Welcome to this 4th Edition of "FROM THE WINDOW" a worldwide magazine inviting contributions in the fields of journalism, poetry, travelogues and experiential writing from people in all walks of life and all parts of the globe.

We are a non-commercial internet magazine following a quiet path away from the soundbites and manic zing of mainstream net, promoting understanding of the breadth of common human experience, celebrating a joy in language and run by a pretentious and pompous crip child...

The format of this magazine is to present all of the current edition in one hit so that although it may take some time to download to your screen it can then be read in its entirety or printed out for sharing. The Editor therefore suggests that when you click on "mag" (below), you then zip off to make a cup of coffee, a shopping list, cut your nails or what have you.

The contents are divided into: firstly, a Guest Column (where we publish contributions from eminent writers and other prominent people), Collected Writings (arranged in alphabetical order by author's name), The Editor's View (that's stuff I write), Pilfered & Filched (stuff I've enjoyed from the net), Coming Soon (next issue) and Poster & Bumph (acknowledgements etc).

Past editions are still available:

Our 3rd Edition has Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, as Guest Columnist and articles were also provided by Melvyn Bragg, Margaret Atwood and James Macmillan. In addition I published stuff by a physiotherapist working with kids in refugee camps in Jordan; a wee motor from Cairns to Darwin; a young London actor contemplating his kettle; a year in the life of an opera administrator; being on the receiving end of an armed robbery.

Our 2nd Edition has as Guest Columnist the contemporary composer John Tavener, who had recently reached a wider audience with the playing of a piece of his at the funeral service for Princess Diana. It also carries articles on, inter alia, being a crew member in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race; pieces on identity: being "Irish"; being a member of two different minority groups ie Gay and Disabled; the death of one's parents; childbirth; an adopted child's first encounter with her biological mother; a day in the life of a violinist. There is a motley selection as usual of "No Can Do" correspondence. I have refrained from publishing my fan mail.

The 1st Edition's Guest Columnist was the poet Ruth Padel and articles therein are on a variety of topics such as fear of boats; a newcomer's response to Zimbabwe; the emotional impact of surgical versus congenital amputation; imagination and the prehistoric cave paintings of Peche Merle; the death of a cat; and a day in the life of a family therapist.

I am as ever desirous of this magazine becoming less lamentably ethnocentric and reflecting a broader range of lifestyles, backgrounds and experiences. Therefore I am currently seeking contributions for the next edition from sources across the globe and very much hope that surfers reading this now as a result of my letter-writing or as a result of fortuitous roaming will wish to add their own voices to "FROM THE WINDOW".

My qualifications for writing this article are:-

1. I am a Bahá'í

Whilst there are few quotations I have discovered in the Bahá'í writings that speak explicitly about disability, there are a number which do so implicitly or are, at the very least, very pertinent. For example:-

The implication of this passage, I would suggest, is that whatever we are given (physically, intellectually, spiritually) the important thing is that we seek to fill the receptacle - however large or small that may be. One might argue that the parable of the talents in the Bible (Matthew 25:14) is giving the same teaching.

Perhaps first we should examine what we mean by disability. I would suggest disability may be visible or invisible; physical, mental or spiritual.

At one extreme - complete paralysis, going through various points on the spectrum including blindness, deafness, arthritis, weak heart etc.

Again, at one extreme: barely conscious, through to such conditions as autism, schizophrenia, depression, loss of hope; this perhaps leading to substance abuse, and the ensuing downward spiral with its physical, social and spiritual aftermaths.

Under this category one could also perhaps include social disability eg shyness or lack of communication skills leading to isolation and loneliness. A pupil at my school suffered greatly in this regard (I use the word suffered advisedly). He was highly intelligent but his social disability dictated that he could not help but flaunt it. He came over as arrogant and superior with the result that he was the probably the most unpopular pupil in the school. This was no minor matter, he was forever being bullied and, I would imagine, he looks back on his school days with horror.

I gained a traumatic insight into mental disability when my mother - Kathleen Booth - succumbed to the stresses and strains of a difficult life; suffered premature senile decay and died in a mental institution just outside Canterbury at age 61. The polio virus that had struck down both myself and my sister, killed my father. My sister, thankfully, recovered almost unscathed but my newly widowed mother was presented with the dire condition of her children and the medical prognosis that I would never sit up and certainly not live beyond the age of 5.

As I look back at age 50 and wonder why I am still here - happily sitting, I conclude that it is primarily because my mother refused to give up. She could, as many might under the circumstances, just have accepted that it was hopeless and seek only to make my remaining months as happy as possible. Instead she went to the hospital physiotherapist and asked to be taught massage. The therapist refused explaining that, done incorrectly, it could do more harm than good. My mother's argument that I was dying anyway, won the day! My earliest memory is laying on the kitchen table being exhorted by my mother to do my exercises in sight of a large stick that I was, reliably, persuaded would be applied to my posterior anatomy should I fail to comply!

My mother had to strive every step of the way working as a school cook during the day and selling "Avon" during the evening to keep us fed and in pocket money. It may be no exaggeration to say that our mother lived for us and when I eventually left a boarding school for the disabled (at age 20) and got a job, it was as though something in my mother said "the battle is won - your children will be fine now" and there followed a swift decline into premature senility.

I would regularly visit her in the mental hospital. In a ward of 50 people, I rarely saw another visitor. She could no longer speak and I used to wonder if she even knew of my presence, there being no sign of recognition. We were not the most demonstrative of families - we knew we all cared so rarely felt the need to say it. On one visit, however, as she sat there seeming totally oblivious to me and all around her, I said: "I do love you, you know". She looked up into my eyes and tears streamed down her cheeks. She was still in there! On the one hand I felt happy that my mother was still present, on the other great anguish that she was trapped in this barely functioning body and mind. I was much comforted later on finding these words of Bahá'u'lláh :-

Can you imagine what that meant to me? The soul of my mother, the real person who myself and all who knew her, loved: was "unaffected by any bodily ailments." Her brain could be likened to a radio receiver whose circuits are malfunctioning; only a small part of the signal from the soul is getting through amidst all manner of interference and static!

The temple of man is like unto a mirror, his soul is as the sun, and his mental faculties even as the rays that emanate from that source of light. The ray may cease to fall upon the mirror, but it can in no wise be dissociated from the sun. [Baha'i World Faith, pages 346-347]

It was immediate, as though someone turned a switch. The moment I said the word "peace" the crying stopped. I was both amazed and truly grateful. I never heard her cry again that evening or on any subsequent visit.

Spirit has influence; prayer has spiritual effect. Therefore, we pray, "O God! Heal this sick one!" Perchance God will answer. Does it matter who prays? God will answer the prayer of every servant if that prayer is urgent. His mercy is vast, illimitable. He answers the prayers of all His servants. [Promulgation of Universal Peace, page 246]

Without question it is spiritual disability that is the most devastating. For it is this that causes us to hate; lack compassion; strive only for self; ignore the guidance of a loving providence and so allow our beautiful world to degenerate into hell instead of reflecting heaven. It is also the most important because, whereas our physical/mental disorders last but three score years and ten, our spiritual health is what we take with us as we are launched into eternity at the close of our earthly lives.

Anybody can be happy in the state of comfort, ease, health, success, pleasure and joy; but if one will be happy and contented in the time of trouble, hardship and prevailing disease, it is the proof of nobility. ['Abdu'l-Bahá - Baha'i World Faith, page 363]

I would argue that everyone is disabled in one way or another - indeed in a multitude of ways. Whether we suffer from debilitating shyness; whether we have such paucity of spirit that we only seek personal gratification; whether we struggle in poverty and hunger in the third world; whether our joints stiffen due to arthritis or our mind stiffens due to prejudice, we are all disabled to a greater or lesser degree.

Why disability? Why suffering? What I do know is that when I consider those people in my life who have most struck me as being special. The people who, having touched my life, have left me richer for it; they, without exception, have at some time, been through hell. Whether through illness or tragedy they have had the rough edges knocked off exposing the jewel within.

