Filed under: Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Childhood, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Paul
While it may not mean much to you other than being an old photo of a street, it’s the sign that says ‘Raleigh’ that means so much to me.
You see when you’re a kid, you look for a sign that where you’re from has value. Something that lets you feel like you’re in a special place. That you have a shot at something, even if it’s by osmosis of geography.
For me, there were 2 things.
Nottingham Forest and Raleigh Bikes.
In the case of Forest, it was the beginning of Brian Clough’s era at the City Ground … where he took a provincial team to the heights of Europe. Not once, but twice.
For a young kid, just getting into football … that was the best feeling in the World.
To know you were from the same place that had the King’s of Europe made you feel on top of the World.
But those days were just unfolding, which is why there was another sign that I was born in a special place.
Raleigh Bicycles.
While the actual business was a bit of a nightmare – always flying close to the wind – no one really knew that because the company was World famous for 2 bikes.
The Chopper and the Grifter.
While they made many bikes … and there were many different bike manufacturers all over the world … those 2 of all the bikes they made and were available, were icons.
Even later, when they helped popularise the BMX with their Tuff Burner range, nothing came close to the impact, social kudos and design distinctiveness of those two.
The Chopper – specifically the Mark 1 and 2 – were the creme de la creme.
Despite being notoriously dangerous – both for its bad weight balance [especially when giving someone a croggy] and the location of it notorious groin busting gear lever – it became an instant classic.
It looked like the motorbike in the movie Easy Rider … which for a kid felt like the ultimate in cool rebellion.
And then there was the hefty Grifter that came after it.
Like a Grand Tourer Harley, it was heavy as hell with massive, chunky tyres… but it also was more sturdy and solid than its Chopper cousin. And while it didn’t possess the same danger to your future parent potential, it still had this massive metal bar running along the top of the bike that had the ability to hurt you if you stopped too soon.
I didn’t have a Chopper, but I had a Grifter and even though I sold it when I turned 15 – so 37 years ago – it still has an indelible mark on me.
Which is why Raleigh’s demise still hurts.
Because back then, it was more than just the demise of a brand that I had put so much of my identity in … it was a sign that great can fail.
In many ways, it was the first experience I had of collapse.
I appreciate that sounds ridiculous – and privileged – but it’s true.
It was a sign that whatever your best intentions, success was not assured.
Worse, even if you do achieve it, you may not keep it.
It was a life lesson that really hit me hard … made more challenging by me finding school hard.
Especially exams.
Of course, now I am older I also appreciate that hardship can sometimes become good … if you work hard and have a bunch of luck. But I wish I had worked that out earlier, rather than placing so much importance on things that had nothing to do with me other than being from the same geographical location.
But I still feel loss about Raleigh.
)
Nottingham is a great city, but it’s icons keep dying.
From the lace markets to the coal mines to the factories that churned out everything from cigarettes to technology equipment to even the ownership of Boots The Chemist.
Maybe that’s why Forest are so important to me.
That even though they faced 23 years in the wilderness, they are still alive.
Better yet, they managed to defeat the odds and stay in the Premiership.
A sign that the place I was raised, still is worth something to the people who live there.
I hope so.
Because Nottingham offers so much more than simply being the place where the iconic Raleigh Chopper and Grifters were born.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, China, Colenso, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Emotion, Empathy, England, Family, Friendship, Happiness, Home, Jill, London, Loyalty, Mum, Mum & Dad, New Zealand, Nottingham, Nottingham Forest, Otis, Parents
I was born in 1970 in Nottingham.
For 25 years, I lived there, worked there, socialised there.
Sure, I also worked in London … but I always came home to NG2.
Every. Bloody. Night.
But in 1995, I left.
I went to Australia and started an adventure all over the place. And while I back to the UK after 24 years – I never went back to living in Nottingham.
And yet, despite having now spent more time away from Nottingham than living in it, it’s still what I regard as ‘home’.
Sure it’s where my formative years were spent.
Sure it’s where my parents ashes have been spread.
Sure it’s where my beloved Paul still lives.
Sure it’s where my football team resides.
Sure it’s where I spent the longest period of my life in.
But still …
What is also interesting is that when I go back, while I feel a sense of familiarity, I also feel disconnected. Of course, that’s to be expected when you’ve been away for so long … but it means when I think – or am in – Nottingham, I feel displaced and comforted at the same time.
