And had I not been dropping leaflets door-to-door, in this particular part of Hampshire, I wouldn’t have spotted the notice in a house window advertising what seemed to be, an interesting autobiography.  I’d not then have ordered the book, nor spoken about it to others, and certainly not have mentioned it to a lady I met ‘by chance’ (no such thing as ‘chance’) who wouldn’t therefore have known that she comes from the same part of Scotland as its author, a whole 10 miles away in fact (that’s 16.09344km to you youngsters), so wouldn’t have enthused over the story I recounted, neither have borrowed my copy, nor have bought her own and… and it wouldn’t have gone on and on… except that these things did happen (with a little help and string-pulling from The Universe) and this weekend I’ll have the honour of meeting the man behind the words, Mr Norman A. C. Taylor.  Just call it synchronicity!

“There should be a Sir before your name though Norman, for selfless services rendered to humanity, for you are, in my opinion, the very epitome of Human Being.”

The closest I can get to bestowing a knighthood however, will be by surprising him with the ‘red carpet treatment’.  Well… a length of material… red, duh*… that will be spread out for him to walk up when we reach his house.  Having spoken to him on the phone for the first time only this week, he sounds like the sort of fellow who’d appreciate such a gesture and have a laugh at the same time.

*Reminds me of a scene in ‘The Full Monty’ where Gaz goes to a supermarket to ask his pal Dave (a Security Officer) whether he can ‘borrow’ a suit jacket for a funeral… There’s a pause before Dave asks, without even thinking, “Yeah, what colour?”

And the book?  Have I managed to hold your attention this far?  It’s titled ‘At The End of The Day’ (published November 2011 by George Mann Publications).  It’s a story written simply with wit and charm but packs a powerful punch about a hard life lived not that long ago; a life of saving airmen when 7(!) years old… men returning from bombing raids who didn’t/couldn’t make it to the Kinloss/Lossiemouth Air Force bases so crash-landed in the nearby forest instead; a life of having to subsist on fir cones seeds and grass just to stay alive when food ran out during those War years; a life of endless incidents such as the time he confronted an enraged red deer stag that was attacking a local monk.  The monk had been gored and was in a critical condition but Norman managed to fend off the deer whom he found to be justifiably protecting his young, then

with blood soaking his (only set of!) clothes, carried his semi-conscious body for over a mile, negotiating fencing and steep downhill slopes back to the Abbey.

His age?  11!!  Nooo, not the monk!  He was a well-built man in his 30’s.  On another occasion, as a kid aged 14, he dashed into a burning building to rescue a man who later, in the life now granted by Norman, became a famous actor.  He sustained serious injuries as a result of this action, especially when the roof timbers collapsed on top of them.  With no one around to help he had to get himself and the unconscious Bill out of the place before it exploded… which it did.  And there are more… so many more stories that continue through the decades… but I’ll not spoil the book.  These highlights I’ve mentioned are in the blurb anyway.  Well, I’ll say one thing Norman, you’ve not exactly led a dull life!

After the death of his wife, Norman went into deep melancholia and both his doctor and solicitor urged him to write his life story to affect a recovery.  What started out as a 20 page ‘brochure’ to give to close family members… ended up as a book, as he unearthed more and more stories!

“…probably the biggest brochure in the world!” he states in the Foreword.

So this is the autobiography of Norman Taylor… not that of some famous film star, TV personality or sporting hero… not that I wish to belittle the achievements of such people… but a someone who has quietly got on with whatever life threw at him and always put others before self.  His book is filled with incidents and drama, recounted in such a way that you really don’t want to stop reading.  It is detailed and precise and Norman has done much research and travelling to investigate and corroborate the incidents of his youth.

It is kinda surreal that he did all these things, that all these things happened, that he happened to be in the right place at the right time, time and time again (no such thing as happenstance) and that he has been responsible for whole generations of people who wouldn’t be alive today were it not for his actions.  A truly extra-extraordinary man… but hey, wait a minute…

Earlier this year/late last year/can’t quite remember, our Boy Scouts decided to do something different by interviewing local residents and asking them whether they considered themselves ‘ordinary’ or ‘extraordinary’.  The results, with photographs, were displayed in the Discovery Centre/library and it was interesting to note that not one person considered themselves to be extraordinary (or didn’t want to appear vain) and yet they’d all done extraordinary things, seen extraordinary things or been part of extraordinary events.  How extraordinary!  Well, if they’d asked me that question, I’d have said I was extraordinary (and I’m not being big-headed)!  When you think about it, each and every one of us is a truly awesome being with an unlimited potential limited only by our minds, and we’re all blessed with incredible God-given gifts/aptitudes/talents.

And the thing is, we ALL have a story, no matter who we are.

