Ray Stone's Blog: A blog for everyone

It is not the camera that takes the picture but the person standing behind it.  Ray Stone.

I used to run a photography club some thirty odd years ago and used the above words to emphasis that despite the advent of digital cameras at the time, it still took the same skill to compose a picture and adjust light and form. It doesn’t matter whether the camera is a point and shoot or a more advanced model, skills are still required in the taking and editing of a picture. It is the photographers eye that sees beauty, composes, adjusts light, and catches the mood he or she wishes to convey to an audience. Photography, like writing, is recording history whenever we put pen to paper or release the shutter. Sometimes a photo is most certainly worth a thousand words. 9/11 is a sad reminder of that, forever etched in the mind by one or two of the photos taken at the time, but photos of heroes and heroines in sport or the movies bring joy or fill us with pride. Such is the power of imagery.

I have always loved using a camera. My first was a small plastic Kodak Brownie – remember them? My father belonged to the Leigh Camera Club near my home town of Southend on Sea and never missed a meeting. The President of the club was the great Alfred Hitchcock who made a couple of visits each year to lecture. I remember while I worked in theater, visiting one of his film locations for “Frenzy,” being filmed by Tower Bridge in London and watching a scene being shot on the embankment. I guess the environment I worked in and my father’s enthusiasm drew me into a hobby that blossomed during my teen years. There were several cameras and a dark room along the way. I even had a voluntary job as photographer for the local STC company who ran a newsletter every month. Holidays were trips to Italy several times including one here to Cyprus and I ended up with hundreds of slides and monochrome negatives – I’m thankful now I don’t have to develop film or catalog and box slides. The digital age has changed photography for ever with many advantages such as being able to edit online. So I have seen the art transform over the years as much I have with my first love – that of writing. In both instances, we protested that the art was being manipulated into a ‘touch button’ future and the skills that we learned and used would be obsolete. Nothing could be further from the truth. The opportunities afforded to us through the fast advance of technology in photography and publishing books have never been more accessible than they are today. Unfortunately, back in the day after marriage, my time was spent on earning a wage to pay a mortgage etc. My photography took a back seat and eventually, apart from holidays and birthdays, it sadly played no further part in my life.

Writing, poetry, lyrics, and the occasional article for the local newspaper became my staple diet and after a year of being single for the third time, (yup – 3rd time), I published my first book. A book of poetry and two other novels would follow until I eventually moved to Cyprus where I published a fourth. A period of readjustment followed where no matter what I tried to do, projects fizzled out to nothing. Then I was single again (4th time) and taking a good look at myself. It was time to change or sink into depression, a place I had already been a few times and didn’t want to go back. I looked around and began to see and appreciate my beautiful surroundings rather than just see them as a blur of color. I was walking and tasting the air and beginning to appreciate form and color once again. Something clicked (excuse the pun) and I had an idea. Over coffee a good friend had suggested that I should take a look at photo-stock companies that supply small business, industry, and private users with all types of photographs. With the seed of an idea in my head I did just that and the seed began to grow into a beautiful idea. After submitting photos to Shutterstock, one of the USA largest in the business, I passed the test that met all technical requirements in order for them to blow up any photo into a sharp poster size print. I set myself targets and am working to a daily schedule, something my publicist has forever beaten me over the head to do. With over 300 photos accepted I still have a long way to go as my target is 2000, but I will reach that goal by the end of this year. 42 photos have already been bought but the target for downloads is a minimum of  100 per month to earn a small income. Writing and photography have merged on this website and later, I plan to sell images here for writers looking for a good cover image for their books. My next novel that I am currently working on will most certainly have one of my photos as the cover.

Advertising in magazines, newspapers, books, and online dominate the world today. Nowadays, pictures of models rub shoulders with images of brick walls, cups of tea, painted doors, water drops on a shiny surface – all in great demand. These pictures form important backgrounds for advertisers to sell us a product or holiday. So today I join the army that supplies a thirsty industry and hope to see some of my work backing an advert for a trip to Cyprus, a bottle of wine, or a store selling electronics. Photography, like writing, will forever change with the times but never fade away.

Originating in the 15th century, the exclamation point meant ‘Mark of Admiration.’ This has to be one of the most confusing and overused tools of grammar and for me, a ‘Mark of Frustration.’

I have to say that views expressed here are mine only, and you can make what you will of them. Just remember the one golden rule most new writers ignore because they think adding this grotesque grammar tool makes their work look more dramatic and super cool. Don’t pepper the dialogue with exclamation points. In fact, the overuse of the exclamation point can ruin a perfectly good manuscript.

When I first wrote ‘Isia’s Secret,’ the prologue contained plenty of action and a gunfight on a beach. At the same time, I bought a book written by a literary agent, entitled ‘The First Seven Pages.’ The agent listed all the things he looked for to throw an author’s work on the slush pile. The exclamation point came to the top of the list. If he found these points in the first seven pages, then there was a 90% chance that the author had sprinkled them throughout the book. He would read no further. I was stunned to find that I had twenty-two of these points in my prologue and removed them all. There is nothing worse for a reader than to be unable to read a smooth passage of dialogue when he or she is continually tripped up by what I call speech blocks. They are very distracting.

Used sensibly, there are ways for the ex-point to indicate an argument or a shout, in a quiet way.

“What the hell are you doing here!” shouted John.

What is the point in using the ex-point when you are telling the reader that John is shouting? Here you need not use the ex-point.

John looked at Paul with narrowed eyes. “What the hell are you doing here!”

“Same as you, you nasty piece of work.”

In a protracted argument between two characters, just use one ex-point at the beginning of the confrontation so that we all know both characters are speaking or shouting angrily at each other. Note that if you do this make sure you don’t write,’John shouted.’

The exclamation point is used for the raised voice in three main areas – Surprise, pleasure, and anger.

“Oh, Mary, how lovely! How really lovely!

