Dog Days

Yes: it's summer time, and the Mandalls are off to Mallorca. We Ms like journeys to all the safe places, saying which should ensure that something goes terribly, terribly wrong.

If I knew where to look, and if the heavens weren't so murky here in the Bridge, I expect the dog star would be telling me that we are deep in the silly season. What with the Leeds - Liverpool canal drying out, and Mr Cameron on safari, the signs are there.

T'internet really should be closed for the summer, but only the most confident freelancer strays far from his or her iLance.

We can't stop the world entirely, but I hope a few other amateur Bloggers will follow my lead: blogger off to Benidorm and leave the blathering to the blasted professional scribblers. It's what we pay them for.

Thank you for all the lovely things you have had to say about my column since my first View from the Bridge in December. I see that it was about Holiday Time. Well, well.

I seem to have raised one or two smiles, the children haven't entirely disowned me, and Mrs M is hastening home from the salt mines as I write, to celebrate the remnant of her birthday. 

That's quite enough for me.

I'll be back in September.



Tom.


PS If you're stuck for something to do on another drizzly summer evening in the Bridge, apart from watching Toy Story 3 at a proper cinema like the Regent, you could go and see if the kids laugh at Olly Gomm playing Charley's Aunt  at The Royal Exchange.

Mrs M had to give M to M resuscitation. It's on till 7th August. After that you're on your own till Dr Faustus in September. Can't wait.

Travel Advice for Marple Bridge

 

A collapsible canoe is essential

Uncle Percy in South Africa tells me that his compatriots have got the hump about the way the foreign press is portraying their wonderful country during the World Cup. Apparently we all expect to be charged by a rhino, preferably bearing a machete with menaces, on every street corner in Johannesburg.

Now, come on, ladies and gentlemen of the press, you know this simply isn’t true. Indeed, I remember a number of young men explaining most emphatically on the beach front in Durban 35 years ago that rhino were not to be found in “whites-only” areas. They thought it was a very good joke. After I laughed a bit, they left me in peace to eat my Kentucky Fried Chicken. Fortunately, some things in South Africa have changed more than the sense of humour.

I sympathise with Percy: surely even Sky News must have got the point by now: no rhino in its right mind would risk going out after dark in Durban, let alone Johannesburg.

Funnily enough, Uncle Percy, Mrs M and I had quite a close encounter with a rhino in South Africa, but it wasn’t in Johannesburg. It’s not the sort of thing you can prepare for, except by memorising prayers for a) deliverance and b) thanksgiving. Otherwise, my top travel tips are:

1. Wear a seat belt, however much the natives laugh at you.
2. Wrap your cafetière in your spare clothes: there is nothing worse than celebrating your survival, with a cup of broken glass and coffee grounds.

All this set me thinking about our preparations for the 2012 Austerity Games in Marple Bridge. I bumped into (so to speak) my fellow freelancer, Sir David of Cestria. He specialises in that hardy British perennial, health-and-safety. I asked Dave to suggest how we should alert travellers arriving in Marple Bridge, so we can put it on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office web-site (which is excellent for every country except the UK).

1. Drivers should take care near 20 MPH signs when travelling through the Bridge. Certain village elders, typically driving a red Honda Jazz, observe these limits, without any consideration for others.
   
   By contrast Hummers driven by sensible toddlers do not normally pose any major threat to visitors, provided they are also in a Hummer.
   

2. Loitering around our primary schools can result in expense, embarrassment or prosecution at almost any time of year. Visitors should resist offers from ladies and even young children of cheaply photocopied tickets to dubious entertainments. On no account, accept an offer of a “strip” for £5. These offers should be treated as highly suspect, particularly when accompanied by the terms “nativity play”, "raffle ticket" or “picnic hamper”.

3. Improvised Litigious Devices (ILDs) are common throughout the North West, and are increasingly sophisticated. The paved drinking area around the Royal Scot is known to be frequented by celebrities, as well as bankers, solicitors and philosophy lecturers, many with connections in Liverpool. At all times of day, there is a severe risk of criminal and civil litigation in relation to libel, fraud, trips, match-fixing, driving under the influence and metaphysics.

4. Ethnologists visiting the St Thomas’s church should not be surprised to find the door open. There is no need to call the police. Old Anglican churches are frequently left open, in the hope that Roman Catholics will take them back again and fix the roof. It has been reported that some Anglican minds are open too, but this is not confirmed.

5. Sponge-cake rolling trials may take place without warning in any location with a gradient greater than 1 in 10, during the preparation for the Games. One of the few places safe from rolling sponges is therefore the Royal Scot, op cit.

6. Despite warning signs, there are no traffic cameras in Marple Bridge. Visitors wishing to be photographed are encouraged to wear burqas, flowing robes and/or heavy beards. This may persuade the Anti-Terrorist branch to fund real cameras, so we can take action shots of the bob-sleigh course through Moor End, just like at Alton Towers.

7. Visitors may photograph the Iron Bridge, the Roman Bridge (again), the Regent Cinema and other landmarks. However, care should be taken before snapping natives, particularly staff of the Royal Mail: they are quite within their rights to bite you or your pet in retaliation.

