Alas just a fantasy, like many of us I cannot imagine anything worse than being a politician, let alone a leader of a nation. After many jobs and career attempts I realised I don’t actually like responsibility, so it is hypocritical of me to tell royalty and politicians of any nation how they should be running things.
We have had many dark days this century for people and the planet and today’s news compounds that. There are places in the world we hear little about and others which are never out of the news, they all matter. In a world of peace we could be helping all people to grow food and be healthy and healing the planet. We have the knowhow, but ordinary folk and clever scientists alike are crushed every day.
What would you tell your leaders this evening?
Do NOT phone him to congratulate him.
Do block incoming suspicious calls.
Certainly do not invite him to visit your country, even privately let alone a state visit; best in fact to alert all ports to look out and detain any world leaders with criminal convictions.
Do assemble the best team of scientists and doctors you have and urge other nations to do the same. Offer sanctuary to the best brains trapped in countries where they can’t use their talents. Get together and plan an alternative unified bloc to run the world.
Penny Cull is my guest this evening. She is a popular andloyal member of our writers’ group and always manages to say far more in a few verses than the rest of us say in lengthy pages.
THE FORGOTTEN’S LAMENT When the sun slips between her blue-green sheet And the moon rises up from his bed. When the stars come out to sparkle and greet. They dance to the song of the dead. Nobody visits this place where we lie. No flowers to sprinkle their scent. Long grass and weeds now look up at the sky So we sing The Forgotten’s Lament. Fresh from the battlefield, we were your yield We were young and unready to die. In shallow graves, in some faraway field Away from our homelands we lie. Cry us some tears, though our names you don’t know. Murmur words which are heartfelt and meant. Plant scented flowers here, row upon row, Whilst we hum The Forgotten’s Lament.
Penny Cull 2024
Penny says ‘I was born in Dorset and live in Christchurch. I love writing, especially poetry, which is a dying art. Seeing graves without names prompted this poem. I like to think my poems make readers’ emotions surface.’
You can read a selection of Penny’s many poems in her first published collection, available as a paperback or eBook.
That evening the vicar left his dreary sixties vicarage, switched on his torch, made his way in the dark across the churchyard and slipped in a side door. In the vestry he looked around at the various cupboards. He had sorted through a few shelves of books and paperwork, without finding anything of historical interest. Now he had a good reason to search everywhere for any records that had survived from previous centuries. He felt like a character from an M R James horror story, though the electric light bulb dangling from the ceiling was not quite as atmospheric as candles or a lantern. In a story the vicar would have opened a book that he should never have touched… with horrific consequences. John Dee did not believe in such things, though even as he chuckled to himself he imagined being the one who discovers the victim, not the hapless vicar who has suffered the unspeakable death.
He pulled aside a dusty old velvet curtain that hid a door with a childish thrill, anticipating a secret room. He tugged at the door, falling backwards as it opened easily. But all it revealed were a few books that looked as if they had suffered fire and flood. Too damaged to be of any worth and yet someone had been reluctant to throw them out. John carefully picked up one at random and took it to the table in the vestry where an ancient table lamp gave only a poor light, but John was not going to wait till morning.
It proved far too damaged to read properly, all he could hope for was snippets that might give clues. If it had originally been a journal or parish records no dates had survived.
…and on this day did the villagers bring him to… claiming… performed evil deeds.. demanding … be tried …all witnessed against him… I feared he may be innocent, a rogue and trickster mayhap, but not… black arts to be hanged… some affirmed he was of the undead
John felt a trembling of excitement or dread as some of the words became clearer.
as …to the gallows he cursed the villagers and all their descendants, saying he would return to take revenge. Thus it was that Jacob the carpenter fashioned a wooden stake while six strong men dug a grave thrice six feet deep.
John shuddered, the story was slotting into place, unless deep graves were commonplace in this Godforsaken place.
I entreated the villagers to behave as Christians, not heathens and allow the man to be buried with dignity until that terrible day of judgement.
The vicar was quite relieved that the day of judgement had been dispensed with in the 21st Century, or at least he hoped it had.
But they heeded me not..
John felt empathy with the poor vicar
was stand within consecrated ground and pray for his soul…
thus Jonas Warlock lies in an unmarked grave in unhallowed land where no man now dare walk.
