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!!

I had a talk with my man

It is amazing how some friendships start and what it is that holds them together for nearly 6 decades.

It was my first month of attending Regent St., Polytechnic in 1964. The daily lecture schedule always began with an economics lecture in the main auditorium and then after 90 minutes or so we had a break.
Almost everybody would go to the cafeteria and have a cuppa tea. As one would expect from impoverished students, we had nothing more than a "round of toast." Do you know what a round of toast is? A peculiar English phrase meaning two slices of bread toasted, lightly buttered and then cut into a triangle; at least that is my memory of it.
The cafeteria had long tables with seats all around. We usually just plonked down without regard to who we were sitting next to. As it was our first month, friendships had not really been cemented yet. However, there I was sitting at a table, when a guy at the adjoining table leaned, over tapped me on the shoulder, and said:
“ heard a song on radio Luxemburg last night, a really great song by a female singer about her boyfriend. Do you know what it is?”
No, hello, my name is... or, who are you, whatever. Simply a question about music.
His name was Paul, as I found out later. I had never spoken to him before and I have never known why he picked on me. But he made a good choice because I was mad on music, particularly, as it turns out, the same kind of R&B and female group singers that he liked. I answered:
“ I bet it was I had a talk with my Man by Mitty Collier on Chess.”
“ yes yes, that’s the one. Do you want to go buy it at lunchtime?”
“OK, I replied.”
And so began the friendship that has lasted 56 years and counting.
There was no introduction it was straight into a question with a Stranger that happened to hit the mark. The quirkiness of that introduction was replicated in our relationship over the following decades. No one understood Paul the way I did, not even his beautiful wife, that I am pleased to say remains one of my friends to this day.
That simple music question led to a friendship that resulted in the three of us emigrating to Canada in 1970.

Libraries

Most people know that I lived in Kingsbury, NW London during my school years and early adulthood.
However the suburban area our house was located within a little area everybody just called the "Village". I never thought much of it at the time but I have come to learn that it was a reference to Roe Green Village, and its adjoining open space just called Roe Green. It is in fact, a 1000 year old village and it is referenced  in the Domesday book of 1086. There was nothing that old in the village; However, there was  a quaint setting of small cottages with beautiful thatched roofs.  In the same location as those cottages was a small library, an offshoot of the main library in Wembley town hall. This little library on Stag Lane in the village served me well all my growing up years.

I had a library card almost as soon as we arrived and when my Nana joined us she too was an avid reader. I remember many occasions that she and I would walk from 16 Princess Avenue to that little library on Stag Lane to take out the three books that you were allowed at one time.

Whoever ran the library was culturally aware and a very astute person. The little reading room for newspapers not only had the obvious The Times, Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Manchester Guardian (as it was known back then, now, simply The Guardian.) Our local paper naturally,  but also many magazines. I went regularly every week to read the latest copy of Autocar, Motor, National Geographic, Scientific American and as I look back on it now I realize they did not stock any of the tabloid magazines. Something that would be unheard of in the modern world.
What was especially interesting as you walked in  there was the check out and return desk facing you, but  right in front of that, was a table displaying the new additions. The librarian must have particularly liked to read the Sunday Times and The Observer for their book reviews; because what had just been reviewed was prominently  displayed. As those were two of the six newspapers we got every Sunday at No.16,  I and my friends looked over the new books for the ones that might interest us. It was great to be able to walk around the corner and borrow them as soon as they were published. It may not seem like much in today's world of clicking on your computer or iPad and having access to millions of books and journals, but it was pretty rare back in the fifties and sixties to live in a little suburban enclave and have such ready access to current books. It was especially significant as the library often had the books before they made the bestseller list or became controversial and then everybody wanted to borrow them!

As I said it was a small library, it did not have tens of thousands of books but a very eclectic collection. It focused on fiction and then in one corner, it had a non-fiction stack of shelves full of science books.
Starting from the time I was about 12 until I emigrated to Canada in 1970,  I can proudly claim that I read every science book in the library; regardless of which science discipline it was featuring. So began a lifelong love of science.

I am a staunch supporter of libraries and how empowering they are for all people in the community.

