My brothers are hungry too!

We had just bought our first house. It was a small gate lodge with a huge garden. It even had its own little forest in the corner. The kids loved it. This move to the countryside provided the three boys (all under 10) with the freedom to play outside. The contrast between our previous urban existence on a rough estate to this rose garden encircled cottage could not be greater.

We enthusiastically carted boxes of our belongings from the hired transport van to our new home. So involved were we with moving we forgot to prepare food. Our younger son, Daniel decided he was hungry and went off to explore our new neighbourhood. He wandered off to a row of pensioner's houses on a lane opposite. A friendly pensioner spotted Daniel and struck up a conversation with our chatty three-year-old who told him how very hungry he was. Andrew welcomed Daniel into his home and introduced him to his wife Vera, a South African. A lovely elderly couple who had spent their lives up to their 40s taking care of their ill parents. It was only after the death of their respective parents that the pair met at the wedding of a relative of Andrew's. They married and had one son.  Andrew worked in the nearby cement quarry for the whole of his life. In their cosy living room Daniel was fed and given a drink and even a bar of chocolate. At their door, as he left, the canny Daniel, informed them that he had two brothers as hungry as he was!  The generous pensioners filled a plastic bag with provisions for his brothers. Daniel returned to our house like a triumphant hunter gatherer.  We were shocked by his audacity and yet impressed with his initiative. When we went to thank these pensioners we found two gems. Both were as kind as they were wise. Andrew had built a huge conservatory, all home-made, with even an oil heater to heat it. Entering that quiet conservatory we would often find Vera working away at a massive jigsaw puzzle on a specially designed table while Andrew read his newspaper.  How many times we’d enter this serene place and be plied with huge quantities of tea and biscuits.

They grew amazing tomatoes and supplied us with jars of their famous chilli and tomato chutney. Andrew’s kindness was constant and in the years ahead brought only joy to all our lives. Andrew taught Daniel how to ride his first bike. They felt like a real family. I remember trying to move our caravan from the garden. It seemed an impossible task until Andrew flagged down a passing tractor driver who had the caravan hauled out in a matter of minutes. It was at that moment I realised what being part of a community meant. Andrew had been brought up in this part of the world. Gone to school here, worked a lifetime in this rural setting. When he flagged down a passing driver they were obviously going to help. He was well known in the neighbourhood and everyone seemed to know him and like him. Daniel had chosen well!

Years later we moved abroad but on visits to Northern Ireland, Andrew and Vera were a joy to catch up with.  Illness plagued Andrew. This huge man with hands like shovels had operation after operation. The cement dust from the years of quarry work troubled his lungs.  On subsequent visits we could see his decline. Slow but remorseless.  He was ever loved and his only son worked hard to make the house suitable for his now disabled father. Andrew was ill but surrounded by his extended family including happy young grandchildren. It was a good 15 years later from that first visit of Daniel to the couple that we got news that Andrew was hospitalised and seriously ill. Daniel sat beside Andrew’s bed during a visit as he wavered in and out of consciousness. Daniel whispered “Andrew is the first friend I ever made in my life”. It was hard to lose this good friend.

We never know the effect our lives have on others. But this couple graced their neighbourhood with their good natures. For my three sons Andrew raised the standard of what being ‘a good man’ really meant. Showed true nobility  can be demonstrated in times of laughter and in times of pain and illness. Just by their existence this couple made this world a better place. They engender hope in all of us that good people transform not just themselves but the wider community too.  They touch lives and sprinkle the gold dust of their kindness on all those they meet. When I see kindness in Daniel I am reminded of Andrew and his bag of goodies on that first visit. 

A few memories - from the walls and shelves of my parents

Mum in Canada with my brothers.  My favourite photograph of the three of them!

