Monday 21 March 2016

For people of a certain age like me .... I am sure that ....

..... you will be saddened to hear of the end of Barry Hines ..... of course we all die, but one of the most wonderous things about Barry Hines living was ...... Kes .... as I sit here working on, and  listening to radio four and they just announced that Barry Hines died yesterday. Admittedly the book Kestrel for a Nave is slightly changed in the Movie Kes, but that in my opinion does not denigrate the movie.

I remember reading A Single Man and also watching the Movie, somewhat different to each other but I enjoyed both in equal measure.

But any millennium kid watching the movie Kes would think ..... what the fook .... surely life was never like that in my parents/grandparents day ..... but that's what I love about the movie ... it's gritty tone and honesty of life in Britain up t'north in the late 1960's..... oh by the lord who did not have a PE teacher like Brian Glover [now left this life too]. Brian Glover in real life was a school teacher and Kes was his first movie and after the movie he went back to teaching, before finally becoming a full time actor ..... and an amazing actor too.

When we walk into shop these days we are overwhelmed by choice.... but should you find yourself watching Kes, and I hope they put it on the telly as a tribute to Barry Hines, then look at the scene where the key character Billy goes into the shop to pick up the papers for his paper round. Look at the stark shop shelves where the wares and chattels are heavily spaced out to give the illusion [and failing] of being plenty of choice. I remember shops like that as a kid.... they wouldn't survive 5 minutes in today's world.

How about some Hawkwind 
in the memory of Barry Hines