To see other chapters click here
Children Are Their Parents’ Teachers
1970 London – Aged 5 – The Battle of Waterloo
The green-painted panels, dark red patterned chairs, red leather armrests and wooden framed windows wrapped themselves around me. Through the rattling panes of glass, I watched the blurry grey tunnel walls passing by at dim light speed, my eyes darting from right to left as I tried to still the image. For a second, the lights turned off and everything disappeared. This was the dreamy world of the underground. Here, past and present met. We were going underground where cigarette butts filled the grooves in the wooden floors and grab handles swayed seductively, they didn’t care who held them as long as they gripped them tightly.
Getting off the train filled me with dread, there was the gap, ‘the gap’, a voice kept reminding me to mind it, and to fall in it meant certain death. Mum grabbed my arm, lifted me over it, and told me not to be scared, but I knew it was big enough for me to fall through, so, I took leave of her senses and clung on. Once on the platform, we waited for the other passengers to disperse so Mum could introduce me to the escalators. She held my arm again and told me to step on quickly. ‘Make sure you avoid the line where the steps meet’. I was paralysed by fright, so when she said jump, I did nothing. I felt a sudden jolt and there I was ascending the escalator, my mother looking down at me smiling, ‘See, it’s fun, isn’t it?’ Then as we reached the top, she said ‘Ready, steady,’ and on the command to jump, I did.
As we came out of Leicester Square Station it was already dark, cold enough for snow, but it just rained. We walked a few minutes to the cinema where Mum asked for tickets for The Battle of Waterloo. The man behind the glass told her we were too early, so, we headed back to Charing Cross Road, where a restaurant with red wall lights caught us. Mum picked me up so I could see inside. She kissed me and said, “This looks alright, it’ll be nice and warm in there.”
The restaurant had dark red leather bench seats, low lighting and Victorian-era paintings of soldiers in battle on the walls. I was entranced, but it’s the memory of us sharing a plate of fish and chips that resonates now. Compared to being in Pastens this was a magical world of just Mummy and me. This wasn’t the first time we’d travelled on public transport together, but up to this journey, she most likely carried me on escalators and across gaps, so this marked a literal rite of passage.
Years later, I’d wonder what Mum felt about people’s reactions to my disability back then. On a couple of occasions, I witnessed her get angry when someone stared too much, and in a raised voice she’d say, “Ten pence a look.” Had I been more savvy, I’d have told her to raise the price, but she was never good when it came to money.
After the meal, we returned to the Odeon where Mum bought some Paynes Poppets chocolate-covered nuts, and then we entered the cavernous auditorium which was almost empty.
The film may have been exceptional for its battle scenes, but the lack of good reviews partly led to its commercial failure. For Stanley Kubrick, who co-directed it, the projects he’d had lined up were all axed, so this meant he was forced to take a new path. It was then he embarked on A Clock Work Orange which would eventually be recognised as a classic. At the time though, one critic described it as an ideological mess. As you’ve probably realised by now, I tend to think all ideologies are messy, but mainly because they are not messy enough.
For me, at five years old, any subtleties of storytelling and filmmaking were irrelevant, all that mattered were the battle scenes. Even so, I don’t recall much about the film except a soldier getting hit by a cannonball and my indignant, “Where are the spitfires?” comment receiving a trickle of laughter from a few audience members, probably desperate for some well-deserved light relief, and partially waking in my mother’s arms as she took me home across gaps, down escalators, and into a taxi from the station to home. She may have felt her struggles went unappreciated then, but now I would reassure her they are not.
What first reminded me of this experience was how older tube trains started to be replaced by modern ones in the 80s. At first, their new plastic futuristic looks were impressive, but it wasn’t long before they felt soulless. During the ’60s and ’70s the fashions and designs that permeated our culture were revolutionary, however, they co-existed alongside those from the 40s and 50s. It was also common to come across houses and many other aspects of life that were of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The 60s and 70s sought to dismantle the past in a collective eagerness to change the world, but there was something about the 80s that attempted to finish the job off. So, by the 1990s the modern era had arrived in full, and museums were already exhibiting items from the 70s as historically iconic. For many people though, Victorian ‘period features’ were, and still are, by-words for classical design.
Things rarely disappear completely, if you look close enough, you’ll catch an echo of their existence all around you. The road we lived on when I was 17 was called Park Lane, and the houses that backed onto our garden were on Park Gate Road. For all the time I lived there, I never thought twice about these names, however, at one time the junction where these two met marked the location of a very austere entrance to the grounds of a manor house. The gates had been taken down long ago and ended up in a scrap yard where they were purchased for a pittance and shipped to America, where they can still be seen at the Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay New York. Ironically, the gates were put in place after a fire destroyed the original main house but before its larger replacement was built. It got as far as the planning stage but didn’t progress any further; after all, not all dream houses come to be.
For most of us, if we get to live long enough, we’ll realise we experienced multiple eras, even if some were just a scent of recently bygone ones. The other day I was talking to a young guy I know, “Nathan,” I said, “In 40 years, you’ll be my age. Remember this moment, and how different life is now compared to then. Self-driving and flying vehicles will probably be the norm and the noise and smell of car engines will be a distant memory.”
In the 70s there were still horse-drawn carts that’d pass our house occasionally, we’d get lifts in cars from the 40s whose indicators would pop up near the roof, and sawdust-coated some pub floors, in which we’d draw patterns with our feet while the adults drank and smoked till our eyes stung. In my father’s childhood, people lived close to the earth. The floor of his house was made of soil and stones and served as a constant reminder of nature and where they’d end up one day. Nowadays, most of us don’t encounter soil much. It’s avoided, concreted over, and instead, virtual worlds or glass towers in the clouds give us a Heaven’s eye view of the realms we’ve created. Design affects how we think, and what we believe in affects design.
* * *
May 1982 – Wilson’s School
One morning I was informed that the headmaster wanted to see me in the afternoon. I racked my brain as to what I may have done wrong and lined up my best defences if any should be brought up. When the time finally came, I sat outside his office, getting my scripts just right and working out who might have grassed me up. The secretary called me in. I entered his office, approached his austere desk, and sat opposite him. He leant back and interlacing his fingers, brought his hands together.
“Well, Mr Smith, how are your studies going?”
Using the slightly self-effacing truth technique, I answered, “They’re a lot harder than I thought they’d be but I think I’m keeping up.”
“Yes,’ he paused, ‘Yes, that’s what I hear.”
Here it comes I thought to myself.
“Well, I’ve called you in today because,”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said.
It was the secretary, who pushed the door open with her back and spun around to reveal a tray with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits on it. She had the most enormous breasts so how she managed to hold the tray and perform such a manoeuvre was beyond impressive. She placed the cup in front of me.
“Would you like sugar?” she asked.
“Yes, two please,” I said.
“Goodness, you do have a sweet tooth,” she laughed, putting the sugar in and stirring it.
As she went out, she asked the headmaster if would like a drink too, he nodded his head slightly which I took to be code for something alcoholic.
“Anyway,” he said looking directly into my eyes, “I’ve called you here to ask if you’d be interested in becoming one of the senior prefects next term?”
