The comfort of old friends

I visited and old friend today, the walrus at the Horniman cabinet of curiosities, donated to the people of London by that curious tea maker Frederick Horniman. The Walrus, we’ll get more personal later, was hunted in Hudson Bay Canada in 1886 and was exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in South Kensington and highly commended by Queen Victoria and after the exhibition was purchased by our philanthropic tea maker to join his idiosyncratic collection. Not the greatest example of taxidermy you have ever seen but he stands resplendent on his polystyrene iceberg looking longingly into the distance possibly for his harem, we wonder if they missed him?

Why is he my old friend? Well you have got to admit he is cute, you just cannot help smiling and he has a bit part in my second novel ‘Reflections of the old past, nicknamed Ben he plays both a comic and an emotive part in the denouement of my mystery thriller set in southeast London. It’s a poor life if there is no silver lining behind any storm.

The backdrop for ‘Reflections of the old past’ is London a city where history and the 21st century meet. There are bigger cities in the world but none that can match the sheer attention to detail that is present in its winding streets or stolid edifices. It has stood the test of time it has been beaten and bowed but it has always risen triumphant against its invaders. The British can be a perverse people they can make the most obscene joke about the most sacred thing they can lampoon the establishment but give them a wrong that needs righting and they will pour out their blood in its defence.
For over 2000 years London has attracted the bankers and the beggars – sleek yachts and the tramp steamers of all the nations of the world. From the top of the Radden Tower in Canary Wharf, a centre for the city’s wealth, you can get a panoramic view of the whole of Southeast London, possibly one of the most down at heel areas of the city. 
The suburb of Catford in Southeast London and Rotterdam in the Netherlands are more than just miles apart – but the accidental death of a researcher at the British Museum would link them together for a few short days. The event that would briefly rupture the tenure of the city’s existence started like a ripple way out in the ocean and would gather pace becoming the perfect storm that would come crashing down upon Catford in a welter of danger, fear and pain.
Caught up in this maelstrom was Annie Brown, a widow at 37 years old, still coming to terms with her grief. She led a peaceful, sheltered life and liked it, but her friends, and she had good friends, coaxed and challenged her to accept her loss and move on.
Sitting on Brighton beach basking in the April sunshine, listening to the swirl of the waves on the shingle, reading a best seller she had bought from a local charity shop Annie felt at peace and in control. Unwittingly she explores a harmless riddle that would swiftly turn into a nightmarish game of cat and mouse leading to the death of friends and shattering her tranquillity for ever, challenging her assumptions, values and beliefs, exposing her prejudices, and guilt.
Annie’s friends are not alone in stirring the untroubled waters of her existence. Chief inspector Andy Baxter and Sergeant Dove of the Specialist Crime Directorate, New Scotland Yard are the thin blue line whose task it is to sift through the conspiracy theory, that is Annie’s take on the increasingly deadly situation, and the gathering evidence of something much darker and more sinister.
Left homeless, with little remaining of her past, faced with an uncertain present and a blank future, Annie becomes key in resolving the enigma that she must unravel to save her life. 

‘Reflections of the old past’ is available on Kindle and as a paper back and hopefully throws an exiting new light on one of the armpits of London.

Emerging snail like from writer’s block

Eat your heart out Sir David and the London Zoo. Sitting enjoying my morning coffee, under a Simpson’s sky, I’m watching varieties of butterflies dancing round my garden, the humble bumble and his brothers, sisters and cousins dropping in to sample the sweetness of my Hollyhocks, myriad tiny brown-green frogs, smaller then my little finger nail, teeming from my pond looking for pastures new, grasshoppers, ladybirds and so many more tiny creeping things, oblivious of me just going about their business, and dragonflies with iridescent wings making their annual visit to my pond whose larva will emerge like the most frightful monster. Gold finches visiting my Niger seeds, a gift from a dear colleague, the bigamous wren and great tits and blue tits and sparrows, whose fledglings have flown the nest, competing with the squirrels and parakeets at the feeders building up their strength before possibly having a second brood. The coo of collard doves and woodpigeons, the discordant call of the Magpie and the alarm chink of the blackbird as we walk down the path towards their nest, and there is a grunt like crake, which continued and we couldn’t recognize, all suggestions welcome. But most spectacular of all was three separate ant nests, with a set timetable, disgorging winged ants like an army from the cracks in the path and taking flight to mate and die; nature in the raw. We had to retreat into the kitchen the air was so full, like locusts, it brought reminiscences of being bitten by Bull Ants on the Great Australian Bite, really not a pun!

We have no manicured lawn, we’ve sewn a variety of grasses with feathered heads which grow tall and wave in the breeze, producing seed that will feed the birds during winter and spring. I’ve not pulled all the weeds, who doesn’t love Dandelion clocks, or trimmed all the shrubs, which right now are decked in cobwebs which glisten like diamonds after the rain, it is just a patch of earth.

This is not in the wilds of Dartmoor, Kent or the Lake District this is London, whilst we humans fixing our eyes only on the big disastrous picture and have virtually ground to a halt creation continues its yearly pageant. And to quote the Welsh poet William Henry Davis;

 

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

I hope this nosegay of flowers will lift your spirits.

 

Ref:1 Leisure by W. H Davis

On Kindle but also in PaperBack

 

Will this be our finest hour?

Back in 2018 I was musing in my blog, ‘Constants in Life’, about the events that punctuate my year but now, in these troubled times, I am prompted to remember the significant events in my life, good and bad.

Three days before my birthday my son popped his head round the studio door and said we, my husband Ian and I, ought to come and watch the television. This was not the norm, so we followed him down the hall to look at the television in the kitchen.

Whatever we thought it might be, another political scandal or celebrity exposé, we gazed in silent disbelief as smoke billowed from the Twin Towers into a clear sky and, almost it seemed in slow motion, a plane entered right and crashed into the second tower. It was surreal like a Hollywood blockbuster but without the noise and dramatic music. There was a babble of voices, but they really didn’t register. We stood mesmerised as history unfolded, until finally the buildings imploded like a pack of cards in a devastating mushroom of smoke and dust. We were left standing, literally for hours, in shocked open-mouthed silence, our minds incapable of grasping the reality.

