I am ashamed to admit that there is still an overflowing box of Christmas decorations in front of the fireplace and three parts of a dismembered Christmas tree lying like shrubbery in front of the window. The Christmas cards (we had two yesterday!) lie in a pile on the unit ready for the names of The Saved to be entered into The Golden Book of Good People Who Sent Cards; while those who were sent but did not reply will be entered into the Black Book of Impending Damnation. This will be done today and Christmas will at last be over. Until the arrival of the next Christmas card!
All the decorations are now gone, pushed into the inadequate space which I have rented in Bluespace to accommodate all my books and paintings. I could not resist opening a few more boxes to see what I’m missing and found a collection of novels from the eighteenth century with the typed script of a lecture by John Worthen about Fanny Burney. Which I read. I can still remember this lecture from my second or third year in university. In examination terms John said that Fanny Burney would be one of the writers thrown to the wolves by most people, but he wanted to make a case for studying her. I was already predisposed to take her seriously because I remembered Colin Richards in Cardiff High School pausing at her name when he was giving us a quick tour through English Literature in one of our sixth form classes. And what an excellent writer she is, especially in her diary, let alone the two novels. And they are all packed up waiting for me in Bluespace.
.
I m missing my novels and other books more and more but I simply cannot find an adequate solution to the space problem of having them with me without the spending of vast sums of money. And there is certainly no spare cash from the present job for the fripperies of bookcases and the room in which to put them!
The one collection of books that I do have in the flat is my collection of poetry books and teaching primary school children allows me to use poems which previously have had to be discarded as too young or inappropriate.
When I was in the very lowest of the classes in Primary School there was one poem which I had memorised. I memorised it because I was encouraged to do so by one of my favoured (note the careful use of the adjective) teachers. I cannot (alas!) remember her name – I will have to wait for senility for the names of teachers and fellow pupils to come back to me – but I do remember that she let me stand with her when we lined up to go to classes and she drank tea with no milk in it. At the age of six growing up in Cathays in Cardiff that seemed to me to be the height of sophistication!
Anyway, I memorised the poem and used to trot it out at any provocation, to anyone in my class or any other class who would listen. I had already done guest performances as Herod in other classes so a little recitation was as nothing to me!
The poem, as far as I can remember (with apologies to political correctness) went as follows:
Little Miss Mouse
Had a very small house
And she wished it was very much bigger
Until one dark night
She had such a fright
From that naughty old cat Mr Nigger
He chased poor Miss Mouse
Right into her house
And because it was so small could not catch her
Now little Miss Mouse
Doesn’t want a big house
Because a small one is very much better!
I’ve read better since!
If I was to analyse this oeuvre now I might say that it was reinforcing the sentiments found in the suppressed verse of ‘All things bright and beautiful’:
The rich man at his table
The poor mat at his gate
God made them high and lowly
And ordered their estate.
I might also add that the poem reminds me of a lull in the arrival of the proper books that I had asked for in the Reading Room of the British Library, I asked for (and got) a first edition of Enid Blyton’s
‘Noddy Goes to Toytown.’ I have rarely read such a sexist and racist work of fiction! In it little Noddy has his little yellow car stolen by golliwogs and he is stripped naked and left in the dark forest. Some of the details might be wrong, but the basic story line of a group of blacks stripping a WASP and leaving him naked without his property does seem to me to be a little stereotypically racist. Who now would give a group of kids a poem in which the baddy was a Mr Nigger? I trust we have moved on!
Though for me, not in terms of the number of poems that I can recite all the way through.
I am good at remembering fragments and the general gist of the poem and using the fragments to construct a convincing essay. This skill has stood me to good stead for most of my scholastic career except for one question in my special paper in my finals.
I had revised Yeats. I had read all his poems in the collected edition and I had even read some of his mystical prose nonsense. I had taken part in a Yeats play as one of the soldiers at the foot of the cross – the only line I can remember is, “Our dice were carved from an old sheep’s bone at Ephesus.” I had even (god forgive me) read some of the spiritual ravings of Madame Blatavsky.
I was prepared.
When I say the question I reread it time after time to make it different. But it stayed obstinately the same.
“With specific reference to two poems by W B Yeats discuss the concept of ‘In dreams begin responsibilities.’”
If it has said, “With reference to the poems of Yeats” I would have been fine. But I didn’t know two poems by Yeats off by heart. I had to make a choice so I ended up by referring to ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ and ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ – neither of which would have been my choice if I had had the book in front of me. But I didn’t, so I did.
I think my essay was a masterpiece of ‘make do’ and ‘have a go’ and ‘hope for the best.’
Now I can combine my love of Yeats and my ability (over the years) to remember a little more with the necessity of thinking of poems for my class by selecting ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ as at least one of my choices. I will have to see what the girls say.
