MEDITATION 96

A belated Happy New Year, dear reader!
As I sit here beside my candle I am looking out of my garden window to grey skies and bare branches in my wintry garden, although some of my plants are still green as they are perennials. I am a perennial myself, I suppose, as although I am approaching my winter years, my own leaves are still green! I am still flowering and flourishing! Otherwise these meditations would not exist. I am still writing and occasionally teaching. I am even considering the possibility of a podcast with a much younger friend. So I am still being creative. It is what is important to me.
Sometimes I have found myself adopting an old man persona indoors, shuffling from room to room. I have had to check myself and shake it off. It is so easy to vegetate in an armchair and half watch old movies or ancient TV programmes, especially when the weather outdoors isn’t very inviting. Perhaps I should get on with some winter gardening (when the weather warms up a little) or get onto my exercise bike again (which is gathering dust in the lounge corner). Or take up skateboarding.
I have always been impressed by those who keep working and being creative into their old age. Only a few months ago I saw Ian McKellen (aged 84) onstage. He was in a play – ‘Frank and Percy’ – with Roger Allam (aged 70). They were the only characters in the play and were both continually on stage for over two hours and performing six nights a week. They were both wonderful too. Two years ago, McKellen also played ‘Hamlet’ again (after a 50 year gap) and will play Falstaff in a few months time in ‘Three Kings’: an abridged version of Shakespeare’s two ‘Henry IV’ plays ( a four hour performance apparently!).
I am also reminded of Judi Dench who is now 88 and sadly suffering from macular degeneration. Yet she appeared in several TV programmes (including two major interviews) around the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio last November. She has been regularly acting in film and TV productions until quite recently including Kenneth Branagh’s film ‘Belfast’ and was onstage in a celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals in 2022.
I am currently reading her book ‘Shakespeare: the Man who Pays the Rent’. Her late husband Michael Williams and herself referred to the Bard as ‘the man’s who pays the rent’ because they were both in so many Shakespeare productions over several decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon and London. In fact in one of the chapters she explains how much Stratford means to her. It is where she and her husband met. She has a great love of the place, nurtured over a number of years. As have I.

The chapters are a collection of dialogues with another actor, Brendan O’Hare, and mainly about the Shakespearean roles she has played. Her memory is quite remarkable. She can remember details of costumes she wore at the Old Vic in the late 1950’s, for example, as well as most the actors and directors she has worked with in the productions she refers to.
Her insights into each role (and often those of the directors she worked with) as she goes through each role scene by scene in each chapter are highly detailed and razor-sharp. Again it is amazing how she remembers rehearsals and performances from decades ago. She is also keen to point out ideas that didn’t work at the time and where she would approach the role or scene differently now with more experience. Hindsight is a humbling thing at times. She can also quote her lines and those of other roles verbatim (which Brendan O’Hare points out). What a prodigious memory she must have.
Of particular interest to me are her comments on acting technique. Interleaved with all her perceptive insights into the roles, her reminiscences and funny stories (of which there are many – it is a very entertaining read!) is an excellent guide to reading, rehearsing and performing Shakespeare: what we call ‘working on the text’. She is in no way didactic. Her advice arises casually out of the conversation.
I was quite gratified to find that I had used many of those techniques myself with my students down the years – and with students of English in Hungary as it happens. I had learnt them on courses with the Royal Shakespeare Company that I attended early in my teaching career. Judi Dench learnt them there herself of course, years before I did. I feel quite proud that I have been passing on that RSC tradition of playing Shakespeare to others. Reading the book has made me realise I am part of that tradition myself.
I have had the privilege of seeing Judi Dench in many plays down the years but one she mentions in her book has stirred up particular memories. As I sit here looking out to my wintry garden, I am reminded of a sultry summer evening in Stratford a long time ago. I was in the Sixth Form and on my first trip to Stratford courtesy of a weekend visit by Teesside Youth Theatre. I had just seen ‘Twelfth Night’ in which she played Viola. I was entranced by the whole production and can remember details from it to this day. Her own description of it has prompted my own memory. (Should I write my own book?)
My school friend Ian and I hovered around the stage door until she appeared. I wanted my programme signed by her I think. I remember Ian saying ‘You can speak to her. You’re the one with the programme.’ He was gruffly shy you see.
Eventually she appeared with a shopping bag in either hand: so different from her romantic Viola earlier! I approached her and was suddenly tongue- tied, even though I had prepared what I would say to her in my mind. She looked at me, then askedme if I

would help her with taking the bags to her car. So Ian and myself took them from her. Then she politely thanked us and got into the car and off she went. I remained tongue-tied throughout. It was the nervousness of youth, of course. I was meeting a star. I was very gauche then. I still am at times! Stage-struck as I was then, the incident taught me that acting is just another job after all and however magical a production may be, the actors performing in it still have to go shopping and go home! Needless to say I still remained stage struck despite the incident – and for a good many years. I still am at times.
The next time I was in close proximity to Judi Dench was at the Young Vic theatre in London. I was with a group of A level students watching the classic Irish drama ‘The Plough and the Stars’ by Sean O’Casey. It was an entirely Irish cast except for Judi herself. Set in a Dublin street during the Irish Troubles, she was the only person from Northern Ireland in the street. She was very different from romantic Viola: a screeching harridan. In the auditorium, the audience was on three sides with the actors performing in the centre. My group and I were seated on the front row. In the final scene, Judi’s character is ironically shot by a British soldier. She fell and uttered her last words no more than 4 feet away from me. It was so very real and her final words were so moving. She was totally in role of course. Somehow she always gets to my emotions when I see her on stage or on film. Even when she plays comedy, she always finds a serious moment, when the underlying emotions of the character break through.
She has been called a ‘national treasure’ which she dislikes. However it is a sign of her popularity and of the warm regard which the public hold her in. She’s more than that, however: she is one of our greatest actresses and has consistently been so throughout her career.
Incidentally, I also met Ian McKellen once (minus shopping!). We had a charming conversation in a pub many years ago. He still owes me a pint! But that is another story!
Ave atque Vale Neilus Aurelius

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MEDITATION 87

It is quite comfortable to be sitting here by the candle on the table beside me. The candle flame gives a welcoming glow which contrasts with the hostile icy blasts outside, which are more reminiscent of January than early March. Ideally I should be gazing into a glowing fireplace, which would be even more comfortable and welcoming, but I don’t have one. A radiator, warm thought it is, doesn’t have the same effect. However I have substituted the fireplace with a glass of red wine so I am glowing a little.

