As time goes by
Reflections on a recent birthday
I recently reached the dizzy heights of 65. In the UK this was the traditional time for men to retire with a gold watch after many years of service to an organisation. I have my grandfathers watch from when he retired at 65 in 1968 and will no doubt pass it on to my grandson in later life.
Of course now although I took early retirement in 2023 for the reasons set out here technically my retirement age is 67 and looking at the way governments are looking at the costs I suspect my grandson will be lucky to see any state pension this side of 70.
Sandy and I decided to help out with the setting up of a local political branch of Reform and helping the Chair get ready for any future election and the actions that the branch had to do now to defeat the Conservative incumbent. I don’t have anything against the Conservatives per se but the current MP for the Wrekin quite frankly needs to be replaced.
If I had any sway with Kemi Badenoch, I’d suggest to her that if she wanted to really convince the country that the party had changed that I’d look at the current crop of MP’s and ask a question. “Is this person likely to be a government minister in a future administration?’ If they have been in situ for a seat for 20 years and not been considered in the last administration for ministerial office its unlikely they will be for the next one. They are the equivalent of bed blockers in a hospital and need to be removed.
An old Conservative Minister once said to me that if you have say 350 MP’s to form a government your pool of talent can be a touch thin. He said you have about 150 to make your government, 100 are too silly to be in government and 100 are to old. Mrs Badenoch needs to look at her lists and encourage those who are in the too old that either a place in the Lords or a Knighthood are a good thank you for ‘political services rendered’
Any way we both have decided to stand down from our roles as there was a danger that it was starting to dominate our lives. There were other reasons which are between ourselves and the Chairman. Because of Sandys health and age I retired early as I wanted to maximise the time we had together and travel around the UK and Europe with the only call being ourselves. We have for example recently returned from Krakow and I shall write more fully on this later
My birthday thankfully was full of love and presents which people said reflected me and some quirkyness. My eldest daughter bought me the complete poems of JRR Tolkien from 1910 onwards and even in the early readings you can start to see how his stories started.
One of the earliest ones is the Lay of Earendil who is one of the heroes of the Silmarillion. I think that it is accepted that Tolkien wanted to develop a sense of English mythology. Tolkien was trying to give England something like a lost heroic past, drawing on his love and knowledge of Norse/Finnish together with Anglo-Saxon material. That idea is reflected in the development of stories like The Book of Lost Tales where he uses a traveller Eriol who hears the tales and narrates them back in the book.
In addition my wife Sandy has also bought the extended edition of Humphrey Carpenters biography of Tolkien together with his letters which was put together with his son and one of my heroes Christopher Tolkien. I suspect that a lot of his correspondence over the years answered a lot of questions for his readers and may open a few more doors and rabbit holes for me to go down
Finally she bought me the Blackwing Edition of Lord of the Rings pencil set as I love both Blackwing and Lord of the Rings so played to both. I suspect that I wont use them as mich so not to mar the beauty of the set.
Inside are 20 pencils (3 for Elven kings, 7 for Dwarf Lords and 9 for Mortal men inspired by the Great Rings of Middle-earth, plus a gold One Ring pencil and sharpener with a gold Point Guard.
There are other presents from other people that will appear in future posts especially around brass
My mother also reflected my love of space which I’ve talked of before and bought me a Folio edition of Tom Wolfe’s ‘The Right Stuff’ about the early days of space exploration. For my 60th my parents bought me the folio set of Andrew Chaikins ‘A Man on the Moon’ so I have a good collection to share with my grandson on his visits.
Over the weekend we went to see the Odyssey. Now I love Christopher Nolan movies and see him as somewhat akin to Stanley Kubrick and David Lean in terms of epics that I’d travel a distance to watch. There’s been a lot written about the movie but for me it was enjoyable and by and large stayed fairly truthful to Homers Text.
One portrayal which has not got attention but stood out out for me was the portrayal of Agamemnon. In the movie Troy he’s played by Brian Cox as a somewhat elderly and past his fighting prime character dependent on Achilles for victory.
However in Nolans version he is seen as a fully fledged warrior and the shot that stands out is him at the gates of Troy in a terrible black armour ready to sack Troy. In it he is very like the Iliads quote of Diomedes (Book 5) “None but a god could have withstood him as he flung himself into the gateway, and his eyes glared like fire.”
For those of us who are Tolkien fans the scene is less like Darth Vader but more like the Witch King of Angmar breaking down the gates of Minas Tirith and confronting Gandalf
I would say go and watch the movie for what it is a movie with all the classic themes of the hero in it and where everyone is touched and scarred by the war against troy which was less about the rescue of Helen but more about defeating a neighbouring power.
Looking at the list and excluding Odysseus (I had to google and AI it to check )
Agamemnon. He returns home with Cassandra, but is murdered by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Menelaus. He gets Helen back and returns to Sparta; though in the film Helen is seen as scarred also when talking to Odysseus’s son Telemachus
Ajax the Greater. He dies by suicide after losing Achilles’ armour to Odysseus.
Ajax the Lesser. He does not return home; his end is brought on by divine anger, and he dies at sea.
Diomedes. He gets home, finds trouble waiting for him, then leaves Greece and ends up in Italy in later tradition.
In life we have our journeys and I realised some time ago that I had reached my Ithaca with Sandy in 2023 and that we wanted to sail the seas of life together with minimal interruption from the outside world
In my case it is about sitting here and reading and penning the odd post with my thoughts. I had spent enough time working in my jobs and doing some politics at someone else’s call.
For me it is now just getting up each day and treasuring our life together with no deadlines and people asking us to go out campaigning or organising or drafting a post for my subscribers.
I have plenty of books to read and it is now a case of sitting down in a comfy chair and writing notes with my fountain pen for me to write up and share with others between 1000 and 1500 words as and when.
Ones wife, Ones books Ones stationery, ones music Ones food and the ability to enjoy it and to occasionally write about it isn’t a too bad life and is close to Valinor as a human can make it.