Return to radio

My new series of pieces for Radio Humberside has started and here’s the first of them. 

Hello, my name is Neil Pickford and I’m a virger at Beverley Minster.

That information was partly for any new listeners, but I also thought I’d better just quickly remind everyone else who I am because, well, these days everyone’s memory seems to be failing.

I know mine is – it’s either that or my memory is going – or have I just said that?

I went out the other day with a message for my boss and colleague John, only to find that in the 12 paces from our office to where he was I’d completely forgotten what I’d come to say.

It was only when I went back and found the phone off the hook that I remembered there’d been a call for him.

By the time I’d found him again the caller had gone – probably forgotten what they wanted to say.

But that’s not relevant right now.

I’ve noticed that more and more members of the congregation are addressing me as ‘ummm’. It doesn’t upset me because, well, to be quite honest, I have increasing difficulties with facts these days.

I couldn’t remember the vicar’s name the other day. It’s stupid (no, not his name – that’s Jeremy) but it’s stupid how something I use so often just wouldn’t come to me when I was asked a direct question. I must have looked like a fish, mouth opening and closing rapidly. You know the type of fish…. the whatjamacallit.

Another question that floored me recently was: “Where’s the Coltman gravestone?”

Well, I remembered where his memorial tablet was, and his enormous chair, and his date of birth but the location of his gravestone had vanished from my mind as if I’d never known.

(By the way, I remembered later, it’s just outside our south nave door, but that was no help at the time).

I suppose it’s one of the joys of old age – I’ve always remembered facts and, if I’m allowed to recall them in a given sequence then I’m still confident about things but, if you ask me out of the blue for something that you would expect to be nailed into my mind then I am sometimes at a loss. I need to create new links to old memories if my mind is to work properly in future.

This insight really hit me only the other day thanks to an old Mott the Hoople song: All the Way to Memphis. You may remember it – I certainly could because I’d been singing it for a few minutes.

“It took me years to understand the first line” chipped in my wife in conversational mode and I suddenly went blank.

What on earth was it? – jolted off my normal groove I just couldn’t’ drag it out of the depths. (By the way, I can confidently recall that it was “Forgot my six-string razor – hit the sky”.) See, it’s easy if I’m not startled. But at that moment….

Luckily this memory thing doesn’t often affect my work at the Minster because – well – I suppose it’s because my job involves a certain amount of fixed routine, plus an unending array of ever-changing faces, circumstances and demands. This combination of old and new seems the best way to build new links to old memories and keep them fresh.

It’s not perfect, but it seems to work.

Hang on – wait a minute. Was this really what I meant to talk about today?

Actually I can’t remember. If it wasn’t then perhaps it will come flooding back to me in time for next week.

Who knows?

Righting the wrongs

With no feeling of pleasure I cam forced to orrect a corporate inaccuracy from our local telephone provider.

“Sorry seems to be the hardest word,” sang Elton John and some readers may think that I should be wrestling with that emotional battle at the moment – but I’m not.

Now some columnists object to being called ‘boring’. Others find it hard to take accusations that they might be biased, political, idiotic, out-of-touch or just plain raving, but I can cope with all that. I’ll even take ‘ignorant’ – even when I’m not.

I realise that not all my readers share my point of view (even though I reserve the right to think they’re grossly mistaken) but, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde: “there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is NOT being talked about.”

However, my tail-feathers do get slightly ruffled when someone tries to discredit my arguments by misquoting me. In the world of corporate PR-speak and modern marketing it might be regarded as acceptable practice but, to me, it’s called; it’s called…..

Well, it’s hard for me to find words acceptable to the editor of this honourable newspaper that accurately express my feelings so I suppose the phrase: ‘how very, very dare you,’ will have to do.

Back in my bad old days I’d have probably been extremely angry, considering that anyone daring to challenge me was an upstart who should know better than to mess with their, um, betters. Now, however, as I’ve got older I find that the calming atmosphere of Beverley Minster is having an effect on me. As I vacuum the floors, move the chairs, restock the toilets and guide visitors around the building my mind relaxes, any stress levels are reduced and clear thinking returns.

Sometimes it even prompts to me return to my original material and see if I was wrong. Then, depending on those results, I calmly think how I should respond. I am even prepared publicly to say ‘sorry’ (although, obviously, I hate doing that).

