Hell's Bells

Being retired, I no longer have any pressing need to ever set an alarm to wake me from reluctant sleep - except on a Sunday, when I rise at (to me) the unearthly hour of just before 8, to get ready for my “Sunday morning job”. By 8.30, I am driving through on blissfully traffic free roads to my first ‘job’ at The Minster in Preston. As usual, the car park is busy with various young people disgorging large pieces of musical equipment from cars – and not just drums and guitars, but also all the paraphernalia associated with any Rock Band.

It promises to be another noisy, exuberant, and joyous morning of worship and my role, with the other dedicated members of my bellringing band, is to help to kick start the proceedings with our version of ‘rocking the church’ with a spot of ringing the bells. Only we don’t have to unload our equipment – our equipment is high up in the tower, which yes, will rock, ever so slightly when we get going.

Preston Minster

As we start to ‘ring up’ the bell, sometimes, not always in the right order (and I am usually to blame), I console myself with knowing that most of the local community cannot tell the difference between some basic rounds and call changes and the more complicated stuff that we ring for them. For I am on my ‘Sunday best’ attempt and ringing to the best of my ability, because what we ring is not the issue – the fact that we ring at all is what matters. We ring for the church and for ourselves and to call out to the congregation that the service will soon be starting, even though most of us are not part of the regular congregation, partly because as soon as we end our stint at The Minster, it’s straight off to the next tower to ring for their service.

If you hear the bells ring out on a Sunday, don’t be under the illusion, as I was, that it just happens. My first introduction to bellringing was when I happened to be walking past my local church one Monday evening just as they were ending their weekly practice and I went to investigate. With some confidence as a past violinist and flautist, I joined the band the following week, and echoing the sentiments of Jack Wooley of The Archers radio series, thought “after all, how hard can it be, ringing a few bells?”

The answer is "very hard indeed.” Within the first 10 minutes, I learned that becoming competent at bellringing has nothing to do with any prior knowledge of music other than an ability to perhaps pick out the sound of one bell from the cacophony of clanging. Indeed it takes weeks and months of practice just to master the basics of controlling a bell enough to stay roughly in sequence. Patting your head, rubbing your tummy, whilst standing on one leg and whistling the national anthem backwards is child’s play compared to ringing a bell.

I acknowledge that compared to most who aspire to competence as ringers, I am an extremely slow learner, still mooching around in the slow lane, often at completely at a standstill, while other newer learners whizz by me and are well on their way to mastering the challenging stuff. For me, it has been my dogged determination that has kept me going for so long. After eight years, I am still hanging on in there, on the end of a rope, chugging along, doing my best, taking part, and finding enjoyment and personal satisfaction in mastering the basics.

I can’t think of any other pastime I have undertaken that I have pursued for so long, despite long times of no noticeable improvement before managing to ring something passably. Perhaps it is the generosity and steadfast support from my fellow, far abler ringers, who I am surprised still accepting me into their fold – and this isn’t just at my home tower, but at all the others I have been to. From a laconic “well that wasn’t too bad, was it” which is high praise indeed, to a “quiet well done” accompanied by a surprised raised eyebrow, there has been as much joy from them as from myself when things have gone well. I am just grateful that in y despondent periods. when I have wobbled and wondered what folly it is to continue to pursue the elusive dream of that perfect round of a Plain Hunt peal, they have been consistent in their encouragement.

Individual motives to ring all differ slightly, but none of us is in it purely for personal gratification. We are happy to share our passion when called on by the community and ring out the bells at weddings, funerals and the annual Remembrance Sunday which brings an added layer of work to the already pressed ringers as the bells need to be ‘muffled’ as a sign of respect.

a set of muffles

‘Muffles’ are thick hand-sized leather pads, resembling one half of a pair of castanets, and are attached with straps to a bell's clapper to reduce the volume. The effect is to deaden the bell's strike note, while retaining the hum. They are only fitted to one side of the clapper and so when the bell is struck, there is an 'echo' effect as the bell strikes are alternately loud and soft.

When the bells are fitted with muffles in this way are said to be half-muffled – and the only time when they are fully ‘muffed’ is when the reigning monarch passes away. Fitting them isn’t an easy job – as I witnessed first-hand. I had wondered why our Tower Captain, who usually comes casually but cleanly dressed, had arrived wearing clothes that looked as if they had seen better days. There was a reason – a belfry, while dry, is a dirty and dusty place where copious cobwebs new and old abound, not to mention possible pigeon poo.

Accessed by a winding narrow staircase. I had read about the theory of fitting of muffle to clapper in a text book, not actually seen it done. When my tower captain heard this, she encouraged me to go along – apart from anything she needed someone there to call for help if she had a mishap.

This should have alerted me, and it was with some apprehension that I agreed to help muffle the bells at The Minster – or at least be there. Never one to go back on my word, armed with my torch and wearing scruffy apparel, once the bell ringing practice had ended, I warily followed Jo, Bell Tower Captain up the increasingly narrowing spiral steps. I began to regret my enthusiastic signing up for this the week before, when horror of horrors – once we got to the room directly above the bellringing chamber, it was not the end of the journey. This was merely the ‘Clock room’ – the bells were housed even further up – and accessed by a narrow ladder that led up a through a hatch to the bells. Halfway up the ladder, the batteries in my torch gave out – and having tried in vain to get a foothold on the ironwork cradles surrounding the giant wheels that support that the bells, I was, in truth, relieved to leave Jo, agile as a monkey, clambering happily between, over and under the ironwork cradles to muffle the clappers. The following Tuesday, we had to again ascend the heights to remove the muffles.

