The Lockdown Diaries

Day Forty Eight:

Amartia’s Adventure - Part Two

It was three weeks before Amartia gathered enough courage to leave the house again. The children were at school, Berkit working and she had hours to herself. She would find the mountain.

It took her most of that day just to gain the soft, green pasture that led to its first slopes and when, as the sun lay low and golden across the grass, she returned, it was to a family fraught with anxiety - and a police officer who told Berkit to keep a sharper eye on her in future.

But there was, at last, the beginnings of peace in Amartia.

As time passed and the children succeeded at school, she began to love the mountain more and more. She persuaded Berkit to move to the edge of town, where from her kitchen window she could see the slopes climbing into the soft haze of sky.

At weekends, she would clamber through the daisied meadows and walk the goat tracks which rose steeply to the rocks above.

Within the year, she’d gain the courage and stamina to reach the peak and felt as if she’d ascended to heaven.

Standing on the summit, the cold air razor sharp in her throat, Amartia lifted her arms to the sky - then sunk down with her head against the hard rock face and wept.

Berkit and the children had learned the new language quite quickly but try as she might, all understanding evaded Amartia.

It was as if her brain was incapable of retaining even the most elementary means of communication.

When kindly people took her to social events and tried to converse, she watched their expressions turn quickly from sympathy to impatience, even anger.

How long would it be before they sent soldiers?

At meal times the family spoke their own dialect but later, around the television, the children would chatter in the same incoherent speech as the screen and their father would say something which made them laugh and Amartia would look, half smiling from one to the other, hoping to understand or be included in their jokes.

Occasionally, other women from her homeland came to visit but they were strangers and had little in common, and fear is not a good basis for relationships.

Although she was beginning to feel more and more isolated from her family, she could not but be pleased that her children were settled and happy. Her eldest son even had a girlfriend. Berkit was valued in his work and promoted.

Amartia tried hard to remember all this when her husband accused her of not trying.

She was trying, she was trying very hard but in this race to belong, to be winners, they were all so much swifter than she - and without knowing it, had long since left her behind.

She bought a small tent and a sleeping bag and every now and then, perhaps when Berkit was away on business, Amartia would spend a night with the mountain.

They conversed gently and long after sunset and as the nocturnal birds hunted in swift silence across the rocky outcrops and sheep bleated far below, they fell asleep, contented, in each other’s arms.

The family became used to her eccentric but harmless preoccupation with the mountain and Berkit referred to her trips indulgently as ‘Amartia’s adventures.’

At the beginning of their tenth year in The New Country, when her eldest boy announced his intention to marry, Amartia’s heart leaped with pure delight.

Berkit would find the couple a small house nearby and she would help her new daughter-in-law, maybe at last learn enough of the strange language to converse.

And there would be grandchildren for her empty arms. She would no longer be alone. She felt like singing.

But first the wedding.

They would invite the other ex-refugee families.

The women would laughingly invade her kitchen, help prepare the traditional foods and explain to the bride the traditional and interesting wedding customs of their country.

The men would gather together to rehearse and after the marriage they would all sit around a huge fire, shouting, drinking brijski, playing the old music and telling tall tales.

In this atmosphere of festivity and peace, Amartia might even find the courage to face the haunting ghosts of her past.

But the young man, with his father’s approval, had decided upon a modern, ten minute ceremony in an air-conditioned office and then, with rapid goodbyes, left with his wife for their new home and jobs, two hundred miles away.

‘You must understand,’ Berkit had told her, ‘our children are citizens of this country now, and that’s the way they do things here.’

Amartia went to the mountain and the mountain held out its arms and she wept on its broad and comforting breast.

A slight mist veiled the town as Amartia, wedding sorrow now behind her, resumed her climb, the pack bumping against her shoulder as she sought to keep her footing on the scree of the steepening slope.

The grass gae way to rock but the goat path was easily visible and she continued on.

Berkit had left for a conference that morning and would be away six days; the younger children, not children anymore really, were away skiing with friends in the first of the winter snows.

She was so proud of them, the way they had re-made their lives after the horror, the way they had fitted in, made friends, trusted this country.

She could trust only this mountain, and as she strode steadily upwards to the snowline, the sun began to set, dusting the snow with rose and gold.

