Ancient Cities Of The Heart

Earlier this week I had been thinking about the blog theme and what to write about ancient cities. When I woke from a dream (which I'll relate shortly) I had the phrase "Ancient cities of the heart " in my mind. What a great line. I figured it must be from a poem, possibly by Yeats, and tried for some considerable time to track it down on the interweb, but without success.

The closest I got was 'Deserted cities of the heart ', which is a Jack Bruce/Pete Brown song, the closing track on Cream's third LP 'Wheels Of Fire'. I undertook an archaeological dig into the lyrics and found ambiguities there. I don't know if an official version of the lyrics has ever been printed. Some claim a key line in the chorus goes: "Now my heart drowns in no love's streams", while others contend Bruce sings: "Now my heart's drowned in those lost streets." Whichever it is, the imagery makes me think of Atlantis, the sunken ancient city of legend, particularly as an earlier track 'Those Were The Days ', references the sunken city specifically. More of Atlantis later (plus a musical link so you can listen for yourself).

As for the dream, it was quite vivid and very strange. I was in the Beatles' London townhouse in a big room decorated with brown art deco wallpaper and woven straw matting. John Lennon and George Harrison were there, dressed in Edwardian finery. Harrison was repeatedly swan diving from the top of a bookcase onto cushions on the floor, as I explained to an old girlfriend of mine that Eppy (Brian Epstein) would have arranged all the interior decor. Lennon said the Beatles never had money (like the Queen) and if they wanted anything they would send Mal or Nelly out to get it (that's Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall, their roadies). Harrison complained that McCartney was always bossing them, trying to get them to do the washing up and other drag chores

'Indoor Sunset'

The ex-girlfriend was Fanny Copley. She was a history teacher at the school I taught at in north London in the 1970s, a Chelsea supporter for her sins, and the only child of Peter Copley the actor. He had appeared as the jewellery salesman in the Beatles' 1965 movie 'Help!' Maybe the decor was reminiscent of the Copley parents' house in Mile End, I don't know. Lennon said he'd written two books of poetry and stuff, and I told him I'd also published two books of poems. That's when I woke up with the phrase 'Ancient cities of the heart ' in my head. 

Atlantis, then is my ancient city, lost beneath the waves as legend would have it, according to Plato, writing in approximately 360 BC. 

He described its provenance, being given to the sea god Poseidon, who conceived the race of Atlanteans by having intercourse with a beautiful mortal woman of the island, Cleito. He described the size, shape and geographical features of Atlantis and went on at length to detail its manmade splendours, the temples, palaces, canals, harbours of this island state that became the hub of a great Mediterranean empire. I'll quote at length but don't blame you if you skip quickly through some of the descriptive passages...

"They had such an amount of wealth as was never before possessed by kings and potentates, and is not likely ever to be again, and they were furnished with everything which they could have, both in city and country. For, because of the greatness of their empire, many things were brought to them from foreign countries, and the island itself provided much of what was required by them for the uses of life.

In the first place, they dug out of the earth whatever was to be found there, mineral as well as metal, and that which is now only a name, and was then something more than a name -- orichalcum -- was dug out of the earth in many parts of the island, and, with the exception of gold, was esteemed the most precious of metals among the men of those days.

There was an abundance of wood for carpenters' work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island, and there was provision for animals of every kind, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, and therefore for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of them.

Also, whatever fragrant things there are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or distilling drops of flowers or fruits, grew and thrived in that land; and again, the cultivated fruit of the earth, both the dry edible fruit and other species of food, which we call by the general name of legumes, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks, and meats, and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which may be used to play with, and are fruits which spoil with keeping--and the pleasant kinds of dessert which console us after dinner, when we are full and tired of eating--all these that sacred island lying beneath the sun brought forth fair and wondrous in infinite abundance.

All these things they received from the earth, and they employed themselves in constructing their temples, and palaces, and harbours, and docks; and they arranged the whole country in the following manner: First of all they bridged over the zones of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, and made a passage into and out of the royal palace; they began to build the palace and then the habitation of the god and of their ancestors. This they continued to ornament in successive generations, every king surpassing the one who came before him to the utmost of his power, until they made the building a marvel to behold for size and for beauty.

And, beginning from the sea, they dug a canal three hundred feet in width and one hundred feet in depth, and fifty stadia in length, which they carried through to the outermost zone, making a passage from the sea up to this, which became a u, and leaving an opening sufficient to enable the largest vessels to find ingress. Moreover, they divided the zones of land which parted the zones of sea, constructing bridges of such a width as would leave a passage for a single trireme to pass out of one into another, and roofed them over; and there was a way underneath for the ships, for the banks of the zones were raised considerably above the water.

Now the largest of the zones into which a passage was cut from the sea was three stadia in breadth, and the zone of land which came next of equal breadth; but the next two, as well the zone of water as of land, were two stadia, and the one which surrounded the central island was a stadium only in width. The island in which the palace was situated had a diameter of five stadia.

This, and the zones and the bridge, which was the sixth part of a stadium in width, they surrounded by a stone wall, on either side placing towers, and gates on the bridges where the sea passed in. The stone which was used in the work they quarried from underneath the centre island and from underneath the zones, on the outer as well as the inner side. One kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red; and, as they quarried, they at the same time hollowed out docks double within, having roofs formed out of the native rock. Some of their buildings were simple, but in others they put together different stones, which they intermingled for the sake of ornament, to be a natural source of delight.

