Defrocked

“Typical of a man-woman - any guy would know exactly what their car is. Only women don't.” said in a slightly dropped voice as an aside to the other bloke in the room: a shared confidence of a knowing between real men. So it starts, the separating off, the marking you out. The labelling. You’re different, and that difference is now flagged up between the reals. You feel the undertow of condescension. Your right to be fully human — a member of the man-club — is no longer there.

A chance to reprieve yourself is proffered. OK. You have replaced your car. So how many miles had the old one done? The question is asked.

“I don’t know” I reply, honestly, falling straight into the elephant trap.

Another aside - audible, but only just, and knowing looks exchanged between real men:

“Just what you would expect from a man-woman; men always know how many miles their cars have done!”

I am caught out. Defrocked. A sinking feeling of disappointment — I had hoped for more — some tolerance, if not acceptance — and now I have that feeling of a yawning gap opening — a knowing inside that my difference has been spotlighted — that it matters, that it can’t simply be accepted — that it cannot be left uncommented on. It needs to be drawn to attention: the real men closing ranks.

I can’t help being me, and I know that my difference is always likely to be on the radar, but I hope on hope that it does not matter, that it will pass unremarked, just accepted, like differences in height, or the pitch of voices, or signs of ageing, or the colour of eyes. I would love people to think “That’s how you are — OK — fine — no problem, after all we are all different.”

But then something confuses, something is not acceptable, something cannot be left to pass. It discomforts. I can hear the thinking: “This seeming man — are you really a man? Or do we switch into reacting to a woman mode? Definitely not — you seem to be mostly a man — so maybe your a gay? Or perhaps your a trans? Your not giving out gay man signals, so perhaps you a mix up - a man-woman – a transsexual – or whatever the freaks call themselves. So how do we react to you? Your not a woman so we can't react that way. You do not seem to be gay, so we don't need to fear you coming on to us, and we don't need to give you big put-downs, or think of beating you up. So what do we do? – because you are not completely a bloke, whatever you are.”

It would be so much simpler if I were clearly a woman. They’re different in men’s minds. They are the other. They do not function the same. They are the ones you ogle, the ones you pass comment on as to their ‘fitness’ — that is, their shaggability; or comment on the strangeness of their minds — so utterly unfathomable — that inability to even understand what seems so self-evident, so simple and so important — like how the wires go in a plug, or how to change the oil in a car. No one needs telling those things, no one needs to be shown, not once they are a bloke. It is just understood that you know. You learned as you grew up - just absorbed it. You watched other guys and that’s that. From then on you know. But women, you tell them, you show them, and then you have to tell them again! Yes again! Unbelievable! It like they don’t want to remember - or can’t remember — even simple things, like what is the right order for turning on the heating, or for setting the security alarm. And they stick together, think in harmony, gang up on you with glances and looks to each other; and then on goes the disapproval. And they are emotional time bombs. You are never quite sure what is going to freak one out — and then an utter torrent of accusation and blame — and whatever you say is simply shredded. No, women you handle with safety gloves. You make forays with sexual teasing – just in case they are game – will she, wont she flirt? – is she up for it? That is if she is not a minger, or a moose – but who would with one of those? Or at least who would admit to with one of those? Well you have to sometimes – but never let the boys know. As for the old trouts – the wrinklies and crinklies – humour them or patronise them – but keep well clear. And then when you are safely with the other guys, disparage and belittle the whole tribe with a few shared demeaning remarks and shrugs of agreement as to their incomprehensibility: a shared distain. Its OK, women are not actually fully human, not like men; they are not lords of the earth – they are not part of the man-army. They cannot march with the guys. They have to be set apart, set aside, confined.

But I am not a woman — but then neither am I totally a man. I’m a blend, a cut-and-shut job - dropped by nature to be somewhere between in that no-man’s-land that is neither fully the one nor the other. I don’t trigger that “react to a woman mode” that blokes fall into, somewhere between condescension and allure. Neither do I trigger the “it’s OK, he’s one of us and he is not gay” which lets you into the club. No. First the tacit acceptance, then, slowly, some puzzlement. Something doesn’t fit, something discomforts. The reactions are just wrong. The movements not wholly manly. Then it’s the reaching for another label - the man-woman sticker - the she-male; and you can feel the caution and the distance, and, most obviously, the contempt and the pity. It oozes, unspoken.

