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Loss

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The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

May 5, 2012 in Flotsam and Jetsam | 8 comments

A few evenings ago I watched a fascinating TV documentary about Kenneth Grahame and the creation of ‘The Wind in the Willows’. The story is an interesting one, but I was somewhat disappointed that the program made little reference to what seems to me one of the key elements of the book, and to the strange fate that has befallen it.

I have, in a previous post, recommended Jackie Wullschlager’s excellent book ‘Inventing Wonderland’, which is a study of a small group of contemporaneous authors – J. M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, A. A. Milne and Edward Lear. The common thread uniting these writers – if you accept Ms Wullschlager’s premise (which I do!) – is that they each contrived to create a classic work of ‘supposed’ children’s fiction whilst themselves exhibiting traits indicative of an inability to fully realise the transition from childhood to adulthood. I say ‘supposed’, of course, because in spite of this exigency these works speak as much (if not more) to adults as they do to children – which may well go a long way to explaining their enduring appeal.

I have a little knowledge of the subject because – half a decade ago and more – I studied in some detail the life of J. M. Barrie. I was writing a play at the time about Barrie and the creation of ‘Peter Pan’ and in the course of my research I happened upon Ms Wullschlager’s book. The play was completed about six months before the frankly inaccurate and overly simplistic Johnny Depp film hit the multiplexes, and you can probably imagine how ‘thrilled’ I was at that particular turn of events!

When it comes to ‘The Wind in the Willows’, however, the background to the book’s creation interests me less than some of the content therein – in particular the seventh chapter – ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’. When I first read the book as a youngster (probably about the same time as first heard an adaptation on the Home Service) it was this section that affected me most. Years later – when shopping for classic children’s books as a gift for the progeny of a friend – I found myself browsing through a lavishly illustrated hardback edition (sadly the illustrations were neither the wonderful originals by E. H. Shepard nor the later Arthur Rackham variants). I scanned the book idly, looking for the familiar prose of my favourite chapter…

…only to find that it was not there!

I looked again – and again! The chapter was missing…

Now – I am aware of only one or two instances in which elements of children’s books have been selectively edited out. I can just about imagine circumstances in which something that was once thought acceptable is no longer deemed to be so – but what on earth could possibly offend in ‘The Wind in the Willows’?

For those not familiar with the book, chapter 7 describes how – one hot, breathless summer night on which no-one can sleep – Ratty and Mole help Otter to search for his missing son, Portly. As dawn nears – after a fruitless night of searching – Ratty is suddenly captivated by the distant sound of ethereal music. Entranced they follow the mystical cadences to their source, where they encounter – on an island in the middle of the stream – a vision of the great god, Pan. The missing Portly is discovered fast asleep between the god’s hooves.

Rosemary Hill – writing in the Guardian in June 2009 – decribes this mysterious chapter thus:

“Those of them who went on searching for the divine often found it enveloped in clouds of pantheism and neo-paganism, spiritualism and theosophy, the faiths of the doubtful. It is this diffuse but potent supernaturalism that appears in The Wind in the Willows in one strange, unsettling chapter, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”. It is a section that abridgers of the book have always been quick to drop, though Grahame himself thought it essential” … “Whether it is the latent homo-eroticism of the vision or simply the sudden change of tone that makes the scene so uncomfortable, it is certainly a failure. But while artistically it is the weakest part of the book, it is at the same time the key to it.”

There is much to dispute in Ms Hill’s reading, not least the assertion about the ‘faiths of the doubtful’, which – by her tone – I gather she intends pejoratively. I would prefer to substitute ‘sceptical’ – the definitions of which include: “a person who habitually doubts the authenticity of accepted beliefs” and “a person who doubts the truth of religion, esp Christianity”. The InterWebNet offers a plethora of examples of those of established faiths – in particular Christianity – attempting to appropriate the text in support of their own beliefs. This is actually quite offensive. Grahame is far too good a writer: had he intended this interpretation he would have written it.

It is strange that the chapter that Ms Hill describes as a “failure” and “the weakest part of the book” should have had such an effect on me as a child that I habitually look for it first whenever I pick up the book. Grahame is right to consider it essential, and it is indeed – for me – the key to the book. Grahame comes as close as anyone ever has to capturing the essence of the numinous experience. Here Ratty first hears the magical music:

“Rat, who was in the stern of the boat, while Mole sculled, sat up suddenly and listened with a passionate intentness. Mole, who with gentle strokes was just keeping the boat moving while he scanned the banks with care, looked at him with curiosity.

`It’s gone!’ sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. `So beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!’ he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound.

`Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,’ he said presently. `O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.'”

…and after their encounter with the god…

“Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.

As they stared blankly. in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi- god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before.”

This is not merely Edwardian whimsy, nor some failed attempt at a search for the supernatural. ‘The Wind in The Willows’ is about Longing and Loss (which – along with Love – are the three great subjects of all art) written during a golden summer in which everything seemed possible, but at the zenith of which everything might also be lost – as indeed proved to be the case as the world spiralled into the maelstrom of the new century.

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The Glory of the Garden

April 12, 2012 in Life as we know it | 2 comments

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees
That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray
For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away !

Rudyard Kipling

 

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Strange Days Indeed

March 25, 2012 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed — strange days indeed

John Lennon

For the last three days the UK has – without warning – suddenly found itself basking in almost summer-like conditions. The skies have been clear, the sun has shone brightly and temperatures have edged towards the 20C mark. With the trees full of blossom and a whiff of spring in the air the average Englishman’s blood is up and he finds his thoughts turning towards…

…the joys of open top motoring!

I have more to say on this strange English obsession with convertibles. Needless to say I own one and will shortly make an appropriate introduction – but for now other strange and contradictory matters are on my mind.

Friday last found me – instead of celebrating the end of term at School – driving for two hours down to the East Sussex coast to attend the funeral of an old family friend – the husband of my brother’s godmother. Though I did not know him at all well he was the last of that generation – those to whom I had religiously sent Christmas cards since I was a boy – and as my brother and sister were both out of the country I felt I should represent our side of the family. I was somewhat surprised to find that the service was a full requiem mass in the Anglican High Church tradition – complete with copious clouds of incense and extended chanting. It is many years since I attended such, and I can’t say I am any more comfortable with it than I ever was.

I didn’t know anyone else in the church and had resolved not to stay for the ‘afters’, when I found my attention diverted by a late arrival who sat himself further along the same pew as me. I regarded him suspiciously – as did he me – but neither acknowledged the other. He was the spitting image of my nephew – my sister’s son – but as I wasn’t expecting him to be there I found myself uncertain as to whether it was really he. After the service he hovered at some distance and it was only at the point at which I was leaving that he came over and said ‘hello’.

Apparently he had not been sure if it was me either. In his case, this strange lapse was explained by his not having seen me in a suit and tie for many years. In my case it was because of the exotic and relatively mature woman who was draped all over him! Not only had I not met – or indeed heard anything about her – but I don’t actually recall ever seeing my nephew in the company of a lady before… The times they are indeed a-changing!

If I found it difficult to focus fully on the funeral it was because another such is on my mind. My oldest friend – whom I have know since I was nine and he seven – had called to tell me that his mother had died. She had been a friend as long as I have known him – very nearly fifty years. She was a remarkable lady of a generation and breed the like of which we probably won’t see again, and was rightly decorated earlier this year for her many decades of charity work. She will be hugely missed. I had feared that her funeral would take place whilst I am in BC, but it seems likely now that it will be held after Easter instead – for which I am very grateful.

As I drove back from Sussex on Friday afternoon I decided to eschew the motorway and to take the old A road under the North Downs. I have known parts of this route for many years as my grandmother on my father’s side lived with her sister – my great aunt – only a few miles from it. Driving it again in the sunshine – regardless of the modern rush and press of traffic –  brought back a flood of memories of a simpler time.

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Here she comes…

March 4, 2012 in Kickass Canada Girl | Permalink

“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” – Romeo and Juliet – William Shakespeare

“No words. No words to describe it… They should’ve sent a poet.” – Jodie Foster as Ellie Arroway in Contact.

 

We turn to the poets when our own words are inadequate to express or elucidate our feelings.

 

As I write, Kickass Canada Girl is in the air, on her way to Victoria…

 

 

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Crossing the Bar… (3)

February 23, 2012 in Life as we know it | Permalink

My mother died two years ago, on February 24th, 2010. She had been slipping slowly into dementia for much of the previous year and – just at the point in October 2009 at which my sister, brother and I had decided that she could probably no longer take care of herself – she contracted an infection and was taken into hospital. Within a few weeks she had declined to such an extent that she no longer recognised any of us, nor was she aware of where she was or what was happening to her. The four months of hospital visits that followed were amongst the hardest things I have yet had to do.

Had she survived a couple of months longer my Mother would have lived in the same house in Surrey (in the UK) for 50 years. We moved there when I was 6 and it was the house that I grew up in. As well as my mother and father – and the three of us children – my grandmother (on my mother’s side) lived with us in a two roomed ‘suite’ on the first floor. It was not a terribly grand villa, but it was clearly a good size.

My father died some seven years before my mother, after which she lived in the house on her own. She spoke many times about moving into a warden-assisted apartment – which would have made a great deal of sense – but when it came to it she couldn’t face the task of moving. What made this particularly onerous was that both she and my father were great hoarders. She collected books, pictures, calendars and knick-knacks… he never threw away any paperwork.

When my father retired from his job in the City he converted one of the bedrooms at home into an office, so that he could pretty much carry on as before – but without the commuting. His keen sense of duty had led him to volunteer as treasurer or secretary to a number of organisations and he produced mountains of paperwork for each. He steadfastly refused to countenance the purchase of a computer – rejecting all arguments to the effect that such would actually be of great benefit to him – and instead insisting on persevering with his manual typewriter on which he produced multiple copies using carbon paper.

It took 3 months after my mother’s death for the three of us to sort through all of the paperwork and personal effects, before we were in a position to get the house cleared. We found receipts and tickets and copies of letters (Father was a great letter writer – particularly of the complaining variety) dating back to the early 60s.

One particular correspondence tickled me. When Father bought the house in 1960 there was a small easement to be agreed concerning drainage rights for an adjacent property. This correspondence – between Father and a solicitor in one of the City law firms – ran for over two years and the two became sufficiently friendly that much of the substance of what was written concerned personal and family matters. When the issue was finally resolved – sometime in 1962, I believe – Father was paid the outstanding sum of around £3 0s 0p – this being of course in pre-decimal times.

As another example, Mother and Father – who never did really cultivate close friends but rather had a large circle of acquaintances, with many of whom father had struck up conversations on some train journey (neither of them drove!) – met a Dutch couple on a holiday. After this brief encounter the two couples exchanged postcards at regular intervals for the next several decades. We must have found over 1000 postcards stacked away in a bureau!

Why Mother and Father kept these correspondences and artifacts I have no idea. In a way it seemed a terrible shame to break up what would probably have appeared to the social historian as a fascinating snapshot of late twentieth century life, but – practically – there was little else that we could do.

All this makes me very glad that Kickass Canada Girl and I decided to move apartments last year – a process that involved a fair degree of rationalisation and clearing out. We now have less baggage and – however much we like where we are now – less of an emotional attachment to our current home. This should make things considerably easier for us as we make our way- imperceptibly – across the Atlantic.

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Crossing the Bar… (2)

February 21, 2012 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

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Crossing the Bar… (1)

February 21, 2012 in Life as we know it | Permalink

No matter how blessed an existence one leads there are inevitably darker times and occasional moments of sadness. Whilst caught in grip of an emotional squall it can be difficult to maintain perspective – to recognise that the account of one’s life does after all show a positive balance – and that if viewed in the context of the troubles of the wider world these relatively minor afflictions are little more than a passing shower. I don’t believe for a minute that our existence here is but a ‘vale of tears’, but I can see that some are unfortunate enough to lead lives that must make that seem so.

It is no secret that I find this time of year irksome and the long, slow grind towards the aurora of the new spring particularly wearing. Though many wonderful things have happened to Kickass Canada Girl and I over the last few years there have also been difficult times, and it seems to me that most of these have occurred in that dark hour before the dawn.

At the start of March last year the Girl’s father died – not unexpectedly, but suddenly. He had been in a nursing home for some time and she had flown back from the UK to visit him on a number of occasions. When it came to it we had only a couple of days notice that he was ailing, and by the time we had booked flights he had passed away.

The Girl and her father were very close. She misses him terribly and she will doubtless find the 11th March this year a particularly difficult day. It saddens me that I will be 8,500 miles away and unable to offer much comfort, so I am very glad that she has family at hand to lean on.

I liked Jim enormously. It was a privilege to have met him and to have been able to get to know him – even if only a little.  Oddly though, in a way I feel I know him quite well, as so many people have told me so much about him. There is clearly a lot of him in the Girl and this will keep his memory very much alive for me. One thing for which I am eternally grateful is that he saw the Girl and I married in the summer of 2010. He could see that she was happy and I think that must have meant a great deal.

When we were in BC last summer we flew up to Kamloops (the Girl’s birthplace) and then – with her cousin and his wife – drove on up the North Thompson valley. Above Clearwater we took the ATVs up into the mountains, to the ‘Hole in the Wall’ where Jim and his buddies used to hunt. The logging road has been long abandoned and the forest is growing back. We would not have got through at all had we not been carrying a chainsaw. In a year or so the track will have disappeared completely. The ‘Hole in the Wall’ has reverted to being a beautifully peaceful spot, and a good place to rest.

We buried Jim’s ashes on the hillside – so that he could look out over the mountains that he loved – and raised a small cairn. The Girl and her cousin fixed a plaque to a nearby tree which includes the inscription:

‘Hunter, fisherman, beloved father and loyal friend.’

So much more could be said – and yet maybe that says enough…

 

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