I’m not a complete stranger to the world of investment banking. Morgan Grenfell sent me to Dublin for a while in ’85 to test a new system they’d commissioned. More recently, some time in the Nineties, I visited the London headquarters of Lehman Brothers, I can’t recall what for, but had to wait in their… Continue reading Lehman Brothers bites the dust
Resuming normality
The night is full of mysteries. They haunt us when we can't sleep, and there's no one to share them with. That's what prompts me to write here. Meanwhile dawn is coming, sheds light on this side of Earth. The mysteries aren't illuminated, they merely vanish. Dawn blushes red now, over yonder hill. I draw… Continue reading Resuming normality
Bonfire of the vanities
Since this photo, the fire’s gone out after consuming the fence and denuding finally gone out after consuming the adjacent fence and half of the overhanging tree. In the scale of things, gratitude is now in order My next-door neighbour, bottom left in the pic, had complained to the Council about the state of his… Continue reading Bonfire of the vanities
Cowes Horizons
In process of being restored When you live in East Cowes, your attention is drawn to horizons. Boats are constantly coming and going. All kinds: ferries, tankers, container ships, yachts, dinghies, powerboats, even fishing vessels perhaps. And it’s not just the visual movement that draws your attention to far away. The first evening, when we… Continue reading Cowes Horizons
News of the fight soon reached the Queen
"One day in 1852, young Freddie Attrill was gathering shell-fish on Osborne beach when another boy came along, told him to clear off and kicked his bucket flying. Indignant, Freddie gave him a thump—only to be told by shocked attendants that he had just hit Albert Edward, Queen Victoria’s eldest son and heir to the… Continue reading News of the fight soon reached the Queen
Only the bicycle shed still stands
It’s fifty-four years since I lived in East Cowes. It has the air of being past its best, but it had the same air in 1954, so you can say it has hardly changed. Fifty-four years before I lived there, Queen Victoria was still alive and she lived there too, in the house she had… Continue reading Only the bicycle shed still stands
Coming back to East Cowes
Now that I’ve got a proper memory card in my camera, I could take hundreds of photos at one time. Yet it’s not my aim to produce a picture gallery or travelogue. It’s more to post letters recklessly addressed to the Universe, like anyone’s prayers to their unknowable God. And when those letters have been… Continue reading Coming back to East Cowes
Pilgrimage to Cowes
I've had my camera two years but only recently realized it can hold hundreds of photos if I put in a larger memory card. Just as well, because I was able to take some beautiful photos of a recent visit to the island where I spent my teenage years, the Isle of Wight. Here's a… Continue reading Pilgrimage to Cowes
Walking Alone
What makes us the way we are? What sets us off on our own unique path? Heedless of a fine drizzle, I set out on foot to West Vale, pondering on these questions. There is nothing like walking to set imagination and memory alive. On this afternoon of purposeless wayfaring, I saw my whole life… Continue reading Walking Alone
In the Industrial Valley
rescued from archive.com on Saturday September 20th 2025 I shall take you on a guided tour of my part of town. We are in the valley bottom, where the factories were built at the end of the nineteenth century. I don't know what was there before. I haven't seen any houses older than 1872. This… Continue reading In the Industrial Valley
Intrinsic goodness
Back in the Sixties, I first came across some mysterious expressions from the other side of the Atlantic. I was working for a British company whose main rival was IBM. Both companies had built up a customer base selling punched-card equipment based on the nineteenth-century inventions of Herman Hollerith and his one-time colleague James Powers.… Continue reading Intrinsic goodness
Cherishing the past
Many are they who suppose a blog---such a today thing!---to be ephemeral (“beginning and ending in a day”) in its subject-matter and interest to others. Why should it be so? I celebrate the past, like this stately galleon on the ocean of time, its stern riding proud and high, its prow dipping into the billows… Continue reading Cherishing the past
from a long-forgotten blog: Reading Without Tears
I cannot believe it was me, Vincent, who wrote this stuff Voices My latest post on A Wayfarer's Notes, Accompaniment, started out with a different agenda: to try and escape a continuing writer's block by writing a further post---about writer's block. (The last such post was reprinted in a Catholic women's journal by request of a reader,… Continue reading from a long-forgotten blog: Reading Without Tears
Blazing a trail
In these pieces I have a consistent aim, like a would-be acrobat endlessly repeating the same manoeuvre, aiming at perfect execution, to demonstrate something to the audience, using his entire body and soul in the demonstration, so that the slightest distraction such as a thought or an itch somewhere on his skin would affect the… Continue reading Blazing a trail
