CREE BANK

a novella by

William E. Drummond

2/40

• PAY ATTENTION
• SUB PLOT – PART ONE
• AN ACORN FOR AN HOUR
• SUB PLOT – PART TWO
• BANK OF THE GALLOVERSE
• SUB PLOT – PART THREE
• HOW TO BUILD A BANK
• SUB PLOT – PART FOUR
• I AM A BANK CLERK
• SUB PLOT – PART FIVE
• HOW TO OPEN AN ACCOUNT
• SUB PLOT – PART SIX
• I AM THE GOVERNOR
• SUB PLOT – PART SEVEN
• COCKS VERSUS CUNTS
• SUB PLOT – PART EIGHT
• THAT IS THE QUESTION
• SUB PLOT – PART NINE

 

PAY ATTENTION

From the desk of admin@penkilnburn.com

Wednesday the 3rd of January 2024

Kind Folk,

Your Attention is yours.

Your Attention is yours alone.

Your Attention is yours to trade as part of the global free market economy.

Because the world craves your Attention.

Every time you walk down the street there are advertisements and shop fronts demanding your Attention for free.

This has to stop.

You have to start charging for whatever you decide is the going rate for your Attention.

Every time you pick up your hand-held device there will be advertisements and content all demanding your Attention for free.

That has to change.

Every time a global superstar plays a concert at a stadium in your country, they crave your Attention. They wish to be the centre of attention. They will tell you how much they love you, whilst charging you ticket prices that could feed your family for the week. They should be paying you to be in the audience giving them your undivided Attention.

You are not their audience; you are your audience.

The same applies to any sport, function or gathering.

Every artist wants you to stand in front of their work giving it your Attention. Yet without your Attention, their art is deemed worthless. If an artist wants your Attention, they must Pay Attention. You must not pay them.

Form your Attention Union today, with friends and families, and Unite against those who demand your attention without recompense.

Your Attention Union needs to strike.

Your Attention Union needs to revolt.

Your Attention is yours and is yours alone.

Your Attention is not a Blank Cheque.

Act now...

Kind Regards,

admin@penkilnburn.com

 

SUB PLOT – PART ONE

Ethel Strachan, who likes to back comb her hair into a beehive, is a divorcée. It is rumoured, by a number of the staff at CREE BANK, that Ethel Strachan is having an affair with The Governor of CREE BANK.

Bank staff like rumours.

Ethel Strachan, who likes to wear a rather tight-fitting tartan skirt, is a mother of twin boys. Her twin boys are both in their early twenties. One of the twin boys never leaves the house, other than to go to the gym, and get his under-the-counter anabolic steroids from the local pharmacist. This twin boy never passed his highers. Her other twin boy did pass his highers and is now the new apprentice clerk at CREE BANK.

Rumours like to spread.

Ethel Strachan also works as a volunteer at the local fire station.

 

AN ACORN FOR AN HOUR

From the desk of admin@penkilnburn.com

Saturday the 3rd of February 2024

Kind Folks,

So I understand it is...

An Eagle for an Emperor,
A Gyrfalcon for a King;
A Peregrine for a Prince,
A Saker for a Knight,
A Merlin for a Lady;
A Goshawk for a Yeoman,
A Sparrowhawk for a Priest,
A Musket for a Holy water Clerk,
A Kestrel for a Knave.

And...

An Acorn for an Hour.

Or at least that is what Bill Drummond is willing to offer for an hour of your Attention to what might appear on the Penkiln Burn website over the coming months of 2024.

The books will be balanced this coming October, when the Acorns begin their Fall. And when he will be sitting under an Oak Tree with his sack of Fallen Acorns waiting for you to turn up with your invoice for the hours of your Attention given to the Penkiln Burn website between now and then.

As for which Oak Tree...

For 2024 it was going to have to be The Corby Oak.

Drummond returned to The Blank Cheque to paint the signature of The Corby Oak.

If this payment does not appear just or reflect the current market value of your Attention, Bill Drummond suggests you take your Attention elsewhere.

Kind Regards,

admin@penkilnburn.com

 

SUB PLOT – PART TWO

The Governor of CREE BANK’s wife is rumoured to be having an affair with The Governor of The Solway Bank.

The Solway Bank is a far larger and more powerful bank than CREE BANK.

It is rumoured that it is only a matter of time before The Solway Bank consumes CREE BANK.

Thus...

CREE BANK will have failed in its objective of being the one truly independent bank in the Galloverse.

The Governor of CREE BANK’s wife, who goes by the stage name of Fine Wine, is not having an affair with The Governor of The Solway Bank.

Fine Wine has better things on her mind than having affairs with bankers.

Fine Wine is busy making plans on how to turn her all-woman fantasy punk band into a reality.

Fine Wine’s fantasy punk band, that will soon become a real punk band, goes by the name of Fuck the System.

 

BANK OF THE GALLOVERSE

From the desk of admin@penkilnburn.com

Tuesday the 1st of October 2024

Kind Folk,

Bill Drummond has become a banker.

Or...

That is what I have been informed by those that inform us of such things.

In the early days of January this year, I wrote an email proclaiming that your Attention is yours and if people wanted it, they should pay for it.

Then...

In the early days of February this year, Bill Drummond ‘reluctantly’ agreed if he wanted your Attention, he should pay for it – An Acorn for an Hour.

With this in mind...

And...

As the Season of Acorns approached, Drummond made plans.

In the early days of September 2024, Drummond returned to Corby with his hessian sack, to harvest the fruit of The Corby Oak. He collected One Thousand fresh and ripe Acorns.

Then...

Drummond sketched a sketch of one of these fresh Acorns. It was this sketch that he was going to use as the working drawing for a painting on his wall Under the Junction.

This would also be the working drawing for the logo of The Bank of Oak – see above.

The brand was coming into season.

The plan was going to plan.

Drummond was even having unwanted fantasies about a futuristic high rise building in the shape a giant acorn. And this would be the headquarters of his banking empire.

This email to you was to be one where we were to ask you, the reader, to invoice The Penkiln Burn Branch of The Bank of Oak, for the hours of Attention you may have given to whatever it is that Bill Drummond wants your Attention for, and for that invoice to be based on the going rate of An Acorn for an Hour. And then Bill Drummond would post to you the total amount of Acorns from The Corby Oak, for you to treasure, cast aside, or plant and watch a sapling sprout its first leaves in the coming Spring, and for its stock to grow solid and bold, a stock that would not crash however strong the winds blew, in the knowledge (or at least Hope) that it would outlive you all by several hundred years.

But...

This morning Drummond opened the hessian sack to find the Acorns were in a state of decline – Youth had fled, and Age was storming the gates.

As in...

The Acorns were shrinking and shrivelling and falling from their once fresh cups. The Green of Hope had turned to The Rot of Despair

The whole basis of his proposed transaction was based on the perfectly formed but tiny Acorn from which the mighty Oak Tree might grow. Even if your own Demise could not be outwitted.

But...

The Demise of these One Thousand Acorns was beating even Bill Drummond to that finishing line.

Not only The Penkiln Burn Branch, but the whole Bank of Oak had crashed.

Drummond’s seed funding proved futile.

Something had to be done.

But before he did what had to be done, Drummond took forty of these Aged Acorns and laid them in five neat rows of eight on his kitchen table and shined a light on them to see if it would make them look any better – they didn’t. And with his hand-held device took a photograph of them before throwing them in the dustbin.

Then he did what he does when something has to be done, whilst not knowing how to do it...

Drummond began to knit. As in one of the squares for The Million Stitch Blanket– you do know what The Million Stitch Blanket is?

And...

If you don’t, The Million Stitch Blanket is to be made from one thousand squares. Each square made of forty rows. Each row of twenty-five stitches. Thus, each square made of one thousand stitches.

Up until the moment of him knitting the fortieth row of this square, this morning, Bill Drummond has never known what purpose The Million Stitch Blanket might serve. It was enough for him and others to be involved in the knitting, to be satisfied with the nattering (internal or otherwise) that happens while knitting.

But...

This morning as the Hessian Sack still lay on the floor, with its shrivelled and shrinking contents spilling from it, and his internal nattering was getting ahead of himself, he had a vague idea – maybe not that Damascene Moment that he is still waiting for, but a vague idea to be explored.

Like when the world aspired to be on a Gold Standard, gold bullion was locked up in the vaults of a bank somewhere, as in that gold served no practical purpose, other than to hold to account the wealth of a nation, maybe...

The Million Stitch Blanket can be locked in a vault somewhere in the Galloverse.

Or...

Maybe in a chest hidden down the bottom of one of the long disused and forgotten lead mines in the Galloway Hills.

Thus...

The Bank of The Galloverse has been born.

Thus...

In the Galloverse, all transactions, symbolic or otherwise, are done using knitted squares of wool. And each of those knitted squares is made up of forty rows and each row of twenty-five stitches. Thus, each square made up of One Thousand Stitches.

Thus maybe...

Someone can pay for Forty Hours of your Attention with one Knitted Square.

Or...

