Happy New Month!

1st February 2020

Happy New Month!

(Snow on Arran.  Photographer: Bill Sibbald)

(This is a new arrangement.  Last year, in 2019, I managed to produce a new blog post more or less every week. In 2020 I hope to post a new one at the beginning of each month.)

So, New Month, New Year, New Decade - and, of course, New Political Situation!  As from 11pm last night, the UK is no longer part of the European Union.  Being one of those who voted to remain, I feel sad and frustrated.  But as there is, alas, nothing I can do to change the situation, I will turn my thoughts instead to two blessings of which I am reminded today.

This happens to be our daughter Sally's birthday, and so I remember the overwhelming joy which Bob and I felt at the birth of our first child!  The second blessing came at a time of terrible sorrow and despair when I had been desperately praying for help.  But before I write about that, back to this week's news!

Photographs have appeared online and in the newspapers of our MEPs in Brussels,  both Brexiteers and Remainers, holding hands as they sang our Ayrshire poet Robert Burns' words in Auld Lang Syne, ending with 'We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne'

(for old time's sake).  Well, that remains to be seen!

That song and many others, plus favourite poems, will doubtless have been performed recently at hundreds of traditional Burns Suppers throughout the world, as we have celebrated the birthday of Robert ("Rabbie") Burns.  But this year, 2020, has seen a new kind if celebration:  Burns on the Beach!  Photos have appeared in our local newspapers of this family event on Ayr beach on the evening of January 25th.  Hundreds of people followed the lit-up path to a big bonfire, round which they gathered to listen to the life story of Burns, some of his poems and Scottish music played by a band.  

At a time like this when there is so much depressing news, it is good to see people out enjoying themselves together.  But I can't help laughing in bewilderment at the way in which  this new event ended: the burning of Rabbie's effigy!  After the recitation of his poems about love and social equality, this seems a particularly philistine thing to do!  But hey-ho!  Maybe some witty events manager came up with the idea of transferring the thrill of cold November's Guy Fawkes Night into a cold January's jolly celebration, culminating in the moment when the poet's effigy is set alight - and Rabbie Burns!

On clear days from Ayr beach - and indeed from all along the Ayrshire coastline - there are lovely views of the island of Arran, which is often referred to as 'Scotland in miniature'.  This is because of the impressive mountains in the north of the island, like those in the north of mainland Scotland.  Arran's highest mountain, recognisable by its pointed top, is called Goatfell.  I can, on a clear day, see Goatfell from the road in front of my house in Prestwick, and am always delighted when in winter it is covered in snow, or on a summer evening, silhouetted by the setting sun.

  Such beauty!  Yet Burns never mentioned Arran in a single one of his many poems.  Perhaps it is because most of his life was spent on farmland  several miles inland from the seashore?  Or maybe he was shortsighted!  Whatever the reason, I suspect that Burns on the Beach is actually a misnomer!

Over the years I have spent many happy hours on Arran, sometimes on daytrips by ferry from Ardrossan, sometimes staying for a few peaceful days of relaxation.  It was on Arran that I received the special blessing to which I have already referred today.  The background was as follows:  Bob's cancer had reached the terminal stage.  With the future so uncertain, we forced ourselves to think only of the present, living one day at a time - sometimes, in the midst of yet another emergency, only one minute at a time.  I depended completely on 'prayer power' to give me enough strength to support the two of us and our three children.

That October, in a brief period of remission, Bob urged me to take advantage of the unusually fine weather and go off on my own for a couple of days' rest on Arran.  Early in the morning of my departure I was amazed to hear loud calls from an owl on a neighbour's roof.  In all the twenty-one years in our family home I had never seen nor heard an owl so close - so this added a special feel to that morning!

The Brodick-Arran ferry was delayed for half an hour while it was being refuelled, but I didn't mind at all as I relaxed on the upper deck, idly watching the traffic come on board.  I noticed two large floats loaded with hay for the Arran animals beside a very large supermarket van full of food for the Arran people.  

After leaving my overnight bag at my hotel, I wandered along Brodick's main street and was delighted to see a little porcelain owl in a shop window.  I bought it as a reminder of the unusual beginning to this precious time of relaxation!  The next morning, after a good night's sleep, I set off to walk from Brodick to Lamlash. The weather was sunny and warm, with a clear blue sky, gorgeous autumn colours, and cheerful red berries on many trees.

Just as I was leaving Brodick I noticed a small new cemetery, with fresh flowers on several of the six gravestones.  I went in to read the inscriptions, then climbed a little farther up the grassy slope and turned to look back, glad to feel the warmth of the sun behind me.  Noticing that my shadow was pointing to the distant peak of Goatfell, I felt a sudden urge to take a photograph.  I positioned myself so that my shadow would be in direct alignment with the mountain top.  As I moved, my shadow seemed to emphasise that I was the only person still alive in that little place.

Suddenly, just as I clicked the shutter, a wonderful coincidence occurred!   Two things happened simultaneously:  I felt impressed upon me the words: "While you still have a shadow, feed my sheep"  and then, with perfect timing, a large float piled high with hay (i.e. animal food) went past on the road outside.  Fortunately the float appeared in the photo.  Years later, when I recounted this life-changing event in the last chapter of my book Joyful Witness, my illustrator, Ronnie Russell, was able to copy it.

The 'instructions' I received on that blessed golden day on Arran are still precious to me.  I understood them to mean 'While you still have life and breath, help other people.'  Trying to put this into practice helped me to support Bob through the final stages of his illness, and then to face widowhood after his death eight months later.

Thanks be to God.

Update!  Coincidence!  Yesterday, just after I had started to write about Arran and Goatfell, I discovered, to my great amusement, this photograph in the previous day's (Glasgow) Herald newspaper - a seagull perched on the very top of Goatfell with, in the distance, Brodick and Holy Isle in Lamlash Bay!