My elder sister died last summer. Were she still alive I don’t think she would be too surprised to hear me describe one aspect of her character as that of an inveterate collector and hoarder, with strong magpie tendencies. Accordingly, her flat was filled with treasures. These have now been sorted and two particular treasures have come my way. The first I chose after a family get together, the other came as a complete surprise and both are a joy.

The chosen treasure, which arrived before Christmas, was a small, slightly quirky, round-topped, coffee table of adjustable height. In the late 1940′s this was part the sitting room furniture in my family home and had almost certainly been an heirloom from my mother’s side. After getting married in my twenties I would occasionally see it on visits home. But then around 30 years ago it dropped from my radar.

Its new home is our own sitting room, where seeing it is such a pleasure, not only because of its intrinsic elegance and the memories it rekindles, but also because it seals some history. The table is once again united with its sister, a piano stool of similar style which was also in my parents’ sitting room – with similarly shaped legs, similar fluting and the exact same mechanism for height adjustment. After years of separation all three of us are together once more, and it feels good.

The second treasure came two weeks ago on my birthday. I had a tea party and rather than receive presents I asked that the anniversary be ‘gift-free’. For guests who insisted, however, I suggested that the best for me would be a piece of shared memorabilia. My two nieces (my late sister’s two daughters) handed me a carefully wrapped parcel saying simply that it was fragile. It was about 20cm wide and 50cm long. With great care I removed its several layers of wrapping and deep inside was a thin wooden frame surrounding a mirror below and a very Victorian scene above. The picture was of a sickly hare being fed a medicine by a bespectacled, kindly, gnome.

For a few seconds I puzzled over the piece. I knew it was familiar but was not sure in what way. Unlike the table, the mirror’s existence had been completely forgotten. Gradually things clarified – it was the mirror that used to hang above the mantelpiece in my bedroom when I was a small child. At the same time I became very aware how cold and drab was my childhood bedroom, and how this little picture was one of the few objects on which I could daydream.

It had been a very loved object and I had not seen it for probably over 60 years. How it found its way to my sister’s house is a mystery, but no matter. On that day and out of the blue, I was reunited with a long-lost companion and it was a sheer delight. Now we could relax.

I am not a man who displays much emotion, but to discover that an inanimate object such as piece of furniture or a mirror/picture can have an emotional element, as it encapsulates ideas and memories, seems to be a positive advance. It might also make remembering my sister that much easier.

Forget the adage about sticks and stones, words can certainly hurt and they did just that, one evening before Christmas. Add in the effect of actions, with their capacity to speak louder than words, and the occasion had many of the features of a nightmare.

A young couple, with their small child, had come to stay from France. Neither spoke much English so chatting was mainly done in French, something I love, but which still remains quite a strain.

We had first met Jacques, the husband, when he was a toddler. Now in his mid thirties he was amusing and thoughtful and fun to be with. We were very fond of him. In his life he had had to weather some very difficult periods, the worst of which was binge drinking. This was ten years ago and a thing of the past. But while fatherhood seemed to have consolidated his recovery, recently there were ominous hints that control might have begun to slip.

Their son, Marcel, was a lively, funny, bright, and responsive two-year old. He was also headstrong, occasionally to the point of being disruptive, but somehow that could seem endearing. As a rule he loved joining in. I knew from previous occasions that Jacques was averse to cooking, so while he was with us I persuaded him to help me prepare and cook our meals. We both wore aprons, he served as sous-chef, and the apprenticeship seemed to be working well. Inspired by this, Marcel was appointed the sous-sous-chef.

The mother, Marie-Laure, was very entertaining, vivacious, and whenever she was around there was no risk of conversation drying up. They were with us for almost a week and for several days all went well. Then, on the penultimate day, relationships changed. They went out together nominally for a stroll while we looked after Marcel and prepared the dinner. When they returned it soon became clear that the outing had mainly involved drinking in the local pub. This then continued during the meal, with Marie-Laure seemingly egging Jacques on. When the meal was over I cleared away the dishes and went off to write.

