Bryan Islip's Blog, page 47
February 26, 2011
Read the book
A Long Long Way is Sebastian Barry's epic novel of the Irish dilemma during World War One. How can you fight for king and country when most of your countrymen are telling you the king is not your king and the country at war, whose uniform you wear, is not your country?
This novel does not put forward any answer unless the answer is that there is no answer. There are no facile rights and wrongs, no good and bads here. On the other hand everything is right because it is, and at the same time everything is so very obviously wrong. Private William Dunne of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers begins by trying at least to understand and ends by not wanting to try to understand. 'Theirs not to reason why, theirs but ... ' etc.
So why read a novel this black, this much steeped in a disaster unmitigated beyond reason? My note at the beginning of Going with Gabriel , in acknowledgement of those who have most influenced me, includes the following ...
'Professor Logan Pearsall-Smith, author in 1933 of (the extended essay) On Reading Shakespeare showed my why the choice and arrangement of words can be worth more than the story; more in fact than anything.'
Sebastian Barry's words are simply worth it. Don't ask why. Read the book. Hear the music.
This novel does not put forward any answer unless the answer is that there is no answer. There are no facile rights and wrongs, no good and bads here. On the other hand everything is right because it is, and at the same time everything is so very obviously wrong. Private William Dunne of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers begins by trying at least to understand and ends by not wanting to try to understand. 'Theirs not to reason why, theirs but ... ' etc.
So why read a novel this black, this much steeped in a disaster unmitigated beyond reason? My note at the beginning of Going with Gabriel , in acknowledgement of those who have most influenced me, includes the following ...
'Professor Logan Pearsall-Smith, author in 1933 of (the extended essay) On Reading Shakespeare showed my why the choice and arrangement of words can be worth more than the story; more in fact than anything.'
Sebastian Barry's words are simply worth it. Don't ask why. Read the book. Hear the music.
February 24, 2011
In memoriam
I think it was 1979 or maybe 1980 when the scalloper Dawn Waters went down with all hands. I painted this picture shortly afterwards. It hangs in pride of place on our living room wall. In a moment I'll tell you why.
The boat was skippered by a man they called French Louis, famous then in commercial fishing circles around the south coast of England, the Channel Islands, the French ports and the Irish Sea for his sheer toughness, his great store of knowledge and his skill and his boat's exceptionally high earnings. I think he had a crew of six, including our seventeen years old 'deckie learner' son Stuart. For reasons not germaine to this account Stuart had grown up through his teens in domestic waters nigh on as stormy as those on that night off Jersey when Dawn Waters' heavy steel boom came back to pin him to the cabin wall, almost tearing out his shoulder. He was helicoptered off in a force eight and delivered to the Seaman's Hospital in Greenwich. The surgeons there did an amazing job of mending and knitting and he came home to recuperate. The boy / young man had always been exceptionally strong in body as in mind and still was, praise be; bloodied but definitely unbowed - until he got the news. Some say Dawn waters was taken down when her gear become impacted by a submarine. The authorities deny it. Anyway our young man had had an escape little short of miraculous. Today he has a lovely wife and our two lovely grandaughters, lives in Spain and commutes to a very responsible job as driller in Angola's oil industry. We are of course very proud of him and of his. I wrote this poem a few years later, nothing to do with Dawn waters but very much with Stuart in mind.
Ballad for a young fisherman
Caught up by the tide is the Jessie McBride with the rocks on her keelson now gratingAnd her anxious crew know not what to do and the seas nowhere near to abating,But she's built from old oak and there's nothing too broke and it's time is the answer, that's clearSo hold on you men, she'll float once again, soon be landing more fish on the pier.
There'll be many a morn with the sky painted dawn and her wake a cream vee on a mirror,When the seabirds call, there's a fry up for all and you all have forgotten this terrorSkip'll be at the wheel, you'll be sharpening your steel ahead of the catch that's to come Yes, he'll drink up his tea, wink, grin at the sea and sing to her engine's sweet hum.
The fishing grounds reached, far from where she beached, your gear out and bumping the bottom,The otter boards wide trawling into the tide and everything into slow motion, You'll wonder if God ever made things this good for folk who spend their lives ashore who have never a chance to see sunlight dance with the ocean, know freedom, risk more.
