Tag: Philosophy

MEDITATION 79

I am seated here again beside my candle engaged in my occasional nocturnal pursuit of composing a meditation. Unlike Marcus Aurelius, whose own Meditations are the inspiration for mine, I do not present to the reader lists of philosophical maxims or observations. My own philosophical observations  (if any) arise from descriptions of places I have visited, people I have met or have admired and from revisiting my memories.

The Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) explained that poetry is inspired by ’emotions recollected in tranquillity.’ He might be describing these modest meditations.  For it is only in tranquillity, in stillness, that I can be detached enough to glean some small seed of philosophy from moments in my life. If we cannot learn from our memories, from what we have lived and felt, what can we learn from?

Books, you might say, or the internet. I would consider using the internet as ‘casual learning’ as it is not so easy to assimilate information and deeply reflect upon it, at least, that is how I find it.  Learning from books I find easier, perhaps because that was my method of learning since my childhood. That must be be true for most of us who are not young enough to have been exposed to the digital revolution in education. I feel I can bring my whole self to a book rather than a screen, which includes my life experiences and memories of course and hence there can be an interplay between the book and myself. The book may even bring memories to the fore in my consciousness.  Although, it must be admitted that memory can be deceptive and even chaotic and confused at times. Hence the need for the cool air of detachment. 

Cool air or rather the lack of it, has been on my mind these last few days, because of the high temperatures we are currently enduring. I have also been thinking about cool water lilies. I have been looking at photos I have taken last week of  water lilies at Swanwick in Derbyshire while attending the annual  Writers Summer School there. I spent some time stopping and looking at patches of water lilies on my walks around the lakes in time out from the week’s activities of talks and workshops.

Water lilies are among my favourite flowers. If my back garden was big enough and grand enough I would have a pond of water lilies. One of my favourite places at Kew Gardens is the water lilies hothouse where they have the largest one on record. There the lilies recline resplendent on the dark waters, colourful, exotic and expansive (like myself – well expansive anyway!).   

The water lilies at Swanwick are much smaller but no less colourful: deep pink petals with white tips, enthroned on large dark green leaves. They float on top of the lake, congregating together in shady corners. Just as we delegates have been congregating together and hopefully floating ourselves, born up by new ideas and perceptions, by the deep but gentle waters of creativity.

I have mentioned the  Swanwick water lilies before in one of my meditations. That was in 2019, after my second visit and now I have just completed my fourth (as 2020 was understandably a fallow year for the Summer School). It was on my first visit, in 2018, that I was encouraged to write this blog. New ideas and new directions always emerge from that place.

Swanwick has two lakes adjoining each other, but strangely no swans! It has extensive gardens and terraces and is an Edwardian house with modern extensions, housing the dining and conference rooms and a large residential block too.  As I would return from my lakeside visit to the water lilies, I would see some of my fellow delegates moving around on the terraces to another talk, to their room or to tea, cake and more conversation in the lounge. Conversations with others who share our burning interests or enthusiasms are as important as the talks and presentations on offer at any conference.

As writing is a solitary activity so conversations with other writers are essential to keep going. It is why individuals join writers’ groups, not just to get feedback on their work and to learn from others and to receive hopefully support and encouragement,  but to feel validated as a writer sometimes. To make being a writer seem real. The same is true of the writers’ summer school.

I do not think I have talked so much over the six days I was there. One evening I even developed a sore throat. I was giving talks myself on scriptwriting, four one hour sessions over four days, which led to more conversations from delegates so perhaps that contributed to it. It was good to be teaching again and to adults for a change who were eager to learn, unlike my former students at times! I have never felt so much at home there as this time.

Because we are all together for a intense six days, over that time we become an informal community, forming an invisible bond. This is quite extraordinary when you think that every year this unofficial community fluctuates. Not everyone attends every year and there is always an influx of new people. Yet over the days we are together, amidst all the activities and chatter, that bond silently evolves. It reminds me of rehearsing and performing a play. For a short length of time the cast become a community – as at Swanwick.

