Family Life

Mon, 8 Jan 2001 00:00:47 -0000
Subject: [Glastonbury]

My daughter in law goes to Glastonbury festival every time it occurs as she is the production manager for Jules Holland who records it each time for the BBC. My son Ben often goes along for the ride.

Love to all
Roger

Mon, 25 Jun 2001 21:15:09 +0100
Subject: Thankyou

What a nice birthday greeting to find, Gordon and then Jill. I'm very flattered to share a birthdate (if in a very different year) with George Orwell, from whom I have learned a great deal.

Pamela took the day off and we spent the morning on the sandy beach at Exmouth. I then had a meeting with the man who is to turn Exeter into that bright new concept - 'a learning city'- and he invited me to join the 'steering committee'. Then we went to see a matinee showing of that disturbingly brilliant, multi-layered Mexican film, amores perros.

Then in the early evening to The Thai Orchard Restaurant (right beside the cathedral) for a multi-layered, multi-flavoured, multi-caloried dinner washed down with an exquisite white Rioja. We are now back at the house and I am about to join Pamela in the garden for a red Rioja. (When I was at the BBC they used to call me Rioja Stott.) It's been one of those wonderfully still, hot, blue-and gold-days and we feel as though we have stumbled (almost unwittingly) into Paradise. 'It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration . . . '

Love to all from sixty-three-year-old Roger
And love from Pamela too.

Fri, 10 Aug 2001
Subject: . . . this majestical roof fretted with golden fire . . . Joe wrote:

If it's ok with you, Roger, I would like to show your email to my hubby, as I think he would enjoy it a lot too. Is that alright ? Of course Joe.

Along the coast in Devon, we are also having some very mixed weather. My daughter Rebecca and her family from Cambridge have taken a house on Dartmoor for a week and we all went to an excellent open-air production of Hamlet in the Rougemont Castle in the centre of Exeter on Tuesday evening. The rain poured down for the previous three hours and we went to the production with lots of coats and umbrellas. 20 minutes before the start the sky miraculously cleared and the evening was fine and clear. Those extraordinary words, a good, original, lucid production in a marvellous setting, two bottles of Rioja, the company of Pamela and my daughter and son-in-law and two completely engrossed grand-daughters (6 and 8) . . . it goes down in the record as one of the great evenings. Afterwards I said to my daughter 'We're going to have to face up to it: life doesn't actually get any better than this.'

Love to all
Roger

Tue, 13 Nov 2001
Subject: Has anyone heard from...

Dear Jill
I've just signed Peter Gerald in so you'll be hearing from him.

We've been having a difficult November so far. I went down with flu for a week, Pamela had a painful operation on her wrist (carpal tunnel syndrome) which necessitates a month off work and in the middle of all this Pamela's father had a series of small strokes which left him immobile and comatose. (He's nearly 93.) He kept falling out of bed at night and neither of us were terribly fit to cope with all the lifting (and the mess). He was taken into hospital a week ago today and is now improving but still very weak and floppy. And Pamela's wrist is easing a bit and my flu's gone. Now its just the dog - she has developed eczema.
Everything else is splendid.

Love to all
Roger

I don't know whether anyone knew/knows Robert Gravenstede (now living in Torquay)? He's one of Pamela's father's closest friends and when Pamela rang to tell him that Ted had gone into hospital Robert's own wife Lena had died just half an hour before. She was Lena Butler. (Robert's father managed the Stow Hill Depot for a while.) So we're going to the funeral in Torquay on Thursday. The Gravenstedes have a daughter Pauline who is in the same Frost meeting as my mother in the Hampton area.

My daughter Anne-Marie (who married a Frenchman and is now living in Aveyron not far from Albi) had a daughter (her first child) Leora last week. I now have one grandson and five grand-daughters

Mon, 4 Mar 2002
Subject: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Pamela had surgery to correct this condition in her right wrist in November. Recovery from the op is slow but she is seven eighths of the way there and the relief is considerable.
Birthdays: waving the flag for June. Pamela is the 5th and I am the 25th.

Love to all
Roger

Sun, 17 Mar 2002 Subject: Huguenot

Definite Huguenot blood in our family. My mother's mother was a Mallalieu. She was born in Adelaide but her parents had emigrated from York around 1870. There are lots of Mallalieux around York (a strong Huguenot area). Some years ago there were two MPs with this surname and one of them -J.P.W.Mallalieu- made the cabinet. His daughter was one of the first female judges and is now Baroness Mallalieu. Oddly enough a cousin of mine discovered two years ago that Mallalieu is a dominant name in the island of Antigua.