For goodness sake, how awful. If you think how a woman would sound here, her first pronunciation of ‘lovely’ would be in a normal voice and the second time around her voice would be raised. The first ex-point can be deleted, or…

Try getting around using the ex-point. What about – Joyce listened to the news and touched Mary’s arm gently. “Oh Mary, how lovely. How really lovely.”

I’m not a killjoy but for me, thinking how I can avoid using the ex-con has helped me think more about dialogue sentence construction, and this has helped improve my style and writing standards.

There are a lot of writers who will disagree with me but remember,  exclamation points can easily develop as a mental disease within a writer’s style. Try writing dialogue first and then read it back to yourself before deciding whether or not an ex-point is needed.

So now I have made my point and you have it forever in black and white.

One of the most interesting and enjoyable pastimes on Cyprus are wonderful trips of discovery. Drive in any direction for no more than a couple of hours, and you are exploring a picturesque village, seashore town, or nature trail running through a forest. Cyprus has it all, and I have to admit that while I am starting my third year of residence here, I have hardly seen anything.

I recently moved to a Paphos suburb and immediately struck up a friendship with one of my neighbors, Andros, who lives here for six months of the year. Although a Greek Cypriot, he spends the other six months in the UK. We got to talking about the island and in particular, the village where he was born, Kato Drys. After describing his old home, it was evident he had many happy memories of it before he moved away when he was fifteen years old. As I had been telling him that I had started taking photos for a photo stock company, he suggested we should revisit Kato Drys and promised I would fall in love with the place and return home with a hundred photos. That promised, I agreed and looked forward to the trip.

The name, Kato Drys, means ‘Lower Oak (trees),’ and this dates back to the Byzantine era. There are many locations here that begin with the word Kato – meaning lower. Kato Paphos is at sea level and so Kato. ‘Drys’ means trees. The second explanation on how the village got its name. There were originally two villages close to each other and between them stood a large Oak tree.

One and a half hours drive from Paphos, the village stands between southwest Larnaca, Limassol, and Nicosia. It is small and very picturesque with a population of 130. Like many villages on the island, it has experienced an immigration of the younger generation as they married and found work in Nicosia and the other big towns. In 1946 Kato Drys had a population of over 500. In the last few years, there has been an effort to improve the local industry, namely turning the once agricultural area into the more profitable business of wine and citrus fruit. A new winery has been built, and three new wines have been introduced in the last three years. Vineyards cover much of the hills and valleys in the area, and small orchards of Lemons, Oranges, Almonds, Olives and Carobs dot the landscape.

Many of the old cottages that have been vacated and left to disintegrate are being repaired in the traditional way and let for tourists spending a few days in the area.  Gradually, a few new residents are making a home there once again.

I set out with Andros and drove along the A6, the main modern highway that runs the whole length of the island from Paphos to Famagusta. The drive winds its way through the mountainous and hilly terrain following the beautiful coastline across several bridges and through a tunnel. After turning off the highway, we drove up and into the hills until we reached a spot Andros had picked for me to see the whole village down in a valley. On the extreme left of the cluster of buildings, Andros pointed out a building where workers were repairing the roof. This was the house Andros grew up in as a boy, and his brother is still in residence. It had been several years since the two brothers had been together and I was really pleased to see them meet up again. Their mother had died several years ago and was buried in the local graveyard, which we visited later to pay respects.

On reaching his brother’s house, I left the two men having coffee and walked a short distance to view and photograph an abandoned cottage. There are quite a few but as I found out later, they are gradually being restored. There was something eerie about stepping into the back door and finding old wall cabinets and cupboards, some open, and the floor littered with wood and brick plaster. On one wall there was a small painted figure, and weeds were growing through open cracks in the walls of this small home that consisted of a kitchen, living room and one bedroom. After taking a few pictures, I joined Andros and his brother to find out more about the village activities, past and present.

Although a tiny community, Kato Drys has two churches, one ancient, Panagia Eleousa from the 15th century, and the other built in the early 19th century. A much larger church, the more modern is named after the village patron Saint, Agios Charalamros. Both churches welcome visitors, particularly during the summer months when visitors journey to Kato Drys to look around the museum and famous lace embroidery and silver filigree shops where the ancient art is still practiced by some villagers. Many bee hives can be seen too. Fresh local honey is produced along with homemade jams. However, the biggest attraction by far during the summer is the Fengaros music festival, a mixture of rock, jazz, and classical Greek music that attracts musicians from around the world. Around 2000 visitors fill the few guest houses and pitch tents for the long weekend in July. After each day of music, the taverns fill and musicians mix with the crowds and perform impromptu in the narrow streets.

It took a couple of hours walking around the streets and courtyards to see as much as I could. The buildings restored still capture that beautiful Mediterranean look and atmosphere. Wooden window frames and shutters are painted either brown or blue against sandstone brick. Potted plants adorn ledges and flights of stone steps everywhere. I could not help noticing how clean the courtyards and streets are. The locals are very proud of their village.

And of the people themselves –  they are so warm. I stopped at one small guest house, and after petting their very affectionate dog, we were encouraged to let him take us for a walk to see the sights. An old lady opened her door as we passed by her house and spoke with Andros. This was a village where it is everyone’s business to know your business, and even though he had been away for some years, Andros was recognized.

Of course, no visit would be complete without taking a seat at the tavern, and our canine friend showed us the way. What a treat it was to sit on the veranda and sample some red wine. The landlord, I found, was a Scottish Cypriot and quite a character. As we sat chatting, I asked him where all the residents were. We had walked around but hardly seen anyone. He told me that during the winter months most stayed indoors while a few left for work in the mornings, leaving the village practically empty during the day. A bus service runs every two hours from Larnaca and Limassol but besides that, most men there drove a pick-up truck. That reminded me of my years in Washington where most men, and women, drive a truck.