Hole in the head
Phineas Gage was swift, capable, responsible. He was physically fit and a leader of men. These qualities made him at the age of 25 a supervisor on a Vermont railroad construction project; and might have helped him rise through the ranks to a senior management position in that branch of engineering. But the smooth track… Continue reading Hole in the head
Encounter in a landscape
Belatedly, I discover that manual work is better than being desk-bound, better for the soul—and the world too, probably. But first some words to continue from yesterday’s set of photos. One of them shows part of the track I walked: down the hill through the nature reserve where the wild roses grew, then through high… Continue reading Encounter in a landscape
Country walk
The Gift Horse
Why do I have to be so like my grandfather? He bought a cheap Ford in 1935 and didn’t give it up, just replaced parts as necessary, till his younger daughter in 1967 (my mother's sister Peggy) told him time was up. Then he drove her VW Beetle till, in his late eighties, he managed… Continue reading The Gift Horse
Accompaniment
. . . We need to find the deepest reason for our emotions. The clue came in something delivered through my letterbox yesterday: a “journal for all women interested in spirituality, theology, ministry and liturgy”. It’s not my normal reading, but they sent me a complimentary copy in return for publishing one of my recent… Continue reading Accompaniment
Back in the Rain
We arrived home in the stilly hours of Sunday morning, in steady reassuring rain: a rain which has intensified through this public holiday. The home improvement shops have extra staff on duty in expectation of their busiest day, but with my dripping umbrella, I’m one of the few who make the trip. Intending to install… Continue reading Back in the Rain
Rainy day pilgrimage
Undissuaded by heavy rain, and having the day free, I hankered for a bus ride, distance no object. What could be more in accord with my temperament than a pilgrimage? In harmony with the Zen poet Basho, author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North. My destination this morning was “a small café in… Continue reading Rainy day pilgrimage
Back to Slough
I went for the fourth time in a week, on an errand to Slough. It’s a town occupying a special place in the British imagination: perhaps from The Pilgrim’s Progress, which describes the Slough of Despond. “Slough”: a strange English noun, meaning a muddy place: does it rhyme with “cough”, “through”, “though”, or “rough”? With… Continue reading Back to Slough
Religion in Public Life
It’s apparent from the Web that in America religion is as much an irritant on the public consciousness as politics. I mean, you get bitten by the media and you can’t help scratching all the time. So the agenda is stolen. I don’t want to react to the state of religion in America or in… Continue reading Religion in Public Life
Free as a bird
Preface Ghetufool has given me permission to publish his short story here. His pen-name indicates modesty but not in the way you may think: “ghetu phool” is the Bengali for calotropis gigantea, a wayside wildflower. We have collaborated for a year or so (he writes, I edit). You may have seen a brief quote from… Continue reading Free as a bird
Cherry tree
I’ve been wanting to dedicate a whole post to my cherry tree but couldn’t justify it. When commenting on other people’s blogs, I have fewer inhibitions, as in this, to Michael Peverett, re his post “Prunus continued”: . . . I was interested in your prunus pictures because I bought a small fruiting cherry tree… Continue reading Cherry tree
Fresh air
The barrenness of these pages lately means doesn’t mean I’ve not been thinking of offering something to my reader. On the contrary. Though afflicted by a species of writer’s block, I’m not bereft of thoughts and inspirations, and each day scribble them: in Word, on voice recorder, in the black notebook, and failing those, they… Continue reading Fresh air
Stories of animal sagacity
As a child I read Stories of Animal Sagacity, a set of Victorian anecdotes by William Henry Giles Kingston. I didn’t remember his name of course: the World-Wide Web has the full text in facsimile and OCR transcription, with the illustrations reproduced too. Sagacity is a lovely word: it was many years till I came… Continue reading Stories of animal sagacity
Something of the Night
To one who follows his nose as a general principle of life, especially to seek inspiration, it matters when and where the ideas come. Most of the pieces in this blog have been conceived under the sky, preferably walking. “Sit as little as possible; credit no thought not born in the open air and while… Continue reading Something of the Night
Purpose