Then one night in the pub with the loud hubbub and a pocket of notes if you're luckyThere's the girl with the eyes opened wide unsurprised when you eye her and ask the disc jockeyTo play the old tune all about a blue moon, distant lights in some harbour aglowThen you'll take her home and swear not to roam - and one day she will not say no.
As you may have guessed I have enormous respect for those who go down to the sea in ships, especially those who go there in search of the shoals. Those who have ever a chance to see sunlight dance with the ocean, know freedom, risk more.
The boat was skippered by a man they called French Louis, famous then in commercial fishing circles around the south coast of England, the Channel Islands, the French ports and the Irish Sea for his sheer toughness, his great store of knowledge and his skill and his boat's exceptionally high earnings. I think he had a crew of six, including our seventeen years old 'deckie learner' son Stuart. For reasons not germaine to this account Stuart had grown up through his teens in domestic waters nigh on as stormy as those on that night off Jersey when Dawn Waters' heavy steel boom came back to pin him to the cabin wall, almost tearing out his shoulder. He was helicoptered off in a force eight and delivered to the Seaman's Hospital in Greenwich. The surgeons there did an amazing job of mending and knitting and he came home to recuperate. The boy / young man had always been exceptionally strong in body as in mind and still was, praise be; bloodied but definitely unbowed - until he got the news. Some say Dawn waters was taken down when her gear become impacted by a submarine. The authorities deny it. Anyway our young man had had an escape little short of miraculous. Today he has a lovely wife and our two lovely grandaughters, lives in Spain and commutes to a very responsible job as driller in Angola's oil industry. We are of course very proud of him and of his. I wrote this poem a few years later, nothing to do with Dawn waters but very much with Stuart in mind.
Ballad for a young fisherman
Caught up by the tide is the Jessie McBride with the rocks on her keelson now gratingAnd her anxious crew know not what to do and the seas nowhere near to abating,But she's built from old oak and there's nothing too broke and it's time is the answer, that's clearSo hold on you men, she'll float once again, soon be landing more fish on the pier.
There'll be many a morn with the sky painted dawn and her wake a cream vee on a mirror,When the seabirds call, there's a fry up for all and you all have forgotten this terrorSkip'll be at the wheel, you'll be sharpening your steel ahead of the catch that's to come Yes, he'll drink up his tea, wink, grin at the sea and sing to her engine's sweet hum.
The fishing grounds reached, far from where she beached, your gear out and bumping the bottom,The otter boards wide trawling into the tide and everything into slow motion, You'll wonder if God ever made things this good for folk who spend their lives ashore who have never a chance to see sunlight dance with the ocean, know freedom, risk more.
Then one night in the pub with the loud hubbub and a pocket of notes if you're luckyThere's the girl with the eyes opened wide unsurprised when you eye her and ask the disc jockeyTo play the old tune all about a blue moon, distant lights in some harbour aglowThen you'll take her home and swear not to roam - and one day she will not say no.
As you may have guessed I have enormous respect for those who go down to the sea in ships, especially those who go there in search of the shoals. Those who have ever a chance to see sunlight dance with the ocean, know freedom, risk more.
February 23, 2011
Otter in our garden
We haven't actually seen him or her as yet but our neighbour has; a not so wee sleekit creature strolling in the morning half light down our driveway. Otter! The theory is that he or she is after the feedstuff that Dee over-generously puts out for birds large and small. Some weeks ago we discovered an animal run coming up the roadside ditch from the lochside beach fifty metres distant. The run proceeds through a hole in the dry stone garden wall. We had assumed it was made by a rabbit because we've seen those on the lawn a few times. However they don't last long before carnivores, whether on wings or fast feet, come to take them. A year ago I reported here how we actually watched a weasel at his wierdly extravagent and quite blood-chilling dance of death around a rabbit struck motionless with fear, and then ...
