Out of the Blue and blues

FIVE POEMS

SONNET

To the great heights where hearts do reach
In Genius, and in lesser forms of mind.
To the still deeps where divers’ souls would teach
The noblest contemplations that they find
All through the wide and varied steeps of fame
In the mansions of the rich and royal –
Or glorying in a proud ancestral name
Look not for me, you who’re truly loyal.
More often, you may find me in the hollow climbing upwards.
Slipping, sliding, falling backwards, downwards!
In the wild canopy of Life my heart
Goes forward, while my body lags behind.
My soul in aspiration rests apart –
This weak lone self keeps groping on so blind!

OBSCURITY

Oh, many the thoughts that are not spoken,
Many the tunes that have never been sung,
Many the pictures that no-one has seen,
And many the things that remain un-done.

Many the friends who never have met,
Many the sorrows that could be out-slept,
Into the beautiful joy-land of mirth,
Many the secrets hid deep in the earth!

MONOTONY

To wake up every morning
In the same old place,
Ham and eggs for breakfast,
Please excuse my face!

To tell the same drear tale,
To rue the same dead loss,
To follow those who went before,
In the path of Green Moross!

Like the ticking of the clock
Like the buzzing of a bee,
Certain tasks we must pursue
While the Light we see!

Where is the key, Monotony,
To other tones to break thy din?
Not in sour alone, nor honey
Can we find at-one-ment!

Like the seasons of the year,
So we should our lives attune.
In our work, and in our rest
It is not always June!

Like a stream, never stagnant,
Our minds we cast not in a mould,
Like grass, not always verdant,
Don we our robes of Gold!

As flowers of varying shades
The air with sweetness rend:
So our lives in multi-trades,
From monotony find their blend.

SONNET

I’ve searched amongst the loveliest things I know,
The ne’er recurring moments that have stirred
The highest inspirations of the soul
To awe, to silence, and to heavenly thoughts.
Mid these, my fairest roses fade too soon
And Beauty seems to flee on angels’ wings,
And dawn and sunset do forever pass,
Whilst stars remain too distant for my reach.
The greatest gifts that life can offer me
Come not from self – nor from the world about –
But from the deepest wisdom, richest love;
I’ve found this in my search for loveliest things.
So Lord of all, I seek from Thee, Thy gift
Of Love supreme, to offer to my friends.

Amid the entanglement from day to day,
Amid the roughnesses we butt upon,
Amid our losses, and our many fears,
Amid our strivings, and our failings oft;
Amid our little joys, our keenest hopes,
Amid our discontent, and loneliness,
‘Mid all – in amidst – is the Heart of Love!
So when we are perplexed with Life and Death,
So when our flesh is sore and burdensome,
So when we miss our aim, and lose ourselves,
So when in worthlessness we are cast down,
What’er our spirits want, and cannot get,
That something hid in one – within oneself!
Is ‘mid all – in amidst the Heart of Love:

Katherine Browne and her Life Story

Katherine Browne’s voice has been distinctive in QueenSpark’s meetings, discussions, and in the community paper itself over the last three years. Hers has been a special note in our discords, playing nobody else’s tune and encouraging everyone else to play theirs louder and with more conviction. Her poems in ‘Spark have added texture to our uniformity. Her speeches in meetings – whether at the Marina public enquiry, or at meetings protesting over the Council’s delays and evasions on the Spa site – come with a fluency and force which many more people must have been able to summon when spontaneous public speech was more of a common possession than it is now. Her speeches have refreshed us with their rhetoric and social challenge.

But QueenSpark for her has been a small episode in a wide range of experience and belief. Katherine was born at ‘Punta Placentia’, a peninsular in the ex-colony of British Honduras now called Belize. Born of a mixed marriage, she and her two brothers and sisters spent their early years-until 1924 in the colony. But her eldest brother died in Spanish Honduras in 1922, having gone there to study Engineering. Her mother’s family – the Belisle’s – are well known there, including a cousin who was a dedicated nurse all her long life and was Matron of the Belize Hospital. Her father’s family were from Britain. They were (and are) mainly professional. Her grandfather, father, one uncle, some cousins, her younger brother and nephew have been Doctors. The family has also been exceptionally musical, including a niece who is a professional violinist. Katherine’s sister – Mrs. Eleanor Kerry – lives in Guyana, is a double L.R.A.M., and has done enough for music in Georgetown to be awarded the M.B.E. Katherine is proud of her family’s accomplishments.

Until 1937 Katherine’s life was spent teaching music it Westwood High School in Trelawney (Jamaica) for five years, then in Belize for a year, then in Georgetown for another five years. In each place she made friends whom she remembers with great intensity and to whom and about some of whom she wrote. The places themselves were also vivid to her – places and individuals being the triggers for much of her poetry. She began writing early in life, so that when eventually she made her writing available to QueenSpark, there was a sizeable store of poems to chose from, he prose has been recently written for this book.

Katherine came to England with her family – to Liverpool – for the first time in 1924. She attended Bedford College, Smart’s Commercial College, and studied under a pupil of Leschitizsky. Since then he has done a variety of jobs, having worked during the war as a Billeting Officer, nursed at Petersfield and in London, worked at Evans’ Medical Supplies in the Invoice Dept., and in London Transport. Since 1958 she has lived in Brighton, in Toronto Terrace.

Katherine turned to Spiritualism in 1937. Since then, the belief in the Spirit World and in Healing, have been of major importance in her life, as anyone who meets her will soon realise. The reality of a non-material dimension to existence does not in her case make for complacency about the present world. She dares to believe that things here and now could be changed if we worked to transform them.

To quote one of her own pieces which could not be included in full: “To me mankind appears to disregard the sacredness of life. Despite the many creeds, the religious claims – all of which say Life was created by God – we see people everywhere on this planet – our world – acting as if they were the Creator. Yes, we all, many of us, are very capable of creating astounding miracles out of the life force given to us. We find so many things within the mind’s reach. Yet we do not understand “Mind”. Even the brain in all its make-up is not completely understood. We calculate statistics by machines, which we invent, and then we remain baffled. There are hardly any simple, trusting, people to be found in this beautiful world. Children are sent to schools and from the outset a set of rules are laid down. Young children are told about Right and Wrong, about Truth and Falsehood, about Justice and Injustice. These are claimed necessary ingredients of learning.

Then soon the young discover that the wrong is practised, that falsehood parades well, and that injustice thrives. Example upon example follow that lead the human race astray. Categorically, the knave seems to win! Success is built on selfishness very often, in a worldly sense, and comforts and enjoyments are likewise conceived. The poor are disdained, pitied and unwanted. We ‘stream’ children at school into various levels, and stream adults into social classes, all of which makes for conflict. Similarly, racial barriers are assumed, and nations erect other barriers. All these difficulties man has created.

God gave many languages to mankind, which in turn has made divisions, where misunderstandings are not easily erased. However, with Life, Love was implanted, and this one factor it appears should make us appreciate the sacredness of all Life. But, we classify our ‘Love-likes’, and will not admit that all come from the same source, and are therefore equal. Could we not dive deeper into the Creation and not aim at the destruction of ourselves?”

In an earlier introduction to this book she wrote: “Beginning life with musical and poetical aspirations, I hope my poems will reach out to many places where I have contacts, in the USA, Jamaica, Guyana, Central America, Liverpool, London and here in Brighton. I hope that our ‘community’ QueenSpark can reach out to ‘Others'”.

S.Y.

Poems for People and Places

SONNET ON MY BIRTHDAY – MARCH 9th

Graceful palms were waving their hug green fans
Above; a moon-lit sky was gazing down –
Reflecting shadows on a clear white beach –
It was the very place where I was born!
The fleecy waves were roaring in and out –
Melodious breezes blew amongst those palms,
They blew all through the night until the day,
When flickering sun in dancing rays shone round,
When hosts of shells lay strewn upon that beach
When footprints of a yester-night were gone –
When eve’s reflecting shadows too had fled –
When present beauty moaned a lovely past –
And so it is when I look back today
Upon that beauteous night when I was born.