I have to go back soon to take a lot more photos and to renew my friendship with Andros brother who is remodeling his house. His courtyard where we sat, overlooks the valley and a monastery in the distance. He has a fantastic collection of paintings which bring the main living room and bedrooms alive with brilliant color. His yard is full of scent from large lemon and grapefruit trees.

As we left, I couldn’t help feeling a little envious of the small community living in such a lovely peaceful location. Even on an island, the difference in lifestyles between the bigger towns, some with tourist areas, and the traditional village up in the hills is enormous. Kato Drys, like many other hill and valley communities, has an air of yesteryear about it and long may that continue.

Since I left the UK quite a few years ago and took up residence in the USA, Malta, and now Cyprus, I have only been back a couple of times for a brief holiday spell and two days for my wonderful mother’s funeral. It is surprising how one loses touch with the past and memories begin to fade. It was, therefore, a nice surprise to receive an amusing little note from my ex-brother-in-law, Chris, sharing some of his youthful memories of our hometown, Southend on Sea, UK as we started 2017. I have posted his note at the end of this blog.

In the 50’s and 60’s we had no electronic games, cell phones, or computers. It was up to us to make our own entertainment – which sometimes got us into trouble. Chris’s recollections brought back very happy memories of boyhood escapades and a life of getting by while the country got back on its feet.

As I enter my 71st year on this crazy planet, I decided to share a couple of memories with you that show that despite the lean times, we knew how to enjoy ourselves.

Memorable Moments

Lost Property

I decided to accompany a schoolfriend one weekend on a bike ride to West Malling in Kent, to see if we could spot an American military aircraft at the base. We got there, but on the way back I almost collapsed with fatigue. My friend had a Claude Butler racing bike, and I had an around the town Rayleigh with straight handlebars. Tired, I stopped at the bottom of a well-known hill, Bread and Cheese, just outside my town, and fell asleep on the grass verge. It wasn’t long before the police literally picked me up.

My father was called and asked to report to Benfleet Police Station. His son was sleeping in a cell.

My father duly arrived on his motorcycle combination to pick me up. He wasn’t at all happy, nor saw the funny side of things when asked to sign the lost property book for me. I sat in the sidecar killing myself with laughter all the way home.

The Disappearing Doughnut

I have no idea why it was always my father that I most annoyed. It happened mainly when I was trying to help him with one job or another.

By the time I was 14 he was in a partnership wth another carpenter and one contract they had was to remodel a builders merchant showroom in Ilford. I don’t know which one, my father or his partner, Bill Asher, suggested I could help and I would be paid a couple of pounds a day for fetching and carrying. School holidays were a bore so I agreed. Working on the job was an electrician and his mate. I quickly made friends with the mate. He had a huge beaten up 50’s powder blue American convertible which I had a ride in every morning when he went to buy doughnuts for the morning tea break.

On one particular morning, a six-foot length of ply sheet had been placed across two saw stools. Given a rip saw, all I had to do was cut the sheet in two, length-wise. To do this, I would saw so far along a penciled line and shift the sheet forward along with the rear stool that kept the sheet balanced – and so on to half way. Then it was easy, Bill said, to turn around and start again at the other end.

Unfortunately, my mate came along, and we started chatting. It did not take long for me to forget about moving the saw stool. The result, one saw stool with only two legs and a sheet of ply cut and split, lying on the floor – and ruined.

Bill threw a fit and my father threw me out with five shillings to go get the doughnuts for the two of us and the electrician and his mate -plus two for Bill. Outside, my new mate and I had a laugh and collected the cakes, apple doughnuts, from the bakers. Fate had it in for me that day, I swear. The car skidded to a halt to avoid a dog on the way back, and one doughnut rolled out of the bag, apple oozing over the seat from crushed pastry.

“You eat it, Ray,” said my friend. “Bill can just have one. I’ll tell them they only had five.”

If looks could kill. Imagine my father’s face as he heard this and watched accusingly as I swallowed the last piece of the missing doughnut and a lump of apple dribbled from the corner of my mouth.

My 21st – The Tiller Girls Midnight Kick Routine

Most people have a normal 21st party. Others go out to dinner. Me? I invited the cast from my theater summer season to a party after the show at eleven pm. I was working at the Cliffs Pavilion in Westcliff at the time, along the seafront from Southend. I had graduated to the stage and was the sound engineer. This was the era of the Tiller Girls, a dancing troupe that opened and closed the shows with their high kick routines. Billy Dainty, comedian, was the star, and he and most of the support acts, along with the girls came along and crowded into my parents – previously grandparents – narrow Victorian terraced house in St Anns Road – an older part of the town.

All got off to a bang as drink was consumed. My father, at one point, looked down the stairs at me, shook his head while mumbling, and then went back to bed. Then someone had a great idea that maybe the neighbors should be included in the festivities. Not all our neighbors saw the celebration in the same light as us.

A few minutes after we tumbled outside, not one but two police cars arrived. The Tiller Girls, quick to respond, tore off dresses, joined arms, and started their kick routine in the middle of the road – and in front of the very appreciative policemen who stayed in their cars. I am certain this is the only time the Tillers gave a midnight performance in public wearing nothing but knickers and bra. It was a great party, and I am sure my father was peeking out of the upstairs window.

The Disintegrating Trousers

I was seven when Princess Elizabeth became Queen and remember the day so well. How, you say, can a seven-year old be so sure?

My mother had spent some time making a little hat for my sister and draped a Union Jack around her shoulders. For me, she made a soldier’s tunic – a red jacket and blue trousers, and a two-pointed soldier hat as well. I do remember that our picture was taken and somewhere, all these years later, my sister still has a copy.

The day was bright to start with, and like all the other streets in the towns and cities, mums were preparing for a street party the like of which no-one had seen since the end of the war. Amazing as it seems today, despite the shortage of food in general, the women produced sandwiches, cakes, jellies and ice cream along with lemonade. For those who had a TV in those days, they opened their doors so the coronation could be seen by all. I don’t recall seeing it, until I was a few years older, on film.

