I've just heard on the news that Barack Obama and Gordon Brown are going to save the world this week.
Phew, that's all right then.
PS:- I hope Merkel and Sarkozy will toe the line.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Haikus
Creation Myth Haiku
After the First Night
The Sun kissed the Moon
"Darling, you were wonderful!"
After the Orgies
All the Maenads had
terrible hangovers and
unwanted babies.
The Season of Celebrity
With summer comes the
bluebottle; with pleasant fame
comes the Journalist.
North American Haiku
Hail, tribes of Outer
Alcoholia - the Rednose
and Goutfoot Indians!
Gavin Ewart 1916 - 1995
Gavin Ewart once wrote that "Good light verse is better than bad heavy verse / any day of the week."
(with apologies to Leatherdykeuk @ When the Dogs Bite)
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Saturday, 28 March 2009
The Scraper's Diary, March 4th to April 13th 1947
o - o - o - 0
And now, three days before I sail for Germany with the band, let me acquaint you with my companions. A mixed lot, as you will always find in any barrack room, but, perhaps, a milder kind than most, having to some degree one thing in common, and that thing, music.
Technically speaking, few of them are musical, but all are instrumentalists, though for a variety of reasons, and in varying degrees of proficiency.
To start with, there's Hank, a long, drooping product of a country town, with a broad Southern accent. He is a violinist of average ability, and a keen concert goer. He knows the keys, opus number and main themes of most major works, and has the disconcerting habit of singing the noisiest of these themes at the top of his voice, while imitating the motions of a trombone with his hands.
Len, a fair-sized ex-miner who is trying to get back to the pits, where he knows he will be medically discharged. He is the pianist, dark with a pimply face and a spreading imagination.
Ginger, the lance bombardier of our room, is average size with an unambitious moustache. He plays swing trumpet and is a natural comedian.
Ken, Ray, Consus, Peter, Jock and many more of them, and I've realized just how impossible it is to convey to someone else how different they all are, how individual, and yet how united. I can't tell you what they look like, let alone how their characters are so different.
They are just a gang of blokes, a decent crowd and I'm glad to be one of them for a while.
o - o - o - o
Wednesday, March 5th - Hull
We rose yesterday at five thirty, washed, breakfasted and finished our preparations for the journey.
The truck was late, and though we loaded quickly and travelled fast to Salisbury, we missed our train and the next one was slow.
Loading and unloading lorries and trains, - the band luggage is large, heavy and unwieldy - and then playing cards in trains; that is about all I did yesterday. We arrived here at eight thirty, ate, drew blankets and went to bed. I dreamed of loading and unloading lorries and trains.
o - o - o - o
Friday, 27 March 2009
Poetry Group
Last night's poetry meeting was rather unusual for our group: instead of everybody reading up on and presenting poems on a set subject we discussed in detail, two very long poems and one of medium length.
Robert Browning's "Childe Harold To The Dark Tower Came" was the first.
To appreciate it one must read it aloud, savouring each dark allusion, making the most of the horrors and fearful scenes Browning's rich language evokes.
He took the title from "King Lear" where Edgar, disguised as Poor Tom, sings:
Child Roland to the dark tower came,
His word was still "fie, foh and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.
Christina Rosetti's "Goblin Market" came next.
I'm not particularly fond of this poem, I don't really do homilies, finger-wagging "be good" stuff, or else. That said, this poem must also be read aloud to get the full fruity flavour of it, particularly the long lists. One could become intoxicated on words here.
D.H. Lawrence"s "Snake" was the last poem.
And what a poem it is. one can, and some do, read all sorts of meanings into it; and why not.
I love the surface of it too, perhaps even more than the allegorical depths; you can feel the heat, with the volcano smoking in the margins of the picture, see the man come out in his pyjamas, watch the snake and feel afraid of it, and finally, give in to mankind's petty and vindictive nature by hurting it.
An exhilarating evening.
The next subject is Greed and Gluttony. Any ideas? I'll certainly have fun researching it.
I've been very domesticated this past week, shopping, cooking, visiting my old ladies. I find grocery shopping very boring, so to make the almost day long shopping expedition at all interesting we have a meal at a restaurant. The Shropshire/Welsh Marches are famous for the many good restaurants and food shops; we have a veritable foodie paradise here.
The Pound Inn at Leebotwood on the A49 between Church Stretton and Shrewsbury has a pleasant atmosphere, friendly service and a menu that reads like a dream.
