story. I'm as aware as anyone of how our memories can trip us up. We are all biased. We unconsciously pick out the bits that suit our case and gloss over others, so obviously this can't have the scientific rigour of, say physics, or even ecology but I still think it's better than nothing.
I don't want to spend a lot of time here justifying myself but I think I have good reason to think that I am unusually honest with myself. I'm very aware of the limitations of my story for one very good reason. If my story is wrong, it won't work - it won't make me better. Often when people talk about psychoanalysis, which is essentially what this is, the whole language is about the subconscious trying to fool someone - be it the person whose mind is being analysed, the therapist or the concerned family and friends. We all fool ourselves some of the time, but it seems to me that most people need to fool themselves almost all the time just to survive. We tell ourselves all sorts of stories to justify our appetites, our priorities, our weaknesses, which is probably why so many people are so against personal questions or deep conversations. They don't want all that stuff unravelling. Most people I think - faced with the prospect of introspection, firstly dismiss the task as self-indulgent (some sort of Protestant work ethic type 'just bloody get on with life and stop making a fuss' kind of a thing). If they get past that they baulk at the mass of tangled emotions, impulses, motives, actions and ideas they find and just say it's all too complicated and it probably won't work anyway. Beyond that, if they try to get in there they shy at the first unpleasant revelation and prefer to go back to not knowing rather than face it.
I seem to have come out different. I seem to have an almost pathological openness. I don't seem to have a complacent view of myself to defend. My basic stance is that everything I do is questionable. Everything I do needs justification. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time wishing people would understand more and trying to explain myself to them. I also have the basic feeling that if my actions and motives are mistaken in any way, that it will be apparent to everyone and they will dismiss me with derision and contempt. My strategy therefore has always been to make my actions and motives as justified as possible, and when there is some flaw in what I have done (as there invariably is) to own up well before it is pointed out to me.

To use another engineering metaphor - if you are trying to sell someone some gadget (car, toaster, PC) it might pay you to use some shoddy parts and take some short cuts, if all you care about is taking their money and never seeing them again. But if you are making something for yourself there is no point in fooling yourself. You want it to work as well as possible for as long as possible. You use the best materials you can get hold of and do the job as well as you can, and if you can't afford the best, you want to be aware of where the weakness is so that you can allow for it and maybe put it right later. So it is with my self analysis. I really want to handle life better than I do. It's possible I could use some half-truth trick but it probably wouldn't work long term and may even cause more problems. A thought may be convenient or comforting but I know when it isn't quite right - when it is based on events that I can't really be sure happened (the physical abuse) or some quasi mystical truism ('It obviously wasn't meant to happen'). I can feel it, that niggle, and I know I'm going to have to go back and think again.

to be continued...

This Time it's Personal ~ part 6

I've been coming at this in a round about sort of a way, trying to set up the problem - get the reader intrigued by my predicament and wondering how all this could have happened. But reading back I find it's not that easy to read - even to me now a lot of what I've written seems like a disorganised rant.

So I'm going to cut to the chase. I think I am as I am because I spent the first five years of my life effectively alone with my mum living in basement flats in Hove. When I first realised this - about fifteen years ago, I was astonished. I didn't know any other children until I went to school aged five. Ian, my brother was born when I was three, partly, my parents say, so I wouldn't be an only child, but a three year old has nothing in common with a baby. Nor does a five year old with a two year old. In short, he was no help. My aunts and uncles and my parents' friends only started having kids after Ian was born. I was effectively an only child all that time. My mother did not go out and make friends with other mums up the street and there were no nursery schools or day care back then.
Of course there were other adults about. Dad was there in the evenings and weekends although he did a lot of over-time and went out a lot (table tennis, fishing, union etc) The two sets of grandparents came over perhaps once a week each and my parent's friends came over to play cards. I don't remember any except my grandmas being especially interested in a small boy. My mum certainly didn't play with me or read to me or whatever. She just wasn't like that. She'd admit it herself. She was not a cuddly mum. There was no baby talk. Dad read me bedtime stories and sang me silly songs. We didn't really go out anywhere except to the shops.
Once again - I'm not blaming anyone especially. People did not take the time to be with children back then - they didn't try to communicate with them, far less listen to what they had to say. Certainly nobody thought children were interesting - far less likeable. They were a fact of life. A bit of a nuisance. They were kept clean and fed and warm, but they were not included or consulted in those days. They were kept under control - not exactly seen-but-not-heard, but that was what it amounted to. Children were just around, which would be fine if there were several of them to run about together and make their own little social life. I just don't think it occurred to anyone that that was not the case with me. Later, when there were young children running about they seemed out of control and spoilt to me.
I'm not even complaining about this. I don't remember being especially unhappy or bored. I became very good at entertaining myself with the minimum of props. Paper and pencils, or a blackboard and chalks, some plasticine, some mud and some plastic animals in the garden, my cuddly toys for friends, but mostly, just making things up in my head, talking to myself, singing or watching the sun shine through a coleus leaf or a kaleidoscope. I was quiet and self-contained. I avoided asking things of my mum as much as possible and she in turn did what had to be done. I think she was quite depressed a lot of the time, understandably, and my dad and the grandparents were not very understanding. In short it was best not to bother her if at all possible. I remember her crying a lot and my mum and dad not talking. There was a bad atmosphere a lot of the time.
Sometimes I think part of me still lives in that small, dim, subterranean space, free to potter about and make up stories and to stay out of everyone's way. All that would have been fine except that sooner or later I would be expected to grow up and face the world.

