Are you Nigel?
The village of Blackford and the tears of a clown
The village of Blackford and the tears of a clown
It was 2pm the other day, as it is most days I guess, and as the gathering storms of Dudley and Eunice circled the Southern coasts of the UK I was in the middle of a storm of my own making. I had just finished speaking with a lady who’s heart I splintered into a thousand pieces a decade ago and to her immense credit and fortitude is always, always there for me when I need her the most. As she was on this day, a day (days plural actually) that were supposed to be a treat to myself and which I turned into a ridiculously painful and self inflicted nightmare. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves already.
As I ended the call after her many soothing words of encouragement, help and observations I opened the car door for some fresh sea air to be met with the question “Are you Nigel?” and after declaring that I wasn’t, I resumed the waterfall of tears from a clown, and a clown who had resolved, finally, to make the return journey immediately from whence I came but mere hours ago. The lady who enquired as to my name politely didn’t pry into the fact that I was a dishevelled mess, inconsolable and completely lost in my own world of self imposed torment, and I’d hazard a guess she was rather pleased that I wasn’t in fact named Nigel after all. I’m also guessing it was a blind date and I’d like to think this lady quickly found her beau and they skipped merrily along the Weymouth seafront together and are at this minute making furious plans to be married, throwing caution to the stormy winds and eloping overseas for a whirlwind life of romantic love whilst walking hand in hand along a much sandier beach than Weymouth has to offer. Both the unnamed lady and Nigel will remember this first date, if indeed it was a date of the blind kind, and no doubt the lady in question will have let out a huge sigh of relief that her Nigel wasn’t the sobbing mess she first thought he might be.
So against all forms of perceived logic I made the near six hour return journey and just two hours after I’d arrived in the first place. I defied the SatNav on a couple of occasions this time as on the outward journey it had taken me on a magical mystery tour via the Devon and Somerset borders before slowly taking me to my Dorset location and a journey I’d anticipated would be far easier than it eventually was. Leaving the Motorway behind I trawled through Bristol at morning rush hour before winding my way through village after village as I headed towards a UK coast that so often provides me with serenity and solace. But not today, and again we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Defying the SatNav in a vain attempt to not retrace my steps back through these same villages of just a few hours past I of course went the wrong way and thus compounded my own desperation and inner torment. I just wanted to go home, yet this isn’t my home and nor is the place of my birth and where I should be right now as I pen these angst filled words. I couldn’t go “home” and face my family members who were excited to see me and nor could I see one of my oldest and most valued friends as I’m not the man they think I am and I’d have folded like a pack of cards in their presence. I had to get “home”, that isn’t my home, and never will be, and I have no idea when or if I’ll ever have that reassurance ever again of having somewhere to actually call home.
Blackford Family History
In 1939, Farmworker and Unpaid Domestic Duties were the top reported jobs for men and women in the UK named Blackford…www.ancestry.co.uk
My ill prescribed detour and defiance of the map guidance system ensured I was even more lost now than I was just an hour or so before when talking to the lady who still puts up with me after all these years and all the horrible heartbreak I inflicted upon her. I was trying for the easiest path back to the motorway and definitely not the now evening rush hour traffic of Bristol that I ended up in anyway. Two doses of stifling rush hour traffic in one of England’s largest and busiest cities wasn’t what the doctor prescribed but again, we’re getting ahead of ourselves as first, lost, crying, bewildered and looking for a car shaped whole in the ground, I stumbled upon a Somerset village called “Blackford”.
Rather than seeing this as a sign of good luck, a change in fortunes perhaps, much needed merriment, a laugh or indeed a giggle, I poured scorn on that bloody road sign of “Blackford — 2 miles” and with rising anger this was perhaps the lowest of possible ebbs for this particular day, and thankfully it was. After crawling through the Bristol rush hour traffic I re-joined the motorway that led home (whatever that means) and through tiredness that I couldn’t possibly describe I made it safely home, but not home. I just wanted a familiar place, a place to breathe and not the confines of a lovely looking hotel and the kind invitation of a place to stay the following evening at my friend’s. I turned around before the village of my surname and a name that isn’t common either for human beings or those that live within it’s village borders. I should of course driven those extra two miles and taken some pictures, a selfie perhaps next to the “Welcome to Blackford” sign and had that giggle to myself. Perhaps even produced my drivers licence to passers by and had a giggle at the ludicrous nature of quite literally stumbling lost into a village that carried my familial name. But I couldn’t face a question of “Are You Nigel?”, let alone a village of strangers living in a place of my surname and certainly not the worried and quizzical looks I’d receive from my own family and friends.