The Purpose of the one true God, exalted be His glory, in revealing Himself unto men is to lay bare those gems that lie hidden within the mine of their true and inmost selves. [Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, page 287]

Men who suffer not, attain no perfection. The plant most pruned by the gardeners is that one which, when the summer comes, will have the most beautiful blossoms and the most abundant fruit. The labourer cuts up the earth with his plough, and from that earth comes the rich and plentiful harvest. The more a man is chastened, the greater is the harvest of spiritual virtues shown forth by him. A soldier is no good General until he has been in the front of the fiercest battle and has received the deepest wounds." [Paris Talks Pages 50-51]

Bahá'u'lláh says:-

"My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy." [The Hidden Words - Bahá'u'lláh]

A poet friend of mine, Paul Bura, observed in one of his books that polio was the best thing that ever happened to him! He explained (and I paraphrase) that because of it he was perforce, less active than his fellows which meant he spent more time on the sidelines watching others. This served to enhance and develop his powers of observation; an attribute so vital to the art of the poet.

If we just look at this world, the disabilities people suffer can indeed seem like the "fire and vengeance" referred to in the above quotation. However, from the perspective of the life of the soul which, the Bahá'í teachings state, continues to progress for all eternity, we can see that it is indeed, "light and mercy" if we use it as God intended.

There are two ways of looking at things: one that results in futility, one that brings hope action and progress. Three quotations sum this up for me:-

• Two men looking out through bars, one sees the earth, the other sees the stars. [anon]
• The pessimist sees the glass as half empty, the optimist sees it as half full. [anon]
• 'Everything in life ministers to our development. Our lesson is to study and learn. Money and difficulties are alike advantages to us. Tests are either stumbling blocks or stepping stones, just as we make them.'['Abdu'l-Bahá. Cited in: Ten Days in the Light of Akka]

My foster brother, Paul Hodge (a lot of Pauls around aren't there) has stumps instead of arms and legs. For a number of years he was the conductor of the Snowdown Colliery Choir who, under his baton, made records and appeared on TV. He now teaches music - including the piano (which he plays with his stumps. Don't ask - you have to see it to believe it!)

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying it is pie in the sky we'll be fine when we die for the disabled person. One of my mothers oft quoted aphorisms was: "when one door closes another one opens". Judging by most of the disabled folk I know - and that is a fair few - one of the doors that opens tends to be an advanced sense of humour and a will to live.

How often do we see a man, poor, sick, miserably clad, and with no means of support, yet spiritually strong. Whatever his body has to suffer, his spirit is free and well! Again, how often do we see a rich man, physically strong and healthy, but with a soul sick unto death. ['Abdu'l-Bahá -Paris Talks, page 65]

Maybe because some of us live a bit closer to the edge survival wise, we tend to appreciate what we have got more than some of our able-bodied fellows. Have you noticed how people who have had near death experiences often change their lives completely? Having glimpsed eternity, they determine to make this life count for something. It pains me then to see folk with healthy bodies abusing them. It is a tragedy that so many are unconscious of their worth and potential that they see no purpose in their lives other than hedonism and dull their wits with alcohol and drugs to avoid really living.

A man should pause and reflect and be just: his Lord, out of measureless grace, has made him a human being and honoured him with the words: "Verily, We created man in the goodliest of forms" - and caused His mercy which rises out of the dawn of oneness to shine down upon him, until he became the wellspring of the words of God and the place where the mysteries of heaven alighted, and on the morning of creation he was covered with the rays of the qualities of perfection and the graces of holiness. How can he stain this immaculate garment with the filth of selfish desires, or exchange this everlasting honour for infamy? "Dost thou think thyself only a puny form, when the universe is folded up within thee?" ['Abdu'l-Bahá - Secret of Divine Civilization, page 19]

As to the soul of man after death, it remains in the degree of purity to which it has evolved during life in the physical body, and after it is freed from the body it remains plunged in the ocean of God's Mercy. ['Abdu'l-Bahá - Paris Talks, page 66]

Life then is an adventure; a race to develop our spiritual capacities and sensibilities before we cast off this mortal coil and these qualities are all we have left. We can't take with us our money, our property, our physical beauty, our trophies, titles or crowns. Whether we are given, clogs, running shoes or skis; whether we are given brightness, health and wealth OR dullness, illness and poverty is - in the great race of life - totally irrelevant. What is important is that we do the best we can with what we have and try and achieve our potential while helping others achieve theirs.

PAUL BOOTH

Paul Booth is a very friendly correspondent. Cheers Paul. HJN.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

E39-219

Department of Linguistics and Philosophy

March 24, 1998

Dear Hero Joy Nightingale,

I was intrigued/delighted/entranced to read your letter and particularly the accompanying material. I don't access the web myself, so can't look for more. About writing something, I wish it were even a dream. It isn't, I'm afraid. I am constantly racing long-standing obligations, and new requests pour in faster than I can even acknowledge them (and decline, with honest regrets, almost always).

Can't do more, I'm afraid, than wish you the best of luck, and happy and exciting days ahead.

Sincerely,

Noam Chomsky

 A great pity. He sounds not in touch with the rhythms of his own heart, hurrying unto death! HJN.

Hi Hero Joy,

Hopefully the attached file will contain an article that I've written for

your magazine. Let me know if there are any problems with the transfer.

Jos Darling

31^st June 1998

Dear Hero Joy,

Thanks for your invitation to write an article for 'From the Window'. Your dad tells me that there is little point in trying to resist since I will now be hounded to the ends of the earth until I come up with the goods. I must admit that 'I don't do writing and literature' - being an engineer we normally communicate through sums, so don't expect great literary prose.

Attached is a short article on a recent trip by bike to The Gambia together with an autobiographical note.

Feel free to use or discard my work.

Best of luck with the magazine. You are obviously a pretty special woman.

Regards,

Jos Darling

Travels on my bike - A brief trip to darkest Africa

Travel enlightens the soul, refreshes and opens the mind and widens our narrow horizons. But tourism can be damaging. So, if tourism destroys a part of what you are trying to experience how best to explore the far corners of the world? For me, walking provides an unbeatable insight into flora and fauna but is too limiting in the range of experiences on offer. The car is too isolating and alienates the tourist from the indigenous population while the bike provides the ultimate in freedom to travel, on a level with the population, providing an experience close to nature and the host society. My bike has taken me to adventures in the far-flung corners of the earth - from mudslides in the High Atlas Mountains and altitude sickness in the Himalayas to Whale watching in South Africa. In search of another side to Africa it was with some trepidation that last Easter I set off with four friends to the relatively unknown West African country of The Gambia.

The Gambia is a quirk of British imperialism and is the smallest country in West Africa. It is bounded by Senegal on three sides and the North Atlantic on the fourth and is some 40 miles wide and 400 miles long with the Gambia River running along its length. It gained independence in 1970 but unlike other outposts of the empire it did not benefit from an infrastructure developed by the British. Indeed it only has one metalled road running the length of the country, an unreliable national grid providing electricity to a small proportion of the population and mains water that is limited to the larger towns. Prior to leaving England we had equipped ourselves with a Rough Guide but our knowledge of what to expect was minimal to say the least. One thing for sure, the number of places to stay was limited to a handful of hotels, mostly on the coast.

Stepping out from our plane into the African air came as a shock. The grey, wet skies of Britain at Easter were replaced by a breezy 32^o C and a horizon that stretched into the distance. Our bikes all arrived in one piece (always a relief) and we set off to the coast and accommodation for the night. Fighting our way along the main highway left us with rather frayed nerves. Avoiding the locals, their goats, the slow moving, smoke-belching lorries and craters in the road surface took some concentration but we eventually arrived in one piece, if a little roasted. Expecting high rise hotels we were rather pleased to find piecemeal-unplanned development of varying quality and varying degrees of completion/dilapidation. Our fellow holiday makers on the plane may well have been disappointed to discover the reality of this booming (?) holiday destination but we were rather pleased to find a selection of pleasant guest houses, local food and beer in an very African environment.

