The Queen... and Monarchy

It's not surprising to me that I should be writing something about Her Majesty the Queen, with so much colourful stimulation prompting us last weekend. It does surprise me that I have not written a poem or two, because I have been very moved by some of the things we've seen. But hey, that's creative life, or is it more than that?

Copyright John Anstie 2012

I feel that I am writing something that addresses more than just the pageant, the colour, the magnificently organised ceremonies and events (only we can do this so well and with such style), the street parties, the visual and audible nature of the celebrations. No, I am going to nail my colours to the mast, colours, I might add, that I've held close for most of my adult life.

I believe in the importance of the monarchy as it exists today and as it has existed for the past sixty years; in the way it has developed during the reign of HM QE2, which spans the vast majority of my lifetime - I was a wee tot when HM KG6 died.

I am going to try and defend this, but I am not necessarily going to employ lots of reason, philosophical and intellectual gymnastics in the process. I'm rather going to do so by gut feeling, by emotion, by instinct. However, before you dismiss all this flag waving as irrational emo (isn't that cool street talk?), I perhaps need to explain my belief in a certain aspect of the human condition, which it is important to understand.

This is that we are essentially emotional animals. My life's experience has taught me in several different ways, and in several different departments, that we are thus, irrefutably so. Starting out in my life, my education and my early career programmed me as a scientist and an engineer. This early influence is still with me today and informs many aspects of my life, particularly when it comes to problem solving. Its downside is that it affected my thinking to the point where I felt I had to analyse everything I did, every decision I made to the 'n'th degree, to the point where I sometimes ended up in a state of high anxiety, incapable of making a decision! For things that are important, I still do analyse carefully, particularly in life affecting financial decisions, but I was once informed by someone with a certain financial expertise that, even in the financial sphere,  decision-making on the Stock Markets is 90% emotion and 10% reason! Now is that scary or what! I do think the emotion here is inextricably linked to instinct, but, whatever it is, it is not what you'd expect.

Anyway, I digress, slightly; but, as I go on, don't forget the emotion, the instinct bit.

Behind every one of us is an influence, a whole host of influences. These include every aspect of our upbringing, education, life experiences and particularly our long term relationships. Mine were very conservative (with the 'c' in both lower and upper case!). So I grew up believing in and respecting the monarchy and very normal middle class conservative values and aspirations, many of which still hold me in good stead today. I didn't grow up feeling envy and in need, although we were not well off by any stretch of the imagination and a whole bundle of domestic difficulties tainted the second and part of the third decades of my life with unhappiness and uncertainty, although that in itself is not a particularly unusual human experience. I feel that very few of us will have led perfectly enchanted lives, and I only write about these things because I believe they do inform our views on the privileged classes.

I was blessed with comfortably above average intelligence, even though emotional strain impaired my ability to concentrate and therefore comprehend during my teenaged years. I have therefore always had to work very hard for all that I got out of my working life. I married a woman who is at least my equal in those departments of intelligence and hard work, which was the beginning of a long road to recovery.

So these were my influences. I tell you about them simply because, I hope, it helps you see how my opinion formed; how I, like most people, may not be what I at first seem to be. The fact that recently, I have found myself veering slightly towards the left hand end of the political spectrum, has been influenced by the effects, particularly over the past five years, of my observation of the unbelievable behaviour of some investment bankers and, worse still, by the disastrous influence that 'speculators' have been allowed to wield on the financial markets, on economies and whole nations. Above all what has disappointed me, even upset me, is the fact that the present and past governments have been too slow to address these misdeeds, but then I think we all know very clearly why they haven't; they are weak and frail human beings, who are unprepared to stand up to reality, just like most of the human race!

So I believe unequivocally in the monarchy as it stands, because it has provided a largely unchanging and constant anchor to keep our inherent culture rooted with an oh, so subtle, but significant common purpose. This is particularly what HM QE2 has achieved for the country. She has not been a contrary Mary, locking protestant detractors up in the Tower, torturing them and cutting off their heads. She has not ransacked churches, cathedrals and monasteries to wage war on the Roman Catholic church. She has not retreated behind closed doors in dereliction of her duties.

That the Royal family attracts tourism and business in many ways is undoubted. That she has championed the Commonwealth of Nations, which has had a largely unrecognised influence on how we have coped with our new multi-cultural society, and has steered a course through some difficult times during her reign and evolved as a monarch is undoubted, but there is something more fundamental, something far greater in the scale of human achievement, something more important that wins my vote more securely than any of this.

