Thursday, 29 February 2024

Dreams and Dreaming

“Dreams! The royal road to Integration” Fritz Perls. 
Dreams and Dreaming Part 1: If we live for sixty years, we will have been asleep for twenty as we spend a third of our life in sleep. During this sleep state, we dream for many hours, not just one dream per night! If we experience any kind of problem, we are often advised to ‘sleep on it’ as this is a recognized way of accessing wisdom that not available to us throughout the day.

The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Druids, Native Americans and almost every other culture have used dreams for gaining wisdom. Sigmund Freud said the examination of dreams is the “royal road” to self discovery.

Interesting dreams have been recorded throughout all time. Sir Christopher Wren dreamt that a woman gave him dates to eat and when he bought some the next day, it cured him of his crippling colic condition. As a child, Lady Seymour dreamt of nine finches in a nest. When she married the Earl of Winchelsea, whose name was Finch, she had nine children. Before the Coronation of King Edward VII, the Duke of Portland had a dream that the state coach was stuck under Coronation Arch. When measured, the coach was indeed too large. Otto Loewi dreamt he won the Nobel Prize before it was awarded to him. 

Biography Corner

 

I was unable to sleep as there were so many things on my mind last night. I had a dream of my former mother in law Asli Soleimani (Simonian). I was deep down somewhere; she came and held my hand and led me to some stairs up to a house that I cannot recognise, she is showing me all different rooms, my former husband arrives and then I wake up.
After talking about refugee's over recent days, it got me thinking of her life. Her family fled Armenia to Iran after the Genocide of 1915 and landed in a village in Iran. 

Sunday, 25 February 2024

Your Healer Video by Heather Kropf


This free YouTube meditation has been designed by Wendy Stokes to heal you physically, mentally and emotionally. The video is presented by US musician, Heather Kropf and is titled 'Your Healer': www.heatherkropf.com

Do not drive or operate machinery while meditating. Make sure you will not be interrupted for 20 minutes. Close your eyes. Take a couple of deep breaths and allow your breathing to return to normal. Relax and go within to your calmest internal place.... 


Saturday, 24 February 2024

Spiritual Renaissance

There is a spiritual renaissance taking place within our modern world! 

Covid has taught us many great lessons. We must care for other species. We cannot keep injured, unwell and neglected species near others, because infections develop in such animals and those infections spread to other species - and to humans. We must care for the health of the natural world as our own health depends upon it. Where there is pollution of soil, air and seas, our health is affected, causing cancers, dementia and autoimmune illness, etc. We must prevent climate change as entire countries will be seriously affected. Species that are older than humans are becoming extinct, and with dwindling numbers there are mutations in interbreeding and the web of life is becoming broken beyond repair. As humans increase in numbers and lives longer, they need more of the Earth’s resources. 

 If you are a believer in the Afterlife, you are not alone! Millions of people in the world today believe that when our physical body dies that our spirit survives eternally. Thousands of well documented death-bed visions are reported from people who have been resuscitated after clinical death and describe meetings with family and friends in the Afterlife. In the United States and the UK, many hospitals are teaching newly qualified doctors about the importance of spirituality. For instance, Dr Sam Parnia heads ‘Aware’, the world’s largest study into near death experiences. He has found that ten per cent of resuscitated patients report a spiritual experience with life changing consequences. Some scientists, such as the physicist, Klaus Heinemann, are convinced that strange, moving globules of light called spirit orbs (that appear frequently on digital photographs) are spirit entities. International scientists are debating quantum theories that include the possible recognition of spirit worlds.


Wednesday, 21 February 2024

The Girl who Loved Too Well - Folk Song

A butcher boy once courted me, he stole away my liberty. He stole my heart with free goodwill, but for all his faults I love him still. There is a Tavern in this town where my true love once sat me down. He takes another girl on his knee, he smiles at her and frowns at me. For don’t you know the reason why? It’s because she got more gold than I. But her gold will flitter and her beauty die, in time poor girl she’ll be as I. To the fields she sped, a mossy pillow for her head. She flung herself down, and no more she spoke, poor girl, she’s dead, and her heart was broke. Dig her a grave, long, wide and deep, place a stone at her head and feet. And in the middle, a turtledove to let the world know she died for love.

Sunday, 18 February 2024

Dance & Movement Therapy

Survivors of the Rwandan genocides gained less than nothing from Western trauma therapists. A tiny windowless tiny room reviving traumatic memories to a stranger isn’t the Rwandan’s way. It doesn’t heal their wounds. It pours salt on them. 

The Rwandans heal mental and emotional trauma by singing, dancing and drumming. Out in the sunlight with their friends and families. Dance, song and movement are proven methods of healing mental and emotional trauma. Since long before recorded history. 

Native American and other tribal healers have used dance as a healing art for thousands of years. Such as the Lakota Indian Sun Dance and the Arabic Sufi whirling dervishes. The Chinese use Tai Chi, a combo of dance and martial arts, in formal medical practice. 

