The Love of My Life
Chapter One.
It’s October 1990. Wet - very wet. Foggy and one can almost feel the mushrooms growing. The preceding 4 years have been unusually dry here in Umbria, with the consequent effect that there have been almost no Porcini mushrooms at all.
A porcini to an Italian is like a cigarette to a prisoner of war. They can be very big, up to four pounds in weight; I myself have found one that weighted more than a pound.
In the same place, where yesterday there was nothing, today the top soil has been pushed up and to the side; as the head forces its way into the half-light under the oak trees. The head is smooth, resembling an inverted saucer and they are generally faun in colour with traces of black; some darker some lighter and all are supported by a bulbous stalk that, if undiscovered, is penetrated by maggots and other insects by the second day.
Before setting off in search of these prized finds one must dress accordingly. The mushroom season involves humid conditions; therefore, waterproof boots and clothing are essential. September and October are the months when Vipers give birth. The females drop their small, already venomous, young from bushes, or the low branches of trees, or they lie hidden under stones. If disturbed at this time they will strike with lightening speed. The waterproof clothing must consequently also be substantial enough to withstand such an attack.
We heard the story of a woodcutter who sustained the bite of a viper to one of his fingers while working in the forest. He reacted swiftly, and excessively, slicing off the bitten finger with the axe he carried. He then hurried to the hospital where the stump was duly sewn up.
Having heard of cases where limbs had been refitted with microsurgery, the woodcutter returned for the severed digit two days later and, to his delight found what he was looking for.
Bending to retrieve the sorry limb he brushed aside a bee that had settled on the cut end. Retaliating, in time honoured fashion the bee stung the fellow on the neck; an attack to which the woodcutter was apparently allergic - because he died.
Vipers have an incredible life force; a fact that was endorsed one day when my wife, Vitka, encountered a relatively small example near to the house. I had an axe in my hand and quickly lashed out, cutting the poor creature in half. The front half made off with great haste. I, with equal speed, made a second swipe, this time severing the head. Search though I may I did not succeed in finding the head, which by some supernatural force managed to get away from that place.
To return to mushrooms.
There is a certain challenge in the hunt and it is difficult to express the joy experienced when finding these miracles of nature.
An empty basket is the likely result the first time one goes in search and it is advisable to be accompanied by an experienced mushroom hunter, particularly because it is essential to know the difference between those that are edible and those that are not. Some of the most colourful and attractive examples can be the most deadly; so deadly that death can follow within minutes of eating and for some species there is no known cure.
Death could have and did try to prevent me from surviving to this my 56th year, there were two mundane occasions when I was very young.
The first occurred during my sixth winter. I had gone to sleep with a one bar electric fire as near to the bed as was possible and in my sleep I turned, causing the blanket to drop onto the fire. It smouldered for a very short period then flame developed and spread rapidly. Fortunately I awoke and extracted myself from the situation.
On the second occasion, which occurred the following winter, I was alone and decided to warm some milk on the gas cooker. Having prepared the milk in a saucepan I lit the gas and sat in a nearby chair to await the required temperature. I was peaceful, a sensation almost exclusive to our youth.
Slowly my eyelids slid gently over my tired eyes and I succumbed to the peaceful state of sleep. I could have slept even deeper were it not for the unique arrival of one of our neighbours, who just never called at our flat. She found me sleeping in a gas filled room. The saucepan had boiled over and extinguished the gas flame.
During those early years we lived above a Coop store in the suburbs of Bromley, a moderately large town on the southern outskirts of London.
Being so close to the capital, my early school years were complicated by the war. Many nights the howl of air raid sirens disturbed our sleep. For the first few months my mother would grab my brother and me and bundle us under the heavy, mahogany table, whilst the sky outside was crisscrossed with searchlights hunting the luftwhafer. Explosions as bombs diminished families and reconverted homes back to raw material. Dust, smoke, death and destruction. Churches the previous day now two and a half walls; the violence so brutal so non-selective; we kill them they kill us - no one wins no one gains.
