Sunday with Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179)

my ornamental Japanese cherry tree in full autumnal splendour

 

This morning I woke up a little subdued - I don't want to make my mood sound darker than that; subdued is a good enough word for now. I have been very aware of the days getting shorter, the nights drawing in and leaves turning colour prior to tumbling off the trees. Loneliness is so much worse in winter. Time to beware of the black dog.

So, what to do to make today, Sunday, a little special? It is all too easy for me to let one day run into another without any marker, and time at this time of life speeds up and before you know it, another month has passed. 

Let's start with breakfast, maybe a couple of slices of fruit bread and marmalade? Some ham and a sliver of mature Welsh cheddar? During the week I eat muesli and stewed fruit and nothing else; it's quick and easy and fairly healthy because of the dried fruits, nuts and seeds that I add myself.  And how about a large mug of fennel tea to wash it down. The main thing is to eat consciously, taste every bite and savour the hot drink going into my stomach. 

And while I am eating breakfast I have chosen to be accompanied by Hildegard of Bingen's heavenly sounds. Instead of almost deliberately depressing myself - I know what happens when I read the daily news reports - why not refresh my knowledge of this early medieval polymath, visionary, composer, writer, poet, botanist, philosopher, medical writer and practitioner and abbess of two convents, which she founded. Hildegard was born into the Rhenish aristocracy in 1098, she spent the remainder of her eighty years as a nun.

Hildegard von Bingen. Line engraving by W. Marshall

Hildegard became very powerful in a male dominated Church. She prevailed against various abbots and bishops and even attracted the attention of the pope in Rome who gave her permission to record her visions. She completed her great musico-poetic work around the year 1150. Seventy-seven songs and a music drama are extant today, more than of any other single medieval composer. When the mood takes me I will happily spend an hour in her company.

Hildegard was not universally popular in her time, powerful women were not then and are not now. Nothing much changes. It is said that her nuns, all noble ladies, wore jewellery and extravagant headdresses, and pursued an active life of the mind - without spending too much time in hair shirts, or on bread and water in freezing cells. (I made that last bit up.)

In spite of a lifetime of poor health Hildegard had a vast output of work. She has become important in our time for many reasons. The Feminist movement has embraced her and her ideas on holistic natural healing have been incorporated into the New Age canon.

On Oct. 7, 873 years after her death, the Vatican finally gave her the highest recognition for her considerable achievements. She was elevated to Doctor of the Church, a rare and solemn title reserved for theologians who have significantly impacted Church doctrine. There are 34 Doctors of the Church, and only four are women (Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Ávila, Thérèse of Lisieux and now, finally, Hildegard von Bingen).

I admire her but most of all I like to listen to her music. Nothing can soothe the anxious spirit like her music can. for today the black dog is banished.

Neanderthals

I read today that "The Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Sweden's Svante Paabo for his work on human evolution."

Neanderthals and, to a lesser extent Denisovans, have been in scientific news for a year or more. There are fewer finds of Denisovan material, hence less is known about them, although they definitely existed as hominin ancestor of Homo sapiens, the modern humans, i.e. us. 

(The first traces of Denisovans were found at Denisova Cave in Siberia in 2010. Fossilized teeth from Denisovans were later discovered in the same cave. Two upper and one lower molar were found in sediments that were dated to between 195,000 and 52,000 years ago)

Ever since I was taken to the cave in the Neander Valley in Germany as a young teenager I have been fascinated with human evolution. It was a study visit arranged by the school.

 

This visit was a long time ago, the whole class was taken on 'retreat', a kind of religious meditation and a rite of passage between childhood and emergence as young women. That my main 'take-away' from this three day outing would be seeding the first doubts in my mind that maybe the theologians at my school were not 100% the font of all wisdom was probably not the intention, although I have to stress that our religious teachers were not creationists. We had science lessons too, physics and chemistry as well as pre-history and history. 

Modern science has advanced in huge leaps since the days in 1856 when the skeleton of homo neanderthalensis *1 was first discovered. The Neander Valley was originally a limestone river canyon with rugged scenery, waterfalls and caves. Large scale quarrying changed the shape of the valley dramatically. During quarrying works the bones of the original Neanderthal man were found in a cave called Kleine Feldhofer Grotte, which is the cave we were taken to on a visit during the retreat; perhaps the school needed to imbue us with scientific zest as well as religious zest. Sadly, neither the cave nor the cliff where the bones were located still exists. Still, perhaps the destruction of the valley was not altogether a bad thing, without the quarrying operations the bones of Neanderthal *1 would not have been discovered. Since then many more traces have been found not only in the Neander Valley but in many other places all over southern, central and eastern Europe, 400 separate Neanderthals so far.

Paleontologists and geneticists have established that Neanderthals lived between 130 000 and 40 000 years ago; they coincided and bred with Homo Sapiens between 2600 and 5400 years ago, before they disappeared as separate hominids. One of the recent discoveries is that between 1 - 4% of modern human DNA comes from our Neanderthal relatives. And it turns out that Homo sapiens bred with Denisovans too: in parts of South East Asia up to 6% of people's DNA is Denisovan.

Fascinating stuff. Perhaps the Neanderthals really were the knuckle dragging, grunting, sub humans that we imagine when we now call certain types of man "neanderthal". It is somewhat unlikely though, because these early relatives of ours left art behind, in the form of cave paintings. They also lived on earth for far longer than Homo sapiens before they finally became extinct. No doubt paleogeneticists will find out much more about them as methods of scientific exploration continue to develop.

As for my visit to the cave in the valley of the Dussel in North Rhine Westphalia I remember only how very disappointed I was. We had been told that we were to be present in a place where the ancestors of early humans had lived and, being an imaginative soul, I envisaged visible and detailed traces, with maybe the odd domestic arrangement preserved for me to marvel over. There was nothing, just a cave in bare rock, without even the obligatory fire pit. They do it so much better in films. 

Afternoon all,

how are you doing? Getting a bit fed up? A bit bored with your own company? I am. Not madly depressed or sad, just a bit bored. Mind you, would I be any better off if I had a family now, maybe a few brothers and sisters, an aunt or uncle tucked away somewhere? Kids closer by, kids that actually liked me enough to want to live close by? Who knows. But then I was the one who moved far away from everybody.

A time like this concentrates the mind, come the rainy day and there’s not much else but dandelions around - it’s dandelion time in the garden and the hedgerows and verges - and all the family you’ve ever had is either dead or they’ve forgotten about you and live a life that's neither more nor less happy and contented than the life you yourself live. Once I had a lovely aunt, she’s the one I remember with affection; she was poor, with a husband who cut hair for a living in a tiny rural hamlet. Not much money to be made there. Auntie loved life, laughed a lot, celebrated every birthday, every occasion that lent itself to celebration and some that didn’t, and always had a plate of Dutch cheese open sandwiches ready to share. Auntie is long gone, I wonder what she would have made of it all now? Laughed, raised her shoulders 'what do I know’, and said, "it is what it is”. I know what Mum’s sister, my other auntie, would have done. She was the one much given to bursting into tears at the least opportunity, everything that ever happened was chosen by ill fate and aimed directly at her. Both of them are dead now but I know which one I’d rather sit with round the kitchen table.