The entire circuit of the wall which went round the outermost one they covered with a coating of brass, and the circuit of the next wall they coated with tin, and the third, which encompassed the citadel flashed with the red light of orichalcum.

The palaces in the interior of the citadel were constructed in this wise: In the centre was a holy temple dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, which remained inaccessible, and was surrounded by an enclosure of gold; this was the spot in which they originally begat the race of the ten princes, and thither they annually brought the fruits of the earth in their season from all the ten portions, and performed sacrifices to each of them. Here, too, was Poiseidon's own temple, of a stadium in length and half a stadium in width, and of a proportionate height, having a sort of barbaric splendour.

All the outside of the temple, with the exception of the pinnacles, they covered with silver, and the pinnacles with gold. In the interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, adorned everywhere with gold and silver and orichalcum; all the other parts of the walls and pillars and floor they lined with orichalcum. In the temple they placed statues of gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot--the charioteer of six winged horses--and of such a size that he touched the roof of the building with his head; around him there were a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for such was thought to be the number of them in that day.

There were also in the interior of the temple other images which had been dedicated by private individuals. And around the temple on the outside were placed statues of gold of all the ten kings and of their wives; and there were many other great offerings, both of kings and of private individuals, coming both from the city itself and the foreign cities over which they held sway. There was an altar, too, which in size and workmanship corresponded to the rest of the work, and there were palaces in like manner which answered to the greatness of the kingdom and the glory of the temple.

"In the next place, they used fountains both of cold and hot springs; these were very abundant, and both kinds wonderfully adapted to use by reason of the sweetness and excellence of their waters. They constructed buildings about them, and planted suitable trees; also cisterns, some open to the heaven, other which they roofed over, to be used in winter as warm baths, there were the king's baths, and the baths of private persons, which were kept apart; also separate baths for women, and others again for horses and cattle, and to them they gave as much adornment as was suitable for them.

The water which ran off they carried, some to the grove of Poseidon, where were growing all manner of trees of wonderful height and beauty, owing to the excellence of the soil; the remainder was conveyed by aqueducts which passed over the bridges to the outer circles: and there were many temples built and dedicated to many gods; also gardens and places of exercise, some for men, and some set apart for horses, in both of the two islands formed by the zones; and in the centre of the larger of the two there was a race-course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race in.

Also there were guard-houses at intervals for the body-guard, the more trusted of whom had their duties appointed to them in the lesser zone, which was nearer the Acropolis; while the most trusted of all had houses given them within the citadel, and about the persons of the kings. The docks were full of triremes and naval stores, and all things were quite ready for use.

Plato (423-348 BC)

Enough of the plan of the royal palace. Crossing the outer harbours, which were three in number, you would come to a wall which began at the sea and went all round: this was everywhere distant fifty stadia from the largest zone and harbour, and enclosed the whole, meeting at the mouth of the channel toward the sea. The entire area was densely crowded with habitations; and the canal and the largest of the harbours were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts, who, from their numbers, kept up a multitudinous sound of human voices and din of all sorts night and day.

I have repeated his descriptions of the city and the parts about the ancient palace nearly as he gave them, and now I must endeavour to describe the nature and arrangement of the rest of the country. The whole country was described as being very lofty and precipitous on the side of the sea, but the country immediately about and surrounding the city was a level plain, itself surrounded by mountains which descended toward the sea; it was smooth and even, but of an oblong shape, extending in one direction three thousand stadia, and going up the country from the sea through the centre of the island two thousand stadia; the whole region of the island lies toward the south, and is sheltered from the north.

The surrounding mountains he celebrated for their number and size and beauty, in which they exceeded all that are now to be seen anywhere; having in them also many wealthy inhabited villages, and rivers and lakes, and meadows supplying food enough for every animal, wild or tame, and wood of various sorts, abundant for every kind of work.

I will now describe the plain, which had been cultivated during many ages by many generations of kings. It was rectangular, and for the most part straight and oblong; and what it wanted of the straight line followed the line of the circular ditch.

The depth and width and length of this ditch were incredible and gave the impression that such a work, in addition to so many other works, could hardly have been wrought by the hand of man. But I must say what I have heard. It was excavated to the depth of a hundred feet, and its breadth was a stadium everywhere; it was carried round the whole of the plain, and was ten thousand stadia in length.

It received the streams which came down from the mountains, and winding round the plain, and touching the city at various points, was there let off into the sea. From above, likewise, straight canals of a hundred feet in width were cut in the plain, and again let off into the ditch, toward the sea; these canals were at intervals of a hundred stadia, and by them they brought down the wood from the mountains to the city, and conveyed the fruits of the earth in ships, cutting transverse passages from one canal into another, and to the city.

Twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth--in winter having the benefit of the rains, and in summer introducing the water of the canals. As to the population, each of the lots in the plain had an appointed chief of men who were fit for military service, and the size of the lot was to be a square of ten stadia each way, and the total number of all the lots was sixty thousand."

Plato claimed that Atlantis eventually fell from favour with the Gods (Zeus principally) because it aspired too much to greatness and the expansion of its empire. It was eventually destroyed by a massive seismic event (earthquake and or volcano) and sank to the bottom of the sea 9,000 years before he wrote his treatise. 

