Mister Duffy Changes Trains

  The Horror, The Horror When I was a student in Edinburgh in the 1970’s, I belonged to the University’s Film Society. This was a very good deal, for an annual   membership fee of about three quid, you could see two or three double bills a week. It gave me a window onto cinema that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, films by Chabrol, Lelouch, Pasolini and so on. During the week, the movies were shown at George Square Theatre, a university auditorium, but as I recall on Sunday nights they were in the Odeon, a big, comfortable cinema in Clerk Street (the one in which I had a sneezing fit during The Sound of Music as a child- see a previous blog). Let me digress for a moment. One Sunday, I think in 1977, on an afternoon out in East Lothian, I came upon a semi-ruined wooden building, it wasn’t clear whether it had once been a residence or an institution such as a school. It looked very photogenic, and I took some pictures of it, first from the outside, and then rather gingerly m...

  What do Characters Bring to the Party? When Linda and I were courting, we had a small teddy bear called Harold, who was a sort of substitute child, and very much our mascot. He accompanied us almost everywhere, including on foreign holidays, and to Ipswich Town matches, where he sported a little blue and white scarf. One year for my birthday, Linda’s sister Margaret sent me a larger teddy bear, dressed in a leather jacket, goggles and flying helmet (the bear, not Margaret), who was apparently Harold’s Uncle Ginger. Between Margaret, Linda and myself, we invented a back-story for Uncle Ginger, as an RAF veteran of No. 43 Squadron, ‘The Fighting Cocks’. Uncle Ginger’s wartime career included a lot of bailing out of his crate as it plummeted into the North Sea or the English Channel. He had a circle of friends, fellow-veterans of The Fighting Cocks, with whom he had various adventures as old geezers in Civvy Street. On one occasion, they had a narrow-boat holiday on the Bedford ...

Miss Morris Who do you think of when you hear the phrase Cambridge characters? There are a number of town rather than gown characters, but understandably persons with a connection to the university come to mind. Long ago, there was Byron, who apparently kept a bear in his college rooms, in protest against the rule forbidding dogs. In the early 20 th century, there was Rupert Brooke and a substantial proportion of that Bloomsbury crowd. Incidentally, in the village of Grantchester, just outside Cambridge and made famous by Brooke’s poem, there is an outdoor refreshment area called The Orchard. I remember seeing a sign outside it, listing some of its famous former customers. These included Brooke, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Rutherford, Germaine Greer, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Fry, Prince Charles, Emma Thompson, … I remember thinking, it must have been quite a party. Another 20 th century Cambridge character was the philosopher Wittgenstein, whose grave is often adorned with peculiar devot...

Living From October 2014 to July 2015, I lived alone, for the most part. Number one son was in his third year at Kingston University, number two son was in his first year at Bradford, and Linda was working in Leeds and living there during the week. I had indicated that given that I had commuted to Newcastle at the weekends in the years when we were courting, it was Linda’s turn to do the weekly commute. More of that later, but in any case, for the most part in that year, Linda would leave for Leeds on Sunday afternoon, and return to Cambridge on Thursday night. As I say, the boys were away at university. Living alone during the week had its favourable and unfavourable aspects. A favourable one was that if I had had a very busy day, coming home to an empty house felt particularly peaceful. An unfavourable one occurred at the opposite end of the day, first thing in the morning. Especially if the weather was clear, I could feel quite desolated when I looked out at the sunlit back garden. ...