When I was growing up cycling along the River Wharfe towards Ilkley I used to admire the large stone houses and solid walls which housed the well off in this spar town. It was the antithesis of the dark satanic mill towns of which Bradford was one, the houses here were open, a countrified retreat away from the claustrophobic city and I often wondered what it would be like to live in one. Being an apprentice on very modest means it was a dream, like winning the lottery, it was remote from anything I could realistically dream about and like most of us in life I never really planned to fulfill my dreams. We muddle along making changes as we move about, no great plan, no great desire, only a desire to be happy within the surroundings we live in.
Looking back on a pretty chaotic life I wonder if I didn't sell myself short, at least in the sense of accumulating wealth. There were moments when I was on the right path but only too easily, took a wrong turning and messed it up. Of course these wrong turnings each have their own story, their own pathos, some small tragedy which might have been avoided if my eyes had been better attuned. That's not to say I was unhappy in the course which life took me, certainly not but I was more like flotsam on the surface of a stream rather than a rock in the middle of the current.
In self belief I was secure. It was a belief without the foundation of an education which I could turn to to assure myself a place in the social milieu or an economic one, I was peering into this other world, much the the cyclist, allowing things to pass me by and sometimes wondering what it would be like but without becoming too obsessed to try.
My political understanding of what life is about and what is important came into conflict with creating the need to cultivate the right circumstance for getting on and I was more inclined to worry about the other 'left behinds' than making a break for the high ground myself.
Today as I recognise that those properties lining the banks of the river Whalfe will now always remain outside my field of accomplishment or the intimate knowledge of what it would be like to live there, I have to settle with the idea that no matter where you live it's the person you become which is important and not the surroundings you buy to announce to others your success.
A cop out maybe but it's the one most of us have to consider when we tender our balance sheet at the end of the exam.
Looking back on a pretty chaotic life I wonder if I didn't sell myself short, at least in the sense of accumulating wealth. There were moments when I was on the right path but only too easily, took a wrong turning and messed it up. Of course these wrong turnings each have their own story, their own pathos, some small tragedy which might have been avoided if my eyes had been better attuned. That's not to say I was unhappy in the course which life took me, certainly not but I was more like flotsam on the surface of a stream rather than a rock in the middle of the current.
In self belief I was secure. It was a belief without the foundation of an education which I could turn to to assure myself a place in the social milieu or an economic one, I was peering into this other world, much the the cyclist, allowing things to pass me by and sometimes wondering what it would be like but without becoming too obsessed to try.
My political understanding of what life is about and what is important came into conflict with creating the need to cultivate the right circumstance for getting on and I was more inclined to worry about the other 'left behinds' than making a break for the high ground myself.
Today as I recognise that those properties lining the banks of the river Whalfe will now always remain outside my field of accomplishment or the intimate knowledge of what it would be like to live there, I have to settle with the idea that no matter where you live it's the person you become which is important and not the surroundings you buy to announce to others your success.
A cop out maybe but it's the one most of us have to consider when we tender our balance sheet at the end of the exam.
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