As we recall those unlived years

100 Years of Remembrance

2021 marks the centenary of the year (1921) when different elements of Remembrance were combined to create the traditions we know today: Armistice Day, the poppy symbol, the two-minute silence, the service for the Unknown Warrior and the march-past of veterans and dignitaries at monuments around the UK, including the Cenotaph in London. Regular readers will know my admiration for the Royal British Legion and much more about the history of Remebrance can be found on their website.

Past, present, future

What I always reflect on is how inclusive remembrance is: men, women, young, old, all ethnicities, nationalities, religions and backgrounds can find a home within an act of remembrance. White, purple, black and rainbow poppy wearers can find a home. Most significantly, the grieving can find a home, “a moment stolen for a tear.” Lest we forget, we need to remember…. It is a process that should be applied to all aspects of leadership and political life…. We need to know the past to understand the present and plan for a better future.

We shall remember them

BFBS

British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS UK) aims to provide TV, radio and internet entertainment and information to Britain’s Armed Forces and their dependents. They reach people around the globe and have permanent studios in (to date) 10 countries, as far afield as, for example, the Falkland Islands and Bahrain. They began in Algiers in 1943 and have consistently transmitted military news, live sport, and movies as well as material like the BBC’s children’s content to an increasing number of bases in remote settings and to families stationed at home and abroad.

Ernie Rowe

Ernie Rowe worked for 30 years at BFBS and penned her own poem in 2019 to add to the world’s growing collection of Remembrance poetry:

Remembered still those souls that tried

To save the world, but many died.

A moment stolen for a tear,

As we recall those unlived years.

The camaraderie that flew those souls

Back home to those they knew,

And loved them dear and held them close

But for our sakes released to foes

The silence that they leave behind

Is space to calm the troubled minds

Of those they loved – and can’t rewind.

Again this day we give our thanks

For those returned from serving ranks

And them ‘as gave it all away

Forever in our minds will stay.

Previous blogs featuring Remembrance as a theme:

• In Flanders field the poppies blow – Saturday 7th November 2015

• Falling Leaves Like Snowflakes – Wednesday 11th November 2015

• Harry’s Last Stand – Saturday 28th May 2016

• Bastille Day 2016 – Saturday 13th August 2016

• There but not there – Sunday 11th November 2018

• The Last Post – Monday 11th November 2019

• Lockdown VE Day (Blog 300) – Saturday 9th May 2020

• Autumn Rain – Saturday 7th November 2020

Come From Away

Birthday Season

For my birthday last year, I chose a retro activity: the widescreen Sound of Music on the big screen at the National Media Museum in Bradford. The cinema treat followed a delicious meal at the Alhambra Theatre overlooking the stunning City Hall with its bell tower based on the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. And, as usual, in the week before my birthday I went with Sally and a picnic up to the Haworth Moors to visit the Brontë falls and Top Withins.

Restaurant 1914 at Bradford Alhambra, treat breakfast and buffet lunch and widescreen Sound of Music

From Bradford to London....

Big Smoke

As part of my birthday treats, we’d booked a November trip to London to treat ourselves to some “date time” in local pubs and at fancy restaurants including the Francophile Brasserie Zédel.

Infinity in the palm of your hand

One of our stops was to see an exhibition focused on one of my heroes: poet, painter, engraver, visionary, environmentalist and prophet – William Blake (1757 – 1827.) Many of his poems are in my top 100 poems of all time and his life was an inspiring mix of graft, grief, creativity and mysticism. I’ve written plays about his life and staged concerts containing his words, so it was a huge privilege and pleasure to see many of his artistic works represented so sympathetically at The Tate. “The imagination is not a state; it is the human existence itself.”