They are all gone now, Mum and Dad, the aunties and uncles, even some of the cousins, not that I ever had many. Two kids max. per household was the going rate in the family, at least the side of the family I knew. And some only had the one, like my Mum and Dad. All of that generation had a hard time of it, two world wars, hungry childhoods and not much prosperity until much later when things generally got better. But they never experienced a pandemic, Spanish flu, avian, swine, HIV/aids, sars, mers, all scourges of the last 100 years, passed them by. Would they have borne them as stoically as they lived through their own times?

I miss them and, most of all, I miss Beloved. Not that I would want him as he was at the end, but the way he was when we sat opposite each other in the kitchen, when one of us would ask a question and so a conversation would start about a wide range of subjects, subjects which would need exploring in detail, whether we knew the answer or not.

I miss the old people and I miss Beloved. Often now my thoughts turn to the past and I want to ask what they think about this and that, do they have any advice to give or do they know as little as I do. The latter probably, but it would be good to find out.

The Significance of Giving

Did you leave your boots out last night for Sankt Nikolaus to fill with presents from the sack he carried over his shoulders as he roamed the lands in search of good children?  If you have been good since he last came this night a year ago I am sure he didn’t forget you.

Over the blog years I have mentioned the myth and mystery of the legend of Bishop Nicholas The Miracle Worker several times, this link will take you to a story of what happened one Sankt Nikolaus eve in our family.

Today, Nicholas, in the guise of Santa Claus, is the Bringer of Presents rather than the Miracle Worker. Christmas is just around the corner and the orgy of shopping and giving continues. We give throughout the year, of course, always have done, since time immemorial. I bet the first caveman worked a tiger’s tooth to present his inamorata with a trinket to adorn herself.  Giving has been an important part of mankind’s history, an opportunity to show our love, respect and affection for those we hold dear. Psychologically, it appears that the giver often benefits more from the act of giving than the recipient.

"Have you done your Christmas shopping? I’m all finished already, I usually start in October and by the beginning of December I only have a few trifles left to get.”  This statement is not at all an unusual one, it’s a sort of rite of passage to differentiate between the efficient, grown up ones, and those who leave everything until the last minute. Which hat fits you?

More and more I come across a small, but growing, minority of people who feel uncomfortable about our habit of splurging and dishing out often thoughtless, meaningless, unwanted tat. These people make donations to charity, both in their own name as well as the recipient's name. I can’t see a child being terrifically happy when told: "the money for your present went towards a bed for a homeless child,  a donkey sanctuary in Transylvania, to feed a family of four over Christmas. Maybe the child would feel a warm glow momentarily, but the lack of a present would be felt much more keenly.

There are people who make a present of their time at Christmas, working in homeless shelters which take in rough sleepers over the holidays. I have the greatest respect for them and their selflessness. They are not always people who themselves are on their own, I have been told that whole families derive great pleasure from such an act of kindness.

And giving for the sake of receiving is always wrong. We have a saying on the Lower Rhine which goes: “if you throw a sausage to gain a side of bacon you may be a good reckoner but you have no idea what giving means.

Giving presents can be a vexed business. My Dad used to say, year after year, “just a small token of appreciation will do, nothing fancy, nothing ostentatious, nothing grand or expensive.” Poor man, that is exactly what he got, a pouch of tobacco, some cigars, socks, a bottle of Schnapps. I believe he was happy. Besides, in the early postwar years we had no money to buy anything that wasn’t absolutely useful and none the worse for that.

Ephraim Kishon tells the tragicomic story of a spoilt young couple who swore to each other that they would not, would NOT, give each other Christmas presents. Come Christmas Eve they both unpacked   great piles of the most glitteringly expensive gifts. Both had deeply expected the other to break their promise, neither had been able to bear the tension of not-giving - giving in a purely material sense.

I am not Scrooge, I am pro-giving, in a small way. Giving is symbolic. It stands for thoughtfulness, solidarity, affection, closeness, friendship, love. Even a friendly smile, a kind word, an offer of help, a listening ear are gifts worth giving. If anybody wants to add a book and a box of chocolates I will happily accept them.

Another Reason to Smile

We Germans like our Bratwurst!

It is claimed that there are 1,200 different varieties of sausage in Germany.

For now, I am enjoying this one out of my frying pan;

eating it leaves me almost cheerful, in spite of the calories contained in it.

COME FRY WITH ME     

by AP Herbert

If there’s a dish

For which I wish

More frequent than the rest,

If there’s a food

On which I brood

When starving or depressed,

If there’s a thing that life can give

Which makes it worth our while to live,

If there’s an end,

On which I’d spend

My last remaining cash,

It’s a sausage, friend,

It’s a sausage, friend, and mash.

When love is dead,

Ambition fled,

And pleasure, lad, and pash,

You’ll still enjoy

A sausage, boy,

A sausage, boy, and mash.

My Friend The Tree Is Dead*

For the average German the forest is more than just the sum of the trees. When trees are threatened, Germans go on the warpath. I well remember the time of the late 70s when “sour rain” (i.e. acid rain), supposedly coming from Scandinavia, caused the great dying of the forests, particularly coniferous forests like the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). At the time the damage was thought to be irreversible. In Germany the forest is not only a cultural landscape formed through forestry and the result of modern recreational activities ranging from GPS-guided hikes to treetop trails. Much more than that, the woods and trees possess great symbolic, spiritual and fairytale-like charismatic powers and have always been celebrated in German poetry, art and music. Many of the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm are set in Enchanted Forests.  In this way the forest is deeply rooted in the German consciousness – not only when we are using the woods for recreational purposes.

Two millennia ago, when Germany was 90% woodland, (compared to about 20% now) the army of Hermann defeated the then greatest military power on earth, the Roman army, by setting an ambush in a narrow corridor between  impassable swamps on one side and hilly, thicketed forests on the other, the great battle of the Teutoburger Wald in 9 AD. The victory gave the woodland warriors a symbol of invincibility in the forest.

Even hard-headed German politicians subscribe to the cult of trees; in a 1983 interview Chancellor Helmut Kohl said : mythology,  Germans and the forest, they all belong together.

still standing - beech and truncated horse chestnut

Which brings me to the death of our own ancient horse chestnut. It has been sickening for some time - a few years ago we lightened its load by having the sail trimmed drastically - but during the recent gales on two consecutive days and nights it finally gave up the fight. During the first night the left hand fork came down and the next night the long branch on the right collapsed. No one was hurt but the garden beneath took a direct hit. My heart broke when I saw the terminally damaged giant.

the left fork

There was no help for it, the tree had to come down completely. Tree fellers moved in and set to work, trimming what was left of the canopy, power-sawing, chopping and chipping mercilessly, and carting the slaughtered remains away.

There is now a great gap in the hedge, allowing clear views across the valley; you’d say that’s not so bad, but it also allows the wind coming up the valley funnel newly opened access to the garden, probably bringing down several smaller trees which were damaged in the giant’s fall in the process.

The damage to the woodland garden is considerable, tree fellers trampling all over it during the removal of the horse chestnut hasn’t done it any favours. Fences are down, the leaf mould enclosure is no more, and a few terracotta pots have been shattered, their contents lost in the general mayhem.

As a dedicated tree hugger minus one very special specimen I am very sad.

*Title borrowed from a German song by Alexandra
 "Mein Freund Der Baum Ist Tot".

K is for Karneval - Helau and Alaaf !

