Finding the hope - from what you have lost

I stumbled upon this garden in Northern Ireland this summer. I had noticed it from the road some years ago but hadn't ventured in to investigate. To be honest, it was situated beside the Coleraine Council buildings and I suspected some tourist exhibit about the beauty of Northern Ireland or the north coast or a plaque on the history of the area. One grows so accustomed to everything being about commerce, money or even self-aggrandisement.  I have reasons for my cynicism.

If you want to find the most luxurious offices in Northern Ireland don't look at private corporations look at the council buildings in every single city location. You will be amazed at how much money has gone into council offices. Not facilities like hospitals, schools or universities, but these exquisite office suites.  Here are a few such council buildings but they are by no means unique, just large depressing symbols of how to waste public money.  The contrast between their opulence and the conditions suffered by the sick and elderly in our community is eye-watering.

Coleraine Borough Council Building

Derry and Strabane Borough Council Building

Ballymena Borough Council Buildings

But this particular garden was something entirely different. This was a garden called "Angel of Hope" and it brought tears to my eyes for a completely different reason.

It was a place for people to remember babies or children who had died.  Grief was edged on every memorial placed on white walls with heartbreaking words underneath speaking of the loss of a loved one. Many, many babies were remembered and sometimes pictures were included of beautiful smiling faces of those who were lost.  Poems like the one below spoke of the pain and seem to make it personal for even a passing viewer.

I walked around and read about these sweet souls. Love was tangible in every small picture or flower carefully placed and it made me realise that all this pain had always been there in our community. So many hurting hearts but without a tangible place to represent what had been taken too soon. Not a grave, not a place of sadness where the body lies, but a special place of love where all these children are remembered and celebrated by the family and the whole community.  Everywhere there were toys colourful bright toys placed under trees and beside paths and it spoke of the joy that young lives bring.

There was a time when if a mother had a miscarriage or stillbirth the baby was quickly disposed of in the hospital system and mothers were left grieving without anything tangible to show for those months of pregnancy and hope.  Now, in a more enlightened age, such babies are dressed in beautiful clothes and wrapped in blankets so that their parents and family are allowed to hold the lost one. Photos are taken and impressions made of tiny feet or hands that will be kept for a lifetime.  These acts of consideration and kindness, by medical staff, at this critical moment recognises the grief that must follow.  So to, do such beautiful gardens of hope in our communities. They are 1000 miles away from the commercialism and materialism we see around us daily. They speak of hearts, loss, bonds and love.  They remind us of what's really important and what we must never forget. At a time when the tendency in this world is to become desensitised, to the coarseness of public discourse and actions, it is so healthy to be reminded of the sensitivity and beauty that should be our birthright.

When there is love loss is unbearable.  Each death diminishes us all. Whether it is due to illness or disease.  Whether that life is taken from us by violence, accident or war the grief and loss is beyond words. But the fact that it is so colossal a loss must never be forgotten and such places remind of us of that.  Hearts need to be softened, not hardened.  Only by recognising the pain of loss and supporting those who experience it, everywhere around the world, do we cease to be part of the problem but instead become part of the solution.

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"Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation."

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from Bahá’í Writings

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.