Outside the supermarket a three-year-old boy was expressing his distress in voice and reddened face. Solicitous, his mother bent down to him. No doubt he had wanted something in the shop and been denied it. He looked like me at that age and in a flash I recalled how I used to behave: a lot… Continue reading Purpose
The constant spring
Sunday morning: I’ve taken my writing-book out to the backyard, where I can sit on this bench and be warmed like a lizard for the first time this year. Surely Spring has arrived! The yard is so tiny, the fences so high, that in winter the sun never reaches the ground: the best it can… Continue reading The constant spring
Bus ride
It is wonderful to be able to rejoice with the fortunate: to see someone beautiful and young who is making the most of what he or she has, in a simple way. When I was at university, I was preoccupied with my own loneliness and wasted my time. If only I could have appreciated what… Continue reading Bus ride
Slug life
A slug theme has been slithering through my last two posts, leaving the question hanging whether my blocking of cracks in the floor would disturb the migration habits of this humble gastropod. Since I had additionally panelled that corner of the kitchen, fitting the pieces closely, except for one part of the plinth which will… Continue reading Slug life
Ant vs. sluggard
After my last post, you may be wondering what happened to the green slug? Has it yet found its way back into the kitchen yet after being flung to the other end of the back yard? Reader, I have to confess that I’ve blocked the hole where it climbed up to the unkempt corner of… Continue reading Ant vs. sluggard
Bus station
I was waiting at the bus station, that haunt of pensioners, new immigrants and indigent travellers---in short, the dispossessed. I feel at home there. For the first time in fifty-three years, the name of Morton Spencer came back to me. Katie Spencer was my mother’s schoolfriend: vivacious, pretty but still a spinster, still in her… Continue reading Bus station
Belonging
The day after posting my last, I felt cleansed, as a Catholic might feel after a visit to the confessional. Burdens removed, joy restored. I had published only a small selection of what I’d drafted, but had never felt such catharsis from writing, if it is justifiable to link effect and cause in this way.… Continue reading Belonging
The Snowdrop Garden
Today I walked near the house where I lived for 16 years. That’s twelve years longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life. Most of those years I was crippled by a chronic illness and longed to walk the earth freely, so that area has a special poignancy, like the view from a… Continue reading The Snowdrop Garden
As a novice
I live in the poorest quarter of town*, sandwiched between factories, some derelict and some still in use like the one directly across the road. Many of the Pakistani owners of houses like mine have let rooms to migrant workers: hundreds of them are engaged on building a new shopping/leisure complex in town. † Their… Continue reading As a novice
Cherrydown (3)
There’s still a ragbag of memories to share with you about the time I spent in that house. If they have any common theme, I suppose it is wonders and miracles. I’m not saying there actually were any miracles: just incomprehensible things. I mentioned in a previous post that my mother started to suffer from… Continue reading Cherrydown (3)
Cherrydown (2)
If you have been following the halting progress of my childhood memoirs on this direct and intimate medium—where it is possible to publish worldwide before the ink has dried on one’s words though ink is not actually used—you might not be aware of just how halting the progress actually is. You might think that Vincent… Continue reading Cherrydown (2)
Cherrydown (1)
Anno 1956 Aetat. 14 This post picks up my childhood memoirs from where Norfolk House (5): Fog on the Solent left off. We moved to a 1930s semi-detached house, “Cherrydown”, 8 Parkhurst Road, Newport [here photographed August 2008—it hasn’t changed since 1956]. For the first few days, my bed was in the dining room, which… Continue reading Cherrydown (1)
“The Head’s sermon”
Satirical spoof on actual sermon delivered at St Thomas’s Church, Newport IW, July 1958 A school-friend whom I have not seen face-to-face since the late Fifties has finally sent me a photocopy of an anthology of writings and drawings from that era, mostly my work. I think the best piece was written by the freethinking… Continue reading “The Head’s sermon”
Lion and Thorn
A lion crippled with pain encounters a man who finds a large thorn in its paw, and manages to remove it. The lion is forever grateful. The man is acclaimed for his compassion, wisdom and skill. In all cultures there is awe for the power of healing. In Jesus it was a sign of divinity… Continue reading Lion and Thorn
My true self
Paul had spoken of those who accept the received answers of their religion and find no calling to be seekers. Their satisfaction comes from being in the bosom of a congregation. Cool and detached, I had responded that I would not write about the hypothetical experiences of others, for I would not judge them or… Continue reading My true self
What is God?