As I sit here, glass in hand, a Strauss waltz is playing in my memory. I am tempted to play my cd of Strauss waltzes but I am too comfortable to get up and find it in my cd racks. So I will let it fade away in my thoughts as I try to remember what brought the Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss into my head.

It is not a memory of a glittering ballroom or of an old movie for that matter or a classical concert I once attended. The memory is of a visit to a local charity shop. I recently went there to give away some books and cd’s I don’t need anymore. ‘Did I ever really need them?’ I asked myself. In answer to the question, I began to slowly empty some of my shelves. It’s a retirement thing.

So when I had deposited my cultural detritus with the charity shop assistant, I made my way out only to notice some boxes of old LP’s on a table in the middle of the shop. I couldn’t help but stop and browse through them. What opportunity do we have these days of spending time in a store to browse through LP’s or cd’s or DVD’s for that matter? The music shops have gone and browsing has to be online now, which isn’t the same. So I relished the chance to browse. Perhaps it was muscle memory – I used to spend so much time browsing in HMV and other stores when they were open.

In the first box I explored quite near the front was an LP of Strauss Waltzes and Polkas. It was identical to one I bought when I was a teenager -I was 13 or 14 years old I guess. I remembered the cover so well. It was of a brightly lit spiral staircase in some elegant mansion photographed from above. And here was the album again in my hands.

For a moment memories of playing it came back. I used to play it on our radiogram with its spindly legs in our front room. The record player part of the radiogram would pull down when you wanted to use it, I remember. The radio itself was on the top. I would sit beside the radiogram listening to those waltzes and be transported into another world, to those glittering ballrooms and the ladies in their elegant dresses accompanied by gentlemen in their uniforms or evening dress across the ballroom floor.

Despite having a potent imagination, I couldn’t conceive then, sitting in our front room in Redcar that many years later I would be listening to those waltzes live at a BBC Proms orchestral concert in the Royal Albert Hall, let alone in the elegant surroundings of the New York Cafe and numerous other coffee houses in Budapest.

We would visit the New York Cafe every year on our Drama tour. It was the teachers’ treat at the end of the tour though we did usually bring a few students with us. The resident pianist was quite a virtuoso. He would work his way through waltzes, polkas, songs from the shows and operettas with great finesse while reading the newspaper at the same time. It was spread across the top of the piano above the keyboard. The New York cafe has changed now. It was closed for a long while while the building was remodelled into a high class hotel. The cafe has reopened but our multi-tasking pianist seems to have disappeared.

I continued flicking through the boxes in the shop and discovered yet another LP from my youth, a box set of 3 LP’s actually, of Handel’s ‘Messiah’. It had Salvador Dali’s striking depiction of the Crucifixion on the box lid. I bought my own copy of it it when I was in the Sixth Form I think. Dali’s picture on the box lid stood out from all the other album covers I flicked through in W.H. Smith on Redcar High Street all those years ago. I guess that’s why I bought it, aside from having sung some of the choruses (including the famous Hallelujah one) in the school choir in a concert. Memories flooded in again. I remembered playing the album on a portable record player in my bedroom. It was black and quite bulky, though not as bulky as the radiogram downstairs. I took the records and player with me to university eventually I think and then on to my bedsit in Brixton in South London. I remember listening to ‘Messiah’ in my bedsit.

I then quickly flicked through all the other boxes to see if any other memories of my youth were on display in the charity shop. There was: a recording of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony which I definitely did buy when I was in the Sixth Form. I loved the intense slow movement as I was an intense young man then. As the notes drifted over me and played with my emotions as I lay in my room, again I could hardly imagine that I would see Gustav Mahler’s conducting baton on display in a museum in Budapest. It was actually a ceremonial one in an ivory casing, given to him when he was musical director of the Budapest Opera House in 1891.

Fortunately I couldn’t find any more albums. It would have been very odd to find my entire record collection from my bedroom in Redcar in the LP boxes in Oxfam in Kingston, many miles and many years away.

I am sure that if you are or were into rock music you could easily find albums from your teenage years in any charity shop. So I am obviously not the only one who’s youth is on display. But these were classical albums and those particular recordings of Mahler, Handel and Strauss, which I had bought and played over and over again. After all, there was only one version of The Beatles ‘Sgt Pepper’ when it was released so only one possible cover. So if you saw it in a charity shop, you wouldn’t be too surprised. But it seemed odd to me that those particular recordings from my paltry teenage collection should be in those boxes and that I was able to hold them again, even though they weren’t my own particular copies.

I found myself smiling when I picked up those albums. If I possessed an LP player at home (and they have become very popular again and are rather expensive) I would have bought them. I have the Mahler recording on cd now anyway. Everything gets reissued eventually, sometimes over and over again. I wonder if I’ll ever be reissued.

I had so few albums then that I would play them over an over again. Now I have so many cd’s that I have hardly played some of them at all. Hence the decision to give some away. The immediate link between buying an album and playing it straight away and really listening has gone perhaps, especially with streaming music.

The shop I was in specialised in books and music. There are others which are more general. Sometimes among the bric-a-brac I have seen on the shelves I have noticed kitchen ware and crockery that I remembered from years ago. I guess it is the designs that hold the memories, just like the album covers.

Those shops are very handy if you are looking for props for a play. I used charity shops a lot when I was putting a production together. I know professional companies do too. Last night I watched the final episode of ‘Endeavour’ on TV, about the early career of Inspector Morse. It was set in the early 70’s. I wonder how may props they used in the interior scenes originated in charity shops. Some of the interiors were quite nostalgic.

I am not a frequenter of charity shops. I guess I we be in and out of the Oxfam bookshop now and then with some more of my cultural detritus.

Perhaps charity shops should be renamed. Perhaps they should be called Memory Shops.

Incidentally, when I returned to the Oxfam bookstore a week later, the boxes of LP’s had gone.

