Hello, welcome to my blog

Mostly you will find, here, transcribed entries from the secret diary that I used to keep as a teenager between 1970 and 1975. I try to be honest with my transcriptions, but, just occasionally I do edit, to protect myself or others from embarrassment or some other emotion.
Also, though, I like to do a brief review of the books I have been reading, so these are interspersed throughout. I reserve the right to write blog entries, also, about other random things.
Why do I keep this blog? I don't know. I am an academic and one of my research interests is around how people construct their own identities. The diary transcriptions, and what I write about my books, are very much about revealing something of my identity.

Monday 17 August 2015

George Psychoundakis - just finished reading ..

This blog post should really be called

'Understanding what it is like to live and resist in an occupied country: 2 books and a film'

By a strange set of circumstances, involving choosing small books to travel with, I ended up reading (at the same time) two books about living in an occupied country. Then an obscure film turned up on our doorstep from 'Lovefilm', from where we get 2 DVDs a month (I haven't got the hang of streaming  yet. Give me time). The film was about living in an occupied country.

The Cretan Runner by George Psychoundakis
7/10

This is the story of George, a Cretan man, who helped the British intelligence and military services during the occupation of Crete by the Germans during the second world war. He was an untraveled, unsophisticated villager, who became a 'runner', carrying messages and articles across tremendous distances, over the  mountains, across the island. Through many courageous acts he, and others, helped to establish and support the resistance movement which helped to overturn the occupation.
It's a gob-smacking book because of the real-life events that it recounts. I wouldn't normally read this kind of book - about war and derring-do - but sometimes one needs to read personal accounts to begin to understand the reality of history. I have been to Crete and I have great admiration and respect for the Greek people - more so after reading this.
George tells of whole villages being burnt to the ground, and of all the men in villages being taken away and shot, as punishment for small acts of resistance. I don't know how the island has recovered. I don't know how the Greek people have recovered. Maybe they haven't.
Another strange thing - I was reading this during the time of the Greek crisis with its economy and its membership of the EU. It made me understand the anger and defiance a little.

Resistance by Anita Shreve
7/10

And in this book Anita Shreve tells the story of an American pilot whose plane falls in Belgium during its occupation in the second world war. He is helped by a complex network of ordinary people who make up the Maquis, the resistance movement. It's a well told story. I'm a fan of Anita Shreve. She finds such accessible ways of telling stories that are meaningful and ful of complex emotions and relationships.
Again, it isn't a book for the faint-hearted. Living under occupation is living with brutality and fear.

Odette - a film, 1950
6/10
Anna Neagle and Trevor Howard

And then I found myself watching a film about an English woman, Odette, who is sent by British Intelligence to help support the resistance movement in France. It's a true story and it is harrowing. She is captured, tortured and sent to a concentration camp. She was brave and carried out acts of bravery that I doubt I would ever have the courage to do. Those war years challenged people to act beyond their comfortable normal roles and behaviours. We do indeed owe a debt, and we should ponder if we would have the guts to do half as much.

Monday 20 July 2015

Graeme Simsion - just finished reading...

The Rosie Project
by
Graeme Simpson

6/10

This is a nice book in which I learned a lot about what it might be like to live with Asperger's, trying to make sense of other people's worlds, when you don't really understand the clues.
It's a love story, and I recommend it for beaches and light relief.


Margaret Atwood - just finished reading....

The Edible Woman (1969)
by
Margaret Atwood

5/10


I used to read a lot of the Virago Press fiction, being a feminist.
I found this  book a bit strange - I'm sure that is what Margaret Atwood intended. It is a book about a woman who is struggling with the roles that are expected of a women in the late 1960s. Specifically, she can't work out what her attitudes are towards conventional marriage, with husband as bread-winner, little wifey in the respectable home having respectable babies, playing hostess to respectable, witty, charming friends. In order to gain all this she must give up her work as a market researcher. She doesn't even enjoy this role much.
She converts her ambivalence towards relationships and marriage into a problem with food, and progressively (and literally) cannot stomach more and more types of food. She loses weight, becomes anorexic, although the condition isn't named. She has a bizaree flat-mate, a bizarre lover and some weird work-colleagues.
I do like a book where I can believe in the characters, and like at least one of them, so I struggled with this. BUT, I admire Atwood for this early exploration of the impossibility of woman's position in a world where she is oppressed. Still.

Tuesday 3 March 2015

William Boyd - just finished reading ....

Armadillo by William Boyd

5/10

No. The best book I have read by William Boyd was Restless.
But having read this one, I know a lot about insurance loss adjusters and dreams.


