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Glad, 90 not out

12/25/2013

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Picture
My amazing Nan is 90 years old on Boxing Day 2013 and I want to broadcast to the world (well at least anyone that cares to read my post) that she is brilliant and I love her dearly.

Video messages from friends and family have been edited together to help celebrate Nan’s birthday and whilst I am featured, the written word is a more comfortable medium for me than its spoken equivalent.  This post, which didn’t have to be completed in one take, has been crafted to give Nan a celebratory hip hip hooray and something she can easily share if she’s not too embarrassed. 

One of the things that I find odd about celebrating peoples’ lives is that we tend to do it publicly when they die. This is mad; I think that a person you feel is worthy of a glowing eulogy should know the high regard you hold them in whilst they are still living and breathing and able to appreciate the sentiment.

My Nan, Gladys Semon was born in December 1923 in London. She is the matriarch of our family, remains in full possession of her faculties, is mobile and still lives in her own home. Nan has set the standard in her extended family for long and happy life and that’s in spite of the fact that when she was born, I understand that she was small enough to fit into a shoebox. At a time of high infant mortality she had a fighting spirit that served her well, saw her come through the Blitz and still sees her attacking life with gusto. Nowadays she even has an email address, a laptop and a mobile phone.

Glad has an indomitable spirit and I am going to share some stories with you that will help you to understand why she continues to inspire the families.

Up until a year or two ago, Nan used to devote every Friday to Age Concern. She helped out at a centre that ensured that the elderly got a decent meal and a chance to socialise with their peers. Nan used to refer to her time as “helping the old people” when the irony was that she was older than a lot of the characters she was helping.  

In 1975, Nan lost her husband Harry. My grandad had a massive heart attack that took him out of the game of life in one fell swoop - Glad was widowed at 51! That event turned life upside down for her but she came through that trauma stronger and more determined.

Nan and Grandad had a traditional type of relationship where the demarcation lines were clearly drawn between the gender roles. Without Harry, Glad had to do/learn everything that he used to manage and she did it well too.  Having taken control of the finances, she later sold the marital home, moved within London, then later moved out of London and then moved once more nearly twenty years ago. During this time she worked hard, holding down a variety of jobs (often more than one at a time) and paid her own way in the world. 

Smoking was a significant contributory factor in Harry’s demise; Nan subsequently took the decision to put an end to her own smoking habit. She didn’t do it by halves either, she went cold turkey until she beat it. Bearing in mind that she had smoked since she was a teenager, quitting in that way was quite a show of willpower. I only used her story last week to try and inspire some of my young work colleagues who were complaining about how hard it is to quit. 

One of the next things that Nan set about doing was learning to drive. She had her first driving lessons in her fifties, went on to pass her test and then bought herself a car. An orangey-red mark 1 Ford Escort.  She ditched the car and the whole driving thing a little later but that’s another story!  

Nan’s roles have included being a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and now a great grandmother. In terms of parenting; if you judge a mother by the quality of their offspring then there is no doubt that Nan was a great influence (my mum and my uncle Roger are successful, caring and decent people). 

Aside from one short term courtship, my Nan has been single for the vast majority of my life and whilst there is a part of me that feels a little sorry that she never found new love, the reality is that she honours grandad’s memory and wasn’t prepared to sacrifice her new found independence and control to any chap that didn’t meet the high standards set by Harry. More proof that she’s made of tough stuff!

On the subject of stuff, I have to thank Glad for some of my treasured Seventies ‘things’; think Beefeater plates, wall art and clocks.  This post is about the passage of time and what better way of contemplating time than horology? Harry, a toolmaker by trade, used to repair clocks for himself and for his friends. His fascination for time may well have rubbed off on me, I love watches and have inherited and repaired a few of Harry and Glad’s clocks too.  Every time I look at the Metamec Sunburst or the Kern torsion clock, I think of her.

Nan, thanks ever so much for those clocks.

And to continue the time related theme, whilst I can’t say here’s to another ninety years, I reckon that at least another ten are a safe bet. Nan, 90 is a bloody good achievement but there’s more to do; here’s to a century – I am looking forward to reading your note from Her Majesty.

And on that subject – if you saw Glad and Liz together, I swear you’d struggle to tell them apart. Seriously, the best ‘tell’ would be the accents (and I prefer Nan’s).

Nan, I love you, Happy Birthday. I hope you like the post and that you are enjoying all the attention you are getting from your extended family whilst you are reading it.

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Tecs like Nike Terminator High Tops

12/11/2013

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PictureNike Terminator High Tops
As a follow-up to my posts about my fond memories of Hi Tec Tecs; this short piece is about my latest pair of basketball boots purchased in homage to my most favourite of trainers. It is a shame that Hi Tec hasn’t reintroduced Tecs to its range but in their absence; check out the picture of the Nike pretenders, well technically they are called Terminator High Tops .

