Arrow's Flight

Arrow's Flight


Arrow was black: deep pitch, no light black. Not yet fully winged, nor fledged, mother fed its gaping beak.

High above the track, iron rails shook her home. Nest built by mother and father: nurtured their eggs, three, only Arrow survived. Peaked over its eerie high, hid by leaves, insects droned and buzzed, other birds sang, smoke rose from trains beneath. In the distance, on the horizon, darker smoke billowed.

In her growing strength knew no time, merely seasonal rhythms: cold sharp damp snow, migration, plenty, mating and young. Of circles broken by death.

Arrow's eyes clear, dark, shiny, all seeing, saw all around her. Predators savoured her for food, likewise she scanned her own nutrition, food to live.

Flew cautiously at first, left her nest, rose into blueness, chirped proud, never stopping from early morn to sun setting in the west. Extending her range. Each day further, higher, lower. Picked earth worms, ate small flies. Pecked wild forest fruit.

Confident, each day wandered, spied tracks, through forests surrounding iron tracks, over massive fields. Flew in circles with one eye cast over the horizon's smoke, scanned earth for food with the other.

Imprinted on her mind, pathways, routes, marked by sun rising to setting and the habitats of animals too large to devour - fox, wolf, badger and deer - each their own patterns.

Summer, autumn, winter: snow. Fear, cold, smoke, dense black, acrid choked on the horizon. Trains clanged over frost, steam hissed and spat, snow fell from trees with dull thuds. Three, four trains, more often, in a day. Uncomprehending Arrow slowly circled above their wooden carriages, heard cries, moans, knew no desolation and pain, only hunger. Waited patiently for prey to break cover, grow careless, to sustain her for another day or two.

Spring came, Arrow larger, fuller, grown, sought a mate, but stopped. Instinctively knew not now. Fought off males, sought her own company, flew on warm breezes, glided effortlessly.

Maria, Ruth, Paul and James their school long closed, boarded, quiet, where joy rang around their games: emptiness and sorrow. Neighbours shunned them, parents, grandparents, aunts, cousins, grew ragged and hungry. Work ceased, begged, friends gave food secretly: meagre rations from war time allowance.

Summer, once welcomed with delight, cursed, drink scarce, and fruit, melons, quenching thirst, no longer sold to them, though they knew the fields where they grew. Men in grey uniforms: steel helmets, hard hearts, moved them on in their town,
shouted abuse. Stars, bright colour of sun's radiance, identified them, limited where they could go, what they could do.

Arrow flew closer to the town, circled small houses, fenced gardens. Palls of dust rose from cobbled roads and tracks as army vehicles trundled slowly, methodically, laden with men and guns. Flags fixed to their trucks, stiffly stretched out in black, red and white.

Arrow began to rest, look around her from a small oak tree in a garden at the edge of town. Waited till dusk, flew back to her nest, slept alone.

Ruth, Maria, James and Paul. Two brothers, two sisters, waited each night's sleep to hide their hunger. Fitful, moaned and sighed. Less food each month, fewer relatives to rely upon and protect them, more soldiers in their town stamping shiny boots. Their station, packed with trains, rumbled on towards the east, weekly increasing in numbers. Cargo they dared not talk about. Feared each day's events.

Arrow, amid leaves, moved quickly her head, this way and that, ruffled her feathers, spread her wings, sang, watched. Aware of four young children watching her. Pride in being herself, joy in singing, of seeing children, close and smiling in wonderment and pointing at her. Sitting on sun baked earth and listless grass, talking quietly squinting eyes in Arrow's direction.

A hand reaches forward, some grass, a little seed in Ruth's outstretched palm, a curious smile, wanting to communicate with their new neighbour. Ruth's eyes, aglow, moves, slowly, towards Arrow. She flutters, looks about, sees nobody else, wings forward, pecks at the seed, flies back. Feels. A taming, a desire, a movement inside her pulsating breast, triumphantly chirps. Children smile and then giggle and laugh: dirty clothes and shoeless, forgot hunger sharing with Arrow.