As well as these regular annual reasons, there is also the ringing to mark one off national events such as Royal Weddings, funerals, and coronations. I am guessing that most of us are somewhat addicted to turning up to “make a noise” as it really doesn’t need much to encourage us to get together to ring. However, while a tower of bells ringing in a basic round, with each bell successively following the one before, with perhaps a few variations, known thrown as “Call Changes” is good for most Sundays, for more important events, something more complicated is called for. These are what are known as the ‘Methods,” individually named, such as Plain Bob, Canterbury, Cambridge, Kent, and Grandsire and a rather short one that sounds like Bisto but is actually Barstow.

Plain Hunt sequence

I started with the foundation peal of  Plain Hunt, which apart from Bisto, the shortest sequence. In any Method, each bell follows a different bell every time until they get back to the beginning. If it sounds complicated – it is, at least to a learner, like myself, who might well, after much contemplation of this diagram, sort of understand the theory. However, when trying it out in practice, the ropes mysteriously seem to move much faster than when I was just watching. Add to this the sounds of the bells start alternating and within a few pulls of the rope, I am well and truly I am lost. The well-intentioned advice to “listen for your bell and put it in the correct place” is outside the capability of my ears to sift the difference in bell sounds when I am busy just trying to look as if I know what I am doing. As for “just watch the ropes and see which is the last to move”– I can’t even manage that standing in the corner with no bell to control. If I tried doing this whilst actually ringing, I think it may well end with a completely new method being invented – which as the composer, I would have the legitimate right to name “Hells Bells.”

I like to think that most people enjoy hearing church bells ringing out, and this was confirmed after the long silencing of bells during covid was ended, when a parishioner told me that she had missed the Sunday morning ringing and it was a sign of normal life returning when the bells once again “rang so joyously out.”

It reminds me of Tennyson, who penned this poem allegedly after hearing the bells of the Abbey Church being rung on New Year's Eve. This is entirely possible, given that it is an accepted custom to ring out the old year (half-muffled for its passing) and then with the muffles removed to ring to mark the birth of the new year.

Ring out Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Some ringers believe that Tennyson was inspired by those at Hagworthingham, close to his childhood home. Any ringer can turn up at just about any tower and be welcome to join in with their practice. The trust involved is immense in tower captains taking a stranger’s words for it that they are competent to ring their bells and will not cause any damage, although they are not so foolish as to omit checking you out with a practice first. I have dropped in at a few places where no-one knows me and yet have found everyone welcoming. I always contact the tower captain first and am disappointed when some reply that they do not have enough numbers to make up a viable band on the days that I happen to be in the locality. However, I would have great trouble in adding the tower at Hagworthingham to the list that I have thus far ‘bagged’ – for the simple reason that it collapsed in the 1970s. However, the bells from the tower didn’t go to waste and were rehoused at Welbourn, near Lincoln, so I haven’t given up hope that I might one day ring one of those ‘Wild Bells.’

ringers in action

All in all, bell practice is very good way to spend ninety minutes. There is no time to dwell on any troubling things as it requires full concentration in placing our bell in the right order at the right time. It requires mental agility and this, combined with a mild cardio exercise that is well within any one’s grasp, it is no surprise that some research has shown that ringers tend to suffer less from the ravages of dementia. As we lower the bells after another satisfying practice, the bonhomie and sense of wellbeing lingers long after the bells have been silenced.

To come full circle, about six months ago, another walker happened to be passing by the same church where I was first lured by the bells. just as we were finishing up our ringing practice. As she walked down the lane, she commented “what a lovely way to spend the evening. I must tell my friends…” I suggested she do better than that and join us to “have a go,” explaining that no prior knowledge was needed and no you didn’t need to be musical. So she did… and joins the band whenever she can.

If you are nearby to a church ringing bells this Sunday – listen out for it and appreciate the people of the bell ringing world who made it happen. We are a dying breed and need more ringers and hope that reading this may encourage you to search out a tower and have a shot at it. And I may see you there…

How still the bells in steeples stand

How still the bells in steeples stand,
Till, swollen with the sky,
They leap upon their silver feet
In frantic melody!

Emily Dickinson

Thanks for reading. Comments welcomed.

Yvonne

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Deadlines

I am attracted to graveyards – especially those attached to churches and on my walks, I pass though my own church of St John the Baptist to have a little quiet time. I think about the lives that prompted the poignant epitaphs and sometimes find something different to puzzle over.

A year or so ago, on a break in London, we detoured with a trip to Highgate Cemetery. I know, I know - visiting a cemetery may seem a little odd to many. but I first went there some years ago after reading Tracey Chevalier’s book “Fallen Angels” and thought it may be therefore be worth a detour. The twists and turns in the overgrown paths in this beautiful wildness of a cemetery with the jumble of grave plots are very different to the organised parallel grave plots and paths of the necropolis of my home town of Preston cemetery.

There is a reason for this. The (initially commercial) cemetery was founded due to a high demand for grave plots, resulting in it becoming so crowded that a second part had to be opened up across the road to accommodate even more plots. At one point, it was common for multiple funerals and diggings to be taking place – you can imagine the consequent noise and clamour that are very different from the sombre, subdued experiences we are now accustomed to.

If you haven’t read this book, I would recommend you do. It is an easy read, drawing you into each character. It opens in January 1901, on the cusp of change, the day after Queen Victoria dies, when two very different families visit adjacent graves in a London cemetery.

Richard and Kitty are arguing about the Waterhouse’s angel, Kitty reflecting that “the excess of it all - which our own ridiculous urn now contributes to - is too much,” while Richard views the angel on the neighbouring Waterhouse plot as “sentimental nonsense.” The traditional Waterhouses revere the late Queen whereas the Colemans have a more modern outlook – but both families are appalled by the friendship that springs up between their respective daughters. Their lives intertwine over the next nine years, both families having to adjust to tragedy and changes in relationships.

