New Year Greetings

Greetings one and all, and a happy new year to you. It seems like an awfully long time since we last spoke - November, I fancy - for which I apologise. But there always seemed to be something else that needed doing. A bit of decorating here; a bit of morris dancing there; and a new job to get to grips with.

I'm not much of a one for new year resolutions. I've always believed that, if you want to do something like give up smoking or lose a few pounds, you should do it when the fancy takes you, and not wait until the 'new year'. In truth, the first of January is probably a very bad time to think about changing your lifestyle in any appreciable way. I mean, let's face it. Christmas has only just gone, so there's still most of the Christmas cake left and a freezer full of the little snacks that seemed such a good idea when you did that Big Shop on Christmas Eve. The drinks cabinet is still bulging with a stack of half empty bottles of port, sherry and those weird liqueurs left over from your last holiday abroad. And you haven't even started on the Advocaat. Apart from all of these very good reasons for delaying your metamorphosis, we haven't even hit Twelfth Night (the traditional end of the yuletide festivities), and the time of wassailing to ensure a decent crop of apples for the year is still a long way off on January the 17th (old Twelfth Night in the Julian Calendar). Nope. Not a good time to give things up.

Allow me to make a suggestion. Why not start your personal reformation on the 25th of March? Otherwise known as 'Lady Day', this was regarded as the start of the year prior to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. Beginning your resolutions in March will have two advantages. Firstly, you should just about be getting to the end of all that overbought food and drink. Secondly, Lady Day falls around the same time as the start of British Summer Time. The longer, lighter days bring with them a sense of optimism and a feeling that anything is possible; even losing a bit of weight or getting fitter. Lady Day. March. Spring time. New year resolutions. You know it makes sense.

Happy new year.

Why I'm having more fun than anyone else

This post is long overdue. Long, long overdue. Every now and then it occurs to me that I should really knuckle down and get it finished. But something else always seems to get in the way. Just lately it's been yet more building work in the house. We've had a couple of walls knocked out in the kitchen, the ceiling re-plastered, and the bricked-up fireplace in the dining room opened up. Oh, and we've had new windows and doors put in and a shiny new fire escape installed. That's about it really. And in amongst all this I've managed to find myself a part time job, five mornings a week. Quite a lot to be going on with. And I'm still morris dancing.

Apparently, some years ago, someone said, 'Try everything once except incest and morris dancing'. Now, I had always thought that it was conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, until I discovered that he had said 'folk dancing'. After a wander through the halls of cyberspace, it appears that this phrase, or something like it, has (allegedly)been uttered by a good many people over the years. Politicians (Sir Winston Churchill); Writers (Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw); Renaissance men (Stephen Fry); actors (Woody Allen); philosophers (Bertrand Russell); composers (Sir Arnold Bax); all seem to have got in on the act. And even the 'model' Linzi Drew used the phrase as the title of her autobiography. You'll probably be pleased to hear that I've only ignored half of the advice given me by this positive gallimaufry of personalities.

Little did I realise, when I retired from my job back in August 2008, that two years later I'd be kitted out in knee breeches, bells, baldric and rop (that's what they call the spotted neckerchief, apparently), stepping out with Long Man Morris at various venues throughout East Sussex and beyond. And I have to admit, dear bloggy friend, that I find morris dancing curiously addictive. Only yesterday I was dancing Much Wilmington in a freezing car park in Polegate, and next week we'll be in Eastbourne and Alfriston (a pretty little village, and in Hailsham a week after that. So, why, when others are sprawled in front of their TVs, drinking wine and eating chocolate, do I put myself through what is to all intents and purposes a special forces style workout every week? Apart from the sheer enjoyment of the dancing (frustrating though it can be when I can't get the steps right), the motivation is acquisition of The Hat.

The Hat. Many morris sides wear hats. Some have bowlers. Others have bucolic straw numbers, with or without flowers attached. Ours has a black top hat, beribboned in the sides's colours of yellow and two kinds of green. And I'm not allowed to have one. Not yet, at least. Because I have to satisfy the Squire and the Foreman of the side that I am sufficiently proficient a dancer to merit the award of my badges. These badges, worn upon the baldric, are leather, and bear upon them our motif - the chalk hill figure (not to be confused with Tommy Hilfiger, which is something else entirely) known as The Long Man of Wilmington, from which the side takes its name. And until I have earned my badges, I may not acquire The Hat. Every now and then I will glance wistfully at an elderly top hat, sitting forlornly in an antique shop in Lewes or Brighton, and thinking how well it would sit atop my head. Or I might come across one upon the excellent website of the Vintage Shirt Company and think, 'if only...'

