A Merry Christmas, Sir Reginald

It is bitterly cold on the West Cliff tonight. The gardens are deserted. The moon is obscured by thick rolling clouds. The street lamps cast only frail pools of light on the paths. Where is Sir Reginald? Surely it's time for him to be out and about on his evening constitutional raging against the Communists at the Council for the feebleness of the lighting? Or will tonight's fulmination be for the waste of tax payers money engendered by having street lighting at all?

Click whirr. Click whirr. Ah here he is now in his bath chair propelled with vigour by his one legged manservant Phillips. Sir Reginald is wrapped warmly in his tartan blanket against the chill whilst Phillips, his sleeves rolled up to display his tattooed arms has a film of sweat across his brow. 

    “Faster, Man. Faster. Can you not see that I am in imminent danger of dying from hypothermia here?”

A single flake of white flutters down through the street light's rays. “What! What was that?” demands Sir Reginald.

    “It was a snowflake, I believe Sir.” answers Phillips and, as if to prove his belief the first is followed by a second and a third.

    “Snow! We want none of that here. This is Bournemouth not Siberia.”

    “Snow is a thing of great beauty.”

    “Beauty! Pshaw! Your idea of beauty is very much at odds with mine, Sirrah. An idea of beauty that could only have come from the twisted hell hole of the 'tween decks mess of that pirate ship I rescued you from.”

The truth is that Phillips has never ventured further on the high seas than a Sunday cruise around Poole Harbour as a child but he lets it pass.

    “Under the lens, each snowflake is a thing of great wonder. While no two are exactly the same, they ll exhibit the astonishing uniformity of having six sides.”

Sir Reginald likes uniformity. He likes regularity and order in all things. “Six sides, you say?”

    “Yes Sir. Every one of them. All different but, at the same time, all the same.”

Sir Reginald is about to begin extolling the virtues of regularity and order when out of the whirling white comes a disturbing sight. It is the bath chair of his nemesis Dame Amelia Vole leading member of the Women’s International Socialist and Suffrage movement. She is, in turn propelled by her companion Miss Pymm a tall angular female of indeterminate years but who is surprisingly athletic beneath her shapeless grey smock.

    “Get out of my way you... you harridan.” rages Sir Reginald. But Dame Amelia fails to respond and as they draw level she smiles and says “And a Merry Christmas to you.”

    “What! What did you say?”

    “I wished you the season's greeting. I said 'A Merry Christmas to you.'”

    “You dare wish me a Merry Christmas?”

    “I do. A merry Christmas. There, I've done it again.”

    “Christmas Balderdash.” He would have liked to say ' Christmas humbug' but he has in the back of his mind that that has been used somewhere already.

   “I suppose you do not keep Christmas, then?”
   “I'll thank you to keep your impertinent suppositions to your self.”

   “Not even a plate of good plum duff? I wager you don't keep any of The good old British traditions.”

   “Of course we keep all the traditions. All the British ones.” Sir Reginald has only a perfunctory knowledge of what the traditions of Christmas are. He knows they can be dangerously subversive but this woman has just wagered him

   “We do. Every one of them. We keep every one of them .” Then he remembers with a lurch that one of the traditions is that of generals feeding dinner to their troops. He cringes at the terrifying prospect of having to wheel himself backwards and forwards through the unholy melee in the dining room whilst Phillips sits there gloating at him and devouring all the plum duff. He would be seen. There would be members of the Club present sniggering through their fingers. The thought is insufferable.“Not precisely every one.” Then he remembers with growing horror the tradition of exchanging of gifts and he shudders even more. “Times change.”

“I'll wager you don't even decorate with holly.”

He brightens. “Ah yes, holly.” He remembers that holly can be got from holly bushes and is free.   “We keep the holly tradition.” And his demeanour is so pathetic all of a sudden that Phillips steps forward with his clasp knife at the ready.

   “If I may venture to say,” interjects the one-legged manservant. “That is just what we were doing out here. Collecting holly.” And he swiftly removes a couple of low branches from an overhanging bush.

  ”And mistletoe?” persists the old woman.

  “Yes. Mistletoe, of course.” But despite the certainty in his master's voice, this time Phillips can contribute nothing.

  “Mistletoe, Miss Pymm.” barks the old woman and The angular companion produces a bunch which she holds out over the heads of the warring pair. Dame Amelia leans forward and kisses Sir Reginald on the cheek

  “What! What! Madam I will have you prosecuted for common assault.”

  “Forward, Miss Pymm,” chuckles the venerable dame and the angular companion trundles her charge off into the swirling maelstrom of the snowstorm.