8. Do not approach camels or donkeys travelling up Church Lane in the season of Advent. They may contain nuts.

9. Orange peel is an eyesore. Visitors are strongly warned against displaying it. Exposure is regrettably wide-spread during sunny intervals, and whenever Boots has fake tan on special offer.  Orange peel displays are presented by the members of the species homo so-called sapiens sapiens of all ages, genders and persuasions. A Posterior Double Outspan was exposed outside the Royal Oak by a visiting football enthusiast after England’s unfortunate game with Mexico. Visitors are advised that PC Potter and his Peelers will not tolerate excessive exposure, and may well tear a strip off offenders.

10. It rains a lot in Marple Bridge. It is entirely likely that you will find a flood on Town Street. As rhinos are rare, a collapsible canoe is indispensable.

Please let me know of any additions or amendments to this list, before we submit it to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for inclusion in its helpful website.

Raisin in the Sun

Second only to our very own Regent Cinema, Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre is a favourite destination for a Mandall family outing. It amazes me that our three boys regularly consent to join Mrs M and myself on these occasions. It’s probably because we try to fit in a pizza first, if there’s a bogof at one of the nearby eateries.

The Royal Exchange is a glorious celebration of Manchester’s pre-eminence in the global cotton trade. Its modern theatre-in-the-round is an airy three-tiered cylinder, anchored to the massive pillars that define the floor of t’Change. The closing cotton prices from around the world on its last day of trading still look down from the gods.

Tracy Ifeachor as Beneatha & Damola Adelaja as Joseph Asagai in A RAISIN IN THE SUN
Photo by Jonathan Keenan

The theatre’s middle tier suits me, because the seats are like bar-stools, not so comfy that I'll doze off. Also, should I snore, I’m less likely to be caught napping than with the groundlings under the stage lights.

The lights fade up on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. We look down from our stools onto a Chicago apartment: a kid is asleep on the couch; his mum, or should that be mom, moves around this single family room, fetches the paper, turns on the stove to cook breakfast.

Unlike nearly all the audience, the actors are black. When the granny, Lena (played by Starletta duPois, who's been doing this play since I was in short trousers) gets her insurance cheque following her husband’s death, all she wants is for her family to be happy. She wants them all to have a proper house, where her grandchildren to be raised in the sun, out in the sunny but exceedingly white suburbs, far from the smoke and the clatter of the trains outside the window.

Some time after the ice-creams (even better than at the Regent, but somewhat pricier) a white bloke appears in the apartment. He’s silver-haired, comfortably built, in a woolly jumper, with a well-worn tan briefcase and lace-up shoes like the ones I wear on my walks to the Derbyshire end of our village. He's a bit like me so I warm to him. The nice white man says he’s from the residents’ committee, and has come to welcome them to the new home Lena's bought. He then proceeds to offer to buy them out, tries to make them an offer they can’t refuse. Something about skin, and not fitting in. "There goes the neighborhood".

You’ll have to go and see Raisin in the Sun to find out what happens next. You’d have to go very far to find a better play or better acting. Hurry up: it closes on the twentieth.

I suppose that King Cotton left Marple Bridge and Manchester quite a long time ago - but perhaps Starletta can till hear his cotton-picking servants whispering behind the pillars of the Royal Exchange.

Out here in the Bridge, village life is pretty sunny between the snow flurries, but it's still freezing. I read somewhere that Samuel Oldknow chose Marple Bridge to build his great cotton mill amidst what we call the Roman Lakes (why, I'm sure our wonderful Marple Local History Society can explain), so the workers could move out from the Manchester stews, and live in the fresh country air. And up on the hill, descendants of Richard Arkwright (he of the water-frame - or was it the spinning jenny?) paid for a fine new school. I expect they learned about whirling dervishes.

It’s a funny old thing, as I was saying to Mrs M, but there don’t seem to be many mill hands in Marple and Mellor these days. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pair of clogs this side of the M60.

And people of color? Not many seem to make it over the M60 either. But I’m working in Old Trafford this week, so I’ll bring home some of those wonderful Pakistani mango smoothies for the boys.

PS Mrs M’s very troubled that injury may have forced our very own whirling dervish, Robbie White, out of the final of So you think you can dance on Saturday night. She’s been following his career since he was in Year 11. All the Mandalls wish Robbie the very best.

Living on the Edge

They’re shooting Mrs Peppercorn tonight in the Bridge. Her film crew is going to blow snow all over us and pretend we’re a Cornish village. Town Street will be closed for three nights, which should infuriate and delight us all in equal measure.

Edgy stuff, a production like this: what will happen if we’re already covered in the wrong sort of snow? I sha'n’t sleep for worry.

Three nights! I hope Mrs P and the crew will grace our pubs and restos between takes. To be honest, some of them have a bit too much Cheshire bling for Mrs M and me. As regular readers will know, we prefer the Regent Cinema, where my lady bestows the briefest of infra-red glares on anyone who whispers. This suits me fine. Also the magnums are only a quid.

