The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith - Confucius

Once on a trip to Canada some years ago, my mum and were exploring the beautiful city of Vancouver. We watched fascinated as the little water taxi planes came down to land on the seafront. But after several hours of the city landscape, we grew weary of the shops, the noise, and materialism. We spotted a tiny sign, it said ‘the Chinese scholar’s home and garden’. We decided to enter. 

What a delight! It was a replica of a Chinese scholar’s home from the past and had wooden sliding doors, ornate desks with huge sheets of paper, endless paintbrushes for calligraphy, and the most exquisite gardens. It was built in 1986 by fifty-three master craftsmen from China using 950 crates of traditional material and constructed using 14th-century methods so no glue, screws or power tools.  Everything was made with so much care. Every tree, plant, rock, table, bowl or pond seemed to have been positioned with meticulous intent. 

Just as accurately as the traditional Chinese scholar would have placed his brush on the crisp rice paper to make his figures. The clean lines of the building and the beauty of the gardens nursed our weary spirits.  

Suddenly the noise of the busy city disappeared. Instead, the trickle of water or the noise of a leaf as you brushed past filled the quietness. Each view had been landscaped both externally and internally. A circular wooden opening captured a part of a tree, a corner of a pond or a storm perfectly. We sensed an eye with better taste had carefully honed all this beauty.  Its simplicity spoke to the senses and made you want to absorb it all in respectful silence. Our time there passed peacefully and it was only when the tour ended and we found ourselves on a busy Vancouver street once more, did we suddenly feel the loss of all its calmness and serenity.  

This week a dear friend was leaving the country. Returning to family members in the UK after many years abroad. The cost of posting her belongings, post-Brexit, was not only complicated by endless form filling but also plagued by horrendous shipping costs. It felt as if every item she owned had to be catalogued, described, and recorded by both Foreign Offices and UK official bodies before transportation could begin. Horrified by the high prices my friend carefully culled her precious belongings and then in panic as departure day loomed discarded even more.  She decided the only way to cope was to give her belongings to those she cared for. I received her treasured writing desk and chair, from her father. Soon all of her friends were blessed with her thoughtful bequests. The last few boxes were part of her father’s library and over the last few days, I have been sorting through his books in my flat.

What a delight. Here has evidently been another scholar, not of Chinese calligraphy or gardens but of that mindset. Books on history, religion, philosophy, and biographies abounded. Not one book on serial killers, paedophiles, or romantic fiction and it felt such a privilege handling the scholar’s library. Here, in a huge book on 'Excellence', he had placed a handwritten card with page numbers and recorded insightful quotes on this topic.

One sensed the careful mind behind all these books. The delight in spiritual questions with many books on prayer, Saint Thomas Aquinas, meditation, the life of Christ, and from other different religions. Many were books on education and public speaking or the art of conversation. Then, there were the detailed history books on ancient Greece to medieval Europe and even modern political studies.  Classical literature was there from works by Shakespeare to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novels. There was an unexpected little map that folded out to show all the great monasteries and religious centres that had ever existed in the UK.  So many are no longer in existence. There were endless dictionaries in English, Italian and French. I felt like an apprentice who keeps finding his teacher’s tastes are so far beyond him. A book of idioms in both English and Italian, detailed descriptions of societies, intricate philosophy treatises all hurt my mind.  I began to feel like a huge carthorse following a thoroughbred and avoiding the tricky fences while they soared over all before them.  

I was delighted to discover that a scholar’s library is like peering into another’s interests and enthusiasms. It felt like being awakened by their dedication to learn, examine and search for truth wherever it can be found. Wide-ranging and omnivorous in appetite. It seems so refreshing in the world that seems focused on perversity, character assassination or killer’s confessions.  I finished going through the library inspecting the books and discovered I felt the same gratitude I felt outside that scholar’s home in Vancouver. Grateful that such people exist in this world and heartened to think that there are probably other scholars still out there now gleaning things of beauty from this confusing and distracting world.

“Every good habit, every noble quality belongs to man’s spiritual nature, whereas all his imperfections and sinful actions are born of his material nature.”

Bahá’í writings

What is it about golden rooms that scream inadequacy?

