A Whiff of Prosperity

When I was quite a small boy we lived next door to Mr and Mrs Simms. Mr Simms was called Tommy, if I remember rightly and he was a newspaper man. I think he worked on the sport desk at the Evening Chronicle. When I was ill for a long time he brought me photographs of famous sporting characters of the day. One such character was Bruce Woodcock wearing his Lonsdale belt. He was a great heavy weight champion of the late forties and early fifties. I also had a picture of Freddie Mills who Woodcock knocked out. He died in very mysterious circumstances in the back of a taxi and I think a rifle was to be found between his knees. The official version was that he had committed suicide although his family said he was murdered. He was on the club scene later in life with the the Krays. There are a great many sordid tales of Mills and his doings, much of them rumour and some downright lies. Nothing was ever really proved. Talking about taxis another of Woodcock's victories was over the heavyweight Joe Baksi. His name I have heard used as rhyming slang for taxi.

This is, of course, all way beside the point, so back to Tommy Simms. He had a brother in law who came to stay next door with his family. They had a daughter who I was introduced to but I cannot remember the name -Shame! I do remember though being invited for summer afternoon tea with raspberries and cream and chocolate one sided biscuits, and here is the point: the scent of cigars. The brother-in-law smoked cigars, the scent firmly in my memory as it was the first time I had come across the experience. They were Wills Whiffs. I saw the cream packet with the name in brown, I think.

I had a great aunt, known in the family as " mi ant lil." and she lives in my memory for all sorts of reasons. She was a much frequenter of the snug of The White Lion pub in Withington together with "mi ant Alice". One of her sayings was, "Oh I do love to walk behind a man smoking a cigar ! ".

So we arrive at episode three of Bentons: purveyors of cigarettes, tobacco and multifarious smokers' requisites and of course cigars, boxes to the ceiling. I was most fortunate as a young man, as a student, to be given Christmas gifts of cigars from Bentons. On one occasion I received a box of Habanas, the price of which, in these days I dread to think. There were many that I tried. Probably the most memorable was a Punch which I found almost impossible to stomach and the finest a Romeo y Julietta which was memorable with coffee and a fine Cognac.

There was a vast array of cigars all kept in glass topped humidors if they were loose or in rolls of twenty five. Others of course were in boxes or were tubed. Cheroots were very popular at the time as they were a short smoke. I found them rather too strong. There are two kinds of cheroots, usually gathered into rolls of twenty or so: the Burma cheroot which was rolled tight at both ends and the American cut at both ends. I thought the latter romantic as they usually figured in cowboy films. They were made of Kentucky tobacco and were a patriotic smoke, sometimes called a Stogie. I seem to have heard of Kentucky Stogies. I suppose republicans would prefer them to Cuban cigars. However, I visualise the republican with a full blown Cuban Montechristo in his fat fist. Not being a republican, I was quite fond of the Dutch varieties as they were both cheaper and sweeter. Willem was one such brand at the time. They did a good line in Slim Panatellas. I still have a box which once contained Willem 11 Long Leonis, a rather fine and distinguished long slim panatella.

Small cigars which I remember we're Cafe Creme and they were smoked by both ladies and gentlemen. Then again Whiffs we're also very popular and probably still are today. The Dutch small cigars such as senoritas and cigarillos are very popular as they provide a mild shorter smoking experience and sometimes come in very handy manageable tins.
I also remember a small cigar called Cameo in a box with a Spanish lady on the label. All these, once common pleasures, are now all but gone, if only to be preserved in the secrecy of the gentlemen's clubs.

Bentons also sold a selection of humidors to keep one's precious cigars in tip top condition and not dried out to flaky dust. There were polished rosewood boxes, little bigger than a regular cigar box, to larger cabinets with humidity gauges at a suitably raised price. In fact all smokers’ needs were met at Bentons and in the next post I will deal with some of the rarer brands of cigarette. I think we will start with:
"Flow gently we'll sing you a song in thy praise." which graced a certain cigarette packet. You could e mail in if you know the answer.


