tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46080818656061705182024-03-26T21:00:11.811+00:00Stephen F. Bigger - authorThoughts on life, learning, education, community and caring.
Stephen F. Bigger...
See further stephenbigger.blogspot.co.uk for links to my writings.
Photo - Liminality, thinking at the edge: Brittas Bay, Co. Wicklow, Eire.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger189125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-37881874228580494052024-03-16T19:49:00.009+00:002024-03-25T13:39:13.882+00:00PENZANCE<span style="font-size: medium;">A few blogs now on signifant holidays. We went to Cornwall every May for forty years at school Whit holiday. Our first break was to Lamorna Cove, near Penzance, a small family hotel with walls covered in pictures by Lamorna Birch who lived next door. When they sold up, we took a variety of holiday lets, most commonly in a cottage which had been an annex to the hotel. Our main purpose was to visit the new art exhibition in the Penlee Gallery. Jean was very interested in the Cornish artists especially the Lamorna, Newlyn and St Ives schools.</span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><b>Peter Dawlish </b>In childhood Jean was a voracious reader and remembered a children's series about four boys sailing a masted fishing boat named Dauntless. We searched bookshops and found copies, finding that the author was Peter Dawlish. One year we found a Lamorna village history on sale in the village shop indicating that Peter Dawlish was the pen name for James Lennox Kerr who lived in a house we passed every year overlooking the bay and was married to the daughter of Lamorna Birch. There was a board adversing paintings of the Kerr family. We knocked on their door which was opened by a bearded sailor with three small dogs. I introduced us as people interested in his father's books and he said that most people asked about his artist grandfather We struck up a friendship that lasted until his death. We went to his 80th birthday celebrations and I helped him write his autobiography. He was by career a hydrologist (that is he mapped the ocean bed). James Lennox Kerr wrote on a range of topics, the first an account of his crossing America as a hobo by jumping trains. Then he wrote adult fiction, social novels about poverty in Scotland where he came from. He also wrote crime stories and stories about ships. He tried one story for boys,The Blackspit Smugglers. After war service on mine-sweepers he wrote a series of about four boys in the sailing boat Dauntless, which Jean came across in the Bradford City library.<br /><br /><b>Penlee Gallery</b> is close to the Penzance promenade with Morrab Gardens to the right. The Penlee Gallery to the left it has a small museum and a permanent art collection, not to mention an excellent cafe, several times a year they put on themed exhibitions bringing together paintings from other galleries. We came down for the opening week and bought the bulky exhibition souvenirs. We therefore have a record of each exhibition.<br /><br /><b>Gardens</b>. There are beautiful semi-tropical gardens in Cornwall. I am focussing on three near Penzance that we went to regularly. The gardens of St Michael's Mount are not open every day. They are set on a steep hillside and rockface and filled with tender plants. There are alsothree balcony gardens leading down to the coastal path. Trengweinton Gardens (National Trust) has a colourful garden alongside the drive. At first we showed tickets to an old lady at a window. Sparrows were flying in and out.The Minack Theatre is an outdoor theatre which puts on a regular programme.. It has a natural rock garden full of aloes, and other tender plants. We went to West Side Story, at which a basking shark plus cub stole the show other one we went to was Our Town, a conversation beteen ghosts in the graveyard.One year we stayed close to Trebah and Glendurgan gardens.<br /><br />There are also many plant nursaries to buy tender plants.<br /><br />Stevie Dufyn March 2024.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-89115589700795701062024-03-10T22:07:00.002+00:002024-03-14T14:48:53.753+00:00GARDENING.<p><span style="font-size: large;"> As a schoolboy I was taught to garden by my grandfather. We had an orchard plus veg garden. Our first garden after marriage was tiny, a postage stamp front and back. Our next garden, in Salisbury, was not much bigger. It was our Swindon garden that had more scope, though it had and has problems of its own. The back was an orchard, though th fruit trees were old and diseased. The one still left was I estimate 200 years old. The back garden has a number of natural springs. Set on a hill, it is now set on three levels. My wife and I developed it so long as she was able, until 2015 when her dementia took hold. We were both specialists in different plants, and we visited RHS and National Trust gardens regularly. Her knowledge, including plant knowledge, disappeared almost overnight.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Although we have taken part in village open weekends since 2000, The bast time for the garden was after my retirement in 2008. We have specialised in growing unusual plants including several species of buddleija, weigela, bottlebrush, hostas, hemerocallis, scented-leaf pelargoniums, even a fothergilla. In2012 I took a photo a day throughout the year which can be found on romancourt365.blogspot.com. My wife's illness from 2014 gave me less time in the garden and made it impossible for her to continue, so the garden was neglected as I cared for her over the next seven years. Now she is in a care home, progress can begin again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Last autumn the heavy rains caused a retaining garden wall to collapse; it was replaced on Monday. There have been plant casualties requiring replacement. Looking around I see only one penstemon still alive, so have a growing list to buy. Penstemons were once considered annuals because they were hard to overwinter. It was customary to take cuttings. Fortunated new strains were developed which were more resiliant and these are now easy to find. Most were bred in Pershore and carry the name Pensham. Apart from that, I am searching for anything unusual. I plant as a botanist and not an artist, so don't expect clipping to death, or neat lawns but rather plants looking natural and high tolerance of wild flowers. It goes without saying that I aim to be bee-friendly, and that means organic.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The garden is the same size front (west) and back (east) and also has side beds north and south. There is a greenhouse and polytunnel in the back, neither used effectively. A summer-house is used mainly for storage at the moment. When bought, the house had a derelict swimming pool removed when a house extension was built. It was replaced by a double garage. </span><span style="font-size: x-large;">The greenhouse replaced a railway carriage used as a workshop.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Plant names</b>. Although many people are scared of plant names, I find them a source of pleasure and look into their archaeology. Common names differ area to area and are easy to remember. In the 18th century, Carl Linnaeus began to classify plant names in a form that botanists thoughout the world would understand. The academic language of the time was Latin and that is still used today. At first they looked for similarities to other plants to decide on plant families.For example, clethroides means 'like a clethra' in the family Lysimachia, popular names 'gooseneck or Chinese loosestrife' or 'moneywort'. Lysimachia was the ancient king of Sicily. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>The earliest names were descripive, and often quite long. I have a print of a wild fuchsia found in Chile and grown in Kew in 1788. It was given the name Fuchsia after the German botanist Fuchs and in full Fuchsia coccinea foliis oppositis ovaltus dentitulatis petalis obovatis obstusis. It has since been named Fuchsia magellanica, the explorer Magellan's Fuchsia. </span><span>Today, dna analysis shows which species are inter-related and names and names change. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Propagation. </b>It is is expersive to fill a larger garden with full price mature. Sprinkling annuals (plants which die after flowering and setting seeds) can offer quick colour. If bought in autumn they might be half price. Sowing wildflowers will help the bees. Clones come from cuttings: fresh tips are the most reliable. I put several around the edge of a plantpot and put it in a polythene bag to maintain humidity. If done carefully, most should root. They will need nurturing when in small pots. Plant in the garden the following spring. Don't forget to label.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-41460280284031915852024-02-29T22:54:00.005+00:002024-03-01T10:59:03.151+00:00MEMORY<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">How memory works is a puzzle but it is clear that memory is a way of organising experiences.It is imperfect in that the memory may be hard to recover, and may be imperfect when the initial understang of eveny is in error. Rubbish in, rubbish out, you might say.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Gradual memory loss is regarded as the early stage of dementia and patients are referred to 'memory clinics'.In my wife's case, it was quick and sudden, possibly a long term effect of brain damage, undiagnosed up to that point. She had a series of stroke-like episodes at the end of 2015. A brain scan in Januage reveal consoderable brain damage. This affected her ability to read, talk and understand.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">So what is memory? It can be compared to the brain's operating system structuring and connecting varied experiences to make it meaningful.Memory is not just the recall of experiences or information but is an attempt to explain. These explanations will be subjective and personal. Dementia blocks these explanations.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Enhancing Memory. </b> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Some memories are embedded and are generally at the centre of our minds. They may be triggered by high spots or low. They are fundamental to who we think we are. My situation has changed requiring me to sift through draws and boxes, relics of sixty years of adult life fed by the question 'Do I keep it or throw it?'. The same issues arose when clearing out my mother' house ready for selling. It is the deeper well hidden memories that I am focusing on here.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>A necessary preparation is to release storage of the things we wish to keep. For me, throwing away is difficult and the first question to myself is whether it can be reused, repurposed even upcycled. As I do not have the time or inclination to upcycle, re-use by moving things around is an option, or giving it away to an upcycler for more drastic changes. Disposing of 'stuff' needs to be disciplined and unsentmental, reducing everyday items such as sheets, towels and good quality clothes to charity shops or even displaying it on the roadside free to take or requesting a charity donation.</span><span>This will leave some souvenirs which remind us of people and holiday. By all means keep just a few significant ones but a photograph takes up less space.