So, just a few months away from blogging but the events of the recent weeks make me feel as if it has been a lifetime. Not laziness on my part, the reasons have been many and various; one potentially wonderful, which I hope to write about soon; at least two of great sadness (collective sadness - the murder of Jo Cox MP - and personal - the death of my beloved Dear Old Edinburgh Gent); a nasty and lingering bout of bacterial broncho-pneumonia, from which I have not fully recovered, although I am nearly there, and the shock and sadness of watching my country as it unravels, left to the mercy of a shifty bunch of politicians who clearly haven't a clue where we go to from here.
The Dear Old Edinburgh Gent, my beloved Labrador, deserves a post to himself and I will write that in due course but his death came just a few days after my excellent GP told me that I was 'very ill indeed' and must rest. I took the medicine (conventional and then homeopathic), I stopped doing everything that I love - yoga, Pilates, singing (impossible when one has no puff) - and restricted myself to walking the dogs (my two and one guest) twice a day, and doing special breathing exercises. A few days later, there were just two dogs to walk . . . but at least the sun shone for most of the time, and I could sit out in my garden, watch everything spring into abundant life, and listen to the birds singing, all of which softened the blow a little.
The thoughtful Dear Daughter sent me not flowers but the box set of Spiral. 'When you're ill and can't concentrate, there's nothing better than a box set.' She was right; between dog walks, I stretched out on the sofa and lapped up every moment of all five series of Spiral (I managed to get hold of a very reasonably priced series 5 on eBay, to add to the box set of series 1-4.) I loved the characters (Laure, Gillou, Sami, TinTin . . .), the storylines, the themes; I learned a great deal about the French legal system (fascinating); I brushed up my French, and played 'spot the Parisian location'. Total immersion in a box set was, indeed, highly therapeutic and lasted longer than flowers would have, much as I love flowers. Spiral got me through the worst of those weeks, Spiral and my dear Miss P, my faithful Border collie-springer spaniel cross, who spent an inordinate number of hours alongside me on the sofa, with her head across my lap. I should also give an honourable mention to Little Miss P, the Shih Tzu, who was our house guest for a month, and who helped to take the edge off our sadness. The news that there is to be a series 6 of Spiral was a bonus.
And then the madness of the R-word . . . I watched the daily news output with increasing alarm. The Vote Leave brigade were all over the media and not in a good way. The front pages of the worst tabloids railed against immigrants; an over-excited and sweating Farage was everywhere; the rhetoric never went beyond 'taking back control', and Gove and Johnson played fast and loose with the country's future - and, as it turned out, with the truth (over the past 25 years or so in Johnson's case) - without ever once stopping to think that they might actually need a plan. Just in case their wishes came true.
I was at home when the first indication of what had happened to Jo Cox filtered through. Later that afternoon, I watched the news conference at which her murder was confirmed. We know that terrible things happen to very, very good people, every day, everywhere in the world, but this senseless act, whatever the motivation for it, was beyond cruel. For a few days, at the very height of pre-EU referendum fever, the country came together to mourn the life of a young woman who had already achieved so much but who had very much more to give, not just to the nation but to those who loved her, above all, her two young children. The words spoken by her husband and her sister left no-one in any doubt just what they - and we - had lost and what we could all do in Jo's memory. If only we could have bottled that feeling and drawn on it over the past few days.
I don't mind nailing my colours to the mast; I'm a Europhile, through and through. In 1959, when I was 11, my brother, who was old enough to have served in the armed forces towards the end of, and in the aftermath of, WWII, took me travelling across Europe: to Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. He shared his enthusiasm for other people, places, cultures, and food - and for working together for peace and prosperity. (He's almost 89 now and all this remains dear to his heart.) It was the best possible informal liberal education an impressionable British pre-teenager could have had. I went on to a more formalised version at a convent grammar school, founded in the 1800s by a French nun. We sang French songs and carols, and studied not only French but Italian, Spanish and German, not to mention Latin (for the judgin', as E L Wisty said), and Greek. Learning to speak other languages, and to be interested and at ease in other countries, felt like the most normal thing in the world. It still does. How lucky we were.
