Truce for Christmas.

This is a very special time of year for families, it matters not what your faith may be, because a vast part of the world has been swept into the hustle that is Christmas. For many it is a time of peace and quiet, as the shops close and most of the countries take a pause, to allow those of faith to celebrate their own unique customs and rituals that represent their own ideas of family and their celebration of it.

It is a time I think, most of us consider as a time of peace and goodwill to all, and so it is very unlikely that many of us would be thinking of war. Sadly today there are parts of the world caught in conflict, and even though many of those involved will be placed somewhere on guard and watching, far away from their loved ones, in the backs of the minds of those individuals, there may be doubts as to why on this time more than most, men would want to fight and kill each other.

I am very much opposed to war, as those of you who know me will agree, it is a belief that runs deep within me that most ordinary simple men do not want to leave home and have to kill others. Many feel the pressures and are forced into enlisting, a great many feel a sense of duty, but if you were to ask them all how they feel deep down inside, I think you would find that they simply would much rather find a better way to resolve the conflicts they have been caught up in.

This year more than any other, I find it to be a poignant fact, as we celebrate an event that is 100 years old and highlights my point perfectly. I refer to the celebrated Christmas Truce of 1914, where enemies for a short while walked out onto the battlefield, and stood as the men they truly were, and wished each other Merry Christmas.

 

Christmas Truce 1914

Soldiers meet in a temporary peace for Christmas

It is a fact of history that the Pope had called out on December 7th 1914 for there to be a ceasefire, but those in charge on all sides of the war refused to make any form of official agreement, and they ordered the troops to stay alert and be combat ready. I love the fact that all along those cold miserable front lines of France, groups of both German and English soldiers defied their officials as they sang carols and hymns across the no mans land together, and eventually walked unarmed out onto the battlefield where they stood face to face, and wished each other Merry Christmas.

It stands I feel, as testament to the character of ordinary men, and reinforces my view that there is always another way to resolve a conflict, as long as the simple man makes a stand for what is morally the right thing to do. War is never about ordinary people, they are just the casualties that become swept up into the conflict, war is about the greed and lust for power of the individual, who drives that power to force an issue and embroils the others around them.

There are many cases in history that show us that there were men on all sides who took a stand against those who ruled them, but I don’t think the message here can be given a greater significance, than the simple act of those simple soldiers 100 years ago. Mankind has come so far in this world, and yet we still stumble and fall into conflicts that kill, maim, and wound men, women, and children across the planet. Most people shy away from doing something about it, they fear the system and so remain silent, so maybe it is the time to stand up and use the one weapon we all have and use it, and that is simply our voice. Speak out against the wars and injustice, and think more about peaceful solutions, and then voice those thoughts to others. Time and time again it has been proven that when we all speak up with one clear voice, those who lead eventually listen, and maybe 100 years after such an act of peace and goodwill, we too should take a stand as simple ordinary people, and say with a loud clear voice enough is enough.

World war one and two wiped out a generation of young men, and killed countless women and children, because as we know, regardless of what NATO or the UN may say, civilians die in vast numbers in all combat situations, as they get caught in the middle, just look at the media of 2014 and it clearly shows the despair created from the loss of loved ones.

The human race has the intelligence and the technology to wipe out poverty and world hunger, we have the capabilities to provide everyone with a home and a stable lifestyle, and yet even though today many will remember the unofficial truce of 1914, sadly despite all our advances, as humans we have learned little. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could learn from one hundred years ago today, and decide that from now on, the best way to honour those soldiers who as enemies, met and wished each a Merry Christmas, would be to do likewise? There is far too much hate in the world and it is bringing the world down, maybe we should learn and sit with our enemies and try for once to find a peaceful solution. Tolerance should walk beside us, and a smile should be our greeting, not bayonets or bullets.

Whatever your faith may be, and wherever you are on this planet today, I wish you a time of peace and safety, beyond today and into the coming New Year. RJM.

Soldiers meet on the battle field in France 1914

Soldiers meet on the battle field in France 1914

Behind the Words.

One of the biggest drawbacks to being a writer, is there is this expectation that all writers should court the public to gain more readers, and therefore sales. In an age of public profiles on the internet, and socially sharing the contents of your lunch on Twitter, writers are expected to list every detail of their life, along with endless photos of themselves, with the aim of showing everyone on the planet how swell you are, so people will immediately run out and buy your books.

Every help blog and writers aide is the same, sell, sell, sell yourself or you will never make it as a writer. There appears to be this unwritten rule that the public must see and love a writer, before they are able to understand the stories they like, otherwise how could they ever read your books? If like me you are 80% introvert and just 20% extravert, and a quiet isolated life is your choice, then the thought of any of this instils very deep terrors indeed.

I have been published for a little over five years, I have been writing for most of my adult life, and if I am very honest, I had no intentions whatsoever of publishing Heirs to the Kingdom, I was if anything pushed. You see the thing here is very simply in a nut shell, I am not being rude, but, I don’t want you to know me, I don’t want you to know every detail of my personal life, I have zero intentions of showing the world my life, family or how I choose to live. I hate being photographed, and would rather be alone in the woodland than at the heart of a press conference or in huge crowds. The whole point of writing is that very fact, I write fantasy, not my life, and yet I am constantly pushed to sell my life so it will sell my books.

Call me old fashioned, or introverted, but isn’t the whole point of a book the words? I love John Wyndham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien and H.G. Wells, never met any of them as they largely lived before my time. I have read a great deal about their lives in their autobiographies, but that was only years after reading and loving the books that they wrote. Their stories sold me at the time of reading, I did not care who they were, it was their words on paper that exploded my imagination and sent me to the library or bookstore to find yet more of their books, and to be honest, I still think that is how it should be.

I like my comfort zone, and to be honest you should too, because if you take me out of it, I simply cannot write. Writing can be intense, I sit alone away from everything, I put on my head phones and play inspiring music, I am surrounded by files that hold the results of my research, which also includes pages filled with pictures of places, clothing, weapons and fantasy art, and I drink endless cups of coffee as I sit with a cigarette (that is usually unlit as I forgot to light it) hanging from my lip, as I reach that zone that allows everything to flow from my mind into the words on the page. It is mentally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and the world ceases to exist until I have finished the chapter or piece I am working on. There are times when it takes just an hour, and others where it takes almost all of the day, but the result is the start of what will appear in the next book.

I can tell you now; there is nothing within that process I want to share with the rest of the world. I am scruffy and relaxed, usually unshaven; I have even written naked on hot days, (Honestly you don’t want that picture believe me). I laugh as I make up the funnier sections and feel the tears in my eyes as I rip at my emotions to get those special moments just perfect. I talk to the characters as if they were present, as I try to work out if the conversations are flowing right, and too be quite honest, if you were walk in and film it, most of the world would think I was insane. The one thing I know without any doubt at all is that those moments are private and should remain so.

Ok I get that it is me, I understand that as the writer I impart a lot of myself into the story, after all it is my brain, my imagination and partly my view of the world, but it is also not me, and this is where knowing me is a pointless exercise. To explain it a little simpler, I pretend, yup you got it, I actually try and wear the shoes of another and make them do things I could never do. I do not hunt, actually I am a vegetarian, and have been for 25 years. I do love trees, but I have never killed anyone, (I am actually quite happy about that) and I never would, Mason Knox is very capable, and yes I wrote him, but that does not mean any aspect of him is me.

The words together free from any ideas of who the writer is, allow the reader to judge the story completely free of any bias, and that is the whole point of writing, it is and should be to a certain extent an anonymous act. Modern social networking has decayed one of the most important boundaries of any writer, as it has asked all of us to remove our privacy and reveal everything about who we are, but sadly knowing the writer will not enhance your experience of the book, if anything it will cloud it. Take my word for it, find a book by a writer who you know nothing about and sit quietly and ingest their words, once you have taken the words inside yourself, then let your imagination fly and paint the pictures chapter by chapter, and you will experience reading at its best, because that is the only way we should ever read a book. Who wrote it should be the last thing you think about it, and as to what their eye colour is or what pants they wear on the train, should never be anything other than the Author’s concern.

Sadly the world has taken a shift over the last few decades and we have become preoccupied with Celebrities, a whole industry has grown up around them, and it appears that writers are being dragged screaming into the mix, but the reality of it from a writers point of view, is that we would much prefer not to be. I understand there are those individuals who court the cameras and enjoy the exposure they get, but they are actually a very small number. The world has rolled into 24 hour news, and we have reached a point where media has become the only sales tool of anything creative, and it is a sad fact of modern reality that digging into the private life of any individual appears to be the way books, movies, art and music is sold today. Gone are the days where a news report would project a picture of the author or the book in the background screen, it has to be a live interview that is the feature of the moment, and sadly for the very many introverted and creative people who write, that is more than a little bit uncomfortable.

I use social networks, I have a few accounts across the many, none of them really feature me, I try to focus on just the stories. I do give opinions from the point of view as the one who wrote the books, I also provide insights and alternative theories as to why maybe the stories twist and turn as they do. I love to talk about the characters and what they like, and will do so for as long as people ask, just don’t ask me to tweet my lunch menu, sadly I am incapable of doing so.

