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OZ on HAYDN’S 45^th – Occasionally I attempt, with varying degrees of failure, what is possibly the most difficult cryptic crossword in the world, the Listener Crossword, published in the Review Section of The Times every Saturday. Just before Christmas a friend, who enjoys much more success than I with these puzzles, finished one and alerted me to the fact that it was a particularly good one, with a charming theme. This time I failed spectacularly, unable to complete enough even to detect the theme, hinted at in the title of ‘Off We Go’, which referred to Haydn’s Symphony No 45, named the Farewell. Haydn wrote this work for his patron, Prince Nikolaus 1, whilst staying with the court orchestra at the Prince’s Summer Palace in Eszterháza in the summer of 1772. As the symphony neared completion, the hot weather continued into autumn, and the musicians became frustrated at the Prince’s reluctance to allow them to return home to their wives and girlfriends in Eisenstadt. Haydn solved the problem with a subtle musical message when he conducted his new symphony for the Prince. During the final haunting adagio, each musician in turn stopped playing, snuffed out the candle on his music stand and left the stage, until only Haydn and Tomasini, the concert-master, remained, coaxing the gentlest of sounds from their muted violins. The Prince took the hint at once, declaring “Well, if they all leave, I suppose that I had better leave too!”, and the whole court returned to Eisenstadt the next day. My friend was right; it’s a charming story, so typical of Haydn’s impish humour, so different from his sometimes solemn reputation. I’d like to write more about him, but it would need a whole book, not just the 300 words I aim for here.

OZ on THOMAS’S OWL – In the January newsletter I described the poet Edward Thomas’s notebook account of a train journey through Gloucestershire in June 1914, and what he subsequently made of it in his poem ‘Adlestrop’ in January 1915. This month I would like to continue the story of Thomas to 24 February 1915, when he wrote a poem called ‘The Owl.’ During the first few months of 1915, Thomas had become obsessed with the problem of whether or not to enlist in the forces. The first two verses are a straightforward account of rest and comfort after exertion, and then the tone darkens, to reveal his personal torment in the last three lines of the poem:

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;

Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof

Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest

Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,

Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.

All of the night was quite barred out except

An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,

No merry note, nor cause of merriment,

But one telling me plain what I escaped

And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,

Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice

Speaking for all who lay under the stars,

Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

OZ on LADYBIRDS – World Book Day is celebrated in most of the world on or near to 23 April, as that is the date on which both Shakespeare and Cervantes died. However, because it is also Saint George’s Day, and to avoid clashes with school holidays, books are celebrated in the UK on the first Thursday in March. Last month’s event was particularly newsworthy as this year marks the hundredth birthday of Ladybird Books. The story begins in Loughborough in 1904, when stationer and printer Henry Wills and stationer William Hepworth amalgamated to form the printing company Wills and Hepworth. Wills retired in 1905 and died in 1913. As war approached in 1914, Hepworth decided to publish “pure and healthy literature for children”, under the imprint Ladybird, and the logo was registered in 1915, when the first Ladybirds appeared. Between the wars, production of Ladybirds ceased as normal commercial printing resumed. In 1939, the presses slowed again due to war, and Hepworth returned to producing Ladybirds. There were restrictions on paper, so the size and number of pages was determined by the fact of being able to make a 56 page book from one small sheet. That page size of 4˝ x 7 inches has remained constant to this day. During the next sixty years Ladybirds became a household name. Subjects ranged from fairy stories, ancient myths, school topics, reading schemes, religion, to technology, space travel, computers and internet. Each page had beautiful illustrations, and the hard covers made Ladybirds a delight to hold. Their heyday was in the 1960s and 1970s, so they meant a lot to my children, a whole library at half a crown a volume, but they also mean a lot to me now, a box of old books that I can’t let go.

OZ on MAY 1940 – This month my thoughts moved on from 100 to 75 years ago, when the ‘Phoney War’ ended. Germany defeated Norway early in April, and by 1 May Allied troops had started to withdraw. On 8 May the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, lost support in the Norway debate and was replaced by Winston Churchill. On 13 May Churchill delivered his famous “blood, sweat, toil and tears” speech to the House. Over the next two weeks German forces swept across Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, where on 26 May Calais gave in, and Operation Dynamo, the Allied evacuation of 340,000 troops from Dunkirk, commenced. Between 26 and 28 May the British War Cabinet met nine times to discuss whether to support Churchill in fighting on alone, or to seek a truce as advocated by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. Churchill won; within the next month France surrendered to, and Italy allied itself with, Germany. The real war had started. May 1940 was also a turbulent month on the home front. Men were being called up, either into the armed forces or into directed or reserved occupations; women were also working in the armed forces, the Women’s Land Army or in factories; the young and the elderly were being evacuated, sometimes to locations that proved more dangerous than those from where they had come. Over it all was the oppressive feeling of dread, fear and incomprehension, coupled with a humorous stoicism, that is so well described by John Lukacs in his book “5 Days in London – May 1940”. I knew little of all this, having been born on Whit Monday, 13 May 1940. Friends tell me that, in view of what was said on that day, I was very lucky not to have been christened ‘Winston’.

