Dermott Ryder's Posts - Sydney Poetry
2024-03-29T07:21:23Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2797739516?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=0p2xdf02qhqmf&xn_auth=no
109: SAKHALIN INCIDENT REVISITED
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2014-07-20:5231298:BlogPost:52937
2014-07-20T07:00:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p></p>
<p> In the early hours of September 1, 1983, Major Gennady Osipovich in a Su-15 missile equipped jet fighter of the Soviet air force took off from Dolinsk-Sokol Airfield on the island of Sakhalin to fly into history and into infamy and to intercept an unidentified aircraft that had penetrated Soviet air space. His unnamed partner was flying a MiG 23.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The unidentified aircraft was a KAL South Korean airline Boeing 747 – 200B flight KE007 from New York to Seoul via…</p>
<p></p>
<p> In the early hours of September 1, 1983, Major Gennady Osipovich in a Su-15 missile equipped jet fighter of the Soviet air force took off from Dolinsk-Sokol Airfield on the island of Sakhalin to fly into history and into infamy and to intercept an unidentified aircraft that had penetrated Soviet air space. His unnamed partner was flying a MiG 23.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The unidentified aircraft was a KAL South Korean airline Boeing 747 – 200B flight KE007 from New York to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. At Anchorage there was crew change over. Chun Byung-in, a 45-year-old former Korean Air Force colonel, an experienced and highly regarded pilot with over 10,000 hours of flying time, commanded the new flight crew.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was very familiar with the designated route to Seoul-Kimpo, Romeo-20, also known as Red Route 20. It was one of five parallel commercial air routes connected Alaska and Southeast Asia. Chun Byung-in, apparently, did not following the pre-ordained flight plan and was a long way off the designated international route when intercepted.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Reports indicate that the Soviet fighters overtook the intruder with ease. Osipovich flew close enough to make visual contact with the clearly marked Boeing 747 commercial passenger aircraft. Then, on orders from his ground controller, he shot it down with two air-to-air missiles. The Boeing had 244 passengers and 25 crew on board, all perished.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Russians claimed that they had mistaken the commercial Boeing 747, in Korean Airlines livery, for the drab grey, US Air Force ‘star’ emblazoned RC-135 spy plane they knew to be in the area at the time. The cowboys of the USAF regularly played ‘chicken’ with the occasionally shoot-from-the-hip Russians on the fringes of Soviet airspace. This situation appeared to be yet another provocative US incursion claimed the Russians.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Subsequent reports emanating from Washington sources suggested that an American spy plane was in fact near enough to observe and report on events and to monitor the voice traffic between the Russian aircraft and the ground controller. They, the American eyes and ears in the sky, watched and listened but for whatever inscrutable American reason, made no attempt to correct the Russian error.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The loss of KE007’s almost indestructible flight recorders created a significant gap in the ‘knowledge’. The flight data, including any navigational malfunction or unauthorised course modification, captured by this instrument would almost certainly have helped to establish why the aircraft was so far off course. The recording of cockpit conversations may also have thrown some light on the pilot’s motives as to why he had flown into a dangerously proscribed zone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This absence of empirical evidence was manna from heaven to the conspiracy theorists. The first and foremost theory was that the black box was not lost. It simply suited the interests of some Russians and very possibly some Americans that it be ‘not found’. This theory turned out to be close to the mark.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This ‘not foundness’ accommodated the almost instant generation of both plausible and implausible theories and it allowed the pernicious spooks, the glory-hunting generals and the self-serving politicians to muddy the waters and sink the truth, like the aircraft, without trace. By the time the Russians admitted having the boxes and returned them, contents corrupted, conflicting reports and conspiracy theories run the game.</p>
<p>In the days following the aircraft’s disappearance the frenetic search for reasons why came thick and fast. The naming of passenger Congressman Larry P McDonald, Democrat of Georgia and chairman of the right wing, communist hating John Birch Society, as a possible target gained a deal of traction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Russians, someone postulated, had electronically misdirected the aircraft into dangerous territory in order to shoot it down and kill him. This seemed a little heavy handed, even for the Russians.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A theory dear to the heart of the pale pink pussycats of the ‘American Left’, pointed to right wing chicanery and a plot, in conjunction with certain elements of the CIA, to poison American-Russian relations for decades to come by steering the innocent airliner into the killing fields, or killing skies, of Russian paranoia in the hope that ‘the evil empire would do what comes naturally’ and shoot it down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Other theorists suggested that flight KAL KE007 had strayed out of the international corridor and over the Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin Island because of mechanical or technical problems or pilot error?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This theory begs the question: How could this aircraft be accidentally off course? Even if all three inertial navigation systems aboard had malfunctioned, the crew would have known they were off course from other flight data, ongoing, remote flight plan monitoring, weather radar in broad scan or in routine ground-mapping mode etc. This latter procedure, often used, would have shown the Kamchatka landmass passing below.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In his treatise, ‘KAL 007: The Questions Remain Unanswered’ Robert W. Lee, in part, mounts a voluminous argument in support of the theory that KAL KE007 was not shot down but forced to land at Dolinsk-Sokol Airfield, either by highjackers or by war planes, there the aircraft was in some way disposed of and the occupants abducted. Far fetched, perhaps but Lee’s many ‘unanswered questions’ highlight a number of unusualties.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There were no ‘Mayday’ signals from KAL 007 during the minute or more that it was in radio contact with Tokyo after the attack. Searchers found little debris at the indicated point of impact, 55km off Moneron Island. What they found was anonymous detritus, no identifiable parts of the aircraft, no luggage at all, no owner attributable personal effects and no life jackets, on or off bodies. The search recovered two bodies only. This sad and suspect harvest did not accord with known or subsequent crash profiles.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Finally, Lee and others have asked: ‘Why was the search for KAL 007 abandoned by the US after only ten weeks, and never resumed, when searches for debris and remains from other far less controversial air-crash incidents often last for many months or even years?’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As far as I know vacillating authority has not given anything resembling a generally convincing answer to these or any other of the unanswered questions, at the time of the incident or since.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>By far the most popular belief, for a while, was the story that the Korean pilot, in the pay of the CIA, had deliberately strayed off course and was photographing a secret soviet installation. Later the Washington rumour mill pitched the theory that the pilot of flight KE007, a former Korean Air Force officer, entered Russian airspace as a favour to his American intelligence buddies. They, according to the scuttlebutt, wanted to monitor the reactions of the Soviet air defence system.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If choosing a theory I would adopt the principle proposed by William of Ockham [1288-1348] in the fourteenth century: ‘Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate' which translates as ‘entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily' or ‘it is vain to do with more what can be done with less’ and is generally interpreted as ‘the simplest solution is often the most appropriate or keep it simple sap.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is not difficult to embrace the simple, most obvious theory that the Korean pilot entered Russian airspace in the pay of or as a favour to his American intelligence buddies to test the reactions of the Soviet air defence system. It is entirely typical of the way in which the politicians, spooks and military are ever willing to bring the innocent into harms way the serve their more often than not dubious ambitions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the days following the ‘Sakhalin Incident’ subtitled in hindsight as ‘the last salvoes of the cold war’ the great powers played the blame game on an international battlefield of microphones and television cameras. In the USSR the failing Yuri Andropov grizzled and his be-meddled, lantern jawed generals bristled and scowled. In the US the failing Ronald Reagan ranted and his be-meddled lantern-jawed generals bristled and scowled.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In Australia Robert James Lee Hawke, the nearly new Prime Minister, put down his can of beer with a thump and banned a coach load of Soviet airline industry tourists from visiting Tasmania. The ghost of Sir Robert Menzies trumpeted and chortled with satisfaction but hardly anybody else noticed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The world’s newspapers had several ‘field days’ with banner headlines special features, political posturing by presidents and pundits, in-depth analysis by investigative journalists with maps, charts and photographs of aircraft.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The people, however, the passengers and crew, the victims, did not get much of a mention beyond being 269 in number and being dead. However, The Sydney Morning Herald, on Monday September 5th 1983, did find a small space to note:</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <b>Death-Toll Check:</b> Australia has a direct interest in the incident because of the loss of four possibly five Australians. Neil Grenfell 36, and his wife, Carol 33, and their two daughters, Noelle aged five, and Stacey three, had boarded the ill-fated jumbo jet in New York after a family holiday. The department of Foreign Affairs is now checking on a fifth person on the flight, a woman who had apparently lived in the United States.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On that day The Sydney Morning Herald also published a photograph of two charming children with the sad caption ‘the tragic Grenfell children, Tracy 3 and Noelle 5’. I can’t publish this photograph, though I still have it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A little while later a news agency reported: ‘The grieving families of Japanese and South Korean passengers threw flowers onto the water in the area where Washington sources claim the plane came down.’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One may wonder at the morality of writing a song so soon after a great tragedy. I can only say that I chose to express my protest in this way, and my grief. After reading of the death of the Grenfell family the compulsion to write this song was irresistible.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I dedicated it to the memory of all those innocent people who died so needlessly on September 1st 1983 and to the families and friends who shared the burden of loss.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It is also a protest against the de-humanizing mental conditioning of young men trained to destroy innocent life without regard for human suffering. It is a criticism of the morally tainted world leaders grown cold and hard with ambition, and reckless and unfeeling in their profligate use of power.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On September 1st 1983 they failed in their duty of care. They did not protect the innocent. They have failed in that duty every day since.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>FLOWERS OF SAKHALIN </b></p>
<p>Dermott Ryder September 8th 1983</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wandering wayward flight through Babel,</p>
<p>steel and fire and windswept cable,</p>
<p>born to die in foreign waters,</p>
<p>God protect our sons and daughters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cold young men, steel grey eyes,</p>
<p>hunt the lonely moon-drenched skies.</p>
<p>Noelle Grenfell's come to pay </p>
<p>a child's short life to birds of prey.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Noelle Grenfell died today,</p>
<p>high in the air so far away.</p>
<p>Five years old her life spans run,</p>
<p>snatched from care by a Russian gun.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wandering wayward flight through Babel,</p>
<p>steel and fire and windswept cable,</p>
<p>born to die in foreign waters,</p>
<p>God protect our sons and daughters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sleep in peace through the night,</p>
<p>mother's arms hold firm in fright,</p>
<p>flickering lights and screams of fear,</p>
<p>sleep and gently dream my dear.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Eagle in the darkness near, </p>
<p>close enough so he could hear,</p>
<p>with firm neat hand wrote down the date,</p>
<p>the crippled bird fell to its fate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wandering wayward flight through Babel,</p>
<p>steel and fire and windswept cable,</p>
<p>born to die in foreign waters,</p>
<p>God protect our sons and daughters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Generals' bristle, statesmen talk,</p>
<p>as down the path to hell they walk.</p>
<p>It doesn't matter what they say - </p>
