The Quiet American And Other Stories

It was my birthday yesterday, and like most anniversaries, a time for reflection perhaps. For me, as someone severely disabled, a time to reflect on not only how my life has been changed by my disability, but perhaps more positively how much I have achieved in spite of my disability.

That I can still speak means that I can use the voice-activated software with which I can write my blog.

The fact that I can use my Macintosh computer fairly effectively means that I have a connection still with the world.

Recently, I have discovered that the broadcast films I record with my hard disc recorder can be transferred to my computer, and so I have a library of almost 200 films available at my fingertips.

I am a great fan of good films, films with a good story.

I don't like horror and fantasy too much, but otherwise my tastes are fairly eclectic.

The other day, I discovered something interesting when I watch a film entitled The Quiet American. This is based upon a Graham Greene story, and is not the first of his books to have been made into a film.

It is as fascinating as his output of other novels, and doesn't disappoint when translated to the screen. In this case, Michael Caine is the lead actor, and it is typically thrilling, with a surprising and yet perhaps typically for Graham Greene, morally challenging ending.

What was more interesting for me personally was the way in which it made me realise some of the connections I have made in the world. Before I became not exactly reclusive, but more limited in what I can achieve.

Disability does not stop the imagination, and within reasonable bounds, so much more can be achieved than anyone might typically realize.

So for example, my birthday treat to myself this year was to attend a performance of The Magic Flute at English National Opera in London.

The fact that I am in receipt of Self-Directed Support makes this kind of outing more straightforward to plan, because the lengthy journey means that I require the attendance of a carer, and in this case, there were engineering works which prevented me from getting directly to London by train.

Fortunately, the train companies have taken seriously with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act, and provided me with a taxi to pick up the train from Littlehampton, enabling me to travel to London to see the performance, a matinee and the last opportunity to see this production by Nicholas Hytner.

It was stretching my capacity to travel from home to its limit, but it was a success. And a memorable one.

Going to the Opera is a strong reminder of the life I used to lead, in the Education Department of Opera North, the full name for which was originally English National Opera North. A Northern outpost of the London based National company.

Although I am not a musician, my work at Opera North enabled me to go on and become the Development Director at the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh, where I was responsible in effect for the education programme.

This is where I came into contact with the composer Craig Armstrong, who I was surprised to discover had composed the soundtrack for the film version of The Quiet American.

He has also composed the soundtracks of films such as Love Actually, and Moulin Rouge. He has a number of other film credits to his name, but too many to list.

I had tea with Craig in his Glasgow house once, when I employed him to work with students at the Edinburgh School of Art to help them compose soundtracks for their animated shorts. It was part of my work for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the resulting compositions were performed live by a small ensemble of about five musicians from the orchestra, to accompany a showing of the student's films.

It was a great success, and Craig asked for the same person to conduct his music at this event as conducted the music that was recorded for Moulin Rouge.

And so whenever I see one of the films that Craig Armstrong is credited as the composer, I have the glow of pride that comes from having been connected to much greater things in the world.

It is those connections, and the strangeness of them that constantly surprises me. When I saw The Quiet American I was reminded that I had once or twice slept overnight in the house in London where Graham Greene once lived.

A friend of mine was living in the house, which had passed to the granddaughter or great granddaughter of the author, and a number of mainly women shared the house, and therefore its upkeep.

I can remember that one of the girls that had lived in the house had been an unfortunate member of the party that had been involved in the sinking of a boat on the River Thames, when so many young people died in a tragic river accident. The Marchioness claimed so many lives.

And so another sadder connection to world events, and I am sure most of us, if we care to look, can discover a network of connections that stretch strangely far into the world.

A Worthy Challenge For Those Post-Olympic Blues

I suspect I am not alone in feeling bereft of something, now that the Olympic period has drawn to a close.

In the wake of this, I have an appropriate and worthy challenge for all of my blog readers, across the world. Please pass it on.

In the eight months that I have been writing my blog, nearly 1000 page-views have been registered on my statistics, and the reading of the statistics resembles in some small way the medal table for the Olympics.

