Not Such A Nice Surprise

Terror definition: extreme fear, dread, horror

And one of the worst feelings in the world.

I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve been terrified in my life. It might not be many, but every time was horrendous, some worse  - and more serious -than others.

The Lost Child Terror

Several times, I’ve lost my children in crowded places - only for seconds - but the terror that accompanies the realisation that you can’t spot your child is a feeling I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.  I’m sure every parent knows the awful panic that hits you like a blow in the stomach, relief coming instantly that blue bobble hat is seen, or that familiar high pitched voice is heard. 

The Unavailable Meds Terror

A couple of years ago, I spent two weeks in a state of constant abject terror - which sounds like an exaggeration.  It’s not.  The medication I’ve been on for nearly 40 years was suddenly unavailable.  Stopping it abruptly could have caused untold damage, both physically and mentally. The terror I felt, before I finally managed to access a source, was off the scale. Thankfully the problem was resolved and my mood reverted to its usual state of moderate anxiety.

The Horror Film Terror

I used to think I didn’t mind a horror film.  I’ve realised, after practically gouging a hole in my husband’s arm, that I really can’t deal with them.  Any tension whilst waiting for something awful to happen, I find unbearable.  I jump easily so have been known to emit a loud scream at a crucial point in the film - bad enough at home, as I dig my nails into my husband, but worse when we’re in a crowded cinema.  These days, I won’t watch anything mildly scary. Which leads me on to…..

The Shining Game Terror

My husband thinks it’s hilarious to make me jump.  To be honest, it doesn’t take much.  I once returned home, thinking nobody was in, and opened the lounge door to unexpectedly find my teenage son and his friend (who I’d never met) sitting on the floor.  I screamed so loudly and so long that I honestly think my son thought I was going mad.  I don’t know how he explained it to his friend, but I never saw him again (that’s the friend, not the son).  In the past, my husband has turned all the lights off and told me he was going to hide upstairs and jump out on me like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining.’  I told him, in no uncertain terms that if he did that, it would be the last thing he ever did.  He couldn’t understand my terror.  ‘But you know it’s only me,’ he said, looking puzzled.  It was the anticipation of the jumping out that sent me over the edge of terror. He doesn’t even suggest it now, although I’ve noticed he and the grandchildren seem to love a similar game that half scares them to death.

And finally…..

The Theme Park Ride Terror

I know many people love the adrenaline rush that comes from an extreme theme park ride or from watching a horror film. I’m game for many things but putting myself into a state of terror isn’t one of them. I can have enough terror in my life without seeking it out. Anything that involves climbing into a seat with a metal bar or an industrial type belt in preparation to fly up in the air or career down a steep, winding track is to avoided at all costs. 

Years ago I went to euro Disney with my mum, my children and their cousins. They all knew how much I hated any sort of theme park rides and were quite happy to go off on their own and frighten themselves to death, leaving me to sit quietly with the bags and coats and a nice hot brew.  However….. after a while one of the children came to tell me how much I would love a ride on some monstrosity called Space Mountain.  I assured them I was quite happy sitting drinking coffee. Another child came, then another, until I was pinned to the table by six excited children, desperate to get me on a ride. My daughter assured me it wasn’t scary, in fact, I would like it. I didn’t believe that for one minute, but stupidly I began to weaken. ‘How bad could it be?’ I asked myself. However bad it was, it would be over in seconds, surely? 

I allowed myself to be accompanied, or more accurately, frogmarched, towards Space Mountain, an innocuous-looking structure from the outside.  I began to relax a little.  Inside, in the dim light, still surrounded by my bodyguards, I realised there was quite a queue - and plenty of time to get nervous again.  The first waves of panic hit me as I saw a large sign on the wall, warning that this wasn’t the ride for anybody who was pregnant (no), had a heart condition (no, but I was beginning to feel that I might have a heart attack any minute) or ‘of a nervous disposition’ (yes, YES!)  I think I might have whimpered at that point. My daughter assured me that they only put up those notices to cover themselves. I wasn’t convinced.  The loudspeaker was now reiterating the warning messages.  I needed to turn back but there was a long queue behind us and the entrance was blocked. My daughter took my hand. 

