Drive, Shop, Pay, Home, Eat, Shit & Repeat.

In the last two blog posts I have mentioned my father in somewhat resentful terms but I didn't resent him this morning. Picture the scene: 49 year old man lying on his bed, feeling the blues, indulging his melancholia when his father knocks on the door and asks me to do a couple of things around the house. Well I reverted back to teenage angst and said in Welsh "Beth sy'n bod nawr?" a "Dwi eisiau cael llonydd" which translated means "What is the matter now?" and in true Greta Garbo style "I want to be left alone". I felt guilty talking to a 96 year old in this manner but today has been one of those days. He, unlike me is indefatigable. Great attitude, Great Spirit. My duracell batteries are down even though I am half his age but it was his attitude and can do spirit that got me off my teenage bed this morning to do the chores around the house. I might as well be doing it for my elderly parents as for myself or someone else but this morning I woke up with a physical dread of going to the local supermarket for a food shop. I don't know whether it is the fact that it is a very public arena, where everybody can peer into your basket to see what you will be putting down the toilet or whether it is the cold, functionality of the place that gets to me. Drive, Shop, Pay, Home, Eat, Shit & Repeat. I am one of these characters who will leave the fridge bare bar some mouldy ginger until I have to be out there again. I would have made a shit hunter/ gatherer. I would have said "I am not hunter/gathering on weekends and bankholidays". I tend to sneak down in darkness, when there are less people about. I don't want to be there but people keep saying "You have to eat". No you don't have to eat at all. You can go on a fast. You can become, lean, mean and hungry. I really wanted to indulge my depression this morning. I wanted to feel hard done by and resentful but I couldn't. If a 96 year old can feel such presence, such mindfulness, then there is hope for us all.   

A pair of hearty eaters
96 & 49 respectively

A lifting of the Curse

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3083996/Pupils-Wales-held-taught-Welsh-Principal-leading-private-school-attacks-narrow-minded-people-call-teaching-language.html

https://www.reddit.com/r/Wales/comments/3622i5/toby_belfield_claims_forcing_welsh_on_students

I feel like a curse has been lifted. The curse of Ruthin School. The fact that the place was mentioned in the news this month has allowed me to breath a sigh of relief. As a former pupil I have been allowed to pass judgement on the present Headmaster and his comments on Welsh language education. Whether you see the Welsh language as a help or a hindrance, this is Wales and the language carries the name of the country in which it is spoken. Welsh is a 'Guerrilla' language and it is fighting a 'Guerrilla War' against the forces of Imperialism and Capitalism. The mountain behind the cricket pavilion is Moel Fenlli and next to that is Moel Famau and we lived between the two. My father had returned to the 'Vale of Clwyd' the area of his birth and he was keen to have his son educated in the school that his own father and brother had attended.  Between the years 1977 - 1983 I attended this hell hole as a day boy in burgundy blazer and cap. We were referred to as the 'Red Caps' by the locals. There were four houses, Casson, Goodman, Kenyon and Trevor. Kenyon and Trevor were for the Boarders and Casson and Goodman for the Day attendees. Very few local children attended this school, most came from Mold or Rhyl. I had been educated up until the age of seven in the Welsh Language at Bodhyfryd in Wrexham and then we fatefully moved to a more rural setting and the education became more austere, regimented and draconian. There was a primary school called Arden in Ruthin which strangely was run from a house in a residential street. The infants in one room downstairs and the juniors in one room upstairs. I went from all Welsh to no Welsh apart from the language spoken at home. Always Welsh at home, in fact I would be admonished for speaking English. How to confuse a child. I believe now that a split in my psyche occurred as a child/teenager, one which has not fully healed. I implicate my education in my diagnosis of 'Bipolar Disorder'. The swinging of the pendulum from English to Welsh and back again. We all know which is the dominant language in Wales because Public School Headmasters are always keen to tell us. It is the language of Westminster which is meant to represent our larger neighbour to the East. In my humble opinion, it is a miracle that the Welsh Language is still spoken at all considering that it co-exists with the second most spoken language in the world next to Mandarin Chinese. The fact that it does is due to the tenacious and 'guerrilla' nature of its speakers, the ones who haven't sold out to the 'Cyfryngi Coin'. 