The next few weeks as the counter security unfolded on our door step, fortress London and the British Bobby carrying a gun, and the enormity of the four planes, the falling man, the grey faces, the death toll and the subsequent man hunt, even more like a B-Movie, that changed the world, this was a vast amphitheatre, where through the media all the nations were the audience.

At the battle of the Somme in 1916, 300.000 soldiers: fathers, brothers, sons, died in a quagmire of mud and blood soaked sod whilst in the vineyards of Italy, Australia’s Barossa Valley or the fields of Kent, butterflies fluttered on the breeze, birds sang and wild flowers grew and people went about their daily tasks almost untouched by that desperate carnage. In that foreign field the world changed that day but unseen and at a slower, stealthily pace.

On 9/11 we were living through history, it’s hard to realise that it is nearly 20 years ago. I never thought I would live through dramatic history. That is surely for days gone by, for my grandparent or my parents? I read about it in books, studied it at school. The Titanic, the Suffragettes, WWI, Spanish flu, the Depression, the Wall Street Crash, the Jarrow marches, WWII and the Iron curtain to mention just a few significant world-shaking events in the 20^th century

As I look back, as a child, of course I had lived through some significant events but I never thought of them as history in the making. My earliest was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, but, that is one of my happy memories that I will cherish all my life, it touched my little world. I vaguely remember the Suez Crisis but in 1956 this was just something the grown ups talked about and was mentioned in the BBC radio news, it didn’t disrupt my netball practice or disturb the conker season, it wasn’t until I was a grown up myself that I knew it was the start of the continuing stranglehold that oil would have upon the world even today.

So many more events, Brigade 2506 Bay of Pigs 1961, the death of Kennedy 1963, but I never thought of them as history just part of the narrative of a world in which I was not involved or important, I didn’t implement or influence any of these things. I couldn’t change anything.

The things that touched and permeated the decades of my life were much smaller, the fine detail and usually about people, I can relate to people. My mother explaining the story of Rose Parkes (1955), courageously refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus, I remember left me in awe. I’d seen pictures of the Ku Klux Klan and in my childish imagination, in the fastness of Yorkshire, thought they would swoop down upon her and drag her away. Images stay in my memory, the photograph of Ruby Bridges (1969), being escorted to school between US Marshals surrounded by a baying mob, I have no difficulty remembering clearly over 50 years later.

Contrast that with schoolgirl Lesley Hornby, better known as Twiggy, my teenage role model, all legs and mascara my abiding memory of the 60’s. In the Vietnam War it isn’t the bombs that I remember but the sight of a naked child burned with napalm and screaming her agony and terror running down Trang Bang Road  (Nick UT The Terror of War -1972) this is my memory of that conflict which had been influencing the world for all of my childhood.

Of the moon landing it isn’t the V8-bomb like rockets sheathed in flame I remember but a footprint in the dust. And in the 70’s the images which punctuated my memory are the ragged makeshift tents and wide-eyed starving children of Eritrea, they even got me protesting in Downing Street.

In 1660 the inhabitants of the Derbyshire village of Eyam chose to totally isolate themselves to stop the black death spreading to neighbouring villages they sacrificed themselves for the greater good much like our Dr’s, nurses and carers and the multitude of others: bus drivers, pharmacists, shop workers and so many more are doing today. Few of the residents of Eyam survived.

On Easter Sunday I sat in my garden marvelling at the London sky devoid of aeroplanes, the road traffic noise was negligible, I watched the bees visiting the borage and the comfrey and the petals falling from the cherry blossom it was idyllic it was unreal. For a brief moment I forgot what was going on around us. We are walking through history even as I write, quite surreal and hard to grasp the reality. In twenty years from now people will look back what will they remember, or read in their history books, what will they say of us? The empty streets of London, Paris and Rome, healthcare workers, despite the shortages, still endeavouring to save the lives of the sick and dying, making sacrifices to save lives and protect the vulnerable; thousands volunteering to help strangers; neighbours letting down food in baskets, or singing opera or clapping to show their appreciation; the elderly uncomplaining putting themselves in 12 weeks isolation. Anonymous heroes. This is a totally international stage we cannot hide. Will they be saying “this was their finest hour?”

 

 

 

Under a kingfisher sky.

Tags

Buttermere, Lale District

 

Photo by NEOSiAM 2020 on Pexels.com

My friend Phil’, bright auburn hair, freckles and green eyes, invited me to go camping in the Lake District, revelling in the sunshine and space. In my early teens this form of activity had never come my way. I’d been fell walking and even climbing with my school but camping no. It tells you a lot about me as a teenager because blithely, unthinking, I said, “yes please that would be good fun.”

Phil’, short for Phillipa, organized everything. We caught a red, single decker Ribble bus that wound its way through ‘hill and vale’, to paraphrase Wordsworth, quite apt don’t you think? The bright red livery contrasting against the surrounding greens eventually arriving at a small camp site in an isolated valley near Buttermere. All, around were steep fells, spotted with sheep and a few red and yellow dots, which denoted the anoraks of climbers, and huge craggy outcrops, blankets of glistening scree and birds circling; it was utterly silent, lonely, dramatic and lovely under a kingfisher sky.

I had read all of Arthur Ransom’s Swallows and Amazons books and if I gave any thought about my coming experience at all I suppose it was in that vein, summer fun, Cumberland sausage and beans cooked over an open fire.

Phil’, was an experienced camper and barely had we registered at the site shop and found our pitch than the tent, ropes, poles, tent pegs and ground sheet, not all in one piece in those days, emerged Tardis like from her ruck sack and were spread out on the ground. She indicated that I should match up the sections of tent poles yellow dots to yellow dots, red dots to red dots. I follow instructions well when things are explained and having no idea how to erect a tent and having never undertaken this task before she didn’t seem dissatisfied with my efforts. We were surrounded by a varied assortment of size, design and style of tents but ours was by far the tiniest red tent on site and it rose triumphant. George and Nancy – Swallows and Amazons again – would have approved.

