Depression

Depression.

He had a headache that was worse than usual. It made just moving his head very painful and resulted in a wave of nausea. He was tired.He had been in bed since seven last night. It was now eleven the next morning. Do the math as the Americans say, that is sixteen straight hours in bed – and he was still tired. It was much too painful and too much effort to even consider getting out of bed and going through the agony of showering, shaving and getting dressed to face the day. He just couldn’t do it. The day would be full of decisions to be made, what to wear, what to have for breakfast, what to do. Better to stay here in the decision free zone of his bed. Hide from the world that was so saw toothed, sharp and painfull. At least his duvet didn’t bite. It was his only friend. No one understood. ‘ Are you ill? What’s wrong? Why don’t you pull yourself together? Why don’t you go and get a job? Didn’t they understand that these questions had no relevance, they just didn’t apply to him as he was. He had no worth. He didn’t matter. He was nothing. No one would miss him if he wasn’t here.

            The thoughts raced around in his head. What should he do? Should he do anything? Did it matter? Who would care?

            He made a huge effort and opened his eyes. The daylight hurt his eyes, the effort hurt his muscles.  The decision hurt his brain. He hurt.

            The next stage was to get out of bed but, before climbing that mountain, he needed to sit up. He went through the decision process again and it came up positive – just. He tensed his muscles, closed his eyes against the light and sat up. Next was to swing his legs out of the bed and put his feet on the cold floor. It made him shudder but it was a relief to feel something, to care if his feet were cold or not.             Perhaps it was going to be a good day, one of those days when he thought he might be human, part of the human race that carried on with its life and didn’t understand why he didn’t care either way, if he lived or if he died.

            He made a huge effort and stood up. His feet were still cold from the stone flagged floor. His camp bed had been made up in his mate’s kitchen – the only one prepared to take him in after his wife had thrown him out as a lazy-good-for-nothing. Steve at least partly understood depression – the difference between being unhappy and being depressed, but even he had just about had enough of him.

            He couldn’t face the shower and the toothbrush so just pulled on some greasy jeans and a tee shirt with an old fleece on top for the pockets and warmth. It surprised him that he cared about that.

            Steve had left the car keys for him in case he wanted to go looking for a job. Who was going to employ him? He had a Master’s in computer science but he looked even odder than the norm for ITC specialists. That took some doing.

            He walked out into the garden, idly twisting the keys in his hand. He looked at the sky, blue, he checked the temperature, warm and there and then he decided it was a good day for it.

            The car was an old Clio but he didn’t mind the foreigness today, it would suit the purpose. A decision had been made, he was happy, all would understand and be happy for him.

            He needed to head North, it seemed right. He drove down the winding lane from Steve’s cottage to the junction with the A6, turned left and parallelled the M6 through Shap village and turned right towards junction 39 where the quarry lorries heaved their loads of aggregate from the Shap granite quarries. Destroying the mountains that had taken millenia to form in a few short years

            He turned North, heading towards junction 40 at Penrith but his target was the split section of the motorway as it climbed over Shap Summit. He pushed the Clio to its limit and manged to get to 93 as he went over the Summit, bounced over the safety barrier and crashed upside down on the rocky roadside.

            He was killed almost instantly but his last thought was that the misery ended here, no more trouble to anyone, no more depression, he was free and happy. His last thought was that at least he had gone out on a high.

            The insurance would allow Steve to get a better car and his wife to get a better husband. No one could prove that it was suicide – he had done the best that he could for everyone.
           Please forgive me.

Arrival in Aden

Arrival in Aden

It was hot on the bus, very hot. There was no glass in the windows, it had been replaced by wire mesh to reduce the risk of lethal flying glass shards in the event of a close bomb explosion. It also had the side benefit of providing some ventilation. This was not air conditioning, the wind blowing in through the mesh was over forty degrees so it was a contrast to the cool comfort of the plane. It was like sitting in an oven with a hair dryer blowing in your face.

            The driver was an RAF corporal who stopped the khaki painted bus on the airport apron near the parked VC10 and shouted ‘Sheba Ship’ several times. When there was no movement in response to this he sighed and then tried a more reasonable sounding, ‘This bus is to take anyone to the Royal Navy shore base in the dockyard here in Aden, also known as HMS Sheba or Sheba Ship’. There were two Naval bases in Aden, the other one was in the town and called by all ‘Sheba Shore’to differentiate them. At this there was some movement and a slow trickle of young men started towards the bus, all struggling in the 45 degree heat in UK clothes to carry a kit bag, a suitcase and a holdall, complete with a raincoat, always known as a ‘Burberry’ over one arm.     

            We had just landed at RAF Khormaksar at Steamer Point in Aden, Yemen. It was 1966. The flight from London had been long and the plane was filled by families returning after a trip home to England to break up the long stay in a foreign country to accompany their husbands on their long posting to this remnant of the British Empire – always called ‘Empire’, never ‘The Empire’ .Aden had been a self governing British Colony since 1963 but there was now great pressure from the local tribes for full independence. Britain was resisting this because of oil. The BP refinery there was a very useful supplier of fuel if there were access problems to the Persian Gulf and Aden was now the second busiest harbour in the world, after New York, so there there were many trade and access issues to sort out.

