Press coverage in late September of a walk-about in New York, followed by a meeting with UN officials by Harry and Megan Duke and Duchess of Sussex, stirred a pottage of mischievous thoughts. Could the future see Queen Katherine of Great Britain welcoming President Megan of the USA to Buckingham Palace?
The USA has never elected a female president, and it is generally accepted that Megan is eager to raise her profile. I wonder if she has quietly set her sights on a royal banquet as Presidential guest of honour to King William. There is a part of me which thinks Megan might relish such an opportunity to put one over the Royal establishment. Even so: I think William and Kate would willingly take one on the chin for Britain but hope that Megan and Harry also have Britain’s interests at heart.
There was a time as a child and teenager when the BBC was a primary aural input to my ears. I listened, learned enjoyed and trusted what was said, much of which was educational and helped to form my life. The wireless was my window to a wider world. I listened to Gilbert Harding, C. S. Lewis. C.E.M Joad. Julian Huxley. Noel Annan. Isaiah Berlin. Marghanita Laski. Gwyn Thomas, Ralph Whiteman, Alvar Liddel, Tommy Handley. Robert Robinson, John Julius Norwich. Benny Green, Ann Lesley, and many others. I absorbed their learning humour and experience. I also listened to Round Britain quiz without much understanding the questions or the answers, however I did realise that the participants were enjoying themselves and I longed for the type of pleasure that came from scholarship and knowledge.
This wireless input into my brain did not come as a polished coherent pattern. It entered the rational side of brain as a jumbled-up fabric of muddled sounds and shapes and colours. The other (artistic side) of my brain took in a miasma of the sense of being loved by grandparents, aunts, and uncles and, as best she could, a working mother whose husband was away at war.
But the brain has a wonderful way of retaining what it has heard, and so when I left school and started work, my brain started to make threads (connections) between my life as a child and that of the young adult. It was during this time that the brain started to weave those millions of threads into a cloth of multi colours shapes and textures representative of the emerging me. I became aware of ‘being’.
I have woven many mental cloths during my life: some to keep me warm, some of horsehair to keep me on edge, some to make me look good, and others because I simply enjoy finding out what the mind can do as it accompanies me through life. Strangely, it seems at times to think for itself. I have even tried to weave fabrics for others. But, unlike many woke folk of today, I now realise that each person, must spend their life in weaving their own ‘spiritual’ cloak.
Whilst making our way to Wells for a holiday in Somerset this year, we stayed for a couple of nights in Nether Stowe at the ‘Ancient Mariner’. The pub is directly opposite the house which, in 1797/8, was the home of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge; during his stay he wrote the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Kubla Khan. The latter poem he claimed was written during an opium dream. Whilst at Nether Stowe he was visited by William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and we had intended to visit the house, but found it closed to facilitate the making of a TV programme by Frank Skinner the comedian and documentary maker.
At breakfast we met a retired civil engineer and his teacher wife, and our amiable chat decided us to share a table for dinner that evening. We didn’t know however that Frank and the filming crew had planned an evening interview about his research into Coleridge Taylor, nor that it would take place next to the table the landlord requested we occupy.
As we took our seats the producer asked us to eat and carry-on conversation as normal, and that there might be a few camera shots of the backs of our heads. During the meal we could hear Frank chatting, but because our own conversation flowed from one topic to another, we had no inkling of what he was saying to camera. Eventually when the production team began to wrap things up, the producer thanked us for providing background chatter and said that the programme would appear on Sky Arts early next year. I don’t expect Frank and his crew will remember our cameo interposition into their lives but, as I later said to Marie, “In due course it is possible that my own obituary might conclude by noting that:
‘The acme of Peter’s achievements came when he made a brief appearance as background noise during a Frank Skinner documentary.”
View from the Pew 