Stars

It is true to say that I read a fair bit of poetry. And it seems to me that a recurring theme that many poets have in common, is a fear of dying. Psychoanalysts would agree that this is a primitive unconscious drive that ensures that we survive. In the last few years, I have been exposed to quite a few family and friends dying, not just through or because of the covid times, but because it is a fact of ageing, that the births and marriages in my personal social column have reduced and been replaced by more in the death column, a reminder of my own mortality. Finally getting to state pensionable age brought me closer to the reality that the Grim Reaper is no longer lurking in the shadows, but grimly out in open, my soul in his sights, ready for a spot of reaping.

So I am beginning to understand more why poets are so preoccupied with the fear of death. It is a recurring theme, dating back eons, like this anonymous lament from the thirteenth century, telling of the poet’s three worst fears and worries - that he must die; that he does not know when this will happen; and that he does not know where he will go after death. Eight hundred years later we still ask the same questions. It may not look it – but it is still English – try reading out ‘out loud’ and starts to make sense:

Ech day me comëth tydinges thre,
For wel swithë sore ben he:
The on is that Ich shal hennë,
That other that Ich not whennë,
The thriddë is my mestë carë,
That Ich not whider Ich shal farë.

Death itself doesn’t scare me, other than time is running out for all the places I want to still see and things I still want to do. What really scares me, apart from mundane worries about growing old, having enough money to live on and what the future holds for the next generations, is ‘the dark’ and horrors from my own imagination. These tend to come with the dark, a reminder of feeling scared of the darkness when, aged 6, on my first visit to my grandmother’s house in rural Poland, I was left alone to go to sleep - with no street lighting and no moon. And I woke to pitch black.

My grandmother's house

Too scared to cry out, every stick of the furniture in the shadows assumed a life and potential hiding place for some sort of monster to lurk behind. When dawn finally came, I had slept very little, Finally telling my father of my fears, a cousin was dispatched to share the bed with me the next night – when neither of us got much sleep due to my incessant talking.

My grandmother passed away over fifty years ago, but last summer when we revisited her village in Poland, and saw her house, the memory resurfaced and with it a residual fear of the dark.

It is paradoxical that I should have been be so afraid of the dark, because darkness brought me so many pleasures. My parents were never too strict with a “lights out” policy so loved by the parents of my school friends. My mother was, by nature, a lark not an owl and often in bed before I was. My father, when not at work because of his shift patterns, would stay downstairs with the television on, retiring only when the small dot appeared to close viewing for the night.

I was regretfully spared the secret illicit delight of using a torch under the bedclothes to finish the chapter of a book. I tried it a few times, but found the claustrophobic experience uncomfortable. In any case, it was unnecessary. If my father, on finally coming upstairs to bed, if he happened to see I still had my light on, would poke his head around the door and merely tell me not to be too much longer.

Bedtime was the time I was left, safe in bed, to my own devices, when I could escape into other lands and lives opened by books and stories. Sometimes I would work on my homework – we were given a page a day of some 20 mathematical problems to do, so I would polish off a month’s worth in one go. Sometimes this strategy would backfire when my teacher, Miss P would announce that instead of the next page being that day’s homework task, it would be two or three pages on. But I liked the problems, so other than a mild feeling of being ‘cheated,’ I did not really mind. My copious amount of indiscriminate reading of anything in print, included “the Gambols” in my father’s Daily Express, the Readers Digest and The National Geographical Magazines, which took care of spelling and most other subjects.

After that, I could always look out of the window, at the dark skies and the stars, until sleep finally overtook me. I would stare at the moon, looking for the fabled man there. Although I never saw him, I was convinced that, with the help of slightly stronger binoculars than those I had temporarily purloined from my father, I would be able to spot people whizzing in their spacecraft between the stars and the moon. In those days, they were not called aliens though, but “little green men.”

Perhaps this is where my fascination with the stars first started, encouraged when I was awarded a £5 book token for English when I was 10 years old, I bought three books – all on the planets and stars. This culminating 35 years ago when, despite a failed Physics ‘O’ level and only the remnants of long forgotten maths ‘O’ level to my name, I undertook to read for a part time degree in Astronomy. I do not know what possessed me.

Much to my husband’s amusement my mother kept referring to this as “Yvonne’s Astrology studies,” and while I became known in class for asking sometimes very stupid questions, some of which turned out to be relevant, I never stooped to asking about star signs. However, I was somewhat disappointed when I found out that there was plenty of maths, equations and staring at computers, but precious little of looking at the stars. None the less, I knuckled down, and some 7 years later managed a not very credible result – to this day convinced I was allowed a pass simply to get rid of me and my stupid questions.