Kitty believes the cemetery to be full of “utter banality and misplaced symbolism.” This is true - virtually every part of the cemetery you see today is drenched in symbolism – even the more recent modern stones Malcom McLaren, manager of influential pop group of the 1970’s Sex Pistols).

Others who have their last resting places in Highgate Cemetery, are Karl Marx, Lucien Freud, Douglas Adams, with a pot of pencils, presumably so that should he become bored while in the afterlife, he can take up a sequel to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

In a shaded area, in the old cemetery, Alexander Litvenyenko lies in his lead lined coffin, this poem a salutary reminder to be careful about whom one chooses to sup with …

Tea with Putin

I'm known in Russia as the kind
Who's not afraid to speak his mind;
And so if Putin says to me,
"My friend, you must stop in for tea."
I'll do my best to put him off,
Clutch my throat and start to cough.
"My health'" I'll say, "is not the best
My doctor says I need some rest."
If he persists, as is his way,
And says, "Come by when you're okay."
I'll say, "Dear Vlad , I'd love to come.
It's just I find Polonium
When someone puts it in my tea --
It doesn't quite agree with me."
He'll answer sharply, "Don't be thick!
This is realpolitik.
You know with me at any venue
Poison's always on the menu."
I'll nod and back away a bit.
And fake another coughing fit.
Anything to keep me free
From sitting down with him for tea.

                                                      Colin McKim

I prefer the magnificent older gravestones – perhaps because of the stories behind each one. It is difficult to choose any favourite, some stark, many telling of heart break, others of a life well lived. One of the cemetery’s most unusual graves is that of menagerist George Wombwell (1777-1850), appropriately marked by an imposing sculpture of a lion, sleeping upon his grave, with echoes of Trafalgar Square and further north, Saltaire with its set of four lions we found adorning the corners of the streets there. George, began his collection of exotic animals by purchasing two boa constrictors at the London Docks - which thankfully don’t feature on the plot.

Interwoven throughout the book are interesting facts about Victorian preoccupation with mourning fashions and funerals. Don’t be put off - but it isn’t morbid despite Highgate Cemetery being at the centre of the story. And you too may be tempted to visit to search for the “fallen angel.”

I found the eeriest place in the West Cemetery to be ‘The Circle of Lebanon, so called because of a massive ancient cedar tree which long predated the Cemetery to be found at its centre, like a huge bonsai, its base surrounded by a circle of tombs. It was part of the grounds of Ashurst House, sold in 1830 and demolished to provide a site for the present St Michael's Church. The cemetery designers kept the great cedar as a key feature in the landscape – the original tree fell prey to disease, but has been replaced.

One of our sons lives in The Netherlands, told me that when a person dies but has no friends or family to attend their funeral, the town will arrange for a civil servant and a poet) who will read a custom written poem for the deceased, so that they won’t be alone that day.

The Netherlanders are big on poetry, this particular custom, named “The Lonely Funeral” project, was started by poet and artist F Stail. It is a lovely idea. Everyone should be remembered and their life celebrated, don’t you think? But I also feel sad as I realise that if there was no one else to be there at their funeral, they likely lived their last years alone. Perhaps by choice, but often likely not.

Lines for the Dead

She played roulette in Monaco,
With face aglow,
A belle with her beau
She danced a fiery tango.

With bloody war and bombing
She adapted to nursing,
Was loving and giving
And her zest made life thrilling.

Forgotten by the living, alone at the last,
Memory gaps vast
She dreamt of the past,
Slipping away to join those passed.

Yvonne.

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Garden Centres

If all else fails, and I find myself away from home and caught in a deluge, a Garden Centre is an ideal place, not just to shelter, but to pass the time. The early Garden Centres were more akin to today’s Garden Nurseries, which is where serious gardeners in search of compost or plants are far better off. The oldest Garden Centre in operation since 1742, is Stewarts in Dorset.

This would not suit me as my enjoyment of a Garden Centre, is not based on the quality, price or range of plants and flowers on display. My criteria are calculated on the manner of other entertainments on offer. Rather like cruise ships, these vast garden centres, spread over many acres, have become destinations in themselves: a horticultural gardenopolis, as our local garden centre demonstrates, with its annexed entertainment area offering cinema, ten pin bowling, crazy golf and even a Curling arena. None of which has enticed me to try these out on account of the outrageous prices.

No, I eschew these dubious enticements for the Garden Centre proper, wandering through the doors and feeling the essence of the place. The various sections are conveniently set out in sections where I can wander around looking at interesting stuff such as different types of Wellingtons, and clothing for cold, hot, or rainy days. Not for you? Then move on to marvel at the various barbecue equipment that needs a garden the size of a small public park (and public crowd) to justify the size and expense. Among these are all manner of Hot Tubs, garden chairs and cushions.

For the aromatically challenged, there are a few hundred different scents to accompany an array of diffusers to choose from. The better Garden Centres may also have a dedicated kitchenware section - and to go on the plates and gadgets that you don’t need and will never see the light of day from the back of the cupboard, is the farm shop. Of course there are some gardening items to be had – once you’ve woven your way through the bird houses, sacks of bird food for birds that seem to require a more varied diet than I have.

Eventually you may come to a corner with topsoil, spades, bulbs, seeds – weedkiller. Weedkiller, in all its poisonous unnatural forms are required for those pernicious flowers, such as dandelions, that spring up wherever they are unwanted (this being the definition of a weed) despite the discouragement of the avid gardener. I like dandelions. These sunny little flowers originated in Eurasia, but over the centuries have spread to many other parts of the world – and hated by some who want only grass in their lawns. Little do many gardeners who hanker after a billiard smooth lawn unmarred by a single sunny dandelion know, is that if you mow dandelions, they grow shorter stalks just to spite you.

