St Kevin's Way barefoot

St Kevin's Way is a way-marked trail that runs from close to where we live to what used to be a Christian settlement in Glendalough. They claim the trail follows the path that St Kevin and his cronies travelled - perhaps some of the pilgrims were unshod. At our end the trail bifurcates one head being Hollywood and the other Valleymount. My running track took me through Valleymount and along the upper St Kevin's Way to Ballinagee bridge (where we have sometimes baptised people) and then back along the lower trail but not all the way to Hollywood.  Even so it was 15.6 miles, avg speed moving 5.5 mph.

My track, barefoot of course

Looking back to our lake

You have to pay to dispose of rubbish in this country: this is cheaper 

In full view too, the location is behind Knockalt

The downhill looking forward to Wicklow Gap

From here you can access the mountains and Art's Cross

That's the path I have just run along

Looking down to Kings River, about here it started raining

The storm passed into the distance where it dumped hail back at home

Climping camp

Climping is a village on the south coast of England near Littlehampton. It must have been before I went to college so maybe I was about 17 that I volunteered to be a junior leader in a Christian children's camp there. The camp was held every year and was run by an evangelist from, I think, the brethren movement. We had to call him "Commy" and his side kick "Adjy". I have a few memories so I checked out on-line maps to see if I could recognise the site.

Climping

I am pretty sure it was held in that small triangular field I have highlighted. The round, boy-scout type tents were in a line down the left hand side. The tent I was assigned to was towards the bottom.
There is a farm building at top right and this is where meals were served and meetings held. I think the camp was boys only but the cook was an older woman, maybe recruited from a local church.

Each tent was home to maybe eight boys including a "leader" and "junior leader". Soon after the camp started Commy took me aside and told me my leader had been sent home for some indiscretion so I was now in charge of my tent-full. I could only guess what he had done wrong. Promoted meant making sure none of my minions got lost, comforting the home-sick, leading prayers at bedtime. One of my lot had this thing of having to count all his toes before going to sleep, I suppose to make sure they were all there. This was a ritual which he carried out in full view of all of us which caused some amusement.

We each were responsible for our own plate and cutlery and had a cubby hole to keep them in. Until caught, one boy avoided unnecessary work by returning his utensils unwashed to his cubby hole - after all it was only his own germs. Based on his example I now often make an office tea mug last many days between washes.

I remember there was a short walk between farm fields and over a small stream to get to the beach and this memory also supports my supposed site.

David Iliffe

So then I wondered who the evangelist was (we only knew him as "Commy") and have found some references to a likely candidate in a David Iliffe who died recently.

Littlehampton mourns the death of kind-hearted preacher David Iliffe, see also here and here and here.

A long, cold, wet run

Black Hill from Lacken

During the Sunday meeting I noted that the mountains across the lake were hidden by cloud, but only the top half. The weather forecast was reasonable and I had vaguely scoped out this particular route a week or so before and so, in my usual inimitable way, I set out armed with a cell-phone, a smart (being a smart phone that is not a phone, but gives me GPS and offline maps) and thin shorts and top. The temperature was around 9 'C and due to stay around that. The forecast chance of rain was 10% but of course there is nothing in the law of statistics that forbade me staying within that 10% for most of my run...

The road up to Sorrel Hill pass

The route was along the road to Lacken where I turned hard right up the road to the car-park at the Sorrel Hill pass.  The car-park was within cloud cover and yet, to my surprise, three vehicles were parked there. I followed the turf track up the the summit and met two families on the way - a boy looked at my feet and informed me that it got awfully rough up there - another guy, looking at my clothes and lack of footwear, said I should be locked up, and I agreed wholeheartedly with him.

The summit is marked with a post where I turned right hoping to find the "green road" - my raison d'etre. In fact there was a well worn path down to it from the summit so I hardly needed GPS.

And I hardly need add that the particular "cloud cover" I had entered was the sort that precipitates fairly heavily and so in quite a short while my clothes, such as they were, were sodden and I was getting cold. The only remedy for cold on a run is to keep going and, if possible, to increase one's pace.