But I shall not tempt Providence by purchasing The Hat too soon. So, dear bloggy friend, it shall remain upon that antique shop shelf, gently gathering dust until, wavers (hankies to you) in my hands, I shall Bledington-step it up to the counter, impatient to exchange hard cash for a top hat that has (like me) seen better days.

Not a very happy anniversary

This post was to have been called 'Why I'm having more fun than everyone else'. However, something else has occurred to me and I hope, dear bloggy friends, that it will not prove uninteresting to you.

At around 5.34pm on Sunday the 25th October 1942, sixty eight years ago today, a single German aircraft flew low over the English Channel in order to avoid detection by radar, and approached Seaford, East Sussex, intent on a 'tip and run' raid. With machine guns blazing, it dropped four bombs. The first fell on Broad Street - the town's main shopping street - destroying two shops and flats, killing 85 year old James Gale and his 53 year old daughter Fanny, and wounding eighteen more people. The three bombs that followed exploded in Sutton Road, Sutton Park Road and Vicarage Walk. Bomb number two completely destroyed two houses, killing George Borissow and his daughter Kathleen, Jessie Andrew, George Farnes and Mary Willis. It also caused serious damage to a third house - the house in which I now live - and killed Kate Holcombe, who was sixty eight years old. The third bomb killed sisters Fanny and Mary Buck, Catherine Meeson and Sarah Smith. The fourth caused damage to several properties but fortunately only one injury. The last fatality was a 54 year old air raid warden named William Tomley who, whilst making his way to an ARP control point, was struck in the chest by machine gun bullets and killed instantly. Sadly, this was the third death in the Tomley family; William's two sons, who served with the RAF, had been killed in action earlier in the war.

Altogether, there were thirty seven raids on Seaford during the second world war, resulting in twenty three deaths, sixteen dreadful injuries and 2064 properties destroyed or damaged. Rather strangely, it suffered far more than the port of Newhaven, three miles to the west, which one would have thought to be a more likely target for Germany's bombers.

Eventually, the war ended and life in Seaford returned to something approaching normality. My house, solidly constructed in 1907, was repaired. The two houses next door, being too badly damaged for repair, were replaced by a small block of four flats. Kate Holcombe was laid to rest in Seaford Cemetery. Her name and the names of all Seaford's war dead were inscribed upon the memorial that still stands in Sutton Road...

Today was a beautiful autumn day in Seaford. A gentle breeze rustled the fallen leaves and the sun shone in a cloudless sky, its light glinting on the calm and unruffled sea. On such a day it is hard to imagine the fear and horror suffered by the residents of my home town all those years ago.

Why is everyone having more fun than me?

It's now just over two years since I walked out of my police station for the last time, and into 'retirement'. A good deal of choppy water has passed under the bridge since then, I can tell you. Protracted negotiations to buy the house of our desires, a family bereavement, the death of a close friend, a couple of job interviews that didn't result in a job, a shed load of work on the house to get it shipshape, and the seemingly endless search for a bottle of Briannas blue cheese dressing. The latter was eventually run to ground in Waitrose, Eastbourne, by the way.

One of the most difficult aspects of retirement for me is, potentially, being under Mrs. H's feet all day. When I had a full time job I'd sail off to work, leaving her at home to do whatever it was she did whilst...um...I was working. Now, of course, I'm there all day, leaving teacups unwashed next to the sink, messing up the sofas by sitting on them, and basically just getting in the way and making the place look untidy by my mere presence. But I've found a novel way of combating this. I just go out of my way to find things to do around the house. Only small things, mind; a bit of painting here, some wallpapering there, a set of door handles to replace, a new mirror to put up. If there's nothing to do, I'll stride around the house with a purposeful air, toolbox in hand, whistling some tuneless ditty as I pretend to tighten screws or tap recalcitrant nails back into the floorboards. Mrs. H. thinks I'm doing something useful, I get to survey my dominion; we're both happy. Inevitably, however, there are times when even someone as inventive as I can run out of imaginary jobs. On days like these, Mrs. H. will signify that it is her wish to go Shopping. With a capital S. I recently had one such day. And I started it by making a child cry.