All the anxiety dropped from my nervous system, and I almost shouted out, “Yes!”, but instead I politely nodded and said, “I’d love that, thank you.”
To keep me in my place he added, “I can’t promise you will be given the position, but I wanted to check if you’d be interested first.”
I drank my tea, ate a biscuit, answered some more questions about the school karate club, and then was asked to let the secretary know he was ready for the next interviewee on my way out. As I approached the door, he cracked a joke about doing a portrait of him. I couldn’t help but think, “Now I understand just how these things work around here.”
After the interview, I went up to the sixth form department where my Physics master was coming out of his office. I told him about the interview, and he congratulated me but added I ought to understand that if I was to be picked as a senior prefect, then it would be on my own merits, and not as a gesture related to my disability. He also said he wanted to talk to me about how he’d noticed some of the boys were having a bit of a go at me lately, and he was concerned it might be upsetting me more than I was letting on. I replied I wasn’t too bothered because “I don’t like ‘em all that much anyhow.” That wasn’t the whole truth but what else could I have said? I didn’t want to come over as a victim and I think he realised that, but still he wanted me to know support was available if I ever needed it.
* * *
My OCD Part 2
The karate club at Wilson’s was a big part of my life. I was only a green belt but was teaching in the school club during the lunch breaks and at least one evening a week. As there’d been a few minor injuries we decided to raise money, via a sponsored exercise marathon, to buy ourselves some body armour. This went better than expected, so, once we’d collected the proceeds, a small group of us from the club took a trip to a martial arts shop in London to buy the equipment and while there we had a chat with the storekeeper. At one point, I must have told him I taught at the school club, it was then he asked what style we did. I told him it was Kyokushinkai, and he asked what belt I was. Little did I know that as soon as we left the shop, he was straight on to the phone to the leader of Kyokushinkai in the UK, Shihan Steve Arneil. To make things simpler I’ll refer to him as Shihan here as that was his title back then.
I’d been training at Shihan’s club in Raynes Park as well as Tweeddale for a few months, even though a couple of the senior students at Tweeddale had told me I shouldn’t train at both clubs. However, not one to be discouraged, I ignored them and did so anyway. Two days after visiting the martial arts shop, I turned up at Shihan’s club where soon after the class started, he marched us out to the sports field. He told the class to run around the edges of it, but as I couldn’t run, I started exercising on the spot.
“Mr Smith,” Shihan curtly snapped in his South African accent, he was from Zimbabwe.
I stopped exercising, “Yes, Shihan?”
There was a pause and he looked at me, while slowly shaking his head from side to side.
“I’d like a word with you.”
“Uh-uh,” I thought.
His voice took on the tone of a prosecuting solicitor.
“I got a call from a shop owner who says you’re going around saying you’re a Kyokushinkai karate teacher. Is that right?”
Inside I screamed, “Fuck!” but what came out was a timid, “Erm, well I did tell him I taught at our school karate club.”
Shihan continued staring without blinking, although he may have blinked exactly when I did, obviously in that event, I wouldn’t have noticed.
His case for the prosecution continued, “So, is that an official Kyokushinkai club?” He looked at me even more intensely, “Or are you a registered Kyokushinkai teacher?”
I did wonder if saying, “I think we both know the answer to that,” would go down well, but decided it better to just say, “No Shihan,” and nod like a toddler caught in the act.
He wagged his finger at me, “You know, you’re going to get into a lot of trouble if you don’t watch what you say.”
I was close to laying on the ground with all four paws up in the air, but I got the feeling that he could see I was metaphorically doing that already, especially when I whimpered, “Yes Shihan. I won’t do that again. I’m very sorry.”
He shook his head again as if to say, “You better not,” then called the others back.
I felt extremely ashamed for some time after and initially thought I should give up karate, but I didn’t want to, it had become a big part of who I was. So, I decided it’d be better if I improved myself and made it clear to him I wanted to make amends. A few weeks later he gave me some advice on how I could improve one of my techniques, which I took as a sign of him beginning to forgive me. That, plus his allowing me to continue training at his club probably meant he had. Still, this remained a mark on my character even if only in my mind. This didn’t mean I would always be saintly when I trained with him. At one point another trainee (I think it may have been his son) and I got into hysterics as we added loads of kisses to the names of some of the very tough high grades who’d already signed Shihan’s birthday card. Outside of that though, I tended to keep my head down and trained hard.
This incident coupled with one of our cats disappearing so soon after I decided not to be controlled by my magical thinking further reinforced the feeling that I should obey those thoughts. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have any self-awareness, I had read a little about neurosis and how it can reinforce itself, but none of that seemed to help, so, I ended up feeling as if there was no escape, and I had to comply.
* * *
August 1982 – Ruth and Evelyn
On Wednesday the 11th of August, a few days after one of our cats went missing, I knocked on all our neighbours’ doors to ask if they’d seen it, but none had, so I decided to venture further. One of the ones I knocked on was opened by a woman who was about my height with long dark hair and Mediterranean olive-coloured skin. As I asked about our cat, she was very friendly and sympathetic, almost to the point where she became a little tearful. As I went to go, she asked me my name. I told her and asked her for hers, “Evelyn”, she said.
Later that same day I went to Sutton Library where I chatted with a woman called Ruth who was sitting near me. At first, I thought she was being very friendly but once we went down to the café for a tea break, she started telling me how important God was to her and wanted to know if I’d be interested in coming to her church.
“No,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk about it with you.”
“Okay,” she said.
About ten days later I arranged to meet up with Ruth at Sutton Library and by coincidence, I bumped into Evelyn on the way. She and I caught the bus together and chatted as if we’d known each other for years. As we parted company, she invited me around for tea one day. I said I would and as we went our separate ways she waved and shouted, “Great, see you soon.”
* * *
Religion – Pam
One of the women I knew from the morning bus ride to school was called Pam. She was very tall and quite ‘big-boned’. We got on well and would often end up in fits of laughter together. As she lived around the corner from me, we’d occasionally meet up in a local café or she’d invite me around to her place. Both she and her mother were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but despite the reputation for being extremely evangelical, neither she nor her mum ever tried to convert me.
I must have been going through a period of being very interested in religion then. This was most likely brought on by my reading a few books by Graham Greene, including his play The Living Room and the novels The Power and the Glory, and The Quiet American. This had been initiated by my English Literature teacher, Mr Kennedy, asking me to write an essay on Greene over the summer as part of a school writing competition. Vernon, the ex-secret agent I’d sometimes stay with had previously mentioned Graham Greene, saying he knew him and didn’t like him much. Despite that, Vernon begrudgingly still recognised Greene’s talent as a writer.
When I mentioned to Pam I was studying these books she suggested I read one of the Jehovah’s Witness ones called, The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life. I read it but came away feeling far from converted. Its main argument was about living eternally. In other words, it wasn’t about learning to love people truly, instead, it came across as a kind of deal along the lines of, ‘If you act in a certain way, then you can live forever’. Even at 17, I recognised this was akin to bribery and had more in common with my own magical OCD feelings than any notion of compassion and love.