I was so unhappy in Ruthin School that at 13 years of age I withdrew into a cocoon and for three years I ostensibly became mute. I used no language at all. I chose not to communicate within this alien culture. I know now that my Mental Illness lies in the heart of the years that I spent here. My father meant well I'm sure but I think I have harboured resentment towards him since those days for sending me there but there was an invisible supply route from Arden here and so my fate was sealed when I moved from Welsh Medium Education to English Medium Education. What we have to bear in mind is that this happens in reverse and young children today are submerged into an education system in rural Wales that must be quite alien to them. Culture shock occurs and the effect of this on the adult has been underestimated.  I have taught in a tough inner city secondary school, I have been a supply teacher in the Welsh Medium schools that Mr Belfield  comments upon. Alienation occurs by the system, by the institution of school. No present form of education is fit for purpose but for a man in a position of privilege who runs a school for the privileged, he should think very carefully before he passes judgement. Let us hope that like the Castles of Wales his school becomes a ruin, karma for the oppression they once housed. 

Hallelujah, the curse has been lifted. 

Runaway

Jaysus! This blog is now an unauthorised autobiography. I have only runaway from home once. It was a Sunday afternoon and we were having trifle for pudding. It was so nice that we all wanted seconds and my father asked if he could have a bit. For him to have his bit, I had to sacrifice my bit so I ran, I ran away. Over a trifle! What was strange was what I took with me! An old duffle bag and my father's Yashica Super 8 cine-camera. I was hoping to document cinematically as I ran or more likely I had taken his camera hostage. It was perhaps the most valuable thing in the house. He was a keen amateur Hitchcock and no cousin's wedding would be free of his invisible clapperboard. I had his baby in my bag. Something he valued because he'd asserted his right to the trifle that my mother made. Dream Topping and hundreds and thousands. Women in those days ran around like the women in the Del Shannon video above. Busy going nowhere! I must have been 9 or 10 years of age. I ran down the road to the 'Dingle' the green space, the mini forest where we would play. I scrambled up the bank with tears in my eyes and muttering not because of the trifle but ostensibly because once again I had been frustrated by my father. Couldn't do what I wanted, couldn't have what I wanted so I did a runner which I have done metaphorically many times as an adult. In fight or flight terms I would be regarded as a flighter. 'An Aderyn Brith'. I had a privileged but lonely and isolated childhood. My father, the eldest of 12 children had not grown up in poverty but there was not much to go around the children, so he classically worked hard for a living and I was to benefit materially but suffer emotionally. Nature or Nurture? A combination of both led to my diagnosis of Manic Depression in 2005. I couldn't cope as a child and I couldn't cope as an adult and I will freely admit that now. Not easy for a man to do but I am over gender roles now thank you very much! I have left home on countless occasions since that day but have always returned. I literally cannot escape. I trooped back up the hill as I have trooped back many times, unable or perhaps unwilling to make my own way in the world out of spite and a desire not to compromise. "Cut!"

    

Identity

I now realise this this Blog is fast turning into a love letter to my younger self. A younger self weaned on the music of Punk. I find it harder to listen to now because I am older, my age identity has changed. Single white male. Macho? Nah! Thuggish? Maybe. If I put some reading glasses on I don't look like such a grunt but I am aware that I am intimidating to some. Do you remember "Act your age and not your shoe size?" So what is identity? Welsh not British? Yawn! A couple of letters in today's Western Mail supporting the views of the Headmaster of the School I used to attend, unhappily! The reason that I look like a thug is that I was forced to play Rugby from U15 level to the day I left. I was Hooker for the First XV. They gave me my club colours on the day that I departed. A blue tie with eagles on it. The Bursar who was a c**t presented it to me at the door of the then Headmaster's Office, knowing that I wouldn't be able to wear it. I carried on playing Rugby well into adulthood after returning to South Wales because it was the script that I had learned to read. Now I hate the game with a vengeance as I hate public schools with a vengeance. 'Emotion' Brothers & Sisters! Let me hear you sing the word 'Emotion'. I hate them as much as my neighbour hates the Welsh Language. Why does he hate the Welsh Language? Because he was married to a Welsh Speaker who divorced him, who wounded his manhood. 'Emotion', brothers & sisters, Emotion. It is very difficult, if not impossible to take out the emotion involved in the argument. If you 'speako da lingo', for someone to slag it off, is like today's version of "Yer Mum". Your having a go at the mother tongue mate and if that goes I will be just like you, bereft! I am sure that my video on Facebook yesterday did not go down well with some language purists (as if any were reading or watching) to use the Welsh Academy English to Welsh Dictionary to look up rude words. Well tut tut! What's rude about them? Genitalia or Jenny Taylor as Ralph McTell would sing. It shows whether we are a man or woman. Gender Identity is so important. Pink for girls, Blue for Boys! 

