Free Fall in Britain

Hello Reader,

Got Britain?

Because last week’s post was bureaucratic, this time I thought I’d post an easy Free Fall (see footnote) one. 

We read our FF pieces out loud. After my pieces about Brown, Steven said he had met that very man, overseas, complete with binoculars, on a trail, telling Steve that he had been looking at some tits (European small birds).

At the end of every Friday we go around the circle saying what we had got out of today’s meeting. Often people say they are amazed at all the different writing that comes from the same prompt. On this day I said I had enjoyed creating my British character. Note: Brown would probably call himself English… But then again, praise the Lord, it was the British who put the A in assimilation. Lucky for us here in Canada. Not like over in Asia, where unfortunate people may share a country, on paper, yet live and die in cultural brick silos.

Here we go:

Prompt- 

favourite

So there he was, fifty-five and fit, white haired and still with a white hot love of birds. In the front of his anorak was a slim guide book to birds. From his neck, at just the right tension, was a grey strap for his black binoculars. His pen was in his favourite small pants pocket.

There he was, grateful for the complete panorama of trees and hills, with a copse to the lower right, a church steeple to the upper left. Grateful to the wind from the NNE, at only 4 kph, enough to know he was outside of any air conditioned bubble. Grateful too for his sturdy brown shoes with welts, from Wellobies, and yes they had cost a pretty penny. Grateful to be in a land that still had pennies—don’t you feel sorry for Canadians?

His name was John Brown. A plain name for a plain man, in the eyes of others, although Brown was happy to be an individual in his choice of headgear: Not a Tilly, not any sort of tweed, exactly, but a deerstalker: Brown’s ode to silent vanity.

Out in the nice outdoors he felt an affection for the little animals as he crossed the common, and for the children too, flying their kites just as had their parents and grandparents before them. Fewer kids, maybe, these days, as there was no denying the appeal of devices with screens.

Brown had watched screens himself, back in the day, in black and white he had thoroughly enjoyed Doctor Who, still his favourite program. Next was Babylon-5 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Prompt- 

two edge sword

I was at the British museum—and there they were! From that black and white photograph in my old 1930’s text book—those same swords, side by side. The text caption for the rapier had said, “for thrusting.” Although my brother later told me that some of them had three edges, hence the phrase, “his sharp three edged wit.”

Is there anything better for a grown up boy than the British Museum? World famous, and deservedly so. Taking up valuable real estate, in the heart of Central London, but bringing in lots of tourist dollars, that more than make up for the cost. Oh, but what sort of boring adult thinks of cost? How can you measure the torch of imagination, that beacon of science and history?

Here I saw, with a video and artifacts, the five components of a clock, or pocket watch, or wrist watch. It took the Swiss years to be able to make their gravity operated cuckoo clock, complete with a sound effect that did not require any electricity or chips.

Here I saw the craftsmanship and imagination of humble humans long dead who wanted to go just a little beyond utilitarianism in their clay pots and baskets. Their lives were hard, and on the margins, yet they found time to pay the cost of adding beauty to their lives. I just stood and marvelled, because my pots would have looked like mere pots. They had, our ancestors, the same I.Q. as us. 

Hence their clay pipes, lead pipes and vast array of aqueducts bringing life giving water for miles. As an adult I was to realize that their mixed bathing, in their grand bathhouses, was not from having a more immodest culture but from their lack of money for bathing suits and separate facilities. Like the Japanese of the 20th century, until they got democracy and good capitalism.

Our ancestors, down the centuries, found different answers to their quest for security and the rule of law, whether the castles of feudalism or the forums of the ancient Greek republics. The museum has a model of the acropolis, on it’s high hill, showing the high regard the Greeks gave to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.

The Gods were there. In statues and frescoes, in the etchings of the pyramids—they have sarcophagi on the fourth floor! I manfully resisted calling, “Where are you, Scooby Do?”

Prompt- 

memory foam

Part of the fun of being a bird-watcher, in semi-inclement weather—but not inclement, for then the birds hid their heads beneath their wings—was the joy of returning home, or, in Brown’s case, to the Pig and Whistle for a hot toddy by the fireplace. It was, of course, gentlemanly to doff your headgear, and, let’s admit it, childishly fun to watch the steam rising off your bonnet by the fireplace. Every pub that Brown frequented had a fireplace, and warm dark tones. Not like on American TV where the bars had blue and teal walls. Then again, those wholesome Americans with their wholesome smiles probably hit the bars in the middle of the day, under a bright American sun.

No, no, bars were meant for the end of the day, after a fine bit of tramping along. That’s when you sank into your chair. Americans probably lined their chairs with memory foam—what a bunch of over-rich wimps—what more do you want, eggs in your beer?

What Brown deserved with his hot toddy, or his beer, was a packet of crisps, or a pickled egg. Extravagant? Fattening? Not when you have been tramping all day. Not like an American with a motor car. Someone said their housing developments didn’t even have sidewalks, except from the curb where the cars parked.

Of course Brown would socialize. Before going home to the BBC. This was a pub, and Brown was a proper neighbour. In public. He was vain about his bonhomie.

Sean Crawford

Grateful for Brexit,

Because then the plummeting exchange rate means I can buy “pounds Stirling,”

In the foothills of the Rockies,

Three time zones west of Nova Scotia,

Latin for New Scotland,

2018

Footnotes:

~Free Fall is where we have a prompt, then, using a timer, we all write swiftly, without editing ourselves, until the bell. This engages the Right Brain. Then we read aloud. It is such good practise, especially for those of us who write too carefully.

~Brown wears an anorak because my impression is that in Britain “an anorak person” is like a “wears a daypack” person over here: Less inclined to join a crowd to watch professional sports, less afraid to be different, and less aware that he is “supposed to” be afraid. 

~ I never even heard of an anorak until I went to Outward Bound school as a teenager: Then I found the concept of a wind proof pullover, as an optional outer layer, quite delightful, especially because of the front centre pocket, years before the invention of the tourist waist front pouch.

~No, I don’t wear a waist pouch—although my best friend Susan did—and yes, I’m a “daypack person”: I’ll even carry my pack from my car into the coffee shop. As I type this, at a Tim Hortons, relaxing half sideways in a booth, my pack is my side rest.