Mind Your Language

Today has been a strange day. A mixed bag. A very respected colleague and friend of mine has decided, for very good reasons, that it is time to give time to her own writing and close her feathered wings to the many writers who have taken shelter under them previously. In the past couple of years, I have been supported, chastised, encouraged and generally made into a better writer by this powerhouse of a woman. She is blunt, original, unafraid of grinding toes into grit, egos to reality – if it gets the job done. It’s all about the writing: the nuance of story, the solidity of character, poetry on a page even in prose.

Her initials give her school report on her achievements to the writing community: VG. Very Good. Bloody hell: Fucking brilliant. You should save a swear or two for when it matters and when it comes to writing, the very passion and despair of arranging those swirly shapes on a piece of unprepossessingly paper – needs a touch of awed profanity.
Not going to miss you because the end result will be in those words – more of them – with your mind fully on the job rather than being altruistically splintered in all directions.

So strange day. Also feel that I need some more time – more quality of time. Had a whimsy to join a private club and damn the elitism. Just got an urge. But I don’t know anyone personally at The Groucho Club, so that dream squealed away like a lost balloon. Still, I do like their rules. If there have to be rules, they should be eccentric and witty. Words and the cleverness of language again – like music it’s all in the arrangement:


Club Rules
Upon arrival at the Club, Members shall approach the Reception Desk to SIGN and PRINT their names in the Signing-In Book, this Ancient Ceremony being a necessary preliminary to entry into all Club Rooms.The use within the Club of Mobile, Cellular, Portable or Microwave-controlled Telecommunication Instruments is an anathema, a curse, a horror, a dread and a deep unpleasantness and shall be prohibited in all locations save the Reception Area. Please be alert to the acknowledged misery of Ring Tones and silence all such mechanisms before entry into Club Rooms.The ingestion into the bloodstream of powders, pastilles, potions, herbs, compounds, pills, tablets, capsules, tonics, cordials, tinctures, inhalations or mixtures that have been scheduled by Her Majesty's Government to be Illegal Substances of whatever Class is firmly prohibited by Club Rules, whether they be internalised orally, rectally, intravenously, intranasally or by any means whatsoever. So let it be known. A member may invite into the club up to four (4) GUESTS at any one time, for whose behaviour and respect of these Rules the Member is responsible. Be it understood that a Guest will not be allowed into the bar unaccompanied by a Member. The wearing of String Vests is fully unacceptable and wholly proscribed by Club Rules. There is enough distress in the world already.To step out into Dean Street owing money to the Club leaves a stain on a Member's character that cannot be pleasing to them. For this reason all bills and moneys owing to the Club shall be settled in full before a member shall leave the Club.Upon settlement of aforesaid bills and levies, all Members are reminded that Soho is a neighbourhood containing many residents. Show dignity, consideration and kindness by leaving quietly and with as little brouhaha as may be contrived.A Club is a Club. A place of sociability in which to relax and be affable and friendly. Respect the views of your fellow members and ensure that your Guests do the same. Let amiability and charm be your watchwords.

Simon Carroll

When I was sixteen, I was part of a gang. Some were friends from school, others we had met in town or thereabouts – the way kids do. We hung around; some of us dressed up and called ourselves punk or adopted some other tribal tag. There were coffee shops we were thrown out of; my father hated boys hanging around the house who drank all his coffee and sat late at night at the kitchen table eating cereal. A boy nicknamed Wacko used to eat dog food from the tin.

One of the gang, who everyone trusted and confided in, was a big built boy called Caz, or Simon Carroll. He always wore a long tweed coat and with his strong Herefordian accent, would put both his thumbs up and say: ‘Right Ju?’ Always with a big smile. The biggest. He was into rollups and cider, dancing and drawing. Particularly good at the latter, he once showed me a picture of skulls he had drawn for an art lesson. The light and shading, the infinite delicacy of everything he had drawn and shaded on the page, was remarkable. It was no surprise when he went to Art College and I would still see him around when I was at the nearby Sixth Form. He’d be in a pair of Doc Martens, looking a bit like a dangerous skinhead. Except he wasn’t. There was a gentleness to him, this boy who took six sugars in his tea and lumbered around when the rest of us were all flitting around as exhibitionists, obsessed with our hair or our bondage trousers. He played in a band and a friend sent me a clipping a couple of years later, profiling his band as the worst in Hereford. That was Caz – everything for a lark. But he also fell in love a lot, often unrequited. We all went for the haircuts, the attitude – when right under our noses there was a sensitive, loving boy who had sixteen already looked like a man. I think he fell in love with me once and of course, I was blind too.

Caz lost one of his lovely brothers to cancer. I left Hereford, where we had grown up and had wild, teenage times. Then I found that humble boy had become a potter of note. Very avant-garde, profiled in magazines and exhibited in the Tate, St Ives. I looked him up, admired his very individualistic work and even saw a film of him beach painting with Rolf Harris. He was the true essence of a free spirit – where so many people try to be he was effortlessly so. I know that he struggled with an addiction to alcohol, the roots had been there in our adolescence. But everyone smokes and drinks, takes the risks that define a hormonal teenager. We were reaching that time in our lives where some of were reconnecting, enjoying a shared past.

Some time ago I sent him an email. He replied through a mate’s Friends Reunited account. It was a cheery note and I could hear his voice so clearly in it. I replied and told him how proud and pleased I was with his success. If anyone should have had recognition in life, it was Caz. People always smiled with recognition when you mentioned his name. A little bit mad. An enormous heart.

But I didn’t get another response and I put it down to eccentricity, his creativity…better to let him work. I thought about going to Cornwall to visit and another idea, a Hereford reunion of the old gang, was discussed by a friend. We could walk down by the river and shout our names under the bridge with the echo, or see how long one cup of tea could last. Of course we would be older, some of us with families – but you always carry a part of that time with you.

You should seize the day. Tonight I was called by a friend to tell me that he had only just heard that Cazzy had died.

But I refuse to be maudlin, or look back with any regret. I will remember those tweedy hugs, wrapped in fag smoke by strong arms. Him walking down the stairs in my house with that huge daft grin.

Simon Carroll, the talented potter. Caz. An artist but more importantly, someone I will always think of with such fondness.

All right Ju?

I’m all right, mate.

http://www.ceramics-aberystwyth.com/simon-carroll-interview.php