He positioned the mythical island at the western end of the Mediterranean, near the pillars of Hercules, but speculation in the last century or so is that the massive volcanic eruption that blew the eastern Mediterranean Greek island of Santorini apart in the bronze age might have been the real basis of Plato's fictional Atlantis myth.

Santorini today (photographed from the ISS)

A lot of the topography Plato mentioned, in addition to the details of palace and harbour construction, brass-clad walls, naval expertise and religious practices, is very reminiscent of the Minoan civilisation that had flourished not 9,000 but 3,000 years earlier and of Santorini in particular with its crescent shape, concentric ring of islands and mountainous Thera archaeologic site. It is tempting to think that Plato might have drawn on historically-based folklore in constructing his representation of Atlantis.

And now, if you're still with me after such a lengthy post, here for the first time is a poem that is actually titled:

Ancient Cities Of The Heart

They were not steps

I was looking to retrace

through a cobwebbed past

down dusty pathways

partly overgrown

with clinging brambles

into the deceptive dapple

of yesterday's sunlight

under such ancient trees.

But those descending stones

are where I placed an opal ring

upon a sweet girl's finger,

inconstancy not even

a shadow of a thought.

And on that grassy slope beyond

by moonlight pledged my troth

to another, rippling notes

of water music in our ears,

while through that thicket

glimpse the memory 

of a green girl held fast,

our slender limbs entwined,

her emerald eyes.

Heaven sighs.

And within this old house

on this deserted square

passion echoes still.

No need to re-enter there,

nor the red-tiled villa

round the corner

on whose roof I lay

in another lover's arms

beneath the stars

as time wheeled away.

I'd forgotten too the fountain

dry now for may years,

just how we laughed 

as we showered

in its rainbow waters.

It's a curious thing

how among the broken glass,

warped frames, shed skins,

the auras of so many 

once loved ghosts

cling on affectionately.

Of course it comes with the usual caveat, that as a newly-written piece, it may be subject to revision on reflection. 

Finally, in an extraordinary act of foolishness/generosity (delete as appropriate), I attach links to two musical bonuses this week. Just click on the song titles to open up the YouTube links. Take your pick from: Atlantis by Donovan and Deserted Cities Of The Heart by Cream. Enjoy.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Classical Cities

I met Steve for lunch today and promised him a short blog and a poem for this week's theme. It was a great lunch, great pizza, great talk about Rome and the Coliseum among many other things...

some of the beauty and splendour of Rome

... not so sure about the poem.

Classical Cities

The thing about cities
is that they are full of beautiful women.

High cheek lines, red velvet mouths,
white swan necks, proud breasts and slender thighs.

Auburn, black or blonde long hair
Scarves and stripes, silk and stockings.

Stylish, eye catching, head turning, beautiful women.
The older the better.

The cities that is.

Thanks for reading, Bill Allison.

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Ancient Cities

Two of the problems when it comes to writing about ancient cities are a) what is ancient and b) what is a city. I was reading an article the other day that kept referring to Ancient Rome. Ok, Rome is definitely a city but the ancient part of it is debatable when you consider that the Rome being referred to was 2,000 years ago whilst the earliest cities (and we’ll come to them) are considered to have existed 3,000 years before that i.e. 5,000 years ago.

artist's impression of Uruk, circa 4500 BCE

Incidentally, Rome at the height of its power had over one million people in it before it collapsed in around 400 CE. The next city to have over a million in its population was London in the 19th century.

So what is ancient? Well, for the purposes of this article, as it relates to cities, I’m taking a time period where we have physical evidence and texts that the places exist.

Much of the following is taken from the World History Encyclopaedia by Joshua J. Mark published on 05 April 2014:
In the study of the ancient world a City is generally defined as a large populated urban centre of commerce and administration with a system of laws and, usually, regulated means of sanitation. This is only one definition, however, and the designation `City' can be based on such factors as the:
population of the settlement
height of buildings
density of buildings/population
presence of some kind of sewer system
level of administrative government
presence of walls and/or fortifications
geographical area of the settlement
or whether a `settlement' was called a `city' in antiquity and fits at least one of the above qualifications.

the fertile crescent

Professor George Modelski, of the University of Washington, encourages a definition based on the work of the historian Tertius Chandler (in his book Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth) which defines a city, as distinct from a village, based upon population. Modelski writes:

Adopting Chandler's means of definition, then, settlements such as Tell Brak in modern-day Syria (first founded in c. 6000 BCE) cannot be considered cities.

The city of Uruk, today considered the oldest in the world, was first settled in c. 4500 BCE and walled cities, for defence, were common by 2900 BCE throughout the region. The city of Eridu, close to Uruk, was considered the first city in the world by the Sumerians while other cities which lay claim to the title of `first city' are Byblos, Jericho, Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Sidon, Luoyang, Athens, Argos, and Varasani.

All of these cities are certainly ancient and are located in regions which have been populated from a very early date. Modelski cites the population of Uruk at 14,000 in the year 3700 BCE but 80,000 by the year 2800 BCE. I was a bit surprised by the figure of 80,000 as when I was checking I found that Carlisle has much the same population now and that seems, to me, a fairly large city.

the ruins of Uruk today

I wanted to use a poem that actually praises the city, from the ancient to the present day, as a place to live. There is a reason why people have wanted to live in them but I can’t find one that really suits my purpose so I’m going to make use of this chance which sort of works.

