Yesterday was the monthly silent walk in solidarity and community with the people of Grenfell. Touching
times, as ever. There is so much to be
found there which is an inspiration for how to live more deeply and
lovingly in the world, how to stand firm in the face of corporate
indifference, how to keep hope alive in a world which so often
suggests that it would be easier to let it die. It is both a
privilege and a blessing to stand beside them in my own small way.
This month's walk was smaller, which had been expected over the summer months, but
it is so often the case that when we break a habit it is hard to go
back to it, even when we want to. I hope that people return after the
summer holidays and, if you have ever thought of joining in the walk,
please do. It takes place every 14th of the month, gathering at 6pm at Notting Hill Methodist Church, and walking from 7pm. You can check the details on the silent walk Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/GrenfellSilentWalk/I know that it matters so much to those who continue to
fight for justice for their loved ones that as many as possible stand with them. News moves on to the next thing. It is so easy
to forget. It matters that, this time, that doesn't happen.
And
here is a maybe-finished poem which has been going round and round in
my head as I walked over the last few months. With thanks to John
Clare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Gerrard Winstanley, Gerald Manley
Hopkins, and Terry Pratchett for the borrowed lines. I hope that they
wouldn't mind too much. It was done with much respect for their own journeys with the Land.
When Grenfell
When
Grenfell,
when
green fell,
when
the green heart fell,
they
dropped it and we picked it up.
They
call it protest, we call it love.
And
I am walking hand in hand with John Clare
who
walked the land as prayer
and
saw it lost,
the
fences raised, the green ways dust,
and
we have tied defiance in our hair,
and
ceased to weave with toil and care
the
rich robes that our tyrants wear,
know
this earth was made a common treasury
for
every man to share.
Because
there is no justice, there's just us.
And
we are all peasant poets here
we
will not give way to fear.
Gerald
Manley Hopkins, pray for us;
let
kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame,
reclaim
the blaze that wrote their names
in
ash, turned hope to stone,
took
their homes.
Just
another Enclosure, another Land Grab,
another
Clearance, another
little tyrant with his little sign shows where man claims earth glows no more divine, but
this glow is not going out. Our
silent footsteps fan the flames, keep
live the spark, community
becomes the still beating heart, and
where the green heart fell we pick it up. They
call it protest, we call it love.
In recent days we have received a great blessing in our lives here at the hedgehermitage; the presence of a fosterling, a herring gull fledgling who we named Steve Mac Gwylan. We have been told that many people who find gull chicks nickname them ‘Steve’, as in ‘Steven Seagal’ but the reasons for naming our own Steve were far less prosaic, or so I pompously like to believe. ‘Steve’ was for our neighbour, in whose garden two beautiful speckled olive hatched herring gull eggs were found earlier this summer, and whose face lit up when Mr Radical Honey half jokingly suggested Steve as a name for our new ground-level resident. We didn’t have the heart to change his name after that. ‘Mac’ was for ‘mackerel’ (Steve’s first meal in our company), and ‘gwylan’, the Welsh word for ‘gull’. It was a name that suited him well.
Steve Mac Gwylan first appeared in our lives a few months ago when he hatched on our roof where his parents raise their chicks every year. Usually we see two chicks but this year, quite late I think perhaps due to the spring storms, s/he was the only one. Our neighbour found two egg shells in his garden over a couple of days, one being played with by a fox, and so it may be that our resident corvids took the other chick to feed their own. All part of the beautiful web of things. Steve first appeared in clear sight on the roof on the evening of 26th June, backlit by the setting sun. He was already quite large by then, not the usual molecule of fluff that we first catch a glimpse of. He looked like an angel standing there and quite heroic! We have watched him grow over the last weeks and it has been a pleasure, although he did quite like sitting right at the edge of the roof which was rather nervewracking…
And then, last Friday, Simon went out to start Miss Stefi Spring-Green, the hedgetemple van and found a slightly bewildered and disheveled feathered being next to our neighbour’s fence.
The little gull almost immediately approached him but then went under the van, which necessitated him being coaxed out with some tinned mackerel so that we could drive away. I fear that the mackerel sealed our fate. We know well not to touch baby birds, even if they are on the ground and seemingly vulnerable. It is all part of their growing and many will spend time on the ground being fed by their parents after leaving the nest. It is more by luck than judgement that they land somewhere safe from predators. This fledgling had certainly not done that but we are used to young gulls being on the ground here as they nest all over our estate and are zealously protected by the adults as they attempt their first flights. We expected to be divebombed by this chick’s parents and relatives but nothing came. We felt concerned but decided to leave him. He spent most of the afternoon wandering along the path between our houses and, when Simon returned with me from my afternoon out and opened our garden gate, the bold little gull just walked straight in! We felt responsible for him after that.
