Coming out of the closet

Record of a Baffled Spirit began in January 2007 so has been going on for nearly twenty years. Its been a record of trivia, random thoughts—some of consequence, rarely profundity. Every week as the deadline approaches, I’m scratching my head, wondering what the hell to write, like Scheherazade in ‘One Thousand and One Nights, but more ugly.

With that in mind and most of my friends now knowing the situation, it seems both right and logical I put on the record quite a significant event. Coming out of the closet as it were.

It began with a phone call, taken whilst we were tramping across a meadow just outside of  Skenfrith. The doctor wanted to see me about a recent scan. A small alarm bell rang, which grew louder when we also received a text from the Respiratory Department of Neville Hall hospital organising an appointment in three days’ time. The Consultant was brisk, kindly and Scottish. He pulled no punches. I had mesothelioma. A second scan there and then confirmed it, and we found ourselves on a fast-moving conveyor bombarded with information regarding what to expect next. Throughout and even now I felt as though all this was happening to someone else.

On the way home I googled the ‘endgame’ and was not impressed, there and then deciding that I would treat myself to a small luxury every week. My first small treat was a lettuce; to be seduced by a lettuce—obviously I hadn’t then quite got the hang of this ‘treat’ business. We’d just pulled into the Abergavenny Waitrose when I fell in love with the lettuce, its colour, a vivid, jewel-like green under strategically placed lighting. It promised a crisp, healthy crunch between two pieces of white bread lavishly buttered.  My heart sang. And my treats have since become a little more ambitious. 

Before treatment began, however, there was one more test to undergo—a biopsy—one involving the now familiar CT scanner. No problem: lie back and think of England while the doughnut shaped machine did its business. 

How wrong I was.

I assumed the position until a nurse, kind but firm told me to lie on my front and think of England. Easier to say than do with a stomach like mine and limbs with minds of their own. I tried my best, but my best was not good enough.

 ‘Arms straight in front—as though you’re diving.’ 

‘Otherwise, you won’t fit through the machine’—a different voice, less kind. What the hell did they think I was, some kind of knitting needle?

I tried but the old arms proved mutinous. A compromise was reached. One arm stretched out in front, the other stretched down at my side. 

‘Now breathe in deeply.’

‘Mmmmfff!’ I said, a pillow pressing into my face and nose. 

‘You’re choking. I see. Try and turn your face to the side.’

And so there I was, trapped in a weird frozen ‘front crawl,’ and not a swimming pool in sight. Thirty minutes later a voice told me I could move, biopsy done and dusted. They’d taken three tiny lumps of tissue, but I hadn’t felt a thing other than limbs now screaming in cramp. 

Another consultant offered hope. A trial. Proton therapy—essentially radiotherapy but in finely targeted beams zapping the cancer but leaving the surrounding flesh undamaged. It wouldn’t cure but add to my quality of life with the bonus perhaps of an extra year. The hope proved short lived. The cancer was too advanced, or in the wrong place, or something, so now I’m on immunotherapy that follows a three-week cycle. 

The first session, two weeks or so ago, wiped me out for two days. This had implications.  My birthday is the 24^th Christmas the 25^th. And I had a session due on the 23^rd, one that would wipe me out those two days with the possibility of a mince pie on Boxing Day. 

God, however intervened. I had a reaction in the form of a numb and tingling right hand, which became so weak I was unable to hold a kettle of water. In consequence the next session was held back until a short course of steroids allowed me to hold a kettle again. And a further consequence, Christmas and my birthday is now back on,  becausd the  Dec 23^rd immunotherapy session has been delayed until early January. 

I’ll not mention this whole business again, until or unless anything amusing or significant occurs. Have a very Happy Christmas. Mince pies all round.  Scheherazade is taking a week or two off.