Karneval in Cologne, image Fourth Thing

Karneval, the Rhenish name for the Fools' Season, is centuries old - Mardi Gras is an offshoot, but the two share nothing else but a common European ancestry. The Ancient Greeks and Romans celebrated Mardi Gras in the form of spring festivals as early as the 6th century B.C. In medieval times the "Feast of Fools" was celebrated as the last opportunity for merrymaking and excessive indulgence in food and drink before the Solemn Lenten Season. In some areas of Europe Karneval became a theatrical demonstration, an effective way of mocking monarchy, governments and other rulers without being punished.

Karneval is a Catholic tradition and in Germany is found almost exclusively in Catholic regions such as Bavaria and the Rhineland. However, there are Karneval celebrations in some Protestant areas, notably in Berlin and Braunschweig. (Braunschweig’s Karneval procession was cancelled this year at the last minute because of fears over terrorist attacks. I saw grown men weep on the TV news.)

Cologne Karneval is huge. As many as half a million people line the streets some years, dancing and singing and shouting ‘Koelle Alaaf' and swaying (schunkeln) the cold away. The Rose Monday parade which was first held in 1823 is more than 6 km long, with elaborate floats mocking politicians and politics, foreign and home grown, celebrities, curiosities and the carriages bearing 'Karneval Royalty’. There are endless parades of groups on foot, some as small as a dozen, others fifty or more. Dozens of bands provide noisy music, as if the noise from the crowds and the carriages and floats weren’t enough to deafen you. Everybody wears some kind of costume (it keeps you warm). 300 tons of candy are flung into the crowds from the floats, as well as flowers, rag dolls, other small presents and whole bars and boxes of chocolates. Each Karneval society has its own band of ‘soldiers’ with uniforms dating back to Napoleonic times, when the Rhineland was occupied by Napoleon’s forces; when the Prussians sent Napoleon packing, the populace in turn mocked them and their occupation of the Rhineland by dressing in Prussian uniforms,  also represented today.

Karneval, called the fifth season in Germany, the Season of Fools, starts on 11.11 at 11.11 and ends at midnight on Shrove Tuesday. It goes into a sort of temporary hibernation during Advent, Christmas and the New Year celebrations, but comes back in earnest in February, with the last week before lent being an almost non-stop party for members of the ancient and venerable Karneval societies and everyone else who wants to celebrate. Since Karneval originated as a mocking of Royalty, of course there must be a Royal Couple, the Prinzenpaar, who are crowned at the beginning of the season.With them comes the “Hofstaat, the Royal Court."  This consists of the "Hofmarshall" (Prince's Grand Marshall), the "Adjutant" (Princess' Attendant), the "Hofdame” (Lady of the court), and the "Mundschenkin" (Toastmistress and keeper of the wine.) Then there are the very important Princes’ Guardsmen in their tricorns and elegant uniforms.  ‘Funkenmariechen’, in their red and white uniforms are the female equivalent to the town soldiers, who were disbanded by Napoleon. All of these honours don’t come cheap and are highly regarded. The Funkenmariechen, who are an acrobatic corps de ballet, train for months before they perform at Karneval shows, called Sitzungen.

Karneval is very traditional in aspect and procedure. A whole ‘industry' exists for just this season. There is Karneval music, food, cabaret, and Buettenreden, (humourous and satirical rhyming speeches), grand balls and not so grand hops and other festivities all tailor made. During Karneval behaving madly and overindulging is a virtue.

Drunk or sober, in the grip of the mother of all hangovers or happy and fighting fit, on Ash Wednesday it’s all over. Those who feel they have sinned (which is allowed during Karneval) go to confession, are absolved and receive a thumb print in the form of a cross on their forehead and promise to behave well until the next Fool’s Season.

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them - (V)

At Grammar School my trials and tribulations hadn’t quite come to an end, but I learned to keep my head down and follow the rules. I was now a pupil at a fee-paying Catholic Girls’ School, the child from a poor background and the offspring of communist/socialist atheists, who took their convictions seriously; I should therefore have been totally out of my element. Like many children lacking in confidence, I was only too happy to blend into the background; I’d had enough of being the focus of attention, temporarily anyway.

I made friends with girls whose background was as unlike mine as possible; girls whose parents were well on the way to renewed prosperity, girls from professional backgrounds, business people, farmers who had got rich during the period when most people were starving, and the daughters of minor ex-Nazis. Germany's ‘economic miracle’ was taking hold but there was still a lot of confusion.

The last time a lamp made a particular impression on me was at a birthday party at the house of one of these friends. Birthday parties were rare and modest affairs, and I didn’t really feel like going because Mum couldn’t give me money to buy a present. On the very few occasions I accepted an invitation all I could take was a tablet of chocolate or a second hand paperback. Sigrid was the daughter of a businessman, she had new clothes and a proper haircut and lived on one floor of a large house in a once well-to-do area. I remember the living room as enormous, although it would probably not be as grand today as it seemed to me then. The room was well and comfortably furnished, with a special and separate seating area near the large window: three upholstered easy chairs around a small table, and a standard lamp in the corner behind it. The lamp drew me like a magnet and I asked if we could sit there instead of at the dining table at the other end of the room. Sigrid was surprised when I sat down in the chair under the lamp, leaned back and stretched out my arms on the arm rests. In the end we sat on the carpet and admired her presents, until her mother came in with hot drinks and cake for the three of us, Sigrid,  Elke, whose war widow mother was a teacher, and me.

I’ve got used to all sorts of lamps now; our lighting is slightly haphazard, some lamps have permanent positions, others are moved about the room to wherever they are needed. Ceiling lights are strong and have shades; Beloved with his poor eyesight likes them best and, if he had his way, they would all blaze away at the same time and cosy little corners with dim lighting would be done away with in our house.

Afterword

Writing this necessarily abbreviated series has not been easy. I’ve smoothed over some of the rough edges, yet a whole host of painful memories came flooding back and I felt great pity for the sad and lonely girl who didn’t really fit in anywhere. As an only child I carried the full weight of my parents’ hopes and aspirations; inevitably, they were disappointed many times. Ungrateful, they called me when I displeased them yet again. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child. Away Away!” so said King Lear in a fit of rage to Cordelia, and, like her, I left.

None of that matters now, one can’t live ones life in permanent regret for what happened in the past; it becomes a story to tell like so many other ups and downs one lives through; looking back, events become distant and unreal. There is, however, one aspect I regret very much nowadays, particularly when I read bloggers’ posts or listen to friends’ accounts about their close connections with siblings, the places they lived in as children and throughout adulthood, from school years to university and through professional lives. I envy the continuity and the ties that keep such lucky people firmly anchored and deeply rooted. I know that rarely do two people remember their joint past in quite the same way but I would love to be able to argue about it. I have lots of unanswered questions and no one left to ask, much less answer them.

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (IV)

Yes, there had indeed been a meeting, possibly the sort of thing that might be called an emergency council. We didn’t know about it at the time, it was much later that a fellow pupil in my new school told me in confidence, urging me never to reveal the ‘secret’. Or else her Dad, who was a member of the school’s governing body, would get into deep trouble. She also confided that her Dad and my Dad shared political sympathies; if these were known they would jeopardise his position. I was a loyal little body but also so cowed by now that I obeyed without thought, not even telling my parents. I don’t think I ever did.