But then, so has my youth.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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Neilus Aurelius

Blue Danube Waltz, budapest, Budapest Opera, CD, charity shops, Cleveland, endeavour, Gustav Mahler, Handel 'Messiah', Hearts Club Band, HMV, house, Inspector Morse, Johann Strauss, memory, new york, New York cafe, Oxfam, record, record collecting, Recorded Music, Redcar, retirement, Salvador Dali 'Crucifixion', Sgt Pepper's Lonely, Symphony No 4, The Beatles, Theatre Production, tv, Waltzes, WHSmith

MEDITATION 76

As I sit beside my candle to begin this meditation, I am looking in the corner opposite across my lounge. This is where my cd’s are housed on shelves that are virtually full now, almost from ceiling to floor. This is my prized classical music library and there are also several shelves of film music and musicals as well. I must also mention some more cd’s neatly stacked on or below my coffee table. Beside me to my left are more shelves of DVD’s and Blu-ray’s. Behind me are my bookshelves which are also full. I appear to be quite a collector. I hasten to add that there is still space to get to the front door in case of fire! I haven’t completely submerged myself in culture yet.

However I take comfort in the fact that they have been collected over a long period of time. I have been collecting my cd’s, for example, over the last three decades, and before that I collected LP’s since being a teenager. I replaced my favourite LP’s with the cd versions in the early 90’s. Some, as with my books and movies, were gifts or bought at reduced price in a sale. Some of my music was a given to me by my old friend Brian, who passed away ten years ago. Some I purchased on my many trips to Budapest, where cd’s were cheaper than here. When I was running the Drama tours, after a week of organising and directing, I would always visit my favourite classical music stores in a moment of spare time and treat myself to an album – or two. I would do the same when I was there on holiday of course. One of the stores even gave me a discount card.

I also take comfort from a remark by my Hungarian friend, Mariann, when she visited my house quite a while ago. She looked at my bookshelves and said, ‘Books make a home.’

You may be thinking that all these books and music and movies must have been a solace to me during the pandemic or at least helped to get me through it. The answer is yes and no. My retirement finally began as the pandemic started and part of my retirement plan was to absorb myself in my reading and music and movies, now that I would have time to do so. But, as with all of us, the lockdowns left me too unsettled at times to enjoy them. I did purchase more cd’s though, some of which I still haven’t played. Then I discovered that I now had three versions of the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, as a result! I forgot to check I already had two – or did I? I think it was comfort-buying more than anything. A buffer again the storm. I am sure I will play them eventually.

Recently I have been led to reflect on why we collect things. Yes we may have a particular interest or hobby but what drives us on to collect more. Is it the innate need to possess within us or the primitive hunter/gatherer syndrome? Is it curiosity – I must hear that or see that? Is it the novelty of the new – a new artist on the block – I must hear or see him or her? Is it compulsion or obsession? The bottom line is: do we ever ask ourselves: Do I really need that?

Perhaps creating a collection is a relaxation from a stressful professional job, like my purchasing the odd cd or two in Budapest on my Drama tours. My Hungarian friend Adam is a high powered lawyer in Budapest and has a large collection of Star Wars figures and memorabilia going back to his childhood for instance. He also collects figures from TV series from his childhood. Perhaps he is harking back to his childhood when his life was less stressful, when he wasn’t so high profile. I must ask him. He also collects 1990s Honda sports cars – not models but the real thing! He currently has four, I believe, or

it it five? He scours the Internet for spare parts. I remember bringing a pair of head lamps in my luggage for him on a visit a few year ago! He has driven me around Hungary in one of them. Sitting in it, I imagined I was in some 1990’s American cop show. Although the cars are quite low to the ground and I am no longer agile enough (if ever!) to quickly get out and shout ‘Freeze!’

Another example of this is from many years ago when I was a student in Oxford. A high powered professor of Medicine at my college would occasionally invite small groups of his students for dinner and to see his elaborate train set which he kept set up in the loft. Digital collecting is so very easy isn’t it? Just a click then it is on its way. But not as satisfying or relaxing as spending time browsing in a shop. My dear friend Alan tells me he likes to listen to music while doing the family ironing. Currently he has collected 2,500 songs on Spotify and has 76 albums saved digitally too. He must have a lot of ironing to do! I should not jest as I have four complete Wagner Ring cycles and four complete versions of the nine Beethoven symphonies on disc! And all the rest. As I look at my music collection I realise that some discs reflect earlier enthusiasms which I no longer have. So perhaps I need to decide which I really want to keep and give away the rest as my dear late friend Brian did.

But where is the enjoyment – purely in possession? Sometimes I look around my shelves and think when will I have the time to absorb all this, to really enjoy it. I think back to my childhood and youth, when I would use my birthday or pocket money to buy a book and go home and immediately curl up in a chair and begin to read it. Or I would buy a record and take it home and play it over and over again and really absorb and enjoy the music. I had so few books or albums then I suppose. The ones I had were special. The connection between purchase and enjoyment was immediate then. I also used the local library to borrow books and music too, even when I moved to London and my little bedsit in Brixton. Borrowing rather than buying? Dear me! But I lived with more modest means then.

As I look around the lounge again I realise that, when you include my TV and the cable box, this little room is quite an entertainment centre. I am now a man of riches and treasures too: well, treasures to me. It appears I am wealthy man. It is good to look around our rooms with fresh eyes and take in our possessions. To realise just how wealthy we are compared with many others – and some of those others may live not very far from us. So we should be grateful for what we have and share our treasures with others if possible. And perhaps try to pay no attention to that little insidious voice encouraging us to purchase more and take that itching finger away from our phone or laptop where Amazon and other sites pedal their wares.

Some of these books and cd’s and movies are like old friends to me. Some are barely new acquaintances as I have hardly played them or read them, if at all. Some too, like true friends, have helped see me through difficult times.

But they are not really friends. Real friends cannot be bought, let alone possessed. Generally we only acquire real friends by accident, not by intention, where we find ourselves at different times on life’s journey. We shouldn’t pick them up and put them down again either like a cd or a book, let alone leave them to gather dust on the shelf. Friendships have to be kept in good repair. They are our true treasures, our true wealth.

Marcus advises us: ‘Whenever you want to cheer yourself up, think of the qualities of your fellows’, for which we could read ‘friends.’ So, instead of playing or streaming that movie or music or interminable Netflix series, or clicking on Amazon to buy something new, we could cheer ourselves up by reflecting on our friends and be thankful for them. And then give them a call.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 60

I have been thinking about the stained glass window again, as I sit here by the steady flame of my candle. In my last meditation, I mentioned a visit to the beautiful church of St Pierre in Montmartre in Paris several years ago. I explained how the panes of different colours in a stained glass window which I saw there reminded me of all my friends and loved ones. The window also reminded me that I am not alone. Isn’t this one of the positive features of these long months of lockdown and uncertainty, that we have been reminded that we are not alone, and that we have all been working our way through this most difficult of times together?

