Waste Lines

TONNES of Jersey Royals are being dumped in fields and left to rot because exporters are unable to sell them to UK supermarkets following unprecedented competition across Europe. (Jersey Evening Post)
 
The Jersey Royal Company said plants had been producing double the number of potatoes. However, the weather has also led to oversized potatoes which the firm might not be able to use.  William Church, of the firm, said the potatoes had grown so well that some were oversized, and "there will be a proportion which will be no use to us". He said that some fields had grown so well and potatoes had grown so big, up to 50% could be wasted, but other fields will be "spot on". (BBC Radio Jersey)
 
I was listening to Sam Mezec talking about his experience of Christianity (at Church House on Wednesday) when he was growing up. One of his pet gripes with his primary school was the way in which the prayers before school meals always hammered home how they should be grateful for the food, while millions were starving in Africa.
 
I remember something very similar myself, and I recall that the liver, which had the consistency of shoe leather, left one thinking that perhaps we could send this to the starving millions in Africa.
 
But to some extent, these prayers were rather like the terrible adverts that stick in the memory. Sam thought that it would be better if they had discussed this kind of imbalance between plenty and famine in a class, instead of preaching it by means of grace before meals. Perhaps it would, but I suspect he may well have forgotten what was said, or even that it had been said. Instead, like the "Go Compare" advert, it remains excruciatingly and indelibly fixed in the mind.
 
But can we take the lesson of the school prayers before food out of the classroom? I think there is a danger that we do not. I was reading the two news stories about the potatoes being thrown away because they could not be sold, because of size or competition.
 
In the first instance, couldn't some kind of food aid be organised locally to those who depend upon food banks, so that at least some of the potatoes could be used locally. After all, the potato companies receive a subsidy from the States, as was pointed out in questions by Constable Phil Rondel recently. So shouldn't the States have some say over what happens to the crop, if it would otherwise be wasted.
 
A correspondent of mine, Adam Gardiner, also came up with the excellent suggestion that the States charter (or liaise with the United Nations) three Hercules transport planes. They could certainly reach famine stricken parts of Syria, even Africa was out of reach.
 
The United Nations World Food Programme uses C-130 Hercules transports to deliver food where there are peoples facing famine conditions, and there are humanitarian crises over food supplies, such as supplying food to the Rumbak region of Sudan
 
The C-130 Hercules, has a long reputation as the "workhorse" of the Air Force, delivering troops, equipment and supplies all over the world and participating in humanitarian missions. The planes are the "workhorse" used to delivery humanitarian relief and support with the delivery of food and medical supplies to many countries.
 
When Pope Francis spoke at World Environment Day, 2013, he said:
 
"Throwing away food is like stealing from the tables of the poor, the hungry"
 
The pope reported from a UN paper entitled "Reducing Food Loss and Waste", that one quarter to one third of the world food supply is lost or wasted annually, and that it amounts to 1.3 billion tons.  A catastrophic loss.
 
As Linda Eckhardt comments:
 
"The fact is most food loss is not from the refrigerators and plates of home cooks and restaurant goers.  Most waste occurs in the supply chain. And the blame should be squarely laid at the feet of producers not retailers or consumers."
 
"Picture if you will those photos we've all seen of mountains of grains going to mold and rot in far off places because the last link in the chain - that of getting the food to the end user - hadn't been thought through."
 
Is it just that we should discard so much food? Perhaps some of our Overseas Aid budget could go towards redistributing these potatoes which the Supermarkets do not want, but would certainly aid the starving of the world, or at any rate, countries within relatively easy range of aircraft like the Hercules.
 
Or are the potatoes just going to be left to rot, like those dumped at Beauport, where there is still a facility to take waste pollution from the ground?
 
People associate Sodom and Gomorrah with sexual sin, but in fact a reading of the text shows that their principle sin was to break the code of hospitality, and not look after strangers. Ezekiel 16:49 spells this out very plainly:
 
"Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy."
 
Those very words could be a judgement upon our Island if tonnes of potatoes are just dumped and go to waste. Forget the excuses, and I am sure that politicians can find plenty. Surely we should look closely at the kind of society in which we have excess of food, while the poor and needy starve?
 
Links
http://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2014/06/15/left-to-rot-jersey-royal-overload/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-27849403
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2010/apr/17/thewings-ofchange-n-dyess-personnel-examine/?print=1
http://everybodyeatsnews.com/2013/06/the-pope-and-i-agree-wasting-food-is-a-sin/
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=343590

 

Father’s Day

I've just been looking up the history of Father's Day, which is actually a rather modern creation.
 
The History website has the most detailed history of the day. The UK celebration was American in origin, and is held on the 3rd Sunday in June. This is what it says:
 
"The campaign to celebrate the nation's fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm–perhaps because, as one florist explained, "fathers haven't the same sentimental appeal that mothers have." On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation's first event explicitly in honour of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December's explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday."
 
"The next year, a Spokane, Washington woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother's Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation's first state-wide Father's Day on July 19, 1910. "
 
"Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Wilson honoured the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father's Day.
 
"However, many men continued to disdain the day. As one historian writes, they "scoffed at the holiday's sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products–often paid for by the father himself."
 
And as a result, the day languished, and it was not until after the Second World War that it became a national institution. As Wikipedia notes:
 
"In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honouring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972."
 
Why did Nixon sign it into law? Was it riding the crest of widespread popular appeal? Or was it an attempt to ingratiate himself with the American people? We shall probably never know. What we do know was that it was signed in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign! Make of that what you will!
 
It was because of the influenced of the US celebration that Father's Day took off in the UK during the late 1970s.
 
A few quirky facts about Father's Day from the House to Home website:
 
In Germany Father's Day is celebrated differently from other parts of the world. Männertag (Men's day) is celebrated by getting drunk with wagons of beer and indulging in regional food. Police and emergency services are in high alert during the day, and some right-wing and feminist groups have asked for the banning of the holiday.
 
Although there is no evidence of its origin, it is believed that the word "Dad" dates back to as early as the sixteenth century. It is said to come from the first syllables uttered by babies 'pa' plus the kinship suffix 'ter' - accounting for the latin 'Pater', the Spanish 'Padre' and the French 'Pere'. Takes 'baby talk' to a new meaning.
 
In Thailand, Father's Day is set as the birthday of the king. December 5 is the birthday of current king, Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX). Thais celebrate by giving their father or grandfather a Canna flower (Dok put ta ruk sa) which is considered to be a masculine flower.
 
 
References
http://www.history.com/topics/holidays/fathers-day
http://www.housetohome.co.uk/articles/news/10-things-you-never-knew-about-father-s-day-father-s-day_350112.html

Summer Isles

Today's poem is looking at summer, and that rather fantastical film "The Wicker Man", so here is a little dark paganism in the bright summer days, drawing from the story of that film (the original, not the dreadful remake):

Summer Isles
 
Dancing naked over the flame
Where fire on a headland burns
Calling on the Celtic gods by name
Now is the time the wheel turns
 
At the Green Man Inn, all is in hand
A dancer sings, with sensuous sway
To call for the blessings on the land
By the olden rites, the Pagan way
 
And now the Wicker Man awaits
For the sacrifice, for harvest good
As the ancient manuscript relates
It is time to set alight the wood
 
Lord Summerisle is chanting loud
The smoke is rising like a shroud

Why is Friday the 13th considered unlucky?

I have to declare a personal interest - both my father and my youngest son were born on the same day - Friday 13th of January. And I'm not particularly superstitious about that day!
 
But I would not go so far as the Anti-Superstition society of Chicago, which in 1959, defied superstitions at its Friday the 13th February gathering by breaking thirteen mirrors with thirteen horse- shoes, while seated thirteen at a table, after walking under thirteen rung ladders and under thirteen open umbrellas! Alas, the society no longer exists. But did its members meet a sticky end? No one knows!
 
In New York, there was also the "Thirteen Club" which was created in the 1880s to debunk the superstition of "13 at a table" being unlucky. They met on the 13th of the month for a dinner served to 13 people at each table. But it is interesting that they never mentioned the combination of Friday and the 13th as particularly unlucky.
 
Everyone knows that Friday the 13th is unlucky. But is it? Actually the combination of Friday and 13th does not seem to appear in records until around the late 19th or early 20th century.
 
 One historian has suggested that since references to Friday the 13th were nonexistent before 1907, the popularity of the superstition must come from the publication of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel, Friday, the Thirteenth, published in 1907.
 
In the novel, a stock broker takes advantage of the superstition about unlucky Friday to create a Wall Street panic on Friday the 13th. Financiers have had several "Black Fridays" since 1866 when the London stock market panic started.
 
As one reviewer put it:
 
"Part torrid love story, part polemic on the crookedness of the "stock-gambling game," with a plot that hinged on a speculator's attempt to manipulate the market on that day, Friday, the Thirteenth was as successful as it was awful"
 
Some folklore researchers put it earlier, but the combination - Friday 13th - does not seem to go back before the late 19th century.
 
An Earlier Date?
 
In 1869, in the biography of Gioachino Rossini, the author, Henry Sutherland Edwards notes:
 
"He [Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that one Friday 13th of November he died."
 
But 13 is not an unlucky number in Italy! So perhaps Edwards was recording his own beliefs, and attributing them to Rossini.
 
It didn't take off from there, and it is only after Lawson's book that it really hits the headlines - 1908 - in the New York Times of that year - ""WASHINGTON, March 13 - Friday the 13th holds no terror for Senator Owen." Thereafter, it enters into the public record.
 
We can certainly discount the modern myth that it was when the Knights Templar were arrested on Friday, October 13, 1307. There is no documentary evidence for that! It's of a piece with some of the fantasies we find in the Da Vinci code.
 