You can pay for your mug of black tea (no sugar) in The 25 Paintings’ Tea Rooms by knitting a row of twenty-five stitches on one of their partially Knitted Squares.

And for this to work in the real world of the ‘real’ Bill Drummond, where things might have different complications than those in the Galloverse, he will pay you a Knitted Square for Forty Hours of your Attention.

But...

Some might be aware Bill Drummond once proclaimed, to all those who signed up to The Penkiln Burn Mailing List, that the list would be reduced to no more than Forty Folk. As in anyone having any more than forty followers is only feeding the Sewer.

As in his imagined Sewer of Our Times.

As in that now polluted stream that runs under the length of the Santa Clara Valley, known to some as Silicon Valley.

But...

Due to unforeseen digital logistics, that stand of his against The Sewer never happened.

But...

These shortcomings on the unforeseen digital logistics front have to be addressed.

And this is how they are to be addressed...

The current Penkiln Burn Mailing List is to be scattered.

In its place, ‘interested parties’ who are willing to trade their Attention are invited to become one of the Forty Folk who will receive the Final Forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters. 

But...

These Final Forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters will only exist in their physical form.

Thus...

Will be posted to the Forty Folks’ physical addresses.

And...

If, perchance, more than Forty Folk are interested in receiving the Final Forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters, forty names will be drawn from a hat made from a page ripped from a copy of a 1957 Rupert Bear Annual.

And those forty names will be those that receive the Final Forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters.

But...

This will be done on the understanding that each of these Forty Folk will provide a physical postal address.

This is to be done...

On the understanding that Bill Drummond will knit a Knitted Square and post it to that address.

And...

In time post each of these Forty Folk all of the Final Forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters as and when they are published.

This is to be done...

On the understanding that each of the Forty Knitted Squares is the price that Bill Drummond will be paying for the Attention that those Forty Folk will be giving to the content of those Final Forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters.

And...

That Attention will include the possible editorial and curatorial services, to ensure that The Fall of The Penkiln Burn Universe and in turn The Rise of The Galloverse, are documented, in those as yet unknown ways, that might be required.

If you have Attention to trade for being one of Forty Folk receiving the Final Forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters please email me back today.

Kind Regards,

admin@penkilnburn.com

Post Script:
There is always a post script...
Does one’s life have a post script?
Bill Drummond is occasionally sent emails asking him for his thoughts regarding an activity, an action, an outcome or something else carried out by those who ask.

The senders of such emails understandably assume the price of a thought is no more than a penny, as in a penny for your thoughts.

But...

Bill Drummond has difficulties with thoughts.

Thus...

Bill Drummond tries not to have thoughts. Or at least restrict his thoughts.

Thoughts get in the way of doing things. Thoughts almost exist to stop you doing things – or that is what he claims.

But...

For the sake of balance, as in those scales that exist in The Bank of The Galloverse, Bill Drummond is going to attempt to have Forty Thoughts in response to the next forty emails requesting one of his thoughts.

And...

He will trade His Thought for one Knitted Square containing one thousand Stitches.

This Knitted Square must be knitted by the person requesting one of the Forty Thoughts.

And once that Knitted Square has arrived at the given address below, Bill Drummond will respond by emailing (via me) his thought (distilled into no more or no less than Forty Words) to whoever has asked for it.

The address is...

Forty Thoughts
c/o Alimentation
Marlinspike Hall
Walpole
Halesworth
Suffolk
IP19 9AR
East Anglia
England

 

SUB PLOT – PART THREE

Stacey Dixon is a door-to-door insurance salesperson.
Stacey Dixon knows how to sow the seeds of doubt.
Stacey Dixon also knows how to knit as well as sow the seeds of doubt.

One day...

Stacey Dixon knocks on the door of Fine Wine, expecting it to be answered by a housewife, so she will then be able to sow seeds of doubt in the housewife’s mind, thus sell her insurance to protect her from her house burning down.

 

HOW TO BUILD A BANK

From the Office of Penkiln Burn (PB) Pencil

Monday the 28th of October 2024

Alright Teds,

Artists spend their youth dreaming about fame and fortune.
Bankers take risks and embrace failure.
Artists always want others to take the risks for them.
Bankers start with nothing and end up bankrupt.
Artists spend their later years being bitter that they were never understood.
Bankers aspire to go unnoticed at the back of the hall.

The above is a given in the world of banking.
Or at least the world of banking that Bill Drummond learnt from a Mike Carran.

Mike Carran being the banker that made everything worth happening in Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s.

I understand The Governor is going to be getting The Bank Clerk to explain all of this and how it works in some form on that Penkiln Burn website.

Tara-a-Bit,

PB Pencil

 

SUB PLOT – PART FOUR

So, Fine Wine says to Stacey Dixon...

‘If I give you one hundred pounds and sign a piece of paper and my house burns down tonight you will give me one hundred thousand pounds tomorrow.’

And Stacey Dixon says...

‘Well sort of, but I might not be able to give you the money tomorrow. It might take a few weeks. But if you were to pay me two hundred pounds and sign this other piece of paper, maybe it could be tomorrow.’

And Fine Wine says...

‘Deal, where do I sign?’

And Stacey Dixon gets out some pieces of paper from her briefcase, and says...

‘Sign here and here and here and here.’

And Fine Wine does sign there and there and there and there. And then she opens her handbag and takes out twenty ten quid notes and hands them to Stacey Dixon. And then they shake hands.

But...

Before Stacey Dixon leaves to carry on knocking on doors down the street attempting to sell insurance by encouraging fear that their house may burn down, Fine Wine says to her...

‘Do you mind me asking, have you ever considered being a bass player in an all-woman punk rock band?’

And Stacey Dixon says...

‘As it happens when I was a wee girl, I saw Suzi Quatro on Top of The Pops. And she was playing the bass guitar. And she was singing a song called Devil Gate Drive. And I thought ‘that is what I want to be doing when I grow up’. And I saved up money from doing the babysitting. And I bought myself a bass guitar just like the one that Suzi Quatro played.

But...

My dad said playing the bass guitar and singing songs like Devil Gate Drive was no job for young women in our town. And my dad did not let me play my bass guitar. And my dad said, I had to have a proper job, like telling people that their house might burn down. And if they don’t have insurance they will be ruined for life. So that is what I had to do.’

And Fine Wine said...

‘Do you still have that bass guitar?’

And Stacey Dixon said...

‘Yes, I have it hidden under my bed.’

And Fine Wine said...

‘Why do you keep it hidden under your bed?’

And Stacey Dixon said...

‘In case one day someone asks me if I want to be the bass player in an all-woman punk rock band, called Fuck The System.’

 

I AM A BANK CLERK

From Clerk at the Desk upon The Banks of The River Cree

Thursday the 31st of October 2024

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a pannic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

Dear Possible Client,

This is my first day as a Bank Clerk at CREE BANK.

And...

My first job is to tell you...

The Bank of The Galloverse has rebranded itself for the modern era as CREE BANK.

And you are free to open an account with CREE BANK today.

As well as...

You are even freer to open your own branch of CREE BANK whenever you want.

Now that job is done, my next job is to tell you the history of this bank. Or at least the story as I have been told by The Governor knitting the Squares.

And I will attempt to condense this history into less than four thousand words. Which might be a tall order, as the telling of this history seems to meander its way over several hours.

After that I will be telling you how you can open an account, or what the current rates of exchange are between Sterling and Gallore.

Gallore being the currency used by CREE BANK.

Here goes...

The Governor, or ‘The Old Man’, as everyone seems to call him around here, had a namesake, as in William Drummond. But this other William Drummond was killed at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. This other William Drummond was supposed to be the mastermind of the Jacobite Rising using the cute looks of Bonnie Prince Charlie as his frontman. He was the Dominic Cummings behind Brexit. And Bonnie Prince Charlie being the Boris Johnson. But this William Drummond failed, not only by falling on the battlefield but falling for all time. The Stewarts would never rise again. The Hun had taken control.

This other William Drummond had a younger brother called Andrew Drummond.

And...

Like so many of the Clan Chiefs in The Highlands, that had backed the Jacobite Rising and failed, Andrew Drummond had already scarpered from his Clan responsibilities. As in looking after and defending his people.

And...

Like so many of those Clan Chiefs, Andrew Drummond scarpered to the bright lights and easy ways of London, where those now former Clan Chiefs embraced being entitled aristocracy with Highland hunting estates and grouse moors. At the same time as instigating The Highland Clearances.

But this Andrew Drummond was also a high-risk-taking young man.

What Andrew Drummond did in London was set up an independent bank called Drummonds. The first Scottish bank in London.

Drummonds was the bank of choice of Bohemians, fellow risk takers, inventors and certain unsavoury, or not, political parties.

Drummonds continued as a family-run independent bank until 1923, when it sold out to one of the Four Scottish Majors, in this case The Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Four Scottish Majors being The Bank of Scotland, The Clydesdale Bank, The British Linen Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland. As in, there being four majors in whatever business is a given.