We’ve all had the spooky hell dream, people

What surprised me me about the first of our two London theatre treats, The Book of Mormon, was how essentially good-natured it is (despite some fruity language.) I came away admiring Mormons for more than their shiny, white teeth. The fun to be had at the expense of (all) manufactured religion is loving and reverent and the slickness of the production was at times breathtaking. The score is a wonder – switching between ballads, peppy narratives, swing, jive, faux-African, disco and tap; and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you the plot, but the time passed by in a white-shirted flash

Suddenly there’s something in between me and the sky

More profound was a musical that was more than the sum of its parts. Did you know there was a musical about 9/11, the attack on the twin towers? Neither did I, until word of mouth from London friends suggested this “chamber musical” was well worth watching. Come from away was created using interviews and transcripts from the people of the Canadian town of Gander and the crew and passengers of the 38 planes that descended into their lives when planes were diverted to Gander on that fateful morning in 2001. Luggage was stuck in holds so, apart from beds, the citizens of Gander rallied to provide toiletries, medicines, sustenance and shelter to all kinds of people from all parts of the world. If this sounds to be an improbable subject for a musical, believe it! And yet, from the small to the huge, from the quirky detail to the epic tragedy, from the minor irritation to the life-changing encounter, the writers manage to concoct a whole society in a Greek-chorus style celebration of Every Human Emotion. A life-affirming experience, and a good way to end this “birthday season.” (As Mr Rogers said: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”)

"Truly Heart-stirring Relic"

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, begun in 1847, looks after key properties and materials today

September 1847
September always feels like a time of renewal – throughout my school years and my career as a teacher it always signalled the start of the new term, new books, new pens, turning over a new leaf. It signals the month when Autumn begins and the Summer fades fast. April, wrote T S Eliot in The Wasteland, “is the cruellest month” but for me April means my Mum’s and Sister’s birthdays and (not-so-secretly for those who know me) Shakespeare’s birthday on the 23rd April (which was also his death day and has been designated the feast of St George…) We often make unremarkable dates significant by remembering personal events – the first time or the last time we did something…. September also contains a historical twanging thrill for me, a secret celebration, I know, for many Shakespeare fanatics…. In 1847 an auction took place in London advertising the sale of “The Truly Heart-stirring Relic of a Most Glorious Period, and of England’s Immortal Bard.” What we now know as Shakespeare’s Birthplace was up for public sale and celebrities as grand as Prince Albert and Charles Dickens were promoters of “saving the house for the nation.” Stratford-upon-Avon has never looked back, though it was an uphill struggle to keep the project on track and every year sees challenges to the promotion of Shakespeare’s genius. One of my favourite blogs (The Shakespeare Blog by Sylvia Morris) details the struggle and the commemoration of the auction in 2017.

Shakespeare flirting with both Comedy and Tragedy in a Richard Westall painting at the Birthplace Trust and London scenes from recent visits to The Globe on the South Bank in London.

Tolkien, Shakespeare, Others and You

Private audience with a theatrical knight

Legendary icon
It was hard to stop smiling in astonishment and wonder at the sight and sound of an almost-octogenarian’s tour de force one-man-show at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry tonight. I attended with my long-time Shakespeare buddy, Michael Thompson, who’d badgered the box office for returns and who’d not only got the triumphant call – “yes, we have two seats for you” – but, it turns out in a miraculous alignment of the stars, that one of the seats was sponsored by Sir Ian McKellen so we were invited backstage afterwards to hear the legendary knight throw out some extra choice anecdotes and bestow his iconic glory in a private audience. I’d seen him in a backstage environment before with a group of students during the second run of Waiting for Godot in London (see picture below.) I saw him in that play with two casts, playing opposite both Yorkshireman, Patrick Stewart and the late, great, Roger Rees, as well as superb supporting actors – as witnessed below with Ronald Pickup and Matthew Kelly.

Saw this production twice with two casts but one McKellen....

Over 80 venues across GB
Sir Ian McKellen’s stamina, memory, bravura acting techniques and vocal command are, live in the theatre, marvellous to behold. This particular show started as a one-off review and then expanded into an 80th birthday celebration of a tour of upwards of 80 venues across Great Britain. The profits from each performance are donated to local charities that are either drama or education or community based. The audience become the second character as he drags people onstage, invites shout-outs of answers and the names of Shakespeare plays. But more importantly he controls the audience mood as adeptly as any mind-altering wizard. The gossipy anecdotes are hilarious, the moving tales of his childhood and political activism draw us into a circle of quiet intimacy and his geographical range of acting experiences take us around the globe from Bolton to Yorkshire to the North-East to Nottingham to London to Stratford-upon-Avon, up mountains in New Zealand and to the throne room of Buckingham Palace. Wondrous!

