How to use this Page

It's autumn 1940, and for Joan Armitage, 13, and her family - mom, older sister Audrey, brother Brian and 6 year old Judy - living in a suburb of Liverpool, getting by has been hard ever since her dad's Merchant Navy ship was torpoeded by a Nazi U-boat in the Atlantic.

Now, WW(( is in full swing and the house is always cold, curfews have been imposed, there are nighttime air raids and everyone is always hungry because of rationing.  On top of that, a new man, Captain Ronnie Harper Jones, part of the Army Catering Corps stationed near Liverpool, seems interested in mom.  Despite the occassional box of goodies he brings the Armitage family, Joan, her brother and her sister don't like him much,  though Judy does, or rather,  she like the sweets he brings her.

Ironically, though, life is pretty boring despite the war.  Luckily, Joan has a best friend, wealthy Doreen, and both girls love going to the Queensway Cinema to see American movies.  And of course, there is the Saturday morning salvage collection Joan does with friends Ross and Derek.  Best of all, there is her art - drawing and painting are her escape and her passion.

But as autumn passes, the air raids begin to intensify, as the Luftwaffe steps up their bombings over Liverpool.  Even the Queensway becomes too dangerous to go to.  And after hearing about an army deserter who is believed to be in the area, Joan wonders if it is the unknown man she saw staring into the house one night while closing the blackout curtains.  She is shaken, but decides not to say anything and when it doesn't happen again, it gets forgotten amidst rumors of food being stolen and sold on the black market.

At school, the class bully Angela and her gang seem to enjoy picking on Ania, a Polish refugee who arrived in England on the Kindertransport.  When Joan's mom tells her to invite Ania for tea, the normally quiet, shy girl opens up to Joan about what happened to her and her family in Poland.

When Joan is confronted by the mysterious man once again, on her way home one night, one mystery may be solved, but it only leads to the possiblity of more grief.  How is he connected to Ania and what does he want from her?  At the same time, the rumors of the stolen food and black market dealings prove to be true and the outcome is devasting for Joan's family, the communtiy and even her best friend Doreen.

This is the second WWII novel Shirley Hugnes has written.  Her first was Hero on a Bicycle, also a coming of age story that didn't grab my interest quite as much as this on did.  I found this one to be well plotted, with some nice foreshadowing but also some nice surprises.

"Wartime, when it was not frightening, could be very boring" writes Shirtley Hughes in her Author's Note.  And she has done an exceptional job of depicting the boredom of war without making it boring for the reader. The result is an eye-opening look at daily life on the English home front.  Of course, she knows what she is talking about, since much of the book is based on her own 13 year old experiences living in Merseyside during WWII.

One of the interesting aspects of Whistling in the Dark, is how much readers learn about the Merchant Navy, those men who sailed to the US and Canada to bring food and other supplies back to England on unarmed but very vulnerable ships.  Joan's father and Audrey's boyfriend Dai both are part of the Merchant Navy, the real heroes of this story, according to Hughes and the Liverpool docks play an important role in this novel.

When most of us think of the Blitz, we have a picture of hundrends of Luftwaffe planes flying over London, dropping their bombs, bringing death and the destruction of homes, churches, monuments, and institutions.  But the Nazis targeted more than London, including a terrible Blitz over Liverpool from August 28, 1940 to the end of December, the timeframe of Whistling in the Dark, doing incredible damage to the all important docks there.

Whistling in the Dark is a novel that will appeal to young readers interested in historical fiction, coming of age stories and mysteries, as well as fans of Carrie's War by Nina Bawden and Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian

This novel is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

Add a Comment

Okay, so these may not be the greatest sketchbook pages. They're not going to set the world alight, but, I just needed to shout about the fact that I went to see Neil Young on Sunday!!! Damn, I love that man. He's the most inspirational artist to me. So, we may work in very different fields but how he continues moving on and changing creatively is so very inspiring. I wish I were that brave.

 Above is the inner cover of the little Moleskine sketchbook that I took with me. I drew it as the arena was filling up. And, I drew it over the page where I created THIS VIDEO (the one that shows you how to write your name!). I cannot leave a blank space alone. I just can't stop fiddling.