A few weeks later Pam told me she was pregnant and was extremely worried about what her fellow churchgoers would think, especially given she wasn’t married. There was also the anxiety she felt in terms of her relationship with God. From my perspective, there was something deeply dysfunctional about this situation, after all this must happen to millions of women every year. Where was the compassion that Jesus spoke of and what practical caring systems had ever been put in place to help these women? There were practical ones, but they weren’t very caring. There had been places for unmarried mothers for centuries, but their aim tended to be to shame, reject, and damage these women with the intent of teaching them, and any others thinking about playing around, a very harsh lesson.
* * *
Religion – Ruth
There was something of the Bloomsbury set about Ruth. She had a bob-style haircut and a slightly angular but elegant look about her. Unlike the Bloomsbury set though, loving God was central to her life. I wasn’t surprised then when she invited me to some of her church activities, a few of which I decided to go to as I didn’t have anything better to do. Seeing as some of them involved going to pubs to try to convert people, I was curious to see if it’d end up causing a brawl, which, disappointingly, it didn’t. On one occasion I ended up in a pub near Crystal Palace where Ruth and her friends didn’t turn up but as a woman did a striptease act, I couldn’t help but feel there’d been some divine intervention. It was only when we next met up, I realised I’d got the wrong pub. After having a laugh about what happened, Ruth and I discussed whether our need to believe in God was evidence of there being one. For me, it didn’t signify anything because as far as I was concerned our need for a God came from a whole host of influences, but to Ruth, our design was intelligent and our need for religion was part of that design.
In recent years, research into how our brains are affected by religious practices by Andrew Newberg, a doctor at the University of Pennsylvania, has shown praying and meditation change the state of various parts of the brain. The result of these rituals tended to be a feeling of one’s body no longer existing, of becoming at one with the universe. Similarly, some Pentecostal ceremonies may cause a decrease in the participant’s frontal lobe activity, and this results in them feeling as if God was speaking in tongues through them. Of course, these studies don’t say anything about the existence of God, but they do demonstrate how our brains are hard-wired for religious activity.
Another scientist, Michael Persinger, created a device called ‘The God Helmet’. By wearing it some people felt the presence of ‘God’. Richard Dawkins, the renowned atheist, tried it on but only felt slightly dizzy and some twitching in his legs. Persinger argued that some people might be more genetically predisposed to sensing a higher power or God especially if electromagnetic fields are also present nearby. If this is true, then this might explain why religious experiences tend to be more common when some subjects are close to naturally occurring electromagnetic activity, such as meteor showers and seismic movements. It’s also possible that some humans are more prone to having religious experiences without the trigger of external stimuli. If so, he asked, “Has this developed because it’s an evolutionary advantage?”
Further research showed that humans who perceived the nature of their world through a prism of religious beliefs fared better than those who didn’t. If this is true, then is that why most humans have a tendency towards religious beliefs? In that case, if we are hard-wired to have a spiritual dimension to our lives, then do we suffer by not engaging with it? Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst, certainly believed this to be the case. To him, ignoring our spiritual needs and “The God-image in the human psyche” would very likely lead to psychological issues. But is it possible for a person to engage with their spiritual selves even if they don’t believe in God? For some, the idea of merely flipping a switch in our brains so we can benefit from a religious experience would be like taking drugs and certainly connects with the Marxist view of religion being the opium of the people.
Professor Jordan Grafman, from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders, stated that religious belief and behaviour are a hallmark of human life, they are found in all cultures and there’s no accepted animal equivalent. Although a friend of mine did question whether whales may be religious, after all, they spend a lot of time singing.
Grafman also added that the brain is inherently primed for believing in almost anything if there are grounds for doing so, but when there is a mystery about something, the same neural machinery is co-opted in the formulation of religious belief. Grafman states, “When we don’t have a scientific explanation for something, we tend to rely on supernatural explanations.”
When the Soviets did their very best to eradicate religion, they found many of their citizens still yearned to have God in their lives. For all of Communism’s communion, singing together, meeting up, moral codes, and festivals, it still wasn’t enough. The people, well at least some of them, still wanted God. For them, Lenin just didn’t cut it.
Paradoxically, in the West, church attendance has decreased dramatically over the last 40 years without any help from the state, although it could be argued culture has played a big part in this decline. The most likely cause has been a transition of faiths with people moving in mass away from religion and towards scientific belief, supported by consumerism, materialism and ideological/political struggles. However, there’s also been a big move by many towards alternative spiritual beliefs.
During this time the endemic amount of mental health issues, drug and alcohol misuse, and emphasis on sex seem to point towards a society-wide spiritual void. For many in the West, this has possibly been caused by finding themselves trapped in a no man’s land between religious dogma hollowed out by science, and an incomplete scientific theory of the universe that has left them feeling spiritually hollowed out. But, what if, as I’ve mentioned in previous chapters, meaning is more about a feeling than about meaning itself?
What if for most of your life, you’ve felt full of meaning even though you can’t explain where it comes from and then something happens that results in you feeling meaningless? If you got back what you lost, maybe a job or a loved one, would you then feel meaningful again? In that case, your feeling of meaninglessness is not related to ideological beliefs, but instead a state of being. Conversely, you might feel meaningless all the time anyway, and no matter how much religion, philosophy or psychology you study, none of it helps. In that case, either those philosophies are inadequate or again, your feelings are related to something else, such as physiological or environmental issues. And then there’s another possibility, you feel meaningful because of your relationship with God or another spiritual avenue you’ve taken and without them, you’d feel completely meaningless. Whichever way you look at this though, it’s about a feeling that results from multiple stimuli, all of which may be reacted to very differently by different individuals.
If we truly wish to search for meaning, then it can’t be sought when we feel desperately meaningless which paradoxically is exactly when most people do so. The problem with feeling emotionally meaningless is a person may be tempted to make compulsive and irrational ideological choices. If you try to use logic when it comes to justifying matters of faith you will fail. By definition, they would not be matters of faith if logic could be applied.
In the 14th century, a book called The Cloud of Unknowing seemed to tap into a similar approach. Its underlying message was to set aside notions of God’s attributes, activities, and so-called rules, and be courageous enough to surrender one’s mind and being to the ‘unknowing’ and through that process, it stated, glimpses of God may be had. Whilst this is very much on the mystical end of the religious spectrum, it does link up to Carl Jung’s belief that religious experience is just that, an experience, and no matter how much indoctrination, academic study or argument one might have, it’s all pointless without this ‘experience’.
If we’re feeling hungry for meaning, and such desires come from psychological issues rather than philosophical ones, then the first step when it comes to searching for philosophical meaning is to address our psychological feelings of meaninglessness. Of course, it’s easy to say, “deal with psychological issues”; if only life was so simple, but maybe keeping in mind that both meaningfulness and meaninglessness are feelings related to psychological dynamics rather than academic spiritual ones, well, that may be helpful when we have less than sunny days.
* * *
Edward 2017
My stepfather John’s younger brother, Edward, was a priest and eventually became a Monsignor. After he retired he moved into an old people’s home for clergy members that resembled Hogwarts. One day I had to pick him up to take him to a family gathering and, on the way, called him because I couldn’t quite remember where it was.
“Hi, Edward, what’s your address, please, I think I’m a bit lost?”
“Erm,” he sounded a bit confused, “The Cash in hand”
“Sorry?” I said.
