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

Lockdown Desert Island Discs

Choosing, listening, sharing
Music is a remarkable art form. It can establish moods and evoke memories. It can soothe, enliven, delight, excite, seduce, motivate, frighten, impress, shock, arouse. Music can calm you, disturb you and bring you comfort. Music has been enjoyed since recorded history and has mysterious properties that tap into the brain’s wiring in surprising ways. Musicians in Japan, for example, process music with different brain impulses than musicians in the West. Although the brain’s right (creative) side shows more activity when playing or listening to music, the left (logical) side also shows significant activity. Brain imaging research suggests that few parts of the brain are unaffected by whatever it is that music does to humans. A recent Desert Island Discs broadcast challenged non-celebrities to send in their “lockdown tracks” and thousands responded resulting in a very moving edition of the programme. Friend Michael sent out the call on Facebook and Sally and I and Sally’s sister, Julie, and many of Michael’s friends had an enjoyable 8 lockdown days of choosing, listening to and sharing music.

Julie's spontaneous choices for lockdown, exuberantly unable to narrow down to Eight choices!

The Ones I Left Behind
Choosing only 8 tracks proved trickier than I thought. On the BBC Radio 4 programme, over the years, choices seem to come in three categories:

• Discs that connect emotionally to a specific memory
• Discs that the guest loves right now
• Discs to impress the listening public

Trying to reconcile the competing motivations of the first two bullet points meant that Lesley Gore’s It’s My Party (the first record I remember from the radio) and the O’Jay’s Love Train (the first record I purchased with my own money) were in prime position until I realised that eight discs is such a meagre choice. Which Elton John should I choose? Which Beatles track?  Would there be room for David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Marc Bolan, Rod Stewart, Bay City Rollers, The Jam, Mud, The Three Degrees, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Armatrading, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Tracey Chapman – artists who have provided the sound track of my formative years? Which film soundtrack? Which song from a musical? Which classical composer? Do I include Ray Charles’s Born To Lose or Jim Reeves’s Welcome to My World or I Love You Because as they were favourites of my Mum? Or my Dad’s favourite serenading song: I’ll take you home again, Kathleen ? Choices…. choices….

My Eight lockdown choices

Tony’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• The Drifters: Kissing in the Back Row of the Movies (school discos, coach journeys, defying parents, delayed gratification – you can’t have too much fun/till all your homework’s done)
• Kate Bush: Cloudbusting (could have been many of Kate Bush’s tracks but this one has Donald Sutherland in the official video and is about fathers and daughters)
• Johnny Flynn: Detectorists theme song (a poetic lyric, a gorgeous melody and arrangement and memories of a truly great BBC TV series)
• Grieg: Peer Gynt (my Uncle Bill introduced me to Grieg, I’ve loved visiting Norway, Ibsen is a hero for me, I used the music in productions of Ghosts at university and Peer Gynt in my teaching career)
• The Beatles (George Harrison’s): Here Comes The Sun (fell in love with the track when it was first released and have returned to it time and again in times of need; it also contains one of my meta-obsessions – if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?)
• Elton John; Empty Garden (another poetic lyric by the miraculous Bernie Taupin, the connection with John Lennon, the terrific melody, the symbolism – there were many other potential Elton John songs – The Greatest Discovery probably leading the pack – but I settled on this one)
• Annie Lennox and The Eurhythmics: Heaven must be missing an angel (personal memories of a time and place…. Leek, the year before and the year after getting married….)
• Dire Straits: Romeo and Juliet (a story song, a great band, Shakespeare, set in Northumbria)

Save from the waves: Heaven must be missing an angel
Book: TH White’s The Once and Future King (all five volumes)
Luxury: Reams of paper and a fountain pen (with unlimited ink)

Sally's Eight lockdown choices

Sally’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• Simon Dupree and the Big Sound: Kites (I will fly a yellow paper sun in your sky / when the wind is high / I will float a silver solid moon through your window / If your night is dark….)
• The Osmonds: Love Me For A Reason (Where other teenage girls went for David Cassidy in the 1970s, Sally had a Donny poster. They certainly rocked white suits and could synchronise their groovy dance moves.)
• The Carpenters: We’ve Only Just Begun chosen mainly to savour Karen’s rich, fragile, effortless, secure voice
• Grieg: Wedding Day at Troldhaugen – a memory of Sally’s mum’s piano playing
• Irving Berlin – Sisters (All kinds of weather / We stick together / The same in the sun or shine) and a part of the annual Christmas celebrations in the Allard-Johnson household
• Earth, Wind and Fire: Boogie Wonderland – evoking Sally’s teenage disco days and a scene-stealing routine in (a favourite) 2011 French film Intouchables where Omar Sy energises a birthday party
• Holst: Jupiter, the bringer of jollity from The Planets Suite including the beautiful melody of the hymn I vow to thee my country but, more pertinently, a favourite piece of classical music for Sally’s dad
• Stevie Wonder: For Once In My Life for the happiness it brings