Now, my astronomical studies are back where they belong, preferably at the end of a day at my brother’s beautiful home in Spain, when we sit on the terrace, spending the evening chatting with friends, over a glass or three of the local wine. As the sun goes down, it will turn the distant mountains into golden reds and orange, the crickets will come out to play, trying to compete to be heard over our perusing and laughter. As the sun finally disappears, followed by ever changing shades of twilight that darken into ink black skies devoid of any light pollution, we are reluctant for the night to end.

This is especially so when there is no moon, because we are loathe to miss out on more entertainment by picking out the planets and the various constellations amid the streak of what appears to the cloud – and that is actually the Milky Way. It is incredible to think that what we are seeing is already in the past. The light coming from the stars started its journey to us thousands, perhaps even millions of years ago. Indeed, as we look at them now, they may no longer even exist.

Constellation of Orion

I always look out for the three bright stars that make up Orion’s belt, as this is where my rudimentary attempts for my final year Astronomy degree project focussed. Through a telescopic it is possible to see that this area is home to what is known as a “stellar nursery” where stars right this very minute may be bursting into life. Some stars will never be seen, because they are so far away their light will only reach earth a long, long time in the future.

When we look at the stars of the night sky, we see them not as they are now, but as they were thousands, perhaps even millions of years ago. We are peering into the past. Our planet, and the sun will eventually die and our entire species will go the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo. After eons of time as measured by our life span, the sun, our home star will live out its final moments in a wild spin before collapsing into a white dwarf, taking with it everything we have ever known. All the beauty, all the cruelties and even the perfect Fibonacci sequence of the pine cone will be as if they had never existed.

The world

Staring up at the black heavens,
At the myriad of flickering stars,
Our world circles but one average star.

Hanging delicately by a force
We cannot comprehend,
We are an infinitesimal speck of life.

You and I are here,
Our existence formed by the dust of atoms
In the furnace of a dying star.

That is everything.
One day we too will die,
In the universe of time, becoming our star’s dust.

Yvonne S.

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Insomnia - Goodnight

According to my husband who is the only person to know this, I am fast asleep as soon as I’ve wished him goodnight. If only I could stay that way until morning. About an hour later, I’m awake, needing the bathroom and this is the pattern through the night, every night. Most times I’m immediately off to sleep again, sometimes not. The nights of waiting for everyone to be home before I can settle properly are long gone, thank goodness.

It doesn’t take much to spook me. Our neighbourhood is quiet, so the slightest sound outside puts me on full alert and I lie still, listening, worrying about someone on the prowl, tampering with doors and cars. I dare to peep but I can’t focus straight away and I’m scared of being noticed, if there is anyone. I’m on another visit to the bathroom.

I wonder if I heard a noise downstairs, or if the toilet flush just sounded like it was something. I rush back to the safety of the bedroom before anything looms out of the darkness. Sirens, there’s always bloody sirens, even at silly o’clock. I’d love to know what’s going on, or maybe it is better that I don’t. I’m safe and cosy under the duvet.

I’m falling from a great height. There’s a loud bang before I hit the bottom of wherever I was going to land. I don’t know if it was a real bang or if I was dreaming. I’m awake again, but paralysed, listening to silence. It sounded like a car crash. If I’m meant to know, I’ll find out. Stay still, stay safe. Go back to sleep.

Disturbed again. This time my coughing wakes me up. I’m coughing due to acid reflux. And coughing makes me need the bathroom again. I sip some water and sit up in bed for a few minutes playing Tetris or Block Puzzle on my phone. I can settle again now that the coughing has stopped.

Insomnia, maybe it is, or maybe not. Night after night is like this. I don’t fit into any recognised category except having a sensitive bladder, a result of surgery. I’m not aware of stress or anxiety. When morning comes I’m dead to the world, in a deep sleep which probably started around four a.m.

Here’s Philip Larkin,

How to Sleep

Child in the womb,
Or saint on a tomb –
Which way shall I lie
To fall asleep?
The keen moon stares
From the back of the sky,
The clouds are all home
Like driven sheep.

Bright drops of time,
One and two chime,
I turn and lie straight
With folded hands;
Convent-child, Pope,
They chose this state,
And their minds are wiped calm
As sea-levelled sands.

So my thoughts are:
But sleep stays as far,
Till I crouch on one side
Like a foetus again –
For sleeping, like death,
Must be won without pride,
With a nod from nature,
With a lack of strain,
And a loss of stature.

           Philip Larkin, 1922 - 1985

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Terror - Ghostly Happenings

 

There’s something scary about looking up into the darkness at the top of the stairs. It started at my great-grandmother’s house when I was a little girl. Nothing happened, I was just spooked and the feeling has always been with me. Our landing light stays on through the night. My bedtime reading can’t be anything jumpy or thought provoking since ‘The Amityville Horror’ years ago – the film was bland compared to the book – such stories, and I enjoy reading them, are good for the afternoon. I accompanied my daughter to see ‘The Woman In Black’ at the cinema. This film absolutely terrifies me. I like the story, but I can’t watch it properly, not even on television at home.

“Tell me when this bit’s gone,” she whispered.

“I can’t, I’m not looking,” I whispered back, face covered with hands.

Recently, the stage play was on at The Grand Theatre. I’m told it’s very good and scary. My daughter asked me to go and I would have done if not for the covid situation, even if I was to spend two hours staring at my knees in the darkness.

One of the pubs our family had on the front was a former hotel, full of empty rooms. Most of these rooms were on the floor above our living accommodation and was out of bounds to me and my friends for safety reasons. On the same floor as us but separate to our flat was a corridor of about six former hotel rooms. Two of them were empty until my paternal grandfather moved in with us for a while and made one a lounge and another his bedroom. My dad used one for a spirit store (drinks, not ghosts), one was a guest room where my other grandparents stayed on their frequent visits and one was Joe’s room. Joe came with the pub. He was a live-in member of staff, of some very senior years, and when not working, kept himself to himself apart from watching the Saturday afternoon horse racing on our television, full volume due to his impaired hearing. Once a week my mother or Kathy who looked after us all, made him his favourite steak and cow-heel pie. He was a lovely man and we were sad when he died. I believe he was ninety, or thereabouts. I would guess it was a couple of years after Joe had passed when someone played a trick and scared the living daylights out of me. At some point, I moved into what used to be Joe’s room. The corridor was always a bit dark, but enough to see my way. One afternoon, as I came out of the room, there was a white, waiter’s coat floating in the air.  I screamed as terror gripped me and my dad came running from the nearby kitchen. It was all supposed to be in good fun. It might even have been Halloween. The jacket was on a wire hanger hooked on to a light-fitting. I recovered, eventually.

For a short time, my father took over The Old Hall at Sandbach and we moved to live there. I mention it by name because it was featured on the TV programme ‘Most Haunted’. We were aware of a ghost. Nothing scary, just a woman in a crinoline dress with her hair piled high. She vanished as soon as she appeared and always in the restaurant at night. She wasn’t mentioned in ‘Most Haunted’ but Derek Acorah and his team found plenty of other paranormal activity that we weren’t aware of or been told about.

When our son was about three years old, he had what we recognised as night terrors. The first time it happened I was terrified. It was the middle of the night and his screaming woke me up suddenly. I was out of bed and in his room in a nano-second, heart pounding. He was sitting up, unaware of me, staring ahead, screaming and crying. I rocked him, calmed him down and settled him back to sleep, somehow, while filled with terror myself. The look of fear in his face unnerved me more than anything, like he could see something I couldn’t. Luckily, there weren’t many episodes.

With all this in mind, I suppose it’s odd that I would happily spend a couple of evenings on ghost hunting tours with my friend. We had a fascinating time at The Grand Theatre in the dark and the talk from the organiser explained things that had happened to both of us at separate times on visits to see productions. When the opportunity to do something similar at the Spanish Hall came up, I was full of enthusiasm. Unfortunately, some of it was so scary, the experience was overwhelming fear.

My poem, which features in The Dead Good Poets Haunted Blackpool,

A Ghost Tour in the Spanish Hall

An evening in the Spanish Hall
Fun-time promised for one and all.
Exciting times for you and me,
Paranormal activity!
Hopes and desires, all are risen,
Someone’s speaking, we must listen.
“Enter the rooms with open mind,
And be prepared for what you find.”
The semi-darkness of torch-light,
Anticipation of the night;
Wondering what there might be here
To chill us with delight or fear
We heard a strange and weird sound,
Quiet growling from underground.
Distant laughter, joyful patter,
Ghostly party fun and chatter.
Chink of glasses, bell-like tinkle,
Passing orb gives us a twinkle.
We crept across the ballroom floor
To where we hadn’t been before.
A woman beckoned from her chair.
As we approached, she wasn’t there,
Just vanished, like she’d never been
But we both knew what we had seen.
And later, on the wide stair case
I froze as something touched my face.
I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t shout;
Someone was with me, there’s no doubt
When we sat in the back-stage room
We both smelt dated perfume
Like musky lavender and rose
Stagnant, lingering in repose.
And that mirror! I dared not see
The presence sitting next to me.
I felt their breath upon my cheek
And could not move, too scared to speak!
I must now be most explicit,
Show respect to restless spirits.
Never ridicule, tease or taunt.
It might be you they’ll come to haunt.

PMW 2012
Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Spring - Hello Sunshine

At last, the long awaited hint of spring sunshine is here. I don’t care that it shows up how much my windows need cleaning or draws attention to dusty surfaces, I’m happy to have daylight into the early evening and I don’t mind the sacrifice of an hour’s sleep to get it. Spring. I can wake up, renewed as I begin to feel some energy.

 A few years ago, I recognised that I develop some symptoms of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) from November to March / April. It varies in severity, but nothing unmanageable, so far. Usually it is just the desire to hibernate brought about by fatigue and generally feeling a bit fed up. The change of scenery offered by a couple of breaks in Dumfries & Galloway works wonders and on this occasion, took my mind off other health issues that are being investigated. The SAD is lifting now.

There is cheerful new growth in the garden as plants come back to life. Spring flowers have been bursting through the borders and filling my patio pots with bright colours. I’m particularly proud of a tub of orangey tulips. It all gives a feeling of well-being after months of darkness.

Spring cleaning and sorting out is on the agenda. I’m aiming for retirement and I want to organise belongings in preparation for a possible future move. It will be a slow, meticulous process because I’m easily distracted and have to look at everything. I spent ages this afternoon going through personal memorabilia and deciding what to keep. It was good, singing along to Jack Savoretti and reading old newspaper cuttings, but it didn’t really make much of an impression on the task. There’s no rush, luckily. Tomorrow, if I feel like it, I might attempt to clean some windows and dust round. Oh and there’s a couple of cobwebs that must have been manufactured during last night and need sweeping away before one grandson in particular goes on a spider hunt.

The poem I’ve chosen is Home Thoughts from Abroad by Robert Browning. It is one of my favourites and I’ve probably featured it before but it’s worth another airing. I’m so fortunate that my secondary education included poetry and learning whole poems off by heart, this is one such poem. It's a discipline that seems to be missing now. I had wonderful, enthusiastic English teachers that introduced a world of poetry and literature of which I’m still firmly placed in.

 

Home Thoughts From Abroad

 

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England—now!

 

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower

—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

 

Robert Browning  1812 - 1889

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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Train keeps rolling - its a genetic circuitry thing.

I am having a hectic week.  You know how it goes, a million and one things to do and really not much time to write. I drive everywhere these days and find it the easiest way to get through all my nipping about jobs.  But I sometimes wish I still had the daily hour twice a day commute. Sitting on a comfy seat, with a table, a pen and my notebook in front of me.  Then I would find time to write.

I think my first idea of a train was from a nightly game with my elder sister.  She would send me off to sleep on the Beebo train.  She made all the sounds, chug-chug, whistle blowing, "all aboard" and steam, chuff-chuffs. My imagination carried me away and I know it worked because I never reached the destination.  At least not awake.

My brothers had a vast train set in the loft above my father's office.  It ran all round a large oil tank on a flat board. I was not allowed to play.  I would sneak up and into another section of the huge space, open my sister's ballet costume trunk and dress up.  The boys wouldn't realise that I was there and I was quite often shut in the dark when they left. By the age of six,  a correlation between darkness and trains became indelibly inked on my brain.

At eleven, my dance partner and I won a place in a British team dancing in Switzerland. My sister accompanied me as chaperone and hairdresser. We set off to catch the night sleeper to Southampton from Lime Street, Liverpool.  It was so exciting to sleep in a bunk on a train. It also felt very strange waking up in a siding.  I had thought that the train ran all night.  I still associated trains with darkness.

No surprise then, that encountering the Ghost Train at Blackpool Pleasure Beach for the first time - I felt no fear. I rode it several times, to the consternation of my youngest brother, who was doing his best to scare me. No by then I liked the dark and trains.

My son loved Thomas The Tank Engine. He would read the stories and rewind the videos to favourite parts over and over again. When I was researching the Psychology of Communication Disorders for my degree, I discovered that people on the autistic spectrum often gravitate towards trains because they behave predictably.  Electrical circuitry is the same.  Lots of straight, logical pathways.  He took to electrical work immediately, having tried mechanical engineering first. He isn't autistic but there may be a link? Both my brothers worked as electro-technical engineers. Perhaps it begins with a genetic attraction to trains. 

I decided that WH Auden should deliver the poem this week.  His is an interesting train ride.


Permanent Way 

Self-drivers may curse their luck,

Stuck on new- fangled rails,

But the good old train will jog,

To the dogma of its rails, 

And steam so straight ahead,

That I cannot be led astray

By tempting scenes which occur

Along any permanent way. 

Intriguing dales escape

Into hills of the shape I like,

Though were I actually put,

Where a foot-path leaves the pike

 

For some steep romantic spot,

I should ask what chance there is

Of at least a ten-dollar cheque

Or a family peck of a kiss: 

But forcibly held to my tracks,

I can safely relax and dream

Of a love and a livelihood

To fit that wood or stream; 

And what could be greater fun,

Once one had chosen and paid,

Than the inexpensive delight

Of a choice one might have made? 

W.H Auden.

Thanks for reading.  Adele

                                                                                                          

                                                                                                          

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Putative Purple .....

I have read the other entries on the blog this week with great interest.  I had never heard of the term "Purple Prose" before and, as ever, I am finding the process of writing on the blog extremely educational. It made me realise that I am guilty of writing great swathes of purple in to my poetry from time to time, but now that I am aware of it I can remedy it. If I choose to of course. Call me perverse if you will, but I kind of like it!

There is little that I could add to the subject of Purple Prose when it has already been covered so comprehensively thus far, but I though I would post a little something from some years ago when I attempted to start writing a story. Stupidly, I started writing it without any real idea of where I was going with it.  No particular idea of plot, characters, anything really. I thought I would just sit down in front of the computer and type, see where it took me.  Not far, trust me. It amounted to the cheesiest single side of A4 in history:


Darkness.  All enveloping like a blanket, feeling smothered beneath its inky black folds.  Where was she?  In a darkened room without windows, or was it just night time on a cloudy moonless night?  The only thing she could be certain of was that she was inside.  But what?  Senses heightened due to her lack of visibility, she strained to listen for any sounds that might permeate the gloom.  Nothing.  Perfect stillness greeted her, not even the sounds of passing traffic in the distance.  She racked her brain to think where on earth she could possibly be that would be so dark and silent, but even she couldn’t imagine where she was or what was to befall her ……..


As Melanie left her flat that morning after agreeing to go with her friends on a “trip”, she couldn’t help but feel that she shouldn’t have said she would.  Her heart sank as she remembered the conversation:  “So there’ll be Charlotte, Amy, Siobhan, Me and you, if you’ll come along”, wheedled her friend Katie.  “Please say you’ll come, Mel, I don’t think I can put up with the other three if you’re not there, especially under the circumstances!”.

“Katie, that’s not a nice thing to say about your friends.  I dread to think what you say about me when I’m not there!”  Mel replied.

Katie sighed and said:“You know what I mean, Mel.  I just feel like the odd one out sometimes what with Amy and Siobhan being twins and Charlotte wanting to be their triplet!!”

“Ok, Ok, I’ll come.  I just don’t see the appeal of trouping around some old house like international tourists because it’s ‘historical‘!” Melanie retorted.  She had never appreciated architecture or history much, and failed to see why they all had to go with Siobhan and Amy to their fusty old relic of an Uncle’s.  “Alright”, she thought, “it may be the reading of his Will, be we don’t need to go en-mass surely?” 

With a strange look in her eyes, Katie came back with: “Come on Mel, you know fine well that everyone who has been summoned has to ’view’ his property before anything will be read out.  Their Uncle Henry was very particular and proud of his heritage, you can‘t blame a man for wanting to show off a little, even after his death!”.

So that evening, when they arrived at Uncle Henry’s, Melanie’s sour expression spoke volumes.  It was just as she imagined it would be, big rusty gates, oversized Manor house which was far too large for just one inhabitant, and overgrown and unloved gardens.  She knew the old man hadn’t been able to keep up with the gardening in his twilight years and had also let the elements ravage the house itself.  Many years earlier, due to an over fondness for the horses, Uncle Henry had been forced to let his two remaining ‘staff’ go, leaving the place to fall in to rack and ruin.  Thankfully, he managed to hang on to his house, although everything else was sold to pay off his debts.  Big beautiful furniture, carved and ornate, which had been in the family for generations had been auctioned off, along with all but one of his cars, having been sold to collectors.  Left with only enough basic furniture to live in three rooms of the house, the remainder, with the exception of a few decades of dust, was empty.


So there you go, some lovely examples of purple patches in a failed attempt to write a story. To this day, I still haven't figured out the rest of it. Hee hee.

Thanks for reading. x

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