Not On My To-Do List

          I had better get it off my chest: I am not mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II. She may have done a “good job” as Head of State, but that assessment is as vague as the appointment process is arbitrary. There is no possible justification for a monarch inheriting a position that their distant forbears grabbed by force. And not all the Queen’s subjects think of her fondly. As one teenager commented when asked her opinion by a reporter, “It’s sad that she died, like, but she never did nothing for us.” Moreover, half-way through ten days of official mourning, I am aghast at the extent of the no-(public)-expense spared, fancy-dress ceremonies endlessly unfolding. Some people will not be complaining – florists and costumiers, for example. They will be able to use their excess profits to pay their electricity bills next month.

         Then there’s the dereliction of duty shown by a government whose absence of presence all through summer is now extended until after the funeral. If she were a true patriot, our newly installed Prime Minister might step up and sort out the mess, but I suspect she is sulking, miffed at having had her limelight stolen

          But concerned as I am about wasteful, delusional pomp and the lassitude of government, I am more worried by the latent threat to our right to dissent. Some of those who have been brave enough to swim publicly against the tide of popular sentiment have been booed, abused and even threatened with arrest for “disturbing the peace”. Calls for the abolition of monarchy are viewed as unpatriotic, but patriotism, famously referred to by Dr Johnson as, “the last resort of a scoundrel”, is all too often deliberately mis-defined (e.g., by Putin). The true patriot, “is proud of a country’s virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies” *, a more balanced definition of love for one’s country. The fact that filing respectfully past the Queen’s coffin is not on my to-do list makes me no less patriotic than the most fervent royalist.

          What is on my to-do list is, in reality, quite mundane, rather like the one I found the other day on a path, where it had been dropped. It is written on the actual back of an actual envelope (just like the Government’s policies). It reads thus:

WEDS

Clean J + F’s toys + bathroom

Clean Washing mach + Dishwasher

Penny – date

Prue – date

Email Eric

Caroline’s email

Sue (phone number, redacted)

          From these scraps of information, I have imagined a character – a young woman, married, with children and an active social life. She seems overly concerned with cleaning, but the bold, elegant hand tells me she’s artistic, educated and a late adopter of notebook apps. Then again, my certainty that they are a ‘she’ is somewhat undermined by one thing in particular: no woman of my acquaintance has ever shown interest in cleaning the machines that clean stuff. Surely, that falls into the category of ‘maintenance’, which is more often associated with blokes? So perhaps they aren’t married – at least, not to a bloke who does maintenance – and they live alone with two kids and some grubby toys. They are somewhat obsessive about hygiene – on Wednesdays, at least – but I would need to see Thursday’s list to get a more balanced picture. I do have the option of calling Sue to see whether she can shed some light, but I realise that would be creepy and could land me in trouble, so the question remains open: is she/he/they a republican with whom I could share a pint or a monarchist who would grass me up to the police, to be handed over to the custody of Black Rod or some such other costumed relic of medieval feudalism empowered by King Charles to lock me up in the Tower of London?

* Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)

Enduring Friendship?

          “If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.”

          (Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician, died 1662.)

          The other day, I went for walk with two of my old friends. That may not sound significant, but it matters to us because in the more than fifty years since we first bonded, our paths have diverged to the extent that we would never see each other unless we made a point of it. So, the walk has become an annual event (covid years excepted) and one that we look forward to. It also leads me to ponder the nature of friendship and the forms it takes, sitting as it seems to me, on the continuum of human interaction somewhere between acquaintance and love. And, like them, friendship can be fluid, fleeting and fragile or solid, serene and steadfast, Pascal’s observation notwithstanding.

          But first, why a walk? The obvious answer is that the three of us share a fondness for tramping across the country and – it has to be said – would like to keep doing it for as long as we’re able. Fortunately, we are still fit enough to manage more than a stroll through the park. On this occasion, we did an eight-mile stretch of the North Cornwall coast from Boscastle to Tintagel and back, climbing down into then up out of several inlets. It being the end of the holiday season, the young families with children had disappeared from the scene, leaving it to our generation to enjoy in tranquillity and with traditional pasties to give us succour. And while we walked, we talked about old times, new times, family, literature and politics (though we had no need to dwell on the last of these, as there has always been a consensus in favour of socialism). There will come a time when strenuous walking will not be on our agenda, so what will we do then? I would rather have a wheelchair rally than see the end of our reunions.

