Pilgrim’s Progress
I see that the glitzy behemoth that is the BBC’s Children in Need is hoving into view. I have to confess, I don’t really like it. How can one not support such a manifestly good cause, you may say? Well, I don’t being part of a herd, I don’t like being dragooned, and I don’t like the endless parade of “celebs”. I feel the same with the blooming Red Nose day. Perhaps it is churlish of me. I do, on the other hand, strongly support giving to charities where I know exactly where my money is going. There is a short list; these involve certain local rescue charities for animals, Marie Curie, and the Samaritans – because I have been alone in those wee small hours which pass so slowly and so painfully for some. I will return to this below.
I have spent a fair bit of time apparently doing nothing at all lately. This often involves sitting in one of my favourite cafés, sipping large amounts of fruit tea, and staring into space. In the picturesque Pennines hamlet not too far away there are a couple I frequent. One is run by a gentle couple, Mark and Irene. As Mark often says, he thinks of it more as a public service than a business. It is a quirky place, homely and with a sheltered garden with tables and chairs, in which I can sit and take in the autumn sunshine, or even enjoy the rain under the safety of the large garden umbrella things. I like to see my friends the pair of robins who live there, and I bring them mealworms from time to time. A lovely girl with flame red hair and impossibly porcelain skin works there on the weekend. She looks fragile, but there is a core of steel there; she has just returned from working in an orphanage in India, and that was a tough environment. She was tempted by offers in the modeling world, but had the good sense to back away from the falseness and bitchiness which she encountered. I like her; she has courage.
Across the road is another café with an open courtyard, offering a vista of the high street. They don’t seem to mind my endless requests for pots of cranberry and raspberry infusion.
Am I really doing nothing? In a way it is an active meditation. I reflect on life a little, but not too much. Mainly I am just learning to let go and be of the moment. New thoughts, new perspectives come. It is doing nothing, and yet doing everything. F. Scott Fitzgerald said: life starts all over when it gets crisp in the fall. That sounds counter intuitive, but I can understand it. And this is how I feel, like I am starting over again. It is an odd feeling.
There is another café nearby. On the windswept side of a Pennines hill there is what is called a “pitch and put” golf course, with a traditional old stone building that served as the office and storage hut for some ropey clubs for hire. I used to walk my beloved dog up there when I was a lad. I never really thought the place beautiful, but I have changed my mind now. The course was neglected and run down for a long time, but recently it has been taken over by a new manager, a powerfully built man, an ex rugby league player. He has steadily worked on the course, mowing and tending. It is hardly Wentworth, but the place has a cared for feel about it, with fresh signs and new flags. It has become quite popular again. The old stone building has been cleaned out, and turned into a simple, but homely café. Despite his menacing build, the manager is clearly a good soul, always ready with a greeting and time to chat, and his wife and rather lovely daughters help to run the café when he is out and about tending to his course. I get the impression he is a happy man, content with his lot. He looks very healthy from his outdoor life.
There are some simple tables and chairs outside when the weather is fine. I can sit and drink tea (strong Yorkshire tea, no faddy fruit stuff here) and watch the crazy and incompetent golfers, the occasional riders and the many happy and cared for dogs whose owners take them to play on the neighbouring big field. The air is very fresh, and there is a view which on a good day can stretch to Wales. The sunsets can be magnificent.
I popped in last Saturday. I had intended to go to the gym, but I decided to slack, and do more doing nothing. So, to the café I went. They were running a coffee morning in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. The daughters had baked amazing cakes (above), and the tiny café was crammed with perhaps twenty visitors. Many had had brought cakes of their own to contribute. It will hardly change the world, and yet it was magnificent. It was a far cry form the hullaballoo and hysteria which I feel surrounds the Beeb’s Children in Need circus. I gave what I could freely. They had hoped to raise £100. They made £211. Bravo.
Another simple thing I have found the time to enjoy is music. I have become a fan of some people who go by the name of “The Piano Guys”. One hearing of a tune on Classic FM and I was entranced by their style of mashing up classic and modern tunes with considerable skill. As a perusal of their videos on youtube shows, they play not just with considerable virtuosity, but passion, verve, mischief and joy and they make rather fun videos to go with their work. Some people are rather sniffy about their style, regarding them as more showbiz than authentic musicians. I don’t care.