The only thing I ever won in competition (it was a family effort) and we received a lovely bicycle. This telegram was brought from the post office by hand and it was so exciting! Strange to find it after all these years. The winning entry was

"People who pedal past petrol pumps save lives, save health and save money"

Re-reading my Dad's shelves of books and loving Cosmos.  In it Carl Sagan describes Kepler (1571 – 1630), that awesome scientist who discovered so much about the movement of the planets.  At a time when people thought these bodies moved in circles, Kepler came up with the notion of them being elliptical. He used the formula of an ellipse, first codified in the Alexandria library by Apollonius of Perga (262 BC –  190 BC) who had worked out the speed of the moon (one of the craters is named after Apollonius, in honour of his achievements).  You've got to hand it to these guys and strange to think of all that knowledge being lost for so long.  

Kepler worked out so much about the movement of the planets and three fundamental laws of physics remain named after him to this day.  It is impossible to exaggerate his contributions to Astronomy.  In Kepler's hometown of Weil der Stadt three women were tortured and killed as witches every year between 1615 and 1629.  Many scapegoats were elderly women living alone who were blamed for illnesses suffered by others.  It is perverse that Kepler's own cankerous 74 year old mother was carried off in a laundry basket in the middle of the night to face a charge of witchcraft.  Poor Kepler had to leave his contemplation of celestial bodies and return to his home town to argue in his mother's defence.  This, he was eminently capable of and he turned his logical and excellent mind to proving that in no way could his mother be responsible for the minor health complaints of neighbours.  His argument won out and he freed her from the dungeon but she was exiled from the town of Wurttemberg for life and would have been executed had she returned. Kepler lost his benefactors who funded his research due to the Thirty Year War.  During this period he also lost his wife and his son who both died. He was even excommunicated from his Faith due to his uncompromising individualism.   Kepler envisioned 'celestial ships with sails adapted to the winds of heaven' navigating the sky 'who would not fear the vastness of space'.  How sad that this brilliant scientist was reduced to constructing horoscopes for the rich nobility to earn a living.  Today explorers of space use his laws of planetary motion and ride on the shoulders of this unique genius.  

Another book from my Dad's shelves is called Conquistadors by Micheal Wood.

In 1542 Dominican Bartholome de Las Casas wrote a short account of the Destruction of the Indies and dedicated it to the future King Philip II.  Arguments had started about whether the Spanish had a right to make war on the native people of South America to force them to accept Christianity.   As Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos had so eloquently argued a few decades earlier,
'Are these Indians not men?  Do they not have rational souls?  Are you not obliged to love them as yourselves?'

Given the extent of slaughter of the native people these were important issues.  A Council of Fourteen was convened to properly discuss the matter and in the meantime King Charles V ordered all Spanish conquests in America be stopped.  Las Casas and the philosopher Sepulveda debated for five months.  Sepulveda argued that native societies were devoid of civilisation and hence virtually devoid of humanity.  Taking their gold, demolishing their political structures, acquiring their land and the widespread genocide was all justified. Las Casas who had, unlike Sepulveda, lived for decades in the Americas spoke eloquently and powerfully.  Las Casa's arguments were,

1. the world is indeed one
2. human beings are the same
3. all have the possibility of self fulfillment and achieving goodness
4. no matter how rude, uncivilised and barbarous, savage or brutal a people could be, all can be persuaded into a good way of life - provided that the method used is proper and natural to men - namely love, gentleness and kindness.

Las Casas won the debate!  This historic victory could have prevented much of the suffering that later happened in so many parts of the world to native people.  This could have been a real milestone for humanity.  However, power and greed became the real drivers and quickly trumped morality and conscience.  Was it ever so?  

Genius minds discovering the intricacies of the movement of the planets, great intellects urging respect of others, all so ahead of their day.  With the passing centuries we see more clearly the truths they were urging others to accept.  We also see the suffering that stupidity, greed and a lack of moral conscience brings to this world.  

My grandfather fought in World War I.  He was sixteen and the recruitment officer told him to walk around the table and come back and say he was seventeen.  In order to enlist he needed to be a year older.  He found himself in the Somme, was shot and awarded a commendation for bravery.  He never spoke of his experiences much.  He was the most fearless person I ever encountered.

My grandmother on the other side of the family painted this.  She became a teacher and had five children.  She never had time to touch a paint brush again.  I reckon she had talent.  But what do I know?  Perhaps her five children were her real creative output.