‘You’ll be fine, mum,’ she said, ‘granddad went on it and he’s old. He loved it.’ 

I plodded on towards my fate, heart pumping, stomach churning, mouth dry, fear in my eyes. All classic symptoms of terror. It’s the fight or flight syndrome. I felt unable to do either. 

Eventually we reached the front of the queue and I was half pushed, half lifted into the seat next to my daughter. The whole thing tipped back so that our backs were parallel with the ground and our legs in the air. I gave a little involuntary scream. ‘Mum, it’s fine!’ My daughter hissed, ‘we haven’t started yet!’ 

The lights went out. It was pitch black. I groaned resignedly, and clutched the bar pinning me in.  Without warning, we shot up in the air at the speed of light! I screamed. Very very loudly. Possibly the loudest scream I’d ever emitted. We continued to shoot straight up, my scream accompanying us in one long wail. My daughter sought out my hand and held onto it.  My mind tried to process what was happening. All I could think was, ‘this is worse than childbirth,’ which at the time was probably one of the worst experiences I’d ever endured.  I stopped screaming. This experience was so horrendous it had actually silenced me.  I could hear my daughter’s voice, sounding worried but I couldn’t answer. ‘Mum? MUM??’ 

My eyes were firmly clenched together, as were my teeth. My knuckles must have been white. Every muscle in my body was tensed with terrified anticipation, every nerve screeched ‘abort abort!!’  We continued upwards, my thoughts still on the horrors of childbirth, and how it would be a blessed relief to be in labour right now.  If I remember rightly (I’ve blanked much of it out), we flew in every direction, rising and plummeting, twisting and turning, and all at a speed I could never have contemplated. I honestly thought I was about to suffer a heart attack. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, we began to slow. We came to a halt by a wooden platform, where an assistant raised the bar, grabbed my hand and pulled me out. He looked at me worriedly and asked if I was all right. I still couldn’t speak, but in answer, shook my head. I walked, like a zombie, towards the exit, my daughter running to keep up behind me.  Mum? Mum? Are you ok? Your face is green! Mum?’ 

I turned and stared at her, ‘Don’t you ever - EVER - try and get me on anything like this again.’  I said through gritted teeth. She nodded sheepishly.  ‘That was the worst experience of my life.’  I didn’t mention childbirth - she’d find out for herself one day. 

‘The worst,’ she said quietly, ‘was when you stopped screaming. I honestly thought you were dead.’ 

‘So did I,’ I replied, heading for the nearest cafe. 

This week’s poem is partly based on an incident with my grandson when he was younger.  He’s always had issues and phobias around certain foods.  As he’s got older and I’ve discussed it with him, I’ve realised that he experiences true terror even being in the vicinity of foods with specific textures. So this is for Rio, who is a lot better than he used to be, but still has to leave the room whilst I eat a yogurt. 

 Not Such a Nice Surprise by Jill Reidy

Grandma checks the texture

Pops a plate atop the mould 

In one swift move

Turns the whole lot upside down

Gives a shake  

That sends ripples down her body

Grandchild waiting for the great reveal 

Stands on tiptoe,  

Watches grandma’s fleshy under arms 

Swing back and forth   

He laughs

Anticipation mounts  

Grandma said a nice surprise

She places plate with mould upon the table

stands back 

Smiles at grandchild

And with a flourish

Removes the mould 

Pink blancmange in blurred bunny shape 

sits proudly on the plate 

Still shaking from the exit from it’s casing 

perhaps two seconds pass

Whilst grandma glances back and forth 

‘Tween child’s and bunny’s eyes

She smiles 

Grandchild gives a piercing scream

Runs from the room 

Sobbing loudly 

Mum says later, 

you know he has all these funny things with food? 

All these phobias 

With terrified reactions? 

He’s scared to death - 

Grandma stifles a sigh 

It’s a rabbit 

A pink blancmange rabbit - 

I don’t care what it is, says mum

He’s scared stiff of blancmange 

Or anything that texture

Custard, mayonnaise, yogurt, tomato sauce 

Even, sometimes, ice cream 

Remember that time, in Sainsbury’s? 

