Britain is a country which says "Happy Birthday" to Dave Clark and remembers a time in the 1960s when exhuberant young men like him "yelled with all of their might."

Dave, erstwhile drummer, leader and with Lenny Davidson, surviving member of the 'Dave Clark Five', first of the 'British invasion' bands to follow the Beatles to the USA in the 1960s, is 73 years old today.



Fifty years ago, from left to right : Denis, Dave, Mike, Rick and Lenny as they were then.

Dave was born in Tottenham, North London and left school without qualifications at the age of 15. He became a film stuntman, performed in over 40 films and in his late teens in the late 1950s, bought himself a set of drums, taught himself to play and formed a skiffle group to raise funds so that his football team could travel to the Netherlands.

He saw the group become 'The Dave Clark Five' with him as leader, co-songwriter, manager and producer and grow in popularity to the extent it unseated the Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from its number one spot in the British singles chart in January 1964 and replaced it with "Glad All Over" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyP4E48S5zg&t=11m23s

They followed the Beatles to the USA in 1964, were on The 'Ed Sullivan Show' more times than any other English group and achieved 15 consecutive Top 20 hits including :
'Any way You Want It'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH1JEI79emU&feature=related

'Bits and Pieces'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoRLIJJSG4o

'Do You Love Me'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyP4E48S5zg&t=14m42s

And in the summer of 1965 they inspired a group of school leavers with their hit 'Catch Us if You Can' at a huge secondary school, built to house 2,500 post Second World War, South London, baby boomers, called Eltham Green Comprehensive School.

That Summer the Headmaster, Mr Davies, had planned his usual 'Farewell to the Sixth Formers Assembly' speech in the school hall and a tradition had grown up that the leavers would do something to disrupt it in front of the  thousand pupils in attendance and relayed by the tanoi broadcasting system to the rest of the school, seated in their form rooms.

It had all been fairly mediocre stuff in the early 1960s, like planting alarm clocks in cupboards in the hall, timed to go off when the Old Man was into his speech or chaining the exit doors, so no one could get out at the end of the Assembly.

This year it would be in a different league, because five of the lads in the sixth form, had a drink in the local 'Yorkshire Grey' pub the night before and, after closing time, dressed in dark clothing, had climbed over the school gates and made their way to the hall, where, by chance, they found an exit door open.

Once inside the darkened hall the tick of the clock startled them. They put their plan into effect. Billy stood on tables and chairs and placed an old fashioned loud speaker, out of sight, on the wooden sounding board (seen on the right) and way up above the stage. They then ran a single wire room the speaker, down the wall, through a door opening and along the wall of the corridor behind the hall and into one of the small music rooms. The wire was fed into an old fashioned reel-to reel tape recorder and a pre-recorded tape placed on the deck. The lads then made their exit from the school.

After lunch the next day, the hall began to fill up. First the younger kids downstairs and then the Sixth Form in the balcony. It was at this point that Frank had been delegated to make his way to the music room to switch on the tape which was timed to play blank for 20 minutes. He noticed that the indicator light was on and so placed the leather bag of one music teachers against it and a tray of glasses on top for good measure. He then made his exit and went to the balcony.


The Old Man was well into his speech with the usual stuff about 'torch bearers' when the first blast of music came out of the hidden speaker :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ya_Gq8d4Q

The Headmaster sat down angry and perplexed. Teachers ran around like blue-arsed flies, trying to find from where the blast of music was coming and were unsuccessful. The kids were collapsed in laughter.
Two and a half minutes later Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's "Goodbye" finished. It was then that the Old Man made his big mistake. He got to his feet and resumed his speech saying that the perpetrators would be found out.

Unbeknown to him or anyone in hall or school, except the lads on the balcony, the tape played blank for another few minutes and then :

Here they come again, mmmm-mm-mm,
Catch us if you can, mmmm-mm-mm,
Time to get a move on, mmmm-mm-mm,
We will yell with all of our might.

Catch us if you can ......

Now we gotta run, mmmm-mm-mm,
No more time for fun, mmmm-mm-mm,
When we're gettin' angry, mmmm-mm-mm,
We will yell with all of our might.

Catch us if you can .....

Here they come again, mmmm-mm-mm,
Catch us if you can, mmmm-mm-mm,
Time to get a move on, mmmm-mm-mm,
We will yell with all of our might.