By the time she reached 'her place', most of the light had left the sky and above her was a shroud of silver stars in the deep, vibrant blue.

Amartia spread out her blanket and sat with her back to the mountain, whose friendly rocks still retained a little of the day’s winter warmth.

From her pack she took two small crystal glasses, rimmed with gold, and a bottle of brijski, the peach brandy which should have been served at her son’s wedding.

She folded the empty pack neatly and placed it beneath her feet. This time, there was no tent, no sleeping bag, no change of clothing.

Amartia filled the glasses and held one aloft so that it chinked against the rock, then poured the sweet, fiery liquid down in one, traditional draft.

There was so much to celebrate and each celebration demanded a toast. She filled the glasses again.

A chill wind curled around her raised arm and she laughed, feeling the mountain’s embrace as it rejoiced with her.

As she drank the second toast, it began to snow.

Day Forty Seven

Amartia’s Adventure - Part One

Amartia was determined to gain the summit of the mountain and with head bowed, continued upwards.

After a while, she stopped and turned on the narrow path, putting one trembling hand to her chest which lifted as she drew in the cool, sharp air.

Below her, the town looked toy-like, with lights beginning to come on in the gathering dusk.

Her house though, would be dark.

House; that’s was what it was, just a house, not a home.

Home was a thousand, maybe ten thousand miles away?

Light years away. Ten, dark years away.

Amartia had never really known the true reason for the conflagration; only that the first faint flickerings of unease in the country had built to a blaze of resentment and jealousy.

Fanned by radio and newspaper stories, which spoke of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ the hatred had taken hold like a bush fire.

What an odd phrase that was. ‘ Cleansing’ meant getting rid of dirt. Had they changed overnight from good neighbours to bad rubbish?

Families with whom they had laughed, danced and talked; people they had loved, yes, loved for decades, suddenly turned upon them and acted as if they were sworn enemies.

Why? How could this be, Amartia and Berkit had asked - and the replies had torn out their hearts.

When the soldiers came, Amartia had been sure she would perish from the sheer terror of it. Forced roughly from their home, to the sound of gunfire and dangerous malice, she had clutched her youngest child to her breast and fled.

With Berkit shouting for her to keep going, and urging along the other two terrified children, they had feared all the time that the machine guns would open up their backs as they fled.

They had run until they could run no more and fallen, exhausted into a drainage ditch, knowing they were still not safe.

Eventually, it had become obvious that this was ‘ethnic cleansing’ on a monstrous scale. A whole, terrorised community had made their dumbfounded way to the border - their only chance of escape.

Unable to see in their survival, any glimmer of optimism, they were too shocked to help each other, too devastated even to think.

In the refugee camp they had been given the basics, a blanket, a place to sleep, access (if one was prepared to wait, and many were not) to inadequate toilets.

All day, for weeks, they lay beneath the canvasses of the tent city and tried to will life to stop.

Some of them succeeded.

Amartia found she was incapable of any feeling; her skeleton lived in a void in which emotion had been totally suspended.

She did not know how to sleep any more, it was as if this knowledge had been taken from her along with everything else. She would lie immobile, her face to the sky and not one single word in her head.

Eventually her eyes would close mechanically and she would become unconscious but this was not sleep.

One day Berkit explained they were to move, begin a new life in a new country, and the abandoned shell that was Amartia walked with her husband and children to a plane and after a few hours of flying, walked off again into an alien land.

They had been in The New Country four months before she left the new house.

The interpreter from the refugee agency had taken her to an orientation class, where someone had shown them how to use the telephone, pressing the three numbers which were vital in an emergency.

‘If you need fire, police or ambulance urgently,’ they were told.

Amartia had raised her hand and asked: ‘If I do this, will the people who answer speak my language?’ The class had laughed but Amartia had known they all shared her fear.

The following month, her eldest son persuaded her to accompany him to the supermarket.

‘You must try Mum,’ he had said, ‘we live here now, you’ve got to try.’

On the way there, the signs made no sense.

In the shop, there was not a tin or packet or label she could read.

The conversations all around her could have been dogs barking for all she could comprehend.

When, momentarily, she lost her son down a crowded aisle, she panicked, almost collapsing from dread, realising she could not ask for help or directions, she had no idea where she lived. She could not even explain who she was.