When I saw these shoes, I immediately thought that Nike had taken a stylistic cue or two from the vintage Tecs; the shape of the boot, perforated toe styling, the toe bordering, the colour coded stripe and the word mark repeated on the back of the heel.  

What also excited me was the colourway – I love brown and the individual colouring of each letter of Nike (including an orange ‘I’) on the back of the heel is a retro, earthy rainbow treat.

I haven’t owned a pair of basketball boots in more than 25 years but these shoes became mine and very pleased with them I am too. Whilst my wife looked at me in a manner I describe as bemused with a tinge of sympathy; my ten year old lad was quick to state “great shoes Dad”.

Previous posts:
Hi-Tec comes up trumps with Tecs shot
Hi-Tec Tecs - a flash of pure trainer nostalgia and a Google let down!

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Check out the red and white colourway, just like my old High Tec Tecs!
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The Adventurous Shackleton - a tale about pussy

12/10/2013

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PictureShackleton in his usual spot
Over the last year the Baldwin family has been slowly adopting a big black and white cat. This pussy has gradually got so comfortable in our home that it now sleeps at the foot of my bed every night.

Things weren’t always so domestically satisfactory for this moggy. In fact shortly after we fitted our cat flap in August 2012, this animal used to sneak in to scoff our young cats’ food and we had to chase it out regularly.

I asked around our Close to find out who the cat belonged to and drew a blank. Even Pauline our neighbour, who I am convinced knows every single person living in Daventry, had no ideas.

In the course of the investigations, it turned out that others in the Close had experienced similar break in issues with this creature and some had resorted to locking their cat flaps to keep this particular cat out.

During this time I had even observed the cat going through the bins but I always thought it was in too good a condition for it to be a stray.

Becoming ever more frustrated, I devised strategies to catch the blighter and on more than one occasion taught it a watery lesson that I thought would deter it from coming back. I’ll be honest I had even thought about catching it and then taking it for miles out of Daventry to release it; thankfully I never followed through on that idea.

After this cat’s second significant soaking at my hands, it still was prepared to come into our house and at that point my attitude toward it softened a lot. My view became ‘fair play, if you’re that brave, you are welcome in my home’. There was this additional thought at the back of my mind that any cat that was prepared to take such risks to get some food might actually be in real need of it.

The next time I caught the cat, we had a little one to one time where I explained that if it was going to take advantage of our hospitality, I expected it to make some effort to be a little more sociable.

It was at this point that I named the cat “Shackleton” – his name deemed appropriate by me because there was little doubt in my mind that he was a big, bold, brave and adventurous type. But even with these qualities, Shackleton didn’t show any aggression towards our two cats and that was fundamentally important to us.

Over the coming months Shackleton gained enough confidence not to run away from me, Mrs Baldwin or our children as soon as he saw us. Then he grew brave enough to be fussed by us all - eventually becoming as common place in our house as our two cats.

After a conversation with Mrs B. a few weeks ago, we decided that if we were going to take care of Shackleton we needed to find out if he had an owner and, if we couldn’t find one, we needed to get the cat insured and vaccinated.  It had got to the point where we recognised that we couldn’t let Shackleton be poorly without doing something about it (and we couldn’t take the risk of facing high vet’s bills if we did).

Mrs B. subsequently took him to the vets. It turned out that Shackleton was chipped and that enabled the “owner” to be contacted.

That could have been the end of the story, except that it wasn’t!

The owner came around to our house and shared as much of the cat’s story as she could. Wilson, for that was his previous name, was a rescue cat (found abandoned in a cage on a green in Woodford Halse) and then rehomed (having been chipped, neutered, vaccinated). His supposed owners have a house on our estate but about half a mile away from us. Just one day after arriving at his new home, no doubt still a little traumatised, he managed to escape the house and was never seen again.

That was eighteen months ago and Shackleton has been technically homeless ever since. That cat has managed to stay fit and healthy for all that time – that means he stole a lot of food from other cats, raided many bins and probably hunted effectively too. Maybe he has played a successful ‘Littlest Hobo’ role and has lived in multiple households ever since. Whatever his adventure, his new name seems perfectly appropriate.

“The Secret Life of Cats” was shown on the BBC earlier this year, I watched it with fascination and thought how much I’d love to be able to track where Shackleton went in between visits to my home.

I like happy endings and this story, at least so far, has one. Shackleton’s previous (and temporary owners) have agreed that we can adopt him. We will shortly have his paperwork and at that point we’ll change his name and chip details, top up his vaccinations and insure him too.

Shackleton has managed to find a new home all by himself; he has had to get over his fear of people (and their retribution at his thieving) and he is now getting all the positive fuss/attention and food that he deserves.

Hopefully that will be enough for the new pussy in my life to stick around.      

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