And that is why I am responding to a letter from Kingston Communications after HDM published my piece saying our wi-fi service in the Minster was erratic, thanks to them.

Kingston publicly denied supplying us with wi-fi – which would seem to indicate I owe them a big, fat apology – but they’re not getting one because that’s not what I actually claimed.

Like most of you, we pay Kingston a monthly fee (in fact, several) for Karoo to be provided via a Kingston-provided telephone lines, and their own engineers tell us the signal strength coming into the building is leaping up and down like a yo-yo.

It’s so erratic that we sometimes lose our internet connection on the virger’s laptop despite being physically plugged in to the router – particularly on a Sunday morning, for some strange reason.

We’re spent a lot of money trying to improve things inside the building, we’ve had their engineers visit to inspect our lines; we’re even discussing with Kingston about having a fibre-optic connection to make the service reliable.

But at the moment it ain’t working properly and every single engineer we’ve had in assures us that it’s thanks to Kingston’s infrastructure.

Now I’m not expecting an apology but I’d be very satisfied if I was offered something that’s surely much less difficult: a reliable service.

And next week I shall turn my attention to the Met Office who, after another piece by yours truly, strongly denied that their weather forecasts were unreliable. I have researched this further and shall share the results in just seven days time. Place your order with your newsagent now.

Verging on the ridiculous

Or….how to lose friends

As a virger in Beverley Minster I am often the subject of a limited range of jokes. A hardy perennial is to assume ‘virger’ is something to do with the verges on the side of the road, and ask me to trim the grass.

Oh, the days just fly by, I can tell you.

However, perhaps in response to this oft-repeated refrain I’ve started to pay more attention to the sides of the roads than previously, and I’ve got to admit that some of them in Hull and East Yorkshire are in terrible condition.

I wouldn’t say I’m an urban-lover, who thinks the world is a better place if nature has been tamed and beaten into submission by rigid rows of concrete and tarmac. Neither, however, am I someone who thinks the slightest intrusion by humans is a step too far.

I reckon I’m normally a fairly undogmatic, inoffensive, middle-of-the-road sort of guy, which makes me ideal as an Anglican who can see both sides of the story and sympathises with each.

This means I rarely take a stand on either.

There is, however, one current Beverlonian issue on which I have come down firmly and with no reservation. I realise this will not make me universally popular but it has to be said.

I believe those people who are ‘fighting’ and posing with arms folded on the Westwood to stop a route being improved for cyclists are wrong, wrong, wrong.

I shall now demonstrate why.

As I drove into town yesterday afternoon there they were; little groups of 11- and 12-year old schoolboys cycling back from the Grammar School towards Walkington.

Now, to those who only travel that particular route in a car, it might seem a nice and level stretch of road but, as someone who has occasionally pumped my pedals and climbed up the contours I can assure you that’s not true.

The boys weren’t being silly, but the effort of cycling uphill made them wobble a bit and take up more space than the driver coming behind them was expecting. He was just trying to overtake them before he caused the oncoming traffic (me) to slow down and so he took the shortest route around the moving obstacle.

There was nearly a coming-together of boy and bumper – it was very, very close – and it’s not a rare sight. One day….

A segregated pathway for cyclists and pedestrians, with a properly-maintained surface, is surely the commonsense way to prevent an easily-imagined and tragic accident.

How can someone really believe that the Westwood would be spoiled by a minor widening of a pathway that already exists? Is it because the present one has been left to quietly return to nature that it is more acceptable? If that’s the case then paint the tarmac green and let wild flora grow in the space where there would normally be white lines.

It’s not as though the Westwood is a historic vision of free-range nature at its most authentic either. There’s a golf-course with greens and tees carefully tended and fenced; there’s a race course with off-road parking on a (generally) all-weather surface; there is a rumble strip along another stretch of road to stop cars wandering off onto the green bits.

It’s already been tamed, drained, managed, adapted, amended, farmed, cultivated, improved and controlled over the years. Let’s make it safe for cyclists as well by running a proper two-way facility beside the existing road that they can use.

Mind you I also think that, in the interests of fairness, we should then confiscate the bicycle clips of any lycra-clad loner who doesn’t use it.

Moving the goalposts

Weighing in to the biggest debate of the moment.

