Fifth series, episode 12

All five series are available here on the HebWeb.

In this episode, George Murphy writes about Gaza, the Cotswolds when wet and Hebden when dry, reviews a TV series on human evolution, explains why he’s not joining a new party, shares readers’ letters on mind altering substances, falls under the spell of a dog dressed like Robin Day, reflects on the puzzle of Chris Martin performing in a Sowerby Bridge pub, remembers the forgotten war and responds to Robert Frost. 

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Gaza protest letter

Local writer Horatio Clare, and Belfast based Sean Murray, organised a plea for a boycott of Israel and gathered support from more than 200 hundred writers, along with famous names, such as Zadie Smith, Michael Rosen, Irvine Welsh and there was also the famous Ben Myers and several other local writers. I signed the letter to The Guardian, which urges an immediate halt to trade with Israel. Horatio reports that the letter has since appeared in LA República and The Times of Israel.

Mini break

On the way to the Cotswolds, we visited Geoff, an old student friend, and the first openly gay man I ever met. I first clapped eyes on him at the college disco, back in 1970, when he was dancing with Kath, who looked like a beatnik. The pair obviously belonged to an arty bohemian group, the kind of people I thought I’d like to know.

Geoff lives in Uttoxeter, where he grew up and spent his teaching career. It’s near to the River Dove and the Peak District. The first thing he said to me was, “George, where’s your lovely dark hair?” He took us to the Duncombe Arms, a gastro pub near Ashbourne. The food lived up to its reputation. We shared memories, mainly humorous, but not the bill, as Geoff insisted on paying. He had kept in touch with many former students and told us of those who thrived and those who divorced, got dementia, turned to drink, or died.

Didn’t it rain, mother!

The Cotswolds aren’t the Cotswolds if the sun doesn’t shine. In our short visit it was often overcast and a storm and JD Vance were on their way. The honey and gold houses took on a mournful hue. So we didn’t photograph the Abbey in Cirencester, nor the handsome square in Stow on the Wold, where we hid in the car one afternoon as the heavens opened. A month’s worth of Storm Flora rain poured down. When it stopped, we drove through flood water along the undulating road to our cottage beside the ancient Stump Inn, not far from Cirencester.

Returning north, we spent a few hours in Bewdley, once an inland port for ships from the Bristol Channel. Its decline started when the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal was cut and bypassed the town. This left its ancient architecture largely intact.

Gaza protests

Still the dreadful scenes come in from Gaza. Children are dying from malnutrition. Starving people waiting for food are being shot. Trump, who has backed the lethal Israeli regime, actually thinks he’s going to get a peace prize whilst this genocide is going on.

In London, people are arrested for showing support for a proscribed terrorist group. The Home Secretary explains that they are a violent organisation, but can’t show us the evidence because it might affect subsequent trials. So all we’ve got to go on is a prankish spray painting of planes that might have attacked terrorist enclaves in Lebanon.

We’re only human after all

Back home, we watched Human, presented by Ella Al-Shamahi. PW asked, “Why do they make her walk on precipices?” A good question. See an escarpment or a pyramid and Ella, whose career blossomed when she got truly engaged with science, let her hair down, left the husband of her arranged marriage and became an explorer. Walking on precipices and delving into caves is what explorers do.

The early episodes switched between examinations of old bones belonging to other types of humans and countless created scenes of members of each human group in turn trudging through arid landscapes towards extinction, the cinematography giving the impression that evolution was as dimly lit as a Scandi murder mystery, despite occurring in sub Saharan Africa.

Some startling facts lodged in my increasingly porous brain. Neanderthals lived in Europe for 400,000 years before Homo Sapiens arrived. At which point, there was a bit of how’s your father and now we’ve all got Neanderthal genes in our DNA. Our arrival in Europe was quickly followed by their going – although Al-Shamahi, a paleoanthropologist, blamed this on the change to a more temperate climate that suited herbivore homo sapiens better than meat eating Neanderthals.

At some point in the homo sapien journey, the taming of wolves, and their evolution into guard dogs, allowed our weary hunter-gatherer ancestors to sleep soundly at night. But I reckon adolescents also had a role to play. Neurological research has shown that youthful brains have a different sleep pattern than their elders. Life was late to bed and late to rise for pubescent kids back then, as it is now. Their jobs were staying on guard alongside the wolfdogs, and keeping the camp fire going. But perhaps they also had some teenage kicks all through the night.

There were downsides to the agricultural revolution, where groups took up farming and began living in villages that quickly expanded into cities. People were afflicted by new viruses from their farm animals. Society became more hierarchical. Elite classes and dictatorial rulers emerged. On the plus side, city dwellers organised street markets and shops and were soon bartering, trading, building, mining and mass producing. They created their own myths, legends and stories, sometimes immortalising their soldiers, sailors and heroes. Nations and nationalism were born.

The urbanisation of the present era has led, in little over 9,000 years, to sprawling cities, skyscrapers, literacy, moon landings, mass media, smart phones, world wars, nuclear bombs and global warming. So, perhaps the few remaining nomadic hunter gatherers out there will outlast us all.

Dog City

Thinking about evolution, has anyone noticed the recent transition from baby to dog worship? In the baby booming 50s, tots in prams often attracted the admiration of passing females. But, these days, crowds of mesmerised mutt lovers coo at cute canines in prams, whilst babies in buggies - pushed by bored looking, phone scrolling mums - pass by completely unregarded.

This week, I was walking up the steps in the park when a small, off the leash but well behaved curly furred terrier, trotted down the steps in front of me and its attire was so unusual it caused me to miss my step and fall. Its owner appeared on the scene and asked, “Are you okay?”

I said, “I’m fine. I was just startled by the sight of a dog wearing a dicky bow!”

The Shaggy Dog Story

Despite rumours of its imminent demise, the famous club has been given the kiss of life and revived, with a brand new committee. Gatherings of tellers and listeners will once more be welcomed upstairs at Stubbing Wharf on the last Friday of each month, from 8 o’clock sharp.

When the votes come in

With people fleeing wars and famine abroad, refugees in small boats loom large on the airwaves. In response to our MP’s post about his role on the Health and Social Care Select Committee, one constituent wrote about the two hotels housing illegal immigrants in Halifax, and asked, “ … can you guarantee that our women, girls and children are safe?”

I responded, “ … records show that most attacks on women and girls are in their own homes. 41% of the rioters arrested last year were men with records of domestic abuse.”

Well, if you can’t beat them join them. The xenophobic Deputy Leader of  the Tories picked up on the phrase and told The Express that he was worried about the danger to his womenfolk and girls by people arriving from backward countries.

Tripping

Driving to the garden centre, we heard a Radio 4 programme on LSD and mind altering drugs. The presenter remembered taking several acid trips in the 60s, which she regretted. Corporations in the States are mass producing hallucinogens, but she believes they are suppressing evidence of suicides and psychotic episodes during their drug trials.

There’s growing evidence, however, that some people benefit from psychedelic therapy for PTSD and depression. A nasal spray was approved in the States in 2019 and in Australia, LSD and MDMA treatments were approved in 2022, despite research showing that evidence of benefits was very low.

I had a bad trip in the early 70s and I decided I wouldn’t tempt fate by having a second chemical induced mind altering journey. So I asked friends on social media what their experiences have been.

Storyteller Simon Heywood commented, “It’s a bit of a dice roll innit. By the time you’ve tried to find out if it’s good or bad for you, it’s too late – you’ve already taken it.”

Heather Wilson: “We used to take it back in the 70’s, maybe 5 times and luckily not a bad experience for any of us. I have no idea if that, or prolonged smoking of marijuana over the next few years has resulted in mebeing as weird as I am. I will never know if I’d have been normal had I not taken any of it! xx”

Hayley Reid: “I experimented with LSD in my late teens project (as did loads of my friends) and for me it totally changed my mind for the better. I realise that perception of reality was largely based in your mind and one can alter one's perceptions and mind. This lesson has stood me in good stead forever. I think it's use or harm can be very much dependent on the circumstances in which it's taken and for what purpose and who you are with. Therapeutic use is massively different than dropping a tab at a party. George, what was so bad about it for you?”

Reply: It was frightening, I got flashbacks afterwards. Knowing people who have been damaged, I’m glad I took the pledge! Reading about famous people who have suffered permanent harm confirmed my decision.

Jacqueline Davies Hughes: Never touch the stuff. Or any others George but glad you only tried once.

Dave Jackson: My one experience of magic mushrooms in the 70s was very positive, it did permanently change the way I saw and thought about the world and left me with no desire to try it again. The research I've read recently suggested a lots of potential benefits as well as the more obvious risks.

Christina Longden: If people finding God in the US is a reason to rule it out, then I'm completely against it. If you can only have a relationship with God as a result of taking drugs that provoked feelings of ecstasy then it’s not really ‘God’ is it? There are no shortcuts to God. People should have to sit in an uncomfortable church pew and be miserable in order to find ‘Him’. Far more character building.

Hot times in Upper Calder

We’re in the fourth heatwave of the year, but I still manage to stagger to the town centre most mornings. By 10 o’clock, the pavement cafes are full of folks looking for tables under awnings. There’s been an outbreak of men in shorts and bucket hats, with plenty of Factor 50 slapped on their pale legs. Friends returning from furnace heat on the Med, are disappointed to arrive back in oven hot England.

Chris Martin plays The Puzzle

The Cold Play singer did a pop up performance at the famous Puzzle Inn in Sowerby Bridge. Word quickly spread and some people dragged their kids out of their beds in their pyjamas to go and witness the superstar’s set. All agreed that Chris was very nice.

But, what am I saying? Alexei Sayle would scoff, “Nice!? Nice!? Rockstars aren’t supposed to be nice!” Back in the 1980s, I was lead singer in The Holroyd Brothers and we gained some unexpected notoriety when we got busted for playing too loud, after complaints from a few farmers up in Norland. Let the legend live on!

Mind you, if I was still living in the Ryburne Valley, I might have sneaked in for a pint, despite only knowing one Coldplay song, that one about his girlfriend Gwynneth being all yellow, which was not surprising really, with all those weird lady products she was brewing. 

VJ Day

Watching The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the 80th celebration of VJ Day, reminded me to try again to find out more about my dad’s role in The Forgotten War by contacting the Burma Star Association. We lost my dad’s medal when my youngest sister played a swap it game with a neighbour’s kid, back in the fifties. We used to own a photo of my dad and other members of his company in a bamboo hut, but that went missing during my parents’ divorce. Dad rarely talked about the war; but, before he died, he told my oldest sister that everyone else in that photo was killed in the conflict.

Arrested in the square

I was editing these mid-August musings when I got a message about the arrest of Christine Drake, the longtime Palestine protestor, in the Square and alerted the Editor. I presume this was for supporting the banned Palestine Action Group. You can see the harrowing scenes by following the link on the home page.

And finally

Thanks to Glenda George for posting:
“Fire and Ice”
By Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I sent Glenda my less subtle offering, which concentrates on our changed geography since Robert’s time.

Now that we are losing ice,
Fire and flood don’t seem as nice.

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