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However,
going back to the early days of 1980, which is where my narrative had
taken me, the room had more of the feel of a furniture showroom, so uninspired
and cluttered it was. That was also the general perception of the house,
for at that time, in truth, I still had no specific direction, no particular
goal. Overcoming the hollowness left by the events that had caused me
to retire from work, and still somewhat disturbed by the culmination of
the happenings of the previous nine months, I see myself, in retrospect,
rather like Mole in Wind in the Willows, as he emerges from his
deep winter sleep, blinking at the sun, wary of predators and getting
his bearings afresh. Just as Moley had Ratty to 'put some wind in his
sails', to buoy him up and show him that there was a huge, undiscovered
world, albeit fraught with unimagined dangers, but with exciting new experiences
and such interesting new friends - just as Moley had all of that,
I had - what? I had a new world, the existence of which, in reality, I
had never truly sat down and considered as actuality; neither had I thought
of the consequences of acknowledging its very existence. I had the parallel,
interweaving world of the 'spirit' (Capital 'S' or lower case, you choose
yourself, for you have to choose yourself, I can only tell you
of my own experiences and derived beliefs and practices).
I can only write in the language and context of the contact that I was
experiencing, namely the Christian one, but fortunately not the one of
entrenched 'theology'. No, it was to be very 'hands on', in more ways
than one. How, though, can one enter into something, ask for light if
one doesn't know that one is blind - blind to so much that is possible
once one's 'eyes' of intellect, knowledge and experience are opened? Thus,
not knowing that I was blind, I had not stood by the roadside like Bartimeus
of old and shouted out loudly "Son of David, help me, have mercy
on me". Nor was I struck blind like Saul on the road to Damascus,
only to see truly when his vision was restored.
Now, I had actually been on that self same road to Damascus - it seems
a lifetime ago - in 1946. With the advent of peace, the Navy was able
to resume many of its traditional peacetime practices, and one of these
was to lay on transport and visits to whatever was worth seeing, wherever
the ship visited. Thus it was that I had been driven along the Grande
Corniche road in the South of France, visited the perfume distilleries
at Grasse, and Monte Carlo with its palace and casino. When the Fleet
was at Naples, I had been to Pompeii; when at Nauplia in Greece, I had
seen many antiquities; when in Cyprus for the ship's boilers to be cleaned,
I had 'holidayed' under canvas near Famagusta and in the Troodos mountains,
and had fished all night in his boat with a local fisherman; later I had
swum in the crystal waters off beautiful Skiathos. So what was I doing
on the road to Damascus? Well this time we had tied up in Beirut, principally
for oil, but there was also time ashore. Time to see such a jewel of a
city; untouched by war, and certainly not aware then of its ultimate devastation
during the internecine wars fought around it and along its sweeping boulevards.
And so it was that I (who "didn't smoke, drink or go out with dirty
women", much to the disgust and total incomprehension of Scouse 'Spud'
Murphy, whom I had encountered in a minesweeper on the Clyde) opted for
the 'culture' and exploration, and found myself with several mates of
similar persuasion in the back of an open truck as we creaked our way
inland towards the Beka Valley and ancient Baalbek (or Heliopolis if you
prefer the Greek). The road over the Shu'uff mountains was very hairpin-bendy,
and very hair-raising in a truck with bald tyres and a body that indisputably
had a detached life of its own, as the tailboard hung over a precipitous
drop, while we edged and reversed, edged and reversed around any one of
the many hair-pins. Up through the clouds, past gangs of men and women
breaking stones and restoring parts of the road itself; then over the
summit of the pass and the sight below of a road that seemed to vanish
as a thread into the floor of the valley beneath. Unforgettable, as with
so many other sights along the way - moving walls of straw that turned
out to have camels inside them; people harvesting and threshing in ways
that were timeless and so much more. But then, there it was, totally insignificant
and unexpected, but awesome in its recollection, a simple signpost with
the one word Damascus>… and in a moment we had passed.