Where the yogurt spilt 

All down his trainers 

And I had to take him out? 

Calm him down? 

Grandma rolls her eyes and starts to speak

Mum stops her with a look 

She watches grandma scrape the rabbit

Still quivering, into the bin

It’s ok You can come back now 

She shouts into the hall

It’s safe 

Thanks for reading…….Jill 

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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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Wanderlust - Travelling Eternity Road

Like everyone else I’ve been at home for months with little prospect of going anywhere. Luckily, I don’t mind. I’m happy and safe at home, or at my place of work for a couple of days a week. Over time, I’ve become so contented at home that I dread going out to anywhere busy. Social media showed pictures of Blackpool taken this Bank Holiday weekend of the crowded promenade, not a face-mask in sight. I don’t see the resort as getting back on its feet after lockdown, I just see fear, but that’s my problem to overcome. In a few weeks I will be travelling over the border into my beloved Dumfries & Galloway and our home from home – pandemic permitting. I’ll be fine, doing my own thing, keeping to my own space and allowing my wanderlust to take me into Galloway Forest and the quiet, hidden beaches along the Solway Firth. I will have plenty of face-masks.

My photo: somewhere on the west coast of South Uist

I wish we had a motor home or a camper van. In my wanderlust dreams I pack it with everything we need and set off, northbound, stopping wherever the fancy takes us, then destination, the Outer Hebrides. It is another world. We could stay as long as we like and be more relaxed about it. Up to now, our trips have been governed by annual leave and it isn’t long enough, even with a bank holiday tagged on the end. Things will change soon. Time will be our own and we’ll be able to just go for it – pandemic, lockdown and personal worries aside.

Back in the good old days when The Moody Blues did a UK tour, we’d be with them, going to places we otherwise wouldn’t go. I suppose that was a form of wanderlust, even though we booked everything in advance and knew exactly where we were going and for how long. We were ‘Travelling Eternity Road’ if you like, including Manchester Apollo, or now I think it is called O2, we would drive home from there; London would be part of a sight-seeing holiday, Birmingham, got to be in their home city, often where the last concert would be, and anywhere else we could factor in. Lots of concerts over many years. It was always worth it.

If I felt ready to mingle with the rest of society, I would have travelled to Wembley, supporting Blackpool F.C. in their successful play-off final against Lincoln City. Instead, I watched on TV at home. Feeling stressed and holding my breath for the most of ninety-odd minutes isn’t healthy. In my house there were shrieks, screams, tears and much applause. The neighbours knew we were home.

I found this, by Alfred Joyce Kilmer:

Roofs
(For Amelia Josephine Burr)

The road is wide and the stars are out
and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face,
And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling place.

I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to roam
All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home:
The tramp who slept in your barn last night and left at break of day
Will wander only until he finds another place to stay.

A gypsy-man will sleep in his cart with canvas overhead;
Or else he'll go into his tent when it is time for bed.
He'll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high,
But when it is dark he wants a roof to keep away the sky.

If you call a gypsy a vagabond, I think you do him wrong,
For he never goes a-travelling but he takes his home along.
And the only reason a road is good, as every wanderer knows,
Is just because of the homes, the homes, the homes to which it goes.

They say that life is a highway and its milestones are the years,
And now and then there's a toll-gate where you buy your way with tears.
It's a rough road and a steep road and it stretches broad and far,
But at last it leads to a golden Town where golden Houses are.

                                                                     Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886 - 1918)

Thanks for reading, take care if you're out there, Pam x

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On the Doorstep - Stretford 1958

Stretford, 1958, me, my mum, my nanna and my great grandmother, Nanna Polly grouped together for a family photograph on the doorstep of Nanna Polly’s house. I can remember being shuffled about to place everyone exactly right, and wearing my beautiful dress made by my other nanna. Our four generations, never to happen again, which makes the photograph all the more special.  Nanna Polly passed away the following year then ten years later my mum died which broke the links in the chain.