It may sound odd, but the only reason I ever published HTTK was simply because I was asked to. It took a great deal on my part to share the story with those very few early readers, writing is a deeply private part of the person I am, and writing comes from the quiet isolated part of my life, it is from my comfort zone. I do not deny I can step out when required to meet and talk with people about the stories I write, but for me that takes a lot of effort and is emotionally draining, I am by nature reclusive, only feeling at ease around small well known individuals, and it is because of these very facts, that I am able to pour emotion into what I write and connect with the readers using words. I know a few creative people, and we all agree that being isolated is the place where our creation comes from, sadly the roar and turmoil of the crowd is not a very creative space to be in, something I am sure my wife who is my only witness during writing can testify to.

I often bring to mind an interview I read with Dan Brown which came out after he had published the Davinci Code, which had become a huge success. He actually told the press that actually his life was very normal and boring, and he had no plans at all to change it. I remember reading it as if a light had flashed inspiration before me, as I completely understood him. It was a wonderful moment of clarity, as he was an A list selling author who admitted he did not want the press intrusion, he did not want to tour the endless streams of press and TV interviews, all he wanted to do was stay at home with his family in his quiet rural home and write, everything else was just another distraction that prevented him writing.

To conclude, I think, I can safely say I am a writer. I write every day, some days it flows, and on others it staggers just a little, but it is a process that I am unable to switch off. I write my books, and endless amounts of short posts that I either blog, or store up on file for later use. I have a Facebook Page, and anyone can message it to ask me something, so in that respect I am always available. There are few days when I am not sat staring into space, putting together the pictures I see in my mind with the right words, and I feel it is very important to do the best I can to make the things I write as interesting as possible. In between those moments of creation (Which I do not control) I do everything else, including update social media and plan other things I feel may be of interest to those who read what I write. The more time I spend talking in the media, the less I write, and I am driven by some inner compulsion to write, so that tends to win over the day.

It makes me happy, and having spent 30 years outdoors in all weathers working in horticulture, I find being warm and dry surrounded by my family, who are a huge part of who I am suits me more and more as I get older. I am dedicated to writing the best story I possibly can, because that is what I feel the reader expects, and knowing out there in the huge world are people who have smiled, or shed a tear having read my words matters a great deal, it matters not if I have ever met them, it is simply wonderful just knowing I helped make their day a little bit better. No amount of media or press will ever change that, because that moment when I write that small piece which warms your day, is far greater than anything else I could ever do in front of a camera, and that for me is what writing is really all about.

 

 

 

 

A Modern Metropolis

I was born in Cheadle, Cheshire, moved age one to Farnworth in Bolton, and then when my parents separated at the age of four, I came to Hyde.

It’s sad really that Hyde is famous for the sadness and pain of the moors murders and Dr Shipman in the rest of this country, because actually Hyde was once such a beautiful place. I say was, because today I think it has been allowed to die, and as this is the place I consider to be my home town after 45 years of living here, I have seen so many changes that it feels heart breaking to walk around, and see the destruction and neglect brought upon us by a Metropolitan Council.

You see, back when I was a lad, Hyde was run by its own local council, my grandfather ran as a liberal candidate for it at one time, like many of the other locals, because it was run and maintained by local people who saw it as an act of local duty and pride, sadly that too is a thing of the past.

Hyde was a country dwellers place in the early days, it was run by the gentry, and it was a thriving market town, which actually boasted the biggest market in the area. I remember well the busy Saturdays, I think in many ways it was the hustle and bustle of those wonderful Saturdays that at the middle of my life in Horticulture brought me onto the markets myself as a trader. My mum in my youth worked right at the top of the long market street, in a store called the Economy Store, I loved the place, it was the second shop down at the top of the hill, and it sold everything under the sun to help clean the house or fix it up, and all at reasonable prices. I remember standing out on the wide pavement as a boy and looking down the hill that was crawling with thousands of people, as they hurriedly did their weeks shopping before heading home for their Saturday meal. Hyde was so beautiful, Market Street was lined with trees that ran all the way down to the town hall and the market, where the trees were bigger and lush and filled your eyes with clouds of deep green foliage. I look at it now and despair.