The day after was free so I spent the whole morning cooking: a large meatloaf filled with roasted peppers and aubergines and an equally large chicken thigh casserole with vegetables. When I have spare time I often cook dishes which go into the freezers; my own "ready meals", which come in very useful when I want to do other things. We very rarely buy in ready meals, I love to cook and entertain; I count having a well-stocked larder and freezer amongst life's pleasures. Naturally, I also love to eat good food.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
March 1945
One night after my American "friend" and his tank disappeared from the pavement in front of the house Mother and I heard a scratching, scrabbling noise coming from the backyard. It was black night, the only light came from the stars above and even the noise of day, the rumble of machinery and vehicles being moved, the drone of aeroplanes, had stopped. The noise from the frontline was different, sharper, and at the same time, more distant. This was a noise to be frightened of, a secret human presence very stealthily making itself known at the back of the house. Rumours of rapes and robberies were rife, it was as well to remain quiet and unnoticed, not to call attention to one's presence.
The noise continued, becoming more insistent. And then a voice, the merest whisper. "Katie", it breathed, "Katie". Katie was Mother's name.
Mother crept to the back door. "Are you mad", she greeted Father, "there are soldiers all around, patrolling; don't you know how dangerous it is for you to be here".
I have often heard this story told in the years to come, when life was normal again; how Mother received her "heroic" husband who had risked his life to return to her through fierce fighting, a deserter, for part of the way still in uniform, to come to the aid of his damsel in distress, by roundly reproaching him.
Rumours of the American and British advance had reached Father's camp; he knew they must have reached the village by now. Having given up the war as a lost cause long since, he grabbed some rations and deserted, going absent without leave; his one thought to get to his wife and child whom he knew to be unprotected and alone.
He had about 100 km to walk, first through his own lines, then enemy lines. He was in uniform when he started his trek; both sides would have shot him on the spot, had he been caught.
It took him three days and four nights; he spent much of the time hiding in barns and hedges and moved with extreme caution. He was on the wrong side of the Rhine, the river must be crossed by one of the few bridges left standing which happened to be the bridge closest to home.
Before attempting the crossing he made for a farm just inside the German lines. He attracted the attention of the farmer's wife who took him in, hid him in the barn and brought him food and a pair of her husband's dark blue overalls. My Father was a large man, clearly taller than the farmer whose overalls barely fitted him. The farmer's wife hid Father's uniform and sent him on his way with heartfelt blessings. Father told us how she had said she hoped somebody would do the same for her husband, wherever he might be.
My Father was one of the last men to cross the Duisburg bridge before the Germans blew it up. In the chaos a sole man, dirty and ragged, going in the wrong direction, towards the advancing American army gave no one cause for concern; let the fool run towards certain death, if he must.
Somehow Father made it. He had tramped the back roads and country lanes often enough in his life; he knew isolated farms, secretive woods and hiding places. When somebody spied him, some other German, it helped that he was in workman's clothes. Few people risked leaving their shelters, although German units were retreating fast there was still fighting going on, particularly as the American advance approached the river.
Once he crossed the frontline the fighting diminished but he still had to dodge the vast body of military hardware and supply lines. He later said it was his sheer bloody-minded determination to reach us, me and Mother, come hell or high water, that saw him through.
Monday, 23 March 2009
March 1945
Apart from the hour between 11 and 12 in the morning when adults were allowed to queue for bread and milk in the corner shop there was still a strict curfew for all villagers without special permission to leave their houses. We had water but no electricity and food was beginning to be very scarce. We had very little left in larder and cellar, although the soldiers had not stolen what there was; they were keener on drink than on food. Bread was available, the Americans had supplied flour for the bakers to continue baking bread. The lack of electricity meant that bakers had to knead the dough with their feet, in a wooden dough trough, and bake it in the old-fashioned brick ovens. Farmers were allowed to tend their cattle and fresh milk was delivered daily.
Mother hated to leave me alone in the house while she queued for food, she returned as soon as she could, never stopping to exchange news. She and I were rather isolated, without any means of communicating with anybody other than a quick word with neighbours over the fence in the garden. The gardens were not overlooked from the street but Mother lacked the courage to stay outside for long. You never knew when the next search party would arrive at the door and demand instant access.
Mother didn't know what had happened to Father. The fighting to the east of the village towards the nearest town on the left bank of the Rhine was still going on, we could hear artillery fire, the drone of aeroplanes; there was a lot of troop movement and tanks continued to rumble along Main Street on their way to the front.
Mother knew that Father was in a camp about 100 km to the north of us. At the beginning of the war he had been a dispatch rider, travelling between units on the Western Front. He never saw action; as luck or misfortune, whichever way one likes to look at it, would have, he was seriously injured by opportunist fire from a low flying enemy plane which spotted him crossing the yard at his overnight accommodation, while visiting the latrines at night, carrying a light; an action which was strictly forbidden.