Tea was sausage rolls and beans cooked on a small primus gas stove, also extracted from her Mary Poppins bag. We also ate a bag of crisps, each with the little blue paper twist of salt, and drank a huge bottle of ginger beer. Sitting on the grass in the early evening sunlight we watched the climbers coming down the fells back to their tents and presumably to their equivalent of sausage rolls and beans. As the sun began to set a cool breeze sprang up, the branches of the trees that encircled the site began to sway and the rustle of the leaves gently broke the silence. Dark clouds were drifting and banking up into a dramatic sky. Inside some of the tents lights came on, which created a rainbow patchwork of light and shade. Phil’ suggested we brush our teeth and get ready for bed. It was eight thirty, which from my perspective was a tad early but I just followed, like a lamb, to the shower block and braving a mist of midges undertook my ablutions in cold water.

Back at our tent in the fading light we traced, on a map, our walk, one of Wainwright’s to Rannerdale Knotts, planned for the next morning. We had no light, not even a torch, and the darkening sky was now ominous with clouds. Phil’ said “it’s going to rain.” Barely had the words left her lips when a trident of lightening sliced the sky coming to earth on Fleetwith Pike. We counted, waiting for the coming thunder, which rent the air followed by a prolonged tumbling, grumbling growl, which sounded across the valley. The brewing storm wasn’t close but a light drizzle now misted down upon us. We retreated into the tent and peered out of the rolled back tent flaps. Some of our fellow campers were rushing about gathering their possessions, rescuing boots left out to dry. We laughed as they yanked towels and socks from makeshift washing lines sending clothes pegs pinging off in all directions. Others, in their anoraks, were braving the gathering darkness and rain and some late arrivals were erecting their tent on the pitch next to ours. They were very organized they even had a toilet tent. They had driven up from Yorkshire, Mum and Dad, a boy and two girls who peeped into our tent and gave us a wave, we waved back.

The light from their tent shone through the thin walls of ours, and Phil and I sat snuggled in our sleeping bags and devoured a bag of jelly babies. More lightening and the thunder and following more quickly, the storm was getting closer and the sound of the rain on the canvas grew heavier; we wouldn’t have to wash our tea dishes. In the rosy glow provided by our neighbours we chatted about going back to school, a boy Phil’ liked, Gidget and James Darren, and all the time the rain getting heavier and heavier.

Phil’ kept reminding me never to touch the walls of the tent “if you do the rain will pour in and we will get soaked.” It was obviously playing on her mind and the more she mentioned it the more I got concerned and pulled my sleeping bag more tightly around me. Midsentence Phil’ fell asleep. I wasn’t sleepy at all and lay there, the ground was hard and lumpy, my sleeping bag was padded but felt tissue thin, I tried to ease my position being extra careful not to touch the tent walls. Our neighbours put their light out, clearly preparing for sleep, and I lay there in the gloom alone with my thoughts, the only sound the rain. The darkness, the unyielding earth and the proximity of nature was unnerving. Eventually I too must have drifted off to sleep but I had a rude awakening when the storm, now directly overhead, displayed its worst, the lightening and thunder filling the night with sound and fury and continued their ghastly duet for some long time. The jagged flashes, almost constant, filling the tent like a demented neon light made more nightmarish by the red canvas.

In the neighbouring tent one of the children let out a piercing shriek of fear and her parents hurried to reassure her and her siblings now also crying in fear or sympathy. Phil slept through it all and as the tempest finally moved away I listened to the sweet blandishments of the parents comforting their children. Their accent was my own and I found the sound of their voices reassuring but eventually it reminded me of my sister and her family recently migrated to Australia, ‘£10 Poms’, Ref. 1. and I realised again how I missed them. In that Lakeland valley Australia was the ends of the earth I might never see them again and I lay in a foetal huddle feeling lonely, sobbing my heart out, trying not to make a sound in case I woke Phil’. The continuing drumming of the rain was a melancholy accompaniment to my sorrow.

I must have slept again but once more I woke but this time it was a call of nature. The ginger beer had circumnavigated its course and exacerbated by the sound of constant running water I was pressed to go to the toilet. The toilet block was barely 20 yards from our tent but it might as well have been a hundred, with Phil’s words ‘don’t touch the tent walls’ ringing in my ears I didn’t know how in the darkness I could exit the tent without doing just that. And it was still raining. There was no more sleep for me, I sat in a growing agony of need desperately hoping the rain would stop. The jet-black night slowly turned to charcoal and then to silver grey and still it rained. Finally, I could bear it no more and in the half-light  I shuffled to the tent flap with what exquisite care did I undo the ribbons that closed the gap and gingerly eased it back and with what stealth did I squeeze myself through that narrow slit. My thoughts fixed only on relieving my need and totally concentrating on not letting the rain in the tent I wasn’t aware that the rain had finally stopped.

Safely, finally extricated, I lifted my gaze to see my way but my physical need was forgotten in an instant as I took in the spectacular panorama of the mist cloaked fells and crags. It was breath-taking and as the first rays of the dawn pierced through the silver clouds, which drifted over the valley, the fabulous chiaroscuro left me in awe. I was the only one who saw this ethereal glorious sight, I felt this extravagant beauty, was all for me.

Ref. 1. The assisted Migration Scheme

I hope you enjoyed my memory, thanks for giving your precious time to read it.

‘A writer is a writer not because she or he writes well and easily, because of their amazing talent, or because everything they do is golden. A writer is a writer because, even when there is no hope, even when nothing we do shows any sign of promise, we keep writing anyway.”

Junot Diaz Professor of writing, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction 2008

If you enjoyed my blog please consider purchasing one of my books:

Novels by Angela H. Moor

‘Reflections of the Old Past’ as an Amazon paper back and a Kindle ebook

‘Red Sky at Dawning, The Time Oak’ as a Kindle ebook

‘Charlotte Deanfield: Of a finer ruth.’  As an Amazon paper back and a Kindle ebook

Hitchcock’s murmuration.

