Sunday, September 1, 2024

Summer 2024

 This summer's lease had all too short a date

Evening Hill Diaries 12 - Summer

June 24th, 2024


View from Evening Hill, Poole

MV Barfleur passes Brownsea Castle


 

Was it Flaubert?

I have read somewhere that Flaubert (it was certainly one of the famous French authors) would examine every page of his written work to check whether he had ever used the same word twice (except prepositions, and presumably conjunctions).  I used the word ‘explore’ twice during a short piece as an entry to a memoir competition, and had great difficulty in finding an accurate substitute.  ‘Investigate’ did not fit.  A Thesaurus was of no help.  Eventually I used ‘pursue’.

I am minded of this because I am reading Patrick Leigh Fermor.  ‘Between the Woods and the Water’ is the second in his travel writings about his 1933-5 walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople.  This second volume begins as he crosses the Maria Valeria bridge over the Danube from what is now Slovakia into Esztergom, Hungary.  Leigh Fermor, quite apart from his astounding service in WWII, is renowned as the paragon of travel writers.  The writing is dense, brilliant, and I am frequently driven to the dictionary to look up the meaning of a word, or even a translation of the several languages in which he writes.  A classical education shines through; his appreciation and knowledge of arcane architectural terms is remarkable; and he has an extraordinary grasp of the history, including the ethnology, of Middle Europe.  He is a disciple of Flaubert (or whichever writer it was).  The phrase which drove me to the dictionary this time and inspired the above paragraph was “Foxes’ Wedding”*.  I had never heard of it.

I am enjoying this book immensely, but it is clear that nobody would write a travel opus in the same style nowadays.  They would not get away with it.  I cannot hope to emulate Leigh Fermor, and will stick to the direct account, perhaps with the occasional adjective or metaphor.  The Hemingway style of writing for me!  ‘He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.’  (William Faulkner).

The old witticism which says ‘There are travellers who write, and there are writers who travel’ does not seem to fit Leigh Fermor.  He was uniquely gifted at both.

 

*  A Foxes’ or Fox’s Wedding is the phenomenon of simultaneous sunshine and rain, often with a rainbow.  It appears to be derived from a Japanese folk myth.

 

On to the next Book Club book – The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) by George Orwell.  This one is hard going and consists of two sections.  Part 1 is more or less a documentary in writing of the working conditions of the poor, particularly miners, in the North of England in the 1930s.  Part 2 is Orwell’s musings on Socialism, which he sees as the solution to the poverty problem.  The discussion is fascinating, and he skewers delightfully almost all of the poets, novelists, and dramatists of the early 20th Century.  WH Auden, for example, ‘a sort of gutless Kipling,’ and GK Chesterton, ‘a sentimental, democratic, Catholic.’  Even T S Eliot does not escape.

Despite his admiration of Socialism, his opinion of what one might call ‘committed Socialists’ is withering.  He describes ‘… a prim little man with a white collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings…’ or delineating a typical crank in the Socialist and Communist parties: ‘fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist and feminist.’  No-one can accuse Orwell of pulling his punches.  ‘The good old Socialist sport of denouncing the bourgeoisie.’  Jeremy Corbyn came to mind several times.  As in 1984 and Animal Farm he is often prescient.  He sees the advent of machines to do virtually everything as a concern, though he admits that the genie cannot be put back into the bottle ‘… the inhabitants of Utopia would create artificial dangers in order to exercise their courage, and do dumbbell exercises to harden muscles which they would never be obliged to use.’  In gyms, yoga, and Pilates classes up and down the country, and in extreme sports, we see his words have come true.

 

This diary leapfrogs in time somewhat.  On Friday 10th May, those lucky enough to be outside at nighttime and to be away from light pollution, including places as far south as the Isle of Wight, were treated to a spectacular display of the Northern Lights.

 

King's College Chapel, Cambridge (please note this is a copyright photograph)


 

In early May I journeyed to Scotland for a few days of golf in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Scottish Medical Golf Society.  I will not dwell on the games themselves.  But on the way I wanted to try to pick up a cashmere sweater in a sale.  I therefore stopped in Hawick, the town in the Borders most associated with the Scottish woollen industry.  I found a sweater made by William Lockie, apparently one of the last manufacturers to be located in the town.  In the quiet stockroom and salesroom, a pleasant lady of perhaps sixty or so told me that when she was a girl, Pringle employed 2000 people in the town.  ‘Now the manufacturing is all overseas,’ she said.  I asked her if there was still a Pringle office and workforce in the town, and if so, how many people did it employ now?  The answer was yes.  The Pringle workforce in Hawick now numbers four people.


Muirfield clubhouse.  The famous 'island' bunker, 18th hole

Distant view of Arthur's Seat above Edinburgh, across Aberlady bay, from Luffness golf links


 

Also that month, I travelled to Chicago, ostensibly to play golf at Whistling Straits.  Prior to rural Wisconsin however, I was fortunate to do in whistle-stop fashion, much of the best of Chicago.  The Chicago Art Institute, the Gehry and Anish Kapoor installations in Millennium Park, the tour of Chicago architecture seen from the river, and a visit to Chicago Symphony Hall to hear Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, conducted by the 86-year-old Neeme Järvi.  A wonderful experience.  Only one thing jarred.  I had diligently researched downtown hotels and came up with an extremely good deal at the Royal Sonesta, with all rooms overlooking the Chicago river.  One member of our party complained, and when I saw the view from his room, I felt sympathetic:

 


Chicago river at night

A great mix of styles from the river

17th Green, Whistling Straits.  Miss this and you are in serious trouble

Just one of the many classics in the Chicago Art Institute.  'Night Hawks'.  Edward Hopper

The conclusion of Mahler 2.  Chicago Symphony Hall.


