Barnhill waking up for Spring

The ice has finally melted from Barnhill, the ground is warming up, and the hill seems to be waking up for Spring. The first daffodils are opening, and animals are venturing out too. Rodents must be scampering about in the undergrowth, because the buzzards have resumed their diligent patrols of the woods. 

Now that the pond has unfrozen, the giant heron has taken up residence again, along with the ducks. Once the heron has nested, there are great fights to be watched on Barnhill, as the buzzards try and evade its great beak, in order to steal its eggs.

The woods have not yet grown thick with bracken though. In these early days of Spring, you can see right through the woods. In only a few weeks time, the ferns will be waist high, and dense - and accompanied by acres of nettles.  The woods will change dramatically, and though the sun will be brighter, they will feel much darker and less airy than they do today. The deer had a sniff around the woods, but seem to have retreated back to more sheltered areas, because March 2018 had a big late snowfall, a Siberian storm nicknamed 'the beast from the east' No doubt, as soon as the saplings start to grow, they'll come and eat everything! 

Red squirrels seem to be everywhere though. In the quiet of the little gap between Barnhill and Kinnoull Hill, their skitterring and clicketting around the great trees is audible above the sparkling birdsong. Chasing each other round and round the trunks, and leaping from tree-to-tree, these shy little reds are a lovely sight. Somewhere out there, there is a woodpecker, manically attacking the trees. His percussion rings out through the quiet of the woods in the evenings, but he's very had to see, and as yet, impossible to photograph.

Over on Kinnoull Hill, its getting really busy, crowds of people trooping up and down the grey, gravel paths the council poured all over the hill. There's always a trail of litter about too, which is sad. There's been no sign of the peregrine falcon around the cliffs yet, but I'll keep watching for that.

Back on Barnhill, there's a lovely little Spring (not the one that splutters from a broken pipe!), which oozes and eases water into a little rivulet. It runs only when the weather has been wet, and is running nicely at the moment, as the soil is still saturated with snow-melt.

2013-14 Blog restored

This blog was plagued by these signs for a while:

For various reasons, most of the photos in 2013-14 were hosted there, but displayed here. That was fine for a few years, but last year they decided to block them all and ask me for £99/year to restore them. Er.... no thanks. So, the blog has had loads of blanks. I've spent a while, gradually restoring as many of the photos as I can. There are still one or two of these rogue ones about, let me know if you see one.

THM

Book Notes: The People's Songs by Stuart Maconie

Stuart Maconie's books are always lively, fun, informative and entertaining. He's previously written about the North, the South, history and about his youthful exploits, and after some recent 'heavy' reads, I was in the mood for some entertainment. Maconie is remarkably well-read, often insightful and always eloquent, and when writing about British culture and music, very much on home turf. This book, "The People's Songs" is a postwar history of Britain, told through fifty songs. Apart from one glaring omission, that I'll come to in a moment, is a rip-roaring tour of two-generations of history and culture, as refracted through the prism of popular music.

It's all here; from the comedy records of the 1950s (Ying-Tong-iddle-i-Po!), though the birth of skiffle and rock and roll, through the blues boom of the sixties. Changing attitudes (J'Taime), changing fashions (The Beatles), the rise of the 'teenager', Mods and Rockers. Feminism, The Irish Troubles, multiculturalism, and the rise of gay-rights from Brian Epstein to Bronski Beat's 'Smalltown Boy', are summarised; along with the political, musical and economic backdrop against which these songs were made. From psychedelia, to prog-rock, to punk, to heavy-metal, so ska, and indie, and manufactured boy-bands; via talent-shows and muddy-festivals; the shape of post-war British music is rather neatly mapped out. Maconie seems to have an appreciation for a vast array of different musical styles; there are not many aficionados who are as at home appreciating Paul McCartney and George Formby as they are first Judas Priest and then Morrisey via Rick wWakeman! That is nothing of not a diverse set of appreciations. 

