Seasonal greetings – Saturnalian ones, natch, as opposed to salutations of a pious or devout nature – to visitors of this site. For millions of people, current grounds for celebration are even shakier than is customarily the case when the Conservative Party occupies Downing Street, and many are barely able to find sufficient funds to eat, or raise the temperature of their homes above an Arctic level of inclemency, let alone foot the bill for an internet account. In brief, we’re in what media shorthand terms a cost-of-living crisis – thereby shying away from calling a spade a spade, or in other words a recession a systemic crisis of capitalism – and festive cheer is less in evidence than blotting of the landscape by proliferous foodbanks. Nonetheless, the present writer, Mark Conlon, hopes that those who stumble across these paragraphs enjoy a diverting Yuletide interlude.
As overture: the inevitable pro forma contrition for articles not written. Factoring into consideration a bloody war in Ukraine kept in motion by a dissembling US-NATO axis intent on leveraging the conflict as a means of destabilizing Russia, together with the fact that no fewer than three UK prime ministers jostled for office in the space of twelve farcical months (knavish, cloddish, and dwarfish, to characterize in order of appearance the ignoble incumbents), it would be obtuse to contend that in 2022 there existed no impetus for commentary. I apologize unreservedly for not engaging in it. No less shamefully, publication has been egregiously absent in the areas of music and – the nominal reason for our website’s presence in cyberspace – mental health. The compositional resolutions of the past year having crumbled into dust, I can only renew them for 2023. Dave Sweetsur, an ardent cinephile and veteran Pathways participant, continues to labour on an essay dissecting Before the Revolution, an early document in the distinguished oeuvre of Bernardo Bertolucci. With industrial unrest in Britain mounting toward what mainstream broadcasters describe as a “perfect storm” of strikes – from their hidebound standpoint, a problem to be lamented; from mine, an active opposition to capital that’s greatly overdue – it’s not inconceivable that Dave will be in a position to publish his study under a joyfully bantering title: After the Revolution.
As unfortunate first act: our group’s residency at Hanley Library has come to an end. The Library, alas, is scheduled for closure in 2023, with a smaller replacement due to be opened within the nearby Smithfield complex. In preparation, its meeting rooms are to be cleared of their contents, and thus from January will no longer be available to the public. In my view, it’s a retrograde step, and not merely because a diminution in size means the substitute facility will lack comparable meeting spaces, and is therefore incapable of serving, as hitherto I’ve speculated it might, as any sort of catalyst toward expanded activity on this blog. To my antiroyalist eye, the bluntly modernist 1970-vintage edifice is more object of beauty than monstrous carbuncle, its disappearance to be mourned as a severed link with a bolder chapter of history, though admittedly opinions differ on the issue. What’s undoubtedly true is that, aesthetics aside, the City Central Library will be remembered fondly for its helpful staff and wide-ranging dissemination of knowledge: not simply books, magazines and newspapers, but also LPs, cassettes and compact discs, and latterly computer access. The final Pathways session there, on December 23rd, featured recordings by Fairport Convention (including an aptly poignant airing of Sandy Denny’s ‘Who Knows Where the Time Goes?’) and art rockers Family (the band’s sophomore album of 1969, Family Entertainment), and was the usual spirited mix of repartee and political raillery. To wax more sentimental than is my wont, in the course of our eleven-year habitancy of the building. and with the proviso that the affiliation is anything but bourgeois, we’ve perhaps coalesced as a family. The new library, horrible to contemplate, may be situated cheek-by-jowl with that scourge of the proletariat, Jobcentre Plus, meaning our exclusion from the premises might not be altogether regrettable. We currently seek an alternative venue.
