Tunnel Vision

Tags

British Rail, Bronte, Brussels, Crystal Palace Exhibition, disassocoation, Harrogate, Haworth, Keighley, Let the train take the strain, M Heger, Night Mail, steam railway, Worth Valley Railway

R

Let the train take the strain- she had echoed that advertising hype,

originally linked to British Rail, as she parked her car at Keighley

Station.

She was preparing to meet a friend at The Tourist Information Office

in Haworth.  They would have coffee in one of the pseudo-authentic

shoppes on either side of the steep hill, which is the backbone of the

historic village.

Maybe then she would bring herself to show Anna the photocopy of the

letter which had been troubling her so greatly.  Afterwards they might

walk round the museum which drew the literary faithful from all over the

world.  Then she could catch the train back to Keighley and retrieve her

car, before returning to Harrogate.

The rail journey would not take long.  It was the nostalgic, comforting

element which attracted her.  The Worth Valley Line, with its steam

locomotives and Victorian stations, which had featured in televised films,

such as The Railway Children, had been on her bucket list of attractions

to be visited, for some time.

Once speed picked up, she felt her jangled nerves calmed by the rhythms

of the engine and snatches of verse associated with her childhood sprang

to mind:

This is the Night Mail crossing the border…

Imagine rhyming ‘border’ with ‘postal order! she mused.

Standing up, she looked out of the open vent at the top of a rather grimy

window.

Ouch!

She had not realised that sparks were literally flying and a smut had

entered her right eye, which began to water profusely.  Perhaps she

should remove her contact lens?

Opposite, a woman sat, reading a letter.  Quite small and somewhat

insignificant, she was dressed in dark clothing and seemed intent on her

correspondence.

Laura left her to her own devices as she was not in a mood for chit-chat

and since she was now seeing double, she dabbed her inflamed eye with

a clean tissue, which probably made things worse.  She managed to

extricate the lens with some difficulty.

The woman in the corner reminded her of her own letter, with its many

ambiguities. (At least, Laura was trying to interpret some of the phrases

as charitably as she could.)  However, the speck in her eye felt like a beam

and not a proverbial mote.  A saline deluge would have flushed the irritant

from her eye, but she had no idea how to deal with the emotional

inflammation she was experiencing.

An objective opinion from another woman would be welcome.  But did she

really want to know the truth?

Suddenly they were in a tunnel.  She could have wished to remain in the

velvety comfort of darkness forever.

She stepped off  into the surprisingly height between the carriage and the

platform.  Someone had taken her arm.  She was still having problems with

her vision.

She blinked and made as if to offer a polite appreciation and found herself

staring into the solicitous face of her fellow traveller, who promptly vanished

into the crowd, before Laura could express her thanks.

She bent down to rummage in her shopping bag for her ticket and it seemed

to have fallen out onto the ground.  But, on closer inspection, it was a

different colour than the one she had bought.  Maybe the woman had

dropped it.  She had disappeared, however, so Laura stuffed it into her

pocket, with her gloves.

She had to climb Main Street, which had been an open sewer over a century

before.  A blast of cold buffeted her.  She frowned at a wind turbine which

reminded her of an albatross which, if she had possessed a crossbow, she

would have shot down. The rotors, spinning round, combined with her watery

eye to create a sense of vertigo.  The conservationist in her battled with her

aesthetic sensibility.

Outraged sensibility– that was something to be buried in her subconscious, if

she was to survive.  Self-pity was not to be fed, nor her creative imagination

indulged.

She was too early.  Always too early.  So conscientious; so careful of other

people’s feelings.  What good had it done her?

Anna would be late.  She always was.  It would be warmer to shelter in the

church than to stand on the open corner.

She passed a little shop bedecked in sheepskin rugs and commemorative

tea towels.  The graveyard beckoned gloomily, with mossy slabs and desolate

cawing.  The spartan parsonage overlooked the scene, with its controversial

extension.

She reached for her gloves and pulled out the piece of paper.  What was it?

it was a ticket, but curiously it purported to be an entrance ticket for The

Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851.

Puzzled, Laura put it in her handbag and set off to check on Anna.  There she

was at their mutually agreed rendezvous, apologising profusely, as usual.

They headed for one of the tearooms- the nearest one.

Nothing in it, I’d say, re-assured Anna.  Too casual; too chatty.  She just

sounds insecure and desperate to me.

Laura felt relieved of a huge weight on her chest.  They even visited the

museum and as she studied the contents of the glass cases, wondering

at the doll-like kid gloves, the tiny waisted dresses and yellowed bonnets,

she felt that same sense of disassociation from reality that she had felt

during her drive from Harrogate that

morning.

She resolved to destroy the letter when she went home.  She didn’t want

some future literary critic to get their hands on her correspondence and

to publish some speculative theory about her personal life.

