Telephones and Cabbage

2011-01-11T12:13:00.000+01:00

So 1963, no not some random number, but the year I was born. Before anyone says anything, also not the dark ages, but pretty close. There were no computers, no mobile phones, no DVDs, no cassette types - and if you're under 20 you probably don't know what that is or have ever seen one. Although television had been invented most homes didn't have one, we got our first one for the Queens silver jubilee. The telephone if you you had one was attached to the wall with thick cable and the receiver was attached to that with a coiled cable and was a standard black, plugged in in the hallway.

What did people do? I hear the younger readers scream pulling their hair out while writing an SMS, reading this post and trying to do their homework at the same time. Well, to be honest I'm not sure. As a kid I never seemed to be bored there was always someone to play with, we didn't have Barbies, little ponies or playmobile, although by the time my brother was a little boy he did have playmobile and I can remember being jealous. As any 'older' person will tell you, the summers were always long, the sun always shone, we played outside all the time, the World was a good place, we were always happy, school was a laugh and after school was even better in short perfect and in my memory that's just about right.

When I was born back in 1963 my parents lived in a village called Minister, on the isle of Thanet in Kent. The most pronounced memory I have is the smell of cabbage - people say smell is the most potent of all memory triggers- or maybe it just because it STILL smells of cabbage! The village itself had a big church, a railway station, behind the church if I remember rightly a village hall opposite, a junior school, a 'rec' - and a small cottage hospital. Minster also had and still has an abbey attached to the church, the abbey itself was behind tall flint walls - common in that part of the world - and it opened it's gardens once a year for the May Queen competition. I wonder whether they still do that now? Minster Abbey is thought to be one of the oldest inhabited buildings in the UK and has been an Abbey since 670AD, I didn't know that, click the link to find out more about it's history.

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We lived in St Mildreds Road for 7 years, the road lead from the church to the 'rec' recreation ground, the school and a cottage hospital, which I remember as green with ornate iron balconies running round the upper floors. I also remember it because when I was a little older I met a patient, a burns patient, she had burns to her face and she not only shared my name but also by birthday, we were exactly the same age. I don't know what happened to her and I can only remember her vaguely, I remember being shocked at the time that we shared what I thought was so much but that her life was so different. The recreation ground was 'guarded' by tall wooden gates that looked like castle portcullises and were closed and chained at night. No climbing over allowed. But when they were open it was massive to a tiny little girl, at least two football pitches, playground including the all important swings, tennis courts, cricket pitch, roped off so us children couldn't ruin it, pavilion, work shop with gamekeeper and mower, I can smell the freshly cut grass now, hills to roll down best of course when they had just been cut so you could go home covered in grass, a special treat for Mum. Once a year they held the local Flower Show, one of the biggest in the area, more of the Flower show later.

Writing this today it seems a million miles away and I must get back to reality answer a few emails and do a few jobs. On a completely different subject this is the last webpage I visited yesterday.

The Beginning

2011-01-10T17:25:00.000+01:00

So this is my story. Not quite sure if it will end as my story but that is where we will start, me and the here and now.

The 'here' is Frankfurt am Main in Germany, right in the centre of Europe, it's the financial centre of Germany and just under 1 million people live here if you don't include the 'Schwarzarbeiter' - that's the German word for illegal workers. I'm sitting writing this 'now' that would be the beginning of 2011, the desk light is on and it's getting dark. I'm writing this because my daughter told me to, we had a discussion this morning, well it might have been just me moaning, complaining that I'm late 40's unemployed, slightly depressed (it is winter you know) and feeling that I should have/could have done so much more with my life.My daughter, Jasmin, not backward in coming forward, told me I should write about my life. I said 'boring' she said 'no, you done loads of unusual stuff - and after all you are an English teacher so at the very least it's practice'.

Looking out of my window all I can see is grey, the sky, the road even the plants look grey, a line of planes with navigation lights twinkling in the evening sky queue up to land at the airport remind me that life outside goes on people are on their way somewhere home, work, holiday, shopping, meeting friends walking their dogs. If however I cast my eyes downwards toward the road, I see the South Cemetery. There are twinkling lights there too, not marching towards the next destination but red and static standing to attention giving light to gently soothe the recently gone and those left behind. That sounds a little depressing but it's really very pretty looking at it from my balcony.

Life here in Frankfurt is really rather nice I have a lovely flat, open-plan 3 bedroom, swimming pool and sauna a view of the green belt and high enough to see the most incredible sunsets in the autumn. Work is not something that I must do, but something that I like to do. I'm not going to tell you about the rest of my family because that would be the middle of my story, so you'll just have to wait.

A life worth living

Telephones and Cabbage

The Beginning