Herr Thomanek stood above us on the level half landing with Mum and me on the steps below him. His physical attitude was that of a bully but his voice had softened a little. He seemed to be uncomfortable and spoke quietly. I was crying enough not to be able to hear him anyway; Mum listened, she didn’t speak for a long time. She nodded and appeared to agree with him and said to me “I’ll tell you when we get home.” They didn’t explain or ask my opinion..

Before we turned back down the stairs to leave I urgently wanted to make Thomanek understand that I never meant to be ‘cynical’ (whatever the word meant) and that I only smiled at him during lessons because I liked them. Hopefully, I lifted my tear-streaked face, but he turned abruptly, without looking at me.

In the German Secondary School System Middle School was the less academic branch of higher education. Although core subjects were taught, i.e. foreign languages, maths, geography, history etc., the school for academically gifted children was the Grammar School, where subjects included classics, science, music, German literature, etc. School fees were higher and students stayed on to 18/19 years of age.

At that time, in the 1950s and early 60s, both Middle and Grammar schools were occupying the same large building. It was one of the few in the town left unbombed and everywhere schools and other establishments budged up to make room for those who had lost their premises.

The heads of both schools, their senior staff and representatives of the governing body, including my fellow student’s Dad, had decided that the situation in Thomaneks’ classroom had become toxic and it would be impossible to restore order. I would have to leave. I would be offered a place in the same year at the Grammar School; school fees would be waived and I would continue to receive a scholarship. It was to be hoped that I was bright enough to catch up. It was fait accompli. Take it or leave it. The alternative was to return to basic education in the ordinary compulsory state system for all children, which precluded any chance of further academic education. Nowadays the choice would be called a No-Brainer.

Within days I was a Grammar School pupil. Some teachers disliked me from the beginning, rumours of misconduct had gone round both schools but, as now and always, gossip and rumours come and go. The girl whose Dad had spoken up for me and my parents befriended me, we discovered a joint liking for literature and poetry. I didn’t catch up in all subjects, certainly not in those I hadn’t been taught for three years, and I slipped from being top of the class to somewhere in the middle. By and by new, younger teachers came for whom I was an ordinary pupil, not tainted with having caused a teacher’s fall from grace, and we took/didn’t take to each other as such things are arranged in the natural course of events.

Middle School and Grammar School took outdoor breaks at different times but on the same school playground. Sometimes we’d overlap slightly and I’d see Thomanek doing supervising duty. I knew better than to smile at him and besides, he always turned his back on me.



there’s a paragraph or two to do with another lamp to come and a bit of an afterword. But the drama is all over.

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (III)

“You can’t just barge in here without an appointment”, he blustered. “This is my home and my family and I are about to eat our supper. If you have anything to say about what happens at school you have to bring it up there.”

Mum stood her ground, but he wouldn’t budge. “You have no right to invade my privacy.” He continued to attack us, insisting that he was not going to discuss any complaints except at school. A time was fixed for the next day and we left, having achieved nothing. He had bullied us into submission but his extreme reaction made Mum determined not to let the matter rest. Thomanek knew this, he knew that he would have to answer for his behaviour; Mum, working class, with no more than a basic education and quite unsophisticated, would demand answers from the school establishment.

Alas, she never got them. At least, not in so many words. In 1950s Germany most ordinary people kept their political allegiance, past and present, quiet. My parents, however, were among the few exceptions, foolishly perhaps, but definitely bravely, as they and the family had been during the whole of Nazi-Germany, for which they paid a heavy price. In the 50s the Cold War was raging, with divided and four-sectored Germany the buffer zone between East and West. Twelve million people had fled and migrated from East to West and, until the erection of The Wall in 1961 put an end to it, the mass exodus still continued.

In the end, Herr Thomanek's persecution of me was not due to personal antipathy, but the politics of hatred and fear. He was one of those who had gone on the long trek from East to West.

As a child I was sickly. Weak, under-nourished, too tall, too thin, with lung disease and all the ailments that befell children who had had a poor start in life. I wasn’t the only one, there were many of us. Twice I had been sent to sanatoria, once during the war to the mountains of Bavaria and once after the war to the island of Norderney in the North Sea. It was hoped that mountain and sea air would heal, or at least strengthen, my lungs.

During the time I was a student in Herr Thomanek’s class, Dad was offered a place for me in a sanatorium on the Baltic coast by one of his friends in the Socialist Movement; the problem was the holiday would have to be during term time and require permission from the school authorities. Permission would probably have been granted had the sanatorium been anywhere else but in East Germany, the place many of the teachers at the local schools had called home and had been forced, or had chosen, to leave. Dad, in his naiveté, had committed a monumental blunder. Permission was refused and Herr Thomanek turned against one of his star pupils.

Mum and I still had to meet him. She knew nothing about the politics of the staff room, all she knew was that her child was hurting and she wanted to know why.

We met him during morning break on the half-landing between two floors, leaning against the stone banister. Thomanek was standing above us, looking down. I was half sitting in a window embrasure, crying bitterly all the time of the interview. Although he was physically in a position of superiority, he was noticeably quieter, even conciliatory. The Headmistress had spoken to him and advised that he try to calm Mum down. There had been a meeting, he admitted as much as that.

But what would happen to me?



to be continued

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them (II)

I caught a cold, a snot-rattling, throat-rasping, eye-watering, croaking-voiced cold.

Fräulein Optenberg was certain the cold would be gone by the day of the concert. All would be well. I begged to differ. The cold was the perfect excuse for backing out. What teacher didn’t know was that I had long had cold feet and the nearer the day came the more terrified I became. "No, Miss, I am certain the cold won't be gone in time and please excuse me from going on stage”.

Snivelling little idiot.

Frl. Optenberg was frantic. I hadn’t ever heard the phrase ‘The Show Must Go On’; Miss begged, cajoled, implored. I sneezed pitifully, then I had an idea. If it meant that much to her I’d get her a replacement. I’d get her Klara. Klara was plump, small, stupid and in possession of a much healthier, more powerful voice than my lung-sick one. Klara jumped at the chance and was so abjectly grateful that I began to doubt the wisdom of my abdication. Aladdin’s cave was no longer mine for half an hour twice a week.

My cold evaporated, the day of the Christmas concert came and Klara was a great success. Neither Mum, Dad or I were in the audience.

This was the beginning of a lifetime of doubt in my own abilities.

Then came Middle School; I passed the entrance exam with flying colours and was granted a scholarship. There were school fees which my parents couldn’t afford, ends were barely meeting. Still pig-tailed, tall and very skinny and ten years old I joined children from varying backgrounds, some already well-off, particularly the children of farmers and professional people, and some from poor backgrounds like mine, on scholarships. We scholarship kids were the bright ones, the kids from the farms the least able. (That’s not prejudice, that’s how it was. After the war many farmers were rich, had their girls been bright enough they would have gone to Grammar School, where the fees were higher.)

Herr Thomanek was my form master. I adored him and he seemed to enjoy teaching me. For three years all went well. When kids from professional households made fun of my pronunciation of foreign words he shut them up and patiently explained where these words came from and how to pronounce them. Herr Thomanek was my favourite master and I had a bit of a crush on him, as a thirteen year old  might.

When from one day to the next he turned on me I was devastated. Open-mouthed incredulity met every unkindness, every jibe at my expense, every shouted term of abuse. It’s no exaggeration to say that my form master bullied me unmercifully. He focussed the attention of the whole class on me. “There she goes, sneering again. That cynical grin of hers, look at it. What makes you so superior, I would like to know." Once I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I got up from my seat, howling in fear and frustration, making for the door. “Look at her, look how she runs and howls; exactly like one of the Furies.” I went home and finally told my Mum.

