Don’t feel obliged to read this. I just felt obliged to write it. It’s about some time I spent with my father. My mother is not mentioned much, not because I didn’t love her and learn from her but this is about my father! Living With The Squire: I was in a pub a while ago and got chatting to some lovely folk about Swindon, a town in Wiltshire in the UK, and a place near there where I a shared house for, oh I guess around 3 years, with my father, referred to henceforth as the Squire. Mama and the Squire had lived there together but I had never lived there full time until I got my first teaching job. (Home was boarding school and then Uni, first time around, in God’s Own Country.) Mama was by that time living in their house in Herefordshire and the Squire used to go down to see her most weekends and during the hols. Just as I was to become, he was a headmaster (and my mother was a headmistress, just as the Squire’s mother had been) so we had, let’s be honest, the luxury of great, hugely rewarding jobs and terrific holidays. The chat in the pub took me back, so when I got home, having heard that many houses were being built in the area, I looked on Google Earth and found the one we had shared. As it happens, no houses had been built anywhere near it and it still has gorgeous, wide views, though it remains a rather ugly place, on the outside, anyway! Looking at it was a bit of an error though, perhaps, because it chucked me back around 45 years. Suddenly I was a young man and the Squire, who I loved most dearly, was alive and well, his wonderful smile and large presence in my life again, and I realised just how much I missed him and owed him. I looked at the windows and almost thought I could see his face, great mop of jet-black hair all over the place, and some absurd part of me was trying to will it to happen! He was tall – 6’2”+ in old measures, as is my eldest son, meaning I am the midget at only 6’0” - and it was generally agreed, good-looking and a striking presence – yep, I missed out on that as well! He was also, next to my eldest sister, also long dead, in many ways my best friend. He was a bit eccentric, I suppose; respectable headmaster, suited and booted, sticking his spectacles together with insulating tape, carrying his papers around in a small, brown leather battered suitcase and usually driving a Campervan, so if he got pissed off at work he’d go up onto Hungerford Common to calm down, Hungerford being where his school was, and have a couple of cups of coffee or make himself some lunch. For all his ‘funny ways’, his staff loved him and I think probably his pupils did too. I taught in Newbury and if, as was known to happen because I kept putting increasingly larger engines in my cars, I had a break down, he’d drop me at Hungerford station and I’d get the train and then he’d pick me up there at the end of the day … if he remembered. If not then I’d walk up to his school and if he wasn’t there, then generally I’d find him at the home of one of his senior staff who had followed him from job to job round England, as did, to be fair, some of his other staff, but Vee also used to come to the house above Menton, in the Col de Castillon and was always part of his life, mine and, it appears, most amicably, my Mama’s. When the Squire quit and went to Herefordshire, Vee quit and got a place down there too. A strange situation, but she was lovely and I was greatly saddened when she died just a week after he did. Not suicide, no suspicious circumstances – a broken heart perhaps? We never discussed this, but it was always nice if I found him down at Vee’s because it was most convivial, she was lovely and she was a truly wonderful cook. I used to sometimes go via Hungerford on my way back from work, when my car was working anyway, joy of joys, play squash in a local club where I was a member and then go round the corner to Vees, and generally that’s where I’d find the Squire. He, too, had culinary skills … well, one. He could make cheesy scrambled eggs to die for. I guess he learned this from Vee and I never acquired the magic of it as he banned me from the kitchen when he was performing! I did catch him in the kitchen once though, when he suddenly lowered a fork in a most shifty manner and pushed a can aside. I asked him what he was doing and reached for the tin. It was dog food! I saw then that there was a bit of it on a piece of partly eaten toast. He said he was curious as to what it was like. Fair enough. Actually, I tried it and we agreed we wouldn’t want to live on it, but it wasn’t bad, a bit like a cheap pâté. Going back to lady companions, we had a sort of unspoken rule that we wouldn’t pry, ask or speak about it if anybody else was present, including Mama. He extended this to most kindly, if I had the pleasure of somebody’s company, adopting a ‘rule’ that I would close both my bedroom and my study door, it being conveniently beside my bedroom, and if he was up first he would put a coffee in a mug the way I liked it outside the door of my study, where we agreed I would have done the gentlemanly thing and slept on my studio couch, and another on a little tray with milk and sugar beside it outside my bedroom door where my guest would have slept chastely alone, and then go down stairs noisily, oft times whistling because on a thick pile carpet even the Squire had trouble making a good racket. We used to have a lady who came in a few times a week and kept the place tidy, did a bit of cooking, the washing and ironing and so forth, but don’t imagine she had to work hard, for we were quite a tidy pair. One thing we didn’t do, however, was polish the silver, and nor did she. This proved a blessing when the place was burgled. All sorts of stuff was taken and the place was somewhat trashed, but the mucky silver remained. Amateurs who had been told what to look out for, we later learned. The first