Neglect

I have watched, for perhaps a year now, the neglect of this beautiful old house on the Bangor to Belfast Road. To be fair, I have no idea why it has lain unattended and unloved for such a long period. It could be that the previous owner died intestate or, more likely, a developer has bought it and is allowing to fall into the realm of “beyond economic repair” for planning purposes. The missing roof tiles and the holes in some of the windows will hasten it’s demise, but it’s a real shame.

The house itself has elements of both the 1920s and 1930s but may have been built much later. It also reminds me in some way of US house design, especially with the overhanging porch and the depth of the roof. Its a real beauty and as I didn’t have a substantial win on the National Lottery this weekend, will continue to deteriorate. I’d love to have a close look round the property but someone has nailed a large official-looking KEEP OUT sign onto the wooden gate. As I’m a mainly law-abiding citizen, I fear that it won’t be possible.

For a bigger picure (for the lovely detail!) click here and click on “All Sizes”.

 

Revisited

During last Saturday’s Flickr Meet at the recently reopened Ulster Museum, I had the opportunity to check out some areas I missed first time round. I may have been a bit “previous” in my criticism of the amount and type of art versus the historical artifacts that “should” be in a museum, in my opinion. While showing my eight year old around, it seems I missed a few areas that would have given me a more positive impression. In fact, I’m not even confident that even following Saturday’s visit I’ve seen all there is to see.

These two pieces are particularly striking. I’m not normally into art per se, but I’d like to steal this teapot! And the Horus II sculpture below had me wondering if it was perhaps a more suitable piece to represent Belfast than that “Statue of Thanksgiving”, given it’s similarity to the prow of a ship.

Side-on though, it looks like the seat of my trousers. Maybe not a large copy of it then! I’ll shortly be back again to the museum to see what else I can discover…

Who I Remember

I’m not aware of any of my relatives who died while fighting directly in any of this or the last century’s conflicts, although I’m sure there are some. However, I have a tenuous connection with one soldier who died in the First World War. Charles Herbert Stone died, aged 29, on 27 March 1917. He is buried in Aix-Noulette Communal Cemetery along with at least 1189 other identified casualties.

His daughter Geraldine was three years old when he died and was ninety-two when she died in 2006. I know this because as a close friend of my wife, she left among other items, her father’s medals, his “death-penny”, a Sunday School bible he was awarded as a child and his flute, to my wife.

“Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn … at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.”

Ulster Museum

Sophie and I visited the refurbished Ulster Museum today for a couple of hours. One of the first things I noticed was this handwritten sign in the superb gift shop, which struck me as a bit odd following a £17M spend. Just a small but important point – standards, people! My first impressions in general were good – bright and cheery staff, and the open plan centre of the entrance hall was very inviting.

With hindsight, visiting the museum in the opening week and on a Sunday with an eight year old wasn’t really a good move. Sheer numbers of visitors meant that you couldn’t get a good look at the exhibits for any length of time without feeling you were hogging them. However, it was great to see so many people taking an interest. I’m sure the museum authorities were delighted with the turnout.

I’ll need to go back on my own midweek to get a real feel for the new set up but my initial observations of the exhibits were mainly positive. The wide variety of items displayed was encouraging, however, the number of items in each section were at times small. I wasn’t really sure why there was a room with a number of black and white picture boards with some text describing “the Troubles”, in my view, a little too early to become a museum exhibit. My daughter was particularly enthralled with the many natural history features and the interactive exhibits.

I can understand why the gift shop and cafe were given pride of place at the front of the museum, as every opportunity to help fund the museum should be taken, however, I was underwhelmed at the space given over to art. Is this intended to provide space for functions in the future as a revenue stream? A missed opportunity in my view.

Overall, in view of my shortish visit, I hope I’ve missed some of the more in-depth exhibits on NI history that I had hoped to see. My feeling at the moment is that we’ve swung a little too far along the spectrum from museum to tourist attraction which has resulted in a little dumbing down and a lack of depth.

The building’s new layout allows for a pleasant meander around and up and down which is perfect for a museum visit, so I’m looking forward to my next trip already.

Going Postal

The current strike at Royal Mail has met with a poor reaction in some quarters among my friends and acquaintances due in part to the portrayal of the union as intransigent and irresponsible and over playing of the impact of the two day strike in the media.

We have short memories. The labour movement has fought for many years to obtain the freedom and rights which many of us have come to take for granted. Government ministers, starting with Thatcher and ably carried on by the arch conservative Bliar (not a misspelling) have rolled back many of these rights encouraged by their backers in big business. This assault on workers rights over the last thirty years has emasculated the unions and their members and has seen their protection from autocratic and profit-at-any-cost managers greatly eroded. Thankfully but coincidentally, left-leaning and socialist political parties in some of the more liberal societies in the EU have slowed this tide and advanced some individual protections which have been hard fought for and are now enshrined in legislation.

