I buried my face in your rose today.
My head filled with scent
As I heard you say
“Good morning”.
I moved to the gate where I stopped to gaze
At a hover-fly, quietly fanning the blaze.
Then I felt your soft touch,
Like a sigh on my shoulder,
As you leaned to my kiss
On your rose-petal cheek.
Leigh Cook
15/06/2015
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
My friend Sue Ward and I have known each other for twenty seven years or more. We used to work together in Oldham Youth & Community Education, but there is a sense in which we never stop working together, each living with similar mindsets.
We met on Limeside, a largely white working-class estate on the edge of Oldham, where we were made at home in the tiny library, with librarians who worked so hard to give information and to open doors for local people. We were part of a local basic skills project funded by the Home Office. Sue’s main interest was in the wellbeing of local families needing childcare and she was instrumental in setting up the first creches ever run in Oldham – which we funded through the back door of petty cash. These small initiatives allowed local people to meet, talk, relax and learn together, knowing their children were safe. Some of these people moved on to become Creche Workers themselves, although paid a pittance, as so often support workers are. The use of creches widened until they were offered to support most adult education classes across Oldham. Creche workers would cross the town by bus, using their meagre wages for bus fares. There was true commitment.
It was during this time Sue shared with me her wish to become ordained in the Church of England. At that time, it seemed like a woman climbing Everest alone…and all power to her elbow, her icepick and her clampons, I said.
Our children got to know each other, with shared visits and activities together and Sue and Melvyn even offered us their home as a sanctuary when we were between homes and waiting to move into our new home. I had the top bunk in their son Chris’s room, with model planes around me, while their family was on holiday.
Our working lives separated after two years – Sue working in education in the Probation Service and me into projects for young people leaving care and Kosovar asylum seekers. Sue was ordained into the Reverend Sue Ward role she had studied for and eventually went into hospital chaplaincy, with all the qualities and gentleness such a role required.
We had a spell working together in an anti-racist training team in the Church of England, working out of Manchester to different locations in the north – where we learned all the time about existing inequalities relating to ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, living with disability and bigotry in the church.
By now the Rev Sue Ward had shapeshifted into ‘Sooze’ and myself into ‘Leggi’ – and she was leading teams in hospitals and training volunteers to work alongside as team members.
Sooze and Melvyn moved to Rodley near Leeds to place themselves midway between their children and grandchildren. They have a quiet watery home near a canal and a conservation project to look towards from their window on the world. We share visits, meals and love – always a welcome signpost for people who need people.
Sooze and Melvyn have been an intimate support to John and I, especially in times of crisis, as when our son Dom told us that he had been sexually abused by a family friend and we were contorted with anger and helplessness. Then, later, when Dom was dying with aggressive rectal cancer in 2011, they were at our side throughout the journey of learning and pain and grief.
More recently, when our beloved daughter Ria died suddenly, they were alongside us again with love and comfort, not only for us, but for our whole family and Ria’s children, listening and responding to what was needed in leading our daughter’s funeral.
Now Sooze and Melvyn work for the people of their local Calverley Parish church, amidst the fears and loneliness caused by Covid19 and Black Lives Matter. I thank God for them.
“But if the while I think on Thee, dear Friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.”
Sonnet 30, Wm. Shakespeare.
My friend Stuart Archer lives in St. James, Barbados with his wife Sharon and their son Isaiah. He has recently made a recovery from bowel cancer and we have supported each other on our living with cancer journey.
Stuart plays American Football – about which I know nothing – except it helps to be tall and handsome, with strong shoulders. All of which makes up Stuart.
He is the kind of Community and Youth Worker young people need, especially right now – insight gained from experience of life and from working as a team always. Community and collaboration.
Here’s what he wrote to me the other day when the US was in flames and I could find no words…
“…As for the States, I can’t even go there. The amount of times I was arrested as a boy in London growing up, then released with no charge as I looked like someone who had committed a crime or on the street, ‘at the wrong time’.
Taken down to the station, questioned, put in a cell, usually til the next day, then told ‘You are free to go’.
Then as a man in London and Manchester, being pulled over, searched myself and the car, questioned – and all in the public eye. The humiliation and feeling of powerlessness was unreal. I guess I should accept that I live to tell the tale, unlike some of my brothers and sisters.
We continue to strive for acceptance and not tolerance of all forms of marginalisation underpinning discrimination.”
Here’s the poem I wrote for Stuart when I got the letter about his cancer diagnosis, saying he was ‘unwell’.
All Will Be Well
Sitting in the Christie
thinking of you
Stuart.
Thank you for your letter
with the news
Stuart.
It seems to me “unwell”
means pain
Stuart.
