Hilliard & Croft Books

We have moved!

2011-08-28T04:07:00.000-07:00

This blog has now moved to:

Hilliard and Croft Blog

Please visit us there, and at our website:

Hilliard and Croft Website

Summoned By Bells

2011-08-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

Few poets have ever managed to capture an era as John Betjeman did. His 'Summoned by Bells' is a long autobiographical poem in which he speaks with such sincerity and such an eye for the details of life in Edwardian England. Here is a beautiful video - in which he reads his poem as he wanders around places of his childhood haunts - interlaced with original film footage and music of the era.

Now Available in Paperback

2011-08-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that 'Shattered Crowns: The Scapegoats' is now available in paperback:

Our new site

2011-07-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

This blog has been temporarily on hold during the creation of a new website, which is still under construction. Please pay it a visit at:

Hilliard & Croft

Shattered Crowns: The Scapegoats

2011-07-15T03:06:00.001-07:00

The first novel in my trilogy, Shattered Crowns, is now available on Kindle and will soon be available in paperback. The trilogy follows the royalties of Europe from 1913 to 1918 and the first novel (1913 to the outbreak of the First World War) has the subtitle The Scapegoats. I chose this title because, after ploughing through so many opposing opinions and documents, and from thinking of the characters involved it is clear that Tsar Nicholas, Kaiser Wilhelm and, to a lesser extent, Emperor Franz Josef have been made the scapegoats for such a terrible war whereas not one of them – not even the Kaiser! – wanted war.

It is particularly striking, seeing how they were – against their will - hoodwinked, cajoled and pressurised by ministers and others into allowing the war to happen, that these three monarchies were destroyed by the war. It is so striking that it seems almost a deliberate plot to overthrow them, particularly when you consider that both Russia and Germany refused to be drawn into the international banking legislation of the time and were fiercely independent. I firmly believe that – after years of trying to make sense of how this terrible war came about – the real cause lies very deeply hidden in something far more sinister that can easily be described here.

I am, however, far more interested in interesting people than in politics and one of the most interesting revelations to me during my research is the character of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This man, whom most people remember only because his murder is said to be the cause of WW1, was a far greater and more perceptive man than the hot-headed, unpopular person he is usually shown to be. His ideas for future government of Austria-Hungary (based on the American idea of independent states and a federal government); his determination to refuse to be crowned King of Hungary until universal suffrage was granted; his understanding of the balance of power and his opposition to the annexing of Bosnia-Herzegovina, are quite wonderful!

Interesting, isn’t it, that he was invited to Sarajevo on his wedding anniversary
and Sophie, his beloved wife who had been so shunned in Vienna was also invited to appear with him in public that day? Did someone fail to mention that it was also a day of great national symbolism for the Serbs (St. Vitus Day – the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo). Strange how, in such a turbulent area, there was no military protection...even stranger how, after the first attempt on his life, he was still driven in an open car through the streets and the car took a wrong turning - because the driver hadn’t been informed of the change of route to the hospital – and so had to reverse into the path of the killer. Strange too that we accept that the Black Hand was a recognised criminal organisation who had carried out many atrocities when, in fact, apart from a couple of so-called failed or aborted assassination attempts, I cannot find any evidence of their supposed crimes. Also, if that group was – as Austrian ministers claimed – made up of military officers and high ranking Serbian officials, would they choose some drop-out nineteen year old student to carry out so important an assassination? There is a great deal more to say of this but perhaps it is inappropriate here.

To the end of her life, Empress Zita maintained that there was something far more
sinister about the plot to kill Franz Ferdinand than meets the eye. In the aftermath of war, Franz Ferdinand has largely been forgotten; Kaiser Wilhelm (who was always a bit unbalanced) has been made out to be the mad and evil plotter - though he was tryng desperately - in the midst of his many hang-ups - to avoid war and he vehemently opposed the invasion of Belgium; and Tsar Nicholas (who was way ahead of many others in his understanding of and attempts to bring a peaceful solution to the
Balkans wars, and who worked often through the night with no rest in his attempts to broker peace) is portrayed as dancing on the deck of his yacht letting the world go to hell in a handcart because he was ‘weak’. Amazing how easily often repeated stories begin to be believed.

"Shattered Crowns: The Scapegoats" isn’t an attempt to change perceived history or anything of the sort, but is rather written out of love and respect for these ‘scapegoats’ of history.

Fact or Fiction?

2011-05-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

If you were asked to write your autobiography, where would you begin? "I was born...I did this, I did that...I went to school, college, university....met so & so etc. etc."? Or would you write: "The first thing I felt was...." or "I hurt..." or "I was happy...."? Which would be closer to your essence and to who you really are? Which would be more real?If you were asked to write someone else's biography, where would you begin? With the same questions? Or, because we feel such a sense of separation from each other, would you feel like Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens' Hard Times, when he says:

"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"

In a biography or factual account of any life, these things are necessary, otherwise real historical people become distorted projections of the writer. But how can I prove in my own life - how can you prove in yours - that you once felt humiliated, destroyed, elated, ecstatic? Do you have sources for that? Did you write it down? Did you make sure it was stored in archives? How did you feel when you first fell in love? Can you prove it? I can't. I have no sources for my heart's experiences...how much less anyone else's.However, there are times when (to quote Dickens again):

"Some persons hold," he pursued, still hesitating, "that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wisdom of the Heart. . . ."

Sometimes, reading the spoken words and letters of people of the past, one has such a feel for what that person is saying, that it goes beyond what can be proved or cited to sources. Any novel is a projection of the author but so, too, is any biography in that the author places some kind of interpretation on the 'facts'. It is my belief that if a novel is clearly labelled as a 'novel' the author's intention is clear - it is an interpretation of truth. That is no less valid than something that is labelled 'biography'. Perhaps, in some ways, the former is closer to truth than the latter because the former is patently the author's interpretation.

There are many ways to approach a person's life and none of them is as true as the person him/herself, but when it comes to presenting a life in any particular genre, I firmly believe that the bottom line is respect for the person. Many people have written from accurate sources and have written without love or empathy. Many people have written inaccuracies and novels, without love. Many more people have written with great feeling for their characters - faults, foibles and all. When one writes from the heart and the head, I honestly don't think it matters which genre one chooses.

I originally wrote this post as an explanation of why I had written the life of Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia as a novel. Having been working on a further trilogy of books based on the 'major players' of the First World War, I felt impelled to write this again. Some books do not easily fit into genres; most people do not fit into genres either...

Whose Woods Are These

2011-01-07T14:50:00.000-08:00

Robert Frost's poems are so simple and yet so lovely. Having seen the Temple Newsam woods in the snow today, these lovely lines came to mind:

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T08:32:00.001-08:00

Thank you for visiting this blog throughout the year. A sincere wish from my heart that, wherever in the world you might be, your Christmas is filled with joy, peace and beauty!

"The Earth is the Bow"

2010-12-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

The poet and saint, John of the Cross, whose feast day is 14th December, is probably best known for his intense 'Dark Night of the Soul' poems. This, however, I think is very beautiful and also quite appropriate for today which is also the anniversary of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's Consort, and their daughter, Princess Alice, who was such a spiritual seeker and died (as did her father) so young....

You let
my sufferings cease,
for there was no one who could cure them.
Now let my eyes behold your face for you are our only love.

My spirit’s body is rising near – this earth a bow
that shot me;
now lift me into your arms as something precious
that you dropped.

My only suffering, from this day forth,
will be your divine
beauty,
and you will constantly cure my blessed sight each time
you bring your face so near to mine
and call me bride.

Do not be sad, my old friends; look,
these wings are finally stretched and laughing.
Our souls are rising near to you - this earth a bow that shot us;
now lift me into your arms, dear God,
like something precious that
you dropped.

Snow

2010-11-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

It seems so short a time since we were shovelling snow in the interminable winter last year, and yet already, with no summer to speak of in between, here we are again. Nowadays snow is seen so often as nothing but a nuisance and yet, as Robert Bridges wonderful poem – London Snow - shows, in our clamour for ‘efficiency’ it’s easy to overlook the beauty of the season....

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

If

2010-11-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

It’s that time of year again....poppies, recollections and reviews of the horror of war and, in the mists and dank nights of November, vague recollections from childhood of elderly relatives speaking of the wars with a melancholic look in their eyes as they remembered lost brothers and friends.

The terribly tragic story (made into a wonderful film) of Rudyard Kipling’s eagerness to enable his son to enlist, followed by the death of his son, did much to tarnish the reputation of that great writer. Interesting that he was one of the ‘names’ to believe in the Cottingley Fairies – perhaps the loss of innocence that came with the First World War and the agony of feeling in some way responsible for his son’s death, led him to seek a return to a more mystical age.

Regardless of what happened with ‘My Son, Jack” – and Kipling was no different from any other father of that age – this poem, which was once voted the favourite English poem of all time, remains a tribute to his brilliance.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Masked Ball

2010-11-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Blogging and the countless forums on the net are rather like a masked ball, aren’t they? People strike up conversations with others anywhere in the world and some conversations lead to removing the masks, while others are merely brief exchanges with someone appearing behind a mask of anonymity or the persona they choose to portray.

It strikes me often that everything in life appears more and more like dance in which we sometimes sit a day, a month, a year, a decade out, then return to the dance with greater gusto but it never really dawned on me before how much of life is like a masked ball. People appear in different places at different times with different masks – sometimes they have their ‘work mask’ on, sometimes their ‘weekend mask’ or their ‘father/mother/sister/brother/friend’ mask on. I used to think the world would be so much happier if everyone just spoke their minds and we were all mask-free all the time, but life doesn’t seem to work like that and perhaps part of being alive is the fun of playing the masked ball, the masquerade. And if we’re going to dance, we might as well dance with gusto, like the dancers in the wonderful Hillaire Belloc poem, “Tarantella”:

“Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the din?
And the hip! hop! hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the swirl and the twirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of the clapper to the spin
Out and in--
And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar;
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground,
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far waterfall like doom.”

The Correspondence Of the Empress Alexandra of Russia..."

2010-10-24T14:30:00.001-07:00

It's exciting to know that a new book of previously unpublished letters of Russia's last Empress is about to be available! No matter how many biographies appear, nothing ever quite compares to the feeling that comes with reading the actual letters exchanged between people. Queen Victoria’s letters to her daughter are far more interesting than any biography, as are the original letters of any other historical person. This book is entirely new as these letters have not been seen before. The book is: The Correspondence of the Empress Alexandra of Russia with Ernst Ludwig and Eleonore, Grand Duke and Duchess of Hesse. 1878-1916 collected, edited and compiled by Petra H. Kleinpenning. Below is a description of the book, which will soon be available on Amazon:

“As young people, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine (1872-1918) and her brother, Hereditary Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine (1868-1937), were always together. They remained on close terms when Alix married Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and became the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. This book presents the complete collection of letters and postcards, written in English and German, that Alix wrote to her brother over the years 1878-1916, from moving children's notes to poignant letters written during the cataclysm of World War I. Also included are Alix's letters to Ernst Ludwig's second wife, Grand Duchess Eleonore, some letters from Tsar Nicholas II to Ernst Ludwig, and the few letters and postcards from Ernst Ludwig and Eleonore to the imperial couple that survived the days of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Alix's letters to Ernst Ludwig and Eleonore focus on the weal and woe of her family and friends, on official receptions and military manoeuvres, the concerts and performances she attended, her charities and her war work. This unique private correspondence between Alix and Ernst Ludwig and Eleonore provides additional first-hand details about the everyday lives of these important people in the history of Russia and Hesse and increases our understanding of their characters, interests, and relationships.”

http://www.bod.de/index.php?id=1132&objk_id=405799

(I am afraid that the links are not showing up on this page - please cut and paste the above link to find out more...)

From the Sublime to...Botox

2010-10-23T15:38:00.001-07:00

In my opinion, two of the greatest actresses alive today are Maggie Smith and Judi Dench and, while watching ‘Downton Abbey’’ last week, realised that what is so brilliant about them is that they can say so much without speaking. Their expression is everything! They say more through a glance than could be said in a whole Shakespearean soliloquy. Maggie Smith in ‘David Copperfield’ was utterly superb and, in Mrs. Brown’ Judi Dench captured Queen Victoria so beautifully (almost as beautifully as Irene Dunne, in the much earlier film, ‘The Mudlark’)

I wonder if younger actresses will ever have the same ability if they continue to paralyse their faces with Botox. If eyes cannot smile and lips cannot show disapproval, but everyone is cloned into the idea that in order to be beautiful one must look identical to every other actor or actress, how are they ever going to portray, with nothing more than a glance, the true beauty and brilliance that comes with age.

It’s a trivial thought but I don’t think Botox bodes well for the future of film.

"...And all that mighty heart is lying still."

2010-10-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

In spite of my unnatural antipathy to Wordsworth’s later works, I really, really love this poem! It captures autumn and awe of London – or any city! - so beautifully! Any morning, waking up before everyone else is awake, and looking at the surroundings...the last two lines say it all. Still more, it captures the sense of pre-Victorian London, when industry was thriving and the ships were busily trading all over the world. I know that the Victorian and earlier 19th Century London - primarily as depicted by Dickens - was filled with squalor and deprivation but it was also giving birth to the many, many advances we enjoy today. Nostalgic, beautiful and just so lovely....

“Upon Westminster Bridge”

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of heart who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a mantle wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Ne'er did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The Miners

2010-10-14T15:17:00.001-07:00

I don’t tend to follow the soaps on TV but this evening happened to catch some parts of 3 of them, after following the fabulous story of the Chilean miners. For two days the news, normally so depressing that it’s best to avoid it since it only reports that dark stuff and seldom the all the good that is happening, has been dominated by this wonderfully uplifting story of human spirit, love, dedication and euphoric outcome!

The news is normally depressing and other TV programmes are meant to be light relief, I think. However, the 3 soaps that I happened to glance at tonight were the most depressing things ever!! The first (Emmerdale) centred around a young man lying in a coma on a life-support machine; the second (Eastenders) was about some young boy who had died; and the third (Coronation Street – which used to be good for a laugh!) was about a man dying of cancer.

Good grief! If this is the state of the art, no wonder the NHS is stretched to the limit and people get depressed. Entertainment isn’t meant to be about doom and gloom. People can create enough of that in their own lives so why would anyone want to watch it for entertainment? If art/entertainment is meant to reflect realty, then why not focus it on the finest, most uplifting aspects of reality?

Hurrah for the Chilean miners! And hurrah and congratulations to the people of Chile who know just how to celebrate and express themselves fully and so inspiringly! It was lovely to see the miners, as they emerged, fall to their knees in thanksgiving....more lovely to see the beautiful smiles on all the people’s faces!

Francis of Assisi

2010-10-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

Today the sky was bluer than I have ever seen it in my life, I think, and the leaves are just turning with their myriad of shade of amber, orange, green and gold! What a perfect day for the feast of Francis of Assisi and what could be more appropriate than the beautiful lyrics by Donovan, for the wonderfully joyful film "Brother Sun and Sister Moon"?