Thatcher’s intent was to create a large pool of cheap untrained labour to satisfy the needs of her industrial backers – a return to Victorian Britain. The workhouse is just around the corner – last month Gordon Brown advocated a situation where:

Teenage single mothers will be “placed in a network of supervised homes,” shared homes where they will be taught parenting skills and given other skills.

Almost neutered unions are fighting for their members’ livelihoods and trying to protect work practices agreed with the managers that are now trying to divi up the Royal Mail for privatisation. Assailed on all sides, they are struggling for membership and support from the public. Can anyone remember the “benefits” of privatising BT, British Gas or any of the other projects other than the short term share issues (bribes!) that we were bought over with? We’ve had the piss taken out of us ever since with prices!

We now have many overpaid faceless fatcats living high on the hog, while hundreds of thousands of workers face redundancy followed by McJobs until retirement on a laughable state pension. The gap between rich and poor is now 20% larger than it was in the 1980s. Thanks Maggie!

Remember that, when Sally Starbuck is serving your next skinny Mocha. She’ll need to rush off to her other job just to make ends meet.

The best opportunity to see what is happening all around us is to look west. There, in the US, the free market reigns supreme. Read Naomi Klein’s No Logo, Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or almost anything by Michael Moore to see that the all powerful profit ethic is destroying US society. It’s happening here, it’s happening now – we just can’t see it because of all the celebrity mush fed to us daily that passes for “news”.

Broad strokes, I’m afraid, but this is real and it’s happening now and no one seems to care very much.

Living History

My previous post has given me some pause for thought. Not only have I had some great colleagues over the years, I’ve also been lucky enough to get to know some fantastic customers.

Around twelve years ago, I met Mr William Hunter McGiffin while managing Crazy Prices, Springhill, Bangor. Mr McGiffin was elderly, perhaps in his eighties, not very steady on his feet and always seemed to be in a rush. He explained that his wife was ill and that’s why he rushed around, as he didn’t want to leave her alone for too long. Over a period of some months, I helped him find a few things and away he’d go, back out the door again. At one stage, I delivered some shopping as he too was ill to come out for it himself.

On one of the days when he seemed not be in too much of a hurry, he thanked me for my help. Always addressing me as Mr Parte despite my protestations, he spoke quietly with a NI public school accent. It sounded like what Radio 4 call “received pronunciation”. I cannot imagine him ever having raised his voice in anger.

During one of our conversations, the subject of the Second World War came up. Always a favourite subject for me, I asked him if he was involved. He modestly talked about flying in the RAF, how he flew Short Sunderland flying boats out of RAF Castle Archdale on ASW duties. At one stage he also flew the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley two-engined bomber, Hawker Hurricanes, and so on. His middle name, Hunter, must have been fairly apt at this time of war. He glossed over most of what must have been a horrendous time for him and his family. He told me also that in 1946, he got married and that he and his new wife bought the red brick house on the left set back from the road when coming out of Holywood on the bypass, for the sum of £4500 and that he was sorry he ever sold it!

I found him fascinating and regret not getting more of his story. Before I moved out of Springhill in 2000, he approached me in the shop one day with a woman who he introduced to me as his daughter. She was home from Germany on holiday. I was a little embarrassed to be introduced as “this is the man I told you about.” Any help I had been able to give him during the time in which I knew him was a pleasure and an honour, but it was lovely to know that he seemed to appreciate it.

A few years ago, as I was browsing history books in Easons, Bangor, I saw a picture of him in uniform. The book noted that he was now deceased. It turned out that he was not just a pilot, but at one stage a squadron leader and then a wing commander. I believe that he was with 502 (Ulster) Squadron. This evening, I managed to find a picture of him, on the internet, taken in Wiltshire in February 1943. He is in the second row from the back and fifth along from the left. He hadn’t changed much from the picture when I knew him.

Mr McGiffin was a real link with history for me, as well as being a lovely man. He must have been a great husband and father also. I am honoured to have made his acquaintance.

I’ve always been fascinated with history. Not with the Greeks and Romans, but local fairly recent history. I’ve researched my own family history going back some years and I enjoy the sense of history that old buildings bring, for example. However, I think that we all miss opportunities when we fail to talk to the elderly within our communities and families. All of my grandparents are dead and I have a number of aunts and uncles who are in their sixties and seventies. I’m going to make an effort to talk to them specifically about our family and local history. They are a living resource!