Launching Bits and Pieces

BITS AND PIECES - A STORIES AND POEMS BLOG

I grew up in a small 1950s mid terrace.  Out front a handkerchief law and prissy wee privet.  The back garden was much bigger.  Narrow, but maybe 12 metres long, split into 2 about two thirds of the way down by a tall wooden fence.  Originally the area nearest the house was grass, but early in my childhood the builders came round, stuck a new room on the back and paved over the green.  I can't recall what the further end looked like, apart from the permanent presence of a shed.

Always looking for ways to save money, my dad honed his DIY skills over the years.  That new build on the back would eventually be fitted out as a dining room, although it took a couple of years to get it all done.  Meanwhile the modernisation of the garden meant digging up that lower section and bringing in a pile of paving slabs of various shades, some cement and a sledgehammer.  Multi coloured crazy paving was the objective, somewhere to hand out the washing away from the house.

Progress was slow.  To be fair he worked shifts, there were always other demands on his time and Edinburgh weather no doubt played a role.  But he was also a slow worker. Methodical he'd say, and the results justified the care he was taking.  As it gradually emerged it looked pretty interesting, by sixties standards.  It got to a point where over a third of the area had been covered and the rotary washing line could be put in place, so at least the area could be used for purpose.  But then it all seemed to grind to a halt.  Years later that space was part paving, part broken ground, and putting out and taking in the washing always had the thrill of knowing there was a potential ankle-turning moment lying in wait.  Many, many years later the fence was taken down and the whole garden landscaped.  The crazy paving never did get finished.

Over the last four and a bit decades I have, off and on - far more off than on - had periods of trying to write stories and poems and messing about with bits of fiction in my head.  Be it nature or nurture we inherit certain characteristics from our parents.  And I seem to have acquired that inability to see things through from my dad.  There are notebooks and cardboard folders and files on my hard drive that are testament to that crazy paving.  Ideas that never quite made it, poems that fritter out for want of an ending, stories that don't even make it to a middle.  I'm rubbish at seeing them through.

Mostly.  Along the way a few, a very few, have reach something I could regard as completion.  Most are short (surprise, surprise), rarely more than a page or two.  Most have sat unread by anyone but me, or perhaps one or two others, for many years.  They aren't worth sharing the voices tell me.

But why not?  The worst anyone can do is tell me they're awful, and that wouldn't come as a shock.  Mostly they will get ignored, and that's fine too.  But if even one of them brings out a smile, or an unexpected thought, in some random reader then there will have been a point to doing this.  So Bits and Pieces is the repository of those few finished works.  Only three to begin with, more to be added over time.  Doing so might even motivate me to return to those crazy paving jobs and see if I can smash up a few more slabs, or come up with something new.  I'll see what happens.

First up is a poem I wrote a few months ago when I was having one of those spells of trying to write.  Nothing was working out so I began a verse about being unable to finish anything off and that was the one I found flowed out easily.  Followed by another recent poem, one of those I mentioned before as having stalled.  Unfortunately by the time I got around to polishing it up the political subject had already resigned from the post that gave her prominence.  But it still feels worth sharing.  And finally a very short sort-of story that came from real life.

Here's the links to the three posts :

The poem about being unable to write a poem

The already out of date political doggerel

The short short story

Mon the Boks

WHY I'M SUPPORTING THE BOKS ON SATURDAY

Back in the old, old days, before all seater sports stadiums became de rigeur, Murrayfield had a west stand, the other three sides being covered in terraces.  The clock tower that now resides between the east stand and the turnstiles used to sit proudly atop the south terrace, long before there were digital displays.  Officially the capacity was about eighty thousand, but because you could just turn up and buy a ticket on the day in 1975 the Five Nations tie against Wales was played in front of a sardine like one hundred and four thousand.  At least you couldn't get cold.  Internationals became all ticket after that...

At international matches the schoolboys (I say 'boys' because I can't recall any girls going, but could be wrong) seating, benches in front of the terracing and not far in from the east touchline.  Close to the action.  However for one game, in December '69, we were told to sit in the north end of that big stand, as a safety precaution.  The opposition was the touring South African side, who were confronted with anti-apartheid protests at every point along their journey, and a few of these demos turned into scuffles, so it was thought best to protect us wee innocents.

Innocent?  I was thirteen, so maybe I should have known better.  But my parents never discussed politics, the subject wasn't  raised at school, and ignorance is my only defence.  It shames me now.  This would be the last time the Springboks toured these islands until the nineties, although rugby as a sport was more culpable than many in maintaining contacts with their racist counterparts.  Not a proud history.

The release of Mandela brought the beginning of an often painful transition that continues to this day.  Scars like that take a long time to heal, and anything , however small, that can chivvy that process along, is to be encouraged.  And that's why I'll be supporting the men in green next Saturday, as i did this morning.

When your own country's team finds itself on the plane home from a world cup you find yourself free to support whoever you wish, for whatever reasons work for you.  With Scotland out early my inner francophile took over and I looked to France as 'my' team.  That didn't last long.  So when the final four became clear my allegiance switched to the Africans.  Not because they play the most entertaining rugby (they certainly don't), not because they were favourites (they still aren't), and not because of any particular player I like (although Faf de Klerk is curiously watchable despite the constant box kicks).  But because Siya Kolisi is captain.

South Africa have already won the World Cup twice, and those occasions did help bring the country together a fraction more each time.  But this feels different.  That world of '69 would be just that little bit further away if next Saturday sees the cup being lifted by the first black captain of his country's rugby team.

Of course my choice of finalists to support is made easier by the other participant.  It's hard, culturally, not to subscribe to the The Lincoln Position (good ol' Abe).