Monthly Archives: August 2017

A Story

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Before I go to sleep I’d like to tell you a true story. Actually, I am in bed writing this post on my Kindle. You see I’m staying a couple of nights with James, Jaimy and Penelope Sweet Pea (my four month old baby granddaughter) in Brighton. This afternoon I arrived bearing a few gifts, amongst which there was a lovely big book of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales. Jaimy loved the book for Penny, as did I when I found it on Saturday; like me, Jaimy used to be an avid early reader and lover of fairy tales. The mere mention of fairy tales takes me back to grade two or three. at Manly West Primary School and “Fifty Famous Fairy Tales”.

I can’t remember my teacher’s name but my mind’s eye can still see the book in her hands and the way her red varnished nails and gold rings reflected on the glossy cover as she read to us wonderful stories about a golden goose, spinners of gold and dancing princesses. How I wanted to read all fifty stories at my own faster pace.  So great was my yearning that one day I overcame my terrible shyness and plucked up the courage to ask my teacher if I could borrow her book.

“No,” she said, “you wouldn’t be able to read this at your age. The words are too big for seven year olds!”

What a cheek! I knew I could read it, if only I had it.

Some months passed and still I longed for the impossible. Occasionally our teacher would bring out the treasured book and taunt me with the words she said I couldn’t read.

Then I became sick with bronchitis and had to take time off school. My mum, who always liked to buck us up with tasty morsels and delicacies when we children were sick, asked me if there was anything I fancied. I couldn’t think of food. There was only one thing I fancied….

“Fifty Famous Fairy Tales!”

And despite it not being my birthday, and it undoubtedly being an expensive book (probably too good to lend to seven year olds), Mum made my dreams come true. I read that book so much that the spine became worn and thin in the creases, though the rest of the cover retained its glossy surface.

Then one day, years later, when the book was a cherished memory rather than reading matter, a younger child admired it and I couldn’t deny her the pleasure of owning it herself.

Now, of course, it’s not so much the wonderful stories that come to mind when I think of that book… but the heart of my devoted mother. We had so little and she loved us so much.

 

How is Noel?

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“Have you seen Noel recently?” I asked my mother, who was sitting in the back of our car.

Long ago, when I was single and lived at the gallery, Noel was my neighbour; and when I left, and Mum bought the property, he became my mum’s neighbour for a couple of years until he moved into another house that had been left to him by a dear friend. At the time of our friendship Noel had been retired early from his teaching post in Exeter.

He was a clever, witty and good-looking man of around sixty, and he had a soft spot for me. We shared a love of art and books. He had a vast library and helped me with research for my Art History course (well before I had a computer). We went together to art galleries and yacht clubs. Many was the occasion I had dinner with Noel and his bachelor friends, Frank and Walter – both old enough to be my grandfathers (and then some!). He had urged me to go to the town of Bath (Somerset) with him. I didn’t go.

 

“No, I haven’t seen Noel for years,” answered my mum.

“Nor me,” said Chris, “I used to see him around the town… but not for ages. Of course, he never acknowledged me. He just couldn’t accept me. It’s a shame because I would have enjoyed his company – an interesting man.”

“I wonder if he’s alright,” I said, not expecting an answer.

“He was very fond of you – wasn’t he?” Mum observed.

“Yes, and I of him but he was too old for me…”

 

That conversation took place last Sunday, just three days ago.

Yesterday evening Chris and I were driving home after visiting a friend in the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, and we were discussing food – we were hungry. The car rounded the corner at Cockwood Harbour (one of our favourite places) and we noticed with astonishment that the harbour was full almost to bursting with the high tide.

“We could scrap the idea of fish and chips… and have a bowl of chips at the Anchor?” I suggested.

Chris agreed and took a side road which brought us back to Cockwood. We parked and walked around the harbour – the light is beautiful on summer evenings – and the reflections on the water were wonderful last night. It was too cold to sit outside and eat so we decided to go home for beans on toast instead. I continued to take photos as we dawdled back to our starting place. A man, standing alone by the harbour wall, had his phone camera out also.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” he began with a broad smile. “I love it here!”

“So do we!” I enthused.

And that was beginning of a long conversation. Earlier, the jolly stranger with the nice face and smile had been feeling unhappy and decided to lift his mood by going to the harbour and having a beer at “The Anchor”. It transpired that Alex came originally from Norfolk but, quite by accident, one and a half years ago he fell in love with a house he saw for sale in Dawlish and he bought it, although it is his second home. It is a large house with a wonderful garden… along West Cliff Road… The house belonged to Noel, and before that, Walter.

How is Noel?

The new owner didn’t know the circumstances, only that Noel was revered and missed by all his neighbours. To me, Noel will be forever charming, witty, generous and gentlemanly… in loving memory.

.

 

 

 

 

Someone is Sleeping in My Bed…

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Is there anything more lovely than lying in bed of an early morning and looking across at the most beautiful creature you could wish to lay eyes upon? You watch her breathing – her little chest going up and down – and if you get close enough you can feel her breath exhaling. You want to kiss her but she might wake up. Instead, you stroke her hair gently and she makes a little noise like a kitten.