She wasn’t sure she knew who she was anymore.

All the way back, as her son tried to comfort her and explain she would soon get used to things, she trembled with a sort of bleak hopelessness.

Then, as they turned a corner, she saw, rising high above the town, a mountain of such beauty the breath was taken from her and she was suddenly still with joy.

It was a mountain from her childhood, the guardian of her dreams.

Part Two tomorrow....

Day Forty Six

What’s in a name?

When we lived in Cornwall, my son and I went to a folk festival in a delightful place called Skinner’s Bottom, which so amused my little boy that we didn’t worry about the torrential rain which swamped our tent.

Having such an ancient history and suffering many invasions, Great Britain has many unusual place names: Norse, Anglo Saxon and Roman.

Pratt’s Bottom also amuses more than school children and there are many ‘Bottoms’ in the UK, it simply means a valley or deep hollow.

Scratchy Bottom in Dorset was featured in the film, ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ and is not far from the hamlet of Shitterton voted ‘Britain’s worst place name’ in 2012.

Residents however, are proud of their 1,000 year history; the name accurately describes a place which was set aside to function as a community lavatory.

What a pity it’s a long way from Peover Superior in Cheshire.

In 2012, as a result of multiple thefts of the Shittington sign, a group of residents chipped in to buy a 1.5 ton block of local Purbeck Stone to replace them.

Try pinching that!

If you want quiet nights, better not live in Great Snoring, or Snoring Magna in Norfolk. The 1086 Domesday Book uses the Saxon name, Snarringes, the name of an inhabitant called Snear.

I wonder if he snored? Snear the Snorer.

It stands by the River Stiffkey, pronounced ‘Stewkey’. In fact the area has been famous for its cockles, an edible saltwater clam, called ‘Stewkey Blues.’

Barton in the Beans, Leicestershire, was part of the lands given to Hugh de Grandmesne by William the Conqueror.

The village, also known as Barton-in-Fabris was famous for growing Broad Beans vicia faba. Over time, Barton in Fabris became Barton Beans.

Curry Mallet is in Somerset and in 1086, owned by Roger de Courselles and later,, in 1215 by Willliam Malet one of the Barons who hammered King John into signing the Magna Carta.

The Manor House is the site of supernatural apparitions: a woman in Elizabethan dress and a man who marches up and down. Several people have also heard sword fights, metal against metal.

Possibly this only happens when they’ve eaten a particularly hot Vindaloo?

Or maybe they’ve just arrived in Curry Mallet from Nether Wallop, the ancient village used in the Miss Marple films.

Nether Wallop, named Britains Prettiest Village.

In various parts of the British Isles, you’ll find Throop, Droop and Shepton Mallet; Plumpton, Lickfold, Warninglid and New Invention.

Marsh Gibbon, Bishop's Itchington and Queen Camel.

A possibly Bronze Age megalith on Blubberhouse Moor

Blubberhouses on the Yorkshire moors has nothing to do with whales.

This unpreposessing name has prettier, Anglo-Saxon origins, meaning, 'a house by a bubbling stream.'

Not too far away you’ll find Wetwang and Wetwang Slack, Norse names said to indicate a wet or marshy field. As they’re near a dry field on higher ground, now called Driffield, it may well be true.

Heaton Royds Farm at Six Days Only

When I was a girl, I often walked to Six Days Only a small hamlet on Shay Lane in Heaton.

Here, I and any other walker taking this popular route, could knock on the door of a small cottage and ask for non-alcoholic Nettle Beer. It cost 6d (sixpence) at the time and was absolutely delicious.

Adjacent to the cottages was a large market garden, the Head Gardener being a Mr Gudgeon, who told me the strange name came from Victorian times.

The cottagers used to sell Nettle and Ginger Beer plus produce from the gardens.

However, Sunday was by far the busiest time for passing trade, as most people loved to take this walk after Sunday dinner.

Young men would often stop and ask for posies for their sweethearts.

The demand for refreshments, especially in Summer, became too much. So the farm owner put up a sign, “Six Days Only” and the name stuck.

Another place familiar to my family is the Cornish hamlet of Indian Queens, not too far from Summercourt, whose annual Fair is, at 800 years, the oldest in Britain.