That same afternoon Mum grabbed me and we went to Herr Thomanek’s house. His wife came to the door and said we couldn’t come in, they were about to have their evening meal. Mum insisted. For once she believed me without looking for confirmation elsewhere and she was going to get the truth out of him there and then.

We were let into the sitting room. I was probably too distraught to take in details, but I instantly saw an old fashioned roll top desk in an alcove, with lots of papers on the open flap and a lit desk lamp on the shelf above. Otherwise the room was in shadow. Herr Thomanek turned towards us as we entered, his face, illuminated by the lamp, a study in angry discomfort.




to be continued

Permutations on Lamps and The People Who Owned Them. (I)

"I can’t stand a naked light bulb,

amy more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action”,

Tennessee Williams’ Blanche Dubois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” gives herself away with this line as someone who prefers illusion to reality; who believes that dressing up naked truth prettily makes everyone happier and everything pleasant and easy. “I don’t want realism, I want magic,” she says in a later scene.

I woud hate to take Blanche as my role model but I admit, that as far as the softly glowing light of a prettily shaded table lamp - or standard lamp - is concerned, I am firmly of her opinion. It’s the kind of magic I want for myself. Standing lamps have always fascinated me, perhaps because such luxury was never my lot as a small child. Naked bulbs dangling from the low ceilings of cellars where Mum and I hid, the narrow glory hole of my bedroom or the slightly higher ceiling of the kitchen/sitting room in which we spent most of our time provided sufficient light but no comfort.  The apparent security and privacy of an individual light wasn’t mine to enjoy until I was an adult, in my own home. Once the hardship of the early postwar period was over, my parents had the means to buy lamps but, although ceiling lights were now provided with lampshades, table lamps were outside any experience they themselves had ever had. Light was a matter of necessity, not comfort; light had to be efficient, nothing more.

Fräulein Optenberg was my Infant School teacher;  she lived with another woman and it was in their sitting room where I saw my first ever upright lamp. It was Advent and a school Christmas concert was planned and I was to go on stage and sing some songs, solo. I was bright and enjoyed singing;  for teacher to choose me from all other children was flattering beyond all measure. But I was also shy and inhibited. I had none of the natural confidence some children are handed in the cradle. Rehearsals were to be held at Frl. Optenberg’s and progressed well. The first time I went, properly cleaned up, my long hair plaited and in my Sunday smock, the two ladies invited me into a room the like of which I’d never seen before. It was probably very modest by today’s standards but to me it was like Aladdin’s cave. There was a carpet, a small dining table and chairs, a desk in a corner, a pair of easy chairs and, in the alcove by the window, a piano, and, on the piano, a table lamp. It was afternoon, the lamp was lit. Immediately I knew that I had no right to be in this room, a room like this was not for me, and that all my life I would strive to win one. I was seven years old.

During the course of rehearsals a nasty episode happened. On the way home from school I daily passed  the house where Frl. Optenberg and her friend lived. On this particular day a group of boys, some infants like me, others up to fourteen years old, stood in front of her house, shouting and jeering. I couldn’t make out what it was they were shouting and when I did, I couldn’t understand what the word meant. ‘Mannweib’, the boys shouted, over and over. (Literally ‘Mannish Woman’, ‘Virago’.) I saw Frl. Optenberg appear at the window and I ran off, I didn’t want her to think that I was part of the rowdy group of children, the numbers now swelled by other girls returning home from school. I told my Dad what I had heard and he said to take no notice, that the boys were naughty and rude. The next time I went to rehearsals I stammered that “it wasn’t me who shouted at you” to Frl. Optenberg and she smiled and said “I know, child.”

The day of the concert came nearer and I caught a cold.



to be continued.

A Family Reunion - All Saints Day - Part III

The more specific maintenance of the graves fell to Uncle Peter and Aunt Katie. They often grumbled about it. Grandfather, who owned the plots, felt that it was only right and proper that the task of looking after the family graves should fall to his surviving son. He was the only one still living in the family home, rent free, as grandfather frequently pointed out. Aunt Johanna, one of his daughters, who lived in  a village less than an hour’s walk across the water meadows away and whose husband had a truck, pleaded ill health, which made her cry a lot every time somebody asked her to do something. Uncle Peter and Aunt Katie carried on working on the graves, spending time and money they could ill afford.  Aunt Katie liked to keep the peace, besides, there was nowhere else for them to go, they were dependent on grandfather’s goodwill. The old man spent little time thanking Aunt Katie for the hard work she did for him, the way she put up with his moods, fell in with his demands and tolerated his high-handed and sometimes scornful treatment of his son, her husband.

The mourners for the day stood around in the biting wind, murmuring platitudes and wishing themselves out of it and back in Aunt Katie’s warm kitchen, but not quite daring to suggest retreat for as long as grandfather stood his ground.

“I wonder who’ll be next”, they said, each hoping it wouldn’t be them but allowing enough suffering into their voices to imply it might be.

“All gone, all of them gone, who knows where.”

“Stupid woman,” I heard father whisper to mother, “dead and gone, with nothing left of them, that’s where.” Father was getting tetchy, mother’s family could be trying at times. He had long ago fallen out with two of his siblings and disliked his own father heartily.

“The old man is going to catch his death of cold”, his daughters muttered, “somebody should get him to move.”

Grandfather was a stubborn old man, he knew the family had had enough but he would be the one to decide when it was time to leave, be the wind ever so chill. He had lost his wife many years ago and celibacy and loneliness had hardened his once kind heart.

But even grandfather couldn’t go on ignoring the cold seeping into his old bones. “How much longer do you want to stay here,” he asked, sounding impatient for the others to make a move. “We’ve done what we came for.” He’d done nothing. “I for one have had enough and I’m off, stay if you want.”

He turned away from the graves and without a backward glance went towards the centre path dividing the cemetery, and made for the main gate.

Women and children scuttled after him, The men followed in a more deliberate, statelier procession.

The short day was ending, we had a train to catch, the widow of grandfather’s second son and her two children had an hour’s walk ahead to reach their home in the next village the other side of Muehlhausen.. Only Uncle Hans had brought his family in his truck. It was too soon after the war, long before the economic miracle took hold; nobody else in the family owned more than a bicycle. Petrol was expensive and not easy to come by, and Uncle Hans never offered anyone a lift.

Aunt Katie provided coffee, while the women cut sandwiches; the talk was loud and free now, the relief at having escaped for another year palpable. They were alive, they had survived, not just the day but the years of hardship and terror lay behind them. Life was still a struggle but they could see the promise of a future without fear.

“See you at Christmas”, they said jovially, and “get home safely”. The men slapped each other on the back and the women hugged and smiled broadly.

The kitchen heat had warmed the blood. My coat felt heavy and unnecessary, my hat and mittens itched. I wanted to take them off, stay here and climb the stairs to the cold attic and get into bed with Gisela.

“Kommt gut nach Haus”, Aunt Katie shouted after us from the open cottage door as we trudged back to the station. The night was dark, there was no street lighting. I clung to father, who held my hand. Afraid of the dark, afraid of the potholes waiting to trip me up, I stumbled along as fast as I could.

