Recorded at KWMR.org March 7 2025. Host Muriel Murch
It’s the writers, it’s the publishers, and it’s the bookstore owners that come together to give us the books we read. Over the years publishers and publishing, both in big and small houses, has grown and changed how a book gets into our hands and our hearts. It is not often that one gets to sit down with a working publisher who is willing to talk about the ups and downs of the publishing business today.
Harvesting History Book launch at Bolinas Museum March 8th. Muriel Murch with publisher Vicki DeArmon by her side
But at the beginning of March, Vicki DeArmon, the publisher of Sibylline Press, along with Christine Walker, one of Sibylline’s authors joined me at KWMR.org radio in Point Reyes Station. We had a grand conversation, learning about Vicki’s experiences in the dynamic publishing and bookselling worlds in the heyday of small presses in the 1980s and 1990s in San Francisco, when Bay Area presses and book stores each relied on the other for their livelihood, while harvesting authors for their successes. Vicki talks about the history of the Bay Area’s publishing houses, sharing information as to how they work and helpful information about how to get your book published. Christine talks about writing memoir, where memories come, from and the importance of all art in the creation of story and books. So sit back maybe with a glass of “Mortal Zin” (another title from Sibylline) and enjoy.
Foghorn by Vicki DeArmon
Christine Walker’s Tap Dancing at the Bluebird taps its way onto a new Kindle
For over 24 years, passion and inquiry has been AIRWAVES’ backbone. From across the globe, host Raul Gallyot has invited authors, cooks, medical professionals, directors, performers, actors, politicians and winemakers to visit AIRWAVES while sharing their particular perspectives. Unrehearsed and informative, broadcast-interview conversations flow back and forth as professionals present unedited thoughts, past stories and recent findings.
The studio 1 Board at KWMR.org
Raul Galllot
And this was certainly unrehearsed. Raul has been a programmer host on KWMR.org for almost 25 years and throughout that time has brought us guests who make us think, laugh and ponder in sorrow. When he asked me to join him on air I had no hesitation on saying ‘Yes’ trusting he would challange me and make me – the guest – think outloud. The result is a bit of a ramble through my mind, my life and work.
We talked of a flutest playing over the lake at dusk in Sri Lanka. But there was also a bell, rung at dawn and dusk and at times of danger.
Raul’s Airwaves can be found in the archives of KWMR.org and on the Internet Archive. Thank you for listening.
Eleanor readies the deck for Machiavelli, that she taught us all for those times of waiting. Photo by Janet Robbins or MAM – card players both.
In 2008 Eleanor Coppola published her book ‘Notes on a Life’. It did well, though was received with mixed reviews; some people were curious about the life of a Coppola, others about art and relationships, while others understood that a woman’s world is that – a woman’s world – and the challenges that women face, in all walks of life, have many overlapping similarities. As an artist as well as a wife and mother, Eleanor knew first-hand of the trials, the fears and the courage it takes to share your work and your voice with others.
At that time I was still producing ‘Living with Literature’, radio programs of conversations with writers, teachers and thinkers for radio broadcast on KWMR.org. Eleanor the artist, Ellie the friend, and I sat down for a conversation about her book, her life and her quiet observations, that become notes to be shared.
Eleanor Coppola left us in April of 2024 but listening back to this conversation from 2008 it is wonderful hear the energy in her voice, the understanding in her mind and the compassion in her heart – for they remain with us.
Written and Read for you by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.