The party was a noisy one with a street full of screaming kids, and all went well until the heavens opened up. At first, I thought it was great fun and laughed with all the other kids – until I realised they were laughing at me. My uniform was made out of crepe paper and the rain had disintegrated my trousers, leaving me running around with tunic top and a pair of wet white pants.

It was a day to remember.

There are many more memories and most remembered with a smile. I might write a collection. I am sure readers from the baby boom era will have a few of their own.

Where you lived, did you have similar memories like those below?

Hi Ray,

Just been thinking back to some memories from Southend and the past that I reckon you will remember …………….

Howard’s Dairies milk delivered by horse and cart (Co-op bread delivered by hand cart with big wheels)

Bluebird Café at Victoria Circus where the bus drivers went for a cuppa

Talza Arcade at Victoria Circus (Place to buy winkle pickers shoes for the smart boys)

Garons shops all around Vic Circus …..and their cinema with gas lamps ! (one shilling to get in)

Larkins Peanut sellers walking the beach

The Shrimp man coming round (in his van and ringing a bell)

Kursaal Fairground Wall of Death (the motorcycle routine)

Chalkwell Park fete

Coffee bars in the 60’s, Shades, Black Cat, Shrubbery, Station Road Club Westcliff, Capri, Jacobean and the weird and a bit dodgy Harold Dogg

Police on ” Noddy ” bikes  (water cooled Vellicates)

Cars with starting handles that gave a real kickback if you weren’t careful

And when I lived in London ……….

Telegram boys on small motorbikes

Gas street lamps ( I don’t think I imagine these, but it does sound a bit ancient ! )

Trolley buses

So much more to remember, but I bet you can remember these!

Off to the football now , Happy New Year

Chris

Thanks Chris

The streets are quiet tonight in suburbia. Nothing but the sound of the weather disturbs this lone writer tapping the keys into the night. The local cat has found the cushion removed from my patio chair and neighbors are hidden below duvets. Winter has come to this pleasant land and for the third night in a row it has rained. Hailstones are now beating a cacophony of ting-a-lings on car roofs and bonnets. Not one laugh or joyous shout rents the air save an occasional howl from a lone mangy dog loping along a deserted road. Christmas arrived silently and passed peacefully, giving a whole new meaning to the Christmas carol – Silent Night. Tonight, as the wind whistles through palm trees and potholes fill with water in the roads, Boxing Day comes to an end. In the fridge, cold roast potatoes and parsnips along with sprouts and carrots lay in wait to be mashed for bubble and squeak in the morning. In the deafening silence that surrounds him, this writer reaches for a mug of tea, sips, and thinks of England. There are a thousand stories on this island – this has been one of them.

In retrospect what happened should not have been such a surprise. We Democrats should have seen it coming for a long time. We failed to notice, or just didn’t pay any attention to the devastation and pain we were allowing to happening in the once great cities of our industrial core. Proud, industrious people that filled the factories that once made everything that now comes in boxes that say “Made in China” have been cast aside like yesterday’s newspaper. These people who built this nation, that during election time we could only refer to as “uneducated white men” worked as hard at learning their trade as any mid-level manager did earning a degree. But because of some inexplicable liberal elite bias we decided that college was an education and trade apprenticeship was not.  I know this to be not true because I completed an apprenticeship and became a journeyman machinist myself.

This election is not a fluke. We began this journey in 1980 with the election of Reagan. There has always been a struggle in the economy between the two equally necessary components, labor, and capital. Capital has always had the upper hand for obvious reasons, they control the money. As long as you keep labor poor enough and dependent enough and isolated enough, they can be easily controlled. Before Reagan, our industrial workers were making a good middle-class wage, had decent working conditions and, because of a strong union, could bargain for a fair share of the economy generated by their shared contribution with capital. The booming economy was driven by equal contribution from both labor and capital and in those days because of the strength of collective bargaining labor was able to demand a better partnership with capital in the business. Representatives from the workforce had a place at the table in the boardroom.

An axiom taught in most business schools is the number one goal of business is to maximize profit without consideration of anything else which is accomplished by cutting expenses. The other axiom is that labor is an expense and not an asset. Business’s long-term strategic plan has been to, as much as possible, eliminate the labor component from the economic partnership. The only way to do that is to replace the expensive labor in this country with cheap labor in third world countries. It is important to understand that this strategy has nothing to do with business survival or sufficient profitability. It is only about making a maximum bottom-line profit. And the only way to achieve it is to change the distribution balance of business by reducing the share to labor and increase the share to capital. Basically a re-distribution of wealth. Or rather, reverse the direction of the re-distribution that started with Roosevelt’s New Deal.

What they were talking about was a complete restructuring of the way America’s economy works from manufacturing to one of distribution. It took time and preparation to pull it off. For one thing, it took a lot of government action to make it possible, a lot of pro-business legislative action. To get that kind of business support, they needed a lot of Republicans. Here’s why. Business leaders knew from the beginning that the kind of economic upheaval they wanted to pull off would do exactly what it, put hundreds of thousands of skilled factory workers out of work. But, the factory workers were all Democrats so they thought their Democratic representation in Congress would keep their jobs safe. The other and more important thing they had was a strong lobbying union representing them and keeping the Democratic legislators on the side of workers. That venerable “Blue Wall” stayed pretty much intact long after it stopped protecting their industrial base constituents.  The other thing that had to happen was emasculate the unions, get rid of their power to protect their members.