The lack of roads somewhat restricted our cycling options so we decided to catch a bus inland and then cycle back to the coast following the same road. Bus journeys in Africa are never disappointing but almost always uncomfortable and slow. Our bikes competed on the roof of the bus with beds and fridge freezers while our seats were shared with chickens and children. The original estimate of 1.5 hours eventually turned out to be 3.5 hours and by this time we had travelled inland into 43^o C of heat. Our fellow travellers adopted us and provided an insight into politics and education. It seems that Gambians are not keen on paying for their daughters' education because 'women get pregnant and then the education is wasted', while the average life span of Gambians is currently running at 43 years - one of the lowest in Africa. It seems that Malaria, which is endemic, wears you down until finally you succumb when your body has had enough of the poor diet and hard physical conditions. In comparison, life in Europe is healthy.

During the journey we were adopted by a local policeman and he made it his duty to find us lodgings in a mud hut and provide us with supper. He lived in two rooms in the local barracks with his wife and child and showed us with pride his fan, TV and Ghetto Blaster which he proceeded to turn on simultaneously while we ate our peanut stew that his wife had prepared. After dinner we moved out under a pitch black African sky to watch a Catholic choral program, cooled by the electric fan until a power cut put pay to our dubious entertainment and gave us an excuse to say our farewells and return to our sleeping bags on the dusty floor. We were rather upset that the locals had adopted these western values that seemed inappropriate in the depths of Africa.

Now wise to the impending inferno we rose at dawn, ate a breakfast of sardines and bread and set off on the only road back towards the coast. You would have thought that because the road follows the bank of the river it would be lush and verdant like the Nile. Unfortunately for the Gambians the river is saline and apart from a few weeks in the wet season the arable land is either bone dry or mangrove swamp. The main crop is peanuts but the country is so poor that the harvest regularly sits in warehouses and is eaten by rats but for a boat to take it to the coast and export. The terrain is mostly flat and occasionally undulating but in the heat our saddles soon became uncomfortable leading to regular stops in the villages on route.

On arriving in villages we were inevitably surrounded by children who made up the bulk of the population. Although there are Europeans that use the road they normally speed past in air conditioned luxury and don't involve themselves in village life. Needless to say the locals were very curious of our bikes and clothing but, unlike north Africa, were not demanding of money or goods. The children were very friendly and it was normal to find several hanging from each hand with an innocence no longer found in Europe. The level of poverty in these villages is such that they share a communal well and all they own is the clothes in which they stand. The level of infrastructure is far less than countries such as India and health care, fresh water and electricity are rarely available outside the main towns. Despite this they seemed no less happy than Europeans who carry the burden of western capitalism.

After several days of cycling, sleeping in mud huts and being fed by the locals we arrived back at the coast. Thankfully the tourist industry is growing slowly and the government is keen to introduce eco-friendly tourism. Despite this the main tourist resorts were not to our liking and we set off on our bikes down the beach towards Senegal. Cycling along a sandy beach for twenty miles with Atlantic rollers and palm trees was a new experience to us all and brought home that it is still possible to find a beach paradise untainted by foreign influences.

A week provides a brief glimpse of another culture but the bicycle lowers you to a level more on a par with the locals. The pace of life and physical hardship associated with cycle touring provides an insight into country life and the lack of western trappings seems to break down the barriers that are inevitable in two cultures separated by wealth.

After many years of travelling I have decided that there is no cure for the travel bug. The pleasure of new horizons and new experiences never lessens; it merely becomes more difficult to be surprised by what you might find!

JOSS DARLING

Jos Darling is a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath. Born into a middle class suburban London family he has worked in the oil and automotive industries both in the UK and overseas but now lives with his boyfriend in central Bath. He has received a couple of prizes for academic papers and was elected 'University of Bath Best Lecturer' in 1995. He used to be shy, but with a name like Jocelyn Darling it's difficult to fade into the background.

(I am continuing to hound for more articles. HJN.)

16 - 4 - 1998

Dear Hero,

I'm writing on behalf of John Hedgecoe. He thanks you very much for your letter and apologises for not answering sooner that as he hasn't been to his flat in London for a while, he only got your letter last week!

I'm afraid that the that the enclosed is too late for your April Edition but he hopes it may be of some use in the future. If you wish, you may change it around as you please! It is a forward he wrote for a book a long time ago - but he feels that it is still very relevant. We both thoroughly enjoyed your letter - also "a wee bit of your writing" - As I am Scottish and have a deep love for the land and people there - it gave me great pleasure to read your sensitive words - thank you.

John sends you his best wishes, as do I - and good luck with everything.

Yours aye -

Jenny Macintosh

Photographic techniques are important in helping the photographer achieved a wide variety of desired results, but technique alone cannot give a picture originality or esthetic value. Photography used in science or technology is unequalled in its factual recording abilities. But most photographers are not scientists or technologists wanting accurate records; they are people who wish to capture a given scene and in addition, to capture the emotional response they felt to their images that first attracted the attention. Photography, like any other art form, is an interpretive medium of self-expression. The camera is just the tool with which the photographer expresses his creative faculties.

Modern photography allows you greater freedom to concentrate on these creative aspects because the majority of technical problems have been overcome. In the past decade the progress of photo-technology has been rapid, the new methods have made photography - once the complicated and expensive hobby of the few - available to all.

The Book of Photography seeks to emphasise the human approach and the importance of the individual eye. It shows you how to take pictures of good technical quality, but above all, why to take them and when to take them, and how to interpret and communicate through the medium of photography. The most complicated of cameras is still only a box with a lens for rendering an image - a three-dimensional one - onto a flat, two-dimensional piece of paper, to create an illusion of reality. There's little skill involved in pointing a camera at the subject and taking a picture. But to produce consistently good shots, you must be aware of the controlling factors: the time to day; the quality and direction of the light; the type of film, lens and camera; the length of exposure; the camera angle; and most important, the decisive moment of releasing the shutter.

The vital ingredient that we term "creativity" may be described as a combination of many qualities, including inventiveness, imagination, inspiration, perception. Don't be misled into thinking that creativity is entirely a heaven-sent gift to the few, for its qualities can be learned as one learns a language and, like a language, it is constantly being developed. By realising in a composition why one shape is more important than another, and why a number of forms carefully arranged can be more acceptable than those haphazard placed, you begin to see better pictures and are therefore in a position to take better pictures. By learning to analyse the elements, observing the way in which they play their part in any given scene, and by composing them in order to show that element you wish to emphasise, your pictures will reveal a marked degree of individuality and assurance. The careless photographer taking pictures in a split second is likely to miss those necessary qualities.

People really believe the pictorial "truth" of photographs - that "the camera cannot lie". This reason, and to free themselves of solemn representation, photographers have sometimes tended to look for extremes: the tallest, the fattest, the most beautiful, the ugliest, the freak. They have attempted to shock us into a new awareness or perception of the world around this. The photograph can dehumanize and make trivial, it can be unsympathetic and pretentious. It can also make a comprehensive statement about people and society, and provide factual record of a given situation. But capturing for posterity a split-second of time and recording a faithful image is no longer enough - we must add our own creative influence. This is why photography's progress in the past fifteen years has been toward a more liberated vision, rejecting the mainstream of photography where visual images are valued primarily for their accurate representation of the subject. For example, our perception of everyday objects is regulated by familiarity, we do not have to examine them closely in order to identify them, knowing from past experience the shape, size, colour and smell of each. Paradoxically it is often when something familiar is removed, like a piece of furniture from a room which upsets the normal arrangement order, that our attention is drawn to its absence, and the space it once occupied. This kind of abstraction is apparent in many aspects of modern photography.

The freedom in painting that began with Cubism has also influenced photographers who have embraced the artistic movements of Surrealism, Symbolism and Abstraction. By manipulating images to create a desired effect, photographers are exploring a path started in the 1920s by Man Ray and Moholy Nagy. They seek to create a subjective vision by stressing the psychological or emotional elements of the picture. The images act as a catalyst to provoke an emotional response. This means that what the viewer sees is of less significance than what he experiences. The photographer as artist makes his own rules, imposes his personal viewpoint on his work, but the success of his pictures relies on the response the viewer has to them.

Photography has been emancipated just as the printing press once freed the written word, giving to many what was previously reserved for the few; negatives are capable of supplying an almost inexhaustible number of prints, and once the master print has been made it becomes a mechanical process - truly an expendable art. Photography has been given to all the people, which is where it belongs.

