Childhood: The fears and hairs that still haunt

What I heard to my hurt

My ears have a sense of betrayal of self, the sounds that syncopate with the rhythmic resonance of my ear drums taking me into worlds that I have never intended to visit. It was one such occasion when my aunt and our male valet or servant were having this conversation about the esoteric and weird, uncanny stories of the evil supernatural in the hearing of an impressionable 10-year-old.

Seeds sown into my vivid imagination would result in 2 terrifying encounters in which I believed I had seen the devil, a red-crested beastly creature at about 7 feet tall, arms raised like in surrender, but I saw terror and the spirit of fear that I never knew before took hold.

A dismissal of my experience

In the first sighting, my father dismissed my screams as some sort of juvenile exuberance and over-excitation, until late at night I woke up to a sound that brought everyone running to my rescue. My mother was both confused and perplexed by this strange change in my demeanour and as we sat in the living room this apparition appeared again.

My listening experience in the space of less than 30 minutes, the unguarded conversations of seeming adults unaware of the consequences of their discussion in the presence of a child would suggest that in the 1970s there was no knowledge of the serious safeguarding requirements to having anyone care for children and the result was a spectrum of child abuse, much of which I have written of.

In the grip of superstition beyond sense

I guess this informs why I curate what I absorb into my overactive imagination, fundamentally, I do not watch horror films, I have the capacity to imagine enough without have the stimulation of things that might go beyond my control.

Maybe I do now rationalise situations in which I find myself that I am more controlling of irrational fear, or so I think. Then I was walking up a road late at night when I realised the open field to my left was in fact a disused cemetery some gravestones displaced like a place abandoned and desecrated to the extent that the forgotten are indeed forgotten in terms of care for the place.

Between the temptation to look there and look away, I quickened my steps and still stole a few glances, for where in folklore have, I acquired the idea that a graveyard, the reliquary of the dead could be a hive of activity that would interact with the living? And yet, whatever schooled that idea into my consciousness has left it unlearnt.

I was ready to scream

Then the hairs still in their roots of my bald scalp were standing on their ends, in an excited state of sense something otherworldly. In the grip of unexplained fear, a wild guttural sound was forming in my throat and ready to explore into a torrent of the fiendish wailing of a banshee, and on the other hand, I checked myself thinking, why are you about to scream about nothing but the phantoms in your head?

It is however likely, if I had screamed I might have not only given voice to the fear, but also it would have allowed the extirpation of the tension, a release that might have brought people to enquire about the source of my discomfiture either for my embarrassment or in sympathy for hapless mental gymnastics with endearing pity for my need of some sort of help.

Time in a timeless appearance

It was not long after that, a homeless man in the recesses of a building along the way nodding to something asked for the time. A time I should have been ensconced in the warmth of my bed. The reckoning wondering is the person I told the time was homeless as pertains to the life in which we live or homeless from the displaced stones of the graveyard in an encounter I was not prepared to countenance.

If there is a lesson in this that has had lasting consequences for almost half a century, it is an admonition to parents to beware of the people they expose their children to, whether relations or employees. I doubt many parents fully appreciate what it might portend and, in my case, I might have been better helped by a child psychiatrist then being trafficked between religious and animist grottos of unlicensed practitioners of strange acts along with the rituals of reading Psalms in a language I hardly spoke into buckets of water for spiritual ablutions to ward away evil spirits.

You haven’t heard half the tale of this gruelling thing, much of which I attempt to forget as I also deign to forgive. Much as one was wronged there is grace that abounds to soothe and calm the troubled soul and it in that knowledge that I have found hope and redemption.

Related blog

Blog - Thought Picnic: A child has memories that last a lifetime

Imagination is a seed to blogging

Just my imagination

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” Said Stephen King the world-acclaimed novelist.

I cannot say I have read any Stephen King novel to completion; the horror genre will send my rather vivid imagination into overdrive. One night, listening to the stories read at bedtime on BBC Radio 4, I could not understand why the story took a turn for the scary, until the 15-minute abridged version was ended as an excerpt from Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.