If you want your dream to be
Build it slow and surely.
Small beginnings, greater ends.
Heartfelt work grows purely.

If you want to live life free,
Take your time, go slowly.
Do few things, but do them well.
Simple joys are holy.

Day by day, stone by stone,
Build your secret slowly.
Day by day, you'll grow, too,
You'll know heaven's glory.

Prayers

2010-09-27T15:35:00.001-07:00

For many, many years I loved a particular prayer written by John Henry Newman. It is such an exceptionally beautiful prayer but one that I now see a little differently. Perhaps that is because it was written over a hundred years ago and, if one believes in any form of Divinity/God, everything evolves into something still more beautiful.

The prayer begins as evoking something separate from ourselves: it is 'your' fragrance and depends upon the external idea of God/Jesus and then involves such total self-abasement as to be unseen so that the person praying is insignificant. There's the rub. If the person praying is so self-abasing, how can he/she love the glory of the person or people for whom they are praying? How can one pray that people no longer see the you, but see only God, unless one sees that the perceiver is also God? Is not every single being an expression of God/Life? Why then debase ourselves in our prayers?

I love this beautiful prayer, and I think it would be even more beautiful if the line: "Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul..." were to read: Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come into contact with, may feel the power within his/her own soul..."

It's so clear that the more one delves into the essence of life, the more one sees that any form of evangelisation is merely ego-centricity or fear. If people believe God is omnipresent, then surely every life is Divine and there is no need to correct or change it.
Dear Jesus,

Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go.
Flood my soul with Your spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul...

Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus!

Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others;

the light, O Jesus, will be all from You;

none of it will be mine: it will be You shining on others through me. Let me thus praise You in the way You love best: by shining on those around me.

Let me preach You without preaching, not by words, but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for You.

The Secret Garden

2010-09-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

What sheer beauty is Agnieszka Holland's 1993 version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden". The scenery, the gorgeous animals, the beautiful shots of flowers and the brilliant casting (right down to the Yorkshire accents - which are so often too exaggerated or missed completely in attempts at films about Yorkshire!) not to mention the brilliant adaptation of the script with it's wonderful, wonderful message all make it for me one of the most beautiful films ever.

This was the first book we read as a class when I first started Grammar School and I am ashamed to say I missed to much of its wonders at the age of 11. Now, though, its wonder shine through so clearly! The way in which it is the angst of adults which makes Colin remain ill, and Mary's absolute denial of his illness that gets him walking again is so apt. The way the garden comes alive in all its beauty and how it is necessary to discount all that has been taught and perceived in order to restore that beauty....right down to Mary's words about the universe being within our own hearts....is so movingly true! The incredibly gifted actress Maggie Smith epitomises all that is confining and all that keeps people in their belief in illness and it takes a child's more powerful belief to throw her world into disarray but, by the end of the story, Maggie Smith's character is standing in awe.

From the book, I think this wonderful extract says so much about the whole nature of the story which was wasted upon me as an 11-year-old but what joy to understand it now!
One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun—which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so...And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned everything it possibly could into that one place.

2010-09-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

Robert Graves, perhaps best known for "I, Claudius" wrote some wonderful poems and this is one of my favourites for its fascinating understanding of interaction between friends:

"In Broken Images"

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.
He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

Tears

2010-09-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

Tears are so strange. I seldom cry but know several people who often do, in all kinds of circumstances. When things move people immensely, many weep. When things move me immensely, I withdraw and often smile...but every now and again, for no apparent reason, something quite ordinary appears extraordinary - the love of a mother for a child; the beauty of an animal or the sky or the ocean...the passing of seasons....Tennyson's poem is so self-indulgently pleasing at this time of year:

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

(Photo by Andre Hilliard: andrehilliard.com

"My Grandmother" by Elizabeth Jennings

2010-09-14T15:53:00.001-07:00

What an absolutely brilliant, brilliant poem by Elizabeth Jennings. I am sure so many people can relate to this....

My Grandmother

She kept an antique shop - or it kept her.
Among Apostle spoons and Bristol glass,
The faded silks, the heavy furniture,
She watched her own reflection in the brass
Salvers and silver bowls, as if to prove
Polish was all, there was no need of love.

And I remember how I once refused
To go out with her, since I was afraid.
It was perhaps a wish not to be used
Like antique objects. Though she never said
That she was hurt, I still could feel the guilt
Of that refusal, guessing how she felt.

Later, too frail to keep a shop, she put
All her best things in one narrow room.
The place smelt old, of things too long kept shut,
The smell of absences where shadows come
That can't be polished. There was nothing then
To give her own reflection back again.

"Gone From My Sight"

2010-09-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

This beautiful extract from the American poet Henry Van Dyke was read recently at a family funeral and I think it is one of the most beautiful readings on the subject I have ever heard.

It's interesting that Van Dyke was also the author of 'Joyful, joyful..' - the beautiful lyrics added to that most beautifully joyful work of Beethoven 'Ode to Joy'. I knew little about the author before, and simply from reading his words, he sounds like such a brilliant man.

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes!'
Gone where? Gone from my sight ... that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There she goes!' there are other eyes watching her coming and their voices ready to take up the glad shouts 'Here she comes!'"

The Ragamuffin Sun

2010-08-17T08:04:00.001-07:00

The Ragamuffin Sun is a collection of 32 of my poems together with an appendix of brief selections of lyrics from the musicals 'Branwell' - based on the life of Branwell Bronte - and 'Tsaritsa' based on the life of Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Tsarina of Russia. A few of the poems in the collection are taken from my earlier volume 'Child of the Moon' (Downlander 1986) but most are previously unpublished or have been availble only in magazines.

Since the poems were written over two decades, I do not see the world in the same way as I did when I wrote all of them though, of course, some things remain the same.

The collection will be available on Amazon Kindle within the next 24 hours.

Virtual real reality

2010-08-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

Funny, isn't it, that millions and billions of pounds and dollars are made and lost everyday at the touch of a button in some stock market or by holding a small rectangle of plastic in a shop, and we all 'know' money is real even though, for the most part, the big money is never a physical thing. Yet people are so unconvinced by what goes on in the spiritual arena because it's not visible.

Once, a long time ago, I was an R.E. teacher and I said to a chemistry teacher that I never understood chemistry because it was 'all about things that you know are there but can't see...." He replied, "And you teach R.E.???"

I regret a lot of what I once taught in R.E. because I was living by a system which no longer rings true to me but I know that those whom I did attempt to teach had their own inner lives which were far more powerful than anything I said. Nowadays, so many people spend such a lot of time in virtual reality games and others spend a lot of time in virtual money worlds on stock exchanges, clicking buttons and making or breaking fortunes, and it might not be such a bad thing. Perhaps it's just more 'proof' that everything begins in our own minds as a thought that, when enough people start to believe it, eventually becomes a reality. That being true, when we turn our attention to anything it becomes our reality.

Bright Star

2010-08-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

In August a 'new' star always appears - not being an astronomer, I don't know its name but I always see it appear so brightly at this time of year and, though I have quoted this beautiful poem by Keats elsewhere on this blog, just have to write it again because it seems so appropriate to this beautiful star....

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No- yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever- or else swoon to death.

A Small Sheep

2010-08-05T15:20:00.001-07:00

A small sheep wandered over to the fence today and lay down and pressed her face to the cold stones around the edge. Her mother came hurrying over to check she was okay and, seeing that she was safe, was happy to continue nibbling the grass round about. The gentle love between them was so beautiful and it was wonderful to be there.

And people say it's okay to eat lamb and mutton as though these beautiful creatures have no feeling???

Dover Beach

2010-08-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

On the anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, Matthew Arnold's poem, "Dover Beach" seems particularly appropriate:

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The Great Lover

2010-07-29T14:52:00.000-07:00

Rupert Brooke, better known for his most famous poem "The Soldier", is one of my favourite poets of that era. Unlike Owen, who brought to light the horror of war, Brooke seemed to remain 'on the higher ground' even in the midst of the slaughter. Imagine writing something as beautiful as this while in the midst of the rat-infested trenches. What an amazingly beautiful description of the beauty that is to be found in the ordinary things of life...

These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns...
Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the groud; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass;
All these have been my loves.

World Cup 2010

2010-07-10T16:02:00.001-07:00

"Summer time and the living is easy...."

The World Cup has been such a lovely distraction from minor irritations in my life and it amuses me when people speak crossly about how much footballers are paid for their poor performances. Okay, England did really badly, despite our 'triumph of hope over experience' but at least for a little while we had something fun to latch on to. It's interesting that people here feel good when they can display the English flag without appearing to be a member of some nasty racist group; it's more interesting that the sun shines around the time of most World Cups, so people are already feeling good ad if FIFA planned it that way - balmy summers of football and feel-good-factors, they even outshone Simon Cowell's marketing! More fascinating is the way that the World Cup (every four years) coincides with warmer summers - isn't it clear how the mass consciousness creates the atmosphere in the country?

It's still 'bread and circuses' and we fall for it every time because we love it! We love being entertained and taken through the catharsis of angst, injustice, disappointment, hope, success; if we fail it's someone else's fault and if we win, we're all in it together...and when it is over, like watching a play at the theatre, we can feel drained and cleansed and step outside and say, "Oh, none of it was real...so it's okay..." And, basically, it's fun.

The Germans, I thought, were the most entertaining and brilliant team in the whole tournament (even when they made England look like amateurs!) and the Dutch were pretty close in their entertainment value! Tomorrow night, I'd love the Netherlands to win but wish Spain well too!

The loveliest thing of all, though, is that this is the first World Cup I can ever remember where there has been no mention of the 'yob mentality' or fans causing trouble. South Africa has really set a standard for the rest of the world and raised international relations to a new level! Thank you!

Miracles

2010-07-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

The weather is beautiful and sometimes, no matter what appears to be happening in life, there are times when everything somehow shifts to a happier place, Walt Whitman's poem captures it all so perfectly! Trees have immense power - they withstand storms and changes; the older they grow, the more beautiful they become. Young saplings are frequently blown over by storms but the old trees are so wise and emit such beautiful strength and loveliness...especially at this time of year when everything is so green and so beautiful:

As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
water,
Or stand under trees in the woods...

Thank You!

2010-06-28T15:39:00.001-07:00

Thank you to all the kind people who have continued to visit this apparently dormant blog during this absence! It is returning this week and will be back up to speed again!

Bluebells

2010-05-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

At last a sense of summer! The woods at Temple Newsam are awash with bluebells and the scents are beyond beautiful!

The bluebell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air;
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care.

(Emily Bronte)

Thank you for calling by!

2010-05-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

This apparently dormant blog is only temporarily on hold due to domestic circumstances taking up so much time. Please don't stop calling by because it will continue shortly and, in the meantime, may I wholeheartedly recommend Abraham-Hicks!

Abraham-Hicks

Lambs

2010-04-06T14:07:00.001-07:00

Isn't it amazing that some people who so delight in the beauty and refreshing joy of new-born lambs can then think nothing of seeing these beautiful creatures taken from their mothers, slaughtered and put upon their plates....Hmm...man's inhumanity to man is one thing; man's inhumanity to creatures goes to another level!

Here's John Clare's lovely poem about the new-born lamb...

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two—till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead—and lets me go
Close bye and never stirs but baking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.

All the Blessings of Easter-tide

2010-04-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

Wishing you the loveliest of Easters and the resurrection of all that is finest in all of us in this season of new life!

"Behold I Stand At The Gate and Knock"

2010-04-02T06:23:00.000-07:00

G.A. Studdert-Kennedy was a Leeds-born poet and Anglican priest who, during the First World War, became known as 'Woodbine Willie' as he handed out cigarettes to dying soldiers.

His wonderful poem: "When Jesus Came to Birmingham" is so approriate for Good Friday and, I think, suits well Holman Hunt's: Light of the World - 'Behold I stand at the gate and knock':

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply passed Him by.
They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do,'
And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall, and cried for Calvary.

Wordsworth

2010-03-26T16:21:00.000-07:00

A wonderfully fascinating article in the Times Literary Supplement describes the unhappy life of William Wordsworth's daughter, Dora.

TLS - Dora Wordsworth

Wordsworth never struck me as an attractive man; he always seems so self-absorbed and more obsessed with his reputation as a poet than any genuine brilliance in his poetry. His early works are brimming with wonder and beauty (some of The Prelude and Upon Westminster Bridge are so beautiful to me) but his later writings, once he realised he was part of the poetic 'set' of his age, are so clumsy, verbose, unrefined and read like drivel:

This thorn you on your left espy;
And to the left, three yards beyond,
You see a little muddy pond
Of water, never dry;
I've measured it from side to side:
'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide.

I have an ancient book of William Hazlitt's essays, in which he writes of Wordsworth making some mundane remark about the sunset, and Hazlitt seems in awe of it simply because Wordsworth is a self-professed poet, but it is so trite and and so 'expected' of a poet that it seems rather trivial to me.

What is most attractive about Wordsworth is his surroundings. His homes - Dove Cottage in Grasmere, and Rydal Mount - are stunning for the landscape in which they are set - far more stunning than the rather dull man who inhabited them! Anyone living amid such beauty could not fail to write something beautiful and I would imagine that, as Wordsworth grew older and lost his youthful zeal, it must have been a great trial to him to be forever living up to his ideal of what it meant to be a poet. All the same, at least he aspired to and wrote of beauty.

No wonder Dora went off the rails a bit!

"At Parting"

2010-03-24T08:42:00.001-07:00

As Spring returns, it seems an appropriate time for one of the most beautiful 'garden poems' - Edith Nesbitt's "At Parting" :

And you could leave me now
After the first remembered whispered vow
Which sings for ever and ever in my ears —
The vow which God among His Angels hears —
After the long-drawn years,
The slow hard tears,
Could break new ground, and wake
A new strange garden to blossom for your sake,
And leave me here alone,
In the old garden that was once our own?

How should I learn to bear
Our garden’s pleasant ways and pleasant air,
Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn,
When only in a picture these appear—
These, once alive, and always over-dear?
Ah—think again: the rose you used to wear
Must still be more than other roses be
The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me!

For in my acres is no plot of ground
Whereon could any garden site be found,
I have but little skill
To water weed and till
And make the desert blossom like the rose;
Yet our old garden knows
If I have loved its ways and walks and kept
The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.

Yet—if you must—go now:
Go, with my blessing filling both your hands,
And, mid the desert sands
Which life drifts deep round every garden wall,
Make your new festival
Of bud and blossom—red rose and green leaf.
No blight born of my grief
Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart’s prayer
Shall draw down blessings on you from the air,
And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree
Shall serve you when you walk no more with me
In garden ways; and when with her you tread
The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead
And when she asks, “How did you come to know
The secrets of the ways these green things grow?”
Then you will answer—and I, please God, hear,
“I had another garden once, my dear”.