If you saw any of the celebrations in London and all around the country, you cannot fail to have noticed the masses of people who lined the streets and waved their union jacks. Hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of people were not hand-picked and marshalled or dragooned into the streets (North Korea take note); they were not brainwashed by a massive sinister PR machine. They were all there by their own choosing, and not just for a good party! There is a strong undercurrent of loyalty that cements us together, there is a kind of voluntary fealty that transcends all political allegiances, that is at the core of our sense of community in this country. It is almost beyond reason, at least beyond popular rationale, but yet it isn't beyond my understanding of the human condition, driven as it is by powerful emotion and a need to work together.

I think it's fare to say that most of us are tired, not to say heartily sick of the self-interest, greed and corruption, with which so many of the systems of economic and political management seem to be afflicted. The monarchy does stand above this and stands for values that I think are very clear - and I'm not talking about financial values, so, for a moment, set aside the visual surface of monarchy, which we sometimes see daubed with extravagant dress and jewellery. Instead think of the values that are beyond financial measurement. In the fullness of time, their possessions and landed wealth cannot truly belong to them, they belong to the Nation; members of the Royal Family are merely custodians of it all. They are unlikely to sell off Buckingham Palace to raise funds to buy into a property development in Chelsea, or speculate for or against the value of currency movements somewhere else in the world, like Greece!

If you can rise above the feeling we all inevitably have from time to time, that feeling of envy and try another perspective, one which looks at the long term and how immediate members of the Royal Family are tied to their duties, it becomes easier to get a more reasonable perspective. OK, there are some very privileged so-called 'hangers-on', around the periphery of the immediate family, who may need to do more to earn their keep, to say nothing of all those lesser aspiring members of the middle classes, the social climbers, who would wish to elevate their status and associate themselves with the Royal Family, but who never will. They do need to get a life as soon as they can, rather than find out, all too late, that their destiny is far more humble, and their old pride is too stiff to cope.

And finally, as we kick and scream against the rising retirement age, let us remember how HM QE2 hasn't retired yet. She has been performing her duties day in day out, week in week out, month in month out, year in year out, decade upon decade... for sixty years; SIXTY YEARS!

The next monarch, probably HM KC3, has got a lot to live up to, albeit he has already reached retirement age, so will not start young, but HM QE2 will be a hard act to follow. As a result of her extraordinary efforts, The Royal Family, at least that part of it that is close to her, is the envy of many people in many parts of the world.

Copyright John Anstie 2012

So, for those of you so inclined, don't knock her any more. As it is, there are enough dark clouds hanging over the future of this country's constitutional, political and economic shape, so let's try to stand up straight and, in the words of Eric Idle, writing years ago for Monty Python, try to look on the bright side and maybe, just maybe, we will learn to see and appreciate what a constant, solid, consistent gem of an institution we have in the Queen and the present Royal Family. They will, all too soon, be faced with more challenges and change, when they will need our support.

I say God save the Queen.. and help us to understand what is good for us, what works, and, in the process, avoid killing the goose that laid the golden egg. If we sack the monarchy, there would be no voting them back in again, if it failed, or if a Republican style President became a touch too tyrannical! 

And you think that couldn't happen to us... in this country ..? Think again!

(In case you do feel the need for some poetry to mark the occasion I give you this. It is not by me, but by the talented Louise Hastings, soon to be published by Winter Goose.)

Thank you for reading.

Torquay United Football Club

Another post on one of my common and favourite themes; that of family values, community and the strength that can be garnered by the unselfish act of working for others.

Three days ago, our family found themselves fighting that feeling of bitter disappointment that Torquay United had fallen short of the last hurdle in the promotion play-offs! It is almost exactly a year on from when I last wrote about them, in "Coping with Defeat..." following their narrow defeat in the play-off final by Stevenage at Old Trafford.

But now, a few days have passed and some perspective and a sense of proportion has returned, so I feel able to write something about it.

Firstly, a reflection of how well they have played all season; given that it is always tempting to ponder on the result of one or two games, which it's easy to feel they should have won, but didn't, that, if they had, they would have gained automatic promotion; that is how close they got and there is no doubt that would have been an astonishing success!

Secondly, the play-offs are, almost by definition, a separate knockout competition, in which it can be argued that each of the four teams, who have earned the right to be there, have a one in four chance of winning through to promotion. This is despite the observation that it is so often not the team who, out of the four, finishes the season with the most points in the table; more often it is the team in the third or fourth play-off place, who wins promotion. If you accept the evenness of their chances then there is a one in four chance for each of them to win through to promotion. And, as if to provide evidence for this, Torquay United have been involved in the play-offs in four out of the five seasons my son-in-law, Kevin Nicholson, has played for them; and they succeeded in one of them, beating Cambridge United 2-0 at Wembley three years ago to win promotion back into the football league.