Thankfully, I was in bed with Steven, else I would have been beside myself in fright. Whoever suggested that book for bedtime reading might have done it for a laugh, I was not impressed in the least.

The terror I saw

I have dreamt up enough to scare me out of my wits and out of my own imagination came two encounters with a huge red-breasted beastly apparition that no one else saw but convinced me I had seen the devil. This apart from the voice I heard in the middle of the night.

Blog - Childhood: Ghosts and ghouls of my past

It changed my life, I was just 10 and a witness to bizarre stories shared between my aunt and our houseboy, I took them away and developed them into my personal terror. I learnt what fear was and when I eventually ended up in boarding school, I had to be ejected because I was seeing things and reciting Psalm 23 possibly a thousand times a night, no one could sleep in my hostel until I was completely exhausted. Then. I had to be up at 5:30AM.

In the process, I was taken to seers, prophets, medicine men, bathed in forests, had incisions in unmentionable parts of my body with concoctions rubbed in, wore amulets, ate the incomprehensible and prayed more prayers to last an eternity. It probably would have been better to just take me to a child psychologist, but no one knew better.

I can blog from nothing

When it comes to blogging, I am probably still an amateur, the many times I have waited for inspiration for what I should write about, then, at other times, I have had the disciplined to begin to type away at my keyboard and the blog begins to take form and soon I have a story.

The second paragraph seeded the consequent paragraph of this blog, none of which were on my mind when I finished typing the first. As I read it back in my mind, I realised there is something to relate to horror, terror, and imagination. Then with other viewpoints to buttress the process of creating a narrative that becomes a blog. I have something I can publish.

Thought Picnic: Nothing matters more than sleeping well

All worked up

Yesterday morning full of anxiety bordering on trepidation, I wrote about the prospect of going to the hospital alone to commence a regime of gruelling treatment I was not particularly prepared for.

The outpouring of goodwill and best wishes with prayers, encouragement and support was overwhelming and wonderful, friends called, messages came and I prepared for my day ahead.

Each time I met a consultant over the last three years, they all talked about new drugs coming on-stream but punctuated everything with the element of cost. There were more affordable mainstream treatments that could last a whole year with significant side effects and that was what was on offer.

The prospect of subcutaneous injections was as terrifying as it could get, hypodermic needles have punctured enough holes in my epidermis, phlebotomies for vampires’ conventions, intravenous chemotherapy, intramuscular injections all those I could abide, but I have always drawn the line at pitching the flab of my abdomen for ingress. Find another place, I screamed when a nurse attempted to administer my nightly anticoagulant through my stomach wall when I was in hospital almost 7 years ago.

All mixed up

The plan was to get to the hospital, visit the pharmacy and collect my medication, then go up to see my consultant before I faced the abattoir, like a sheep for the slaughter, that was the imagery fully formed in my mind.

At the pharmacy, they had mangled my name on the prescription. Can you imagine, drugs worth tens of thousands of pounds and they got that wrong? Anyway, at least, the date of birth remains what it always was and that was fixed. A package containing a bottle of pills and up the stairs to my fate.

At the weighing station, a seat built on a scale, I had lost 2 kilogrammes and my blood pressure though normal for my condition could do with some notching downwards a bit. Time to visit that gym in the basement again.

All loved in

Suspense built up when I was called into a consulting room, “We’re giving you the best drugs on the market.” She said. I was not sure I heard her correctly, but I did not interrupt her as she went through dosage, side effects, emergencies and other protocols. “You seem a really nice gentleman.” She said, towards the end.

When I finally caught on what was happening around me, I asked when I was getting my injections. There were no injections, my terror dissipated in a puff. I almost cried, the relief! Never had one faced the prospect of something seemingly so grave at the hospital to be met with the desire to leave the hospital skipping away.

Probably it was not what I said before but the story in my blood work, the indicators showed the best improvement in 11 years apart from the urgent need to tackle the other condition, it made me a prime candidate for the new line of drugs and that was what I was offered.