 

Jerusalem - A History Part One


T
he Beginning! 
The earliest time in this locality is the place where shepherds buried their dead in caves around 5,000 years ago.  4,000 years ago, the land was known as Canaan and was ruled by Egypt. Perhaps its name derived from Urusalam, the Pagan God of the Evening Star. 

The sacred spring of Gihon points east, to the rising sun. It was the only source of water and had two monumental towers built to protect it. These are the most ancient masonry. The city grew and flourished but the spring was outside the city walls, so they built a massive tunnel, hewn out of the solid rock, to transport the water from the spring into the city. The tunnels were rediscovered by a young boy in 2009.

When Moses led his people through the desert, for 40 years he searched for a place to settle. It did not come easy, they had to fight for it and put others to the slaughter. The twelve tribes were divided into two, often at war, Israel to the North and Judah to the south, but David brought them together as Jerusalem became the capital of their combined lands.

Saturday, 17 February 2024

The Man Who Planted Trees

"Conservators have documented more than 60,000 different species of trees on the planet; of these more than 10,000 are under threat of extinction."
Some time ago, I read a novel titled ‘The Man Who Planted Trees’. Many years later it was made into an award winning not-for-profit film. The story begins when the narrator visits Provence in France during the early years of the twentieth century - a journey that led him into the foothills of the Alps. There, in a lonely and desolate place, a meeting takes place with a shepherd who is planting the acorns from the single oak tree that grows in the area. After the First World War, the war-weary narrator returns to this place and discovers a remarkable oak forest. The old man is in a home for the elderly but described his satisfaction and contentment that his contribution to posterity has a beneficial one.

Tuesday, 13 February 2024

The Power of Stories

From Hallowquest by Caitlin & John Matthews: 

“Britain, called Logres in early texts has an Otherworldly quality, just as  Tibet has Shambhalla, Greece has Hesperides and Britain has Avalon. These timeless realities are mystical repositories of ancestral lore. One could even say they exist in their own right, as we can create them at times when they are needed, perhaps when reality becomes too painful to endure. Daemons are inner guiding agencies, voices of our dreams, and our inner companion Spirit. Like the language of the birds, our daemon has a mysterious ability to remember that which we have never consciously known. It has the ability to pick out of the air the patterns and networks that shape our greater reality. Stories are powerful products of our unconscious mind, they have a variety of uses, including as a method to programme the mind.”

Monday, 12 February 2024

Conflict Resolution Tips

Some barriers to resolving disputes can be cultural, clashes in communication style, emotional defensiveness and frustrations, hidden agendas, lack of confidence, loss of focus, mismatched understanding, difference in vocabulary and terminology. 

Pointers: stay with what is, be factual. Conflict is a boundary issue requiring possible mediation, negotiation or arbitration. Initiate problem solving as a conversation. Gain agreement to follow a process. Be clear about all issues. How far can you and they stretch? What is your priority? Can you separate the relationship from the problem? Are you prepared to work together or part ways? Separate the person from the problem. Are they prepared to work with you or not? Can you give this a time scale? Can you negotiate an outcome to your acceptance? What is your ultimate objective? Identify the other person’s strengths and weaknesses. Identify your own. What is your new learning? What is their new learning? Keep a record. 

The Card of Love

Today, I have chosen the Ace of Hearts because we all need to experience the feeling of new love - love that is creative and inspiring! A love that is a muse, to love deities and a love that is on a new level, a deeper, richer and more vital love. And you need to give and receive unconditional love, that is love that is fully accepting, fully engaging, fully real and open, without criticism or judgment. If we want to receive love, we must be lovable; we must show we are worthy of long lasting, sincere and love that has sweetness and beauty, that is healing and motivating. A heady excitement can occur in an existing relationship providing there is a fresh response and a will to please. 

The Dream: A purple winged heart from a vase filled to the brim with the supreme magical power of love. Love takes form within the vessel and can be poured into the cupped hand of one that is open. Never a closed fist! in the centre of the winged heart is a smaller vibrant heart that is open and receptive. This heart nurtures and overflows with caring and happiness. Unconditional love is embedded within the soft velvet petals of a deliciously fragrant rose, as roses have always been a favourite of Cupid's messengers. The universal symbolism of the heart represents the human hearts role as a beating muscle that is vital to life. Like the beginning of a love affair, everything in this dream is enhanced by love's transcendant glow. 

Thursday, 8 February 2024

Waltham Abbey Church

In the time of the Danish King Canute, around the date of 1030, his standard bearer, Tovi, owned land in the area of Montacute (locally called Lutegaresberi) near Glastonbury which was a very prestigious monastery. A blacksmith on Tovi's land had a dream - a vision over several nights resulting in fingerprints left upon the arm of the smith by an Angel who showed a hill top where great treasure was buried. So, with prayer and fasting, an investigation was organised by the village priest. A delegation of dignitaries, in procession, singing litanies, dug to a depth of forty cubits where the dream suggested, and there a large black stone crucifix carved skilfully onto black flint was discovered. With it was a smaller one under the right arm, and a bell under the left arm. There was also a book of the gospels. The Lord of the Manor, Tovi was called and they were taken to the graveyard. The small cross was placed in the Montecute church. 

