For a change, a TV theme from the 1970s. Follyfoot was a programme about a farm which took in horses in need of recuperation.

The tune will bring back memories for some.

The Settlers: The Lightning Tree (Theme from Follyfoot)

From Penrith’ s Memorial to the two World Wars it is a very short walk to its Boer War Memorial, within Castle Park. It is in the form of an angel of victory surmounting an embossed square pillar:-

Closer view:-

Names:-

Penrith’s main War Memorial is in the form of an archway acting as a gateway to Castle Park, Penrith. (There is a Great War Memorial in the grounds of St Andrew’s Church.)

The larger Memorial above is directly across the road from Penith Railway Station which can be seen in the background in this reverse view:-

The name plaques are on the walls of the two alcoves within:-

Great War Dedication and names C J Adam – T Main:-

Great War Dedication and names T Mallinson – T Workman:-

Second World War Dedication and names:-

I thought I’d posted about this one but it seems I haven’t. Variously the Rialto, Gaumont and Odeon this cinema was at 204 High Street, Kirkcaldy.

See photo on the Scottish Cinemas website.

SPFL Tier 3, The Rock, 31/8/24.

Well. Here we are again.

Yet another draw.

And yet again coming from behind. Twice this time.

We were the better looking side in the early exchanges. Indeed Kelty really didn’t have an attack worthy of the name until they scored, a quick break showing an alarming fragility in our back line, waltzed through as if it were not there.

They looked extremely confident on the ball after that with a great awareness of where their teammates were and making seemingly blind passes. They were also very well organised defensively, always able to get a man in to make the crucial tackle or block. And if that failed their goalkeeper managed to make the save.

Not until the 43rd minute, after a few corners from the left had produced nothing, one from the right found Mark Durnan able to head in at the far post.

The second half followed a similar pattern. They scored when we lost the ball in midfield and worked the ball well into the area where the free guy stuck it through Brett Long’s legs.

It looked like the unbeaten run would end but then another Craig McGuffie corner was again headed in by Mark Durnan. That could almost have been a response to the immediately prior announcement of Durnan as man of the match. Personally I thought he was uncomfortable on the left of the centre back pairing.

Still, a draw against the team at the top of the league can’t be bad.

So it’s five league draws in a row now to start off the campaign (albeit with a Challenge Cup win against Berwick mixed in.) That sequence surely must be a club record.

But draws don’t get you up the league table. Not in these days of three points for a win. We really need to get one of those on the board.

There’s a break next week for the next round of the Challenge Cup, a long trip to Peterhead, before we’re down at Annan in a fortnight.

Harper Perennial, 2005, 190 p. First published in 1989.

Father Angwin is a Roman Catholic priest in the remote parish of Fetherhoughton in 1956. There is a small convent affiliated to Angwin’s Church of St Thomas Aquinas. The convent and attached school is overseen by Mother Perpetua – called Purpit by just about everyone. She has a fierce grip both on the nuns and the children and a downer on just about everybody except the bishop. Her contempt is particularly strong for Irish people, which is bad news for Sister Philomena who as a consequence gets all the drudgerous jobs.

The bishop is a moderniser in favour of updating the mass by dropping Latin. Angwin, despite being a man who lost his faith years ago is against this, fearing his parishioners would stray. He tells the bishop his flock “aren’t Christians. These people are heathens and Catholics.” Without the statues and their superstitions they wouldn’t attend Church. The bishop, however, insists on the removal of most of the plaster statues of saints in the Church. Angwin’s only solution to this problem is to have the statues buried in the churchyard.

Soon after, a knock comes on the presbytery door. In walks Father Fludd, whom everyone assumes is the curate the bishop had promised/threatened. Fludd is a mysterious character who quickly manages to winkle out Angwin’s and Philomena’s reservations about their respective situations. In one of their conversations he tells Angwin, “‘Common sense has nothing to do with religion.’ It is on Philomena, though, that his influence is most profound.

Oddness and a hint of the supernatural accompany him. Though he drinks Angwin’s whisky, the level in the bottle does not seem to drop. He laments the congregation’s lack of appreciation of what they are saying in their responses – formaligh for foe malign, destrier for death’s dread. He is, he says, in the business of transformation. It is never spelled out as such, but the invitation is clearly there to see him as an incarnation of the Devil.

Fludd is a short novel, but says what it needs to – even if the treatment, a kind of distancing, an opacity (which reminded me a little of the writing of Muriel Spark,) renders it almost dream-like.

Aside: In a foreword, Mantel says the Catholic Church portrayed in this novel bears “some but not much resemblance” to the one in the real world.

Perhaps redolent of the times in which it is set it contains the dismissive phrase, “digging like an Irishman.”

Pedant’s corner:- medieval (mediæval, please, or at least mediaeval,) “the camphor smell of their Sunday clothes” (the smell of mothballs, presumably. Those were made of naphthalene, not camphor,) “alarum clock” (alarum is archaic,) “like genii let out of bottles” (like genies let out,) “Thomas à Beckett” (nowadays written ‘Thomas Becket’.) “‘I’m not afraid will they recognise me’” (I’m not afraid they will recognise me’.)