Sorry seems to be the hardest word

What have I got to do to make you love me?
Like many around the planet Earth, I remain incredulous that the President of the USA seems to speak and act like an erratic, unpredictable, uninformed toddler. I like to think of myself as open-minded and only react to things I’ve heard him actually say in interviews or read that he’s written himself. Everything else, I think, could be labelled interpretation, opinion, hearsay, third-hand. I like to take people as I find them. The extract from his interview with Piers Morgan about his irresponsible retweeting of far right videos got me thinking about apologies:

Piers Morgan: Can I get an apology out of you just for the retweets of Britain First? It would go a long way.
President Donald Trump: Here's what's fair. If you're telling me that they're horrible, racist people I would certainly apologise if you'd like me to do that. I know nothing about them.
PM: And you would disavow yourself of people like that?
DT: I don't want to be involved with people like that. But you're telling me about these people. Because I know nothing about these people.
PM: Thank you Mr President.
DT: Thank you.
PM: It means a lot to people.

When is an apology not an apology?
If Piers Morgan knew exactly what he was doing and was listening very carefully and critically, then he is a very poor journalist for letting Donald Trump “off the hook” in that exchange. Is there an apology there? Did the President even understand what he was being asked to apologise for? My instincts (based on the many past utterances of both men) is that it seems to be a meeting of intellectual equals. But I’ll eat my words (and say sorry in a future blog) if in the next phase of the interview, Piers Morgan goes on to challenge the President further about his (seeming) inability to clarify what he means.

Second chances
We all need second chances. During my career I had to (justifiably) say “sorry” a few times and managed to survive a couple of dodgy situations where I might have been suspended (always on the side of students I have to point out; I tended to find myself in opposition to colleagues or to the parents of students….) So it was a surprise for me to wonder whether or not I might have to revise my overall assessment of Donald Trump when I watched his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Although he was openly booed when he made predictable “fake news” comments (in the Q&A after the speech) and unbelievable when he seemed to be taking sole credit for the USA’s strong economy, his soundbite message of “America First does not mean America Alone” was at least a more nuanced and conciliatory message. A one-off clever scripted soundbite? Did he mean it? Did he understand the speech’s implications? Time will tell.

Trump and friends

Fish Finger Butties

Back in Yorkshire
After a week on Anglesey it was good to touch down in time to catch the final afternoon of the Saltaire Festival. The beaches, castles, walks and bridges of north Wales will appear in a future blog but, for now, I’m commemorating the joys of tucking in to a Fish Finger Butty (with a glass of prosecco!), listening to the music and soaking up the atmosphere of my adopted “village”, Saltaire. (I noticed I was not alone in gravitating towards the Fish Finger Heaven stand….)

A sense of place; images of Saltaire including the day of the Tour de Yorkshire

Sense of place
I’ve written elsewhere about the concept of “home” (having felt roots in Wakefield, Manchester, Stratford-upon-Avon, Helsinki, Sheffield, Leek, Bingley, Badby, Dorking and even in Sorrento, Italy and Wengen, Switzerland….) One good thing about Saltaire, though, is that it has risen to a sense of itself through a series of cultural and entrepreneurial decisions. When Jonathan Silver invested in the purchasing of Salt’s Mill in 1987 he boosted the local economy, leisure and work opportunities and promoted David Hockney’s work through gallery space in the converted mill. Regular events like the Advent Windows or the Open Gardens ensure there are often reasons to walk around the World Heritage site. So it’s always good to come “home.”

2017 Saltaire Festival - band at top = the excellent Backyard Burners

Northumbria

A sense of homecoming

Dunstanburgh Castle

Small world, big places
Other than Yorkshire, there are a few places in the world that give me a sense of homecoming.
Abroad: 
• the Bay of Naples in Italy
• the Acropolis in Athens
• Wengen in Switzerland
all a result of formative holidays.  The former two, of course, have cultural resonances from reading, research and imaginative flights of fantasy.