Catch us if you can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJYgNqOFBLk

With no guarantee of protection from unending interruptions, the Headmaster left the stage. He got the police in, but they could find nothing, since the lads had not forced an entry and caused no damage to school property.

The story of the lads' ruse spread to all South London school kids year and doubtless teachers, that year. Somehow they were doing what youth and the Dave Clark Five did in the 1960s when they shouted :

             "We will yell with all of our might."

And beyond 1965, in addition to managing the band, Dave began directing and producing for tv and in 1968 made 'Hold On, It's the Dave Clark Five' which was followed by the break up of the band in 1970 and his ending his drumming in 1972, after breaking four knuckles in a tobogganing accident.

In 1986 at the age of 44, he wrote a science fiction stage musical, 'Time' which played for two years in London's West End, starring Cliff Richard and later by David Cassidy and featuring Laurence Olivier's huge holographic image.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyP4E48S5zg&t=1h29m33s

He became a successful entrepreneur and a multi-millionaire, with property in West London, with revenues from his rights to all the Dave Clark Five music and episodes of the '60s tv music show, 'Ready, Steady Go!'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyP4E48S5zg&t=1h25m33s

He was a close friend of 'Queen' lead singer Freddie Mercury whom he had known since 1975 and had taken over the bedside vigil of Freddie when he died in November 1991 and informed his parents about his death.

In 2008, at the age of 66 and marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of this band, was inducted into the USA's 'Rock and Roll Hall of Fame' and made a rare public appearance with, the then, two other surviving band members and accepted the award on behalf of the group. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKTtGjYl5yU&t=13m11s

In 2015 he appeared in and part presented the 115-minute documentary 'GLAD ALL OVER The Dave Clark Five and Beyond'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyP4E48S5zg&t=1m00s

 

Britain was and still is no country for an old plasterer/trade unionist called Ricky Tomlinson

Ricky spent his Christmas in 1973 in prison. He was a 34 year old painter and decorator married with two small sons, who had been sentenced to two years for his part in picketing a National Construction Workers’ strike. Released after more than a year behind bars, he walked free, only to find he’d been blacklisted by the building industry and was therefore unemployable and was forced to try his hand at standup in the local pubs.

He had been born Eric Tomlinson in Blackpool in 1939 because his mother had been evacuated there from Liverpool which became a target for German bombers during the Second World War. It was in Liverpool where he spent youth in the 1950s, had left school, qualified as a plasterer by trade and worked on building sites throughout the 1960s.

He became actively involved in politics, joining the right wing National Front in 1968 in support of a curbs on the numbers of Commonwealth immigrants. If the prosecution’s intention at his trial was to crush a leftwing firebrand, it didn’t go to plan : he went into prison neither a particularly educated nor well-known rightwinger and having first read and digested Robert Tressell's novel, 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists', with its attack on the capitalist exploitation of a band of painters and decorators in 'Mugsborough', extended his literature and came out a well-read socialist. Also in prison, had set about systematically and belligerently defying every prison rule he could, refused to wear uniform, had gone on hunger strike for 30 days and had been moved to 14 different prisons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_ggeTX9sYg&t=2m14s

On his release from prison he was monitored by the Security Agency, MI5 during the 70s and in 1975, disrupted the TUC Conference by shouting from the wings after he had been prevented from speaking from the stage.

Ricky got his breakthrough as an actor at the age of 43 in 1982 when fellow Liverpudlian, Alan Bleasdale gave him the part of  a doctor in 'The Boys From The Blackstuff' quoting Dylan Thomas 'Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night' in a poignant scene with a dieing patient : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GlTtQzoVr8

He went on to find success, appearing as Bobby Grant in the soap opera, 'Brookside' from show's inception in 1982 until he was written out in 1988 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLxFkuXKD8

In 1996 he starred in 'Hillsborough' a made-for-TV film about the families of the victims of the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster, in which he portrayed John Glover - the father of victim Ian.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ppcuhtN3Vc
and featured in four episodes of the tv series, 'Clocking Off' in 2001, one of which was a BAFTA - nominated episode written by Danny Brockelurst and in 2002 starred in the BBC Series, 'Nice Guy Eddie', playing a Liverpool private investigator based on the real life cases from Liverpool private investigator, Tony Smith.

