Mum

 so difficult to believe how the time has zipped past.

This month, March 2021 , you would have been 100 years old.

I miss you, so much, and when the following picture pops up on my iPad.... I need to take a breath.

Daddy Cool and the Chicago 7 (8)

 Music has been fundamental to my life since I was a child in Calcutta. Moving to Britain in the 1950's provided me with the opportunity to grow up in London in the 1960's. An extraordinary time to be alive.

Now, late in my life I have been blessed with another opportunity to use my love of music and the fact that I was surrounded by so much socio-cultural change and to share these experiences with others; I use my alter ego daddy cool on a radio show on 97.5 FM where I put on a show called the Beatles and Beyond.
It’s central theme is of course music by the Beatles and the rest of the performers that came along in that decade. It just so happens, that’s so much of the iconic events are coming up with their 50th anniversary‘s now. It gives me a jumping off point to select music to play.

I do try and emphasize particular occurrences that had consequences outside of the entertainment business. But as it is essentially a music show so I do not raise too many of those events.  It does weigh heavily on me that so many people and so much of TV and movies of that era, emphasize the youthfulness and joyfulness only,  however, if you were there, you would know about the dark underbelly of those times.

By that, I refer to the Vietnam war and the protests and the civil rights movement that doesn’t get any deep serious analysis on the regular networks.
I strongly encourage  everyone to watch the Netflix original show The Trial of the Chicago seven. It is an amazing representation of just one event; a slice of time that seems to have been a part of a Monty Python show. It is about the trial, originally of  young men Who went to the Democratic national convention in Chicago in August 1968. They wanted to voice their concern over the handling of the war and the Draft. What happened  was a riot that they were blamed for, and as you see in the show the root cause of the riot was the actions of  the Chicago police force and Chicago City Hall.

One of the Chicago eight was Bobby Seale A member of the black panther group. The way he was treated by the judicial system is an outrage. In an effort to keep the court room activity moving, they removed him from that setting.

The Sixties we’re NOT just about peace and love and music.  There was a huge Movement to change the established guard , or in the phraseology of the Times "stick it to the man!"

This program really shows you why Youth at that time  were, in numbers increasing because of the Baby Boom, but were in fact marginalized by the political institutions of the era.

Do Watch it.

March 13, 1970

 It was about 7 PM on Friday, March 13, 1970. 

My father and I had left Kingsbury Tube Station,  got in the car to drive home and turned on the radio to listen to the BBC. In that time slot they played tracks from the new albums released that week. 

It was the last day that I would be commuting in London, that is why it is emblazoned in my memory. One album they played was Willie and the poor boys, from Credence Clearwater Revival. Here, from that album, is a track that was released as a single and became a hit. It is forever in my memories of those transitional days. CCR and Down on the Corner. 

The number one tune that week in the US and UK was Bridge Over Troubled Water from Simon and Garfunkel.

And also in the top 10 Billboard chart  that week was The Hollies with He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother and the Beatles'  Let it Be.

All songs that are still played on the radio in 2020.

And all very much linked to that drive home from the Tube Station with my dad.

October Crisis

 I was still in my first year as an immigrant in Canada. I had travelled a fair bit around southern Ontario but did not feel that I was a Canadian yet. However, I did think I still belonged to the community of western democracies.

Canada, just like America, the UK and Europe were embroiled in a struggle between the present generation and the old guard over the need for the Vietnam war.

As I had mentioned earlier, the struggles that Canadians were different from the other countries  had not really sunk into my consciousness. It was a great surprise to find Canada suddenly struggling over of a sense of identity and free speech and radical groups when the October crisis occurred.

I was living in Toronto but had friends in Montreal and I travel there quite a few weekends in my first months to stay with them. It was October 1970, I was visiting the family friends who lived in the western part of Montreal Island and I took the train into the city.
It came as a great shock to see tanks travelling down Ste. Catherines.  I went into Le Château to browse clothes and when I came out,  standing right by the exit, was a soldier in full uniform and weapons standing guard looking out. I had to walk past him, no more than 6 or 10 inches apart.  He just stared ahead. I assumed his eyes were sweeping up and down the street looking for trouble makers.