He laughed, “The Cross in Hand, I mean, The Cross in Hand.”
I laughed too and said, “I think you might have been right the first time. I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”
When I got to the place I parked up and made my way to the reception desk where a nun looked up at me and asked how she could help.
“Hi”, I smiled, “I’ve come to pick up Edward Hill.”
She looked sternly at me, “Don’t you mean Father Edward Hill?”
I raised an eyebrow, as in ‘challenge accepted’ and smiled, “No, Uncle Edward Hill”.
She didn’t laugh at all but just picked up the phone. I was half expecting Voldemort to come out and cast me asunder, but within a few minutes, Edward joined us.
Later that night, on the way back from the event, we all felt a bit peckish, the catering had been delicious but lacked bulk, so, I suggested we stop off at McDonald’s.
“Do you want anything, Edward?” I asked.
“Erm,” he paused a bit too long, “No, I don’t think so, I’m fine, thank you.”
I knew he’d give in if I pushed a little more, “Are you sure, how about a burger?”
“Err,” he paused again, but not so long this time, “okay then, yes, that would be lovely. Thank you.”
A few minutes later, the other passengers and I got back to the car with a bag full of politically incorrect goodies.
“Here Edward, here’s your cheeseburger.”
He took hold of it, turned it over a few times as if it were a foreign object that he’d never come across before, (which it was), then unwrapped it and took a tentative bite.
“I say, this is delicious, what did you say it was called again?”
I slowly enunciated, “A-cheese-bur-ger”.
He was almost ecstatic as he repeated the word to himself, “A cheeseburger, goodness, I shall have to make a note of that, it’s absolutely wonderful.”
I decided to deliver the last temptation. “When you’ve finished that, I’ve got you a hot apple pie”.
The other passengers and I all looked at each other and smiled.
He didn’t stand a chance.
* * *
Religion – Veronique
Around the same time Pam was coming to terms with being pregnant, Ruth asked me if I wanted to accompany her to a spiritual healing session. This involved going to a woman called Veronique’s flat in Epsom where the attendees were going to pray to help alleviate her agoraphobia and anorexia.
Everything proceeded as planned. They prayed, she prayed, I watched, and nothing much else happened. During the tea break, I asked her if she wanted to borrow one of the books I’d recently bought (stolen) from the library sale. She said yes and asked me to write my address in it so she could return it to me in due course. I asked if the praying helped, and she said it had. I had my doubts it would make any difference in the long run and wondered if those doing the praying got more out of it than she had.
About ten months later she wrote to me, partly to return my book and partly to ask if I wanted to visit her. I’ll tell you more about that another time, but what I came to learn from her was these weekly attendances came to an end a few months later as the ‘healers’ realised it wasn’t having any meaningful effect. At one point, they blamed her for the lack of success, insinuating that perhaps she was too evil. I’d eventually get to know her over several decades, and while she was a bit fucked up, she was not evil as far as I could tell. Her favourite artist was Cliff Richard, if that’s not a sign of Christian piousness what is? Also, her name, Veronique has significant Christian links, it means ‘She who brings victory’, which is rather ironic given her healers’ track record. The connections between her name and Christianity also include the story of the sixth station of Christ’s journey to his crucifixion, where a woman gave him her veil so he could wipe his forehead. When he returned the veil, the image of his face was captured on it. In the eleventh century, the story was further elaborated to include Emperor Tiberius being cured by the veil. It’s also argued that the Latin ‘Vera Icon’ which means ‘true image’ became merged to form the name of Jesus’s helper, Veronica.
As for Veronique, she had a stunningly beautiful face, so when I gave her that book it wasn’t for any altruistic reasons. In my way, just as the healers had their agenda, I did too, and so did she.
* * *
It’s Not You, it’s the Ideology
In Graham Greene’s The Living Room, his main message was Catholics fail but Catholicism doesn’t. I initially agreed with him, but in time I came to see that a system that sets its followers up to fail is also a failure to a point. That isn’t to say there aren’t lots of good things in Catholicism, but just like all those other ideologies and belief systems that set unrealistic aspirations, it’s as if something at the core of it has been corrupted. Jesus may have washed the feet of a prostitute, but a thousand years on and most of his followers would rather nobody needed cleaning in the first place, let alone tend to them.
Setting very high aspirations is all well and good, but to not care for, or even hold a place within the system, for those who can’t reach these higher expectations seems cruel to me. From the Salem witch-hunts to the Soviet Gulags to the persecution of unmarried pregnant women, the abuse of those who ‘failed’ a failing ideology, and the suffering caused by all those religious and non-religious ideologies, must be close to endless.
Anyone who has studied theology, especially the historical developments of religions, will know doctrines get modified, reinterpreted, and ‘adjusted’ over time, often to suit those making the changes. Even God got a makeover. The God of the Old Testament seemed far more human and less divine than the God of the New Testament. And when it came to doctrinal changes within Christianity throughout the last 2000 years, there have been a lot of revisions.
The more involvement I had with religion the more I came to believe that most of what was deemed ‘the truth’ wasn’t, and ultimately people believed the things they did because of the time and place they lived in. As you’ve probably guessed, I developed a bit of an aversion towards organised religion. However, even though I still had no idea how to define what God was, I felt a part of me related to something I considered to be God, and as I’ve already said, this didn’t mean I’d ever argue that God exists or not, but I accepted that parts of my mind felt otherwise.
* * *
The Truth Part 1
Yuri B points at a blackboard with ‘2 + 2 = 4’ written on it. “Would you be willing to die for this?” he asks the audience. They all laugh. He shakes his head slowly. “Of course, you wouldn’t, but maybe you should.”
* * *
December 2021 – The Soul and Near-Death Experiences
Tracey Chapman, the famous singer who had a worldwide hit with Fast Car in the 1980s recently asked her Facebook followers which of her songs was their favourite. I answered, All That You Have is Your Soul. Many people believe we have a soul, seeing it as a part of us that exists independently from our body, which when we die, lives on. Different beliefs maintain the soul continues to exist, and depending on each belief it will do so within varying circumstances. These may include becoming part of a larger entity, being reincarnated, getting trapped on earth, going to Heaven, Purgatory or Hell as well as innumerable other scenarios.
For some, our soul influences our personality, and to them, this is a major factor affecting who we are, more so than our nature or nurture. At the other extreme, the more scientifically minded tend to think of humans as meat machines and our sense of having a soul is just a by-product of that mechanism. However, even within the scientific community, there’s no definitive opinion. There are those, such as Dr Sam Parnia, who are intrigued by Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and what they may indicate in terms of continued consciousness beyond our death. After all, if ever there was an argument for the existence of a soul, it’s the recollections of people whose brains were not functioning at these moments. That brings up a whole host of issues, especially when it comes to those who claim to have had out of body experiences in which they see things that should have been impossible to view from their physical body’s vantage point.