Here are a couple of pieces of their work. It may not to be everyone’s tastes but take five minutes to see if it touches you. One piece (Codename Vivaldi) is for piano and cello. The second (Beethoven’s 5 secrets) is for cello and orchestra.
I wish you a peaceful Sunday.
Gildas the Monk
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October 26, 2014 at 9:32 am -
Being Gentle on the Heart, sir Monk. I am glad to see.
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October 26, 2014 at 10:03 am -
Thank you so much for the music I’d never heard of them before this.
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October 26, 2014 at 11:15 am -
My pleasure
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October 26, 2014 at 10:50 am -
Brought back memories of life before the Smoking Ban, thank you Gildas…I think. I went to College in a small Norfolk market town . I left there with no A-levels, a degree in alcoholism, 60 a day lungs and something unpleasant ‘down south’ (I caught something weird in Uppernosebleed not Enchinada ). In the 80s that Norfolk town had at least 5 -probably more- Tea Rooms or Cafés in the center of town. As a student I spent most of my days with the rest of what my own kids would call a ‘posse’ in one or other of those tearooms, drinking hot beverages, smoking, studying and writing Athena Postcards which were our prefered means of communication in the days before SMS. After leaving college I very soon went to live in foreign parts and discovered the delights of ‘Gateau’ and ‘Torte’- which to a kid who grow up on Mom’s home made sponge cake seemed orgasmic. I fell in love with coffee made from beans and that didn’t come out of a Yellow Label jar. I embraced Continental Café Culture with the same passion I embraced continental girls.
Returning to this country some 12 years ago, I continued to live the European way and I know for a fact that in 2006 I was spending between £40-£80 pounds a week in cafes.
Then the Smoking Ban came in and I stopped going in Cafés the morning after. I recently had cause to visit that Norfolk town of my college days. The tea rooms had gone the way of the pubs….and no, before anyone wants to suggest that it was competition from Starfucks that put the Tea Room out of business, there is neither a Starfucks, Costa-monger nor Neros there.
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October 26, 2014 at 11:08 am -
This morning I was hoping that you had found time to draft something for what has become (and I hope remains) your Sunday slot on Anna’s blog. A great great piece of reflective writing about a place that I know well but foolishly but quite deliberately visited rarely when in l was in legal practice perhaps because I knew it might cause me to cast doubt on the professional life I had chosen or perhaps been told I should choose. Like you odd circumstances gave me a chance to spend some time in the spot you are in and with that opportunity to stand back and bring the bigger picture of the world into focus so the intense close up world of legal practice could be better seen for what it was or had become. Although I know I know little, life does appear something like a journey and when one has taken a wrong turning I believe its best to stop for a while and regain ones bearings —take in the big metaphysical features of life, tap the moral compass one clutches in a quiet place to free the needle from local magnetic attractions that may have influenced it from true north and then set a fresh course. Good fortune Gildas and for the little my advice might count don’t move on until you think its the right time to so do (which is the most important thing) but equally if you think there is further distance to travel remember that the journey is not yet complete.
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October 26, 2014 at 11:13 am -
Wise words, Steve – sometimes it is necessary to take a complete break, and set a new course, or let a new course find you. What you say about legal practice is very true. I have been thinking lately that we are conditioned to lead a certain life in “safe” careers like law (although it is not so safe any more) on the unconscious assumption that they bring material success and prestige – and yet neither are necessarily what brings happiness. I am not arguing in favour of being poor – far from it – but rather that there may be happier ways to find what I call simple abundance – having enough.
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October 26, 2014 at 9:26 pm -
Beautifully written, Gildas – with wise words. You have a gift which compliments ‘The Mistress of the House’ but which has its own delights.
I think you should write. Not just here, but actual literature. You have a very clear perspective and what you write is worth reading.
I am approaching a crossroads myself, in the next very few months… Tempus fugit. Perhaps I too need a large pot of fruit tea!
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October 26, 2014 at 9:40 pm -
What a compliment – thank you!
