It is with enormous pleasure that I welcome Ron Impey onto the website today. Ron is a classicist with a clear passion for the written word. Indeed, during lockdown he took it upon himself to self-publish a booklet of light verse to reflect these strange times that we are all living through. A booklet that he hopes will raise funds for charitable causes.
Alex: Ron, would you like to tell us a little about yourself and your booklet, and perhaps how much this delightful collection of light verse reveals about yourself?
Ron: How far does an author reveal himself (or herself) in non-autobiographical writing?
I have just re-read my recent Lockdown Scribblings to try to answer this question.
The title of this book suggests both its context and composition. The subject-matter concentrates on events during the covid lockdowns in the UK, when the book was conceived and produced. Many of the items which I contributed myself were composed on the hoof, in the shower, or at other odd moments, scribbled down, and later polished up. Scribblings seems an appropriate word literally, and suitably unpretentious, for this random assortment of light verse that is designed to lighten the reader’s spirits without making light of the pandemic itself. All the items are relevant to particular events of the past few months.
The poem Keep Going at first sight seems a rather bitty collection of comments on familiar contemporary events – social bubbles during the pandemic, the desire to hug again those dear to us, and the examples of service to others typified by Captain Sir Tom. Digging deeper reveals more. Only those close to me would know that the 'young child' at the beginning is, in fact, my daughter, whom I took ice-skating to the rink in Streatham (the borough where my wife was born). It was the first time on ice for both of us. As I held her hand and with my other hand the side-rail, she sensed my dismay when the rail came to an end. Looking up at me she said, “Daddy, don’t think about falling – think about skating!” These words remain one of the best pieces of advice ever given to me. From a sensitive little girl of six! This, together with the experience children give us of constantly helping them to rebuild 'tumbled-down bricks' (as in the first stanza), chimes well with that dogged spirit required to see us through larger-scale crises. 'Keep calm and carry on!'
Such a larger-scale crisis has been, of course, the present covid pandemic. In a sense I have been prepared for coping with this from my early childhood. Born in East London just before WW2 erupted, I must have sensed from the outset that the world is a dangerous place and life is a serious business. My mother died when I was but a few months old, my father was gallantly trying to cope with four children (of whom I was far the youngest) and at the same time earning a living at Woolwich Arsenal, having become insolvent in a failed business venture. After a brief spell in Barnardo’s (a foretaste of the separation anxiety in lockdown?) I was evacuated along with my brother to an uncle and aunt in Dovercourt, where their house was then narrowly missed by a bomb and where soon afterwards I fell off my brother’s back on to a blazing coal fire with a kettle thereon which tipped its boiling water down my right arm (my first memory, at the age of three). Dad, with health deteriorating (partly the result of his time in the trenches in WW1), remarried in 1942. Our family was pulled together by a wonderful stepmother (always Mum to me); to her and Dad I owe so much. Back in East London I experienced wartime dangers, like that moment when at breakfast one day, without any warning, we heard a doodlebug flying overhead – and then its engine stopped; we huddled together and waited those crucial few seconds – until it crashed into a nearby street and our windows caved in. But I learned that you had to keep going. As a child I made a game of trying to beat the official air-raid siren in predicting enemy attacks.
One could summarise this by observing that East enders are a resolute and resilient breed, who are basically chirpy and keep their peckers up in tough times and stick by their neighbours (about whom I could tell many a good yarn). Should you slip over on the ice (real or metaphorical) you get up and try again; should things collapse around you, you rebuild (even with those 'worn-out tools' of Rudyard Kipling’s).
Alex: Ron, would you like to tell us a little about yourself and your booklet, and perhaps how much this delightful collection of light verse reveals about yourself?
Ron: How far does an author reveal himself (or herself) in non-autobiographical writing?
I have just re-read my recent Lockdown Scribblings to try to answer this question.
The title of this book suggests both its context and composition. The subject-matter concentrates on events during the covid lockdowns in the UK, when the book was conceived and produced. Many of the items which I contributed myself were composed on the hoof, in the shower, or at other odd moments, scribbled down, and later polished up. Scribblings seems an appropriate word literally, and suitably unpretentious, for this random assortment of light verse that is designed to lighten the reader’s spirits without making light of the pandemic itself. All the items are relevant to particular events of the past few months.
