Strong Boys Club
Some you have known, others you wish you had known and a few you should have known better to not know.
Writing about this club is not easy, it's a collective, like the strong girls club, that I’m not sure if I would make the cut to get into; it’s a club you want to be in, but it’s also a club that would never have you as a member.
Like a mist, it spans generations of time and seeps into every crevice of memory and recollection, parts are certainly lingering in the past, influential individuals, like the tracks of Dexter Gordon’s 1962 Blue Note album, GO!; infiltrate one’s mind, clinging to a bright bebop theme of tenor sax and piano arpeggio; unforgettable groupings of life’s characters getting between your ears and eyes, delivering pure joy every time the vinyl flops onto your turntable and the power button is depressed.
This club plays slightly behind the beat and with so many variations on known melodies as a backdrop, It has to be not only about the past but also inevitably, the present and future too, like GO!, this club needs recognition, deservedly for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"
I have started and rewritten this post so many times I really don’t know where to start, or where we are going with it. So many emotions, so many thoughts and (it has to be said,) no small measure of angst.
It’s not really a collective I would have brought to light, having mansplained over a year ago, that such a club would never exist; because I wrote a piece on the strong girls club and it proved to be some of my most read and popular content on substack, most likely because it was read and shared on this platform by some of the characters who were quite rightly featured within it; and even more likely this amplification was accelerated by the fact that most of my readers are female and certainly most of what I see and read on substack is of female origin; the irony of which is not lost on me while tapping these keys…..
Back to the boys……
But that balance does need redressing, there are so many influencers in our busy lives, and yes, some of them are of course male; family, friends, colleagues, complete strangers, celebrities, creatives, providers, dependants, beneficiaries, advisors, mentors, authors, musicians, teachers, carers and not-carers; the list is endless.
So when I go on to talk about the club members here I have to start with my dad because it was thinking about him on Wednesday of this past week, what would have been his 88th birthday, that finally pushed me over the edge to celebrate the club; and although he’s not been around for the last decade, he along with others, deserves celebrating; we all have dads, past and present, who inspire us and shape us to be whatever we turn out to be; so this one’s for you, Steve Broadbent, civil engineer, pipe smoker, aero-modeler and Dundee Courier reader.
I don’t think dad would have made a good addition to the 1901 British National Antarctic Expedition, this image of him aboard Royal Research Ship Discovery in Dundee, re-writing the nautical handbook of polar explorers on the actual ship that took Commander Robert Falcon Scott RN and Sub Lt Ernest Shackleton RNR to the Antarctic more than a hundred years ago is perhaps a little misleading.
I’m not saying he would not be in the strong boys club, but he was more familiar with a couple of cubes of ice in his gin and tonic than twenty miles of ice floes across the Weddell Sea towards Elephant Island.
As for Shackleton, now here is somebody who knew about exploration and endurance, along with Scott and the other superhero explorers of that age, I am totally in awe of their resilience and achievement all those years ago; I was so excited at FRAM, The Polar Exploration Museum in Oslo to see Scott and Roald Amundsen face to face as it where; they started the club for sure.
It’s 150 years since Shackleton was born in Ireland, and fitting that his most famous ship, the Endurance, was found only in the last couple of years, 10,000 feet below the sea.
Back on dry land, the furthest smoke filled corner of the club is crammed with Shackleton and his mates, you can’t just walk in, it’s invitation only; stood around, smoking and drinking are the legends you want to befriend but can only dream of knowing; many from the past, but some still living.
The music this time is harsh and noisy, the incredible complex melodies of John Coltrane, probably his 1961 assault on ‘My Favourite Things’ washing over you, the tenor saxophone being one instrument I can play, but it doesn’t sound anything like this; nothing comes close to this legend, Coltrane, taken kicking and screaming from the club at the age of 40 back in July 1967, so quickly, the liver cancer attributed to hepatitis, such as shock and reminder to us all that we need to sniff the flowers an make the most of every day we have here boys…
Back in the corner of our semi-detached childhood, more musically inspired hero’s spring to mind; the wooden gramophone cupboard containing many albums, Nat King Cole, “come closer to me” being one that still sounds as it did in the 70’s, roast beef and all the trimmings on a Sunday, the scratched vinyl and gravel tones of Nat washing over the dinner table, dad ritualistically sharpening the bone handled carving knife, the delicious aromas emanating from the kitchen, mum charging through from the kitchen with the oversized platter of Yorkshire puddings piled literally, sky high; my sister licking her lips in anticipation of what is to come.
Moving from past to present and future, comedic figures and the ability to stand alone and entertain an audience with wit, humour, prose and poetry, I move through the club to the stage at the front; where perhaps Woody Allen is being hustled out, again denying accusations that he molested his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, when she was a clild. An absolute legend who created some of my favourite films from such an important stage of life, reduced to dust amid years and years of snubs and regret; my previous adoration lying in a crumpled heap, the discarded VHS tapes sitting at the back of a cupboard in the garage, definately not in our club, unsure what to do with themselves, like Groucho Marx’s resignation joke.
