Roots and Brass Plates

 

 

 

 

 

The Liverpool bus stop near our house

 

A friend recently expressed surprise when I said I hated the idea of moving, re-locating, setting up house somewhere else. She pointed out how, over a long and happy life I’ve been to so many places, and I travel still though perhaps less adventurously when money allows.

In reality, a reluctance to move and a love of travel complement rather than contradict the other. Travelling is a joy (airports being the exception) when you have somewhere to come home to.  Re-locating on the other hand—except when you’re young—removes the powerful but largely unseen contentment that comes with having roots. 

In Liverpool, I was nurtured in a post war community with a family history rooted in the area. Leaving was initially exciting, moves to Swansea, Aberystwyth, Newport – and America, flitting from bedsit to bedsit, a Jackson Heights condominium, and then a lovely Edwardian house in Newport where, over a period of twenty years or so, new roots were established, to the extent I thought we would be there forever. 

Ribblesdale Avenue where I grew up (no cars then)

Manley road. Behind that top window, my first bed sit in Newport

Our family house in Newport

Two Newport views, the Civic Centre and the iconic Transporter Bridge

And now we’ve been in Monmouth for twenty years and new roots established.

                                                                      Monmouth in mist

But what do roots mean? It’s an easily understood metaphor until you try to explain it. 

For me it's walking into town down a country lane recognising faces, exchanging smiles and a greetings with strangers, because it comes so easily when people are happy and feel they’re in the right place. It’s recognising familiar patterns, the same couple walking the lane, the man with the distinctive fedora, the lady walking her three dogs, attending the same church, observing friends ageing slowly, attending funerals knowing others will attend yours. Above all knowing you’re immersed in goodwill. You may never need nor ask for help but there’s a powerful sense of it being there if or when needed.

Monmouth is pretty, but roots are independent of aesthetics. I enjoyed the same sense of ‘place’  in Liverpool and Newport where roots were inherited or developed.  Anthony Trollope understood roots. For him, every individual was indissolubly bound in an intense, self-perpetuating set of relationships. He expresses it most pithily in his wonderful A Small House in Allington, where every Sunday  ‘One walked over the brass plates of dead Dales in the village church.’ I shall start saving for my brass plate—assuming I don’t move again.

If Music be the Food of Love—Look Away Now

 

I’m cheating. I’ve run out of words. Nothing to say. Blame St Patrick and two concerts back-to-back: one in a pub – the George in St Briavels, the other at Drybridge Community Centre in Monmouth. Sucked me bone dry.

I’m the mandolin player, the little old Irish man in the flat cap at the back. A friend says I always look so bloody miserable when playing, but I’m not. It’s my ‘in-the-zone’ look, trying not to actually think and so avoiding the curse of the millipede wondering in which order to move his legs.

 Distractions are the very devil:- what are we having for Sunday dinner?  Suddenly your fingers realise you’ve loosened the reins and off they gallop in every direction and none. At best the ‘B’ part will end up as that of an entirely different tune, at worst it’s a case of playing ‘all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order.’ 

I have over  200 tunes in my head and some of them are little rogues popping up where they shouldn’t. Keeping 'in the zone' is vital—being at peace with the moment and allowing nothing else in. 

I formed the band with Tony the guitarist without really knowing it—‘The Celtic Collectors.’ That was three years ago  and it’s since become quite an efficient fund-raiser having raised over £16000 in charity. Our secret is to shut the doors and they pay us to stop. Little do they know, I play with two invisible friends,

 These two concerts were very different beasts. I loved the green lighting of the stage, which gives us a neat diseased zombie vibe. Unfortunately, the sound mix is a little unbalanced. The pub was looser, more immediate, more enjoyable.

Back to my usual burbling next week.

Rose Tree / Soldier's Joy / Staten Island

Madame Bonaparte / Cold and Frosty Morn

Grace

72nd's Farewell to Aberdeen. Short version. 

72nd's Farewell to Aberdeen

Young Tom Ennis/Rakes of Kildare/ Lanigan's Ball

O'Keeffe's Slide / Lilting Banshee / Gary's Tune 

Galway/Alexander's Hornpipe / Repeal of Union/ Captain Pugwash

Town I Loved So Well

Tell ya Ma (Belle of Belfast City)

Royal Dunoon

Panning for gold.

 

I’ve always fancied panning for gold, amidst the high Sierras; surrounded by mountains, the deep blue of an American sky, the soaring glint of an eagle, the swirl and gurgle of a fast-flowing stream, peaceful contemplation, hope, something more lucrative than a fish at the end. Instead, I’m scanning our toilet bowl searching for the soft gold gleam of half-digested sweetcorn.

