THE TRAUMA SERIES... MY PERSONAL TAKE ON BECCA THORNE'S ARTWORK OF THE SAME NAME...

 The Trauma Series…

(A personal reflection, responding to Becca Thorne’s artwork of the same name…)

I have associated each image with a period in my own life, which has proved be a searching task…

Chronologically, the top three images are referred to as numbers 1-3 and the lower images as numbers 4-6…

ONE:

The Face Over The Pram…

He sold fruit and was nicknamed ‘Jack the Fruiterer Man’, 

Who plied his trade in the roads of Ward End,

Where I grew up in Birmingham, as an only child.

He forms my earliest memory, as I lay in my pram, hapless

Outside my grandmother’s house, where my parents resided.

He would quite suddenly appear, leaving his travelling van

To look down at me, presumably amiably as a family friend,

But his sudden appearance, his grin, his rictus wild

Directly above me caused shock and fear. Clearly helpless,  

I recall tears and screams, until the evil vision receded…

Pete Ray

(That face has haunted me all my life and visions like when Magwich suddenly appears from behind a gravestone in ‘Great Expectations’ always make me jump…

Thanks for that, Jack…)

TWO:

The Maths Teacher…

HARRY TYSON, CENTRE OF PICTURE...

The demeanour, although not the bearded face, is reminiscent 

Of my grammar school maths teacher, who perfected fear:

Harry Tyson, who sat, frowned and mumbled with northern accent,

Creating an aura of dictatorship, with a cruel, hateful leer.

“There’s going to be an investigation…”

Was his catchphrase and pupils were invariably afraid,

Even if they were innocent and there was no justification

For his accusations and the vile threats that he made…

Pete Ray

(Tyson was mean, unkind and a muttering controller…

He called a mate of mine to the front of a maths class one day, a large rugby forward called Rob ‘Figgy’ Freeman and simply said to him, “You’re frightened of me, aren't you, Freeman?”

Rob replied, “Yes Sir…”

It was awful…

Years later, I met the elderly Tyson whilst walking to Villa Park one evening to see Aston Villa play. I was taller than him by then and I told him I was a teacher. 

He quickly smiled meekly and seemed a little shy in my presence…)

THREE:

The Skin Over The Skull…

The head turns creepily, with an expression of self- confidence, 

Exuding untouchability and an air of arrogance;

A white hue lurks about his head like a halo worn:

Putin, perhaps? A bully using mind games over brawn…

Pete Ray

(The unpleasant sideways glance, almost a scowl, reminds me so much of the Russian leader.

I did think about ex-Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, however but he had no lasting effect upon my life…)

DOUGLAS-HOME...

FOUR:

The Quiet Woman…

She was timid, folks said and restricted, enveloped

by her spouse and to him her opinion was generally irrelevant. 

She was quite serious, any charisma undeveloped,

Routines solemnly followed, a housewife subservient…    

She breathed her last with eyes strained, body arthritic,

Heart quietly worn out, yet she was never a bother.

She avoided confrontation and she was never a critic.

I cared for her, you know. She was of course my mother…

Pete Ray

(The image seemed to me to hint at a lady with an envelope in front of her mouth.   

My mother was never encouraged to speak much in the home and when I looked at the picture, it made me think of my mum’s words being somehow trapped inside the envelope, like her life was mostly enveloped inside my father’s house…)

FIVE: 

The Likeable Lad…

Introverted. Lonely mostly. The only child of a working

Father and an inhibited, reticent mother, lacking the confidence 

Even to play with her son. He played alone, isolated

For much of the time. Frightened of admonition, 

Wary of confrontation and terrified by the face to face

Scolding on the rare occasions that he dared put a foot wrong… 

Well behaved, folks said, always doing as he was told,

But in truth, threatened, living in fear, worldly unwise…

Pete Ray 

(The child’s image seems to capture how I felt as a kid. Frightened to do anything wrong, scared not to know my multiplication tables and in the Christmas term Year 4 tests, I was terrified to go home and tell my father that I had finished 2nd in the class by half a mark and Roger Baker had secured top spot…

I was berated.

I finished first in the other seven half-yearly tests.

I had to…

The pressure was enormous.

My father wanted his son to go to a King Edward VI grammar school, to prove to his sister-in-law that his kid from a Shard End council estate could do equally as well as her twins… 

Fortunately, I got into King Edward’s Aston…

Hated the cap I had to wear en route to and from the school though, especially travelling through downtown Shard End…)

SIX:

The Lost Adult…

ME, AS JOE BRISCOE, THE MILLER AT TOLKIEN'S SAREHOLE MILL...

Lost in time’s mists. Driftwood. Hustled, confused, faking

Extraversion, battling self-doubt. On the fringes, lacking substance.

Humorous, taking on identities, masking the hated

Lack of general knowledge. A life of attrition.

Athletic, yet unambitious, running life’s race,

Indecisive, untrusting, clawing right from wrong.

Wearing historical disguises, securing warmth from life’s cold,

Drifting, aching and dreading life’s cruel demise…

Pete Ray  

(The boy grew up, to be a complicated bystander, more comfortable out of his own skin…)