Flying, seats, glasses, courtesy - missing links

On the plane from Malta to Belfast, I ended up on the last seat at the back of the plane. It serves me right for not paying for a specific seat in advance. I was just being mean, didn’t want to spend any more money. In punishment, I was right beside the toilet door and in an ideal position to study humanity queuing as it headed to relieve itself on a long flight. 

But as the plane took off from Malta I was more distracted by the lady at the window seat on my row who kept two glasses over both of her ears during takeoff. These were clenched with great force on either side of the head. I just could not resist asking her husband, who sat between us, why she did this. He told me that on previous flights she always had to suffer from pain in her ears for two days after each flight due to the change in air pressure.  One day a year ago a stewardess told her that holding two glasses over both ears on takeoff and landing would save her from this delayed pain. It did look strange but if it did the job why not?

I was a little concerned when we came in to land in Belfast because although I anticipated the glasses on her ears action, I had not anticipated that as the plane was actually about to touch ground she would take the glasses off and dramatically grab the seat in front with both arms screaming “I don't like this!” again and again. My confusion grew when her husband also grabbed the seat in front of him and screamed “I don’t like this!” repeatedly in strange unison with his wife. Wanting to do my bit to distract them, I asked the husband what he did for a living. It turns out he builds planes. I wondered what he knew about planes that I didn’t!

On arriving in Belfast Airport I was faced with the most annoying aspect of travel in N. Ireland - the transport system is not integrated.  The train lines actually run right to the airport but the trains do not run on this line anymore.  

Instead, the nearest working train station is only a 10/15 minute drive away in Antrim Town.  Perversely, the only bus running to this train station is every hour.  So you face an incredible wait unless you happen to be lucky and the timing is perfect.  You can catch a bus to Belfast fairly regularly from the airport but since my family home is north it goes against the grain to head south in order to go north.  There is consistency in N. Ireland in that the only other airport the George Best Airport is also not connected to the railway system.  This is even more perverse as the train runs to a halt called Sydenham halt hidden out of the way and a good walk from the airport.  I have no idea why in Northern Ireland our transport system is not connected to the rail service. 

It is either to annoy visitors or for the benefit of local taxi drivers who benefit greatly from this odd state of affairs.

Eventually, I managed to catch the early bus to Antrim and find myself on the train heading north. It is quite a new train and the carriages are surprisingly clean. However, the overhead information screen in each carriage is completely wrong. For some reason, it tells you that the forthcoming station is the one that you've just left. Everyone who is local seems to know this. Perhaps it's some kind of strange joke played on those strange to the country.

As I walk on the train looking for a seat I am aware of that UK phenomenon of booking seats. This involves people placing on the empty seat beside them their newspaper, their bag, their coat, their umbrella and any shopping they may have. All of this is a barricade to prevent someone sitting on the empty seat beside them.  

Fortunately, UK citizens are only bluffing. One simple polite request “Is this seat free?” will instantly get the response “Of course please sit down!” and all offending material is removed. I love the fact that their intent is obvious but their instinctive good manners require an instant surrender.  

I'm also shocked by their politeness. The default position is to apologise. Queueing is sacrosanct. One is never meant to push in.  Queueing for the British is a semi-religious practice. Apologising is also so ingrained that if you walk into a British person they will instantly apologise to you.  I find it so lovable and quaint.  It is only when you live abroad that such things make you smile so much.

The Ring of Protection

They’ve just appointed a minister of loneliness in the UK. You may be surprised or sceptical but I take it as a welcome recognition of one of the major sicknesses of today’s world. The condition afflicts not just the elderly but also children, youth and middle-aged etc as well. 

I have long observed that children will choose to operate like herds or packs. It is much more interesting for them to have all that company and interaction. They learn best by observation, how to communicate and live. However, in today’s world of destruction, they also experience the toxic pressures of social media, materialism, alcohol, drug and other forms of addiction.  These forces blight lives at any age but for children, they are particularly detrimental. Before they even begin to discover who they could be, such forces mould and distort them.  Self-harming is now too common, suicide numbers are growing, bullying is being carried out in school, at work, in neighbourhoods, homes and online.  It should be recognised that bullying and abuse does even worse damage internally than it does externally.  Those psychological scars are carried unseen and the fall out to the wider society grows. 

