Pondering the Universe

I am the old man.

I am the boy.

We are called Patrick.

Old Patrick has explored worlds and vast reaches of space shown to him by scientists and writers over the years, but still is left pondering the questions he thought about as young Patrick. How big is space? What was there before time?

One summer's evening, as purple twilight darkened to velvet night, man and boy walked out, out of the farmhouse where they lived in the flat bottom lands of the Thames Valley, and away from the pools of tungsten light falling from its windows. Out to the far end of the paddock. To the edge of darkness.

Gradually Patrick's young eyes grew accustomed to the night, revealing the vast diamond dome stretching from horizon to horizon. Slowly he turned through a complete circle, gazing up at the night sky in all its stunning beauty. 

A noise. A drone. A plane flies across the sparkling necklace of the Milky Way, flashing rubies and emeralds. 

Patrick's world was full of boundaries. Hedges, ditches, walls, rivers, hills and mountains. 

But above his head he saw none. 

He saw the Moon.

He saw the Sun.

He saw Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. And beyond them our Milky Way galaxy. 

He even, after studying astronomer Patrick Moore's books, could see further and make out the smudged thumbprint of Amdromeda, a sister galaxy speeding towards us. And the books talked about millions of galaxies past her which lay in the abyss beyond human imagination.

But where was the edge? The boundary?

Even if there was a wall around everything, what would there be on the other side of the wall?

Even the books couldn't help with that one.

They talked of Einstein, of curling dimensions folded in on themselves.

This is where Patrick turned to another of his sources, Carl Sagan, who said,

"Not only is the Universe stranger than we understand, it is stranger than we CAN understand."

In a way, this was comforting to Patrick. Out here on the edge of understanding, he found that even the great minds faltered. 

Patrick's life still lay before him. Great discoveries were being made, more and more as time went by. This amazing show would run and run. 

Would they ever discover Higg's boson?

Old Patrick smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~

Tales of a Charity Legacy Officer

Now and again, during my time working in the Legacy offices of two major charities, Oxfam and NSPCC, I came across lovely stories. This is one. I don't know how true the story is, but I like to think it is.

Walt Disney employed a woman, let's call her Ida, who worked as the cleaner in his personal apartment in Hollywood. She was very good at her job and kept the place spotless. He appreciated that a great deal. However, while she was pleased to have the job and to work in nice surroundings, she thought he was a mean old man. Her reason was this. 

Every Christmas Walt Disney would give his staff a bonus.

For most of them it came to several hundred dollars, but all he gave to Ida each year was a fancy looking document. 'Take good care of this', he would tell her. Later, at home, she would call her son John and complain, 'I suppose he thinks it would look good on my wall', she would say. 'Phuh! Mean old devil'.

Each year she stuffed these papers away in a drawer, thinking that at least Walt Disney's autograph on them might be worth something if she really needed a few dollars in an emergency. 

Years later Walt Disney died. And Ida's job died with him. Older now, and no job, her means were modest so John suggested she go to live near him. They found a small apartment that was suitable, and Ida prepared to move. John went over to help her clear her old house. They toiled away and were getting the job done well on schedule, when John came through from the back room waving a handful of the Walt Disney papers.

'Mother, are these the papers Mr Disney gave you that you complained about?'

'Yes, dear. I suppose I should sell them now. A few extra dollars would be useful.'

'Yes, mother. I think you might well,' replied John, 'these are Disney shares and at a rough estimate I think you are worth about three quarters of a million dollars!'

Much Wenlock and My Father

My father hated Much Wenlock. It brought him out in a cold sweat even to think about it.
Several times a year, in the late forties / early fifties, when I was a child, we would drive from our Oxfordshire farm to Anglesey to visit my grandfather (Taid in Welsh), a retired sea captain who told us gripping stories about his life at sea.

My mother always had to work hard to persuade Dad to take us as, being a farmer, he could never see a convenient time to go. Any time Mum suggested would swiftly countered with, "there's a cow about to calve them", or "I'm expecting the feed rep to call that week", and so it went. But Mum was no quitter. She would wear Dad's resistance down with more and more suggestions until he had to give in, and a date would be arranged.

When that day came Dad would fuel up the old four door Morris saloon, Mum would would put our well thumbed RAC atlas on the front seat, and my brother Mark, sister Sarah and I would pile on to the back seats and settle into the jumble of suitcases, cushions, I-Spy books, tartan rugs, old Farmers Weekly magazines, bottles of home made ginger beer, flasks of tea and Oxo tins filled with cucumber, cheese and tomato sandwiches. When all was ready, Dad usually had some last minute urgent discussion with the foreman about jobs that needed to be done while we were away, but finally came the moment when off we would go, our overloaded car chugging out of the yard in a cloud of gravel dust and chased by our yapping dogs, honking geese and my sister's over-excited pony.