All slept well

As I left the hospital, I hopped on a bus that was like an adventure into the wilderness plying the longest route to my destination. I did not even know when the bus was going the wrong way, the driver had to turn around, it did not matter one bit to me.

Most importantly, I had to rid myself of that morbid feeling of vulnerable incapacity that had invaded my zest for life and begin to look ahead to living and living well. In the midst of this, news came that I had been recalled to the place where I had concluded a 25-month contract just over a month ago.

I think it is the support and prayers of my many friends that turned a difficult day into a different and wonderful experience. How did I celebrate this? I got myself an original Tempur® pillow, in everything, nothing matters more than sleeping well. So far, the first night on the new medication, I feel fine.

Thanks for all your messages, prayers, support and encouragement. I’m happy.

Opinion: This is a time for outrage at the direct hits

A hypothetical

If the presumed BUK surface-to-air missile system shot from the territory of pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine had whizzed past Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, it might have been reported sighted and considered a near-miss with some expressing a bit of outrage at such a reckless activity.

Alas! It was a direct hit and with it 298 souls were lost, the consequence of which should have precipitated such outrage at the needless, careless and atrocious waste of human life wrought by bungling rebels with Russia's support.

Then again

Down in the Middle East, literally all the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, whilst terrifying and capable of causing carnage with the loss of life and damage to goods and property, they are in their thousands, near misses. We must for all intents and purposes express outrage at the crude militancy that is no match to Israel’s firepower and organisation.

Then, you watch the missiles fired from Israel into Gaza that has no defence weaponry, literally every missile has been a direct hit, whether intentional or not, people are losing their lives in the hundreds and this calls for widespread outrage, because of the carnage caused, that is presented as a defence.

Between terror and killings

Now, I can understand the terror of missiles coming into Israeli cities, terrifying all, young and old; the government needs to have some strategy and game plan to deal with this nuisance, though I have my doubt that even with the incursion into Gaza, the missiles can be stopped entirely, for there is a deep-seated issue of unrest that is not been addressed towards achieving peace for Israel and its neighbours.

Yet, the terrified can be becalmed, for near-misses belie a stark reality along with a sense of survival. Direct hits are a different story, the people are dead and that is the end of their story.

Blood for fear barbarity

The exchange system between Israel and Palestine of avenging fear within the borders of Israel with the blood of Palestinians in their cooped-up regions as they are ring-fenced from Israel with settlements, borders and walls cannot be the roadmap to peace for all concerned.

What has developed is escalating belligerence with no prospect of peace on the horizon. More pertinently, until we are ready to express unbiased outrage at the needless loss of life anywhere in the world and make perpetrators of the killings accountable for their actions, we acquiesce and grant immunity for more impunity to those have taken the level of their lawless activities to an unspeakable level of atrocious violence.

We must condemn the near-misses, but the direct hits must attract the sternest criticism from all fair-minded members of our humanity as well unmitigated outrage.

I will tell your husband

The grip of memory

As I watch the repeat of a Hardtalk Extra interview with Gene Wilder, he recounts some experiences as caring for a sick mother, compulsive praying and other childhood things that I could identify with, humans live amazing lives even in stranger ways.

Introspectively, I have always been concerned if not fearful of the memories that I could retrieve and recount, one wonders if they should be left in the dust of time lifted out with the wry smile of what once was and where one is.

In some cases, I consider it merciful that I cannot remember the trauma of birth having escaped from the womb in a fit of claustrophobia at just under 27 weeks in a Macbethian wonder of survival.

I was told I fitted into the palm of my father’s hand, the lasting effects of that episode are relayed in the fact that I now use glasses, apparently, a lot of light is shone in the eyes of early babies, some doctors said my eyesight should improve with age but they did not notice the astigmatism that was developing till no one did anything about it.

However, I do have vivid memories from about 4 years old, I can faintly remember some earlier ones but they are not as striking though no less contributory to the framework to the framework that has become me.