JL March 31 13:47

Friday Prayers

An evensong for you,
The rising chords
Sublimely bounced
From vaulted nave
And chancel arch
Above the rood screen
Where mater dolerosa stands
Head bowed, with John

Here my evensong begins 
A spluttering candle
Guttering in the dark
A glimmer firmly held
Against the night.

Come with me
Beyond the arch of nave
Beyond the time and place
To join with mater dolerosa
And hope for grace.


JL March 30 11:35

Primroses

The path is edged
All primrose bright.

First fledged starlings
Taking flight.

The cherry just begins
Its first pink flush,

As early bluebells
Grace the under bush.

Just for a while
Steal a moment
For a smile.

JL March 29 10:52

Just a thought

People lose a sense of shame
Rudeness is taken as a sign of sophistication
People pursue the pleasure of the moment
They lose respect for leaders
The young no longer defer to the old
The old behave as if they were young
The difference between the sexes is blurred
People get irritated by the least touch of authority
They dislike rules that inhibit their freedom

Plato on the growth of democracy in Athens

V Ce BC

Plus ça change plus ça la même chose.

JL March 28 10:52

Leavening

It is good to lie
In the sunlight 
Feeling the warmth of sun

A breath of life
Brushes my cheek
With the scent of hyacinths

And my spirit leavens
On a wave of silence.

JL March 27 11:12

Quality Street

Hearing today on radio 4  mention of Quality Street wrappers I was suddenly zoomed  back. As a young child I  remember looking through the quality street wrapper and marvelling at the the change it made to the world around. Today I suddenly realised that all children down the ages had done that very same thing and I was one of them. The first Quality Street chocolates were made in 1936 so I am sure many of my friends and acquaintances must have fashioned the same experience. Why was I so surprised?  It was the realisation that I had forgotten all about it and it was such a simple memory.

So here I am reminding you of your own childhood moment when you were able to see the world as a magical and multi-coloured place. Perhaps I will do it again just to remind myself.

You're Welcome.

JL March 26 10:15

Persian Carpets

Let us speak 
Of Persian carpets

We will take flight
Multicoloured into light.

Way above the camel caravans 
The whirling swirl of shifting sands.

There are flowers here
Among the jaded and the sere.

Choice magenta petalled fire
Scented Cedar bark of Tyre.

In the shaded garden out of reach
The desert Rose and amaryllis peach.

On this piece of barren ground
A touch of jasmine may be found.

Here searching for the light
I found it
Just out of sight.



JL March 25 13:45

where there's smoke

It is many a long year since I smoked a pipe. In fact, looking in my smoking cabinet, I still have seven old pipes: a Barling meerschaum; two Petersons ,one with a sterling silver collar made in the Republic of Ireland; an Italian called Lorenzo; two nondescripts and my favourite, a straight grain briar Comoy London pipe. Comoy has long since been bought out and I doubt whether the quality will be the same. They were very expensive and mine is nearly forty years old and was, of course, a gift from my uncle at Bentons. It should be noted that the briar pipe made from the carved root is really quite a recent development. The first common tobacco pipes were made of white china clay. ( rather gritty on the teeth). Many hand made pipes particularly the Meerschaums are works of art shaped into pirates heads and suchlike. Meerschaum is a soft chalky material and is easily carved. It is mined extensively in Turkey.

Pipe tobaccos come in a variety of forms. Plug and twist are, as their names suggest, thick twistwith leaves spun into a roll or a dark black pigtail of thin twist, and the plug a small block. The tobacco was shaved off with one's penknife and rubbed into shreds in the palm of the hand. Plug is not generally available now as it usually sold in a sliced flake form. Twist is available in thick and pigtail form from very specialised retailers and is often soaked in peach juice or rum for additional flavour. Twists can be rolled into a rope form and cut into coin shaped rounds as Copes Escudo and in a smaller form the small oval coins of Three Nuns. None yesterday, none today and none tomorrow being an in joke of yesteryear. Escudo was a lighter mixture of Virginia and Louisiana Perique leaf the darker Perique in the centre of the coin.

