Jake Thackray – a genius….. and a genealogist?

Having felt a little in need of cheering up recently and browsing the wonderful Spotify I quite randomly came across The Best of Jake Thackray. His biography describes him as a ‘singer-songwriter in the French tradition’ firmly rooted in the English countryside.  But that seems too mild a description for a poet who sang songs that are funny, sad, rude, irreverent and satirical. He poked fun at all that was self-righteous, self-important and hypocritical. The French influence is definitely there and his lugubrious expression has more than a suggestion of pavement cafes and Gauloises about it.

He was regularly on the TV as I was growing up in the 1970s and ’80s and a favourite of my parents who probably never listened too closely to some of his lyrics, as refamiliarising myself with them I can see they are frequently ‘near the knuckle’ for early evening slots.

Sister Josephine. Lah di Dah, The Country Bus – all suggest they may have done something to influence Neil Hannon’s wonderful Divine Comedy, a natural successor to Mr Thackray in using a deceptively simple, catchy melody to accompany biting and intelligent lyrics.

If you go to www.jakethackray.com you can find  a wealth of information about the man and his music, as well as download lyrics and guitar tabs for many of his songs. He was a genius and rather underrated. Why are we not still hearing him on the radio? Sadly he died in 2002, aged just 64, disillusioned with showbiz and recently declared bankrupt. I want to shout his name from the rooftops and make people listen again!

So because I am interested in and have written about family history quite regularly on this blog I thought I would share the song ‘Family Tree’ with you. Mr Thackray sings quite quickly so you might miss some of the words so I have copied them beneath this video, created by a complete stranger on Youtube. The family in the pictures mean nothing to me but it is a lovely tribute to the man.

I wish I had a boy scout that offered the Queen a Woodbine in my family tree….

Family Tree by Jake Thackray

Up my, my family tree
There hangs my curious pedigree,
My long, my lurid ancestry -
The prancing phantoms and ghosts
Of my rude forefathers.
Nevertheless, despite their sins,
Bless my kiths and bless my kins.
There they all perch to see
Up my, up my family tree.

Up my, my family tree,
No blue blood, no nobility;
No trace of aristocracy -
Except for Uncle Sebastian
Who once raped a duchess.
Nevertheless, despite their sins,
Bless my kiths and bless my kins.
There they perch for all to see
Up my, up my family tree.

We’ve no ancestral halls,
No haughty portraits on our walls;
No family monuments at all -
Unless it’s my cousin Sheila’s
Stupendous cleavage.
Nevertheless, despite their sins,
Bless my kiths and bless my kins.
There they perch for all to see
Up my, up my family tree.

My great-great-uncle Sam,
A very tranquil sort of man,
Could not afford his wife a pram -
He pushed his babies round the park
In a green wheelbarrow.
Nevertheless, despite their sins,
Bless my kiths and bless my kins.
There they perch for all to see
Up my, up my family tree.

My Uncle Will, my Auntie May
Were very much in love, so they
Got married after some delay -
They dressed their kids up in white
When they both went legal.
Nevertheless, despite their sins,
Bless my kiths and bless my kins.
There they perch for all to see
Up my, up my family tree.

When brother Richard was thirteen
He was a Boy Scout, keen and clean.
He got presented to the Queen -
And then he went and spoiled it all
When he offered her a Woodbine.
Nevertheless, despite their sins,
Bless my kiths and bless my kins.
There they perch for all to see
Up my, up my family tree.

Let this be understood,
That our family name is mud,
Our sheep are black our cheques are dud -
But we survive! We’re alive!
So it’s up with the Thackrays!
Nevertheless, despite their sins,
Bless my kiths and bless my kins.
There they perch for all to see
Up my, up my, up my, my family tree.

 

My first ‘Web Splash’ – New Beginnings by Rebecca Emin

This is a new experience for me and as middle-age takes an undeniably firm grip on my life I am up for a few more of those. So, as I was invited, via Goodreads, to the ‘Web Splash’ for Rebecca Emin’s novel New Beginnings, published today, I thought I would take a look.

On Rebecca’s website ramblingsofarustywriter she promises an online launch party, complete with virtual champagne, random giveaways and the launch of my second writing competition. How could I resist?

New Beginnings  is a novel for older children about one Sam Hendry, who is not looking forward to starting at her new school. Initially given a tough time she finds new friends and has to, amongst other things, face up to bullies, find new interests and actually consider performing on stage.