In other words, a large number of countries have been represented, often surprising to me, and this has given me the idea for a challenge that is perhaps my way of competing for that wave of opprobrium that so many of the athletes, and not just those from team GB, have experienced in that stadium that has no doubt in this focus of a worldwide audience for the past several weeks.

My concept is simple, and like the Olympics, participation need not cost anything.

On the other hand, for a small cost, it will be possible to earn for your country a gold medal in the medal table. Perhaps this cost, because of its charitable application, should be compared to the effort that a gold medallist might invest in their preparations for the Olympics.

The worthy cause I have in mind is a Hospital, and not just any Hospital.

It happens to be just across the road from where I live in Worthing in West Sussex, but it began life in 1915 as the George V Hospital in London, where its construction took place in the shell of the Imperial Stationery Office, which was in the process of construction at the time.

The plans were swiftly altered, and a 2000 bed Hospital came into being, which was the first point of treatment for so many of the badly injured soldiers returning from the front from the trenches of The Great War.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the work of this Hospital did not end with the signing of the armistice in 1918, and until its move to Worthing in 1933, where it still continues to provide support and rehabilitation to members of the armed services predominantly, it was located just north of London in a country house that was provided on a charitable basis by the Charrington Brewery family.

It was the place where Douglas Bader got his tin legs fitted, in the film Reach For The Sky, and today although there are additional patients not drawn from the services, it is still fundamentally a home for soldiers ranging in age from 22 years to 100 years of age.

It is an extraordinary place with an extraordinary history, and I have been greatly honoured by the fact that my first volume of poetry is available for sale through the fund-raising shop online at the Hospital, with all proceeds from sales contributing to maintaining the extraordinary standards that the home achieves.

I think part of the reason for my confidence in approaching the Hospital with this idea for a fundraising proposal was that when I gave two copies of my book of poems to my local Library, one copy was placed in the Lending Library, and one copy was lodged in the prestigious County Local History Collection, recognizing perhaps not so much the quality of my poetry as the fact that I have included in this special fund-raising edition an essay about meeting Dame Vera Lynn at the hospital, and both Dame Vera and the Hospital are considered important enough for my volume to have been included in this collection, where it is rubbing shoulders with works by Shelley, Kipling, and Balzac.

At the 2012 International Festival of Disability Film, in Calgary, Canada a short 12 minute film made and edited by me was accepted for exhibition, and this film includes two of my poems, completed whilst I was on location during a respite week at an extraordinary historic home near Ipswich, which is very much the subject of this short film, and the quality of the care that I received during my respite week there with the Sue Ryder Trust.

I had hoped that my film might have made its way into the Cultural Olympiad which has taken place alongside the Olympics, but have been unsuccessful in my efforts.

But these three things, my book and its purpose, the film and its ambition, and perhaps simply my blog, might satisfy the gold, silver, and bronze which athletes have striven for in competition.

And so what I propose is to produce a medal table, say one year from today, just three days after team GB have paraded majestically through London, in which participation is possible in these three different ways.

A gold medal is achieved if a copy of my poems in this special fund-raising edition is purchased, directly from the Hospital, a silver medal is allocated if the film is viewed and I am notified in some way, and a bronze can be achieved simply by reading my poetry online, which can be done free of charge through my print on demand publisher.

It is a kind of challenge I suppose, but I have been so impressed at the way in which my blog has achieved such a wide readership, that I believe perhaps this could be translated to the purpose I have outlined.

It is so much in the spirit of the Olympics, in that participation itself is the object. I will not benefit personally at all financially, but the Hospital may.

And so I provide within this blog all of the links needed to participate, and you have my word as an equivalent to the oath taken by athletes and judges alike that fairness will be my constant companion.

Perhaps the point to aim for in my special edition is the essay about my meeting with Dame Vera Lynn at the Hospital, which is a short 3000 word piece, and will give a small flavour of the Hospital at one of its annual open days.

At the end of the book, I provide my e-mail address, but comments about the film could be communicated via YouTube, the link also provided.

