Still have not quite gone to Sicily… Every day I anxiously check the Catania Airport update, and so far, touch all possible wood, it is open. Etna is still busily steaming away though… But Battleaxe life carries on. Had a nice visit from step-daughter Anna, who was dong some work in Brighton, and then, later in the week, a sad two-day visit to Birmingham, for the funeral of our dear old friend Dave Jones. It was good to see Carole, his wife, and housing people I have not seen for at least fifteen years… At funerals, it is not appropriate to take photos. Then I went to a Hastings Book Festival workshop, ‘How not to sell your book’. Sssh – it wasn’t that great. The weather here has been really lovely – sunny and warm with no more of that scorching, enervating heat that we suffered in high summer. You can see what I mean here, in this photo of Philosopher and Anna, in the Country Park.
So, off we went to Birmingham. I have known Dave, and his wife Carole Wildman, for many years, and Philosopher was close to them as well. Dave was a partner in a non-traditional architects’ practice called first, Bower Mattin, and then BM3. I say non-traditional because it was a bit radical – all about creating spaces where people – many of whom were social housing tenants – would want to live, and not what developers thought they should have. The practice is still thriving – look at their fancy website…. Dave and his family lived near us in Kings Heath, Birmingham, and we saw a lot of them. I said I didn’t take any photos, but here is Dave pictured in the funeral brochure. So sad. Dave was a true one-off.
BM3 owned (and still own) and occupied a large former factory building in the then somewhat run-down Digbeth area of central Birmingham, and in the last few years before I left work to come to Hastings, my company, Central Consultancy and Training, rented office accommodation in their building. Before that, our two companies had shared many hospitality drinks events for our customers at housing conferences. Back then, those architects, probably with Dave at the forefront, were legendary drinkers and party animals, which suited me just fine… Down in Digbeth, I used to spend much time screaming at the hapless architects over real and imagined defects in the building, but it didn’t seem to affect our relationship. Interestingly, at the funeral, many of my former customers could remember me screaming at them and not much else…
It’s strange, you know. Looking back, I can now see that when I was in charge, our company would also have been seen as a bit radical, unconventional, pretty left-wing, and run by a notorious Battleaxe-in-training. At the time, I couldn’t really see that. I used to get very cross that the more main-stream housing organisations didn’t often use our services. But I know now that by and large, people like safe. They don’t want to pay people to shout at them… (mind you, some did. A few CEOs enjoyed it far too much. The more I shouted, the more they loved it. Not quite healthy. I could have made a good alternative living armed with whips and gimp masks.) My old company has a very fancy website too, now. Look at this. There are now loads of consultants… I trust that these days, they are a bit more conventional…
A few years ago Dave suffered a truly horrendous spinal injury, leaving him very disabled. Life for him and Carole changed overnight. It was so striking to us that whatever suffering Dave had to undergo, and however ill he was, he was still Dave… he got repeated infections of various sorts, and spent much time in hospital. Finally though, he succumbed.
Dave had an enormous family – 5 kids over two marriages, 9 grand children and so far, 5 great-grandchildren. So, the funeral was pretty family-orientated.
We stayed with our friends Sue and Alex – they had only been down to Hastings the week before!
Book Festival? I just hate doing the marketing for my novels and know I should do so much more, so thought I would subject myself to the workshop. It was run by a man called Colin Brush, who worked at a senior level for Penguin Books. It only lasted for an hour but he tried to cram so much in I thought he would spontaneously combust with extreme cognitive overload. Sadly, I didn’t get the magic trick I wanted – a quick way to do the marketing without actually having to do any work… I tried to take a photo of the flyer but found Philosopher had made it into a paper dart. That seems totally appropriate somehow… Here it is anyway.
To finish, here is another photo from the Country Park. Battleaxe looks a bit fat. Will I have been to Sicily by the time I write again? Who knows. It has been very wet there this week, which I think dampens down the volcanic ash.
