The spectre at your feast

 This week, Sylvia Daly's poem hints at a different Christmas meaning - which seems appropriate, as this year it's definitely going to be a different kind of Christmas for us all. Thought-provoking.

P.S. Nevertheless, we wish you all a cosy, healthy and safe Christmas!

Christmas Visitor

I am the dark Christmas Angel,

the spectre at your feast.

Watching over celebrations

that change you to gorging beast.

Your God, reduced and captured

in swaddling clothes and stall,

gentle, safe, rendered harmless.

Offending none and pleasing all.

This is not the Christ of my world,

doe-eyed baby smiling sweet.

My Christ suffers, works for justice,

speaks with passion, acts in heat.

Is there a place for such as I

at this false, festive season

With myriad gifts, glittering trim

and drink to lose all reason?

Yes, I’ll attend your vulgar romp,

though not atop your burdened tree.

A shadow fleeting, movement quick,

a flicker in the eye, knows me.

"The Darcy visit was brief, and every bit as difficult as I feared..."

What makes Anne de Bourgh look 'sickly and cross'? Jane Austen never tells us - but Rohase Piercy gives us a clue in Before Elizabeth.  

I have very little memory of my father's funeral.  My main impression is of a room full of people, with Mama in black silk sitting rigidly in Papa's favourite chair at one end and Mrs Henderson ushering in guests at the other.  I do remember feeling both surprised and gratified that a quiet, reclusive man like Papa should have attracted so many mourners; not as many as had attended my Uncle Darcy's funeral, but enough to bear witness that he was loved.  I know that William was there – I remember seeing him in conversation with Edward, and later with Mama – but I do not recall what I said to him.  It was my turn now to be unreachable in grief.

A fortnight or so later, I fell ill.  The shock of losing Papa in so sudden and violent a manner, at a time when my nerves were already at full stretch, made me easy prey to a virulent fever which confined me to bed for three full months.

I did not realise until much later how critical was my situation during those months, or how close Mama came to losing a daughter as well as a husband.  I remember the pain which racked my limbs, and the burning in my head and throat; Mrs Jenkinson's arm supporting my head as a glass was raised to my lips; the movement of the curtain at the open window and the menacing shadows which danced around the candle during long, broken nights. I recall sharp, vivid dreams invading my sleep with harsh voices and garish colours:  my father calling out my name, Miss Harvey's mocking laughter, writhing worms of light, splinters of blue glass.  Several times I became aware of a low moaning sound, only to realise as I surfaced from delirium that it came from my own throat.  I also have a memory of opening my eyes to find Mama sobbing at my bedside, a sight and sound so startling that I long believed it to have been a dream.

When I came to myself I felt drained, exhausted, and light as a feather.  It was a curiously pleasant feeling, as if the flotsam and jetsam of my life had been washed far out to sea, leaving me becalmed upon a wide, white shore.  I was horrified, however, upon first seeing my reflection in the glass: I had always been slight and fair-complexioned, but now my face was skull-like and white as bone.  My hair came out in great clumps upon the brush, causing me to drop it with a cry of alarm.  Mrs Jenkinson was my nurse throughout, singing old lullabies and stroking my head as though I were once again the little girl she had nursed through so many childhood illnesses; and her tender care brought me back to some semblance of health.

“You have nothing to worry about now, my chicken, except regaining your strength.  We have all the time in the world.  Let me help you to the window, precious – that's right, slowly now, lean upon my shoulder whilst I take your arm.  See, I have arranged the cushions nicely for you – let me lift your feet.  Now, we must wrap you against the cold – look, the trees are almost bare, just a few bright leaves clinging to the birches.  You're as pale and slender as a birch yourself, my poor darling, but have patience – we must all have patience - and we'll have you as bright and gay as a daffodil by Easter.”

