Halloween

I prefer Halloween to Christmas. Christmas is always a little disappointing once you get to a certain age. Once you realise that you're not going to get oodles of presents, and for the most part you could afford to buy the things you get for yourself anyway, and once you have realised that Christmas is actually a ridiculous stress, the whole thing turns out to be a bit of a pain in the arse. I'm not opposed to the commercialisation of Christmas- it actually makes the whole thing more honest. People like presents. I know people say "but in the old days we used to get a couple of nuts and an orange" but so what? That was the best they could afford. It was still about giving material goods, it's just that the goalposts were narrower. It's a mixture of commericalism, greed and a healthy-but-momentary season of good will. I like the fact that people briefly decide to get on with each other.

However, Halloween has very little of the cynicism connected. Trick or treat doesn't offer much more than sweets. You drink a bit, slap on horror films, dress up and act ridiculous- all in the name of good cheer. Christmas ends with a feeling of being stuffed with food, slightly drunk, watching bad bad television and realising that as of tomorrow all Christmas caroles and Hellmans adverts will have a sting of regret. The gnawing feeling that you planned for months for what is essentially a morning of present opening, followed by a day of munching through too much food, then sleep. And apparently world peace.

Halloween was fun. People came over and drank and listened to music. We slapped old Bela Lugosi movies on the TV in the background. Mao made a guest appearance for a while- running around the living room and hiding under our legs. I spent most of the night in a stuff Jason Voorhees hockey mask and slicked back my hair so when I wasn't wearing it I would still look like Hannibal Lecter. I took to the boiler suit quite well; it was comfortable and secure. I felt like I should have been a factory worker or something. Maybe that's what's missing. As far as being an academic is concerned, I hang in mediocrity. I'm smarter than a lot of people I know, but I'm not actually too smart. I'm quite an intellectual light weight. If I worked in a factory I could have been an Alan Silitoe character; something from a 60s movie about teenage pregnancy, terraced houses and using the word "ruddy" as an expletive.

No hangover this morning. The beauty of light ale and plenty of water. Ibuprofin and sleep is all you need, none of this nonsense that they fanny about with on TV. Mao woke me up by stepping on my face. I opened my eyes and saw her sat on my chest with her face pressed into mine- snuffing and grumbling to herself.

Work on the novel was supposed to start today but I ended up wandering around Halesowen instead. Didn't take my medication so I spent a lot of it staring into space and zoning out. There are many bizarre side-effects of not taking that simple little tablet in the morning: losing myself in thought, getting stomach cramps/the shits, finding deep significance in the most mundane of situations, over-sleeping, under-sleeping, getting angry, getting weepy, shouting or going silent- sometimes at the same time- and having nightmares.

Talking of nightmares, last night I dreamt about my grandfather and woke up weeping to myself. Granddad has had a series of minor strokes that have left him with a strange form of dementia. He wanders from extreme eloquence to unbelievable incoherence. He believes that he lives in someone else's house and has recently started to think that my Grandma is someone different. He sits and cries for her as if she's gone missing and keeps asking her to fetch my Grandma to look after him.

Granddad was an intellectual giant for me. He got the highest score in the 12+ exam in the West Bromwich area and got himself a place in the grammer school. His plan was to become an English teacher but then his dad fell ill and Granddad was the only provider for the family. He went to work in a factory, became an engineer in the RAF during the war (something he felt great guilt about, considering so many of his friends and townsfolk died in the infantry). After the war he worked in a paper factory. His plan was to save up for a boat and retire into a life of weekend sailing around a boating park down the road. About two years before retirement, he was laid off and lost his works pension. He sank into depression and never fully came out of it. My brother and I were the light of his life, still are I think.

