by
Frank Hatton

We will begin by wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year, and may everything you wish for yourselves come true. Also, in my haste to give grovelling apologies for my absence during the last three months, I completely forgot to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, and a merry Christmas,....so, belated wishes for that. Having got all of the joyous stuff well and truly out of the way, ...... let us now get down to the more serious business,....... have you got a loft? You may well call the things ‘attics’ , or some other name, but, I am talking about that bit of the house which resides above the inhabited sections, and is usually accessed thro’ a trapdoor in the ceiling. Now, the only time I ever venture into these upper regions, is when we have junk to dispose of, and my good lady wife cannot make up her mind whether we will ever use the stuff again, or should throw it on a bonfire, send to the local rubbish (garbage) dump, or donate to a local charity shop. Invariably, she decides that it might come in useful again one day, so,.... up it goes into the loft, and there it lies until time or circumstance demand a visit to the area. Such an occasion recently arose, when my wife was searching for something, and could not think of where it might be, so, as a last resort we opened the trapdoor, pulled down the loft ladder, and up we went into the unknown!!!! Many moons ago, I mentioned a very dear soul by the name of Bill Bryson, who is one of my favourite Americans. An author by profession, and one of the most descriptive writers I have ever chanced to read.......A long time back, he wrote an article on the hazards of clearing out a fridge, (icebox), and the unusual items you are likely to encounter when you get involved in this particular exercise. Please believe that Bill Bryson’s fridge has nothing to compare with the adventures you are likely to meet in exploring your loft!!!! The first thrill of excitement we had was within three to four feet of the open trapdoor! When our eyes were transfixed by the sight of a cushion made of foam rubber, and the fact that some unknown creature had been steadily pulling bits of the foam rubber apart. Now to me, the simple and logical explanation was that a bird or birds had somehow got into our loft and had used the bits as nest making material, and other that clearing up the mess, and finding how they had gotten into the loft, the matter was closed. Not so my good lady wife!!! To her it indicated that some wild animals were loose up there, and our lives were under serious threat. The very least she would accept was the possibility of mice or rats being on the prowl. I pointed out that there were no animal droppings to bear out this possibility, but, that logic was just not worth considering in her book, so, it meant that we then had to clear out all of the junk to make sure that there was nothing sinister lurking up there. Hence, all of the accumulated junk was brought down for reappraisal, and in the majority of cases, it was consigned for disposal. Lamp shades by the dozen, rugs and pieces of carpet, old Christmas decorations, framed pictures, curtains, items of clothing, Chinese coolie hats, chairs, swords, items of china..... the list seemed to go on and on. In fact I would guess that at least 90% of the stuff I had never set eyes on in my life before, and I seriously began to suspect that someone had found a secret access to our loft space, and was using it to get rid of all of their own family rubbish. Anyway, to cut the story short, we now have an almost empty loft space, and I expect the whole process can now begin all over again, and maybe in another ten years or so, we will go through the same exercise. The long term readers of these articles will maybe recall my emotional reporting of the fact that our local pub had been pulled down by building developers, and it was planned to erect residential property on the site. Now after some years of legal wrangling about our not having any community point of contact in the area, now that the pub had gone, it has been agreed that the purchasers of the site will build a community hall for us in return for planning permission to build their residential properties. This is now all under way, and we are told that our hall will be ready for use next summer. The nice thing about this episode is how the local folk have fought to obtain the hall, and now that it is all coming about, everyone is engaged in raising funds to finance the furnishing and running of the place when it is built. Some kind soul has donated a large electronic organ for use in the hall later. We have a local parade of shops, the usual butchers, baker, grocery, hardware, etc., and the guy who owns the mini supermarket there has asked if yours truly will spent a couple of Saturday mornings on the run up to Xmas, playing Christmas carols on this donated organ, which will be placed close to the exit doors of the shop, and folk can drop any donations they want into a box. I am quite looking forward to it, because, while I was a pub pianist some years back, the only playing I do in public now, is for our local Masonic lodge, and the music for that tends to be a bit dull and dreary. So, hopefully, we will get some of the locals joining in a bit of spontaneous carol singing, and liven the area up a little. Browsing through my newspaper, I came across an item on the sad case of a man who has spent the last 27 years in prison for murder. He should have been released some years back, but, because he has persistently claimed to be innocent, and that he was wrongly convicted, the authorities will not let him out. Now it transpires that there is a very real possibility that he is right, and he was wrongly convicted. The case has therefore gone to the Court of Appeal for reappraisal. Now, this has been news for some three to four months in all the newspapers and TV news. Would you believe that he was refused any form of bail ,.... because the prosecution legal team said that they had not had enough time to study the papers on the case!!!!!! So, the poor bloke has to spend Christmas in prison, when everyone is expecting that he will be released once the case has been heard. Where do these legal folk live????? Mars????? ‘til the next time, Frank Hatton

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You can find more articles in the archive under From Over the Pond