It was surreal.

Not something I had expected to experience in my new country.

Drag Racing

As baby boomers grew up in the 1950's, they were fascinated by the experiences of their older siblings.  The ones who were too young to go to war, yet, because of the war,  had a very unusual childhood & adolescence.

The post war period saw these new "Young Adults" adopting new lifestyles -  the original Hippies and modern music; either Jazz or Folk. Basically rebelling against the previous generation.

So, while we were still teenagers,  the life style that became known as the west coast lifestyle was something we aspired to; even we in Britain. Maybe I am stretching it too far to say Britain, it was probably more a case of being centred in London.

It began with Surfing and Surfin' music then the marketers needed to move up an age cohort and looked to Drag racing and muscle cars. Both of these interests were reflected in our musical fancies:

Surfin' Safari; Wipe-out; lots more surf based themes,  then, Little Deuce Coupe; Shut Down; Hey. Little Cobra. (Mind you, there was nothing little about the Cobra. It was a beast of a motor. If you had kept your 1965 AC Cobra, you could probably get $2 Million for it now!)

Strangely enough, the record companies thought there was a market for albums of Drag Racing Sounds. The first one, "The Sounds of the Big Drags" actually sold over 100,000 copies! It led to follow ups specializing on the different Drag Racing categories, such as Nitro burning dragsters.

Above  are some of the albums we were intrigued by in that era.

Pre-fab homes

 I have a memory of our early days in Kingsbury of walking through a small group of pre-fab houses on Kingsbury road at the edge of Roe Green. (That was the open green space that had existed since Norman times.) My grandmother and I walked home from Kingsbury Tube station to 16 Princes that went passed these homes.

Mostly, we went to Burnt Oak station and Watling Avenue when we went into town, and returned home from the opposite direction.  So this is a rare memory. I was about 12, (1956). 

By the time I traveled around Kingsbury regularly with my friends, it was 1959 and those homes had gone.
I do not recall ever discussing them in the intervening years.

However, Recent TV shows on housing in Britain over the centuries had an item on these structures. Suddenly, my memory of them returned. I had to find out more about them and what they were doing there.
They were a result of the extreme shortage in housing after the Second World War and were short term relief. Only meant to last 10 years or so. They were factory built and supposedly could be put up quicker than the usual brick built homes found in the UK.  They also required the Local Council to have available open space to place them in. Hence Wembley Borough offered Roe Green. (Wembley is now a part of the bigger Borough of Brent.)

Interesting enough, I found that Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts lived in one of the homes and their replacement council houses. That was how he ended up in the same school as me for a year, (I transferred out,) and in his newer home he was also a neighbour to my school friends.

vaccine for the traveler

In 1966, I was planning a trip to the United States during the summer break from college. As it happened, the UK and parts of Europe suddenly had a spike in smallpox cases.

America demanded that all visitors to the country must have been vaccinated against smallpox and had to show proof of such vaccination.

I went to my GP and requested a smallpox vaccination and asked what was the proof of vaccination. He gave me the vaccination and a small book that was acceptable to  the authorities. I am assuming to both the US and WHO standards. In it he wrote the name of the vaccine, and the date and his signature.

Then, I had to take the little book to Wembley Town Hall where the county medical health office was located. There, a charming bureaucratic lady took out a book of all the doctors in the county, with an example of their signature. She compared my GP's signature in the little book, agreed it was the same thing, and took out a little bureaucratic rubber stamp and proceeded to place the requisite stamp into my little book. It verified that everything was above board. I truly was vaccinated against smallpox. I had to show that little document when I arrived at passport control at JFK that summer.

Whenever they finally sort out COVID-19, I envisage a similar kind of document for travelers proving that:
a) they have tested negative for COVID-19 within the last 14 days, or, 
b) if a vaccine is available, we will have to be vaccinated and the signatures authenticated.
This process is in place, has been used for decades, but if a    Covid-19 vaccine becomes available, I am sure there will be people claiming infringement of all manner of liberties!!