A beautiful garden, a lovely blue-skied day to soak up the welcome winter sun rays. The Palazzo Parisio is a treat. The building is grand but the gardens are beautiful. I remember when visiting Versailles I was spectacularly unimpressed by the over-the-top furnishings. I mean one can have too much of gold, embossing, mirrors and intricate coving. 

It reaches joke-like proportions and you cease to be awed but feel a growing revulsion instead.  Wondering around the Palace of Versailles I did not envy royalty their silly gilded home.  Then, I entered the gardens around the palace and felt an unpleasant envy of the bloody rich.

Here in Naxhar on Malta, the  Palazzo Parisio has also pleasant rooms but a bit Louis the XVI, if you get my drift.  What is it about golden rooms that scream inadequacy? 

The Palazzo’s gardens outside are a wonderfulI place to have coffee and I sit on white garden chairs soaking up the smell of flowers and the sound of birds. 

There is only one other table occupied and I hear that peculiar braying voice of the wealthy, declaring they started their business years ago and have made so much money! They're sitting on the table next to me. How they have moved from Florianna to Naxhar to be closer to smart bars and better parking. Their gloating satisfaction sets my teeth on edge. What is it about ‘the rich’, ‘the would-be rich’ or ‘the has been rich’ that their exaltation in their material successes (real or imaginary) hits such a sour note with me? I must admit to it being nauseous to my system. A similar reaction to encountering a vomit smelling toilet onboard a rough cross-channel ferry. Don't get me wrong an aspirational attitude is admirable in so many ways, but a gloating self-satisfaction is never attractive. 

All of us vaguely know the humility that is truly appropriate when you examine yourself closely. You get a whiff of your own hypocrisy, your shells of pretence, the lies you tell yourself to cover over the cracks. In those moments of truth, we all shift in our seats in discomfort at the truth bubbling up from within. Instead of cackling over the misfortune of others like this lot. They are now discussing, their friend Lola’s disastrous boutique dress shop with inappropriate glee. They knew in advance it would end badly! Now, they speculate on another friend who has withdrawn from Facebook. “She was always a bit odd into nature and stuff! Must be something disastrous happening in her life?” 

I am asking myself, what no meaningless selfies of random spectacular venues, no gloating achievements/homes/cars etc what a loss! I sit here judging others so harshly when I am so rarely as vicious on myself. Perhaps this pernicious self-gratification habit sneaks into all our lives without us even noticing. Instead of examining our internal landscape we begin enjoying speculation on the ruins of others.  Just as I do now on my neighbours in this garden.

I will cease this attack on the rich around me and just enjoy the coffee, the sun's rays, the flowers and beckoning gardens instead. It's probably why being in nature is such therapy for the soul. You look at beauty and find nothing to criticise and just soak up its wholesomeness. Sigh with appreciation that it, like the sun beams on all with uniform abundance, impervious to all our inadequacies and shortcomings.

"Busy not thyself with this world, for with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants."

Bahá’u’lláh

The Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale

(first part of this story is given in  Sa Maison and Lady Lockwood this is part 2)

After a peaceful decade of living in Malta with her daughter and son, cultivating her lovely garden Lady Lockwood must have felt a genuine relief that the torment and turbulence of her married life was behind her.  Given the court case and widespread publicity within the British papers of her husband’s abuse her garden and home in Sa Maison must have been a solace.  Few, knew of her here and she could live a quiet life in the sunny and friendly Mediterranean island.  The views from her villa and garden are breath taking and the area to this day has a wonderful calm atmosphere.

It must have been horrendous to find that peace shattered by the onset of war in the Crimean.  The British Expeditionary force arrived on route to the Crimea and some of her husband’s ex regiments were included in the battalions posted to Malta.  It seems a strange coincidence that some of the British force should be billeted in her very garden.  For a year and a half Malta was full of soldiers and in order to get to their accommodation they had to gain access through her garden.  One of the soldiers posted at this time was an artist and his paintings ( and some photographs of troops) in Malta show how much the British Expeditionary force dominated the island during this period.