STANN CREEK

Often as I go down memory lane,
I find that house in dreams,
That house beside the sandy lane.
I am right there, back
With Bob, and Nell, and John,
And Mum, and Dad.
I go downstairs and see the Bluebell flowers,
And the one white rosebush fair –
The Lilies of the Valley – their perfume fills the air.
The coconut tree and the little gate
To the field of canes – the sugar sweet,
The lime-tree with fruit and blossom crammed,
The big red water-melon that the birds had planted there,
And looking ’round I see a line
Where our clothes were hung to dry,
And near the vines of ground-nuts spread,
Which good dear Dad had sown for fowls,
The Eucalyptus tree half-way down the lane,
Was white with blossoms, which filled the air
While ‘Northers’ blew cool from Mexico
As the Festive Season nears these shores,
And all the while, the wasps and hornets build clay nests,
Which hang above our heads on rafters strong,
Unmolested they never hurt.
Lizards leapt among the trees,
With gurgling necks like double chins.
I was scared of them, when I was small.
The crabs croaked loud for rain at times –
The crickets also sang.
Mosquitoes lurked around for blood
So in our drinking water tank we had to gauze
The top to keep them out and
Place small fish inside as well.
Large brown toads sprang near the beach
At twilight time – their eyes so large and round,
The frogs seemed like their tiny brothers!
And when evening came in glorious moon-shine,
The palm-fronds were like a ballet scene,
Their swaying movements in the breeze.
The shining leaves so green
Looked watery by the moon.
Then when the nights grew dark
The fireflies danced about like little stars –
They were like kind reflections from the dome
Above, where the myriads of far-off stars
Twinkled, and where the planets –
Those many mansions
On which our dear beloved are,
The weightless spirits, who have passed this way
Whom lesser folk call Ghosts!

A MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD DAYS

I used to walk along the beach,
And stare as far as eyes could reach,
Beside the Caribbean Sea,
And watch the wavelets toss in glee.
I used to hear the sad seas lap,
I wandered far across the gap,
In childlike meditation sweet,
Other lands to greet!

A sense of loneliness I had.
It made me sad – it made me glad.
I heard a passion in the wind.
O now, I wish my heart could bind
The Heaven I felt around me then!
Not worry, discontent, or care,
Except a trifling hatred, when
Satan made me dare!

THE LURE OF SWANSWICK (JAMAICA)

Hail to thee! Greetings from woodland!
Sweet echoes from hill-top to plain,
Messages dear from Nature’s hand,
Music, sunshine, mid soothing rain.

Wonderful view with lake inset,
Incense of spice – and waving frond,
Rainbow arches our welcome get,
Bearing from Heaven the sacred bond.

Calls of the wild to awaken the dead,
Chirp of birds, and rustling canes,
A winding road – all flowery mead:
A pensive joy which never wanes.

Moonbeams decked with following stars,
Misty clouds like a sea at even,
No haunting ghosts to tell of wars,
Save rats and bats and flies out-driven.

Come to Swanswick, come to the height!
If the ascent is rugged – halt,
Breathe the air, and muse on the site,
And dream in the shadows of Heaven’s dome.

GREETINGS TO A FRIEND

All the way from Radnor Drive,
To hail the day that you were born,
And to wish you while alive,
Time like your happiest morn!

Such precious thoughts no distance keep,
Breathed in Music, blown by wind,
Found in flowers, and dreamed in sleep,
Caresses, love, and plenty find.

Remembrance like to sympathy,
To share your joy and sorrow;
Never the pang of apathy,
Upon our friendship’s morrow.

Beauty, Rest, and endless Peace,
All that you could wish for self,
May your happiness increase,
With Fairy speed – fast lightning Elf!

SONNET

O friend, my heart must break and break again,
When for the last I look down Radnor Drive.
My head must swoon – my heart must twinge in pain,
And when that solemn moment doth arrive
That friendly hands release their final clasp –
O, then I pray Incarnate Love stay near;
Take Thou our souls, and blend them in that grasp
Of Thy close touch, which knows not “letting go”.
So can our spirits never part again,
So though they’d burn our bodies after death,
And flesh consumed in flame but leaves some ash!
Yet never so can spirit burn: for breath
Though fleeting! never will in ash remain,
But in that Love where human love, repairs.

LINES

Can lingering memories bring you back?
Can aught of Touch, or look, or sound,
Remind you of a day? alack!
The answering waves respond.

Is earth so wide, and time so brief,
That you may never, come again?
Oh answer! send relief,
Else come to stay my pain.

THE GARDEN OF FRIENDSHIP

Love plants a garden in my heart
Of flowers from everywhere!
There is a fence around one part,
Pansies alone are there!

Deep in the shade of weeping love,
These live forever blind!
Their fragrance the Heaven above,
Distils o’er all the wind.

Thought ties the bouquet that I’d hold
Within a hand clasped fond,
Would that my friends both new and old,
So formed a loving bond.

DESIRE

If I were an Artist,
I’d paint your dreams for you –
Out of the dreary mist
Of time, and tide anew.

If I were a poet
I’d pen your tale of rue –
Fairest words should tell it
So God might read it too.

If I were a singer
I’d sing your Heart of Love –
A Heavenly Harbinger
To link this plane above.

If only I could be
Just, worthy of the best –
You, dream, and hear and see –
T’would be my happy rest.

SONNET TO J. B.

I trace our meeting through the mists,
Of travail, and of doubt;
And through the pain that now persists
Upon your way about,
I trace an ease of load – a Peace
Where paths do meet and inter-twine:
Where life takes on new lease,
All on a Summer’s day and fine.
Then say Good-bye to night and shade,
Greet now the glow of morn,
The song of birds – the trees arrayed,
And all the beauty of Spring-born;
For time it flees – we hasten on –
Welcome my Friend for evermore.

TO J. B.

Standing at the cross-roads –
Querying where and when to go –
Burdened high with heavy loads,
Of Doubt, Despair, and Woe.
‘Take this way’, a voice says,
‘Not too far’ this one yawns,
‘Stand you by’ another prays,
Patience still – each way forbids.
Now the road is clear Friend,
We lose no path who follow fast
The lead that widens to the end
Where each abreast the twain are past
Too late to fear that one is lost
For two are found where two roads meet.

BEAUTY

You Spoke of Beauty that I understood –
You spoke of flowers – the rarest ones you’d seen,
You spoke of sights that change – of suns that set,
You spoke of woods and glens, and lovely inns,
You spoke of seas and stars, and hilly climes,
You spoke of olden days – the friends you had,
You spoke of God – and of the Mysteries
Of Birth, and Death, – of Life, and Love, you spoke!
I wished to speak – but could not answer you.
No music from my laden soul escaped
To satisfy the searching gaze that spoke –
The presence from whose listlessness there fell
Beauty and Truth, and all so fair worthwhile.
Alas: there fell an un-gained Love.

I’ve cried me to sleep within these walls,
I’ve lain me to rest but found no Peace,
Save the Peace of knowing that as night falls
I can turn to One who found release
From this cursed world of those who love
To torture and hurt the very self –
Until out of existence, ‘Above’
Seems the only real joy –
The only Hope that’s left.
I’ll meet thee again
My Friend you know,
It may not be here,
It may not be there,
But meet we will
I am sure.

No, no my Friend ‘Tis not sweet chance
Which lead’st my steps abroad.’
There are the motives, and the deeds,
The causes, that determine Fate.
The underlying thoughts that wound
The heart, that feels the mind’s unrest.
I come – I go –
I know not why.
Some blessed morn when flesh shall lose its thorn
These hidden wounds
These marks of Pain
Shall fade away, and in their stead
We’ll find the joys we’ve missed
And then the Heath
Shall blossom forth
As if our tears had watered every bush.
Out of this Tunnel we shall emerge
One distant Day.

BURROWS LEA
Written after visiting The Sanctuary, Burrows Lea, Shere, Surrey, 1947.

“Go up the hill –
Turn left” they say –
I took the path,
The leafy bowers above,
Green glades, and flowers,
And birds bespoke of Thee.
‘Ere long the gate I ‘spied –
And to the stranger, here
I’d say, “Haste past the lodge
For Beauty lies ahead!”
My heart stood still
The portals of this home
The sweetness of this haven met
The draught of Healing
Began to pour upon myself.
I walked those floors
Where faltering footsteps felt
The joy of limbs regained.
I found a Sanctum filled with Love,
I felt a warmth of Welcome
That only Angels give.

I dream’t in Silence
Where Music floats
Its soft vibrations
Meeting the discords of the Flesh
Resolves each into Harmony.
There in a room made Holy –
The Presence of one blessed,
Was Touching with Hands
As velvety as Violets pressed.
He touched me too –
What ecstasy I felt
I cannot say.
I only know that
God I felt.
Could Heaven be more lovely?
I do not know; but
I did not care to leave
This Glorious Home called “Burrows Lea”.

PARISH’S EAST SHEEN SANCTUARY
After visiting this Sanctuary on Easter Monday 1947.