JOHN HEDGECOE

John Hedgecoe has written a great many books on photography, but I wrote to him following reading another forward he wrote in a book filled with photographs that captured the spiritual essence of the private garden. HJN.

BRIDGET HICKEY

 Bridget Hickey heard about me through The Buddhist Society. She's quite a lady! HJN.

PRIVATE EYE MAGAZINE

Dear Hero Joy Nightingale,

Thank you for your letter and your article. I realise that I have already missed the deadline for your magazine and I'm sorry not to have replied sooner- and not to have said "yes".

You are clearly an extraordinary 11 year old with a mental ability only matched by your physical disability. I was sorry to hear of your frustrations and impressed by your account of your family.

I wish you all the best with your writing and your life.

Yours sincerely,

IAN HISLOP

Editor

IAN HISLOP

I don't read PRIVATE EYE, but I do watch "Have I Got News For You". I also know he wrote a serious documentary series on The Church, and so I'm disappointed merely to receive courteous fan mail. HJN.

ST PAUL'S GIRLS' SCHOOL

FROM THE HIGH MISTRESS MISS JANET GOUGH, MA

1st June 1998

Dear Hero Joy

A very belated response to your letter of 30th March. You will I hope hear from some Paulinas to whom I've given your details. All good wishes for your future issues and indeed other publications. Very glad to hear of your link with SPGS.

Yours sincerely

Janet Gough

Recollections of Berlin from 1989 to 1990 The fall of the Berlin wall, along with the death of John F. Kennedy, has become so integral a part of our culture that we all remember where we were when it happened. Few however can claim, as I can, to have experienced the event at first hand.

We moved to Berlin at the end of 1988. My father, who worked for British Airways, was appointed General Manager of Germany ; the house we lived in was just minutes from the wall in a suburb called Wannsee. We were also extremely near to the Glienike Bridge, which crossed the river dividing East Germany and West Berlin. The bridge was, of course, closed. I went to an English army school, although my father was not a soldier, with the sons and daughters of British soldiers, who were there to patrol West Berlin and the wall.

After World War Two Germany was split between the English, French, Americans and Russians. As residents of West Germany we were not allowed into East Germany as it was a separate country. We were however allowed into East Berlin, as it was part of the four nation controlled city. We often visited East Berlin before the wall came down. We, as foreigners in the city, passed into East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie, as we called it. West Germans and Berliners used other checkpoints. I remember queuing for a long time in order to be allowed through. Our car was searched to ensure that we did not bring Westernised goods into the East: I found it quite exciting to watch the soldiers. East Berlin was much poorer that the West: as we drove through the city, my brother and I used to spot the bullet holes in the walls of the buildings, which were the scars of the last world war. The people in the East drove little cars called trabants or trabis for short: my brother and I used to count how many we could see.

I was asleep when the announcement was made. My parents were at a dinner party, which was interrupted with the news: it was completely unexpected. The next day my parents told me when I woke up that the wall was coming down. However, I have absolutely no recollection of being told: obviously the news did not affect me, or I didn't really understand the importance of the event. The first memory I have being told was that afternoon, when my mother could not park the car on the way home from school. I looked out of the window to try and find a parking space for her, and suddenly noticed that our street was full of trabis. Confused as to why there were East German cars outside our house, I asked my mother why there were so many trabis. She, frustrated at not being able to park, snapped:

"Oh, because the wall has come down," offhandedly. And that is how I realised that the wall was coming down. According to my father, although I didn't really understand what was happening, I was aware that something important was going on and was quite interested in the events shown on the news. He says that I responded with a remark like "wowie!" when I was watching the television. I remember seeing pictures of crowds gathering at the checkpoints, welcoming the East Germans.

Soon after the announcement was made, my family and I went to the wall with hammers and chisels in order to help knock it down. There were hundreds of people there already. I was surprised at just how difficult it was to break a piece of wall off: it was made of such hard material. Looking at gaps which others before me had managed to create, I could see the thick iron wires which were between the concrete layers making up the wall. One thing I did notice about the wall was that the West side was covered in graffiti and the East was perfectly clean: the East Berliners were not allowed near the wall. I had fun knocking away at the wall, and did manage to break of small chunks, which I still have today.

In another place the wall had actually been broken away, and we could see the guard towers, which were situated in the 'death strip', the area between the two walls (there were two walls: one facing Western Berlin, and one facing Eastern, with an area of no-man's-land between, where guards would sit and shoot anyone they caught trying to cross). There were so many of them: at the point we saw they were only a couple of hundred metres apart.

After the borders had been opened, my family and I made frequent visits to East Germany, especially to a place called Potsdam. Here there were many Prussian palaces, with beautiful gardens. My friends and I used to have fun playing in them.

On reunification day, the 3rd of October 1990, my family and another family walked with thousands of other people through Berlin: both East and West to celebrate the joining of East and West Germany. The most memorable place where we walked to was the Brandenburg Gate, in the centre of Berlin. It had been situated in the 'death strip' with the two walls around it, and was inaccessible to anyone. Now, however the wall had been taken down, and we were able to walk through the gate, from one side of Berlin to the other. The East and West were now joined and the people were free to go wherever they wanted. However, the huge change in politics did not really affect my life: I still went to the same school, had the same friends and did the same things. The only way in which it did affect me was that my English friends, whose fathers were British soldiers patrolling West Berlin, moved back to England in early 1991, when they were no longer needed to guard the wall. My father's job did not stay in Berlin for much longer after that. In February 1991 we moved back to London, and I have only been back to Berlin once, in the following October. I do not know how much Berlin has changed since the wall came down, except for what I can read in books and in newspapers. I do, however know what it felt like to be a five year old girl, living through one of the most amazing events in history: and that is what I have tried to describe to you.

Louise Hopper

DOB: 9/2/84

LOUISE HOPPER

Totally unknown, no bio attached, and none forthcoming though I wrote back. If it doesn't sound patronising, I am most impressed by her writing for she is not yet old enough to be mature. HJN.

D.O.B. 27-7-48

I remember when I was four, my sister had a lovely doll for her birthday, it was a rag doll, with a china face, and she wore a purple velvet dress. One Sunday when she was off to church, she said to me do not touch my doll while I'm out.

Well temptation was too much for me, and I went and got the doll off of her bed, and took it downstairs, and out into the yard, and I droped it and it fell straight onto her face cracking it, oh dear now what shall I do, well I threw it in the coal shed. When my sister returned she went to get her doll, and of course it was not there, where's my doll she cried, I haven't had it I said, she seached and searched, Well later on that day when my dad went to fetch the coal in, he found it, of course they knew it was me.

My mother used to make all her own home made jam. One day when she was out, my brother and I popped all the tops of the jam, she went mad when she came home and made us renew all the tops, it took ages.

Another time we thought the tax cats whiskers where to long so we cut them all off, we got a good telling off, and told that the cats could get stuck in hole without their whiskers, we couldn't wait for them to grow back.

When I was at Primary School a really bad thing I did was to take some money out of my dads drawer, which he had won at the local flower show for his flowers and vegetable's. I took it to buy sweets fore the children at school, I gave the money to my friend to get the sweets, because she went home for her dinner, her father who was the local Policeman noticed her with this money and asked who had given it to her she told him, and he came round my house to see my dad, and all was revealed. I didn't like school very much, and I used to hide a wait for the school bus to go, and then go home and tell my mum I had missed it, but she didn't let me stay at home she used to walk me there, it was about 2mls from home, poor mum.

I put a dead grass snake in my sisters bed, she was not amused.

When I was at secondary school the headmistress caught me pouring salt on the lunch table, and told me to lick it up , I didn't. When I was in biology lesson one day my friend and I flicked ink up the back of the teachers white coat, I don't know when he noticed it.

Myself and other children in the village used to enoy the neighbours by playing knock down ginger that is when you knock the door and run. "Well folks that all for now" Carol Long.

CAROL LONG 

Carol Long, now 49 years old lives on the outskirts of city of Canterbury, with her husband and her two youngest sons the elder is bying and living in a house in Faversham with his fiancee.