I will ask the hospital to keep me informed of Gold medal purchases, and as no copies have as yet been purchased, there is no hidden home advantage.

Although you can read the poems for yourself, if you did need any recommendation, I have received my first Arts Council of Great Britain award for a project linked to this volume. This ought to be some recommendation of its quality.
Good luck and thank you in advance if you should take part in this challenge.

It is after all a worthy cause.

To purchase:
http://www.qahh.org.uk/get-involved/donate/shop/

The Film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPDcI8cTSLo

The poems:
http://www.completelynovel.com/books/50-x-50-useful-poetry-for-troubled-times-extended-edition--2/read-online

A Doorway To The 1851 Great Exhibition

Restoring our 17th century house on the Norfolk/Suffolk border had many extraordinary moments. Perhaps one of the most emotive was when we opened a doorway in the upstairs of our Town House once we had purchased the cottage behind, and went through a doorway that had been bricked up since 1851.

Every house has its history, in the same way that we as people have a history through our family tree. Most people will find many surprises if they explore, as millions do, the extraordinary story of where we have come from.

If houses could speak, or carried with them a potted history of their owners and the lives they have seen, it would be an extraordinary story, especially for a house as old as the one that we found ourselves restoring.

The small cottage behind our house was built in about 1740, and was therefore about 50 years later than own house, fronting on the street.

We pondered much over the history of the house. When we had purchased it, we had been told that we still technically had planning consent to be able to use the room into which our front door opened as a shop.

I looked into this in a small way, and found that in the 1940s, it had been an upholstery shop. I know nothing more than this about the commercial uses of our house, but I am sure it would be fascinating to discover more.

There were some features of our house that made us think that the original owners must have had some ambitions beyond the typical scale of a country town house.

Simply the staircase, which could be dated almost exactly to the date when the house was built in 1690, from the shape of the balusters which formed part of its construction.

It had unusually wide steps for a local house, and was constructed in the way that would be described as a floating staircase, so that there was no obvious support for each tread, and it rose three storeys to the attic on the top floor.

When I showed it to someone who had some understanding of historic houses, they said that they thought it had been adapted for this house, and perhaps had been salvaged from the great Fire of Bungay, which had taken place in 1688, and had destroyed much of the older wooden houses in the town.

And what we imagined was that our house had been originally owned by a merchant, and that the house next door had been built on the site of what once had been his storehouse, perhaps wooden built, in which his stock would have been safely stored, and which he could have accessed simply through a connecting door on the first floor.

This all fitted in with the fact that the house was just one hundred metres from the nearby River, which was navigable to the sea until 1932, when sluices were installed to control the flow of water.

Until that point, the shallow draught vessels typical of Norfolk, the Norfolk Wherries, would have traded as far as the Baltic and Holland.

Our house was roofed with Dutch Pantiles, which may have been used as ballast for the return journey from Holland, and Baltic Pine wall boarding was used for the internal room divisions downstairs.

In the days when security meant having a close eye on your own property, it made perfect sense for a merchant to have his warehouse secure behind his own house.

The fact that we had doorways between the two houses meant that we did not have to get planning consent to combine the two, we simply had to create the openings which downstairs had been cobbled together rather simply, and upstairs had been bricked up.

When we removed the bricks, easily done because the cement used was soft mortar typical of the time using lime, sharp sand and horsehair, so that it was easy to remove the bricks undamaged.

In the frog of each brick was the unmistakable cross that identified them as having been handmade in the 19th century at the St Cross brickworks, only half a dozen miles away.

More interestingly, we found a scrap of newspaper, from which we were able to ascertain that it had been bricked up in 1851, because there was a small article about the Great Exhibition on this scrap of newspaper.

It was 2001 when we removed the bricks and opened this ledge and brace door for the first time in exactly 150 years, perfectly preserved behind a neat wall of bricks.

Perhaps the first clue to the previous use of the next door house, had been the fact that there was almost 2 feet difference in height between the existing floor level of the upstairs room into which we stepped.

In other words, the ceilings for the downstairs rooms were much smaller than the height of our own, which again gave a strong indications that the owners had ambitions which required taller ceilings in a world where scale was often an indication of status.