Having arrived in 1843-46 Various accounts suggest that they needed to use the site of her house to position guns to defend the walls.  They wanted to demolish her house and for a year and half Lady Lockwood held out hoping that she would not lose her home.  Having been to the garden and examined the bastions it seems strange to position the guns on this lower bastion when much higher sites on the walls above would have provided greater height and range.  In the end the military had their way and her villa was knocked to the ground.  It originally was a hunting lodge built in the 18^th century and its seems a shame that such a historic building was flattened to provide two gun mountings.  Lady Lockwood left the island and all that remains are the beautiful gardens and two circular slabs on which the guns were mounted.  On the adjacent walls the military have carved their insignia which can just be made out although weather worn.  I know historians have argued that the demolition  of the house was purely a military expediency but one wonders what other factors played a role in their decision.  All the paintings shown above are by a soldier from her husband’s old regiment the rifle brigade.  In the officer’s circles they must have known of her husband, Captain Robert Manners Lockwood and his disgrace in the press which had happened a few years previously.  From one historical account there is this piece which is tantalising.

‘In 1853 British military experts obtained permission to pull down the house to make way for a gun platform... the decision to bring in the Military experts to decide on the dismantling of the house was taken after Lady Lockwood gave the cold shoulder to a high ranking military official’. 

Who knows?  I found it fascinating to see that there are actual photographs of the troops at the Crimean war.  I had thought that this was before cameras were available but no there are these shots of various officers from this time and it makes it all seem so much closer.    

Florence Nightingale and forty of her nurses visited Malta on route to the Crimea and their services were much needed.  In the Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856) Russia lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia.  At its end there were 350,000–375,000 dead.  

Florence Nightingale 1854

I remember my father would often quote from a famous poem (by Lord Tennyson) about a battle of the Crimea known as the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

It ends with a section celebrating their bravery

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

A wonderful poem. It is thought a mistake was made in sending instructions to this brigade and they were sent into direct withering fire.  I find it hard to celebrate anything about war and loss of life.  Certainly, no glory or long lasting good seems to emerge from most conflicts.  Over 20,000 of the British Expeditionary force would die in the Crimean war.

“How is it possible for men to fight from morning until evening, killing each other, shedding the blood of their fellow-men: And for what object? To gain possession of a part of the earth! Even the animals, when they fight, have an immediate and more reasonable cause for their attacks! How terrible it is that men, who are of the higher kingdom, can descend to slaying and bringing misery to their fellow-beings, for the possession of a tract of land!

The highest of created beings fighting to obtain the lowest form of matter, earth! Land belongs not to one people, but to all people. This earth is not man’s home, but his tomb. It is for their tombs these men are fighting. “ Baha’i Writings

Yesterday, I walked along the front to the gardens of Sa Maison and found the flowers blooming along its outer bastions.  Spring has arrived and Lady Lockwood might have been delighted to see how much of her garden remains.  Perhaps, as Marcus Aurelius said so succintly around 170 AD, 

“What we do now echoes in eternity.”

Sa Maison Gardens - remembering Lady Lockwood

The old Lodge of Sa Masion, can be seen on the Bastion with blue windows

There is a garden called Sa Maison in Malta. I discovered it by accident as I walked from Sliema to Valetta along the coast. It is situated below the Bastion of Providence on the Floriana fortifications. After wandering down a tree covered passage you merge into a lovely little garden with wonderful views of Malta harbour. The atmosphere is still and akin to a secret garden. Usually empty, it feels as if it is been designed for your own pleasure. It is said that the Freemasons used to have a lodge here from 1789 until 1798 when the Knights of St John left Malta. In 1842 to 1856 Lady Julia Lockwood, daughter of the second Earl of Arran lived in this spot.  She loved this place and designed gardens to compliment her house overlooking the harbour.  This place was a special refuge for Lady Lockwood and the extent to which it brought peace and tranquillity to her heart is only understood when you know exactly what she had gone through before.  She wrote several small books years later, mentioning her time here and the healing this place brought to her life.

Lady Lockwood was the honourable Julia Gore, daughter of the second earl of Arran.  Her father Arthur Sanders Gore (1734-1808) married three times. In all, he had seven sons and nine daughters from these three marriages.  Julia was from the last marriage and her elder sister Cecilia went on to become the Duchness of Inverness.  I have been unable to find a portrait of Lady Julia Lockwood but this is her eldest sister Cecilia.

Cecilia gave her sister Julia a very special present. Queen Marie Antoinette had been executed on 16 October 1793. It is said the night before execution Maria Antoinette's hair turned from blonde to white.  Before this event  Maria Antoinette gave the Duchess a hair brooch with her hair lock in it. Subsequently Cecilia gave this brooch to Lady Julia Lockwood and it was donated to the British Museum by her descendants, where it remains on display to this day.