The beauty of this town was inspiring, never in my life had I seen such beautiful buildings. We paid the rates on Greenfeild Street where there was the most magnificent building with tall Roman pillars. It felt like walking into an old Roman forum, and my brothers and myself would fantasise about gladiators and the Roman Legion. The post office, and the theatre, were massive and architecturally stunning, the fire station was opposite and we would run up and look through the large glass windows and wave at the firemen. The town hall contained the police station, and we shuddered with nerves as we passed, even though we had done nothing at all wrong, but the site of the old architecture was enough to bother us. The Town Hall was a beautiful and impressive building, today it still stands but looks a little Jaded due to lack of care. The Library was my Mecca, I visited it every week and devoured as many books as I could, it is still the one place in Hyde I love the most for all the happy memories I have of it, but that is soon to end.  

Then came the merger into Tameside, a metropolitan borough, and out went the old local council and the people who cared, to be replaced with what I can only describe as career politicians. Since that time I have watched it fall brick by brick as it was uncared for and unloved by those who enjoyed the power and status as they moved everything slowly to the centre of Tameside, and their jewel in their crown Ashton.

There is no more Roman Forum, the fire station is a mile away up a side street, the beautiful Old Post Office was closed and moved to a new modern building with no charm. The theatre is empty and dilapidated, and the market has gone and been replaced with a glass roofed enclosure filled with expensive shops and cubicles no one can afford, governed by a company in Liverpool. Half the shops inside are empty, and the cubicles are being removed because no one can realistically afford to pay the high business rates and rents. The same can be said for Market St, you no longer see the sea of people walking up and down, and all the shops are take a ways and shabby. There are very few trees on the market, and even less market stalls, we did have free parking until Tameside wanted to sell the land, so they started to charge a stupid fee and that left it empty, so they told us no one uses it and demolished it to build a KFC, yet another part of American heritage added to our country, as we wipe away ours.

We do have large superstores, but that is why we have no local shops, Hyde had so much diversity to offer, and the narrow minded profit thinking of the Metropolitan Council wiped it away, we do have young women’s fashion, Agos and take a ways, stood next to nail salons and estate agents, the bedding shop has gone, so has the kitchen supplies, Old Mr Brooke the tool shop has gone along with the gardening shop and the many other small unique traders, and we have endless charity shops on discounted rates, and we have also lost the lights at Christmas.

We moan the destruction of youths, and yet like us older ones they have been robbed, gone are the disco’s and boys clubs, where are the meeting places we all attended? They have been wiped away in the so called needed cuts, yet there is always money for demolition and new buildings, they can find the cash to improve their offices. They call it progress; I call it heartbreak, narrow vision and greed.

The council at Ashton do not care about us, they sleep at night in their posh homes safe in their fat cat lives, they will not lose a nights sleep knowing that our Library will be moved so the building can be sold, one of the last beautiful buildings of Hyde and a shining remainder of what our town was once like under the caring hands of those who lived here. They deny it will be sold, but we have been here before, and everyone knows what their agenda is. The grammar school is going, the college moved to Ashton, and Hyde is a sad reflection of what it once was, and there will be no lights this Christmas. I remember the lights as a lad, they were magical as they lined the whole of the long Market Street and all of the market, strung across the road in many colours, they were so bright in the dark evening as we gazed down the street in wonder. The shop owners would decorate trees and put them in brackets above their shops to add to the beauty, it made Christmas feel so special, it just feels like another dark winters eve now, its hard to believe it is a week before Christmas, there is so little to show it.

I hear all the time that Britain is losing its identity, well I am not surprised. How can we maintain any sense of who we are, when the places we live have been asset stripped and sold off by the pound? The very thing we held pride in has been ripped away from us by local councillors who care for nothing but their own vanity, they tell us they care when they need our votes, but if they get in, the last thing they do is what we want, they are cold and self serving with no idea of value, they are wrapped up in their arrogance and see us as nothing but underlings to rule over. They are the reason Britain has fallen, and they are the ones who have destroyed our identity, and then they sit around griping how people are disenchanted by politics, hell can you blame us? We have been lied to far too many times and listened to your spin as you side step our questions and divert our answers, your lack of openness and honesty has appalled us to the point where we are weary and worn out trying to understand why it is you do not fight with us to improve the places we call home.

Hyde has died, the green has gone and been built on, the beauty was sold or torn down and replaced with ugly, what little that is left we fear will be taken; even the park has less for our children to admire. It’s so sad, because the people who live here really care about the place, and they like me are as heartbroken.

Where did the hope go, we had such high ones? Progress for the sake of progress does not bring attraction, it brings destruction, and replaces heritage with limited life. My Grandfather ran for the local council not for power or prestige, he felt it was his duty as a proud member of the town, I shudder to think what he would say if he was still here. It is called a modern metropolis, and it’s brash and dirty, and for too long now it has swept the land changing the face of the places we live, to the point where we recognise nothing. It is yet another sad reflection on the world today, where progress is built on greed, with no regard for need.