Washington Irving - just finished reading ....

The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall by Washington Irving

5/10


I used to always, in the run up to Christmas, read a book that conjured up scenes of Christmas in the jolly days of yore. Thomas Hardy's 'Under the Greenwood Tree' is a favourite just for one section telling of old Christmas traditions. There are several Charles Dickens short stories that do the job, too.
But I found 'The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall' a while ago on an old junk stall, and was attracted to it because it was clearly a very old hardback, with its paper cover still on it, with nice illustrations on the front and throughout. When I've done web searches about this book, I have found a couple of auction sites for rare old books which feature it - so, you never know, I might have purchased a goldmine. It  has no publication date on it. Maybe one day I'll get it valued.
Anyway, it is a great resource for understanding old Christmas traditions - it's a series of essays about the author's travels in England, as a visiting American.
Not an easy book to sustain an interest in, though, so I put it down, after enjoying the Christmas at Bracebridge chapter. I'll probably pick it up again next November, to read in front of a roaring log fire.

Wednesday 31 December 2014

A short eulogy


This is the short piece that I read out at Julie's funeral. The longer version is below.

Julie Williamson nee Hurdus 24.6.57 – 14.12.14

I’ve been friends with Julie for 47 years, since we were 11. She was my best friend. We’ve kept in touch over the years, sharing each other’s ups and downs.
I wrote a long speech about how
·      she could fill any occasion with fun and laughter,
·      she was always there to offer a shoulder to cry on, or a practical helping hand when it was needed.
·      she was intelligent, but down to earth and so positive, welcoming and encouraging.
·      she was intertwined, through love, with the men in her life, Richard, Harry, Ryan, Adam, and last, but not least her steady rock, Jack.
Anyway, I agonised writing this long speech. It had lots of stories to illustrate everything I wanted to say about Julie. Then I found out that I had to reduce it to 2 minutes. I could hear Julie chuckling over my shoulder!
You don’t need my stories anyway. I know you’ll have your own. So I’m going to let her speak for herself.
In August this year I invited Julie, on facebook, to do the ‘Positivity Challenge’ – a thing that was doing the rounds where you had to say three positive things about your life each day. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me sharing some of the things she put:
14th August
1)    A whole host of medical appointments and things with Jack were POSITIVE - yay!!
2)    I'm sooooooooo tired I feel like I could fall asleep standing up, but loved ones just keep me giong and going and going ........
3)    I'm so lucky to have my family around me, albeit exceptionally depleted. Each and every one is worth a million people.
4)    And I'm so lucky, too, to have friends that really do accept me warts and all and stick with me, come what may.
5)    And how lucky am I to have a computer and be able to read what you're all up to? So many of you make me smile or giggle with your comments and so on! And that's brill to kickstart Positive Days!
6)    So a big "thank you" to everybody! For contributing to my "lucky" and "Positive" life. And for making me laugh at times when it could be so difficult to do so. And for those that do, for loving me. xxxxxxx
I loved Julie very much and I’m going to miss her.

Jackie Taylor

A slightly longer eulogy.

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Julie Williamson nee Hurdus 24.6.57 – 14.12.14

It was 26th November 2005 when I began to understand how intertwined with my life Julie was. I can’t remember who sent the text, her or me, but the text said ‘George Best has died.’ and was quickly followed by a phone conversation in which she and I reminisced about the crush that we both had on George in our teens, and how we used to hang about outside his boutique in Manchester to catch a sight of him, and how Carol Stott took us to stand in the Stretford End Paddock, to see United play. Carol was a real football fan; Julie and I just wanted George to be our boyfriend. But I ended up with Paul, and Julie ended up with Jack…..

I wanted to say a few words so that I could share with you what Julie meant to me, but every time I tried to plan what I would say, I kept being interrupted by vivid memories, like this, of things that Julie and I had done together. I reprimanded myself, and said ‘this is not about you, Jackie Taylor! Write about Julie!’
But of course for me, and I guess for everyone here, the reason we are here is because Julie has planted herself in our hearts. Julie is in my heart and, the more I think about it, she is actually part of my self – we knew each other for 46 years.