Unfortunately, predators easily identify those already damaged or easy prey. Just as a lion will target the eldest, weakest or youngest member of a herd of buffalo so to do human predators. What are the habits of predators? Well, they are remarkably similar to methods always used to break the human spirit (read about Solzhenitsyn's Gulag: The Simplest Methods which Break the Will).  They follow a systematic and indeed predictable pattern. In fact, at a UN conference in New York more than 15 years ago the speaker called for domestic abusers to be identified for the protection of others. Claiming that it was far easier to pinpoint abusers than to identify victims. Serial domestic abusers move from one victim to the next one while authorities question the morality/lifestyle/choices of these victims.  Instead, red flags that people are abusers are ignored.  Their need for increased control, their insistence on isolating victims from family and friends, their violence becoming more brutal during pregnancy and their violent outbreaks often being followed by sincere apologies etc are all standard textbook behaviour.  Things are changing. The Metropolitan police use a questionnaire for victims that asks the right questions to not only identify the presence of abuser but to flag up the degree of risk to the victim and save lives. Claire’s Law has been introduced so that people have the right to be informed if their new partner has a history of being an abuser.  This seeks to block the dreadful cycle of abuse continuing with another victim following in the footsteps of so many before them.

Perhaps there are lessons here for other situations.  In the playground, at school, too often the victim of bullying is lectured on being more assertive, standing up for themselves, avoiding disputes, not being alone and their parents consulted as to how they can help.  Teachers are instructed to try and protect the victim.  But all of these practices studiously ignore targeting the bully, the abuser.  Too much time and energy have again gone into quizzing the victim when actually more attention needs to be directed against the abuser and all the other unseen/uncomplaining victims they also target.  Justice needs to be tempered by compassion but there is a fundamental need for it also to act and be seen to be effective.  Not doing so, fails the victims and also encourages and empowers new would-be bullies.

Why is this tied in with loneliness? What can protect the young or old from that lioness is the herd of buffalo itself. The healthy and strongest form a circle inside which the old, young and weak are protected. Unfortunately, today’s isolation plays into the hands of predators. There are too few eyes to see, too few friends, relatives and neighbours to care.  In this new landscape, we spectate in the virtual world of entertainment. Inoculated from our neighbourhoods, those predators of body, mind and property find ample room to lope behind weak defences and run riot. It seems the best we can do in response is to throw money at the social services to mop up the damage.  What is the answer?

We are responsible for the herd.  When the young Jamie Bulger (aged 2) was being led to his death by two older boys (aged ten) they were noticed by 38 individuals.  Two members of the public did stop the boys and questioned them because of the crying and distressed toddler but did not act.  Those individuals were not to know that inaction on their part would allow a hideous murder of a vulnerable toddler.  

All of us need to know that we are responsible to and for each other. Every child you see deserves your care and protection if they need it. Each abuse victim should feel your concern. The elderly or ill should experience your kindness and engagement. Those who are targeted because of race, religion, colour or sexual persuasion need us to be more proactive in their defence.  It is not easy but understanding the psychology at work and knowing a few successful strategies in advance gives us choices (Bystander Intervention).  Not knowing is a disservice to ourselves and others. We must fight loneliness on every front.   Then, predators will experience the wrath and strength of that ring of protection and step back.  

If you talk less, they listen more

My father’s attitude to looking after multiple grandchildren was rather unique. I like to think he had an odd mixture of backgrounds that lead to experimentation. His mother had died when he was very young (around two or three) so in one way he could easily relate to lonely and unusual children. Fortunately, his mother was one of 12 siblings so, on the other hand, there was an excess of aunts and uncles and cousins to lavish care and attention on him.  His sociability probably sprang from this huge extended network which he took long road trips to renew and strengthen over the decades.

Then, he was the headmaster of a secondary school and had taught in the UK, Canada and Australia. That gave him ample opportunity to get to know the developing mind of a wide range of youngsters. So, when he had grandchildren one would have figured he would use his extensive educational experience to great advantage.

However, he claimed that the best way to look after a herd of grandchildren was to leave them alone. He would generally take them to a huge flat beach where they could walk for miles and only get ankle-deep in the sea. Then, he would studiously ignore the children but follow them from a safe distance. He claimed parents were far too interfering with instructions like “Take your socks off”, “Keep your shoes on”, “Where is your coat!” “Do you need a drink?” Or be the font of too much useless information, “This is a limestone rock”, “Here is the shell of a mollusc” or “This sea is called the Atlantic?”