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October 26, 2014 at 11:14 am -
Oh and as well you know and Dick Whittington (and I) learnt a kitty is the best companion to have at the moment one stops and reflects
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October 26, 2014 at 11:27 am -
As a teenaged hiker in the 1960s, mostly throughout the Dales and Lakes, it was a joy to come upon some wayside or village tea-rooms, where a few precious pre-decimal coins would elicit welcome refreshment, often from some of life’s more entertaining characters. In those far-off days before hygiene paranoia, you may perhaps have been well advised not to query too deeply the conduct of their behind-the scenes operations, but we survived it all, so maybe it wasn’t so bad. Although these all provided simple, basic predictables, what wasn’t predictable was their own approach to them: the variety with which a simple bacon sandwich or buttered teacake could be presented knew no limits, but that was part of the delight, so different from the pre-formatted plastic product proffered by the professional chains now.
Viewed from almost 50 years on, something which Gildas has just forced me to do, the most significant facet I’ve realised is that I never visited the same one twice, every individual stop turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, never to be repeated. If I’d realised that at the time, I may have taken more notice of the places, the people, the sights, sounds and smells and registered each set of experiences more firmly in the memory-bank, but they were all fleeting, promiscuous chances, giving momentary pleasure, soon forgotten, to be replaced by the next opportunity along the Pennine Way.
But as our Dwarf friend above observes, that has all been changed by the Smoking Ban: most of those places are long gone, as we no longer go there, so instead we inhabit our cosily virtual bar-room, where at least we know we are all welcome to pursue our legitimate comforts amongst the tolerance and understanding of broad-minded friends.
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October 26, 2014 at 11:51 am -
Who was it who said “all politics is local”? Everything important starts out with one person reaching out to others, like your example of the cake sale fundraising.
And in the spirit of your video clip, first listen to this (warning, loud and rowdy but energising for a Sunday morning):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF_RuLjfJCc
And then listen to this version of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLma2oxIFP0
Both work for me and I hope at least one of them works for you.
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October 26, 2014 at 3:35 pm -
Definitely the slower piano version for me, that’s lovely. Thank you.
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October 27, 2014 at 5:44 am -
“All politics is local” is attributed to T.P. “Tip” O’Neill, the Democratic politician who served as Speaker of the US House of Representatives in the Reagan Administration (a position more analogous to that of a Premier than to the HoC Speaker, for those, if any, who may not know). It is the counterpoint to the Burkean notion that you cannot always vote as your constituency would have you do– Tip’s point was that you can hardly afford always to ignore how your constituency would have you vote, either. A legislator who seems not to care how his/her constituents feel about any issue is the sort who ends up being the one who inspires his/her constituents to engage in the sort of the each-one-teach-one activism you are referring to– of getting the facts out, and hoping that that person will join you in a chorus of “Hey! You! Yeah you, Mr./Ms Pol– pay attention! This is how this policy affects real people on the ground!”, and that that person will inspire others in turn to do likewise.
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October 27, 2014 at 9:30 am -
Thank you for the background…. I was not aware, buy I feel it’s something we should wholeheartedly adopt.
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October 26, 2014 at 11:55 am -
Thanks for a Sunday start that is of both style, and substance. Much appreciated, and may today bring more of the same
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October 26, 2014 at 12:14 pm -
Times have changed eating out so much in recent years. We were in the village coffee bar as early teenagers . Smoke and drug free in the far off just post war days. We went in the British Restraunt and a market snack bar with an adult later on. Later on most of us student nurses were never ‘off ‘ at the same time, so the awful hospital canteen was our sole recourse. Most smoked either own giggies or those offered. It never caught on with me. My dad and uncles, grandad did all my smoking for me, and paid the price healthwise as time sped by. The bold nurses went into town to snare a GI from Burtonwood. The rest of us went in groups for protection from conscript lads, from army navy and airforce ,to the local hops in the town centre. We were work free in the later evening, unless on nights. Conscripts staggered in drunk, on the pickup trail. I never heard of ‘pulling’ then!. No booze at these dances or thongs on view or mini skirts. Flatties shoewise, flare skirts and petticoats. No cleavages wobbling about in the smoke perfumed air. No food bar either due to rationing perhaps? Such happy days….much.
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October 26, 2014 at 1:54 pm -
‘No booze at these dances or thongs on view or mini skirts. Flatties shoewise, flare skirts and petticoats. No cleavages wobbling about in the smoke perfumed air.’
