Stargazing

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A flat earth implies edges, and beyond the edge lies the unknown and the abyss.  We hold ourselves superior cartographers: our world is a safe, unending sphere.  But we ignore the facts of geometry.  The surface of a globe is all edge; naively we seek the abyss at our feet: it lies above us.

When we look up at the sky we do not see this yawning infinity.  First our eyes rest on the comforting pillows of the clouds - but these are poor comfort.  As insubstantial as air, they serve best as lowering backgrounds to Dutch landscapes, or as prompts to our histrionic imaginations - in a solitary cloud we may see a mighty whale, and in a blazing sunset we can feel the sadness of great aerial cities in final conflagration.  

Beyond the clouds there are the aeroplanes, shining symbols of technology's prowess.  Unlike the passive floating hazes which hang like veils before our eyes, the aeroplane determines its own course, and seems to have cut the earth's heavy leading strings.  But they only skirt the world's new edge, staying in sight of land like timid galleons before the sextant.

At least from the plane our perspective begins to change.  As we rise with it, through the great blue dome which seems to shield us, we find the sky turns black, the blackness of absence.  We begin to realise that there is nothing there, that it is all literally a trick of the light.

Yet when, of a clear summer's evening, we contemplate the stars, we still wilfully misapprehend them.  The recidivist poet within us says they are tiny sequins embroidered on a huge tent roof; they are a thousand glow worms on a great cave's ceiling.

We ignore the awesome generosity of the sky: we do not see the stars as billions of fiery spheres wheeling through space unimaginable distances away in an ungraspable structure.  We ignore the message of their patterns: we do not see the waving speckled band of the Milky Way as the cross-section of the galaxy's spiral in which our sun forms such an insignificant part.  We ignore the imperious laws of physics and the arduous journey the stars' light has made to reach us: we do not see the night sky as the cosmic Daguerreotype it is, an ancient image of other suns which died perhaps before the earth was born.

We ignore all these things because they put us in the ultimate context.  They beg the terrible questions: how was the universe created?  By what?  What came before it?  What comes after?  - all the questions which have nothing to do with the world that was once flat and the centre of all creation, all the questions which seem to negate the point of every quotidian act or thought.  Confronted by the reality of the stars we are confronted by the galactic irrelevance of our lives.

Which is why we turn the sky into a protective carapace, a hemisphere of Blue Wedgewood, cushioned by amiable clouds, the playground of the proud arching aeroplanes, and the stars into baubles.  And who dares see more?

(1989)

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Forever Eden

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"On Sunday 7th August your teddy can have a go at parachuting on Rusper School field...The guided walk will be 4-5 miles, starting from the Village Hall at 3 p.m., and returning for tea at approximately 5.30 p.m...There will be a coffee morning at Orltons, Rusper, on 11th July, from 10 a.m. till 12 noon.  Proceeds - 75% to St Catherine's Hospice, 25% to Rusper Conservative Association...Wanted urgently! Wool - odd balls or skeins - even old knitted items which can be unpicked - to keep the needles clicking on babies' vests and 6" squares...At the time of writing these notes, we are having quite a dry spell, and if this continues, it is a good time to hoe very diligently..."

Extracts from the July 1988 Parish News of St Mary Magdalene, Rusper.  A characteristic mix of endless tombola, religious propaganda, local politics, gardening, prayer, advertising and homely saws - 'a smile will always increase your face value.'  As English as the village of Rusper itself, with its main road, quiet and winding, and a side street dominated by the Victorian schoolhouse; a couple of ancient pubs, a general store with empty sherry bottles in its bare and dusty window, and venerable houses leaning on each other like old age pensioners; a noticeboard with the times of the daily bus to Horsham, and details of the next meeting of the parish council; an Elizabethan coaching inn - and, of course, the parish church.

Resplendent amidst the bright green grass and lichened graves, the warm stone of the neat and compact building has been meticulously restored, and looks as if it has been dressed and placed only yesterday.  Which it has, except that yesterday here is 700 years ago.  The simple and dignified nave ends in the thickset tower whose earliest arches are narrow and show only the slightest of points.  On the east face there is a clock; on the cover of the Parish News the hands stand at an eternal ten to three.  Inside, faded plaques record the three hours and three minutes taken to ring all the changes on the eight bells in 1903, together with a list of names.  Names of the bellringers, names that somehow always reappear on memorials to those fallen in that Great and most terrible war which shattered the old world of villages like Rusper forever.

Now it is the continual shrieking of the straining jets as they lift off from nearby Gatwick which rends the peace of this idyll.  But Rusper endures, just as the families who lost their sons and husbands and fathers endured.  Rusper and its ilk lie at the quiet and indestructible heart of England.  They populate a land which still has flower shows where the double crust apple pie is "to be displayed on a plate or board and not in a tin or container" if it is to be eligible for the 40p first prize or 20p second prize. A land which is easy to mock for its unfashionable beliefs: "Lady Cox asked for the prayers and support of fellow Christians in her endeavour to enshrine Christian worship and R.E. in our schools."  But it is also a land of fundamentally decent and caring folk - "my sincere and grateful thanks to the many people who wrote to me while I was in hospital.  The friendliness of Rusper people is indeed wonderful."  Wonderful indeed.  As the Reverend Eric Passingham says in his Letter from the Rectory: "The curtains pulled back revealed a touch of Eden."

(1988)

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The plane truth

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Air travel has become a symbol of late twentieth century life, of the triumph of technology, and of the latter's democratisation.  We therefore have a vested interest in acquiescing in its romantic mythologies.  We affect to believe that in entering this smooth and gleaming skybound vessel we somehow partake of the pioneering spirit of the Wright brothers, Spitfire pilots and astronauts.  Unfortunately, the airlines know better.

They know that they are dealing with a ridiculous situation: hundreds of people trapped in a flimsy metal hull, surrounded by thousands of gallons of explosive air fuel.  They know that, like overcrowded rats, passengers would probably go mad and run amok if they were fully cognisant of their condition and of its unnaturalness.  They know that their main business is to take our minds off imminent destruction by unremitting distraction.

To do this, airlines employ as their model the principal paradigm of control and deceit: childhood.  Adults habitually adopt artful ploys to keep children quiet, to keep them obedient, to keep them happy.  To make mass air travel possible, the operating companies have engaged in a thoroughgoing campaign of passenger infantilisation, reducing all the jetsetting executives and package tour holidaymakers to a group of boys and girls out on an educational day-trip's jaunt.

The process begins with boarding.  You are trooped on to the aircraft by class and number like a bunch of unruly schoolkids, shepherded by men and women dressed in uniforms and acting the bossy monitor; you are told to sit down in neatly-ordered rows - all of which face the front - and are then strapped into your chair to stop you fidgeting.  Before the plane can leave, you must pay attention to the day's lesson: the voice of the unseen teacher on the intercom explains the usual incomprehensible things about lifejackets and oxygen masks - serious, adult matters that seem boring and irrelevant like so much education; meanwhile, snooty prefects mime woodenly by rote.  Just as at school, nobody really listens.

Shortly after take-off, you are brought a drink - drugged, usually, to make you complaisant - and then, a meal.  It appears instantaneously, hot and from nowhere: it is a well-known fact that the food of childhood never needs preparation.  The packaging in particular seems calculated to appeal to young minds: lots of fascinating wrappings to remove, your own personal cutlery, condiments, bread and butter - and, of course, an individual towelette to wipe your fingers and face with afterwards.  At least the stewardess does not try to do this for you, as your mother often did.

Thus all of your time on the plane is spent like a baby: in eating, sleeping, or being amused - or in going to the toilet.  One of the mysteries of air travel is how hundreds of passengers with little to look at or think about manage to ignore what exactly is going on in those small square cubicles placed so centrally and visibly.  When people rush for the toilets as soon as a meal has ended, and those embarrassingly obvious queues start to snake down the aisles, everyone acts as they would in the presence of a child on a potty, who becomes invisible.  The romance of air travel, indeed.

(1989)

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