This week, Thatcher looks back fondly on the recent Jazz Festival and on his extravagant youth in Windsor (a little longer ago).
The Jazz Festival has been and gone. It was nice to see the city so full of life. I went to see Van Morrison, I hadn’t seen him perform for fifty plus years so I didn’t know quite what to expect.
A friend who had been to see him the previous night reported that he hadn’t spoken two words to the audience all through his performance and that he had certainly lived up to his image as a grumpy old man.
I thought, at the price I’m paying that’s all right with me, if I wanted a conversation I could always ring the Samaritans for free, and sure if I wanted a grumpy old man I could always have a quiet word with myself.
On the night, the band started playing at eight o’clock on the dot, no allowance for ‘Derry Time’, though that didn’t apply to all of the patrons, and they played continuously until nine thirty. The music was excellent with a nod to the jazz weekend that was in it in the choice of the first half dozen numbers, the band was tight and talented, and Van did what he always seems to do and I left feeling as if I had got my money’s worth.
What particularly impressed me was Van’s suit; I reckon if I could afford his tailor he could make even me look good. I haven’t shared this thought with herself just in case I am cajoled into spending a small fortune on a vain attempt to make me look presentable.
Educating across the divide?
Recently I have noticed an upturn in community tensions and have been a little concerned that I may have contributed to it in some small way. We need to go back maybe twenty plus years to uncover the underlying cause of my anxiety.
It was the time when the government first began to pour money into what was then called EMU, education for mutual understanding. It funded schools to run joint ventures with the premise that getting students from different institutions to participate in interesting projects would allow young people from different cultures to meet in a caring and stress free environment thus helping them reach a better understanding of one another’s point of view.
A theoretically sound principle one would think... Some of my colleagues at the time suggested 'Ostrich' might have been a more appropriate soubriquet.
My old school [Foyle] ran such a course on the theme of local history, and staff generally enjoyed taking part in these ventures because it was interesting and gave both staff and pupils an opportunity to get out of the classroom for a day.
One of the projects was dubbed ‘The Siege Trail’ and involved staff and students from neighbouring schools visiting sites like Saint Columb’s Cathedral which had associations with the siege.
In particular I used to enjoy the moment when we encouraged the students to charge towards the Walls up the banking from Fahan Street to try to understand just how difficult the Jacobite forces who were laying siege to the city would have found it to mount a successful attack.
Anyway on this occasion I had been tasked with making a video of our day out with our partner school and we were standing at the windmill in the grounds of what is now Lumen Christi College, where a member of staff was painting a picture for the pupils of both colleges of the siege and the importance of the skirmish which took place on that very spot.
‘Now children’ he asked,’ what did you call the people who were outside the walls trying to get into the city?’
Silence.
‘Let me give you a clue’ said the teacher, ‘it starts with the letter J’.
‘Jaffa bastards?’ I whispered to a wee boy from the other school who was standing just beside me.
‘Naw,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘them was the boys inside the walls.'
Well I certainly couldn’t fault him for his historical knowledge but I’m still a bit uncertain as to whether I had made a major contribution to mutual understanding.
My merry life in Windsor
As I write the Sussex family are beginning their first full day of family life. I must confess I did watch a fair amount of the wedding; I’m a sucker for a bit of pageantry but I really watched it because the town of Windsor holds many happy memories for me.
I once lived in Ascot which is about ten miles away and Windsor was where I would sometimes go for entertainment. I saw ‘A Clockwork Orange’ in the local cinema before the government decided it was much too subversive and banned it for about thirty years.
I also went to a wonderful production of Tom Stoppard’s play ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead’ in The Theatre Royal. Windsor looked stunning in the sunshine. Just round the corner is the town of Eton with it’s bastion of privilege, I wonder if the little Turkish barber’s shop where I actually paid to have a shave still operates? Seven-and-six, I think it cost me. Oh, the wild extravagance of youth!
Picture: Thatcher reckons that Van's tailor could be just the man to give him a makeover - though he's not sure he can meet Van's budget
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