Epiblog for the Feast of St Oswald of Worcester

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. Finally the weather looks like it might be turning from winter into spring, or at least a close approximation thereof.  My composting seems to be coming along well, notwithstanding that something - a badger possibly - seems to have been rooting around in it for tidbits, and soon it will be time to dig out the result and distribute it amongst the various tubs and planters, ready for this year’s round of herbs. We’ve succeeded in making contact with another (different) gutter man who seems quite keen to actually turn up and do the job, this time, so we may well let him.  The plumber is still missing in action, but the one recommended by the chimney sweep may yet prove to be a fitting substitute; I have an eye test booked for next Thursday, and I have once more had some vitamin B12 jabbed into what remains of my shoulder muscle by the NHS. So, as Churchill said, it is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning.

Notwithstanding the finer weather, it’s still been cold, especially on those mornings when Deb has an early start for her 12-hour days of teaching, and Matilda is correspondingly reluctant to do her promenades along the decking until, as Granny Fenwick used to say, “the streets have been aired a bit”.  The squirrels and birds, however, have no such compunction, and while Matilda curls herself round into the shape of a Davy Crockett hat and purrs contentedly to herself in the chair, these days, almost as soon as I put the bird food out, there is a brawl of birds and squirrels all trying to barge their way to the front of the queue like Black Friday bargain-hunters. It always amazes me how they know when I have put out fresh stuff for them. The only explanation I can think of is that the squirrels somehow have our house under surveillance, which could be a worrying thought, if I allowed it to be.

Misty has had her usual week of barking at couriers and postmen, barking at people who have the temerity to slam a car door in the road outside, barking at me, sometimes, when I go out into the lobby for more coal. In fact, as Border Collies go, I have to admit, she is, indeed, completely barking.  She also barked at the District Nurse on Tuesday, who had originally come to administer my 12-week injection. The said District Nurse, who, sadly, didn’t come from the same redoubtable stock as Miranda Hart in Call The Midwife, retired back to the safe side of the door, pleading that she didn’t like dogs. I managed to shout to her, amidst the constant obbligato of Misty going woof woof woof, to come back on Thursday afternoon, when my wife would be here to take the dog out.

On Thursday afternoon, the District Nurse was back. In the plural. Two different ones, in fact, neither of whom I had seen before, and both of whom looked like experienced and formidable dog-wranglers. Their skills in that direction remained un-deployed, however, as Debbie was around, as predicted, and took Muttkins upstairs out of the way.  Having duly stuck the needle in me, the D. N.s then proceeded to test me for dementia, giving me an address to remember, then getting me to tell them the time, the date, to count backwards from 20, to recite the months of the year in reverse order, then finally to recount the address they had told me earlier. (John Smith, 42 High Street, Huddersfield, if you’re interested). When they had finally gone, and Debbie came back downstairs, she was highly amused to find I had been thus tested. Did they test you for dementia last time they came, she asked, and I was forced to admit I couldn’t remember.

In the wider world, it would have been a good week to have acquired the skill of dementia, or at least of selective memory-loss, as the last seven days have been full of thinks I would rather un-remember, or forget entirely, although sadly we’re forced to confront them on a daily basis.  The good news, possibly the only good news, this week, is that of a tentative cease-fire in Syria. If it holds. If it does hold, though, it will be a long while before there is any discernible impact on the flows of refugees from that stricken country.  As if to counterbalance that, we also heard of the French government’s plans to bulldoze half of the “Jungle” camp at Calais, seemingly without any backup plan for at least the continued welfare of the several hundred unaccompanied children it contains.

Clearly, refugees, especially when they are referred to as “migrants” are going to be high on the news agenda until at least June, as both sides in the EU referendum debate are interested in perpetrating what I have come to call “The Great Confusion” between legitimate economic migrants, refugees, British citizens with non-white ethnicity, and asylum seekers, and “migrants” are good raw material out of which to spin the confections of lies we are currently being offered. Cameron says if we leave the EU, we will end up with the UK equivalent of “The Jungle” on the South Downs behind Saltdean, and Boris Johnson saying that if we stay in, then more of them will worm their way into the country and secrete themselves under the beds of maiden aunts in Droitwich, waiting on the precise moment to rise up and murder Middle England in its bed.

The level of debate is dire, even more stupid and illiterate on both sides than the tripe we normally encounter about the economy at election time, and neither side wants to admit that the most likely migrant in practice is a white Catholic Polish electrician who gets a job, rents a house in the private sector, and pays taxes.  Long live “The Great Confusion”, because the more people they can infect with it, the easier we will be to control, to influence, and to render supine.  The problem is, as I wrote last week, that unpicking this ball of confusion takes time, effort and study.  It is not the sort of thing that can be debunked overnight. It relies, to a certain extent, on the public having the desire to understand the problem, and politicians don’t want us understanding the problem, because it might lead to awkward questions like, well, why aren’t there enough affordable houses to go round, and could you explain exactly how carpet-bombing the economy with the death of a thousand cuts and reducing the amount of spare cash people have to spend will stimulate growth?

They have no answers to these questions, and now that they have a leader of the Labour Party who is actually starting to ask them, and ask them publicly, they are rattled. That is why Cameron chose such a disgraceful cowardly response to Corbyn’s questioning at Prime Minister’s Question Time this week – because he has no answer to the arguments, and he is reduced to a knee-jerk ad hominem response – do up your tie, wear a proper suit, and sing the National Anthem.  Because, of course, that will solve everything!  The economy is tanking, and Osborne is warning of still further insane cuts to areas which will impact hardest on the poorest and least able to bear them. Never mind - do up your tie, wear a proper suit, and sing the National Anthem.  Jeremy Hunt is lying about junior doctors’  terms of employment, and the NHS is in chaos. Never mind - do up your tie, wear a proper suit, and sing the National Anthem. Food bank usage is at an all time high. Kids are going to bed hungry. Never mind - do up your tie, wear a proper suit, and sing the National Anthem.  The DWP is cutting ESA by 30% and the new PIP benefit has taken away Motability cars and scooters from people who previously relied on them. Never mind - do up your tie, wear a proper suit, and sing the National bloody Anthem. I must admit, I find it difficult to take lessons on correct behaviour from someone who once stuck his genitals in the mouth of a dead pig, but then I suppose, in fairness, during the act, he was probably immaculately dressed in white tie and tails, and for all I know he was intoning “God Save The Queen” throughout.

The phenomenon of politicians giving glib, specious, ready-made answers to problems which they made up in the first place, to deflect attention from the questions that really need to be asked, is by no means confined to these shores alone. I have watched the rise of Donald Trump in the US presidential campaign with first amusement and then something akin to concern. I am the last one to invoke “Godwin’s Law” but I have to say that there are very few differences between watching footage of a Donald Trump rally and footage of a Hitler speech from the 1930s. Substitute “Make America Great Again” for “Make Germany Great Again” and substitute “Muslims” for “Jews” and that’s about it.  The fact that Hillary Clinton may be the best hope of stopping this dangerous megalomaniac getting anywhere near the levers of power is probably one of the more depressing aspects of the whole situation.

Nearer to home, the areas of what you might call “local” or “personal to me” politics have all moved on this week. 5,000 people marched through Huddersfield to protest against the closure of the local A & E. Sadly, that will do little or nothing to redress the massive tactical blunder the campaign’s organisers made of issuing paper petitions for people to sign thus misleading people into thinking they were signing the official “online” petition.  And people on the Facebook page devoted to this campaign, and on the Calderdale Floods Support Facebook page, have been saying that they don’t want to see any “political” posts on those pages. Who do they think caused the situation? The A & E cuts Fairy? The Floods Fairy? In the latter case, the floods are a direct result of Tory cuts to the flood defence budget and DEFRA’s response, this week, to the online petition calling for more trees to be planted on uplands to prevent them shedding rainfall too quickly, is to promise a 25 year plan. Better stock up on sandbags and blow up your water wings. I have come to the conclusion that these people who say they don’t want to see “political” posts must be people who voted Tory and don’t want to have to stand up and defend the consequences of their various chickens coming home to roost.

My own online petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/120545  to introduce a new deterrent and toughen up the laws on animal cruelty, has now reached, as of today, 1063 signatures, and while this is a long way off the 100,000 needed for it to be considered for a debate in parliament, .it is at least an encouraging sign, given that I have done little, if nothing, to push it online this week, having been occupied elsewhere. Maybe it is starting to gather a momentum of its own, with friends of people who have shared it now also sharing it amongst themselves.  Maybe. Anyway, it’s a long road stretching ahead, and I must step it out.

It’s another bright, cold, sunny morning today, and somehow we’ve made it through another week, and also, in fact, another month. It is also a year to the day since Deb’s dad died, which seems incredible. A whole year having zipped by without me noticing. Plus, it is also the feast of St Oswald of Worcester.

Oswald was born into the religious life. It was sort of a family business. His uncle, Oda, was Archbishop of Canterbury, and he was also related to Oskytel, who sounds more like a mobile phone company than a Saxon cleric, but who nevertheless became Archbishop of York. It was a slam-dunk, therefore, that Oswald would become a churchman, and he was instructed by a Frankish scholar named Frithegod, became Dean of Winchester, and then was sent to France to study at the Abbey of Fleury in 950AD.  His uncle summoned him back to England in 958AD, but died before Oswald reached him.  Left at something of a loose end, he began helping Oskytel with the administration of York, until St Dunstan secured for him the See of Worcester in 961.

Once installed, he invited Germanus of Winchester, whom he had met at Fleury, to come to England and found a religious institution. This was originally a small affair at Westbury-on-Trym, but eventually, with the gift of lands at Ramsey, in Huntingdonshire, and therefore the promise of a more permanent home for succeeding generations, it translated there and became, eventually Ramsey Abbey in 974. Oswald bestowed it generously with textiles, hangings and a magnificent Bible.

Apart from founding Ramsey, Oswald’s career at Worcester was chiefly taken up with re-organising the structure of eccelesiastical lands to ensure a more even flow of money into the coffers of the church, and re-introducing a system of worship based more closely on the Benedictine rule. Two years before Ramsey came to fruition, Oswald became Archbishop of York, alongside his existing role as Bishop of Worcester. This was generally seen as highly unusual and irregular, but it benefited York to be able to draw on the resources of a much richer and more stable diocese.

When King Edgar died in 975AD, some of the monastic institutions in which Oswald had taken an interest were broken up or otherwise curtailed, but Ramsey remained untouched, probably because of the original patronage of other members of the Saxon royal household, whose descendants also protected it. Oswald invited Abbo of Fleury to come over and take charge at Ramsey in 985AD, and while he was there, Abbo taught the Computus, the method used for calculating Easter, and also, occasionally, on a whim, for calculating when the Day of Judgement would be. The long winter evenings must just have flown by.

It was Oswald’s custom, during Lent, to wash the feet of the poor, and it was while engaged in this activity, on 29^th February 992AD (although his feast day is always celebrated a day earlier) that he keeled over and died. Almost immediately, miracles were being reported around his tomb, which was moved to a different location in the same building in 1002, ten years later. No trace of it remains, but, incredibly, the British Museum and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, possess a psalter and a pontifical that were said to have belonged to St Oswald and were used daily by him.

It’s easy for us to scoff at the simple piety and quasi-superstition which was a significant component of what passed for faith in those days. Personally, I think we should be careful of judging people of Saxon times by modern, cynical, 21^st century standards.  In some ways, they were more in tune with the universe than we are – they saw the cycles of the seasons, the growing time and the harvest time, a time to reap, a time to sow, and all that, in a way which we would find completely alien. True, life was nasty, brutish and short, but what there was of it may have been more spiritually fulfilling.  And yes, I accept that it must have been easier to become a saint when your family tree was stuffed with Abbots, Bishops, Archbishops and monks, but even so, Oswald seems – from what scant accounts remain – to have been a pious man and a capable administrator. I could wish for a worse epitaph.

 Anyway, it’s already almost four o’clock and I am starting to droop and drowse, with what is turning out to be my usual mid-afternoon energy-drop, these days. I don’t know why it should be, but it’s another condition imposed on my by my body, that I have no choice other than to accept.  Debbie, Zak and Misty are off somewhere over hills and mountains high, and Matilda and Ellie are both asleep, albeit in different parts of the house, since neither of them is intelligent enough to realise that they would both be warmer if they set aside their differences, forgot their respective species, and cuddled up next to each other. I’m lucky they’re all in such good fettle, though. Poor little Jazz, my cousin’s Border Terrier, is very ill as I type this today, and I must rouse myself to try and pray, after my own poor fashion, for his continued well-being and recovery.

And I must also face whatever next week brings, not that I am looking forward to it particularly, as it will involve long days, early starts, being cold, being tired, and an eye test on top as a special bonus.  But mainly today, I am contemplating the passing of time.  Particularly that year which has elapsed since Mike left us. I can enumerate the months backwards if necessary, if only to convince the District Nurse I am not gaga, but to actually make them go backwards, ah, there would be the trick.  Says Donne:

Oh, how feeble is man’s powre

That if good fortune fall

He cannot add one single houre

Or a lost houre recall…

Nope, that’s pretty much it. Go with the flow, as no doubt the Buddha would say, if he were here right now and I understood Sanskrit. I can never think about time, and the nature of time, even in logical, Stephen Hawking mode, let alone in full-on, Buddhist satori mode, without my head starting to hurt. Somehow, in a way I don’t understand, there was a branch in the river of time, and we left Mike back there, while we sailed on down a different tributary, and have been for another year now. And what is a year, anyway, other than a collections of sunrises and sunsets, days made up of hours which are themselves just arbitrary marked scratched at intervals down a burning candle. Where’s Abbo with his Computus, when  we really need him?

I’m not the first to think this way, not by a long chalk. Unacknowledged poet laureate and part-time Eric Morecambe tribute act, Philip Larkin, summed it up in his poem, Days, much better than I can.

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

And since I am never going to be able to better that as an exposition of the essential dilemma, not even if I wrote until the Computus finally came out right and God lost patience and shook a seven, I think I might just leave it there this week. Days are to be happy in. While we can. I thank you for the days.