<p>Noelle and Tracy died today.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Throw your flowers on the water,</p>
<p>mourn another son or daughter,</p>
<p>their time was short, we will remember,</p>
<p>the guilt and shame of Black September.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wandering wayward flight through Babel,</p>
<p>steel and fire and windswept cable,</p>
<p>born to die in foreign waters,</p>
<p>God protect our sons and daughters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Each year, usually in the closing days of August, I find a quiet space in the day, go to my archive, reach for a well-known file, and turn to the section marked Sakhalin – September 1983 and read the cuttings and look at the photographs. Then I get my guitar and I sing ‘The Flowers of Sakhalin’.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sakhalin Incident Revisited © Dermott Ryder</p>
<p></p>
108: A FRIEND TO US ALL
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2014-07-03:5231298:BlogPost:53004
2014-07-03T01:00:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p>The story of the limerick, the carrier of much folklore, may itself be folklore. Although some researchers assert that this form of rhyme was in use in the golden Grecian years, 448 to 380BC. The great Greek dramatist Aristophanes had a good hand at the terse verse.<br></br> <br></br> Pre-eminent in the 'Old Comedy' genre, he was a brilliantly intelligent conservative with the greatest contempt for democracy. He despised the establishment dramatists. In 'The Frogs' he savaged several of them.…</p>
<p>The story of the limerick, the carrier of much folklore, may itself be folklore. Although some researchers assert that this form of rhyme was in use in the golden Grecian years, 448 to 380BC. The great Greek dramatist Aristophanes had a good hand at the terse verse.<br/> <br/> Pre-eminent in the 'Old Comedy' genre, he was a brilliantly intelligent conservative with the greatest contempt for democracy. He despised the establishment dramatists. In 'The Frogs' he savaged several of them. Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles were his favourite targets.<br/> <br/> Eleven of his forty comedies have survived. In one of them, 'The Wasps' there is a scene in which the characters are drinking together. One of them describes a chariot accident on the streets of Athens. When translated this description falls comfortably into what has now become the common limerick form. How did he do it?<br/> <br/> Aristophanes, ancient Greek wit<br/> Doing his Thespian bit,<br/> Anapaestic said he,<br/> Not dactyl you see,<br/> That's the structure that makes the form fit.<br/> <br/> By way of definition: In quantitative verse, such as Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables. In accentual verse, such as English, it is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. The opposite is the anapaest, two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable.<br/> A limerick is anecdote in verse, an essay in five lines, an aid to memory, a time capsule recording for posterity the trials, tribulations and hedonistic pursuits of the world in which we live.<br/> <br/> Consider, contained within the forthright simplicity of the common limerick lies a vast storehouse of wit and humour. In every field of human endeavour, social or anti-social, proper or improper, the gregarious limerick has made its mark with brevity and bounce.<br/> <br/> The true limerick is a thing of poetic beauty, technical perfection, and a joy forever. It should contain five anapaestic lines of which the first, second and fifth have three metrical feet and rhyme together.<br/> <br/> The third and fourth lines should have two metrical feet and rhyme together. The first line should introduce the main character and set the scene, the second should open the action, which is to bring on the crisis, the third and fourth should intensify the suspense, and the fifth should precipitate the climax.<br/> <br/> The limerick writer's delight<br/> is to write limericks in the night<br/> with metrical feet,<br/> the plot to complete<br/> three threes and two twos gets it right.<br/> <br/> You will find he ubiquitous limerick in all sorts of places. Next time you are in the British Museum, reading the Harleian Manuscript 7322 look for the one about the lion.<br/> <br/> If Shakespeare is your bailiwick try Othello for The Soldiers Drink, King Lear for Poor Tom or Hamlet for The Mad Song.<br/> <br/> Beyond the formal scribbling of crumbling scholars and rapier-witted playwrights there is another world - which they also share and sometimes plunder - the world of the people's poet, where the limerick really comes into its own.<br/> <br/> If the music of the common folk is your choice, try Mondayes Work from the Roxburghe Broadside Ballads published in 1640. I have encountered two versions of this old soldier, each marching on slightly different feet. Here I show the differences in brackets.<br/> <br/> Good morrow (to you) neighbour Gamble,<br/> come let you and I go (a) ramble,<br/> last night I was shot<br/> through the brains with pot<br/> and now my stomach doth (wimble and) wamble.<br/> <br/> The limerick has become the source of compelling interest for all manner of questing academics and sundry scribblers. In his book 'The Lure of the Limerick' William S. Baring-Gould observed:<br/> <br/> "Hardly an educated man is now alive who does not treasure in his memory at least one limerick. The chances are that he did not read it in a book or magazine. Rather, he acquired it by hearsay. It passed on to him by word of mouth, by oral tradition. As such the limerick is authentic folklore, a vital part of our heritage."<br/> <br/> We may deduce, by their exclusion, that Baring-Gould shares with folklorist George Alexander the opinion that:<br/> <br/> "Most women loathe limericks for the<br/> same reason that calves hate cook books?"<br/> <br/> May we also conclude that Baring-Gould, by his emphasis on educated men, considers the creation of limericks beyond the powers of uneducated men, just his way with words perhaps?<br/> <br/> However, Baring-Gould, bless him, presents a strong argument, that the limerick form was well established and popular in folk and art tradition, long before gaining the name by which is now universally and irrevocably its own.<br/> <br/> The limerick, a friend to us all,<br/> the sharp fellow is ready at call,<br/> a verse known to fame<br/> but what of its name?<br/> The Irish were lucky that's all.<br/> <br/> How the limerick got its name has long been a generator of entertaining if fruitless debate. A good deal of popular opinion is willing to attribute the honour or lay the blame, depending on your point of view, at the feet of the returned veterans of 'The Wild Geese'<br/> <br/> In 1690 William of Orange invaded Ireland. He crossed the Boyne River and defeated Patrick Sarsfield who fell back on Limerick. Marlborough captured Cork and Kinsale. In 1691 the Irish were defeated at the disastrous battles of Athlone and Aughrim. Under Patrick Sarsfield, at Limerick, they surrendered. Sarsfield and 10,000 of his troops, allowed to go into exile, served with distinction in the armies of Louis X1V.<br/> <br/> In his book 'Irish Songs of Resistance' Patrick Galvin refers to this group as 'The Second Wild Geese'. In his view the first 'Wild Geese' were the 34,000 troops that chose foreign service after the Irish surrender to Cromwell at Kilkenny in 1652. Robert Kee in 'Ireland A History' makes no reference to the Kilkenny 'Wild Geese'.<br/> <br/> The Irish Brigades, formed in foreign armies by the Wild Geese, were the most formidable soldiers in Europe. Patrick Sarsfield, at the Battle of Landon, had his revenge and drove the old enemy, William of Orange, from the field. Sarsfield died there, an empiric victory, perhaps, but still a victory.<br/> <br/> The formidable Clares Dragoons in full roar with:<br/> <br/> "Fling your green flag to the sky,<br/> be Limerick your battle cry"<br/> <br/> did much to turn the tide against the English at Fontenoy. The mightily miffed King George II bitterly complained: "Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects."<br/> <br/> Eventually, or so the story goes, the 'Wild Geese' or their descendants returned home to Limerick. There, on the banks of the Shannon, in the west of Ireland, they rested. The returning warriors apparently brought back with them the exuberant camaraderie of their former occupation.<br/> <br/> They became famous for their convivial gatherings, and for the singing of random verses connected by a common localised chorus. The method was simple, each member of the group would sing a verse, and the rest of the group would sing the chorus:<br/> <br/> "Won't you come up, come up<br/> won't you come up, I say<br/> won't you come up, all the way up<br/> come all the way up to Limerick."<br/> <br/> When the Wild Geese flew to France they carried with them, the race memory of the 'solo' singing Irish. If, on their military travels they discovered a universal verse form - familiar, current and popular - then mutual attraction seems inevitable.<br/> <br/> It is also certain that, captured in limerick form, the folklore of exile was and carried back to that small town on the banks of the 'boiling' Shannon. The late Herbert Langford Reed, collector and writer, bet his high-button boots that in this place the limerick got its present name.<br/> <br/> Baring-Gould cites Carolyn Wells and Monseigneur Knox as rejecting this theory as a mere fancy, on the grounds that the chorus sung in Limerick fits neither the metre nor the pattern of the limerick. So what!<br/> <br/> I was once in a pub in Newport, Monmouthshire, (Old) South Wales where steel workers, colliers and truck drivers were singing a dazzling array of brilliant limericks led, on this occasion, by the indefatigable Max Boyce. The linking chorus was:<br/> <br/> "That was an orrible song, sing us anothery<br/> just like the othery, sing us anothery do."<br/> <br/> The change in form between verse and chorus seemed to enhance the cycle rather than detract from it. I had a similar experience, in the Elizabeth Folk Club, of happy memory, in Sydney New South Wales, in the middle years of the nineteen seventies.<br/> <br/> It was a night like any other night. Then, at the start of the second half, the unusual combination of a Spanish guitar player from Manchester, a biochemist from The Hague, and several members of the 'Wednesday Elizabeth' audience put on a limerick battle. They came to their linking chorus by mutual confusion. It could have been a dog's breakfast but it worked wonderfully well.<br/> <br/> Those who would like to give this form of folkery a try can use a linking chorus of choice with this set of limericks attributed to the intellectually agile of yesteryear.<br/> <br/> Oliver Herford (1863-1935)<br/> <br/> A damsel, seductive and handsome,<br/> got, wedged in a sleeping-room transom,<br/> when she offered much gold,<br/> for release, she was told,<br/> that the view was worth more than the ransom.<br/> <br/> Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)<br/> <br/> There once was a boy of Quebec,<br/> who was buried in snow to his neck.<br/> when asked, 'Are you frizz?'<br/> He replied, 'Yes, I is,<br/> but we don't call this cold in Quebec.<br/> <br/> John Galsworthy (1867-1933)<br/> <br/> To an artist a husband named Bicket,<br/> said, 'Turn your backside, and I'll kick it.<br/> you have painted my wife,<br/> in the nude to the life,<br/> do you think for a moment that's cricket?'<br/> <br/> Carolyn Wells (1869-l942)<br/> <br/> A canner, exceedingly canny,<br/> one morning remarked to his granny:<br/> 'A canner can can<br/> anything that he can,<br/> but a canner can't catch a can, can he?'<br/> <br/> Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)<br/> <br/> There was a young girl of Shanghai<br/> who was so exceedingly shy,<br/> that undressing at night,<br/> she turned out the light<br/> for fear of the All-Seeing Eye.<br/> <br/> Don Marquis (1878-1937)<br/> <br/> There was a young fellow named Sydney,<br/> who drank till he ruined his kidney.<br/> It shrivelled and shrank<br/> as he sat there and drank,<br/> but he had a good time at it, didn't he?<br/> <br/> Aldlous Huxley (1894-1963)<br/> <br/> There was a young girl of East Anglia<br/> whose loins were a tangle of ganglia.<br/> her mind was a webbing<br/> of Freud and Krafft-Ebing<br/> and all, sorts of other new-fanglia.<br/> <br/> Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973<br/> <br/> The Marquis de Sade and Genet<br/> are most highly thought of today;<br/> but torture and treachery<br/> are not my sort of lechery<br/> so I've given my copies away.<br/> <br/> And now, just to show that a limerick can easily become a lyric love poem:<br/> <br/> Robert Herrick (1591-1674)<br/> <br/> Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,<br/> the shooting stars attend thee;<br/> and the elves also<br/> whose little eyes glow<br/> like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.<br/> <br/> There are other sorts of limericks, of course. They often make an appearance at blokie gatherings. I have encountered them on coach trips to and from football matches, around the campfire when the ladies have retired, and at late night revels in far away places with strange sounding names.<br/> <br/> This old favourite describes the genre remarkably well:<br/> <br/> The limerick's an art form complex<br/> whose contents run chiefly to sex;<br/> it's famous for virgins<br/> and masculine urging's<br/> and vulgar erotic effects.<br/> <br/> The limerick has its practical side too. Many have discovered that a piece of information encompassed by the almost indestructible form of the limerick is close to being unforgettable. This masterpiece, the work of Professor Harvey Carter, is to help students remember the value of pi.<br/> <br/> 'Tis a favourite project of mine<br/> a new value of pi to assign.<br/> I would set it at 3.<br/> for it's simpler you see,<br/> than 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.<br/> <br/> <br/> The limerick can be very useful as a tool to focus attention. I discovered this convenient truth when asked to provide a series of concise chapter heading notations for a workshop and seminar report on information system security.<br/> <br/> After some thought, I decided to use limericks for the purpose. None, of an appropriate nature, were available so I was obliged to write my own. This appeared in the chapter heading for 'Guarding Your Assets'.<br/> <br/> An investment is judged by the yield.<br/> but then, if I truncate the field<br/> one tenth of a cent<br/> will soon pay the rent<br/> and the balance will make me well heeled.