I used to think I wouldn’t live past forty. Live fast; burn out. It doesn’t work like that. I guess I thought that life wasn’t worth living past forty. What was the point? I wouldn’t want to go on. But I tell you, life is always worth living. You never reach a point where you want it over (at least I haven’t yet).
I’ve done more since I turned sixty than I did in the whole rest of my life before that.
Here I am at seventy-five. No sign of death. My blood pressure’s a bit up. My cholesterol level was raised. I developed type 2 diabetes. But, I changed my diet and lost twenty pounds. I take a few pills and hey presto everything is good.
My right hip aches sometimes but we walked five miles yesterday. No pain. I’m not in bad shape.
My eye-sight is OK. I have to wear glasses. One cataract op and another looming for next Wednesday. Can’t say I’m looking forward to that op, I don’t like the thought of someone rummaging around inside my eye, but if it keeps my eyesight functioning I’m OK with that.
I still enjoy driving and am happy to drive long distances. I want to drive around Europe!
I just walked into the market to buy some berries. I like berries and yoghurt. As I walked along in the May sunshine I was thinking about the dualities of life – light and dark, happy sad, war and peace, hate and love. It set me thinking that they are both always there. They just wax and wane according to circumstances. There is no such thing as purity. Even Hitler was an artist.
This novel is part biographical. It is based around a journey I used to make every day as I went into work. I used to drive down country lanes. The sights and events all happened. The crash didn’t – at least not that one!
I wanted a framework to hang a lot of thoughts around. My protagonist is basically me. He/Me is trapped in an upside down car in a ditch, badly injured and slowly dying. His/My head is full of random thoughts and memories as consciousness ebbs.
Reflections from a ditch – the blurb.
Sex, death, awe, wonder, fury, birth, life, beauty, politics, religion, anger, nature, love, questions, stories and thoughts are all words. I had to rearrange their meanings. You live your life and then you die. You start a journey that will not end as you expect. From a childhood spent in ditches to a lonesome wait in a ditch. You think you understand. You have relationships with people, animals, possessions and places but you can only guess at the other side. You are aware. You have a moral code you live by. You see how good things could be and, when you wear your Sunday best, you do your bit to make it happen. Your life is measured in seconds but how much of it has significance? You laugh and enjoy. You think and wonder. You create and destroy. Sometimes you are fulfilled and often you are frustrated; most of the time you are simply bored or engaged in the mundane. The things that stand out are oases in a desert of forgotten ordinariness. This is a story of a crash.
Woody stood for equality and freedom, an end to racism and fairness for the working man. He would have been appalled by the rise of the greed and selfishness, the ignorance and racism, of the modern-day MAGA movement. Trump and MAGA, with their hate and arrogance, represent everything that Woody stood against.
Long live Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs and early Dylan!
They wrote songs about injustice. They wrote songs to make the world better! They wrote songs of compassion, empathy and hope!
“I hate a song that makes you think you’re not any good. I hate a song makes you think you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing.
Songs that run you down or songs that poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or your hard traveling.
“I am out to fight those kind of songs to my very last breath of air and my very last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that’ll prove to you that this is your world and that if it’s hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter how hard it’s run you down or rolled over you, no matter what colour, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.”
Jane is a naturist who first caught my attention from her work with chimpanzees in Tanzania. Way back in the 60s I was captivated by her book – In the Shadow of Man. She is someone I greatly respect who has worked to support wildlife.
The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.
Me too. There are millions of creatures being killed daily. If nobody speaks up for them they will continue to be slaughtered. The world is already depleted of its fantastic array of life. Soon they will be gone if we do not do something.
Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.
I am only a writer. The people who make the decisions are the rich and powerful. They have to be made to understand that this cannot go on.
The greatest danger to our future is apathy.
Throughout my teaching career I have strived to get my students thinking. They are the future. They need to be aware and involved.
Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
We can all make a difference. There are millions of us who care. We have to keep making the powerful aware.
Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right.
We have to keep telling them to stop – there are better ways.
Lasting change is a series of compromises. And compromise is all right, as long your values don’t change.
The bottom line is that the environment needs protecting.
“I don’t have any idea of who or what God is. But I do believe in some great spiritual power. I feel it particularly when I’m out in nature. It’s just something that’s bigger and stronger than what I am or what anybody is. I feel it. And it’s enough for me.”
I’m an antitheist. I do not believe in god and I think that religion is very bad for us, but I do believe in a power that exists in nature, a vibration that connects us to the universe. That is something I’m prepared to call spiritual. That is what requires protection.
If you would Like to purchase any of my books they can be purchased in paperback or digitally from Amazon
I felt I needed a positive note. While a lo of my writing is dark my life is not. It is full of beauty, awe, love and wonder. I felt I needed to express that in order to provide some balance.
If I rail against the system I find myself stranded in it’s because I want it to change; I want to make it better.
Yes, I know, that is futile – but I believe in gestures. I believe in cycles. We are currently in a cycle of fear, hate and division. I hope that love, awe, hope, beauty and wonder will reassert itself.
We really don’t need greed.
Love always wins! Beauty is all around us! Wonder is what the universe runs on! Awe is how we should always feel!