>Somewhere along the course of my life I became “spiritual”, or perhaps it would be better to say that I realized I could never be an atheist. Till possibly now ... In approaching this I must tread delicately. Let us not excite our brain-boxes with the wording of the “God-question”, not yet. Our brain is… Continue reading What is God?
The New Pub
These photos are specially for Jim, who asked what the ancient farm illustrated in my last post looks like now that it's a pub. I wanted to take some photos of the inside too, but the camera's batteries died. The first photo was taken from the same position as the old one: on the footbridge… Continue reading The New Pub
MaxiRam revisited
This is MaxiRam Castle, code-name for the place where I worked in 2007 from February to August. Each noon I emerged for an hour-long walk and in those seven months, taking no days of leave, I combed the parks and roads and byways, in a sort of sacred ritual. It connected me with my primitive… Continue reading MaxiRam revisited
Fevered interlude
When you have a virus---cold or flu---it comes and goes in waves, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. I woke in the night, thinking about how to continue my memoirs. There’s plenty left in the pipeline. But after age 21 and before 59, there’s a waste land: not an arid desert, but… Continue reading Fevered interlude
Quotes from Hank Bukowski
On Adversity & Resilience "What matters most is how well you walk through the fire". "Things get bad for all of us, almost continually, and what we do under the constant stress reveals who/what we are". "Nobody can save you but yourself, and you're worth saving". "Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives… Continue reading Quotes from Hank Bukowski
Fog on the Solent (Norfolk House 5)
The Solent may have been the busiest sea-lane in the world and the most varied in its traffic. There were ferries between the mainland and our Island; the Royal Navy base at Portsmouth; the transatlantic liner port at Southampton; the Sawley Oil Refinery where tankers plied from the Gulf; and innumerable sailing craft. The Royal… Continue reading Fog on the Solent (Norfolk House 5)
Norfolk House 4: Vignettes
Illustration from a wood engraving by Eric Gill Please note that the Norfolk House story begins at “Nest of Dreams”, so I’ve numbered that “0”. Also that the mention of my “man-flu” affliction introducing yesterday’s piece was a warning that it would be rough. It’s edited extensively now. In “Nest of Dreams” I referred to… Continue reading Norfolk House 4: Vignettes
Norfolk House 3; the Back Story
” Beth said I was teasing, in my post Norfolk House (2). It’s so long since these memoirs were interrupted (since early September) that I ought to tell you The Story So Far. I have a head-cold today, but let us give it true dignity and call it man-flu. A woman would just get on… Continue reading Norfolk House 3; the Back Story
Where Norfolk House stood
As I mentioned in my last, Norfolk House was destroyed long ago. It was crumbling when we moved in, and that was 1955. To write more about my sojourn there is more than the work of a day, but meanwhile, here is the Medina Estuary, showing West Cowes at the far end on the left,… Continue reading Where Norfolk House stood
the Vagaries of Vagabondage . . .
. . . from Travellers' Tales, written by Davinoz, an Australian online friend, though we've long lost touch. Is he still alive? see also this site. He used to write in his own blog Wombat's Waffles. Well, it seems that the vagaries of the vagabond creates uncertainty and distrust - especially among those who are… Continue reading the Vagaries of Vagabondage . . .