Awaiting the decisions
for treatment
Stuart.
And you were never one to make a fuss.
Mix your courage with humility
And you’ll be strong.
Let others love you now
Stuart.
It’s a very active challenge…
All about changing
the tactics
in the American Football game
against this new team.
Are you a player?
Or a linesman?
Or a coach?
Or a manager?
Or the boy in the crowd, inspired?
Leigh Cook
City of bells, of bicycles and blackbirds,
Of quiet passages and green retreats,
Of cobblestones and pilgrim brasses
Lining the path to Compostela…
Of posters speaking prayers for World Peace
To market cafes in the sunlit squares,
To museums, libraries and churches
And to statues of Tinkers and Resisters.
Your book lendings and tasty breakfasts,
Schnitzelrost and Kartoffeln stalls
Filled our hearts to overflowing,
As we watched two girls, hand in hand,
Crossing familiar spaces, with the
Music of the Spheres all around.
Eileen Walke
We are in British summertime now. The whole winter has passed since you died. And I have a feeling that you know very well what’s going on with me and what’s going on in the world. Still, I hear your voice on the phone as you drove back from work every evening. Still I wait in my chair for you to bounce through the front door with armfuls of flowers or with a look that said ‘seeking sanctuary for a short while’. Still, I wonder where we should meet for a coffee and which garden centre to browse in?
Eric was learning about Van Gogh and told me he’s drawn ‘Starry Starry Night’ at school. I know you’d like that.
On 5th November 2019 we were in Plymouth for a few days to see Chow and Julie and the bairns.We stayed in the Premier Inn at March Mills, so only five minutes away from Chow’s. John went to the art group with Chow on Tuesday morning – lovely for them both. You’d have been proud of me on the way down, cos I drove from M6 toll to Bristol services! Not bad eh?
Well Ria, we were all doing OK in the field of sad poppies without you. I gave Julie your poppy scarf and Chow has your metal poppy and your Dad’s white box etc. All safe.
There have been monsoons of rain since you died.
Susan’s Dad, Arthur, died in October. Poor Susan and Chris worked so hard and gave him a lovely send off. John and I went too, but it was very hard. Felt you all around. Katie looked lovely in your dark coat and it fits her beautifully. She’s still teaching.
I’ve been wearing your Winnie the Pooh nightie. It’s really comfy and warm. I think I’ll look for another one. Don’t know what I’ll do when my green coat wears out. It’s such a comfort – remember, you got it for me when Dom died?
We had a short trip to Looe and went up high to look at the sea for you. What a sight! What a colour! I’ve put some of your sea glass into Dom’s duck pate bottle in the bathroom. It looks cool. I miss you terribly.
30.1.2020
Happy New Year my darling – wherever you are.
I’m getting round to writing but it is hard to get down to it. I’m in Scona, lots of chatter and a few children playing – sort of happy noises with the clatter of tea and coffee cups. It’s nice to be out in the hills, but I’m without you. And tonight I’m taking your sewing materials and lovely threads to Maria in Uppermill. Mel never forgets me – she and Deli are a great comfort. Your friends have planted an apple tree for you in Mossley. It’s a little gem and will blossom in spring.
Marcus and Catherine came to see us two weeks ago – they are both well you’ll be glad to know -and busy settling into their new house in Macclesfield. Marcus is wishing for a bigger room for his study…It was lovely to feed them and listen to them…a bit like having you in the room, but of course, you were there anyway.
Some parts of Christmas were very difficult. Not wrapping your present was worst – but also those moments on my own in the living room, just waiting for you to bounce in through the front door with your lovely smile. I think that’s my strongest memory – Ria arriving. And I know what it meant to Dom too. My mind often goes to how I felt to hold you as a baby and our love for each other as we started to explore the world together. Me nineteen and you nine minutes old.
I’m told by Marcus that Cal is well. Working one day a week in Manchester and living with Claire’s family and Muj the cat in Chorlton.We don’t hear from him at all and I don’t chase him. He will come if he wants to and when his time is right.
The Books of Condolence from AQA were posted to me. The words people wrote about you would warm your heart Ria – from Manchester, Harrogate and Guildford – beautifully wrapped. I have passed them on to Marcus and Catherine to keep.
I’m hoping I might see Janet tonight at Maria’s – and Kaz sent a Christmas card. I’ve put a scarlet polyanthus in your red teapot and it stands next to Dom’s boot full of narcissus. Fill your boots with narcissus! I’ve got all your seeds to plant out in the spring.
Was at the Christie last week. The strangest thing was not texting you straight away with my scan results. You were always the first one I told. Still, nothing to worry about, as you probably know, just new meds in March after the next scan.