Her family our the most important part of her life, and enjoys family life.

Her job as a health care assistant in a local nursing home, were she is well liked, and often complemented on her kind caring attatude, and friendly smile, she has for everyone. She also does caring in the community with the elderly and some younger people, one being a mother's help to a dear, talented handicapted child, which gives her great joy and hopes she can continue helping this family for sometime...

THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND

15 May 1998

Dear Hero

Thank you very much for your letter and all the enclosed material. I am now completing my year as Moderator of the Church of Scotland and at the moment have a very very heavy commitment in respect of my work within the Church and completing my various responsibilities after my year in office.

I am writing to acknowledge your letter and to apologise that in the immediate future, I will be unable to provide you with an article, but would hope to do so once I have completed my other responsibilities for the Church.

With my very best wishes and thanks.

Yours sincerely

The Right Rev Alexander McDonald

Moderator

ALEXANDER McDONALD

I shall chase this poor man. HJN.

Here is a piece for your consideration--now or later. I have attached it as two different files: herojoy.big is a WordPerfect 6.1 file, and herojoy.txt is a 'text' file. Hope it works!

Please let me know if you'd like for me to modify it. Or if you would like to modify it, please feel free--e.g., all the intro material might be deleted, beginning with the section I have called "The Twisting Motif".

Now I am using the email at my office which is a bit higher-tech than I have at home. You may respond to me at that address, although I'd prefer receiving email at my home address.

Best wishes,

Mary Jane Ruhl

Intro:

There are times when I gaze through my personal windows, internal and external, until all is a blur. Then I find it helpful to become the voyeur--to attempt seeing into the mind of one with greater talents than I, who shared his or her innermost impressions and feelings with us through the arts. I enjoy taking an image, perhaps one that has presented itself to me in my own dream, and following that image through another's writings. Recently I recharged myself by tracing the image of 'twisting' through a small sample of Eliot's poetry. My findings follow, prefaced with a bit of background about Eliot.

'TWISTING' IN LANDSCAPES OF T. S. ELIOT'S POETRY

T. S. Eliot's poetry traces his personal journey from chaos and confusion, eventually to a sense of direction for his own personal and spiritual growth and a more positive view of humanity. The negative image of 'twisting' used frequently in his early poetry eventually turns into directed 'movement' in his later poems. The 'twisting' symbolism becomes a means of better understanding the 'self' within the society he inherited and his eventual coming to terms with himself and society.

INTRODUCTION

Times of transition seem to spawn great minds capable of steering civilization into and through unexplored, possibly turbulent waters. So it was with T. S. Eliot, born near the turn of the century, a time that had its share of chaos and upheaval.

Western countries were undergoing a major transition in science and philosophy, especially relating to new uncertainties with regard to how we know what we know about the real world. At the same time, artists were examining their own "backdrop" of knowledge from which creativity develops by moving their focus to impressionism.

Eliot imposed a drastic turn on his own life by moving to London from his native United States when his plans for graduate study at Marburg were interrupted by the World War.

ELIOT'S NEW APPROACH

Eliot found it difficult to embrace the Western society he was born into, fraught with world-scale political tensions and a near obsession with industry and technology. To him, society was unconscious and virtually without a soul. Building upon writings such as those from the Romantic and Victorian periods could not teach Eliot, as he said, "the use of my own voice..." (Hargrove). With perhaps two exceptions, Baudelaire and Tennyson, nineteenth century poets who used natural scenes as symbols, he refused to draw from poetry of the recent past.

Eliot's determination to be influential by using a new approach was supported by turn-of-century discoveries and new literary contributions. He recognized that developments in the study of the mind would now permit the use of ancient and primitive myth in a new and different way. Anthropologists such as Sir James Fraser had written extensively on the consciousness of past cultures as expressed in mythology, providing modern man, according to Eliot, a nearly comprehensive view of himself. In the world of medicine and psychology there was new emphasis on accessing the subconscious, as advanced by Freud. Jung's focus was on the unconscious which he believed carried symbols and ancient truths derived from a 'collective consciousness' with archetypes derived from Western myths.

THE 'MYTHICAL METHOD'

Eliot's philosophical studies and his dissatisfaction with the Cartesian theory of 'dualism' (analysis in terms of subjects and objects) led him toward the use of mythology to compensate for currently recognized difficulties in epistemology. His ideas were reinforced by his mentor in philosophy, F. H. Bradley, whose writings were the subject of his thesis at Harvard. Also influential was James Joyce, a contemporary writer whose innovative use of myth was of great interest to Eliot. In describing the practice and his interest in it, Eliot coined the term, 'mythical method'.

Eliot used myth primarily as a principle "through which complexity can be ordered and emotional meaning therefore restored" (Bell). He drew from many accounts of primitive culture, including Conrad's Heart of Darkness which presented a dark and troubled vision of civilization projected upon his criticism of the British empire and its exploitation of primitive people.

Eliot considered Conrad's work so relevant to his own, he chose as an epigraph for "The Hollow Men" (1925) the quotation, "Mistah Kurtz--he dead." In Heart of Darkness Kurtz was Conrad's explorer of the primitive mind who hoped to recover the primitive mind as a means of recovering lost unity. "Conrad leads us to believe that Kurtz never escapes the dualism of the modern mind" (Brooker and Bentley). However, Kurtz must have glimpsed the 'heart of darkness' as he uttered his dying words, "The horror! the horror!", (intended as dualism?) which Eliot used in his original draft of The Waste Land.

ELIOT'S USE OF SYMBOLISM

Related to Eliot's interest in the 'mythical method' is his extensive use of symbolism, including both ancient and modern images from familiar landscapes. His early urban landscapes portray the degradation of modern man while later ones emphasize natural, rural landscapes--wholesome surroundings in which spiritual growth may flourish.

Some have claimed that Eliot's use of landscape as symbol was his only means of expressing his own inner feelings and complex thoughts about the plight of twentieth century society, the inaccessibility of the soul, and the fragmented state of consciousness. Whether or not it was his only means of expression, his use of these sensory impressions and concrete objects is effective in conjuring up a wide range of emotional landscapes.

THE 'TWISTING' MOTIF

One of the images Eliot used throughout his poetry that of twisting. The term is defined as bending, turning, and winding. In a negative sense, it represents deviation, corruption, abnormality, and treachery; going in the wrong direction; diseased or cursed condition (e.g., twisted body of witch); and excessiveness or exaggeration. To be twisted also connotes anger or craziness.

In Eliot's Collected Poems there are numerous appearances of the 'twisting' motif , sometimes expressed as turning, wriggling, curling, and knotting. In the paragraphs which follow, several of those passages are quoted and for each an interpretation is furnished.

THE EARLY POETRY (1917- 1920)

Eliot's early poetry reflects his frustrations with modern society and with his own inner turmoil. The poems portray urban settings, both indoors and out, in upper or lower strata of society, in scenes which show the emptiness and hopelessness of the characters. Examples of 'twisting' from these scenes follow. Boldface has been added to identify the images selected for comment.

In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" the protagonist describes how he struggles, "wriggling on the wall", to defend himself from being categorized and dismissed by another's glance, hopefully to escape from the locked-in image. He does not know what to say to earn more than the empty glance--to be regarded as a unique human being.

"I have gone at dusk..." indicates that his life exists outside this immediate social sphere--dim and lonely and transient. The narrow, dusky streets represent the condition of his soul. That his social appearance fails to present the breadth and depth of his feelings and experiences is unsatisfying to him.

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin...

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?

>From "Portrait of a Lady" part II, a conversation takes place between male and female Prufrock-like persons in a socially satisfying but emotionally empty setting. The woman is telling the man, presumably younger, about the cruelty of youth and its lack of awareness of life and the responsibility it entails. Meanwhile, she holds and twists a lilac stalk, taking control over, even mutilating, its beauty and freshness. She is unaware her own twisted consciousness, even as she demonstrates it with the flower.

Now that lilacs are in bloom

She has a bowl of lilacs in her room

And twists one in her fingers while she talks.

'Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know

What life is, you who hold it in your hands';

(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)

'You let it flow from you, you let it flow,

And youth is cruel, and has no remorse

And smiles at situations which it cannot see.'