  “And battery” mumbles Sir Reginald. “Assault and battery. You are my witness, Phillips”

As the subdued pair return to Grand Marine Court he churns with the damnable confusion that now besets him. Christmas. He hates Christmas. Vile old women that attempt lewd acts in public. Snowflakes, at once regular yet individual. A manservant, an ex-pirate with a dangerous looking clasp knife who would gladly slit his throat as cheerfully as he gathered evergreens and to whom tomorrow he will have to bring plates of plum duff.

  “Damn Christmas,” he ejaculates. “Damn and blast it to hell.”

There is a pause as the two men survey the scene before going in..

  “I may not be having dinner tomorrow. Lost me damn appetite.”

  “There will be plum duff in the dining room. You do so enjoy that, Sir.”

  “Yes yes I do.”

There is a long pause.

  “It will not be necessary for you to serve at table tomorrow, Sir.”

  “No. Of course not.” and with a small cough almost lost in the blizzard. “Thank you.”

  “You will manage a small serving of plum duff, I'm sure. If I bring it to you.”

Silently Sir Reginald watches the snow smoothing out the imperfections of the world and touches his cheek where it burns from the wind.

  “If I may venture to wish you A merry Christmas Sir,” says Phillips as though from a great distance.

  “Yes. Yes. You may. And the same to you. Now get me in out of this damn cold.”

Deputation to Bournemouth Council on behalf of the Arts

September 17th 2013

Deputation to Bournemouth Full Council

On behalf of Bournemouth Creatives.

Arts by the Sea and future investment

Peter John Cooper - theatre professional and writer.  I have run companies in Oxford and North Wales and other part of the UK.  I have been chair of a number of County wide arts organisations.  Resident of the Borough for three years. Speaking on behalf of Bournemouth Creatives and other arts organisations.

A few weeks ago I was honoured to be asked to represent the creative peoples of Bournemouth and Boscombe here. According to The Council Procedure Rule 38(a)(iv) I may not refer to the tragic demise of the Boscombe Community Centre for the Arts. But I would like to pick up and develop a few incidental ideas from that presentation about the future arts provision in the Borough.

Firstly I would like to applaud the Council for its far sighted support for the Arts by the Sea Festival

Let me quote “The aim is for the Festival to become a major cultural event in the international calendar: an artist-led festival that enables regional, national and international artists to create new work, and showcase their best work, encouraging local, national and international visitors to Bournemouth.” Hurrah.

This is a marvellous opportunity for the Borough to kick start its commitment to regeneration. In order to do this we must encourage a growth outside the weeks of the festival itself to encompass the arts as they impinge on our residents on a day to day way by the artists living and being educated here. Bournemouth and Boscombe have always been the home of significant writers and artists from Robert Louis Stephenson to Aubrey Beardsley to Tony Hancock.  We need to harness the heritage and skills and connections of these and living artists, the whole arts community, to deliver that vibrant renaissance we all seek.

The Arts by the Sea Festival has thrown up an interesting conundrum. the regeneration officer from the council, has been asking local businessess for use of premises for the festival as the precinct which they were using has filled up.  We just don’t have the venues.

We do have some brilliant small spaces such as the Winchester in Poole Hill But it is a fact of life that Small, temporary spaces church halls and night clubs do not encourage investment or create the bigger international scale buzz that we need. The South West Dance centre is a useful guide to what can be achieved.

But we are one of the only towns (and one with city status ambition) that has no community arts hub. look at Southampton, Newcastle Gateshead. In fact it is a sad fact that we have less arts provision than Sturminster Newton.  There is a lack of provision for public gallery space or space for music making or theatre production. And we are certainly lacking a wet weather general arts centre that will exploit the skills of local artists for the benefit of visitors throughout the year.

Margate with its problems of high levels of drug addiction, Houses of Multiple Occupancy, poverty, and a High Street of empty shops and businesses is now listed in the top ten gallery destinations world wide and the whole area is benefiting from the additional tourists, jobs, created by its newly opened Turner Gallery. It can be done.

It will take money – lots of it but One of the great resources we have at our disposal in the Borough is a large number of artists who are significantly engaged in their fields of enterprise, writers, film makers, poets, painters  and performers. I urge the council to make use of this resource in advancing its plans for the future regeneration.  We are at your disposal.  Make use of our knowledge and expertise and let us not have any more disasters like the one which befell the community so recently.

As a writer I sometimes get asked to become involved in various arts issues.   I was asked to make a presentation to a full session of Bournemouth Borough Council about the imminent destruction of the Boscombe Community Arts Centre.  It might seem a bit parochial to my readers in other parts of the world but it is a piece of work as carefully crafted and thought out as any other and we must all do what we can to protect the arts in this age of miserable utilitarianism.

July 30^th 2013

Deputation to Bournemouth Full Council

On behalf of Bournemouth Creatives.