I coped with the first five years of school well enough. I was messy and forgetful but my art and writing and interest in nature were good. Maths bewildered me and I absolutely hated PE, as much as anything because only in PE are your failures public and the other kids judge you by them. Being good at football makes you popular in a way that being good at any other subject does not. Mainly I wanted to avoid attention. I had friends but I don't think I took it for granted that they would want to spend time with me. It was always something that might change at any time and I spent a lot of my play times on my own.
Things changed when I was ten because that was when we started to get home work. This had a profound meaning to me which has stayed with me ever since, which is that when you have homework, there is never a time even on holiday when you couldn't be doing some school work. There is no longer any such thing as free time. My parents told me to get it done straight away so I'd have spare time later but I never did. I put it off as long as possible (and sometimes longer) and dashed it off as quickly as possible, not looking back in case I had to do it all over again.
The other problem was the increasing sense that as I got older I should be 'joining in' more. Dad was a great believer in the Scouts and tried to get me interested in games and sports and joining clubs. I was spending all my time reading up on whatever my latest obsession was - prehistoric animals, Second World War armoured vehicles, aquariums, house plants. I made models and collected shells, built ponds and went down to Kingston Beach to hunt in the rock-pools. I went to the library and read everything they had on the subject. I made lists and drew pictures, diagrams and maps. I was almost never bored and almost always on my own. Increasingly I think they worried that I was not like the other boys. I did not behave the way they did. I was not interested in the things they were interested in. In fact, boys just made me uncomfortable. I was never really bullied but I was decidedly wary of boys. The men in the family especially - my uncles and my dad's friends didn't know what to make of me. I was still alone, playing with my models or watching my fish, or off walking alone in the country. They didn't know what I did or why I did it. They never asked. I'm sure my feeling of being viewed with incomprehension, exasperation and embarrassment, especially by men, comes from this. The fact that I was not interested in boys' things and that I was a quiet and sensitive child probably made them think I might be queer. Actually I really liked everything about girls, but there was no way of letting them know that.
On top of all this I had dreadful allergies which made me sneeze until my nose bled and gave me thick itching welts all over my body. I now recognise that the allergies sapped my energy and my concentration but everybody thought I was sort of slow. The Piriton probably didn't help.

When I hit my teens everything got worse because there was more homework and I really wanted a girlfriend. Plus the things I'd been good at at junior school - the creative writing and the art and the nature became irrelevant. Again, schools in those days were not places where a person's strengths could be discovered and nurtured. School then was simply about doing what you were told. I don't remember a single inspiring teacher, far less one who went out of their way to encourage me, or any of us for that matter. I was in the top 10% throughout, despite my difficulties getting things done and not checking my work but there was never any sense of being someone who might achieve anything. Both my parents and teachers simply assumed I was lazy. It was the only explanation available for why a person was not doing as well as they might. I on the other hand was panicking the whole time, worrying about not getting things done but at the same time unable to think what I might do to change that. The only advice I got was 'pull your socks up'.

I passed my O levels well enough in this state and even got as far as a C in my chemistry AO that first year of sixth form but by the time the second year ended and I took my A level Chemistry and Biology I failed completely. Partly I think this was due to being with Claire, my first girlfriend - an experience which left me feeling utterly rejected and lost, but otherwise I think I simply didn't know how to approach the volume of work and as I began to feel more and more left behind, the less and less I felt able to do anything about it. I spent all my time at Claire's house being ignored by her or walking over the Downs to get away from it all. Needless to say nobody knew what to say to me or even tried. Getting angry with teenagers who don't do what they're supposed to was the only strategy back then. As far as they were concerned I just couldn't be bothered. It was the only explanation.

After that it was worse. School was hard but work was harder. At school they couldn't kick you out even if you regularly did badly but at work you were always under suspicion. Reading the sits vac in the Thursday Argus was all about fulfilling some incomprehensible and arbitrary criteria for some bloody-minded boss - people like my uncles and my dad's friends whose only interest would be in making you do what you were told and put up with it. Even if I succeeded in getting a job, all I could see was a lifetime of meaningless drudgery for money that never really made a difference, to pay for things that didn't seem to make anyone happy, till the end of my life and then what? What would it all have been for? When I did get jobs - none of them for long, I was always aware of how I was wasting my time when I could have been doing... what? Back in that small place of mine, or alone on the beach or on the hills, alone with my thoughts and my dreams and my imaginary girlfriends. I just wanted to get out. I knew I wanted to do something with my life but I couldn't even begin to imagine what. Instead I had to face being home with my family again, and their incomprehension, exasperation and embarrassment. I couldn't even get it together to sign on some weeks. I think in retrospect I was very depressed pretty much that entire time.

I did move on. At twenty three I got a job that I could stand (a part time nursing orderly at St Dunstan's), I rented a room, got a place at Brighton Poly to be a teacher (the normal refuge for people who couldn't get into uni) and I got a girlfriend. As it turned out I had trouble with my landlady (too much like mum), I really didn't know how to deal with the school kids (unsurprisingly) and my girlfriend was nine years older than me and more like a good friend than a lover, but it got me out and saved me from being much more of a loser than I might have been.
Since then I've had a lot of jobs - mostly part time and some not too bad. I've lived in a lot of different places, travelled a bit, made something of a success of academia (I never missed a deadline and was a straight 2.1 student. I got a distinction for my MSc, but my Ecology Phd fell apart after a few months.) I still find people difficult and don't make friends easily but I've had quite a lot of girlfriends. I worked out how to deal with my allergies in my mid thirties and they've hardly bothered me since.
Most recently I've met a woman on line, married her and now live with her and her two (now teenage) kids and we all get on remarkably well. I work part time as a gardener for an excellent old lady, have my own (small, unprofitable) business running a nursery and have written a couple of (unpublished) novels. Dad died a while back but I'm friends with my mum and my brother. I've come through. Like I said, I have no good reason to be unhappy, and yet...

Still, when things begin to go wrong, when things don't go according to plan, when things start to get on top of me, I'm like that thirteen year old caught not doing his homework again, or that eighteen year old not getting on with his revision again, or I'm that twenty year old not looking for work again. The temptation is always to go back into that space where I can just be in my head or with just some basic materials, and not have to deal with the world...

to be continued...

This Time it's Personal ~ part 5

In legal jargon, at least in the USA (or at least according to the American TV show The Good Wife, which is an excellent show btw, and very well-researched) there seems to be a thing called a 'Bad Fact'. This, in a court case, is not a fact that proves your guilt. It may have nothing to do with the charges, but it doesn't look good. It shouldn't affect the facts of the case but it might influence the jury. It goes to the character of the defendant, as they (apparently) say.

