The Tudor Court

People of high social standing were expected to attend court and participate as courtiers. Maintaining a position at court was an expensive business, but the rewards were high if you remained among the monarch’s favourites. However, being a Tudor courtier was not always easy, particularly under Henry VIII, who as an older man was notoriously easy to enrage.

The King’s household, the royal court was the political and cultural centre of the nation, and despite the risks, anyone who was anyone wanted to be there. At court, patronage and favour was given to those who pleased the monarch, and taken away from those who did not.

Henry VIII had over sixty homes, but Hampton Court was his favourite. Once he had taken it from Cardinal Wolsey, the King transformed it still further to demonstrate his power and magnificence. He also knew that the palace design had to work practically to feed, accommodate and entertain his vast court of aristocrats and their servants.

The long chains of rooms in the palace, each with a guard on the door, were designed to prevent all but the most important gaining access to the monarch’s private spaces. A courtier’s clothes played a vital role in the guards’ decision: the smarter you looked the closer you got to the King.

The royal family and the court moved around the country, visiting Henry’s grand houses and palaces for a few months, sometimes even a few hours. When the King left Hampton Court he often used the river Thames to get up to London. He and his queen would travel in the royal barge, surrounded by smaller boats with their closest servants on board carrying clothes and personal possessions.

Courtiers would be expected to pack up and follow the royals on horseback, accompanied by their own servants. A constantly shifting court was necessary; to allow the palaces to be cleaned and human waste removed, and to let surrounding land and livestock to be replenished after supplying the voracious demands of the royal court.

A visitor of high rank would expect to pass through the Great Hall into the more exclusive rooms beyond. The sequence of rooms included a Guard Chamber, a Privy or Audience Chamber. The monarch’s most private and heavily guarded rooms lay beyond the grandest of the public rooms. This inner sanctum included an eating room, an inner Privy Chamber, a Withdrawing Room and finally a bedchamber.

Favoured courtiers would be invited to the Withdrawing room. Only they were allowed to see the monarch in a less formal setting, perhaps to play games, listen to music or enjoy conversation.

Political power was concentrated among the men who attended to the King’s needs in the magnificence of the inner Privy Chamber. They enjoyed intimate access to the King, washing and dressing him, even attending to him on the close-stool (lavatory).

Those appointed to high positions in the royal household, and those closest to the king, were male. Depending on their social status, female courtiers worked in the queen’s household, for example as ladies-in-waiting, or women of the bedchamber.

As part of court ‘business’, fathers from the most powerful families in the land sought positions for their unmarried daughters. It was an ideal place for them to meet a wealthy husband and make alliances between families, and while the rewards were high, so were the risks.

These young women were sometimes formally educated, but it was their social skills that put them most in demand at court entertainments such as dances and masques. Here, they might net an even bigger, if more treacherous, prize.

To manage so many people at court required huge organisation. Two departments controlled most of the functions at the palace. The Lord Chamberlain’s department was responsible for the running of the staterooms, where important people gathered and business was conducted. The Lord Steward’s department looked after the ‘below stairs’ areas of the palace such as the kitchens.

A strict set of rules, the ‘Eltham Ordinances', (a series of regulations drawn up for the royal household in 1526) governed behaviour and conduct at court. In addition, guidelines known as ‘Bouche of Court’ outlined what a courtier could expect to receive when attending the King. Each courtier was entitled to free food and lodgings of varying degrees of luxury, as an expression of the monarch’s wealth and magnificence. A ration of candles, wine and beer were also provided free.

Hampton Court was Henry VIII’s pleasure palace, which he turned into a fabulous centre of entertaining with feasting, jousting and hunting. Jousting was the most prestigious sport in Tudor England. Henry had a huge tiltyard, the equivalent of a modern-day sports stadium, built at Hampton Court. As a young man, the King was fearless, and he and his closest courtiers would enjoy competing with each other, while the ladies of the court looked on.

As a young, fit man Henry was famously sports-mad, as were many of highest- ranking courtiers, among them his close friends. The King and his favourite courtiers would escape royal duties take off for a day’s hunting, or distract themselves with hawking, or by playing tennis. Gambling was also popular; the King thought nothing of losing hundreds of pounds to his courtiers by betting on tennis matches and dice.

Music and musicians constantly filled Tudor palaces, particularly at the pleasure palace of Hampton Court. Dancing and masque were also key entertainments that the King and his court enjoyed. Henry himself was a talented composer and performer, and being able to play an instrument or sing was considered a very desirable attribute for a courtier.

Then, of course, there were matters of the heart.

The Six Clerihews of Henry VIII

Catherine of Aragon
failed to give her King a son
Rome said no to a divorce
and set the church on a different course.

Social climber Anne Boleyn
soon committed the ultimate sin
Inevitably she lost her head
for sleeping in another’s bed.

Jayne Seymour
Henry was said to love and adore
Though all England shared their joy
she died giving birth to a baby boy,

Anne of Cleves
A political trick up Henry’s sleeves
She was notably ugly as hell
soon he divorced her as well

Catherine Howard
Branded a traitorous coward
The scandal made Henry see red
so he quickly said, “Off with her head.”

Catherine Parr
Wife most homely by far
defeated the odds when he died
of the six, only she had survived.

Thanks for reading. Adele

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The Cotswold Witches

I worked at an hotel in Stow on the Wold for a short time in the 1980s. One day I came across a booklet in a gift shop that told of The Cotswold Witches. I have always been very drawn to issues supernatural so I was intrigued.

