Moments That Changed The World

It's been a bad day and this is a weighty theme - moments that changed the world.

I've given it considerable thought and I've chosen that moment at precisely 08:15 a.m. local time  on 6th August 1945 when the first atomic bomb was detonated in anger over Hiroshima, Japan - a pivotal event in our stumbling evolution. I'm reminded of WB Yeats' refrain (from Easter 1916): "All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born."

The rationale for using nuclear weapons was that, despite the terrible destruction caused (over 100,000 people died as a result of that single bomb), it fast-tracked Japan's surrender, shortened World War II by several weeks, maybe months, and saved thousands of other casualties. Debate still rages over whether the end justified the means. I can't accept that it did, any more than did J. Robert Oppenheimer, "father of the atom bomb", who turned to the Bhagavad Gita for words to express the enormity of what he had been instrumental in engendering: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of the world."

He recognised that life on planet Earth would never be the same again. Man had become godlike, with his/her capability for the first time to blow our whole planet to smithereens. I believe Oppenheimer conceptualised the span of our civilisation from the dawn of creation to the impending eve of destruction - this transformation from plankton to potentate - and regretted his complicity. But there was to be no undoing, no going back.

The uranium-235 bomb exploded over Hiroshima, despite the havoc it caused, was woefully inefficient. Less than 2% of its fissionable material reacted. Soon the death-race was on to develop bigger, better atomic bombs, plus delivery systems, and to stockpile them in America, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India and on and on. By the 1960s the nuclear nations possessed enough atomic firepower to destroy civilisation many times over. We learned to live with the threat of imminent annihilation - four minutes warning was all we'd get, time for a few hasty good-byes and last minute regrets. Many of us (myself included) joined CND, the Campaign for Nuclear  Disarmament, marched, protested and lobbied for a safer, saner world.  The realisation that Mutually-Assured Destruction (MAD for short) was a likely consequence of this insane arms race led the superpowers back from the brink. Non-proliferation treaties were signed, monitored decommissioning of nuclear stockpiles commenced and the threat of man-made global nuclear destruction has receded from the forefront of most people's minds. Yet the threat remains.

This week's poem is an attempt (I'm not sure how successful) to capture some sense of the immense implications of the event from the perspective of the father of Colonel Tibbets, the pilot who dropped the first bomb. (In case you didn't know, Colonel Tibbetts named the Boeing B-29 Enola Gay after his mother and the bomb he dropped on Hiroshima was nicknamed Little Boy. The two other bombers on the mission were dubbed The Great Artiste and Necessary Evil.)

The Bomb
I.
She was a rhapsody
in blue stockings, Enola Gay.
I recall performing cunnilingus
to the strains of Charlie Mingus
back in the day
before the Baron swapped his cello
for the double-bass.
Red-headed and wound up tight,
Enola Gay would detonate
in carefully controlled explosions
deep in hot Nebraska summer nights.

II.
You will always be my little boy
asleep in the next door room,
an all-American clean cut kid
roaming the prairie of your dreams
with big plans to be
a cowboy or a medicine man;
yet you became Colonel Tibbetts, USAF,
first horseman of the apocalypse.
Child of my loins,
you swapped your thoroughbred for wings
bearing your lovely mother's name.
Were we in any way to blame?

III.
Hiroshima, Hiroshima,
in the land of the rising sun,
as early morning innocence dawned
a necessary evil fell towards you
out of clear blue skies,
bearing down the seeds of doom and liberation.
Alchemical flowering
at two thousand feet
showered a heavy metal incandescence
perpetrating mass annihilation
as shockwaves and firestorms
reduced a city to flattened ash
at the base of a mighty mushroom cloud.
Code red issued- one hundred thousand dead.
War lost and won.
Oh my wife.
Oh my son.
What have we done?
What have we done?

Thanks for reading. Ban the bomb! Have a good week, S ;-)

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A change of perspective.