Indian Queens, in Cornish Myghternes Eyndek, had at one time a coaching inn of the same name, on a plot called White Splat (yes, seagulls come to mind, it’s only 7km from the sea at Newquay).

It is said the name was given as a result of the legend which states Pocahontas, princess of the Powhatan nation, she who saved John Smith from death, stayed in the area.

Pocahontas - Rebecca

But wait…. There’s another legend:

A Portuguese princess landed at Falmouth and stayed the night at the inn.
Local people, unfamiliar with the Portugese but aware Indian traders had darker skin, assumed she was from Calcutta.

Place names tell the history of a country and each one has its idiosycrasies; it's fascinating to know and imagine how they all came about.

Day Forty Five

‘The law is an ass….’

When Lord Denning said that, he wasn’t implying the Law was foolish, although that’s how it’s frequently interpreted. He was explaining that the law has to bear many heavy burdens, including when people bring claims to court which are downright stupid.

But with laws like the following, Denning’s words could be taken either way.

It’s still the case in the UK, that beached whales, dolphins and sturgeons (the source of caviar) must be offered to the Monarch first. In 2004 a man who caught a 113 Kg (250 Sturgeon did just that.

The Queen declined, saying she’d already arrange to have beans on toast for tea.

The fish, nicknamed Stanley is now in the Natural History Museum in London.

Incredibly, the fisherman was then subject to a police investigation based on the mediaeval (1300) law, which states that deliberately catching a sturgeon is illegal.

Other bizarre legislation from 1313 makes it illegal to wear armour in Parliament; to be drunk in charge of cattle and “to handle a salmon in suspicious circumstances”. ‘Evening Officer, this salmon asked me to keep it warm under my coat.’

Next time you’re down the Fox and Ferret for a bevvy with the boys, remember it’s illegal to be intoxicated in a pub, or for the landlord to serve anyone who is obviously drunk. Some landlords turn a blinde eye to the pie-eyed but that 1872, Licensing Act is still in force. But rarely enforced.

It’s no wonder The Met need more boots on the ground, they’re constantly stopping joiners, cleaners and small Victorian children. It’s illegal to carry a plank, ladder, wheel, pole, cask, placard or hoop along a pavement in the Metropolitan Police District.

You’ll also be carpeted if you beat or shake any rug or mat, although you can beat the living daylights out of a doormat as long as it’s before 8am.

As if that isn’t enough, the police can feel your collar for flying kites, playing annoying games and sliding on ice or snow in the street.

If you’re late for work, don’t jump the queue in the Tube ticket hall, that too is illegal.

Due to the sad decline of archery skills, the Unlawful Games Act of 1541 was brought in. It required every Englishman younger than 60 to keep a longbow and regularly practice archery. This law, whilst revised in 1943 was not repealed until 1960.

The courageous Jack Churchill

One man who took this law seriously was ‘Fighting Jack’ (some called him ‘Mad Jack’) Churchill DSO & Bar, MC & Bar, who fought gallantly in the Second World War with sword and long bow.

Mad Jack leading a charge. Extreme right - with sword

Some of these laws would drive you mad but under but The Madhouses Act 1774 it’s an offence to keep more than one lunatic without a licence.

Another law brought in during the 1300’s, referred to Bubonic Plague and made it illegal to enter a public carriage. That law was repealed, to be replaced by the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 but that section is still in force and tragically relevant today.

“No person who is known to be suffering from a notifiable infectious disease may enter a bus or taxi without notifying the driver.”

If all this sounds too risky, don’t think emigrating to the USA will help. In Colorado, you can own a catapult but can't use it, worse you can’t fire flaming arrows either. I think they’ve been watching too many western movies.

In Yorkshire, where I and fish and chips originated, most people prefer to eat them with their (previously washed one hopes) fingers. In Georgia, they’ve gone further. It’s actually illegal to eat fried chicken with utensils of any kind. Finger lickin’ good only.

In Connecticut pickles must bounce! Connecticut’s Food and Drug Commissioner says they should bounce when dropped from the height of one foot. Mmm, but would you really want to eat them afterwards?

In Salem, where, you may remember, they used to burn witches, it’s wise not to have a house fire. If you and your spouse leap naked from your bed to escape the flames, you’ve committed a crime. It's illegal for a married couple to sleep nude.