break through by the police was a kettle which had a lash-up, wrong coloured lead. They found that in the house of a local lag and that lead to another couple, a fence the police didn’t know of and a crooked antiques dealer who had sent some of the stuff to the US and some to Australia. Crooks were arrested in both countries and all was retrieved – a triumph of international policing - put on ships, returned to the UK and put in a police bonded warehouse. From there … it was stolen and we got back just the kettle! I imagine the insurance company were not amused, but by then the folks had mentally said goodbye to it all, their ‘precious’ stuff (i.e. of sentimental value to them) being in Herefordshire, so they enjoyed the pay-out instead … the Squire, as usual, finding and spreading the silver lining on the cloud. Que sera sera. I remember it was I who found the house had been broken into. It was the summer and I’d been hitching round Europe for a few weeks. I phoned the Squire, he being in Herefordshire with Mama. He came home, looked around and then talked with the police who had, to give them their due, come immediately I phoned them, dusted the place and generally jumped into action, and then came back promptly to meet the owner. After the conversation with them he went to phone the insurance company, having a crime number or whatever. Mama was the paperwork demon so we couldn’t find the policy but remembered the name and, we thought, the address. One did in those days! So, he turned to the phonebook, something else one did in those days. Suddenly my heart sank. It was in two parts. I had proudly shown some delightfully impressionable lass, a little before I had gone away, how I could rip one in half. (It’s all to do with the action of the wrists.) He picked up the two parts from the windowsill by the phone and slowly turned and looked at me, questioningly. I admitted my crime, fumbled an explanation and he raised a somewhat disappointed and pitying eyebrow and started to search. As luck would have it, the tear went straight through the insurance company’s details and it was impossible to make out the number. Trying to dig myself from some of the excrement I suggested he phone directory enquiries. He tried that but we had the address wrong, so it was no go. He very gently put the phone down and quietly told me that I knew what I had to do, and then turned and went to play the organ. I, thank God, had a chance to make some amends! I went and drove round Swindon, it seemed endlessly, until I saw the place. I went in, parking illegally on the pavement – I would risk almost anything not to experience the Squire’s quiet disappointment again – went and got their number and returned home, triumphant. He had, by this time, stopped playing the organ, had phoned Mama who had told him where to find the paperwork, got the number and phoned the insurance company and arranged that they come out. I think he sent me off so that he could find his real inner calm. Smart man; I’m glad he did! He wasn’t a drinking man, not like me, but he would come out for a jar with me from time to time, or we’d stop off if he’d picked me up at the station. We enjoyed shooting the breeze. We talked cars, education, philosophy, music, art, literature, engineering, whimsy, psychology, life, the universe and everything. I learned so very much from him, contextualised things I already knew also, but somehow it was always a conversation of equals. He listened to my views and didn’t shoot me down but none-the-less managed to educate me. He had a great joy of knowledge and learning; Mama did, too, though hers was more strictly academic, his more broad. It was one of his greatest gifts to me. He’d also play the organ or piano on a, ‘You hum it, I’ll play it’ basis. Mama played with much more technique but where his flowed, Mama made most things sound like, ‘Deutschland über alles’ and one could vaguely imagine hearing an accompaniment of approaching jackboots! Anyway, I digress. The evening of the phone book incident he, atypically, suggested we go down the road to the local pub, ‘The Black Horse’ I think it was, and so we strolled there and he told me to put my money back in my pocket and it would be his pleasure. I found it, as a turn of phrase, a little odd. Anyway, we sat down and he said that he wanted me to know that he was sorry he’d been a bit distant, that he loved me dearly and someday, when we had access to an old one, he’d be really interested to see my trick of tearing a phone book in half. He then asked me to talk to him about my travels and we got into a general conversation on the joys of travel, this place and that, and when we pottered on back home the atmosphere was most convivial and the whole business was behind us. I never had the balls, somehow, to ever tear a phone book in half again, and nor was I asked to! That life with him was rich. I didn’t realise then that it was so, in a serious sense, or how rich and important it was in my life until long afterwards, though I did enjoy it at the time whilst also taking it for granted. I left there when I got married first time around and moved to a beautiful old house in the country, backing up to some woods in the then relative wilds of Berkshire. We were fortunate enough to have a large, proper sized croquet lawn. We would invite friends over and play at weekends. It was very mellow, and became even more enjoyable when the Squire came over and showed me how to play dirty without cheating – much. (Which reminds me of how, when we played Monopoly, he used to turn his hotels into brothels and charge more, much to Mama’s annoyance! Vee, however, thought it very funny. Chalk and cheese?) I can remember the first time he came for dinner at that house. I arranged to meet him at a particular junction off the motorway. I stood on the bridge, looking down and, on time, he