A Day In Court

I was in court all day clerking a multi-track civil trial. In those days it meant that the amount of money involved was over fifteen thousand pounds, witnesses would be involved and that the trial would last for at least a day, probably spreading out over more days. The Circuit Judge would be dressed in full regalia and the barristers for the claimant and defendant would also be dressed in appropriate legal robes. Wigs would definitely be worn and trial bundles distributed between the parties and the Court many weeks before the trial started.

I sat in my place of honour before the Judge facing out over the congregants and stood and bowed to him as he entered. After Amelia shouted in her loudest voice All Rise I called on the Trial in my poshest voice by stating the name of the claimant versus the name of the defendant.  Sitting down at at my desk I  faced the hall looking serious and stern; making sure that they could see I was an important official of the trial; I even had my smart black trouser suit on. The tapes whirred round as I made some scribblings in my court ledger of who the litigants and representatives were, and the tape numbers and numbers on the tape counter that correlated with when the various people started speaking. It was all very technical and hallowed.

I then wanted to look even more serious with substance so I put on the the head phones, nodded knowingly at the tape counter and sound indicators, and made little adjustments with the switches while looking at the Judge speaking and the barristers answering as though I was an experienced sound technician. Really, I didn't know what I was doing and hoped that the tape would have recorded the speech clearly despite my interference and twiddling.  Wanting to keep up the pretence of  looking considerably high level I kept repeating the head phone and knob fiddling routine at regular intervals.

I listened closely to the legal arguments and then the first witness was called. It was a very complicated case involving accountancy jargon and economic procedure, who owed what amount of money to who, and did they really owe it, had they already paid it in a different way, was it really owed to the tax man.  Why had it disappeared?  In the end I didn't have a clue what was going on; it all went right over my head. This was not surprising really, I was not legally trained and I am certainly not an accountant, but the Judge and the barristers seemed to know what they were talking about.

It dragged on and on. During the afternoon session the Judge called for half an hour's recess around three o'clock. Great, a tea break. The congregation all stormed out of the back door for a brew and a pee. The Judge, Amelia and myself left through the door behind his throne and entered the back corridor reserved for the Judiciary. The Judge threw open the window in the corridor opening onto the park behind and produced a packet of cigarettes, handed one to Amelia and to me.  She took hers and I refused mine. Then he got out a silver cigarette lighter and lit both the cigarettes.  He and Amelia hung half out out of the open window puffing away merrily. We watched the smoke curl away into the blue sky.

Nicotine fix taken, they retracted their heads into the corridor. He looked at us both, and began to chat.

“Well I haven't got a fucking clue as to what is going on” he revealed with a laugh. “I am in a fog as to this one. I've got no idea as to what is going on. Have you got any suggestions Amelia?”

“No Judge” she replied. “It seems like one big mess,” laughing and shaking her head as she said it.

“What about you Sarah? Have you got any insights?”

“No” I replied, “I haven't got a clue. I don't even understand what is going on.”

“Me too!” he said as he gave out a big belly laugh. “And I have to give a judgment on it. Shall we go back in for the second round?”  He opened the court room door for us.  And we all trundled back into the court room.

Two Fathers

When I was a small child my father thought it would be a good thing to give me a moral education, so every Sunday morning he sent me off to Sunday School at the local village Church of England school, which was different to the State School I attended. There were a lot of Catholics in our area. They were almost always of Irish background taking advantage of the plentiful new rented housing on offer through the New Town system intended to answer the housing shortage after the Second World War, as did everyone else. If you had a job in the area you were offered a life time tenancy of a decent home. Things were very egalitarian then. Some of the Catholic families were naturally bigger so they were allocated the three story six bedroomed houses. Our house was just two stories with three bedrooms. Because it was a new town with young families there were a lot of children living on the estate. The catholic children went to a different school to us but outside school we played together in a friendly and harmonious way. The different schools were never questioned, it wasn't important.

At Sunday school we were taught about Jesus, God, the Bible and to be kind to people, not to steal, or tell lies; all good stuff. We were little children and learnt by mindless repetition; a cynic might say it was indoctrination but it was just what people did and thought then. We had to march round the room singing children's religious songs and at the end of the march we had to put small change into a collection box which we were told was going to poorer children overseas. My dad always gave me a three penny bit for this. I once won the prize of a book about Christmas because of good attendance.

