Getting Used to it

I was reminded this morning of a post I wrote here some while ago, in which I told of my first attempts to learn Welsh some 50 or more years ago.  I was planning a holiday in north Wales and thought it would be a good idea to learn something of the language.  That's always a good policy when preparing for a foreign holiday, of course.  My plans changed, however, and the study went into long-term dormancy.  When I retired, I decided that a worthwhile - or perhaps more importantly, mind exercising - project would be to revive this study.  

After a while, I gave up following the 'Teach Yourself' book I had used all those years ago.  A chance acquaintance introduced me to Duolingo, a free comprehensive online system providing tuition in a great number of languages.  I've now been working at their Welsh course for coming up to 600 days.  I find that advancing years has had an adverse effect on my long-term memory and it's hard to remember the vocabulary learned in some lessons a few months ago unless the same words have occurred more recently in a different context.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered that, immediately after my second Covid vaccine injection, either memory or concentration went completely to pot.  A day's exercises - even the most recent ones - were taking anything up to an hour to complete, compared to about half that time normally.  Happily this phase only lasted a few days.

I recently volunteered to work as a 'keyboarder' (their term for copy-typist ... no, I don't know why.) for an international Christian Missionary charity.  Their overall operation is quite complex, but the section that I'm involved with provides the service of converting printed text into a digital form so that it can be used in a twenty-first century technological environment.  The obvious solution to this need would seem to be OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software, but they work with an obscure selection of languages, often involving rarely seen characters, and the amount of time required to correct OCR output is said to be in excess of that involved in typing the text from scratch.

My expression of interest was very swiftly followed up and within two weeks I was already engaged in a training exercise copying the same set of Bible chapters first in the Ndebele language, and secondly in Umiray Dugamet.  Now, just eight weeks after applying, I've just completed the second 'live' task working in the language of the Dakota American Indians.  Although, of course, I'm familiar with the English version of the same text, I have no idea of the meaning of the actual words I'm typing, nor of the construction of the sentences they form.  However, this far into the project, I now recognise many of the more common words as they occur - sometimes as often as every other sentence - and this makes the task easier.

And what, you may well be asking, was the reminder today mentioned in my opening comment?  How did it relate both to a long-term retirement project and also to what is as yet a completely new adventure?  In my work at the warehouse of the local hospice organisation, I scan unwanted books for sale; today I found one written in French that looked quite interesting.  

Since passing my GCE in the late 1960s, I've been exposed to the language 'in the flesh', as it were, for no more than about six weeks in a small number of foreign holidays.  Yet, as I browsed through the introduction to this book, I found that I'd understood, not every word, but enough to tell me what the book was about and why it had been written, and also that it was fiction although set in a very definite and dramatic period in recent history.

And the moral of the tale? Simply that the most useful time to learn a foreign language is early in life: something that adult readers of this blog would do well to pass on to their children and grandchildren before it's too late!

The Elephant in the Room

Twenty-three years ago, I was privileged to be living in a house where there was a TV set in the bedroom.  I was chided by my wife because I was taking so long to get dressed that morning.  The TV news was reporting the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.  This dramatic occasion marked the end of thirty years and more of 'the Troubles'; it heralded a new season of peace in Northern Ireland.  Long, long years before, I had attended church with my then fiancée for an all-night vigil of prayer for that province at the start of the unrest.  In the age since then, I had married, fathered two children, seen them grow up, and had become divorced from their mother.  Other girlfriends had come and gone, and I was now married again.  A whole lifetime had passed, and on that morning, yes, I was attentive to the news; I was savouring every precious drop.  There was peace once more in our United Kingdom.

Not many years after that remarkable announcement, my own life had taken many more turns in its contorted course.  I had become a 'same-day courier' and, as part of that role, I was occasionally asked to make deliveries to Ireland, both in the North and in the Republic.  If I had a delivery in Belfast, I always preferred to be booked on a ferry to Dublin, to avoid the long drive to Stranraer before getting a short ferry crossing, and all with the worry of getting there on time.  I remember one occasion - it was probably during an election campaign - when I drove along the elevated section of the M1 to enter Belfast from the south, looking down and seeing a poster on every lamp-post, and flags on every street, sometimes the union flag, sometimes the Irish tricolour.  I hated every moment of it.  

As a country boy from a sheltered past, I'd managed to overcome my fear of big cities on some of the darker streets of outer London, but that morning I felt a new fear as I entered this place, still tainted in my mind by the violence that was, in those early years of the present century, just beginning to be nudged into a closed chapter of history.  Perhaps a decade on from the GFA, the streets were still besmirched by the evidence of divisions that didn't simply evaporate at the stroke of a political pen.

And in the last weeks, we have seen again in the media renewed evidence of those divisions and a reminder that, while the GFA may have brought about a ceasefire, it has not resolved underlying differences and problems; it has not brought equality of understanding and opportunity to the vast majority of the population.  Many have resigned themselves to the incompleteness as a better alternative to ongoing hostility, danger and murder; a significant minority have not.  A new generation of young people seem now to be the successors to those who haven't forgotten why there was violence in the nineteen-seventies, -eighties and -nineties: the fear of those who see the minority in their midst as the ever-present vanguard of encroachment from the South; the fear of those who, being that minority, see prejudice and persecution lurking in the next street.  

As I wrote in this blog many years ago, Northern Ireland, although historically and politically an integral part of this Kingdom, is generally overlooked by those who live on this larger island called Great Britain.  Because their home is on the other side of the sea, and we can't simply drive there like the Welsh to Manchester, the Scots to Newcastle or Carlisle, or the English to Edinburgh, Aberdeen or Cardiff, it's easy to forget about those who live in Belfast or Derry; Armagh, Coleraine or Enniskillen.  "Ignore them and their problems and they'll go away" seems to be the mindset of the people of Great Britain.  Even the country's Olympic team was non-inclusively named 'Team GB'!

Only it doesn't happen that way.  Another of my memories is of driving around Dublin one morning.  I'd just found a filling station and was driving the last mile or so to the port to get the ferry home.  I was so intent on the news bulletin that I missed my turning and had to make a long detour to get back on track.  This was in the year or so before the Brexit referendum, and RTÉ was reporting on the Leave and Remain campaigns.  One thing they focussed on was the impossibility of squaring the circle of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland leaving the EU and all its institutions without returning to the hard land border with the EU across the island of Ireland ... something that had been dissolved by the GFA.  

It had been my hope that this obvious impossibility would be the downfall of the Leave campaign and that we would remain in the EU.  However, this wasn't to be.  What was obvious to me was clearly hidden to those in power.  More likely, as stated above, it was simply overlooked as a minor detail that would be sorted later ... along with all the other things that weren't thought through before R-day.  Now the true nature of Brexit and its effect on Northern Ireland has become apparent, there are troubles again ... not specifically caused by Brexit, admittedly, but that is certainly a reminder to those affected of the way their interests are consistently ignored by the authorities on this side of the Irish Sea.  If trouble is not to turn into 'Troubles' again, someone, somewhere, has to realise the obvious solution to the difficulty.  

However distasteful to some in positions of power and authority, the trumpeting of the elephant in the room must be listened to ... Britain must re-join the Single Market, so that the need for 'a border in the Irish Sea' (the supposed solution to not having that hard land border) can be removed and Northern Ireland can return to being a full part of the UK.

The only alternative is the partition of the UK and the re-unification of Ireland, which would risk yet further - greater but different - violence such as was threatened in 1912!

Possess it if You Can

I'd be the first to admit that my domestic skills are not great.  In fact, 'skill' probably isn't a good word for them at all.  But one thing I have discovered, that I believe to be good economy, is 'cooking bacon', formerly known as 'bacon scraps'.  Pound for pound (I know ... an out-of-date expression now, but still meaningful), it's about half the price of neatly packed rashers and once unpacked and unpicked, there are many almost complete rashers amongst the true 'scraps'.  However, last night for dinner I was confronted by a single 'rasher?' that was about a centimetre thick.  I was proud to be aware of the need to cook it very  s l o w l y.

Similar patience is needed, I discovered, when filling the iron; getting a lot of liquid through a small hole too quickly can result in water everywhere and an uncomfortably wet foot!  I've had a lot of reminders of patience lately, not least of which have related to the world of politics.  However great my desire for the overturning of a corrupt government and for electoral reform, I realise that neither of these is likely to happen for a number of years. 

Last month, I mentioned taking a great interest in the regular webinars of the Western Front Association.  I learned from one of these that, surprisingly, one of the things that the soldiers in the trenches had to deal with was boredom.  Yes, there was danger, yes, there was the excitement of conflict, sometimes the physical pain of wounds or the emotional pain of lost comrades, but for much of the time there was ... nothing.  There was time to sleep, to smoke, to read over again letters from home, or to write back but, in terms of the war, just waiting.  And that needed patience!

In a way, reacting to the Covid pandemic - which our Prime Minister described, with accuracy if not with sensitivity, as a war - has brought just such a need for patience.  Right now, I find the need for patience for the pain in my arm to end, following my second vaccination yesterday.  But more generally, there has been a growing frustration at the social restrictions resulting from lockdowns of varying intensity, one after another, for the last year and more.  Who knows when we will once more be able to visit loved ones in their homes,  watch a football match or enjoy a pub lunch again?  What we learned last summer was that bringing these things back with inappropriate speed simply invited a resurgence of infection and renewed restrictions as a result.  If we desire a return to 'normal life' in all its fullness, we must be patient.

I have been fortunate in having my family history researches - largely unhindered, thanks to the internet - to occupy me during lockdown.  In October I embarked on what has sometimes seemed an endless exploration of the clan of my great-great-grandmother, and in particular during the last fortnight I've followed the fortunes of one Agnes Jane Bailey.  Born in 1892, she appeared in the 1901 census as the second of a family of five children and that was how I had been content to leave them when I first learned of their existence some 16 years ago.  

However, when the 1911 census became available, I discovered a small discrepancy and corresponded again with the cousin who had provided that information.  In her reply she advised me that the three-year-old latest addition to the family was not, as she appeared, Agnes's youngest sister, but her daughter!  Agnes, meanwhile, was recorded working as a kitchen maid in a large household some twelve miles away.  Whether there were any connection between this household and the girl's father, I have no idea.