1923 was also the year the recently widowed mother of The Old Man’s father (AKA John Scott Drummond, AKA The Minister) did a deal with the Bank Manager in her local branch of The British Linen Bank in Galashiels. The British Linen being the arch-rival of The Bank of Scotland. The deal was that she would trade her son John Scott Drummond to become an apprentice bank clerk as soon as he turned 15 in early 1928.

There had been numerous independent banks in Scotland, but by the 1920s they had all been consumed by, or sold out to, those Four Scottish Majors as in The Big Four.

Banking in Scotland was different to banking in England.
Banking in Scotland was much more feral.
This was in keeping with the laws concerning land and marriage.
Things were looser.
Thus...
Things could gae awry, like they did for that timorous beastie.

Each of these Scottish banks printed their own notes. And as such they were not under the control of The Bank of England. The Gold Standard did not apply to them.

Apprentice Drummond’s first job back in January 1928 was not to tell the history of Scottish Banking to possible new clients. If he did, it might put them off opening that account. Apprentice Drummond’s first job was to learn how to count wads of notes fast. The faster the better, like a chef cutting onions, or a croupier dealing cards. These wads of notes were what the local farmers brought in after selling their sheep and their cattle, their oats and their rye, at the local market. 

And then...

After closing time...

Apprentice Drummond had to sort the notes out into four different piles depending on what bank had printed them.

And then...

Apprentice Drummond had to take the three wads of notes, that had originally been printed by the three rival banks, back to the three branches of those other rival banks on Bank Street in Galashiels. And exchange those notes The British Linen Bank had accrued through the working day for The British Linen Bank notes accrued by the branches of the rival banks in Galashiels.

This meant that young teenage lads, as in the Apprentices from each of the rival banks, would be scarpering around the town square waving wads of cash at each other.

Who had the biggest wad?

This scarpering up and down Bank Street in Galashiels, waving wads of cash at each other, was an integral part of their apprenticeship. It taught them trust. Without this trust the banking system in Scotland would collapse. Like learning to leave your door unlocked at night.

I promise to pay the bearer...

You break that promise and the whole thing collapses.

Failing to learn how to trust your rivals in small Scottish towns would allow the Evil Empire of Insurance to seek out insecurities in people and exploit them.

As you may know...

Banking is built on trust.
Insurance is built on distrust.
Banking is built on things going right.
Insurance is built on things going wrong.
Banking is built on hope.
Insurance is built on fear.
Banking is built on the embracement of taking risks.
Insurance is built on the rejection of taking risks.

Banking is built on your neighbour’s house not burning down.
Insurance is built on your neighbour’s house burning down.

Banking makes things happen.
Insurance stops things from happening.

Anyway...

What those Apprentices, scarpering up and down Bank Street in Galashiels, waving their wads of cash, in the almost late 1920s, will not have been told, are the many things that Banking cannot tell you.

As in...

What the money they were waving could not buy...
Or when they were conceived...
Or where they were born...
Or whether they were born a girl or a boy...
Or even who their parents were – however big your wad of cash was.

And neither Banking nor Insurance could ever claim to provide an answer to that one weakness all Human Kind suffer from – as in that never sated hunger for life to have Meaning.

It was these issues, and the gaping hole that lay at the very heart of money, that the Evil Empire of Insurance could step in and exploit. The Coming Crash of October 1929 was when the Evil Empire of Insurance started to take control.

That promise to pay was broken, thus could never be unbroken.
Supposedly there...
Has been...
A history of broken marriage vows that have been mended, but never...
Has that promise on a bank note...
Been mended after being broken.

October 1929 was when the people began to lock their doors at night...

As in, when The Fear of Others that did not look like them; or worship the same Gods as them; or wear the same clothes as them; or support the same football team as them, started to take control.

Or...

This is what I have been taught, as your Bank Clerk, on the first day of my Apprenticeship.

Today is Halloween.

Halloween is the day in the year when the Bank of The Galloverse or CREE BANK, as I now have to remember to call it ... submits its annual account to Cairnsmore-of-Fleet. As in the All-Seeing Mountain of the Galloverse.

It was on the Halloween of 1961, when The Old Man, who was The Young Lad of no more than eight, first attempted to upturn the given natural order.

The Natural Order on Halloween Night across the Galloverse was...

The children would roam the streets knocking on the doors. And if any given door was answered, those children would recite a few lines of Robert Burns or Robert Louis Stevenson or dance a jig or sing the opening verse to Bonnie Galloway, and those that answered the door would offer the children the chance to Dook for an Apple.

In attempting to upturn the natural order, The Young Lad had already gone out that afternoon after the Tattie Picking, it being the Tattie Picking Holiday, and scrumped a string bag full of Apples from the Headmaster’s garden.

And...

When the doors were answered The Young Lad offered the old person who was standing in the doorway one of his scrumped apples, in exchange for them reciting some lines from Robert Burns or Robert Louis Stevenson, or dancing a jig, or singing the opening verse to Bonnie Galloway.

And The Old Folks laughed and some even danced a jig and took his scrumped apple. But still they gave him some Coppers and even one a Thruppenny Bit.

The next morning The Young Lad did not go Tattie Picking, instead he spent the day in his bedroom. In his bedroom he had a workbench and his hessian carpenter’s bag full of tools. One of his new tools was a small hacksaw. With this small hacksaw, he sawed up a length of copper pipe he had found. And he battered it flat with his hammer. And by the time it was almost teatime, he had sawed up and battered the flat copper pipe into 24 round pieces of copper. Each of these pieces of copper were the size of a Copper, as in One Penny.

The Young Lad now decided he had opened a bank, and the bank would be called The Bank of The Penkiln Burn. So using his chisel he scratched onto three of these round pieces of copper the words Yin Copper on one side, and on the other side he scratched a profile outline of Robert The Bruce wearing a crown, and the word Bannockburn followed by the year 1314. 

The Young Lad then took these three brand new Coppers down to Mrs Hinton, who had the sweet shop across the street from The Bank of Scotland on Albert Road.

The Young Lad asked Mrs Hinton if he could have a thruppenny poke o’ sweets. Mrs Hinton weighed some sweets from one of the big jars she had on the shelf behind the counter and put the weighed sweets in a poke. And then Mrs Hinton handed the poke o’ sweets to The Young Lad. And then The Young Lad handed Mrs Hinton the three Coppers that the Bank of The Penkiln Burn had just minted. And then Mrs Hinton, asked what they were. And then The Young Lad told her they were three Coppers freshly minted by The Bank of The Penkiln Burn. And then Mrs Hinton laughed and put the three freshly minted Coppers into her cash register. And then the transaction was complete.

And The Young Lad walked home up Mr McQuirter’s Hill sucking on the sweets just in time for his tea.

The next day, The Young Lad did not go and do the Tattie Picking with his friends. Instead, The Young Lad spent the day in his bedroom sawing up a piece of lead pipe. And turning what he had sawed up into Lead Florins.

The next day, The Young Lad did not go and do the Tattie Picking with his friends. Instead, he went down Mr McQuirter’s Hill past the Bookies Office, crossed Albert Road and went into The Bank of Scotland.

The Young Lad liked the smell of the bank. He liked the dark hard wood used for the high counters. He liked the stillness. He went up to the counter. And he told the Clerk behind the counter, that he would like to open a bank account. The Clerk told him he was too young to open a bank account. So The Young Lad handed over one of his Lead Florins and asked if he could exchange it for Four Tanners. The Clerk looked at the Lead Florin and asked...

‘What is this?’

And The Young Lad answered...

‘It’s a Lead Florin from The Bank of The Penkiln Burn.’

And The Bank Clerk said...

‘There is no such bank as The Bank of The Penkiln Burn.’

And The Young Lad said...

‘Yes there is, I opened it yesterday.’

And The Bank Clerk said...

‘You canna just open a bank.’

And The Young Lad said...

‘You can do what you want, if you want to do it. Even if you get the strap for doing it.’

And The Bank Clerk said...

‘Well let me know when you have opened your first branch.’

And The Young Lad nodded at The Bank Clerk and walked out the bank. And walked back up Mr McQuirter’s Hill. And walked through the gates of The Manse. And climbed the Apple Tree and sat on his favourite branch. And considered this the first branch of The Bank of The Penkiln Burn.

*.          *.         *

Seventeen years later The Young Lad was no longer a young lad but a young man with a stoop.

On the 31st of October 1978, The Young Man walked into the University Branch of the National Westminster Bank on Oxford Street in Liverpool. This bank was nothing like the bank in Newton Stewart. This bank did not have that smell or the hard wood high counters or even the stillness. This bank was built as a prefab. This bank was not built to last. The Young Man went up to the counter and The Bank Clerk asked...

‘Can I help you?’

And The Young Man answered...

‘Yes, I would like to open a bank account for a record company that me and a David Balfe are starting. The record company is to be called The Zoo.’

The Bank Clerk looked at him and said...

‘You can’t start a record company in Liverpool.’

And The Young Man said...

‘Why?’

And The Bank Clerk said, ‘because record companies start in London or New York or Los Angeles or Detroit or Chicago or maybe if you are lucky in Manchester.’ And then The Bank Clerk laughed.