Children have more than eyes

What I have found annoying in the culture in which I was brought up is the way our elders always felt we could be shielded from the activities going on around their lives by keeping us out of view.

It is as if they thought we only respond to the world visually and never develop mentally but only as errand kids and probably bookworms and suddenly at 9 or 10 we are supposed to be responsible people with extraordinary initiative, if only they knew what we knew then, arrested development in the midst of the overflow of life.

Was it a vision?

One good evening, I was a bit under the weather, I was just over 8 and my mum was nursing my kid brother in the adjacent room when this lady I knew so well entered my room through another door a and sat on me – the hairs on the back of my neck still stand on end as I remember the event – as I gasped for air, she was heavy, I said, “I will tell your husband”, which my mum heard next door and anxiously enquired what the matter was.

As I tried to tell her, she came into my room as the lady quickly left and my short term memory deserted me as to whom she was. It was probably another 10 years before I could remember that she was the wife of the veterinary doctor who was a family friend, however, that was my experience which some expert might explain away as hallucination, vision or poppycock.

Climb every mountain

That episode launch me into a new world, we climbed every mounted, sailed every sea and forded every river – excerpt from Sound of Music - seeking prayer men and their portals to God none of which prepared me for greater terrors I experienced from the age of 10 through 12. This may be written about in due course.

Parents are a wonder in the way they hold a protective shield over their children, their sacrifices, their prayers, their anxieties and pains just to make sure that our lives do not walk the paths of pain that they might have walked, it does however, bother me though that in some cases, they might also have inadvertently entered into covenants over which they have no control leading to unexpected consequences.

Surely, these things cannot be unique to African societies, and if I do still find the opportunity, I will tell her husband.

The raid on Peking, London

Duck but not in Peking

Having just ordered Peking Duck in the local Chinese restaurant on a night out with friends and family, one would really have been put out that the only duck that became the highlight of that outing would have been the act of ducking under the table as rioting and terrifying terror police raided the restaurant to nab suspected, wait for it, logistical support to terrorism.

Somehow, through intelligence and surveillance, rather that raid the homes and other more private meeting points of these people, they went for the spectacular, hit them with their guard let down at a vulnerable but very public social meeting place, this no doubt saves a lot of money, rather than concerted raids all over the place.

It is however nice to know that so-called terrorism suspects have an international palate.

Probably not that smart

It might however be that the raid was conducted to establish association amongst groups of people and alliances, something discrete photography would have done, since they are still going to visit the homes of the arrested persons to dig for evidence.

Now, I have no problems with the need to put as many resources as possible into ensuring that we do not have another terrorist mishap like we did on July the 7^th 2006, but, the way this is barging into our way of life with the premise that the little discomfiture of the few helps the convenience of the many is flawed logic.

What is to say, another vulnerable public gathering place like a mosque, church, bowling alley, ice rink or lido is not on the list of some smart aggregating detective in cahoots with the police bean counter?

Worst still, some social activities like weddings and burials are going to lose their veneers of solemnity as we all suspect everyone around us who attempts to show any signs of life.

Suffer for the offer

So, when British Airways launched a television advertisement for World Offers, their seemingly cheap air travel offers, I thought, for all the fuss of not being able to carry my lipstick or having to dangle my tampons at Heathrow before boarding my flight and considering a decent sized paperback might have to be split in 2 to fit into those sizing contraptions, the deal must be so good to assuage the pain of the customs/security check.

As the fifth anniversary of September the 11^th approaches, expect the bizarre, the atrocious and the scandalously unacceptable as we fight our fear of the fear of the fear of terror without discerning the link between what we do and how that sometimes feeds into the causes of terrorism.

Not leaving on a jet plane soon

A place off the itinerary

The news is full of passenger woes of not being able to board flights or endless queues at British airports.

A foiled terrorist plot, either intended or imagined, whichever the case, it is causing serious disruption to our way of life and freedoms as restrictions are imposed on the so many who are trying to visit the land of the free – the United States of America.

