Dear Blog,
What a twenty four hours that has been. Talk about excitement. Everyone has gone mad. The press have gone overboard, the television channels have gone over the top and the public have simply acted stupid. London has nearly ground to a halt at times. It is not as if the big event of the day is unusual. It happens all the time; all over the world. I suppose it was because the public knew it was going to happen and had been warned repeatedly in advance by the media. And the hype was built up And when it did happen, all the tension was released. Admittedly, the lightning flashes were more spectacular and the thunder claps were more deafening than most summer storms, but to carry on the way the public and media have, is all rather passé. And there wasn’t too much rain. It isn’t as if it lasted a spectacularly long time either; a few hours overnight. And now it is over, anti-climax sets in with nothing much to fill the newspapers or fuel the television sound bites.
I’ll tell you about a storm or two. For some unknown reason, while I was at university, the summer vacation (holiday Blog, holiday) at the Pink Panther University were always longer than any other in the U.K. including Oxbridge. No student ever complained. We came down, as they say, at the end of May and didn’t return until the second week in October, I was fortunate that I was employed during the whole time for four consecutive years by the local authority at the local running track. Now why there was a cinder running track of reasonably good quality in a small West Riding mill town is beyond me. There was no athletics or harrier club in the town. And there hadn’t been for over fifty years. The Boys Grammar school used it for their annual sports, and sometimes the area school sports were held there. There were a couple of evening athletic meetings organised by Bingley Harriers and the occasional Yorkshire Championships. And then there was me. And me. And me again. I was the only person to use it. Blog I kid you not!! Anyway I was employed there every summer which enabled me to run to work in a morning and shower. Train at lunchtime and shower. And run home again at night. Which helped my running no end. Knackered and a whopping mileage!!! I say I was employed at the local running track. Well that was not strictly true. There was me and Dick, who was the permanent grounds man. Just the two of us and we worked well together. Dick was about sixty. We had the track to look after and maintain, marking the lanes out for when it was never used. We had all the events which never took place on the infield to mark out. We had two full size cricket squares to mow. We had eight football pitches to prepare and mark out for the fourth coming season; this included erecting the goal posts. We had six rugby football pitches to prepare and mark out for the fourth coming season; this included erecting the goal posts. We had to mop out and clean twelve changing rooms and two full sets of toilets and urinals. We had the pavilion reception room to clean. We had two cricket pavilions to clean and maintain. Blog, I kid you not. Me and Dick, Dick and me. We did have gang mowers to cut the grass for us! Anyways because I was the first to arrive in a morning [to put the kettle on for any passing gangers who might pop in for a skive and a pot of tea] because I ran to work and because I was the last to leave at night because I ran home, Dick entrusted me with the bunch of keys. A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS. When I was a kid, I remember that in the hot summer school holidays we used to get thunder and lightning storms which used to last for days. The Worth valley in which the town was built was a ‘V’ shaped cul de sac running up into the Pennine Hills; the heat from the hot summer weather used to funnel the humid air up the valley hill side as the day progressed and presumably when it hit the colder air near the top, it got trapped. The storms used to rumble on and on, days after day. The long lasting storms were just the same when I worked at the track. Dick gave me A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS to lock up when I left work and I had to carry them home to unlock the track on my arrival following day. My general route home each evening used to take me a couple of miles along the valley bottom alongside the River Aire towards Bingley. For variation I sometimes ran along the canal tow path. I had then to start to climb up and up towards Bingley Altar where the Druids used to hold their services in years gone by, climb higher up to the moorland which was open land with only heather and cotton grass for vegetation. I then had about three miles to cross the plateau with no shelter, exposed to whatever nature chose to throw at me. Then I could drop dramatically down to Ingrow where I lived. Now at the times of the daily storms which tended to peak about five or six o’clock each evening, I was crossing this large expanse of high flat barren land with A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS in my hand. I can tell you, I was not a happy bunny at all. There was all this lightning day after day, searching for a protuberance on which to make an energetic landfall, and there was me sticking up like a potential lightning conductor with A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS in my hand as I trudge across the heather. I can tell you I was not a happy bunny with brown shorts for many days each summer!!!
The events covered by the media in the last 24 hours reminded me of this time and my storm experience. I sometimes thought I should make a Will. I am sure that a weather break at evening, winds or calm, would have done me some good in the eyes of our superiors?? (7 across, 4 across and 7 down)?
And then of course there was that other rather big happening of yesterday …… I picked my first fresh peas of the season.
Colin
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