 I'm often asked about what I do if a page in a sketchbook 'goes wrong'. My answer is usually 'collage', but it's also where a good quote or lyric comes in handy. The page above didn't so much 'go wrong' but the girl I was drawing moved away, just as I got my pens going, so I was left with just a few squiggles. You can see them behind these Neil Young lyrics; behind the top two lines on the right hand page.

 Anyway, you know what? Not every sketchbook page should set the world alight or be all singing and dancing. In my opinion. To me the unremarkable, quiet little pages act as a comma or a pause in a book. Some time for a brief reflection. A page to get your breathe back before you dive back in.

And, the lyrics and quotes; a great place to practice your handwriting. Or better still, make up a whole new kinda handwriting.

Add a Comment

By Caitie-Jane Cook

Thursday sees the start of the British Society of Criminology annual conference, this year held at the University of Liverpool. The three-day conference (10-12 July 2014, preceded by a postgraduate conference on the 9th) will see academics from across the globe come together to discuss an expansive range of topics, from prisons and policing to hate crime and community justice, and I, for one, cannot wait to attend.

The theme for this year’s conference is Crime, Justice, Welfare: Can the Metropole Listen?, with participants aiming to “examine the counter-hegemonic potential of criminology, […] explore how it might give ‘voice’ to those that stand outside the dominant narratives of the metropole, [and challenge the] practices that serve to marginalise different ways of thinking about, and engaging with, an alternative criminological enterprise.”

With an expansive programme of sessions to be staged in the award-winning and Grade II listed Foresight Centre, the conference is sure to be a highlight in the 2014 criminology calendar. Here are some of the key sessions we’re looking forward to and we think you should be too:

• Keynote speeches from Professors Raewyn Connell (University of Sydney), Chris Cunneen (James Cook University), and Didier Fassin (Princeton University)
• Border Criminologies – Mary Bosworth chairs a session addressing links between immigration, trafficking, and cross-border detention
• Police Culture and Diversity – A roundtable discussion on contemporary developments in diversity, 15 years on from the MacPherson Report.
• Launch of the BSC Victims Network – an event to mark the formation of the BSC’s sixth specialist network in March 2014, which sets out to bring together those who have interests around victims of crime and social harm, survivors, and resilience.

The British Society of Criminology conference isn’t the only thing in Liverpool that has a lot to offer. For those with some time to spare outside the conference, make sure that you make the best of the city named European Capital of Culture in 2008.

If a conference session has piqued your interest, or you’d like to fit in some last minute research, scour the shelves of the Liverpool Central Library, home of the famous Picton Reading Room and fully renovated in 2013. Of course, you can’t mention Liverpool without The Beatles – take a trip to the Casbah Coffee Club, where it all began, or learn all about the Fab Four at The Beatles Story dockside museum. Or, you could find out more about the city itself at the Museum of Liverpool, winner of the Council of Europe Museum Prize for 2013.

Find out more about the conference by visiting the official website or visiting the British Society of Criminology’s official website. Those on Twitter can keep up-to-date with the conference by following the official account @livuni_bsc2014 and hashtag #bsc2014. Conference attendees can visit the OUP stand for the duration of the conference to pick up copies of the British Journal of Criminology and to claim an exclusive delegate discount on a range of titles.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Caitie-Jane Cook, otherwise known as ‘CJ’, is Marketing Executive for Law titles at OUP.

Oxford University Press is committed to developing outstanding resources to support students, scholars and practitioners in all areas of the law. OUP publishes a wide range of law journals and online products. Follow our law teams on Twitter at @OUPIntLaw, @BStonesPolice, and @blackstonescrim @OUPCommLaw, to find out more.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Preparing for BSC 2014 appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

By Richard Hain

One of the things that has always puzzled me is the number of palliative care services that have the word ‘pain’ in the title. Why do we concentrate so much on that one, admittedly unpleasant, symptom? Why ‘Pain and Palliative Care Services’ rather than, for example, ‘Vomiting and Palliative Care Service’ , ‘Dyspnoea and Palliative Care Service’, or even ‘Sadness, Anger, Existential Anguish and Palliative Care Service’?