Less is not more, for sure. I have several female friends who dress in a 40s style and anyone with a modicum of taste finds this infinitely sexier than the way the student girls dress in my neighbourhood, where nothing is left to the imagination. In fact, a distinct lack of imagination is evident in both the beholder and the wearer. It’s a shame that so many young women feel they have to adopt the look of a lap-dancer to attract the eye, but there you go.-
October 26, 2014 at 2:04 pm -
Long ago, in a Kashmiri village, I had a lengthy discussion with some Muslim ladies regarding the propaganda on both sides about women’s position in society. One of the things they really didn’t understand, was why ‘we’ (western women) felt the need to dress to attract every passing male – where was the pressure coming from? Our husbands, society? The question quite stumped me, because I had never thought of it in that way.
Why do we? Are we trying to show other men what they missed by not snapping us up quickly enough? Hedging our bet regarding our menfolk?
Why don’t we wear loose comfortable clothing that protects us from the sun in the hot weather and wrap up every extremity in the freezing cold – it would be more logical?
We deride the burka – they think we are nuts!-
October 26, 2014 at 2:30 pm -
Isn’t clothing used for several reasons? To reveal a lot of flesh is to display fitness, attractiveness and a carefree it’s-my-body-I’ll do-what-I-want attitude. Some clothing denotes belonging to a tribe (punk, goth etc… also applied to the burkha), sometimes it’s used to denote individuality, sometimes a disapproval of one’s surroundings (I refuse to fit in HERE). Wealth/status can also be displayed. Just part of our feted free market system. You pick what you like.
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October 26, 2014 at 3:40 pm -
I agree what you wear can be chosen for a myriad of reasons; but where many young women are concerned, there is a definite social conditioning that denotes certain articles are donned for the sole purpose of catching the male eye, whether this is done deliberately or subconsciously. In a lot of cases, I genuinely think the latter applies.
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October 26, 2014 at 4:59 pm -
I don’t altogether mind the fashion for mini-skirts and low-cut tops, but I’m inclined to the view that some of the sturdier members of the species might with advantage apply a little discretion when following said fashion.
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October 26, 2014 at 6:07 pm -
Are you saying “less is more”…?
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October 26, 2014 at 6:20 pm -
Well – when it comes to avoirdupois, maybe there is what might be called ‘a happy medium’!
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October 26, 2014 at 12:15 pm -
A lovely sedate piece reminiscent of an Alistair Cook ‘Letter from America’. Although you don’t name names, from the evocative portrait you paint, I’m picturing Howarth/Hebden Bridge/Mytholmroyd – those timewarped hamlets carved out of that breathtakingly dramatic landscape. I once visited the grave of Sylvia Plath and passed through similar scenery. Am I getting warm?
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October 26, 2014 at 12:45 pm -
Closer to Saddleworth Moor, but not too far out PW!
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October 26, 2014 at 12:30 pm -
It is essential to check where the money is being spent before donating to things like Children in Need. I think many would be alarmed and would stop contributing if they knew. Sadly there are some horrendous ideological lobby groups in amongst the worthy causes.
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October 26, 2014 at 12:46 pm -
Thank you for a thought-provoking piece of writing and for the heads-up about The Piano Guys. I have heard them mentioned in one or two recent American novels but I have never had the pleasure of hearing them until today. I know what is going to be on my letter to Santa this year!
With all good wishes,
opsimath
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October 26, 2014 at 12:47 pm -
I like your lifestyle! This is for you
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October 26, 2014 at 2:11 pm -
I like that – thank you
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October 26, 2014 at 12:51 pm -
CiN (pronounced ‘sin’) is apparently sitting on £90 million in ‘investments’-innit. Iceland 2 -much?
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October 26, 2014 at 12:58 pm -
Blocked Dwarf pines for the days when he was free to smoke anywhere, the paint was yellow in cafes and pubs, and just entering one would stink up your clothes until they were washed. I’ve always been a non-smoker, but I don’t believe all the statistics about passive smoking. I think that there have been times when smoking was positively beneficial for the smoker – before flying to Berlin to give Krauts a taste of their own medicine, for example. But whenever it was, in a confined space it made the innocent non-smoker bystander feel filthy.