Support Your Library !

Albums that influenced me

I, like many others on Facebook, were given a task to choose ten albums that greatly influenced my taste in music. One album per day for ten consecutive days. It was supposed to be just album covers.  However, I could not resist a few comments.

*  Billy Joel’s brilliant The Stranger. 26 million and counting copies have been sold worldwide.
The vivid story telling of Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) is brilliant. One never tires of the description of Italian American Brooklyn. Only one of the great songs that are featured.

“Anthony works in the grocery store
"Savin' his pennies for someday”

*  One of the great English artists riding the wave of the British Invasion of the Sixties was Joe Cocker. He made his mark by redefining the Beatles ‘With a Little Help from my Friends'. However, this album, simply called Joe Cocker pointed the way for the rest of his career. A major interpreter of other writers’ songs. Listen to Delta Lady on this LP (Leon Russel’s song) and John Sebastian’s Masterpiece, Darling, Be Home Soon. A love song I wish I had written.

*  My introduction to Fusion Rock was this next album, The Mahavishnu Orchestra with The Inner Mounting Flame.
Amazing sound. I saw them in Toronto, the opening act was Weather Report. What a line up.
Listen to this with headphones... it will fill your brain.

*  The amazing Rolling Stones Let it Bleed. Christmas 1969 I played this constantly as I prepared to emigrate. You can’t always get what you want. At that juncture, I had little clue as to what I really wanted. A change; seemed simple enough, do not know why I had to move continents!
Never regretted that decision, nor have I tired of this album.

*  The amazing Joni Mitchell and Blue. Also on many other friends’ top 10 list.
What can I say.. Universal emotions yet something very Canadian for me to relate to.

*  Here is THE ultimate Otis Redding album, Otis Blue.  Recorded in less than 48 hours straight, between shows. Backed by the amazing Booker T & the MG's plus Memphis horns. What soul and RnB was all about in the Sixties. I have never stopped playing it.

*  THE album that turned everyone on to psychedelic rock was Surrealistic Pillow. At first I did not “get” it. Now, it remains on my everyday playlist. Jefferson Airplane’s 2nd LP but first with Grace Slick. The instrumental Embryonic Journey from this LP was used in the closing scene of the last 'Friends' episode..

*  Here is THE album that lead me to be a life-long devotee of this group & each member within.
At school, we all wondered how an instrumental could ooze so much soulfulness... no words, just an aching bluesy organ line then a wicked guitar break. Green Onions by Booker T & the MG's.

*  Now THE album that lead me to begin a 60 year admiration for Bob Dylan, Freewheelin'.  It captivated me back in 1963, won over my friends- - and a whole generation.

*  Here is one of the first vinyls I acquired. A birthday present for a 12 year old boy. Benny Goodman and his Orchestra, Trio and Quartet Live Radio Performances.  I loved big band music.
(I still have this LP down in the locker room in the Condo.)

RNOH

One of the reasons we moved to England was so that I could get treatment for scoliosis that had resulted from my contracting polio when I was 13 months old.
Ever diligent, my mother tracked down and got an appointment to see one of the leading children’s orthopaedic surgeons. His name was Mr. Jones. It is an oddity of the British homage to Class distinctions that "doctors" who belong to the "Royal College of Surgeons" are not referred to as Dr. James by their colleagues. He is known as Mr. James RSC.
He turned out to be a brilliant surgeon, a man I cannot thank enough for giving me the ability to live an independent life as an adult.
However, back then in 1954 when I was 10, I had an operation known as a spinal fusion that required me to be in hospital for 10 months. The hospital was a world leader in spinal work for children, The Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, (RNOH). It still exists.

Back then, in the immediate postwar years, the Brits had a strange view of children in hospitals. It was that visitors disrupted the business of the hospital and somehow delayed the children’s ability to heal.

