Of Patience And Good Fortune

One of the joys of living afloat is that I am in the middle of a treasure haul of natural riches.  Sometimes it is simply a stunning red sunset.  Sometimes it is watching out of an open window as fish go about their business less than a metre away.  Often my joy is about the wildlife.  What a privilege it is to be able to watch swans turn their eggs as they await this year’s arrivals, or to watch them proudly parading the new hatchlings along the river as the young ride piggy back.

About a month ago a metre long grass snake wriggled across in front of me and down the steps leading to my mooring jetty and into the water.  I converse with the swans who always come to say hello and move away disdainfully as soon as they realise there is no advantage to them in continuing the conversation.  Perhaps if I can say I have a favourite species it is the kingfishers.  I love to watch the ones that nest in a hole in the bank across the river from me and as they hurtle along the length of the river inches from the surface.  They often sit on my bow or stern, the tiller arm or the roof as they watch for fish.  Two days ago I ducked as a kingfisher emerged from the water and flew straight towards the open galley window by the sink where I was standing.  At a final fraction of a second it banked sharply upwards and took its prey on to the roof.  Although I didn’t see it on the roof I heard it.  Then it flew across the river and back to the nest.  Amazing.  Since I have been here I have tried to take a photograph of a kingfisher.  The best I have managed until today are unidentifiable blue and red blobs.

This morning I decided to sit elsewhere with my laptop and, looking up, I saw one of the kingfishers sitting on the prow of the boat.  Had I been sitting at my desk I may not have noticed it.  So slowly I reached for my phone, the only means I have for taking photographs until I remember what I did with my camera.  I uncovered the lens and took one picture.  Not close enough.  I moved in painfully slow motion towards the front of the boat and took another.  I kept moving forward, but didn’t manage a third photograph before the bird flew off.  My foredeck is covered over with a wooden-framed cratch, where spiders weave and where there are two perspex windows I keep omitting to clean.  However, here is my photograph.  I am so pleased with it.  It is the shot I have been wanting to capture for the last three years or more.  I apologise for the dirty windows and the cobwebs that have managed to capture not just spidery supper, but feathers and dandelion clocks, but the object of my attention is as clear as can be.  Once again I know I love living afloat.  It is like all the best bits about camping.

Of Blacking One's Bottom

Last week I was not afloat, although I did feel somewhat adrift.  After three and a half years living on my boat I had to face facts that is was time to re-black.  Boaters know precisely what I mean, but any casual reader might be unaware that, every once in while (the “while” depends on who’s making or saving the money when I talk to them), a boat has to come out of the water and be cleaned and repainted with bitumen.  Bitumen is the black covering of choice unless one is a modernist and can afford one of the more esoteric coatings.  This time I didn't even examine that possibility.  I had put off any decision as well as the job itself for a year or so while I was thinking about how I would go about it.  I detected a bit of an expectation among other boaters that I would find a slipway, have the boat hauled out of the water and do the job myself.  I understood that scraping was involved and pressure washing and glooping lots of tar-like paint on to the hull.  I didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about doing even one of these tasks and so I did what I always do - I left it and did nothing - while I fretted that something awful might be developing below the water line.

In the end I dropped into the boatyard in March (the Fenland one, not the annual one) and enquired about having someone else do the job.  They quoted me not that much more than I thought the job would cost me to do by myself, or even with an army of friends, so the prospect was quite attractive.  They would certainly know what they are doing and I could watch some of the process happening.  So last April I booked it in for re-blacking last week.  Of course, being out of the water rendered the boat uninhabitable (I was quoted “Working Height Regulations”), no one would able to enter or leave once it was out of the water.  I would be homeless for a few days.  Fortunately there is a campsite fairly close by, so I booked a few days there.  Unfortunately, this sort of change to what passes for my routines throws me a lot more these days.  I had to make sure I removed from the boat anything I would need during the time I couldn’t live on it.  I would also need to finish up or take any perishable food and remember several days worth of clothing.  I don’t usually go anywhere for more than a day or two except for P’s place in The Alps, where I already have all the clothes and toiletries I need.  My panic about precious belongings meant that anything I didn’t want to leave on the boat would have to come with me or go to my lockup.  Of course this week just happens to be the week where I have a day-long rehearsal with a quintet with whom I am playing as part of a local arts festival this weekend.  I could not expect to set up a percussion rig on a campsite and bash through the music in preparation for the rehearsal.  Naturally I left it to the last minute to carry out any of these personal arrangements.  I don’t think I have had more than four hours’ sleep a night for weeks.  I also needed to work out how I was going to manage without my van.  I could take the boat to March or the van.  I needed help.  Luckily a friend was able to meet me in March where I left the van while he took me back to the boat so I could move that too.

If you’ve read any of the previous entries regarding my boat you may know that I have been battling leaks of various substances into the engine tray and the bilges.  For three and a half years I have made (mostly) half-hearted and often downhearted attempts to stops leaks in the domestic water system, the cooling system and the fuel system.  As far as I know I have not had any major oil leaks, but I’m not holding my breath.  This has involved the tightening and sometimes the replacement of clips, pipes, hoses, gaskets, washers (who knew some were made of copper, some of steel and some were fibre?) and parts like the thermostat and the complete refurbishment of the thirty year old fuel injection pump (which turned out to be shockingly expensive, but had amazing results).  Unfortunately, despite many attempts to stop diesel leaking from the pipe leading out of the fuel tank it is still dribbling where it goes into the diesel shut off valve that looks suspiciously like a washing machine tap, even with the help of The Engineer.  There are also inexplicable exhalations of coolant from somewhere … I just can’t see where (and I thought we’d done that cooling system).  Any pending trip has usually been abandoned before I start out.  I don't like taking the risk.  I wonder what happened to the young man who used to take his ancient Morris Traveller out on to roads that were clearly visible through the floor of the car (I used to call that my "Flintstone Car"), or when the brakes were nearly all right?  Maybe he just used up all his courage in those stupid days.  If only he'd used up all his stupidity too.

With all fears lived and relived I managed to get the boat to the boatyard without mishap.  I arrived after the office closed on the Sunday in preparation for Monday's big day when I would see for the first time the secrets the boat had been hiding below the water line.  On arrival I checked the bilges and, sure enough, the area that I had mopped out before embarking on the journey was now awash with fluids.  To the best of my knowledge this appeared to be a mixture of coolant, diesel, river water and grease.  Oh joy!  I was going to be able to stay on the boat for the night and that suited me well enough.  I drove to the campsite, checked in and erected my tent although I had decided I would not be sleeping there that night.  After another fitful night I rose at 6am on the Monday and set about getting the boat ready for the boatyard to do what it had to.  This included emptying the water tanks, switching off the gas, turning off the power to everything and emptying perishable food from the fridge as well as making sure I had everything I needed from the boat transferred to my van.  Anything and everything that could be damaged if it fell on the floor I put on the floor in anticipation of the worst.  Then I reported to the workshop just as 8am was approaching.  The engineer suggested I bring the boat round to line it up with the slipway where they would do the rest.