I am Peter John Cooper theatre professional and writer.  I have run companies in Oxford and North Wales and other part of the UK.  Born in Hampshire when Bournemouth and Boscombe were part of that County.  Spent twenty years in Dorset where I have been chair of a number of County wide arts organisations.  Resident of the Borough for three years. Speaking on behalf of Bournemouth Creatives and other arts organisations.

A building is only a roof with some walls to hold it up.  What is significant is what goes on inside that building.  But once the roof is smashed in and the walls bulldozed nothing can be done and its heritage is lost.  I am speaking of the Boscombe Centre for Community Arts.  You will have seen the superb business plan for the building and one, you will agree, where the numbers are real and certainly stack up and which answers every probing question that you and others have asked of it.  The research it contains is much more persuasive than that presented by the officers here which states that Boscombe has adequate community provision because of its wealth of nightclubs.  Would you take your child to a painting session in a pole dance club?. You know the historical significance of this building as one of the very first Drama Centres in the UK and its groundbreaking work in education and disability. You have seen the deputations from the hundreds of residents and dozens of businesses and enterprises that desperately need the work of the centre to carry on. It’s all in here. You know how persuasive all the evidence is and you know how important the work that could be achieved under this roof within these walls again because you have already had the foresight to realise how the arts can begin the regeneration of a run down area.

Over the weekend I was delighted to be invited to a number of events in North and East London.  Here there are acres of derelict warehouses and factories among run down estates.  I saw was an extraordinary transformation in the lives of many of the residents through innovative uses of buildings and spaces as live in workshops, arts centres, galleries, start up business units.  All making a huge difference in the general air of optimism.  I saw children and young people using spaces in a myriad of inventive ways some of them not entirely expected and intended.  

We have two Universities with the name Bournemouth in them.  Too many of their Alumni, flee our conurbation to places like these in Hackney taking their skills away with them. What is missing is that vital community hub where we can exploit their knowledge and energy, where children can go and get messy with paint and clay and where pensioners can dance or excerise.  Where people can come together and explore their differences and give them back some pride in their lives.  That child experimenting with that pile of clay may be on a path that leads to experiments that give us new hope in health care.  Those people learning dance steps may be helping to get over stroke or other disability.  That kid painting on the wall might one day be the graphic designer that delivers the new branding to the Borough.

We don’t have the run down warehouses of Tower Hamlets, so where do we place that centre of ideas, creativity, research and development, enterprise, wealth? Certainly two small historical school rooms are not in any way sufficient.  Neither do all the pubs and nightclubs and church halls mentioned in the council’s research. Should we ask you to raise the millions necessary to build a new new palace of glass and stainless steel? A new Imax for the Arts?  Of course not.  That vital piece of infrastructure  is already in place. There is some minimal remediation work necessary, mostly the restoration of what was removed in the process of closing it down.  This Business Plan demonstrates real community engagment and knowledge and genuinely demonstrates that the place can be viable.

So to that real poser.  How do we choose between housing and a community centre?  The answer is that we mustn’t.   You know there are other, better housing options.  But this is the only Community Arts centre we have in the whole conurbation. At this last hour please don’t let the bulldozers roll. Don’t knock the heart out of the community. Please reconsider the importance of this project. And don’t rubberstamp the end of hope for so many people.

Sir Reginald Detests Whistling.

Sir Reginald considers whistling an affront to human dignity and an utter waste of energy that could be better spent elsewhere.  By which he means, in his service. A baker’s boy whistling whilst pedalling his delivery bike around town only means to Sir Reginald that he could be pedalling harder and the loaves could be delivered that much sooner for his breakfast.  A whistling garage mechanic can only indicate that he is not paying sufficient attention to the sump drain plug on the Wolsley.  That he has been reduced to being driven in a Wolsley when he has been forced to give up the Bentley is a source of supreme annoyance in itself which the whistling only intensifies.  What’s more, Phillips the onelegged man servant is given to the occasional chorus of some ditty in an unguarded moment whilst propelling Sir Reginald’s bath chair around the West Cliff.  “Push harder, damn you, you blackguard” Fumes Sir Reginald. “I’ll never be able to run another marathon if I don’t complete another three laps of this Gad-forsaken place. My training schedule will be in tatters.”  Quite how Sir Reginald imagines that being pushed in a bath chair constitutes any long distance training regime for anyone apart from Phillips is not clear.  And in any case, Sir Reginald has never run any further in his life than a brief sprint to the bar at the Club before anyone else appears and makes one of those sickening “Ah, it’s your round tonight” faces.