It would be a reasonable assumption that the child in hospital particularly in the middle of the 20th century was likely to have siblings. However those siblings, if they were younger than 18 were not allowed to visit. Do not ask me what the rationale could have been but I did know that I was unhappy with not having my sister visit me; she was 14 at the time.
When I complained to my mother that it wasn’t fair,  my mother suggested that I,  personally, write to the head of the hospital's Chief of Patient Social Welfare, a position that had the odd title of Almoner. So I did. In my 10-year old scrawl. I told her that I could not imagine spending nine months without seeing my sister; much to everyone’s surprise the Almoner listened to me and gave my sister Suzy a letter permitting her to come and visit me regularly even though she was not 18. The only "child" visitor in the huge hospital wards.

When I say visit regularly, let me explain further: visiting hours in those days were a half an hour on Wednesday evenings from 7:30 to 8:00 pm and one hour on the weekends on  Saturday and Sunday  afternoons from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. 

In the  hour while the family were visiting, one of the "Volunteers" would go around the ward with a trolly selling cups of tea, sandwiches and little cupcakes. Of which we all indulged.
However, this is also the period of one of the great Lavalette family traditions. When we arrived in England the one thing my father requested from our days in India was that every Sunday mom would cook a curry and rice lunch. We were not going to have the traditional English Sunday Lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. 
Oh, how I missed those curries in those months while I was in hospital. It was not long before each Sunday visit,  mom and dad brought me a curry sandwich. How I looked forward to that precious treat. Forget about full body plaster casts, 10 months prone in bed, sweet nurses, what remains with me most of all, is looking forward to the Sundays with curry sandwiches! And having my sister with me when no-one else did. What a smart mother we had.

Mother's Day telephone calls

How things have changed in the last few decades.

We have so many vehicles for communicating with each other:  Facebook , Instagram and still that old standby  - the Hallmark card. 

Except for the card,  or any other written communication,  we expect the message to be sent instantly. There is no delay between typing the message into the keyboard and hitting post, or send.

Things were very different when I first came to Canada 50 years ago. The main vehicle for communicating on Mother’s Day was the telephone. What a nightmare that was. 
On Mother’s Day, which the telephone company regularly told us was the busiest day of the year, you nearly always got a busy signal the minute you picked up the phone. I am serious.   The busy tone came on instantly you picked up the hand-piece off the cradle. The lines were so tied up.  I would be on the phone for hours before I could get through.
By the early Eighties, I had an arrangement with my mother whereby I would always phone her on the Saturday and wish her happy Mother’s Day. At least I knew we would get through to each other and could talk as long as we wished.

How long ago that all seems and how I wished I could do that now.

Goodge Street Underground Station

In the middle of the lock-down in London, I see that the tube lines were closing some of the stations as they would lead to the travelers being too close together inside the station concourse. One of the stations that was closed I noticed was Goodge Street station.

In mid to late 1964, when I began attending the Regent Street Polytechnic, my family and I would get on the Northern Line tube at Burnt Oak Station and go "into Town." The tube stop that I would get off at, was Goodge Street.

In those days I would walk the back routes, passed old Victorian office buildings, factories and pubs and a landscape that had barely changed from the 19th century! I walked passed Cleveland Street, crossover Great Titchfield Street to get to little Titchfield Street. That was where my College was located.
I used to walk past La Scala, the theatre that the Beatles featured in A Hard Days Night movie, with all the screaming girls lined up outside. Beatlemania in its most crazy times. Now it was empty and forgotten as I walked by it in the mornings reflecting on the crazy scenes of the movie.

The most significant thing about Goodge Street tube station and most likely the reason why they closed it during Covid-19 pandemic, is the fact that you can’t get to the platform via stairs or escalators. You have to use two large lift, as the Brits call them; elevators in North America. There is a picture below showing what they look like. When I was exiting the tube heading for the outside world we would be packed into this structure.

Luckily it never jammed or failed me in the years that I utilized it.
As I familiarized myself with all the streets around my college and London's crazy Sixties locations, I began taking different tube stations in my daily journey and experiencing a wonderful time to be young in a city that was at the centre of a rapidly changing society.

My old school buildings have all been torn down and the College is now The University of Westminster. Most of the old Victorian buildings have been demolished and the area is full of modern gleaming skyscrapers, but I have not forgotten that lift at Goodge Street and its puke green paint!