Weeks go by. Routine, after flying the forest, over the town's rooftops, trains filling with people, baby wails and mother's tears, settles, each day, its oak perch.

James and Paul, Ruth and Maria, each day too. Food and joy, Arrow flies to Ruth, perches on her hand, pecks seeds, Maria strokes Arrow's head with her fingers, touches gently her feathers. Flies to Paul, settles on James' outstretched arm. Knows each one.

Children becoming more alone, cry more often at night. Soldiers stop them often, neighbours jeer and spit. Friends, more cautious, at night give them food, getting scarcer.

Dark clouds of summer storm, rain, wind and fear. Arrow's blood courses cold, shelters more, deeper, in her nest. Her neighbours long moved off as trains shook their homes. Foreboding, not a fear of the forest where all kill to live and live to kill as necessity to continue nature's circle. Arrow senses something more.

Rain pounds her body, her wings thrust her forwards, progresses slowly her mission. Lightening tears the sky apart. Rain cuts through forest, over the land, slashing sheets pound on trains whose lamps illuminate the wet sheen of rail steel.

Past sheltering animals she flew, over swollen streams, alone, brave, cold.

Bundled rags, bound together, shouting soldiers, long coats, rain dripping from helmets, guns covered as protection from the force of nature's anger.

Pushed, herded, moved into a throng, along the wide rutted and deep pooled tracks between fenced off houses, searching for James and Ruth, Maria and Paul. Skin wet, feet sodden and cut frozen cold, rain, non-stop, in their town for the very last time.

Arrow swoops, eyes to the left, eyes to the right, eyes in front and scanning around. Heart leaps in adrenaline, needs to find, needs to see, needs to escape, needs to save. No mate, alone, her purpose defined by feeling.

Maria, Ruth, Paul and James together, memories fading fast of summer and Arrow.

'Halt!' a soldier barks. They stop. Thousands of people. Soldiers shouting, a truck, deep grey, mud splattered, lies on its side.

Arrow flies dangerously close, sees the children, lets out a loud 'caw, caw', and circles where they are, being pushed this way and that, soldiers moving, cursing, pushing back the human column, terrified in its expected fate.

Four children see Arrow, drop their sodden heavy bundles of rags and slip away to where she circles between a row of houses. No one notices, their heads bowed, hats pulled over faces, soldiers busy with work and swearing, searching for ropes, ignoring the crowd.

Arrow banks, changes direction, flaps her wings, the children follow. Slowly at first not to disturb soldiers' shooting at sudden movements, rifles ready to crack death: crouched low. Stealthily break through the town, past the shuttered houses, the barns, pig pens, hay piled high, farm implements, a well.

Arrow finds confidence, children quicker, raise wet bodies higher, dare to look where they are, eyes fixed rigidly to the bird in front. Moving left, moving right,
paths remembered followed now. Above ground in the silence of her flight, aloft to hacking, coughing, gasping children.

An hour, two, three, rain, swampy paths, deep in forest, sounds of voices, of engines, of tears, far behind. Clouds clear, the day ends and the sky darkens. They sleep, huddled together. Arrow perches, sentinel on guard, sleeps fitfully till daybreak.

Warm sunrise steams the dampness from their clothes, from vegetation and tall trees. Arrow too feels warmth. Children, yesterday miserable and weary, waken and move with spring in their step, and silently together hear the forest come to life.

Hunger fed by wild fruit, berries Arrow landed on and pecked, brought to eager hands, devoured rich juice and sugar sweetness. Strengthened. Walked and walked. Everything a chatter, a song, the gentle whispering of trees. Sun higher and higher. Walked, foot sore. Rest, follow Arrow. Seemingly tireless she chivvies them on: over roots, streams, up hills, brushed past bushes that pricked skin, stumbled down rough tracks, broke cover as expansive fields crossed. Stopped only for food: berries, wild apples.

