Category Archives: Books and Literature

My thinking..., My Thoughts, Philosophy..., reading, Theology, Writing

What a Waste

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I don’t know why I keep doing it but once again I have started reading modern Atheist stuff. The Atheist philosopher John Gray described present day atheism as having only ‘entertainment value’ as it rarely or never says anything of import and I must agree; there is little in today’s output from non-theists, be it from the ‘top’ ones like Richard Dawkins to the very bottom grade: ‘Atheist Republic’. And that lot really are the ‘bottom’ , what a batch of assholes with more axes to grind than they have brain cells to think with! I recently dug out their book of ’50 essays that prove how small god is’ or some such title. My self appointed task is to find something, anything, within it’s pages that can be construed as a serious argument that I or any theist can engage with meaningfully. I will let you know if I find one or else try to explain to you why not if I can’t locate one.

Think about it.

ps

I found the ‘edit’ key so tidied up this post

Books and Literature, My thinking..., My Thoughts, reading, Writing

FINDING EMILY JANE

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Not sure if I’ve posted this here before but if I have, here it is again

The MC of my unfinished novel travelled to Yorkshire in the early 19th Century and this is something that happened to him there.

The story is mostly told from his perspective but this episode focusses on Emily  Jane and her feelings.

Hope you like it.  It still needs a bit of tinkering but it ain’t gonna get it!

She felt so alone. She was a stranger in a familiar land.

The physical and emotional detachment of her father, spending all day as he did, cloistered away in his study, hating the town that he lived in, bruised her soul. The antiquated morality of her aunt, clattering around the slate floors of the house in her wooden clogs, hating the house she lived in,  offended her sensibilities. The bullying and jealousies of her elder sister intruding into her privacy, hating her creativity  made her bile rise. The memory of the kindnesses of her beloved, departed sister  and the vague, distant feeling of being loved as a baby by her adored but long since dead, mother kept her soul alive. Only the support of her brother, limited as it was by his depression and drinking kept her from going mad.

 She spent much of her time when not writing poems, cleaning and tidying the house; the family noting her fervour as a cleaner but not noticing her attempts to clean away the anger and ill feeling that blighted the building.

Only when out walking over  the moors stretching out from behind the house into obscurity could she feel the freedom of being;  there was a connection between herself and the bleak land.It did not judge, it accepted.

He felt so alone. He was a stranger in a strange land.

He had journeyed to the north of the country in his attempts  get away from the sins he had committed in the south. The physical and emotional detachment he felt, spending all day as he had, sheltered away in his self. Hating the god who treated him with disdain, bruised his soul, the old fashioned morality of his church, stamping  around the slate floors of his soul, making demands that he could not fulfil,  offended his sensibilities. The bullying and jealousies of his inner voice, intruding into his privacy, hating his creativity  made his bile rise. The memory of the kindnesses of his beloved, departed Veronica  and the vague,distant feeling of loving Lady Caroline, his adored, but long since dead, friend, kept his soul alive. Now, there was no-one to support him and stop him descending further and further into melancholy…

 He spent much of his time trying to sort out his mind ; noting his fervour as a thinker but not noticing his attempts to clean away the anger and ill feeling that blighted his life. Only when out wandering into the emptiness  that stretched out from his soul could he feel the freedom of being.

When his travels reached Yorkshire he made his way up onto the moors, as far away from people that he could reach,but even in that isolated place he could smell on the wind the smoke from the factories in the cities, miles distant. 

He took up residence an abandoned house that he found  atop a windswept hill,   When not on a nightime ramble hewould sit on a high backed settle in front of a fire that he made by burning old furniture and even floorboards from some of the further rooms of the house, there being no peat or wood on the nearby moors to use. He would sit with his blanket wrapped around him, fervently trying not to think about his past or indeed anything and to to draw some warmth into his body from the fire During the passing of each day he would look out across the moors, trying to see any signs of life beit bird or animal. he felt that the bleak house and even bleaker landscape,  if not actually accepting  him did not reject him either  and he felt he could be at one with the Spirits of this Land, if there were indeed any spirits inhabiting this wilderness.

There was rarely anything moving to see but he noticed in the distance that there in rain and shine was a young woman walking, almost skipping through the desolation, he could imagine that she were singing as she moved; but what sort of song could she be singing?

When their paths did meet, although he and she were both enjoying their solitude they walked together for a distance. .   They did not speak but both felt a togetherness even in their silence.

They would sometimes meet on subsequent days and when they did she would walk with him, he finding a comfort in her presence that was missing in his life and she finding a companionship with him that was missing in hers.