It was, however, in the BBC sitcom, 'The Royal Family' which ran for three series from 1998 to 2000 and Christmas specials from 2006 to 2012, in which he played the patriarch Jim Royle, that he is best remembered :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM4mJVXXMcc&t=55m37s and as a keen banjo and harpsichord player, he was allowed to demonstrate his prowess in a number of episodes : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUi7vEhN9W8&feature=related


In 2008, Ricky donated £200,000 as patron of the charity, 'Human Milk Bank' which provides babies on Special Care Baby Units with milk from donor mothers, significantly improving their chances of survival and long term development and in 2010 was reported as having donated £1million to the Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool.

Now at the age of 76, Ricky and his trial of 43 years ago are in the news again with the Labour Party Shadow Home Secretary, Andy Burnham, threatening to oppose the Government’s draft 'Investigatory Powers Bill' on spying by the police and security services, unless ministers release all available papers on what he called the "politically motivated show trial” from the 1970s.

Since 2012 the Criminal Cases Review Commission has been considering whether there are grounds for referring the convictions to the Court of Appeal as potentially unsafe and Ricky is still agitating to clear his name.

What has emerged is that Robert Carr, the Home Secretary in Edward Heath’s Conservative Government at the time, took a personal interest in the prosecution of the men. In addition, a new unit operating in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was at the same time gathering evidence on allegedly 'subversive communist involvement in the trade unions', which it then passed to a television documentary, 'Red Under the Bed' which was aired twice at crucial points during the trial.

Ricky himself has said that on the day of the alleged offences there was no trouble and the police made neither arrests nor cautions. However five months later, in February 1973, they were arrested and charged with offences including intimidation, conspiracy to intimidate and unlawful assembly and the 24 men convicted after three separate trials.

In the Westminster Hall Parliamentary debate last Wednesday, Andy Burnham described the 'Shrewsbury 24' as: “The convenient scapegoats of a Government campaign to undermine the trade unions; the victims of a politically motivated show trial orchestrated from Downing Street, the Home and Foreign Offices and the security services.”

Ricky is clear on his interpretation of the events : “It’s simple, really simple. Back then they were afraid of what the miners were going to do. So they needed someone to make an example of. They couldn’t use the dockers or the railway industry, because they were organised – they could call a strike at the drop of a hat, they could paralyse the country. But we couldn’t. So they thought: we’ll pick on the building workers.”
and
“I’m not letting it go. I’m a whingeing scouser, and I will whinge until they’re made to pay.”

Britain, no longer no country for old men in the kitchen

The supermarket chain, Waitrose, which runs Cookery Schools all over Britain, reports that retired men are among the fastest-growing of its student groups and is planning to trial courses aimed specifically at older men. Claire Lanza, Head Chef at the company’s cookery school in Salisbury said : “We find skills and meat-based courses are very popular with men in general and with retired men in particular.” There's plenty potential for profit here from an industry estimated by the 'Independent Cookery Schools Association' to be worth £70m to £80m a year.

If you take a tour around Britain you'll find old men ready at their chopping boards in :

* Harts Barn Cookery School in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, where demand from retired men has quadrupled since the spring of last year and where six men in their sixties among the 10 people learning how to cook a curry from scratch. Yvette Farrell, an instructor said : “We are seeing a cooking revolution among older men. In one of my classes I teach students how to cook a three-course meal and nine out of 10 of the attendees are retired men.” Apparently, she had to teach one 67-year-old man how to peel a potato because he had never done it before. However, many of the students are there because they have some cookery skills and are interested in how they can cook in a healthier way. “They’re concerned about their heart and diabetes and will ask questions about sugar, salt and butter, and the hidden factors in processed food. Others have the time in retirement to explore new skills. Cooking for them is exciting and almost magical. Their generation missed out because they never experienced being in the kitchen with their mother when they were young.”


* Bakewell, Derbyshire at Hartingtons School of Food , where 60% of callers are buying bread-making courses as Christmas presents for the older men with a 10% to 20% increase in bread-making courses being bought for them this year. Director, Chris Horne said : “A typical comment from these men would be that they remember their mother baking bread at home. It can be a way of connecting with their childhood memories. Some can get quite competitive, and the quality of their loaf is like a ‘badge of honour’.”