Having seen some comments by young readers it is clearly a book many enjoyed and identified with. That age group is discerning and difficult to please in my experience so Rebecca has top marks so far.

As well as finding out more about Rebecca Emin and her book I also had the opportunity via her ‘linky’ to discover a number of writer’s blogs and sites I had never come across before. At a time when making contact with other writers and readers via the web has never been more important this has proved a great resource. How can you be a ‘good’ writer if you don’t read wagonloads, widely and well?

So huge congratulations to Rebecca on the publication of New Beginnings. A copy can be purchased via Amazon or from the publishers, Grimoire Books, from today. RRP 6.99 or just £2.49 on Kindle.

 

 

September 1818: So begins the miracle of Keats’ ‘Living Year’.

In the late 1970s, in my mid-teens and already enjoying the poetry of John Keats (albeit without really understanding all of it) I read a book by one of the great twentieth century writers on Keats and his work – Robert Gittings. Published before his wonderful biography of the poet, written in 1967, it is entitled John Keats: The Living Year and it had a profound effect on the way I thought about Keats and his work.

I started, in my slightly infatuated teenage way, to understand how ‘experience’ was translated into a poetic philosophy and expressed in some of the greatest poetry in the English language. Studying poetry at ‘O’ level I already had some experience of poetic ‘thought’; but expressed as it was by Tennyson, or Wordsworth through the textbooks and attitudes of the rather old-fashioned girls school I attended it had failed to come alive for me. Keats and Gittings changed everything. In just over a year of his life Keats condensed experience and thought into some of the greatest poetry in written in English. I read his letters and began to see how the ideas he was working through from 1817 and in 1818  began, towards the end of 1818, to crystallise, combining with intense experiences – of loss (the death of his brother Tom) love (meeting Fanny Brawne) and illness (the early signs of TB) – to produce the great work of late 1818 and 1819 for which he is largely remembered.

In September 1818 , having experienced attacks from the critics in response to his publication of his first long poem Endymion, he began another epic – Hyperion - which gave the first indications of how rapidly he was maturing as a poet.

The later months of this year were spent nursing his brother Tom, who was to die of tuberculosis in December.

Eve of St Agnes - William Holman Hunt

In January 1819 he stayed with friends in West Sussex and in Hampshire and it is here he writes a masterpiece: The Eve of St Agnes,  based on the superstition that a girl could see her future husband in a dream if she performed certain rites on St. Agnes’ Eve, 20th January.

 

In February, he wrote (the less successful poem) The Eve of St Mark, which remained unfinished.

In March and April, Keats gave up writing Hyperion, which he had started in late 1818 as he was so rapidly finding his own ‘voice’ that he recognised that there were ‘too many Miltonic inversions in it’.

It is in the Spring of this year that the Brawne family (including Fanny) moved into one part of Wentworth Place, the home Keats shared with Charles Brown.

In April and May, he wrote the great ballad, La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Meaning, in French ‘The Beautiful Lady Without Pity’ it is a deceptively complex poem in a simple form and has been the subject of many different interpretations. The story of a knight encountering a mysterious and beautiful woman who seemingly beguiles unsuspecting men  into an eternal, helpless captivity on a ‘cold hillside’ has been seen by many as Keats expressing his fears that his love for Fanny Brawne fatally weakens his poetic powers.

It is between April and July that he is believed to have written most of his ‘Great Odes’ – To Psyche, On Indolence, On Melancholy, On a Grecian Urnand To a Nightingale. The last two of these  are regularly chosen as amongst the greatest poetry in the English language.

It is also at this time that he and Fanny Brawne came to an ‘understanding’, although they were not officially engaged.

Lamia by J W Waterhouse 1909

In July and August, Keats stayed in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight and here he writes Lamia Part 1 and the play Otho the Great with Charles Brown. Lamia, the story of a serpent in female form is one of Keats’ great philosophical works, suggesting that to attempt to separate the sensuous and emotional life from the life of reason can only end in tragedy.

Between August and October, Keats moves to Winchester, where he would write Lamia Part II and the last of his famous odes, To Autumn. He revised The Eve of St Agnes and began and then abandoned The Fall of Hyperion. 

In October  he returned to Hampstead, once again made unhappy by both his incipient tuberculosis and his seemingly impossible (for lack of money and prospects) love for Fanny Brawne. All of his greatest, and best known work has now been written.

The winter of 1819 saw tuberculosis take full hold of Keats’ health and on February 3rd 1820 he has his first hemorrhage. Just over a year later he was dead.

There are very few poets in the English language who left such a body of near perfect work behind them and surely none who produced so much of it in just twelve or thirteen months of a short life. In late 1818 Keats was just 23 years of age. The intensity of his experience and his rapidly developing genius must be one of the great miracles of literature.

More Margot than Barbara – but it’s a ‘Good Life’ on the allotment…

This past week as been a very busy one on the allotment I share with my sister, Jane Earthy, in Somerset.  She conveniently married a chap with a useful surname for her career as horticultural guru and when it comes to our joint attempt at self-sufficiency I am very much second in command. Even though as a child I apparently loved to spend time with my Grandpa on the allotment and could express joy at the tiniest potato, when we took ours on three years ago I simply didn’t have a clue, writing about the challenges my sister has encountered in the face of my ignorance in a previous blog post, Sisters are growing it for themselves.

Not being the most agile of creatures I have also, on occasion, been rather like Margot picking beans one by one in The Good Life, as I slip and slide and tread heavily on recently planted seedlings.

 

However, I sense that my knowledge of root veg and appreciation of seasonal produce is improving. My faux pas are fewer and further between and I can now think of vaguely intelligent questions to ask, although the idea of working without direction still terrifies me. The consequences are too dire. I remember the ‘weeding the carrots’ incident only too well.

This year is an exciting one though. We have undertaken a programme of ‘remodelling’ this winter which has revitalised the plot and given us a lot more ground to work with. The old raspberry canes have been uprooted and the shed rebuilt on the shady ground our ‘pick-your-own’ plot previously occupied. We have a new lean-too to enjoy:  a very chic traditional allotment structure of bits of old wood, drain pipe and corrugated plastic and an old metal bed base will serve as a drying bench for onions and garlic.

Thanks to a bit of flirting by my sister (she is the glamorous half of our duo and even has the ex-mayor of the town offering her his apples and plums…) a small poly tunnel will go up in the spring. So – lots more opportunities to grow increasingly exotic varieties and a place to escape from the rain and open the thermos flask.

We are lucky enough to have the last plot before open fields and enjoy a very attractive view over a hedgerow which is like our own Spring or Autumn Watch studio (though sadly no Chris Packham or Martin Hughes-Games).  We have bees, butterflies, tiny mammals (and probably rats) and as I ho-ho-hoed between the onions on Sunday in true Mr McGregor style a (rather wheezy) wren was dusting off the vocal chords. In the autumn a parliament of rooks will chatter away in that chilly way they do as harbingers of winter frost. And all year round we have our ‘pet’ blackbird and robins, who wait for us to turn over the soil before sneaking up behind our boots to nab the grubs we have exposed. It really doesn’t pay to get too attached to invertebrates on our plot.

Of course – with the hedgerow, and steep bank it sits on, comes the rabbit warren. Last year, in despair as our second batch of bean seedlings found their way to a bunny banquet, I ‘tweeted’ a plea for ideas to control these cute but crafty critters. ‘Shoot them!’ was the overwhelming response. On the allotment, normally quiet retiring types have invested in air guns and ferrets but although ours is one of the most vulnerable plots we cannot bring ourselves to harm any of our neighbouring Thumpers and Fivers. What is a broad bean supper between friends?

Next to the gate, where the shed used to sit and just past the pile of sticky, steaming cow poo (what do farmers feed them on?), we have a brand new bed for soft fruit – raspberry canes, strawberries, gooseberries and rhubarb (OK I know rhubarb is a vegetable and it isn’t soft, but you can put it in a crumble and that is good enough for me). We also have a little orchard of cherry and apple trees, small now but they promise much and with another ancient plum and fruit trees on neighbouring plots we are sure to have a brief spell of blissful blossom in the spring. Am I painting a sufficiently idyllic picture here?

Because for me it is a little idyll. We do have the sound of the A38 rumbling away in the distance; at the weekend we have the shouts of the (very small) crowd cheering on their football club and the main line between Exeter and Taunton takes fast trains along the side of the River Tone which meanders through the neighbouring popular dog walk. But at times it is blissfully quiet. Even if there are many plot holders diligently digging, planting or picking it seems there is a hushed reverence for the soil and the harvest it offers. Not just in terms of home-grown, fresh vegetables and fruit but as food for the soul.

‘A Walk After John Keats’ by Nelson Bushnell 1936 – History, hindsight & a hike with Hitler Youth?

In 2008 I organised and undertook a charity walk in the Lake District (see my short trek blog here) to follow in the footsteps of the poet John Keats. He walked through the Lakes and Scotland in 1818 with his friend Charles Brown and although his tour was cut short by his own ill-health and that of his brother Tom at home in London, imagery in his subsequent work highlights how much the walk added to his experience.

Following my own period of ill-health as I recovered from breast cancer I wanted to get fit and raise some money for causes dear to me. Re-tracing Keats’ steps over 100 miles in my favourite part of the world seemed an obvious choice. So I researched his route (much of which is now buried beneath the busy A596) and discovered that a number of people had gone before me. Thus I was introduced to Mr Nelson Bushnell, an American who came to follow Charles Brown’s itinerary as closely as possible and who documented the many miles he covered in the book ‘A Walk After John Keats’ published in the US in 1936. The wonderful AbeBooks found me a copy and I have returned to it many times since using it as the basis of my own route, although my fitness prevented me from heading into Scotland.

Whilst dipping into it recently I remembered a passage that highlights how the subsequent events of history can make the books written in the 1930s appear naive, or even sinister in their willingness to avoid the storm that was approaching from Eastern Europe. I thought I would share it with you here, as my amusement at its jolly turn of phrase is always tempered by the knowledge of the horrors to come.

(To Fort William 12 miles afoot (plus a 12 mile side trip on Ben Nevis) Thursday July 16 1936)

Presently I found myself on a slightly rising mound that was the summit – I had achieved Ben Nevis!…… I counted myself fortunate that this, the last mountain I was to climb, was the first and only one where the rain caught me.

Dimly through the clouds I descried a couple of buildings, an inn and an observatoriy, deserted and ruinous, and in them I took brief refuge from the bitter cold wind and the vast empty wet fog that enwrapped me. And here I found my two fellow climbers likewise in retreat. They turned out to be Germans; we exchanged friendly words in my own tongue, and dug into our knapsacks to make a common meal of our chocolate, jam and biscuits.

We began the descent together, chatting of this thing and that. They turned out to be emissaries of some German movement for an international good-fellowship of youth, spending their summer holidays in foreign travel, learning to share the attitudes and gain the sympathies of their various hosts – ‘spying for gun sites and fortifications,’ I hear some die-hard sneering. They were in France last summer; how thrilling Paris was! Had I ever been there? …. Yes during… I hesitated. But why not be frank?

‘Yes during the war’ I said. We all laughed, a little sadly, a little apologetically. How ridiculous! Imagine me gloating over their wounded relatives as I jounced my ambulance over the rough cobblestones to a prison hospital; or imagine them scorching my throat with poison gas in the next war! God help us all for fools and cowards…

(Nelson Bushnell 1936)

Nelson Bushnell does not discount another war, clearly. But he cannot imagine for a moment that these friendly fellows might be doing anything other than travelling Europe in order to ‘promote an international good fellowship of youth’. Of course I might be grossly misjudging these two men. It is possible that they were part of the youth hostelling movement that had been established by a German in 1909.

But in the two years prior to this mountaintop meeting the Hitler Youth movement had begun its most significant recruitment ‘drive’ and had begun to expand by demanding the forcible merger of other German youth groups into its ranks. The international youth hostel movement was also, by 1936, far from simply a ‘German movement’ and involved representatives from eleven other European countries. Can anyone out there enlighten me on this question? Were there emissaries sent to Scotland in the mid thirties with such innocent, and ultimately forlorn hopes?

Of course the identity of these men may never be known and this is but one small excerpt from a book which, in its willingness to accept American stereotypes of quaint  old Britain, is a real museum piece. But in such a gem it brings one up short. A shadow comes across the landscape and Bushnell’s purple prose suddenly seems to highlight how far the world was from understanding what the Third Reich was planning.

Reasons to be cheerful…..

It is hard for anyone to be cheerful at the moment, although the Conservative party attempt to rival the Chuckle Brothers, David Cameron and George Osborne, always look as if they are not trying quite hard enough to suppress a smirk. Britain strikes me as an angry country and the anger is frequently directed at people who have no voice to challenge it. ‘Divide and rule’ is a phrase that hit the headlines this week but instead of denying it is happening politicians and the media  should admit it is what they do all the time. They enjoy setting us against one another, blaming everyone but themselves. It is corrosive and I have sensed myself being drained by it.

So I thought I would think of ways to cheer myself up. My blog is a random one, I admit. Posting on John Keats, poetry, family and social history, mental health and anything that gets my proverbial I am lucky that I have readers prepared, in the words of a legendary Swedish SuperGroup, to ‘take a chance on me’.

So as the new year gets underway  I can no longer blame a lack of motivation and low mood on the end of the festive season.  I have decided to take a very heavy hint from certain quarters and write a blog post that celebrates fun, thankfulness and all those things that I should cling to in order to chase away the black dog depression  that snaps at my heels. Instead of making resolutions I will find hard to maintain I will start the year off with a list I can come back to when I need reminding of my good fortune. It won’t stop me feeling that the world we live in is a harsh one at present but a moment’s respite won’t hurt.

At the risk of starting with the obvious, I do believe that Ian Dury was a poet and even if many of the things he lists in this classic don’t light my fire, the song always makes me smile…..

So what does make this rather mournful, melancholy middle-aged woman happy? This is obviously a very personal list but it might prompt a few ideas if, like me, you are spending a Sunday on your tax return knowing Tory cronies are fiddling theirs……

• There are the obvious things of course; like gin, chocolate, coffee, sex…… and Milton Jones.

• I have reached five years beyond breast cancer. Not out of the woods but enjoying a break in the canopy. With any luck I will be discharged from hospital check-ups in March and sent on my way. Scary of course but really a cause for celebration.
• I am paid real, spendable money from my writing! My blog is going well and I earn enough from the work I do to keep the overdraft just this side of authorised. Having a self-confessed spreadsheet obsessed, control freak husband prevents me living the carefree, Bohemian lifestyle I feel I should be enjoying but to be honest, no-one else would put up with me the way he does.
• I am going to the Lake District again in May. Hoorah! Nowhere on Earth makes me feel so alive and grateful to be so. This year we are spending time in the Western Lakes, not an area I know well. I can’t wait to stand in the Wasdale Valley and walk along the edge of Wastwater.  Remote Ennerdale with forest and lake to explore and the beauty of the west coast at St Bees. I refuse point blank to go round Sellafield Visitor Centre though. Force 10 gales and teeming rain will not get me in that interactive conference centre again. I am sure I emited a green glow as I left last time.
• I have a new book about Keats – The Keats Brothers – to read. People may laugh at my crush on a poet that has been dead nearly 200 years but he is fascinating and his continuing popularity is encouraging ongoing scholarship and more general writing that many other authors (apart from Charles Dickens of course, who has the monopoly on  tributes this year) could only dream of.

And of course, West Ham Utd are, as at 3rd Jan, joint top of the Championship and well on the way to being a Premiership football team again. This will, however, only be a good thing if they stay there this time. I am rather enjoying this winning lark boys….

St Peter. A rock

Of course I was supposed to talk about my family first. It would have been tactful, thinking about it. I have a lovely husband and two wonderful children but it is not their job to ‘make me happy’. They do, on a regular basis, of course. But feeling that you are responsible for the well-being of someone with a propensity for anxiety and depression is a lot to deal with, so this post isn’t going to pile the pressure on. Thanks guys though. I couldn’t do any of this thing called life without you.

I also have a rather wonderful sister. I disagree with her on a wide variety of subjects and frustrate her with my woolly liberal attitude to life and propensity to ‘fanny about’ but she has been a remarkable source of support over the past few years. Working with her on our jointly owned allotment is a source of great joy, even when I am treading on the beetroot and pulling up carrots as weeds…Jane you are a horticultural star.

Gosh this is plenty to be going on with! What the devil have I got to be miserable about? Well I am not going to think about it here. We all have our gripes. For one brief moment I am not going to think about mine…..

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
You’re welcome, we can spare it – yellow socks
Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty
Going on 40 – no electric shocks…..

Ian Dury – Reasons to be Cheerful  Pt 3

What offers you a little respite from the grimness that surrounds us at the moment? What makes you chuckle in the face of everything politicians can throw at us? Let me know – I may adopt a few of your ideas…

‘When I have fears…’ – John Keats on self-doubt

At this time of year – that rather doleful time between the Christmas festivities and the beginning of a new year – it is natural to look back at our achievements over the past twelve months and assess the success or otherwise of the grand plans we put in motion in the previous January. Hopefully, there are aspects of our lives that have surpassed our expectations. It is likely, however, that other schemes and dreams will have fallen flat; failure, loss, a lack of time or commitment perhaps has seen plans delayed, discarded or faced as failures. It is often hard, in this annual ‘review’ to maintain our hopes of success. Even if things have gone relatively well, there is always that creeping doubt that besets the imagination. It can undermine almost everything you have worked to achieve.

So turn to John Keats…..

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to Nothingness do sink.

In 1818, John Keats was just beginning to mature as a poet, leaving behind early friendships that limited his work or took it in directions that ill-suited him. By the autumn of that year he would be starting the fourteen or so months of startling creativity that produced much of the work for which he is best known today – the ‘Great Odes’, The Eve of St Agnes, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Lamia - his poetic development happened with astonishing speed. In the earlier months of 1818 though (this sonnet was sent in a letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds in the January)  he was still finding his original ‘voice’ and working through his poetic philosophy.

Full of this demon self-doubt, fearing failure, recognising that even given his talent he would have to work hard to achieve ‘greatness’ he seems almost desperate and full of anxiety in the sonnet: will I be given enough time to achieve success, to say everything I want to say? Will I find that ‘real’ love? (At this point he not yet met Fanny Brawne).

But I think it is more complex than that. I have always thought it spoke to me as an aspiring writer in a way few poems can by expressing the fear and doubt whilst using language that hints at success and completion – the ripening of the grain and the ‘fullness’ suggesting a successful harvest of a fertile imagination. It inspires with the image of the nourishing nature of art itself as books are filled with words as the ‘garners’ (the granaries) are filled with grain. Whatever his concerns for the future Keats has an essential belief in the possibility of his genius.

Of course you can just read this as a beautiful, if melancholy, poem that presages rather spookily Keats’ early death. It is the first poem I learned off by heart, aged just twelve, and it has stayed with me ever since; its regular metre suiting the rhythm of my stride as I recite it to myself, walking quickly to keep up with our dog on a long walk.

Not everyone wants to be a writer, but we all have doubts about the future, especially at the moment. Yes, you can read the poem as one of potential disappointment, fear of failure and anxiety at a lack of success. But the last lines seem to me to look out over the edge of our world, casting old thoughts aside and offering us a chance to put things into perspective.

We write from what we know, but that does not mean we must hold on to past failure and unhappiness.  I will read this poem often over the coming months to remind myself that with luck and hard work I can achieve better things.

A very merry NoWriggling Christmas!!

A John Keats Christmas by Amanda White

This time last year I wrote a post wishing all those good enough to give No more wriggling out of writing their time a very merry Christmas, celebrating the fact that I had been blogging for a whole five months. As I am away over new year now I had a little review of 2011 and twelve months further on I am, remarkably, still at it and my blog has come a long way. Lots more people pay a visit and the list of topics I cover has widened. It has been a good year and a huge ‘thank you’ to you all for your comments and interest.

I have enjoyed writing about family history, about mental health ( a special Christmas ‘thank you’ to all my brilliant guest bloggers) and about any manner of other topics and I really enjoy sharing my favourite poems. I am all over the place perhaps – someone sent me a ‘Versatile Blogger’ award which sounds better than plain ‘random’ – but one constant is my love of John Keats’ poetry, letters and life. That is why my Christmas card to my readers (above) is one designed by one of my favourite artists and fellow Keats enthusiast Amanda White who now has the honour of her work being sold on hallowed turf – at Keats House Hampstead (shown on the card). Take a look at her site; she also produces work based on the home of other literary greats – Wordsworth, Austen and Shelley for example.

In 2010, by way of Christmas greeting, I shared favourite Christmas poetry – The Oxen by Thomas Hardy. This year I thought I would share a contemporary Christmas poem by Stephen Leake. I know very little about the poet, other than what you can read in the cutting linked to above and I hope he doesn’t mind my reproducing his work here. However, it is done out of admiration for the lovely atmosphere he creates in ‘Presence’

Across the dark, a robin learns the Winter.

A candle dissolves; frank and sensuous

Against the extending light.

The streets remain illegible with snow.

 

I travel through you; uncurling

Where weather decorates the night

And naves of Christmas pines

Grasp human shadows.

 

Alone I go, echoing carols

In powdered places. Echoes that are glorified.

Prolonged.

 

Until I find you on the bench

Pressed with our pasts.

A child again. Tricked and traced by

Memory’s gift. Lasting. Imprinted.

 

A proof of the year’s new world.

 

‘And naves of Christmas pines/Grasp human shadows’ – I love the evocation of the cathedral-like forests of straight pines, so dark that no light can penetrate and no shadow form.

Last year I also included a link to a video of one of my favourite Christmas songs, Driving Home for Christmas by Chris Rea. It isn’t a track that is overplayed at this time of year, but the one I include for 2011 may not feature on anyone else’s Christmas compilation -’Can’t Get it Out of my Head’ by ELO. I can’t remember why I started associating this with sitting in our darkened front room (aged about twelve), with the coloured Christmas tree lights casting shadows on the ceiling – of tree and me, replacing those lost amongst the pines of the poem. Perhaps it is the melancholy tone of the song and the lyrics I never quite understood that remind me of the evening of the big Day, when all that anticipation is over and it will soon be time to go to bed and leave Christmas behind for another year. Whether this is my exclusive experience or not, it is fabulous. And if you find it a little sad for the season, you can always go and listen to Wizzard here…!

Happy Christmas everyone!!

On the darker side of the sparkle

As the build up to Christmas and the New Year reaches a climax it is for many quite easy to buy into the old maxim ‘ ’tis the season to be jolly’. From the early December Christmas party at work to the last notes of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ the whole holiday season can, if you are lucky, pass by in a blur of festive fun. Of course many of us get stressed at the cost, at the crush in the shops and at the prospect of cooking a dry old bird for ten people. It is a time of year when viruses seem to take great delight in laying us low and we have to deal with sneezing in the stuffing. However, in general the beginning of January marks the end of the old year and the excitement of starting afresh with a new set of resolutions to break before the end of February.

But at the risk of putting a dampener on your celebrations I wanted to raise the real Ghost of Christmases past, present and inevitably the future – depression.

As many as one in three people will experience mental health issues in their lifetime, it is a shocking statistic. It strikes at any time of year of course, not just at Christmas, but still there are people who are unaware of the symptoms in themselves, or in those around them. At this time of year, it is important to recognise that amongst all the tinsel and gift wrap there are thousands of people for whom this festive season is a very difficult time indeed. I am lucky – although I am vulnerable to bouts of depression and anxiety, Christmas is for me a welcome distraction from those thoughts I am prey to at other times of the year. For many others it has the opposite effect. I worked for Mind for two years and we always had to be alert to the needs of those using the service and their families. Sensitivity with the celebrations was vital.

Most people now understand that depression is not just feeling blue for a couple of days when the stress gets too much. You cannot just ‘snap out of it’. It isn’t bursting into tears when you burn the mince pies either; that is most likely to be a relatively healthy response to the stress and a majority of people will have a cry and feel a whole lot better for it.

No, depression is, in my experience, a feeling of being overwhelmed by a dark mood that won’t lift; can’t be lifted. It continues for days and is accompanied by a loss of interest in almost everything that might at one time have given pleasure. Concentration and energy levels slump, anxiety increases, decisions are impossible and in the midst of the depression one feels one has no worth as a person, nothing means anything and guilt becomes unbearable – even if there is nothing to feel guilty about. When the ‘black dog’ of depression is all-consuming, thoughts of suicide nudge their way into what was, at one time, a totally rational brain; one that would be able to cling to the hope that the dog can be driven away. That is when the worst can happen.

Chemical responses to low light levels at this time of year can explain a physical response. Added to this, those who have experienced job loss, the break up of a relationship or a bereavement during the year are especially vulnerable and for people who are on their own Christmas can be the loneliest time of the year, the isolation more acute at a time when everyone else seems to be welcoming love into their lives.

The financial situation we are faced with at the end of 2011 and the levels of debt taken on to fund Christmas has added to the already stressful task of buying presents, providing the anticipated slap-up feasts and living up to family pressures to create that ‘special’ twinkly atmosphere. This can exacerbate a low mood and it is vital that even those who consider themselves mentally healthy take good care of themselves.

So what should you watch out for – in yourself and in others around you?

• Feeling the need drinking to excess. Don’t. Alcohol is a depressant.
• Being alone. If you, or someone you know is going to be alone at Christmas it is worthwhile finding if there is a local volunteer project that needs additional help over the season.
• Arrange to see friends and family over the holiday period. Just for a change of scene. However, where the company seems overwhelming recognise that is perfectly OK to say ‘no’ and make your apologies.
• Go for a walk. It sounds simple and perhaps a little flip, but scientific studies have shown that physical activity of any kind can be highly beneficial in the struggle to lift all but the most serious depression. I have friends planning on going for long runs on Christmas Day or taking a trip to the beach. Boxing day will see me at the allotment.
• Seek professional help. Call a helpline such as Samaritans.
• If you feel depressed it is vital that you talk to friends and family about how you are feeling. Depression is an illness and people should not feel ashamed to express their unhappiness, even if it feels wrong when everyone is trying so hard to be festive. If you have a friends or work colleague who seems to be struggling, let them know you are there if they need you. Listen. The support can make all the difference.

Of course, if you already recognise these symptoms there is still time before the break to see your doctor. The medical profession is getting better at taking depression and anxiety seriously. If you are prescribed anti-depressants they probably won’t start working until the new year, but even a short period on a low dose might be enough to break a cycle.

Remember suicide levels rise to their highest in January. Samaritans expect to receive one call every six seconds over Christmas and New Year.

In fact Samaritans have their own tips for surviving Christmas:

• Don’t give yourself a hard time. It’s just one day a year and if things go wrong you won’t be alone.
• Spot the signs of trouble.
• Look after yourself. Eat and drink sensibly and get some sleep.
• Confide in someone.
• Ask for help. You can call Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 to speak to someone in confidence. Calls are charged at a local rate and they are open 24 hours a day every single day of the year.

Take care of your own mental health this Christmas and look out for others around you. Recognise the warning signs and never, ever feel that admitting you are depressed is to admit defeat or failure. There is help and support out there for what might seem even the most impossible situation.

In which I avoid a difficult subject with a poem about snow

Julia Copus

I have mentioned before that I attend a Royal Literary Fund ‘Reading Matters’ group every week. It is a wonderful idea; led by fabulous poet Julia Copus we listen to her read a short story and a poem each week, taking time to comment and express our thoughts about each in a friendly and supportive environment. It has been an inspiration to me – introducing me to short story writers and poets I might never have discovered for myself and teaching me so much about the short story form that I am experimenting with my own.

But this week, Julia inspired me in another area of writing that I have so far held back from. She encouraged us to listen to her Radio 3 piece ‘Ghostlines’ broadcast last week. In it she recounts in verse and her own personal testimony the experience of IVF. It is an intense emotional experience – frank and open about the disappointments, the pain and the actual process of treatment and it made me think very hard about a subject I could write on, but have so far avoided in any emotional sense. My breast cancer.

I am a writer and as such should write from experience. Having cancer (it is still hard even to type that word, even though I am happily in remission) has been part of my life for the past five years so to avoid it has probably been unhealthy. However, I have always thought that many brave women have gone before me to describe vividly the way cancer shook their world and I could add little to their stories. I have concentrated on my love of poetry, of history and genealogy, without really recognising that my cancer IS part of my family history, of my children’s experience.

So I have decided to write about it on here, occasionally, in as creative way as I possibly can – after all it is not a subject people are easy with and I don’t want to alienate those of you good enough to read my blog.  Julia and indeed my great writer friend Rivenrod (who has expressed with great creative power his anger at being turned from a seemingly healthy, active man into someone devastated by heart attacks) have helped me decide that it is time to use the most intense experience of my life to inform my writing and perhaps improve it. I hope no aspect of my expressions in this blog will seem tragic – after all I am still here and hope to be so for many years yet – but they might at times be uncomfortable. Please forgive me those moments.

In fact it is so uncomfortable that I decided to break myself in gently. Warn my readers that at some point in the future they may find a post or two a little different from those I put up more regularly.

Louis MacNeice

So I digress, in my frequently random way, with a poem appropriate to the season and to the weather many have experienced in the past few days; one that is, apparently, a ‘poets poem’ – admired as a masterpiece of 20th century literature. I love it for the line ‘World is crazier and more of it than we think’ and I can understand how it might be to ‘feel the drunkenness of things being various’. My breath is literally taken away by the last two lines.

It is far from a ‘seasonal’ poem and I don’t mean to attempt to explain what it actually means but it relates to a world far away from a drawing-room window and a vase of roses – the Spanish Civil war, the troubles in Ireland, the rise of fascism. The 1930′s, when ‘Snow’ was written, was in W.H. Auden’s words a ‘low, dishonest decade’.

Certainly there is a much greater bridge between the roses and the snow than a mere pane of glass.

Snow – Louis MacNeice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Perhaps it is not such a digression. The world I have to delve into was a crazy one; the feelings of calm that came over me at the strangest times during treatment or the raging anxiety that consumed me at others. And the world was by turns more cruel and more wonderful than I ever supposed.