But otters have no enemies other than, historically, the usual ones; the ones on two legs with big sticks. Not so now. Who these days would seek to kill an otter? (Other than by accident under lethal, fast moving vehicle wheels, that is.) We quite often see them hunting the weedy margins, again as reported here. We always stop still to watch, as if as spellbound as that rabbit. It lifts our spirits in some strange way. Once we saw one come up from a dive with some awful excrescence around its head. We thought it might have been injured by a boat's propellor although there was narry a boat in sight. Very seldom is in Gruinard Bay. Then we realised it had hold of the body of an octopus that had wrapped its tentacles all around the otter's head.
Of course otters are not benign. Nature does not permit of benign carnivores. They can, by our perception, be exceedingly cruel. A crofting neighbour lost one duck per night for some time before realising it was mummy otter up from the beachside holt looking to keep fed her three cubs. To her credit said crofting lady reacted by simply making the quarters of her remaining livestock more marauder proof. Lady otter would just have to work harder at the fishing, and did.
p.s. Needless to say, Dee has altered her garden offerings now. More fishy stuff. So perhaps we too will get to see our furry neighbour 'ere long.
But otters have no enemies other than, historically, the usual ones; the ones on two legs with big sticks. Not so now. Who these days would seek to kill an otter? (Other than by accident under lethal, fast moving vehicle wheels, that is.) We quite often see them hunting the weedy margins, again as reported here. We always stop still to watch, as if as spellbound as that rabbit. It lifts our spirits in some strange way. Once we saw one come up from a dive with some awful excrescence around its head. We thought it might have been injured by a boat's propellor although there was narry a boat in sight. Very seldom is in Gruinard Bay. Then we realised it had hold of the body of an octopus that had wrapped its tentacles all around the otter's head.
Of course otters are not benign. Nature does not permit of benign carnivores. They can, by our perception, be exceedingly cruel. A crofting neighbour lost one duck per night for some time before realising it was mummy otter up from the beachside holt looking to keep fed her three cubs. To her credit said crofting lady reacted by simply making the quarters of her remaining livestock more marauder proof. Lady otter would just have to work harder at the fishing, and did.
p.s. Needless to say, Dee has altered her garden offerings now. More fishy stuff. So perhaps we too will get to see our furry neighbour 'ere long.
February 22, 2011
Seabank
Now that my client has received it and everyone's mighty happy I can show you a painting completed a couple of weeks ago (before the Torridon effort).
It is called 'Seabank Cottage, Loch Ewe - Midsummer Midnight'. Here I've attempted to capture that softness of light that happens during those midsummer weeks when there is no real night time here. Whites glow brightly and all the rest is, as I say, softness. The verse reads...
On a midsummer midnight
This was the longest day and now Loch Ewe -Whose restless tides care nought for day or night -With all the world takes on a softer hueDark tones more hazy, lighter ones more light.
And here's a cottage where the roadway bendsAlong from Aultbea towards Mellon Charles 'Seabank' has been so many journeys' end -For more, far more than any hundred years
A hundred thousand tides have lapped its wallFive thousand storms have tried to bring it lowBut seabirds from its chimney pots still callAnd now the cottage bathes in midnight's glow.
Still trickling by, a burn across the beach -Fresh rains to slake the ever thirsty salt -Where otters take their playful cubs to teachTo fish, but sleep inside their bankside holt.
Bryan IslipJanuary 2011
It is called 'Seabank Cottage, Loch Ewe - Midsummer Midnight'. Here I've attempted to capture that softness of light that happens during those midsummer weeks when there is no real night time here. Whites glow brightly and all the rest is, as I say, softness. The verse reads...On a midsummer midnight
This was the longest day and now Loch Ewe -Whose restless tides care nought for day or night -With all the world takes on a softer hueDark tones more hazy, lighter ones more light.
And here's a cottage where the roadway bendsAlong from Aultbea towards Mellon Charles 'Seabank' has been so many journeys' end -For more, far more than any hundred years
A hundred thousand tides have lapped its wallFive thousand storms have tried to bring it lowBut seabirds from its chimney pots still callAnd now the cottage bathes in midnight's glow.
Still trickling by, a burn across the beach -Fresh rains to slake the ever thirsty salt -Where otters take their playful cubs to teachTo fish, but sleep inside their bankside holt.