The chapters on Thatcherism, seem through the lens of The Specials "Ghost Town" is particularly strong, and Maconie does not write as a pundit seeking objective distance from his subject, but rails against the devastation to manufacturing industry which occurred in the 1980s. The for-and-against stuff on Live Aid/Band-Aid is fascinating too.

There's something fascinating about reading analysis of music and times that one has lived through. I am ashamed to admit that I went through a punk phase. It was 1977, I was six years old and one of my neighbours had a much older sister who was a fully uniformed punk, with plenty of vinyl albums from the Sex Pistols and others. Playing these seemed very grown up and impressive; and even better lots of them were presented in red, green or multi-coloured vinyl; whilst all my Dads classical LPs were boringly black! Obviously I had no idea at the time what the culture, either politically or musically was; but these days I'm, far more likely to be found listening to something in an unfathomable time-signature, of the kind that punk was supposed to have discredited! 

Like his others, Maconie's book is fast-paced, easy-reading, that engages, informs and provokes much thought. The problem is that there is a huge and gaping anomaly in the book which needs to be mentioned. When he says "the people's songs"; who are the people he is talking about? I couldn't help but think that the 'people' he had in mind were mostly people rather like him; left-of-centre 'progressives', with a strong agenda for gay-rights and multi-culturalism; and a deep suspicion of a perception of the establishment. My point is not that these are not important parts of life and music in postwar Britain; and should be overlooked.. far from it. Any compendium on music and culture that didn't look at these things would be woefully deficient.  Rather, it is that there is little coverage of people who don't slot into this right-on agenda; are these not "people"?

In particular the massive role of Christianity in British music and culture is systematically excluded from the account. It's not that Christians don't appear in the pages; it is simply that they are without fail anti-entertainment Puritans, weirdos, or eccentrically dressed Bishops. While the burgeoning interest in Eastern religions is covered (George Harrison); oddly, the Christian canvas on which these developments were painted is excluded. My complaint here is not that I am an offended Christian, pleading victim status and turning into a latter-day "Mr Angry from Purley". (Do you remember him, he used to get so angry he would throw the phone down, every afternoon on Radio One in the 1980s?). Rather, it is that I am annoyed historian, who thinks that this is just bad history. Read, for example Calum Brown on secularisation, to see the extent to which Christian thought and discourse was the norm for most Britains until well into the era Maconie discusses. Or read Nick Spencer on the Christian foundations of British law, language, politics, culture, justice system etc. While today the established churches are at a low ebb, perhaps it is hard for us to imagine the extent of participation and influence they had well into the 1970s. I'm willing to bet that the number of people who embraced TM, or were in the gay clubs of the 80s, or who participated in the national passtime of attending music festivals; pales into insignificance compared to the volume of people whose culture and music was informed by Christianity. The coverage last week of the death of the US preacher Billy Graham was startling; in terms of the incredible numbers of people who queued to hear him in London and Glasgow especially. Yet the thought that a chapter entitled "Just as I Am", about the 1950s faith culture, might be included is ridiculous. These are the "peoples songs", but not the songs of all the people.

I was a little perplexed as to why Christianity has been so completely airbrushed from history by Maconie. I read somewhere that he had been brought up in Catholicism, but has rejected it. Perhaps that has something to do with it. That's hardly the point though; I do not expect every author I read to agree with Christianity - in fact I read a huge amount from those who specifically reject it. What I do think should happen though, is fair-minded and reasonable representation of what we know to be true. The irony of course is that the outsiders and minorities who he champions throughout the book, are now the elites, who control the media. and it's those with the old-fashioned views who need brave voices to welcome them into mainstream culture. I can't believe that Maconie is ignorant of all this. we do live in an age which is extraordinarily ignorant of history in general and Christianity in particular; but he seems far too well read, and erudite for this to be simply that. Is it actually just good old-fashioned prejudice, directed at the new easy-target? I don't know.