Nobody in the family was ever late for anything, setting out in good time was a virtue. Perhaps their generation had had punctuality and reliability drilled into them to the extent where it had become second nature.

We arrived at the tiny, single-storey brick-built station and the waiting room with its wooden benches with enough time to spare before departure, for me to study the signs over two doors in one side of the room once again. I was a good reader from an early age, but these signs defeated me. “HOMMESGENTLEMEN” and “DAMESLADIES” they said in capital letters. Each time I saw them I separated the syllables, saying them quietly to myself. “hom – mess – ghent – lem - men” and “dah-mess-lah-dees”.

When I asked mother what the words meant she said “they’re Klosetts; do you need to use them?”  “No thanks,” I said, but was no wiser than before. “Toilets?” Klosetts were called ‘Männer’ and ‘Frauen’ not these strange words which made no sense to me.

On the journey home the monotonous rumble of the train rocked me to sleep.  Father was still an invalid and not strong enough to carry me on to the connecting train at the market town and he certainly couldn’t carry me on the walk home from the station to our house in St. Toenis.

During the last half hour I made slow progress. My legs ached. Shivering with cold and tiredness, I stumbled along in the middle of the road, mother and father almost dragging me, both of them holding me by a hand.  “Not far now”, they said encouragingly, “home soon.” It had been a very long day.

A Family Reunion - All Saints’ Day - Part II

Aunt Katie’s welcome smile ushered us in. The black and white tiled hall of the cottage was unheated. We shed our coats, hats, scarves and gloves as  quickly as we could and  made for the kitchen-livingroom  where the round cast iron stove blazed fiercely. Grandfather was sitting in state on his sofa under the window; he didn’t get up for us, and we had to squeeze past the table in front of the sofa to shake his hand. I didn’t like to hug him, a peculiarly stale and dusty smell enveloped him, which offended my nose. Although we liked each other well enough, I was never his favourite grandchild; that honour belonged to my cousin Gisela, Aunt Katie’s daughter, who had lived with grandfather since the day she was born.

I loved Aunt Katie. Her smile lit up her whole face and her deep blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. Her kitchen was always cosy, and the large kettle on top of the black stove sang a sweet song of hot drinks to come. The aroma of a good thick soup tickled my nostrils. I was always hungry at Aunt Katie’s; mother hated that. She never stopped complaining about what she called my greediness in Aunt Katie’s kitchen and my lack of appetite at home.

“Let the child eat if she’s hungry,” Aunt Katie blustered in her forthright manner. “Food in other people’s houses is always tastier than food at home, that’s how it is. Everybody knows that.”

By and by Aunt Katie dished up and we all ate her nourishing soup and a piece of good country bread to mop up the last drop and wipe the bowl clean.

Soon other members of the family arrived and grandfather’s cottage began to feel very small. It was time to wrap up again and walk to the cemetery, which was a mile out of the village. We children were not excused the trek, honouring the dead was a duty we learned to perform early.

Once out of the village, a forbidding reddish brown brick wall rising to more than two metres loomed out of the mist. It was breached by equally tall wrought iron carriage gates which rarely opened. The only other entry into the nunnery and convent school, for that was what lay behind the wall, was a much smaller gate let into one wing of the carriage gates. To the villagers the nuns were mysterious creatures, who  never left the convent but allowed services to be held in their chapel on special occasions and, if you paid them, for funerals and weddings. No village child attended the convent school in those days. Cousin Gisela and her friends thought it a spooky, frightening place; they told each other gruesome stories about little girls being whipped and kept prisoner within the high walls. Whenever we visited grandfather, I refused to walk past the gates without holding on tightly to a grown-up, for fear of a hand reaching out and dragging me inside.

The convent was the last building we passed before we left the main road and took the turning towards the cemetery, an avenue of mighty horse chestnut trees, the candle decked branches a picture in spring, but now dark and bare, shiny brown conkers freed from their prickly wrappers sprinkled in the thick layer of dead leaves underfoot.

The cemetery itself was enclosed by low stone walls, with wrought iron gates, wide enough to allow entrance to a hearse, in the side facing the road. There were no other buildings, no chapel, no trees, just bare open fields in all directions; only the dead safely tucked up underground could escape the bitter East wind and its spiteful, bone-chilling whistle. I kept close to the larger adults, their bulk affording my skinny little frame a small measure of protection.

It was the custom in our family that Aunt Katie and her husband, my mother’s brother, my Uncle Peter, ordered wreaths and flowers in the village and that the others paid for their share on the day. Uncle Peter had only very recently returned from a prisoner-of-war camp in Russia, and his little barber shop barely earned him enough to feed his family. Grandfather, whose savings languished untouched, didn’t like to advance him the cost of the wreaths, which meant that the flower seller didn’t get his money until after All Souls Day.

Traditional grave decorations were bouquets and wreaths of asters and chrysanthemums, interwoven with ivy and holly and ferns and backed with fir twigs. The men had been carrying them and now they were fussing over their position on the graves. Mother’s family had three plots, all in a row, one large family grave reserved for couples and two narrower ones for single men and women, much like the large wooden sided double beds and the narrower cots in the bedrooms at home.

When each man was satisfied that his contribution had a prominent enough place on the graves,  the women lit everlasting candles, which burned from the afternoon of All Saints’ day until the morning of the day after All Souls. The candles were placed in small lanterns, heavy based to stop them toppling over in the wind, and set on flat stones, each of which denoted the final resting place of an ancestor or sibling. Great grandparents lay there, grandmother too, and uncles and aunts who had died young. There was room for grandfather and a few more awaiting their turn.

“The graves are looking good this year, the cemetery gardener has done well. " He always did, he was conscientious about performing his task. “Very orderly the way he’s raked the pebbles;  zigzags are so attractive."

If you owned a grave, you paid a small annual sum for general maintenance to the cemetery authorities.

“We must do something about the headstone, is it leaning to the right, do you think? And what about the moss, shouldn’t somebody clean it off?” There was always someone finding fault. Making a fuss made the complainant look concerned.


to be concluded tomorrow.

A Family Reunion - All Saints’ Day - Part I

In November the wide and fertile flatlands of the Northern Rhineland cower in the path of angry storms, which travel unimpeded for thousands of miles across the North European plains from as far away as the Urals, mercilessly sweeping a never-ending army of lowering clouds before them; when they arrive, trees in the woods huddle close together, bending their crowns and weeping raindrops into muddy puddles; October’s fireworks are dead and gone. Fallen leaves rot underfoot, the air is dank and in the lanes, along the banks of hidden brooks and by secretive ponds, in the copses and clearings in the woods, where timeless mosses grow deep and soft, the smell of mould is all pervasive.  Grey days lean heavily on the bony backs of black and white cows, listlessly standing in damp meadows, yearning for shelter, while white mists rise from the ground like shrouds abandoned by the long dead.

November wears a mourning band.

The feast of All Saints on the first of the month is followed by the feast day of All Souls, the day when tradition demands that we remember our dead. It is the day when families get together at the graveside of those they have lost.