This then the background to my early years, even today I can still re-live the feelings of a 9 year old boy in 1944 who wondered what effect there would be of a ‘doudlebug’ falling on or near me. The cockneys nicknamed the German V1 and V2 rockets doudlebugs. The engine was jet propelled, although relatively slow by modern standards, and they were furnished with fuel measured adequate for the journey from the launching pads in France to London. Many reached their destination, many fell short. Near to our home windows shattered. People known to us were no more. The landscape changed; became a sort of wasteland where ashen, faced people sorted and searched where once they eat and slept, retrieving the occasional belonging which they wheeled away - who knows where.
The low, throbbing, drone of the doudlebugs had a freezing effect. Suddenly there would be silence, for maybe one minute, then the terrifying explosion and yet another giant crater. Ugly, demoralizing, limbs, bricks, children’s toys; families whose fathers and sons were being returned in coffins from some foreign land, existed no more.
After a few months a shelter was built, intended to house a few families - including ours. When we were visited at night my mother rushed my brother and me across the flat roof above the Coop butchers shop, where once, only 6 years old, I gazed in horror through a skylight window as a butcher pulled a piece of wire through the neck of a goat. Blood flowed into a tray and a crying kid stood trembling under a table nearby. On arrival at school, still sobbing deeply, I recounted what I had seen to my teacher, then the headmaster, then to the police. The scene has remained with me all my life and probably accounts for my deep love of animals and contempt of man.
We spent many nights in that shelter behind the Coop, awaiting the second siren that announced the departure of the bombers, or the fall of the last doudlebug.
Once our school was damaged; classes were reformed. It was cold in winter, hot in summer, so hot that many times the school was closed and we were sent home.
It was from about the age of 12 that I began to develop a profound love of music. My earliest recollection of how deeply I felt was when I saw the film depicting the life of George Fredrick Handel. As my mother and I walked home from the cinema I remember saying to her that it would be worth being blind to have the ability to compose such great music, an idea that totally conflicts with my thinking today; however, at the time that was my passionate belief.
Two other films had a deep impact on me: ‘The Emperor Waltz’ - flowing and full of romance, just as I was beginning to sense the changes in my heartbeat at the sight of a pretty girl. Shortly I began to develop an insatiable desire to be in love.
The other film, of Tchaikowsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ haunted my sleep. I awoke in a cold sweat in the depth of night, the powerful music throbbing in my head. My then girl friend and I had returned home late from the cinema and I was sleeping on the floor in the sitting room of her family house. I recall the sensation of seeming to have a full orchestra in my head, my heart was beating fast and I was in heaven with that magnificent music.
Our then family consisted of: my mother; a pretty, young woman who lived between ecstasy and depression and with the responsibility of rearing two sons with an age difference of 18 months and totally diverse in character. Brian, my brother, the first born, was a serious boy, quiet and reserved, whereas I was extravert, passionate and dynamic, a typical Scorpio, (born November 11th). My father had more or less deserted us from when I was five years old, leaving our poor mother to fend for the three of us.
During the war she had a job with the post office, sorting and delivering mail in Bromley. Occasionally my brother and I would accompany her, “Let me drive mum?” she would let us operate the gear lever or pull up the break, but take the keys when she got out to collect the post from those heavy, red, English, post boxes.
She must have been relieved, during the school summer holiday, when Brian and I went off on a school organized holiday to Hindhead in Surrey. Neither of us was impressed, in fact we deserted the place after only a few days. The local police quickly located us wandering along the road towards London. We were duly shipped home to expand the worrying period for our mother.
The few days we did spend at the camp were significant for me. I was quite well known in school for walking on my hands. Once the head master challenged me to walk the length of the school hall on my hands, betting the princely sum of one shilling against my succeeding, he lost his shilling. One day, while walking with school friends in the woods near to Hindhead, we reached a bridge over a stream, providing an opportunity for me to make an exhibition of myself. There were also girls present and it was that component of the group that I wished to impress most of all. I grabbed the handrail of the bridge and inverted myself, much to the delight of the onlookers.
My moment of glory was short lived as I began to loose my balance, unfortunately, falling toward the stream and not back to the bridge. The stream contained very little water and was perhaps 20 feet beneath, I had no choice but to grip the handrail as tightly as possible whilst completing the 180ø circuit. My lower back sustained a substantial blow and was almost certainly the cause of the two damaged discs that have subjected me to almost continual pain throughout my life.