Save from the waves: Jupiter, the bringer of jollity
Book: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Luxury: A comfy bed with magically changing linen

Michael's Eight lockdown choices

Michael’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• Joni Mitchell: For Free (specifically the version from the 1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)
• Paul Simon: Rene and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war (one of Michael's favourite artists, this song is based on a photograph Paul Simon saw in Joan Baez's house imagining artists in exile in America)
• Van Morrison: Days like this (a life-affirming song from a grumpy old git with a mean solo saxophone)
• Bruce Springsteen: Thunder Road (a poetic lyric, the live acoustic version from the Roxy Theatre)
• Bryan Ferry: Let’s stick together (excellent for bopping around the kitchen)
• Joan Armatrading : Baby I (Michael almost picked Willow or Love and Affection or Merchant of Love and I empathise because Joan Armatrading was close to making my final 8 choices)
• Tim Minchin: White wine in the sun (in tribute to the Australian branch of the Thompson-Snailham clan and in honour of a witty songwriter)
• Tom Waits: Picture in a frame (an acquired taste but a bona fide genius)
• In his FB posts, Michael explained: “The Rolling Stones Hand of Fate just missed the cut today…  no Elvis Costello, no Steely Dan, no Pretenders, all of whom could have staked a claim. Kate Bush could have been in there....”

Save from the waves: Thunder Road
Book: Nick Butterworth: The Complete Percy the Park Keeper
Luxury: Jura coffee machine with big sack of good, strong beans

BBC Radio Desert Island Discs: Roy Plomley, Sue Lawley, MIchael Parkinson, Kirsty Young, Lauren Laverne and a guest or two....

Helmsley to Rievaulx

Malorie Blackman on Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC programme that contributes regularly to the soundscape in my life. More often than not the interview and the choices of record, extra book and luxury item prompt plenty of follow-up things to talk about. The intimacy of discussing a life in terms of music choices is a perfect format and, in my opinion, Kirsty Young is a skilful presenter. On Saturday 15th September, driving along, we caught up with the podcast version featuring writer Malorie Blackman and, for whatever elusive reasons on that particular day, it caused within me a boundless burst of joy and inspiration. Thank you, Malorie.

Standing beneath the boughs
“We” on that occasion was Sally and her sister, Juliet, and we were about to walk one of our favourite walks, from Helmsley to Rievaulx Abbey and back again…. chatting, putting the world to rights, racking up steps to stay fit. And looking forward to a delicious banquet back at Juliet’s home – in this case, rich, tasty homemade moussaka. A desert island day, shelving the barrage of concerns to “stand beneath the boughs” – a gorgeous walk, nature all around, echoes of history, and feelings of pure relaxation. Streaming through my brain on days like Saturday 15th September is a poem I learned by heart at primary school – a sentimental poem, possibly, but containing truth – one by the “SuperTramp” poet, William Henry Davies: 

Leisure by W H Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Stuffing the ears of men with false reports

Present fears are less than horrible imaginings

It’s easy to stoke up fear in a crowd of people. Orson Welles did it on a mass scale with his 1938 radio broadcast of HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds when, reputedly, over one million people out of six million listeners panicked when they mistook a drama play for a news bulletin. Or did they?

Fake news

Subsequent research suggests that what really happened was that thousands of people did no more than telephone local authorities and were reassured when they were told it was a radio play. Media reports – including some started by the organisations that funded the radio station – exaggerated the level of panic and even reported suicides and heart attacks. Police were involved but mostly in the capacity of reassuring listeners. Was this the first modern fake news story? Not only because the whole thing was fictional but also because the reporting of it afterwards was exaggerated.

Antony Byrne as Rumour - "Open your ears" - in Henry IV Part Two

“Upon my tongues continual slanders ride”

Shakespeare starts Henry IV Part Two with the entrance of an actor playing the role of Rumour, a throwback to medieval mystery plays when Vices were personified on stage. “Open your ears,” says Rumour. He boasts

“Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.”

He goes on to say that he is going to lie about the battle that the audience had seen (in the prequel) and say that those who died were alive and those who were alive had died. Shocking fake news depicted in a play over 400 years ago about an event 200 years before that. Rumours. Fake news. Provoking fear in the general public.…

Such stuff as dreams are made on

Emily, Harriet and Alex conjuring the storm in the RSC's display of Prospero's cell

Indiscriminate audience member?

