The Salon Season

October 19, 2025 / aggiemurch / 1 Comment

Written and Read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

The Salon Season is here.

Storm Amy came and went, whipping the wind high and hard through London bringing down the first autumn leaves, but walking our mile canal loop the water was dark, clear, the overhanging trees holding their gold and russet leaves hidden for a little while longer. But other great trees have fallen. The quiet passing of Jane Goodall while still working was as if she left on a broomstick, while telling us to get on with it. Jillie Copper, an author known as the queen of the bonk-buster, gathered up her skirts as she swirled out the door. Diane Keaton quickly followed after them. These women, so dissimilar in work, all shared their passionate love of dogs. Surely a light example to find that which unites us.

Another woman has been called forward. Sarah Mullally has been voted as the new Archbishop of Canterbury in a church that still is allowed to teach that men should have authority over women. It has been six months since the Right Reverend Justin Welby resigned over not paying due-diligence to the problems of the church. Due-diligence to problems; something that all heads of church, state, and police struggle to maintain. But Sarah Mullally is also a nurse, and as she moved to further embrace her faith, taking up the role of priest, then bishop, she is mindful of the division her appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury and head the World Anglican Church will bring. As devout a feminist as she is a Christian, Bishop Mullally has a hard row to hoe and many priests and bishops under her care will resist her as she struggles to unite this wide-bodied church, weaving a bobbin through its warp, joining the threads of communication. Maybe between a woman like Bishop Mullally and the Venezuelan María Corina Machado, the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, some world shift can occur towards peace in our time.

This past weekend the Israeli attacks on Gaza have halted but there is no end to the dying. While trucks have begun to roll into the bombed streets, cleared only enough to allow them through, they move slowly, allowing the near starving to seize whatever sacks they can off the flat beds. Stalls are set up and, even in this mayhem, sellers are trading to those with money while those that don’t must resort to theft. Medical supplies and nowhere close to sufficient.

Driven in Toyota trucks, 20 living Israeli hostages were returned to Tel Aviv while 2000 Palestinian captives were bussed from Israel into and released in Gaza. While the Israeli hostages mostly had families and homes to return to the Palestinians returned to bombed homes and decimated families. Their return must be soaked in deep grief pouring into anger.

The American President flew into Tel Aviv to address the Israeli parliament. He was greeted with a standing ovation which guaranteed to feed his hunger for a while. At the peace summit held in Egypt with his counterparts lined up behind him he declared “The prayers of millions have finally been answered. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East.”

At the photo shoot a back drop of European and Arab leaders stood behind him. Sir Keir Starmer looked puzzled, Emanuel Macron stoic, and the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, completely bemused. Later that day, perched on a suitably serious chair in a ‘for the press’ moment, the King of Jordan blinked furiously and frantically into the hot lights as he tried to be diplomatic, positive, and truthful with his thoughts and concerns for future peace in the Middle East. It was not easy. Can the American President stay focused enough to go through with meetings to implement the 20 point Peace plan?

During these last two years of this conflict, peaceful rallies for Palestine to be recognized as a sovereign State have been held throughout Europe and the Western world. Beyond thousands have gathered in the major capitals of Italy, France, Spain, The Netherlands and more. And here in the United Kingdom, London, Manchester and other big cities have been holding huge gatherings of silent, peaceful protests for the freedom of Palestine. But in the United Kingdom is it considered a crime, the government having designated the Palestine Action organization a terrorist organization. Last week in Manchester a single terrorist attacked a Jewish Synagogue. Amidst a mess of gunfire three people are dead and Manchester is wounded. Despite the Prime ministers pleas – never a good sound bite – for the weekend Pro-Palestinian demonstration at Parliament Square in London to stop – it didn’t – and the police moved steadily through arresting nearly 500 silent protesters aged between 18 and 89. England seems too small, in geography and spirit to allow its people to protest in peace for peace.