In Honour of Fred Bailey

A letter to the Telegraph alerted me to the existence of Fred Bailey. To quote:

“He was an astonishing chap. He was recruited at the end of World War I to go to Turkestan to find out what were the Bolsheviks up to and to keep a keen eye on Indian nationalists. Tashkent was in the hands of the Bolsheviks who then decided to capture Samarkand. Bailey advised the Emir to cut the Bolshevik lines of communication by sabotaging the railway. Accordingly, the Bolsheviks withdrew and put out a contract on Bailey. 15 assassins were sent to Samarkand. All 15 were captured and executed. The 16^th man the Bolsheviks sent out to kill Fred Bailey was Fred Bailey himself, masquerading as an Austrian POW (and recruited by the Cheka). He eventually escaped Samarkand disguised as a Turkman."

 

I love imperial history, warts and all. Thus inspired I set out to find more about this splendid fellow and got more than I bargained for—in short, two Frederick Baileys—an irresistible BOGOF offer. 

The original Frederick Marshman Bailey was born in 1882 and died in 1967. Those two dates conjure up so many images, the man himself one of the last great players in the ‘Great Game’ surviving long enough to witness ‘Flower Power’ —(Not something that would interest him, I imagine, though he does give his name to the Himalayan Blue Poppy)—and almost long enough to see men walking on the moon.

 

His life reads like a boy’s own adventure book, a lieutenant in the Royal Bengal Lancers, transferring later to the 32^ndSikh Pioneers, he taught himself Tibetan and became fluent. In between wars, Frederick Bailey become a noted explorer, spy, botanist and zoologist. 

There is a magic to old maps that google earth can't replicate

Bailey explored obscure regions of China and Tibet, rejoining the military when World War I broke out. There, he was wounded, once on the Western Front, and twice more in the Gallipoli campaign. 

The escapade that made his name (apart from the Blue Poppy) took place in 1918, when he was sent to Tashkent to spy on the Bolshevik intentions with regard to India. The British had reason to be suspicious. Indian nationalists were planning a joint Russo-German invasion of India via Afghanistan. And it was here that Fred Bailey survived 16 assassins—the last one being himself.

But what are the odds of their being a second and equally resourceful warrior called Frederick Bailey?

This Fred Bailey died in 2023 aged 99, the last of a generation that will soon be forgotten but no doubt be reinterpreted in Hollywood movies and with more photogenic actors.

 During World War II he was recruited to the SOE, and joined one of their three man teams parachuted into occupied France to support the Resistance. He was a fast and gifted radio operator and learnt to encode and decode messages at high speed; later he trained in weaponry, sabotage and unarmed combat.

As the war in Europe neared its end he volunteered for similar activity in the far East where fighting with Japan continued. In the jungles of Burma, Bailey’s team indulged in guerrilla warfare reporting on Japanese positions, ambushing, harassing. and  subsisting on a handful of rice a day. He returned to England in November 1946 and went back to his job with the Colne Valley Water Company. 

That last sentence holds me. The contrast between danger and glamour and the mundane. His heroism was not forgotten, at least not by the French. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and appointed to the Legion d’honneur by the French Government. 

The photos speak volumes

What is it with a name? Were the two  even related separated as they were by class? But then heroism is class in itself. Would it make things easier for MI6 and the CIA to restrict their recruitment to Fred Baileys; perhaps re-name their operatives: Fred Bailey. There could be movie franchise—'the name's Bailey. Fred Bailey.'

A Playful Landscape

 

The borderland separating England and Wales are steeped in legends, all of which I firmly believe. A case in point is the story of the predatory marsh. The geological background may or may not add weight to the story. Shobden Marsh, along with the rivers Lugg, Arrow, and Teme are largely a result of glaciation and the carving of the landscape as the icesheets retreated. For much of prehistory and up to the early middle ages the entire area was forest and marsh. This then is the background to the mysterious disappearance of ‘Old Pembridge.’

One night, the entire village was swallowed up by Shobden Marsh, and we know it is true because of a nameless fiddler possessing a pair of fine gloves: white and tied with red ribbons. 

There was a dance at Pembridge that night, and the fiddler from the neighbouring village of Eardisland provided the music. 

Eardisland

On reaching home, he realised he’d left behind his magnificent gloves and so, no doubt muttering under his breath, set off to retrieve them. He never did. Nor did he find ‘Old Pembridge.’ Where it stood was marshland glistening in moonlight.  