Visits to Granddads were always a voyage of discovery. If we were in the house, he would read to us or get us to read to him. This sometimes involved us making up the stories based upon the pictures if we couldn't manage it. Mum told me that when she was taught to read he started her with Shakespeare because he didn't feel there was any point in starting small. It's all words, it's all reading, so why not start with something with some balls? She didn't regret that- she loved it apparently. He gets very excited when discussing Shakespeare and opera, Beowolf and mythology. He taught me how none of it was stuffy and boring- it was all vibrant, violent, powerful, filled with the depths of human nature. Even as a sceptic he would speak with gusto about the Bible (a believer until a few years ago when he announced, at Christmas dinner, that there was no God or afterlife- he'd "decided", announced as if he had chosen that there was no God, as if he had that power, rather than deciding his belief). Before I read Nietzsche, my Granddad had already taught me that human psychology, from darkness to light, could be discovered in the Old Testament. Reading Freddy just confirmed it. One night Mom had to go searching Blackheath trying to find him. He'd gone wandering off to find his real house. His 87 year old frame was tiring easilly, and she got him back home. Once he was there, and at 6am, he sat telling my Mom about how all of Elgar's best works reflect the better moments of Beethoven. There's something stunning about that level of lucidity from an 87 year old, at 6am, during a fit of delerium, and all without a full education.

If we weren't indoors, we were down the shed or over the park. If he was in the shed, he was normally fixing something. He invented a whole host of gadgets and joists to mend bits of broken furniture. He invented a whole host of makeshift bits and pieces to save throwing away things that most of us would just replace. He also helped us make toys. David once made a pencil case, I made a whip and top. Down the park he'd get us looking for things; animals, leaves, conkers (that was always the best). This was normally on days when I was ill from school. Mom would drop me off and he'd have me out in the fresh air. It was extra exciting knowing that everyone else was at school and you were busy running around the park- albeit with a sore throat and headache. He'd take me shopping too. Grandma would get crabsticks or bacon for breakfast, then we'd have fried mushrooms and onions on toast for lunch. Granddad would take me over to the sweet stall on Blackheath market and buy me a flimsy plastic bag of sweets for 10p. Usually aniseed balls or these silver balls that you put on top of cakes (which the market had to stop selling because they found lead in them).

Nowadays he tries to talk to me, but he gets lost and frustrated. We spent an hour talking about Darwin and got very lost. He'd never fully grasped how it worked and wanted things cleared up, but because of his strokes he couldn't put things together or formulate his questions. It took him a good five minutes to figure out how to ask me who birds developed different whistles- and in that time he'd said "chimps can whistle" then had to correct himself with a deep blush over his cheeks. Mom says he's always wanted to talk about philosophy with me, ever since I started studying it, but was always too shy. He didn't want to appear stupid, and yet I've always felt like he was a genius. I've always gone to him for answers- he knows everything and loves talking about it. When I was about 7 explained the whole sinking of the Belgrano situation, and only recently did I find that he was a socialist whose hero is Tony Benn. Only now do I realise that he'd subtly influenced my political opinions. He even deliberately kept his less PC opinions hidden so I didn't get influenced by them. Coming from a different era, he had some views that weren't popular- and yet he recognised them as wrong and didn't want me to have them. He could so easily have formed me, and yet he let me discover things on my own. And now it's completely too late to discuss this stuff with him. I won't be able to tell him about philosophy, or discuss politics (something I want to do, as I'd love to know what he thinks). It all happened a little too late.

I find it hard to visit him nowadays. I try so hard to speak to him because I want him to be back to the way he was and yet it will never happen. And he knows it and I can see it killing him. Family gatherings are a reminder of how things were; him sat in the corner, tucked behind the jut in the wall, telling us his war stories and explaining how engines work, our family history, why Lear is all we need to know and some piece of music captures some ineffable truth. He doesn't speak now because he frustrates himself. He sits with his head bows and laughs to himself- but he doesn't know why. Grandma gets frustrated and dashes off to the kitchen to weep. My Mom's brother and his wife don't know how to deal with it and laugh it all off. We all find it quite hard to deal with. My mom once tried to put my brother down by saying "you're just like your grandfather" and didn't realise she'd paid him the highest compliment. And all of this started by discussing Halloween.


Thought for the day: Life is worth living so long as you meet an old person with a sense of humour. The Cancer Research shop in Halesowen is an anti-depressant.