We were told to pray every night by our beds with our hands together to our Heavenly Father in heaven. So I did just that; I wanted to be a good child for my parents and for Sunday School. OK. So I had a Father in heaven. They told me this, so it must be right. But hang on – I also had a physical father here in my home, my Dad. So logically I must have two Fathers, one in heaven and one on Earth. That made sense. After a few years of Sunday School, I was praying before going to bed, and my Dad came in to say goodnight. So I told him Dad, I have two Fathers, my Father in Heaven and you my Father on Earth. He looked at me in a strange and puzzled way; oh OK, he said, yes, yes and he left the room. After a few weeks I didn't go to Sunday School any more and we did other things as a family. I heard him later talking to our catholic neighbour that he had stopped me going to Sunday School; it was good to send your child to learn right from wrong, but I was becoming too religious and that that was a bad thing.

Wiping Away The Memories

When I was small we didn't have big rolls of soft strong toilet paper in delicate pastel shades. No. We had it tough. We had to use things like Izal medicated paper, which came in little separate sheets of hard wax like parchment which came folded and intertwined from a little box. This paper was dry, shiny and very uncomfortable to use; it never wiped properly and it never absorbed any thing at all. I wonder why we used it, it never did the job. And why “medicated”. What was it medicated with? Tranquillisers? Sedatives? Laxatives?

My parents had a holder screwed to the toilet wall in which they inserted a box of Izal toilet paper and I was taught to dutifully to take a sheet out each time I entered the little room and sit on the toilet, clutching the sheet in my hand while I strutted my stuff, and then use it to clean myself. I was around two years old and considered this good fun, I was acting like adults do.

One day I entered the hallowed room and when going to take my sheet noticed that the box was empty. I shouted to my dad:

“Dad, the toilet paper box is empty, can I have some more?”. He shouted up the stairs:

“OK Sarah, I'll bring some up”, and he threw me in a box from the stairs and disappeared.

So now I had one full box and one empty holder; I had to transfer the sheets from the full box to the holder. How was I supposed to do this? Was It difficult? It was a big puzzle. I applied myself to the task. I took out the first sheet from the full box and stuffed it into the empty holder. It fitted in. So far, so good. I took out the second sheet and stuffed it in after the first sheet. Great, this worked. So I carried on with the process and got about half the sheets into the wall holder. This had now reached full volume and there was no room to put the rest in from the box. So how do they do it? How do Mum and Dad get a whole box of paper every time into the holder. I had no idea so I called down:

“Dad, can you show me how to put the rest of the paper in, it won't fit!”

He ran up the stairs and saw me sitting on the floor looking puzzled surrounded with sheets of Izal, and some hanging out of the holder. He looked puzzled too and then burst out laughing.

“No, I will show you how to do it”, he said as he lifted the sort-of empty box out of the holder with sheets flying everywhere; and then he swiftly and competently slotted the half empty box into the now empty cavity. Oh, so that's how you do it. It was so simple, why couldn't I have done it.

“Oh!” I said quietly in return. This story was told around the family Sunday Tea table for many months after, and everyone had a good laugh.

What makes a good book?

I really enjoyed it when my Dad drove me to the town centre library every few weeks. I clutched my old books in my arms and meekly queued up to have them returned to the librarian. I wanted to be a good citizen; I was always conscientious in getting them back before the expiry date. She used to go to the big drawer behind her, take out my lender's file, take out the book ticket and replace it in the pouch at the front of the book and chuck the book into a mobile book holder behind her. I was allowed to borrow four books but I always took three as I didn't want to be greedy.

Then I used to walk round the children's library shelves with my dad, excited at the choice of books. Which book Dad? What shall I choose today? I wanted to please and astound him by choosing intelligent books to show that I was growing up into the intelligent person he wanted me to be. I wanted him to love me. I found Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. I knew about this book, I had seen a film on TV and there had been discussion on Radio Four; oh yes, I had even listened to Radio Four with my dad. I took the book off the shelf and ran over to my dad.

“Do you think I should read this Dad?” I asked with expectant eyes, love me, love me, love me more. He took the book in his right hand and moved it up and down slowly as if to weigh it. He looked sagaciously and sympathetically at me.

“Well, I think it might be a little heavy for you Sarah! It might weigh you down!”. He looked to me like an intelligent professor, I believed everything he said.

“OK Dad, I'll put it back on the shelf and look for something else.”

