Tale of Two Abbeys

Making Sense of the Present in the Past
It’s July, so clearly, it must be Time To Read Informative English Heritage Panels at a historical site somewhere.

Whitby Abbey
In other words, it’s Emily’s birthday…. And post-lockdown who could resist the siren lure of the sea washing on a northern shore? Dracula called from not so many miles away…. or, more precisely, Abbess Hilda and the poet Caedmon summoned us from West to North Yorkshire to Whitby Abbey…. An unexpectedly blue sky gave the ruins a bright vibrancy and it was easy to imagine the disruptive (Saint) Wilfrid and the gossipy “historian” Bede bustling about the place.

Socially-distanced beach
It was necessary, if not compulsory, to buy Fish n Chips from The Magpie and enjoy them on the beach, in spite of the keen seagulls. And it was necessary to visit The Whitby Bookshop and revel in the town’s independent quirkiness. Face masks came on and off easily and most shops had clear sanitation procedures. Visitors were by and large sensible and conscious of protecting fellow citizens from the current global pandemic.

Bolton Abbey
The Bolton Abbey Estate has had plenty of practice at organising large-scale responses to annual events so their one-way nature trails (to The Strid, to Bolton Castle, to the Valley of Desolation) are welcoming and well organised. So, for Day Two of the Birthday Season, although we didn’t venture into the Abbey ruins themselves, we had a yomping walk through rooty forest trails with a picnic under the canopy of trees.  Another year, another birthday. Good food, good drink, good company, three venues: Whitby, Bolton Abbey and home. Where the heart is.

The stick-together families

Cockeyed Optimist
I have been accused on more than one occasion in adult life of wearing rose-tinted glasses. Of being too optimistic, too annoyingly positive; of being too prepared to see another person’s point of view. Of being a glass-half-full kind of sap. A dupe. Too gullible. (I could argue it’s the Libran in me.) Like Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, I try to imagine that I will never understand a person “until you consider things from his point of view…. until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” It’s very hard to do with some people in some situations but it usually allows me to store negative feelings in a box called There’s nowt so queer as folk and sleep at night, counting my own blessings.

Edgar Guest
The “People’s Poet,” Edgar Guest, was introduced to me by pupils I taught when they selected some of his poems to recite at Music and Poetry performance evenings. He was born in England but lived most of his life in Detroit, USA, and his grand-niece, Judith Guest wrote the novel Ordinary People, that was made into one of my favourite films in 1980. Edgar Guest’s poems are undoubtedly sentimental and unlikely to be studied for examinations, but they capture clichéd truths for cockeyed optimists like me and two poems, in particular, have resurfaced from my subconscious as my loved ones begin emerging from Covid-19 Lockdown.

See it Through by Edgar Guest

When you’re up against a trouble,
    Meet it squarely, face to face;
Lift your chin and set your shoulders,
    Plant your feet and take a brace.
When it’s vain to try to dodge it,
    Do the best that you can do;
You may fail, but you may conquer,
    See it through!

Black may be the clouds about you
    And your future may seem grim,
But don’t let your nerve desert you;
    Keep yourself in fighting trim.
If the worst is bound to happen,
    Spite of all that you can do,
Running from it will not save you,
    See it through!

Even hope may seem but futile,
    When with troubles you’re beset,
But remember you are facing
    Just what other men have met.
You may fail, but fall still fighting;
    Don’t give up, whate’er you do;
Eyes front, head high to the finish.
    See it through!

The Stick-Together Families by Edgar Guest
The stick-together families are happier by far
Than the brothers and the sisters who take separate highways are.
The gladdest people living are the wholesome folks who make
A circle at the fireside that no power but death can break.
And the finest of conventions ever held beneath the sun
Are the little family gatherings when the busy day is done.

There are rich folk, there are poor folk, who imagine they are wise,
And they're very quick to shatter all the little family ties.
Each goes searching after pleasure in his own selected way,
Each with strangers likes to wander, and with strangers likes to play.
But it's bitterness they harvest, and it's empty joy they find,
For the children that are wisest are the stick-together kind.