Years later, my professional life would involve me in working with colleagues from across the European Union, sharing information and advice, and in supporting legal cases that would be heard, in time, by the European Court of Justice. Cases that have made a difference to the lives of millions of women, not just here in the UK but across the EU. I am proud of that work and of what we achieved.
During those years, I sometimes thought of my forebears and how amazed they would have been at all this because I am descended, in part, from economic migrants who came to this country almost 200 years ago, from Ireland and France. They came to escape destitution, to work and to provide for their families, something their descendants, including me, have been doing ever since and, in so doing, contributing to the wealth of the nation that took them in. Paying our dues and happy to do so.
So, if people ask me what I am - in terms of citizenship - I say European and British. Even better, as a friend of mine says, 'I am a citizen of the world.' The multi-lingual Dear Daughter, who benefited from the educational opportunities offered by our membership of the EU, thinks this way too.
That is not to say that I do not recognise the shortcomings of the EU. Of course I do. But I also believe in the old Fabian principle of orchestrating change from within, rather than standing on the sidelines and shouting slogans, chucking metaphorical Boris bricks, or, in that 21st century way, ranting at screens to nobody listening.
A week after Jo Cox's murder, and 100 years after the events in Ireland that inspired W B Yeats's poem, we woke to a country 'changed, changed utterly', but not to the birth of 'a terrible beauty'. It was something quite other, quite alien, and I did not recognise it. We are only just beginning to understand the full import of what a slender majority of those who voted (a minority, in fact, of those actually registered to vote) have wrought. This wretched and ill thought-through referendum has divided families and friends; many of those who are eligible to do so are now applying to become citizens of other EU countries to protect their jobs, their careers, their futures. This includes at least one much-loved member of my own family, for whom I am helping to assemble the necessary paperwork. Surreal doesn't even begin to describe it.
We are going to need a great deal more than plasters to cover the wounds or fairy dust sprinkled over everything to make things even remotely better again. Perhaps we should start collecting old fiddles and send them to Messrs Gove, Johnson and Farage, the Gang of Three, who drove us into this mess. They can stand on the coastline - our only border, the control of which they are so keen to 'take back' - and, like Nero, play, while everyone else burns. Or drowns.
I have read any number of media articles and comments and followed a good deal of social media, as the whole sorry saga has unfolded, and one of the phrases I keep seeing is along the lines of, 'I want to be proud of my country again; I want us to be Great Britain again.' I've thought about this and confess that I'm not sure what it actually means, other than a desire to turn back the clock to a semi-mythical past, a sort of Basil Fawlty view of how the country should be but never really was. Instead of worrying about becoming Great Britain (which, of course, constitutionally and legally, we already are and continue to be, for the time being at least), perhaps we should aim to become Good Britain. That would be a start.
Hear hear. And, all the general madness and ghastliness of our current national pickle apart, I am really very sorry to hear of the loss of your lovely old gentleman. I know deeply one feels such a loss.
Wishing you better health and happier times to come.
Posted by: Kate | 28 June 2016 at 02:16 PM
Such a rich and thoughtful post, and there's so much in it that speaks to what I hope Britain gains from Europe and vice versa. Feels like such a betrayal that this should be compromised in any way by fear and mistrust and outright racism, and of course, beyond the immediate context of the Brexit vote is the horrifying reality that this is increasingly the way the technologies of democracy seem to be working -- changing media, new approaches to and uses of literacy, a public increasingly unskilled in filtering information. . .
And amidst all this, the sadness of your lovely canine friend, whom I've gotten quite fond of over the years of reading your blog. I'm so sorry to hear this, and to hear that you've not been well. I hope this continues to improve, and perhaps I might selfishly hope that as it does, you will continue to post here occasionally. I do enjoy your writing so!
(also, thanks so much for keeping up your reading list -- I'm just perusing it now, and I see some titles I must get -- Thin Paths looks just what I want!)