Talk of boundary change has been in the air this week. At the time of writing I don’t know if the miserable, money-grabbing, misguided Scots will vote to pay their own bills in future or if they’ll decide to let England keep bailing them out, and I really don’t care. (Don’t forget, the only reason they originally united with we southerners in 1707 was because they’d gone bankrupt and we were willing to pick up the tab).

Rather more important is the consultation on changing the boundaries between Hull and East Yorkshire.

To put it in a nutshell for anyone who has not been paying attention for the last 100 years or so: Hull is jealous of the rural areas around it – not least the higher educational standards and rateable income they represent.

Don’t try to tell me I’m wrong about this – apologists for the schools in Hull are always whinging that it’s not fair to compare them with places like Leeds where the green bits around are counted as well.

The East Riding, on the other hand, doesn’t like the teeming hordes living inside the city boundaries. It’s true – I’ve never heard anyone propose that County Hall should put in a bid to reclaim traditional East Yorkshire locales like Drypool, Sculcoates, Sutton or Marfleet. Too foreign now.

Why do people want to keep faffing around with such irrelevancies? Do they honestly think that these will change things in a big way?

What would happen if Hull absorbed the schools in the immediate vicinity that had better results? It might lift the city up the league tables but that, I suspect, is only a matter of great importance to those educationalists who swagger around at national conferences and meet people from higher up the league tables. I would suggest this is irrelevant to the individual teacher at the harsh coal face of education.

Would this instant rise in relative standings do anything other than hide the fact that schools in the most urban parts of town were still doing badly compared to their sylvan cousins? I doubt it because that’s nothing to do with good management.

What would probably happen is that existing Hull council officials would be awarded pay rises (because of the extra responsibility you know) and additional staff to cope with it. Then they’d also get bonuses because the city would have climbed up the league tables – but in real terms nothing would have changed.

At the same time East Riding council would probably keep exactly the same number of staff despite having fewer responsibilities – and nothing else would change.

The bottom line is that reorganisations are rarely a good idea. Most of them are like repainting the funnels on the Titanic for marketing purposes just as the ship goes down.

In the 19^th century Hull was transformed into a prosperous and desirable city (yes, it really was; check the history books) by the actions of a few people like Sir John Ellerman, Joseph Rank and the various Reckitts who all had local pride and took the long view when managing their enterprises – leading to real progress all around.

Instead of moving the goalposts why not try and try to improve what you’ve already got? Find out if your managers have pride in their area and pride in their jobs, and kick out those who are more driven by spreadsheets and meetings where the only things of substance are the fussy sandwiches.

That could be transformational for Hull.

And keep your hands off East Yorkshire – I’ve become very proud of it over the years.

The end of the world?

Pertinent posings on a perennial problem.

“What two luxuries would you most miss if civilisation collapsed?”

It’s one of the questions you expect to hear asked at dinner parties. You know the type of dinner party I mean; the polite ones to which I’m not invited – not twice, anyway.

So I’ve not had too much chance to find out how other people respond to this conundrum, but I’ve been brooding about it anyway.

It’s partly due to the swings in my moods: normally I’m fairly optimistic and, when I haul myself out of bed after a bad day or troubled night I assume that today will be better.

Reading the international news at the moment does tend to lower that optimism quite quickly. The Russians invading Ukraine, with the strong possibility that one result will be a reduction in gas supplies to Western Europe this winter; the latest outbreak of the horrible Ebola disease still not under control; and the racial and religious genocide going on throughout the Middle East are not subjects guaranteed to bring a smile to the face.

So I have started thinking fairly bleak if abstract thoughts about the future, and one of the key questions has been what luxuries I would miss most….. etcetera, etcetera.

Until a few weeks ago I think my answers would have been easy to give: hot white toast and a long soak in a really warm bath.

Now, however, I’m not so sure if these responses are true because I’ve done without both over the last few weeks and, to my surprise, haven’t really missed them.

Hot white toast ended when I embarked on yet another half-hearted attempt to lose weight. A regime of no toast with my coffee during the Minster virgers’ ten o’clock tea break and brown bread for my lunchtime sandwich has so far resulted in a four-kilogram loss of weight and a distinct looseness around my waistband (which is increasingly inconvenient when climbing the stairs to do a roof tour).    