Bringing the boat round to the slipway dodging
round the hire boat I had cast adrift!

I had been told to moor up where the business moors its own hire fleet.  When I arrived at 4pm on the Sunday, no other boats were there, so I chose what seemed like a sensible place.  In the morning I found one of the hire boats had tied up to my stern end, so I had to cast it off to be able to free myself from the mooring.  Unfortunately there was no way I could work out to re-secure the stern of the boat, which meant that the hire boat would now only be tied to its own mooring by its bow mooring rope.  Perhaps it would stay put long enough for me to get back to it?  No such luck, of course.  The wind caught it and gently pushed it round so that by the time I reached the entrance to the slipway I had to perform evasive manoeuvres to avoid bumping into it.  What made it worse was that, after tramping up and down with a foot on each boat's abutting gunwales causing each boat to roll quite dramatically every time I made the trip I noticed, after casting the other boat off, someone moving past a window.  That must have been a surprise awakening for them.  I'd have been far more careful had I realised someone was actually on the other boat.  I felt slightly sick realising that the stern end was now looking as though it could swing round and hit the concrete path with quite a thump before I could get to it to head it off.  Thankfully, once it had swung round heading into the wind it stopped its momentum towards the bank.  This would not be the first time the wind would cause me problems in the marina.  Worse was to come.

I disembarked and left the yard staff to pole the boat on to the tractor-driven cradle.  As they started to haul the boat out I realised that I had left windows open in my rush to do things properly.  They stopped the extraction so I could climb back on and secure the boat properly.  How many more stupid things could I do in the time remaining?

Easing the boat on to the tractor-operated cradle

The rest of the operation went without any further distractions and I saw my boat for the first time as I had never before seen it.  It was with some dismay that I realised that the extra layers of bitumen that had been applied by the previous owners had not really been the investment in time, materials or effort I had been assured.  I should have taken the boat out of the water a year or more ago.  Worryingly the sacrificial anodes (magnesium blocks fitted to the hull to deflect the effects galvanic erosion - here's a better explanation) had been completely sacrificed. I scanned the hull, the rudder and the propellor to see if I could spot any evidence of the substantive parts of the boat sending atoms flying off into the far reaches of the river, but I didn't really know what I was looking for.  Some slight scars on the propellor could have been where it had hit something as it was churning.

The starboard side with the yellow spongey growth

What I hadn't expected to see was that the port and starboard sides showed very different effects of water and weather.  On my mooring I generally turn the boat so that it faces into the prevailing wind.  This means I can look at the river as I stand by the galley window and watch the fish swarm to attack the porridge scraps from breakfast, chat to the swans as they sail by or stare out of the window across the river to the willow tree when I am supposed to be practising.  The port side facing the river showed more general wear while the starboard side (the bank side) had a thick spongey growth that would require much scraping.

Once out if the water, two engineers set about the task with incredible speed and efficiency.  It looked like back-breaking work, but I guess it was no more back-breaking than the contortions required to access most boat engines.  One told me later that it is far better to do the job while the hull is still wet and when it is more easily scraped and cleaned.  So while one scraped with a scraper that looked like an extended Dutch hoe, the other used the pressure washer.  Within an hour and a half the hull, including the bottom plate, was scraped, washed and new brackets had been welded on for the four new anodes that were to be fitted after blacking.  The boat was left to dry and the bitumen was going to be applied in the afternoon.  I wanted to see this part of the operation too, but I missed it.

Scraping off the sponge and other growth

Simultaneous pressure-washing and welding anode brackets

The scraped and washed hull drying in the sun

I went back to see the boat on Tuesday morning and this is the sight that greeted me.  One coat of bitumen all over the hull and the bottom plate and and a second coat around the water line.  Beautiful!

Since the boat was in a boatyard with experienced marine engineers on hand I decided that I had to ask for help in solving my leak problems.  It was stupid to carry on as I have been.  Nothing would be able to be done about the engine until the boat was back in the water on Thursday, the day of my rehearsal ... naturally.

Another 6am start to the day on the camp site ... shower, shave, breakfast, clean up the pitch and make sure the right things were in the van, including sustenance during the coming day of rehearsal.  I arrived at the boatyard at 8.15 by which time the boat was back in the water.  I unlocked it, giving access to the engine room (from where I had to clear out the tools and other stuff that tend to accumulate in unseen spaces) so that boards could be taken up to give access to the engine.

The diesel leak was apparently simple - special paste and PTFE tape.  They had also replaced a split plastic grease pipe with a copper one.  Hopefully now I shall spend less time and money packing grease into the screw for the prop shaft.  The major puzzle was the coolant leak.  Yay!  Maybe I am not quite as stupid as I thought.  Others are also confused.  They had traced part of the problem but not the reason.  The plumbing of the cooling pipes as designed when the refurbished engine was installed did nothing to encourage a flow of coolant through the expansion tank.  The arrangement seemed to be that water flowed into the tank and straight out again on one side only allowing fluid in the tank to heat until boiling where it forced its way under pressure through the filler cap.  It required a complete rethink about the routing and the acquisition of some new parts.  If they ordered the parts it would be the following week before they arrived.  I volunteered to go and fetch them myself, so we could have them for Friday.  This involved another 6am start and a 180-mile round trip to Braunston for a £40 rubber manifold.  The rain started while I was away and fell out of the sky for the next twenty-four hours of more.  I was back by 11am and the project began with the aid of oilskins and a golfing umbrella.  The boat was ready to try out by 4pm when I decided the best option was to take it home.  This would be an excellent opportunity to try out the waterproofs that P bought me for my birthday a few years ago.