<br/> <br/> Writing the limericks was a very useful exercise. Using them was far more productive than I had ever expected. As introductory icebreakers they worked very well. They encouraged people to talk, to swap experiences and, perhaps not surprisingly, to produce more limericks. It certainly worked for me.<br/> <br/> In cobol and fortran we try<br/> to lift downcast eyes to the sky.<br/> then hey diddle diddle<br/> a chance comes to fiddle<br/> and the dollars roll in by and by.<br/> <br/> The penultimate words, on this occasion at least, must go to the limerick writers, Gerald Wiley and Alan Wightman. They wrote for television series 'The Two Ronnies'.<br/> <br/> The enormously successful duo, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, represent the stand-up comedian, comedy sketch, radio, television and recording end of a great music hall tradition. Their cross-talk presentation of the topical and entertaining limerick never fails to win the appreciation of their audience.<br/> <br/> Ronnie one:<br/> <br/> You're that wit that writes things about marriages,<br/> on the walls of first class railway carriages,<br/> please tell me once more of the classic you saw,<br/> on the seat of the boys room at Clareges<br/> <br/> Ronnie two:<br/> <br/> My mother, a born intellectual,<br/> made me a complete homosexual,<br/> underneath wrote some fool,<br/> if I gave her the wool<br/> would she make me one, not ineffectual?<br/> <br/> Ronnies both - taking alternate lines:<br/> <br/> Have you noticed that little blonde tart<br/> Oh how pretty she is, bless her heart,<br/> She's a right little goer.<br/> How well do you know her?<br/> Well she's not a real blonde for a start.<br/> <br/> <br/> The final limerick in this far reaching farrago must come from that indefatigable sage, accidental intellectual and Blue Mountain’s party animal Albert Abercrombie:<br/> <br/> There was a young man from Corunna<br/> who tried hard to chat up a stunner,<br/> he too late discovered<br/> what she had covered<br/> and cried out in pain, what a bummer.<br/> <br/> The birthplace of the limerick and the source of its name are of interest to those of us who delight in the esoteric. The creation and use of the everyday limerick, however, is a pleasure all can share. Next time you are in a tense situation - in a traffic jam, filling out your tax return or applying for a job - unwind and write a limerick.<br/> <br/> Next time you are having a 'brannigan' with 'the spouse' retire to opposite corners, write a limerick and come out reciting or even singing. The limerick is a versatile aid to sanity.<br/> <br/> As we move into the third millennium we carry with us on our journey an ever-growing body of folklore, some fact and a little gentle fantasy. If we were to look back along life's highway and write a limerick for every event that was in any way personally significant what a remarkable social history we would create. Why not give it a try?<br/> <br/> <span class="font-size-1">References and Acknowledgments</span><br/> <br/> <span class="font-size-1">Herbert Langford Reed, The Complete Limerick Book, G.P. Putnam, London 1925</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Patrick Galvin, Irish Songs of Resistance, Oak Publications, New York 1962</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">George Alexander, The Limerick - A Brief History, University Books, New York 1964</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">William S. Baring-Gould, The Lure of the Limerick, Rupert Hart Davis, London 1968</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Gerald Wiley and Alan Wightman. The Two Ronnies Vol.3 BBC Records, REB 331, 1978</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Robert Kee, Ireland - A History, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1980</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Dermott Ryder. Information System Security - A Cause for Concern. In association with</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Bankstown Management Researchers - Sydney 1982</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Dermott Ryder. Ryder Round Folk, FM Radio Guide Sydney 1983</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Dermott Ryder, Waiting For Something to Happen, The Screw Soapers, Liverpool 1999</span><br/> <span class="font-size-1">Albert Abercrombie, The Odd Collection, Green Lane Press Lancaster 2010</span><br/> <br/> <span class="font-size-1">Revised July 2014 © Dermott Ryder – From a Reading at: The Screwsoapers Guild.</span></p>
107: IF YOU CAN KEEP YOUR HEAD…
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2014-06-12:5231298:BlogPost:52720
2014-06-12T01:30:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The severing of heads in moments of heightened excitement plays an intriguing part in the annals of the Welsh folk culture. This must seriously shine a light on the foibles of the Celts who lived in</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Wales</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">in ancient times. Many may recall…</span></p>
<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The severing of heads in moments of heightened excitement plays an intriguing part in the annals of the Welsh folk culture. This must seriously shine a light on the foibles of the Celts who lived in</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Wales</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">in ancient times. Many may recall the ‘Old Welsh’ saying:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> ‘Broad swords do not kill people, people kill people’.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">SAINT WINEFRIDE’S WELL</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">- SONNET CYCLE</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">I.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> Pilgrims Way</span></b> <b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">[abba]</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Step by step, the weary pilgrim’s way,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">to far off</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Flint</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, a blessed resting place,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">long journey, for faithful seeking grace,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">by zealous supplication, a need to pray.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Chaste Celtic sister, not to be claimed,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">or taken by proud youth of royal line,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">rejected his advances, so in quick time,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and in a legend, he left her disarranged.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Her lovely head fell to a stony ground,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and blessed all with her flowing blood,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">created a healing spring, pure and good,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">to comfort pilgrims by touch and sound.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">To a martyr, in blood and faith will stand,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">a shrine… here to guard this Celtic land.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">II.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> The Obedient Earth [abab]</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Divine Winefride of Wales, a pious maid,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">devout niece of Beuno, Abbot and Saint,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">to be a bride of Christ was ever unafraid,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">rejected a wild youth and urged restraint.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Caradog in lust, and impatient to be wed,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">his love turned fast to vile fury and hate,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">drew his broad sword and cut off her head</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and in his bloody anger sealed his own fate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">When Saint Beuno came, returned her head,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">to her shoulders… he restored her to life,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">a thin white line around her neck, it’s said,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">marked her confrontation with carnal strife.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The holy uncle cast vengeance upon the youth,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and by God, the earth swallowed him in truth.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">III. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> Across Chaotic Time [abba]</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In all this hyperbole, may we find a truth?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">a scintilla, a sparkling glittering particle,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">of accuracy, a proven, believable article,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">did uncle save niece from a lusty youth?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Brother Owain, in the old Latin writing,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">for revenge, put the malefactor to death,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Caradog, insolent, unto his last breath,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">must feel cruel flames of Hades biting.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Winefride gave her life to faithful souls.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">After eight hard years, by divine revelation,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">took the road to Gwytherin in inspiration,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">leader, abbess, servant to pilgrim’s goals...</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Come, death, interred at her abbey shrine,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">sustained by faithful, across chaotic time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">IV.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> Charabanc and Kiosk [abab]</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Visit Winefride’s cool reassuring place,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">revered by all that come in faith to call,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">upon St Winefride to gain her holy grace,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">guarded by cloister and stout stone wall.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In 1138 relics of the saint to</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Shrewsbury</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">were carried to form an elaborate shrine,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">by priests, to make a profit in a great hurry.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In 1540 Henry Tudor perpetrated his crime.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Thus this Holywell gives refuge and relief,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">as voyagers seek an invisible communion,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">brings pilgrims a blessing though visit brief,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and being here, it achieves some conclusion.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The kiosk beckons, stale buns and weak tea,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">pricey plastic Winefrides, nothing ever free.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">LEGEND AND REALITY</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Saint Winefride of Holywell [or Winifred if you will] a famous Welsh radical-tonsillectomy recipient, appears to have existed as a person of interest in both Celtic legends and in the Latin writing of the 7th century and beyond. Clearly, she was a passably attractive young woman and much noticed by the testosterone driven young men of the time.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Her most attentive suitor, Caradog or Caradoc, son of a king and a chap who was used to getting his own way, wanted Winefride as his bride. She rejected him in favour of becoming a nun. Enraged and insulted by her rejection he thought it reasonable to whip out his broad sword and chop off her head.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In legend the head rolled down a hill and where it came to rest, gushing blood, a healing-well came into being. Also in legend, her uncle Beuno, Abbot and Saint, recovered the head, put it back on her shoulders and thus made her whole again. He also wreaked havoc on Caradog by commanding, with the help of God, the ground to open up and swallow upstart, which it did.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In reality, if reality can apply to any part of an apocryphal tale of this nature, the saintly uncle, clearly an accomplished fellow, stepped in and administered first aid, thus saving the life of the wounded Winefride, to the plaudits of the often gullible faithful and tacit recognition of often inaccurate historical records. The vainglorious Caradog, according to the scribes, actually met his grisly end at the hands of Winefride’s brother Owain, also a handy lad with the broadsword.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">After almost a decade as a nun, spent at Holywell, Winefride decided to leave the convent and travel. She went upon a pilgrimage to seek for a place of ultimate rest. In time she arrived at Gwytherin, now Conway, in Denbighshire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> After her death, circa 660, or any other 7th century number that seems reasonable, her followers interred their Abbess, Saint Winefride, at her abbey.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">March of Time</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The strength of local devotion to Saint Winefride attracted the attention of the senior management cabal of the</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Universal</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Church</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. Ever conscious of the need for profit, the finance and marketing departments put their corporate heads together to exploit a revenue opportunity too good to miss.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the year of grace and fiscal creativity 1138 the head office of Vatican Inc decreed that a carefully selected group of trustworthy clerics must transport certain relics of Saint Winefride from the shrine in Holywell, Wales to the English monastery of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the holy and revered relics to form the basis of a sophisticated shrine, a major attraction to pilgrims, a feather in the cap of the Shrewsbury Abbot and a pocket-warming money spinner for the ecclesiastical wise guys of the Universal Church.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The Shrewsbury Shrine became the focus of pilgrimage and a great source of revenue, providing an excellent profit margin throughout the late middle ages. Unfortunately Henry VIII [1491-1547] destroyed it in 1540 as part of his confrontation with the</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Vatican</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. Perhaps the cash-strapped monarch would have profited by simply taking a percentage of the gate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">However, the Shrine at Holywell survived and remains to this day a popular pilgrimage destination. The old burghers of Saint Winefride's Holywell claim it to be the oldest continually visited pilgrimage site in the</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">United Kingdom</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. Saint Winefride's Well has been a religious hot-spot since the seventh century. It has left an influential footprint on British history or at the very least has demonstrated for many that ‘hope springs eternal’.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In 1189, Richard I, the Lionheart, [1157-1199], apparently made a royal pilgrimage there to pray for the success of his somewhat bloody crusade.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1416, Henry V, [1386-1422], also made a royal pilgrimage to the shrine: the Welsh Priest, canonist, late medieval historian and chronicler Adam of Usk [1352-1430] reports that Henry V, possibly with a band of brothers, travelled there on foot from Shrewsbury. To pray for what, I wonder.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the late 15th century, Lady Margaret Beaufort [1443-1509] an influential matriarch in the House of Tudor ordered built a chapel overlooking the well, which now opens onto a pool where visitors may bathe.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the 17th century Saint Winefride’s, Holywell became a symbol of the survival of Catholic recusancy, the resistance of true believers to the rites of the Anglican Church in</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Wales</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">From early in their mission to</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">England</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">, the Jesuits, the Vatican equivalent of MI6, supported the activities at the well. In 1605, many of those involved with the infamous Gunpowder plot visited Holywell accompanied by the English Jesuit priest Edward Oldcorne [1561-1606]. His given purpose for the visit was to give thanks for his deliverance from cancer. However, the vigilant secret police of the mildly paranoid James I [1566-1625] suspected that the true purpose of the visit was to plan the destruction of the parliament. Oldcorne and several others met an untimely end on the gallows, executed the following year for their colossal impudence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In 1686, James II [1633-1701], visited the well with his wife Mary of Modena, after his little fishes failed to produce an heir to the throne. Shortly after this visit, Mary became pregnant with a son, James [1688-1766]. Did the bracing Welsh air, the efficacious well water or the intervention of the saint produce this result? In any event, the son, a pretender to the throne, lived in exile, died in</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Rome</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In 1828, Princess Victoria, [1819-1901] Hanoverian to her Teutonic bootstraps and soon to be broodmare extraordinaire and German leaning Queen of England [1837-1901], visited the shrine whilst staying in Holywell with her uncle, the Belgium King Leopold. History is silent on any outcomes of the visit. Perhaps Saint Winefride was not amused.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Many Christian true believers know the shine as the ‘Lourdes of Wales’. Diverse others, now including Plaid Cumru Welsh Nationalists, refer to it as one of the seven wonders of</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Wales</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. An anonymous verse records the latter claim.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Snowdon</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">'s mountain without its people,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Overton yew trees, St Winefride's well,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Llangollen bridge and Gresford bell.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the creative world, as apposed to the religious world, from medieval times [5th to 15th century] onward, Saint Winefride’s Well has attracted the attention of artists, writers, poets, pseudo historians and, in the 20th and 21st centuries, film makers, television producers and bloggers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">William Rowley [1585-1626] an English Jacobean dramatist, an actor and playwright, wrote the comedy ‘A Shoemaker - a Gentleman’. It dramatizes Saint Winefride's story. The actual composition date of this work seems to have slipped through a crack in the historical record but various informants give a printing date of 1638. This play, based on an extract from ‘The Gentle Craft’ written in 1584 by the former</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Norwich</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">silk weaver turned</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">London</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">writer, Thomas Deloney [1543-1600] achieved a degree of popularity.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">English Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins [1844-1899] featured Saint Winefride in his memorial drama, ‘Saint Winefride’s Well’, unfinished at the time of his death.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Millennium and Beyond</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Edith Mary Pargeter [1913-1995] writing as Ellis Peters in ‘A Morbid Taste for Bones’, the first of the Brother Cadfael novels, centres her plot on the moving of Saint Winefride's bones from the shrine in Holywell, Flintshire, Wales to the new shrine in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The twist in the plot arrives when the movers and shakers conspire to and succeed in secretly leaving Saint Winefride’s bones in</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Wales</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">whilst substituting other skeletal remains for despatch to the English shrine.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the Brother Cadfael series, novels and television dramatisations, Saint Winefride is a significant character. The celebration of her Feast Day provides the setting for two adventures, ‘The Rose Rent’ and ‘The Pilgrim of Hate’. In the story ‘The Holy Thief’, miscreants steal the saint’s casket from its shrine; the effort to find and restore it drives the narrative and screenplay.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">In the television series, now available on DVD, Brother Cadfael is a Welsh monk at the English monastery at</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Shrewsbury</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">,</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Shropshire</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">near to the border of</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">England</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Wales</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">. He has to contend with an idiosyncratic monastery hierarchy, internal politics, the internecine squabbles of the</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Universal</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Church</span> <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">and the warring adherents of King Stephen the usurper and Queen Maude the usurped. Each side in this royal battle appears to be trying to out-bloody the other as opportunist nobility and senior churchmen look on, butter up both sides and play a waiting game.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Brother Cadfael a former crusader turned monk and apothecary works assiduously for the poor and needy and struggles to hide his contempt for the rest. He has, however, a remarkably powerful vocation and a very special and affectionate understanding with the saint, demonstrated by his personal references to her and by their compassion in common cause to serve the truly needy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Derek Jacobi [Chorus in Henry V] a most able and eminent Shakespearean despite claiming that all Shakespeare’s plays were written by Edward De Vere 17th Earl of Oxford [1550-1604], he lives and breathes the role of Brother Cadfael with consummate skill and convincing sincerity in four powerful television series, all well worthy of viewing more than once.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Saint Winefride’s Holywell in the 21st century is busier than ever. Construction work at the Shrine goes on at a great pace. There is now an Exhibition Hall with exhibits setting out in microscopic detail the story of the Saint, her legends and the history of her holy well.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">The rituals get richer and yearly more flamboyant as Cardinals, archbishops, bishops and an army of priests and religious perform their ‘traditional’ pilgrimages to the shrine, and they get in free.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">‘Everything is getting bigger and better,’ crooned one marketing evangelist - but of course, and unmentioned - for the great unwashed, the congregation of the rusted-on faithful, everything is getting much more expensive. Approximately 30,000 pilgrims and tourists visit Saint Winefride’s Shrine each year. It is a great little earner. Halleluiah…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 14.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 8.0pt;" xml:lang="EN-GB">Revision June 2014 – Strathfield Poets © Dermott Ryder</span></p>
106: CITY OF LIGHT
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2014-05-15:5231298:BlogPost:52576
2014-05-15T07:30:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>I met him for the first time in the early summer of 1963. I was walking, guitar case in hand, to my appointed busking position. I was in no great hurry. Respectable street-musicians don't rush anywhere, especially not on sunny days, and certainly not in</strong> <strong>Paris.</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>He had a collection of sketches of famous people set out along the wall on the river bank. I remember that day and him very clearly. His big brown…</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>I met him for the first time in the early summer of 1963. I was walking, guitar case in hand, to my appointed busking position. I was in no great hurry. Respectable street-musicians don't rush anywhere, especially not on sunny days, and certainly not in</strong> <strong>Paris.</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>He had a collection of sketches of famous people set out along the wall on the river bank. I remember that day and him very clearly. His big brown hypnotic eyes and his unruly mop of black hair reminded me of a playful puppy that had known only good fortune and was well used to getting his own way. His roguish but always charming smile held magic hard to describe, and he had a way of bounding around and drawing the passers by into his net.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I observed that it was almost impossible to say no to him. He was so very engaging and so extraordinarily clever. In a few minutes he could make an instantly recognisable sketch of anyone with a few francs to spend. He always had an audience, and he was always busy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As I walked past the display a sketch of Edith Piaf caught my eye and I slowed to look at it. Suddenly he was in front of me. "I will make a very fine sketch of you sir, with your instrument, perhaps? You are very handsome," he declared. I liked him instantly, but for some reason I scowled at him and said, rather pompously, "I have neither the time nor the money for such vanities."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At this he burst into loud laughter, and then said, in English, "You are English. Only the English can speak French in such a way." There was no malice in his voice, only humour. Several people nearby nodded their heads in agreement and joined their laughter with his, and after a moment so did I.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Outnumbered or not, I would not go down without firing a shot. I thought of Crecy and Agincourt and I replied, "You are French. Only the French can be so full of shit."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This brought more laughter and a flurry of applause from some of the on-lookers. It also attracted the attention of a passing policeman who tapped his nose with his finger, the way they do, and cautioned us about street theatre without a permit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A few of the more forthright members of the small crowd of onlookers, natives of the city without doubt, gave him the upraised finger-francaise and their assessment of his lineage. He replied in kind. No offence given. None taken, just another day in Paris, but the spell was broken, and the crowd drifted away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We were friends from that moment on. We sat and talked for a while. He told me a little of his life, and I told him a little of mine. I had bread and cheese, he had wine, and we shared. I played my guitar and sang while he sketched.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Paris crowd was exceptionally generous, and we both had a good day. That night, to celebrate, we dined with our friends, old and new, at Dominique's.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I met him again in the late spring of 1965. He had a small exhibition in a discreet but influential gallery. The sidewalk shows and the impromptu sketching of tourists and city dwellers were all in the past. He was gaining recognition as a serious artist. Though not yet a part of the arts establishment he was moving, inexorably, in that direction.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Those of high degree who would not, and could not, be caught viewing anything but 'the acceptable' were at last looking with growing interest at his work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Despite this encroaching respectability he kept alive his wilder, sometimes darker, side. He was well known and most welcome in those parts of the city best left to the shifting shadows. On the lighter side he took me to Oscar's, his favourite 'North African' place of the moment.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The clientele was, as one might expect, on the fringe and transient. It was a home away from home, a place where strangers met as friends and where friends could sometimes be strangers by choice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He introduced me to Paul, sculptor and artist; to Giselle and Cecile, the most beautiful models in a city of beauty, to Claude the haunted medium and to Henri the 'accidental American' from Toulouse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Later I met the Moroccan, Trader Joseph, who lived in the aromatic, tent-like attic apartment above Oscar's restaurant. He was a nighthawk. He never ever ventured out into the daylight, lest those he did not wish to see saw him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Trader Joseph gave me a place to crash, and I made Oscar's my base. It was within easy reach of several of my preferred busking haunts and only minutes from my all-time favourite, the high-end steps at the entrance of the great church of the Sacred Heart. I was often surprised at the number of my fellow nomadic musicians that attended mass there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My friend took to visiting me on the steps at my afternoon session. Sometimes he would play along on a tin whistle or a recorder, or just join in and sing a chorus. He was quick to pick up a tune and he had a good folk-singing voice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The passing punters could see that we were enjoying ourselves. Some of our energy invariably rubbed off on them and they were often most generous in their contributions. Naturally, I do not include the British in this largesse. They were so limited in their foreign exchange allowance that they could scarcely buy a breakfast croissant.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes, when we tired of busking, we would leave our instruments in the care of the ever-accommodating Oscar and explore the city. He taught me to see it through his eyes, to love the secret streets, the hidden treasures, and the Babel-babbling glass-topped boats of the city-bound never still, never-silent river. It was truly 'the best of times'.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When I met him, for the last time, in May 1968 he had all the outward appearances of a successful, if not famous, artist and businessman. His best work was in great demand, particularly by the American dealers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He lived in a splendid apartment. A chauffeur-driven limousine, courtesy of some powerful patron, was on call day and night.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>To me he hadn't changed at all. He was still the same humorously insane street artist that I always wanted him to be. At a moment's notice, and overjoyed at the opportunity, he abandoned his business suit in favour of the old jeans, sweater and windcheater. Then he called Justine and Catherine, and we all went to a fleapit to see Borsalino.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There, to the surprise of the rest of the small audience, he insisted on translating every word spoken by Delon and Belmondo into English for my benefit. He explained, to all, that my understanding of French was so 'English' that if left to struggle on unaided I would fail to comprehend the vitality, beauty and majesty of this great classic.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The audience agreed that an Englishman's French must always be inadequate and at times volunteered advice and help. I cannot see any reference to this film, or to these players, without thinking of my friend and of this experience that sits so warmly in my memory.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>After Borsalino, and after shaking hands with every member of the audience, the manager, the front of house staff and the two projectionists, we went on to the indestructible Dominique's. There, the food and the wine were good and cheap, as always, and the street musicians played their best work for their friends.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>During the course of the evening our small company grew into a large and boisterous crowd. The vitality of rebellion charged the atmosphere. As the party raged on the talk was of revolution, of fighting in the streets, of mass arrests and of university occupations and closures.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The city was in turmoil. Ten thousand demonstrators had thrown a cordon around The Arc de Triomphe and were infuriating the 'Old General' with their red and black flags and their singing of the 'Internationale'.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A massive demonstration engulfing the great boulevards was causing chaos. The Latin Quarter was in a state of siege. Cars had been overturned to create barriers to block streets. The local populace, in support of demonstrating students and workers, were taking every opportunity to shower police with any debris that came to hand.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A little after dawn we joined the demonstrators for a long, hectic, painful day of defiance at the barricades. Where, for an eternity, the brutality of the police knew no bounds as they clubbed and kicked and beat anyone, who crossed their path. Unmitigated savagery and chlorine gas grenades were the standard response to almost any perceived offence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The ravages of a bloody and brutal baton charge in the late afternoon of a terrible day brought my friend, in the front line as usual, close to death. He died an hour later on the balcony of his apartment. Paul and Claude and I, we circle of friends, stood with him and supported him in our arms through those last precious moments, so that his last glimpse of life could be the eventide lights of the city of Paris.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I have, hidden between the pages of a journal I never open, a press cutting that I have translated only once. It announces, with predictable duplicity, the untimely and tragic death of the son of a great house who died in his thirty-fifth year after a long battle with a serious illness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The carefully worded announcement goes on to formally acknowledge the condolences kindly offered, by the socially acceptable, to the family of the deceased at this sad time. A terse footnote advises the common people that a written invitation to those permitted to attend the funeral, a very private affair, will be forthcoming in due course.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I don't know which newspaper originally carried this cold announcement. The manicured hand of haughty family retainer delivered it to me. Neatly clipped and alone in a sealed, satin-brown, crested envelope, the message was clear and painful beyond belief. I was not the only recipient of this strangely French form of communication.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A little while later I discovered that an agent acting for an unidentified but known buyer had scoured Paris, and all trails leading anywhere, for any of my friend's work. I believe that only three sketches escaped this expensive buy-back. They, at least, are safe from the family furnace.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Of his life there is now scarcely a trace. Someone, it seems, has gone to incredible lengths to expunge every sign of his existence. It is as if they, whoever they are, want him not to have lived at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I cannot allow them to succeed with this plan. He was my friend. We went together to the barricades. So I will record and broadcast all that I know of him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The time and place of his birth, and the time and approximate place of his death are a matter of public record. The cause of his death, as formally recorded, is an official lie of the sort one may create from a position of power and influence.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That he came from the best of families is not at issue. That he received and enjoyed the best education that privilege could provide is self-evident. That he had about him the touch of genius was forcefully apparent to all that knew him or his work. Few could have been aware that he was marked down for tragedy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>From the age of twenty he was addicted to drugs. The best doctors’ money could buy prescribed and supplied them in copious quantities. Not to cure, they advised, just to hold back the night. He would die sooner rather than later, they counselled discreetly, of his infirmity or else of the drugs that gave him ease.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When he chose the impecunious freedom of the street artist, as an alternative to subservient family duty, an angry patriarch withdrew financial support. The supply of the necessary medicines ceased. His own small store was soon exhausted, and he was obliged to fend for himself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He took to his double-life with a will. His sketches, quickly popular, financed his early struggles. Several well-placed patrons discretely provided, through their networks, a lucrative market. First he served his own needs, and later he helped others.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was a dealer in drugs. One cannot deny that. In the Latin Quarter, in the fashionable and unfashionable cafes, on the brightly lit Boulevards and on the riverbanks he plied both of his trades. In the green parks near the monuments, in the museums and art galleries, in the great churches, and in the Metro his light and his darkness were ever present.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wherever people gathered, the seeking or the sought, he was there. To those he rescued from the darkness he was 'Brother Cocaine', a friend and a guardian. For those he could not rescue he was their last link with humanity.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In life a paradox and in death a mystery, now there is no one to speak for him, unless you count the flotsam and jetsam of the city, and a few almost stateless nomads like me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I did not return to Paris until the late summer of 1975. I had lunch with Paul at the Café Alsace. After lunch, and after drinking more of their potent brew than was good for us, he insisted that we take a walk along the riverbank. He had something to show me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A little way along, and quite close to the place where I first met my friend some twelve or so years before, there was a niche in the stone wall that contained a small bronze statue of a strikingly recognisable young man. He was seated on a step and playing a recorder. Paul was very proud of his work. The inscription on the base read, 'For those of us who remember'.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I sat down next to the statue and wrote a song on a torn-open envelope begged from a passing tourist. Then I committed it to memory, furled the envelope tightly and slid it into a hollow section of the bronze recorder. I thought, for a split second, that I heard him laugh.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Paris I see from my window is lonely, I know,</p>
<p>full of people like me who are lost and have nowhere to go.</p>
<p>The trees that I see from my window are heavy with rain,</p>
<p>and the noise of the traffic-scarred street is piercing my brain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>From seven floors up in the clouds I'm the king of the night,</p>
<p>with my magic hands, from the stars, I can bring Paris light.</p>
<p>But if there's a corner I miss don't say I'm to blame,</p>
<p>for to finish my picture of Paris I need more Cocaine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>From a house in the clouds I'm the Guardian of Paris and hell.</p>
<p>I know where I'm needed and which of my wares I can sell.</p>
<p>On the gay boulevards none of my sheep knows my name.</p>
<p>But they love me and hate me for I am their Brother Cocaine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Hard cobbled streets of Montmartre are worn with my tread.</p>
<p>I have kindled a flame from a spark that thought it was dead.</p>
<p>I can read in the eyes of those whose souls I have grown cold,</p>
<p>their need for my magic, as they know my need for their gold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I painted an image of Paris, in Cocaine, for me.</p>
<p>I was helped by the earthbound souls my Cocaine set free.</p>
<p>My magic Cocaine put a light in the grey Paris sky.</p>
<p>For a last glimpse of Paris and a last shot of Cocaine I'll die.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My grave isn't marked and it hasn't been dug very deep.</p>
<p>Who'll care for my children, the lonely, the lost and the weak?</p>
<p>I was their guardian, and I always played the fair game,</p>
<p>and I died in the arms of our loving soul Brother Cocaine.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We returned to the Café Alsace to collect our belongings, Paul's valise and my guitar and rucksack, and then we fought our way through the late-afternoon crowds and down into the Metro.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We pushed and jostled and swayed and growled and hung onto the straps, and counted the stations to our destination. There, we escaped into the crisp, fresh, cooling air of the twilight.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We climbed the long hill in silence. We were, I suppose, each lost in our own thoughts. The gentle sound of the Angelus, the tininabulating call to benediction, the flapping wings of flocking birds, and the music of the street musicians, marked our way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We reached Oscar's as daylight faded and just as Gilbert was folding back the outer café doors. The lights and the music came on together at the throw of a switch. The aromas of last night's dope smoke, this morning's cleaning ritual, and this evening's cooking greeted us and made us welcome.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In our absence nothing had changed in the glistening cave-like interior. Oscar, lounging at the small bar rolling an early evening joint, motioned us to join him and greeted us as if we had never been away. We wined and dined quite splendidly, and the evening gave way to a night of nights, as old friends, visible and invisible, arrived at our tables and joined the ever-growing ever-noisier ménage. We talked of the past, the present and the future. We all agreed, that in the things that really matter, the city had changed but little in the time that we had known and loved her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Perhaps some of the lights are brighter and some of the shadows deeper, and the traffic heavier, and the Metro more crowded, and the policemen younger. That is the way of things. Life, thank God, goes on. All that agreed, we played and sang every song we knew, and many that we did not know at all well. We basked in the camaraderie of good friends well met. We decided that we were all overjoyed to be here, in this place of places.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We drank a toast to Oscar and to Gilbert, and they responded with theatrical bows and received an ovation for their comedy. We drank many other toasts, to each other and to all our absent friends. Finally, as the golden tentacles of a new day reached out and embraced us with warmth and love, we drank a toast to Paris, forever, to us all, our City of Light.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">May 2014 [revision] Liverpool NSW © Dermott Ryder</span></p>
105: PAGANS SMILE FROM THE SHADOWS
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2014-04-19:5231298:BlogPost:52668
2014-04-19T10:30:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p> </p>
<p>Easter is a period packed with custom and ritual. How could it not be so? It is, after all, another one of those marvellous pagan revels, snitched from the 'Old Religions' and put to jolly good use by the cunning, dastardly, and commercially aware Christians. 'Life is a cavalcade, old chum' someone said.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Even the name of this festival shows its heathen origin. Easter comes from Eastre, or Eostre. She was, still is perhaps, the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring and dawn.…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Easter is a period packed with custom and ritual. How could it not be so? It is, after all, another one of those marvellous pagan revels, snitched from the 'Old Religions' and put to jolly good use by the cunning, dastardly, and commercially aware Christians. 'Life is a cavalcade, old chum' someone said.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Even the name of this festival shows its heathen origin. Easter comes from Eastre, or Eostre. She was, still is perhaps, the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring and dawn. Her festival celebrating the renewal of life is held on the Vernal Equinox, or to put it another way, on the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.</p>
<p></p>
<p>From antediluvian times the disparate heathens of the known world have held spring festivals to perform magical and religious fertility rites. The crops grow and prosper as a result. At least that's their story and they're sticking to it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The festivals were a great success, attracted large crowds, and made inspirational profits. The promoters were delighted that they had created several good little earners. Give the people what they want my son, was the common wisdom of profitable times. Ongoing marketing campaigns, regular poster pasting, and the word-of-mouth of satisfied customers ensured that the celebrations grew in size and splendour. The heathens were on a roll.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The good business going places inevitably attracted the attention of the corporate sharks. The movers and shakers at the big end of town got the message. Quicker than you can say Dominus Vobiscum the fix was in.</p>
<p></p>
<p>There is no doubt that the Global Marketing Division of the Universal Church of Rome, a smooth as silk operation in its early days, saw an opportunity and seized it by adopting the old pagan customs and giving them a very "Christian" feel.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Babylonian rites connected with the death and resurrection of the gods Tammuz, Osiris, and Adonis, were the precursors of the ‘Christian’ Easter. It was a simple matter to take over the ancient regeneration myths and to remodel them as the celebration of the death and resurrection Jesus. Christ Mass and New Year also came from this handy reservoir of folklore.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The corporate marketing strategy of the UCR was a simple but brilliant trinity of cardinal rules.</p>
<p></p>
<p>1. Read the demographic and identify the target market.</p>
<p>2. Differentiate your product from other products in the market.</p>
<p>3. Deliver the desired benefits on time and in full.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The rest is history. They praised the Lord and hosanna'd all the way to the Vatican Bank.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Pagans smile from the shadows because they know that they still have a piece of the action. You can't keep a good Pagan down. Look at the British Tradition or any other for that matter, the old and the not-so-old march together into the confused infinity of the future.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Brits, of course, have cherished their old customs since cabs were two groats a flag-fall. Pace Eggers, Coconut Dancers, Tuppenny Starvers and Tuttimen lurk, so to speak, in every deep shadow throughout the length and breadth of the green and pleasant land. They stand ready to come when called.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Please bear in mind though; it's not just the serf in the street chasing the parade. The never-miss-a-trick 'Royals' also love to get in on the act. After all, the looked down upon must have someone to look up to, looking good Kate, looking good Harry, looking good William and good onya Charles, Phil and Queen Liz II.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Easter, a traditional time of sacrifice, is a good time for the dispensing of traditional largesse. If you have it, flaunt it. What is the point of being rich if you can't tantalise the poor with it? The trick is to give them just enough to make you feel good and to make them feel really angry.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Who knows, the camel may just scrape through the eye of the needle after all? Personally, I don't find the odds inspiring. Neither does a local, truculent, pulpit raging incumbent. ‘Give 'till it hurts’ he booms, as the collecting basket comes around each Sunday. Then he drives off to bless the golf course in his new Volvo.</p>
<p></p>
<p>If the giving of aid and comfort to the poor and needy is an article of faith passed down by the famous Nazarene, and I do not doubt that this is so, why are so many of the demonstrably holy so well off? Why are there so many poor and needy? Is it because simply paying lip service to charity is an art form, or to put it another way, a well-tried confidence trick? After all, being poor is not a socially acceptable condition.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Superstition, custom and poverty have always been the sharp edged tools of the grasping, powerful, politically astute. However, within the ritual tradition, dire warnings of test and retribution are also given.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Lyke Wake Dirge is just such a warning. It comes from Scotland, and from the north of England as far south as Yorkshire and Pennine Lancashire. You will find it in Aubrey's 17th century manuscript, and in numerous folksong collections. The nineteen sixties folk revival made much of it in live concert, on long-playing record [a large black circular thing with a hole in the middle] and later on compact disc.</p>
<p>The belief demonstrated in the Lyke Wake Dirge, that the soul of the departed must go on a hazardous journey to purgatory has its parallels throughout Indo-European folklore. Hardly anybody in any culture can truly embrace the proposition that when you are dead, you are dead. The concept of life everlasting appears hard-wired into the brain. Doing good works in this life will bring rewards in the next, is also a popular construct.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The belief that alms given to the poor, with good grace, during life will bring rewards to the departing giver at the beginning of the long, hard and dangerous journey of the soul is still strong.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For example: If you give a pair of shoes and a sturdy coat to a needy person during your lifetime then assistance will be given to you at the point of death. This largess will enable your soul to cross the prickly, 'Whinny Moor' without injury. Conversely, the mean-spirited and stingy are guaranteed a right rough trot.</p>
<p></p>
<p>History is silent on how the ancient mourners performed the 'Lyke Wake Dirge'. Did they sing, chant or recite over the lately departed. There is no evidence of a tune to the dirge in the collected song stock. The tunes now favoured are relatively recent in origin, but the potency of the warning is in no way diminished. In short, do ‘good’ or get done. I have seen the 'Lyke Wake Dirge' translated into ‘Gradely English’ but it just doesn’t work for me.</p>
<p></p>
<p>This ae nicht, this ae nicht,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>Fire and fleet and candle-licht</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When thou from hence away do pass,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>To Whinny-Moor thou com'st at last,</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>If ever thou gayest hosen or shoon,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>Then sit thee down and put them on,</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>But if hosen or shoon thou never gav'st nane,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>The winnies shall prick thee to the bare bane,</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>When thou from hence away dost pass,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>To Brig o'Dread thou com'st at last,</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>When thou from hence away dost pass,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last,</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>If ever thou gavest meat or drink,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>The fire will never make thee shrink,</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>But if meat or drink thou never gav'st nane,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>The fire will burn thee to the bare bane</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This ae nicht, this ae nicht,</p>
<p>Every nicht and all,</p>
<p>Fire and fleet and candle-licht</p>
<p>And Christ receive thy soul.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Do gooders, the kindly and the cunning, it appears, are plentiful. On Maundy Thursday, the day before Good Friday, at 11.30am, Britain's oldest Royal charity, 'The Royal Maundy', is distributed. It has been so since the reign of Edward III. The ceremony has changed a little down the years. Until 1685 the King in person washed the feet of the assembled poor to commemorate Christ's service to the apostles on the day before his death.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Doles or Maunds, from the command or mandatum given by Christ at the Last Super ‘to love one another’, given out in the form of food and clothing - and later money was substituted - are part of the Anglican High Church ritual celebration of Maundy Thursday. In more recent times the custom of minting special Maundy Money has grown up. The present, Elizabeth II, has indicated that the Maundy Service has significance in her religious life as defender of the faith. </p>
<p></p>
<p>The lovers of rustic ritual also take every opportunity to excite and impress. In the West Ridings of Yorkshire the Midgley Pace Egg play is performed On Good Friday. The Pace Egg play bears a strong resemblance to the Christmas Mumming plays - the action portrays the constant struggle between good and evil.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Traditionally Saint George, who has his own day on April 23rd, represents the forces of good. Toss Pot represents the forces of evil. Other characters include the King of Egypt, the Black Prince of Paradine and the Doctor, who is responsible for repairing all the damage done during the play.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The text is doggerel verse dating from the Eighteenth Century. An older version from the Sixteenth Century has the title 'History of the Seven Champions of Christendom'. The genesis of this work is lost in the olden time.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Pace Egg play can claim a long mysterious journey out of the past into an active present. To this day by the boys of Calder High School, Mytholmroyd perform the play. They wear brightly coloured costumes and paper headdresses. There are seven performances during the day at different locations in Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Midgley, Luddenden and Todmorden. Seven is a magic number.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Pace Egg play of the northern counties, in its fullest version, includes the folk play of Saint George and the Dragon. In mid Lancashire however, it is more common for a circle or a half circle of men to sing a dramatic version of the Pace Egg song. This Lancashire version is from the singing of Emma Vickers and appears in 'Garners Gay', a collection by Fred Hamer.</p>
<p></p>
<p>I beg your leave kind gentlemen,</p>
<p>And you ladies of renown,</p>
<p>For we have come a-pace-egging,</p>
<p>And we wish to make it known,</p>
<p>Now ladies all and gentlemen,</p>
<p>To you we'll give a song,</p>
<p>We'll call upon our comrades,</p>
<p>And we'll call them one by one.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Because we're jovial lads,</p>
<p>We'll do no harm wherever we may go</p>
<p>For we are come a-pace-egging</p>
<p>You're very well to know.</p>
<p></p>
<p>And so the next that does come in,</p>
<p>He is a sailor brave,</p>
<p>He's new been ploughing the ocean,</p>
<p>And splitting the briny wave,</p>
<p>But now he has come back again,</p>
<p>With money all in store,</p>
<p>He says he'll marry a pretty lass,</p>
<p>And go to sea no more.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Because we're jovial lads,</p>
<p>We'll do no harm wherever we may go</p>
<p>For we are come a-pace-egging</p>
<p>You're very well to know.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Now the next that does come in,</p>
<p>She is our lady gay,</p>
<p>And from her native country,</p>
<p>She's lately run away,</p>
<p>With her red cap and feather on,</p>
<p>And fancy crinoline,</p>
<p>And all her delight is</p>
<p>In drinking red port wine.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Because we're jovial lads,</p>
<p>We'll do no harm wherever we may go</p>
<p>For we are come a-pace-egging</p>
<p>You're very well to know.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Now the last that does come in,</p>
<p>He is a jolly man,</p>
<p>And if he cannot please you right,</p>
<p>He'll do the best he can,</p>
<p>He is a jolly fellow,</p>
<p>And he wears a straw tail,</p>
<p>And all his delight is</p>
<p>In drinking well mulled ale.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Because we're jovial lads,</p>
<p>We'll do no harm wherever we may go</p>
<p>For we are come a-pace-egging</p>
<p>You're very well to know.</p>
<p></p>
<p>And now you have seen us all,</p>
<p>You can think what you've a mind,</p>
<p>But if you give us a pace egg,</p>
<p>We'll think you're very kind,</p>
<p>Now ladies all and gentlemen,</p>
<p>To you we'll bid adieu,</p>
<p>And if we haven't pleased you right,</p>
<p>We'll come in a year or two.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Because we're jovial lads,</p>
<p>We'll do no harm wherever we may go</p>
<p>For we are come a-pace-egging</p>
<p>You're very well to know.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>On Easter Saturday, in the town of Bacup in Lancashire, the 'Britannia Coconut Dancers' or as they are better known 'The Nutters' perform a strange ritual dance, which is over a hundred years old. Some of the participants must be getting on that way too.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The dancers, traditionally, are all men. They black their faces and dress, from head to foot, in black and white costumes. They attach wooden discs or 'nuts' to the palms of their hands, their waists, and to their knees. Vigorously, they clap their 'nuts' in time with the music. It doesn't bear thinking about.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On Easter Sunday, in some parts of Britain and on Easter Monday in others, particularly in the north, the custom of pace egging or egg rolling still flourishes. The custom of egg rolling represents the rolling away of the stone from Christ's tomb. The eggs are hard-boiled and painted with bright colours - sometimes red, to symbolise the blood of Christ. Sustained by the exuberance of the children this quaint practice is an ever popular part of a holiday ritual.</p>
<p></p>
<p>On Easter Tuesday in Bristol, in the southwest of England, according to custom each choirboy of Saint Michael's On the Mount received a large bun known as a 'Tuppenny Starver' as a special treat after the service. This tradition has morphed somewhat and now all children and adults attending the service receive a spicy 'Tuppenny Starver'. This confection is a two-handed job and at a distance could be mistaken for medium sized pizza.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The origin of the custom is unknown, but the church records show it happening from the middle of the Sixteenth Century onwards. There is a belief that the custom grew during a time when black bread was common fare and white bread was a luxury, made or kept for special occasions such as Easter. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>According to ‘Information Britain’, in 1748 Saint Michael's On the Mount parishioners Mary and Peter Davis fearing a shortfall in church funds left a bequest to support the 'Tuppenny Starver' tradition.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At Hocktide, the second Tuesday after Easter, it is the turn of the Hungerford Tutti-men. It is the custom for the Tutti or Titheing men to visit the houses of Hungerford one after the other. The proceedings start at 9.00am when the Town Crier, in traditional livery of grey and scarlet, sounds a Seventeenth Century horn from the Corn Exchange. This horn is a copy of the original Fourteenth Century horn presented by the Plantagenet John of Gaunt, 1<sup>st</sup> Duke of Lancaster and Aquitaine [1340-1399]. After the horn sounding ceremony the gathering elects the officers of the court. They include The Constable, the Portreeve, the Bailiffs, the Overseers of the Common, and the Ale Tasters</p>
<p></p>
<p>The Tutti-men then collect staffs decorated with ribbons and flowers. They dress in morning coats and top hats. On their rounds of the town the Tutti-men demand money from men and kisses from girls. In return the girls receive an orange from the 'Orange Scrambler' who carries a sack of oranges and wears a cock-feathered hat. What the men receive the legend does not disclose.</p>
<p></p>
<p>A Civic Luncheon starts about 1.00pm after which guests and new commoners have to submit to the ceremony of 'Shoeing the Colt'. This ritual involves driving a nail into the heel of the right shoe, and then the appropriate functionary serves a strong, hot punch. Later, the gathering throws pennies and oranges either to or at the crowd of children waiting beneath the windows.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The whole ceremony is to commemorate the granting, by John of Gaunt, of free fishing rights on the River Kennet, and free use of the common lands of Hungerford.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Well, there you go. A sample of Easter events in the Old Dart, there are others of note, Christian and pre Christian, not covered here. The Pax Cakes Ceremony, the Skipping Marble Championship, Burning Judas, Widows Bun Ceremony, Rivington Pike Fair, the Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie Scramble, and the Whitebread Meadow Running Auction all have much to offer. Always leave something for next time that's my motto.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Easter, this ancient festival of faith, hope, love, fertility and renewal with its giving and receiving may seem to have lost its way, the true meaning buried under an avalanche of mass-produced chocolate eggs and rabbits, ludicrously expensive greeting cards, designer-label fluffy bunnies, all day all channel re-runs of Hollywood biblical epics and late-night encore presentations of Easter Parade. But has it lost its way? You tell me. When it's your turn to cross 'Whinny Moor' will you have a pair of shoes and a sturdy coat to help you? If you have, then it hasn't lost its way, at least, not for you.</p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">References and Acknowledgments: Douglas Brice, The Folk Carol of England. Herbert Jenkins, London, 1967. Keith Feiling, A History Of England, Book Club Associates UK 1974. Bob Copper, A Song For Every Season, Paladin, St. Albans, 1975. Peter Kennedy, Folk Song s of Britain and Ireland, (Collection) Cassell, London, 1975. Dermott Ryder, Ryder Round Easter, FM Guide, 2MBS Sydney NSW, 1982. Garners Gay, Fred Hamer, (Collection) E.F.D.S. London, MCMLXVII. Albion - A Legendary Guide To Britain, Jennifer Eastwood, Grafton Books, London, 1985. Dermott Ryder, Easter, Folk Odyssey 2000.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1"> </span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">From: Next © Dermott Ryder April 2014</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
104: COALFACE POET
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2014-02-24:5231298:BlogPost:52197
2014-02-24T02:30:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p> </p>
<p>There was a time when I travelled the valleys of South Wales quite extensively. I have clear, sometimes dramatic, memories of battling both the roads and the elements. I remember Rhymney, Llanilleth, Cwm, Ebbw Vale, Brecon Beacons, Merthyr Tydfil, Bryn-Mawr, Black Mountain and the Heads of the Valley Road.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sitting in the quiet of the local library,</p>
<p>I seek enlightenment in an antediluvian</p>
<p>on-loan tome, available to own only</p>
<p>from a mail-order book…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There was a time when I travelled the valleys of South Wales quite extensively. I have clear, sometimes dramatic, memories of battling both the roads and the elements. I remember Rhymney, Llanilleth, Cwm, Ebbw Vale, Brecon Beacons, Merthyr Tydfil, Bryn-Mawr, Black Mountain and the Heads of the Valley Road.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sitting in the quiet of the local library,</p>
<p>I seek enlightenment in an antediluvian</p>
<p>on-loan tome, available to own only</p>
<p>from a mail-order book shop, at a price.</p>
<p>that would most surely anger the bard.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He, a thinker, almost forgotten now,</p>
<p>wrote with passion of the rigours and</p>
<p>privations endured by the pugnacious,</p>
<p>often half-starving and always furious</p>
<p>working class of a subterranean Wales.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rebellious… never reckless, he rang</p>
<p>The Bells of Rhymney for the world.</p>
<p>A good friend to the wild Welsh hills,</p>
<p>made his song of the Brecon Beacons</p>
<p>on a stroll to Merthyr Tydfil long ago.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A poet, born, lived and died in Wales,</p>
<p>knew fetid pit and fresh mountain air,</p>
<p>no Elgin Marbles to demean his voice,</p>
<p>or diminish its power, or penetration,</p>
<p>into the hearts and minds of his people.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>End Note:</b></p>
<p>Idris Davies [1905-1953] was born in Rhymney, near Caerphilly in South Wales, the Welsh-speaking son of colliery worker Evan Davies and his wife Elizabeth Ann. He became a coalface poet, writing in Welsh, but later writing exclusively in English. He was a socialist, a social historian being the only poet to cover and record important events of the early twentieth century in the Valleys and coalfields.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Idris Davies produced a considerable body of poetic work, he is best remembered today however for the iconic, ‘The Bells of Rhymney’. This haunting echo of South Wales resistance comes from his 1938 collection, ‘Gwalia Deserta’ otherwise known as ‘Wasteland of Wales’ or Wales a Desert or possibly Deserted Wales, depending upon the translator.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Pete Seeger, American socialist activist, writer and folk singer adapted the poem and presented it as a 1950s folk song thus taking it to international audiences and establishing it in the popular culture. In the 1970s Welsh entertainer Max Boyce brought the work ‘When We Walked to Merthyr Tydfil’ to a club, record and radio.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">February 2014 – Liverpool NSW - © Dermott Ryder</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">From a reading at the Screw Soapers Guild</span></p>
103: MEMORIES CLEAR – IMAGES OF HOLMFIRTH
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2014-01-21:5231298:BlogPost:52129
2014-01-21T01:00:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I wrote ‘Memories Clear – Images of Holmfirth’ as a result of researching ‘Questions In Time’ a journal article for the magazine ‘Open Writing’. The focus of the article being the traditional choral folksong ‘The Holmfirth Anthem’- a long-time favourite of mine, and others - the research, started in the days of the floppy disc and completed in the digital everything age was long overdue. The town of Holmfirth overlooks the Holm Valley in the West Yorkshire…</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I wrote ‘Memories Clear – Images of Holmfirth’ as a result of researching ‘Questions In Time’ a journal article for the magazine ‘Open Writing’. The focus of the article being the traditional choral folksong ‘The Holmfirth Anthem’- a long-time favourite of mine, and others - the research, started in the days of the floppy disc and completed in the digital everything age was long overdue. The town of Holmfirth overlooks the Holm Valley in the West Yorkshire Pennines.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I have personal recollections of hard Pennine travelling, battling traffic and snow in the days before the motorways. Heading east in the early morning and into the rising sun or heading west in the late afternoon and into the setting sun always made for a long day. I remember Woodhead and Saddleworth and of course I remember Holmfirth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> Memories Clear - Images Of Holmfirth’ appears in its original three verse form in the ‘Open Writing’ article, ‘Questions In Time’. However, after presenting this short work as part of poetry readings at Strathfield Poets, Sydney NSW, and at The Screw Soapers Guild, Liverpool NSW, I have revisited, revised and enlarged it in order to capture even more, to me at least, indelible images of Holmfirth</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One series of images I could not resist including are those of the local coal merchant’s horse and cart wending its way through cobbled streets, past the Co-op, to deliver its cargo door to door. The Advertising emblazoned on the cart reads ‘The flames of desire from Hinchliffe’s Coal’. Clearly, this is a coal marketeer years ahead of his time and with fire in his belly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Set in September 1939 these scenes appear in ‘Compo Drops In’, episode two of the second and final series of the prequel ‘The First Of The Summer Wine’, an engaging introduction, after the fact, to the long running series ‘The Last Of The Summer Wine’, a poignant reminder of life in pre-war working class Britain.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Memories: clear to mind, bold images,</p>
<p>mark the time of the fast passing years,</p>
<p>in a place ready for late springtime rain</p>
<p>to bless lanes of cobbles and bluebells,</p>
<p>at the advent of a Holm Valley summer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Nearby green Pennine Ways to wander,</p>
<p>through long valleys and on rolling hills,</p>
<p>bright autumn days, all chill and tingle.</p>