Life is full of Bad Facts. Last weekend I ran out of diesel. I got as far as the nursery gates, turned off the engine, unlocked the gates and couldn't start the engine again. My bro and I pushed the car into the nursery and I called the RAC out on bank holiday Monday to get her going again. I'd do it myself but last time this happened there were air-locks to deal with. But I'm a member of the RAC. I had stuff to do at the nursery. I called them out. 
On the Sunday, when it happened I was already tired from dismantling the greenhouse in the back garden. We got it done, actually, a lot quicker than I'd expected but at the time I felt pressed for time. I was down the nursery picking something up I'd forgotten so all in all I was a bit hassled. I went to the local filling station in Henfield High Street and they were out of diesel. I knew I was low when I drove back from work on the Thursday but I thought I could go to the filling station in town, but they were out of diesel even then. 
Explaining to my bro, my wife and to the RAC man, I had a small rant about how ridiculous it is for a filling station to be out of diesel. It's like a pub having no beer, or a hairdressers not being able to cut hair.  And on a bank holiday! How incredibly disorganised of them. How bloody idiotic. I pictured them at Shell, sitting on their arses, reading The Sun, not really giving a toss, actually rather enjoying their (petty mindless) power to make life difficult for the rest of us. And then the argument blossomed (in my mind) because it has occurred to me before that the fuel companies don't really care about this. They've closed a lot of the smaller local stations on minor roads, presumably because they make more money that way and the resulting 'externality' (as I believe the term is - when a company makes a change that forces us, the customers to make up the difference) is that drivers have to drive about more to go to where the filling stations are, and also think ahead more to avoid my predicament. I could go on about how customer service is a myth but I won't - you get the picture. So they don't care. They can be out of stock over a public holiday of one of their two major products and it has no effect on their bottom line so we can go fuck ourselves.
All this sort of makes sense (the case for the prosecution as it were) but for the Bad Fact that of course, I shouldn't have let the fuel in the car run down that far. Surely (say the prosecution) I must have passed at least one filling station on my way home from work that Thursday? I could have filled up then. In fact I passed (let me think) nine filling stations on the hour's drive from Heathfield to Henfield along the 272. Why didn't I fill up at one of them? Simple answer - because I assumed I'd be able to fill up in Henfield ferchrissakes! Plus I was tired and I really wanted to just get home. I'd fill up on the Saturday. It doesn't seem unreasonable. But there is another Bad Fact.
But you said 'the last time this happened'. This is not the first time is it? How many times have you had to call out the RAC because you've run out of fuel Mr Law?
Erm... four times...
Four times! This is getting to be a habit.
The car seems to be able to run for ages when the gauge shows empty. I know it's not good for the engine but sometimes I run out of money or I just want to get home. One of those instances in any case was a Landie, which paradoxically, run empty before the needle hits zero. I didn't know that at the time. I free-wheeled into Hurstpierpoint only to discover that the filling station had just that week been closed down.
But all of this could be avoided if you thought ahead more and made sure you had enough money. Everybody gets tired. It's no excuse. We aren't all sitting by the roadside on a regular basis waiting for the RAC man to deliver our fuel are we?
But shouldn't the filling stations be more reliable?
That's irrelevant. You should always be prepared for these eventualities. There is no excuse. Send him down.

Of course for almost anyone else this would be the most trivial of trivial things. They might make a joke of it or have a little rant about filling stations but that would be it. For me though it becomes yet another lesson in how useless Steve is. There are no excuses. It doesn't matter how useless other people are (in this case Shell) I should have allowed for that. And it's no good laughing it off. This is the sort of thing we mean. This is why things are the way they are. Leaving everything 'til the last minute. It's just yet another example of how you can't be trusted to do things properly. It seems trivial but it isn't because it's part of a bigger picture. It's typical of the kind of person I am. 
You might have noticed there how the 'conversation' slips from first to second person and back again - from  Parent to Child - 'we' the parents, looking down on 'me' the child, wrong again, inexcusable, untrustworthy. And it's serious. It's not a trivial matter. It never is. It's not a one-off cock-up, and it's certainly not an excusable (let alone lovable) flaw. I can't brush it off. I can't say 'well that's just the way I am'. It's not right. It's just another way I am not right. There are no mitigating circumstances. I can't blame anyone else. It's not understandable. I got it wrong. Again. As usual.
Contempt, exasperation, dismissal, derision. And shame. Let's not forget shame.

to be continued...

This Time it's Personal ~ part 4

So, where were we? Anger.
I've just read back over the last three instalments because I don't want to repeat myself too much. 

Anger - that's what it's about. Paul asked me if that last 'rant' got it off my chest. I told him it didn't. It never does. I've known a few people over the years, prone to the odd rant here and there. Like most people I sort of assume it's about expressing your views, getting it off your chest, telling everyone what you think. It's a form of self-expression - like having a certain taste in music or supporting a team. The things that get a person mad say a lot about them. It's a way of saying 'this is me, and this is what I care about. This is what I (won't) stand for.' Or else it's just blowing off steam. For me though I sense it's different. For me it's trying to convince others that there is good reason for how I feel and what I think - that I'm not just some bizarre incomprehensible dreamer. I don't expect people to agree with me, but I want them to take my opinion seriously. Really, it's a plea for understanding.

This, I know, sounds a bit pathetic. Surely a grown man like myself should feel reasonably secure in his convictions by now, after all, what is this whole blog about if it's not about telling all and sundry what's what? And at some level that's right. I do write about things I care deeply about, things I agree with and things I think are wrong. Part of me holds these views very dear, and my ability to see things the way I do, which I think is a little unusual, and which I really value. 
The problem is that at the same time I believe deep down that my way of looking at things is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how good I am at thinking things through, or how worthwhile my insights might be (or how good I am at expressing them) because most people don't see things that way. They judge a persons utterances by how well they fit with their own preconceived notions. They skim read or half-listen, picking out bits that tell them which box to put you and your views in. They judge you by your appearance, by your social aptitude, your friends, in fact by pretty much anything except what you actually say because the point is all about fitting in, not about being right. And I have never fitted in.
At some point I went from simply being a sad and bewildered misfit to being an angry outsider. At some point in my teens I think I started to feel rather than think 'why should I try to fit in?' Because that's how you get on, that's why' you might have replied, but somehow I wouldn't, or couldn't. Trying to fit in felt, and still feels, like being beaten, like being colonised. At some level, I have a deep faith in my way of seeing the world - not as infallible (far from it. Scepticism and uncertainty are crucial parts of my way of seeing things) but as worthwhile and above all, positive, but I am equally sure that my refusal to jump hoops means that what I have to say will be ignored.