I sometimes wonder whether I have a very child-like approach to entertainment. It is rare when I don’t enjoy something at the theatre, at the cinema, listening to the radio or watching TV. This sometimes annoys family and friends and I could be accused of having little discrimination. But at the theatre, for example, if the story doesn’t grab me I can imagine the rehearsals and production meetings and work out why the cast and crew have made the decisions they have. In a musical or large-cast production I imagine the director working out how to get everyone on and off slickly and working with lights and sound to create the atmosphere. I always find something to occupy my imagination.

Cast of Greg Doran's production of The Tempest at the RSC; photo credits by RSC website and Topher McGrillis

O Brave New World

In December 2016 (and about to be broadcast in the cinema) I saw Greg Doran’s production at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It is a play I have seen many times before and taught to both younger children and A-Level students since the focus can be on the weird story, the magic, slapstick comedy and amazing spectacle; or the focus can be on power, betrayal, art, love, the illusion of justice, masters/servants, appearance and reality, enslavement by parents and colonists and probably many other themes that are not springing to mind right now. Of course A-Level students still want to know about the magic, comedy and spectacle; and indeed many younger children can see Prospero’s (potentially abusive) treatment of Miranda, Ferdinand, Ariel and Caliban reflected in their own lives on a daily basis. It is a rich play, simple and complex at the same time, knotty and poetic all at once.

The extraordinary Andy Serkis as Iago, Monsieur Rigaud and his Performance Capture work. Mark Quartley rehearsing Ariel in the centre.

In collaboration with Intel

For the first time, as far as I know, a theatre director worked with Andy Serkis’s Imaginarium Studios. This Performance Capture studio was founded as a result of Andy’s expertise creating cinematic characters like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, King Kong in Peter Jackson’s film and Caesar in the rebooted Planet of the Apes films. With technology provided by Intel, the RSC production of The Tempest is indeed a visual treat, not only with the sight of Ariel growing, flying, swimming and concocting the illusions that frighten the shipwrecked characters, but also with beautiful artistic film and video by Finn Ross and lighting by Simon Spencer. Every production department works together in an example of total theatre. Greg Doran believes the effect might be similar to the original audience’s experience of the masque within the play, a convention that pushed the Jacobean theatre to its limits and, of course, pleased the theatre-loving James I.

Mark Quartley as Ariel and Simon Russell Beale in the RSC's The Tempest

These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits

In the midst of all the technology, though, the characters emerged strongly:

• Simon Russell Beale was at times a frightening and neurotic Prospero whose performance captured Prospero’s sad grandeur, his complex feelings of love and feelings of terrible guilt at his past actions. As always with this actor he commanded the stage in a sympathetic and winning way, able somehow to draw you in to his thought process with gesture, facial expression, volume, inflection, pitch and pause
• Mark Quartley was a muscular and dangerous Ariel with a face of profound concentration and compassion
• I thought Jenny Rainsford’s Miranda was spunkier than usual with more than a hint of rebellion and a sense that she would rule both Daniel Easton’s gentle Ferdinand and the kingdom with more force than her father ever could
• Tony Jayawardena and Simon Trinder made welcome returns to the RSC with bold performances as Stephano and Trinculo, the former a bully and the latter a bit sly, both of course very funny, stupidly drunk and clearly the best of friends
• Joe Dixon, one of my favourite actors, was an imposing, poignant and at once both aggressive and charming Caliban, a performance that allowed every thematic complication of the character to be palpable
• The “court” characters were also clearly and strikingly played: a grief-enraged Alonso by James Tucker, Oscar Pearce’s deliciously evil Antonio, a dimwit Sebastian by Tom Turner and a more-knowing-than-usual Gonzalo by the gorgeous Joseph Mydell 
• All the courtiers, mariners and spirits operated fluently and fluidly to suggest this was indeed a busily inhabited island, even if most of the inhabitants were in the imagination.

Stephen Brimson Lewis has designed this production and, in my view, is building up a legacy as one of the greatest theatre designers in history following his body of work, both for the RSC and elsewhere.

Simon Russell Beale in a performance of great power and variety

The Sword in the Stone and Arthurian Romance

Arthurian Romance

Where did my interest in the Myths and Legends of King Arthur come from? I know I’m not alone in being a little bit obsessive about seeking out adaptations of the different tales. King Arthur as a character has appeared in over 30 feature films and countless books; I’m even looking forward to Guy Ritchie’s version, scheduled for cinemas in 2017 according to imdb.com, starring Charlie Hunnam as King Arthur and David Beckham as “Blackleg leader” ….!? Charlie Hunnam joins a list of distinguished screen Arthurs over the years; in the picture below Charlie relaxes (with Excalibur I imagine) in a boat alongside an Arthur-fest of other actors: Clive Owen, Sean Connery, Nigel Terry, Liam Garrigan, Jamie Campbell Bower, Graham Chapman, Brian Aherne and Bradley James.