Ever since my school days I’ve disliked Robert Browning purely on the basis of one poem. This is a short section with a corrected title:

Up the City – Down the Villa

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;

Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
--I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.

But the city, oh the city--the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

Down the Villa

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Ancient Cities -- Bedrock

Thinking of ancient cities and my lack of personal experience in the real world, took me back to childhood and my love for the cartooned world of the Flintstones. They lived in the suburban area of a stone age city called Bedrock. I would have moved in with them, anytime. I was fascinated by their household appliances and gadgets which amused me more than the storylines. I would be spellbound for the entire twenty minutes or so of each episode. This wasn’t confined to childhood. In my early 30s, I would get up at some crazy time to watch an early morning episode before travelling out of town to work. I lived alone, so no raised eyebrows or questions. Somewhere, I have a DVD. I’m shocked that my grandchildren are not the least bit interested.

I planned to visit the Holy Land in my mid-twenties. It was an organised trip, like a pilgrimage, with a group of people from the church I belonged to at the time. I looked forward to setting foot in the ancient cities and places I had heard about and grown up with from the Bible stories of Sunday School and my Christian upbringing. It couldn’t happen. My father had always been supportive and encouraging, taking an interest in my endeavours, but he was clearly unhappy about this. There was conflict in the Middle East. Israel had invaded Lebanon and the thought of me going into potential danger ‘on holiday’ was something he really didn’t want. I couldn’t let him worry himself sick, so I didn’t go.

My travels abroad haven’t taken me anywhere ancient, more modern history, like being in Virginia, USA and learning about the American Civil War. I was staying with my family who live there. Their home was close to an area where battles had taken place, which ignited my interest. One of my cousins had studied The Battle of Bull Run and we spent time in Manassas, another battlefield and home to a museum. Not an ancient city, though.

Born in Manchester, lived in Lancaster, visited Colchester and many Roman cities in the UK. Stonehenge, not a city, but ancient, as is Calanais standing stones on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Not far from there is the village or township of Garenin, which is a collection of black houses, restored as an historical monument. No one lives there now, but some of the buildings are habitable and open for paying guests to stay for the experience. I haven’t stayed overnight, but I wouldn’t mind.

I’ve chosen Lemn Sissay’s poem about Canterbury, which I think qualifies as an ancient city.

Cantuarian

I ha’ant the time to rest at night
I hold the moon and satellite
I am the librarian of light
For Canterbury for all its might

And I roll beneath I roll
And I hold I hold I hold
And I swirl and I swirl
And waves uncurl

This Cantuarian
This latitudinarian
Carried the stones
Of the Trinitarian

In the river of the broken sword
(The failure of the knighted hoard)
In that winter – sheath unseen –
I washed it clean I washed it clean

Time and river entwine a ripple of twine
A shiver of rhyme this rhythm of mine
I carry the story out to the sea
The west wind addresses me

By bank and by bed, red and deeper
The city head the secret keeper
I bathed the uncivilised scream
I washed it clean I washed it clean

And I roll beneath I roll
And I hold I hold I hold
And I swirl and I swirl
And waves uncurl

I am the librarian of light
For Canterbury for all its might.

                               Lemn Sissay, OBE FRSL

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Transport

I drove from Blackpool to Durham today, musing on the allotted blog theme of transport as I motored along. 

It was a beautiful morning. The first half of the journey was by motorway (M55 and M6), heading north through the sunny uplands of Lancashire and Cumbria. The next part by contrast was across the spine of rural England heading east through spritely green dales and hills dotted with ancient market towns (Kirkby Stephen, Brough, Bowes, Barnard Castle, Bishop Auckland), much of it along the route of an old Roman road.

Along that eastward leg of the journey I encountered scores of Roma and traveller folk on their way to next week's annual Appleby Horse Fair. There were modern motorised homes, land rovers pulling horse boxes, caravans towed by cars and quite a few traditional 'gypsy' horse drawn caravans (see below) making the journey, which slowed us motorists to a sedate pace through the Eden valley. There was plenty of opportunity therefore to observe caravans parked on grass verges, with tethered horses cropping contentedly by the sides of the road.

Horse drawn caravan, Eden Valley

I'm supposing that horse-riding and then horse-drawn or oxen-drawn carts/wagons must have been among the earliest forms of transport on land. Water borne hollowed out logs may have preceded land travel, but I'd need to check dates and I'm short of time this evening.

I did, however, dip into a brief bit of online research about the speed of horse and carriage transport back in the day. It was heavily dependent on the number and quality of horses and the state of the roads. That drive took me just over two and a half hours in my 75bph (brake horse power) Vauxhall. If I had undertaken the same journey with a single horse and carriage it would have taken several days to transport myself from Blackpool to Durham, with rest time and refuelling for the horses. No wonder all those ancient market towns had splendid coaching inns and hotels and ostlers (my word of the week).

Inevitably, given the beautiful weather today (at the end of a splendid and unseasonably hot May week), and with transport being in mind, my thoughts strayed to a holiday. It won't surprise you to hear that Greece is calling, later this year and still to be finalised of course (depending on football fixtures and middle east wars). I quite like the idea of Naxos. Never been, though we have sailed past it on more than one occasion. 

Blackpool to Durham is only 125 miles. Blackpool to Naxos is about 1,750 miles. By my rough reckoning, that would take nearly three months by horse and carriage...unless the horse was Pegasus and could fly...