The first task on casting off was to turn the boat round.  Normally I go into the residential compound where there is a large turning space in the middle of all the boats moored around the edges.  I've done this a few times and it is a relatively simple operation.  I had never, though, tried it in a wind such as blew on Friday.  I judged it to be manageable, but I misjudged the fact that it was gusting occasionally.  I entered the compound by passing under a low footbridge and thought about which way to turn.  I should have thought this through before I set out.  I was trying to take account of the wind and working out whether I should swing the boat clockwise or anticlockwise.  I knew that at one point the wind would hit the boat and push it towards the boats moored on the river side of the compound.  I needed to give myself enough space so as not to be pushed up against the boats.  I turned the wrong way.  This error of judgement got me into trouble as, on the turn I was hit by two substantial gusts of wind that sent me hurtling towards the boats I was trying not to hit.  Somehow I managed not to smack into any of them, but now I had no space for manoeuvring and the wind was still pushing me towards the boats. Whichever way I swung the tiller would result in the front or back of my boat hitting one of the moored boats.  Again, I'm not quite sure how, but I got away with only rubbing the front fender of one of the moored boats as I swung the stern out into into the wind.  By now I was being blown into a part of the compound which gets progressively narrower and where the boats are made of much more fragile fibreglass rather than steel.  At the moment when I was about to abandon all hope to the inevitable insurance claims a young man leapt to the rescue.  I was close enough for him to jump on to my boat and he crabbed his way along the gunwale to grab my pole.  With that he helped me by pushing the bow back out into open water, so I could straighten up and get out of the compound.  He very kindly stayed with me until I got through the marina.  I hope he likes Watergull and MileTree Brewery products, because I shall be heading back to the marina with a couple of thank-you bottles for him.  I wonder how many people were staring through their portholes in fear, amusement and horror as I was making a complete pig's ear of turning round in the onslaught of wind and rain.  I have mostly stopped from shouting at hire boaters who go by too fast and it was a lesson that I too lack experience.  I'm going to have to put that right.  Anyway, that young man had great presence of mind and I thank him for it.

En route I pulled over to fill with water at the water point near the Town Bridge in March.  The rest of the journey was relatively unremarkable save for three kingfishers and the rain which continued to pour out of the sky for the three plus hour journey back to my own mooring.  It continued to pour throughout the night into the next day.

Of Banks in Babylon

Some banks are lovely.  How about this one for instance?

Gratuitous waterscape picture

If, however, we are talking about financial institutions I can only confess that I hate banks.  I hate the smug expectation that everyone should have a bank account and that if we don't there is something wrong with us or we have to live with the unbelieving looks of others and the implication that we have committed some criminal or social misdemeanour.  I admit that my loathing of banks is nowadays firmly rooted in the mess they have made of their affairs in recent years and the way they have held us all to ransom as they expect us and governments (using our money) to dig them out of the holes in which they have buried themselves - but that is not what this rant is about.

I was one of those stupid loyal customers.  I banked with one of the major banks for about forty years.  I opened my account when I left school and took my first job.  I worked for a firm of cleaners and builders in London and we were paid weekly by cheque.  Most of the other employees took their cheques to the nearest bank and cashed them.  I thought a bank account would help me feel more grown up and I had plans to stop working in a year or two's time and go to college.  In those days we had "grants", so I would need a bank account for when that time came.  I didn't fancy the idea of a Barclays account like my parents (and my employer), because of the South African connections - we boycotted anything we thought might support apartheid in those days - so I walked into a National Westminster Bank in the dark streets between Soho and Marylebone and opened my account.

We had our ups and downs.  My downs mainly consisted of my below zero total once I started college and continued when I qualified to start work as a teacher.  The ups were mainly their charges for me going overdrawn.  Still, we worked it out.  Every few years I'd be asked to come in and discuss my account with a manager or some other designated lacky.  They'd come up with some incomprehensible plan to put all my debts in one basket, which would somehow save me money.  Occasionally I would have money in the account at the end of the month, but they didn't seem to mind too much because the next month's pay cheque would usually clear any overdraft and the credit card and we could start again.  They were making a small fortune from me in bank and interest charges too.  Many years later I began to hover mostly around the break even point and the pressure was off.

Over the years I had some unfortunate encounters.  Probably the most embarrassing was when I made an appointment to see my branch manager to ask about a mortgage.  At the appointment he looked at my income and laughed.  He thought I was joking.  It was embarrassing, but I was relieved.  For some inexplicable reason my old-Labour father-in-law was delighted when Thatcher's government made it possible for the working classes to buy their council houses.  He was very proud to take advantage of it.  I found his joy puzzling.  From the outset I wondered where the next generation would be housed if all the housing stock were sold off.  F-i-L was very insistent that I become part of the evil one's property-owning democracy.  Our Mormon sized family was housed in a five-bedroomed semi in Hertfordshire.  It was a nice house and I considered myself lucky to able to rent such a place.  I didn't want to buy a council house and see it made unavailable to anyone in the future who might be in circumstances similar to my own.  I was pleased when I could report back that I had been told there was no chance of a mortgage.

More decades rolled by and, following the banking crash, scandal followed scandal in the banking world.  My bank of choice was caught up in some of the uglier shenanigans, but I stuck with them admittedly mostly through customer inertia.  What eventually broke this camel's back, though, was the refusal of the bank manager (who knew my honourable and honest banking history through decades of experience) to be prepared to underwrite a very short term loan if part of my late father's bequest failed to become available in time.  I'll tell the whole story one day, but after living with my father for eight years I was being given two days' notice to quit the house he had bought and paid for and we had shared before he succumbed to the cancer through which I had been caring for him.  I didn't want to lose the substantial deposit I had paid on the thirty-year-old boat I was planning as my next home.  The bank manager seemed to be deliberately obtuse.  He would not see I needed a short-term assurance and insisted I take out a loan I didn't think I needed.  Then he looked again at my income and said he couldn't lend me the money anyway, despite my expectation of an amount coming my way which would cover the loan, clear all my other loans and leave me with a bit over.  I determined at that point to grit my teeth and change my account.  I was attracted to the "ethical" policies of another bank and opened personal and business accounts and after some months the changeover began to smooth over.  Don't believe anyone who claims to be able to help you change banks in a fortnight.  The new and ethical bank became a disappointment very, very quickly.  I could not believe that after forty years I had jumped out of the frying pan and into the proverbial fire.  Mismanagement, drugs scandals, the loss of vast sums of money and the enforced sale of other parts of the profitable aspects of their business began to fill the news soon after my accounts had settled into place.  How do I do it?

But that's not what I wanted to write about.  I just get sidetracked easily.