I was in no hurry whatsoever to be as bright and gay as a daffodil.  I had no desire to do anything other than lie upon the sofa and watch the last leaves succumb to their fate, spiraling down one by from the skeletal birches.  Every movement pained me and tested my strength.  For what seemed like weeks I could walk no further than the window; then gradually I progressed along the length of the corridor outside my room, my knees giving way upon seeing the turn at the landing and the great flight of stairs beneath.  Eventually however  I was able to descend, and spent a hollow and cheerless Christmas by the drawing room fire, trying to force down sips of spiced wine as the sight of Papa's empty chair brought a lump to my throat.  Mama sat watching me anxiously, her voice unusually gentle and low as she read from Georgiana's letter sending me good wishes from herself and William, and promising to visit in the Spring.  I felt no enthusiasm at the prospect.  I had no wish for company, not even William's; the sensations that his very name had once evoked seemed as distant and ephemeral as a fairy tale.  I moved from day to day like one in a dream, feeling quite content to lie upon the couch and watch my life drift by without taking any active part in the proceedings.

It was Edward who first came to visit me, arriving with the crocuses in mid-February.  I was reluctant to see him at first, ashamed of my changed appearance and cropped hair; but he wisely persisted, and his company proved to be the restorative I so badly needed.  I saw in his face that my pallor and thinness shocked him, but he took my hand with brotherly affection, spoke cheerfully, and declared himself happy to be at Rosings again.  We did not speak of Papa at first; in fact I spoke little at all, leaving Edward to manage the conversation.  He talked of matters that seemed as distant to me as the moon: his promotion to the rank of Colonel; Georgiana's continued progress at school; William's new London friends, whom he had lately been entertaining at Pemberley.

“He is apparently reckoned to be the perfect host. 'Tis a transformation I should dearly love to witness, should not you, Anne?  William making himself agreeable in company – well well!  But then a young man in possession of a large estate is always described as the perfect host by guests hoping for a second invitation!”

I tried to smile, but my incomprehension must have shown in my face; Edward looked concerned, and fell silent.  At length he said quietly “I am so sorry, Anne, that I had to leave Rosings so soon after – that I could not stay longer, and be more of a help to my aunt and to you.  It could perhaps have lessened the gravity of your illness.  I have failed in my promise to my uncle.”

He blinked rapidly as he spoke, and my desire to reassure him roused me to speech. 

“You have nothing to reproach yourself with, Edward; what could you have done?  You are a soldier, not a nurse!  I think I was better off in the hands of Dr Harris and Mrs Jenkinson, do not you?”

Mama, to do her justice, was both courteous and welcoming to her nephew.  Grief had changed her; she had softened towards him, and was appreciative of his kindness to me.   Perhaps having now no occasion for jealousy, she could acknowledge his good qualities without rancour; perhaps his promotion to the rank of Colonel impressed her.   According to Mrs Jenkinson, Edward was a brave and gallant officer.  He must, I realised, be required to command obedience, lead men into danger, risk his life for King and country.  William's responsibilities, great as they were, paled into insignificance beside Colonel Fitzwilliam's; and yet Edward gave himself no airs, stood not upon his dignity, remained open and pleasant in his manner to all.  Who would not love such a man? Papa, I reflected, would be so proud of him.

The months passed, and I grew stronger. Eventually I became curious to see how Georgiana was getting along, and to feel myself equal to that meeting, both longed for and dreaded, with William.  No sooner had I expressed the hope, than Mama arranged the visit. My agitation as the occasion approached was only increased by her repeated assurances that a pale, delicate appearance was greatly preferred by gentlemen of taste, and that short hair was now very much in fashion.  I understood fully for the first time that my bloom, such as it was – 'I would not have you lose that delicate bloom, Anne' - had been irrevocably blighted by my illness; I began to regret having prompted the invitation, which it was now too late to rescind. 