As Michaelmas passes and the autumn evenings shorten and lower its lights, the London salon season begins. Friends gather together for evenings of art and friendship. A dear friend, a Chinese artist, who has lived and performed her life and work mostly in England and Europe hosts the first: a music and poetry Salon at her home tucked away at the top of the Heath. We are in London but not – at this moment – of it. There are no tall ceilings with giant chandeliers hovering over us, nor gilt-edged velvet chairs as in a castle. But there is soft lighting, a comfortable sofa, mixed chairs and the floor to sit on. The rooms fold away from each other, one behind the grand piano and the others concertinaing back into the warmth of the kitchen. Old and new friends come together – catching up on the year past – no time for future dreams before the poetry and music about to be shared. Everyone is nervous. The friends she has gathered are for the most part just that – friends – most are artists with a small a. As the evening unfolds, poetry mingles with music. The grand piano gets its longed-for work out, Tang poems from the 1700s are read in Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian, Latin, Japanese, French, German, Esperanto, Polish, Italian, Danish and Spanish. A poem translated from its original Italian prose into English poetry captures a brief moment in China. All are blended between theatre, mime and the music.

Poetry read by Walter Murch

The evening lifts us and for a few hours we are gathered together in the womb of art and beauty that sustain us, giving us strength to walk back into the dark night and return to the world.

Calligraphy of the character “Chan” (zen) by David Su Liqun

This has been A Letter From A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

As always supported by https://www.murchstudio.com

Extracts of Xi’an of Eight Rivers written by Curzo Malaparte and read by Walter Murch. Music from Keith Hammond and Katrine M. Lehmann

Correction in the audio. Tang poetry is from the 700s not 1700s.

Back to Work

May 29, 2023May 29, 2023 / aggiemurch / 2 Comments

Written and read for you by MAM with WSM by my side

The coronation is over, the King and Queen have had their little rest and are now back working; the King shaking hands with ministers and world leaders, and reading those dispatch papers that keep him informed as to who is doing what- and where – while the Queen goes out and about visiting and spreading good cheer as she continues to learn who is doing what in this country. The flags are still flying over the London streets teasing the tourists out to take another picture or two.

King Charles III. Photo by Victoria Jones /PA

The roses are only just beginning to bloom and have not yet pushed spring into summer. The bluebells are fading and the air in London is rich with the attar of cowslips growing in the hedges around the parks and along the canals and rivers. Last week while, walking up alongside of Primrose Hill I saw two vans parked on the same side of the street – back to back with their boot hatches open facing one another. The two men – from street-savvy habit – look up, always conscious of who might be watching, and we catch each other’s eyes. I’m smiling at them and – like fourteen-year-old boys caught smoking at school – they sheepishly grin back. There is an exchange going on. The slightly younger man is holding a plastic fitting, something that could be used in plumbing or electrical works. He seems to have at least a box of them and is proudly showing them to the slightly older man. Both are in their forties and when they were babes such things would appear on the lot of the film studio at Elstree, ‘It fell off of a lorry’ was the phrase for such items. Here in town, lorries are too conspicuous in the city streets and an unmarked white van can disappear quickly into the traffic. The men know that I know – and that I remember such mischief – and am too old to do anything but go on my way. And with another grin exchanged that is what I do.

The newspapers are quieter, looking as they can for other news. Well, there are always wars, and though we have a hard time keeping up with the Ukrainian president as he moves from the front lines of his country’s war to diplomatic meetings and back again, he does keep visible and keep the world informed. Is he luckier – in a sickening sense of that phrase – than the people of Syria with their multi-sided civil war or the Sudan where civilians are killed on a daily basis. Wars continue in what could be called the B column. In the C column, news of the treatments of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia by the Greek authorities are not even reaching the English papers. The refugees fleeing these wars have made their way from Turkey to Greece only to be captured – by whom – and pushed into vans – driven to launches – taken out to sea and transferred to the Greek coast guard vessels before being set adrift in rubber dinghies. Is this bounty hunting as in ‘I’ll give you so much for an adult, so much for a child’? We are horrified and sickened as we catch glimpses of such cruelty – and yet – it is hard to think of a time or place in ‘civilized history’ where and when this has not been true.