Somehow, we may never know if these plots would ever have been carried out, but the list of items that have been banned from cabin luggage would make travellers look like refugees who have just escaped a situation with only their shirts off their backs.

No handbags, no glass cases, no liquid medication, baby milk should be tasted by passenger, no contact lens solution, free-range tampons – what is this world coming to?

We soon might not be able to pass urine on the plane as the combination of urine and disinfectants might release noxious fumes.

My advice – cut America out of your itinerary, let them visit instead; then cut air travel out, if you can avoid it. However, this is also a British problem, air travel is no more looking like the fastest means of travel of you are visiting continental Europe..

The domestic science of explosives

Somehow, the banned stuff can be concocted into some sort of explosive to bring down planes, it all sounds like science fiction, and not to say that Al Qaeda seems to be been accorded a status of scientific genius that can use everyday items to create dangerous stuff.

I did not fully appreciate this craze till I went through Schiphol Airport; all the rubbish bin compartments were open and visible, and this was not for the cleaner to empty the bins but as a response to our fear of terror dressed up as being secure.

We need a rethink about all this terror stuff, name-calling and lumping groups together under an Al-Qaeda banner is getting us nowhere, the more we advocate our freedoms the more we lose our liberties to quests for greater security.

Terror mind games

These terrorists seem to create a stampede without anyone realising if the reaction is real or imagined, obviously, democratic governments are adopting more authoritarian slant to governance all in the name of greater security.

The sooner we begin to review the causes of terror and why people take up such despicable causes, we leave ourselves with false sense of security.

For one, the British government has dismissed comments by Muslim leaders that our foreign policies in certain Middle-East countries leave us vulnerable as facile – well, we ignore that view at our great peril.

References

Airport checks 'not sustainable'

Why al-Qaeda's real power may be all in the mind

London - this day

What terror what horror

As so a year has passed since the carnage of terror swept through the centre of London hitting the tubes and a bus.

London has suffered onslaught from the Blitz during World War II and terrorist bombings by the Irish Republican Army, nothing could have prepared the residents, workers and visitors for those rush hour blasts.

Of deeper concern is the fact that these terrorists were homegrown and lived in cities North of England and for chance or circumstance had developed such a hatred for their lives and those of others who due to their actions either died or were seriously injured.

Much analysis and commentary has gone into the menace of homegrown terrorists, the effects on the lives of victims and survivors and the changes to the landscape of our freedoms, liberties and interests.

Exactly two weeks after the first bombing there was another attempt but it all failed, however, in the process all participants in that scheme were apprehended, till a easy-going member of the public was chased down and mauled to pulp with at least 6 gun shots to the head.

Losing our heads could lose lives

Yes, the police would be jittery and prone to erroneous apprehending of suspects, but the "Shoot to kill" policy was a bit of an extreme reaction to a situation we later found out to be poorly assessed and reviewed.

So Jean Charles De Menezes of Brazil became the picture of what terror had brought to the city - people would have been in a quandary as which was the greater danger and fear - that of terrorists or that of policemen who are yet to do some serious thinking about their plans.

Then just about a month ago, two young men were assailed with one shot in a terrorist raid that brought up zilch - the brothers were released and it was not till the brothers had a news conference that the police found the magnanimity to offer an apology.

If there is one thing that appears to be lost after that terrorist attack, it is the ability for our law enforcement services to keep a level head, open mind and conduct calculated, determined and well-thought through operations to nab suspected terrorists.

Sometimes, the Muslim community must draw on reserves of goodwill and forbearance not to feel under siege.

Tough on the causes of terrorism

Finally, in 1994, Tony Blair promised to be tough on crime and the causes of crime, which offers an important premise to prevent prospects from becoming criminals, to this would should add the War on terror and the causes of terrorist acts.

These delve into deep social, economic, religious issues that would take a visionary leader to direct and bring to a place of confidence. The war on terror does not half begin to address the reasons for terrorism - the more we understand the better we would be able to anticipate, or even, the safer might become in our world.