I’ll stop now and sup my tea and eat a cheese scone. I love you.x
20.4.20
April Ria and you wouldn’t believe what’s goin on. Well, maybe you know.
I’ve put a lemon drizzle cake in the oven, so I’ll write a bit while it’s cooking. The whole world has been visited by a new virus called Covid19 and we’re all in what they call ‘lockdown’! The hatches have been battened down me hearties, to ‘suppress the infection rate’. It seems it spreads like flu, in droplets from the mouth. Not dribbles, but if you can smell someone’s breath you’re in danger of infection. The whole world, I kid you not Ria!
The cake’s cooked. I’ve left it to cool while I write. Everywhere has closed down – schools and AQA – most retail but not supermarkets – garden centres, where they’re throwing away plants – cinemas and theatres – cafes and restaurants – leisure centres and gyms – swimming baths and parks – nurseries and universities – and we all have to stay indoors until this murderous government decides they can unlock people.
The hospitals are very busy trying to save lives in Intensive Care and Critical Care and doctors and nurses putting their lives on the line treating people infected. Stuart’s brother died in London ten days ago (you remember my friend Stuart in Barbados who had bowel cancer?) Someone in John’s art group lost his mother three days ago. People in Care homes and hospices are quite trapped when the infection starts. Jean is having to stay in her room in the Care home in Halifax, with no visitors allowed. How do you continually explain it all to someone with dementia? She has phone calls from Ant, Gary and Ben and Dougie of course – and I write to her as often as I can. Remember, we planned to go there together? I haven’t seen Jeanjeanie for two months now.
Nell’s at home with us now that the theatres have closed and to be honest, I was glad when they did. This murderous government left everything too late cos they’re fucking thick as a double ditch and all standing like Childcatchers in their black suits with their patronising turns of phrase.
Hinnie and Noni do our shopping for us, God bless them. They have to leave it near the doorstep as we all have to stay two metres away from each other. You can imagine how John and I feel because we can’t see Eric or Ella. I can imagine how hard it is for Eric and Ella too. Sometimes their Dad brings them to look at us and wave…but it’s when we say goodbye to them that I see the toll it’s taking on their little faces. Our house is their second home and it’s not the same without them. Just as it’s not the same without you. But nothing will ever be the same again.
We have a Covid19 update everyday on tele. Yesterday Ria, we heard that 16060 people have died in UK hospitals, but that doesn’t include those in Care homes, hospices, at home or on the streets, so it’s probably double that figure. Most research establishments are working on a vaccine which might be a year away at least. So it could be a long lockdown for us.
When I see the work going on in Intensive Care units Ria, it seems as if all the patients are going through what you went through as you were dying. I’ve even found myself asking if Covid19 killed you in September…You told me you thought you had flu, but none of us were to know. Or ever will. I keep getting thrown back to sitting by your bed, talking quietly to you, knowing you could hear me and stroking your hair, holding your little hand and kissing you softly. It’s a funny thing, but you looked like my little baby girl, lying helplessly in your cot and I couldn’t keep my hands off you.
We watched you slip from the induced coma into unconsciousness. We watched your eyes open and see nothing, as the attentive nurses moved you to make you comfortable. Hin and I saw you look at us from a deep distance as you lay quietly, and we saw your fear. It matched our own Ria, but it is equally matched by our love for each other and we shared that. You heard us I know, but you never woke again.
We sat with you for seventeen days. Several times the doctors reduced the anaesthesia to see if you would wake. Maria, Janet, Kaz and Mel were all beside you, caring for you with great love and Chow and Chris were your guard of honour. Marcus and Cal did as much as they could bear and Claire brought love from all your work colleagues. We played your music to you every day and we played the music others wanted you to hear.
A sweet hospital chaplain came to sit with us, to pray with us and to ask if we would like a reading from the New Testament. I asked him for the story of Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, calming the storm. He chose the version from St. Mark, because, he said, “Jesus is sitting on a cushion”. It felt right.
On another visit, he asked John and I if he could bring a poem you love for us to read to you. We chose John Keats’ “To Autumn” and he brought a printed copy for you. This chaplain had been a priest in the Swedish church.
Now I listen and watch across the country and the world those families who cannot be with their loved ones as they are dying and cannot even attend their funerals.
The early morning of September 10th was a gentle and fresh dawn. Your bed had been moved from Intensive Care to a general ward with a quiet room and huge window looking out over treetops into sky and free wheeling birds. A blackbird was singing. Always the first and the last…
A blackbird visits here about three times a day. We whistle at each other, but he’s the best singer.
The cake will be cool now, so I’ll nip off and dribble lemon icing on to it.