Our custom was to stop for a picnic on Wenlock Edge, about halfway into our trip. The views over Shropshire are breath-taking, but back then we children were far more interested in our fresh cut sandwiches and ginger beer.

Dad always seemed pre-occupied on these occasions. He would sit and gaze at the road below, where it curved out of the Much Wenlock and dropped steeply into the valley below. We assumed he was weary from the driving, even though he knew every pre ring road short cut through Kidderminster and Bridgnorth in those days, so we left him in peace. Much later I realised that he must have been thinking about the return trip. Going down the hill was no problem, but the return trip was another matter.

A common feature on cars in the forties was a glass housing a thermometer on the radiator cap, a swinging needle warning the driver whenever the radiator was in danger of overheating. If it went into the red zone, the game was up and you had to stop.

On our way home, on leaving Wales, Wenlock Edge would loom ahead, closer and closer. Back then, to Dad, it must have looked like Mount Everest. As we passed the sign to Wig Wig and Homer, Dad would start to pile on the speed, ready for our attempt at the formidable face of Wenlock Edge. Th old Morris would be shuddering with effort as we passed the farmhouse near the base of the ascent, Dad's knuckles white as he leaned forwards and gripped the wheel. He wanted every ounce of momentum that the old car could muster, but it was never quite enough.

Up and up we would climb, willing the car forwards. No one dared barely breathe. We children would rock back and forth in our seats, as if willing a swing ever higher, but whatever we did the inevitable would happen ... just before the summit needle would go into the red.

Drawing into the side of the road, near the precipice, we were forced to stop. Irate drivers in more modern cars would, from the inevitable queue behind us, pass with ease and annoyed faces. Dad would deploy our red triangle, all the while avoiding eye contact with the other drivers. All we could do was sit there as steam billowed from the bonnet. Experience had taught us to carry a watering can in the boot, so Dad and I would wait until the last annoyed driver had passed and then set off down the hill to ask at the farmhouse for our watering can to be filled with cold water. Over time the farmer's wife had become a friend, and she always insisted we stay for a cup of tea and some fruit cake. And she wouldn't let us go until she'd not only filled our can, but also packed more cake for us to take back for Mark, Sarah and Mum.

Having trudged all the way back to the almost summit, we children were confined to the car while Mum and Dad carried out the next dangerous part of the operation, taking off the radiator cap. The Icelandic geyser effect might have subsided, but considerable danger of pressurised scalding steam still lurked beneath that cap. Out came a large beach towel which Dad would deploy in layers over the cap. Then, grasping it firmly through the towel, he would twist it off.

Steam would swish out of any loose fold of towel it could find, but if Dad had done it right, and he always did, no harm would be done. Now the waiting game really began. After an interminable quarter of an hour or so, Dad would carefully, and oh so slowly, pour cold water into the radiator. Eventually he would replace the cap, stow away the can and triangle, climb back into the driver's seat, watch the radiator needle sink slowly back into the green, and then lurch gingerly forward into Much Wenlock.

Mum would say, "Why don't we go to that lovely old tea-shop in the High Street?", meaning "Your father desperately needs a pick-me-up."

Dad never complained about these occasions, but every time he thought about it his heart must have sunk. Looking back I can only admire the stoic way he bore these times of trial, but oh how he must have hated Wenlock Edge.

I Didn't Get Where I Am Today.

I remember the final scene in the BBC's 1970 TV dramatisation of Laurie Lee's 'Cider with Rosie' ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cider_with_Rosie ) in which the real Laurie Lee meets his young self coming the other way along a country lane.
The boy passes as the older man, with a wistful expression, watches himself go by, carefree, swinging a stick and whistling softly.
I suddenly realised that is how I recall my memories. As my timeless older self, watching me as my younger self, quietly, and contemplating how I got here from there. I had no thought out plan. It was naturally assumed that I, as the eldest son, would take over the tenancy of the farm from my father in due course, as he had done from his father. My life was set on a course followed by thousands of boys before me. Life at home, at school, socially, everything was based on this assumption. Knowing nothing else, and enjoying life on the farm, I went with the flow. 

A health problem, dismissed by all except my parents, principally my mother, meant that I was unable to fulfill any academic potential I might have had. I just scraped into Grammar School via the eleven-plus and was frequently told by my teachers that if I didn't try harder I'd be packed off 'up the hill' to the Secondary Modern. This sounded grim. I was left in no doubt that this was where the also-rans of life were sent. 

I spent five and a half years bumping along the bottom of this 'Must try harder' situation, until one glorious day I was released. As my parents collected me from school in their car on that blessed last day, I remember vowing never to set foot in an educational establishment again. Now aged over seventy, I still feel this aversion to formal education very strongly, even though logically I recognise its benefits. 