The plug and thick twist varieties were dark and strong, though I am told quite cool to smoke. I knew a fellow who smoked Ogdens Walnut plug and inhaled deeply from the moment it was lit. He must be well into his seventies now if he survived the pickled lung. Old Ned Coakley smoked his Irish Yachtsman plug in a pipe with a silver hat on it which intrigued me as a child.

Most brands are now sold ready rubbed whether flake or slice. Another large chap of mature years smoked Gallaghers Rich Dark Honeydew in a huge pipe with the shreds of tobacco spilling from the bowl. Another smoked light Four Square Green in a calabash. I preferred my Escudo even though it was more expensive, a cut above the rest. Another brand which was unusual was Edgeworth an American sliced tobacco which had the addition of a little molasses, giving a sweeter taste. This was smoked by a gourmet acquaintance of mine who at this time is alive and living in Staffordshire.

One of the most interesting characters was an older chap who smoked Condor, a heavy smoke. He was worldly wise and regaled us younger folk with tales of his National Service on the sun splashed deck of a patrol boat, in Akrotiri or Limassol as a member of the Fleet Air Arm. He also shared his interesting moments with the faster Cypriot ladies. I seem to remember an advertisement concerning a smiling, contented gent having just lit his pipe, the tag line being; "That Condor moment! Our friend in the Fleet Air Arm, if he is to believed, had many such moments.

Big tobacconists like Bentons tended to blend their own mixtures. In fact I remember going downstairs to a huge pile of tobacco which had been dampened in transit and was hugely mildewed and useless. These mixtures are usually in shag form being quite finely shredded and come in forms from dark to very light. The term shag refers to finely shredded varieties. The shredding is finer than ready rubbed and a lighter smoke. A very fine dark tobacco almost in shag form is Dunhills Royal Yacht, with a burnt chocolate taste and aroma and quite pricey in its red and yellow tin.

There many brands, too numerous to mention here but they all appeared in seried rows on Benton's shelves. Balkan Sobranie with Russian Latakia leaf and a specialised Sobranie cigar leaf are also very distinctive in their white and gold flat tins. However most tobacco nowadays is served in pouches of the ready rubbed variety. I suppose flake and sliced are still available in their distinctive tins. I just have not seen a specialised tobacconist for ages. I think are a dying breed.

The next step up are the cigars and cigarettes and they will be dealt with in another post. The cigar humidor which Bentons stocked was also a work of art. In the meantime this lot can go up in smoke and drift across the ether.

JL March 24 11:32

Friday in Lent

Looking back
I could always see
Within the slants of rain
Through the whisps of
Guttering candle smoke
Your shadowed spirit
Walking in the world

So easy on occasion
To turn my back
To slip and slide
Into denial
Not to give a second
Moments thought
To my disloyal will.

Now pausing
At an opening door
I see your shape
Clad in the brown mantle.
Your arm around my shoulder
Leading me on.

JL March 23 11:41

Lenten note from Jeremiah 3:12,14.

Flight of Fancy

Come with me
To walk upon the hills,
To look upon the shafts
Of light through cloud,
And then to feel
The sharpened cut
Of slicing wind,
To whistling soar
Above the rushing
Shadows of the plain,
To spread the
Fantasy of wings,
And skim the shining river
Like a polished stone,
Swerving by the
Roaring surf
Then back again,
Rise high above the dune
To level with the lark,
There to sing
The selfsame song
While lilting sink
Into the soft seduction:
The sun kissed silence
Of a summer afternoon.

JL March 22 10:54

Equinox

Here is my equinox
Set in light
Before the night.

Here the turn of tide
Brings in the same
Time and again.

Here is the melody
Stilled by the beat
Of a dark drum.

Here is the hero
Scarred yet smiling
In the evening sun.

Here is the night watch
Hands before the fire
Now day is done.


JL March 21 14:43

Three Years On

Three years ago
The words slipped

Three years ago
A tiny crack

Over time grows
Large and deep

Dividing flesh
From living soul

The steps grow
Ever steeper

On the way down.

I still look up
Still chart
Days of sunshine
And take heart.

JL March 20 12:14 thanks to all the helping hands

Blossom

Said hello
To blossom today
Dearie.

It smiles at me
From branch to branch,

And in the corner
Of the wall
Shoots are prising
Bricks apart.