I smile, of course,

And go on drinking tea.

In "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" the prostitute in the doorway seems to leer at the protagonist who describes himself and his own degraded soul which is soiled, allowing only a crooked, distorted view:

The street-lamp said, "Regard that woman

Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door

Which opens on her like a grin.

You see the border of her dress

Is torn and stained with sand,

And you see the corner of her eye

Twists like a crooked pin."

The poem continues, describing moral disintegration and decay--in crowds of fragmented beings--individuals who are lonely and lifeless, here represented by inanimate objects. The "twisted branch" is separated from its life source, isolated, now dead. It has been "eaten smooth, and polished"--"stiff and white", totally used, devoid of life.

The memory throws up high and dry

A crowd of twisted things;

A twisted branch upon the beach

Eaten smooth, and polished

As if the world gave up

The secret of its skeleton,

Stiff and white.

The next landscape describes a mechanical item which in its useful state would have been able to twist, but now lies broken, brittle, and useless.

A broken spring in a factory yard,

Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left

Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Later in the poem, the moon symbolizes an old diseased woman who has lost her memory. She twists a paper rose, perhaps not realizing it is artificial. She is alone, separated from reality, haunted by smells--perhaps unconscious memories of a stale, monotonous, repetitive life.

'Regard the moon.......

Her hand twists a paper rose,

That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,

She is alone

With all the old nocturnal smells

That cross and cross across her brain.'

The final scene shows the protagonist returning home to find a microcosm of meaninglessness in a tiny space holding only the bare essentials. "Prepare for life" becomes a mockery. The momentary realization produces an instant of increased pain, perhaps a glimpse of death.

The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,

Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.'.

The last twist of the knife.

Unfortunately, time and space do not permit inclusion of other occurrences of the 'twisting' image in the early poems.

BETWEEN EARLY AND MIDDLE POETRY - The Waste Land (1922)

A psychological illness and increasing despair caused Eliot to undergo an extended period of psychiatric treatment which apparently brought him from a state of depression, exhaustion, and fear of psychoses to a state of equilibrium--"a sense of authority over a mind that he had previously feared to be 'deranged'" (Trosman). During that period he drafted The Waste Land.

As in the early poems, this one contains 'twisting' images, named here as 'whirling' and 'winding', in rural and urban settings. For example, in part IV the corpse of a man who lacked control of his life is drawn into a whirlpool where his body is totally annihilated. (Drew interprets this as surrender and eventual freedom.) Part V refers to a sandy road winding above among the mountains...of rock without water. The winding road connotes the soul's confusion and absence of direction. Numerous other images represent the hopelessness of modern man taken as a whole, reminiscent of the "crowd of twisted things" as stated in "Rhapsody on a Windy Night". The twisted members of the "crowd" become disconnected and fragmented as if Eliot is sending the entire universe into a whirl, causing total destruction of unity.

Perhaps it is the Waste Land upheaval that served as a catharsis which would lead to the next stage of Eliot's development, an idea supported by the theories of Jean Piaget whose genetic epistemology resembles some of Eliot's and Bradley's ideas. "The Piagetan materials suggest the possibility of a holistic theory of the structure of [The Waste Lane] and a metatheory of modernism itself" (Booker and Bentley).

THE MIDDLE POETRY: Ash-Wednesday (1930)

Eliot's poetry during the period 1924 - 1930 shows integration of the early symbols into progressive psychological and spiritual growth. Ash-Wednesday, set primarily in rural landscapes, begins with a declaration to renounce earthly success and fame, then shows how difficult it is to change direction. Here, 'turning', as a 'twisting' image has become a symbol for new choice, new direction--an affirmation of something beyond the hopelessness of the early poetry.

In Part III the protagonist is struggling on stairs, each turn and each advancement presenting choices which Hargrove calls "the soul's terrifying battle with fear and despair, including a struggle with the devil." As he goes forward, the stairs seem more and more insurmountable, including a struggle with seductive earthly, sexual pleasures.

At the first turning of the second stair

I turned and saw below

The same shape twisted on the banister

Under the vapour in the fetid air

Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears

The deceitful face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair

I left them twisting, turning below; . . .

At the first turning of the third stair

Was a slotted window bellied like the fig's fruit. . . .

Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair,

Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair

Climbing the third stair.

He then recites the following words from the Mass which are spoken before Communion:

Lord, I am not worthy

Lord, I am not worthy

but speak the word only.

The last two parts of the poem continue to describe the conflict between the worlds of flesh and spirit. The landscapes of nature, though representing certain temptations which contribute to the arduousness of a climb to salvation, also depict the joy to be experienced in overcoming earthly temptations. Here Eliot begins to embrace that which he so completely rejected in his early poetry. There are hints of his willingness to engage in the struggle towards spiritual growth and to acknowledge and integrate that which earlier he would have denied. The last lines express his surrender to God.

LATER POETRY: Four Quartets (1935 - 1942)

In his later poetry Eliot uses both urban and rural landscapes. The 'twisting' in his earlier poetry, representing negative characteristics such as deviation and distortion, evolve into similar images that represent more gentle, positive attributes. Although the atmosphere portrayed in The Four Quartets certainly cannot be described as motionless, there are fewer images of 'twisting'. In part II of "Burnt Norton" 'movement' is contrasted with "the still point"--"neither arrest nor movement" . . . "neither movement from nor towards, neither ascent nor decline", a suggestion of stability, even peace.

Part III refers to twisting as "slow rotation suggesting permanence", then "abstention from movement; while the world moves/In appetency, on its metalled ways/Of time past and time future." In part V, 'twisting' is replaced with 'movement: "Desire itself is movement/Not in itself desirable;/Love is itself unmoving,/Only the cause and end of movement...".

At the end of the Quartet's final poem, "Little Gidding", one of Eliot's best known statements of hope appears:

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Here he does not suggest the exploration will become easier, but at any moment we may choose to initiate exploration (even if reinitiation of 'twisting' be required), and for each attempt there is a promise of arriving where we started, and knowing as if for the first time. The poem continues:

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always--

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

Through images of twisting Eliot portrays the sinner seeking redemption, entering the familiar garden. However, through responsibility for and integration of all life's experiences and through the glory of God, one may experience spiritual fulfilment--love, both human, symbolized by a knot of fire, which is intertwined with the divine, represented by the resurrection symbol of the rose.

CONCLUSION

Throughout his poetry Eliot uses the 'twisted' image. From poem to poem, each 'twist' and 'turn' seems to reach out and hook onto the next. In his early poetry each 'twist' provides added perspective on the disarray of modern society he so rejected. Eventually the deranged, dysfunctional 'twisting' evolves into 'turning', then 'movement', a knowing and willingness to integrate all parts. Although there are rich rewards, life promises a constant struggle if spiritual growth is to be attained.

As Eliot continued to explore and express his feelings of alienation and meaninglessness through his poetry, his despair evolved into an acceptance and wholeness which not only enabled his own spiritual growth, but also added new dimensions to English literature and to Western thought.

A quotation from Eliot's writings on the work of his early mentor, F. H. Bradley, sums up his own journey which, as has been shown in these pages, consisted of numerous 'twists' and 'turns', some exceedingly painful, others supremely satisfying:

"The life of a soul does not consist in the contemplation of one consistent world but in the painful task of unifying (to a greater or less extent) jarring and incompatible ones, and passing, when possible, from two or more discordant viewpoints to a higher which shall somehow include and transmute them." (Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley by T. S. Eliot, 1964, quoted by Brooker and Bentley).

REFERENCES

Bell, R. Primitivism (1972).

Bloom, Harold, ed. T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1986).

Brooker, J. S., and J. Bentley. Reading The Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation (1990).

Drew, Elizabeth. T. S. Eliot: The Design of His Poetry (1949).

Eliot, T. S. Collected Poems, 1909-1961 (1968).

Gardner, Helen. The Art of T. S. Eliot (1949).

Hargrove, Nancy Duvall. Landscapes as Symbol in the Poetry of T. S. Eliot (1978).

Southam, B. C. Guide to the Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot (1994).