Your heart is bursting with love for her. She is not yet eleven weeks old… and she was six and a half weeks premature. Yet her arrival was long awaited. If it weren’t for you and your first real love she would not be here.

My tiny granddaughter, Penelope Sweet Pea Pitstop, came onto my bed after her first bottle of the day and I watched her as the sun gained strength and filled my bedroom.

Tom Tom?

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“I wonder why they called it TomTom?” Chris asked over his cup of tea in bed this morning.

“Um,” I opened my eyes (I was still lying down – my tea was cold, as usual).

Incidentally, TomTom was on Chris’s mind because yesterday evening my brother Robert asked me to download updates for his device from my computer, seeing as he was having some problem doing so on his. We’re not completely disinterested in the subject as one of our Airbnb guests a year or so ago – a lovely Australian gentleman -just happened to be one of the pioneers of GPS.

“It can’t be because of tom tom drums,” my husband continued, “or the message might be, ‘Is anybody out there?'”

“Or trouble brewing,” I agreed.

“And it can’t have anything to do with Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, who did steal a pig and away did run…” Chris mused with relish.

“And it can have nothing to do with ‘Tom, Tom, turn around…’,” I sat up in bed.

“No, or it would be a sign of faulty GPS!” Chris laughed.

I took a sip of cold tea and added:

“Perhaps two men called Tom developed the TomTom company.”

“Or it was one man called Tom who thought he was so good he named himself twice!”

 

Ah, we were both wrong. A Google search answered the question – TomTom’s founder was called Harold!

 

Auto Tech

In an interesting interview with The Guardian, TomTom’s founder Harold Goddijn talks about the company’s genesis, as well as how it hopes to reverse declining sales and falling profits.

One of the “big three” in Australia, along with Navman and Garmin, TomTom started out as a joint venture with phone maker Ericsson in the late 1990s. When trying to come up with a name for the nascent business Tom was the leading choice, but due to its generic nature the name would not have been registrable as a trademark.

During the interview, Goddijn reflects that the decision to go with the personable — and registrable — TomTom name contributed to the company’s success. He also reminisces about how — prior to his directive that upcoming devices be “buy, take out of box, drive home” — sat navs were, prior to 2004, a complicated jumble of CD-ROM discs, wires and PDAs.

Image result for tom tom the piper's son images

Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the English nursery rhyme. For the film of the same name, see Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son (film).
“Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son”
TomTomthePipersSon.jpg

Sheet music
Nursery rhyme
Published 1795

“Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son” is a popular English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19621.

Lyrics[edit]

Modern versions of the rhyme include:
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Tune for Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
Stole a pig, and away did run;
The pig was eat
And Tom was beat,
And Tom went crying [or “roaring”, or “howling”, in some versions]
Down the street.[1]

The ‘pig’ mentioned in the song is almost certainly not a live animal but rather a kind of pastry, often made with an apple filling, smaller than a pie.[1]

Another version of the rhyme is:

Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
Stole a pig, and away he run.
Tom run here,
Tom run there,
Tom run through the village square.

This rhyme is often conflated with a separate and longer rhyme:

Tom, he was a piper’s son,
He learnt to play when he was young,
And all the tune that he could play
Was ‘over the hills and far away’;
Over the hills and a great way off,
The wind shall blow my top-knot off.
Tom with his pipe made such a noise,
That he pleased both the girls and boys,
They all stopped to hear him play,
‘Over the hills and far away’.
Tom with his pipe did play with such skill
That those who heard him could never keep still;
As soon as he played they began for to dance,
Even the pigs on their hind legs would after him prance.
As Dolly was milking her cow one day,
Tom took his pipe and began to play;
So Dolly and the cow danced ‘The Cheshire Round’,
Till the pail was broken and the milk ran on the ground.
He met old Dame Trot with a basket of eggs,
He used his pipe and she used her legs;
She danced about till the eggs were all broke,
She began for to fret, but he laughed at the joke.
Tom saw a cross fellow was beating an ass,
Heavy laden with pots, pans, dishes, and glass;
He took out his pipe and he played them a tune,
And the poor donkey’s load was lightened full soon.[1]

Origins and meaning[edit]

Both rhymes were first printed separately in a Tom the Piper’s Son, a chapbook produced around 1795 in London, England.[1] The origins of the shorter and better known rhyme are unknown.

The second, longer rhyme was an adaptation of an existing verse which was current in England around the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries. The following verse, known as “The Distracted Jockey’s Lamentations”, may have been written for (but not included in) Thomas D’Urfey‘s play The Campaigners (1698):

Jockey was a Piper’s Son,
And fell in love when he was young;
But all the Tunes that he could play,
Was, o’er the Hills, and far away,
And ‘Tis o’er the Hills, and far away,
‘Tis o’er the Hills, and far away,
‘Tis o’er the Hills, and far away,
The Wind has blown my Plad away.[1]

This verse seems to have been adapted for a recruiting song designed to gain volunteers for the Duke of Marlborough‘s campaigns about 1705, with the title “The Recruiting Officer; or The Merry Volunteers”, better today known as “Over the Hills and Far Away“, in which the hero is called Tom.[1]