However, as I reflect upon it now, that stained glass window has taken on another meaning. The window is me. It is myself in all the different facets of my life, including my relationships and friendships of course. I have also come to realise that at certain times in my life, I have been polishing one pane in that window at the expense of others.

This is certainly true of my career, enjoyable and fulfilling as it has been. Because I have had a long career in mainly one school (with only one year in another one!) and especially because for over two thirds of my thirty- seven years there, I ran my department on my own, I came to be defined by my career. There were times when work was in charge of me rather than the other away around. It is a common mistake if you are committed to your occupation to a high level: call it a vocation, if you will. Perhaps this was exacerbated by living alone, without a partner. In other words, I was polishing that one pane in the window until the glass was wearing thin, or rather I was. It was part of my mid-life crisis when I became 50 years old, and I am sure others have had a similar experience too.

At that time, during the crisis, I became aware of being too consumed by my career and then I began to polish a few more panes of glass in my window and to lead a more integrated life. I was able to develop this further in my final years at the school when I relinquished my role as head of department and became a part time member of staff and, as a result, had more spare time. Then, after my retirement, I continued directing and going into school as necessary with more spare time still.

Nevertheless, I still felt defined by my role in school. I was still polishing that pane of glass to some extent. I couldn’t stop myself. It was a habit with me. Moreover, it had become an image of myself. It is a difficult image to shake off. I did not realise how ingrained it was in my consciousness until I finally left the school last February.

I call it my ‘King Lear’ syndrome, after Shakespeare’s tragic hero, who though he gave up the throne, could not give up being King. ‘Aye, every inch a King’ he says in his madness on the heath in the storm. I do not think I am slipping into madness or have been guilty of his rages for that matter, but the problem remains: retirement can be tough if you are defined by your work role or become aware that you are and then try to divest yourself of it, to start a new life. A friend said to me, ‘It is difficult to live in the shadows, when you are used to the limelight!’

You may remember that the window I described in my last meditation was of a modern, abstract design. It was not dominated by a scene from the Bible or an incident from a saint’s life, as stained glass windows in churches normally are. There might be intricate foliage etched around the edges of the scene or in a bigger window, smaller scenes from the Bible or the saint’s life in squares or roundels might decorate the top and bottom of the main picture.

Perhaps my own personal window would also be dominated by one scene in the centre: Neil, with a large copy of Shakespeare in his hands and a group of totally attentive students at his feet. Or Neil, holding a script whilst directing a couple of eager students in a scene. It wouldn’t be a window of Saint Neil – I am definitely no saint. Neither would it be a stained glass window of a school production when I played Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s ‘Importance of Being Earnest’!

But no: the window that impressed me was not dominated by one image. In fact there was no one image at all: it had an abstract pattern and the glass was multi-coloured and of different shapes and sizes. It was multi-faceted as we all are, if we really look at ourselves.

I have recently been enjoying a beautiful pink camellia shrub in my garden. It is near my kitchen window. The flowers tend to last for a month or so and are fading now. Their pale pink blooms will soon be gone for another year. So I have been savouring them in their delicate glory. I inherited the shrub when I first moved in, 27 years ago. The flowers look pink from a distance, but when I look at them more closely, some of the blooms are a hybrid of a lighter and a darker shade, so dark it is almost red. There was one flower this year that was completely dark pink.

I pick them and put them into tiny vases on my kitchen table, which gives me the opportunity to really examine them. Actually, the petals are not completely pink. They have a thin white border and, if you look really closely, behind the pink of each petal is a white membrane making an intricate variegated pattern. At the centre of the flower is a deep golden stamen. So they are not just pink at all.

Just as we are not just one thing as individuals. Hopefully this last year will have enabled us to sit back and reflect on ourselves a little and may have led us to appreciate that there are many different facets to our lives, other than the persistent drives that fuel our interior selves; that make us deaf and blind to the truth of ourselves in all its stained glass splendour.

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

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

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 58

As I sit here this evening, beside my candle, memories from my youth come to mind. These have been prompted partly by my time of life and partly by our current situation. Inevitably, retirement is a time for thinking back on our lives. Our minds are no longer filled up with the busyness of work, so they are freer to roam and inevitably we find ourselves revisiting paths already trod. Sometimes these moments of recall will arouse a smile or a laugh, sometimes feelings of pride, sometimes regret or even embarrassment! For myself the lockdown has created even more time and space for this, as the active retirement I envisaged has been put on hold along with everything else. But then, I have been active. After all, I have continued writing these meditations if nothing else.

I am aware that watching television has prompted memories of my youth. This is not to say that I have been glued to the nostalgia channels on cable to avert lockdown blues. It is possible to live in the 1970’s or 80’s or 90’s by watching them all day, I am sure. I discovered this quite a while ago when my aunt from Canada came to stay with me and loved watching old 1970’s series on my cable TV in the afternoons. Every afternoon we were back in the 1970’s as if the world outside was in the 70’s too. She still watches the old detective series ‘Murder She Wrote’ every weekday afternoon in her apartment on Vancouver Island. She has confessed to me that she must have seen every episode by now (all 264 of them!) and is now working her way through them all again. At least she has now moved on to the 80’s and 90’s! In her honour, I filmed a spoof version of the show (actually of the cheesy title sequence) for my retirement cabaret. I called it, ‘Murder He Taught’. Some of my lessons have been murder at times: either for myself or my students or both!

No, I haven’t been gorging myself on nostalgia TV. Like everyone else, I have been streaming away and sampling new Netflix and Amazon series. So I have been very much keeping up to date with my viewing. Well, inevitably these days conversations with family and friends end up with ‘What have you been watching on Netflix?’ so it is best to have something to share! The conversation usually continues with regurgitations of the labyrinthine plot of whatever series. I am being hypercritical. I tend to watch (and share with others) the shorter series as they tend to be more credible and entertaining than the longer ones, which drag out the plot like a piece of chewing gum until the holes can be seen in the middle.