Indeed, when I was virtually force-fed a slice of hot, toasted white bread last night I was surprised by how unaffected I was. There was no instant craving to shove the entire loaf under a grill and I’m still free of it this morning.

Really warm baths have been absent from my life for several weeks as we’ve had the only bathroom in our house modernised. Instead my personal hygiene has been made more palatable by the process of showering instead. It’s been fine; I still smell as beautiful as before but in about one-fifth of the time, which means I’ve been getting to work earlier.

The bathroom is now back in operation and so I treated myself to a prolonged soak, once I’d got all the plaster, dust and other debris out of the new tub. Sadly the settings on the new electronic mixer (which replaced good old-fashioned hot and cold taps) are too low to create a super, semi-scalding steamfest and so, instead of waiting until I’d turned into a wrinkled, lobster-coloured, lump of fat and skin after 40 minutes or so I was out of the tub and briskly towelling down in less than five.

I’ve actually showered more than bathed since this disappointing experience and, to be frank, I haven’t really minded.

I guess it shows what a splendid frontiersman and resilient alpha male I really am underneath my apparently soft exterior; coping easily with setbacks, disappointments and discomfort.

So now, when I see the headlines warning about wars, famine, disease and disaster (including predictions of a massive implosion in house prices, courtesy of the Daily Mail) I can look them straight in the eye (or ‘I’, hahahaha) and say: “Bring it on. I can cope.”

And then I start the day in a positive frame of mind again.

Something for nothing

The unexpurgated version…..

“You lied about the wi-fi,” said an angry note in Beverley Minster’s donations box.

That’s all there was: a yellow gift-aid envelope with a message scrawled in shouty capital letters, but it said a lot.

What had prompted this complaint was a notice near our front door, offering visitors the option to download information about the building into their mobile phones. This app has been designed to help visitors who come in when there isn’t a welcomer around to hand them a leaflet.

It’s all terribly 21^st century – and free – but, thanks to the unreliability of the service provided into the Minster by Kingston Communications (a problem they seem unable to sort out at present) it doesn’t always work.

Our unknown visitor (I suspect it was a ‘he’) had taken this badly and their petulant outburst revealed what I would describe as an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

We old-timers take such things in our stride. After all, our experience over the first five or six decades of our time on this planet shows us that life itself is unreliable.

I grew up at a time when the quality of TV reception at the seaside was dependent on whether or not the tide was in.

Cars needed constant attention: blankets had to be draped over the engine during cold nights (and woe-betide the rushing driver who didn’t remember to take them off before driving) while starting them was always a tense moment.

Clockwork watches ran slow or fast, biros leaked ink if you didn’t keep moving them around, perforations on toilet paper were erratic and the quality of vegetables at the corner shop was extremely variable. Things have improved since then.

Perhaps as a response to this there are now many people who expect perfection, they want it now, and also demand that it should be free.

It’s the internet that’s done it, providing instant access to a growing amount of information and images. In the explosive and random anarchy of the electronic world there are virtually no cost or editorial barriers to people uploading whatever they want,

If I want a high quality ‘copy’ of a recent movie then I don’t need to go to Amazon or WH Smith: I can just search the internet and get it for free.    

It’s a paradise for hippies and freeloaders but, quite frankly, it’s a bad and unsustainable trend.

Until we arrive in the Star Trek universe where money is completely redundant and we get food and figure-hugging red jumpers as we need them then we still have to buy things.

The only way to earn ‘credit’ (unless we’re all given everything from the magic money tree) is to sell our time, energy, products and possibly our imagination to someone who wants them.

Now automation has already removed most demand for skilled labour on assembly lines. Electronic programs are wiping out trained administrators in sectors like financial services or record-keeping – in fact skilled jobs are vanishing in all areas, leaving only vacancies for minimum wage shelf-stackers and servers of one kind or another.

If the free internet makes it impossible for another swathe of the population to earn money by making films, writing books, producing newspapers, making music or developing art then we have an even greater supply of minimum wage fodder cramming the labour market and driving down living standards.

The current generation who expect everything for free will have to learn to pay for things – maybe only a few pennies at a time – but actually transferring money for what they want to the people who produced it.

Maybe you’ll start this process with me. I’ll set up a PayPal account if you like.