An hour later I returned to find them still at the table, and very obviously drunk, him rather more so than her. By now their comportment had entirely changed. Slouching rather than sitting, they repeatedly mocked my French, particularly my accent, highlighting my mistakes, pointing at me and giggling. They also belittled elements of our household. Soon afterwards they struggled up to bed.

Much of our night was then disturbed by Marcel who, from around 2.00 in the morning, cried incessantly. Whether his parents offered solace we never knew, but we were worried.

The next day the atmosphere was tense. Rohan and I felt absolutely miserable, in modern speak, ‘gutted’. Our guests said nothing about the events of the previous evening – there was certainly no hint of an apology. So much that was wrong had happened in those few hours. It was desperately sad to see Jacques drinking again, and so tragic after all he had achieved. Our hopes for him were shattered. It was worrying, not to say frightening, to realise that the wellbeing of little Marcel might be threatened. Suddenly he appeared very vulnerable. Their abuse of our hospitality felt so unjust; how could guests behave like this? And finally, and at personal level, it was painful and undermining to be the brunt of their jibes. I see myself as a hardy character rarely ruffled by criticism. Through their words they had found a way through my guard and their mocking hurt.

We have now recovered from that horrible evening, although, of course we remember it well. One obvious outcome is that we may have lost some good friends, although careful bridge building has already begun. But whatever the effects on us, they will have been much more serious for our erstwhile guests. They may well be living with those few hours, and their consequences, for years to come. For me, at least, no bones were broken. Perhaps the old adage is right.

Living up to people’s expectations can be a challenge. We were out to dinner and after updating one another on families, touching on the financial crisis and on the forthcoming presidential election, conversation suddenly took a downward turn. Out of the blue, Pierre asked,  “Tell me, as an Englishman, what do the English think of the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays?”
But before I could reply, Joelle added, “It is difficult to believe he was the author as he had no formal higher education.” I felt penned in.

While I adore Shakespeare’s writing, I know little of any current controversy about its provenance. Moreover, I am no intellectual and I certainly can’t speak on behalf of ‘the English’. However, there were clearly expectations that I answer. After a horrible squirmy silence I found myself saying that, as I recall, there have been debates on this subject in the UK for years (my main source – ‘O’ level English, 1957/8) and I had not read anything special about the issue recently (given that my source is limited to a daily scour of the BBC website!).

Whether or not this satisfied my hosts I don’t know, but my reply and the situation certainly made me feel uncomfortable. Nothing I said was untrue but it was clearly hollow and inconsequential. It would have been so much better if I had simply declared ignorance. Somehow, possibly because I was already insecure (the conversation was in French), I had been pushed into living up to their assumptions and I didn’t, or couldn’t, resist.

Closer to home and in different circumstances, I am faced with other expectations. Although the situations remain awkward, here I feel better able to cope. I was a doctor but since my retirement I have had neither the wish nor the time to keep up with medicine. I know next to nothing about recent advances in treatments and keep only a very peripheral eye on developments in the health service, both areas in which I once had expertise. I have moved on. However, this is not something of which friends (and some parts of my family) are fully aware. So when I am asked my views on medical matters, and this is not uncommon, I usually have to disappoint. I can still manage the more basic ‘doctoring’ business, but the latest research is not my bag and whenever I respond in these terms my answer is received with a certain incredulity or disappointment. “You have always been kind enough to help in the past, why not now?” Apart from pressing me to advise on things in which I am no longer competent, one reason that I find expectations pressurising is that the questioner, probably unknowingly, is pushing me back into the past. Declining to help gives me a freedom, as it reinforces in me the fact that since retirement I have a new life.

There is one further expectation that affects me. It comes on most Thursdays or Fridays, dear reader, and involves you. I refer to the expectation that by Sunday/Monday I will have written a new piece for Greyhares. I love writing, and blogging has become a key part of my week. Fortunately I get neither writer’s cramp nor writer’s block so on paper there should be no problem. Each week ideas for topics bubble up through the grey matter and then with digital intervention settle on to the page. The problem is that I don’t always agree with myself, or I get diverted, or I find explanations that require time to digest, or the piece just not seem to work, or there is an idea I simply can’t express, or it does not get past my wife (who reads drafts of them all!) or it is rejected by ‘Ed’ [Not this time- Ed]. The important thing to know about this expectation is that it allows me to develop and expand. Indeed, I would not have it any other way.

