Picture Of The Day - Reflections Of A Tricoloured Heron

This is a Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor)
with material for the nest for itself
and it's partner. 

 

In The Alphabet Of Unrecognised Neglect

 'A' stood for abandonment-the rupture children felt
when they were taken to school and left with strangers.
'B' stood for bereavement and the sudden loss of the familiar:
family surroundings, friends, toys, routine, even home food.
Teacheers and carers called this “homesickness” and trusted 
that it would pass when the children had no such sense of certainty.
'C' stood for  captivity, the realisation that there was no way out
from rigid and often punishing routines, no escape, though some tried it.
This often lead to 'D',  dissociation and  the development of a false self
that the child felt helped them appear be brave, and survive the situation
whilst cutting them off  from their truer self without them realising it.

And so this alphabet goes on whilst the author of the theory behind it,
Joy Schaverien (1943 - 2025) outlines the theory of 'Boarding School Syndrome',
where what is presented as a materially privileged life hides from parents,
puupils, and the staff who ran boarding schools a multi-generatonal sense of loss
where difficulties with intimacy are passed of as 'normal'. The recognition
of life-long mental health problems is slow to arrise, waiting until adulthood
for the neccesity of therapy to be clear, where the syndrome gets easier to use
as an excuse to explain away previoiusly unexplained offhand behaviour. 

But that is the world some people, lots of people, live in.
Some of my best friends might recognise this picture
and remember how I used to behave, without knowing
that I grew up in a care home for five yearss, where I
saw my parents for thirteen weeks of the year. When I left
the home I had no close friends: I left who I knew behind.

I have survived: in a country with the safety net
of a welfare state and a strong charity sector
people will. But I find thatt the safety nett
for retrospectivle repairing my mental health,
and the family the helps indiduals connect for life
are harder to recognise and find. I have what is left
of my true self, which the care home cared enough
to not touch, when with hindsight it easily could have.

For a fuller explanation
of Boarding School Syndrome
than what I have room for
on this blog please left click here.

Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the ‘Privileged’ Child by Joy Schaverien 

No Mow May

Is the time to not mow the grass
if Britsh gardeners can bare to watch
as the grass grows, and insterad comfort
themselves by the lives of the insects
living in the grass being extended,
by their now quiet lawnmowers.

Picture Set Of The Month - May - The Oil Paintings Of Ray Lowry

'Two Ladies (Coach and Horses)', as pianted by Ray Lowry
in the early 1970s before he became known for the
cartoons he became famous for. He painted the Coach 
and Horses pub, a pub he no doubt frequented, several times.  

'Early Evenng', capturing two friends and a mother
 with her chidren crossing each others paths
outside the Coach and Horses in Cadishead. Early 1970s.

'Bus Stop - Manchester' as painted in the early 1970s
by Ray Lowry. A Summer street scene set in suburban Manchester.
.

'Road Sweeper' - Ray Lowry, early 1970s. I discovered
the creativity of Ray through his satirical cartoons
that punctured the pomp of the music industry,
in the New Musical Express. 

 

 

Moon Of The Month - The Flower Moon

The Flower Moon is the name given to the spring moon, 
defined by the lushness of the new growth of vegetation
after the plain times of winter become distant memories.

Farmers in there more sentimental moments
 write of the flower moon in their almanacs.

Whilst city folk, lost to the cycles of nature
 beyond the greening of their cities may look up
in their quieter moments and wonder
 at the trees and hear the  birdsong
 as the birds sing louder to hear each other 
in the parks over above the noise of the nearby city.

 

The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie

After the recently abandoned Whitehouse press dinner, where the guests enjoyed their Pea and Burrat salads, the lobster and steak  had to be given to the poor when the room was abandoned, I find the conspiracy theories far too politically partisan and cliched to be either credible or amusing. I prefer to wonder why for his latest non-event the present Misleader of The Free World chose as cover for getting out of an event he did not want to attend to re-enact the plot of the 1972 French film 'The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie', where privileged but corrupt guests try repeatedly to set up a dinner date for themselves, and with each attempt increasingly bizzare and absurd reasons stop them sitting down and eating. Until at the last attempt, the meal is disprupted by hails of gunfire so the guests scuttle to hide under the tables, one guest (see picture above) stealing a snack from the table. The film ends with the guests emptily walking down an empty road, the credits rolling down the screen. Nobody dies. How unlike real life in gun cultures around the world, where life is so expendable it seems to be worth misrepresenting. How surreal, how civilised....     

                                       

 

The Unanswerable Question

If the collective noun for existentialists was 'an angst'
what should the same term be for a loose collection of outsiders?