Up until the 1800s people would pull grass out of their lawns to make room for dandelions and other useful “weeds” like chickweed, malva, and chamomile. We should therefore cultivate dandelions; after all, they have one of the longest flowering seasons of any plant. Millions could be saved on buying lawn pesticides, incidentally also saving up to 30% of the country’s water supply it takes to keep lawns green.

Slugs are another matter, a gardener’s nightmare. Overnight, once pristine flower beds are destroyed by a battalion of impervious killers. With their greyish brownish greenish slimy skin, they will have torpedoed their way through the undergrowth, their 27,000 teeth making short work of prize hostas.

While you won’t find dandelion seeds in Garden Centres, as you eventually approach the final stretch to the tills, you will find plenty of greeting cards, books no self-respecting bookshop would stock, and perhaps a teddy bear or pens and pencils. Then it’s a stroll outside (but still under cover) to the best bit, to look in wonder at some of the worst concrete cast statuary in the history of the modern world.

However, by far the most important measure of the quality of a Garden Centre is to be found away from all these objects for sale. This will be the Café or, if a superior establishment and you have some money left after all your purchases, the Restaurant. This is a proper and just reward for all that walking up and down a maze of aisles. This is the heart of the Centre, and if found wanting, then the whole place fails and nothing will entice me to return. When they are good, they are very good. But when they are poor, they are truly horrid. Here I recall the misguided Garden Centre that tried to pass off stale scones from Morrisons as ‘home-made’ adding further insult with a plastic pocket of smooth red shiny goo masquerading as jam, but which has never seen a strawberry.

A garden centre visitor faces a dilemma and interrogation by servers in the café

Coffee?
Americano, Cappuccino, Latte, Flat or Macchiato?
Brazilian, Columbian, Venezualan? With or without caffeine?
Nescafe? I don’t think so…

Tea?
White, green, or black?
Breakfast, Afternoon, Earl grey.
Builders? I don’t think so…

Or perhaps
Camomile, peppermint, jasmine?
Or lemon, hibiscus, ginger, or raspberry?
We are in a garden centre after all.

With milk?
Fresh whole, skimmed or semi?
Almond, oat, pistachio, soya?
Goat? I don’t think so…

Something to go with it?
What do we have?
Now you’re asking…
We are a garden centre after all.

In cakes, we have Victoria, Red Velvet,
Coffee and Walnut, Chocolate.
Lemon drizzle?
It’s very popular – we’re out of that one…

For vegans we have
Beetroot, Carrot and banana
And a nice extra green Courgette.
We are a garden centre after all.

Then there’s Flapjack, Chocolate Brownie,
Shortbread - Millionaire or ordinary,
Apple pie and Manchester tart.
Gluten free? I don’t think so…

We have scones –
Your choice of plain, with sultanas or cherries.
With butter, jam, or cream.
All? I suppose… we are a garden centre after all.

So that’s….
One hot chocolate, with cream.
One mineral water… fizzy, with ice.
That’s all? We are a garden centre you know ….

Yvonne Smallshaw. 

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Travel

Travel is exciting. It broadens the mind, refreshes the spirit, opening a new world of experiences. I love the thrill of seeking out new adventures, new experiences and making friends with people from different walks of life. I appreciate all the more, the differences that nonetheless bind us together as fellow travellers for the brief moment that we share in time and space on this blue dot of a planet.

New poems about travel are sparse, so finding this one is a nice surprise, although the original is written in Italian and this is a translation. The poem encourages travel for learning and personal growth, greater understanding and acceptance, and a feeling of connection to the world.

Travel - Viaggiate

Try to travel, otherwise
you may become racist,
and you may end up believing
that your skin is the only one
to be right,
that your language
is the most romantic
and that you were the first
to be the first.

Travel,
because if you don't travel then
your thoughts won’t be strengthened,
won’t get filled with ideas.
Your dreams will be born with fragile legs
and then you end up believing in tv-shows,
and in those who invent enemies
that fit perfectly with your nightmares
to make you live in terror.

Travel,
because travel teaches
to say good morning to everyone
regardless of which sun we come from.

Travel,
because travel teaches
to say goodnight to everyone
regardless of the darkness
that we carry inside.

Travel,
because traveling teaches to resist,
not to depend,
to accept others, not just for who they are
but also for what they can never be.
To know what we are capable of,
to feel part of a family
beyond borders,
beyond traditions and culture.

Traveling teaches us to be beyond.

Travel,
otherwise you end up believing
that you are made only for a panorama
and instead inside you
there are wonderful landscapes
still to visit.
                             Gio Evan - 2019

The processes we go through when planning, packing, and setting off on a journey are all part of the ritual. How many outfits to take, more importantly how many books to cram into tight spaces are all part of the preparation and which even now has not changed.

My first couple of trips as a baby were in a train, on the long annual regular trips “back home” to Vienna. Here I am, stretched on a carriage seat, gnawing on a chicken leg bone as substitute teething ring.

Once my parents had saved up enough to buy their first car, the annual summer trip became an adventure of a different kind. In 1963, a little car was bought with the express intention of taking us all to Poland so that my father could be reunited with his mother and sons in his native country that he had been forced to leave some twenty-five years earlier.

The poor little car with its “three stroke” engine (whatever that means) was completely underpowered for the journey, more so when, once we got there, it was used as a taxi service for all the family, excited that their long-lost son had returned to his homeland.

As we set off, my mother driving, my father settled down on the passenger front seat with his newspapers and library books. His excuse was that driving during the war had shattered his nerves to such an extent that he could no longer drive – although it is beyond my comprehension how that also prevented his capacity to read a map to give directions.