Arthur at the BBC

I felt the BBC TV series Merlin was strongly-designed and acted with involving relationships. I also thoroughly enjoyed the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Once and Future King with David Warner as Merlyn. I have no doubt there will be many future variations, additions and perversions of the Arthurian stories. All the elements have been recycled many times: the boy with a destiny, the noble leader, the magical weapon, the love triangle, the adventures and spiritual quests, the friendships and betrayals, the battles and the tragic end.

Disney's Sword in the Stone, Harry Potter, the Narnia series and Terry Pratchett novels borrow Arthurian elements

The Sword in the Stone

After reading The Goshawk by TH White in my teenage years I thought it would be entertaining to read The Sword in the Stone and I bought a paperback copy at Wakefield market. I had not read anything like it before – the knowing asides to the reader, the anachronistic references to the 20th century in a medieval narrative, the exquisite descriptions of English landscapes.

It was easy to identify with the Wart (to rhyme with Art) – a runt of a boy (misunderstood and bullied.) The other main characters are also vivid:

• the charismatic wizardly teacher, Merlyn
• the talking owl, Archimedes
• the affable but clumsy Kay
• the comical but brave King Pellinore
• the gruff but kindly Sir Ector. 

Disney’s whimsical film captures much of the plot of The Sword in the Stone but misses out the underlying philosophy and satirical politics.

Merlyn and Archimedes

Arthur pulls the sword

Mixing Fact and Fiction

Following my enjoyment of The Sword in the Stone I scoured references to potential historical figures on whom Arthur could have been based: Artorius, Artúr, Agitius, Ambrosius Aurelianus, Lucius Artorius Castus and Riothamus. Celtic, Briton, Roman or a mix of all three? I read Tennyson’s poetic version Idylls of the King, Enid Blyton’s children’s version of the stories, Rosemary Sutcliff’s retelling, Tristan tales in comic books, John Steinbeck’s skilful adaptation and Mary Stewart’s trilogy about Merlin. I looked up encyclopaedia entries about Tintagel, Glastonbury, Winchester, Cadbury Castle and many other sites around Britain laying claim to fragments of the legendary characters and ideas. I devoured (several times) Alan Garner’s superb tales of Alderley Edge: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath and Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence of five books, starting with the unsettling Over Sea, Under Stone.

Academic Module

At university I took an optional course in Arthurian romance when I learned about Gildas, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Wace, Chrétien de Troyes (who introduced the Lancelot/Guenevere love triangle and the Holy Grail), Eschenbach’s Parzival, the Song of Roland, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, the Mabinogion and Spenser’s Faerie Queen. It became obvious that there was no such thing as a definitive Tales of King Arthur originating from a single narrative foundation but a collection of elements from a variety of sources, cultures and traditions. Arthurian Romance is a miscellaneous ragbag of bits and bobs, all the more marvellous for their open-ended possibilities. Alan Garner explains his idea about riffing on old ideas in the afterword to the Alderley Tales: “Originality is the personal colouring of existing themes.”

Films by Robert Bresson and John Boorman

Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur – a major landmark

There is probably one book, though, that is the nearest thing to a lodestone for fans of Arthurian Romance. Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur from 1485 is the book that seems to combine the most potent stories and ideas into as coherent a whole as currently exist and this mighty tome was the meat of the course at university. It was the work that was used for the beautiful-to-watch and eminently worthy (but in my opinion strangely dull) production at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2010 directed by one of my favourite directors, Greg Doran, and starring two of my favourite actors, Sam Troughton and Jonjo O’Neill. I’m not sure why that production didn’t light my fire since it brought together two of my favourite obsessions: the Arthurian legends and the RSC. William Goldman’s famous opening to Adventures in the Screen Trade is the only explanation I can come up with: in the entertainment industry he authoritatively stated: “Nobody knows anything.”

RSC's Morte d'Arthur with Jonjo O'Neill as Lancelot and James Howard as the Grail Angel

“Whoever pulls this sword out of this stone and anvil is born to be the rightful king of all England.”

Before getting to the academic study at university there were two other works that DID light my fire – one set of books and one film musical. The musical was based on the books and the books were based on Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. It was a series of books that, it is fair to say, have haunted me since I read them aged 15: the sequels to (or continuation of) The Sword in the Stone – The Once and Future King.

Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot in Antoine Fuqua's King Arthur