The other precious objects were placed on a wagon with twelve red oxen and twelve white ones. Holy sites were named by Tovi to the animals, such as Canterbury, Winchester, York, Glastonbury, Westminster, etc., but the oxen failed to make any movement forward. Only when Tovi called the name of Waltham was called did the cart move. Waltham was a tiny church and hunting lodge, on the Lea river owned by Tovi. The animals immediately started walking and continued until they arrived at Waltham when they abruptly halted. Along the route many were healed of illness. The crucifix was taken from the cart and erected at the tiny church which was named after the holy cross. 

Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Spiritual Power

The dawning of the Age of Aquarius filled many people with great enthusiasm and hope. The old patriarchal religions were seen as outmoded and having no answers to the problems of the modern world. During the latter part of the twentieth century, we heard from specialists in Eastern philosophies, Native American ways of knowledge, how to ‘be here now’, revelations from mystery and secret societies, sadly, all to no avail for true spiritual seekers! We have heard about and read ‘the Secret’, sought abundance, thought positive, fluffed up our self- confidence, felt the fear and done it anyway, we spent money we didn’t have due to the Law of Attraction, and where has all this lead us? I have spoken to many people who were convinced of New Age promises, but now they have lost their mortgages, their jobs are in danger, their pensions diminished, they are left peeved and disillusioned that they were misled.

Templars Story Two

The Setting: 

1095 Pope Urban preaches for the first Crusade. 1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem. 1128 the Order of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon was founded. 1180 Pope Alexander III condemns the Waldensians. 1187 Saladin captures Jerusalem. 1204 Third Crusade sacks Constantinople. 1305 The Papacy moves to Avignon. 

Siege Perilous: 

One can hardly imagine the privations of those who had entered the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon. After giving up their lands, their freedom and their family and friends, they took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to the Church and Pope -  a vow was a vow and they pledged their life to the most difficult of tasks for as long as they might live, by the grace of God! They ate little, prayed much, and were religious ascetics in all their behaviour. When not enduring extremely dangerous battles and sieges in heavy metal armour, they were facilitating sea crossings, avoiding piracy and shipwreck dangers, and travelling with baggage trains through arduous and perilous countryside with responsibility for often sick animals, and for unprepared pilgrims who I suggest might well have felt very disillusioned on reaching the destiny of their many months of immensely strenuous efforts. Pilgrimages were immense hardships but battles were even harder. The mortality rate was high as was the sickness, accident and disease rate. Any crimes were dealt with with brutality. They were thrown into a body of water? If they sank they were innocent. If they floated, they were guilty. Did they spit on a crucifix, one wonders! Their lives were of little importance. Their soul had an immense price. They lived each hour, maintaining the purity of the soul so when they died, which could be at any moment, their soul would be welcomed into heaven. Every deed was closely examined, the smallest omission of commission could mean hell fires for eternity. 

Monday, 5 February 2024

Templars Story Four

The story of Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert of Aurillac) who lived 940-1003 was the first Frenchman to be Pope in 999. His life story begins as a poor shepherd boy (like King David) in the rich Aquitaine in France, and he became the first Christian alchemist. He was born in Aurillac with its black Madonna and golden statue of Saint Gerard. The area of his birth was noted for its golden fleeces, as sheepskins left in the river Jordan attracted particles of gold and were transported across the pilgrim routes. The area had strong links with Compostela where he studied mathematics in the universities of Cordoba and Toledo under the Arabs. He introduced Arabic numbers to the west, and he invented the astrolabe, a hydraulic organ and a clock. Prior to being made Pope, he was Bishop of Rheims and Archbishop of Ravenna.  Most interestingly, he kept a head that talked! 

Helinand, a popular medieval author on the Grail, was greatly influenced by Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) who had been personally responsible for obtaining the Papal rule for the Knights Templar. There were deep connections between Bernard’s monastic order, the Cistercians, and the Nazoreans, who fought and died for Jerusalem in 70AD. The Cistercians wore white robes, as did theNazoreans, and so did the Knights Templar before adding the red cross. 

Prior to the formation of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, Jerusalem had been successfully taken in the First Crusade of 1096 - 1099. Later, the Templars along with other Crusader knights and their entourage, sang Salve Regina while, under Godfrey of Bouillon, they took Jerusalem. 

Templars - Story One

“I would rather die than be dishonoured” motto of Hughes de Payens. 

There was no higher calling that to be - not a knight - but a ”poor fellow soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon” the name of the Order, for whom these brave knights fought and died. 

This military Order was of a highly trained, mounted cavalry. The 'poor' part of their title involved  commitment not to be tempted by the great riches they handled on behalf of the Church as the earliest of international bankers. They answered and honoured the Pope, whom they were totally beholden to as their spiritual and practical leader, and they would no more steal from the Church than steal from one another.       