From that time on, whenever I selected a book from the library, I held it in my right hand and lifted it up and down like my dad did to feel its weight. If it felt heavy I discounted it and put it back on the shelf.

Songs of Praise

On Sunday afternoons our family congregated round my Grandmother's: Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and family friends. The children (all cousins) used to noisily run riot in the garden and the adults used to smoke in the living room, the air was thick with stale clouds of cheap cigarette fumes and the smell of nicotine clung to our clothes.

The adults in my family loved this.

Then we got out the large table, extended it with the sliding wooden extension in the middle and we had tea: a slice of tinned pork luncheon meat, a lettuce leaf, half a tomato, a slice of cucumber, and to finish off with a KitKat or Penguin. KitKats were my favourite because afterwards my mum would make a silver chalice for me out of the silver wrapping paper.

After tea the telly would go on and we sat round quietly to watch “Songs of Praise” a TV programme where a load of old women in churches would sing hymns. They used to sing in high soprano voices with two part “harmony” and consciously mouth their words so you could see their fillings; they tried to look holy and devotional. There was never any interpretation or emotion in their singing; my dad said that they only went there because they wanted to be on the telly and that on other weeks the church would be deserted. My grandmother never went to church but she loved watching “Songs of Praise”.

The next day would be Monday and I would go to school; I had “school meals”, they cost five shillings a week, we said it was a shilling per meal, sixpence for the main bit and sixpence for the pudding. But the headmaster said

“No, no, no, its a subsidised meal from Hertfordshire County Council, the cost is for the whole meal and includes the cooks that make it in the school kitchen.”

But we still kept on saying sixpence for the main bit and sixpence for the pudding. We liked to do that.

At lunchtime before the dinner we queued up in the main hall, in class groups, girls in one queue and boys in the other. We had to sing a hymn and say a prayer with our palms together and hands pointing up in thanks to God for the dinner to come. Some children didn't have to do this. There were two sisters and a brother that stood apart against a different wall and just watched us. A teacher once told us when they weren't present that they were “the Joe Heave Witness” and that they would not be joining in. Two other girls stood with them. These girls had brown skin, long black thick ponytailed hair and wore trousers. We weren't allowed to wear trousers, we had to wear skirts and white socks, so in cold weather we were quite envious as our bare legs used to freeze. No one told us why they didn't have to join in.

We had to sing a prayer to thank God for our food, we didn't have to thank the dinner ladies that made it, our parents who paid for it or Hertfordshire County Council for subsidising it; just God. It was always the same boring song, always the same boring song; and we had to say “Our men” at the end. None of us had a clue as to why we had to do this: who were these men? and why were they our men?

One day I got so bored with this monotonous routine I thought I would be clever and innovative and be like the adult singers in “Songs of Praise”. I would show that I was mature and so very, very gifted that I was much cleverer and shine out from the other children When we started to sing I sang in much higher angelic louder notes than them, a harmonious blending euphony, over weaving the main theme of the prayer with different more sophisticated words and melody, opening my mouth wider to let the angelic sounds come out so that everyone could hear. I was so great!! The teacher would be amazed.

As we filed in for dinner the teacher pulled me to one side and said

“Was it you making that horrible noise?”. I became very still and meek. “Well, that was a very naughty thing to do, Sarah. Go and have your lunch and then you can stay in the hall all lunchtime as a punishment”. I had to stand in the hall, and people walked by wondering what I had done and why. 

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Desert Island Pints

You have been marooned on a desert island and you are only allowed to take eight pints (a gallon) of cask conditioned ale with you. Each pint is contained in its own mini cask with a tap, hard and soft spile, and there is a linking water jacket over the casks to keep the beer cool, because it is quite hot on the island, and we don't want the beer going off. The casks are magical and each one will re-fill when you have drunk the ale contained therein.

So what ales will you take with you? Here is my top ten:

1 Bateman's Mild

Thus 3% dark beer is the best ever type of its category. It tastes a lot stronger than the ABV (alcohol by volume) suggests and it is thick with an oat taste where the hops shine through. George Bateman & Sons Ltd is based at Salem Bridge, Wainfleet, Lincolnshire and still exists nowadays after a family tussle in the 1980's to sell off the brewery. George Bateman, his wife Pat and their children Stuart and Jaclyn saved enough money to buy out the brewery from the rest of the family to ensure its continuation. I remember George and Jaclyn coming to an early Norwich Beer Festival and giving people a special Victory T Shirt. They specially brewed Victory Ale 6% for us and I bought 24 bottles. I lost my T shirt and I drank the beer. I can't find Bateman's Mild on the Bateman's website; I wonder if they still brew it?