appeared, didn’t indicate, didn’t come off and drove under the bridge and off into the distance. About 15 minutes later he returned. Apologetic, he said his mind had been elsewhere. When I asked where he said he was pondering on the implications for space travel in Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, in that the space-time around Earth would be not only warped but also twisted by the planet's rotation and this would be the case with every planet and star in the universe. What, he wondered, would be the end result if astronauts used planetary warp and twist to help them shift their craft faster? Would it possibly be a form of time travel? I said ‘Oh’ and later that evening after he’d gone started to look into it further. There was no internet then but I had my books. In those days I periodically bought different sets of encyclopaedias to try to keep up to date in a rapidly changing world. I went to bed way too late and to the library after work the next day! I wonder what he makes of the LHC, quantum mechanics, superpositioning, entanglement and tunnelling? Anyway, that was life with the Squire, and so very much more. I was really very lucky, from birth, to be able to be ‘infected’ by a lovely, deeply curious brain, from the point of view of learning, and also, learning how to live – a moral code. My school gave me a great deal, for which I am eternally grateful, but it was he who introduced me to Schopenhauer's hedgehogs and societal moral contracts. It was he who got me to look differently at Zeno’s paradoxes and tie them into work by Aristotle, Socrates, Plato et al about the true nature of reality, leading on to Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche et al. (Reality and consciousness remain something I’m obsessively studying even now, trying to move from dear old Descartes, cogito ergo sum to a kind of cosmic cellular gestalt immersed in a quantum soup!) It was he who taught me, too, about the reality of tolerance, not something submissive, but measured and thought through, and most certainly not always to be given. He made me think about making the real, sometimes complicated and hard effort of empathy, and doing it, and also the absolute duty to speak out and resist that which is wrong, not in a knee-jerk manner, not righteously, not just pissing into the wind, but really, if one thought there was any chance of making a difference. Don’t get me wrong; he was not perfect, and time has allowed me some perspective, with further time allowing me perspective on that perspective, but he still comes out as a terrific human being. Later, because I left Magee and got divorced he didn’t speak to me for a year, and I decided after I had the offer of the slaying of the fatted calf that I’d not speak to him for a year in return. How stupid was that … two years wasted! Eventually peace prevailed, our deep love was to the fore again, and years later when he was now living full time in Herefordshire and was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus, with an outlook which wasn’t good, as a result of the way I viewed him I quit my job, sold my house and moved near my parent’s home with my, to be, second wife. Sometime after I moved there, when it looked pretty certain he was going to pop his clogs, he asked me to drive him down to the bridge in a local village where he and I had often stopped, as adults, and played ‘Pooh Sticks’. It transpired this was going to be his equivalent to a moment of death bed confession and penitence! He showed me how he’d always stood in one place, in the middle between two arches, and I’d been obliged to stand slightly to one or other side of him. This meant that when he dropped his stick it floated straight through whereas mine was always caught in a little eddy caused by the arches and therefore came through more slowly. What a swine! And how thick and trusting was I! Anyway, it looked like he was getting better after his op but then it came back. Eventually we moved in with the Squire and Mama and, oddly enough, the Squire and I still managed some rare old times. We’d sit up all night watching videos of ‘Noggin The Nog’, sipping whiskey and smoking. He got to be a regular boozer like me, and took up the fags again after being off them for about twenty years. One night, around 3 in the morning, he took a large swig of whiskey, a big drag on his cigarette and said to me, “My boy, it’s almost worth it.” Style! In the end though it all got somewhat unpleasant for him, and eventually when the drugs weren’t doing much good and he suddenly heaved half his insides out I gave him a huge shot of morphine, called for Mama and he died peacefully. We could almost see his soul leave his body. It was a shitty end though, in truth, but he managed to do it with style until the very last bit. Donne’s line, ‘No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe’, sticks in my head. Everybody is an island, actually, at the very end. People can be with you but they can’t do it for you. I’ve seen it far too often,and that always true. He was right though in the lines, ‘any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde’. The Squire's death diminished me, in some ways, as have those of some other, special folk. I’m glad this little trip down memory lane has helped, after all these years, to knock that back a bit. For all his funny ways, I love him, I learned from him, I miss him, and I look forward to seeing him again when it’s my turn. Respect! (P.S. I hope I too have time to take up the fags again for a while before I croak. Lucky, Pooh Stick cheating, wonderful giant!) ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… No Man Is An Iland No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. John Donne (Taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from ‘Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions’.)