            The many children had been fretful on the flight, shouting, screaming, running up and down the aisle, getting in the way of the harassed stewardesses and so ensuring sleep was unlikely, if not impossible.

            There were three of us, on our way to join our first ship. Malcolm Joy from Plymouth, called ‘Malc’, ‘Taff’ Bartlett from Swansea - never did find out his real name - and myself ‘Dick’ Kefford. We had joined the Royal Navy three years before, spending a year,  eight months in my case but that is another story, at HM Fisgard at Torpoint, Cornwall followed by two years at HMS Collingwood, near Fareham in Hampshire. We were Artificer Apprentices starting our year at sea before returning to ‘Collingwood for a year to complete our training. The idea was to ‘join the fleet’ and spend a year on a ship, with some time in each of the Engineering departments that matched our specialities, mine was Control Engineering so, in addition to the general electrics, I could expect to spend some time on navaids and weapons.

            The driver put the ancient bus into gear with a crunch and set off through the streets of Aden to the Naval Base and Dockyard behind the Crescent. It was unlike anything I had been used to as it was my first trip abroad and something of a culture shock. The sheer scruffiness, dirt and suspect smells were something of a surprise. The town was full of open fronted little houses that doubled as shops, selling anything from electrical goods, watches and jewellery to soft drinks. Over it all loomed the extinct volcano that housed the infamous ‘Crater’. We arrived at HMS Sheba. I should note here that all ships and shore bases in the Royal Navy are always treated as ships and so called HMS. Leaving a shore base to go home or for an evening out is always known as ‘Going ashore’.

            We expected to be driven down to the dockside to meet our ship but were told to go straight to the guardhouse and report in. We did. There we were told that the ship had been diverted in the Mediterranean and so would be at Aden two weeks later than planned but we were not to worry, they would find us plenty of things to do. My ‘things’ consisted of joining the security detail to guard the base.

            After doing the usual Navy ‘joining routine’ which is the same where ever you are in the world and consists mainly of getting ticks on a ‘chitty’ as you let the various departments know you have arrived, Catering and Pay were the most important but you also had to pick up a set of bedding and be assigned somewhere to sleep – in our case it was the transit mess as we would, hopefully, only be there for a short time. I dropped my bedding off there which was the first time I had ever come across air conditioning – it was freezing cold after the outside heat. I claimed a bed by plonking my bedding on it and then I left Taff and Malc and went to the guardhouse for my briefing.

            As is usual with a colonial power, the local people didn’t like us much and wanted to get rid of us so the whole Aden garrison was on a war footing. This was the time of the Crater operation by Colonel ‘Mad Mitch’ Mitchell and bombs were going off daily. I was issued with a rifle at the armoury. This was an ancient Lee Enfield, bolt action 303 and ten rounds. I was told to load the magazine and take it, the rife and myself to the weapons sand pit where the Chief of the Watch was waiting. He explained the war situation, gave me a copy of the ‘Green Card – Orders for opening fire in Aden’ – checked that I had fired a 303 before and understood how to use it safely and sent me off for a 4 hour guard patrolling watch with an AB who was Sheba Ship’s Company and so based in Aden for two years.

            There I was, eighteen years old, with a loaded rifle in my hands with orders to shoot to kill, never aim to wound as he might still capable of shooting you,  any intruder who refused my shouted orders to stop – which had to be in Arabic, ‘Waqqaf’ and English.  A week before I had been in a classroom in Hampshire learning how to look after a ship’s electrical systems – another culture shock. Time to grow up quickly. This became even more real when I learned from my new watch buddy that two intruders had been shot dead by my predecessors a few weeks before. There had been the mandatory court of enquiry but they had been cleared and, in fact, recommended for their action in protecting the base. I still have the green card and can remember the Arab challenges we had to shout on sighting a suspect – ‘Stop – Waqqaf, Stop – Waqqaf – Stop or I will open fire, Stop – Waqqaf – I am opening fire now.’

             The worst thing about having a rifle loaded with live ammunition was that, at first  was a fearsome responsibility but, after a few days, it became almost a pleasure to feel that you had the power of life and death over other people. I found this really scary so I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. This confirmed for me the dictum that ‘ All power corrupts and …’

            Walking around the base for a our four hour watch on random routes pre determined by choosing route cards from a box in the guard room was boring after a time, especially at night. My oppo who was always on watch with me was a bit of a ‘Jack the lad’ so had an inexhaustible fund of sea stories that passed the time and although I took them all with a pinch of salt, they gave me a lot of information about life at sea. One night he was in a really bad mood and was determined to ‘have some fun’, as he put it. The wardroom fronted on to Aden harbour so we were instructed to keep a close lookout over the water for intruding swimmers as they might be carrying a bomb. He flung some cups that had been left one of the  harbour side tables far out into the water, unslung his rifle from his shoulder and shouted the three escalating challenges before firing twice into the darkness.  I went to the nearest phone on he wall, as I had been told to do if there were any incidents, and called the guardhouse where the standby guard, who slept in their clothes, was shaken awake and told to get down to the harbour side in double quick time. The Officer of the Day was also called and soon there was the makings of a small army around us. The Chief of the Watch took control, calmed it all down and asked my oppo what had happened. He explained that he thought he had seen a swimmer in the water, shouted the challenges and then opened fire when there was no response. The Chief asked if I had seen anyone. I said I had seen some splashing but couldn’t say if  it was a swimmer and confirmed the rest of his story. Searchlights were used to scan the water but nothing could be seen so everyone stood down and things gradually returned to normal. At the end of our watch we had to sit down and write a report because ‘a weapon had been discharged’ but nothing further came of it. It certainly livened up a quiet night though.