London lives and breathes, scared by terror but rejuvenated like a phoenix rising from the ashes; we live in the hope that the city would never be visited again by such carnage.

To all who died and those suffered great pain - This is London and you will never be forgotten.

Setting democracy ablaze with gas

Terror – an evil pre-occupation

Hardly 48 hours have past into the year 2006 and a number of uncomfortable developments are now taking place which threaten a lot more of our freedoms and liberties than the inordinate if not evil pre-occupation with the war on terror.

As usual our leaders are caught napping as their firm gaze on one issue distracts them from a bigger global picture that could creep upon us like a rolling cloud of mustard gas and envelop us like a nuclear mushroom canopy from which we have no escape.

Impossible expectations

The more obvious one is gas; this is a little battle of wills and integrity between Russia and Ukraine where hardly a week ago Ukraine was threatened with the loss of gas supplies which heretofore had been subsidised or discounted and now is to be hiked fourfold in price.

That deadline passed on New Years Day as pressure was then reduced in the gas pipelines in order to starve Ukraine of gas.

The paradox is that Russia’s gas supply network feeds most of Europe but for now passes through Ukraine where Ukraine is supposed to ethically and honestly allow gas to pass through their land to Europe even when they might be subject to privations in economy and well-being.

To expect to hold Ukraine up to a standard of international rectitude that one would hardly find examples of anywhere on earth is not only unconscionable but really laughable because Ukraine can as well close off the complete gas network and somebody somewhere will be left wanting in reputation, reliability and credibility.

Meanwhile a new pipeline is being built to bypass Ukraine into Europe through Germany where the ex-chancellor has been tapped for chairmanship of the organisation providing that service - nepotism does not become Europe just as Mr Shroeder is Mr Putin's good friend.

This is not a little local flare

This little squabble between these ex-Soviet partners is however affecting a lot more than Ukraine and Russia; countries west of this fracas are already suffering a degradation of supplies, noting that their reserves might not be sufficient enough to see through an extended gas famine.

Industries first and then probably households would be affected, and then some organisations could be asked to switch to oil which is greater pollutant than gas with its environmental consequences.

Economies would be on the wobble as gas futures reckoning for shortage could exert inflationary pressures on the European economy as a whole, whilst logistics are put in place to research for alternative gas supplies and transportation systems.

Democracy a hostage

Democracies can be put under undue pressure leading to social unrest and an unmanageable polity such that governments might not just collapse but the countries are in danger of becoming failed states from the exertion of this kind of energy starvation muscle. Classic how to create disorder.

It can be said that Ukraine is being punished for exercising their democratic right to choose who they want rather than who has been imposed from afar.

We have had strongly worded commentary from the United States State Department; however, Russia as the prospective chairman of the G-8 group of advanced economies is being appeased rather than upbraided.

The force of democratic dissent to such abuse of power reminiscent of either the Stalin times or the US 1970’s foreign policy pertaining to Central America is more a whimper and a wail than a wallop with a resounding wham!

Winning the wrong war

Here we are, winning the war on terror by preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, arresting acts money laundering and trampling on civil liberties amidst the hysteria of saving lives and promoting patriotism as a more benign enemy is destabilising the life-blood of our industries, economies, comforts and democracies.

Amusingly, only little Netherlands has self-sufficient gas supplies in the whole of Europe and what is left over does not compensate for the possibility of a catastrophic weather breakdown from this Siberian ill-wind.

This is just gas, but by the time China decides to call in the loans that underpin the United States bloated budget deficit, would the death of democracy herald another world order?

The possible unexpected

You might shake your heads and say this will not happen, however, I can just see how this can be diplomatically achieved just as we have made so much progress in North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, Sudan (Darfur), Russia and Ukraine.

For now, our freedoms, principles and liberties are threatened more by the realities of what Russia, China and Oil-producing countries can wield than the ideologies that emanate from Al-Qaeda adherents. It is however unlikely that this would excite the attention of our ever so astute leaders.