So Sir Reginald is well into his training regimen today when a loud whistle breaks his conconcentration.  “Damn you nincompoop siffleur.”  He rages. “You have quite thrown my concentration.  I’ll have to do another lap to make up. And don’t sigh like that Phillips. You should’ve made sure there was no one here to disturb me.”  Phillips wonders how he is meant to police a public space frequented by many hundreds of holiday makers.  He stumps on quickening his pace slightly to make up for the additional lap.  But when they reach the same spot once more the same loud whistling begins.  If he wasn’t before Sir Reginald is now decidedly cross.  “You imbecilic communist dunderhead.  You utter fatheaded son of a drain-cleaner   Curse you and your children and your grandchildren and may you live in the abject squalor you so richly deserve.” And Phillips stumps around again faster still.  It must soon be lunch time.  But the whistler is still delivering his sarcastic tune.  That this is deliberate bare-faced insolence Sir Reginald is now certain.  He flies into a well-rehearsed rage.  He throws the tartan rug that covers his knees to the ground and, saliva trickling from the corner of his mouth, he bays at Phillips to find the miscreant and administer a sound thrashing.  Philips looks around briefly and then indicates a branch on an overhanging holm oak. A blackbird resplendant in glossy spring plumage opens his bright orange beak and pours forth a cascade of trills and warbles of such great beauty that Phillips is captivated, hearing nothing of the turmoil behind him.  “Phillips. Phillips! Damn your eyes!! Phillips!!!” Sir Reginald’s face is of a such deep purple that it looks like an overripe plum about to explode.  Sir Reginald hurls his walking stick, the one with the serpent consuming its own tail carved on it, into the tree.  The stick lodges among the branches.  Sir Reginald is apoplectic and is making the sort of noises that no longer resemble human language in any form.  “Grunt.  Squeal.  Roar. Screee. Blubber. Squeeeeeal.”  Phillips clambers into the tree as best as his wooden leg will enable him.  He retrieves the stick, picks up the tartan rug and starts for home.  Meanwhile in the holm-oak the blackbird cocks his head on one side and begins to warble and trill once more.

 

Sir Reginald in Bournemouth

Clump whirr.  Clump whirr.  Clump whirr.

That is the sound of Sir Reginald being pushed in his bath chair around the West Cliff Gardens by his one legged manservant Phillips.

The sound of their peregrination is interspersed by the cry of gulls and the distant peals of laughter carried on the breeze up from the sands below.  Sir Reginald grimaces.  He dislikes gulls.  He abhors laughter.  He is vexed by the breeze and most of all he detests the cliff top gardens and the sea and the whole existence of the town of Bournemouth.  Why he has allowed himself to be imprisoned here he cannot imagine.  He only knows that Bournemouth is the most excruciatingly awful place he has ever had the bad luck to be in.  And he has walked the foetid alleyways of Calcutta and the less that salubrious slums of Naples and San Francisco.  “Damn Bournemouth.  Damn it all.” He mutters aloud.  “Yes Sir” intones Phillips and pushes his master on through the resinous groves of Corsican pine that dot the greensward.

A young female leans on the rail at the clifftop and surveys the bay below.  Sir Reginald waves his stick.  A handcarved affair denoting a serpent twining around the shaft with its tail in its mouth.  “Sloven!” hisses Sir Reginald “Nincompoop. Damn Socialist. I don’t pay my taxes so that young persons may idle about when they should be gainfully employed.”  And at least one part of that sentiment is true for Sir Reginald considers taxes to be something that only the so-called working classes should be subjected to.  Not people like him, servants of the Empire and prisoners of Grand Marine Court. Indeed, if any member of The Club had suggested that he had stooped so low as to pay a penny in tax at any time in his life he would have been mortally offended and would have called him out.  Or at least, enjoined Phillips to beat the rascal soundly with his wooden leg.

And so the daily journey continues.  Round and round the asphalt paths beneath the pines and across the grass.  Clump whirr.  Clump whirr.  Clump whirr.  And as each lap is completed Sir Reginald finds something new to rail against.  Some other cause for fulmination.  A discarded toffee paper causes a two prong outpouring of bile.  One against the miscreant who dropped it in the first place. “Damn communist.  Expecting me to pick up his litter. Part of his so-called Socialist so-called paradise” He rages. “He can only have been a visitor” Sir Reginald has no time for visitors.   But the main recipient for his spleen is the otherwise fastidious servant of the Borough Council who has failed dismally to spot the wrapper and retrieve it. “Damn lefties at the council. All those rates we have to pay.” (See note above concerning taxes) “And they expect me to do all their work for them.”  However, we get the impression that Sir Reginald probably wouldn’t have picked the wrapper up himself as his contribution to the common good.

And as Phillips directs the machine towards Grand Marine Court the vexed subject of luncheon is raised.  “As it is Monday, I believe the menu features cottage pie.” Clump whirr.  “Damn swill. Cottage pie is for socialists.  Not for people like me. Those nincompoops in the kitchen. “Clump whirr.  And the sound of Sir Reginald’s bath chair and Sir Reginald’s vituperations fade into the distance leaving just the sound of the breeze in the pines and a very small sound which may have been the smallest of sighs escaping the pursed lips of Phillips the one legged manservant.