Mrs. H. and I had compiled a list of the things we needed. A new roller blind for the breakfast room; a light switch for the living room; a couple of pots of paint to replace the stuff I've been using this week. So, off we wended to Eastbourne, to an emporium of household accoutrements entitled Dunelm Mill. The first couple of aisles were taken up with bed linen - sheets, duvet covers, pillow cases. Curiously, pillow cases are divided into two distinct types; 'Oxford' and 'Housewife'. I have often idly wondered, just before dropping off to sleep at night, why this should be so. Were 'Oxford' pillowcases designed in Oxford? Did they originate in the colleges of that seat of learning in the fourteenth century? Or is there some other, more sinister explanation? And why 'Housewife'? Isn't that rather a pejorative term in these more enlightened days? Shouldn't they be called 'Non-gender Specific Homemaker' pillow cases? I said as much to Mrs. H. She told me to button it.

I left Mrs. H. to browse the linen aisles whilst I made a whistle-stop tour of the entire ten acre site that composed the rest of the store. Despite the size of this emporium, I had no fears that I would have any difficulty finding Mrs. H. thereafter. I was confident that I would find her exactly where I had left her, minutely examining the Egyptian cotton valances with the painstaking thoroughness of a forensic scientist. And I was proved right. When I eventually persuaded her away from the Percale duvet covers (whatever they might be) we hied us to the portion of the shop that sells inexpensive art. Now, I'm not sure why this is, but why does inexpensive art these days seem to consist mainly of black and white photographs of the Eiffel Tower and the Manhattan skyline? How relevant would these be if you lived in a house in Eastbourne? I wonder what Parisians and New Yorkers have on their walls? A monochrome picture of Eastbourne Pier, perhaps? Or maybe a print of Beachy Head lighthouse? Somehow I think not.

As I mused this great muse, I found we had wandered into Faux Flower Land. A vast array of pretend petunias, fake foxgloves and imitation irises bloomed all around us and, through the false foliage, I saw a shopping trolley containing a small child. This solemn child was watching me intently, as young children are wont to do, so, dear bloggy friend, I did what I am wont to do, and smiled. A sudden change came over the child. He burst instantly into a flood of bitter tears. His mother rushed to comfort him, wiping away his copious tears and asking him what was wrong. I said, 'I think that might be my fault. I smiled at him.' Well, of course, she laughed politely, and said something about the possibility he was 'coming down' with chickenpox, having recently attended a party with another child who had been subsequently struck down by said affliction. But secretly, I think she would have wanted to snatch up a bunch of those imitation blooms, and beat me about the head with them. I'm fairly sure the child would have laughed at that.

Mrs. H. eventually made a few purchases and we went home. Whilst she was pottering about the garden, I decided to log into the Hey! Everyone Here's Having More Fun Than You! microblogging site, otherwise known as Twitter. Now, we've spoken about Twitter before, so you know how it works. Sometimes, I vouchsafe my innermost thoughts to my 'followers' in 140 characters or less; at other times, I just see what everyone else is saying and doing. And this is when I discover they're having more fun than me. 'They' always seem to have just signed a book deal (every other person on Twitter describes him/herself as an author, artist, illustrator or similar), just that minute arranged a holiday in Tahiti (leaving in two hours!), be hanging out in an exclusive caviar and champagne bar in Knightsbridge, or are trying to get everyone to sign up to some noble cause (Free the Temperance Seven!) when the rest of us non-academic, stop-at-home non-caviar-consuming sans-champagne apolitical herberts just want to play word games involving the deletion of the word 'love' and insertion of the word 'bum' into the titles of as many 1960s songs as we can remember...

I think I need a little lie down. I'm hoping the next post will be entitled 'Why I'm having more fun than everyone else'.

A blatant plug

Don't you get tired of being subjected to a constant stream of advertising? On TV, in the papers, even on the back of your car park ticket or at the petrol pump, you can't get away from someone trying to sell you something. So this post gives me a tiny twinge of guilt. But only a tiny one, mind you, because I'm not selling anything. I'm giving you something for nothing!

There now. I've roused your curiosity, haven't I? Let me explain.

The humble blog you are now reading is called The Middenshire Chronicles. Except that it isn't actually the chronicles of the County of Middenshire. It's the stream of consciousness ramblings of Chris Hale. The 'Middenshire Chronicles' tagline sounded rather good at the time, and reflected, I thought, my continuing interest in the history of that now lost County. But as time has passed and the hairs in my ears have grown ever longer, I have reflected upon my continuing failure to tell you more about Middenshire. So it's now time to address my error.