At the end of one particular walk she asked him if he would meet her early the next day to watch the sun rise and spend to the day with her. He agreed.

On her way to meet him the next day  she walked in the darkness before the sunrise, almost dancing in her happiness, thinking about the future; she joined him at the foot of a small hill. As they were climbing to the top she reached out and held his hand and they walked up the hill so encoupled.

At the top of the hill, whose eastern side was a scree cliff, they stood side by side waiting for the Sun to rise.

She reached an arm around him and pulled him closer.   

she heard an exultation of skylarks rise from the heathland about them and as the birds soared upwards filling the air with their song, a charm that would summon the dawn and  shower the countryside  beneath with the bird’s’ blithe spirit she felt her heart fill with love  and sing a joyful song as  it too soared  with the larks into the heavens.

 A shaft of light from the sun, as yet still below the horizon, illumined some gossamer clouds high in the sky and in them she could see the wings of the angel of love and peace blessing this new day.

As he felt her arm enfolding him he looked down the sheer cliff and sensed a feeling as if he were looking down into a deep pit and that if he were not careful he would  fall into and be swallowed up forever.

They spent the morning together watching the moorland life and she shyly sharing with him some poetry that she had written, At midday she kissed him and, raising her skirt, offered her body to him. She felt that if she took him  inside her she could hold him there and never have to feel so alone again.

As their naked flesh met and he slowly entered her they rolled togetherbut before she could feel him climax inside her the spell was shattered. The whistling of a shepherd in the near distance calling to his dogs, and of the bleating of sheep being herded to Haworth to be fleeced.

Emily and the man quickly dressed  and although they did pass the afternoon  in each other’s company something was lost, something, it seemed,  had been stolen away.

As the sun began to set he saw, away in the distance a grey cloud rising that threatened a storm before too long that he felt would drown him. As they said farewell that evening he agreed to meet her the next morning but he knew he had to  get away from her.

He watched her from behind some rocks the next day as she went, almost skipping in her joy , to meet him, her new hero and saviour.  No birds sang to the dawn that day but the harsh cry of Carrion Crows from the trees around the graveyard greeted her has she returned to the Parsonage and her sister. 

Books and Literature, My thinking..., My Thoughts

Spooky Goings on

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A number of years ago I was working on Flatholm Lighthouse on an island in the Bristol Channel. From this lighthouse we kept a watch on an automated Lightship some 5 miles away, we did this by observing her position on a radar screen every hour or so. The radar equipment was sited in an old store cupboard attached to the Engine Room.

Whenever I checked on the radar, especially at night, I felt that I was not alone in that room, there was a presence there of someone full of curiosity and wonder as to what I was doing in that room and what the machine I was looking at was. All this made me feel uncomfortable and discombobulated and a bit chary of going in that shed.

It then occurred to me that there was a presence in that shed that felt as uncomfortable as me.

I was what is called ‘Clairsentient’ I couldn’t hear spirits like someone Clairaudient or see them like a Clairvoyant but I could certainly feel their presence. I did some research and probing around that room and met in a corner of it the Spirit of a man standing there feeling very confused and worried about what was going on. I know he had been dead for a long time from before the Lighthouse was electrified, he may have been a Lighthousekeeper, that I am not sure about, but for some reason he had taken up residence in that shed and avoided the rest of the Lighthouse complex. I suspect he felt safe in there and by staying there could avoid contact with all the modern gizmos around the place, he had been able to do that because the shed had only been used as a glorified broom cupboard for decades and he was in there on his own.

The turmoil and upheaval of putting the radar machine in there caused the old boy much distress and when it was fully installed his solitude was destroyed and he spent his time cooped up with this machine of which he knew nothing and understood less. It was no wonder he cowered in the corner while this bleeping, flashing monster dominated the room and his life.

One night while I was on duty I crossed over to the shed to check the radar. I explained to the room and thereby the man what a radar machine was and how it worked, I told him it was nothing to worry about and wouldn’t hurt him and over that duty period and my next night watch I explained it all again and even told the old guy how to look at the screen and how to identify what he saw there.

I’m not sure of how much of what I said he understood but from then on the disconcerting feeling of fear and confusion that had filled that shed evaporated and I felt no qualms about going in there again.

Books and Literature, reading, Writing

Hidden Life of Trees

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I have just received the illustrated version of this book. It is fantastic with some glorious images, visual and verbal, in it. I got the book to help me with the plot of my own novel partly set in a forest.

it could be argued that the bloke who wrote this book anthropomorphoses (is that actually a word!) trees and forests in his description of how they interact with each other, however there is a lot of evidence both inside and outside of this book to explain the networking that goes on with trees and other plants.