We happened to have recently bought some long, shallow storage boxes and so we filled one with water and the being by now known as Steve Mac Gwylan was soon drinking from it and sploshing around. He seemed well, although one of his wings was drooping slightly, and happily accepted a further offering of mackerel. We contacted a wildlife rescue centre and they advised keeping him in a shed, or other safe place, overnight and then seeing how he was the next day. When I told them that we don’t have a shed they suggested popping him in the bath so that he could “chill out”. And so it was. Along with our neighbours we spent the evening cooing over him, whilst he stayed close to his newly discovered pool of water, and when it got dark Simon picked him up in a towel and into the bath he went. We found a large, low pasta bowl and filled that with water for his night time comfort and also gave him some more mackerel. He didn’t really appreciate the bath to start with but, after the inevitable mess that gulls are bound to make transpired and Simon hosed him down, he was much happier. He loved the water and, once the shower was running, decided that he would eat something and settle down for the night. He was surprisingly quiet and didn’t wake us until 6.30 the next morning when he commenced screeching like a banshee! I found him to be a fine alarm clock! When he woke us Simon got quickly dressed and took Steve Mac Gwylan out into the garden where he spent a happy day exploring, trying out new foods, finding shady places to relax, stretching, preening, and practicing flying (quite unsuccessfully!). He disliked the slug that he sampled early in the morning, which caused him to spend some minutes wiping his beak on the grass in disgust, but did enjoy a range of tiny beetles and other scurrying things. His ability to spot tiny movements was quite incredible and Simon reflected on what the gulls might be able to see even during flight. They must experience the minutiae of life in a way that we can’t even imagine. Our new fosterling also became increasingly brave and confident with us. He spent some time sitting under Simon’s legs and by my foot and seemed to enjoy being close to one or other of us. Some of Simon’s family visited during the afternoon but Steve Mac Gwylan was unphased, especially as by then he had discovered his own reflection in our garden mirror. His parents occasionally visited the roof but paid him little obvious attention. It did seem though that he was communicating with his mother (or perhaps father, of course) from the bathroom in the morning and now and again during the day. She would often fly over the garden, where she must have been able to see him, and he would gaze up at her which he never did with any other gulls. We felt that we had been entrusted with his care, that his parents knew us to be of good intent.
We thought that Steve Mac Gwylan was doing well and would soon fly so decided to keep him safe whilst he gathered up his wings. Simon spent much time observing him; how he would tuck both wings over his back to rest on his tail but that, as he relaxed, his left wing would slip off. Simon felt that his tail feathers were perhaps not fully grown yet and that his wing muscles weren’t entirely developed. Certainly Steve had a fluffier head than the usual fledglings we see and there had been reports of too-young gulls abandoning their roof nests early because of the heat. On Saturday night when it was time for Steve to return to the bath he didn’t need to be picked up. He hopped into the house and, with some slight encouragement, took himself up the stairs! What a remarkable little bird! Gulls really are such intelligent creatures. This time Steve Mac Gwylan woke us at 5am and, as Simon made him comfortable for a few more hours sleep, he noticed that his left wing seemed more difficult to move that it had been. When Steve was taken into the garden a few hours later it did seem that the wing had drooped further and that he was struggling with it. He sat on our garden path peeping mournfully with his parent above calling down to him. Simon, Steve, and Mother Mac Gwylan spent some time in consideration of what should be done and so we called the wildlife rescue centre again. They advised us to take Steve to their vets in Maidstone, about 35 miles away. The risk of taking him to a local vet was that, had his wing been broken, the majority would have insisted that he be killed. These vets would treat him and then he would be collected by the wildlife centre who would either care for him until he could be released or, if he was too disabled to live in the wild, take him to a local sanctuary where he could live out a happy life on the ground. We were told that many people would have refused to take him so far because they have better things to do! I must say that, although we knew that it was the right thing, we took him there with heavy hearts. Mother Mac Gwylan was sitting on our roof as we left preening her feathers. I felt that she knew that we were providing her chick with help that he needed but that she wasn’t able to give.
The vets were lovely and, whilst there, we also met Lorraine from the wildlife centre who appeared with a large animal carrier containing four other herring gull fledglings who had come for a checkup. She is looking after twenty four at the moment, as well as various other animals! She told us that it is hard to judge when gull fledglings are ready to fly and so, every few days, they take their charges to some open grass not too far from the beach and let them spend some time there. Some will find it in them to fly away but the others are gathered back in and taken back again a few days later. There was a time that the young gulls were released on the beach, which seems to make perfect sense, but on one occasion two fledglings wandered into the sea, became waterlogged and promptly began to sink, which meant that members of the wildlife rescue had to wade in to save them! Much better then to test out their readiness for release some distance from the water. It seems that for young gulls life begins with much trial and error, as it does for us all. Later in the afternoon we contacted the vets to see how Steve Mac Gwylan was. We were told that he had been x-rayed and that there were no breaks in his wings. Such a relief! The vet felt that he had sprained his wing, or pulled a muscle, when he ‘flew’ down from the roof and that he just needed some time to recover. He had been bandaged for a few days to stop him using his wing too much and was expected to be much better in a few days. After that he would go to the wildlife centre for rehabilitation and release. A happy not-quite-the-ending.
I must admit that the hedgehermitage feels very empty with Steve Mac Gwylan in it. He was only here for a few days but he had such a presence and gulls are such wonderful birds. It is heartening though that Simon’s instincts about Steve’s injuries were proven right and he has resolved to trust his intuition more firmly in future; a lesson that Life often reminds him of, and we are happy to know that Steve will be well and lead a hopefully long, happy, and successful life. We do though harbour secret thoughts that, one day, s/he might make his way back here and come to say hello. Stranger things have happened and he would be made most welcome. In the meantime, we feel that we have been offered a great blessing; the privilege of being trusted with a young life by wildly protective parents, the opportunity to more closely observe a being who we knew so little of in reality, and the gift of feeling more deeply woven in to the life that surrounds us here, particularly of the gulls. We have always loved them but now they are family. Our other family members here include nettle and ragwort, which I hope to write more about soon. Gull, nettle, ragwort; all unacceptable to many, often despised, thought unworthy of being given space in any ‘civilised’ garden, in danger of imminent eradication. Kindred spirits.