Naxos Airport, Greece

...which was the point of departure for this latest poem (obviously a first take and likely to undergo revision when time allows). Imagine it's 500BC. For those who didn't know, Hellas (Ελλάς) is both the ancient and modern name in Greek for what we call Greece

Flight To Hellas

Welcome aboard this evening's

Pegasus Airways flight to Hellas.

My name is Artemisia

and it will be my pleasure

to look after you

on our journey tonight.

The prevailing wind 

is westerly, so we will shortly

be taking off into the setting sun

before heading down Bretagne,

passing over Stonehenge

and crossing into Gaul.

In the hours of darkness

we will be winging south-east

over Helvetia, Etruria and Illyria,

then starting our descent 

over Macedonia

before touching down in Hellas

just as rosy dawn is breaking.

Settle back, relax body and mind

and prepare for departure.

Once we are safely in the air

I will bring refreshments

of ambrosia and nectar,

distribute cloud pillows

and dream blankets

and update you 

on flying conditions over Europa,

which are currently set fair.

On behalf of Captain Bellerophon

and Pegasus Airways

I wish you all a pleasant flight.

       

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Transport

This morning I strolled along the river path to the newsagent to pick up my newspapers. Exactly the same mode of transport that I would have used 5,000 years or more in the past but without the annoyance of having to read the things.

Admittedly, I could have used the river to get there. The first prehistoric boats are presumed to have been dugout canoes which were developed independently by various Stone Age populations around 10,000 years ago, but that is another article as I want to stick with land based transport.

Skipping forward though time my method of travelling would have changed with technological innovations. Let’s consider the wheel. The earliest known depictions of wheeled vehicles are on the Bronocice pot, found in a Neolithic village in Poland. 3,635 -3,370 BC and several clay tablets found in Uruk in Mesopotamia. Both illustrate 4 wheeled vehicles dated to around 3300-3100 BC probably in response to the domestication of horses and the widespread development of road infrastructure and pathways.

Bronocice Pot

The wheel changed everything, from trade and transport to agriculture and technology. Wheels allowed people to transport goods and materials farther and faster than ever before. Carts, ploughs, and other wheel-based tools made agriculture more efficient. Wheels turned long journeys into manageable trips, making trade and exploration easier. Chariots and war carts changed warfare, while carts and rollers made construction of large structures easier.

So are wheels the most important development in transport?

I’m leaping forward at the speed of a bullet train to 1830 CE and the invention of the railways. I’m not going to go over the engineering history but look at how the railways changed UK society.

Social
The railways broke down stereotypes and mixed cultures because people from different regions were able to mix more.
Time became standardised for the first time because trains had to run to a set timetable across the country.
Railways encouraged people to travel further and this meant people could move to different areas to find work.
People were able to take short holidays and day trips to the beach.
Many sports became regulated because national competitions could be set up for rugby, football and cricket.
National newspapers could now be delivered.

Political
Political movements spread around the country because they could travel around the country.
Political newspapers, pamphlets and newsletters could be delivered by train.

Economic
The transport of heavy materials became much cheaper.
Perishable food could be moved quickly, so foods such as vegetables and dairy products could now reach the market while they were still fresh.

There are other innovations in transport leading to the bicycle, motor car and plane but basically they just increase some of the three developments mentioned above.

Various web sites give different answers to the question of what was the most important invention in transport but I suppose it depends on what one is measuring. My feeling is that the wheel opened up the world for individuals but the train opened it to everyone.

Night Mail Train

Well, that seems to lead on to this poem:

The Night Mail 

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Through sparse counties she rampages,
Her driver's eye upon the gauges.
Panting up past lonely farms
Fed by the fireman's restless arms.
Striding forward along the rails
Through southern uplands with northern mails.

Winding up the valley to the watershed,
Through the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shoveling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheepdogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:

In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

                                                           W.H. Auden

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Lancashire Dead Good Poets' June Open Mic Night

Never be eclipsed. Our next open mic night on zoom is for you, if you'd like to join us. Details below -

You don't have to be from Lancashire. Also, you don't have to perform/read if you'd rather just listen along to an evening of great poetry. Everybody is welcome. It starts at 7:30pm (BST). Early booking (for performers) is advised. Send your request to: deadgoodpoets@hotmail.co.uk to get on the list and receive the zoom link.

Did you know that the first recorded solar eclipse was documented by the Chinese on June 4th in 781 BC?

Steve ;-)

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Tax

Preston might seem an unlikely source for one of the most famous quotations about tax, but Christopher Bullock's one act comedy 'The Cobbler of Preston' (1716) is the first known written instance of the line: "I say 'tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes."

Benjamin Franklin is more often associated with the phrase, but given he lived in London for some years as a young man (1723 to 1726) it is more than likely that he had seen the play, then in vogue in the capital, and had been struck by that memorable idiom.

If death and taxes are certainties, then what about that fatal combination, the Death Tax? Ugh, let us not go there. Instead, I'm whisking us off to Tsarist Russia, coincidentally in the same time period as above, from the late 17th century and well into the 18th.

Terry Quinn in his Tax blog earlier this week itemised some of the more unusual taxes to have been imposed down the ages, on: clocks, hats, playing cards, urine, wallpaper, windows and beards. That last one pulled me up, as a lifelong beard-wearer. I grew one first in my late teens and have only shaved it off once for a period of a few weeks when I had to appear clean-shaven in a play ('The Threepenny Opera'). I was intrigued and a little disturbed by the notion of a beard tax, and investigated further.

