Afraid of the water

My mother’s house is undergoing extensive renovations. Being eighty-find she thinks it is prudent to opt to have her bedroom downstairs, so the garage has been converted into a sitting room for her and her former sitting room is being converted to a bedroom.

The work has meant moving my late father’s books, shelves of military history. As I was moving one box of books, one fell to the floor. Convoy will Scatter, the tale of the extraordinary heroism of the Jervis Bay, its captain taking it to certain destruction in an attempt to protect the merchantmen of the convoy.

Perhaps it was such stories that were part of my fear, for it is hard to fathom how the the sea became a fearful place.

Our village is at least fifteen miles away from the coast as the crow flies, and even that piece of coastline in Bridgwater Bay is more mudflats than deep water, yet the sea seemed always to be something threatening, something darkly ominous. It was not until I watched Pirates of the Caribbean as an adult that the name of Davy Jones ceased to be one that stirred a sense of danger and darkness.

Perhaps it was growing up in a time when those memories of the Second World War were still fresh, the massive loss of British ships caused by the U-boat campaign left thousands of British seamen at the bottom of the sea.

Perhaps it was stories of heroic actions such as that of the armed merchantman the Jervis Bay which protected a convoy against the German pocket battleship the Admiral Scheer that prompted fear. It might have inspired lines in school poetry books, but it was a reminder that the sea was a grave.

Perhaps it was holidays spent in small seaside towns where small boats were tied up in small harbours that prompted thoughts of how such tiny vessels coped among the waves of the sea that loomed threateningly beyond the solid stone walls.

Perhaps it was just that childhood fear that arises when realising for the first time that life ended in death and thinking that the sea was one of the places where life might end far more early than expected.

If an abiding thought about the sea remains, it is the title of Nicholas Monserrat’s book The Cruel Sea. The sea is not something to regard without there being a deep sense of fear.

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Old Jackies

‘Did you get Jackie mgazine?’ I asked a friend.

‘No. I was only allowed the annual.’

I  saw a 1976 copy of Jackie for sale online at £20 . It was not the girl who was pictured that caught the eye, (though she might have stolen a glance from a 1976 fifteen year old), it was the price of the magazine.

Did Jackie really cost only 6p in 1976? What else could have been bought for 6p? Wasn’t that the price of a bar of chocolate? What magazine could you buy now for the price of a bar of Fruit and Nut? 6p really seems a very reasonable price; even in 1976 (and a veritable bargain for an insight into one’s teenage contemporaries).

Jackie 1Pocket money at our evangelical Christian boarding school that year was 50p a week. Given the puritan regime under which we lived, we assumed 50p was a mean amount to receive; that only our school would have had pocket money at such levels. Yet, if one could have bought a copy of Jackie for just 6p, then perhaps 50p was not such a poor amount to receive, (not that many of those in our all boys school would have been inclined to admitting being aware of the existence of a girls’ magazine, let alone knowing its price).

What does 6p equate to in the 21st Century? What is the equivalent of 50p in current values? Were we wealthy without even being aware of it? If so, a friend who was sent the odd £5 note by his parents must have enjoyed infinite riches – it would have bought enough magazines to stock a newsagent’s shop.

Jackie 2The other headline that caught the eye was “Brown is beautiful: Tanning tips to make you a sunshine sizzler”.

It is unimaginable that any magazine would carry such a headline now. There would instead be features on wearing tee shirts and caps and sun block.

Of course, we subscribe to such political correctness, and ignore it completely. Look at the sun tan lotion on sale at any pharmacy and at airport shops; look at the advertisements for such lotions. Models for expensive bottles of sun tan protection are not pasty white; they are beautiful shades of brown. Tanned skin may have been the preserve of rustics and manual workers in the 19th Century; now it is still sought after by those who spend their holidays on Mediterranean beaches, whatever the health education experts may say; whatever the children are told about the need to keep their skin covered.

Jackie seems to belong to a long time ago and a galaxy far away. That five decades copies can sell for £20 demonstrates the extent to which it permeated popular consciousness. Its innocence and simplicity belong to a world gone forever.

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A Mastermind specialist in loneliness

Chief Inspector Lewis asks pathologist Dr Dobson what her specialist subject would be if she were to appear on Mastermind. ‘Corpses,’ she answers.

Lewis smiles, observing that the subject might not be a barrel of laughs.

Dobson then turns to Lewis. ‘What would your subject be?’

‘Apart from work and the kids, I haven’t got one’.

‘What about loneliness?’ asks Dobson.

He turns and looks at her. ‘Pass’.

Of course, Lewis is a fictional character, a spin off from Morse. Kevin Whately, the person behind the persona, is undoubtedly a person very different from Chief Inspector Lewis.

So, if Laura Dobson is correct and Robbie Lewis is in the Mastermind class for loneliness, then he is the one with whom I would identify.

My supervisor writes books on solitude, considers the advantages of times of solitariness, but there is a difference being solitary and being lonely.

Solitude is something chosen, it is presumably something enjoyed in some way. Loneliness is more to be endured than to be enjoyed. What enjoyment is there in being alone without an option to be otherwise?