In Memorium for a Brother: Scenes from a Childhood

Picture, if you will, a brother who has discovered the joy of inverting games to play with his baby brother. The baby, now five, is getting pocket money, but clearly, beyond the immediate value of money as potential sweets — to be got as soon as possible from the newsagents at the top of Bank Street — it is of no interest to that little barbarian. Money in the hand  gets sweets in the mouth. A simple and straightforward equation to be applied with the maximum of speed to ensure the shortest delay between receiving the money and converting it into something useful, like liquorice, like sweet cigarettes, like Cart-wheels, like Smarties, or even a bottle of pop. But older and wiser brothers know better. They know there is more to money. It is a thing of value in itself. It has intrinsic worth that should be appreciated and respected. Oh, the wisdom of being 13.

So a game is invented, to regulate and control the unconditioned greeds of the baby barbarian. To educate, to inform, to engage the unruly dirt ridden, squirming, demi-human. And so the “Bank of Elbury” was invented, complete with paying-in book, withdrawal book, account ledger, and most importantly, a good strong metal box with a lock to act as a coffer, which served to prevent the little barbarian from making unsanctioned withdrawals. Best of all, the Bank of Elbury came with an imposing and important figure - its own Bank Manager. A Bank Manager who took much delight in fashioning his role, and playing it with total conviction; honing such phrases as “the bank cannot allow this”, or “It is not in our customers best commercial interest to remove all of their money, so we, the bank, cannot sanction it.” Phrases which seemed baffling and perplexing to the sniffling, dirt encrusted, socks askewed, cut kneed, barbarian - but which seemed to contain some weird magic of authority — and were not to be challenged!

Or picture this. A summer’s day with the light dwindling slowly into dusk. The same small boy, now seven and just as barbaric, stands in front of a high garden wall that separates home from the garden of the vicarage next door. A cricket ball is being thrown at him over and over, until he finally gets the idea that it is less painful to catch the ball than to be hit by it. His instructor, ever the perfectionist, explains over and over how the ball must be caught with a sweeping motion so that the ball “decelerates”, thus stopping it bouncing back out of the hand.The instructor is determined: he will have his imagined cricket matches on the lawn. He will train the barbarian into being a fit opposing team. First the catching, then the batting, and finally the mysteries of bowling - underarm at first, and then overarm.

At last “trained” the first match is planned. A score card is carefully drawn up. Two teams of eleven, names all chosen from the current Test Match squads. The instructor is of course, to be England, and England is to bat first. Ten wickets must fall before the barbarian’s team can come to the crease.

The barbarian labours long, though the morning, the afternoon and into the evening, bowling and bowling again. Six balls to an over, then a change of persona. The barbarian donning a new name on the score card and adding to another dreadful set of bowling averages. Eventually, the last wicket falls, and on the next day, at ten o’clock, strictly in accordance with the best cricketing traditions, the barbarian must take his place at the crease. His tourist team is soon swept aside - all ten wickets falling, for so few runs. The follow-on is forced, and the barbarian must bat again, if the ignominy of an innings defeat is to be avoided. The ignominy is not avoided. Victory falls once more to England.

That was out of doors, but indoors the sound through the house, enchanting, intriguing, mood music - the piano. Not practised, but played. A tune heard once is repeated, played, varied, inverted, its tempos exquisitely varied, its keys changed and changed again - now played on the right hand, now on the left. It becomes part of a tapestry of sound, that flows on and on. It was through his hands, through his music that my brother lived his emotional life when we were young. It was his lightening conductor, earthing all the confusions and distress of growing-up, of becoming, of being driven to a goal - the goal of university.

He was to be made to achieve what our mother had been denied - the chance of a scholarship place at Cambridge. A chance she had won by excelling in her sixth-form. She had woven words like magic. The warp of reason softened by the weft of passion. Her essays sent by her headmistress to an old friend at Newnham College, Cambridge, But then the dashing of dreams. “I have worked so that you do not have to” her father said, believing himself to be invulnerably wealthy, not realising how deeply ironic the twist and changes of our mother's life would make those words. She had been thwarted in her ambition - her ambition for her first born son was not going to be thwarted, no matter what! There was the terrible tension of the driven and the driver in the house - and music was the consolation and the safety valve. It was where all the frustrations and passions, all the repressed anger, all the angst of youth went.

We grew as though in a pressure chamber, he and I. His escape was her realisation of ambition. Mine, an exile into the purgatory of boarding school.

Later, now in our twenties, a friendship and companionship grew. We climbed Skiddaw, Coniston Old Man and other Lakeland heights together; and he visited me when I was studying at Bangor. Snowdon was too good an opportunity to be missed. That was strolled in an afternoon! And we shared a love of music, his patience unlimited at my stumbling efforts to accompany him on bass - but it was the sharing that mattered.

