Christmas Truce

Beaurains Road War Cemetery near Arras.

After the 19th December attack, we were back in the same trenches when Christmas Day came along. It was a terrible winter, everything was covered in snow, everything was white. The devastated landscape looked terrible in its true colours — clay and mud and broken brick — but when it was covered in snow it was beautiful. Then we heard the Germans singing 'Silent Night, Holy Night', and they put up a notice saying ‘Merry Christmas’, and so we put one up too.

While they were singing our boys said, ‘Let’s join in,’ so we joined in and when we started singing, they stopped. And when we stopped, they started again. So we were easing the way. Then one German took a chance and jumped up on top of the trench and shouted out, ‘Happy Christmas, Tommy!’ So of course our boys said, ‘If he can do it, we can do it,’ and we all jumped up. A sergeant-major shouted ‘Get down!’ But we said, ‘Shut up Sergeant, it’s Christmas time!’ And we all went forward to the barbed wire.

We could barely reach through the wire, because the barbed wire was not just one fence, it was two or three fences together, with a wire in between. And so we just shook hands and I had the experience of talking to one German who said to me, ‘Do you know where the Essex Road in London is?’ I replied, ‘Yes, my uncles had a shoe repairing shop there.’ He said, ‘That’s funny. There’s a barber shop on the other side where I used to work.’

They could all speak very good English because before the war, Britain was invaded by Germans. Every pork butcher was German, every barber’s shop was German, and they were all over here getting the low-down on the country. It’s ironic when you think about it, that he must have shaved my uncle at times and yet my bullet might have found him and his bullet might have found me.

PRIVATE FRANK SUMTER London Rifle Brigade

Ten Things I Have Learnt About Christmas Over the Years

Our Weihnachtspyramid, bought in Siegen, Germany, 25 years ago. 

1. A glass of sherry with a mince pie before Christmas dinner, and a glass of port with a nub of Stilton afterwards, are marriages made in heaven. But don't overindulge. They are so special, and so richly comforting, that repeat orders always fail to deliver, and leave one too satiated.

2. The guests you would like to stay longer always leave early; but the guests you wish would leave early always stay longer — sometimes for days, or even a week.

3. The majority of gifts you receive mildly disappoint, or even greatly so (but you are too polite, of course, to say anything other than 'How wonderful! It's what I've always wanted!')

4. The majority of gifts you give attract lukewarm thanks, or even hypocritically effusive acclamation. (You think: why don't you appreciate the finer things in life, you ungrateful bastards? I would die for such a gift!)

5. The earlier the you buy the Christmas wine, the more chance there is that there's not bottle left on Christmas Eve, and you have to find an open-all-hours shop to purchase some execrable bottles of red, which will hardly impress the in-laws on Christmas Day.

6. Those most indispensable items — the corkscrew and the nutcracker — mysteriously disappear, only to reappear behind the sofa when the necks of wine bottles and assorted human teeth have been irreparably shattered.

7. The Christmas movies Santa Clause 3, Jingle All The Way and Reindeer Games do not improve from one Christmas to the next.

8. The period from the end of Advent to Epiphany is so long that it seems like the whole of spring, summer and autumn combined.       

9. One's own family seems embarrassingly and uniquely eccentric, until one visits one's friends and sees their own intimate circle at close quarters.

10. Do not complain when the inebriated person who's drawn the straw to cook Christmas dinner forgets to make the bread sauce (ooh, my favourite) and drops gravy onto people's laps while serving. Take it all in good spirits and have another drink.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY BLOG READERS!

The Golden Treasury Of Poetry

One Christmas when I was very young I was delighted to find a big, hardback book of poems in my Christmas stocking. The book was called The Golden Treasury Of Poetry, selected and with a commentary by Louis Untermeyer, and illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund. My photos show the front cover and 2 of its double page spreads. This volume has always enjoyed a special, treasured place on my bookshelves. For it was this book above all which kindled in me a lifelong passion for books and literature, and for poetry in particular.

The poems were arranged in 12 themed sections which had titles such as Creatures Of Every Kind, Unforgettable Stories, Good Things In Small Packages and Around The Year. Untermeyer's selection of poems was brilliantly done - sure, there were some well known favourites by people like Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll (and why not), but there were also narrative poems about American history such as The Little Black-Eyed Rebel by Will Carleton and Grandmother's Story Of Bunker Hill Battle by Oliver Wendell Holmes which were really quite challenging and slightly obscure for a young non-American reader.

One of the poems I used to turn to again and again was this touching and sweet poem by Ogden Nash, who unbelievably just about manages to avoid the whimsical in his An Introduction To Dogs:

The dog is man's best friend.
He has a tail on one end.
Up in front he has teeth.
And four legs underneath.

Dogs like to bark.
They like it best after dark.
They not only frighten prowlers away
But also hold the sandman at bay.

A dog that is indoors
To be let out implores.
You let him out and what then?
He wants back in again.

Dogs display reluctance and wrath
If you try to give them a bath.
They bury bones in hideaways
And half the time they trot sideaways.

They cheer up people who are frowning,
And rescue people who are drowning,
They also track mud on beds,
And chew people's clothes to shreds.

Dogs in the country have fun.
They run and run and run.
But in the city this species
Is dragged around on leashes.

Dogs are upright as a steeple
And much more loyal than people.