 

Mixing with the American cardiology golf team – including old friends from days at Duke – it was easy to lapse into the U.S. usage of the English language, with simple synonyms such as elevator, gas, trunk, and sidewalk.  Bunkers on golf courses are ‘traps’ to the Americans.  But it reminded me of some less common words which can lead to misunderstanding.  For example, during my first few weeks in North Carolina, in the middle of the secretaries’ communal office, there was some discussion about a forthcoming Division of Cardiology party.

‘Dr Mcleod, do you shag?’ asked one of the secretaries.  I cannot remember my response.  Probably struck dumb.  Perhaps these functions ended in some sort of wild orgy?  If so, this seemed at variance with the buttoned-up, tie-wearing, immaculate white coat sporting dedicated doctors of the Medical Center.  My slack-jawed appearance and blank face rapidly drew forth an explanation.  ‘Carolina Shag’ is a famous style of dance, a more sedate style of jitterbug perhaps, popular all over the U.S. as ‘Shag’ but varying slightly depending on location and state.  Understandable hilarity when I explained the UK use of the word.

As Shaw observed, we are two countries, divided by a common language.

 

There can be few who do not observe those hints of mortality at the time that they first put their hands into a Dyson (or similar) hand-dryer.  The rippling skin of the dorsum of one’s hands due to loss of muscle and skin elasticity have a horrifying fascination.  Stand in front of a bathroom mirror: stomach in, shoulders back.  Pleased with self.  Then lean forward for the toothpaste and that vertical ruff of redundant skin appears below the supra-sternal notch.  Oh dear.  Quite apart from observations of stumbling Joe Biden, with his ‘Parkinsonian mask-like facies,’ one worries when writing, about loss of vocabulary.  Those senior moments, ‘Whatshisname’, ‘Whatdoyoucallit’, happen at the keyboard, but usually we are able to find good words, if not ‘le mot juste.’

 

And in postscript, as you all know, Biden has stepped down.

 

An interesting study, published some time ago, examined the entire works of Iris Murdoch.  It was shown, by computer analysis, that during her later career as a writer, there were subtle changes such as less complex sentence structures and simpler vocabulary, which presaged the onset of her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease by some years.  This must have been a difficult exercise to do since we all have access to a Thesaurus.  I suppose we eschew it most of the time – writing what first comes into our heads.  The unconscious search for and use of a word is what must have been the clue to Iris’s deterioration.

 

 

British males of a certain age, e.g. me; will have noted with sadness and nostalgia the passing of the French singer-songwriter and actress, Françoise Hardy, on 11th June aged 80.  Her wistful melancholic songs about love, with an enchanting French accent in a breathy alto register, made the pains of adolescence understandable and even bearable.  Her clear diction and pronunciation was such that one could even understand the words.  Words which I sometimes found helpful when hitch-hiking (faire l’auto-stop) around France in 1967, the Summer of Love.

I am not alone.  Malcolm McLaren, The Beatles, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, David Bowie, Morrissey, Richard Thompson and Bob Dylan were all infatuated.  Adieu.  Dors bien, Françoise.  Fais de beaux rêves.

 

‘Nostalgia’s great but it’s not what it was.’  AFGL.  Sunday Times, 1960s or early 1970s.

 

‘In the White Giant’s Thigh’.  This is the title of a suitably impenetrable poem, though with many oblique references to sex, by Dylan Thomas (please see most of my back catalogue of writings).  Writing in Atlantic Monthly in 1951, Dylan stated that it was a part, possibly the first part, of a long work to be called ‘In Country Heaven.’  I am sure he must have been influenced by the atomic bombs; also possibly by the encroachment of humans upon the goodness of the earth.  Here is what he says (sounds like he was practising for the next part of his poem).  In view of subsequent works, for example Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ and the focus on global warming, I quote it in full because it seems extremely prescient (that word again):

 

‘…this time, spreads the heavenly hedgerow rumor, it is the Earth. The Earth has killed itself. It is black, petrified, wizened, poisoned, burst; insanity has blown it rotten; and no creatures at all, joyful, despairing, cruel, kind, dumb, afire, loving, dull, shortly and brutishly hunt their days down like enemies on that corrupted face. And, one by one, these heavenly hedgerow men who once were of the Earth, tell one another, through the long night, Light and His tears falling, what they remember, what they sense in the submerged wilderness and on the exposed hairbreadth of the mind, of that self-killed place. They remember places, fears, loves, exultation, misery, animal joy, ignorance and mysteries, all you and I know and do not know. The poem-to-be is made of these tellings.’

 

Why do I write about ‘In the White Giant’s Thigh’?  Because I have sometimes wondered if Dylan had been thinking about the Cerne Abbas giant, which is not far from here, on the hillside above the small village of Cerne Abbas.  I have now found some documentary support for the view that Thomas had the Cerne giant in mind, and particularly a Dorset folk-belief that women who were impregnated on the White Giant’s thigh would be fertile.

With this in mind, we set out with a friend from Edinburgh who wished to visit the Cerne Abbas giant.  Taking in the 200-year-old White Horse above Osmington (George the Third on his charger) on the way, we then climbed laboriously up the steep slope at least to the White Giant’s left foot.  At our age, none of the party was in further need of fertility and it seemed superfluous to climb higher.