Incidentally, there can be a maximum of 3 Friday 13ths in any calendar year, and a minimum of 1.
 
Name
 
The fear of Friday the 13 is called "friggatriskaidekaphobia" (Frigga is the Norse goddess for whom "Friday" is named in English and triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number thirteen. It makes "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" a doddle to pronounce!
 
Number 13
 
Why 13 is unlucky is obscure.
 
In the ancient Babylon's Code of Hammurabi, dating to about 1772 BC, the number 13 is omitted in the list of laws. Was it because it was unlucky? Perhaps.
 
One story is told about 13 being unlucky among the Norse people. This was because of Loki's appearance at a dinner party of 12 gods, making 13, brought the death of the beloved Balder, for whose mother, Frigg, Friday is named.
 
Another story is that Judas was the 13th guest at the Last Supper, just before he betrayed Jesus. That is reflected in superstitions about 13 at Dinner, for example, in the 1880s, one writer noted that
 
"Every one knows that to sit down thirteen at a table is a most unlucky omen, sure to be followed by the death of one of the party within the year "
 
Agatha Christie, of course, had a story called "Lord Edgware Dies" in which there are 13 people at the dinner table, and naturally one of them is murdered. Hercule Poirot, of course, solves the case.
 
In America, President Woodrow Wilson gave an Armistice Night dinner of thirteen and died within twelve months! Proof positive!
 
Most hotels don't have a number 13, and in Jersey, we have a 12 and 12A bus, and not until very recently, a number 13 - which goes to Durrell.
 
 In Germany and France, where streets known by numbers, there are some which are "12 ½" but never 13!
 
 "Many will not sail on a vessel when [thirteen] is the number of persons on board; and it is believed that some fatal accident must befall one of them."
 
Unlucky 17
 
The superstition surrounding 13 is not as widespread as you might think. In Italy, 13 is a lucky number, and it is the number 17 that is a portent of doom! The Roman numeral for 17 - XVII, can be seen as an anagram for VIXI, reminding Italians of the Latin phrase "I have lived", implying - my life is over.
 
The Italian airline carrier, Alitalia, does not have a seat 17. Renault sold its "R17" model in Italy as "R177."
 
Tuesday the 13th
 
Tuesday the 13th is the unlucky day in Greece and Spanish speaking countries.
 
Unlucky Friday
 
The origins are this are obscure, but Good Friday, the day when Jesus was crucified, may be the cause of one explanation.
 
Chaucer mentions Friday as a day of bad luck - "And on a Friday fell all this mischance", but again most of the mention of superstitions are recorded in the early 19th century.

In particular, sailors avoid a voyage which begins on a Friday. Birth and marriage on a Friday mean that you will be unlucky.

 

Friday was also the traditional English day for public hanging. Very unlucky for some!
 
When this was changed in America, in 1890, Judge McAdam said: "Now anybody can have as much pleasure on that day as on any other, while those who were formerly hanged only on Friday may now have the pleasure of being hanged on every day of the week."

A Jersey folk tale about the unlucky number 13.
 
The part of the Jersey coastline near La Rocque is very treacherous because there are many rocks hidden under the water. Legend has it that the witches of Rocqueberg would only allow fishermen to pass this headland safely if they were thrown every thirteenth fish from the fishermen's catch. If they failed to do this the hags would cast a spell to raise a great storm, and the boat would be smashed to pieces on the rocks.
 
One brave fisherman refused to do this - instead he took a five-rayed starfish from his catch, cut off one of the arms and threw it at the witches, shouting: 'The cross is my passport'. It landed amongst the witches in the shape of the cross and they disappeared, never to be seen again.
 
Concluding Unsuperstitious Postscript
 
One folklore recommendation to avoid bad luck on Friday 13th is to climb to the top of a mountain or skyscraper and burn all the socks you own that have holes in them.
 
But Dr Caroline Watt says that it is the belief in the Friday 13th superstition which can cause the bad luck:
 
 "If people believe in the superstition of Friday the 13th then they believe they are in greater danger on that day. As a result they may be more anxious and distracted and this could lead to accidents. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It is like telling someone they are cursed. If they believe they are then they will worry, their blood pressure will go up and they put themselves at risk."
 
Or you can take it all with a pinch of salt, rather like Robert Green Ingersoll, who ended his toast, "The Superstitions of Public Men" at the December 13 1886 meeting of the "Thirteen Club":
 
"We have had enough mediocrity, enough policy, enough superstition, enough prejudice, enough provincialism, and the time has come for the American citizen to say: 'Hereafter I will be represented by men who are worthy, not only of the great Republic, but of the Nineteenth Century.'"
 
References

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1615/friday_the_13th.html
http://www.snopes.com/luck/friday13.asp
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/09/the-origin-of-friday-the-13th-as-an-unlucky-day/
http://www.ibtimes.com/friday-13th-history-origins-myths-superstitions-unlucky-day-395108
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/10305590/Friday-the-13th-why-do-we-fear-it-and-how-unlucky-is-it-really.html

The Western Railway: Memories of Don Filleul

Back in the second half of 2011, when I had just started writing for La Baguette, the St Brelade's Parish Magazine, I exchanged an email correspondence with Don Filleul, and out of this, with some extra research at the library, came the first of a series of articles, entitled "Parishioners Remember", giving a chance for readers to listen to the memories of older Parishioners, of Jersey in years gone by. This particular piece came out in the Christmas edition, 2011.

If you have a memory about St. Brelade in days gone by, that you would like to share with readers of La Baguette, please contact me, as I'm still interviewing people in the Parish, and telling their stories in the Parish Magazine. It need not be as far back as 1936 - there is plenty of scope for post-war memories of the 1950s to the 1980s, all of which are now decades past.

The Western Railway: Memories of Don Filleul, a former States member, and St Brelade Parishioner.

Don was born at Greve d'Azette in 1926, very close to the station of the Jersey Eastern Railway. He still has very early memories of those trains. "I can remember travelling to Gorey, and to the Snow Hill terminus.", he says, "And thus began a lifetime devotion to railways."

The Jersey Eastern Railway ceased to run on 21 June 1929, because of declining profits, and henceforth, train excursions were on the Western Railway. The young master Filleul was taken frequently to Corbiere on the Western Railway, mostly with an aunt as his main companion on these journeys. Some of the coaches can still be seen at Pallot's Steam Museum, with their facing seats, and no corridors between carriages.

There was little to offer at Corbiere but the view, so they just returned, but for the young boy, travelling by train was enjoyable in itself. "It must have taken about half an hour from Town to St. Aubin", he recalls, "and there was a wait there before the onward journey to Corbiere." He remembers that he developed preferences for certain engines, and also disliked others - "Anyone remember the one painted light green? I didn't care for that." He was intensely interested in the engines, all of which had names. But he never got to speak to the drivers - "Auntie did not allow me to make friends with the drivers. In those days such contact was out of order."

By the 1930s, the Jersey Railway was under pressure from the buses which could travel over a wider catchment area than trains.

During the winter, all the rolling stock of the Jersey Railway was stored in the St Aubin station, and on the night of 16 October 1936, a fire broke out. This destroyed much of the station building, 15 of the carriages, and damaged the Terminus Hotel. Don's father took him to see the devastation. "The horror of course was the fire at St. Aubin's station, the destroyed coaches the awful stench of the place is almost still with me.", he recalls, "Dad took me there - he was also a bit soft about trains, and we stared with sadness at the catastrophe."

That was the final blow to the already struggling railway company, and it was decided to close the railway entirely. The track and remaining rolling stock was sold off, and the way between St Aubin and Corbiere became a public walk, which it remains to this day.

The Terminus Hotel later became the Parish Hall and offices, replacing the use of the Church Hall at St Brelade's Church for Parish Assemblies.

http://www.labaguette.org.je/Edition18.php?p=3000106

RIP: Rik Mayall

I remember first being enchanted by Rik Mayall's performance in a TV show called "A Kick up the Eighties". It starred Tracy Ullman, and David Copperfield (not the magician!), and Rik Mayall.
 
While the rest of the show largely consisted of sketches of a rather general sort, Rik was quite different. He presented his own slot as Kevin Turvey, investigative reporter, facing to the camera, in what was a series of monologues, which often drifted from the subject. But what held it together was the character of Kevin Turvey, brilliantly created.
 
It was just Rik, sitting in a chair, in a kind of parody of Rodin's thinker, the lights down, and then they would rise, and he'd turn to face the camera. And you know instinctively that this was one of the highlights of "A Kick up the Eighties", and long after the other sketches had faded into oblivion, you would still remember Kevin Turvey, and his distinct working class Birmingham accent.
 
Here's one part of one of those sketches, appropriately on the subject of death:
 
"Good evening, everybody, wherever you are.  My name's Kevin Turvey, but you can call me Kevin Turvey.  Alright, settle down, settle down.  I thought we'd start, like, with a little joke, right, because this week I've been investigating death.  Death:  the grim rapist.  What is it?  Where is it?  Why is it?  You could even say "is it?"  You could say anything.  Like, a lot of people say anything.  "
 
"I mean, like, the other day, right, I went round to see Theresa Kelly, who's, like, this girl that I know.  Well, not like her, she is her, you know.  Well, at least I hope she is.  Otherwise, I'd be in a bit of trouble if she wasn't, anyways.  So, I decided to go and see her on a bus, right.  I decided not to go in a car, like, 'cause then I'd have to get, like, loads of money together, and, uh, book up a load of lessons, and buy a car.  It's just too much trouble.  So I went straight down to the bus stop, right, and started to wait."
 
