Scribblers, Painters, Photographers, Triathletes

 Portrait of Daphne Belt by Christine Schaeken 2002 

Having been press ganged (by my photographer daughter Jacqueline Rackham) to take the Queens shilling and start to serve yet another of this modern world of social media fads, I posted this photo on Instagram yesterday whilst still wearing my ‘L’ plates.

It is a quite striking portrait that was painted by my former next door neighbour and dear friend Christine Schaeken. She painted this in 2002 so I was a lot younger then and as you see was sporting violent red hair. I loved my hair that colour but the downside was, that being a triathlete and therefore spending at least five hours a week in a chlorinated swimming pool the colour was stripped out very quickly and it was impossible to keep the depth of colour. Strong colours are the weakest in pool water.

After Christine gave me the painting a couple of years later, when she had shown it many times and moved on with much more art work, my husband Steve and I walked it around out home before setting it up on a wall right by my desk where she feels like an honest friend but also my harshest critic. That is how the poem below came to be, because although it is a very modern work of art and you could pick at it if you wished and say “Oh Daf, your nose is not as long as that” or “You do your eyebrows differently”, it is none the less, what Christine saw, and I have to say that I am sure, (as sure as eggs are indeed eggs) that she saw deep into my soul as she worked. It is very much me: Right in your face, with plenty to say but also ready to listen and help in any way possible. 

Model of The Gayer-Anderson-Cat, seen sitting like a good little Muse by some of my poetry books

Portrait of My Soul

At first glance she dares you to look away,

then makes you think about what you will say

attention fixed ‘No nonsense please’ to convey.

Challenge.

Her bright red, dyed head of naturally curly hair,

a stop light helmet of protection to be aware

the falsehood misleadingly shouts; take care.

Guard.

The eyes lock firmly on to the viewers gaze,

time stills or ponders on some old yesterdays

sitters hazel eyes (now painted blue) appraise.

Think.

Wearing lenses coloured to the artist’s choice,

once garrulous woman now has a quietened voice

imprisoning frame holds one no more able to rejoice.

Restriction.

Concentration cannot unlock her from your face,

determined stalking rather than a heated race

Following the intruder around a limited space.

Control.

She silently takes in all within her placid sight,

dimming but still held still throughout the night

relentless no matter if movement be left or right.

Helpless.

The carefully painted eyes seem slowly to change,

a rainbow of emotions expressed within their range

to have been put there by a brush seems so strange.

Incredible.

Searching my mind whilst concentration stays in abstention,

a moment in time hovers forever in spiritual suspension 

an invasion of my soul if this be skill by intention.

Fear.

An exploratory operation undertaken to find the cause,

to remove faults with scalpels, clamps and shiny saws

delicate remedial work cut, stitched, then held with gauze.

Fright.

I see myself clearly in my artist friend’s patient work.

The mouth reflects a secret humour too polite to smirk.

Neath the surface of her strokes, my inner truth shall lurk.

Secrets.

 

Please do put these dates for Littlehampton’s newest poetry venue in your diaries and on your calendars.

Crunch time

At The Change in Windsor Great Park with Ben and Ross

Well. Crunch time. I have to come clean at this point and admit that I have been quite poorly for the last three weeks. The gang that I train with here abouts have know about this since of course I have been a noteable 'No Show'. Repeated courses of medication have not budged the chest problem and a week ago Friday I was sent for an X-ray at Worthing hospital that showed that I had an infection. The doctor explained that with my PNEUMONIA..... It was unlikely that I would recover in time for my race.

Ever the optomist; I insisted that Steve drove me to Rotterdam. On turning off the ring road there into our hotel, we had a phone call from a dear friend and business associate to tell us that our friend (His partner) had suffered a massive heart attack and died. Ben Everett was the same age as Steve. 

       Picnic time in Windsor Great Park with the Acquisitions Men from Raliegh NC USA 

I did register for Worlds. Not looking great in this otherwise great photo.

We had driven there in one of our work vans dropping off a delivery in Brussels that Steve had stitched in along with a collection in France on the way back to help with the X’s.

Steve has an amazing nerve for finding places to park and several times pulled up next to vans delivering close to where we needed to go. I fact I only had to walk 50 paces to the registration tent and back. We then drove to the swim site where there was a recy swim in progress. Again he parked between work vehicles there on a paved area. He had repeated dozens of times, “We are just looking, you are not to even think about racing, that would be just too stupid even for you”.

That little outing plum wore me out and once back in our hotel room I stayed put and only got up briefly to go and eat in the hotel restaurant. Next morning he started packing and went to see the hotel reception where we had booked for five nights. He explained that his wife was ill and they did not charge to the days we had booked and checked in for but not taken, which was more than fair of them.