What was Roger like as a brother? - awesome. Inventive, caring, a constructor of shared fantasy worlds. A giant, whose benign shadow marked paths into adulthood.

Letter to my MP re immigration legislation

Stephen Crabb MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

crabbs@parliament.uk

Immigration Bill 2015 briefing and call to attend Second Reading debate - Tuesday 13th October

Dear Stephen Crabb

I am sure that you are aware of the Immigration Bill currently passing through parliament. I wish to make you aware of my distress at some of the provisions of the bill. It reaches a level of inhumanity toward children and young people that is simply unacceptable. As someone who was concerned with investigating the compliance issues with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and who researched the impact of the 1989 Children’s Act, I can only register my disgust with the proposals. No country should treat people like this. It is utterly unworthy of the best traditions of the UK, and of the Welsh people in particular. The provisions are completely incompatible with our duties and obligations toward the young. They are also a moral offence with regard to how we should treat any people regardless of age: refugees and asylum seekers are very vulnerable people and deserve better simply by virtue of being human. They should not be treated in the ways you are proposing.

Not only are you saying that “there is no room in the Inn”, but you are threatening to imprison the inn-keeper should he dare to rent out space in the stable.

To inflict destitution on anyone is immoral. We do have a right to control immigration, and we do posses the power to deport. These should be sufficient powers for any society. To make destitute those that have sought our care and protection is ruthless and pitiless. To threaten with imprisonment those who may respond to human distress and need in a positive way by providing shelter, by providing care and protection, by providing help, is simply gross. You are criminalising compassion.

May I remind you that in the 1930s in Germany people were likewise imprisoned for daring to extend help or give shelter to anyone of Jewish descent. Think well on this example.

I would be grateful if you would keep me informed of how your government will alter the legislation to ensure the humane, dignified and compassionate treatment of all refugees and asylum seekers.

Kind Regards,

Anti-austerity march speech # 3: 30/05/15

I am sure that Steven Crabb, UK Secretary of State for Wales, does not intend to be vindictive. But that is what austerity is. I am sure he does not think this policy is wrong-headed, but that is what this policy is.
Expert economists are now saying that the monetarist dogma used to justify this cruel and damaging policy is based on false premises.

He should remember too, that Wales is already one of the poorest regions in Europe.
Creating more poverty is not the solution.

So let there be not one more child in Wales or anywhere in the UK living in poverty, not one more family in Wales or anywhere in the UK going hungry, not one more household in Wales or anywhere in the UK having to choose between food or warmth, not one more benefit claimant in Wales or anywhere in the UK “sanctioned” for circumstances beyond their control, for being in hospital, being terminally ill, or attending a job interview instead of attending a fitness for work interview, let there be not one more community in Wales or anywhere in the UK stripped of its facilities. Stop punishing the poor for the excesses of the rich.

Say No to a society split between the few super-haves who will be given even more, and the many who have less, who will see even what they do have taken from them.

Barnardos, who are experts on child poverty, say, and I quote, “There are currently 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. That’s almost a third of all children. 1.6 million of these children live in severe poverty. In the UK 63% of children living in poverty are in a family where someone works.”
This in the world's sixth richest nation. This is Britain’s shame and Britain’s failure. It does not need to be so. We are so rich in Britain that not one child need be poor, need be homeless, need be in want. It is Britain’s shame that it is not so.

Austerity has been tried before and each time it is the young who suffered most, and each time it has failed as a policy. It was tried in the 1980s under Thatcher, in the 1990s under Major and now under Cameron, and each time austerity has made the average Briton poorer, not richer, and each time the young have paid the highest price, it is their lives that have been blighted most, whose opportunities have been stunted. Each time it has been our communities that have been weakened and that have been diminished. Once more our government will throw the young into the sacrificial fire of austerity economics, and once more lives will be blighted. Once more it will be our communities that are weakened.

Cameron claims to stand for Working Britain, but the vast majority of children in poverty are children in homes where people are working, working for poverty pay, working on zero-hours contracts, working on short-term contracts, working in out-sourced jobs without security or stability. This is Cameron's working Britain – a poverty Britain, a Food Bank Britain a working benefits claimants’ Britain. This is the Britain he intends to plunge deeper into poverty, causing more homelessness, more insecurity, more uncertainty, more reliance on food-banks.