It's like me trying to get my novel published. A friend asked me if I really believed my book was great. He was reacting to the fact that my attempts at approaching publishers had been somewhat faltering and brief. His point was that if you really believe in what you are doing it follows that you will have the drive to do whatever it takes to achieve it. I said yes, I really love my novel, and I do. And i believe in it. I wrote it partly because I wanted to write the sort of thing that I would want to read, if I for instance came across it in a book shop or library. And I succeeded. I know it has all sorts of flaws and as they say, no art is ever 'finished', only abandoned. But it also has some really good bits, and for what it is, my first novel, I'm very chuffed with it, and I still enjoy reading it. But the point is, I told him, that that says nothing about how anybody else will see it. My own opinions are irrelevant because deep down I really believe that people will dismiss it because it doesn't fit in. The actual quality of the book is irrelevant.

There is some truth in this. Publishers like books that fit into set genres, and they like them to be written by people they know, or at least, people they can relate to (Eng. lit. degree, journalism, Oxbridge...) or who are already famous for something (or are related to someone famous) I just don't have the connections. Even if my manuscript somehow got read, I tend to feel that it will be dismissed on some pretext. A 'friend' who I gave it to to look at just sort of gave it back to me after looking at the first page. His only comment was that he'd have liked me to use semi-colons. It sounds ludicrous but that's the sort of arbitrary, petty pretext I expect things to be judged on. Did he use the right paper? Did he refer to me in his covering letter as 'Sir'? Has he used the right font in his CV? Nothing to do with the writing. One editor I went to see simply told me it was too long and I'd have to cut it by three quarters. She hadn't read any of it. It was just the wrong size. And this of course brings us back to what I said about capitalism. The market wants a recognisable, predictable product - something resembling the latest best-seller. I'm not pretending to be a great author (hardly) but I do wonder how Proust or Joyce would have felt about these criteria being applied to their writing. Another friend told me what my dad would have told me - that you have to go through a sort of apprenticeship - doing what is expected to gain some sort of reputation before you can claim the freedom to do something original. I don't agree. That's just about status - about putting you in your place, nothing to do with creativity. Or at least, I don't want to do that (I can't) If I have to spend years writing stuff that means less to me, just following the rules, in the hope that one day I'll have enough of a reputation to write in a way that really means something to me, well, they'll have to go without. It's their loss.
But of course they won't even notice. There are all sorts of reasons why my work, assuming anyone ever looks at it, will be dismissed, but frankly it makes no odds to them whatsoever, and the reasons are irrelevant. I just don't fit in. I am on my own. They can safely ignore me without consequences.

Sometimes it feels like this dismissal (which is the best word I can think of to describe it, although it's not quite right) is deliberate, but more often it is merely thoughtless. They just don't care, or they don't notice. They're too busy. Sometimes they seem impatient, exasperated or embarrassed with me. Sometimes they seem contemptuous. Occasionally it feels malicious - like they are laughing at me - enjoying my humiliation. In any case it is the reaction I expect. 

So it doesn't matter how good my ideas are, how good my writing is. There are no mitigating circumstances - no excuses. They don't want to know. They simply want not to have to bother with me. They want to dismiss what I have done, what I think, who I am and get back to what they do, together, as adults. I still feel, often, as if I am somehow smaller than everyone else (I am a little on the short side) a child among adults. What I think doesn't matter. What I say is irrelevant. Nobody's listening. 
I used to go off somewhere quietly and do things on my own. At some point (in my early twenties I think) I began to try to explain to people why I thought the things I did and to try to get them to understand. They really didn't want to know. I tried too hard and made a fool of myself. I became resentful. They really didn't want me around then, so I went off on my own.

Emma says my reaction seems too much under the circumstances but I'd have thought that almost anybody would be angry - furious even - if people really did react that way to them on a regular basis. But of course, they don't, do they? My rational mind throws doubts on this feeling. It can't really be true can it? I sort of know, at some level that it can't really be true. 
And yet it feels so true. And somehow, as yet, the rational fact that the world cannot possibly be like that, has had no effect on the power of that feeling. They have no effect on each other. I simply feel, when I get stressed, tired or hungry that that is how the world reacts to me - with contempt, exasperation, dismissal, derision.

That's why I get angry. 


to be continued...

This Time it's Personal ~ part 3

I am aware, trust me, of how ridiculous all this looks. Other people's impotent rage is a comedy staple. Think of Basil Fawlty thrashing his Mini, Oliver Hardy doing his nut... And now here's me fuming at, of all things, my shorts! Then there's the hose at the nursery, somehow independently wrapping itself around things that were no where near it, and my bike, neatly propped up, then somehow, as I walk away from it, falling over. Almost none of the technology I use works properly. As I mentioned before my VAIO laptop has self-destructed, my portable Roberts DAB radio won't work on its batteries (this is the second one. I sent the original back but it's happened again. On both occasions the fault followed a fall off the shelf onto he floor. 'Ah well...' you say, but a portable radio should be able to suffer the odd knock without packing up). My car's electronics, as I think I mentioned before, are behaving randomly. It's over ten years old now but the main problem is the stereo which is designed to revert to a preset volume when you switch it off. The ventilation likewise goes to a preset when you start the car - not the level you had it at last time you used the car. The result is that when you start the car the vents drown out the music. Brilliant. Now this seems just one of those things until you think that somebody somewhere was paid to set the car up this way. It's not an inescapable consequence of the physics. Somebody has actively thought 'Wow! What a cool new feature!' As a result I have to conform to someone else's idiotic idea of what is 'cool' when I start my car, each time resetting it to what I, the customer, wants. Whatever happened to customer choice? Because of this no doubt totally cool bit of tech - with the volume being able to turn itself down without the knob turning - now when it becomes faulty (because of its age) adjusting the volume becomes a precision procedure. If you turn it up too quickly it goes down to inaudible so you have to really concentrate, turning it up tiny notch by tiny notch, which means you either have to stop the car or not concentrate on the road.
Of course you can argue that it was my choice to buy this car, and further that if I'd worked harder, longer hours and done more research I could have afforded a better car. Of course it's my fault. It's always my fault. And yet it's not. A simple old-fashioned dial volume control would do the job perfectly, and when the car starts to deteriorate (as it inevitably will) it will still work, because it's nice simple bit of tech. But the tekkies don't want that - it has to be new and sophisticated, and the possibility that it might not work doesn't occur to them. Modern designers seem to work on the assumption that their creations will be operating under optimum conditions all the time and not need repairing. Either that or, shock horror, they like to make them so they fail quite quickly so the consumer goes out and buys more of them and they make more money. The number of kettles, toasters and DVD players we've got through in this house... the waste...

