Ian's Blog: January 2023

Monday 30 January 2023

Kangaroo

The story is told, and it’s probably an amusing myth, that in 1770, whilst out exploring Australia with Sir Joseph Banks, James Cook of HMS Endeavour fame, saw a big furry animal with a pouch, jumping on its hind legs and asked the local guide its name. Kangaroo, came back the cry and that’s what us Westerners have been calling them ever since. Yet, it was subsequently found out that Kangaroo was simply the local way for saying I don’t understand what you are saying. So rather than answering James Cook’s question, way back in 1770, the local guide was simply saying I don’t understand your question.

Kangaroo – it’s a name that sort of fits, even if it did come about in a very strange way.

Last Friday The Times published the current ten words people are finding it most difficult to say. A fair number are either the names of people or food dishes, and of those, a significant proportion are Irish names. Take the beautiful Irish female’s name of Eefa. Well, that’s how you say it phonetically, but it’s spelt: Aoife. My wife has an Aoife in her class and tells me that for most of last term she was constantly spelling it with the o and the i the wrong way round!

Names, their origin, spelling and meaning, are fascinating. Whilst doing some family history research on some of my ancestors whose surname is Pettifer, I discovered at least three different spellings of that name, so who knows if we’ve ended up with the right one.

Even my name Ian Green can be spelt with two i’s in Ian and an extra e at the end of Green!

We’ve recently celebrated the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity it’s fascinating to ponder some of the origins of the various denominations that make up Churches Together in England. There’s the Quakers, who are said to have literally quaked in their worship, the Baptists who fully immerse candidates under the water and were inevitably known one time as the Dippers, and the Methodists who gained a reputation for practicing their faith very methodically.

In the New Testament the Church was sometimes referred to as The Way, or The Household of Faith. Perhaps during this Week of Prayer for Unity amongst the churches, the most important name for us to own and cherish is simply Christian. A name that describes anyone who wants to be a follower of The Lord Jesus Christ.

Thursday 19 January 2023

Been here before

I’ve just finished reading a Christmas present book by Emma Donoghue entitled The Pull of the Stars.

The title is taken from the origins of the word influenza which ancient cultures thought came about because of the influence, or pull, of the stars. If only it were that simple!

Emma Donoghue’s book covers forty eight hours in a maternity ward of a Dublin hospital. As interesting as that may be, this narrative is intensified because it is set in 1918 and covers the pandemic which took more lives than World War One. A pandemic we never memorialised (unlike the Great War) and which we largely forgot until March 2020 when we had our own appointment with history in the form of Covid.

How ironic that Donoghue delivered her final draft of this book to her publishers in March 2020! Within four months, even as we lingered in the first stage of the Coronavirus Pandemic, The Pull of the Stars found its way on to the bookshelves.

It's a frantic paced and gripping account of hospital life at a time when no vaccines were available; hot whisky was liberally administered for medicinal purposes, but I suspect it did nothing more than soothe the nerves.

Donoghue’s book contains the grim reality of a hospital ward in 1918, and it is surely a cause for great thanksgiving that advances in science so significantly reduced the possible death toll this time round.

I was grateful for the book as it reminded me, through story, that we have, indeed, been here before.

One of the values of inter-generational conversation is that those with nimbler feet realise the path of life has already been walked before by those who now go at a slower pace.

2023 will present us all with both new and old challenges. We’ll need wisdom to discern those familiar problems which can be coped with using tried and tested responses, and those that demand a fresh approach.

As a read The Pull of the Stars I realised once again that history can indeed be our friend, companion and often, our guide.

Thursday 12 January 2023

A Simpler Journey

This January sees the 90^th Anniversary of the introduction of the iconic London Tube Map.

It was created by Harry Beck who was an electrical draughtsman with London Underground. He died in 1974 and was never really fully recognised, or even paid, for his ground-breaking design.

Before Beck the maps on offer charted the actual routes of the trains, with all their complicated twists and turns. These maps attempted an honourable realism when it came to distances between stations and the direction of travel. Yet Beck knew they could be confusing, especially if a traveller was in a hurry and needed to make a quick decision about their onwards travel, including which station to exit and which to connect with.

So, he took his inspiration from the electrical circuit boards with which he worked, daily. In his evenings, technically his spare time, he engaged in his commissioned task of drawing a new map for the London Tube. It wouldn’t truly represent the actual distances between stations or the physical route of the line. Instead, it would be simpler, easier to read yet giving all the information the traveller needed in planning a journey.

Harry Beck’s ‘elders and betters’ at London Transport were not convinced and thought his plan too radical; one that the general public just wouldn’t want. Yet, they were willing to give it a try. So, in 1932 500 copies of the map were published and distributed at just a few stations to see how it would go down.

Well, as the say ‘the rest is history’. It was an instant success and passengers loved it because it was easier to navigate. So, in January 1933, 90 years this month it was formally launched as the Underground’s official map – and although it has been added to since, it’s basically stayed the same for nine decades.

Not everyone liked it of course, and the French absolutely rejected Beck’s attempt to do the same for the Paris Metro. They stayed with the wiggly lines, for a few decades at least, because if you look at The Metro Map today it has more than an echo of the style of Harry Beck.

It's often said, about life and faith, that’s it’s not the destination that matters but the journey, and there is certainly great wisdom in that thought. Yet, sometimes we can be put off from even starting a journey because it all seems so fraught and complex.

Harry Beck wanted to reassure the travelling public of just two things: simply they were on the right line and they would eventually reach the right station. The other parts of the journey they simply didn’t have to worry about.

Of course, all our journeys are different, no two are the same and all of us get surprises along the way.

Yet, perhaps the Wise Men and their journey teaches us a thing or two at this Season of Epiphany, and it’s much the same as Harry Beck’s understanding.

We know so little about the route of the Magi apart from the facts they came from the east, stopped off and visited Herod En route, and then arrived at the home of the Holy Family and presented their gifts.

It’s enough to know the purpose and the spirit of their travels. They felt led by God and their end point was the worship of the Christ Child. That give their journey a profound significance.

Our journeys this year are unlikely to be simple or straightforward, so perhaps it’s always a blessing that we don’t know the twists and turns that are before us. Yet if we are seeking to be on a journey of integrity and peace, if we are committed to walking alongside others at the Speed of Love, then we can, I think, be assured that God is with us, and our journey is worthwhile. Everything else can be dealt with along the way.

Travel well through 2023.