Trosman, Harry. "T. S. Eliot and The Waste Land" Emotions & Behavior Monographs, pp. 191-218 (1987).

Other sources include various writings of Karl Jung, and dictionaries of symbolism.

MARY JANE RUHL

Mary Jane Ruhl lives in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.A., with her two cats, Jasmine and George. With academic training in biochemistry, management, and the liberal arts, most of her professional career has focused on information management in the biological and physical sciences. She has been the owner and manager of her own consulting firm, and has worked in Thailand, the Philippines, Egypt, Jamaica, France, Italy, and Japan. Business and recreational travel has taken her to more than 30 countries. What is her greatest love? Music, she says, especially pre-1700 and post-1900! She sings soprano in two choral societies and especially enjoys their European tours. The study of symbols is a hobby.

(Mary Jane is a friendly correspondent from whom I hope to get more articles. Perhaps all that travelling? HJN.)

Dear Ho,

I hope you find this acceptable. I have had to steer clear of actual cases but it might nevertheless provoke some interest and comment.

Good luck with the next issue.

With kind regards,

Brian

13.6.98

THE QUESTION WHY

The four questions which a coroner has to try to answer at an inquest are who, when, where and how. The one question not required to be put is why. As often as not it would be incapable of sensible answer. Nevertheless, for over twenty years, I have often posed the question to myself and confessed myself defeated. Here are some random examples.

1. Why do people expect from others a higher standard of behaviour than they themselves display?

 

1. Why do some find it impossible to recognise that the same lapse can involve the whole spectrum of consequences? An insecure window box, falling to the ground may merely smash. It may fall on a car and cause damage. It may fall on a person and cause injury or death. The initial carelessness leading to the damage is exactly the same.

 

1. Why over even so short a period has there been an increase in the apparent inability of some people to recognise that inquests deal with real people, whether living or dead, with all the foibles, idiosyncrasies and fallibilities that we all display; that we can behave out of character; that we do stupid things; that, despite warnings, we do things our nearest and dearest would never expect?

 

1. Why do some of the very same people who urge higher and higher penalties for mistakes in driving themselves ignore speed limits, try to beat traffic lights or, worse, drive with excess alcohol? Is striving for perfection only for others?

 

1. Why is it very often impossible for some people to profit from the circumstances of a death? The death by an overdose by illegal drugs of one person can be followed by that of one of those present at the death, probably him or herself having given evidence to me. Is the message so hard to learn?

 

1. Why have I on many occasions dealt with road users, often motor-cyclists, who collide with the only solid object in the locality? I have inquired into collisions between cars, the only ones on a half-mile stretch of road. I have had endless occurrences of motor-cyclists colliding with telegraph poles, when a foot or two either side would have had far less serious consequences. A car has struck the only tree in an otherwise flimsy hedge. Are these people drawn to these hazards by some malign force or are a considerable number leaving the road without hitting these obstacles?

 

1. Why do people take their lives at a particular time or place or at all? If reason can be established it often seems to be for what we who remain might regard as the flimsiest. Perhaps it can be better understood in those who have suffered from depression from illness, the break-up of a relationship or (surprisingly rarely) for financial reasons. I have however often explored a person's immediate past history without gaining any insight into his or her reasons for suicide. Perhaps more pertinently why do they think that the ending of their lives will make life easier for those who survive. Why do parents take their own lives without apparent regard for children, often young, or worse, take the children's' lives as well?

 

1. Why do parents give their children a conjunction of names which on registration of birth or death may give rise to sniggers or worse? Examples are, Mr. Cardinal Wolsey, Miss Holly Bush or, recently publicised, Duane Pipe. I have to confess, however, that it is from such serendipitous connections that I derive much innocent pleasure which relieves what might otherwise be on occasion a soul-destroying diet of death and destruction. The Births, Deaths and Marriages columns of the papers have announced the engagement of Mr. Wright to Miss Wrong, and there have been the adjacent deaths of Ball and Baring, and Sweeney and Todd. One short column reported the deaths of Partridge, Dove, Robbin and Sparrow.

 

1. Why have I done this work for twenty-three years and derived such satisfaction from it?

BRIAN SMITH

Brian Smith is one of Her Majesty's Coroners for Kent with jurisdiction over Ashford, Folkestone, Romney Marsh and the Channel Tunnel terminal and part of the tunnel.

(We met at a social event linked by my godson being his "removed cousin". He is capable of very interesting correspondence with mony an allusion and I hope he will pop up in these pages in forthcoming editions also. HJN. )

In an ordinary day in a small French village.

We have a house in a little village in southern France. Nothing special - no large garden or swimming pool, but after a lot of work we have a small courtyard garden with a raised terrace at one end, and a lot of pots with flowers in them, and creepers and roses and oleanders, and a small tree which produces lovely pink blossoms. There are lizards hiding under the virginia creeper and some bright green frogs called reinettes.

Life starts fairly early here, especially during the summer heat, and about six in the morning the little tractors start up, and off they go to the vineyards which surround the village, to spray or to tidy the vines, or to clear up between the rows. Some of the vines have been pulled up, and they have planted tomatoes and melons, and peach and cherry orchards, and as all these crops need water so the fields are irrigated at regular intervals, and from time to time when cycling past one gets a nice shower.

Later on the window shutters are flung open and the village wakes up. The children go off to school in the nearby small town as our local school closed several years ago due to falling numbers.

We have a loudspeaker system and from time to time there is a burst of music followed by 'Ullo, ullo' and then an announcement of some sort - the butcher or fishmonger's van are in the 'place' or village square, or 'please come to collect your dustbin bags on such and such a date, or there will be a bus tour for the old folk to some interesting place with lunch thrown in.

On Thursday mornings we have almost a mini-market in the centre of the village - the fishmongers van from Sete, the butcher's van from Paulhan, and the man from Montagnac who has a market garden, sets up his trestle table and sells lovely fresh lettuces, tomatoes, courgettes, potatoes onions, and all the good things as they come into season.

We also have a small village shop, but it has gone downhill a bit, and the market van and the baker's van provide the meeting place where everyone can have a chat and a nice gossip. Sadly, a lot all our old folk are no longer with us and the young ones go off to work in the larger towns nearby, and do their shopping in the supermarkets, which are cheaper but not so chummy.

We have a mayor's office - from where the loudspeaker announcements are issued, and also a Post Office, so we are better off than a lot of small villages which have no P.O. or shops at all.

All villages in France have a Mayor and a secretary and an office, but they are usually open for only a couple of hours a day, as the mayor is off tending his vines or his tomatoes or something. There is also a man in charge of keeping the village clean, sweeping the streets, burning off at the rubbish dump, and working the big pumping engine which gets rid of any water which floods into the village during heavy rains, and pushes it out over the dike which surrounds our village and the neighbouring one. The big river is only half a mile away, and when there are big rain storms in the hills the water spills out all around us, leaving a lot of good river silt in the vineyards. When this happens only one road is open - the other three are usually closed because of the floods.

In the last century, before the dikes were built, the villages used to be flooded and often lives were lost, but now there are big dams higher up the river which help to control the flow.

The lunch hour in the Midi - or southern France - is absolutely sacred - everything stops from 12 until 2, and the big business of lunch and a siesta takes place! Quite often the shops in the small towns don't reopen until 3 or 3.30 because of the summer heat, but they keep open much later.

Out village has a church clock which strikes the hours twice - the second time in case the people working in the fields have misheard the first one. Then at 7 in the morning, at midday and at 7 in the evening the angelus rings out as well, so that in the days before wrist watches everyone knew what the time was.

In the cool of the evening the children are home from school, and usually playing the narrow streets, and the householders have brought folding chairs out of their houses and sit in the shady corners where the breeze blows and they chat to passers by. If we go for a little walks in the evening we run the gauntlet of a host of friends sitting outside their doors, and get all the latest village news.

If the wind is in the right direction we can hear the 'thwack' of the ball being hit on the tambourin court. This is a game which is only played in our part of France, and in small part of northern Italy, and from time to time we have 'internationals', and our 'Juniors' are present champions! It is a game played with a hard ball and a round bat like a tambourine and the court is much longer than a tennis court and has a white line instead of a net. The scoring is like tennis but they call 45 instead of 40.