Here are some of my memories. I’m sharing them because I think you will recognise the person I’m talking about.
I was at school with Julie. We met in 1968 when we were 11. There were a group of us who hung about together and looked after each other in the slightly scary world of the Hulme Grammar School for Girls, Oldham. We used to walk home from school, wearing our blue velour hats, gossiping and giggling. Boy could we giggle. But Julie was the best giggler of all. Just by saying daft things and pointing out the absurdities of our daily life she would have us laughing until we cried!
We were best friends, Julie and I. We virtually lived at each other’s houses. We used to sleep over, sharing secrets and giggling until we slept. She used to say my mum was her second mum. It was the 1970s. We would have Nesquik milk shakes and Spam fritters and chips. At 53 Broadway, I was made to feel like one of the family by Greta and Harry, Kathy and Richard. They took me on holiday with them to Spain when we were about 15. It was like a long road trip! What an adventure! I remember us flirting with boys, dancing to Santana, Gary Glitter and Slade and long car journeys with Greta and Harry singing songs from musicals, with Richard, at the age of 5, sitting on my knee and sucking his thumb. Julie came from a family who knew how to laugh, love and have fun.
I remember the day Julie’s dad died. She was only 16 and it hit her hard. He was a larger than life figure and she missed him. She became a bit more remote from us all for a while, but, you know, she was still there for me when I needed her help.
After we left school went our separate ways, following our educations and careers, but we always kept in touch, writing and phoning.
We were at each other’s weddings. We supported each other at the death of each parent. We followed the trials and tribulations of each other’s lives and families: illnesses, celebrations, regrets, mistakes, careers, house moves.
Julie, with her abilities in languages and her astute sense of business had set up her own travel agency, and then later went into further and higher education, working as a lecturer and becoming a departmental head. She had such a down-to-earth, positive, and encouraging attitude, she must have been an inspiring teacher and a great colleague and manager (I have seen the facebook tributes, so I know this is true).
Paul and I moved house a few years ago, Julie and Jack were there for us on the day of the move, hanging curtains, painting shelves, laughing and helping to keep things in perspective. It was so much appreciated. It’s what friendship is about – a shoulder to cry on or practical help when it is needed and Julie was one of the best at doing both these things. Julie was a giver.
I watched Julie go through a hard time when her sister Kathy was ill. She gave so much of herself in trying to support Kathy and her boys, and after Kathy sadly died, the boys knew that they had a second mum waiting in the wings. Auntie Julie was so proud of her boys. Proud of Ryan’s adventures in Australia, proud of Adam’s achievements at school, and his lovely singing voice (she made us sit and listen to a CD one day when we visited) and proud of Harry’s abilities as an artist. In fact she promoted Harry so well, I ended up with one of his fine paintings hanging on my wall! I bet she wasn’t perfect, and I bet she drove you mad at times, but you know, Ryan, Harry and Adam, she was so proud of you and would have fought for you if she had to.
In recent years, through facebook Julie and I renewed links with several of the ‘old girls’ from Hulme. So in 2012 we went on another road trip, this time to Cambridge, to meet up with Carol Stott. We 3 hadn’t been together for probably 30 years! We didn’t stop talking and laughing. And here’s a little story from that road trip. I don’t know if it’ll make me giggle or cry. We stayed one night in a hotel. We lay in our twin beds talking and laughing just as we used to do when we were 14. I can’t recall what we were talking about but Julie suddenly said ‘Course, you know that I’m not technically married?’ Silence. I tried to take this in. I was stunned. What was Julie trying to say to me? I was at her wedding! I said ‘Julie, I don’t know what you mean…… you’re not technically married?’ Silence – she looked at me, puzzled, and then burst out into fits of laughter – ‘NO you deaf bugger! I said I’m not technically minded!! Not not technically married!!!!!!’ And we both fell into one of those helpless fits of laughter.
There are 2 things about that silly story that are important.
The first is the shock I had at the idea of Julie and Jack not being technically married, because of course, as long as I have known them, they have been intertwined as one. 2 rocks supporting each other. 2 friends, comfortable and enjoying each other’s company. I’m sure like all couples, they’ve had their ups and downs, but they had a togetherness that was a pleasure to be with. Such a strong togetherness that Julie must be embedded, like a diamond, in your heart, Jack.
The second thing about that story is that laughter features so much in many of my memories of Julie. As my sister, Norma said (and another of Julie’s facebook friends) there has never been, and I’m sure will never be, someone who can provoke laughter and giggles quite so much as Julie. Won’t we miss her for that? Won’t we miss her for her loyalty and her generosity of spirit? For her ability to make you feel welcome and loved and appreciated? For her shoulder which we could weep on, and her hands that offered practical help? For her sharp intelligence, that often came disguised as an innocent and playful remark?
I’m going to keep Julie, as part of myself, in my heart, and if I can be half as generous, loyal and laughter-filled as she was, then I’ll feel I’ve done alright.

Jackie Taylor