Explanation for this pic in paragraph below...

Tolkien, Shakespeare, T S Eliot, G M Hopkins and more
At the flick of an eyebrow he moved from a doddering, ancient Agatha Christie character to a gauche and youthful Romeo. He mugged mercilessly in pantomime mode as Widow Twankey and recalled the ignition of his passion for live acting when seeing a performance of Peter Pan. He gave us a preview of his forthcoming film performance as Gus, the Theatre Cat in T S Eliot’s and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats (directed by Tom Hooper and adapted by Lee Hall) and dextrously delivered Gerard Manley Hopkins poetry in the finale to the first half. Just when it seemed impossible to admire him more, out poured forth from the depth of his soul one of his party pieces, the famous speech from Sir Thomas More (probably the only example of Shakespeare’s own handwriting which I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog – click here) – the speech which appeals to our shared humanity in how we should treat refugees. A memorable moment at each performance was his reading from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and the invitation onto stage of an audience member to wield Gandalf’s mighty sword, Glamdring. Above you can see my dear friend, Amy Lancelot (Creative Education Manager at Leeds Playhouse), receiving the polaroid outcome of just such an encounter at a later performance.

Some of Sir Ian McKellen's Film and TV roles

McKellen TV and Film performances that made an impact on me over the years
1970: Edward II in Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
1976: Macbeth in Macbeth by William Shakespeare
1981: DH Lawrence in Priest of Love by Harry T Moore adapted by Alan Plater
1982: Walter in Channel 4’s Walter by David Cook
1985: Sir Andrew Charleson in Plenty by David Hare
1989: John Profumo in Scandal by Michael Thomas
1995: Amos Starkadder in Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons adapted by     Malcolm Bradbury
1995: Richard III in Richard III by William Shakespeare
1998: James Whale in Gods and Monsters by Christopher Bram adapted by Bill   Condon
1998: Kurt Dussander in Apt Pupil by Stephen King adapted by Brandon Boyce
2000: Magneto (Eric Lensherr) in X-Men by Tom DeSanto & Bryan Singer (a role he   went on to play in X-Men 2, The Last Stand and Days of Future Past)
2001: Gandalf in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (a role he went on to   play in a further five films and numerous audio projects)
2006 “Sir Ian McKellen” in Extras, created by Ricky Gervais
2015: Sherlock Holmes in Mr Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, book by Mitch Cullin   adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher
2015: Norman in The Dresser (with Anthony Hopkins)

A fraction of Sir Ian McKellen's stage appearances

McKellen Stage performances I have seen
1979: Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night and Andrei in Chekhov’s Three Sisters on   tour at Dewsbury Town Hall (September)
1988: Acting Shakespeare at Wakefield Theatre Royal (22nd May)
1989: Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon
1997: Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the National Theatre in London
1998: Dr Dorn in Chekhov’s The Seagull at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
1998: Garry Essendine in Coward’s Present Laughter at West Yorkshire Playhouse,   Leeds
1998: Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
2007: King Lear in Trevor Nunn’s production of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Sorin   in Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon
2009: Estragon in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at Theatre Royal, Haymarket in   London
2017: King Lear in Jonathan Munby’s production of Shakespeare’s King Lear (in a   CinemaLive broadcast)

Easter 2019: the Ian McKellen bonus....

There but not there

There but not there in the Marble Chapel at Mount Stuart House

Commemorate, Educate, Heal –

centenary of WWI Armistice

In previous Novembers I have used poetry to reflect on Armistice Day, the day 100 years ago, when on the eleventh hour of the the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the guns and weapons fell (mostly) silent. If only over 10,000 men had not been wounded or killed on the very day in 1918….If only politicians and powerful forces that mobilise wars were more skilful at negotiating to avoid armed conflict…. If only WWI had been the war to end all wars….The 2014 Tower of London ceramic poppies were a startling and powerful artistic symbol of the scale of the loss of life in World War One and this year the silhouette of a Tommy has been used widely to represent the memories of the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in fields of war across the world throughout history. We should remember them. (Commemorative poem at the end of this posting.)