<p>Wool bonnets, with ear muffs, for sale,</p>
<p>from Aunty’s Shop in old Barrack Fold.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Indian summer seeking a golden autumn,</p>
<p>all too soon to discover a waiting winter,</p>
<p>as the great artist forms a season’s pallet,</p>
<p>and fills the silvering skies with turmoil,</p>
<p>anxiety, and with so many shades of grey.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Street scene: horse strains, harness groans,</p>
<p>rubbed brass reflects rays of late sunshine.</p>
<p>Wheels grind cobble grit under metal rims,</p>
<p>to carry precisely filled bags of anthracite,</p>
<p>flames of desire… from Hinchliffe’s Coal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fog… flint tipped rain and freezing sleet,</p>
<p>glacially frosty mornings, ice-capped pools,</p>
<p>breath-taking wind and flailing snowstorms,</p>
<p>welcome warmth, with kindle and coal fire,</p>
<p>as winter wanes, snowdrops promise spring.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I will claim this set of images as a second cousin to ‘The Holmfirth Anthem’ and dedicate it to the writers, directors, producers and players of the 295 episodes of ‘The Last Of The Summer Wine’, to the two short seasons of ‘The First Of The Summer Wine’, to The Watersons, to The Holm Valley Beagles, to The Dransfields, to Peter Hinchliffe - editor of ‘Open Writing’ and, of course, to Holmfirth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">August 2103 – revised January 2014 © Dermott Ryder</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
102: NEWPORT FIFTY YEARS ON
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2013-11-25:5231298:BlogPost:51718
2013-11-25T04:00:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Somewhere in the inspirational past an erudite lecturer of economics introduced me and my fellow inebriates to the maxim ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics’, it has remained with me as a guiding light throughout my working life, so much so that, with apologies to Mark Twain [1835-1910] I often paraphrase it into support of other arguments.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I use the term argument not in a contentious way, a dispute where there is strong disagreement, but as a fact…</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Somewhere in the inspirational past an erudite lecturer of economics introduced me and my fellow inebriates to the maxim ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics’, it has remained with me as a guiding light throughout my working life, so much so that, with apologies to Mark Twain [1835-1910] I often paraphrase it into support of other arguments.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I use the term argument not in a contentious way, a dispute where there is strong disagreement, but as a fact or assertion offered as evidence that something is true.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For instance: ‘there are lies, damned lies and history’. One hesitates to use the word ‘always’ so I will say that this pearl of wisdom may ‘almost’ always be applied to history. Please keep in mind that the victors in war, commerce or cultural imperialism write history and that it must be, by the nature of things, at odds with truth from the word go.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Today’s historians create a current view of history by agreeing, disagreeing or plagiarising past historians. Their contribution to society at large is minimal and for as long as they write books that hardly anyone will read they do little damage.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A much more dangerous genre is the history contrived by politicians, sabre toothed businessmen and dynastic media barons. This form of mass mesmerisation is perpetrated, in the main, to bury the truth beyond recovery, to manipulate the seething masses, to sustain the bright and shining lies and, wherever possible, to avoid criminal or war crime prosecution.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>However, screen writers are the really dangerous ones; they construct the most malevolent manifestations of history. Beguiling but harmful, their work permeates our daily lives, impossible to avoid or evade. In the cinema the big screen idol with perfect teeth and the beautifully smooth Botox babes use their words to tell stories that might or might not be true in parts. They call it entertainment and sometimes, in a sadly misguiding way, it is.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>At home on the small screen, in our cocoon of comforting self-delusion, it must be a different story. Surely, aside from a little poetic license or aesthetic embellishment, nobody would ever beam misleading mediocrity and lies into the sanctuary of our own living room, would they?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When George Santayana [1863-1952] coined the phrase ‘The One who does not remember history is bound to live through it again.’ I wonder did he have any insight into how cinema and television screen writers would trivialise and distort the history we must avoid re-living...</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This brings me to the recently screened television miniseries ‘The Kennedys’, which purports to tell the story of the Irish American Catholic Political Dynasty famous for many things, including sex drugs, rock and roll, film star bonking and several volumes of highly quotable quotes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I looked forward to the series, to a historically sound, socially accurate and ethical presentation of people and events in play. To my generation the action was set in momentous years and apart from an ingrained dislike of Joseph Kennedy senior, influenced by my Grandmother’s low opinion of him and of his wartime German sympathies, I quite liked the Kennedys as human beings, flaws and all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What I saw on my television screen did not meet my expectations. Instead of a meticulously researched, skilfully written and empathetically directed docudrama I encountered a facile, excessively sentimentalised, anaemic and spiritless third rate soap opera. The dialogue corny, the characters two dimensional, it was a cross between ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘The Brady Bunch’, and ‘The Lucy Show’. It is impossible for me to believe that even Irish American Catholics could be as dull and unengaging as this pot boiler portrayed them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Demeaning powerful figures and significant events in our history in this way makes a travesty of the human journey and is a sad and sorry comment on the disintegration of the American way of performing art. It comes as no surprise that the major networks rejected this fiasco.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The tragedy here is that the producers of this hideously sub-standard work should have dumped it in a forgotten storeroom behind the ‘Five and Dime’ in Albuquerque. Unfortunately what ever was left of their good judgement deserted them. They farmed it out to an oblivion distributor who sold it on to several organizations that should have known better.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I watch the flickering screen and suffered the inane utterings of the characters until my pain threshold cried out, this far and no further. Then I reached for the remote control and pressed the merciful release button.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In the comforting silence I reminisced: Can you remember where you were when you heard of the assassination of Jack Kennedy? Many people can. I was in Newport, silent and in shock.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Then the dark powers of the US buried a hero, framed a fool for his murder and got right on with the chicanery of subverting the government of the people by the people for the people.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The highway is closed and the carnival over,</p>
<p>he could have done more but he didn't have time.</p>
<p>The light died in the darkness, the singer fell silent,</p>
<p>the backing band faltered, lost rhythm and rhyme.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A child in the garden where gods are remembered,</p>
<p>where weathered stone markers grow old and decay,</p>
<p>salutes in a moment of fear, pain and confusion,</p>
<p>and asks: "Why is my father leaving this way.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>A tall woman answers, no tears in her eyes,</p>
<p>resolute and defiant, a cold Arlington day.</p>
<p>“We are who we are and we do what we do,</p>
<p>say goodbye to your father the warrior’s way.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We stand and we watch, tears brim in our eyes,</p>
<p>a voice deep inside screams out at the wrong.</p>
<p>But grim truth is hidden for years, rolling years,</p>
<p>but nothing can hide the truth for too long.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In time we discover the gold crested hero</p>
<p>had feet made of clay, was less than a god.</p>
<p>No soul of a poet or heart of a champion</p>
<p>is laid here to rest ‘neath the Arlington sod.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Just a man of his time with power in his grasp,</p>
<p>second child of a despot, a king in his way,</p>
<p>his vestments of power fade with his glory,</p>
<p>as self-serving cowards and vile liars betray.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sun setting on empires grows cool in the noon,</p>
<p>shadows grow deeper as light slinks away.</p>
<p>The evening draws into a long starless night,</p>
<p>and black spirits of tyranny await a new day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The funeral of the President was a magnificent affair. A nation mourned in comradeship, pride and dignity. When the flag waving stopped and the martial music drifted away into the distance with the marching bands there was a moment of silence. When the breast-beating speeches slipped from memory Washington DC did what it does best and assassinated the character of the fallen leader.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Fifty years on they threw a party – but nobody came…</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-1">From: An Evening at the Screw Soapers Guild</span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-1">November 2013 © Dermott Ryder</span></strong></p>
<p> </p>
101: VOTE FOR US RAP
tag:www.sydneypoetry.com,2013-09-06:5231298:BlogPost:50789
2013-09-06T00:30:00.000Z
Dermott Ryder
http://www.sydneypoetry.com/profile/DermottRyder
<p> </p>
<p> With the coming of every election, confusion reigns supreme at poling booths all over the country. Each party's dedicated faithful hand out a form of instant litter known as 'how to vote cards' and the ever-growing army of floating voters ignores them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The 'how to vote card' is a political paradox. It can be very useful when deciding how not to vote, despite the unconscionable vitriol spewed out daily in the gutter press of the Rupert the Dirty…</p>
<p> </p>
<p> With the coming of every election, confusion reigns supreme at poling booths all over the country. Each party's dedicated faithful hand out a form of instant litter known as 'how to vote cards' and the ever-growing army of floating voters ignores them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The 'how to vote card' is a political paradox. It can be very useful when deciding how not to vote, despite the unconscionable vitriol spewed out daily in the gutter press of the Rupert the Dirty Digger.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Down at the booth on poling day -</p>
<p>'how to vote cards' on display -</p>
<p>said vote for us or her or him.</p>
<p>I dropped mine in the garbage bin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>True blue Liberals, at the gate,</p>
<p>born to rule, accept your fate;</p>
<p>our tax cuts will make you rich,</p>
<p>or have you living in a ditch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Labor with red banners bold</p>
<p>say our guy has a heart of gold,</p>
<p>wait 'til you hear what he's planned,</p>
<p>he'll lead us to the Promised Land.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The National party wanted me,</p>
<p>to vote their way and plainly see</p>
<p>the hardships farming desert sand,</p>
<p>bulldozing forests and clearing land.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Independent’s looking grim.</p>
<p>no one will take a card from him,</p>
<p>he's a closet Liberal, that we know,</p>
<p>but he's trying not to let it show.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The sad little Greenie, all alone</p>
<p>sat talking on his mobile phone,</p>
<p>the deal is done; vote this way please,</p>
<p>your preferences will save the trees.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Shooter's party in cowboy boots,</p>
<p>said we ain't trigger happy brutes,</p>
<p>we need our guns for work and play,</p>
<p>and for shooting signs on the motorway.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Cannabis party, to the point,</p>
<p>Said vote for us, and rolled a joint,</p>
<p>Cracking jokes, and playing the fool,</p>
<p>I'm with you man. Hey man that's cool.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Flat Earth party came along,</p>
<p>said vote for us, you can't go wrong,</p>
<p>we'll fight on and on and never yield,</p>
<p>Our world's a level playing field.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Gay Whale Freedom girl or guy</p>
<p>said 'hello sailor' and winked an eye,</p>
<p>come out with us, we'll set you free</p>
<p>and then sprayed perfume over me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> Don’t worry now; just keep your nerve,</p>
<p>you can get the government you deserve.</p>
<p>Go, go Clive Palmer – don’t you see,</p>
<p>I'll start a party - come and vote for me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! I couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Cast this lot aside, they are too absurd.</p>
<p>I rule from afar, you can take my word.</p>
<p>I’m the Dirty Digger and I’m in charge,</p>
<p>puppets jump, to my word writ large.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Vote this way, don’t be a prat</b>.</p>
<p><b>(Everybody – with feeling)</b></p>
<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><b>Oh nooo! we couldn't vote like that</b>.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">From: An Evening With Strathfield Poets</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-1">September 2013 © Dermott Ryder</span></p>