The silly collared dove
Peers at me
With orange eye
Unflappable

Away away
To the bobbin
Of the Robin
Tail high.

Certainly scent
Of spring sprung
And yesterday
Laetare
So we will
Rejoice.
Join my voice.

JL March 19 11:25

Midnight

How strange 
That in the cities
Of the night 
Contending armies
Battle for our souls 

Hope's pale forces
Assailed by dark despair
Shining kindness
By cruellest regiments
Of pain.

And then from 
An unexpected place
A soft effusion 
Of deep pacifying love

A cloak to gather round me
And a magic  Persian carpet
To carry me to sleep.

Into the cathedral
At the heart of light.

JL mid lent Sunday March 18 16:10

Bentons

Bentons the tobacconists was on Peters Street, next to the Midland Hotel and at the base of the YMCA building, just by the Free Trade Hall on a direct route from the city, on foot, to Central Station. It was on the corner and filled the whole corner and was therefore a very substantial emporium.

As a small boy I was head high to the rounded glass display cases. They were unusual in that, unlike modern square glass case counters these were of rounded glass like a huge roll top desk only in solid glass. There was a slim wooden top which served as a resting place for puchased items. This furniture was to the left. Straight ahead was a small counter flanked by a pile of smoker's requisites of various kinds. To the right was a conventional, rectangular glass display case.

When I arrived, I was directed behind the left hand counter and I went down into the cellar where my uncle would be dealing with various items of stock. He gave me a small shiny brown paper parcel tied with string leaving a loop for my finger. The parcel contained my father's cigarettes, Wills Woodbines. I then made my way home.

During my time in the Manchester rag trade I made various visits to make my own purchases. Then I had the opportunity to assess the truly magnificent array of tobacco products. I shall begin with the lowliest of these: snuff.

One was introduced to the ways, conventions and paraphernalia of snuff by Mr McVeigh. He was a later than middle aged gentleman, gently rounded, grey haired and displaying a ring on his little finger with a large diamond. There was story to this ring that I was never privy to, but it was rumoured to have had something to do with a gambling debt. He did not seem to me to have a penchant for poker with his chubby smiling face, more to do with cribbage or even bridge being the more appropriate.

Mr McVeigh was a taker of snuff. I know it may seem to be more in tune with the seventeen sixties that the nineteen sixties but the fact was, that he took snuff, and going by the size of the stock he was not alone. Snuff is powdered tobacco and comes in three sizes of grain: gros, demigros, and fin. Why the French I know not. To think of Mr McVeigh as a Pickwickian character would be a temptation but would be without foundation, lacking as he did any expanse of girth or manner of nonsense. In fact he represented the very essence of sobriety. He favoured carnation flavoured snuff of the fin kind. He observed the convention and etiquette of tapping his snuffbox three times and offering it to the assembled company. One must always offer one’s snuff. Apart from the airtight snuff box the other essential perquisite was a dark coloured handkerchief for wiping stray snuff from one's weskit and stertoriously blowing one's nose. Paisley pattern was a sometime favourite. Only the most utilitarian snuffboxes were for sale, generally of Rosewood. As you may well know, snuffboxes became items of fashionable distinction in days gone by and there are many collections of ornamental boxes which are worth a small fortune. I am informed, that they were, in their day, part of a pickpocket’s prize haul.

I cannot remember where all the different kinds of snuff were kept, but I do know they were generally made by Wilsons of Sheffield. There were many different flavours to tempt the nostril with either a pinch between thumb and forefinger or laid carefully on the back of the hand in two tiny piles, one for each sniff. I suppose it was an easy and convenient way of taking nicotine when the bother of laborious pipe lighting was not appropriate; more suited therefore to a Georgian fop than the country squire or churchwarden by his fireside.

In later life I came upon a gentleman who took snuff of the gros grain variety without a scented flavour which he referred to as Sheffield Grit. That certainly made your eyes water.

Speaking of the churchwarden brings me nicely to the second stage of
tobacco taking. The long clay churchwarden pipe was a great favourite of the pipe smoker for a long cool draw. It is much to be seen in olde prints of gentlemen around a fireside at the Inn.