I'm aware that most people don't get so outraged about such things, or if they do they don't make their outrage so public and most of them don't seek to justify their anger rationally. Why do I feel I have to explain? Most people seem to feel quite entitled to complain, or else they just let it go, put it down to experience. Shit happens. Life's not fair. I on the other hand don't feel entitled to complain but I can't just let it go. I'm not allowed to complain because after all, it is at some level my fault (I bought it. Better products exist. If I'd read up, worked harder etc etc) I only have myself to blame. At the same time I also know there are people producing crap goods. This is not a paranoid fiction. Modern capitalism, as I have argued at some length elsewhere encourages manufacturers to cut corners and generally make goods as shoddy as they can get away with. The world is set up for novelty and waste because that's how profits are maximised. Conscientious responsible manufacturers will sooner or later be bought out or forced out of business by larger corporations because they are less profitable. We've been though all this. Stupid design is everywhere. Products are clearly not properly tested. My dad hated bad design too. I remember him one day with me in Woolworths, pulling the bristles out of some kids' paint brushes. I was mortified at the time but like me he simply couldn't see why anybody should get away with selling things that were going to fall apart almost immediately. It infuriated him, and it infuriates me. He didn't want kids to get them home and be disappointed so he did it to show people how crap the products were. He didn't want Woolworths to get away with it, and I feel the same way. I can't bring myself to say 'Oh well - it was only cheap. Shit happens. Life's not fair' because why should I? Why should they get away with it? The car stereo and the paint brushes are trivial examples but part of a larger economy that is filling the world with crap and making a few people incredibly rich. I can't think of a less trivial thing to get riled about.

And yet. There's the bike and the hose. They're not badly designed (some sort of hand brake on the front wheel of a bike would be a good thing though - to stop the wheel swivelling around, making it easier to prop up and also as a security measure - patent anyone?) but I still am furious with them, and at my body which overheats easily and the amount I sweat when I am trying to get things done and how it makes me itch, and at the flies that come and hover in front of my eyes, and at the rain that means I end up as wet in a waterproof as I would be without one. And at the branch that whips back and smartly smacks me in the face. And at the slugs and the caterpillars - I hate their moronic single mindedness - destroying my things. All these things are beyond anyone's control and yet a bad day will see me raving at them as if they were malicious beings intent on making me look stupid and making my life as hard as possible. I can feel them enjoying my useless fury, cackling as they wind me up or else looking at me in moronic disbelief ('What's he so upset about?') as I tread piles of the little snot-beings into the gravel or, like the other day, flush as many as I can find into the septic tank accompanied by a generous dose of toilet cleaner. (Nya-ha-har!) I can see exactly where the old animistic beliefs came from - I can see exactly. I don't believe it of course, not really, and yet... I sort of do.

I guess everybody has a few of these things that really piss them off but I feel like I have too many. Somehow it seems personal. My life is easy by most people's standards, certainly by the standards of many other parts of the world. (I saw the recent film Captain Phillips over the weekend. Watching the Somali pirates in their little motor boat trying to get their ladder hooked onto a seven storey, speeding, swerving container ship it occurred to me how incredibly desperate, how completely and utterly without choice, a person would have to be to try to do that. But anyway... I digress.) And yet when these moments come when things don't go according to plan, and especially if I am tired and/or hungry, it feels like everything is against me. Sometimes it is partly true - like in the case of the technology and the politics above but sometimes, as in the case of the bike and the humidity and the slugs it is not. It really is just how things are. Nothing's perfect. Things go wrong, and some tekkies are no doubt doing their best despite the overwhelming pressures of business. In some ways it doesn't matter though - whether there is a grain of truth in my complaint or not. The feeling is there anyway. They're trying to make me look stupid - trying to prevent me doing things - arbitrarily stopping me, because... why? because it's fun, because they're stupid and narrow minded, because they want to put me in my place, and because they can. Because I'm on my own and they are together and they can do what they like. They do things the normal way and I'm the one with all the weird ideas. There is no excuse. I can't justify my complaints, because I didn't get up as early as I could have, I didn't prepare for every eventuality, I didn't work every single hour God sends. It is therefore always, somehow, my fault. I should just stop whinging and get on with it. That's life.

No doubt my family were trying to teach me that you can't just blame other people when things don't go your way. You have to take some responsibility. I'm sure that's what they'd say, and quite right too. And yet somehow I seem to have taken from this lesson that it's always somehow my fault and I can't blame anyone or anything else at all, ever. 'A bad workman always blames his tools' said dad, ergo, there is no such thing as a bad tool. You just follow the instructions, do as you're told, and there is no excuse for getting it wrong. 'Everyone else can do it - what's wrong with you?' I have a very clear memory of going with my dad to buy a 90cc Honda off one of his workmates. I wasn't keen but I needed a vehicle to get to work. It was outside some lock-ups somewhere. They showed me how to start it then he and his work mate chatted while I got the hang of it. I'd put it in first and turn the handle but each time it roared off and fell over leaving me standing. I remember so well those looks of disdain and exasperation as they tried to ignore me, and me with my frustration and shame. We bought the thing anyway and I discovered that in fact you really only use first for hill starts because it's far too fierce. Normally you start in second.

I'm not saying that sort of thing happened all the time but it seems sort of typical - a good illustration. No doubt that lesson - 'you can't just blame other people when things don't go your way' would have been a good one for some other kids I knew to learn but I wasn't really like that. My parents made very sure I wasn't 'spoilt'. Somehow though, it felt like things were against me and that somehow it was because of something I'd done, and that they were all looking on, infuriated, contemptuous or amused as I struggled. There was furthermore no point trying to work it out. It was too complicated. That's why I kept my own company, because at least then, with only my imagination and a few simple materials, I knew I could do stuff. Somehow though I'm still carrying them around, even when I'm alone. It's as if they're still there, watching, judging, not helping. I know what they'd say as I'm late again, struggling with the hose, trying to get the nursery watered, and I am furious with myself and with them equally, and I take it out on the hose, which is no doubt very funny to watch. I can't think properly and I bang my head or my elbows and trip over things and I want to cry and I want to destroy everything. Bastard shits. I hate them all so much. It's not funny.