A name, the poor man had a name. Tomorrow night at the service they would know who they were remembering. The next pages were missing and John could just make out a faded signature, Rev A Crowley. More research could be done later, if any other records existed of an unimportant little village. In the meantime, Warlock’s skeleton was safe from interference. The unsafe dig would need to be shored up properly before removal could be considered. John Dee would not let the small matter of lack of proof spoil his service. As far as he knew, the Book of Common Prayer did not contain such a service so he would make one up, with a bit of imagination and a good deal of Duolingo Latin. Fortunately the Reverend Dee’s main attribute for his calling was a rich, sonorous baritone voice.
With a new moon and only the graveyard and nature reserve surrounding the church, a thick darkness seemed to lie between the church and the bland vicarage building that was not yet a home. He was glad of his torch and he told himself there was a proper autumn chill in the air, not that he was bothered by what he had just read.
The church was full on All Hallow’s Eve, some of the children, dressed in skeleton onesies and witches’ outfits, looked more like they had come for a party, but they were here. John began his introduction by holding up the crumbling book.
‘Within these withered pages lies the testimony of the reverend A. Crowley. We do not yet know much about him, except that he was compassionate in a time of ignorance and myth. Jonas Warlock was unfairly tried and lies just the other side of the church wall, forever excluded from God’s kingdom, or so our ancestors believed. The Christian faith is all about forgiveness, that is not ours to give, but we can pray for the soul of Jonas and welcome him back.’
The congregation was impressed with the vicar’s Latin prayers and a musician had come forward to volunteer to blast out the dusty pipes of the organ. His playing owed more to ‘Phantom of The Opera’ than ‘Hymns Ancient and Modern’ but that didn’t seem to matter. Everyone surged out into the night, some to shine their phone torches over the wall, though all they could see was the tarpaulin over the rigging. Others steered clear and made their way briskly past the regular graves.
At last John Dee was alone, glad now of the old cloak he had found in the vestry and worn for dramatic effect. Closing the doors behind him, he felt the darkness close in. The last flickers from people’s phones had faded into the night and though he had intentionally left his phone at home, he realised he had forgotten his heavy duty torch.
As he quickened his pace, trying not to stumble, he felt a hand grab his shoulder. He turned and for a moment thought the dark shape was a shadow until it spoke. It was a stranger dressed in a black cloak and cowl, for one moment John tried to be rational. Perhaps there was a monastery hereabouts and the monk had come to pay his respects… He attempted to ask the figure if he had been at the service, but his mouth was dry.
The voice was rasping as if it had not been used for a long time.
‘No I am not a monk. Reverend John Dee, I have you to thank for releasing me at last from my grave, I knew this night would somehow come so I could keep my vow and I have all eternity to act.’
When he pulled back the cowl from his face, the vicar knew this was not a vampire, or a ghost. Even in the utter darkness John Dee was drawn to the eyes of this creature and what he saw there was beyond anything humans could imagine. Pure evil did exist and he was facing it. Could the God John Dee did not believe in protect him?
The next morning the team arrived early and the vicar and the robin watched with interest as slabs of rough grass were carefully removed to expose the soil, but then progress slowed as the team painstakingly marked out squares with string and appeared to be brushing soil away with toothbrushes. John Dee had to leave for his appointment at the local primary school. The head had been delighted when the vicar offered to visit the school. She welcomed fresh input to their school project ‘Layers of Time’ aligning with the interest in the dig. But if she was expecting him to talk about Romans she was soon disappointed. John didn’t like children much, however they were part of his calling and he found he soon had their interest when he started describing the more gruesome aspects of history. He ignored the expression on the teacher’s face as he moved onto public hangings and burials in unconsecrated ground. Before she could interrupt him he rounded off his talk with the politically correct plan to understand the wrongly accused of the past.
The vicar returned to the dig just in time to hear a cry of surprise and fear from a young woman and see other team members grab her before she was sucked into the sink hole that had suddenly appeared. It was not large, but wide enough that she could have slipped in. With great presence of mind the vicar had his camera out and leaned over the wall to take a picture before the leader of the dig ordered everyone to move right back. They joined the vicar on the safe side of the wall.
‘I saw a ladder’ gasped the girl.
