The fallen~Sparrow~hawk; The dance of the Flaming Arseholes

The dance of the Flaming Arseholes     April 19, 2002

Jeff returned, the Dagda, in long beard and poncho. He immediately surveyed his domain, the progress of tree growth, clearings, new planting and general condition of the place of which he was the founder. Jeff  had been driven back from Beneficio, a similar community in Spain, by Stewart. His arrival coincided with that of Tanya and Billy and Hazel. Jeff went off to be reunited with Damnait, a reunion that began to take on a comical air when they kept missing each other.

The evening found Tanya, Stewart, Billy, Alison and myself on the Bog Myrtle and spliffs. Once the talk had moved from plants to foxes to lambs, (tail-docking) talk of other communities, horses, workhorses and their ability to drag twenty feet logs to build the cabin, hares, hounds and the prices they fetch, chickens and especially Alison’s new five hens and one cock; willow and the suppleness of its branches for basket weaving, a conversation, in short, bursting with abundance, the toil of spring, for the abundance in summer.

After Tanya and Alison retired Stewart and Billy found a mutual love of sailing, Billy  having sailed on many fishing boats off the West Coast including the fated Solway Harvester, about which he said, “There were three decks and the sleeping cabins were right at the bottom, so before you knew you had rolled over, it was too late. The boys were found in their beds”. It was surmised that the boat could have been hit by a container.  “It, the Solway harvester, is lying in the Isle of Whithorn (or beyond) and you can see by the dent in its side, something barrel-like hit it, you ken”. Billy also said “A good seaman can’t swim, and a good skipper doesn’t swim. Doesn’t want to, will do anything not to get the lifeboats out and get his feet wet, you ken”. It turned out that Stewart and Billy had drunk on the same boat off the west of Mallaig and Elgin and seen the northern lights.

Stewart was overjoyed that he had finally met another man who had actually not only seen, but participated in the ‘Dance of the Flaming Arseholes’. A ritual which takes the form of a rolled up newspaper stuffed between the bum-cheeks with the other end set alight. These flaming cockatoos, drunk I may add, danced about on a wooden ship, (this caused me hilarity). The one to keep going to the last wins. Many have received severe burns playing the Dance of the Flaming Arseholes.

This story was told by Billy at the end of anecdotes about the initiation rites of young new recruits on boats. “One has his leg tied to a big rubber tire and is told to wear it in case he goes overboard; it will keep him afloat, as a good sailor can’t swim; the tire will drag him straight down, which is better. The new recruit drags a tire around for days, you ken”

Another initiation finds the new recruit attached to the bow of the ship to shout out obstacles through the mist, meanwhile the crew are below having a laugh surrounded by remote tracking radar; they speed the boat up to twenty knots until the poor soul is screaming his head off.

Billy talked of the Jollys. I told him I wanted to go drinking in Dunragit. He confirmed they were good boxers though rough. One pub in the middle of the high street was okay to go to while the other two were rough, “you ken”.

Stewart asked what my particular interest in the slave was. It is not the first time I’ve been asked. It is a question any reader will ask. Being mixed-race and being brought up, and having expressed mainly the white side, I am asking myself my feeling towards and about my black heritage and slavery.

Stewart was under the impression that I straightened my hair;  as it is the Jollys who, reputedly, shave or straighten their light-coloured frizz, or indeed, have taken to wearing wigs. I do not have light frizzy hair but loose curly hair, taking after my English maternal grandfather. My European features make me look Mediterranean, Brazilian or North African.

My interest? It has become a JOURNEY OF COLOUR. A journey of  a mixed race man back to part of his roots. The roots that is the racist killing of his, and racial subjugation, however subtle of his brothers and sisters. Moral; avoid the error of ever denying of one’s own origins. This is my story. It needs to be told, not in fiction but as it is unfolding. Are they, the descendants of Jolly, still in these times, ashamed of their black heritage? (I know that Irma, the jolie laide perniciously directed me towards the Jolly story.) It is a ‘stigma’ they have carried for an inordinate amount of time, over two centuries long; black people have not only been in Britain in our cities and in the countryside since the 1950s, they have been here for centuries, more than we know have a trace by now.

A part of me descends from slavery. It is a sad as it is but a part of me as much as my Irish heritage and its painful legacy. Can I really experience being black? Plastic paddy, bogus black; not black enough; olive skin, light brown, I am in between (I have been lynched by whites and mugged by blacks) and by knowing and owning my that part of my African history gives me a confidence that can transcends race to stand up against those who seek to denigrate those of African descent.