Where did all this crap come from? What's the reason for it?
Because one thing I do believe is that these things always come from somewhere. People like to talk about souls and spirits or they say 'I don't know where he gets it. He's just like that' but that's a cop-out. Essentialism I think it's called. These things come from somewhere. I'm not interested in just blaming someone but I do want to know how I came to be like this, and then maybe somehow, try to change it.

to be continued...

This Time it's Personal ~ part 2

So take this morning...

By the way, I know this is almost certainly of no interest to anyone else. It's more for my benefit really, having come to this point, after, what is it? (51-18 = 33 years) of thinking I think it's time to get it all down, as much as possible, in one place.
Why put it somewhere where anyone can read it? Because I don't want to just ramble on self-indulgently. I want it to be readable. I am however under no illusions about how many people read this blog... If you do come across these entries - seriously - I can't recommend them.

So this morning - Easter Monday. I have two things I could do. I could go down the nursery - yesterday was mostly rained off and I got very little done. Lots of things need repotting. Alternatively, since I seem to be on a bit of a roll , I could do some writing, which I really want to do.
Guess which one I've gone for.

Nevertheless I'm giving myself a hard time, even as I write this. How can I describe it? Tearful is one thing. I have that feeling you get just before you burst into tears, although I doubt I'll cry. If anything goes at all wrong I'll feel the fury welling up. Silly things - the flap covering fly of my shorts caught on the knob of a drawer in the kitchen while I was trying to make breakfast. These shorts are the sort of canvas military style shorts and seem to be made of nothing but pleats and flaps and loops and they to catch on everything, especially when I'm in a hurry, and especially at the nursery. They really piss me off. What would happen, I think, if soldiers were forever hooking their shorts on obstacles while in the middle of a battle? They'd be outlawed immediately. But presumably they don't, so what is wrong with these shorts? Obviously there's something wrong with the design. Someone, no doubt better paid than I am, has gone to the trouble of designing these shorts without thinking about how they might work in real life, or, worse, he's considered only that they might be worn whilst posing about in the street. The idea that someone might actually try to do some actual manual work in them won't have occurred to him because all he does all day is sit at his desk and sip skinni lattes. I hate him.

But of course I don't really, because I know really that it is all my fault. It's me I hate. I bought the bloody shorts. If I'd worked harder, longer, I could have afforded better shorts. If I'd thought about it more I'd have got a more practical design. And if I'd got up earlier I wouldn't be rushing around and I wouldn't be so clumsy. If I was better organised none of this would happen. I blame him - this hypothetical 'designer' because the alternative is to blame myself - for everything. It's him or me and I can't bear for everything to be all my fault.

I keep hitting the wrong keys here. Why do they make keyboards with such tiny keys so close together? Do the designers imagine that all people have tiny mincing fingers? Again - it hasn't occurred to them that some people - men for example, who do manual labour have broad finger tips. I especially hate the caps lock key which I often hit when I go for the A and becaUSE i CAN'T TOUCH TYPE THERE'S OFTEN A WHOLE LINE IN CAPITALS BEFORE i NOTICE. Wouldn't it be good if you could highlight the offending line, and click 'de-capitalise' instead of having to delete and rewrite. It would be one small concession to us broad (not 'fat'!) fingered folk.
But I'm rushing this - trying to get it over with because I really haven't made a decision. I still think, if I get this done quickly enough I can still go down the nursery and do some potting-on. I'm rushing it and making mistakes. Can't other people get things done quickly and efficiently? More speed, less haste? It's my fault again. It always is - somehow.

A sensible person would look at this and say, well why not do both? Set aside some time this morning for writing and go down the nursery this afternoon (it's 12:08 as i write this) for a few hours. I could stop now and finish it later. Why can't I think like that?
I was thinking about this yesterday. The first thing is that it just feels like a muddle. I can see the tasks - nursery, writing, plus a little job I have promised Emma I'll do sticking a bathroom tile back, washing up and breakfast. Washing up I always do. I don't mind it. I find it very 'grounding' as the hippies say, in the morning. Breakfast - I need a proper cooked breakfast or I get hungry mid morning - not fried (usually) but boiled or scrambled eggs do the job. Porridge goes nowhere. I had chilli beans and scambled eggs on toast this morning. I'd recommend it but it's not exactly instant. I fired up the old PC (my new laptop has let me down - you can imagine my response to that!) to check my emails and decided (is that the word? I did it anyway) to update my free AVG. That was reasonably straightforward, thankfully. But I still haven't decided which to do - the nursery or the writing. I woke up at about eight as usual. I began thinking it would be good to go to the nursery as the weather is fine today, and how much I enjoyed the writing yesterday. I could do either. I could do both. I can't decide.

I don't know how normal this is but thinking back to being a kid I don't really think I actively, consciously decided anything. I just don't remember having the mental wherewithal to do that. It wouldn't have occurred to me to try. Mum said 'I wish you'd be more responsible but I honestly had no idea what that meant in practice. I knew, broadly, what 'responsible' meant, but in terms of how my day-to-day life worked - I wouldn't have known where to start. Talking to children now - I have two step kids - both now teenagers and much better company, but thinking back, trying to talk to little children, I honestly have no idea how much they really understand of what we tell them - especially the more abstract notions like 'careful', 'tidy', 'sensible', 'considerate', 'organised' or 'responsible'. I was actually a very well behaved child - never rowdy or aggressive or rude (or not deliberately) but I really had no idea how to modify my behaviour if someone told me I should, and they did. Some kids are said to be very conscientious from an early age - very clear about how their life will go and about how to get things done. They seem to have a very adult way of working things out but I wonder... Maybe they're just well-trained, or maybe their training just isn't at odds with what they want to do. I think that's the big problem. My training - what my parents thought I should do and tried over and over to get me to do was completely at odds with how I wanted to be.
And today, I want to write and I should go down the nursery (and fix the bathroom tile) and I honestly don't know what to do. I try to think it through rationally and it's a blank. I can't think how long they will take, or anything else about organising it. It's just a pale grey blur in my line of vision, so I do what's in front of me and feel guilty about not doing the other thing, still thinking I might do it if I get this finished in time, but then time moves on and it's getting to be too late. Not yet it's not, but I want to finish this now so it might be too late quite soon, and my adrenaline levels will climb and I'll be more and more tearful/furious and God help us if something goes wrong.