Not Shocking But Demeaning and Childish

2010-03-23T03:28:00.000-07:00

For six weeks David Dimbleby's wonderful 'The Seven Ages of Britain' took viewers on an artistic journey through the history of the country from the earliest civilizations to the modern age. Without shying away from the harsher aspects of life and belief - the paintings of heaven and hell, used by religious authorities to frighten people into submission; the vivid depictions of the effects of decadence as shown in 'The Rake's Progress'; and the brutality of weaponry and war - the artists and craftsmen managed to reach to the finest aspects of humanity, taking pride in their work and leaving a legacy of beauty for future generations.

Then came the final episode - "The Age of Ambition". After each of the previous episodes, I felt uplifted and inspired. After this episode, I felt only disgust, depression and almost despair at the depths to which the art world (and the world of literature) has sunk. No painstaking works of art, seeking out the best in humanity, but feeble and shoddy attempts to degrade and demean. After seeing the splattering of red wax on a wall and the so-called artist's agreement that it resembled to blood and that it was good for us to consider such taboo subjects, came the bizarre ugliness of men who painted themselves defecating as though this had some meaning in portraying real life. We were then treated to Damian Hirst's collection of dead flies, and watching him squirt paint onto a turntable (which reminded me of five year olds discovering paint for the first time) followed by Tracey Emin's meaningless comparison between women artists and women's sexuality. Claiming that she was liberated by Feminism, she presented a series of scrappy drawings of naked women in various poses (again, I was reminded of sketches drawn by pubescent boys and passed around classrooms to provide titillation) before her latest work which is basically pornography - absolutely demeaning to women and evidently the product of a mind which seems to wallow in all that is base.

As with so much music and the accompanying videos, and with a great deal of literature, art has descended into the mire of the most sordid minds. As today we can still be uplifted by the works of the great artists from the past, what will be handed on from this age to the people of tomorrow? Is this our legacy to posterity? The aim, it appears, is to shock. It isn't shocking. In order to be shocking, something has to be outstanding and 'different'. This, on the contrary, is merely childish and appears to be the work of emotionally stunted people who choose to dwell upon the dark side. It is said that such dross is a reflection of the age. In fact, it is not. It is merely a reflection of those who have the power to decide what is classed as art and what is not. All over the country, there are craftsmen and artists who produce work of real merit. Their work is visible in local galleries and displays originality and great skill. Seeing such work is uplifting and inspiring. Unfortunately these works are nowadays dismissed by the critics who seem bent on observing and promoting only ugliness.

People complain of the effects of violent video games, the amount of available pornography and the impact of such things on young people. What a disservice to young people - as well as to posterity - the art world is doing, if such trash as was seen in Sunday's night's episode is presented as art. If we wish to improve the way we live, it begins in our own minds. Minds filled with darkness produce dark actions. Let us, for heaven's sake, have a return to beauty. Let's be unafraid to state 'the king is wearing no clothes' when we are presented with this ugliness. Let us state that it is not representative of the age, but only representative of the few warped minds who happen to control art and literature at the moment. If we wish to improve our lives, our sense of cohesion and integrity, the way we treat other people and our sense of our own value and dignity, first and foremost we need a return to skill, to devotion to a craft or art, and, above all, to beauty.

Mark Helprin

2010-03-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Surely one of the most outstanding writers of the age is Mark Helprin! What sheer brilliance that reminds me of some of the most amazing passages from Dostoevsky.

"To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been. And to protect their delicate vision of that other time, madmen will justify their condition with touching loyalty, and surround it with a thousand distractive schemes. These schemes, in turn, drive them deeper and deeper into the darkness and light (which is their mortification and their reward), and confront them with a choice. They may either slacken and fall back, accepting the relief of a rational view and the approval of others, or they may push on, and, by falling, arise. When and if by their unforgivable stubbornness they finally burst through to worlds upon worlds of motionless light, they are no longer called afflicted or insane. They are called saints."

and...

As long as you have life and breath, believe. Believe for those who cannot. Believe even if you have stopped believing. Believe for the sake of the dead, for love, to keep your heart beating, believe. Never give up, never despair, let no mystery confound you into the conclusion that mystery cannot be yours."

These are but the tasters of the wonder of such brilliant writing that really gives you the 'tingle-factor'.

The Counting House - Chapter 1 part 3

2010-03-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

“Let’s see your book,” James said.
“No.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Come on,” I galloped back to the shed, “let’s capture Saladin.”
Jessica sat on the grass, “I’m bored with Crusades. It would have taken ages for you to rescue me.”
James leaned over her, “You were very brave. You deserve a medal for courage,” and, putting his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a bottle top tied to a string.
I stared in disbelief, “You said you….”
“Sorry about that, Georgie. I forgot I had this one.”
I didn’t argue. I drew a pattern in the soil with the tip of my sword and wondered why he loved her. She wasn’t brave or daring. I ran with him, dug trenches, built castles and slew enemies while she made her perfumes in jam jars and tied ribbons to his lance.
I swung on her shoulders, “Come on, it’ll be teatime soon. Let’s play something.”
I shook her and the book slipped from my shorts. I jumped to pick it up but Alan had snatched it and threw it to his brother.
“It’s mine!” I leaped up at them as they held it over their heads.
They ran about the grass passing it between them like a rugby ball until they came to the wall of the extension where they huddled in a scrum and fingered my poems:
‘A song for James’, ‘The Hero’ and ‘I love the Lionheart’ Line after heartfelt line of my most secret sacred dreams: his eyes, his hair, his smile, and my undying love.
They laughed at my spelling, my joined-up writing and forced rhyme. Alan shrieked with delight and read the lines aloud until I felt hot tears burn my eyes. I fidgeted desperately with the elastic in my socks and pretended to laugh.
“Listen to this!” Alan yelled.
“I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean any of it! It’s all just things that Jessica says. It’s Jessica! She’s in love with James. That’s why she cries all the time.”
James stopped laughing and glared at me with anger in his eyes, “That’s a nasty thing to say.”
“She does! She writes everything you say in her diary and she cries all the time so you’ll put your arm round her.”
He shook his head and turned away, “I didn’t think you could be so cruel.”
Alan flung the book into the bushes and I scrambled after it, trying to straighten the pages.
“It’s nearly tea time,” James said. “We’d better be going.”
He and Alan disappeared up the drive and Jessica followed Peter into the kitchen. I hoped I’d never see any of them again.
I lay down on the grass and rolled over and over until I reached a trench where I curled up and cried. I hated James; I hated his silly hair and sissy voice. I mouthed his words scornfully, “I didn’t think you could be so cruel.”
I picked up my sword and considered playing the Roman and plunging it through my heart. Then they’d be sorry. Jessica would cry at my funeral and James would kneel by my grave whispering that he had always loved me best of all.
The soft soil where Dad had filled in my moat trickled into my shoes and gathered between my toes. I climbed into the shed where woodlice crawled across the beams, and sat among the insects, wiping my tears on my T-shirt.
I saw my dirty shorts, my sand-scuffed shoes, my silly sackcloth tunic, “I hate me. I hate me! I’m horrid and cruel! Bloody poems, bloody silly girl who looks like a boy, bloody James, bloody Alan, bloody Jessica…BLOODY BLOODY BLOODY!”
The shed door opened.
“What are you doing?” Peter said.
“Nothing.”
“Are you crying?”
“I’ve got soil in my eyes.”
“It’s tea time,” he sounded sorry. “Mum told me to come and get you.”
“I don’t want any tea.”
“We can play out again later. You can have the castle and I’ll…”
“It’s not a castle, it’s a shed. It doesn’t even look like a castle,” I kicked the wall, “and they’re not swords, they’re sticks.” I snapped the cane across my knee, scratching the skin but concealed the wince. “You couldn’t kill anyone with them. You couldn’t really kill anyone.”
“It’s a game,” he said quietly, “you’re not meant to kill for real.”
“One day I’ll get a real sword and chop off their heads.”
“My head?”
“No,” I followed him to the house, “not yours. James’s and Jessica’s and Alan’s.”

The Counting House - Chapter 1 part 2

2010-03-07T04:12:00.000-08:00

It was an amber afternoon; the leaves were waving from the apple tree like a washing line of green socks above the chatter of children gulping blackberries on the grass.
“Guess what I did!” I dumped my bike and flew across the lawn with my arms outstretched in triumph.
“We know what you did,” Jessica flicked her curls with dainty fingers. “You dug a hole round the shed and you’re not allowed to play out.”
James, sprawling beside her, began to smile.
“A moat!” I said, “It was a moat, not a hole.”
“A moat without water? A moat around a shed!”
James’ brown eyes met Jessica’s and they sparkled. I stepped between them and stared into his face.
“I went into a Maximum Red Alert Zone on my own.”
He didn’t look at me. He reached to trap a butterfly floating to the purple-pink buddleia.
“I went into the haunted lodge.”
Alan grunted and Peter raised his head.
“I saw the devil!”
Peter’s eyes were wide with interest now.
“I’ve brought the candlestick to prove it.”
He stared, “You got the candlestick?”
“Look,” I lifted my T-shirt and pulled out the trophy, “and when I got it the devil saw me and chased me out of the house.”
Alan drilled his finger into a worn patch on the apple tree and prised off a piece of bark, “Liar!”
“Look!” I waved the candlestick in his face.
“That’s a different candlestick. The one in the lodge was gold. That’s just brass.”
I tugged my brother’s arm, “Tell him, Peter. It’s true!”
Peter took the candlestick from me and turned it around in his hand, “Yes, this is the one we saw through the window.”
“Can I have a medal?”
The sunlight shone on James’ jet-black hair and, shielding his eyes with his hand, he looked up at me, “Did you really do it?”
“Cross my heart.”
My ribs throbbed in anticipation of glory and the feel of his fingers as they placed the medal around my neck.
“Okay, you can have a medal but you’ll have to wait. I’ve not brought any with me today.”
Jessica looked at him and flicked her curls, as I flicked a greenfly from my leg, pretending not to care. He shuffled closer to her and his fingers crawled towards her like an insect through the grass. I looked away and wondered why he loved her.
He had loved her all my life. He loved her before I was born. He loved her since the day he and his brother, Alan, moved into the big house next door to my Great Auntie Lucy’s. And she told me he would love her until the day he died.
The sand inside my shorts prickled my bottom. I fidgeted with the elastic and waited for something to happen.
Suddenly James stood up, “Let’s play Crusades. I’ll be Richard the Lionheart.”
We ran to the shed for swords and arrows while Jessica leaned against the apple tree waiting for James to tie her hands, “I’ll be the hostage. You’ll have to rescue me.”
He couldn’t help but love her; she was so pretty and so dainty with red ribbons in her hair. In spring she made perfumes from pink blossom in a jam jar and their scent filled our bedroom. She dabbed it on her wrists and, carrying her little parasol, walked among the primroses humming songs she’d learned in school.
Peter threw out a pile of brown sacking from the underside of an old bed and we donned it as knightly tunics before scrambling in a box for shields and weapons. Jessica didn’t need a sword or costume; she already had the ribbons of a lady.
“Can I be a king?” I said, but James commissioned me as Captain of his bowmen.
“Follow me and I’ll tell you when to shoot.”
I pulled back the string of my bow and sent an arrow flying into the hawthorn, “For England and Saint George!”
“Help! Help!” cried the hostage in Hollywood tones.
I ran towards her; this time she wasn’t going to fall into his arms and burst into tears when the Lionheart saved her.
“Go away!” she huffed as I started to untie the rope.
The Saracens seized our castle and every man was needed to sustain our defence. I abandoned the hostage and fired my last arrow into the rhododendron bush before decapitating a few flowers with my sword.
“Come on,” the Lionheart cried, “let’s storm their drawbridge!”
“I’ll get my arrows,” I said and felt the wound of his angry glance.
“I said I’d tell you when to shoot.”
We pierced the air around Alan who stood motionless by the shed.
“Do something! There are enemies in the moat.”
“Shut up!” he flicked a woodlouse at me.
“Save me! Save me!” the hostage wailed.
King Richard abandoned his command and galloped towards her. I watched him go and, waving my sword, plunged the heathen horde into the moat.
The gate opened and the sudden intrusion of an Infidel wrecked the whole enchanted world. There were no more castles and knights, only children on the grass.
Peter ripped off his tunic and threw his sword behind the hedge.
“Hi, Uncle Max,” he walked across the garden, pretending he was too old to play, “are you looking for Dad?”
“No,” Uncle Max stuffed his hand into an inside pocket, “I’m looking for Georgie.”
“Me?”
“I found something of yours.” He crouched to my height and a gold tooth flashed from his smile, “I found it in our garden while I was cutting the grass.”
“She’s so hopeless,” Jessica said, slipping her hands from the rope, “she leaves her things all over the place.”
Jessica took care of her belongings; she was so neat and tidy that she drew an imaginary line across the middle of our bedroom to separate her neatness from my mess.
“You’re lucky it didn’t go in the motor mower.” Uncle Max said.
My heart sank when he pulled out my secret notebook. I hoped he hadn’t read it:
“POEMS AND SONGS BY GEORGINA MEADOWS”
“I’m fond of poetry;” he said, wiping his hand over his bald head, “we learned them all by heart when I was at school, ‘Half a league, half a league, half a league and on…’” He smiled to himself then at me, “You want to keep it up! A bit hard to read your writing in places, but the bits I could make out were smashing.”
“She’s always in trouble at school for her untidy writing,” Jessica said, “she doesn’t take enough care over it.”
“There you go then,” Uncle Max handed me the book, “I’ll call in and see your mother. I’ve brought her some eggs.”
I lifted my tunic and stuffed the book into the elastic of my shorts.
“What’s in it?” Alan said.
“Nothing.”
“He said poems.”
“She tries to make up songs,” Jessica laughed, “but they all sound the same.”
At night when we took turns to sing ourselves to sleep, Jessica always chose a song she learned in school.
“You can join in the chorus,” she said.
She sang The Ash Grove slowly, pronouncing every word syllable by syllable to make her turn last longer. When she reached the line ‘streamlets meander’ she pretended to have forgotten what came next so she could sing it again: ‘stre…ee…am…lets mee…aa...ander.”
“If you forget it again, you’ll have to stop.”
“Don’t interrupt,” she snapped. “I’ll have to start from the beginning again.”
There was no chorus and I thought I’d fall asleep before my turn came.
“My song,” I said, “is a very sad song about the war.”
“Not Keep The Home Fires Burning again.”
“It’s a song they used to sing when Auntie Lucy was a little girl during the Wars of the Roses.”
Mum’s Auntie Lucy sang with a Lancashire accent which so impressed me I tried to imitate it,
“Keep the yome fyrres burrning.”
Jessica laughed.
“It’s not funny. It’s sad. There was a lady called Mary Ellen and she was in love with a handsome soldier called…James. He went to war in a place called Roses and was shot with three arrows. Mary Ellen was so sad that she died of a broken heart and as she was dying she sang this song. ‘While yerr ‘arts arrre yurrrning…’”
A snuffle came from Jessica’s bed. She was crying; my singing was beautiful.