I am so frustrated with online banking with my "new" bank that I am tempted to reopen my old accounts with the unethical bank.  Rarely, if ever, did my old bank's website freeze on me.  The new one does it nearly every session - whichever browser I use.  My old bank showed a synopsis of the totals of all my accounts on a home page.  Looking at the detail involved a single click on the account name.  The new bank treats business and personal accounts as though they were different companies.   The log-on procedures for each are completely different and the details can only be seen in different windows.  One uses account details and passwords.  The other uses customer numbers and a code generated by tapping a PIN into a little piece of hardware that looks like a tiny calculator.  If the site times out while I'm trying to work out why something isn't clear I have to go through the whole tedious logging in process again.  The old account showed the results of shifting money between accounts immediately, so I could see easily what was left and who else I could afford to pay.  The new one takes, at best, a couple of hours (but usually the next day), to show up any money I have attempted to pay out.  That means that I have to write everything down in a notebook so I can keep track of what I am doing.  What's the point of an online account if I have to do that!  If I want to draw money from my business account into my personal account I have to wait until the next banking day for the money to show up so I can pay personal expenditure off my (ethical) credit card.  I cannot do it all in one session as before.  Sometimes I don't have the time (or the energy) to attempt to use this system on two consecutive days.  Sometimes transfers fail to go through at all.  I discovered today that a transfer I made on 26th June to my credit card did not go through and I had more money in my account than I expected, but also much more to pay off on the card.  Only after copying and pasting from the website into a spreadsheet and spending about an hour trying to work out what had happened could I work it out.  This has happened in the past and has meant I missed a payment deadline and incurred a late payment fee.  Keeping the books straight frequently involves having to go over statements again and again to work out what payments have actually been paid.  My old bank allowed me an unfeasibly high limit on my credit card, but that meant I had to go through the process only once a month since I would never spend that much.  The new bank allows me less than I spend, so I have to clear the card weekly rather than per statement which would be far more straightforward.

I have written to and telephoned the new bank many times about these frustrations.  Surprisingly, the personal account site has been updated and has incorporated many of the changes I said I wanted to see, including making the writing large enough to be legible.  They still have not implemented my request to show deductions from accounts immediately though.  I can't believe I am the only person to think this is a useful feature.  Sadly the business account website still looks like it was created in the 1990s and I sometimes have to peer at the screen with a magnifying glass in my hand.

The last straw may be loaded on were I to discover that my ethical credit card is not actually making any donations to Amnesty International as I expect them to.  I shall be most put out.

I need another picture of a soothing river bank before I have another attempt at online banking.

Another gratuitous waterscape picture

Obstacle Race

We are approaching the season of school sports days.  I disliked them when I was a school pupil and did my duty when I was a teacher.  I hated the ridiculous nature of running in competition against anyone or anything other than a clock.  Teachers leave an indelible imprint on our lives.  Some of those marks are beautiful tattoos we wear with pride and fond memories, others are ugly brands we do our best to cover up, ignore and hope to forget.  Sadly some of those uglier memories just won't go away.  

Of course many memories of our teachers concern humorous events.  I have to wonder whether present generations of children will carry with them such a range of memories about their teachers into their own futures.  Successive government interference and reform has for decades aimed to turn teachers into functionaries "delivering" a prescribed curriculum.  A set number of subjects with a statutory list of elements that must be covered and squeezed into a week.  Each Secretary of State for Education after Kenneth Baker has felt the need to make a mark of their own on the nation's children by messing about with the curriculum (again), claiming they will reduce the burden on teachers.  All they do is move the deck chairs around on the deck of a ship that is sinking under the weight of its own  administration.  I shudder when I think of the shelf space that had to be built to house the government-sponsored folders of papers and instructions relating to my own subject of music, all of which was scrapped within very few years.  This was happening in every subject area in every school in the country.  Every teacher had a set of folders for every subject.  When the documents changed skips were filled.  It has been one of the most pointless wastes of educational resources and goodwill.

But back to teachers.  Thankfully I still see some extraordinary people who seem to have that magic something that makes the class zing with excitement, purpose and confidence.  I see some teachers who are struggling, but doing their best.  Most teachers fall somewhere between.  They nearly all end up frustrated and exhausted by being tasked with the impossible.  Recent pronouncements from the present Education Secretary do not bode well.  More blame to come, I fear.

I wonder what the present system would have made of my teachers?  From my infant school days I can only really remember Mrs Cherasse, whose name no one could spell and we all sat round our table discussing it and considering the options.  Inexplicably, Garry's contribution was to tell us to look under the table as he exposed himself.  It was funny to start with, but we got wise and he got bored.  I only give Mrs Sharrasse's name so the reader gets the idea of the challenge this conundrum presented.  Beth's mum used to address all letters to "Dear Madam".  Easy when you know.  

I can remember more from my junior school days.  In first year juniors (now called Year 3, of course) I had Miss H who was a lovely older lady I remember mostly for spellings and for introducing me to the recorder.  I didn't learn to read notation with her, but I enjoyed playing the instrument.  One day she called me and the other boy in the class with the same name to come to her desk to announce sotto voce that we had come "top of the class", he in arithmetic and me in English.  I didn't know what it meant, but it sounded good.  I never managed that trick again, but to be honest I really didn't aspire to it either.  Years later I had a part-time job selling local newspaper subscriptions door to door and one evening she opened a door.  It was lovely to see her again.  I reminded her of the "top of the class" incident and what could she say, but, "Oh, well done!"  It didn't help her overcome her bewilderment as she clearly didn't remember me at all.

The following year I had Miss K, a tall and very correct lady from Scotland whose accent I never managed to fathom.  I spent much of that year in confusion, especially one afternoon when I suffered a string burn at the hands of my best friend (the one I mention in my song, "Pansy Potter").  I was incredulous that she would suggest I put soup on it.  I checked several times.  
"Soup?" 
"No, soup." 
"You mean soup?"  
"No I said, 'soup'"
In an attempt to break the deadlock I tried a different tack, "Where do I get soup from, Miss?"
"From the toilet, of course!"
"Oh."

I sat down with my hand still stinging painfully and absolutely none the wiser.
"You twit," BF said helpfully, "she was telling you to put soap on it."
I didn't learn much that year, except that a change of best friend was in order.  I wasn't used to getting into the number of scrapes which his hyperactive exuberance inspired.  My new BF was a perfect match and we were inseparable for the rest of my time at that school (or would have been, had it not been for the dreaded Mrs W).  I lost him for a few decades but found him again a few years ago.  He's a professional golfer in Germany now.

Mrs W. was an inspirational teacher.  She inspired fear and despair in roughly equal measures.  She was like a Ring Wraith and in some manifestation of prescience was actually from New Zealand.  Her accent was also quite difficult to understand at times, but one only ever asked questions once.  It was a brave or foolhardy person who ever asked for repetition or clarification.  Had I read any Dante by the age of nine I might have easily visualised a sign over the door to our class-in-a-hut declaring, "ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE", in appropriately wiggly writing.  Our desks were in paired rows each pair populated by one boy and one girl.  I didn't want to sit next to a girl and certainly not Lynn.  I wanted to sit next to NBF.  Lynn was noisy, she always made strange vocalisations when she was concentrating and it was really off-putting, but she could do a good pigeon walk with a pecking head.  I practised the head thing myself, later combining it most effectively with crossed-eyes and fish-mouth.  Mrs W. ruled with a voice of thunder, a tongue of steel and a grasp of sarcasm that could strip the rust off an Austin A40.  I was scared of her and even Doug and Dinsdale Piranha would have been no match.  She was a deadly shot with a piece of chalk and rumour was that sometimes she would throw a blackboard rubber if she got really cross.  I developed nervous stomach aches and spent a lot of time away from school that year.  Towards the end of that year my family moved, so my father could be closer to London to his work, much to my delight.  I changed junior schools.  In my new school I was in Mrs. T's class for a term before moving up Mr. H. for my final year in primary school.  It was during this final year that the Obstacle Race occurred.  It was also the year when I was made to play football for the school team for the first and only time and where I was all but concussed by receiving the heavy, muddy, wet, leather football full in the face twice within minutes.  I saw something similar happen to a boy a few weeks ago.  He was escorted off the pitch and given magic ice-pack treatment and his parents told to keep an eye on him.  Maybe we really were tougher in those days.  That year was also the year I fell in love with the new member of staff, Mr P., who was the teacher of the class next door and taught music.  He quickly discovered my interest in music and nurtured it in a most generous way.  I shall doubtless mention him again sometime.