I do so recommend this book to everyone…

Books and Literature, My thinking..., reading

Meeting an Old Friend

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Usually at this time of year I read Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ although sometimes I cheat by watching ‘Scrooge’ with Alistair Sim, a great film and a great actor.

Have you seeen the 1935 film ‘A Christmas Carol’ with Seymor Hicks playing Scrooge? A truly evil and nasty Scrooge, ell worth the watch!

But this year I have just got hold of and started to reread ‘Cat’s Cradle’ by Kurt Vonnegut a book that I last read some 30 or more years ago. What a wonderful book it is to be sure. I will tell you more about it when I have finished it.

Books and Literature, Writing

CHRISTMAS CARD

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When I were nobbut a lad in Essex me, me mam and me da would go and visit my dad’s brother and his wife, Uncle Dick and Aunt Sally. The visits we made were infrequent and boring to me, as a child, and to my parents as adults too.

Aunt Sally and Uncle Dick were a straight laced couple who, it seemed, had drained every ounce of jollity from their house. Aunt Sally was a strict Methodist and she boasted that Uncle Dick never touched alcohol either because he had promised her on their wedding day that he would become  tee total . The words he had actually used were ‘I promise that you will never see me drink spirits or beer. And she never did.  Hhe made sure of that…  Aunt Sally noted that Uncle Dick’s only indulgence was that of eating and chewing mints which he did all day and every day especially when he was out on one of his nature rambles in Epping Forest of a Sunday lunchtime.

On the rare occasions when we would visit them on a Sunday afternoon when they weren’t at a chapel meeting mum,dad, Uncle Dick and Aunt Sally would sit in the parlour and talk about the decline in morals of today’s generation. Well, Aunt Sally would do the talking while the others did the listening, or a good impression thereof and I would be on the floor playing with the toy Noah’s Ark that was the only plaything permitted on the Sabaath. In one game I played the animals would go in 2 by 2 led by the lions and tigers who would ambush the others, kill and eat them as they got on  the ship and away from the prying eyes of Noah (and Aunt Sally). The other game I played was when the lions and tigers were the last to get on the ship and would have a big fight as to who was the strongest and would end up eating each other.  

I once asked Aunt Sally, out of devilment, if there were Unicorns on the Ark and she told me that as Noah was loading the Ark the Unicorns played and dozed in the fields and so missed getting on the Ark. They chased after the ship but could not get on; when you see white water spraying out behind a ship that, my aunt said, were the manes of the Unicorns perpetually chasing the Ark.

The only time Uncle Dick and Aunt Sally were any different was at Christmas. Aunt Sally would allow herself a glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream  ‘in keeping with the season’ but only after watching the Queen’s Speech on TV. If she drank it earlier in the day she was afraid that it would be direspectful to  Her Majesty to watch her broadcast whilst ‘under the influence’ of spiritous liquours.

Meanwhile Uncle Dick would be in the dining room with us kids playing with our toys, laughing with us and telling us all the jokes he knew that were too good to go in the crackers…they weren’t, they were awful, but we laughed at them anyway because we were all  happy and loved him and he was our best CHRISTMAS CARD.

Writing

Tater Dhu Lighthouse Cornwall

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I’m not sure if I have told you this before. If I haven’t here it is, if I have here it is again.

In the 1980s just up the road from Tater Dhu  Lighthouse lived the author Derek Tangye, ten miles down the coast from Tater Dhu lived me. I lived and worked on the Lizard Lighthouse.

Del boy hated the Tater Dhu lighthouse because its foghorn would sound  at odd times and occasions, even when it wasn’t foggy, disrupting his peace and sleep.

Del boy loved me and my fellow lighthousekeepers on the Lizard Lighthouse, he could see our Light shining bright at night to warn mariners from the cliffs and rocks of south Cornwall and because he couldn’t hear our foghorns booming across the misty waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

What Derek did not know was that the unmanned  Tater Dhu Lighthouse was partly controlled by us on the Lizard Lighthouse. It was our job to switch on the foghorn of Tater Dhu when necessary. Now, trying to work out the visibility around Tater Dhu from ten miles away was a bit tricky so we tended to switch on the fog horn when we could not see the Tower or because of fog around us.  The visibility around Tater Dhu could be fine but we would turn on the horn anyway.  I for one would lap up the praise Derek heaped on us whilst thinking of him hating the fog horn blighting his life that we had switched on.

I liked reading his books like ‘The Cat in the Window’ ‘A Gull on the Roof’ etc but I missed the one he probably didn’t write about how that fog horn drove him mad ‘Bats in the Belfry’