On reading, I discovered that the women accused of witchcraft were often simple healers or knowledgeable women who were discriminated against by less intelligent people. There were however some surprising facts. As we all know, in stories witches are typecast as ugly creatures who flew on broomsticks. Actually many of these women made a poultice from belladonna flowers and rubbed it on their skin. This had an hallucinogenic effect which made them feel as if they were flying. The poison also affected their skin colour, making them appear grey and haggard. Strange but true.

Witches have always occupied a curious place within rural communities. They were blamed for bad luck or illness, but at the same time they were respected for their ability to heal, find stolen goods, and tell the future.

Cotswold witches Catherine Huxley, Bevil Blizard and Ellen Hayward are classic examples of this ambivalent attitude, with Catherine Huxley (c. 1612-1652), known as ‘the witch of Evesham’, being a particularly tragic case.

According to an account published in 1691, Catherine Huxley was being tormented by a group of children who were throwing stones at her and calling her a witch. They ran away when she shouted at them, but Mary Ellins (aged nine) got left behind and Catherine said to her, “you shall have enough stones in your stomach.”

Mary began to “void stones by the urinary passages,” and experienced the “most grievous pains in her Back and Reins,” which are “like the pricking of Pins.” After passing some 80 stones, “some plain pebbles, some plain flints, some very small, and some about an ounce weight,” her parents claimed that Catherine had cursed their daughter. Similar stones being found by the side of Catherine’s bed was evidence enough for her to be charged as a witch, and she was executed by hanging.

In contrast to poor Catherine, Bevil Blizard (1742-1836), who was also known as the Necromancer of Winchcombe or Blizard the Wizard, enjoyed the respect of his community. He was widely believed to possess supernatural powers and the story is told of how he hurriedly left work in the fields one day, telling his workmates that he knew that his henhouse was being robbed. To the astonishment of those left behind, his scythe continued to cut the hay after he dashed off.

He was also able to find stolen objects and identify thieves, although on one occasion, instead of finding the stolen item (a scythe), he replaced it with his own and told the victim that the thief would not prosper. Not only did the replacement scythe work better than the stolen item, the thief, identified by Blizard as Anthony Martin, suffered from all his joints freezing up.

Falling somewhere between Catherine Huxley and Bevil Blizard is Ellen Hayward (70), ‘the wise woman of Cinderford,’. Unlike Catherine, she was not blamed with causing death; instead, in 1906, she appeared in the Petty Sessions charged, “with unlawfully using… certain craft, or means, or device, by pretended witchcraft to deceive and impose upon James Davis.”

James Davis, a farmer who lived near Worcester, had ill-luck with his livestock. His cows refused to milk, the pigs became unwell, and a new pig he bought at market began to fail. He consulted a ‘travelling woman’ who told him that the animals were being charmed and that there was a spell on them. Believing Ellen Hayward to be a witch possessed of supernatural abilities, Davis thought she would be the ideal person to remove the spell on his ailing pig.

And so, between November 1905 and February 1906, Davis paid Hayward half a crown, then five shillings, then 10 shillings, and finally a sovereign, seeking her advice on how to deal with the bewitchment. He made several trips to her home in the Forest of Dean and on his final visit at the end of February 1906, he accused her of putting a spell on him. She denied it, and the matter ended up in the Petty Sessions, where the magistrates dismissed the case. Ellen Hayward was lucky because the most common outcome in cases of ‘pretence’ of witchcraft was a fine or custodial sentence.

Although the Witchcraft Act of 1735 abolished the death penalty for witchcraft, fear of witches was still widespread. The murder of Ann Tennant in Long Compton reminds us that many believed a witch’s curse could be undone if she could be made to bleed.

It is unlikely that Ann was actually a witch, but one of her neighbours, James Haywood, was terrified of witchcraft and, on September 15, 1875, he was returning home from working in the harvest fields when he saw Ann leaving the village shop. He attacked her using his hayfork, inflicting such serious injuries that she died a few hours later.

During his trial he pled not guilty, saying, “I be sorry I hurt the woman, but she tormented me for a long time in witchcraft.” The jury returned a verdict of, “not guilty on the grounds of insanity,” and committed him to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he remained until his death on June 23, 1890, aged 59.

Thanks for reading. Adele 

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Tankas

Like haiku poems, tankas are small, form poems, originated in Japan. Each line follows a pattern dictated by its number of syllables.

The tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as "short song," and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form.

I studied on a one-day a week creative writing course before my degree, I ad the opportunity to learn about tanka and managed to produce four of my own. The four poems developed organically, out of my love for nature and my family.

We lived on a housing association estate back then and I was always amazed by some of the local children, who often seemed to mill about without much parental intervention and support. My own son and daughter were kept occupied with sport, art and musical activities. The fourth poem reflects the development of those other children.

 

Adolescence


Keep your faith with me

When the world opens its arms

And you slip from view.

Youth may take you far and high

My love will hold if you fall.



Constraint


Political correctness

has stifled life’s frivolity.

Joy goes unspoken.

Speech tight-lipped, not free.

Who is different – you or me?



Bonsai


Tiny perfect leaves

Trim ev’ry minature bough.

Impersonation

scaled to perfection with skill

and patience by loving hands.



Cherry Tomatoes


You were not nurtured

yet year on year green shoots grow

wild on wet compost.

Carelessly discarded seed

Ripens to soft scarlet fruit.  


Thanks for reading. Adele

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Let the Truth be told - forever.

