The more I hear and the more I read the more I feel sympathy for Prince Harry. It’s obvious that he is fighting his demons and the trauma of loosing his mother in such a public manner. If you think back to loosing the person you loved best in the world, and I also include family pets, you’ll know you just wanted to pull the duvet over your head and cry and cry. Perhaps it’s driving into the countryside or to the sea and just grieving in your own particular way.
And usually those feelings don’t go away no matter your age. Now think of this child who was suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, told his mother had been killed in a car crash. Who was kept in the stuffy atmosphere of a royal residence and then made to follow his mum’s body on the long walk to a service in Westminster Abbey. Then to top it all, expected to walk amongst thousands of weeping strangers, smiling and shaking hands with with pubic tears. No wonder he says he was numb, feeling nothing, that he only had the opportunity of crying once as Diana was being buried – no privacy for all those days, weeks and months, even years. I can forgive all the personal trivia but he does seem to over stepped the mark with his outpourings of his killing count in Afghanistan. To boast about taking out Taliban fighters like pieces on a chess board has angered military chiefs and service men. Also apparently it might open him to criminal proceedings and worst of all, put his wife and children in danger, even other members of his royal family who might be a target for some extremist bent on revenge. Has he let down his military family as well as his own family? It looks like it. Tonight he will have his say (again) on ITV at nine o’clock and the book becomes available to the UK public on Tuesday. I must say I put a lot of responsibility on his ghost writer for being unaware of the dangers his disclosure of his army career being put down on paper. Was he warned, did he not heed warnings? It’s more than unusual for a serviceman or woman to talk about their war experiences except to colleagues and there have been many sons and daughters in recent days telling how their fathers would never discuss what they have been required to do. I remember my own father’s reaction when as a child I asked him if he had ever killed anyone. Hither too he’d loved talking about India, the local people he met, the snakes he encountered but nothing about the fighting. Obviously I was curious but I actually remember his reaction, his shoulders seem to sag as he turned away from me; he changed the subject and I knew there was something deeply troubling and not to followup. I’ve asked friends and they have all had the same experience, nothing personal about that time that would reflect their own deep feelings or those of their comrades. That’s what has annoyed so many service personnel about Harry’s outpourings.
‘CROSS YOUR FINGERS AND HOPE TO DIE‘
I recently wrote about sayings and superstitions and it obviously rang a bell as I’ve received lots of your own thoughts and family traditions. Not sure what cross your fingers and hope to die actually means but it was very much in vogue as I was growing up. Like so many traditions it probably has religious connotations.
Mr. Marshall followed up on my report that it’s bad luck to put shoes on the table in case the hob nails scratched the surface, so put them on the floor, step over and give a whistle.
“It was viewed in Ireland as bad luck as a body was laid out on the kitchen table, the wake table, and was seen as testing fate as the only time feet were allowed on the table was in death.`’ He continues: “In mining communities in the north of England a pair of boots were necessary for work but expensive so the dead man’s boots were put on the table for inspection and the highest bidder got them, so putting footwear on the table was to tempt death.”
The derivation of a wake is interesting, there must be more than one but this makes sense. Poisonous lead was used in cooking and drinking vessels and could put a person into a coma; sometimes it was assumed they were dead so they were laid out on the kitchen table and people would come to pay their respects and they sat around just in case the corpse would waken up and so the custom of ‘holding a wake’. It was also the case that when there was a shortage of burial places, a coffin would be dug up to allow another to go in. Imagine the panic when it was discovered there were scratch marks on the inside of the coffin lid because the person had been buried alive. What a thought. So a piece of string would be put round the wrist of the body and brought to the surface where a bell would be tied on. For a few days a member of the family or a friend would sit beside the bell and listen for it to tinkle. This was known as the ‘graveyard shift’ and if the bell did ring that person would be said to have been saved by the bell and considered ‘a dead ringer’.
John is a farmer in Co. Down and he tells me he hangs holly round the byre to protect the cattle from ringworm and lung disease. With this coughing cold doing the rounds, am I too late to festoon the front door with boughs of holy? Another country cure is for whooping cough and this is to pass the child under a donkey three times although, when they were little, my mother and her sister were taken to the gas works and dangled over the fumes from the burning coke. Apparently it worked but how dangerous was that.
Did you ‘first foot’ on `New Year’s Eve? I remember the years we’d party till dawn, we’d pile out onto the street at midnight to hear the ships horns blow and the church bells ring. More recently it’s just horrible fireworks. Friends used to ‘first foot’ with a lump of coal or a piece of cake and even to this day I endure Jules Holland and his Hootenanny, although this year it was yet another episode of The West Wing, just to open the front door at midnight to let the old year out and welcome in the new year. And guess what, few fireworks and a big deep horn bouncing up from the docks. It brought tears of remembrance to my eyes.
2022 ended in chaos, what of 2023? An expression in our family was ‘cut your cloth’ which was appropriate as my grandfather was a tailor and wouldn’t waste material so he got his measurements just right. Certainly we can ‘tighten our belts’, we can ’make do and mend’ but that’s alright when there is a roughness of money, there are so many families who are right down to the ‘brass tacks’, sorting out the budget down to the nitty gritty of survival. The derivation of brass tacks is interesting and goes back to the days of dressmaking. When a length of cloth was ordered it was measured on a rule along the edge of the counter with brass tacks marking out the feet and inches.
Look out for the next new moon, Saturday January 21st and be sure to turn over your silver money. Paul points out that this one is known as the Snow Moon and there is plenty of ritual surrounding each new quarter, it’s a time to make your resolutions, clear your mind. As I was growing up we were told turning over money would ensure it wouldn’t run out during the month. If only it was as easy as that.
I must say looking back to Christmas Eve it’s amazing to think we children were told to leave cake and milk for a strange man who will come down the chimney into the bedroom to leave presents. I remember a chimney sweep telling me how, when he visited a house where there were children, he’d have a little square of red material in his pocket and when he pulled his brushes back down the chimney he’d produced the square of red and tell them it must be a little bit of Santas cloak.
And so it goes on, all the fascinating stories from the past that live on into the future, for instance, why is June such a popular time for weddings? Because in the old days a yearly bath was in May so the bride was clean and fresh for her groom but she also carried a bunch of flowers in case there was any body odour on the day, a bouquet still features but probably not for the same reason!
And so we embark on 2023, fearful thanks to doom mongers, frustrated by lack of good government, angry at a society ‘ill divid’ as they say. Food banks still have to be supported and warm coats passed over to those who need them. And let’s not allow Ukraine fade from our thoughts. However, looking out on this sunny morning I take heart when I see buds filling out on the rhododendron bush and watch the young squirrels prancing around on the grass. There is hope. Wishing you well.