And The Young Man said...

‘But...’

But before The Young Man could say any more, a slight man with a goatee beard and aviator specs and smoking a fag and with a bit of what is now called a mullet, came out of an office in the bank and said to The Young Man...

‘Good morning young man, my name is Mike Carran and I am the bank manager of this bank, would you like to come into my office and have a chat.’

And The Young Man followed.

And Mike Carran said...

‘Take a seat. Do you want a ciggie?’

And The Young Man said...

‘Thanks, but I don’t smoke.’

‘Tea or coffee?’

‘Tea please.’

‘So I have been wondering when someone would come into the bank to say they were going to be starting a record company. And here you are. About time.’

And that was that. Or that is what The Old Man has told me to tell you. The Old Man also wanted me to tell you five of the other things Mike Carran told The Young Man over the next six years.

One:
‘The skill of a bank manager is to know, the moment you meet someone, if they are a person the bank should invest time and effort into.’

Two:
‘Banks exist to make things happen.’

Three:
‘Money is not real, what you do is real.’

Four:
‘Money is made up, like a story you might make up to tell a child.’

Five:
‘Making things up can make them real. Like you made up a record label and now it is real.’

The made-up record label was called The Zoo. The Young Man and David Balfe made up this record label called The Zoo.

The Zoo recorded and released records by two made-up bands called The Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen. People liked these records and these made-up bands. And in time these made-up bands became real bands.

And...

These made-up bands that had now become real bands began to play gigs in clubs around The Atlantic Archipelago. And more and more people wanted to watch these made-up bands ...pretending to be real bands.

But...

Made-up bands, that were now pretending to be real bands, needed PA sound systems to fill those clubs around The Atlantic Archipelago with noise. Without noise the bands would remain made-up bands.

The noise had to come out of a PA sound system. The Young Man knew a man called Harry de Mack who was a live sound engineer and had a PA sound system called PSL at New Mills outside of Manchester.

Harry de Mack and his PA sound system called PSL started to travel The Atlantic Archipelago with The Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen filling clubs with noise.

And the noise sounded good.
And more people wanted to hear the noise.
More people than could fit in the clubs.
So...
The Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen had to play concert halls that could fit all the people that wanted to hear the noise, made by these now real bands.

But...

Harry de Mack and his PA sound system called PSL were not big enough to fill these concert halls with noise that people wanted to hear.

So...

Harry de Mack said to The Young Man, if they went into partnership and The Young Man could raise twelve thousand quid, Harry de Mack could build a bigger PA sound system that could fill all the concert halls in The Atlantic Archipelago with noise that people would want to hear.

So...

The Young Man went to see Mike Carran and Mike Carran wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed the piece of paper to The Bank Clerk in his bank, and then there was a ‘loan’ of twelve thousand quid in The Young Man’s bank account, and Mike Carran told The Young Man that he could pay Mike Carran back in a year’s time with interest, and The Young Man used that twelve thousand quid for Harry de Mack to build a PA sound system that could fill all the concert halls in The Atlantic Archipelago with noise loud enough for the young people to hear.

And Harry de Mack built this PA sound system.
And the PA sound system looked big and good and solid.
And Harry de Mack turned on this PA sound system.
And this PA sound system sounded loud and dark and strong.
But...
This PA sound system made a noise that the young people did not want to hear.
And The Teardrop Explodes and Echo & The Bunnymen were not happy that the young people did not want to hear this noise.
Things were not good.
Things had to be done.
Another PA sound system and another sound engineer had to be found.
And Harry de Mack was not happy.
And The Young Man had to go and see Mike Carran at the bank.
And Make Carran looked The Young Man in the eyes.
And Mike Carran said to The Young Man...

‘That was your first lesson...
And that was your first test...
And you learnt from your first lesson...
And you have passed your first test.’

And Mike Carran wrote something on a piece of paper.
And handed the piece of paper to the bank clerk.
And the ‘loan’ of twelve thousand quid was wiped clean from The Young Man’s bank account.
And without any interest needing to be paid.

And The Young Man asked Mike Carran...

‘Why?’

And Mike Carran said to The Young Man.

‘If I had called in that loan, you would have had to sell your two-up-two-down home, which is worth no more than twelve thousand quid. And you and your young wife would have been out on the street. And you would never want to take another risk in your life. And you would have learnt nothing. And as your bank manager, I need you to take risks, because it is people taking risks, like the risks you have taken, that make things happen. As in not the risks that people take in betting shops, where nothing ever happens.’

Time slipped by.

Some years later The Young Man met Mike Carran again. Mike Carran told The Young Man that banking was now different. Banking was no longer about having the mind that meant knowing everything you need to know about someone, as soon as they walk through your door in your office, in the bank. Banking is now about ‘Computer says No! And never taking risks.’ And The Young Man laughed, and Mike Carran laughed. As they, and we all, knew the Little Britain reference. But in reality, both The Young Man and Mike Carran wanted to cry, not only because they were at a funeral but because Global Insurance was winning the Money Wars.

Something had to be done.

Things were done.

And now The Young Man, who is now The Old Man, has become a banker. And the bank was called The Bank of The Galloverse but The Bank of The Galloverse is now called CREE BANK.

And...

When The Old Man was The Young Lad the currency of The Atlantic Archipelago was Pounds, Shillings & Pence.

And this is how Pounds, Shillings & Pence worked...

Four Farthings made Yin Copper.
Twa Ha’pennies made Yin Copper.
Three Coppers made a Thruppenny Bit.
Twa Thruppenny Bits made a Tanner.
Twa Tanners made a Bob.
Twa Bobs made a Florin.
Five Tanners made a Half Crown.
Twa Half Crowns made a Dollar.
Twa Dollars made a Ten Bob Note.
Twa Ten Bob Notes made a Silver Sovereign.
Twenty-One Bobs made a Golden Guinea.
But the Silver Sovereign were no longer silver but just a Quid made from paper.
And the Golden Guineas were no longer golden but just something in auction houses where posh people bought art, to hang on their walls, to impress themselves and their neighbours.
But...
One Hundred Quid was still a Ton.
And a Thousand Tons made you rich.
And if you were rich, you could drive a Bentley or a Rolls.
And...
Buy art in Guineas not made from Gold.

But things changed on D-Day, as in on the morning of Monday the 15th of February 1971, when The Young Lad was now Seventeen Going on Eighteen and was on the 254 bus going from Corby to Kettering, where he would get the 256 to Northampton, where he would walk across the Race Course to go to the Northampton School of Art, where he would learn how to see and not just look.

On this D-Day...
And not the D-Day on the morning of the 6th of June 1944, when people were doing real things, like killing and dying.
But this D-Day...
All the money changed.
All the money described above no longer existed.
All that existed was pennies and pounds.
And there were only one hundred Pennies to every Quid, not the 240 Pennies there were in a Quid the day before.

The Old Man, who was then Seventeen Going on Eighteen, thought that money had lost its poetry.

But...

Now The Old Man is a banker. And has started a bank that was going to be called The Bank of The Galloverse but is now called CREE BANK.
 
And CREE BANK is made from...

All the water flowing down the Water-of-Minnoch and The Penkiln Burn and The River Bladnoch and The Palnure Burn and The Water of Fleet. 

And...

All of that water flowing down those tributaries into The River Cree.

And...

All of the water in The River Cree flowing into the Solway Firth.

And from the Solway Firth out into the sea and the oceans, where life in all its many forms began and begins.

But...

In CREE BANK, The Old Man wanted to use a currency that worked to the power of eleven. But the members of the board of CREE BANK, made up of The Five Tributaries of The River Cree, disallowed this and said that the power of twelve must be the sole power of CREE BANK. That the power of twelve being the perfect power, as it is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12, whereas the power of 11 is only divisible by 1 and 11.

But...

A compromise was agreed. The agreed compromise allowed various aspects of the currency known as Gallore to have the powers of one, two, five, eight, twelve, twenty-five, forty and one thousand.

Thus...

The currency of Gallore as used by CREE BANK will work as follows...

Twenty-Five Stitches makes One Row.
Forty Rows makes One Square.
Twelve Squares makes One Word.
Twelve Words makes One Tribute.
Twelve Tributes makes One Wall.

And today’s exchange rates between Gallore and Sterling are...

One STITCH for Ten Pence.
One ROW for Two Quid Fifty Pence.
One SQUARE for One Hundred Quid.
One WORD for One Thousand Two Hundred Quid.
One TRIBUTE for Twelve Thousand Quid.
One WALL for One Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand Quid.

Exchanges rates may change from second to second, or decade to decade, depending on the international markets. And the death of The Old Man.

If you are interested in exchanging Sterling, Dollars or Euros for money in the physical currency of Gallore, contact me via clerk@penkilnburn.com.

Furthermore...

Sterling may once have attempted to be secured by the Gold Standard
Whereas...
Gallore is secured by the Stitch Standard.
The Gold Standard might have once been measured by the amount of gold locked in the vaults of The Bank of England.
The Stitch Standard will be measured by the number of Stitches in The Million Stitch Blanket locked in a trunk down the bottom of a lead mine in the Galloway Hills.