* Shepherd’s Bush, West London, at Leiths School of Food and Wine where increasing numbers of retired men are attending day-long knife skills, pastry and sauces workshops.

* Edinburgh at the New Town Cookery School, where Fiona Burrell estimated the number of male students aged over 60 attending beginners’ classes had doubled over the past year. With typically, half of them either widowed or divorced and where Fiona said :  “A lot of them feel quite nervous because they have never cooked a meal in their lives and some cannot do anything at all – you almost have to tell them what a wooden spoon is.”

* Walton-on-Trent, Derbyshire where at the Seasoned Cookery School the new 'How to cook the perfect steak' course is proving “extremely popular” with older men.

* in Northwood, Middlesex in Denise’s Kitchen, where Denise Phillips, professional chef and founder of her Jewish cookery school said : “There’s no longer any stigma attached to men cooking. It’s much more socially acceptable, but despite this many older men lack confidence in the kitchen.” Here, 66 year old Ian Kay, 66, attended two basic cookery classes after his divorce and said : “My mother and I saw cooking as a girly thing when I was a child in the 1950s, and I regret that now. I wish I’d done a class when I was younger. It’s given me the confidence to be adventurous and introduce spices. I make meals that are less bland nowadays – and cooking is another string to my bow.”  

Professor Anne Murcotta, Food Sociologist at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London believes many of these older men are likely to have been influenced by the rise in popularity of cookery shows on tv such as 'The Great British Bake Off' and suggested that : “There is a place for men in the kitchen that has become very visible in a way that it wasn’t 30 years ago.”

Sixty-six year old Norman Calder, retired naval officer from Portnockie in Scotland, acted as a role model for older men when he won the hearts of television viewers across Britain in the 2014 'Bake Off' with his unfussy approach on the BBC show.

                                                      
                                   http://www.bbcsouthafrica.com/video/?v=442111

Scotland is no longer a nation for and says "Fareweel" to an old poet called Sandy Hutchison

Sandy, who the American poet August Kleinzhaler, has described in tribute as 'a brilliant poet with an incandescent word-hoard, fiercely, indelibly Scottish', has died at the age of seventy-two.

He published 'Let the rough and tumble begin. DEIL TAK THE HINMAIST' as one of six poems in 'Bones and Breath' in 2013, the year after he won first 'Saltire Poetry Prize.' He dedicated it to the late Scottish poet, journalist, essayist, Christopher Murray Grieve, known by his pen name, Hugh MacDiarmid and said ‘This poem began its life in English as 'Unfinished Business'. A few years ago it decided it had another identity, pretty well transforming itself into (mostly North-east) Scots. The spelling usually is an aid to pronunciation. It should be read out loud, in the spirit of the old flytings: ritual insults freely exchanged. The chopped-out framework and various levels may appear Dantesque; but Dunbar and Rabelais are in the line-up too.’  It begins :

'I think ye ocht t' pit the pillywinkies on t' him..' 

The girt yett kickit in, an lo! – they liggit: scummers o pots an skelpers o cuddies; jaws that cleikit, rhymes that reikit; Kerr's Pink
tatties biled in their jaickets; deedle-dabblers in cytoplasm; virtual
realtors swickin an swyvin; daddy-lang-legs; dirlin Dodies;
hoodie-craws cracklin fae the tippy-taps o trees: 

                                                                   Deid-loss or Daidalos
                                                                   fit's it gaan tae be?

Pooshin pumpers, coonter-jumpers, cairpet fitters birslin wi a moo-fae
o tacks; tomcats; corncrakes; shilly-shally sharn shifters; couthy bicuspids;
aa the wee glisterin anes; aa them that wid grudge ye one jow o the bell.

The neist yett swung, syne mair wis kythit: tethered tups,
draigelt yowes; the slalom loons fae Dandruff Canyon; wheepers
o candy-floss; footerin futtrets; the hee-haw-hookum o hystet hizzies;
foosty fowk lik Finnan haddies; Buckie blaavers wi the full wecht o blaw....