It has been a year of everything being placed on our doorstep, quite literally.  On a personal level, Covid 19 changed the way we live and the way we shop. We’ve done grocery shopping online for years. This has increased to the, butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, or that’s how it sometimes seems.

The first lockdown brought me fear and worry as we stayed at home, shielding from the outside world. One day, there was a wonderful surprise that started with a message from our niece.

“I bet you a million pounds there’s a shoebox outside your front door.”

What? Of course, I went to look. On the doorstep was a shoebox, with a note wishing us well and hoping we enjoy the contents. It was jam packed – including jam – with all the tasty goodies to put together an afternoon tea with lots of extra treats.

I was overwhelmed. Our niece, a busy NHS frontline worker, adored by us all, had gone to such trouble to make us this fantastic gift which was very welcome. I didn’t see her or hear her drive away. What a special lady, our angel. I think she made one for her mum, too. If you’re reading this, Jo, we salute you.

Good old Amazon, I couldn’t have managed Christmas without you. Day after day, another parcel delivered and placed on the doorstep as I organised gifts for the family and planned some sort of socially distanced Christmas Dinner at our house.

I’m the only survivor of my four generations.  I’m in awe of the strength of character my nanna and great grandmother must have had to endure two world wars and all the hardship and heart break that life threw at them. Both of them lost children in infancy. My great grandmother was only twenty-seven when she was widowed and lost her five year old daughter all within a fortnight.  I’m proud to be standing on that doorstep, surrounded by their love. I hope they’ve passed some of their northern grit down to me.

I found this poem by Thomas Hardy,

On the Doorstep
The rain imprinted the step’s wet shine
With target-circles that quivered and crossed
As I was leaving this porch of mine;
When from within there swelled and paused
A song’s sweet note;
And back I turned, and thought,
“Here I’ll abide.”

The step shines wet beneath the rain,
Which prints its circles as heretofore;
I watch them from the porch again,
But no song-notes within the door
Now call to me
To shun the dripping lea
And forth I stride.

Thomas Hardy, written in January, 1914 – and I wanted to add, ‘Yep, out you go!’

(If you remember the photo, apologies for using it again, though it was ages ago.)

Thanks for reading, stay safe, Pam x

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Growing Pains - Back to School

Fear gripped me. Mid-dream and half asleep, I slipped out of bed in response to the screaming child in the next room. I tried to hurry, but my heart was pounding out of my chest, I could hardly catch my breath and my legs wouldn’t move properly.

He sat upright, wide eyes staring straight ahead at something scary, mouth open, continuous screaming. He was otherwise quite still.  I wrapped my arms around him, stroked his silky hair, made soothing noises and rocked him gently.  Night terrors, bless him, my little son. They continued for a while and terrified me more than him. I never got used to it happening and never found a proper reason.  He wouldn’t know anything about it, but my night was disturbed and my head filled with indescribable horrors that prevented me getting back to sleep long after he was settled.  He was about three years old, maybe only two and a half.  Perhaps his brain was working overtime, the events of his busy day filling his head with all sorts. Maybe it was a form of growing pains. He soon grew out of it. Later this week he will be thirty.  I am proud of him, and myself for getting something right along the way.

My daughter’s growing pains were physical and very real. Again, it was a night time thing, but she was older and could yell out that her legs were hurting. Double Calpol and lots of rubbing did the trick. She could settle back to sleep. I would be wide awake. I thought ‘growing pains’ was something made up, but our doctor was certain that was her ailment and she would grow out of it. She has.

At last, children have been able to return to school. It’s been too long a break, six months for most infants. I’m confident that schools are as safe as they can possibly be and I’m delighted to see my eldest grandson happy in his reception class where he is in the process of moving to Year 1. He loves school so much, it was awful to have it taken away from him. He understood about the ‘germs’ and needing to protect each other, but he missed everything. I enjoyed playing games, reading to him and doing little lessons to keep him on track with what he had learned so far, but as time went on, he needed the dynamics of his teacher, the surroundings of his inspirational classroom and to socialise with his friends.  He proudly tells me he is in the Giraffe ‘bubble’ and they do everything together. He’s happy. I hope all the children are, especially anyone who has been feeling unhappy in these difficult times.  Lockdown has brought plenty of invisible growing pains.