In Silence held,
In Awe restrained,
I viewed this sacred spot
So snugly tucked away.
Each brick and stone,
Each scented Lily, Tulip,
The tiny Altar, and the chair beside,
All seemed to voice a Prayer Divine
For ‘Others, Lord; yes Others’.
The Sere brown leaves
From out the rustic grounds,
Blown by the wind
Had found refuge
Within the Ante-room
That bid one welcome
By its paintings, and its lore,
By Auras that were felt,
By the Architect – our God.
I could have wept for joy,
I tip-toed in and out instead
Gazed for awhile
Upon the saintly face of him
Whose very nearness made one know
That Death cannot divide.
Thank God for Bodies pure,
Thank God for Minds so high,
Thank God for Hearts so rich,
Thank God for Souls so true,
Thank God for Messengers of Love.

The Great Hurricane

The Belize Hurricane of 10th September 1931.

This is something which will never fade out of my mind. The Negro Spirituals comprise a number, ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord?’ I was here in this ‘Gethsemane’. As it was Nature’s war, people had to accept it as our lot. In fact some of the religious people were afterwards using slogans like this: ‘Sin was running down the streets before!’ The old-fashioned idea being, that God chastises his people in this way. God who is Love, mind you, is blamed in ignorance.

The day before this terrible happening, my sister and I wrote out all the bills for our next term of music teaching. We both taught music in our little studio, which was growing all the time. For the one year since we started in Belize we had about two dozen promising pupils of different ages, and stages of advancement. They were such a nice team when we had our little Club meetings – all full of zeal. We had brought ‘The London College Exams’ to the place, and more was to follow. I can remember distinctly ‘counting our chickens’ before they were hatched. So many dollars were going to be ours in a day or two, as they all paid in advance as we made out the bills. Anyway ‘Man proposes, and God disposes’ is a true saying.

The day of the hurricane our Uncle Walter, (one of our mother’s brothers) came in about mid-day telling us that he had heard that an hurricane was expected to be heading our way from Miami, and that we were to batten down our windows and close all doors, gates, etc.

Mother was busy preparing the mid-day meal – she couldn’t persuade our uncle to stay to join us, as he said he had to go home to see what his family were doing, and warn them in time. Our father took the warning seriously, as he knew by theory what hurricanes were like. Our mother said that they had never had one in the colony, and she said there was a bad gale in 1898, so she hoped that maybe it would not be as bad as expected.

However, we ate our lunch quickly, and prepared the house, which was an hired one. Soon after, our landlord came to join us though he lived in a better-looking house. He may have trusted this one as safer and stronger and not in as prominent a position to the sea. The one he lived in was at the forefront, with the wide open sea in front.

Well, sure enough, the winds started a little before 2 p.m. and even at the outset they were strong enough to impede cars on the road. Car bonnets began to blow off – one could see this through the glass windows. It gained momentum very rapidly, and before long a few more people whom we knew came in to join us, as they were caught out of doors. It was nice to have company.

When the wind was quite high my sister wanted to rush out to see if Hazel Wade (L.R.A.M.) was all right. She was a close colleague of ours. I implored Nell ‘not to leave the house’ as I felt, if she did she’d be lost in her attempt to run down Palm Lane towards the sea-front to see Hazel. Just as soon as I stopped her, there was a terrible commotion overhead, and all the glass windows upstairs came hurling down the stairs! One could have been cut with glass quite easily. The noise was deafening. Looking outside, we could see houses across the road moving out of place – a frightening sight: It never lulled for so long that I cannot say how we looked – each one with their heart in their mouth so to speak! We hardly spoke, as we were all awaiting the end, as it were – a doomed feeling. It grew darker, and more ominous as it went on. In between all the hurly-burly, thunder and lightning started, after hailstones and very heavy rain, and as if all hell was let loose – like Judgement Day as we could imagine.

Suddenly there was a calm – an anti-climax, as if the tragedy was ended. This was weird! My sister, tense and tired with the ordeal, walked up the staircase to see what our bedrooms were like. One of us shrieked out ‘There is no roof Dad’, and to see the sky was a shock! Needless to say, the beds were all soaked and everything was in a disordered heap. Dad called us down saying ‘There is more to come, hurricanes are in two halves.’ He knew!

Just then the tidal wave started to envelop the land – muddy turbulent water, and not blue sea! Outside we suddenly saw a man bringing a lady on his shoulders. We were able to open the door to let them in as the wind had not yet started the second episode. What was our surprise to find that this good little lady was a very dear friend of ours – a Miss Panting, whom we were worrying about, and who lived just a short distance away. Her house was razed to the ground. She was among the rubble, and this man picked her up, minus one slipper, and terrified. She lost all her possessions, but did not know just then, as she was completely dazed. Soon again the wind sprang up, and we had our second storm; the wind this time blowing in an opposite direction, as much as if it devised like this not to miss any part of Belize. The tidalwave swept over to such heights! We had fencing round our house to about six feet, and it was right to the top – just a little higher, and it would have reached us on our bottom floor. On, on, on the wind hurled, and it was so exhausting. There was an instrument to record the force of wind – this broke at one hundred and fifty miles an hour, so our hurricane’s strength of wind was not recorded, except in the toll of damage we sustained.

It was like ‘A hard day’s night’ when it ended, though it was only 4 p.m. It became pitch dark, and this in the beautiful blue Carribean, where the clear sunshine usually comes out of blue skies and where nightfall could not be expected before about 6.30 p.m. on a dark night, and not at all on a moonlit night. People in the Carribean had not experienced hailstones before. Everything seemed out of order.

We sat all through the dark hours not knowing time, or what to expect on the morrow. Our thoughts were agog. We were lucky as a family to have all escaped injury. There were no drinks, no food, and to find one’s way about was impossible in the black-out. The old lady had to be dissuaded, when she asked to go to the toilet. Glass was all over the place, and the electricity was off. She wanted the girls in our midst to kneel down to pray during the storm. They told her ‘We can’t concentrate on prayer, and can’t shut our eyes, as something might hit us on our heads the while’. Faith that lacked the trust that did not question, one might say, and humour in tragedy, for we had to laugh. One opened an umbrella and the old lady said ‘That’s unlucky in the house’. Again we laughed, the age-old superstitions in the face of death: Poor mortals, not realizing that life is not set up or down by luck!

However, we survived until morning broke – the dawn was so beautiful, as if to mock us after the nightmare. My father went out to help as he was a doctor. He had trouble to find his way about as streets were unmarked, and all out of place – houses were in debris and some turned upside down, some on their sides, and the dead who drowned were swollen up lying about. The odours of everything were ghastly. It was calculated that about two thousand lost their lives in those two hours, and hardly any houses were undamaged. Porcelain baths were flung far and wide; pianos were dispersed in the wreckage. Food was very scarce as all the shops were broken down – drinking water was polluted. No-one knew what to do first. There were no means of communication with even the other towns in the colony, and all our own boats were tossed ashore and wrecked. We could not ask for help.

Fortunately, the Pan American planes flying over discerned our plight. They sent back messages to their bases. America came first to our aid, and actually China knew before our nearest towns. The prison was such a strong building that it stood up better than any other building. The inmates of the Almshouse were all swept away – people said ‘The Government won’t mind’. The prisoners being exercised by their warders were walking about as if they were pleased to be prisoners. We indeed ate prison bread gladly for a day or two.

Some nights after the hurricane a big funeral pyre was stacked up with the many dead, and a massed cremation took place – it was the only way to dispose of the many carcasses and to prevent cholera. One man went beserk, as his mother was among the dead. The Minister who conducted the service lost his own wife – her body was washed away. He said ‘He who took her in the storm looked after her burial.’ One of our little pupils three years of age died. She was quite a gifted little pianist, and was very happy the day before, as the day of the hurricane was a public holiday, and she and all the school children were marching with banners to celebrate the day when on the 10th September long ago, their ancestors had staved off an advance of the Spaniards. It was called ‘The Battle of St. George’s Caye’. They fought with sticks and canes and the warriors were called the ‘Pork and Dough Boys’, as pork and flour were their rations when out in the forest felling Mahogany trees.

Now every year the 10th September is remembered not in one way only. It has a double memory. As Socrates said ‘If you take pleasure, you must also take sorrow, as God has fastened their heads together.’

Long live Belize – a new city is being constructed afar off from the old Capital on much higher ground, and in a more sheltered position. Houses are also being made differently; not so high, and with less verandahs, and loopholes for wind.

Belmopan is the name of the new city, and Belize is the name of the Colony.

“MOODS”
(written after the Belize Hurricane of September 10th 1931)

RESEMBLANCE

So like a distant sunrise,
So like an evening’s mist,
So like Death,
So like the tomb itself,
Seems the near Past.

So like a song began,
So like its’ cadence only,
So like Music,
So brief, so lost, so buried,
So rest my Hopes.

