Derelict London

Roddy Lumsden just sent me this link to a brilliant site about derelict pubs in London: http://www.derelictlondon.com/id45.htm I'd never come across it before, and some of the pictures are incredibly haunting.

Staggering to read that six rural pubs close every week in England and Wales. The picture above is a photo of my old local, Duckmanton Lodge (or Ducky Lodge if you come from Calow...), the Civil Service Club where I used to spend hours exploring as a kid, or was seen-and-not-heard at the bar with a packet of crisps and some lemonade while my dad and step grandad had a few pints. It was strange to go home the other week and see the place boarded up: the grounds are just too big to make a business viable, it seems.Walking round Chesterfield recently, I also lamented the death of the beer garden playground. When I was a kid (get the violins out), almost every pub had a climbing frame and a couple of tyre swings out the back. Fathers everywhere must be despairing these days: I remember my dad's familiar refrain, "I'm just taking Helen to the swings...'.

Mind you, not that I minded the beer. Family legend has it that, at the age of five, my dad had taken me to the beer garden of The Arkwright in Duckmanton. Having drained his glass and set it on the table, he was astonished when I piped up: "Let's have another one!". He was less impressed when he returned from the bar with a full pint and I proceeded to climb on the table and kick it over...

The Ghosts of Chesterfield

The countdown has begun! The first full performance of ‘A Pint For The Ghost’ will take place at the Hotbed drama festival in Cambridge on Saturday, June 27th at the ghostly hour of 9pm. There will be music from Sam Genders, visuals from Issam Kourbaj and a special guest playing the part of the pub landlord.

As part of the visuals for the show, I’ve been gathering some images to use in a projection. This involved a trip around haunted York, a visit to some of my home town’s boarded up, derelict buildings and, of course, an all important visit to The Arkwright Arms in Duckmanton to collect some photos of beer. Thanks to my able assistants Danny, Milner and, of course, my dad for being so willing to help me in my quest to photograph empty pint glasses.

Though The Arkwright has the best beer for miles in Chesterfield, it would have been more appropriate for us to have visited Somerset House; a pub just up the road from where my parents live in Calow, and where I used to spend many a Friday night drinking Guinness as an impressionable teenager. For Somerset House has its own haunted history. Legend has it that the pub is plagued by the ghost of a young girl who was tragically killed in the 1930s:

‘(The pub) was the residence of a wealthy gentlemen farmer. In 1934, he had been shooting with a number of friends and had brought them back to his home for a drink. The men put down their guns and stood outside talking. Also present was the farm labourer who lived next door and his three children. One of these children, a ten year old boy, picked up a gun and pretended to shoot his sister. The prank went tragically wrong when the gun went off and the girl was injured. She ran into Somerset House, but died a few minutes later. She was only seven years of age’. – Derbyshire Ghosts and Legends

The young girl makes her presence felt in the pub by locking doors, turning off lights, whispering the names of bar staff and even scratching them in their sleep:

‘In 1988, the landlord, Bill was in the taproom when the barmaid, Carol, asked him what he wanted. She had heard a voice call her name and since no customers were in, had assumed it was Bill. Bill knew it was not him and both were extremely puzzled. .. The next day, Carol’s arms were covered in scratches which had appeared overnight. She denied that she could have scratched herself in her sleep as she was in the habit of biting her nails and they were extremely short. Bill then pulled up his shirt and revealed his back. It looked as if it had been clawed by an animal...’

In The Arkwright Arms, the only spirits I could discern were in bottles behind the bar, but you never know....

An aperitif for the ghost

Well then. Last Friday, I took myself off to Norwich in a Skoda, armed with a bottle of whisky, a battered chair, a trilby hat and a couple of pint glasses, ready to perform a twenty minute extract from 'A Pint For The Ghost' at the Norfolk and Norwich Arts Festival.

Ten hours later, powered by nerves and Nescafe (erm, other brands are available...) I was standing on the stage in front of hundreds of people, wearing a giant bandage and listening to a recording of one of my poems being played over sinister music written by Janie Armour. It had been a tiring day of rehearsals, but Patrick (my director) and James (the director working with all the Escalator winners) were always on hand to make sure things ran smoothly. Thanks to them and to Ed, Ben, Danny and everyone else who calmed my nerves and helped me survive the day!

My favourite episode was when I was walking down the corridor of Norwich Arts Centre with a bottle of whisky which I had filled with apple juice for the performance. Realising I'd been a bit over-zealous with said apple juice, I took a long swig from the bottle to stop it spilling out. A woman, hurrying to the cafe, stopped to look at me with horror and disapproval.

And what was the verdict on the show? Apart from a technical hitch with the microphone, it went pretty well, though you'll have to come to the Hotbed festival on Saturday June 27th to see for yourself! My dad's a man of few words, and I imagine if he had been there he would have nodded, said "it were allrate" and then gone to fetch me a beer from the bar.

That puts me in mind of the time I was running a fell race at Chatsworth, Derbyshire. Jogging round the course, I passed an old farmer leaning on a fence. Knowing that he lived nearby, I stopped to ask him what the course was like. He turned to look me slowly in the eye:

"There's some cow shit, some dog shit and a rate big hill."

All of which brings me to this poem from the show:

A pint for the true shepherds

Now the chance has gone, I wish
I’d bought that man a pint:
the farmer who sat silent next to me
through Midnight Mass, and raised
his eyebrows as the well-fed vicar
revelled in the story of the gentle shepherds
(friends, how like The Lord’s own servants
are the men round here who still
keep animals today). And as the organist
received the nod to play, the man
who hadn’t spoken took his cue at last,
rose to his feet, said: Reverend,
tha knows nowt about sheep.

Hold the date!

The first full performance of 'A Pint For The Ghost' is going to be on Saturday June 27th at 9pm at The Junction in Cambridge. Put it in your diaries (if you dare).

I'll be performing as part of the Hotbed drama festival, organised by the brilliant Menagerie theatre company. More details to follow soon; the Hotbed festival website should feature more info about the festival performances soon...

A sneak preview

It's less than a week until the Norfolk & Norwich festival and the first performance of material from 'A Pint For the Ghost': the showcase is happening this Friday, May 8th. So if you want to find out what this peculiar photo on the left is all about, you'll have to come to Norwich and see for yourself!

There's now a facebook event set up for the performance, which you can access here and find out more about the other artists involved with Escalator.

A poem for Justin

A very, very sad occasion on Thursday: I went to read a poem for a friend who was killed in an accident on April 9th. One of the most wonderful poets and people I have met in Cambridge, Justin Wand is greatly missed and the event was a fitting tribute to a wonderful man.

Here's the poem I wrote for Justin. The ghosts of absent friends are always with us, it seems.

Justin

I’m sure we must have said goodbye outside a pub one night
or by the traffic lights on Norfolk Street, though now I try
to think of it, I can’t recall a single time. And if I’m asked

to name the evening when I saw you last, I’d say
that you were laughing at my three unshaven mates,
dressed in drag, acting up in a bar too good for us.

Or I’d say you were wearing a slim top hat - the kind
magicians save for disappearing acts - and knocking back a beer,
checking your watch, the time much later than you’d thought.

Or else you were sitting in a worn red seat in the back row
of the 1960s theatre, long after the play had finished,
thinking of Chaucer, the words still forming in your mouth.

Or I’d remember none of this at all, just you: the cautious writer
who I didn’t know enough, black-jacketed
and climbing on your motorbike,

pulling the visor of your helmet down,
lifting a hand to us as you revved the engine, accelerated hard
towards wherever it was you knew you were going.