I am an avid cinema-goer. I like to watch the previews and select a couple of must-see films to see in the coming weeks. These days there are often so few people in the auditorium that I am surprised that the industry remains profitable. Perhaps my own selections are not mainstream: not in tune with popular viewing pleasure.

Some films have an effect that lasts well beyond the cinema experience. I am reminded of Spielberg's incredible Jaws. I went with my parents and can honestly say that we were all petrified and perched on the edge of our seats.

In 1993 I went with my husband to preview Jurassic Park, unsure at the time whether the movie would be too scary for my young son to view. The scenes with velociraptors still remain with me and like Jaws, the sound track still evokes an emotional response.

There is one film experience that I will never forget because the effect on the viewing audience was simply incredible. Leaving the cinema after a film, the departing audience are usually chatting, discussing their favourite scenes. Leaving the cinema after watching Schindler's List was a completely unique experience. Everyone left in complete silence. The effect was profound.

I knew all about the holocaust. There was a TV series called Auschwitz that had educated and informed my own generation of the brutality of the Nazi Jewish genocide during WW2. I expect that for many in the audience that night, the Spielberg portrayal may have been a first encounter with the truth about the Nazi death camps that murdered over 6 million Jews.

What I find so difficult to understand, is not that the younger generation may not  aware of those horrific events, but that there are people who vehemently deny that they actually took place. It is my hope that the Holocaust should be taught in schools across Europe in graphic detail. Only in this way can we be certain that a new wave of Nazism cannot take hold in the future. The truth has to be told: the eyes and minds of every future generation must be opened wide.

The Naked Truth

They were forced into cattle trucks

And shunted to this place,

So far from prying eyes,

Where looming towers

Overlook the rows of huts

Cramped with rough wooden bunks.

They are stripped of belongings,

Heads shaved and barcodes
Cruelly inked into their forearms.
Names replaced by numbers
Pride replaced by shame.
Dehumanised.

A man they call ‘the doctor’
Mauls the women’s breasts
And then selects
Rejects
Some to the left -
Some to the right.

Now they stand huddled in queues
A hundred at a time
Stripped and hopeful for a shower
They muddle in
They urinate and defecate in fear
As the cannisters release the pungent gas.

And now their bodies lie tangled

In piles of naked inhumanity
Shovelled into brutal ovens
As their ashes fall
Like snow upon the ground
Without a sound.

Hundreds of futures
Lost forever
And yet decades on
Many try to deny the Jewish holocaust
The naked truth
Must prevail. 

Thanks for reading. Please pass it on.

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Magical Creatures

When I think of furry little creatures I go a little bit squishy. I think of the characters that were so beautifully illustrated in the Beatrice Potter stories. Tom Kitten, Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkin: Surely the most adorable and best loved creatures in children's literature.

Naturally, in real life, farmers see many of these animals as pests. As a young girl I often saw little men in black velvet - better known as moles, fastened to barbed wire fences along the edges of fields. Boys on the school bus teased us, saying that the farmer put them there so cruelly to warn other moles to move on but of course moles are blind so it was a bad joke. The true reason for impaling the dead moles was to dry them out so that the skins were easier to remove. Farmers sewed them together to make warm lining for their coats. Living in the countryside can be very upsetting.

One small furry animal that I am particularly fond of is the hare. I have only been lucky enough to encounter a hare once, driving along a country lane late at night. The hare was running directly towards me and froze my headlights beam. It was a magical moment. What a noble creature. Long, black-tipped ears, a white tail and strong back legs. Brown hares either live solitary or in pairs. They are incredibly fast, running at up to 45 miles per hour when evading predators.

The Romans are credited with introducing brown hares to Britain more than 2,000 years ago. If we are to believe the story of the Iceni queen Boudica consulting the entrails of a hare as an augury of victory in her uprising against the Romans in AD61, the animals had established themselves quickly. The brown hare is now considered naturalised. Curiously they are not found in Scotland or the Scottish Islands. 

Unfortunately for this magnificent animal, it is considered game and the hare season begins on the so-called Glorious Twelfth of August, when it is acceptable to take to the mosaic fields of Britain and shoot them. Like all game, there are many ways to cook hare - jugged is the most traditional method. Although I have eaten rabbit, I have never been tempted to eat hare. I recently switched off a cooking programme on TV because the cook was using hare in a game pie recipe. I cannot understand it at all. It should be a crime to kill a hare. 

In hare mythology, the hare is a creature with pagan, sacred and mystic associations, by turns benign, cunning, romantic or, most famously, in its March courtship rituals, mad. It is largely silent, preferring to feed at night or, in summer, as the last light fades from the day, a shadowy existence which adds to its mysteriousness. 

In Alison Uttley’s Little Grey Rabbit stories the character of Hare is superior and strutting, occasionally pernickety, always aloof – a rendering for children of the animal’s natural reserve as well his appropriateness as a denizen of that world of aristocratic entitlement evoked by Sackville-West. For example, it is Hare who keeps Grey Rabbit up to scratch in the matter of housekeeping: “Where’s the milk, Grey Rabbit?” asked Hare. “We can’t drink tea without milk.”

As with so many forms of British wildlife, today’s hares are threatened by changing agricultural practice. Larger fields with a single cereal crop a year curtail hares’ year-round food supply while offering them diminished cover, and their forms – shallow depressions in the ground – offer limited shelter and, potentially, a degree of exposure and vulnerability. A survey in 2008 estimated current brown hare numbers in Britain in the region of 800,000, a figure which represents a consistent if gradual decline since the Sixties. Unlike rabbits, hares are resistant to myxomatosis and have suffered no equivalent cull.  

