Cantata on the Day of Lenin’s Death

(21 Jan 1924)

by Bertolt Brecht

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and for the past two years I have saved this cantata so that I could post it on the centenary of Lenin's death. That was yesterday - I missed it. Never mind, better late than never.

1.
The day Lenin passed away
A soldier of the death watch, so runs the story, told his comrades:
I did not want to
Believe it. I went inside, and
Shouted in his ear: "Ilyich
The exploiters are on their way!"
He did not move. Now
I knew that he has expired."
2.
When a good man wants to leave
How can you hold him back?
Tell him why he is needed.
That holds him.
3.
What could hold Lenin back?
4.
The soldier thought
When he hears, the exploiters are coming
He may be ever so ill, he will still get up
Perhaps he will come on crutches
Perhaps he will let himself be carried, but
He will get up and come
In order to confront the exploiters.
5.
The soldier knew,  that is to say, that Lenin
Throughout his life, had carried on a struggle
Against the exploiters.
6.
And the soldier who had taken part
In the storming of the Winter Palace wanted to return home because there
The landed estates were being distributed
Then Lenin told him to stay on!
The exploiters are there still,
And so long as there is exploitation
One must struggle against it.
So long as you exist
You must struggle against it.
7.
The weak do not fight. The stronger
Fight on perhaps for an hour.

I can imagine that solder leaning down to speak directly into the ear of Lenin. That ear is very small (I know because I have seen it) but it heard the peasants, even though they were far away. The day always comes, however, when that ear can no longer listen and someone else must listen to the sounds of people calling for justice

Dream Barker

by Jean Valentine

We met for supper in your flat-bottomed boat.
I got there first: in a white dress: I remember
Wondering if you'd come. Then you shot over the bank,
A Virgilian Nigger Jim, and poled us off
To a little sea-food barker's cave you knew.

What'll you have? you said. Eaves hung down,
Bamboozled claws hung up from the crackling weeds.
The light was all behind us. To one side
In a dish of ice was a shell shaped like a sand-dollar
But worked with Byzantine blue and gold. What's that?

Well, I've never seen it before, you said,
And I don't know how it tastes.
Oh well, said I, if it's bad,
I'm not too hungry, are you? We'd have the shell ...
I know just how you feel, you said.

And asked for it; we held out our hands.
Six Dollars! barked the barker, For This Beauty!
We fell down laughing in your flat-bottomed boat.

And then I woke up: in a white dress:
Dry as a bone on dry land, Jim,
Bone dry, old, in a dry land, Jim, my Jim.

January

by John Updike

The days are short
The sun a spark
Hung thin between
The dark and dark

Fat snowy footsteps
Track the floor
Milk bottles burst
Outside the door.

The river is
A frozen place
Held still beneath
The trees of lace.

The sky is low
The wind is gray.
The radiator
Purrs all day.

It takes a tough wake-up call to tell you that you’re in the wrong job

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things; of shoes and ships; and sealing wax; of cabbages and kings.

If I am the walrus (not the one the Beatles sang about) then Marion was not the carpenter, but the gardener, and a time did come when we had to talk of many things.

Not cabbages, or kings, but more where the future would take us and if we were to leave Basildon, where she had grown up, then should we remain close or make a giant leap.

Initially when I started to look at management roles in the Rank Organisation we had considered looking for a manager’s role which included accommodation.

Camden Town, where I did get my first manager’s position, had accommodation but it had been let out to the permanent assistant manager, and she had occupied for about 20 or 30 years.

The talk about making a move came to a head one Saturday when I came home early, following an incident at the cinema.

We had a Children’s Cinema Club session every Saturday morning and it always proved popular.

When you talk about children you probably imagine the youngsters at Saturday Morning Cinema in the 1950s or 60s. There is old film footage of these youngsters cheering on the cowboy hero, or gasping as Flash Gordon was surrounded by aliens.

