writing, not drowning

The great and the good

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.

'One day like this . . .' and four good things

So, yesterday. I wasn't quite sure how it would all pan out. My beloved cat, Mr C, was back at the vet, a recurrence of a troubling and potentially serious - even fatal - condition. He had been readmitted the previous day for further investigations, not by either of our usual vets but by another member of the team who, unlike our usual vets - both women - does not do warm. He does not reassure. He does not speak kindly and gently to my dear old boy.

But just as I was setting off for an early walk with the dogs, one of the kind vets called to say that there was good news, Mr C was much better, although - if I were agreable - they would like to keep him for another day for an X-ray. She rang again, twice during the day to confirm that his recovery had been sustained.

So, that was the first good thing.

And then it was off to the hospital where I had been treated for breast cancer AKA on this blog as the Massive Inconvenience; it was the day of the annual post-treatment check-up. My Dear Friend, the Only Blonde in the Village came with me for reassurance and distraction. I wasn't anxious; I knew at a deep, instinctive level that I was fine. Nevertheless. . .

The concerned radiographer managed to make the mammograms less uncomfortable than in previous years; no mean feat, as any woman who has had them will tell you. As a late friend of the Only Blonde once remarked, it's akin to having your tenderest part shut in a fridge door. After the mammogram, the examination . . . but the young and rather gorgeous registrar came in smiling, so I knew: the news was good.  Two years down, three to go before I am officially out of the woods but I continue to travel hopefully because it is the only way. The rather gorgeous registrar was followed by the jolly consultant who promptly organised some physio for ny stubbornly frozen shoulder - a side effect of the sentinel node biopsy two years ago and 'general wear and tear'.

Within an hour of our arrival, the Only Blonde and I were out of the hospital and, not for the first time, did I give thanks for the NHS to which I have happily contributed all my life and which gives me the care I need, free at the point of delivery. I may have to worry about paying the heating oil bill and the car service bill and every other big bill but I do not have to fret about finding money for essential healthcare.

So that was the second good thing.

We set off for a delicious and celebratory lunch at the Rock Inn at Waterrow. (Highly recommended, by the way.)

We met again later in the afternooon, when we were walking our dogs, and that is when things started to unravel. Because Miss P, my lovable but slightly bonkers foster dog, a Saluki collie-cross, went AWOL in pursuit of a pheasant. We called, we whistled, we searched, but the minutes and then an hour ticked by. The light was fading. There was no sign of her and the woods fell silent. And then night too fell.

For the next hour I shuttled between home and the ink-black woods, putting up 'dog lost' posters as I went. And then, good things happened. Friends and neighbours helped with the search: the Only Blonde and her husband said that they would drive their 4x4 around and through the wood, along the only vehicle-accessible track. The young gamekeepers who live in the village took details and said they would look out for her. Miss P's dear owners drove over from their village, kitted out for muddy night-walking, with torches, stout boots and warm jackets. We set off again, leaving the other dogs at home, snoozing after their supper.

When we arrived at the wood, we could see the lights of the Only Blonde's 4x4 as she and her husband finished their circuit and suddenly a cry went up: 'She's here; she's here!'

And indeed she was: cold, wet, shivering and frightened, running behind the 4X4 - three hours after she had gone missing.

So we all went home again . . . and I wanted to cry at the kindness of good people. I did cry.

It was the third good thing.

My original intention had been to sit up and watch the results of the US elections unfold - the Only Blonde and I had been united in our hopes for Obama - but I was as exhausted as my little dog. Bed beckoned. I slept through it all but woke to yet more good news and found myself bursting into song. This one in particular, by Elbow, which the choir I sing with learned over many weeks earlier in the year. It's a tricky song to master but once there, it's a fine song to sing and to listen to, as well. It contains this line:

'One day like this a year will see me right.'

Indeed it will.

A fine result, sealed with an equally fine speech.

The fourth good, exceptionally good, thing.

Diversionary tactics

 

I doubt that whoever coined the phrase 'May you live in interesting times' had anything like the current state of British politics in mind. Strange days, indeed.

But what to do, while we wait to see who our new Headmaster and School Bursar will be? And even more crucial perhaps - and as now seems likely - while we wonder who will end up in Pop. (How very odd it seems to be referring to a prospective government in Etonian terms. Very odd indeed, as if the clocks had not only stopped but had turned back about 50 years. At least.) 

We are blessed in this part of the country in having any number of hidden or barely known places to escape to when it All Becomes Too Much. Friends recently introduced me to one such spot and, in the past week, the Edinburgh Boy (and various guest dogs) have headed there twice, for very long walks. And the way things are going today, I expect that we'll be going again very soon.