I would say that the start of putting the plan in motion was first visible to the untrained eye with the election of Ronald Reagan. He was the first to openly begin working to end collective bargaining rights. The misleading argument against unions was clothed in the deception of the “Right to Work” title of the laws that were passed in each state. The expectation in the title was that it gives everyone the right to work. Actually, a more accurate title would be “Right to Work for less.” What these laws do is prevent a majority of employees in a workforce from voting to close their shop to non-union members. If the workers in a workplace do not have the power to stand in solidarity, bargain for the whole and strike as a whole for their share of the profit they produce, then the company (capital) has all of the power and the employee (Labor) has none. This is not a fair split of the two equal partners in the prosperity of the company. The Right-to-work laws effectively got rid of one obstruction to the grand plan of moving the manufacturing jobs offshore. The only thing left to do was to get big-money Republicans in control of the government. That came with the Republican sweep in the 1980 election of Reagan.

Before companies could actually start moving to Asia, Mexico and all the rest, there needed to be agreements between America and the other countries that protected the assets of the corporations moving the jobs. Since the trade deals were only for the benefit of the businesses involved, the legislation was written by their legal staff and not the sponsoring legislators. I doubt the Republicans (and a few Democrats) that pushed the bills through even read them. The Representatives of the industrial states didn’t understand that either their constituents were being slow-walked off a cliff, they bought into the global capitalist lie that it was good for the country or they were outvoted. Who knows whether it was ignorance, greed or malice that motivated them. The large block of our population who were instrumental in making America great in the first place were pushed out of our American dream simply because a few people with influence thought to maximize their profit was more important than the economic viability of the entire industrial region and the well-being of its people. I am embarrassed as a Democrat that probably the last nail in the coffin was legislation signed into law by President Clinton.

So, why would anyone be surprised that after so many people who have watched their once grand cities and beautiful towns deteriorate and crumble; their once-bustling factories shuttered and falling down, would be angry with the system. Here in Seattle where I grew up I served an apprenticeship and worked as a machinist for twenty years. It saddened me to watch the factories go. All of the shops I had worked in except Boeing are gone. We built the tunnel boring machine that put in the original bus tunnel in the 1960’s that was the start of our subway system. The machines they’re using here now were built in Asia because we don’t make them anymore. We had companies that built the best forest product machinery in the world, now all gone. I was lucky enough to retrain, but it is unrealistic to think an entire population can do that. Like I said I understand why so many were mad as hell and were not going to trust any politician. They had their whole segment of the population raped and left to die by all of them for decades. When Trump came along and said he was going to make America great again, and they thought back with tears in their eyes and remembered when it was, why wouldn’t they take a chance on him? I’m not sure in their circumstance I wouldn’t have done the same.

from Joe Labrum in Washington State

In retrospect what happened should not have been such a surprise. We Democrats should have seen it coming for a long time. We failed to notice, or just didn’t pay any attention to the devastation and pain we were allowing to happening in the once great cities of our industrial core. Proud, industrious people that filled the factories that once made everything that now comes in boxes that say “Made in China” have been cast aside like yesterday’s newspaper. These people who built this nation, that during election time we could only refer to as “uneducated white men” worked as hard at learning their trade as any mid-level manager did earning a degree. But because of some inexplicable liberal elite bias we decided that college was an education and trade apprenticeship was not.  I know this to be not true because I completed an apprenticeship and became a journeyman machinist myself.

This election is not a fluke. We began this journey in 1980 with the election of Reagan. There has always been a struggle in the economy between the two equally necessary components, labor, and capital. Capital has always had the upper hand for obvious reasons, they control the money. As long as you keep labor poor enough and dependent enough and isolated enough, they can be easily controlled. Before Reagan, our industrial workers were making a good middle-class wage, had decent working conditions and, because of a strong union, could bargain for a fair share of the economy generated by their shared contribution with capital. The booming economy was driven by equal contribution from both labor and capital and in those days because of the strength of collective bargaining labor was able to demand a better partnership with capital in the business. Representatives from the workforce had a place at the table in the boardroom.

An axiom taught in most business schools is the number one goal of business is to maximize profit without consideration of anything else which is accomplished by cutting expenses. The other axiom is that labor is an expense and not an asset. Business’s long-term strategic plan has been to, as much as possible, eliminate the labor component from the economic partnership. The only way to do that is to replace the expensive labor in this country with cheap labor in third world countries. It is important to understand that this strategy has nothing to do with business survival or sufficient profitability. It is only about making a maximum bottom-line profit. And the only way to achieve it is to change the distribution balance of business by reducing the share to labor and increase the share to capital. Basically a re-distribution of wealth. Or rather, reverse the direction of the re-distribution that started with Roosevelt’s New Deal.

What they were talking about was a complete restructuring of the way America’s economy works from manufacturing to one of distribution. It took time and preparation to pull it off. For one thing, it took a lot of government action to make it possible, a lot of pro-business legislative action. To get that kind of business support, they needed a lot of Republicans. Here’s why. Business leaders knew from the beginning that the kind of economic upheaval they wanted to pull off would do exactly what it, put hundreds of thousands of skilled factory workers out of work. But, the factory workers were all Democrats so they thought their Democratic representation in Congress would keep their jobs safe. The other and more important thing they had was a strong lobbying union representing them and keeping the Democratic legislators on the side of workers. That venerable “Blue Wall” stayed pretty much intact long after it stopped protecting their industrial base constituents.  The other thing that had to happen was emasculate the unions, get rid of their power to protect their members.

I would say that the start of putting the plan in motion was first visible to the untrained eye with the election of Ronald Reagan. He was the first to openly begin working to end collective bargaining rights. The misleading argument against unions was clothed in the deception of the “Right to Work” title of the laws that were passed in each state. The expectation in the title was that it gives everyone the right to work. Actually, a more accurate title would be “Right to Work for less.” What these laws do is prevent a majority of employees in a workforce from voting to close their shop to non-union members. If the workers in a workplace do not have the power to stand in solidarity, bargain for the whole and strike as a whole for their share of the profit they produce, then the company (capital) has all of the power and the employee (Labor) has none. This is not a fair split of the two equal partners in the prosperity of the company. The Right-to-work laws effectively got rid of one obstruction to the grand plan of moving the manufacturing jobs offshore. The only thing left to do was to get big-money Republicans in control of the government. That came with the Republican sweep in the 1980 election of Reagan.