Various rulers had tried to impose such a tax down the ages. The bearded Francis I of France received approval from the pope in 1515 to levy a tax on priests' beards, partly to fund his war with the Holy Roman Empire. This led to a divide between the wealthier court ecclesiastics who could afford it and poorer village priests who could not. 

It is rumoured that the bearded Henry VIII of England also introduced a beard tax in 1535 and that Elizabeth attempted to increase it, but archival evidence is patchy.

By far the most infamous and well-documented imposition of a tax on beards was during the reign of Tsar Peter I of Russia (1672-1725). It started off as an experiment in social engineering. Peter cast his eyes westwards to sophisticated and urbane Europe, where being clean-shaven was the norm, and wanted his great hordes of bearded boyars and hairy-faced Cossacks  to smarten up like western Europeans as part of his ongoing campaign to modernise Russia. He set an example by being clean-shaven himself.

Russian beard tax

Peter's beard tax was first introduced in 1698 and in fact was not officially repealed until the reign of Catherine the Great in 1772. Charges varied, not according to the length or thickness of beard but according to income. It was means tested. The wealthiest merchants were charged 100 roubles per year. Those of lesser standing, along with courtiers, government officials and the military were expected to pay 60 roubles per year. Ordinary townsfolk were charged 30 roubles and bearded peasants in the countryside were charged a kopek each time they entered a city.

Peter empowered the police to forcibly and publicly shave anyone who had not paid their beard tax. Those who had paid were given a metal beard token to carry as proof of payment. A couple of fine examples are shown below. They carried a depiction of a beard on the obverse with the legend 'Money taken', and the royal crest and year of issue on the reverse. Around the edge was inscribed the legend 'The beard is a superfluous burden'.

Obviously, the Tsar's beard tax was not very popular. Resistance to going clean shaven was widespread, with many believing that it was a religious requirement for a man to wear a beard. The Russian Orthodox Church indeed declared that being clean-shaven was blasphemous. 

One might then have expected the majority of male citizens to pay the tax and that it might have proved a nice little earner, something of a silver lining given the failure of the experiment to greatly increase the number of clean-shaven men in Russia. The evidence is to the contrary. Records show that the sums of beard tax collected averaged out at 3,600 roubles per year. Peter had underestimated the ability of the Russian state to administer and collect the beard tax if not many more than 100 men a year were actually paying it. I'm surprised it straggled on for the best part of 75 years!

Russian beard tokens

Personally, I am in favour of taxation as a means of raising money to fund our social infrastructure: schools, hospitals, transport systems, defence, law enforcement, utilities et cetera. I don't think those should be privatised and run for profit for a few shareholders. I also find it reprehensible that people look for ways to avoid or evade even paying the tax they should. My impression is that over the last fifty years or so (since the advent of Thatcherism really), greed and selfishness have somehow become normalised. I'll just leave that there.

Getting back to beards, I took exception to that Russian slogan 'The beard is a superfluous burden' and so I set to writing a new poem in defence of a fine set of whiskers.

A Beard Is Not A Superfluous Burden

You have a handsome face, why hide it?

That was my dear  old mum, back in 1971

when I decided, on leaving school, that

beards were hip and I would grow one.

She didn't like a whiskery kiss, something 

to do with an uncle in her past. More than

that she wouldn't say, and I didn't ask. But

my beard was here to stay, and it felt good.

Looked the part too, a rich chestnut hue. 

Of course the years have faded it through

grey to white, but it's as luxurious and soft

as ever it was, and I'm not hiding anything.

Women have loved to stroke it, some even 

to groom it, but I've never let a barber near.

It gets a Sabatier professional scissoring

when I deem the time is right, and think of

all the hours I've saved not having to shave

every morning of my adult life, just an

occasional trim to neck and cheeks to keep

the sculpture neat. It's not superfluous, it's

part of who I am. And let me tell you one 

more thing: when I worked in Russia and 

it was -30 Celsius of a Moscow winter, a

decent beard was the finest attribute going.

         

Thanks for reading. Happy holiday weekend, S ;-)

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Tax

For me one of the more irritating phrases used in the media is Tax Burden. I’m with the American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr who stated "I like to pay taxes; with them, I buy civilization”.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

That was back in 1927 (or earlier by some accounts) and I’m not sure whether he would get away with that phrase today given the current state of affairs in America. Or here in the UK come to that. Unfortunately, the last few years have seen the austerity of neoliberal economic theory and therefore civilisation crumbling. And the Labour Party continues it, unbelievably.

When I think of Nordic countries I think of high taxes coupled with a reputation for excellent public services and high standards of living. Although some of those are showing signs of succumbing.

As an aside I’ve always admired those Nordic countries for their tax transparency. With the exception of Denmark, the countries openly publish tax records. Norway has published tax records since 1863, while Finland shares the names of the country’s 10,000 biggest earners each year. I have no idea what tax I paid this year and couldn’t care less if someone wanted to find out by ringing the tax office.

A quick run through the history of taxes:

The earliest record of taxation is from Egypt around 3000 BCE. Initially every two years, and then every year, the pharaoh and his advisors would tour the kingdom, assess the value of livestock, and then collect a tax on the ownership of that livestock. At the time, Egypt lacked coined money, so grain represented a tangible store of value that could easily be collected, traded, and redistributed throughout society.