Love to all
Roger
Happy St Patrick's day!

Mon, 18 Mar 2002 Subject: Huguenots

Jill wrote:
Why should there be connections with so many of us to the Huguenots?

Warren replied:
Maybe the Huguenots were suckers for bad religion????

I think you are probably right Warren. When I look back on my pedigree - paternal grandparents from the bible belt on the Firth of Forth in Scotland; maternal grandfather from a heavily Presbyterian family in Ballymena, Northern Ireland; maternal grandmother from a Huguenot family -I marvel that I ever managed to escape from 'bad religion' as you quite rightly call it. I seem to have a more than generous helping of fundamentalist genes.

As Victor used to say 'Only by grace' (and, yes, I do believe wholeheartedly in grace - but in my case it's the strictly secular variety.)

Love to all
Roger

Thu, 4 Apr 2002
Subject: Marrying at leisure and some worrying news

What do you mean 'finally', Heather?! We've only been living together for 537 days so far. (And haven't yet spent a night apart.) We are in fact getting married in Perth WA in September.

I don't know if anyone knows the families involved - my niece, Lydia Livingston (35, daughter of my sister Christine and Ben Bodman of Bristol -Ben died tragically in 1976 and Christine is now remarried to Michael Welch) was rushed into hospital over the weekend with a large brain tumour. Lydia and her husband (non exeb) live in Chepstow and have two young children, the youngest only four months. Lydia has now been transferred to the neurology unit at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff and the operation (all day) is planned for Monday. Christine has left her job in London and is looking after the children in Chepstow.

Love to all
Roger

Thu, 4 Apr 2002
Subject: Marrying at leisure and some worrying news

We never actually fixed a date before. We were going to marry at the close of 2000 but events got in the way. And then Pamela wanted to marry in an even year rather than an odd one. (Don't ask!) So 2002 has been targeted for some time. Pamela's daughter Kim is marrying in Perth on 28 September and we will be there for five weeks (the air tickets are already pinned to our kitchen notice board: Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne- Perth). Having spent most of her life in Perth, Pamela has many friends and relatives there. We have far more invitations than we can fulfil. Our own wedding will be some time in the last week of September and the arrangements are being set up while we speak. Some of my 5 children will be there. And all three of Pamela's.

Our family is holding its breath over Lydia. Will report progress after Monday. Many thanks for the sympathetic responses.

Very relieved that Bush has (at last) reacted to the Israeli- Palestine matter. Sharon is an unreconstructed thug.

Love to all
Roger

As to counting the days Heather (!) I didn't - I made the number up. But it's not far out. And the days have been good. The 24- hour-days.

Mon, 8 Apr 2002 Subject: Lydia

I gave some details of my niece Lydia Livingston and the brain tumour that was diagnosed just over a week ago. Lydia is now in theatre and they expect the operation to last all day. The tumour is in a rare position (the neurology department at Cardiff has only dealt with 16 before) and there is a strong likelihood that she will be paralysed down her right side and that she will lose the sight in her right eye. There is also the possibility that she will have a stroke during the operation and that this could be fatal.

She and her husband Brian live in a beautiful cottage in the woods at Tutshill looking down a steep hillside to the River Wye and across it to Chepstow. The view is stunning - Pamela and I went to see them there only three weeks ago. They have been living there for only three years and they are totally in love with the place. Last night Lydia asked to be allowed home to see the cottage and her family (Emilia Rose is nearly three and Tom is three months) 'possibly for the last time'. She spent an hour there with her mother and her husband and children (it was, my sister said, a wonderfully beautiful, misty spring evening) and was then taken back to Cardiff.

We're all holding our breath. It's difficult to settle to anything.

Love to all
Roger

Tue, 9 Apr 2002
Subject: Lydia - provisonal good news

Many thanks to all who have expressed sympathy and support. All that we have heard tonight is that the operation went well and that so far her sight is not affected and that she 'is able to move everything'. As you can imagine this went round the family circle like happy wildfire. BUT the medical team say that deterioration can happen over the next 48 hours so we are still keeping everything crossed (whatever that may mean).

Love to all
Roger

Tue, 9 Apr 2002
Subject: Lydia - provisonal good news

Thanks Michael (glad to hear that you had had your parents over recently). We all feel better today. I took on the job of being the one who phoned round the family with the news over the past week (to save Christine) and last night it was a real pleasure and there were some tears.
Lydia is 34 or 35, I'm not precise about that at the moment. Many thanks for all the supportive remarks - feeb is a good place.