The Unsavoury USA of Trump 

Generally nobody reads my long posts but I’ve still got to write it, because it occurs to me that we, or at least I, owe Trump a huge debt of gratitude, and it is only polite that I express my thanks. He has helped open my eyes to the USA in a way I had not, heretofore. My mother was born and raised in the States and I have always been a supporter, celebrated the 4th July, given a nod to Thanksgiving and generally turned a bit of a blind eye to the blemishes. I still attend, in the virtual world, The First Unitarian Church of Dallas for my structured spiritual inspiration and drink often at the virtual wells of the Guggenheim, Smithsonian and so forth. As I’ve grown older I have, of course, become increasingly concerned by the idiocy of the gun culture and the power of the rich; however then we had the wonderful, fairly reassuring terms of President Obama’s presidency, but then there’s now and … Judas, where to begin? To start with, I have had to face up to the fact that there are sufficient people in the US (62,979,879, for God’s sake – and I don’t care if Mrs Clinton got more votes) who are so far from being what I would consider sane human beings that they put this lying, self-obsessed, narcissistic oaf into the White House. Now, I know I shouldn’t rush to judgement but, come on, 62 million. That’s a frighteningly large number of people to suddenly find out scare the crap out of me in a country I’ve always been fond of! Anyway, I do understand in some ways their desperate disenchantment and grasping at straws, but not their continued support of the lying toad. Then there are the people who call themselves ‘Christians’ and even leaders of faith communities who voted for him. For the record 81% of white evangelicals did. 81%! (Also, it’s interesting that a majority of all other faiths – Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs etc. voted for Mrs Clinton.) And these ‘Christians’ still believe he’s okay. Now, far be it for me to be a moral arbiter for Christians but even logic alone shows this grasping, sexist, racist bully is too far beyond the pale, relative to the tenets of their faith … but no, apparently not. And then we have the Republican party. So, if I was American, which thank God I’m not, I wouldn’t vote GOP, but these people have shown themselves to be such ghastly, self-serving, grovelling, unprincipled serpents that I’m astonished they don’t drown in their own bile, venom and festering puke! And of course there are the tens of millions of weird people who vote for them … over and over again. Is this a genetic problem, or what? Don’t get me wrong, I have delightful US friends and family, and there are many millions of fine folk in the US; I just hadn’t understood until turdy Trump what ghastly secrets they were having to hold close to their patriotic and loyal bosoms; that it is a dangerous and violent lunatic asylum they live in, poor souls. I did not realise how many tens of millions of bigoted, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, gun-toting, white-supremacist, xenophobes they have all around them. They are much braver than I. If I had to live in – forgive my plagiarism – the shithole, I’d do so in a fortress, stay indoors, armed to the teeth, and apply for refugee status in El Salvador, Haiti or one of the various African nations he mentioned, strong advertising to live there, indeed. So, yes indeedy, thanks Trump, you ghastly animated turd, thanks for the wake-up call to view the real America. There is little I can usefully do with my miserable awakening to a reality that so appals, other than pray he doesn’t press the button – his ‘bigger button’. Judas what a sad tosser! - but I can have one personal mission to take from this. I shall start petitioning the French government to demand the return of the Statue of Liberty. It is a tragic irony beyond any decency, and a cruel and unreasonable punishment, to leave her standing where she is. Bring her home; bring her back here to France, back to the land of the free.

Birthday:

I look around me and my old world,
The one I grew up in,
And was formed by,
Is becoming jaded,
Or, indeed, has disappeared.

My heroes are old, some now pathetic,
Or they are dead, and often times
Their memorial is people trying to sully their name,
Or belittle their achievements.
Sir Winston Churchill is one such.
He was, and remains, a giant.

The world is now, I believe, a better place, however,
Than the one in which I flowered,
(Or turned into a weed!)
But I regret the loss of many things,
Becoming nostalgic for much which I took for granted,
Which yes, includes a whole different way of life
Which would be unrecognisable to most.

I can, too, look back on certain decisions,
And needs must make an effort not to get caught
In some useless trap of regrets, maybes and if onlys.
I am obliged, also, to wonder at what I have achieved.
It is not always that comfortable.
I have achieved a fair amount of good
In my efforts to be of service, I am told,
But I could have done so very much more.

I also feel a touch of guilt concerning
Just how much I loved my work.
I do not know that it is right that I was so lucky.
Mondays were my favourite days,
And I was able to make a difference.
But my free time was also rich and joyous.
It doesn’t see quite fair.

I am guilty, too, for loving too much.
I have adored and been loved by
Some extraordinary women.
I did not deserve their love,
For always, until now,
When my good fortune knows no bounds,
I eventually left them,
And caused so much pain
It appals me to think about it.

And now, in fifty days,
I can no longer run and hide from the fact
That I am an old man.
I have always either not been interested,
Or positively enjoyed birthdays.
This was especially so when I was sixty five.
I have burned the candle at both ends and in the middle
When I have not been working,
With doctors and Ali having said whilst doing that too,
And reaching sixty five, an age which through the
History of humanity has been denied to most,
Was truly a wonderful privilege which I didn’t deserve.