The Edge restaurant in Marple overlooks the Peak Forest Canal as it hurtles down 16 locks and 210 feet to a viaduct over the River Goyt (then known as the Mersey) on its way to Manchester. “Hurtling” is of course relative. It took Mrs M and me all day to wind 16 sets of the sluices up and down, while a chorus of little Ms looked up from their Nintendos to chant “Tom Mandall Turn the Handle!”

Although the “e” at the end of The Edge in Marple is falling off, by design of course, our visitors won’t need crampons to reach their table. Carpers may say that we exaggerate when we talk of “peaks” and “forests”, but we really do live on the edge here by the Bridge. We live on the edges of Stockport, Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, Peaks and Plain. We used to be part of Derbyshire too (and, always up with the times, the Church of England has just moved us from the Diocese of Derby to that of Chester.)

Daily, we bestride our less-than-tectonic plates. Bridgers attack the terrain from early morning: a Pringle of golfers absailing down the links of Mellor Golf Course, or a Lycra of bikers grinding up to Lantern Pike.

Once Mrs M and the kids are out of the way, I lace up the chunky English shoes that I imagine are favoured by social anthropologists, for my morning stride with faithful Bono into old Derbyshire, and perhaps exchange greetings with the farmer fattening his cattle below St Thomas’s. Meanwhile, my neighbour leaves his half of our semi, and walks down to Town Street for a latte behind The Guardian at Libby’s; then he crosses our Goyt-Mersey-Rubicon for an off-peak return with the humanities staff to his Mancunian seat of learning.

Some of us free-lancers are currently more free than lancing. So, after a seemly interval in which we might have been responding to urgent emails from Lord Mandelson (no relation) or skyping Bangkok, we congregate in our trainers, we gentlemen of the road, track and tow-path. We jog down to the (not quite) Roman Lakes and up to the canal, over the Goyt, scrabble up through Brook Bottom till we finally top the Soldier’s Knob with its blasted Cross.

We may be on the edge of riches or repossession, but this knob where a Wesley may once have preached will still be here tomorrow. And perhaps that new contract will turn up...

Home to number 72, our ledge on the edge. Let’s go mad, Mrs M: Lancashire black puddings, with bubble and squeak for tea.

I raise the plump satin horse-shoes, dark as aubergines, to embellish my ear-lobes, for the delight of Eminem.

“Can’t we have fish fingers?” says M2. Go prick thy face, thou lily-liver’d boy!

Watch out for shrapnel, Mrs P.

Spit Spot

I see Julie Andrews is promoting her new show. Mrs M is so glad she’s back. She (Julie A.) very sweetly sent us a signed photo for a charity “gala” presentation of The Sound of Music at Marple’s Regent Cinema a couple of years ago.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if Julie came to see us here in Marple Bridge! 

We’re very welcoming to most visitors. Lady Thatcher might disagree, because someone attacked her with a bunch of daffodils on Town Street.

Alright: it’s hard to imagine Mary Poppins’ umbrella, or her vowels, making it much further North than, say, Gerrards Cross – certainly not all the way up here. The Dark Peak has more peat bogs than Alpine flowers. Also, marching up from Hayfield Quarry to claim the right to roam on Kinder Scout isn’t quite the same challenge as the Von Trapps’ problem with resisting Nazi lebensraum.

Still, our hills are alive. Not so much with the sound of music, but with the thump and squelch of Vibram soles, the swish of Gortex, and the munching of Eccles Cakes. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, there’s quite a lot to recommend life here, Julie.

Take the Regent Cinema. Today, our local screen stands alone against the Multiplexes of Belle View, Grand Central and Parr’s Wood. All around have fled: Gatley, Hale, Hulme; even the Rex at Wilmslow has gone. But the Regent still brings us one screen, two ice cream trays with real Choc Ices, and the faintest hint of popcorn oil and Jeyes Fluid. Great movies too. Mrs M is always on the phone to the Management discussing the programme, so how could I say otherwise? A quick phone call to the Regent is all you need for two perfect seats in the circle for you and Dick Van Dyke – no booking fee. Add in 2 Magnums (Mrs M has no shame), and you’ll still have change from £12.

I’ve done a ditty for you, Julie. The boys (we call them Eminem behind their backs) say it’s nuffin on Big Brovaz’, but it will have to do.

Grey skies and Gregg’s pies in front of the telly

Puddles on towpaths and crab apple jelly

The bubble of curlews high up on the moor

Go on like this, and you’ll give me what for.

When the wind howls, when the road’s shut

When I’m unemployed,

I’ll get out in a track through the woods with the mut

And somehow I’m less annoyed.

Personal number-plates, modernised dwellings

Diggers and tractors, and blousy white weddings

Wet Winter Wonderland, jams on Dan Bank

Why am I looking for someone to thank?

When the wind howls...

Arkwright and Oldknow; blonde ladies in Minis

Agas and Rayburns, expensive bikinis

Moderate jazz in the Devonshire Arms

This little town has more blessings than harms

When the wind howls...

It’s just an idea, Julie. I really don’t mind if you change it. Tx A3GBJGJPR45E