They would cheer and bounce up and down on their seats. At the very worst they might throw empty ice-cream tubs at each other, but an usher or usherette (they still differentiated in those days) flashing a torch soon settled them down.

By the second half of the 70s the age range reached somewhat higher with many in their early teens. The trouble then was that teenagers did not behave the way they did when I was that age.

London teenagers in the 70s were also tougher and rougher than any others.

Rank had policies about what should happen in various situations.

At the top level was the instruction to managers facing armed robbers demanding the day’s takings: Do nothing – let them take the money.

This might be considered as concern for the safety of employees but it was probably based on the compensation they might have to fork out if a member of staff was badly wounded or even fatally wounded.

Unruly behaviour in the foyer or auditorium could be handled by ejecting the troublemakers (if you had enough ushers to handle it). Quite often ejecting the worst troublemaker could end with his or her mates leaving of their own accord.

Anybody trying to pinch sweets from the confectionery counter would also be ejected (after taking back the stolen goods of course).

On this particular Saturday morning I was doing my rounds to keep an eye on staff and the youngsters and I just happened to be in the foyer when the intermission began and hordes of youngsters aged 6 to 60 poured into the foyer to either avail themselves of the toilets or to buy more sweets, drinks, ice-cream or popcorn.

I noticed a bit of trouble starting near the hot dog stall and headed over to calm it down. As I approached I put one hand on one youngster to my right and my other hand on a shoulder to my left.

The next thing I knew was that the character on the left had shrugged off my hand and squirmed away into the crowd and then the one on my right had twisted round and his fist was aimed straight at my face – which it did not take too long to make a connection with.

This was not some weedy 12-year-old, this was a mid-teens with a build and a punch that would have equalled those of Carl Gizzi (a champion boxer from Rhyl).

I ended up flat on my back on the marbled floor and could feel the blood trickling down from my nose.

By the time members of the staff reached me to help me up my assailant was gone. At this point I was more interested in staunching the blood flowing from my nose and ruining one of my favourite silk ties,

The handkerchief from my breast pocket proved adequate and I managed to get to my office where the assistant manager had brought me some cloth and a bowl of ice cubes.

Although the punch in the face had produced what seemed like gallons of blood it hadn’t been a full-on central punch and although my nose hurt like hell it was, fortunately, unbroken.

As it was my assistant was perfectly agreeable to take on the rest of the Saturday shift, I was due to finish at 6 and it was around 12 o’clock, and also suggested I rest up and come in at midday on Monday for the afternoon evening shift.

When I did get home, my coat covering the blood on my shirt (I’d taken the tie off) but not disguising my bruised face, Marion was immediately concerned and suggested I should go up to the hospital but I said I’d rather wait and see how it was in the morning.

The girls wanted to know what had happened and, not wanting them worried I told them I had tripped and fallen flat on my face.

They were curious about the colours now showing up on my nose, under my eye and on my swollen cheek, but at the same time were very solicitous and until their bedtime they were sat either side of me.

Marion and I had a long talk that night and the following day, by which time my face was not looking so bad, although my cheek did hurt.

Our first concern was as to whether or not I should go back to work but I felt that even if we did decide to make a change in either the place where I worked, or even if I would continue with Rank I was not going to allow some young thug keep me away from my work.

One thing we did discuss was a return to journalism, and, if so, where.

I didn’t want to remain in the area, although Tony Blandford would have taken me back, I am sure. At the same time if I was establishing myself in a different area I would prefer it to initially be with former colleagues and in a place where there was family.

Although we made no firm decisions I certainly had as lot to think about before I returned to Camden Town on Monday.

Houses of Dreams

by Sarah Teasdale

You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.

The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are all too full of happiness
To even hold a song.

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.

But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true -
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.

All the World’s a Stage

by William Shakespeare

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his life plays many parts,
His acts being seven stages. At  first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover
Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor,sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined.
With eye severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again to youthful treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

A Birthday

by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love has come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

What a carry on as I start having second thoughts on my new career

It’s been a while since I recounted any of the chronological episodes of my life and I left you fairly early in my new role as manager of an Odeon cinema in London – Camden Town to be precise.

It’s strange the period from me going to work for Harry Corbett and my move into cinema management with the Rank Organisation was not a long period compared to my 50 years as a journalist and the period since then in retirement, in fact my teenage years were almost three times as long.

Yet I seem to have spent a lot of time on a miniscule part of my life.

I spent the best part of a year at Camden Town and in all honesty I enjoyed it most of the time. My customers ranged from nine to ninety and in the main they behaved themselves. Some of the Saturday morning crowd could be a bit rowdy (in fact it is one such that eventually led to my next career move, but more of that later) but you tend to make an allowance for youngsters, most of the time.

I have previously described the busy life of an Odeon manager but it did tend to have its lighter moments (and darker ones).

Occasionally we would welcome a guest star to the first showing of a new film and I remember the launch of “The Pink Panther Strikes Again” starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau and Burt Kwouk as his man servant Cato.

The foyer was decorated with posters and cut-outs of the Pink Panther and we also had someone dressed as the Pink Panther prowling the foyer and the auditorium.

The best part, however, was that we had Burt Kwouk making a guest appearance, which, of course, gave me a chance to ham it up in the limelight.

Instead of just standing in front of the screen and introducing the celebrity guest I first welcomed the audience and then explained that we had intended to have one of the stars of the film at the launch but he hadn’t arrived yet. Which is why I then pulled the old panto trick of asking them to tell me if they saw him.

Inspector Clouseau (Pete Sellers) fends off another “planned attack” from his manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk)

Of course, as I was talking Burt, dressed in black, had crept in and made his way behind me and just before he launched a Cato-style attack the younger people let loose with a mighty shout of “HE’S BEHIND YOU”.

I turned to the right as he went to my left then turned back just in time to see him and step aside as he rushed me.

You know what they say – you can’t keep a ham actor down.

In the same year all the managers and their partners were invited to an advance showing of the latest in the “Carry On” series – “Carry On England”, or, as I call it, the infamous “Carry On England”.

Now I have always enjoyed the “Carry On” films, seeing them as a natural companion to seaside postcards. Somewhat saucy, plenty of double entendres and if Barbara Windsor ever needed a cue then Sid James was always there to give her one.

Just as the seaside postcards had to get closer and closer to the knuckle to combat rivals who whipped away the seventh veil and didn’t turn the lights off so did the “Carry On” films start showing the boobs rather than the image of Barbara Windsor’s bikini top flying through the air to hit Kenneth Williams in the face.

The main thing I remember about the new film was that it was set at a mixed-sex Army searchlight unit. A new CO arrived (Kenneth Connor) and began a surprise inspection in the female barrack room.

When the women sat up to attention the camera focused on one side of the room, the side were they were all topless. A brief shot from the other side of the room showed only the backs of those women.

One side – unknown actors, the other – known. Guess which was which.

Maybe my new management career was not what I thought it to be.

/

Street in Agrigentum

by Salvatore Quasimodo

There is still the wind that I remember
firing the manes of horses, racing
slanting, across the plains,
the wind that stains and scours the sandstone,

and the heart of gloomy columns, telamons,
Overthrown in the grass. Spirit of the ancients, grey

with the rancour, return on the wind,
breathe in that feather-light moss
that covers those giants, hurled down by heaven.
How alone in the place that's still yours!
And greater, your pain if you hear, once more,
the sound that moves far off, towards the sea,
where Hesperus streaks the sky with morning:
the jew's-harp vibrates,
in the wagonner's mouth
as he climbs the hill of moonlight, slow
In the murmur of Saracen olive trees.

“I loved you…”

by Alexander Pushkin

I loved you, and probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain...
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you, and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness -  though in vain -
Made up a love so tender and so true
As may God grant you to be loved again.