But at home – in England – the Prime Minister is missing. Rishi Sunak and his wife have gone to Japan for the G7 conference where everyone has a chat and so politely says ’After you’ as in ‘if you give Ukraine bombers we will too. If you shake China’s hand – we will too’. All are consumed with the war in Ukraine. Well, almost all, India and the Arab States are keeping a distance from that chat while Volodymyr Zelensky strides about this world stage, clad in his army fatigues moving and talking to anyone and everyone he can. What deals can he cut? A little pilot training here, a couple of fighter jets there. It may not be much but he wouldn’t get any of it without showing up and giving a photo opportunity for the supposed great and good.

While Rishi is away, the little problem of Suella Braverman’s speeding ticket has blown up across the papers. It is almost good for a laugh. Those pesky cameras are everywhere and even with the warnings, ‘speed camera ahead’ one can get careless, and click, click there is your license plate picture in a civil service office and the next thing you know a paper notice comes through the letter box. Then what do you do? Well if you are the Archbishop of Canterbury and you get nicked popping in and out of London you may try to resolve it out of court but accept that, “No your worship – you was speeding – a hot 25 in a 20 mph zone.” He may have muttered some words about the press getting ahold of this one but paid up and accepted the points on his license. But a politician is different and good – not so old – Suella Braverman tried to wiggle out of taking her speeding awareness course within a class. The media spotlight swung quickly onto her – again – and she looks more and more like the most recent hole in the Tory bucket shining light into the murky interior of her political party.

And with Rishi still in Japan, Boris popped back into the news announcing that he and Carrie are expecting another child, bringing this family up to three children trotting along beside the other known five he has begat. What a lovely old word begat is.

But some words are not so lovely – they are hard to pronounce and to say. Nigel and Farage are two such words heard again as he showed up on the news once more to finally admit – ‘Brexit is not working.’ He goes on – that of course it is not Brexit’s fault, but the bureaucratic administration that has got it all wrong. The communist party said the same thing but no one remembers that. What is so terribly sad is how this country cannot yet see itself as a minor player on the world stage, and behave accordingly. Europe has no need of England, but England has great need of Europe and European business, industry, and people.

On Monday evening our plane touched down in Athens Airport, 59 years after we left – not knowing if we would ever see each other again. The drive to the city dips in and out of old memories. Small towns and old olive groves spread out in age, showing dreams made, broken, and reset as the trees are realigned to the country’s fortunes. The scattered sage and scrub are muted in the decaying dusk before we enter the city center where there is not a refugee to be seen. The limousine pulls up beside the hotel, and we are welcomed to Athena. For 24 hours we can disappear into an old marble suite, deep hot baths, and room service before reemerging to work in the world once more.

Yorgos Mavropsaridis and Walter Murch in conversation with Orestis Andreadakis at the Astor Cinema for the Rolex Arts Festival. Photo Credit – in Greek!

This has been A Letter From A. Broad. written and produced for you by Muriel Murch.

The Queen

September 28, 2022 / aggiemurch / 5 Comments

Recorded by WSM Written, read and knit together by MAM

Waiting for the next Prime Minister photo by Jane Barlow

It has barely been three weeks since September 6th, when a rumpled Prime Minister Johnson arrived at the Balmoral Castle gates to hand in his card at 11 a.m. In quick succession, he was followed by the tight-skirted Truss. It was a long morning for our Queen, and for those watching with concern – seeing the Queen holding onto a stick with one hand while smiling and extending the other used and bruised hand, to Liz Truss. The Queen’s head looking large on her diminished frame, her nose pinched – straining for air – while no amount of lipstick covered the cyanosis of her lips. Tuesday was a brave day. Barely 48 hours later the Queen died as she had lived, in service to her nation. The heavens opened, pouring down their tears and we are still grieving.

Accompanied by The Princess Royal and her husband Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, the Queen’s coffin slowly made its way south to London to lie in state at Westminster Hall where over two hundred and fifty thousand people from all walks of life filed past to pay their respects and say ‘Thank you Ma’am for your service’. Did she cover all the bases? One could, if one chose, fault her for some family issues, but not on duty to her country as she saw it; honoring and hosting state and national moments or those small engagements around the country. The late Queen Mary was paraphrased as saying ‘We are the Royal Family and we love Infrastructure.’ We all feel a little stronger and stand a little straighter, when someone else shows interest and gratitude for what we do.

Her Majesty The Queen opens Parliament 2017 wearing – a hat –

The Saturday after the Queen’s death I wove my way behind Piccadilly through the lines of police vans parked all around St. James’ Square, then down the stairs behind that Palace to enter The Mall that felt like the nave of a giant cathedral. There was a quietness in this crowd, many carrying flowers and leading children, that was to last for days all across the country. People walked along the pavements to Buckingham Palace, sometimes with a pause as King Charles III and the Queen Consort were driven in and out of those palaces, Buckingham and St. James’. They were back and forth all afternoon and one hoped that they got at least 15 minutes for a sit-down cup of tea. The Autumn skies tossed grey and white clouds over the park trees, but the rain stayed hidden behind them.

What does it mean for a young girl to take a vow to follow a life that was chosen for her rather than she chose? It happens in all walks of life, people are lucky if they get to live their dreams. It takes an effort and strong will to turn your given path into your chosen one. The Queen embraced her role until she could relish it and turn it to her desiring.

There are fewer of us alive now who remember Queen Elizabeth’s coronation than who will remember her death and funeral. John Galsworthy wrote in the Forsythe Saga at the death of Queen Victoria. “We shan’t see the like of her again”. But now we have this Elizabeth was our Queen for 70 years. Even in death, the Queen managed something that the government could not – as the Transport Unions and the Royal Mail held off their strikes until next month.

At the announcement of the Queen’s death, all the television stations began airing their programs that they had been building for this moment. Planning for the Queen’s funeral had begun when she turned 79. All the news Broadcasters wore black. Huw Edwards, the senior news anchor man at the BBC – and he a Welshman – allowed himself to show some emotion. Those who wished to see the films, the footage, forever repeated could do so. It was like a huge family album of our family, our Queen, for as she vowed to give her life, be it long or short, to our service, she did – and we claimed her and the family as our own, rejoicing in the good times and fussing at the bad. The television stations played ten full days of coverage, back and forth with all the joys and the horrors replayed over and over again, probing into a life lived in the spotlight of her public, her people. The new King’s state and public greetings and meetings were followed in flashy detail. The pageantry and processions built like gentle love-making to the climax as the coffin was carried from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey. Giving his address from the pulpit of the Abbey – Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury – looked down across the nave at the congregation seated below. He spoke of our collective grief, the Queen’s abiding Christian faith, and service to duty, and then let out his zinger: “People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer.”

The service over, it was on to Wellington Arch where the coffin was transferred to the royal Hearse then driven slowly on through Hyde Park to join the A 30 road to Windsor. Just as she had begun her journey from Balmoral through the countryside of Scotland now she returned to the farms and lanes of Berkshire.

The Queen’s Corgi Dogs return from Balmoral Castle

The flags at all the royal residences flew at half-mast until the day after the State Funeral when the official period of public mourning ended. The Royal family and some of us will continue as long as we need.

In our little London garden is a David Austin Queen Elizabeth rose – still blooming in autumn. My mother bought it after my father died when she had to start a new life in her new home. Now it is with us. The same rose was among the flowers on the Queen’s coffin – in remembrance of things past but not forgotten.

This has been A Letter from A. Broad, written and read for you by Muriel Murch.

Sunshine Weekend

April 22, 2021 / aggiemurch

Recorded and Knit together by WSM

The sun shone and the weather was perfect on Saturday for Prince Philip’s funeral at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. Orchestrated by The Prince but now adapted in strict accordance with the Government’s rules for these Covid times, 30 members of the Prince’s family, all appropriately distanced, were in attendance. The ceremonial military guards, the Windsor house staff from the HMS Windsor bubble, his Fell carriage ponies, and close family remained masked and socially-distanced throughout the afternoon service. How glad we, who watched, were for their masks. As the Queen sat alone, mostly with her head bowed, her grief was only visible in her reddened eyes.

