turning points

When we look back at the past, those of us who are occupied with the writing and teaching of history find it useful to pick out certain significant events as markers separating before from after.

In my early schooldays, the first such event I learned about was 1066, the Norman Conquest, which conveyed the idea that this was when English history began. (And I well remember the cigarette cards issued in 1937 to mark the coronation of King George V and Queen Elizabeth. The set of ‘Kings and Queens of England’ began with William the Conqueror!)

At the Mercers’ School, I took in the date 1453, when Constantinople was finally conquered by the Turks, the scholars picked up their precious manuscripts, tucked them under their arms, moved to Italy, and the Renaissance began.

All good scholarly stuff, serving a (temporarily) useful purpose, but a bit far-fetched so far as implications go. (No one so much as mentioned Gutenberg and his printing press : the great revolutionary invention of that mid-century.)

In the past week or so, I find the date 1951 popping up here and there in various books I’ve been reading. !951. I remember it well. It was the year of the Festival of Britain, originally proposed as a centenary celebration of the Great Exhibition of 1851, but more specifically as an antidote to the postwar years of drab austerity, an indicator that Britain was on its feet again, standing on the brink of another brilliant future. A Dome of Discovery and a Skylon were erected on the South Bank of the Thames and a Heath Robinson pleasure gardens transformed Battersea Park.

Yes, 1951 also proved to be a significant turning point for the government. Labour lost the General Election in October and remained in opposition until 1964.

I’ve begun to consider the possibility of 1951’s having rather deeper implications. When I was lecturing on the history of the Arts, especially classical music, the years round about 1900 seemed to be crucial. The great works of 19th century Romanticism were coming to an end. A new generation was exploring – even desperately searching for – new ideas. Then came The War (1914 to 1918, that is) followed by the reaction of the 1920s, the very arid 1930s, and the renewal of The War (1939 to 1945). The first part of The War took out a whole generation of young men. The second part was widespread devastation. Twice in a handful of decades artistic impetus were shattered.

Perhaps, then, 1951 did mark a re-start, a fresh imperative, though it was more than a little infected by the attractive delusion that we remained the Great Nation of the days when the genial Edward VII was our monarch. (1951 was not the last time British troops were to engage in Suez.)

For tens of thousands of us, 1951 has a special significance, for that was the year when Parliament passed the Fraudulent Mediums Act to regularise the position of Spiritualists still smarting from the effects of the Witchcraft Trial of 1944 which had sent one of their leading mediums to prison. The first clause of the 1951 Act repealed the Witchcraft Act of 1735. Spiritualists would no longer be subject to prosecution. And there it might all have ended, a chapter closed, save that a single alert individual saw his chance and seized it.

For Gerald Gardner this was the liminal moment. He stood on the threshold. Behind him was more than a decade of enthusiastic personal involvement in the Wica (his spelling). Out there in front was a whole wide world where he could spread his eager word. And so it was. He stepped forward. He went public, spreading the news of a surviving and renewed pagan religion whose roots were flourishing even in the days ‘Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode’.

francis cameron

oxford, 28 june 2009

legendary

In the mid-1970s as part of my studies in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, I read in translation The History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. It’s quite a fat little volume in the series of Penguin Classics. A long and complex tale. I admit it required no little persistence on my part to complete my scrutiny from cover to cover. And right away the text bothered me.

Gregory writes in a sequence of episodes neatly ruled off from each other. I find myself reminded of Herodotus. Many – indeed, most – of Gregory’s episodes come across as reliable accounts of genuine historical events. This, after all, is Gregory’s prime purpose. By showing how the genealogy of the Frankish people fits smoothly and auspiciously into the patterns of the past – from the moment of Creation onwards - Gregory validates the authenticity of the Merovingian royal line which, in his own portion of linear time (Gregory died in the year 594 of our era), asserted its authority over the former Roman province of Gaul.

So much for the histories. But Gregory includes episodes belonging to a more intense perception : a perception where miracles and the interventions of the Holy Saints are as normal and expected as human mortality ; a perception where the sacred and the profane exist side by side in the same ambience, but where the sacred is to be regarded and approached with a special reverence and respect. I found myself asking : if we regard the mundane episodes as historically true, are we thereby to regard the miraculous episodes as historically true? On the other hand : if we regard the miraculous episodes simply as products of the imagination, what reliance can we place on the remainder of the material?