There are some who seem to fancy that for gladness they must roam,
That for smiles that are the brightest they must wander far from home.
That the strange friend is the true friend, and they travel far astray.
They waste their lives in striving for a joy that's far away,
But the gladdest sort of people, when the busy day is done,
Are the brothers and the sisters who together share their fun.

It's the stick-together family that wins the joys of earth,
That hears the sweetest music and that finds the finest mirth;
It's the old home roof that shelters all the charm that life can give;
There you find the gladdest play-ground, there the happiest spot to live.
And, O weary, wandering brother, if contentment you would win,
Come you back unto the fireside and be comrade with your kin.

Leaving Lockdown

Time to Shave, Time to Venture Forth From The Home, Time to Dine

Pyrrhic "Victory"?
The streets are no longer unpeopled. The air is no longer unpetrolled. Most shops are no longer shuttered. The UK is becoming unlockdowned, unfurloughed, unshielded. We’re meant to continue to stay alert; alert like Mr Dominic Cummings, the eyes-fully-tested, rule-following, model citizen. Alert like Prime Minister Boris Johnson who said in parliament on 23rd June that the government’s strategies represent a “victory over the virus”, so today’s figures of 44,650 Covid-19 deaths in the UK (as of 11th July 2020) should somehow be seen as better than they might have been, as long as we don’t mention the Office for National Statistics figure of 65,000 excess deaths in 2020. And so we are encouraged to return to Normal – or a New Normal which

• may or may not involve wearing masks (clarity coming very very soon, we’re told)
• may or may not involve a Test, Track and Trace system (a working app coming in the Autumn, we’re told)
• may or may not involve cooperating with other countries on developing a vaccine (unless we decide to be World Beating by ourselves.)

I’ve not yet been in a shop other than a food shop but, as the images above and below show, Sally and I went for our 34th anniversary meal in a tried and trusted local restaurant, Shipley’s Waterside. The meal was delicious, the arrangements safe and clear, the atmosphere quiet but perfectly suited to an anniversary chat. Bookshop next? Then cinema? Then theatre, eventually? Hello, New Normal.

Anniversary treats, including scones with friends and in spite of a Stye in the Eye, symbolic of something I suppose.... 

New Deal

Brian and Sue on VE Day, the milky way, Monument Valley - everything changes, incrementally

Weaning off Zoom
So today, pubs and restaurants can begin re-opening and hairdressers can return to work. Some cinema chains are making tentative arrangements for opening but theatres and concert venues remain closed for performances. The Covid-19 Lockdown is “easing” further in the direction of a “New Normal.” The New Normal is likely to be with us for a few years. We’ve booked our first restaurant. We’ve booked our first social event with geographically distant friends (Sue and Brian above, making merry on VE Day.) How have we all coped? Have we learned anything about ourselves individually, as communities, as a country, as a continent, as a planet? Or will we strive to return everything to being the same as it was before? I don’t think that’s possible. Time (and circumstances) change things – notice the images below (the two adverts are absolutely genuine – from 1890 and 1964.) Some things will never be the same: any references to driving to Barnard Castle to test your eyesight, for example.

VE Day Afternoon Tea, the glorious Sophia Loren telling truths, genuine advertisements that wouldn't be printed in 2020

What’s past is prologue
The current UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to his family) has declared a New Deal and has given the impression he will now be able to deliver on his election manifesto promises (see No Excuses Now for a reminder.) I hope he succeeds in doing everything he promised, though I suspect the Coronavirus pandemic will be used time and again in the next decade to excuse failures. The first political New Deal belonged to President Roosevelt in America in 1933-34. To avoid further economic catastrophe, liberals pushed through the Second New Deal in 1935-36. History doesn’t show how many further New Deals might have been needed because The Second World War demanded everyone’s attention and other economic opportunities arose in the fight against Fascism. Hopefully, a World War is not around the corner in the 2020s. Still, we might as well talk about a New Deal – it sounds more energetic and optimistic than a New Normal. But I hope we can learn and build a better world. Shakespeare’s line from The Tempest (What’s past is prologue) is inscribed on the National Archives Building in Washington DC and can now be applied to any situation where past events should be used to determine exactly what happens next. We should learn from the past. Shouldn’t we? Happy Independence Day!

Summary of the forthcoming (expensive) Enquiry into the Coronavirus Pandemic