Most monks were pledged never to take life, even that of a Saracen, but this was a special force of warriors who fought for places within Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, Tortorsa, Tyre and especially Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the route through the desert to the river Jordan. They were hardy fighting men who provided safe passage for pilgrims through dangerous lands on perilous journeys to the sacred sites of Christendom, and they also pledged to get these pilgrims safely back home again! In 1118 three hundred pilgrims were murdered. As religious tourism was a lucrative source of revenue, pilgrims needed to be protected and looked after along the hazardous routes. If they contracted leprosy, which was endemic, they would transfer to the Order of the Knights of St Lazarus and continue to fight until they were incapacitated. King Baldwin IV was a leprosy victim. 

Sunday, 4 February 2024

Know Your Worth - A Story

Before he died, a father said to his son; “Here is a watch that your grandfather gave to me. It is almost 200 years old. Go to the jewelry store downtown and tell them that I want to sell it, and see how much they offer you." The son went to the jewelry story, came back to his father, and said; "They offered $150.00 because it's so old."
The father said; “OK! Now Go to the pawn shop." The son went to the pawn shop, came back to his father, and said; "The pawn shop offered $10.00 because it looks so worn."
The father then said to his son "Go to the museum and show them the watch". The son went to the museum, came back, and said to his father; “The curator offered $500,000.00 for this very rare piece to be included in their precious antique collections."

Saturday, 3 February 2024

Templars Story


The Templar Order was founded in 1119 after 300 pilgrims were killed the previous year at Madeley. It was a white robe with red cross mantle, a monastic order under Cistercian monastic rule with dedicated contemplation and prayer, and with additional responsibilities to protect religious tourism to holy sites, handle the pilgrims’ valuables, and fight for possession of the Holy Land, and to bring back relics for the new cathedrals! 
Templar monks were the elite fighting groups of the Crusades, that involved many fighting Orders of monks. Monks were the lowest ranks in the hierarchy of the Church. They were often lacking education, but were highly principled, ascetics who made money fir the. Hutch, but were allowed no personal wealth. 

On the long and arduous route, by land and sometimes sea, and whilst at their destinations, many pilgrims were in poor health, so caring for the disabled, their animals and often their own Templar band, was part of their many serious responsibilities. Israel, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, and cities such as Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and Tyre were in their sights. Jerusalem was the main destination, and source of revenue. King Baldwin I of Jerusalem was the Christian head of the city under an Egyptian authority who gave permission for pilgrimages. The Hospitallers, with white crosses on their black robes and under Benedictine monastic rule, were already established in the region on a site previously owned by the seventh century bishop of Alexandria, St John the Almsgiver. 

From the Champagne region of France, Hughes of Payens developed a small coterie of knights under oaths of poverty, chastity and obedience, and they were invited by King Baldwin II and were installed in a wing of the Kings Palace in the Temple area. In 1120 Fulk, the Count of Anjou, and future King of Jerusalem (and also the grandfather of King Henry II of England) stayed with the knights. In 1126, Hugh and Andrew of Montbard and a small number of others, travelled back to Champagne. This was an important visit. There they met with Count Thibault and Cistercian Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux.

Richard Wagner’s Parsifal

Knights are preparing a bath for King Amfortas who has an incurable wound. A mysterious woman, Kundry, brings medicine. She is a Messenger of the Grail. There is a prophecy that speaks of his healing by a caring fool. Gurnermanz is an old and wise knight who tells the story of the Grail, the cup that Jesus drank from and changed the wine into his blood at the Last Supper and the spear that pierced his body on the cross, and that these most precious relics were given to Titurel, who was Amfortas’s father whose knights guarded the relics. 

Klingsor was denied entry into the brotherhood and sought revenge by creating a magic garden full of alluring maidens who desired to entrap the knights. Amfortas intended to defeat him but was seduced by a woman who stabbed him with the spear. Suddenly a swan plunges to the ground, killed by an arrow. A young man enters the story who might be involved with the prophecy but he understands nothing. 

Lemanja from Moonology Diary

 


Lemanja is Goddess of the month of February. She is goddess of the seas and oceans, and of women, and is often associated with the moon and its cycles. She is your moon goddess as across Brazil, Cuba, Uruguay, and Africa, she is lovingly worshipped and celebrated. Ancient myths  associate her with everything to do with the Divine feminine, the cycles, fertility, mothering, birthing, creating life, sensuality, and she fiercely protects everything around the mysteries of womanhood.

It is said that when Lemanja’s waters broke in childbirth and dashed from within her, the seas, lakes and streams were created. She birthed humans from her womb and she is the creator, giver, and protector of life. She is depicted as a beautiful mermaid with cowrie shells, swimming in the depths of the ocean, and holding the sparkle of moonlight within her hands, she sends this to support you this month to birth your projects into reality.

Her mantra is, “I am learning that as I connect to my Divine feminine, my project and creativity flow, effortlessly from deep within me. I am the divine creator of my story.”

Her symbols are cowrie shells, signifying her wealth and her close connection to the sea. Her totem is the white rose of purity and beauty Her exercises are all things associated with water. Her sense of peace and tranquility can be gained by using lavender, clary sage, and chamomile. 

Friday, 2 February 2024

Q : Were Templars Heretics?