 Steve drove me home yesterday calling off our route just fifteen miles to collect some garden furnishings that were for shipment from the UK.

Calais to Rotterdam is just five hours. I was wrapped up nicely and while Steve drove, we did a dozen or so crossword puzzles the most enjoyable being on where the clues contained deliberately confusing typo’s.

We were home and indoors by tea time. One episode of Sherlock and I was dispatched to bed with no resistance feeling completely blown away by the terrible news about our dear friend Ben on top of being so unwell. Shocked through and through.

Ben was a classic southern gentleman and there will be a big hole in the world  now he has so suddenly left us all. I wrote the poem below about him last year and he loved it when I emailed it to him.

Ben’s Advice

Ben is seen as one of a dying breed

A gentleman right down to his toes

Principles send him out to succeed

Friends can but follow from his lead

Life’s work and dedication surely shows

Ya'll take care of each other now!!

Sights set high with ethics strong but pure

Each project attacked with style and flare

Growth springs from roots sewn to endure

Falling into his old time silken web’s allure

Personality springs to use but wisely there

Ya'll take care of each other now!!

Never seen as somebody one should fear

Trust, experience and a peck sound advice

Manners taught from one that he held dear

His parting words are heartfelt and clear

Whenever he parts, once, twice or thrice

Ya'll take care of each other now!!

Ben Everett: Obituary 12.09,17

William Benjamin Everett, Jr. of Raleigh, age 67, passed away on September 12, 2017.  Ben was the son of the late Mr. William Benjamin Everett, Sr. and Mrs. Annie Louise Taylor Everett of Robersonville, North Carolina.  He was a member of First Christian Church in Robersonville.   After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1972, Ben enjoyed an early career as a home and commercial builder, owning and operating William B. Everett Construction in Greenville.  But his love of antiques and all things British led Ben to a second career when he started the Raleigh antiques firm of Acquisitions, Ltd. in the early 1990’s with his partner, Ross Spain.  Ben poured himself into his business on a daily basis for the last 25 years, extending the business to additional locations in Charlotte, Atlantic Beach, High Point, Wilmington and Stamford, Connecticut.  While Ben loved antiques and traveling to England for frequent buying trips, he loved even more the time spent with customers and colleagues, making countless friends along the way.  As one dear friend recalls, “There was always a welcome chair beside his desk waiting for me with any problems, information, pending events or news to be shared.  And that chair stayed occupied most of the time as we all took our turn!”

Ben is survived by his partner and best friend, B. Ross Spain of Raleigh; his sisters, Elizabeth Ann Everett Green (Billy) of Robersonville and Mary Everett Whitehurst (Buddy) of Wilmington; nieces, Lib Johnson Creech (Morrison) of Charlotte, Lou Johnson of Clinton and Molly Whitehurst Bourne (Banks) of Charlotte; and nephew, Clay Whitehurst (Diana) of Raleigh.  Ben is also survived by 3 great nieces and 3 great nephews.

A graveside service will be held at Robersonville Cemetery, Highway 64-Alternate, at 2:00 pm on Friday, September 15th.  The family will receive friends afterward at the home of Mr. and Mrs. William A. Green, 201 Pinetree Drive.  In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials to be made to First Christian Church of Robersonville Music Fund or Children’s Home Society of North Carolina.  Arrangements by Biggs Funeral Home in Williamston.

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This one below is about Ben and Ross’s baby niece born with heart and lung defects, who has had such a health struggle in the first year of her young life. In that time she too knew Ben's love that helped her fight I am sure.

Catie-Ross

Life is not always easy for new born babies,

first year on earth, Catie-Ross showed this.

Some people thought she would never survive

as intensive care tubes invade this little miss.

Rarely possible to feel her mother’s lips kiss

as doctors and nurses fought to keep her alive.

Anxiety as treatment sometimes seems way amiss.

All ifs’ and buts’ and too many maybe’s.

Waiting was tough and hope dreadfully slight,  

the one permanent for the family was hope,

as push came to shove, they silently prayed.

Rarely a break from needles and stethoscope.

Operations stretched chance like a tightrope.

Parents and baby bonded through their crusade,

how can something so tiny possibly cope? 

Born with the spirit to fight her own fight.

She smiles and chuckles through every pain,

too often touch comes from a latex glove,

so unfair when desperately needing a cuddle,

private promises offered to heaven above.

Picture of innocence is this sweet baby dove

Doctors’ solemnly stand in a robed huddle.

This child survived on one thing, and that’s love

A family’s pilgrimage was not held in vain.