And when I consider people I have loved
Who didn’t make it, I feel wretchedly guilty as well,
Especially for poor, dear and lovely Barbara Magee.

Sixty six had a sort of symmetry which
Seemed somehow rather jolly,
But in fifty days I am sixty seven, if I’m lucky,
And the age, my creaking body,
Pain which has become an old friend
And the mirror tell me that which I
Cannot run from. I am old.

Understand me, though I worry about the method
Of my death – preferably in my sleep after doing
Serious damage to a bottle or three of
Remy Martin VSOP,
With family and friends,
And not like poor Magee –
I am extraordinarily curious to know
More about the next phase after this,
Where I’m confident some of my questions
Will be answered, though not all.
For all answers I will need many
More cycles of life; maybe eternally,
And I hope I can make them useful,
And rich in learning, mine and others,
And find some way to be of service.

No, I’m worried about timing.
You see, I’m not ready.
There is so much more I want and need to say.
As Keats said, considering mortality,
(And no, in no other way am I comparing myself
To the incomparable genius Keats)
‘When I have fears that I may cease to be;
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain’ etc.

And my body is a bit of a wreck
Which is partly my fault,
So time is becoming a bit less likely to be in
Anything other than short supply.
Thus I set my alarm and rise at 7.00 each morning,
Do my best to carpe the hell out of the diem,
And feel most melancholy if I do not write
A reasonable amount each day – I am becoming
Somewhat driven since retirement has allowed
Me time to explore more fully the world and
The inside of my quantum computing mind,
With it's entangled and tunnelling particles,
And to study things other than education.

I also know I need to make an effort to be published,
Or else I am writing for the very few
Or, no doubt, often times for myself.
(As, ironically, could be the case with this!)
Do you know how many people have had
Their first serious works published when they
Were my age? No, nor do I, quite possibly because
They are few and far between, or possibly non-existent.
And in my case there’s lots of it!

Going back though, to the nostalgia which also
Confirms that I am an old man,
I miss good manners. I don’t mind swearing – indeed it is
Often a colourful addition to speech - but I mind the lack
Of please and thankyou and good morning, and smiles,
And don’t like not feeling right about holding doors
For ladies or offering my seat. I miss little bows,
And people ignoring the telephone whilst they are
In the middle of talking to somebody else.

What’s with that, by the way? You’re chatting
With somebody, or are maybe earnestly deep in
Conversation and nearly always, even if they don’t know
Who it is, when the phone rings, people answer it,
Which says what, exactly? It says they’d rather talk
To somebody they don’t even know rather than continue
To talk to you; and when I’m talking with somebody
And the phone rings and I ignore it, they ask me if
I’m not going to answer it? Does this mean they’d
Rather I talked with somebody – anybody! –
Else and not then be talking with them?

And no, I don’t want to wear something
Pink to a funeral. I want to wear a suit and black tie
Because I won’t be feeling ‘pink’, I’ll be feeling crap,
And the old rituals are there for a purpose,
To deal with some of the difficulties in life
Through the use of different kinds of ceremony.

While I’m on a roll, what’s happened to some sort
Of loyalty to the meaning of words for communication?
Example: ‘We’re getting engaged next August’?
When two people agree that they intend to marry,
Doesn’t that mean they’re actually engaged then, at that time,
You know, engaged to marry? You can then only get engaged
Next August if you’ve been unengaged
And then spontaneously
Decide next August you’re going to marry ...
Or you get engaged to somebody else.

Leaving all that aside, in my now admitted old age,
I am delighted by the reduction of violence, worldwide.
Over the period of the battle of the Somme it was almost
Deemed acceptable that 60,000 Tommies died. Now a
Whole town turns out to show their respect when even
A single body bag returns from a theatre of war.

Many people feel that because one person can inflict
Huge violence now, say by flying an aeroplane
Into a building as opposed to somebody a few
Centuries ago who could stab a few people,
That the world is more violent. It isn’t.
If you don’t believe me, read Steven Pinker,
‘The Better Angels Of Our Nature’ or similar.

People older than me – those few left! – and the previous
Generation used to say there was no vandalism and
Mugging during the war. They’re wrong, and anyway, the
The ultimate vandalism was 60 million dead,
Gas chambers, run, incidentally, by a Christian nation,
And the fact that it was okay to bomb cities
Killing civilians. Isn’t that the ultimate terrorism?

If folk do it now they’re dragged in front of the
Court of Human Rights or wherever.
Crimes against Humanity.
Isn’t that what all modern warfare is?

Anyway, all that aside as well, one of the many positives
As I have developed a longer perspective on life
Is just how delightful it is that the younger generation,
Which most certainly include my 3 sons and their partners,
Are infinitely kinder, more thoughtful and caring,
Innovative and generally enjoyable to be with,
Civilised people who are so much less boring, conventional, 
Racist, bigoted, homophobic, self-righteously judgemental,
And so much more aware of their responsibilities to their planet
And their fellow creatures than mine, and allow one to
Have real optimism for humanity in the future just so long
As the present generation of (mainly) old men don’t
Destroy the whole kit and caboodle!