Norfolk House 1
(continued from here). . . Norfolk house was pulled down long ago. We moved there from Powys House, a tall granite Victorian building which still stands, a mile from Queen Victoria’s holiday home at Osborne. Norfolk House was in West Cowes: an Edwardian mansion with broad veranda and balcony overlooking the Solent, that busy strip… Continue reading Norfolk House 1
Meeting myself
last night's dream: I have just dyed my hair orange: a sort of coppery burnt-sienna. I have decided to take up smoking again after all these years, so I leave the house to buy half an ounce of Golden Virginia and some rolling-papers. Do they still sell tobacco in half-ounces, I wonder. Perhaps I will… Continue reading Meeting myself
The Call of Nature
Yesterday I mentioned a psychedelic tree, now strangled by ivy, on the corner of Rectory Avenue. I haven't finished telling about that road. One day at Christmastime when my younger children were little, I took them out of the warm house to breathe the crisp fresh air. We used to live nearby and went up… Continue reading The Call of Nature
Problem Solved
from our backyard, facing west I’ve solved the problem that has baffled mankind through the ages. It’s taken me many years and I thought it might take as many years again to explain it to the world, to help others come to the same realization that I have reached single-handed about the true nature of… Continue reading Problem Solved
Writing Instrument
We think we know somebody. They think they know us. It’s nice because we can always be surprised. My son takes present-buying seriously. He went to a hippy shop and toyed with getting me a piece of angel merchandise or a Native American dream-catcher; but fortunately thought better. I received a hastily-wrapped book and opened… Continue reading Writing Instrument
Angel story
This morning I couldn’t park in my own or adjoining streets, so I drove to where I used to live, five minutes’ walk away. I steered into a space next to a red car. The driver got out and came across to speak. I thought he might challenge my right to be there. Signs warn… Continue reading Angel story
The Ventilator Cowl
I lay in a morning bath recalling Mid-December last year, when I used to go wayfaring in stout boots, regardless of the chilly weather and leaden skies: all senses alert like my ancestors the prehistoric hunters. From Gore Hill, I’d look down on Amersham as if I had stumbled on civilization for the first time,… Continue reading The Ventilator Cowl
Vincent van Gogh
What is it to be oneself? "V" commented on my last, à propos Vincent van Gogh, thus: He was being himself and being well-adjusted to society and his personal circumstances. He became a victim too. Being oneself doesn’t immune anyone from insanity. Well, actually being oneself doesn’t really mean anything. Doesn't mean anything? Sure, it… Continue reading Vincent van Gogh
Clothesline
I might have conveyed the impression in my last that the world has to be put right in order to provide the conditions in which we can live happily. I really think the opposite: that the world has never been better, and never worse, than it is now. We can do our little best to… Continue reading Clothesline
Breakfast Rant
One of the characters in The Secret Agent is Michaelis, the “ticket-of-leave apostle”. Pitifully obese, he finds it difficult to communicate with others having spent his twenty years in jail (judged guilty by association with some terrorist atrocity) developing his own anti-capitalist philosophy. So now he continues his solitude in a cottage provided by a… Continue reading Breakfast Rant
Elemental (2)
’Twas a dark and stormy night. We went as planned to The Royal Standard of England, a 900-year-old pub in Buckinghamshire. Above the festooned hops the visitor may descry a skeleton drinker sitting in the rafters, wearing a Roman soldier’s helmet and holding a pewter tankard in his left hand. The pub was hard to… Continue reading Elemental (2)
The old telephones
One of the useful functions of retirement must surely be to relive one’s youth. In between comes a time of working-to-support-a-family-and-pay-a-mortgage, which can be irksome to the spirit. It’s easy to forget how hard it was to become adult: to find somewhere to live and pay a month’s rent in advance plus a month’s deposit… Continue reading The old telephones
Not doing and not writing
I haven't delivered on the promise made at the end of my last. I did try to start a memoir of life in the commune, but various technical problems presented themselves. I had difficulty with names. I couldn’t remember some; I didn’t want to use some because the emotion was too strong and telling felt… Continue reading Not doing and not writing
Why Write Memoirs
Between July and September of 2007, before the move which brought me to my new home, a worker’s cottage in the factory district of a Chiltern town, I’d got into a rhythm of posting chapters of a memoir, on this very blog. I produced a series of vignettes, not always in chronological order, covering my… Continue reading Why Write Memoirs
Spreading the Word
A few miles from here, the Wycliffe Bible Translators nestle in a spot near the woods, in huts that might have once been an Army camp, but have now been landscaped into a cosy village from which the Good News is spread worldwide. Jesus in his time couldn’t speak loud enough to be heard by… Continue reading Spreading the Word
To him that knocketh