It was in Buckie, a small fishing town on the Moray Firth coast of North-East Scotland, that 'Alexander' was born during the Second World War in 1943, the grandson of a grandfather on his mother's side, who like his father before him was a businessman 'who thrived in the days of the great herring fishery which went on all round the coast of Britain' and of a grandfather on his father's side who had been brought up in the hamlet of Tugnet and worked in the salmon fishery at the mouth of the River Spey before becoming a doctor. Sandy's father, who had been born in Spey Bay had followed in his father's footsteps and was a general practitioner while his mother worked as a school meal's supervisor.

Many years later Sandy gave voice to the 'The Herring Song' : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6j1owJ4Stk

Vat'll I dew wi the herrins' heeds?
I'll mak 'em inte loaves of breed,
Herrins' heeds, loaves of breed,
And all sorts of things.

(Chorus)
The herrin is the king of the sea,
The herrin is the fish for me,
Sing, fa la la la lie do
Fa la la la lie do
Fa la la la lie do lie day!

He remembered that as a boy he 'had howked and picked potatoes on a neighbouring farm during the school Tattie Holidays, and remember the tractor’s jolting approach and the forks of the digger curving through the dreels to churn out our work. We filled buckets, the buckets filled sacks or harn bags, and the harn bags filled the horse-drawn bogie.'

At the age of 6, sported a pair of boots and in 1950 he had 'delivered ‘Gunga Din' to the local church Sunday School Christmas party : "I felt I was being condescended to slightly by the elder or School supervisor as he led me forward, me probably in short trousers with straps as braces crossing at the front. "Oh, and he’s going to do a po-em." I recall looking up, holding his hand, as he (perfectly friendly) looked down. Then I set off at a trot a capella :

"You may talk o' gin and beer"

And on for fifty lines or so to :
Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,

By the livin’ Gawd that made you,

You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din! "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGS5WWz_Gjc&t=0m41s

 

Thought that it was "Odd that I should relish that relic of Empire and choose to pipe it out on that occasion" and put it down to his Grandfather the GP, who had Kipling's 'Barrack Room Ballads' as one of his favourites and "though he died the sane year I was born, I obviously hadn't been slow to follow up his taste in verse. I did the same with his copy of FitzGerald's version of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam- getting long slugs of it off by heart."

Described'Buckie, where I was born and grew up' as laying : 'long and narrow along the Moray Firth coast: the countryside at the broadest point of the town being only about a kilometre from the sea. Both the fishing and farming communities were generous to me in a number of ways, and their differing accents and idioms were readily assimilated during the process of growing up. Subsequently, sources as diverse as Dunbar and Henryson, Montgomerie, Urquhart, the varied deposits of folk tradition and balladry as well as nearer contemporaries, all contributed to thickening the broth. But the stock was basically Banffshire and Moray coast.'

Recalled that he was in his teens and attending the local 'Buckie High School' with its motto 'Remis Velisque' / 'By, or with, oars and sails', when his Latin teacher, Thomas Laing, 'first encouraged me to try versions of the classics in Scots. He taught me Cicero too, of course; though I didn't warm to that passionate discourse and complicated sensitivity till much later, when I read the letters and had a chance to see where he lived – and where he learned to speak the way he did.'


In the mid 1950s was struck by Stephen Spender's 1930's poem, 'The Express' and later thought that he "must have come across it in an anthology one of my sisters brought back from teacher training college – probably alongside ‘The Landscape Near an Aerodrome’" and thought that "it could have been the blatant introduction of the mechanical that caught my attention."

After the first powerful, plain manifesto
The black statement of pistons, without more fuss
But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station...

Left school at the age of 17 and in 1963 started life as an English Lit. undergrad at Aberdeen University, where in "my first couple of years I was caught up in a mish-mash of bookies and the pub and javelin and fencing and this and that. Pals from Shetland and the Hebrides. When I did spend time in the library it was mainly to leaf through books in the fine art section, though Aberdeen didn’t offer a degree in that. I rediscovered the Flemish primitive painters, confirming an early attraction, and the early 20^th century Russian women - Goncharova, Popova and Rozanova."

Didn't consider himself to be "a sophisticated reader of poetry at all as an undergraduate – and certainly not in the first two years. Patricia Thomson was my tutor in Advanced Special English, and I wince to remember at an early tutorial wading in with both feet to rubbish Dunbar’s 'Done is a battle on the dragon blak', before she put me to rights."