Sitting under my mother’s cherry tree in my garden taking a breather clutching my one coffee a day, I was enjoying the Swifts swoop and soar for insects in a Kingfisher sky. In the middle of London these annual visitors from Africa, four mating pairs and their recently fledged young, join the Wood pigeons, Magpies, Robins, Blackbirds, Tits and the promiscuous Wren along with our resident Sparrows and the random visits of the Greater Spotted Woodpecker. Oh, and also those exotic interlopers that are invading the south of England, the parakeets, migrants not visitors, they scare the small native birds off the feeders and they have a piercing shriek and live in brash mobs, but their vibrant colour and aerial acrobatics cannot fail to stop you in your tracks to stand and stare.

It always amazes me what can trigger a memory or random train of thought good or bad. I haven’t always had a passion for our feathered friends. In 1963 whilst in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, I was asked out on a date by a boy who I met at the youth club. He was older than me but we had a lot in common, dancing and The Beatles. He suggested we go to the cinema, or should I say the ‘pictures’. He asked me what would I like to see? I love films and 1963 was a good year: How the West Was Won, Cleopatra, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Dr No, Tom Jones, The Sword in the Stone and quite a few more. I said anything as long as it wasn’t a horror film, violence and scary have never been my idea of entertainment.

Come the night, a late Autumn Sunday, Mini skirt, white vest with yellow daisies and red shoes. I wasn’t quite a ‘Mod’, I always craved a leather jacket with metal studs. The Beatles had started out wearing black leather before the iconic Pierre Cardin suit and the mop top haircut. My only claim to fame was that they were thrown out of the ‘Dance’ I was attending because they were wearing leather and no tie. You cannot imagine the frisson of excitement that caused.

We met under the Town Hall clock and not giving me time to ask about the film, we hurried off to join the queue snaking along the High Street. It was a chirpy crowd with a feeling of high anticipation. When the queue started to move I caught a glimpse of the poster, Tippi Hedren in a fur coat and head scarf with love birds in a gilded cage.

Hitchcock was the master of suspense and his benign intro gave us our sophisticated heroine and Rod Taylor, whose smile makes him a perfect romantic leading man, verbally sparing, we knew where this was going. What can go wrong in a pet shop? The dark brooding sky as our heroine takes her love birds gift across Bodega Bay should have warned me but I’m an optimist and I was looking forward to the happy ending. I usually can anticipate film plots but from the off, the slow reveal left me wondering; I found it unusual that there was no background music. The first vicious sea gull attack made me realise where this story was going and I sat transfixed clutching my handbag and my white knuckled anxiety watching the horror unveil. The terrifying growing legions of birds, which our protagonists seemed totally unaware of, the vulnerable girl in a small-town community looking for a scapegoat. This was truly horrifying, no candle lit crypt with creepy zombie-like monsters stalking a screaming virgin, or colossal blob or reptile bringing death and destruction. Hitchcock, in the full light of day and in an everyday scenario that we could all relate to, gave us images and events that left nothing to the imagination. One of the few characters that I warmed to, was dead with her eyes gouged from their sockets. Even the end, not a happy ending, left us unsure as the landscape through which our protagonists fled was increasingly occupied by massing, malevolent birds.

What my erstwhile beau had thought about taking me to this film I never knew, maybe he thought I would clutch his arm and throw myself onto his manly chest. Whatever it was he was disappointed. I barely spoke as he walked me home and I declined his invitation for a late night coffee.

I slept badly, jerking awake with images from the film, grim eyed birds, sharp claws, beating wings and empty eye sockets haunted my dreams.

Monday morning dawned and I was up at 5.30am to catch a bus out of town. I usually enjoyed the twenty minutes ride often chatting to my fellow passengers and savouring the peace of the lovely countryside, but this day I felt wretched my thoughts just obsessed on the film.

The bus dropped me off just before the end of the lane I had to walk up. I had set out in the dark but now the morning sun was rising, a silver peach rind on the horizon. I turned into the lane my feet leaden, my mind tired.  Almost at my feet a huge black crow was drinking from a puddle and his companion flew up, oily black pinion feathers beating, at my approach. It gave me a start. And I stopped and watched it fly away. Head down I continued walking, on one side of the lane was a fence and trees and on the other a fence with telephone poles and hanging wires. As I walked I became aware that there was fluttering, squawks and chirps all around and looking upwards I saw the trees, fences and wires were festooned with birds, silhouetted black against the dawn light. Starlings, resident birds and also visitors for the winter. I had never seen anything like it in my short life and I was totally unnerved. As I walked clouds of birds took flight and the sky became dark as they swirled and circled a massive murmuration. This was more than I could stand and I took to my heels like a frightened rabbit my imagination in nightmarish free fall. I’ve never ran so fast in my life, my heart beating wildly and my mouth dry. Of course I arrived safely gasping for breath but it was a good hour before I started to find peace and I spent the whole day worrying that I might have to run the avian gauntlet again but thankfully, the roosting Starlings wouldn’t return until dusk.

As I sat under the cherry tree, a gift from my mother all those years ago, remembering my teenage fright, I had to smile. I can even laugh about it now, how I would enjoy seeing such a Starling murmuration now. I still have a problem with birds today but only in May when we have a running battle to see who can eat the most cherries on my tree. The Birds always win.

I hope you enjoyed my memory, thanks for giving your precious time to read it.

 

 

‘A writer is a writer not because she or he writes well and easily, because of their amazing talent, or because everything they do is golden. A writer is a writer because, even when there is no hope, even when nothing we do shows any sign of promise, we keep writing anyway.”

Junot Diaz Professor of writing, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction 2008

 

If you enjoyed my story please consider purchasing one of my books:

Novels by Angela H. Moor

‘Reflections of the Old Past’ as an Amazon paper back and a Kindle

‘Red Sky at Dawning, The Time Oak’ as a Kindle ebook

‘Charlotte Deanfield: Of a finer ruth.’  As an Amazon paper back and a Kindle ebook

Under the Canary.