I was reminded of this informal community when I arrived at Derby station in 2021. I walked over the enclosed bridge with my luggage and down in the lift as usual to wait for the coach to take delegates to the summer school. Looking over the bridge as I waited for the lift I could see some familiar faces below at the coffee bar who would be getting the coach with me. I felt quite emotional as I hadn’t seen them for two years and we had all gone through the pandemic in the meantime.

In my mind’s eye I am returning to watching those delegates ambling around the property as I wander up from the lakes. Why are they here I ask myself? To learn, to improve their writing in some way, to find out about different genres of writing, about the world of publishing perhaps or how to self-publish. They may want to spend most of the week just writing, using the summer school as precious time away from home to concentrate and create. They might be successfully published themselves, or trying to get published, writing may be their career or a sideline or they may be an enthusiastic amateur.  They might be writing articles, short stories, crime novels, children’s books or poems or plays or just scribbling. They all have a passion for writing, they have to write. To make sense of the world in some way through words (as I am doing now).  They all need a creative outlet otherwise, as the American Dorothea Brande (1893-1948) observes in her excellent 1934 handbook ‘Becoming a Writer’, without a creative outlet life can be ‘unhappy, thwarted and restless.’ I have felt this myself at times.

What have I learnt from my week at Swanwick, you may ask, even though I was a tutor there? Well I have learnt many things from talks and conversations. And from the adult students on my course, just as occasionally I would learn something from my young students when I was engaged in my teaching career. I feel inspired to get on with ‘Driftwood’ my collection of short stories, having had a consultation with another tutor.

Most of all, I have learnt that it’s all about the writing and not the end product. It’s not about winning a poem or short story competition or the Booker Prize for a novel or even to be published in some way, wonderful though these would be. It’s about the writing, the process.

The great Russian theatre director Konstantin Stanislavksi (1863-1938) came to same conclusion about acting: the process, the in depth research and rehearsals were as important than the final performance. In the last stage of his life he formed his own studio of young actors who concentrated on the process and performed rarely.

It is all about the writing, the process. Because I have to write.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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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!

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Neilus Aurelius    

The flame I am gazing at is very steady this evening as I begin to write my meditation. However, now that we have entered the seventh week of the lockdown, my emotions have been far from steady. I take solace that Marcus Aurelius’ emotions weren’t either. From his own ‘Meditations’ it appears that he had a quick temper and could be quite impatient with others. At least he recognised these failings and was unhappy about them. I am sure that writing his meditations in his tent at the close of the day helped him to calm down. Writing this is helping me to calm down too.

Patience has never been my forte either! I am impatient for this lockdown to be over, as is everyone else, I imagine. I also seem to be suffering from inertia now and a lack of focus. I have discovered that inertia is exhausting, more so than intense activity! Everything can be done tomorrow. But then the world is in a hiatus at present. We are all in one long intermission, one long theatre interval. Except that we are not allowed to congregate together in the theatre bar to await Act Two!

Marcus teaches us that one way of coping with this lockdown is to connect with Nature and to exercise our innate powers of contemplation. That has been helpful, I must admit. I should be writing this seated at the table in my garden but the evenings are too chilly at present for that. Also to some extent I have stoically accepted the situation as he would try to do. But I think my stoic acceptance is now wearing thin after all these weeks.

Marcus also tells us to ‘take pleasure in all that is presently yours’, in other words to enjoy the moment. I mentioned in my previous meditation, that this is what Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens’ novel ‘David Copperfield’ is eminently able to do: to enjoy the moment and enjoy the company he is in, despite his continually desperate financial embarrassments. I have succeeded in enjoying the moment myself at times: listening to my music, sitting in my garden, reading and writing, watching movies and tv and streamed filmed theatre performances (especially productions I have missed). Most of all I have enjoyed distance walks in the company of a few friends in the local park and woodland which I have, to my shame, just discovered.

But despite these lovely moments, there is still that lingering unease, which is ever present and which we all feel. It is forever at the back of our minds, or fluttering in the pit of our stomachs. We are anxious for the lockdown to end and most of all for this horrific pandemic to cease. Like Mr Micawber, who was ‘hourly expecting something to turn up’, I am optimistic for the future and am sure this lockdown will end soon. But optimism does not take away that gnawing unease I have mentioned. Nor did it dissolve Mr Micawber’s unease either.