Done is a battle on the dragon black,

Our champion Christ confoundit has his force;

The yetis of hell are broken with a crack,

The sign triumphal raisit is of the cross,

The devillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,

The saulis are borrowit and to the bliss can go,

Christ with his bloud our ransonis dois indoce:

Surrexit Dominus de sepulchre.

Supposed that he had "improved" and in his final year "wrote essays on Marlowe and Johnson (with Voltaire) and gave Dunbar his due as well. The year before I had been fired up by Blake: 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' was the first piece I consciously took as a model."

Rintrah roars, and shakes his fires in the burden’d air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow.
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees......

  At the age of 23 left Scotland for close to 18 years: teaching at the University of Victoria and elsewhere in Canada, "taking a doctorate on Roethke at Northwestern University while living in Chicago" and where, as he later reflected, that it was only when he "started teaching undergraduates myself that I came at all to grips with contemporary verse and fiction."

 At the age of 30 in 1973 he "encountered Spender in person – round about the time of the Watergate trials in America. I was finishing up graduate work, and he was a writer-in residence at Northwestern. By chance I glanced in one morning to the huge TV viewing room at one of the student residences and saw Spender’s snowy head of hair and his lanky frame right in the middle of rows of empty seats – he was the only one there – watching the live telecast of Nixon’s downfall. I passed on some poems for his opinion, including ‘Lyke-wake’ :

'As an old man lags on the hillside, wagging
his stick where the sun burns over Caithness,
seeing the whole coast to Lossiemouth and beyond
the light on the rocks beyond the harbour mouth
the boats setting out for a night's fishing -
Lilt, Bezaleel, Glad Harvest - their nets drawn dry
from lofts and roadside fence, spread again  to the sea....'

'and when after a decent interval I went along to his office to seek him out, he said (fishing around for the right loose leaf pages), "You’re so-and-so, aren’t you? I liked these very much." I said, "No. I’m Hutchison." Then he, with decided adjustment, plummy voice going, if anything, plummier: "Oh. Well in that case I liked them very much indeed." 

August Kleinzhaler, one of his students at Victoria who became a friend recalled : 'Even while still in Canada Sandy's Scottish-ness remained undiluted. He put me on to haggis, kippers, halibut cheeks and fish roe as much as Henryson, Montgomerie and MacCaig' and 'He dragged me to more than one Buns supper.'

 These were the years in which he kept a " hard-bound, varying-sized notebook as record and aide memoir; dressed it up with drawings and photos, copied out texts and models by hand, pasted things in, snatches, sketches, apothegms, quotes and snippets of overheard conversation, bits and pieces, just like a bower bird. Occasionally I put in journal entries – especially if travelling – dreams too from time to time."

Adopted Canadian citizenship and enjoyed his most productive period when he "lived up near Oyster River, and Black Creek and Miracle Beach on Vancouver Island" where 'Deep-Tap Tree' in which he drew on Celtic and Norse antecedents indicated by the two serpents, one large, one small, entwined on the cover and once commissioned by a Viking, an admiral for one of the Emperors of Byzantium and "In terms of language, the cryptic, reductive, ironical character of the saga-speech and related dialects was around very early I suppose – a typical winter’s evening exchange of pleasantries in my home-town of Buckie, with the boys taikin up or doon the brae, could easily go: "Fit like, man?" – pronounced min. And the response: "Aye, it’s a caal hoor o a nicht". So laconicism was a native element of style."

Returned to Scotland at the age of 41 in 1984, where he aimed to spend two years, then return to Canada, but in fact spent the last 31 years of his life, living for seven in Edinburgh and the rest in Glasgow and recorded in 2004 : "Still here: just the way things worked out. Like it, and love the people I'm with."


On his return admitted that he had written poems in the 'Buchan dialect' and the idiolect with which he'd grown up all through his own poetic practice and translated a handful of Catullus’s carmina, followed by versions of four sonnets by Ronsard, as indeed, some years before, he had translated two poems of Ernesto Cardenal into Scots and when he met him briefly while visiting Nicaragua at one point "he asked his assistant, Luz, about this business of translating into Scots. 'Is it like English? Is it as good?' I tapped his wrist gently and, when he turned his face to me, said smilingly: 'Better. Better!' He grinned, and we shook hands."