Or constantly made fear-inducing statements like “You could easily drown”, “The sun is really bad for your skin”, “That dog might bite”, “Beware of strangers”, “You could easily get lost, be careful”.

Instead, he felt that silence allowed the child to really explore their environment in a much more personal and intimate way. He discovered a herd of small children usually unconsciously appoints a natural leader and they keep the group together. All his energy would then be devoted to ensuring safety not distracting conversations. Adults feel the need to talk, inform, respond, elucidate to each other but especially to children. The frightening reality, he claimed, was that most talk is just gibberish and many of us have come to so many false conclusions it might be much safer to opt for silence instead.

Children were clean slates ready to write their own reality, he felt, and thought it really unfair to interfere or mess them up. This hands-off attitude changed when he had just one child in hand. Then, he’d question them mercilessly trying to work out how they thought, what they valued, their views on things etc. It was that unique ability to flick from silent bystander of the group to loving inquisitor of the single child that build epic bonds with children. When children sense you don’t need them to be an audience they relax. If you talk less, they listen more when you do speak. If you respect their space both physically and mentally they sometimes gain much more.

A friend recently described being in Africa on the savannah and learning that by walking a few steps in one direction stopping and then heading in another and stopping repeatedly, the nearby animals grew used to his presence and began ignoring him. To them, he just seemed to be another grazing animal. 

Perhaps by adopting the same approach with young children we can get the necessary closeness to observe the important interactions they’re experiencing rather than our own flawed expectations.

These old bones and tendons do not bend and stretch

I’m in Gatwick about to fly home to Malta after three weeks of being a granny to active grandsons in the UK. They filled every morning with hugs and smiles at my bedside. They ran with an abundance of energy that no 60-year-old could match.

At first, my plan was to exhaust all their energy by huge walks along the coast near Folkestone. Very quickly, I learned that however far we covered the boys once fed were good to go again almost immediately. Huge adventure playgrounds, I discovered, are heart-attack places for grannies. Your child, a toddler disappears into a labyrinth high above you jostled by millions of older children. 

You cannot follow. These old bones and tendons do not bend and stretch. The elder one returns in one piece but the smaller is crying in pain somewhere in this madhouse of children, parents, psychos with ladders and drops everywhere. I follow his distinct loud cry and find him roaring at the bottom of huge metallic snake-like slide. He holds out his arms to me for comfort and we sit hugging both his pain and my absolute mind-numbing fear of having lost my grandchild away. I decide playgrounds are not safe places. It seems that one in every ten children there is roaring because they’ve fallen, been pushed, have cut their knees or banged their head or are totally lost. I determined to exit this dreadful place with two under-fives and say never again. If I had to go through this once more I’d be in heart-attack country.

Instead, I learned to be wily and conserve my energy while using theirs. I would go to the huge green park behind their house and in encourage them to roll balls down steep hills. That way they would race down, again and again, staggering up steep slopes while I sat at the top conserving my limited reserves of energy.

When with small children you find yourself smiling a lot. They ask questions that take your breath away about dying, life, sweets, bullying and then off they go at top speed. I want to summon up the very best of me to meet this challenge. To banish meanness or deflection. To answer and engage honestly. But as energy levels bottom, the challenges become harder.

I fight the weariness and try to hold tight to good humour. They deserve to be safe and nurtured. It should be the very least I achieve. But being older at least give you experience and a certain kind of knowledge of what works for you and what doesn’t. What counts against you is the terrifying responsibility. The need for constant vigilance, watching where they are and what they do. Being older one sees potential dangers on all sides. A moment of absentmindedness or distraction, this must be fought at all costs. But this war of attrition wears you down. I watch their parents carry this load lightly. Wrestling, throwing them around wasting valuable energy. Putting on music and dancing with the children, exuberant with their love and time. I marshal energy resources as if it was my last breath. Determined to make it last until little heads are fast asleep, safe in bed with pyjamas and all snug. Then the edifice collapses I fold into bed as if clubbed. Desperate that my battery is recharged. A miracle of rejuvenation is necessary!  It comes early when just after 6 AM two little angels come to my bedside again. Then, drawing deep from hugs and kisses, granny emerges from her cocoon to fly for love again.

“Love is the cause of God’s revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things.  Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next.  Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul.”

Baha’is Writings