My impatience and unease are of course all wrapped up in the uncertainty of the future. Because of the pandemic, we have all had an acute awareness of the unpredictability of the future forced upon us. Also personally I am cast adrift in the uncharted waters of retirement, having finished finally in February. I do not possess an adventurous spirit (except artistically) so I must confess to being rather perturbed – or in the words of the Rodgers and Hart song, ‘Bewitched, bothered and bewildered’.

But then, we have to admit that the future has always in reality been uncertain. We have been so used to planning our lives because now we can book holidays and other leisure events so quickly and easily in this digital age. And of course our employment has to some extent planned our lives for us too. Yet we begin to think we are in charge of the future, dare I say it, masters of the future. This pandemic and the resultant lockdown have reminded us that we are not.

The young people I have taught and helped have always been aware of this uncertainty as their future steps have depended upon examination grades. This year with GCSE and A level formal exams cancelled, their anxiety is even more acute. Even though now officially this is none of my business and I am no longer involved, I do feel for them.

In my case, my school career has, in a way, been a series of projects leading to productions and fortunately for me, my final project was completed in February, which I count as a blessing. But now the holidays I had planned – to Italy and Paris) – will not take place, nor will several theatre and opera visits. I have come to realise how much I have over planned my own life in recent years in my semi-retirement. I hope that is one lesson I have learnt from these last weeks.

But how should we view the future now, in these days of uncertainty? Should we, like Mr Micawber be optimistic? Yes: or how else will we get through these dark days? Which brings me to another possible approach to this lockdown. So far we have explored the Marcus approach and the Micawber approach, as summarised above. Now I am going to explain the ‘Martin’ approach.

Martin Luther (148-1546) the theologian, priest and father of the Reformation was also originally a monk. Being a good monk he kept a garden and apparently an orchard. The story goes that someone asked him, ‘What will you do if you know that the end of the world is coming soon?’
He replied, ‘I will plant another apple tree.’

In that reply there is not only optimism, but hope. Hope expressed in a positive act.

So I have bought myself an olive tree for my garden. And in a beautiful notebook from Budapest, which a friend gave me, I have made a list of possible plans for my retirement.

I may share these with you in future blogs.

Meanwhile: Be optimistic, or even better, hope. Hope in the future. Do something positive each day.

Above all, stay safe and well!

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till 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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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. Including a NEW EPISODE.
I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.
Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius

Once again I am seated here beside a candle beginning my meditation. We are still in lockdown. The candle is still burning with a steady and bright flame. However, my own flame and that of some friends I have been speaking with, is flickering a little. This is because we are now into the fourth week of the lockdown and I am feeling a little flat, a little empty (as are my friends). It is not exactly boredom, but something deeper than that. A kind of ennui. And a feeling of ‘When will this end?’

In my last meditation, I suggested how Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor and inspiration for this blog, might approach this lockdown. I imagined that he would try to accept the situation with equanimity in line with his Stoic philosophy. He would encourage us to make the most of the present moment, to connect with Nature and develop our contemplative powers. I called this ‘The Marcus Method.’ Now I am going to explore another possible approach, which might, incidentally help with the feelings I have described in the first paragraph.

I have recently been re-reading ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens. One of my retirement aims is to work my way through Dickens’ novels. At least those I haven’t already read, studied or dramatised! But, as I am ever one to be distracted from my aim, I decided to re-read’ Copperfield’ first. In January I saw the new film of the novel by Armando Iannucci, which was very entertaining and which made me want to go back to the original (as the film was a rather superficial reading of the novel in my opinion).

One of the characters in the story is Wilkins Micawber. When David is a boy, he is sent to London by his cruel stepfather, Mr Murdstone, and put to work in a wine bottling factory (which Murdstone partly owns). He lodges with the Micawber family, though usually has to find his own meals. The Micawbers are constantly in debt and avoiding their creditors or putting valuables into pawnbrokers’ shops to get ready cash. David helps them on several occasions.