2 Ma Pardoes Old Swan Bitter

This 3.5% session ale is brewed in house at the brewery and pub the Old Swan, Netherton, Dudley. It gently sits in my memory as one of the best beers of the twentieth century, although when I go to the website now I am not sure as to what it was called then, so I will call it Old Swan Bitter for convenience. Doris Pardoe died in 1984 at the age of 85, so she must have been dead when I visited at the end of the 1980's. Of course I visited by bicycle; I always used a bike. I had to cycle away from the central road of Netherton, a few streets back up a steep hill and eventually pushing the bike, but it was worth it. On this particular trip I was touring the pubs and breweries of the Black Country and I had a wonderful holiday. The Old Swan was myriad of little, unspoilt, historical rooms and it was a joy to visit. It is now listed as being owned by “Star (Heineken)” so that seems a shame.

3 Batham's Bitter

This best bitter comes in at an original gravity (OG) of 1043/1044 (approx.) with an ABV of 4.3%. These things are very important to know. When visiting the Bull and Bladder, I remember it tasting as full bodied and clear with much malt and an explosion of hops on the tongue: not hop extract or pellets, but the real thing, real powerful hops balanced by the strong body of the malt. It was as if I was tasting a fresh clean farmyard there, I could imagine the cows mooing and the pigs running around in it. Oh Look!! There goes a couple of clucking chickens.

The Brewery goes by a long list of names: Daniel Batham & Son Ltd, The Delph Brewery, at the Bull and Bladder, The Vine Inn, Delph Road, Brierly Hill, West Midlands. I visited by bicycle, of course. It was situated in a long line of pubs backing onto a canal, I hope that this is still the case. It is still independently owned. There are twelve tied Bathams pubs. I had a dream of going on a holiday cycling tour with the aim to visit each pub. I still haven't done it. I say to Mr DBA (Arthur) Batham “Blessings of thy art thou brew'st good ale”.

4 Landlord Bitter

This 4.3% award winning pale ale comes from the Timothy Taylor brewery in Keighley, Yorkshire. In Yorkshire cask beer is served through a tight sparkler to give it added natural body, so the brewery makes it very, very hoppy to counteract this. In my opinion this can coat the tongue unnaturally in gas and somewhat masks the flavour. But the advantage of this is that if you can get the beer where it is served by ordinary hand-pump, it can taste very hoppy indeed. Great, wonderful, I love it. Of course on this desert island it is served by gravity; the best way of serving cask conditioned ale.

5 Reepham Rapier IPA

This mid strength 4.2 % IPA was brewed by Ted Willems at the Reepham Brewery in Reepham, Norfolk. It was very popular in its time but is sadly no longer with us as the brewery closed in 2009. But this is a magical island where anything can happen and any beer can appear. Norwich CAMRA sometimes ran beer tents. We ran one at a Mousehold Heath Sunday afternoon fete and we were selling Reepham Rapier. This was before the modern miracle of all day opening for pubs on Sunday. They used to open only in the afternoon between 12 and 2pm; so everyone then used to chuck as much beer down their throats as they could before 2pm. For some strange licencing law reason we were allowed to run our CAMRA beer tent all afternoon. This resulted in the fete being invaded after 2pm with many thirsty drinkers legally taking advantage of the Reepham Rapier on offer. There was much happy, rowdy drinking, and also a few punch-ups. The year after this, the Norwich branch of CAMRA was not allowed to run another beer tent at the Mousehold Heath Fete.

6 Hopback Summer Lightning

A full bodied 5% IPA strongly flavoured with Goldings hops, the best hops in the world. You can keep your new fangled varieties, they can't touch the old originals. I Once visited the brewery and tap in Salisbury one late lunchtime, and sat around near the bar for ages while the bar staff flitted around and ignored me and wouldn't serve me any beer. I later found out from the CAMRA Good Beer Guide that the bar didn't open until 5pm. Wouldn't it have been polite if one of those flitting bar staff members had told me this? I felt a complete fool at the time. And I didn't taste any of the Summer Lightning; I was really looking forward to that!