Two voices then - what I said yesterday about my child, wanting to just do what it wants to do (this) and my parents, trying to get me to do what has to be done. Just that phrase - 'doing what has to be done' is enough to bring up all the drudgery, the bustling about, the tutting and the rolled eyes, the no-nonsense business-like male and the frantic control-freak female, the dreary money-worried, over-worked, self-sacrificing parent that I never wanted to be and which I still will have nothing to do with. I hear Emma enter the kitchen and sigh and it all comes back to me. I've not done what I should, or not soon enough. My chest tightens and I feel the tears between my eyes. My child is not prepared to even take one step toward that way of being for fear of getting sucked in, because once you start thinking that way, there is always more to think about, and never enough time or money and you can never get out. You might think (for instance) that getting a car will solve a problem about finding work but then the car will become a problem and you'll have to work longer hours to afford it. Better to keep life small and uncomplicated - spontaneous, serendipitous, self-contained, free.

I've still not really worked out how to mediate between them - the parents and the child. I'm aware that there is this 'adult' here - looking on, as they battle it out. In my good times, as I described before, I am more able to think ahead, but also more confident to let things happen. I love those times but they are always passing.

to be continued...

This Time it's Personal ~ part 1

I've been wanting to write this for a very long time. I always seem to get bogged down somehow - in disclaimers and excuses. 

I've really struggled with my life. I know it's not been the sort of terrible ordeal many go through, but it's been, I think, unnecessarily hard. (I can already here people muttering 'stop whingeing. Just get on with it' but I shall ignore them, for now.) As I heard someone say recently on the telly when asked if he was ok - 'I have no good reason to feel bad.' The asker was reassured, taking this to mean that he didn't feel bad, but of course he did. He just didn't feel he had any good reason to feel that way and therefore shouldn't complain. It's what I've come to call 'giving myself a hard time for having a hard time.' I guess it's what other people call 'depression'.

This morning I planned to deliver a plant to someone in Brighton. It's not something I normally do but a customer rang up wanting to send someone a present for Easter and I thought why not? I told them I'd be there for 11am on the Sunday, before going to the nursery. 

Anyway, I did what I usually do and got side-tracked looking through a seed catalogue, which is, yes, for the nursery, but could have been done some other time. It's a huge list and I started at about 8.30 I guess and time was getting on and I knew I should be getting ready to go but somehow I just didn't seem to be able to stop. Then I discovered that I'd left my bag (with my card in it) at the nursery so I couldn't pay for my seed order. I was completely furious with myself - called myself all sorts of stupid - crashing about, looking for this sodding bag. Anyway I found I could order without giving my card details (I'm not sure yet how that's going to work) and I actually closed the PC down at about ten to eleven and got dressed (I was still in my PJs) I had to wash up (there wasn't that much) and needed something to eat. I didn't get to Brighton until 11.30 or so and the recipient was overjoyed and hadn't been expecting it. I made a fuss of her little dog (a really sweet wire-haired terrier) and went home and made myself some 'breakfast'. 

The point here is the way I beat myself up (almost literally) for being late. Today was a middling sort of example. Other times, most mornings, things go reasonably smoothly and I get out the door just feeling stressed. Some times though something goes really wrong and I can end up hurting myself or breaking something. At such times I simply hate myself and/or the world so much that I just want to destroy something. I should say that to date I've not damaged anything important, or anyone, and that it usually happens when no one else is around, but my wife has seen enough of it for it to have upset our marriage. As a result I've done a lot of work on it this last 18 months or so - getting some CBT and taking anti-depressants and it now happens a lot less often and generally less violently than it used to. 

At one point I was having a bad day about one morning a week - usually a Friday - my day off. Oddly, if I have an important appointment I can generally get there on time as much as anyone else. It's when I know the arrangement is somewhat flexible that I have trouble, or even when it is just me that has set the date and nobody else gives a toss whether I turn up or not - such as with getting down the nursery at weekends (which is when I do most of my work there) Even when I have nobody to please but myself I have this nagging in my head that I should be getting on. I should get down there earlier. That nagging is laced with so much irritation, such impatience, such contempt - it's why I come to hate myself so much at these times, and why I feel like hurting myself - as a punishment. 

So - why can't I just get organised and get up earlier and get moving and be down there at a reasonable hour? Surely I'd be happier. This is the problem. I don't want to give in to it. When I was very young I remember very clearly not wanting to be like my parents, always bustling about, tutting, worrying about the time, the money, what the boss would say. My mum trying to think through everything in advance - everything that might go wrong, so she could be prepared, trying to get me to get myself ready for school in the morning, and my dad, after a long week at work down the power station, trying to fill every unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run, forever telling me 'jaldi-jaldi', 'tout suite', and 'whistle and ride, whistle and ride' because I was a preoccupied and dreamy boy always with something more interesting going on in my head. Later on they and other relatives tried to get me to take life more seriously - to be more disciplined, to think of the money, to do as I was told and to put up with it. I was nagged over my homework and my revision and then over my job-hunting and always at every opportunity I would escape into my thoughts and imagination. I just couldn't face the alternative. 

If they'd been happy and fulfilled with the life they advocated perhaps they might have got through to me but they weren't. They just weren't a very encouraging example. I remember thinking from a very early age that if that was what life was about then I couldn't see how it was worth living. I knew that I had to do something different. I had no idea what - there were no other role models available - no mentors of any kind. I couldn't imagine what it would take to be different. I only knew what not to do.

