Minshull Street Courts

Im not a great fan of Victorian architecture - especially not the neo-Gothic. Partly because its just too much - the mind boggles at the thought of architects sitting down & actually drawing all those twiddly bits & curlicues. Nor do I like red brick, or - ugh - glazed terra cotta

But Minshull St is different. Solid, but nicely proportioned. Sensitively extended to accommodate the needs of modern security, but still with Victorian courts & public galleries for lesser, sadder cases, where you can be carried right back in your imagination to the late Victorian years

Its a pity that the new building at the bottom of the station approach - however magnificent - will close off the view of the Courts. Manchester is sadly lacking in vistas

Link

The Crown Court at Minshull Street Manchester (Gargoyle) on Flickr ...

Great grandfather the baker

Just recently I used Ancestry UK to check on this branch of the family

It came as a surprise to find that, in 1901, Great Grandfather was a master wheelwright. Bakery seems like a big change. I guess the bottom dropped out of the market for wooden wheels with the arrival of the new fangled motor cars. But people will always want bread. And cakes.

I cant remember a time when he was not confined to his bed or his chaise longue by the fire in the sitting room behind the shop. The business was in the hands of his wife & 5 of their surviving children. The men did the baking, 3 great aunts served in the shop, under the gimlet eye of great grandma.

I guess grandfather must have had a stroke. Besides the paralysis he dribbled a lot & had difficulty speaking. My father behaved very tenderly towards him. Father figure, I suppose, since his own father had died young. Dad often crouched by his side & they seemed to have little trouble conversing.

Great grandfather died 3 times. The first time the doctor came & pronounced him dead, but he sat up as the undertakers men were carrying him downstairs in his coffin. (Some exaggeration here, surely) . The second time he was discovered when the woman came to lay him out.

He died for the last time when I was 14. My mother & I did not go to the funeral, only my father, wearing an awesomely solemn black tie.

Grandfather was used to being taken out on ceremonial drives by his 2 spinster daughters - the original Sunday drivers. One of these trips was further than usual - they came to our house after I had passed the 11+. I was required to put on my as yet unworn school uniform.

Somewhere there is a photo of the pair of us in the garden, me standing proudly by his side. Him wearing what looks suspiciously like a chortle on his face.

Out of hours GP (3)

What % of GPs are now women?

How much is the reduction in GP 24 hour services a reflection of this? How much due to mothers wanting family friendly hours?

Or, more generally, women not wanting to be out on their own at all hours, heaven knows where?

Out of hours GP (2)

Things have changed an awful lot in 20 years. Then I just wanted the address of a GP surgery in Central Manchester to which I could go should I need antibiotics for a sinus infection. I was working there temporarily, did not need to register permanently

After a while it dawned on me that I had not noticed any surgeries as I walked around. Yellow Pages did not help. So I rang the Family Practitioner Committee. No, we cant give you that information. The place you are staying is outside Manchester proper. What if you needed a doctor in the middle of the night?

It seems unbelievable now that things such as practice leaflets & lists of local doctors were not routinely availabe to the public

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Toast

I have been a bridesmaid only once. When I was 3

My Nana explained to me about my duties & what to expect of the day

The most exciting prospect was the Wedding Breakfast: And there will be toasts

Well, I loved toast. Especially the way Nana made it for me. Thick slices drenched in Golden Syrup

All I got was measly ham salad with - ugh! - beetroot

Do people call them Wedding Breakfasts anymore?

Out of hours GP

This is not intended to be any kind of criticism of the lady who died despite 8 calls to a GP deputising service. I did not know her, have not read the official report, know only what was in the news headlines



But I am puzzled. Why 8 calls? I think that, after the second, I would either have decided just to wait till I got better, or got myself to A&E - by ambulance if necessary. The alternative seems like banging ones head against a brick wall



At the end of the day the use, or demands, one makes of any medical service depend on a complex interaction. Between your own assessment of your diagnosis. Even more so the prognosis. Your experience & expectations of the services available. And your willingness to make a fuss. The service provider can only, in a sense, react to those

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No sting

I must have been 2, going on 3, when I saw my first dead (human) body

It was my great grandfather. He was lying in his coffin on the kitchen table. There was a big vase of tulips in the room, so it must have been spring

I was lifted up to look at him. I felt uncomfortable & wriggled to get down, but more because I was too old to be picked up rather than any other kind of distress. He just looked like grandfather to me, in his best black suit

Oddly, in my memory, his skin looks kind of fawny, light tan. Not grey at all

And very peaceful

He had a peaceful death. Chapel in the morning. Sunday dinner over, he took his usual seat in the armchair by the fire. My (step) grandmother went to do the washing up. When she went back in, he was dead

Title credit

Great Uncle Jim

Great Uncle Jim went into hospital when I was about 12. He had had a stroke & was paralysed down one side. My grandfather ( his younger brother) went to visit him every Sunday afternoon, to give him his shave.

