17 Jun 2016

Asthma. A life lived with little breath.

About four weeks ago I was asked by my doctor to keep an ‘asthma diary.’ He was, justifiably I dare say, concerned at the amount of prednisolone (oral cortizone) I had been taking.  I have suffered (and I use that word meaningfully) with asthma all my life, from all accounts since my first and second years of life when I got wheezy colds that wouldn’t go away. I have therefore been advised several times by doctors in three countries, to ‘keep an asthma diary.’ The first time it seemed like a good idea and I kept one religiously. I learned little from it except that there is no single trigger for my asthma. From childhood the hay-fever season definitely makes things worse, but so can autumn, that season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and funghi and decaying leaves. Winter with its sharp cold mornings, has always sent my bronchioles into retreat like shy sea anemones.

 Thinking back to my earliest years it wasn’t surprising that I missed a lot of schooling in all seasons. Evenings by a roaring coal fire, heat at ones front and cold at ones back, nights in freezing bedrooms with hot water bottles causing chilblains (thank the powers that be - technology in this case - for central heating). If my parents tried to make things better it was with an oil stove alight in my tiny room. The smell of oil burning, or even calor gas, still makes me wheezy. My mother knitted me pretty jumpers in mohair; now I know I’m allergic to wool but at the time no connection was made (certainly not by me) between the red-faced girl puffing desperately in the sweet, pastel coloured hand-made pullover. I hated the woollen socks my grandmother knitted to keep me warm but at least they didn’t make me struggle to breathe. Then there were the feather pillows - I didn’t rumble that one till years later. No wonder I woke so often in the night unable to draw breath.

We had a cat and dog. I found in later years that I was able to become immune to the resident pets after a while. Pushing my face into the fur of a cat didn’t make my eyes go red and swell as they did my son’s eyes. I rode, when I could con someone into lending me a pony, and disregarded the wheezing, but grooming wasn’t the enjoyable occupation it should have been. 

We lived in a cottage reputed to have been built in Tudor times. It wasn’t at all romantic. There was a beaten earth floor in the living room and a weed grew through the floor boards. We were so fascinated by this that we watched it grow, extending spookily pale and etiolated into the dim light of our living room to coil itself round the leg of the television table (TV bought for the Coronation of course.) The walls were wattle and daub. We were able to study them close up after a storm ripped away the plaster on the wall outside my bedroom. I was able to look at the stars by night through gobs of mud (dung?) and wisps of straw.

I got bronchial pneumonia, almost died, and the doctor advised my parents to have the floor concreted over. No more weed. Rather sad really. I was the only one of my friends (few enough since I was off school so much) to have a plant in the living room that wasn’t an aspidistra.

I add all these details to dumfound the researchers blaming central heating and hygiene for asthma. It was much worse for me before the advent of warm toes and the death of chilblains. Of course there were researchers in my day. They blamed asthma on the newly named psychosomatic syndrome.  Well, that I can’t disprove, in fact some of my life I have seen that it might well be true. What they didn’t get right was the ability of the mind to switch off this unfortunate side effect of emotional weakness - because that’s what it was seen as by the general public. Asthma was an annoyance (to the non-sufferers) thought up by someone who wanted to swing the lead, get out of runs at school, get out of just about everything. Asthmatics were seen as overweight pains in the butt and a joke. Let it be known - I was never overweight. I loved food and like any normal child I loved certain sorts of exercise, riding my bike far beyond the routes my mother would have sanctioned, riding any pony that I was allowed, whip and top, ball and hoop in the playground, tag (sticky toffee in our part of the world) blackberrying that often involved long walks, coiling myself into what look very much like yoga asanas in retrospect. I walked a couple of miles to school every morning and back in the afternoon. What I didn’t like was that which brought on the wheeze - running for instance. Or things I was bad at like ball games. I had no co-ordination but can’t blame that on the asthma. There was no municipal swimming pool. We were so close to the sea that we could smell salt in the air when the tide was up so should have all been able to swim if our parents had time and transport to get us the few miles. Mine didn’t. The outdoor pool built in Maldon became unpopular after the polio epidemics, and possibly even before that when the circus was in town and elephants bathed in it.

Finally asthma was diagnosed by the local doctor who came for a weekly surgery The nearest daily surgery was six miles away and the nearest hospital was twelve miles away. Neither sound far today but they might as well have been on the other side of the moon in the days before my parents had a car. I was prescribed Franol tablets daily which should have helped, and may have. A bit. They contain theophyline and ephidrine, both bronchial dilators. Later in life I got the theophyline straight and pansies in front of my eyes - but that’s for later. These days I drink coffee. 

One side-effect of asthma was, when I look back on it, to become of a benefit later. I learned how to meditate. Since the act of meditation means different things to different people, perhaps it would be clearer to say I learned how to go into myself, focus on my breathing to the exclusion of all else, whilst virtually leaving my body. As a small child when an attack came on I went up to my bedroom and lay on the floor. If I stayed with the panicking adults things got much worse so first of all I would disguise how I felt, then I would go up to ‘play.’ When the asthma got worse in later life I employed the same method of dealing with my own rising panic automatically.