Taxes are also referenced in Mesopotamia, where scribes used cuneiform clay tablets to keep records of what was owed to local temples. I rather like this story from the area about 4,500 years ago: A king imposed a toll tax on the bridge that his citizens used daily to cross the river to farm their lands on the other side. To avoid the toll, the locals began to swim across the river. KPK Law say that this was the first manifestation of tax planning. The king was not amused and responded with a rule that made swimming across the river an offence subject to severe sanctions, such as decapitation.

Here are some of the weirder forms of taxation:

Urine tax
This tax was introduced in Ancient Rome. Back then, human urine was viewed as a valuable commodity. It had many uses: tanning, laundering, and even teeth brushing. It’s widely believed that this led to the popular Latin phrase Pecunia non olet, i.e. ‘money does not stink’.

Being a coward tax
From around 1100, English medieval knights could opt out of fighting a war by paying for the privilege. It’s official name was ‘Scutage’ but was commonly known as ‘cowardice tax’.

Beard tax
In 1698 Emperor Peter I of Russia created the beard tax. It was thought to be a move that would help westernise the appearance of Russian society, as he deemed it an old-fashioned fashion choice.

Window tax
This tax was first introduced in England in 1696. It was intended to be quite a liberal tax as those with smaller houses would pay less or be exempt. Households reduced it by blocking out windows. The negative effects of the lack of natural light and ventilation led to a growing movement which stopped the tax in 1851.

windows blanked out to reduce window tax

Hat tax

A hat tax was introduced in 1784 and was aimed at raising revenue for the government in a way that would mostly correspond to a person’s wealth.

Playing cards tax
This was in force from as early as the 16th century. Furthermore, in 1710, the English government increased the tax on playing cards and dice. Inevitably, this led to mass forgeries of playing cards. The tax was not removed until 1960.

Wallpaper tax
Brought out in 1712, Britain taxed anyone who bought patterned, painted or printed wallpaper. This led to people finding creative ways to avoid the tax, such as – using plain paper and then having painted after applying. The tax was abolished in 1836.

Clock tax
Introduced to tax the wealthy. In 1797, the British Clock Tax was applied to all timepieces, such as watches and clocks. The annual tax rate was two shillings and sixpence for a standard watch, and up to ten shillings for a gold watch. Clocks costing more than twenty shillings were rated at five shillings.

extensions to clock tax?

Poems about tax are not usually sympathetic but I did come across this by Edward Guest who was born in Birmingham in 1881 and moved to Michigan USA as a young child and where he was educated. He was popular in the first half of the 20th century and became known as the People's Poet.

Taxes

When they become due I don’t like them at all.
Taxes look large be they ever so small
Taxes are debts which I venture to say,
No man or no woman is happy to pay.
I grumble about them, as most of us do.
For it seems that with taxes I never am through.

But when I reflect on the city I love,
With its sewers below and its pavements above,
And its schools and its parks where children may play
I can see what I get for the money I pay.
And I say to myself: “Little joy would we know

If we kept all our money and spent it alone.”

I couldn’t build streets and I couldn’t fight fire
Policemen to guard us I never could hire.
A water department I couldn’t maintain.
Instead of a city we’d still have a plain
Then I look at the bill for the taxes they charge,
And I say to myself: “Well, that isn’t so large.”

I walk through a hospital thronged with the ill
And I find that it shrivels the size of my bill.
As in beauty and splendor my home city grows,
It is easy to see where my tax money goes
And I say to myself: “if we lived hit and miss
And gave up our taxes, we couldn’t do this.”

Edward Guest 1881-1959

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Old School/New School

I'm going with a literal approach to theme this week in blogging about my old school - which also happened to be a new school in premises barely three years old when I enrolled, as I'll explain shortly.

First a bit about me and how I got to go there. When my family arrived back in England from Nigeria (where I was born and spent my formative years), we lived in Peterborough for some time. My dad was a Methodist minister and I went to infant and junior schools in the city between 1958 and 1964.

Methodist ministers move parish about every six years (it appears to be a bit of a tradition to keep things fresh) and so in the summer of 1964 we were about to move to Cambridge.  My parents were faced with sorting out a secondary school for me in a new city. I'd recently turned eleven and had just sat the 11+ exam, as all children in their final year of primary education did in those days. (I believe it was finally phased out in 1976.) It turned out I did quite well. I not only passed but earned a county scholarship into the bargain.

When my dad enquired as to what the best secondary school in Cambridge was, he was told that it was The Perse School. The Perse was originally founded in Cambridge in 1615 by a wealthy benefactor, Stephen Perse. Born in Norwich and educated at Norwich School and then Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, Perse became a Doctor of Medicine and a shrewd businessman. In his will he left money for the founding of a Free School in the city, originally in Free School Lane (as it came to be called) from 1615 until 1890. Free School was a bit of a misnomer as it was a fee-paying school. The fees per pupil when it relocated to newly acquired and built premises on land in Gonville Place in 1890 were £3 per term. (Nowadays they are up to £7,500 per term, excluding VAT.)

From 1945 until the mid-1970s, although still a Public School it was also classified as a 'direct grant grammar school' meaning that though the majority of boys were fee-paying, it also offered free 'assisted places' to bright boys from poor families -   and that's where my county scholarship came in handy as it entitled me to go there, covering the fees that a lowly paid Methodist minister would simply never have been able to afford. 