The WWII memorial

The green road is quite remarkable. I must go there again in better weather. For the most part it really is green and wide enough for a quad, and in this weather it was most wonderfully slippery so I caught myself slipping or falling several times in my eagerness for speed to keep warm. Warm, I hasten to add, is a very relative term.  What the road was created for I have no idea.

Part way down I noticed this strange standing stone just off the path to the left, but I was too cold to investigate. My picture is blurry because the camera lens was wet, along with everything else. On getting back and googling I discovered it was a memorial to a WWII plane that crashed here on the night of 16th April 1941.

The green road

According to certain maps the green road terminates at the place that, from the road up to the Sorrel hill car-park, looks like the hermit's enclosure in The Horse and his Boy.  My family will know what I mean.  But whoever owns this sacred place obviously did not like hikers emerging from Black Hill so the bottom third has been re-routed to "Pound lane" - there is a big sign announcing this change.  That last third is even steeper and was even more slippery in today's conditions.

I had expected of course to break through the cloud cover and emerge in the dry. But that was not to be - the whole way back was in mist and constant rain. Not much more than drizzle by the time I reached the road but even drizzle is sufficient to keep already sodden clothing sodden and cold.

For the last quarter of my run my imagination was filled with thoughts of soaking for hours in a hot, steamy bath, Harfang style. Alas, when I got back and finally dragged myself upstairs, I found the bath full of grandchildren but, fortunately, we have just upgraded what was once the "best shower in Europe" and it is now a power shower which pretty well equals soaking in a bath.

Detail showing Black Hill and the green road

Statistics: total distance 18.6 miles (possibly my longest - which explains why I am feeling stiff!), max height 605m, average speed moving 5.34 mph.

The whole track

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God

Is it wrong to ask God for a miracle and then sit waiting for it to happen? Is that faith or presumption? There is this boy: his parents are friends of a friend of mine. The boy has just turned ten but is diagnosed with leukemia and there is talk of bone marrow transplants and intensive chemo and wot not. His parents and siblings would do just about anything to see him better and, indeed, they might well have to do just about anything. It cannot be that I've fallen in love with the boy for I know nothing more about him apart from his name - but maybe I've fallen in love with the case because it breaks my heart. Why should he have to suffer like this? Why shouldn't God stretch his might hand and heal him? Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if he were healed? The parents have asked for prayer with this at the top of their wish list: "immediate healing; that when he has his bone marrow tested this week, it'll be all clear". I go along with this sentiment and so that's just what I have been asking God to do. And I am not ashamed to go on repeating this request: what more can I do? Maybe when I hear more news I'll post again.

See here and here.

Framing fearful symmetry

I was on my habitual 4.25 mile circuit (barefoot) and passing the lake and noticed the perfect reflection, so I beetled back home, dusted off my camera and cycled down to take these shots. I do not know who the couple were and, should they read this post, honestly I had no intention to spy!

Common return

I have mentioned that my father had an attic full of OO-gauge railway and that this was my favourite place to be of a Sunday afternoon. The track was divided into sections, each section being powered via a switch on the control panel and thus from the speed-controller associated with that panel. There were three panels altogether for up line, down line and goods. I divided my circuit into a number of sections and added signalling and automatic changeover between two speed-controllers allowing me to run two trains independently on my railway circuit.  All this has been discussed elsewhere. The point in question is that all these electrical circuits had a common return. Some call this "ground" or "earth" - all the same idea. All potentials (fancy name for voltages) are measured with respect to this and, for convenience, the voltage of the common return is generally called zero.

Having a common return means that each section needed only a single wire to power it - the power returns via the common return. The idea is based upon the scientific fact that all points on a conductor at at the same potential. All straightforward stuff.

So when, in my growing up, I took notice of telegraph wires like in the picture and my father told me that each telephone required two wires, I could not understand why they didn't use a common return and thus almost halve the amount of copper required. And I think my father could not give a satisfactory reason.