            We were told to patrol without a round in the breech so the bolt had to be worked to load a round from the magazine and the safety catch taken off before you could open fire. This was obviously for safety, ours but mostly other people’s. At the end of the watch, the procedure was, point the rifle down into the sandbox, remove the magazine from the rifle, pull back the bolt, visually check the breech was empty, close the bolt, take off the safety and then pull the trigger as a final check. Nothing should happen of course because there were no rounds in the rifle but one night there was a bang when my oppo pulled the trigger. He had been walking around all during the watch with the rifle ready to fire. He got reported for that episode and I had a different buddy on my watch after that. Probably just as well for my safety, he was a real nutter.

            Taff and Malc had also been put on guard duty by this time so, when our time off coincided, we used to go ashore together. One day we decided to go to the Lido which was a protected area of the beach, complete with shark nets, where the families congregated to swim and socialise. We decided to walk, carrying our towels rolled up with the swimming trunks. We got to the lido and changed into our trunks and came across the peculiar status symbols in Aden. There were no thoughts of having too much sun back then unless you allowed yourself to sunburned and blistered so there were no sun creams or any of that stuff. I don’t think a connection had even been made between melanoma and sun burn. The result of this was that once people had got a little sun tan to protect them, everyone spent as much time in the sun as they could so that the longest stayers had the darkest sun tan. So there we were, totally white and sticking out as what we would now call ‘Newbies’ advertising our need to be patronised as’white knees’.

            We had a good swim in spite of the mockery and started walking back to Sheba.Part way there a bomb went off in the street about a hundred yards away. We walked a little faster after that and resolved in future to take a taxi when we wanted to go for a swim. We were debriefed on the explosion when we got back after our swim and an apocryphal story circulated around the base that one of the questions we were asked was, ‘What steps did you take after the explosion?’ The answer came, ‘F***** great big ones’ No truth in it of course but that should never be enough to spoil a good story

                        We also went to the cinema few times. This was an open air one of course but it was peculiar in that it was built as normal cinema with walls and tiered seats but just without a roof. I can still remember being sat there waiting for the film to start and hearing the rusling sound of the leaves being blown around the floor in the evening breeze with the slight smell of drains wafting around.

            This was a time when attitudes were very different to what they are now. An example is the casual, unthinking racism of the day. There had not been much immigration to the UK by then so most people’s experience of different races and cultures was limited to the time they had spent in the forces, travelling around the British Empire. There was an air of assumed superority towards other races in their own countries as they were mostly the people being ruled by the British - this was before the days when most countries became independent. When these attitudes were combined with the Navy tradition of having its own names for everything and everyone the result was a language that would be unacceptable today. As an example, everyone in Aden, or any other country come to that, was addresssed as ‘John’ and taxis were known as ‘fast blacks’. I am sure this has all changed now and not before time.

            We often went shopping in Ma’lla, one of the small towns that make up Aden. The others are Tawali and Crater. We were banned from Crater because of the security situation there and Tawali was further to walk. Ma’lla was full of little shops selling jewellery and electronics. As an example a ‘genuine’ Rolex could be had for under a pound and would run for at least a week. Everything had to be haggled for, no one took the posted price seriously, it was just to get the haggling started. This was a whole new experience for English people who were used to paying the asking price. This led to a great deal of black catting when you got back to the base with your spoils, chuffed at how little you had paid and then one of your oppos would quiz you on the price and usually ended up saying, ‘you paid how much? I got one last week for a fifth of that.’ This tended to increase your desire to fight the good fight and learn how to haggle, including all the tricks such as comparing with ‘a shop just around the corner’ and being prepared to walk away from a too high price.

            It was a strange life and we were very happy when we were told that our ship was arriving a few days later.

The hanger

The hanger

I drove into the cavernous car park below the hanger. There was still room for several cars. It was dark. The steel beams were painted a drab grey. The high tensile bolts joining the steels glinted in the minimal yellow sodium lighting. There was no escaping it. It had to be done. We were all determined not to fail this time. We had prepared. We were ready. I stopped the car. We all got out. I dropped the seats to give more room in the load space. We closed the doors, the boot, and I pressed the zapper to lock the car. This was essential here.

            We walked over to the massive lift. ‘Maximum 25 persons or equivalent’ it warned sternly next to the poster prohibiting smoking. It rumbled steadily up from the car park into the brightly lit hanger. There was a lingering smell of something familiar – formaldehide? What would we find here? Would they still be here? Had they all been taken away?