Off to the Perse I went, in September 1964 in my purple and black striped blazer and purple and black cap, a new boy at literally a new school, for The Perse had recently relocated again away from its cramped site in Gonville Place in the centre of the city to its current spacious location in the outskirts, to elegant but functional premises designed by the architect Stirrat Johnson-Marshall, set among acres of playing fields, and officially opened by Princess Alexandra in July 1961.

artist's impression of the new school façade

I think even at the time I realised how very fortunate I was to benefit from such a good education in such well-appointed surroundings. In addition to the relatively small population (approximately 400 pupils compared to the 1,000 + that many schools contained) we had small class sizes in clean and bright classrooms and well-equipped labs. We even had our own theatre for drama lessons complete with sound system and lighting console, a lecture theatre, a music room, a library, a geography room complete with wave-tank, a  gymnasium, a hall with a balcony, a refectory, a cloistered walkway and a vivarium in the grounds, plus the usual playing fields (with cricket pavilion), tennis courts and a parade square for those who liked to march about.

It was a privileged education, but were school days the happiest? Probably not. For all the setting and facilities, I had to go nearly four miles to get there and back and sometimes envied my brothers who could just walk around the corner from home to their Secondary Modern school. I went by bus (two of them, changing in the city centre as I lived to the north of it and the school was to the south), and sometimes walked home if the weather was good - but never walked to school as that would have meant getting up an hour earlier than I already did. Even so I was quite often out of the house before anyone else was up.

The only real downside was school every Saturday morning, on account of us having two games afternoons in the week...and if you ended up playing for a school team as well, as I sometimes did, well that was your Saturday afternoon gone as well. Oh, and it was a rugby school, so football (as in soccer) was not an option, though it was rumoured that headmaster Stanley Stubbs had once been on the books of Stoke City. 

fresh fodder in the refectory ;)

It was also quite a regimented existence and I think there were regular instances of bullying, not that it really impacted me but I used to hear fairly macabre stories of stuff that went on in the boarding houses (for although I was a day boy, the school had quite a large number of boarders). And there was sometimes a subtle divide between cliques of fee-paying boys whose parents were obviously wealthy and the rest of us. 

Curiously though, The Perse was probably more like the soon-to-be Comprehensive Schools that would arrive in the 1970s than the other Grammar schools in Cambridge in that there was a true mix of abilities. Yes the 40% of non-fee-paying boys who, like me, had come in on 'assisted places, were all academically minded, but among the 60% of fee-paying pupils, there were more than a few perfectly pleasant but not terribly bright youngsters who were only there because their parents had money, and they struggled - though we all got along fine and they certainly benefitted from challenges and opportunities they wouldn't have got in a Secondary Modern school.

The regimentation wasn't too irksome while we were young, green first and second years, but as we grew older and the permissive ways of the sixties began to hold an attraction for us, issues around length of hair, dress code, illicit smoking and drug use caused conflict with the establishment which wasn't kindly disposed to change or challenge. I was never compliant enough to be a prefect and would probably have declined the offer if it had been made, but in my upper sixth year I was chairman of the school council, a consultative body that had recently been established by a new headmaster, (Stanley Stubbs having retired  in the summer of 1969). So we passed through and out into the wider world, in my case to read English at university and then to become a teacher of English and drama in my own right at a London Comprehensive school.

Since my time there, The Perse has undergone more significant transformations. From 1976, when the 'assisted places' scheme was ended and state funding ceased to flow, it went completely independent. It also went co-educational in the 1990s, expanded both its intake and its facilities with more classrooms, a sixth-form block and an arts centre, and is now ranked regularly among the top independent schools in the country. It holds reunion events for Old Perseans, though I have never been tempted.

an imposing skyline

I've not had time to write a new poem this week, though ideas are percolating. I was planning to do so today, but I've ricked my right knee somehow and spent the afternoon in bed  asleep, dosed with painkillers and with a hot-water-bottle pressed to the knee (probably should have been an ice-pack but I couldn't face that idea).

I've gone with this poem by John Clare because the first poem I ever had published was something I wrote back in 1964 in that junior school in Peterborough as part of an English project marking the centenary of Clare's death, as he was local to the area. I don't have a copy of what I wrote. Neither do I have copies of any of the poems I wrote at The Perse and which appeared in issues of the school magazine 'The Pelican'. When my parents moved on from Cambridge, I was away at university, and they just threw out boxes of my school magazines, exercise books, project folders, essays, notebooks et cetera without even asking me if I still wanted them. Brutal.

I never walked to school, for reasons I explained above, but here is John Clare's delightful poem about doing so...  

Schoolboys In Winter

The schoolboys still their morning ramble take 

To neighboring village school with playing speed,
Loitering with passtime’s leisure till they quake,
Oft looking up the wild-geese droves to heed,
Watching the letters which their journeys make;
Or plucking haws on which their fieldfares feed,
And hips and sloes; and on each shallow lake
Making glib slides, where they like shadows go
Till some fresh passtimes in their minds awake.
Then off they start anew and hasty blow
Their numbed and clumpsing fingers till they glow;
Then races with their shadows wildly run
That stride huge giants o’er the shining snow
In the pale splendour of the winter sun.

                                                         John Clare (1793-1864)

                 

              Qui facit per alium facit per se 

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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