December 24th

the drifting crow cloud

amorphous silent passage

memories of war

I saw a huge murder of crows, just drifting high, silent wingbeats, moving on to somewhere new. It reminded me of old wartime newsreels, squadrons of aircraft in the second world war. I thought of my mum who lived through the occupation of Pireas and Greece in the second world war. Did she ever have flashbacks? She was only a little girl. She was scared and hungry through the cold winter. Most of our generation has never had to live through war, I’m grateful and guilty.

November 24th

Degenerate art

a procession of mourners

pay their last respects

I was reading about “Degenerate Art” today, the label applied by the Nazi’s to any art which didn’t fit their ideals on realism, classically influenced art or promotion of the Reich. This meant that most modern art would be labelled degenerate, including art by such eminent German artists as Max Ernst and Otto Dix (both first world war veterans). Artists fled Germany, were prevented from working, or were in extreme cases, executed like poor Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, through forced euthanasia.

The Nazi’s put on a show of Degenerate Art with dismissive labels, to instruct the populace as to why the works were degenerate. As this BBC article states.

An exhibition of confiscated works titled Entartete Kunst, which took place in Munich in July 1937, was advertised as "culture documents of the decadent work of Bolsheviks and Jews".

When I was on a Munich walking tour some years ago, the guide said that the Degenerate exhibition had several times the number of visitors as the officially endorsed Nazi art gallery next door. It seems the German people were not all taken in by this propaganda and were (privately) curious to make up their own minds.

Many art works were sold, many were destroyed.

Hitler himself was a frustrated artist, before taking up politics, he led a life of someone he would have labelled “degenerate” once he’d got into power. He painted detailed architecture and landscapes, his work was fairly boring it seems, lacking in emotion. Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler’s predecessor as Chancellor, one of the military and political heavyweights of the early part of the 20th century called him the “Bohemian Corporal”, due to his failure at becoming an artist and his low rank during World War 1.

It’s interesting to compare Hitler’s work (of which only a few examples of survive or are attributable to him) with Churchill, another keen painter. Churchill, suffering depression, his “black dog” for most of his life, saw art as a way of release, of coping, of coming to terms with the darkness. His book, “Painting as a Pastime” is a treat (D has a copy which is wonderful). You can feel that in his work, which although quite naive, is expressive.

Hitler, you can imagine, with his dedication to detail and buildings seemed emasculated and stifled by his inability to express.

Above: The Courtyard of the Old Residency in Munich (Adolf Hitler, 1913, Watercolour)

Sunset Over The Atlas Mountains (Winston Churchill, 1935).

October 18th

 

granite admiral

lion guards shrapnel punctured

black bronze vigilant

I was at a customer location and from the meeting room I could clearly see Nelson’s Column. Not the ground level, not his four bronze lions, bomb damaged in the second world war, just the jagged outline of the London skyline with his upright stance in the midst of it.

London is a wonderful place, dunked in history, rich areas shunted up against poor, culture, religion, music, art. Despite the abundance of traffic, people and noise, I can disappear there. I can find some peace in knowing I am a speck of dust, unseen, wandering, watching, thinking. I’m not so naive to suppose that others share my experience, I can go home, to D, to be loved and to love.

I know that for some, London can bring sadness, an aching loneliness, that despite all of the faces, some of whom you know will like you, even love you, you will never see them again. Just a split second of eye contact, on the escalator, in the throng of commuters, in the rush of the city. Time.

July 18th

 

Fake sweetheart letters

wiping out a lonely life

reborn killed again

I watched a documentary about Operation Mincemeat. In second world war London, a homeless, illiterate, mentally ill man had taken his own life. Ordinarily this would generate no interest, he had no one in the world, there was a war on, he’d be scooped up, put in the mortuary then buried, probably in an unmarked grave.

But, this man inadvertently became something of a hero in death. He was the right man, had the right look and was the right age (34) for British Intelligence. He would be used as a decoy, dressed as a British Officer, dumped off the coast of Spain and be washed up on the shore, in his possession would be supposed “secret” papers detailing an upcoming Allied invasion of Greece (when the real invasion would take place in Sicily). The hope and expectation was that nominally neutral Spain, would pass on these documents to the Nazis, whom General Franco has a cordial relationship with.

It worked, the Nazis moved several divisions into Greece expecting a full scale invasion there. It meant the battle of Sicily was won far easier by the Allies and it probably accelerated the victory in Europe.