They paused at the family portrait by Branwell Bronte.  Why had he felt

such utter self-deprecation?  Why had he felt the need to erase his own

image?

Anna couldn’t fathom why anyone could lack self-confidence.  Laura made

no comment.

Then they came across the portrait of Charlotte and the written

explanantion of her trip to Brussels with the subsequent broken-hearted

return to Haworth and the realisation that her infatuation with M Heger was

not- could not– be reciprocated.  All he could offer her was sincere friendship.

Laura was riveted by the eyes in the portrait.  A chill far colder than the one

she had felt outside gripped her heart.

That quizzical smile seemed directed to her personally.  She knew, with a

confidence that she did not yet feel regarding the letter in her handbag, that

the passenger in the compartment had been none other than Charlotte

Bronte.

The letter that she had been perusing so intently must have been the hurtful

reply from her employer.  Laura felt as if she had been touched by a native of

Dreamland, as Charlotte herself would have put it.

There was gentleness and empathy in the eyes.  Laura continued to read of

the novelist’s survival and marriage to the curate- the unremarkable curate,

who turned out to have some recommendations after all.

Life for her too would go on.  She would survive her own fantasies and lay

her own ghosts.

There aren’t any spectres- except in your own imagination, Charlotte seemed

to say.

I still don’t understand Branwell, Anna remarked.

I do, replied Laura.  He just thought of himself as a figment of his own

imagination.  And why wouldn’t a young man of sensibility, if he inhabited

as confined a place as this?

Pilgrimage over! Anna stated in her pragmatic fashion.  It is too spooky

in here.  Let’s go and buy some fudge.

Laura thought that her friend sounded like a computer game.  She

wasn’t going to show Anna the ticket, but she was reminded of the

century that she must continue to inhabit.

Thank you, Charlotte, she whispered and, dropping the ticket into a

donation box, she stepped out of the time warp and into the rest of

her life.

Dis-carding

Tags

Atropos, cat's cradle, Clotho, Moses, phoenix, tricoteuses

Harold Harvey- Winding Wool

(Psalm 102: 26)

They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed.

Candia, I’ve joined a knitting group, confided Brassica.  It’s

ever so relaxing and the old ladies who tutor us are founts of knowledge

about all things domestic.  Do you fancy coming along?

Not likely, I replied. Nothing personal, but I knitted most of my childhood

away, as I was taught by my granny.  Fair Isle, Aran, lacy patterns- the

lot.  The arthritis in my neck would probably do me in.  It’s bad enough

typing out all my posts.

But you haven’t published anything for over a week.

All right.  All right- it was my significant birthday and I was a little

busy.  However, if you like I’ll post an old knitting poem.

Yes, do, said Brassica- I think, sincerely.

DIS-CARDING

Although the Revolution’s tricoteuses seemed to lack compassion,

continuing to ply their spattered textiles in the shadow of the block,

from them my grandmother drew her grim determination,

as she created new from old, transcending all the limitations of the clock,

unravelling the past and resurrecting garments, phoenix-fashion,

resuscitating the obsolete, tethering all the tricks of transmutation.

And when my arms, like Moses’*, felt the strain,

supporting yet another elongated skein,

while she wound the interminable yarn into a tortuous ball,

which would have amply led her through King Minos’ hall;

although in Clotho’s** posture, I staged no insurrection,

secured in a cat’s cradle of familial connection.

She monitored the tension while her matriarchal web she wove,

paralysing her kin by invisible cords of love.

And when her last dropped stitch had been incorporated neatly;

completely disentangled all the snarled knots and joins,

Atropos*** snipped her thread and cast her off discretely.

Turned over, we made sense of her designs.

* Exodus 17

**Clotho- spinner of the thread of life.  The youngest of the Fates.

*** -‘the inevitable’- the fate who cut the thread of Life.

Gender Transformation

Tags

Battle of the Sexes, Black Sea, boy bishops, Caitlyn Jenner, Classical Civilisation, classroom management, Daniel, Daphnis and Chloe, gender transformation, Juno, Jupiter, Kardashians, Metamorphoses, Misrule, Naso, Ovid, Potiphar's wife

It was Dressing Up Day– an end-of-term concession to the spirit of Misrule

and a nod to boy bishops and topsy-turvy mayhem at St Birinus Middle

School.  Although a challenge to discipline, it generated some charitable

donations, for the boys who dressed up had to pay into funds for Curs

in Crisis.

Sir! Sir! A forest of hands waved at Mr Milford-Haven as he came into the

form room to take the register.

Sir! Guess who Boothroyd-Smythe is meant to be?!

Nigel paused and immediately the class sank into their seats, as one.

He was under the impression that his training session on classroom

management must have delivered results, but then he saw the

shadowy face of Senior Master, Mr Augustus Snodbury, grimacing

through the glass porthole of the classroom.