It was while pondering these things that I stumbled across J. John's letter to the BBC. It said amongst other things that:

In terms of omission, we find that the role of Christianity in the life of an individual or in history is, all too frequently, conveniently overlooked. Although, as I mentioned, I do not keep records of specifics, let me cite two instances. One is the BBC’s treatment of the limbless Nick Vujicic, a remarkable man who Wikipedia describes in its first line as ‘a Serbian-Australian Christian evangelist and motivational speaker born with tetra-amelia syndrome . . .’ Mysteriously on the BBC website – http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150318-leading-without-limbs– all reference to his Christian faith has been removed. Another instance is the omission of Usain Bolt’s firm Christian faith in a lengthy biographical treatment of him at http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/37078358. Is this wilful bias or simply a lack of courage and truth to name what motivates these individuals? These are not unique cases. I’ve come across references to organisations and individuals that I know to be Christian where this most fundamental element in their existence is quite simply overlooked.More subtly, in historical programmes there is all too frequently the airbrushing out of Christianity. Possibly in an effort to make situations and individuals more accessible and sympathetic to the modern mind, the role of church and faith in determining both the culture and the actions of individuals is downplayed. The church, the Bible and Christian ethics almost always seem to have mysteriously gone missing, Photoshopped out of history. It does not have to be so. A positive example here is Series 2 Episode 6, ‘Vergangenheit’, of Netflix’s The Crown which shows Queen Elizabeth II grappling with issues of faith and forgiveness and has a sympathetic portrayal of Billy Graham preaching. Many who have watched it have said that this was precisely the sort of thing that the BBC dare not now produce. For the best part of 2,000 years the Christian faith in some form or other has governed how the people of the United Kingdom thought, spoke and acted. Men and women attended church, said prayers, uttered grace before meals and, whether they followed the tenets of the church or not, they at least considered them. To reject that role for Christianity is to deny history.

It was after I read this, that I noticed that Maconies book says, "As heard on Radio2" on it. John certainly seems to have a point, in this case at least.

It was the only thing which spoilt my enjoyment of this otherwise charming, incisive, witty and well-researched book. From Vera Lynn to Slade, these fifty songs cover an enormous amount of history, times and places, with a deftness of touch which is admirable. I couldn't put this book down, I didn't quite read it in one sitting, but its only taken a few days to steam through its 400+ pages. Despite my ranting reservation above, Maconie is a delight to read, as he effortlessly guides the reader from The Kinks, to Bowie, to Black Sabbath, to New Romantics, and Acid House, and Grime; as he leads a grand tour from postwar austerity, through the decades of transformation, the conflict of the 70s, into Thatcherism and beyond. 

I've been digging out some of the music from the different eras he had described, and playing it to my kids; just as my Dad once played The Goons to me! This morning I treated them to The Specials, "Ghost Town". I'm pleased to report that they were suitably impressed. When I was ten, my best mate's older brother sought to broaden our musical horizons with such things. Simon - you're efforts were not entirely in vain!

Book Notes: Primo Levi by Ian Thomson

I first saw the name, "Primo Levi", in Berlin, in December 2003. The "Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe" in the centre of the city is the sort of place which leaves an impression on the visitor which perhaps never goes away. The thing which caught my eye there was this quote form Levi, which I photographed, and brought home. 

I was intrigued by the quote, and its solemn, bell-tolling sobering warning. It so succinctly, but powerfully explains the importance and power of memory, and the depths to which humanity can sink, that I chewed the simple statement over and over again. On my return home, I Googled "Primo Levi" to find out more about who had written these words. The result was that I read his book "The Drowned and The Saved", which turned out to be an attempt by a survivor, to explain, describe and reckon with the horror of Auschwitz. I struggled with the book, it made me tense, unhappy, agitated and insomniac; it affected me deeply, which I described at the time in this review. Despite that, I knew very little about the man behind the book, until now.