"And just as I'd almost finished waiting, right, this bus started to come up the hill.  I thought, "Great!  I hope this is a 64, like, I really hope it's a 64."  And sure enough, it was.  I thought, "Great!"  Well, it was bound to be a 64 really, 'cause only the 64s come up that way.  So I stuck my hand out to stop it, and it went straight past. "
 
"Straight past!  I thought-well, I can't actually say what I thought, you know, 'cause, like, there's this rule at the BBC that says that you can't actually talk properly, you know.  You have to pretend to talk the way that people who invented TV 50 years ago used to talk, like, when they were at dinner parties pretending not to swear.  It's a very good rule.  I don't quite know why they have it.  I think it's probably to save money or something like that.  Anyway, it's a very good rule."

You can view it at:
http://youtu.be/xPLAcFHkASc
 
Rik went on to "The Comic Strip Presents", with his friend Adrian Edmondson and they were together again in probably one of the most anarchic shows on BBC2 - "The Young Ones". With such a collection of grotesques, masquerading as students, Rik's character seemed almost normal (as a student) alongside firebrand maniac Vivian. The first series was excellent, but the scripts were thinning out, and the second series was not quite as good.
 
Rick: I'm going to write to my MP!
Neil: But you haven't got an MP, Rick, you're an anarchist.
Rick: Oh right. Then I shall write to the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen.
 
Undaunted, Rik put in two appearances as "Lord Flashman" in Blackadder. These were typical over the top affairs, more cameos, but to counter that, extremely loud ones!
 
Flashheart: It's me, Flash! Flash by name, Flash by nature. Hurrah!
Blackadder: Where have you been?
Flashheart: Where haven't I been! Woof!
 
I never saw his TV show "Bottom", apart from one episode, and I have to say that I was not greatly enamoured of that. But I did catch a glimpse of him on "Jackanory", where he was a natural storyteller.
 
"The New Statesman", provided excellent range for his talents as backbench Tory MP, Alan B'Stard. While not perhaps as subtle as "Yes Minister", it nevertheless struck a chord, especially under Mrs Thatcher's lean to the right for the Conservatives
 
Of backstage, it was heartening to read Maurice Gran, co-writer of "The New Statesman" say that:
 
"Rik had a guilty secret: he came from a lovely family, and as a result, he was beautifully well brought up with impeccable manners. At the end of each week's recording, he would individually thank every member of the cast"
 
Some of "The New Statesman", like "Yes Minister", still rings true today under the coalition government
 
Alan B'Stard: You know the really great thing about a fudged coalition is that neither of us need to carry out a single promise of our election manifestos.
 
And I heard one person tell BBC Radio Jersey today that he was gay, didn't want children, and therefore why should he support any services for children with his taxes. That's the spirit of Alan B'Stard, and not a million miles from the attitude expressed here:
 
Alan B'Stard: We hear an awful lot of leftie whingeing about NHS waiting lists. Well the answer's simple. Shut down the health service. Result? No more waiting lists. You see, in the good old days, you were poor, you got ill and you died. And yet these days people seem to think they've got some sort of God-given right to be cured. And what is the result of this sloppy socialist thinking? More poor people. In contrast, my policies would eradicate poor people, thereby eliminating poverty. And they say that we Conservatives have no heart.
 
But if he needed to, Rik Mayall could play a straight role very well indeed. As Detective Inspector Gideon Pryke, he gave a more measured performance in two episodes of the show.
 
A sparkling talent, who will be much missed, Rik leaves behind a fine body of comedic work which I am sure will stand the test of time. I've enjoyed his cameo appearances, and "The New Statesman", and "The Young Ones", and I can still remember when he first came to my attention, the only character in a sketch show who had realism - mad, eccentric realism, of the kind that typified so many of the his acting roles - but realism none the less. The other actors played parts in sketches. But Rik Mayall, for his brief exchanges with the audience, became Kevin Turvey.
 
Here's another snippet of his genius at play:
 
"Anyway, this week I decided I'd investigate tarmac.  You know, like why it's black and things like that.  So I got up, like, really early on the first day of my investigation and thought I'd have a really good breakfast, you know, cereal.  So I went into the kitchen, right, got out the cornflakes, put it on the table, went over to fridge, like, 'cause that's where I keep my milk, you know.  Opened up the door, and guess what?  There was no milk!  I thought, "That's alright, I'll go to Tesco's and get some milk," like, 'cause they got loads down there, you know.  No, they have.  I've been there, I've seen it.  Racks and racks of it."
 
"Anyway, I went down there.  Went in, like, through the door, you know, 'cause, like, they got two doors there, you know.  There's one that says "in" and there's one that says "out," and I went in the one that says "in," right.  I went in there, and that's when this really strange thing happened, 'cause I saw this woman in there.  Well, it's not odd in Tesco's, is it, really?  But this one was.  I thought, "Crikey, that's Noel Gordon."  I thought, "It can't be Noel Gordon.  Not in Tesco's, like."  So I crept up behind her, and tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned 'round.  D'you know what?  I was right.  It wasn't."
 
"So I got the milk, like, you know, took it home, and poured it on me cornflakes, like.  Well, not all of it, just a bit, like, you know.  Put the top back on, and put it back in the fridge, like, on its own.  Well, not absolutely on its own, there's a bit of cheese in there, I think, and some ice, you know.  But that's not important anyway."

The Dolmen de Faldouet by N. V. L. Rybot.

Today's piece is from a trawl through the archives. It is an article by Major Rybot, published in 1932.

The Dolmen de Faldouet by N. V. L. Rybot. 

The position of this monument is shown on the Two-inch Ordnance Survey Map of 1913-14 about eight hundred yards north-west from Gorey Castle, at an elevation of two hundred and thirty feet above sea-level.

The plot of ground on which it stands, together with the lane which leads to it from the public road, are deliminated by small square boundary stones, and enclosed by a lofty hedge of thorn. A flight of five rustic steps was built in April 1932 at the road entrance to the lane, the stones being a gift to the Society from Mr. E. Hooper Nicolle of Temple View. An oak notice board was erected at the same time near the steps, and on it was carved, "Dolmen de Faldouet. Pre-Historic Burial Site. Property of the Société Jersiaise."

The number of persons who enter this property increases yearly. During the summer months it is a nightly rendezvous for noisy bands of visitors from the hotels and boarding-houses of the east coast, who cause some annoyance to the residents of the neighbourhood. As many of the visitors are of untidy habits, the Society would be well advised to devise some means for the better preservation of the site.

Though the dolmen has been in the possession of the Société Jersiaise since 1891, when it was presented to us by the Crown, no detailed description, either of it, or of the objects which had been found in it, has yet been published in the Bulletin.

The placing on loan in our Museum of the entire Fauvel collection has aroused a renewed interest in the monument, which, until the discovery of the Dolmen of La Hougue Bie, held pride of place among the megalithic burial sites of the Island. The moment to remedy the omission has thus arrived.

The dolmen was originally covered with a mound of rubble and earth about one hundred and ten feet in diameter. In height it probably measured 15 or 20 feet. Natural agencies in the course of time, combined with the activities of persons in search of building material, reduced the height and left bare the great capstone of the Inner Chamber and the upper parts of its half circle of supports.

Poingdestre, writing at the end of the seventeenth century, says "This stands just at the top of a round hillock made of hands and is supported. - by flue stones, which by length of time are suncke soe deepe int o the ground that a man must creepe to goe vnder it; ye couering being exceeding large and waighty."

Beneath the table-stone was thus a cavity or grot. Known as the Pouquelaye, it retained this appearance until 1839 when Mr. Jean Fauvel, the tenant of the Crown, commenced his treasure hunt. He excavated the areas enclosed by the Outer and Inner Chambers with their side kists, in a manner which excited the wrath of Mr. Lukis of Guernsey, who in vain offered him expert assistance.

Captain Oliver, in his "Megalithic Structures of the Channel Islands," 1870, calls the Fauvels "ruthless searchers for treasure trove" and accuses them of throwing down a small capstone and of displacing some of the other blocks. Of the Reverend G. F. Porter, Vicar of Yeddingham and Chaplain of the Gorey Naval School, who dug up the passage-way in 1868, he speaks with even greater severity, alleging that he deliberately altered the dry-walling at the exit of the Passage, and faultily reconstructed one of the side kists.

The adverse criticisms directed by various antiquarians against Mr. Fauvel are not wholly deserved. His excavations were lacking in method, and he appears to have made no notes or plans. What he did with the skeletons he found is unknown. His other finds, however, were treasured in his own home with the greatest care. Had Lukis been in charge of the work they would all have been spirited away to Guernsey, and lost to this Island for ever. Had Porter had them, they would probably have been sold to the British Museum or dispersed among his friends.

At the death of Mr. Fauvel, the collection was acquired by Miss Fauvel of Gorey, and she guarded them jealously against all comers during her long life-time. When she died in 1930, they passed to Messrs. Charles and Norman Fauvel, of Sydney, N.S.W., by whose kindness they are now exhibited in our Museum.

A comparison of plans made at different times shows that, if these plans were correct, a few minor displacements have occurred in the last sixty-three years.

Entering the monument at the east end one passes over the outer limit of the original hougue. This circumference appears to have been marked out by two concentric dry walls, composed of packed rubble. There is an indication of another concentric circle of small loose blocks or peristaliths, and of yet another dry wall.

Oliver accuses Porter of tampering with the outer walls so as to " improve "the entrance way. Porter gives him the lie direct, and says he left them exactly as he found them.

Nicolle and Sinel, in their report on the dolmen, dated July1910, (Bulletin of 1911) state that they found evidence which supports Oliver's accusation. On the other hand a splayed entrance is not an abnormal feature in these monuments, as was proved when the Hougue Bie was excavated.

The structure itself may be divided into three main parts: the Passage, the Outer Chamber, and the Inner Chamber.

The Passage is some seventeen feet long, being two and a half feet broad at the entrance, and three feet broad at its west end. Its southern wall is in fair alignment, but its northern wall bulges outward about one foot in the middle- In the south wall are eight uprights, in the northern, nine. The average height of the passage is now only 2 ½ feet, which is lower by 1 1/2 feet than that of La Hougue Bie. This, however, is evidently due to a general filling-in of the interior surface of the whole monument in 1910, for purposes of drainage.

When Lt. S. P. Oliver, R.A. made his drawings and plans, which are preserved in the Lukis Museum, Guernsey, all the uprights seem to have been laid bare to their foundations. Consequently his vertical measurements, based on the then ground level, are all one foot or more in excess of the present measurements. The height of the supports of the Inner Chamber capstone which is now four feet, was then five feet six inches. The Passage uprights were then about three feet six inches in height. There is every reason to suppose that the Passage as well as the Outer         Chamber were roofed with transverse blocks of stone.

When Poingdestre wrote in 1682, the Inner Chamber coverstone and the tops of its supports were wholly exposed. Had the two or three great coverstones of the Outer Chamber been in situ then, they would also certainly have been in evidence. No mention of them was made, either by him, or by any other subsequent writer or excavator. What, then, has become of these blocks ? Unfortunately the coverstones of partially exposed dolmens were often, in size and texture, admirably adapted to other utilitarian purposes.

If some have survived, as in the great capstone here, and as in the coverstones of Les Monts Grantez, their unwieldiness or their unsuitability alone has saved them. The dolmen des Geonnais, described in the Bulletin for 1930, had been almost completely    destroyed by quarrymen. Mont Ube was entirely unroofed. On one of the remaining coverstones of the dolmen des Monts Grantez, wedge incisions are still to be seen, clear evidence of intended removal.

In the middle of the 16th century when immense building operations were in progress in Gorey Castle, the island was being ransacked for material. Ancient altar stones and tomb slabs filched from the Parish Churches, were incorporated in the gun platforms of the Somerset Tower, or used for paving or other purposes elsewhere in the Castle. Medieval religious statues were broken up and built into the new fortifications. One is tempted to think that the conveniently situated dolmen of Faldouet supplied its quota of material, and that the missing coverstones went the way of the church altars and statues.

The Outer Chamber, which has also lost its two or three huge roof-stones appears to have been about twelve feet long by about ten feet broad. Roughly elliptical in plan, it is flanked by the remains of five small side-kists or chambers. These have undoubtedly been tampered with, and their original appearance is uncertain.

It is known that the Fauvels found human bones in some of them, and threw down at least one of their coverstones. The heavier blocks which form their side-walls are probably in situ, but some of the smaller stones have been subjected to re arrangement.

No. 31, according to Oliver was a capstone, and so also may No. 36 have been., No. 42, as it now stands, has no apparent meaning, and kist F has altered its plan since Oliver mapped it. Between Nos. 17 and 19 is a gap of four feet. Was this originally filled with dry walling, or with No. 18, which is certainly not in its original position ?

No. 35 seems to have has its upper part smashed away. Oliver omits No. 16, but shows two stones (P. and Q.) which have since respectively been removed, possibly No. 47 and 42.

Inner Chamber. Here all the great stones remain as their builders placed them. The interior of the Chamber is circular in plan, its diameter being about ten feet. The uprights average about four feet in height, and the cap-stone rests on four of them. This great slab in its broadest north-south diameter is thirteen feet across and in the broadest east-west diameter nine feet. Its average thickness is two feet, and its weight has been estimated at 23 tons.

The dry-walling which would have filled the interstices between the uprights, 'disappeared when the mound was removed. A small block of stone, not shown in the plan, is lying loose on the floor of the chamber. Its proper position is unknown. The centre of the hougue under which the whole structure originally lay was approximately at M, a point about one foot behind the westerly edge of the western upright. The flooring throughout is a mixture of soil and small angular pieces of rubble.

Rene Liron on Sunday Opening

As Sunday Trading comes back on the agenda, with Alan Maclean trying for complete liberalisation of the existing laws, it is interesting to read the General Synod Report by Harold Poole.

What is especially interesting, for me, is the way that Harold Poole chose to approach the subject, in considering the social grounds against Sunday trading. He decided to approach Rene Liron. Back then, Rene Liron was at the helm of the local Transport and General Workers Union; in fact he was at that post for 27 years.

After his death, Rene Liron would receive glowing testimonials from States members and the Jersey Evening Post, as "the working man's champion", so it is perhaps worth noting in this context that in the 2009, the same Jersey Evening Post made a comment about workers pay that "All this goes back to the 1970's & 1980's when Rene Liron and friends managed to negotiate unreal pay rises for public employees."

So back in the 1980s, Rene was often seen as a divisive figure, a tough negotiator for the workers, but rather less loved by the more establishment politicians and the JEP.

Now it is often thought that the Church of England in Jersey is very "establishment", and certainly some of the events over the last year have done little to counter that impression. So it is all the more startling to find that back in 1985, Harold Poole decided that the correct thing to do before looking at voting was to engage with Rene Liron, and see what he had to say on behalf of the workers.

I'll be interested to see if Nick Corbel has anything to say.

For more thoughts on Sunday trading, see
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2014/02/thoughts-on-sunday-trading.html
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-dean-on-sunday-trading.html

General Synod Report, July 1985: Sunday Opening
By Harold Poole, Jersey Member

The proposals of the British Government to "liberalise" the Sunday opening of shops required less strain on our intellects, and Synod rose up almost "to a man" in expressing indignation and opposition. This was not wholly on religious grounds although there was much said on the subject, but mostly, perhaps, on social grounds and concern for people.

I had a conference in Jersey with Mr Rene Liron before the General Synod, in order to obtain a "Trade Union" briefing without which I felt inadequately informed for the debate, and I found that his concern with the potential exploitation and hardship of working people -both in shops and in supporting services - was synonymous with much that was said in the subsequent debate.

Unfortunately a Trade Union opinion as such was not expressed, much to my regret. I tried to be called to speak but failed and so Rene Liron will not be quoted in the General Synod "Hansard"; but the voting in opposition to the proposal was almost unanimous (367 to 1). I hope we shall take note in Jersey, where the issue is also a live one.

W H Auden: 1907-1973 Part 3

I've been trawling through the archives at the library again, and in particular for Sundays, "The Pilot" which was the monthly magazine for the Church of England in Jersey for many years. Every month, there would be pieces from the minister of each church, along with various other articles of interest.
 
In 1995, the Reverend Tony Keogh began a series of articles in "The Pilot" under the umbrella title "God and the Poets", and here is the part of his series on W.H. Auden. I thought it was a shame that it should be buried in the past, so I've transcribed it for my blog.

Other parts are at:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2014/05/w-h-auden-1907-1973-part-1.html
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2014/05/w-h-auden-1907-1973-part-2.html
 
God and the Poets: W H Auden: 1907-1973 Part 3
By Tony Keogh

Auden had started writing poetry at school but it was at Christ Church, Oxford that he began to understand something of the English poetic tradition into which he was born. His early attempts were influenced by de la Mare, Hardy, Housman and many others besides. In his search for his own voice, he discovered T S Eliot in 1926 and for a while, he became. a slavish imitator, even believing that a poet should be depersonalised and look like a stockbroker. Youonly have to see photographs of Auden to know that that was impossible.
 
Of all the walks in Oxford, his favourite was the towpath which ran beside the gasworks, as it corresponded to Eliot's "dull canal round behind the gas house" in "The Waste Land." However, at this stage, he was devouring much of the works of contemporary poets, Emily Dickinson among many others, but he was no plageriser or cork in the waves; all were put to use in finding his own voice in his own poetry. As Christopher Isherwood wrote, "By learning to speak with the tongues of other poets, he was continually enlarging the range of his own strongly individual poetic language."
 
He was: inseparable from the Oxford English Dictionary and, later on, these volumes would be worn out with use and the fact that he was in the habit of sitting on them to eat his meals. There was a freshness and colloquialism in his poetry, but everyday monosyllables were combined with recondite words, often of classical derivation, though Auden had little Latin and less Greek. Such was the audacity of the man and his love of language, its meaning and sound, that after two or three months in Berlin, he began to write poems in German.
 
After leaving Oxford, he earned his living as a master in various preparatory schools, where he was well liked by both colleagues and boys. Stephen Spender thinks that this was probably the happiest period of his life.
 
He moved 'in the fashionable circles of young poets and men of letters, such as Spender, Isherwood and Day-Lewis. It is clear that he was courting socialism and even Marxism as a possible creed for himself. This was the time of the last days of the German Weimar Republic and the dark night of Nazism was about to descend. Observers clearly identified Auden and his group with the left in politics.
 
While at Oxford, Auden had driven a car for the TUC in the General Strike. In his autobiography, "The Thirties and After," Spender says of Auden that "in. his poetic journey from psychoanalytic symbolism (Eliot) to Christian theology, Marxist materialism was the most transitory of his ideological ports of call."
 
Auden was a ruthless self-editor, much criticised for it, and scarcely a trace of Marxism now remains in his work. The Spanish Civil War was the test case. These young men all supported the Republicans. Auden wrote a poem, "Spain," which expresses the Marxist view of history in a line such as "the conscious acceptance of guilt in the necessary murder," a sentiment which freedom fighters, liberation theologians and post-modernists would applaud today. George Orwell castigated such opinions as of "the pink-pansy left," and as expected from those who had not experienced the barbarism of violence. Auden himself changed the line to "the conscious acceptance of guilt in the fact of murder;" but he soon came to dislike the poem as a pose and suppressed it.
 
Going to Spain, he found to his astonishment that he could not abide the sight of gutted churches, burnt by the Communists: he was on his way back to Christianity. He had never been irreligious, the "maybeness" of God was always there. He lamented his lack of specific mystical experience, in contrast to Eliot, but we may question this, while admitting that his religious experience was essentially of intellectual conviction.
 
In his introduction to the anthology edited by Anne Freemantle, "The Protestant Mystics," he tells of an incident in his own life as early as 1933. On a fine summer's night, he was sitting on a lawn .after dinner with three colleagues, two women and a man. They had not drunk any alcohol. They liked each other but were not intimate and the conversation was casual, about mundane matters. Quite suddenly."I felt myself invaded by a power which though I consented to it, was irresistible and certainly not mine. For the first time in my life, I knew exactly because thanks to the power I was doing it- what it means to love one's neighbour as oneself."
 
He was convinced - and later had proof in one case - that his companions were undergoing a similar experience; though the conversation continued as before. Nor was there a new intimacy between them, but "I felt their existence to be of infinite value and I rejoiced in. it."
 
He felt penitence for the many times he had been "spiteful, snobbish, selfish," but this was transcended by joy. The, feeling was still there the next morning; though weaker. Intense for two hours, .it did not vanish completely for two days or so; the memory of it was undoubtedly a factor in his return to the Christian faith, though when it happened, his abandonment of that faith was at its height.

I have Landed

As the 70th anniversary of D-Day was commemorated yesterday, I penned this poem (in rondel form) looking at in the stanzas, the past, the present day today, and the past once more.

The past is always with us, and we forget it at our peril. This was never seen more so than with the memories of those veterans who returned to those beaches yesterday. They were not mostly the trained elite fighting forces of a professional army. They were trained, but at the end of the day, most of them were ordinary people like you or me, who showed how ordinary people can be capable of acts of extraordinary courage and heroism.

The Colonel referred to in the poem is of course Lt-Col. Robert Lee Wolverton, who notable prayed  "We do not ask favors or indulgence but ask that, if You will, use us as Your instrument for the right and an aid in returning peace to the world." He died on D-Day.

I have Landed

I have landed on the Normandy beaches
The waves crash like mortars fired
So many deaths, young life expired
Against German lines, in making breaches

And now we come, and hear the speeches
And I have aged, and I am tired
I have landed on the Normandy beaches
The waves crash like mortars fired

God pray for us, the Colonel preaches
A better world, with hope inspired
And we did our duty, as required
Shells are fired, and land with screeches
I have landed on the Normandy beaches

Harry and Paul's Story of the 2s: A Review

Narrator: It's 1964. The BBC, or Auntie Beeb as she was known, is 45 years old. So far, she's given birth to one televisual child. And on April the 20th of that year, she was to find herself once again in labour.
 
Do come on, Auntie Beeb, stop making a fuss and push.
 
Ooh!
 
The child was on its way. But what was it to be called? We have one television channel. Tonight we launch a second. What on earth are we going to call it?
 
Pipes in. Pencils out.
 
I've calculated that if we do indeed have two channels, then the current channel - BBC Television - should be known as BBC One.
 
I've checked your calculations and they're correct. If the current channel equals BBC One, what does the new channel add up to?
 
X to the power of -13. This new channel shall be called BBC X To The Power Of -13.
 
You've blundered in your reduction of this fraction, you horrid little homosexual. X to the power of -13 cancelled out is two. BBC Two.
 
Can't we call it BBC Stalin?
 
Are you a communist?
 
This is the BBC - we're all communists, aren't we?
 
ALL:  Shhhh..
 
I've just caught up with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's "Story of the 2s". It is a very amusing, if somewhat barbed, takeoff of a number of BBC2 shows which are famous, such as the Forsyte Saga, Ascent of Man, I Claudius, Top Gear, Fawlty Towers, QI etc.
 
The two, and their fellow helpers, are brilliant at cheeky impersonations. These are not impersonations in the strict sense, like Mike Yarwood used to do, or Dead Ringers did more recently. Rather they are impressionistic portrayals, where enough of the style and mannerisms of people are given so that you know quite easily who they are lampooning.
 
Of course, one problem is knowing the shows. I know about "The Ascent of Man" and "I Claudius", so the lampooning of those is very much on the mark, and very funny. But if you are not familiar with the shows involved - and some of them go back some time - you will largely miss the joke, and for example, the send up of Jacob Bronowski, or the way in which Frankie Howerd from "Up Pompeii" creeps into the send up of "I Claudius", called "One Clavdius".
 
Narrator: Colour television brought with it endless possibilities for grand documentaries. And there was none more grand than Jacob Bronowski's epic series...The Pottering About of Man.
 
Bronowski (in distance on sand dune): I'm rather a long way away from you.
 
Bronowski (closer to camera): Now I am much closer.
 
Bronowski: Now you can observe with clarity the riot of beige which is my jacket, shirt and tie.
 
The names are fun parodies too - John Cleese-Shop-Sketch, Germaine Dreary, Joan Bakewell Tart, and Gerald Manley Paxman
 
So I think its full appeal will be limited to an audience of a particular age, who are familiar with and watched the shows. Obviously seemingly timeless shows like the much repeated Fawlty Towers will still resonate, and the more modern send-ups, such as Stephen Fry on QI, will appeal to a wider audience.
 
Harry's rendering of Ian Hislop is also extremely good, but they seem to have completely overlooked the fact that "Have I Got News for You" goes out on BBC1 and not BBC2. (Yes, I know repeats are there, but that doesn't really count, does it?)
 
But there is a sharp edge there as well in the commentary. A parody of "Call my Bluff" has the word "paedophile" given various explanations  - as the original show used to do with strange words - with Harry Enfield's  brilliantly capturing Robert Robinson (with just the right kind of patronising manner)
 
Narrator: "As the '70s wore on, rumours of a culture of sexual depravity at Television Centre began to circulate. It was decided to tackle this potential time bomb head on, on prime-time BBC Two."
 
Robert Robinson (Harry Enfield:) "Hello and welcome to a show which could quite easily be called Would I Lie To You? will soon to be known as Call My Bluff and is currently entitled Speech Impediment. And we like it that way.
 
Robert Robinson (Harry Enfield:) "And our first word is.....paedophile. Frank, what is a paedophile?
 
Frank Muir (Paul Whitehouse): Well, a pae-do-pa-hilly, a fruh, a fruh-fruh fruh-fruh.
 
Robert Robinson (Harry Enfield:) Frank thinks it's a type of chocolate bar made of nuts and fruit. Is he right, Patrick?
 
INCOHERENT POPPING. "..toes."
 
Robert Robinson (Harry Enfield:) Patrick says it's a type of instrument for scraping the dead skin off your feet. Derek?
 
"Pee-pa-pa-pe-pe, pee-pa-pa-pa, poh."
 
Robert Robinson (Harry Enfield:) "Or is it, as Derek suggests, a ceremonial dress worn by German women on Maundy Thursday? And the answer is... Well, you're all wrong. because there's no such thing as a paedophile."
 
APPLAUSE
 
 "There is no such thing as a paedophile". This hits at the lax attitude of the BBC in the past, where blind eyes were turned to children being abused. There's bite in that satire!
 
But there is good natured fun on the way, and their rendering of Stephen Fry is a delight.
 
Narrator: Stephen, of course, invented adult humour.
 
Stephen Fry (Paul Whitehouse): - Bum chums and willy biscuits. 
 
And the "Stephen Fry" explanations in the pastiche of QI almost sound as if they might have come from the show itself:
 
Fry: The interesting thing about Nazis - there's no T in it. It should actually be pronounced "nah-zee".
 
Fry: And the interesting thing about Ann Widdecombe is it's pronounced "Ann Wuddicome" in parts of Scotland and "Anne Wycombe" in parts of Wycombe.
 
For those born later, and unfamiliar with shows, a number of arrows will miss their mark. But for myself, a self-confessed TV addict, who remembers all the old shows ("Ask the Ugly Family", with Robert Robinson!), it was something of a wicked delight.

Bombs Gone!

"A German mortar bomb found on the beach at St Ouen in Jersey has been detonated by bomb disposal experts. The World War Two bomb was spotted by a member of the public on Wednesday afternoon, when it was uncovered by the tide.  A cordon was put up, but when the bomb disposal officers got to the site the object was already back under water. The team returned to the site on Thursday afternoon and it was successfully detonated." (1)
 
Bombs still continue to be discovered and detonated. The one in the above BBC news report was detonated on 29 May 2014. But nothing has probably ever been quite like the hazards faced in 1979.
 
On 5 April 2012, bomb disposal experts detonated a wartime mine which was found at Jersey's Gorey Castle.
 
"The device was moved to Seymour Tower in Grouville Bay to be detonated on the next high tide where 19 similar mines were destroyed in 1979." (2)
 
The 1979 cache of explosives were called "roll bombs", and they were in fact French shells, although imported by the Germans, and dated from the 19th century! As one account notes:
 
"When the Germans overran France large amounts of these shells were captured. The shells varied in weight from 335lbs to 365lbs with an explosive charge weight of 70 to 90lbs. In the guise of a Roll Bomb they would be placed into wooden chutes which when needed could be used to roll the shells down onto the target. They were held in position by a cable looped around the shell with a further cable attached to a pull igniter which was put in place rather than the normal nose fuse. When the shell was released it would drop, and as it did on reaching the end of the cable attached to the igniter the safety pin would be pulled out which in turn would initiate the explosive charge in the shell." (3)
 
The tale of the bombs destroyed in 1979 was told in this article by Senator John Riley, who was then the President of the Defence Committee.
 
Bombs Gone!
by Senator John Riley,
President, Defence Committee
 
Shortly after 2 p.m. on Monday, 26th February, 1979, the last of a series of heavy explosions shook the South East of the Island and rattled windows as far away as St Peter. Thus ended another chapter in the history of Mont Orgueil Castle-a chapter which could well have told of a monumental disaster.
 
The story starts in June, 1941 when a number of heavy guns of various calibre, some of French manufacture in World War 1, were brought to the Island by the German occupying forces. One battery of four 22 cm guns was sited at La Moye.
 
There is no record of any larger-28.5 cm-guns being imported into Jersey but it is certain that a large number of shells of this calibre were used by the Germans as ` Roll-bomben ' and a German document in the possession of Mr D. C. Holmes (to whom I am indebted for this information) gives a total of 497 in Jersey alone.
 
Of these, a number were used in a suitably medieval fashion for the defence of Mont Orgueil. The shells were suspended by wires from the battlements so that in the event of enemy infantry crossing the castle green they would be met, not by boiling pitch, but with a hail of shrapnel from a number of ` roll-mines ' each weighing 365 lbs. and containing 100 lbs. of Lidite explosive (which substance, incidentally, the British decided was too unstable for use after the Crimean War).
 
Mont Orgueil is not the only place where these shells have been found and Mr Eric Walker, the Island's Bomb Disposal Officer recalls having disposed of about 100 since 1946. The castle and its ramparts have been searched on a number of occasions, the last time during the summer of 1978 when the whole of the Eastern cliff side was pronounced clear. It was therefore with some surprise that the Castle Guardian, Mr Denis Walters, uncovered a shell whilst returfing a part of the lawn on the Grand Battery.
 
By 4th January it was evident that a large number of shells were buried in a shallow trench close to the outer wall and by 9th January Mr Eric Walker and Police Constables Elliot and Underwood had completed the dangerous and laborious task of unearthing 19 shells and relocating them in positions where the risk of sympathetic detonation would be minimal.
 
Eric Walker advised the Defence Committee that although the shells were not fused the explosive charge could have deteriorated to such an extent that movement of any kind was hazardous. He further advised that detonation of the shells should be carried out at least three-quarters of a mile from any populated area to obviate risk from blast or splinters.
 
There is only one place in Jersey where this is possible-the area of Seymour Tower at Low Water Spring Tide. This was the site selected and the date of 26th February chosen as on that day low tide (+2.1 ft.) would allow some 13 hours either side of low water on the sand bank immediately north of the Tower.
 
On 10th January it was decided to request assistance from U.K. military authorities in order that a helicopter could be used to lift the shells rather than risk removal manually from the castle and subsequently by Land Rover to Seymour Tower.
 
On 15th January a reconnaissance party from 49 E.O.D. Squadron R.E. arrived in the Island and the Commanding Officer Major B. J. Birch confirmed the plan for 26th February and arranged for a mine clearance team of some 12 men to search the remainder of the castle grounds in the meantime.
 
26th February was, for almost the first day of the year, brilliantly clear and sunny with light N.E. breeze and the PUMA helicopter from R.A.F. Odiham alighted on schedule on the Castle Green where Police control and Emergency services were stationed throughout the operation. By 11 a.m. the helicopter was hovering some 20 ft. above the Grand Battery with its main rotor blades within a few feet of the main bastion, by 12.30 p.m. the last of five lifts was completed and some 3 tons of shells safely landed near Seymour Tower where Major Birch and his detonation team were already preparing the charges.
 
The first blast was of three shells detonated simultaneously by means of hollow charge `beehives' placed on each one. The Honorary Police of Grouville were on duty at all entrances to the beach and as the helicopter finally climbed away one of them was heard to say " that's a b.... fine way of getting a feed of sand-eels ".
 
This article would be incomplete without a tribute to Eric Walker and his assistants from the States Police for their continuing dedication to the hazardous job of disposing of all dangerous material, nor without an expression of the Island's thanks to the Armed Forces of the Crown for their immediate and freely given assistance and expertise.
 
 
Links
1)      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-27626110
2)      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-17627818
3)      http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/ordnance-ammo/ww-2-german-roll-mine-found-gorey-castle-jersey-166055/

Claude Cahun: Some Sources – Part 2/2

For a brief background on Claude Cahun, see
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2014/06/claude-cahun.html

My first selection of sources is at:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2014/06/claude-cahun-some-sources-part-1-2.html

Here are is another select of sources about her, with selected snippets from each source.

A soldier without a name

The work of the surrealists was condemned as decadent by the Nazis, so the women's previous work wouldn't have endeared them to the occupying forces, any more than their sexuality and Jewish backgrounds. But rather than keep a low profile, they embarked on a personal resistance campaign against the Nazis.

Although possession of a camera was punishable by death, they took clandestine photographs of the occupation in action, and also spread anti-war propaganda among the German soldiers. (Their acts of resistance are detailed in Barbara Hammer's film about Cahun, Lover Other, which shows some of the forbidden photographs of Nazi soldiery on parade on the beach outside Cahun's house, or on the streets of the once-British island.)

https://wordsincompany.wordpress.com/tag/claude-cahun/  

Indirect Action: Politics and the Subversion of Identity in Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore's Resistance to the Occupation of Jersey by Lizzie Thynne

This article explores how Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore translated the strategies of their artistic practice and pre-war involvement with the Surrealists and revolutionary politics into an ingenious counter-propaganda campaign against the German Occupation.

An examination of Cahun's post-war letters and the extant leaflets the women distributed in Jersey reveal how they appropriated and inverted Nazi discourse to promote defeatism through carnivalesque montage, black humour and the ludic voice of their adopted persona, the 'Soldier without a Name.'

The intention of the counter propaganda she produced with Moore is not to represent all 'the enemy' as vicious aggressors, reinforcing simple binaries between 'us' and 'them'; rather it is to encourage the Germans themselves to doubt the validity of the war, specifically appealing to the rank and file to reject their leaders and disobey orders.

This was followed by acts such as putting fake coins which read 'Down with war' in the amusement park and in the Catholic church, and hanging a banner in St. Brelade's church next to their house which read 'Jesus died for us but we must die for Hitler.'  The German army used St. Brelade's cemetery to bury their dead and, at night, the women stuck cardboard crosses on the graves painted with the ironic statement: 'For them the war is over.'

Cahun and Moore's most sustained and systematic activity was the writing and distribution of leaflets signed 'The Soldier without a Name' ('Der Soldat ohne Namen'), written mainly in German.

Other leaflets were written in Czech, Greek, Spanish, Italian and Russian to give the impression the typewriter was being passed from hand to hand and that there was an international conspiracy. They were distributed by various means, according to their desired addressees: placed in empty cigarette boxes, which were inevitably picked up bycivilians and German soldiers who were short of tobacco; posted into the letterboxes of officers; and pinned to barbed wire fences. Cahun came up with the idea of creating the persona of 'The Soldier without a Name' and overcame Moore's initial reservations about using the alias

'The Soldier without a Name' recalls, but differs significantly from, 'The Unknown Soldier,' the emblematic figure who represented the countless dead of the First World War who had sacrificed themselves for their countries. Instead, 'The Soldier without a Name' is irreverent, refusing to lay down his life in the name of a dubious patriotism, debunking the rhetoric that justifies the war and exposing it as futile and exploitative.

Underpinning their campaign was a profound belief that Nazism was an aberration, no matter how powerful, that the German soldiers had the capacity to question the versions of reality they were being fed by their masters, and that they, like other human beings throughout the world, were capable of 'une libération morale complète.'

http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal8/acrobat%20files/Articles/thynne%20final%2019.05.10.pdf

Claude Cahun: Some Sources - Part 1 /2

For a brief background on Claude Cahun, see my blog posting:
http://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2014/06/claude-cahun.html  
 
Here are some more sources about her, with brief snippets from each source to whet the reader's appetite.
 
Claude Cahun's Iconic Heads: from 'The Sadistic Judith' to Human Frontier
An article by Katherine Conley
 
"Under this mask,/another mask. I will never be/finished removing/all these faces." (Claude Cahun)
 
This essay uses a photographic self-portrait by Claude Cahun as a focus for examining the ambivalences of photography and gender identity within surrealism.
 
Cahun has recently become famous for her fascinating and prolific self-portraits, which have earned her international recognition as an important twentieth-century artist. Her photographs are stunningly visible to us at the beginning of the twenty-first century because of the ways in which they anticipate contemporary investigations of sexuality
 
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/papersofsurrealism/journal2/acrobat_files/conley_article.pdf
 
Reading Claude Cahun: Essay by Lauren Elkin
In The Quarterly Conversation
 
"I want to stitch, sting, kill, with only the most pointed extremity. The rest of the body, whatever comes after, what a waste of time! To travel only at the prow of myself." (Claude Cahun)
 
When the Nazis invaded the island in July 1940, the sisters (for that is how they were known there) sprang into action, and began to apply Surrealist techniques to a covert resistance operation designed to confuse and demoralize the Germans into renouncing war and leaving the army. The two would slide anti-Nazi tracts into the French-Catholic newspapers for sale at the kiosk, stick them under the windshield wipers of Nazi vehicles, and leave cigarette cartons full of tracts in alleyways. Over time, the Nazis grew convinced that there was a full-scale resistance group in operation on the island, and when they finally apprehended Cahun and Malherbe, they were embarrassed to find the whole operation had been carried out by two middle-aged ladies. They were imprisoned and sentenced to death, but were released at the end of the war in 1945.
 
http://quarterlyconversation.com/claude-cahun-disavowals
 
Hidden Herstories: Claude Cahun
 
"Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me." (Claude Cahun)
 
During the Occupation of Paris, Cahun was involved in Georges Bataille's Contre-Attaque resistance group until she and her partner fled to Jersey in 1938, which unfortunately was the only British territory that the Nazis captured. While in Jersey her and her partner Suzanne Malherbe produced fake letters and tracts advertising unrest among the occupying forces, which had the Nazis fearing mutiny.
 
http://www.blogcitylights.com/2013/03/04/hidden-herstories-claude-cahun/

Inverted Odysseys, edited by Shelley Rice
 
"Perhaps Cahun's most poignant costume was a disguise of wig and disheveled clothes that she donned when sheand her companion, Suzanne Malherbe, distributed anti-Nazi propaganda duringthe four years of the Channel Islands' occupation by the Germans" (Shelley Rice)
 
This has some fantastic examples of her photographs. It also includes the full text of Norman MacAfee's translation of her writing "Heroines" - the reader can, for the first time, read this work. It is a retelling and re-imagining of tales told by classical and biblical figures.
 
The "Heroines" manuscript is a very well known unknown work. Though it was never published in full during Cahun's lifetime, excerpts appeared in Mercure de France and Le Journal Littéraire in 1925, early in her literary career. In 1992, this fictional series of monologues was mentioned, indeed described, by François Leperlier in his book Claude Cahun: L'écart et la métamorphose.
 
Interested in its potential relevance for the exhibition/book Inverted Odysseys, I went looking for it when I visited the Jersey Museums Service archive, which houses Cahun's personal papers. Ultimately, after much ado, I found the manuscript, missing only a few pages, buried at the bottom of a box -and it is here translated and published in its entirety for the first time. The arrangement of text on pages and decorative devices at the end of certain chapters-created using a typewriter-follows as closely as possible Cahun's original manuscript..
 
This work, published as part of a program of aid for publication, received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Service of the French Embassy in the United States.
 
Delilah, Woman among Women
The Sadistic Judith
The Tease: Penelope the Irresolute
Helen the Rebel
Sappho the Misunderstood
The Virgin Mary
Cinderella, Humble, Haughty Child
Marguerite, Incestuous Sister
Salome the Skeptic
Beauty (Or the Taste for the Beast)
The Essential Wife or the Unknown Princess
Sophie the Symbolist
Salmacis the Suffragette
The One Who Is Not A Hero
 
 http://monoskop.org/images/5/59/Rice_Shelley_ed_Inverted_Odysseys_Claude_Cahun_Maya_Deren_Cindy_Sherman.pdf
 
The Equivocal "I": Claude Cahun as Lesbian Subject
By Abigail Solomon-Godeau
 
The special interest Cahun holds for feminist critics and scholars derives from many features of her life and her work, not least from the fact of her being, as Leperlier notes, "l'une des très rares femmes qui participa activement à ce mouvement dans les années les plus critiques et les plus complexes" (one of the
rare women who actively participated in this [surrealist] movement in its most critical and complex years).

Their electrifying, unsettling effects are largely a consequence of Cahun's particular staging of herself-that, and the Medusa-like ferocity of her face and gaze.
 
http://monoskop.org/images/5/59/Rice_Shelley_ed_Inverted_Odysseys_Claude_Cahun_Maya_Deren_Cindy_Sherman.pdf
 
More photos at:
http://madampatty.blogspot.com/2012/02/claude-cahun.html
 
War on the Margins
 
Claude Cahun and her partner/lover/stepsister Marcel Moore were heroes of the Surrealist movement and also of the Resistance on the island of Jersey during WWII. They spread German-language BBC transcripts and pro-mutiny propaganda to German troops occupying the island and hid escaped slave workers. They ended up on death row in military prison, but were spared the death sentence and lived to see the liberation of Jersey. The Wikipedia page offers an excellent bibliography. They also figure prominently in my novel, War on the Margins which contains English translations of Cahun's prison letters and notes. As Gavin James Bower said in a recent Guardian article, her whole life was a work of art.
 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Margins-Libby-Cone/dp/0715638769
(also available on Kindle)
 
Afterthoughts: War on the Margins by Libby Cone
Review By Robert Burdock
 
I won't dwell on the synopsis of War on the Margins or its background too much (because more information on this can be found in my forethoughts), except to say that the novel centres on the German Occupation of the Channel Islands during Word War Two, and the effects that the Occupation had on the resident Islanders. War on the Margins is a largely fictional work, however its author having originally used the research material gathered for this novel for a history thesis, grounds much of this story in fact as well as fiction.
 
From the outset I've got to say that War on the Margins is a real eye-opener. I was fully aware of the fact that the Channel Islands were occupied during WW2 before reading this novel, but I had no idea to what extent the Islands and its residents suffered under Nazi control. This novel really does bring home just how widespread starvation and persecution were on the Channel Islands during the period, and it ain't pretty!
 
This is truly an accomplished work by Libby Cone, not least for its historical value, and it is one that should be read by anyone who has the slightest interest in the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Islands. Cone should be celebrated for what she has achieved in War on the Margins, for aside from illustrating the suffering that the Channel Islanders endured, she's spotlighted the degree to which Nazi persecution of the Jews extended; a persecution in this case, that offers a chilling glimpse into the fate that would no doubt have awaited Jews in mainland Britain should the Nazis have succeeded with their belligerent expansion.
 
http://robaroundbooks.com/2008/11/afterthoughts-war-on-the-margins-by-libby-cone/
 
Behind the Pen: Libby Cone, author of War on the Margins
Review by Robert Burdock
 
This week sees the exciting release of War on the Margins by Libby Cone. Well written and engaging, War on the Margins is an important novel, because it not only sheds light on the level of suffering that was inflicted upon the Channel Islanders during the Nazi Occupation of WW2, it also provides an archive for a number of important historical documents from the period.
 
My gripe centred around the fact that the historical documents and communiques were presented verbatim in the main body of the story. I felt that their length to some extent interrupted the flow of the story, and at times everything just seemed to mingle in. Duckworth have fixed this 'problem' simply and elegantly - they've used a different typeface for the official documents. Problem solved, and although the documents are still presented in the body of the narrative as before (which makes sense because they are an inherent part of the story), they don't seem to interrupt to the same extent as they used to.
 
Rob: Aside from the artist's diaries, there are a lot of original wartime documents reproduced in War on the Margins. Did many of these come directly from the Jersey Heritage Fund or did you source them elsewhere?
 
Libby: The documents came from the archive. The BBC and German Overseas Radio broadcasts I described were from various sources who collect the broadcasts on CD's. I also used three diaries written by people stuck on Jersey during the Occupation, Nan Le Ruez, Leslie Sinel, and Dr. John Lewis. I tried to cross-check everything that wasn't a primary source. I could have written about more people, but I couldn't corroborate their stories. Fortunately, I didn't have to write the thesis with footnotes, but I could have.
 
http://robaroundbooks.com/2009/07/behind-the-pen-libby-cone-author-of-war-on-the-margins/
 
Sans Nom: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore
By Louise Downie
 
Claude Cahun was an enigma. Her work invites but defies explanation, but perhaps some of the biggest clues are in her writings. For example she wrote: "Masculine? Feminine? But it depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me", and "I will never finish removing all these masks."
 
Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore had a long association with Jersey, having spent many childhood holidays in the Island. They usually stayed at  St Brelade's Bay Hotel and became friends with the owners, the Colley family. In 1937 the sisters purchased La Rocquaise, a house just opposite the hotel, and moved there permanently in 1938. The garden, the house and the area around the bay were favourite settings for Cahun's work. While living in Jersey they were generally known by their real names and gained a reputation for strange behaviour, such as taking their cat for a walk on a lead and wearing trousers.
 
They remained here throughout the occupation, carrying out subversive resistance activities for which they were arrested and imprisoned.
 
Claude's already weak health suffered during the war and the few self portraits she did after the Liberation were dominated by the theme of death. In this series of five photographs, she sets herself against the backdrop of St Brelade's churchyard, where she is buried. Some images include a skull, and some mask out her face.

 

In the third of the series, she appears to mock death, with the cigarette dangling from her mouth. But death is literally written all over her in a double exposure print, with words from gravestones overlaying her figure. She wears military clothes, perhaps laying blame for her death on her captors.
 
Claude Cahun died in 1954. Her death certificate cites coronary and pulmonary embolism, although it is known that she also had digestive problems. Suzanne moved to a smaller house, Carola in Beaumont, where she committed suicide in 1972.
 
http://www.jerseyheritage.org/media/Find%20a%20place%20to%20visit/Cahun.pdf

 

Claude Cahun

"Their story speaks to the hidden power of art and the gifts we receive from those considered marginal by the dominant culture." (Libby Cone)
 
For my blog today, I thought I'd share an information sheet about one of the people whom I admire greatly for their dogged and clever resistance campaign during the German Occupation of Jersey.
 
While Attorney-General Duret-Aubin was forwarding anonymous letters denouncing islanders to the Germans, and Aliens Officer Clifford Orange was zealously supplying Germans with lists of Jewish people, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore were waging a secret propaganda campaign to undermine the morale of the German troops.
 
Claude Cahun
 
Claude Cahun (25 October 1894 - 8 December 1954) was a French artist, photographer and writer. Her work was both political and personal, and often played with the concepts of gender and sexuality.
 
Born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob in Nantes, she was the niece of an avant-garde writer Marcel Schwob and the great-niece of Orientalist David Leon Cahun. Her mothers mental problems meant that she was brought up by her paternal grandmother, Mathilde Cahun.
 
She began making photographic self-portraits as early as 1912, when she was 18 years old, and she continued taking images of herself through the 1930s.
 
Around 1919, she settled on the pseudonym Claude Cahun. During the early 20s, she settled in Paris with her lifelong partner and stepsister Suzanne Malherbe. For the rest of their lives together, Cahun and Malherbe (who adopted the pseudonym "Marcel Moore") collaborated on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages. She published articles and novels, notably in the periodical "Mercure de France", and befriended Henri Michaux, Pierre Morhange and Robert Desnos.
 
Cahun's work encompassed writing, photography, and theater. She is most remembered for her highly-staged self portraits and tableaux that incorporated the visual aesthetics of Surrealism.
 
Her published writings include "Heroines," (1925) a series of monologues based upon female fairy tale characters and intertwining them with witty comparisons to the contemporary image of women: Aveux non avenus, (Carrefour, 1930) a book of essays and recorded dreams illustrated with photomontages; and several essays in magazines and journals.
 
In 1994 the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London held an exhibition of Cahun's photographic self-portraits from 1927-47, alongside the work of two young contemporary British artists, Virginia Nimarkoh and Tacita Dean, entitled Mise en Scene. In the surrealist self-portraits, Cahun represented herself as a dandy, skinhead and androgyne, nymph, model and soldier.
 
In 1937 Cahun and Malherbe settled in Jersey.
 
Following the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey and the other Channel Islands, they became active as resistance workers and propagandists. Fervently against war, the two worked extensively in producing anti-German fliers.
 
Many were snippets from English-to-German translations of BBC reports on the Nazis' crimes and insolence, which were pasted together to create rhythmic poems and harsh criticism. The couple then dressed up and attended many German military events in Jersey, strategically placing them in soldiers pockets, on their chairs, etc. Also, fliers were inconspicuously crumpled up and thrown into cars and windows. They were aware of the danger and eventually in 1944 they were arrested and sentenced to death, but the sentences were never carried out.
 
However, Cahun's health never recovered from her treatment in jail, and she died in 1954. She is buried in St Brelade's Church with her partner Suzanne Malherbe.
 
It is the policy of St Brelade's Church to welcome all denominations and the Jewish Star of David is clearly displayed on their gravestone, which can be found alongside the boundary wall south west of the Fisherman's Chapel. The grave is approximately half-way along the wall.

Apostasy and Islam: The Political and Historical Contexts

According to the Daily Telegraph: "Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy, is to be freed in a few days, a senior Sudanese official has said. But her lawyers say they will not believe it until they see her walk out of prison" (1)
 
As the BBC reported: "Dr Meriam Yahya Ibrahim was condemned to hang for allegedly leaving Islam and marrying a Christian man. The court said that by doing so, she had abandoned her religious faith and was guilty of apostasy, which carries the ultimate penalty under Islamic law in the country." (2)
 
The BBC noted that this applies in other countries - Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan also uphold strict interpretations of Sharia law.
 
Curiously, while David Cameron has been open in his condemnation of the sentence, there has been a deafening silence from the White House. Perhaps it is not seen as politically expedient to make this a cause as the kidnapping of the schoolgirls was. Michelle Obama launched a campaign to rescue them under the Twitter hashtag  #BringOutGirlsBack, but has been silent on this case.
 
As a Telegraph writer Rob Crilly notes, part of the problem is how people behave
 
"Islamic law is being abused by the impious and the hypocritical. To these pseudo-believers, it is simply another tool to be used to keep women in their place or foreigners in line. That is exactly what happened to Meriam. A half-brother apparently furious that she had gone her own way, choosing her own husband and planning to emigrate to America, was simply not going to allow it. Never mind that Meriam had never practised as a Muslim, he cried 'apostasy' and accused her of converting to Christianity."(3)
 
Yet if the laws were not in place, she would not have ended up in prison. When stringent laws were in place in Jersey, forbidding witchcraft, and allowing very little in the way of proof to be adduced, small and petty minded people, often neighbours, accused others of witchcraft. Some were exiles, many others were sentence to be strangled and burnt at the stake.
 
It was an abuse of the laws, but the laws themselves were part of a cultural mindset which fostered intolerance, and was a ready seed bed for false accusations to take root. For over a hundred years, people facing such accusations were placed into prisons under gruelling conditions, and often were executed, although lesser sentences, such as banishment, sometimes with ears cut off, could also occur.
 
It is pretty obvious that the law was certainly being abused by the impious and the hypocritical, but it is also obvious that it was an extremely bad law, ripe for that kind of abuse. And that is exactly what we do see today in places like the Sudan.
 
Professor Abdullah Saeed has noted that what has happened is that in a number of Muslim countries, "the government assumes the responsibility of 'protecting' local orthodoxies. Those who do not adhere to the government-sanctioned orthodoxy can be branded as deviants, heretics, or apostates. The potential for abuse is all the more real because governments in a number of Muslim countries are either semi-authoritarian or fully authoritarian; thus civil, political, and religious rights remain severely curtailed there."
 
He comments that "in these countries also mean that there are very few, if any, institutional safeguards to check abuses, safeguards such as elected representatives of Parliament, independent courts, or a free civic society and media."
 
In his historical survey of the roots of the law of apostasy, he notes that much of this was bound up in the earlier period when Islam was emerging.
 
"In the political context of the Prophet's time, a person either belonged to the community of believers (Muslims), the unbelievers (non-Muslims) who were at peace with Muslims, or the unbelievers who were at war with Muslims. If one leaves Islam and the Muslims and their allies, there is no option but to join the opposition. An apostate, therefore, was perceived to have automatically joined the non-Muslim side, becoming part of the enemy ranks and using apostasy as a means to attack and inflict maximum harm on the Muslim community. Thus the question of apostasy in early Islamic history was closely associated with the safety and security of the Muslims. Apostates were deemed a serious social and political threat to the whole community."
 
The texts of the hadith, such as the one which said "If anyone changes his religion, kill him", in their historical context, referred to those who were in a state of war against Muslims, and hence could be put to death. It was not so much a question of changing belief, as a matter of treason, hence the death sentence - much as the death sentence remained on the statute books for traitors in the UK until the later part of the 20th century.
 
The historical context was largely forgotten, and what emerged was a instead a limitation of the scope of freedom available to Muslims regarding belief, when Muslim scholars of the classical period opted for an extremely narrow definition of religious freedom. It was confined to non-Muslims as freedom to remain under Islamic rule as "protected religious minorities" (and pay a special religious tax for that privilege) or convert to Islam. Conversion from Islam was banned completely.
 
As Professor Saeed suggests:
 
"These scholars went against the general ethos of the Qur'an when they argued for state coercion to prevent Muslims from converting to other religions. The view of these early scholars is unsurprising as they functioned at a time when religious freedom and the concept of individual human dignity were not related in the way they are today"
 
And he notes that:
 
"People who remain Muslims under the threat of force are unlikely to have anything beneficial to offer to Islam or Muslim communities. Criminalizing apostasy and imposing a death penalty give the impression that Islam is an imposed religion"
 
Because the textual basis for the apostasy laws is actually quite weak, he would like to see a reformation of those laws, emphasizing religious freedom as a basic human right. Focus has been on those governments when Islamic law is imposed in very strict ways concerning apostasy, but he thinks that the vast majority of Muslims are moving away from the notion of the need to force Islam on Muslims to an alternative view that
 
"Islam is essentially a covenant between the individual and God. This is closer to the Qur'anic idea of noncoercion in religion, which was so strongly emphasized in the Qur'an in a variety of contexts but largely ignored in the formulation of the classical law of apostasy.Just as the institution of slavery, which had garnered Muslim and other consensus in the past, has been dropped, punishments for blasphemy and apostasy can also be revised."
 
However as Paul Marshall and Nina She observe: "many moderate Muslim voices are being silenced, especially by apostasy and blasphemy rules, which are key to preserving the tyranny of reactionary forms of Islam"
 
Zeyno Baran comments that: "The most important ideological struggle in the world today is within Islam. Moderate and secular Muslims, who embrace the compatibility of Islam and democracy and the individual freedoms we all cherish in the West, are being confronted by Islamists, who are extremist activists that hijack Islam and seek to gain political power and reshape societies."
 
And Marshall and She conclude that:
 
"In recent years, political campaigners who call for transparent elections in Iran, democracy activists who demand a constitution in Saudi Arabia, and editors who press to end the criminalization of blasphemy in Afghanistan have all been imprisoned for apostasy or blasphemy. Some, like Pakistan's minister Bhatti and governor Taseer, both strong advocates of blasphemy law reform, have been murdered."
 
There is evidently a long way to go yet before the situation is improved, not least because governments which use authoritarian means of control over their own people, are less likely to countenance anything which weakens that control. But scholars like Professor Saeed can lay solid foundations, so that where reform becomes possible, there is a solid foundation within the Qur'an for building an alternative and more contextual view of apostasy..
 
Links
1) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10867220/Sudanese-woman-Meriam-Ibrahim-sentenced-to-death-for-apostasy-to-be-freed.ht
2) BBC News
3) http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/robcrilly/100274070/bad-muslims-are-to-blame-for-shackling-meriam-ibrahim/
4) Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide, editors Paul Marshall, Nina Shea, quotes fromchapter by Abdullah Saeed and concluding chapter by editors, OUP, 2011.