The Counting House

2010-03-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

This novel was the result of some decades of half-hearted re-working. I began it when I was 18, trying to recapture the experiences of childhood and, although this is not my childhood and all the characters are fictional, the intention was to capture the intensity of the feelings and notions of a child. Children fear, love and hate to extremes, as people in the raw. It took so long to write this book because, I think, we grow so far from that as we are forbidden by mores to express emotion or to think honestly.

Georgie, the central character of this story, is a particularly 'religious' child but not in the usual pious way. The story begins with a sense of mere childhood happenings, but by the end of chapter one something will happen to change her life completely and lead her into the understanding of the nature of good, evil and accident. I would like to say a big thank you to the lovely people who have bought my other books so in return, over the next few weeks, the book will appear in full on this blog...

Chapter 1

By day the churchyard was safe and free from ghosts but the lodge by the gate was a Maximum Red Alert Zone. It was old and dilapidated, waiting to be pulled down and the builders’ sign on the door warned trespassers to KEEP OUT. No one ever came or went and the grey net curtain in the upstairs window never moved.
I leaned my bike against a headstone and crept through the knee-high ferns, then throwing myself onto my belly to avoid being seen from the church, crawled like a commando through the builders’ gritty sand until I reached the window ledge. Brown paint had chipped away from the wood revealing traces of blue. It might have been a bright house once - a happy, children’s house - but now it held only ghosts and spiders weaving webs down the window pane.
I stood upright and on tiptoes pressed my face to the glass; torn newspapers littered the naked floorboards and a broken stool lay in pieces near the wall. Flakes of paint prickled the skin beneath my fingers as I raised myself onto the ledge and gazed at the candlestick on the hearth. This was the Holy Grail that would win me the prize of a bottle top tied to a string. It was a matter of honour: the glory of a medal and the treasure of James’ smile.
The door didn’t creak as it opened but a musty, dusty smell caught the back of my throat as I scurried into the room where the candlestick stood. Shaking, I dared myself to go forward and knelt to wrap my fingers around the cold metal.
Then I saw him.
I saw him and he was watching me. From the farthest corner of the room an ugly image in a wrought gold frame caught me in an evil stare. Dark demonic eyes bored through my body and followed me when I tried to move away. Drops of deep black blood dripped from his fingers where he held a splattered heart in an outstretched hand. Every muscle stiffened to a tight uneasy pain across my shoulders as I read the gold lettering at the bottom of the frame:
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus I place all my trust in Thee.
It wasn’t Jesus. It was Satan from the Children’s Bible.
“The devil is a master of disguises,” Auntie Philomena had said, “He comes like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. We must always be on our guard.”
Clutching the candlestick, I flew through the hall leaving the front door wide open and a trail of sand trickling from me like blood. I jumped onto my bike ploughing tracks through the unmarked graves, and sped out of the churchyard, praying in each gasp of breath,
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, save me from the devil. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, save me from the devil.”
But the devil had seen me and now he would follow me home.

“The devil is a roaring lion,” Auntie Philomena had said when she came to baby-sit.
She stood by the door and waited for us to undress.
“Come on! Come on!” She clapped her hands teacher-fashion and hurried us into bed, “That’s right. In you get and then we’ll say our prayers.”
“We say them in our heads,” Jessica said.
“The family that prays together stays together.”
Auntie Philomena stood in the lamplight with her right arm outstretched, her left hand pressed to her flat stomach. “In the name of the Father and of the Son….”
I hated it. It was embarrassing. Jessica wouldn’t say the words and I glared at her when Auntie Philomena closed her eyes.
“Angel of God my Guardian dear,” I said it louder and bared my teeth at my sister. “Ever this night be at my side to light and guard, to rule and guide, AMEN.” I shouted the ‘amen’ as a definite full stop and Auntie Philomena opened her prayerful eyes. I closed mine and smiled piously.
“That’s better,” she sat down on the edge of Jessica’s bed, “always remember your night prayers. The devil is a roaring lion; you never know when he will strike. The greater the saint, the greater the temptations the devil throws in his way. Why should he bother to trap sinners when he already has their souls? But to watch a saint fall! That would be his triumph.”
Jessica sighed and rolled over, pushing her head beneath the blankets until all I could see was a mesh of golden curls.
“Like nits,” I said, “they only go on clean hair.”
“Like a roaring lion!” Auntie Philomena growled.
I thought of the devil’s horns in the Children’s Bible and fumbled beneath the pillow for my rosary beads, “If he comes in disguise, how do you know it’s the devil?”
“By his feet,” she said with infallible conviction, “he can’t disguise his feet! That’s why Our Lady always appears with her tiny feet showing beneath her dress. Now you go to sleep like good little girls while I check on Peter.”
She switched off the lamp and closed the door, shrouding the room in darkness. The devil, like a roaring lion, prowled under my bed. I trembled and tied the rosary beads round my hand.
“Jess,” I whispered, “I’m scared of the devil.”
“Don’t be daft,” she said, “go to sleep.”
If I were a sinner the devil wouldn’t want me. I hung out of bed and whispered through the darkness, “Bloody, bloody, buttocks and bosoms.”
He wouldn’t bother me now.

The Swan by Mary Oliver

2010-03-01T14:26:00.000-08:00

Rather like going for a walk in a wood and coming across a most unexpected treasure is the feeling of discovering a new poem from a great poet. I am almost ashamed to write that 26 years after Mary Oliver won the Pulitzer Prize, I only heard of her yesterday - and what a stunning writer she is! There is so much beauty in all of her poetry that it is impossible to say which is a favourite, and 'The Swan' is but a small example of her genius.

Perhaps it's appropriate after such a bleak winter that now, as we step into the overture of spring with the beginning of March, some new loveliness appears!

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

(I took this poem from the wonder 'Poet Seers' site - I trust that is alright by the creators of that lovely site)

Mary Oliver - Poet Seers

Snowdrops

2010-02-19T15:20:00.000-08:00

In spite of the frosts and cold, the first snowdrops appeared a couple of days ago and brought such lovely thoughts of spring. The birds have already begun their dawn and evening choruses and after this exceptionally cold winter, it feels like it could really be spring at last.

Wordsworth's poetry is, to me, too verbose and kind of 'cluttered'. Too many words that say so little as though he is attempting to express something simple but ends up complicating himself with silly phrases. The 'Prelude' has some fabulous lines, but his later works leave me wondering why he is ranked as one of the 'greats'. I mean take for example his poem 'To a Snowdrop' - it is almost as bad as Shelley's 'Skylark' - 'bird thou never wert....'

Ah well, the snowdrops have appeared and anyone who has ever seen snowdrops after snow appreciates their fragile beauty. It might have been better if Wordsworth had written far more simply than these clumsy lines ('harbinger' seems to be a particularly favourite word with poets of that era):

Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

"Seven Ages of Britain" and the Cheapside Hoard

2010-02-16T15:14:00.000-08:00

The endlessly fascinating "Seven Ages of Britain", written and presented by the excellent David Dimbleby traces the history of Britain through art. So far the series has travelled through the ages of the conquests up to 1066, on through the era of the great Cathedrals and religious art and up to the extravagance of the Tudors. Some of the items shown are utterly beautiful. From his dangling from a wire to view a fresco of heaven and hell, to his trudging through the snow, quoting Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon, Mr. Dimbleby has presented one of the most beautiful series seen in a long time (haven't seen any documentary quite so absorbing since Jeremy Paxman presented the Victorians through their art). One of the most mesmerising moments was the display of the 'Cheapside Hoard' - a find of incredibly beautiful jewels displaying such a myriad of colour and such delicate craftsmanship. There is a wonderful article about the hoard here:

The Cheapside Hoard

St. Valentine's Day

2010-02-13T15:31:00.000-08:00

For St. Valentine's Day, some of the loveliest and best known love poems:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

I do not love thee!--no! I do not love thee!
And yet when thou art absent I am sad;
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.

I do not love thee!--yet, I know not why,
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:
And often in my solitude I sigh
That those I do love are not more like thee!

I do not love thee!--yet, when thou art gone,
I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear.

I do not love thee!--yet thy speaking eyes,
With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,
Between me and the midnight heaven arise,
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.

I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!
Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,
Because they see me gazing where thou art.

(Caroline Norton)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

(William Shakespeare)

And some beautiful poetry spoken by Juliet in "Romeo & Juliet"

Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale....

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

At risk of becoming too mushy...a little of the cynical Dorothy Parker to lighten the mood!

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;
'My fragile leaves,' it said, 'his heart enclose.'
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
If you read this, I wish you love and happiness wherever and whoever you are!

Grammar Matters

2010-02-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

Is it pedantic to be irked by the commonly used expression, "You have two choices...you can do this or this..." ? It is said all the time and it is silly! That isn't two choices - it is one choice: an either, or! Two choice would be this and this or this and this! It is irksome on the same lines as the ubiquitous apostrophe in describing decades. It is common to see 1980's, 1990's (which means, 'of 1980' or 'of 1990'). The 1980s don't need that apostrophe, do they?? Of course, none of it really matters and language develops alongside grammar but, at the same time, the rudiments of grammar are part of our heritage and deserve to be preserved alongside historic buildings and national treasures, simply because they are beautiful!

Mathematicians find beauty in numbers and, though I do not understand numbers so well, their ability to see the musical perfection in equations and patterns is something like a work of art to me. I might not understand it but it's wonderful to appreciate people who do understand it. There is precision in it and 'God is in the detail'. It seems that the same is true of language and the use of words. Words are so precious and syntax and phraseology are so fascinating and developed through many centuries. It cannot be correct to throw them around and discard all the precision that has gone into the making of literature and wonderful poetry and prose throughout ages.

Grammar matters, just as precision in art or mathematics matters. In throwing out the basics of our language, we throw away eons of our history and the refinements of past ages.

By Any Other Name

2010-02-05T11:45:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, I had a first-hand experience of meeting with an elderly lady who had been confined in a psychiatric hospital since her early 20s and was completely institutionalised and unable to live independently. At the time of her confinement, however, she had been a perfectly healthy young woman and the sole reason for her commitment to the place was that she had had a child and was not married. I believe this was not an uncommon practice in the first half of the last century and the hypocrisy that led to so many wasted lives is so tragic.

Although my first novel By Any Other Name was loosely inspired by this story, it is set in the late 1980s and has quite a different twist to it.

Excerpt from the opening chapter:

It occurred to Maria that even in death there could be no equality among the people of Farnleigh. On the western side of the church, tall white shrines of stone stood guarded by golden angels. Here, in the permanent shadow of the trees, unmarked mounds grew to waste beside rows of uniform grey headstones engraved with the names of eight or nine paupers of the last century. The workhouse graves, the penny graves, the sixpenny graves; the hierarchical burial system of deciding how near a body should lie to the church according to what the relatives were willing or able to pay.

Maria moved slowly from one stone to the next, pausing occasionally to clear away the moss with her finger before moving on. Sometimes she turned, startled by leaves falling into the undergrowth behind her, and she held her breath against the stench of decaying fruit and foliage emanating from the mounds of earth.

Available on Amazon Kindle: By Any Other Name

The Witness

2010-02-05T11:18:00.000-08:00

This film is both uplifting and thought-provoking.

The Witness

The Beauty of George Eliot

2010-01-29T15:12:00.001-08:00

It pleases me immensely to have been born in the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton, though I know nothing about the place except the author after whom it was named! It is amusing to think that such a pillar of society as a hospital should be named after a woman who in her lifetime scandalised Victorian society, first by stopping going to church and secondly by running off with a married man!

Physically George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) was singularly unattractive according to the conventions of her day and she suffered greatly in early life from the unkindness of people who judged her solely by her appearance and who were not averse to telling her how plain she was. In later life, however, the power of her personality - unique, intelligent, with great depths of beautiful feeling and the power to translate those feelings into words - conquered such superficial considerations and all those who met her were hugely attracted to her.

Some of her writing is, to me, the most beautiful in the whole of English Literature. She had the ability to see beyond the superficial to the beauty in the lives of the most 'ordinary' people and created such strong characters that even those who had once condemned her for her 'scandalous' lifestyle (which, in fact, was not scandalous at all!) came flocking around her to be her friends. She was the J.K. Rowling of her day - someone who changed the face of literature and became, virtually overnight, the wealthiest woman in the country! And, as happened with J.K. Rowling, is was so well deserved!

The utter beauty of "Silas Marner" - the miser who takes in a little orphan child - is so uplifting and it is difficult to know which page to quote from as all of it is so lovely. Here is a small example:

"In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's."

How bizarre that dull people once considered that incredible person 'plain'.

Mozart's Birthday

2010-01-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

On Mozart's birthday, it is interesting to consider that, while he was a prodigy and is rightly viewed as a genius, even he had to devote himself to his art in order to achieve such greatness.

"People make a mistake," he wrote, "who think that my art has come easily to me. Nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not studied over and over."

It often seems that much so-called art nowadays is simply thrown together without effort, and it often makes me question whether such 'artists' love their work at all since we naturally want to spend time with what we love. When a person loves something, s/he wants to perfect it and does so not only by concentrating on his/her own work but on the works of those who have mastered that art.

Perhaps this is what Mozart meant when he wrote: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”

St. Agnes' Eve

2010-01-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

It's the eve of the feast of St. Agnes and though it's milder than it has been for the past couple of months, Keats' poem "On the Eve of St. Agnes" comes to mind.

St Agnes' Eve---Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith....

I had this picture of St. Agnes (among countless other saints) when I was a small child and often wondered why saints always had that plaster cast look, which I tried unsuccessfully to emulate. St. Agnes, like most of the others in my collection, was a martyr who died some horrible death resisting someone who attacked 'her virtue'. Of course, that meant nothing to me as a child, all I saw was a saintly being who suffered horribly and died and was holy - and therefore equated suffering with holiness.

Funny, isn't it, how people talk about the horror of computer games set before children today! The only difference is that 'in my day' the suffering was imposed on one's self, and in those horrific games it is aimed at others. All of it is really most unpleasantly dangerous because it distorts young minds.

Thank heavens for the equilibrium of the less gory stories of childhood - like 'Watch With Mother', The Woodentops, Pogle's Wood and Tales of the Riverbank!!!

Watch with Mother

Birds Singing In theNight

2010-01-17T16:02:00.000-08:00

Although the night is very dark, the birds have been singing all evening in a most unseasonable manner! Perhaps they are rejoicing that the snow has finally (if temporarily) disappeared, or thinking because it has become a little milder it is almost spring. Whatever their reason, it is very beautiful! I doubt very much that they are nightingales, but they bring to mind the beautiful lines of "Romeo & Juliet" :

Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

and still more, Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale'

...thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

Where would we be without poetry to help us express what we feel!