Bob And Suze

The Weaver Of Grass recently entertained us with a description of the books she'd received as Christmas presents. These were the books we received as gifts in this household:

Barack Obama's 2 books The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream and Dreams From My Father. He dedicates the 1st book To the women who raised me - MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER, TUTU, who's been a rock of stability throughout my life, and MY MOTHER, whose loving spirit sustains me still. On the page before the preface in the 2nd book is this quotation from the Biblical Book of Chronicles: For we are strangers before them, and sojourners, as were all our fathers.

2 books by Oliver James - Affluenza and The Selfish Capitalist. Affluenza has had great reviews and is about how capitalism and consumerism can endanger your mental health.

2 books about iconic country music singer Johnny Cash (I loved the film Walk The Line): Cash: The Autobiography and I Walked The Line: My Life With Johnny, a memoir by Vivian, Cash's 1st wife.

A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir Of Greenwich Village In The Sixties by Suze Rotolo, Bob Dylan's girlfriend. I think you know I'm going to like this one...

Books aside, my wife also gave me this beautiful Ansel Adams calendar:

A Plain Turkey?

With apologies to Benjamin Zephaniah and Dominic Rivron...

Was your turkey a nice one this Christmas?
Or was it on the bland side of delish?
Did you pep up its flavour with chestnuts
And some cranberry sauce in a dish?

Did the stuffing enhance its aroma?
Did the gravy disguise its dry meat?
Did the bread sauce improve its coarse texture?
Were the roast parsnips all you could eat?

Whether carnivore, veggie or vegan
I'm sure everyone would consent
That without all these lipsmacking trimmings
It would not seem like money well spent.

So next time just break the convention
And let all those turkeys run free,
Just pluck up the guts to make cutlets of nuts
With a jus of red wine and strong brie.

(Verses for vegetarians only)

Even lawyers like turkey-shaped soya,
And accountants coo over cous-cous,
Lords, ladies and louts like marsala-soaked sprouts,
Music teachers love cauliflower mousse.

All classes of people like cabbage
Fried up with some crisco not lard;
And if you're a goer, try spiced-up quinoa -
To cook it ain't really that hard.

(Verse for carnivores only)

Was your turkey a nice one this Christmas?
If it wasn't try roast ox next year,
Or a belly of hog or a spit-roasted dog
Or the rump of a well -fattened steer.

Memory And Imagination

While the New Year is a time for anticipation and looking forward, Christmas is a time for reflection and looking back.

The future is by definition an imagined land. But what's often forgotten is that the past is also imaginary to a great extent. I've been looking back again through my old notebooks of quotations as I did before here and here. At the head of one of these notebooks I see that I've written this: to remember is also to imagine.

There was a time when I used to read a lot of John Fowles. I copied down these 2 quotations from his Victorian-pastiche novel The French Lieutenant's Woman:

His statement to himself should have been, 'I possess this now, therefore I am happy', instead of what it so Victorianly was: 'I cannot possess this for ever, and therefore am sad'.

It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more. But I am a heretic. I think our ancestors' isolation was like the greater space they enjoyed: it can only be envied. The world is literally too much with us now.

These short passages still resonate strongly with me. And how relevant the 2nd one is in these days of instant, unrelenting communication by text and email, by mobile phone and Internet.

I also used to read a lot of Aldous Huxley. These extracts are taken from Texts And Pretexts:

All 'feelings and opinions' are temporary; they last for a while and are then succeeded by other 'feelings and opinions'... The 'all' feeling is brief and occasional; but this is not to say that a metaphysical system based upon it must necessarily be untrue... Our experience is divided up into island universes. We jump from one to the other - there are no bridges.

The mind purifies the experiences with which it is stored, composes and informs the chaos. Each man's memory is his private literature and every recollection affects us with something of the penetrative force that belongs to the work of art.

Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic.

The magic of irrelevance is one of poetry's most powerful instruments. Why are poetical phrases poetical? In most cases, because they contain ideas which we normally regard as irrelevant one to another, but which the poet has contrived to make relevant... Every good metaphor is the mating of irrelevances to produce a new and more vivid explosion.

Dominic Rivron has been ruminating recently on metaphor in his blog - how about that for a brilliantly succinct description of metaphor, Dominic?

In case we nail all our colours with utter and complete abandon to the mast of Art, it's salutary to be reminded occasionally that Art and Beauty can sometimes lead to dangerous excess (as Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray showed only too well):

The religion of imagination is a dangerous faith, liable to the most deplorable corruptions.

Finally in Texts And Pretexts Huxley states a great truth about nature that many cosy nature writers fail to recognise:

Very few 'nature poets' have the courage to admit that their goddess lives with an unknown mode of being, that she sometimes reveals herself unequivocally as the most terrifying and malignantly alien of deities.

I'm sure that Gary Snyder and Robinson Jeffers would agree with this!

400th Post

I've been wondering what to write about in this, my 400th post. I see I began blogging one and a half years ago, on 23 June 2007. Perhaps it's a good time to look back a little and remind myself of some of the thoughts I've had and the subjects I've covered?

H - itchhiking

A - uvergne

P - ennine Way

P - yrenees

Y - eats

C - amino

H - uw Warren

R - S Thomas

I - ngmar Bergman

S - hirley MacLaine

T - homas Merton

M - ilosz

A - ligot

S - toats

I still can't think what to write about. Oh, well, perhaps inspiration will descend tomorrow!

Nigella's Christmas Treats

After an anxious and frustrating day - which began with my 90 year old father going into hospital and ended with Marks and Spencer running out of chestnut purée - watching Nigella's culinary La-la land on the telly just now prompted my wife to say, rather wistfully: I wish I was going to her house for Christmas...

Mmm... I see what she means..!