I have a new blog. It's called 'The diary of William Thuck.' In this new blog I will explain what Middenshire was, where it was, and what happened to it. And, as time passes, I will be handing the blog over to seventeenth century printer, engraver and remembrancer William Thuck, who will guide you through the rich, but not terribly well executed, tapestry that was Middenshire.

Enjoy.

Driving morris men to drink

I know it's not like me to be silent for long. But the fact of the matter is, I've been busy. At long last, our builder ran out of excuses (his words, not mine) and, for the last three weeks, I've been helping him to rip out one of our bathrooms and replace it with a lovely new one. Now, this may sound like a long time to do a bathroom, but we did rather complicate things. We wanted a radiator where a basin used to be, a basin where a radiator used to be, a toilet where a toilet used to be, but at a different angle, and a shower where nothing used to be at all. All of this involved yards of extra pipework, the partial removal of two walls and a considerable dollop of plaster. We now have an extra large shower, shiny tiles, and a posh toilet that I'm loath to use. Regular readers of this column will recall that DIY and I do not lie comfortably together, but nevertheless I have become, if not adept with chop saws, routers and electric planers, at least familiar with their functions and would be able to wield them at a pinch. Were it not for this dodgy back. We start bathroom two on Monday, so there's a couple more weeks of noise, dust, and constant clearing up to look forward to...

You'll probably be glad to hear that my new job as unpaid builder's labourer hasn't kept me away from the morris dancing. Since we last spoke, there have been sessions in Pevensey, Lewes, Eastbourne and a few little villages in the surrounding area. It may not surprise you to learn that most of our performances take place outside pubs -last night it was the Blackboys Inn in the village of Blackboys (named after the men who used to make charcoal in the nearby woods) - indeed, the Long Man Morris Men are sponsored by Harvey's Brewery. Beer and The Morris have a long association. But I wonder for how much longer. Moves are afoot to lower the legal alcohol limit for driving, which would make anyone who drives with more than just a trace of alcohol in their body into a criminal. This is likely to have a considerable impact. Many old and beautiful Sussex pubs are miles from anywhere and accessible only by road transport. If people stop driving to them, they will go out of business very quickly. Of course, would-be customers could go by cab; I did this myself in January when attending a dinner at the Trevor Arms in Glynde. Glynde is nine and a half miles away from my home. A return cab fare cost me forty pounds. How many people are going to spend forty quid (or more) to go out for a couple of drinks? But let's suppose for a moment that a few pubs do remain open, and a few customers decide to stump up the necessary cash for a cab to and from. How are we to get the morris side to them, and still enjoy a drink ourselves? The answer is obvious - we design and build a Morris Support Vehicle, or MSV.

The MSV would be similar to those police vans one often sees at public order events. You know the type - reinforced windows, a metal cage to protect the windscreen, and a stack of equipment on board. The MSV would have a green and yellow stripe down the side (LMM's colours) and sufficient seats on board for all the dancers. At the back would be storage for sticks (for the stick dances), a stock of fresh 'wavers' (as morris handkerchieves are called), a sewing box for running repairs to breeches, shirts, etc, and a comprehensive first aid kit for MRIs (Morris-Related Injuries). There would also be space for a barrel of beer. This would be cleverly mounted on three or more gimbals to counteract any yaw, pitch or roll of the vehicle. In effect, at the van moves in three dimensions, the beer remains still. No one likes cloudy beer.

It is to be hoped that there might be a few pounds left to fit a couple of luxury items to the MSV. A video recording system with slow motion playback, which would be used to film the dances and would act as a valuable training aid during debriefs. And a customised satellite navigation system. This would have a special 'morris route plotter', pre-loaded with the location of every pub in East Sussex. Thus, the Designated MSV Driver Of The Day would simply punch in a start and finish point, and the satnav would calculate a route that takes in the maximum number of pubs on the way. The satnav would also be 'Sussex Intuitive'. Let me explain. Let's say the MSV is parked in the town of Lewes. The driver programmes the satnav to take him to The Wheatsheaf in Willingdon Village. A warning beep sounds and the machine exclaims, 'Ah! If you're going to The Wheatsheaf in Willingdon I wouldn't start from here if I were you!'