It is, of course, because my "scientific fact" is only true if no current flows.  It would be true even then if the resistance of the conductor could be ignored - but only if the current was not changing, because a conductor has inductance and capacitance as well as resistance.  I could wax eloquent and try to explain these terms but this is hardly the place...

For many applications the idea of a "common return" is a good enough approximation to reality but, if large currents are flowing, or the wires are long, or if the current is changing rapidly, the approximation is no longer good enough.

Thus was ruined my early understanding of electricity.

In the process of time I progressed beyond simple switches and light bulbs and, my father's business office (being in full view and about 50m from my bedroom window) having been burgled, I decided it was time to build a burglar alarm. My alarm consisted of a microphone and pre-amplifier at the office end, and in my bedroom the receiving end being an audio detector with a knob to adjust the threshold and a suitably loud bell. A burglar, I figured, was bound to make some noise.

The clever bit was to avail of the earth common return. After all, early telegraph stations used this scheme (see Fig. 151) and thus halved the amount of wire needed and, for me, wire was always in short supply. My Christmas gift list for Michael always featured batteries and wire, though invariably I was given socks instead. What good are socks to man or beast?

Having built it and activated it for the first time, I set my weary head upon my pillow and slept the sleep of the righteous. But not for long. The bell woke me with a start: I rushed over to the window to get a view of the burglary taking place but nothing was visible. I imagined... but I could hardly go over and tackle the burglar(s) single handed and I wasn't that sure of my technology to wake my parents.

Thus was the demise of my one-wire burglar alarm. It was never activated again. Whether it was electrical noise in the earth common return, or a insect that chose to walk across my microphone diaphragm I shall never know.

Las doce uvas de la suerte

It's New Year's eve and tonight there is an extra second which I plan to enjoy in bed fast asleep, whilst others here are doing the Spanish thing of eating 12 grapes las doce uvas de la suerte one a second up to the New Year. Or maybe on this occasion they will need 13 grapes.

This afternoon the intrepid barefoot runner went exploring. Always looking for new routes I figured there were several untried tracks at the top of the pass to Donard so, instead of my usual climb of Church Mountain, I turned left. My track is at the end of the photos below. Stats: 16.96 miles, average speed moving 5.4 mph, max altitude 506m.

The ascent to the pass, looking back north towards Hollywood

Having turned left, looking south towards Donard

Having turned left the track skirted around Corriebracks (an allusive summit I tried to reach before but failed) and down to a saddle where I left the track and struck out downhill cross country - mainly long grass and heather so not so bad under foot - until I reached a forestry track which took me to Corragh (pronounced Crock) where I followed the narrow lane back to the Wicklow Gap road.

In places this track was knee deep in peaty mud

Having just joined the Corragh forestry track

Here (on the right) is where the track meets the single-track road

And this is the single track road in Corragh

Note the grassy bit in the middle of the road especially for barefoot runners. If I had my way all roads would be like this.

Eventually I pass through Valleymount and so over the lake

The whole circuit, just short of 17 miles

Detail showing the new territory hitherto unexplored

Unusually I met several walkers. The first was a die hard hiker who was descending from Donard pass as I ascended. The second was a dog walker from Baltinglass who had, sadly, just lost his golden labrador and asked me to look out for it. Look out I did, but to no avail. The last was a dog walker along the Corragh lane, whose dog was very affectionate.

Peculiar people

Evangelical church, St Annes Rd, Southend

I'm trying to piece the facts together because at the time I was just a boy and church politics was hardly one of my interests. But I do have some memories which may be worth sharing.

The building in the picture used to belong to the Peculiar People, as in you are a chosen generation, a Royal priesthood, an holy nation, a Peculiar People, a denomination that seems to have been restricted to the Essex area and started by one James Banyard. My father's parents and Aunty Mary used to attend another church in Southend but at some point the two churches joined forces. I remember attending meetings when both pastors, one from each church, were in operation. I think they took it in turns to preach. One was Pastor Danes and the other Pastor Peters. I do not know which one was "peculiar". But I do vividly remember Pastor Peters reading the passage from John 20 with such passion that I felt like I was an onlooker...