The problem isn’t so much the smoke inhaled and exhaled, as that partly cleansed it, but the cigarette burning pointlessly in the smoker’s fingers! I hated being in a restaurant with some bitch holding her fag so the smoke went into my eyes, not hers. She’d get smoker’s wrinkly lips, even if she didn’t have them already, and yellowed teeth. As for people getting a lift in your car and starting to light up without even asking, and then looking at you as if you were insane when you asked them politely to desist – all these contributed to the silence of those of us who (normally) approve of personal freedom when the freedoms of smokers were threatened.
I can go in those cafes where for decades I couldn’t.
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October 26, 2014 at 1:22 pm -
“I can go in those cafes where for decades I couldn’t.” -Unfortunately, judging by the number of closed pubs and tea rooms, I’d say you are in the minority. Believe it or not , I can see the business sense and moral imperative behind the logic that says ” only 1/5th of adults now smoke so lets cater for the non-smoking majority and provide ‘clean’ areas” and so could the manufacturers of air filtration units (Come on, I bet your vacuum cleaner at home has at least 4 stage HEPA filtering, as does mine). Unfortunately instead of a uniquely British style compromise -and no one does them better- we got a total Verbot which was the least best option for everyone concerned. The Non-smoking majority didn’t return to the pubs and Cafes in droves…and when they did, such as yourself, they tend to spend less than smokers did – I defy anyone to have only ONE Gitane with a cup of real coffee or to not feel like a slice of Sacher after. Infact the pleasure of a good cigarette after a slice of Black Forest is second only to that one post-orgasm. A Players was designed, I’m sure of it, to perfectly compliment a cup of builder’s strength tea.
“before flying to Berlin to give Krauts a taste of their own medicine,” Uhm what an interesting view of history you have. Nothing the Germans may have done can excuse the aerial genocide that was visited upon their civilians by the likes of Butcher Harris.
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October 26, 2014 at 6:02 pm -
@Blocked Dwarf —seldom have I so wholeheartedly agreed with something someone has written about the joy of living or for that matter your observation on the morality of death in aerial warefare
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October 26, 2014 at 8:40 pm -
Thank you Fat Steve, for my part I have always felt that if hospital and asylum wards each had a small kitchen/cafe/Tea Room then the savings due to quicker recovery time would outweigh the extra cost. Nothing, except perhaps anti-biotics, is a greater healer than good, tasty,well seasoned food of the kind a patient would actively look forward to (and I don’t mean organic, freetrade vegan mush). Add in a decent coffee perculator and a comfortable smoking room and you’d get people well again and back to being productive NI contributions paying members of society a lot lot quicker.
Last time I had the pleasure of visiting The Bestes Frau In The Whole World in the secure ward I reckoned the food served there could have put Pollyanna herself into a depressive tailspin. Proper real coffee, cream cakes and a smoke can reach parts of the brain that even haloperidol can’t. Serve people up ‘food’ that would cause a riot if served in prison, decaff no-name ‘coffee’ and make them stand outside in the cold and wet for a cigarette …and wonder why they’d rather cut their wrists than go back in voluntarily for treatment next time their shaggy,wet,smelly black dog of despond barks…
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October 27, 2014 at 9:47 am -
“we got a total Verbot which was the least best option for everyone concerned”
Not quite FS. The politicians did not ban smoking in their own place of work! Quelle surprise?
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October 27, 2014 at 9:53 am -
Mea culpa that reply was to HF not FS.
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October 27, 2014 at 9:56 am -
I swear I’ll get this right if it’s the last thing I do. The reply was aimed at The Blocked Dwarf. (Third time lucky?)
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October 26, 2014 at 2:25 pm -
“Nothing the Germans may have done can excuse the aerial genocide that was visited upon their civilians by the likes of Butcher Harris.”
A questionable claim. Read “Bloodlands”.
They deserved it; but we should have given them less than they deserved. Bombing Dresden was wrong. But it is easy to say that when the heat of battle is over.
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October 26, 2014 at 3:17 pm -
“They deserved it” Maybe and the comparatively few who died in the Blitz of Coventry maybe deserved it too….at least my Afrikaaner Great Granddad would have thought so, pay back for the British Concentration camps of the Boer War. Was the allied pilot who machined a column of German women and children (including my teenage Father-in-Law) refugees just giving them what they deserved? Did the inhabitants of Hiroshima simply get their just deserts? As you say, ‘heat of battle’ and no one wins the historical blame game of ‘They did, so We did’.