Before companies could actually start moving to Asia, Mexico and all the rest, there needed to be agreements between America and the other countries that protected the assets of the corporations moving the jobs. Since the trade deals were only for the benefit of the businesses involved, the legislation was written by their legal staff and not the sponsoring legislators. I doubt the Republicans (and a few Democrats) that pushed the bills through even read them. The Representatives of the industrial states didn’t understand that either their constituents were being slow-walked off a cliff, they bought into the global capitalist lie that it was good for the country or they were outvoted. Who knows whether it was ignorance, greed or malice that motivated them. The large block of our population who were instrumental in making America great in the first place were pushed out of our American dream simply because a few people with influence thought to maximize their profit was more important than the economic viability of the entire industrial region and the well-being of its people. I am embarrassed as a Democrat that probably the last nail in the coffin was legislation signed into law by President Clinton.

So, why would anyone be surprised that after so many people who have watched their once grand cities and beautiful towns deteriorate and crumble; their once-bustling factories shuttered and falling down, would be angry with the system. Here in Seattle where I grew up I served an apprenticeship and worked as a machinist for twenty years. It saddened me to watch the factories go. All of the shops I had worked in except Boeing are gone. We built the tunnel boring machine that put in the original bus tunnel in the 1960’s that was the start of our subway system. The machines they’re using here now were built in Asia because we don’t make them anymore. We had companies that built the best forest product machinery in the world, now all gone. I was lucky enough to retrain, but it is unrealistic to think an entire population can do that. Like I said I understand why so many were mad as hell and were not going to trust any politician. They had their whole segment of the population raped and left to die by all of them for decades. When Trump came along and said he was going to make America great again, and they thought back with tears in their eyes and remembered when it was, why wouldn’t they take a chance on him? I’m not sure in their circumstance I wouldn’t have done the same.

As a young boy, Christmas was something to look forward to. In 1951 at the age of five, I started primary school after moving from my parent’s seafront flat to a new suburb that backed onto farmland. It was a time of great adventure for us kids but a tough time for our parents. Six years after the war, my mother still had ration books, father earned very little as a carpenter on building sites, and entertainment was the radio or an occasional trip to a local cinema. I remember my childhood as a time of Roy Rogers, Superman,  and on the radio – ‘Journey to the Moon’ or ‘Sherlock Holmes.’ It was a time when the world around me was going through significant change, not that I was aware of that at the time. The Cold War was hotting up and a year earlier, in July, my birthday month, the first rocket took off from Cape Canaveral.

Yet while the advance of technology was astounding the world, Authorities in London and in particular the city was clearing bomb sites and rebuilding homes. Temporary residences, called prefabs, dotted many areas of suburbia and were intended for victims of the blitz or the homeless. Temporary became permanent and in my hometown, the last of them, situated next to our airport, were torn down well into the seventies as I recall. Home life may have been a little tough, but the one thing that kept us going was family togetherness. There was no better example of this than on a Sunday, about twice a month. My uncles and aunts and grandparents would arrive at our house armed with plates of food and cakes for a family tea. The afternoon was spent playing cricket out on the field in front of the house while the girls and the women did what girls and women do. Sometimes in the summer months, we would all pile into our uncles two cars and take off for a trip somewhere and a picnic. Teatime, back home, was salad and pilchards with a slice of bread followed by jelly and custard or a slice of Victoria sponge cake. In the evening we played a few games before bedtime – school in the morning. I never once lost touch with any of our family while I was a youngster and because of that, I have so many happy memories of those times.

There were, of course, holidays and I guess my favourite holiday was Christmas. It was a time when my family, despite the financial struggle my parents endured, came together, forgot the daily drudge, and lived for the fantasy and sparkle of Christmas. My father would appear a week or so before the 25th with a tree and fix it into a bucket. Mother would then cover the bucket in red crepe paper. In ‘51 I had an elder sister and another just born. Eventually, there would be three sisters and a brother. My older sister would help mother decorate the tree, and I would make a mental note where the chocolate foil covered coins were hung along with the pink and white sugar mice. A string of lights finished the job and then I got the job of making paper chains. I remember the terrible taste of the glue as each strip of coloured paper had to be licked at one end after passing it through the last part of the chain. Then we hung them across the room and some other decorations that when opened up, represented a bell. By the time the job was done my sister would then hang up all the Christmas cards and issue a warning. “Raymond, don’t touch.” This was accompanied with a look that warned of impending danger if I ‘touched.’

The tension mounted every day and on the last day of school my mother would give me a small box of cakes to be taken in for the school party. I really wasn’t interested in the school party but did look forward to the food. It was, therefore, normal during my time in junior school that twelve cakes in the box managed to count ten by the time I reached the school gates. The party always took place in the morning so we could go home at lunchtime. I would spend time avoiding the girls. It wasn’t a mixed school, and silly girls would try and give us a kiss, something to be avoided at all costs. If you got a kiss, it was a horrible wet one which you immediately cuffed off. Girls were those skinny or fat lot who did handstands up against the playground wall with their dress tucked into a pair of sexy navy blue knickers that came up to their armpits. You spied on them through the gates that separated our playgrounds and made silly taunts like – “Ziggy Zaggy, your knickers are all baggy.”

Christmas Eve then arrived, and the excitement boiled over. Father would give me a thick ear if I got in the way. I could not contain myself. Food being cooked in the kitchen. Chocolates on the tree. The smell of tangerines and oranges. Bowls of nuts and under the tree – presents! My uncles and aunts and grandparents all bought each one of us a present. My parents bought each one of us a present, and one of us would be lucky. My father was an artist in woodwork, and he would make a present for one of us. My sister, one year had a dolls house, I had a garage, and a horse on wheels was another present he made another year. He did wonderful things with his hands and a lot of his work, many years on, can still be seen around the town. Shop counters, church doors, display booths in builders merchants – the list goes on.