So, there you have it, for now, at least, and
I’m wasting time on this self-indulgence
When I have several poems, sagas, the third book
In a trilogy and another two in my head and
One that needs a rewrite to finish, so I’ll stop the tirade.

Don’t wish my Happy Birthday this time please.
Accepting I’m an old man doesn’t benefit
By people stirring my confusion.

Oh, and by the way, no I don’t wish I was younger again.
There’s the irony; the very idea appals me.

When you’re young, somehow you think it’s
Rather clever of you, and you pity the elderly.
The clever thing is actually to get old,
And not to pity, or indeed envy, the young,
But to wish them their joy of life,
Just as you have yours,
And be humble enough to count your blessings;
They’re not guaranteed, for instance,
Sixty six and nearly a year so far,
Whereas you have been, or similar.

I enjoy being me, the age I am,
I just don’t like some of the baggage that goes with it.
Everything comes with a price, eh.
It’s really, really, really worth it though!
Peace, love and happiness to you all.

The Summer Of 69

From the window he saw below the patchwork of little fields, sewn together by blind faery folk who felt in their souls the random beauty they created.  On the tannoy came the usual pre-landing announcements which should have, in all honesty included, “We’re about to land at Aldergrove airport.  Please put your watch back 50 Years.”  It was the middle of August, 1969 and he was back in God’s Own Country to meet an old and distressed friend.  We’ll call him Tom.

Tom shambled over, a smile of delight on his weary, lined-before-time, bearded face, gave him a great bear hug as they greeted, and as dusk lay a soft veil across the land they drove in his old A35 van – a splendid pink and black it was, hand painted by him and his dear Papa, using a roller and brush, and his pride and joy which he was delighted to see Tom hadn’t crashed in his absence – and piled into the nearest hostelry, there to imbibe a pint or three of Guinness and to open discussions on Tom’s woes.  That done, they returned to the luxury of his limo – sure, isn’t everything relative? -  and headed along the Cave Hill road.  Before they started the descent, what they saw obliged him to pull over, and they stared down.

In the darkness the city lights gave it a kindly, enchanted, almost magical look where the Wee Folk would not be out of place.   The image was disturbed though, with a scar down between, as near as they could reckon, the Shankill and Springfield Road, a line of flame wild-dancing, smudged and blurred by the smoke, accompanied by the occasional flat crack of rifle fire.  This was not like the usual bonfires of 11^th July night, for he’d seen those from this very spot and heard the lambegs thundering their disturbed passion.  No, there had been plenty of rioting and burning out this summer, here in Belfast, in Derry, Newry, Crossmaglen, Dungannon, Coalisland, Dungiven and the lovely town of his birth, Armagh.  The Province seemed to be alight and one was obliged to wonder if that fire could ever be extinguished.

The burning scar, they were to later learn, was Bombay Street.  All of it.  To their shame, the army and the RUC had done little to nothing to stop it as Protestants had petrol bombed and fired all the houses and the wee cobblers shop, ironically owned by a Protestant.  A sniper, too, had been taking pot shots, killing one of the folk trying to help with the evacuation.  From the 12^th to 17^th over just 6 days, 8 people were to die, 750 were injured, 150 Homes were burnt out and nearly 2000 people evacuated.  The ‘Troubles’ had started and weren’t to end for another 30 years.

They descended to the city and drove carefully, having to turn back at barricades, avoiding carefully those areas where they knew ‘their kind’ would not be welcome.  Here they would see a man in a Balaclava pointing a Sten, there another with an old .22, a faithful .303 or a shotgun.  They saw, too, the RUC and soldiers, all seemingly very young, twitchy and more like as not to shoot first if there was anything dodgy or suspicious about their movements.   That tension was also to become part of daily life, and 3500 folk would die and countless others be maimed.

It’s said you can take a man out of Ulster but you can’t take Ulster out of the man.  It’s over 40 years since he lived there full time and he can tell you that it’s true.  Sure, he still won’t sit with his back to a door, and he assiduously, drunk or sober, keeps an eye on strangers or ‘suspicious’ (read ‘any’!) packages, but the reason you can’t take Ulster out of the man is not because of that, however.  It’s because of the great kindness.  The hearts of Ulster folk, Catholic or Protestant, Nationalist or Unionist, are the world’s biggest and most loving.