Man Up! The worst thing you could say to a boy.     

Bydd yn wrol, paid â llithro.

http://www.gobaith.cymru/bydd-yn-wrol-paid-a-llithro/

http://www.angelfire.com/in/gillionhome/Worship/Emynau/ByddYnWrol.html

I hate the above line. In translation it says, 'Be Brave', but literally it means 'Be like a Man'. What is it like to be like a Man?#FFS. 

It is the first line in translation of a hymn by Norman Macleod 'Courage Brother, Do Not Stumble'. A Scotsman. National Identity, Religious Identity. It appears that there is a strong urge within us to identify with a kind benevolent God or an angry malevolent God depending on the News Channel that you watch.

I identify with the Punk ethos of long ago, little did I know that as the withdrawn Welsh speaker at the at the back of the class that I would go on to become the Stellar Blogger and Shark Fisherman that I am now.  

Black Tulips of Pentre Gardens

Like two book ends hunched

Paul & Mary rock back and forth

Peter is on the scrounge.

I've seen them before looking through the railings

listing like sheaves of corn

inner city sadness

the tiniest triangle of Green

an oasis surrounded by judgemental houses

keeping people apart,

not their real names obviously. 

I'm thinking of the trio who left on a Jet Plane 

the gate is open, they can go in but they are

paralysed by fear.

They are/were somebody's children.

See the adult, look for the child inside.

What happened?

Should I go and take them by the hand 

and lead them to the promised land

of Pentre Gardens?

Schola Ruthinensis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymrufyw/32746583

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-32748302

I joined the Welsh Language Society at the Urdd Eisteddfod in Abergele whilst  a pupil at the above school.

I joined, because we were not taught Welsh, we were taught Latin and there were a clutch (strange word) of Welsh speaking boys at the school who under the tutelage of Mr Lansdowne (Smiley) formed a cangen/branch of the Urdd. Pupils at Ruthin School were known as 'Red Caps' and wore Burgundy Blazers that you had to buy in George Henry Lees in Liverpool. I think I went here in the hope that I would attain a high standard of education. I left with two O levels in 1983 (Oxford & Cambridge) and with Welsh as a second language that I gained simply by crossing the road to Brynhyfryd. 

A second language? Welsh is my first language but I became alienated from both societies, English Speaking and Welsh Speaking by attending this monument to British Imperialistic influence. I learnt Latin for five years and now my Welsh is 'bratiog' to say the least. I could write this in Welsh but there would be too many spelling mistakes and I don't have many friends who speak Welsh to be honest. So you can imagine my chagrin when I returned home to hear Mr Toby ap Bellfield make his enunciations in the Denbighshire Closed Press. You wont get much Welsh in this newspaper or in the Cambrian News or in the Carmarthen Journal or in the National Newspaper of Wales for that matter but the Editors salivate when there there is a story that appears to dismiss or downgrade the importance of the Welsh Language. 

 "Fel cyn disgybl Ysgol Fonedd Rhuthun ag ymaelododd a Chymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg yn Eisteddfod yr Urdd yn Abergele yn 1980 pan roeddwn yn disgybl yn yr ysgol bondigrybwyll yma, mae sylwadau y Prifathro yma yn nodweddiadol a agwedd haerllug, Imperialaidd, Brydeinig sydd yn edrych i lawr ei trwynau ar yr Iaith Gymraeg.