So for example the staircase in the cottage we had bought was a more typical vernacular style of staircase, where you simply opened a door to find a steep narrow staircase to the next floor.

Quite different to the floating treads of our house.

We kept the ancient ledge and brace door, not even removing its ancient paintwork, that had remained preserved behind brickwork for more than a century.

Later, I discovered and rescued an old copy of The Art Journal, which contained the entire catalogue not of the Great Exhibition, but of the Paris Exhibition held in 1867.

The Art Journal was published annually in a volume, although I suspect was also published monthly and contained wonderful mezzotints and engravings, often of old Masters.

The edition that contains the catalogue for the Paris Exhibition is an extraordinary document, showing examples of fine furniture and furnishings beautifully reproduced for this special edition.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
We called our house Merchant House, because of our sense that it had once served the purposes of a merchant, but we do not know any further details. The current owners of the house have retained this name.

The street on which the house sits was in the 19th century, and no doubt earlier, very much a Commercial Street, as I found described in a volume written by Lilias Rider Haggard, the daughter of the famous Victorian writer, who had lived just outside of our town.

She ghost wrote the memoirs of her gamekeeper, and in one of the volumes, The Rabbit Skin Cap, there is a description of Bridge Street and the businesses that thrived in the street in those times.

All of these things are unspecific to our own restoration project, but throw some light on the romance of our house's history.

Eat, Fast, And Live Longer - We Are What We Eat

I watched a very interesting Horizon documentary recently.

It began with some extraordinary statistics. During the great agricultural depression in the United States, during the 1930s, when thousands of people had less to eat than what we think of as the minimum daily requirement today, life expectancy actually rose. Significantly.

Anecdotally, and speaking from my own experience I know this to be true because my elderly mother lived through wartime rationing, that generation has been statistically healthier and has formed the rump of the ageing population that we are having so much problem caring for.

It seems that several years of minimal nutrition has the surprising side-effect that those people that experienced it have been healthier, and no doubt happier as a consequence.

In this programme the presenter went so far as to purposely fast himself, at first a three and a half day proper fast, with just a cup of miso soup each day, but then a far more manageable fast (in terms of modern lifestyles) which amounted to eat what you like for five days, and have two days for the rest of the week when your calorie intake is significantly reduced. Say, 600 calories rather than a more typical 2000 calories.

It was a very compelling programme. So compelling in fact that I am beginning to experiment myself with reducing the amount of unnecessarily sugary foods, simply by cutting out desserts which I have typically had every night of the week.

And I am missing an occasional lunch at weekends, and avoiding any sugar-based snacks or sweets.

It isn't difficult to do, but the potential benefits might be enormous.

In experiments with mice, the longevity of smaller underfed mice greatly exceeded that of well fed mice.

And in fact, in the smaller calorie controlled examples, the incidence of destructive conditions like cancers and diabetes related conditions was negligible.

And in fact, it seems that the body's capacity for self repair is more likely to start to work when less calories are present.

The lesson is a simple one. Whilst we may think that our comparative richness compared to our ancestors is a good thing, we would do well to heed the lessons of the past.

That literally less can be more, and for someone in my situation, if my body can be encouraged to begin the process of self repair, it will certainly be a price worth paying.

And at the same time, my food bills have been substantively cut. the ultimate win-win situation.

A Georgian Theatre In A Small Town

I have written about the small town on the Norfolk/Suffolk border in which I spent five happy years restoring a 17th-century house.

In that same town, many creative people lived, perhaps drawn by the quality of the environment and when I first moved there, the relatively inexpensive cost of attractive older houses. The town had a long history going back 1000 years, and a ruined castle to prove it.

It had never been a substantial town, but it had been an important market town for the surrounding villages in the rural border where the Waveney Valley provided an attractive border between Norfolk and Suffolk.

In the United Kingdom, East Anglia is the least developed region, which is ironic since in mediaeval times, it was the most highly populated.