Ian and I were students when we got married, it was a ‘budget’ wedding. Students in England in our day were pretty down at heel, holes in our jeans were not a fashion statement. We did the catering ourselves with a little help from our friends, the village hall was £20 for the day and my hat and dress were in a sale, price £15. We got married on the Saturday but we had to be at college on the Monday morning so we didn’t have a Honeymoon even if our budget could have run to that.

6.00am Monday we were up and dressed to travel the 16 miles into the city. Before we married I had my routine, polished my shoes, ironed my jeans, (I can hear your surprised intake of breath, they had to have razor creases), check which books I needed for which class the night before; then porridge, toast and marmalade and coffee for breakfast and pack a sandwich for lunch in the morning, to get ready and get to college on time.

At 7.45am I grabbed my backpack and assuming Ian was right behind me I strode across the backyard to my very old, very rusty, and rickety car, threw my backpack onto the rear seats and climbed behind the wheel, putting the key in the ignition. To my surprise Ian wasn’t there climbing into the passenger seat beside me, I had been sure he was as ready as I was. Puzzled I looked through the open yard gate to the back door to our cottage but there was no sign of Ian.

I waited for him to join me totally unaware as to why he was delaying our departure, (did you catch the ‘tone’ of the end of the last sentence?). I had my schedule. I anticipated his immediate presence. I waited. After a couple of minutes, I began to question in my mind, what is he doing? I waited. I had my schedule. “Come on, come on!” I muttered to myself. My patience was beginning to melt away and irritation was simmering nicely. I had my schedule. I continued waiting, and very soon I was drumming a tattoo with my fingers on the steering wheel, my irritation now burning quite fiercely.

I waited, now tightly grasping the steering wheel my knuckles showing white. I was complaining under my breath and my temper was volcanic, which could, at its height, erupt with molten rage scalding everything in its path. He was keeping me waiting, I’ve got my schedule! I didn’t quite think it but somewhere in the back of my mind was lurking, “How dare he keep me waiting?”

I waited, and finally my temper boiled over, I wanted to sound my horn, get out of the car and drag him out of the house. It’s a wonder the windows didn’t mist up with the steam that was, metaphorically, coming out of my ears.

Happily, common sense kicked in, or perhaps God tapped me on the shoulder, and I was shocked at my thoughts and behaviour. It dawned upon me that we had been married less than 48 hours and I was in a furious temper and might possibly have an argument with my new husband and best friend. I wasn’t single any more. It wasn’t all about me anymore. It had to be all about us. I took a deep breath and tried to damp down my irritation, which was fighting a rear-guard battle with my common sense. The sky was blue, the birds were chirping, the early morning sun made everything crisp and clear and the trees were just beginning to take on some autumn colours. Around my conflagration all was calm. This was a brand-new world for me, it would take some getting used to.

When Ian finally climbed into the passenger seat I made myself speak gently and quietly, no tension, to ask why he had been so long. He said he was checking the windows were closed and locked. I should have been glad that he was so safety conscious but it didn’t assuage my frustration.

I continued to suppress my lingering irritation, started the car and drove to college, possibly a little quieter than usual. We enjoyed the landscape and the freshness of the early morning and of course my temper disappeared like smoke in a wind. We had a great day, studying; we are still great believers in life-long learning, so college was always a joy, the congratulations of friends, even the college principal, a late wedding gift, and lots of laughs over coffee in the canteen with class mates and when we drove home in the evening my irritation was completely forgotten.

When we got home I jumped out of the car, my door keys in my hand, my backpack on my shoulder and headed into the cottage. Ian was making a more leisurely progress. As I opened the door all looked as it should be, I dropped my bag on a chair and was going to put the kettle on but then I noticed, tucked under the base of the canary’s cage, a folded piece of paper. I had my routine, so I knew that it wasn’t there in the morning? I bent to pick it up. Ian was still slowly crossing the yard.

To my surprise the paper was a note, addressed to me. I opened it,

My darling Angela,

thank you for being my wife, at the start of our life together I want you to know I will always love you.

Ian

I was moved, and my eyes filled with tears, this was the lovely surprise that Ian was preparing that had kept me waiting. I remembered my morning anger and was ashamed but also overwhelmed with relief.

Can you imagine what devastation my anger would have caused? It could have all been so different. This wonderful, loving, romantic moment would have been instead one of guilt and regret. It would have changed our whole day, it could have changed our whole relationship. Ian came into the kitchen his eyes full of laughter unaware of my near miss. I never told him about it for many years, it was a salutary lesson, which I never forgot. We still have that note and of course Ian still makes those loving, romantic, often funny surprises fourty six years later

Serendipitous

Yesterday was definitely a day of contrasts. Before nine I was out of the door, clutching parcels heading for the local post office. I walked, getting part of my allegedly needed 10,000 steps a day. It was a blue sky day not even a wisp of clouds, the air was clear and the breeze brought a crisp morning coolness. Not bad for the main South Circular and I was first in the queue.

The post master was from the Indian sub continent and on the wall behind him he had a wonderfully framed picture of Mother Theresa. I needed to fill in a form and the pen on a chain didn’t reach far enough so the man behind me in the queue gave me his pen and actually gave it to me to keep as my transaction took longer than his.

Next was a 185 bus to Lewisham alighting right in the middle of the market which at 9.30am was lightly populated but the stalls were stacked with produce from around the world, bananas and plantains, yam and sweet potatoes, cumquats and mandarins, pomegranates and Pamilo, Lady’s fingers, Scotch Bonnet and Jalapeño Chillies, Capsicum, Cantaloupe and squashes of every size, shade and textures, avocados, fresh fish laid out on mounds of ice, as well as the everyday fruit and vegetables that we grow in the UK. It was awash with colour, vibrant in the sunshine, it could have been virtually any country in the world and mirrored the diverse languages that can be heard in the market. Despite the scarcity of possible customers the stall holders were still calling out, extolling their wares, but it was not raucous and there was a lot of banter with those who stopped to linger. I noticed how clean the street was, no mean feat for an everyday market. No one was rushing, we were all just enjoying the atmosphere, the normal stress and litter of the day would come later. It reminded me of the Covent Garden scene in My Fair Lady yawning and stretching wouldn’t have been out of place.