B*GGER BOGNOR! Well – if you look at the portraits, he looks so upright and serious - sedate even - with that Edwardian style moustache and beard - like Elgar, Bernard Shaw, Conan Doyle...Yes, I know he's not Edwardian - of course not - but the hair is, isn't it? So what I'm saying is, he – George V, seems far too proper to have ever said, “Bugger Bognor” even in extremis. And if you do try to find proof or evidence, you can't. He stayed here quite a long time it's true - ill with something lingering - chest I think - but no, he didn't die here, and those are not his dying words. Sorry. But what of the place itself? Well, a wonderful long esplanade to walk by the sea – south-facing of course - and several grand-looking hotels. The Norfolk the grandest. The Norfolk in Sussex? The Earl of Norfolk owned a large estate here so you'll see the name often - pubs, road names and the like. There's a good little town behind The Front - independent shops as well as the inevitable chains. A market on Wednesdays, a pleasant arcade, some art shops and dress shops, and a fine old-fashioned haberdasher if that's your bag. And down the road of course there is Butlins! Bognor Butlins! What a visionary that man was! Give people neat terraced chalets with pleasant planting in front, a fun fair and some coffee shops and a huge dome full of bright flashing games and slot machines - and you have the recipe for inexpensive family fun. Before package hols to Alicante and Lanzarote and all points south...and still today in fact... And the future for this town of former glory and elegance and fame? More of the same I trust! Sunshine and sea breezes, sun hats and ice-creams! But take care, you Town Planners, with the power to enhance and retain or damage and destroy – please keep the character of Bognor true to its illustrious name – Regis after all means Royal and Regal, and The King gave it this accolade! Forget the B*ugger Bognor myth. It just ain't true! (Jane Mitchell)

OZ on LOREM IPSUM – During a pub lunch with friends, one of us noticed several lines of Latin painted in gold archaic script above the door. After spending some considerable time trying to translate the text from our failing memories, we asked the manager what it meant. “I dunno”, he shrugged, “we saw it somewhere and thought it would look good up there.” It was a risky course of action, we thought. Recently, I discovered the concept of ‘lorem ipsum’ and wondered whether the pub Latin was an example. The phrase comes from the publishing industry and describes a ‘filler text’, devised to demonstrate the appearance of the text in a document without the distraction of viewing anything meaningful. Filler texts have been in use since the 16th century, but the ‘lorem ipsum’ was developed in the 1960s by Letraset, and is now standard in computing. The text comes from the first few letters of a suitably scrambled section of Cicero’s 1st century BC work ‘De finibus bonorum et malorum’. In practice it might look like this: “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum”, and so on. Including that example of lorem ipsum has made it very easy for me this month to puff my story to the usual 300 words, but I don’t think that either the editor or you, dear readers, would be very happy if I were to make a habit of it.

OZ on THOMAS’S PRIVATE – This month, further to my January and March stories, I’d like to continue viewing the first year of the First World War through the eyes of the poet Edward Thomas. During the spring of 1915 Thomas completed nearly 50 poems while still agonizing over enlistment in the forces, especially since at that time, as a ‘mature, married man’, he was exempt. Eventually, Thomas settled the matter by joining the Artists’ Rifles in July 1915. Now, with military training under way, there was little time for poetry. However, in January 1915, Thomas had made sketches for a simple short poem on the death of a labouring man. The second draft read as follows:

The labouring man here lying slept out of doors

Many a frosty night, and merrily

Answered good drinkers and bedmen and all bores:

‘At Mrs. Greenland’s Hawthorn Bush’, said he,

‘I slept.’ None knew which bush. Above the town,

Beyond ‘The Drover’ a hundred spot the down.

This draft is untitled and makes no mention of the war. In August 1915, Thomas rewrote the poem and added another two lines, so that it became a war poem reflecting on the plight of young men, killed and buried in another country, and titled “A Private”. Here it is:

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors

Many a frozen night, and merrily

Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:

‘At Mrs. Greenland’s Hawthorn Bush’, said he,

‘I slept.’ None knew which bush. Above the town,

Beyond ‘The Drover’ a hundred spot the down

In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps

More sound in France – that, too, he secret keeps.

MITCH on GULLS – Waking with the dawn chorus the other day was a big surprise – new grandson Leo of the Red Hair is only week’s old but sleeps like a top! But if I tell you it was Brighton or thereabouts you’ll know I’m talking seagulls! Very loud! Very early! Now this island of ours has thousands of miles of sea coast and thousands of birds we love and cherish – indeed we take delight in recognising puffins and terns, guillemots and curlews. My own favourite is the oystercatcher – those delicate red legs, red beak and haunting cry. But the commonest gull, the herring gull – you know the one – yellow beak, grey wings, lots of white – is quite a thug. Not just scavenging chips and sandwiches on seafronts, but 99 Flakes snatched from kiddies’ hands – there are even photos of them swallowing small rodents whole, and warnings against leaving babies unwatched in their prams! Shades of the rats of Hamlin here! Apparently there’s been some evolving going on. In the old days gulls lived their days at sea and fished for their supper. Now they prefer a land-based lifestyle and a diet of chips and ice cream just like us! What’s to be done? A cull of the gull? Brighton, Blackpool and Bognor might sign up for that. But here the law intervenes. It is an offence to kill, maim or poison a gull, or prevent it nesting. Rarely, an individual licence-to-kill may be granted (damage to crops or livelihoods) but not often! So whereas they are protected from aggression by us, we are not protected from aggression by them! Conundrum! However, I for one would hate a seaside hol without their cries, wouldn’t you? It’s just one of those unsolvable riddles I guess. And at least if I’m woken early I’m ahead of the grannying game and ready for a day with young Leo. Jane Mitchell