No mention of what happens if you’re not married. Maybe in Salem they can’t imagine people could ever sleep in the same bed before marriage, unless the devil made them do it.

Don’t try to sell your children in Florida, however annoying they are and if your grandparents live in Vermont, remind them that grandma must get written permission from her spouse before she can wear false teeth.

If only he'd give me that dratted letter I could look like Sophia Loren

Planning to travel to Japan any time soon? Think twice if you have a nasal allergy or a bunged up nose. Vicks inhalers and over-the-counter sinus medications are banned.

Dressing like this in Saudi Arabia, Jamaica and Barbados, can get you sent to the glasshouse.

Some myths about the law include:

‘Women cannot each chocolate on public transport.'

Totally untrue according to the experts at Cadbury's.

It is illegal to destroy money. No, it’s not but if you deface money by writing on it or drawing a moustache on the Queen - that IS illegal under Currency and Banknotes Act 1928.

One popular myth is that you can happily get off your face on ganja in Jamaica.

It’s illegal to use or possess Mary Jane, Dak, Grass or Weed, although the Jamaican government has made special provision for genuine use by those following the Rastafarian religion, in which cannabis is an important part.

https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/03/Legal_Oddities.pdf

Day Forty Four

In the beginning……..

Maori myths and legends are a rich heritage source in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Like all Creation stories, they begin with nothing, a void, Te Kore.

Gradually, through many stages, the light arrives and then the earth and sky: Papatūānuku the Earth Mother and Ranginui, the Sky Father. Often shortened to Rangi and Papa.

In contrast to many other cultural myths, there’s a great deal of humour in Maori legend, which nearly always seeks to explain ‘why things are’.

For instance, in Maori legend it’s not the face of the man in the moon you can see, but woman.

Rona, on her way by moonlight to fetch water is hurrying down the path to the river when the Moon (Marama) goes behind a cloud.

The sudden darkness causes her to trip over a root of the Ngaio tree and break the pot she was carrying.

Angrily, and probably in quite un-ladylike language she yells at Marama, who scoops her up. So that’s why we see a face in the moon, it’s Rona.

But back to the beginning.

Rangi protects Papa, his partner by holding her close and between them, live their 70 children.

As all children do eventually, they want freedom.

The sons discuss this and impetuous, warlike Tu-matuenga (Tu) wants to kill his parents but Tane-mahuta (Tane) the god of forests, argues against this unnecessary violence, saying they should simply push them apart.

Tumatuenga - god of war

All agree except Tawhiri-matea, god of the winds and weather who thinks his parents should be allowed to stay together.

But the parting goes ahead and after many of the brothers try and fail, Tane succeeds by lying on his back and pushing upwards until Rangi, weeping with grief at the loss of his darling, is far above.

Tane separates his parents

Tangaroa - god of the oceans

Tawhirimatea is so angry he sends hurricanes to knock down Tane’s trees, harries his other siblings and drives Tangaroa, god of the sea and his progeny into the ocean.

For every aspect of the natural world, there is a god, a child of Rangi and Papa but it’s Maui the Trickster who is beloved by children and adults alike.

Maui is a rascal, a demi-god. His exploits are often humorous and usually to the benefit of humans.

When he decides the days need to be longer, he throws a net over the Sun to slow him down and stop him sinking into the sea.

He tricks his grandmother, Mahuika, goddess of fire, into giving him a flame from her fingers, so everyone can have cooked food and warmth in winter.

When Maui goes fishing, his waka (canoe) is the South Island (Te Wai Pounāmu) and during this epic trip, his catch is the North Island, forever after known as The Fish of Maui (Te Ika ā Maui)

However, his daring and cheekiness are his undoing.

In his desire to help humans become immortal, he decides to crawl into the body of Hine-nui-te-po, the goddess of the night who receives souls after death.

By doing this, he hopes to stop death itself.

He waits until she is asleep and then crawling between her legs, disguised as a worm, he starts his journey upwards.

The fantail, seeing this comical sight cannot help but laugh and this wakens Hinenui who is so angry she crushes Maui with the obsidian teeth in her vagina.

But Maui lives on, immortal and beloved in the many Maori legends.