And...

The life and times and the twelve layers of paint on The 25 Paintings that will be lying rotting at the bottom of The Black Loch (circa 2026).

Right now, that is all I know.

I will let you know what each of these physical forms in the currency of Gallore might look like, or sound like, or behave like when I know. And of course, how to exchange your currency for the currency of the Galloverse. Or even how to open your own branch of CREE BANK.

But right now, I do know that The Old Man has not even knitted the First Forty Squares, or even painted the first WORDS. But I do know that the first WORDS will have the following words painted on the regulation A1 landscape size canvas, using the regulation Trade Gothic Bold Condensed font, using the no more than the regulation three primaries and black & white acrylic...

PICK POCKETS
OPERATE IN
THIS PAINTING

But right now, that is as much as I know on my first day as The Bank Clerk at CREE BANK (formerly known as The Bank of The Galloverse).

And...

Now I must learn how to knit a SQUARE.

Then brush up on my Robert Burns before heading out into the Halloween night...

Yours Faithfully,

The Bank Clerk

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

 

SUB PLOT – PART FIVE

That night Fine Wine got her box of Swan Vesta out of the kitchen drawer by the gas cooker. She only ever used the matches in the box of Swan Vesta when the lighter on the gas cooker did not seem to be working.

Then...

Fine Wine got all her old copies of Smash The Hits from the box she kept under her bed. And she tore them up. And she piled up the torn-up copies of Smash The Hits on the floor of her living room. And she took a match from the Swan Vesta box. And she struck the match. And then she used the lit match to set fire to the pile of torn-up copies of Smash The Hits. And she watched the flames as they danced in the middle of her living room floor. Then she went out into her garden to then watch the flames through her living room window. And the flames grew wilder and wilder and danced higher and higher. And then her neighbour came out of her house and said to Fine Wine:

‘Your house is on fire, what are you going to do?’

And Fine Wine said...

‘Claim the insurance money and then form an all-female punk rock band and then go off to South America and play in every city and every town and every village and have a wild, wild time.’

And her neighbour said...

‘Can I join you, I play the electric guitar, but my children tell me it is too embarrassing to have a mum who plays the electric guitar.’

And Fine Wine says...

‘Yes, but what is your name?’

And her neighbour says...

‘My name is Suzi Wong, but my stage name is Suzi Wrong.’

And then Fine Wine and Suzi Wrong hear the siren of a fire engine and see the flashing of blue lights.

 

HOW TO OPEN AN ACCOUNT

From The Banks of The River Cree

Friday the 1st of November 2024

Dear Possible Account Holder,

This is my second day as a Bank Clerk at CREE BANK.

And...

My job today is to explain to you how you can be one of forty people to open an account with CREE BANK.

I have been told to tell you by The Governor ‘It is simple’.

First you have to email me at clerk@penkilnburn.com confirming that you want to open an account with CREE BANK.

And...

That you are willing to knit a SQUARE.

If you are one of the first forty people to email me with this request, I will email you back with the following information...

Please knit a SQUARE and post your SQUARE to me at the given address.

The SQUARE has to be made from Forty Rows of Twenty-Five Stitches.

Thus...

The SQUARE will contain One Thousand Knitted Stitches.

The stitches must be plain – nothing fancy required.

The colour of the wool used to knit your SQUARE must be one of the three primary colours or black or white.

You can choose the quality of the wool used to knit your SQUARE.

Once the CREE BANK has received your SQUARE you will be sent a signed document confirming that your SQUARE has now been received by CREE BANK and your account is now open.

To keep your account open CREE BANK will retain your SQUARE for ten years.

Over that ten years you will be guaranteed an interest rate of 10% per annum.

Annually, throughout the ten-year period, you will receive a statement confirming One Hundred Stitches (your 10%) have been knitted.

Thus...

After those ten years you will have returned to you: 1. your original SQUARE plus
2. the SQUARE containing the One Thousand Stitches representing your 10% interest rate over ten years.

 

SUB PLOT – PART SIX

The Fire Engine arrived, and the Fire Men got out their hoses and moved throughout the burning house.

But...

One of the Fire Men was not a Fire Man, because she was a Fire Lady who you may have met earlier in this sub plot when she was introduced to you as Ethel Strachan, sporting a back combed beehive, but right now, because she is wearing her helmet, one cannot appreciate her back combed beehive.

I’d like mention to you the fact that all the firefighters in the Galloverse are reserve firefighters, so that they all need extra separate jobs.

But anyway, beehives aside...

Fine Wine thinks Fire Lady looks beyond anything she has ever seen before by the way she holds her hose.

Fine Wine says to the Fire Lady...

‘Do you want to join a punk rock band with the name Fuck The System?’

And Fire Lady says...

‘But I don’t play an instrument.’

And Fine Wine says...

‘But you can be the singer, and you can hold your hose firing water all over the audience and when you are bored doing that, you can throw yourself onto the mosh pit of life, that is if we have an audience that are also a mosh pit.’

Then Stacey Dixon turns up, and she is holding her bass guitar in one hand and one hundred thousand pounds, in fifty quid notes, in the other hand and says...

‘Fine Wine, I am here and I am ready to rock.’

And Fine Wine says...

‘I would like you to meet our lead guitarist Suzi Wrong and our lead singer Evil Ethel The Fire Lady.’

And Evil Ethel The Fire Lady says...

‘Well, what do you play?’

And Fine Wine says...

‘I will play the drums, although I have never played the drums. And I don’t have any drums to play. But with the money that Stacey Dixon has in her hand, I can buy a drum kit in the morning. And we will then hit the road, tour the world and burn houses down.’

 

I AM THE GOVERNOR

From The Banks of The River Cree

Friday the 1st of November 2024

Dear Interested Parties,

I am The Governor of CREE BANK.

But to be honest... 

That said...

Never expect The Governor of a bank to be honest...

I am Confused (Note: Not Confucius). I have often thought being confused is the best way to approach most things in life. Those with a clear head are often deluded with their clear headedness. They have a tendency to just value a blue-sky approach, thus not value all the subtleties of the shades of grey on an overcast life.

The Bank Clerk has done a good job on the first two days of his apprenticeship. I hope you learnt something useful from what he had to say.

But...

I feel it is my job to lay out how the currency of Gallore, that we use at CREE BANK, works and how it might work for you.

STITCH

Some spend their lives searching for the lost chord.

I have spent much of my life searching for the dropped stitch.

The Dropped Stitch in the Galloverse is up there with the Ark of The Covenant in other Universes.

Thus...

The STITCH might be the smallest denomination in the currency of Gallore. But it is the denomination on which our whole currency is built.

Some believe if the Dropped Stitch were ever picked up the Gallore would collapse and with this would come the Decline & Fall of the whole Galloverse.

Or that is the myth.

That myth will not stop me on my search.

SQUARE

The two things that I was required to learn to do, in my first year at school, when I was five years old, in 1958 was...

To learn to knit.

And...

To learn to read.

I rejected the reading and embraced the knitting.

Knitting made sense.
Reading made nonsense.
Knitting was made from stitches.
Reading was made from words.
Stitches told the truth.
Words told the lies.

The first thing we were taught to knit was a square dishcloth.
The second we were taught to knit was a scarf.
We were allowed to choose our favourite colour wool to use to knit our scarf.
My favourite colour was grey.
Then I knitted my grey scarf.
Then I stopped knitting.
Knitting is what grannies did – or so I observed at the time.
I was a boy, and I did not know if I might ever become a Granny, and would be allowed to start knitting again.

At the age of ten I learnt to mow lawns.
I liked mowing lawns.
I liked the straight lines.
I liked the control I could have over nature’s urge to tear everything down.
I liked to destroy The Dandy Lions and The Daisies, that dared to grow on the lawns that I mowed.
I liked the glow of satisfaction when I could stand back, and look at the perfection of the perfectly mown lawn, that I had just mowed perfectly.
This was my weakness.
A weakness that took me until I was fifty years old to see the flaws in.
This mere perfection was the same lie told by the newly-washed car and just-hoovered carpet. Or even the freshly polished shoes.
So I stopped mowing lawns and washing cars and shining shoes – but sometimes I still hoover carpets, as I feel I owe it to my family.
But...
There was something missing in my life.
There was still that small urge for order, order that was not attempting to suppress nature or impress the neighbours.

Then one day I picked up a pair of knitting needles and a ball of wool in a shop, while no one I knew was looking.
And I took myself to a park bench, to see if I could still remember how to cast on.
And I could.
So I cast on twenty-five stitches.
And then I knitted the first row.
And it felt good.
And then I knitted the second row.
And that felt better.
And then I looked around me.
And no one was looking back at me.
So, I carried on knitting until I had knitted forty rows.
But I had forgotten how to cast off.
So, I went back to the shop that had sold me the pair of needles and ball of wool.
And I asked the lady there if she could remind me how to cast off.
And she did remind me.
And I did cast off.
And now I had knitted my first square of wool since I was a schoolboy of no more than eight years old.
And this felt special.
This felt very special.
And I went home.
And my life was changed.