Posted by: Frances/Materfamilias | 28 June 2016 at 04:32 PM
I am so sorry to hear about the Edinburgh Boy. My goodness, he was stalwart though, wasn't he. And I hope you are now on the mend yourself after your bronchodilator-pneumonia. It seems to take much longer to recover from these knocks these days. I just hope you are easing yourself back gently and don't find yourself overcome by recent events., depressing though they are. I've been indulging in some easy read escapist hefty novels (Maggie o' Farrell, Kate Atkinson) and John Le Carre on the radio to settle my disquiet. Also wondering why crime - novels, TV- has the capacity to comfort.
Posted by: Colleen | 28 June 2016 at 05:00 PM
Bronchodilator?..Predictive text strikes again!
Posted by: Colleen | 28 June 2016 at 05:02 PM
I couldn't agree more.I would like to think that my grandchildren would live in a multicultural, tolerant and more peaceful world and I have watched the news over the last week with feelings of great sadness and fear for their futures
Posted by: Chris | 28 June 2016 at 11:30 PM
I must search your blog for a place to add myself to your list of subscribers.
As a German with decades of living in the UK I have been doing my own railing and ranting. On the blog and elsewhere. I simply cannot believe how this could have happened. We could rehash the miserably mendacious campaigns over and over; enough though, I’ve been obsessed with Brexit to the point of making myself ill.
I follow both German and French articles and comments and TV commentaries and the view from the other side doesn’t look quite as simplistic and easy to solve as our politicians here make out. Hard times ahead.
I like this country (well, most of the time) and I hate to accept that I am now part of a Little Englander enclave.
Posted by: Ursula | 29 June 2016 at 10:13 PM
Thank you all for such thoughtful and reassuring comments - and welcome to those of you who are new to writing not drowning. It is very heartening to hear from you.
Kate - you understand, only too well, the loss of a dear companion. I still can't get used to the Labrador-shaped hole he has left in our lives. At the moment, the time is not right to have another dog but I am certain that, sooner or later, there will be another Lab, here at the heart of our home.
Colleen - I know that you have been out of action too; do hope you are recovering. I too have been pondering the unexpected comfort of the crime/thriller genre. Maybe it's because it deals in archetypes (reassuring!) and, generally speaking, right triumphs over might and justice prevails
Frances - yes, what the Brexit vote appears to have unleashed is so frightening. We just have to keep standing firm and to hold fast to the values that matter to us. There have been some wonderfully uplifting campaigns launched in the wake of what has happened and that gives me hope. On the subject of books, you will love Thin Paths. If I can find my copy, I'm going to post an excellent quote from it on the right-hand sidebar.
Chris - it has been like a bereavement, with the attendant cycle of emotions: shock, deep sadness - and now anger. Like you I cannot believe what has been done to the expectations and hopes of younger people.
Ursula - we have very dear German friends in Ludwigsburg; they are like family. Their immediate reaction on hearing the results was to send love and to reassure us that they will always see us as family . . . and European. Their kind words moved us to tears.
Posted by: writing, not drowning | 30 June 2016 at 10:53 AM
Ursula - apologies, when I redesigned my blog, it looks as if I forgot to include the email subscription link (via Feedblitz). Now reinstated on the right-hand sidebar.
Posted by: writing, not drowning | 30 June 2016 at 11:22 AM
I'm so happy to see you return to blogging - I missed reading your posts. Sorry to hear about your loss, and hope your health improves. I'm writing from Poland - a country severly (and sorely) divided, the dividing issues including also attitudes towards EU). It is so sad to see the demise of rationality, as pointed out by Frances. Thank you for your thoughtful post; I'm grateful to and for people like you. Teresa
Posted by: Teresa | 30 June 2016 at 12:59 PM
Teresa - so very good to hear from you again. And, believe me, we are very grateful to and for friends like you. I am so sorry to hear that Poland too is experiencing such deep divisions. If it doesn't sound flippant, the best dentist I have ever had, by far, is from Poland. She worked for a good many years in Devon and was very happy here - I was her patient throughout that time - but she recently had to return to Poland for family reasons. I can't bear the thought that, in the future, it might not be possible for her to come back to the UK. Her patients miss her, her colleagues at the practice miss her . . .