The day has many recollections, of Baalbek itself, but especially of friends
who were killed at Corfu shortly afterwards - but no, I didn't experience
blindness and revelation.
I didn't experience them in 1946, nor yet as 1979 changed to 1980, where
I am in my story. Yes, my story. Sometimes when I stop and read what I
have written in total, I spend a lot of time reflecting on why
I am writing, for whom, and wondering whether I am achieving what I set
out to do. Remember, I set out to inform and help and encourage
individuals who are suffering in their minds; who cannot cope with intruding
voices and presences; who cannot get anyone, lay or professional, to comprehend
or believe what it is they are trying to convey; who suffer the indignity
- yes, shout it loud, the indignity of constant disbelief;
of being treated as a 'syndrome'; of having to submit without choice or
understanding to mind altering drugs and 'therapies'. Partially isolated
in my tranquil setting, it can be so easy to lose sight of you, or you
who are trying to cope and give support to someone who is so difficult
to understand and live with, someone whom you loved, still love so dearly,
but who is not the same person you once knew. Sometimes as I write, I
wonder whether my own reminiscences get in the way of my intention. Part
of the reason, an almost instinctive ploy, is that reminiscing helps me
to cope with the release of so much that is/was personally painful. If
I can show to myself that so much of my life so far, the greatest part
indeed, has been happy, formative and positive; that my personal distress
and disasters had a cause and eventually a solution; if I can show this
to you, then maybe you will derive comfort from the thought that there
is a way through your own particular morass, if you can find the right
guide or means of support. Acknowledging, however, that you may have to
find the courage to go it alone. For sometimes it is necessary to reclaim
an identity from the amorphous categorisations and identity obliterating
processes in which you find yourself.
More, and more, and more, life and technology are conspiring to obliterate
the individual. It is the information age, we are told. Before long I
am sure, people will be desperately seeking the age of the 'person', a
living, breathing, walking human, not a web page, totally anonymous, without
an identifiable author, devoid of human emotion and contact (except perhaps
something 'interactive' and self-degrading). Returning to a point that
I was trying to make in an earlier section - I was trying to illustrate
how the world of academic, and particularly psychiatric, research is far
removed from the individual. No test yet devised can equate the mental
distress and problems of one person with those of another individual;
nothing can harmonise symptoms and reactions sufficiently to use averaged
results for the treatment of all, no matter how strongly it is believed
to be so.
Yet here is the statistical 'you'. Another tea break, and switch on 'Westminster'
on TV, and what have we got? Mental health questions. Health Minister
- "One in four people in the country will develop a mental health
problem". What a prospect - and here is the point that I have tried
to make in sketch outline, and to which I shall return in detail after
I have completed the narration of my own story, - here is the point: I
can guarantee that many of the so called mental health problems will have
resulted from people being undermined and submerged by all the consequences
of modern living - all the man-made and natural influences that I have
touched upon, plus stupid diet and lifestyle; the very panic of trying
to keep pace with all the 'must have', 'must do' compulsions that skilful
marketing ploys thrust at one. Just take, for instance, computing - bigger,
better, faster, more memory, this and that software, outmoded today, faster
tomorrow. Must have it, must have it; and the kids have to keep up for
school (if they aren't already mind-blown, overweight and asthmatic from
the intensity of computer games and a computer in the bed-room), and they
want the latest so they can have street-cred, school-cred. How my heart
bleeds for you. If you haven't already fallen victim to the system, you
had better take hold of your life or you will become the one in four who
does end up as a mental health statistic!
But what chance does the poor, overworked G.P. have to help you as an
individual? (He, possibly, is already a mental health statistic himself!).
He has six or so minutes to analyse and probably prescribe - are you anxious,
depressed, how's your sex-life -good indicator (or maybe the media have
led you to believe that you must have bells and whistles, multi-orgasms
and earth movement every time you perform, and maybe you feel inadequate)?