(The image is taken from the beautiful RSPB site - I trust it's okay to post it here and if not, I will remove it!)

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/n/nightingale/index.aspx

The Lovely Return of 'Lark Rise'

2010-01-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

Amid all the bleakness of snow, what sheer delight was the return, last night, of the BBC's 'Lark Rise to Candleford' - every bit as beautiful as the last series. Apart from the endlessly entertaining characters and idyllic settings, the stories are always so gentle and so very 'human'. More than any other, this programme shows that real entertainment doesn't require violence or horror. One of the most amazing things is that there aren't even any 'baddies' in it. Those few characters who might at first be perceived as such, nearly always turn out to be 'good' in the end. A real character-driven drama with such unique individuals gathered together, their characters developing with every series. What a thoroughly beautiful programme!

Voices from the Heart

2010-01-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

In the days before hype, when art was really art, literature really literature and music really music, people performed with no glitz and glamour or electronic adjustment to their voices. What could be more wonderful than a small person with a fabulously beautiful interpretation of lyrics, singing on a stage with a voice that moved millions and continues to do so to this day? No flashy clothes, just a simple black dress. No effects, only the person, her heart and her song...such was the wonderful Edith Piaf:

Edith Piaf 'Milord'

Perhaps we are returning to such an era of loveliness in the emergence of Susan Boyle, and perhaps that explains some of Susan's well-deserved success. No glamour, no glitz or sham - just a person who sings from the heart without being manufactured by the entertainment industry - and such an incredible voice and interpretation of lyrics touches something so deeply within us all.

Greasy Joan and her pot!

2010-01-05T14:32:00.000-08:00

My mother often used to quote the last line of this extract from Shakespeare and it always sounded rather unpleasant and made us all pull faces! How sad to have been 'Joan' and come down through the centuries as 'greasy Joan' - I wonder if she really existed?

The rest of it is so appropriate tonight as we go through another long winter of so much snow and cold...I love the line: 'when coughing drowns the parson's saw' since, wherever you go nowadays there is so much sniffing and coughing and ruddy cheeks in the cold!

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Royalties of Europe

2009-12-29T15:49:00.000-08:00

Several years ago, becoming fascinated by Queen Victoria and her large, extended family, I began compiling a series of card index boxes of the royalties of Europe between around 1850 and 1918, in order to help me remember who was who. The boxes have been sitting there, all carefully labelled for such a long time that I suddenly wondered if they might be of use to anyone else. When the internet first became available, it was hugely helpful to me to be able to continue the research through various site so I just wanted to put a little back by copying out the boxes for anyone else who is interested. As the details are gathered from various sources, some of the names are in the Latin format, some in German/French/Spanish or English versions and in all it is combination of all of them. If anyone is interested, I am gradually copying out the boxes at:

Royalties of Europe 1860-1918

Good King Wenceslas

2009-12-26T05:36:00.000-08:00

According to the carol, "Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen..." The song continues with the story of the king seeing a poor peasant gathering firewood in the snow and bringing him indoors to wait upon him.
It's appropriate that the story took place on 26th December, the Feast of Stephen (the first Christian martyr) as this coincides with 'Boxing Day' - the day when traditionally the alms boxes were emptied and distributed among the poor.
Although the carol little more than legend, King Wenceslas was known to be a 'good' king - or rather, Duke - of 10th century Bohemia, who ruled his people in fairness. As the grandson of a martyr, St. Ludmilla, he was staunchly Christian but, fortunately, when many of his people returning to Paganism, he did not respond with the ferocity displayed by many other so-called Christian leaders of the time. Instead, he responded with tolerance and gentleness.
Unfortunately, as in so many cases 'uneasy lies the head that wears the crown', and Wenceslas became caught up in a power struggle with his brother, which culminated in his murder at the door of the church in Alt-Bunzlau.

Good King Wenceslas looked out
on the feast of Stephen.
When the snow lay round about,
deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night,
though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
gathering winter fuel.

Hither page and stand by me
if thou knowst it telling
Yonder peasant, who is he,
where and what his dwelling?
Sire, he lives a good league hence,
underneath the mountain,
Right against the forest fence,
by Saint Agnes' fountain.

Bring me flesh and bring me wine,
bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
when we bear them thither
Page and monarch forth they went,
forth they went together
Through the rude winds wild lament,
and the bitter weather.

Sire the night is darker now,
and the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart I know now how,
I can go no longer.
Mark my footsteps good my page,
tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
freeze thy blood less coldly.

In his master's steps he trod
where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
which the saint had printed
Therefore Christian men be sure,
wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
shall yourselves find blessing.

Queen Victoria's Christmas Eve

2009-12-24T07:35:00.001-08:00

A very short extract taken from Life with Queen Victoria, Marie Mallet's letters from Court Edited by Victor Mallet, describing Queen Victoria giving gifts to her household at Osborne House in 1897.

Christmas Eve at 1/4 to 6, I was present at the ChristmasTree at which the Queen gave her presents to the household. The Princesses were there, and the most handsome presents given all round...When the Princesses left, they fell on the tree and divided the spoil, filling waste paper baskets!

Fifteen Wild Decembers

2009-12-22T15:43:00.001-08:00

On a frozen December night, what could be more apt than Emily Bronte's heartfelt 'Remembrance' or 'Fifteen Wild Decembers'? As someone who, to all outward appearances, could not have experienced the sentiments expressed in this poem, Emily Bronte appears to have written it from the mouths of the characters in her imagination but how could she write this unless she knew on some inner level the depths of emotion it expresses? It's endlessly fascinating that so private a person who preferred the company of animals and the freedom of the Moors to being in company (and who became physically ill when deprived of that freedom) had such an incredible power of empathy at the highest level. I think she experienced, on some level, all that wrote not only in her poems but also in one of the most passionate stories of all time, "Wuthering Heights." Nothing is ever as it appears and sometimes those who seem most silent and removed from what passes for depths of emotion, are really experiencing it most deeply. I think Emily Bronte's pen would have thrived on so cold a night as this one!

Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my Only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-wearing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains on Angora's shore;
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers
From those brown hills have melted into spring--
Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee
While the World's tide is bearing me along:
Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong.

No other Sun has lightened up my heaven;
No other Star has ever shone for me:
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But when the days of golden dreams had perished
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy;

Then did I check the tears of useless passion,
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine!

And even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in Memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?

King Canute and Coperhagen

2009-12-18T16:49:00.001-08:00

A long time ago, according to English legend, King Canute stood on a beach and, believing he was some kind of saviour, tried to stop the tide. He was somewhat humiliated when his feet got wet!

Now we hear the voice of the self-appointed gods saying they will control temperature by 2 degrees....I guess the more you try to take on the control of the world the more you believe yourself to be God. It's snowing in Copenhagen, as it is here. It's a typical English winter. Stand on the beach and rail at the snowflakes and tell the weather to become warmer or colder and you will achieve nothing! Why not turn instead from massive ego-trips to caring for creatures and humanity in a way that is sincere?

I Leant Upon A Coppice Gate

2009-12-17T15:37:00.000-08:00

I saw some blackbirds on the snowy grass tonight, pecking their way through the cold and looking so beautiful! Winter is really here and, above the climate-change-babble, it's obvious that the climate changes have nothing whatsoever to do with how we live and everything to do with being attuned to Nature in all her seasons. I guess that's what happens in a world dominated by linear thinking. The earth, like people, has its cycles and seasons and, thinking in a cyclic way, it all makes more sense. Some people have made a fortune from the climate scam and others have run like sheep after the lie, but at the end of the day, the seasons change and we change with them when we drop that need to control everything and everyone.

I find Thomas Hardy's books depressing and verbose (with his obsession with describing the details of architecture!) but his poetry is something else altogether....like this:

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited ;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

PLEASE Stop These Evil Practices!

2009-12-15T01:57:00.000-08:00

It is so important that people are aware of this cruelty going on under our noses that I have posted this link on both blogs. Please be warned that this video is very distressing but, after watching it, anyone with a heart would be so appalled and demand an end to such vile practices to living, sentient, loving creatures.

http://www.meat.org/video-2.asp

Albert the Good

2009-12-14T02:15:00.000-08:00

On the anniversary of the death of Prince Albert, here are a few lines written in his honour by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Albert 'the good' was surely the 'greatest king we never had' - a man so gifted and with such humanity. What a tragedy for his family and for the country that he died so young!

Or how should England dreaming of his sons
Hope more for these than some inheritance
Of such a life, a heart, a mind as thine,
Thou noble Father of her Kings to be,
Laborious for her people and her poor—
Voice in the rich dawn of an ampler day—
Far-sighted summoner of War and Waste
To fruitful strifes and rivalries of peace—
Sweet nature gilded by the gracious gleam
Of letters, dear to Science, dear to Art,
Dear to thy land and ours, a Prince indeed,
Beyond all titles, and a household name,
Hereafter, through all times, Albert the Good.

And Tennyson's dedication to Albert's daughter, Princess Alice, who died on the anniversary of her father's death.

Dead Princess, living Power, if that which lived
True life live on–and if the fatal kiss,
Born of true life and love, divorce thee not
From earthly love and life–if what we call
The spirit flash not all at once from out
This shadow into Substance–then perhaps
The mellow’d murmur of the people’s praise
From thine own State, and all our breadth of realm,
Where Love and Longing dress thy deeds in light,
Ascends to thee; and this March morn that sees
Thy Soldier-brother’s bridal orange-bloom
Break thro’ the yews and cypress of thy grave,
And thine Imperial mother smile again,
May send one ray to thee! and who can tell–
Thou–England’s England-loving daughter–thou
Dying so English thou wouldst have her flag
Borne on thy coffin–where is he can swear
But that some broken gleam from our poor earth
May touch thee, while, remembering thee, I lay
At thy pale feet this ballad of the deeds
Of England, and her banner in the East?

It's Cold!

2009-12-12T16:12:00.000-08:00

It's not snowing yet but it's so cold that dear Pooh comes to mind!! Thank you A.A. Milne!!!

(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
On snowing.

And nobody knows
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
Are growing.

The more it snows
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
The more it goes
(Tiddly Pom)
On snowing.

And nobody knows
(Tiddly Pom)
How gold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
How cold my toes
(Tiddly Pom)
Are growing.

A Whole Load of Pretentious Twaddle

2009-11-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

Never in my life have I heard such a load of pretentious twaddle as was voiced on last night's BBC 2 programme: "School of Saatchi". If art is meant to speak to the highest aspects of ourselves, or to represent reality in some way, this so-called art brought from me only anger and sadness that we have sunk so low; nor did it represent my reality or the reality of a world of beauty. A whistle dangling from what looked like either a towel rail or something to help the elderly get out of the bath was one effort. The fact that there was a smudge of lipstick on the whistle gave it, according to one of the judges, a sexual connotation? I can think of few things less sexual than a smudge of lipstick on a whistle. At the end of the programme, one of the 'artists' was heard to say, "I don't think the public will understand this." Of course we won't. We are mere morons who do not appreciate the meanings you see in your self-indulgent creations. Art, after all, according to that world view, isn't designed for the masses, it is there to cater to the ego of the artist who sees himself as non-conformist while conforming exactly to the notion that being an artist means being something ordinary mortals do not understand.

It brings me great joy to know that all over the country there are true artists who study their craft and create real beauty - those who work with wood and clay, restore stained-glass windows, an upholstery of previous centuries, and create new and beautiful designs that others can appreciate, too. I would say literature is also a great art and what is the point of it, if no one understands it except the weird brain of its creator?

So...in order to fit into the modern school, I have created my own work of art - this poem:

Whistle, string, lipstick, pile of rubble,
Zimmer frame, spinning wheel,
Junk, open curtains, closed curtains,
Picture of a man at a computer.
Life passes by.

Vermillion, apple blossom, cornfield,
Trumpeter, crashed cars, manhole cover,
Bits of rubbish, unemptied bins.
Grasshopper, my heart....
Awake and bleeding.

That poem speaks of the existential nature of the soul, caught in the dilemma between the paradigm of an other-worldly perfection, and the baser instincts of humanity as expressed through a primitive sexuality (as shown in the line 'bits of rubbish, unemptied bins'). In order to grasp this concept - and I doubt that will be possible for 'the public' - one must understand the angst of the true artist as an epitome of all human emotion, struggling against the odds to capture the fleeting moment when the two realities meet. And if you believe any of that rubbish, I am the King of Siam!!

Random words without meaning and not a poem at all!!

The Emperor is walking about naked...

The Days That Are No More

2009-11-21T15:04:00.000-08:00

The seasons change and now, in the middle of the dark days - the fogs, rain, short evenings, dark dawns, Tennyson's poem comes to mind with a sense of mellow Victorian nostalgia:

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

In fact, I wouldn't want to return to the 'days that are no more' but the changing seasons allow for a little self-indulgence and there's nothing quite like a bout of nostalgia to welcome the winter!

Poppies

2009-11-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

Young man with a smile on an old photograph
In a uniform smart as your father before,
Pack up your troubles and daring to laugh
As you tramp through the town on your way to the war...

Will you die at a price? Will you die for a shilling?
Is it worth all the pain and the things we don't know?
Is it worth all the horror and bloodshed and killing?
Are you willing to die so a poppy can grow?

Young man with a tear as you walk away crying,
Put down your gun now and lift up your head,
War time is over and breezes are sighing
Through fields of small flowers that blood has stained red.

Did you die at a price? Did you die for a shilling?
Is it worth all the pain and the things we don't know?
Is it worth all the horror and bloodshed and killing?
Were you willing to die so a poppy could grow?

Young man, you who look at the old photograph,
In a uniform smart as your grandfather wore,
Looking so brave now and daring to laugh
As you follow his footsteps and march to the war,

Has the offer been raised? Is it still just a shilling?
Lives are bought cheaply. It's always been so.
When so mine fine people need bloodshed and killing,
We shall slaughter our sons so that poppies can grow...

(Lyrics by Christina Croft, Music by Tony Croft)

Penny For the Guy

2009-11-04T15:34:00.001-08:00

As Bonfire Night draw nigh, I find myself wondering whatever happened to the 'penny-for-the-guy' children? Those kids who used to stand outside shops with some model they had taken time to create, and a cap on the floor asking for a penny for the Guy. It's rather like the rag and bone men who used to come by with their horse and cart. If you gave them a bag of clothes, they gave you in return a ride on the cart to the end of the road. Where are they now? Did they ride off into the sunset?

It's also like the May Processions - the ones where you were playing outside one Saturday afternoon and were suddenly called in, scrubbed and forced into the white dress to join the procession. Where are they? Did they walk off into the sunset, too?

Penny-For-The Guy kids were often looked down on. Basically, they were just begging for money for fireworks (and then they weren't allowed to buy fireworks because they were too young) but I remember those who took great pride in their Guys and deserved a penny for their trouble! Others just brought out something that looked like a melted snowman thrown together and didn't even merit the penny. Now they have just disappeared altogether. I just wondered if they went the same way as rag and bone men and May Processions and wandered off into the hills one day when I wasn't looking....