My errand was quickly executed and the 185 dropped me virtually at my door.

In the afternoon we would be playing hooky but I had a list of tasks to complete before we could escape. And until 12.30pm I was very industrious. We didn’t want to arrive at the palace hungry so we sat in the garden eating avocado and caramelised onion humous, enjoying the sunshine, the bird song, which will always sooth and lift the spirit, and the rustle of the leaves in the cherry and plum trees. We lingered too long and had a rush to shower and get our posh togs on. Anyone who knows me knows this is where I struggle. I am not a party animal, but the instruction accompanying the invite said lounge suit for Ian, frock and hat for me. My dear friend had helped me through the subsequent shopping ordeal, thank you Rachel.

The taxi arrived promptly and we set off and I breathed a sigh of relief everything was going to plan but the Metropolitan police had other ideas and as we crossed Westminster bridge they diverted us off onto the embankment and we snails paced along and watched the minuets tick by. The only comfort I had was that we were not the only one responding to the invitation as we came parallel to a VIP Rolls Royce clearly heading for the same destination but going in the wrong direction. Her hat was much more splendid than mine.

Tumbling out of the cab into the inevitable crowd, equally diverse as Lewisham Market, who were  peering through the wrought iron palace railings trying to get a glimpse of our regal resident, we had to push our way to the front, show our invites and two forms of ID to the gun toting police officers at the gate, who kindly assured us that we were not too late their HRH’s were not due for five minutes, and we headed to the courtyard and up the stairs leading into the palace. As we entered a whole bunch of VIPs converged on us and we were conducted together through the building and out of those French windows, that we have all seen on television, and paused momentarily on the terrace overlooking the lawns. Unnervingly our entrance was watched by approximately 7500 people and I sent up a silent prayer that I wouldn’t stumble going down the stone steps in front of us. Letting the VIPs go off to their specific destination Ian and I endeavoured to blend in with the crowd and just found a small gap in time to hear the National Anthem which heralded the arrival; of Prince Charles, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Princess Anne.

Lanes had been formed through the expectant throng by the beefeaters in their scarlet array, those fortunate few who would meet the HRH’s were positioned strategically waiting expectantly as the rest of us strained our necks for a better view.

We caught more than a glimpse of Prince Charles and Princes Anne but it was Camilla that was to command our attention. Along with her chats with the designated few she would also turn aside to talk to someone in the crowd a very elderly and frail lady she spoke to was so delighted and there was no doubt it made her day probably her year.

The rest of the afternoon was so relaxing, pleasant and delightful, quite idyllic, clear Wedgwood blue sky, sunshine and a gentle breeze and it couldn’t have been more British we were glad to be there. The gathered throng was just as diverse as the crowd in Lewisham Market and equally as colourful, with scarlet cassocked clergymen, saris and kilts, uniforms and national dress. Hats of every shape, colour and size, pagris and head wraps; one young lady had a dress all made from Gentleman’s neck ties, very distinctive. The bands, at different ends of the garden, young and old, male and female musicians, instruments gleaming in the sunshine, played tirelessly. The Boy’s Brigade and Girl’s Brigade, St Johns Ambulance Brigade your local bobbies all waiting to help. It wasn’t Ascot but just as vibrant and attractive, My Fair Lady came to mind again.

The Strepsils in my bag came to the assistance of a lady who had a tickly throat, which brought on a coughing fit. We managed to chat to several couples a bricklayer and his policewoman wife from Liverpool, an IT expert and his wife from Nottingham, but originally from India and the elegant Indian lady in the most fabulous Sari, bangles and earrings, who works in the visitor’s shop at Windsor Castle, who with her husband shared our table for tea; serendipitous meetings I thought after my postmaster in the morning and just as we were leaving a very smart uniformed officer and his wife who out of the blue offered to take a photo of us.

We walked, more of my 10,000 steps, around the perimeter of the garden, and the lake definitely wildlife friendly, in flower were Wisteria, Rhododendrons and their cousins the Azaleas, lovely Foxgloves and swathes of Lily of the Valley. Majestic trees, their spring fresh leaves fluttering in the breeze baffling the noise of the city just over the wall and Canada Geese and Moorhens completely unfazed by all these suits and frocks traipsing around the Queen’s Garden.

We may not have seen Her Majesty but we enjoyed her hospitality, our tea was wonderful, Ian got his favourite egg and cress sandwiches, all cheerfully and patiently served by the palace staff, the queue is still alive and well in Britain, at least at Buckingham Palace, that is. We saw our coughing lady again completely recovered and enjoying her day. On the stroke of six the band played the National Anthem and the HRH’s departed and we all, regretfully, wandered home like Cinderella after the ball.

Heroic little village

Tags

Aston MartinDB, Bouncing Bombs, David Brown, Enigma codes, Hurricane, Lagonda, Lancaster, Merlin engins, Rolls Royce, Spitfire, The 'Few'

As a stroppy teenager, I was guilty of looking down my nose at the place of my birth. Not Yorkshire, ‘God’s own county’, heaven forbid! But if asked where I was born I always said a tiny village on the end of the Pennine Chain. In my defence, Mills or anything ending in Mills, you have to admit doesn’t sound very salubrious. These weren’t Don Quixote’s poetic windmills or rustic wooden watermills with their dripping paddles, slowly rotating in tumbling streams, these were to my mind Blake’s Dark Satanic mills.

