The Zeppelin Crash of Billericay, 24 Septemer 1916

 

My friend R.R. Skinner was born in June or July 1908. Reg grew up in Bethnal Green, UK, and one day he told me about the German Zeppelin that crashed at Billericay, in September 1916, during World War One. Reg said that he was appalled by the reaction of the crowd, they cheered when the Zeppelin caught on fire and crashed killing all on board; this event, he said, showed him man's inhumanity to man.

And now let us move up to the present moment and, reading Kathleen Raine's Autobiographies, published in the 1970s, in which she discusses this same event. She writes:

I saw, from the front window of West View, the Billericay Zeppelin pass, a great pencil-like shape, and then a jet of flame, then a blaze that lit up the windows of West View. 'Are there men in it?' I asked; and when I was told 'Yes'  I cried. My father told me afterwards that a dead German officer had been found by a farmer in a field, lying near his path. The man had beautiful teeth, and the farmer stamped on his face, breaking them. (p. 51)

And then Raine discusses seeing a second Zeppelin burn and crash near her home. This was a profound experience for the young Kathleen Raine, who, like my friend Reg Skinner, remembered the event many years later; both were born in June or July 1908. But could Kathleen Raine have seen a Zeppelin, a burning Zeppelin, at her home in Ilford? I suppose this is possible, her home was named West View and Billericay is west of Ilford. Could Reg have seen a burning Zeppelin at Bethnal Green; would citizens in Bethnal Green, perhaps looking up from the street, have cheered as the burning Zeppelin moved across the sky? Bethnal Green is 8.9 miles from Ilford and Billericay is 28.2 miles from Ilford; Bethnal Green to Billericay is 31.3 miles by road. Whatever the case the Zeppelin crash of Billericay was a significant wartime experience for both children.

I remember when a plane crashed near Montreal, in November 1963, and that some of the locals descended on the crash site and stole rings and other possessions from the victims whose body parts had not yet been collected by the authorities. I still remember with disgust that people could steal from these people who had died so violently. Here is a passage from a Toronto Star article published on 29 November 2013: 

Rodgers also said no intact body was found either, only parts. There were 111 passengers and seven crew aboard the flight. Authorities scrambled to get organized.

“In what was the parish of Ste- Thérèse -de-Blainville, there was one police officer, Mr. Aubertin, who somehow maintained security,” said Rodgers, who also oversees recreation for the town.

“But he was quick with people who tried to rob the dead and it’s said he even had to fire a few shots into the air to deter some people from making off with watches or wallets.”

Well, that's also man's inhumanity to man . . .  

Vincelli's Garden Centre

The entrepreneur who wanted to build a 12 story mixed condo/commercial building on this site was defeated in a referendum.The fact is this is a poor location for luxury living, it's beside a huge rail yard with the noise of trains shunting, trains coming and going, and cars and trucks entering and leaving the area; as well, the small strip mall across the street from the proposed condo has never been a success, it's maybe half occupied, so who will shop at the stores in the proposed condo/commercial area? And, finally, this is a low density area of single family dwellings, not condos, not apartments, but families with parents, children, the elderly, working people, all living in homes they rent or own; it is an isolated location unless you have a car. The local residents are hostile to the proposed building they attempted to impose on their neighbourhood, they voted against it; who would vote in favour of a year or longer of construction -- danger to their children caused by large trucks, noise, and dirt -- followed by a needlessly large 12 story, or even a six story, building looming over one's home and community and an influx of strangers? How does that affect one's property taxes? How does that affect the quality of one's life? It doesn't. The age of the 12 story complex in this area has come to an end, but what will be proposed next?

Do not forget the hostages

Do not forget the hostages. Posters on Westminster Avenue.

The apologists for evil

 

       

        

To listen to the apologists

for evil, they have become

evil themselves, with excuses,

doublespeak, and out and out

lies; all the lies they tell, 

these will come back 

for them, like terrorists

    (for every lie

    is a terrorist

    killing truth)

--these apologists

for evil will be visited

by evil, they will know

what they've done

as they drink tea

or coffee, as they sit

in their homes

with the doors exploding

letting in the terror 

and war cries 

celebrating death, the terrorists

with faces covered, 

with their guns 

& holy books,

with their conviction 

in their beliefs,

their absolute conviction

in the order of life

they adhere to, with

their absolute conviction

and belief in killing anyone

who stands in their 

way--

                25 October 2023

"False Prophet" by Bob Dylan

 

In 2008

Another day that don't end
Another ship goin' out
Another day of anger, bitterness, and doubt
I know how it happened
I saw it begin
I opened my heart to the world and the world came in

Hello Mary Lou
Hello Miss Pearl
My fleet-footed guides from the underworld
No stars in the sky shine brighter than you
You girls mean business, and I do too