The third and final point of perspective here has to do with the spirit of the team. I think it's fair to say that Torquay United do not have one of the largest playing budgets in League 2; they are not a 'big' club. Their location, geographically speaking, is not ideal to attract players and anyone that does move there, as Kev would tell you, have to be prepared to spend a large number of hours in the season sitting on a coach. They have a relatively small first team squad of players and it is a tribute to the fitness and commitment of the players that their legs have carried them this far.

There are bound to be opinions that run counter to these and, if there are, I hope you will accept my invitation to you personally to make your feelings and knowledge known in the space for comment below. Given these perspectives, however, Torquay United have, without any shadow of doubt, punched well above their weight over the past two seasons. But how do they do this? How is it possible in an industry, whose headlines are punctuated by money, big budgets and players, who are paid tens of thousands of pounds a week? There is an answer to these questions, but in case you hadn't already spotted it, allow me to reveal what it is.

Can't recall who owns this photo... any clues?

Before I do, however, I want to express my overwhelming feeling of pride for the thoroughgoing dedication and professionalism of, you might not be surprised to hear,  my son-in-law, Kevin Nicholson, who recently gave a very honest and revealing interview with 'bechampionstv', part of the support systems being set up by the Professional Footballers' Association, and who has played probably the best football of his career this season. But of course it is not just down to him. His neighbour, friend and the inspirational Captain, Lee Mansell has also been a force to be reckoned with all season, along with a number of other core players in the Torquay United squad, the whole squad of players, in other words, who, with what proved to be some seemingly quiet but astute management by Martin Ling, who gives me the impression of being an unusually human of human beings (as football managers go), have melded together a team to be reckoned with. So much so that Kev, along with Lee Mansell and team mates, Eunan O'Kane and goalkeeper, Bobby Olejnik, were nominated in the League 2 'Team of the Year' PFA awards; four players from one team out of twenty four teams; joining seven players from other teams out of perhaps more than four hundred players in the league. That is some recognition!

Now, I need to bring another sense of perspective to all of this by asserting that I have no inside knowledge of the workings and budgets of Torquay United Football Club. I have very few if any conversations with Kev about what goes on behind the closed doors of the changing rooms and, if there is any discussion about this, then it is often about how his team mates are feeling, how is team spirit. The majority of conversations I have with Kev are about how he feels he is playing, how fit he is feeling, how is the ankle injury that he carried for the last couple of months of the season. It is none of these things that I bring to bear in all of this.

No, I'm making no attempt at a commentary on a game, of which I have little technical experience (I played Rugby Union for twenty years) it is my own observations of human nature, of the human condition, that I bring to the table.

It is about team spirit, the bond (and band) of brothers, the close support of wives, girlfriends, family and last but not least the amazingly loyal and supportive fans. Also, the management and supporting staff of a club are involved, in this respect, to make this club probably the best that Kev has played for in his fifteen year career as a professional footballer. It is this sense of 'family', in the literal as well as a broader sense of that word, that I think gives so much added value to the success of this football club. Aside from the fact that Torquay has proved to be not exactly the worst place in the world for him to live with Jen and their two children, it is the cohesive effects of this 'family' that enables synergy to be achieved - that is to say doing the sum, 2 + 2, and coming up with 5 as the answer!

Since we are talking about family, it is also very timely and appropriate that I should mention that Torquay United has just been awarded the 'Family Excellence Award' for the 2011-12 season by The Football League. You can read about this here. This is why we have so much enjoyed going to watch the football that Kev plays in this league, because there isn't the same level of celebrity hype and hysteria that associates itself with the game at the highest levels.

You can put all the money you like into a man's pocket and, yes, he may have almost all the technically prescribed attributes that the ideal footballer is deemed to need, but, at the end of the day, he is still a human being, as we all are; a unique product of his genes and environment; a human being with emotions and an ability for his subconscious mind to take control and do things that are sometimes not exactly ideal and perfect, both on the field of play and off it. Unless you have human cohesion, common purpose, support systems in the form of WAGs, families, team management and essential staff to help you through those moments when you aren't feeling at your best, and, above all else a will to work for your team mates, then, if you are a professional footballer, you are at risk of serious career damage; you are on your own and nobody but a sociopath can survive that.

It is family, loyalty to the team, working for each other and the strength of the spirit that is borne from this attitude that makes a successful team; enables them to achieve beyond budgets and expectations. The team of highly, and, in my view, over paid individuals that will represent England in the European Championships this summer, would do well to take a leaf out of Torquay United's book, which describes the journey they have taken over the past few seasons.

Well done boys, well done!

I'll be Dashed... if I Care about Poetic Form!

If I were to say that the famous poem, "The Dash" by Linda Ellis, if it is, as I suspect, an attempt at a poetic 'ballad', then it fails technically and, in several places, it's scansion is a tad clumsy and makes it sound like amateur poesy, would you think me a grudging old academic bore and a purist!

You'd be right if you did, because its sentiment, its message, its feeling for what I know most thinking writers will agree encapsulates a view on life, for taking time to live 'in the moment', will endure for ever, particularly of course at that special family gathering, the funeral, where sensitivity to poetic emotion is always high. Perfect poetic form will not endure without the right words.

For these reasons I think "The Dash" is therefore a great poem and shows that, in my view, poetic form on its own is not what counts; it is the choice of words, how you string them together and the 'X' factor - what lies between the lines, its aura, the je ne sais quoi - that have by far the greatest impact.

"The Dash"
-
I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone

from the beginning...to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,

but he said what mattered most of all

was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth...

and now only those who loved her 
know
what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;

the cars....the house...the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard...
are there things you'd like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

to consider what's true and real,

and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,
and show appreciation more

and love the people in our lives
like we've never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,

and more often wear a smile...

remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy's being read
with your life's actions to rehash...

would you be proud of the things they 
say
about how you spend your dash?

Copyright: Linda Ellis 1996

In fact, on further analysis of this poem, setting aside the odd bit of clumsy scansion and its preachy feel, the principle of the Ballad, with its root in couplets written in heptameter, holds pretty well.

Whatever, I take my hat off to Linda Ellis, who struck a rich commercial vein of good fortune following the publishing of this poem. A lesson for us all, you never know as a poet, when your work will get noticed and it could surprise you that it may not be the poems you'd expect to become well known. Sometimes a poem takes on a life of its own. 

Give yourself time to take note of your life and it may surprise you!

A Special Post... for some Special People

With a Little Help from my Friends

I'm writing this post to pay deference to a number of people, to whom I personally owe a good deal with respect not only to my own 'survival' in this big world of blogging and social networking, but also the development of my skills as a writer and in particular as a poet.

I have spent just over a year immersed in this amazing and exciting environment, but I am painfully aware of how much challenge it actually presents to most if not all of us; by this I mean it is not so easy for one's ego to survive out here. As in every profession, it's not a 'given' that we will succeed. We cannot assume that we will write our best seller first time out and become the next J K Rowling or Ted Hughes overnight!

In the Beginning

My journey started at the beginning of February 2011, with a certain gung-ho approach to the fact I was about to start potentially baring my literary limitations to the world at large (I know most of us, who have any awareness of the enormity of the potential readership out there, in reality, know they will reach only a minuscule proportion of them, if any at all). That fact aside, I did not set out to become well-known (not consciously anyway). I was, I felt, playing with it; experimenting; thinking that I would probably get bored with it, drop it and get on with my other creative interests (video editing, video poetry, music). It has instead grown into, if not an obsession, a totally absorbing passion; one from which, it seems, there is no escape!

It was poet, Kona Macphee, with whom I had a one-to-one poetry surgery in January 2010, who set me on the right path, only eight months after I had made my first tottering steps into writing poetry. The simple but memorable things she taught me in that one hour session helped me a great deal. My later regular involvement in her own brilliant blog, that elusive clarity, which she started at the beginning of 2011, was my introduction not only to blogging but also to the world of literature and writing life in general. Kona is a Master of her art and such an intelligent, but eminently approachable and down to earth human being. In her blog, she reveals her intellect and her ability to express the processes of the mind and the frailty of the human condition. In the past year, I haven't often encountered anyone that approaches her literary skill in this respect.

The GRPG

It is to a small group of poets (known as the GRPG), who came together almost, but not quite, accidentally in the summer of 2011, through our contact on Twitter, that I owe a great deal. For becoming loyal friends, even though, at the time of writing, I have only met half of them in the flesh, somehow I have learned not only a whole lot more about writing poetry, but also about how very important mutual respect is for friendship to flourish and the desire to support each other to prevail. Were it not for our sometimes amusingly random, sometimes meaningful exchanges, both on Twitter, Facebook and in our blogs; exchanges in poetry that, it has to be said, are occasionally quite profound and reveal a great deal about our respective psyches, I am convinced that our friendships might not have come close to being what they are now. Had it not been for these introductions to each other in writing - rather like it would have been maybe two hundred and fifty years ago, when communications and travel were far less easy - then our meeting of minds would have existed on a much less secure footing.

Were it not for Twitter's habit of removing tweets that are much older than a month, entering hash tag GRPG might reveal more about us. But we know who we are and I hope more of you will get to know about us in due course when we publish our book of poetry.  In the meantime, my respects to all of those lovely, delightful and supportive individuals who make up the GRPG. You will find all of them here, in the drop-down menu under 'poets'.

The New World Creative Union

Recently, another larger group of creative souls has been... well, created! It is the brain-child of Natasha Head and Roger Allen Baut (if I have excluded anyone from this credit, please shout at me!) and named the New World Creative Union. It was a pleasant surprise to find myself invited to become a member of this union two months ago. It is a Facebook Closed Group, which, at the time of writing, has 243 members. It also has its own blog, including its Directory of Artists, with their individual biographies. Representing the interests not only of Literature, but also of the Audio and Visual arts, the NWCU's stated aim is, and I quote: "Sharing the work of artists around the world in a free and caring environment. Leave your egos at the door, leave your work on our wall and welcome to the New World Creative Union". It strives to encourage and enable the promotion of painters, sculptors, writers, poets, photographers, film-makers, musicians, actors, dancers and interactive media; in fact creative souls in any art-form.

Perhaps, for me, the most important quality of the NWCU (as well as the GRPG) is that they are supportive; encouraging artists to appreciate the work of others; positively and honestly to go there to view, read and appraise their work. I have come to believe that it is not until you are truly able to do this, to make an real effort to appreciate the work of others, that you will be able to get your own work in perspective; to develop it and make progress.

Criticise me... please!

One thing I do, sometimes in fear of offending, is to point out grammatical and spelling errors in other works and I am surprised at the generous responses that I get from this. If there is one thing I would ask of anyone who reads my writings it is this: please don't be afraid to critique it, to edit it, to point out spelling, grammatical or word usage errors! I ask this because I am, like a few other writers I know, not my own best editor. In fact, I'll bet you a pound to a pinch of salt that soon after publishing this post, I will find an error in it! See if you can beat me to it; or tell me it's too damned long - one of my other weaknesses :-/.

Reading and viewing the work of others is something I have learned in the course of the past two years through listening to and reading others and countless engaging conversations with fellow writers and poets around the world. There is admittedly always the fear that one's own authenticity could, in theory, be compromised by reading and potentially being influenced by viewing or hearing too much of other people's work (I think it was Lord Byron who once quoted that the only way to be truly original is to avoid reading anything else at all!), but I firmly believe that, provided you remain true to your own unique convictions and inherent inspirations, this should never happen. You can be inspired by the work of others, but allow only your sixth sense to be programmed by that inspiration, not necessarily the work itself.

For what it's worth, I believe it is not possible to be truly original; there is a need, in writing anything that will be worth reading, to draw on existing rationale, to relate to the human condition, to prevailing and classical philosophy, thought and experience and to all sorts of other influence, both literary and audio-visual, in order for your writing to be valid. It will still be unique, because you are a unique product of your gene pool and your environment, in all that this word means.

Poetry enables a form of communication that sometimes rarely sees the light in our everyday lives; that seeks out feelings, emotions; addresses fears, uncertainties, nay even hangups; brings to the consciousness of many who read it the ability to see another perspective on this sometimes astonishingly complex thing in life, which we call the human condition.

I salute all those who aspire to both write and read it with conscientious effort; to open their minds to alternative solutions for the human race. To all those who have been generous enough with their time and attention to read my scribblings and make meaningful comment, a very big thank you.

A Ballad for Stabat Mater

I've written a poem for Mothering Sunday, or Mother's Day as it is commercially known. I've posted it over on 'My Poetry Library'.


The poem "A Ballad for Stabat Mater" struck me on several levels. I had already written a poem for my son's thirtieth birthday ("The Fourth Age of Man"), basing it on William Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" (a monologue, which he wrote to open his play, "As You Like It"). Incidentally, I found it particularly poignant to note that my son had reached the same age as Jesus Christ was alleged to be, when his own mortal life ended. So, the latter never had the chance to taste the next three ages or, perhaps, he lived all seven in that short life span?


Anyway, I found my Mother's Day poem, written in the form of a ballad, again influenced not only by Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" but also the Stabat Mater, the unforgettable and extraordinarily moving image of this religious icon, Mary, the mother of of all mothers, as she stood and watched her own son die, painfully. "Stabat mater dolorosa", meaning the sorrowful mother stood, is a masterful understatement. How many mothers could submit themselves to such unbelievable pain! And yet all mothers do, albeit mostly to a lesser extreme, for as long as they live.


I salute all mothers, however good or bad a mother you may think you are, you have still had to suffer for your children.


I hope you enjoy the poem.