          Friends – and old ones in particular – are a part of me: without them, I would not be what I have become. The nature of friendship may be hard to pin down, but its value is evident. As children, we pal-up with playmates instinctively. Then, as we grow older, move schools, start careers and settle in new neighbourhoods, we begin to appreciate the need to make friends: they are the seasoning of social life, the key to our mental wellbeing and the means of navigating life’s difficulties. Hence, as adults, we make a more conscious effort to acquire and, if we’re prudent, keep them. They say that as we grow older it becomes difficult to make new friends, perhaps because of retirement and the subsequent diminished daily contact with others. If that’s the case, it makes sense to hang on to the ones you have.

          It seems anachronistic that friendships originating half a century ago can endure many long years of minimal contact, but maybe that is just why they do. By not being put through their paces – the ups and downs of everyday life, disappointments and disillusionments – they are never tested to destruction. Rather, they become idealised, elevated to a place they may or may not deserve. I shall see how this goes when I go to Australia later this year and meet up with more old friends of whom I am deeply fond but don’t see from one decade to another.

          So, while Pascal’s assertion explains why friendships may fail or, worse, turn to enmity, it also implicitly acknowledges the natural inclination to make friends in the first place. So, on reflection, it’s maybe as well to be insulated by time and circumstance from the eroding effects of intimacy.

Just The Ticket!

          Returning from London the other day on a ‘super off-peak’ ticket, we were refused boarding on two ‘off-peak’ trains and had to wait an hour for one that allowed ‘super’ passengers. Now, I would have expected a ‘super’ to trump a mere ‘off-peak’, but the system follows a different logic, baffling at best, incomprehensible at worst. In the event, the later train was almost deserted and therefore more comfortable and calming. And the fact that it got held up behind a slower train also worked in our favour, as we then qualified for a 25 % refund for late arrival. Now that’s what I call super.

          The next morning, I caught another train, the ‘bus-on-rails’ up the ancient single-track serving the Tamar valley. My mission was to get to the orchards at Cothele where, earlier in the summer, I had been eyeing up the variety of apples on offer. My enthusiasm for a harvest, however, was premature – as I’m sure any horticulturalist could have told me. The trees were weighed down with colourful fruit, tantalising but unripe. I made my way back to the station, not unduly disappointed. After all, it had been a lovely walk and the pasty I had purchased from the local shop was one of the best I have ever tasted.

          The train trundled into the tiny, unmanned station of Calstock, where a dozen or so of us day-trippers were waiting to be taken home. I found a seat that would allow a good view and, as we pulled away, patted my pockets for my phone. That’s when I got that sinking feeling. I searched my back-pack, frantically, but I knew it would not be there. I had left the phone on the platform, on the low wall where I had sat waiting for the train. Having put it down while I fiddled around with various pairs of specs, I neglected to pick it up when I stood to board.

          I remember that years ago, if one lost one’s wallet, the incident became an emergency – racing to cancel debit and credit cards and having to cope with dismay at the loss of one’s ready cash. Possibly, there was also a driving licence or other form of proof of identity and an intimate photo of a loved one that could never be replicated. The loss of one’s phone, by these criteria, is trivial, but in other ways, more catastrophic. The contents are – or should be – secure from acquisitive predators, but they are also temporarily inaccessible to oneself which, given they include diary, contacts and numerous indispensable apps, makes it awkward to communicate – especially as one has no phone! My mind whirled through possible courses of action. I consulted the ticket-collector, who told me the staff on the train were on their last shift, so they could not help to retrieve it. He advised me to remain on the train for its return journey (it turned at Plymouth to go back up the valley) and, with luck, my phone might still be where I left it.

          The fresh crew boarded the train and the kindly ticket collector said she had been told about my predicament and would not insist I pay again. Nevertheless, I spent the next hour alternating between despair and resignation. Every stop tested my patience and every mile my resilience. As the train pulled into Calstock, I stood at the door, scanning the wall and saw that it was still there! With unseemly haste, I leapt from the train and ran down the platform, dodging elderly trekkers and parents with toddlers in tow. A young woman stood next to the phone and had been ‘guarding’ it in the hope that its owner might turn up. She was almost as relieved as I was that we were reunited. Even the ticket collector leaned out and gave me a smiling thumbs-up. I clutched the phone closely all the way home and noted that there is a human side to the rail ticketing system after all.