Father was near death; it took many months before he could leave the field hospital; after that he was transferred to a hospital inside Germany. For the rest of his life he carried a large piece of shrapnel in his gut, too close to the spine to be operable. He was never fit for active service again.
He was, however, declared fit to serve as a guard at a forced labour camp. which held mainly Poles, where he spent the rest of his war.
Friday, 20 March 2009
Monday, 16 March 2009
Town & Country and a bit of Culture
A lot of town and a lot of culture!
Scraper and I took a short break in the beautiful spa town of Malvern in Worcestershire; the excuse was to attend a performance of "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett.
The cast list consisted of four of the currently greatest English actors:
Ian McKellen as Estragon
Patrick Stewart as Vladimir
Simon Callow as Pozzo
Ronald Pickup as Lucky
There was almost a music hall quality to the play, Vladimir and Estragon are like an old married couple in their comic double act. Lucky did a breathtakingly bravura, solo speech, and Pozzo gloriously hammed up his scenes.
If you can beg, borrow or steal a ticket when the play comes anywhere near you, I strongly advise you to do so.
We stayed at The Abbey Hotel. It's large but comfortable, in the middle of the attractive upper town, within a few steps of pubs, restaurants, the ancient abbey itself and a great second hand bookshop.
English breakfast over Food for the soul
Thursday, 12 March 2009
The Scraper's Diary, March 4th to April 13th 1947
As a young conscript in 47 the scraper was sent on a tour of the British Sector (B.A.O.R.) in Germany to play in a band. He kept a diary which will appear here from time to time.
Nature may be notoriously careless, and hopelessly immoral, she may have many other faults, but none can deny that she has her moments of utter, unadulterated beauty, moments when nothing matters but peace and serenity. the undeniable splendour of her temporary caprice.
Tonight, while still aching from a cold ride in a draughty bus, I chanced into a sudden eternity of fairyland. I entered a narrow alley where the unguent snow, still falling, faded the memory of a pair of purposeful footprints under the yellow light of a swinging lamp. The rough bricks of the old houses seemed to provide a chorus to the cameo of romance, while the falling flakes
insisted a gentle prologue.
I walked away unwilllingly, and it was some minutes before I realized that my feet were wet and that I was very cold.
Tonight it was dark where I walked and the streets were silent; long white cuts in the snow bore witness of the night's purity, urgent in their symbolism.
There was the finest possible rind of the infant moon lying on the horizon and all the stars shone steadfastly, as if proud each of its individual contribution to the stillness' beauty, and though I would have stayed still and silent, I had to walk on, and the martyr snow beneath my feet spoke sadly of my profanation, shattering the silence, and heaping all nature's old hostility on my head.
I turned on the threshold, and the silence spoke more eloquently than man can say in the finest moment of his inspiration.
Thus England, in its coldest spell for years, and just to show you that there are beauties even in such severity, for those that will see.
Monday, 9 March 2009
Town & Country and a bit of Culture
A visit to Shrewsbury's new theatre was a mixed blessing. Friends P and J and I went to the opera: Rossini's "The Barber Of Seville", a jolly romp with a lot of well known tunes. P and I are old opera hands, J is a newcomer to the art form.
All I can say is: don't go. The performance was rather poor, the singing lacking vigour and musicality, the band was thin and hesitant.
I have one fault to find with the building itself: we saw only one staircase and it took ages to reach the street.
Gardener mulching the big mixed border.
Gardener was a cowman on a big estate, he looked after more than 200 cows until the owner got rid of the herd and the herdsmen too. He is a wonderful countryman, full of local lore; he knows every bird that flies overhead.
I love listening to him while we are working, in particular, when he mangles his words.
"Racing pingeons" are his great love, unfortunately his missus has banned him from keeping them.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
March 1945
Sherman M4A3 Tank
www.military-collections.com
Amazon
Three days after the invasion and after repeated house searches Mother and I were still alone in the house and still very much afraid, hardly daring to show ourselves. By day, the shutters were now open and the handkerchief had disappeared. The villagers were allowed to leave their houses between 11 am and 12 noon to fetch milk and bread from the corner shop. The water had also been reconnected although there was still no electricity.
By now the GIs had stolen a number of items from the landlord's part of the house, portable things that took their fancy, the spoils of war; some valuable, some possibly "keepsakes", like watches and small pieces of jewellery. We also knew that the GIs liked to take any bottles of wine and spirits that they could find. We never learned if anybody had investigated the contents of the earth closet, as far as we knew, nothing had been found.
On the fourth morning Mother opened the shutters; I was with her at the window. In front of the house was a very wide pavement and on that pavement, less than a meter away from he window stood a tank, a Sherman tank. Mother immediately tried to slam the shutters shut again. A hand stretched out from the tank, a black hand, grabbing the shutters and opening them wide. Mother tried to pull me away, and retreated into the room behind. Curiosity won over fear, I knelt at the window to examine the strange apparition on the pavement and the hand still holding the shutters.