Bryan IslipJanuary 2011
February 21, 2011
Torridon
This is my latest pastel, finished yesterday, size c 44 x 33 cm. For sale at £400 unframed but signed, sealed and delivered (UK)
Torridon
Mighty sandstone mountains rest uponan even older bed of Llewissian Gneiss*,to sleep the sleep of ages past and fall,all steeply down to those who live here,as proudly independent as their hill,sharing their lives, keeping themselves,in houses ranged along the waters' edge:like some white pearly choker strungaround the seaweed bouldery neck of wild and beautiful Loch Torridon
You can stand here by salt waters
of a sea that's never still, look up, and
feel the grind of Earth's tectonic plates,
know slow or fast means nothing but to us,
and know, finally, where are we
within all things.
Bryan IslipFebruary 2011
*Llewissian Gneiss is one of the oldest rocks in Europe, Reckoned to be three thousand million years old - or thereabouts!
February 20, 2011
White tailed sea eagles
Just back from our stroll, today the usual rough track from Kirkhill House alongside Loch Ewe. It is cold but lovely fresh and with a weak wintry sun as we eat our sandwiches and soup (me) coffee (she), sitting down on the sea shattered remains of a world war two hardstanding. There's the odd diver out there on the water, a few equally unidentifiable ducks, a harshly calling raven overhead and a splindly heron by the water's edge. Suddenly comes a clamouring of gulls. Three of them; blackbacks, the most powerful of the genre. We turn to look for what's upsetting them. Not a hundred metres away it's not one but a pair of white tailed sea eagles flapping low and slow towards us over the low tide kelp beds. Very evidently the black backs do not like them. Very evidently they have not spotted us.
We keep quite still as this aeriel ballet proceeds. One white tail spirals upwards and the other one hovers right there in front of us before swooping to pick up some trifle from the kelp. Then the two of them flap slowly away, to all appearances ignoring their persecutors (looking tiny by comparision). One flies across the kilometre or so of the loch to Isle Ewe, where Dee sees it alighting in a tree, and the other goes down towards Poolewe. No doubt they'll soon be rejoining each other.
We hope Loch Ewe has its first breeding pair of white tailed sea eagles in a hundred years.
We keep quite still as this aeriel ballet proceeds. One white tail spirals upwards and the other one hovers right there in front of us before swooping to pick up some trifle from the kelp. Then the two of them flap slowly away, to all appearances ignoring their persecutors (looking tiny by comparision). One flies across the kilometre or so of the loch to Isle Ewe, where Dee sees it alighting in a tree, and the other goes down towards Poolewe. No doubt they'll soon be rejoining each other.
We hope Loch Ewe has its first breeding pair of white tailed sea eagles in a hundred years.
Talk about a revolution
Here's a thought for a peaceful Sunday morning. Sorry for the sarcasm. If I wanted to know about peace I would have looked out on the loch and the mountains rather than at the TV screen with its sequences of uprisings all over the Middle East and North Africa. My thought is just this, that no uprising of 'the people' can succeed in producing anything except chaos and unhappiness unless the uprisers (a) are in the majority (b) have the support of either or preferably both of the civil police and the armed force and, by far the most important, (c), they have a have a clear idea of precisely what comes next, who makes it happen, and how.
I fear the Bahrainis, the Algerians, the Yemenis, even the Egyptians all fall at the second and the last hurdles. It is never enough to cry freedom, because freedom means anarchy, means blood and pain and a worsening of the lot of the people. Sorry to say it but how many Iraquis would vote for a Saddam Hussain comeback versus the current status after the events of the past seven years? Bush and Blair had no idea of what would come next, and cared less. And yet another thirty or so people dismembered by explosives yesterday proves me right. By the way, it hardly got a mention in our lovely flame-fanning media.
The historical revolts I listed the other day - in the USA, France, England, Ireland also prove me right. I'm reading Sebastian Barry's novel of the Irish Rebellion and the First World War, A Long Long Way. The Irish certainly knew the precise shape and texture of the post-rebellion things they were determined to achieve for their beloved homeland - and to hell with Flanders Field.