 

It's one of those hidden valleys or combes, accessible only via the narrowest of lanes; a small cluster of houses;

a river running under an old stone bridge to a ford; here and there along the valley, a white-painted cottage;

 

and, at this time of year, bluebells beginning to cover its wooded slopes. It's a place for walking and watching, for contemplation, meditation. Or, if you have dogs, for much ball-throwing and splashing in and out of the river.

At one point, the path crosses a riverside meadow and here, at the water's edge, someone has placed a small, engraved stone in memory of a much-loved dog who had also once walked and played there. 

 

Those who do not share this thing about dogs will no doubt find the verse embarrassingly sentimental but, to dog-owners and dog-lovers, it will seem the most normal and obvious verse in the world. The one thing that those who placed this stone by the river can be sure of is that those who seek out this place, drawn to its understated beauty, will walk quietly by the stone and never dream of disturbing it.

As I write this, the television is humming away in the background - unusual for this time of day but I'm doing my best to keep my finger on the country's irregular political pulse. A row of self-important men (and, as so often, one woman) sitting in a studio near Westminster squabbling and pontificating about what could and should happen in British politics. I might just suggest that they should come down here and walk in the hidden valley; it would enable them to see things much more clearly. On the other hand, we might just continue to keep it to ourselves. 

 

 

The eyes have it

 

Goodness, what a tizz the media have got themselves into over the question of Gordon Brown's eyesight. When I checked this morning, Google was listing 361 online articles alone on the subject and it was the lead item on most TV news programmes yesterday. For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, the Prime Minister lost the sight of one eye during a rugby game as a schoolboy. More recently he has had a cataract operation and this week it was reported that he had a couple of minor retinal tears in his good eye.

Can we just get this straight? There are many reasons why he might not be up to the job - the policies, the leadership style, even his expenses claims (although the PM's do rather pale into insignificance alongside some more notorious examples) but being visually impaired is not one of them. 

However,  if reports are to be believed, his aides claim that his disability is a factor because he "can't read reports". I'm not sure where they have been living for the last couple of decades but perhaps they should get along to the RNIB or Action for Blind People and learn about the technology and support systems that are  available for use in the workplace as well as at home. There is also the little matter of the Disability Discrimination Act.

After all, it's not as if Gordon Brown is the first politician to have eyesight problems; in the UK, we all know about David Blunkett and we can probably remember Lucy, the first guide dog who accompanied him to parliament and who famously threw up during a speech by a Tory MP. Blunkett, who has been blind from birth, worked his way up from local politics in Sheffield to become a Cabinet Minister, not to mention leading a very colourful love life . . .

 

Henry Fawcett and his wife, Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett

But we need to look to history to find the first example: Henry Fawcett, who lost his sight in a shooting accident, while still in his teens. Prior to being elected to parliament in 1865, Fawcett had been Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge. He was to spend almost 20 years at Westminster, rising to become Postmaster-General and a member of the Privy Council - without the benefit of technology or a guide dog. It is Fawcett whom we must thank for innovations such as parcel post and postal orders and he's a particular hero of mine because of his commitment to, and campaigning on behalf of, women's suffrage.

 

Andrea and guide dog, Cara

I wonder what impact all these ill-informed remarks about Gordon Brown's poor eyesight must be having on a young woman called Andrea, who has just embarked on a sociology degree at Warwick University and is planning a career in social work or counselling. Andrea has optic atropy - tunnel vision - so she can see but only across a limited area. Her guide dog, Cara, is accompanying her to university every day and Andrea is one of a group of students with disabilities, whose diaries are being published online by the BBC. You can read Andrea's here. I'd hazard a guess that she's far too positive and determined to allow the antediluvian views of a handful of Downing Street apparatchiks to deter her.

And I wondered too about the thoughts of a much older man - now in his early 80s - who, like Gordon Brown, lost the sight of an eye, in his case as a very small boy, and who, like David Blunkett, was born into an impoverished family. He endured endless visits to Moorfields throughout his childhood, was bullied because of his disability and yet went on to win a place at the local grammar school, became an accomplished draughstman, and joined the army during WWII. At the age of 19, when the war ended, he was put in charge of troop entertainment at a transit camp in Egypt for the 10,000 or so members of the UK's armed forces who were stationed there temporarily before being shipped back home. I think I should add that he subsequently became a captain of industry, a father of five, and an enthusiastic motor rally driver, as well as a seasoned traveller. Over the years, there have been more eye operations but his good eye remains in very good working order, although he takes nothing for granted. These days, he still drives to and from France several times a year, looks after a sizeable plot of land high up on a Welsh hillside, loves to entertain - children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and their families and many, many friends - and cares for his wife who is suffering from dementia. And he's a prostate cancer survivor.

