A distant summer heat and a new word.

A DISTANT SUMMER – AND A NEW WORD

Aotearoa – The land of the Long White Cloud

Townsend, my oldest friend from school days and I now have a stack of years between us, so as the new year dawned I set off to share a Significant Birthdate with him and his remarkable family at home in New Zealand. I had four brilliant weeks with David T, his wondrously long-suffering wife Valérie, their dynamic quartet of next generation siblings, plus 14 year old Felix representing a crop of even more dynamic grandchildren.

Pohutukawa trees bloomed, tui and bell birds called, wild flowers swarmed, and as floods, tempests and ice smote the UK, down in the antipodes summer unfurled, for example at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Wellington where folk clapped and danced merrily to the Beat Girls, rock and soul classics filling the air as beaming sunlight blended into balmy dusk…

Botanical rock Scorching Bay, Miramar, North Island, January 10th

A New Zealand “Christmas Tree”, a pohutukawa, by the beach. Takahēs at home – flightless, indigenous birds

Wellington is the home of WETA, the film company with whom Peter Jackson made the movies drawing on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” novels. Jackson is a significant figure in New Zealand, who has put some of his millions to good use in a number of impressive community projects, not least by restoring several Art Deco cinemas, which now thrive as part of local life. Here’s the Miramar Roxy, guarded by Gandalf. Alongside this image inspired by Sir Ian McKellen (who in recent years has re-visited “younger” roles like Hamlet and Romeo) here sits a vision of another rather senior, rather short version of Shakespeare’s greatest romanic story, adapted by Wellington-based writer/performer Pinky Agnew, who co-starred with David T in providing entertainment at the brilliant, al fresco birthday party. (I myself contributed a modest vignette as The Nurse.)

What satisfaction can’st thou have tonight?

Picture: Murray Lloyd

A joy to add to the birthday fun was a trip northwards to Whanganui – a coastal town which is also a river resort – and then further up the West Coast, to New Plymouth. At Whanganui a “retro” festival was in full swing, which suited our now unavoidably “retro” status. There were lots of amazing vintage cars, local bands, a journey on a restored river steamboat, and a ride on a trailer tugged by an ancient traction engine. There’s also an Opera House, built in 1899, still standing despite the earthquake shocks the region is prone to. There we watched exuberant opera scenes, performed by graduating students from the National Opera School.

Along the coast at New Plymouth, we splashed merrily with surfers in the foam, looked at an extraordinary art gallery made of distorting mirrors, and marvelled at the sunset views the volcanic terrain offers at the close of each day.

In New Zealand the Maori community’s heritage and status, and the current government’s attitude to both, are prominent issues. In the town of Pātea, we came across a striking monument, built in 1933 – a lasting impression of the first human settlers to make their homes in these islands some 900 or so years ago.

Turi and Rongorongo monument, Pātea.

Back in October Townsend came to Europe. He wanted his visit to include Malta, where his dad had served in the Royal Navy during World War Two, and kindly invited me along. I’d never thought to go there before – and if you haven’t either, please add it to your bucket list. It’s a fascinating island, crucially placed to accumulate lots of history, much of it linked into Britain’s colonial and military past. Consequently there’s an Anglican cathedral as well as a Catholic one, but it’s the latter religion which has dominated the culture. The Inquisition, the Vatican’s vicious thought-police, terrorised Malta’s citizens from 1561 through till the end of the 18th century, when Napoleon – who had recently occupied the country – put a stop to it. In 1802 the Brits invaded and put a stop to Napoleon’s occupation, and stayed for the next 150 years or so. Malta provided a vital base for UK forces in WW2, and withstood a prolonged Nazi siege, which led to the entire population being awarded the George Cross in 1942.The Island finally gained independence in 1964, and remains part of the Commonwealth. Amongst a terrific range of fine architecture is one of the oldest working theatres in Europe, the glorious Teatru Manoel, where shows have been staged since 1731.

Palms and the Anglican cathedral; the Teatru Manoel; the Catholic Cathedral, with a choice of major Caravaggios

Harbour gondolas, Valetta; the Inquisition Torture Chamber; a view to the old Royal Navy base, now hosting luxury yachts.