John brought the pictures up on his phone screen, a bit blurred, but they did seem to show a wooden ladder. There was excited chatter. Some were pragmatic and thought it must be an old sewer, while others suggested a secret tunnel to the church. Romans were forgotten about for the moment.
‘It is not safe for us to proceed at all, we need the council to send in their engineers’ said the dig’s leader.
John was disappointed, hoping a mystery tunnel would be of nearly as much interest as skeletons and they only had a short time to produce historical drama for the locals.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ piped up another young woman ‘my boyfriend’s a potholer and even better, he is on the potholing recue team. They could check this hole more safely than council workers.’
‘Yes let’s get this underway before the council gets involved,’ said John ‘after all, you have permission to dig, does it matter how it’s done?’
The emergency potholers treated the operation as a good training exercise. Within an hour all sorts of rigs and pulleys were set up so the volunteer could be lowered without stepping on the ladder. Initial shining of torches showed the ladder went down a long way. The ropes were played out and he disappeared out of sight to report back on his radio that the narrow passage down widened into some sort of cavern. His boss ordered him not to go any further, lest the whole lot came down on top of him.
They all heard his reports from down below ‘I’ll try and take photos, it’s a small space, oh my god, bring me up…’
He was helped off with his helmet and he looked pale and shocked.
‘Skeleton…’
‘A catacomb?
‘Just a small space and a skeleton laid on a slab of stone.’
‘A burial in unconsecrated ground, just as we expected,’ said the vicar ‘but why so deep and why the ladder?’
‘Whoever buried him would need a way to get back up, whatever the reason.’
‘Or he could have requested in his will that a ladder be installed in case he wasn’t really dead and then he could get out. People used to be scared of being buried alive.’
‘Still are’ said someone else.
‘He was definitely dead,’ said the potholer ‘he had a large wooden stake through his ribs.’
‘A vampire?’
‘Poor chap’ said the vicar ‘he probably had a disease which makes your mouth bleed and could have had mental health issues as well. We don’t have vampires in England.’
‘Yes we do’ piped up someone else ‘Count Dracula landed in Whitby.’
‘That is fiction’ sighed the vicar. ‘We will certainly pray for him at the All Hallows’ Eve Service tomorrow night, I trust you will all be there.’
The Reverend John Dee had always dreamt of Salisbury Cathedral, striding across the green gazing up at the tall spire, pointing to a heaven he didn’t believe in. It was the beautiful setting that appealed to the vicar; he pictured himself as a new deacon cycling by the water meadows, smiling at other cyclists and walkers, enjoying a drink in the pub by the mill. Dining in the evening with fellow clergy interested in history and nature.
Instead, John Dee found himself in a bleak town in sole charge of Saint Justin’s parish church, a church under threat of being deconsecrated, its few remaining parishioners left to the ministrations of visiting lay clergy. But St. Justin’s was also an historic Saxon church which experts, who didn’t actually attend church themselves, felt should remain dedicated to Christian worship. No other clergy wanted to take it on and no other parish wanted John Dee. He only agreed because of his love of history and nature. The church was surrounded by a large graveyard, accidentally rewilded. Next to the grounds of the church was a nature reserve of a few acres, fields and a copse protected for eternity from the encroaching ugly town by a trust endowed by a local of great standing centuries ago.
As John Dee stood leaning on the churchyard wall in the autumn sunshine, listening to the robin’s sweet song, he took some pleasure in his new little kingdom. But there was a difficult side to his new calling, the bishop expected him to revive the congregation and inspire locals to attend services and put money in the collection. He could rustle up a few stirring sermons on the internet, but how to get locals there in the first place, especially as he didn’t particularly like people.
He decided to turn his attention to the letter that had arrived that day. A team from the university in a neighbouring more interesting town, had been given permission to do a small test archaeological dig just the other side of the wall. They were hoping to find traces of a Roman Villa. The robin would be happy with a supply of juicy worms, but John did not want his peaceful sanctuary disturbed. Then he recalled a bizarre conversation with his oldest parishioner.
She told him this very field was the resting place of evil, where the wicked were buried in unconsecrated ground after being executed or struck down with nasty illnesses they deserved. John had been amused and tried to suggest modern thinking would no doubt consider they had been harshly treated for stealing a loaf of bread or having mental health issues. But the old lady had no truck with modern thinking and warned him that field must not be disturbed for fear of releasing evil.