One of my favourite wordsmiths and fellow Mancunian, Mike Garry,

Signify

I called her Mam once

Sat on the carpet

With arms folded and legs crossed

Fingers on my lips

In that special place

She would eclipse

Where she'd read me poems

Tell me tales

Sing me songs

And like a fish to it's source

I'd be drawn in

I loved the way she'd hold the book

So that I could see the pictures

And the way she'd slowly move it from side to side

So that the naughty kids at the back could see

She told us we were allowed to dream

She got us to act out plays

I remember doing Finnegan's Wake

Told us about Shaw, Shakespeare and Joyce and Yeats

I was eight

But in that classroom her voice was sweet music

Echoing prayer and hymn

Story and songs

She was a living angel

But you'd know if you'd done wrong

She took us on school trips

To castles with moats across oceans with boats

And we would float

Without ever leaving the room

Loved the way she made the simple act of reading of the class register

Sound like the most beautiful song tune

Simply by the way she'd validate childrens names by saying

Katherine

Theresa

Patricia and James

Sometimes she'd get me to close my eyes

Imagine worlds beyond the sky

She told me one

"Michael, It's alright to cry"

And her eyes were seaside blue sunshine

But in that rainy, 1970's black and white Moss Side

Where my messed up life would disappear

The very second she walked into the room

She made my insignificant life

Signify

And she taught me that the more I read the more I see

The more I see the more I know

The more I know that more I grow

The more I grow the more I am

And I would give the world and all its riches

To simply hold that woman's hand one more time

And say thanks

"Thanks"

Mike Garry

Thank for reading, Pam x

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Truth - Be Honest

I overheard something at my mother’s funeral. Fifty years have passed and the words still hurt.

“Poor Sheila, so young. Still, she lasted longer than we thought.”

My auntie, dabbing her eyes, was holding court with other relatives outside Carleton Crematorium Chapel. I can’t remember if it was before or after the service, not that it matters. Nothing mattered, except the deep deception that cut through my very soul. All these people, family and friends of the family had known that my mother was terminally ill, yet they had spent the last however many months speaking to me along the lines of, “When Mummy’s better…”, “When your mum is better…”, “When Sheila gets over this…”.   At nearly fourteen years of age I was old enough to ‘be grown up about all this’, but not considered to be old enough to be included in what was happening or given a chance to say goodbye. I was shattered. I had believed I was secure in a close-knit family. Everybody was hiding the truth.

Well, not quite everybody. My nanna was honest without actually coming out with the words. She was looking after us, my sister and me. Our family ran pubs and we were staying out of town at their pub, rather than ours. I adored my nanna, she was my rock. I wouldn’t usually have stepped out of line with her for the world. There was much love, respect but also a tiny bit of fear because I expected she could be even angrier than my mum if she was cross with me. I don’t know where it came from, but for the one and only time in my life, I gave her a glimpse of my 'stroppy madam' mood and I answered her back. I don’t remember what was said between us or why but I regretted it immediately and braced myself for a slap. It didn’t come. Instead, she hugged me tight and I cried. Tears for being rude to my lovely nanna and tears for worrying about my mum.

“Where there’s life, there’s hope.” Nanna’s words spoke volumes. Sheila, my mum was her daughter. Nanna had already suffered the loss of a daughter, a child, before my mum was born. I wish I had half of her northern grit.

What I overheard at my mum’s funeral taught me about truth and about compassion. My relatives wanted to protect me, though deceiving me into false security was the outcome. It was with the best of intention, I can understand that. My importance of honesty in life-threatening situations is borne of that experience.

 My husband was very ill when our son was about twelve, maybe thirteen. The illness seemed never ending. He was in hospital for months, no diagnosis, no improvement. I’m sure our son thought long and hard before asking me if Dad was going to die. The situation was on his mind more than I realised.  I told him with total honesty, that until it was discovered what was wrong, we didn’t know what would happen, but we hoped Dad would pull through and I promised, I would always tell him the truth. My husband recovered, eventually, thank goodness. My children appreciated the truth.