After more than three decades, I begin to see a possible resolution : a resolution which requires an exchange of categories, a setting aside of a current orthodoxy of historiography in favour of allowing an equal validity to legendary history for, in the middle of the first western millennium, the past was re-invented in ways which allowed, even ‘required’, genuine historical figures to be clothed in the raiment of legend : real mortal people enhanced with the attributes of immortality.

I am reminded of Tintagel where the tangible artefacts of history are subtly interpenetrated by the intangibles of legend. I am also reminded of Brocéliande where Merlin and Morgana still hold sway and where ‘the once and future king’ is worshipped as a saint and portrayed in the stained glass of sacred fenestration.

francis cameron

oxford, 25 june 2009

academic expositions of 'the burning times'

Barry, Hester & Roberts (eds)

Witchcraft in early modern Europe : studies in culture and belief

ISBN 0-521-55224-9

Once again I have been re-reading this study. It’s a collection of thirteen essays originating from a 1991 conference held at the University of Exeter on the cultural contexts of the European witch hunts. It’s admirable academic stuff. Full of details and bountifully provided with footnotes showing where the writers unearthed their material. And that material comes from the books on the shelves they were surrounded with as they read and as they wrote.

As the subtitle indicates : this is a book about historical attitudes towards witchcraft rather than a book about witchcraft itself. ‘Early Modern Europe’, in this context, means mostly the 1500s and the 1600s, though Ian Bostridge on ‘Witchcraft repealed’ is actually about the events leading up to and surrounding the passing of the Witchcraft Act of 1735 (which he treats as belonging to March 1736 without explaining why). Only in his very last footnote does he mention ‘14 and 15 Geo. 6. ch. 33. Fraudulent Mediums Act, 1951. (An Act to repeal the Witchcraft Act, 1735, and to make in substitution .. .. )’. That, and leads to a handful of 1990 newspaper articles of the more sensational persuasion. Not a word about Gerald Gardner and the witchcraft revival. But that could be par for the course in certain academic surroundings even so recently as a score of years ago. I can remember being advised that my own department actively avoided contact with 20th-century witches (unless they were in a distant part of the world and, preferably, pre-literate).

So there we have it. A useful collection of detailed information about ‘the burning times’ by a respectable table of academics paying due homage to Keith Thomas and his ‘Religion and the Decline of Magic’, a classic work of the genre.

francis cameron

oxford, 24 june 2009

cultural changes observed in late 1950s London

From 1956 to 1959 I was teaching at the Central Foundation Boys’ Grammar School in London. Half the boys were Jewish (such was the admissions policy) and the other half were ‘non-Jewish’ (which has prejudiced me against ‘non’ classifications right through to the present day).

 

I’d been appointed to set up a Music Department where none had existed before. I found an excellent series of course books at the Oxford University Press. These were provided, along with music, LPs, and instruments by an ever-generous London County Council.

 

In my first year at the school there were not enough music classes to provide me with a full timetable so I had three pleasurable terms teaching history to the 2nd Forms. Apparently, at least according to Messrs Carter & Mears, European History began on Christmas Day in the Year of Our Lord 800. An interesting thought.

 

It soon became apparent to me that the music I was to teach was quite an alien species to my boys. Yet it was the only kind of music that really counted as ‘Music’ in those days. I reckoned that if the pupils could cope with Algebra, they could cope with Music and I ploughed on regardless in the hope they might some day return to Chopin’s nocturnes, Bizet’s Carmen, and the other snippets we shared. Their own music came to the surface in the one lesson period each year when they were encouraged to bring their own records. They turned up with their well-used 45s. That was the year I first heard Little Richard.

 

Meanwhile, outside the school and the BBC Third Programme, ‘popular’ (demotic) music was undergoing a quiet revolution. On some summer evenings, in one or other of the LCC’s parks, there was a semi-professional dance band playing from the standard Boosey & Hawkes arrangements of big band hits. A few couples valiantly breathed last gasps into foxtrot waltz or quickstep while one or two pairs of two girls jived in a corner.

 

There were, by contrast, full-house audiences for George Melly and Humphrey Littleton on the stage of the open air theatre in Battersea Pleasure Gardens. Jazz, real Jazz, was there for the aficionados. Something to listen to. Seriously.

 

The semi-professional members of the Musicians Union who played in the dance bands grew fewer and fewer with each public appearance. In their place, young people were creating their own thing. Any boy who could make a bass line with a tea chest a broomstick and a length of thick string, needed only a friend with a side drum and another with an acoustic guitar and there was a skiffle group ready to reach out to an eager young audience. The Six Five Special was there on the telly to highlight the trend and Lonnie Donegan with Rock Island Line and My Old Man’s a Dustman was there to show what a pro could do.

 

They were great days, part of the Soho basement café scene with the new Gaggia machines imported from Italy burbling away in the background with the insouciance of new arrivals in a new found land. London was not yet ‘Swinging London’ but it was well on the way.

 

© francis cameron

oxford, 7 may 2009

 

MAGICAL ANGLICANS

In 1801 a remarkable book was published in London. Its author is Francis Barrett, F.R.C. Professor of Chemistry, natural and occult Philosophy, the Cabala, &c. &c. He called it ‘The Magus, or Celestial Intelligencer; a complete system of Occult Philosophy.’ It is a textbook of magical information. There is a copy in Bodley’s Library. It was not new when Bodley acquired it. Its pages bear signs of significant use, still strong enough to provoke images for the delectation of an unwary psychomatrist. I made great use of it when I was preparing my article on Francis Barrett, the Magus of Marylebone.

I was reminded of it this morning when I was once again re-reading ‘High Magic’s Aid’ by Scire (G. B. Gardner IVº O.T.O.) I was at the point where Thur and Morven are about to embark on their first working together.

>> And he stripped, and washed himself thoroughly, bidding Morven to do likewise. She obeyed him, and he poured water over himself and then her, saying : “Purge me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” <<

/* Words which, even in my own lifetime, once signalled the beginning of the Latin Mass while all those present were asperged with holy water. */

When the triple circle is drawn and clouds of incense rise from the brazier, Thur stands facing east and begins to recite Psalm cii ‘Hear my prayer, O Lord : and let my cry come unto Thee’ an invocation presently familiar to Prayer Book Anglicans and before that resounding amid the echoes of monastic Latin. He takes salt. “Tzabaoth .. Elohim .. Yod, He, Vou, He! O God, who art the Truth, and the Light, deign to bless and sanctify this creature of salt .. .. “

 

In his introduction, Francis Barrett writes : ‘see thy first care be to know thyself; and then in humility direct thy prayer as follows .. .. Almighty and most merciful God, we thy servants approach with fear and trembling before thee, and in all humility do most heartily beseech thee to pardon our manifold and blind transgressions .. .. Grant us, Lord, power and strength of intellect to carry on this work, for the honour and glory of thy holy name, and to the comfort of our neighbour; and without design of hurt or detriment to any .. .. ‘

 

Someone once remarked to me how some of the great Golden Dawn names were, without incongruity, actively practising High Church Anglicans. I am not surprised. Candles, many brilliant candles. Incense, dense clouds of incense. Gorgeous robes, changed and coloured according to the season of the year. Ritual choreography and a Master of Ceremonies to make sure everyone follows the prescribed steps. The re-enactment of the myth, as observed by those with the inner perception. There are clues here for those who wish to engage with them.

© francis cameron

oxford, 18 april 2009

 

completed .. ..

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro (London, 2005)

This is a story from the author’s imagination. The creepy thing about it is : it might just have been true.

I’m not going to say anything about the plot because even a few hints here and there could spoil the suspense for future readers. All I will say is that this novel, this first person narrative covering the first thirty-one years of a woman’s life, has something of the air of science fiction about it. It is a story conveyed so well, a story threaded through with uncertainties and possibilities, it just might have been. It just might.

© francis cameron
oxford, 4 march 2009

midnight's 3 levels of perception

This is my 9th consecutive month with Books on the Broad.
· now our title is Midnight's Children
· written by SALMAN RUSHDIE
· originally published in 1981
· by Jonathan Cape

introduction

This is splendid story-telling : a vast narrative of epic proportions. There is enough material here to justify a full scale doctoral dissertation. I do not propose to go that far. Instead, I offer just three perspectives : 3 levels of perception.

1st perception : everyday reality

This is the story told by Saleem Sinai, born in Bombay at the stroke of midnight on August 15th 1947, that same terrible midnight which sounded the final knell of British rule in India; and the consequences which followed. It is a gargantuan subject, a dimension well-matched by the expansiveness of the telling and the writing.
The conversations are so convincing, so realistic. I feel myself right there, ever-present among the listeners.
The descriptions have something special about them. They conjure up the crowded alleyways, the hustle and bustle of children at play, the menacing forests of the Sundarbans, the comfortable squalor of the magicians' ghetto.
Rushdie does not spare the strokes of his pen. Objects are often viewed from several different angles. Full attention to the nose on a man's face occupies most of a page and then spills over onto the next. That nose is so important to the story. It's a constantly recurring theme, a persistent leitmotif.
I find myself comfortably at home in Saleem's company listening to his tale. It is all so relaxed and integrated. Even words which I associate specifically with India blend into the general ambit so subtlety I pass them by without a second thought until, suddenly, I return to myself and ask : How come this book is written in English? And to answer that I have to seek help elsewhere. That help is very enlightening. Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay – not exactly on August 15th 1947, but near enough - on June 19th of that same year. He came to England, to Rugby public school. At Cambridge he read History and was part of the Footlights theatre company, which leaves me wondering how much the make-believe and transformed reality of the theatre influenced Rushdie’s later writing.

2nd perception : reality transformed

In the midst of all this reality, Midnight’s Children has two very obvious fingerprints of lo real maravilloso, magical reality. Something happens to our hero. His life is transformed. He finds himself able, at will, to inhabit the minds of other people, friends and strangers. He even sets out to make things happen by these means. Evie Burns, the American girl, has a splendid new silver bicycle. Saleem desires so much to ride this gorgeous machine. He exerts his newfound powers. He has his way. And at midnight, in his favourite hideaway place, he gathers to himself the five hundred and eighty-one surviving ten-year olds who share the magic of that fateful midnight birthing. Midnight’s Children’s Conference materialises into vivacity.
Much later, and against the very sinews of his being, he is taken into hospital for an operation. When he comes to, his gift has gone for ever. In its place he has an extraordinary nose. For the first time in his life, he is assailed by the aromas of his surroundings, the pungent smells of people. He can sniff out emotions hopes desires. During the Emergency he is a sniffer dog conscripted to hound out terrorists intellectuals and other subversives.

3rd perception : deep structure

I had been enjoying the opening chapters of Midnight’s Children. It was a rollicking good yarn. Then, once again, I was brought up short. There was another boy, Shiva by name, born in the selfsame Bombay nursing home, on that selfsame sensational midnight in 1947. When Mary Pereira, the young Christian midwife, was alone with the two boys, as a private revolutionary act for her very own Joseph, she exchanged the name tags of the two infants. I stop and say to myself ‘Creation Myth’. I recall the terrible images of the Gandhi film, the slaughter and destruction that followed partition. And at that moment this was for me no longer just a rattling good yarn, not even just a literary production to be pursued for signs of lo real maravilloso. I begin to think on those awful consequences of partition. The midnight bell tolled in Bombay. British India was dead. Others were left to pick up the pieces. Would we never learn? Ireland? Cyprus? The Balfour Declaration?
I resume my reading, but my vision of this novel is irreparably changed. And it does not stop there. Now, whenever I start to read a novel, I find myself alert for deep structure, for myths, and for vital messages concealed beneath surface imagery.
There is a point at which Rushdie, the sniffer dog, changes the pace of his narrative. It is slower and more condensed. A welcome contrast to the allegro giocoso of the first movement and to the finale which follows. I begin to share the anguish the anger the despair of Rushdie’s text. I begin to understand how writers can become enemies of the state, how they may attract the fatwa which condemns them to death.
I cannot answer the question : Is this story of Saleem Sinai an external camouflage designed to conceal a message otherwise standing stark and bare in these pages?
I recall another leitmotif, the image of ‘the perfumed sheet’, the large white bedsheet with a roughly circular hole some seven inches in diameter cut into the centre, the sheet held up between the newly-qualified young doctor and the young woman patient. He is permitted to view only the small portion of her anatomy which she places against the aperture. Is this also a symbolic representation? A partition which admits inspection of only a minuscule portion of the situation on the other side? Is this also a warning, a sinister dropped hint? I suspect so.
And when Saleem’s sister, the Brass Monkey, is grown up, metamorphosed into Jamila the famous Singer, she performs in public behind a curtain, a partition, into which a small circular aperture has been insinuated, the better for her charming voice to be heard. When she walks abroad, the burqa – another partition – hides all but her eyes.

coda

Saleem in the city of his birth with Padma demanding more and more of his story. And the setting? A pickle factory. Should I positively seek beneath the surface of that ‘pickle’? Does that ‘pickle’ intentionally summarise all that has gone before? A single word signifying a pungent tangible reality? A single word transformed into a pejorative situation? A simple surface with a disturbing deep structure?

Words when spoken are potential magic. Words when written are symbols of enchantment.

© francis cameron
oxford, 1 march 2009