And she (Mary Magdelene) saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.  They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."  Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned and said to him in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

I remember a man in the congregation, Smee by name. He had a boil or pimple on his face (children remember such things) and sang the hymns lustily but, being tone deaf, totally out of tune. Someone commented on this and he responded that he did not care what he sounded like - nobody was going to stop him praising his Lord. That anyone could have such devotion meant a lot to me at the time.

There was Renee who sang Oh Holy Night with my Aunt. Renee would dig into her handbag and fetch out little bits of paper with maybe a picture and a Bible verse written on them for us children. I don't rightly remember what we did with them: her intentions were no doubt good but I cannot recall the verses changing my life in any way.

The church had a choir, composed mainly of older folk, indeed the whole congregation was mainly older folk. Every Sunday meeting the choir would sing an anthem. I used to enjoy this simply because it was variation, but what relevance the anthem had to the rest of the meeting alluded me. Apart from that it was the usual "hymn sandwich" with a lengthy sermon thrown in towards the end.

My grandfather used to play the pipe organ with me sharing the organ bench, but maybe this was before the merge.

I found this picture on the internet, it being the closest I could find to another memory. My Aunt took me to a meeting in a dusty church hall, I know not where. There were wooden chairs arranged in a circle and a harmonium, and everything was dusty and looked like it was a relic from some bygone era. My grandfather was into mending organs and I have inherited from him a harmonium reed puller which is a very useful though simple tool for getting things out of awkward places. A harmonium is a reed organ (aka pump organ) with bellows operated by the feet and a number of "stops" which all sound much of a muchness because there is not a lot you can do to alter the noise a brass reed makes. They were quite common in small chapels at the time. Anyway, back to the meeting, I think we sang a hymn (possibly Mary played the harmonium) and otherwise it was a prayer meeting which, if you are a child, is hardly the most interesting of activities. It is often not much better when you grow up.

When I read, in my link to the Peculiar people, mention of a Mr William Perry of Southend my memory was once again tickled.  My grandmother, who owned and drove their Ford motor (Ginty never learnt to drive), often spoke of Mr Perry who ran a car sales and repair business and I wonder if it he was the one healed?  Which reminds me of another instance when she was driving us back from church and did something silly like running a red light and explained afterwards that she had panicked so closed her eyes and prayed and hoped for the best. The best apparently happened for here I am to tell the tale.

In 1956 the Peculiar people were renamed the 'Union of Evangelical Churches" and, like so many other movements started by a particular individual, waned in popularity and extremism. This site says only 15 churches remain open within the UEC.

The Cave

Reginald Cave

When my daughter and son-in-law return from Africa they intend to remodel their kitchen. This will involve demolishing an inside wall and a chimney breast, and moving a few doors before the new cabinets can be installed. Of course there has been much discussion about what and where and it made me think of The Cave.

Reginald W. Cave, DIP.ARCH, FRIBA, former head of the Oxford School of Architecture at what was then the Oxford Poly, now the Oxford Brookes University, who was then living at 208 Banbury Road where I took my lodgings in my final year at Oriel, was a legend apparently at work as well as at home where, widowed, he opened his house to numerous students at knock-down rates (breakfast included) in exchange for a bit of banter mostly architectural flavoured. You can see him here giving his famous teapot lecture; so typical of him to attach importance to such a common-or-garden article.

The Reginald Cave Teapot lecture 1990

Most weeks Reginald put on a Sunday Luncheon extravaganza par excellence for a mere 30p a head which would, if you had the longevity, coalesce into afternoon tea thrown in for the price. I remember a fruit cake he produced at one such latter occasion, a little dry but "robust" was his description. The lunch would typically start with a dry Amontillado sherry and finger food, then we would sit for the aperitif, main course and desert, followed more leisurely with coffee and liqueurs. Here it must have been that I sampled Benedictine that would later feature in my engagement, for it certainly was none of my parents' doing.

He had planned his kitchen (and who more qualified than an architect?) so that, standing centrally he could reach all cooking utensils and ingredients with minimal movement. Thus it was very compact yet wholly sufficient. A principle that I have not seen followed in modern kitchens.

It was the Cave who taught me to admire good (and by 'good' I do not mean fancy or nouvelle cuisine) cooking, to enjoy leisurely a feast of several and varied courses each with its own wine (included in the price). Although, come to think of it, Oriel was another teacher for I cannot remember ever having enjoyed a meal more than the graduation feast put on by the college, gratis. After which I might have been seen cycling a rather crooked path back to Summertown. Which brings to memory the desert which was Baked Alaska cooked and served perfectly. Whereas at our recent three day mini-holiday Wexford hotel I tried their "Deconstructed Baked Alaska" and regretted it. Deconstructed indeed!  The term implies a former construction but, no, it was a splodge of under-cooked meringue, a minuscule scoop of ice cream supposedly cherry flavour already half melted, both hardly sprinkled with almond flakes. No other touted ingredients (pistachio powder comes to mind) were detectable. The two main ingredients at opposite ends of the over-sized plate were joined by the usual swirls of 'jus' which both look ridiculous and serve only to hinder the washing up. I was not impressed.

I have yet to find a restaurant to come up to the standard of cooking, the wines, the ambience and above all the service that I experienced at the Cave-ary or at college special meals.  But then the quality of our cooking at home exceeds that of most restaurants - I wonder why it is so hard to get satisfaction especially when the price is so high? Doubtless it is because I do not frequent the right establishments because, exceptionally, one business lunch I remember took me to Simpsons in the Strand and I have to say their roast beef and service wholly met with my approval. But then I wasn't paying.

I once attended The Dorchester hotel for dinner and was not impressed for two reasons. Firstly the waiters were plain rude. Secondly, after leaving, I felt like indulging in a decent fish-and-chip supper.  It is rare to find a waiter or waitress who delights in serving the patron. It should be possible to order anything within reason and not feel one is being laughed at. I heard a story, allegedly true, of a chef who, when a "well done" steak was ordered, in disgust actually urinated on it before cooking it to a cinder and serving it. Why should one man stipulate another's preferences?

Unlike The Dorchester the Cave expected his luncheon guests to help with the cooking and with clearing up afterwards and thus I learned a few skills like making pastry or how to store cheese which, he explained, must never be refrigerated. He had a special marble slab on the cool floor of his larder where cheese was kept and allowed to breath under some sort of cover.  His home made bread was legendary especially for breakfast, toasted, spread with butter and his home marmalade.

I hardly need to add that greatly enjoyed my year's sojourn at 208 Banbury Road and I hold this post in memorial of a unique gentleman who helped to form my life.

Christmas day barefoot

Christmas day on a Sunday begs whether or not to 'do' church. We didn't. We had our big meal at 1700 leaving plenty of time for extra-curriculum activities before this. The weather was balmy (for winter - around 12 degC) so I decided to go to church after all - my favourite haunt the mountain by that name. The camera app on my newly acquired S5 smart (as opposed to a smart phone which it is not) decided to cease up so I have no photos, in any case the top was in cloud cover so not much visibility but my track proves I went there. My direction was clockwise.

And, no, it is not the same track as I made last time - it differs in my descent where I veered off the track to the right down a straight cut through the trees (marked in blue), beautifully steep, muddy and easy under barefoot.

Stats: 15.21 miles, average speed moving 5.15 mph, maximum altitude 542m, total time just over 3 hours, drizzle most of the way then a downpour within the last quarter hour. Not many hikers out but I did meet one couple on the descent.  They probably thought I was mad!  Perhaps I am.

The raven

Whilst Ali was doing the rounds of Wexford sewing shops I explored The Raven which is the sand spit at the south end of Curracloe beach made famous in 1977 by Steven Spielberg'a The saving of private Ryan. This link has an interesting video about the filming.

My first attempt at access, in a bid to save fuel, was to park at the North Slob nature reserve and run along the sea wall to The Raven. "Slob" is a degeneration of "slab" thus mud flat - the land was reclaimed in the 1840's as a famine relief project, by building a sea wall and installing a pumping station. It is now the lowest land in Ireland. My plan was thwarted by many and strong notices forbidding my entrance, and there were PEOPLE around so I figured I had better play good. Geese (of a particular flavour) were allowed along there, but not humans (of any flavour). So I removed myself from these darling geese, disgusted enough not to even take a photo of the pumping station which I normally would have done. As if I would harm a goose...

That meant retracing my wheels and driving to Curracloe and running along the beach from there. It is a beautiful beach but time and weather was against properly enjoying it. Although I did swim a very short distance in a sort of lagoon (it was cold).

From where I started, looking south towards The Raven

Across the Slaney estuary from the point

Looking northwards from the point

Zooming in

The lagoon where I swam for 30 seconds - it was quite deep

Half way back to the car

I wondered if these were left over from Private Ryan

Which would be a good book to read

I have just finished reading Witch Wood, Buchan's favourite of his novels, and allegedly chosen one of 100 Best Supernatural novels ever written.

The novel is perhaps OTT in exposing the weakness of the Calvinist doctrine "once saved always saved" but exaggeration is, after all, a well worn literary tool. It is about those three realms: the devil, religious hypocrisy, and the Truth which is often a whole lot more practical than we expect. Above anything I found it such a very sad story, but I suppose no sadder than he was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief in that greatest story ever told and thus I found it to be true to life. I can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants to loose bands of wickedness, undo heavy burdens, free the oppressed, and break every yoke.

Tomorrow Ali and I are leaving on a jet plane. Actually no, just in a car and only for three days, though seriously I sometimes toy with the idea of escaping. We have booked three nights stay in a hotel close south of here so, maybe, I might post some pictures. The excuse - we never celebrated our 40'th wedding anniversary.

I said - I'm not deaf!

Meg (the dog) is deaf. Actually she's not quite. If she is not looking your way and you walk up to her across the gravel, she will first hear you when you are within about 3 feet and then suddenly jump. So we try not to do that. Most of the time she lives in another world, a world of silence, broken only when someone gets sufficiently near to per her.

Michael (the human) is not deaf. Not quite. My hearing is impaired, not unusual at my age, so that loud sounds become distorted and deciphering conversation in a crowded room is nigh impossible. During church worship I keep as far from the drum set as is feasible. During community meals I live largely in another world, broken only when someone next to me speaks sufficiently clearly for me to engage.  I don't mind this, except that it's a bit antisocial and I sometimes miss what's going on.

In this morning's church we were encouraged to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and were told that it was not good enough to talk only to the Father or Jesus. I chewed this over. I don't think I consciously differentiate in my prayers between the various parts of the Godhead. Does this mean I am missing something? I reckon I have some understanding of the different functions of each part, but it does seem a bit strange to me to address "the Holy Spirit" and I don't see any Biblical precedent for it and so I left confused.

Last night I went on an amazing run

Last night I went on an amazing run. Barefoot of course. Effortlessly along farm tracks, across fields, always a pleasant surface underfoot, with the scarp face of the Blackdown Hills lightly sprinkled with snow ahead of me on the horizon. Culmstock Beacon there somewhere but too far away to resolve. Blue skies and neither too hot nor too cold - it must have been Spring. I realised I had insufficient time to make it all the way to the hills so, at the next opportunity and in a small village, I turned right and followed a winding path down hill that I part recognised: a steep bank on my right coming up to chest height and overlooking a decorative lily pond with only a narrow path at foot level to run along. After various turns, this brought me out to the coast road where I turned right and ran on, under a railway bridge, and then slightly up hill. The sea, I knew, was still a ways away on my left - perhaps half a mile.  I must have left the road because now I was following and plashing through a cold stream that flowed from the hills overlooking the sea. Suddenly I was brought to a standstill at a precipice with the raging sea hundreds of feet below me. Sandy coves swept away to my left but ahead and to my right were sharp cliffs running down to the sea. I started climbing down with several false starts until at last I was at sea level negotiating rocks and inlets but with fair assurance that the going would get better once I had made it around this headland. For hadn't I been along this route before? But then I woke up.