After we ended up going to Dover via St Alban’s, my mother took on the task of the map reading as well, helped by the RAC who provided a series of long pieces of paper directions – the paper equivalent of today’s spoken instructions on the Sat Nav. I find Sat Nav mindlessly boring, and being nagged by the lady with her patient, but ever so irritating tone, to “make a U-turn where possible” adds insult to injury.

Were the RAC directions foolproof? Not when my father was so engrossed in his reading that he missed the signs given in the instructions. His sole contribution seemed to be restricted to the occasional critical remark on some aspect of my mother’s driving, usually to slow down, and not for safety reasons, but to reduce petrol consumption. The inevitable ensued – frustrated, tired, and hot, her temper would justifiably erupt. The ensuing raging would then only be broken when she had to stop the car because the shouting proved too much for my stomach which threated to erupt with a bout of travel sickness. This condition, I am relieved to say, improved with time, coinciding with my taking over map reading duties – from the back seat, of course.

Are we there yet?

I feel sick
Look out of the window

I feel sick
Rest your eyes

I feel sick
Read your book

I feel more sick
Open the window

I feel sick
Here’s a sweet

I feel sick
Can we stop?
You’ll just have to wait

I feel sick
Shhhh
Lie down
I feel better

I feel sick
Are we there yet?
Oh dear

Too late…

…equilibrium reinstated

Yvonne

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Bed

The days are getting longer – and the nights are getting lighter. And warmer. I trust that I am the only person to know how, generally, my husband is fast asleep as soon his head hits the pillow. He can sleep the sleep of the righteous because he has first done his tour of the house, checking that all the doors and windows are closed and secure, all the lights turned off, all the appliances unplugged and the fire embers are secure to be left to die behind the glass of the wood burner. Even if I tell him that I have already checked, years of ingrained habit coupled with an acquired OCD means that he will still do ‘his rounds’.

Nine times out of 10, I am in the bedroom long before he finally gets there – in my own routine, involving turning on my welcoming bed side light on, tuning the radio into either Radio 3 or, if it is not to my taste, tuning into a more restful Jazz FM or Classic FM, even if it means putting up with the adverts. And only then, after teeth have been cleaned, night cream applied (if I remember) can I relax with a spot of bedtime reading.

If this is of a sufficiently soporific nature, I soon find myself nodding off, turn my light out – but leave the radio on to listen to the end of the piece of music in the near dark. I am lulled into sleep by seeing ever changing colours that come with the music. This is a consequence of my chromesthesia, in which what I hear, somehow gets entangled in my brain, bringing with it a superimposed hued kaleidoscopic background. In the dark, with no other distractions to the senses, these intensify and if I am very relaxed, a piece of music can occasionally include a transitory flash of a landscape, or disjointed scenes and as if in a trailer to a film that no one else will ever see.

With the blessing of chromesthesia, while, like most people, I can still suffer from the fears and anxieties that seem magnified by the dark and quiet, mostly I can be dispelled by music. My go-to piece of music, comes from Norwegian Jan Gabarek. Listening to his sublime saxophone playing becomes transformed by the peculiar wiring in my brain, into intertwining ribbons spiralling upwards in a tower up lit by stained glass windows.

As a child, I was afraid of dark and the monsters that came with it. So much so that my father rigged up a red coloured bulb that he appropriated from his photography darkroom and strung up over my cot.

Monsters are gift to the film industry and have become engrained in our culture. It is from films, images on t-shirts, and even on cakes and iced lollies, that we know Frankenstein with bolts holding his head on, and green in colour. He was perhaps the first of the monsters to frighten us – until then we had only to fear the ghosts of the dead, and they could be relied upon (mainly) to retreat to their resting place after All Souls Day.

For who relish the thrill of being scared half to death, (I am not one of them), there are now other monsters to fill the gap to satisfy the craving of the adrenaline rush of fear. It may no longer be Frankenstein, who, once frightening, has become the most loved of monsters. His popularity in the monster world has surpassed even the cursed Mummies seeking revenge for being reawakened by prying archaeologists, chasing their human prey, in their tattered flowing bandages.

But there are howling werewolves, normal people who when there is a full moon turns into a wolf. Usually it involves a curse, or a bite from another werewolf. Another bite related monster is the Vampire, a product of Victorian theatre manager Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Once scary (and in the darkest of nights still so) they have also followed the pattern of other monster creations over time and become literally fodder for the food industry – as well as cakes, there are puffed snacks called fangs, although to my mind bear these no resemblance at all to any teeth.

Even the most benevolent of ghosts and ghouls, and their most recent manifestations, the wraiths in the Harry Potter series, the Dementors who force their victims to relive their worst memories and feed on human happiness are frightening indeed. These Rowling inventions are borne from the knowledge that our most primitive fears and scariest monsters are those of our own making and inhabit the darkest corners of our mind.

These may be frightening enough, but the real monsters are real. They are those who live among us - people who caused trouble, problems, or any form of upset that we cannot shake off. Most of the time we can cope with them, but they may always be there, lurking in the background ready to pounce when spirits are low, we feel tired, or in the middle of the night when our worries are magnified. That is the time to tune in, tune out, and let the colours of the music take over.

May your God bless you, bring colour to your life - and keep you safe from all things that may go bump in the dark nights. In the words of the old Scottish prayer:

From ghoulies, ghosties and long leggety beasties
And things that go bump in the night
May the good Lord deliver us!

Listening to the colours of the radio at night

Sunday night. Quiet reigns.
The dawn of dusk arrives
As night gently breaks the hold of the day

Windows tightly shut against rain, wind
And the fading blue ambulance sirens.
It is quiet outside - and in.

Deep ink black silence cocoons. Protects. Deadens.
And in the vacuum, allows in the monsters.
Bring back the noise and colour of life. What is to be?

