What Would Calverton Do Memoir
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What Would Calverton Do? Only twenty four essays from Tynemouth Peter Taylor 1 © Peter J Taylor 2019 (except frontpiece extract from a photograph of England fans booing the German national anthem in Dortmund in 2017 © Richard Calver/Rex/Shutterstock) 2 FOR ENID WITH LOVE 3 Contents INTRODUCTION 6 Part One JOURNEY 1. Being and belonging 11 2. Calverton delights 16 3. A privileged eduCation 20 4. Calverton Colts 27 5. A very privileged eduCation 31 6. Everyday teenager 36 7. University, esCaping naiveties 42 8. DisCovering a revolution 47 9. A perturbing academic liFe 52 10. Promotion? Promotion! 59 11. AmeriCan interludes 64 12. Chronic interviewee to grateful honouree 70 4 Part Two MULTIPLE ME 13. Carl Jung’s view (The measure of me) 78 14. A diFFerent journey (Other me) 83 15. Eureka! (Researcher) 88 16. Obviously, … , Considering (Teacher) 94 17. Out oF my depth (Politician) 102 18. Winners and losers (Party worker) 106 19. Fast and loose (Writer) 112 20. Here and there (World traveller) 119 21. Bubble gum versus heroin (Ancient rock n’roller) 125 22. Beauty and the beast (Football fan) 130 23. Dumb and dumbFounded (Left Brexiteer) 136 24. Tynemouth delights (Resident) 143 EPILOGUE: Mass entitlement 149 5 INTRODUCTION Looking at her screen and not at the man in his mid-sixties standing before her, the nurse asks nonchalantly “Are you pregnant?” I was that man and before I could say “No, I’m too old”, she looks up, clicks on to a new screen and gives a quick “Sorry”. Wonderfully absurd – I’m certain none of my male friends have ever had to field this question. What’s going on? Back story: It’s about ten years ago and I’m in a temporary clinic across from Central Station in Newcastle that has been set up by the NHS as part of nationwide survey of persons between 40 and 70. I had received a letter asking me to volunteer for a detailed medical assessment as part of a research project to inform preventative health policies. As someone who conducts research projects in another field of study, I am predisposed to help fellow researchers and, in any case, why wouldn’t you want to contribute to evidence-based health policy. Their Newcastle clinic is open for a couple of weeks and is easy to get there on the Metro from Tynemouth so I attend early on. The clinic is divided into different areas, which have to be visited in sequence. The first zone consists of rows of desk computers, one click and you are into a very large questionnaire taking about twenty minutes to complete as you provide details of health and illnesses of yourself and close relatives, alive and deceased. I am impressed, this is good data; I can envisage how it can be useful. Second zone is for physical measurements, not just weight and height but about a dozen different things. When finished with the measuring, it is this nurse who sits down at her screen without giving me a second look. Her first question is whether my pacemaker is working OK for me. I am confused, and initially a little worried. I reply that I have not been fitted with one but in my mind I’m thinking that my data she has on her screen indicates I need a pacemaker. “Sorry”, she says, clicks onto a new screen from whence she asks the question that does not worry me; I’m not in the family way, and this should likely be clear from the girth measurement she’s just taken! At the final zone you have a feedback discussion with a sensible person who provides advice. In my case it is serious. All closely related males I know of have never lived long enough to take a pension, all died from heart attacks. I’m told I have a 48% chance of suffering a ‘major event’ by the age of 71. A major event is a severe stroke or serious heart attack. Consequently, and up to the present, I have been taking a brisk walk of about half an hour every day supplemented by four pills a day prescribed by my GP. This mix of physics and chemistry has kept me going ever since. On leaving I’m given a print out of some of the results from the whole exercise. I read this on the way back to Tynemouth on the Metro. Page one has the physical measures; I read I’m six foot, four inches tall. I’ve been five foot, ten inches since about the age of 18 and have not knowingly had an adult growth spurt since – they are as rare as male pregnancy. So in this totally messed up research exercise the NHS has got nothing or worse than nothing. In fact bad 6 data is worse than no data: supposed evidence-based policy without the evidence. Two years later I got further letter