Sick Heart River

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, GCMG, GCVO, CH, PC

Most people will be familiar with John Buchan's novel The Thirty-Nine Steps. Fewer will know that Buchan wrote some 100 books in addition to graduating from Oxford, being a barrister, publisher, lieutenant colonel in Intelligence reporting to the British prime minister, and for the last 5 years of his life, a much beloved Govenrnor Genera of Canada. Wikipedia gives a list of his many accomplishments and honours. You can even listen to him speaking here.

Nominally Free Church of Scotland, it is hard to pinpoint Buchan's faith but I think that he was a believer tired of orthodoxy.  Nick Baldock discusses the subject well and notes that it is a Catholic priest in The Blanket of the Dark who speaks with Buchan’s voice:

I incline to the belief that in the light of eternity all our truths are shadows, and that the very truth we shall only know hereafter. Yet I think that every truth in its own place is a substance, though it may be a shadow in another place. And I think that all such shadows have value for our souls, for each is a true shadow, as the substance is a true substance.

I am reading Witch Wood at the moment - because it was apparently Buchan’s favourite. If it touches me I'll probably post about it.

I read The Thirty Nine Steps many years back. On a dinner date at my daughter's I picked up a copy of Greenmantle and so started to discover the wealth of Buchan's bibliography.  I particularly enjoyed Mr Standfast (the end made me cry) and have just finished reading Sick Heart River a book full of imagery.  I chose this book following my usual desire, on discovering an artist whose work I enjoy, of checking out their last output. Sick Heart River fits this bill well as it was finished only days before his death and published posthumously.

The pace of the book is slow and, unlike its predecessors, it is not a thriller. The protoganist Sir Edward Leithen, who crops up in other Buchan novels, is diagnosed with TB and given less than a year to live - indeed he dies towards the end of the novel. He travels north in Canada on a quest to find the missing businessman Galliard. After rescuing him and his guide Lew he returns to give his life in rescuing a starving and disillusioned native tribe . The book describes Leithen as not being a "church man" and deals with his deep inward struggles knowing that his days are numbered.

It is about two rivers. One he had often thought about, often determined to go back and look for it. Now, as he pictured it in its green security, it seemed the kind of sanctuary in which to die. He remembered its name. The spring was called Clairefontaine, and it gave its name both to the south-flowing stream and to a little farm below in the valley.

Clairefontaine? A pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb?

Early in the book Leithen gets to visit this place that he had remembered from his past. It was a cup in the hills, floored not with wild hay, but with short, crisp pasture like an English down. From its sides descended the rivulets which made the Clairefontaine, and in the heart of it was a pool fringed with flags, so clear that through its six-foot depth the little stir in the sand could be seen where the water bubbled up from below. The place was so green and gracious that all sense of the wilds was lost, and it seemed like a garden in a long-settled land, a garden made centuries ago by the very good and the very wise.

The other is the Sick Heart, a fictional river in North West Territories emptying into Hudson Bay, an imagined sort of El Dorado or Eden or paradise sought by four characters in the book and for various reasons. But it turns out to be the very opposite of paradise, it is a place that you cannot easily escape from, a place to die.

The green sanctuary is in fact a water shed - the Clairefontaine flows south but another source flows north and the reader is left wondering whether the northerly stream is in fact the head of the Sick Heart. Thus the sanctuary is a place of choice.

Whilst tending the native tribe Galliard was staring at him with bright comprehending eyes.

(Leithen relies) "In this fight we have each got his special job. I'm in command, and I hand them out. I've taken the one for myself that I believe I can do best. We're going to win, remember. What does my death matter if we defeat Death?"

Lew sat down again with his head in his hands. He raised it like a frightened animal at Leithen's next words.