NDEs commonly involve travelling through a tunnel towards a beautiful light and meeting loved ones who have already passed away or significant religious figures. These are not a new phenomenon; Socrates spoke of a warrior called ‘Er’ who, after being resurrected, recounted going to a mysterious place with luminous beings descending from above. Many believe this is merely a trick of the mind that kicks in due to a lack of oxygen, a consequence of a brain in the throes of death, but Dr Parnia thinks there might be more to it and his mission is to get a better understanding of what’s going on. Parnia believes he has evidence consciousness may continue for up to a few hours after apparent death. However, the definition of death lies at the heart of this argument, as some would argue that if someone can be resuscitated then they weren’t dead, even if their heart as well as their breathing stopped. Parnia asks, if consciousness continues during these periods when the brain is apparently not functioning, then can we be definite it will disappear later? The issue of whether the brain may still be functioning even though on the surface it appears ‘dead’ lies at the crux of this debate, and right now it’s not possible to measure such subtle brain activity at the depths required. Currently, scientists such as Parnia are open to learning more about NDEs, but so far, as you won’t be surprised to hear, there is no hard evidence to prove the existence of a soul. We will have to wait to see what scientific developments come about in time, but if you can’t wait that long you’ll probably get to find out, one way or another, in good time.
* * *
Sacrificial Lambs
Just as religions involve sacrifices being made, so do ideologies and just as with religions, those sacrifices can be our own or made by others, whether they choose to be involved or not. Was Veronique a sacrificial lamb for those who prayed for her? She didn’t live up to their expectations so she was left to deal with it herself, she may not have died but she didn’t live either.
One of the hardest things for us to admit is for us to live as we do, sacrifices must be made, and usually, it’s not us who suffer. In the past, sacrifices were made in front of the whole community and involved killing animals or an ‘honoured’ human. Nowadays this still goes on, only it’s hidden from view and doesn’t involve a ceremony. Most of us are aware that less well-off people in both our own and poorer countries suffer so our economies can grow. Are these not sacrifices made on our behalf, for our benefit? Then there are more subtle victims, such as those who become ill or die because of pollution, man-made disasters, wars, economic policies, and corporate strategies. And what of the consequences of ideologies that are closer to home? The victims of terrorism, the fate of people who are cancelled, the lack of care for mental health sufferers, the effects of poverty, lenient prison sentences and so on? These are the sacrificial lambs, placed on the altars of our belief systems, economies and ways of life.
One thing that helps us to care about others is their proximity to us. If those who get sacrificed or suffer for our benefit are far away, then that makes it much easier for us to avoid feeling guilty. Deep down we all know these sacrifices are being made, and even when we consciously recognise this, somehow we’ll find a way to deflect the blame. Being conscious of this won’t help much in the grand scheme of things, but it might help us by keeping us closer to the truth. We may also recognise that we too are sacrificial lambs, just as our ancestors were cannon fodder for meaningless wars and slaves of Capitalism. We too are manipulated to live and die for the benefit of a minority. “Power to the People!”
Bleet bleet.
Sorry, I don’t know what came over me just then!
* * *
The End of Suffering
If you could choose to cancel the existence of all life on earth to stop suffering, would you? What about if you could choose how much suffering was to be allowed, would just one bit of suffering be too much, would you pull the plug on all life forms, or would you accept that if life is to exist then so must suffering?
When it comes to ideologies, people make the same decision. As far as they’re concerned, there’s a certain amount of suffering that is acceptable for the greater good, and that amount is often way greater than you might expect. The problem is when someone decides to save 100 people by allowing one to die, how can they know if by letting that individual live, millions of others would not have been saved? When it comes to sacrifices, whether it’s to gods or ideologies, we have no idea whether it’s ultimately worth it.
* * *
Supernatural Part 2 – Jung and the Mosaics
Soon after I wrote the section about Barry and Barbara in the previous chapter, I came across a similar story about Carl Jung believing he had, along with another person, viewed four long-destroyed mosaics from the Basilica of San Giovanni Evangelista. He mentioned this incident during several lectures, saying he and his ‘friend’ Miss Toni Wolff, had both looked at and discussed four mosaics which they were to find out later didn’t exist. To Jung, this was one of the strangest experiences of his life. Unlike Barry and Barbara though, he didn’t investigate it further.
As I researched this it came to light that this might be more a case of mistaken identity than a supernatural occurrence. The place Jung and Wolff visited could well have been a different location from the one they thought they were at. When Jung asked his friend Dr Meier to bring photos back of the mosaics when he visited Italy, he was astounded to hear Meier declare, “They do not exist.” Wolff immediately reacted by exclaiming, “That’s ridiculous, I saw them with my own eyes, and you [Jung] talked of them for about twenty minutes.”
Meier replied coldly, “Nevertheless, there are no such mosaics.”
Instead of wondering if there might be a reasonable explanation, they rushed to conclude they’d experienced a supernatural phenomenon. However, one investigator, a Mr Purrington, decided to examine this further and suggested that Jung and Wolff had most likely visited another building which had very similar pictures to those Jung had described. He also believed that with the passing of time, Jung and Wolff’s memory had altered certain things, such as the pictures being mosaics, whereas the ones he proposed they’d more likely viewed were murals with some sections rendered in mosaic. Of course, it’s possible this explanation isn’t what happened at all, but it did put an element of doubt into my mind.
Just as with politics, when it comes to the supernatural, I try to have a cynically open mind. You may remember my friend Dr Ian Fletcher who I mentioned in a previous chapter. Not only was he a consultant for the National Health Service, but he was also a member of the Magic Circle for over 70 years. During this time, he researched psychic phenomena, including debunking many so-called psychics, worked with the famous sceptic James Randi, and was involved with testing Uri Geller. At the end of this journey, he made it clear to me that he believed that telepathy exists.
During my research for this section, I read through some of the e-mails between Ian and me. Most of them were written around the time we met up at the Chelsea Arts Club for dinner in September 2011 and shortly after that evening, he wrote:
“Hearing about your psychic experiences fascinated me, particularly because they take various forms. Telepathy, precognition, ESP, & astral travel… When Uri Geller was first on TV in [the UK] I was in the studio audience and had two steel rods, one was ‘ordinary’ while the other was tempered but they looked identical. Uri was some distance from me, and I challenged him to bend the rod I held up. He promptly said, ‘That is a rod of tempered steel and it would take me a long time.’ Later, when talking to him I saw the hand of a watch bend while under glass. Also, one of his telepathic feats is to draw what someone has just drawn – often with marked similarities but not identical BUT always the same size. I could tell you of other remarkable occurrences which I have personally witnessed. Perhaps at a later date, we could again, compare notes.”
Sadly, we didn’t get to meet again.
Within the scientific community over the last few decades, there has been much debate regarding telepathy. Daryl Bem spent many years researching and collating data which he then presented to the scientific community. He felt that there was some evidence to suggest ESP existed, but the scientific world did not react well, even though a few of the peer reviews were able to repeat some of his findings.
* * *
James Randi
James Randi was a celebrity both in the UK and the US who was known for debunking ‘psychics’. He challenged all the big players such as Doris Stokes and Uri Geller and offered a million dollars to anyone who could demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under scientific testing conditions. Over a thousand people applied, but none were ever successful.
James Randi and Ian Fletcher knew and worked with each other at times. They were both involved in debunking psychics, both members of the Magic Circle and both died aged 92. However, when it came to the subject of telepathy they came to very different conclusions.
For Ian, the watch hand bending under glass and the drawings experiments, both of which he’d witnessed with his own eyes, as well as the Stamford Research Institute’s tests convinced him that if these were just tricks, then he couldn’t explain how Geller had performed them. Randi on the other hand, dismissed the Stamford Research Institute’s tests, saying they were invalid because they were not affiliated to the university and the testers were in no way qualified to do such tests.
I decided to turn my cynical eye on Randi and noticed that when he tried to explain and duplicate Geller’s drawing ‘trick’, he wasn’t able to do so, despite him stating he had. When Geller did it, he revealed his drawing first, and then the original drawing was shown. However, in Randi’s demonstration, the original drawing was displayed first and in the moments between then and his showing his version, he surreptitiously drew a similar picture, either with a mark-making device lodged under his fingernail or possibly by using his belt buckle. Either way, the quality of the drawing was faint and nowhere near as developed as Geller’s. My point is Randi should have concluded too that Geller’s drawing ‘trick’ was unproven and his method unknown, instead, Randi deceived people by saying he had demonstrated how Geller had performed the ‘trick’ when he clearly hadn’t. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPt-7j3ahP0&t). In his own way, Randi was as much a public performer, trickster and promoter of his ideology as he claimed Geller was.
* * *
Jonathan Cunningham – 1981
In 1981, a fellow pupil at Wilson’s, Jonathan Cunningham, was killed in a tragic accident just opposite Wallington Girls School whilst cycling one morning. He was a very sweet boy who I’d chat with sometimes. I was also friendly with his older brother and wanted to remember him somewhere in this book but there’s also another reason for doing so.
In 1987 a famous ‘Medium’ called Doris Stokes died. This was probably fortuitous for her as an exposé of her methods was published later that year. One of the techniques she used was to invite people to her shows who she knew had lost loved ones. She would get hold of information about them from newspapers or other members of the Spiritualist Church, then act as if she was being contacted by them via the spirit world. Jonathan’s parents were chosen by Stokes to attend one of her meetings, and sure enough, she gave them and the audience the impression she was in contact with Jonathan. One could argue it gave them some comfort, but in terms of providing evidence of consciousness beyond death, it didn’t help whatsoever. Just as the scientifically minded can benefit from being open to possibilities, the overly open-minded can also benefit from a measure of scepticism. Whether it’s science, religion, ideologies or the occult, the truth is the first casualty of both war and peace. As Bob Dylan sings, in his song Licence to Kill, I’ll have to paraphrase… All we believe are our eyes, but our eyes keep telling us lies.
* * *
Friends – 1982 – Part 2 – Abbie
After Jules and I broke up I stayed friends with Abbie. She was one of the four I’d encountered on the first day Jules and I met. I’d often go around to Abbie’s house where we’d chat and take turns stroking each other’s necks. Even though I fancied her, I was sure the feeling wasn’t mutual, so, I was happy for us to ‘just be friends’. As the saying goes, ‘It was my choice, but not necessarily my first one’.
There was something of the ‘outsider’ about Abbie, maybe that’s why we identified with each other. People might think it’s common interests, politics, and culture that are the primary bonds of our relationships, but for me, it’s always been humour. Even though Abbie was far more interested in and knowledgeable about politics than me, if I said something she vehemently disagreed with she’d still laugh (both at and with me). But sometime during the 1990s, there was a change in the air. She invited me to a party and warned me I shouldn’t flirt with her friends. I said I didn’t want to walk on eggshells worrying what people might be upset by, and they were entitled to tell me to my face if they didn’t like my behaviour. That didn’t go down well. So, I didn’t get to go to the party and that was when we parted ways. This also marked a point in history when the notion of political correctness became a buzzword. At the heart of it was a conflict between two opposing viewpoints. On one side was the pre-emptive consideration and presumption of caring for other people’s needs, on the other, was the belief that people should be assertive enough to say when they were being offended. In the mid-1990s I was of the latter school of thought whereas now I’m somewhere in between.
* * *
25/8/1982 Wednesday – Diary entry
I watched a bit of Miss UK, there were loads of demonstrators trying to muck it up.
* * *
Did We go Through a Process of Demoralisation?
In times of peace, the war-like man will attack himself
Nietzsche
During the 1960s, the world changed so rapidly that the older generations were left reeling. This wasn’t particularly due to well-placed Marxist sleeper agents, but a burgeoning young population. The post-war baby boomers were hitting their 20s and along with new methods of contraception, the relaxation of laws around obscenity, abortion and divorce, as well as pop culture being increasingly accessible through TV and radio, there was a feeling of change for the good in the air. On top of that scandals such as the Profumo affair and the proliferation of satirical publications and clubs, caused anti-establishment resentment to grow. By 1969 Theodore Roszak coined the term ‘Counter Culture’ which was particularly focused on civil liberties, women’s, race and gay rights. Even though laws, such as the Sexual Offences Act had been created over a decade earlier, the police tended to ignore their existence. This coupled with overt police corruption and racism meant that for many young people, the police were the enemy, and as demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and nuclear weapons policies led to significant clashes with the police, these feelings grew dramatically. Thirteen years after the Race Relations Act of 1968 the police were still brutalising people of colour, so when rioting in 1981 engulfed parts of Brixton in London, it came as no surprise to many. Now, almost 50 years later, after many more riots and incidents of police brutality towards people of colour (and non-colour too), especially in the USA, it’s still a big issue. There was a feeling that things were going to change for the good in the 60s, but the 70s saw resistance to this throughout many strata of society and the police were no exception, especially when it came to racism.
Another big influence on social change during these decades was the recreational use of drugs. Again, this was nothing new, opium use had been prolific from the 1840s, then curbed in the early 1900s. During that period, cultural figures such as Freud, Cocteau and Picasso’s work were affected by opioids. Likewise, as drugs permeated society in the 60s, the creations of artists such as Leonard Cohen, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles were all heavily influenced when they were under the influence.
By the 1980s the baby boomers’ children were reaching adulthood, so, if ever there was a time to take a great leap forward it was then. Still, while many things changed for the better, in other ways, they worsened. Where communities had once been knitted together before the 60s, even if divided by class, the ensuing decades saw them fray and eventually tear apart, especially around ethnic divisions. Large areas of major cities in the West became defined by colour, culture, and ethnicity, whereas previously affluence and class had been the traditional tribal identities. Of course, some areas experienced good versions of multiculturalism, but still many others became insular and segregated.
As the 1970s moved forward the political spheres of national and local party politics became far more blatant, even within offices and canteens; dogma and intolerance resulted in people no longer expressing their opinions openly if they didn’t fit with the official line. It was as if Leonard Cohen’s lines ‘I fought for something final, not for us to disagree’ were not tongue in cheek after all, but the new National Anthem. The result of this was a silent majority who may have agreed a lot of changes had been good, but some had gone too far. When it came to openly arguing their point of view, they felt inadequate and scared, so, quietly they marked their cross in the centre-right parties’ boxes on their ballot papers and the Conservatives ruled from 1979 to 1997, much of it under the iron fist of Margaret Thatcher. Even when the Labour Party eventually got back in power, it only did so after it had become a left-of-centre-right party too. When it comes to the free exchange of ideas, people might be able to do it online, but in real life, people still feel very inhibited, and in recent years it has only got worse. Brexit, Trump, Black Lives Matter, police brutality, statues of celebrated figures being torn down, Cancel Culture, Trans issues, Islam, Immigration, 5G, the Green Agenda, Vaccinations, Lockdowns, Social Media Fact Checkers, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, election fraud, distrust in politicians and law and order – these are all subjects that can spark a vehement argument between friends and family members at their slightest mention right now in 2020.
Was this all the result of a cunning plan executed and encouraged by the KGB, or has society always been divided, and we’ve just forgotten how extreme it was? A few weeks ago, an eminent member of parliament was exposed as receiving large amounts of money from the Chinese government. It’s common knowledge that people in power tend to get financially lobbied. So, it’s not impossible that external bodies have deliberately influenced the direction of travel. Whether they have or not, for the last 20 years we have been in a state of ever-increasing social division. There is very little trust in authority and our ruling bodies, and there are plenty of people looking towards radically changing ‘our way of life’.
Considering Yuri’s words about begging to be taken over by an enemy, it seemed very fitting that Russia’s propaganda channel RT has a very large following in the West and, when Russian President Vladimir Putin recently spoke about Western societies, it resulted in many in the West feeling more of an affinity towards him than their leaders. This is part of that speech.
“The fight for equality and against discrimination has turned into aggressive dogmatism bordering on absurdity when the works of the great authors of the past — such as Shakespeare — are no longer taught at schools or universities because their ideas are believed to be backward. The classics are declared backward and ignorant of the importance of gender or race. In Hollywood, memos are distributed about proper storytelling and how many characters of what colour or gender should be in a movie. This is even worse than the agitprop department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.” (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66975)
So, have we gone through a process of demoralisation?
* * *
Stage 2 – Yuri – Destabilisation
Yuri and the interviewer are chatting as the lights fade up.
The interviewer turns to the camera. “Welcome back to part two of our talk with ex-KGB officer Yuri. Yuri, why don’t you tell the audience what you were discussing with me during the break?”
Yuri pulls down one of his sleeves and straightens his back.
“Thank you,” he bows slightly to the interviewer, “I was just talking about the next stage. We call this the destabilisation stage. This one is much quicker than the demoralisation one, it only takes 2 to 5 years.” He smiles, and a few of the audience members laugh with him.
“The kind of things that we’d see as a manifestation of destabilisation would be a faltering economy where the principles of the free market are eliminated. Often this results in less money going towards defence, and law and order.”
The presenter interjects, “Do you think the United States would ever stop having a free market?”
Yuri takes the baton, “Probably not completely, well not for a long time, but regulations, unions, currency values, there are many things that can constrain the market, and in turn, these may lead to a weaker economy. Also, one must remember that often far weaker countries are targeted, and for them, this process works very well. Once a country becomes economically vulnerable its relationships with other countries flounder. After that, it doesn’t take long for them to feel isolated.”
He pauses, purses his lips together and stands up.
“On a smaller scale, the aim is to divide the nation, the greater the radicalisation the better. Families and friends should be divided, as should neighbourhoods, workers and managers, teachers and students, all of them should be at odds with each other. We want everyone to see each other as enemies.”
He approaches a blackboard and takes a piece of chalk.
“At this point, our agents may well become active, especially in terms of encouraging social unrest. As things start to become more unstable, the activists should take on the role of becoming unelected representatives so they can cause further dissent when appropriate. And all the while the promise of Heaven on Earth should be used as the justification for this short-term hell.”
Under his earlier drawn ‘2+2=4’, he draws a square and then places a big X through it
“As society becomes even more antagonistic the media should be sympathetic to the values of the revolutionaries. Again, the fifth column will make that possible and at this point, society is no longer stable.”
* * *
2021
It’s tempting to dismiss this as preposterous but recent high-profile movements such as ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Extinction Rebellion’ are openly anti-capitalist and have a good proportion of Marxist members who, at the very least, see this as an opportunity for further destabilisation.
Ironically, Yuri B often mentioned the negative influence of corporations on the general populous, especially when it came to getting people to buy into consumerism. He openly called for private companies to be stopped from raping the minds of people to buy things, and for people to exercise some self-restraint. I am sure that most of us, and not only anti-Capitalists and Extinction Rebellion followers would agree with him to a point on that.
This year I’ve had a tumble dryer, washing machine and boiler all break down. Why don’t governments insist on 20-year guarantees? Surely faced with such legislation companies would build obsolescence out. The first fridge I ever owned was 30 years old when I was given it and it lasted a further 20 years, at which point I passed it on to someone else. Nowadays you’d be lucky if a fridge lasted 10 years.
* * *
Yuri – Enemy of The State
The interviewer touches Yuri’s arm. “But Yuri, what can we do about this?”
“I’m not sure you can do anything. Things can be done in Russia and China, but in an open, democratic and ‘free’ society, these things would not be acceptable. Ultimately to survive, a society must identify who’s an enemy of the state. But most people here would feel such approaches to be a slippery slope towards totalitarianism.”
The presenter pulls one side of his mouth down, then says, “Wow, you’re not giving us much hope are you, Yuri?”
Yuri tilts his head towards his right shoulder slightly. “You know, an open society must be willing to argue its destiny out in the open, but I don’t know if people still do that kind of thing anymore.”
The interviewer nods in agreement, “Well that’s what we’re doing here, we’re talking, we’re getting things out into the open.”
Yuri looks at the audience, “I was once told, that a society that allows itself to be destroyed lacks intelligence. Now I know that the people of the United States don’t lack intelligence, so I think there is hope. As you say, we’ve got to keep on talking and discussing these things openly.”
There’s a slight pause, the interviewer looks off-screen for a second then smiling, says “On that note, let’s take another break.”
* * *
Science (Part 2)
Common sense is a valuable commodity and has aided our survival for thousands of years, but it relies on senses that have limitations. Common sense knows little of the cosmos or the sub-atomic world. When we look at the night sky, we may see thousands of stars, but we can’t see that in every moon-sized section of the sky, there are at least ten thousand galaxies.
Nasa has just launched the Webb Space Telescope, so who knows what new revelations that will bring? Likewise, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has recently had a breakthrough regarding matter. For most of us, and indeed a lot of scientists, these areas of science are well beyond comprehension.
In 1982, the week before we went on holiday to Devon, I watched Cosmos and was blown away by how big and small things could be. Likewise, when I was ill in hospital in 2017, I watched the more recent version of Cosmos, and again was moved to my depths.
As soon as we employed the scientific method our world changed beyond recognition, (for both good and bad). Now, in 2022, ideologies, money, and social status are exerting pressures on the scientific world that are eroding its very foundations.
* * *
Propaganda
No matter who brings us information, or when it’s brought to us, it’s important to keep in mind that ideologies and belief systems always influence its delivery. In other words, propaganda is always a part of communication, sometimes it’s indecipherable, sometimes obvious. If it’s something we agree with we tend to be unaware of its presence. It’s only when it’s something we disagree with that we feel it bearing down on us. Of course, you have nothing to fear in this book, there’s no propaganda here, oh no, none whatsoever.
* * *
The Truth Part 2
‘The Truth will set you… back’
Lucifer (From the TV series Lucifer)
* * *
The Falklands War – Part 2
The Falklands War lasted for ten weeks. It took some time for the British to assemble and position their task force. Once they did though, it would only be a matter of time before the Argentinian army would surrender. Their military consisted mostly of conscripts whereas the British were highly trained professionals. Even so, for both sides, there were many tragic losses and serious life-changing injuries.
As far as I knew at the time, my friend Rob was on one of the submarines there, so it felt a bit closer to home than just being a news story. It filled the papers, TV and radio, as well as our heads and it divided people. A lot just wanted us to hand over the islands whereas even more wanted the Argentinians put back in their place. So, when the BBC put our people at risk there, it gave even more credence to those who believed the BBC had been infiltrated with anti-British ‘agents’. For instance, at one point the BBC World Service revealed that there had been a lack of detonations by the Argentinian’s bombs. This then led to the Argentines changing how their bombs worked. In his account of the Falklands War, Admiral Woodward described the BBC as being more concerned with being ‘fearless seekers after truth’ than the lives of British servicemen. Colonel H. Jones also made comparable allegations against the BBC after they disclosed the imminent British attack on Goose Green by 2 Para.
As with most wars, many aspects remain hidden. The USA had been involved in destabilising South American countries for decades, so when Britain decided to go to war against Argentina the higher echelons of the US government were split. At first, they refused to take sides, and had Secretary of State Alexander Haig had his way, the USA would have chosen to support Argentina, by giving ultimate sovereignty of the Falklands to the Argentinians. This wasn’t due to matters of principle, but because Argentina was governed by an anti-communist regime which suited the USA’s needs. In a recently released declassified report, Haig told U.S. congressmen that the principle of “self-determination” did not apply to Falkland Islanders; he then made an off-colour joke about their sexual practices.
There may have been a special relationship between US President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, but in the background, there was another war going on between the different factions in Reagan’s administration. One contingent was worried that if the war became protracted then the Soviets might get involved. As far as Jim Rentschler, a White House staffer in Haig’s entourage was concerned, this “South Atlantic caper” would be a “close-run thing.” When Thatcher showed Haig and Rentschler around Downing Street before discussing the Falklands situation, she pointedly showed him portraits of not only Nelson but also Wellington, who she mentioned, famously described Waterloo as “a close-run thing”.
* * *
Trip to Exmoor 1982 – Part 2
Mum thought it would be a good idea if we all went out together to a nearby coastal town called Bodmin. Things didn’t start well, Mum’s car’s engine wouldn’t turn over, it probably didn’t think us all going out together was a good idea either. John, who had no mechanical knowledge started to play around with the engine to no avail, at which point the guy with the dog called ‘Pup’ turned up. John was obviously not comfortable in his presence, and even Mum’s attitude changed towards him when he shouted out to her “C’mon you stupid woman!” Mum looked at me and raised her eyebrows, I think the words “Fuck off you fucking [BLEEP]” were on the tip of her tongue but given the possibility that he was the cottage owner’s son, (you never knew who was related to who in these country villages), she held back. Okay, I’m putting words into her mouth, but her eyebrows did go very high, very high indeed.
After finally getting the car working it didn’t take long to get to Bodmin. I decided not to spend time with the others and immediately sought the local library, old habits… Once I found it, I was disappointed beyond belief, there were no kids wearing makeup, nor was there a café, all they had were books. So, I got down to working on my Graham Greene essay, hoping that someone I could chat up would sit nearby, but that didn’t happen. Dejected, I packed my bag and went in search of food. I ended up in a grill bar where I had a very healthy burger. As I ate, a woman kept looking at me, and I at her, but nothing came of it. Had I been older I’d have called her over, but back then I was 17 and not quite as self-destructive as I was going to be when I ‘grew up’.
On the way back to the car, I decided to phone Abbie, but the phone box door was very stiff so I couldn’t get it open. I was just about to give up when a passing motorcyclist stopped, got off his bike and opened it for me. I thanked him and just as I did, a driver in one of the cars trapped behind his bike in the narrow street honked their horn. He looked at them, pointed at me and shouted, ‘I’m just helping this spastic kid,’ and then after mounting his bike, he couldn’t get it started. I was utterly embarrassed, touched and annoyed all at once but when I called Abbie and told her what just happened, we couldn’t stop laughing.
* * *
2004 – Noodle Bar – Fulham Broadway
The incident of the woman making eyes at me in the burger bar in Bodmin reminded me of this.
I was single and couldn’t be bothered to cook for myself so went to a noodle bar in Fulham Broadway. As I ate, a woman I’d noticed at the front counter ordering a takeaway walked up to me.
“Hello,” she said in an Irish accent, “My brother has got arms like you.”
One inappropriate deed deserves another, I thought.
“So, does that mean I can chat you up then?”
“Yeah, sure,” she laughed.
I thought I’d push it further, “So, does that mean you’ll come back to my place after I’ve finished this?”
“If you’ve got a plate and cutlery so I can eat mine, then why not?”
So, I finished up a bit quicker than I’d planned, and we set off. As I pulled up, she looked at me with a surprised look on her face, “Is this where you live?”
“Yep, why?”
“I’m your post woman. I’ve always wanted to see inside the houses I deliver to.”
I was tempted to say the same about my postwomen but thought better and said, “Well, this is probably not the best example, I’m a bit messy.”
“By the way,” she added, “I’m normally a lesbian.”
“Is it your night off?” I joked. She didn’t laugh. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was a lesbian against laughter. I’d met lots of them on my political travels.
As we climbed the stairs I started to feel an unwanted pressure. It was bad enough her being my postwoman. If things went well, she might be inclined to check my letters, and if it went badly, she could ruin me financially by withholding bills, red letters and eventually the resulting court summonses. Then there was the minor matter of being compared to her previous same-sex lovers. Once we got into the kitchen, I passed her a plate and asked if she’d like a cup of tea, surely that’d dispel any possibility of any remaining chemistry I thought to myself. She asked, “Have you got anything stronger?” I shook my head. “Not really, unless a decaf coffee or chocolate Nesquik is what you’re after?”
Disappointed she sighed. “Tea’ll be fine, ta.”
As much as I tried to get out of it, she wasn’t letting me off the hook. It was only when we finally ended up in bed and it was obvious I wasn’t up for it that she sat up and said, “This isn’t working is it?”
I felt bad and gently kissed her back.
“Fuckin hell,” she said, “Now you’ve done it, I love my back being kissed.”
“Fuck,” I thought, as she grabbed me and pulled me back down to her.
To cut a short story shorter still, it didn’t go much further. Maybe fate was trying to teach me a lesson about being so forward and flirtatious. As much as I could see a valuable point was being made, I continued to be just as bad for many years after. As for my postwoman, I’d sometimes look out for her, but I never saw her again, and even though she gave me her number, we didn’t ever get in contact with each other.
There was something very exciting about flirting, but it nearly always led to trouble, but maybe that was the point. When the woman in the café in Bodmin stared at me in 1982, she might have done so with romantic intentions, but deep down we both knew we were looking for trouble. As Elvis put it about trouble… just look at my face”.
* * *