So, Jolly, a slave, who fell in love with a local girl, siring great-, great-, great-, great- grand children still living in the same community after over two hundred years.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk

Obscurantism versus evolution or The old ways versus the new. April 18, 2002

“Just to think, it took four hours to prepare and just ten minutes to finish”. Alison said staring at her empty plate with a look of bewildered exhaustion. They, Alison, Brett and their three children had just returned from the south of England visiting relatives who lived, unlike themselves, in brick dwellings in which everything was at the flick of a switch. i.e.: wood-chopping replaced by a flick on the central-heating; switch!  Washing day to washing machine, load wash; five minutes; switch! Scraping pots and pans reduced to loading dishwasher; switch! Wood-burning stove to cooker and enough leisure time to lounge in front of the television; switch, or even take a full-time job to pay for it all; switch off.

You see the thing is all the switchflicking has to be paid for; there are unseen hands chopping the proverbial wood to feed the national grid; there are unseen water-gatherers, food-gatherers, clothes-scrubbers, stove-feeders, entertainers and boredom-breakers, nature-filmers and, with the proviso of disproportionate profit, they must all receive a promissory note of payment, they can use as currency in a promissory world.

At the Doon one is working for oneself. It is a job that has to be done. If the wood store goes down there is no fuel to cook and no heat in winter. This becomes immediately apparent and, like it or not, it has to be done. The same goes for water-collecting, laundry, planting and gathering the whole day taken up with tasks necessary for living.

Before the slow rise of the on-the-flick-of-a-switch consumer society there was no perceived choice. You either had slaves or servants or relied on the division of labour; the husband went out and toiled and the wife stayed home with the kids and cleaned and cooked all day. The idea of lying around all day, as Jane Austen’s characters do, was completely foreign to such women, (working class I mean).

So, the evolutionary urge to improve upon inventions; the hoe to the tractor; salt-storage to the fridge; water-collection to the stand-pipe and so on.

People live longer, they have an easier way of life; rent, gas, electricity, council tax and food bills paid; then follows a life of ease. Self-sustaining; wind turbine/generator, endless wood fuel, inexhaustible water supply, food from the ground; potatoes, celery, lettuce, onions, berries, herbs, broccoli, Spring onions, pulses; milk from goats, bread from the stove. What for money?

Of course everything takes that thing the modern world has managed to…manage; over manage, - time. ‘There are only so many minutes in a day’.

The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk; The One Hand Clapping

The One Hand Clapping.  April 16, 2002

What does that expression mean?

Gypsy John came today and I was still feeling the effects of alcohol poisoning I contracted somewhere between Billy Boyd’s (a local musician), party and my belligerent Sunday evening at Roy’s. To tell the honest truth I was kind of rampantly horny when John arrived and his tattoos were a bit of a turn on as were his massive hands, but the fact that he’s ex-SAS and suffers from manic depression since his wife left him deterred me from making any sexual suggestions.  I think I am going slightly loopy here with nothing but the clear fell to look at. I was bored today and slightly depressed but the last two days put the effects of alcohol into stark relief. I am allergic to the stuff. My breath went, almost suffocating me, I was in a panic and my mind went more than a little skew-whiff. I will die if I have more than two glasses of wine or two glasses of beer. I will keep my in-take to the minimum.

The lady from the Edinburgh National Gallery returned my enquiry into the Jolly (Sir William Maxwell) painting being perhaps a Sir Henry Raeburn. It isn’t; it is too early and they have a copy of it which has been dated by someone, by the costume, at 1760 or thereabout. So, Sir William would have been in his early forties.

I’m a bit scared about my future. I haven’t been offered anymore work with immigration; my phone is so crappy, and quite frankly, I’m a bit tired of waking up in this area. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I’ll have more energy to leave and check out the bookshop in Wigtown. Roll on the money; I’m desperate.

I would eventually like to start writing another book. I have the bare bones of the slave story but, like The Cuckoo’s Diary, I’ll have to set the scene elsewhere. Glencolmcil is a fascinating place, frightening.

Things are scary; the lambs will be taken and slaughtered in a couple of months. There are things people say and things they don’t say. Things get around about people. There is also a sexual tension in the air that could be dangerous. People take their comfort where they find it. I remember the Gaelic football team in Ireland and how I fancied number 7, a stocky sexy guy with a cute face and attitude, (I do love them built like bulls).

My sexuality’s gone through the roof. Anyway, tomorrow I hope I feel less depressed and more positive. I’ll have a nice wash and cycle.