I’m measuring a concept new to me: gut transit time, which sounds like a devolved responsibility of the Minister of Transport. Perhaps another quango is called for, one that will ‘nudge’ the general population to measure the time it takes for food to move from your mouth and emerge from your bottom.

I think it is fair to say that I have been ‘nudged,’ not an unpleasant experience unless you dislike sweetcorn and think there is more to life than measuring the quality of your gut microbiome. My excuse was one of perverse curiosity.

A healthy gut transit time is directly linked to how diverse your microbiome is. ‘Diversity is strength’ a problematic slogan at the best of times does apparently apply to your gut—a  fast or slower  transit time indicating  its health. This does not apply if you’ve just had a Vindaloo.

There is now a plethora of expensive gut health tests, a new and growing obsession with the health of our bowels worth 40 billion dollars globally. It’s easy to see why. A healthy microbiome is linked to a lower risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, arthritis and even dementia. I want none of these things. Nor do I want to spend a fortune on bothersome tests.

There is though a cheap and easy alternative. Sweetcorn. A 50p can should do it. 

Give it a try I thought. Why not? Doubt crept in. What if my gut transit time was unhealthy? Would I have to eat kimchi? 

I swallowed my fear, checked the time, and ate my three heaped tablespoons of sweetcorn. I noted the time I’d finished. After that it is a matter of patience, scanning the turds as they plop into the bowl. As I said panning for gold. The moment you see that first glimmer of gold check your watch and  there you have it,  your ‘gut transit time.’ 

Those with a healthy gut pan gold in 24 hours but anywhere over 14 and under 58 hours has a degree of acceptability. 

Where did I get this crucial nugget of information? Some health expert online. Experts. To quote: if it appears within 4 hours, ‘you likely have diarrhoea.’ Really? 

But to the point, the shorter the time - 4 to 12 hours -  the more likely it is that your gut biome is absorbing insufficient nutrients. It may also indicate inflammatory bowel disease or irritable bowel syndrome. 58 hours or over indicates a slow gut transit time which again reflects an unhealthy microbiome. The gut isn’t getting enough of its favourite food ie fibre. 

For those of you who want to go down this route but loathe sweetcorn you can use beetroot in which case you note when your poo becomes a virulent red. Blue stained muffins, and even charcoal are other alternatives, though three tablespoons of the latter doesn’t immediately appeal. 

So, on balance, useful advice— not to be sniffed at.

And in my case, I don't have to each kimchi. 

You Can Take a Girl Out of Newport

One of the great joys in writing Belia was bringing early C18th Newport to life now overlaid by today’s modern and perhaps less attractive city. Far more attractive was its far future reincarnation of deep green meadows, forests and hills. 

 

The other great joy was creating characters. Rafe Sadler, innkeeper, highwayman and Rosie’s father was based upon a well known TV chef who I won’t name but for some, the description might suffice. The scene is Rosie alone in a storm-buffeted inn worrying about her father:

‘In her mind, Rafe Sadler stood behind her now, and she turned, trying to flesh a memory from air: A large, heavy-set man with piercing blue eyes and a smile that made the heart sing. She had seen it employed on both women and men, usually when he wanted something from them, a naughty-boy look and then the smile inviting you to share in his guilt. It worked every time, and Rosie had learned its secret from an early age.

Outside, the wind bellowed, buffeting the windows in long, drawn out wails. Occasionally rain splattered down chimney and hearth, and the stone inn shuddered and creaked, its several small movements putting her in mind of an old giant uneasy in his sleep.’

 

Other than faces and mannerisms observed in the street or on TV another great aid to character and setting is Pinterest. Rosie, for example may have originated as a visual composite of the pictures below but brought alive by her character and her 1710 coarse honesty. You can take a girl out of Newport.. . 

It was fun to transpose her to modern Newport and observe her reaction to buses, people talking to unseen headphones, flushing toilets, and coming to terms with a Rolling Stones T Shirt and jeans.

The real danger comes from that distant,  demon haunted future. 

The lake where Rosie spotted the first speck of parasitic moss on her body. It threatens to spread and consume her. 

Three engineered opals have been created. Two are in circulation, Rosie having acquired one of them. The third remains hidden. 

Belia

Demonic palace

For Belia and the demons, the three gems are vital. Whilst one opal allows restricted time travel, holding all three will allow complete ownership of time. In Abaddon’s words:

“We would have farmed your world through time, established our elites throughout your history, consuming but preserving what we fed upon.” 

“Instead of destroying our present and vanishing back through the fissure.” Belia spoke aloud unable to contain a new anxiety. “You will take me back with you.”

“You worry over nothing,” Abaddon’s tone smooth, reassuring, and convincingly firm. “We will find all three opals whatever the cost. We will hunt and destroy any who stand in our way.” 