John Dee was struck with a new idea. Halloween would soon be upon them and he would somehow spread rumours that the dig might come upon skeletons not Roman tiled floors. After all, it was traditional for those not worthy to enter the Kingdom of God to be buried on the other side of the wall. Before interest could wane he would hold a service on All Hallows’ Eve to pardon those poor souls and welcome them back into the family of the church; an excellent alternative to all the commercial rubbish and greed at Halloween. The bishop should approve.
‘No, a box of paperbacks, destined to be Christmas presents I expect, at least we have avoided yet another new novel.’
‘So, what’s in that drawer?’
‘More folders full of writing.’
‘Oh goodness, she told me she was going to leave her intellectual property to me… and all her manuscripts!’
‘Ha ha Sis, have you seen what’s in the loft?’
‘Lucky you Sis, most authors are only successful after they have died, so maybe you’ll make some money.’
‘At least she went the way she would have liked, freak accident trying to take pictures for her blog.’
‘How do you know it was an accident, she could have been pushed.’
‘Ha ha, by another jealous blogger?’
‘However it happened at least it was dramatic, she did say to me one day ‘If I’m found dead I do not want headlines in the local news saying ‘Pensioner found dead’ make sure it’s ‘Mystery Death of Author.’
‘She was certainly intending to be home soon, her computer’s still logged in to WordPress, looks like she was in the middle of writing a blog… hmmm Halloween story. We could publish it and no one would be any the wiser that she was dead, that’s if anyone actually reads her blog.’
‘It would be a sort of tribute if her Halloween story still went out.’
‘Yup, the word document is open as well so it would be her genuine writing.’
‘And in the unlikely event that any reader had heard she had died, they would think her ghost had written it!’
‘Okay, you do the blog then and I’ll go on searching for her will.’
DO YOU EVER HEAR A WORD ON TELEVISION OR RADIO, EVEN ON THE NEWS AND THINK IS THAT ACTUALLY A REAL WORD?
Coronated? What happened to Crowned? But then how did the crowning event turn into a coronation?
CIRCUMAMBULATION? CAN’T YOU JUST SAY CIRCLING? It does especially mean walking round a sacred object in a ceremony.
Do you ever write down words then forget the context or what they mean?
Encirculate? Who on earth said this. Probably not a real word, a search comes up with encircle.
Fabulate – to tell a tall tale.
Reheterosexualised – I can only find heterosexualised – which I think can be taken to mean that it is assumed that when you get old or need to stay in a care home it is assumed you revert to being heterosexual. When I came across reheterosexualised it referred to family reinventing the life of the deceased loved one to reclaim them as heterosexual.
Now for words easier on the tongue…
FURTLE – When I heard someone on Gardeners’ Question Time ( BBC RADIO 4 ) talk about furtling around in the compost heap, I knew exactly what she meant and was keen to use it in my writing. ‘To gently delve; to probe or rummage tentatively.’
Metafiction – I confess I had to look this up when another cleverer blogger used the word in a comment on one of my stories. ‘Metafiction is a form of fiction that emphasizes its own narrative structure in a way that inherently reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work.’
Today on the radio they were talking about a trend in France to become part time farmers to get away from stressful jobs in the city. The commentator used a phrase I wished I had thought of, though I might well use it for one of my characters….’Those of us who are purveyors of words and tabulations will see the attraction of escaping to a farm.
Have you seen or heard any unusual words lately, or even better, invented some yourself?
‘Another one’s appeared, on the oak tree, pathetic and disrespectful, cultural appropriation or is it misappropriation?’
‘Just ignore them Oberon.’
‘I’m going to take my axe to it this time.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, they aren’t causing any harm to us, not compared with all the other stuff they do.’
‘What if one of our folk thought it was a real door!’
‘Daddy, why have you got an axe?’
‘Your father’s getting overwrought over the giants again. If you’re not careful Oberon they’re going to see you and then where will we be, doesn’t bear thinking.’
‘Mummy, you said the giants wouldn’t hurt us.’
‘They won’t as long as they don’t believe we exist. Anyway, it’s time you were getting ready for school, have you brushed your wings?’
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 