What sort of moments changed the world?  They are often catastrophic. Sometimes natural, perhaps a huge meteorite hits the earth and causes a dust storm that blacks out light and heat, eventually leading to the demise of the dinosaur.  Other times they are events initiated by human action, the assassination of Martin Luther-King, the deployment of atomic bombs in Japan or the most destructive act of terrorism on record, the attack on The World Trade Centre on 11th September 2001. There can be little doubt that this was truly a moment that changed the world. Like a pebble dropped into a pond, the waves of repercussion are still developing over a decade later.

 I was driving home from work when I heard about it on my car radio.  I reached home in time to see the second plane hit the second tower, in full and awful colour . Until that world changing moment, the first aircraft having crashed into the first tower, was still potentially,  a tragic accident.  I watched what looked like a blockbuster movie unfold in real time, on the edge of my seat, barely able to believe what I was seeing. Man's inhumanity to man.

I am not going to dwell on 9/11 today.  There are other world changing moments that have happened less violently, more gracefully and after centuries of methodical record keeping and research. They are quiet moments but in their own way they rock the bedrock, upset established ideas and they definitely change the world.

"In Greek mythology, Atlas was the powerful God, who carried the Earth on his shoulders, supporting the heavens from the Atlas mountains in North Africa, still one of the best places to view the night sky... They looked into the sky to understand their place in creation, and the movement of the stars told them one thing: they were at the centre of the universe." (Prof Brian Cox , 2011).

Polaris, The North Star is almost exactly aligned with the Earth's spin axis, so this was the natural assumption to make. The Greeks had observed Mars, seeming to loop in the sky, as long ago as 1534BC but didn't know what caused it.  In 150 AD Claudius Ptolemaeus published The Almagest, a complete explanation of the complex movement of planets and stars. For over a thousand years the Ptolemic view of the Solar System was unchallenged., with Earth at its centre and all other bodies revolving around it. Religion embraced this perspective to establish man as the most important of God's creations. Not everyone was convinced.

In 1543, following decades of observation, Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus, published a new theory, On The Revolutions of Celestial Spheres, in which he firmly denounced the Earth centric view by explaining the reason for the looping retrograde motion of Mars across the night sky.  Heads were turned, bishops' mitres were shaken and there was a general ruckus within the walls of the Vatican. It would take until 1610 for Galileo to map the movement of Jupiter's four moons and give total credence to Copernicus's theory, upsetting what was for many,  a deeply held belief.  A moment ... followed four hundred years later by another moment that changed the world. Or at least our view of the world. 

Heliocentricity 

I’m speeding round the sun today at 30K per sec,

No wonder it’s so hard for me to write.

I’m lapping Mars in retrograde.

He’s slow and I don’t see him every night.

There are many slower planets sitting in the outside lanes,

I see them in the darkness,

I even know their names.

I marvel at them every time I pass.

Travelling in celestial clockwork,
how they seem belies their mass.

I am pillion on a planet that’s designed to such specifics,

it keeps me fed and watered and in comfort for the ride,
tilted at the perfect pitch towards a mighty power,
that seasonally warms me and then warms the other side.

For eons, man believed the Earth was central to it all,

a theory that served the purpose of religion, after all.
But when he saw Mars charge the sky,
then loop into reverse,
Copernicus declared us heliocentric.
The Papal frock was hoisted.
They said he was eccentric
but science was born to lead them into light.

And so we race around the sun,

as other planets do.
That’s why we’re here.
That’s why we are.
The Earth.
And me.
And you.


Thanks for reading. Adele

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Events that Changed the World

In the modern world and due to media coverage we are all more aware of events that have, and indeed are , changing the world. Imagine the coverage that might have been given to the catastrophic meteor that struck what we know as the Gulf of Mexico , that heralded the slow end of the dinosaurs !

  " Dinosaurs moving North...EU Ministers hold emergency summit...North America declares a state of emergency ...National Guard called out ...UK says that the sooner it becomes an island the safer it will be ....Local Government warns people to keep their pets indoors !" 

A bit of fantasy . 