Sometimes those changes in life can close doors in your head, and sometimes those changes in life can open doors up in your head, doors that you will never be able to close. I like open doors.

After Covid, when we entered the world of The Cashless Economy, I wondered what to do with my loose change, at the bottom of my pockets, and bags, and drawers, and under the kitchen cabinet. So I found a home for them. But then something was missing in my life. Was it the tinkle and jangle of loose change in my trouser pocket, as I stumbled down the stairs in the morning? Or was it that sense of something is wrong, when you put a few coins in a beggar’s KFC paper cup?

But...

Then I noticed that pile of knitted squares that had been accruing on the top of my bedside cabinet. And it was then that I knew that these were not just going to fill the hole in my life which loose change once had filled, these knitted squares were to be the future of money.

Only later that same day did I become The Governor of a bank that had yet to have its name.

As for the value of a SQUARE...

One Thousand STITCHES makes one SQUARE.

WORDS

I like words.
I mean I don’t love words.
You know, words always got the better, and still get the better, of me.
Words like to trick me, or maybe even trip me up.
Like spelling them wrong, even after I have learnt to spell them right, and then the words laughing at me for spelling them wrong, even though I knew how to spell them right yesterday.

I always thought that a bit mean-spirited of those words. I mean, if we were not there to use words they would not exist. I mean, after I am dead no amount of words could bring me back.

But...

What I do like about words is, you can have one word that seems to have two completely different meanings. Like ‘note’. I mean, like a note of music compared to a bank note. That is putting aside that person we are told is ‘a person of note’.

Then there are those words that you can never really define what they mean – like ‘actually’. I mean what does the word ‘actually’, actually mean?

There were twelve different notes on the piano in our house.

In my childhood I would spend moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks and eventually years wondering how these Twelve Notes related to each other in different ways. Why do they exist? When did they come into being? And of course, could one exist without the other? And why, when a certain two or three of them were played at the same time could they trigger something I learnt to call emotion? And why – when another two or three of them were played – could they trigger the opposite of that thing called emotion?

I mean...

When Eve and Adam were in the Garden, were those Twelve Notes already there to control their emotions?

And...

When I listened to each of those notes on our piano in turn I would see a colour.

Although I could only see those different colours in my head.

Thus, and because of all of the above...

There are only Twelve Notes used in my branch of the CREE BANK.
These Twelve Notes have the collective title of WORDS.
The words used on these WORDS are words that I have repeatedly heard, or read, in my life over the past four years. These words act as some sort of enforced mantra that gets me from one place to the other and back again.

These twelve WORDS are split into two.

One half of these WORDS are...

WORDS on The Underground (note not those Poems on the Underground).

The other half of these WORDS are...

WORDS on The Motorway.

WORDS on The Underground are six sets of words I have been repeatedly hearing on the Underground in London, as I have commuted from here to there, and back again, over those past four years of my life.

The seemingly constant repetition of these words has taken on some meaning for me, even though I know they have no meaning, other than the meaning they were created to have by Transport For London. And for some reason my mind keeps replacing one of the nouns, within these WORDS on The Underground, with the word ‘paintings’.

And again...

I assume it is because of this repeated replacing of one noun with the word ‘paintings’, I felt I should turn these words into paintings that would then become the first half of the Twelve Notes in the currency of Gallore as used by CREE BANK.

PICK POCKETS OPERATE IN THIS PAINTING
GOOD SERVICE ON ALL OTHER PAINTINGS
PLEASE STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING PAINTINGS
PAINTINGS WILL OPEN ON THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE
THIS PAINTING HAS NO STEP FREE ACCESS
PLEASE MIND THE GAP BETWEEN THE PLATFORM AND THE PAINTING

WORDS on The Motorway are six sets of words I have been repeatedly reading on signs on the side of the M1 and M6 motorways, as I have driven a White Ford Transit Van from where I live in Suburban North London to Under the Junction in Birmingham, and back again, over the past four years of my life.

FREE RECOVERY AWAIT RESCUE
CONSTRUCTING NEW EMERGENCY AREAS
WORKS TRAFFIC MERGING
WORKS ACCESS ONLY
SIGNAL NOT IN USE
NO STOPPING EXCEPT IN AN EMERGENCY

These are the WORDS on my Twelve Notes...

Anyone either opening an account with CREE BANK, or creating their own branch of CREE BANK, are encouraged to find the WORDS that are there in their daily lives, and make their own Twelve Notes that can then become part of the Gallore Currency. That is as long as they fit the CREE BANK stipulations.

The stipulations being...

There should never be more than twelve words used on any WORD.
Every WORD should be painted on a stretched canvas.
Every WORD is of A1 size and dimensions.
Every WORD is presented in landscape proportion.
Every WORD is painted using acrylic paint.
Every WORD is painted using only the three primaries and black & white. And none of those colours are mixed.
Every WORD only uses the type face Trade Gothic Bold Condensed.
Every WORD only uses the type face in uppercase.

As for the value of a WORD...

Twelve SQUARES makes one WORD.

TRIBUTES

Now is not the time.
But...
If time were money...
I mean...
The 25 Paintings are something I have been doing for some time.
The 25 Paintings measured and still measure 191cm by 135cm.
And...
The 25 Paintings are text paintings.
What the text on the paintings is...
Is not for me to go into now.
But...
Since 2014, The 25 Paintings have been on a Twelve Year World Tour.
And each year of that Twelve Year World Tour, The 25 Paintings are repainted into the language used by the folk in that area of the world.

Or...

That is how it has been up until now (October 2024), when The 25 Paintings are about to enter the Galloverse for the final two years of their Twelve Year World Tour.

And...

During those first ten years of this Twelve Year World Tour, I went through a period where I rebelled against the notion of things being documented in film and photographs.

Instead...

I embraced moments in time and passing urges, to be documented by one of my previous selves, writing plays about those mistakes made, and those fault lines on the human soul pulled apart. This previous self went by the name of Tenzing Scott Brown. This Tenzing Scott Brown wrote hundreds of plays documenting almost every passing moment in The Penkiln Burn Universe.

But...

This Tenzing Scott Brown fell (or was pushed) under a bus in the early days of 2021, thus he documented no more. There is also a theory that it was a suicide pact with his long-lost lover.

Anyway...

At that point one of the other characters in The Penkiln Burn Universe, who goes by the name of a local artist, was commissioned by myself to paint a series of copies of each of the year-by-year steps in The 25 Paintings’ evolution since 2014.

But...

These copies were not life size. They were merely A4 in size.

But...

This meant each set of 25 year-by-year copies could be framed together.

And...

There are now ten sets of these framed sets of copies. One for each of those years to date.

And...

These framed copies could be hung on the wall of wherever The 25 Paintings’ Tea Rooms might be open for business.

Some people still think art exists to be a commodity on the market – try telling that to A Setting Sun or A Flowing River.

Anyway, I digress...

These mere copies of The 25 Paintings wanted more of a purpose in life, other than being these cute things to hang on the wall of a tea room. However impressive their ‘cuteness’ was.

And...

As there will be twelve of these sets, once The 25 Paintings’ Twelve Year World Tour is complete in 2026, I, in my position as The Governor of CREE BANK, will attest that these twelve sets of framed copies of The 25 Paintings will become dominations in the currency of Gallore.

And...

They will not be known as copies, but as TRIBUTES.

And...

There will be no more than twelve of these TRIBUTES. Or this branch of CREE BANK will never have any more than twelve of these TRIBUTES. If you were to open your own branch of a CREE BANK you could make, create, paint your own set of twelve TRIBUTES.

As for the value of a TRIBUTE...

Twelve WORDS makes one TRIBUTE.

WALLS

Would I rather be a Brig or a Waw? Wall or a bridge? This is a question that has troubled me for ever.

Well at least since that woman across the road asked me on Halloween night, when I was dressed up as a Breaking Branch...

‘Well Wee Lad, what thou wanna be when yon grou up?’

And I answered...

‘Either a Brig or a Waw.’

And before you ask...

For a boy who loved climbing trees, a breaking branch was about the scariest (or at least, most challenging) thing that one could encounter.

Now up until that Halloween night, if you had asked me that question, I would have given the stock answer of...

‘A sailor or a train driver.’

As in, being a sailor or train driver were what all us boys, back then, wanted to be when we grew up. I mean sailors and train drivers went places and did things. I mean, who would want to be anything else?

But...

We all knew that in reality, when we grew up, we had to be whatever our father was. That said, Ivor Clements, who was in my class, had a father who actually was a train driver – I was most jealous.

But...

Ivor Clements did not want to be a train driver when he grew up, because he said his father was never at home. My dad was The Minister, which meant I was going to have to be The Minister when I grew up, that’s if...

I did not get killed in a war before I grew up. We all know that, in wars, young men are called up in order to fight, and that many of those young men would never come back from those wars. Which is why there would be fewer young men left to do their father’s job. 

Anyway...

Back to Brigs and Waws.