The Obstacle Race.  Well the song says it all really.  I was pretty agile, used to scrambling about in bushes and good at climbing trees and had a fairly good sense of balance, but I could never thread a needle.  I stood a chance of being placed somewhere in this school sports day, because the obstacle race was fun.  What I didn't know was how devious Mrs C. (I think she was on teaching practice) was going to be in designing a race that had needle threading as one of the obstacles.  I balanced, I climbed, I scrambled, I even kicked a football, but I came to a dead stop at the needle part.  All advantages gained through my agility were lost as the eye of the needle disappeared in a confusion of splayed cotton.  I had no scissors to cut the thread and start again.  I looked up each time one of my classmates threaded the needle and charged on to the finish line.  Sports day was held up for a full five minutes while I attempted my task, although by one of those quirks of time it seemed much longer.  Mrs C. tried to convince me that it was okay to leave it and run for the finish line, but I was determined.  In the end I gave up and headed for the finish with all the excitement of a face flannel, so the next event could start.  Oh the shame of it all.

However, none of those encounters with games and sports at primary school prepared me for the horror that was to come in secondary school.  At least I never had to play football again, but this was a rugby-playing grammar school which, as I soon discovered, was much, much worse.  The three members of the P.E. staff were sadists to a man.  The one-stop treatment for any insult or injury to the dignity of a member of the department was usually a whole-class slippering.  There is something deeply disturbing about a grown man being allowed to have thirty eleven year-olds lined neatly along the length of the gym, bending to touch their toes at his command as he proceeds down the line whacking each child with a gym shoe.  No, it's worse than that.  It is and was sick and unhealthy.  It was as though each member of the department tried to outdo the others in their crude displays of machismo that frequently turned into sadistic bullying.  Once I spent three months in hospital with rheumatic fever.  When I emerged blinking in the sunlight and eventually returned to school I was under instructions not to undertake anything too strenuous.  Mr N. probably thought a slippering too risky, so one day he gave me a detention for not sweating enough after a cross-country run!  I never knew how he quantified what would have been an appropriate amount of sweat to excrete.  Mr L. replaced Mr S.  I'm pretty sure he was probably much the nicest of them all, but the department had a reputation to maintain, so he took to name-calling, ridicule and shaming  as his weapons of choice.  I remember one of his favourite things was to insult those of us who grew our hair.  He called us the "fourth-form women".  At the time, this seemed an odd strategy coming from the man who was in the process of introducing hockey to the school.  He announced to everyone in the new swimming pool changing room that my toes were deformed.  How could I not take it personally?

However, the worst of them all was Mr. S. whom Mr L. eventually replaced.  Something terrible must have happened to him to turn him into the awful human being I experienced in school.  I seriously hope he was dismissed and never allowed near another school.  Routinely, his voice was set to stun, though he could still turn it up mid-phrase if he thought a boy looked at him the wrong way.  When I was twelve my mother was taken into hospital for one of her regular visits.  During her life she worked her way routinely through the medical dictionary.  Often these experiences required surgical intervention.  How one person could have the misfortune to suffer so much ill-health I don't know.  It certainly wasn't fair. Every time she was taken into hospital I fretted.  I was very close to my mother.  I know I was preoccupied with thoughts of her when I should have been listening to Mr S.'s discourse on the finer points of doing something or other in a rugby scrum.  The next thing I became aware of was a blast of vocal invective so loud it reached hitherto unattained sound pressure levels and was accompanied by a searing pain in my head as I was dragged out of the scrum by my hair.  Then in a feat of coordination that I suppose they taught at the P.E. teacher factory he bent to put his face into mine as he continued screaming at me whilst somehow maintaining a grip in my hair and shaking me so violently I could not even hear the words he used or what he was upset about.  I was being shaken so hard my teeth rattled, I bit my tongue and I was forced to dance in order to maintain any balance at all.  Later, in the changing room I combed handfuls of hair out of my head after the obligatory mud sharing ritual known as the communal bath.  I lost hair for days afterwards.  I never found out what crime I'd committed and it is only curiosity that makes me wonder now.  It is unlikely I shall ever find myself in another rugby scrum (although maybe it's okay if I control my own fantasies, right?) so I shall never need to exercise any benefit from that bastard's corrective discipline.  He was a bully who had no business working with children.  It's a good job I don't hold grudges; if I saw him on fire I would be prepared to piss on him.


I wrote "Obstacle Race" originally as a song for children.  The ones I tried it with found it difficult, so I wrote more verses and now sing it as Marshlander.  It is one of the few of my songs I can sing to children.  I quite like that singing and playing it also requires a certain agility.

They put me down for the obstacle race

I didn't know what to do.

There were balls to kick and ropes to walk 

and a hoop I had to jump through.

But near the end of the obstacle race

There’s the thing I dread.

It was when they gave me 

A needle to thread!

A needle to thread!  A needle to thread!  

It was when they gave me a needle to thread.

The gun went bang!  I ran and ran.

It was going rather well.

I wasn’t the first, but I wasn’t the last 

But sad the truth to tell

Though I kept up the pace till the end of the race

The task that stopped me dead

Was when they gave me

A needle to thread!

A needle to thread!  A needle to thread!

It was when they gave me a needle to thread.

I don’t like sports, but it takes all sorts 

And my teacher said it’s good

To put on a brave face and run in a race

And all the children should take part for the fun,

Fresh air and sun (and the hayfever, I said).

I can jump through a hoop, but I can’t see the loop in the 

Needle to thread.

A needle to thread!  A needle to thread!  

I can jump through a hoop, but I can’t see the loop in the 

Needle to thread.

I’d like to think that this glaring chink in my athletic prowess

Was a lesson of sorts even though it was sports

And I normally couldn’t care less.

I was left on the track and stuck at the back

But what made me go red

Was the public humiliation of having a 

Needle to thread.