One might have expected that I would have learned from that painful experience. Not so; for it was not long after that I was, once again, with my feet above me. This time on the bed and with my head between my hands, in a head stand. Yet again I lost my balance and this time it was my neck that suffered, total of damaged discs, 4.
One day while mother was working I took her sewing machine and changed it for a violin, at a junk shop in the town. She was very angry when she returned home, although I believe in her heart she felt a certain joy at my misdemeanour, probably explaining why she allowed me to retain the instrument.
There was no question of instruction for my new acquisition, at school there were no facilities for teaching musical instruments, music lessons consisted of singing traditional English folk songs, an unpleasant noise for the listener and a boring waste of time for the children.
I was obliged to experiment with my violin, my dream being to play concerti. Try I did, although with no basic training, even though I was able, in time, to follow the general pattern of a number of well known concerti, I made many mistakes and there were certain techniques I never did master. I read music slowly and would not bother with it when playing, installing in myself so many bad habits, in those early days, that I have not been able to rectify them since.
I left secondary school at the age of 15, when I succeeded in gaining entrance to the London Nautical School, where pupils are trained in matters of the sea, with emphasis on navigation and seamanship.
After only one year I realized I would not be able to face going to sea, where I would be separated from music; which had become so important to me. The headmaster also had a love of music and agreed that I should study that subject on my own account during the periods when the rest of the class were being instructed on how to tie knots or select a ships heading taking into consideration winds and currents.
Those few hours a week I did study, as best I could, but I was not in a condition to follow my endeavours to the fullest extent, which I think can be justified when considering what constituted a school day for me.
I do not recall at what time I was obliged to rise; it must have been at a very early hour.
My first task involved the delivery of newspapers, and by doing so help to swell the family coppers. Upon my return home I was obliged to wash, dress and feed Timothy, my baby brother. It was necessary to run for the bus, which carried us to the day nursery, then back in the opposite direction for 20 minutes; once again by bus, jumping off before it had even stopped. I then took the train to Waterloo station and ran the final 15 minutes to the school, where I would arrive just on the stroke of 9am - providing all connections were completed smoothly.
The school building was Victorian; standing three stories high, which necessitated considerable use of the stairs during the school day. I had only to climb the stairs once to guarantee a migraine headache. I had to sustain that heavy pain every day throughout my three years period at that school.
When the final bell rang it was necessary to run as fast as I could to the station and make my way back to the nursery; where I collected Timothy and took him home. By then mother had returned from her work. She would look out of the window in anticipation of our arrival. I regularly threw Timothy up in the air, so that he arrived level with mother, then I would catch him. One day I caught him badly and his head struck the pavement. I can still hear that awful thud which terrified me at the time.
We rushed Timothy to the doctor who, having examined him thoroughly, assured us that the only result was the rather large bump on his forehead, my relief was enormous and never again did I throw him in the air.
In retrospect I cannot conceive how I had the strength to undertake the tasks I was set and grant myself a certain justification in achieving so little in school.
In the final year of grammar school education pupils were entered for the General Certificate of Education in the various subjects, my subjects being; English, mathematics and music. I am ashamed to admit that I was successful in only one subject, that of music.
Having given up the idea of going to sea and being faced with the obligatory two years military service, I decided that it might be wise to apply for a place in an army band, as a method of satisfying my desire to be involved with music. I made the application to the 11th Hussars band. In due course a captain from that battalion called at our home, interviewed me and asked me to play passages on my violin and the old harmonium, that stood in the entrance hall and upon which I amused myself occasionally, I cannot imagine that my performances on the two instruments could have created any great impression and can only think that my very sincere passion and enthusiasm were the real reasons that he had enough faith to recommend me to be accepted; however, I would have been obliged to sign for a period of 11 years and despite the fact that I bade farewell to all the masters and friends at school at the end of the previous term, the next term I was once again back, having decided that it would be unrealistic to commit myself to something unknown for such a long period.
As time drew close for the arrival of the dreaded postcard, sending me God knows where to do God knows what, I decided that I would prefer to have some control over my destiny, one thing I did not want was to end up in the army for two years, the only alternative was to volunteer for three years and by doing so have some choice.
WORD COUNT 2962
Chapter One.