‘David Copperfield’ is Dickens’ most autobiographical novel and Mr Micawber is based on Dickens’ own father, John Dickens. In real life Dickens worked as a boy in a boot blacking (boot polish) factory putting labels on the jars. This was because his father, like dear Wilkins Micawber, was constantly in debt and money was urgently needed. The Dickens family moved house on numerous occasions because of their constant flimsy financial situation when Charles was a boy (as do the Micawbers in the course of the story). In fact John Dickens, like Micawber was in the debtor’s prison for a while in the Marshalsea near London Bridge and Dickens, like young David, visited him there. The Marshalsea and its inhabitants are the centre of a later novel, ‘Little Dorrit.’

This was the most traumatic time for Dickens and he kept this period of his life secret except to his close friend, John Forster, who had permission to include it in his biography of Dickens after his death. Whenever Dickens strolled near the site of the blacking factory (by Hungerford Stairs, near what is now Charing Cross railway station) he would walk on the other side of the road or avoid it completely. But he did eventually find the courage to face his trauma by putting it into a novel.

Despite all that Dickens’ father put him through as a boy, his fictional alter-ego Mr. Micawber is affectionately drawn and appears as a larger than life and entertaining character. In a way he is a kind of philosopher himself, forever making long speeches and writing long, verbose letters (often of the begging variety). In total contrast to Marcus, he is a highly theatrical philosopher. His expounds his philosophy of happiness to the boy David:

“Annual income twenty pounds: annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds: annual expenditure twenty pounds, nought and six, result misery.”

From these words you will probably notice the contrast between Marcus and Micawber: Marcus tried to live out his philosophy, whereas Micawber makes little attempt at all.

Sometimes he expresses his despair. ‘In short I am forever floored,’ he says. And yet, he is also the eternal optimist. Though he is forever unemployed, forever selling his possessions or pawning them and forever having to avoid his creditors (by literally running away, assuming false names and decamping his family) he is always ‘hourly expecting that something will turn up’ to alleviate his disastrous financial affairs. And after several appearances in the story, he eventually does get a regular post in a law firm in Canterbury and is the one who unmasks the devious Uriah Heap near the end of the novel.

Through all these trials and tribulations the family somehow stay together for as Mrs Micawber frequently says: ‘I never will desert Mr Micawber!’ One minute Micawber is very low and will weep because of his misery and then the next he is dancing a sailor’s hornpipe or, red-faced, preparing his special hot wine punch.

At the moment, in this lockdown, we are experiencing the mixed emotions that the Micawbers feel as a result of a very different crisis to theirs. We may feel unsettled, uneasy and even low and depressed every now and then and then cheer ourselves up with music or binge TV or other online entertainment. Because of social media, even though we are physically in isolation, despite distances, we are able to cheer each other up with messages, video calls and we can even have parties and games together online.

In the novel, the Micawbers, because of their precarious finances, make the most of the moment. They enjoy themselves in the moment as should we. And they enjoy their family and whoever else is with them in the moment, as should we (whether they are physically or virtually present in that moment). This is another way of ‘taking pleasure in all that is presently yours’ as Marcus urges us to do.

Enjoy the moment, enjoy each other’s company (physically present or through social media). And, like Wilkins Micawber, be optimistic for the future, that this lockdown and, more importantly, this most horrific pandemic will soon end. I would call this ‘The Micawber Method’ to surviving the lockdown. I will explore another method in my next blog.

Stay safe and well dear readers!

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till 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.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

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

Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius

As I sit here as usual to write my meditation, I am not concentrating on the flame from the candle in front of me. I am thinking about another light. Moonlight. Last night as I looked out onto my garden from the kitchen door, there was a full moon in the clear night sky. It was strikingly beautiful. ‘The watery eye of the moon’ (as Shakespeare describes it’s surface) was crystal clear all those miles away. There was a warmth about this moon, like a pale version of the sun. It was not silver and cold but a delicate coral and warm. A benign presence in the night sky. Comforting. A beacon of hope.