Sir! They were quieter now, but still fizzing with exuberance.

Boothroyd-Smythe simpered.  He was wearing some kind of white

satin all-in-one.  Nigel didn’t know how to describe it to himself.  Had

the boy raided his mother’s lingerie drawer?  He averted his gaze and

knew that he was being sucked into a black hole.

Sir, don’t you know who Caitlyn Jenner is?

Nigel couldn’t say that he did.

What about the Kardashians?  Sir!

Nigel wondered if they were assault rifles. Settle down! 

He handed Boothroyd-Smythe a Wet One.

Wipe that lipstick muck off your mouth before Assembly! he ordered.

Aw, sir!

Post-Assembly, the first period was Class. Civ. Mr Snodbury had already

selected a passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He’d show the little

blighters!

Boothroyd-Smythe!

Sir!

Translate the following lines- after Teiresias experienced a ‘strange’

transformation. (You wouldn’t be allowed to use that adjective nowadays,

he thought.)

The boys were fully engaged by the argument between Jupiter and Juno

as to who had the best time in bed- men or women. You had to hand it to

Old Snod- he picked some racy passages for discussion and yet the parents

couldn’t complain, as they had all signed up to paying a fortune for their

offspring’s Classical Education. Some parents had blushed in the school

yard when confessing that the previous evening’s prep on Daphnis and

Chloe had taken them out of their comfort zones,

and they didn’t mean their grammatical limitations re/ the subjunctive.

You see, clarified Snod, Teiresias had experienced love from both angles,

having been changed into a woman for seven years.  He knew what it was to

cry when criticised.

(The latter jocularity went over their heads, but then Snod’s lessons

were for his own enjoyment as much as for theirs.)

Sir!  Did he change back then?

He did indeed.  Ita vero.

How?

A glare! A hand went up.

Acknowledgement.

How, sir?

He spotted the original two snakes that he had cudgelled when they were

in-ha!- congress and whacked them-thus!

And he banged the wooden blackboard pointer on the floor, startling

Young Fitzherbert, or Sherbert as he was known, which had been the

intended effect.

Pay attention! So, to conclude: what do we learn from all this gender

transformation?

There’s nothing new under the sun, ventured Ingoldby-Pritchard,

uncertain that he had pulled the correct aphorism out of the metaphorical

hat.

At one level that will do, Snod graciously conceded. And who do you think

was right- Juno or Jupiter? His gaze fell upon Sherbert, who slightly leaked

into his lederhosen.

I’m afraid I wouldn’t like to say, sir.

…is the right answer.  Never, I repeat never come between a man and his

wife.  Life lesson Numero Uno.  Never side with one against the other. The

Battle of the Sexes will never be won.  Lesson Numero Duo.

Boothroyd-Smythe shuffled in his chair and looked at the clock.

The clock is for me-not you!  And, by way of revision for next week’s mini-

test, what should you do if manhandled by Potiphar’s wife, or any other

spoken-for woman?

(This was a reference to last week’s RS lesson on the insufferable goody

two shoes with the rainbow coat, Joseph.)

Flee, sir! they chorused.

That covered the Ethical assessment objectives for the term.  He must

remember to note down in his planner the date on which they had been

covered.

Well, off your marks then!  Don’t be late for Mr Milford-Haven’s lesson, or he

will be within his rights to banish you into exile in a remote province on The

Black Sea – a fate suffered by Naso, or a poet also known as-?

Ovid, sir! they cheered.

Yes, the big-nosed one.

On the way out he confiscated Boothroyd-Smythe’s phone.  He was not

prepared to be photographed with the ridiculous boy in one of those inane

selfies-even if the boy did look remarkably like that Jenner person who was

all over the news like a rash.

The wretched boy could collect his property from the Bursary at close of play

and pay a fine toward Curs in Crisis.

It’s not the Despair…

Tags

Baroness Warnock, Dr Johnston, ex-pat golf, John Cleese, kidney stone, Pearly Gates, pigeon infestation, Prof Engelmann, TES, Test Matches

Augustus Snodbury, Senior Master of St Birinus’ Middle School,

sank into the greasy chintz of his favourite armchair in the corner

of the staffroom.

He put down his mug of builders’ tea and picked up a glossy

magazine.

It was the June edition of The TES.  He had managed to survive

for nearly forty years without having opened its covers. On this

occasion, however, he had completed all the crosswords in other

publications, so he took a look at the editorial.

Could the old hands be the Saviours of Schools? ran the

heading.

Snod had no wish to take on the mantle of a Messiah.

Apparently Baroness Warnock wanted to place older

people from other professions into schools, in a quest to

elevate the status of teaching and to ease staff shortages.

Gus slurped some lukewarm tea.  A second profession! he snorted.