I miss you always and you are with me always.
Let it be known that the ballerina is not a woman dancing:
that, within those juxtaposed motifs she is not a woman,
but a metaphor that summarises one of the elemental
aspects of our form, sword, goblet etc.,
and
that she is not dancing, suggesting, by the wonder of
ellipses or bounds, with a corporeal writing,
that which would take entire paragraphs of dialogued
as well as descriptive prose to express in written composition:
a poem detached from all instruments of the scribe.
Mallarme, “Oeuvres Completes”
Lines written at 6.35 a.m. on Tuesday 11th August 2009
We’ll walk together over grey pavements
and cross in busy night traffic
– wider than usual, this road –
and you’ll touch my arm
to keep me safe.
We’ll talk at the bus stop
and all the passing people are
everything you know
and you’ll check the time,
knowing it’s a new place for me.
We’ll climb together
into a big, fat, red London bus
to the top deck
– you like a feather
in a bedroom breeze
and me testing the gravity
of each stepped move.
We’re on a roll:
loving me, loving you,
loving London
and going home.
January has passed and I’ve given the birds the last of the Christmas cake…
……
I like this – especially because it came from Susan Sontag…
“There is something about facing a mortal illness that means you never completely come back. Once you’ve had the death sentence, you have taken on board in a deeper way the knowledge of your own mortality… there’s something in you that’s permanently strengthened or deepened. It’s called having a life.”
…..
Frogs and Conkers
I love my brother Eric to the moon and back. As a child he was my best friend.
He always rang the bell upstairs on the bus on the way home from Sunday school when I dared him and he was always the one who got told off by the conductor while I sat in innocence. .
He walked out on to the ice on Longholme Lake in Bedford when I dared him and fell through it while I watched in horror. A man rescued him and we went with him in dripping freezing clothes to Nan’s.
He and Patrick Francis stuffed a frog down my back and thumped it. I went completely hysterical. I didn’t think that’s what frogs were for. They also showed me how to cook bread on a stick over an open fire. Cubs was an interesting place. I used to walk across the allotments to meet him coming out of cubs with Buster, our dog.
He was always a good listener. He taught me how to smoke a fag properly, having watched my early attempts. He was always quiet and brave.
We were standing by the garden gate getting ready to play conkers. The scissors worked a treat and made a hole in the conker and went on to make a hole right through his hand. We stood there, amazed. As we have done many times in our lives since.
……
Jo
I have a precious friend called Jo who lives in the Midlands with her husband Shaun and their daughters Lydia B and Rosie B. Jo and Dom were very close as stepbrother and sister and it meant so much to him when she visited in the months leading up to his death. They were kindred spirits in many ways I think. It is really to Sandra that I owe this special relationship. Sandra Bickley is Jo’s stepmother and she brought us close.
It’s lovely to have the little gifts and notes sent from Lydia B and Rosie B at different times of the year – although I must be a very mysterious Nanaleigh to them. I love how Jo remembers her big brother and am happy that she remembers me.
……
It’s February 2019 now and the birds are happy.
Plenty of tiny bits for them to gobble. An old gardener in Tenterden, Kent, told me that by February 17th the birds know who their mate will be. Percy was the last man in England to plough with oxen and the BBC came down to Tenterden to make a programme about him. So he was probably right about the birds.
The garden at Ye Olde Cellars in Tenterden was an Elizabethan walled garden. He cared for it every day and it was a source of great peace for me. He even let me help him now and again and I carefully followed his instructions as I planted his asters or picked his loganberries. He could never have known what he meant in my life. When I left, he gave me a plant with a note pinned to a stick in the soil:
“The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the birds for mirth,
You’re nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth”
……
Nearly midsummer – a night’s dream – I love that play!
……
In June Stuart asked me ‘What do you write?’ and this made me think. I do lots of thinking and not enough writing these days. A complete lack of self-discipline.
Water Melons and Hurricanes for Stuart
The melons are running and hurricanes coming,
and our texts cover oceans and oceans of stars,
like strong-hearted pirates,
on wind-blown galleons,
chasing the waves.
setting sail for Bim.
Your hurricane blows and the skies darken low
and you batten the hatches and make safe below.
It is patience and hope that will lessen the rain
and it’s love from the dear ones will soften the pain.
Now it’s time for the crow’s nest,
to hold, climb and balance,
watching the water for first light of dawn…
‘Land ahoy!’ we can holler,
and all haul away to the last morning stars.
Then we’ll play on the beaches and sing in the bars.
…..
“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shits that weigh you down.”
Toni Morrison
…..
I’m tryin’ Toni, I’m tryin!
…..