We also have a rather weedy football field, and several areas to play 'boule' or 'petanque', but everybody prefers to play in the middle of a shady road!

During the summer we have several special occasions such as St. Jean, Bastille day and the village fete, where we out in the 'place' at trestle tables, or in the field near the pumping station, and there is a live band or piped music, and sometimes we have a magnificent paeallea. It is all very jolly and good fun and gives people the chance to get to know one another. We had a film one evening in village hall showing a football match which had taken place between our village and a neighbouring one about 60 years ago, and the screams of delight when people recognised their parents or grandparents was really great fun.

We spend about five months a year in our little house, but there are some people from different parts of Europe who only come for the summer holidays, or at Easter or during the cooler months.

There are many English people, and other nationals who have decided to live in France full time - some are retired, and others work. We are amazed at how many there are, and how well a lot of them have integrated with local population.

We have been here for ten years now and have always been made welcome, and speaking the language helps too.

In the evenings, unless there is something special on, the village becomes very quiet and people retire indoors when it gets dark, to watch TV or work inside. If one wants to be animated one has to go to one of the bigger towns, or down to the coast where everything is happening and where the young can go to the cinema or discos, or eat out.

Our little village shuts it's shutters when it gets dark, and it's all very quiet until the tractors start up again in the morning.

NAN TOWNSEND

Born in Rajputana (now Rajastan) India in 1928 where her father was an engineer. She went to school in England in 1938, and stayed there during the war whild her parents were in India. Went with her mother to Australia in 1946 (her father having died during the war) and they set up home in Sydney, not too far from various paternal uncles, aunts and cousins.

Nan met her husband Mike on the ship going out to Australia. He was one of the first cadets for the Colonial Service going out to the Pacific territories straight from the armed forces after the war.

They were married in 1949, and spent nearly thirty years in the Western Pacific. Their eldest son, Mark was born in England, David in the New Hebrides - now Vanuatu, and Penny in the Solomon Islands.

Mike retired from the Service in 1974, and joined the West of England Protection & Indemnity (shipping insurance) as their General Manager in Luxembourg. After ten very happy years there, they retired again to their house in Upton Grey, Hampshire. They also have a little village house in the Languedoc area of southern France, and take off for two long visits twice a years, to enjoy the sun and the French way of life.

Dear Hero,

A poem from the scruffy, holes in trousers person you met in Bristol a couple of weeks back - called Laurie:

Moving On:

This is just another room that she is leaving,

Loading up the cardboard box with the feather boa,

And a scribbled note

With a hand-picked vase of flowers,

Left just lying for the vacant room to observe, alone.

And the peeling wood paper,

The wine-stained remainder

Of nights you heard about later,

Is all we can see.

And it's reminding me, it's trying to shout a message,

Sensing that what you ignore will begin to turn grey,

And my scribbled note

Is waiting for me in the kitchen,

While we slam the doors and drive ourselves away.

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

Richard Pope actually made this into a song! Immortalised at last.

Good to meet you, hope the third edition is/was/will be ace and that Kofi Annan wrote a mean article.

Bye, Laurie.

LAURIE TALLOCK

A student at Bristol University whom I met at a dramatic picnic (steep hill, full cast of Romeo and Juliet + visiting crip in the midst). Cheers, Laurie. Keep in touch. HJN.

NEWS REPORT FROM OUR MAN IN BUNESSAN - DATELINE FRIDAY 6TH SEPT. '96

There was a great drama in Bunessan Bay late this afternoon when the P.R.B. 'JAHAZ' (private rowing boat) collided with the submerged sewerage pipeline.

Onlookers watched in amazement as the boat, skippered by Mr Bruce Harvey O.A.P. and powered by a "putt-putt" outboard motor, was seen heading on a collision course with the stationary pipe. They were even more amazed when the bow of the vessel headed in a sky-ward direction and boat came to rest straddled precariously across the pipe.

As Mr Harvey frantically struggled to free his vessel, pushing to and fro with one of paddles and trying to pretend he wasn't being watched by most of the residents of Bunessan, it was decided that in view of the deteriorating state (of Mr Harvey) it might be best to call upon the services of the local lifeboat.

Due to the Bunessan Lifeboat being unavailable (non-existent) it was decided to call upon the reserve inshore rescue unit, the 'Kiwi Class' vessel 'The Owd Kayak'. This was quickly launched, with skipper Trevor Wade at the paddles and it battled through force 1 winds with confused seas running up to 25/30 mm in height.

With extreme concentration 'The Owd Kayak' was manoeuvred gingerly under the towering bows of the 'JAHAZ' and skipper Wade managed to heave the stranded vessel back into the water. The 'JAHAZ' was then able to 'putt-putt' under its own power around the submerged pipe and made it safety to it's mooring.

In the meantime 'The Owd Kayak' was carried aloft back to it's store shed and re-housed ready to await it's next service.

Mr Harvey was reported as having denied all blame for the incident and claimed it was pipeline which was at fault as it ran straight across in front of his boat. The pipeline declined to comment and kept it's head beneath the water. Skipper Wade said he'd spent the last 13 years looking out of his window and he just could not believe his eyes, he simply hadn't seen anything like it, EVER!

Trevor, The Shop, Bunessan for Round & About

TREVOR WADE

This article was first published in the freeby community paper on Mull "Round & About".

Trevor Wade runs one of the small general stores on my beloved Hebridean isle. He was originally from Doncaster (North of England). He has beautiful young children and a wife who looks after the shop when Trevor takes me out on the ocean in his kayak. 3 cheers for Trev! HJN.  

HERO JOY NIGHTINGALE

I am an eleven year old girl with a locked-in syndrome caused by a profound apraxia of all my muscles and the retention of dominant babyish reflexes. I am a wheelchair user and need complete care. I cannot make voluntary sounds and therefore cannot speak. Spelling is my greatest delight as it affords me the freedom to direct the course of my life. I crave acceptance as a really quite ordinary person, with an artistic temperament and a nice enough personality. On the whole I prefer adult company to kids', and my own company to 'most any other. I am bloody-mindedly independent and rarely acknowledge the wisdom of my mother's grey years.

I live in England, in the same town as I was born in but I love my mother's native land of Scotland even more. I also find Venice hard to eradicate from my mind, it swims like a tantalising mirage on my horizon informing my tastes and swelling my longing need to be truly me. I yearn to visit with people beyond Europe but have not a lot of dosh available for such sojourns.

I need quiet. I hear music in my head a great deal of the time in a way I have come to accept is unusual. I was a composition student on a part-time Intermediate place at the Royal Academy of Music in London, participating alongside the undergraduate and graduate students when I was 9 years old, but they abruptly terminated my place and thrust me into a terrible depression.

I am currently looking forward to holding an exhibition of my installation art and to seeing this magazine flight forward with some life of its own. I also am starting to out the visual aspects of the two autobiographical ballet scores I have completed, and am exploring the possibility of performances of my poetry. I have recently been invited to become a BBC correspondent with Video Nation, and I have accepted - of course!

I rarely am brave enough to admit my age. For me this is my "coming out".

A photocopiable poster so that you may advertise us is reproduced on the next page. Please download it and pass it around or pin it up in a prominent location. It is designed to be easily photocopied in black and white and therefore omits our usual logos.

It may also help our circulation if you were to print a hard copy of this mag and make it available to colleagues, family and friends.

We are also happy to receive suggestions for hypertext links. In addition, our selected authors may wish to plug their contributions and thereby increase site visits.

We are seeking contacts to act as correspondents in UK Oz USA SA or indeed any elsewheres: eager beaver students (eg on creative writing courses) may wish to submit suggestions as to how they could participate on the Editorial Committee (do some legwork for me - I am anxious to obtain more oral history and some stuffs from 1st class sports-people).

The Editor would like to thank Canterbury Christ Church College, and Kent Education Authority for providing resources in the past that enabled this magazine to be launched. I continue to be extraordinarily dependent upon my dear Mama who is a most excellent slave. My friend Chris Young continues to be on hand to help with the IT.

Past editions may be read by clicking on the appropriate logo below: