Alice Maplefield’s Battle With Authority

Alice Maplefield’s eyes shine.  The gleam reflects in her silver framed spectacles creating a certain essence, one which you may be forgiven for thinking is the essence of intelligence.  But this aura secretes not from Alice.  She sees it in other people, when alert enough, which isn’t always the case with her fading powers of concentration, that even a roasted Colombian caramel coffee could not revive.    

However, it stands to reason, as we are all different, that some gleams or essences are more fleeting.  Tiny sparkles flipping over, in dazzling arcs, dissolving somewhere midway between the tip and the lobe of the ear.  But let us not belittle the minds of effervescent coruscations, as I may be forced into having Alice spit at such judgements, in support of the maligned and it certainly is not my intention to stoop to dirty tactics.  Please allow me instead to remind you of Alice Maplefield’s eyes and how they shine, a glass eye, staring, unmoving, a camera lens, snapping and displaying solely in her brain.  The stillness, the gravity of her silence, meaning what?  Malfunction. 

For Alice, the essence is not so much intelligence, despite the silver framed spectacles which she says makes her look so, but perhaps more the spirit of confusion.  It has taken her years to begin to realise that she isn’t the girl, she thought she was and the analysis of this and the surprise at how she’s been so self-deceived, makes her burn with discomfiture. 

There’s a well-rehearsed story, told by Alice herself, but related by a relation of hers, to her, when she was described as being knee high to a grasshopper, which is ridiculous, even to Alice, as no one is as gullible as to think a six-year-old child could ever be so tiny, but the uncle who related the story to Alice, when she was six, thought differently. 

In fact, Uncle Ernest thought differently in many different ways.  He thought it was fun to torture people.  God forbid, I don’t mean the unbearable water torture or the bone breaking rack or removing nails, leaving bloodied arcs on the perionychium.  No what I refer to is a gentler form of torture, in fact the kind of torture which involves contact between the assailant’s fingers and the victim’s toes, which in turn has the latter laughing their head off.  You wouldn’t even know they were being tortured, not until blood is spilled from the victim’s nasal orifice’s encounter with the assailant’s knee.  He thought differently from others in many other different ways which may or may not be touched upon later, depending on a variety of factors, mainly my powers of imagination.

So, as the story goes – bearing in mind that quite a lot of years have passed since the original telling – she had been rewarded, by her mother, for getting full marks on her spelling test, the reward being an abacus to aid her counting skills.  Alice’s mother was a perfectionist, and it was her duty as a mother to raise the perfect child, good at everything, not simply spelling.  It made no difference that the woman had given birth to five children, all girls.  All five should be raised the same, to be perfect at everything.  If it was up to Alice’s mother.  However, Alice’s mother didn’t take account of the father’s influence. 

At the same god given time as Alice received the abacus from her mother, she got a woodwork set from her father.  He was a master joiner and having only daughters puzzled over who to pass on his tricks of the trade.  Alice was chosen as the prime candidate, probably because of her partiality to wearing trousers, and her ability to climb trees.  There wasn’t an oak or a chestnut tree in the neighbourhood that Alice hadn’t swung from.  As a result, there wasn’t a pair of trousers without a hole, or a rent or tear in her wardrobe.  But that was the least of her mother’s worries. 

On receipt of the abacus and the tool kit, Alice had the great idea of altering the one with the other.  She carefully removed the screws from the frame, slid off all the beads, bored them with a hole and then screwed onto each a letter from her big sister’s Scrabble set.  She became very adept at putting together words, from other words, and making up her own words, and learnt a few swear words into the bargain, a couple of four-letter ones left dangling when it was finally discovered by her mother.  She wasn’t impressed and feared her daughter’s mathematical skills would become stagnant.  The fear was realised.  Alice never got beyond a six-year-old’s mental capacity in Maths. 

By way of punishment for this dreadfully ungrateful action, her mum turned to Alice’s odd uncle, and asked him for help in dealing with this genetic – paternal – brain block.  ‘Hang her by the collar in the coal cellar.  Tell her she stays put until she counts all the coal briquettes and multiplies them by themselves, and then divides the answer by two,’ he said, to which the mother raised her eyebrows and the skin of her forehead, while at the same time biting her lip, her eyes flitting to the left.  Is that the side of the brain that deals with analysis, I have Alice, who has suddenly appeared, wonder.  If so, she was too busy thinking this over, and her wonderings too slow, to outwit the uncle who grabbed her and hung her by the Icelandic knit, to a hook in the coal cellar, and shouted, ‘where’s your toolkit now?’    

Alice always thought she’d been a quiet and studious child.  But now, breathless, and timeworn, she envisages a child kicking and screaming, trying to shrug out of her jumper, only to be throttled by it, a fresh pink tongue sticking out at authority, for more punishment.  She’d got over her punishments, come through childhood unscathed.  Hadn’t she?          

Who Do You Think You Are

‘The search (for forebears) can gather its own unstoppable momentum.’ 

‘Our ancestors may not have been famous or made appearances in the history books, but they are the stuff of real history.’  As quoted from Dan Waddell’s book Who Do You Think You Are. 

Unless you are Josh Widdicombe, you have little chance of boasting of blue blood.  No.  If you are a Scottish, non-aristocrat, your search could produce serfs.  Serfs, I hear you say.  How dare you.  This is how I dare.  Consider this.  In the 17th century most of Scotland was rural, Edinburgh and Glasgow being the main towns.  In the highlands there were Clansmen, and, in the lowlands, wealthy landowners. 

I shall go on, but please bear in mind I am no historian, only an avid fan of the past, interested in those lives which came before us, in how they lived, and as I creep towards the winter of my life, have an obsessive curiosity about my own family history.  As I delve into the lives of my ancestors, I am learning historical facts, as I never learnt before, the personal nature of it egging me on.

First off, I’d like to paint a family Currie portrait, working backwards from my father, James Tait Currie, worked for National Coalboard, born in 1927, his father, also James Currie, born 1892, mined for coal.  My dad was brought up in Penicuik, his mother’s hometown.      

William Currie is before James, and lived, as per the 1881 census, in the Inveresk area, before marrying, moving out to Lasswade, raising a family, and settling over the next twenty years in the parish of Cockpen.  I had an inkling my grandad was from Bonnyrigg but wanted to dig deeper.  Where did the older Currie’s come from?

William, born around 1864, was a miner, his sons following in his sooty footsteps.  Brothers James, Robert, David and George all became miners in these days of the Industrial Revolution.  Miners, weavers, millworkers, are occupations which dot my ancestors census pages.  Industrial jobs.  Risky jobs.  Life defying.  And many were killed as a result.  David Currie, James’s younger brother, was one such soul, killed in a roof fall in 1937. 

My efforts to search further back than William, were not easy.  No personal historian meeting me at the doors of Hampton Court to treat my ears to tales of bum wiping dukes, only a laptop and eye strain.  On the plus side, I improved my mental arithmetic trying to match up ages and years for accuracy.  I also reached a conclusion.  Probably a screaming obvious one.  This conclusion is that the name of the male in a coupling stays the same, the family surname carries on throughout history, the male’s occupation is noted throughout, his uselessness or worthlessness clear to the researcher. 

What of the woman?  Only in her late childhood years, as in fourteen onwards, until she takes a husband do you have any inkling what she does, and then blanks.  Researchers know nothing of her daily life, her struggle, her achievements.  She is simply ‘wife’.  The relevance of her life, of her family before her, seem to me to be secondary.  Her name is wiped from history.  Unless you are the thirteen times great grandmother of Josh Widdicome of course, then your name is emblazoned on a plaque in Westminster Abbey, cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. 

What you need for these invisible women is someone with a passion for the past, to restore them from oblivion.  Only slowly.  One step at a time, but for now, following in this age-old tradition, the man’s family name first, I put my angst to the back of my mind, and go back to the Curries.

So, who beget William and where?  On the marriage certificate image from the Scotland’s People site, I saw William’s father’s name, quoting both William and his father, James, as farmers.  Interesting.  Far cry from a miner.  There was no mother’s name, and the usual residence of William was illegible making my search harder.  Eventually the name filtered through the fuzziness of pen and mind.  Bavelaw, William’s usual residence. 

William was recorded in the 1851 census as being a farmer’s son and living at Bavelaw, a farm in the Pentland Hills.  His father was eighty years of age.  Can this be right?  Further investigation showed that James married his housekeeper, irregularly in 1821.  This is when a couple enter a wedlock that doesn’t follow customary laws and practices in Scotland.  A change of heart, surely, in 1822, when records show regular marriage follows.  The wife and mother of William is Elizabeth Robertson, the housekeeper.  This fact along with James’ age on marriage, would imply that he was married before.  Another question.  Another quest. 

William was born in Coldshoulders in 1827, one hundred years before my dad.  Where the heck was Coldshoulders?  I won’t bore you with search methods, but I eventually found out that Coldshoulders, alias Wester Ravensneuk was on land, in the Parish of Penicuik and belonging to Sir John Clerk.  Further digging revealed the story of the Lowland Clearances, preceding the Highland Clearances.

This is when the wealthy landowners changed the outlook of rural life.  The funny thing is, I’ve read a bit about the Clerk family and how they were involved in the Enlightenment.  I interpreted this as their method of making the land more beautiful for the benefit of the community.  And it truly is beautiful.    

The Scottish Enlightenment is summed up as a period of intellectual and scientific advances.  It was mainly focussed on Edinburgh, to make the city one of the most vibrant cities in the world.  Names such as philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith and writers Allan Ramsay and Robert Burns come up on searches in relation to the era of Enlightenment.  It was for men of different values to meet to discuss ideas for improvement, for the good of the people of Scotland. 

This played a part in the agricultural revolution.  Farming hadn’t changed in hundreds of years, and this was the turning point.  The country went through dramatic agricultural changes between the end of the 18th century and into the 19th.

My ancestor James was listed on the 1841 census as being a farmer, and presumably rented the farm of Coldshoulders.  I’d perhaps not found a serf but a cottar.  A cottar had a lesser farm from the main one, working on the old style of farming, in run-rig style, in disorganised and inefficient ways, before the agricultural revolution began.  They lived in the smallest of habitations, low ceilings, turf roofs, unglazed windows.  There may be servants, a sign of reasonable wealth.  A landowner would have tenancy of a few of these farms dotted over his land and Coldshoulders, I guess, was one such farm.  

History states that the landlords began slowly clearing the smaller farm tenants from the land, by not renewing their leases, and thereby forcing them from their homes.  It was legal, above board.  It was for the improvement of farming.  Where once the cottar would pay rent to the landowner by way of milk or butter or chickens, he was now asked for money.  This proved difficult for many.  The landowner would then keep perhaps one or two farms on his land, and he would tell the farmer what he wanted done, by way of crops or animals.  Sheep were a more viable commodity than crops, and less farm workers required.  Between 1760 and 1830 in Lowland Scotland, many farmers were displaced, forced into either emigration or factories or coal mines.

Another consequence of these clearances were the Highland Clearances which are more prominent in Scottish history, but in all, the lay of the land was changed forever, farms obliterated from history, places scrubbed from the map.  Lour, a fermtoun in Peebleshire, near where Stobo Castle lies, a place on the map no more, my Coldshoulders, no more, Easter Bavelaw no more.

It looks like James Currie moved from his Coldshoulder farm to Easter Bavelaw between 1841 and 1846 when his daughter Elizabeth married a man from Currie. 😊  His son became a farmer of black faced sheep, until some time after 1861, when he is living in Inveresk area, dying in a miner’s cottage in House Store Row, Wallyford, a pauper.    

You may be thinking, ordinary compared to Josh Widdicombe, and it is, my ancestors were farmers or miners, no rattling skeleton cupboards, no fascinating discoveries about love triangles between my twelve times great grandmother, her sister, and a king.  No inference that I’m a descendant of Ann Boleyn or indeed of King Henry VIII, but the richness for me, is in finding these farmers, who lived in my town in the early to mid 1800’s, men who once breathed the country air that I love, and who once walked the many paths I have walked.         

 And in the words of Dan Waddell, ‘your ancestors were human beings who lived and loved.  They were not simply part of history: they are history.’          

Pentland View

‘Ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands.’ 

This is an anonymous quote in the Call of the Pentlands, A Land of Glamour and Romance, a book by Will Grant published in 1927.  Grant says that he thinks the author of these words is that of of a walker, as he so accurately pictures the mood of the man rising on an April morning with a full day’s holiday before him to tramp across the countryside.  In other words, a man full of the joys of spring.

In this book I’m carried along between Colinton to Carnwath, Mid Calder to Penicuik, West Linton to Ninemileburn, read about spring days, winter days, autumn days, grey days, and every journey and every day is written with poetic beauty, is upbeat and fills you with a desire to experience what the author has.

I’m reading this book for two reasons.  One, to pick up nature writing skills.  Two, to learn about life in the Pentlands, back in the 19th century, when one of my ancestors and his father were farmers amidst these hills.  They are noted as living at Easter Bavelaw, in the mid eighteenth hundreds. 

Grant talks of men like my ancestors, of shepherds, speaking out at walkers’ complaints about the east mist rolling over the hill.  He writes these quotes in the old Scots dialect.   ‘It weets the sod, slockens the yowes.’  Another quote is a farmer’s words on being asked how the ploughing was going.  ‘The gruns ower weet, seek wi’ sap.’  It’s funny, but I imagine childhood memories of hearing such dialect. 

He writes of sparkling fields in sunny springtime after rain and of ‘Jim Crow strutting so pompously, looks admiringly at his two black feet, expands his breast, nods his head, and shows how he loves his independence.’  There is history too.  He tells of Druids with amulet necklaces and white magic wands, of Cistercian monks in white robes and cassocks, bare footed friars and of Knights Templar in white mantle with Red Cross and Knights of St John in black mantle with white cross, and many more historical people besides.

I have trampled in the Pentlands myself from time to time, namely Turnhouse, Castlelaw,  East Cairn as well as dabbling around the edges of Glencourse Reservoir, and Daisy Dell, an area I knew as a child.  I totally get why Grant writes so poetically about the hills because the feeling of euphoria, when you’ve struggled up a steep path to the top, is second to none.  There’s the magnificent view, the breeze in your hair, the blood pounding around your veins, the freedom, and to use the words of Will Grant ‘the air is fresh and scented with the breath of the heather and the moorland.’

All these walking pursuits were done before I knew I had ancestors living in the hills, I was oblivious of my own personal family history, but now I know of them, I want to climb the hills again.  There’s the Old Kirk Road, between Carnethy Hill and Scald Law, which I might attempt one day soon.  This would be the road my ancestors would walk, from the farm at Bavelaw, to church, in Penicuik and it would be good to try and bring their weekly path to life.  I did go to attempt it once, a number of years ago, but there were cows in the field and I’m no cow whisperer.  I tend to avoid close contact with the bovine group. 

The hills may well have been singing that day and the trees clapping but I wasn’t risking the cows charging.  But one day, soon, I will head for the hills singing All Things Bright and Beautiful to my ancestors as I walk the Old Kirk Road.  In the meantime, I’m away back to The Call of The Pentlands.  

Silent night

Be early, they say.  Play them in with carols.  Hark the Herald.  Being the eager brass players we are, we comply.  My instrument is slung over my shoulder, my glittering Santa hat slants zappily as I climb the stairs to the hall.  Familiar stairs, familiar hall, familiar people.  They nod, and smile, complacent in the chorus to come.  We were the band of brass, here to play for the church at their puppet show service.   

Talking of puppets, a woman fiddles with a rather interesting one, her hand up its bottom, its loose head wiggling in a mop of blond woolly hair.  There was a hint of wings and halos.  I think it’s an angel.  What do angels look like, I hear the woman say, looking directly at me.  I clamp shut my lips and avoid her gaze as I shuffle through to the cloakroom.  Here I take my cornet from its case and blow into it.  Just air for now.  The instrument is cold so some hot air will improve my quality, help melt the audience with mellow tones upon my ensuing performance.  

Whistling Silent Night, I notice a fault.  My cornet is bursting out of itself.  A connecting pin had popped from it’s anchor, and it was leaning squint.  The words, you’ll need to get that fixed ring through my ears, as I walk back to the hall equipped with instrument, stand and carol book.  A glamorous chested puppet, opens her  thrapple as I enter.  It can cause major problems, I hear say and hug my coil of brass, strutting to the stage, many felt eyes from the puppet forum, upon me, the able performer. 

The hall is filling up with adults and children, happy voices reaching us, the band, in our arc formation, instruments up and ready.  I look towards the conductor to count us in.  As shepherds watch their flock at night, the glamour puppet watches her audience gather, and I watch my faulty cornet, shove back my glittering Santa hat.  Number 100.  Ding dong merrily on high.  The conductor counts, one, two three four. 

Oh no, what note is that from the edges of the band.  My ears twitch, neck hair ruffles.  Whoa, that isn’t an e flat.  What valves are down.  Second and third for e flat mate.  Wait.  I concentrate my ears closer.  What is happening here.  Amongst the wrong notes grazing my ear, I become aware of a non note, a tinny scraping and it was coming from me.  Me!   

The carol entry ends and I flag up my issue to another player.  She examines my popped pin and my coiling tubes.  She points to a space where the tube should meet the body.  I look at her, I look around at the audience, I look at my faulty bend.  Pretend I hear say in a shrug of words.  Huh.  Just mime.  My Santa hat flops, little donkey sings, angel dances, glamour puss swings and the hall rings with puppetry Christmas joy.  As for me, I merely mock a mime version of Bleak Mid Winter, with hot, hot, red air.                       

on impulse

There’s no writing class today.  No notes to take, no notebook to exercise.  I scan my bookshelves instead, for inspirational reads.  Muriel Spark jumps out.  This wonderful Scottish author from Edinburgh, of Prime of Miss Jean Brodie fame, picked up her pen every day, spinning colourful threads in her notebook, a canvas of intrigue developing.  Her notebooks teemed with scribblings on how she arrived at her conclusion.  She had the gift of telling stories, of making her characters come alive, even when they were dead, as in The Girl I Left Behind Me.  Teedle-um-tum-tum.  

This is a story about a young woman secretary, worried about something she’s left behind at the office.  Turns out she’s a ghost, killed by her boss.  Muriel Spark leaked this slowly, mysteriously, with sinister intent, into the mind of the reader, hooking them from the start.  She writes of an ordinary woman and ordinary life, but something isn’t right.  What?  Keep reading. 

How much of her own life is in these tales?

Sir Walter Scott, another Scottish writer, from Edinburgh, wrote in notebooks made in Valleyfield Papermill, in Penicuik.  It may not be incomprehensible to imagine they were given to him by an Auchendinny lassie in the name of Margaret Thomson, who entered humble employment as kitchen maid at Abbotsford, his home in the borders.  

Robert Louis Stevenson was another who used notebooks supplied from the mill.  His tale Treasure Island, I imagine drafted and written in them, the tale said to have developed from a visit to the Pirate’s Graveyard at Glencorse House.  A more wonderful secret graveyard I am yet to see.       

When I gave up working – not as a typist, and not because I feared being killed by my boss, however much the thorn in his side stung – I had more time to concentrate on my writing, amongst helping my elderly mum.  I had the freedom to indulge in workshops, library exhibitions, to read, and research, all in the hope of improving my writing.  Write what you know about I was told by my teacher, in school, as a keen English student.  I know my life, so I began writing a memoir, from my schooldays.  It still lies in the desk drawer.  Not forgotten, just waiting it’s time to be aired.  

‘Why don’t you write short stories,’ my mum said after reading some vague chapters of my said memoir.  ‘Here’s my Woman’s Weekly.  See what they do,’ she said, the role of helper reversed.  Regularly.  I took her advice, eventually, after some time editing and editing my childhood memoir, and I began writing short stories.  Poetry too.  My life flooded out, my thoughts, my dreams, my nightmares all flourished within fiction, while trying the drawn-out process of intrigue used by Muriel Spark.  

Only not in my notebook.  No drafts were written down.  I typed, still type on my laptop, where I can delete a word with the flick of the keypad, swap paragraphs around by cutting and pasting, save it, read it on enlarged print, for ease on the eyes, where I can suffer the many digital enhancements gone mad.  

I do have notebooks.  Many of them.  My notebooks are saved for noting.  I note things I’ve read, ideas which pop into my head on wakening, and in my writing class.  Here in my writing class, we are given an excerpt from a book to read.  We reveal our thoughts on it and then we’re given a couple of exercises to do.  These exercises are written in my notebook.  Impulsive on the spot writing doesn’t work for me, I repeat, time after time.  I’m a reflector, I say.  I need time to edit, edit, edit.  I need time to delete a word, look up a word, try out a word.  I need time to think, reflect on what I shall write.  There is no time in class.  I must just write.  

The exercises I complete are rubbish, but even so, what they consist of are my immediate thoughts, unhindered, the raw emotions I’m feeling in that moment.  They may not be presented coherently, or prettily, but the gut reaction thought is there, scribbled down.  Is your writing affected differently when pen is put to paper, when thought runs from brain, down spinal column, into arm, and fingers, and words thrive, come alive by escaping via pen, I wonder?  Ah, at last paper, a notebook, the mind squeals.  A permanent imprint, no cloud or auto correction in sight.  

Lesson learned.  Where’s that notebook.  I select it from beside The Collected Stories of Muriel Spark and begin to scribble.  Sorry, got to go, impulse has gripped me.  See you next time.                        

Cradle Song

It was a Monday, the rush of the weekend over, the senses slowed.  I wasn’t sure what to do with my time, as a result I sat staring at my mobile, scrolling, my eyelids drooping, delving into pockets of tedium.  I couldn’t give in to shut eye, I wasn’t long up, so I had a quiet word with myself.  Keep those peepers open.  Do something.  I rose with the gentility I only imagined I had, reluctance stiffly groaning in mockery.  I tried to ignore it and went upstairs. 

I had the idea I would look for some photographs, particularly one.  It’s a school photo, of me, which I hate.  Maybe aged six or seven.  What I was doing with my lips was anyone’s guess, but it was nothing like a smile.  The reason I wanted to find it was to compare it to an old Victorian photo, one of ten girls, all in white, holding baskets of flowers.  I’d got to imagining, which I do often, that one of the girls was an ancestor of mine.  It was like looking at my child self. 

The photos were kept under the bed, in a large flat box.  I pulled it out and rummaged.  I dipped into another world.  These were my mother’s photos.  Photos of her and my dad on holidays.  1975 in Ibiza, for example.  She looked so young.  She was beautiful.  I was there too, young, and carefree, standing proud, by the pool, with my cousin and friends we’d made.  My little sister was in a photo, wearing a top of mine.  How times have changed.  She’d not be seen dead in anything I wear now.  Her hair was short with a floppy fringe.  It shone.  

After a trip down photo memory lane, where images lined it, snaps of laughter, portraying warmth, I shut the album and slid it back under the bed.  It was then I spotted another box.  A small cardboard box, which I instantly remembered I’d brought down from the attic, with the intention of seeing what was in it, but I’d shoved it under the bed, where I’d forgotten it again.  I pulled it out and blew off the dust.  Yes, I know, I know, I should have been doing the dusting rather than frittering my time away. 

Never mind.  It had gone too far.  I needed to open the box.  Immediately I’m whirled from my kneeling position on the floor, to a world of childhood bric-a-brac.  There were pretty perfume bottles, homemade club memberships, dice, airmail letters from a teenage boyfriend, notebooks, diaries, a report card, and a photo.  The photo.  I’d found it.  Me in my aquamarine crimplene dress, my short hair.  My mum once told me she’d wanted a girl, but I was suspicious of that.  Why else would she have my older brother and I with matching short back and sides.  And then there was the wonky smile. 

I put my finger across the lips, to hide them.  I wonder if I was worrying about the end of the world, as relayed by a teacher in primary, or was I still seething at being omitted from the inter school sports, when I’d come first.  I’m sure I was first.  My mum said I was first, but the taller girl, who came second, was picked to go.  It could have been the sour taste at milk break or a premonition about the belting I’d get, for looking at my school friend.  Maybe I was simply not photogenic.  Too shy.  Always polite, my report card read – before said belting, I presume. 

Something else came to hand.  A scrap of paper, and on it, the songs I’d sung for my O’Level music.  I was an instrumentalist in third year, played tenor horn, but this had been taken from me, on my move from one town to another, in between third and fourth year.  They couldn’t get the music.  ‘You must sing.’  I told them I couldn’t sing, but my singing exam went ahead.  I think I’d scrubbed many memories from this disruptive time as there were huge gaps.  The names of the songs I’d sung, only one small example.     

It may sound silly to you, but I felt elated when I found this scrap of paper.  For years I’d tried to recall the names of the songs.  For years the names evaded me.  I knew one was a slow and majestic ballad, one was a jiggy Scottish song, fast and merry, the third was a lullaby.  Now I have names and the sounds come back to me, through Youtube. 

The Fairest Isle – Music by Purcell from ‘King Arthur’

The White Cockade – Folk song

The Cradle Song – Music by Schubert

I imagined my child self, standing by the piano, nervous as hell, but being told I’d sung confidently and beautifully like I’d known the examiner.  It may sound silly, but for me, finding these song titles was like the completion of a jigsaw. 

Time, we all know is a valuable commodity, but sometimes it works wonders to just slow time down, to go back and remember what past times were like.  It certainly awakened my mind, took me on a trip with my family, and endeared me to the school photograph I’d always hated. The one with the sucked in lips, like the Victorian girl.  Maybe she sang too.      

Schubert – Cradle Song – Wiegenlied – Lyrics in English

Slumber, slumber, dearest, sweetest treasure,

Rocked so gently by thy mother’s hand;

Soft repose and tranquil pleasure

Soothe thee with the lulling cradle band.

Slumber, slumber, in sweet dreams reposing,

While protects thee thy fond mother’s arm

All her riches, here enclosing

Hold she in her clasp so true and warm

Slumber, slumber, on thy downy pillow,

Love’s hymn round thee music sweet shall make

And a lily and a rosebud

Shall reward thee

When thou dost awake.

Lost Lens

Some months ago, I winced when the optician said, ‘you’ve got dry eye.’  ‘Is it serious?’ I asked.  It turns out it’s not immediately serious as I’ve become neither non sighted or blighted by disease.  It occurs in many women who stride into their sixties, losing their reserves of oestrogen on the way.  They call the condition ‘dry eye, why?  The eye literally leaks.  Still dry eye has a poetic ring to it, as opposed to wet eye.   

It affects me mostly when I’m out walking, as I am this wonderful sunny autumn morning.  I’m on a fitness campaign.  Some like the gym, or the swimming pool, but I like a brisk aerobic walk in the outdoors.  However, my eyes water, my nose runs, my breathing gasps at the effect.  My left eye flickers, my vision blurs behind my shades.  This has been happening more and more of late, causing a wobble, the internet mentioning all sorts of scary conditions for such a symptom.  But this morning a stroke of lightening enters my dark and murky head space, magically brightening it.  It could be the dry eye condition causing my blurred vision.  Mustn’t worry.  I continue walking, taking in the scenery.

I’m strolling by a field planted with turnips, the leaves, banners of green hailing the positioning of the root snuggled underground, the peppery sweet smell confirmation of their existence.  I’ll make soup later.  A nice pot of broth.  A soup diet, yes, that’s what I’ll do.  I’ll get fit, lose a few pounds.  I’ll show those pesky ‘get rid of that lower belly pouch’ pop ups exactly who they’re meddling with.  I’ll poke that all seeing eye, the one which watches and logs the loss of sylph like figures, inside itself, to rattle and roll uselessly. 

A buzzard squeals from high above in ridicule reply then a squabbling magpie argues back.  I flip my sunglasses above my eyes and rest them in my hair while I look up, high up, through the leaves of an ancient tree.  Wow, my eyes trail not a bird, but a couple of rusty leaves which float down.  I hear them land with a whispering snick.  I twirl around on the spot, marvelling at the sound of the dry falling leaves as they meet the ground. 

The woods are alive.  I’m surrounded by colour and sound and I don’t know where to look or what to listen for first.  Sometimes I see deer here, in the neighbouring field, but the field is buff, the green grass cut for winter feed.  The deer are not drawn here, so I sit my sunglasses back on my nose and continue on my way, tripping past a little spring and a field where cows graze.  Downhill is the burn.  It is low, trickling lightly and I stop a moment to watch the reflections, boosting my breath in preparation for the hill up the other side.  My eyes feel odd, but I breathe through my nose and out my mouth, determined not to stop until I reach the top. I take the hill like an athlete, albeit I have to stop at the top to blow out like an old horse, confusing the farmer.  He knew it was only cows he kept on the farm.    

I continue, my step light, trying not to think of my flickering eye.  Some way on a couple with a white husky approach, greeting me with a ‘morning’ and the guy looks long.  I blink.  Think.  Why the  stare. Do I look ill.  Ready to drop.  Or is it my leggings.  They are bright.  All my favourite colours.  Purple, smokey pink and turquoise in tie-dye splodges.  They are très bon.  Why would they deserve a concerned sideways glance?  Perhaps he has dry eye too and his eyes have been stilled by aggravated tear ducts.  A lone man passes in close proximity.  He too stares, as does his dog.  A lurcher.  It squints and raises his ears questioningly.  No matter, I smile charmingly, and walk on.  

There’s a barn, muted in my sight, beyond the trees, old tyres littering its sides.  The dusky congruous green walls marred by the huge black rubber pile.  I remember one snowy morning during Covid Lockdowns, taking my grandsons a walk here in the woods.  It was a winter when we spent a lot of time outside, faces partially hidden by woolly hats and scarves, anxiety tucked out of sight too.  ‘Why are all these tyres there?’ asked one.  ‘What tyres?’ said the other squinting under the cuff of his beanie hat, my eyes glazed with condensation breath.  ‘There,’ said his brother pointing to the shed, but looking at me for an answer.  ‘River rapids,’ I said, not having a clue.  ‘I’m going on the river rapids,’ said the younger boy.  ‘When?’ said his brother.  ‘Next year.’  ‘No you’re not.’  ‘Yes I am.’  These childish quarrelling voices are immortal in my memory even as the boys grow bigger and bigger.                             

The sun is now hidden behind the trees.  I veer back downhill towards the road, a canopy of high hedges dimming my view.  I lift my sunglasses from my eyes to see better, besides there’s no glare here.  I can’t stand the glare; my sunglasses are imperative.  People with blue eyes are more susceptible to being dazzled by the sun, especially blue eyes that have been rolling in sockets for a good number of years.  But with this lapse of luminescence, I turn my trusty coated lenses towards me to salute their shadiness.  I see only one lens.  How long have they adorned me so comically?  I don’t want to know but I retrace my step anyhow.  Back.  Back.  And guess where I find it?  A mile or so back, nestled under the buzzard tree, where the leaves fall and click.         

Anxiety

It’s another morning.  A bright one.  The branches on the tree sway one way, then another, my anxieties shivering along with them.  Anxiety is not a new condition.  It’s life span is timeless, the casualties  from all walks of life, from the schoolchild to the Octogenarian.

What causes anxiety?  Trauma is the obvious one.  Mental health issues, illness, drugs and alcohol, all pretty high up the list.  Sometimes it’s simpler, like an impending challenging event, a speech one is preparing, an exam, a driving test, or a competition.

If you’re lucky you can handle your anxiety with yoga, walking, meditating, running.  All very well, but you can’t do a low lunge or an an eagle pose in your sleep.  This is where my anxieties are superimposing themselves.  In my sleep.

I’ve had some weird and wonderful dreams in the past, of  tigers and foot guzzling frogs, of the dead and the dying, but last night I dreamt about a scorpion.  It crawled out the bag I was holding and after a moments hesitation, in which I wondered what to do about it, I stood on it.  It cracked under my shoe.  I’d killed it.

I woke, feeling bad.  The crunch sounded in my ears over and over.  I thought about it and thought about it.  I fretted and worried about it and I reflected on it.  I shouldn’t have stood on it, but what else could I do.  They’re poisonous?  They can kill a man with a sting of the tail.  

If I’d left it to creep around house and garden it may have stung my grandchildren, or my sons dogs or even my sister and her man.  Surely that is reason enough to tread on it’s crusty like shell, and end it’s potential reign of terror right there and then.

The dream continued to harass me, while I continued to sleep, or try to sleep.  Was I asleep, or just lying with my eyes closed?  It’s hard to know without a smart watch to tell you how many hours real deep, energy reviving sleep you’ve had in a night. 

The morning should have brought a resolution.  It was only a dream.  I didn’t really stand on a scorpion.  But no, I’m anxious.  My insides are tugging, twisting, my heart rate is up, bile rises, I can’t eat.  

What’s making me anxious.  I can’t think, so I wonder long and hard, while viewing my tablet.  I read about a murderer being attacked in prison, about a woman who’s dog has been killed by a hit and run driver, about a fire breaking out, a rise in Covid, an article on how to spot dementia, or liver disease, or how to stay young. 

Put the tablet down.  I’ll go a walk, or shopping, or I’ll snip my shrubs.  The sun is heating, my blood is melting.  My friend phones and we share anxieties, and then we laugh.     

Progression Continued

20th May 2023

The blue arched doors gape, welcoming me into the holy dwelling.  I enter the North Church of Penicuik, spying my fellow band members through the glass backed vestibule.  We’re here to perform a Celtic Concert for the people of the town and beyond.  Alloway Tales, Brave, Danny Boy, Farewell to Stromness to name a few and a loud Loch Lomond finale.  

I walk towards the altar, where the band is set up, the players busy erecting stands while the audience trickle in.  We have family members, and many others, old and young, all cheerful and anticipating a good night.  It looks calm, peaceful, murmurs multiplying, slipping around the chairs, coats, handbags, smiles, but underneath lies commotion, and hard work. Venue confirmations are agreed, fliers and adverts are made, distributed, family encouraged, and practice, practice, practice.  We bring along our commitment and enthusiasm.  

Penicuik Silver Band are one of the oldest in Scotland, historical records going back to the 1830’s.  Together, with the Salvation Army band, they marched in 1915, as the band of The Third Royal Scots.  Brave men, some paying with their lives.  We are not at war now, but we do have battles.  Silver bands have been diminishing for years, popularity dwindled, giving way to Hip hop, Rap, R&B, Indie Rock, and Techno, Techno, Techno.  But we still have a place.  We fight for that place.  We fight to keep our band alive.  Every practice, every Hunter and Lass Parade, every concert we play, we tussle to keep going, to attract the young, who are our future.

Tonight, this concert is a celebration and fundraiser.  Our efforts in March, at the Scottish Championships in Perth, qualified us to go to Cheltenham for the National Championships of Great Britain.  Now another fight begins.  We need funds to get there.  The day of the competition looms, we progress, but not before we praise and thank all concerned for our success, from the generous audiences to family and band members’ fundraising efforts, and to our conductor Dougie Anderson, as well as to John Dickson, conductor of St David’s Brass and local Youth Bands, who very kindly gives up his valuable time to ably help conduct, and support us when required.   

Cheltenham, here we come.  

Progression


March 2023

The road into Perth was clear. The day was cloudy but dry.  A perfect day for the Regional Scottish Championship.  My band, Penicuik Silver Band, a band who can trace their roots back as far as the 1830’s, were competing.  There were four of us in the car, two bass players, a trombone player and me. I played cornet. I was sitting in the back with my fellow band member, his large trombone separating us. All I could see were his cheery red cheeks as I listened to his dulcet tones.  Brendan was calm and eternally positive, and he was trying to keep us right with directions. Both bass players were in the front, James and Ken to put names to them, James being the driver. They wore their fifty-year medal, their experience, and their hearing aids, concentration deafening them, in that moment. We had been before to Perth Concert Hall, but we always struggled to find the carpark. We travelled across and by the side of the river, where we saw Wetherspoon’s, twice, before finding our destination.

We lightened the load of the car as two basses, a trombone and a cornet proudly headed off, transported by four eager and nervous players. I speak for all. Nerves are natural. The glass door reflected our open valves, rolled aside to welcome us, and we walked into the modern concert hall. The noise hit my ears and the bass players’ hearing aids. Metallic appellation rang loudly, and movement flowed with the air. Around the entrance hall, stalls were set up, cornets, tenor horns, mouth pieces, music, lyres, valve oil, instrument stands, and mutes on sale. On the other side, the bar and café were located. Coffees all round. We took a seat together and we waited, watching as other bands congregated, black and red, variations of blue, gold braided uniforms, bringing colour to the neutral hues of the hall.   

Piece by piece our fellow band members appeared. Solo cornets, soprano, tenor horns, euphoniums, baritones, more trombones, timpani, and conductor, came to sit near us, nodding their greetings, some with a smile, others with a raise of eyebrows, a few with blank stares. Our completion was imminent. A facilitator called on us. We made our way upstairs to a room where we removed our instruments from cases, tucked in our shirt tails, smoothed down our hair. This was when I noticed we all had hair, the clangour of brass banding limited to hearing loss, at least. Once in the room, Douglas, our patient, enthusiastic, and smartly suited conductor, spoke. A pep talk. We then headed off to the registration desk where two steel haired, spectacle wearing gents perused our registration cards.  The trail of members marched from there to the practice room where we blew our instruments warm with a hymn. Blessed Assurance.

Closer, closer to performing. Nerves building. Light laughter, tickling coughs, idle chit chat, painted on smiles, tapping fingers, shuffling feet, were all in the orderly queue at the rear of the stage, where we waited, listening to the band before us reach the finale. My heart pounded. I wanted us to do well. We had come through the disbandment of Covid, the gradual return, disappointments, hard work, frustrations, practice, practice, practice, and now we were back trying for success.

The Fourth Division bands were all playing the same piece. Darrol Barry’s Hungerford Town. This piece was in four movements where Barry salutes the history of the Berkshire town.  It begins with ‘The Black Prince’ stirred by John O’Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and the third surviving son of King Edward III of England. Edward The Black Prince was John’s elder brother and plagued by illness, giving Gaunt control.  He became a powerful political figure. The second movement follows without pausing. ‘The Coach Road’.  This was once the town’s resting place for coaches on route to London. ‘Saint Lawrence’s Church’ is next, the tranquil beauty reflected in the music. Finishing off is ‘The Bear’ a local Inn frequented by travellers. 

It was time. The stage managing group signalled us to proceed forward. We walked into the curtained den, greeted with applause and heralded out onto the stage. More applause. We fitted into positions smoothly, the lights propelling heat upon us. We stood by our stands as protocol insists, catching the audience out of the corner of our eyes, interested, anticipating our performance. We looked at Douglas, standing tall, facing us, mouthing a last piece of encouragement. We sat, twiddled our keys. One, two, three, four, his arms waved. We began. 

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started