As it happens, he's a bit of a Toryboy, so no fan of Mr Brown as a politician, but ask him about the PM's visual impairment and whether this means that he's not up to the job and I suspect you'll get short shrift. I can say this with confidence - because Toryboy is my big brother. I have never, ever heard him complain about his disability, nor has he ever used it as a reason for not doing something. His philosophy has always been that if you have the will to succeed and are prepared to put in the requisite effort, you can do anything.

If Gordon has to go, let it be for political reasons, not for reasons that take us back, in every sense, to the Dark Ages.

World class

Edfu Temple

In 1991 I went to Egypt and, like so many visitors, I did rather fall under the spell of this complex, beautiful, infuriating and unforgettable country. The names of places such el-Amarna, Dendara, Edfu, Abydos, Asyut and Karnak still haunt me.

Going up the Nile from Cairo to Luxor -  and in Egypt,  that direction is up, rather down - I read Lucie Duff-Gordon's Letters from Egypt. I was struck repeatedly by what an extraordinary experience the years she spent in the country must have been for a woman whose background was the Victorian aristocracy. (Highly recommended reading, by the way, even if you're not going up the Nile. Or down it.) 

When I returned to London, I realised that I wanted another perspective on the countries of North Africa and the Middle East and decided to learn Arabic. I'd always enjoyed studying other languages but had never ventured beyond the confines of Europe (French and Italian A-levels, O-level Spanish, and not forgetting the key to them all, O-level Latin . . .) But motivation is everything and, even if it meant mastering a completely different alphabet and some challenging pronunciation and baffling grammar, I was determined.

We were a mixed bunch of students, including - briefly - Souad Faress, who plays Usha in The Archers, but we could not have had a better teacher than Farihan Cheblak*. Like most evening classes, student numbers had diminished by the end of the academic year but those of us who stayed the course had become reasonably proficient and we had certificates to prove it. 

We studied classical Arabic but each Arabic-speaking country has its own colloquial version of the language, so we dipped into the Egyptian version too. I had visions of continuing my studies because I wanted to get to the stage where I could read the giants of Arabic literature, like Naguib Mahfouz, in their mother tongue. Until, that time, however, reading them in translation would have to do. At that time I lived, rather conveniently, just round the corner from the wonderful Al Saqi Bookshop which kept me well supplied and introduced me to many more writers of the Arab world.

 

It was Farihan, however, who introduced me to the work of Nawal El Saadawi, not only a gifted feminist writer but a remarkably courageous woman. (This article will give you an idea of just how courageous.) Dr El Saadawi, visited the UK in 1992 and a Moroccan classmate and I, together with Farihan and other friends,  went along to London's ICA, where she was interviewed and read from a selection of her books. It was  a great privilege to be in that lecture theatre, knowing that we were listening to  a woman who, despite childhood genital mutilation, persecution, censorship and imprisonment, had refused to be silent. Her experiences, sadly, reflect another side of the country of her birth,  a side that is light years away from what the average tourist, focusing on the ancient world, sees - or is permitted to see. 

Nawal El Saadawi

That was 17 years ago and, to my regret, I did not continue my Arabic studies, although I did continue to read Arabic literature, albeit in translation. So, it was with some delight that I discovered that the the BBC World Book Club's most recent interviewee was Nawal El Saadawi. (You can subscribe to the series in a podcast and there's a downloadable podcast here. Just as well because, as Pamela, who blogs from Spain at Everything and Nothing, points out in a comment under the previous post, the BBC's iPlayer 'Listen Again' service is not available outside the UK'. Shame - but thank goodness for podcasts.)

Other recent studio guests include Chinua Achebe, Alice Walker, Moshin Hamid and E Annie Proulx, and then there's the worldwide audience, united in a love of good writing.

As E M Forster said: "Only connect." We can and we should. As frequently as possible. What unites us is far, far greater than what divides us.

*There is a chastening footnote to this story. In 1991, at the outbreak of the Gulf War and just a few months before I embarked on my Arabic course, Farihan's husband, the writer and lawyer, Dr Abbas Cheblak, and a group of other UK-resident Palestinians were arrested in this country, imprisoned and threatened with deportation, on the alleged grounds that their presence was "not conducive to the public good." An application for a writ of habeas corpus, on the part of Dr Cheblak, was rejected by the Court of Appeal. In fact, no charges were ever brought against any of those who had been arrested; all were subsequently released and there were no deportations. 

What happened to Abbas Cheblak acquired considerable notoriety, not least because he had always been a tireless champion of Arab-Israeli rapprochement and had spoken out against Saddam Hussein's tyranny. Scroll down this link to see  what the late Harold Pinter and other distinguished writers had to say about Dr Cheblak's imprisonment. 

Ten years later, speaking in the House of Lords, Lord Corbett described Abbas Cheblak as "a rare and treasured creature in the tangled politics of the Middle East . . ."