In my childhood, we travelled to my mother’s home village;  Allerheiligen or All Saints was a solemn public holiday.  Early in the morning of the feast day, before daylight had fully woken, we stood out in the open on a draughty station platform, stamping our feet and rubbing mittened hands curled into fists to keep warm, clouds of breath visible in the morning chill. The station consisted of a wooden hut, where the stationmaster sheltered from the worst of the weather, and a pair of wooden benches for the convenience of passengers, one each on the down line and the up line. Here we waited on the edge of the down line for the train to transport us from St Toenis, the small village where we lived, to the sleepy little hamlet crouching among aspen lined streams and mist shrouded fields, where grandfather’s house stood. Muehlhausen was no more than one long street, a continuous row of houses lining it on both sides; occasionally a farmyard interrupted this line, leaving a broad strip of muddy, grassy verge free between it and the road. Wherever a break occurred, a ditch ran along the side of the road, nearly always half full of stagnant water. In winter the ditch froze over and children, their feet shod in clogs, skated upon the run of ice. Halfway along the village street stood a chapel dedicated to St Vitus. Every time we passed the tiny chapel, which was really more a shrine than a chapel, I expected to be smitten with St. Vitus’ Dance and start jerking uncontrollably. I had been warned not to get too near the Saint’s statue and certainly never to touch the icon or remove the flowers devout villagers had placed in his niche. Grown-ups always assumed children would do damage and needed dire warnings to stop them.

A long slow whistle pierced the gloom of the station platform, announcing the arrival of the smoke plumed train, the engine showing its displeasure at being forced to stop by hissing hot steam in all directions. We were usually the only people embarking; knots of people alighted, pulling their coats close about them as they stood for a moment on the platform; the men settling hats more firmly and women fussing with children’s shawls and woolen caps and securing their own scarves more tightly under their chins, before they started the cold walk down the Chaussee into the village and thence the cemetery, bound to perform the same offices for their dead as we were.

The stationmaster held aloft his red signal disk, and put the whistle to his lips. Doors slammed shut, a short blast on the whistle sent out a shrill warning and the disk slapped down. The locomotive hissed once more, the train chug-chugged into motion. The smoky plume renewed itself triumphantly above the carriages.

Black and white cows floating on deep cushions of pure white mists briefly looked up as the train drifted past and an occasional avenue of poplars marched into the distance. Farmhouses, embraced by barns on three sides, lay low, broad and solid among them, sheltered from the prevailing East wind by a stand of oak or beech.

Inside the stuffy carriage with its wooden seats you could smell the smoke snaking back from the engine; the fug and regular rat-tat-tat of the wheels induced a light doze. “Don’t fall asleep,” father chided me, “you know it takes you forever to shift yourself.” Father had to stay alert, it took less than an hour to reach the small market town where we had to change to a branch line which would take us to just one village away from the hamlet where mother’s family home stood. The train’s destination was Kaldenkirchen, a town on the Dutch border. Up to now it had been slow, with frequent stops at villages along the way, but once past the junction with the branch line, where we would have to change trains, it would gather speed and make for the border without further delay.

Although it was fully daylight now, I found it hard to alight into the cold, damp, air at our destination. The open road from the station to grandfather’s house was the part of the journey I liked the least; the wind blew across the fields, the mist clung in cold droplets to my nose and eyelashes, blurring my vision. I constantly wiped my sleeve across my face.



to be continued tomorrow

Beechnuts

That crackle and crunch underfoot is beech mast.
The big beech is aiming missiles at me from a great height,
and when her aim is true, I feel it.
Ouch!

Once in every five to ten years, they say, can we expect such bounty.
Last year was a good one too, so either they are wrong,
or nature is changing her rhythm.
A hot, dry summer helps.

I have need of a pig.
Could you lend me a pig?
Free of charge to both of us?
I have no acorns but plenty of beechnuts.
But do remember to ring the pig’s nose, I don’t want it rooting up my garden.

There was a time, a long-ago time,
when they gave you a voucher for a litre of oil,
in exchange for six kilos of beechnuts.

Diligence can do it,
they said.
All it takes is three days of back breaking work in the forest.
If you have little ones,
and maybe sing a happy song,
collecting six kilos of beechnuts
is child’s play.

Collect more and keep them to enhance your diet.
You want bread?
Cracked and ground into flour,
beechnuts are very tasty, make excellent bread.
But remember,
oxalic acid is harmful,
so roast these pretty little delicacies first
to avoid bad pain in the gut.
And warn the little ones.

A pig, on the other hand,
enjoys a forest meal, no ill-effects at all.
No need for roasting.
Yet.

Who Cares

except me,

that the grass in the lower field, where Millie and I walk daily, is finally being cut and I can actually see her again  rather than just follow a movement in the grass,

and that a nice farmer is turning the rows to dry them prior to baling the hay, all out of the kindness of his heart - I really can’t see the Duke of Norfolk, who owns the land, paying to have it cut - and for the sake of the village carnival at the beginning of August,

and that the garden is a perfect wilderness and my despair, but that Paul is back and is hard at work cutting hedges and trimming shrubs and that he and I are planning to dig up lots of herbaceous plants this autumn and replace them with shrubs to lighten the load for future years,

and that after a very hot period today was actually made quite pleasant by the addition of a few clouds but that a heatwave (i.e. nasty and sticky weather with thunderstorms) is forecast for the weekend, and that that means that I will once again have to disappear from view and hide behind a book and a tall, cool drink,

and that I’ve been to a vernissage and bought a couple of water colours for which I have yet to find the most suitable space in the house,

and that WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS,

Image Source: Sticky Wallpapers

although, come to think of it, there may well be a few million other people who do care about the latter. I sat up half the night watching the celebrations on German TV, wishing myself to be part of it. And I’m not even a football fan. (I lost a follower the night of Germany v. Brazil;  if you are a Brazilian, I am sorry; 7-1, what on Earth happened?)

It’s been too hot to blog, there’s been Wimbledon, the Football (soccer for you in the US) World Cup, some theatre, an informal party or three, a bit of gardening in early morning and late evening and not a lot else.  Nothing to blog about. I wouldn’t want to admit to reading rubbishy thrillers and very light-weight novels for hours on end, so I won’t mention doing that. Absolutely nothing to blog about.

After all, who cares about other people's boring recital of the banal doings of their daily grind. Just pretend you hadn’t read any of this. Sorry to have been wasting your time.

And Back Again To Simple Permutations

Definition of Permutation: "Each of several possible ways in which a set or number of things can be arranged.”
as in “Friko’s thoughts ranged in a dozen different directions of what she could do or would like to do.”

Nostalgia has been the basis for these posts; persistent rain and the pressure of nose against window pane while the owner of said nose stares out at a sodden and gloomy world, lend themselves to equally gloomy thoughts. Nostalgia was invented in 1688 by a Swiss medical student, Johannes Hofer, who described it as a “neurological disease of an essentially demonic cause.” The German word ‘Heimweh’ was eventually translated into the nationally unspecific ‘homesickness’, which means anybody can catch it, of whatever nationality.  In the 19th century, due to vast numbers of immigrants, America was the most openly homesick society known.

'Home is where the heart is’ or some such drivel. Platitudes don’t help. I am not sure if the feeling of displacement ever leaves a first generation immigrant. Nowadays we call them ex-pats; the word implies an eventual return to the mother country, a temporary sojourn in a country other than the country of origin, for whatever reason.

In London I knew lots of immigrants to the UK who said they would go ‘home’ again some time in the future; people of many nationalities who had lived here for decades, like me. In Valleys End there are just a few of us, less than a handful, all residents to the end of life. Probably.