Last words of Jacques de Molay: “I confess that I am indeed guilty of the greatest infamy. But the infamy is that I lied. I lied by admitting to disgusting charges laid against my Order. I declare that the Order is innocent. Its purity and saintliness have never been defiled. In truth, I have testified otherwise, but I did so from fear of horrible tortures.”

Adam of Murimouth and Christian Spinoza vouched for the Templars’ innocence. 

Baptised and confirmed Catholics, the Templars took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and accepted further rules of restriction and aceticism not required of other monks. They honoured the Cistercian monastic rule from their founder St Bernard (which can be found online). They were monks and not priests, so therefore they had no initiation beyond what the ordinary person had. When they joined the Order, they gave up their ancestral lands, often placing female relatives in convents. Templars, like all monks, attended mass - a public event - and there they recited The Apostles Creed (which can be found online), so we know what this man of integrity believed without doubt. They heard the old and new Testaments readings and exegesis, they gave public confessions where they would be humiliated for the least personal sins, and they received holy communion, wine and unleavened bread, celebrated in remembrance of the last supper before Jesus was betrayed, judged, tortured and crucified. They kept the canonical hours with prayer 8 times throughout day and night. 

If Tomorrow Starts Without Me - A Poem

If Tomorrow Starts Without Me by David Romero

When tomorrow starts without me,
And I'm not there to see,
If the sun should rise and find your eyes
all filled with tears for me,
I wish so much you wouldn't cry
The way you did today,
While thinking of the many things,
We didn't get to say.
I know how much you love me,
As much as I love you,
and each time that you think of me,
I know you'll miss me too.

Thursday, 1 February 2024

St Mary's Abbey, Mill Hill - A Ghost Tale

Abbey Ghosts And Other Monsters 

I went to St Mary's Abbey Convent Grammar School on The Ridgeway in Mill Hill, London NW7 between 1970 and 1975. For most of my scholastic life I was a day girl. But I noticed that the weekly boarders and term boarders liked to preserve an air of mystery of what happened in the school after most of us had gone home. Whispers were heard about ghostly soundings and other manifestations. Since parts of the school buildings, like The Red Passage, formerly part of the old mill house, that had given the village its name, were over 300 years old, whilst Holcombe House next door was an Adams house dating from the 18th century, there was certainly scope for ghostly activity. The majority of the school buildings, including the lovely neo-Gothic chapel had been built in the 1860s. In the chapel, behind the curtained shrine lay a saint's relic, the body of a teenage Christian British girl, who had been tortured and martyred for her faith by the Romans in the second century. To most of the girls, she was a hidden figure, but even as an 11-year old first former I was tall enough to see her pale effigy just poking above the green curtained screen. This only increased the potential for ghosts and added to the school's pervading air of mystery which both struck me with awe and a fascinated curiosity. 

Apart from that the school complex was a warren of dark passages and staircases disappearing in all directions and leading to a plethora of tiny rooms above the stone gate house and in other wings. The huge ogive arched entrance made us feel like we were entering a castle courtyard with former stable block on the left and an almost secretive postern gate to the park next door. The fact that many of these rooms were out of bounds to most of the girls only increased my curiosity. Furthermore, the beautiful school grounds which contained such exotic trees as Cedars of Lebanon and giant Red Woods, dropped dramatically down the hill to St Lawrence St and amongst its wild woods were not only our two netball/tennis courts but ruined chapels and the grave yard of the good sisters, which was definitely out of bounds to the girls. I loved every red brick and cream stone lintel of this school, with its streaky bacon style which made it a smaller twin of Hampton Court. It also was formed in a cloister style with court yards and neat gardens containing great Yew hedges that seemed to have grown there since pagan times and hid two half-timbered wonky 17th century cottages, blackened with age and minimal maintenance. They could have passed for the witch's forest gingerbread house in Grimm's story of Hansel and Gretel. 

All that was needed were some gingerbreads stuck to the walls. In one of these cottages, hard by the entrance to the neo-gothic convent complex, with its armorial device showing strong arms barring entrance to any man, lived the most ancient and crusty caretaker any school could wish for with his 'hounds of the Baskervilles' at his side. He was so hostile to the girls, that he would have made the caretaker in the Harry Potter films look like Mr Congeniality. He even argued with the strictest Irish Sister in the school, of whom we all walked in dread - Sister Margaret Theresa, tiny but fiery as Hell. He called her 'Little Hitler'. I suspect that one of the reasons he disliked the girls so much, apart from having to keep his distance, was because we kept trying to make friends with his Baskerville hounds, with treats like biscuits and back rubs. I was the chief sinner in this regard and whenever the dogs and we girls were loose in the park I'd try my temptations and usually suborned the dogs to docile pets wanting their ears rubbed. When he called them to heel, they were loath to go and went with a whimper of regret. 

After several such temptations, 'Mr Crusty' drew me aside and with a crooked smile revealing fangs as yellow as his hounds', with which he tried in vain to allay my rising feelings of alarm, he said "I can tell that you love dogs, which is a wonderful character trait. But I have to tell you that I am training these Alsations to be fierce guard dogs. By being kind and soppy with them you make them weak. They have to be ready to bite and maul any intruder, especially in the school, or wherever they wind up guarding. Now I'm telling you, as kindly as I know how, stop trying to make friends with my dogs. It just destroys their training and it could be dangerous if one of them were to bite you! Then the poor dog would have to be destroyed!" I gulped! "If I find you or any other girl paying my dogs any attention, I'll have to tell Sr Campion and worse, I'll have to stop using this park for the dogs' exercise. So tell your friends what I have said! he concluded as he marched smartly away. For all his ancient looks, he was very fit. Sr Campion was our kindly old head mistress. Had he said he'd tell Sr Margaret Theresa, that really would have worried me. So I spread the word and we stopped trying to befriend the poor dogs. 

Time passed in a whirl of new learning, friends, exams, and drama activities. It seems that before I knew it, I was already a third former. Third formers were in a strange position, leaving childhood behind and on the cusp of becoming 'young ladies'. We were allowed extra privileges like choosing between wearing knee high grey woollen socks or far more grown up flesh toned tights. I hated the pesky things, always going into ladders and holes. Here was the irony of my character, though the tallest and most well-built girl in my class, I was determined to remain a 'child' for as long as I possibly could. Kids had more fun. Grown ups had to conform to more rules. Their lives had less mystery and magic. They had to curb their enthusiasm and be lady-like. The virtue and renown of our school rested not on academic achievement but on turning out well mannered, well bred young ladies aged 16. So to keep my childhood trappings one year longer, I had plumbed for extra long grey football socks that just about reached the knees of my long legs. In summer, I wore white ankle socks, which was part of the uniform. I also avoided wearing a blazer as an indoor jacket and never tried to shorten my skirt to a tiny mini at home-time as many of the other girls did to catch the eye of the boys at Mill Hill public school. My skirt was always the full pleated variety reaching to well below my knees, since Alleluja, the Midi was in fashion. 

At that age, I had 0 interest in boys and viewed them with a healthy suspicion, which delayed many errors until my 20s, by which time I was living independently in Vienna, in Austria. Most of my maternal family were born in Germany, or Poland and some had scattered to Italy on the eve of WWII. Uncle Mor, my Mum's favourite uncle died in 1973 and despite it being spring term my parents were determined to go to his funeral in Milan. This meant, I had to join the boarders for three weeks. I was not sorry to have to stay behind. We were about to hold a drama festival. My challenge, to write a script with a part for every girl in the class, 17. Those that did not want to speak had to bark like a dog off stage or were in crowd scenes. I chose the famous Sherlock Holmes story "The Speckled Band" a murder mystery in locked room, wonderful! For hours at night and into the wee hours, I joined the seniors cramming for exams, writing my script. This also allowed me to infiltrate the boarders inner circle and get the info on all the ghostly apparitions at the school. I think the seniors enjoyed my wide eyed expression as they regaled me every night with another school ghost story. 

There was the mystery pianist in one of the secret rooms that had a piano. Not even the dormitory sisters could solve that one. It delighted me when we held a midnight feast in that very room but no pale shade of a pianist appeared to provide musical entertainment. Then there was the story about the girl who had died at school about seven years before. She had died of an epileptic fit. Her patents lived abroad. We had many girls from overseas homes. The shameful part was that in order to prevent the other boarders being spooked by a corpse of a child in the school, they were all taken on a long ramble on the Sunday afternoon, whilst the undertakers removed the poor girl's body with unseemly haste. Compare this to the 'lying-in-state' of the old nuns when they died and their bodies were kept in an open coffin in the chapel for three days to allow mourners to pay their last respects. Then they were buried with great ceremony in the convent grave yard at the bottom of the hill. Even the weather came out in sympathy providing snaking mists that followed the funeral procession down the school path through the wild woods to the grave yard. We school girls, though expected to attend the funeral mass and join the procession, were turned off before it entered the wild wood. Hammer Horror films would have paid good money to film those scenes with the chapel bell tolling mournfully for the dead. So this poor girl's ghost had been seen in the chapel, in the evenings where her grieving father had had a stained glass window installed in her memory.

 Last but not least, was the terribly sad haunting of Holcombe House, which had been commissioned by a lord mayor of London in the 1780s and built by the Adams brothers in white neo-classical style with pillared portico and a fan light above the front door. It was a comfortable three storey doubled fronted gentleman's residence at the end if a circular drive. The old low 17th century mill house had been kept to provide kitchens. When ever I had had occasion to enter Holcombe House I had noticed how the wrought iron in the stairs sometimes vibrated and there was often a feeling of just having missed a giggling little girl who was hiding upstairs. I asked Sr Bonaventure, a nun so old that she still wore the great box shaped black and white whimple over her grey Franciscan habit, which had been standard headwear for nuns from the start of the century to the 1970s When I asked if someone was staying with a child on the upper floors, for sometimes there were 'parlour boarders' who stayed there, she would smile and say no children had been allowed above the ground floor of Holcombe House since the 1800s. 

From the seniors, I discovered why. The former lord mayor of London had been a recusant, a secret Roman Catholic, back in the century when anyone of that faith was barred from holding public office. I can see why he had kept his faith secret. In old age, he and his much younger wife been blessed with a young daughter, whom he cherished even more because of his advanced age. The little girl was lively but at the age of seven she caught typhoid fever and had been quarantined in her nursery on the top floor. Only her nanny was allowed to take care of her. At some point, her nanny had left her alone to get something such as a warm drink. The little girl, delirious from fever, had risen, left the room and walked to the wrought iron balustrade of the circular stair case that rose through the centre of the house and fallen over it, crashing to her death on the granite floor three stories below. The seniors had also seen the vibrating wrought iron of the winding staircase and had also experienced that feeling of just having missed a giggling little girl who was hiding somewhere. None of these ghosts ever filled one with dread. But I did! The rules governing boarders' access to portable radios were very strict, restricting access to your own personal radio to just a few hours on Saturday afternoons. 

The rest of the time they were kept locked up on a store room. They had to be checked out with special radio passes, for which you had to apply by Friday afternoon. You could pick them up from 2 pm on Saturday but had to return them by 5 pm on Saturday too. So no chance to even listen to the latest changes in the pop music charts, which were broadcast on Sunday afternoons/evening. Not that boarders even had time to listen to any radio programmes because Sunday, late afternoon was spent in the chapel at benediction, then tea and study prep until supper. Access to your personal radio was deemed a privilege and not a right. Any transgressions could see such privileges limited for anywhere between a week end to a term. To say that is was galling was the understatement of the year. Boarders were even more angry if day girls brought in the tiny transistor radios, which were totally banned on the school premises and anyone found with one faced total confiscation. The good sisters stipulated the size of permissable radios used by the boarders. Tiny trannies that could be hidden in pockets were banned. So even knowing these rules, I still brought in my portable radio, willing to resign it to the store room.

 I don't know if my sensible dress sense, wearing my hair tied back from my face, sticking to regulation flat shoes and regulation skirt lengths made me popular with the sisters as a sensible and dependable girl but when I asked the sister in front of the dormitory what the rules were she laughed and in her Irish brogue said that there were hundreds of them but I shouldn't worry about them because I would only be there for three weeks, whilst my parents were travelling. So I kept quiet about my portable radio. Our dormitories were not open spaces with lines of narrow iron beds with rusty squeaky springs. They had been divided into tiny wooden cubicles, painted pale green, consisting of a double wardrobe with drawers and shelves and a dressing table with mirror on one side, a tiny bedside table next to the single iron bed which covered the opposite wall of the cubicle. The wooden walls did not run the full height up to the 4 m high ceilings and they were curtained off from a central corridor, so the privacy provided was visual and not aural. You could still hear your dorm mates snoring and even whispering. 

Apparently, I was a great snorer! My script finished, and with rehearsals in full swing, I was no longer haunting the banks of toilets with long corridors to the 'thrones' where the seniors were still burning the midnight oil seated on their pillows cramming for exams. Lights Out were always at 10 pm but often I was not sleepy at this time. So one evening, I got my radio out and with the volume just above silent and buried under my bed covers I turned on the Radio One programme, "Sounds Of The 70s". They often played weird music. That evening, it was weird electric guitar music. Boarders have hearing like bats. After a couple of minutes, comments were coming in hushed staccato whispers. "What's that?" "What?" I listened and started playing with the volume button causing more panic and smothering my giggles. "Mary, are you playing your guitar?" "Certainly not!" Came Mary's indignant reply. "There it is again." "Mary. Please check it?" I joined the conversation. "What, you don't believe in ghosts do you?" I stated in a flat voice pretending a matter of fact nonchalance. "You don't know what goes on here!" Came the quivering voice of another girl "Well tell me then?" I demanded "Don't!" Came another order. "She's not one of us!" "Yes. You are only here for a short while!" Came another dismissive comment. This lot were really cliquey, so I was enjoying myself making scaring them. That piece of music had ended but was followed by an even weirder tune. Volume up, down, silence. "There it is again!" "Mary, please check your guitar?" Another voice pleaded. "What d'you expect to find? "Little green men playing 'Little Green Apples' on Mary's guitar?" I scoffed. "No way!" Said Mary. "My guitar is an acoustic not an electric guitar. Those sounds are coming from an electric guitar." "Could it be coming from the music room, again?" Came another fearful question. I repeated the operation, sudden flash of volume, trailing off and then silence. "Oh my God! Did you hear that?" "So what's the story about the music room?" I asked Then they told me about the phantom pianist. The music room was one of those myriad tiny rooms at the end of a dark corridor. "Oh you mean the tiny room next to the infirmary?" I asked. "Bet some girls died in there over the years! Maybe one of them could play the piano!" I said in my best Boris Karloff voice! I was having a whale of a time. "Stop it!" Came the protest whispered in horror. "This is serious!" Even the dormitory sister who sleeps on that floor said she had heard it. When she checked the room it was empty and the piano music had only stopped just as she got to the door." Came the spookily interesting comment. "So if the music room is haunted? Why did we have our very nice midnight feast there, last week?" I asked 'incredulously'. "A little piano music would have been great!" I added barely suppressing the giggle in my throat. "What's all this noise?" Came Sr Margaret Theresa's angry voice. "Do you know, it's nearly midnight?" "The witching hour approaches!" I whispered in my sepulchral voice. Having already safely stowed the radio in my case, under my bed. "Suzy O'Shea! Is that you? Stop leading them on!" Sr Margaret Theresa commanded. Emboldened by her presence some of the boarders had left their cubicles and proceeded to tell her about the weird spooky guitar sounds they had heard. "Did you all hear these sounds?" Sr Margaret Theresa asked "Yes!" Came the chorus "Where was it coming from?" "We don't know!" Came the chorus more frantically I kept silent. 'I meant" she said with exaggerated patience "Did it come from this end of the dormitory or that end?" "The sounds were very brief." Said Philippa Nichols, a girl who had always treated me with a venomous spite. "So we didn't hear them long enough to judge where they were coming from." "Right! Everyone get up and stand by your beds!" Sr Margaret Theresa ordered as she swept aside the curtain to every cubicle. "Now! Open your wardrobe doors!" She then searched every wardrobe, looking for a radio, I guessed. Before she came to my cubicle, I had kicked a cover under the bed trying to hide my small case. Like everyone else I had my large case on top of the wardrobe. I was starting to worry, but I acted innocently, complying with all her commands. Having found no radio in the wardrobes, she then told us to take down and open our suitcases. Still no radio was found. "Right! As I come to every cubicle you will open the three drawers of your dressing tables. She searched diligently. The witching hour had passed and we were heading to 1 am. The boarders were starting to try and stifle yawns. 

The mystery of the excitement of another musical ghost had turned to tedium. Even I was starting to regret my practical joke. But, it was too late to confess and hope for a lesser punishment. I steadied my breathing as Sr Margaret Theresa came finally to my cell or cubicle and searched my drawers. Then she noticed the cover under my bed. "Suzy O'Shea. You are so untidy. Get that cover off the floor now!" I complied with speed mumbling an apology that it must have fallen there in the excitement. Sr Margaret Theresa fixed me with a beady eye. I was nearly 6 inches taller than her by now, but she still filled me with awe. "See me in the morning for your punishment about being so untidy!" She said with an air of finality that brooked no opposition. If that was all she would punish me for, I had just had a lucky escape. "Now! Back to bed and no more talking! And don't close your cubicle curtains." Then lamp in hand, she marched away turning out the bright dormitory lights as she left. Silently and sleepily we returned to bed. The next morning, I waited outside the staff room for Sr Margaret Theresa. She appeared "Come with me!" We went to another of the myriad tiny rooms at the end of a dark corridor, that the good sister used as her study. "I know that the musical 'ghost' of last night came from a radio. Now all the boarders know the rules about where and when they can use their radios but you don't." She waited. I said "Yes, Sister Margaret Theresa" giving nothing away "Do you have a radio with you?" She asked searchingly. I couldn't get caught in lie to her and said "Yes, Sister Margaret Theresa." "Were you listening to it last night?" "No, because I kept it in my desk in class." I had taken it there early that morning. "My friends and I take it to the park at lunchtime to listen to the music charts." This was still breaking the rules but not as badly as the furore my practical joke had caused the night before. "Well. 

It's a mystery then. Easter holidays start in a week. Don't use your radio outside or get caught with it in the dormitory. And if this musical 'ghost' appears again, you'll feel the might of my wrath" she declared without a hint of irony as she looked up at me. "Yes, Sister Margaret Theresa." I acquiesced quietly. "For your punishment for being untidy, you will spend this lunch break picking up waste paper from the stretch of the Ridgeway from the Tuck shop to the school. Fetch gloves and a rubbish bag from the caretaker." She concluded. "Yes, Sister Margaret Theresa." "You can go now." She concluded. Once outside her study. I breathed a sigh of relief. I had got off lightly. What was a lost lunch hour compared to a lost radio. The practical joke alone had been worth it. My play, 'The Speckled Band' was a total success with yours truly playing Sherlock Holmes and directing the play. Sr Campion, our head mistress, presented our class, 3 Alpha, with the first prize. I was sent up to fetch the cup for the class. "So you wrote the script all by yourself?" She queried. "Well done!" I nodded beaming "I hadn't expected the line 'We're waiting for a sign!' To have such dramatic results." The painted prop of the house, pinned to a couple of long benches stood on end was suddenly ripped apart as the benches crashed to the floor, leaving happless Susan exposed and waving a torch. After the laughter that had followed the initial shock died down, I had suddenly been inspired to ad lib. "The sign! Are we in 'The Fall of The House of Usher' or 'The Speckled Band'?" Even greater laughter, especially from the teachers, allowed us to stalk across the stage and disappear before the next scene change. "Very well quipped and saved!" Sr Campion had laughed. Sr Margaret Theresa came up to me laughing and shook my hand. "I see you have added a useful poltergeist to the phantom guitar player amongst your ‘friends’. As for the acting! I know you are a natural! It would be a loss to the stage if you didn’t pursue it professionally. She smiled really warmly before passing on. The idea of starving in a garret whilst making your name never did appeal to me.

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