OZ on LISTS – There’s a blustery wind, and yellow leaves are falling onto the road. Indoors, AGM agendas are falling onto the doormat. After a lazy August, autumn approaches, heralding a return to busyness necessitating an updated to-do list. Most of my friends now seem to need such lists, partly because of the hectic nature of retirement these days, and partly as a defence against failing memories. The nature and method of production of these lists varies wildly, from scribbles on scraps of paper to elaborate computer-generated charts detailing almost every hour of the day. When I was preparing our first New Zealand holiday, a friend warned me "Don’t overplan!" and told me of his neighbour, who had planned everything, down to when and where to drink coffee and buy papers. "What happened?" I asked, expecting a disaster story. "They did it!" came the solemn and shocked reply. My planning routine for holidays comprises a computerised list of things to remember, which is updated for each trip, with unused items kept ‘behind the screen’ for future reference. Another friend once remarked, "All you need is Pł - pills, passport, plastic" (To which one could nowadays add ‘phones’) For everyday use, my system is a bit more complicated. Upcoming events are recorded in my pocket diary, transferred to a paper year planner on the kitchen wall, and from there each month to an adjacent erasable monthly planner. From there I scribble the day’s activities onto a scrap of paper, which I keep in my trouser pocket with the small change and the keys. But then everyone’s list is different. Here’s a rather touching one, written by the singer Johnny Cash: "Not smoke/Kiss June/Not kiss anyone else/Cough/ Pee/Eat/Not eat too much/Worry/Go see Mama/Practice piano." It fetched $6,250 at auction in 2010.

OZ on THOMAS’S NOVEMBER – This month, I’m returning to my ongoing theme of viewing the first year of the First World War through the eyes of the poet Edward Thomas. After having enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles in July 1915, Thomas was posted in November 1915, as a map-reading instructor, to Hare Hall Camp, Romford, Essex. It had been a cold, wet autumn, with sunny interludes, rather like our current autumn, and on 1 November 1915 Thomas wrote in his notebook: “Sweet as last damsons on spangled tree when November starling imitates the swallow in sunny interval between rain and all is still and dripping.” Later he rewrote these words as part of the poem “There's Nothing Like the Sun”. In this poem Thomas describes how the sun is “Kind as it can be...To all things that it touches except snow,” and continues “November has begun, Yet never shone the sun as fair as now”, followed by four lines derived from Thomas’s note: “While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough/With spangles of the morning's storm drop down/Because the starling shakes it, whistling what/Once swallows sang.” Here the mood changes suddenly, from a lyrical celebration of autumn to a boisterous, almost jokey, statement that “...there is nothing, too, like March’s sun...”, or indeed any month’s sun, and concluding with the couplet “There's nothing like the sun that shines today./There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.” It’s a startling last line, typical of Thomas’s love of life and also an illustration of his profound humanism, having rejected organized religion at an early age in favour of fellow humanity and nature. “Almost as soon as I could babble” he once said, “I babbled of green fields.” By Christmas he had written another great poem, this time attacking anti-German hatred.

December

OZ on WESTMINSTER CHIMES – Here we are again, hot on the heels of Halloween and Guy Fawkes, heading inexorably into December and another Christmas. At the end of it all, in the last few seconds of the year, we’ll hear once more the chimes ringing in the New Year from the Elizabeth Tower at the Palace of Westminster. This tower, previously known as ‘St Stephen’s Tower’, or ‘Clock Tower’, is often referred to, along with the clock and chimes, as ‘Big Ben’, although strictly that is the name of the 13˝ ton Great Bell. The sequences played every quarter of an hour are called the Westminster Chimes, each sequence comprising one or two of four permutations of the notes B3, E4, F#4 and G#4, and one of E4, F#4, G#4, E4. The melody was originally called the Cambridge Quarters, and was composed in 1793 for the new clock at St Mary the Great, Cambridge University. There is some doubt over exactly who composed it. There is also an unsubstantiated, but plausible, belief that the four notes are based on the fifth bar of the orchestral introduction to “I know that my Redeemer liveth” from Handel’s Messiah, especially as the melody is shared with the bells of the Red Tower, in Halle, Handel’s home town. The clock and bells were installed in the new tower in 1859 during the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, the old building having been destroyed by fire in 1834. Since then, the chimes have become an important symbol in the UK, used by the media to announce and highlight events of national importance, from the daily news to elections and the Olympic Games. They are now used internationally, in security alarms, school bells and the like, a fitting tribute to those industrious Victorians.