The poem Keep Going at first sight seems a rather bitty collection of comments on familiar contemporary events – social bubbles during the pandemic, the desire to hug again those dear to us, and the examples of service to others typified by Captain Sir Tom. Digging deeper reveals more. Only those close to me would know that the 'young child' at the beginning is, in fact, my daughter, whom I took ice-skating to the rink in Streatham (the borough where my wife was born). It was the first time on ice for both of us. As I held her hand and with my other hand the side-rail, she sensed my dismay when the rail came to an end. Looking up at me she said, “Daddy, don’t think about falling – think about skating!” These words remain one of the best pieces of advice ever given to me. From a sensitive little girl of six! This, together with the experience children give us of constantly helping them to rebuild 'tumbled-down bricks' (as in the first stanza), chimes well with that dogged spirit required to see us through larger-scale crises. 'Keep calm and carry on!'
Such a larger-scale crisis has been, of course, the present covid pandemic. In a sense I have been prepared for coping with this from my early childhood. Born in East London just before WW2 erupted, I must have sensed from the outset that the world is a dangerous place and life is a serious business. My mother died when I was but a few months old, my father was gallantly trying to cope with four children (of whom I was far the youngest) and at the same time earning a living at Woolwich Arsenal, having become insolvent in a failed business venture. After a brief spell in Barnardo’s (a foretaste of the separation anxiety in lockdown?) I was evacuated along with my brother to an uncle and aunt in Dovercourt, where their house was then narrowly missed by a bomb and where soon afterwards I fell off my brother’s back on to a blazing coal fire with a kettle thereon which tipped its boiling water down my right arm (my first memory, at the age of three). Dad, with health deteriorating (partly the result of his time in the trenches in WW1), remarried in 1942. Our family was pulled together by a wonderful stepmother (always Mum to me); to her and Dad I owe so much. Back in East London I experienced wartime dangers, like that moment when at breakfast one day, without any warning, we heard a doodlebug flying overhead – and then its engine stopped; we huddled together and waited those crucial few seconds – until it crashed into a nearby street and our windows caved in. But I learned that you had to keep going. As a child I made a game of trying to beat the official air-raid siren in predicting enemy attacks.
One could summarise this by observing that East enders are a resolute and resilient breed, who are basically chirpy and keep their peckers up in tough times and stick by their neighbours (about whom I could tell many a good yarn). Should you slip over on the ice (real or metaphorical) you get up and try again; should things collapse around you, you rebuild (even with those 'worn-out tools' of Rudyard Kipling’s).
Alex: Are there any particular themes, Ron that you like to explore with your poems?
Ron: The 'bubble' theme, which runs through several stanzas of the poem Keep Going has obvious and sometimes less obvious connotations. Just like that lad in the famous painting by John Millais, we have all had the experience of watching bubbles, perhaps those we have ourselves blown, floating then bursting. Quite absorbing! Even more significant for someone like me, born just down the road from the then ground of West Ham United, whose theme song 'I’m forever blowing bubbles (they fly so high, nearly reach the sky, then like my dreams they fade and die)' is philosophically appropriate for accepting the transitoriness of achievements as well as forever maintaining aspirations for the future. Antonio is not the first, or last, player to realise evanescent ambitions. With reference to me in the Foreword to Lockdown Scribblings, allusion is made to Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, in which the poet speaks of 'beaded bubbles winking at the brim'. With further research the reader may find that the theme of Millais’ painting was typical of the rather stoic 'vanitas' style of the period, and may notice other features like the broken vase symbolism. My 'fun and sparkles come first', while they last, may recall Shelley’s poem with its wider implications:
'Worlds on worlds are rolling ever from creation to decay
Like the bubbles on a river, sparkling, bursting, borne away'.
Sublime thoughts for conservationists and philosophers alike!
In my early days a singer of passing note, Issy Bonn, encouraged us with his song “…sunshine will follow the rain”, as did my fellow East-ender Vera Lynn later with 'It’s a lovely day tomorrow'. This sentiment is in accord with one of my favourite hymns praying for 'strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow'. This spirit is what counts in adverse situations. It reminds me of the title of Captain Tom’s autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, even if on occasion we cannot always feel that 'it’s a beautiful day today' (as in the song of Michael Bublé – not quite 'Bubble'!)