7 Lees Moonraker

This is a 6.5% strong, fruity, dark ale made with celeia hops, first brewed in 1950 at the Greengate Brewey, Middleton, Manchester. The founder of the Brewery was John Lees who sold his entire portfolio of cotton mills to start building the brewery at Middleton Junction in 1828. Good man! This sixth generation-owned company now employs over 1300 people and has a large tied estate. Moonraker is a perennial beer festival favourite. Who hasn't finished off their festival tastings with a half of this? I remember working at the Great British Beer Festival in Brighton to see many people using this as “one for the road” or “one for the gutter”.

8 Sarah Hughes' Mild

This mild with an OG of 1058, 6% ABV is brewed at the Beacon Hotel, Dudley, by John, the grandson of Sarah. The Beacon Hotel was built in 1850 and was granted an alcohol licence in 1852. Sarah bought the hotel in 1921 at auction after inspecting the premises and reading the legal pack. She brewed there until 1957 when the hotel closed. It was opened again by John in 1987. I met John in 1990 when I was on one of my famous cycling tours. Again this excellent mild is a beer festival favourite, sought by beer connoisseurs everywhere.

So there it is, my gallon of cask conditioned ale. As well as this you are allowed to take a book and a luxury item (as well as the current CAMRA Good Beer Guide, which everyone can take). My luxury item would be a brewery, and my book would be “The Big Book of Brewing” by Dave Line, Amateur Winemaker Publications, Argus Books Ltd, ISBN 0 900841 34 6. Oh and don't forget to take some beer mugs!

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it.

The Manic Street Preachers

My first husband was a Public Image fan so when their second album, Metal Box,  was released in 1979 he was one of the first to go and grab it from Robin's Records in Pottergate, Norwich. It was a weird album consisting of three 45 RPMs separated by sheets of paper, encased in two metal casings that clipped together. Although I didn't really like the music on it, it was his pride and joy and I still considered it my record also. Later on when we got divorced and split our possessions he took Metal Box. When you get divorced you can lose a lot of good vinyl: well I didn't mind as I got the house, a much better investment! When my ex did die later on, I thought that all my old possessions that he had taken during our split had died with him. And I never did ask the executor of the estate, my daughter, about what she had done with his stuff.

Just recently my daughter announced that she was moving to live with her new partner Peter. I was pleased for her happiness but knew nothing about Peter. My son informed me that Peter indeed was “famous”: he had written a book about the group, the Manic Street Preachers, he was a journalist with several publications and he had even written for the Guardian. Well, in my eyes anyone who has written for the Guardian is very, very famous indeed: his credentials have been proved! He looked very post-punk with no hair in the middle of his head, and two starched red wings rising up from each side of his head, artistically drawn make up and post gothic clothes with piercings and tattoos to match.

The day came when Peter came to visit us for the first time and I was quite nervous. Would he like me? Would I pass the audition? Would I be able to cater for his veganism, I could do vegetarian quite easily but vegan was something else. I needn't have worried. He walked up the garden path and yes he did have two sticky out bits of red hair on the side of his hair and he looked very post goth, but he was a very positive, erudite, polite and relaxed person; not at all snobby and very, very normal. Really, we were both in audition.

During his stay we toured a lot of the Isle of Wight beauty spots like Culver Down and Bembridge Life Boat Pier and took walks to Seaview Esplanade and St Helens Duver, although at St Helens Duver he got a few frowns; perhaps St Helens isn't ready yet for punk rock, tattoos and piercings. In the evening we spent some pleasant time listening to music and drinking red wine. He did spend a lot of time on Twitter. And he liked my vegan cooking! Well, it wasn't technically vegan, but I did try hard!

A few months later we were watching telly and saw a trailer for a new programme about pop music, and who was on it? Peter! Our Peter was going to be on the telly! So we made sure that we were watching the broadcast as soon as it started. Peter was being filmed in the living room of his flat, the one he shared with my daughter and he was talking about the development of post-punk in popular culture. This was all good stuff. As he talked I had a good look at the décor of the flat, noticed a book shelf behind him and posed on that shelf, obviously for the camera to capture was the LP Metal Box, round and silvery, and from this I could see that Peter was making an artistic statement.

Then I wondered where he got it from. Was it my copy of Metal Box that I lost when I got divorced? I

Everyone has their five minutes of fame.