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[thepauperphilosopher]

MICHAEL

My friend died yesterday. It was sudden and unexpected and a big nasty shock. He was seventy and when I last saw him a year ago he was in really good shape, both physically and in himself and there was not the slightest hint that he would find himself very suddenly in hospital with just days left of his lovely, really lovely life. Michael, Mike, Bicky Byron/Bracken was one of a very small number of people that everybody loves and nobody dislikes. Yes, he was one of those ‘Special People’ whom the Gods showered with stardust. He was a born entertainer and a fine minstrel and he was great to know.

We met in 1966 at a country grammar school and we quickly saw that we had three things in common: music, football and a dogged determination to not conform. In the time we spent at school we became quite close and we encouraged and educated each other in those three arts. We were soon joined by Steve and Crumpy and together we established ourselves as the naughtiest boys in the school, aided and abetted by the naughtiest girls in the school (Mal, Carol, Pam, that’s an endearment!) Were we bad? Probably, but I don’t think there was malice in us. Certainly not in Mike. My overriding image of him is of that cheeky, confidential grin and chuckle.

Though I lived a few miles away in a neighbouring town we hung out together as much as we could. There were plenty of buses back then. We would play records and talk about the music. It was the heyday of the Blues. White kids took on the soul of black music and made it their own. The ‘Stones, John Mayall and the Animals really kicked it off but when Cream became the first Supergroup and Clapton was God and then Jimi Hendrix came along it was a truly golden time. Me and my mate Mike lapped it up, listening and analysing it endlessly. Mike was really into Rory Gallagher and that Irish influence that was so important throughout his life. He taught himself to play guitar. I didn’t have the patience and just listened.

Equal first love was football. Back then Mike supported Wolves, though later he switched to Manchester United. I was always Spurs; but more importantly we followed our local team Swindon Town and they were enjoying a few years of success. They had good players and the atmosphere was magical at times. We went to all the home matches and sometimes the away games as well. Neither of us had any money so Mike would often hitch-hike. I usually prevailed on parents to get the coach or train. One particular match at Walsall sticks in the memory for being pelted with rocks and lumps of tar by the home fans all the way back to the station. Such was life.

Then in 1969 a wonderful supernova exploded for us as ‘The Town’ defied the odds against Arsenal and won the League Cup. Of course we were there. Of course we were ecstatic. Then Mike did something that shook a few trees. That night he and his mate Dennis went up to the school and wrought a bit of havoc. They daubed SWINDON on the outside wall of the music room in white gloss paint, the letters so large they were visible from the downs a couple of miles away. They threw benches into the swimming pool and glued all the locks. I was blissfully unaware of this until I turned up for school on the Monday morning, expecting to have a wild but brief celebration with Mike and the others.

Things turned out a little differently. When I turned up it was quickly apparent that the staff were blaming me. I was of course indignant, but what was worse was there was no Mike! No Steve or Crumpy either. Where was Mike? Then I realised that because his parents had gone to Ireland for a month and left him and younger brother Des the run of the house, why would he come to school especially after a late night? Anyway, in his absence things got out of hand; I had a fight with our form master (I lost) and said things I really shouldn’t have said. So while my best buddy was chillaxing at home, I was getting expelled. Unfair? Well perhaps. But a broader truth is that if I had still been living in Calne I have no doubt that I would have been eagerly complicit. The Gods always smiled on Michael Byron and he possessed an aura of cool that was utterly engaging. He was pretty much unblameable.

Mike and I chewed the fat over that one many times and though we saw less of each other after leaving school we connected again four years later when I found myself back in Calne. We both had dead end jobs, we shared beers and spliffs and he came round one day with a brand new album he wanted me to listen to. It was The Wailers’ ‘Catch A Fire’ and the first I heard of Bob Marley. Instant love. I bought the album days later. I wish I knew who had it now.

Our lives diverged in later years. He became Michael Bracken, the soulful Irish minstrel and settled in Greater Manchester. I eventually became a teacher. Unlikely, I know, but there we are. We were out of contact until through the internet and Friends Reunited a goodly crew of ‘Old Bentleans’ met in Calne in 2002. I went to see Mike perform at an Irish evening in Swindon and was very impressed. He even sang 'Fairytale of New York' on my behalf (he said he rarely sang it on Irish nights)' It was good to restore those old connections and Mike and I were instantly back in the groove. Somehow we always just understood each other.

More recently we met for what turned out to be the last time at Lyn and Mark’s reunion day up in Shropshire. He was just the same. So utterly Mike Byron. He entertained us. We had good conversation. The same cheeky, boyish smile yet burnished with maturity and wisdom. I will miss him very much, as we all will.

[thepauperphilosopher]

Mother and Child Reunion

(As in ‘Alma Mater’, which is Latin for ‘Nourishing Mother’)

OK so school was a very long time ago. Well that’s the point, at least for those of us on the downward slope of life. And there is an irony in the ‘nourishing’ bit for some of us; especially those that found school an unattractive place to be or, like myself, who were (shall we say) ejected before our time officially ended. Nonetheless school is a big deal for all of us, both for better and for worse. As emerging individuals our schooling makes us, breaks us, shapes us, forms us, informs us, misinforms us, frustrates us and dates us.

What is so interesting is to measure how much we have all changed as the decades have rolled by. Or not. I mean obviously we all go through many changes in our lives, but there does seem to be a kernel of personality in each of us that we may recognise even after fifty or sixty years. 

Or is that really true? I pose the question because Buddhism and neuroscience both suggest that there is no such thing as a core of ‘Self’ that is either lifelong or eternal. The idea is that all we really know are the thoughts and sensations that we experience in any given moment and that there is no substantial self; that our adherence to the concept of a unique ‘me’ is really an illusion. Is that heresy or deep wisdom? How does memory fit into that? I haven’t explored this in enough depth to offer a firm opinion and to be honest the deeper I try to go into it the more it does my head in, but either way the question is a source of very creative doubt. Do we ‘have’ a soul? Are we a ‘thetan’? Are we simply material girls and boys? Have we lived many times before? Are we born again in ethereal bliss or damned to perdition? Is this present reality our eternity? Answers on a postcard please…But what I love about philosophy, and indeed history, is that so many admirable people offer so many different answers to these questions (I tend to disregard the not so admirable ones) and mostly with great certainty. We are truly a fascinating species, but as for ‘truth’, well perhaps Forrest Gump’s mother was right all along and life really is like a giant box of chocolates.

But I digress (I know, I know)…I’ve had the pleasure of going to two reunions, twenty years apart. Both really enjoyable and instructive. And of the many old school compatriots I have met I think I knew every one, mostly with instant recognition. Physically, almost everyone looked the same but older. But more importantly I felt the essence of the youngsters I remember, except that pretty much everyone had mellowed and softened in a really nice way. Perhaps we get to a stage in life where we lose much of our angst and perhaps that old school competitiveness too. That’s a nice thought. But it does suggest that the common sense view is right in any case and there is indeed an essence or core of ourselves that endures. Assuming that’s correct, what does it consist of and was Buddha wrong? And are the neuroscientists chasing ghosts? Or is it we that chase them in any case?

Come to think of it, what exactly is a thought? Descartes famously declared “I think, therefore I am” but he didn’t define ‘think’; and I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a satisfactory definition of ‘thought’. It’s not enough to say well, it’s the synapses in the brain making connections that are somehow meaningful to us, because that doesn’t really explain how that creates all those pictures in our mind’s eye – or how those images and feelings are stored in order for us to look back, let alone look forward. I think (there we go again) that the human imagination is the most powerful tool in the known universe. So powerful that we have collectively reshaped an entire world, for better and for worse, yet we can’t accurately describe how it happens. (Enough already…ed.)

So another thing that strikes me about the reunion thing comes from a conversation recently, where two people from two different schools had been to a reunion but found it pretty limited as they didn’t know many of the people there. The surprise for me was that they both said they only knew those that were in their class. They hadn’t known the others in their year or any of the other years. They both went to Grammar schools of similar size to my own (about 600 pupils) and that really surprised me. I certainly knew everyone in my year and most of the rest of the school too. My own reunion(s) confirmed that we all knew and remembered each other pretty well regardless of specific class. I always felt at my school that much as I resented and rebelled against authority and the ‘system’, “the kids were alright”. It was pretty sociable. It still is, for those of us still in touch and I find that rather comforting.  

[thepauperphilosopher]

Letters to my nephews, my nieces and anyone else that may be interested…

History

The really important question throughout my life (other than the little matter of other people) has always been ‘How did we get to be the way we are?’ History, in other words The personal version of that is straightforward i.e. I was born and raised here and there; grew up in this and that; made my stumbling way in the world and did this and that; and also of course did not do this and that. But I am interested in the world at large; and the world at large offers a great deal of this and that.

The human race/experiment/tragedy/comedy – in a word, History, bursts from every thought and deed. It is – in a sense rarely, if ever acknowledged – everything human. All that we do, think, feel – all that we are – is history. It is our collective story and all that we are in all our lives is part of that story; and it evolves and unfolds in all that we are today – not just yesterday – and for as long as this human thing should last.

But there is too much, isn’t there? Too much to process, so we subdivide and categorise in order to understand, and rank and judge. That is history as we are taught. History that we can handle. History with a capital H. History as a discipline. History as a subject. But I think we can stretch this a bit. From my point of view physics and chemistry and literature are in a particular sense History too. Architecture and theatre are History. Philosophy and religion are History. So I am equating history with the human condition. No history, no human.

Our story is not just in the past. Instead of thinking of time in simple linear terms, let’s look at it laterally. When we analyse the past we bring the present to it. When we analyse what we think of as the present, we bring the past to it. So past and present interact in an ever changing kaleidoscope of perceptions. This is why we can think of ‘the past’ as something material and solid but ‘History’ as conscious, mutable and evolutionary. When I was a younger man Karl Marx was big noise. Who cares much now? When I was a young boy the British Empire was a fine thing; it’s a little different now. Churchill was hero, villain, hero, villain, hero, saint. As for Jesus, well…how many different versions can we count? But the thing that connects all of it is that each of the Histories that we accept as valid is a reflection of ourselves. This is perhaps what gives History such edgy power. It is both truth and lies. It is at the heart of our identity, for better and for worse. It feeds us, modifies us and offers us (if we are open to it) the satisfactions of perspective. But we have to be open. It is equally possible to use History as a suit of armour or as a weapon. Too many people do just that.

The African-American writer James Baldwin put it this way,

"History, as nearly no-one seems to know, is not something merely to be read. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. It could scarcely be otherwise since it is to history we that we owe our frames of reference, identities, and our aspirations."

I can only dream of ever being so eloquent.