However I expressed myself somewhat poorly in my answer about ‘taste of own medicine’. No one who has even a passing knowledge of the Aerial Civilian bombings of WW2 could claim that what the Allies did was giving the Germans a 5ml spoon of their own Medizin. Whether or not you believe that the Luftwaffe started the bombing of civilian targets (and most historians seem to think that fateful first bombing was unintentional but gave Churchill the excuse he had been waiting for), there can be no question that the allied response was in anyway proportional-even by the standards of the day and being in the ‘heat of battle’. 800 died in Coventry? Juxtapose that with any night in any major German City. Has anyone ever come up with even a halfway accurate figure for the tens of thousands who died just in the Dresden bombings?
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October 26, 2014 at 3:39 pm -
Despite the claims of David Irving and his ilk that 100,000 – 250,000 people were killed in the Dresden bombings, the German authorities have come to the conclusion that there were 22,700 – 25,000 deaths.
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October 26, 2014 at 3:47 pm -
“the German authorities have come to the conclusion that there were 22,700 – 25,000 deaths.” If that *were* a figure from German authorities then it would be a PRECISE 22,345.3 type number! (see, even I’m not immune to stereotype digs at the Germans). I have heard/read figures around the 30,000.
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October 26, 2014 at 3:54 pm -
Gildas, I apologise for taking this thread off course. How in the world did we get from Sponge Cakes to Genocide on a Sunday Morn? I, for my part, will stop it now. I feel it rather detracts from what you wrote about real charity.
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October 31, 2014 at 10:27 pm -
Blocked Dwarf:
Germans started bombing Britain in the First World War, more than 20 years before the questionable who did what first in the second.
The point about smokers was that given an inch, they took a mile. I remember when I was much younger that old trains had ‘smoking rooms’ in carriages, pubs had smoking rooms, even bloody aristocrats had ‘smoking rooms’ and ‘smoking jackets’ But that wasn’t good enough for them – smokers wanted to smoke everywhere – and did. There was nowhere safe for them – they’d smoke anywhere, whether or not you begged them to desist or behave with some courtesy. Their rights trumped everyone elses’s. Well, now they are screwed, and they don’t like it
Oh, and by the way, pubs aren’t going out of business because of the smoking ban, they are going out of business because drinking in them is too expensive, and you can’t have a decent drink then drive home (thankfully), plus people want to drink while they dine, and that means not having their food spoiled by smokers.
By the way, without the allied bombing campaign
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October 31, 2014 at 10:28 pm -
… keeping the Luftwaffe busy and out of range, D Day would probably have been a disaster.
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October 26, 2014 at 3:35 pm -
Thank you, Gildas the Monk, for a very enjoyable article; and I loved ThePianoGuys, I will look them up on YouTube. I am from the west of Pendle Hill but have not lived there for many-a-year. Thanks for the memories and best wishes!
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October 26, 2014 at 4:55 pm -
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep and cows.No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars like skies at night.No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.W.H.Davies
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October 26, 2014 at 6:54 pm -
Exactly…words which have been in my mind more than once lately
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October 26, 2014 at 6:59 pm -
“Some people are rather sniffy about their style, regarding them as more showbiz than authentic musicians. “
In his heyday, much the same could have been said about Mozart!
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October 26, 2014 at 9:26 pm -
A comment I very nearly made!
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October 26, 2014 at 7:17 pm -
Lovely, makes me feel quite homesick
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October 26, 2014 at 7:40 pm -
A perfect article for a wet, dark Sunday. Agree about the smoking ban, not very British at all, I still can’t understand why they couldn’t have smoking and non smoking pubs, cafés, clubs and restaurants or what business it was of the government to interfere with private businesses, of course they could make decisions about their own premises but I don’t know what law permitted imposing restrictions on a legal product on others. A compromise could easily have been found indeed it was before it was changed at the last minute. Now the zealots are going after other small pleasures I wonder where it will end.
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October 27, 2014 at 10:01 am -
I could not agree more.