I think watching and sharing TV series has kept us all going over the last year (as we have had little else to share). I include in that programmes from the terrestrial channels. This reminds me of when I was a schoolboy and sharing ‘last night’s TV’ with my friends in the classroom or playground. Of course, in those days nothing was streamed and nothing could be recorded either so if you didn’t see a programme when it was scheduled on one of the two or three terrestrial channels available you missed it. You would have to wait in hope for a repeat months later – or even longer! I remember at age 15, watching the first ever episode of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ and being really enthusiastic about it to my friends at school the next day. By the end of the series, six weeks later, most of the class were watching it and sharing the funny lines of dialogue. With all the channels now available and with streaming, I suppose that communal aspect of viewing is receeding now.

I have made a serious effort, living alone in lockdown, to watch series on the terrestrial channels on the right day and at the right time as scheduled, just as I would all those years ago when I was at school. This would give some structure to my viewing (and the week) and also something to look forward to in the evening. I have generally found that I have been more focused on the programmes and have enjoyed them more as a result. I have started to adopt the same regime with streamed programmes, by making my own schedule in the evenings.

From talking to my friends, I am not the only one who dips into streamed programmes and half watches them or records programmes which never get watched at all. I think it is symptomatic of the malaise we have all been suffering: that inability to settle because of the unease caused by the situation we have been living through. To be honest, I haven’t indulged in ‘binge-watching’ on streamed channels over the last year as others have. I’ve taken in two consecutive episodes of a series at most. I guess I’ve been quite disciplined!

Recently the BBC has been showing past TV series to fill up the schedules, because the various lockdowns over the last year have to some extent affected the filming of current or future ones. Some of the series are old, dare I say it, venerable, such as ‘Fawlty Towers’ and ‘All Creatures Great and Small’.

Every Wednesday evening over six weeks at 9 p.m. I have recently been watching the re-run of the classic historical drama, ‘Elizabeth R’ starring Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I, a role that made her a star. The first episode of the series was screened on the exact date it had first been transmitted fifty years ago in 1971. I remember watching the series then. It was really useful as I was studying the Tudors in A level History at the time. I am unsure whether we had a colour TV at home by then. Or the correct television set. If you didn’t have a 625 line set you couldn’t watch BBC2 and would have to wait until the series was repeated on BBC1 (which it was). And of course, if you didn’t have a colour TV you would be watching in black and white, which would have been a great shame as, from my recent viewing, the costumes and sets were outstanding. It is odd but I do not remember watching the series in black and white or colour, though I did remember some of the scenes vaguely.

Of course the presentation was very different from today: scenes were mainly filmed on videotape in the studio with inserted outdoor scenes shot on film. Also scenes were longer and heavier on dialogue than today. In fact, ‘Elizabeth R’ is a series of six separate 90 minute historical plays each with a different scriptwriter, focusing on key moments in her long reign. The formula had been a huge success with ‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII’ a year or so earlier, with each of the six plays focusing on a different wife and with a different writer. I have a suspicion that this formula has influenced the structure of Peter Morgan’s recent series ‘The Crown’ about our own Queen Elizabeth.

Despite what now looks like an archaic technical presentation, the series holds up well because of the well-written scripts and the excellent acting, particularly from Glenda Jackson herself, who has to age from a young teenage girl to a very old woman (for those times) of 69. The scripts do capture the dramatic events and crises of her reign really well and therefore were most useful at that time in bringing my dry A level History notes to life!

Revisiting the series in 2021, I enjoyed picking out the actors and actresses who were regularly on the TV in my youth and whom I wanted to emulate. At that time in my life, I wanted to be on that screen with them, in a costume drama. I wanted to be an actor or perhaps a TV scriptwriter. That has come about in a different way of course. I became a teacher of drama instead and wrote plays for my students. I didn’t become a classical actor like Robert Hardy (who played the Earl of Leicester in the series), though I would have liked to. But then I can’t image Robert Hardy directing a school play or pushing pupils (talented or not so talented) through a GCSE Drama course. He has played Winston Churchill on various occasions so perhaps that would have helped!

The final scenes of the series depict Elizabeth’s death and closely reflect true events. In her final days, knowing that she was close to death, Elizabeth refused to lie down on her bed, let alone sleep. Instead she spent hours sitting up, on an cushion. The dramatisation has her sitting there in full regalia on a large high-backed chair, gradually going silent and refusing to indicate by even a nod to show her agreement that James VI of Scotland should succeed her to the throne. The scene includes the actual words of Elizabeth. Robert Cecil, one of her ministers, politely tells her she must go to bed; to which she replies angrily, ‘Must is not a word to use to Princes, little man.’ Eventually, sitting on the chair, with a finger in her mouth like a child, she passes away. It is a remarkable scene, watching her using all her strength (ebbing away though it was) to resist death.

Elizabeth reigned for 45 years until her death in 1603 and was the longest reigning monarch up to that point in our history and for many years afterwards: until the 18th Century and George III (60 years) then Queen Victoria (64 years) and our own Queen Elizabeth who has currently reigned for almost 69 years (as long as the first Elizabeth’s lifespan).

Elizabeth I had spent the 45 years of her reign holding onto the crown despite initial political and religious upheaval, several rebellions, numerous plots against her life (and numerous attempts to get her to marry, which she refused) and even an attempted invasion by the Spanish Armada. So perhaps she can be excused for using the last dregs of her formidable willpower to hang onto her crown even against death. All her energies since she was a teenager had been spent in survival, to the extent that it was ingrained in her. So why change now, in old age, even at the point of death? Or was she scared of the after life, having a religious faith, of meeting her Maker with the blood of those she ordered to be executed on her hands?

The scene conveys how difficult it can be to let go of power. We have been made very much aware of this in recent times with the scenes that played out in the White House last winter. Sometimes it is difficult to accept the inevitable, or more precisely, to accept that there is and will be a future without you. So, just as Elizabeth I refused to lie down on her bed, so Donald Trump refused to concede electoral defeat. Eventually, both had to give in to the inevitable.

Strangely I sympathise with these two powerful but disparate figures.

It is difficult to let go of the career that has defined you, especially, in Elizabeth I’s case, when it has defined you for a length of time.

It is difficult to let go.