Expectations are made of us all the time. When they serve to encourage or develop they help. If they stultify, or make demands that cannot be met, they become a burden and are best avoided.

Whenever a radio or television announcer says we are about to hear an interview with Tony Blair, I turn off my ears. This may be an excessive response but many years ago our former prime minister lost my trust. For me, what was an exciting political prospect became a betrayal, and a warmongering one at that. He was, as it turns out, a serial trickster, so why should I bother to listen to him again?

But my selective deafness is not limited to such extremes, nor is it brought on solely by distrust. Another important cause for me is distraction. Something happens that diverts me away from listening. This has happened twice in the last few weeks and again has involved TV programmes; one the traditional New Year’s Day concert from Vienna, the other a discussion about over-suggestive (over–sexualising) advertising and its adverse effects on children. The music, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, was good enough (although rather duller than last year!), and the discussion, by the Chief Executive of the Mothers’ Union, was very reasonable. The problem was that both had serious flaws and the distraction these caused was such as to make concentrating on what was said/played essentially impossible

What diverted me was seeing gross gender injustice. In an orchestra of perhaps 100 musicians all but 2 were men, and it was man who was head of the Mothers’ Union and so spoke on behalf of women. To me, not only did the two scenarios beggar belief, they were also demeaning and offensive, and my mind concentrated on these issues rather than the sounds emitted.

I suspect that I ‘turn off’ a lot, although it occurs much less now than when I was younger. As a child, listening to my father when he was ‘helping’ me with my homework was almost impossible. I imagine he must have found me very testing – in his eyes I was a daydreamer and a stubborn one at that. In classes and later in lectures, I would stop listening when the information being offered was over-dense, over-complicated or beyond my comprehension. In these circumstances I just needed some respite. When the message was delivered in an aggressive or demanding way, hearing became difficult as I simply withdrew into my shell and found that words would be blanked out when my mind turned to reflecting on what had just been said.

I do not know how difficult others find listening but from my years as a doctor and a teacher (and occasionally as a parent), I suspect that ‘turning off’ is actually very common. I soon learned that however hard they tried, many patients and students miss important bits of what is said. Indeed, lapses are so standard that in any lecture or conversation I, and most of colleagues, would deliberately spend time repeating and/or reformulating information. Even with all this, I know that I often failed, though lapses are actually common to us all. So, often after a conference or some complicated negotiations, my colleagues and I would convene to pool what we had heard because we were well aware of the holes we had in our individual memories.

In most instances, not hearing is very wasteful, and certainly those who manage to take in all that is said are at a great advantage. However there are occasions when it can help. As a one-time critic of government, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment, during my career I was occasionally confronted by questions that were laced with personal or barbed comments. Through selective deafness I could simply concentrate on the factual issues. An approach that was intellectually appropriate and also had the advantage of undermining their gibes.

Turning off in every-day conversation is less common for me nowadays, but it has resurfaced in the one area where I have returned to the classroom, and how I regret it. I am talking about learning French where, for me, the most difficult elements are not reading or writing, but understanding what is said. It is odd how one’s childhood comes back to haunt one!

Although I have lived in my current house for over eight years, it is only now that I feel as though I belong. More precisely, when it comes to my house, my street, and my neighbourhood, I now feel we belong to each other. At work, which dominated my life for 40 odd years, I knew where I was, and lived a career that offered a strong sense of ‘nest’, and so security. Now I am retired it is different, my belonging relates solely to my home and my community, so making everything simpler and more wholesome.

The idea of not belonging in one’s own house is, perhaps, odd. Surely, if anywhere, belonging at home is immediate! Not for me. I am not talking about belonging in one’s family, that is a given. I refer to a belonging related to the building and its accessories. When we first arrived we were lodgers. On that day what happened was material – money changed hands, the vendors moved out, and we moved in. Moreover, the walls were bare, our goods were in boxes, and nothing was familiar. The house would not be ours until it had been fully appropriated. Gradually, every box was emptied (confession – there are still a few untouched in the attic!), every space was worked on to reflect our needs and tastes, key original features were restored, and our ornaments, pictures, and furniture were in place.