The marshes have since been drained, but neither  old Pembridge nor the fine white gloves adorned with red ribbons were ever found. Never mind, we have 'new' Pembridge.

There is apparently a well in the vicinity. It is said that if you drop a stone into it, you might hear it strike against the top of the old church steeple. I believe that too.

Close by is the magical village of Much Marcle whose only claim to fame is ‘The Wonder’ and the fact that the serial killer Fred West was born there. Three of his victims are buried nearby: his nanny Annie McFall and their unborn child (1967) and his first wife, Rena (1971)

But back to ‘The Wonder,’ equally traumatic but far less sordid or evil.

 

On the 17^th February, 1575 the earth moved, or strictly speaking, Marcle Hill moved. In a great roar it swallowed the chapel at Kinneston, destroying hedges, livestock, and trees. On the 19^th of February it reached its present position, where for the moment it seems content. 

The incident was recorded by the great antiquarian, William Camden (1551-1623) in his own unique and wonderful style:

‘Near the conflux of the Lugg and the Wye, eastwards, a hill which they called Marcley Hill in the year 1575 roused itself and, as it were, out of sleep, and for three days together, shoving its prodigious body forwards with a horrible roaring noise and overturning all that stood in its way, advanced itself, to the astonishment of all beholders . . .’ Some wonderful phrases there ‘roused itself’ ‘shoving its prodigious body’. One can only weep for the state of our language today. Nevertheless, I live in a playful landscape, and that is some compensation.

The Plastic Scouser

 

Warm wax is wax until impressed by a seal and is at once transformed. The mind of a child is of a similar nature, impressions buried deep and long lasting. In the words of St Ignatius Loyola. ‘Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man.’ This is true of cities too, Liverpool in particular taking on the role of Loyola. The weather for a start, raw winds and ocean-drenched rain, glowing cigarettes, cocky watchmen and braziers in freezing darkness, but above all the buildings. 

As a child, I’d taken my surroundings largely for granted, only becoming aware of their impact as I grew older. The buildings that shaped me reflect confidence and grandeur, imagination, romance, light and dark. Blackened or abrased clean, they tower over the pedestrian, creating chasms of shadow and unexpected shafts of light. The great pubs of Liverpool, many now sadly demolished, could have graced the mind of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, and all this I wandered through, holding the hand of our mum, absorbing the clatter and smell of the streets. 

What Liverpool lacked in litter was made up for by its odour: stale fruit and bodies, tobacco, and beer. Beer had a stronger smell than now, caught as you passed the open door of any pub. Along with the sharp, sweet fumes of cigarette and pipe was a heavy, sour smell—that of barrelled beer. 

Great buildings sculpt the mind, feed yet unknown thoughts in a way ring roads and urban sprawl can’t. The maligned slum terraces shared a similar visual poetry, the magic—dark though it was—replaced by central heating and soulless blocks in the sky.  

Liverpool was heavily bombed during the Second World War, and as late as the early sixties, you walked past old craters and open spaces where houses had been. 

As a child I’d walked a city that seemed complete and unchanging, one that would always be there, bombsites and all.  I breathed in the dark and grandiose, the gothic, fanciful and sometimes scary. I never factored in soot or that stone could be differently coloured. I never knew that bombsites might vanish, or great buildings knocked down leaving gaps like a prize-fighter’s grin. I never knew that town planners might dream of Dan Dare, a comic future in concrete and glass.

In the 1960's planners visualised metropolis and buildings the Luftwaffe missed were knocked down to be replaced by the tawdry. Mercifully they ran out of money, or it might have been worse. 

These are the memories I took with me to Swansea University, becoming in time that mocked creature, 'the plastic scouser.’ It was though, a slow process, being unable to let go of the city that had shaped me for better or worse. Wherever I go is matched against it; my heart quickens when I return and feel its pavements under my feet. Old landmarks drift into view, but now there are gaps and anomalies.