As with so many forms of British wildlife, today’s hares are threatened by changing agricultural practice. Larger fields with a single cereal crop a year curtail hares’ year-round food supply while offering them diminished cover, and their forms – shallow depressions in the ground – offer limited shelter and, potentially, a degree of exposure and vulnerability. A survey in 2008 estimated current brown hare numbers in Britain in the region of 800,000, a figure which represents a consistent if gradual decline since the Sixties. Unlike rabbits, hares are resistant to myxomatosis and have suffered no equivalent cull.

During the mating season hares have boxing matches, standing on their hind legs. It is a sight that I would love to see. 

Hares At Play

The birds are gone to bed; the cows are still,
And sheep lie panting on each old mole-hill;
And underneath the willow’s gray-green bough -
Like toil a resting - lies the fallow plough.
The timid hares throw daylight's fears away
On the lane’s road, to dust and dance and play
Then dabble in the grain, by nought deterred,
To lick the dewfall from the barley’s beard,
Then out they sturt again and round the hill
Like happy thoughts - dance - squat - and loiter still
Till milking maidens in the early morn
Gingle their yokes and sturt them in the corn;
Through well known beaten paths each nimbling hare
Sturts quick as fear - and seeks its hidden lair.

John Clare

Thanks for reading. Adele

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What really scares me?

I have  a fridge magnet that declares "You can't scare me - I have children," and it has more or less been my life mantra. I left my husband when the children were still small and I just had to cope with whatever the world threw at me. The truth is I have never been a nervous person. I spent ten years living in a 14th Century coaching inn that was purported to be haunted  and it never once crossed my mind that I might see a ghost. When I was a child I was more intrigued by the vastness of space than the paranormal. I read a few Dennis Wheatley novels and was convinced that I had amassed the necessary tools to deal with attacks by ghosts, ghouls and demons. 

I was nineteen when I awoke to find the figure of a small child in a long white robe at the foot of my bed.  She scared me a bit, especially as she was beckoning to me. Wherever she wanted me to go with her, I wasn't going, so I ran out of the room in fear for my life. I couldn't scream and when I burst into my parent's bedroom, I was unable to speak. That was my first paranormal encounter. There have been many more since. 

One afternoon, I was having lunch at a friend's house. I went along a short corridor to her downstairs loo and as I returned to the kitchen, I passed the open doorway to her dining room.  I saw a man walk across the room and disappear into the wall. When I returned to the kitchen, she said, "You are so pale. You look like you've seen a ghost." I told her about the apparition and she looked shocked.  Apparently both her and her husband were awoken by a loud noise the night before. They got up and checked to see whether one of their children was moving about but they were both fast asleep. What intrigues me the most about this episode is that my friend lived across the road from the local crematorium at the time. 

When my daughter was fourteen, we stayed over night in one of the coach houses at Muncaster Castle on Halloween.  Darkest Muncaster was a special event, the grounds were lit up with strange lights and ghostly holograms. It was very atmospheric. In the middle of the night, I was woken by a very loud male voice.  My daughter was sound asleep in the bed next to mine. She didn't hear it. I got up and looked around the accommodation, I even ventured outside in the dark cobbled courtyard but found nothing. The voice had called out a particular name. The next day we went to the Pennington family churchyard and discovered three graves with that same unusual name. Strange but true. I am drawn return to Muncaster. I believe that we have unfinished business. 

For the last thirteen nights, in preparation for Halloween, Really TV channel have been showing a series of paranormal investigation programmes called "thirteen nights of frights" and although I have seen and heard phenomenon first hand, I have always been sceptical, believing that these programmes are ridiculous. For example, how can a spirit make footsteps when it has no physical form.  I watched for a few nights hoping to witness something that might convince me that the so-called investigators are not complete charlatans.  One night the Most Haunted team filmed an "as live" vigil at Croxteth Hall in Liverpool, purported to be one of the most haunted buildings in England. There were several strange and unexplained phenomenon during the filming. I think that I am finally convinced.  

Most Haunted

A paranormal investigation

At the spooky Croxteth Hall
When they locked down and switched the lights off
Their skins began to crawl.
A poltergeist threw knives at them,
And a cradle rocked on its own,
A tennis ball bounced down a staircase,
A piano played alone.

But the scariest thing I have ever seen
Was a bed that turned onto its side,
In a room that was totally empty,
When the ghost hunters were outside.

It seems that the spirits who haunt there

Just want to be by themselves,
So they throw anything they can
The bottles and books from the shelves. 
I didn’t believe in spooks and ghouls
But what happened was surreal.
Its hard to ignore a haunting
When the evidence seems so real.

Thanks for reading.  Adele  

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Hexagons - A Bee Story

Bees are fascinating creatures. They pollinate plants to make them fertile. They produce wax. They turn pollen into honey. Yummy. Bees are beautiful.

Bees are also extremely clever. They make their own storage facility to deposit their honey. They produce honeycombs to store precious honey and lay their eggs. Honeycombs are made from wax hexagons. Have you ever considered why they chose to mould their wax into such a complicated shape?

Bees need to make cells to store their honey but they also need to be able to climb inside the cells. So why not make circular or triangular cells? Surely that would be easier. Well - consider a circular cell. When circles or cylinders are used to build a structure, the surface area that actually touches is very small. There are gaps and because they don't share much surface, the amount of wax used to produce a structure would be far greater. For the honey bee, producing wax is very energy intensive.

Bees need to build a structure that minimises the amount of wax they need to produce and a straight sided cell uses less energy. So why not build honeycomb with triangles? Consider the shape of a triangle. It narrows at the angles - this is not an easy shape to accommodate the bees body. The triangle would have to be bigger and use more energy consuming wax. 

So why chose a hexagon shaped cell?  During their evolution bees began to build hexagonal shaped cells in their honeycombs and there are several reasons.  Firstly the hexagon is a similar shape to a circle so it is a good shape to accommodate the bee's body, maximizing the volume of the cell. Secondly the six surfaces of the hexagon makes it strong, therefore the walls of the cell can be thinner. The hexagon has six flat sides that are shared with the adjoining cells, therefore less wax is required to produce the adjoining cells. As the energy needed to produce the wax is less, the bees have more energy to produce honey.

The hexagonal cell shape is structured in a way that several bees can work closely without overlapping. The construction of the hexagonal cells can be shared so that it becomes a building site with many bees working together, reducing the time and effort required to complete the structure. Oh what clever little bees.

Clever little honey bee,
Master of geometry,
Waxing cells in symmetry,
to store your pollen hoard.

Clever little honey bee,
Hexagonal assembly,
built for durability,
to store your honey gold.

Inspiring ingenuity,
A mathematic mystery,
Constructing your community.
Clever little honey bee.

Thanks for reading.  Adele

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Floor - get some wax on there please.

As a former competitive and more latterly professional ballroom dancer, I must confess to having a very keen interest in floors: More specifically ballroom floors.  A well waxed floor can make all the difference to glide, can affect how the choreography takes shape and more importantly in a marathon ten dance competition, whether a ballroom floor is sprung can greatly affect tiredness in the legs.

I have been privileged to dance on some of the best floors in the world, including The Tower Ballroom, The Hammersmith Palais and The Royal Albert Hall, which has an oval floor with high sides: A bit like dancing in a pit.  I have also danced on some of the most unusual floors. The floor at Matlock Bath is made of stone slabs and is merciless on the feet and legs. I was lucky when I competed there to have trained for over a year on a surface far worse. In 1968, my teacher Eric Lashbrooke, a former World Ballroom Champion, taught in an almost derelict church hall in Seacombe Ferry on The Wirral.  I complained bitterly to my father after the first lesson, that the floor had no polish, was grey in colour and was riddled with splinters. My wise Dad told me that if I learned to dance well on that floor, I would be able to dance well on Blackpool beach. He was right.

Unfortunately, unlike the fabulous sprung floor at The Tower Ballroom, the dance floor in The Empress Ballroom at Blackpool's Winter Gardens has seen better days. Constant assault by the pressure of steel heeled stilettos has pitted it badly. When the British Open Championships are hosted there in May each year, a temporary replacement floor has to be laid over the top.

In 1969 I was selected to dance in Switzerland with my partner David. In preparation for the tour, we had a weekend rehearsal at The Midland Hotel, Morecambe. The ballroom floor was probably a quarter average size. It was almost impossible for  six young couples to dance on such a small surface. We had to work hard to adjust our routines but it paid off the end.  All the floors in the casinos that we performed in had similar sized ballroom floors.

The Royal Albert Hall 

On another note, I once stayed in a London Hotel in a room on the 100th floor. It had an amazing view of course and I was perfectly happy until a large jet flew past, level with my window. I am sure that I could see the faces of the passengers on board and was relieved to be fully clothed at the time. I didn't get much sleep.

I had another interesting floor encounter at Universal Studios in Florida. The Tower of Terror is like a hotel. A lift attendant straps you in and then you are taken to the top floor. The doors slide open to show you the view and when they close, the lift drops 26 floors. It was not for the faint-hearted and I was extremely nervous because I have a serious neck condition. I remember shaking for at least half an hour and vowed never to go on a roller coaster again. Scary stuff.

What else is there to say about floors? Well - a woman went to a psychiatrist and told him that she had a fear of the floor. He laughed and said, "Why can't you be afraid of something sensible, like heights?"  She replied, "It's not the height that kills you - it's the floor."

The poem this week is from my Dance series.

Strictly Dancing

Come dance with me,
Feel the flow,
Ride the rhythm to and fro,
Draw me close,
Hold me tight,
Let our passion's fire ignite.

Twist and turn,
Lunge and soar,
Grind your hips until they're sore,
Take me up,
Drop me down,
Spin my body round and round.

Breathing deeply,
Rise and fall,
Toe to toe,
Heel and ball,
Staccato steps on parquet floor,
Quicken tempo,
More and more.

Parrup, Parrup,
Your tango beat,
Envelopes me from head to feet,
Then last crescendo,
warm and wet.
Come dance with me and make me sweat.

Thank you for reading. Adele

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Pantoum

I have never written a pantoum but have to rise to the challenge because it keeps the little grey cells working.  I had to scout around the net - Stephen Fry says nothing about this particular poetic form. I gather from my research that this type of poem has its roots in Malasyia but was adopted by French writers. It has a set pattern but doesn't need to rhyme - however if it does rhyme, that also has a set pattern.

OK. It sounds really complicated and I have a busy day ahead so here goes...

Dorothy’s Ninety  Eighth

Her ashes sprinkled on a blooming rose

She would be ninety eight years old today

Today we meet to honour her repose

And toast her in our long established way

She would be ninety eight years old today

And every year the family would convene
And toast her in our long established way
Our loving mother and our queen

And every year the family would convene

From far flung places they all came this way 
Our loving mother and our queen
So happy that we came to share her day

From far flung places they all came this way

Today we meet to honour her repose
So happy that we came to share her day
Her ashes sprinkled on a blooming rose.


Short and sweet - just like Mum. Thanks for reading. Adele

 

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Last desserts - wheel in the trolley!

I am not a big pudding fan. We had too many when I was younger. Thick sticky suet puddings were my Grandmother's speciality: Sticky apple dumpling, roly-poly, syrup pudding. My brothers were both 'fine strapping lads', the eldest a terrifically physical rugby player. His energy came from Nana's puddings, (and the half loaf consumed before most meals).

My mother was a great trifle maker.  Her sherry trifle contributed to an 'Egon Ronay' rating during her time catering at The Eagle & Child in the 1970s. I still make Mum's recipe once a year and it remains a family secret. There is less sugar in it now of course.

I don't really like puddings.  I always had a savoury palate, preferring cheese to chocolate, even as a child. I do indulge a little but gave up sugar for Lent several years ago and now find that most deserts are far too sweet. My mother's generation were starved of sugar during WW2.  Perhaps that is why they are so fond of the dessert trolley. When food rationing finally ended, seem to have lost most of their teeth. A new set of false ones gave both her and my father wonderful, everlasting smiles.

Two weeks ago, it seems like an age now, Mum overbalanced and broke her upper left femur. For me 'wheeling in the trolley' has taken on a completely different connotation. What follows is an account of our experience;

The NHS Nightmare before Christmas 2017

Friday 8^th December at approximately 3pm my 97 year old mother Dorothy Robinson, fell onto her rump, fracturing her left femur.  I managed to wheel a low chair around and got her settled, administered two paracetamol and called for an ambulance.  The paramedics were there within an hour.  She was at least warm and comfortable.  They did thorough checks, administered some morphine wheeled in a trolley with a stretcher and off we went to Victoria Hospital, Blackpool: Only a five minute journey from her home. We arrived at 17:05: In the next nine hours, we would both experience first hand,  more of the stress on the NHS than we ever thought possible.

On arrival at the hospital, her trolley was immediately stopped in the corridor while the attending ambulance crew waited to sign off her documentation. We waited in a freezing cold draft to hear that they would transfer her to a different trolley for x-ray, while she was waiting to go through triage.  The automatic doors in the corridor opened: Then they closed.  They freezing temperatures outside affected every one of the ten people who were in queued in various stages of distress, some in wheelchairs, elderly patients on trolleys, others in beds. After her x-ray, Mum was put back into the same corridor, a little further down but no less draughty.

Paramedics were cluttering the hallway too: At one point there were so many that I lost count.  There was one team of two overseeing the patients in the corridor, trying to keep everything tight but not everyone was getting the attention they needed. At around 7pm, a woman who was in the queue seated on a trolley, started to vomit into a grey bowl. No-one noticed.  I took the bowl from her walked to a paramedic and asked where the sluice was, asking also for another bowl for the young lady. I showed him the nasty brown contents. He said, “That is blood. Where is she?”  Over an hour later, I saw her again and removed a third bowl from her hands, filled with fresh blood. She had been seen by a doctor by then but was, once again, sitting on a trolley outside the treatment area: She was not in a cubicle.  Her skin was yellow ochre, probably liver failure.

Mum reached the automatic-door end of the corridor at around 7.30pm and needed to use a bedpan.  The nursing staff were courteous, wheeling her into a cubicle with a curtain to preserve her dignity.  They checked her admission time and despite having x-rays that showed a severe break in her femur, we were informed that she had only been at the hospital for 2 hours and there were others ahead of her in the queue.  Mum had still not been through triage: She was wheeled back into the corridor. By now she was so cold that I had to put my jacket over her feet. There were others in the corridor, on wheelchairs and trolleys, complaining that they were cold only to be told that there were no blankets available.  The wind howled through the automatic doors as they opened and closed every few minutes. Outside the temperature was well below zero.

Apart from my mother, there were three very elderly people in that corridor.  One was wheeled into the emergency room with several family members and was wheeled past us at around 10pm covered by a blue plastic cover, en route to the morgue. I am not saying that this death was caused by the delays.  Elderly people die.  I do however believe that they should not have to die in an Emergency Department at a hospital. My mother has a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ in place, ensuring that she can die with dignity in her own home or during any surgery. She witnessed the "crash team" spend 20 minutes trying to revive my father after a massive heart attack when he was 83. Her last moments with him were spoilt by the unnecessary intervention. They should both have been allowed to let him die with dignity.

By 11pm, Mum was in a cubicle, waiting to see the doctor.  I took the initiative and sourced some nappies, to stop the staff having to bring a bedpan. The corridor was still filled with new arrivals and very cold people still awaiting treatment. A man in his fifties, who was sitting in a wheelchair outside the triage cubicle area, began to vomit into a bowl.  I saw him vomit three times.  Nobody noticed but me.  Suddenly he was having a seizure in the wheelchair.  His face was turning blue and his head knocking on the back of the chair.  For a few minutes staff did nothing.  After several minutes doctors ran round shouting and wheeled him into the emergency room. I was grateful that Mum had nodded off. 

Mum was finally admitted to the orthopaedic ward at 2.30 am. She was scheduled for surgery early the next day and could not have food or drink.  Her blood pressure was very low and she was severely dehydrated.  It had been very difficult to get an intravenous line into her arm. It was over eleven hours since her fall. I had a sandwich and cup of tea at 7pm: A gift from a hospital volunteer.  While we were still in the corridor, I had heard two of the ambulance staff talking.  Although one team had been for a break, the others had not had a break.  I saw them the next day in the hospital café while I waited for Mum to come out of surgery.  They had worked a 12 hour shift without a break. No one in our NHS should be expected to work without adequate meal breaks: The wellbeing of their patients depends on high levels of concentration and clear decision-making.

The surgical team, the nursing staff on Ward 35, the physiotherapists, occupational therapists and the consultant were all wonderful.  The trauma of the Emergency Department is disgraceful, for patients, for hospital staff and for ambulance crews alike.  As a Nation we are becoming complacent with this government and their scathing cuts to our NHS. I appeal as an NHS user, as a British citizen and as the carer of a woman who built Wellington bombers in Blackpool during the WW2 to keep our country safe, “For God’s sake Teresa May – put the NHS emergency services at the top of your Christmas list and make it a New Year resolution that no-one should have to experience  The NHS Nightmare before Christmas again!”

 

I hope I never see a trolley again. 

 

Thanks for reading.  Adele  

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Surviellance - Five eyes.

The word surveillance comes from a French phrase for "watching over" - sur means "from above" and veiller is the verb "to watch." Surveillance (/sərˈveɪ.əns/ or /sərˈveɪləns/) is the monitoring of behaviour, activities, or other changing information for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting people. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras) or interception of electronically transmitted information (such as  or phone calls). It can also include simple no- or relatively low-technology methods such as human intelligence agents and postal interception.

OK Wikki - I get it. I understand what surveillance is. I understand the need for it in the modern world. We have to be protected from the bad guys. Surveillance is used by governments for intelligence gathering, prevention of crime, the protection of a process, person, group or object, or the investigation of crime. It is also used by criminal organisations to plan and commit crimes, such as robbery and kidnapping. And by businesses to gather intelligence. 

I have never been worried about being constantly monitored. I like to think that I am one of the good guys.  I have worked for several Government administrations since the late 1970's, so have always been bound by The Official Secrets Act but anyway, I live by the Ten rules prescribed to Moses, so I am unlikely to stray far from the pathway. I understand the need for Civil Liberties groups to work to protect the oppressed in Totalitarian regimes - I also understand why they try to curb the excesses of Western surveillance of our own people.  I cannot help but say that when we are monitoring people within our own borders, it is not without good cause for concern. Recent sting operations have saved many lives from planned terrorist attacks. Some have been executed to devastating effect. When they have - it has not been due to lack of effort on the part of our homeland security services.

In 1946, after the need for code-breaking at Bletchley Park, which served to bring early closure to the war with Germany, a new organisation came into being.  Five Eyes, (FVEY) was a multilateral agreement for cooperation in signals intelligence between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The origins of the FVEY can be traced back to the post- war period, when the Atlantic Charter was issued by the Allies to lay out their goals for a post-war world. During the course of the Cold War, the ECHELON surveillance system was initially developed by the FVEY to monitor the communications of the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. Third party arrangements were made in later years include other countries such as The Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and West Germany. A fictionalized Nine Eyes, with a different list of member states (including South Africa and China), was a key plot device in the 2015 film Spectre. The humour is not lost on me.

In 2013, documents leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the existence of numerous surveillance programs jointly operated by the Five Eyes.

• PRISM – Operated by the NSA together with the GCHQ and the ASD
• Tempora – Operated by the GCHQ with contributions from the NSA
• MUSCULAR – Operated by the GCHQ and the NSA
• STATEROOM – Operated by the ASD, CIA, CSE, GCHQ, and NSA

It was revealed that FVEY have monitored many prominent people whose behaviour might be subversive, including Charlie Chaplin, Nelson Mandela, Ali Khomeini, Jane Fonda, John Lennon, Diana Princess of Wales and even German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It is quite an eclectic list.

Despite being nearly 70 years old, very little is known about the alliance and the agreements that bind them. While the existence of the agreement has been noted in history books and references are often made to it as part of reporting on the intelligence agencies, there is little knowledge or understanding outside the services themselves of exactly what the arrangement comprises.

Even within the governments of the respective countries, which the intelligence agencies are meant to serve, there has historically been little appreciation for the extent of the arrangement. In fact, it is so secretive that no government officially acknowledged the arrangement by name until 1999. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden described the FVEY as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries". "I always feel like somebody's watching me!"

Five Eyes

Where do you go to my lovely

when you get out of you bed,
to slip into the shadows  
of the unknown web. 

I see your deception,
I know about the lies,
I see everything –
All the habits you disguise.

I know about your weakness.

The corruption in your art,
I know about the fury
that you carry in your heart.

I am watching very closely now,

I monitor your calls,
I see you through the cameras
embedded in your walls.

My satellites pursue you,

I follow where you lead,
My drones fly high above you,
record each breath you breath.

There is nothing you can do now,
I have you in my sights,
Think of me at bedtime
when you’re turning off your lights.


Thanks for reading.  Adele

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Outsider - why are we like this?

I have been following the news carefully over the past few weeks. I have a fondness for Spain, speak the language fairly well and have worked and holidayed on the mainland as well as  the Canaries. The current political unrest in Catalonia is of particular interest because Gaudi's Sagrada Familia and Casa Batllo in Barcelona, the Catalonian capital, are still on my to visit list.

  

 
 
The peaceful attempt by this distinct group in Spain to become independent has been met with a level of state brutality not experienced in Europe for decades. There are 1.6 million people living in the Catalonian municipality and they have always had a distinct culture and identity from their Spanish rulers. Spain has a very bloody past. During the Civil War, many British men (including poet WH Auden) went to fight against General Franco. The Catalan people experienced the terror of aerial bombardment by Franco's fascist allies - Hitler's Nazi regime.  
The massacre of the people of Guernica has been catalogued by in books, film and by Pablo Picasso, who was exiled from his beloved homeland. The painting 'Guernica' is a scene of horror. Unarmed innocents mown down by Luftwaffe attack. They, like the Jewish population in the rest of mainland Europe, were singled out because they were different.

This is a familiar tale. I was on honeymoon in Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, only weeks before the divided Bosnians and Serbs began their bloody war. The news reports coined the phrase 'Ethnic Cleansing', a term merely serving to damp down the truth of the genocide that was unfolding. This was one group of human beings, systematically trying to eliminate another. They were different from each other and eventually the differences became a badge, a symbol that led to acts of extreme violence.

This type of violence and hatred towards outsiders is nothing new. History tells us that the Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptians. Every powerful group that emerged in the evolution of humanity, (a laughable word in this context) has either enslaved and subjugated, expelled or massacred those who it views as different or weak. In my own lifetime there has been ethnic expulsion of Asians from Kenya and Uganda and ethnic slaughter in many other African nations.

Human beings naturally group together because of their similarities. We like people who share our views. We bond with workmates; form associations with like-minded individuals; we identify with others at our schools or Universities. This tribal instinct extends to faith, gender, sexual orientation but why does this kind of behaviour lead to discrimination. Why do people learn to hate and sometimes try to completely obliterate an another group.

Psychologist Henri Tajfel researched and developed social identity theory. Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s). Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world. In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong.  We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and holding prejudice views against the out group (the group we don’t belong to). We divide the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e. we put people into social groups).

This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them).  Social identity theory states that the in-group will discriminate against the out-group to enhance their self-image. The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image. Prejudiced views between cultures may result in racism; in its extreme forms, racism may result in genocide, such as occurred in Germany with the Jews, in Rwanda between the Hutus and Tutsis: there are unfortunately many modern examples. 

Henri Tajfel proposed that stereotyping is based on a normal cognitive process: the tendency to group things together. In doing so we tend to exaggerate:  
1. the differences between groups
2. the similarities of things in the same group.

We categorize people in the same way. We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as being different from the others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more similar than they are. Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality) which leads to in-groups and out-groups. 

Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that there are three mental processes involved in evaluating others as “us” or “them” (i.e. “in-group” and “out-group”. These take place in a particular order.

The first is categorization. We categorize objects in order to understand them and identify them. In a very similar way we categorize people (including ourselves) in order to understand the social environment.  We use social categories like black, white, Christian, Muslim, student and bus driver because they are useful. If we can assign people to a category then that tells us things about those people. We couldn't function in a normal manner without using these categories; i.e. in the context of the bus. Similarly, we find out things about ourselves by knowing what categories we belong to.  We define appropriate behaviour by reference to the norms of groups we belong to. You can only do this if you can tell who belongs to your group. An individual can belong to many different groups.

In the second stage, social identification, we adopt the identity of the group we have categorized ourselves as belonging to.  If for example you have categorized yourself as a student, the chances are you will adopt the identity of a student and begin to act in the ways you believe students act (and conform to the norms of the group).  There will be an emotional significance to your identification with a group and your self-esteem will become bound up with group membership.

The final stage is social comparison.  Once we have categorized ourselves as part of a group and have identified with that group we then tend to compare that group with other groups. If our self-esteem is to be maintained our group needs to compare favourably with other groups. This is critical to understanding prejudice, because once two groups identify themselves as rivals, they are forced to compete in order for the members to maintain their self-esteem. Competition and hostility between groups is not only a matter of competing for resources like jobs but also the result of competing identities.

In Social identity theory the group membership is not something foreign or artificial which is attached onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person. I don't believe that there is anything to be gained by trying to instil a different ideology or social identity on another group. In the end Moses asked of the Egyptian Pharaoh simply, "Let my people go." The bible story expounds the plagues that struck down the oppressor and the 'Passover' of their homes by the angel of death is one of the festivals central to their faith. 

But isn't that just a just a blame game? Don't we blame the 'out group' for all the problems that we may experience? Don't we blame them, exclude them and even try to expel them?  And doesn't that growing feeling of animosity lead some among us to commit hate crimes and acts of violence towards them? And them towards us? 

Hate is self-perpetuating but so is love. 

Me and Ma

They don't like us here,
We are not like them,
They killed my brother and my Pa.
We are leaving here - me and Ma.

Our home was built by my Great Grandpa,
We lived our lives,
We did no harm.
We are leaving here - me and Ma.

They burned our home,
Burned our village down,
All our crops destroyed.
We are leaving here  - me and Ma.

Through the hills we walk,
Through trails of mud,
As we walk - we cry.
We are leaving here - me and Ma.

This was our home,
Now we flee in fear.
We are not like them,
We are Rohingya.

We are not like them,
They don't want us here,
We are stateless now - me and Ma.
We are leaving here - leaving Myanmar.


Thank you for reading. Adele

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