It was predicted that when I hit puberty the asthma would increase. The reverse happened. I always like to dumfound. We had moved to a newly built bungalow with slightly better heating. That might have helped. I passed the eleven plus and went to the Grammar school. I believe that helped even more. I loved the learning. It is my everlasting regret that being so dreadfully bad at maths, (I always missed the moment when the next stage was reached at junior school) I was put into the ‘B’ stream in the second year and thus, not being the ‘creme de la creme’ (a friend who did make the ‘A’ stream quoted this to me as their form teacher’s first words of greeting to the illustrious few) I didn’t get to learn Latin. I suspect it would have meant more to me than French, being one of the languages that spawned English. I loved English lessons. Even the grammar. 

Then there were the hormones and the boys. Also new friends amongst the girls. Though I have never been good at making friends I found myself part of a group, possibly we were the losers, ‘B’ streamers who where no good at hockey, but it was still a group. The leader was a charismatic Irish girl who had one leg in an iron, paralysed by polio. I was rather scared of her strong character but she was also a lesson to me - having a disability didn’t mean fading away into insignificance.

So with new horizons opening, many new interests, the asthma faded into a bad memory. I stopped taking Franol though I always had some by me in case. 

School. College. Work and marriage. Asthma. Not too bad at first. I was twenty-two when I got married. We lived in Yorkshire for a few years then moved to London, once my husband’s home, never mine. I was a country girl still starry eyed about the city and loving driving around it. We bought an MG’B’GT. Great get-away potential at traffic lights and excellent for negotiating the Marble Arch roundabout.  Pollution never gave me any trouble. It might not have been so bad in those days, I don’t know, but I worked for two years with an archaeology team digging along the banks of the Thames. Dank muddy, misty, very close to traffic. No wheezing. I remember feeling sorry for one young chap who did get asthma. 

Then we moved to Brussels. Within a month I had asked my mother to send my Franol tablets. Brussels is in a bowl in the middle of the country. It was once malarial swamp. Not hard to believe. Like the Thames Valley around Oxford it often had temperature inversions and the air doesn’t circulate. I had, courtesy of the Belgian medical services and their open-minded views on hormone treatment for women who were failing to conceive, three babies in quick succession. By the second babe things in my chest where tightening. I was prescribed a Salbutamol inhaler. After the third arrived I had to have adrenaline injections and the doctor suggested predisolone. It was a life-line. 

Then my mother came to live with us. She came, not because I wanted her to, but because, as an only child, I felt obliged to offer her a home after my father died. I felt little love, only pity and duty toward her. Having her with us was a strain. Then she had an operation for cancer and nearly died. My own health got progressively worse. I was depressed but fighting it because I loved my babies. The asthma got worse. 

And this is where I began to suspect there is something in the ‘psychosomatic’ theory. Brussels itself was bad for my health, but so were the restrictions living there placed on me. That and the suffocating restriction of duty. 

The years in Brussels are still so painful to me that I can’t write about them. The treatments for asthma, adrenal injections for emergencies, Ventolin (salbutamol) and later on a cortisone inhaler, kept me alive but there was Theophyline which caused serious changes to my character. 

Theophyline: It can also cause nausea, diarrhea, increase in heart rate, abnormal heart rhythms, and CNS excitation (headaches, insomnia, irritability, dizziness and lightheadedness).Seizure’  

When I first took it there wasn’t a ‘slow release’ variety and the moment the tablet hit I got pansies in front of my eyes, visual disturbances that made it hard to function normally. It caused me to be jumpy and nervy. One day my mother said: ‘You used to be such fun,’ which didn’t help. It all put a considerable strain on our marriage. Of course my husband couldn’t know what I was going through. He did his best but only knew it caused him more broken nights, more days off work to look after the children when I couldn’t and neither could my mother, more stress. A wife who was no fun to come home to.

Our doctor tried very hard to help. He had come across a paper by another doctor who had followed the ‘cure’ of a woman suffering very badly with asthma until her husband decided they needed a change of life and moved them to France where he began a quail farm. She ate quantities of quail’s eggs and the asthma disappeared. The doctor who wrote the paper had devised a regime for other sufferers. It involved drinking down twelve raw quails eggs, (beaten together with orange juice if need be) before breakfast every day for ten days. The eggs were ordered (at considerable expense) and I took my ten day cure, waited ten days then gulped down another 120 eggs over ten days, after which I hope I never see another quail’s egg for the rest of my life. I had no hay fever that year but the asthma did not improve one jot.

So, by one set of events and choices after another I came to Scotland. 

Scotland 

The move to the fine air of the Moray Coast didn’t work a miracle but it helped. My health had undoubtedly been undermined by the time in Brussels and I was grieving for my marriage whilst adopting a cheery facade for the three children, now 11, 9 and 7 years. I was glad when the 'psychosomatic' stigma was taken from asthma but I do believe that stress is a serious factor, as is general state of mind. I once gave a short talk to an asthma group in Elgin. I was volunteered for it, agreed, and wished I hadn't. The audience seemed to be largely old men who really didn't want to hear about the effect of stress on asthmatics and were cuttingly sarcastic about it. They suggested I just needed a good holiday. I suppose they belonged to the tribe of people who prefer to think there's nothing they personally can do for themselves, that the medical profession should do it all. 