I’m just about about oven-ready and I haven’t finished my first one

yet.  It’s all right for them to bang on about people being at the height

of their powers and having energy, imagination and further capacity for

work.  They should try having 2C on a Friday afternoon for a double.

He continued to read about ‘the dormant talent between retirement

and the Pearly Gates.’  He nearly had a heart attack.  Or was it the

after-effects of too much steamed pudding and an inactive lifestyle?

Whatever.  He had no wish to join a ‘crack team of creaking

interesting educationalists‘- not now, nor in the future.

There seemed to be other riveting reads lying on the table.  He picked

one up: Life at the Chalkface by Mike Kent.  The author claimed to have

compiled a ‘love-letter to thirty eventful years’ in an endlessly fascinating

and challenging post, or series of posts.  Snod wasn’t going to spend any

time finding out the details.  The only semi-interesting snippets appeared

to involve a description of a fight between parents at a school play. (Well,

Gus had experienced that scenario on many occasions.)  There was also a

compelling account of pigeon infestation in a school roof.

Snod wouldn’t have thought there was anything endlessly fascinating about

either of those incidents and, if that was the best the author could offer by

way of entertainment, then, frankly, he should have got out more, or perhaps

have got out of teaching.

Having started flicking through the publication, Snod felt that he should finish

and so he picked up on a remark by Prof Engelmann.  Here was something

with which he could concur:

Teachers should be consumers of curricula, not their designers.

Precisely.  As Dr Johnson said, if one knew where to find knowledge,

it circumvented the need to carry it around in one’s noddle.  If young

newly-qualifieds wanted to generate masses of worksheets, then let

them.

If Snod could pinch someone else’s lesson material, then all the better.

He would then have time to do something more important, such as watching

Test Matches.

As for taking failing children into a summer school for extra tuition, it would

be over his dead body- perhaps literally.  If the Baroness thought that retired

diplomats and business people were going to flock into schools, carrying a kind

of authority that- sadly- teachers did not possess, then she was deluded.

Most of that particular breed are out playing ex-pat golf and improving their

handicaps.

He threw the magazine onto the floor and sighed.  It’s as John Cleese said

in his role of Head Teacher, Brian Stimpson:

‘It’s not the despair… I can take the despair.  It’s the hope I can’t stand.’

Perhaps Snod was exhausted by the Summer Term, but teaching for him

was increasingly like the exam season for Tom Bennett.  And the latter

described the pressure thus:

[It’s] like passing a kidney stone…you desperately anticipate it at the same

time as wanting it to be over.

But perhaps the Baroness had been spared such experiences.

Aelfryth at Longparish

Tags

Actaeon, Aelfryth, Aethelred the Unready, Aethelwold, Aethylflaed, Artemis, Bathsheba, Cranbourne Chase, Dead Man's Plack, Harewood Forest, hubris, King David, King Edgar, Longparish, Narcissus, Nathan the prophet, nemesis, penitentiary, targe, The Goddess of Light, The Wild Hunt, Uriah, Wherwell, wolfhound

(Monument to Aethelwold at Longparish, Hants, UK)

I never saw myself as a ewe lamb-

a description more apt to Aethelflaed,

or ‘White Duck‘ as she was precisely known.

Not for me metaphor’s limitations.

I was once bound to the king’s betrayer.

A lie had thrown his Master off the scent.

It was reported that I was quite drab.

But the concupiscent wolfhound tracked me down.

Royal eyes didn’t have wool pulled over them.

I’d braided my hair by the burnished gleam

of my husband’s targe. I blinked at the king

and felt Edgar undress me with his gaze;

appraise me as a type of Bathsheba.

And when the king rode down from Cranbourne Chase,

Aethelwold met him in Harewood Forest,

to be stalked as ruthlessly as any prey,

his screams masked by the baying of the pack.

I’d willed that he should turn into a stag.

And maybe now he rides with The Wild Hunt.

It’s said their hooves don’t even touch the ground.

Aethelwold was the phantom in our bed.

I bore Prince Aethelred then Edgar strayed.

He nevermore trusted his advisors,

nor pious priests who would pointedly preach

about Uriah, Nathan and David.

Prophets really know how to rub it in.

Sometimes I watch a deer drink from a pond.

I hear its groan and see it torn by hounds.

Is it the hubristic Actaeon and

am I Artemis? Or, like Narcissus,

who loved his own reflection, will I look

into this stream and see my nemesis?

I cannot be The Goddess of Light for

she would not beat her son with a candle.

But I’ve produced a right royal milksop

who flinches before a taper and whines

for the company of his step-brother.

If I felt constrained at Wherwell years ago,

when I was wedded to my first husband,

I can tell you it was nothing like this:

an Abbess in a penitentiary.

I wish that I could morph into a hind

and flit through the forest with Aethelwold,

as fleet of foot as Artemis herself,

but leaving no trace to those who follow.

If only I’d seen the wood for the trees.