As for the herring gulls, most of their chicks have now fledged and so, although they will still be around, our time for being in close community with them is drawing to a close for this year. It has been a challenging year for them, not only because of the spring storms, but also because the army barracks, on whose chimney pots they have raised their chicks for more than a hundred years, have been demolished over the summer. I have been deeply concerned and distressed at the buildings being lost whilst the gulls were nesting but was at a loss to know what to do. It was only today that I discovered there are laws to stop this happening; that any building, tree, or hedgerow with nesting birds (or even birds scouting for nests) is protected between mid March and the end of August. The development company have committed a crime but, of course, the gulls are gone and it would be very hard to prove that now. And yet so much tree felling, building work, and hedgerow obliteration seems to occur between those dates. I have resolved to be more proactive in future and to know what to do before it happens. If you would like to know more you can find information on the Government website here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/wild-birds-protection-surveys-and-licences and also here http://ww2.rspb.org.uk/Images/protectingbirds_wales_tcm9-308104.pdf. I have no doubt that the developers would have an answer as to why it was acceptable that they disturbed these nests but it feels important to at least ask the question, and also to inform the local police wildlife crime officer, which was the advice I was given today by the wildlife rescue centre. Last week, my neighbour and I attended an information evening about the new estate that is being built all around us. A man there, who said that he was a tree surgeon, was angrily castigating the developers for felling many healthy 80 year old trees which need not have been lost. He said that crows had been nesting in those trees for decades, all gone. I am not quite sure of the date when they were felled but certainly the year had turned to spring. Nothing has been done on the site since. The crows could have raised at least one more family there. Herring gulls are often considered a nuisance to humans and, like crows, attract much adverse publicity. That they have come into closer and closer relationship with us might be seen as a teaching, revealing to us our own folly; the amount of food that we throw away and which ends up in landfill sites and often attracting and sustaining large communities of gulls, and our wider behaviour which has led to dwindling fish populations in the sea and so driving seabirds inland. It is to the herring gulls’ credit that they are so adaptable, just as our species is. In so many ways they are our mirror. For all of that the herring gull population has decreased by 50% over the last 25 years and they have now been placed on the RSPB’s ‘Red List’ of threatened bird species. I dearly wish that I had questioned the demolition of our nearby army barracks before it happened. I hope not to be so tardy in the future. I thank Steve Mac Gwylan and all that he taught me for helping me find the strength to even consider trying. Often in this world where so much is being lost, and we often feel overwhelmed and unable to act, our instinct is to cut ourselves off, to turn away, and yet so many of us live in such distress at what we cannot unsee. Better perhaps to more deeply weave ourselves in, and in that weaving find the power in community that helps us to stand with the non-human people, whoever they may be. It may be their, and our, only chance of surviving what comes.
Fly well, brave Steve Mac Gwylan. We will miss you.
The Poem Tree, Wittenham Clumps, 2nd September 2012.
I
wanted to write about another ‘holy activist ancestor’ who
inspires me, the little known poet and wood carver, Joseph Tubb and
his Poem Tree.
On
the last day of August
2012 I walked through
fields of Greylag and Canada Geese and followed
a path of dog daisies to visit
Wittenham Clumps, close
to Dorchester-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.
Greylag geese, Dorchester-on-Thames water meadows, 2012.
Wittenham Clumps is the
common name for two chalk hills, Round Hill and Castle Hill, in the
Thames Valley. Castle Hill is the sight of an Iron Age hill fort,
built on earlier Bronze
Age remains, and, just
over half a mile away, is Brightwell Bronze Age round barrow. At the
top of the hills are small woods containing the oldest beech tree
plantings in England, dating back to the 1740s. Their summits offer
views over a landscape that once contained some of the earliest
settlements in our land. The artist, Paul Nash, climbed the Clumps in
1911, subsequently visiting many times, and described the view as, “a
beautiful legendary country haunted by old gods long forgotten."
Although 'Wittenham Clumps' is generally used to refer to the entire hills, that name really
refers only to the wooded summits of
Round and Castle Hills, with their older collective name being
Sinodun Hills ~ Sinodun from the Celtic, ‘Seno-Dunum’, meaning
‘Old Fort’, although it has been suggested that it is a much more
modern play on words based on ‘sinus’, which in Latin means ‘bosom’. Admittedly the two hills do looks very much like breasts. Some of their
more colloquial names include ‘The Berkshire Bubs’ (before boundaries changed they were in the
county of Berkshire), and ‘Mother
Dunch’s Buttocks’! The
latter was named for a member of a local landowning family, which
makes me smile. I’m
not sure that she would have taken it as a compliment!
On the summit of the hills there is a
hollow called the ‘Money-pit’, supposedly a treasure hoard
guarded by a raven, and a copse named ‘Cuckoo Pen’, referring to
the belief that imprisoning a cuckoo would bring eternal summer.
Looking out, Dorchester
Abbey is clearly visible to the north. At
the time of my visit the abbey was displaying a newly commissioned
painting, ‘Bright Rising’ by artist Rebecca Hind,
which
depicts Mary as the full moon rising above a water meadow ~ freeing
the divine from church walls and subversively
placing her in the surrounding landscape. It
was to this strange and blessed earth that Joseph
Tubb, in an act of defiance and devotion, came in
1844
to carve his Poem Tree.
Joseph
was a maltster, converting
grain into malt for use in brewing, and lived
at Lavender Cottage in Warborough, near Dorchester. He had always
wanted to be a wood carver but his father convinced him, due
to family tradition, to
abandon his
dream and become a maltster instead.
He lived at the end of the Industrial Revolution, which had
drawn many from the countryside and agricultural work into the towns
and cities. It was also when
land once held in common as a resource for all had been further enclosed by the last wave of the Inclosure Acts.
Some might consider
that the two things were even related! Joseph
strongly opposed this
enclosure and often pulled down fences as an act of rebellion.
Because of that he spent a short time in Oxford gaol. Over
two weeks during the summer of
1844 or 45, he took a ladder and tent to Wittenham Clumps and carved a
poem he had written from memory
into the bark of a
beech tree on the eastern slopes of Castle Hill.