Today we are giving Steven Crabb and David Cameron our clear message. No to austerity. Not in our name. No to blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich. Not in our name. No to punishing the most vulnerable for the losses of the wealthy. Not in our name. No to Food-bank Britain. Not in our name.

----

This speech was delivered at the end of the march on 30/05/15

-----

A report of the event can be found at:

 Western Telegraph

Anti-austerity march speech # 2: 30/05/15

In 1945 the people of Britain came back from war and swore to defeat what Beveridge called the Five Giants of Poverty.
That was the Britain they built.
That was the Britain they were proud of.
That was the Britain I grew up in.
A Britain that aimed to be without want, without ignorance, without squalor, without disease and without idleness.
A Britain where nobody was excluded.

That was the Britain my parents built for us, their children, and which they believed would be there for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Cameron has brought these giants back and is making sure that my parents’ great-grandchildren will not live in the Britain that they fought for.

We see the giants back in the spread of food-banks.
We see them in the numbers of unemployed.
We see them in zero-hour contracts and poverty pay.
We see them in chronic under-employment - part-time jobs at even lower poverty pay.
We see them in insecure jobs and temporary contracts.
We see them in internships that only the children of the well-off can afford to take, shutting off opportunities that used to be open to all.
We see them in the rise of homelessness and the young who cannot hope to ever have a home of their own.
We see them in student loans that most can never hope to repay – a lifetime burden of debt that will shackle and limit our young people.
We see them in the bedroom tax.
We see them in the way support for the disabled is being taken away.
We see them in the destitution that makes people have to choose between eating and keeping warm.

The giants of poverty are fast creeping back into this land. Yet it need not be so.

The bankers who caused the financial crisis tell us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. Bankers’ bonuses are back.

The hedge-fund managers who have pillaged our economy tell us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. Their off-shore accounts – off-shore to avoid paying tax - are overflowing with money.

This rich boys’ government tells us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. They will have lucrative seats on the boards of big companies when they leave government.

The big corporations tell us that Austerity is the only option.
But they don’t suffer under austerity. They avoid paying the taxes that would take away the excuse for austerity.

It is you and me, we who do not have mega-bonuses, seats on boards, off-shore accounts or tax-avoidance schemes, it is we who have to pay.
Pay by having communal assets that you paid for with your taxes sold to private companies who are not interested in service - only in profit.
Pay by having your services run down.
Pay by having your children's futures blighted.
Pay by seeing the dissolution of your health service.

And austerity will get worse. Austerity has failed in Greece. It has failed in Spain. It has failed in Italy. It has failed in Ireland. Austerity has simply made each of those countries poorer, and it will make this country poorer. And a poorer country can afford even less, and so must cut even more, making it even poorer and so it can afford even less, making it cut even more, making it even poorer …

Here, Round one of austerity has already brought us a double-dip recession and the slowest recovery from recession in history, and the loss of Britain's AAA credit rating.
This has all happened in the last five years – under a government that boasts about its economic competence.

Five years of austerity have only made things worse, why on earth would we believe that a second dose will make things any better?

But we can end this vicious downward spiral. We can say NO to austerity. Austerity is not the only option.

Iceland has shown that you can dump the debt. They said NO. They refused to play the austerity game, they refused to pay the bankers’ debts.

We too can find a better way. A way that remembers that the economy is about people; people doing jobs for each other, people providing goods and services for each other. People caring for each other. People building real futures for each other, for their children and for their communities; and to do that, we need not austerity but investment; investment in educational opportunities, in health-services, in infrastructure, in communities, and ultimately, in people.

Cameron has claimed that we should remember that we are a Christian country. I would remind him of the Christian ethic, clearly stated in these words:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

But he has turned this into, “I was hungry and you stopped my benefit, I was thirsty and you sold off my water supply, I was a stranger and you turned me away, I was naked and you mocked me, I was sick and you closed my hospital, I was in prison and you made the conditions harsher and sentences longer.”

That is Cameron's Christian ethic.

Let us send a clear message today: NO TO AUSTERITY. NO TO VICTIMISING THE VULNERABLE. NO TO FOOD-BANK BRITAIN. ------

This speech was delivered on 30/05/15 at the rest point on the march.

----

A report of the march can be found at:

Western Telegraph

Anti-austerity march speech # 1: 30/05/15

The organisers would like to thank everyone who has turned out today. It really means a lot, so thank you for making the effort.