Love to all
Roger

Tue, 9 Apr 2002 Subject: Lydia

I'm sure that's true Liz. But Christine (Lydia's mother, my sister) was a GP's wife and also worked as a medical researcher so she speaks the language and can press for accurate detail. And she felt that the outlook was bleak. The next 2/3 days are dangerous - we were told today of an exeb (David Sloggett) who had a brain tumour removed and felt fine afterwards but died two days later. So we're still a bit tense.
Today Lydia's sight is a bit affected but not badly. And her spirits are high.

Love
Roger

Tue, 16 Apr 2002 Subject: Roger's niece

Thank you Liz.

Lydia has been transferred from Cardiff back to her local hospital in Chepstow this morning. This in itself is an excellent sign. I spoke to one of the doctors on the phone a couple of hours ago and he told me that her progress has been remarkable. So far she has no signs of paralysis at all and her right eye (which was likely to go blind) has some double vision but he thinks this is temporary. We all feel hugely relieved.
Thanks to everyone for their support and concern. It was a frightening event. Pamela and I have just spent four days staying with my daughter in darkest medieval France (she bought a small 17th century castle in Aveyron last year.) The whole area is steeped in 'heretic history' - their nearest large town is Albi, which was the centre of the Albigenses 'heresy' and Cathars were slaughtered in large numbers all round the region. There's also a strong 'presence' of the Knights Templar. I know other parts of France quite well but this was new to me. I don't think I have ever seen such a concentration of bewitching scenery and wonderful medieval villages and buildings. If anyone goes near there make sure that you visit Cordes-sur-Ciel ('Cordes in the sky' ), an utterly enchanting fortified town on a steep hill which was founded in 1222 and was a rallying place (heavily fortified) for heretics when the persecutions were at their height. Needless to say I felt very much at home there! It's full of sculptors and artists and museums and bookshops and restaurants and bars now. For a glimpse of it, look at http://www.thuries.fr/us/histoire.htm

We also revelled in the huge collection of Toulouse-Lautrec paintings, drawings and lithographs at his home city of Albi.
We got back at 4am this morning.

Love to all
Roger

Wed, 24 Apr 2002
Subject: The Dreaded phone call
[Written in response to a friend who had just been told that her father is very ill]

Dear Julia
Thank you for your vivid account of this. These events have a real and current power for many of us. I applaud your courage and I am glad that the blacker side of ebism seems to have been in abeyance. (Hooray for simple human values!)

Will be thinking of you as you go through this. It won't be easy but you have developed a considerable strength and you will be equal to it.

Lots of love
Roger

Tue, 14 May 2002 Subject: It's a Girl!

Steve and Nicole
Love and congratulations on the birth of Rebecca. May she give you both as much pleasure as my eldest daughter (Rebecca Kathleen, now aged 38) has given me.

Roger

Thu, 6 Jun 2002
Subject: The Seagull and 'religion and thought'.

Hello everyone
In Exeter our main living room is upstairs and we look out in one direction on the back garden over a flat roof. The window goes all the way down to the surface of the flat roof. Several weeks ago I was downstairs and heard a loud and insistent tapping. After I had tried back and front doors I realized that it was coming from upstairs. I discovered that one of the biggest seagulls I had ever seen (getting on towards the size of a turkey and with a cruelly long beak) was tapping on the window. It looked at me balefully but it didn't fly away. (We were about two feet apart.) The window was partly open and when I shut it (being a little fearful) the bird flew off. Its wing span was huge. Since then it has reappeared perhaps eight times. Sometimes it taps (loudly and definitely) and sometimes it just looks into the room. Today it was there again and when I went towards it I realized that it was accompanied by five other birds, slightly smaller, but still HUGE. It stayed (looking discontented and a little impatient, but very powerful) for perhaps 6 or 7 minutes.

My first thoughts were of Poe and 'The Raven'. The bird seemed so portentous, so 'other', so imperious and authoritative. Now I have started to think of Hitchcock's 'The Birds'. Reassure me. Tell me that it is the mating season and that the gull has fallen in love with its reflection. That it is asking for food. There is something about this bird that strikes a chill into the bones, 'makes each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine'. It's like some kind of herald or a harbinger of great events and I am beginning to be spooked by it.