It was very much an agricultural economy, and there are many rich churches, often endowed by wealthy merchants that had made their money from things like farming sheep, because the grazing in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk was so relatively rich. Those beautiful churches are called Wool Churches as a consequence, and there are some of the most beautiful churches in England in these counties, often in what are now small villages with tiny congregations for the enormous size, relatively speaking, of the churches.

In some respects, in the 18th century East Anglia was still an important and wealthy part of the agrarian economy. As such, it sustained businesses that have long since withered and died, as its lack of infrastructure has made it difficult for businesses to reach a sufficient audience to sustain their activities.

One such business was a chain of Georgian theatres, run by the Fisher family. At one time, there were about 12 theatres across this region, between which the Fisher family toured theatrical productions. All but one of the theatre buildings have been destroyed, and the one that survives was, when we first moved into this small town, converted into a commercial warehouse premises, all traces of its theatrical past long since removed.

But a small and growing group of like-minded people wished to restore this last vestige of an old theatrical past.

We were soon encouraged to join this group of enthusiastic people, amongst whom were some notable writers whose work may well be known to some of my blog readers.

Elizabeth Jane Howard, a novelist in her own right and once married to Kingsley Amis, father of Martin Amis, was in fact near neighbour in this most historic of streets where we were restoring our 17th-century house.

Dame Elizabeth was the patron of The Fisher Theatre charitable group, and would often give readings at the Theatre once it had been purchased, and before funding had been found to restore the theatre, not exactly to its former glory, but into a modern multipurpose space that could operate to the requirements of almost any art form that could be enticed to perform in this out of the way spot.

Just on the outskirts of the town lived another famous novelist, author of Birdsong Sebastian Faulks. He and Dame Elizabeth would give readings of their work and all proceeds from ticket sales would contribute towards the fundraising that was a necessary part of ensuring that Arts Council grants could be obtained.

The building itself was purchased for relatively little money, just over £60,000, through the fact that around 250 people contributed one pound per month to the charity, and this enabled a mortgage to be repaid for the purchase of the building itself.

When eventually an Arts Council grant was approved, it was for in excess of £400,000, and the express intention was to ensure that the fitting out of this old building should be to high modern standards, with seating that could be retracted when not needed for performance based activities, ensuring that there was a large open area on a sophisticated sprung floor that could for example accommodate small scale dance.

In the basement, a separate space was developed so that music could be hosted that would appeal particularly to a younger audience, and a catering operation at the heart of the Theatre would ensure that local people used the building regularly as a meeting place.

Typically, just as fate took my partner and I away from our completed restoration, and I was rehoused in more accessible accommodation as my capacities reduced because of the progression of my multiple sclerosis, the Theatre opened after its restoration, and by now, several years later, it is blossoming.

When we eventually sold our restored 17th-century house, it was to two people that were professional musicians, and they have since started a family, and also become regularly involved in activities at The Fisher Theatre.

It is comforting at least that all of our work to restore our own project has been loved in turn by two people for whom it seems the house suits perfectly.

The Paralympics And What They Now Mean To Me

Perhaps like many people, I haven't thought much about the Paralympics, and what they mean.

I've just today watched a very moving film from the BBC iplayer, entitled The Best Of Men.

I haven't been so moved by a film For ages.

It tells the story of how the Paralympic games came into existence, but more importantly it tells of how attitudes to the care of a spinal injury patients were transformed in the Forties and Fifties, and how that transformation gave back the desire for severely disabled patients not only to live once more, but to strive to achieve beyond the expectations of the able bodied.

Perhaps it is predictable that I should be moved by such an extraordinary film, because I am myself severely disabled, not by a spinal cord injury. But by the degenerative condition multiple sclerosis.

In other words, I will never be an Olympian in physical terms, as my upper body strength is negligible, and my muscles are severely wasted throughout my body, thanks to the way in which my nervous system has been attacked by my own immune system.

But I am fortunate in that the muscles that enable me to speak have been unaffected, and if there were a competition that involved public speaking, I would be an entrant.

In fact, the fact that I am unable to work has given me the leisure to be able to use my voice and voice activated software to continue what has perhaps been my most important leisure pursuit.