The Designated Driver would also have another function, and an extremely important one; that of Gentleman Surveyor of the Morris. He would be required to attend every proposed dance venue, and carry out a survey of the dance area, reporting back on the type of surface (tarmac, loose gravel, grass, bare earth), terrain (flat, undulating, steeply sloping), and hazards (poor drainage, fixed pub umbrellas, rabbit holes) to the Squire of the side. The Squire would examine the report, and carry out an appropriate risk assessment, allowing the venue if it affords sufficient safety to his dancers. Any venue with an excellent survey result, and where the landlord is particularly well disposed to morris dancing, would be given the option of becoming a DMV - Dedicated Morris Venue. If s/he desires this status, the Squire will cause the dance area to be marked with a large white letter "M" enclosed in a white circle - somewhat in the manner of the helicopter landing sites one sees at hospitals.

All this talk of MSVs and specialist equipment is, of course, a dream, unless one of us wins the lottery. But what will become of the morris? Perhaps sides will become more local, attracting members from within walking distance of a particular pub. I suppose other businesses could start sponsoring dance sides - we might just see The Skinny Latte Morris Men capering outside a coffee shop, ("This next dance is called 'The Caffeine Overdose'")or The Burger Bar Border Boys performing a stick dance in front of a takeaway. But I just hope I'm not around to see it.

Or should it be 'Homer Selmeston'?

We're still waiting for our builder to start work on our two bathrooms. The shower cubicles, basins, taps and all manner of other sanitary accoutrements have been languishing in what used to be our dining room for weeks now. It's the waiting that gets to you. But we haven't been idle. Mrs H and I have been discovering The Joys of Wallpapering - she as chief paster, me as apprentice paperhanger. And, to be fair, the results aren't too bad, but I still have this terrible fear that I'll get up in the morning and find that every single sheet of paper has peeled off and is lying in neat folds on the floor. So far, fortunately, I've been disappointed.

Life hasn't been all work and no play. I've been out dancing with Long Man, and discovering a few beautiful little Sussex villages and their pubs along the way. We recently danced at The Cricketers' Arms in Berwick. It was already approaching dusk when we arrived there - the pub is halfway down an unlit lane - and by the end of the evening we really were dancing in the dark. I'm told that light is normally provided by a nearby phone box, but the bulb seemed to have blown. Perhaps the side's funds will run to a few miner's lamps.

Berwick. It's one of those English place-names that flummoxes overseas visitors and, in the process, provides us with a little amusement. 'Can you tell us how to get to Burr-Wick?' they ask. We chuckle, knowing that it's actually pronounced 'Berrick'. Except that in this case, the visitors are right and we're wrong. It's likely that a good percentage of the village's population are (like me) incomers to the county, and, quite naturally, fall back on the standard pronunciation when telling folk where they live. But I'll bet there are a few older inhabitants who will tell you that the correct pronunciation is, in fact, 'Burrwick'.

There's nothing more calculated to make you look like an outsider than to mispronounce a place name. So I've spent a bit of time looking at some of our towns, villages and landmarks, and noting how these are pronounced. Here's a few for you; place name followed by local pronunciation:

Alciston = Aston

Ardingly = Arding-Lie

Bodiam = Bodge-Em

Burwash = Burrish

Cuckmere = Cookmere

Heathfield = Heffle

Horsham = Hores-Ham

Selmeston = Simpson

Steyning = Stenning

Pevensey = Pemsy

Piddenhoe = Pidd'n-oo

Although we're talking about pronunciation here, not the actual spelling of the place name concerned, it got me thinking about the broader issues of place names in general. I'll give you an example. The Italians have a beautiful city that I was once fortunate enough to visit. It's full of canals and gondolas. They call it Venezia. We call it Venice. The question is, why? Venezia is its Italian name, so why don't we call it that? An orchestra putting on an opera by Giuseppe Verdi wouldn't change his name to Joe Green on the poster, now would they? Mind you, I did once work with a lady called Mrs. Longbottom who, when living in Germany, received a letter addressed to Frau Langenhinten. But that's beside the point. I can think of no good reason why we don't speak of Brugge, or Antwerpen, or Warszawa. They're no harder to pronounce than the names of some of our own towns and villages. Look at Ainderby Quernhow, Heanton Punchardon and Yockenthwaite. In the face of these, how hard can it be to say Roma?

And while we're on the subject, why do we decide to go the other way with some locations, and use the country's own spelling and pronunciation? I'm thinking here of Peking, Bombay and Calcutta, that in the media miraculously mutated into Beijing, Mumbai and Kolkata overnight without so much as a by-your-leave. Who decides? Is there a quango that determines these things? Is it 'political correctness gone mad'? Or something more sinister? Whichever, I'm going to write to the local Council, demanding that the little East Sussex village of Firle be henceforth known as 'Furrel'. If nothing else, it'll assure map makers of a bit of extra cash...