The Duke had added personal touches to his funeral: the Sailor’s piping call for permission to come aboard and entrance for his coffin into the chapel. At the service closing the highlander’s solitary bagpipe lament played in the empty nave while his coffin was lowered to the crypt below. The blessing followed, and the Dean of Windsor and the Archbishop of Canterbury led Her Majesty and the family out through the Galilee Porch. The Queen drove back to the castle with her lady-in-waiting while Prince Charles chose to walk and the family followed, the men warm in their overcoats and the women brave in their black stiletto-heeled shoes. Sometimes it is when walking in the sunshine that words can be spoken, gently, cautiously and hopefully healing. Did any of the family manage to have tea together? What sort of bubbles were established and kept? Where was the time when a family can gather, talk, sharing their sorrow under the banter of day-to-day catch-up chatter. Through the late afternoon and into the evening, I kept thinking about the Queen – wondering who was with her or did she sit – alone – in the silence of that time and all the times to come.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Fell ponies and carriage at Windsor for his funeral

The sun continued to shine on Sunday as the country began slowly to go about its weekend business. Londoners in Regent’s Park gathered in discrete family bubbles, picnicking on blankets as their children played and scootered and the volley ball games spread out beyond the football pitches. The cherry blossoms on the young trees are giving way to lime-green leaves and the wisteria buds are swelling. We wandered into the hidden St. John’s Lodge Gardens. It is a hushed meditation garden where couples and families sit quietly bringing in and packing out their picnics.

We sit too, watching the robins flit in and out of their nests in the tight hedgerows. Returning along The Broadwalk we crossed the canal and road before dipping into the grounds of St. Mark’s Church. There is a coffee hut, some benches and a sunlit spring garden that cascades down to the canal. It is one of those gardens that is gently tended, but it is clear the garden has the upper hand and the gardener just follows the landscape that unfolds. Now the plots where the Scottish Christmas Trees were sold is lightly fenced and reseeded – by the tree company in their best effort of cleaning up after oneself. Canal boats with happily spaced passengers are chugging and punting up and down the canal. Two young boys have been manning their canoe and brought her to shore. Their mothers and a sister climb the steps through the garden to collect small tubs of much needed ice cream for those intrepid sailors. Such small adventures are huge, taking up the whole of a sunny afternoon. We sit watching together on a bench in the sunshine overlooking the sloping spring garden and the canal. The daffodils have given way to red tulips and blue forget-me-nots. We are comfortable, sipping a fine latte coffee and sharing a crumbling iced carrot-cake, tucked into our place in the city. For the moment the sunshine bathes and soothes us all on this Sunday afternoon in a garden.

During a weekend of national mourning some politicians hoped to be able to slip under the radar of national scrutiny but not all were lucky. The headline of the weekend edition of the Financial Times reads, ‘How Sleazy are British Politics?’ The page turned to past Prime Minister David Cameron striding from here to there – wherever there may be. Boris Johnson has sanctioned an inquiry over the allegations of misconduct but an old episode of ‘Yes Minister’, is not so far gone in memory:-

“’There is going to be an Inquiry Sir”.

“Oh good.”

“Good Sir?”

“Yes, that means nothing will happen.”

But turning the metaphorical page, opposition leaders are urging the House Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to allow a vote on an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s ‘Consistent Failure to be honest” in statements to Ministers.

Given the size of the Conservative majority it is unlikely this motion will come to a debate, but just the idea of it is – well, ballsy Johnson’s blatant misleading and disregard for the parliamentary process is hitting a low water-line, not unlike the autocratic behavior of other world leaders that England shakes its finger at.

One of whom is Vladimir Putin. His political opponent, Alexei Navalny has been on a hunger strike since March 31st and Navalny has been moved to a prison hospital. There is not much time left for his healing or death to occur. Putin must personally long for Navalny to be gone – completely – and yet he must know that if Navalny were to die now it would be as a martyr. Russian news coverage of Navalny’s condition is silent while the world’s telescope scans this horizon.

This has been a Letter from A. Broad.

Written and read for you by Muriel Murch

First aired on Swimming Upstream – KWMR.org.

Web support by murchstudio.com