Frank Montgomery's Personal Pages
Summary of 2018
Sitting
at my computer on a dreich midwinter day sipping Lemsip
for a stinking cold, it’s cheering to look back over these events in mostly
sunnier days.
Family:
Having
spent Christmas 2016 with my sister Jo in The Hague, it was the turn of my
sister Ged in Glasgow in
2017. (Jo & Steve having retired and moved to Strathblane, north-west of Glasgow, in January 2018, we
will all spend Christmas together this year.)
I
visited Jo & Steve in their lovely new home (a converted mill, with the
river running under the house!) in February, when I also had two days good skiing at Nevis
Range with my nephew Rory.
In
July both Jo and Ged came down to Leeds for my birthday – the first ever time
that all three of us have been in my house at
the same time (and I’ve been here since 1980). The weather was good, and I
borrowed a car (Thanks Peter!) to drive to the Yorkshire
Sculpture Park near West Bretton, where we whiled away a very pleasant few hours.
On the following day we got the train to Saltaire, and enjoyed the David
Hockney works in Salts Mill, as well as the fascinating Victorian village .
In
November my niece Laura gave birth to a son, named Connor. I’m looking forward
to seeing him for the first time in a few days. Now I really am a great uncle!
Hill
Walks:
I
have been on three hillwalks this year with an
informal group we call the Geezers: round Hebden Bridge in February; Nidderdale
in April; and Coniston Old Man in August.
In
May I saw the award-winning film Edie, starring Sheila Hancock
as an octogenarian determined to climb Suilven, a
wonderful hill in Assynt that I climbed in May 2015.
In
August I joined John Parkin in Pitlochry for his final Munro – Meall Chuaich, near Dalwhinnie
on the A9. It was 25 years since I last
climbed it!
In
December I was in Tenerife for a week to ward off the winter blues, and got to
the top of Mount Teide, at 3718m the highest
mountain in Spain and the third highest volcano in the world. Our international group (Russian, British,
French, German) were driven to the cable car, took this to its top station then
walked to
the summit in time to see the sunset and the conical
shadow of the mountain across the island. We then took about four hours
to walk back down to the road in the dark, equipped with little headlights. The
trip was led by a Russian doctor of medicine, who
wasn’t allowed to practise in Spain, so she was leading these expeditions for
her Canarian husband’s company twice a week.
Cycling:
The
start of the year was not so good for cycling, with three of our regular Sunday
rides cancelled due to ice.
In
April I cycled from one sister to the other, with my nephew Rory. This meant
going right through Glasgow but it was mostly on
off-road tracks (including the partly constructed South Glasgow Way, the Forth
& Clyde Canal towpath, the controversial Bearsway,
the gated route through the Clyde Tunnel, and tracks through Bellahouston Park and Pollok Park. For an urban route it
was really quite pleasant.
Early
May saw the Tour de Yorkshire, now a four-day event. On its last day I cycled
out to Black Hill to see the racers dancing on
their pedals up this killer hill on the approach to Leeds from the River
Wharfe. Shortly after this, on the
run-in to Leeds, a marshal was
almost mown down by a Team Astana support car.
In
June, I was with eight friends on a bike tour based in Slovenia. This was the first time I had joined such a
tour, which was expertly guided by Paul Wadkin, an ex-pat Yorkshireman. Paul provided the bikes, but we used our own
saddles and pedals. Countries visited
included Austria, Hungary and Croatia as well as Slovenia, and accommodation was in
rather plush spa-hotels, somewhat more up-market
than I have generally stayed in on my previous European travels. The advantage of being
on a guided tour was that Paul knew the region intimately, and took us to many great restaurants via interesting byways that I would probably have
missed had I been self guided. Our group got to the start point by various
means: I flew to Vienna with Barry (my cycling companion of last year) and got
the train from there to Maribor. On the outward leg we had dinner with former
colleague Guenter Emberger, after a performance of
‘The Four Seasons’ in the Karlskirche. On the return leg we went to the largest
free pop festival in Europe, on the Danube Islands in Vienna. I think we felt a bit old!
In
July, one of the longer rides of the year that I led
was to Market Weighton
(143km round trip).
On
the cusp of July and August I organised a three-day trip to Durham with six
friends, with the middle day at Beamish
Museum. We were lucky to have good weather for the outward and return
rides (135km each way), but did get rather wet coming
back from Beamish. This was my first visit to this large outdoor museum, and it
was great fun.
In
October we rode to Askham Richard, a small village
near York, and had lunch in a nice café, part of a garden centre. It was only when I got my credit card bill
that I discovered the garden centre/café was part of a women’s prison!
Culture:
Rather
than list all the events I attended, I’ll list the venues, to give you an idea
of what’s available in this corner of the ‘Northern Powerhouse’.
Leeds
Town Hall. My second home these days!