I loved Uncle Jim. He was a small, wiry man, always cheerful. He had been the village butcher & usually gave me a piece of suet from the kidneys when we went into his shop. A treat.

Come to think of it, he was the only one of my grandfathers seven siblings that I knew - the rest must have been scattered, dead, or not on speaking terms.

One Sunday after dinner, my Grandpa said to me Come on. Youre coming with me. Uncle Jim wants to see you.

I was terrified. Sat hunched in my seat in the train. They had had to amputate one leg below the knee. Only it hadnt worked properly & theyd had to chop another bit off. I imagined scenes straight out of Grimm.

But as we walked down the ward, seeing Uncle Jim sitting up in bed - in that moment I knew exactly what is meant by The will to live.

A happy memory, after all.

Breast feeding (2)

Back in the late 60s I read, in the course of duty, an FAO pamphlet about breast feeding. True to its time, it focussed on Less Developed Countries, where poor water supply, or incomes insufficient for the purchase of formula or evaporated milk, or outright famine, made bottle feeding an impossibility

One of the extraordinary - to me - sections dealt with the role of grandmothers. Apparently, suckling can re-establish the milk supply of any woman who has borne a child, no matter how many years ago

If this is true, it would offer one solution to the problem of how todays women can combine early return to work with the Governments advice on feeding

Media studies

The Times ran an obituary this week with the headline

Professor Philip Collins: Genial English scholar who helped to make the novels of Charles Dickens a respectable field of study

Bet theyre not being nearly as complimentary on their news & comment pages towards whovever it is today who is performing the same service for Coronation Street

Woe is me, man!

When I was about 9 years old I was to accompany my mother to a meeting in the local Town Hall. Cant remember what it was about now. Think it was probably organised by the Townswomens Guild

When she was telling me about it, my mother said And the Chairman will be Mrs _

But shes a lady said I

Chairman is just a name for someone in charge of a meeting, & theres no reason a woman cant do it just as well as a man

Perhaps that is why I have never had the least trouble with the word Chairman. Feel no woe about it

It is my talisman

Breast feeding

I am extremely glad that the breast feeding fascists are once again clamouring for the 'right' to breast feed in public



Because I cant imagine a better way to send women rushing for the bottle - of formula of course, tho, who knows, maybe the chardonnay too



The idea that one might be expected - even forced - to breast feed in public is guaranteed to turn most people off



Theres no law against it anyway. What they are asking for is a law against my right to object



I have seen many women feeding - with perfect discretion - & probably failed to even notice lots of others. If someone is being very obvious about it theyre just an exhibitionist



And anyway, just where is the evidence that breast is best? Still less that it is a good idea to do it exclusively for 6 months



It cannot possibly exist



It can only, at best, be based on the same sort of small, limited, short term studies which led many to conclude that HRT was good for all post menopausal women



Where are the large samples? The long term longitudinal studies proving that life long benefits are conferred. Suitably controlled for social class etc etc etc



Still less, where are the studies of the benefits conferred by all members of the family being able to join in the joyous experience of feeding a baby - yes, even from a bottle?

I could go on, but thats enough

HIPS

If HIPS are to be compulsory only for houses with 4+ bedrooms, are we going to see a sudden increase in the number of 3-bedroomed houses with study, sewing room, dressing room, play room, rumpus room, home office, box room ...............?

Well, if I plus 1 zillion others (including Iain Duncan-Smith) can spot that snag, how on earth can Government ministers put themselves in such an embarrassing position?

What really concerns me about all this is that, at least in this final stage, it is women ministers involved. And women who have been touted as New Labours brightest intellectual stars, mothers several times over, supreme examples of having it all. R4 could only find Polly Toynbee to come to their aid

Even if you think they have somehow been stitched up, hung out to dry, why were they apparently powerless to stop it?

I think I know where Im going with this, & I dont like it

*****

It is ironic that at the same time the press & airwaves are full of HOUSING CRISIS. Why dont we have enough social housing? Why were Right to Buy receipts not used to build more?

The answer - Housing Investment Programmes

Non-standard deviation

I am not a person who admits to mistakes. The word mistake is not in my vocabulary

No? Then what do you call it?

Deviation. Truth is constant, Chuck. It is only the observation of the truth which is variable. The magnitude of error depends on the difference between the underlying truth & the faithfulness of observation. And so error can only be defined as deviation, not mistake

B***s***, Chuck said, & the other men around the table laughed

Precisely, the deaf man said, laughing along with them. B***s***. Error is simply the amount of b***s*** attached to any true observation

Ed McBain: The Heckler

I love McDonalds

Well 'love' may be a bit strong for this - my heart does not lift when I see the golden arch. Though isnt it interesting that small children get excited by it?