Clearly Agnes's family had been very supportive when the child was born to their 15-year-old daughter.  Many a girl in such a predicament would have been cast out to make of her life whatever she could with no help at all from her disgusted parents.  My recent researches have revealed not only that the child, Helen Ruth, survived and married in 1932, but that Agnes rewarded her parents' support by also marrying just after the outbreak of war in 1914.  Over the next twelve years Agnes and her husband had five children, four of whom were living with them in 1939 (one had died when only a few weeks old in 1919).  Sadly, Agnes's parents both died in 1940, so wouldn't have seen the marriages of these four grandchildren, between 1944 and 1973, and the great-grandchildren that I'm sure existed, but whom I  have yet to discover when opportunity affords.

And my title this week?  It comes from a playground rhyme of the age when behaviour seemed always to be in the context of 'boys v. girls': "Patience is a virtue; possess it if you can: --- in a woman, but --- in a man."  The gaps were filled by such two-syllabled words as 'always', 'often', 'sometimes' or 'never', and the word 'but' replaced by 'and' as necessary, according to the chanter's attitude to, and tolerance of, the opposite sex.

What is Truth?

There has been only one occasion in my life when I entertained a woman in my own house to a three-course meal made by my own fair (or not-so-fair) hand.  That was about thirty years ago, and how I did it still amazes me, knowing the extent of my culinary skills.  More of that later.

My title is Biblical in origin, coming from John's account of Jesus' trials.  The Jewish leaders wanted rid of Him and had charged Him with what would best achieve this end.  To their own council, the charge had been blasphemy: He had claimed to be the Son of God.  But in front of Pilate, the Roman governor, the charge was sedition: He had claimed to be a king, and thus undermined Caesar's authority.  So Pilate was faced with examining this claim of kingship.  Jesus had told him that the reason He came into the world was to testify to the truth (John 18:37).

A problem of the written word is knowing where emphasis should be put: emphasise the wrong word and you can change the whole meaning of a sentence.  When it comes to the Bible, we have to remember too that we are always reading it in translation, which can add to the uncertainty.  Some versions say that Pilate 'retorted' "What is truth?"; others have it that he merely 'said' these words (which is closer to the original Greek text).  One word gives the impression of aggression, the other allows the possibility that it was anger at being called out early in the morning to judge something that the Jews ought to have dealt with themselves, or contempt for the whole concept of truth ... again, depending on the emphasis with which the words had been spoken.

One of the commentaries on this passage makes this observation about truth. "Pilate was cynical; he thought that all truth was relative.  To many government officials, truth was whatever the majority of people agreed with or whatever helped advance their own personal power and political goals."

Jesus himself had earlier declared to the people, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32).  He meant free from the slavery imposed by lies.  If we tell different people different untruths, we have to remember what we have actually said to whom, so that our lies are consistent.  Otherwise, our façade is betrayed.  By telling everyone the simple truth - which had probably added to our confusion about our network of lies in the first place - that strain, the slavery to our fabrication, is removed.

Back to that meal.  It almost ended in disaster.  As my friend was leaving, in the course of saying my goodbyes I had reached up to unfasten the door.  This done, as I lowered my hand again, it had brushed the front of her jumper as she was putting her coat on.  To my surprise, she suddenly burst out, "Were you trying to grope me?"  Nothing had been further from my mind, but it took what felt like half-an-hour for me to convince her that, if that had been my intent - which it wasn't - there would have been a far better time and place than at the door as she was about to leave.  I'm pleased to report that this wasn't the end of our friendship and there were other dates before it concluded in the amicable recognition that our cultural tastes were too diverse.

The incident demonstrates that truth varies according to our viewpoint.  I knew my own motivations, or rather the lack of them; for all I know, my friend may have been on her guard the whole evening at being alone with an almost unknown man in his own home, and readily jumped to what was the wrong conclusion in her reaction to something that I was unaware of until she spoke.

"If you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." is a propaganda theory often wrongly attributed to Joseph Goebbels.  However, it was part of Nazi thinking from as early as 1925 when Hitler was writing 'Mein Kampf'.  It's a theory that works, though, ... especially when employed by those whose position and authority puts them beyond reproach.  It's not until people find that their personal experiences differ from public proclamation that the truth finally emerges.  Remember that bus, and the famous "£350 million for the NHS"?

Where do your sympathies lie: with a football manager who, when interviewed after a significant defeat, blames the referee for bias and the sun in his team's eyes, or with one who is prepared to state with regret, 'we just weren't good enough' or 'we took our eye off the ball'?

Whether it's football, or local or national government, I think we all crave honesty and openness, so far as it's in keeping with national security.  If something isn't possible, we'd like to be told why and hear suggestions about how underlying needs might be met, rather than hear excuses and blame for absence or delay placed on other parties or organisations.

Intense campaigning for the elections next month is just beginning.  Above all, it's a time when we all will be faced with the challenge of whose version of 'truth' we believe.