Incidentally, at my west London convent school in the 1960s, many of the pupils were Polish, or Polish-British, the daughters of Polish airmen who had served with the RAF in WWII and who had settled here after the war. When I was a teenager, one of those airmen was our neighbour; his wife was Italian - and their British-born children could claim three nationalities! I loved having such interesting neighbours!
Posted by: writing, not drowning | 30 June 2016 at 01:28 PM
So sorry to read about your Edinburgh Gent. Beloved pets leave such a huge gap, in our homes and our hearts. I do hope you're properly mended soon after such a nasty infection. Still much post referendum reeling here, too, and feeling like we've just pulled up the drawbridge. I may need that box set (which sounds right up my street) as a distraction from all the worrying and hand wringing.
Posted by: Liz | 01 July 2016 at 04:32 PM
Liz - thank you; I know you understand this so well (the gap thing . . .). And my younger dog, Miss P, has been bereft without her old companion. As for Brexit, your drawbridge analogy is spot on. These are very strange times indeed.
Posted by: writing, not drowning | 05 July 2016 at 04:50 PM
From the number of visitors on your Live Traffic Feed, there are still many of us looking, hopefully not forlornly, for of your thoughtful posts. I hope that you are well on the road to recovery with your health and that there has been some easing of pain with your loss of the faithful Edinburgh Gent.
They may be few and far between these days but it would be good to see you posting again.
Politically, it continues to fall apart and the prospect of Trump is depressing but those of us of a certain age keep ploughing on.
Spiral looks interesting and I note a number of Richard Ford books have been read. If not already, do try 'Let me be Frank with You', rounds of the Frank Bascombe story nicely.
My regards
bob
Posted by: Bob Nobes | 06 September 2016 at 11:13 AM
Good to hear from you, Bob, and thank you - as always, for your encouraging words. I must admit, recovering from pneumonia has taken far longer than I had hoped but I think I am now there. Anyway, tonight I'm going to be brave and rejoin the choir I so love singing with, in the hope that I CAN still sing and that I won't run out of puff.
Re the political situation, I can hardly bear to read a newspaper or watch the news. I gather that, in the US, the prospect of President Trump has had a similar effect on the number of citizens applying for Irish passports as the Brexit vote has done here . . . wouldn't it be ironic if the two factors led to an Irish diaspora in reverse?
I loved Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe trilogy and, funnily enough, have just reserved Let Me Be Frank With You from the library. Desperate to read it. Bruce Springsteen included the trilogy (and many other fine books) in his list of 28 favourite books that shaped his mind and music:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/11/03/bruce-springsteen-reading-list-favorite-books/
Posted by: writing, not drowning | 06 September 2016 at 02:01 PM
Thanks for the response.
An interesting and varied list from Mr Springsteen although as one would expect plenty of music related books. Mind you he is not a bad musician either! I like the brainpickings blog for the way it takes you down so many lines of thought.
On the page you linked, there is a mention of Rebecca Solnit and until now my reading of her has been political essays but have just finished 'Wanderlust', a study and history of walking. A deep but satisfying read (baby steps were needed) and intriguing how she linked walking to philosophy, revolution, religious festivals etc.
Good luck with the singing and have faith in yourself, you will sound good.
Posted by: Bob Nobes | 06 September 2016 at 02:24 PM
One of my occasional looks in the hope that you have returned to posting on the blog but sadly again no sign. How missed you are. Your writing has long been inspiring and incisive and I continue to re-read old posts to help me along life’s path.
I hope that you have returned to full health and striding around Devon singing loudly albeit without the no doubt sadly missed Old Edinburgh Gent.
Looking back at the comment I made to your last post,I think we can now say that politically, the advent of Trump and the continued presence of Boris does mean things have not just fallen but crashed and we now face a situation where it will not be about people ‘s needs that are considered but those of Corporate entities. Despite all this, I remain a lefty optimistic pacifist and, like you, a Europhile because I cannot change nor want to!
I do hope that if posting is not on your horizon, you will please keep the reading list flowing as it is another source of both inspiration and interest as is your library on Librarything.
Whatever the future holds for you, my very best wishes and thank you
Posted by: Bob Nobes | 13 October 2017 at 07:23 PM