This country is remarkably short of places where anyone can go & feel comfortable on their own. Not an object of curiosity or interest to other customers. Able to get something to eat & drink in clean, safe surroundings. A place to sit down for a bit, especially when its wet, cold or windy outside. From early morning to late at night

And no, its not just sad Billy No Mates. Its busy people, travelling away from home or office

Predictable. (Important when youre in a strange town)

And a very good cup of tea

Dylan at Budokan

Im not a Dylan devotee

But as a child of the Sixties, how could I not hold Like a Rolling Stone in a special place in my heart & memory?

I have been to only 2 pop concerts, or whatever term it is the young people use nowadays. The second was Picnic at Blackbush. A sad disappointment

And just to prove that Im not a purist, my favourite Dylan album is Budokan. I love those rock-y tracks

Favourite track of all - Is your love in vain

I'm going to have a baby?

A wise man once said to me that abortion & the Pill would change womens lives in a way which would be very difficult to cope with

Not because we could avoid unwanted pregnancy. Because we would have to decide when, or whether, to have a baby. Quite separately from deciding whether to have sex or get married

But then of course came a bigger shock for many. A generation brought up to believe that penetration comes with a very high risk of pregnancy, that such myths as not the first time or not if youre standing up were demonstrably untrue, had to grapple with the opposite. And when you started reading up on the causes of infertility, you started to wonder how any of us ever got here at all

You cant decide when to have a baby either - you can only decide when to make the attempt ( or take the risk)

We live in a quantum world. The reproductive process owes more to Einstein than to Newton

Farewell, Tony

I have been trying hard not to give in to the temptation to add another of my twopennorths to the Tony Blair legacy debate. I couldnt resist this little collage


He wanted to be the Prime Minister who reached for the stars - Ann Treneman Times 11 may 2007

He disassociates the unchecked conviction of his actions from their unintended consequences & blames others or circumstances for them

Keith Farman, splendid Letter to The Times 10 May 2007

.

No explanation of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its general excellence - [unknown] biographer of Philip II of Spain

.

Such men are dangerous

Feminism trumps equality

Oxbridge & other universities are coming under stick for supposed selection bias towards children from independent schools. Such schools educate only about 7% of children but account for a much larger proportion of university students

This argument would be particularly boring were it not for the allegation that things used to be better, in that a greater per centage of students in, say, the 1930s, 40s & 50s came from the lower social classes via grammar schools

The interesting point is that, judged in this way, Oxbridge has gone backwards. Does this mean that the elite middle classes have reasserted themselves, or that those who managed to heave themselves up through the class system are particularly unlikely to offer a helping hand to those behind them?

Well maybe. But I offer two thoughts which suggest that it is not so much the selection process as the route to Oxbridge that has changed

The first concerns sex discrimination. For example in the early 1970s concern was regularly expressed that the higher civil service was overwhelmingly male, white, public school & Oxbridge. But it seemed to be changing.

In the early/middle 80s however there were regular headlines which announced '1^st woman this' that or the other, particularly in the public services. This was obviously a Good Thing, but I was surprised when I realised that almost all the women promoted were public school/Oxbridge girls - as a grammar school girl myself I believed in the meritocracy & also supported the drive to rid the higher civil service of its earlier elite image. But the drive towards sexual equality hid this backwards slide, & whatever its merits, sexual equality hid the reduction in social class equality

The second important change was the removal of the special status of direct grant grammar schools. Was this a Labour or Conservative initiative? Whoever initiated it, it closed off an important meritocratic route. Manchester Grammar boys are now classified as 'public school' in political or media headlines or Oxbridge entrance statistics, & few, if any, go there without the support of parents who can pay the fees. People like my god-brother or Kenneth Clark (a scholarship boy at Nottingham High School) were deprived of this meritocratic route to advancement, or, if their families made sacrifices to pay the fees, moved from the 'state' to 'independent' category in the statistics of university admissions

Has anyone done an analysis of Oxbridge admissions over time which takes account of these 2 factors as well as the simplistic public school v comprehensive dichotomy?

Birth at night

My daughters birth was exceptional in that she was born at 12.30pm, bang in the middle of lunch. I too was born during daylight hours, at 5.40pm one July Sunday afternoon

Yet most mammalian births happen during the night. Why should this be so?

1. Birth is rather a nasty thing to watch, so potential spectators have to be shielded from it

2. The womb is a dark place. The baby cannot cope with the added trauma of being ejected into a world of bright light

3. Something to do with circadian rhythms which are known to affect hormones

4. Most babies are 'made' at night (the explanation offered by one of my attending midwives)

Could there be an evolutionary explanation for this? Is there a modern conflict between birth in brightly lit hospital rooms, so necessary to enable the medical attendants to see what is going on & to deal with any problems, & the welfare of the child?