Throughout my time at school, no-one ever suggested to me that there were alternatives. Farming was a world unto itself and 'other people' got jobs. My job I regarded as more a way of life, one that I was born into and learned from day to day throughout life. It all flowed seamlessly together. The only formal bit of the process was a short course at the Royal Agricultural College (now University) in Cirencester. This drew together and enhanced knowledge that I had already gained from my father. After the prison atmosphere of school, the experience of college, albeit brief and interrupted by a spectacular bonfire accident, was strange and exhilerating. Lecturers actually treated students as adults rather than something the cat had dragged in.

Eventually I came out of the RAC with a piece of paper saying that I was safe to be trusted with a pitchfork, having mastered the skill of differentiating between one end and the other. Proudly I deposited this in an office file, where it has been ever since.

And so, as a fully rounded fool, I was launched upon adult life.

The Guardians ~

They've stood watch over the flat, rich farmland of the Thames Valley for decades. Almost a lifetime. Most of my lifetime.
I've moved on, but I visit them sometimes. Still standing. Guarding. Watching. Providing.
They are pylons. Electricity pylons. Majestic pylons.
I watched them being built.
By ant-like men. Huge giants, built by miniature men.
Men who made giants.
They're still there. They re-assure me. They're a constant, a link, an anchor. Whatever happens to me, they stand. They watch. They guard my childhood freedom by showing me pictures. Pictures of a small sun-dazzled boy following cow tracks across green water meadows. Now and then he pauses to shoot Hopalong Cassidy bullets into the sky, and the sky throws them back.
More pictures.
The same boy has dirt on his shirt as he lays belly down on the banks of gravel-bedded watercress streams, keeping tabs on mallards, coots and moorhens building nests of reeds on the crystal clear water where they will raise flotillas of fluffy fledglings. .
The boy is not alone.
Flashes of iridescent blue and green betray the presence of birds and insects, Admirals and Emperors, Kings and Dragons. Theirs is another dimensions where time moves at a different pace, yet all of us tied to the rhythm of the year.
In mine it was all new and full of discoveries; discoveries which frustratingly revealed yet more mysteries. I didn't know then that this was the powerhouse.
In my world the sun shone hot.
The snow fell feet deep.
And the rain swelled the stream.
A new world called reality lurked around the corner, waiting to shatter my life.
But today the sun was warm upon my back.
The pylons shimmer in the heat haze which is hovering across the meadows.
And the cables crackle with power.

Marriage and Life in Brief

People seem very curious about other people's relationships, so I thought I'd tell you all I'm going to tell you about mine straight away and get it over with. Then I can get on with writing what I really want to write. It may well become apparent during consumption of this meagre fare that I have been married three times. Don't ask me how it happened. I haven't a clue. Along the way I collected two divorces and one other serious relationship which didn't result in a wedding. There are two sides to every story, I know, and I accept my share of responsibility for the break-ups.  However, I am very happily married now and will do everything I can to remain so.

That, in my case, is life.
Now take the fact that I still cannot make up my mind what I want to be when I grow up, if I ever do, and you find on this page a confused man who, for some unfathomable reason, has an urge to write about his life. Oh, he scribbles a bit now and then, but at time of writing, whether or not he ever will complete the story of his life so far remains a subject of conjecture.
I've been really lucky for many good things have come my way, especially my wonderful wife, children and grandchildren. I'm ridiculously proud of them all and cannot really believe that I had anything to do with it.
So thank you up there, whoever you are, and long may it last. Thank you.
Enough said.

Prisoners of War down on the Farm

Not far from our farm in the upper Thames valley was a hill, and on that hill was a prisoner of war camp. 

During the war it held lower rank German soldiers. 

There may have been others, but I was not aware of any. 

At the end of the war these prisoners-of-war (p-o-ws) were ready to be repatriated, but Germany lay devastated and for many men there was no home to go to immediately. They had to wait.

Many of them were highly skilled. They included engineers, mechanics, drivers, electronics experts and others. Life in the camp must have bored them, so when they were offered the chance to work on local farms they leapt at the chance. Likewise, my father was pleased to offer them work for a number of reasons, not least because Britain was also severely damaged by war and farms were still called upon to produce as much food as possible. 

Very soon we got used to welcoming the army truck that called at the farm every day, bringing 'our' bunch of p-o-ws. And what a cheerful gang they were. We, and the other men on our farm, soon made good friends, as far as I remember, with every one of them. Some became lifelong friends. 

After being cooped up in a prison camp for months and years, they must have found our farm a blessed release.  

I remember three of them in particular, Ade, Phillip and Heinrich. All three became personal friends of the family and joined us for meals. This was daytime only, because they all had to return to the camp each evening on the lorry which came back to collect them. However, now the camp gates stood open for long periods of the day and they had much more liberty.