Expectant and full of energy there was no sleep on Christmas Eve until the early hours. When I woke, I always found one of my school socks at the foot of my bed. Inside there was a tangerine, some nuts, a torch, colouring book and crayons, and some small toy. The bed became a tent and the torch my entry into the world of make-believe. As dawn broke, my sister and I, and later all of us kids, would race downstairs and look at the presents. We had to wait for mother and father and when they did come down the unwrapping and tearing began. Gifts were revealed, and in our wake, the front living room became a montage of coloured paper and cellophane wrapping accompanied with the cacophony of excited shouts and noisy toys. What fun it was.

Breakfast was quick. Mother would have us wrap up and say “Go outside and play.” It was time for her to baste the bird that had been slowly cooking through the night and start cooking the vegetables for dinner. The funny thing was that outside I would find all my friends who had also been sent out to play. That was until I saw a familiar car driving up our road followed by another. My uncles and aunts. I knew if they were arriving, dinner was not far away. I don’t want to give the impression that I lived for food but times like Christmas, Easter or Sunday dinners were special. That’s when we had treats and food we didn’t normally get to enjoy.

Dinner was a jumbled up affair. The table was full, and with thirteen of us around it, you can imagine the balancing acts and juggling of plates. We would pull crackers and wear silly hats, but at that moment we were all kids enjoying our own company and to heck with all the ills of the period. But it was a great time with lots of talk and laughter. My uncle Jim would grab my knee and squeeze, making me scream. Of course, there was a pudding after dinner covered in custard and within it, a sixpence piece someone would find. After dinner, the girls cleared the table and disappeared into the kitchen while the men all snored after falling asleep in armchairs. That’s when I raided the tree for the chocolate coins.

Tea was grab anything that had been set out on the table, and for the rest of the evening, it was games time and no early night to bed. Glorious memories of these times as I grew up between the ages of five and ten. Of course, those times carried on, but that’s another story. Today, on the whole, we don’t have that kind of kindred spirit in family life. Maybe it’s just me getting old, but I wish I could live my life again and revisit my childhood. To all of my friends and colleagues – Happy Christmas and a Wonderful New Year.

As a young boy, Christmas was something to look forward to. In 1951 at the age of five, I started primary school after moving from my parent’s seafront flat to a new suburb that backed onto farmland. It was a time of great adventure for us kids but a tough time for our parents. Six years after the war, my mother still had ration books, father earned very little as a carpenter on building sites, and entertainment was the radio or an occasional trip to a local cinema. I remember my childhood as a time of Roy Rogers, Superman,  and on the radio – ‘Journey to the Moon’ or ‘Sherlock Holmes.’ It was a time when the world around me was going through significant change, not that I was aware of that at the time. The Cold War was hotting up and a year earlier, in July, my birthday month, the first rocket took off from Cape Canaveral.

Yet while the advance of technology was astounding the world, Authorities in London and in particular the city was clearing bomb sites and rebuilding homes. Temporary residences, called prefabs, dotted many areas of suburbia and were intended for victims of the blitz or the homeless. Temporary became permanent and in my hometown, the last of them, situated next to our airport, were torn down well into the seventies as I recall. Home life may have been a little tough, but the one thing that kept us going was family togetherness. There was no better example of this than on a Sunday, about twice a month. My uncles and aunts and grandparents would arrive at our house armed with plates of food and cakes for a family tea. The afternoon was spent playing cricket out on the field in front of the house while the girls and the women did what girls and women do. Sometimes in the summer months, we would all pile into our uncles two cars and take off for a trip somewhere and a picnic. Teatime, back home, was salad and pilchards with a slice of bread followed by jelly and custard or a slice of Victoria sponge cake. In the evening we played a few games before bedtime – school in the morning. I never once lost touch with any of our family while I was a youngster and because of that, I have so many happy memories of those times.

There were, of course, holidays and I guess my favourite holiday was Christmas. It was a time when my family, despite the financial struggle my parents endured, came together, forgot the daily drudge, and lived for the fantasy and sparkle of Christmas. My father would appear a week or so before the 25th with a tree and fix it into a bucket. Mother would then cover the bucket in red crepe paper. In ‘51 I had an elder sister and another just born. Eventually, there would be three sisters and a brother. My older sister would help mother decorate the tree, and I would make a mental note where the chocolate foil covered coins were hung along with the pink and white sugar mice. A string of lights finished the job and then I got the job of making paper chains. I remember the terrible taste of the glue as each strip of coloured paper had to be licked at one end after passing it through the last part of the chain. Then we hung them across the room and some other decorations that when opened up, represented a bell. By the time the job was done my sister would then hang up all the Christmas cards and issue a warning. “Raymond, don’t touch.” This was accompanied with a look that warned of impending danger if I ‘touched.’

The tension mounted every day and on the last day of school my mother would give me a small box of cakes to be taken in for the school party. I really wasn’t interested in the school party but did look forward to the food. It was, therefore, normal during my time in junior school that twelve cakes in the box managed to count ten by the time I reached the school gates. The party always took place in the morning so we could go home at lunchtime. I would spend time avoiding the girls. It wasn’t a mixed school, and silly girls would try and give us a kiss, something to be avoided at all costs. If you got a kiss, it was a horrible wet one which you immediately cuffed off. Girls were those skinny or fat lot who did handstands up against the playground wall with their dress tucked into a pair of sexy navy blue knickers that came up to their armpits. You spied on them through the gates that separated our playgrounds and made silly taunts like – “Ziggy Zaggy, your knickers are all baggy.”