Tobacco in the guise of Plug, Thick Twist and Light Shag I will keep for a later post.

JL March 17 13:02

Don't Forget

The first time
You kissed me
Do you remember?

When holidays
Were sun days long
Do you remember?

It was fleeting
Just behind my ear
Do you remember?

Then off you rushed
In a whirl of skirts
Do you remember?

I remember the taste
The smear
Of chocolate biscuit.

I remember your scent
A hint
Of burnt vanilla.

I remember your breath
A tingle
To lift my soul.

And now down the torrent of the years, the ups and downs and the roundabouts, the tears and joy and laughter in the rain, and that moment between us when there were no words, just no words at all to etch the ecstasy...... how could I forget?

The question is
Do you?


JL March 16 14:10

The River Bank

"The mole had been working very hard all morning, spring cleaning his little home.  First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with  a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.  Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with it's spirit of divine discontent and longing."

That's me divine discontent.

JL thanking( Kenneth Grahame)

March 15 17 : 10

On The Shore

All quiet on the shore
Far out a solitary craft
Stolidly chugs home
Net and dinghy behind.

Late eiders 
Sift in the shallows
Sanderlings and suddenly
A shower of Knots
Swirl out by the channel

One day this mist
This envelope of cloud
Will lift
And take me with it
To a sunlit place.

JL March 14 14:55

Light

By yellow light
The winter aconite

By the hedge line
Celandine

On the skyline seen
The willow's palest green

These heralds sing
Of coming spring

JL March 13 15:55

City Link

A monday
Another shiny
Bright week
Laughing at me

Daffodils that clap
Their yellow hands
Applauding spring
Crocus that wear
The purple apparel
Of a Lenten liturgy

The hyacinth
Still there
Swooning me
With scent
And satisfaction
For the day
Till
City link deliver
Dinners for a month
All Raspberry.

JL March 12 13:17

Slow End

Slow end
To a grey Sunday

The finches twitter
Before they roost.

I just yawn
Stretch these bones

Weigh the muscles.
Just a slip away

Oh would I could
Raise my game.

Raise my soul.

JL March 11 17 :05

Landmarks

I seem to remember as a child, thinking of myself as a child and therefore before the age of twelve but not quite having any signposts, there were summers of laburnham mornings. I the runner of errands, found myself on the 97 bus to town, to collect my father's cigarettes from my uncle.

My uncle managed a large and prosperous tobacconists next to the Midland Hotel. If there were not signposts there were landmarks. I got off the bus (alighted in transport parlance). I remember the warning printed by the rear platform, not to alight while the bus was still in motion. Everyone did it, leaping in the air to a running alightment. They also swung on, clinging to the pole as the bus moved off landing breathless on the platform, just in time. Life on the rear platform of a double decker bus was hazardous. Many was the time I stood on the platform clinging on for dear life as the bus made a sharp right turn, threatening to throw me into the road. Of course one showed a brave face, grinning into the wind, hair blown back. It was in fact a grimace of sheer terror as I hastened to scramble inside the lower saloon. Saloon indeed, but that was what it was called. "Riding on the platform is prohibited" was another instruction which was was only observed in quiet times. In the rush hour it was uniformly ignored.

I alighted at Mamelocks, the music shop on Oxford road, pausing to note that Boosey and Hawkes seemed to have a large showing and the allusion always made me smile, envisaging as i did, drunken clarinette players. Opposite was the Refuge Assurance building, now The Palace hotel and on I went up into Oxford street, past the Tootal building noting the array of neck ties and cravats wholesale only, the Gaumont Cinema and the Gaumont Long Bar. Later I was to know the Long Bar as an habitual, notorious, late night resort of Les Demoiselles de la nuit. However when I visited, in the company of a few cronies, we were disappointed by the vista of the usual suspects, tired and dusty old men.

I passed the Odeon opposite and arrived In St Peters Square, the site in 1819 of the Peterloo Massacre. In august of that year the residents of Petersfields were joined by sundry elements to hear a speech on parliamentary reform. The crowd grew so large, that the city magistrates were fearful for the preservation of public order and read the riot act, calling in the dragoons. Many women and children were among the hundred and forty injured and about eleven men were reportedly hacked down and slain.

