This simple book is one of my earliest memories. Each nursery rhyme had the music annotated with colour-coded bars, which corresponded to colours on a xylophone. We felt free to edit the words and pictures, and the image below is one of the least damaged! Although this precious item is kept safe in our family, I would love to get my hands on a better, working copy.
Here she comes now
She’s setting off.
Here she comes now, laying the path in front of her
She’s on the bus.
An old soul, riding the wave in; She is the Mayflower
Twenty minutes more.
She banishes the hoar frost and bluebells grow at her feet
She’s round the corner.
Bright Phoebus flying east to west
She’s at the door.
Happenstance
1. the hap
the bus, crowded. what were the chances?
you always hated buses; too many people
An empty seat next to me
and suddenly there you were
2. the pen
you used to buy me fountain pens. I bought you notebooks
I used to write a diary
I used to have enough feelings
for it to be worth it
3. the stance
my internal monologue, my practised speeches of hurt
my position changed
when your leg touched mine
on the bus
Cold grey road, grey sky.
your face from the back of the bus,
smaller and smaller.
(this was a pro-forma letter, found on the Living Streets website)
> Dear Councillor x
>
> I am writing to ask you to take a lead on stamping out pavement parking by banning pavement parking across the local authority area.
>
> Parking on pavements is a major concern for me and many local people. Vehicles parked on pavements means that people on foot may have to walk in the road, which can feel unsafe and intimidating.
>
> This has a particular impact on families with young children and pushchairs when they get pushed out to walk unsafely on the road. And for older people and those using wheelchairs, a vehicle parked on the pavement can mean that they fear leaving their homes as they feel unsafe.
>
> Damage from pavement parking also costs every local authority tens of thousands of pounds every year in maintenance and repair bills.
>
> I want to see a ban on pavement parking across our area. In 2011, transport minister Norman Baker made it clear to councils that local authorities have the power to make this happen.
>
> Please take a lead on this vital local issue and tell me what you are doing to stop pavement parking across our local authority area.
>
> Yours sincerely,
Timperleysunset
> Dear Timperleysunset
> Thanks for contacting me . Councillor y and I have raised this issue with neighbourhood police and highways . The problem is where we have wide pavements and narrow roads and at some places high volume of traffic that’s where we have to take a commonsense approach rather then putting a total ban across the city witch I think will be un fare with people who partly park on the pavement leaving the place for people to walk freely on the pavement and helping the traffic to flow . If I can help you in future feel free to contact me.
>
> Regards,
> Cllr x
>
Dear Councillor x
the problem certainly does not exist just where we have wide pavements and narrow roads. People park where they feel fit. They will not walk 5 yards more than they have to to waddle into the shop they are visiting. Take the corner of Seymour Grove/Upper Chorlton Rd as a typical example, but there are hundreds more. Cars are parked randomly across this stretch of pavement outside the takeaway, so that when I am walking past with my children, we have to weave in and out, sometimes behind cars, some of which start up as we pass. Do they see us? Do they see my 5 year old in their rear view mirror?
Pavements are for people. Cars parked even partly on the pavement are obscuring the view for safe crossing, blocking a piece of land where families should feel safe to walk without feeling like a car is going to mount the pavement behind them at any second.
You say you have raised this matter with the police, but you do not specify what the ‘common-sense approach’ should be. I would have thought a common-sense approach would be to take a look at the state of the roads and pavements in Manchester, at the potholes and crumbling kerbs and misaligned paving stones. Liaise with the police to fine rogue parkers, and put the money into bettering public transport.
We are all of us pedestrians, even car drivers. We are the lowest common denominator. Surely the priority should be to ensure the safe passage of the majority – pedestrians, rather than traffic flow? But more than this – pavements should be spaces where people can move where there are no cars. Are there to be no spaces like this?
best wishes,
Timperleysunset.
As usual, we have lack of proper public consultation on an emotive issue. Hundreds of trees are being ripped out in a local park, the scene is one of devastation. People hate it. The council say we need to restore the park and increase safety. Yes we do, but at this price??