RECOLLECTIONS

When I think those minutes over,
I fear the thunder climax;
Feeling yet the tingle,
Of that gigantic storm.
Cold fright within my ears and brain,
Holds me still in stiffening clutch;
Once more my heart repeats,
The pulse of measured pain.
I can see the tide still rising,
And dashing in its’ fury;
Oh grey clouds and angry,
Take off your wreaking pall!

IMPOSSIBILITY

I could sit and weep for hours,
And yet not weep enough;
I could scream until
I could not hear myself,
And yet have voice within.

I could leave joy all alone,
And never smile again;
I could go to sleep and die,
If dying was the best.

I could dream till visions,
Were sickening, wretched, grave!
I could paint in blood I saw,
The sacred misery I have felt.

I could dye the whole world Black
To blot the ruin out;
I could bale the ocean dry,
And shut my ears to wind.

I could speak to Nature,
In a thousand tongues at once:
And yet not lose my breath,
In pleading Peace, and questioning Wrath;
And thanking Providence besides.

RAMBLINGS

When I lie awake at nights,
Horrors flicker round my bed,
Like fire-flies they change their course,
And keep me staring wild!

When silence like a mirror,
Reflects the depths of truth,
Then I feel how false sound is,
How miserably I lie!

And yet again lo! sound tells,
Amid the awful pitch,
What every reason feels,
A stern reality!

A dreadsome pain keeps dinning
That Fate has worse in store,
For those who ‘scape un-hurt;
Whilst thousands hear their call!

Oh let us be more humble,
And thank the Almighty powers,
Of storm, and rain, and flood,
For sparing us a covering,
For e’en a longer while!

THE AFTERMATH

There was desolation,
There was darkness, and calm,
No one spoke, and the ticking clock,
And the breathing from some heavy soul,
Seemed near alike.

Slowly the night hours passed,
Whilst we our dismal circle kept,
The floor was wet, and the ceiling dripped,
The roof was gone from overhead,
What mattered aught?

Had we to live again?
It seemed as if the end had come!
When lo! the dawn came clearer than before,
The sun shone out of hard blue skies,
On a city of pain.

News came of friends lying cold,
Death, Sorrow, and Distress,
Were the only trio left.
They chanted their way through every alley
And soon the Great world heard.

IN MEMORIAM

High as the Heavens above,
Low as the Ocean’s bed,
Extends our debt of love,
To our beloved dead.

Weep ye winds through palm-trees,
Lisp to the flow’rs beneath,
“Let all your sighings ease
We would not spoil your wreath”.

Sob O waves your story,
Withold your cruel tide,
Send each tiny dorey,
Safe to the Harbour’s side.

Come ye heavy rain-clouds,
Bring in our hearts to-day,
Sympathy that enshrouds,
The darkening of thy lay.

Speed Music to the faint,
Tell to each tender mind,
The mystery like would paint,
To which we’re colour-blind.

Work in England

BILLETING (LIVERPOOL, 1940’s)

Memories of my first job in Britain take me to the last war – to that awful day, September 3rd 1939, when we heard Mr. Chamberlain (the Prime Minister then) say: “We are now at war with Germany”. It was a frightening experience not knowing what was going to take place.

I had tried in vain before to secure a job either as a shorthand typist or anything similar, as the inevitable questions were: “Where have you worked before? Where have you come from?” And always it was as an answer: “We’ll let you know if we want you”. I told them that “I had taught music in Jamaica in a Secondary School, and for one year in my own home; but owing to the terrible hurricane at Belize in 1931, had to leave there. I’d taught again privately in Georgetown, British Guyana (as it was then called)”. Still they did not want to hear of work done elsewhere than in Britain.

When the blare of war came, the story was so different. I was accepted readily, even though the job was a new one – a Billeting Officer. No-one could be sure what it entailed. I went down to the Health Department as requested, and was accepted by Mr. Binns (the Chief Billeting Officer). A number of us ladies presented ourselves – were issued with Tin Helmets (we had our gas masks of course), and we all had to buy Street Guides. This was the Second City – the important port, Liverpool – a very vulnerable area, with the Docks, the Tunnel and Speke Airport.

I did not know many streets in the city, but made up my mind that I’d find my way about. We were all given districts and told we had to do detailed surveys, house to house, and the particulars we had to find out for the Corporation were classified in column upon column, which, if found wrong by Sanitary Inspectors etc., could lead to dismissal. We worked an eight-hour day, walking and standing out of doors nearly all the time in all weathers. My greatest upset was chilblains. The winters in Liverpool are very severe. When it rained it was hard to keep one’s note-sheets dry. They had all to be made into neat copies at nights for submission at Office. Some Billeting Officers were lucky to get placed in districts that had places where one could dart into a warm shop for a few minutes, but in the slums one had nowhere to shelter and it was there one was offered a cup of tea – a cup I could not accept, for fear of drinking out of an unclean cup, and could not eat or drink when faced with the utter, derelict grime. Fancy having to ask: “Do you have rats and mice?” and being told: “Oh yes, I feed them”!

One pregnant woman said she heard big things going up and down the stairs at night. She showed me a large round missing part of the flooring, as large as a dinner-plate. She said: “They come up from under the house in the night”. The children all had red rings around their eyes – this was put down to cockroaches getting at them during their sleep – the wall-papers, as dirty as sin, rattled with vermin. Many children in the slums had disfigured faces with impetigo (a skin disease).

Needless to say, I did not step over the threshold of such places. Excreta was often seen on the floor and the front door was open, and one could see right through the house to the back which was also open. Meanwhile I had to tabulate how many rooms they had – the names of the people – what sexes – if they had sub-tenants, or did they have lodgers? Was anyone billeted? What type of house? – whether Scotch-type, back-to-back, terraced, semi-detached, etc. – how many toilets, if any – bathroom, etc?

Many times in the better types of houses one had doors slammed in one’s face, and many did not answer the door, necessitating repeated calls. During the war years a great many people were night-workers and our visits during the day were very unwanted. Biting dogs had to be feared. I once opened a gate, in a rural district, where a great big St. Bernard flew at me – she had pups, and my last day would have come had not her owner opened the front door in time!

One day I was going around a poor district and came to a house where the chimney was on fire (generating a terrible smell!) A blind woman living alone came out – she offered to show me a tape-worm she had just passed, which she said was on the table. I felt ghastly, and readily backed away from her. In one house to which I went was a very aged lady who took me in to where she had an invalid daughter, who had not been able to help herself from birth – the girl was about thirty or forty. The old woman said she prayed that God would take her before she died. The girl was kept spotlessly clean. Another time I visited, and the story was different – the old lady was all smiles that God had answered her prayer.

I knocked at a house once where I heard inmates inside but received no answer for a few minutes. Then the door opened suddenly and a figure emerged with a letter in her hand to post. She nearly fell over, as she was deaf and dumb. With a lot of grunts and so on, she called her small son, and he was interpreter for “the sign language”. The whole street was deaf and dumb, so he supplied me with all their names and so forth.

Once – it was towards the end of the war – I knocked at a house where a soldier had just been delivered as a corpse, with the Union Jack across his naked body, and a letter telling them that he had died for his King and Country. The mother was beside herself, and I was caught in a very embarrassing situation. She said noisily to me: “King and Country, and you come here to ask me about billeting”. I had difficulty explaining to her that “I did not know,” and I offered her my deepest sympathy, and felt it was not enough.

One day I was saved from a house where the three maiden sisters were mad – used to throw plates at each other and never opened the door. The neighbours said: “They had never seen them out and didn’t know how they existed”. It was thought that they may have gone out in the Blackout – as it was every night!

During the war children without parents came to Liverpool from London, evacuated, and we had to meet them in a school hall and get them all placed in billets before nightfall. Not an easy job. First the R.C. priests used to come, and if it didn’t suit them they had to see their flock outside our Denominational Hall and, as our Billeting Officer said to me, “they seemed to smell out their children.” I wished that they could have provided the billets, but no, they visited the children where we put them, and started dictating that they were to have “Fish on Fridays”, etc. The children would look up to the walls for certain pictures; I had to tell some once that they had better be grateful to the Good Protestants who had taken them in!

In my experience one had to avoid being seen in the streets where one had billeted children for fear of being asked to re-billet them. Bed-wetting and destruction was always cited!

Other big days were when two thousand or more London or Irish dockers were expected. We were never given much notice. We had to work overtime sometimes to get twenty or thirty of them billeted the same day. One had to be very tactful to get the billets for these, as the money offered was small and the men wanted food that the war rations could not provide. Some were rough and drank, etc., and they spoiled billets. It wasn’t easy to say: “You have a nice room, and I’ll send you two nice men”, when actually one did not see the men. They were put in at night out of a coach by torchlight by someone tough enough to handle the devil.

We had always to classify our billets as either A, B or C. The blame we had to take after for what these men did, often caused us to get into disrepute on the districts we worked, and “once bitten twice shy” tactics prevailed with the housewives.

On better classed districts billeting was extremely difficult – it was slow work, going through glass doors, from outer doors, and having to wait in halls for attention and then hearing how they were not able to get servants, and having so many rooms to keep. I used to say: “Madam, it is a National duty – an Englishman’s home may be his castle, but in time of war this ceases. The enemy is at your door, and you are called upon to help, etc.”. They used to get Medical Certificates to exclude themselves from taking in anyone. They tried all methods to bribe us with food, and drink. The glaring inequalities of our class system made them expect kid-glove handling. It was very irksome, as we were “left holding the baby”, as it were, as we were supposed to visit a great many houses each day, and our visits had to be productive.

There were spies about seeing if we were on our districts, and we had to say where we were for all the eight hours of every day. We were told that if we were called out at any time after a long or big raid, we’d be expected to be there. This meant Sunday also, and when we had our Annual Holidays it was very uncomfortable, as we were told that should a Telegram be sent for us to return, we were expected to do so.

I remember going to the border street between Liverpool and Whiston one day, and every house was knocked down except one in which a helpless invalid lay. The mother told me that they saw rats as big as cats – in fact she had killed one that was on top of a frog’s back, and eating the poor animal to death: This reminds me of a woman in a Corporation house telling me that early one morning as she was going out on her ammunition- and bomb-making shift, she stroked what she thought was a large black cat, on the hedge, when to her dismay she discovered it was a rat!

One had very little sleep on the nights of heavy bombing, but what worried me was the Fire-watching. They called up to near my age-group when the war ended. One was expected to go after day-work into the city, to big shops and warehouses, and spend the night. I had a haunting fear of the rats and mice, for I heard that, although there were “Ratters”, the population of rats in the City was enormous – that trains were full of them, and that they were large – the Sewer kind.

I was very grateful for the end of the War! (What an escape?)

LOOKING BACK

The very first day, when Binns had selected me and I had the job as Billeting Officer, I was sent over to the office where a man who was in charge of assigning the work, was talking to the other Billeting Officers. He asked me to wait in another room – giving me a street guide to study. Whilst I waited in there I heard him laughingly say, quite clearly: “I don’t think that Miss Browne will do”. My feelings were dampened, but I thought: “There possibly could be another person by the same name”, but I felt it was me, as there fell a hush suddenly, when this brick had fallen. In a few minutes he came to the door and, rubbing his hands like a plausible salesman, said: “Are you getting on all right there?” I had to act as if all was well, and speedily answered, “Yes, quite well, thank you sir”.

Now this remark of his caused me a lot of anxiety. However, I came to meet the rest of the billeting staff, and asked: “Are there any other Browns in the work?” I was shown a lady, a Mrs. Brown, who was well in and doing well, so I knew it wasn’t her: I then thought: “You must do, to show him”.

To my utter dismay I developed Mumps the following day, and though the fever nearly floored me, and my face was swollen, I plodded the freshly-tarred streets of an unknown district – the weather was a “heat-wave”! Worst of all I was sent out with someone to put me in the way, as I was a newcomer. I could hardly converse, or benefit from her help, as being more experienced. I had streaming eyes, and felt like going to bed, not up and down streets. When we lunched, which we did for the first few days (all the staff), it was in the Old Belmont Workhouse Hospital. I was at such times in great pain, as with Mumps the pain is bad when the salivary glands anticipate food. How I managed under the strong neon lights, and “please pass the pepper and salt”, and “will you have this or that”, I cannot say. You see, if I had gone off on this note at the commencement of the job, the job would have beaten me, according to the prediction.

All through the years I worked in this job, I was always given ugly jobs that could have floored me. I was well aware of the serpent’s sting, and when my testimonial later said I had used discretion in my work, little did Mr. Binns know when I had to exercise it most.

One day a bright idea came into my tester’s mind, he (I cannot call his name as it could be libel) said “I am sending you to find out this for me at “Apple Terrace”. I thought it sounded nice! Lo and behold there was no Apple Terrace about anywhere. I searched the Guide Book in vain. So I determined I had to find it – so I asked a policeman. He looked at me with the biggest question mark of a face – like ‘All Fool’s Day’ and said:- You don’t want to go there surely?” I retorted ‘I do, as I am a Billeting Officer and have been sent”. With that he gave me directions to a Cave dwelling where some sixteen or seventeen people were living – the bowels of the earth: I called out at the top of this spot: “Is there anybody there?” feeling like a twit, remembering a poem I used to recite with these words “in the pale moonlight etc”. With this, a very dark looking hairy man looked up and said “Yes etc”. When I asked about the rats and mice he quite agreeably assured me they had them. I made a quick exit, like “right-about-turn” in the Army, and felt “England expects not only every man to do his duty but every woman also, and my Guide’s good turn was done.

What really surprised me one day was to find quite near to the Clock Tower – Childwall (not a slum district!) a whole street that kept complaining to me that “their buckets had not been emptied”. At the first house I did not understand what the bucket referred to, but tumbling to it after, I thought what hope for the colonies abroad if here it can be like this!

When we had our final speech of disbandment we were told “You’ll all be different women from henceforward for this work you have done”.

NURSING (LONDON, 1950’s)

I went to an hospital in North London one fine day seeking to get in to start training as a nurse, or failing that, an orderly’s job, and met the third matron, who assured me that there were “no vacancies”. I went away disappointed, but the very next day I went into a Sister Hospital of the Group – little knowing they were connected. Here the Administrative Matron saw me. There were four matrons in these hospitals, and they were scattered over North London – these two lying near each other. Anyway, I was snapped up, and this top lady said, “I’ll take you over to where there is an opening for you”. It happened to be where I had been rejected the day before! She took me through a back gate across the street, and you should have seen the face of the third matron when she saw me! The Administrative Matron introduced me, and asked that arrangements be made for me to enter training. Of course I had to keep it dark, that I had been before – it wasn’t a comfortable entry!

I took up residence in a very nice wing – a bathroom right next to my room. I was to be on the Ward assigned to me the very next day at seven am. Being very, very tired after having worked a week with overtime at ‘The Salad Bowl’ in the Russell Square Lyon’s Corner House. Casual work to cover my Hotel expenses in London. I was so well appreciated in this job that I was asked to stay. They all said that soon I’d be a manageress, and have a good job in the catering trade. But as I had determined to enter nursing, I had to leave.

Anyway, when I sank into bed at the Hospital I did not awaken in time for breakfast at six thirty a.m., nor in time to put on my nurse’s uniform and arrange the cap – something needing a practice bout! Not having an alarm clock, I did not think it was morning when I heard rap, rap and the petulant voice of the third matron at my door. She went on – “Nurse Browne, you should be on Ward Thirteen now, and you’ve come here to work!”.

I awoke with a start, and dressed in a jiffy, and reached the said ward without even a cup of tea, and offered my profuse apologies to the Ward Sister. She was an elderly one, and did not appear to be in any way upset. Soon I was introduced to the Staff Nurse, whose first job was to fix my hours, and to arrange my Rest Day. She began, “Which Day do you want off?” This was Monday as a start, so I asked “Could I have tomorrow Tuesday” as I had to go back to Lyons and settle some business with them. She said “Yes”, then went to the third matron to tell her the arrangements. With that, there was a storm. Back she came, rather tearful, with the injunction that “I’d come there to work, not to be having off-duty right away”! Still I had Tuesday off as fixed, and that day rain came down in torrents and I went all the long way to the West End, and back, and nowhere else.

The two-year training I took up was rigorously hard in the practical – the theoretical was childs-play. The patients were for the most part very bedridden geriatrics. They all had what were described as incurable conditions, which were chronic. We had one section who were T.B. In the 1950’s a killer disease. There were whole wards of them – beds and beds of despair. These were often of younger patients. Sputum mugs and protective masks were very prominent. Having to shake up pillows and sheets that had been lain on was a frightful risk I always felt. The patients were not as troublesome as the geriatrics, but they had a habit of coming too near one, and as I did not want them to feel shunned, I kept on dreading the spray”.

The geriatrics were mostly between sixty and one hundred. They had to have everything done for them and the hours of standing, and walking up and down polished wards was fatigue indeed. The staff were few, so a great deal of lifting and laying had to be borne alone.

Most of the Sisters had little feeling, along with the unbending regimental attitude they had in those days – black stockings, no make-up, and always one had to speak to them with hands behind one’s back. They were trivial over how trays looked – how sheets looked, and never seemed to have any personal caring about the patients. On visiting days were the only times they seemed human, and the relatives and friends who came saw all the best!

One day a Senior Doctor of our ward came along and wished to see the Ward Sister. I could not find her. Then he asked for the Staff Nurse, and she also couldn’t be found! I asked him “Could I give a message?” He replied “I’ll call back later”. When the Sister came back I told her. She snapped at me “What right have you to speak to the doctor?” I retorted that as he spoke to me first, I had to answer, as I was not a dummy, and that he was not the first doctor to whom I had spoken, and shouldn’t be the last! She dismissed me crossly, saying “That’s enough!”

In hospital I often felt humiliated. On one ward there was a Sister who wasn’t at all nice. One day she said to me “Go over to the Hospital Laundry across the compound and get some fresh draw sheets, and see you come back in five minutes”. Now this wasn’t my work as a nurse, and it was raining across the concrete yard and when I got to the Laundry I told them to hurry – getting an answer to “tell Sister the sheets were not available just like that – she’d have to wait”.

There was one Sister, an Anglo-Indian lady of high quality, with whom I became a friend. She was very just to all, and very efficient. It was a pleasure to work under her. She came in saying, “Good morning, nurse” (none of the others ever bade us good morning) and she greeted each patient with a smile. She told me of her sufferings in Hospital-life in England, whereas in India she had worked from corner to corner happily. The trouble lay in the quality of the people in the profession – culture and education didn’t seem to be tied up as one should expect on this level, in such a work.

That Sister who sent me to the Hospital Laundry so rudely got into very hot water one day. A coloured nurse went outside to the Police and reported her as stealing. Her house was visited and “Brandy, cotton wool and chickens” were discovered, the three things she was accused of stealing. She had a nine-month prison sentence, and as she was married to a policeman, and was only a part-time Sister, it was more than silly. I could not be sorry for her, as I got so fed up working with her that I had left Hospital work partly because of her.

One had to give one month’s notice to leave, and the decision was taken by me weighing up everything – the money was nil – the food was very poor – the living miserable and the end-product not attractive. When I went to see the Administrative Matron (who liked me) – she begged me into staying the first time, but no sooner I had taken back my notice to leave, I had deep regrets. The second time I did not change my mind.

Things that interested me? Healing did. I wrote away for Healing for all the patients on the wards I worked on, and I prayed for them, and I saw miracles happen. A man who was brought in from a derelict house all alone and given up as a terminal case would not eat. I coaxed him to sip water, milk or whatever fluid came to hand. I agreed with him that if he didn’t feel like eating he could still be better if he drank. He was put at the bottom of the ward, a sign that he’d soon be wheeled away on being laid out. Screens were put around him when I still tried. One day he suddenly walked out of the Hospital – discharged himself. I was out on my day-off when I met him near the shops. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

We had a lady whose name was Mrs. Service, and who really took her pound of flesh out of whoever came to her aid. “Beat up my pillow – give me the face-flannel – my cushion needs inflating, get me my bed-socks – my hot-water bottle needs re-filling – let me down gently – not so fast, nurse”, etc., etc. To bath and change her took so long that it always made one behind with the work of the ward. One day I put in the Bath-book, in the part that was blank for ‘Remarks’: “This patient needs “Service”!” The Sister called me up about this saying “Why did you do this? That’s my column – what will the Matron think?” Now it happened I did not ever see any remarks in the column, so I thought it was there for anyone to write up!

One male ward was alongside a cemetery. On a moonlit night it was very chilly when they were all snoring to see the snow on the white tombstones, and suddenly one night an old patient was climbing out of his crib bed saying loudly: “I am going home.” This was about dawn. The night Sister once told me on this ward you should remain in the ward during the night. This was impossible with these old patients. One shouted at me one night as if I was an apparition: “Don’t stand there!” Naturally they got scared of anyone in white standing about. True enough we had to walk through at intervals to see that all was well. One little nurse told me of a frightening experience she had. The ward was high up, and outside there was scaffolding put up to paint the hospital on that side, and quite near the wall. She was going around when at one bed near a window, which was drawn-to, she missed a patient out of a bed; searching around, and in the end looking out of the shutters there was her patient in a heap far down – luckily it was earth below, and not concrete, and lucky for her the patient was still warm, and not dead. She sustained multiple fractures and it hung over the nurse that if she (the patient) died within, I think it was forty-eight hours, she’d have to answer in Court about the incident. Fortunately she did not die just then.

One night in the bleak, bleak winter death stalked abroad, as it were – I had about four corpses to attend to during my night duty. The night hours are very lonely on a very sick ward. One was always glad for the day to come and to hand them over.

An Italian nurse asked me: “Why didn’t you go to work at Elizabeth Arden? – here it is all backs and bottoms!” She went on: “If only I knew English I’d not be in here!”

There were nationalities from countries like Latvia, Constantinople. One Orderly, from this last named place, was being told off by the Sister. She used the word “counterpane” to him and he, knowing hardly any English, looked right over the top of the screen to ask me: “What did she mean?” Now as I was attending to a female patient behind the screen it caused us both to be in conflict with the Sister, who over-heard, and turning around saw. I hurriedly showed him by gesture what the counterpane was, and told the Sister his anxiety to understand her. She was at fault – not explaining better to the young chap.

I had to laugh once hearing an old male nurse telling a patient, who was shouting at him, when he was down another corridor: “when you see me on the other side, mate, don’t call out – the fellow who can do two jobs at once has died!”

The Seven Colours of the Rainbow

A FAITH TO LIGHTEN OUR DIVIDED WORLD

It is difficult to know when it actually began. A medium once told me that I was coming into it as a small child. One incident that happened when I was about seven or eight even puzzles me to think of still. It was very real and natural, and when I’ve been told that “I am clairvoyant”, makes me think back. This incident happened in Stann Creek, a small town in Belize, Central America. It was a Sunday evening, and we lived (my father, my mother and bigger brother and smaller sister and brother) near a Methodist Church – a little lane ran down outside our house, just outside our fence to the market, and the sea, and the beach. Before I tell you what happened, I must say that there was a by-law there that prohibited anyone burying anything in their yard. Now, my father thought this was unsensible – he argued that the ground could do with being built up, and it was an easy way of getting rid of excess garbage. So my mother dug a deep hole under the long front staircase. In this town, and indeed in much of British Honduras in those days, some houses were built several steps up on legs, and so one could walk underneath. About the time when all was quiet along the lane and people were singing in the church, my mother beckoned to me in the house, saying, “Let us go now, and get rid of that rubbish.” She was very strict and told me “We’ll have to be quiet and must not speak.” I understood. Just as we were about to begin operations, in through the gate appeared my cousin Ina. She was a young lady about seventeen. I registered her in a very flimsy white dress with lily-white shoes and stockings. As she was a very dainty figure her footsteps made little taps going up the steps. I hoped that she’d not see us through the treads of the stairs, which were wide apart, as the moonlight was dazzlingly bright. When she got up to the top – about twenty steps – she disappeared. It was so real, that then my mother said quietly “We must hurry up and go up the back stairs and wash our hands to see Ina.”

I went to bed that evening wondering what happened to Ina, as my father, who was reading, didn’t understand what we were talking about when we asked “Where is Ina?” He said “No-one had knocked at the door and no-one came.” Ina, who lived with her mother a little distance away, had been in bed early that evening, her mother told us the next day. She was at home!

When I was in Georgetown, Guyana, South America, Dr. Fred Kerry (now my brother-in-law) had just been bereaved. He had a charming English wife, whom we had known as a friend. One evening he suggested in a very serious manner that we might all try together to contact her, as he had heard some people could do this. Ethel herself had known something of it when she was in England. Now my father was a doctor and it is not very usual for two men of science to try this; however, we were all sincere. We did not darken the room, we said no prayer, nor sang, but simply put the palms of our hands firmly down on the table. My mother and sister made up our quartette. Fred began by asking: “Ethel, if you are here with us make us know.” Almost at once the table, a very heavy mahogany one, began to move. As he asked more questions it began to rise up on its end. My sister, who is now Fred’s wife, was over-emotional and began to cry; so we stopped the probe. Fred said he contacted her since on his own.

At this time we all had a fine friend, Sydney Jacob Van Sertima K.C.; we told him about this. He also knew Ethel as a friend. His answer was: “People were always near to those they loved.” He told me about psychic books he had read. He was a Rosicrucian, and had an active interest outside of this sphere. Yet I only listened in those days, not knowing, a little later I’d long to know and find out for sure.

He was my greatest friend in Georgetown, and it was a calamity when he died very early in life. It was then I wondered “if people really did die, and then what?” However, I fretted and found no concrete answer until four months after his death my mother and father and myself came over to Liverpool, England. I went down to the main Spiritualist Church in Liverpool. This was 1937. I, a dead stranger, and I felt electrified among these psychic people. I went through hail, sleet, fog, snow to meetings and all through the Blitz, as the war was called. I had wonderful proofs, but nothing of my friend’s after death came through. That came twelve years later in a Direct Voice sitting with the famous Leslie Flint. Van Sertima came unsummoned, and spoke clearly for about half an hour, telling me how beautiful it was where he was, and speaking in his usual fluent undertone. He said with an air of surprise: “Do you know, I am still interested in law!” He concluded by telling me to: “Stay well.” This was exactly his idiom, “Stay” not “Keep”: Also he said “I’m a little busy.” This was undoubtedly him!

When I went to Leslie Flint I was hoping to make contact with another friend, who, in very sad circumstances, had taken his own life. Van told me that “he had helped him – that it was suicide.” I was happy to know that they had met. My friend then being so recently in Spirit, found it hard to communicate with me. I asked him (the newly arisen) “Did it hurt?” Meaning the dying process. He at once answered: “It was quick, but don’t let us talk about that now.” (He had gassed himself.) Subsequently I had many talks with him at intervals spaced out, and gradually he became less distressed.

The knowledge that life exists in such a real way beyond death is the most priceless bit of knowledge I have.

A few years ago a friend, an author, Edgar Mittelholzer burned himself to death. The news was put before me in “The Daily Mirror” just as I was going to a church meeting in Brighton. The jerk was severe, but I still went with my thoughts all floating on thin air. Had I not known of the reality of life I could not have stood the shock. I pray that he will also find his feet out of the mistake he made. Surely my other good friends have helped him. I still hope to hear from him.

TO HEALING HANDS

To touch with Healing Hands
The aching hearts of Men,
To touch with Healing Hands
The soul distressed ones,
To touch with Healing Hands
The eyes that do not see,
To touch with Healing Hands
The ears that closed be.
To touch with Healing Hands
The lips that cannot speak,
This is to touch the God there is –
The God who made such Healing Hands.

To leave untouched the wounds,
The Broken Hearts to bleed,
The souls to languish more,
The eyes in darkness grope,
The ears plugged fast,
The lips in mute thoughts hid –
This is to close God out –
By closing Healing Hands.

A secret is a myth,
Those who have scanned the veil,
Have seen the mind, its wordless thought,
– Can reach out from our eyes,
Truths that defy mankind,
Truths that bless, and Truths that cure,
All the ills to which this Flesh
Is heir on earth- no longer though –
For ills like secrets are a myth,
They change to Good alike.

Upon my Castle ruins
A shrine I’ll build,
Secure from all the storms
That rock and sway this life
I’ll build there Peace
That will endure
Until the end of Time.
I’ll build there Love,
That will unfold
As flowerets do.
But the Love I’ll build,
Will never fade –
Its’ sweetness never-ending.
I’ll make this shrine a haven
A place of Beauty, Joy and Rest,
A shrine where Souls may meet and blend.
Where hearts may intertwine.
A shrine where those who worship
Consider not the flesh, and blood,
But look upon all virtues fine,
A shrine wherein
God and the Angels Heal.

THE REASON

I must live well
For when I die
I want to join
My friends on high.

I want to tell
The love I hide.
I want to cling
To His dear side.

I want to cast
My pain away?
A11 worldliness
And bitter fray.

I want to sing
The Heavenly song.
Those notes for which
My heart doth long.

TO:-“THE TEMPLE OF LIGHT”

Dedicated to:- Leslie Flint,
In respect to:- ” Direct Voice.”

When ‘thro the shade of dark
The Light was pierced for me
To Heav’n I did embark
My Music unto thee.

No radio nor ‘phone
Could bear that voice to Earth
Whose records Death did own
Thus live in second birth.

I laughed and talked with him
For moments long and sweet
As Lovers feel at whim
When all alone they greet.

Each night I’m borne away
Safe in the arms of sleep
Nor by This Temple Ray
Nor by its’ shade so deep.

But by the Love that lights
This Earthly Temple here
That takes away the blights
That make men blindly peer.

And when each morn I face
The conflicts of the flesh,
God grant that in this race
I see this light afresh.

The task remains to make
My brother see it too
To ease the hearts that break
Through Death, Disease and Rue.

I thank thee then the one
Who sits in service dear,
And for this cause hath won
These Holy minutes clear.

When linked to spheres above,
We hear a voice from space
That voice we once did love
In cottage, Home, and place.

We thank Thee for the grace
Thou God who gave this Gift
The voice that can erase
The pain in Darkness Drift.

On the platform of a railway station,
I realised the brevity of Life,
More even so; before flesh turns to dust.
I felt such loss, when in Farewell, the hand
I held, did momently elude my grasp.
Just like a candle blown out by a breath,
The light of Life can suddenly so out.
But when the breath has time to say Good-bye
And leave the light behind still burning bright
Then silent resignation doth subdue
Our passions with the thought, that cadences
Are often interrupted, in our march;
And Music still a richer charm doth hold,
That treasures Past delays Finality.

“SONNET”

Kathleen I may not always seem
As sensible as one should be
But if you could endure my dream
You may agree with those who see
Angelic forms from out the mist
And hear upon the Ether-waves
These messages from lips we’ve kissed,
Oh! then you’ll feel the Power that saves
Our souls from fear, ourselves from Death.
This band that heals and gives us strength
Thus rescues every fleeting breath
Sends Beauty in our stride at length
And captures Love in Silence sweet –
Diffusing all that would entreat.

SONNET AT THE YEAR-END 1972

Ring in the Christ that is to be?
Over two thousand years He has been
Yet in this land we still can see
As year to year comes in
The same pretenseful doctrines sway
While generations pass away
How many happy years must go
For some, and others not at all?
Ring out the wickedness and woe
The oppression of our brothers small
Make all Co-partners in His grace
Sons of God of every race
Workers all on His fair earth
Living, loving unto birth.

You are a Sinner said the Pastor
If you do not get on bended knees
Join a Church – pay your rites
Be baptised, and forever say after me
‘I believe in God’.

If not, you’ll burn forever
In utter darkness, and God will not forgive you.
If you do not read the Bible
There is no hope for you.

The Sinner retorted ‘You are not good,
Would you kneel on a bed of thorns?
Must one lean upon you, and
Enjoy the warmth and Comfort of a Church?

I can speak to God in any place
I do not need words put in my mouth.

I do not need your presence
In life, or death
I can reach my God alone.’

The Pastor made the sign of the cross
As if the sinner had come too near!
This cross has become a refuge for hypocrisy
The ‘Sinner Name’ a Curse!

If Jesus should return he’d be dubbed a Communist –
A Carpenter – one of the working class.
What would he find on this fair earth?
Apartheid in South Africa –
The Holy Land torn wide apart by hatred and wars –
Vietnam, and little children blown to pieces there –
Ireland in fury, quite beside herself –
Ghettoes and Poverty in many lands –
Capitalists, and mammon-worship everywhere in this, His world.

Take my hand I cannot see
The world is dark
God’s light is there, but
I cannot find the way.
‘Prayers new every morning’
Are words, and only words.
The moonlight streams on sea and land
The stars keep twinkling so very far.
Man walks on earth with faltering steps
As if a child that’s lost in fog.
They are all sick at heart and mind
Though healing fountains flow.
All natural help is spurned
As if ’twere foreign.
We’ve lost our parenthood
So brothers, sisters fall apart.

REMEMBRANCE DAY

If God should see the wreaths being placed this day
With solemn rectitude, and fanfare bold
For unknown warriors of the past –
I wonder would he join the killer’s lay
And say – ‘Well done, ye men of old’
For fighting to such bitter ends aghast
And leaving so much disarray
And misery for your brothers to behold?
Would He in loving wisdom cast
His Blessings to the multitudes untold?
In regions where we all must go.
The settling of these wars will never lie
With medals for a few, and death forego
But sharper judgement to defy.

A SOLILOQUY

There are crosses fashioned out of Gold and Silver
Some are made of Wood and Stone
Others are simply drawn on Scroll,
There are Iron crosses and airy-fairy ones
But in all the lines which drawn across
From North to South, and East to West
There trails an human brotherhood.
Along this trail are marks of blood of many races
The toil and sweat of many climes,
The sicknesses and sorrows of many human kinds
The pain of centuries is ingrained on our hearts
Our brows are furrowed with the strain
The indelible lines which tell the tale
That each man bears his cross;
That we are living symbols
Not purely made of flesh and blood;
That to inherit the Kingdom that God has made
Where flesh and blood cannot inherit –
We must leave these bodies here behind
And step out in our Spirit self
Our counterpart with God
No need for idol worship
For God who made the Lily and the Rose
Who made the thorns and made the soil,
Has also given us the eyes,
The vision and the ear,
The soul, and inner music to explore
The depths and breadths
Of this great universe,
And surely in His Love
We cannot slay His Truth
With petty creeds unworthy
Of all the laws sublime.
Arise then man and seek
The Gifts the Spirit holds
Of which St. Paul had said
‘I would not have you ignorant’.

‘Sky Pilots’ who do not know the way
Upon the course of life
They speak with bated breath
Of Death, which leads their flock
Out of the mists to Light.
They have no chartered course
Because the Guides who are appointed
To show the way, are spurned.
They speak of Saints,
They speak of second birth,
They speak of sleep for centuries –
They speak of Heaven,
They have a station here,
The Cross.

But what of there?
The Universe is bright,
Yet tears assail
Because they Fear,
Their love in trust is weak.
They speak to God
In ‘stranger’ words.
Not from the heart emotions flow,
As friend to friend would understand.
They speak of Hope –
Despair is theirs,
For knowing not.
Oh teach these children God
To find Thee in a simpler way.

A SONNET FOR TODAY

Time matters not my friend; the years
Have sped from long ago,
But I have dried so many tears,
That now I have no woe.
The falsehoods of the world around,
The lack of Brotherhood,
The failure of the Creeds that sound
Their trumpets as for Good,
Make all my energies run wild,
To scream, ‘Apartheid’s here!’
Do we adore the Holy Child
Whilst having hearts of Fear?
We have not Love for some most dear
But class them out of kin.

Good God, I’d rather be an Heathen
Who worshipped truly Sun and Moon
Than be a Pagan clad in Christian dress,
To hurt among my brethren
The faithful souls who late and soon
Do slave without redress.
Why mock Thy Holy Name of Love?
Thou who was just and kind,
Thou did’st not once but put above
The English race, as some superior kind.
We do not squash the flowers of foreign soil,
Then wherefore tread upon another blood?
For kindled it may also boil,
With feelings deep, and rife with Hate.
Oh let the stream of Love survive
Ye who the Christ debate
Let not the Devil come Alive!

OUR CIVILIZATION

My heart is often torn
In shreds, like petals from a rose.
The blood of which we’re born
Is past the boil for all of those
Who working late from night to morn –
Those standing on their toes
Who find their lives absorbed and worn
From early day till late.
Why, oh why must mankind trample
This glorious freedom land?
While by animals’ example
We could all be one happy band
In every place and state.
The precepts that we’re told in books,
The laws that we have made
Must find us peace and music here;
Or else we are no more free than rooks
That have no colonnade
But perch with far less fear
Upon whatever stand they find!
We build, and build to make secure
But then we see within our mind
That nothing can endure
The elements – the storm, the blast.
So in despair, we find ourselves
No higher up than elves.
Poor creatures we, with mind and brain
If not with Spirit led.
No better than the apes that tread
The ground in search of grain.
We who with given vision blest
And all the skills that reason brings
Why can we not combine to make
With sunshine, everything the best
The heavenly choir sings
For each, and every sake.

MY VISION OF WHAT QUEENS PARK CAN BE LIKE

Queens Park can be the leaven which can change Brighton. There are so many individuals here who could point the way we should go. Let us have a try.

First – in our society, we have been bred and nurtured on wrong values. Our children have been taught impractically. Everything in schools ought to be directed to a use that will help further society as a whole – all bents ought to be followed. Any undesirable qualities can be sifted out and analysed so that help can be given to eradicate them. Children must be “seen and heard”, they must be asked for their opinions, and discussions must be engaged in at home, so that they will be fully able to converse with their teachers at school. Religion in every way must be natural and not frightening – not full of “you’re sinners” waiting for judgement and punishment. The way must be shown by example – one of Love.

There must not be any barriers to eternal life, which indeed awaits everyone. It is for the state of what life after this is, that we now equip ourselves. The-improvement continues after death (death which is purely physical). If we could eradicate “fear” in our society, think what a change there would be. This is the message of Jesus: “Fear Not”. ‘Here in our world, there are so many fears. A child, as it were, is born with fear in-built. If the mother fears in childbirth, and if the father fears the cost of rearing a family, then distrust is put into the children early, as our society cannot be entrusted fully with our offspring. “Protecting innocent children” ought only to have to be used, as far as traffic accidents, getting lost, or playing with fire.

We ought to be “our brother’s keeper”. There ought to be no fear of the dark, or of disease, or of death, or poverty, of gossip, of one another, or of ourselves. The Atlantic Charter with the Four Freedoms outlined long ago, was not enough. Here we have Phobias that have driven many of our people to drink, drugs and into asylums. Nations have fears that create wars, and wars create other fears of redundancy and starvation.

The Church ought to be like a club, where people go to share experiences, not a place for creeds, dogma, ritual, hymn singing, and sermons. Everyone ought to be welcomed, even if not able to give collection money.

Queens Park could be a haven of healing, a place where high endeavour goes marching on…

I think it was Ella Wheeler Wilcox who wrote: “Who travels alone is bankrupt in wisdom and beggared in soul.” Let us march together.

One great writer said “A man should see a fine picture, hear good music, and read a good book every day of his life.”

Our community is dwarfed by lack of imagination. Outlets are needed for ideas to grow.

Talents need to be fostered like plants in a garden, watered by human sympathy and concern and encouragement ought to be given for all skills. We are all different. All can help.

Children ought to be taught their language properly, and the basic needs of – care of themselves, and of their family, and of animals. Also respect of the true virtues ought to be taught, and music ought to be taught, and emotions and sex ought to be treated with sufficient privacy, and in a sacred manner.

A healthy people should not always be taking medicine. There is healing in trees, and in nature generally, in the roar of the waves, moonshine, starlight, sunshine and rain. “No man is an island” is something that ought constantly to be thought over. We are all dependent on each other.

Why armies have to be, is because mankind fears, and because there is lack of sincerity, and trust, and because the wrong values are put on top.

If Love was practised, killings would stop.

All mentally deranged people could be healed. Prisons could be emptied. See God everywhere.

A FAIR MARINA

Where no shadows fall on Brighton’s sea front
On clearest days we’ll view the white topped cliffs
And watch the stranger boats that anchor there
To share our harbour – yachts for use and play.
We want no towering blocks of brick and stone
To block the breeze and sunlight from the shore
No sunken garden can with nature vie
The parks ashore shout loud the waves discord!
‘Give unto us the Beauty that is ours!’
What glitters most is never truly gold,
The ravages of man will leave us poor,
Bankrupt in wisdom, joy, and peace of mind.
Before too late let us see clear the cliffs
On which decision rests for now and aye.

A LAMENT

Homeless ones amid vermin sleeping rough
Battered babes with damaged brains existing,
Multiple sclerosis victims gnashing!
Broadmoor numbers with seething minds shut up
Some mentally deranged may not get out
Others with years to spend beyond the bars
While selfish pleasure-seekers caring nought
Cling to themselves discarding all the rest.
These are the problems that the Church must see
To make a better world, and happier place.
The patterns of God’s plan we do not see
The Healing of the wrong approach to each
To make for real happiness about
And lasting peace in every home and place.

A VISION

Lo! the seven colours of the rainbow,
Made a triumphal arch o’er Brighton’s sky,
And here upon these seven hills we owe
To the Eternal force whose covenant high
O’er all the world has sent this promise fair
That after storms, and hurricanes are sped
Comes peace, and calm, and birdsong in the air,
So we can live not always in the red,
But if some seven deadly sins or more
Divide this world in camps with torture torn
Then how can seven sisters that we bore
Make beauty spread o’er every hill and bourn?
Let’s then from out the seven pillars draw
The wisdom pure – its music treat with Awe!

SONNET

There is so much of sameness nowadays.
Hang on, press on until the very end
All the freshness of the past – not a haze
Will come alive within our souls ascend
When we find at the end reality
And all the values that do matter most
Make enormous love and serenity.
Then forever no-one will need to boast
No more to fritter any precious time
On empty nothings that we toil for here
Every human aspect will sing in rhyme
When lasting love will cast out all our fear
We’ll be ourselves with all our gifts to share
Each with another having not a care.

THE END

My deep indebtedness goes to QueenSpark, and especially to Dr. Stephen Yeo, for encouraging me in my writing, and in this little publication, which I lovingly dedicate to Belize and the Caribbean with arms outstretched across the Atlantic, and “Out of the Blue – and Blues” I’d hold the hands of many races, and in many walks of life, I hope to find more friends, in these grey mists, of “this green and pleasant country”.

K.J.B.