All the decorations are now gone, pushed into the inadequate space which I have rented in Bluespace to accommodate all my books and paintings. I could not resist opening a few more boxes to see what I’m missing and found a collection of novels from the eighteenth century with the typed script of a lecture by John Worthen about Fanny Burney. Which I read. I can still remember this lecture from my second or third year in university. In examination terms John said that Fanny Burney would be one of the writers thrown to the wolves by most people, but he wanted to make a case for studying her. I was already predisposed to take her seriously because I remembered Colin Richards in Cardiff High School pausing at her name when he was giving us a quick tour through English Literature in one of our sixth form classes. And what an excellent writer she is, especially in her diary, let alone the two novels. And they are all packed up waiting for me in Bluespace.
.
I m missing my novels and other books more and more but I simply cannot find an adequate solution to the space problem of having them with me without the spending of vast sums of money. And there is certainly no spare cash from the present job for the fripperies of bookcases and the room in which to put them!
The one collection of books that I do have in the flat is my collection of poetry books and teaching primary school children allows me to use poems which previously have had to be discarded as too young or inappropriate.
When I was in the very lowest of the classes in Primary School there was one poem which I had memorised. I memorised it because I was encouraged to do so by one of my favoured (note the careful use of the adjective) teachers. I cannot (alas!) remember her name – I will have to wait for senility for the names of teachers and fellow pupils to come back to me – but I do remember that she let me stand with her when we lined up to go to classes and she drank tea with no milk in it. At the age of six growing up in Cathays in Cardiff that seemed to me to be the height of sophistication!
Anyway, I memorised the poem and used to trot it out at any provocation, to anyone in my class or any other class who would listen. I had already done guest performances as Herod in other classes so a little recitation was as nothing to me!
The poem, as far as I can remember (with apologies to political correctness) went as follows:
Little Miss Mouse
Had a very small house
And she wished it was very much bigger
Until one dark night
She had such a fright
From that naughty old cat Mr Nigger
He chased poor Miss Mouse
Right into her house
And because it was so small could not catch her
Now little Miss Mouse
Doesn’t want a big house
Because a small one is very much better!
I’ve read better since!
If I was to analyse this oeuvre now I might say that it was reinforcing the sentiments found in the suppressed verse of ‘All things bright and beautiful’:
The rich man at his table
The poor mat at his gate
God made them high and lowly
And ordered their estate.
I might also add that the poem reminds me of a lull in the arrival of the proper books that I had asked for in the Reading Room of the British Library, I asked for (and got) a first edition of Enid Blyton’s
‘Noddy Goes to Toytown.’ I have rarely read such a sexist and racist work of fiction! In it little Noddy has his little yellow car stolen by golliwogs and he is stripped naked and left in the dark forest. Some of the details might be wrong, but the basic story line of a group of blacks stripping a WASP and leaving him naked without his property does seem to me to be a little stereotypically racist. Who now would give a group of kids a poem in which the baddy was a Mr Nigger? I trust we have moved on!Though for me, not in terms of the number of poems that I can recite all the way through.
I am good at remembering fragments and the general gist of the poem and using the fragments to construct a convincing essay. This skill has stood me to good stead for most of my scholastic career except for one question in my special paper in my finals.
I had revised Yeats. I had read all his poems in the collected edition and I had even read some of his mystical prose nonsense. I had taken part in a Yeats play as one of the soldiers at the foot of the cross – the only line I can remember is, “Our dice were carved from an old sheep’s bone at Ephesus.” I had even (god forgive me) read some of the spiritual ravings of Madame Blatavsky.
I was prepared.
When I say the question I reread it time after time to make it different. But it stayed obstinately the same.
“With specific reference to two poems by W B Yeats discuss the concept of ‘In dreams begin responsibilities.’”
If it has said, “With reference to the poems of Yeats” I would have been fine. But I didn’t know two poems by Yeats off by heart. I had to make a choice so I ended up by referring to ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ and ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ – neither of which would have been my choice if I had had the book in front of me. But I didn’t, so I did.
I think my essay was a masterpiece of ‘make do’ and ‘have a go’ and ‘hope for the best.’
Now I can combine my love of Yeats and my ability (over the years) to remember a little more with the necessity of thinking of poems for my class by selecting ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’ as at least one of my choices. I will have to see what the girls say.
As far as I can work out the next Festival with a capital ‘F’ is Carnival in Sitges. This is an occasion when (horrifically) teachers are expected to choreograph some sort of dance for the pupils to perform. The only simple dance that I can think of occurs at the end of Bergman’s ‘Seventh Seal’, though I suppose that some may consider a re-enactment of The Dance of Death a little tasteless when performed by eight year olds! I am prepared to weald the scythe!
And doesn’t ‘scythe’ occur in the Catalan national anthem?
Funny how things come together!
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