In the White Giant's Left Foot



While researching this I came across an interview with Andrew Sinclair, the film director who was responsible for what was primarily Richard Burton’s project – the film of ‘Under Milk Wood’.  Liz Taylor was of course included in the film, and seemed somehow out of place, at least to my recollection.  Sinclair paid tribute to the people of Fishguard, who in 1971 put up with the film crew entourage, allowed the addition of a cottage to the last building on the Lower Town quay to house ‘Captain Cat’, and acted as extras in the film.  He and Richard Burton paid tribute to the acting skills of the townspeople.  ‘You know Andrew,’ said Burton.  ‘All the Welsh are actors, but only the bad ones become professional.’  A Wildean epigram.  A note in a Lower Town pub signed by Burton testifies to the day that the cast drank the pub dry.

 

D-Day

Magnificently presented parades and services to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of D-day.  Evening event at Portsmouth accompanied by drone pictures created in the sky.  A daytime parade at the new British memorial site at Vers-sur-Mer, just behind Gold beach attended by dignitaries from Britain, the US, and France.  Withering criticism of Rishi Sunak (our now ex-prime minister), for leaving before the further ceremony at the US memorial at Omaha beach.  A bad decision.  This spawned a number of cartoons, for example, Sunak sitting listening to one 100-year old veteran sitting in a wheelchair recounting his experience.  A bubble comes out of his head: ‘Sounds grim; sorry, must dash; got a taxi waiting.’  Poor Sunak; handed the ultimate in poisoned chalices, or ‘hospital passes’, call it what you will.

'They do it with Drones'

D-Day 80, Portsmouth

British Cemetery, Bayeux


 

New cartoon since Sir Keir Starmer’s accession as PM.  King Charles greeting him: ‘Have you come far?’  Starmer, ‘Yes, my father was a toolmaker.’

 

For those not in the know, e.g. US or Canada, Starmer was wont to mention his ‘humble’ origins at every opportunity during the election campaign.  ‘My father was a toolmaker’ verbatim, began almost every speech on almost every public appearance.  For the time being, post-election (which was on July 4th), the Labour cabinet members are utilising the ‘blame the Tories for the mess they left behind’ mantra.  How long this will work is anybody’s guess.  Despite a remarkably low share of the vote, the Conservatives were routed by aggrieved Labour voters, by an increase in vote share for the Liberal Democrats, and disruption from the right-wing Reform Party led by Nigel Farage.  Labour therefore achieved a landslide turnover of seats in the House of Commons.  The word ‘Starmergeddon’ has entered the language.

 



As happens every four years, somehow the Olympics transfixes us and we watch far too much television. Will the impassive South Korean women beat the equally impassive Chinese women at archery? (Yes). Can Great Britain get a gold medal in cliff climbing? (Yes). Do we know what repêchage means? (Yes). Poole turns out to be the ‘winningest’ town in the UK – our trampolining champion and our kite-foiling champion. Many fine moments, though the bizarre opening ceremony will also live long in the memory. Performed in the rain, with catastrophic results for the pianos, which accompanied singers, and the odd appearance of a hooded man who ran through some of the Paris landmarks. Lady Gaga cavorted to little effect on some steps above the Seine. Attracting my attention was a display of a house with multiple windows, with a caricature of Marie Antoinette holding her head in her hands. I thought it odd to celebrate a method of mass execution.



Execution has several meanings. In the hands, or should that be feet (?) of Mark Cavendish, perfect execution turned out to be the exquisite manoeuvres in the chaos of a Tour de France sprint finish which gave him his 35th stage victory in the race, thus becoming the only man to better Eddy Mercx in this event.

Cav's 35th

 








Champagne:

Madame Bollinger said it best “I drink Champagne when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it -- unless I'm thirsty.”

A non sequitur.  Here is another:

A peculiarly British comedy show has been present on the radio airwaves for some years.  There have been changes in personnel, largely due to demise, but the format remains similar, and in Jack Dee the BBC have found a great replacement for the immortal Humphrey Lyttelton, as the quizmaster.

Lyttelton, incidentally, deserves an entire blog to himself.  Have a look at his Wikipedia entry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Lyttelton

Naturally, the show, I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue (ISIHAC) has its own Facebook page.  Devotees are inspired by the moderators to produce their own entries to questions typical of the ones set for the panel of four during the radio programme.

 

For example, the Facebook panellists are invited to suggest new titles for ‘The German Film Club’.  Here are some of their suggestions:

 

1.     Bach to the Future

2.     Audi West Was Won

3.     Herrspray

4.     Singin’ in the Rhein

5.     Paint Your Volkswagen

6.     The Hunt for Red Oktoberfest

7.     The Importance of Being Ernst

8.     Cool Hans Luke

9.     Guten Abend It Like Beckham

10.Carry On Mein Kampfing

11.Black Forrest Gump…

 

 

I think you get the picture.

 

I am writing this as Storm Lilian careers in from the West.  It feels very equinoctial, despite the date being August 22nd.

 

I have been to Edinburgh again.  Somewhat reluctantly this time because I had nothing booked from the main programme, but the Fringe is always rewarding, especially when one takes care to avoid the turkeys.

It is never of much interest to readers to enumerate shows or plays they haven’t seen, and have little chance of seeing.  A few stood out.  An unusual show ‘A Giant On The Bridge’ was created with the collaboration of a number of Scottish prisons, and was in musical story format, dealing with the jailing and subsequent homecoming of a young man to a sister who has been looking after his daughter.  The story unfolds alongside a fairytale of an imprisoned giant who has lost his heart.  So far, so unpromising, but the musicianship of the performers was mesmerising.  Many of those who contributed to the writing work within the criminal justice system, or in charities designed to help prisoners.