A needle to thread!  A needle to thread!

The public humiliation of having a

Needle to thread.

A final thought on sports day 

Now that I’m fully grown

For some of us it’s torture

Teacher, leave those kids alone!

I still can’t see the point of running around to get ahead,

But first prize for the barmiest obstacle goes to a 

Needle to thread.

A needle to thread!  A needle to thread!

First prize for the barmiest obstacle goes to a 

Needle to thread.

Obstacle Race ©Marshlander 2010

Mina

It is not often I take a YouTube video as an inspiration for a song, but this video first moved me deeply a couple of years ago.  It still has its intended effect every time I watch it.  As is often the case with YouTube, one comes across some really clever videos quite unexpectedly.  I was trying to retrace what led me to this one.  I think it may have been after watching a few Stacey Dooley investigative reports that this link caught my eye - "Dancers star in hard hitting anti trafficking ad".   Dubious punctuation notwithstanding I clicked on the link and this is what I saw.

For weeks afterwards I could not let go of those images.  Like all the best stories the punchline is saved up for the end.  It is the contrast of the punchline with the assertive, almost confrontational, dance moves that makes the message so effective.  As the dance builds we perceive the women as having the power.  After initially keeping a wary distance, the men gather and are gradually lured in closer - willing participants in this game.  At the climax of the dance the women freeze and eyes drift to the written message.  Perhaps the dawning realisation of the message initiated the wilting of dozens of cocks as blood rushed back to the big brain ... assuming it wasn't all set up.  If the men were genuinely unaware their expressions show that we can be effectively confronted with some of the consequences of our choices.  I think we need to be reminded often.

I thought of my daughter, a professional dancer, and how but for an accident of circumstances it could have been her had she been born elsewhere.  She and her husband have danced professionally around the world, but what a sickening end to a dream this could have been.  She had worked towards realising her dream since the age of four when she first articulated to me her need to express herself through dance.  Dance having played an important part in my life too I was happy to support her.  As parents we needed to support her when the system challenged her perfectly rational choices - the secondary school that would not provide GCSE music, the careers "adviser" who told her to forget all this "silly dance nonsense" and think about getting a "real job".  Throughout her childhood and adolescence we took her to dance classes two or three times a week.  When we lived in a town and didn't have a car she would perch on the child seat on my bicycle and when we moved to a more rural location we would drive over a hundred miles a week to and from lessons.  Added to that were school shows in a theatre even further away along with pantomimes and summer shows.  Night after night of trekking across rural East Anglia and sitting out in December weather (August weather brought balancing compensations) waiting for her to finish.  It was hard sometimes, but never a hardship.  I loved these opportunities for communing one to one.

Watching the video I thought of the girls whose families had supported them as their dreams took shape.  Do those families know where their daughters are?  Were they in some way complicit in this tragedy?  At what point does one give up the search?  I would be utterly devastated had my daughter been lured into such a trap.  

Reading reports such as the UNICEF report by Barbara Limanowska, Trafficking In Human Beings In South Eastern Europe the situation is grim.  The trafficking of people is just one of many terrible ways our species has learned to exploit and devour itself.

As I thought about this video the song, "Mina", gradually formed.  Once I started to write it down the words came uncharacteristically quickly.  I think choosing Mina's name was the most difficult decision with regard to the text.  I wanted the song to have a wistful feel and to try to reproduce the same surprise in the listener that I experienced at the punchline to the video.  For some reason the Yiddish song,  דאַנאַ דאַנאַ (Dana Dana), from the show, Esterke, with music by Sholom Secunda came to mind.  With its English translation by Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz, "Donna Donna" was a popular staple in the UK in folk clubs and on Saturday night television variety shows in the 1960s and early 1970s.  I have recordings of it by Joan Baez, Donovan and Theodore Bikel and witnessed countless floor singers in folk clubs sing it.  That was my starting point for the music of this song.  I trust that any of you who have heard the song would not have recognised this influence unprompted.  I am pretty certain that I have left no trace of the original reference and can justify it as an original work.   My early versions of the song had no chorus.  I liked the stark simplicity of having just the five simple verses with their common construction.  After singing it a few times in public that starkness was too unrelenting.  I put the two choruses in to give some space for reflection.

This is one of those songs that demanded to be written.  Having seen the video and having been confronted with the issue I could not and cannot remain silent.  Silence is complicity.

Mama held Baby Mina in her arms 

And she danced for joy and she danced for love

And gently she danced for the sky above her

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina played as children played 

And she danced for joy and she danced for the thrill of the 

feel of the movement and every day still

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

She danced. She danced. She danced, oh how she danced.

The feel of the movement and every day still

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina grew up and grew into her beauty

And she danced for life and she danced for joy

She danced and she glanced at a beautiful boy

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

The boy had friends who could make her a star 

And she danced for love and she danced for pride

Dreams could come true and her heart swelled inside her

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

She danced. She danced. She danced, oh how she danced!

Dreams could come true and her love swelled inside.

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina left home to fly to her dream 

And she danced for life and she danced for hope.

Under a red light, strung out on dope

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina ©Marshlander - 5^th September 2013

Never Say Never

"It's much easier being gay these days," she asserted, "kids in schools are far more accepting."  This statement, made to me some months ago was one of those chance contributions to a discussion that left me thinking and the comment embedded itself like a morgul-blade.   If it went in deeply enough would I come to accept it?  I return to that statement often and chew on it.  I can't help myself.  Is she right?  Would she still feel the same if she walked a mile, or some days just a hundred yards, in my shoes?  

I've never dressed up for Pride before.  Norwich was P's first time, so
he decided we needed to make an effort.  He spent a couple of days
sewing ribbons and some of Esme's Buttons on things.

I move mostly in circles of the artistically inclined who have, traditionally, been more accepting of minorities.  I also spend time in schools where I still hear the word "gay" used pejoratively.  I heard it used by an angry five year-old last week.  He was being disciplined by a male teaching assistant (T.A.) who told him, "we don't used that word", which pleased me, but I am almost certain the T.A. is one of us and has a personal interest.  I am not convinced that all other adults in schools are as aware of the hurt and the damage that seemingly simple words can cause.