Pan roeddwn yn ddisgybl yma, roedd yna gorfodaeth i ddysgu Lladin. Mae dysgu Lladin wedi bod yn wastraff amser llwyr ac yn golygu fod fy Nghymraeg i rwan yn wallus. "

Yn lle trafod sylwadau Mr Toby Bellend, efallai ddylwn ni y Cymry dechrau trafod dyfodol ysgolion preifat, bonhedd yn ein gwlad. 

Gofynwch i bobol Rhuthun a mi wnawn nhw weud wrthoch chi fod yr Ysgol (er faint mor hanesyddol a mor hir mae wedi bod yna) erioed wedi bod yn rhan o'r Gymdeithas.

Oes yna le yn Nghymru i sefydliad ag agwedd fel hyn? Rydym wedi clywed eisoes am sefyllfa bregus yr Iaith Gymraeg yn Sir Ddinbych eisoes trwy tudalennau y gwasg rhydd yma. Mae yn digon amlwg trwy darllen papurau wythnosol Cymru sef y Free Press, Y Cambrian News ac y Carmarthen Journal fod yna bron dim 'Cymraeg' yn ei papurau nhw felli mae rhaid i ni ddechrau cwestynu y papurau yma. Ydy o yn amser i 'saethu y negesydd' tybed? 

(Shoot the Messenger)

Ydy nhw yn dysgu'r Gymraeg yn Ysgol Rhuthun rwan oherwydd roedd rhaid i fy nhad talu am wersi preifat Cymraeg i fi a mi es i ar draws y ffordd i Ysgol Brynhyfryd i eistedd y Lefel O fel ail aith. 

Efallai fuasa fo'n diddorol i weld os oes yna unrhyw ddisgybl yn Ysgol Rhuthun rwan sydd yn siarad Cymraeg?

Ysgol hyll! Agwedd hyll!

Yn Gywir

Pysgotwr Siarcod Cymru

A Simpleton's Overview of the General Election Result

I am writing this in the last Liberal Democrat enclave in West Wales, Ceredigion. It has taken a while for the elusive Shark Fisherman of Wales to get his thoughts together after the General Election result of last week. "Well, Coo, Err, Lord, Lummy, Love a Duck" is all that this simpleton can say. I didn't see that coming. Others, must have thought that Milliband was not up to the job. Cameron was the sitting incumbent and perhaps his or his strategist's general decision to limit his TV appearances paid off. 
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca71f67c-f5ab-11e4-bc6d-00144feab7de.html#axzz3a0Q9pNWa
In fact, the more the gormless Milliband appeared on the telly, the worse he got. Unfortunately because it ended up as a personality contest, the Labour Party, founded in 1900 suffered and the Liberal Democrats, formerly the Liberals suffered even more. Lloyd George must have been shifting a little uncomfortably in his 'bedd'* when the final results came in and would have liked to have given the pompous Paddy Ashdown his own hat to eat on the night. For those few of us who didn't vote Conservative, it appears that the ghost of Margaret Thatcher has now been laid to rest. Now it is 'Ding Dong, the Wizard is alive'. This new, bright, shiny, blue, straight out of a cornflakes packet, one nation Conservatism will have to work very hard if it is to make an indent into entrenched left wing minds and perhaps the left wing is now a thing of the past with the Labour Party appearing to hurtle headlong into another leadership contest. The UK's Barack Obama, Chuka Ummuna, to the right of centre, privately educated and someone who has just been waiting his chance and biding his time. Now this electorate, this brave new electorate who have 'got on their bikes' and 'pulled themselves up by their bootstraps' and told eachother 'You don't get anything for nothing' are now heading down to the White Cliffs of Dover with their telescopes, periscopes and binoculars because despite the lack of discussion of foreign policy, this election was about Putin and ISIL and what our Public Schoolboy is going to do about them.

   

*Bedd/Grave       

Sunglasses

I wear sunglasses inside, in the dark and in the rain

I wear them because I don't want the world to see my pain

I also don't want to act and be told to cheer up

So its best to get the shades and button up.

It's amazing what you see when you're hidden from the gaze

of the death stare, the dying eyes, the greys.