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October 26, 2014 at 7:42 pm -
It is just too easy to pontificate on 20th century warfare with pink 21st century glasses on. I was recently at a campsite with my brother in law. He was whingeing about aircraft noise from the nearby RAF station. “Think of the big plus”, I told him. “You don’t have to wonder whether it’s one of ours”.
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October 26, 2014 at 8:26 pm -
And if any of you happened to be in Bomber Harrris’s shoes back then ….how would YOU have prosecuted the war? He had opposition at the time in the form of the socialist Sir Stafford Cripps who was always complaining but offering no sensible alternatives. No wonder the great man referred to him as Sir Stifford Crapps!
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October 26, 2014 at 9:38 pm -
Agreed! The majority British public show a shocking ignorance of the importance of the bombing campaign, the only option of taking the war to the enemy in 1940-42. You owe a great debt of gratitude to Bomber Harris, commonwealth aircrews and the USAF 8th Air Force.
Amongst other facts, does nobody remember that London was bombed for 57 consecutive days after 7 September 1940 or Hull had 95% of its housing destroyed by the Luftwaffe in 86 raids, many other cities suffered too. Yet all we hear from the appeasers wishing to rewrite history is Dresden or Hiroshima.
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October 26, 2014 at 9:07 pm -
I will tip toe around the no-smoking and bomber campaign issues for the moment.
Thank you for your word portrait Gildas and the wonderful music, I was especially taken by the second video-bright youth with nary a tattoo or piercing in sight, achieving something glorious. Restores one’s faith that there may be a future ahead for their generation.
In lots of ways this reminds me to read Desiderata, of which a small part:
” And whatever your labors and aspirations
in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy “-
October 26, 2014 at 9:26 pm -
Perfect
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October 26, 2014 at 10:52 pm -
Thank you Gildas. Your reflective posts really cause me to think deeply at this crossroad in my life (and give me courage to take the step I’m taking). The first video left me cold but the second one firstly brought up goosebumps on my arms and then tears to my eyes at the beauty and joyousness.
I wanted to offer a piece of music back to you. My taste in music is Catholic – Van Morrison through Chet Baker to Palestrina. I’ve searched YouTube but can’t find it. There’s a versión but they’ve swingled/jazzed it up and it didn’t need it imo.
Music is so subjective in any case. This piece is so outside my usual taste but I was sitting in a car listening to Classic FM one morning (the driver was doing something or other) and I was transfixed by the harmony and tenderness.
I think I had to order the CD from the States.
It was billed as ”Can’t Help Singing” ”Voices of Ascensión” conductor Dennis Keene. ”A New Look At Jerome Kern Classics”.
I now realise they’re famous but I’d never heard of them. The song was ”All The Things You Are”. The way they sang the line ”some day my happy heart will hold you” made me yearnful (just made up a word I think).
I wish I could give a link.
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October 27, 2014 at 11:30 am -
Don’t worry Peewee – I will track it down, and best wishes
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October 27, 2014 at 9:09 am -
What a lovely article. I feel a kindred spirit. Whenever one of my few friends asks me what I’ve been up to the invariable answer is “not much”. They don’t seem to get it. They all lead “normal”, busy and active lives. I’m just shy of 60. I took early retirement a few years ago and just manage to exist on a very, very small pension – I’m not complaining! My mornings mostly consist of the essential household chores followed by an hour or two pottering about in the garden and greenhouse . In the afternoon, when the weather’s dry, I walk across the fields to visit my mother in the rather pleasant nursing home a couple of miles away. By early evening I’ve usually “run out of steam”. I lie on the bed listening to audio books before drifting off to the land nod. A “lifestyle” that most would surely hate, but it suits me!
As for the whole charity thing, I entirely agree and empathise with you. It probably sounds a bit crazy, but programmes like Children In Need and Comic Relief helped to drive me away from TV. I stopped watching about 6 years ago and haven’t missed it one little bit – also saved a small fortune in licence fee payments.-
October 27, 2014 at 9:33 am -
PS Perhaps not quite in the same league as “The Piano Guys”, you might like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwLJExz4Uaan2BNSNUsyG6g
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October 27, 2014 at 11:29 am -
Thank you Alex – that’s lovely, and a lovely comment. For me, there will be a time for more action. But just for now, I am letting things takje care of themselves a little
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