In 1821 Julia married Captain Robert Manners Lockwood in Rome. It didn't turn out to be a happy marriage as her husband was extremely abusive. They had two children but the unhappiness of their marriage can be found in the Annual Register of the History and Politics of the Year 1839. In this document there is an account of the legal charges that lady Lockwood brought against her husband seeking to have a divorce from her husband for cruelty.

Several of the charges are set aside by the judge simply because there were no impartial witnesses to the events. These included beatings, being kicked, dragged along the ground by her hair. Lady Lockwood was routinely attacked viciously by her husband and her 10-year-old son was beaten badly by him in front of her. He endeavoured to get her fortune from her and was very assiduous in trying to get more of her money into his hands. Unfortunately, all these charges were set aside by the judge as there were no witnesses other than the victims available. The son was able to give evidence of the abuse but the husband successfully argued that it would be too traumatic for the child to give a statement in public to the court.  In the charges that were accepted, there were times of Captain Lockwood manhandling his wife and swearing at her in the dining room, in various hotels he kicked her so violently that she sought shelter in a neighbouring room. On one occasion he broke two doors to continue the assault on his wife . While in Lady Aldborough's home, Captain Lockwood dragged Julia from the dining room by her hair up the stairs to her bedroom. Witnesses and servants all spoke of his violent abuse and the marks on her body from his kicks and punches. A doctor had been called to treat her injuries and his statements were accepted by the court. At one point Captain Lockwood attempted to force a wooden pole down his wife's throat and she was so terrified she threw herself out of the house window.  Lady Julia Lockwood suffered many miscarriages and having just had a miscarriage in Paris in 1927 he forced himself into her room and subjected her to still more violence. His abuse in 1835 towards Lady Lockwood's maid was not able to be substantiated as her word could not stand against her employer.  Following a previous separation of the couple, which lasted three years, Captain Lockwood broke into Lady Lockwood's residence in Tunbridge Wells and took possession of the house. The judge felt that this deed in particular was totally unacceptable and showed the true extent of Captain Lockwood’s violent and abusive tendencies. Interesting to note, that all the assaults on her person did not bring so much wrath from the judge, perhaps because the wife he considered the property of her husband, whereas this seizing of her own property was totally intolerable! It is disheartening to read how many times abuse towards Lady Lockwood happened in public places, in apartments where others were around. Shocking that despite this extreme violence directed to her no one actually took action in her defence. In only one instance, in all the decades of abuse, did a gentleman in the dining room arise to challenge and restrain Captain Lockwood from beating his wife.  The effect of this single action was to reduce Captain Lockwood to tears and apologies. So distressed was Lady Julia Lockwood on one ocassion in Paris that when her husband insisted on dragging her away with him, against her will, she announced that she would rather slit her own throat then accompany him anywhere. Despite Captain Robert Lockwood’s continued plea in court that his wife be forced to return to him, the judge held in favour of Lady Julia Lockwood and last she was free of her violent abuser.   She moved to Malta with her children in 1842 and described her years there until 1856 as some of the happiest of her life. In one of her books, Instinct or Reason which was dedicated to her grandson John Scott Napier she told him of her time in the Sa Maison Gardens,

“can you recollect Sa Maison where Willy was born and your Papa (Lady Lockwood's son-in-law) and I erected a fountain with dolphins shooting out water and refreshing the pretty gold and silver fish which swam under in playful delight."

“do you remember how you love to roll one orange after another as your Maltese nurse picked them from the trees placed them in your tiny hands sitting under a graceful Pepper-tree. Many also, were the lovely flowers and shrubs with the rich hues succeeding each other every month, some flowering twice a year and never leaving the garden unembellished with their gay colours. There were double pomegranates bending under the weight of the numerous Scarlet blossoms and bright green leaves of the tall straight branches of the hibiscus..”

“I wish I could have shown you my little grey Maltese cat Mimma. She was quite wise enough to be put in a book she came when she was called she walked with us in the garden and fields like a dog ..”

At times she quoted from poetry to describe her delight in the garden.

“give me to scent that balmy breeze

to feel thy grateful shade 

ere pale fatigue my limbs shall seize

ere sight and strength shall fade

closed Thou mine eyes and let me roam

O’er heavenly realms and find my home!”

