There and Back again...

-

 


Sort of watching - well, not really, it's on in the background - The Hobbit, which brings to mind the cult of Tolkien at school in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Several of our number took to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, a particularly fine edition of which was housed in the school library.

The most frequent borrower of those volumes was Pete Ridgeway, who I'd known, along with Clive Hill, since infant school; both having moved to George Dixon School Juniors at the age of seven. I've written about mine and Clive's friendship before, but I don't think I've thus far mentioned Pete.

He was always a solid, athletic lad, but by the time we were reunited at senior school, he was creditably leviathan in stature. His outward appearance was impressively intimidating, but to those who really knew him, he was a gentle, if large-boned, aesthete, whose faves were the aforementioned Tolkien and the illustrations of Arthur Rackham.

Whilst still at school, he'd read Lord of the Rings at least three times, and took that fascination with him after leaving, still re-reading it, along with the later-published Silmarillion. I don't know whether he had anything to do with it, but I remember vividly being tasked by a notorious skinhead gang leader, Bricker, at our usual haunt, The Talbot Inn, about The Lord of the Rings. Turned that this erstwhile meathead and ne'er do well was similarly smitten with Tolkien's world of elves and hobbits. Gobsmacked? Just slightly...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more