The Darcy visit was brief, and every bit as difficult as I feared. William's shock at finding me so changed was obvious for all to see.  He recovered his countenance well, quickly replacing his expression of horror with one of concern, but it was too late to erase it from my memory or to prevent me from calculating the implications of it.  And it was not just I who had changed.  Edward's talk of a 'transformation' had not been exaggerated - Fitzwilliam Darcy was now a man of the world, his manners confident, his appearance fastidious.  He spoke, with a detachment that appalled me, of the vulgarity of public balls, the tediousness of dinner parties; of shooting parties organised by a boorish neighbour, Mr Hurst, who had recently married the sister of his friend Charles Bingley; of the merits and shortcomings of Mr Rowe's stewardship; of pressing matters of business at Pemberly, to which he must shortly return.

Was it really less than two years since we had stood beneath the trees in St James' Park, and I had felt myself melt before the eloquence of his gaze?  It seemed a lifetime ago.  When Mama took him away to make the obligatory call at the Parsonage, leaving Georgiana and I alone together, I felt only relief.

Georgiana was kindness itself, complimenting me upon my hair riband and bringing me extra cushions with sisterly concern.  She brought her chair close beside my couch and proceeded to regale me with such tales of school life as had formerly been my delight - but what a chasm now lay between us!  Beside Georgiana, I felt old at sixteen; an old maid to whom her eager prattle seemed childish, her robust good looks a reminder of long-faded youth. I reproached myself, recollecting that she had lost both parents, and I only one;  but how could I match such resilience?  Why was I so damaged, and she so wholesome?

Eventually my listlessness and obvious disinterest defeated her.  She timidly observed that I seemed fatigued, and offered to ring for Mrs Jenkinson.  I did not object.

When our guests departed on the following day, Mama declared herself vastly pleased with the visit, and with William's solicitude toward me; but I knew otherwise.  All my hopes and expectations regarding my handsome cousin were now as insubstantial as a dream.  He had left me behind, in a realm of shadow, while he forged his way ahead in the world.  

Unequal to battle, I took refuge in surrender;  I remained upon the sofa and watched cherry-blossom drift past the window as spring gave way to summer, and my seventeenth birthday came and went.  

There was now, of course, no question of my being presented at Court.  

The wind howled that Christmas night ...

Well, it is the first Sunday of December and we all need some winter cheer. This marvellously evocative account of a Christmas in Wales by Maggie Redding is just the thing. 

 An Adult’s Christmas in Wales

(‘A’ certificate – for adults only)

With apologies to Dylan Thomas.

'Twas the night before Christmas

when all through the house

not a creature was stirring

not even a mouse.

But at Pantyfer, at Christmas in 1984, this was not strictly true. Life here was raw in tooth and claw and everything was stirring, including spiders in the roof, my Scottie, Haggis, as well as two mice, both of whom were pounced upon by Haggis. They squealed at the death blow, poor little things.

But that was nothing compared to the mass slaughter going on around us – and I do not refer to our next door neighbour – a quarter of a mile down the valley – who had attempted to murder his wife and was securely behind bars by now.

No, I mean the business of preparing for Christmas by every farmer in the area. Turkeys and geese were being made ready for the Christmas table in poorly lit barns, by people in long overalls, heads covered, in snow storms of down and feather. A lucrative trade, it was.

And we, being mini-farmers (in our eyes at least) with our one and a half acres, had geese, chickens and ducks needed to deal with two geese, one for our table the other for that of a friend. They were dispatched according to the advice sought of the RSPCA, after a neighbour, the Mink Lover, we called her, not for her coats but because of her protection of these pests, had complained about our intention.

We had four geese who were terrific watchdogs, setting up a fervent honking and gaggling on the approach over our bridge of anyone, friend or foe, especially, for some reason, if they were wearing wellingtons. We preferred not to kill one of the chickens for Christmas. That was to be for the New Year.

Sylvia was efficient in the dispatch to their maker of the geese. This East End girl had quickly adapted to country life. They didn't know, the geese, what had hit them. It was over and they would no longer wander beneath our apple trees nor swim on our stream. 