Then, last summer, the conservatory, the hub of family life, was re-built. Now the house is ours. Wherever I am, I feel completely at one with my surrounds, and moreover I like what I see. But our street is critical too. Not belonging here would be wretched. In this instance developing the feeling of belonging took about five years. Neighbours come and go, relationships evolve, and when we arrived there were at least two people who were ostracised. Now, however, the street ticks along nicely. It is difficult to know why it works. None are my close ‘friends’, but as a group we honour neighbourliness and respect personal privacy so it is, for instance, rare for me to go into a neighbour’s house. Yet at a simple but important level we matter to one another. We say our ‘good mornings’ and ‘good evenings’, borrow sugar or flour when needs be, and know if someone is ill or away. And when the snow falls this winter I know that the path will be quickly cleared by those who can.

Belonging also involves being part of the wider neighbourhood, and for me this means having local shops and cafes with which I have an accord, and (emotionally) close friends living nearby. And both of these I do.

My relationship with the local shops matters to me greatly. Where we live, the high street is bulging with branches of chain stores, and typically these are large and impersonal, with the staff always changing and who seem incapable of offering a service in any personal way. For these reasons amongst others, where I can I stick with local traders. What a difference! When I go to the paper shop it is ‘Hello Prof we have a copy of your paper for you’. At the chemist it might be (discretely) ‘Hello, Mr Collier, repeat prescription?’ and at the florist just before Christmas there was more. I bought some twigs of mistletoe and in keeping with the Christmas spirit held them above the head of Shelley – the bouquet and wreath maker – and gave her a Christmas kiss. I know her well, as I do Jeff the stall owner. On seeing this, he, a large jovial man well over six feet tall, came over and demanded a kiss too. We had a hug and the proverbial kiss and then we all broke into laughter. Both of us were surprised at what had happened but it worked, and if ever there was confirmation of belonging, there it was.

Finally – to friendships. Of my eight ‘best’ friends, five live within walking distance or are a short bus ride away. Interestingly, of these, three I have met in the last eight or nine years. As a group every two months or so most of us convene to discuss topics that interest. The last was – ‘Do we have too much choice?’; the next is -‘What should I do before I die?’ If there is anything that underpins my sense of belonging these close friendships are high on my list.

Belonging is so strengthening, and since my last house move and my retirement it has become a reality. In many ways it would have been nice if it had come sooner.

Once tea was poured and pleasantries were over, talking began. I was round at Martha’s and on that particular morning our discussion naturally turned to the previous night’s final of Strictly Come Dancing and to its winner, the drummer Harry Judd. ‘Strictly’ is not everyone’s favourite programme but Martha and I are devotees and in Martha’s case it is spellbinding as it transports her, as she says, to another place.

Notes were exchanged – how graceful his waltz, how dynamic his Charleston – and there then followed some confessions: “I always wanted Harry to win”. “He was my favourite too”. “Weren’t we lucky”. At this she lent forward in her chair, beamed with mischievous pleasure, raised her right hand and we high-fived. Nothing special in that except that on her next birthday Martha will be 100.

Although her vision is failing, she watches ‘Strictly’ religiously and has done so for years. And each time she is keen to know more about those taking part. Luckily I had googled Harry before I left home, so when her questions came, as inevitably they did, answers were at hand – he lives as married, his girlfriend is a classical violinist. On hearing this, Martha was happy.

Although Strictly is spellbinding, she confided that the pleasure it gave her was nothing compared to how she was carried away when, a few days earlier, she had heard the duet of Siegmund and Sieglinde. Martha knows Wagner well, not only because as a young women in the late 1920s she had been a student of opera, but also because earlier still in the early 20s she had heard her father singing Siegmund’s part to serenade her mother. For all sorts of reasons the duet simply took Martha out of herself.