Christmas Eve then arrived, and the excitement boiled over. Father would give me a thick ear if I got in the way. I could not contain myself. Food being cooked in the kitchen. Chocolates on the tree. The smell of tangerines and oranges. Bowls of nuts and under the tree – presents! My uncles and aunts and grandparents all bought each one of us a present. My parents bought each one of us a present, and one of us would be lucky. My father was an artist in woodwork, and he would make a present for one of us. My sister, one year had a dolls house, I had a garage, and a horse on wheels was another present he made another year. He did wonderful things with his hands and a lot of his work, many years on, can still be seen around the town. Shop counters, church doors, display booths in builders merchants – the list goes on.

Expectant and full of energy there was no sleep on Christmas Eve until the early hours. When I woke, I always found one of my school socks at the foot of my bed. Inside there was a tangerine, some nuts, a torch, colouring book and crayons, and some small toy. The bed became a tent and the torch my entry into the world of make-believe. As dawn broke, my sister and I, and later all of us kids, would race downstairs and look at the presents. We had to wait for mother and father and when they did come down the unwrapping and tearing began. Gifts were revealed, and in our wake, the front living room became a montage of coloured paper and cellophane wrapping accompanied with the cacophony of excited shouts and noisy toys. What fun it was.

Breakfast was quick. Mother would have us wrap up and say “Go outside and play.” It was time for her to baste the bird that had been slowly cooking through the night and start cooking the vegetables for dinner. The funny thing was that outside I would find all my friends who had also been sent out to play. That was until I saw a familiar car driving up our road followed by another. My uncles and aunts. I knew if they were arriving, dinner was not far away. I don’t want to give the impression that I lived for food but times like Christmas, Easter or Sunday dinners were special. That’s when we had treats and food we didn’t normally get to enjoy.

Dinner was a jumbled up affair. The table was full, and with thirteen of us around it, you can imagine the balancing acts and juggling of plates. We would pull crackers and wear silly hats, but at that moment we were all kids enjoying our own company and to heck with all the ills of the period. But it was a great time with lots of talk and laughter. My uncle Jim would grab my knee and squeeze, making me scream. Of course, there was a pudding after dinner covered in custard and within it, a sixpence piece someone would find. After dinner, the girls cleared the table and disappeared into the kitchen while the men all snored after falling asleep in armchairs. That’s when I raided the tree for the chocolate coins.

Tea was grab anything that had been set out on the table, and for the rest of the evening, it was games time and no early night to bed. Glorious memories of these times as I grew up between the ages of five and ten. Of course, those times carried on, but that’s another story. Today, on the whole, we don’t have that kind of kindred spirit in family life. Maybe it’s just me getting old, but I wish I could live my life again and revisit my childhood. To all of my friends and colleagues – Happy Christmas and a Wonderful New Year.

One of the most amazing experiences that I have enjoyed so far on Cyprus is my visit to the ‘Tombs of Kings.’ This site covers several acres and is well preserved. It is a major attraction in Paphos and a significant necropolis carved out of solid rock. The five tombs differ in size and shape, and one of them takes the breath away. Complete with an open courtyard, several pillars and four rooms – a great place to stop and admire and wonder. After climbing down into this courtyard I wandered from one room to another and felt I was living in the past, hearing ancient voices whispering around the darkened room’s walls. I have been to this site twice and will go again this winter to take more photos without trying to avoid shooting tourists (no pun intended – perhaps). Next to the sea, I found this a perfect place to rest the feet and enjoy a sandwich and drink while sitting and enjoying the panoramic views.

Just down the shoreline next to a Roman fort that stands surrounded by a moat, there is another site – Paphos Mosaics. Experts agree that some of the most intact and beautiful ancient mosaics in the Mediterranean can be found here. The mosaics are part of a complex of Roman villas. Each mosaic depicts something different, whether an act of a Greek god or goddess, a blessing for the home, or a scene from a mythological story. An amphitheater sits to one side of the site, just below the lighthouse that overlooks the coast. Complete with a little restoration, it is easy to visualize Roman thespians acting out mythological plays. I spent ages in one villa that has been completely covered over by a roof and walked around on a raised walkway. The villa floor structure is complete from the kitchen to the baths to the dining and bedrooms. Each floor was covered in brilliant mosaics and outside I discovered the clay pipe system that was used to carry water into the villa.

Further inland, in the small town of Kouklla, the Temple of Aphrodite is laid out on one of the smaller sites. Once, this was the most significant place of Aphrodite worship in ancient Cyprus. The temple is near enough in total ruin, but some Hellenistic walls still remain. There are also several Roman pillars to be found and a walk around the site affords views across the distant sea. On a hot day this site is open without shelter, and so the tavern that is ideally situated just outside the entrance was a great place to cool off with a pint.

Cyprus has been governed by many different powers throughout its history dating back to prehistory. From Neolithic and Chalcolithic people to the Bronze Age that saw the Greeks arrive. The Hellenistic and Roman periods saw the Persian control come and go as Alexander planned to reconquer the East. The island was eventually converted to Christianity through the Apostles Paul and Barnabus. From the 15th century, the island came under the rule of the Ottomans but managed to retain its Hellenistic culture. Later, after Britain relinquished the island to independent rule, the Turks invaded and now illegally, rule a third of the island. All things considered, throughout its cultural and turbulent history, no matter who rules, Cyprus is a historical gem, and I am so pleased that the World Heritage organization is preserving treasures we must safeguard for our grandchildren and beyond.

I have only scratched the surface here and look forward to seeing and experiencing much more. What really excites me as a writer are the inspirational vibes that resonate from every nook and cranny of ancient walls and carvings. To think that two thousand years ago, other Roman men leaned on the pillar I am leaning on – or other artistic hands carefully created a fabulous mosaic that I can touch today. What great artists they were to carve and create with no modern tools.

For more information, go to http://www.cyprus-archaeology.org.uk/sites.htm