Once said with perfect modesty : 'Poetry has been a main element in my life for as long as I can remember, and though I can't say I write a lot, and there have been big gaps in composition and publication, I have always been on the look out for possibilities anywhere and in anything: reading, listening, noting, mixing a variety of things up on a wide-ranging basis, all with a kind of focussed intent. I think I can say honestly I've never pushed it – in the sense of straining or getting anxious – but I have stuck at it, and in the process have discovered enjoyment – and even, as part of the pleasure, improvement.'

                           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gu0ad_jtys
 

Britain is a country with a department store called John Lewis which has commodified the loneliness of old men at Christmas

The charity, 'Age UK', which has given its blessing to the John Lewis campaign to highlight the plight of loneliness among pensioners, while at the same time maximising the company's profits at Christmas, said it was “delighted and touched” at the response so far. The main focus of John Lewis has been the multi million pound video ad called 'The Man on the Moon' which tells the story, to the words of Oasis 'Half the World Away' sung by Norwegian, Aurora, of a little girl called Lily who :

* sits next to her brother and is bored as he is engrossed with playing his xbox.

* looks at the moon through a telescope at the window in the lounge.

* focuses on a hut in a crater from which and old man emerges in total isolation.

* opens her mouth in awe and waves at the old man who looks up and sees nothing.

* skates outside on her scooter the next day and has a thought.

* goes back to the telescope while she eats her toast and sees the old man sitting on a bench on the edge of a crater.

* sees his blank eyes, stares back with open eyes and dashes upstairs.

* writes the old man a letter with a smiley hand and outside climbs a ladder.

* waves her envelope addressed to 'the Man on the Moon' at the old man.

* wraps the letter around an arrow and fires it, unsuccessfully, from the roof window at the moon.
* throws the letter, unsuccessfully, as a paper dart at the moon.

* looks fed up, while the old man bows his lonely head on the moon.

* runs down stairs to open her presents on Christmas Day, thanks her Mum and dances with the other kids.

* on the moon the old man raises his head at the approach of a gift wrapped present carried to him by a cluster of balloons.


While on the moon the old men :

*  eagerly opens his present, a telescope and looks at the people in the snow in Lily's road.

* pans his telescope across the festively lit houses and zooms in on Lily waving at him by her telescope.

* looks with a smiling eye through her lens while he sheds a tear from one eye looking through his lens.

* waves at Lily from his seat and 'Show someone they're loves this Christmas' is imposed on the night sky.

* followed by : 'John Lewis in store / online / mobile' is imposed on the night sky.

then :

                                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuz2ILq4UeA

John Lewis has said that the purpose of the ad is to raise awareness of the elderly and the importance of being together at Christmas through 'thoughtful gift giving.'  Apparently the John Lewis 'gift giving' to Age UK will consist of a modest  'hundreds of thousands' of pounds made from just three distinct products.

So has John Lewis 'commodified loneliness' as suggested by Christopher Hooton in an article in the 'Independent', when he asked the question :

'Is its heart in the right place? Or does it communicate corporate, materialistic, self-interest values under the guise of charity?'

The answer is that : it doesn't really matter. Clearly 'Age UK' doesn't care if it does or not. Esther Jackson, its 'Marketing and Fundraising Director' said: “We really hoped the ad would strike a chord with people - driving not only awareness, but importantly donations and actions to help some of the million older people who go for a month without speaking to anyone.  It’s also a great reminder to us all to reach out to older family members, friends and neighbours over the cold winter months.  We’ve been delighted and touched by the response so far - for both this activity with John Lewis and our wider ‘No one should have no one at Christmas’ campaign. We’ll be responding to all those who have got in touch about wanting to volunteer.”

In addition, more than 500 people in the last week have also called 'Contact the Elderly', which organises Sunday tea parties for people aged over 75 living alone, with many citing the advert as the reason. Mary Rance, Chief Executive of Charity said:
“We see first-hand how debilitating loneliness is for older people, and things like the John Lewis advert and the recent Bisto campaign are helping to highlight this more widely. Our dedicated network of over 8,000 volunteers make a huge difference to the lives of older people across the country by contributing just a few hours a month through our tea parties. We’re delighted that more people are coming forward to help. Our simple solution is one that works, and we’d love to extend our lifeline to more older people.”