Well I'm the enemy of treason
Enemy of strife
I'm the enemy of the unlived meaningless life
I ain't no false prophet
I just know what I know
I go where only the lonely can go

I'm first among equals
Second to none
The last of the best
You can bury the rest
Bury 'em naked with their silver and gold
Put them six feet under and I pray for their souls

What are you lookin' at?
There's nothing to see
Just a cool breeze that's encircling me
Let's go for a walk in the garden
So far and so wide
We can sit in the shade by the fountain-side

I've search the world over
For the Holy Grail
I sing songs of love
I sing songs of betrayal
Don't care what I drink
I don't care what I eat
I climbed the mountain of swords on my bare feet

You don't know me, darlin'
You never would guess
I'm nothing like my ghostly appearance would suggest
I ain't no false prophet
I just said what I said
I'm just here to bring vengeance on somebody's head

Put out your hand
There's nothing to hold
Open your mouth
I'll stuff it with gold
Oh, you poor devil, look up if you will
The city of God is there on the hill

Hello stranger
A long goodbye
You ruled the land
But so do I
You lost your mule
You got a poison brain
I'll marry you to a ball and chain

You know darlin'
The kind of life that I live
When your smile meets my smile
A something's got to give
I ain't no false prophet
No, I'm nobody's bride
Can't remember, when I was born
And I forgot when I died

"October" by Robert Frost

 

Gilbert Layton Park in October 2012

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

"No More Lockdown" by Van Morrison

 

In NYC

No more lockdown
No more government overreach
No more fascist police
Disturbing our peace
No more taking of our freedom
And our God-given rights
Pretending it's for our safety
When it's really to enslave
Who's running our country?
Who's running our world?
Examine it closely
And watch it unfurl

No more lockdown
No more threats
No more imperial college
Scientists making up crooked facts
No more lockdown
No more pulling the wool over our eyes
No more celebrities telling us
Telling us what we're supposed to feel
No more status quo
Put your shoulder to the wind

No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown

No more lockdown
No more government overreach
No more fascist police
Disturbing our peace
No more taking our freedom
And our God-given rights
Pretending it's for our safety
When it's really to enslave
Who's running our country?
Who's running our world?
Examine it closely
And watch it unfurl

No more lockdown
No more threats
No more imperial college scientists
Making up crooked facts
No more lockdown
No more pulling the wool over our eyes
No more celebrities telling us
How we're supposed to feel
No more status quo
Gotta put your shoulder to the wind

No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown

No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown
No more lockdown

A tiny garden

 On the corner of Nelson and Westminster.

Honey bees and asters

    It’s October, summer has ended and with it early daylight. I noticed these asters full of honey bees and decided I will plant asters in my garden next year. 

On a life of fearless writing

 

I've spent a lifetime writing: a diary I've kept everyday since January 1965, books, poetry, book reviews, criticism, and correspondence.  Why did I do so much writing? On one hand, I enjoy solitude and being creative. On the other hand, there were things that happened in my life that I understood better in the act of writing; writing helped me to understand something about life and expressing this in a poem was both to discover something new and to have a numinous experience.

    This writing I am talking about has to be fearless, the writer is going to a place that is marked with signs saying "No Trespassing", "Do Not Enter", and "Enter at Your Own Risk". The important things in life are not easy and they aren’t free, they are a lot of work. You may be afraid to write something down, or afraid to follow where your thinking is going, you may be inclined to censor your writing; just remember that no one else need ever read what you are writing, you can tear it up after you've written whatever you want to say, but you need to have courage and be fearless to do the writing. How could it be otherwise? Writing has to be a precise expression of what the soul has to say, what the soul perceives; this is more difficult than you might think.

    What I am saying will mean very little to most people, but this is not meant for most people, it is meant for poets. A poet wants to write an authentic poem, a poem that is authentic to what the poet wants to say, to be true to the poet's inner being, and this requires years of writing and rewriting poems. All of a poet's work can be seen as one long poem, it is the poem of one's life, continuous and unbroken. You don't just sit down one day and write something you call a poem and think that makes you a poet, there is a lot more to it than this. 

    Writing poetry is not an obsession or even a compulsion, it is that there is no alternative but to do the writing that presents itself to you; it is what one does and to do anything else is to deny the Call to do this work; if you deny the Call you have betrayed your life, betrayed your mission in life. Not even God is as important as your soul, you can live very nicely without God but if you betray your soul you will have no life at all, just confusion and denial. Don't worry, God will forgive you for not believing in Him, He doesn't need your belief, He doesn't even need you. To see life, the particulars of life, and to express them, is to communicate things of the soul and poetry is the voice of the soul. Writing is always a movement in the direction of wholeness and understanding, of creativity, of making something new. It is a triumph of formulating and expressing in an exact way the thing you want to write, it is the achievement of wholeness over division. So, at the basis of writing is finding wholeness, truth, and Oneness with life. That's how important writing is to a poet and why poets need to be fearless when writing poems.

Return of the window flower box

You don't see many window flower boxes anymore. I remember my mother standing at her dining room window and planting flowers in the flower boxes beneath the windows. Not many people bother with flower boxes today; maybe the awkwardness and possibly dirt of leaning out of a window and planting from inside one's home is a part of the lack of popularity of window flower boxes. 

    This flower box (pictured) is outside of our kitchen window that faces the street. The brackets holding up the box have been there for at least twenty-six years, that's how long we've lived here and the brackets were there when we moved in. For years I looked at these brackets and thought I would like to have a flower box there and, finally, this last spring that's what I did. I know it's not the most beautiful flower box, it's just a plastic box from a big box hardware, some bagged soil left over from previous years, and some geraniums and a few marigolds not planted elsewhere. The plywood was something I found in the basement workshop and I cut it to size in a few minutes. Not a big job at all but it has given me a lot of pleasure and happiness. Now, when I do the dishes (always by hand) I can see red geraniums just outside the kitchen window. Maybe I'll paint the plywood base if I can get around to it which, knowing me, is unlikely. 

    This flower box gets no direct sunlight and yet the plants were thriving all summer and into fall. It was a very rainy summer so maybe that has something to do with how well they've done. Even the simplest, most crude flower box will give a lot of happiness. It increases the space you have to plant flowers, and it helps beautify you home. It is also an extension of container planting, but the container is attached to the wall instead of sitting on the ground. A flower box at an upstairs window requires watering from inside the house. Hanging plants need to be watered every day, or every week depending on the weather, and during a hot summer they will dry out in a day; so be sure to water them. I don't think you want too many flower boxes, it might look ostentatious and over the top, but it's your home so you decide what you want. They have flower boxes that attach to railings on balconies, I don't really like the look of these but you might give it a try if you live in an apartment. Having flowers is always better than not having flowers. A flower box is a small thing, like a bird bath, but, as I keep saying, it gives a lot of happiness.   

                                         

    And, finally, an inside view.

Remembering Veeto (2)

A few years ago, after the death of her mother, Veeto sent me this photograph of the family dining room table where we used to play "space command" when we were children. We lived in the same fourplex, one of Hoolahan's flats on Oxford Avenue, we were at 4614 Oxford and Veeto (Audrey Keyes) was three doors north in the same building. When I was four to maybe ten years old I used to go to her front door and Mrs. Keyes would answer, "Can Audrey come out to play?" I would ask, or we would stay indoors and play in their flat, either in the living room or dining room under this table, or Audrey's bedroom. It was all "let's pretend", it was all the imagination, it was a wonderful innocent time of life. I guess Veeto inherited the table and had it shipped to Australia where she lived. 

My cousin, Linda Morrissey, who lived a few doors from us, walked Veeto to the Villa Maria School where both were students. I wonder what Linda remembers of Veeto, Veeto was Audrey Keyes in those days. I was walked to school, to Willingdon School, by another girl, Mimi, who lived on Oxford but a few doors in the opposite direction to Linda. I was not the greatest student and I would play hooky from school, either feigning illness and then I might stay at my grandmother's home on Girouard Avenue, or hiding out in my bedroom, one day hiding under the bed. Other people have fond memories of school, I don't have those memories. But I have fond memories of Veeto. 

Below the dining room table

Sitting outside of our respective homes

Audrey and her lovely mother, Mrs. Keyes; in 2006 at the residence
corner of Sherbrooke St. West and Landsdowne Avenue

It’s pretty sad losing an old and dear friend. Veeto was so full of life, to walk down the street with her was to have the street transformed by her presence. She sang and gave everything new life, new meaning, a new presence. What a special friend she was, what a special person to share one’s childhood with. I was blessed by her presence as was everyone who knew her.

Remembering Veeto

When I was growing up on Oxford Avenue, in the mid-1950s, Veeto was the little girl next door who was my first friend in life. We moved from Oxford in 1963 and while I heard a few things about Veeto, that she had moved to Australia, it wasn’t until around 2006 that we met again. She was an extraordinary person, one of the important people in my life. I will never forget dear Veeto.

    Photos of Veeto (Audrey Keyes) taken on 30 June 2009 at Cote des Neiges Cemetery, Montreal. Veeto's mother died in February 2008 and the funeral was a few months later; these photos were taken probably the following summer, in 2010. Both of Veeto's parents died on February 28th, her mother in 2008, her father years before.