Benmore Botanic Gardens on the Cowan peninsula

Benmore Botanic Gardens
Paintings, photographs and moving images showing the devastation in the fields, villages, towns and cities of Europe are strong reminders of the folly of waging war – the destruction of the natural and the man-made world in addition to the loss of life – is a picture of hell. So it is all the more wonderful to keep reminding yourself of the glory of nature. On our recent holiday in Scotland – two astounding beauty spots are remembered in this posting. Benmore Botanic Gardens is set into a mountainside on the Cowan peninsula.

Nature's beauty at Benmore Botanic Gardens - worth protecting

Giant redwoods and golden gates
Miles of trails lead through avenues of gigantic Californian redwood trees to viewpoints across ponds and from elevated benches and sites like an astonishing Victorian fernery or the restored gleaming golden gates.

Mount Stuart
The “there but not there” Tommie featured in the collage at the top of this post is sited in the marble chapel of Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute. A short ferry ride from Colintraive brought us to this massive estate with its coastal walk (where we picnicked.) It must be one of the most magnificent houses I’ve ever visited – an eccentric gothic surprise of a place with hundreds of highlights.

Wee gardens, lush fernery
The grounds include a maze-like garden leading to fern trails, kitchen gardens, rockeries, ponds, pine trees, a sheltered “wee garden” and the Upper and Lower Policies (“pleasure grounds around a mansion”.)

Intricate details and lavish flourishes
The house is full of gothic touches: from the astrological ceiling in “the horoscope room” to the “Red, Blue and Purple” Libraries and the awe-inspiring Russian icon, The Marriage at Cana.

They shall grow not old
Wow factor moments include walking into the 80 foot high Marble Hall, walking up the Marble Staircase and entering the Marble Chapel (first picture in this posting). H W Lonsdale’s richly coloured stained glass windows represent the signs of the zodiac and the vaulted ceiling shows “the stars in their courses.” During the First World War the 4th Marquess and Marchioness of Bute turned the house into a hospital, Lady Bute ran the hospital and supervised the logistics of treatments and altogether over 2,100 patients were treated, breaking records for similar makeshift hospitals in stately homes.

For the Fallen
by Lawrence Binyon

• first published 21st September 1914 in The Times 
• composed on cliffs in north Cornwall, in tribute to the earliest casualties in the first months of the First World War (Battles of Mons and The Marne)

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, 
England mourns for her dead across the sea. 
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, 
Fallen in the cause of the free.


Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal 
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres, 
There is music in the midst of desolation 
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young, 
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. 
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted; 
They fell with their faces to the foe.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 
At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; 
They sit no more at familiar tables of home; 
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; 
They sleep beyond England's foam.


But where our desires are and our hopes profound, 
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, 
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known 
As the stars are known to the Night;


As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, 
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; 
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, 
To the end, to the end, they remain.

The zodiac windows at Mount Stuart House

Cursed Child

The Palace Theatre and the walk to Top Withins

All is well

“The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.” Thus ended the seven books of J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series, a set of books I cannot praise too highly, as a retired teacher, for their readability and cultural impact during the time of the rise of mobile devices. My daughters “grew up” with the series paralleling the school years and troubles of Harry, Hermione and Ron (and Luna and Neville and Ginny and Draco and Dobby and Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks and Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape….) and the cavalcade of characters, good and bad, complex and straightforward that continue to exercise the loyalties of readers the world over. It was inevitable that one day we would end up seeing “book 8” in its stage form and patience paid off as Harriet secured tickets for the two parts of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Armed with Alex from Badby, a Younger Muggle for protection against interference from the Dark Arts of the railway system, we spent the last Saturday of June at the Palace Theatre.

Badby Barbecue

Who is the Cursed Child?

Since we faithfully promised at the theatre that we would Keep The Secrets, there will be no answer here to the question of Who is the Cursed Child but in typical J K Rowling fashion, the answer’s debatable. I managed to steer clear of the script, all reviews and any spoilers, so when the lights went down, I confess I was expecting something tourist-friendly and a bit theme-parky but within minutes I was hooked. By the twists of the narrative, the depth of characterisation, the connections to the Wizarding World’s canon, the bravura theatricality, the commitment of the cast (Jamie Ballard as the grown-up Harry Potter! – working every bit as intensely as when I’ve seen him before on stage as Antonio, Angelo, Hamlet, Mercutio, Flute and in Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean.) Given the huge fan base, the production was way better than it need have been and the themes perfectly in keeping with the Harry Potter universe. How do parents shape the characters and destinies of their children? It was a profound climax to Harriet’s “birthday season” in 2018, the other highlight of which was tramping up to the cobweb-blowing meaning-of-life moorlands at Top Withins.

