Coming Home to Story

As I get older, I find myself profoundly moved by the sacrifices made by my parents’ generation during the Second World War, in a way that I didn’t fully appreciate as a young man. They experienced the descent from democracy to dictatorship across Europe and many of them – combatants and civilians – found the moral and physical courage to take a stand against fascism.

Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours at the War Museum in Bastogne, Belgium. The town, defended by units of the United States 101^st US Airborne, 10^th Armoured, and 82^nd Airborne Divisions under the command of General Anthony McAuliffe, was besieged for two weeks by the advancing German Army during the Battle of the Bulge.

On 22 December 1944, pounded by artillery fire, cut off from supplies and reinforcements by German troops and bad weather, McAuliffe was invited to surrender by General Heinrich von Lüttwitz in the following words.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled USA troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note. If this proposal should be rejected the German Artillery Corps and six heavy AA Battalions are ready to annihilate the US Troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given after this two hour’s term.

McAuliffe’s reply was clear and admirably concise:

NUTS!

I confess that I wept as the story of the siege unfolded on the screen in front of me, as I had years ago on reading William Golding’s essay on the Battle of Thermopylae, 480 BCE when Leonidas and his 300 Spartans defied a huge Persian army. McAuliffe’s rejoinder to General von Lüttwitz reminded me of Leonidas’s famous reply to Xerxes when invited to lay down his arms:

Come and get them.

I have no wish to glorify the brutal, bloody carnage of war nor the jingoistic nationalism that goes with it. But I do want to celebrate those who draw a line in the sand and say: “Enough!”

Now our generation is also facing the rise of populism and the decline of liberal democracy. We must avoid facile historical comparisons but there seems little doubt that we are on a slippery slope.

Where will we draw the line, I wonder?

What will our children say of us?

Captain Midnight here with news from abroad.

It’s holiday time and Themselves have taken me with them on their travels.

We’ve just had a few days in a cabin by the water in Holland. We went out in a motorboat but it was a bit choppy on the lake and Himself turned back because he said I wouldn’t like it. What a wimp! We slept in Rosie the camper van last night (which is my personal favourite as I can keep a close eye on what They get up to) and this morning we’re visiting Herself’s brother in a village called Bunnik.

I’m looking out of the window across open fields and suddenly…

Bang! Bang!

Two men, letting off potshots. I see a Canada Goose go down on the far side of the field. Then a black Labrador runs right across the field, picks up the dead goose and takes it back to the men with the guns. Himself says it’s called retrieving and that it’s much more difficult than running after a tennis ball, though I’ve never seen him do either so what does he know?

It did actually look like fun. Even so, I can’t say I approve of goose murdering.

Did you know that Canada Geese mate for life?

Given half a chance.

I had no idea, when Selfridges asked for permission to use some of Chris Seeley’s words for a short film they were making about climate change, that the result would be so powerful. Chris’s moving statement about what it means to live well during these tumultuous times, which she wrote in January 2014, five months after her brain tumour was diagnosed, continues to resonate with many people.

Last Thursday, at Ashridge, I showed the film to some of Chris’s friends and former students. It brought tears to our eyes, as it has to mine each time I’ve watched it, but when someone pointed out that the central image of the film was almost identical to the picture of the Banyan Deer that Chris drew for the cover of Coming Home to Story, I gasped.

How could I possibly not have made this connection before?

I felt a sharp pang of grief and then smiled at the memory of our time together, passing through this life as members of the same wonderfully creative and inquiring group of artists, writers, and researchers.

I feel very blessed to be part of this tribe and very proud to call its members my friends and colleagues. Though Chris has left us, her words remain as an inspiration to go on striving to do good work in the world.

Thank you Daniella Vega, Director of Sustainability at Selfridges, for making this beautiful film and for the generous donation to the Penny Brohn Cancer Care Centre.

5 July 2017

The inaugural Juicy Edge event closed this morning with the planting of a cherry tree at Sant Aniol in the heart of the Alta Garrotxa Nature Park, in Catalonia. 21 of us came together for four days, at the invitation of Korbi Hort, and in the spirit of our late friend Chris Seeley, to explore the juicy edges of our work, to support each other’s growth with clarity and creativity and to nourish our love and connection by being together in a place of great natural beauty.

Conversation flowed between old friends and new, as we ate together, made art, walked, canyoned, and sat around after dinner watching the sun go down and the moon come up. We wrote, sang, told stories, facilitated constellations, and clowned. We spent time alone by the river on solos. It was the kind of convivial, artful, inquiring space that Chris loved.

The enormous challenges of our time can sometimes take us to the very limits of our capacity to respond meaningfully. They demand renewal and development of our personal and professional practice to enable us to thrive whilst contributing our unique gifts to the world. I wrote this poem while I was in Sant Aniol to try and give voice to this life-enhancing spirit of inquiry.

An eagle from her eyrie falls
Then soars on high with burnished wings
And to our souls the mountain calls;

Beneath our feet, the river sings
A song of glory all its own,
Reminding us of greater things.

Whilst, in this house of living stone,
Perched safe upon its rocky ledge,
No longer do we dream alone.