Sun down, clear skies, cold nights, slept in peace, silently. Arrow, pride inside her, rests too. Woodland animals circle the four, they too now stand guard, and fade, task completed, as sun rises into third, fourth and fifth day.

Dust rises high above the trees, Arrow stops, children huddle together, taste fear. She flies, till a black dot, vanishes into expanse. Looking up eyes hurt as sun blinds childrens' unprotected eyes: they wait in silence.

Hours pass, sun past its zenith gradually sinks into the west. Dust billows still, growing broader in its vertical column. Ruth, Maria, James and Paul break silence, talk quietly together, await their black friend.

Squawking, chirping, cawing, not one, but two birds, circle. Arrow, not alone, glides effortless down, rests, her companion waits, a distance away, high in branches. Sun, now almost hidden by trees, dips, the sky closes over in darkness.

The children sense some strange excitement. Arrow flies to her companion, larger, snuggle together, sleeps the night. Once more the forest creatures form their protective circle of warmth, fur and claw, wide eyes and sharp pricked ears.

The longest night. Children mumble, though sleeping, their minds, wonder, dream aloud of what these changes signify: the dust, Arrow's time away, her partner. Woodland creatures, previously a discreet distance away, closer tonight, they could hear them breath, feel the warmth of their bodies, see their silhouettes as the moon cast its brightness over the forest floor. Awaited eagerly day break.

Sun rise, redness glows, larger than previously. By a stream they washed, drank cool cleanness, a small fish swims past. Arrow and partner took off, one banked right, one banked left. Ascended so swiftly the children couldn't distinguish them.

They waited, but not immobile, walked slowly about, scanned all directions, took advantage of their clearing, climbed a tree, sought better views.

Noise now attached itself to the dust, a distant rumble, deep, broken apart by other sounds - higher pitched, buzzing. Children agog, half fear, half anticipation: what army was this? Where did they come from, where were they going, how large could it be? The noise getting sharper, more droning, clearly louder.

Arrow and her partner circled from out of nowhere and flew in front of us - we followed. Now together, one leading, one droppping back, alternatively diving and climbing, forever changing position, but always forward: towards the plume rising mixed colours of pearl haze, green and blue.

One hour, two, not stopping. Stumbling in excitement, eager to reach our destination. Fear vanished, watching our two flying companions wheel, dive and bank across the sky, coming together in unison with mad ecstatic screeching. Then a halt, suddenly.

Voices close: loud, shouting, voices we didn't know, in a language we didn't recognise. A flag we'd never seen in our town. Arrow with her partner swished
across our heads, beautiful wings skimming our faces, her partner too flew past landed on all our shoulders, took off. In a moment they were both gone: specks on the horizon.

We ran and ran and ran. Over grass, falling over clumps of earth, ever towards the sound of voices and machines. We started to make noises, to scream, shout, laugh, talk, all at once so no one could have understood us.

At first no one did. No one believed our story of Arrow. Friendly soldiers bathed us, gave us new clothes, let us ride their jeeps, fed us, gave us coffee. They sent us safely a long way from our town, across the ocean where we grew up and began to forget. Till my own child wanted to hear my story.

And you've just read it.

Aliens in England's Green and Pleasant Land

Alien feet

Recent suggestions by an English academic that Christ visited ancient Britain, discussed and learnt from, amongst others, Druids, prompted this little ditty.

Memo to:
Re: Dark skins, funny names
From: Island race mongrels



and did those
feet
yes I know
I’ve heard it
thousands
of times
massed choirs
chorus voiced
proud
sang it myself
in school
shiver
down the spine
hearts
bulged by being
chosen
as different
their land
was it really?
when?
eons ago
walked upon
sandal footed
sure
a belief
all parties
love it
to seize it as their own
Jerusalem!
cradle of our
holy
civilisation
wholly alien
dark
skinned
middle eastern
wandered Africa?
rapacious foreigner
we sing of him
in joy
gifted
honoured
the name of
Holy Ghost
son of
cymbals crash
in bands
bald northern folk
ruddy faced, fat
southerners
complacent
hear them sing
uplifted
full throated
foreign feet
green and pleasant
land
upon our shores
sure of the welcome
a seeker?
of truth?
spiritual enlightenment
peace
haven from
thoughts that would
kill
you
you knew
you did go back
and were
crucified
(temporary)
stranger
alien in our
green and pleasant
land

Unforgotten Black South African soldier in World War II France

The fascist war machine, honed to deadly effectiveness by a heartless state ideology, sought to rid Europe of all none racially pure groups. Starting with Jews in Mein Kampf, Hitler’s psychosis broadened to include any ethnic groups not considered Ayran: Slavs and Romanies specfically. Black troops fought valiantly and heroically for the Allied cause recruited through the British Empire, but how did they fare if captured as POWs and non-Aryans in a Europe dominated by fascist conquest? This brief item will chart the progress as a POW from the North African campaign of an ordinary South African soldier, Corporal Timothy Mathopa who answered his King’s call.

The forest surrounding Onesse et Laharie in south west France is re-claimed land ten miles from the endless stretch of tree planted sand dunes holding together the shifting shore line of the Landes littoral. The light house, at Contis Plage, a bright metronomic beacon, shafts light far into the Atlantic. A concrete bunker, deserted, home to litter and worse, lies gutted of its one time aggression: did the German’s really expect an invasion from the south west?

No, this was to be elsewhere, but needless war time tragedy, there was. This strategically vital area bordering Franco’s Spain, aided by the Nazi’s in his rise to power, judiciously sought neutrality, sheltered intrigue from all sides. The Axis Powers respited U-boat crews from Atlantic Sea Pack ravages, the Allies routed escaping servicemen through the Pyranees to Spain and hence back to the war effort.

In the same region Maurice Papon, Vichy official in Bordeaux, tried for war crimes, signed death warrants for Jewish men, women and children: Henri Ayzenberg aged three, Simone Zavidowitcz, aged six, amongst other innocents. Whilst the British parachuted Yvonne Cormeau as a radio operator in August 1943 to relay vital information about German troop deployments and fight with the Maquis.

The tiny hamlet of Onesse et Laharie, some four hundred souls in the late thirties, has a well tended cemetery and a simple plaque on the stark white wall, blinding in summer’s light: Commonwealth War Graves Commission. A marble cross for an Allied serviceman; Cpl. T. Mathopa, N/6837, NMC. Timothy Mathopa serving with South Africa's Native Military Corps, died 13th. August 1944.

Several other black South African soldiers also rest in the Landes area. Private Kekana, 17th. January 1945, Private J.M. Thobane, 14th. January 1945, husband of Siteng Thobane of Sekukuniland, Transvaal, and Corporal Sam Kazamula, 30th. November 1943.

Why the South African presence in this part of France? Corporal Kazamula’s death, for instance, predates the Normandy Landings. Had they been part of some special force’s detachment? Perhaps they’d been airborne troops whose plane had been brought down as a monument at nearby Mezos commemorates American fliers. Or had they been summarily executed immediately after capture by the Gestapo intent on racially purifying Europe?

I’d been to Onesse several times and become fascinated by this solitary Commonwealth grave: whatever the reason for it I wanted to find out who was Timothy Mathopa and why was he buried in Onesse?


Taking advantage of South Africa’s new freedom I wrote to their Embassy in London who forwarded my simple request for information on Corporal Mathopa to the Chief of the South African National Defence Force, an aptly named Colonel J.P. Human.

An envelope arrived at my Westminster home within two months packed with photocopied military documents, many marked ‘restricted’ or ‘secret’, together with letters from the Red Cross and various departments of the South Africa army. From this unexpectedly large bundle of papers I began to piece together fragments of the life of one humble South African soldier.

I’d already tried to discover from Onesse’s locals why this Allied grave existed, but drew a blank. The secretary of the Ancienne Combattants claimed to know nothing about the grave, though a local medical general practitioner discovered a prisoner of war camp had existed nearby, but papers relating to it, I was informed, had not survived the war. Maybe, I began to think, Mathopa had been executed as the German war machine was grinding to a halt, because he was black.

As I sifted the documents a rich and complex picture emerged. A Prisoner of War list, Box 31 in the NMC files, ‘X List Personnel’, contained the names of eleven South African servicemen who had been released from POW camps and were in the process of repatriation to their units during late summer and the early autumn of 1944, one, Private Jim Moquena, was bound for the Middle East. The eleventh name on the list, under PARA. 62, was the Corporal’s. Copies of this order being sent to, amongst others in the bureaucratic entanglement, the Chief Paymaster, Pretoria, the Voter’s Registration Section, Johannesburg, and POW Records care of Captain E.W. Steele, the High Commission, South Africa House, London.

Earlier, on March 2nd. 1943, the Red Cross Society corresponded with Lieutenant Horwitz of the South African Non-European Army Service announcing “we have pleasure in enclosing herewith a further list of native POWs with camp or hospital addresses”. Corporal Mathopa, serving with the 7th. Recce Battalion, who had been promoted on the 15th. October 1941, was in Camp 82, Laterina, Italy. A further document, reporting on Camp 82 written following a visit to it between the 23rd. to 24th. February 1943, revealed there were two South African officers, 101 NCO’s and 840 men, out of a total POW population of 2,457 in a camp built to house 6,000.

The prisoners in this camp, captured in North Africa, had “access to writing paper and post cards .... a sufficient reserve of parcels containing foodstuffs, comforts and medicine ...and are always given hot water for making tea and coffee”.

Medical treatment in the camp was considered good and a major in the Italian Medical Corps, who had practised in England for many years, was well liked by his patients. Of the seventy of so patients who presented themselves each day for examination and treatment, few had serious complaints, most cases, the Report states, were for slight injuries. On the day the report’s author visited fifteen patients were in the sickroom suffering from diabetes, inflammation of the bronchial tubes, sore throats and slight influenza. Persons suffering from infectious diseases were sent to the local hospital at once and an ambulance was made available for that purpose. Life, though without freedom, was fair enough given the prevailing war conditions: “the treatment and food are exactly the same for the prisoners as for the Italian patients”, concluded Captain Trippi’s report.

However, since the previous visit two prisoners had died in hospital: J. Bester from South Africa and F. Kevan from Liverpool.

From Camp 82 the details and story as to the corporal’s movements, draw a blank. The next news we have of Corporal Mathopa, and some 900 other black South African’s, is from a report filed by the Director of Non European Auxiliary Services, Box 5, Group 2, NMC POWs, the Annex of which announces Mathopa’s death. Though not in Italy.

Towards the end of the summer of 1944 with the Allies pushing through northern France and the German army in disarray elsewhere, travel within France was once more becoming feasible. The 900 fellow POW’s with whom Timothy Mathopa had been part of, had been evacuated by a Lieutenant Fennesy who was told that eleven South African’s had been left behind in various hospitals in the south west, one of these in Mont de Marsan, the Sanatorium de Neuvielle, was where the corporal spent the last months of his life.

Advice had been given “through various channels” that the prisoners left behind, were, in spite of being hospitalised, lacking in essential food, and in some cases, proper medical care and attention.

A Captain Fink, and the anonymous author of the Box Report, were despatched from London with the following mission: “to evacuate six South African Non Europeans”, but on reporting to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, were instructed “to interest ourselves in all Allied personnel”.

Departing on January 18th. 1945 and landing in France the following day after catching the boat train, they arrived in Versailles on the 22nd. where they received further instructions and drove to Dijon and then on the Marseilles. Here they received two ambulances and sufficient petrol to take them to the south west.

Travelling across France from Marseilles they journeyed through Toulouse, where they were informed by Lieutenant Colonel de Gros of the British Civil Affairs authority that one patient, Private Siljosing had already been evacuated through Marseilles. The colonel also informed the two officers that an Irish woman, Miss Rea, who had looked after the South African POWs since the German collapse, should be contacted in Bayonne. Leaving Toulouse the pair drove through Tarbes, Pau and Orthez, before finally reaching Bayonne.

On the 27th. January “we arrived in Bayonne and immediately interviewed Miss Rea who advised us that only two patients remained to be evacuated of the original eleven left behind by Lieutenant Fennesy in the previous September. Of this 11, 7 had died, 2 had already been taken off and two others remained to be removed”. One of these two was in the hospital at Bayonne and the other in Mont de Marsan. Both these patients survived and were joined by another discovered in an unnamed hospital, driven by the two officers to Marseilles where they embarked on a hospital ship bound for the Middle East and South Africa.

Corporal Mathopa, had, unfortunately, not survived whatever injuries or illness he had sustained resulting in his hospitalisation. We do know, however, from his service record, that he had two periods of hospitalisation in March and August of 1941 before being posted back to his unit. Perhaps he had some weakness, some re-occurring illness that plagued his constitution: we’ll never know. Nor is there any reason given as to why he is buried in Onesse when three of his South African comrades are buried in Mont de Marsan.

What we do know is this: that black South African soldiers fighting the Allied cause against the Axis powers had been captured in North Africa, transported through a continent exterminating non-Aryans and kept alive. They were fed and clothed and hospitalised as Prisoners of War. They were freed by Miss Rea, the Irish woman negotiating on their behalf with the Germans. Sought by the British despatched from London on a mission whose raison d’être more than equals ‘Saving Private Ryan’, and were nursed by the French. European co-operation at its finest where the South Africans’ status as Allied soldiers sidelined race as of no consequence.

If Freud had been ....

The Twentieth Anniversary of the Berlin Wall tumbling down and time to collect my thoughts on this concrete aberration.


If Freud had


wasteland
acres and acres
black and white
grained
faded
old
looked at me
photographs
showcased
opposite
Brandenburg’s
Gate
denoted
before modernity
the city’s edge

then
a wall
segmented
constructed
ugly
violent
brutal
separated
east from west
humanity
from humanity
divided
the soul’s
hemisphere
as a brain is
both left and
right
cells
trillions
of currency
in denominations
too many to name
as crosses mark
and identify
those killed
jumping from east
to west
from right to left
filled the waste
to prove a point
Checkpoint
Charlie
a global till
dispensed cash
no questions asked

now
what for
us remains?
people mill
cars roar
lights blink
red
green
to ease the meanderings
of pedestrians
cameras slung
bags shouldered
gawp at
could this have been
a war
would millions
have died
for this space
vacuum at the heart
of power
politics

the Reichstag
was
dreams
glistened in plastic
a recent memory
an old aberration
lacerated by rain’s
damp clouds
pock marked in a frenzied
nightmare
before awakening
most now filled
some remain
sole reminders
as graffiti
Russian Cyrillic
etched into stone

we queued
orderly
through the glass
portcullis
slipped open
crossed into
history
totally refurbished
and walked into the
lift
out
onto the roof
flat
broken by
a glass
cupola
crystalline

tourists wend
their way
inside
ascend
gradually round
and round
to its apogee
a halo of
enormous metal
tubing
facing west
the sun
emerging from grey
is diffused
across it

time seldom
travels
without being warped
by memory
nor light a clear image
but impressions
of what is and has
been

I’d never felt
triumphal before
but here
walking
on the Reichstag’s roof
overlooking the city
I did
where
death had haunted
where division had
prospered
where psychosis was
honoured
where might
and cowardice
was feted
where destruction became
a philosophy
where people
became
a carpet
a meadow
for others
to walk over
to reach their
promised land
I overlooked what was
barren
now giant
glass and concrete
building sites
and reflected on
what
had been
wasted

if Freud
had been
born
in Berlin
would
sex
have become
a weapon?