This might also be because my very early years were spent over shadowed by the aftermath of WWII. An early memory, surprising for such a small Yorkshire village, was the weekly Air Raid Siren practice the slowly rising snarling, whine swelling to a crescendo then slowly spiralling down, like a descending sycamore seed, to a long drawn out moan. Even basic foods were still rationed I didn’t taste a banana until 1953 celebrating the Coronation. Rationing didn’t finish until 1955 10 years after the armistice.

Recycling isn’t a 21^st century thing, then it was a way of life for most British homes, children collected pickle or jam jars and took them to school as the central collection point. The Rag and Bone man and his rangy nag and cart were a weekly visitor and bore no resemblance to ‘Steptoe and Son’. He also mended kettles and pans, sometimes mended shoes and sharpened knives and scissors on a treadle powered sharpening wheel. “Make do and Mend’ wasn’t just a slogan for the war years.

If you have read some of my earlier Blogs you will know that I enjoyed some idyllic times in my childhood in the stunning countryside that surrounded my home. I remember sunny days trailing in the wake of my sisters through hills and vales of this green and pleasant land and picnicking with my family by crystal streams where we would gather peppery watercress, pick sorrel, mushrooms, blackberries, crab apples, hazelnuts and more, in season. My mother knew how to wring the best out of nature’s bounty and my Dad was still ‘Digging for Victory’ long after peace was declared.

I also remember picking, from the hedgerows, pink blushed rose hips, gathered to make Rosehip Syrup or cordial to nourish children that had been on hard rations for seven years.

There was a small park in the village clothed with rhododendrons which gave their glory all at once then remained glossy, dark pools for the rest of the year. The stream that ran through the park was stained with dye have you ever seen a blue tadpole?.

My mother bewailed her lot in Meltham Mills, my family moved there on VJ Day. Everyday she would send out my sisters to school or to play in their spotless cotton dresses and white socks, all washed by hand, and when they returned they would be grey from the soot and grime which had settled for decades from those aforementioned mills. In Yorkshire, with its sheep dotted hills you would expect woollen mills of course. You’ve seen them on television huge grey oblong blocks with a towering chimney all now demolished, converted into flats or antique barns. I only have to think about them and the smell of raw wool and machine oil, and the long wooden spools, made in the Lake District, which worked well as peashooters are only a whisper away. Even in the 50’s we could wander between the spinning machines with the deafening noise of the click, clack of the power belt mechanism, our neighbours Mum’s worked there and there was little or no Health and Safety to speak of; my mother never knew.

There was a Rag Mill and Coates Silko cotton spinners and, surprisingly there were also silk spinning mills in my village. My eldest sister when she left school on the Friday, on Monday morning at 7.00am, persuaded by her best friend Rosy Hudson, were knocking on the Silk Mill door looking for work, much to my mother’s disapproval. But it wasn’t the wool or the silk that, along with the ‘Few’, Bouncing Bombs and breaking the Enigma codes would play a major part in the war effort. Meltham Mills had a secret, the real reason for the Air Raid Siren.

I was aware as an infant that they made jaunty red tractors in my village I used to love to watch them trundle past our gate. They looked friendly, their big round lights on the front always like smiling eyes. David Brown’s Tractors were manufactured not half a mile from my door. But in all the years I lived there I never saw the huge works or the hundreds of men who poured out of the gates, like a stampede, when the hooter sounded and boarded the waiting buses. There was a precision engineering works there also, well within striking distance, another part of Sir David’s empire and of course Aston Martin DB and the Lagonda are legend but as a toddler these were just words.

The specialist gear works was shrouded in mystery, even after the war, Official Secrets Act don’t you know. It just wasn’t talked about even though my brother got an apprenticeship there and my Dad looked after Sir David’s Polo ponies. It was in my teens that I heard about the specialist gears and components but, even these didn’t impress. But it was this endeavour, after engineering plants in the south of England were bombed virtually out of existence that David Brown stepped up to the plate and supplied the components for the Rolls Royce Merlin engines for the Lancasters’, Hurricanes’ and Spitfires’ that would be a vital shield against an incoming foe determined to pound Britain into submission.

One of the slogans of WWII was “Careless Talk Costs Lives” and in that little village those doughty Yorkshire folks took this to heart the enemy never discovered DB Precision Engineering Specialist Aero Gear Works though from 1940 to 1944 they repeatedly dropped explosives and incendiaries on neighbouring towns and villages. There is little doubt Meltham Mills roll in this conflict was heroic

A happy meeting and a fond goodbye

Tags

Hamlet, In Momorium, River Styx

In the last several weeks we have lost three friends and a close family member all suddenly and well under the average age of life expectancy in the UK.

British people don’t talk about death we have lots of euphemisms; gone to sleep, passed away, passing to the other side, crossed the Styx, shuffling of this mortal coil *¹,  I even used one myself, ‘lost’, in my first sentence. These have a sensitivity about them but there are others, often banal, which we can use where death is not so personal ‘Kicking the bucket’ is one.

There is a finality about the word death it seems almost harsh to speak it out loud particularly to someone who has suffered a bereavement.

Possibly struggling to use the right words we use gentle euphemisms to try to soften the blow, the verbal equivalent of stepping around on eggshells, or the fear of provoking an emotional reaction as if the expression of our pain and sorrow is something to be avoided. So, the bereaved are often forced into private tears.

The finality and the suddenness of the reality that we will not see our friends again, that I will not hear my sisters voice again is shocking and I have and am struggling to accept it.

That we will not share again a Lakeland sunrise or walk bare foot along a wave lapped shore or feel the wind upon our cheeks only heightens our loss.

 

But death is inevitable two of the constants of life, we are born, we die, and it comes easily for most people and yet we don’t plan for it or discuss the possibility as if, by ignoring it, it will never happen.

 

 

People who are still alive know they’ll die.

But those who have died don’t know anything.

They don’t receive any more rewards.

And they are soon forgotten.

Their love, hate and jealousy disappear.

They will never share again in anything that happens on earth. *²

I have reminisced about a shared experience, a moment of understanding and laughter and tried to remember the last time we met our friends and my sister and what we talked about and our attitude to them, did we have time for them? Did we encourage them, affirm them, leave them feeling welcomed and encouraged, a happy meeting and a fond goodbye with the hope of meeting again? Happily, I think we did.