Many of her writing are instructions on how to behave, obviously learned during her eventful life.

 “We  should not wait for opportunities but constantly make them and always be ready to help others.  To bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the Law of Christ.”

“Oh Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all.” Psalm 104 

In one of her books entitled ‘Cyrus’ she praises the Persian king for his control and his lack of aggression towards others. Even when put in challenging situations, and despite his great power, he always kept control of his emotions and actions. To lady Lockwood, who had been the victim of so much violent abuse, such characteristics in a man must've seemed particularly admirable.

Sa Maison Gardens

Unfortunately, lady Lockwood's stay in Sa Maison came to an end. The British Expeditionary force on its way to Crimea came to Malta and they constructed their officer's quarters in the garden of Sa Maison in 1854.  For a year and a half lady Julia Lockwood fought to keep her home but it was flattened to the ground and she was forced to return to Scotland.  In a few paintings we can see the garden and the outline of the building that existed on the Bastian.  Fortunately, the garden remains but the historic lodge is no longer there.  On the walls of the Bastian the military forces that came to Malta left their shields and marks of their regiments carved into the walls of the garden. But the garden itself has a lovely atmosphere and the local Maltese refer to it, still, as the Lady’s garden.  It reminds me of Glasgow city, which during the years of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment in South Africa decided to rename one of their major city squares Nelson Mandela Square in support of his cause. The name change was made more significant by the fact that the South African consulate-general was based on the fifth floor of the Stock Exchange building, at an address which now bore the name of the country's most famous political prisoner.  I like to think, that in a similar manner, that the Maltese have kept the name 'Lady’s garden' in memory of this gentle soul who found solace and peace in their midst.

The Walk – A pictorial tale of desire and longing

Walked around San Anton gardens (in Malta) and then from Valletta to Sliema capturing some of my favourite things on the way.

A beautiful walled garden around a palace. San Anton Palace was built between 1623-1636 as a summer residence for the Grand Master of the Order of St John, Antoine de Paule. Beautiful trees and lovely green lined paths.  Such an oasis of calm.

One of the lovely walkways, great to wander through pondering stuff.  It has a lovely kitchen garden cafe to have coffee in and watch the ducks and kids.

Then, after a coffee it was on to Valletta.  Jumped off the bus as it entered the city walls so I could take the coastal route back to Sliema.  Next stop, after an hour of walking, was ice cream at Busy Bees.  Positively, the best ice cream on the island.  Then onto my favourite house, I have no idea who owns it, but I want it!

Around the corner is a ship owned by Errol Flynn briefly in the 1950s now converted into a restaurant on the sea front.

Fashioned on strength, so that she could penetrate the Baltic ice floes in the cold winters and sail in the strong Nordic winds of Scandinavia, the Black Schooner was constructed with a hull of two layers of thick seasoned oak. For sixty-nine years she navigated under sail with cargoes of grain, coke and wood on voyages far and wide. Built around 1909 it has had a traumatic history, suffered weevel worm in the hull, a fire in the engine room, abandoned by her owners in a Malta harbour where she sank, settling on the seabed at a depth of 70 feet for years.  Eventually, she was refloated and refitted and used in the filming of the motion picture “Popeye.  Sadly, she sank again during a freak storm in 1981.For a ship that has sailed the high seas for so long there is something tragic to find it on dry land, being prostituted as a restaurant.

This one is my favourite yachts in Malta so far.  Such beautiful wood and lovely lines.  A really classy article with a life boat look of stability that appeals to the total coward in me.  Note the rich cruiser alongside, now they don’t tempt me at all.  We had a cruiser and they drink the fuel so quickly that instead of enjoying the sea and scenery you end up transfixed by the falling fuel gauge.  Just in case you think I come from a rich yachting set, let me hasten to say ours was small and much less impressive.  I fondly remember my Dad feeling nervous about leaving our new purchase tied to the walls of the harbour and so we rigged up a combination of sturdy ropes to secure our new boat safely in place.  Came back to find the tide had gone out and our boat was hanging from the wall in mid air.  Darn, but we had really tied it securely! 

She is bigger and broader than she appears.  See what I mean about a broad beam?  But, like all things it has that beauty that only comes from being well looked after!  Only another 4km to home now, I reckon I will make it before nightfall.