The two carcasses had to be plucked, an irritating procedure as particles from the feathers and down floated in the air and up our nostrils. Their wings, when viewed close to, were a marvel to behold and the down, on their chests, so soft. The feathers and down went on to the compost heaps.

Now that we had naked carcasses we had to clean them, that is, deal with their innards, an interesting procedure from an anatomical point of view. We kept the hearts and livers for gravy.

These procedures took place in our rickety conservatory which was in desperate need of conservation as was the rest of the cottage. Dusk fell and we needed to switch on the light, a 40 watt bulb. Once plucked and drawn, all that remained was to burn from the flesh (bumpy goose flesh) resistant down and quills with a lighted spill. I turned the first of the carcasses over. It honked, a familiar, angry sound. I screamed. Air, remaining in the carcass had been pushed through the windpipe in the neck and it made the same sound as when it had roamed under the apple trees. In the dim light, the sound was haunting and eerie. 

For the next days, the goose now being in the fridge and filling it, we made other preparations for Christmas. Holly and mistletoe grew on our one and a half acres, holly on the boundary, with sharp protective leaves and red berries, none of the tame stuff, and mistletoe on our apple trees. Mistletoe grows also on other rough-barked trees, like oaks and poplar.

Our home, Pantyfer, meaning ‘hollow of fir trees’, although by now there were none, had been a pair of cottages knocked into one, the homes of the blacksmith and the stone-mason. We had four, low ceilinged rooms, two up two down with exposed beams downstairs, supporting the upstairs floors.  The roof trusses were exposed upstairs, so we had only tiles above our heads up there – with spiders and dust, dust especially when the wind blew.

Father Christmas would not be paying a visit as the fireplace in the sitting-room smoked because the chimney, in relation to the size of the fireplace, was too small, and there was not sufficient draught. But by the time we had decorated the cottage with holly, the place looked a treat, no garish colours just holly and ivy and a bit of tinsel.

The wind howled that Christmas night. The fireplace smoked, the Rayburn roared joyfully, consuming Polish anthracite even though we lived close to a colliery mining the best anthracite in the world. This was the time of the miners’ strike. We were at the western edge of the valleys. The people suffered at that time. All the children, with few exceptions, in the Gwendraeth Valley Comprehensive School were on free meals.

Next to our land was a bluebell wood, in spring. In winter, the wind roared down the little valley of the Isfael and the river was in spate. Shallow-rooted trees often fell and the Gwendraeth River, further down where it received the rushing, gushing Isfael River, would flood. The cottages seemed to have survived for two hundred years nearly, so we worried about neither falling trees nor rising floods, only dust in our eyes.

Haggis slept, all through that windy night, by the roaring Rayburn in the kitchen, the warmest place in the cottage. The goose next morning was soon in the Rayburn's oven, a good hot fire having been stoked up.

The observant among you would be recognising in that four roomed cottage, two up, two down, no bathroom has been mentioned. There was none. A shower had been installed above the kitchen in one bedroom, but no toilet. We had an Elsan chemical toilet, outside, in a crumbling shed without a door. We had rigged up a shield for privacy and also place for a torch or candle when it was dark. We called it Tenko, after a TV programme at the time. No, we had no television either.  Reception in the valley was non-existent.

Buckets featured heavily in our lives. Buckets of earth had to be moved around the garden in preparation for spring vegetable planting, buckets of compost, to the heaps or from the heaps, buckets of wood for the open fire, buckets of anthracite for the Rayburn, buckets of ash from the fireplace and the Rayburn, and buckets from Tenko to the compost heap.  Our lives were lived promoting nature’s cycles.