I have learnt today on the BBC News website that last night I had been captivated by a supermoon. This occurs when a full moon or a new moon comes closest to the Earth in its orbit and so from the Earth it appears slightly larger than usual in size and also appears brighter. The website page showed some stunning photographs of this supermoon from across the UK and Europe and several friends have posted photos too on Facebook. It has been dubbed a ‘pink supermoon’ because it appears to have a rose coloured hue, although in reality there is little colour difference to a full moon.

Among these photographs was an image of the supermoon above the city of Rome and its shadowy ruins. This made me think of Marcus Aurelius. No doubt he had seen a supermoon himself when he was in Rome or on the plains of Pannonia when he was on his campaigns. He must have engaged in a great deal of sky gazing, skies devoid of high rise buildings and planes of course. And, as I have mentioned before, his sky gazing outside his tent on his campaigns probably put him in the right mood to compose his meditations. His contemplation of the heavens may have fed his writings.

He felt a deep affinity with Nature and was in awe of it, writing of it in exalted terms: ‘Nature, all that your seasons bring is fruit to me, all comes from you, exists in you, returns to you.’ Even though he was a philosopher emperor, he acknowledged his indebtedness to Nature, to Creation. He recognised and celebrated his primal bond with Nature, with Creation.

We too in this lockdown are able to gaze at skies free from air traffic, to enjoy the clouds, the stars and the moon, be it from a garden, a balcony or the window of an apartment. And if we have a garden, we have more time now to connect with the earth again, to be truly grounded. Or to take a slow meditative stroll in the park or by flowing water.

The lockdown has given us the opportunity to be like Marcus: to exercise the contemplative side of our human nature. To recognise our own indebtedness to Nature, to Creation, a dependency which our world has disregarded and shunned and trampled on. We too can acknowledge and rediscover our primal bond with Nature. To do this we need to allow ourselves to slow down, to let go of our frenetic selves, to accept the quieter, slower pace of life which this lockdown has forced upon us. It might seem strange, eerie even because we are not used to the calm and the quiet. But once we get over the initial fear or uncomfortableness perhaps we can enjoy the calm and stillness and maybe even luxuriate in it eventually.

This I am sure would have been Marcus’ approach to the lockdown. As a stoic philosopher, Marcus would have strove to accept the situation too and hopefully with equanimity. For him it is not only the duty but the delight of a good man (or woman) to accept and welcome all that is allotted to them. He may be saying to us down the centuries, ‘Will you not be satisfied with your present state and take pleasure in all that is presently yours?’ Once we have accepted this situation we can make the most of it and be positive about it and go with this strange, slower and calmer pace of life. To take the opportunity to live in and enjoy the present moment. And be thankful for what we have, especially our loved ones and friends and of course our health.

After a very cursory look again at Marcus’ ‘Meditations’, I feel this would have been his approach to getting through the lockdown. This would be Marcus’ method.
I shall be exploring a few more possible methods in my next blogs.

Stay safe and well dear readers!

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till 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.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

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

As I write this meditation, the candle flickers in front of me through the painted glass of a small Christmas bowl. Painted around the bowl is a winter rural scene: farmhouses dripping with ice and a sleigh being pulled by horses in a snow drift lit by a half moon. I purchased it in Budapest and have given several others as Christmas gifts to friends and family. Candles in bowls would probably have been on Marcus’ table too as he wrote his Meditations or oil lamps of course.

The scene reminds me of the production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ which I mentioned in my last blog. We performed it in our studio theatre last week (to great success) and we used projected digital images to set the many scenes and to create the magical effects. One of the images was similar to the winter rural scene painted on my candle bowl.

In the play (and novel) Scrooge is taken by the Spirit of Christmas Past to revisit his old school days. This is where the image appeared as a backdrop. Scrooge says ‘Good heavens! I know this lane. And this is my old school!’ One of the most disconcerting experiences for Scrooge in the play is to have to witness scenes from his past and especially how he lost the love of his life, Bella, because of his addiction to creating wealth.

It would be disconcerting for us to have the opportunity to see ourselves as we once were. And to be forced to do so, as Scrooge is by the Spirit. Not only to see ourselves but also to observe our behaviour and hear what we said, especially in moments we would, like Scrooge, prefer to forget.