I was in love with three bridges. Each of them in different ways. I assumed back then Love always came in Threes. My parents had three children, who they loved equally, even if in different ways. Having a stool with three legs always balanced better, however rough the ground. This is why I understood that most parents had three children because it made the best number upon which to balance their lives. And three allowed for one of the boys to be killed in a war.

Except...

If the family was an Italian family, who owned one of the numerous ice cream shops and fish & chips shops in Galloway, then they had to have five or seven children. Thus, I imagined they had stools with five or seven legs in their kitchens. But I never went into an Italian family’s kitchen, so I never got to know what a five or seven-legged stool looked like.

And...

I guess that the young men in the Italian families had more wars to go and get killed in, that is why they had to have more children.

But...

Back to Brigs and Waws.

The first of these three loves was for The Cree Bridge, this was because boys could either cross it by walking on its north facing wall, from Newton Stewart to Minnigaff, or, after you had mastered that, you could cross it back again from Minnigaff to Newton Stewart, by standing on the very small ledge on the outside of the south facing wall, and shuffling your way back. This was the most dangerous of the two crossings. Danger can never be undervalued.

We need more risk in life and not less. But we don’t need risk as commodified by the Bookies.

The second of these three loves was for The Suspension Bridge. This was a steel suspension footbridge also across The River Cree, but a mile or so upstream.

And...

The reason for my undying love of this bridge was...

You could stand in the middle of The Suspension Bridge and jump up and down.

And...

If you jumped up and down hard enough, The Suspension Bridge would start to sway and shake and shimmy. This was the way that The Suspension Bridge told you how much it loved you back.

I thought The Suspension Bridge was the only suspension footbridge in the world. When I came across others, I felt I should never jump up and down on them, as that would make me unfaithful to The Suspension Bridge.

The third of these three loves was for the Queen Mary’s Bridge over the Penkiln Burn. To get to the Queen Mary’s Bridge you had to either have crossed The Cree Bridge or The Suspension Bridge first. The Queen Mary’s Bridge was far smaller and older than the other two Loves of My Life. It could not be crossed by walking on either its south or north facing walls. Nor would it shudder, shake or shimmy, if you jumped up and down on its middle.

But...

The Queen Mary’s Bridge had a beauty and wisdom that, even at that age and stage in life, I appreciated. From the Queen Mary’s Bridge, I could watch the seasons change and the water rushing down and the Salmon leaping up. There was and still is a dark side to the Queen Mary’s Bridge. Now is not the time and place to go into that.

But...

That dark side was also embedded into my love for her. As in I always imagined if I fell from Her, it would be instant death, whereas if I were to fall from either of the other two bridges, I had a chance for making it to the banks. That was because of the calmer waters of The River Cree.

The Penkiln Burn, as much as it is life embracing, is also unforgiving.

There was another bridge that flirted with me, and with which I had a fling. If you can call what a ten-year-old boy feels, a fling. It was the small but perfectly turned, Chinese bridge, also over the Penkiln Burn, up in the Cumloden Estate. I have never seen her since but have dreamt about her a couple of times.

As much as I loved these three bridges, I never dreamed I could build bridges. I just did not have it in me to build bridges, even though I knew building bridges was a better thing for us humans than building fences.

Other than that fling with the Chinese Bridge, I have been able to stay faithful to the other three bridges in my life, even when I have not been able to stay faithful to the women in my life.

And so, to walls...

My tempestuous love of walls came early in life.

We think of most children having a favourite soft toy to comfort them in bed at night. I rejected every soft toy they tried to tuck in under my covers. I already had a bed companion that meant far more to me than any soft toy ever could. It was the wall that my bed was pushed up against in my cold bedroom. This wall had a despicable patterned wallpaper on it. One of my earliest memories was lying there – before sleep came and stole me – picking a hole in this hateful patterned wallpaper. I wanted to know what this vile patterned wallpaper was hiding. Under this despicable wallpaper was white plaster. This white plaster was crumbly. Not like the modern type of salmon pink plaster. My middle finger of my right hand would pick at this crumbling plaster night after night. The fact that the top of this middle finger would scratch, and at times bleed, only gave the mission even more meaning. I needed to find out how deep I could dig a hole in this plaster. After some weeks, I arrived at a rock. The same type of grey rock that the outside wall of this Manse was built from. I knew I would never be able to pick my way into, let alone through, this rock. I mean, you can’t pick your way through rock, however scratched the tip of your finger becomes. Thus, I never found what lay behind it. It was enough for me to lie in bed at night, until I was stolen by the sleep, with the middle finger of my right hand stuck in this hole in the wall. And the scratched tip of this middle finger pressed against the cold grey stone. Even back then, I had this vague idea that at the edge of the universe would be a large grey stone wall that could never be climbed over and no amount of picking at could ever get you to its other side.

When I was about four or five, I discovered another wall that tempted me with all sorts of seductive techniques. This wall was on the Minnigaff side of The River Cree. It was about a mile long. It was on the north side of the New Galloway Road out of Minnigaff. On one side of the wall was the playing field with the swings and slides and even a roundabout. Gladys Littlejohn used to take me there when she was minding me. It was also on these playing fields that the circus would pitch its tent. And where the travelling fairs would stop for a couple of days. Climbing over this perfectly formed wall always led to the excitement of a distant exotic life. But it was not just what lay beyond this wall, it was the actual form of the wall. All other walls that surrounded fields in Galloway were Dry Stane Dykes, and I love Dry Stane Dykes, but this wall on the New Galloway Road was not only long and straight but every stone in it was chiselled to perfection. And, it had a perfectly arched top. If it had not only been built with love, it was built for no real practical purpose, other than its beauty. And its perfectly arched top meant climbing over was not a threat to my wee bollocks.

For me back then, walls were not about division, they were about climbing up, or over, or jumping down from.

This perfectly formed wall with its arched top had been built, a few years earlier, by the Italian Prisoners of War staying in the Holm Park Work Camp, on the south side of the New Galloway Road. The prison camp was still there in the late 50s, in case we needed it to put Russian Prisoners of War in. But its wooden shacks held no interest for me. It was just the wall that those Italian Prisoners of War had built. I had already learnt that the Romans had loved to build long straight roads, thus I assumed that was why these Italian Prisoners of War loved to build long straight walls. And, I assumed if I ever got to Italy the place would be filled with perfectly formed long straight roads and even longer straighter walls.

As I have aged, I have grown to have issues with anything that is long and straight.

And so...

There are two walls in the CREE BANK. These are known collectively as The Twa Waws.

The Twa Waws are the two walls under Spaghetti Junction. As in the two walls that face each other with the Grand Union Canal dividing them. One of these two walls is the wall that a local artist has been painting over and over again since he first started to paint it back in 2014. This wall is known as The Watched. The other of these two walls is the one in the dark and is never seen. This second wall is known as The Watcher.

Over The 25 Paintings’ Twelve Year World Tour, a local artist has returned to The Watched wall every twelve months specifically to paint the title of that year’s step in the tour. Each title obliterating what might have been painted before.

His favourite title of a step so far has been...

LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO BE WASTED ON THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

And...

After The 25 Paintings’ Twelve Year World Tour is complete, as in after its final step in 2026, a local artist plans to hang all of the twelve TRIBUTES on the dark wall, as on The Watcher.

Thus...

As I am sure you will now have ascertained, in the currency of Gallore...

Twelve TRIBUTES makes one WALL.

RATES OF EXCHANGE:

If you have any queries about Rates of Exchange between Gallore and Sterling, or whatever historic currency is used in your part of the world, contact The Clerk at CREE BANK at clerk@penkilnburn.com and I am sure he will be able to advise you.

As for you opening your own branch of CREE BANK, I am here for the time being, to point you in the right and the dangerous directions.

And...

I can be contacted at gov@penkilnburn.com

Yours with Trust,

The Governor of CREE BANK

Post Script:
On re-reading this missive to you, I realised that I have missed out reminding those that might need reminding that the two greatest works of art, that I have ever, in any of my various selves, been involved in the creation of were...

Working as a shuttering chippy on the bridge over the Exeter bypass stretch of the M5 in the summer of 1975.

And...

While working as the odd job man in Eric’s, Liverpool, circa 1977 / 78, building the wall from breeze blocks that then divided the seated bar area of the club, from the standing room only area of the club, where the bands played.

That bridge is brittle brutalist concrete at its most spine chilling. And that wall made from breeze blocks soaked up the sounds made from a generation of bands that tipped over the course of the musical history of a city.

Now go and open your bank account with CREE BANK today, or if there are no longer any bank accounts to be had, go and open your own branch of CREE BANK.

 

SUB PLOT – PART SEVEN

And by the time you are reading these words, Fuck The System are touring every city and every town and every village in South America and burning houses down wherever they can. And Evil Ethel The Fire Lady is screaming into the microphone as she holds her hose and is cumming all over the audience. And the audience is going wild. And she is throwing herself onto the mosh pit of life.

While...

Back in the street in which Fine Wine used to live, when the people in CREE BANK used to spread rumours about her having an affair with The Governor of The Solway Bank, the people are now spending thousands of pounds a year insuring their houses.