I was only five or six years old at the time, but one thing which imprinted memories of Ade, Phillip and Heinrich on my mind was that they made toys for me and my brother Mark. My sister Sarah was only just about making her debut on the world stage about this time. 

Toys were unavailable in shops so soon after the war, and I can remember the joy these unexpected gifts brought to us. As I mentioned, these men were highly skilled and thus able to make, from all sorts of scrap materials, marvellous toys, tools and gadgets. Some toys I recall in particular. One was a circle of pecking hens, made from an old broken table tennis bat, string, a heavy lorry wheel nut, some odd drops of paint,bits of wire and scraps of wood. It was multi-coloured and worked perfectly for years, giving us hours of fun. Another toy was a bright red monkey with green eyes standing on a barrel. By pressing the base of the barrel you could make the monkey jig and dance. Also they made for us a large board with numbered hooks to hang on a wall. Then, armed with a handful of rubber rings made from an old bicycle tyre, we could throw the rings at the hooks on the board to get as high a score as possible.

Best of all the toys they made for us was the garage.

It was just like the real one in nearby Clanfield in miniature. It had three fuel pumps on the forecourt, green, blue and yellow. Each had a face, like grandfather clocks, but instead of the time the one hand showed how many gallons had been dispensed. Around the forecourt were tiny Castrol oil cans, car tyres and other garage bits and pieces, including a little wheeled tray of the type mechanics used to get underneath cars. Behind the forecourt the garage buildings had been beautifully modelled, with lift off roofs. And inside, model cars! Of course it was an instant hit, the Christmas they gave it to us, and Mum had to almost prise it out of our hands at mealtimes.

They also showed my brother and I how to make some toys ourselves. One was a kind of crawling device made from a tintack, a cotton reel, an elastic band, a pencil and a small amount of candle wax. Just press a tintack near the hole on one side of the cotton reel, loop the elastic band over it and thread the rest through the hole. Loop the other end over one end of the pencil, wax that side of the reel, wind it up and watch it go. Armed with a couple of those, Mark and I held races all over the house on various domestic terrains.

My favourite toy by far, though, was the one which Phillip showed me how to make. I must have made dozens over the years since then. All you need is a pencil about 10cms or more long and a similar length strip of light wooden batten. Drill a hole exactly halfway along the batten, small enough to be a tight fit for the pencil.

Now fashion the batten into a simple propellor, and fit it to one end of the pencil.

With practice, by putting the pencil between our palms and rubbing them quickly together, Mark and I were able to make our 'helicopters" soar up into the sky. We would try to get them to fly right over the big barn. The only trouble with this was trying to find them afterwards on the other side. Often they'd be stuck up in the gutter.

One of the Germans, I think it was Ade, was an expert clock maker, and he made Mum and Dad a wonderful kitchen clock out of an old radio casing and a restored alarm clock movement. It looked beautiful, as though straight from a Bavarian 'alpine' workshop. And it worked for many years. My parents used it as their kitchen clock well into the sixties as I remember.

The most memorable times of those days were at Christmas. Our new friends had permission to stay with us well into the evening on Christmas Eve, and we all enjoyed a magical mix of English and German customs. To be honest, I can't remember details of those wonderful Christmas times. It's all a warm glowing mish-mash in my mind of mince pies, Christmas pudding, apple juice and German novelty presents. I can still feel the warmth of the large log fire in the sitting room. Mum, Dad, Ade, Henry and Phillip, sitting in armchairs and along the big old sofa, basking in the warm glow as they raised their glasses, topped with home-made wine, to a variety of bilingual toasts. 

Happy memories for a six year old boy.

Eventually our friends got the call that they could return to Germany.

Some went home and stayed there, losing touch with English friends. 

Some went home, and then returned on holiday with their families to introduce them to English friends.

Some stayed and married English sweethearts.

But some went home, found and married their girlfriends, and returned with them to live in this country.

Such was Phillip. He set up home, not far from us, and his family and ours remained friends ever afterwards. 

I felt immensely honoured that he called his first son Patrick, because he had so enjoyed his time with us on the farm. Later, sadly, Phillip met a very untimely death here in England. He was working at his job on an estate nearby, when the tractor he was driving flipped over and crushed him. There were far fewer safety guards in those days. But he will always be remembered with warm affection as long as I and other family members live. Thank you dear Phillip.

Some years after the war, my mother and her sister Maureen were treated to a wonderful never to be forgotten holiday in Germany as guests of Ade and the others. 

But there is a sad footnote to these happy memories.

As I grew older and began to understand what war was about I realised the cruel madness of it. Months before our happy times on the farm getting know our new friends from Germany, we could have been trying to kill each other as sworn enemies. We would have been expected to do our utmost to capture or kill each other as our duty to our respective countries..

Is this crazy, or am I wrong?

________________________