Martha’s mind remains sharp, offering wisdoms and insights, giving keen commentaries on current affairs and entertaining us with wonderful anecdotes. Her story of how she, a young Jewish woman, watched Hitler hectoring the crowds in a packed town square in her native Germany, is chilling. Eighty years on, Martha is housebound and lives alone – time passes very slowly. And as she often says almost whimsically, “A hundred years is a long time”. In reality, it is the diversions that help make her days more bearable.

Visits from family and friends help her enormously, although I rather suspect she sometimes finds some of us (me anyway) a little demanding. More diverting, because of its capacity to ‘transport’ her, is music on the TV and occasionally the radio and it is this that truly allows her to forget herself. All sorts of music will do, but it is opera, and more especially her beloved Wagner, that provides the most reliable escape. And the transient heaven can last for hours as she is carried away, leaving all thoughts of mundane difficulties behind.

Of course, transportation is not unique to Martha. On some days I will escape by watching football on TV or laughing to some comedy radio programme. The difference between us is that, by comparison, my need to be carried away is small. Importantly, according to Martha, it is being transported out of oneself that offers those in her position one of the greatest pleasures, and such transportation depends very much on events in the here and now.

Memorising lists of monarchs and ministers, of dates and dynasties, has never been my scene. How very different is the history of my local environment, of my living space – to me this is fascinating. Knowing that my house in Richmond was built in the nineteenth century, that the road outside was being used in the 1690s, and that 700 years ago people were working the soil at the site of our allotment, all give me a feeling of belonging, of being a part of some continuum, possibly even offering a sense of security.

The special importance of one’s local history was highlighted on a recent trip to Paris. My wife and I were on a mission. Our task was to find a particular iron-age burial mound that we were told was on display at France’s National Archaeological Museum. Exhibits were housed in a former royal palace on the outskirts of Paris. The mound itself was said to be in its moat.

This was not any old burial mound, the stones had been brought to Paris from Tréguennec, a village in Brittany where we have a cottage and where we have begun to take root. In Tréguennec, like in Richmond, history abounds. The chapel dates from the 16th century and the name of the village (which means ‘a pretty place`) can be traced back to the 1300s. Standing stones dating from at least 1-2000BC are dotted throughout the village and just up the road there is a hearth (the earliest of its kind in Europe) from a dwelling inhabited by early homonids around 400,000 years ago.

Despite this richness, the Tréguennecois miss their iron-age burial mound, which once stood almost ‘centre ville’. Story has it that in 1902, archaeologists descended from Paris and removed (some say stole) it, bones, artefacts, and all. The then villagers were told they could not be trusted to look after this treasure themselves. In Paris it would find a caring home. After a century or so the locals were keen to check; hence our recce. What we discovered was all very sad.

When we arrived at the museum the front-of-house staff were grumpy and unable to help – we got the equivalent of “never heard of it”. There were more smiles from a curator, but no help. She gave us a map of the moat that showed two stone burial ‘corridors’, but neither looking remotely like ours. The mound was not mentioned in a museum guide or in any of the specialist books in the museum shop. The museum archives were closed that day and to know more we would need to ring later in the week.

Feeling disappointed, we headed out into the museum gardens to check the moat for ourselves, just in case. Nothing was signposted or labelled. The two large stone structures could be seen just as the map had indicated. We walked on and suddenly, in the distance, there appeared our heritage; a simple and modest wall of small stones arranged in a circle. In all, the mound was about 40 cm high, and the circle around 3 metres in diameter. The structure was all but hidden by overgrown grass and weeds.

Both of us were delighted by the find but angered by a sense of betrayed. Our burial mound was there but hidden, neglected and anonymous, and all this was hurtful. It would seem that the state authorities simply did not care, did not understand how attached people are to their own history. Clearly, for the museum, the burial mound means little in human terms. In contrast, for a small Breton community, the value of a burial mound that contained the skeletons of the village forefathers is immense. Surely it is time for the mound to be brought home.

Editor’s footnote.

This is not so much a postscript to Joe’s thoughtful piece above, but more of an attempt to lighten the tone a little. It seems that we blinked and missed the second birthday of Greyhares last week. We were preoccupied. Like the human infant, we had spent our first year trying to master the art of remaining upright, and now in year two we are just beginning to make some kind of sense.