            We followed the marked route, it was forbidden to deviate from it, some had tried but…We stayed together for safety. No one wanted to get lost in this huge hanger. No one wanted to get separated from the group.

            There were pallets and crates piled high. We did not see what we had come for. They must still be here. We could not bear to have to come here again. There were two bedrooms. There was no one sleeping. There was no privacy. Then we saw a trolley.We grabbed it and pulled it with us. We knew we would need it. They were going to be heavy – we knew that. I looked up at the roof far above us in the near darkness, through the faux ceiling. It was painted black, hiding the cable trays and ventilation ducts. What was up there that they didn’t want us to see? What was the need for the pretend ceiling, brightly lit?

            We turned the next corner. There was a computer on a stand, high from the floor. One of us logged on, entered the index number and looked at the cross reference to the storage bay, 52B. We checked the on line floor plan, we now knew where to look. We set off along the route. We followed the arrows on the floor, urging us on in our quest. We passed some Venetians. Why had they come all this way, only to see nothing?  Then there were rows of plants. Huh! Did they think we would be fooled into thinking this was a garden centre – in a hanger?

            We finally got to the storage bays. We could see them marching away from us in their orangeness in the gloom. We searched. Where was 52B? here was 27, now 36, now 47, getting closer. There it was, 52B. There were still some there, as the computer had promised – I don’t always believe computers. We wanted two. We helped each other to lift down two from the gantry and loaded them on to the trolley.

            We were stopped at the barrier, had to show a card and scan the bar codes, to keep the computer happy and ensure it would not start telling lies. We were released. We had got through. Back in the lift. Still no smoking allowed. We needed something, alcohol would be better, after we left the hanger behind us. I zapped the car. It winked back at me in silent recognition. We would soon be free. We loaded both of them into the car, flat in the loading space. One of us closed the boot. Another pushed the trolley back towards the lift, a brave move. The rest got in the car. I started the engine. I locked the doors. We were ready. I started off. I drove up from the car park. I accelarated. We drove around the roundabout. We were now on the M32. We all gave a sigh and shared high fives. We had done it. We were free. We would never dare to come back. Now for a drink in the Hen and Chicken.

            Mission accomplished. Two flat pack bed side cabinets from IKEA.

Limerick

There once was a writer near Chester

Who’s name was Victor Silvester

He thought that was grand

‘Cos he once ran a band

But for writing, he changed it to Esther

Writing challenge 21st September 2011

The Island

It had taken a long time. The undersea volcano from the mantle plume had broken the surface and continued to climb until it was a steep, rocky peak. It slowly became dormant, waiting until it chose to start erupting again to form another island in a different place as the Pacific tectonic plate moved slowly North over the plume.         
     Nature’s terra forming army then set about changing the raw island material. Coral polyps started building their home around the island and, as a by product, created a coral reef ringing the island and protecting it from the harsh waves and storms. A lagoon grew behind the protection of the reef and became a haven for fish that drifted in on the ocean currents, liked the place and stayed to bring up their families and have many children. Birds from other islands dropped guano on the sides of the peak creating soil and containing seeds which grew in the rich volcanic soil fertilised by their droppings. The plants growing on the hillsides trapped the sea mists and the winds rising up over the mountain cooled and dropped their moisture. Let there be rain. Streams started running down the hillsides, eroding the volcanic ash, creating dark clefts and gorges where ferns and the damp, drippy, creepy animals thrived. Coconuts drifted in before the wind and started a grove along the shore. The waves broke down the volcanic rock, beating against the black cliffs, turning the micas and feldspars into soft clays leaving the quartz grains to form beautiful sweeping beaches behind the cerulean lagoon. The clays were washed down the hills to form deep drifts of top soil. All this was done in a blink of a geological eye or longer than the history of humans on the planet,  depending on your point of view. What was eighty million in the four thousand six hundred million years of the life of the planet?

            The island waited, all had worked together to create a masterpiece – a paradise on Earth – by a series of unplanned accidents. But who was it for? Did it have to be for anyone? Did everything have to have a use? Did everything have to have a purpose? Couldn’t  it  just be?

            One day a ship arrived on the horizon and anchored outside the reef on the leeward side of the island, where the most beautiful sandy beaches lay. A boat was lowered from the ship with fifty people in it, dressed in Hawaiian shirts, shorts and sandals. It chugged towards the island, found a gap in the reef and entered the lagoon. There were gasps of astonishment from the humans at the clear, pure water, the fish swimming lazily around in their shoals of thousands and the miles of beautiful sandy beaches curving gently around the island, washed and gently graded by the endless ripples breaking on the golden sand. The boat ground its keel on the sand and stopped. A few egg laying turtles looked up dreamily and then continued about their business knowing that no one would ever hurt them because no one ever had.

            The humans jumped out of the boat and unloaded their supplies, chopped down a few trees to put up gazebos for shade, lit a fire with driftwood, dug latrine pits back towards the forest. They used nets to catch some fish and cook them on the fire. They also stole fresh laid eggs from the turtles to cook even though they were told to leave them as they were too salty to eat.

            After a long day of eating, drinking, shouting and arguing, the boat came back to collect the humans. It took them back to the ship which up anchored and left. The island gave a sigh of relief and calculated the damage. Many turtles would never be born, their eggs had been cooked then discarded as tasting terrible, the beach was a mess of savaged trees, discarded branches, beer cans, food wrappings, fish bones and carcasses, disgusting things and other general debris. Fish from the lagoon had been hunted, some to death and the rest traumatised by the alien species that had arrived so precipitously to kill and despoil.

            It would take about twenty years to restore the island to its normal pristine condition and for the animals to forget the traumas of the day the humans came. The island community hoped they would never come again, but now the island had been found…

            Paradise lost.

Writing challenge 13th September 2011.

Moving away from civilisation – Take 2

Her thoughts gradually came back to the here and now as she looked up at the morning sun shining through the window high above the altar. It was getting brighter now, turning the coloured glass from black to brilliant red, progressing  through the crimsons that she liked so much. She savoured the early morning mass in the chapel at this time of year. It was warm enough to concentrate on her internal life without being distracted by the shivering and goose bumps, in spite of the long johns and woolly vests she wore through the winter.. Father Flaherty gave the final blessing, intoned the dismissal and after he had processed to the rear of the chapel with the altar servers, Sister Mary and her fellow nuns slowly filed out of the chapel. They wandered down the stone flagged hallway to the dining hall where their breakfast awaited them, chattering like a squadron of sparrows after the long evening and night with no talking. Today it was porridge with a spoonful of honey and two slices of dry bread. In fact it was that every day, eternal, unchanging, just like the life of each nun in the convent.

            It was a big day in the life of Sister Mary, she had been a novitiate nun here for three years and now was the day she had to decide whether to confirm her vows and so decide to continue here for the rest of her life or to return to the outside and make for herself what most people would call a normal life.

            Mary, she never thought of herself as Sister Mary, enjoyed the life of the convent, the unchanging rituals, the simplicity, the hard work and, most of all, the time for the internal, contemplative life. She did not see the restrictions as irksome, she welcomed them. Some she delighted in. Working in the garden to grow the vegetables that they all depended on was one of her passions and the tiredness and muscle ache at the end of a hard day’s digging she welcomed as a sign of honest work, well done. The harvest and careful storage of the crops to see them through the long winters was one of the highlights of the year and something to give grateful thanks for. What about men? No, she preferred men to be like Father Flaherty, no temptation, no threat, just a sexless person in a frock. She exulted in the hardships, her simple barren cell with its thin, hard mattress on a wooden bed and cold stone floor, the early rising for the morning service and the long hours spent in the minimally heated chapel. Best of all was the Great Silence after Compline,  through the evening and night until after morning service.. No idle chatter here, simple signs between the Sisters to indicate needs, questions and answers, no need to make conversation, just space and peace to fill with her own thoughts and meditations. Most of the Sisters looked forward to the one hour recreation period each evening before Compline when they were free to gather in the dining room, share a pot of tea and chat together about anything in shared companionship, mend their clothes or indulge in their hobbies which generally tended to be sewing crafts of some kind. Mary did not, she saw this as an intrusion into her internal life and could not easily join in with the banal chatter of the other nuns.

            She had woken early this morning at three o’clock, an hour before she had to get up so she prepared to spend the hour looking back to her previous life ‘outside’. Would she miss it and did she really want to spend the rest of her life cooped up here, as outsiders would see it, behind these walls with no freedom, no decisions, no men, no family, working and worshipping until she died?

            Her life before she entered the convent had been almost the exact opposite to her present. She had been an Account Manager for an engineering company, responsible for developing new business and catering to the whims of her customers. It had been a high pressure life, a lot of travelling around Europe, working very long and strange hours, catching flights at all times of the night and day. She attended meetings and gave presentations in foreign cities followed by dinners where she often had to play host to business men who did not speak English. She had horrific memories of a dinner in Warsaw in the Jan Sobieski Hotel where there had been a succession of vodka toasts to a successful deal before the meal even started. She had only just made the flight home the next morning after being sick in  the hotel while rushing for the taxi. Her five year marriage to Michael had foundered on the twin pressures of her high octane working life and his lack of understanding. There was no blame on either side, they just amicably agreed to go their separate ways. She could, eventually see no point in staying in the job she was doing and so left in spite of the entreaties from her boss who saw difficulties in replacing her. She spent a year thinking about what to do and then applied to the Benedictine order to join one of their convents.

            After these three years, she now knew that it was the life for her. She realised that she had never really accepted the culture that went with her previous work. She was happy and fulfilled here and so she decided without any equivocation to accept what her heart and head were telling her. At the meeting today with the Mother Superior she would tell her that she would like to spend the rest of her life with the order and would happily take her permanent vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

            There was only one thing that she could not admit to the kindly Mother. She knew for an absolute certainty that there was no such thing as god and she liked it that way.

            

Twitterati – a story in 140 characters

Twitterati – a story in 140 characters

A quote from Jean-Paul Sartre,

probably when in Montmartre.

“Hell is other people.” He said

 I don’t agree, as people are just you and me.

So it must be you ‘cos it ain’t me.

Writing challenge 13th September 2011

Moving away from civilisation.

I knew there was going to be trouble when I saw the convoy turn up. There were diggers, concrete mixers, steel and cables. Yes, it was a new phone mast to improve the reception for idiots who, for some reason, wanted to drive around my village and talk to other idiots on their mobes. I wouldn’t say our village is the prettiest in the country but it is our village and when I saw those guys putting up that mast on the top of Windmill Hill, it was the last straw.

            I already had to wear my foil lined hat whenever I left the village to protect my brain from the radiation around but now I would have to sleep in it. No, I was off. I know you already  think I am crazy but consider this; would you sit in the sun all day on a mid summer’s day and let yourself come up in red raw blisters from the ultra violet rays? The sun is 93 million miles away and the mast on Windmill Hill is all of 400 yards distant. I know the power of the radiation is lower but I am sure you have heard of the inverse square law of radiation propagation? My radio in the kitchen can pick up Radio 4 from the transmitter mast that is twenty miles away on the top of the escarpment and I am sure that my brain is more sensitive than that old clunker of a radio.

            I sold my cottage and loaded  the few possessions that I thought I would need into my old VW camper van, Daisy, and headed North. It took me three days ‘cos Daisy is getting a bit old just like me so we suit each other. I got some strange looks in my foil hat from the guys in their repmobiles, all illegally talking on their mobes but phone masts tend to live near the motorways so I had to take sensible precautions.

I eventually got over the bridge and parked in the square in Portree. After a walk around and a coffee in Mackay’s café, I found the estate agent and said I wanted to buy a small cottage, preferably with crofting rights, as far from town as possible and with no mobile reception. I put a deposit down straight away on a small croft in the country, half way between Kilmaluag and Rubha Hunish. By my reckoning it is the most Northerly habitation on Skye. Daisy and I set off along the A855 through the magnificent Trotternish scenery. I kept checking my radiation monitor – you would probably call it a mobile phone  - and generally there was no signal – wonderful! I got to the telephone box at Kilmaluag and turned off onto the track that led to my new home and stopped, turned Daisy’s engine off and listened. All I could hear was the whisper of the wind in the heather and the caw of a visiting sea gull – nothing else, peace at last.

             I found my new home, looking like part of the landscape with its low granite block walls and thatch and turf roof running down to the low slung eaves. What was the first thing I did? Yes, you guessed, checked for a signal on the mobe and then got out my old battery radio and could get no stations. Safe at last to take off my foil lined hat that had served me so well.

            It took me most of that summer to get my plot fenced, a fox proof chicken coop built,  a few pigs organised, two cows bought that had recently calved and so   in full milk. I used a rotovator to prepare my veg plot before taking several trips down to the beach at Port Gobhiag to load Daisy up with seaweed ripped up from the off - shore kelp beds by the autumn Atlantic storms. I spread this over the beds to give it a chance to rot down over the winter, ready for the spring planting. I did bung in few crafty rows of early spuds so that I could have my first harvest ready for Christmas dinner.

            So there I was, snug in my new home, no mobe, internet, radio, TV. Just my animals,  the wild life and my shelves of books to keep me company in one of the most beautiful areas on earth. I would give myself a half day off a week and would usually go for a walk along the faint path that led from the end of the track to the cliff path down past the basalt columns to the beach facing out to the Atlantic. Was I happy? You bet!

            My communication link with the outside world was the phone box at the end of the track, where it joined the A855 at Kilmaluag. I rang the mobile phone company from there about once a month to check that there was still no coverage and the same day I usually went down to the shop for my supplies that I couldn’t grow, such as flour and cereals. Also had a good gossip of course.

            I got through the first winter ok, I had tied the roof down with some steel hawsers on the advice of Alec McCaig in the shop. Good advice it turned out as we had some ferocious gales. I had dug some peat from the bog towards the Point and managed to get enough of it dry to feed my fire through the winter. I love the feel and smell of a turf fire.

            The first Spring was spent sowing the vegetables, milking the cows and doing all those other jobs that need doing when you are crofting, fencing, peat digging, looking after the chickens and the pigs although they were fairly self sufficient and rooted through the second vegetable plot for me with great gusto. The chickens made short work of any slugs and snails. All was going well and I had no regrets about leaving ‘civilisation’ and making a new life. I was fit and healthy from the work and the fresh, home produced food. I even got used to the weather, ‘If you can see the hills, it’s going to rain, if you can’t see the hills, it’s raining’  just about sums up the Skye weather apart from not mentionin g the wind.

            I had few visitors, only the postman who turned up about once a week and my neighbours dropping in on their way past to discuss crops and animals and compare notes on sowing times and the weather.

            Then one day a bombshell. I was in the shop chatting to Alec over a cup of tea when he mentioned that the mobile phone company was building a mast on the mountain overlooking  Kilmaluag, towards Duntulm.

            ‘Why on earth would they want to do that?’ I asked, descending into black despair

            ‘Apparently they have been getting a call every month about the lack of signal here so they thought they had better do something before they get any more complaints’

            Oh well, back to wearing my foil hat.