Theophyline was discontinued eventually. I saw a specialist who checked out my medications. He asked about the Prednisolone. At the time I was down to one a day but couldn’t quite let go of that one. He didn’t think it was going to do any harm (and probably not much good either). It was a crutch. After a while I managed a few years without it, with just the Salbutamol and Flixotide, a cortisone inhaler. (The first cortisone inhaler I ever used had been prescribed for me in Brussels by the professor who designed it.) It has to be said that I often forgot to take it because, as my asthmatic grandson says, ‘It doesn’t do any good.’ It’s difficult to believe, in the midst of a bad spell, that this stuff actually makes any difference. I understand the theory - it’s rather like the daily Franol tablet, a preventative. Still, the bronchioles closing is an 'in the moment' sort of event and comfort comes from having a puffer that releases their tight clenching suffocation. Besides - how to know if it’s needed or not? This was always one of my problems with taking something daily that I might or might not need.

I have had good support from the medical profession both here and in Belgium. However, only one doctor ever took seriously the other physical problems that impinge on my breathing. I have a depressed sternum and a pronounced scoliosis. As I passed menopause and started to shrink a little my stomach protruded more and more and the scoliosis got worse.. Of course I blamed myself for my protruding belly, dieted, etc. Nothing helped. It took my daughter to train as an osteopath then to point out that, as my ribcage has twisted and shrunk in size, the organs have been pushed lower into my body causing the protrusion and inevitably making breathing more difficult. Then I remembered our doctor in Brussels trying to persuade me to have my sternum broken and reset to give my lungs more room. His words were: ‘It will be a shame later on when this causes more problems for you.’ I was so horrified at the thought of having my sternum broken at a time when the children were all very small, that I refused. Now I wish I had listened to him. It is always much more difficult breathing after a meal, however light, and my lung capacity has reduced. I do yoga asanas to keep my chest area as open as possible but the inevitable stiffening has set in. 


And that’s about it really. Whilst in Scotland I have been hospitalised with asthma just once, almost twenty years ago now. That was caused by a variety of flu’ that created a frightening amount of congestion. Otherwise I have been able to get by. Over the last few years my health has deteriorated and the need for Prednisolone to keep functioning has increased, which of course causes a deterioration in my immune system. I am aware of the bad side effects. But as tomorrow is never certain I prefer to be of use to my family whenever possibe and to get as much as possible out of the time I have left..  

Back in harness - sort of.

Well, it's been a while since I last posted here. My excuse: There was a family crisis. That's generally my excuse, but the fact is I can't write when I'm emotionally involved elsewhere. Which probably means I'm not a writer. Poetry is much easier to create than either fiction or prose reflection and I had managed to write some poems during that time, just not about the what was going on. I'm working on a poem now that might help me digest what happened. We'll see how that goes. It's important to me to get it right. 

I heard Shelley re-quoted the other day: 'Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.' Written in his essay 'A Defence of Poetry'. It made me think. We should consider carefully what we write. Is it going to make positive ripples in the world? Is it going to change anyone's life for the better?  

My following post wasn't written taking that thought into account, but I hope it might help someone out there.

12 Apr 2016

Haircuts

This has been a topic of at least one of my blogs in the past. I hate going to the hairdresser. There is the well-meaning but lame attempt to get one talking:

'Are you going anywhere nice tonight?'
 'What else have you got planned for the rest of the day?'
'Have you decided where you are going for your holiday yet?'

Much they care. They are no doubt taught to be chatty as some folk like a chance to have a blether. I wish they were also schooled in recognising the curmudgeonly elderly person who doesn't want to talk.

Then there is the apparently endless snipping.  Hanks have to be divided, the ends cut off and then sort of pinked (technical term for something my mother did to hems and so forth with a pair of special jagged edged scissors. I have no idea why.) The pinking goes on and on whilst they dream of what they are going to have for supper or the latest boyfriend. All of a sudden they come to and hack off the end in one blunt movement again. Why? I have yet to fathom that.

Then there is the ignoring of the client's neurosis about the length of her fringe. If mine doesn't come down past my eyebrows it's the paper bag over the head for me for a couple of weeks. Or utter misery as I feel, to quote the cat (or was it the donkey?) in Shrek, 'all exposed and nasty.'

Then follows the endless drying. What takes me ten minutes at home, even when my hair is longish, takes them twenty, thirty… it feels like a week. Separating, curling, pinning, laying flat, doing the next bit. On and on. I don't have thick hair either. However long it takes I am usually sent forth into the world with a damp head and get a cold because damp hair on a December day in Scotland is not good.

Of course I enthuse when shown the result in the mirror.The back looks very good - it doesn't have my face in it. A face that needs a certain length of frame. I am a wimp. I don't complain.

About two, or even three years ago, I decided this wasn't worth the increasingly large lump of cash I was obliged to hand over gracefully at the end of the ordeal. Plus a tip of course. (If I wanted to go back I had to give them a reason not to scalp me.) I made the decision to cut my own. And though I always imagine the neatly coiffed  NDFAS ladies who sit behind me at lectures thinking 'Must ask her which hairdresser she uses so I can avoid them' at least I don't have to suffer the irritation, boredom and ultimate despair at the result.


.

7 Apr 2016

Single dad at 17.