So I drove home, to a home that isn’t home.
The day before had been a joy and a day that my beautiful teenage son had been excited for according to the equally beautifully lady who took my telephone call in my moment of need. We’d ventured to Ironbridge, a spiritual home for me of sorts and the home of the world famous bridge and my self titled “Grand Old Lady”. Hungry ducks were fed, a riverside stroll was undertaken and a walk my son and I had taken hundreds of times in my short time of living there many years ago. My son and I spent the day together, as we do every other day, and it was as quietly beautiful as he is. But the days leading up to this weren’t as quiet in my mind and a mind that never stops chattering and reminding me of exactly how it sees me. Weeks in fact of inaction and fretting over hotels, where to go, who to see and all in aid of days that I’ve already mentioned were squarely and selfishly mine for celebration! This was not a chore or a problem in any possible way. No reasons whatsoever for any stress or issues. The complete opposite in fact: a couple of days away, beside the seaside, see some desperately missed family members, a couple of old friends, the hospitality of kind souls before the return home. That isn’t my home. To have described the end of my brief time away in the fashion that I have so far is all rather faintly ridiculous, as I’m sure you’ll agree, but the end was only just as absurdly ridiculous as the beginning.
I set off to “beat the traffic” at an ungodly hour and after a night of zero sleep and much consternation as after those weeks of indecision I was still unsure I was even going to allow myself the treat of the seaside retreat for the couple of days that I didn’t in fact achieve anyway. Stood on the driveway with a car warming up I still wasn’t going but I had to. I convinced myself all would be well, I’d be well, I’d pull a rabbit out of the Blackford family hat and smile through, but I was a mess even before I reached the gridlock of a busy early morning Bristol. After the winding country lanes of Somerset and Dorset I reached my first destination, Portland Bill, and the literal and figurative end of the road. I was at journey’s end (kind of) but very definitely the end of the UK as you cannot travel any further lest you go past the famous lighthouse and into the stormy seas of the English Channel. This was still two hours before the fateful if soothing call to my son’s Mother and yet I was already a ridiculous mess. Stood on the rocks on the cliff’s edge by the lighthouse all I could say to myself was
Why am I here?
Why have I bothered?
What do I do now?
Irrationality has long since been my game and I questioned over and over as to my purpose in life, what was I supposed to do, who am I any worth to and a multitude of other embarrassing questions about myself that were, ironically unknown to me at the time, codified by the Nigel question two hours later. The romantic in me hopes my haphazard guess of an impending blind date for Nigel turned out fabulously well for him and for the unnamed lady who thought I might be him but was no doubt relieved that I wasn’t.
Only I could stand at one of nature’s most beautiful points of the jagged UK coastline and not appreciate it. Instead I was full of my own insecurities, inadequacies, angst and anxieties, lonely, and a future that according to the familial tree I still have over two decades in which to endure (enjoy, surely? Editor). Only I could pull myself together (I’m supposed to be on a pleasurable trip remember) to take some overhead pictures of the Dorset coastline before travelling the few further miles into Weymouth and checking into a hotel I’d long since decided I couldn’t. Instead I sobbed my heart out, called an angel in disguise who should’ve refused my calls long ago, dodged the arrows of blind date love and remained the Stephen Blackford that I’ve always been. Morose, unhappy, introspective, lost, bewildered and a lot of other things my internal editor will not allow me to write publicly. I let down my family, worried my Son’s Mother and let down my friends who had, unbeknown to me, planned something incredibly special for me, and more than a homemade curry, a bed for the night, and a beating at darts. I let myself down, but much like darts and irrationality, that has been my game for a long time now.
Storm Dudley has now passed the UK and as I pen these words the UK is being battered by it’s follow up, Eunice. Rather than penning these words this evening I should be in my hometown, and after seeing family members who I rarely see but respect highly and have let down, again, badly. I should also have consumed a homemade curry and right at this very moment (9.12pm) be in the middle of being soundly beaten at darts by a dear friend who’s company I miss and listening to the music we’ve shared together over the years. I’ve let him down too, as well as his beautiful wife who’s idea it no doubt was to make such an effort for me, for me, this evening.
One storm may have passed and another may well be petering out soon. Rogers and Hammerstein famously wrote a song about storms and of holding your head up high because at the end of the storm is a golden sky and the “sweet silver song of a lark”. Walk on they implored, with hope in your heart, and “you’ll never walk alone”.
Despite my footballing affiliations I always walk alone.
Selah.