Diamonds and Rust

Hera is calling, and we will return,

Bound with her twine, long faded by Aegean light.

Where blue meets blue she stands and beckons us home.

Two kindred souls,

Mortals yearning for her ethereal world.

Not daunted by passing time

In foreign lands both grey and cold .

The echo of her laughter is heard by fools.

As regular readers of my blog know I struggle with my watercolour painting. I now have a new inspiration.

My Idol of the sixties. The bad boy, the music maker, the singer, the poet, that particular spirit of those years also paints in watercolour!

The German press agency report that the art collection of the city of Chemnitz, (once DDR) are showing 140 water colour and gouache paintings from the musician in their latest exhibition.

When asked why Bob Dylan chose Chemnitz for his premier,they said, “Nobody had asked him before”

I’m off to get a ticket.

I love Poetry,but I can’t write it.

I might possibly be able to turn out some third rate crime or love story but lines like;

“The sedge has withered from the lake,

and no birds sing.”

Impossible.

I ask myself why I find prose so much easier?

The answer is, maybe one has to be a melancholy sort of person to write something moving,and I am not one of these.
It would be an explanation as to why Ireland has brought forth so many great writers.

Or maybe one has to be nursing a broken heart.

My Sarie Marais is so far from my heart, and I’m longing to see her again.
She lived on a farm on Mooi’s River bank, before I left on this campaign

Oh,bring me back to the old Transvaal

That’s where I want to be,

Way yonder ‘mongst the meelies (Corn),by that great thorny tree,

Sarie is waiting for me.

Cricket wasn’t the same without the South Africans, Rugby wasn’t either.

I painted a plate in a competition at school and even won. It showed the Cape Fruit which we couldn’t buy in England any more.

Later in London I often heard homesick South Africans singing the haunting song- Sarie Marais and the seed was planted.

South Africa, one of the most beautiful and richest countries in the world was bleeding.

The Black South Africans suffered terribly under the Apartheid regime, and some white people who had lived there even longer than the blacks were ashamed to tell others abroad where they came from.

There were many whites who without fear fought against it, there were a lot of white people who supported black families.But they didn’t shout loud enough, and we didn’t hear too much about that.

But we heard about Nelson Mandela at last, and the others who didn’t live to see the day.
People who suffered particularly under the regime have been, and will be in the future compensated. (can something like that be compensated?)

People and Firms responsible for upholding the Apartheid in South Africa will be brought to justice, so says the United States Court of Apeal
As I read today they will support this.

Somehow I find the anouncement terribly funny. When will America’s black people be compensated?

As a post script I must say that the words and lyrics of the Sarie Marais were taken from an old US Civil War folk song called Elli Rhee, and the Transvaal was then Tennessee.

To all and sundry near and far

F. Christmas in particular.

“I want some crackers and I want some candy,

I think a box of chocolates would come in handy.

I dont mind oranges,

I do like nuts,

And I should like a pocket knife that really cuts.

from” King John’s Christmas.

A.A.Milne

King John of course had never heard of Swiss Army Knives or he might have been more explicit

I have, and apart from the obligation as a Swiss Citizen to own one ( I mean an original one ) I know too that they are the best.  That’s why I certainly will be taking one along on my trip.

But there is a snag attached to them,and that is they have got something against women.

Sometimes we might like to have longer nails as men and sometimes even paint them.

But you have to chose between opening your knife and keeping your finger nails intact.

O.K. So not all women are Swiss Army Officers,but sometimes we would like to use one.

They’re changing guards at Buckingham Palace,

Christopher Robin went down with Alice,

Alice is marrying one of the guards;

“A soldier’s life is terribly hard”

Says Alice.

A.A.Milne

Since this was read to me as a child I was always in awe of the Guards.Foot Guards or Horse Guards they were all the same to me.

In their brass buttoned scarlet uniforms,  tin soldiers come to life.

When I’m in London I always seem to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace,and the words of A.A Milne’s Poem come to my mind,as does the music of “The British Grenadiers”

I haven’t seen many military parades in recent years,except what the news brings us of those in China or Russia,so it was a surprise when I saw a film of the official birthday celebrations for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth with the guards parade.

It was enough to make all those old drill Sergeants turn in their graves. What happened to  the straight lines? Have I missed something,or aren’t they doing that any more on the barrack squares or is it just” Britannia  rules the waves” again.