Going ‘home’ is a fantasy. In any case, it is far too late for me. In spite of watching German thrillers, documentaries and clever talk shows on TV, I wouldn’t know my way around, wouldn’t know modern life, wouldn’t be able to conform anymore. Worse than that, I have got into English habits. I am no longer used to excellent workmanship, efficiency and cleanliness. I have no better way of describing it than saying that I have got into the habit of sitting down on a bench in the open without wiping it  first.

Also, I no longer have any close family there.

So, here I am, and here I’ll stay.

But there is one thing I can do. I have made arrangements with those in my family who still speak to me that I want my ashes to be chucked into the nearest river that flows into La Manche/Nordsee/The Channel. However diluted, I will eventually wash up on home ground. 

There’s a thought for a rainy day!

Advent Diary, day 4 - Meatballs Seasoned With Tears

Jutta rang last night; her mum, my cousin Helga, had died the previous afternoon. Helga was my last real connection with family in Germany, the last person with whom I could play that wonderful, heartbreaking, haunting, game “Do You Remember?” Although she was ten years older than me, we shared many memories of childhood and the old way of life.  We telephoned each other just two or three times a year; each time the link was re-established effortlessly. We spoke to each other in Low German, laughing, giggling and sighing in unison, and recalling long lost family members. Now she’s gone.

When I’m sad, cooking helps. I enjoy cooking at any time, but in times of crisis I find preparing food to be both soothing and healing, the messier the better. I found all the ingredients in freezer and store cupboard: minced pork, a roll of sausage meat and a slab of stuffing with nuts and cranberries. Add marjoram, thyme and oregano, herby French mustard, salt and pepper and get kneading with your bare hands.

When all the ingredients are well mixed, form the meat dough into balls, again with bare hands, and either fry in a little olive oil or grill.

I fried mine; for one thing, fried food is comforting (I don’t very often indulge) and for another, you get these gorgeous burnt bits, which scrape into a delicious Hunter’s sauce made with wine and slivers of champignons.

We had a portion each for our dinner, toasting my dear old friend Helga and wishing her safe journey into the next world. It’s what we do in my world, food and drink are for the dead as well as the living.

Eyes Bigger Than Your Stomach?

Before greed became morally acceptable in the circles of the Haves as well as many of the Have-Not-Quite-As-Muchs, and we all strove to make it into a commendable contribution to society to demand more and more, we made do with ambition, a much nicer word. I leave you to decide how closely ambition and greed are related; I’d say second-cousins-once-removed, but I’ve definitely seen them in bed together.

As a small child, having not only heard tell about hunger but experienced a definite feeling of hollow tummy, it was my ambition to sit in front of a well-filled plate of food at every mealtime. Mum dished up and, feeling the large, dark, pleading eyes of her first live-born and only child upon her, she was often more generous than she should have been. “Are you sure you can manage that?”, was her permanent refrain, and “You must eat it up. Dad will be cross if food is wasted.” The food was never wasted; Dad remembered too well a time when shortages were the norm and great inventiveness and imagination were needed to bring it to the table. He always finished my leftovers. But the phrases “eyes too large for your stomach?” and “bitten off more than you can chew?” were a constant reminder that there was something wrong with me and his disapproving tone left me feeling vaguely uneasy and grubby.

My table habits have changed since then, and plates piled high put me off altogether. I feel full before I even start eating. I wish I could say the same about books. There’s been a perilously unstable pile of books sitting on top of a large wooden box in my study for weeks, mostly poetry books, I thought. Each new one I took off the shelves to flick through ended up on the pile. Notepads, bookmarks, magazines, folders of notes, all found a ’temporary’ home on the box. With Kelly coming to clean up after us, the pile needed sorting.

Besides poetry books, which have all gone back on the shelves, I was surprised to find these which had slipped my mind, all non-fiction, with bookmarks keeping my place between the read and unread chapters.

In 'Die Deutsche Seele' the writers survey and research 64 themes of "Germanness,” from ‘Abendstille, via Bauhaus and Beer,  Doktor Faust, Gemuetlichkeit, Heimat, Music,  Luther, Schadenfreude, Father Rhine, to Weihnachtsmarkt, and the eternal German longing for the abyss.
I must not lose this book again, it’s wonderful for dipping into whenever homesickness overwhelms me. It makes the homesickness worse, but in a perverse way that feels good.

The American writer Bill Bryson is a lightweight. He had the idea for the 600+ pages of ‘At Home' (and many of his other books) while trawling his own life for copy. He appears to be looking around hisVictorian rectory in Norfolk, and finding each room the inspiration for an amusing - and possibly well-researched - chapter on generations of people going quietly about their business in his house and others like it. This too is a book which can be abandoned and returned to at any chapter. Bryson is never boring, but never truly gripping either. Amusing is the best I can say; I’ll save the rest of it for a rainy day when I have nothing better to do.

A.C. Grayling’s ‘Among the Dead Cities’ asks if the targeting of civilians in war is ever justified. Grayling is an English philosopher and Master of  New College of the Humanities, London. It is a book for those interested not only in the Second World War and the destruction of cities in Germany and Japan, but also the ethics of warfare in a world where governments still seek to justify the bombing of civilian targets. Published in 2006, the book is relevant today and examines the lessons we can learn about how people should behave in a world of tension and moral confusion. In spite of the subject matter the book reads well and I have promised myself that I will pick it up again soon and consume great platefuls of it in each sitting.


Simon Winder professes to have a ‘crazed love affair’ with Germany, a country he has visited many times over the years. According to the sleeve notes ‘he is mesmerized by its cuisine, its architecture and its fairy tale landscape. He is equally passionate about the region’s history, folklore, monarchs and changing borders'. Winder describes Germany’s past afresh, taking in the story from the shaggy world of the ancient forests right through to the Nazi catastrophy in the 1930s, in an accessible and startlingly vivid account of a tortured but also brilliant country, which has at different times revealed the best and the worst aspects of Europe’s culture.

Since I was given Germania nearly a year ago I have picked it up and thrown it down in disgust many times. It lacks gravitas, historical cohesion and rigorous research, and yet . . . . the man has a warped sense of humour which appeals to me.


There is nothing funny about Sebald. How ‘Vertigo’ came to be buried at the bottom of the pile is incomprehensible to me. My plate, when I first started to read it, must have been full to overflowing, thus making me turn to
a form of entertainment other than reading.

I can always read Sebald and my great regret is that he didn’t live to write more of his compelling, deceptively simple, eccentric masterpieces. Part fiction, part travelogue, Sebald pursues his solitary course from England to Italy, combining, along the way, Stendhal, the Great Fire of London, a story by Kafka and a closed-down pizzeria in Verona.



I would get back to any one of these books without delay, if it weren’t for the fact that I am in the middle of consuming two others: Richard Russo’s ‘Straight Man’ which makes me want to live among American college professors on a campus somewhere in small-town USA. It’s the only novel I have on the go and I am enjoying it tremendously. I’ll only put it down to pick another chapter of the second book currently on my plate: Oliver Burkeman’s ‘The Antidote’,  self-styled ‘Bracing Detox for the Self-Help Junkie’. Never having been a self-help addict the book shouldn’t make sense to me, but it does. Burkeman gives woolly old ‘positive thinking’ rather than actual thinking a well-aimed kick in the teeth. His ideas on how to stop frantically striving for happiness and actually getting closer to a semblance of it by letting go suit me down to the ground.

Bon Appétit.