It’s a weird feeling, caught between 2 emotional poles …
A stranger in where you believe you come from.
Of course, I go through similar feelings when I visit previous places I once lived – especially Shanghai, which is the place I probably felt the most connected to – but Nottingham is where I have roots [or where I used to have them] and so while I am far away, I am increasingly surrounding myself with stuff that reminds me of the place.
But I don’t want to go back.
It is my past rather than my future.
And that’s where it all gets complicated because I want Otis to have a place where he can build roots like I did with Nottingham, but I don’t know if that’s possible or where that is.
He’s 8 and lived in 4 countries already.
More than that, at some point we’ll be leaving here.
Don’t get me wrong, we love NZ.
We adore our home.
But we feel our life still has other places to go.
It won’t happen in the short term …
We are happy here, Otis absolutely adores it, we want him to be in a place longer than the 2 year periods he’s experienced so far in his life and I haven’t yet repaid the generosity the country has shown us … but it will eventually happen and so I wonder what Otis will regard as his ‘identity’.
If you ask him now, he’ll say, “China”.
I love that, but it’s also more because of where he was born rather than where he was raised.
So we shall see.
Of course we could just stay here and remove the issue … and while there’s a big part of us that would like to do that, we also would like to be closer to the people who matter most to us.
At some point.
This may all sound like a reason to never move country and if that’s how it comes across then that would be wrong.
It’s dead easy to think about what you will miss by moving away but you need to think about what you will gain. And in my case, apart from Paul and Shelly in Nottingham … every single thing in my life is because I took that leap.
Everything.
My wife.
My son.
My cat.
My home.
My career.
My life.
So while identity is increasingly important to me, I’m not going to devalue the utter privilege of the adventure we’ve had – and will hopefully keep having. Especially given nationalism is increasingly acting as a barrier towards the understanding and acceptance of others… rather than a way for people to identify, share and grow.
Filed under: America, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Comment, Food, New Zealand, Nottingham
I am – and have always been – a sentimental fool.
And I appreciate the last couple of weeks have seen me write a bunch of particularly sentimental posts …
Identity.
Belonging.
My childhood in Nottingham.
… and guess what, here’s another one, albeit a slightly more tragic one.
Chips.
No, not the stuff Americans and Kiwis think they are … I mean hot chips.
The stodgy magic you smother in ketchup, mushy peas and gravy.
God I love chips.
British chips.
Golden pillows of burning hot majesty.
Food that fills you up and warms you up.
When I was growing up, you could get chips on almost every corner.
20 pence for a bag of them or a tray of them.
It could be a reward … a celebration … or just a way to bond with your mates.
But it was only when I left the UK that I realised the magic ingredient of chips.
Vinegar.
Specifically malt vinegar.
Specifically Sarson’s malt vinegar.
Acidic drops of heaven … sour death on their own, addictive temptation on chips.
I am still in shock how few people outside the UK like vinegar on their chips. I am horrified at how many look at me with revulsion when I suggest it. But then I also look at these people with pity because they don’t know what they’re talking about and have absolutely zero taste.
Ask me what I’d want as a final meal and after a massive bowl of pasta [olive oil, salt, no sauce – sorry Mum] I’d say a tray of chip shop chips, mushy peas and gravy with some salt and positively drowned in vinegar.
OH. MY. GOD.
You can screw your Michelin restaurants …
And why am I saying all this?
Because like a few weeks ago, when I got some mushy peas I recently got a bottle of Sarson’s.
Oh my god, how happy I was.
Sarson’s … the fluid of fantasticness.
But better yet, it was a present … a present from Jill.
Let me tell you, nothing says love like a bottle of Sarson’s.
So thank you Jill. You may regret your decision, but I’m so grateful for your bad taste.
Literally. Hahaha.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, America, Attitude & Aptitude, Australia, China, Corona Virus, Dad, Daddyhood, Emotion, England, Family, Hong Kong, Jill, LaLaLand, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, New Zealand, Nottingham, Otis, Parents
The above photo was taken back in 2020.
We were living in Fulham.
Everyone was working from home.
And we suspected Otis may have had COVID.
As it turned out, he didn’t – thankfully.
But I love that photo.
The closeness.
The intimacy.
The caring Mum and the curious kid.
A shared moment ruined by me coming in and taking a pic – as usual, hahaha.
But who can blame me? Those two are everything to me.
And the older I get, the more I realise how much time I didn’t spend with them.