Women who Dared

Badby bound
Regular readers will know I consider an “egg-shell” in Northamptonshire a second home – and so we were there recently, snuggled in village living, bathed in hospitality, chitty-chattering away and rummaging through nature prior to the explosion of Badby Wood bluebells which are on the brink of blooming. When we are fully assembled, there are six women to three men – the elder stateswoman was gallivanting on another trip on this occasion – so, with double the oestrogen, it was an apt time to visit the Bodleian library exhibition about the women’s movement. 100 years since The Representation of the People Act allowed votes for (some) women!

Badby Woods

Sappho to Suffrage: women who dared
Bodleian staff members regularly delve into their archives for artefacts to display. If you haven’t visited, I’d recommend checking out their website’s What’s On. Until February 3rd 2019 they have an imaginatively-presented collection showcasing the achievements of women who dared to do the unexpected. You can see fragmentary scraps of poetry by the remarkable poet, Sappho, engravings of pirates like Anne Bonny, accounts of cross-dressing female soldiers getting military pensions; records of explorers, scientists, mathematicians, writers (a manuscript of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for goodness sake!); photographs, banners, musical scores, medieval book-bindings and even a Suffragette board game!

Oxford, Badby, Women who Dared....

How’s your Dad these days, Lizzy?
The object that startled me most was Elizabeth I’s prayer-book embroidered (when she was a child) with her step-mother’s initials, KP – Katherine Parr. Astonishing! Poignant! If you could only visit Elizabeth when she was stitching those initials and ask her about her dad, her mum, England at the time, her hopes for the future…. 

The First World War
Until you see material assembled like this it is easy to forget that the achievements of women have often been left out of the history books and the national memory. A significant contribution to victory in Britain during the 1914-1918 war was the willingness of women to enter the laboratories, factories, hospitals and services that were essential to keeping the Home Front going and feed the engine of war abroad. The authorities had no choice, after the war-time contributions of women, other than to allow property-owning women over the age of 30 to vote in 1918, a step towards equal voting rights in the UK.

Suffragists and Suffragettes
The courage and determination of the women of a century ago should never be forgotten. The recently-erected statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square has been a welcome addition to the cavalcade of bronze throughout London. Fawcett was a suffragist (one of those who advocated peaceful protesting and constitutional campaigning) but more controversial were the suffragettes who escalated from banners to marching to being chained to railings to smashing windows, to setting fire to letter boxes to attacking government ministers. Without their courageous violence, would change ever have occurred? (History suggests not….) The exhibition makes clear that the boundary between suffragists and suffragettes was blurred with many women belonging to groups taking dual approaches.

Force-feeding in prison
Lady Constance Lytton gave a sobering account of her own experience of force-feeding in prison:

Two of the wardresses took hold of my arms, one held my head and one my feet. One wardress helped pour the food. The doctor leant on my knees…. he explained the steel gag would hurt and the wooden gag would not….he broke into a temper as he plied my teeth with the steel instrument….the pain of it was intense and at last I must have given way for he got the steel gag between my teeth. Then he proceeded to turn it more than necessary until my jaws were fastened wide apart, far more than they would naturally go. Then he put a tube down my throat which seemed much too wide and about four feet in length…. the horror of it was more than I can describe….

Feminist men
I’ve written about this idea before but don’t apologise for writing it again: anyone of any age, any gender, any ethnicity, any class or any creed who doesn’t self-identify as a feminist doesn’t share the same definition as me. I’ve heard Juno Dawson explain succinctly that if your answer to the following two questions is “yes” then you are a feminist. Should a woman have the same equality of opportunity as a man? Should a woman and a man be paid the same salary for the same job? If you can’t answer “yes” to those two questions, then you have different values to me.

Mother, brothers, sister.... impossible not to be a feminist if you've half a brain....

Mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces, daughters, girlfriends, wives, colleagues
Everyone has had a mother. Not everyone experiences the other range of relationships you can have with women. But as a tutor in a secondary school I tried to transmit to teenage boys that they shouldn’t treat girls or women any differently than you would want your mother or sister or daughter to be treated. (The same applies, of course, to fathers and brothers and sons.) As humans it’s nigh on impossible to avoid interaction with both genders and mutual respect has to be the future for the next stage of evolution. Thank you, Suffragists and Suffragettes from history and all who continue to fight for a better civilisation.

The Champagne Murders

Previously in Murder Mystery Manors there were

• The Monte-Carlo Murders in Paris 1950
• Death by Chocolate in Paris 1900
• Stiffed at the Speakeasy in Chicago 1920
• The Red-Rose Murders in Hollywood 1950

Groovy, baby
Now it’s swinging London in 1967. The great and the good (and at least one not-so-good) gather for the weekend in hip and happening London. Chelsea, to be precise. At the sumptuous home of Lord Michael Jagged, full-lipped rock god.

Who were the fashionable guests?
• Tamara Fara-Bucktooth, famous for being famous, always partying with the stars. No gossip column is complete without her. So why isn’t she weeping? She was the girlfriend of the poor dead rock star, after all. Is it true she has been written into Lord Jagged’s will – but only very recently….?
• Mary-Jane Faithless, ex-girlfriend of Lord Jagged, energetic and charismatic, now a top songbird in her own right, smashing the hearts of fans throughout the world. Is it true that her mother was a Russian countess and her father was a French fisherman? Or is she really from Yorkshire?
• Kitty Killer, celebrated and glamorous journalist, often outshining the celebrities she writes about. Are the rumours true that she is a secret agent? Or that she has contacts with the London Underworld? Is she good or bad? And what about the no-holds-barred biography of Lord Jagged – fake news or true?

Dangerous pair
• “Champagne” Charlie Bunsun, thug or business-man, pussycat or ravenous tiger? Feared throughout London’s East End, his police record is squeaky clean, so maybe he is a good guy after all. It’s not his fault that many of his past employers are currently doing time. Why was Lord Jagged trying to break connections with old “Champagne” Charlie?
• Babs Crayfish, “Champagne” Charlie’s girlfriend but also famous for her acting skills – acting up and acting down, she’ll act anyone at anytime, anyhow and anywhere. Did she believe that Lord Jagged meant it when he promised her he could make her a film star through his film company? Did she confide her feelings to her newly-acquired therapist, Dr Doktor?

The photographer, the critic and the actor
• Terence Shrimp, dedicated follower of every trend known to fashionistas throughout the capital city. Terence is society’s favourite photographer, pointing his lens where other snappers fear to go. A bit of a hell-raiser in his past, going on the lash with top actors like Oliver Steed and the pals of “Champagne” Charlie. Rumour has it that he’s started an affair with one of the women at tonight’s party….?
• Bryony Sewer, wine-critic and snob, not necessarily in that order. Bryony is sneering and sometimes downright rude but it’s fair to say that she knows her pinot from her plonk. She writes for The Evening Times, the fancy newspaper owned by Lord Jagged but the rumour is that she has just been sacked. Other journalists have delved into her past but return none-the-wiser, smelling only an elusive bouquet, as Bryony would say.
• Oliver Steed, large and loud, a drunken, womanising actor, known for alcohol-crazed crawls through the pubs and clubs of the East End, often with Terence Shrimp, and often ending in bar-room brawls that nobody remembers. He used to work for “Champagne” Charlie as a “bouncer” (they say) and his attempts to break into Hollywood faltered when the American mafia recognised his past misdemeanours.

So where is Lord Michael Jagged?
Surely that’s not him, lying dead in his room? Is the champagne bottle by his side a clue to method, motive or opportunity? Or was he just getting pissed before falling over on his stacked heels and flared trousers? Surely none of the guests at tonight’s dinner party would have committed murder? And surely they wouldn’t waste the food and drink on offer, even if their host is now deceased? Tuck in, one and all, and enjoy the sounds of the 60’s.