In the dock of life's bay

In the dock of life's bay where the sun never sets and endless excursions of dialogue provoke and stimulate, thoughts are constantly updated, words continuously re-worked so reflection becomes a way of life. There's not a decade without change and entering a new one there are more opportunities than imagined by a ragged arsed bastard child living in two rooms in post war Edge Hill, Liverpool.

Praise be the Sixties and mobility, optimism, front row seats to a world changing cultural revolution, rolling the dice and risk be a lady tonight.

I've been a jeweller, warehouse manager, builder, investigating agent. Worked in prisons with lifers, taught adults literacy and Access to university courses, trained teachers, attended fascinating conferences, published by the European Union, lived in France and had a bloody wonderful life. Heartaches too: finding father's whereabouts to discover he'd died three months earlier. Had therapy with Dr. Art Janov in Paris that saved my life. Yes, Lennon's song, 'Mother', really says it all.

I love cycling, walking the hills in solitude on rain and wind lashed days. Summer naked on a French beach, strolling city streets at night, cafes, people gazing and chatting endlessly about all and sundry. Sometimes even politics and the curses of our age. I've lived in squats, council flats, listed Queen Anne houses, poor parts of the city, exclusive streets and castles, in tents and hostels, and still not settled. Mixed with poor, rich, the titled and the grand. Billionaires, paupers, politicians and factory workers.

In the dock of life's bay

In the dock of life's bay where the sun never sets and endless excursions into dialogue provoke, and stimulate, thoughts are constantly updated. There's not a decade without change and entering into a new one there are more opportunities than imagined as a ragged arsed bastard child living in two rooms in post war Edge Hill, Liverpool. Praise be the Sixties! Mobility, optimism, front row seats to a world cultural change and risk be a lady tonight.

I've been a jeweller, warehouse manager, builder, investigating agent. Worked in prisons with lifers, taught literacy and Access to university courses to adults, trained teachers, attended fascinating courses, published for the European Union, lived in France and had a bloody wonderful life. Heartaches too: finding father's home in Zimbabwe to discover he'd died three months earlier. Had therapy with Dr. Art Janov that saved my life. Yes, Lennon's song 'Mother', really does say it all.

I love cycling, walking the hills and solitude on rain soaked and wind lashed days. Summer naked on a French beach, strolling city streets at night, cafes and people gazing, chatting endlessly anbout all and sundry. Sometimes even politics and the curses of the age. Lived in squats, council flats, bed sits, listed Queen Anne houses, poor parts of thew city, exclusive streets and castles, in tents and hostels and still not settled. Mixed with the rich, poor the titled and grand: billionaires, paupers, politicians and factory workers.

I’m a multi-faceted hologram from another dimension blessed with insight and powers of prediction. My interests are meditation, communing with ancestral spirits, and walking through mist searching displaced souls. Other worldly and out of body experiences fascinate me, as does futurology, maximising potential, understanding how emotional pain determines our life, and individual hinterlands. Searching for lost souls in the Scottish mist. Communing with the departed over a peat fire whilst drinking Islay whisky. Recovering canabis abuser in therapy after several years of hallucinations. Awaiting the visitor outside my blackhouse door to enter.

I love to die peacefully as a grandfather with Mozart's Requiem playing. Before that, however, I intend to spend many, many, more summers in France cycling during the day and drinking excellent wine in the evening reflecting the beauty and mystery of life. Sitting outside a pavement cafe watching life drift past as the sun sets, either in a city or in the depths of the countryside.

Is it possible to live without the soulful insights and inspiration of J S Bach? Purcell is a close second, and how can one pass a week without the vespers of Rachmaninov? When I pass to the other world please play me Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. I also love listening to Martha Argarich.

What happens if God takes pinking shears to the string holding the universe together?

The first of many off beat thoughts in prose. Established a presence - finally. Now await my first real posting later.