Accused of being narcissistic in an exchange on a social media platform in the springtime, an online search for narcissistic personality traits produced a list with which I could identify.

The traits, though, were not marks of narcissism, but of echoism. When I pointed out that these were the traits with which I identified, I was told that it was simply my version of narcissism, that I was like an alcoholic who refused to admit that the problem lay with me.

The exchange proved to be the last I would have with the person who had spent the previous five years pointing out to me all of my obvious failings, together with some I had never even imagined. I was told that I lacked the emotional intelligence to recognize what was wrong with me.

Perhaps it is such interactions that have made the loneliness, no matter how unhappy it may be, a least worst option.

Perhaps Lee Marvin’s lines in Paint my wagon represent not misanthropic sentiments, but an accurate assessment of a situation:

Do I know where hell is?
Hell is in hello
Heaven is goodbye for ever, it’s time for me to go.

’Only people make you cry,’ captures a lived reality.

Perhaps loneliness is just something that you get used to, like grief it doesn’t go away, but changes.

Were it to be a Mastermind subject, I could do well.

 

 

 

 

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Losing Jerusalem

A warm summer’s afternoon in Glastonbury and the town was full of its eccentric diversity. Yet as as Glastonbury may be, it is a model of sane and peaceable conduct when compared with the world beyond.

From the humdrum existence of a small West Country town in the 1970s, it has undergone a gradual transformation to become a capital city of the esoteric –  and the plain bonkers.

Perhaps it is a fulfilment of G.K. Chesterton’s maxim that ‘when men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.’ Perhaps Glastonbury is the ultimate expression of a society that mingles beliefs in pre-Christian notions of angels and demons, with Eastern ideas of karma and reincarnation, and secular attachments to conspiracy theories. Perhaps Glastonbury has replaced Christian orthodoxy with an a la carte menu of all religions and none.

The ‘whatever you’re having yourself’ approach might allow people to pick whatever they want from the options available to them in terms of spirituality and meaning and purpose, but it seems to bring also a loss of parts of the story.

Visiting the chapel and almshouses of Saint Mary Magdalene, the beautiful garden led to an enclosure beyond. On the south wall of the enclosure, there hung a painting that might have been a scene from a book of children’s Bible stories.

There must be countless such illustrations that attempt to capture the tales of a First Century itinerant Judean preacher and his small groups of followers. Except this one was different, in this one the figures are set against the background of Glastonbury Tor. To the right lies Sedgemoor, but as it might have been in more recent times, for in the First Century it would have been water and marshland. Beyond the moor lie hills, among which is the one where my own village stands.

This is Glastonbury, this is the place to which Joseph of Arimathea is said to have brought the chalice from the Last Supper, this is the place where Joseph is said to have brought Jesus as a boy.

A woman with a glitter star in the middle of her forehead stood beside me.

‘Blake’s Jerusalem.’ I said.

She looked at me, a confused expression.

‘The Last Night of the Proms, do you know the lines?’

And did those feet in ancient times
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

The woman shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know it.’

There was a temptation to ask how much of the Glastonbury tradition meant anything without the Jerusalem allusions. Perhaps glittery stars and neo-paganism have supplanted the more ancient stories. Perhaps embracing everything means a loss of some things.

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Musical accompaniment to crime

My supervisor told a story of academic intrigue.

‘It sounds something that might make a plot for an episode of Morse, culminating with a murder among the dons.’

‘Goodness me, no’, he laughed, ‘it was Hull. It w, more soapas more Vera than Morse‘.

Heartbeat, then?’

‘Oh no. That’s the wrong part of Yorkshire, that’s North Yorkshire. It doesn’t do to get them confused’.

‘What about Inspector George Gently? No, though, I think he is up in Vera’s patch’.

We moved on to the proper business of the meeting.

Perhaps there is a gap in the television drama schedules for a detective from Hull – a gritty rugby league fan who could quote lines from Philip Larkin and solve murders committed by jealous academics.

Sitting watching an episode of Heartbeat, it seemed a piece of harmless light entertainment, more soap opera than crime drama. Some of the characters are closer to those from a comedy programme than to the grim social realism of the BBC 4 Saturday night offerings from Scandinavia.

A striking thing about Heartbeat is the music. Snatches of 1960s tunes provide a backdrop to each of the stories. Someone familiar with 1960s discography would be able to give the date intended for each of the episodes, assuming that the music is selected with attention to detail.

The music is familiar, or it is familiar, at least, to someone of sixty-one years of age. The tunes are ones that have been played on countless occasions since their release more than fifty years ago.

The artists, many of whom are now in their eighties and some of whom are still touring, must have earned considerable royaltoes on the songs that have received so much air time. No artist recording in the 1960s could possibly have imagined that three minute recordings issued on 7 inch vinyl discs would still be earning them a regular income in their old age.

A series like Heartbeat could not be made about the 2020s.

In part, how would one make a series about the work of police officers in a rural community when there are no police officers to be seen? Once, villages had constables resident among the local population, each small town had a station. Everyone knew the name of the local members of the constabulary. Now the police have disappeared from rural areas.

In part, there is no music that would be remembered by more than a small element of the population. Pop music no longer exist.

A musical accompaniment to a crime series now would not sound like Heartbeat.

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