It has been snowing here of late.
The climate of Britain is a benign and inoffensive protector of a nation. Not for us the vulcanism of Italy; an earthquake above '4' on the Richter scale, scarcely a tremor, which heralds headlines in 72pt in the nation's newspapers, as befits a once-in-a-decade event, is rare; the monsoons of Asia are but a tale of the Raj and a long-forgotten empire; the snowdrifts of Illionois, Kiruna, Narvik are but a setting for Santa and his reindeer, and his elves, to ply their trade, their skill in making toys; not for us Brits the dire consequences of the extremes of weather that Mother Nature is so well versed in, yet continues to practise.
Britain has a mild climate which surely suits, and has moulded, our national character; temperatures, rarely dipping below the freezing point of water, except in Scotland; summers without the oppressive heat of sub-equatorial Africa, or the Americas, or the dry and baking cloudless skies of the northern Mediterranean; a climate in which the emperor penguin's plight, forced by their nature, and instinct, to overwinter on the sea-ice, is surely unknown.The happenstance of the Gulf Stream, with its slightly warmer waters, protects us from the vagaries of the earth's climate, much like a 'dummy', a 'comforter', protects the child.
It is true that Britain has been renowned, vilified and mocked for its rain, that never-ending drizzle, with only the occasional torrential downpour, which forces its inhabitants to venture far afield in search of sun at every summer migration; packed airports in July, pregnant with the lure and promise of Spain, Greece, the Canary Islands at vacation time! As far back as the Roman Empire, the Romans, the first literary invaders of the islands, had this sceptred isle, this jewel, as cold, wet and miserable because of our incessant, but nonetheless comparatively mild, rainfall.
Our weather is so inoffensive that it is customary around December for the 'bookies', the turf accountants, those charged with the task of keeping a record of all of the wagers made against a particular outcome, to offer 'odds', the probability, of a 'White Christmas; most times any bets laid are akin to taking money from the mouths of babes, so seldom does this particular event occur, even as far north as Scotland is.
The year of our Lord 1963 was to be no exception. In the week preceding Christmas, rumours abounded that the 'cold front' sweeping its way across Europe from Siberia brought, in its wake, snow; lots of snow, a veritable deluge of snow! I have no doubt that many bets were placed in the week preceding Christmas day that year. Surely, this would be a bad day for the bookies, 'Black Wednesday'; surely this was a certainty. Many would be disappointed and yet as Christmas Day transitioned into 'Boxing Day', the snow finally started to fall.
Such blizzards! There was no need to sojourn in the Swiss or French Alps; real, bona fide, Lapland winter had finally come, in all of its pristine, virginal, white glory, to Britain.
I well remember that incessant, never ending snowfall, whipped around by the winds in eddies of snowflakes outside my bedroom window; so unlike any view which I had seen in my all too meagre years on the planet. Perhaps my parents remembered the winter of 1947, so soon after the disaster of war, but if they did, they never mentioned it; however this was nothing special, just a snowfall.
When the snowfall had stopped and the wind, whistling around the chimney had ceased, I remember going out into the street, all children played in the street, it was the only place to play; it was as safe as it is nowadays, except our parents had not been brainwashed by tales of violence, of paedophilia, by the the nation's tabloid press, and so we were 'allowed'. Armoured against the cold with my one winter coat and woollen mittens, I, too, launched avalanches of 'snowballs' at my friends; snowballs which could be easily gathered from atop the bricks of the walls surrounding each little 'garden' in the front of each little terraced house; it was easier than gathering the 'balls' from the road!
This is a 'joy' to be 'enjoyed' by every child who lives in a climate which experience the passage of the seasons, however what made this experience so much different from any that had gone before was the duration of the winter; never before had winter extended into March, yes, we could still throw snowballs, in reality 'iceballs', in late February.
I have seldom had a predilection for snowmen, although the magical story by Raymond Briggs caused me later in my life to give thought to the notion that such imaginary 'men' might be possible, and desirable, and so, in this vast expanse of snow and ice, I built the 'Alps' in our little garden; or at least as much as I knew, at age 8, about the Alps. I knew that they had had high mountains and so I built peaks from the snow; I knew that that they possessed 'passes' and so I built tracks around those peaks; I had heard of tunnels through the rock, through the very heart of these mounts, and so I built tunnels through my 'faux alps', chiselling my way through the compacted snow with a pencil (HB).
I, as a child, as an infant, did not not know of how widespread the 'disaster' had been; I did not know of the power cuts, the villages cut off from all humanity, from all human contact; the ruination of crops, the despair of the farmers, doomed to see their crops wither in the darkness of a seemingly perpetual winter; I did not see the 'thaw' which wasn't a thaw, merely a transient thaw, a thaw in which rivers flooded their banks, water mains burst and everything was deluged with water and yet was, somehow, turned to ice but mere hours later when the weather changed. I did, however, relish the lack of school; unable to heat the vast Victorian edifice that was 'The School', they closed it and we made merry as the 'sun shone'.
A year, a season, to remember; aye!
You are supposed to end an essay, a piece of 'homework', with a conclusion; what is the conclusion to this? That shit happens? That unforeseen shit happens? That Governments and Civil Servants, charged with administering a country, have not got a clue about how to deal with the unexpected, however expected; that those that were empowered to administer a nation were found wanting in the most extreme circumstances.? No, this is not the conclusion, however appropriate an end this might be.
The conclusion is this: take life, embrace it, for all of its faults, for all that it might disassocate from all that you take for granted, and ENJOY. There is little left in life but to take joy in this life, however much it may take you to places which you would rather avoid; that it might disaccomadate you from all that you might be and all that you might wish to be. It is a truism, to be sure, but enjoy the joy in life because this life is all the life that has been left to you. (© Albert Camus, 1944 or thereabouts.)
A small footnote: I was watching a 1963 documentary by the BBC on that year's winter in the UK, which prompted this blogpost; the worst winter for 200 years. As the end credits rolled up, presenters, director, producer etc. whose name should appear briefly as 'Designer', one Ridley Scott! Yes, THAT Ridley Scott! The BBC is often maligned, but surely if the corporation can produce, nurture, a talent as profound as to engender 'The Kingdom of Heaven', 'Alien', 'Gladiator' or 'Blade Runner', then surely it deserves, demands, preservation as conceived by its founders.
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