I can sense their energy, their hate and their fear

They pretend so badly yet they hold themselves so dear

I look at people from behind the glare 

Yes I know it isn't fair 

But I'm still trying to understand what 

makes us all tick

and to be perfectly frank

it makes me 'f*c*i*g' sick.

  

Going for Govan Gold

Going for Govan Gold…Seumas Gallacher

…an ol’ Jurassic Scots Scribbler…Going for Govan Gold… the story thus far…

…my good pal, David Williams, a.k.a. David Red Button Williams as per Interpol files, has tempted fate by nudging me to recount how an itinerant Glasgow wannabe banker ended up as a prospective candidate for the ‘Literary Legend in his own Lunchbox’ Award… born in the same street as the later-to-be-WURLD-famous Sir Alex Ferguson, it’s no surprise that fitba’ (Eng: football/soccer) became the mainstay of physical development for young Master Gallacher… staying out of jail, another minor miracle, was coupled with an apprenticeship in Fledgling Financier-ism as a fifteen-year-old in the Docklands, Govan Branch of the mighty Clydesdale & North of Scotland Bank… adjacent to where another lifelong hero, Billy Connolly, began his own career in the shipyards as a welder, … the customary Glasgow coming-of-age-for-teens falling out with my father ensued, and after a friendly family punchup, I left the metropolis to go live, WURK and enjoy six wonderful years in Tobermory in the Scottish Hebridean Island of Mull… my apparent aptitude for language (no, Mabel, not swearing and cursing… proper language) led to a fluency in Gaelic and subsequent solo singing participation in the Gaelic language festivals, known as Mods… a sheaf of medals came along to constantly weigh down my luggage thereafter… see, it’s not all positivity in winning the Gaelic version of ‘Highlander’s Got Talent’… London became the intermediate port of call for all of ten years, where the language skills had to applied even more with the locals… Lombard Street in the City polished the banking veneer of the Lad-From-Up-North to the degree where overseas duty became an attraction… thence began a thirty-five year odyssey… Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney (how the hell did that sneak in there?), Hong Kong again, and Manila in the Philippines rounded out the Far East C.V… that little journey ate up a quarter of a century… sumb’dy left a ticket lying around for the Middle East, and so, for the past decade, my coin has been earned next to the desert… the experiences, characters and stories in each and all of these destinations has provided more than ample material for fiction (although, as they say, the truth is much, much stranger on most occasions)… so why not write books, Master Gallacher?... indeed, why not… et voila! (further linguistic skill there, did yeez see that?)… the Jack Calder crime thriller series was born… 80,000+ downloads later, it appears that sumb’dy likes them… I could tell yeez which parts are from real life and which not... but then, I’d have to kill yeez… yeez know how that WURKS, right?... suffice to note… It has taken five decades across three continents to arrive at a place where I feel truly comfortable… I’m a Writer… not an ‘Aspiring Writer’ which is how I see so many authors describe themselves... I believe if yeez write at all, then yeez are Writers… so, quill-scrapers… go forth and multiply… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!... thanks for having me aboard, that man David…

THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY

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VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK

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SAVAGE PAYBACK

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Biography

SEUMAS GALLACHER escaped from the world of finance five years ago, after a career spanning three continents and five decades.

As the self-professed 'oldest computer Jurassic on the planet' his headlong immersion into the dizzy world of eBook publishing opened his eyes, mind, and pleasure to the joys of self-publishing. As a former businessman, he rapidly understood the concept of a writer's need to 'build the platform', and from a standing start began to develop a social networking outreach, which now tops 20,000 direct contacts.

His 'Jack Calder' crime-thrillers series, THE VIOLIN MAN'S LEGACY, VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK and SAVAGE PAYBACK blew his mind with more than 80,000 e-link downloads to date.

He started a humorous, informative, self-publishers blog three years ago, never having heard of a 'blog' prior to that, was voted 'Blogger of the Year 2013' and now has a loyal blog following on his networks. He says the novels contain his 'Author's Voice', while the blog carries his 'Author's Brand'. And he's LUVVIN IT!

Blog : http://seumasgallacher.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/seumasgallacher

Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/seumasgallacher

Email: seumasgallacher@yahoo.com