Never knowingly – Chapter 1

Never knowingly – Chapter 1

I first saw her in the electrical department of John Lewis in The Mall, the new’ish out of town shopping centre at Cribbs Causeway to the North of Bristol. She was having a fierce argument with the defeated looking sales assistant. She was in her mid twenties with long hair that I would have described as ginger if I didn’t instinctively have the feeling that she would have her own name for the colour, probably titian or  strawberry blonde or something equally pretentious. She was dressed in a sharp black business suit looking efficient and organised and was clearly intimidating the guy from John Lewis who was trying to sell her a television. There were two incongruous accessories however. One was the French style beret perched on the left side of her head and the other was the long white silk scarf that hung down to her waist front and back after completing one circuit of her neck. I couldn’t decide if she reminded me more of Isadora Duncan just before the car ride or Snoopy on a windy day.

            ‘Never knowingly undersold it says on all your advertising’ she insisted ‘so why is this television twenty pounds cheaper in PC World in Bristol? And don’t tell me to go to PC World and buy that one, I am here now and I expect to receive some of that much vaunted superior customer service of yours’

            ‘Yes madam’ he said ‘ we are known for our superior customer service and so I will go and fetch the Electronics Department Manager to deal with your problem’

            ‘I don’t have a problem young man’ she said haughtily to the guy who looked old enough to be her grandfather, with a greasy comb over that was worthy of the Charlton brothers. ‘The problem is yours if you are making promises in your advertising that you have no intention of keeping’   

            Indeed, madam, I won’t keep you a moment’ and off he trotted patting his hair back in place as he went.

            I stood and listened in silent admiration. I usually accepted the listed price on anything I bought even though I might know it as a rip off. Anything for a quiet life was my view but I always resented being taken advantage of. I moved over and stood unseen behind a tall fridge freezer, out of sight but still within hearing. I wanted to hear the end of this confrontation. My money was on the young woman. She turned round and caught me looking from behind my temporary Hotpoint home. She smiled and winked at me before putting her indignant face back on to await the arrival of the department manager.

            He arrived quickly, all bustling brisk efficiency. ‘How can I help Madam, Mr Gilbert here informs me that you have a problem?’

            ‘As I have just explained to Mr Gilbert, I do not have a problem but you do. You are not living up to your advertised promises of never being knowingly undersold and I am getting less impressed by your customer service by the minute. I have seen this LCD 42 inch television in PC World at a price that is £20 below yours. My friend Cyril here will vouch for that, won’t you Cyril?’ she said, turning to me for confirmation. ‘Or would you like me to get the manager at PC World on the phone for you as you obviously don’t believe me?’

            ‘Err  yes, of course’ I said hesitantly as I perjured myself for a stranger who had just called me Cyril.’ I had never thought of myself as a Cyril and I hoped other people didn’t either.

            ‘I believe you, of course Madam and you may certainly purchase the television for the lower price. Mr Gilbert will see that it is taken care of immediately’. He edged away like a rabbit involved in a conversation that he didn’t want to be having, with a ferret. I don’t think he wanted to be put in a position of offering any more discounts.

            ‘Thank you, Mr ?’

            ‘Chamberlain, madam and may I take this opportunity to  thank you for shopping at John Lewis,’ ’ came the clichéd response as he disappeared behind a shelf full of electric kettles. I think the heat was getting to him.

            ‘Come on then Mr Gilbert, let’s get this sorted out. I’ll do the paperwork with you and Cyril here will carry the TV out to the car, won’t you Cyril?’ Like I had a choice? I could have told Mr Gilbert that I had never seen this woman before but she intrigued me so I went along with the charade.

            I followed her out to a battered looking black Mondeo estate, staggering under the weight of the Toshiba box on the frozen car park. She lowered the back seats to give more room to for me to slide the TV in through the tailgate and then turned to me with a wicked smile, held out her hand and said. ‘We had better introduce ourselves Cyril and then I’ll buy you a cup of coffee to thank you for your acting efforts, if you have the time?’

            I took her hand and said ‘My name is Clements, Peter Clements,‘ and yes, I would like to have a coffee with you and hear about your other discounting adventures.’

            ‘Good to meet you Peter’ she said ‘ I think I prefer Peter to Cyril.

            ‘So do I,’ I said fervently.

            ‘My name is Jane Lewis, never knowingly underclothed’ she replied

            ‘And do you keep to your advertising better than your brother John?’ I asked.

            ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘ but I don’t think Cyril is going to confirm that for a while do you, Peter?’ she said with a cheeky grin as she linked her arm through mine and led me to Carluccios’ for a coffee and a sticky bun.

            We chose a quiet table in a corner and started talking while she took off that ridiculous beret and shook her wonderful hair free. The scarf stayed in place. We ordered two cappuccinos and macaroons, I liked their sticky, undercooked texture and the dry piece of rice paper on the bottom, so did Jane it seemed. I asked her why the big issue over the price of the TV in John Lewis. ‘I know £20 may seem a lot but surely not when you are prepared to spend about £500?’

            ‘It isn’t the money, Peter,’ she said. ‘It is the winning that counts. I always feel that the world is against me and, if I can win these little things, then perhaps I can win my battle against the world.’