Hallowe'en

2009-10-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

The night is so dark and misty - the perfect setting for the lead up to Hallowe'en, and what a set of bizarre reactions there are to that night! Here in England, I have heard from several quarters, a strange sort of backlash against this 'American import' this year. A few years ago, I heard a priest raging against it - calling it 'dangerous' like some kind of satanic ritual.

It's true that until maybe five or ten years ago, beyond the scary ghost stories and occasional pumpkin in a window, it seemed to have died out in England. There were no 'trick or treats' - instead there was (on November 4th) Mischief Night - which really meant stealing the wood from other people's bonfires before November 5th. Mischief Night escalated into putting treacle on door knobs, then throw eggs at windows or stealing someone's gates. People said how bad times were - forgetting that right back to the Middle Ages any excuse for disorder was welcomed! Trick or treat is mild in comparison and, personally, I think it's fabulous fun for children and a great American import Thank you, America!

The priest's reaction seems to go back to another era. The era when we didn't all live so indoors, hiding behind central heating and double glazing - when the dark night wasn't scary and the change of seasons was celebrated; when animals were brought indoors and there was no separation between humanity and the other creatures of the earth: the era, perhaps, before Christianity in its impurest sense arrived on these isles. The darkness of the night, the respect of the seasons was not something to be feared, but something to be respected. It spoke of the darkness within us - the fears, the judgements, the bitterness and the need to hide from ourselves. Samhain, like the May time Beltane, simply marked that contrast in Nature, that is reflected within us. It spoke of our fears as surely as springtime speaks of our hope. And here's an interesting thing: in the days and cultures where such things were acknowledged, respect for the wisdom of the elders was profound. Now, in our culture that fears the dark, we treat elderly people badly. We want only spring, only to be insulated from the natural flow of the seasons, and wonder why the world is as it is.

Hallowe'en - All Hallows Night - Hallowed (the same word that appears in The Lord's Prayer to describe God's Name) is not a nasty scary thing of ghouls and vampires and skeletons. It's no less a Feast Day than any other. Unless we face our fears, we are destined to be haunted by them, and it seems to me that our greatest fears are facing up to our own shadows - our own resentments, judgements, unforgiveness.

So...thank you again, America, for reviving our ancient tradition of remembering All Hallows Night - after all, if God/Life is omnipresent, everything is holy!

(Photograph courtesy of Andre Hilliard

All The World Is A Stage

2009-10-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

"All the world's a stage," wrote Shakespeare in describing the comings and goings and passing of time in a person's life. It's interesting to consider that in the lives of most of the people that we know, we are all bit-part players. We appear on the periphery of someone's memory or as something like 'serving wench' or 'third gentleman' in someone else's script. At the same time, we constantly appear centre-stage in our own drama.

Hamlet (obviously, from a different play) is a character whom I adored in my youth. His psychological complexity; his contradictions - one moment total inaction and apathy, the next rash action - have such appeal but he was merely the centre of his own play, as we all are, perhaps. And, to quote him, "therein lies the rub." Laertes, on the other hand, was straight to the point - a character who does not inspire such affection because he seems to lack the complexity that makes Hamlet so appealing as he sits hugging the skull of the late jester, or suddenly engaging in a rash sword fight to the death.

Nowadays, I think Hamlet is the epitome of youthful angst and self-centredness. His obsession with the idea that he has been wronged and must, somehow, avenge that wrong, is combined with the idea that his motives are altruistic (on behalf of his dead father). The bit part players in his life mean nothing to him and even as he cradles that skull, he is really thinking of himself and his own mortality.

And maybe that is how most of us view the world. We fight our own imaginary battles, and for our own illusory causes, constantly blaming some outside interference and never realizing that we are creating our own drama. We get to choose if we want to be tragic or comic heroes or heroines. We have the possibility of writing our own scripts; and sometimes it is very interesting to hear the bit-part players in our lives and suddenly realize we are also bit-part players in someone else's play. How fascinatingly we all interact!

Lady Constance Lytton

2009-10-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

The lines we take in as children remain with us forever. One evening when I was a child the BBC series "Shoulder to Shoulder" was on TV. It was the episode about the very courageous Lady Constance Lytton (daughter of the Viceroy of India and Queen Victoria's lady-in-waiting) who, having been arrested several times for protesting in favour of votes for women and receiving preferential treatment on account of her aristocratic background, disguised herself as a poor seamstress and was subsequently arrested, went on hunger strike and was brutally forcibly-fed, without a medical examination which would have revealed her chronic heart complaint which had kept her as a semi-invalid all her life. Gentle animal loving Constance became known as a militant suffragette, when she had never harmed anyone but, against all her upbringing and instincts took a stand for justice. I think, what kept her an invalid and what led to that heart complaint was simply the stifling of who she really was and the smothering of all her talents. She broke out of that in a most courageous way and wrote a book about her experiences - "Prisons & Prisoners" - which is largely forgotten now.

The lines that really stuck with me came from something she quoted:

"Have you seen the locusts, how they cross a stream? First one comes down to the water's edge and is swept away. Then another comes and another, and gradually their bodies pile up and make a bridge for the rest to pass over." She ended by saying, "Well, perhaps I made a track to the water's edge."

It's a beautiful thought when follow our own paths, even when they seem to veer away from what is expected...

Autumn

2009-09-27T15:05:00.001-07:00

Autumn comes again with the hazy mornings, the sun being a little lazy in rising, then coming out in all its amber splendour by mid-afternoon, and the chilly evenings with those scents which are so evocative! This poem is so often quoted that it seems almost trite to repeat it, but it is 'the' poem of autumn and its timelessness is so touching. Keats' "To Autumn".

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

E.E. Cummings

2009-09-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

Why did e.e. cummings have such an aversion to capital letters with regard to names and personal pronouns! The letter 'I', at least, should always be written in the upper case because the 'I' is so much greater than the 'me' and is the true self, to my mind, which is the spark of the Divinity, or simply Divine. We all can write 'I' boldly, because we are far greater than we know. All the same e.e.'s poems are often so lovely....I felt this today, walking among these beautiful trees in Temple Newsam!

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any - lifted from the no
of all nothing - human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

"The Wild Swans at Coole"

2009-09-17T15:59:00.000-07:00

There were only two swans on the lake today and it's not yet October, but seeing the beautiful swans at Temple Newsam, W.B. Yeats' poem: "The Wild Swans At Coole" came to mind....

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

Being and Doing

2009-09-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

Maybe some people 'are' and some people 'do'. There's a message as we grow up that we need to be 'doing'. If we are not 'doing' we are being lazy and idle. But when we look at those who 'do', most are either interfering into everyone else's life or trying to rule the world.

"If everyone thought as you do," I was often told as a child and young person, "nothing would ever be done." My thought in reply was, "But what has been done by those who do thoughtlessly instead of thinking first?"

People rush thither and yon, always having to be busy, always having to take command of someone else, always having to meet deadlines or be at work on time, or get home on time, or fill the quiet hours with doing. And people have damaged the land, the animals, the trees and nature and caused havoc all over the place with our doing. Walk past a field of sheep and see that they are doing what they do without the need to do it. They just run when they feel like running, chew when they feel like chewing, stare when they feel like staring. Walk through a forest of trees and see how ancient they are, how they withstand the storms and the summer sun, how they don't give a damn for who is making silly rules about what we can and cannot do. Look at Nature and see how even when we try to crush all growth, the weeds still just work their way to the sun through the cracks in the pavement.

I'm not advocating inertia or suggesting that humanity needs only to stand as still as trees or spend our lives chewing grass, but it seems that the rest of creation knows what it is about and only humanity stands apart because we have forgotten that we are here to be before we are here to do. What needs to be done is being done by a far greater hand than ours. When we wake up to being, like the flowers wake up to the morning sunlight, rather than waking up to a day 'at the office' or another day of drudgery, we will truly be co-creators with the Divine.

Like the wonderful Davies poem:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

The Price of A Few Letters After Your Name

2009-09-06T15:39:00.001-07:00

It's interesting how scornful or amused we are by the people who buy titles on-line. Apparently, for various amounts of money, one can buy an aristocratic title of count, countess, baron or anything else, and the title comes with a certificate to authenticate it. Anyone can choose the title or the area (rather like choosing number plates on cars) and the certificate - nothing more than a glossy piece of paper - acts as proof of purchase. Of course, the higher class version of this is being granted the title by whatever government happens to be 'in power' (whatever that means) in return for filling the party coffers. It's an age-old means of buying self-esteem and the idea that a title impresses other and gives one access to the echelons of power (whatever that means, too!).

It looks ridiculous but is it any more ridiculous than the millions of people all over the world who dedicate 3, 4 or 5 years of their lives to purchase some letters after their name? During those years, it used to be possible to have a lot of fun. Students were notorious for being rowdy, lazy, drinking too much, finding some kind of pleasure in the necessity of bringing traffic cones home, and having deep and meaningless conversations about anything and working out their delayed adolescent angst. Having been there, I must say it was fun in its way. Nowadays student life is quite different
and many, having worked their way through university in order to pay the fees, leave with enormous debts...and, of course, the letters after their names.

Politicians are constantly spouting about the need to make university places more accessible to more people; and people are constantly responding by feeling the need to have a degree...but what does it really mean? It means that you conform your essays to what the powers-that-be want you to say; it means you fit the system and think you are rebelling, but you're not. It means, basically, you pay out loads of money and come out with a piece of paper saying someone else decided you were this clever, that clever, or just mediocre (or a failure) and you can write some letters after your name. Basically, a degree or any other qualification is simply gaining authenticity from someone else's idea of what you should be. Surely, the brightest brains know that there is no need for such ulterior authentication. It's interesting that some of the wealthiest and most successful people have no such stamp of approval by the authorities. Richard Branson, Alan Sugar (I think) Shakespeare, Emily Bronte, Jesus etc. etc. were not university qualified, but professors argue for hours about their merit, while the great minds and great spirits go on making an impact on peoples of all time when the university officials are long forgotten.

If you want to go to university to study, by all means do so! If you want to study a subject among people who have taken if further than you have, then study it in colleges and universities. But if you want some letters after your name or a piece of paper and some outside stamp of authenticity for your self-esteem, it won't work. That can only come from yourself and you would do far better following your own heart, studying what you love and who cares whether someone else decides your efforts are worthy?

If you want letters after your name, write your own. How about:

F.S. - Free Spirit (it's more fitting than my B.A. - Bachelor of Arts, since I am not a bachelor and never could be!!)

Emily Bronte and "Wuthering Heights"

2009-09-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

I don't care what the critics write! Of all the adaptations of "Wuthering Heights" that I have seen, this is the best. Shown in two parts, this version of the book was so much more than the old Olivier/Oberon love story, or the ridiculous version that tried to be closer to the book but cast a French Cathy! This version, in my opinion, capture Heathcliff perfectly! Tom Hardy's portrayal was wonderful because he was attractive one minute, most unattractive the next. He was loving and passionate, and equally hateful and violent - humanity in the raw and passion-driven. Sarah Lancashire's performance as Nelly was spot on, and both Tom Hard and Charlotte Riley finally (as opposed to earlier versions) had the correct Yorkshire accents!

Most brilliant of all was the way this version returned one's thought to the author of the book and the astounding fact that a very young woman created this epic purely from her own imagination. Emily Bronte didn't wander thither and yon, or gather masses of research to create such a story. She spent a short - horrendous to her - unpleasant time 'confined' as a teacher in Belgium and felt so deprived of the wildness of the moors that she became ill. Back home, she walked miles and miles every day, and from her walks, her own singular mind such a story of utter passion, darkness, probably the most powerful love story ever written came into being.

There is so much of Emily's brother, Branwell, in Heathcliff, but there is a lot more besides. It is fascinating that Emily, at so tender an age, caught a chill at Branwell's funeral and died a short while after. The undertones of incest in the book are obvious but I am absolutely not implying anything untoward between Branwell and Emily, but I do believe that Emily (who was so absorbed in spirituality) was the other side of Branwell's coin. Branwell was the epitome of a spirit turned to the hellish aspect of life, while Emily was seeking heaven. They were one soul in different aspects. They were so close as children and emotionally deeply involved. Absolutely nothing untoward in it, just the emotional/spiritual manipulations that affected all of that family! Emily - the parson's daughter, who, were she alive today, would be seen as so insular - was the most fearless warrior in delving into the inner life and unashamedly created in her characters such raw passion that she was prepared to expose every taboo. The greater part of Emily's short life was lived in her own head. To me, she is the most fascinating of all the Bronte sisters and ought to be listed among the greatest spiritual seekers of all time. She was utterly Pagan - her poetry attests to that - and, like Cathy in the novel, she simply could not live without the breath of freedom of the Moors and Nature.

"Wuthering Heights", as this latest adaptation shows, is anything but a simple love story. It is about passion and the soul; the fine line between heaven and hell, and living life on the edge, where convention is simply a prison....and begs the questions, "What is it to be truly alive?" and, "What is real goodness, and what is evil?"

Thank you to the casting department, the screenplay and script writers and to the great actors for such a brilliant presentation of the book!!

The Fields Laid Waste

2009-08-31T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Last Sound

2009-08-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

What will be the last sound at the end of the world? Will there be applause, like at the end of a marvellous show, when the curtain comes down and you don't want it to end but go home feeling better for having been there? Will it be someone quietly sobbing, or screams of despair? Will it be birdsong or gunfire; will it be that horrific explosion of a nuclear bomb that was so propagated in the 70s and early 80s? Or will it be laughter? I think the last sound will be either a little bird singing or someone laughing happily.

I hope it will be laughter, because sometimes it seems that laughter brings more genuine tears to the eyes than mountains of grief. It's beautiful that laughter causes us to cry in the same way as sadness does, but sadness leaves one feeling drained and exhausted, when laughter beyond control leaves one feeling equally exhausted but thoroughly alive. It's interesting that when we laugh, we are totally children again. We can't control ourselves; we can't pretend to be serious and grown-up. We just are....in our native state of bliss and harmony. No one ever killed anyone while he was laughing with joy. No one ever caused a war when he was happily laughing.

Maybe the first sound we make on earth is that of a baby cry....I hope to goodness that the last sound we make is of sincere and heartfelt laughter.

Here's a great comic who makes me laugh a lot!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H_sGQR_6Ps&NR=1

Writing What You Know

2009-08-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

An interviewer on a radio programme once asked a writer how she reconciled the maxim "write what you know", with all the horror described in her novels and which she clearly hadn't personally experienced. She replied that she took her own experiences which inspired emotion, magnified the emotion slightly and put it into whatever situation her novel required. I thought that was rather wonderful!
Basically, no matter what the external events, humans run the same gamut of emotions so, perhaps, every novel is to some extent autobiographical of the writers' experience and all humanity's experience.
I would like to include some excerpts from my novels, over the next couple of days, beginning with "The Counting House."
This is autobiographical only in as much as it tries to describe the emotions, fears, joys, anger and love of a child, which I believe are common to everyone's childhood. I have often felt that children, struggling into roles allotted to them by society, go through so much angst because they have not yet learned to voice or understand their deepest feelings and there is often no outlet for them to express these emotions. So often, confined by the mores of the family or school or society, children are compelled to hide their anger, their fears and their love. How many of us grow to adulthood with the unhappy, unexpressed child still lost somewhere inside and acting out childhood fears and anger in grown up bodies.