Coast near Craster

Wherever I lay my hat

In England the places I often think of as "home are:

• the Cotswolds (Badby and Stratford-upon-Avon in particular) and
• areas of London (the South Bank for example)

Places I have lived all have wedges of "home" cut into my soul:
• Wakefield (for the first 18 years of my life)
• Manchester (for four years of university experience)
• Helsinki (for a vivid year of teaching English to adults in professional settings)
• Sheffield (for my teacher training year)
• Leek (in North Staffordshire where my first job was)
• Bingley (where we lived when we returned to Yorkshire)
• Saltaire, Shipley, Bradford (where I have lived since 1991)

Seascape in Craster, Northumberland

Home is where your loved ones are…?

In an earlier blog (here) I reflected that “home is where the heart is and that is usually where your loved ones are.”  But maybe it’s more complicated than that – certain places do take a heart-hold and, for me, Northumbria is one such place.

Where is Northumbria?

In the Dark Ages it probably meant Bernicia and Deira taking in everything on the East Coast of England from the Humber to the Firth of Forth in Scotland.  Today it seems to be a tourist board denotation of the combined counties of the northern part of North Yorkshire, the counties of Durham, Tyne and Wear, Cumbria and Northumberland and the Scottish Borders.

Memories of Northumbria

During my university years I stayed in Whitley Bay with a friend to see the Royal Shakespeare Company season of plays at the Newcastle Theatre Royal, Newcastle Playhouse (now Northern Stage) and the  Gulbenkian Studio Theatre.  I visited Tynemouth Priory and parts of the coast around the city up there.  Since then I have visited Northumbria to moderate Drama in secondary schools, en route to and returning from Scotland and staying in different places for weeks at a time drinking in the sights and smells of this ancient-feeling world.

The walk between Craster and Embleton Bay

Places and topics I’ve visited up there in the past include: the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, Alnwick Castle, Brinkburn Priory, Chillingham Castle, Cragside, Edlingham Castle, the Farne Islands, Hexham Abbey, Housesteads, Seaton Delaval Hall, Wallington Hall, Warkworth Castle.  They are places that conjure the ghosts of Saints Edwin, Oswald, Aiden and Cuthbert; the Picts, the Vikings, the Romans and the Border Reivers. All catnip for me.

The North Sea and Chesters Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall

First holiday in term time

So recently we spent a week – the first time in my whole 54 year life on holiday during a school term – staying at Craster with its monolithic mini-harbour mouth, its fish smokery and its excellent pub, the Jolly Fisherman.  We stayed in a cottage right by the pounding North Sea in a week that was often misty and breezy but was sometimes sunny and clear.  On the last day we got tremendous views of the near-total eclipse of the sun from the back garden of Seascape, our accommodation.

Belsay Castle, Hall and Gardens

Rest
The beaches in Northumberland stretch for miles, the castles perch precipitously on headlands, the cliff tops and dunes are atmospheric. Trips to the Chester Roman Fort, Belsay Hall and Gardens, the Grace Darling Museum, Barter Books and Dunstanburgh Castle were “events” in the week, along with Fish-n-chips in Seahouses and picnics with Prosecco amongst the dunes, but the abiding memory is of the massive northern horizons, the smell of the seaweed and smokery, the sound of the repetitive crashing waves and the Rest. Glorious Rest.

Barter Books in Alnwick and Sally's birthday on the beach at Bamburgh

All photos by Harriet

All photos by Harriet

Being Human

We listened to compilation CDs or Alan Bennett stories in the car, played Cards Against Humanity, watched Being Human and drank too much wine.  But those convivial evenings were well-deserved after every day hoisting on the backpack full of coffee, water, sarnies and snacks and setting off for another Northumbrian experience.  Being Human, indeed….

The final day - eclipse and the Angel of the North

All photos by Harriet

All photos by Harriet