In the summer I experienced a little of that, when I was visiting family in Canada. My aunt Barbara has an obsession for photographs. She possesses dozens of albums from years ago. Every time I visit she gives me photos of the family or copies, for some are very precious to her. She left several in an envelope in my room this time.

One was a photo taken outside my parents’ house in Redcar. I am there standing in my school uniform with my father beside me. I must have been in the fifth year (Year 11) as we had a different uniform for the Sixth Form. I have a shock of black hair and a few discernible spots: the picture of adolescence! There I am with my trusty black brief case and a carrier bag of LP’s. Well it was 1970! I am barely smiling and I look self conscious as I never liked having my photo taken then. Photos were a rare occurrence: the age of the mobile phone camera and the selfie were a long way away. I look gauche. Lacking in self-confidence. Shy. Innocent. And I was then as I remember.

As I looked closely at the photo in my room in my aunt’s apartment on Vancouver Island I realised how far I had travelled. I was literally, physically thousands of miles away from Redcar in the North East of England and also thousands of miles away from myself as I

was then, aged 16. As I looked closely at my face I felt a sadness come upon me too. It was similar to the sadness that Scrooge feels as he witnesses his past again. Or at least, when I was watching Robert’s reactions as Scrooge in the scenes last week, I was reminded of the sadness I felt at that moment, looking at my 16 year old self in the photo in auntie’s apartment last summer.

As I looked at my young face, I thought about all the things that were going to happen to me afterwards, things I could never have predicted of course. And the sadness lingered a little. I didn’t have a very happy youth. And then I thought of those who befriended me and those who rescued me. And those who have stayed friends through all my life. And my family. And friends I didn’t know existed at the time (most of whom probably weren’t even born then). And all the places I never imagined visiting or living in then. All the places I never knew existed: like the house where I have lived for 25 years and my school where I have worked for 34. And I thought of my faith, through it all I kept my faith.

So I went out for a walk and sat on a bench looking out to the Pacific and the low grey mounds of the little islands in the ocean. And I had a Marcus moment. I recalled all my friends and their good qualities.

So the production was a success. My cast did become a company, indeed a little community, which is always my aim as a director (as I mentioned in a previous blog). And, (as I also mentioned in the same blog) the invisible ring between cast and audience was achieved I think, at least according to all the appreciative comments I have received from audience members. Even though we are a small oblong of a studio theatre and not a grand horseshoe-shaped opera house like Covent Garden. Despite the vicissitudes of all the scene changes in our 19 scene play, the actors and crew worked so well together, that I was able to enjoy the play a little from backstage and on the last night from the side of the audience too.

It goes without saying that a director sees the scenes over and over again in rehearsals and performance. It is a very special feeling to see performances grow in rehearsal and in performance and that is the real bonus for a director. Because of seeing scenes over and over again, there are individual scenes I can remember really well, moment by moment, even from years ago. And there are a few I’d rather forget of course! There are even certain lines, spoken by certain students, that I can hear in my mind. Maybe in my final moments on this earth, I shall hear them again at the last. (I hope that those of you reading this, who are my ex- Drama students won’t be bombarding me with texts and messages saying ‘Do you remember my scene? Do you remember my line?’!). There are several wonderful moments and speeches I am sure I will remember from my latest production.

But also, observing the play over and over again, a director realises aspects he hadn’t thought of. For instance, in rehearsal I began to realise that the real villain in the story is not Scrooge but Jacob Marley for it is young Marley who corrupts young Scrooge and leads him to become fixated on accumulating more wealth: ‘Business is business, Ebenezer.’

I have also realised that Scrooge (as an old man) begins the play as a person closed in on himself: ‘Secret and self-contained, as solitary as an oyster; warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.’ But by the end of the play, when he has learnt from observing his past, present and future, he opens himself up to everyone: ‘A Merry Christmas to everyone. A Happy New Year to the whole world!’

I hope and pray my own personal trajectory has been the same. This is the meaning of Christmas: to be open to everyone, not closed. It is the true open season.

Ave atque vale! Until the next blog.