That’s the problem with trying to describe palliative care. The whole point of palliative care is that it is holistic – a word that has acquired a certain flakiness, but which in reality simply refers to looking at the wholeness of a person, rather than focusing on only one domain (such as physical symptoms), or even one specific symptom (such as pain). But the purpose of a definition, by definition, is to set limits around a concept. There is a sense in which defining something as holistic is a contradiction in terms. Yet that is what we have to do in palliative care, if we are to communicate some sense of the task of caring for children and adults with life-limiting conditions; a sense that encompasses both the idea that it is holistic and that it is specialist (there are some things you need to learn to do to do it well).

The clue to the nature of palliative care is in the name: ‘care’.  It is a care whose aim is not cure. In the United Kingdom, we have recently seen the results of misunderstanding what palliative care is all about. As in most countries that are resource-rich (or, at least, would have considered themselves as such before the global recession), the United Kingdom sometimes struggles to avoid the temptation to over-intervene. Even where it is overwhelmingly unlikely that an intervention will help – such as when death is inevitable – we in resource-rich countries can’t help ourselves. Sometimes we have to do something even if we know it is more likely to damage a patient – considered holistically – than it is to help them. That is not because anyone is trying to be cruel, but simply because if you are a doctor faced with a very sick patient, it is hard not to intervene, even when the latter option would truly be the right thing to do.

So, if you want to improve the lives of people who are close to death, one really good way to do it is to offer doctors more support in doing less, and in doing it well.  The Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP) was designed to do exactly that.  Its sole purpose has been to protect dying patients from the pain and indignity of useless interventions around the end of their life.  Sadly, holding back on those interventions that will harm people can sometimes look, at least to the untutored eye, very like deliberately killing them.  Even some philosophers find it tricky to admit that killing someone is not at all the same thing as refusing to try to prevent their inevitable death. So perhaps it is not surprising to find that, in trying to see who were the baddies here, the Daily Mail crashed clumsily down on the wrong side, screaming that babies were being euthanised using the Liverpool Care Pathway.  But it isn’t true.

The Liverpool Care Pathway hasn’t really found its way into children’s care, despite the Daily Mail‘s assertions. That’s because it was designed for adults, mainly with cancer, rather than for children and the much larger range of conditions that can cause their death.  There’s nothing wrong with the concept. As in adults, the art and science of palliative care in children is to preserve wellbeing as far as possible, using all the tools at our disposal.  To do that often means introducing some interventions – some medication, perhaps, or the opportunity to talk about fears, or the chance to decide where you or your child should die.  But improving wellbeing can equally mean withholding interventions that would be likely to cause an overall damage to it.  Good paediatric palliative care must mean knowing what procedures to leave out, as well as knowing which ones to introduce.  Whatever some moral philosophers say, there is a big difference between actively hastening someone’s death, and not trying fruitlessly to prevent death when to do so would mean making life worse.  And whatever the Daily Mail may confidently claim, putting a patient on the Liverpool Care Pathway is not the same as euthanasia.  Care pathways are pointers to the best way to avoid careless and harmful over-intervention.  Properly used, palliation and pathways do exactly what they say on the tin; they care.

Dr Richard Hain is Consultant and Lead Clinician at the Wales Managed Clinical Network in Paediatric Palliative Care Children’s Hospital, and Visiting Professor at the University of Glamorgan, and Honorary Senior Lecturer at Bangor University. He is co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Care for Children, Second Edition (OUP, 2012), with Ann Goldman and Stephen Liben.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only health and medicine articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image credit: Old and young hands photo by SilviaJansen via iStockPhoto.

The post Palliative care: knowing when not to act appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

Things are about to become gigantic in Liverpool.

To commemorate the sinking of the Titanic a century ago there will be "Sea Odyssey Giant Spectacular" in which a 30 foot girl and her 50 foot uncle will be walking the streets of Liverpool in a magical tale of love, loss and reunion (according to the Sea Odyssey website). The event starts at 9:30am Friday 20 April 2012 and runs through to Sunday 22 April 2012 at 2pm. There is also a festival at Stanley Park.



In the 1990s, I worked in Albion House, Liverpool (which were formerly the White Star Line offices and where James Bruce Ismay, the President of the White Star Line and Titanic survivor had his office). Sadly, the building is now abandoned and falling into disrepair.