from the NHS asking for me to attend another clinic for their survey, a follow up to provide on-going data, to measure changes in my health. I did not bother: perhaps I would be identified as a new medical freak – the incredible shrinking man, losing three inches a year, how small will he get? Funny story? Yes, the first thing I said to my wife when I got home was to jokingly assure her I was not pregnant and thus hadn’t played away from home. Weird anecdote? Yes, clearly bemusing as well as amusing, but there was certain to be many retellings. Waste of time? Not for me, I got a personal health regime out of it, but the poor bored nurse in zone two would have been better off in a pub with her friends. Waste of money? Yes, of course, for the NHS putting together an important project in theory and then fouling up in practice. I wondered about how people were recruited on to the project. Were there interviews? Who did the interviewing? Was anyone with actual research experience involved at ground level? From my own work I know that the starting point for doing any meaningful research is to employ people who are curious. It is not just about getting numbers on screen, curiosity leads to interested and interesting people who want the research to provide credible findings and will ensure that it does. Oh dear, I can’t help myself – I’ve managed to turn a funny story into a lesson, suggesting how to do better. You know – “Must do better” – written on the margins of essays and reports time after time by all manner of teachers seemingly forever. Who’s boring now? My turn to say “Sorry”. Excuse? Well, over forty years working in universities, much of which involved helping students with their research projects and recruiting people for my own research projects. But no more of that; I promise there will be no description or discussion of my many research projects in the pages that follow. The research above – not mine – is mentioned not as a research story but as an episode of extreme absurdity, and therefore possibly entertaining. Given my gender and age it is, I think, a unique experience. And that is what my essays below are all about. By ‘essays’ I mean targeted postings, both constructive and critical, that highlight things that are just not right. Drawn from episodes in my life, with associated reactions and interpretations, I have endeavoured to portray these in an entertaining way. Ranging from personal to protest, they reveal some largely forgotten oddities and some continuing quirks that have defined being English from ‘after the war’ through to ‘globalization’. Before I start there are two things that I should mention. First, partly because of my work, I have had an unusually rich mix of places in which I have lived. Here is the list, those emboldened are main residences with some degree of permanency, those inset are transient, meaning without roots but still where I parked my head at night for at least a few months. East Dulwich (London) – 1944-48 7 Wollaton (Nottingham) – 1948-9 Mapperley (Nottingham) – 1949 Sherwood (Nottingham) – 1949-52 Calverton (Notts) – 1952 – 63 West Bridgford (Nottingham) – 1963-4 Crosby (Lancs) – 1963-4 Warrington (Lancs) – 1964-8 West Bridgford (Nottingham) part time 1964 - 6 North Shields (Tyneside) – 1968-70 Iowa City (Iowa) – 1970-1 Jesmond (Newcastle) – 1971-3 Killingworth (Newcastle) – 1973-82 Edmonton (Alberta) – 1976 Worcester (Massachusetts) – 1978-9 Hannover (New Hampshire) – 1979 Forest Hall (Newcastle) – 1982-94 Urbana (Illinois) – 1984 Binghamton (New York) – 1990 Blacksburg (Virginia) – 1991-2 Newark (Delaware) – 1992 Tynemouth (Tyneside) – 1994-present Paris (France) – 1994 Calverton - part time 1995-2002 Loughborough – part time 2002-2010 Amsterdam (The Netherlands) – 1997 Washington DC – 2002 Arlington (Virginia) - 2003 Ghent (Belgium) – 2004-5 This variety of places is the geographical backcloth to the essays. The two most important ones are in the book title: my formative years were spent in Calverton, a pit village in Nottinghamshire, and which has stayed etched in my mind. Nowadays not a frequent visitor, nevertheless, the place left an indelible mark on me. Of course the Calverton where I grew up no longer exists, the pit is long gone but the council estates are still there even though work now involves commuting to Nottingham. My later years have been spent in Tynemouth on the coast just outside Newcastle. Yes I do like to be beside the seaside – the one-mile walk on Tynemouth Long Sands constitutes part of my health regime – it is an idyllic locale in which to live and write.