A very tiny Ella

A slightly bigger Ella
I haven't posted here for a while - Easter and other distractions are my excuse. Right now I feel like making obeisance to my 17 year old grandson who is virtually sole parent to 4 month old Ella. The reasons for this are best not published here but what does demand recognition is Sandy's ability to be an amazing single dad. It has been remarked on at meetings (inevitable given his age and the situation) of the child protection group, that other single dad's have successfully raised their children - but they aren't usually as young as him.

A friend of his mother's (my daughter, now a very young grandmother) gave her a drawing book and crayons to pass on to Sandy, advising him to either write a sort of diary of events or draw frustrated scrawls when things are getting him down. Not sure he remembers to do this or is even so inclined but it would make an interesting variation to the diaries of  Adrian Mole, 17 1/2. Very publishable I would have thought.

It's rarely his little girl who gets him down (she does seem to be an early teether and all parents know the grief that causes to everyone concerned) but events outside his control and, occasionally, the isolation can bite. Few friends of his own age have stayed the course once there was a baby to inhibit the intake of cider and loud action movies. He has insisted on living alone in a rented flat which he keeps scrupulously clean and tidy, being slightly OCD (no genetic transference there from me, but possibly his mum…). He takes Ella for jaunts on the bus to nearby towns and has coffee with her in local cafés. The first journey, by train, was something of a traumatic experience as he found himself changing a nappy in full sight of other travellers. Worse followed; he was unable to go into the nappy-changing area in a café because it was also the ladies toilets. They let him in eventually when he threatened to change the nappy right there in the middle of the café. I was privileged to accompany them once (we went by car) and the little lady just loves Pizza Hut - so many admirers to be waved and smiled at.

The advantage to Ella of having such a young dad are limitless. He does crazy dances for her and she laughs hugely. he while her around and jounces her about much to her glee. He is strong and fit and fairly tireless. I'm sure that eventually she will teach him which outfits look good and which look a little odd.

So if he won't keep a record I just might. Look out for more 'single dad' posts.

23 Mar 2016

Happy Easter - or Eostre - everyone.

Introducing Ella. Our Easter bunny.

…but then I decided to plagiarise this instead.

A Facebook conversation which had me in stitches. I've had to delete the names to protect the innocent.  I hope if any of them happen across this by accident they will forgive me. The subject is: Chocloate eggs and what they have to do with Easter:

'Am I the only person who disagrees with the ridiculous notion of celebrating Easter and the resurrection of Our Lord by greedily munching into chocolate eggs? I am quite sure that nowhere in the Bible does it mention chocolate. This year I am going to shave a coconut and paint it with garish colours. This way I'll save a few bob by not having to buy a new egg each year. And before you ask - Yes, it does mention coconuts in the Bible. But not macaroon bars.'



Wow
pastedGraphic.pdf
KINGJAMESBIBLEONLINE.ORG

Luke 11.12 ...."Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he?




Easter is an appropriated pagan festival so I believe the eggs come from there



In the pagan version they're rabbit eggs.



Deuteronomy 72 RPM - Laugh not lest ye feel the heft of my shinty stick.


... or mum's broom handle cleft in twain?


And ye shall receive a bounty of coconut eggs




Eggclesiastes 4:3 "And thou shalt gorge thyselves on the cocoa bean of glory, having first searched high and low to gather the glorious bounty. Other chocolate bars are available ".



Shaz 1:1 "Yey, though I walk thru the valley to Morrisons, I will fear no price crash, for the staff and the patrons do comfort me and my purse doth flow over with credit cards"


Gadzooks!!! Spring has indeed sprung! It is heartwarming to see that someone has rolled away your virtual boulder to enable to wander the greenways & holloways of this august social media once again. I was beginning to wonder if you'd suffered the ignominy of a double death! Your cadaverous cumudgeonliness has been much missed!

There is a green hill far away. Why don't all you blasphemers sodding well go there.


I'm going to Lanzarote on Thursday - that'll have to do.



I once went to Rhyl.



You've irked me so much I've cut my finger while shaving that blasted coconut!



Try waxing instead......


You wax your coconut? Good heavens.




Smooth as a badger's nose, Strachan - can't recommend it highly enough (and you can pick the remainders off the wax and make your own doormats too! - that should appeal to you as a Scotsman)




The Good Lord gave us chocolate as well as coconut. I prefer chocolate.




Cadburys gave us chocolate, madam.




This particular church secretary (who happens to be up to her eyeballs in Holy Week church bulletins at the moment) thanks you for the much needed comic relief. I don't know that Sophie would approve, but I certainly do. And the Eggclesiastes passage will be shared with my ministerial staff.



Happy to help.



Trust me, this week I need all the help I can get.



Ah, Holy Week.... Cuppa? Sherry? Meths?




Coal bunker. Now.


I have called the Royal Society for Protection of Nuts. You sir, should not be shaving coconuts and displaying them for all to see.


Sir (and it's not Madam, actually) chocolate comes from cocoa beans. Which God gave us. Chocolate is therefore one of my five a day.





One of our local churches plan on having a giraffe on site for Easter service. Somehow I think chocolate makes more sense.



A marzipan giraffe?




I'm an eggnostic.