I have published two volumes of my own poetry, and a book of short stories, some of which were written when I still had the ability to walk, and took it so for granted.

But many of which have been written when I have been perhaps as written off as those first patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital where attitudes were so transformed by one particular doctor, who was himself a refugee from his own country because of the war that had created so many of the patients that he came to restore a sense of dignity and purpose to.

There have been times for myself when I have not considered myself to have a future.

There is no doubt that it is not straightforward to find a new sense of self from the wreckage of a life, whatever the cause, whether an accident or debilitating illness.

But I would heartily recommend this film to anyone, wherever they come from, if they have access to the Internet and can watch BBC programmes online.

I will certainly be watching the Paralympics with a changed perspective after having seen The Best Of Men, and perhaps too it will make me think differently about the way in which I see myself.

The fact that I can still make use of technology to access a world that 20 years ago nobody would have dreamed existed, means that I have plenty of reason to contemplate a future that is as distant and mysterious and yet achievable as any dreams I may have had when I was young and knew nothing of the condition that has so transformed my life.

Mars Before Breakfast

When I first heard about Curiosity, my first reaction was almost disbelief.

But what seemed to be more like science fiction has become science fact.

Taking almost a year to reach its destination, a new Rover has been sent to Mars, and is now at the beginning of a two year mission to explore the surface of the planet and with the aim of discovering whether Mars may have developed life perhaps in the distant past when it had sufficient water on its surface to enable biochemical reactions such as we suppose might have occurred on our own planet, culminating in the evolution of a complex life forms.

It has perhaps been millions of years since Mars possessed an atmosphere, long since stripped away by the Solar Wind. if it had one in the first place.

Mars has always been the imaginative likely home for life in our Solar System, and has certainly fueled the imagination of writers for a couple of centuries.

And now, with the Curiosity mission, it seems likely that we will discover at least a partial answer to the question as to whether we are alone, in this part of the universe at least.

If life did once develop on our nearest neighbour, it is highly unlikely that it will have survived to the present day. This much seems to be fairly certain from what we already know of the Martian environment, blasted as it is by Solar radiation and unprotected by what we appear to take for granted on earth, magnetic poles that appear to be the reason why we have retained an atmosphere, and by so doing, retained the oceans that seem to have been universally recognized as the origin of life as we know it.

Curiosity is in effect a roving laboratory capable of examining and testing the environment into which it has been introduced, to assess whether there are any traces of what we have seen on Earth as a result of an environment that has developed over millions of years.

It has already been discovered from previous work  that deposits of gypsum can be found on Mars, and this is a mineral that on Earth developed as a consequence of standing water. The chemical composition of gypsum includes substantive amounts of calcium, and on earth this mineral is likely to have come about as a consequence of the deposit of primitive life in those ancient seas.

In some respects, the successful landing of Curiosity is one of the most remarkable scientific achievements ever to have taken place.

The fact that it has landed safely is simply remarkable.

And now, its mission over the next two years will hopefully throw some light on the question as to whether we are in fact an extraordinarily complex singularity, perhaps answering one of the most profoundly important questions for the Human Race.

I like to think that this is a purely scientific mission, but it holds extraordinarily significant questions in its mission parameters.

For if it does discover that no life has ever developed on another planet in our own Solar System, it does perhaps suggest that we may be more alone than our imagination would like to contemplate.

It would be wrong for me to suggest that any answers we may discover will throw any light on the existence of a God. This is not a scientific question at all.

Just as it is for each person to examine their conscience concerning questions of Faith, so it will be for every individual to assess any data that Curiosity may discover from its exploration of the Martian landscape.

I have already become a follower by Twitter of the Curiosity mission, and this has enabled me through a link to the NASA website to see some of the images already sent back by the roving laboratory's cameras.

Thus my title, Mars Before Breakfast. In my most recent communication from Curiosity, I spent a fascinating 20 minutes or so exploring another planet.

Not bad for someone that cannot walk, and perhaps simply another reason why everybody should have regular access to a computer with a broadband Internet link.