Rosie, Jai and Rafe stand in their way.

Be Careful What You Wish For

You hear more and more the refrain that what we need is another Cromwell to sort out our perceived decline and sectarian divisions. The desire is understandable, but all I can say is, be careful what you wish for. The only small mercy is that ‘Great Men’ never emerge from wishes alone. I remember, at eighteen, being an ardent Leninist but knowing revolutions don’t work like that. Revolutions from the Left, Right, or any new future quantum angle come about whether wished for or not.  

Men with the historical significance of a Cromwell, a Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler or a Franco don’t come from nowhere. They emerge from war and profound social and economic breakdown. Such events may be inevitable but nothing you would actively wish for.

Ah but Cromwell was different. You can’t compare him to psychopaths like Stalin or Mao. He was English for God’s sake. ‘God’s Greatest Englishman.’ And you can’t compare the English civil war to the Russian Revolution. As a child I believed that. I believed the English civil war was romantic; ringlets and cloaks, fine leather boots, horses and swords, the ‘Devil-May-Cares’ against the ‘Kill-Joy-Puritans.’ 

The famous painting 'When did you last see your father?' The small boy quizzed by grim faced Puritans, all of them dressed in their Sunday best

In reality the conflict was deeply sectarian, passions ignited by hatred, religious divisions, corruption and economic hardship.

Both sides were guilty of dehumanising and despite established rules of conduct massacres became increasingly common.

At Shelford Manor near Nottingham 160 Royalist soldiers were slaughtered along with women and children. The Puritan attack was so frenzied because  they were fighting soldiers from the  Queen’s regiment— mostly European and every one of them Catholic. Foreign Catholics. A red rag to all right thinking Englishmen.  Think English Defence League vs a Bangladeshi Muslim detachment. Think Srebrenica.

Atrocities came from both sides. Bolton, fiercely puritanical held out against the dashing Prince Rupert, beating back four of his regiments. Rupert ordered a second attack led by the Earl of Derby. Fuelled by sectarian anger, the Royalists successfully stormed the walls and the results were bloody and brutal. 1,600 Puritans were slaughtered and the town plundered, its women raped. It’s worth noting that when Liverpool was attacked by Rupert, its soldiers decamped across the Mersey to Birkenhead. Wise men though lacking discernment. Birkenhead.

The Royalists were equally brutal at the village of Barthomley, a detachment led by Major Connaught surrounded a church where the villagers had fled, taking refuge in the steeple. Connaught promised them quarter. When the hapless villagers descended they realised their mistake:

‘…but when hee ha theim in his power, hee caused theim all to be stripped starke naked; And moste barbarouslie and contrary to the lawes of Armes, murthered, stabbed and cutt the Throates of xii of theim and wounded all the reste, leaving many of theim for Dead.’

Lord Byron, the Royalist commander at Chester thoroughly approved, writing to the Duke of Newcastle, ‘…the Rebels had possessed themselves of a Church at Bartumley, but wee presently beat them forth of it, and put them all to the sword; which I finde to be the best way to proceed with these kind of people, for mercy to them is cruelty…’

Hopton Castle, a Parliamentary stronghold in a Royalist area was commanded by Samuel Moore in control of 30 men. In 1664 the garrison was besieged by Sir Michael Woohouse with a royalist force of 500 men. After weeks of valiant fighting, Moore at last surrendered on agreed terms. As they marched out the garrison was massacred, the men bound together in pairs, their throats slit, their bodies tossed in the moat.

At the battle of Naseby, 12,000 Royalist troops faced 15,000 Parliamentarians led by Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. Behind both armies were the baggage trains and women ‘camp followers.’ The battle began at 10 am. By 3.30 pm the king’s men were in full retreat leaving their ‘camp followers’ to the tender mercies of God’s Own Army. Protestant rage was unleashed on the hapless women, many of them Welsh. Confusing the Welsh language with that of the Irish, they massacred three to four hundred of them on the spot. Others were systematically  disfigured:

 ‘…the rest of the whores that attended that wicked army, are marked in the face of nose with a slash or a cut.’ It was a common punishment for ‘the whore’— the nose slit or sometimes cut off.

 I was so wrong as a child. The Civil War was no gentlemanly game, and the violence was immense. In England and Wales alone, a larger proportion of the population died than in the First World War. And don’t get the Irish started on their casualties when Cromwell went over there. What we need is a Cromwell. Maybe. Equally, be careful what you wish for.

 

I never read a book in America

I like every kind of book, though I draw the line at the poems of Alexander Pope. I still have fond childhood memories of Biggles, Bulldog Drummond, Sax Rohmer, and Roderic Graeme, whose collected Black Shirt stories I recently re-purchased on Kindle.

I particularly like old books; the language, their archaisms and rhythm. The language demands patience, something easier to say than attain in a world of instant gratification. There’s the initial struggle, like pushing a reluctant door into a dark and dusty room, until the author’s voice takes hold, and you find yourself in the mindscape of earlier centuries, and you become part of it. 

There’s real joy wandering through the world of Fenimore Cooper, the muscular, sometimes over-pious language transcending the limits of film. I remember reading Thackeray’s The History of Henry Esmond, struggling with it at first, until gradually drifting through deep-hedged lanes, cow parsley and wild roses. 

It was the same with Middlemarch, read when I was seventeen trying to impress my first girlfriend who went on to press Crime and Punishment into my hands, introduce me to Rachmaninov, and then moved on to a boy with better prospects.  

That’s the peculiar things about books, the significant ones at least. You remember who gave or suggested them, and you remember where it was you first read them. Middlemarch and the Brothers Karamazov I read in our freezing cold front parlour—the fire only put on when we had guests. 

I remember reading Romany Rye, Lavengro, and Rookwood in a sunny Uplands flat in Swansea, Joni Mitchel’s Blue playing in the background. 

 

 On a darker note, I remember reading Great Expectations in the middle of a break-up. The Brittany cycling holiday pre-booked and paid for, we cycled some distance apart and I read Great Expecations in a small tent alone. The irony didn’t escape me.  

I still have my James Bond paperbacks, Thunderball of especial significance. School-yard rumours that an obscure newsagent two and half miles away had copies in stock. (In pre-Amazon days you depended on such rumours along with a degree of commitment) After school and through pouring rain I cycled there and returned home late but triumphant, and wet.

Then there's my collection of 'Saint' paperbacks bought in competition with Billy Shaw, the son of our 

local chemist. Boys tend to be completist, and some like to hoard.

 It’s why I can’t get rid of books, even those I may never read again. They each tell a story. 

Then there’re the books bought, but never read; harder to defend perhaps, unless like me you’re quietly convinced you have decades yet to live. Four years ago, I won a vicious bidding war in an auction and returned home with the collected works of Sir Walter Scott—twenty-two beautiful blue leather volumes and all for £32. I stroke them now and again, occasionally open a page at random and admire the quality of the paper or browse several evocative engravings before closing the book with a sigh. One day.

Walter Scott - still to be read

                                               A book at random, Quentin Durward

Gilded pages gleam a pale gold

Published in 1904, these editions boast thin, but pristine white pages and evocative engravings. Book porn. Mea culpa.

At this point, you may be wondering about the title of this piece—I never read a book in America.  You may be tempted to think it was some kind of snide and ill-informed comment on American culture. Far from it. The truth is that my year teaching in America was the culmination of a childhood dream. (Teaching not so much.) The experience of just living there meant I had no time to read! Escapism wasn’t called for. I had escaped. The weekend edition of the New York Times for which you needed some serious weight training and accept grey fingers from the ink, was more than enough.

When I am really old and perhaps blind, I’ll know where my books are shelved, and touch will bring back memories.

Belia

Yes, it is marketing time, which is much more difficult than writing and nowhere near as much fun, marginally better than toothache, especially for one as lazy as me.

Here goes.

Belia is a young adult novel and can be summed up in a sentence: an ex-highwayman and his daughter are cast into a demon haunted future, where they battle carnivorous moss, haunted forests, demons, and Belia—a witch out of time.

 

It is also a triple time-slip novel taking the reader from C18th Newport to the C21st and Newport in the far distant future. It also features the iconic Murenger pub, which plays a key part in events. Newport then enjoys a leading role and those fortunate to live there will recognise many landmarks both past and present—none though in that distant future, where the landscape is one of rolling hills and meadows.

 

For those who want more than a one sentence summary: …when in the winter of 1710, the highwayman Rafe Sadler steals an opal from a malignant woman of power, he is cast into the far future, an apparent ‘Golden Age,’ but one haunted by demons, and a dark secret acknowledged reluctantly and with pious guilt. This far future is a ‘paradise built on bones,’ the result of an engineered cull in a previously overpopulated and ravaged world—a world now threatened by demons.

Rafe’s daughter, Rosie, attempts to follow him but lands in twenty-first century Newport, where she meets a fellow time traveller—a refugee from that distant future. The three time periods play their part in the story as our heroes battle against carnivorous moss, demons, and Belia—a ‘witch’ out of time.

 

Though Belia is complete in itself, there is a sequel Tai-Lin which explores the same three time-periods, and takes us from an C18th America, a demon ravaged future, and the wilds of Tartary and Tibet. 

I hope you enjoy Belia, and Tai-Lin when it's released later this year..