That realisation started with COVID.
While the pandemic was so devastating to so many – it was very good to me.
I got to be with my family for longer than I’d ever been in our time together.
Waking up together.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner together.
Putting Otis to bed and then going to bed with Jill at the same time.
EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
Now I know for so many that’s a regular thing but for me it wasn’t and the experience was wonderful and confronting.
Wonderful for how it made me feel. Confronting for how I had allowed that to happen.
Don’t get me wrong … I love work. Or should I say I love parts of work.
And as much as it may not be cool to say anymore, but I loved the travel.
Not being on a plane for the COVID years – bar, moving to NZ – felt like a genuine loss.
Not at first – initially it felt amazing, given how regularly I had been travelling – but after 2+ years, I was ready to hear those engines whir into life. Just not so regularly as I had before … because flying internationally at least once a week, every week for years was just plain idiotic.
And while I don’t want to let all of it go, I have been changing big parts of how I am choosing to live and it all came from something my Dad once said to me.
You see, my Dad had quite an eclectic early professional life.
Not just changing jobs, but whole industries.
I remember asking him why he had done it and he said this:
“I love you and your Mum. So if I’m going to be away from you both for most of the day, I better like what I’m doing because nothing would be so disrespectful as being away for something I hate”
Now I appreciate the privilege in that statement.
There are many who don’t have the opportunity to chase after things that interest them.
And for my Dad, that was enabled by the stability of my brilliant Mum – similar to what Jill has done for me in allowing me to uproot us every few years for an adventure in some other far distant part of the world.
But while I’ve generally enjoyed what I have done … as I get older, it’s becoming more and more apparent that I want to ensure my family is given even greater prioritisation in what I do. That doesn’t mean they weren’t before … but I realise they could have been prioritised a fuck load more.
In some ways, it’s a perfect time for this to happen.
I’m approaching a point in life where some decisions will have to be made regarding my future.
What do I want to do?
Who do I want to do it with – and for?
What do I want to explore, experience and achieve?
Where is the best place for us to be located?
What are the conditions we need to protect what we have?
For me, these are revelation questions.
Previously, I just went with whatever excited/scared me/us the most.
And while this doesn’t mean we’re now happy to settle – because let’s face it, I suck at it, thanks to my only-child inspired, competitive, curious and annoyingly ambitious energy – it does mean these questions ensure my/our decisions are focused on ensuring my family get the best of me, not just what is left of me because the one thing covid taught me is nothing is as important as being together.
It’s pathetic I needed a global pandemic to really drive that home.
But to paraphrase my dad, nothing would be as disrespectful to my family than ignoring what became one of the most precious times of my life with my family.
Thanks to Easter, I get to spend the next 4 days with them … hopefully eating chocolate.
So wherever you are and whoever you’re with, I hope you get to spend it with someone that matters.
Even if that’s just yourself.
Happy holiday … and I apologise for the indulgent, happy-clappy post of today.
Every October in Nottingham, we have something called Goose Fair.
Goose Fair is as massive attraction with food, games and rides. Its history stretches back to 1541 which means it may be the oldest fair in Europe.
OK, so what it is today is very different to what it is now … but for me, it’s something filled with brilliant memories.
In many ways, it was as exciting as Christmas.
Not just because it was an annual event, but it was a life so different to my normal life.
Lights, colour, sound.
It was a trip into another world.
So many moments of my childhood are connected with Goose Fair.
From going with my Dad in my earliest years … winning my first ever ‘pet’ [a goldfish] … falling down an incredibly muddy hill because Dad thought he saw a short-cut to the car park … the hilarity of bumping into everyone on the dodgems … taking the ever-beautiful, Danish Mia there … then, when older, getting given a bag of 10 pence pieces from my parents, so I could go with Paul and spend it on rides, slot machines and food.
Oh the food …
Burgers, hot dogs and mushy peas.
The mushy peas stand out the most because you didn’t ever get them anywhere else.
A polystyrene cup, filled with piping hot mushy peas that you would then coat in mint sauce.
I know … it sounds disgusting, but it tasted like heaven.
And I know for a fact that is not my memory talking because this is what I bought last weekend …
… and it was delicious, even if Otis thought I was an insane animal.
Him aside, I will always be grateful to Goose Fair.
For the memories, the experiences, the moments and the history it has given me.
One day I will return, until then, I’ll just have my questionable food choices to comfort me.