The Life and Times of Fred Unwin

Back to Fred Unwin...

Like Doug he was served in North Africa and Sicily during the war and, like Doug, he grew up on the 'mean streets' of Cambridge (it's not all college and May Balls, you know and, paradoxically, the war saved them both. After the war Doug, using his experience as a medic became what is now known as a paramedic but was by the less impressive sounding 'ambulance man' in those days. (There weren't a lot of women in the service back then.) Fred Unwin became a psychiatric nurse. (Contrary to popular perception there were quite a few male psychiatric nurses in those days - well, they needed some muscle to keep the nuts in line).

They led parallel lives and yet didn't meet until they were pensioners and they had both lost their wives. Fred Unwin is (I nearly wrote 'was') a locally renowned poet and writer. He wrote an auto-biographical study of psychiatric nursing in the late '50s entitled Dew On My Feet which focused on nurse training at Addenbrookes (yes, my old psychiatric Alma-Mater - S3, S4 and R4).

I am reluctant to go and see him even though Doug has suggested that I accompany him. As I said, I am unwilling to face what he has become. When I last encountered him it was at a poetry reading. He was tall and broad and did not look in the least like an octogenarian. He was part-poet, part-historian. Many of his books were self-published and before anyone cries contemptuously 'Vanity publishing, eh?' might I remind you that my own role-model - Virginia Woolf - owned her own publishing house, partially financed by her husband Leonard Woolf and many other writers - great and not so great - have done the same throughout literary history

He praised my rendition of Dorothy Parker's 'You Might As Well Live' and Philip Larkin's 'This Be the Verse'. (Choices that rather suit my curmudgeonly personality). He purchased a copy of my book and passed on his compliments through Doug. I want to remember him as he was then, not as he is now.

An alternative explanation is that I am a lazy, selfish cow.

Yes, the latter sounds much more plausible.

Fred Unwin

Doug told me some rather depressing news about the infamous Fred Unwin, , something of a local hero and a friend of Doug's who has been ravaged by age and forced to move into a nursing home, helpless and dependent upon super-efficient but emotionless carers, plumping up his pillows and wiping his brow.

These are all assumptions, of course based on my own experiences of seeing my grandparents in the same position. I saw my maternal great grandmother just before her death when I was nine and, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, it put the fear of the grim reaper into me for years. That pale, skeletal figure on the bed that barely appeared human. They shouldn't have let me see her. But then there are others - those oh so wise child-psychologists who seem to have assumed the right to dictate the way in which every child in the Western world is raised regardless of individual needs - say you should force children to confront the realities of death. It worked for me - too well. I spent years contemplating the ageing process. But then I spent years contemplating the aftermath of what I as a child thought was an inevitability - a nuclear war. Cheerful little brat, wasn't I? It has occurred to me that I might derive a subconscious thrill from fear, rather like people who are addicted to horror movies and claim they hate them. Efexor, however, has removed my worries which, in itself, is worrying.

Hold your breath for the Life and Times of the Great Fred Unwin...

Military Bearing

(Continued) And wouldn't that be tragic.
What kind of crime would Andy have to commit in order to wind up inside.
I don't think I'll be applying for a Visiting Order. Except maybe to gloat. And to remind him to avoid dropping the soap in the shower. (And yes, before peeps write in, I know it's a myth).

No, that would be really mean.
But then, did I ever claim to be anything else?

The Evesham Voyager was returned by the repair shop but it still wasn't perfect. They had even managed to do more damage - they had unseated the F12 key. Doug returned it, adopting his haughty military sergeant major manner of old and, yes, he still has it - perfect posture, chest thrust out, you know the stuff. 'We don't want it back in that condition,' he snapped out. (No wonder those National Service boys were so terrified of him: 'Do you believe in God,son, well, you're looking at him!'). Do you ever lose it.

Yes, it appears you do. As some rather tragic news I received today reveals...

(Continued) And wouldn't that be tragic.
What kind of crime would Andy have to commit in order to wind up inside.
I don't think I'll be applying for a Visiting Order. Except maybe to gloat. And to remind him to avoid dropping the soap in the shower. (And yes, before peeps write in, I know it's a myth).

No, that would be really mean.
But then, did I ever claim to be anything else?