In childhood I was often called a "sissy".  I'll never know for sure whether I displayed overt behaviour that prompted this or whether it was nothing more than the catch-all insult amongst my generation.  Trying to think what prompted such abuse I know I felt things deeply, I cried easily, I didn't relate well to gangs of boys or, sadly, to my male cousins who engaged in far more boisterous activities. I didn't like being wet, cold or dirty.  I guess they probably didn't like it either, but they seemed not to notice it as much as I did.  I liked to dress in bright colours, while they didn't.  I loved music and dancing, which left them confused.  On the other hand organised sports and games left me cold and the joy of kicking a ball around was a complete mystery, much to my father's disappointment.  Apparently he tried often to engage his dear firstborn's interest until he was forced to accept the futility of the exercise and returned to making sure he was able to work long and hard at providing for the family's needs - earning sufficient through being employed in his three jobs.  I didn't really see much of him for some years until my brothers came on to the scene and found they had more compatible interests.  To my father's credit, he recognised my love of dancing (he was actually a keen ballroom dancer too) and enrolled me in tap dancing classes when I was three.   One of his jobs was as a tailor's cutter and he made me a pair of trousers and a bow tie for my first show from bright scarlet satin.  I was not stereotypically uncoordinated and I could throw a ball, admittedly not as well as some.  I did not have many friends who were girls and, after primary school, that was not my world at all, having only brothers in the family and almost exclusively male cousins (the female producing family members had mostly emigrated to the colonies).  I despised some of these aspects of my character and found others inconvenient, but I don't know if these are the parts of a child that were killed off in order to create a man eligible for society's approval.  Like most boys I made friends more readily with other boys.  I usually had one special friend and I do remember very powerful feelings of emotional attachment.   I became aware of something else I couldn't fathom.  These attachments often left me feeling sad that I felt a balance of commitment to the friendship was uneven.  Was this a manifestation of every child's insecurities in a deeply puzzling world or was it something else?  I also have vague memories of having more interest in the male form than in the female.

As I moved through secondary school, an all boys institution, one did not relish being called a "mo".  Why did the insult take root?  Is it because every time it was used against me I recognised at some level there was something in it?  That something was clearly not operating consciously because all I "knew" about homosexuals was that they were men, they were not nice, were not suitable company, had an insatiable craving for something unspecified and unspeakable, not to be trusted ... the list of negatives went on.  Some boys said that the popular camp comedians of the time were "mos".  I can't think of one of those old men that I thought was funny.  I certainly felt nothing in common with any of them.  At church I heard frequent diatribes from both the pulpit and in our peer group classes against the "sin" of homosexuality.  "There is no such thing as a homosexual, only the abomination of same-sex behaviour, an abhorrence in the sight of the Lord" ... "parents, if you discover that your son is caught up in same-sex sin it would be better for his eternal salvation that he have a millstone tied round his neck and he be thrown into the Great Salt Lake" ... "for any man finding himself physically attracted to another of his own sex it would be better for him that he had never been born ..."  and so on.  Years after I completed years in counselling and years after I last set foot in a Mormon chapel I can still hear those statements, even in paraphrase.   One of the last of these sorts of statements I heard delivered in church came as I approached the dawning of self-realisation and my own coming out in my late thirties.  One of my "friends" announced to the congregation in the course of a talk about something quite unrelated "... for I abhor homosexuality ...".  It seemed rather a pointless thing to share although my awareness of the concept of homophobia was still undeveloped.  Fifteen years after I had come to the conclusion that I did not share the aspirations and beliefs expected of every good Mormon I was still attending some church services.  I cannot remember a single positive image of homosexuality.  Certainly I never knowingly met another gay man at church (although I came to realise later that I had known some equally closeted Mormons) and I had no one to whom I could relate these aspects of myself.  I knew I was different, and I knew something wasn't right, but I had no clue as to what the problem was.  I put it down to the fact that I liked music that would never make it to the officially approved list of so-called "church standard" listening!  I was never going to be able to like the music of The Osmonds.  Of course, now outside the cult I can see more easily some of the preposterous lengths to which human beings can go to remain in comfortable denial.  Every time I was attacked directly through being called names, or by being beaten up (which, thankfully, did not happen often), or through implication by hearing bad comments based on insubstantial negative stereotypes I think a little of some part of me withered.  I think some of those parts died.

In many senses my female friend is right.  There are many ways in which being gay is "easier".  For a start we are tolerated in law.  I am no longer likely to be set up for entrapment by the police and less likely to be open to blackmail now that I am "out" and have no one from whom I need to hide.  If I choose I can marry the man I love.  Most of my large circle of friends and acquaintances accept that my feelings of attraction, devotion and commitment to my chosen partner are every bit as valid as theirs are in their own relationships and that, as in their relationships, these may be validated and cemented through sexual intimacy.

However, what I don't hear in relation to straight relationships is a constant hum of  background noise (which sometimes comes very much to the foreground) of people who feel that straight, i.e. heterosexual, relationships are by definition an aberration.  Same sex relationships may form a minority of the total number of partnerships, but that does not amount to an aberration.  It is surely more of an aspect across a range of very normal human sexual behaviours.  Same sex activity has been observed throughout the animal kingdom.  It takes a special kind of ignorance to define homosexuality is "unnatural".

Recent changes in legislation relating to equality law and the status of same-sex partnerships have increased this noise.  I think that in the context of the relative numbers of straight and minority sexual orientations in the population we hear far more homophobic dissent than we do homosexual affirmation.  This is the noise with which we grow up and which we continue to experience throughout our lives.  As we grow up we are pounded by heteronormative values, imagery and concepts.  Is it any wonder that most of us, even in these so-called enlightened times, can only come to an acceptance of our own lgbt status through having first to work through something that "isn't right" or doesn't make sense?  

So, if it is "much easier to be gay these days" it still seems to be a challenge.  The majority of the Conservative Party's MPs voted against passing the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 in opposition to the strong lead taken for equality by party leader and Prime Minister, David Cameron.  187 Tory MPs either voted against, formally abstained or simply did not bother voting as opposed to 118 that supported marriage equality.  The entire Democratic Unionist block of 8 MPs from Northern Ireland voted against marriage equality.  More surprisingly 60 Labour MPs and 13 Liberal Democrats failed to support the Act.  Even with a large enough majority to pass the Act for Royal Assent that is a significant number of influential voices who think that same sex relationships are inferior.  Add to that the continued ravings of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox hierarchies, the more conservative voices within the leadership of the so-called Anglican "Communion" the vocal orthodox, fundamentalist and conservative leaders and members of pretty much every other religion - Islam, Judaism, Hinduism - or sect, or cult including, for example, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostalists, assorted evangelicals, Scientologists as well as loud voices speaking outrageously from some minority political parties (UKIP, BNP), reactionary newspaper columnists, egoistic "self-appointed voices of the people" radio commentators and anyone who has ever been pissed on by these ideologies and that is a lot of noise and a lot of influence.  Those are just the ones in this country.  The vast majority of member countries of the Commonwealth and most of the countries of the Middle East, along with Africa and Asia have laws in place making life for glbtiqq people somewhere between unfair and fatal, while countries from the former Soviet Bloc have made life more difficult for LGBT people through changes in legislation.  Within the EU and its closest neighbours there are many voices that would like to see a change away from these more enlightened times encouraged by EU law.  America continues to export its ideologies around the world and money changes hands to further "the work" of vicious ministries of the likes of any number of American spokespeople for God (why an omnipotent being needs so many people to speak for Him has to be one of the great mysteries) including Scott Lively who is at last apparently to face trial for crimes against humanity.  The death of any person, whether committed by the mob or by the state, who has a suspected or genuine relationship with a person of their own sex in any country in the world is a voice against the freedom in the UK of gay men, lesbians and probably bisexual and transgender people to form loving liaisons that do no harm to anyone outside of their relationship.  Until the prejudice that feeds this homophobia disappears forever, life will continue to be riskier for sexual minorities everywhere.  "Easier" or "better" is simply not good enough and that is why I raise my voice in dissent.  My relationship with my lover, whom I hope will one day be my husband, harms no one.  It enriches the two of us and brings hope and pleasure to our families and friends.  The people who matter don't mind.  It makes no sense that those who have never met us feel they have a say in who we are.  I'd like to complete the neat aphorism by saying that people who mind don't matter.  Unfortunately that is not completely true when the bile such people spout has an effect far beyond the sound of their voices.