It’s October 1990. Wet - very wet. Foggy and one can almost feel the mushrooms growing. The preceding 4 years have been unusually dry here in Umbria, with the consequent effect that there have been almost no Porcini mushrooms at all.
A porcini to an Italian is like a cigarette to a prisoner of war. They can be very big, up to four pounds in weight; I myself have found one that weighted more than a pound.
In the same place, where yesterday there was nothing, today the top soil has been pushed up and to the side; as the head forces its way into the half-light under the oak trees. The head is smooth, resembling an inverted saucer and they are generally faun in colour with traces of black; some darker some lighter and all are supported by a bulbous stalk that, if undiscovered, is penetrated by maggots and other insects by the second day.
Before setting off in search of these prized finds one must dress accordingly. The mushroom season involves humid conditions; therefore, waterproof boots and clothing are essential. September and October are the months when Vipers give birth. The females drop their small, already venomous, young from bushes, or the low branches of trees, or they lie hidden under stones. If disturbed at this time they will strike with lightening speed. The waterproof clothing must consequently also be substantial enough to withstand such an attack.
We heard the story of a woodcutter who sustained the bite of a viper to one of his fingers while working in the forest. He reacted swiftly, and excessively, slicing off the bitten finger with the axe he carried. He then hurried to the hospital where the stump was duly sewn up.
Having heard of cases where limbs had been refitted with microsurgery, the woodcutter returned for the severed digit two days later and, to his delight found what he was looking for.
Bending to retrieve the sorry limb he brushed aside a bee that had settled on the cut end. Retaliating, in time honoured fashion the bee stung the fellow on the neck; an attack to which the woodcutter was apparently allergic - because he died.
Vipers have an incredible life force; a fact that was endorsed one day when my wife, Vitka, encountered a relatively small example near to the house. I had an axe in my hand and quickly lashed out, cutting the poor creature in half. The front half made off with great haste. I, with equal speed, made a second swipe, this time severing the head. Search though I may I did not succeed in finding the head, which by some supernatural force managed to get away from that place.
To return to mushrooms.
There is a certain challenge in the hunt and it is difficult to express the joy experienced when finding these miracles of nature.
An empty basket is the likely result the first time one goes in search and it is advisable to be accompanied by an experienced mushroom hunter, particularly because it is essential to know the difference between those that are edible and those that are not. Some of the most colourful and attractive examples can be the most deadly; so deadly that death can follow within minutes of eating and for some species there is no known cure.
Death could have and did try to prevent me from surviving to this my 56th year, there were two mundane occasions when I was very young.
The first occurred during my sixth winter. I had gone to sleep with a one bar electric fire as near to the bed as was possible and in my sleep I turned, causing the blanket to drop onto the fire. It smouldered for a very short period then flame developed and spread rapidly. Fortunately I awoke and extracted myself from the situation.
On the second occasion, which occurred the following winter, I was alone and decided to warm some milk on the gas cooker. Having prepared the milk in a saucepan I lit the gas and sat in a nearby chair to await the required temperature. I was peaceful, a sensation almost exclusive to our youth.
Slowly my eyelids slid gently over my tired eyes and I succumbed to the peaceful state of sleep. I could have slept even deeper were it not for the unique arrival of one of our neighbours, who just never called at our flat. She found me sleeping in a gas filled room. The saucepan had boiled over and extinguished the gas flame.
During those early years we lived above a Coop store in the suburbs of Bromley, a moderately large town on the southern outskirts of London.
Being so close to the capital, my early school years were complicated by the war. Many nights the howl of air raid sirens disturbed our sleep. For the first few months my mother would grab my brother and me and bundle us under the heavy, mahogany table, whilst the sky outside was crisscrossed with searchlights hunting the luftwhafer. Explosions as bombs diminished families and reconverted homes back to raw material. Dust, smoke, death and destruction. Churches the previous day now two and a half walls; the violence so brutal so non-selective; we kill them they kill us - no one wins no one gains.
This then the background to my early years, even today I can still re-live the feelings of a 9 year old boy in 1944 who wondered what effect there would be of a ‘doudlebug’ falling on or near me. The cockneys nicknamed the German V1 and V2 rockets doudlebugs. The engine was jet propelled, although relatively slow by modern standards, and they were furnished with fuel measured adequate for the journey from the launching pads in France to London. Many reached their destination, many fell short. Near to our home windows shattered. People known to us were no more. The landscape changed; became a sort of wasteland where ashen, faced people sorted and searched where once they eat and slept, retrieving the occasional belonging which they wheeled away - who knows where.
The low, throbbing, drone of the doudlebugs had a freezing effect. Suddenly there would be silence, for maybe one minute, then the terrifying explosion and yet another giant crater. Ugly, demoralizing, limbs, bricks, children’s toys; families whose fathers and sons were being returned in coffins from some foreign land, existed no more.
After a few months a shelter was built, intended to house a few families - including ours. When we were visited at night my mother rushed my brother and me across the flat roof above the Coop butchers shop, where once, only 6 years old, I gazed in horror through a skylight window as a butcher pulled a piece of wire through the neck of a goat. Blood flowed into a tray and a crying kid stood trembling under a table nearby. On arrival at school, still sobbing deeply, I recounted what I had seen to my teacher, then the headmaster, then to the police. The scene has remained with me all my life and probably accounts for my deep love of animals and contempt of man.
We spent many nights in that shelter behind the Coop, awaiting the second siren that announced the departure of the bombers, or the fall of the last doudlebug.
Once our school was damaged; classes were reformed. It was cold in winter, hot in summer, so hot that many times the school was closed and we were sent home.
It was from about the age of 12 that I began to develop a profound love of music. My earliest recollection of how deeply I felt was when I saw the film depicting the life of George Fredrick Handel. As my mother and I walked home from the cinema I remember saying to her that it would be worth being blind to have the ability to compose such great music, an idea that totally conflicts with my thinking today; however, at the time that was my passionate belief.
Two other films had a deep impact on me: ‘The Emperor Waltz’ - flowing and full of romance, just as I was beginning to sense the changes in my heartbeat at the sight of a pretty girl. Shortly I began to develop an insatiable desire to be in love.
The other film, of Tchaikowsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ haunted my sleep. I awoke in a cold sweat in the depth of night, the powerful music throbbing in my head. My then girl friend and I had returned home late from the cinema and I was sleeping on the floor in the sitting room of her family house. I recall the sensation of seeming to have a full orchestra in my head, my heart was beating fast and I was in heaven with that magnificent music.
Our then family consisted of: my mother; a pretty, young woman who lived between ecstasy and depression and with the responsibility of rearing two sons with an age difference of 18 months and totally diverse in character. Brian, my brother, the first born, was a serious boy, quiet and reserved, whereas I was extravert, passionate and dynamic, a typical Scorpio, (born November 11th). My father had more or less deserted us from when I was five years old, leaving our poor mother to fend for the three of us.
During the war she had a job with the post office, sorting and delivering mail in Bromley. Occasionally my brother and I would accompany her, “Let me drive mum?” she would let us operate the gear lever or pull up the break, but take the keys when she got out to collect the post from those heavy, red, English, post boxes.
She must have been relieved, during the school summer holiday, when Brian and I went off on a school organized holiday to Hindhead in Surrey. Neither of us was impressed, in fact we deserted the place after only a few days. The local police quickly located us wandering along the road towards London. We were duly shipped home to expand the worrying period for our mother.
The few days we did spend at the camp were significant for me. I was quite well known in school for walking on my hands. Once the head master challenged me to walk the length of the school hall on my hands, betting the princely sum of one shilling against my succeeding, he lost his shilling. One day, while walking with school friends in the woods near to Hindhead, we reached a bridge over a stream, providing an opportunity for me to make an exhibition of myself. There were also girls present and it was that component of the group that I wished to impress most of all. I grabbed the handrail of the bridge and inverted myself, much to the delight of the onlookers.
My moment of glory was short lived as I began to loose my balance, unfortunately, falling toward the stream and not back to the bridge. The stream contained very little water and was perhaps 20 feet beneath, I had no choice but to grip the handrail as tightly as possible whilst completing the 180ø circuit. My lower back sustained a substantial blow and was almost certainly the cause of the two damaged discs that have subjected me to almost continual pain throughout my life.
One might have expected that I would have learned from that painful experience. Not so; for it was not long after that I was, once again, with my feet above me. This time on the bed and with my head between my hands, in a head stand. Yet again I lost my balance and this time it was my neck that suffered, total of damaged discs, 4.
One day while mother was working I took her sewing machine and changed it for a violin, at a junk shop in the town. She was very angry when she returned home, although I believe in her heart she felt a certain joy at my misdemeanour, probably explaining why she allowed me to retain the instrument.
There was no question of instruction for my new acquisition, at school there were no facilities for teaching musical instruments, music lessons consisted of singing traditional English folk songs, an unpleasant noise for the listener and a boring waste of time for the children.
I was obliged to experiment with my violin, my dream being to play concerti. Try I did, although with no basic training, even though I was able, in time, to follow the general pattern of a number of well known concerti, I made many mistakes and there were certain techniques I never did master. I read music slowly and would not bother with it when playing, installing in myself so many bad habits, in those early days, that I have not been able to rectify them since.
I left secondary school at the age of 15, when I succeeded in gaining entrance to the London Nautical School, where pupils are trained in matters of the sea, with emphasis on navigation and seamanship.
After only one year I realized I would not be able to face going to sea, where I would be separated from music; which had become so important to me. The headmaster also had a love of music and agreed that I should study that subject on my own account during the periods when the rest of the class were being instructed on how to tie knots or select a ships heading taking into consideration winds and currents.
Those few hours a week I did study, as best I could, but I was not in a condition to follow my endeavours to the fullest extent, which I think can be justified when considering what constituted a school day for me.
I do not recall at what time I was obliged to rise; it must have been at a very early hour.
My first task involved the delivery of newspapers, and by doing so help to swell the family coppers. Upon my return home I was obliged to wash, dress and feed Timothy, my baby brother. It was necessary to run for the bus, which carried us to the day nursery, then back in the opposite direction for 20 minutes; once again by bus, jumping off before it had even stopped. I then took the train to Waterloo station and ran the final 15 minutes to the school, where I would arrive just on the stroke of 9am - providing all connections were completed smoothly.
The school building was Victorian; standing three stories high, which necessitated considerable use of the stairs during the school day. I had only to climb the stairs once to guarantee a migraine headache. I had to sustain that heavy pain every day throughout my three years period at that school.
When the final bell rang it was necessary to run as fast as I could to the station and make my way back to the nursery; where I collected Timothy and took him home. By then mother had returned from her work. She would look out of the window in anticipation of our arrival. I regularly threw Timothy up in the air, so that he arrived level with mother, then I would catch him. One day I caught him badly and his head struck the pavement. I can still hear that awful thud which terrified me at the time.
We rushed Timothy to the doctor who, having examined him thoroughly, assured us that the only result was the rather large bump on his forehead, my relief was enormous and never again did I throw him in the air.
In retrospect I cannot conceive how I had the strength to undertake the tasks I was set and grant myself a certain justification in achieving so little in school.
In the final year of grammar school education pupils were entered for the General Certificate of Education in the various subjects, my subjects being; English, mathematics and music. I am ashamed to admit that I was successful in only one subject, that of music.
Having given up the idea of going to sea and being faced with the obligatory two years military service, I decided that it might be wise to apply for a place in an army band, as a method of satisfying my desire to be involved with music. I made the application to the 11th Hussars band. In due course a captain from that battalion called at our home, interviewed me and asked me to play passages on my violin and the old harmonium, that stood in the entrance hall and upon which I amused myself occasionally, I cannot imagine that my performances on the two instruments could have created any great impression and can only think that my very sincere passion and enthusiasm were the real reasons that he had enough faith to recommend me to be accepted; however, I would have been obliged to sign for a period of 11 years and despite the fact that I bade farewell to all the masters and friends at school at the end of the previous term, the next term I was once again back, having decided that it would be unrealistic to commit myself to something unknown for such a long period.
As time drew close for the arrival of the dreaded postcard, sending me God knows where to do God knows what, I decided that I would prefer to have some control over my destiny, one thing I did not want was to end up in the army for two years, the only alternative was to volunteer for three years and by doing so have some choice.
WORD COUNT 2962
No comments:
Post a Comment