People put statuses on Facebook: “Nearly crashed the car today” but what about the real story of our lives: growing up in difficult circumstances, living with abuse, surviving despite the odds, fulfilling ambitions, living with disability, maybe even coping with a privileged background which alienates us from the herd.  We all have a story but it needs to be in a tangible format not somewhere in cyberspace where it can get lost/hacked/whatever, not that books can’t get lost or destroyed either, but there is ‘something’ about holding a book, turning its pages… Kindles eat your heart out… and to prove my point:

What is it that people treasure?  It is the love letters, the postcards, the scribbled notes, the dedications on a flyleaf and not some Facebook message/email/text…

though I continue to laboriously type up, then print out my memorable texts which weave their own particular story.

So we should all publish our autobiographies… or p’haps start with a 20 page brochure? If we can’t write for whatever reason, then we should dictate to someone who can.  Think about Christopher Reeve (a.k.a. Superman) who published his remarkable autobiography after a horse riding accident left him paralysed from the neck down.  Compared to that, we’ve got no excuse.  “Not enough time” I hear you cry… but shouldn’t we leave such a legacy to our family?  Norman grew up in a seemingly alien era and ours will be too, to the generations that follow… And while on/off the subject, the world is not going to end in December 2012!  It’s about change/upheaval not apocalypse.

To return to the spirit of this blog, I’d like to conclude with some music from the amazing Ian Anderson who formed a band in the 60’s that went by the unusual name of Jethro Tull.  One would expect that from Ian though; unusual in so many ways; a unique talent… I mean, how many ‘one leg standing’ flautists do you know who write songs with titles such as North Sea Oil, The Mouse Police, Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die and (the renowned) Aqualung… about a tramp?  Ian and the band (not the original I hasten to add) have been around for over 40 years; men now in their 60’s and still touring!  Tull, incidentally, was an English agricultural pioneer who perfected a horse-drawn seed drill in 1701 and whose methods helped form the basis of modern farming.

Mr A. Beer ploughing

I knew this already but checked details in Wikipedia, as you do.  If this were an exam question, my tracks’d soon be sniffed oot!  This track though, is one of my all-time favourites called ‘Heavy Horses’, taken from the album of the same name and released in 1978.  Appropriately, Norman was driving a pair of Clydesdales himself, by the age of 8!  I’ve listened to this song many times and never tire of it.  Ian says he’s no poet but with lines such as…

Iron-clad feather feet pounding the dust,

An October’s day, towards evening,

Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough,

Salt on a deep chest seasoning.

… I beg to differ.  These lyrics are pure poetry and Ian’s acoustics provide the synergy; a wonderful backdrop to this bygone era.  But is it gone I wonder?  Despite the fact ‘Heavy Horses’ was written at the time of the North Sea oil boom, he alludes to their return and a simpler way of life:

And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry

And the nights are seen to draw colder,

They’ll beg for your strength, your gentle power,

Your noble grace and your bearing

And you’ll strain once again to the sound of the gulls 

In the wake of the deep plough, sharing.  

This song then, should bring back memories for Norman as I’m intending to play it during our meetup.  Have typed out the lyrics as well… Well, not exactly.  A ‘copy and paste job’ actually but I did have to make it fit nicely onto 2 pages/change the font, blah, blah, blah!  So listen, enjoy, then go buy the album!

And for those of you who have read down this far and who’d like to ‘like’ this blog… by all means do so, but I’d like to hope… repetition of ‘like’ sorry, but someone come up with a better word!  Thesaurus no help either… so yes, I would like to hope that each ‘like’ represented a book sale… it’s available now on Amazon… and by so doing, honour the achievements of a man who deserves a medal for what he’s done.  Ignore the ‘currently out of stock’ notification. That’s apparently a sales ploy to make folk think they’re hard to acquire!  (I’m not convinced).  I’d like to think though, that we can give Norman the invisible handshakes he so richly deserves through Worldwide book sales via this blogsite.  Forget ‘Shades of Grey’, ‘Shades of Earl Grey’… even, yes, ‘Sheds of Grey’.  Buy a real book about a real man!

By chance (no such thing as ‘chance’) our meeting was arranged for this Sunday without either of us realising that it’s Remembrance Sunday, so I thought it fitting and rather poignant that I should publish this blog on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the… yeah, yeah, yeah…  Setting myself this goal though, has meant a frantic few days, fitting the work I love, in and around the work I have to do and meant familiarising myself with yet more technology as several problems loomed, including misplacing an earlier draft of this blog.  Arrggh!  But hey, all being well/panic stations I shall press ‘publish’ and 20 minutes later be able to shake the hand of a truly remarkable man.  Bless you Norman!

COPYRIGHT FOR IMAGES / WORDS / VIDEO:

The 3 pics of the ‘red carpet’, book cover and poppy are copyrighted to myself, Cassandra Scott.

The ‘ploughing scene’ photo belongs to the Witheridge Archives (Devon) and is reproduced here with the kind permission of Mr Tout.  Thanks also due to the family of Mr A. Beer.

The lyrics to ‘Heavy Horses’ are the copyright of Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.

The YouTube video is credited to the writer (Ian Anderson) and the publisher (Chrysalis Music Publishing) and copied here with the full consent of James Anderson with grateful thanks.