Get your head around all that and try to describe it lucidly, then listen
to what he tells you about the side effects of the drugs that you are
going to take - six minutes - it would take six bloody minutes
alone to read out and explain all the side effects of some of today's
'designer' drugs!
But you are at the far end of the chain that began with the original research
- harking back to my 'second opinion' interview with Big Wheel, I sometimes
wonder whether the reason that he didn't sit during the time that I was
with him was that he would not have been able to see me because of the
stacks of books ranged around his desk. If the length of time allocated
to me is a guide, one wonders how much of the endless research that he
has published is based upon direct human contact. I have a very good friend
who has a son who is a professor in earth sciences, with many responsibilities
world wide for projects initiated or funded by government or international
bodies. Bolivia, Bangladesh, Mexico or Marakesh - the postcards arrive
- from projects being advised, post-graduate students being supervised.
Then there is this advisory body or that conference to attend - (while
his mother frets about the effects upon his health that she can observe).
He is, in fact, an expert in his field, and is doing a first-rate and
very worthwhile job. Yet as he clocks up enormous numbers of air-miles,
I am left to wonder in what manner, and from how many levels removed,
does he have an impact upon my cretinous dwarf in Bangladesh, who only
needed a bit of iodine in his diet. Or on the life of the riverside fisherman,
whose fishery and livelihood are being destroyed so that some international
conglomerate can build a dam to make electricity for the purpose of smelting
aluminium, neither of which will benefit the fisherman (nor will the profit,
that belongs to the shareholders). The aluminium will, of course, go to
make soft-drink cans to create more health problems in the 'civilised'
world! (My friend's son is, in fact, involved with many fundamental and
valuable projects, and I don't want the hyperbole of my argument to detract
from that.)
Nevertheless, my point is still this: you are, or the one you care for
is, the individual at the end of the chain. A unique individual. How can
anyone study, advise, prescribe unless that individuality is seen and
acknowledged at every stage? But who can allocate time in the hectic world
of national health, and the often under funded, under-resourced world
of mental health, to cater for the needs of the individual? Obviously
I am in no position to prescribe for you - wouldn't dare, anyway - but
I can continue to do what I have been doing up to now and tell you what
happened to me, and how I coped and developed a completely new life, and
maybe I can help you to create your own coping strategy.
Possibly the greatest help that I was given came from a family. Not my
immediate family; my brother had his own work and family to attend to,
while my daughter was developing a career of her own at UMIST in Manchester.
So what family? Whether you have a religion or not, it is profitable to
look at the brilliant concepts involved in the origins of the Christian
one. A family - the Holy Family - so called. A family with which anyone,
no matter what their own circumstances, could identify. In this rural
area where people stand out as individuals, the concept and working of
a family unity can be seen all the time - craftsman father being followed
by son or daughter; mother closely involved with the 'family firm', contributing,
supporting - and the same in farming. An old-fashioned way of life maybe,
but an effective one, and seemingly devoid of mental problems, if my observations
are correct. A family that, in this case, my case, came and absorbed me.
I, as I keep on saying, had not been looking for any sort of outcome or
development. However, as I came to absorb and understand a little of what
I was experiencing, and what was opening up to me, the realisation and
understanding of some of my personal 'revelations' within the tormenting
time around Christmas, began to open my eyes. I am writing with the benefit
of more than twenty years' subsequent experience, and the 'smoothing out'
of my lack of immediate acceptance and collaboration - itself the product
of a wariness that had been derived from those same Christmas experiences.
I laugh sometimes at recollections of my own rejections of what I saw
as intrusions, interference; but as the further realisation dawned at
the time, and I accepted what was on offer, life took on a new
meaning as I found help and support within a family that I never knew
that I had. Just, as I shall relate in a little while, I found in Scotland
a human family that I hadn't known existed, and which was to absorb me
and make me part of itself.
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