Georgie, the central character of "The Counting House", thinks in black and white when the novel begins. Everything is good or evil, heroic or weak, brave or cowardly. She feels terrible guilt for having 'stolen', from a cemetery lodge, a candlestick which she believes has led to her being cursed by the devil and condemned by God, When tragedy strikes the family that evening, she believes she is to blame and embarks on a bizarre quest to appease God and rid herself of the devil. As the book progresses she gradually comes to understand the 'shades of grey' in defining the nature of good, evil and accident.

This excerpt from the beginning of the third chapter, describes her fear not only of retribution from God, but also of her terrifying teacher, Miss Keppel:

"I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.”
While the boys made Plasticine models with plastic knives on small square boards, we sat like ladies-in-waiting around Miss Keppel’s desk, clicking our needles and quietly chanting the steady rhythm,
“In, wrap it round, pull it through, slip it off. In, wrap it round, pull it through slip it off.”
Miss Keppel moved among us uttering words of wisdom, “The devil finds work for idle hands. Always keep your hands and your minds busy!”
Her huge nostrils quivered as she surveyed the class, “Gerard Taylor, what is the first commandment?”
He answered without hesitation, “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.”
“Go on,” she said.
We carried on knitting, “In, wrap it round, pull it through slip it off, in, wrap it round, pull it through, slip it off.”
“Nor any fish or,” he looked down and stuck his thumb into the squashy pink snail, “bird or graven image or any insect or anything.”
Miss Keppel’s great nose came down above him until his neck shrank into his shoulders. A swift hand clipped the top of his head, “For I, the Lord am a jealous God and I punish the father’s guilt in his sons!”
She spun around like a whirlwind, “Catherine Gould, the second commandment?”
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
“In, wrap it round, pull it through, slip it off. In, wrap it round, pull it through, slip it off,” faster and faster, building up speed like a train.
I said the words but my hands were out of time. I said, ‘Slip it off,’ when I was wrapping it round and I knitted a hole where there should have been wool. Catherine Gould’s scarf grew longer and longer in a rainbow of bright colours. I wriggled the wool through my fingers, tying the loose ends in knots on the needles. The two rows that Miss Keppel had knitted to start me off grew greyer and greyer but the scarf never grew any longer.
Miss Keppel moved on, calling names at random, “Michael Donnelly, the fifth commandment.”
This week she was bound to come to me; I guessed that she would reach me with the seventh. She always omitted the sixth and the ninth and Gerard Taylor said they were rude. I looked them up in the Bible.
“Jessica,” I said, “what’s adultery?”
“Being cheeky to grown ups.”
“That’s not rude.”
“Being rude to grown ups then.”
Miss Keppel’s shoes squeaked over the wooden floor and her flowing skirt made a breeze as she passed. My fingers were damp and slipped over the huge plastic needles. I gathered the grubby grey wool on my lap and buried the scarf in my hands.
“Georgina Meadows, the seventh commandment?”
I felt the blood rush out of my face and my hand began to shake. I opened my mouth but no words would come.
“The seventh commandment, Georgina?”
She was standing in front of me, her long bony fingers entwined before my eyes. Her knuckles were red and inflamed and brown spots covered the skin.
I screwed the wool into a ball, “Thou shalt not steal.”
One by one her fingers untwined and stretched themselves like an eagle about to swoop on its prey. Her hand was cold when her skin touched mine, pulling the woollen ball from my knee. When she lifted it up her nostrils flared and her thin lips sank into her mouth.
“What,” she said, pausing between each word, “is this?”
I didn’t know if she wanted an answer so I bent down and pulled up my socks.
“Well?”
“Please may I do Plasticine next week?”
“Plasticine?” the word burst out like an oath.
“I can’t knit. My Mum can’t knit either. None of us knits in our family.”
Her dull eyes widened and her lips disappeared. She took the end of a thread in her finger tips as though it were an insect she could hardly bear to hold and with one sudden movement of her wrist, unravelled the whole creation and dropped it in a heap on my knee.
“You can’t knit? Then it’s time you learned. You’ll stay in at playtime this afternoon and every afternoon until you can"

2009-08-15T16:06:00.000-07:00

This beautiful poem by Charles Tennyson Turner, the younger (and largely overlooked) brother of the more famous Tennyson, was one of the first poems I learned as a child. It delights me today as much as it delighted me then, and sometimes when I have seen children scouring maps and globes, it comes to mind again. It's very lovely and I added the photo of Temple Newsam for no other reason than I happen to like it!:

When Letty had scarce pass'd her third glad year,
And her young, artless words began to flow,
One day we gave the child a colour'd sphere
Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,
By tint and outline, all its sea and land.
She patted all the world; old empires peep'd
Between her baby fingers; her soft hand
Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd,
And laugh'd and prattled in her world-wide bliss!
But when we turn'd her sweet unlearned eye
On our own isle, she rais'd a joyous cry,
"Oh! yes, I see it! Letty's home is there!"
And, while she hid all England with a kiss,
Bright over Europe fell her golden hair!

The Glorious Twelfth

2009-08-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

For some strange reason they call the start of the grouse shooting season (today) 'the glorious twelfth.' What can they possibly find glorious about murdering living creatures for sport? The mind of a person who takes pleasure in causing the death of an innocent creature must be very dark indeed. I believe that all life is an emanation of the One Life; how then can someone kill a life without killing part of his own life?

On the theme of birds, here Sri Chinmoy's beautiful poem, "Soul Bird"
O world-ignorance,
Although
You have shackled my feet,
I am free.

Although
You have chained my hands,
I am free.

Although
You have enslaved my body,
I am free.

I am free because I am not of the body.
I am free because I am not the body,
I am free because I am the soul-bird
That flies in Infinity- Sky.
I am the soul-child that dreams
On the Lap of the immortal King Supreme.

Air Brushed

2009-08-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

Every year, during the 'silly season' - which is really less silly than most of the rest of the year - while politicians happily go on holiday and newsmen can only follow real stories instead of what the politicians want us to believe, we return to the question of whether skinny models cause anorexia in young girls, and how we are swayed by media photos and air-brushed adverts into thinking we're all too plain, too short, too rounded, too old, too much ourselves to be among the beautiful people.

But really we all know it doesn't matter. We think it matters but we know it doesn't really. More significant, and never mentioned, than the superficial appearance is the idea that everyone else's life is more fascinating, more brilliant, more fabulous than our own. Other people's lives, portrayed in films and fairy tales, are filled with adventure and excitement, with glamour or tragedy. In films they feel what we feel but have the background in which to express those depths of emotion. When they're joyful, they don't just leap for joy as we do, they have orchestras playing the right music; they have perfect Nature behind them; they move in slow-motion and they capture for a few seconds moments that live with us for a life time...air-brushed out. When they're sad, their noses don't run, they don't snuffle off somewhere or have a headache from crying....they weep buckets, beautifully (the runny nose air-brushed out!) and their grief is somehow superior to ours. The lives of others are tragic and joyful and beautiful and magical....and we live ours.

But the stuff of dreams, the stuff of symphonies and ballets and operas and great art, is only a presentation of what we all feel, too. Our joys, our tragedies, our daily overcoming of difficulties is as dramatic as the most poignant Shakespearean drama. That's why I believe that great music, powerful words, art and magnificent cinematography honours all of us. We know when we feel deeply that the depths of our feelings can only be expressed in magnificent themes.

it is an insult to humanity to have so many so-called reality TV shows of people snuffling about nothing, or showing people who feel deeply about something sobbing and the camera holds the pose for too long. In order to express ourselves in all our grandeur, we need to acknowledge that our own emotions are enormous and enormously powerful, and we need great art to help us express the depths of it. When we hear the beauty of Callas singing, or bathe in the wonder of Delaroche's paintings, or throw ourselves into Tennyson, Eliot, Brooke or Shakespeare, we're not air-brushed, we're real, but the outcome expressed in the works of art is the air-brushed version; the refinement of the depths of how magnificent we all are.

The War To End Wars

2009-08-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

August 4th 1914 was a Bank Holiday in England - unlike 2009 it was a very warm summer and people had crowded to the beaches to enjoy the sunshine when the news came through that Britain had entered the war. You would think such news would lead to a sombre feeling but, after the initial shock, it seems a kind of euphoria erupted. After decades of sabre-rattling and propaganda, there was finally the chance for some action! All kinds of young men who lived humdrum lives could march off to see the world and return as heroes. Their cause was noble - the war to end wars - and they would all be home by Christmas.
Those who rushed to enlist were hastily supplied with uniforms and guns. Mothers, wives, sisters, fathers, younger siblings were so proud to see them march through the streets. Whole workforces enlisted. Little towns across the country saw their young men march off in step and they hailed their courage, as though it was all a great game.
Then, gradually, the telegrams trickled in until hardly a family in Europe had not suffered a bereavement. How quickly that cheering turned to mourning, and that great dream of seeing the world turned to being knee-deep in mud in the trenches...and the war went on and on and on.
Almost a hundred years since the outbreak of the war to end wars, we still see planes bringing home the coffins, draped in the Union Jack, and people standing silently in the streets as yet another and another and another young man has his life cut short in the name of a righteous cause. There has even been, recently, such a call to support what the soldiers are doing, that there have been more military parades through the streets. The courage of those young men in not in question, nor is the grief of their families. What is questionable is the way that the same politicians, safe in their council chambers, continue to send out messages of another 'war to end wars'. How long will it be before we understand that no war will end wars...wars only end lives.

The wonderful Eric Bogle song, "The Green Fields of France" is so moving and beautiful. Having rested by the gravestone of a soldier, Willie McBride, in a French cemetery, and wondering about his life, the songwriter concludes:
And I can't help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Love & Fear

2009-07-31T04:21:00.000-07:00

A story is told of a man who meets a sage on a hillside overlooking a town. Below them, the man sees a dark figure approaching the gates of the town, and the sage says, "That is Plague. He is going to carry off twenty people."
Some time later, the man hears a report that over five hundred people have died so he returns to the sage and says,
"Five hundred people died yet you said Plague would only kill twenty."
"He did," replied the sage. "Fear killed the rest."

Fear is surely one of the most malignant emotions. Tyrants rule by fear, and governments control by creating fear and promising to protect the people from whatever threat they themselves have created. Wars are caused and promoted through fear, and it is through fear that genocides and other such atrocities are allowed to happen. It is fear that leads to vicious competition between people; and fear that leads people to denigrate others. Many fears are concealed beneath masks of self-righteousness: "I fear that if I listen to you, my own faith will be shaken - therefore your religion is to be condemned" or, "I fear that if I accept how you live, my own certainties will not be so secure - therefore I condemn you lifestyle."

The opposite of fear is love. "Perfect love casteth out fear..." Fearless people do not interfere in the lives of others because there is no perceived threat from others. Fearless people have no need to condemn, to make wrong or to attack. Therefore it stands to reason that any system which condemns individuals or groups; any faith which proclaims itself to be the only faith; any individual who feels a need to criticise others (and I am not speaking of cases where it is necessary to stand up for freedom or to protect the vulnerable) is acting out of fear. Fear can only be disarmed by trust and love.

Silly Little Man

2009-07-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

It is interesting that a tree standing still and doing nothing other than being a tree, can have roots so deep that it can cause a tower to collapse or a house to fall.
It's interesting that even in the most soul-less cities, concreted over or covered in paving stones, tiny shoots creep out between the flags and moss grows on damp walls.
It's interesting that in no time at all, deserted and derelict buildings are soon crawling with life, with greenery and shrubs that no one remembers planting.
There are still fathoms of oceans that no one has ever seen, and mountain ranges on sea beds, that no one has ever climbed. Creatures live there that are not recorded or logged in any book, and something as small as a tiny bacterium can wipe out whole populations.
And little Man has the arrogance to believe that his coming and going and getting on with his life can disrupt the whole cycle of Nature, bring about climate change or global warming...Silly little man.

Damascus Road

2009-07-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have one Damascus Road experience where everything suddenly was clear in a blinding flash of light? Life changed in an instant, and Enlightenment dawning in the blink of a blinded eye!

In my experience, it doesn't happen like that. The most inspiring ones, are those for whom the journey to awareness has been quite a trek. Gathering wisdom here and there, developing their own understanding and, more importantly, stripping away the layer upon layer of misguided beliefs until they reach a place where they are truly themselves, fresh from their Divine Essence, and can simply be.

Equally interesting is that the phrase, "Damascus Road experience" is based on someone - Paul - whose life apparently changed in a flash and whose ardent conversion led him to re-write the Gospel of Jesus and make it 'according to Paul'. Jesus Himself had been thirty years on earth (pretty old in those days!) before His 'ministry' began, and even during that ministry He seemed to develop His message, to the point of asking His followers, "Who do people say that I am?"

Those who change in a flash tend to be fire-brands and rather oppressive in their certainty of what is right or wrong, what is so or not so. Though there are surely some people for whom life-changing moments happen in a flash, I have little faith in instant conversions. Most truly edifying 'instant conversions' are, in reality, the result of years of learning, wondering, questioning and seeking. They don't blaze like fireworks making an impression, but rather simmer and create a steady flame growing ever lighter and, when they reach their potential, they have no zealous desire to convert the rest of the world to their thinking because they appreciate that everyone else is equally capable of making the same journey at their own pace.

Damascus Road experiences would make life so much easier for all of us but, for the most part, it's a steady pace up a steep hill, and we might as well enjoy the lovely scenery...And something lovely to hear en route is Charles Trenet's La Mer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHYj1-3QrrY

Nobility and Human Insanity

2009-07-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

Alone in a field near the Sphinx Gate at Temple Newsam, a black bull sits in all his magnificent glory. He is a huge, noble creature who contentedly looks at the passers-by who look at him through the railings, and he seems to communicate a stately wisdom of such serenity. Sometimes he lies down, oblivious of who is looking at him, or simply sits, flicking the occasional fly from his back. Looking at such splendour - the strength of sinew and bone, the certain look in his eyes and the serenity of his view of the world - one feels incredibly blessed to be in the presence of such, to quote Whitman again, 'self-contained' power. Further along, the supercilious goats sit with their smiling faces and beautiful hair, knowing they are such perfectly formed creatures, while a little kid skips about in infant radiance, and lambs and sheep come to the fence to greet their two-footed visitors. All the while the bull, like the goats, sits in his own glory and truly, one stands in awe before such a majestic creature.