Ian Thomson has written an incredible account of the extraordinary life of Primo Levi. His portrait of Jewish-Italian life between the world wars, is fascinating and revealing. His descriptions of life under Mussolini are - like the whole book - meticulously researched. Italian Fascism was a nasty business, but lacked the savage brutality of the Nazism which overran it. Anti-semitism wasn't at the heart of Mussolini's Imperial ambition; indeed there seem to have been several Jewish-fascists in Italy before the war. As such, Levi was a free man in Italy for much of the war; only after the first fall of Mussolini, and his imposition as a puppet ruler by Hitler, and German occupation of the North, did wholesale exportation of Jewish people to the Polish death camps commence. Levi, was arrested along with his closest friends in a Anti-Nazi resistance unit, and deported to Auschwitz. A side-note to Levi's story is that of the Italian's who fought alongside the Nazi's in the disastrous invasion of Russia, and who limped home broken, and bewildered; a little-known element of WWII history.

Levi survived slavery in the Buna-Monowitz section of the Auschwitz, not being selected for murder because he was useful to the Nazis due to his training in industrial chemistry. As such he was given just enough nutrition to barely survive, and was part of the factory slave-labour force. As the Germans retreated westwards, away from the advancing Red Army, Levi was spared the death-marches, because he was so ill, he was left to die. Remarkably, he survived, and was eventually, repatriated to Italy by the victorious Soviet Red Army.

I was vaguely aware of much of this, but knew almost nothing of what happened next. Thomson, paints an amazing story of a remarkable man who was a husband and father, a secular Jew, an Italian, a mountaineer/Alpinist, an industrial chemist, a poet, an historian, a journalist, an essayist, a depressive, a public intellectual; a prize-winning author, and the unofficial chief interpreter and memorialiser of the death camps. 

Levi also emerges as a hugely complex figure, unhappy at home, and living under the shadow of his overbearing mother. Thomson charts his personal battles, his relationship struggles, and his battles with publishers, translators and publicists, and waves of debilitating depression which at times overwhelmed him. The story, despite its many triumphs and startling twists and turns, ends tragically as Levi took his own life, aged 67, not long after completing his definitive work on Auschwitz: The Drowned and The Saved.

Thomson discusses the various theories which have been suggested as to why this amazing life ended so grimly. He concludes that all the theories about PTSD or survivor guilt from the camps, don't do justice to the facts; that reducing the matter to a genetic predisposition to clinical depression is reductionist, and that there was also far more to Levi than simply domestic unhappiness or fear of the rise of neo-fascism. Rather, the dreadful end of the story was the result of the unknoweable combination of forces bearing down upon a shattered man.

Thomson's book is a large work, based on a massive amount of research, including interviews with the subject himself; and a vast array of his school-mates, colleagues, fellow-survivors, family members, and literary friends. Without lazy sentimentality, the triumphs and deep tragedies of this most important life are described. Tragically, of course, despite the complexities of the narrative, and the many strands to the story; the narrative of Levi's life never escapes the horror and evil of Auschwitz. It was there where so many of the people Levi loved perished and it was the grotesque debasement of humanity in the Nazi camps which marked him for life. Yet, it was also this deeply traumatic experience which made him a writer of international importance, and made him the definitive voice of remembrance; his life's greatest work.

This is not an easy read, but it is a very moving one. Thomson walks the reader through decades of Primo Levi's life, bringing him so alive in the reader's mind; that the final tragedy is keenly felt. 

Book Notes: Uncommon Ground, A word-lover's guide to the British landscape by Dominic Tyler

This book is an absolute delight. Quirky, unusual and written with a wry, witty ease of touch, the text is accompanied by lovely photos. The contents of the book are unusual. Great Britain is divided up into eight sections, from "The Highlands", to "The Fenlands", not along political, but along geomorphological ones. Each chapter, dedicated to one of these landscapes, begins with a short essay about Tyler's trip to the area. Anecdotes, memories and sharp observations are all assembled into these utterly charming introductions. The main focus of these chapters however are words; words that people have devised to capture, describe and relay to others. an aspect of the landscape, its effect on them - or indeed their effect on it.

Each special landscape word which Tyler identifies, is given a lovely photo, a grid reference, and a page of explanation. These notes delve into history, geography, cartography, and linguistics and humour; and are uniformly informative and sometimes quite funny too. Tyler writes with an almost palpable love for landscapes, whether they are rugged highland Strasrugi, clinging to a wild Corrie on some remote Stob; or a Sunpol, Daddock or Pistyl by a low-lying Copse. (For definitions and explanations you should buy the book!)