It was in response to my dear friend's well-meaning, but ultimately not fully-formed notion that it is easier to be gay these days that I composed the song "Never Say Never".  The examples to which I refer in the song are from my own personal experiences mostly occurring during the past decade.  My feeling is that if these events have taken place so recently it may be true that some things are better, but it will take a lot longer for me to feel without qualification that my relationship is just as valid and is valued the same as anyone else's.

Me .................. P

The references to being told that it was not appropriate for me to dance with P are real.  One night we attended a 19th century-style costumed ball in a hotel in the Swiss mountains. As the small chamber orchestra played for the ball in the larger of two adjoining ballrooms and we slipped into the smaller room that wasn't being used that night.  Feeling self-conscious and only guessing at the sort of response we might provoke if we danced in the public room (no straight couple would even have to give such an idea a thought!) we waltzed to the still audible strains of Strauss and Offenbach in the smaller ballroom.  A woman passed through and told us how unseemly it was for men to dance together.  I hope she does not experience apoplexy next time she unexpectedly encounters morris or tango.

In the mountains above the small town where P lives there was, for many years a lovely festival of Alpine arts, particularly featuring music and dance.  Each year we would dance almost non-stop for the best part of the weekend.  In spite of our most concerted efforts we never managed to dance together.  If we came into the set or formation as partners, two women would always come and "rescue" us from having to dance with each other.  We learned to laugh about it, but the laughter hid resentment, anger, frustration and some jealousy that everyone else was free to choose his or her partner.

During the debates and campaigns for first, civil partnerships and then marriage, I met and had lengthy discussions with anti-equal-marriage lobbyists outside the House of Lords and in Trafalgar Square on several occasions.  I even braved a trip to a nearby pub with two catholic fundies to continue the discussion after their demo organised by La Manif Pour Tous and our counter demo in Trafalgar Square one rainy afternoon.  Ironically, they took me to The Coal Hole and the humour of it was not lost on them.  It was difficult to find much common ground with the young, self-loathing, gay man that one of them turned out to be.  He claimed to be gay, but I'd worked too hard and lost too much getting my head to where it had to be in order to feel healed and whole and I could do little more than listen to him and lightly suggest there might be a healthier path for him.   However, it was the fundamentistas of various traditions that were the craziest and most obnoxious.  With no evidence, but absolute assurance from God, they weren't even slightly embarrassed to tell me that they knew that I was out to convert and recruit children to the "homosexual lifestyle" (whatever that might be!) and that, for my sodomy, I would burn in hell.  I bid the believers in the god of love and the followers of the religion of peace a welcome to the twenty-first century.

We met someone P hadn't seen since a long time before I arrived on the scene.  He introduced me as his "ami".  It just slipped out, but it shows how deep goes the conditioning.  The funeral was his mother's.  I sing about her death in my song, "In Your Place".  He, his brothers and their wives were called out before the mourners during the funeral service.  I ached to hold his hand and be there with him as he stood alone and then followed the coffin out of the church while his brothers had the support of their partners .  It was a sad occasion following a sudden and unexpected death.

Everywhere we go we see straight couples holding hands and occasionally bestowing little kisses of greeting, affection and affirmation.  Any similar gesture on our part is always marred by the thought of who might be watching and what might they think, what they might do - is it safe to act like a normal couple?  Of course, those problems are mostly in our heads, but again straight couples from our same cultural backgrounds do not have to give such things even a passing thought.  It is sobering that the haters bring their homophobia to us when they bomb, knife and kick people to death in Soho ... Trafalgar Square ... Liverpool ...

Of course, things will get better still.  I have to believe that.  Never say, "Never".

I sit here and ponder.  I watch and I wait.

I know I’m in love and see you are in hate 

But the waiting seems pointless

And so I must take to the ramparts.

Throughout most of Europe and Easts near and far

And south through the deserts, do you still see the star

That brought hope to the helpless and light to the darkest of hearts.

After enduring for centuries it seems 

There’s a glimmer of hope in some realised dreams

And some people in faraway places appear to be free 

But I’ll not hold my breath again while the news plays

Another report of a death.  It seems these days

That freedom remains an illusion and will be forever.

But never say never.

I love that I love and I love to be loved

I love that you’re loved and that you are in love

But how come it seems that only you dare to declare it?

I envy to see you walk out hand-in-hand

While no one takes notice, no implied demands 

That you hide your affection behind closed doors 

Never to share it.

Have you ever been told it’s unseemly to dance 

With the love of your life as I have been in France and in Switzerland?

While here in England they’ve said to my face

That I’ll burn in hell, that I’m sick, that I’m cursed

That children aren’t safe, that I groom them and worse

Despite their delusions declaim I’m unworthy of grace.

How would you feel if, when out on the street, 

By sheer happenstance an acquaintance he meets

That, somehow, your status is changed and you’re now his “friend”.

Or, when at a funeral, the wives of his brothers

Head up the procession, you’re left with the others?

It hurts that he looks so alone as you tag on the end.

Still in present-day England convention will chafe.

I look over my shoulder to see if it’s safe

Before I reach out to take the hand of my lover.

As for a kiss of affection or greeting,

Or just affirmation, it has to be fleeting

To let him know it’s still him I want.  No other.

After enduring for centuries it seems 

There’s a glimmer of hope in some realised dreams

Some say the battle is over now we can wed. 

And yet my breath's baited and yet the news plays

Another report of a death.  It seems these days

That freedom remains an illusion and will be forever.  

But never say never.

Never Say Never ©Marshlander - 25th March 2014