Unlike the luckiest guy alive, John Cooper Clarke - the outstanding Salford poet; a more modest and dapper living legend if ever there was one, a true hero more of my partner Kay, similarly familiar with Higher Broughton, “Make that hearse reverse nurse” the Bard of Salford remains so vibrant at 75 years young; JCC, you are both an exemplary role model on how to live your life as well as becoming a national treasure who goes on and on; we would not be able to leave you out of this club, we heckle, cheer and salute you sir.
Performers and explorers, singers, jazz musicians, poets and writers; make this a potentially explosive mix as fame and fortune brings notoriety and ego in no small measure; we need somebody to keep them in order and I think I know who would be up to the task…
Fast forwarding to today and the writers and creators of content who truly inspire and entertain me, specifically on this platform, and Tom Cox, more specifically his dad Mick, are definitely in the club.
In fact Mick is on the door.
Tom’s recounting of his dad’s somewhat erratic and highly amusing escapades are exactly the sort of reading that brings a smile and inspires you for the day - I must remember to “look out for fuckwits and bastards today”, I say to myself as I smile ruefully and walk with the dogs on this rain soaked and miserable Sunday morning.
I just can’t get enough of Tom Cox and his assorted books and audiobooks this month; having read 1983 and listened(for free on Audible) to 21st Century Yokel; I have further downloaded Ring the Hill and Help the Witch, that’s before I get on to Tom’s cat themed writings; in fact I would urge everyone to look him up here at the Villager, and make your own minds up.
To finish, I find myself moving beyond the famous and creative souls that have inspired me, more towards the (not famous at all) boys I do have the pleasure of knowing; and here, some emotional intelligence, a compassionate outlook on life and an honest work ethic are most likely to be the important criteria for inclusion in the club that we will all have our own virtual cohort of, stored away for secret manly adoration.
That leads me to the smiling faces below who I do truly cherish knowing; representing so many more for whom there isn’t space to show (sorry chaps I love you all the same, but as with the strong girls club, the grid does only allow for 9 images).
They can’t play instruments, explore Polar ice-caps or sell out Maddison Square Garden; but that does not matter; they are each legends in their own lunchtime, the true strong boys club.
Family and health are all that matter ultimately, that’s why front and centre, the image of jogging around Fountains Abbey Parkrun with my son is so important; something I want to always be able to do, despite my enormous bulk; keep running Will and keep me running too please!
Going around the outside from nine o’clock, way past his bedtime would be Wee Robbie, the youngest male member of the family at time of writing and my great nephew to boot, he is the future of the club and his friends and workmates will need him to stay strong in years to come - keep eating Robbie!
It’s no coincidence that my oldest friends are pictured with huge plates of food and smiling faces, reflecting my passion for fun and feasting, Johnho I love you and our Wetherby Whaler outings that span so many decades; I think we are due one soon eh?
For anyone who has read My friends at school you will need no introduction to Paul, who pictured with some quite impressive samphire, has been an inspiration and intermittent companion since 1968; a club member for five funny decades of friendship; his never ending oratory a constant enthusiastic commentary on our collective ups and downs.
Christian, emerging from his tent in Horton-in-Ribblesdale, all those years ago, a classmate back at Shadwell Primary School, a character I truly hope to meet up with in person in the coming year, certainly the most Shackleton-esque of the current club members, adventurer, geologist, sailer, academic and free spirit, I imagine will have been such an inspiration to his fellow workmates over the years.
Speaking of colleagues, I must mention my most reserved and measured of hardworking colleagues, co-founder of naturaw and all round good egg, Tom pictured with his incredible girls in a rare image away from his 24/7 toil at our factory, building a truly inspiring business that contains so many amazing boys (and girls) including Neil, pictured in full flow starring as part of the chuckle brothers, but more likely to be found as a tough firefighting public-serving superstar or ultra-dependable lead processing operative, delivering hours of unglamorous but essential work each day, day in, day out; thank-you both Tom and Neil for everything you do!
Finally to Gary and Sascha, former colleagues from a bygone age who’s friendship like so many, transcends time - while the strong boy’s club won’t be found by leafing through your LinkedIn contacts or your facebook friends; even skimming the family photo albums going back decades may prove a challenge in finding the candidates for this club, there are some like these two, who feel as though they were always there, such good family people, so dedicated and dependable, so many stories, so little time and space to enjoy them fully here.
That is the club, I could go on but I am sure you get the picture.
Sometimes we need to sit back, look, listen and learn through our experiences and relationship with those that have guided us to where we are; and think more obliquely.
You will have a club of your own that I encourage you to assemble both virtually and perhaps even physically with the aid of some notes and images.
You won’t regret it.
This is your strong BOYS club; as well as just being the most fantastic men that you would ever hope to meet, like the strong girls club that came before, they all possess something that is extremely important; unlike Ron Burgundy, they didn't think they were kind of a big deal around here; they didn’t shout about their achievements or even ask to be in the club; I just put them there.
And the world is a better place for them; one and all.
Truly humbled 🙏