So, to mark the anniversary we asked our Honorary President, Jeanette Reid to say a few words:

“This is my third statement as president and it gives me great pleasure to have been on the bridge of the good ship Greyhares since its launch. A steady production of articles each and every week since December 2009 is an achievement of which I am proud. I know that our subscription list has now reached four or five figures with addresses across the world, and that each month we get almost 15,000 hits. I note too that we are also attracting the occasional sensible comment: all this I find very impressive. Moreover, increasingly the Greyhares generation, of which I am a proud member, is becoming more assertive, more vocal and more computer literate, and I see this blog as a modest antidote to the otherwise unrewarding aspects of the ageing process.“

“What do you think Ginger?” Silence …then.. “Ginger thinks your tie is very nice.” Nothing much wrong on the surface, but this was Alice, a family friend in her 70s, discussing my new tie with her cat. Alice was not mad, nothing ‘medically’ wrong, just quirky and a cat lover.

I would have been around seventeen at the time and as a small child was read stories in which animals thought, behaved, even spoke, like humans – Barbar the Elephant, Peter Rabbit, Jungle Book, and so on. But I was not ‘taken in’ and Alice’s perspective would have been beyond me. That animals could have personalities, demands, feelings, even relationships with humans was plain silly. Moreover, according to my then A-level biology course, animals could not do not do that sort of thing. Even the debate as to whether fish felt pain was not worth the bother – of course they don’t. And, anyhow, what if they did!

But how things have changed. After a family life where my dependents have included three cats and two dogs, I have become a cat affiliate (my wife classes herself closer to dogs). As I see it, while dogs can understand words and have moods, cats have views and try to express them. Apart from his general purring and miaowing, Willow, my favourite and last cat, had six distinct ‘words’ with which he could say: ‘hello’, ‘ouch’, ‘back off’, ‘where are you?’, ‘I am here/I am back’, and ‘thank you’. Only the ‘where are you?’ required a response and I would give it.

But I also speak to animals outside the family; checking first that no one is listening. When I would cycle home from work through Richmond Park I would shout ‘hello’ to any deer that strolled by. But that is a thing of the past, now conversation is more likely to be with robins. I have no time for seagulls, wrens or sparrows. I might well thank a blackbird if he has sung nicely, but robins are special and get more. Over the last week I have been cutting down some invasive ivy, and much of the time has been spent up a ladder sawing through matted roots in dank leafy undergrowth. Within minutes of my reaching the top of the wall each day a robin has appeared, perching within arm’s length. Each time I find myself greeting him out loud. I actually ask him if he wants a worm or some juicy insect, and if I found such would throw it over. I don’t think I could stop myself. I see robins as friendly and brave as they venture close to keep me company. And my relationship with them is deeper than simply passing the time of day. While the sight of a dead thrush or squirrel does not affect me, when Willow killed one of our garden robins, the site of its dead body brought me, and my wife, close to tears.

But setting aside conversation, we ascribe to animals all manner qualities, and while some seem common to all, so most see snakes are ‘evil’ and underhand, and owls parental and wise, the qualities we give different animals is often personal. There were six of us at dinner when a mouse suddenly appeared on the decking outside. Because of the lighting and window arrangements we could see him, but it seemed that to him we were invisible. He was eating the crumbs we had dropped during outdoor lunch earlier that day. Apart from stopping the conversation (he could not be ignored), the reactions of the diners were diverse. One found him repulsive, one a threat, one a welcome reminder of things natural, one intriguing and one (myself) endearing. The sixth did not see him and declined to comment. As to what we should do, some wanted him caught (and killed) and others were happy for him to be let be. Soon Mr Mouse scuttled back home satiated and unharmed. I swear that before he disappeared he turned round and gave me a wink and a wave.

When it comes to anthropomorphising, I do it. And although speaking with selected animals feels reasonable, being caught doing so would embarrass me, while convincing my more ‘scientific’ friends could prove difficult. I now see how unfairly I teased Alice about her relationship with cats and would like to go back in time and make my peace with her. While there I would also try to discover what the young Joe was really thinking. He was no fool so there is always the risk that he may change my mind back again. But somehow I don’t think he would.