Wonderful image of the Poem Tree when she was still standing. Photo: The Oxford Times
The
poem he carved in a
labour of love is a prayer to his
‘motherground’, the
landscape that was his home from birth until death.
It describes a moment
in time, woven through with the threads of history, of both worldly and religious powers
~ Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Dane, the
coming of Christianity and its own demands for land. I'm sure that, had he lived a hundred years later, he might also have mentioned Didcot Power Station, which can be clearly seen dominating the landscape from the top of The Clumps.
View of Didcot Power Station from Wittenham Clumps, 2012.
As
up the hill with labr'ing steps we tread
Where the twin Clumps
their sheltering branches spread
The summit gain'd at ease
reclining lay
And all around the wide spread scene survey
Point
out each object and instructive tell
The various changes that
the land befell
Where the low bank the country wide
surrounds
That ancient earthwork form'd old Mercia’s
bounds
In misty distance see the barrow heave
There lies
forgotten lonely Cwichelm's
grave.
Around
this hill the ruthless Danes
intrenched
And these fair plains with gory slaughter
drench'd
While at our feet where stands that stately tower
In
days gone by up rose the Roman
power
And
yonder, there where Thames
smooth
waters glide
In later days appeared monastic pride.
Within
that field where lies the grazing herd
Huge walls were found,
some coffins disinter'd
Such is the course of time, the wreck
which fate
And awful doom award the earthly great.
(Joseph Tubb)
"Within that field where lies the grazing herd..."
View of the River Thames from Wittenham Clumps
Joseph’s
poem speaks of the ‘ancient earthwork’, which may refer to Grim’s Ditch, a 5 mile long bank and ditch earthwork on the Berkshire Downs,
or to The Ridgeway, a
5,000 year old ancient trackway along the chalk ridge between
Wiltshire and Buckinghamshire, which Grim’s Ditch
forms a part of. Mercia
was one of the seven
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
and dominated England
south of the River Humber for three centuries (between 600 and
900CE). During Alfred
the Great’s rule (871 to 899CE) the border between Wessex and
Mercia could be seen from the Clumps. I
think of Joseph reflecting on the land being ‘carved up’ in this
way as he carved into the bark of the tree.
Mention of ‘Cwichelm’s
grave’ is reference to Scutchamer Knob, an early Iron Age round
barrow on the Ridgeway near Grim’s Ditch, which was originally
called Cwichelmeshlaew
or Cwichelm's Barrow
and was believed to be the place where the recently
baptised
Anglo-Saxon king Cwichelm of Wessex was killed by King Edwin of
Northumbria in 636CE. The round barrow was thought to have been the
grave of Cwichelm for many years and to contain treasure, hence its
changing shape as it has been repeatedly excavated but
without any significant finds. I
love too the description of seeing the barrow ‘heave’ in the misty distance. In my recent
writing on Hocktide I mentioned that one of the customs involved
local people lifting one another off the ground. I was reminded by
one of my readers that this act of ‘heaving’ has its equivalents
in many European spring
traditions
and that it was a way of proving one’s strength
at the start of the year.
I
am sure that Joseph would have been familiar with such customs and
wonder whether the ‘heave’ in his poem is a play on words evoking
an image of Cwichelm’s long forgotten and ‘lonely’ barrow
‘heaving’ to test its strength against an incoming tide of
invaders. It
reminds me very much of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, ‘The Land’,
which
similarly traces
attempts by incomers to take over land which isn’t theirs and
comparing them to someone whose ancestors have lived on and worked it
for generations. I am sure that Joseph Tubb and Rudyard Kipling would
have found
much to talk about.
Joseph
goes on to write of ‘disinterred coffins’, referring to the 18th
century discovery of two coffins on the summit of Round Hill,
together with the possible remains of a Roman Villa, a
reminder that no power lasts forever, as the ‘lonely Cwichelm’
could no doubt attest; that even the ‘earthly great’ will end up
in the ground with the lowliest of us.
Here
again, Joseph
touches on my own thoughts. My friend, Will, who I visited Wittenham
Clumps with, was once a member of the Peace Convoy which was attacked
by police at the Battle of the Beanfield in
Wiltshire
on 1st
June 1985 whilst on their way to set up the Stonehenge Free Festival.
That
is a story for another day but for now I will say that I was both
moved and delighted when I discovered that, when he died two years
after our visit, the burial site chosen for him following
a series of ‘coincidences’
was, without knowing it at the time, on the very farm that the Peace
Convoy had been so brutally driven
from
so many years before. There have always been those who hope to restrict the common
people’s access to the land. In life they are very often able to do so, but death
is the ‘True Leveller’ and Will’s bones are reclaiming the
land, becoming part of it. No earthly power has control over that process of beautiful disorder. Joseph
would have liked that I think.
As
for the beech tree which Joseph chose to carve into; she is
believed to have been
planted around 300
years ago but her health
began to decline in the 1980s and she collapsed
through a combination of rot and weather challenging
to an elderly tree in
July 2012, just a few
weeks before I visited.
Beech trees are not
particularly long living and have shallow roots so this is all part
of her life cycle. In fact, she lived an amazingly long life before
she fell. Once she had
been found to be in a
dangerous condition, as
many of the trees on The Clumps now are,
a crane was brought in to make her safe but she disintegrated as she
was being lowered to the ground. Luckily, British geographer Henry
Osmaston took a rubbing of Joseph’s poem in 1965 before it became
almost illegible and
this was made into a
plaque, which was erected on a Sarsen stone close to the tree in 1994
to commemorate 150 years since the carving was made. Of course, the plaque, which was sponsored by the Natwest bank, makes no mention of the reasons that Joseph may have had for making such a dedicated and lasting statement, nor for writing the poem itself. We must work that out for ourselves and in that way hopefully remember him as he would have wished.