Love to all
Roger

While I agree that many people treat religion as a substitute for rational thought, it has also been, historically, an arena for some of the most complex and detailed thinking that the human race has entered upon. During my TV career I interviewed many seriously clever theologians (including a Professor of Ethics at Krakov University, the Provincial (Head) of the Jesuits in England and a professor of theology at Oxford who is now Archbishop of Wales, and the front runner to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury).
These men (and I also interviewed some remarkable women theologians) had absolutely first class minds and the quality of their reasoning was hugely impressive, Rowan Williams (the Oxford professor and possible next A of C) unravelled for me (over lunch) two of William Golding's novels (Free-fall and Pincher Martin) and then gave me a quick run down on Kafka's writings. I've never heard better literary exposition. So although I opt out personally from the need for religious belief, I have a very healthy respect for many of its apologists (and I use the word in its strict sense). They certainly don't need (or practise) 'a substitute for thought'.

Mon, 17 Jun 2002 Subject: Brenda Lindsell

There was a Brenda Lindsell at Eltham, daughter of Cliff and Edith Lindsell, who married Roy Bliss (who left her) and who then married her cousin and got the surname Lindsell back. She had a daughter called Tanya.

One of Pamela's Australian cousins is anxious to trace her present whereabouts (what a curiously satisfying word that is!). Can anyone help?

Love to all
Roger

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 Subject: Chinese birthday

Many thanks for all the kind birthday greetings. I went round all day humming the Beatles' song, When I'm 64 ('will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?').

In the evening Pamela took me to an excellent Chinese restaurant out in lovely Devon countryside and we sat and feasted looking out on green green fields and a lake and an eggshell blue sky. A meal (and day) to remember.

No Heather, I don't plan to retire next year. I work from home as a copy-editor and proofreader for Cambridge University Press and the work is so interesting that I shall keep going as long as I can. Last three books: Strindberg and Modern Theatre; Byron: Poetics and History; The Emergence of Private Authority in Global Governance. Next three: The Afterlife of King Lear; Theatres and Encyclopedias in Early Modern Europe; Dynasty and Diplomacy in the Court of Savoy. I get to read all these marvellous books (OK there are some pretty boring Economics ones sometimes) and get paid for doing so. There were several references to the forum's eminent Professor Caws in one of my recent books.

Love and greetings
Roger

[John Weightman’s mother has just died]

Sun, 30 Jun 2002 Subject: My Mother

Dear John
My real sympathies with you on the death of your mother. In these circumstances death is harrowing and difficult (although never easy at the best of times). You probably made the right decision in staying away from the 'ceremony'. There would have been a great deal to distress you.

My own mother (at the age of almost 97) has gone into hospital in the last few days and there are all the complexities of the fact that she lives with my Renton sister but breaks bread with the Frost fellowship. 'Rentons', who have been kind and supportive in her weakness, neverthless (including my kind and intelligent sister) will not be 'free' to attend the 'Frost ceremonial'. So the family (which will include 10 great grandchildren) will be deprived of my sister's presence at the burial. A wicked and arrogant piece of 'brethrenistic separation' which will be distressing in practice. I detest doctrinal cruelty of this kind. John, you are better to remember your mother in happier days and not to drive huge distances only to be ostracized and insulted.

I am enjoying the accounts of the Frost tour and I hope that everything will be happy and congenial.

Love to all
Roger

Wed, 3 Jul 2002
Subject: My Mother

My mother died at 0844 this morning. Pamela and I had been to see her in hospital a few days ago but on Monday night I had a message that she was deteriorating and I left at 0545 and drove the 200 miles to London, getting there at 0730. She was semi-conscious and very weak and I sat with her for 14 hours. During the latter part of that she was in severe pain and I persuaded the doctor to relieve this with morphine and when I left she was much more peaceful. I spent the night with my son Ben in Putney and was summoned by mobile at 0540. My sister Christine and her husband Michael Welch met me there and we sat with her until she died. This morning she was serenely peaceful but deeply unconscious. She just gradually stopped breathing, without any struggle or distress. She looked calm and beautiful - it was the most restful and dignified death I could have imagined. She was almost 97. Mother was a wonderful person and I was very close to her (despite differences of belief and outlook.) Her love and care for me has warmed me and reassured me all through my life. I feel as if a great sun has gone in and the day is suddenly chilly.

Thank God for Pamela and for my sons and daughters. I've just driven back to Exeter and Pamela is taking the afternoon off (her idea not mine) so I shall see her very soon.

So John my warmest sympathy in your mother's death and the attendant problems. The 'natural relationship' (a concept so derided by the ebs) between my mother and me has survived all the schismatic pressures upon it and her face always lit up wonderfully when I arrived unexpectedly (as I frequently did over the past few years).

Love to all
Roger

Very glad to hear of all the happiness in Edmonton. I'd love to have been there.