It seems that it is mainly wars ,or the threat of, that changes our world and we are very aware of the happenings because of TV, newspapers , Internet and such. News of wars used to take weeks to reach our ears....letters transported by foot or horse, river, port, ship....The laying of Transantlantic cables and their ilk ,the use of morse code, then the spoken word opened up the 20th century. Followed by transmitted pictures , once carefully vetted for upsetting content. Nowadays we are warned that content maybe unsuitable and that we must decide whether to view or not.

The space missions have shaped our modern world and indeed the mission to put a man on the moon enthralled all nations and to some extent held them in awe , changing our perception of the world for a little while.

 World wars ( the name tells of the impact ) have been events that have changed our world ( here I refer to 'my world' I.e. the UK) , having a catastrophic impact on most of the world , not just where the conflict took place..but it was far reaching , involving the colonies of the countries involved. Great Britain was rocked when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands..and indeed who in this country had even heard of them ! We were propelled into action in a few short weeks. Coverage was intense , men and machinery sent off on a long journey to the other end of the globe. I was teaching in Oxford at the time and my husband was a reservist awaiting call up ( luckily for us he wasn't ) ,but many of his friends went and some didn't return. A class of boys that I taught , who were normally a pain , surprised me by saying that they wished they were old enough to go. They were hyped up by the coverage and the sense of outrage that the nation felt.

I am going on a bit today...must be the recent illness making me nostalgic....

Anyway today's poem is the last that I wrote before a gap of nearly 20 years ..written during the Falklands War....

         FALKLAND'S LEGACY

A resting place far from home,

On a lonely windswept shore.

A posy of flowers placed upon the graves

Of those never to return.

An anthem by a vigilant piper, 

A requiem for the dead.

The minister's cassock caught by the wind

That carries the souls - that carries still

The sounds of battle

To ears that hear no more.

Rest, you weary men 

Upon this far off shore.

Your torn and mutilated bodies

Resting in the soil.

Your struggle now has ended.

The battle o'er.

A simple headstone, your only medal-

All you have to show.

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Bells

      It’s a pleasure to be asked to write this week’s Lancashire Dead Good Poets Blog, on the subject of Bells. Looking at previous weeks blogs these are big shoes to fill, so please join me on an Indian summer’s day meander through a printable selection of the 20,000 random thoughts I will have today.

       Poetry has been described, like the eyes, as a window to the soul. In his poem ‘for whom the bell tolls’ 16^th century poet John Donne explores the interconnectedness of humanity. It is from this piece that we get the phrase ‘no man is an island’ made popular by Ernest Hemingway in a novel about the Spanish civil war and his 1943 screen play ‘for whom the bell tolls’, featuring the late (and very pretty) Ingrid Bergman. A timely reference as I look in horror at the plight and treatment of innocent families fleeing Syria. I’m sure I’m not an island on that topic. There is a stark and severe non-interconnectedness of humanity about that.

       I was fortunate to go to a local (Fylde Coast) private school. I got a free place because Mum was poor. Like all schools we moved by the bell. Thankfully there was a good sense of camaraderie, and some inspiring teachers, especially English. It was here I first became interested in poetry; Ted Hughes stood out against a backdrop of painful Taylor-Coleridge ramblings, as did Wilde and also the War Poets.  It’s topical to mention as we approach the centennial anniversary of Wilfred Owens enlistment to fight in World War One. His observational poetry of that time, in my opinion, remains unrivalled. Owens ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ captures the true internal turmoil of war, likening men to cattle, and almost certain death not followed by the ‘mockery’ of a church burial:

 What passing-bells for those who die like cattle?
     Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
     Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
     Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
     And bugles calling them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
     Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
     The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
     And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

        On a lighter note, references to bells are prevalent amongst children’s nursery rhymes. You can get some vitamin C advice, and anticipate future wealth from ‘The Bells of St Clements.” I’m not one for wishing misfortune on any living thing, but Little Johnny Flynn (of “Ding Dong Bell” fame) can plop my neighbour’s cat down a well to stop it defecating all over my garden. I have children. It stinks.  My neighbour once said if I got a cat it would stop their cat doing it. I don’t want a cat. It’s like saying to a non-smoker who quite rightly hates the smell of cigarette smoke “start smoking then you won’t notice it.”