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

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

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Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

Meditation 48

As I sit here writing my meditation on the kitchen table with the candle beside me, I am feeling disappointed. These last months have been a season of disappointments for all of us, haven’t they? So many plans have been cancelled or postponed because of the changing restrictions caused by the shifting motion of the pandemic. Who can contain it? It is like trying to catch all the silver fish in a slippery shoal with your bare hands.

Sadly, a magnet or two from Puglia in Southern Italy will not be added to my collection on the fridge doors for the moment. My retirement holiday has once again been postponed because of changes in Italy’s entry requirements. Now a quarantine is imposed on travellers returning to the UK from Italy as well and only yesterday further internal restrictions were announced in Italy itself. At present all human endeavour seems to be enmeshed in restrictions and requirements. But they are for our own good, I suppose, however weary and annoyed we may feel about them.

So here I am cheering myself up by looking at my magnets again and reminding myself of places I have visited. I am a much travelled man so I cannot complain. As I have said before, one of the ways through these difficult times is to be grateful for what we have and thankful for what we have had, rather than dwelling on what we do not have.

One magnet that has caught my attention is a photo of the iconic Hollywood sign. The sign is framed by palm trees high up on the brow of the Hollywood hills. I purchased it on my 60th birthday California road trip (which also included Nevada and Las Vegas).

Originally, the huge letters read ‘Hollywoodland’ and were erected in 1923 as a temporary advertising campaign by a real estate investor, keen to develop the land underneath. But as the Golden Age of Hollywood rolled out, the sign remained, without ‘land’ at the end. The real estate advertising ploy worked, as the hills soon became fully developed with estates and mansions almost touching the feet of the imposing letters themselves.

I visited there on a glorious day of L.A. sunshine in April 2014. My friends and I didn’t go to the top so that we could stand in the shadow of one of the letters and look down over the city. I am not very good with heights and in any case I don’t think you can go up there now or at least not very close to the huge letters. It was one of the highlights of our California road trip for me because Hollywood and its history have been a strand in my life since my childhood.

The sign is now a historic landmark as it should be. It is also tinged with tragedy. In 1932, Peg Entwistle, a 24 year old actress, climbed a workman’s ladder and threw herself off the letter H. I am surprised that her tragic story has never been turned into a movie itself during the decades since her sad suicide.

I was reminded of her by a recent Netflix drama series called ‘Hollywood’. It had at the centre of its storyline an attempt to make a movie about Peg and her sad demise. So at least she has been remembered obliquely in the glossy series which is set in the Hollywood of the 1950’s.

The sad incident is also referenced in the opening credits of the series. The young hopefuls who are the main characters climb up those enormous letters in the dead of night and use a workman’s ladder as poor Peg did. That is the tragedy of Hollywood. People are always climbing up or falling down in that town. Those who manage to climb up and keep their balance are fortunate indeed.

That 2014 trip was my third visit to Hollywood. My first trip was in 1990. I was so excited. I remember my friend John, who was my host, drove me from the airport straight to the Pacific Ocean and there behind us on a cliff overlooking the sea was the old home of Charles Laughton, one of my favourite actors. Then he drove me back up through Beverly Hills and pointed out some of the grand mansions of other stars, past and present. And I was staying only a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard too, in his apartment.

My stay in L.A. that time was for five days in the middle of a visit to my Canadian relatives who then lived in Toronto. It was quite a whirlwind trip and dotted with ‘this was filmed here’ and ‘he or she lived there’. I remember the Paramount arch, a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, a visit to the Getty museum and a show at the Pasadena Playhouse, where so many young actors and actresses honed their skills down the years.

But the highlight was a guided tour of Warner Brothers’ studios. As I walked through the studio gates, I felt I had truly arrived. Walking past the sound stages where so many of my favourite old movies were filmed was exciting and emotional. I also walked through two of the big sets : New York street (built for Warners’ 1930’s gangster cycle) and Town Square (built for ‘King’s Row’ in 1942) which have been dressed and re-dressed for so many movies over the decades (and they are still in use). It was strange walking through these huge sets in the sunshine and seeing them in colour as in my memories of them were in black and white!

We went through every department including the huge props warehouses. Warners never seem to throw anything away and they hire props to other studios too. There in in the middle of all this bric-à-brac was the throne from the 1938 ‘Robin Hood’ and the exotic lamps from Rick’s Cafe in ‘Casablanca’ – two of my favourite films.

My second trip, in 2006, was even more exciting. I went to a Hollywood party! I was mingling with dazzling stars, directors, screenwriters, musicians and even a movie mogul or two. And what a setting! I remember it well. Spacious beautifully manicured lawns glistened a technicolor green in the sunshine. The centrepiece was a lake with fizzing fountains and pristine white swans delicately avoiding the floating water lily patches. In the centre of the lake itself, on a small island, stood a shimmering small white marble building. It looked like an elegant summer house.

Actually it was a mausoleum. And the illustrious party guests were all dead. For I was visiting the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Well what else would an avid film buff do with only a few hours to spare before dashing to the airport for his return flight to the UK?

So there I was, with a large map in my hand, courtesy of the flower shop at the entrance, picking my way through the lush green swathes to find the resting places of my favourite movie people. In my quest, I was oblivious to other visitors dotted here and there in the distance as I was determined to find as many stars and movie luminaries as possible in the short time I had left.

Many graves had small squat headstones or brass plaques planted in the turf. It was an exacting task to locate the names which stood out to me in the long alphabetical list on the reverse of the map. I was often distracted in my search as I noticed other stars I knew. No autographs of course!

I gave up on the grand mausoleums where the deceased were stacked up from floor to ceiling in marble walls that looked like celestial filing cabinets. I only visited one where I struggled to find Rudolph Valentino, the heartthrob of the silent films of the 1920’s. I had recently read a biography of him that a friend had given me. I remember standing in one of the marble corridors phased by all the names in the walls. I said quietly ‘Sorry Rudy – I couldn’t find you and I have a plane to catch!’ Then I turned a corner to get to the exit and strangely there he was in the wall opposite!

I couldn’t miss Cecil B. De Mille, Hollywood pioneer and director of film epics, whose appropriately epic mausoleum was the size of a small house; nor mogul Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures, and his equally bloated edifice. I realised the Hollywood pecking order clearly persists even in death.

As I peered among the plaques in the ground, one in particular made me stop. It read ‘Hannah Chaplin: 1865-1928: Mother’. I was surprised until I remembered that her

world famous son, Charlie Chaplin, brought her all the way from Lambeth in South London, to be with him and hopefully give her some comfort in her mental illness. And there she was at my feet, a long way from home, like many others resting here. But at peace now.