At this time, some seven or eight months in our crumbling little grey home in West Wales, we had to fetch all our shopping, including corn and potatoes to fatten the geese, by shopping trolley and bus to Carmarthen and back, seven miles from the village, which was one mile uphill. There was a village store up at Llanddarog which later delivered many of our groceries. Milk, unpasteurised, was delivered by a bullying milk-lady, and anthracite was delivered by the half ton to our smithy, the also crumbling blacksmith’s shop on our land, where we stored gathered wood and fuel. Wood and anthracite, in buckets of course, we carried over a bridge and into the cottage. The only catastrophe that ever befell us was the freezing of the water pipe under the bridge, when winter did its worst. Being Wales, there was still plenty of water available. Neighbours were helpful. And winters were otherwise wonderful, what with sledging down the hill, snowball fights and snow people galore in the garden.

Our Christmas dinner that year consisted of our delicious goose, of course, locally grown vegetables carried from Carmarthen market along with the ingredients for our home-made Christmas cake, mincemeat for mince pies and Christmas pudding.  Drink was only cider, obtained on a trip by bus and train to Hereford, some eighty miles across the border to the county of apples and cider. Here we would visit my relatives.

For the Christmas meal we had our own apple sauce for the goose and cream – oh, so thick – from the milk-lady. In later years, everything came from our own garden except dried fruit and bread for the bread sauce.

Every year, we recall the Pantyfer Christmases. We were poor, we had little money, even on a trip to Carmarthen shopping, we could afford only one cup of tea between the two of us. But those times were challenging, creative. We learned a lot, about ourselves and each other and life. Only outside events caused us to leave our idyll.  Ever since, we have dreamed about doing it again. Now, we couldn't cope with the cold, the carrying, the chopping of wood, the dispatch of livestock. But we are happy and proud that we did it.

Women don't write, he said

The remarkable poet Christine Webb has kindly allowed us to use this thoughtful and thought-provoking piece from her 2004 debut collection, After Babel. 

-------------------------------------------------------------

 It was not the fruit

It was not the fruit she took

but the wood

not its flesh she chewed

but a pulpy fibre

(warm in that cavity

so various, ingenious

close to the brain

mother of language

thought shaper)

– spat out, finally

moulded and flattened

into rough leaves

a little bigger than the figs'

and drier

and for ink?

there were the experimental

berries, saps – ground

insects, even –

or the last resort,

the slow ooze

of red.

No problem of what

to say: creation 

all around, bursting

into words... In The 

Beginning... 

A shadow 

fell across the page as 

she squatted, rapt. – Women

don't write, he said

And screwed up her bible

Christine Webb

from After Babel, pub. Peterloo, 2004

The White Stone Well

This week, Charlie Raven's kindly given us an extract from her Holmesian murder-mystery The Compact. 

It's 1898. Recovering from traumatic events, the artist Alexandra has been persuaded to recuperate at the domineering Minerva Atwell's country hotel. An inexplicably eerie atmosphere seems to pervade the valley, perhaps associated with the ancient well in the woods - or with Minerva herself.

 

Adsullata Spa Hotel, Whitstanwell, Somerset

My dear Harriet,

Well, you will see from the notepaper where I am. I am sorry not to have communicated with you before. We arrived on Tuesday and I would have written sooner but it was all very rushed and time just seems to go so quickly. But before I say anything else, I want to apologise to you for my recent coldness. I don’t have to tell you why. I am sorry too about the unpleasant scene after the funeral. I fully understand why you felt you had to question Mr Burroughs like that and I cannot excuse his remarks to you. I think the shock affected him, as it did all of us. Think what he must have seen! Anyway, my harsh words at the time were uncalled for and I beg you to forgive me. Like the good old friends we are, let’s put it behind us. Now! Let me tell you about this place.

We took the train to Bath, of course, and then entrusted our luggage and ourselves to a rather alarming but very sturdy equipage that Mrs Atwell had arranged to meet us. It was drawn by two immense muddy dray horses and I soon understood why they were necessary. The carriage, as black and shiny as a beetle, at least looked in no danger of overturning, which was well - for it had to thread (rather dangerously, I thought) up and down steep foothills and through country lanes in the darkness. I cannot say that January is the time I would have chosen to explore the wilds! Mrs Atwell of course is a seasoned traveller and often comes here. She says the soft airs of the place, even in winter, are particularly conducive to health both of body and mind. There is a pretty village not too far away with a convenient post office too.