You have to understand, nearly everyone wanted peace, wanted to be able to get on with folk around them, but because of the actions of very few, on both ‘sides’, as the Troubles deepened it became dangerous and possibly fatal to hang about with  folk who were not on ‘your side’ or go into their areas.  And though the Troubles are now hopefully over, these big hearted people still send their kids to Protestant or Catholic schools – 51% to Catholic Schools and at least 38% to Protestant ones.  Great progress!  That’s bound to help Ulster society become integrated! 

Like they say, a child is not born racist; they aren’t born bigots, either, but that which you do not know in a divided society you grow up treating with suspicion.  In the Six Counties it is especially so because of those echoes of more dangerous times, the peace walls – though some have come down there are a still 108 of them to this day, varying in length from a few a few hundred yards to 3 miles - and grand graffiti on many a gable end, and continued avoidance of certain places because of ‘them’.  In truth, to this day, he’s pretty certain he’d never walk down the Falls if he had a choice – and he knows that’s more than a little sad, as the Falls is full of folk with hearts that are grand, warm and welcoming.  His natural desire to avoid violence would also preclude him attending a Linfield Glentoran ‘derby’.

Tragically, too, that legacy of sectarian suspicion is reinforced by the fact that over 80% of people still live in areas which can be defined loosely as Protestant or Catholic.  Interestingly those who sit in parliament and we laughingly call a Government don’t know that any of the above is dangerous, it appears, or they believe somehow it does not lead to prejudice.  They do nothing to discourage ghettos and wildly encourage faith schools in England, living as they appear to in an alternate universe, on the principle that it’s bound to help people integrate into society if they attend Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Anglican etc. education establishments and don’t get to know any of their peers in other groups, don’t get to learn how much they are alike.  Of course, they won’t get a chance to know that though.   Why?  Because the Government see how well educating children separately in Ulster has worked over the generations.  Not.  Morons!  When will this absurdity end!

So, is there anything one can do about this?  Yes.  One can rant, like I’m doing, and one can oppose the setting up of any more faith schools in the UK and ensure we don’t send our children to one, or do our best to ensure our grandchildren don’t.  I say this with amongst my headships a Church Of England school and an essentially Muslim school which I eventually amalgamated with another to form a Muslim faith school.  Am I a hypocrite?  Maybe.  Somebody was going to do it and I reckoned I would do it ‘better’ than some folk.  In those jobs I did my best to engage all the kids and as many parents as possible with people of other faiths, and ensured the curriculum really focussed on the issues of sameness across people of all faiths and none, and the common humanity which united us.

You in the UK who read this, indeed wherever you are, don’t believe that as politicians try to divide and rule us, setting one group off against another, that Ulster’s situation with the Troubles couldn’t happen where you are.  It could.   It might be different groups, different bigotries, different ignorant hatreds but the results will be the same … and if you educate your children in a ‘faith’ school, they may end up being part of the problem.   Think about it.

Oh, and by the way, if you agree with me you could always share this.  You never know, somebody might read it and have a change of heart.  One must hope.

http://egertonchesney.blogspot.fr/

Farewell To A Giant:

A giant has stepped from the stage,

Passing behind the curtain,

Out of sight,

Standing first in the wings,

Seeing all that is happening still,

Within the play of life,

But no longer part of it,

His active role complete.

This giant was a Yorkshire giant,

(And it’s hard to get more gianty than that!)

A big, robust and gentle giant,

With a big, robust and loving heart,

A bear’s big, robust hug,

And a deep robust laugh,

Which started way down low inside him,

And burst out into the room,

Like a shower of joy,

And all around,

The main characters,

And the bit players,

Would bask in the happiness drops.

He watches over them now,

Free at last of pain,

As Andrea, his beloved wife,

And his extraordinary sons,

Continue the play,

Treading the boards tentatively

Without the lead actor,

Uncertain now of the plot,

Improvising, supporting each other,

As strong main characters can,

And leading the remaining cast,

Making it up as they go along.

Slowly, as time passes,

The giant will move,

First down to the front row,

Withdrawing next to the balcony,

And then to the upper balconies,

Aptly named ‘the Gods’.

He will watch over them,

This most caring, loving giant,

Perhaps like their guardian angel,

Finding it hard to let go,

But wisely learning,

As the remaining cast

Start to make more certain steps,

That their sorrow, confusion

And anger will diminish,

Just as it should,

For he crafted well,

He and his most dear, true love,

And they will pour themselves

Into each other and the next generation,

And the next,

Each of which will carry,

Part of that which made this giant

Such a unique and glorious soul.

And he will recognise

From his new place of perspective,

That in the great scheme of things,

They will prevail;

And, watching over them still,

Know that all will be well,

And that the time will come,

As it comes to all,

When their circle of life is done,

They too will be gathered in,

And as he has been,

Embraced by the Loving Mystery,

Which follows the final act.

They too will leave the stage,

And he will be standing there, waiting,

A gentle smile upon his face,

And he will fold his giant’s arms

Around them again,

And remind them of his giant’s love,

In that wondrous place where it is everlasting.