While I watched an arm appeared, then a helmet and a face underneath it. The face too was black. I had never seen a black face before. The face was large and round, I saw dark brown eyes which were smiling at me and a mouth open in a wide grin, showing brilliantly white teeth. I have never forgotten that face.
For a while we stared at each other. Perhaps I smiled too, I cannot remember. But I know that I stayed at the window, behind the glass, mesmerised.
The next morning I rushed to the window; the tank was still there. For a while "my" black GI and I stared and smiled at each other. Then, slowly, he brought out a hand. The hand held a shiny, round, yellow object: an orange, the first one I'd ever seen. He stretched out his hand towards the closed window, clearly offering the orange as a gift. Mother was watching. I wanted the orange, to hold and examine it, it looked very interesting. Mother said no. I begged. The GI still held out his hand, I begged again. In those very early days women were afraid of soldiers, there had been talk not only of theft and robbery and destruction of property but also of rape.
In the end mother cautiously opened the window a tiny crack; I stretched out my arm and, miraculously, the orange was gently placed in my hand.
It smelled and tasted like nothing I had ever experienced before. It tasted like sunshine and light and wide open spaces and freedom and life itself and the total absence of fear.
One more morning came and, yes, my new friend was there, waiting for me. Eagerly I looked for his hands; they were hidden. I was very disappointed - there was to be no gift today.
But "my" GI smiled his broad smile and then one of his hands reached out to me, this time holding a tiny package, a small bar wrapped in paper. Mother helped me with the window, she had lost some of her distrust and fear but not, by any means, all of it. The opening remained a tiny crack, just wide enough for a small child's arm to wriggle through.
The package landed in my hand. The GI motioned that I should open it, tear the paper off. Curiously, I did as I was bid. Chocolate! I would love to think I held a Hershey bar and I probably did, although I would not like to swear to it now.
The kindness of that GI, the magnanimity the victor showed to the small child of the vanquished has remained with me all my life. There was so much hatred, evil and anger in the world I knew then, the only world I knew, that his deed stood out like a beacon of light in the darkness all around.
Sadly, my friend and his tank had gone by the next morning. I know he was not a dream because the pavement slabs in front of the house, where the tank had been parked, remained broken for all the time we lived there.
A day later, in the middle of the night, Father came home.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Springtime work
Gardener built a new leaf bin out of small trunks and sheep wire. The old bin was rotten and falling down. It takes a long time for my leaves to rot down, 18 months at least. Last year I stopped using the leaves from the sick horse chestnut, they go straight on the bonfire now. It is so sad to see such a magnificent, venerable tree slowly dying. Tree surgeons have shortened the sail; as the tree overhangs an English Heritage park, any branches coming off would have fallen on an area used by the public. We have been assured that there is now no danger of that. Still, I wish something could be done to rescue these trees, but the sickness is slowly covering the whole of the country.
We carried on tidying. I've pruned three of the largest clematis: clematis tangutica BillMac- Kenzie, C. viticella Polish Spirit and Abundance. All three provide luxurious tangles of leaf and flower every year; in spite of the cold weather buds on all three are large and healthy.
I've also severely cut back cotinus coggygria Palace Purple, another splendid grower. By pruning it so severely I'll probably lose the smoke-like flowers in autumn, which are really the reason for growing this large cotinus, but it does rather outgrow its space and the deep purple leaves are quite spectacular by themselves.
The large triangular mixed bed has had its first trim of the year, all dry and brown herbaceous plants have been cut down. Gardener said he'll do the "tickling" next. "Tickling" a border means forking it over fairly lightly with a small fork, weeding and loosening the soil ready for a generous mulching with home-made compost which is sitting by the hedge, ready bagged up.
The first anemonies under the plumtree are out too.
Sunday, 1 March 2009
The Eclipse
The Scraper and I love poetry, we belong to a poetry reading group in the town just over the border in Wales, where we meet up with like-minded friends. We also read poetry to each other.
"Poetry is what gets lost in translation". Who said that?
It is totally true, I've tried reading translations of poems by French or German poets to monoglot English friends. Poets that can move me to tears, raise me up, fill me with wonder, leave them cold. They stare at me in bemusement.
Last week's theme was "hope". To me, Richard Eberhart, American Poet, b. 1904, expressed the epitome of "hope" in just six lines:
The Eclipse
I stood out in the open cold
To see the essence of the eclipse
Which was its perfect darkness.
I stood in the cold on the porch
And could not think of anything so perfect
As man's hope of light in the face of darkness.
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