        Anyway back to ‘bells.’ Whilst most discount retail stores are laden with Halloween paraphernalia, some garden centres and card shops have just gone straight for Christmas themes (some since the summer).  Cue bell mania.  Edgar Allen Poe really goes for it in his prose/poem ‘The Bells’ where he covers Christmas, weddings, war, bell ringers and ancient Britons.  Poe’s appetite for reflective philosophy is awakened in the following final couplet from the two stanza dream within a dream:

Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

        The sound of a church bell ringing out on a summers afternoon is quintessentially English. That with the crack of leather on willow, snug cottages overgrown with ivy, unnecessary politeness, babbling streams, grocers shops and shiny motor cars. But what’s this? Church bells are bad for your health, as ruled by North Hertfordshire District Council in 2013, silencing the bells at St Mary’s in Ashwell Hertfordshire on health grounds.  St Martin’s Church in Liskeard Cornwall was also silenced following complaints from someone who lived 300 metres away. Near enough, I would say, to spot a church upon viewing the house? It’s a bit like buying a house next to a pub and being surprised by rowdy people on the street around 11pm I guess.  The best ‘hells bells’ story must go to an unnamed pensioner from Sharow, near Ripon, North Yorkshire who locked some bell ringers in the bell tower when they refused to stop the ‘peal’ (some 5,040 individual rings). The team had travelled up from the home counties to practice. Eeeh its grim up north.

That’s the end of the bell blog. You could say it’s the bellen…. aah no lets keep it clean.

Muchos Amor

Ian Rusetear

Blackpool

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Bells

Your Saturday blogger comes bouncing back like a sun-kissed Tigger from his Kefalonian sojourn, rejuvenated (lovely word) by a week of late-summer Mediterranean heat and raring to expatiate on the nominated theme of bells. [I hope you like the picture, by the way.]

According to my favourite encyclopaedia (a Greek-derived word): "a bell is a hollow vessel usually of metal, but sometimes of horn, wood, glass or clay, struck near the rim by an interior clapper or exterior hammer to produce a ringing sound. Bells may be categorised as idiophones, instruments sounding by the vibration of resonant solid material, and more broadly as percussion instruments."

I guess we all knew most of that already, except maybe for the part about the idiophone (another Greek-derived word). That discovery truly delighted me and proved the inspiration for this week's poem (yet another Greek-derived word), the humorous verse you can find below.

The history of bells is millennia old. Almost from the dawn of civilisation crude percussive objects have been crafted to sound warnings, to frighten away evil spirits, to mark festive occasions or generally signal with. Metal bells first appeared in the Bronze age, as casting skills became sophisticated enough, and their use was widespread throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe for every purpose from the sublime - summoning the faithful to religious observance in tones that were supposed to replicate the voices of angels or the sound of paradise, to the prosaic - hanging round the necks of livestock to let the herdsmen locate their beasts. They've been used as early warning systems in times of invasion or dense fog or rampant disease. They've also been used to tell the time, or at least to sound out 'watches' on ships (from first through to eight bells). We elected to put them on our emergency vehicles, in our telephones, at our front doors and round our cats' necks. There's even a happy breed of people who like to be referred to as campanologists (not a Greek-derived word) and whose great pleasure in life is to ring bells. (I'm told it's actually quite a skill and a very sociable activity.)

So you've got to love the bell both for its simplicity of concept, its purity of sound and its sheer ubiquity. Even Chuck Berry sang about it.... no, wait - that was something else.

Idiophone
My freshly-forged and newly-fangled
idiophone arrived today.
The postman only knocked twice.
I'm the first one in my street to have one.
Excited? I should say.
I can hardly wait to use it,
looks so sexy, smart and shiny.
Intuitive, they're supposed to be,
just assemble and away you go -
you'd think any fool could put it together.
Not me, apparently.

The waist is sound
and I've found the crown,
attached it as shown
but then I realised the yoke's not provided.
I'm not hugely impressed
that you have to supply your own bit of wood;
olive or gopher is best, so it's said,
but I've had to make do with freshly-hewn yew.

The really distressing part is the clapper.
How is it meant to attach to the cone?
The instructions don't say
and I can't find a bolt or a pin
to affix the damned thing,
so right now my idiophone
hasn't a ring tone
unless you apply the clapper
like a hammer to the sound rim
in a deft but measured blow.

I thought I'd be elated,
the envy of my neighbours,
that when they saw and heard mine
everyone would clamour
for an idiophone of their own,
falling for the glamour of the clangour -
but getting to grips
with this leading-edge technology
has taken a rather heavy - albeit silent - toll.


Thanks for reading. Have a resoundingly good week, S ;-)

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My favourite bells ...

Looking South East from Bishopthorpe

On the topic of bells this week, I became rather wistful and started to yearn for the village in which I grew up near York. The Church of that village (St. Andrews) had a set of bells which were rung with gusto every Sunday and although we didn't attend services as a family, I still find that sound a fond childhood memory. Being a village, set in the countryside, it had wonderful scenic views especially alongside the river and in the autumn it was evocative even more so. The smells of wood burning fires, damp leaves and sugar beet from the fields. Heaven!

So please forgive me while I take a trip down memory lane in this weeks poem:

St Andrews Church, Bishopthorpe.

Those bells

Cool autumnal morn
breaks across the landscape.
Broken cloud
in banks
roll imperceptibly
across the sky.
Muted tones of purples
pinks, oranges and reds
merge;
smudged together
with grey.
A low mist
blankets the ground
and as it rises,
trying to reach
the treetops -
all skeleton bare,
branches raking on high,
it fades and thins.
Crisp air catches the lungs
forcing cumulus billows
upon the exhale.
The slightest nip
bringing rosiness 
to the cheek.
Without a breeze
the stillness
does nothing to lift
the dampness
or the leaves
which lie
sodden and muddy
The path winds on
along the river bank
as I bird watch -
the Ducks, the Sparrows,
the Robin, the Thrush.
Sombre hued
Blackbirds and Crows
herald the coming day
in their own
individual ways
until a distant peal
of church bells
welcome the faithful
on a sleepy
subdued Sunday.


I love Autumn! Thanks for reading. ;-) x

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Locks (Yellow Hair)

As soon as I saw the topic for this week's blog - Locks - I thought of Sandy Denny (pictured below)and the song Banks Of The Nile with its line "Oh but I'll cut off my yellow hair and I'll go along with you..."

Sandy was possibly the finest British singer of the 20th century, initially with the Strawbs, then Fairport Convention and Fotheringay before pursuing a 'solo' career. Her rendition of Banks Of The Nile (with Fotheringay) is probably her finest moment; (I've tagged a YouTube link at the bottom of this post).

Banks Of The Nile was a traditional song from the time of Britain's Egyptian War (1882) and Fotheringay's rendition was arranged and performed by Sandy Denny and her band some 90 years after the event. It's a pathos-laden, powerful and moving anti-war anthem sung with incredible feeling by Denny. Today's blog is dedicated to everyone who is currently being torn apart from the ones they love by war and the ravages of exile and migration.

Banks Of The Nile 
Oh hark! the drums do beat, my love, no longer can we stay.

The bugle-horns are sounding clear, and we must march away.

We’re ordered down to Portsmouth, and it's many a weary mile

To join the British army on the banks of the Nile. 

Oh Willie, dearest Willie, don't leave me here to mourn.

Don't make me curse and rue the day that ever I was born.

For the parting of our love would be like parting with my life,

So stay at home, my dearest love, and I will be your wife. 

Sandy Denny

Oh my Nancy, dearest Nancy, sure that will never do.

 The government has ordered, and we are bound to go.

 The government has ordered, and the queen she gives command

 And I am bound on oath, my love, to serve in a foreign land. 

 

Oh, but I'll cut off my yellow hair, and I'll go along with you.

I'll dress myself in uniform, and I'll see Egypt too.

I'll march beneath your banner while fortune it do smile,

And we'll comfort one another on the banks of the Nile. 

But your waist it is too slender, and your fingers they are too small.

In the sultry suns of Egypt your rosy cheeks would spoil.

Where the cannons they do rattle, when the bullets they do fly,

And the silver trumpets sound so loud to hide the dismal cries. 

Oh, cursed be those cruel wars, that ever they began,

For they have robbed our country of many the handsome man.

They've robbed us of our sweethearts while their bodies they feed the lions,

On the dry and sandy deserts which are the banks of the Nile.

Traditional

Link here for the audio recording:Banks Of The Nile

Thanks for reading. Your Saturday Blogger is off on holiday next week, hoping that inspiration may strike ;-)

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Lovely locks?

Hair. We all have it. Some love theirs, some don't. Some just plain don't know what to do with it, like me!

Having always been a tomboy, from the age of around 5, my hair as a kid was always short. Easy peasy, brush and go. Some of my friends would sit with their Girls' World heads, applying the make-up and styling the hair. Not my thing though. The closest I got to being "girly" was a Curly Twirl Barbie. Complete with hair curler, I gave it a go for a little while at least. It made the ends of her hair ragged. So I trimmed it, very neatly I might add (I was quite proud of myself), taking off the tiniest, tiniest amount levelling it off. I don't remember how, but I got distracted, leaving the said Barbie with her REALLY long hair and the pair of scissors on the draining board. I came back to it to find the synthetic hair strewn ALL over the draining board, my Barbie lying on top looking like Yazz from the 80's group "Yazz and the Plastic Population". My brother had tried to "help" me. The only reason I got upset was that I thought I was going to get into trouble, besides that though, it wasn't my cup of tea so I wasn't too upset.

After I left High School I started growing it in an effort to shed my tomboy image, only occasionally getting it trimmed. My earlier years of non-girlishness had not prepared me for a lifetime of caring for my hair. I went though a phase, when it was waist length, of having it permed. However, my hair being so thick, the poor stylist had to use the skinniest rollers to make it stay put, otherwise it would just drop out overnight.

I have come to realise that I am a "brush and go" kind of gal. I am not one to faff, preen, spray, scrunch, backcomb or style in any way, shape or form.


Locks:

In 2014
my hair was so long
I could sit on it.
I wish I could say
that it was luscious
and healthy, 
it wasn't.
A thick head of hair
neglected
by a tomboy
wanting to feel more girly,
but not quite knowing how.
Never trimmed or pampered,
just washed twice,
conditioned once.
Eternally aching arms meant
I left it to its' own devices
slowly
growing.
Only brushed
and pulled back to avoid
tickling my face 
and getting in the way,
though it still did.
Constant ponytail
even at night,
again to try and stop 
a mouthful of hair.
Partway down my back
weaker strands broke
leaving split ends
and longer ones
resembling rats tails.
ENOUGH!
I finally snapped,
unable to cope
with the long ...
lank ...
locks.
I wanted to look smart
not like I was wearing
a witches wig!
Free to turn over at night
without tangling myself up
and giving myself
a crick in the neck.
So, on Remembrance Day
over two feet of hair
lay
languidly
on the cold floor
of the salon,
swept aside
as two old dears gasped
and marvelled
at my new
very 
short 
cut.
I still don't know
what to do with my hair.
So, I've started growing it ...
again!


Thanks for reading. ;-) x

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A V 4 R B - Love Locks

Since the early Noughties, a new fashion has been gaining popularity in Europe. It is causing distress in many council chambers,  especially those in major cities.  It ruffles the feathers of Heritage champions more than pigeon droppings and is causing mathematical consternation among civil engineers.  It is an outward expression of a love tryst and it threatens to destroy many of the historic bridges that traverse the great Rivers in the Northern hemisphere. From the Parisian Pont de l'Archeveche to the Venetian Rialto, European bridges are being weighed down by love. And the problem is infectious.  It has begun to spread worldwide. 

It isn't a disease or a natural phenomenon. The problem is man made. Sweethearts are declaring their need for a lasting love relationship by engraving their initials on a padlock, locking it to a bridge and then throwing the key into the water so that the lock cannot be removed. Love-locks are so contagious that campaigners are trying to stop people attaching them to bridges in an attempt to stop the destruction of historic landmarks. It is said that they not only detract from the beauty of many historic bridges but also the excess weight is a serious problem on ancient structures. 

To some they are unsightly litter. 5,500 padlocks were recently removed from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence because they not only caused an aesthetic problem but were scratching the metal structure of the historic bridge. In Edinburgh, the city council decided to capitalise on the trend by allowing lovers to buy padlocks and attach them to four panels on the Forth Road Bridge, raising £10,300 for the Queensferry RNLI.  In Gretna Green, a traditional place of elopement for lovers, couples are welcome to attach a padlock to the Courtship Maze. 

The recent surge began in Rome on Ponte Milvio, following publication the novel, I Want You, by  Federicco Moccia.  The idea of a love-lock is featured in the movie, Now You See Me, starring among others, Woody Harrelson, as one of four street magicians recruited by an unknown benefactor to amaze the world.  I won't spoil the plot for those who haven't seen it.  I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The origin of love-locks dates back to World War One and began because of one person's broken heart...

 

Love Locks 

 

Once upon a time in Vrnjacka Banja,

Nada, a maiden pure and true,

fell in love with Relja.

A handsome Serbian officer,

he swept her off her feet,

soon betrothed, they would often meet

upon Most Ljubavi, The Bridge of Love,

in this picture postcard town.

But as they planned their nuptial feast,

The Great War began,

Relja was sent away to fight, like every other man.

As Nada waited patiently,

she sewed her wedding gown,

nimble fingers sewing prayers

for Relja’s safe and swift return.

Nada’s love grew every day for her Relja far away.

 

 

But as the tales of Homer tell, as men so often do, 

he forgot his promised love,

falling for another beauty, on the island of Corfu.

Poor Nada could not bear the pain,

her heart was torn in two,

her wedding gown, a funeral shroud,

her fate a legend that soon grew, until

to save themselves from Nada’s fate,

young women of the town,

engraved their own and lover’s names on padlocks,

locked them to the fateful bridge,

they threw away the key.

Love-locking hearts together, for all eternity.

 

Now so many bridges are embellished in this way.

Lovers of the world, it seems,

believe even today,

that by this inter-lock of names,

they bind themselves together,

so their commitment will remain.

But padlocks are mere metal,

they go rusty over time,

and bridges begin to fail under the excess weight,

so the locks are loosened, forced apart.

Does removing them from their appointed place

change the lover’s fate?

The tragedy in all of this,

a truth poor Nada knew,

no lock is ever needed to hold a heart that's true. 

 

 

Thanks for reading.  Adele

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Locks

Locks -- no not curly ones, nor ones that turn with the aid of a key but ones on canals. I used to live outside Oxford and we went boating on the Thames. Many parts of the river are not navigable therefore a "cut" is provided often with a lock to change the level. These locks were manned by obliging lock-keepers who lived close by in neat, colourful cottages. Since we went out regularly our craft became well known - as with many others and boat users were friendly and helpful ....kind of like caravanning on the water !! My first experience of a lock absolutely terrified me. Our first craft was so small and the lock walls reached up towards the heavens ! There were ropes to catch and hold, instructions given - safety of the essence . As a non swimmer it was all rather daunting. Over the few years I became fairly proficient at steering, but never berthing - no , my job was always to jump ashore, rope in hand and find a suitable tying up point.

My walks often take me along tow paths, especially on the Preston/ Lancaster canal - - which incidentally has no locks along it's entire length. Using instead the contours to raise/lower the fall . It is this fact that makes it a popular canal for trippers since there are no concerns over the workings of locks. The short canal to Glasson dock however boasts four locks on it's short stretch. to go from sea level. It is interesting to watch people winding " keys" and pushing timber spars .. all very energetic. So at Glasson marina there are vessels of all sorts - especially long boats that we don't normally associate with  the sea.

I apologise for not having a poem today - but I've been away for the Bank holiday weekend. I do have a photo of the Preston / Lancaster canal ( minus locks ! )

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