The plaque erected on top of Wittenham Clumps to commemorate 150 years since the carving of the Poem Tree
The
tree herself has been left where she fell and will provide a valuable
wildlife habitat and
nutrients to the surrounding area in the years ahead. To
me, she is just differently alive.
The fallen Poem Tree ~ differently alive ~ 2nd Sepetmber, 2012
The fallen Poem Tree ~ differently alive ~ 2nd Sepetmber, 2012
The Poem Tree, 2nd September, 2012
A
few days after her transformation a tribute of flowers, including
gladioli, was left on her broken trunk, such is the affection for
Joseph and his Poem Tree, and I believe that we found a trace of that
offering when we visited.
Offerings of flowers left for Joseph & his Poem Tree after she fell in July 2012
I
feel deeply blessed that I came to that place only a few weeks after she fell and when Joseph’s carving could still be seen in her bark, particularly
as parts of it were soon after removed to be put on display
elsewhere. And I feel
deeply blessed to have touched the 168 year old carvings of a man who
escaped the limitations
and demands of family tradition to become the wood carver that he
always longed to be, even
if only for two weeks on top of his beloved Wittenham Clumps. On this high hill, rising above it all to make his stand, he perhaps
found in her trees
and earthworks a way to
carve out just a little bit of liberty for himself and for the land
that he loved. A land whose confinement echoed his own. May
our own quiet rebellions echo through the years with such creative
determination and brightness.
And what of Joseph's bones resting now in the land that aroused in him such passion for common justice? Like his Poem Tree, they have transformed, become one with the earth, dissolved the boundaries; man, poem, and tree released to do their work in new ways. In death, Joseph Tubb truly has pulled down the fence. He has become differently alive.
Just one last word ~ while visiting the Poem Tree, my eye kept being drawn to this log in the grass nearby. I was convinced that someone was lying there reading. I like to think that it was Joseph, resting at last after making his mark as the wood carver and poet that he was born to be.
I
want to begin writing about some of the people who inspire me and
give me strength for the journey. Paul Robeson is one of those
people; one of my own ‘folk saints’, a ‘holy activist
ancestor’. And truly I knew very little about him until I happened
to go and see a play about
his life, ‘Call Mr Robeson’ by Tayo
Aluko, in 2013.
I can’t even remember what prompted me to go now. I rarely went to
the theatre but I think that a friend had been to see it and
recommended it, and I had such fond
memories of my dad singing, ‘Ol’ Man River’ in his beautiful
voice. I think that
somewhere I have a recording of him that
I can’t quite bear to listen to
singing along to it with ‘Show Boat’ on the telly and it was one
of the songs that we chose for his funeral.Yes, I think that I
went to see the play because of my dad. I
had no idea that I
would discover in that play a man of such fire and dignity, of such
hugeness of hope and
heart. I am ever
grateful.
Paul
Robeson was born on 9th
April, 1898, and so this week has marked the 120th
anniversary of his birth. So much has changed, and so much hasn’t,
since he joined us. His father, William Drew Robeson, a descendant of
the Igbo people of Nigeria, was born into slavery on the Roberson
plantation, North Carolina, in 1844. In
1860, when he was 15 years old, he escaped with his brother, Ezekiel,
via a
network of secret routes and safe houses known
as the Underground Railway to
make his home in the free state of Pennsylvania. He worked as a
labourer with the Union Army in the American Civil War, joining at 16
in an effort to help the work of ending slavery in the South.
After the war he went
on to college and became a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1876.
Whilst there he met
teacher, Maria
Louisa Bustill, a
member of a prominent black Quaker family and
whose ancestry was part
Lenni-Lenape Native American, part Anglo-American, and part Igbo. Her
family had been free since the 1700s and her great-grandfather, Cyrus
Bustill, had been one of the founders of the Free African Society,
which held religious services and provided aid for ‘free Africans
and their descendants’. Her
father, Charles Hicks Bustill, was an abolitionist and a conductor on
the Underground Railway. Nevertheless,
it was considered by her family that she had ‘married down’ when
she chose William Drew Robeson.
Maria Louisa and William Robeson (Public Domain USA)
Maria,
who was known as Louisa, and William married in 1878 and had seven
children together, five
of whom survived into adulthood.
Louisa worked as a teacher and tutored privately and William became
the minister of a Presbyterian church in Princeton, New Jersey, where
Paul was born. However,
when Paul was 3 years old, his father was ousted from his church
after 20 years service having refused to bow to pressure from white
financial supporters of
the church to stop
speaking out against social injustice. On
leaving his entirely
black congregation, all
of whom supported him, he said that his heart was filled with nothing
but love and urged them, "Do not be discouraged, do not think
your past work is in vain." On
resigning his ministry, William was forced to take low paid work and
three years later, Louisa, who had become almost blind with
cataracts, died when an ember from their kitchen stove set fire to
her clothes. Only two
of their children, Ben and Paul, were still living at home but
William eventually became unable to provide a house for them and they
moved into an attic above a store in Westfield, New Jersey. In
1910, William again found a position as a minister at the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, where Paul would stand in for his
father in giving sermons on occasion.
(newstatesman.com)
Both
William and Louisa
believed in the importance of education for their children and Paul
attended a High School where, despite racial taunts, he performed in
Julius Caesar and Othello, sang in the chorus, and excelled at
sports. Prior to
graduation, he won a statewide academic contest and earned a
scholarship to Rutgers, the eighth oldest college in the United
States, where he became
only the third ever African-American student (and the only one at the
time). On arrival
his resolve to join the football team was tested via ‘excessive
play’, which resulted in his sustaining a broken nose and dislocated
shoulder! He also
joined the debating team and sang off-campus
to gain
spending money. He also
sang with the on-campus glee club, but this could only be informal as
membership required attending all-white events from which he was
excluded. During
Rutger’s sesquicentennial celebrations he was left on the bench
during a football match when a team from the South refused to play
because their opponents had fielded a ‘negro’. Nevertheless,
he was recognised in The Crisis, the official magazine for the
National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, for his
athletic, academic, and singing talents. A true Renaissance man! It
was at this time that his father, William, became very ill and Paul
took sole responsibility for caring for him, noting that his father
had been, the “glory of his boyhood years.” It
is touching indeed that he cared for his father so tenderly,
especially at a time when he was just beginning to make his own way
in the world; a care that was echoed by his own son, Paul Robeson
Jr., when he himself became ill in his later years. A beautiful
fatherline.
William
died in May 1918 and was buried next to Louisa. Paul
went on to make a huge success of his time at Rutgers, being
recognised both for his sporting achievements (Walter Camp,
considered to be the ‘Father of American Football’ considered his
to be the “greatest end ever”), and by his classmates, who
elected him
class valedictorian. In
his valedictory speech he urged them to work for equality for all
Americans, having been critical during his time there of a country
who would allow African-Americans to fight for them in WWI but not
offer them the same opportunities as whitre citizens at home.
Paul
went on to graduate
from Columbia Law School in 1923, having abandoned his footballing
career several
months earlier. During his time at the school he had met and married
anthropologist, author, actor, and civil rights activist, Eslanda ‘Essie’ Goode. Essie
graduated from Columbia with a degree in chemistry and it was her
time there that stimulated her interest in racial equality. After
university she became the first black person to be the head
histological chemist of surgical pathology at New York Presbyterian
Hospital but she
gave up her intention to study medicine when her husband’s career
began to take off and became his business manager. Paul Robeson
credited her with encouraging his acting career, saying that he only
took roles in order to stop her ‘pestering’ him. Theirs was a
tumultuous relationship, shadowed by rumours of his unfaithfulness.
It was his affair with
Peggy Ashcroft whilst he
was appearing with her
in Othello in London, that let Essie and Paul to become briefly
estranged.
At that
time Essie resumed her career, taking parts in three films and
gaining an anthropology degree from the London School of Economics in
1937, together with a PHD in the subject in 1946. She learned more
about Africa whilst in England and made three journeys to the
continent, later writing a book, ‘African Journey’, which urged
black people to be proud of their ancestry. Her
perspective as a black African-American woman was considered to be
both unique and important. Like
her husband, she had her passport revoked during the McCarthy era
under accusation of being a Communist. When it was returned she again
travelled to Africa, attending the first post-colonial All-African
People’s Conference in Ghana in 1958. She
was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1963 and died in New York in
1965.
Essie, Paul, and Paul jr, circa 1950 from chs.org
As
for Essie’s husband, he
worked briefly as a lawyer but renounced that work due to rampant
racism. When a white secretary refused to take dictation from him, he
resigned,
saying: “On the stage only the sky could hold me back.” Essie
financially supported them for a time but his acting and singing
career soon led to startling
success, despite his
own reported indifference. Following
various roles at home, he
appeared in 1928 in
the American musical ‘Show Boat’ at the Theatre Royal, Drury
Lane, which ran for 350
performances. He
was hugely popular in his role, was summoned for a Royal Command
Performance at Buckingham Palace, was befriended by MPs, and he and
Essie bought a house in Hampstead. Nevertheless,
he was refused seating at the Savoy Grill and issued a press release
describing the insult. In
1930 he became the first black actor to take the lead role in
‘Othello’ since Ira Aldridge more than 100 years earlier. On
opening night he received 20 curtain calls but reviews were mixed,
suggesting that he was ‘too genteel’ in the role. He later stated
that the sensitivities around a black man embracing a white woman had
made him tense, "I was backin' away from her all the time. I was
like a plantation hand in the parlour, that clumsy." Off-stage
they fell in love and
there are suggestions that they had planned to marry but the pressure
of opinion against
unions such as theirs was just too great.
Paul Robeson and Peggy Ashcroft in Othello, 1931
However,
it was whilst in London that Paul Robeson experienced an ideological
awakening. In the
winter of 1929, he had heard the sound of a Welsh miners’ choir.
They had walked all the way from Wales to protest their desperate
poverty and to petition the Government for help. He immediately
joined them to sing, later paying for their train journeys home,
together with food and clothing, and visited the Rhondda to sing for
mining communities and talk to the people there. Later,
it was often the people of Wales who supported and
lifted him as he became
more isolated in his own country. In
1934 he enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies, where
he studied 20 African dialects and became more acutely aware of
African history and its impact on culture, together
with the effects of colonialism.
In December 1934, due
to his friendship with members of the anti-Imperialism movement and
British Socialists, he visited the Soviet Union with Essie and said
that it was the first time in his life that he had felt like a human
being who could walk with “full human dignity”. In 1936, he and
Essie decided to send their son, Paul Jr., to school in the Soviet
Union so that he could experience a culture without racism.
It
was the Spanish Civil War which Robeson credited
with turning him into a poltical activist. He began to use his stage
performances to advocate for the Republican side
and for refugees of
the war, together with
permanently changing
his rendition of ‘Ol’Man River’ from a resigned and world weary
sorrow-song into one
of defiance. When he was warned that this might affect his commercial
success he refused to change his stance. Whilst
in Wales he spoke in
tribute to the Welsh people
who had died fighting for the Republican cause and said, "The
artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or
slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative." Those
fine words were to become his epitaph. He
later visited the Spanish battlefront, singing to wounded soldiers
and attempting to lift morale.
On
returning to England, he developed a close friendship with Nehru, who
was working towards Indian independence, and, having heard him
speak on Imperialism’s links with Fascism, decided to refocus his
career on the struggles of the ‘common people’. He became an
important voice in the Second
Sino-Japanese War,
sympathising with China and holding concerts to raise aid. A song,
written by progressive Chinese activist Liu Liangmo, and recorded in
the Chinese language by Robeson, became China’s national anthem in
1949. Even though Liangmo died in a Beijing prison in 1968, Robeson
made sure to send royalties to his family. Robeson
often recorded songs in languages other than his own, such as Gaelic
and Yiddish, seeing this as a form of protest against colonialism. I
so agree that, in order to be free, we must hear and dare to speak
our Older Tongues.
Paul
Robeson’s last film
in Britain was, ‘The Proud Valley’ (1940), set in a Welsh
coal-mining town. It was filmed on location in the South Wales
coalfield and documented the harsh realities the lives of Welsh
miners. Although by the
time of its release Robeson was on Lord Beaverbrook’s publicity
blacklist, having spoken out against British and French appeasement
of the Nazis and remained pro-Soviet, his performance was praised as
powerful and sensitive. He later said that the role, in which he
built relationships across boundaries of nationality and race, was
his favourite due to its sympathetic portrayal of workers and their
lives. He was firmly of
the view that the struggle for freedom transcended all differences,
and that the fight of the Welsh miner was exactly that of the black
slave in America.
Although
he was feted as ‘America’s no.1 entertainer’, on his return
there he was refused almost all hotel accomodation and the one hotel
that would let him stay insisted that he use an assumed name. Because
of this he dedicated two hours to sitting in the lobby each day! He
had also come to the attention of the FBI, who declared the
documentary ‘Native Land’, which he
narrated and depicted
the struggle of trade
unions
against corporate power, to be ‘communist propaganda’. Not
long afterwards, he said that he would no longer appear in films as
the roles written for black actors were demeaning.
After
abandoning his film career, Paul Robeson went
on to reprise his role in ‘Othello’, becoming the first black
actor to play the central role with a white supporting cast on
Broadway. His political activism was tireless, as he learned and
spoke out about anti-fascism, continued racism within sport, and
imperialism. In 1946,
he founded the ‘American Crusade Against Lynching’ organisation,
when President Truman refused to enact anti-lynching legislation
after the mass lynching of four black men in July of that year. Some
years later he
delivered a petition
accusing
the United States government of genocide under Article II of the UN
Genocide Convention. He
became a great advocate for union rights, believing them to be
crucial in the fight for civil rights. When he was called before the
Senate and questioned about his affiliation with the Communist Party,
he replied, "Some of the most brilliant and distinguished
Americans are about to go to jail for the failure to answer that
question, and I am going to join them, if necessary." Later,
he was forced to again travel abroad as so many of his US concerts
were cancelled at the request of the FBI.
The Red List
Whilst
travelling, he spoke at the World Peace Council, where he was
misreported as equating America with a Fascist state. On
visiting the Soviet Union in June 1949, he learned of the persecution
of Russian Jews but he never publicly spoke of it in order to prevent
the Right Wing of US politics gaining ground. Speaking at the Paris
Peace Congress soon afterwards he said, "We in America do not
forget that it was on the backs of the white workers from Europe and
on the backs of millions of blacks
that the wealth of America was built. And we are resolved to share it
equally. We reject any hysterical raving that urges us to make war on
anyone. Our will to fight for peace is strong. We shall not make war
on anyone." Words
that many of our leaders would do well to heed now. Because
of this he was blacklisted by the mainstream US press, including by
many black periodicals. Attempts
were made to remove him from history; a book described as ‘the most
complete on American
football history’ ignored his contribution, television performances
were cancelled, and his passport was removed.
When he asked why, he
was told
that it was due to his, “extreme advocacy on behalf of the
independence of the colonial peoples of Africa." and that "his
frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States
should not be aired in foreign countries."
Further
attempts were made to
politically isolate him and articles designed to ruin his reputation
and the popularity of the Communist Party were distributed in Africa.
In 1952, he was awarded
the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples
by the Soviet Union and,
on Stalin’s death the following year, he wrote ‘To You My Beloved
Comrade’, praising Stalin as a peacemaker and a guide.
He saw the Soviet Union
as an essential source of political balance in an unbalanced world
and continued with this stance even though it assured that his
passport would not be returned. As an act of defiance, the union
movement held a concert for Robeson at the Peace Arch on the border
between Washington State and British
Columbia
in 1952. Three
further concerts were performed by him there in the following years.
At the same time he was encouraged by his friend Aneurin Bevan to
record radio concerts
for his supporters in Wales.
With Welsh Labour MP, Nye Bevan
Robeson
said that, "here was an audience that had adopted me as kin and
though they were unseen by me I never felt closer to them.” That
he remains much loved there
is proven by the Manic
Street Preacher’s 2001
song, ‘Let Robeson Sing’.
In
1956, during the McCarthy era, he was
called to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities
after he
refused to sign an affidavit confirming that he was not a
Communist. When
asked why he hadn’t previously remained in the
Soviet Union with which he had such an affinity
he replied, "because my father was a slave and my people died to
build [the United States and], I am going to stay here, and have a
part of it just like you and no fascist-minded people will drive me
from it!", going on to say that, “I will not discuss anything
with the people who have murdered sixty million of my people.” He
was refused the right to travel for the next four years and, in 1957,
sang for sell out audiences in both London and Wales via the
Transatlantic Telephone Cable, saying that "We have to learn the
hard way that there is another way to sing". Amen to that!
Although
he continued to find ways to perform by 1957 his recordings and films
had been
removed from distribution and it became harder and harder to hear him
sing, buy his music, or see his films. However,
an appeal to have his passport returned was successful the following
year and he was able to visit the Soviet Union, England, and Wales,
attending the National Eisteddford and becoming the first black
performer to sing in St Paul’s Cathedral. In
1960, he visited Australia and New Zealand, becoming the first person
to perform on the construction site of the Sydney Opera House and,
having been brought to
tears by their conditions,
spoke
out against the inequality faced by the Maori and Aboriginal
Australian peoples,
saying that, "..the people of the lands of Socialism want peace
dearly".
Paul_Robeson_yn_Eisteddfod_Genedlaethol_Cymru,_Glynebwy,_1958 Geoff Charles Wiki Commons
On
their return
to London, Essie argued that they should remain there as she feared
that Paul
would be killed should he return to the US. However, determined to
resume his work with the civil rights movement, he insisted on going
and left her in
England to travelback
alone via Moscow. Whilst in
the Soviet Union a
party, described as ‘uncharacteristically wild’, took place.
During the
evening Robeson
became unwell, locked
himself in his bedroom, and attempted to commit suicide by cutting
his wrists. Days later he told his son that he had felt extreme
paranoia, together with overwhelming emptiness
and depression. His
son continued to believe to the end of his life that his
father had been drugged and that his
suicide attempt, and many subsequent health problems, were due to the
FBI’s and CIA’s attempts to ‘neutralize’ him. Others believed that he had already been suffering from a debilitating depression. If so, it is even more remarkable that he continued to fight for the dignity of others through it all.
Paul
remained in the Soviet Union for a time until
he was recovered enough to
return to London. There,
he later suffered a relapse and was admitted to The Priory where
he endured many sessions of Electroconvulsive Therapy and heavy doses
of drugs (but no
psychotherapy). In
August 1963, distressed
at his condition and treatment,
family and friends were able to facilitate his transfer to a hospital
in East Berlin where doctors expressed ‘doubt and anger’ at the
treatment he had been given in London. He quickly improved under
their care but was never the same, physically
at least.
At
the end of 1963 Paul
returned to the US and,
following Essie’s death, lived quietly with his son and then with
his sister. In 1973, he recorded a message to be played at a concert
at Carnegie Hall in honour of his 75th
birthday. He said, "Though I have not been able to be active for
several years, I want you to know that I am the same Paul, dedicated
as ever to the worldwide cause of humanity for freedom, peace and
brotherhood." He
died following the complications of a stroke on 29th
July 1976. Subsequent reflections on his life downplayed his
political activism and his refusal to bend, describing him as a
‘Great American’. How
easily the powerful believe that they can silence rebel and
revolutionary with flattering words. They
are wrong of course. Some keep listening.
Since
his death, Paul Robeson
has been honoured many
times for his work to
end racism and imperialism, including
a posthumous award from the United Nations for his efforts to end
Apartheid in South Africa.
In addition he has been
acknowledged for his other achievements ~
In
1995, he was at last
admitted into the College Football Hall of Fame. In 1998, the
centenary of his birth, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy
Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I
wonder whether that would have been the case if he were still here
singing out? His
portrayal of Othello on Broadway was the longest running Shakespeare
production ever staged there, and his performance has been described
as ‘a high point in
Shakespearean theatre in the 20th century.’
The main campus library at Rutgers is
named after him and a
black cultural centre at Penn State University bears
his name. His rendition
of ‘Joe Hill’ remains the third most popular choice for Labour
Party politicians on ‘Desert Island Discs’. In
2010, his granddaughter, Susan, began a project with Swansea
University and the Welsh Assembly to create an online learning
resource in her grandfather’s memory. I
think that of all the accolades and tributes he might have liked that
the best of all.
I
can’t pretend to know a great deal about history and so I find it
hard to understand the fullness of Paul Robeson’s political
activism, particularly his unflinching respect for the Soviet Union,
and yet it seems that he was able to somehow see the vastness of so
much that was happening in his, and our world, that he could sense
the ‘ecosystem’, tap into the roots, and gain an awareness of
where so many issues that we might see as separate join together. I
wish that there were more who could do the same. I
have always found such people inspiring, but
what I most love about Paul Robeson is the determination that he had
to speak his truth, the relationships that he built with people who
seemed so different but who he knew faced the same struggles, and the
heart and the passion that I hear in his voice, whether speaking out
or singing. A
visionary, a true prophet speaking truth to power.
And I love that under all of that I
can hear my dad.
After
death huge efforts are made to tame the memory of so many
activists who were
unbowed in life. Martin
Luther King has become a ‘national treasure’, despite the fact
that at the time of his death he was wildly controversial, Nelson
Mandela, a sort of kindly grandfather, and Paul Robeson’s rendition
of ‘Ol’Man River’ is in most of our heads as
the ‘resigned and world
weary’ song of old.
Has it been so easy for the river to put the fire out? Somehow
I don’t think so, and fire that has gone underground is often the
wildest of all.
I
will end with the words
of Naomi Shihab Nye and her poem, ‘Cross That Line’… Paul
Robeson stood
on the northern border of the USA
and sang
into Canada
where a vast audience
sat on folding
chairs
waiting to hear him. He
sang into Canada.
His voice left the USA
when his body was
not allowed
to cross that line. Remind
us again, brave friend!
What countries may we sing into?
What
lines should we all be crossing?
What songs travel toward
us
from far away to deepen our days?
Our
holy activist ancestor, our prophet, our friend, Big Paul. Just as
big in death as in life. Still singing to us across the line. It's up to us to make sure that he can hear us singing back.