We are just one of many protests being made in many places in Britain, and I am sure we will be far from the last, for as long as people like you know that austerity is wrong, that it hurts people, that it blights the lives of the young, that it blights the lives of those less able to fend for themselves, that it blights the lives of those that depend on public services, for so long as the axe is being wielded, then people like you will come forward to be counted, to say “No – not in my name”.

That is what this protest is about, to make it loud and clear that what is being done to turn Great Britain into Food-bank Britain is not being done in my name, not in your name, not in the name of the person standing next to you, not in the name of any of us who are here today.

May I remind everyone that this is a peaceful and orderly protest, so please respect the guidance of the stewards, they are here to help us make your voice heard.

We really appreciate the co-operation of the police, who are going to be subjected to massive additional cuts. We are here for them just as much as we are for all others in public service affected by the cuts.

We are starting here by County Hall in sympathy for the Council, because it is the Council that is going to have to make so many cuts that we know that at heart they do not want to make. They will have no choice about destroying so much that they have built up over the years, and we know that that will come hard. It is not fair, it is not just, and it is not what the people of Pembrokeshire deserve.

Our route is County Hall, County Hotel, Multi-storey car park, Old Bridge, Bridge Street, Castle Square (10-15 mins) High St, into Market Street ending outside Stephen Crabb’s office.

Sadly we cannot deliver our protest to Stephen Crabb in person, because he is in London planning the very cuts to which we are objecting.

-----

A change of plans means this speech was not given. However, the other two speeches were. 

----

A report of the march was made in the local press:

Western Telegraph

Carl Johnson - artist: a memoir

The phone call. Quarter to ten. The name on the phone showed my friend Carl's name, but the voice was a woman. She sounded stressed and tearful, as if having to force herself to do this stuff. It was Carl's wife. Was I a friend? We had met the once, she and I, but she did not know the history. It has been some years since Carl and I have been in touch much - life taking us to different parts of the country - almost, but not quite losing touch. Through her tears she gave me the news. He had died.

It reminded me of another phone call, also unexpected. Not long after my marriage breakup, also out of the blue. It was Carl.

“Was I still book selling? Was I interested in some more art catalogues?”

“Yes and Yes.”

“And where are you and how are you?”

I was still in something of a blank space after the breakup. He had moved on as well, living quite away from where I had last known him. He only found me because of my name – far too unusual a name – and the connection to a second-hand book shop. But I was so glad of the accident – it seemed pure serendipity. My X's latent antagonism – I don't think she liked the competition from a really good artist – it showed up her own lack of consistent ability at art, if you know what I mean – that antagonism had staled the relationship with Carl. It was simply uncomfortable meeting up, at least if my X was there, and meeting up otherwise was difficult, her not liking me to spend time away. Now I was free of that poison.

“So, what serendipity ... Yes, definitely... It was really good to talk ... Yes, I would like the catalogues ... Yes, as soon as I am sorted out some more, I will come down to look at them ... Yes – brilliant.” 

 

But then the bookshop closed. An almost good idea the shop. Liquidating before it went septic was the only real option. The end of twenty years of trading in one place or another, but interesting and a way of making a living. Interesting as much because of the people as because of the books – although many of those were rare, or beautiful, or intriguing, or just plain so far off the wall as to map the outer limits of human eccentricity. Am I taking about the books or the people there? Not sure – could apply to both. And with the bookshop gone so was the obvious reason for travelling all the way down to see Carl.

In the wonderful way life does, I then found myself staying not far from where he now lived. I grabbed the opportunity. Phoned, arranged and went. It was quite some years of not seeing each other, but there are friendships that just are so simple, so natural, so right that we just clicked back in just as if we were still slumping into chairs in the staff room at the end of a knacking day of coercing spot-ridden teenagers. It had been our habit through those years of teaching at the same school, that end of the day slump. Shared exhaustion, shared frustration with the authorities, shared despair of ever getting the little dears' grey matter to respond – but respond the little dears did, in spite of our despair, and in spite of our despair that they wouldn't. Not quite sure why I am calling them little dears, considering the lumpy, hulking monsters the boys grew into under our attention, or in the case of so many of the girls, fluffy airheads. Rooms full of incredible hulks and cotton-wool bimbos: the joy of secondary school teaching. 

 

One incident in particular sticks in my mind. I referred to it the last time we met. One year we both had the privilege of teaching a bottom set of exceptionally ungifted pupils. They were so far adrift from the normal that a special curriculum has to be designed for them. They were almost on a level of finding counting to four a challenge. The staff nicknamed the set “Fraggle Rock”. It was the last term before they were released onto the world, so they were all mostly sixteen. Carl also had an adult evening class, to which he taught life drawing, and was short of models, so he asked if anyone in that set would like to earn a little money by posing. They need not be nude, just stripped to their shorts would do.