Anyway, we are settled now, dear Harriet. Mrs Atwell is a fascinating companion but she is often busy and you and I could chat very comfortably here. I have not had an opportunity to explore everywhere as yet, particularly as part of the hotel is shut up and undergoing repairs. It is being modernised, Mrs Atwell says, in preparation for the much busier seasons she expects in the future as the Spa builds up its reputation.

There are but three residents here at the moment, each of whom receives the very best care. Mrs Atwell tells me the waters of a marvellous local spring provide such benefits to the nervous system as are almost impossible to enumerate. She says the source is the same extraordinarily deep volcanic wells as supply the renowned hot springs at Bath. She herself discovered the forgotten well in the valley here and had it restored, diverting the waters to supply a pump room in this romantic old place. It has taken a great deal of work to get it right, she tells me, and she says the Bank has ‘sunk’ a lot of money into it, but the modern building is now almost perfect and will rival Bath itself in time. 

With her keen interest in history, Mrs Atwell assures me that she has found evidence that the use of the well dates back to pre-Roman times. Her workmen discovered various stones under the water in the course of their work. They are crudely shaped to suggest human heads. Apparently the poor superstitious fellows would have destroyed them but Mrs Atwell intervened and had them set up in the salon, much to local disapproval, as you may well imagine! She had them thoroughly scrubbed and they have come up as white as alabaster. She believes the very name of this valley is inspired by them – perhaps a fanciful idea, but who can say? You would be much interested to see them – I intend to append a sketch of one. You will agree, I think, that they retain a certain power.

I am sitting, my dear Harriet, in the comfortable salon having ‘taken the waters’ myself these three days running. I have drunk them – tastes like metal and blood, very odd - and also immersed myself in the beautiful pool which Mrs Atwell had built here. You would love to see it (and you would laugh to see me in it attired in a voluminous bathing gown!). It is tiled with blue and gold fishes – the pool, that is, not the gown. Don’t laugh – my head is a muddle. One hardly wishes to leave the pool once one is fully immersed. I can truly feel myself relaxing into a better state of health. 

I have made a great friend here too, a Mrs Halliwell, who as I write is sitting near me by the fire. She, poor thing, suffers much from gout and rheumatism. By lucky chance, she once also lived in Cairo for a while so I have enjoyed chatting whilst pushing her about in a handsome bath chair (or else she must hobble about on bandaged feet).

Dear Harriet, after the recent terrible tragedy – of which I can barely think or write - I hope that the healing qualities of this place are restoring me to my right mind. Quite soon I plan to resume work on the famous portrait of Minerva Atwell. She particularly wishes to work at it here because she says the atmosphere, light, etc. are very ‘artistic’. It made me laugh when she said that. 

I feel very blessed to have such a friend – for I think I may increasingly trust that I am her friend – and even more blessed to know that I remain your A.

Alexandra read the letter through, signed it and folded in a small sketch she had made the previous evening. She sealed it into an envelope and walked out to leave it at the reception desk with other letters waiting for the post. She was alone for now. Mrs Halliwell had dozed off in her chair. The other two residents were receiving various treatments from the staff. Minerva was somewhere about the place or busy in her office. 

Alexandra looked out of the windows of the solarium towards the head of the valley. At the top, a shoulderblade of brown-gold hillside caught the winter sunlight. Leafless trees marched down the slopes to flank the road leading to the hotel. Above it all, the thin and blue sky was like a pane of ice. It would be good to work again, to get the easel and some pastels, perhaps, and begin to sketch some of this. She had forgotten how compressed and exhausted she habitually felt in London; and although there was still a physical pain inside when she thought of Valentine, here it seemed easier to manage it, to breathe and to think alongside it. Stepping outside, she saw that waxy snowdrops were already nodding in the chilly wind by the wall in the sun.