            ‘Is it the world and events that you feel are conspiring against you or is it people?’ I asked.

            ‘It’s the world for sure, not people’

            ‘Give me an example of what you mean’

            ‘OK, take mirrors then’

            ‘Mirrors? What are you talking about?’ I said.

            ‘Well, you know the old conundrum about why do mirrors reverse your reflection side to side when they don’t reverse you top to bottom? I understand why after hearing Richard Feynman explain it. If you are facing a mirror then the reflection it shows is as if you had walked around to face the back of the mirror. If you did a somersault over the top of the mirror, you will see the same reflection, you head will not have changed places with your feet but you left and right will still have changed places. Just try it, if you dare, you will see it works.

            Then there is the next question. If a mirror’s surface is about 95% reflective on average, that means that 5% of my reflection is missing. So where is it, where has it gone?’ Look at it from a quantum perspective. The quanta of light are photons, small packets of light as postulated by Max Planck in 1900. So if a mirror is 95% effective it follows that of 20 photons fired at a mirror, 19 are reflected and 1 passes through. The question then is, which photon passes through? What is different about that one and how does it know what to do?’

            ‘So what is the answer?’ I was baffled.

            ‘The answer is that every photon is exactly the same so it doesn’t decide whether to pass through or not, it is purely random chance – there is no cause and effect in the quantum world. It is all down to probability. What is worse is the fact that if you try to look at what is happening to see which photon passes through then you will probably change the result to a different one. So, by looking at what is going on, you change what is going on. This mirror experiment is not unique, this is how the whole universe works. How weird is that? So going on further. You have observed what is happening and so probably changed the result but the original result has also happened but in a different universe. This means that I can change which universe, or reality, I exist in by deciding whether or not to look at something happening.’

            ‘Are you for real? Do you really think like this or are you just saying these things to test me or wind me up because what you have just describe doesn’t make sense to me’

            ‘ Exactly! There is a famous saying that, if you think you understand quantum physics, then you don’t. It just cannot be understood from a classical scientific or commonsense viewpoint, even Einstein said it didn’t make sense even though he eventually had to admit that it described how the universe worked better than his relativity. It has now been proven many times and is the basis on which computers, mobile phones etc work.’

            ‘How do you know about all this, are you a scientist?’

            ‘ No I have just read up on it a bit to try and understand how the world works and I have some practical experience of its effects.’  I let that pass, not wanting to open another Pandora’s.

            ‘And do you understand how the world works after all that reading?’

            ‘No but I have found out that no one does. My overriding view is that nothing is as it seems to be and there is no real reality. How can particles such as photons and electrons be in two or more places at the same time and don’t decide where they want to be until someone looks at them? This has proven to be the case many times and two different particles can be aware of each other even when they are separated by many light years, what is called entanglement and Einstein called spooky action at a distance. This appears to break one of the barriers in physics which is the speed of light in a vacuum but it doesn’t because you cannot know that these two particles are aware of each other until after it has happened and you compare views.

            When you add to all this the fact that all matter is nearly all space then you end up with a universe that may or may not exist and, if it does exist then it is made of atoms that are nearly all nothing and have a high probability of not existing at all. Furthermore, if they do exist then no one knows where they are until they look at them. The most likely explanation for all of this at the moment is that we live in one of a possible 10⁵⁰⁰ possible universes that has eleven dimensions.

            The other possibility is that everything in the universe is a three dimensional hologram that is generated from the information on a two dimensional surface, just as a flat screen television can provide the information of a three dimensional world.’

            I sat in stunned silence until I managed to ask at last, ‘ What has this got to do with getting a discount on a flat screen television in John Lewis?’

            ‘I think it makes me feel I have some control in this universe in which we are living.’

            ‘And where does the lack of underclothes come in?’ I couldn’t resist.

            ‘I forgot to switch the washing machine on yesterday so I had no clean underclothes to wear today, Cyril’

            ‘I suppose you were thinking about quantum mechanics at the time – and the name’s Peter by the way.’

            ‘Yes, I remember of course Peter, it is just that I enjoy teasing you and I probably will even after we are married with three children…’

            ‘What are you talking about, how can you possibly know that we will have three children, that is assuming we do get married of course, and, and, and,’- I stuttered to a halt, not really knowing what I was saying but I now had a picture in my head of spending my life with this beautiful, intelligent woman and the picture was becoming more appealing the more I thought about it.

            ‘The thing is you see, Peter,’ she said, emphasising my name, ‘quantum physics shows that time travel is possible. I have tried it and it works so that is how I know that we will have three children’      

            With that statement I knew that I was sitting across from a complete nutter. My opinion must have shown on my face so, with a laugh, she said, ‘I can see you don’t believe me so I’ll give you a demonstration.’

            ‘That won’t be necessary’ I said as I grabbed the bill from the table and headed towards the cashier, pulling my wallet from my jacket pocket and spilling ten pound notes on the floor in my haste to escape.

            I first saw her in the electrical department of John Lewis in The Mall, but I couldn’t shake off the strangest feeling that I had seen her there before even though I could never knowingly understand when.