My great-grandmother, Fanny Louisa Townsend, born in Willenhall, Staffs. She eventually came to live in Macclesfield, and died when my Nanna, nee Margaret Townsend Elkin, was nearly 15 years old. My Nanna had to look after her dad, brother and 3 younger sisters, and she was a tough old cookie. Thank you to Janette Williams for this photo.
Yesterday (31st Jan 2013) Year 6 at Oswald Rd school and their brilliant teachers Ms Elliott and Mrs Murray came to Manchester University’s Ellen Wilkinson Building for the unveiling of work the children had produced about Ellen’s life, which will be on permanent display in the foyer. There was also a moving rendition of ‘Nana was a sufragette’. Baroness Estelle Morris did the unveiling, and there were also moving speeches from academics who were instrumental in making the day happen. Ellen Wilkinson may not be as firmly on your radar as Sylvia Pankhurst, but look her up – she was a human dynamo, and definitely someone whose life and achievements ought to be more celebratated than they are at the moment.
Ellen Wilkinson was the first female MP for Middlesborough, and she is seen here marching on the Jarrow Crusade. A suffragette, she got her first degree from the University of Manchester in 1913, and she did part of her teacher training at Oswald Rd Primary School in Chorlton.
She was the second woman ever to become a Cabinet Minister in the Labour government – Minister for Education – and she was responsible for providing free milk for all school children. http://rememberwhen.gazettelive.co.uk/2011/07/red-ellen.html
‘St Hugh was a monk in the days long ago, he is our patron wherever we go, brave as a lion and yet gentle too, there never was a bishop like the valiant St Hugh’ (or something like that).
We’d all file in to the hall for assembly singing this. At the beginning of every assembly, there was a tape playing ‘Suffer Little Children’: ‘There came unto him, children, little children, that he might lay his hands upon them… pray for and bless them, children, little children, gathered round the Lord’. I remember sitting with my legs crossed and getting really bad pins and needles on a regular basis! One time, my little sister was baptised in our school assembly. I remember feeling so proud, and everyone crowding round me for days after, asking about her. I remember school plays – Oliver Twist – I was an urchin. Stephen Ryan, who I was in love with, was Oliver, he had an angelic voice.
Mrs Hodgkinson was my favourite teacher. Once, at the end of a day when we had put our chairs up on the desks, and were saying a last prayer, I couldn’t hold it in any longer, and weed on the floor. She was really kind to me, and afterwards, told me that she and I shared the same name. I was completely awe-struck with having such important information, and idolised her thereafter.
There was Mrs Beestie (?sp) who used to smoke in the playground. Mrs Murphy, who everyone was scared of. Mr Unsworth, who tried to get away with no teaching whatsoever for the whole of my Junior 3, sat with his feet up on the desk while we did endless ‘topics’, and also nipped out for fags. Mrs Eaton, Infants teacher, whose husband came with us on the trip to Chester Zoo, and lifted me up to see the polar bears. Mrs Moylan, who taught us a bit of French, sparked off a life-long love of the language for me. My junior 4 teacher, Mr O’Neill was great fun. The other junior 4 teacher, Mrs Chew, sounded less fun, and at times, would screech at her class. When he heard this, Mr O’Neill would just wink at us and say ‘Mrs Chew’s class are having singing lessons again!’
The school field was massive to me then. There was a solitary tree in the middle, and a sort of fence at the back, with a path running next to the train line, the fence of which was also in very bad repair. With the right planning, as we got older and bolder, it was possible to regularly run out of the school and round the corner into Brookfield Avenue. I think I remember someone actually running all the way round, I don’t know if it was me or not! The hooter/klaxon at Metal Box used to sound, I think it was at 5 to 1, and at 1 for the end of the workers’ lunch hour, so we always knew the time.
And there were hundreds of 4-leafed clovers on that field. For some reason, I would find them all the time. What lucky kids – 2 huge playgrounds and a gorgeous unkempt field next to a railway line in a sleepy suburb. What larks!
timperleysunset 