My Father is a Werewolf

My Father is a Werewolf

By Kaye Umansky

Who says that she likes it because it reads well aloud and is totally daft.

I have to agree and add that that makes it perfect for reading to kids who all love the really silly poems.

My Father is a werewolf,

Right now he’s busy moulting.

He leaves his hairs on stairs and chairs,

It’s really quite revolting.

And if my friends make comments

(For some of them are faddy)

I tell them it’s the cat or dog.

I never say it’s Daddy.

I found it in a little book I bought second or third hand on E-bay, it was cheap as chips because the cover was a bit creased and the pages are yellowed. For £2.99 I thought it was a gift from heaven.

The book is called 101 Favourite Poems and it is a collection where poets have picked their favourites. The collection was compiled by John Foster and published by Collins in 2002. When it would have cost £12.99

Children’s poems are like eating ice cream, sheer pleasure with no pretentions. I keep them to amuse any young guests or send one to them. Simple things make lasting friends.

All poetry is priceless and making poetry or any art form is pure happiness therapy.

Someone Else’s Head

It is not a secret; some things are quite well known

I love Norman Rockwell that much is set in stone.

There’s a book brim filled with his inspired works

And my own copy by my bedside quietly lurks.

My bedside collection, saved for an insomnia night

All other times these books just raise my bedside light.

When ‘the wide awakes’ strike, I silently browse through

Time to spare at last, select a favourite one or two.

Girl Reading the Post, painted in nineteen forty one

Sheer genius, this commercial piece is still amazing fun.

A teenage girl’s body, scrunched socks and fluffy mitts

A magazine model’s face held where her face neatly fits.

Engrossed in more adult information than she knew

Scruffy shoes will be replaced with education new.

A young girl sits holding someone elses head

Avid new reader by Rockwell’s clear idea’s fed..

Hope you are all seriously considering come to my first attempt to get a happy new group of Scribblers gathering to enjoy each others favourite pastime.

Quiet Kindness

A couple of weeks ago our friend Yasue Hodge donated a mass of her own beautiful long hair, to the Little Princess charity for children with cancer.

Hopefully we all have time to do a little bit of charity fund raising

now and again. We all need to do our bit for each other. It is just a few weeks since Nathan Abbott worked so hard to raise money for his Freestyle 4 Smile charity that he started himself, to provide cleft palate operations for children in countries where it is not done as a matter of course.

It gets harder to squeeze money out of people who complain about suffering from some sort of charity fatigue, when in fact they should just be giving quiet thanks that they are only being asked for a small donation and more importantly that they are fit and well enough that the fund raising does not have to be done on their behalf to help with their own suffering.

Our friend Nass in Arundel, who suffers from MS himself did the Arundel festival 10km for two charities last week. One being for little Catie-Ross who has spent most of her first year on this earth in a children’s hospital in Maine, USA where she was born with heart and lung defects.

Steve and I am in the very early stages of making plans for another fund raising scheme of our own in summer 2019 when I will probably extent the 75 mini tri’s I did on reaching my 75^th birthday. Of course it will be five days longer the next time and the runs may be slower and contain some walk-run sections (who knows) as I hit 80. It is only 101 weeks away and as we all know, times really does fly. We had a lot of fun and help from friends the first time and hope it will work well again.

Ugly Threats and Quiet Kindness

As the world’s most ghastly leaders

threaten neighbours with their might,

their ugly faces contorted into hate,

lowering watchers respect at the sight.

Mostly our hearts fill with sadness,

while others feel much closer to fear.

They could destroy the things we love,

crush in their hands all that we hold dear.

Then just as we think that all will be lost,

far too late to step back from the brink.

An act of kindness brings our hope back

as one woman makes us stop and think.

Monsters continue their shouting match

each day a bit now closer to disaster there.

Then an ordinary girl lifts our hearts and

for a kid’s cancer charity she cuts her hair.

Where there is life there is indeed hope

let’s search for that tiny ounce of good.

Give kindness and tolerance every chance;

love one another as we know we should.

I leave you here, with a reminder to invite yourself to the first gathering of my newest venture which is:

Scribblers,

Sunday October 8^th from 2pm until 4pm

Look and Sea Visitor Centre

You can come and read anything you wrote be it a poem or a short story, a letter to somebody special.

The Meeting room is above the Harbour Lights Café so collect a tray of tea on the way up or pop down half way through the readings. Hopefully it will be fun. There is no charge as such but a small amount into the pot will help with the cost of hiring this lovely venue.

 The photo here, is of a handsome glossy Rat who appears to be admiring his good looks, this was taken by another friend, Deana Alberti Carrillo who works in at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City and is a keen photographer in her time off.