Conversations with Townsend in these far-flung locations have minted a new word. For many of us warily approaching the days Shakespeare called “the sere and yellow” the urge to record the past, to catalogue memories and reflections – by making memoires – starts to nag. Townsend’s are under way, notes from a life seeking social repair and change – through directing care services in big London boroughs, through excursions into politics, alongside a running commentary of letters and articles in the media, all laced with sharp, salty humour. Another long-term friend Doug D’Arcy, as mentioned previously in this blog, has shared graphic insights into life in the music trade in a series of podcasts – now complemented by a crisp mix of written notes and pictures from the music scene around Manchester University in the late sixties. (Link below).

Throughout October and January, anecdotes rattled back and forth. In New Zealand daily swims in the sea at Scorching Bay sharpened the synapses – and images, songs, sounds and sensations came popping back from distant decades.

And SO, I ask you to bear with me as I start to mix memories into forthcoming episodes of this blog, so that it becomes – wait for it – a blogoire. Linguists will immediately spot this as a portmanteau word, and as such I invite you to welcome it warmly, as it emerges, blushing and flustered, from Pseuds’ Corner…..

Blogoire, Episode 1

I can claim that there are, in a sense, only three generations between me and the Battle of Waterloo. OK it’s stretching it a bit, but look: my father’s mother, Gran Jones to my sisters and me, was born in 1879. That’s a LONG time ago – Townsend points out it was the year of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, immortalised in the movie “Zulu” by Stanley Baker and Michael Caine. It means that Gran was thirty-five at the outbreak of the First World War. It also means that when she was a child anyone in their seventies or older would have remembered the aforementioned Napoleon being alive, albeit in exile – he died on St Helena in 1821. So there we are. Gran, whom I remember very well from my childhood days in Cardiff, was born during the Zulu Wars, lived through the Boer War and the First World War, and was very much in evidence when I arrived towards the end of the Second World War. Margaret Jones, our Gran, was quite tall and slim, with red hair, was often kind and caring – but could also be quite austere, with a very Welsh “chapel” attitude to matters of behaviour. Certain days in the calendar had to be respected and observed – for example on Good Friday, the day Jesus died, we children had to stay indoors, be quiet and not play noisy games. Transgressions were met with pained, carefully measured reproach – nobody could instil Guilt quite like Gran.

Were it not for the war, I might have arrived in Cardiff – but our dad, who was a Conscientious Objector, was sent to be part of the Civil Defence of Portsmouth and served on the fireboats protecting that hugely important military naval base. My mother wanted to keep the family together, and moved with her three daughters to a house just near Portsmouth, in Southsea. When the time came to deliver me, she was evacuated from Southsea – Portsmouth being a prime German bombing target – to a temporary maternity ward inland, at a former manor house at Bramshott, Hampshire – so I like to think I made my first entrance in a rather grand setting. A few months after my arrival, our mum took me, with my three sisters, back to our dad’s ancestral homeland, Wales – and thus I became a little Cardiff kid. For the next seven years. Then I became a Yorkshire lad. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

My arrival (and three months later, Townsend’s) came as the fortunes of war were beginning to turn. Mussolini’s Italy had surrendered, and secret plans for what became the Allies’ “D Day” invasion of Europe were under way. Before our return to Wales, I would be taken out in my push-chair, often along the Southsea South Parade, where in-training army and navy recruits would be seen marching up and down. Between the Parade and the sea was, and is, a sturdy wall with stern notices proclaiming it as a place of danger. My sister Olive, taking me out one day, was challenged by school-pals to a “dare” that she couldn’t walk the push-chair with me in it, along the top of the wall. We Joneses aren’t ones to step away from a challenge, so I, a gurgling infant, was duly pushed along the wall, with a sheer drop into the surging deep but inches away… Olive has felt guilty about it ever since – pangs she and I sought to assuage many years later, by visiting the Scene of the Crime.

Obviousy, I don’t remember this early adventure but such things linger in the subconscious – could this be why decades later working on Cunard ships, watching the deep green ocean sliding by I always felt quite at home? Who knows. The next journey then was into Wales. As the terrors of war receded my infant awareness grew – of Welsh-cakes and bible classes, mock-Gothic castles and trolley buses, a world where almost everything tasty, from eggs to bacon, was “on points” – that is, only available if your mum had enough coupons in her ration-book….

Watch this space for a taste of post-war Wales in Episode 2.

Meanwhile to return to my return from the far Antipodes, last week I found myself 35 thousand feet above exotic landscapes, burned brown desert hills in Iraq, and snowy mountains in Uzbekistan, lands where Genghis Khan’s hordes once roamed. I thought you might like the images caught by my trusty Pixel phone camera from the window of our glistening Airbus 380, as we streaked through the clouds towards an all too English February….