A pilgrim band, we take a pledge,
Unsatisfied with what is known,
To seek and find the Juicy Edge.

On my six hour solo, I sat in silence by the river, seeking to learn something about who I am when I’m not doing, doing, doing. I deliberately took nothing to read and nothing to write with. Time moved at its own pace, undisturbed by texts and emails, unmediated by a wristwatch, marked only by the passage of the sun over the mountains and the movement of shadows on the rocks.

My companions were the flotillas of water boatmen scudding over the rock pools, the trout in the running water, the birds and butterflies that throng the valley, and a solitary eagle soaring above the western ridge.

It was a profound and moving experience. My mind drifted sometimes but for the most part I was able to stay present, noticing my place in the animate world.

And it was enough, simply to be.

I began my journey home today by retracing my steps across the Pont de Valenti, feeling a deep sense of gratitude for my life and, maybe, a little wiser about what it means to be human.

Of one thing I am certain.

I will come back.

A couple of days ago, as I was sitting peacefully beside Rosie the campervan, contemplating the myriad joys of camping, a new vehicle – The Celtic Ranger –arrived at the campsite. Temporarily blotting out the sun as it passed, this behemoth of a caravan, trailed by a gleaming Chevrolet truck, ground to a halt some 30 yards away.

Ted and I watched open-mouthed as legs descended from the vehicle’s body allowing it to decouple and settle into the earth. Within minutes, hydraulic rams extended an entire living room out of one side while a blonde woman in high heels brought a small Pekinese out of the other side and deposited the bejewelled creature on the ground.

Was the Trumpster in town, I wondered? Had Thunderbird 2 just landed? Had the sinking of the Titanic been a false rumour? Would alien beings emerge from the spaceship Nostromo?

The driver’s door of the Chevrolet swung open.

A barrel-chested, grey-haired man, stepped out, dressed for the occasion: open-necked striped shirt, plain dark trousers, hand-made black brogues. He stretched his arms above his head and looked around, with the air of Robert Duval stepping out of his helicopter in Apocalypse Now, to survey the scene.

“Good morning,” I called over in order to prompt a reply. I’d taken a bet with myself that he would actually tell me how much he enjoyed the smell of napalm.

He ignored my greeting and turned to his companion: “Deirdre, has that bleedin’ doggy done a doo-doo in the van again?”

I’m sorry to report that our relationship never got off the ground. But, on the bright side, the startling entrance of this articulated folly got me thinking about a few of the various camping clans that Ted and I have noticed during our three weeks on the road.

The Vanguard Clan, of which our friend in the Celtic Ranger is an excellent representative, want to reproduce their everyday domestic arrangements on the campsite. Their vehicles are miracles of engineering and contain bedrooms, en suite bathrooms, sitting and dining rooms, fridge-freezers, wide-screen TV, and a jacuzzi or two. It would be unkind and untrue to pigeonhole their owners as nouveau riche because bad taste is by no means the prerogative of those who have only recently acquired more money than sense. Their motto: Mine is bigger than yours.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the Psycho-Micros who favour minute vehicles such as the Fiat Hy-Low, kitted out with myriad drawers and compartments each of which can only be opened if all the others are closed in a particular sequence. Overheard snippets of conversation amongst members of this clan are likely to include comments such as: “We’ve been travelling around Europe for four and a half years in this little beauty” – or – “Sleeps two very comfortably. One standing up and one lying down” – or – “It’s surprising how little you really need to appreciate life.” Clan motto: Mine is smaller than yours.

The Lump Sum Brigade vacuum clean the carpets in their brand new mobile homes each morning; wind their awnings in and out depending on the direction of the sun; wheel plastic containers full of chemicals back and forth to the toilet block; and generally expend much of the day keeping things polished and fettled because they’ve just spent half their pension on a Trigano Silver or Sprite Major or Hymer 465 C. Electric tools are brought out at the drop of a hat to peg down guy ropes or to assemble complex gas barbecues that produce enough spare heat to power a hot air balloon whilst frying the bacon. Their motto: Mine is newer than yours.

We members of the Van the Man Tribe are erstwhile hippies reliving our glory days in converted VW campervans. Those who insist on the original T2 model are infrequent visitors to campsites as they are either surfing in California with the wind in their hair or (more likely) stuck in a lay by somewhere near Watford Gap because the bloody thing has broken down again. The more perspicacious among us revel in the delights of a modern T5 with 85% of the glamour of the old T2 but only 15% of the bills. Our vehicles are characters in their own right with ironically groovy names, like ‘Van Rouge’ or ‘Plastic Rosie.’ Our motto: Mine is cooler than yours.

Having surveyed the competition, I would like to report, as we sit smugly in the sunshine beside our green and white VW campervan, that Ted and I are the coolest campers on the Blarney Castle campsite. Sadly we’ve been blown out of the water by a pink, customised, Airstream trailer, the owners of which are so uber cool that they are practically invisible, only half-glimpsed in the shadows as they flit about under the retro natural canvas awning. I suspect that they are performance artists simulating living a perfect life in order to piss off the rest of us, while hidden cameras record the envy and rage of their covetous neighbours as a commentary on the evils of materialism.