If you live anywhere near Liverpool, you should check it out.

Display Comments Add a Comment

By John Welshman

The latest news for period drama fans is that Julian Fellowes, creator and writer of Downton Abbey, has created a four-part ITV mini-series commemorating the centenary of the Titanic sinking. Publicity indicates that ‘Titanic’ will feature a mix of real and fictional characters.  However, what many viewers may not realise is that there was a real Fellowes on board the ship in 1912.  But rather than being an ancestor of the popular writer, Alfred J. Fellowes was a humble crew member and one of the estimated 1,514 people to perish in the maritime disaster.

Alfred Fellowes was part of the ‘victualing crew’: his official position was Assistant Boots Steward in First Class, and he received monthly wages of only £3 15s.  Born in Liverpool, Fellowes was 29 years old, single, and he joined the Titanic at Belfast on 1 April 1912.  Signing on again, at Southampton, on 4 April, he gave his address as 51 Bridge Road.  His previous ship had been the Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic.

Like many other crew members, Alfred Fellowes died in the sinking, and his body was retrieved by the steamer the Mackay-Bennett.  The body (number 138) was described as being ‘male, estimated age 30, hair and moustache, black’.  Fellowes was found wearing a green overcoat, blue trousers, grey coat, his Steward’s white jacket, black boots, and socks.  He wore a gold ring, and had keys and scissors in his pockets.  Fellowes was buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 6 May 1912.

There were eight other Boots Stewards on the Titanic — Sydney Stebbings, William Rattenbury, Cecil Jackson, and John Scott in First Class, and Henry Bulley, Joseph Chapman, Edward Guy, and William Perrin in Second.  Like Fellowes, many had worked previously on the Olympic, and like him, they typically gave addresses in Southampton when they signed on.  Of these eight, only two survived – John Scott and Joseph Chapman, and of those who died Fellowes was the only one whose body was recovered.  In fact, very little is known about any of them, usually only their name, where they were from, the address that they gave when they signed on at Southampton, and the level of wages that they received.

The Boots Stewards offer an entrée into the world of the Titanic’s large ‘Victualing Department’.  It numbered 421 people in all, of whom 322 were Stewards.  Perhaps slightly surprisingly, there were only 23 women — 20 Stewardesses, 2 cashiers, and 1 matron.  But what is amazing is the number and diversity of the different occupations — scullions, lift boys, clerks, vegetable cooks, bakers, bell boys, kitchen porters, chefs, cooks, Turkish Bath Attendants, postal clerks, pantrymen, butchers, storekeepers, confectioners, stenographers, barbers and so on.  The two telegraphists, or wireless operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, employed by Marconi, were officially part of the victualing department.  And apparent too is the diversity of occupations even within a single occupation such as Steward.

Add a Comment

It's strange what we remember and what we don't.

I recall going to a hospital with my nan when I was small and that the lobby area was a large circular room. I can still recall the echoing sounds of our footsteps. My mum says this never happened and there is no such hospital in Liverpool.

I also recall a man with a monkey playing an organ in the city centre when I was little. To which I was told to stop being silly and such things hadn't existed since the early 1900s... Muahaha.





...check out the video at about 4:05.

Now all I need to do is find that darn hospital. My quest to prove I am always right continues...


*Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Display Comments Add a Comment

A fan of productive procrastination (try saying that when you're drunk or, in my case, when you're sober) I spent far too long this morning making a spreadsheet of how many words per day of Grim Glass Vein I would need to write if I want a complete draft by mid September. Not that I have any particular reason for picking September other than it's next month and I'd like to have edited drafts of both Grim and Ghosts by year end so that next year I can reconsider the whole search for an agent thing that I've been conveniently ignoring.

Then I spent the following hour looking at writing desks online and decided that this coming weekend I'd gut my office and rebuild it.

Now I need to construct another spreadsheet. Although actually writing some words might be a more fortuitous plan.

Spent yesterday at the new Museum of Liverpool with the wee ones. Above is a rather rainy view from the second floor window and to the right is an iconic Liver Bird. We are rather fond of them in Liverpool and it's said if they ever fly away that Liverpool would fall into the sea. We're dooooooooomed. Or maybe not because they're all made of solid rather than beating things.