"This is my Sick Heart River. Galliard's too, I think. Maybe yours, Lew. Each of us has got to find his river for himself, and it may flow where he least expects it."

Father Duplessis, back in the deep shadows, quoted from the Vulgate psalm (Ps 46), "Fluminis impetus laetificat civitatem Dei."

Leithen smiled. "Do you know the English of that, Lew? There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God. That's what you've always been looking for."

After Leithen's death, the book closes with Galliard and his wife reunited:

For a little the two did not speak. Their eyes followed the slender north-flowing stream. It dropped almost at once into a narrow ravine, but it was possible to mark where that ravine joined a wider valley, and where that valley clove its way into the dark tangle of forested mountains.

"What happens away up there?" the woman asked. "I should like to follow the water."

"It becomes a river which breaks into the lowlands and wanders through muskegs and bush until it reaches the salt. Hudson's Bay, you know. Dull, shallow tides at first, and then the true Arctic, ice-bound for most of the year. Away beyond are the barrens, and rivers of no name, and then the Polar Sea, and the country where only the white bear and the musk ox live. And at the end a great solitude. Some day we will go there together."

"You don't fear it any more?"

"No. It has become part of me, as close to me as my skin. I love it. It is myself. You see, I have made my peace with the North, faced up to it, defied it, and so won its blessing. Consider, my dear. The most vital forces of the world are in the North, in the men of the North, but only when they have annexed it. It kills those who run away from it."

"I see," she said after a long pause. "I know what you mean. I think I feel it... But the Sick Heart River! Wasn't that a queer fancy?"

Galliard laughed.

"It was the old habit of human nature to turn to magic. Lew Frizel wanted a short cut out of his perplexities. So did I, and I came under the spell of his madness. First I came here. Then I went to the Ghost River. Then I heard Lew's story. I was looking for magic, you see. We both had sick hearts. But it was no good. The North will always call your bluff."

"And Leithen? He went there, didn't he?"

"Yes, and brought Lew away. Leithen didn't have a sick heart. He was facing the North with clear eyes. He would always have won out."

"But he died!"

"That was victory—absolute victory... But Leithen had a fleuve de rêve (dream river) also. I suppose we all have. It was this little stream. That's why we brought his body here. It is mine, too—and yours—the place we'll always come back to when we want comforting."

"Which stream?" she asked. "There are two."

"Both. One is the gate of the North and the other's the gate of the world."


One cannot help but think that Leithen is Buchan. He was a man with many facets - friend of Cecil Rhodes with all the implied intrige, Pilgrims Progress as his favourite book after the Bible, involved in government, inventor of the modern thriller. Without doubt a remarkable man. I identify at least in in part with some of his characters and I figure that he was a good man. The lesson? Perhaps "shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."

He died on February 11th 1940 from an accident whilst taking a bath, aged 64.  My age.

There is a river that flows

from God above;

there is a fountain

that’s filled with his great love.

Come to the waters;

there is a vast supply;

there is a river 

that never shall run dry.

What's in a name?

I hated the way my mother would take her handkerchief, wet it with her saliva, and wipe my mouth pressing quite hard. I can almost remember the feint smell. And this would sometimes, oh the humiliation!, be in public. Don't tell me that very young children don't remember stuff!

Back then they used to call me Micky Dodo or Micky Doo. My dad called me Boyka.

In adult life I have been variously referred to as Mike, Mick, Micky, but my given name is Michael and I like it unadulterated. And besides, names, particularly in the Bible, have meanings and perhaps the meaning of my name is not insignificant.

This site seems to be an authority and claims "The name Michael is commonly translated with Who Is Like God?, but, more accurately, the name denotes an inquiry after the identity of God: Who's God? or What's God Like? ".  He then quotes Ex 15:11 and Ps 35:10.

If at the end of my life it could be said that in any way I helped anyone to understand better what God is really like - not the religious images that prevail but the real truth - then I would be satisfied.

And if I am to do that, I guess I had better first find out myself. And that may be less comfortable than many make it out to be.