As I said in my last blog ‘Love is’, from the moment we are born we are all searching for love. That unconditional acceptance, attention and affection that brings needed significance, safety and assurance.

It is when we don’t receive that unconditional acceptance and love that we can be, like a bird with only one wing endlessly going around in circles or getting blown of course and failing to soar to reach the potential that is within us.

Of course, most individuals choose the course of their lives and sometimes it is difficult to recognize their value but none the less whatever the circumstances the sanctity of their life should be respected and acknowledged.

In my blog, ‘Don’t leave it too late’, in August 2017 I talked about my appreciation for my Father-in-law, happily still going strong at 97, I didn’t want to leave it too late to express my admiration of this dear man. The current trend of the media and the public to lionise and praise those that die, unexpectedly or inevitably, sometimes turning them in to plaster saints with outpourings of praise and adulation, deserved or not it is not my place to judge, is something, which always prompts me to wonder if they thanked the deceased or told them what they felt whilst they were still alive.

I am determined now that I will endeavour to express my appreciation for everyone I know and meet so that whoever is next to exit this life, them or me, they will know that they were valued, respected and recognised as being fearfully and wonderfully made, for. “Anyone who is living still has hope” *2.

 

*1 Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

*2 Ecclesiastes 9: 4-5

Love is.

Tags

1 Corinthians 13, info@bigredbox.org, Jericho Road Project, kingschurchlondon.org/socialaction

From the moment we were born we are all looking for love, that acceptance, attention and affection that brings needed significance, safety and security. Looking for expressions of love from our parents, our siblings from family and friends, and ultimately, for most people, from a life-long companion.

That first astonishing gasp of breath and tremulous cry of the newborn, for most, will touch an inner wellspring of love and compassion. But how we respond will depend on that straight or tortuous path that we have walked since our birth, our hearts and minds are encouraged or broken by our experience of relationships good or bad. For many this results in a lifetime looking for affirmation.

As I walked to the bus stop one evening with a young friend, younger than me that is, she confided that she had never felt she was loved, she was even unsure if her young daughter loved her.

Her parents had poured out their affirmation upon her brother, their culture values boys over girls. Her marriage had failed, and I suspect her daughter doesn’t feel loved or affirmed and doesn’t know how to express love, because her mother doesn’t know how to affirm and express love.

We learn the foundations of life from our life experiences, the models we see from birth, in our everyday lives and it begins from the moment we are born.

We would be foolish to wait for others to reach out to us in love; for love to be expressed to us, a baby’s response to their mother’s or father’s voice, that smile that lights up their face, is their invitation to love and be loved.
Loving one another is one of the cornerstones of our lives and if it is not set in place squarely and securely, we will struggle in every close personal relationship throughout our lives.

 

In Shrek Fiona is waiting, in her tall tower, for her true love. Of course, that is just a film but some of us can be like that we expect our true love to come along. We take care of our appearance and try to give a good impression; often we pretend to be something we are not. In the wild of course it’s always the strongest, biggest, brightest, loudest creatures that get the mate so that they can pass on the best genes to their offspring. But for human beings is it the same? Well in a manner of speaking it is. We want our true love to be rich, handsome, beautiful, and all the rest of worldly bling. In our eagerness for love we rarely look at the character, attitude and values that are only apparent over time. We are so caught up in external appearances that we are often blind and deaf to other much more powerful if subtle treasures of the human character, such as commitment, integrity, faithfulness and friendship.

I’m not talking just about sexual love, though in a marriage relationship that is important for sure. But it is rarely sex that keeps an intimate relationship firmly anchored, it is affirmation, trust and forgiveness.

Regretfully, particularly in the west, virtually in every sphere of life we are being seduced into thinking that sex is the answer to all our problems and if you are a Pika or a Bald Ibis trying to ensure the survival of your species that is probably true. But in an intimate relationship, that hope that a flash car will ramp up your sex appeal or bring instant friendships, that perfume, so sensuously packaged and marketed, will make you irresistible, that that fizzy drink or deodorant will make you more appealing is selling us a lie. They focus on the individual rarely on the one another for love is a two-way street.

In many wedding or civil partnerships ceremonies they often quote:

Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud. It is not rude. It does not look out for its own interests. It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other people’s wrongs. Love is not happy with evil. But it is full of joy when the truth is spoken. It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It never gives up. 1 Corinthians 13

These characteristics of love are not just for marriage relationships but for every relationship, mother, father, husband, wife, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends, colleagues, neighbours for true love is when we love one another unconditionally and sacrificially.

You might say I’m unrealistic and tell me I am looking at the world through rose coloured glasses. Of course, we are not all called to be like Mother Theresa, who gave up everything to serve the poor and rejected, all her worldly possessions in a cotton bag. But if we serve our loved ones with the same heart as hers they will be happy and know that they are loved: significant, valued and safe. If we love each other as we love ourselves, no easy task because we are by nature selfish, we cannot fail to be happy and at peace. Of course, we live in a difficult world, whose powers and authorities, media and social networks seem to delight in putting us down and sowing depression.

But we should not allow their worldly, distorted perspective to blight our vision and rob us of our joy. There are millions of anonymous men, women and children who will put their hands in their frugal pockets and give millions of pounds to Children in Need, and young men and women who will spend their own time and energy to cut the hair of the homeless, or volunteers who weekly prepare food and other comforts on the Jericho Road Project reaching out to the most vulnerable on our streets or filling Big Red Boxes with food for the less fortunate amongst us so that they too can have some Christmas cheer. Whilst there are projects such as these up and down the length and breadth of our nation and also in other nations, there is still, unconditionally and sacrificially love in
the world.

kingschurchlondon.org/socialaction

info@bigredbox.org

WHY I HAVE A BLOG

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If you are looking for a definitely feel good read, coupled with a good plot, for the coming holiday I hope you will consider my work.