 Neil 1.1 " Thou doth needith to remember it is a coconut else thou will breakith a tooth."


Chocolate gives me migraines


I want the Biblical coconut quote, chapter and verse.

There are no atheists in the chocolate aisle.



I wouldn't know. I'm still trying to figure out why I would have slivovitz for Passover. What Angel of Death suggested that??? How did THAT stop any first borns from getting nixed?



One with a sense of humor?




Last time I shaved any coconuts, I had to get cream for the rash.



What sort of beastie lays a chocolate egg?
Surely they must be even bigger & even more chocolatey.
I want one of those.



If your stick is shinty I think you should have AW draw you a bath.




He would, but his pencil is broken



And last time he got a toe stuck in the tap...



Um... you might be thinking about the loofah story.




 And it wasn't a toe.

So much for discretion...



 Well, now, chocolate is a religion to some.

 It's pretty bad that chocolate is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. What was God thinking?



Speaking of atheists, Amazon recently told me: 'Customers who bought "An Atheist's History of Belief" by Matthew Kneale also bought Brabantia bin liners' which was really helpful.








I was going to write about the state of the world….

…….after an evening crying to myself about the bombs in Brussels, the atmosphere of fear we live under now, and the thoughts that my daughter will be at St. Pancras station tomorrow, my son in Heathrow after a flight from Istanbul on Friday.

…. after a disturbing conversation with friends earlier in the week that revealed just how closed the minds of  some can be. This little town has taken in a family of Syrian refugees. I would have expected my intelligent and - I thought - sensitive friends, who write lovely sensitive poetry about their own loves and losses, to be more understanding of these people who have been torn from their country, travelled the most horrendous and terrifying journey, old and young, to be finally housed in a cold, grey and  -- apparently - unfriendly land.

The grievances are: Headscarves, The women shouldn't wear headscarves because it makes them stand out. Actually their poor clothing makes them stand out too, besides which, it isn't so long since all women in this country, from the Queen down, wore headscarves. That was OK for a different reason - non-religious. It was to hide their rollers, keep their hairdos in place or their heads dry. Or just to keep themselves warm - which, let's face it - a Syrian refugee planted in Scotland might need.

Second grievance: Old man seen sitting on a bench in the High Street smoking and staring at passers-bye. Um…. could have been a local? Could be a refugee wanting to absorb the local atmosphere, see what it's all about… also doing what old men do in many countries (with  better climates tis true) sit outside under a plane tree watching the world pass by. Maybe he wanted a moment of feeling 'normal' again.

Third grievance: Single man (again old I believe) seen sitting in the park near the children's play area watching the children. This was seen as sleazy behaviour. So every refugee is a potential child molester? To me it brings an entirely different, heart-tugging picture of a man possibly watching his own children or grand-childen play freely at last. Equally possibly, remembering the children in Syria who were afraid to leave the house, afraid the house would be bombed around them, afraid, afraid… having no childhood. Equally possibly he, like the man in the street, was just sitting somewhere watching normal life in a, so far, peaceful country and getting some healing from it.

16 Mar 2016

Local hero 2: The Wizard of Gordonstoun


The son of Ludovick of Gordonstoun and the second laird to bear the name Sir Robert of Gordonstoun, was one of the most colourful and intriguing character to have ever lived in this part of Morayshire. 

Sir Ludovick of Gordonstoun’s heir Robert was born in 1647. This was at a time when the Renaissance had blossomed all over Europe giving inspiration to men of a scholarly bent who were wealthy enough to indulge their interests in the new culture, in questioning beliefs, testing new scientific thinking and in mathematical studies. The great Galileo was not long dead and Sir Isaac Newton was born as the first Sir Robert, Ludovick's father, took over Gordonstoun house. Robert Boyle, one of the founders of the Royal Society was only 20 years older than Sir Robert and had correspondence with him on matters scientific . It seems that quite early in his youth the young Robert showed himself to be more like his learned grandfather than his father in his preference for learning rather than estate management and so he was sent to Italy to study at the University of Padua where he met some of the finest scientific minds of his day.

When he returned to Gordonstoun Robert began to collect what would become an impressively large library. He also set up a workshop and laboratory on the ground floor of the house where fires could be seen burning late into the night. Multi-coloured flames and shadows dancing behind mullioned windows no doubt began the legends that grew around this man who was somewhat of a recluse. To the uneducated people of Moray it was obvious that he was a wizard and it is quite probable that he encouraged such talk because in those days when the only law-keepers and discipline dispensers were the landed gentry, it increased the awe in which he was held and made it easier for him to keep discipline amongst his tenants without having to expend much effort. Fear of enchantment was a terrible deterrent to the superstitious. It also meant they left him in peace to do what absorbed him most. 

So it was that word got about of a fire spirit raised from the regions beyond death by the laird in his furnace. This fire spirit could tell Sir Robert secrets unknown to the rest of humankind, and, furthermore, in his lust for yet more knowledge of the natural orders (denied to humans by the King of Heaven for their own good,) the wizard laird had, whilst in Padua, entered into a pact with Satan, called forth by blasphemous symbols, incantations and perhaps even sacrifice. 

Satan would naturally have charged the usual price to give up the secrets of the universe, that is to say he would have demanded a human soul. Being a gentleman Sir Robert had undertaken to pay the price himself at the end of one year. 

It amuses me to think that the same mechanism of denial operating when folk fall to the temptation of buying a three-piece suite with ‘Nothing to pay until 2015’ must have been similar to Sir Robert’s hopeful expectation of some future lucky event intervening to annul the final reckoning to this pact. The future is a safe place where the very course of history can have changed so that payment may never have to be made at all. It seems quite credible that when one year later to the second, in the full heat and sunlight of an Italian afternoon, the dapper gentleman in black appeared for the rendering of his account Robert had forgotten the agreement and been startled by this unpleasant demand for his soul. However his wits did not desert him entirely. He looked up and down the empty thoroughfare and seeing but one moving object with any claim to life pointed to his shadow crying ‘Take him instead!’ 

We are told the Devil is one for a jest and that he appreciates above all a spirit of courage and impudence in his future prey so with a great roar of laughter he agreed to take the shadow which promptly disappeared from the ground. Then he told Robert in merry tones: ‘You have bought yourself 25 years more for your quick thinking but I WILL have your soul Robert. All Hallow’s e’en 25 years from this day we will roast your soul together.’

So it came to pass that when Robert returned to Gordonstoun he was never to be seen except in cloudy weather, for if the Kirk had come to hear that he lacked a shadow they would have had the proof to take him for sorcery, and the punishment for that was the stake.

Many tales were told but none could be proven. It is said that one frosty night when he was due at an appointment in Elgin he set off in his coach to cross the loch by ferry (as loch there was in those days.) When the coachman brought them to the edge they found that there was a covering of ice just thick enough to prevent the ferry from setting out but not thick enough to drive across. Fearing he would be late, Robert told the coachman to drive on across the loch keeping his eyes fastened to the other shore and not looking back whatever drew him to do so or the devil would drown them both.

In fear the coachman drove and in awe he found the ice held them. Unfortunately, like Lot’s wife, natural curiosity got the better of him before he quite reached the other bank and he turned his head to look back at the laird. What he saw caused him to tremble so much he lost the reins. A great black crow sat on the Laird’s shoulder. The moment it saw the coachman turn it flew cawing angrily into the air and the coach sank up to its axles in the mud.

Twenty five years passed and this time Sir Robert did not forget his soul was in danger. When the stables and barns at Gordonstoun were in need of replacing he designed a new building with this very event in mind and with all the cunning of a learned mathematician. It was the fashion to build such amenities slightly away from the main house and in the form of a hollow square , that is four sides of the necessary accommodation for coach, horses and fodder, around a courtyard with an archway for entrance. He had instead built what is now called ‘The Round Square’  designed to his own mathematical calculations to have no corner in which the devil could catch him. 

However, when the time drew near it seems Sir Robert did begin to doubt his own cleverness and he sent the same coachman who had attempted to cross the Spynie Loch to fetch the parson of Duffus to spend the evening with him. He also set the clocks forward an hour to confuse the devil and to give himself time to make a bolt for it if necessary. 

The parson came and was dully wined and dined until warm with hospitality they both sat by the fire in the great room, then Sir Robert told the increasingly distressed parson of his foolish youth and of the dreadful pact he had made. As he talked his eyes turned often to the clock. When the hand reached midnight one of the window panes burst in bringing with it a great gust of wind and a diabolical voice boomed out: ‘ Now Robert, your hour has come!’ 
‘Oh no’ shouted the wily laird, ‘ I have changed the clocks. I have still one hour more to call my soul my own!.’ 
The devil laughed heartily.  ‘Very well, but this is the last time you make sport with me! In one hour I shall claim your soul.’ 

The parson pleaded with Robert to make haste to the only place holy enough to keep him safe, the Kirk at Birnie. Robert still claimed his Round Square would do the job but the parsons’ pleading must have finally shaken his belief in himself because he set out for Byrnie kirkyard at a run taking the route he thought the devil least likely to know.

Now it happened that the Rev. John M’Kean of Birnie had been out visiting in Alves on ecclesiastical matters and was returning home shortly before midnight when he heard the footsteps of a man running in his direction. The man soon came level with him and hardly pausing in his stride called to him ‘tell me man, am I on the right road for Birnie Kirk?’ Recognising Sir Robert’s voice the minister hastened to assure him that he was indeed on the right road and before he could ask what the trouble was the laird had disappeared into the mists ahead of him, leaving the reverend very perturbed. Why should the laird of Gordonstoun be running so far and in such evident desperation at midnight?

No sooner had he collected himself and started on his way again than he heard the thudding of hooves behind him. A rider drew abreast of him on a jet black horse, his own form covered with a dark hooded cloak beneath which his face was just another shadow in the night. From this form came an unpleasantly guttural and wheezing voice asking: ‘Has a man passed this way? 

The minister was about to say that yes, Sir Robert of Gordonstoun had just run on toward the kirk when some intimation of evil in the thing that had asked the question pulled him up short and he bethought him of Sir Robert who had never done harm to him, nor indeed as far as he had heard to any other man, so instead he shook his head and declared ‘No. Not a soul has passed this way.’