 

A poem from Muhammad Ali,

 

The face of truth is open.

The eyes of truth are bright,

The lips of truth are ever closed,

The head of truth is upright.

 

The breast of truth stands forward,

The gaze of truth is straight,

Truth has neither fear nor doubt

Truth has patience to wait.

 

The words of truth are touching,

The voice of truth is deep,

The law of truth is simple:

All that you sow you reap.

 

The soul of truth is flaming,

The heart of truth is warm,

The mind of truth is clear,

And firm through rain or storm.

 

Facts are but its shadows,

Truth stands above all sin,

Great be the battle in life,

Truth in the end shall win.

 

The image of truth is Christ,

Wisdom's message its rod;

Sign of truth is the cross,

Soul of truth is God/

 

Life of truth is eternal,

Immortal is its past.

Power of truth will endure,

Truth shall hold to the last.

 

Muhammad Ali  (1942 - 2016)

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

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What Really Scares Me - It's The Dark!

What really scares me? Well, apart from mundane worries about growing old, having enough money to live on and what the future holds for the next generations, I have to say it is ‘the dark’ and horrors from my own imagination.

I remember feeling very scared of the darkness at the top of the stairs in my great-grandmother’s house, and waking up into pitch black when we stayed overnight there. My mother soothed me, put a light on and settled down beside me.  My great-grandmother passed away sixty years ago but the memory remains and so does my fear of the dark.

There was the time when I got locked in at work. It was a cold, wet, winter tea time, a long time ago, decades before mobile phones. I was upstairs in the office of a small department store, just gathering my things and getting ready to go when the low buzzing of fluorescent strips ceased and I was plunged into silent darkness. The last person to leave would turn off the lights with the main power switch, situated next to the door. No chance to shout, not that I would have been heard on the ground floor anyway, but I was literally frozen to the spot with fear. I had keys, but I couldn’t bring myself to try to negotiate my way out of the office and through racks and rails of clothing and merchandise that filled the top floor. As my eyes adjusted to a small glow of street-light coming through the tiny window, I could see the telephone. Luckily, I knew the home number of the person who had locked me in. With a trembling finger I managed to feel my way round the dial and sob my dilemma to his wife, who knew me well and kept me company on the phone until her husband got home then set off straight back to release me. No harm done, but it was very scary at the time.

Then there was the last ghost hunt my friend and I went on, and oh my, I was so scared that we haven’t been on any others, up to now. This was at the Spanish Hall in the Winter Gardens, something we had looked forward to for ages, after the fun we’d had at the Grand Theatre. It was semi-dark, but we had torches and we were in a group, though everyone had spread out into different rooms and areas. I was coping with the dark and with the odd things we kept hearing. We had a medium with us a lot of the time, though I confess, I don’t believe everything I’m told, I like to work things out for myself.  My friend and I went into a dressing room somewhere back-stage in the Spanish Hall theatre.  We sat down, my friend on my right. I felt something at my left, but no one was there. The presence became strong, so strong that I was too scared to look, but many times since, I wish I had.

I’m used to staying at the lodge we go to in Dumfries & Galloway, but the first time we went, the darkness, or rather, my imagination outside late at night, scared the life out of me. I was taking our dog out on my own for his last little walk before bed. I had my torch, a dim outside light on the lodge veranda and a sky full of stars. I was shining the torch on my dog and the path immediately in front of me when my mind started giving me horrors. I was sure I’d see the feet of someone facing me. I didn’t dare to shine it on the trees, terrified by what might be hanging there. I worked myself into a blind panic rushed back to the safety of the lodge, only a few steps away, before anyone could grab me. These days, confident that our dog won’t venture any further than the first tree, we watch from the veranda and let him go by himself. Maybe seeing ‘The Abominable Snowman’ when I was eleven has affected me for life.

