Battle stations

This beautiful photo of the pretty Wood Anemone's was taken by my talented daughter
Jacqueline Rackham Photography. My efforts were disappointing since I was so early they were asleep still.

When I sadly put our little poetry circle, Scribblers on hold for this horrible time in our lives, it turned out that I was not the only member of the group that was old enough to recall a previous time of deprivation. I was born just a couple weeks before World War II broke out.

With my father being immediately called up for service in the army, my mother left the  rented home they my parents lived in, in East Worthing, packed one suit case and scuttled off with my brother and I to my dad’s family in Yorkshire. We lived in cramped conditions, three of us in the little box room, for the duration of the war. We did not return until I was approaching school age.

The state of the world right now with food shortages caused by frightened people stock piling and being wary about the danger surrounding us, not to mention the feeling of helplessness at being pressed to withdraw from our normal happy social lives. So far we have still been able to run train even if it does involve getting up very early in the morning to avoid to silly crowd who are still pretending that nothing is different. We are also so lucky to live in the sticks where there are woods and downland that are relatively quiet although the sea front is to be avoided now because it is like August bank holiday down there with everybody out walking in the glorious sunshine that is making an appearance after months of wind and rain.

Getting back to my poetry group it has been enlightening to hear how they intend to keep themselves busy. My friend Deirdre who is multi talented, being a former music teacher, choir mistress, pianist and church organist and translator, among the many clever thing she has toiled to perfect. She is also one of the sweetest people I know. She told me that being stuck indoors for God knows how long in this crisi, that she will be sorting out her shelves and boxes full of music sheets so that she can brush up old pieces that she had half forgotten. Private recitals with an audience of one, though her husband can sing along perhaps, I know that he can sing. I have borrowed some of his words from an email the he wrote this weekend, later on in this diary page.

Steve and I have re-planned our daily schedule to make sure that we not only maintain of very good fitness level. More difficulty though with our small family Antiques import export business being brought to its knees by fear of illness and death. Travel restrictions meaning that most of our clients around the globe have cancelled buying trips, which in turn mean dispensing with our services completely. The warehouse shutter has been down for two weeks now. The rent on the property will still be due though.

We have been at home together during that time and we have both felt blessed that we were good friends long before we were lovers and then marital partners, business partners and sports training partners. We still enjoy each others company enormously and have always been best friends with more useful common ground than most villages in the countryside.

We all find ourselves in an un-precedented situation and each of us will, no doubt, find our own way of dealing with it. Some of us believe this Corona saga is going to have widespread implications on our behaviour patterns looking ahead. Just think back to how the two world wars changed societies, gender roles and inter-communications between nations.

With regards to the state sponsored house arrest to which we are all subjected;  I am rather looking forward to next 12 weeks, which will enable us to deal with all the issues which have fallen between the chairs during the last 3 years.  As for exercise - for us it's all about maintaining as much of the muscle tissue and stamina gained over time as possible.  

Face time is certainly a good way of staying in touch. I use it for contact the family, but it is of course only available to Apple users.

Skype would also be useful for video conferencing and could work across platforms. Whats-app I am not too sure about.

Here is a reading suggestion from another of our poetry group, of which he says:  

“I find the language used to be very moving. 

Not exactly cheerful, but there you are”

.

The Great War by Vernon Scannell

Whenever war is spoken of
I find
The war that was called ‘Great’ invades the mind:
The grey militia marches over land
A darker mood of grey
Where fractured tree-trunks stand
And shells, exploding, open sudden fans
Of smoke and earth.
Blind murders scythe
The deathscape where the iron brambles writhe;
The sky at night
Is honoured with rosettes of fire,

Flares that define the corpses on the wire
As terror ticks on wrists at zero hour.
These things I see,
But they are only part
Of what it is that slyly probes the heart:
Less vivid images and words excite
The sensuous memory
And, even as I write,
Fear and a kind of love collaborate
To call each simple conscript up
For quick inspection:
Trenches’ parapets
Paunchy with sandbags; bandoliers, tin-hats,
Candles in dug-outs,
Duckboards, mud and rats.
Then, like patrols, tunes creep into the mind:
A long, long trail, The Rose of No Man’s Land,
Home Fires and Tipperary;
And through the misty keening of a band
Of Scottish pipes the proper names are heard
Like fateful commentary of distant guns:
Passchendaele, Bapaume, and Loos, and Mons.
And now,
Whenever the November sky
Quivers with a bugle’s hoarse, sweet cry,
The reason darkens; in its evening gleam
Crosses and flares, tormented wire, grey earth
Splattered with crimson flowers,
And I remember,
Not the war I fought in
But the one called Great
Which ended in a sepia November
Four years before my birth.

This present situation may not be actual an war but we should set our minds ready for a major battle because it is certainly that my friends. There have been thousands of deaths so far this year and I think we are in for a much longer period than anybody thinks. My poetry group friend Barry, who suggested this poem, reminded me that during the war people thought in the first year that it would all be over be Christmas! The effects will be far longer lasting than any of us think. I for one do not hold any faith it the twelve week prediction we have been told to expect.

Little kindnesses go a long way and I was warmed an hour ago by my neighbour over the road ringing me to see if I was ok and asked, was there anything I needed.

The woodland photos were taken this weekend.

Stay safe, think positive, prepare for the unthinkable and keep focused, it’s simple!