Ancient Cities -- Bedrock

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

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

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

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

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

Cantuarian

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

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

This Cantuarian
This latitudinarian
Carried the stones
Of the Trinitarian

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

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

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

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

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

                               Lemn Sissay, OBE FRSL

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Laughter - The Best Medicine

 

“Laughter is the best medicine” is a well-known saying and it is true. We feel better after a good laugh and depending on the reason for the laughter, that good feeling can last. There’s a long list of benefits. This is just a few. Laughter protects the heart, boosts the immune system, triggers the release of endorphins and relaxes the whole body. It even burns calories, apparently.

We need something to laugh at and that is down to personal preference. What might be hilarious to some might be totally unfunny to others. Something happened when I was fourteen. I was on my own watching Steptoe and Son on television. I don’t remember the episode or anything about it, except really enjoying it and loudly laughing my head off when my father’s new wife came into the room. I think she said, “That’s so funny,” or something along those lines, but I’d shut up. I don’t know if I was embarrassed, self-conscious, or just a typical fourteen year old girl bereft of her mother and trying to adjust to changes. It was a turning point, an experience that’s stayed with me.

The first time I saw Billy Connolly in concert – Preston Guild Hall c.1974/5 – I laughed so much and for so long that I had to stop listening to him until I could breathe again. I missed the even funnier end to some stories because of the state I was in. I’ve seen him on stage a few times and he’s always had the same effect. Luckily, I have DVDs to fill in those important gaps. It’s my love for Scotland that goes beyond The Broons and Oor Wullie of my childhood, Billy Connolly for the last fifty years and Still Game more recently. There must be something Scottish in my DNA. Peter Kay gets to me, too. I haven’t seen him on stage, just television and DVDs of concerts. I’m also a survivor of a very long, very late and very funny midnight matinee with Ken Dodd. What a master of mirth.

Put me in a room with my niece and we will both be helpless with laughter in minutes. Add her mother, my sister into the mix and that laughter will only take seconds. If we’re at my house, I’ll be running squealing into the handy downstairs loo. If we happen to be out, they’ll sit me close to the ‘Ladies’. How thoughtful they both are. It’s just how we interact and what starts it often comes from nowhere, unless we’re reliving a previous event that had us in stitches on the ‘Do you remember when…’ memory lane.

Laughter has been in short supply lately. Life is a rollercoaster ride and there are too many dips at the moment. Things will improve. For now I think I need Billy Connolly at his best, some episodes of Steptoe and Son to remind me how far I’ve come and my niece and sister who share my craziness.

A poem from Muhammad Ali,

He took a few cups of love.
He took one tablespoon of patience,
One teaspoon of generosity,
One pint of kindness.
He took one quart of laughter,
One pinch of concern.
And then, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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This Bird Has Flown - Bless You, Billy

 

A recent episode of the new All Creatures Great and Small took me back to my childhood. The story included a blue budgerigar, left at the vet’s surgery for minor treatment, to be collected later by the owner, a blind lady. Spoiler alert – skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to know what happens. Sadly, the budgie chooses this excursion to fall off his ornithological perch, expired. Rather than give the lady bad news, the vet decides to replace her pet with another and is sure she won’t know the new budgie is a green one. The small detail of the blue one never singing and the green one being very chirpy was overlooked, otherwise all was well in the end.

One day when I was a young child, I came home from school to find a new addition to the family. In the sitting room, in a cage hooked on to one of those bird-stands, a pretty, pale blue budgerigar was tutting to its reflection in its own vanity mirror, head going side to side. I was in awe, it was so sweet and I loved it straight away. We named him Billy. My dad took charge of his care but showed me how to top up Billy’s seeds, give him fresh water and wedge a piece of cuttlefish shell between the bars of the cage to rub his beak on. I was thrilled to have another pet. We had a dog that liked his own company and a cat that was always pregnant or nursing kittens, so it was better to leave her alone. I could stand and talk to Billy, tell him about school and how I was doing. I was shocked to go to the cage after school one day and find a green budgie. My dad told me Billy had matured. He said all budgies started off blue and turned green into adulthood. Of course, I believed him I had no reason not to. Many years later the truth came out. Bless him for saving my tears. I have read that some types of budgies do change colour as their feathers are replaced, but this tends to be a shade darker, or a mix.

Lovely Billy, blue or green, long gone but remembered with fondness and All Creatures Great and Small gave me a happy memory.

Maya Angelou's Caged Bird

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

 

 

 

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