Some words such as Meander, Bealach or Tor, I already knew from hillwalking days, others such as Dumbledore, I only knew as words; and had no idea of their origins. Other words I found for the first time, but felt as if I should have known. Moonglade is the shiny trail of light reflected from the water beneath a bright moon; Epilimnion is the warm layer of water at the surface of a loch;  Holloway is a sunken lane, which only subsequently gave its name to a road, a prison and countless families. Tombolo is an island connected to the shore at low tide; clear, hard ice covering rocks has a name too: Verglas.

Tyler's little etymologies are fascinating in what they reveal about man's interaction with the natural world too. The Holloway, begins as footpath erosion, to which a stream may add erosive power, which gains water-seeking vegetation on it's banks. It is the result of land-and-man in dynamic interaction, which humans then name, and which in turn became a human sur-name. This act of naming things is important. Tyler recounts his time in the low-lying wetlands of East Anglia amongst the Crikes, Carr's and Loblolly's, and encourages us to think of such places as Stagnal, not stagnant. Here he met a naturalist called Mark Cocker who told him that, "Names are the absolute fundament of relationship because if you don't have a name for something you can' build on that relationship". (p211). Fascinating then, that in the biblical creation story (which Tyler doesn't actually mention until his comparison of the Inuit words for snow with the English words for Mud on p222); the first humans are pictured as being commissioned with the task of 'naming' the creatures, in other words not just performing elementary classification; but beginning meaningful interaction with the natural world.

I love words, and I love the varieties of the British landscape. From cycling across the chalky downlands of the south, to striding over the ridges of the Highlands in later years; I have sought whenever possible to immerse myself in these landscapes. I have also found that the many days I have spent alone in the outdoors have yielded many more vivid memories of it, as my senses are sharper and less distracted than when in company. Don't misunderstand me, some of the best days I have had in the hills have been with others, just that these are not the times when I have felt the landscape as intently as I have when confronting it alone. I love words too, and seem to spend inordinate amounts of time consuming those of others, and producing my own. Dominic Tyler's book about landscape and words, was almost guaranteed to resonate with me.

I once tried to coin a new word to describe a certain mountain experience, (not that anyone noticed). I didn't really mind, but I found it helpful to put a word to a certain feeling, and try to use this to relay that to others. Tyler's book does this again, and again, not by inventing new words, but unearthing, and explaining the richness of words that sometimes have lain unused in quiet backwaters of the country for too long. The natural world really is a wonderful thing to behold, to study, to photograph and to classify in order to discuss. Tyler doesn't really ever get to discussing why this is the case; for him it is simply assumed to be important. For me, it is a spiritual experience, but perhaps not in the contemporary definition of that phrase. Such terminology usually suggests some pantheistic, or Gaia-ish connection to either the sum or the parts of the created realm. But that's not what I mean. Rather, my sense is that this great painting, speaks of a great artist; who has assembled us before His canvas and asked us to define, describe, appreciate, photograph and enjoy His work, as a clue in the search for Him. The heavens indeed declare the Glory of God! I remember once the celebrity atheist Ricky Gervais talking about the awe one senses before the natural realm, and said he defied any believer to sense any more awe than he did as an atheist. The trouble is that Christians never make that claim. I have climbed mountains with believers, sceptics, agnostics, atheists and the disinterested; and we all have stood in awe of the great landscapes of Scotland. We have all reached for words and cameras to capture the moment and the emotion, the time and the place. No, the Christian claim is not that they experience greater awe in these moments; rather it is that the Christian explanation for the awe we all  experience is more credible; that a mountain is not merely a meaningless pile of molecules, but is actually a work of art. Likewise, the desire to photograph, classify and relay this to others - as Tyler does so wonderfully in this book -suggests that we too are not merely molecules; but have some deep connection to the original artist; and that this book delights because it resonates so profoundly with the imago dei.