The Evesham Voyager was returned by the repair shop but it still wasn't perfect. They had even managed to do more damage - they had unseated the F12 key. Doug returned it, adopting his haughty military sergeant major manner of old and, yes, he still has it - perfect posture, chest thrust out, you know the stuff. 'We don't want it back in that condition,' he snapped out. (No wonder those National Service boys were so terrified of him: 'Do you believe in God,son, well, you're looking at him!'). Do you ever lose it.

Yes, it appears you do. As some rather tragic news I received today reveals...

Of Course I'm not...

I shall let Karma do its work. Cosmic justice. Bitterness is corrosive. Apparently. Oh, my acidic innards! Thoughts of vengeance are taking my mind off a long hot summer watching the seemingly ubiquitous Big Brother and my hellish hayfever. At work they take bets on how many sneezes I can manage in a row - the record so far is thirty four.

The Pseudo-Messiah clearly sees his evasion of a custodial sentence as a victory. He emerged triumphant. I don't think he is aware of how the system works. I don't think he realizes that if he commits any kind of crime within the next five years he is, as they say, going down.

Another battle with authority. This time I am being harassed by a debt collection agency employed by the Student Loan Company. A woman rang and left a message on my answerphone. When I returned the call she spoke to me in a threatening manner and said (and I quote) 'Right then, we'll be at your door.'

I rang back later and complained about the woman's aggressive approach. Another woman who seemed a little more reasonable said 'Well, we are a debt collection agency'. And then suddenly she said 'Are you recording me?'

Me: 'Huh?'

'Are you using a recording device? I heard an echo. You do know it's illegal to record someone without their permission?'

So, there we have it - a company indirectly employed by the government whose staff include a representative of the Kray Twins and a prime candidate for Paranoiacs' Anonymous.

Wonderful! Bureaucracy - gotta love it!

Another Betrayal

And I don't believe and I never did
That two wrongs make a right
But in a world that's filled with the likes of you
Then I'm putting up a fight
Putting up a fight'
R.E.M.

I saw Keith - a fellow nut, a fellow member of the circuit - on the way back from the my GP's surgery on Monday. We sat on a wall and talked about everyday, mundane things. And I wish, I really do, that we'd left it at that. And then I wouldn't be feeling bitter and disillusioned and betrayed. Somehow, the Pseudo-Messiah worked his way into our conversation. Keith said that he was on his way to see him.

'I didn't realize you were having anything more to do with him.'

He looked perplexed. 'Why on earth would I not want anything more to do with him.'

'But you know what he did to me and you and I are supposed to be friends. How can you choose him over me? After what he did?'

A string of meaningless platitudes spewed from his filthy, traitorous mouth. 'You must forgive..It is the Christian thing to do.' And worst of all, 'What he did wasn't that bad.'

This is when I exploded. 'How do you know? You weren't there.'

He turned away, avoiding my eyes and then I knew. 'You were there, weren't you?' He had seen what had happened and had failed to intervene. And such a coward does not deserve to walk the earth.

It was then that I wished I were able to get my hands on an AK47.

The Wolf at the Door

I have 65p to my name (excluding credit cards and overdraft).

A guy huddling outside the Co-Op wrapped in a blanket said: 'Got any change, love?'

I looked at him and said: 'Mate, change is all I have.'

Doug gave me the thirty pounds I needed to get my computer fixed. Bella the Cat looked at me reproachfully when I left the notes on the bedside table. She knows what is going on. I turned and met her glittering green eyes. 'Yes, I know,' I say. 'But the wolf is at the door. He is growling and snarling and is fiercer than ever before. He is bigger than both of us and, as you are the smallest, you will be the first to be consumed. That's reality and it's brutal. It's razor sharp and that is why I seek almost constant refuge in sleep.'

'You see, Bella, you just don't understand how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning (see girl - and I don't feel like a woman, never have done, never will do - degenerate into self-pitying lump of useless jelly). Hostile faces surround me when I leave my refuge - it's like living in a forest of cacti. People are so rude here. They display no affection, no warmth, 'Gee, you British are so uptight,' a disillusioned American student over here on his gap year once complained to me.

'I'm right with you there, mate.' I should have asked him to pack me in his suitcase when he eventually returned to the good old U.S. of A!