The horse plunged on into the darkness. As it disappeared from sight the reverend was even more disturbed to see what looked like two large four-footed creatures following it. Full of misgiving, and with the ominous foreboding of preternatural doom the minister walked on, as silently as he could for fear of being found again by what he know was sure was a fiend from the nether worlds of hell. 

In a short time he heard hoof beats and the horrid sound of hunting dogs. He shrank back into the bushes as a sudden break in the cloud let through veins of  blue-white light from the moon by which he saw the horse and rider returning, but this time across the saddle lay a bleeding human body with the fangs of a great wolfhound still hanging on its throat, another three hounds baying on behind. The horse slowed as it passed him and he heard the voice of the fiend growl out ‘I shall return in time for thee.’ Then the devil  disappeared into a smoking cavern which opened in the ground at the horse’s feet. The minister, praying fervently but to no avail, stumbled on toward his home which alas he never reached because he was overtaken once more by the ghastly entourage and in the morning was found dead on the path, his throat torn out as though by a wild animal. 

And so, by common consent, came the end of the wizard, Sir Robert of Gordonstoun. Those who tell you he died in his bed at a grand old age are surely mistaken.

Sources: 
‘The Michael Kirk, Gordonstoun and its historical background’ Edward Lightowler. Paul Harris Publishing, Edinburgh 1980
(Where we read that for 150 years after the death of Sir Robert, the Michael Kirk which was built as a mausoleum for his body by his second wife Elizabeth Dunbar, was to be avoided after dark for fear of spectral presences.)


‘The Lintie O’Moray being a collection of poems chiefly composed for and sung at the anniversaries of the Edinburgh Morayshire Society from 1829 to 1841.’ Compiled for the 1851 edition by George Cumming and for a second edition, published in 1887, by Charles Rampini , sheriff of Caithness, Orkney and Shetland.

Local Hero 1: The Wolfe of Badenoch


There are many facts and fancies told of  the Wolfe of Badenoch's dastardly and rapacious deeds.  For instance, in a fit of pique against the church he  destroyed Elgin cathedral, and he likewise caused great destruction in Forres, all of which makes him a local anti-hero. Legend says he died in 1394. Others maintain it was in 1405, after he played chess with the devil, a coming together of minds that had dire consequences for the Wolfe. Here is how the tale of that meeting goes:

The Wolfe was visited at Ruthven Castle by a tall lean man dressed in black. The man told the Wolfe that he wished to play a game of chess with him. Knowing nothing about the devil and his renowned prowess at chess the Wolfe’s pride caused him to accept the challenge. The game went on for several hours until the tall dark man moved one of the chess pieces and, rising from the table, called 'Check' and then 'Checkmate!' As his cries echoed around the castle there was a terrible roll of thunder, followed by violent hail and great slashes of forked lightening which tore apart the sky. The storm continued throughout the night. As dawn broke a dreadful silence fell on the castle. It was then that neighbours courageous enough to approach discovered the Wolfe's men outside the castle walls, dead and blackened, as if they had all been struck by the lightening. The Wolfe himself was found in the banqueting hall, and although his body appeared unmarked, the nails in his boots had  been torn out.


The funeral was held for the dead two days later, the procession of coffins led, as befitted his royal lineage, by the Wolfe's own. Again a terrible storm arose with thunder and lightening crashing overhead. It came closer and closer, gathering in intensity as each of the coffins joined the solemn procession. It was only after the Wolfe's coffin was put to the back of the line that the storm would cease. Once that happened the black storm clouds rolled away.

It seems the bad boy of Badenoch had even offended Satan.

10 Mar 2016

Arts and Tarts



Yesterday’s NDFAS was entitled ‘Great Tarts in Art.’ The lecturer was superb. She was fluent and funny. She began by telling us that although there were many names and euphemisms for prostitutes, some carrying more overtones of disapproval than others, she had chosen ‘Tarts’ simply because it rhymed with Art. After this disarming admission she went on to be witty, knowledgeable, and not in the least judgmental. 

Since NADFAS is all about art the subject necessarily focused on the paintings of famous courtesans, king’s mistresses, and the women whose good fortune and good looks enabled them to both feather their nests comfortably and rise in society to situations where they were treated with deference, occasionally with respect. Some became quite fabulously rich. A beautiful woman known for her discretion (and discretion was important, even in the societies permissive in this area) could ask the modern equivalent of £6000 for a night in her company. A career with such an obvious expiration date meant careful husbanding of wealth and contacts. Some were better at it than others. If they became ‘kept’ women they could ask for a fine house, servants, a carriage, exquisite jewels and clothes. With this equipage they could receive guests, hold ‘salons’ and influence the dealings of the day both in court and in politics by bestowing attention on young men who also wished to rise in station. This was the social networking of the time, the salons, and the public school system once it arrived, were the way society drew into itself those it enjoyed having close, the most useful, amusing people, and those who would play its games in order to attain desirable heights.  

The faces we are accustomed to seeing in the art galleries are most often mistresses of one of the Kings. Charles II was especially beneficent to today's art-loving public in this respect.  In order to hint at their special positions (and distinguish them from the wives) these women were frequently portrayed as shepherdesses. We were told by our lecturer that during the Q&A section of one of her events the ‘why?' of this fact was asked. Though she didn't have a definitive answer herself, a male member of the audience did: ‘Because they hadn’t invented school uniforms.’ Shrewd. Youth and innocence have always been a turn-on, added to which the implied healthy lifestyle of the background suggested a disease-free young woman - a serious bonus in those days. 

Peter LiIly, the Dutch painter who succeed Van Dyke as court painter, has given us several of the lovely ladies who enlivened the days of Charles II, generally simultaneously. That is to say they knew of each others existence and there was great rivalry between them. One mark of the king’s favour was especially important and that was the bestowing of titles. Elizabeth Strickland became Lady Elizabeth Stricklend, then Countess of Kildare. Henrietta de Kerouaille became Countess of Pembroke. These two hated each other, vying constantly for position. They were pregnant at the same time and lobbied for their sons to be given important titles. Harassed by their insistence the king reportedly said: ‘first come, first serve’ meaning not which child appeared first, but which envoy got to him first with the petition (if that's the word.) It seems that Lady Elizabeth Strickland had the fittest envoy because her child received the most coveted title. 

These women where also the Stars of their day. The Posh and Becks, the Brad and Jennifer. The populace had their favourites. When the carriage of Lady Strickland was stoned and almost overturned by a baying mob, disaster was only avoided by the beautiful passenger appearing in the window crying: ‘I am not the whore from France. I am the whore from Lambeth.’ 

Neither felt much challenged by the lovely Nell Gwyn it seems, probably because she was ‘common as muck.’ Nell was one of the lucky girls allowed onto the stage after Charles II changed the law (which incidentally put hundreds of pretty young boys out of a job.) It was a wonderful opportunity for good looking women to better themselves and find a patron. The lovely Elizabeth Armistead, painted by Joshua Reynolds, who started her career as a whore in one of the most famous brothels in London, spent a short time treading the boards. The critics where not impressed by her acting skills but were very impressed by her looks and figure.  

Women who already had positions, came from good families and married well were not above having their fun. As long as they were discreet their husbands would ‘turn a blind eye’. This has occasionally blurred the hereditary genetic demarcation lines. Women waited until they had provided their husband with a son and heir before they began their adventures, but if that child died it might well be a subsequent, illegitimate, child who succeeded to a title. 
  
There were the occasional almost fairy-tale endings when true love was found between a nobleman and his courtesan. Elizabeth Armistead was one of these. She was taken from the brothel by Lord Bolingbroke who became her patron. There were other patrons along the years who endowed her with pensions and made her wealthy, but she always remained friends with James Fox, a young politician of the Whig party, who had been in the company of Bolingbroke when he met Elizabeth and rescued her from the brothel. Eventually after 10 years of platonic friendship, Elizabeth and James married. On the internet I found this touching piece: “In 1795, after they had been together for more than ten years, Fox wrote to his nephew, ‘I think my affection for her increases every day. She is a comfort to me in every misfortune and makes me enjoy doubly every pleasant circumstance of life. There is to me a charm and delight in her society which time does not in the least wear off, and for real goodness of heart if she ever had an equal she certainly never had a superior.’” Elizabeth lived to be 95 years old. 

Predictably, Hogarth represented the darker, gloomier, side of prostitution amongst the poor in one of his inimitable cartoons. This one is a triptych. He shows a sly looking madam, a very young girl who is obviously distressed, a finely clad gentleman, and a greedy, dissolute looking doctor. A phial of black pills in the hands of the gentleman is at the centre of the group and tells the story. These pills would have been mercury, which has been shown to alleviate some of the symptoms of venereal disease but with obvious side effects. The madam would have bought the child, sold her to the wealthy ‘gentleman’ who was now aggrieved that his purchase was not as pure as he had been led to believe. The madam and the gent both have the tell-tale black patches known as ‘beauty spots’ that covered either smallpox scars or signs of syphilis. 

A later painting by one of the Impressionists (if I remember rightly) shows a woman propositioning a well-dressed man who is holding her in what, at first sight, looks to be a tender caressing sort of way with his hand on her elbow. This, we were told, was actually his way of assessing her state of health. Syphilis causes swellings in the joints, notably the elbow. Various sayings have come out of this cautious act, ‘elbowing ones way around the room,’ for instance. 

As always, seemingly innocent and charming nursery rhymes have come from the prevailing, less pretty, realities. This pleasant little song that most (at least amongst the oldest of us) will have heard at one time or another, is an example:  

This version appeared in ‘A Baby’s Opera’ by Walter Crane in 1877.

1. "Where are you going to, my pretty maid?
Where are you going to, my pretty maid?"
"I'm going a-milking, Sir," she said,
"Sir," she said, "Sir," she said,
"I'm going a-milking, Sir," she said.

2. "Shall I go with you, my pretty maid?"
"Yes, if you please, kind Sir," she said,
"Sir," she said, "Sir," she said,
"Yes, if you please, kind Sir," she said.

3. "What is your fortune, my pretty maid?"
"My face is my fortune, Sir," she said,
"Sir," she said, "Sir," she said,
"My face is my fortune, Sir," she said.

4. "Then I can't marry you, my pretty maid."
"Nobody asked you, Sir," she said,
"Sir," she said, "Sir," she said,
"Nobody asked you, Sir," she said.