Half an hour later, sitting on a tree stump with a board on her knee, Alexandra began a pencil sketch of the view back down the slope towards the house. She liked the irregularity of the building and the lie of the pale shadows on its complicated face. It had two distinct sides. One had a plastered façade in a Palladian style; the other was darker and far older. And from up here, she could see that there was more to it than she had originally thought. The more ancient half of it had a kind of prison of ash-pole scaffolding set up at one end but no workmen were in sight. 

The wind was cold and her hands quickly reddened. Too cold to stay exposed here for long, after twenty minutes she put the board on the ground, leaving it well-weighted with a lump of limestone. She decided to warm up with a walk and chose to aim for a thicketed little fold down near the bottom of the slope. As she stumbled over the tree roots, glad of her sturdy boots, she was thankful that the descent among the trees was taking her out of the wind. She hesitated, wondering whether to go back and collect up her things and recommence work from here. A few pretty sketches of the house and valley would be an appropriate thanks to Mrs Atwell for her kindness. 

She looked around to see if there was a worthwhile view, peering between the ranks of green-grey tree trunks. Nothing was moving. There was no sound at all. Further down, she saw a plume of steam rising from a hidden cleft. Fascinated, she realised she may by chance have found the source of Minerva’s original ‘White Stone Well’ and immediately set off to get closer to it.

This must be the well all right, she thought; but it was a weird place. A little further down the slope, she could see where the water had been diverted and hurried away underground into modern pipes, but here at the source, all was untouched. A few flat green stones led down in a shallow stair, natural or perhaps man-made, for she imagined she could detect the wear of feet. She followed them down to the spring itself and stood suddenly astounded to watch it gush out of the crevice. The strength of it was breathtaking. The copious brown stream rippled strongly up and out, steaming, powerful, pumping from a deep gash. The water-smoothed stones were red in the steam.

She sat down on a rock, staring, silent, and after a long time, dared to stretch down and touch the water. It was so hot. It was almost indelicate – fleeting associations of menstruating, giving birth, passed through her head. A most extraordinary sight, her modern rational self said again and again, as the water forced its way out, staining the rock surfaces, immodest, sinewy, from the deep into daylight. At long last, she turned away, feeling that she owed the wellspring something, a token, because it seemed alive and she had watched it.

Feeling foolish, she pulled one of the silver hat pins from her felt hat and threw it into the spring; and, as she moved to go, saw that she was not alone in this irrational urge. There was a shining edge of a hidden thing poked into a cleft in the rocks. The returning ferns and mosses would be covering it a few short weeks from now. Gingerly, she extracted it. It was crudely drawn, mere scratches on a tiny sheet of copper. She brought it closer to her eyes, eager to find out what it depicted. As far as she could make out, it showed a somewhat bizarre female figure. She rubbed the metal and slanted it to get a sight of the rough engraving. A standing naked woman was flanked by two birds. It’s the oddest thing, thought Alexandra, because someone’s drawn her with very unusual feet. The cloak drooping from her shoulders looks almost like wings. She replaced it carefully, deciding to discuss her discovery with Mrs Atwell after dinner. ‘Because it isn’t very old at all,’ she said aloud.

Killing our young

Sylvia Daly continues the blog's theme of remembrance of war this week. To our mind, her use of the traditional sonnet form, her choice of language and imagery echo the startling, subversive poetry that came out of the First World War  - except here, Sylvia speaks as a woman and a mother.

 War Cry!

A Sonnet by Sylvia Daly

Why do old men send our young to make war?

Flag-waving, bugle blown patriot lies,

teaching them hatred and how to abhor

masks envy of youth in manly disguise.

Women face death every time they give birth.

Blood, sweat and tears and great pain all endured

to give another a life on this earth,

and then watch, as to death each son is lured.

The final insult, killing our young.

Rending the bond we have forged with our blood.

We’d defend to the death life from us sprung

by pruning old wood, not the sprouting bud.

The murderous scream of the mother’s rage

is strangled by warlords through every age.