Maybe this 'poem' of mine has begun to appear more of a coherent entity by now! Aphrodite (born, it was said, from the 'aphros' of the bubbling sea) was a powerful force. Love will find a way. Unwanted bubbles burst, sunshine both precedes and follows rain. Aphrodite/Love transcends and pierces bubbles. Life-threatening situations, like a world-war or a pandemic, can engender life-giving activity. As Robert Browning put it 'faith and love with death behind them bidding do or die put such a foil at back the sparkle’s born.'
The poem Keep Going has a united inter-locking theme, understandable as it stands but with extra rewards for those who search and use their imagination. Life itself may seem sometimes like a jumble and history like just 'one thing after another' – but the overall pattern is there to be understood. My poem may well generate more exploration, too, of the poetry of Shelley, or Keats, or Browning (or Shakespeare in connection with the 'when shall we meet again' of the final stanza); it may arouse interest in schools of painting, West Ham (!), Captain Tom, Greek mythology, child psychology, the 'Blitz spirit', WW2...
Alex: What do you hope the reader will draw from this collection of Lockdown Scribblings?
Ron: To different degrees the Lockdown Scribblings poems invite the reader to see the obvious and explore the less obvious and to rejoice in personal flights of the imagination. I think that is a laudable aim in poetry.
For instance, in the Lammergeier poem the play on words in 'peak', 'peek' and 'pique' may be a fairly obvious pun (which the author, at any rate, enjoyed) and the mention of national security may strike a chord, but it requires more effort to look up the suggested poem of Flecker to shed light on 'that linnet'! Flecker’s linnet has lost her way (like maybe the eagle or a certain government advisor of the day driving off in the lockdown to a distant town for an eyesight test!) but his is now singing in hell! Her beautiful singing reminds the dead of the joys of living and to reach out to others in times of deprivation. A bit more sombre – and with richer connotation.
Rules of sensible and safe behaviour laid down by the government during the covid pandemic (e.g. mask-wearing, personal hygiene, and social distancing) find their place in these poems, and references to experts, politicians and the odd advisor, as well as to university students trying to 'enjoy' themselves, and to the general confusion as to what the actual regulations are at any one time, as well as current problems about truth, post-truth, fake news, and integrity - these all feature. An extraordinarily tenacious sleuth might observe that this fits well with my authorship and family’s motto LEGES IURAQUE SERVA (Observe the laws and justice)! Yet there is a light touch, hopefully – especially in the poem Come into the garden, Claude (with apologies to Tennyson) with its slightly risqué attitude to social distancing.
Alex: What do you do to unwind and relax?
Ron: Living in Devon as we do, my wife Judy and I are fortunate enough to enjoy walking in beautiful places - Including along the local River Exe, and during non-lockdown times in the Tarka countryside, observing the beauty of nature and the changing seasons. 'Keeping pathways open' metaphorically, too!
Many people have spoken of their heightened awareness and appreciation of nature in these difficult days.
Judy is anxious to resume swimming, but I stick to walking as my physical activity. I can claim no sporting prowess, alas, although during my teaching career I was once put in charge of a junior cricket team, but can boast that one of my school friends was the great cricketer Barry Knight and one of my university friends was cox of the Cambridge boat! Oh – and I can perform some pretty good conjuring tricks as well as being a self-proclaimed authority on the hopping-over boardgame of Solitaire.
Alex: Now, I understand that you are something of a Classics scholar, Ron. Would you like to tell us how this love affair with the ancient world came about?
Ron: My references to Aphrodite, to the bird of Jove, and to the Latin poet Ovid, together with my daring to concoct classically derived compound words like 'prosopokalypsology' and 'prosopokalypsychology' may betray my classical background. It was my study of Latin and Greek at that superb East Ham Grammar School for Boys in London’s Eastend and then as a Classical exhibitioner at Cambridge in the fifties, which taught me so much about words both individually and in stylistic combination. The undergraduate classics syllabus in those days at Cambridge had no list of set books for the first two years, so one was expected just to read as much as possible. The practice of imitating various literary styles by translating English prose and verse into Latin and Greek prose and verse was an effective way of helping me to acquire the taste of literary composition. This also introduced me to some hitherto unfamiliar writers (like Flecker, whose 'linnet' poem I tried to turn none too successfully into Greek elegiacs). I enjoyed especially Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Horace’s Odes, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Reading commentaries on these literary masterpieces alerted me not only to the basic meaning of the text but also to less obvious (and sometimes rather fanciful!) interpretations. What a rigorously wonderful way of stirring the imagination it was!
Words have, as it were, a life of their own – an origin, evolution, shape, sound, and flavour, often with subtleties of meaning and allusion which, maybe mischievously or tantalisingly, invite intended or sometimes unintended interpretation, possibly striking deeply personal and forgotten chords – often to the delight or surprise of the wordsmith. Such is the material of the flirtatious and capricious Muse, such 'the deep well of unconscious cerebration' as Exeter’s rather eccentric Virgilian scholar Jackson Knight grandly put it.
Alex: Can you remember the first book you ever read?
Ron: Still in my possession is the first book which was given to me - The Arabian Nights. The inscription inside confirms that one of my sisters, then aged nineteen, gave it to me on my fifth birthday. I cannot imagine that I was able to read it unaided myself, but I do recall enjoying these stories being read to me. No doubt I was just as reluctant to have to wait for the next episode as my own children were when in later years I read to them. So I had met the metamorphosis theme in the story told to Caliph Haroun Alraschid by Sidi Nouman and had heard of the activities and significance of eagles in the story of Cogia Hassan Alhabbal before encountering them in Classical literature! Similarly, with Sinbad and Odysseus/Ulysses. An interesting story well told with appropriate suspense and spur to the imagination is always a good formula. Stories about travelling can often be especially captivating, even when they may be a tad exaggerated or incredible. The poem Ithaca by Cavafy, which I find particularly moving, points out that the journey itself may be more important than reaching the destination.
Thereafter, I spent time with Edith Nesbit, Enid Blyton, WE Johns and Biggles, Rupert Bear, the Wizard comic, and such like. (I still have time for dear Rupert and have a fair collection of his annuals. Possibly my poetry is influenced…?)
Alex: Which authors do you particularly admire and enjoy?
Ron: I enjoy Agatha Christie and Ruth Rendell (although I sometimes prefer the TV version!) and admire Charles Dickens as a story-teller and master of description. As a boy I found Jules Verne fascinating, and later the imaginative novels of John Wyndham. Although I am not particularly drawn to sci-fi, I read Azimov’s Foundation Trilogy as a deal with a sixth-form pupil in exchange for his reading (in English translation) Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War! We were both impressed; I found Azimov had an impressive style of writing and a plausible psycho-historical plot. John Fowles’ The Magus kept me engrossed, as did Donna Tart’s The Secret History and Victoria Hislop’s The Thread. Very high in my list is Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead, which I am sure will rank as one of the greats.
My taste in poetry has been partially revealed already, but is not exclusive. Most Wordsworth and some of Shakespeare’s sonnets bring me great pleasure. Manley Hopkins and TS Eliot are a profound delight – even when I am not sure I fully understand. Alas, I am not au fait with much present-day poetry.
Alex: Aside from writing, what are your other interests?
Ron: My wife and I are involved with various churches – in Exeter and in Luxembourg (via Zoom). The wonders of Skype and Zoom nowadays play such an important part in keeping in touch with family and friends – especially with our two daughters and their families in Hampshire and Luxembourg. We yearn to be with them in reality as soon as covid restrictions allow. The When…? poem at the beginning of Lockdown Scribblings is followed near the end by the optimism of Vera Lynn’s Tomorrow. As noted in the poem Family Activities nonetheless we are all involved in various activities. The amateur orchestra I belong to soldiers on via Zoom, with I suppose the bonus factor that nobody else can hear my inexpert violin playing.
My small group of Pluggers persists undaunted with gusto in unmutedly chaotic and joyously exuberant renditions of folk music. How I admire those Yehudis playing those fantastic violin concertos of Bach, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven – all of which I could listen to over and over again.
Amateur dramatics are on hold at present. Judy and I even wonder how we ever had the time or energy to learn lines and perform. How did I have the nerve to sing to my wife in public 'Daisy, Daisy… I’m half crazy all for the love of you' in a panto, or as the Fool in Twelfth Night 'When that I was and a little tiny boy…', or act that monster Caliban in my last, possibly final, performance?!
Alex: Ron, thank you so much for sharing all this with us. It's been fascinating listening to you. I could happily sit here till the cows come home listening to you.
Ron: I do hope I have answered your questions with only a few minor diversions! Even though I cannot claim to have proved conclusively and to the complete satisfaction of an unreasonably harsh judge that I am the undisputed author of Lockdown Scribblings, I trust that I have demonstrated that its content and I are intimately connected.
Looking down at this 'manuscript', I feel I see looking up at me the face of a young lad with a chirpy grin and I seem to hear the words in a sort of double-voiced unison: “Yes, it’s me. I did it.”
'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.'
T.S.Eliot
Alex: Ron. It's been an absolute delight having you on. I wish you luck with Lockdown Scribblings. I understand it will soon be available from Amazon as a paperback and an ebook.
Ron: That's correct, Alex. And I must also mention here that my dear friend Nick Day who is an exceptionally talented illustrator very kindly produced all the accompanying illustrations and a wonderful front cover. So a big thank you to him. And thank you to you, too Alex for asking me to take part today. I've thoroughly enjoyed being part of this fascinating series of interviews
Ron: The 'bubble' theme, which runs through several stanzas of the poem Keep Going has obvious and sometimes less obvious connotations. Just like that lad in the famous painting by John Millais, we have all had the experience of watching bubbles, perhaps those we have ourselves blown, floating then bursting. Quite absorbing! Even more significant for someone like me, born just down the road from the then ground of West Ham United, whose theme song 'I’m forever blowing bubbles (they fly so high, nearly reach the sky, then like my dreams they fade and die)' is philosophically appropriate for accepting the transitoriness of achievements as well as forever maintaining aspirations for the future. Antonio is not the first, or last, player to realise evanescent ambitions. With reference to me in the Foreword to Lockdown Scribblings, allusion is made to Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, in which the poet speaks of 'beaded bubbles winking at the brim'. With further research the reader may find that the theme of Millais’ painting was typical of the rather stoic 'vanitas' style of the period, and may notice other features like the broken vase symbolism. My 'fun and sparkles come first', while they last, may recall Shelley’s poem with its wider implications:
'Worlds on worlds are rolling ever from creation to decay
Like the bubbles on a river, sparkling, bursting, borne away'.
Sublime thoughts for conservationists and philosophers alike!
In my early days a singer of passing note, Issy Bonn, encouraged us with his song “…sunshine will follow the rain”, as did my fellow East-ender Vera Lynn later with 'It’s a lovely day tomorrow'. This sentiment is in accord with one of my favourite hymns praying for 'strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow'. This spirit is what counts in adverse situations. It reminds me of the title of Captain Tom’s autobiography Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, even if on occasion we cannot always feel that 'it’s a beautiful day today' (as in the song of Michael Bublé – not quite 'Bubble'!)
Maybe this 'poem' of mine has begun to appear more of a coherent entity by now! Aphrodite (born, it was said, from the 'aphros' of the bubbling sea) was a powerful force. Love will find a way. Unwanted bubbles burst, sunshine both precedes and follows rain. Aphrodite/Love transcends and pierces bubbles. Life-threatening situations, like a world-war or a pandemic, can engender life-giving activity. As Robert Browning put it 'faith and love with death behind them bidding do or die put such a foil at back the sparkle’s born.'
The poem Keep Going has a united inter-locking theme, understandable as it stands but with extra rewards for those who search and use their imagination. Life itself may seem sometimes like a jumble and history like just 'one thing after another' – but the overall pattern is there to be understood. My poem may well generate more exploration, too, of the poetry of Shelley, or Keats, or Browning (or Shakespeare in connection with the 'when shall we meet again' of the final stanza); it may arouse interest in schools of painting, West Ham (!), Captain Tom, Greek mythology, child psychology, the 'Blitz spirit', WW2...
Alex: What do you hope the reader will draw from this collection of Lockdown Scribblings?
Ron: To different degrees the Lockdown Scribblings poems invite the reader to see the obvious and explore the less obvious and to rejoice in personal flights of the imagination. I think that is a laudable aim in poetry.
For instance, in the Lammergeier poem the play on words in 'peak', 'peek' and 'pique' may be a fairly obvious pun (which the author, at any rate, enjoyed) and the mention of national security may strike a chord, but it requires more effort to look up the suggested poem of Flecker to shed light on 'that linnet'! Flecker’s linnet has lost her way (like maybe the eagle or a certain government advisor of the day driving off in the lockdown to a distant town for an eyesight test!) but his is now singing in hell! Her beautiful singing reminds the dead of the joys of living and to reach out to others in times of deprivation. A bit more sombre – and with richer connotation.
Rules of sensible and safe behaviour laid down by the government during the covid pandemic (e.g. mask-wearing, personal hygiene, and social distancing) find their place in these poems, and references to experts, politicians and the odd advisor, as well as to university students trying to 'enjoy' themselves, and to the general confusion as to what the actual regulations are at any one time, as well as current problems about truth, post-truth, fake news, and integrity - these all feature. An extraordinarily tenacious sleuth might observe that this fits well with my authorship and family’s motto LEGES IURAQUE SERVA (Observe the laws and justice)! Yet there is a light touch, hopefully – especially in the poem Come into the garden, Claude (with apologies to Tennyson) with its slightly risqué attitude to social distancing.
Alex: What do you do to unwind and relax?
Ron: Living in Devon as we do, my wife Judy and I are fortunate enough to enjoy walking in beautiful places - Including along the local River Exe, and during non-lockdown times in the Tarka countryside, observing the beauty of nature and the changing seasons. 'Keeping pathways open' metaphorically, too!
Many people have spoken of their heightened awareness and appreciation of nature in these difficult days.
Judy is anxious to resume swimming, but I stick to walking as my physical activity. I can claim no sporting prowess, alas, although during my teaching career I was once put in charge of a junior cricket team, but can boast that one of my school friends was the great cricketer Barry Knight and one of my university friends was cox of the Cambridge boat! Oh – and I can perform some pretty good conjuring tricks as well as being a self-proclaimed authority on the hopping-over boardgame of Solitaire.
Alex: Now, I understand that you are something of a Classics scholar, Ron. Would you like to tell us how this love affair with the ancient world came about?
Ron: My references to Aphrodite, to the bird of Jove, and to the Latin poet Ovid, together with my daring to concoct classically derived compound words like 'prosopokalypsology' and 'prosopokalypsychology' may betray my classical background. It was my study of Latin and Greek at that superb East Ham Grammar School for Boys in London’s Eastend and then as a Classical exhibitioner at Cambridge in the fifties, which taught me so much about words both individually and in stylistic combination. The undergraduate classics syllabus in those days at Cambridge had no list of set books for the first two years, so one was expected just to read as much as possible. The practice of imitating various literary styles by translating English prose and verse into Latin and Greek prose and verse was an effective way of helping me to acquire the taste of literary composition. This also introduced me to some hitherto unfamiliar writers (like Flecker, whose 'linnet' poem I tried to turn none too successfully into Greek elegiacs). I enjoyed especially Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Horace’s Odes, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Reading commentaries on these literary masterpieces alerted me not only to the basic meaning of the text but also to less obvious (and sometimes rather fanciful!) interpretations. What a rigorously wonderful way of stirring the imagination it was!
Words have, as it were, a life of their own – an origin, evolution, shape, sound, and flavour, often with subtleties of meaning and allusion which, maybe mischievously or tantalisingly, invite intended or sometimes unintended interpretation, possibly striking deeply personal and forgotten chords – often to the delight or surprise of the wordsmith. Such is the material of the flirtatious and capricious Muse, such 'the deep well of unconscious cerebration' as Exeter’s rather eccentric Virgilian scholar Jackson Knight grandly put it.
Alex: Can you remember the first book you ever read?
Ron: Still in my possession is the first book which was given to me - The Arabian Nights. The inscription inside confirms that one of my sisters, then aged nineteen, gave it to me on my fifth birthday. I cannot imagine that I was able to read it unaided myself, but I do recall enjoying these stories being read to me. No doubt I was just as reluctant to have to wait for the next episode as my own children were when in later years I read to them. So I had met the metamorphosis theme in the story told to Caliph Haroun Alraschid by Sidi Nouman and had heard of the activities and significance of eagles in the story of Cogia Hassan Alhabbal before encountering them in Classical literature! Similarly, with Sinbad and Odysseus/Ulysses. An interesting story well told with appropriate suspense and spur to the imagination is always a good formula. Stories about travelling can often be especially captivating, even when they may be a tad exaggerated or incredible. The poem Ithaca by Cavafy, which I find particularly moving, points out that the journey itself may be more important than reaching the destination.
Thereafter, I spent time with Edith Nesbit, Enid Blyton, WE Johns and Biggles, Rupert Bear, the Wizard comic, and such like. (I still have time for dear Rupert and have a fair collection of his annuals. Possibly my poetry is influenced…?)
Alex: Which authors do you particularly admire and enjoy?
Ron: I enjoy Agatha Christie and Ruth Rendell (although I sometimes prefer the TV version!) and admire Charles Dickens as a story-teller and master of description. As a boy I found Jules Verne fascinating, and later the imaginative novels of John Wyndham. Although I am not particularly drawn to sci-fi, I read Azimov’s Foundation Trilogy as a deal with a sixth-form pupil in exchange for his reading (in English translation) Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War! We were both impressed; I found Azimov had an impressive style of writing and a plausible psycho-historical plot. John Fowles’ The Magus kept me engrossed, as did Donna Tart’s The Secret History and Victoria Hislop’s The Thread. Very high in my list is Marilynne Robinson’s novel Gilead, which I am sure will rank as one of the greats.
My taste in poetry has been partially revealed already, but is not exclusive. Most Wordsworth and some of Shakespeare’s sonnets bring me great pleasure. Manley Hopkins and TS Eliot are a profound delight – even when I am not sure I fully understand. Alas, I am not au fait with much present-day poetry.
Alex: Aside from writing, what are your other interests?
Ron: My wife and I are involved with various churches – in Exeter and in Luxembourg (via Zoom). The wonders of Skype and Zoom nowadays play such an important part in keeping in touch with family and friends – especially with our two daughters and their families in Hampshire and Luxembourg. We yearn to be with them in reality as soon as covid restrictions allow. The When…? poem at the beginning of Lockdown Scribblings is followed near the end by the optimism of Vera Lynn’s Tomorrow. As noted in the poem Family Activities nonetheless we are all involved in various activities. The amateur orchestra I belong to soldiers on via Zoom, with I suppose the bonus factor that nobody else can hear my inexpert violin playing.
My small group of Pluggers persists undaunted with gusto in unmutedly chaotic and joyously exuberant renditions of folk music. How I admire those Yehudis playing those fantastic violin concertos of Bach, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven – all of which I could listen to over and over again.
Amateur dramatics are on hold at present. Judy and I even wonder how we ever had the time or energy to learn lines and perform. How did I have the nerve to sing to my wife in public 'Daisy, Daisy… I’m half crazy all for the love of you' in a panto, or as the Fool in Twelfth Night 'When that I was and a little tiny boy…', or act that monster Caliban in my last, possibly final, performance?!
Alex: Ron, thank you so much for sharing all this with us. It's been fascinating listening to you. I could happily sit here till the cows come home listening to you.
Ron: I do hope I have answered your questions with only a few minor diversions! Even though I cannot claim to have proved conclusively and to the complete satisfaction of an unreasonably harsh judge that I am the undisputed author of Lockdown Scribblings, I trust that I have demonstrated that its content and I are intimately connected.
Looking down at this 'manuscript', I feel I see looking up at me the face of a young lad with a chirpy grin and I seem to hear the words in a sort of double-voiced unison: “Yes, it’s me. I did it.”
'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.'
T.S.Eliot
Alex: Ron. It's been an absolute delight having you on. I wish you luck with Lockdown Scribblings. I understand it will soon be available from Amazon as a paperback and an ebook.
Ron: That's correct, Alex. And I must also mention here that my dear friend Nick Day who is an exceptionally talented illustrator very kindly produced all the accompanying illustrations and a wonderful front cover. So a big thank you to him. And thank you to you, too Alex for asking me to take part today. I've thoroughly enjoyed being part of this fascinating series of interviews
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