The Midland Hotel is on the left, a prestigious hostelry at that time in the fifties, product of the London Midland and Scottish railway, with it's huge Central Station to the rear. Looking into the square was the Central library. Having arrived here I crossed the road to my uncle's shop on the corner of Peters Street.q

This was more than a mere tobacconists, more an emporium of gentlemen's accessories. Having spent so long on the journey the description of the shop will have to wait for a later post. Suffice it to say that it was a sight to see and a scent to savour.

JL March 10 08:41

Inconsequential Rhyme

Sometimes rhymes
With limes
Giving a green
Sheen
Seen
In the corner of my eye
With sky and high
Then pale blue
With me and you.
Together we chime
So back to lime
It's a fine line
To the first of Spring time
Today
Claire’s birthday
Hey!

JL March 9 12:31

Dust

Looking into dusty corners
Sweeping dead leaves
Cutting back the branches
Hoping for new growth

And in this desert
Will the spirit rise anew?
Or still remain grains
Running through my fingers

Pause and  lean
Catch one's breath
Look for better 
On the morrow.

JL March 8 18:15

Chill

Chill wind
To catch the blackbird
On his apple core,
The finches
On their feeder

I’ll not venture
Out today
JL March 7 17:01

Yesterday Evening

Sometimes there is a certain atmosphere to the closing of a day that speaks more than of itself. It is a rolling up of many ends of days particularly those winter days of smoky sunsets, lights in distant windows, with mists that seem to rise like spirits from the fields. On such an evening I am recalled to some earlier life where the structures are more simple and the memories, once like shadows, are sharpened into silhouettes.

In the twilight silence
Of this winter's day
The evening fires
Send smoky spirals
Through the chilling air

The rise and cadence
Of the stepping notes
Of plainsong
Are tight and measured
In the cloistered close

The nunc dimittis
Said and done

Gaude Virgo gloriosa
Super omnes speciosa

Thus far my faltering
Steps have come.

JL March 6 12:45

Start The Week

Told today
On radio four
I have too many years
By literary lore
To be writing poetry
Anymore.

It's all to do
With young mans stuff
And actions
Undertaken in the buff
The urge of sexual drive
That brings the lines alive

All I have to say:
My license
Has been took away
As much by ingenuity
As by the DVLA.

I will always be loving of a kiss
And always willing just to reminisce

And now just to say
I'll not have Andrew
Marr my day.

JL March 5 11:50

Mimosa

Do you remember
Late winter
Aquitaine

Yellow powdered
Profusion
Of mimosa

Once sensed
And scented
As a child

Perfumed
The vase
Of daffodils

From every flower shop
In Englan then

And today
Ne'er a one

Probably cos
The Dutch
Don't do Mimosa.

JL March 4 12:36

Room 101

Apologise for hiatus but still trying to release myself from hospital. Aintree hospital ward 19 has the most uncomfortable bed i have had the misery to lie in. This did not help my oxygen readings in the night.

The consultant was very informative and efficient and explained the reading of the print out. He would have liked to have initiated further tests with different masks but I was adamant and forthright about another night in that bed. I was given a morning with the excellent physio, who took me through a variety of masks and we eventually settled on one.

After that session and the lack of sleep I was completely wasted. Arriving home I took to my own bed and slept for five hours till seven. I went to bed at ten with the new mask and ventilator and had a good nights comfortable sleep.

I am now back in the world and continue to blog on the morrow

JL March 3 9:39

In the quiet room

Here on the wifi hotspot.

Will this be a double edged sword provided by the almighty to dull the effect of a longer stay than expected with lots of hoops to jump through or given the location jumps to get over. There is a huge chair in the corner of this room. Shades of room 101. I am under no illusions that this will be a trial. Nora is sitting opposite immersed in her kindle and may well stay in Wallasey. She should have gone to the theatre tonight but now is drawn into mire with me.


JL March 1 2:40

Aintree

In krankenhous again

Aintree to have a bridle fitted.

JL March 1 11:34