‘The Past is……….’

                                    There have been occasions, Dear Reader, when we have all experienced events which have had little or no significance at the time but are now writ large in our memory. Or not!

     The Mendip Hills in Somerset lie to the east of the coastline in the south-west of England. They rise, if not in magnificent splendour, at least in rural quaintness. For me they evoke a deep sense of mixed feelings. They do so because they represented the journey to and from Millfield School in Street, Somerset where I boarded for 5 years of my teenage life. It was on that hilly journey betwixt coast and farmland that I experienced the butterflied angst of returning to boarding school three times a year, this was the place which interfered with my joyful aloneness, my solitary dreamscape. But happily my father would pick me up at the end of every term and bring me home along that same road. The journey to school was the feeling of a philosophical acceptance of something which I didn’t much like and the journey home was a sunny upland which is a pleasure to relive. Of course childhood memories run deep and, as I write this, I am appreciative of the struggle that that school embarked upon to try to help me to grow up and the better appreciation it gave me of home, hearth and life.

    After retirement Irene and I went for a drive back into those hills, back into my past, back into the city of Wells with its Bishops Palace, moat and swans; back where Mary Rand’s Olympic Gold Medal long jump from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics is measured out on a street, memorialised for all to see. It is an honoured place for an honoured citizen who was also a pupil at my school as well as being the first British woman to win three Olympic medals in one games, indeed, I believe still the only one. So having shown Irene the ghosts of my schooling, we found ourselves pulled over on a side road in a farm track high in the hills where hedgerows sparkled with life, blackberries, blackbirds, butterflies flitted their stunning patterns and colours, ominous buzzings in the bushes where bees busily bustled greedily in the pollination process. The sun shone as we opened our flask of tea and munched on our sandwiches. Ancient oak trees, remnants of old farm machinery and tractor wheel prints, once muddied and now hardened by the kiss of the sun, kept us company as we enjoyed this idyll of rural England.

   After we had picnicked, we paused in the car before setting off. Somewhat irreverently, given the bucolic atmosphere, I flicked on the car radio. We stumbled on an interview with Max Hastings, a journalist who is well known and well respected in the UK, a war correspondent who had covered the Vietnam and Falklands Wars amongst other major events. There he was on local radio promoting his new book on the history of the Vietnam War. As I listened to this most erudite of men, I said to Irene that I had to buy his book. I had always sought to comprehend the reasons and causes of that terrible war and never found a real understanding. (Latterly, however, the magnificent Ken Burns has done a pretty good job of remedying this in his excellent documentary series).

    So a couple of days later, we found ourselves in Cribbs Causeway Mall, north of the city of Bristol. I was in a book shop and not only did I find Max Hastings’ book but also a signed version. On the following day we asked our daughter, Alison, who lived and worked in the city of Bath at the time, where she would like to go for a day trip. She picked the quaint, slightly anachronistic village of Frome in the county of Somerset. It is a lovely spot, Dear Reader. Duck streams, medieval buildings, artsy shops, narrow streets designed for a time before the motor vehicle, willows on the river bank, other-worldly cafes with eclectic designs, in short a village in which one could lose oneself in an happy afternoon of exploration. To my shame, I left Irene and Alison. I found the library and sought out a quiet nook and removed myself from this haven of peace and village life and engrossed myself in the traumas and tragedies and turmoil of a war on the other side of the world at a different time. I was carried along by the style of writing but more at the clarity of Hastings’ understanding, almost every page was revealing, almost every paragraph answered a question. At last I felt that I had discovered a comprehension of a subject which had baffled me for years.

Where have I gone with this, Dear Reader? Well, while in Frome, it would have seemed natural to have continued in my quest to carry on a journey down memory lane, hopefully gaining an adult perspective on my childhood experiences. But at some point along the way I discovered that I really had achieved that goal, albeit inadvertently. A short interview on the radio had taken me back to the present, so that I was now abruptly removed from my reminiscence, snatched away from boyhood memories. Years of many different exposures, the inevitable march of time, the life changing experiences, the travels, the inevitable colouring and changing of mind and perspective, the meeting of new people, becoming a husband and father, the teaching career were now subsumed under a sudden enthusiasm for the moment. In the here and now, a chance vignette of a radio interview, the purchase of a book, the sudden immersion therein. All this had moved me from reflections on my youthful past to my adult present. So I forgot, for a time, the distant memories. All that was new in my book, my hour or two in the Frome Public Library had suddenly become more important than a five year interlude at a boarding school a lifetime ago.

“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.” L.P. Hartley.

September beckons. It is a new school year for so many in the Northern Hemisphere. I wish all good luck and happiness to teachers and students. Hopefully a Covid free year will eventually make an appearance where

‘The mask is a foreign country, they did things differently there!”

Ha! Of such tenuous sideways links come forth the weird, strange thoughts of Davidson! Please forgive, Oh Gentle Reader.