 

 

This is my own poem,

 

 

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

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone. Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Mask - Take Them Away

Masks are scary. I don’t like them at all, not even when they are meant to be fun like the ones of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Gareth Southgate and more recently, Donald Trump. I just find them sinister and I expect it stems from my childhood.

My father’s brother worked in Nigeria for a few years, late 1940s and early 1950s. Our family had lots of African bits and pieces he had brought on visits. Most of it is lost now but my sister still has a pair of beautiful occasional tables. One of the items thankfully lost, is a large, wooden Nigerian mask which was a gift to my father. It was plain, just black with eye holes and no decoration.  My father hung it on the office wall of which ever pub we were living in, probably because my mother wouldn’t have it anywhere else. It was horrible and scared the living daylights out of me. There was another one, almost the same and just as frightening, on my uncle’s bedroom wall at my grandparent’s house. In Africa they have a purpose. Masks are worn, or were once worn in certain rituals and they had a meaning. They weren’t made for décor. Some are quite ornate and more fierce looking than others, depending on what spirits they were designed to fight off.

The ‘Scream’ mask terrified me when I saw the film, but not as much as the V for Vendetta which is too creepy. The worst, by far is Hannibal Lecter’s lower face mask in The Silence of the Lambs. Although it looks nothing like our Nigerian one, something fearful reminds me of it.

Hallowe’en usually brings a constant stream of small vampires, witches and ghosts to my door. Last October there was a new trend of scary clowns like Stephen King’s ‘It’, wearing masks of the character. Ugh!

And the nips and tucks on real faces, trusting a surgeon with an extra-fine, extra-sharp scalpel. So many face-lifts end up looking like a mask. Too much Botox gives a startled, unchangeable expression. Sometimes, when I glance in the mirror and see the reflection of a much older woman, it is more frightening than all of these horrid masks. I can’t possibly have earned so many facial creases, not yet. I’ll learn to embrace these ‘over 60s’ dips and folds. For me, surgery is for a life or death situation.

I found these two poems, Dylan Thomas, making me wish I had a mask to hide behind sometimes, and Sylvia Plath, another favourite.

 

O Make Me A Mask

by Dylan Thomas

 O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies

Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws

Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of my face,

Gag of dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies

The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece,

The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet of lies,

Shaped in old armour and oak the countenance of a dunce

To shield the glistening brain and blunt the examiners,

And a tear-stained widower grief drooped from the lashes

To veil belladonna and let the dry eyes perceive

Others betray the lamenting lies of their losses

By the curve of the nude mouth or the laugh up the sleeve.

 

 

Face Lift

by Sylvia Plath

 You bring me good news from the clinic,

Whipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight white

Mummy-cloths, smiling: I'm all right.

When I was nine, a lime-green anesthetist

Fed me banana-gas through a frog mask.
 The nauseous vault

Boomed with bad dreams and the Jovian voices of surgeons.

Then mother swam up, holding a tin basin.

O I was sick.

They've changed all that.
 Traveling

Nude as Cleopatra in my well-boiled hospital shift,

Fizzy with sedatives and unusually humorous,

I roll to an anteroom where a kind man

Fists my fingers for me.
 He makes me feel something precious

Is leaking from the finger-vents.
 At the count of two,

Darkness wipes me out like chalk on a blackboard.
 .
 .

I don't know a thing.

For five days I lie in secret,

Tapped like a cask, the years draining into my pillow.

Even my best friend thinks I'm in the country.

Skin doesn't have roots, it peels away easy as paper.

When I grin, the stitches tauten.
 I grow backward.
 I'm twenty,

Broody and in long skirts on my first husband's sofa, my fingers

Buried in the lambswool of the dead poodle;

I hadn't a cat yet.

 

Now she's done for, the dewlapped lady

I watched settle, line by line, in my mirror—

Old sock-face, sagged on a darning egg.

They've trapped her in some laboratory jar.

Let her die there, or wither incessantly for the next fifty years,

Nodding and rocking and fingering her thin hair.

Mother to myself, I wake swaddled in gauze,

Pink and smooth as a baby.

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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