As truly sorrowful second act: a member of our group, Neil Sinclair Angus, died earlier this year. The shocking tidings reached us via the online version of local newspaper, The Sentinel, which reported on August 25th that Neil’s deceased body had been found in his flat on Westport Road in Burslem. The article requested that those possessing information about Neil approach the authorities to provide it, leading me to contact the relevant coroner’s office to offer what details I could. The tragedy hit as a devastating blow, and is hardly less disturbing now. Neil, who hailed originally from London, was my almost exact contemporary, being older by a trifling number of weeks – that’s to say, he was 57 when he passed away. Owing in part to that chronological congruity, I felt a substantial affinity with him: each of us had been born in a somewhat amorphous period where we fitted neither with the Zeitgeist of boomerism nor Generation X, yet shared a familiar set of cultural reference points. Emma Ford initially introduced him to Pathways meetings, the two of them joining us as employees of campaigning charity North Staffs Users Group; when the organization folded, Emma moved on to other things – she’s presently employed by Mind – but Neil struggled to find work, and hence stuck with us as weekly visitor. Since one of his numerous former jobs was as psychiatric nurse at Newcastle-under-Lyme’s Harplands Hospital, his participation was both congenial and apposite. Though without personal experience of psychosis, he’d suffered bouts of depression and difficulties with addiction that made him an empathetic conversationalist, while his command of countercultural esoterica (from the Altamont Free Festival to Vertigo “swirl” long-players) proved germane to the collective ethos. Over time, the Londoner-turned-Potter became a valued friend.
Post-pandemic, illness significantly curtailed Neil’s involvement with our group. Ailments seemed to arrive thick and fast in his last months – complications from long Covid, gallstones, thrombosis afflicting a leg – and his attendance was sporadic. Nevertheless, I strongly suspect the cause of death runs deeper than straightforward bodily sickness. The relationship between psychological and physical welfare being intimate, Neil’s treatment at the hands of the previously denigrated organ of governmental persecution, Jobcentre Plus, played in my estimation a large role in his dwindling wellbeing. Readers may wish to consult preceding entries herein for the harrowing details of his nightmarish experience of claiming Universal Credit – or, not infrequently, having a claim denied through the extrajudicial thievery of mercilessly imposed sanctions. (For purposes of anonymity, Neil’s full name wasn’t used in the pieces, but it was indeed he whose ordeal they discussed.) In messages exchanged with me, Neil stated plainly that entrapment in the immiserating UC apparatus, a malevolently constructed machinery of social insecurity, was killing him. Despite jokey efforts to make light of the situation, his detestation of conscienceless JCP functionaries (in banality-of-evil cant, “advisors”) was fierce. An inquest is to be conducted at Stoke Town Hall on February 21st, and it’s to be hoped that those proceedings will shed light on the matter, even if no representative of the Department for Work and Pensions has been summoned to explain why, after application of the agency’s supposedly fair criteria of evaluation, and contrary to the assessment of NHS consultants and Neil’s own GP, a man in literally terminal condition was deemed resoundingly fit for employment. Concerning the results of said investigation, and my reaction to them, I certainly won’t fail to report in prompt fashion on this blog.
Neil’s funeral was held at Carmoutside Crematorium (see attached image) on November 1st. In addition to me and the aforementioned Mr Sweetsur, three Pathways attendees made the sombre journey to pay their respects: Phil Leese, Darren Moss, and Dominic Orosun, with Phil accompanied by his wife. That sextet, sadly, was the sum total of mourners, since Stoke-on-Trent City Council foundered in its attempt to locate next of kin. As a consequence, contrast with September’s cloying brouhaha over the demise of a colourless nonagenarian aristocrat could scarcely have been more rawly delineated; such, however, is the chasm between economic classes in these neoliberal isles. In what was the concluding service of the day, the presiding minister, the Reverend Leslie Sanderson, observed my injunction against religious sermonizing, instead adapting an email I’d sent him on the subject of Neil’s life and character. Neil was an aficionado of punk, and I was tempted as selector of fitting aural accompaniment to opt for caustic tunes by the likes of Crass or the Stranglers. In the event, I erred in the direction of propriety, and the ceremony was punctuated by a trio of Neil’s more conciliatory musical enthusiasms: to wit, the Who, Bob Dylan, and the Kinks. I expect, tolerant soul that he was, Mr Angus would have forgiven me the loss of nerve.
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