I generally avoid musicals.  This is because of ‘Weaver’s Law of Musicals’.  So many are dire.  But venturing to one called ‘Wallis’, the acting and ensemble singing was excellent and the main actress/singer who played Wallis Simpson was stick thin and a fantastic lookalike for the person whom the Queen Mother called ‘That Woman’.  The songs moved the dialogue along very well and were composed in 1930s style, which could of course be taken as the high point of the American popular song.

Two excellent exhibitions.  Sir John Lavery, acclaimed as a ‘Belfast born Glasgow Boy’; and El Anatsui, the Ghanaian sculptor.  Examples of both below.


El Anatsui - close up

The finished sculpture from a distance



Two scenes at Grez sur Loing by Sir John Lavery

The jockeys' room at Ascot, 1920s


 

And much music: swing, jazz manouche, Piaf style swing, blues, harpsichord and piano recitals, guitar recitals.  And finally, through the generosity of an ex-patient, a seat at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.


Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street

The castle during the Tattoo


 

Tribute to 200 years of RNLI


The last event, played by a remarkable Italian, Luca Soattin, was a recital of classical guitar music dating from the early 19th century, at which time the predominant exponents, composers, and teachers were Italian.  One of the St Cecilia’s Halls volunteers introduced me to him before his recital, and he even allowed me to play his guitar, though he was somewhat horrified that I play ‘with the nails’ as do most modern guitarists.  This is not advisable on treble strings made of gut.  Luca plays with the finger pads only on what is called a ‘transitional guitar’, the first instrument to move to the six-string model rather than the previous style of five strings, which is often called the vihuela.  His guitar was made by Paolo Castello in Genoa in 1804.  Included in the works by Carulli, Sor, and Giuliani, was a Romanza by Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840).  Paganini’s remarkable skill and flexibility in playing the violin has been attributed by some to possible Marfan’s Syndrome, though he was brought up in a musical family and played many instruments, including the guitar, from childhood.  Allegedly he used the guitar to relax.  One of his statements was ‘The violin is my mistress, but the guitar is my master’.  He and the guitarist and composer Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), and Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) were firm friends.  On the rare occasions when they were all in Rome together, Luca told us that the three were known as the Triunvirato (the Triumvirate).

 

During Paganini’s travels, he gave a lock of his hair as a keepsake to an English admirer, Signora Chatterton, the future wife of England’s greatest harpist of the era, John Chatterton.  The bestowal of a lock of hair to an admirer or lover was very much the vogue in the 19th century.  Analysis of the hair indicates that Paganini probably died not from Marfan Syndrome, but from mercury poisoning, a common but ineffective treatment for syphilis.  The interested should read the journal Arch Kriminol 2012; 229:11-24.

 

I say 'remarkable' of Luca, because he is not only a virtuoso recitalist, but his day job is as post-doctoral researcher and lecturer in cardiac electrophysiology at the University of Copenhagen.


1804 Genoese guitar

Another historic instrument from St Cecilia's Halls


 

Summer seems to have passed in a flash – though we were ‘looking (for it) all the time’.  Like the sad character in Under Milk Wood, putting flowers on the grave of Gomer Owen, who ‘kissed her once by the pigsty when she wasn’t looking, and never kissed her again, though she was looking all the time’.  As indeed were we, for summer if not for kisses…

 

Sign off date: late August, 2024 (but see below).


The most unusual experience in Edinburgh.  Live saxophone and live painting on a glass plate, the image being projected onto the East window of St Giles Cathedral.


Postscript, 1st September 2024

Yesterday I was almost knocked over by a very frail old man on a mobility scooter trying to make a U-turn on the pavement in Canford Cliffs.  He didn’t recognise me but I realised that he was once a distinguished surgeon, and that he had performed surgery on me in the late 1980s.  Slack-jawed, drooling, obviously with very poor vision, a caricature of his former self.

 

We all have our appointments in Samarra, but so many friends have been taken too soon that I could not help but remember David Geraint Jones’ poem, “Let Me Not See Old Age”:

 

Let me not see old age.  Let me not hear

The proffered help, the mumbled sympathy,

The well-meant tactful sophistries that mock

Pathetic husks who once were strong and free,

 

And in youth’s fickle triumph laughed and sang,

Loved, and were foolish; and at the close have seen

The fruits of folly garnered, and that love,

Tamed and encaged, stale into grey routine.

 

Let me not see old age; I am content

With my few crowded years; laughter and strength

And song have lit the beacon of my life.

Let me not see it fade, but when the long

September shadows steal across the square,

Grant me this wish: they may not find me there.

 

This poem was published in 1944.  David Rhys Geraint Jones spent some time at the Grammar School in Haverfordwest, where some twenty years later, I was somewhat unhappily cloistered.  In 1942, he was called up before he could finish exams at Trinity College, Cambridge and commissioned into the Royal Armoured Corps.  Nine days after D-Day he landed at Luc-sur-Mer.  He died on 25th June from a sniper’s bullet near Tourmauville, to the southwest of Caen.  His grave is at St Manvieu War Cemetery.  The epitaph reads “Your Peace is Bought with Mine” – a line taken from his poem “The Light of Day”.  In my opinion one of the finest poems of the Second World War.

 

“Let me not see old age” is not only prescient, given that there were far fewer very old men or women at the time of writing; it uncannily chimes with Jones’s own fate.

 



Saturday, May 18, 2024

SPRING 2024 - WITH THE BARMY ARMY IN INDIA

 

Evening Hill Diaries 11

Spring 2024

February 18th.  Some sunshine, and near record temperatures for the time of year.  In the distance the mist sweeps up over the Isle of Wight and the Needles.

Mist over the Needles.  February 18th.


A very ancient paperback has come back to me after about 30 years.  ‘Out of Practice’ by Rob Buckman.  Nearly 50 years after publication it hasn’t aged well, but Buckman was a successful member of the famous Footlights at Cambridge, appeared with Diana Quick, Julie Covington, Clive James and Pete Atkin, and after transferring to University College Hospital, had West End forays and the occasional TV comedy series with his UCH partner in crime, Chris Beetles.  Beetles nowadays is best known for leaving the medical profession and pursuing his hobby of collecting Victorian prints.  He runs a successful London art gallery and has another claim to fame: he was one of Jeffrey Archer’s prison visitors.  Rob, because of his wit, and his communication skills, could have graced any branch of medicine, but became an oncologist.  Although the same age as me, he did the surgical firm first, and he it was who first taught me to tie surgical knots – you know the ones where you tie the knot without losing either end of the suture.  I met him again sometime later in the 70s when I was a research registrar and he was gloomy about the poor career prospects in British cancer medicine.  He fronted some excellent TV discussions on talking to cancer patients and their relatives, but eventually emigrated to Canada.  He became a humanist, a decorated one, hugely respected in Canada, and his early death following connective tissue disease was a tragedy.

‘Out of Practice’ does not wear that well, though there are some chuckles.

‘The medical profession throughout the centuries has always been held in the highest regard by the medical profession’.

He also recounts the experience of a colleague who was concerned about the health of a young girl he had admitted as an emergency.  A chest X-ray was obtained.  At a time when to call your consultant in to a case was almost tantamount to committing professional suicide, he decided that, nonetheless, a senior opinion was required.  He telephoned the boss and reported the chest X-ray as follows: ‘Bilateral upper zone opacities, vertically disposed, and somewhat patchy in distribution’.

The boss asked what he thought they were.  ‘Query nature, Sir’, was the reply.  ‘Right, I’m coming in’ said the chief.

The boss came in, looked at the X-ray; then looked at the young girl.  ‘Those are her pigtails, you fool’, he said.

Ever after, when asked what he wanted to drink or eat, his pals asked him, ‘Drink, query nature?’  Or Pie, query nature?’  He went into politics, and subsequently did well.

March 1st, 2024

After the Covid years, the first long haul holiday in five years is a trip to India to watch England play cricket.  Exiting the now modernised Indira Gandhi airport in Delhi along immaculate roads lined with bedding plants, the first reminder of cricket comes in the shape of a giant illuminated advertisement arch above the road – Virat Kohli, a beguiling look on his face, brandishing a particular brand of mobile phone.  It might be a long time before Ben Stokes has a similar presence outside Heathrow airport.  But it serves to remind us how fixated Indians are on cricket.

Driving in India is much like driving in many overcrowded cities of the world, though with extra cows.  It is said that a driver in India needs three things: a good horn, good brakes, and good luck.  The snarl-ups which inevitably occur are mostly good tempered.  We are reminded of this soon enough when we reach Dharamshala, a 250 mile flight north from Delhi.  Several of the airports in the north of India have large hoardings proclaiming ‘The Purple Revolution’.  On inspection this turns out to be the growing of lavender, for oils and perfumes, which is already being successfully grown in some Indian provinces.  Given the low cost of labour here one fears for the future of the lavender fields of Provence.

 

England Cricket

The excitement of a narrow victory in the first test was steamrollered by three successive victories for the Indian team.  Could England bounce back?  The answer was no – but we had a remarkable experience with delightful English and Indian supporters all around us.  The fifth test match was held at one of the most photogenic cricket grounds in the world, and we wanted to be there to see it.

The Indian state of Himachal Pradesh was hived off from the larger state of Punjab in the 1970s.  Dharamshala, a large town nestling under the Dhauladar range of the Himalayas is the location of the cricket ground, sited at about 1500m of altitude.

Dharamshala Cricket Stadium - Himachal Pradesh


The area is interesting for a number of reasons.  Students of history will recall that China invaded Tibet in 1950, and eventually the Dalai Lama and many ethnic Tibetans fled Chinese rule in the late 1950s.  Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to provide Tibetans refuge, initially in Southern India.  Unsurprisingly the Tibetans found conditions uncomfortably hot and quite unlike their home.  Eventually agreement was reached to allow them to settle in the foothills of the Himalaya, some 600m above Dharamshala, in McLeod Ganj.  Donald Friell McLeod seems to have been a relatively philanthropic 19th Century Lieutenant Governor of Punjab (honour of McLeod clan preserved); and Ganj means neighbourhood (of Persian origin).  We visited the Dalai Lama’s temple in the town and stayed overnight in Norbu House.  The chilly weather and the absence of heating in most Indian buildings meant that down jackets were mandatory, even in the restaurant.

A nasty surprise when reorganising my packing.  A scorpion among my underpants.  Fortunately the cold has made it extremely sluggish and easy to dispose of.  Gerald Durrell wrote a book called 'A Zoo in My Luggage' but did not mention scorpions.


Stowaway



Next day a challenging trek up to the plateau of Triund, the last half in the snow up to 3000m, brought us closer to the wall of the Himalayas, but soon it was time to move back to Dharamshala and the hotel with a slight misnomer – the Divine Hima – the brainchild of an eccentric ex-geologist.

Mustard and corn in the Himalayan foothills

Nandi village, above McLeod Ganj

A tough trek to get closer to the Dhauladhar range


Cricket Day 1

Indians have refined British bureaucracy to a fine art.  It is one of the trappings of colonialism they have been reluctant to abandon.  So the checking process at the cricket ground is prolonged and tedious.  There is a separate line for women (2 minutes wait) and one for men – at least 45 minutes.  We hit on a brilliant idea.  Lindsay puts on her dark glasses and pretends to be blind.  Shuffling along clutching my arm, we come to the ladies’ security metal detecting cubicle together.  The ruse works.  We’re in!  Indians do get tired of their bureaucracy however, and the next day and the next there is no queue for either men or women.  Just a casual wave of the metal detector wand.  The traffic policemen who waved us away on a huge detour around the north of the ground on Day 1 are also nowhere to be seen.  Our driver is able to drop us off very close to the ground.  Around the ground, apart from the very visible cadre of the ‘Barmy Army’ there are an estimated 5000 England cricket supporters.

England win the toss and bat first.  They are all out for just over 200.  Idiots.  India start to bat and immediately the game looks easy.  Their new rather special opening batsman, 22-year-old Jaiswal, hits Bashir for three successive sixes but is out for an entertaining 57.

The AFCB kit was a good ice-breaker and something for the cameras to dwell on when England's cricket was too excruciating

Plenty of England support


Cricket Day 2

The following morning, the Dhauladar range is crystal clear in brilliant sunlight, and Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma take the game away from England.  India do not need to bat again…


Cricket Day 3

Highlights of the match included Stokes bowling Rohit with his first delivery after nearly a year, and Jimmy Anderson’s 700th test wicket.  Two lovely little Indian boys, with their mum, come and sit near us.  They are carrying a placard – ‘The Devil wanted to play cricket.  So Jadeja was born’.  They are in raptures when one of their heroes waves at them.

Our Indian friends

Jimmy Anderson's 700th Test wicket


We had signed up for the Barmy Army (group of die-hard England supporters for readers in the U.S.) party on the night before the test match.  350 of them have come on the tour.  Special guest is Graeme Swann, who is malevolently entertaining as a raconteur.  The food is excellent, and as well as ‘Swanny’ I get to talk to Simon Finch, the Barmy Army’s trumpeter, who leads them in all their songs.  ‘Finchy’ is happiest when playing for the Barmies, but he has headlined Glastonbury, played for Blur, Liam Gallagher, and Beyoncé – as well as many jazz and classical gigs.  The evening ends with all of the Barmy songs; Finchy leading us off.  Jerusalem is the warmup.  Then all of the tunes which accompany each England player – to various well known airs.  The composer of the ‘Joe Root’ song is invited onto the stage.  No shrinking violet he, preceded by a substantial stomach in a Barmy Army 2024 tour shirt.  He struts to the stage and proudly sings his lyrics to the tune of ‘Annie’s Song’.

Some of the songs are better than others – fitting neat lyrics into well-known hits, e.g. ‘Here’s to you, Ollie Robinson’.  Others lack inspiration.  A clever touch, which I hadn’t appreciated before: an England batsman is given out LBW.  He appeals.  Turns out there is an inside edge onto the pad and the decision is reversed!  Cue for Finchy to play the main theme from ‘The Great Escape’.

 

It is amazing how enjoyable two and a half days of just sitting watching cricket is, and how quickly the time passes.




Thereafter a long drive to Dalhousie, a hill station at about 2000m.  We stay in a heritage hotel.  This means it was built for a British officer’s family in 1939 and hasn’t really been modified since.  It is very cold.  Fine views of the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas – a spur which extends all the way to Kashmir.

Chilly in Dalhousie.  The Pir Panjal Himalaya behind


Dalhousie is a little underwhelming.  The usual street markets.  Our visit to Kajjiar meadows (aka Little Switzerland) is slowed by excited Indians getting out of their cars and photographing themselves in the snow (at about 2500m).  Kajjiar meadows features picnicking, horse rides, paragliding (from the hillsides above), and zorbing.  It is not necessary to leave Dorset for this.

 

But a subsequent highlight is Amritsar, the Holy Grail (an inappropriate metaphor) of Sikhism.  The Golden Temple is a truly magnificent sight, especially at night.  The name Amritsar (Pool of Nectar) dates from a miraculous supposed cure of leprosy several hundred years ago.  Many Sikhs choose to bathe in it, and the whole atmosphere is one of pilgrimage and peace.  A visit to the amazing kitchens where up to 100,000 meals a day are prepared for pilgrims is a must.  This is staffed entirely by volunteers.

Amritsar's Golden Temple.  Spectacular at night.

A dip in the 'Pool of Nectar' is a must for this charming 78 year old Sikh


A different experience is the now standard visit for tourists to the closing of the frontier ceremony just a few miles to the west of the city at the Attari-Wagah border with Pakistan.  Lahore is just a few miles further on.

This display of mock warrior marching and mimed fighting is either important, symbolic, or pathetic, depending on your point of view.  The bizarre march steps remind one of the Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks…

A sobering note is set by the visit next morning to the Jallianwala Bargh (Jallianwala Garden) where the infamous massacre of 1919 took place on the orders of General Dyer (subsequently exonerated from wrongdoing).  Unarmed peaceful protesters were fired on by the British Army.  The justification for intervention was the passage (in London) of the Rowlatt Acts, designed to forestall protests against British rule in India.  Subsequent investigation revealed that 1650 live rounds were fired in around ten minutes.  The number killed is unknown, but possibly more than a thousand.  Michael O’Dwyer, Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, who endorsed the military action, left India and returned to England.  Remarkably, Udham Singh, a young man who survived the massacre, eventually came to Britain, and in March 1940, while O’Dwyer was speaking at Caxton Hall, he shot and killed him.  A 21-year trail of revenge.  The exhibits in the small pavilions around the gardens are excellent.  One can hear an actor’s recitation of the words Dyer spoke at the Hunter Commission of enquiry into the massacre.  It is the voice of uncomprehending English superiority of the colonial era.  Nonetheless, the episode haunted Dyer for the rest of his life.  A reported quotation before he died, only eight years later, was: "So many people who knew the condition of Amritsar say I did right ... but so many others say I did wrong. I only want to die and know from my Maker whether I did right or wrong."

The Partition Museum is also sobering.  Those who wish can of course read about the arbitrary division of the country, creating modern Pakistan and modern India.  Sir Cyril Radcliffe, a lawyer who had never been in India, was tasked with determining the line of partition in just five weeks.  It is said that part of this strategy was devised by Lord Mountbatten to avert blame for his hasty decision to proceed with the division of India and Pakistan, which took place on the 14th and 15th of August, 1947.

The acronym, ‘PAKSTAN’ was coined in 1933 in Cambridge by law student Rahmat Ali, and signifies Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Sind, together with BaluchiStan.  It is a sad indictment of the vicious results of the partition that Sind, for example, initially with a substantial Hindu population, now has almost none left living in it and is almost entirely Muslim.  This represents a fraction of the 18 million people who were thought to be displaced following the drawing of the line.  Curiously, Rahmat Ali returned to Pakistan in 1948 but was expelled by the Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan.  He died destitute in Cambridge in 1951.  His funeral expenses were paid by Emmanuel College.

In response to Muslim policies, the BJP (main ruling party of India) pursues, under its prime minister, Narendra Modi, a policy called ‘Hindutva’ – a Hinduisation of modern India.

The previously contentious province of Kashmir is our final stop.  Flying up to Srinagar the tension is increased and bureaucracy and evidence of security forces is all around.  But tourism here is now thriving, based very much around Srinagar’s famous Dal Lake, ‘The Jewel in the Crown’.  The ‘feel’ in Srinagar (primarily Muslim population) feels more like Kabul and Afghanistan than elsewhere in India.  The architecture also borrows from Tibet.  Sufism is quite a strong religion here too.

We are a little too early for full springtime flowering (blame the cricket timetable for this) but it is a fine experience and end to the India visit.

 

Himalayan bulbul, Kashmir

 

Srinagar.  Laundrymen washing pashminas in the river.  Note gigantic washing line.

Colonial relics of buildings by the river, Srinagar

Bungalow retreat at Qayaam Gah.  A must if you visit Srinagar.

Dal lake, Kashmir

Qayaam Gah

Dal lake at sunset from Qayaam Gah



March 23, 2024

Cold northwesterly wind.  Bright sunshine but cold showers including hailstorms.  Glancing out to sea at about 9.15am the welcome sight of the MS Barfleur (Brittany Ferries) steaming her way out towards Cherbourg.  Spring is here.

In Lilliput a large boat is trailed around the corner towards Salterns boatyard.  A jogger with that fixed look of internalised concentration suggesting focus on a Strava PB narrowly misses me on the pavement and nearly runs into a postbox.  A bit like ski slalom.

April 15th

Easter has come and gone and apart from one or two warm days (only because of storms sweeping in from the southwest) the weather remains resolutely poor.  I have been revising my pandemic diary writings, and you may recall that the weather at lockdown in March of 2020 was wonderful and continued so for a long time.

May 5th, 2024

A period of writer’s block has ensued.  It is hard to write against a backdrop of war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East, and crazy and reprehensible politics on every side.  Bertrand Russell said: ‘War does not determine who is right, only who is left’.

One incident can trigger distant memories.  We were travelling around the roads to the south of Manchester, mundanely behind a cement lorry.  Suddenly an ambulance shrieked up behind and the cement lorry pulled abruptly into the leftmost space it could find.  As it did so, its cement container made vigorous contact with a huge overhanging flowering cherry tree.  A wonderful rain of pink blossom filled the air as we whirled through it.  This triggered what I think of as ‘The Butterfly Experience’.

When I went to Duke University in 1981, my research supervisor in cardiology, like most of the faculty, was a driven man.  The best way of getting to discuss one’s research with him was to ask to join him on one of his jogging sessions – usually about 7 to 8 Km.  To be able to speak as we ran required physical fitness.  One Saturday morning, as we jogged through Duke Forest, a vast area to the west of the campus, discussing the effect of beta-blockers on exercise training, we came to a clearing in the woods where a little stream ran through.  By the side of the trail, seemingly attached to the mud, were a multitude of butterflies.  As we ran down to the little bridge they all took off simultaneously.  The air was filled with a white whirling mass of butterfly wings.  I have never forgotten this miracle.  The butterfly behaviour is called ‘puddling’.  They are trying to absorb salt and other minerals from the damp soil.

After Manchester, there is a brief stay in the Peak District for walks.

But sadly, on the way home, we receive a message that one of our closest friends has died.  This comes hard on the heels of other friends.  There is little else I can write of this.

So, I will interpose a review of our latest book club discussion topic – Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’.  It was interesting that most of the club did not rate this book very highly, despite its undoubted fame, or should that be notoriety?

Here goes:

Heart of Darkness

‘There are only two plots: A Man Goes on a Journey; or A Stranger Comes into Town’.  (John Gardner, U.S., attrib.)

I have read this three times, one of which was for my second level degree course at the OU in creative writing.  This was mainly studying style and observation.

F.R. Leavis wrote, ‘Conrad is the greatest novelist writing in English, or indeed in any other language.’  It is a good question to consider whether those such as Conrad and Nabokov are the finest writers in the language because it was not their first language.  A discussion for another day.

Nostromo is reckoned by many to be his finest novel.  I have not read it but I have read the short stories such as ‘Typhoon’ and ‘The Nigger of the Narcissus’.  I have lost my copy of this, but I recollect that the ‘Nigger’ was portrayed as a malingerer until the crew realised he was dying of TB, and was then treated with great empathy (important) by most of the crew with one exception.  The portrayal of the sea in these two short stories/novellas is unparalleled.

Note that there are no women in these stories – it is all about men, and Heart of Darkness has little other than the influential aunt and the black native woman at the end.  The two knitters in the Belgian office are thought by some to be the Fates, who you will remember wove the rope of life.

My favourite part of Heart of Darkness (and the most brilliant writing) is exactly that of Typhoon and TNON – the sea; and encompasses only the first few pages of the book.  The description of the yawl, the other boats, and the Thames estuary as the crew wait for the tide to turn is fantastic.  After the first few pages, and the voyage out to Africa, it becomes more problematic and I enjoy it less.

To many critics, this is supposed to be Conrad exposing the horror and wanton rapine of the Congo under Belgian rule by Leopold II.  But in many respects, he does not portray the indigenous population sympathetically.  The steersman of the vessel, for example, is portrayed as ‘thick’ and not bright enough to avoid being stabbed with a spear.  It is true however that he characterises the colonial agents and ‘The Pilgrims’ in a very unsympathetic light.  His description of the unfortunates of the Chain Gang is very powerful, and surely argues in his favour.

The most damning of the accounts of the book is by Chinua Achebe, in his paper ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’, which I confess I have not read.

But, also in favour of Conrad, are Marlow’s words, right at the beginning of his tale:

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.’

Others disagree and say that Conrad and Sir Roger Casement, with whom he shared a room in the Congo – (Casement’s report to the British Government exposed the atrocities of Belgian rule) – thought that British Colonialism as opposed to Belgian Colonialism was ‘OK’.  But that is just an assertion by the anti-Conrad brigade and is not explicitly mentioned by Conrad.

 

So – this book will forever be on school and university reading lists – it has spawned many imitators or similar parables, books, films and PhDs, but I find it basically unsatisfactory in many respects and would give it 6.  If one studied only the sea descriptions I would give it 8 or 9.  It is a short book that everybody should read because sooner or later you will come across it!

 

Back in Evening Hill – will summer ever come?  Spring is surely done with – it didn’t really exist – and we have not had any consistent warm weather.

I was in Rye last weekend, and visited Henry James’ house.  Everywhere in Rye is worth a visit.

Henry James' house.  'Lamb House', in Rye.  the garden is of surprising size.


The beautiful early flowering rose on the wall is 'Rosa Bankeseia Lutea'.




Clematis climbing through lilac

Rye Windmill from the church tower



But amongst the political goings on, the corruption, the machinations, the bizarre, there was one item that made me laugh out loud recently.

Liz Truss, whom you may remember, was briefly Prime Minister, has been appearing at every media opportunity recently.  On every occasion she has shamelessly plugged her book, ‘Ten Years to save the West’, which many have described as ‘deranged’.  Private Eye have predictably had a field day with this.  Following a recent BBC interview, the ‘Eye’ headline is: TRUSS BBC INTERVIEW ‘EXCRUCIATING’ SAYS PRINCE ANDREW.


May 4th is usually designated 'Star Wars Day' (May the Fourth be With You), but some in the USA like to designate it 'Dave Brubeck Day'.  (It should be straightforward to work out why.  Similar to 'Pi Day' which is 3/14).


I cannot close with such trivia, so I will sign off with the words of Henry James.  For those of you, as I, who have suffered from shingles, it is surely the best description of the disease ever.  It is a typed letter, and the reason for its being typed will become clear.  It is dated October 24th, 1912, and on headed paper, 'Lamb House, Rye, Sussex'.

Dear Mrs Ford

Forgive my resorting (to thank you for yours this morning received) to this brutal and legible mechanism; reduced to it as I am by having been this month sore stricken and unfit for any manner of sitting up and driving my pen - like a gentleman and a scholar!  I am but just beginning to emerge from a violent and interminable attack of the awful ailment known as "Shingles"; though not known to you, in your proper person, I earnestly hope.  It has been truly a devilish visitation - the pain, the persistence, the recurrence, the general villainy of it, transcending at last my powers of expression, now that I am exhausted and depleted with groaning and cursing.  I may be really a little better, but have thought that before and have had to tumble, shrieking, back into bed.  However, I am, for the day, hoping for the best.  But it has all left me much battered and grievously compromised, and very helpless as yet for making engagements or beckoning on excursions and revels.  You on your side will have had, really, much anxiety and care - so that we have both been in eclipse; though you, as evidently, shine out more lustrous than I can yet at all pretend to.  I am still a more sputtering farthing candle - likely to require more or less snuffing yet.  If you have begun again to range on your old great lines won't you come over and have tea with me one of these afternoons, only letting me kindly know which it may be?  I am on the telephone now - 51, Rye, if you please - and am quite proud and heartened up at being able to be conversed with.  Converse, converse - - though I fear I may seem but to mock at you when, glancing back at your letter, I find in the left-hand corner of your paper beautiful provision, apparently, for everything but conversation.  Forgive me then, if this be true, for seeming to flaunt at you my superior power of sound.  I've just had the telephone put in, and can tell you all about it and just what endless months it takes, over the teapot.  The thing is to let me know then, please, when to put on the kettle.  We shall in that case be able to arrange here, by your kind indulgence, for further developments.  I do want so awfully to get well first -- I've been trying to so desperately long.  My blessing on Mr. Francis and all your house.  Yours most faithfully