To Carl's horror one volunteered, the one we sometime called “full frontal lobotomy” - on account of his being so loose of so many screws all at the same time. This was a hapless child around whom nothing was safe – chairs, tables, other children, pens, pencils, items of clothing, everything – it was all in danger of going flying, being knocked over, being fiddled to pieces, accidentally being thrown across the room, or otherwise turning into an unexpected hazard. This was a child congenitally incapable of staying on task or consistently following any instruction, no matter how simple. This was a child that could claim that “it weren't me” even when whatever it was that had just broken was still in his hand. The “child” was now a near six foot bean pole with a skin that could only be described as erupting with a constantly changing flora of the most lurid acne. I swear they grew and moved around on his face even as you watched.

Carl realised that it would be a double challenge; a challenge to his night-school students to draw such an angular and afflicted model; a challenge to Full-Frontal to sit still and manage somehow not to disrupt, destroy, dismember or anything else starting with “d” that you might want to think of, including simply disintegrating on the spot.

The rest of us in the staff room felt it was simply too much to inflict Full-Frontal on any set of adults, especially the unprepared or the uninitiated. However, as he was the only volunteer, Carl went ahead.

Full-frontal tried very hard. He did sit still, at least some of the time. And he did manage not to scratch too much. He did fall off the chair he was sitting on in one pose - but only once. During one of the breaks, as Carl started to arrange him for a longer pose, Full-Frontal suddenly pipes up

“Sir, do your models usually go nude then?”

“Yes, but you do not have to” answered Carl

Clearly something was working in Full-frontal's brain. The class resumed drawing the new pose. Full-Frontal sat very still. Suddenly he jumps up, tears off his shorts and pants, throws them to the wall and sits back down into the pose with a glint in his eye. Full-Frontal had gone full-frontal.

Stories like Full-Frontal going full-frontal we exchanged whilst lift-sharing on the journey into school from Winchester. There was much, at times dark, humour, on those journeys. There is an insanity between teachers at times because of the enormity of the work, a challenging job made near impossible by cuts, never ending new regulations imposed from above by those who have never been in a classroom, coercive management and escalating work loads. To make matters worse we both hated the new head-master. Carl's revenge was to paint him having his head ripped off by a masked wrestler. It was a part of a series of painting that sold very well. They were all based on the excitement he had seen on the faces of women watching wrestling matches; he had noted their intense arousal and glee.

It was a subject that interested him greatly. He once asked me if I knew of any books on the subject of female fantasy. At the time I knew a friend who was a clinical psychologist specialising in sexual problems - well, what else do you really expect the son of a Church of England vicar to specialise in? - so I asked him. He gave me a couple of titles that I gave to Carl. I don't know if Carl ever followed it up or not.

My mid-life crisis took me out of teaching, Carl's took him into a select girl's public school. Given Carl's favourite painting subject – the female nude - I did wonder if this was rather like letting a poacher loose in the forest, but then I misjudged him, he was far too professional.

I moved away from the town where we both lived, and so our lives began to drift apart; occasional contacts, the annual Xmas card. I used to see him sometimes when I was selling books in the town where he lived. That is when I bought a whole lot of art catalogues from him, which is what made him think of me again all those years later.

At one time he asked me to try selling some of his prints. I took them to the International Book and Print fair in London. I did manage to sell some. 
 

Just before I left Hampshire for good, I took the remaining prints back to him. He was looking terrible. His marriage had broken up and he was having the house divided so he could let out half to pay his X. He told me about how the marriage had come to pieces when he took early retirement, not to sit around, but to focus on what he really wanted to do – paint. He was making a reasonable living at it, but it was not good enough for his X. She felt he had thrown all the responsibility to earn a living on her. His son, Jack, was not too bad about the divorce. Jack was at university and thought that it was just the sort of thing that happens, but Carl's daughter, who was about eighteen, had totally rejected him, she was completely furious with him, and would have nothing whatsoever to do with him. I think the alienation last for many years. I am not sure if they ever really got it back together.

I am glad I got to see him a couple of times in this last year. It was good to introduced my new partner to him and to see his recent work, to share some time, and to feel comfortable with each other, just as we had in those days of teaching at the same school. It always felt like an intuitive and empathetic friendship that needed no words.

 http://www.carljohnsonartist.co.uk/index.htm