Western leaders are all pontificating right now, all urging the Arab leaders under siege to, quote, show restraint and allow freedom of expression, unquote. Mister Cameron, how much restraint would you be showing, how much freedom of expression would you be allowing if a hundred thousand of your people were marching across Westminster Bridge demanding the abolition of the monarchy, dissolution of parliament and your head on a plate? Could it indeed just be that a benevolent dictatorship would be a better option anyway? Some might think so. Don't worry. Not me. (But that is called freedom of expression, is it not?.)
I fear the Bahrainis, the Algerians, the Yemenis, even the Egyptians all fall at the second and the last hurdles. It is never enough to cry freedom, because freedom means anarchy, means blood and pain and a worsening of the lot of the people. Sorry to say it but how many Iraquis would vote for a Saddam Hussain comeback versus the current status after the events of the past seven years? Bush and Blair had no idea of what would come next, and cared less. And yet another thirty or so people dismembered by explosives yesterday proves me right. By the way, it hardly got a mention in our lovely flame-fanning media.
The historical revolts I listed the other day - in the USA, France, England, Ireland also prove me right. I'm reading Sebastian Barry's novel of the Irish Rebellion and the First World War, A Long Long Way. The Irish certainly knew the precise shape and texture of the post-rebellion things they were determined to achieve for their beloved homeland - and to hell with Flanders Field.
Western leaders are all pontificating right now, all urging the Arab leaders under siege to, quote, show restraint and allow freedom of expression, unquote. Mister Cameron, how much restraint would you be showing, how much freedom of expression would you be allowing if a hundred thousand of your people were marching across Westminster Bridge demanding the abolition of the monarchy, dissolution of parliament and your head on a plate? Could it indeed just be that a benevolent dictatorship would be a better option anyway? Some might think so. Don't worry. Not me. (But that is called freedom of expression, is it not?.)
February 18, 2011
Red kites
A couple of very good friends yesterday went to see the feeding of the red kites on the Black Isle. We often see these great birds hovering over the roadways near Inverness. They're looking for carrion. Some would say roadkill. Not a good word. Not a good meaning. Anyway this is for them, our friends Jackie and Jim. Along the wind
Fork-tails young and oldfly in from every directionusing fine the scuttling wind that scythes and sighs its waythrough bare-boned winter trees 'cross Black Isle hills and fields pregnant invisibly, yet greenwith newly stirring life,and a dual carriageway vergesheltering furry twitch-nose trembling, timorous beasties,that always need the other side:the lovely red kite's preynot now, some other day.
They come more easily to feedcourtesy of the much feared racethat not so many years ago would drive them from the earth.All forgotten and forgiven in these more lightened timeswhen perfectly they gatherhere, together aerobatic whirl and loop, and swoop to scoop what is today on offer then wing flutter up, together twirl air dancing like some bagpipe skirland thus bring some strange peaceto we who wait on summer's lease.
Bryan IslipFabruary 2011
February 17, 2011
Reading books
I confess to being excited about the invitation to read from my fiction to a public gathering at Ullapool's Seaforth Inn (as opposed to 'hotel' as I stated previously) on the evening of Saturday 5th March, This is World Book Day. I don't claim to having a particularly strong speaking voice and am a little unsure of how much 'acting and accent' to inject, therefore am trying to pick selections of words that will speak for themselves about the power and general direction of the stories and the quality of the writing.
I have done readings before so it is not new to me but I have a feeling that an invited audience of friends in a Gairloch cafe is going to be a different proposition to this gathering of strangers, obviously serious readers one and all. I'm making assumptions about the expected duration of each extract but, if it is left to me, I shall do a reading of the whole of my March short story of the month, There Was A Soldier - ten minutes or so - then a few brief extracts from each of my two novels and Twenty Bites, my anthology of short fiction.
***
I said recently that I would write about T E Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I've changed my mind. The fact is that for me there is great difficulty in establishing what is fact and what is this genius's fanciful love for all things Arabia. Besides that I feel there's nothing really left to say about the man and his masterpiece. What could you possibly say about an officer in the British Army who is invited to a private audience with his King and who politely declines the monarch's award of the supreme medal available to the armed forces, the Victoria Cross? Why did he do so? Because he believed (quite correctly) that the King and his Government had broken their word, had broken faith with the Arabs.
Somebody should have told him it was ever thus. But had Lawrence's much heralded State of Arabia, extending from Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) down to The Yemen and Oman, come into being, what problems might now be no more or may never have been?