I mentioned yesterday that when I know what I want but don’t know how to get it, I do what comes naturally then give up and ask the Universe. Example 1 For several months now, I’ve brooded on an idea to help others discover who they are via self-expression and good writing. I envisaged a… Continue reading To him that knocketh
Preferring the old telephones
One of the useful functions of retirement must surely be to relive one’s youth. In between comes a time of working to support a-family and pay the mortgage, which can be irksome to the spirit. It’s easy to forget how hard it was to become adult: to find somewhere to live and pay a month’s… Continue reading Preferring the old telephones
Angelic omens
At 8am I heard the refuse collection lorry. I dashed out, for I hadn’t wheeled out a bin to prepare for its arrival. One of the men saw my plight and kindly came back to empty it, so that was pleasing, till I discovered I had locked myself out: no mobile phone, no money, no… Continue reading Angelic omens
Cool for Cats
" /> There’s a heavy frost this morning, with little diamonds catching the sun. I took pity on the black cat that makes eyes at me every day as it sits on the fence and looks in. It is very grateful, wandering everywhere exploring, delighted to be in the warm. Someone feeds it but it… Continue reading Cool for Cats
Ecstasy and unreason
The single-minded pursuit of ecstasy — that’s what my life is for. Perhaps this is not for everybody, but it’s the only thing that works for me and I’m glad I realised it whilst I still have time. I’ll be resuming my memoirs soon, when things (never mind what) are straightened out a little. The… Continue reading Ecstasy and unreason
Hope
In a recent post, “Alchemy”, Rebb attributed a phrase to me: “a song I’ve felt since before time”. I’m sure I wouldn’t have used those exact words, but nevertheless I’ve been looking for its source. It sounds like her paraphrase for an odd experience that I’ve often tried to express in these pages: the sense… Continue reading Hope
Steppenwolf
I’ve been wanting to write but it’s been difficult lately and I was in the dark as to why, or what to do about it. Yes, my circumstances have changed, and as it seemed to my foolishness, they have improved, for now I’m a house-owner and part of a community, instead of depending on a… Continue reading Steppenwolf
Living an Ordinary Life
For some months now, I’ve been drawn to the ordinary. I can’t exactly explain why. Perhaps something has rubbed off from walking the streets in Babylon Town and in this narrow valley. I live not far from a little river which sneaks behind factories, workshops and the common dwellings put up for workers in the… Continue reading Living an Ordinary Life
Being Ordinary
I'm at the internet café again. Perhaps I'll get connected at home soon. So I am going to write something fast. I will try to express something before my time runs out! (I mean before the time I have paid for runs out, not my life, though that applies too.) There have been some news… Continue reading Being Ordinary
Root and Flower
I am drawn to the root of my existence, but it's hidden. If I dig it up to try and take a look, the plant will be disturbed. But then there is the possibility of writing, which is why I'm doing this now. The flower is the root's expression, its way of interacting with the… Continue reading Root and Flower
Our own nest
A bird in a cage sings more sweetly, they used to say; and no one is more lyrical than the exile. Now that I have come home from exile, able to build a nest in freedom - that is to say bought a cosy little house - I've not written a thing. Plenty of excuses… Continue reading Our own nest
Views from our house
Any time now I expect to be cut off from home internet service while Telecomms does its laborious adjustments from one provider to another. I won't be able to upload photos from the internet café so here are two views: the first from the main bedroom window of my new (old) house and the second… Continue reading Views from our house
Settling in
In this post I described how, aged 12, I used to do my homework on a Singer sewing-machine table in the room next to the kitchen, when I first arrived in a Victorian house on the Isle of Wight. Fifty-three years later, I move to another Victorian house - this time a little worker's cottage -… Continue reading Settling in
The school yard
Me; the bullied boy; Rasmussen That aerial photo of the school helped arouse many memories, which in my life seem to be fastened upon places more than upon people. In that respect, I am more of a cat than a dog. I’m more introverted, solitary, not made to hunt in packs and defer to the… Continue reading The school yard
King James I School
At the school there was a Scout Troop in addition to the Cadet Contingent. At some point in my bookish diversions I had read Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys and been seduced by it just like millions of others world-wide. The essence of this seductive power was contained in the bush-hat, the neckwear and the badge-adorned… Continue reading King James I School
I bear his name
I’m clearing things out and waiting to move to another house and it’s a jittery time for there are delays and dramas, so I cannot write anything coherent. On the other hand I can’t do anything practical till things clarify. Meanwhile I discovered this photo whilst gathering old papers together and deciding what to throw… Continue reading I bear his name
a wayfarer’s notes 