The day after the night before
The day after the night before, in disguise, the dinner party decamped to Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire to walk along to the swollen Strid to come to terms with the traumas of what had happened. If anyone was guilty, no-one was talking about it. If the police did make an arrest, then the guilty party was clearly acting nonchalant whilst out on bail. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, after all. Luckily no-one was pushed into the Strid or thrown into the marshmallow pit. Time will tell if a conviction takes place. Lord Michael Jagged will never be forgotten.

Bridge over troubled waters

Humber Bridge (Yorkshire), Forth Bridge (Scotland)

Bridges
Bridges are awe-inspiring objects. I am happily married to someone who, if anything, loves bridges more than I do. One of mine and Sally’s favourite spots in Yorkshire is the elegant (and seemingly impossible) Humber Bridge. A recent trip to Anglesey provided sights of two bridges near each other: the Menai Bridge and the Britannia Bridge. Who isn’t impressed with Tower Bridge in London? (though I have a personal fetish for Blackfriars Bridge.) Even those who haven’t visited know from advertisements, films and TV what the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fancisco looks like. Sally and I hope one day to visit the Øresund Bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen and I have a fantasy that one day we’ll sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge down under.

Clockwise from top right: Menai Bridge (Anglesey), Moon Gate (Beijing), Golden Gate (San Francisco), Clifton Suspension (Bristol), Allahverdi Khan (Iran), Tower Bridge (London), Millau Viaduct (France)

Bridges in culture
Wordsworth wrote a famous poem Composed Upon Westminster Bridge and Longfellow’s The Bridge was always an accessible and attractive poem to use when teaching younger pupils (both easily found online.) If war films shiver your timbers you will be familiar with The Bridge Over The River Kwai or A Bridge Too Far (bridges at Tha Ma Kham and Arnhem respectively.) A far gentler bridge experience is explored in The Bridges of Madison County but recently the Swedish/Danish TV thriller, The Bridge (Bron/Broen) has been a favourite watch in my house when the main characters are desperate to bridge gaps of understanding in multiple ways as they cross backwards and forwards from Sweden to Denmark and in and out of each other’s lives.

Øresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark

Westminster Bridge (London), Mackinac Bridge (Michigan)

Bridges as symbols
For our subconsciousness and in our dreams a bridge can mean many things:

• a bridge can represent a journey….
• whether it crosses to the other side or falls short is said to be connected to transitions in our life that are difficult….
• whether it falls down or has gaps in it or is wobbly can indicate great anxiety….
• a bridge can represent a crossing from one state to another, from one phase of life to another, a bridging of a gap….
• in Tarot The Bridge represents stability, progress, directions or connections….
• we talk about “pulling up the drawbridge” to mean hunkering down and hiding away….
• we talk about “crossing over to the other side” meaning to die, to reach heaven….
• we advise against “burning our bridges” for obvious reasons, highlighting the inability to turn back on a decision….
• a bridge can symbolise birth, the penis (in Freudian analysis apparently), the meeting between men and women, young and old, ancient and new….
• in a dream a bridge can represent both safety or danger depending on context, an obstacle that needs to be confronted and crossed….
• a very useful and fruitful symbol, a bridge is….

Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge in Zhangjiajie National Park (China) and Clopton Bridge (Stratford-upon-Avon)

Potentially tragic, potentially hopeful
Crossing a bridge can feel like an act of sadness if you’re leaving somewhere precious; but equally it can be an uplifting and exciting arrival to a new way of life. Bridges are phenomenal feats of engineering, a real tribute to the human capacity for determination and imagination. Bridges can be associated, tragically, with suicide spots; but equally couples regularly propose on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. (Current, only-for-now US President Trump, could do well to pay heed to his fellow American, Joseph Fort Newton, who said People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.)

Raydan at the Watchtower overlooking Grayton Bridge
The main character in my book, Raydan Wakes, starts his story overlooking a bridge. Raydan is on Bridge Duty, keeping an eye on the comings and goings over a particular bridge in a remote spot. His watch partner is throwing up in the bathroom so Raydan is left on his own feeling jittery when a small group arrives unexpectedly in the minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve….

Blue Bridge (Wakefield), Brooklyn Bridge (New York), Clifton Suspension (again, in Bristol), Garabit Viaduct (France), Eshina Ohashi (Japan, nicknamed the rollercoaster bridge)