Several years later, I picked up a new biography of Charlie Chaplin when I was staying with my aunt on Vancouver Island. It was by an American psychiatrist, Stephen Weissman, and naturally Hannah featured in it a great deal and, in the book, there was a photo of her taken in L.A. a few years before she died. The book fascinated me and it led me to write a play for my school theatre group about Charlie’s childhood, youth and meteoric rise to being one of the first worldwide celebrities ever by the age of 25. It was called ‘Chaplin: the Early Years’ and was eventually performed in 2013. Despite reading the book and making copious notes, it was only when I started working on the script, that I remembered that I had seen Hannah’s grave. I hadn’t taken a photo of it. It didn’t seem right. But I remembered it clearly in my mind and still do.

Overheated from my search through the lawns, I sat on a shady bench, reached for my water bottle and admired the palm trees silhouetted in the sun. It felt right that I was there, not just as a film buff but to pay my respects and to say thank you. A month or so earlier at my school, I had produced ‘Mickey and and the Movies’ about the birth of the cinema. It was the precursor to my Chaplin play, I guess. At the heart of ‘Mickey’ was a GCSE Drama project I had devised as a result of my first trip to Hollywood in 1990. So yes: it was good to say thank you. These people had not only entertained me and intrigued me over the years but they had inspired me. Perhaps, in my visits, some of their creative energy had engulfed me too.

Not a few of the silent stars and filmmakers mentioned in my play were resting there now. But then all the stars resting all around me as I sat on my bench were silent now. Yet they are still alive on film. A kind of resurrection.

The stillness of the surroundings enveloped me. I felt cold. A sadness weighed down upon me like a pall. A chill miasma of unhappiness. Not just Hannah’s. But others’ too. In this place. In this town. Past and Present. ‘The boulevard of broken dreams’ – Hollywood Boulevard a few blocks away – is a tired cliché, yet for me at this moment, it was a tangible presence. I shivered. And it was gone.

Now I understood why I was really there. Not out of curiosity or thankful respect, as I thought. But to feel their pain. To be the celluloid imprinted not with their image but with their suffering.

I stood up, bowed my head and went home.

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. 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

Meditation 46

As I write this meditation, I am not gazing at the candle in front of me. I am writing on my kitchen table and looking at the array of magnets on the fridge in the corner. The surfaces of the fridge door, the freezer door under it and the side of the fridge opposite me are almost completely filled with magnets.

I have been collecting them on my travels for over fifteen years I think. Some are from museums or art galleries or historical buildings as I can’t resist gift shops in those places. I have a penchant for cultural souvenirs, you see.

Many of them are small oblong pieces of tin with a photo or art reproduction printed on them and some are encased in plastic squares or oblongs. There are those of places I have visited around the world. As might be expected not a few are from Hungary and my numerous visits there and from Vancouver Island where I usually visit every year too.

Others are from the exhibitions I mentioned. Indeed my fridge boasts its own miniature art gallery: there are a Van Gogh, a Vermeer, 2 Caravaggio’s, 3 Michelangelo’s (including the statue of David), a Toulouse Lautrec, part of the stained glass at the Church of Sainte Chapelle in Paris, a portrait of Anne Boleyn, 2 pictures by Emily Carr (from Vancouver Island -one of my favourite artists), an Atkinson Grimshaw (the 19th Century Yorkshire artist) and a view of Lake Keitele in Finland by Aksell Gellen-Kallela (one of my favourite pictures in London’s National Gallery) among others. You might argue that in the early days of lockdown, when movement was severely restricted, there was no need for me to visit a gallery anyway. All I had to do was look at my fridge!

There is also a photo of the head of a Greek Philosopher, (from Budapest’s National Gallery), a magnet which Marcus Aurelius would no doubt appreciate. Needless to say, he also graces the side of my fridge: in a photo of the impressive statue of him in Rome’s Capitoline Museum, arm uplifted and hailing his empire on his horse. I do not know how he would react to being reduced to an image of 2 inches by 3 inches on a fridge wall. It is so unlike the large statues of him around the empire or the huge column with its spiralling frescoes of his triumphs in the Piazza Colonna in Rome. Perhaps he would accept the reduction of his grandeur to a small picture with stoic humility.

Some of the magnets are ceramic or metal figures. There’s a mini Shakespeare memorial from Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church where he is buried; a gargoyle from Notre Dame in Paris, a bejewelled masked gentleman from the Venice carnival and a miniature plaque of the Renaissance King Mattyas of Hungary. Reflecting my love of movies, there’s an Oscar statuette, a mini movie clapperboard and an tiny enamel ruby slipper from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ as well as long oblong posters of ‘Metropolis’ and ‘King Kong.’ There are several theatre posters too including one from Broadway.

One of my favourites is from Vancouver: a small wooden scene in dark and light brown and ivory wood showing a bear and a cub in the snow. The largest magnet is a mini upright piano with a lid which opens to reveal a tiny keyboard. I got this in Budapest when the Liszt 200th anniversary celebrations were on.

My literary interests are reflected in magnets of several quotes from Shakespeare and from Oscar Wilde and Dickens (as well as an illustration from ‘A Christmas Carol’) and my love of John Steinbeck’s ‘Cannery Row’ by a 1930’s advert for canned anchovies from Monterey in California. There’s also a mini library of books from the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

However, I have frequently found that a museum or gallery gift shop doesn’t stock a card or magnet of the picture I would most like a copy of. Some of the ones on my fridge are therefore second best!

I have almost forgotten to mention that several friends have brought me magnets from their own travels. Isn’t it lovely to be remembered by friends when they are on holiday?

As you may have already gathered, this plethora of magnets not only reflects my travels but also my interests. Like photographs, there are memories encased in them. I can remember where and when I bought most of them. With some of them, I have distinct memories of the complete day or afternoon when I purchased them: who I was with; where else I visited that day and other pictures or artefacts I looked at in the same place.