That's the trouble with genius. Far too idealistic.
I have done readings before so it is not new to me but I have a feeling that an invited audience of friends in a Gairloch cafe is going to be a different proposition to this gathering of strangers, obviously serious readers one and all. I'm making assumptions about the expected duration of each extract but, if it is left to me, I shall do a reading of the whole of my March short story of the month, There Was A Soldier - ten minutes or so - then a few brief extracts from each of my two novels and Twenty Bites, my anthology of short fiction.
***
I said recently that I would write about T E Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I've changed my mind. The fact is that for me there is great difficulty in establishing what is fact and what is this genius's fanciful love for all things Arabia. Besides that I feel there's nothing really left to say about the man and his masterpiece. What could you possibly say about an officer in the British Army who is invited to a private audience with his King and who politely declines the monarch's award of the supreme medal available to the armed forces, the Victoria Cross? Why did he do so? Because he believed (quite correctly) that the King and his Government had broken their word, had broken faith with the Arabs.
Somebody should have told him it was ever thus. But had Lawrence's much heralded State of Arabia, extending from Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) down to The Yemen and Oman, come into being, what problems might now be no more or may never have been?
That's the trouble with genius. Far too idealistic.
February 16, 2011
Rebellions
I was based in Bahrain for a couple of years. Good years actually, except for the fact that my home, wife, family and two lovely Hungarian Vizslas were in Headbourne Worthy, near Winchester in England.
Today on-line and on TV I see the dangerously excited gatherings in Bahrain's Manama and wonder what the future holds, not just for Bahrain or Egypt but for the region as a whole. Rebellion is contagious and is always painful. It does not always leave the rebels, even if they prevail, in the state they hoped for or might have expected.
Of course the peoples of virtually all regions of the world have rebelled at times against their leaders: France - big time, Spain several times, the fledgeling USA, literally all of the States of South America, ditto Africa (many ongoing); indeed, the United Kingdom has had its fair share of rebellions. The Wars of the Roses terminated the lives of a good chunk of England's population over many decades. Oliver Cromwell conducted a particularly bloody rebellion that ended with the actual beheading of his king. Prince Charles Stuart brought his army of Scottish Highland rebels as far south as Derby, with King George 1 all ready to board a boat in flight across the Channel, before turning back and being caught and slaughtered by the English under Butcher Cumberland at Culloden.
The Arabic States are especially vulnerable to socio-political unrest. Their people are fractious in the extreme, quick to take offence, just as quick to take up arms one against the other. (A bit like the clans of the Highlands of Scotalnd actually.) Nobody who has read Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom or who has spend time amongst Arabs can doubt that.
Looking at the Middle East right now I am so pleased to be here amongst the peace and quiet of Wester-Ross, and not out there sidestepping Shia and Sunni sensitivities.
Today on-line and on TV I see the dangerously excited gatherings in Bahrain's Manama and wonder what the future holds, not just for Bahrain or Egypt but for the region as a whole. Rebellion is contagious and is always painful. It does not always leave the rebels, even if they prevail, in the state they hoped for or might have expected.
Of course the peoples of virtually all regions of the world have rebelled at times against their leaders: France - big time, Spain several times, the fledgeling USA, literally all of the States of South America, ditto Africa (many ongoing); indeed, the United Kingdom has had its fair share of rebellions. The Wars of the Roses terminated the lives of a good chunk of England's population over many decades. Oliver Cromwell conducted a particularly bloody rebellion that ended with the actual beheading of his king. Prince Charles Stuart brought his army of Scottish Highland rebels as far south as Derby, with King George 1 all ready to board a boat in flight across the Channel, before turning back and being caught and slaughtered by the English under Butcher Cumberland at Culloden.
The Arabic States are especially vulnerable to socio-political unrest. Their people are fractious in the extreme, quick to take offence, just as quick to take up arms one against the other. (A bit like the clans of the Highlands of Scotalnd actually.) Nobody who has read Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom or who has spend time amongst Arabs can doubt that.
Looking at the Middle East right now I am so pleased to be here amongst the peace and quiet of Wester-Ross, and not out there sidestepping Shia and Sunni sensitivities.