And others, whether their parts were small,

Or absolutely central,

They will know that

They were privileged,

Privileged to know him,

A unique and extraordinary,

Larger than life,

Matchless spirit,

And his passing on

Leaves their lives –

Our lives -

Impoverished but,

Let us not forget,

Richer still by far,

Because for a little while,

Or a lot,

We were lucky;

We knew a giant,

Such a wonderful,

Well loved,

Yorkshire, gianty giant.

Adieu Mark; à bientôt.

Considering Moral Imperatives:

He looked up from the report,

His eyes dancing round his waiting colleagues. 

He held the casting vote so he had to be seen

To have carefully thought things through. 

There was the added complication

Of intense media interest –

Clever of whomsoever it was who contacted them! -  

And it was increasingly controversial. 

He had to ensure it didn’t become toxic

And damage the company’s good name.

“Well, I’ve carefully read the minority report

And know that the views expressed therein

Are carefully thought out,

And those who wrote it are

Sincere and well-meaning.”

He paused to smile sweetly at the little cabal.

“You have obviously studied these creatures

Over an extended period of time

And feel that they are sentient,

Have purpose,

And higher feelings.

I will deal first with the suggestion of sentience. 

One of the most emphasised points in support

Is their use of primitive tools. 

Many species use tools of different sorts;

I grant that these tools are more advanced than most. 

It’s true, too, that they seem to have cohesion and

They cooperate to form a complex society. 

Many creatures are capable of cooperation, however,

Building sophisticated structures and

Clearly delineating different roles.

Consider here the bees and ants.

Birds and, of course,

A broad range of primates,

Can also cooperate and use tools.

It has often, nonetheless, been suggested in this case

That though individually these creatures have little intelligence, 

Collectively, as a form of gestalt,

They have some sort of over-mind

Which gives their society a real purpose. 

There is no evidence to support this view.   

No purpose has been discerned other than survival.”

He paused slightly, coughed and sipped his drink

For dramatic effect, inwardly gently mocking himself.

He had always had a flair for the theatrical!

“I feel, therefore,

That there is insufficient evidence to support the view

That because they are busy they are sentient,

And have a sense of purpose. 

Further, I feel that my opinion is confirmed

By their total lack of higher feelings,

As evidenced by the way they treat and

Kill each other en masse,

Vast, untargeted slaughters,

Killing old, young,

Combatant and non-combatant,

With equal lack of discrimination.

Finally, I site their apparently total disregard

For damage to their local

And wider environment,

Fouling, as they do, their own nests,

Damage which will eventually, if unchecked,

Lead to the destruction of many of their larger habitats,

And possibly lead to species self-extinction. 

It is my decision, therefore,

That though we unfortunately

May hasten terminal damage,

There are other similar species elsewhere,

And our energy needs fairly outweigh

Any moral imperative to conserve these creatures …”

He found himself unable to avoid adding,

With slightly acid tongue,

As he again glanced up

At the troublesome,

‘Do-good’, clique …

“Cuddly and cute though some may see them!”

In more measured tones he then concluded.

“This project presents the cleanest,

Most efficient way,

To access much needed hydrogen and helium

With a minimum need for clean-up.  

I vote therefore in favour.”

…………………………………………………………………..

Shielded against the intense heat,

AIs maneuvered the great, brilliant-white tankers,

Carefully moving close, but not too close,

Giving the appearance of a sharp-cut diamond girdle,

And extended their lances deep into

The G V yellow-dwarf star,

At around 4.6 billion years old,

Ripe to the point of perfection,

And as they slowly drew its lifeblood,

Its orbiting planets imperceptibly,

But inexorably grew darker. 

It would not be long before vegetation began to fail,

And the much discussed creatures on planet 3

Started to fight for diminishing resources. 

......................................................................................................

Arrogant and care-less humanity had failed the tests,

A triple fail, for intelligence, purpose and empathy,

And was set to die for the greater good,

To enable a clean energy project to proceed

In a galaxy too few had tried to comprehend.

…………………………………………………………………...

And God sighed, gathering into his loving arms

The billions of homeless souls,

Once again.

Created he then a new universe

And, in deep love and hope,

Once more spake he thus

Into the darkness:

“Fiat lux!”

Hero’s Return – a sonnet:

We count the body-bags as they come home,
And grieving widows face new poverty,
After the corpse is shuffled to his tomb,
And she becomes a liability.
The army give her a support package,
But they leave home, school, their locality,
And round broken hearts tight wind a bandage,
A soft shield against life’s cold cruelty.
It’s much better now than it used to be.
They received a telegram at the door,
If lucky the vicar would come for tea,
With kind friends who had seen it all before.
A hero’s widow’s lot is a hard one,
Not much that’s good comes from using a gun.