Photo: Joe’s allotment robin (©Ian Bruce, 2011)

Elizabet Helsing and husband Graham Dukes appear to be typing a letter..

It was several decades ago that we first ran into the concept of processing.  At that time it was applied to cheese; processed cheese looked like soap and tasted much the same. Later on they processed foods in general,  textiles and goodness knows what else; “processing” seemed to be a term for any sort of industrialized Kafkaesque routine intended to make things different, be it for better or for worse. It all culminated in the eighties with Word Processing, which promised relief from the drudgery of hammering on a typewriter and fiddling with carbon paper, stencils and erasing fluid. Hurrah, said we.  Poor we.

Our Wang “portable” word processor of 1984 was in fact not so much portable as transportable; it demanded a good solid porter’s trolley to move it around.  The QWERTY keyboard was supplemented by 48 Function Keys (SKIP!  STEP! DIM!). This was all a little bewildering to anyone expecting merely a bigger and cleverer typewriter, but somehow enchantingly novel. One could indeed type on the thing, and then transpose the sickly green luminous text appearing on the screen onto indescribably unpleasant thermopaper, that turned black when the sun shone; above all, one could correct a fault without our retyping a whole page. It could also check our spelling – at first one letter at a time, then a word, and later a whole page; but there it had its limitations, routinely declaring that our esteemed colleague Sally was in fact merely Silly and on one occasion that our academic reference to categories should obviously have been to cat orgies.

So it was In The Beginning.  But progress is unstoppable.  WordStar swept away the 48 function keys but promptly replaced them with fearsome codes (“To move a word, insert ^KB in front of it and ^KK after it, then place the cursor at the point to which it is to be moved and insert ^KV”.) Other programs followed but as they did so, some worrisome trends emerged. In particular, machines surely intended to obey us began to move subtly into the business of advising us (“Can we help…?”), questioning our judgment (“Do you really mean…?”), pestering us with stupid questions (“Do you wish to turn off Sticky Keys?”) , managing us (“Please do not…”), offering thin excuses for refusing to help us (“the ActiveX control ouactrl.ocx didn’t install correctly”)  and when necessary rebuking us outright (“You cannot do this without permission of your administrator.”).  Hang it, each of us said to ourselves, this is MY machine, I paid for it and I AM the administrator.

Today, these programs are so convinced of their superiority that their messages can be downright condescending (“The feature you are trying to run has a plug-in to correct known issues”).  In addition, they have developed a language of their own, apparently designed in some alien world.  (“You should install the EPS parser plug-in”; “Do you wish to disable all Tabs or just this one?”  “Add a Tag!”). If you get mixed up between Tags and Tabs you are obviously too stupid to be entrusted with today’s word processing at all. All the time, the system is urging us to ask questions that would otherwise never have occurred to us (“Why is my add-in crashing?”)  or instructing us to engage in unexpected acts (“Customize the ribbon!”  “Format painter!”  “Insert Blog Post!”  “Connect using different credentials!”)  What sort of credentials?  Diplomatic?  Professional ?  Religious? At this point we may consider recourse to the Trust Centre, a mystery that still lurks somewhere in the background.  Clearly, the books about Computer Use for Dummies have been taken all too seriously by the programmers, who are now convinced of the need to push, pull and bully us, and on occasion to try out their puerile humour on us, as we are all daft and helpless.  We ourselves are therefore quite simply being processed, like the original soapy cheese of our youth; and remember what happened to that.

Things can only get worse. For some years there was an obnoxious, grinning little paper-clip figure, dancing in the corner of the screen and telling us what to do.  They suppressed him, but what if they start squeaking the same messages at us through the loudspeaker? What if they begin to meddle with our texts without even asking us? And if we ignore their admonitions, shall we be duly chastised by means of appropriate  electric shocks, administered through the mouse, or (in the worst case) through various keys at random?

They must not press us too far.  One of us is already consorting again with Word Perfect (which has never been quite Perfect but which is kindly and obedient). And one day, hopefully before word user processing drives us quite out of our wits, we may even turn back in relief to the sturdy, compliant old Remington typewriter that has sat on the top of the cupboard for the last three decades.  We oil it now and again, just in case.

Elisabet Helsing (-Dukes) and Graham Dukes have been word processing on public health issues across their workroom (and across much of the world) for 28 years.

Photo: Remington Portable typwriter, #2 model by Georg Sommeregger (Wikimedia Commons)

The protest march last Saturday was my umpteenth. There was chanting, banner waving and ululation as my wife and I walked slowly through the centre of London from Temple, along the Embankment and up to the Treasury where we stopped for the speeches. We were protesting about the excessive burden borne by women in the current government cuts. It was important for me to be there personally, indeed it was very moving but in reality its influence will be paltry when compared to that of the recent demonstrations in Egypt or Libya, which brought down governments, or which in Paris in 1968 brought about major reforms. Saturday’s march, which involved around two thousand people – mainly young women – will probably change little at that level. Indeed, I imagine none of my marching has ever directly altered government policy but it may just have made ministers think and it has certainly affected me.

Taking part in street demonstrations is part of me, from the Aldermarston (CND) marches in the early sixties to marches over the years against school cuts, butter mountains, the Falklands war, injustice in Palestine, the Iraq invasion, the Bank bail-outs and now, discrimination against women. There have also been marches in support; in favour of joining the Common Market and in celebration of Nelson Mandela’s release. On that occasion a photo of the banner I held up with two of my sons renaming ‘Nelson’s Column’, ‘Mandela’s Column’, reached the nationals.

Those original CND peace marches of the 1960s affected me enormously. I had missed the London Aldemaston march of 1959 but marched into Trafalgar Square with the estimated one hundred thousand in ’60, ’61 and ’62. I would have been 18 when my marching started and the experience changed me forever. I was introduced to the concept of protesting by Liz, my then girlfriend. She was around 16, left wing, fiercely intelligent, clear thinking and assertive, and her way of being and the notion of protesting simply swept me off my feet. A year or so earlier I had arrived in London from a small, dull, not to say reactionary, country town. It was by great good fortune that I fell in with a set of vibrant, political, teenagers. The feeling was electric.

But the peace protests offered more than straight politics. In my marching I found myself in the odd position of sharing the same dream as leading UK figures. Trudging alongside Canon Collins or Bertrand Russell, fortified my self-belief and indicated I was not just an adolescent hothead. It somehow legitimised protesting. And there was more still – seeing Russell when a frail man of 90 sitting on the paving stones in Trafalgar Square and still bothering to try to change society, has remained an inspiration.

And one protest offered more insights still, albeit indirectly. It was 17th March 1968, the day of the notorious anti-Vietnam demonstration in Grosvenor Square. At the time I was a young doctor and on that particular Sunday was on duty. I was working at St George’s Hospital, Hyde Park Corner and with the violence just up the road we had to treat dozens of casualties. Policemen and demonstrators were admitted to hospital and needed equal attention. Being even-handed might have been difficult but on that day the importance of treating patients non-judgementally, no matter what their attitudes or interests, was brought home to me and has never left.

To keep the peace, the ward sister separated the injured, with demonstrators in beds at one end of the ward and policemen at the other. Now that was management!

As I see it, demonstrating allows one to ‘do’ something, to join with others to show a common feeling of care, to be part of a political solidarity. Of course I could always wait till the next election to express a view but marching is immediate, defusing, focused (just one issue at a time) and empowering as it allows individuals to take over the streets and shout together to express a shared opinion.

With the women’s protest on Saturday this tradition was continued. Seeing so many young people, especially young women marching, was encouraging. I found one scene particularly powerful. In amongst the protestors were three women holding hands. The group was made up of a granny (with whom I could easily have marched in the 1960s), her daughter and a granddaughter in her mid teens. This teenager’s determined look took me right back to those early marches.

Photo credit:  “1958 Easter March to Aldermaston: Column of marchers” by Roger Mayne