Thursday 29 May 2014

We would have told him if he asked us, but he never asked

13 June 1994
Barrow Station - notes












Old lady: "I'm scared of some things, never learned to swim... We were all getting on very well down at the baths but a girl drowned. They were fooling around, pulling each other under water. She got exhausted. We all had to get out, shivering. She looked beautiful. They pulled off her cap, beautiful long gold hair. Never forgot that."
(She's 87, that was when she was 16, 71 years ago).
"My sister and I said 'We're never going again. Dad won't like that, he just bought us new costumes.'
Next time we went, we went over to the park - water pump, splashed water over our costumes. Then we hung them out to dry in the garden.
He never asked us.
We would have told him if he asked, but he never asked."

Reading and watching

  • Foot by Foot to Santiago de Compostela/Judy Foot
  • The Testament of Mary with Fiona Shaw at the Barbican
  • The Testament of Mary/Colm Toibin
  • Schwanengesang/Schubert - Tony Spence
  • Journals/Robert Falcon Scott
  • Fugitive Pieces/Ann Michaels
  • Unless/Carol Shields
  • Faust/Royal Opera House
  • The Art of Travel/Alain de Botton
  • Mad Men Series 6
  • A Week at The Airport/Alain de Botton
  • The Railway Man/Eric Lomax
  • Bright Lights, Big City/Jay McInerney
  • Stones of Venice/John Ruskin
  • The Sea, the Sea/Iris Murdoch
  • Childe Harold/Lord Byron
  • All The Pretty Horses/Cormac McCarthy
  • Extreme Rambling/Mark Thomas
  • Story of my Life/Jay McInerney
  • Venice Observed/Mary McCarthy