There are two magnets with 19th century American portraits on them, from a small exhibition in the tiny art gallery in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. I had dived in there as I wanted to escape the relentless crowds and overpowering noise of the main strip. It was blissfully quiet in the gallery I remember. There was an impressive exhibition of landscape photography there too (but no magnets!). I have rarely spent such a long time in such a small gallery – I was there for over an hour, partly just to get some peace and quiet. I told the assistant as I was leaving that it was the best $15 I had spent. She beamed at my compliment till I told her it was the only place where I could find peace and quiet in Las Vegas! Then she laughed and agreed with me and I sweetened my potentially acid comment with some genuine appreciation of the exhibits, especially the photographs. Although, I desisted from purchasing the glossy book of the photos at $150 a copy! I bought the magnets of the 19th Century portraits instead. I remember treating myself to a blueberry ice cream and coffee in the gelateria next door afterwards before braving the crowds again.

I am afraid Las Vegas and I didn’t get on. It is endlessly brash and loud; yes the word is ‘endless.’ It is like a loud uncontrollable class except in school the class will disappear when the bell goes. In Las Vegas, the class goes on 24/7! However, if asked, I would be delighted to headline there with my cabaret!

I found the fridge magnets were a comfort early in lockdown when I couldn’t go far, let alone travel to another country and when all the galleries and museums in London were closed. They reminded me that I have been very fortunate to travel abroad and so regularly and through my travels to make international friendships. I have also been fortunate to have seen so many wonderful works of art and historical buildings first hand and to share them with my friends who accompanied me and sometimes with yourself, dear reader, in this blog.

My life so far has been so rich, most of all in friendships. If I never travel again abroad or never enter another gallery, I haven’t done so badly out of life! I learnt in those early months of lockdown that it is important to be thankful for what we have and for what we have had. It is a way of being positive in these difficult times, which sadly continue.

It appears that the lockdown is tightening again, especially if people aren’t sensible and do not adhere to the new restrictions. Once again our horizons are potentially becoming narrower and in some areas of the U.K., this is already the case. We are being asked to accept and endure the situation again. Marcus, as a Stoic philosopher, would encourage us to do this. But ‘endure’ is a harsh word it is a difficult thing to do, as we have all learnt in the last six months or so. At least we have had some practice if another major lockdown comes.

Despite the ominous signs, nevertheless, I am hoping that next month I will be able to finally take my luxury trip to Puglia, in Southern Italy, which is my retirement present to myself. So by the end of October, hopefully another magnet (or two) will grace my fridge doors.

In these last months, I have learnt that ‘hope’ is a difficult thing too, even though the word is only one syllable and sounds lighter than ‘endure.’ It is difficult because it involves the future, which we have no control over. The more our plans for the future are scuppered, the less we feel like hoping. But hope we must, for it is a positive virtue and the best way to endure is to be positive.

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.

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 and begin to write this meditation, I do not really need the candle beside me. Even though it is the middle of the evening, there is still light streaming through the window. Perhaps I should begin writing a little later when the night draws in and when the flame will shine more brightly in the late night darkness.

In my last meditation, I was exploring the notion of being elsewhere: of escaping into the world of a book or a TV drama series or into memories through photographs of places we have previously visited.

I would really like to be elsewhere at the moment, but without having to go through the ordeal of a flight or train ride with present travel restrictions. I have begun to wish that I had learnt to drive when I was younger so I could go for a drive and then for walk in the countryside somewhere.

However. though I am saying to myself that I would rather be elsewhere because of three months of arduous lockdown, these last few days I have actually enjoyed being at home. Instead of Zooming on my laptop, I have been watching the birds zoom in and out of my little back garden. Ironically, now that the lockdown is about to be eased even more, I seem to have begun to enjoy being in my house. As this is my base in my retirement I suppose it is a good thing. And I count myself very fortunate to have a comfortable little house and garden to enjoy.

One of my home activities has been to sort through all the photos on my phone and laptop. I have obtained prints of some of them to put in frames for the lounge to replace some of the ones that have been gathering dust on my shelves. A long time ago, I bought a digital photo frame which has also been gathering dust and has hardly been used. So I have uploaded a selection of photos onto it. This means I can play a slideshow of my memories, of places I have visited, of my ‘elsewheres’.

Some of those pictures were taken in Pisa and Florence, where I had a short break with a friend just over a year ago. The digital frame is too small to do justice to the epic statue of David by Michelangelo. My photos cannot do justice to its grandeur either; no photograph can, except in concentrating on the detail. And my little facsimile of the statue at the end of my garden can’t either! I bought my own little David on a whim in the branch of Homebase very near me, just round the corner. When I left the shop I had to cross over the road with little David under my arm (not wrapped of course). On the other side of the road, I bumped into two or three of my students from school. It was an embarrassing moment, but after a few pleasantries I carried on walking as if carrying a copy of a great Renaissance work of art under my arm was as usual as carrying a bag of groceries. They didn’t comment in school after the weekend, which speaks volumes.

There was one statue in the David gallery in the Accademia that I hadn’t photographed. I thought I had as it greatly impressed me at the time. It was an incomplete marble statue of a slave of the god Atlas – the ‘Prigione Atlante’. Several other statues in the gallery were also incomplete. It was breathtaking to see each of these large figures emerging from a slab of marble as the statue of David standing at the end of the gallery must have done. I came to appreciate in a small way not only something of Michelangelo’s creative vision and artistry but also the sheer physical struggle it must have taken him to turn a huge slab of marble into this epic figure of David.

Like the other incomplete statues, the Prigione Atlante one was struggling and striving to be be out of its prison of marble. Its torso was writhing and turning towards the viewer. Its body seemed to be aching to be free from its cold marble womb, to take its first steps in the world like the Creature in Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein.’

However, unlike the other statues, the Prigione Atlante had no head or face as it was more incomplete than the others. And as I have just mentioned, I have no photo of it. But the image stuck in my mind and came back to me a few days ago. I have checked my memory by consulting the Accademia Gallery’s website.

But why did I remember that incomplete work of art? Like the Atlas Slave we have been struggling and striving in this long lockdown and like the statue we are slowly emerging. However unlike the statue we are not headless or faceless. If you were standing in the gallery looking at this half-formed figure, you might imagine to yourself what the head might look like and what expression might be on the face. What expression will be on your face as you slowly emerge from the lockdown? Will it be fear or anxiety? Or relief and excitement? Or concern or wariness? Whatever our initial feelings, we must have hope. I do not think there is an accurate facial expression for hope. Because it lies in the heart.

Slave of Atlas. -Michelangelo (1530)

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.
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