But, there’s something so desperately sad about this story. Glyndwr Michael, for that was his name, had no one. He was lonely, illiterate, depressed. His death record listed him as “lunatic”. But in death they breathed a whole full life into him, to give the role his corpse would be playing some credibility. He would become Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. He carried a photograph of his supposed beloved (they named her Pam) and also love letters from her. Which leads to the second part of this sad tale, to me anyway. It revolves around the lady who wrote the fake love letters.

Hester Leggett, the most senior lady in the small team of British Intelligence ladies, cruelly nicknamed “the spin” (short for Spinster) was given the task. Somewhat of an irony to the girls who worked for her it seems. I quote from this marvellous blog post (which is a quote within a quote as they quote from what looks like an excellent book on the subject by Ben Macintyre)

“The job of drafting fell to Hester Leggett, ‘The Spin,’ the most senior woman in the department. Jean [Leslie -- also interviewed in the documentary -- whose picture was used as that of Pam] remembered her as ‘skinny and embittered.’ Hester Leggett was certainly fierce and demanding. She never married, and she devoted herself utterly to the job of marshalling a huge quantity of secret paperwork. But into Pam’s letters she poured every ounce of pathos and emotion she could muster. These letters may have been the closest Hester Leggett came to romance: the chattering pastiches of a young woman madly in love, and with little time for grammar.”

An example of one of her letters also appears in the book (see below). It just made me feel so sad, that this unpopular lady probably had dreams of love and escape at some point in her life, but the opportunities passed her by. And here she was playing the role set for her, pouring her heart out to a lover she not only knew was made up, but also dead!

As for poor Glyndwr Michael, he was buried in Spain with his alter egos name, with full military honours. Until fairly recently, no one knew his real name. But a dedicated researcher, on release of documents under (I believe) the 50 year secrets rule, found it out. Since then, the gravestone in Spain has been updated with a footnote giving his true identity and his name has been added to the war memorial in his home town in Wales. Poor man, in life he had no one, but in death, the unpleasant and frankly disturbing use of his body helped to win the war.

February 7th

 

Break the tender peel,

Let the sleeping death seep through,

Enigma silent.

 

Hopefully Alan Turing will get his pardon this year, the 100th anniversary of his death. A war hero, genius mathematician and the father of modern computing he suffered the indignity of a chemical castration after admitting to sexual relations with another man. A tragedy and a disgrace by today’s standards but sadly illegal in his time. 

His favourite film was Disney’s Snow White, he used to quote lines from it. I’ve adapted a couple of them in today’s Haiku. He took his own life by taking a bite from a poisoned apple.

Pic from Bletchley Park website.

January 17th

 

From Aegean boats,

To the blood soaked mud and sand,

Evil eye protects.

 

Close ups of two tanks housed in the Imperial War Museum below. I was fascinated to see that the crew (I assume) had painted Evil Eyes on their tanks. The first was a World War 1 tanks, the second from World War 2.

In Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures, the Evil Eye is a powerful talisman to deflect evil. You see it all over the med, painted on the bow’s of boats, on the top of doorways, around peoples necks, to bring protection, to ensure safe passage, it’s used like a St Christopher. The stylised blue eye is the symbol of choice. Blue eyes are considered to be the eye colour of the devil in the med… so if you mark yourself with a blue eye, you protect yourself, in a kind of perverse backwards logic.

People wear them, not just as a travelling talisman, but to deflect ordinarily well intended compliments. Yes, compliments. As these compliments, whether the person delivering them is genuine or not, have a tendency to turn into a curse when they are intercepted by demons or the devil and actually deliver you the direct opposite of the compliment. For example “your little boy has a beautiful smile” will put that child at risk of some sort of mouth injury.

Hence a compliment is sometimes accompanied by a spit (especially when you are complimenting a child!), to show your good intentions! (This is a double protection on top of the recipient wearing an eye stone). So some older people will be offended if you compliment their children without that going hand in hand with spitting at them! The spit although aimed at the person you are complimenting, is actually trying to shoo a spirit or the devil away from the child to ensure the compliment isn’t going to be turned into a curse. Complicated and weird? Yes. But don’t worry, you don’t have to hoke up a big green grolly and flob it on the childs head… it’s just a pretend spit, a spit sound. So it’s vaguely civilised.

It isn’t so widespread now, but I certainly remember it from my youth and from my mum’s generation. So if you do meet a 95 year old Greek lady, don’t make compliments, don’t spit either. Just smile lots!

Anyway, back to the tanks, I wonder how the idea or the superstition came to these fighting men.

 

Must go back and do the museum justice, the art gallery looked amazing from a brief look and the holocaust exhibition is very moving