Open Writing

"Well," I said, almost condescendingly in response to the wide-eyed stare I was getting from the couch. "It’s a newspaper, and it has in it all kinds of information."

I was reading the morning paper and getting an inquiring look. Her gaze remained fixed on me, two sungold eyes blinkless in concentration, staring directly into my green ones.

I continued. It has news, stories, crosswords, advertisements, letters, and reports."

Her look remained unchanged. "None of this is going in," I told myself, smiling at her to let her know that I was friendly. I could see that it wasn’t working.

I began again. "It’s called a newspaper." I spoke without emphasis, knowing that stress in my voice would bother her. She would not understand what it was all about. But what should my golden eyed puppy know of such things? Smilingly I told her she was a "good girl," whereupon she went back to chewing an old pair of my knotted socks.

* * *

My mind turned to newspapers and I was whisked back in time, like Jimmy in Jimmy’s Magic Patch, to the classroom of Form III in Spring Grove School under the tutelage of Mr Charles Brummitt. It was there that Walter Fox invited me to be assistant editor of his venture into newspapers through his cunningly conceived but yet unborn "The Pickwick Paper."

I was engaged to write short news articles and to draw cartoons. The matter of fees was not introduced, and I did not assist with the editing. As Karl Marx understood, no one relinquishes power without a fight and I postulated that fighting the editor for some of his power could be a bad career move.

Bamforth’s seaside postcards inspired my first cartoon. It was extremely Anglo-Saxon, not unkind, but a little rude, and unlikely to have drawn a smile at Buckingham Palace. It was of a very plump woman person bending over and displaying her ample, but modest, nether garments captioned, "Looking on the brighter side of life!"

The editor had standards – he lived quite close to St Thomas’ Church -and my artwork was rejected for publication although inspired the Monty Python song, "Always look on the bright side of life, de-dum da-dum." I wrote to Monty about a share of the royalties and he wrote back saying that my letter did not arrive. So that was that! Just another case of genius unrecognised and unrewarded.

After the burlesque I attempted to depict the "Model Lodging House," at Number Nine Chapel Hill, in the margin of my notebook. Just saying "Number nine," got a raucous laugh from the boys in the class. I do not know why, and I do not know why I found it funny, but I laughed along with the rest.

Once, during my artwork period, when everyone else was doing something with ill-humoured Anglo-Saxons, Mr Brummitt slid around the back of me and announced, "When I want a little light entertainment, I look over Bray’s shoulder!" That got a laugh from the boys and girls and I understood and smiled, enjoying a soupçon of fame.

My career as a newshound, cartoonist, assistant editor, and "The Pickwick Paper" ran to one scrawny hand-written issue. It was a time-consuming task, especially for a pair of thirteen year old schoolboys who had important things to attend to, such as pickling conkers to make them as hard as iron. Yet, despite our best efforts, we discovered neither philosopher’s stone nor alchemist’s mystical device to transmute the horse chestnut’s glossy autumn fruits into cast iron invincibles.

The delay in publishing was an embarrassment. The front page carried the heartrending story that the editor’s cat, Smoky-Joe, was missing. When we put the paper to bed, Smoky-Joe had come back and his restoration was carried on the last page!

* * *

That was not my first encounter with newspapers. My sister René and I cleaned the unmatched and commingled cutlery on the dining table using wire wool on a copy of the Huddersfield Examiner. That was not a happy experience and it did not endear knives, forks, spoons, wire wool, or newspapers to me.

* * *

Newsprint was better when neatly wrapped around a generous threepenny portion of fish and chips folded into a bag from Bill Haley’s premier chip ‘ole in Trinity Street. Thus modified for street eating, newspaper bags held inordinate amounts of malt vinegar. Enough for every chip to have a decent swim and for the battered fish to suck up the tart tang of Shaw’s best ‘aliker.’

Having supper on the slow walk home from the pictures reading the wrapper by yellow gaslight was as good as the flicks. The problem with peripatetic consumption arose when an interesting story disappeared around the bottom of the getting-soggier-by-the-minute pouch, and a half-gallon of warm vinegar streamed down inside your sleeve to make a damp lake at your elbow through tilting the receptacle to find out how the story ended.

* * *

René posts special editions of the Examiner to me. I search them voraciously for news of people I once knew, and for familiar things and places. I then stack them on the end of my desk from where Belle pulls them down with her shining teeth and shreds them over my office floor. Newspapers serve different purposes to different folks at different times.

Yesterday’s newspapers are said to be as interesting as month old tripe. Yet, for me, they have a timeless quality whether searching for information of a vanished past, eating fish and chips, or amusing an affectionate puppy.

* * *

The content of newspapers have been both kind and harsh: blessings and, at times, curses. It was in a newspaper that I read of the appalling murder of my sister, Mary. I learned of Hitler’s death and the end of the war the same way. They have marked the passing of family and friends, heralded the arrival into the world of blessed children, and honoured their accomplishments.

* * *

When I was out of work in nineteen sixty-three, and renting a room in a freezing house, feeding scarce shillings into a voracious gas fire no bigger than my face, I trudged out and sat by the big brown steam pipes under the window of the public reading room of Bournemouth’s Art Gallery and Public Library every day from morn until even, devouring the print from national and local publications until they dimmed the lights, rang the bell, and smiled out those of us who were reluctant to return to the death-chill of breast-high snow.

* * *
I found most of my jobs and a few of my cars in classified columns. As a twelve-year old I was led to my first lorry-cart in the ‘For Sale’ column for the very agreeable sum of a half-crown, while letters to editors have registered the alternating course of my interests over many years, and occasionally contributed to the amusement of the reading public.

* * *

It was through a letter to the editor of the ‘Southampton Star’ that I was able to put Matthew in touch with his mother, half-brothers and sisters, aunts, an uncle, and various cousins, nieces, and nephews after many years without contact. My departure as a missionary in fifty-six was honoured in the local paper. In nineteen eighty it publicised my career as Country and Western singer, Ray (nearly-world-famous-in-Mirfield) Buck, and marked my graduation from university in ninety-three by spelling my name with three ‘n’s, but they did take the photograph from my least unflattering side

* * *

The bits and pieces of human lives that make up newspapers are the warps of our triumphs, the wefts of our failures, and the memorials of those who found lodging in our hearts. Journalists and editors weave them into a fabric that describes in ingenious detail matters that we have half forgotten, and revives beloved memories and precious moments to cheer us when evening’s grey fingers draw shades across the dying sun, and the last strains of the day’s music whisper down into silence, leaving us alone with the golden hum of what once was and will never be again.

For paper and ink, for nimble brains, and for deft fingers, that set type and run presses, from the simplest hand-cranked archaic machines, to the most magnificent, and thereby secure in type so much otherwise dissipated wealth, and for their magical ability to rekindle the dulling fires of remembrance, courage, and love, I most earnestly thank God for those who make them.

Copyright © 2004 Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED