The Emperor and Boris Johnson

Isn't it frustrating, the way you tend to forget your dreams the moment you wake up? (If you're one of the lucky few who don't, rest assured most of us do). One minute, there you were doing something you can't remember anything about except that it was vivid, surreal or intriguing, the next you're breathing the stale air of a slept-in bedroom and gazing at the sun filtering through the bedroom curtains, with nothing more exciting to look forward to than putting your socks on.

I looked into this a bit. I discovered that dream-researchers have determined that if, as you begin to drop off, you say, 'I want to remember my dreams' over and over a few times, it really does make you more likely to remember them. I was surprised to find it works.

I started to keep a dream diary. It quickly became obvious (to me, at least) that the act of doing this also helps you remember. I discovered, too, that like life itself, it's not for the faint-hearted. Dreams can be hilarious, but they can also be eerie and unnerving. One night you might bump into Donald Trump in a paper hat, sweeping the floor in a MacDonald's, the next, someone whose face you never see can take you on a journey through a dark place to meet a dead relative. If I'd not kept it up, though, I'd never have gone for a bike ride with Father Brown, lived in eighteenth century Scotland or got to push my son out of the way of an out-of-control tram.

One night in December 2021, the Prime Minister announced he was going to play Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, the Emperor. People might have a low opinion of him, he said, but wait till they heard it. They'd be impressed.

I was working as a school-teacher at the time (in the dream). Originally, it was said that he'd come to our school to perform it, but there was such an outcry that it would contravene covid regulations (which ones? Who knows? It was a dream) that this plan was dropped. Instead, he'd perform it at a local hall. At lunchtime, the children trooped off in a 'crocodile' to hear him. It was compulsory.

The sight of him plonked in front of a piano tickling the ivories is one I'll never forget. I didn't get to hear him play for very long, but it quickly became clear that his hand and finger movements were not co-ordinated with the sound of the music. He was pretending to play the concerto on a fake piano, playing along to a recording and hoping no-one would notice.

I kept the diary up for about six months. On the plus side, it lent purpose to the hours I spent in bed asleep. I looked forward to dropping off, wondering what I was going to be treated to each night. On the other hand, it was time-consuming and, although there were occasional insights, it began to feel as if I were accumulating a load of junk, stuff you have no use for but can't bring yourself to throw away. I'd been writing a lot of short stories and hoped the diary would be a source of ideas, but quickly discovered what I should've realised from the outset, that dreams and stories are structured very differently.

However, during the lockdowns in 2020, like lots of other people, I found myself exploring my local area. I'm pleased that I did. I have to admit, I started to notice things I'd not noticed before and now find it a far more richly interesting place than I used to. I started making short films about it with my mobile phone. One – the idea of a dream diary must've been brewing in my head at the time – was called: The Dream (<<< just click on the title to activate the hyperlink to YouTube.)

Thanks for reading, Dominic.

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The Second-Best Bed

So you’ve invited a new friend or the boss or perhaps a new girl or boyfriend round to your place for the first time. There’s a knock on the front door, you open the door and invite the person in and stand to the side attempting a look of humble modesty as they come in and stare at the huge and expensive bed right in the middle of your front room. Nowadays, of course, the person would probably edge back out of the front door and run for it.

But in the 1500s and early 1600s, the position of that bed would be considered completely normal according to Alexandra Hewitt of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. I’ve no idea but perhaps Anne Hathaway was (not literally) swept off her feet by this sight as in those days the best bed was placed in the most conspicuous of places. 

Why was this? Hewitt explains that costly beds were displayed on the ground floor that was usually used for business, dining, hosting, and leisure. Beds in this space were rarely slept in. In many urban middling and gentry homes, the parlour was the primary exhibition space. It was the main room in which to receive visitors. Much like displaying your new 55 inch tv, these beds were conspicuously positioned in places where friends, family, neighbours and visitors were most likely to see them. Only the most distinguished guests were permitted to sleep in such beds, and it is unlikely that they were used by the master and mistress of the household. They would have been more inclined to sleep in the second most expensive bed in the house - the second-best bed - usually positioned on an upper floor.

Shakespeare's second-best bed

Which brings me to the point of this article as it was well known that Shakespeare left his wife, Anne, the second best bed in his last Will and Testament. Lena Cowen Orlin, author of The Private Life of William Shakespeare (OUP) is one of the scholars who has questioned this viewpoint thus:

‘One of the Shakespeare myths is that we have proof he despised his wife: when he died, he left her nothing more than “my second-best bed.” Perhaps written at Shakespeare’s deathbed, the document was full of revisions and additions. It was thought that the original revealed two guilty secrets. First, the bequest to Anne Shakespeare was inserted like a grudging afterthought. Second, she received not a brown best bed but a second-best one.

It was suspected that with the bed Shakespeare disinherited Anne, as if he had cut her off with a shilling. This Shakespeare could not do. Dower law ensured that for the length of her life Anne received one-third of all income from the substantial properties the couple had purchased during their marriage. As other wills show, dower had to be invoked in order to be revoked and, by declining to mention it, Shakespeare let it stand.

Shakespeare's will

In the wills of his time, beds and their accoutrements appeared frequently and were often pictured in loving detail. Since Shakespeare does not describe the bedframe, mattress, sheets, pillows, or coverlet, his family undoubtedly already knew which bed he meant. A best bed might have a full headboard and a mattress stuffed with feathers, while the second bed would have a half-headboard and a mattress stuffed with flocks. Since best beds were reserved for guests, it could be that Shakespeare’s second-best bed was the marital bed.’

Adam Johnson from Heritage Will Writing reports that new scientific evidence produced on the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death including X-ray and infra-red analysis by a team from The National Archives has revealed that the clause was inserted a month before he died in April, 1616, aged 52. Experts believe this was a touching act of love by a man knowing he was dying. Specifically mentioning the second best bed where the couple slept together, made love and where his children were born is now seen by many scholars as a gift from the heart.

Anne Hathaway

'Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…’
(from Shakespeare’s will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love –
I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
as he held me upon that next best bed.

                                                                     Carol Ann Duffy

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Did you check under your bed?

Whether you believe in fairies or not, one should never take the chance. Because what if you're wrong? What if all those things are real? That as you sleep Trolls come and try to steal your breath, or monsters as big as your room come to feast on your eyes.

What if every nightmare you've ever had wasn't a dream, but just your way of remember what actually happen that night? Is it worth taking the chance? For five minutes of your life each night, is it worth risking your very soul?

Take heed of the lessons of old written in the texts of tales. Centuries have morphed them into children's stories, rhymes of amusement. Read them and remember their lessons, for these are not just fanciful yarns designed to induce imagined creatures dancing in the shadows of the fires light. These so called 'fairy tales' are a warning to anyone who will listen. 

As the night draws near and dusk begins to snuff out the days sun, remember to doubt what you think you know, take the safe option. 

Are your sure your windows and doors locked?  Are the draft cracks covered? and...

Did you check under your bed?

When you lie alone at night,

Just before your eye shut tight,

And the journey of your dreams takes flight.

Did you check under your bed?

Make sure the monsters aren't hiding there,

In-between boxes discarded without care,

Waiting to jump out to give you nightmares.

Did you check under your bed?

Using your torch the examine the corners,

For wee little beasties and nocturnal marauders,

Often found in the pages of horror authors.

Did you check under your bed?

That scratching sound is it a cat?

Or maybe a giant mutated rat?

Looking for a new habitat?

Did you check under your bed?

Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies and Demons,

Ghosts, Ghouls and creatures of legions,

You could be moments away from being eaten?

Always check under your bed!

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