International Concert Season on Saturdays (I attended about 70% of
these);
Free Wed lunchtime organ recitals (about 70%);
Banff Mountain Film Festival.
Two evening with lots of exciting short films about mountain climbing,
cycling etc, but one of the most memorable was of an 85 year
old lady who still went ice skating regularly.
Salome (Richard Strauss, Opera in Concert) (Apr)
Citizen Kane, and Silent Hitchcock film film
with organ accompaniment (part of Leeds International Film Festival) (Nov);
Ross Noble ‘El Hablador’ (Dec);
Leeds
Grand Theatre.
Motown
the Musical (Nov)
A top class performance of
Schubert’s ‘Trout’ quintet, featuring David
Greed, the principal of the Orchestra of Opera North, and also the
director of the Sinfonia of Leeds.
Clothworkers
Concert Hall. (Part of the University of Leeds School of Music, so this is
where to go for unusual & experimental music.)
Early Beethoven (Jan);
Mikado (updated, set in a Russell Group University. Lord High
Executioner was Director of Human Resources. Execution downgraded to 'being
sent down'.)
Three pianos plus synthesiser (Matthew
Bourne) (Nov)
Gamelan
concert (Nov). Nice to be transported back to my days in Indonesia.
Classical Guitar, Sean Shibe. This young man had an amazing presence, and
delivered a withering look to someone whose phone went off!
St
Edmunds church, Roundhay.
The Sinfonia of Leeds plays here. I continued my patronage of this excellent
amateur orchestra to which I have also provided my cello on long-term loan.
(The cello was my father’s: sadly I never leaned to
play it.) Their rendition of Shostakovich 8th symphony in November was probably
my musical highlight of the year.
The
Venue (Leeds College of Music). A great space near the BBC where we
occasionally combine our regular Wed lunch with a free
concert.
The
Carriageworks Theatre.
Rock climbing is something I came to very late (age 49) and
immediately wished I had taken it up when I was much younger. A couple of years ago I read Andy
Kirkpatrick’s book ‘Psychovertical’,
and thought it was the most exciting book I had ever read. So when the call
went out for crowfunding to make it into a film, I
chipped in. I saw Andy discuss his life
and the film at the Carriageworks, then in March I
went to Sheffield to see the film. I’m afraid to say the cinema was almost
empty and I could see why. Unlike ‘Touching the Void’, this film just didn’t
capture the excitement of the book. But anyway I got my name on the credits for about half a second!
St
Matthews church, Chapel Allerton.
This is the nearest church to my home, and I chanced to see a
notice pinned up announcing a performance of Brahms German Requiem. This was excellently performed
by another amateur orchestra. The performance was almost ruined however when a
woman connected with the adjoining school interrupted between the 3rd
and 4th movements to announce that someone had parked a car in the
wrong place. I wrote to the organisers
about this and got a very nice reply – there was nobody available to stop the
‘intruder’ as all the church staff were in the choir!
Visits:
My
major visit this year was three weeks in Vietnam in May. I was invited by my
former PhD student Hien Nguyen (now the Dean of Engineering at Ho Chi Minh City
University of Transport) to attend a conference, so with the blessing of the
Director of ITS, I accepted. It was my
first time in Vietnam and I really enjoyed it. I was based most of the time in Ho Chi Minh
City, but also spent three days in Da Nang, and six days in the capital Hanoi,
where I was very well looked after by another former PhD student, Tran Huu Minh, who is now a senior civil servant with the
National Traffic Safety Committee. As my
Facebook or Twitter friends will know, I went on quite a few tours. Highlights
included: a fast ferry
trip
down the River Saigon to Vung Tau; the Ho Chi Minh trail
tunnel system tour; conference dinner
on a ship on the River Saigon; the Dragon Bridge in Da Nang, especially at
night; trip by train from Da Nang to Hue, and
tour of the Citadel there; the night market
in Hoi An; unusual boat trip through
the mountains in Ninh Binh;
exploring Hanoi;
It
was good to welcome quite a few old friends to Leeds this year: Gerry Quinn
& Jean Young visited Leeds for the first time in January; Derek Quinn (no
relation) was here in March; my cousin Trish
& Jim McQuillan were here in May; Derry O'Leary (my classmate from 40 years
ago) was here for a seminar in October, and we managed to meet for a drink
afterwards; Hien Nguyen (see above) visited Leeds University in December.
Work:
In
September I completed my five year term as external
examiner at UWE. I continue to assess
candidates for professional qualifications under CIHT’s IRAP procedure. I was part of the team for the JBM
accreditation visit to Southampton University in October. I have one further
visit lined up for March, which I have decided will be my last.
I
took part in two site visits organised by the Retired ICE (RICE) group: Leeds
Flood alleviation (May); and Middleton
Railway (Sep)
The
CF Lunoe lecture on the V&A
museum building in Dundee made me decide to visit it over the Christmas period!
Best Wishes
Frank Montgomery