Sir Bobby. That is truly a sentence in two words and speaks volumes without an operative verb. Adjectives to describe him; elegant, humble, kind. A true gentleman in the purest sense of what that phrase means. It has spurred this morning’s musings, coming today from the center of Yorkshire outside the town of Ripon and following the ravaging of the north of England and Scotland by Storm Babet (named in the new protocols for the British Meteorologic services for a woman born during a storm)
As Mary and I wander through historic houses, museums and churches in the countries of Ireland and England, armed with our lifelong attempts to understand culture and history, and how each has been affected by the interchange of ideas through the movement of peoples and its impact on history because of migration, war and colonization, we find that the lessons we’ve learned are never truly learned, only added to and improved. It strikes me, after cogitating in an attempt to make sense of a strange dream I had last night and which I still clearly and unusually still had within my grasp in my first hours of drinking that first cup of coffee, that the past few weeks have shaken us to our cores in a very good way. Within that time, our impressions have been “enhanced?” by the experience/challenges of driving on the “other” side of the road for the past weeks— the last few days’ worth in the midst of the conditions of Storm Babet with ponds developing across many roads and even along the edges of the M1 motorway(freeway). The myriad opportunities afforded Mary and me by visiting those dozens upon dozens of homes, castles, galleries and museums along the way, only reinforce the realization that lessons previously learned are really only an introduction to the bigger picture. That bigger picture continues to come into greater focus in our own little lives. How exciting it is when the history of the lives lived in those areas that interest us demonstrate a connection to another lesson, another person, and incident or place. These past few weeks have allowed us to see places where historical figures we felt we had some command of in representing their influences on history and to stand where they stood, see paintings of them done at a particular time that, when placed in context, gives us an even greater understanding.
What had settled into my craw at 7:27 AM GMT this morning while watch BBC’s Breakfast News program, is the amalgam of all of these thoughts. Since then we had added Rievaulx Abbey to the mix, to complement the visit to Fountains Abbey the yesterday.
The Dream; strangely came to me as though there actually is an organization that has been formed to celebrate the diversity of the world’s cultures, with those most “advanced” in technology now acknowledging and establishing a group to put forward the idea that the West should leave the Remainder of what is left of the Indigenous Peoples alone. No matter what the hubris and feeling of superiority we may believe and that these indigenous cultures would be better served by our technologies and understandings, the truth is that they have their own approach and have done far less harm to Mother Nature than us Enlightened Thinkers and Rapacious Consumers. The theme; that the culmination of the humanism and Enlightenment ideas, with the resultant changes to the world brought on through the Scientific Revolution has now left the world in a precarious condition. I woke up with the sun barely breaching the horizon and the remnants of Storm Babet leaving the area, after devastating eastern Scotland, but that feeling of despair at seeing the state of destruction in those two abbeys because of the whim of Henry VIII and his grab for power and wealth at the expense of someone else. The dream lingered as I walked through the beautiful remnants of a stunningly beautiful community that was built by the Cistercians more than a millennia ago and completed by the time of the Great Plague of the 14th century only to be destroyed on the order of one man.
Sir Bobby. Bobby Charlton was a great football player. Great and Football, two terms that bear examining to be fair. Bobby Charlton died yesterday at the age of 86. I had no exposure to him over my own life other than the times I may have seen his name mentioned associated with the game of soccer, as we, in America, would have called it. By the time I left college he was famous and had earned titles for the city of Manchester and England in the World competitions. In Manchester the game is football, as it is in much of the rest of the world when you say football. It refers to the game played with a round ball. Historically, the modern game began in England and Scotland, though the idea of kicking a ball around was evident in PreColumbian America. The rules of separating Rugby from Football developed only in the late 19th century, with heading the ball being an acceptable skill at that time and one of the last maneuvers adopted to solidify the modern rule book. Perhaps, because of the affects now known from heading contributing to CTE, that should be considered a mistake. Sir Bobby was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and it contributed to his death. How much did his profession contribute to his last years’ quality of life? Another time and musing should be offered for these thoughts, but though they are relevant, we’ll leave that for later. Who was this wonderful man? I think, for me, the best description was that he was “A Diamond cut from Coal”.
Born in a coal community is fitting, in that the history of football has much of its roots in the north of England and on the workers’ fields in the late 19th century where a paying crowd of spectators would assemble to root on their favorite team. From these humble beginnings great players grew. In the midst of all the hubbub, furor,fame and fortune, Bobby Charlton took his place in the football pantheon. His team, Man United, was great because of him and the the Busby Babes. Only a horrific plane crash that nearly took Charlton’s live and did consume the souls of eight of his teammates on that cold night in Munich in 1958. Charlton said he thought of those eight every day of his life and his composure and reticence to offer an exuberant response to success can be tied to both his personal demeanor and the memories of the crash that were always with him.
It is only now becoming apparent to me how immense his influence was, as my attention rarely nodded towards the game of football, or more likely fútball, for me because of my Southern California exposure to the game and the Latin influence in that area of the world. I did not follow the European game and only watched those teams when I ventured towards the World Cup results. In my own attempts at nearly every sport known in my youth, soccer was not one that I had an aptitude for; my tendency to want to jump was wasted in that sport and my skills with hand eye manipulation would also garner scant reward there. Plus, having two left feet, both weak, additionally hampered me. Yet, I could appreciate the game and its democratization of skills and team communication over the commoditization in sports that afforded stars fame and fortune because of individual superior attributes that could allow a single individual to dominate, control and game or match.. The latter condition, commoditization, has caused the Olympic Committee and the NCAA ruling body nightmares over the decades and they have both lost that war.
Bobby Charlton is the one we should admire and not give as much credence to the likes of the megastars who sell themselves for the purpose of fame and fortune. He was an indeed rare example of a humble and kind player whose elegance on the field is how he is remembered and his humility after the game a legend. When a young player at Manchester, just joining the fray of professional football, got a bit to proud of himself, or took issue with an opponent and paraded and touted an advantage or score, he would be chided by the elders and told to tamp it down…”we don’t do that here. Respect your opponent.” I like and admire that. It is a life’s lesson. One that the present world needs greatly.
So, Lessons in Chemistry or Lessons in History? We use our evenings to unwind, discuss the day, plan the next and then settle into Netflix or Amazon Prime at our digs in Chesterfield and Ripon before retiring. Presently we are in a wonderful home on the outskirts of Ripon owned by a wonderful family who have a connection to South Africa and a nice livelihood here i n the UK. It is an old farm with a brick-walled perimeter and a revamped home that has incorporated several old rooms and outdoor spaces into the interior of what is now a two story home with two large spaces each covered by an atrium with one an eighteen foot square space with a seven foot television to watch the news and films. The family’s handyman, Manos, is a Greek transplant who met his English wife in the 90s on his Greek island of Kos. He has spent three years transforming the old farm into what it is now. Now it is a place with a huge, modern and efficient kitchen the Jetsons would love and the Millers find daunting. The four ovens, one of which can double as a microwave, have touch panels for knobs, as does the induction stove top. One of the several refrigerators in the kitchen area, the one assigned for us to use while here, has a lit panel on one door that displays the actual images of the contents inside the fridge to allow one to see what is on hand. I have managed to boil water for coffee and reheat it later in the day at this point in our stay and to manage the oven instructions. Starvation is off the table. We would like to take advantage of the new film, Lessons in Chemistry, and also the documentary on Le Carré, which are playing on Apple TV, but the family does not subscribe. These films will have to wait.
So much of our research takes place online that modern technology, when one can master it, allows us to pull together all the information we are researching both before we venture forth each day and after we return armed with new Venn Diagrams of overlapping facts on individuals, incidents and the edifices in which the people experienced their lives. This has been such a fabulous history lesson.
So Lessons in History so far has brought us closer to our understanding of Medieval England, Tudor England, the English Civil War and the Charleses’ and Jameses’ lives, with a greater fondness for Bess of Hardwick and her wonderful life added to that. The interconnectedness of the Cavendishes has been a real bonus. Then, there are all the lessons which enhanced our knowledge and understandings regarding the Twentieth Century in Dublin and Ireland. What a great trip so far. We marvel at how much we’ve learned this trip, triggering thoughts that we have far to go in managing the world of history in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. We span the time of the Vikings, to the Venerable Bede, to the rapacious character of Henry VIII, to the Brontë Sisters in our quests. This morning Mary offered her own take on recent visits to sites in the area. Take a look for the overlap in our own thoughts.
As we tune into BBC 1 and its Breakfast Show, the situation in Gaza is dominating the world at present. I hope, when we read back over this time period in months, and years from now, that it was handled in a proper way. At present I am so very worried. I wrote about this as it opened up two weeks’ ago and compared it to the 1916 Uprising in Dublin that was so brutally put down by the British, and our own American foibles in the Middle East after 9/11 when our choices were so badly considered and executed that we are reeling from it still. That America has been involved in nation-building in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Israel and is so involved in other Middle East oil-rich countries that we cannot extract ourselves from this practice was evident in Biden’s attempt at a history lesson speech to the world. But, his main audience was especially Bibi and his control over the IDF and what is going to happen in Gaza in the next bit of time. What has happened in the past couple of days on the Israeli front has only added to my concerns. The distractions of the Cavendishes and Henry VIII, and our forays out into the Yorkshire dales and moors seem otherworldly in the realist sense when placed against the drop back of today’s news.
Maine Musing 