Organising things! Some fun and games! Different times!

Trying to organise transport for Phil to Mondarîz so that he can play in a chess tournament there has been fun and games. I am flying back to the UK on Monday for family business but Phil is staying on here to play chess. At least that was the original idea. Then he was feeling a little out of sorts and was not sure whether he was playing or not. Which left me unsettled as the whole point of his staying on was to play chess! The decision was finally taken: he would play. So, on to the next problem.

Mondaríz is accessible by public transport but the last bus back to Vigo is decidedly not convenient for chess players whose games might go on until well after the last bus has already left. So a lift was needed. Our regular go-to lift providers were not available as they were committed to other things. So I have been on and off the phone trying to make other arrangements. At last we got it sorted but there was still a little matter of Phil not playing a morning round tomorrow and needing to catch a bus even though he would have a lift home later. So I called the bus station.

Normally this is another kind of nightmare. You ring and the number is engaged. You wait just a short time and ring again only to have the number ring and ring and ring ... unanswered. This can go on for ages until eventually you get through. Today something new happened. I rang and the phone was answered immediately. I asked for the information I needed and heard a bemused lady ask me exactly what it was I needed to know. I repeated my request. Who, she asked me, did I think was calling? Well, the bus station, of course. But no, this was a private number! My phone had gone berserk! I apologised for the inconvenience caused and rang off.

Checking in my phone, I discovered that this was Eugenia someone or other, a name I did not recognise but which was in my contact list. Who is she? Why do I have her number? Her phone clearly did not tell her it was me calling, or if it did, she did not recognise me either!

Another one of life’s weirdnesses!

 It seems to be a time of anniversaries at the moment. 50 years since Woodstock, which Joni Mitchell wrote a song about although she never made it to Yasgur’s farm. Now two different sets of people are trying to recreate or at least commemorate the event, after a fashion, in two slightly different but pretty much adjacent locations. It’s also possible, apparently, to buy a box set of DVDs or CDs and watch or listen to hours and hours of the original happening. Personally, I suspect a little editing might be called for. 

Then there is Peterloo, our own Mancunian commemoration. This article talks about Sue Stennett who lives with her husband in Lincolnshire. Her great-great-great-grandfather founded the Manchester Guardian as a result of wanting to publicise information about the Peterloo massacre. I remember the Guardian being called the Manchester Guardian, because on Friday nights my father, a printer, used to travel from Southport to Manchester where he was paid well to print the Manchester paper. The interconnectedness of things.

Sue Stennett explains how she only really became aware of the whole Peterloo affair and the family connection later in her own life.

 “When did you first become aware of your links to John Edward Taylor?
For my wedding, my aunt gave me a veil, and I was told the story behind it, and how John Edward Taylor’s daughter Sophia had worn it on her wedding day. It was cream, and I chose a dress to match. I was so young at the time, and didn’t really appreciate the significance of its story – it was only after my father died that my interest was sparked. I found a book in among his things called A Family Biography – a limited-edition book collated by Catherine and Isabella Scott (Sophie’s nieces and the sisters of the Guardian editor CP Scott).”

So how did her great-great-great-grandfather come to found what later became The Guardian?

 “He came from a Unitarian background, where a core belief was that people come to salvation through education. In this context, what he witnessed at Peterloo, and in its aftermath, galvanised in him a belief that education in the form of balanced, honest, well-researched reporting could be the spark for renewed hope. He teamed up with 11 liberal-minded textile owners from Manchester to finance the venture, at a cost of £1,050. The first four-page edition of the Manchester Guardian appeared on Saturday 5 May 1821 and cost 7d. Like all newspapers based outside London, they could only afford to publish once a week, but it wasn’t long before the introduction of the railways enabled wide and fast distribution of newspapers, making them accessible for the masses.”

 That’s the sort of thing wealthy industrialists used to do!

What happened to change things?