The End

But it is not the end...

We don’t want happy endings, do we?

 

COCKS VERSUS CUNTS

Tuesday the 26th of November 2024

From the desk of The Governor of CREE BANK

Dear Interested Parties,

Last night I was supposed to be taking part in an event at Scotland House on the Embankment in London. I was going to be there under the guise of the novelist William E. Drummond launching his new novella Winning is for Losers.

Behind the disguise I would have in fact been a local artist transitioning into being The Governor of CREE BANK. As with all transitions, this has come with some issues. I tried once to transition into becoming a cat: that did not work out that well. That said, one of my other selves did transition successfully from being a King Boy D into a Kingfisher.

But...

So far, this transition from being a local artist into a banker has had its positive moments on the Life Changing spectrum.

But...

Due to unforeseen health reasons, I had to pull out of the event in Scotland House last night.

But...

This was the planned plan...

William E. Drummond was going to step onto the stage and introduce himself to the audience, of no more than 125 living people. Then he was to hold aloft a copy of his new novella Winning is for Losers, stating this novella was written specifically for this event in an edition of only 200 copies – which it was.

Then...

William E. Drummond was going to ask all the members of the audience whose birthday was on an odd day of the month to stand at one side of the hall. And all the members of the audience whose birthday was on an even day of the month to stand at the other side of the hall.

Then...

William E. Drummond was going to ask a member of the Odd Side of the audience to toss a coin. This tossing of the coin was to find out which side of the room were to be the Cunts and which side were to be the Cocks.

And...

This would be the first step in creating The Great Division.

As in...

If the tossed coin turned out to be tails, the Odd Side of the audience would be the Cunts, and if the head side won, they would be the Cocks.

And...

If the tossed coin turned out to be heads, the Even Side of the audience would be the Cunts and the Odd Side would be the Cocks.

And...

As we are told, it is through creating The Great Division that mankind finds meaning in their lives, and it is that weakness that can be exploited by the marketplace.

So...

Right now, I am taking a break from writing these words, so I can toss the only coin in my pocket. I mean who needs coins in this modern world, other than to hand benevolently to the beggar in the street, hoping they will thank you gracefully, at the same time as you smugly assuming it will be in the pocket of their crack dealer, within the next few hours.

Or...

If not that, to toss the coin flippantly in the air at moments like these.

The said coin has just landed on the floor of the café I am sitting in while writing these words to you. The profile of Queen Elizabeth the First of Scotland is lying there.

Thus...

The Evens are the Cunts.

And...

If this had been the case last night...

William E. Drummond would have handed out copies of his novella Winning is for Losers to each of the Cunts on the Even Side of the hall.

Then...

William E. Drummond would have turned to the Odd Side of the hall while pointing back at the Even Side of the hall, and proclaimed...

‘See them, they are just a bunch of entitled Cunts, just ’cause of the toss of a coin they get a free copy of a book. They probably all went to Eton. Or they are the drug-dealing nouveau riche aspiring to send their kids to Eton. Or they are illegal immigrants that came over The Channel last night on inflatable boats, to take our books, and our jobs, and our women, and use our NHS, having paid none of the taxes you have been paying all of your life, probably can’t even speak English, let alone read it. And even if they can they are probably not even going to read the book, just stick it on eBay and sell it for some inflated price. Fucking total Cunts.’

Then...

William E. Drummond would have narrowed his eyes...

And said...

‘See them, they are not just a bunch Cunts, they are dim-witted with it, they probably have no idea how the market works. They probably think they have been given something for nothing, where in fact all they have got is a loss leader. We have used them. What you have, and they will never have, is the opportunity to buy ten copies of this hardback novella printed in a very limited edition of only 200. And you can buy your ten copies, ten quid per copy, as in a hundred quid for the ten. You can then sell those copies via eBay or under, or even over, whatever counter you choose for whatever price you want. I know there are enough suckers out there that would pay at least fifty quid for one of these books. It would only take eight of you to buy ten copies for a tenner each and I would be in profit. And you would have the chance to make whatever you can get for them selling them online. And those Cunts over there get their free copy doing all the PR for you.’

Job done.

And we would have all gone home happy.

But...

None of that happened, because I was in my sick bed, instead of strutting my ego in Scotland House down by the Embankment. Instead, I have five unopened cardboard boxes, clogging up room in my porch. Each of those five cardboard boxes containing 40 copies of BIOG 2004.

What to do?

Yours with Trust,

The Governor of CREE BANK

 

SUB PLOT – PART EIGHT

Fuck The System were so fucking the system that they were soon being held to account for fucking the system. And unless you know how to commodify fucking the system, you are fucked. And they soon were fucked. I mean no one was willing to book them to play gigs in any of those bars in South America any more. I mean they were so last year. So Fuck The System decide to toss a coin. Heads they would watch Bonnie & Clyde one last time. Tails they would watch Thelma & Louise one last time. Heads won. So they watched Bonnie & Clyde one last time. And then they went to rob their first bank. But little did they know that the bank clerk would have a gun under the counter. And he shot all four of them dead. There is a price for fucking the system and they paid that price.

 

THAT IS THE QUESTION

Thursday the 28th of November 2024

From the desk of The Governor of CREE BANK

Dear Interested Parties,

This morning, I am not sitting at my desk, in my office, down at CREE BANK, instead I am sitting in a corridor of the Homerton Hospital somewhere in East London. I am sitting here waiting for my annual appointment with my Neurologist.

Will today be the day that he tells me that the Dementia has kicked in?

And as I sit there waiting for my name to be called...

In my head I am practising my lines that I plan to recite to the Neurologist. As in lines about how I have been cutting back in some things in my life, so the related stress does not trigger more of the brain seizures. And how I start dreaming before I actually fall asleep. And is this a sign of something not good? And how I still have a version of the same dream every night, as in the dream about trying to find my way home, but I don’t know what, let alone where, home is.

But...

I decide not to tell him about the dream that I had last night. The dream I had last night was different. In this dream I was given a gun. And I was told by my boss to go and kill one of the two women who had been in Strawberry Switchblade. And in this dream, I was confused as I had not been told which one of the two women to kill. And as I was getting on the bus to go and do the killing, the gun fell out my jacket pocket. And this old lady, who was also getting on the bus, saw it happen. And the gun was lying in a puddle. So I picked it up and put it back in my jacket pocket. And got on the bus. But I did not have my bus pass with me. So I had to get off the bus. And the last thing I remember was the old lady looking at me through the window of the bus, as the bus drove off without me. She did not smile.

But right now, as I am sitting in the corridor, my name has not yet been called yet. In fact someone else’s name has just been called. My mind drifts from what I should tell the Neurologist and what I should not tell him. And it drifts away from my fears of him telling me about the Dementia kicking in.

Instead...

My mind drifts to thinking about the five cardboard boxes blocking up my porch. And what to do with the 200 books they contain.

And then I have the answer.

You may remember a story about a paper hat, made from a page torn from the 1957 Rupert Bear Annual, and how one of my previous selves filled it with the names of people who wanted to receive the final forty Penkiln Burn Newsletters. And how forty names were drawn from the paper hat to be the receivers of those final forty.

Anyway...

There is still a number of names left in that hat. And I am feeling guilty about those names just left there doing nothing. And maybe I should not be feeling guilty as I wait to have my annual appointment with my Neurologist. I mean he may smell that guilt and interpret it as the first signs of Dementia.

So, this is the plan.

When I get back home, I will draw forty of the leftover names from the hat, and I will send them each a physical copy of William E. Drummond’s novella Winning is for Losers.

And...

Then I will draw out another forty leftover names and I will email them, telling them about the Cunts that got the free copies of the novella, and everything else I was going to tell the Cunts and Cocks on Monday night at Scotland House.

And...

Then I will tell them that they, and only they, have the chance to buy ten copies of Winning is for Losers for a hundred quid (plus post and packaging). And then they can sell those copies on eBay, or wherever, and make whatever profit they want. And that they are not evil capitalists but just the distributors of fact fiction in the modern world, where everything is available for a price online.

And...

Then if there are any more names left in the hat, I will email them telling them how they can open an account with CREE BANK today. And in doing so they are part of a revolution in banking. And their names will be written on the back of a painting that I have commissioned the ‘Real’ Bill Drummond to paint. A work of art that will exist to celebrate the opening of this bank.

And...

Now my name is being called...

D’Mentia or not D’Mentia? That is the question.

And all of this in the day’s work of a Governor.

Yours with Trust,

The Governor of CREE BANK

 

SUB PLOT – PART NINE

So this is how you commodify fucking the system, you turn it into a biopic. A total female empowerment biopic, because female empowerment is what the markets in the second half of the 2020s want even more than they wanted it in the first half of the 2020s. And there is no better story to be turned into a female empowerment biopic than the story of Fuck The System. The only problem is which very bankable Hollywood young women do they get to play the parts of Stacey Dixon, Suzi Wrong, Fine Wine and especially Evil Ethel the Fire Lady?