Perhaps Miles will croon a green and golden sax solo to my forest trailer,
Perhaps Ella will vocalese to a feature film of dusty mahogany backrooms.
Slipping into the night, I escape and dream of light.

As a musical bonus, here is a link to Jan Gabarek playing live in Hamburg: Jan Gabarek Group

Yvonne

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Stars

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

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

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

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

My grandmother's house

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Constellation of Orion

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

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

The world

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

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

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

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

Yvonne S.

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Marillen Marmalade

Marmalade pronounced in the German way is “Mar–mey-lad-ay”.

At some stage while at Junior school. my mother introduced me to her Aunt Berta, taking me by train, to see her in Slovenia. I instantly fell in love with her – and being childless herself, this was reciprocated twofold. From my early teens on, two weeks of every holiday was spent in her rather grand villa, an Art Deco design built in the 1920’s for her by her wealthy parents as a wedding present.

Unfortunately when the second world war intervened, Slovenia became subsumed as part of Yugoslavia by a communist regime and what was once her sole large property had to be shared. Great Aunty Berta, being canny and the daughter of a very shrewd business family who had owned a string of fancy hotels and spa resorts, merely paid lip service to the communist officials who had come to inspect the living arrangements with a view to them subdividing the property and installing their own party favourites. She merely forestalled them, dividing the house into perfectly adequate accommodation that suited her while obeying the rules of the local apparatchiks. Thus, she kept the whole of the first floor for herself, with its grand wrap around balcony, the ground floor was given over to her in-laws, the lower ground floor to a succession of ‘worthy’ hand selected students and similarly, the attic area to another family, who had a daughter, Darija with whom I became firm friends.

Aunty Berta undertook to educate me ‘properly’ and from her, I learned how to set a table using much of the fine china, baccarat crystal glasses, silver cutlery and all manner of tableware and linens. It was from her, that I learned the finer things in life – waking every morning after a deep sleep on fine linens and cashmere blankets, to her bringing me a breakfast tray laden with goodies. This included a soft boiled egg which had been decanted from its shell, into a china cup and smashed up, ready to for me to eat – “No lady should have to take the shell off her own egg” , she admonished me.

But best of all was her ‘Marillen marmalade” – the most sublime of apricot jams I have ever tasted. As soon as she deemed that I was old enough to be initiated into the mystery of making that most perfect of concoctions, I was put to work, first helping her pick the apricots from her orchard which had to be ‘just ripe’, then stoning them, weighing them, mixing them with lemon juice and sugar from a large sack in the pantry before boiling them up and transferring the liquid gold into large Kilner jars. While were waiting for the apricots to get ripe, there were gherkins to be picked and pickled, string beans (’fisollen’) to harvest and bottle and peppers and tomatoes to lay out and dry in the sun.

My Aunty Berta had no qualms about extending my summer holiday until all the shelves in her pantry were literally groaning with the fruits of our labours. Unsurprisingly, I frequently arrived back at school for the autumn term, up to two weeks late. She felt that the education for life that she was imparting to me , was far more valuable than anything a school could give me. And who was I to argue? To my young eyes, she was the image of our very own queen of England and just as regal and gracious – and she had dined with Agatha Christie while on honeymoon on the River Nile – which is where the bed linen had come from. Truth was, she could charm anyone, and I was in thrall to her. She has long since passed, but is one of the many people I am looking forward to meeting up with again when it is my turn to make that final journey.

Aunty Berta taught me all her rules of manners and etiquette. Remembering how she once showed me how a lady should eat an orange or a banana if presented with such fruit as a dessert, (always with a fruit knife and fork, never by peeling with the fingers unless at a picnic!), I think she may well have approved of these first ten lines from D H Lawrence, on how to eat a fig. However, she would have been very contemptuous of the rest of the poem and would have decried it as far too vulgar…

From: Figs by D H Lawrence

The proper way to eat a fig, in society,
Is to split it in four, holding it by the stump,
And open it, so that it is a glittering, rosy, moist, honied,
heavy-petalled four-petalled flower.
Then you throw away the skin
Which is just like a four-sepalled calyx,
After you have taken off the blossom with your lips.
But the vulgar way
Is just to put your mouth to the crack, and take out the
flesh in one bite.

Yvonne

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Ridiculous

In September, after the schools went back and when we hoped that London would be less busy, we decided to take a break and have a trip to the capital. One of our highlights was a visit to The Globe. Faced with a choice between 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Twelfth Night' – we opted for the comedy of errors.

As with all his plays, Shakespeare wastes no time and immediately launches into the story and as it a long time since I last went to a play, the first twenty minutes did have me flummoxed – even though I had done my homework (albeit in a cursory slipshod way. This partly down to the unexpected modern setting juxtaposed with the traditional theatre setting, but more about my having to adjusted to the unfamiliar language and rhythms. As the play progressed, I started to appreciate how much our present modern day English language use was introduced to us by Shakespeare.

The Bard has singularly been responsible for so many phrases in common usage today – If you’ve ever been on a wild goose chase, but refused to budge an inch, played fast and loose only to find you’ve been hoodwinked and ended up in a pickle, so slept not one wink. And in the morning, as good luck would have it, you would have been living in a fool’s paradise, so laughed yourself into stitches, and cold comfort, but it would have been too much of a good thing, now you have seen better days, so, it is a foregone conclusion that you are … quoting Shakespeare.

Did the plays or the phrases come first? Perhaps picked up and bandied about, tested on his fellow pupils? I wonder…

Shakespeare At School

Forty boys on benches with their quills
Six days a week through almost all the year,
Long hours of Latin with relentless drills
And repetition, all enforced by fear.
I picture Shakespeare sitting near the back,
Indulging in a risky bit of fun
By exercising his prodigious knack
Of thinking up an idiotic pun,
And whispering his gem to other boys,
Some of whom could not suppress their mirth –
Behaviour that unfailingly annoys
Any teacher anywhere on earth.
The fun was over when the master spoke:
Will Shakespeare, come up here and share the joke.

                                                                                                  Wendy Cope

I’m sure that teaching methods have changed since Shakespeare’s times. Theatres certainly have. It was a little disconcerting to find ourselves sitting in a theatre that had been reconstructed to reflect how it may have been in Shakespeare’s day – and then to see a modern interpretation, but superb production of 'Twelfth Night'.

It all starts with a shipwreck and the twin siblings, Viola and Sebastian each believe the other to have perished. It all gets very complicated as the Shenanigans ensue. For some reason, Viola dresses as a boy and works for the Duke Orsino, whom she falls in love with. Orsino is in love with the Countess Olivia, and sends Viola to court her for him, but Olivia falls for Viola instead. Sebastian arrives, causing a flood of mistaken identity, and marries Olivia. Viola then reveals she is a girl and marries Orsino.

We think it is only in our modern more ‘enlightened’ times, that we invented “cross-dressing”, but in Shakespeare’s time it was a necessity, at least in the theatre, as women as actors were very much frowned upon, so rather than restrict the subject matter of a play so that it could use an all-male cast of actors, male actors (usually young boys) were required to dress up and act the female parts. I seem to recall the same expedient rationale being used by the boys at my local all-boys ‘Catholic College’ – until, finally, rules relaxed, and we were able to put on joint productions – “The Rape of the Belt” – memorable, to me at that age, because it daringly had the word ‘Rape’ in the title, although in reality it was a play loosely based on a tale from Greek Mythology and nothing to do with actual rape. I should have realised that in a convent, this was highly unlikely.

However, in the modern interpretation of the 'Twelfth Night' production that we saw, to make matters more confusing, if not downright ridiculous, Shakespearean expediency was further complicated as some of the major male roles were played by women. And to my mind, the female actors who played the Jester, Sir Toby Belch (aptly named, perhaps because of his love of pickled herrings, but in this play, was swigging of many cans of gaseous liquids) and Malvolio were, in my opinion, all by far the best.

I have a soft spot for Malvolio, Olivia’s steward Olivia’s steward, whose name could be translated as ‘ill-will’. He considered by many to be Shakespeare’s more famous villain, so I kept waiting for some evil action to happen. Granted, he is something of a puritan, disliking disorder and drunkenness, all in all a bit of a vain glorious kill-joy Despite this, I think he is undeservedly much maligned, more victim than villain.

I do question if Malvolio really deserved the cruelty he endured at the hands of his fellow household members, resulting in his entrance wearing the ridiculous yellow cross gartered stockings and, in this play, truly hilarious.. He is easily convinced that he fits the bill for:

“In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness:
some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. In my stars I am above thee;
but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great,
some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em”

But by the end of Act 4, I personally felt they went entirely too far, telling him and treating him as if he were insane having him locked up in a dark room and not even offered any real apology for how he was mistreated. It seems a little extreme, practically bordering on abuse and would take a hard person not to pity him when he desperately pleads he isn’t mad:

“Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.”

From being ridiculed, to being humiliated, it is but a short step to madness. It isn’t often that I think Shakespeare goes too far to ‘get a laugh’, but I do have to wonder who really is ridiculous as a consequence of this tomfoolery? Malvolio or his tormentors?

Yvonne Smallshaw

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A Most Boring Place

Both my parents were Catholic – of the non-practising type, excepting, perhaps, Christmas, weddings and in my father’s case, his own funeral. But for some strange reason, they felt it important that I should attend and would religiously send me to church every Sunday morning . Off I would trot in my Sunday best on the short walk around the corner and sit not three pews back from the front, in the right hand side pew, all on my own, week after week.

Perhaps this was folly. I had to keep a watchful eye out to rise, kneel and sit in orchestration with the rest of the church goers and if I drifted off into reverie, I could be caught out and immediately try to put on a look of piety as if to say “I got carried away with my own prayers”, but I doubt anyone believed it or cared. Not once did anyone stop and ask me what I was doing there on my own, week after week, year after year, or how my parents were. If Sundays in the 1960s were an endless day of boredom, then the church I went to took it to the next extreme.

I periodically attempted to alleviate the ennui and make sense of what was going on using my ‘First Holy Communion’ Missal – a small book, bound in a mock marble effect plastic cover. Some of this was in the days when the mass was said, or rather mumbled, in Latin, with lack lustre responses from the congregation and I would join in, if I felt confident enough that I was in the ‘right place’ in my book. These were the days when the print in the page was helpfully divided into two columns, the left side for the Latin and the right side in English. I used to pass the time trying to marry up the words. Things did get rather confusing when a different collect or gospel was chosen, but no matter, I could amuse myself for the much of the time reading the other ‘stories’ in the other weeks. I’m still not sure what a ‘Collect’ is – perhaps it’s something to do with collecting the money in the little baskets passed around the rows? This being my local church of St Maria Goretti, I could also look at the pictures on the walls.

These paintings of The Stations of the Cross were of particular interest to me as my Uncle Ted had painted them. Born in 1896, he was not a ‘real’ uncle, but I gave him this honorific title when my mother commissioned him to paint my portrait in 1969 and we went on to be good friends. I frequently skipped out of school at lunch time to go and see him in his art studio in Bowran Street, in Preston, preferring his ‘Irish stew’ and his company, to anything on offer in the school dining room.

In the long course of his career as a self-taught artist, Edward Robinson, or Uncle Ted, had painted many things and done everything with pen, pencil and brush, including murals in churches, hotels and cinemas. As he put it: "When you live in Preston you have to be very versatile to make a living". But his great love was portraits, and I am honoured that along with his portrait of Sir Tom Finney, still hanging in the Harris Art Gallery in Preston, this small portrait of myself, aged 11 years old, with a ‘Maria from the ‘Sound of Music’ haircut and wearing my favourite blue dress, was the last he undertook.

I digress. Going back to church, communion time, when the congregation would file past me on their way to the altar, was the real reason I sat near the front. It was so that I could see the fashion parade – both on their way to and from the communion. I had a dilemma. Did I hang back until the end, or try to get there first so I could be back quickly? This was so after a decent amount of time on my knees being grateful for what I had received, then sit back all the better to see what was going on - who had a new hat, or shoes and who hadn’t been seen for a few weeks? It was all fertile ground for my imagination.

My mother later came up with the time saving brainwave of an idea - that on my way to church, I could go to the launderette on the corner ‘drop off that weeks’ laundry, as it was on my way. There I could stuff one of the cavernous mouths in a machine with the whole weeks laundry, feed it some loose change and then carry on to church, picking up the now clean washing on my way back. Looking back, I can’t say I blamed her, as this was an era when the twin tub was the ‘new’ labour saving machine to covet and we couldn’t afford even that. For a working mother, Sundays were hardly a day of rest or contemplation, but a mad scramble to fit in the whole week’s housework into one day, alongside serving up a ‘Sunday lunch’. For me the smell of our ‘Sunday roast’ (or our continental equivalent) was always tainted by the smell of fetid clothes and Daz. A benefit of escaping to church, even if it was boring, got me out of a host of chores…

However, by the time I was ten years old, I had learned that my parents would be none the wiser, or probably not even care, if I simply stopped going to church as long as I came back with the bag of washing, all cleanly and magically laundered. So that left me, adding in the ‘before and after’ laundry stop off, roughly two hours of freedom, which I soon managed to fill with less religious activities. I would call on my friend Marian, change into some ‘playing out clothes’ that were kept in her bedroom and then she would help me with the washing. Then off we would go… exploring. At some point we met up with a group of boys from her school (she was lucky enough to go to the local mixed comprehensive) and together we found the delights of the disused Preston to Longridge railway line, easily accessed, ironically, from just behind the ‘Maria Goretti’ church that I was supposed to be attending.

Joy of joys, we even unearthed a rusting flatbed 4 wheel ‘Bogie’. I would love to say that we could travel miles on it, but the reality was that it had been abandoned for a reason – it was almost immoveable, and very hard work to get it to move more than fifty yards up and down what little of the railway track had been left behind. None the less, we spruced up the flat bed with old bits of wood and my imagination was certainly not held back as I travelled long journeys on it … back to Vienna. Until it was time for myself and Marian to leave the ‘gang’ to go back to the Launderette to pick up the now clean laundry, change back into my ‘Sunday best’ and then back home, to spend the rest of the afternoon on my homework.

By about the age of fourteen, having out grown both ‘gang’ and the delights of the ‘Bogie’ and coinciding with need for my laundrette duties no longer being required (perhaps mum had saved up enough to by the coveted twin tub) I plucked up courage to tell my parents that I no longer wanted to go to church. I had all my arguments lined up, such as "I think I'm old enough to decide now and I don't want to go to church anymore." I had been under the misapprehension that they might be disappointed, but that they would eventually respect my decision. But they were not old-style churchgoer, wedded to a weekly ritual that gave comfort and solace and a time perhaps for quiet contemplation or meditation. That was not their spiritual method and it was no longer mine either. I needn’t have worried – they were neither surprised or interested and for a good many years the only time I stepped inside a church was when I was in Vienna and then for my own wedding and a few years later, my father’s funeral.

What I didn't bother to tell them was that I thought going to church seemed no longer right – not that I was going anyway We lived on the edge of a poor council estate suburb of Preston and even as a young child, I had discerned the personalities of some of congregation. From the snatches of gossip I had overheard before and after the service, I realised some of them would think nothing of stabbing their neighbours in the back metaphorically and then on Sunday they would come to church. As a child, I didn’t have a word for it, but later learnt the definition I was looking for was hypocrisy - but who am I to judge?

It took me many years to discover that there were many good, well-meaning churchgoers who tried to lead good lives, but at that time, this painting on of the pious face sickened me and added to the usual teenage awakening of knowledge and morals – and the part that the Catholic Church had (or rather hadn’t) played in the second world war, from the top, in turning a blind eye to the Nazi genocide of the Jews, I wanted no part of it.

However, I have always had a spiritually-seeking component to my nature. I think it was the Buddha who said, "There are many paths up the mountain." So it probably doesn't matter what spiritual path you follow as long as it feels right to you. I believe that all religions seem to share the same basic tenets: love and tolerance for your fellow humans and all the creatures who share this planet with us.

Edward Estlin Cummings is one of America’s most famous twentieth-century poets. He was a pastor’s son raised in the Unitarian faith, which emphasizes the oneness of God. While I know him as a poet, he invested more of his time to painting and one of his favourite subjects was the landscape surrounding his summer home at Joy Farm in New Hampshire. I think this painting of his demonstrates the elation he may have felt in this environment of wooded hills, fields, and lake – images he also used in several of his poems. I wonder if the phrases “leaping greenly spirits of trees” and “blue true dream of sky” were inspired by this view from his farmstead.

I thank you God

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e e cummings

These days I have made my peace with Christianity and now follow the Anglican tradition to enjoy, practice and give thanks in my own way, starting with some bell ringing. So as the wonderful Irish comedian, Dave Allen, used to say at the end of his TV programme, "May your god go with you."

Yvonne Smallshaw

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