Cities grow and change, but some of the whimsy and grandeur has gone. Space is abused, new buildings squeezed in like unexpected guests; old landmarks have been obscured, streets built over. The Victorian and Edwardian vision has gone. Liverpool, though vibrant as ever, now has a techno-late-medieval vibe, higgledy-piggledy in places, buildings mushrooming from nowhere.  These things hit me in flashes as decades fly by. And now I’m feeling less of a ‘plastic scouser’ more a ghost from the past.

Marketing. Last excerpt from 

I was disinclined to kneel

There has to be a reason for everything, whether you know it or not. In this case, it was two pictures bequeathed to us by my wife’s aunt, the indomitable Madge. Both pictures depict Llandaff Cathedral, one a very old print, the other a watercolour of the modern interior.

I had never been there before, even though it is almost on our doorstep; my wife has been a few times, but long ago.  Pilgrimage or just a day out, perhaps both.

Some churches exude ancient peace, a sense of the sacred. Llandaff left me cold, and this is no slur. Feelings are subjective, though there was one small irritant—more than a feeling—which I’ll come to. 

First the positives. It’s a very pretty building, almost Disneyesque. It’s privileged with an ancient history. The cathedral stands on one of the oldest Christian sites in Britain. In the C6th St. Dyfrig founded a community close to where a Roman road crossed the River Taff and his body is buried where the Cathedral now stands.  He was succeeded by St Teilo and then Teilo's nephew, St Euddogwy. 

 

The present building was begun by Bishop Urban in 1120. In 1220 the present West Front was built, the cathedral finished by 1280 or so with the completion of the Lady Chapel. The original windows were replaced by pointed windows a hundred years later.  Henry VIII was its nemesis. He brought an end to pilgrims visiting the shrine of St Teilo, perhaps more importantly brought an end to their offerings which financed the upkeep of the cathedral.

 Over the years the building fell into disrepair. Victorian prosperity saw renewal and the Cathedral restored to its former glory with a new southwest tower and spire. 

Two steps forward, one step back. In 1941, the cathedral and much of its windows were damaged by German bombs. The story perhaps explains the importance of benefactors and ‘friends’ of the Cathedral. What you see here is a tribute to them, but at the same time explains why the Cathedral is akin to a phoenix, in one sense, more modern than old.

The Victorians  rebuilt parts of it.  Since then benefactors and ‘friends,’ past and present have fought to make the cathedral  ‘relevant’ and reverencing God with great works of art: a Rossetti Tryptic, an Epstein installation and some beautiful Burn Jones tiles.

 But here explains my annoyance.

The explanatory signs and/or lack of them, which perhaps reveals more than intended. Obscure C19th prelates of passing importance boast fine, clearly labelled monuments. More modern prelates and benefactors share a similar privilege.

Note the contrast here. The victorian cleric named and entombed. But who is the far more interesting medieval chap in the foreground? Me neither. 

And who are they?

And this chap, lost amidst chairs. 

Or these? Is that Fu Manchu?

or a monk with a cold?

In short, the truly interesting, the enigmatic and ancient with stories to tell,  the medieval and sixteenth century tombs, random gargoyles and mysterious stone carvings: nothing. No discreet brass labels explaining who these people were. There's a lack of accessibility. Below illustrates my point. The one exception.

A substantial, framed piece of text on the floor, too heavy to comfortably lift and read. I was disinclined to kneel. 

Pooh in the Willows

Over dinner we were discussing Winnie the Pooh and which animal we most resembled. The Owl, being the most authoritative and sagacious went to our son. 

Credit Alexas Fotos

My wife thought she might be Kanga with a touch of Eyore—which sounds like a disease. Our daughter, we agreed had a lot of Tigger in her, though she was not present to argue the case. 

I was present, a voice that would not be silenced! Perhaps, I began tentatively, I could be Owl too.

Shot down in flames.

“No, you’re Pooh, a greedy bear of little brain,” they said. I ate my roast potatoes in silence and brooded.  “Badger, then,” I said. Gruff, authoritative, a wise old cove. 

“Wrong book. That’s Wind in the Willows.”

“Yes, but now we have crossovers.” I desperately tried to remember what was going on in the Marvel Universe, heroes from different comics interacting in bizarre conflicts but sexy costumes. Would Badger look good in a leotard and cape? Who would play Mr Toad? Would they see me as him too?

“A Winnie the Pooh. . . and a Wind in the Willows crossover?”

There was silence for a moment, as though they were giving it serious thought.

What would it be called? 

“Wind in the Pooh.”

“Pooh in the Willows.”

“Winnie the Wind.”

I admitted defeat and accepted my new designation as Winnie the Pooh.

Ever Decreasing Circles

The Bible gets a bad rap, dismissed by many as a mishmash of tribal legends, at best fairy tales. With as much vehemence as their opposite number they believe there is no God, Genesis is a myth for simpletons. We have the Big Bang. 

The argument continues with or without me, but recently I began to wonder whether we are perhaps looking at those early stories from the wrong end of a telescope; that they are not so much an account of what happened, but prophecies, a warning of what is to come. Those without faith but believe in Carl Jung may reach similar conclusions in archetypes and a collective unconscious. 

Genesis describes how God created the world in six days and then Adam from dust animated by His breath. He placed Adam in Eden, a now unobtainable paradise with but one injunction: not to sample the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent tempted Eve, appealing to curiosity and ambition; and perhaps aesthetics, the fruit looked damn fine. Eat it, and they too would share in the wisdom of God; disobey his command and bite into the fruit. 

God’s reaction is swift. Adam and Eve are banished from Eden for fear of them eating more from the tree and so live for ever. His final words are harsh ‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee….in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; and unto dust shalt thou return.’ And, for good measure, Eden was guarded by a cherubim with a fiery sword.   Genesis 2:8—3:24

Scientists have disproved the literal truth of the Genesis story. In response, theologians focus on what they see as a deeper meaning and see the seven days and seven nights as a metaphor for the process of creation. 

Likewise, in the story of ‘The Flood,’ geologists dispute the possibility of such a world-wide phenomenon, though flood myths are common across many cultures. 

In the Biblical version—Genesis 6-9—God is so appalled by the evil of man, he determines on a watery cull and start again with a tiny seed—an Ark of creation: Noah, his immediate family, and a bunch of animals. It’s heartening that God promises never to flood the earth again and marks the promise with a rainbow. It does though leave open more unpleasant options. 

The flood comes and goes, but man is incorrigible. In the words of Chumbawamba

 ‘I get knocked down. I get up again, aint nothing gonna keep me down.’ 

The next challenge to God is described in Genesis 11:1-9 and the story of the building of a great tower that would pierce the heavens. 

It was a time when a united human race, sharing a common language, migrated eastwards to the land of Shinar. There, in a spasm of hubris, they began building a great tower, for some a stairway to heaven. God,  aware of their ambition confounded them by fragmenting their common tongue. Divided by language and unable to share their commonality, they separate and scatter across the earth.

Not  surprisingly, the flood myth was told in earlier Sumerian civilisation and known to the Assyrians. More surprisingly perhaps there are similar legends in Nepal, Africa, Arizona and Central America—all focusing on mankind grown over-powerful before scattered like chaff in the wind. 

The myths have one thing in common, self-indulgence, pride and ambition being regularly humbled by a creator. They share one further thing in common. They are now largely derided, or perhaps more dangerously forgotten. 

And yet the niggle won’t go away. Perhaps as suggested in the opening paragraph, these are not so much myths as prophecies, warnings of things yet to come. Perhaps Chumbawamba’s anthem is less a song of defiance and more the signature tune of Sisyphus, doomed by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to fall back again every time he nears the summit. We perhaps are nearing our summit, self-indulgent cultures fragmenting as we become more global. Marx talked of class divides and called for workers to unite. Now we have so many divides, it’s hard to keep up. A modern Babel. An exhausted and tarnished planet.

We have to know – the original blessing and curse. Will we master creation or will arrogance and pride bring us tumbling down? Again. An Eden in the cosmos reduced to a cinder or at best wasteland and a fragment of humanity reduced to scrabbling for subsistence. A cherubim with a flaming sword guarding what we once had. 

Still, time for a cup of tea.