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I find that the act of decluttering triggers memories of a half forgotten past, holidays enjoyed, achievements made, relationships consolidated. There are a few items from my wife's childhood - a musical box, a child's tea-set, a teddy, a toy sewing machine, and a large Rupert Bear collection. These mean nothing to her now. Some are distributed to friends to consolidate their memories, much as happened after my mother's death.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <b>Memory, Experience and Research</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When I studied for my PhD in the 1970s, I was taught that research consisted in finding information (historical sources in my case) and interpreting these as objectively as possible. Subjectivity was frowned on. Indeed, it might have led to my failure. In the decade that followed, topics like biblical marriage, family and women were taken over by female young scholars who used feminist interpretations which incorporated their own experience as girls and women, summed up by Phyllis Trible's <i>Texts of Terror </i>featuring rape and violence. There followed a substantial movement of Biblical research highlighting the female experience of patriarchy. This was part of the development of qualitative research which focuses on experience as opposed to being countable and observable. Memories might be inaccurately remembered and need verifying, maybe by triangulation, via documentation or by other participants. Equally documentation might be incorrect requiring information to be carefully checked. A comparison of newspaper items shows this. Even eye witnesses often disagree on major details.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Also evocative of visits and holiday, TV programmes remind us of places visited. While writing this, I am watching Alice Roberts' tour of the archaeology of Egypt and being reminded of our similar trip in 1982. Similarly, trips around the middle and far east brings back memories. <i>The Repair Shop<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">makes me look again at some worn-out items. Having spent my life studying and collecting plants, replacing casualties and using TV as my eyes and ears replaces nearly forgotten experiences and knowledge.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Memory and Story</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>The human brain spins memories into a coherent story. That story may reflect reality, or may be delusional, at least in part.. It the story might over-emphasis personal weakness or guilt, or may spin the memories to justify dubious behaviour. It will be important to verify the story from the memories of others involved.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>So memories are embedded in stories which establish their contexts. My own stories of childhood and schooling can be found earlier in this blog. A story is a remembered account of what happened but also will contain some explanation: such explanation will not always be credible, serving more as self justification. There is a very thin line between fact and fiction leading to some confusion. Most historical accounts require verification. Some newspapers</span><span> have been deliberately deceptive. We create our own stories, about coping with the present and planning to pursue goals. Our personal stories might be positive or negative, promoting achievement or failure, remembering successes or failures. The secret is to learn from both. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In my wife's case, loss of memory happened rapidly, days rather than weeks. It reduced her ability to read, write, sew and knit, indeed anything which requires hand-eye coordination. She could no longer tell the time or find her way around the house.She had for several years been a volunteer in Kelmscott Manor but at the end came home upset because she could't do what was required. The cause was brain damage after illness, as a brain scan revealed in January 2016.</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">One element of qualitative research is the biographies/ autobiographies of researchers and researched, providing a context for the research. This kind of research exists to understand and explain. based on memories and personal history, gleaned from interviews and discussions. This produces deeper data which can be questioned and interogated during the interview to enrich the data. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">There are useful questions: how did life experience as a child shape the kind of adult you became? Are questions of nature and nurture significant? When does childhood end? My memory of childhood is being curious, asking lots of questions and challenging what I was told. My refusal to believe inFather Christmas from the age of three gave great concern to local parents. I was an early reader and have scarcely slowed down since. I remember giving a talk age 9 on becoming a scientist when grew up so must have been confident at public speaking. I was active, camping, football and so on. And from time to time quite naughty. Childhood finished aged around 14 as I began to study for university and gained some responsibily in the home.By the age of 21 I was married and enrolled on a PhD.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Disappearing memories</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">For some, myself included, memories get brighter over time, but for others detail dims, names disappear, and facial recognition becomes confused. Usually some brain problem is at the root, maybe Alzheimers, or a stroke or some other damage to the brain caused by accident or illness. Alas, as people grow older, dementia numbers rocket; and environmental polution makes its onset earlier in life. Finding loved ones forgetting who you are is painful. But it is part of life's inevitability. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Stevie Dufyn, March 2024.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-3449622992640025392024-02-02T13:59:00.002+00:002024-02-02T13:59:57.162+00:0050th Anniversary of my PhD<p> <span style="font-size: large;">My PhD was completed and handed in during 1974. We were married since 1969 and my grant ended in 1973. To pay the mortgage I had to take a post of secondary school teacher in Buxton. The school had merged a secondary modern with a grammar school and all was not going well. My head of depaertment had had a brakedown in November and our pregnancy miscarried. It was the year the school leaving age was raised to sixteen. Half of my teaching timetable was with pupils who didn't want to be there. I wrote up my research during this difficult year.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I chose my research topic in 1969. My course was Biblical Studies and I was inspired by a course on ancient Hebrew social institutions by Arnold Anderson and noticed that there had been very little recent research on this theme. I had already had a major row with my church on the rights of women which ultimately caused me to leave that church. Much more has been published now, mainly by women but mine was the first detailed analysis. Most new research focuses on rather thanparticular stories, mostly of violence against women. My analysis was broader, indeed too broad. Having supervised 20 PhDs and persuaded students to think deeply rather than in breadth, I realise that I was given no such advice but just expected to get on with it. Also this was a period of emphasis on the Old Testament as history, whereas now I focus on the Bible as story which may or may not be historical. I corrected this in the structure of my 1989 book <i>Creating the Old Testament.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As previous research had used (and misused) social anthrology this was where I started. There were some benefits (for example debunking proposed evolutionary stages) but overall was not a good use of my time. Comparing Hebrew with other Mesopotamian source, for example the Hammurabi and Assymian Lawcodes was more profitable.. Source criticism was then unnecessarily time-consuming. My substantive chapters are on marriage customs, intermarriage, incest, adultery, and levirate marriage.A final section on the family was more than I should have attempted, although the work on patriarch was useful. I never managed to publish except for one article on Leviticus 18 and 20, on forbidden marriages. Indeed I now can see that a great deal of extra work was needed to turn the thesis into a book. Feminist research was taking off in the 1980s, pioneered by Phyllis Trible, which led to an enormous body of new literature which I continue to study.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-64163528635142901952024-01-27T21:55:00.004+00:002024-01-27T21:55:44.453+00:00FIRST MONTH HOME<p><span style="font-size: large;"> I arrived home from hospital just before Christmas. I bought a smartphone and laptop to give myself computing on the road. My wife has settled into the care-home very well and her sister was able to visit. I changed my GP to a local surgery who have been helpful. I was getting on well with my physio when unfortunately I fell backward against a table and propably cracked a rib. So it is painkillers for a while. It is most painful when getting out of bed or a chair or twisting awkwardly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was making good progress but my mobility and confidence suffered. The fall was caused by getting out of bed too quickly and losing my balance. My back and ribs were bruised by a bedside table giving me a sharp pain when sitting and lieing in bed and especially when coughing. Pain killers help. It is gradually improving so fingers crossed.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Hospital wrecked my eyesight so I have new glasses which I am getting used to.I now have to learn how to use my new smart-phone and Tablet So a busy time ahead!</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-91558548548545183702023-12-30T16:35:00.008+00:002024-01-11T21:02:39.627+00:00END OF 2023<p> <span style="font-size: large;">Apologies for those who did not receive a seasonal card, which means everyone. I was admitted to hospital on November 22. I was without computer or address book and flat on my back for the five weeks, uncomfortably. We placed my wife in a good care home locally where she is being safe and continues to settle. I had cared for her over seven years and could no longer do so safely. She doesn't know who I am and so does not fret.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is hard to describe something so boring as lying in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling being kept awake by lights at night, snoring and nurse chatter I was next to the nurse station. At 6am we were woken up by lights on and first obs (blood pressure, blood oxygen and temperature. Then a light breakfast. I was urged to eat and drink more, bur couldn't, my stomach and lungs were restricted by the fluid. Being on water tablets I peed all night.Meds came next, then doctors did their rounds.Of the nurses, a number came from Kerela South India and were delighted tha t had been there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As it was a teaching hospital junior doctors crowded around my be, and interviewed me about my symptoms. Two carried out the drain after being shown how, and under supervision. In excess of10 litres were drained off, I was never told how much.That reduced my size and weight -- and of course energy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The final week was in 'intermediate care' (rehabilitation) which was disappointing. Physio led, I didn't see a physio till day 4. They had to tick off simple tasks about living at home - could I make a cup of tea, climb stairs, wash and dress mayself and walk safely with a zimmer frame. I could do all these on the main ward but was forbidden to do most without supervision on rehab. I spent more time in bed because I was forbidden to walk around. I soon rebelled and the staff gave up on me. By Friday the allowed me home, proving handrails, chair arms, a shower seat and bed rails to help me out of bed. I am making good progress. I am eating better and drinking better. I hope I begin to put some weight on now.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-87102477980052507892023-03-04T22:25:00.006+00:002023-03-09T20:08:33.663+00:00Respect.<p><i>Written on International Women's Day 2023.</i></p><br />The song Respect had a history in the 1960s, promoted by Otis Redding and redirected by Aretha Franklin into the feminist anthem it became. It came from the 1960s but seems tame today - when her man comes home, give the lady some respect. <br /><br /><blockquote>All I'm askin'<br />(Oo) Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)</blockquote><br />It led to the song Natural Woman, which was again not the feminism that would develop later:<br /><br /><blockquote>When my soul was in the lost and found<br />You came along to claim it<br />I didn't know just what was wrong with me<br />'Til your kiss helped me name it<br />Now I'm no longer doubtful, of what I'm living for<br />And if I make you happy I don't need to do more<br />'Cause you make me feel<br />You make me feel<br />You make me feel like a natural woman</blockquote><br />Today's feminism demands agency andfree choices which are free of patriarchy (that is male demands. Women musicians were freeing themselves from male demands to be pretty eye candy, subject to 'the male gaze' criticising their looks, bodies and behaviour. Violence against women was and is a consequence of these outdated male attitudes. The battle for female emancipation is renewed still, decade by decade.<br /><br />Respect was a civil rights theme also. Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind became a civil rights anthem:<br /><br /><blockquote>And how many years can some people exist<br />Before they're allowed to be free?<br />Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head<br />And pretend that he just doesn't see?<br />The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind<br />The answer is blowin' in the wind</blockquote><br />The chorus draws on the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes: all is vanity and a striving after wind. It cannot be grasped.. Such a text would be well known to Robert Zimmerman.<br /><br />I had been involved as a carer to my younger siblings through the 1960s. Those years were controlled by the evangelical Christian group called Plymouth Brethren who devalued the role of women. Many of the young women I knew never really broke away. When my mother did, she said that she wished had broken away years before because she found her local church so welcoming and supportive. I as a 17 year old raised the issue of female freedoms in a Bible study public meeting (led by a preacherer ironically called Short) and was shouted at by an out of control former 'Exclusive Brethren' member, bullying of the highest order. I was taken to task by the 'oversight', the senior men because I had asked such a question. Good grief!. They were wrong and I was right. My PhD topic was about marriage and the position of women in society. My first publication in 1972 was about women in the Bible, not brilliant but at least authentic.<br /><br />By the time I arrived at Manchester University, the evangelical fundamentalism I had been brought up with have been challenged and rejected. Essentially I had become an enemy to patriarchy and to coercive behaviour in general. I was slow to distance myself from evangelicalism. I remember seeing adverts for the Bahai Faith in my first university term. In that transitional period of my life I might have joined them as they have much that morally appeals to me. In terms of this item, Bahais believe in equality of the sexes and condemnation of misogyny. Their belief in the divine was less fundamentalist than I had been taught with more emphasis on mystery. Today I find this harder as I have distanced myself from divine realism (as opposed to a symbolic metaphor). I nevertheless value my later work with Bahais.<br /><br />My life has always been female focused and my social and academic ambitions have been concerned with the emancipation of women, both in real life and in student work. My wife too devoted her teaching life to supporting female students and colleagues. Some are still in touch. There are some interesting stories. School teacher friends in Oldham married in the early 1970s and we agreed to drive them to their hotel. But they were interested in steam railways and had a long term connection to the Worth Valley Railway and on their wedding day the preserved locomotive 92220 Evening Star, the last steam locomotive to be built (1960) was in Haworth where a party was arranged. So of course we drove them to Haworth, where we all enjoyed the party before delivering them to their hotel. Meantime, back at the wedding, folks had decorated their own car with tin cans, only to see us drive away on our Austin A40. 50 years later they are still close friends.<br /><br />In the late 1980s I was working in teacher training in Oxford, and she became deputy head of a girls' comprehensive school, a quarter of whose pupils were Asian, mostly Pakistani. We became very close to the Pakistani community. This paragraph features a close friend who has been like family now for 35 years. Though she had a teaching qualification from the Punjab, she was only allowed to work as a teaching assistant in England, working with the Equal Opportunities Centre. She registered for an MEd which she passed, and with the help of our local HMI Ron Arnold we managed to secure qualified teacher status for her in 1990. We went to Pakistan for a family wedding in 1992 and as I worked away in Birmingham that year Jean stayed with her to save her commute during the week. The school closed because of falling numbers, leaving Muslim girls with no school to go to. So this friend and Jean set up a small Muslim girls secondary school which had excellent exam results and help many girls to university courses. I supervised this friend for her PhD for which she interviewed 80 former pupils about their educational experiences and their consequences. She now was an Oxford University post.<br /><br />A final story. Jean worked in Swindon College from the early 2000s until the powers that be unfairly closed the department. A colleague and friend.applied for and was offered a school post subject to references, but Jean found the request sitting unanswered in an in-tray. Enough to say that after a bit of shouting, a reply hit the post that day and the offer was confirmed. There the colleague met her husband and has been happily married now for twenty years.<br /><br />I hope we have both enriched the lives of the women and girls we have met and taught and encouraged them towards independent lives with personal agency.<div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-11456931671985180672023-02-27T22:54:00.000+00:002023-02-27T22:54:24.587+00:00FRAGMENT: The 1980s.<p> The 1980s started with a job move to North Riding College, Scarborough, then affiliated to Leeds University. I was to teaching in a course on world religions, and education studies. Jean stayed at home commuting to Devizes School with a colleague, Lionel, and applied for a couple of posts in Yorkshire without success. We looked at a few houses, again without success. My knowledge of world religions was sketchy, drawn from the few school textbooks then available. This post offered me the opportunity of in depth study. In order to balance my secondary school teaching experience I studies for the Post Graduate Certificate in Early Years Education which included a dissertation in early reading. I supervised students in early years settings as well as junior and middle schools. I lodged firstly in a 'winter let' (holiday flat hired for the winter season) and in summer had a flat in the College. My study on Filey Road overlooked the harbour and castle, built-in distraction. The journey to coffee in the winter was very cold. Home was 310 miles away so I couldn't get home every weekend. Jean came over during her half term.</p><p>There were memorable events and incidents. There was a classical music series who put on fortnightly concerts. I remember a performance of Samuel Barber's <i>Reincarnations</i>, a composer of importance to us who had recently died. A different group went to Opera North: I remember <i>Boheme </i>in Leeds and <i>Samson and Delilah</i> in Hull, the first operas I had been to. I was in the chorus of the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera <i>The Sorcerer </i>in 1982, by first and last experience of performing. Our student days were to orchestral events in the Manchester Free Trade Hall. </p><p>I applied for and accepted a similar post in Westminster College, Oxford. from April 1983 and we looked for and bid for our current house near Swindon between Oxford and Jean's job in Devizes - a restoration project that would take many years to complete. Jean became Head of Careers in her school, in addition to her history teaching. She made close friends I am still in touch with today, but more inexplicably enemies, In retrospect I think some victimized her for her hidden disability, the brain damage I have spoken about elsewhere, the effects of which she coped with admirably. Most of my work in Oxford I focused on education, including multi-faith religious education. Biblical Studies was taught by a different team. I taught Interfaith Studies in a new degree, and developed it into a distance learning degree, M.Th, in Pastoral Studies for church ministers. The sessions on Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism are still online. The Judaism module was co-written and does not survive online. I became Postgraduate Tutor in 1986 in charge of PGCE primary and secondary and planned an Early Years version. Course leadership was gradually delegated so my role changed in the 1990s.</p><p>During the 1980s I put together a book for university students on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. We wanted it to be written quickly so divided the 16 chapters between different writers, all university lectures or professors. It was the story of the writing of the Old Testament. I gave it the title <i>Creating the Old Testament: The Development of the Hebrew Bible</i> published by Basil Blackwell in 1989<i>. </i>One writer pulled out and I wrote the chapter on Moses in her place. Another did not write to brief, so I rewrote 'Stories of the Prophets'. My scheduled chapters were Introduction, 'The Bible and Islam' and 'Symbol and Metaphor'. </p><p>The book followed the general pattern of Torah (Law), Prophets and Writings, with a final chapter oon the additional books in the Septuagint, the Greek translation/version. The assumption of the book was to follow the evidence rather than assuming belief, so it was a critical and not conservative text. Thirty five years later it is still in print.</p><p>I also became involved with the union (NATFHE) <i>Religious Studies Section</i> which produced the journal <i>Journal of Beliefs and Values</i> for which I wrote and reviewed frequently. There is a list on my CV on stephenbigger.blogspot.com. </p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-29266078083192652812023-02-21T23:52:00.005+00:002023-02-22T23:48:42.285+00:00FRAGMENT: The 1970s<p> We married in the summer vacation of 1969 before Jean started her new job in Oldham Unfortunately we had already offered on a house in Marple on the edge of Greater Manchester town and country. The view over Manchester below was stupendous. That meant a tricky commute to Oldham through Hyde and Dukinfield. A colleague lived close by so they shared lists from time to time.. She was a history teacher with some religious education. It was a bizarre school, an independent grammar school that used to be called 'Direct Grant' as opposed to Local Authority schools. The heads of departments came out of the ark and we still have Miss Roker's greening academic gown with occasional cigarette burns, all a bit of a change from the rough and tumble secondary moderns of her teaching practices where the high spot was Shite O'Brian, nicknamed for her vocabulary. Once I remember she got to school only to find she had lost her voice - not noticed earlier since our morning routine did not include conversation.</p><p>From those four years in Oldham some friendships still exist. Among her pupils were daughters of a Yorkshire TV producer who reappeared in her life unexpectedly. As she graduated in Oxford's Radcliffe Camera for her MSc in 1986, the eldest daughter graduated for her PhD and we found ourselves reminiscing with her step-mum and sister, her own mother having died a decade before.</p><p>My time was taken up with PhD research for which I had three years funding. My undergraduate work had been in critical Biblical Studies and my PhD focussed on ancient Hebrew marriage, something that had been scarcely tackled up to then (1970). That was finished in 1974 before a major wave of feminist study linking exegesis (explaining what texts say) to female experience today (hermeneutics) enabled writers to go down relevant experiential wormholes. Times have changed and my own normal advice to my PhD candidates to to look for depth rather than breadth, contrary to the advice I was given.</p><p>When funding finished in 1973 the mortgage still had to be paid. My grant had been £600 per year, the house cost £4300 and the monthly mortgage was £22 6/8. We wanted to start a family so needed to supplement my wife's salary. Pregnancy normally meant giving up your job in those days. Pregnancy happened very quickly and I was offered a post in Buxton, a new convergence of grammar and secondary modern schools. I had not done a PGCE, which was not required then, so it was learning on the job in the deep end. The baby miscarried in November and there were no more pregnancies. Throughout the 1970s a succession of crude medical interventions were unsuccessful. IVF was first successfully performed in 1978. Discussions with the adoption services accepted our application eventually, but after four years of ineffectiveness. We offered a home to up to three siblings, any colour or condition, but they would only sanction a white baby (who never appeared). The 'service' had no further communication with us. Additionally our niece died of meningitis aged eight in 1977. So all in all it was not a good decade.</p><p>The merging of two schools did not go well. Nor did starting a teaching career without guidance or mentors. My Head of Department had a nervous breakdown in November (I found him crying in the cloakrooms) so I was in charge of a department of one. My teaching load was around 800 pupils, one lesson a week so it was hard to build relationships, hell at report time. I had more time with pupils who did not want to be there. It was ROSLA year when the school leaving age was raised to 16 leaving a reluctant cohort imprisoned and unable to get jobs. So I looked out for teaching posts which meant I could leave mistakes behind and have GCE classes. It was rare then for an RE teacher not to be a regular churchgoer so an atheist like me did not fit in well, so my next job was in Wiltshire a local authority grammar school about to go comprehensive. That meant a major upheaval moving house and for Jean a change of job. Reflecting on those choices in retrospect, that was not a good decision. The distance from family and friends. My new school had many failings and poor leadership. Jean had opportunities for promotion in Devizes, though her line manager was misogynist which had mental health implications. </p><p> I was offered a term of 'schoolteacher fellowship' in in St Martin's College, Lancaster in 1979 hoping to turn my PhD thesis into a book. That did not succeed, but had other implications. The decade allowed us to see my mother's sister in Portsmouth, who we became close to, and my grandparents in Nottinghamshire, a rather longer journey. Salisbury also had a good theatre, often frequented. However, retrospective reflection contain moments of regret and none of this was easy on Jean, a guilt I now feel strongly. It left Jean at the mercy of grunting hedgehogs and an escaped tiger which made the national news. The circus came to Devizes and a tiger escaped and wandered around the school. While senior staff hid in their cloakrooms, Jean rounded up the pupils outside to bring them to safety. This is how management delegation works: never do anything you can't get some other poor soul to do.</p><p>The staff begged me to be the union rep in a school that was increasingly unhappy. That was probably a mistake and certainly brought me no benefit. The headteacher regarded me as a threat, not a supportive helper and our relationship was soured. The chance came for university level teaching, so the 1980s saw many changes.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-36199140036775558042023-02-17T23:53:00.000+00:002023-02-17T23:53:00.140+00:00FRAGMENT: Youth 1 - Secondary School<p> I moved to a Grammar School ten miles away in 1959. It was a sparsely populated rural county with pupils from close to Lincoln (my primary school) to Grimsby and Cleethorpes to the east, a thirty mile radius. We relied on a school bus but for after school activities had to use a late service bus or on occasions a bicycle. The house system focused on villages and geographic areas. Mine was Stow, Rasen covered Market and Middle Rasen, and Hainton the area east towards Wragby. The fourth house was the Boarding House, many the sons of forces families. The latter had an advantage of being able to practice for long hours. The school had a small swimming pool, but I was never taught to swim I latterly discovered that a close work friend had lived in the school when her father was headmaster in war years, and later I had a student who had left the school two years before I started</p><p>My younger brother was born when I was 11, when my younger sister was four. My older siblings were away at Boarding Schools .I developed caring responsibilities as the oldest of three still at home.. Enough to say here that it was an emotionally turbulent time for me. My first three secondary school years are best forgotten. It was a 2 form entry school of 300 pupils and this resulted in my relegation from the top form to the bottom, after being caned for something inconsequential. Fortunately this relegation came at a time of renewed motivation and I became a compliant pupil and achieved moderate but acceptable GCEs. Previous to that I experienced physical abuse from a bullying teacher, and psychological (coercive) abuse from another. I managed to turn myself around at 14 and would like to say a teacher helped me do this, but they did not. I was not a high flier and was socially awkward, a bit of a loner. I managed to set up a study with a 6x3 foot desk and book shelves behind. These survived until my mother's death.</p><p>In terms of sport, I was competent at soccer and rugby but found some resistance from staff, ending with being the only first soccer team member (my preferred team sport) who was not given 'colours'. I concentrated on athletics, winning the victor ludorum (winner of five disciplines) and still holding the school record for triple jump and taking part in the national championships for long jump.</p><p>Intertwining with school was church, which for me was the Plymouth Brethren (and sisters, uncaptalised). Sisters were not allowed to teach 'Brethren', much as female priests and vicars could not exist. The 'Brethren' were and are fundamentalist evangelical Christians who inhabit 'Gospel Halls'. Those that brought me up did a door-knocking ministry, much like Jehovah Witnesses, and open air addresses. It is true these hoped for new converts, but they also consigned hearers to hell as those who had heard and rejected the message no longer had the excuse of not having heard. The Brethren I knew were authoritarian, patriarchal, believing in verbal scriptural 'inspiration' which means authored by God. They certainly did not like the kind of questions I asked. The inner tensions meant I had no friends at school, and limited relationships at church. </p><p>The resulting confusion of loyalty led to my decision to apply to university to read Biblical Studies, and to get there I studied it for A level through a correspondence course with Wolsey Hall, Oxford as there was no one in school to teach me. I completed the two year course in nine months. and achieved an A grade. Biblical Studies in university was critical even though many of the lecturers held clerical positions (e.g. the title Rev.). Manchester and Sheffield Universities had professors who were affiliate to the Brethren and had good critical reputations and I chose Manchester. School were convinced that I would never get a place, but I ended with a First Class degree. The course required learning Hebrew and Greek from scratch, but it was a later course on Hebrew Social Institutions by a Latvian scholar Arnold Anderson which led me to a PhD on Hebrew Marriage and Family - far too large as was common in those days. I submitted the thesis just before feminist exegesis started which would transform this particular topic over the rest of the century involving mostly women scholars.</p><p>This pushed me towards the university Christian Union in spite of the theological contradictions which came to a head during my second year which ended in our marriage. Yet some of those friendships have lasted over the next fifty years. However theologically I had moved though agnosticism to atheism, that is a rejection of literal scriptural interpretation regarding the Bible as word of God. I contributed a chapter on metaphorical and symbolical language in my edited book <i>Creating the Old Testament</i> (1989) which was my anti-fundamentalist manifesto. I had hoped for a university post but there were none available in the 1970s and we had a mortgage to pay, so I became a school teacher. Eventually I made my way into teacher training.</p><p>All this is ancient history now. Life is what you make of it so when doors close find some that are open. Know what you want. For me it is to work towards are fair and just society and world. And try not to be distracted.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-41889389717005375652023-02-08T21:05:00.001+00:002023-02-09T21:43:02.004+00:00FRAGMENT World 1 - Syria<p> These fragments will be renumbered over time. Today Syria has raised its head because of the earthquakes.</p><p>We went to Syria in the mid 1980s alongside a week in Jordan. At that time it was rare for tourists to go there. The Assad family were autocratic and apt to send in heavy handed troops. It was a coach tour, since independent travel was not possible. There was a great deal of poverty with queues for bread and food. We crossed the border into a huge traffic jam at Passport Control. The 'ghost' of D E Lawrence was evident as we visited the Crusader fortress of Krak de Chavaliers near Homs. Lawrence had visited Syria as a student and wrote thesis on Crusader fortifications. He was remembered in Homs from his more belligerent days. Laurence supported the local insurgents against the Turkish authority on behalf of the British war effort. Homs suffered from the vengeance of the ruling Assad family, so not much changes.</p><p>Damascus was the base for visits to mosques, including one that held a head of John the Baptist, who was a Muslim prophet as well as a figure in Christianity. There are other heads. We visited a Christian monastery who gave us sips of nice wine so we bought a bottle. Having got it back to the hotel the wine was foul so we used it as disinfectant to clean the toilet.</p><p>Palmyra was better, a nice hotel with underground bathing, a 'spa' in which we were the only visitors. The Roman ruins are the best in the world, enormous in scope. Again we were the only visitors. When children took an interest, a parental voice shouted Leave them alone. But the children we met were fine and I introduce you to Maria. She was about 12-13 and was looking after four younger siblings. I asked her if I could take their photograph, and she was delighted. Alas my Syrian slides have disappeared but I haven't given up on them. Maria would be in her 50s and I often wonder how she fared.</p><p>Syria was a tragedy then, a tragedy later, and a tragedy today in earthquake country. The tragedy was exacerbated by British and French decisions on boundaries between Syria and Turkey which robbed the Kurds of their land. Destabilized by the ISIS war, Syria is a criminally tragic place.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-85875131206716487722023-02-07T01:13:00.001+00:002023-02-09T21:39:51.944+00:00FRAGMENTS 2:Childhood - Flint House.<p> Flint House was my home up to the age of 6. It was near the Common. It was built in the year of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, 1897 by Mr Flint who manufactured tarpaulins. My parents had bought a shop in the last years of the war, hardware and bicycles and bought what was a prestigious but run down house after demob. As a Warrant Officer he may have had a substantial severance.</p><p>The front had a tiny garden, although its current appearance may be a refurb building out a reception area to what is a B&B/small hotel. The back garden I remember more, my secret garden. There was a tennis court to the left, then a rose garden, a small pond with a naked lady in the middle (small boys notice these things). Then a door to the outside world, not openable by me, a shed containing dangerous chemicals which could have killed me and did kill the goldfish. These gardens were sold off after we left, the tennis court surviving for a while, and eventually demolished to make way for housing.</p><p>Up the stairs to the house was an outdoor toilet on which I spent many happy hours reading my books. It was from this vantage point I saw a barrage balloon being taken to the Common around the time of the 1953 Coronation.</p><p>Indoors I remember the Victorian encaustic tiles in the hall that I ran my blue police car over. I had whooping cough here, my siblings had scarlet fever. There were three of us at that point born 1944,1946 and me 1948. We slept in the same room upstairs, and had a living in lady, Mrs Kyme, with a daughter Ann. I assume but cannot confirm that she was a war widow who was offered accommodation for some light household duties.</p><p>There was an indoor bathroom/toilet because I remember getting up early and making my parents a cup of (pretend) tea with water taken from the toilet since I couldn't reach the sink. I remember their horrified faces to this day.</p><p>For the Coronation my aunt had arrived from Ireland with her two daughters (father was from Dublin) and they had coronation frocks made by mother and aunt who went to sewing class. My mother's sister and daughter also were given a room but in the coronation photograph she wore ordinary clothes. Mother's sister an family moved to a wooden house my uncle built, near an RAF base where he worked. Father's sisters family moved to a council flat above a shop which became part of the family chain of hardware shops run by my uncle who had severe mental health problems. To fund all this Flint House was sold and the family, soon expanding to five children, moved to an out of town semi wholly inadequate for family needs. Four years later we all moved to a more roomy house in a village quite a way out of town.</p><p>I remember school close to Flint House as being a terrifying place. I could already read and write so copy-writing onto slates was not particularly enthusing. These were the days of 40 to a class so education was rudimentary</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-25926356384129289392023-02-06T23:28:00.004+00:002023-02-09T21:41:55.479+00:00FRAGMENTS 1. Childhood - Santa<p>These accounts cover remembered events, many of which have been frequently discussed among family and friends. Though limited in scope, they raise life issues of some importance.</p><p> This first one is about me aged 3-4. The house and context will be explored in the next item. I recounted this with one of the carers who was horrified, until I said, "Well, I was only 3!". I remember it as a discussion with my siblings, especially my older sister. I was saying, somewhat stridently, that there is no Santa Claus. Presents came from Mum and Dad. Sister said she would stay awake and prove me wrong (she didn't manage that). Mince pies were put out, which were eaten (by Dad said I). My mother indicated that I preached this far and wide, and other mothers dropped by to tell her to shut me up (no easy matter). </p><p>How I worked all this out I do not recall but I suspect I was over aware of what was said on the radio and to the conversations around me. The wider issue of lying to children stayed with me. There is of course a magic in fantasy. Through childhood the fantasy world in Rupert Bear Annuals was a constant influence (Christmas presents) but these were obviously (to a young child) just stories. Father Christmas has a big presence in these Annuals.</p><p>My skepticism made me ambivalent to the evangelical Christianity I was brought up in. Many of my age mates there stayed with it for life, but my awkward questions were found uncomfortable and I was even by one declared a heretic who ought to be thrown out. </p><p>Respect for children and intellectual honesty is what I have drawn out of this.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-79888993207371618612023-02-04T21:55:00.000+00:002023-02-04T21:55:52.487+00:00Valentine. <p> Busy with tidying up and throwing away unwanted papers, I came across a Valentine Card to us both from a carer in 2020. It says:</p><blockquote><p>Happy Valentines Day 2020.</p></blockquote><p>A little sweet treat for you both the share.</p><p>The devotion you have to each other in the daily care shown in your beautiful home speaks volumes and is quite something to be part of.</p><p>Keep caring</p><p>Keep loving</p><p>Keet smiling</p><p>Keep laughing</p><p>Keep going</p><p>Keep well</p><p>Keep doing an amazing job Stephen in your care and love for your beautiful Jean.</p><p>If she could tell you today how much she loves and thanks you I know she would. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-28688101145338084702023-01-27T21:20:00.010+00:002023-02-03T21:10:00.700+00:00In Other Words - Songs of Experience <br />Not a poem but I hope you enjoy this anthology.<div><br /><div>Relationships last for days or decades, all remembered , all .dear. Here are a few songs conveying emotion, hope and love, life's soundtrack.<div><br />* * * <br /><br /></div><div>I took my love, took it down<br />I climbed a mountain, and I turned around</div><div>And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills<br />'Til the landslide brought me down<br />Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?<br />Can the child within my heart rise above?<br />Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?<br />Can I handle the seasons of my life?<br />Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm</div><div><br /></div><div>* * *<br /><br />Ever<u>y</u>day seems a little longer</div><div><div>Every way, love's a little stronger<div>Come what may, do you ever long for<br />True love from me?<br />Everyday, it's a-gettin' closer<br />Goin' faster than a roller coaster<br />Love like yours will surely come my way<br /><br />* * * <br /><br /></div><div>Oh, and there we were all in one place<br />A generation lost in space<br />With no time left to start again<br />I met a girl who sang the blues<br />And I asked her for some happy news<br />But she just smiled and turned away.<br />And the three men I admire most<br />The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost<br />They caught the last train for the coast<br />The day the music died<br /><br />* * * <br /><br />And in the naked light I saw<br /> Ten thousand people, maybe more<br /> People talking without speaking<br /> People hearing without listening<br /> People writing songs that voices never share<br /> No one dared<br /> Disturb the sound of silence <br /><br />"Fools" said I, "You do not know<br /> Silence like a cancer grows<br /> Hear my words that I might teach you<br /> Take my arms that I might reach you"<br /> But my words like silent raindrops fell<br /> And echoed in the wells of silence.</div><div><br /></div><div>* * * </div><div><br /></div><div>We were talking about the space between us all<br />And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion<br />Never glimpse the truth<br />We were talking about the love we all could share<br />When we find it, to try our best to hold it there with our love<br />With our love, we could save the world, if they only knew.</div><div><br /></div>* * * <br /><br />Always and forever, each moment with you<br />Is just like a dream to me that somehow came true<br />And I know tomorrow will still be the same<br />'Cause we've got a life of love that won't ever change.<br /><br />* * * </div><div><br /></div><div>Dance me to the children who are asking to be born<br />Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn<br />Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn<br />Dance me to the end of love<br /><br />Hineni, hineni, I'm ready, my Lord<br />There's a lover in the story, but the story's still the same<br />There's a lullaby for suffering and a paradox to blame.<br /><br />There is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.<br /><br />* * * </div><div><br /></div><div>Can you hear me calling Out your name?<br />You know that I'm falling And I don't know what to say<br />I'll speak a little louder I'll even shout<br />You know that I'm proud And I can't get the words out<br />Oh, I want to be with you everywhere.</div><div><br />* * *<br /><br />Why not think about times to come<br />And not about the things that you've done<br />If your life was bad to you<br />Just think what tomorrow will do<br />Don't stop thinking about tomorrow<br />Don't stop, it'll soon be here<br />It'll be better than before<br />Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone<br /><br /></div><div><b>Acknowledgements:</b></div><div>Stevie Nix, Buddy Holly, Don McLean, Simon & Garfunkel, George Harrison, Rod Temperton/Heatwave, Leonard Cohen, Fleetwood Mac.</div></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Comments.</b></div><div>#1 I met my wife on the Conniston Old Man mountain</div><div>#2 My wife's first LP was a Buddy Holly compilation.</div><div>#3 <i>American Pie </i>was iconic in the 1960s. I was brought up with church music which died for me after church abuse. </div><div>#4 <i>The Sound of Silence</i> by Simon and Garfunkel was also iconic. Silence is political, the decision not to be aware of social justice.</div><div>#5 George Harrison's spiritual songs emphasise relationships and ethics, a summary of our lives.</div><div>#6 Rod Temperton was a secondary school fellow pupil. I focus this passage on my wife who I am caring for, a life of love.</div><div>#7 Leonard Cohen has been the soundtrack of our lives. These extracts emphasise love and service..</div><div>#8 The loss of our conversations sums up my reaction to her and possibly her mental struggle to express herself. Meanwhile, reflection on life can be positive.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-34521178975139699582022-12-15T00:06:00.005+00:002022-12-15T23:15:28.402+00:00GOODBYE TO 2022<p> As I won't be sending out cards this year end, this post is an update on our year. Many thanks to the people who have kept in touch at this time over the past fifty years. The tree went up today after stubbornly refusing to be found. I was persuaded last year to buy a fake tree by the carers. Here it is with built-in flashing lights, erected in 20 minutes It was hiding in the loft.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiczZlp8JTlxMsDVP6snEZRJeyFxsS-1I_IH9rMDcmnStK82JuYP_F7hbpxxyZB82KalAkF_veWNrlAMg7y90tJAcCTD4S5JcJ3Y69xlqrWxLMqz3MFjNu2lI7e8prdxu5XSez2vTejALhvFMPAHoM646AYp1EB9MXOQCztfSjLp0HlAvKvuHnQAGMZ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4896" data-original-width="3672" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiczZlp8JTlxMsDVP6snEZRJeyFxsS-1I_IH9rMDcmnStK82JuYP_F7hbpxxyZB82KalAkF_veWNrlAMg7y90tJAcCTD4S5JcJ3Y69xlqrWxLMqz3MFjNu2lI7e8prdxu5XSez2vTejALhvFMPAHoM646AYp1EB9MXOQCztfSjLp0HlAvKvuHnQAGMZ=w132-h176" width="132" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"> We always had a real tree and Jean used to enjoy spending all day dressing it. Here is one in happier days, with a visiting friend</p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHULCALVnQVOw-16J_ui1qlIg4-Jl9odZmf9_ldW_h9124KTcdk9YzTaws8ePtmfBgnrAmadRTYC6oM1FyS-PKS1ZOOG3R_pibLQ6TAaBnWin9wiJxAnNKRHb0hbK9N2Vssd7zCAaJUini9LS3xiprWTQ5YMOgelG_syD3uuKsD2-eXAIRfthfLQYq" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHULCALVnQVOw-16J_ui1qlIg4-Jl9odZmf9_ldW_h9124KTcdk9YzTaws8ePtmfBgnrAmadRTYC6oM1FyS-PKS1ZOOG3R_pibLQ6TAaBnWin9wiJxAnNKRHb0hbK9N2Vssd7zCAaJUini9LS3xiprWTQ5YMOgelG_syD3uuKsD2-eXAIRfthfLQYq=w191-h143" width="191" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">My wife Jean has been seriously disabled for 7 years now after three difficult decades for her. She has acute brain damage which has stripped her of language, reading, knowledge and ability to process radio and television. She does respond to music though and lives mainly in her own inner world. I look after her at home after a brief stay in an awful care home arranged by social care. They neglected to feed her a main meal four times in five days (fortunately I was there to insist) and once even forgot to put her to bed. We have evolved an effective routine at home, with carers coming in for an hour morning and evening and some respite/companionship time on some weekday lunchtimes. A year ago she was in hospital with malnutrition and dehydration (she seemed unable to swallow) and I was advised by the A&E doctor to arrange her funeral. Fortunately I was allowed to spend 5 hours a day at her bedside and make sure she built up her strength by eating properly and she was allowed home after ten days. Her room is what used to be the dining room, containing a hospital bed with air mattress, a hoist and a chair which prevents skin sores. She spends her day either in her chair or bed (both provided by the NHS) and sleeps a great deal, usually with Rosie the cat. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The cats are 18 now and both have a hyper-thyroid condition which require two tablets each daily, morning and evening.. One is incontinent which makes life interesting. First job of the day, cleaning it up. </p><p style="text-align: left;">The garden has been a struggle. I pay two young gardeners to keep hedges trimmed, shrubs pruned and odd jobs done, and a local plantswoman to help sowing and planting. I grow runner beans, beetroot, chard, rhubarb and green salad. Flowers include penstemons, salvias, cosmos, fuchsias and there are lots of shrubs - roses, weigela, mock orange, buddleias. Sadly it is not the joy it used to be, just a chore. Here is a callistemon, 'bottlebrush' flowering last week unseasonably.</p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEig1Su3jvOv5lelosnSiDDm2R4IO8YqXRqnkdHEwvJGMmbMn6Cfuooi4zh6UdeO5QiesYs5Bu9jfav8uZBDsJrPiIfViE8hW2J7ZK7MiN_YZCkk6LWuyFqQzJVbERWw4wbJXeG99b90_znDDfQpTYj6_q47PTWYGPj1ypN4bXUDMeIHxVsRQvVELv4g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3672" data-original-width="4896" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEig1Su3jvOv5lelosnSiDDm2R4IO8YqXRqnkdHEwvJGMmbMn6Cfuooi4zh6UdeO5QiesYs5Bu9jfav8uZBDsJrPiIfViE8hW2J7ZK7MiN_YZCkk6LWuyFqQzJVbERWw4wbJXeG99b90_znDDfQpTYj6_q47PTWYGPj1ypN4bXUDMeIHxVsRQvVELv4g=w224-h168" width="224" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><p style="text-align: left;">Alas Covid has meant very fewer visitors over this year, but neighbours, nurses and carers have been good company. I have kept writing. This blog is a kind of day book, a bit more than a diary and you might enjoy some of the entries. Recently I have been reflecting on aspects of life and have found poetry to be helpful. I am strictly an inexperienced amateur but I have found the process therapeutic, challenging yet enjoyable. </p></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;">I sadly have to report the death of family members Ian Madden and Matt Dagg, friends Viv and Sue, and several former colleagues. I hope you all have a good 2023. That may be optimistic but we can but hope. Stephen</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-52132997046540902202022-12-14T23:23:00.001+00:002022-12-15T23:30:31.963+00:00Obituary, Vivian (Viv) Bartlett.<p>I learnt about Viv’s death on Monday. He and I worked
together in <st1:place w:st="on">Swindon</st1:place> in the first decade of
this century on a project to raise self-understanding in school children. At
first the children we worked with had opted out of schooling and learning, with
acute social and family issues. The project began shortly after the millennium
exhibitions in The Dome and Viv’s part in the work with children was called The
Discovery Zone. This consisted of exercises with difficult children to draw out
discussion on the consequences of actions and attitudes, and how to cope with
the emotions driving us to a pro-social or anti-social outcome. The detail
simplified over the years, asking the young people to decide whether to be
consumers or contributors – that is, whether to be part of a wasteful
throw-away society, or to contribute to creating a better world.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Viv had been a secondary teacher who based his teaching
philosophy on patience and respect. Viv and his wife were members of the Baha’i
Faith, a monotheistic faith which teaches equity, justice, the continuity of
religion, anti-racism, anti-misogyny, environmental protection and many other
issues which chime today with ethical living.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I first encountered Baha’is in the 1980s but almost did so in
1967. This was the year I went up to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Manchester</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place> to study
Biblical Studies. My theology was fluid since I had unhappy experiences with
the fundamentalist Christian sect I was brought up in. I saw a flier for a
Baha’i meeting in my first term and had I attended, the outcome may have been
different. The Christian fundamentalists continued to campaign abusively
against my critical understandings and we parted company in early1969. I became
a school teacher from 1973 since no university posts were available. My wife
and I met in 1967 and we became close in summer 1968 and married in 1969.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since the 1980s I built up a substantial number of Baha’i
books including scriptures, and met many Baha’is. . I agree with the ethical
underpinning but my rationalist understanding of theology is not compatible
with Baha’i theology.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Viv and I collaborated on his book on the Youth Empowerment
Programme under the title <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nurturing a
Healthy Human Spirit in the Young </i>(published by George Ronald 2014) which
described and explained the empowerment process in detail. He asked me to write
an introduction, which I did. I had been an external evaluator of the programme
throughout 2004 to 2008.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Viv was a man I was privileged to know and work with.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-87912651429891174292022-12-12T16:32:00.004+00:002022-12-12T16:37:09.195+00:00POEMS: An Introduction<p> Below this Introduction are six poems, the first I have written. I don't claim quality for them but they forced themselves on me and I had to get them out of my system so I can write other things which are blocked. They are not the rhyming sort of poem, though they are occasional purposeful rhymes. I have not studied literature or poetry</p><p>A bit of background. I am full-time carer for my wife of 53 years who now has no language she can communicate with, and has lost all knowledge she ever had. Things are as they are. I have tried various ways of writing autobiographically without success. These poems satisfy me most and give me the flexibility to explore things that come to mind. I appreciate it is hard for readers who have not shared my journey to tune into my personal reflections. But be assured that for me it has been a positive experience, maybe therapeutic. Much in the collection is celebratory and I hope this can be a starting point for readers.</p><p>I use a pen-name for the sake of privacy, </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-49548458253108163252022-12-11T21:59:00.001+00:002022-12-16T22:12:12.277+00:00Poem 7. Grief, a persistent stalker. by Stevie Dufyn<p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Grief, a persistent stalker.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Stevie Dufyn, December 2020</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>A child is born, and eight years later is dead. <br />Grief, they say, gets easier over time. <br />They are wrong. That 8 year old <br />Would now be fifty four, with children and grandchildren. <br />So a grief trebled. <br /><br />A child not born, or miscarries <br />Might-have-been children, a daughter, a son <br />A dream, a hope, a future, redirected. <br />Or a child born who might have been a friend <br />But decided otherwise. <br /><br />A mother, once an artist and carer <br />Found an imaginary family <br />But lost her own for twenty years <br />As they sadly saw her disintegrate. <br />Compounding the grief. <br /><br />A wife, planning a life with a husband of her choosing <br />Hearing the knock on the door with the news <br />That she no longer has a husband. <br />Grief, they say, gets easier over time. <br />They are wrong. <br /><br />Grief is a stalker, striking when not expected. <br />When reading a book, or watching a film, <br />Or hearing a song, or talking with a friend, <br />Grief breaks down the myth of control <br />After a year, a decade, a lifetime… <br /><br />Grief, they say, gets easier over time. <br />They are wrong. <br /><br /><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: "Segoe UI"; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span><span style="color: #0f1419; font-family: "Segoe UI"; font-size: 11.5pt;">© Stevie Dufyn December 11, 2022.</span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-14182760026677451142022-12-10T23:36:00.001+00:002022-12-12T15:46:58.389+00:00POEM 6: WORDS<br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b> WORDS</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">by Stevie Dufyn </div><div><div style="text-align: left;">December 2022.</div></div></blockquote><div><br /> <br /></div>Thoughtful words are all too rare,<br />Words of love, of hope, of care.<br />Words can harm, all hope to sever,<br /><div style="text-align: left;">Their effects can last for ever. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>She spoke her first word. Daddy<br />She read her first book. Rupert.<br />She spelled out her first word, Bear. <br />She joined the library, and went to school. <br /><br />She was friendly and talkative,<br />But mother said Stop mithering <br />So she stopped, and read <br />Every book in the town library. <br /><br />She liked her Dad reading with her. <br />A working man, cloth cap, <br />An old dad, the age of a granddad. <br />Who worked too hard and died too soon. <br /><br />She was fourteen then, in a school<br />That did not appreciate her, <br />Or other working class girls, <br />Preferring the rich and connected.<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>At home she only had her mum,<br />And mum only had her,<br />Expecting to be looked after into old age<br />As she had done long ago. <br /><br />Pleasing words are all too rare,<br />Words of love, of hope, of care. <br />Words can harm, all hope to sever, <br />Their effects can last for ever. <br /><br />Conversation once refused could not be mended, <br />The girl went to university <br />To the surprise of her school <br />Or at least that’s what they said. <br /><br />University was hard, thanks to an injury<br />To the head with a hockey stick, <br />A concussion to last a lifetime. <br />But she met a boy, and married, and became a teacher. <br /><br />She told the boy about her favourite books,<br />And they became his favourite authors too, <br />And they met these, their children, their admirers <br />But bore no children to share books with. <br /><br />No children the authorities wanted adopting<br />Only white babies, since we are white. <br />A family for black and brown children <br />Clearly did not matter. Alas. <br /><br />A Masters degree led her<br />To a senior job in a comprehensive school. <br />But the head injury deepened <br />And with it gradual decline. <br /><br />Yet there were twenty more working years <br />Until the words and memories departed, from a dictionary <br />To a few, Yes, don’t, lovely, good <br />Thanks, hello, goodbye, oh dear, oh God. <br /><br />Wisely use your words of love<br />Words of cheer, with hope to prove. <br />Words can harm, and bring in strife, <br />Their effects can last for life.<div style="text-align: left;"><br /> <br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">© Stevie Dufyn December 2022</div></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-5091673302933314432022-12-07T00:13:00.004+00:002023-12-31T13:12:27.211+00:00Poem 5: Mothers<div style="text-align: center;"><b>MOTHERS</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>© Stevie Dufyn November 2022</b></div><br /> <br />The mother bore her fifth child, in a dark cave. <br />Sheltered from the heat, cold, and wild creatures. <br />Married not by choice or for pleasure <br />Within the relentless cycle of life and death. <br /><br />Her daughters minded her little ones, as she had done <br />In her own childhood, until her first pregnancy. <br />She knew her role, child-bearing and rearing, <br />And with her sisters, preparing food and clothing. <br /><br />For the girls at their menarch, marriage will be arranged, <br />As hers was. She had no say then or now, <br />Her father and uncles choosing a cousin. <br />To keep wealth within the clan. <br /><br />So the cooperative cycle of childcare continued <br />As the way life happened. No room for self, <br />Nor remembered names for wives, mothers or daughters, <br />But they had a kinship excluding fathers, brothers, uncles and other males. <br /><br />Evolution at a crossroads, the male path leading to conflict, <br />The female to cooperation. The paths collide in war <br />When women are raped, captured for sex, murdered, <br />Men and women a separate species to each other. <br /><br />Time moves on, but the patriarchy remains, now contested. <br />Women are beaten, killed, raped, without consequence, <br />Mutilated, forced into marriage and childbearing, <br />Subjected perpetually to the male gaze. The past is the present. <br /><br />Women childless not by choice are cursed now as then, <br />Feeling at fault, unblessed by God, despised by others <br />Whilst men not supporting their children are condoned <br />In a society ruled without equity with double standards. <br /><br />But from of old, Bible women had spirit. Eve took charge,<br />Lot’s unnamed daughters seduced their father<br />Leah cheated cheater Jacob, and outfought her sister Rachel. <br />Tamar accused father in law Judah, her accuser, <br /><br />Zipporah circumcised husband Moses, bridegroom of blood <br />Fighting demonic peril. Miriam his sister sang, <br />Deborah led a battle, Jael plotted and killed, <br />But most suffered, humiliated, scorned, killed. <br /><br />Much like today. Every effort made to ignore women’s voices, <br />To inhibit their progress through barriers and gatekeepers. <br />Coercive control not just at home, but in the streets <br />And in the workplace too. <br /><br />Progress cannot be taken for granted. <br />Politicians are not rational, nor the voting public. <br />The popular voice stirred by prejudiced propaganda <br />Is not divine, but easily led, deceitfully unjust. <br /><br />Mothers nurture children’s enthusiasms and relationships, <br />Honesty, cooperation, self discipline, politeness, creativity. <br />Schools have incompatible interests, of compliance, <br />Obedience to authority, challenging nothing. <br /><br />I was a child carer, mother to younger sibs, <br />So school was not that great, and I was not great at school. <br />Suffering physical assault from some staff, emotional assault from others. <br />Every effort made to make learning unpleasant. <br /><br />Mothers build family values, for good and bad, <br />Maybe in spite of fathers with fractured egos. <br />The mother child bond may be strong even when, especially when, <br />The mother/father, husband/wife bond is weak <br /><br />© Stevie Dufyn, December 2022.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-58196689083422260082022-12-06T23:17:00.005+00:002022-12-12T15:44:45.665+00:00Poem 4: Being Human<p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>BEING HUMAN</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>by Stevie Dufyn</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div style="text-align: left;">Eve was joined to Adam by the hip, to be fruitful and multiply</div>To fill the earth, and to keep it healthy. <br />But they divided, Adam making Eve his assistant. <br />Who fed him, clothed him, blamed for gifting wisdom. <br /><br />The patriarchy told the story, condemning Eve and sparing Adam, <br />Cancelling the serpent, cursing us all. <br />Men distanced from women, humans from animals <br />Which they killed, skinned and ate. <br /><br />The hunter Cain killed gardener-grower Abel <br />Cutting final links with paradise, <br />Requiring nakedness to be covered <br />And lives to be lived in pain. <br /><br />Our human predicament contained within a myth, <br />Hard to reverse now patriarchy deifies itself. <br />A patriarchy greedy for power, riches, land, <br />Who make and police their rules. <br /><br />Jealousy and violence creates war and violence. <br />Revenge, disrespect, lust. <br />Even the chosen family of Noah divides <br />Black, brown and white families via Shem, Ham and Japheth. <br /><br />Of the women, Sarah bullied Hagar, almost to death, <br />Rebecca favoured cheater Jacob over Esau the Red. <br />Dinah was raped, the rapist’s family slaughtered. <br />Worthy Tamar condemned to death for having rights. <br /><br />These were not peaceful times, at least in these fictions. <br />Heads roll, bodies cut up, girls kidnapped for marriage. <br />Their plots match police TV dramas today, <br />About wealth, power, jealousy, misogyny, greed. <br /><br />The poor were made slaves, captives and foreigners too. <br />Vicious war against neighbours common. <br />Recent wars, and social violence worldwide, make this a human condition, <br />A genetic flaw, a contributor to human extinction. <br /><br />Humans are custodians of a burning world, an oven <br />Which our grandchildren will inherit. <br />Political lies unchecked, misinformation of the rich <br />Small minds, small thoughts, corrupt leaders, <br /><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">© Stevie Dufyn December 2020.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-14082024581669692052022-11-13T23:17:00.003+00:002022-11-22T18:14:53.543+00:00Poem 3. Ghosts.<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">GHOSTS</b><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Stevie Dufyn, 2022<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div>Are there ghosts in this house? a young carer asked. <br />Yes, I replied, there are ghosts. Oh yes, there are ghosts.</div><div><br /></div>Ghosts of the young, who never reached adulthood.<br />Of the diseased, who died in pain, too early.<br />Of might-have-been children, parents of grandchildren<br />Never born, remembered in memory, talked to as living.<div><br /></div><div>Ghosts are not all dead but memories of loss. <br />People lost to us now who were important once. <br />Some may re-emerge, some lost for ever <br />Except in memory, photos on mental mantelpieces. <br /><br />On my actual mantle photos of dead friends,. <br />And water-colour sailing boats, luggers, <br />Cards from an absent sailor friend . <br />Close by, mementos of parents, their relics of long lives. <br /><br /></div><div>A young carer asked, Are there ghosts in the house? <br />Yes, I replied, there are ghosts <br />After all these years, there are ghosts. <br /><br />Ghosts not all dead. People fall out of our lives, <br />For reasons neither remembers, the busyness of lives, <br />Sleights that should have been repaired, <br />Some for offences hard to forget, where ghosts are unforgiving. <br /><br />Ghosts fill our nights with sadness, pleasure, fear and regret, <br />With guilt if we have offended or caused pain <br />And anger where pain was caused to us. <br />A ghost is a hole whose emptiness needs memories. <br /><br />I too am a ghost, a hole in another’s life, an unresolved trauma, <br />Hoping to communicate still but hearing only silence, <br />Wanting to apologise, or hoping for an apology, <br />But finding it is too late. <br /><br />Life is a communion of ghosts, unwilling or unable to cohabit, <br />Unable to mend what was broken. <br />In a world of easy communication, where folks don’t stay hidden, <br />We choose to hide, to remain ghosts to each other. <br /><br />Memories of family and friends now gone, colleagues, influencers, <br />Some I never met – authors, musicians, artists, unaware of my existence <br />And unaware of the debt I owe them. Some I helped, I think, <br />They will know, and may remember. <br /><br />Ghosts mix with the living, maintain relationships, <br />Refresh memories. Ghosts of the dead live on in us. <br />Ghosts of the living can be found again, as can I, <br />To rekindle what was once broken. <br /><br />A young carer asked, Are there ghosts in the house?<br />Yes, I replied, there are ghosts. Oh yes, there are ghosts.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span>©</span><span style="text-align: center;"> Stevie Dufyn (pen-name for Stephen Bigger)</span>, 8.November 2022.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-72715179972581292722022-11-13T15:57:00.005+00:002022-11-13T16:06:49.908+00:00Poem 2: Chance Meetings<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CHANCE MEETINGS</b></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">By Stevie Dufyn, 2022.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>X marks a point where two lives cross.<br />A pause on long journeys, an exchange of spirit and soul<br />‘I have come from afar. I greet you’, each affirms.<br />Will they cross by? or travel together?<br /><br /><br />Roads divide, with choices to be made,<br />Crossroads, with destinations unknown,. demanding decision.<br />Choices with consequences, controlling our future<br />Blocking alternative might-have-been lives.<br /><br /><br />Such an X marks the day my father and mother met,<br />A Bomber Command boy invited for Sunday lunch.<br />Five children owe their being to this moment,<br />Who otherwise would never have existed.<br /><br /><br />So the person called ‘I’ was born by luck<br />By fortune good or bad, Cards were dealt<br />Which need skillful playing. The might-have-been ‘I’<br />Would have held and played a quite different hand.<br /><br /><br />So who am ‘I’? A body, a brain, a bundle of thoughts,<br />A chaos of feelings, emotions, ambitions, loyalties.<br />The moral path is narrow and tortuous. A giver? a just contributor?<br />Or a taker, a greedy self-serving consumer.<br /><br /><br />A voice inside says ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my’, ‘mine’. <br />It imagines that we exist for ourselves, for our own purposes.<br />It is a fragile picture, a changeable, breakable image.<br />When ‘I’ becomes ‘we’, relationship is born and community begins.<br /><br /><br />‘I’ was taught to obey, but failed that lesson. I questioned.<br />‘I’ was required to accept, another fail. I argued.<br />‘I’ publicly dispatched Santa at 4, enraging local parents.<br />‘I’ discovered that goldfish die in polluted water.<br /><br /><br />‘I’ was curious, an investigator, a questioner, an experimenter.<br />A reader, a watcher and a listener. Memories are as if yesterday.<br />Even in my own way, a performer, story-teller and musician. <br />These fragments loosely jostle. And then I went to school.<br /><br /><br />School has left few memories And certainly no good ones.<br />Thirty silent children in rows, embarrassed even to laugh.<br />Shamed, controlled by sarcasm, bullying and shouting.<br />But it failed again. I became subversive, a rebel.<br /><br /><br />We recited the catechism. ‘I believe in God…’, the Christian myth,<br />Jesus and his implausible parentage, descent into hell, resurrection and ascension.<br />I was not Christened, so not ‘a child of God’, not ‘an inheritor of the kingdom’,<br />An outsider, thoughtlessly created, now proudly subverted..<br /><br /> <br />‘I’, written off by school, got a First and PhD at university<br />Manchester but I might have gone to Sheffield,<br />Meeting my wife from Bradford who might have gone to Leeds.<br />‘Might-have-been I’ might have met a different might-have-been wife.<br /><br /><br />Different lives, with different consequences.<br />Lives cross, touch, feed, guide, learn and teach. <br />We are the prisoner of choices, luck, and live with the consequences<br />Responsible for the lasting relationships that emerge.<br /><br /><br />Real ‘we’ had no surviving children, and hence no grandchildren.<br />‘Might-have-been-we’ might have a family, and grandchildren,<br />Who might have kept in touch. How hard human life can be.<br />As we live with what is, not what ‘might-have-been’.<br /><br /><br />Now in old age, some might-have-beens are friends,<br />And ‘might-become’ take the stage.<br />New choices emerge, children, grandchildren, sisters and brothers <br />By choice not birth, as friendships widen, deepen. <br /><br /><br />X records a treasure, not measured in gold or stones<br />But in a healthy world with a sane future.<br />And X is a vote, not for power, grift and greed,<br />But for selfless public service, with moral vision.<br /><br /><br />Who am ‘I’ when faculties are dimmed? <br />Will I have a sense of who I am, and why I am?<br />Will the fragments of self and understanding cohere?<br />Will ‘I’, me, my self, my soul, still be whole?<p style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Stevie Dufyn (Stephen Bigger), November 2022. </i></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4608081865606170518.post-32020976069396848432022-11-12T23:39:00.013+00:002022-12-12T15:40:34.717+00:00Poem 1: June, 2022.<p style="text-align: center;"> June, 2022 <span style="text-align: left;">©</span> by Stevie Dufyn (pen-name).</p><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><b>JUNE, 2022.</b><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Stevie Dufyn 26 June 2022.</p>In an English village a millennium old, <br />Lies our hedge-lined hill, overgrown now, <br />Growing new memories, chirruping families mixing with the old and frail. <br />Our house, older than its years, has seen joy and sadness, <br />ts garden oozing colour across the seasons, planned and wild. <br />In this spot, life goes on in a world that has lost its way. <br /><br /><br /><div>June is the month when folks sit in their gardens, <br />Talking, drinking, phoning, enjoying the cooling of the day. <br />The month of roses, competing for the attention of bees and butterflies. <br />I am with those I know, who comfort me, strangers but friends <br />Who offer me food, drink, music and love,<br />Whose smiling faces offer words of joy, hope and pleasure.<br /><br /><br />I hear nearby sounds, Blackbirds complaining about cats,</div><div>Magpie thugs threatening smaller neighbours, <br />Looking for plunder to feed their young on the young of others. <br />A robin defends its territory, noisily but uselessly, <br />It perches on my table, seeking food and company. <br />Scents spread, honeysuckle, jasmine, roses – a blur, I knew each one once.<br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Breezes rustle through shrubs and trees. I hear a road.<br />A car goes by, a motorbike rasps,. a steam train rattles far away, <br />Lorries beep warnings, insistent alarms, a helicopter, a plane.. <br />They are noises, indistinct, unrecognized, whose purpose escapes me, <br />But compete in the soundtrack of that moment. <br />Toe-tapping music rings out close by. Arm-waving, I gurgle joyfully.<br /><br /><br />Some noises I understand, children laughing, cats pleading. <br />Adult voices, talking about life, problems, disasters, the family. <br />Faces smiling, checking, sometimes weeping. They say hello, and goodbye. <br />I laugh. Their words remind me of things I can no longer grasp. <br />I chuckle, but have few words to offer them. <br />The words are in my head, but the journey to my mouth is hard. <br /><br /><br />The sun is low in the sky. It is getting cool. <br />The sky turns shades of red, orange, maroon, like on fire, <br />Blue patches struggling through until everything fades.<br />Flower scents drift over, heady perfumes I remember. <br />The moon shines bright, a globe, a full moon behind shadowy trees.<br />Starlings crowd the skies with their dance and roost.<br /><br /><br />Time for my sleep too, as eyelids grow heavy. <br />Cuddled in blankets and pillows, a cat on guard, in bed. <br />People I scarcely remember, but who know me, and are my friends. <br />Familiar faces and voices care for me, and bring me peace, <br />Faces and voices grow dimmer each day. No one will tell me who I am, <br />Or what I did, or who I was once, or who I will be. My name only remains.. <br /><br /><br />I dream, where life is real, with folks I like, doing what I enjoy. <br />My dad, husband, daughter and niece are there. And lost friends. <br />Humming tunes and songs where old loves and friends still thrive. <br />A world I cannot share with those around me now. <br />Since they have no window into my mind and soul. <br />It is my secret world, my only world now with no way back. <br /><br /><br />Yet I am not alone, or lonely, fret not, <br />Old friends are with me, in vivid memory. <br />My head still has my lost words, thoughts and pictures. <br />In there I know who I am, my essence. <br />Who I used to be is more than what I did, <br />And I know now the mystery of who I will become. <br /><br /><br />In the world I have left, a fox screams, an owl hunts, silent.<br />Clouds scud across the sky, drops of rain seek out plants.<br />While other pump out their night scents seeking out moths. <br />In my dreams I live my own story, happier, without disappointments.<br />Flowers close up for the own sleep, the water lilies and poppies,<br />So farewell for now, I have another life to live.</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Stevie Dufyn, November 2022.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0