O.K I know there is more to soldiering than square bashing, and to all the members of the five guard regiments who are currently risking there lives  unnecessarily in foreign fields,respect. But I remember hearing veterans of WWII saying “discipline saved lives”

Do we need it as little as we need the Guards these days?

Would you all say I was a little mad that after my ‘coming of age’ on the 19th 0f March-(and its not my 21 st Birhday,but the day on which I never have to work again) I might consider packing a rucksack and getting myself on a flight to somewhere in Asia.

Yes, I do mean backpacking.To those far away places with far away names.

For those who might now be saying,’just do it’ I must admit I have during my married life been a 5*person and roughing it would be a little unusual.

My budget would of course under the circumstances be restricted,so only if absolutely necessary could I pull out a credit card that even in an unwashed and unkempt condition would give me entrance into one of the aforesaid abodes.

The second handicap-and for me probably the greatest, is that I have a hysterical attitude towards anything that creeps or crawls, especially in showers or bedrooms,and to get around this problem have always had a man within shouting distance.

But still the urge to tramp through Asia is very big.

I was a hanger on 68er and while my colleagues were sitting it out,or running away to Goa I was following the rules. Now I feel it’s time to break some of them and do mad things. Do these things have an age limit?
I’ll keep you all posted.And if there is some old 68er out there who would like to come along.I’d have nothing against it provided he could remove unwanted guests.

”Clay lies still,but bloods a rover;

Breath’s a ware that will not keep.

Up, lad: when the journey’s over

There’ll be time enough to sleep.”

A.E Housman 1859-1936

A Shropshire Lad 1896

“For the Fallen”

“They shall not grow old,as we who are left grow old,

Age will not weary them,or the years comdemn.

At the going down of the sun,and in the morning,

We will remember them.”
Laurence Binyon .1914

These words were engraved on a wooden plaque fixed to a wall of the Aula in one of my first schools. Underneath was a large wooden plaque telling us the names of Teachers and Pupils from Stepgates who had fallen in two world wars.

On November the 11th we will remember the fallen again. Some of us may wear a red poppy, others will just remember.

In London an ageing Queen will lay a wreath at the foot of the Cenotaph in Whitehall, and a handfull of Veterans will try and straighten their backs, shakingly salute, and with tears in their eyes march by.

Britain, the Commonwealth, and the USA will remember the Armistice, of 1918 and in many Churches services will be held to this purpose.

But according to an article in a London paper last Saturday,there are members of the Clergy who feel they can’t hold these services any more because they conflict with the ideolgy and lives of congregational members from other countries and cultures living in Britain. Must we all forget.?

“In Flanders’ field the poppies grow,

between the Crosses row on row.

We shall not sleep though Poppies grow

in Flanders’ fields.”

Lt,Col. John Mc Crea . Canadian Army 1872-1915

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,

There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, an I know she thinks o’ me:

For the wind is in the palm-trees, an the temple bells they say:

‘Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay’

Come you back to Mandalay,

Where the old Flotilla lay;

Can’t you ‘ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay?

On the road to Mandalay,

Where the flyin’ fishes play,

An the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘ crost the Bay!

This poem of Rudyard Kiplings was as a school child one of my great favourites.It definately awakened my fascination of the east.

‘If you’ve ‘eard the East a callin’, why you won’t ‘eed nothin else’

No you won’t'eed nothin’ else

But them spicy garlic smells

An the sunshine an’ the palm trees an the tinkly temple bells!

On the road to Mandalay.

Ship me somewheres east of Suez where the best is like the worst.

For the temple bells are calling and it’s there that I would be-

By the old Moulmein Pagoda looking lazy at the sea.

I didn’t get to Burma but read about Aung San Suu Kyi , and I read today that a 400 000 signature Petition for the release of 1100 political prisoners had been handed to the military rulers. It was the first without the influence of the Nobelprize winner.

I’ll be going soon.

The words of this poem are for me the lovliest words of affection ever written.It is by no means any ordinary poem,it was chosen as a cypher for one of the bravest and highly decorated British women agents working in occupied France during World War II.Her name was VioletteSzabo, and she died in Ravensbruck concentration camp after being captured and atrociously tortured. She revealed nothing. I think with the words of the cypher, which were given her or chosen by her while she was in training atBletchly Park reminded her of her dead husband and helped her through her ordeal.

” The life that I have is all that I have,and the life that I have is yours.

The love that I have for the life that I have is yours and yours and yours.

The sleep I shall have ,a rest I shall have, yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years in the long green grass will be yours,and yours, and yours.”