Sylvia Daly

"Remembrance Day is complicated..."

This week Jane Traies gives us her thoughts on Remembrance Day. In the UK ceremonies are held on the Sunday nearest to Armistice Day (11th November) - that's today.  

REMEMBRANCE DAY

This Sunday the royal family, accompanied by representatives of Her Majesty’s government and the armed forces, will gather in Westminster as they do every year for the National Service of Remembrance. It won’t be quite the same this year, because we are in the middle of a pandemic and a national lockdown. So the ceremony has been adapted for social distancing, and the traditional march-past will not take place. But there will still be a two-minute silence at 11 o’clock, followed by wreath-laying at the foot of the Cenotaph by the Great and Good. 

Every year I try not to watch this service at the Cenotaph, because I know it will make me cross and depressed. Yet, every year, as it gets to about 10.55 a.m., I put the television on in spite of myself, and watch as institutional privilege, militarism, class inequality, the self-righteousness of politicians and the obedient sentimentality of the British people are solemnly paraded yet again. The commentator (and yes, it is still a Dimbleby) speaks in the same tone of hushed reverence that we heard at the Coronation nearly seventy years ago. And I am furious and disgusted, because nothing has changed, soldiers and civilians are still dying as we speak, and the ceremony seems to start from the premise that all of that is noble and acceptable and inevitable. But it’s not. It’s just the ‘old lie, dulce et decorum est.’

My great-uncle George was still a teenager when he was wounded at the Battle of the Somme. We were never quite sure how long he lay in a shell-hole before he was found. When I first knew him, he was a middle-aged man with what was then called ‘nerves.’
In 1943, my father landed on a beach in Italy and stepped on a mine that blew his foot off. His leg was amputated; he was twenty-two. In those days there was nothing heroic about disability. He walked with pain for the rest of his life.
My Auntie Joy, a twenty-one-year-old Army nurse, was part of the first medical team to go into the concentration camp at Belsen after it was liberated in 1945. She woke screaming from nightmares for the next ten years. She stopped believing in God. For the rest of her life, she found it easier to love animals than human beings.

There’s nothing dulce or decorum about any of that.

So, for people of my generation and older, Remembrance Day is complicated. The first time I heard the Last Post break the two minutes’ silence, I wasn’t yet old enough to go to school; but, even at that age, I absorbed the solemnity and the pride of it from my parents, for whom the struggles and losses of the Second World War were still recent and painful. Growing up in the 40s and 50s, I was taught – at home, at church and at school – the twin doctrines of noble sacrifice and national gratitude. ‘I vow to thee, my Country…’ Those weren’t abstract things for us, because they were about real people: the distant cousins in uniform in Gran’s photo album; our dad’s Old Comrades, whose names on the regimental war memorial we heard read out every November; and all those friends and relations who carried the visible and invisible scars of two World Wars. As late as the 1960s, when I started driving, I remember stopping the car at the side of the road for the two minutes of the Armistice Day silence, as drivers did in those days, and feeling that I was part of something serious and proper. Strange, now, to think of it; but that’s how it was. Doubt would have been disloyal. 

So, what do I do now, awkward old pacifist-atheist-republican queer that I became? That’s not straightforward, either. 

I don’t wear a poppy these days (or if I do, it’s a white one); but I still put money in the box, in memory of Dad and Uncle Georgie and Auntie Joy. I wouldn’t dream of joining my neighbours as they process to the village war memorial behind a marching band; but I do put down my gardening gloves and go and stand on the pavement to watch them. It makes me feel grumpy and conflicted, but the sight of the old men in their medals still moves me as deeply as it ever did. Then I go indoors and, after my little ritual struggle, I put the television on and ‘Nimrod’ still makes me cry. 

So why do I still watch that pompous ceremony? Why, every single year, as they settle to the two minutes’ silence, does a lump form in my throat and make my eyes sting? It’s partly a Pavlovian reaction, of course; but it’s a bit more complicated than that.