Then...on the TV news comes the story of the man tragically killed by the bull in Pamplona, followed by footage of the bull run. What kind of madness possesses apparently civilized people to pit their strength against that of innocent but far mightier than we are, creatures? What kind of insanity is it to goad and humiliate such noble animals, to poke them with sticks, create such chaos around them, to unbalance and to confuse them until their only response is self-defence? There are horrendous images of bulls running into the sea elsewhere, and of some insane people thinking there is something to be gained from taking on a creature that has no desire to fight but is many times more powerful than a man. There are images of drugged bulls with swords in their beautiful backs and matadors claiming some kind of glory from fighting with an intoxicated animal, and bringing home his ears and tail as trophies. There are images, too, of goats and donkeys being pushed out of church towers in some so-called religious ceremony....And, much as my heart goes out to the family of the man who was killed by the bull, what can you expect? Stick your fingers into a fire and you get burned - there's no courage in it, no macho points to be earned, just sheer stupidity.

For heaven's sake, grow up and let us learn to become as stately as the noble animals!! Leave the bulls and goats and all the other creatures alone!!

And, on a similar line, there is another message in the news today about the penalties of goading innocent creatures. Taunted for long enough, any creature will snap and the consequences are always horrendous.

(If you can bear to open the following link, please be warned it is very distressing:

http://www.faace.co.uk/bfiestas.htm

John Henry Newman

2009-07-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

One of the most beautiful prayers I ever read in my youth was John Henry Newman's:

Lord Jesus, help me spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your Spirit and Life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me and be so in me that everyone I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my heart. Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus! Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be the light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine. It will be You shining on others through me.
Let me thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching-not by my words but the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears for You.
The beauty of that message is so profound and, though the understanding of it changes over time, it is the same message that emanates from every faith or spirituality - the message of knowing we are all more than our outward appearance; more than flesh and bone, and that the love that flows through us is the reality of who we are, and in that love we are all One.

A man who could write with such beautiful understanding; a man who walked his spiritual path sincerely (and took the major step of conversion to a different faith - a step which is always a major step for any person, regardless of the our views of the direction they choose to take), is surely a man worthy of great respect.

Isn't it, therefore, a sacrilege to deny that man one of his last requests? He requested that he be buried with his dear friend Ambrose St. John and that request was honoured until some ignoble minds decided that such a move might give rise to suspicions about his relationship with his friend. What kinds of suspicions are these? To the pure everything is pure. To those who read of the man's life and spiritual journey, everything is beautiful - whether or not we would take the same course. His relationships are clearly built from love and his sexuality is not our business. Love is what is important to this man. How he chose to express that love is irrelevant.

From what dark minds does impurity emanate? The dark minds that claim a soul (or a corpse) and readjust it, manipulate it to fit their view of what is or isn't alright? This, coming from the same institution that has turned a blind eye to all kinds of ugliness (paedophiles, abusers of children, the degradation of women, the missionary zeal that trampled over the sacredness of ancient cultures) is one more nail in the coffin of such a claustrophobic and controlling mind-set.

I don't suppose John Newman has any desire to be canonized. After all, canonization means quite simply giving someone the stamp of approval so other people can imitate their virtues. Having studied saints for more than 30 years and loving so many of them, I have to say that a large number of them are totally unworthy of imitation - their zeal for their beliefs is merely pandering to their ego and, without a doubt, if Jesus were incarnated today, His anger at the way in which 'His Father's house' has been turned into a den of thieves and whited-sepulchres!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1050418/Buried-secrets-Cardinal-Newman-set-Britains-newest-saint-First-exhumed-grave-shares-man--greatest-love-life.html

All The Birds of....

2009-06-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

Ah! At last, after some years of endless rain, we have summer and on a hot June day, Edward Thomas's beautiful "Adelstrop" came to mind. It seemed this morning and this evening that 'all the birds of" Yorkshire sang and every flower that ever grew in England flourished today! The swans and ducks were so happily floating through the golden light over the lake at Temple Newsam! How beautiful is the sunshine and the summer!

Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontendly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Glastonbury and "Bread & Fishes"

2009-06-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

As people have done for centuries for different reasons, crowds are gathered at Glastonbury this weekend. I hope they have a brilliant time and that, for once, the rain stays away....though there seems to be something cathartic about wallowing in mud!

The Leeds Festival used to take place at Temple Newsam but some people complained about the bother it caused and it was moved. Personally, though I never attended the festival (and live close enough to be disrupted in a minor way by the crowds and the noise) I loved seeing the young people making there way there. I didn't mind queuing up for a long time behind mud-soaked people in shorts and Wellington boots (strange attire) in the supermarket as they filled their trolleys with cans. It had a summer feel about it and - in spite of what was reported in the Press - all the people I saw coming or going to the Festival, were so friendly and free. It had the feel of Medieval pilgrimages, of 60s flower people, of youth and life about it. Yes, the park was often a mess the next day. Yes, some people had caused trouble, but out of the thousands who were there, it can only have been a minority. It was just lovely seeing people gathering to enjoy themselves.

The other day, walking through the beauty of summer sunshine to the 'Little Temple' at Temple Newsam, I met a family: one of the most beautiful little children I have ever seen was with her parents. We spoke for only a few moments and they said it was their anniversary and asked me to take a photo. I did, we exchanged pleasantries and I walked on....but walked on feeling happier for that brief encounter. It so reminded me, on such a lovely day, of that wonderful song: "Bread and Fishes", which recalls a meeting with the Mystical Family on their way to Glastonbury. I don't know those people's names. They don't know mine. "Our names they mean nothing, they change throughout time...." but I am so glad I met them the other day. In other versions of this song, the words are different, "my name it is Joseph, this is Mary my wife, and this is our young son who brightens our life..." It doesn't really matter, I think, how we interpret it. It's about pilgrims and travellers and what it means to be alive.

Here is a really beautiful version of "Bread & Fishes" (which goes here by a different name: "Wind the Willows") by Blackmore's Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDxGZ7EYrvk&feature=related

A Little Learning Is a Dangerous Thing...Suddenly Everyone Can Be a Guru!

2009-06-21T14:13:00.000-07:00

As a teenager I briefly attended a yoga class. I had read that yoga was a beautiful and ancient art but my experience was that it was anything but beautiful and the only ancient thing about that particular class was the elderly woman who ran it who, in the middle of demonstrating a movement (I forget the name of it but it consisted on kneeling down on all fours and raising one leg like a dog relieving himself at a lamp post!) regaled everyone with long stories of her son's divorce, her neighbour's hysterectomy and how she had healed herself through yoga of all kinds of illnesses that I had never heard of. I gave up on yoga within a couple of weeks.

Some years later I signed up for a Tai Chi class. I should have seen the warning signals when the introduction involved paying the full amount for something like 10 lessons before anything was taught or shown. It took a long time for everyone to sign in and pay all this money, but eventually the couple who were running the class said, "Now we will show you what you will be able to achieve after 10 weeks..." We watched in eager anticipation of something amazing but the woman simply moved her arms and legs in one simple movement that we could all already do. I stayed for the two hour class, listened to a whole load of hogwash, and, having wasted the money, never returned.

Now, of course, I know better: Tai Chi and Yoga are amazing spiritual disciplines and arts coming from ancient traditions of wisdom and truth but they are much misunderstood and abused.

Since I only recently managed to gain access to YouTube, thanks to a new computer, it has opened up a whole new world but also an old world in a new form. There are a zillion 'guided meditation' videos. It seems like everyone is suddenly an expert of the 'law of attraction' on 'meditation' on angels and spiritual truths. Yes, indeed, the truth of each person is to be respected but the number of people 'guiding' others in their own brand of meditation is staggering. Some are highly amusing: the high pitched voice with a jarring accent that says in the tone of a concentration camp commandant, "Now listen only to my voice and relax. Relax. Relax..."; or the numerous soporific voices that drone on and on about breathing deeply...relax, relax, relax...Or there are a few that become quite impassioned about meeting your imaginary lover, or entering mystical caves, or meeting your spirit guide on a beach, or feeling the ocean, seeing angels....Suddenly onto the bandwagon jumps everyone with a little learning and whole load of nothing to say. And in the middle of all of this there are some really true voices: most of them seem to come from India and are people who are clearly have something to say, so they say very little and what they do say is not the anaesthesia or escapism of so much mush. Crikey! After listening to some of the nonsense spouted today, it was utterly refreshing to have a phone call from a dear friend who brought that stuff down to earth with a most earthy statement that, "The cat threw up in the toaster!" I wonder if the cat had been suffering from a surfeit of that saccharine nonsense that some people call meditation.

It seems in every walk of life, 'a little learning is a dangerous thing...' Dangerous only because it is simply an escape. Chakras, energy flow, meditation, recognizing our reality and true spirituality are vital but, no matter how much I have read about them, I am so aware that I know so little about them. People who thoroughly understand these things, shine out on YouTube and in their writings - they are people who have studied deeply, meditated deeply, have been through all kinds of depths of understanding and they have huge lessons to teach us. Yes, the information is accessible now to us all and that is brilliant, but please, any Tom, Dick or Harry who has read one book or spent a few minutes in silence or saying a Mantra, don't suddenly think you have a duty to guide the rest of us. It rather reminds me of some of the TV adverts for shampoo or moisturizer or certain foods where they say something like, "The only product to contain Z-P300!" or "Rich in Glycopsychoglutinousmaximus" and they think people are so stupid that we all suddenly realize that all that has been lacking in our lives is some fictitious chemical!

Blackbirds

2009-06-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

Tonight, while a friend and I were sitting outdoors and talking till long after the sun went down, a male blackbird hopped across the lawn. He was such a fine fellow! So strong and noble looking with his beautiful yellow beak, and, thinking that the song of blackbirds is one of the most beautiful sounds in all of Nature, some lines from Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" came to mind:

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !
No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown :
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

The birdsong this evening was exquisite! Beautiful, isn't it, how governments come and go, hours of hot air, lies and truths are poured from the mouths of politicians and statesmen and preachers while the birds go on singing the same song, the flowers go on exuding the same scents, the same moon waxes and wanes, the same sun rises and sets throughout the ages, and these things of timeless beauty illustrate the foolishness of listening to any voices that speak of control or of our dependence on some other human power to show us what life means. Comparing the song of the blackbird to the nonsensical lies spouted in government buildings across the world is quite amusing. Where does the real Truth lie and who is really wise? I'd rather be 'away with the fairies' - or birds - any day, than be enchained by the voice that dominates and speaks of doom. Perhaps 'cloud cuckoo land' is more sensible and eternal than all the meaningless routine of living according to the race-mind notion that speaks of regimentation, of being ruled and crushed by financial constraints...The birds aren't controlled by markets and we are, to paraphrase Jesus and all the great spiritual teachers, worth as much as 'hundreds of sparrows.'

Photograph

2009-06-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

This, from my youth, was my own experience of what C. Day Lewis far more brilliantly expressed. It's simply called "Photograph":

Camera clicking children into history.
He sits beside me, laughing on the lawn.
Bathing in his shadow,
Till I thought my heart would burst,
Beating in my breast -
"Smile please!"
So close!
Click, click,
Then gone.

Fingering the photograph this morning,
I kissed the little boy with static smile,
Still unaware the child
Who sits beside him,
Spent half her lifetime crying for his love.
I'm smiling now.
Time heals.
Tick, tock,
You're gone.

C. Day Lewis

2009-06-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

Cecil Day Lewis - what a brilliant poet! - captures so perfectly the sense of the moment and the transience of 'special' moments. His poetry has such a transparent feel about it: that sense of trying to capture something that cannot be captured - like the moment he realized the child was no longer dependent upon him in: "Walk Away" or that sense of tryng to recapture and hold something from childhood that cannot be captured. His poems rather remind me of a quotation (from whom, I know not!): "The bird of Paradise alights only on the hand thatdoes not grasp." So many of Lewis' poems seem to be about ephemeral, almost mystical, characters making their exits 'stage left' as though we come upon him at a moment in a play, and have missed the previous scenes and only see his response to them. At the same time, he writes so perfectly of feelings that are so familiar to all of us. I trust it doesn't infringe copyright to include two of my favourite poems here: Firstly: "The Album" (and the photo of the empty bench at Temple Newsam seems somehow to fit this!)

I see you, a child
In a garden sheltered for buds and playtime,
Listening as if beguiled
By a fancy beyond your years and the flowering maytime.
The print is faded: soon there will be
No trace of that pose enthralling,
Nor visible echo of my voice distantly calling
‘Wait! Wait for me!’

Then I turn the page
To a girl who stands like a questioning iris
By the waterside, at an age
That asks every mirror to tell what the heart’s desire is.
The answer she finds in that oracle stream
Only time could affirm or disprove,
Yet I wish I was there to venture a warning, ‘Love
Is not what you dream.’

Next, you appear
As if garlands of wild felicity crowned you –
Courted, caressed, you wear
Like immortelles the lovers and friends around you.
‘They will not last you, rain or shine,
They are but straws and shadows,’
I cry: ‘Give not to those charming desperadoes
What was made to be mine.’

One picture is missing –
The last. It would show me a tree stripped bare
By intemperate gales, her amazing
Noonday of blossom spoilt which promised so fair.
Yet scanning those scenes at your heyday taken,
I tremble, as one who must view
In the crystal a doom he could never deflect- yes, I too
Am fruitlessly shaken.

I close the book;
But the past slides out its leaves to haunt me
And it seems, wherever I look,
Phantoms of irreclaimable happiness taunt me.
Then I see her, petalled in new-blown hours,
Beside me – ‘All you love most there
Has blossomed again,’ she murmurs, ‘all that you missed there
Has grown to be yours.’

And "Walking Away"

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.
I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

Flaming June

2009-06-01T15:25:00.001-07:00

This is the finest time of year in England! For all our damp climate and rainy times and unpredictable weather, when the sky is changing through various shades of blue between nine and ten-thirty at night, there is a stirring about the whole of Nature coming alive again. The herbs and plants flousish, the trees are suddenly laden with foliage and the whole world seems new again! The moment the sun comes out in England, everyone dashes outdoors. Office workers eat their lunch on the bits of grass or benches in the city; hospital patients are wheeled outside; we rush towards it and cling to it, like every summer might not come again for many years...and oh! How the 'mad dogs and English men' adore 'the midday sun!' James Russell Lowell's lovely poem captures it perfectly, alongside pre-Raphaelite Leighton's painting of 'Flaming June'/

And what so rare a day is June!
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

The Road Through The Woods

2009-05-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

There are many paths through the woods at Temple Newsam (where I took this photo yesterday) and though they remain open, I am often reminded of this poem by Rudyard Kipling when I walk there.
Sometimes I fancy you can still hear the 'swish of a skirt in the dew' and the steady canter of horses of bygone ages. Perhaps the footsteps of centuries remain absorbed in the earth and the beautiful trees. It's a lovely poem:

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because the see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods.