MEDITATION 73

This evening the candle beside me is not lit in imitation of Marcus Aurelius writing his own ‘Meditations’ far into the night. Nor is the candle there on my table in an attempt to create a relaxed ambiance conducive to writing. It is kindled for the people of Ukraine who at this moment are suffering a horrific invasion with heroic endurance.

I have struggled to write a meditation in the last week or so. It has been a while since my last one. The ideas in my head have been mown down by the relentless onslaught of events in Ukraine and Russia, which I have found myself compulsively following on the BBC News, so courageously reported by their correspondents.

But then, the peace of Europe has suddenly become precarious after nearly eighty years, a peace I have been fortunate to enjoy all my life and a peace and a freedom I have flourished in. It is a peace and freedom I have taken for granted, until these recent days. So perhaps I can be excused if my thoughts have been too distracted to put into words.

Once again refugees are shuffling across Europe carrying their suitcases. Once again they rush to climb aboard overcrowded trains, holding children aloft to make sure they find a space however small in a carriage to freedom. Freedom from fear: fear of shelling and bombing; fear of the onslaught of the enemy at the gates and freedom from the potential fear of living under a new repressive regime.

In the faces of the children I see my own father and his sister, aged 8 and 5 when German troops invaded Poland in 1939, who became refugees themselves through the Second World War. After the end of the war in 1945, when over 11 million people were homeless in Europe and no longer living in their native country, the phrase ‘displaced person’ was used rather than the term ‘refugee’. In the last few days in Ukraine, with the conflict and ensuing evacuation both escalating, the numbers of ‘displaced persons’ heading for the West is fast approaching a million. They have become displaced so quickly that I wonder if their minds have become displaced too, though not their hearts, which remain in their homeland.

As refugees, Ukrainians have already found or are discovering a temporary refuge in neighbouring countries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova, Romania and opportunities for further sanctuary are swiftly emerging in Europe. The welcome and generosity of these countries is staggering, heartwarming and humbling. In these dark days we are seeing the worst of human nature and the best. The U.K. government must play its own part and in the same openhanded spirit of goodwill, rather than letting open hands be bound together by red tape.

It is difficult to know how to respond to the deeply tragic events we are witnessing, except to make a donation to relief agencies. So much has already been said in the last days and the international response has been at all levels generally supportive of President Zelensky and Ukraine and condemnatory of President Putin and Russia.

Perhaps a Ukrainian lady can comment. She was interviewed on the BBC News about twelve days ago, when Russian forces were amassing on the borders several days before the invasion began. The interview was filmed at the rudimentary checkpoint between Ukraine and separatist Donetsk. The woman, who was middle aged, had to go through the checkpoint to Ukraine for her regular cancer treatment. Originally the checkpoint wouldn’t be there of course. She was understandably fearful and could not understand what was happening. It seemed senseless to her. She opened her arms and said ‘I only want to love everyone: I want to give the world a big hug.’ I am sure many Russians do too. But sadly not their leader. As Shakespeare says in his play ‘Measure for Measure’:

‘but man, proud man,

Dressed in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep.’

In my numbness and emptiness I turn to another poet, W.H.Auden (1907-1973) and his poem ‘September 1 1939’ which he wrote in New York, when war was imminent in Europe. He is perhaps now best remembered for his poem ‘Stop the clocks’ which featured in the romantic film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’.

‘September 1 1939’ was reprinted in ‘The New Yorker’ and then some newspapers after the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York in 2002. It became a kind of anthem associated with that other horrific event. It is a long poem but the last lines suggest a response to the unfolding tragedy in Ukraine:

‘Defenceless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;

Yet, dotted everywhere,

Ironic points of light

Flash out wherever the Just

Exchange their messages:

May I, composed like them

Of Eros and of dust,

Beleaguered by the same

Negation and despair

Show an affirming flame.’

May we all show an affirming flame. And may we remember with St Francis that ‘All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.’ Or an affirming flame.

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell.

PS: The quotations in this latest meditation may have appeared in earlier ones. I make no apology – they express my response at present.

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MEDITATION 72

Before I began this meditation I was looking at the wooden flooring in my lounge. So much more healthy than a carpet for an asthmatic like myself. I have been prompted to look at my floor because I was thinking about another kind of floor: a stone tiled floor. Marcus Aurelius, my namesake, would walk on stone tiled floors in his villas of course or marble or mosaic ones. In imitation of him, I have a stone tiled floor in my small bathroom and marble effect walls in the shower. In the corner is a terracotta amphora (a large urn) which someone gave me as a birthday gift several years ago. I also have some facsimile tiles on the walls from the baths at Ostia Antiqua in Rome, when I visited there. A little touch of Ancient Rome in New Malden!

The reason I have been musing about stone floors is that someone from my youth has recently contacted me via this blog. We have have not been in touch for many years. Paul Cook was a school friend of mine – we were in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ together when we were 15 years old. When Louis Maidens, (our English teacher who directed the school plays) left the school after our ‘O’ levels ,we both joined a new drama group in our local area – Teesside Youth Theatre – at the start of our Sixth Form in 1970! A long.long, time ago. How the years flow by.

He has been putting together information about Ormesby Hall, the local National Trust property, just outside Middlesbrough. The Youth Theatre would often rehearse there on Sunday afternoons. We used to rehearse in the large stone floored kitchen, which was presumable where the servants dined in times gone by. It wasn’t ‘below stairs’, however but at the side of the house. He has been asking me for memories of rehearsing at the Hall and the kitchen and its stone floors came to mind. Since being in touch with him by email the other day, the memory of those kitchen rehearsals has lingered.

My first memories of rehearsing there were in the winter of 1970-71 when we were devising a modern version of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. The final script would be written by another member of the Youth Theatre, Robert Holman, who eventually went on to be a successful playwright and sadly died last December. The production was to be performed at various venues in the area.

I remember the kitchen was freezing cold, because of those floors. This was very appropriate for our production – we soon got into character! We had to light a fire in the big fireplace before we started rehearsing, I remember. The high-ceilinged room soon warmed up from the fire, however, and we warmed up by moving around in rehearsal. We wanted to get up from our chairs as soon as possible to get warm so reading through scenes was brisk!

The kitchen soon became cosy and Christmassy and even though we were rehearsing a modern version of Dickens’ famous opus, the Victorian surroundings helped us get into the atmosphere of the story. At least I thought so. I was playing Bob Cratchit and I remember rehearsing the Christmas dinner scene on that stone floor and surrounding brick walls, feeling as if I had one foot in 1970 and the other in 1843! We were definitely in 1970 when we performed the scene for real: the Christmas dinner we had to ecstatically enthuse over consisted of cold tinned vegetables (including potatoes) and the Christmas goose was substituted by slices of spam!

Being in the kitchen was so very different from rehearsing at my school, St Mary’s College, which was a fairly new building with polished floors or at Kirby College in Middlesbrough, where we had opened their brand new theatre with ‘The Fire Raisers’ the previous September. But that draughty kitchen, because it was such an unusual place to rehearse, became ‘our space’, our den, our club house over the months we were there and I have fond memories of it.

The place inspired me too: my first production at my school, in 1984, was my own modern version of ‘A Christmas Carol’. My two years at the Youth Theatre helped to form me as any specialised Youth group should. Not only did I have the chance to act, but also to direct and write scripts too and to be with other people who were generally as committed to performing as I was. There was no Drama at my school once Louis Maidens left and no A Level Drama either. So the Youth Theatre was my lifeline.

In the following summer, we rehearsed Shakespeare’s ‘Measure For Measure’ there for performances at Middlesbrough Little Theatre in September. The kitchen remained cool even in the summer months! We did rehearse outside though on the lawn sometimes and I also remember rehearsing on the lawn for my final production, ‘Progress in Unity’ another one devised by ourselves and written by Robert Holman, about the history of the area. That production was performed at Middlesbrough Town Hall in September 1972 just before I went to university.

My special memory of being at Ormesby Hall with the Youth Theatre was performing a one act play in the drawing room. This was as part of an arts evening as far as I remember. We performed an Edwardian comedy ‘Playgoers’ by Arthur Wing Pinero. It was about an aristocratic lady unsuccessfully trying to rehearse her servants in a play. I played her equally harassed husband and I think I may have directed it too. The drawing room was the perfect setting for the play and we used some of the sofas and armchairs at one end of the room for our scene with the audience sitting round us in a semi-circle. It was like begin on a film set in away or in an episode of ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’, which was on the TV at the time. And it was warm of course!

Ormesby Hall has been owned by the Pennyman family since 1599 and when Jim Pennyman died in 1961, it was bequeathed to the National Trust with his wife Ruth being allowed to remain living there. Jim and Ruth Pennyman were great supporters of the Arts and Ruth had been a poet and playwright herself. She had generously loaned us the huge kitchen for rehearsals. I think she provided the logs for the fire too. Sometimes she would wander in with a tray of homemade sausage rolls and cakes or they would be left out for us. She was very welcoming and interested in us but never intruded. Ruth was a very generous supporter of the Youth Theatre and therefore of the artistic development of its members.

In the 1940’s she was also an active and generous supporter of the early days of Theatre Workshop, led by Joan Littlewood, which eventually settled at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London. In the 40’s they appeared at the early version of the Little Theatre but were billeted at Ormesby Hall. This led to an annual summer school there. Years later, at Stratford East, Joan Littlewood produced many innovative productions including ‘Oh What A Lovely War’ and a number of actors’ professional careers were nurtured there, including Barbara Windsor. I wonder if they rehearsed in the kitchen in the ’40’s just as we did in the ’70’s.

These days we are used to corporate and government patronage and subsidy of the Arts on a large scale and very important it is too, essential to the cultural life of the country and our own well-being. Such sponsorship was also occurring when I was a member of the Youth Theatre, of course, but then as now, there were individuals like Ruth Pennyman who generously and quietly supported local Arts groups and even professional ones in embryo like Theatre Workshop. And not only financially. -Ruth gave us premises to rehearse in and, at times, perform in. Not to mention her homemade sausage rolls and cakes!

Where have the years gone, I ask myself, as I gaze at the candle beside me. I have begun to perceive that there are far more years behind me than are left to me – even if I become a centenarian! If so, will I still be blogging? Or what digital format or platform will I be using over thirty years from now. Old and decrepit as I may become, perhaps I will be able to beam down into your homes (if you are still around too) and deliver my blog in person.

Marcus tells us in his Meditations (Book 6): ‘The whole of present time is a pin-prick of eternity. All things are tiny, quick-changed, evanescent’. He also describes Time as a ‘violent stream’ in Book 4. Tine does move quickly and our lives change quickly as a result. We do not see that when we are young. I am beginning to see it now.

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell.

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Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 71

I am thinking of places I have visited as I sit here beside my candle and begin to write. I have especially been recalling places abroad. Hopefully I will be able to travel internationally again this year. I have been rather hesitant about travelling abroad because of the endlessly changing restrictions both here and where I might like to visit. I admire friends who have bravely negotiated the minefield of shifting entry requirements and accompanying stress to enjoy a vacation overseas.

My last trip abroad was in February 2020: to Budapest for my final Drama tour. Dear me, that is almost two years ago now. I hope to return there in late April to see friends and visit the Kolibri Theatre again, where our final performance took place and where, as at my school, I was given a wonderful farewell.

On that final evening I was given a beautiful plaque with a hand carved Harlequin puppet attached to it (the theatre began as a children’s puppet theatre). Under the puppet is a citation on a small metal plate, declaring me to be an honorary member of the theatre. Needless to say, I was very moved to receive the plaque and I am very proud of it.

Since receiving it, off and on through the lockdowns, as well as writing this blog I have been revising some of the play scripts I wrote for my school. I have presented one of these, ‘The Sea Serpent’ (based on a Canadian First Nations Legend) to the Kolibri. It is being translated into Hungarian and may be performed there as part of the theatre’s repertoire. So hopefully, in late April, I will be visiting the Theatre to discuss a possible production of the script with my dear friends there. It is a very exciting prospect.

But I have not been thinking of Budapest particularly as I sit here by my candle. Memories of my two visits to New York have returned to my thoughts. I was there in 2015 and 2016. Needless to say, I have been remembering the shows I saw on Broadway and Central Park and the museums and art galleries and bustling streets. One place in particular has returned to my mind and impressed itself on me again. I have been remembering a room I visited, a silent room.

This room is in the United Nations Headquarters, which I visited on my second trip in 2016. Please understand that I was not invited to speak to the delegates, let alone the Security Council! Though of course I had my speech prepared just in case! No I was just paying a visit as a lowly tourist.

The U.N. Headquarters is a place of talk: speeches, debate, discussion, negotiation, conflict even. The Swedish diplomat and economist Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961) was the second General Secretary of the U.N. He decided that in the midst of all the discussions and negotiations there needed to be a place of silence in the building; a place where delegates and others could go to be quiet and recollect and think, even just to clear their heads before yet another round of negotiations. So, though the building had only been open for a few years and was presumably considered to be completed, he arranged for a ‘silent room’ to be designed and constructed.

The room is situated on the ground floor not far from the main entrance and below the General Assembly. Its shape is oblong and the ceiling is quite high and, as I remember, the walls are of a neutral grey. It is softly lit to aid reflection. I remember clearly the moment I first entered the room. The silence and calm absorbed me immediately. I felt as if I was imposing on the room’s stillness as I sat down. Perhaps this was because I was the only person in the room at that point.

In the middle of the room there is a large granite oblong stone. It is on a grey plinth and spotlit from above. It is quite imposing in its simplicity. My eyes were drawn towards it as I sat there. But then there was nothing else in the room or on the walls to distract me.

The stone was chosen by Hammarskjold himself according to the information panel outside. He suggested that ‘the stone reminds us of the firm and the permanent in a world of movement and change’. He chose the stone because he was looking for a simple symbol that could speak to people of many different faiths or none. He was searching for ‘simple things which speak to all of us in the same language. We have sought for such things and we have found them in the shaft of light striking the shimmering surface of solid rock. A symbol to many of how the light of spirit gives life to matter.’ The shaft of light refracted on the stone was indeed very striking, as I sat there.

He believed that ‘We all have within us a centre of silence surrounded by stillness’. Presumably he created the room to hopefully help delegates and others from different nations and cultures to find this centre of silence in the midst of all the endless words and talk in the building. A place not only of reflection and re-thinking but of steadying the mind and therefore of refreshment and true re-creation. I wonder how many people have availed themselves of this oasis of calm over the decades and how many do so now. Moreover, how often negotiations continued in a quieter key afterwards and how many decisions or resolutions were altered or completely changed as a result, hopefully for the good.

I could understand what Dag Hammarskjold was aiming for as I sat there enveloped in the stillness like a blanket.The silence was not intimidating but comforting. In the silence, my mind and my eyes became relaxed and relieved of the exhausting stimuli of the morning’s tourism. The stone drew me in and I could almost feel its cold surface even though I was seated a long way from it near the door. I emerged from the room, calm and refreshed and ready to take up my tourist wanderings again. But not before slowly reading the information panels outside and noting down Hammarskjold’s words from them. Then I meandered down to the basement where the gift shop (and obligatory fridge magnets) awaited me.

Over the last two years we have been made acutely aware that we live in ‘a world of movement and change’. The world is ever thus but the pandemic has impressed this upon us even more. This is because it has affected our daily lives, which have been constantly shifting with the pandemic’s movement and with changes in government rules as a result. Perhaps we have been searching for a stone to cling to in this maelstrom, something firm that does not change, something permanent. Or perhaps at times in our inertia, exhaustion and dark moments we have been looking for that spark of life to keep us going each day: that ‘light of spirit that gives life to matter.’

Dag Hammarskjold appeared to see this permanence and this spark of life within ourselves: within our own centre of silence. He believes, first of all, that we all have this centre within us as I do. To find this centre, we must begin by finding a little time and a place to practice the stillness that surrounds it. And I have learnt from sitting in that room in the UN Headquarters that silence is not intimidating, least of all threatening, but it is comforting and recreating if you give it time.

Let me close with some more words of Dag Hammarskjold, I recently discovered in another blog. He wrote them in his diary at the beginning of 1953 (the year of my birth). They are a short and succinct way of saying goodbye to the old year and heralding in the new.

‘Night is coming on.

For all that has been – thanks!

To all that shall be – Yes!’

Four months after writing this, he was elected as Secretary General to the U.N. That must have been a big ‘Yes’!

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell.

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Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 70

‘Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions,’ I think to myself as I sit here beside my candle and begin to write. A New Year’s resolution might be a change of habit, or it might be taking on something new or reviving a good habit that has fallen by the wayside. It is traditionally a time to pull ourselves up short, take stock and see how we can better ourselves in the year ahead. It therefore involves a little reflection: to be resolved about something means that you have thought it through first. It is not some vague plan but a definite course of action. To be resolved also means you have to be determined to carry it out, to see it through (even though that initial determination may eventually dissipate, human nature being what it is!).

Vague courses of action may be all we can manage at present. We have all been living unfocused lives because of the lockdowns and unpredictable (and usually unwanted) changes in our daily routines. Also plans for the future have been necessarily tentative. This lack of focus has been further exacerbated by our greater reliance on our IPhones, the internet and streaming. We are bombarded with choice. We are presented with too many alternatives. So we dissolve into the ‘I might do this or I might do that’ syndrome with the result that we probably end up doing nothing at all!

I am sure that it is possible to find examples of New Year resolutions on Google. Perhaps some people may get their resolutions from there: ‘This one one looks good and suits me. Yes I might do that one. Or should I have a go at the one underneath?” scroll, scroll etc. Perhaps in these desultory times it is good to have a few resolutions or even just one. It might help us to focus, to get a stronger grip on our lives, to plan our day and our leisure time better.

Our dear friend Marcus Aurelius would approve of New Year’s resolutions, I think. As I have said in these pages, his own Meditations were a private document and addressed primarily to himself so they are littered with discreet resolutions of his own. The above paragraphs in this meditation of my own are addressed to myself too, as well as yourself, dear reader, of course!

Marcus was definitely one for being focused as he says in Book 4: ‘No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life.’ This focus derives from a personal urgency: ‘No you do not have thousands of years to live. While you live, while you can, do good.’

Yes we can all resolve to do good in 2022. Or on a more personal and practical level, to be kind to others. In his poem ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey’, William Wordsworth mentions:

‘the best portion of a good man’s life,

His little nameless unremembered acts

Of kindness and of love.’

(My apologies to modern sensitivities: as Wordsworth was composing the poem in 1798, he writes of ‘a good man’s life’ rather than ‘a good person’s.’)

These lines of Wordsworth are quoted in a recent biography of Dickens by A.N. Wilson, ‘The Mystery of Charles Dickens.’ A.N.Wilson makes an excellent attempt to analyse the psychological seeds of the author’s prodigious imagination. He devotes a chapter to Dickens and Charity, which inevitably centres on ‘A Christmas Carol’, Dickens’ most famous novel. He points out that though Dickens actively supported numerous charitable institutions and campaigns in his lifetime, he felt that personal acts of charity and kindness were more important, perhaps because he received so few in his own deprived childhood.

In the closing scenes in ‘A Christmas Carol’, it is the reformed Scrooge’s acts of kindness towards the Cratchit family on Christmas morning that we remember more than his donations to the Charitable Gentlemen he had snubbed on Christmas Eve or even his reconciliation with his nephew Fred for that matter. In the novel, over the course of the visits of the Ghosts, Scrooge learns what Marcus Aurelius advocates: While you live, while you can, do good.’

So let us resolve to be kind to others in the coming year. But also, in view of the difficult times we have experienced over the last two years, let us also be a little kind to ourselves. By that I do not mean self indulgence, but by looking after ourselves a little better and trying to understand ourselves a little better too. To be a little merciful to ourselves, if you like. From that greater understanding of ourselves, other, perhaps deeper, resolutions may emerge.

As Marcus writes in Book 7: ‘Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging.’

Wishing you a Happy New Year, dear reader.

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 69

As I sit here by my candle beginning this meditation, I am reminding myself of when and where Marcus Aurelius wrote his own ‘Meditations.’ At night of course, on his military campaigns in his tent. He may have written them with a candle by his side, as I am now, but more probably with oil lamps. I may have mentioned this before.

I do not think I could find the peace of mind to write in a tent, although I imagine Marcus’ tent would have been very spacious, more like a marquee. Perhaps I could write in a marquee, as long as I had my habitual comforts around me and providing the weather outside wasn’t too wild and stormy. The winds across the plains of Hungary (or Pannonia as he would have know it) would be most severe and biting, I imagine.

The weather would not have bothered Marcus of course. He would have accepted all kinds of weather with stoic endurance. As he writes: ‘How easy it is to drive away or obliterate from one’s mind every impression which is troublesome or alien, and then to be in perfect calm.’ (Book 5).

He may have found this easy, having presumably developed the ability to blot out distractions form his mind and totally ‘zone in’ (as we would say) on the task in hand. I do not find that easy and I am sure most other people wouldn’t either. Perfect calm is also difficult to achieve and comes to us only momentarily, like happiness, but when it does it is blissful because unexpected.

However, Marcus’ maxim is a good one to adopt and strive for, especially in these days of the pandemic. Although, we must remind ourselves that Marcus wasn’t visited by ‘troublesome or alien thoughts’ from an I phone! Perhaps he was being ironic or sarcastic against himself -he occasionally mentions his quick-temper for instance!

It is possible that he may also have written his philosophical notes in various palaces on his campaigns. I would definitely have no objections to writing in a palace! Childhood memories of those Roman epic movies swarm into my mind again! I would be sitting on a red velvet cushion on a pristine white marble chair scribing away on an equally white pristine table, with elegant drapes fluttering in the delicate (summer!) breeze behind me. And a large silver goblet brimming with deep red wine near to hand of course!

Though I have a deep affection for Hungary (and hope to return there in April – if the fates allow) I could not see myself seated in a tent and trying to write while those severe biting winds swirl around outside! My theatrical campaigns were in the the warmth of Budapest theatres, after all, and not the windswept Buda Hills of antiquity! The winter winds here are now rather biting but at least I writing in the warmth of my little house.

In my front garden there is a small rose bush. It was a birthday present from my sister Maria and her husband several years ago. The rose is called a ‘Darcy Bussell’, named after the ballet star and, yes, the blooms do dance in the wind sometimes. They are unable to twirl and pirouette on their stems however! The flowers are rather small and red and they fade into to a deep purple before they expire. Because of the mild Autumn weather buds have still appeared until recently so it was not possible to prune the rose bush in October.

The other day I noticed that one of the buds had begun to flower. It was a darker red than usual but nevertheless its petals were emerging. I cut it from its stem and put it into a small vase indoors where it has since flowered further. The petals are not fully open as they would be in summer but they have opened a little further now and there a scent, if a little feint.

Maybe like the rose, we are longing to open out fully but at the moment, because the virus is still with us and a new variant has appeared and perhaps another lockdown is imminent, we are unable to. But like the rose, despite the harshness of this winter, we are still here and flowering as best we can.

And despite everything, in the darkness of winter there is still the warmth and glorious light of Christmas coming too.

As I walked out of my front door this morning I noticed that another two roses are blooming in the bitter cold. May we bloom like them, in the warmth of Christmas joy.

Wishing you a Happy Christmas, dear reader.

Ave atque Vale! Hail and Farewell – until the next blog in the New Year!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 68

As I sit here gazing at the candle before me, one of my favourite actors has come to mind: Alec Guinness. There is a connection with Marcus Aurelius as he played the philosopher emperor in the epic movie, ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’ in 1965.

I remember seeing the film on of my annual visits to London as a child in the large Astoria Cinema in Tottenham Court Road. In those days, of course, there were no multiplex cinemas with screens of various sizes so the large single screen of this grand cinema fitted the epic sweep of the movie itself. Perhaps the cinema seemed larger and more palatial than it really was as I was only 11 or 12 years old then. There were many Greek and Roman epics in cinemas when I was a child and biblical ones too. My mental image of Classical times came from the movies rather than school history books or the children’s magazine ‘Look and Learn’. When I was studying Latin at grammar school, these images from the movies would flood back into my imagination. In my mind’s eye I would be swanning around in a toga as I learnt to conjugate Latin verbs by rote. But I digress.

I have been thinking about Alec Guinness for two reasons. One is that I paid a visit to him with my friend Simon in the summer. More accurately we paid a visit to his grave in the cemetery at Petersfield on our way to Chichester. We had been talking about him and thanks to Wikipedia (which has replaced the great library of Alexandria of classical times), we discovered that he was buried only an hour’s drive or so from my home. So on our way to the theatre at Chichester (where he appeared several times) we paid our respects on a glorious summer morning.

I imagined that the cemetery at Petersfield would be a small village graveyard. In reality it is an expansive undulating field. But we found his resting place quite easily (thanks to the eerie website ‘Find a Grave’) and it was not far from the entrance. His wife, Merula, is buried next to him. She only survived him for a few months or so after his death in August 2000. I had forgotten that he died over twenty years ago. This is probably because he is still very much present through his many films, which are regularly shown on the TV, not least in his role as Obi -Wan Kenobi in the first ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, the character which most people would associate him with.

His film career was more extensive of course, in which he he played a gallery of detailed portrayals, too many to mention here. My favourites are his Fagin in David Lean’s ‘Oliver Twist’; the Ealing comedies ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’ (where he plays six different characters) and the black comedy ‘The Ladykillers’ in which he plays a sinister crook; as King Charles I in ‘Cromwell’ and as Dorrit in the little known 1987 adaptation of Dickens’ ‘Little Dorrit.’

These and many other portrayals revolved in my thoughts as I gazed at his gravestone. I also had the good fortune to see him several times on stage. As with his film performances, he had great presence on stage but he was not a ‘showy’ actor being reserved, dignified and capable of infinite stillness, even in comedy (which he excelled at). He could make the raising of an eyebrow dramatic or comic even to plebs like me up in the theatre’s balcony seats. Somehow he drew you into the story and the character which is what great acting is all about. His strong vocal presence helped in this, as he had impeccable diction of course. I remember moments from his theatre performances vividly even though I saw them over forty years ago as a young man. These flooded in as I looked at his simple gravestone with its quote from Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ at the bottom: ‘The ripeness is all.’

I said to Simon as he stood beside me that it seemed so odd that this big star who is still so famous and in a way still alive to us, through his films, should be here at rest in this grave in this quiet countryside cemetery. A tinge of resurrection perhaps.

My second reason for mentioning Alec Guinness is that I have been watching two BBC Drama series which he appeared in. My visit to the cemetery led me to look them up. He played the role of George Smiley in excellent adaptations of novels by John Le Carre: ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ and ‘Smiley’s People’. They were filmed in the late 70’s and early 80’s and were immersed in the murky world of Cold War espionage before the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The first one ‘Tinker, Tailor’ had a labyrinthine plot which I found hard to follow at times but the sequel, ‘Smiley’s People’ was more straightforward. I hadn’t seen them in a long time, in fact I am not sure if I had seen all the episodes of ‘Smiley’.

Spy thrillers are not my thing really but Guinness’s performance as Smiley, the semi-retired world-weary member of the British Intelligence Service was magnetic. His reactions to persons and events were subtle, indeed, immaculate, as was his ability to register nothing with his face or his eyes if appropriate, as I suppose a spy must do in certain circumstances. It is very difficult to play inscrutable or ambiguous as an actor but he achieved it, while maintaining his strong presence in the scene. He had this amazing ability to make everything interesting, engrossing: even searching someone’s room or climbing a staircase or getting into a cab.

My own performances can be rather overblown at times, which comes from having to demonstrate in drama lessons. Perhaps now that I am away from school, I could return to the amateur stage and emulate my idol, Alec Guinness in restraint and stillness. Who knows?

Smiley inhabits a different world to us: a world of letters and notes; microfiche and rolls of film, elaborate hidden cameras and microphones and tapped phone calls on landlines.It is far away from emails, mobile phones (with cameras), CCTV and zoom meetings and hacking into computer systems. We are in a world of digital surveillance now and the Internet is rapidly diminishing the possibility of secrecy. But still individuals have to be tracked down physically and ‘safe houses’ set up, I imagine.

I don’t think I would be very good at playing a spy let alone being one: I am no good at trying to lie or being duplicitous. I was once rather close to espionage however. No: I wasn’t recruited while a student at Oxford for MI5 or the other side. Although someone who was at my college at the same time as me did end up spying for the Russians and was caught.

I was in a train either going to or from Leeds. The carriage wasn’t very busy. A man behind me was making numerous business calls on his mobile in a far from discreet voice. One involved the details of an upcoming business deal. I heard every word clearly. Had I been from a rival firm I could have written every detail down and passed it on. It would have been an act of industrial espionage but my rather indiscreet fellow passenger deserved it. I wonder if it has happened sometime or somewhere.

That was quite a few years ago now and today everyone is constantly doing business on their phones in public places or on public transport. I hear it all the time and it may have increased now that everyone is wearing earpieces with their phones. I often see individuals talking way into their phone as they walk in the street. I find it amusing sometimes as it looks as if they are talking to themselves. It is even more amusing when you see two or three people walking along and talking to themselves in the same street. They are oblivious to their surroundings just as the businessman was in my carriage ages ago.

It can be very annoying too. A few Fridays ago, I was visiting friends in South London and on a fairly packed commuter train from Waterloo East. Most of the passengers were going home from work and were probably tired. A young woman was on her phone presumably to a friend and loudly arranging her weekend social life, The call went on for over 15 minutes so she must have had a busy weekend ahead of her. But it was quiet annoying for the rest of us sitting or standing near her.

Similarly I heard a girl on a bus once splitting up with her boy friend and egged on by another friend and another one giving the results of her pregnancy test to her mother. They were different buses I hasten to add!

It is not the device that is the problem, but the way that it is used. People have little sense of privacy anymore or awareness of others for that matter. The device encases them in their own world, their own bubble. So they become oblivious to the fact that strangers might be listening in. We might as well be spies with headsets listening in to their private conversation as if we were leaning against the wall of the next room.

Some words of the Greek philosopher Epictetus (c 50 – 135 CE), who greatly influenced Marcus Aurelius’ own thinking, might be appropriate to the use of mobile devices, indeed to our lives in general:

‘We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak’

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

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Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 67

It has been some time since I have sat here beside my candle to write my meditation. Winter is now definitely on its way. The trees are losing their leaves, while swaying in the chill winds.

There has been a break in the blog because my friend Henry Riley, who helped me set it up and who posts each meditation for me, has taken a well-earned holiday. He works for LBC radio and has recently been promoted to producer of Nick Ferrari’s early morning show. This means he arrives at the studio in the middle of the night. He also still hosts a weekend programme on our local radio station – Radio Jackie – as well. So, he is a busy boy.

Henry was one of my Drama students and a good character actor. He studied Politics at Warwick University and now, in his early twenties, he is making his way in a career in broadcasting. I hope that eventually he will have his own chat show and that I will be one of his first guests, engaging in cut and thrust discussion with politicians or chewing the cud with the stars!

Meeting with Henry several weeks ago and discussing his work at LBC, had led me to think about where other ex-students are working now – at least those that I know about.

To my knowledge, two other ex- Drama students work behind the scenes in broadcasting: one for the BBC and subsidiary companies and the other for Sky TV. I also know of one, quite a while ago now, who worked behind the camera on trailers for the James Bond films.

I have often been asked whether any of my students have been successful as an actor or performer. I suppose behind that question is another one: have I taught anyone who went on to be a star?

Well quite a few went on to study Drama or Performance at university and several are currently making their first steps in the theatre profession. Several others are making their way as musicians. It is a struggle and even more so now with so many actors and performers out of work during the pandemic. The entertainment industry is struggling to get back on its feet at the moment.

One, Tommy Rodger, who was a professional child actor while at school and appeared several plays in the West End and The Alienist’ for Netflix, is filming a BBC drama series as I write. Another, Archie Renaux, had a prominent role in the BBC series “Gold Digger’ in 2019 and now has a major role in the Netflix series “Shadow and Bone’. In fact he was filming the series in Budapest in the week of my final Drama tour with the school in February 2020 and came to see our students’ performances.

I know of several who went on to work in lighting or sound or set construction in the Theatre and one, Bryony Relf, is a successful stage manager in the UK and Europe. Another, Chris Kendall, is a voice actor, working for audio books (very profitable during the pandemic) and another Chris – Chris Cunningham – is a successful drag artist. My friend Steven went from acting to a career in HR and management and quite recently went back to work at his old drama school advising graduating students on making a start in the profession.

I am sure there have been others over the years who I do not know about, not to mention those who became professional singers, musicians or dancers rather than actors, like Ben Lake who was in ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Jerry Springer the Opera’ in the West End quite a while ago and my friend Simon who teaches dance.

Equally gratifying to me are those who went on to become members of the teaching profession at whatever level, and especially those who went on to teach Drama or English or both, including Leigh Norton who has taken over from me as Director of Drama at my school. Quite a few of my ex-students found their way back to the school as teachers or teaching assistants. I used to quip that I could take a register of them all in the staff room and that one or two still owe me homework!

However, I know nothing of the futures of the vast majority of students whom I taught. There were so many over my three decades and more at Richard Challoner School that it would be impossible to keep track of them all. This is true of any teacher with a long career I suppose. It is very pleasing that some have kept in touch.

I hope they have all been successful in their own way. I also hope that, at the very least, studying Drama gave them personal confidence to pursue their chosen career and to make their way in life. Several I know have gone into the legal profession or management and one or two in Whitehall in the Civil Service working for politicians or in administration for political parties. Several have gone into the Police or retail management not to mention some who became doctors and nurses.

I also feel gratified when I discover that ex-students, having participated in the Drama tours to Hungary have returned to Budapest on holiday after they left school. Or those who have developed a theatre-going habit as a result of school theatre visits.

In a way the question I was frequently asked, understandable and well-meaning though it was, is redundant. Studying Drama means more than preparing students for a possible career in theatre, films or TV, though some may progress into the entertainment industry. Arts Education in schools is currently under threat because of this utilitarian attitude. The concept of a broad and balanced curriculum in schools, which incidentally enabled the students mentioned above to flourish, is also under threat.

The word ‘education’ derives from the Latin word educare’ – to lead out. Education, therefore is intended to lead out or bring out the talents, skills and above all potential in the student. This ‘leading out’ necessarily involves nurturing and developing these talents and skills too along with personal qualities such as confidence to successfully use them.

Therefore, it means more than filling students with knowledge. Education at present seems to be veering in the direction of Mr Gradgrind. Gradgrind runs the school in Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’: ‘Now what I want is Facts,’ he says in the opening paragraph of the novel. ‘Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.’

Now I am not crowing about my former students’ successes and certainly not living through them because I didn’t become a professional actor or director myself. I have little if anything to do with it, though naturally I am proud of them. A school, after all, is a springboard and where students land afterwards is their own business.

However I do hope I have to some small extent, nurtured and developed, and have led out my students’ potential.

I once read somewhere that all we can ask to be in life is a link in a chain. Not the whole chain. Only a link. Therefore not the whole show either!

I hope I have been a link in the chain of their lives.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 66

The days are becoming shorter now and the evening air is chill as winter, in the guise of autumn, stealthily approaches. I have lit my candle earlier than usual to write my meditation as the skies are darkening earlier. As the season changes, summer travels seem a long way away, even if they were only a few weeks ago. They have receded into memory, memories enlivened hopefully by photographs.

As I gaze at the flame’s light, my mind has gone back to a very different kind of light and another memory of my stay in Castle Thirlstane in the Scottish Borders a few weeks ago. I am remembering a thin pale light in the dark, not from a candle or a lantern (as would befit a historic castle) but from a mobile phone.

The journey from the Castle to Lauder, the nearest village, is straightforward on foot. On our first evening, my friend Simon and I walked down the long drive, passing the field with grazing sheep I mentioned in my last blog and then another two fields with corralled horses on each side of the path and a field of cattle beyond. We then veered to the right and ascended a small but steep hill which took us into Lauder’s high street. What could be simpler? And a delightful saunter in the sunshine before supper, too.

However, the walk back after our meal was very different. As we left the high street with its street lights, we slowly walked down the steep little hill again but into enveloping darkness. It was pitch black ahead of us until we could see the lights of the castle in the distance as we tentatively turned the bend. I have often wondered what it would be like to be a character in a Gothic horror tale and now I was experiencing it: walking on foot in the sombre darkness of night, my only beacon, the light from a window in a looming castle as I drew closer. It was a scene worthy of Mary Shelley and ‘Frankenstein’, Charlotte Bronte and ‘Jane Eyre’ or Edgar Alan Poe. I was truly under the ‘cloak of darkness’ and at last I understood the meaning of that cliche.

Except that the lighted castle window wasn’t our only beacon. My friend Simon was using his mobile phone screen to light us on the pathway. Eventually we could see a glimmer of another little oblong light. It was as if this light in the distance was signalling or answering the little oblong light in my friend’s hand. The light was from the keypad which opened the wooden gate to the castle drive. Once we were there and put the code onto the keypad, the gate opened to us, in a very slow, eerie Gothic manner, to reveal the final stretch of our nocturnal walk to the side entrance of the castle, where our apartment was situated.

On that first walk home to the castle, we were so intent on finding our way that we hardly noticed the night sky except it’s gloomy pall as we commenced our descent from the high street. Walking in that darkness and trying to see the ground under my feet made me feel a little vulnerable despite my friend at my side. I felt uneasy as I couldn’t see the path ahead of me clearly. One of my foibles is that I have a fear of falling, and fear of failing too, if truth be known. The answer is to slow down and take one step at a time, as I have had to do over the last eighteen months, indeed, as we all have had to do. We haven’t been able to see the path ahead clearly in the pandemic gloom. Fortunately we now seem to be emerging from it slowly.

I cannot remember when I last walked in such complete darkness without street lights. I do have a vivid memory of walking in the dark in the countryside when I was a teenager. I was a member of Teeside Youth Theatre then, when I was in the Sixth Form. A group of us were on a weekend to Stratford – Upon -Avon in the summer holidays. We saw two plays in two days, I remember. Some of us also wanted to go for a midnight ramble along the streets of Stratford and ended up in some barely lit lanes till there were no streetlights at all and we were in a small wood or field. The place is probably all built up now as my teenage years were a long time ago! It was a magical walk, a kind of enchantment. I had a sense of Shakespeare whenever we ambled. Perhaps it was my youthful excitement at being there, along the lanes and paths and fields he may have trod. I was every impressionable then. No – I still get that sense of Shakespeare in and around Stratford at times when I visit. I had no fear of falling then, wandering around in the dark with my fellow actors. But of course youth was holding me up.

We had supper in Lauder again on the final night of our holiday. So, once more we had to make our way back to the castle in the dark. This time I was more relaxed about it. We stopped to look at the night sky sprinkled with glittering stars. Simon pointed out to me the Plough constellation and some of the others. He gave me quite an astronomy lesson as we looked up into the clear night sky. He pointed to the North Star, which I found interesting as it is mentioned in Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’. ‘I am constant as the Northern Star,’ says Caesar ironically to the Senate, a few moments before he is assassinated. I remember the line well, having directed the play three times. I also played Caesar myself in the second of those productions and remember enjoying the speech. It suggests total confidence based on absolute power. So different from keeping order in a classroom – or trying to!

Looking up at the North Star in the night sky, it was larger and grander than the other stars clustered around it: like Caesar, at that moment in the play, surrounded by the senators. Perhaps Shakespeare gazed up at it in Stratford, as I was doing now in Scotland, and perhaps it gave him the image he needed to describe Caesar’s power and total self-belief. Perhaps, he stood in that field where I stood on my Youth Theatre ramble.

Looking up at the night sky made me realise, of course, that I am not in my own universe, another trait of mine! I belong to a far more expansive one, beyond comprehension. I am one tiny being in a huge cosmos. I did not feel vulnerable this time, but I did feel finite, in the face of the infinite. Just as Caesar, in his own universe, is very definitely made to feel finite when the senators stab him to death a moment after his speech.

Buddhists engage in sky meditation, looking at the sky for a length of time. I found this very useful when I was in the throes of lockdown. It helped me come out of myself, as I stood gazing at the sky from my garden. All those months in lockdown made me even more self-conscious than I usually am, and self-consciousness can be debilitating. Sky meditation is also an act of humility, reminding us of who and where we are in the cosmos; of our finiteness as one tiny being in a huge universe.

It can also be comforting. Our dear friend, Marcus Aurelius, had that same sense of being part of the Universe. The Greek Stoic philosophers called the Universe, ‘to pan’, which means ‘the All’. He writes, ‘Think of the universe as one living creature, comprising one substance and one soul: how all is absorbed into this one consciousness.’

The poet Dante (1265-1321) in his poetic masterpiece ‘The Divine Comedy’ gazes at the stars and sees, like Marcus, the unity of creation. He sees it as a volume whose pages are bound together by divine love:

‘In its depth I saw that it contained,

bound up by love into a single volume,

the scattered pages of the universe.’

He is seeing beyond the universe to a divine author behind it, binding the pages together: to a loving creator, which, those of us who are religious, also see. Again it is a comforting thought: we are not a random scattered page, blown hither and thither, or a mere cipher on it, but we are bound to the rest of the universe in grand design. In other words, we have our place. It is our role in life to find out what or where that place is.

So because of its stellar beauty on the final night of our stay, the sky did not seem bleak and foreboding like the first night. The stars and their little glittering lights, observed by Marcus, Dante, Shakespeare and countless generations as well as ourselves were warm and reassuring in the deep impenetrable blackness of the night sky. Burning thousands upon thousands of miles away, they were little flames in the darkness.

I am reminded of some words of St Francis, ‘All the darkness of the world cannot extinguish the light of one single candle.’ We too must be little flames in the darkness like the stars.

I mentioned that quote in my first meditation, which was exactly three years ago. I would like to thank those of you who have followed my blog over the last three tumultuous years and those who have joined the journey along the way. In particular, I would like to thank Henry, one of my former students, who set up the blog and who posts the meditations, even though now he is very busy as a producer on LBC radio.

Because he is having a holiday, the blog will be taking a break too for several weeks.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell– until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 65

The candle flickers on the table as I sit here and begin my meditation. However, I am not focused on its flame, but instead I am thinking about sheep. I am not counting them to help me go to sleep. This is not an exercise to write down my thoughts in a somnolent state, in those limpid moments before we drift into unconsciousness. I would hardly manage to write an opening paragraph before dozing off, if that were the case. I ask myself how many of my readers have dozed off while reading my first sentences – none I hope!

The sheep in my thoughts are Scottish sheep. They are one of my memories of a recent holiday in the Scottish Borders. I would look out at them every morning from the window of my apartment as they grazed contentedly in a huge field opposite. I would also observe them at closer range as I trudged up and down the driveway on my walks. They would graze away or sit under the shade of a tree or lean, totally relaxed, against a fence, paying no attention to me or if they did, it would only be for a moment with a bewildered look. They reminded me of some of the classes I have taught!

My Scottish break was a luxurious holiday to finally celebrate my retirement. Originally it was to take place in late March 2020 and in Puglia in Southern Italy, with a friend who had suggested the idea to me. So here we were in Scotland instead and not on a farm, as might be suggested by the last paragraph, but in a castle.

We had an apartment in Castle Thirlstane, the home of the Earls of Lauderdale since the 1590’s. Our stay included a private tour of the castle itself. Much to my regret and the dampening of my gothic sensibilities, according to our guide, the castle does not have its own ghost. But it does have sheep – lots of them – and cattle and beautiful horses too.

Our well-appointed apartment was in the Victorian wing to the right of the main entrance with its sweeping staircase of rose-coloured stone. Our lounge overlooked a gravelled forecourt at the end of the approach to the castle. Beyond the forecourt was the large field, where the sheep were penned and beyond that, behind the trees, the little town of Lauder.

We had been informed before arriving that there would be two car rallies at the Castle during our stay. We were of course unaware that the cars would be assembling under the window of our apartment. The first rally took place the morning after our arrival and was a parade of Porsches. It was quite an exciting sight as they zoomed up the driveway and took their places under the window. As might be imagined, the sheep paid no attention, as if unimpressed by this show of status.

For an hour or so, the Porsches gathered on the drive, all different models and colours gleaming in the sunlight, while their owners and families chatted away and took photos. Children ran around while parents inspected the other cars on show and peered with forensic interest into engines under pristine bonnets. The sheep remained unimpressed and grazed on.

I must confess to having little interest in cars, as I have never learnt how to drive. I think my interest in cars ended with my little ‘Matchbox’ and ‘Dinky’ models as a child. However, when I was a small child, I did immerse myself in a Ladybird book about Tootles the Taxi and Archie the Ambulance. I do not recall a Peregrine the Porsche in its pages, however.

Though the overall effect of all these Porsches assembled under our window was an impressive sight, yet, apart from their variety of colours, they all looked the same to me. My friend agree with me. Although, secretly, in our heart of hearts, I am sure we would love to own one: my friend to drive one, myself to sell it and have a regular box at the opera on the proceeds.

After their deliberations about engines and chassises had ended and they had purred in delight at each other’s models and sampled the culinary delights of a mobile burger and hog roast bar under an adjacent tree, the Porsche enthusiasts slowly drifted off, or should I say, zoomed away. The Porsches left the sheep in peace at last, not that their peace had been broken by them anyway.

The second rally, on the next morning, was of Vintage cars. Their approach to the castle was more sedate than the brash contingent of the previous day. There were models going back to the 40’s, 30’s and there was even a 1920’s Bullnose Morris. As they sauntered up the drive, it looked like a scene from an Agatha Christie TV drama: Miss Marple or Poirot. My friend Simon and I may have been characters in the drama, gazing out of the window as someone arrives. Who could it be – suspect, detective or victim? I must admit to having a secret ambition to play Poirot, though I would be unable to match the incomparable David Suchet in the role.

I found the assembly of vintage cars more impressive than the plethora of Porsches on the morning before, perhaps because the cars were from different manufacturers and decades. I would far rather have gone for a spin in the Bullnose Morris than a Porsche anyway. It would be interesting to find out what being a passenger in the 1920’s was like. I would imagine myself to be in a P.G. Wodehouse novel as we sped along the narrow roads. With a Bullnose Morris standing outside a castle that morning, I could have been in a Wodehouse story anyway. My friend Simon would be an excellent Jeeves.

Sadly no vintage Rolls Royce, Bentley or Jaguar skimmed up the drive to look resplendent beside the sweeping stone staircase. There was a Morris Minor or two and a Sunbeam Rapier and Triumph Herald in the rally, cars I remembered from my childhood. I wouldn’t have considered them to be vintage, but then, my childhood was a long time ago.

As I looked out of the window, I was reminded of a meal at the end of the Educational Drama course I took, when I started teaching Drama, many years ago. All the group were there with our tutors in a restaurant on the Kingston waterfront. At the end of the meal, we played a table game: ‘If X was a car, which model would he or she be?’ Someone decided I was a Morris Minor. Why? Because I was ‘small, homely and old fashioned’. I’ve never forgotten that and I remembered it again at the castle as I looked down on that Morris Minor in the forecourt.

At the time I was quite affronted (though I didn’t say so) but I suppose the person was right. We had spent a year together on this evening course which was very intense so she had got to know me a little. Besides I’ve never been brash like a Porsche, I hope. It does seem like an aggressively self-assertive car. ‘Homely and old-fashioned’ fits the bill as far as I am concerned, I suppose. There now – I am playing the game again, after all this time!

This rally had a more homely atmosphere than the other one and the cars dispersed more quickly. Perhaps that was because there was no burger bar this time, probably because it wasn’t quite the ‘right period’.

The sheep grazed on, as oblivious as ever. Just as they were oblivious to their stately surroundings with the grand castle opposite them. And to the pandemic raging round them over the last year and a half.

Yes, ‘homely and old fashioned’ that is me. But not the whole story. And I am sure I have changed as a person since then. Over the years I have learnt to be accepting of myself. Not necessarily happy with myself because there are things about myself that I am unhappy about and happiness is fleeting anyway. But accepting of myself and therefore content.

As content as a sheep in a field.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell– until the next blog!

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up.

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

MEDITATION 64

I am gazing at the flickering flame of my candle as I begin this meditation. The flame is unsteady because a breeze is coming in from the garden. As it is a summer evening, my kitchen door is open letting the breeze waft in. The wavering flame in front of me has reminded me of the phrase ‘the Flickers’, which was a nickname for the Movies in the very early days of Cinema. They were called ‘flickers’ because the earliest film projectors were hand cranked and the light behind the often jerky movement of the film as it went through the projector produced a slightly flickering image on the screen.

Originally, the word ‘movies’ was also a nickname but not for films themselves (as it is today) but for the people who made the films. It was a derogatory term: ‘Oh – he or she is one of those Movies’, someone might say. As with the strolling players of Shakespeare’s time, the ‘Movies’ were considered to be socially inferior, barely one step above the criminal classes. That is until the Cinema very quickly developed into the most popular form of entertainment of the time.Then its stars came to be considered as the new royalty with their Beverly Hills mansions and wealthy lifestyles. Yes: celebrity culture has been around much earlier than we think! Infact, those early days of the Hollywood were the beginning of mass culture and its celebrities, I suppose.

Thoughts about the Cinema have come into my mind because at the weekend I saw one of my favourite films on the big screen. It is the Italian film ‘Cinema Paradiso’ directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and released originally in 1989. It is Tornatore’s hymn to the Cinema and its power over audiences. What better place to see the film than at the British Film Institute on London’s South Bank, which shows movies from all cultures and all the decades over the 120 years since Cinema was born. I have been a member for many years now, when it was the National Film Theatre (a name which I still prefer).

I have always enjoyed seeing old movies on the big screen, which is their rightful place, where they can cast their magic spell once again over a large audience in the dark. It is always a more gratifying experience than seeing them on a small TV screen. You notice so much more detail in the settings and camera work and performances stand out more than on TV. Very often, friends who have shared an old movie with me at the BFI have made the same comments. I guess it is because when watching a movie at home, it is easy to lose concentration, to be dismissive even. And with so many more options for viewing now on different channels and with streaming too, I am sure that is an even more distinct possibility. After all, there is no better place to watch a film, than in a cinema.

The BFI also show new movies, of course, and sometimes in preview. They also preview new TV series occasionally and there are Q and A discussions with cast members anddirectors, which I greatly enjoy. It is quite a fillip to see new movies or episodes of a new TV series, before they are officially released. It almost makes me feel that I am part of the industry myself when I tell friends about them!

‘Cinema Paradiso’ is a love poem to the magic of Cinema. It is not about making movies. It is also not about where they are made. It is about where they are seen: the magical experience of being in an audience, in the dark watching a movie in a cinema. The director gently reminds us that watching a film in a cinema is a communal act. Just as watching a play is a communal act. They both draw people into a shared experience: be it laughter, tears or fear. Ultimately Tornatore’s film is about the power of Cinema to enhance our lives.

The film begins with a successful film producer, Salvatore, who lives in Rome, thinking back to his childhood and youth in a small Sicilian town towards the end of World War Two and the decade afterwards. The town is poor and many suffer hardships, including Salvatore’s mother, who’s husband is in the Italian army on the Russian Front and is eventually reported dead. It is the dilapidated little cinema that brings the town together, lightening their otherwise heavy daily load. The boy Salvatore wants to be assistant to the middle-aged projectionist, Alfredo, and eventually he takes him on and becomes his surrogate father. We see the wonder in the boy’s eyes as he watches the movies through the projectionist’s window in the flickering reflection from the screen. The window is situated in the gaping jaws of a stucco lion’s head in the centre of the back wall above the balcony. Perhaps an oblique reference to MGM’s lion?

One night, there is a horrific fire in the projectionist’s box. This is caused by the film itself as in those days, film was made of nitrate stock and highly flammable, especially if the projector it is running through has become overheated. Alfredo attempts to put the fire out but is severely burnt and loses his sight. Little Salvatore succeeds in dragging him to safety,

Despair rages through the community as their little cinema is no more: until one of the villagers wins the national lottery and pays for the cinema to be rebuilt. Alfredo places the mantle of projectionist, imbued with magic, on the boy’s shoulders. Several years later, however, he persuades the now older Salvatore to leave and seek wider horizons, which he does. Salvatore does not return to the village until many years later for Alfredo’s funeral. The place has completely changed of course, and the Cinema Paradiso is to be demolished a few days after the funeral.

On the surface this coming of age story centred on a village cinema may seem sentimental. However, it is not. What prevents the film from edging into sentimentality is the realistic setting which Tornatore paints with his ensemble of actors. He does not hold back on the harshness of their existence and the turmoil they are all living through in the immediate days after Italy”s defeat in the war and the end of Mussolini’s regime. They are in a desperate state of flux and one of the things they hang onto to help them through is their little cinema with its cheap tickets. Just as we hung onto our streamed channels in the recent pandemic. Entertainment gives us respite, dare I say it, hope.

Some of the film’s emotive power lies in the realistic performances Tornatore elicits from his ensemble of actors. They are very real and the scenes are very real in their simplicity. And as a result they are very emotive at times. Every time I have seen the film, I have wanted to cry at some point – at a different scene each time. I have a feeling that a Hollywood director would have made the story more melodramatic, more emotionally forced. The film works because of its gentleness and simplicity. If only some of my own directing efforts at school could have had that gentleness and simplicity!

Like Salvatore, through the movie we get to know quite a few of the village personalities, whose faces we always see, like him, in the audience in the cinema. He sees several of those faces again, now older or even elderly, as he follows Alfredo’s coffin to the church many years later. As we sit in a cinema in the dark watching them sitting in a cinema in the dark it is as if we become one with them. The circle is complete.
In my previous blog, and in earlier ones, I have mentioned the circle which can be created between performers and audience in a live performance. This would be my essential criteria for a successful performance. As I sat in the BFI cinema at the weekend that circle was achieved in scene after scene. And yet this was not a live performance. The actors were not present on stage. Some are sadly no longer with us. We were watching their performances from over 30 years ago. Yet the circle between them and us was complete. This too is the magic of cinema. A great movie, whatever it’s age, can create that circle, even if only in one scene.

When Salvatore is leaving the village, as Alfredo bids him goodbye, he reminds him that ‘Life isn’t like the movies.’ Of course he is right. Life isn’t like the movies. But movies can be as close to life as possible. And movies enhance our lives; they help us to get through. I am not sure whether the name of the cinema in the film – Cinema Paradiso’ – was intentional. But, in the film, that little cinema did give those villagers a moment of Paradise in their difficult lives. That is what the Cinema does for us all.

How wonderful that now cinemas have reopened once again we now are able to experience a little moment of Paradise.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell– until the next blog!

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Many Thanks,

Neilus Aurelius