Thu, 4 Jul 2002
Subject: My Mother

Many thanks to all who have expressed sympathy on the death of my mother. This is a warm and kindly place.

I feel hugely impoverished by my mother's death. I have spoken with her on the phone at least every other day for the last four years. It may be some time before I can alter the 'mother' connections on my landline and my mobile.

She was a woman who brought grace and warmth to everything she touched. As an example of that, her cleaning lady from Brighton (a house she left 22 years ago) until now was still making the occasional journey up to West London (60 miles) to see her.

At 96 she was still capable of a real intellectual excitement. She used to greet me with such enthusiasm when I turned up unexpectedly (as I often did) and always wanted to know all about the family (8 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren) but she also wanted to know what I had been reading and what I was interested in currently and we would settle down to talk. One of our recent conversations was about Macbeth and she became very animated about the extraordinary moral conflict in that transcendent play. (I hardly like to say this but I performed the 'If it were done when 'tis done' and the 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow' speeches for her in her sitting room and she clapped at the end. She was marvellous.)

Brethrenism stifled her (although she was a deeply spiritual and pious person) and although she stayed with the Frost fellowship until her death (and they were very good to her) she told me quite definitely a year ago that she now felt that Darby had been wrong and that the separating principle as practised by brethren was deeply damaging and unchristian. 'Separating' for her was a matter of personal purity and moral fastidiousness and never an administrative, collective act as the brethren made it. She was outraged by the constant overruling of the individual conscience in brethrenism in its various forms.

The signs for the funeral don't look good. Christine and Michael (who have had mother living in their house for the last years of her life) have had it indicated to them by their local branch of the Rentons that they mustn't attend a Frost funeral meeting and they are (I think) going to absent themselves and just be at the grave. This edict can only be based on a rather more than vestigial idea that 'there is only one right position and we are it, so every other collective Christian act is sinful and schismatic'. For me this outlook is ignorant, arrogant and also, in a simple Christian sense, heretical. At the same time it is cruel and stupid. I wish that my lovely sister and her husband could get this cancer out of their systems.

Much love to all
Roger

Wed, 4 Sep 2002
Subject: Feeb wedding

Dear feebers
As some of you already know, Pamela and I came to know each other through feeb forum and are (I believe) the first forum romance. I came to live with Pamela in Exeter almost two years ago. This coming Sunday we are travelling to Australia (my first visit although my mother was Australian - Pamela on the other hand spent most of her life in Perth) and we are to be married in Perth on 21 September (we are hoping that deej and Mr and Mrs Chris Patton will be at the ceremony).

We shall be in Australia for almost five weeks - Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Albany and Monkey Mia - for a true-blooded Englishman (who also has Irish, Scottish, French and 'Viking' blood) a highly scary thought. Seriously though, it is a great adventure. Pamela's three offspring all live there and her daughter Kim is to be married on 28 September (in the chapel of Perth College - which Pamela attended as well as Kim and which is celebrating its centenary this year). Our wedding is to be in a beautiful private garden in the Darling (good name for a wedding) Range behind Perth. Spring flowers (we are told) will be spectacular.

A very creative team has been putting the details of the ceremony together (there is to be live performance as well as recorded songs and they have already had three rehearsals in the garden) and emails about the details of the afternoon have swelled Perth-Exeter email traffic to world record levels.

We'll keep you all posted. Much love
Roger

Sun, 27 Oct 2002
Subject: Australia and after

Hello everyone
Pamela and I have actually been back for eleven days but our computer has been out of action. We had a much larger hard drive fitted while we were away and as a result of some problems lost a huge amount of stored material, including all my Outlook Express files (including three years of selected feeb stuff) all internet connections, all peripheral programmes, all drivers etc etc. So I have been putting it altogether again in between all kinds of other pressing priorities (like collecting the dog from Kent (250 miles away), getting my publishing work going again and 'mowing' a foot-long lawn.) Pamela went back to work the next day after flying from Kuala Lumpur (where we stayed 2 nights) but she was always a lot tougher than me! Australia. My mother's country and one that I was always going to visit. Sad that I finally got there twelve weeks after she died. Walking round Melbourne (where she was born in 1905) I found myself unable to stop distinguishing between the buildings my mother would have known and the ones that were built later. One of the things that surprised me about Melbourne was how much of its 19th and early 20th century building survives. Pamela's daughter Kim and her partner (with whom we were staying) live in an exquisitely restored 1902 front verandah house with 'lace' ironwork between Albert Park and the sea. Looks tiny from the front but is very capacious inside. We called it 'the Tardis'.

I'm not going to go into a huge essay now (sighs of relief all round from those who haven't aready pressed 'delete'). A few little snapshots though. Australia is HUGE. I already knew that but you have to go there to feel it. Sydney to Perth is a greater distance than London to Cairo and Perth is nearer to Singapore than it is to Sydney. (If I sound naive about travel, that's not quite true - I have travelled in the US and South America and all over Africa several times. And to almost every country in Europe. It's just that you don't expect Oz to be quite so vast.)

Perth is the most spacious city I've ever visited, it seems to be all water and sky. There's almost no litter in Australia. The traffic in Sydney at 1630 on a weekday is roughly equivalent to the traffic in London at 0430. Speed limits are lower than here and almost universally observed. Traffic signs are a bit 'nannyish' but seem to produce good results. One sign read 'ANYONE WHO DRINKS AND DRIVES IS A BLOODY IDIOT'. Australian food is remarkably good, fresh, inventive and beautifully presented. Pamela and I had a ham sandwich in Broadstairs, Kent last weekend. Two slabs of 'supermarket white' with thincut supermarket ham. =A31.90. In Australia it would have been a third of the price and incomparably better and bigger (at virtually any snackbar you walked into). And price brings me to money. Anybody going to Oz with English money is RICH. The best range of houses in Albany (4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, half an acre next to a superb beach) cost the same as a small terraced house in Exeter. A huge number of things are simply one third to one half of the price they are in England. Pom- bashing didn't seem to exist unless you mentioned cricket or rugby. I did the statutory tour of the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) and found myself feeling quite apprehensive when I entered the 'visitor's changing- rooms'. Coverage of English matters in the Oz press was fair, positive and objective. (And to my delight two of the Australian papers reproduced the Guardian and The Times crosswords daily.) Pamela's eldest son Michael took us to the Parliament Buildings in Canberra for lunch Very impressive. (Michael is a computer expert, the equivalent rank of colonel in the Australian Defence Department.) He also took us to the War Memorial (a huge war museum which I found unexpectedly poignant and moving) and the Museum of Australia (very high tech and modern).

Could I live there? I loved it but probably not. It feels a very young country and lacks the cultural depth of Europe despite a lot of clever people and some fizzing creativity. I admire it and want to go back soon. Beaches marvellous, wine magnificent (and fascinating in its massive variety - my loyalties are beginning to be to the Barossa wines and I like the Margaret River whites).

Inevitably that's a very superficial sketch. Our wedding (and that of Pamela's daughter a week later) were immensely enjoyable occasions. Our Oz friends and relatives (Pamela has oodles of both) gave us a wonderful time. We went down a mine, to two rain forests, into spectacular limestone caves, went whale-watching (saw three), swam with dolphins and turtles, walked among the treetops 200 feet up on the staggering 'Treetop Walkway', tasted wine (free) in the Yarra Valley and, later, all over South Western Australia (Monkey Mia to Albany), and many many other things. And then came back from the burgeoning spring in Australia to the wettest day in Devon this year. (And today is fine and not cold but there is a howling gale. (80-90 mph)). But the English landscape still welcomed us back and spoke to us both in that profound way that it has. We're glad to be back. But I think on balance that I liked Australia more than I expected and was more impressed by its fierce young civilization than I thought I would be. I can understand why people are 'proud to be Australian'. Just as we are proud to be English.

And now we await the Ashes Tests. I say again to deej and others that 'we may surprise you', but privately I feel a bit like Charles I in Westminster Hall.

Love to all
Roger

In addition to my five offspring and six granchildren, I now have three brilliant stepchildren -Mike, Kim and Greg- and their partners (step-in-laws?) -Natalie, Chris and Sharmane. It's a huge increase in personal wealth.

Wed, 11 Dec 2002
Subject: The young Marie Antoinette

On BBC2 tonight there is a 50 minute programme (called 'Reputations') about Marie Antoinette. My grand-daughter Hannah (one of Rebecca's daughters from Cambridge) is playing MA as a child. Her part won't be very extensive but she had a lot of fun making it. She has done three or four child's parts in TV drama before but this is her first 'costume drama'. She is nine years old.

Without in any way putting pressure on her, I would love to have a successful actress among my grandchildren! At the moment she is very keen, and rather good.

Love to all
Roger

Thu, 12 Dec 2002
Subject: The young Marie Antoinette

P.S. How did it go, Roger? Wish we could all have seen it.

There was rather more of Hannah than I expected. Lovely shots of her running round the garden with other girls of her own age and a sequence of her playing the harp under the tuition of her mother. Some beautiful close-ups of her face through the strings of the harp. She seemed very assured and spontaneous. The costumes were excellent.

Whether this leads anywhere or not, she is certainly enjoying herself. As your niece did. By the way Donald Sutherland was a huge star (notably in Nicholas Roeg's 'Don't Look Now' -a superb film- with Julie Christie) and he still has a big reputation.

Love to all
Roger

Thu, 26 Dec 2002 Subject: Auld Lang Syne

Wishing all on the forum every happiness and a good and healthy and (relatively) ebspook-free new year.

Pamela and I are off to Scotland for ten days tomorrow. Primarily to a four day Hogmanay Party at a castle on Loch Lomond (P works for the Devon Wildlife Trust and the party is a national Wildlife Trusts joint party which they hold for 100+ every year - this is our first attendance). So think of us first footing and sporraning and Gay Gordoning and listening to bagpipes while we drink serious amounts of single malts and eat venison and haggis in front of roaring log fires. We are also staying with various friends and relatives in Lochearnhead, Dalkeith and Glasgow. It's a while since I was up there.

Back on 6 January.

Love to all
Roger

PS I justify all this ethnic paganism by having a Scottish father.

Tue, 7 Jan 2003
Subject: March?

Pamela and I returned from ten days in Scotland this evening. An epic visit (Loch Lomond, Dunoon, Killmarten, Fort William, Lochearnhead, Edinburgh, Glasgow) including 4 days at a vast castle on Loch Lomond celebrating New Year with nearly 200 other members of the UK 'Wild Life Trusts' - Pamela works for the Devon WLT) which included fancy dress, Scottish dancing, sailing on the Loch and many other taxing activities. Then on to visits to various Scottish cousins and to Alan Clarke in his highland fastness (he was an eb in Croydon and recently married my brother-in-law's sister -Joan Welch, daughter of the late John Welch). Scotland is a staggeringly beautiful country once you get past all the kitsch and the bullshit about clan tartans etc (all invented by Sir Walter Scott to celebrate a royal visit). Made a pilgrimage to Port Seton to see my father's birthplace and was unexpectedly tearful (last and only time I saw it was in his company 55 years ago).

Very interested to read the accounts by Andrew and others about the current 'glasnost' and agree emphatically with Jill that we ought to be using the opportunity to attack not to defend. Hope that Peter Caws will cross the border into Devon and stay with us (we are utterly accessible -on the east side of Exeter, only 2 minutes from the A30 and 3 minutes from the M5). Read Joe's impressive letter and hoped that she would send it in more or less it's present form. Very glad to see that Cindy is back.

Love to all
Roger

Sun, 19 Jan 2003
Subject: Liz, are you safe

The fires around Canberra are on the south and west sides of the city. We have had phone calls this morning from Pamela's two sons who live quite close to each other on the north side. (We stayed with them there in September.) Conditions are quite horrific and very volatile, as a change of wind direction can put fresh areas in danger very quickly.
Mike and Greg are about a 20 minute drive away from the worst of the inferno.

Greg was in Perth when the fires started and he flew back immediately. Interestingly enough he said that the Oz media reporting was poor and he got his best reports from the BBC via the internet!

Love to all
Roger

Sun, 13 Jul 2003
Subject: The Iron Room

Hope you enjoy it Gordon. We have just hugely enjoyed an overnight visit from Peter and Nancy and Elizabeth Caws. The weather here has been as good as England ever gets and we were able to eat and converse in the garden until late. Had a wonderful time. My daughter Rebecca was also here for the weekend. Peter & family went on down into Cornwall this morning where they are going to Lostwithiel, The Eden Project and Joe Croft.

Rebecca was giving her Darwin lecture at the Dartington Hall Literary Festival (45 minutes from here) and we have just returned from there. A beautiful setting -like an Oxbridge College but buried in lovely countryside- and Rebecca's lecture was luminous. We spent the day rubbing shoulders with distinguished poets and novelists and eating delicious food washed down with great beers. Not good for the diet but weekends seldom get better than this.

Love to all
Roger

Tue, 2 Sep 2003
Subject: Back to the UK with Poseidon

Belated congratulations to Jill and feeb and all of us for the recent anniversary.

Just read 700+ emails (including some subversive ones from Peter French which I ignored). Sorry to hear about Clive and Ska and hope this will be quickly resolved. Welcome back Cloudy, always enjoyed your contributions.

Pamela and I have been in Greece with Pamela's daughter Kim and her husband. (From Melbourne.) Still dazzled by it all - my third visit, Pamela's first- Athens Delphi Sounion Santorini and Naxos. Hottest part of Europe for the whole of our visit, latterly running at 37 C.

Brought back a larger than life-size head of Poseidon which I have coveted for years and which will now have pride of place in my study. (Didn't nick it, bought it.)

Love to all
Roger

Fri Sep 24
Subject: death after death

Thanks for the rewelcome. Hello everyone. Had a lot of deaths recently. In the last 6 months:
1. My wife's father
2. My father's younger sister (last of that generation in my father's family)
3. A close friend in Brighton (unexpectedly) (2 and 3 funerals were on the same day. I had to give the memorial address at 3 and then scuttle 12 miles rapidly to be 20 minutes late for 2.)
4. My elder brother (first of my generation in our family)
5. My mother's sister (last of that generation in my mother's family) Funeral for 5. was yesterday. I drove 910 miles (1464 km) Exeter-Edinburgh- Exeter within the day to be there. 13 hours 10 minutes driving. Bit of an epic. Still coming down. And life feels a bit more fragile than usual.

So a bit weary. Cheerful news is that my wife's first grandchild arrived in Canberra a few days ago. Ciara Lily-Rose Wilson.

And we are moving to Cambridgeshire soon.

Love and blessings to all
Roger

Fri Sep 24
Subject: death after death

Thank you Fran.
I hadn't heard about Scott but I had heard about Elaine.

Most of those who died in my family were in their mid-90s. The exception was my brother who was 69. Death is always unsettling and alarming.

Love to all
Roger

Fri Sep 24
Subject: death after death

Thank you Sheila

At one point we had been to so many funerals that I started to compile a Good Funerals Guide. One of the things that became obvious was that the more brethrenistic (esp Rentonite) the service was the more predictable and (I'm sorry to say) lifeless it was. Whereas many of those which had been planned beforehand had much greater vitality and warmth. The Scottish one we were at this week had a substantial biography of my aunt in it -a very truthful and unsentimental account of her and her life written by her daughter- which I thought gave a human depth and distinctiveness to the whole occasion. And it wasn't just the human side on which it was better than the tradition most of us were brought up in. It was more numinous too. And much more dignified and ceremonial. I love the Scottish 'ceremony of the cords' - I was Cord No 5.

Love to all
Roger

Thu Oct 7
Subject: See you in November

Pamela and I are off to Australia this weekend. We fly Heathrow-Edinburgh on Saturday morning for the 40th wedding anniversary party of my esteemed double cousin Carolyn Millar (our mothers were sisters and our fathers were brothers) then on Sunday/Monday: Edinburgh-Heathrow-Kuala Lumpur-Sydney-Canberra. I'm beginning to feel like a chess piece.

We are going to Oz to meet Pamela's first grandchild, Ciara Lily-Rose Wilson. And while we are there Greg (Pamela's youngest and Ciara's father) is celebrating his 30th birthday. (Why are so many on round numbers this year?: Pamela 60, my daughter Rebecca 40, my grandson Jacob 20, my ex-wife Phoebe 70, my sister 60, Greg 30, my brother (sadly) would have been 70 but died last month and among my close friends there are four more round numbers.)

Anyway we are told that the 30th birthday celebrations will be on a 'Seventies' theme. We thought long and hard about this and having rejected many famous pairings we decided on Fidel Castro and Eva Peron (yes, I know she died in 1952, but the musical Evita was launched on record in 1976 and on stage (I was at the previews) in 1978). It's virtually certain that Eva and Fidel never met but it feels as though they should have done. My wife has assembled the perfect outfit (just needing the huge bun at the back to be complete) and I spent this afternoon assembling a Fidel outfit from costumiers and Army Surpus stores. In the end it's almost perfect. (I even found a way of turning my smallish neat beard into his big straggly one -with attachable strands.) Now all I need is some huge Havana cigars from duty-free.

I asked my freelance employers -Cambridge University Press- to provide me with a text to proofread on the plane (and in the longueurs in the baby worship) and as usual they came up trumps - the 7th volume of Joseph Conrad's letters (1920-22) 706 pages. The time on the plane will simply melt away.
So I say hail and farewell until early November.

Love and blessings
Roger

Wed Nov 10
Subject: Congrats

Hi Tom

We've just had three weeks in Canberra doting on my wife's first grandchild. Ciara Lily- Rose Wilson. Plenty of nappies and burping and all the other things. But this time at one remove. All the pleasure without much of the responsibility. But it brings the memories back. (My youngest children -twins- were born 34 years ago. And I now have six grandchildren, the eldest 20 this year.)
Have enjoyed reading about Caz

Love to all
Roger