Sod it! No one deserves to be that cool.

Sunday 18 June

Captain Midnight here, reporting from a very pleasant campsite near Blarney Castle.

I’m pleased to say that we are back on the road after a bit of an unplanned interlude last week. Hedda and Himself spent Thursday fishing on the Blackwater and while she (nearly) caught a salmon, Himself caught salmonella.

That’s right, the Eejit managed to poison himself with a dodgy sausage and ended up in hospital for 24 hours. Oxygen, saline drip, the whole shebang!

Needless to say, Herself and I were magnificent. She stayed by his side while he was looked after by the nice doctors and nurses in Accident and Emergency, while I selflessly allowed Glenda our fishing guide to take me home to stay with her family and pamper me mercilessly for a couple of days.

It should be noted however that I did administer first aid when Himself collapsed on the riverbank. I snuggled up to keep him safe and warm until Glenda and Herself discovered what had happened and hot footed it along the path to take over.

I don’t quite see what all the fuss was about. If I eat something bad I just throw up and carry on. But Himself was carted off at high speed to Cork University Hospital where, as far as I can gather, he pretty much slept for a day and a half while everybody else did all the work.

If Himself had given me the sausage in the first place, as I suggested at the time, he would have kept out of trouble and my superior digestive system would have dealt with the offending item.

Let’s hope he learns from his mistake.

PS: Himself has graciously stirred from his daybed in the camper van long enough to make sure I tell you that our fishing guide, Glenda Powell is an absolute star, for whose speedy and determined help he will be eternally grateful.

Captain Midnight here, reporting from Acton, lifestyle capital of West London.

Himself had a haircut yesterday. Not such a big deal you might think, but you would be mistaken because we didn’t go to a barber or even to a hairdresser.

No.

We went to Arthur Razor himself: the dapper gentleman’s choice for personal grooming. My job was to ensure that Himself didn’t get too carried away with his new hipster self-image. No shaved temples and product-bolstered quiff; no topknot and biblical beard for us, thank you very much. Just a nice trim, if you please.

I can tell you that Mr Razor runs a very fine establishment and that – judging by the preening glances in the mirror and self-satisfied grunts –  Himself thoroughly enjoyed being pampered for an hour or so by expert snip-artist Corinne and resident beard-trimming consultant, Nick.

Great music in the background (I detected some early Led Zepp in the mix) plus a decent cappuccino got us off to a good start and the whole thing wound up with a relaxing shampoo, hot towels, and 10 minutes in the massage chair.

Now, I don’t begrudge Himself a little luxury (and it was a fine haircut) but I would like to point out that when I go to the groomers it’s a rather different experience: plonked on a table; hitched up in slings at both ends; and generally set about with electric clippers and anti-flea shampoo.

No hot towels. No massage chair. Not a cappuccino in sight.

Talk about double standards!

Arthur Razor at 12 Churchfield Rd, Acton, London W3 6EG
http://www.arthurrazor.com

When it was originally aired, between 1999 and 2006, during Bill Clinton’s and George W Bush’s presidencies, Aaron Sorkin’s White House drama The West Wing, a fictional representation of competent, humane, political leadership was a beacon of hope. I remember watching it unfold season by season, a vision of how things could be in a better world.

Until Barack Obama’s election in 2008, Jed Bartlett played by Martin Sheen appealed to many of us as the best president American never had. The series even presaged Obama’s victory in the Hispanic character Matt Santos who succeeded Bartlett to the fictional presidency.

But watching The West Wing now would be a futile and painful exercise in nostalgia. The promise of the Obama years has given way to the demagogic mummery of Trump and his pack of alt-right hyenas. Like all would-be tyrants they are both terrifying and ludicrous (the more terrifying for not being able to see how ludicrous they are).

Obama was an articulate, intelligent, and decent president, stymied at every turn by a Republican majority in Congress determined to prevent the implementation of progressive policies at all costs. Ironically, their very success ultimately created Trump’s impoverished and disenfranchised constituency. Their irresponsible and self-interested opposition to Obama created a monster who despises them as much as he does the Democrats.

In 1992, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a book called The End of History and the Last Man in which he argued: “What we are witnessing is not just the end of the cold war, or a passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalisation of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

Plato knew better and we would do well to heed his warning. In Book VIII of The Republic he explains in some detail how tyranny arises from the failings of democracy to care adequately for all its people. When things get bad in a democracy, he says, the people look for a saviour:

And is it not always the way of a demos to put forward one man as its special champion and protector and cherish and magnify him?

At first, an elected demagogue provides hope:

Then at the start and in the first days does he not smile upon all men and greet everybody he meets and deny that he is a tyrant, and promise many things in private and public…

But when promises fail and opposition arises:

Then the tyrant must do away with all such if he is to maintain his rule, until he has left no one of any worth, friend or foe…

And ultimately:

[He] is always stirring up some war so that the people may be in need of a leader… that being impoverished by war taxes they may have to devote themselves to their daily business and be less likely to plot against him…

The end of history? I think not.