I guess I should write now or look at desk accessories...

Maybe I'll make a new spreadsheet.

Display Comments Add a Comment

Tweet

By Gordon Thompson

Fifty years ago, one of the great stories in pop music began when the Beatles debuted in a dank arched subterranean Liverpool club dedicated to music.  Located in the narrow lane called Mathew Street, just of North John Street, the Cavern Club had opened as a jazz haven that enfolded blues and skiffle, which was how the Quarry Men, John Lennon’s precursor to the Beatles, had first descended the steps and climbed the tiny stage in August 1957.  Three-and-a-half years later, the Beatles had evolved into a much different beast than the Quarry Men and the Cavern Club had modified its business strategy to embrace a growing youth audience.  The band’s recent stint in Hamburg had initiated a transformation that was about to blossom inside the brick arched chambers built to warehouse vegetables.  For the Beatles, Stu Sutcliffe’s return from Hamburg in late January added his dissonant rumble to their sound; but they had entered a transitional phase with Paul McCartney gradually assuming the role of bassist.  As Sutcliffe returned to a career in art, the Beatles would tighten their sound and performances.

Other Liverpool bands played the Cavern too, including the Remo Four who had recently trumped the Shadows—the most famous band in the UK at the time.  The Beatles would find the club a competitive environment in which to sharpen their skills in the pursuit of fans.  Their first gig at the Cavern on 9 February 1961 would lack auspiciousness and earn them a mere £5 (split five ways) for their 12:00-2:00 PM performance.  This engagement initiated the club’s attempt to draw a midday audience and, with little advertising, the crowd would have been small.  Moreover, when owner Ray McFall saw the musicians, he took offense at their leather jackets and jeans, informing them that they had to dress better if they wanted to play the club again.  And to the band’s further discomfort, Sutcliffe’s playing would have, if anything, deteriorated even further during the month he had stayed in Hamburg.  But they were beginning to develop a reputation, commencing with a remarkable December performance at the Litherland Town Hall.  The Beatles tapped into a curious mix of hard rock, rockabilly, and pop, with each of the band members taking a turn at the microphone and applying a combination of enthusiasm and irreverence.

The Hamburg experience had taught them how to survive the long hours by sharing responsibilities, working as a team, and exploiting their existing repertoire of all its possibilities.  Their model may in part have derived from Britain’s postwar experience, when families shared and extended their meager resources.  The division of responsibilities in the band helped make it successful.  Lennon, the social director, knew how to deliver the emotionally charged performances.  McCartney, the self-appointed music director, had a screaming Little Richard imitation that he could counter with coy ballads.  And Harrison—the boy of the band—focused on his succinct guitar solos and a growing vocabulary of altered chords.  That left the stoic and impassive drummer Pete Best and bassist Sutcliffe sitting at the back, occasionally crooning a song for the benefit of their fans.

In the Cavern, the Beatles would build an audience by playing rock ‘n’ roll while smoking, eating, and joking on stage, including McCartney doing imitations of the Shadows’ by now infamous Cavern catastrophe.  (Their bass player had shown up drunk and fallen off the stage.)  Lennon recalled that half their stage show was ad lib comedy, which portended the public image

Add a Comment

Display Comments Add a Comment

And my answer is 100% yes (*as you'll see if you click on the above link). It was raining (okay I can't confirm that but I wanted to create a bit of atmosphere) and wind was rattling the windows of the bus. I was stuck in traffic outside St. George's Hall (a very famous building in Liverpool - google it***) when I decided I wanted to write a book called 'The Poisoned Apple'. And then I did. Okay, that sounds a wee bit like I clicked my fingers and it was done but you know what I mean.

It's something I've done quite a few times for short stories as well. In fact, I have no idea what I'm going to write for the CinemaSpec anthology, but I'm hoping it has the title 'Ugly Duckling'. Which I think is a good title (Hans Christian Anderson agrees with me) though not quite as good as Barry Napier's title, 'End Credits'.

So, have any of you ever thought of the title and then worked your story around it?

***A web link to a panoramic view of the gorgeous St George's Hall.

Display Comments Add a Comment