So I've got this split in my thinking. When something needs doing I have my parents going on and on at me, and my child somehow just blocking it out, carrying on with what he's doing, even though he's feeling more and more nagged and getting more and more stressed. He's not consciously refusing. I was never actually naughty - in my family there would have been no point. My 'resistance' was passive, distracted, absent. I'm sure I drove them nuts. The more they went on at me the more I just sort of zoned out. I was upset, certainly, but it did not occur to me to change it. It didn't occur to me that it could be changed. I just wanted to go back to being on my own and getting on with what I was doing. And this is how I still am. Every morning, to a lesser or greater degree. I do it to myself now.

Psychology gets short shrift, I know, from many right-minded people. The two great ideologies (arguably) of the 20th Century - Marxism and Freudianism tell us on the one hand that we can blame society for our woes, and on the other that we can blame our parents. Modern science tells us we can blame our genes. Christianity, Existentialism and Capitalism tell us we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have free will. There is no excuse. 

But it's not about blame. It's about explaining. Whatever problems I've had, for some reason (and I've no idea where I get this) I have always tried to think it out - 'Why am I like this?' 'Where do I get that?' 'How does it work?' But the point of course is not just to describe the world, but to change it. Many seem to presume that it is futile but that doesn't seem likely to me. To use the kind of metaphor my dad would have liked - if there are smoke and grinding noises coming from under the bonnet it makes sense to stop and have a look - not just drive on and hope it goes away. But it's a devious contraption - the mind. 

I've tried asking other people - because they seem to get on with life better somehow - maybe they know something I don't, but most people seem very wary of the idea of talking about these things - as if that might make it worse - as if it's the thinking about it that causes the trouble in the first place, but trust me - it's the feeling that comes first. The thoughts are an attempt to deal with the feeling, and the feeling is there whether I think about it or not. 

Some might accuse me of 'dwelling' - thinking that perhaps deep down I like being this way but I can tell you here and now that when I do have good spells - and I do - I love them so much. I get so much done. My mind is clear and creative. I am confident and positive and when it passes and I can feel myself going back, it's the most miserable thing. No - I really don't 'dwell' on my misery for pleasure. 

I think the people who say these things (that I should just stop complaining and pull myself together, that thinking about it will only make matters worse, and that, in fact I actually really like being unhappy) really don't know what it's like. Of course it's subjective but it seems to me that if you can solve your problems simply by pulling yourself together then you really haven't had much of a problem. Real physical problems, that you can do something practical about are a different sort of problem anyway, and I'm actually quite good in a crisis because there's usually only so many things you can do. A genuine and well defined trauma is different too. I don't wish bereavement, crime, sickness or war on anyone, but I suspect the resulting trauma is a different thing to this depression/anxiety I'm talking about, not least because people can relate and they take it seriously. In this part of the world at least, the kinds of oppression and shame suffered by homosexuals and other minorities at least have support from other members of their group although that is a relatively new thing. 

But no. This is different. It's this 'no good reason to feel bad' that is the thing and so perplexing. And no, it's not just a First World problem - not just a matter of us having too much time on our hands - the 'worried well'. Certainly if I was starving I'd not have much time to think about my mind but it's also true that if I'd just had my legs blown off my allergies might seem like a low priority. That doesn't mean we shouldn't treat people for allergies.

Blame is an issue of course. I don't think we should necessarily not blame parents or society (or even the genes) if they are genuinely at fault. There's a weird paradox. I hear pundits say we live in a society that blames the parents for everything, taking no responsibility for ourselves, but then I hear mothers in particular say 'well of course you can't just blame the parents'. 

Parenting is hard - I'm well aware. It's why I chose not to be one. Among the many things my parents and their friends worried about were their kids. They all had them but none of them seemed to be getting anything much out of it. The kids screamed and sulked and the parents were exasperated and impatient and seemed to want to get away from them as early in the evening as possible. Again I asked myself 'what's the point?' On top of everything it was to support them that all these adults had to hold down the dreary jobs and do those long hours - that and the mortgage and the marriage that went with it. I didn't want any of it and I can remember arguing this - to everybody's irritation, when I was 12. It just seemed obvious. Of course now I know this was the late 60s and early 70s and dropping-out of the rat-race was in the air. I suppose I picked up on it, but it seems to have stuck with me in a way it didn't with most of my peers who kowtowed pretty well when it came down to it and they got a wife and a mortgage and some sproggs of their own. I just couldn't bear to go along with it. I couldn't bear to be so weak, so submissive, so mediocre. I guess I must have held my dad in some regard because I was so disgusted by the way he scurried about and did as he was told. I just sort of wouldn't. Without making a deliberate, overt, or even conscious stand, I just wouldn't, or couldn't. I'm not sure which. Probably both. They seem inextricable. 

Somehow all that bustling about - worrying about time and money and sticking to a routine and doing things in a set way, seemed degrading, like I was being colonised by a foreign power. I know now also that that was the end of an era, as well as the beginning of one, and my parents were of the previous generation. I can't blame them for that, obviously. It's hard to put ourselves back there now but I was right on the cusp and I wonder if any generation since has felt the power of Parental Disappointment the way we did. The rift is quite unimaginable now. Adults I meet now are much more like their kids than like their parents. They just don't have that deference - that sense of their place in the world. Perhaps that's a shame. I wish some people were better at putting up with things now - instead of this waste and impatience we see today. In the face of environmental cataclysm, it would be good if we learned some humility and self-control. But I wouldn't want to go back to the 50s. 

So much judgement and disapproval, and not just imposed from on high - we did it to ourselves, we working class - sneering and tutting at anything that indicated that a person might not be pulling their weight or be getting above themselves. Simply doing something differently was taken to mean they thought they knew better than everyone else and needed to be taken down a peg or two. The fact that I spent my childhood, for preference, in my room, drawing and reading and writing and collecting things was a cause for suspicion where now I suspect a parent would tell everyone I was 'gifted' and going to be an artist or a writer, or an ecologist. Back then the options were far fewer and our place was to fit into the opportunities available - factory or shop, office if you were lucky, manual labour if you were not. Policeman, fireman or nurse. The forces. That was about it. I didn't want to do any of those things but I had no idea what else a person might do. Artists and writers and ecologists might as well have been mythical beings for all I knew. 

But they were scared - of course they were, my parents and their generation. I've written about this before. (Sorry if I repeat myself.) They'd lived through the war and the aftermath and life was all about security and safety and you couldn't afford to take chances. I know that and I don't blame them - of course I don't.

to be continued...