This Letter was written last weekend just as the storms were breaking in Israel, Gaza and Palestine. Since then events are unfolding at a fearful pace and I have not gone back to update this blog. There are better places to find out what is happening as we try to keep all people in our hearts. This program is always first aired on KWMR.org on ‘The Lowdown show’. KWMR.ORG is in the middle of its fall Pledge drive. If you feel you can support the little station that could and can and does make a difference, we are all grateful – especially in these difficult times. Thank you. https://kwmr.org
On this bright Saturday October morning, The Primrose Hill Farmer’s Market is bustling. The stalls are overflowing and there seem to be more shoppers, children and dogs than I have seen all year long. Like squirrels, we are stocking up for the winter ahead. I buy olive oil and artichoke hearts from the Olive Bar, then see Ron, who now walks with a cane, with his Horizon collection of honey and I choose a jar of freshly harvested heather honey. From Pete, of Brambletyne Farm, I gather eggs, small windfall apples, some of the last Negro Kale and fresh mushrooms. Spelt bread from Olivers and the French baker who always gives me a sweet grin and his ‘best’ loaf. Alex of Five-Way Fruit is doing a brisk trade with perfect pears and the last of his berries grown in plastic greenhouses. Here is lovely Angelina, who comes at harvest time with their family wine and olive oil from Italy. Onto the back of the market and Varley and Crouch for Parmesan and a slice of three-month-old sheep cheese plus 100 grams of Parma ham for tonight’s supper, with Matthew’s Eden Farm Organics baked potatoes. Mathew also has the last of the fresh carrots – they are getting large, but with their tops on, are still fresh. I remember to buy unpasteurized milk and butter from Steve Hooks’ farm stall. But no meat today, either from Hooks or Picks or even one of Rafik’s chickens. I pass by fresh pasta, smoked salmon, empanadas, fresh broth and tempting macaroons. On my way out I take a loop through Ted’s Veg and there is the prize of the morning. Bert, of Ted’s Veg, has a basket of fresh walnuts. They are still moist, and the shells green with damp mould. They lie cool in my hand as if they have been plucked from a woodland floor. I scoop two handfuls into a bag and hope that Bert will have more next week. Only when I get home do I realize I have forgotten onions and garlic. The day is full: a noon-time haircut followed by a Film Festival screening. When finally we come home, I am exhausted. Flat out on the sofa, rehydrated with Russet apple juice, I can face the small plate that Walter prepares for me. One of Alex’s moist pears, sliced alongside of thin cuts of the sheep cheese and now those precious walnuts are crushed, the meat glistening and as fragrant as an evening fog-laden autumn walk. Like the squirrels on the hill, I have come home with gifts of the forest.
The walnuts are fresh and moist.
Away from home, wars join natural disasters to fill our newspapers and TV screens. The war in Ukraine remains in the news as much for the war as for the political ramifications, and manoeuvres that are played out on the world stage. Zelensky still strides about in Army fatigues but now they are pressed and clean for he is as often at conferences as he is on the ground with his troops as they enter their third winter in the fields of battle. This is getting messy and does not look to end any time soon. The stakes are too high for both sides.
Nature skips her stones across the deserts and into the lake scolding us for our unwanted cheap behaviour. Storm Daniel flooded and crushed the dams around the city of Derna and swept villages away in Libya, while earthquakes shook villages free from the hillsides of Morocco and Afghanistan.
Coming home from the market, and thinking about what to write for this weekend letter – focusing on the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences that take place in September and October – but while I was plucking carrots, choosing cheese and walnuts – another war exploded. Israel was attacked from The Gaza Strip by Hamas in the biggest attack for fifty years. Among the targets was a music festival held close to the border between the two territories. Israel’s Zika rescue service have so far removed 260 bodies. Images of the festival audience running for their cars also showed the Israeli hostages taken. Many are young, beautiful in their youth, as well as children and grandparents. This was a family day out. There is no pause now, with the Israeli Prime Minister saying the country is embarking on a “long and difficult war”. Hamas claims to have struck Israeli cities while Israel clamps a siege on Gaza. Iran’s officials say “not me gov” and the politicians here are sobered, clambering to position themselves to the right or the left of their own moral consciousness.
Solar Panels from GreenBiz
The politicians have returned to work beginning with the Conservative and Labour Party conferences. The Conservative party held theirs at the end of September in Manchester, rudely giving the High-speed rail 2 – leading from London to Manchester – the chop. Despite the fact that this was probably not planned out well by their conservative cronies all those years ago – let’s change things for change’s sake – such as the rail tracks width so that no trains running on it could actually link up with other trains across the country or – hold it – going on into Europe. And taking additional slices of the country pie by cutting back on solar panels incentives for farmers. There are a lot of big Conservative farmers who don’t like this new form of harvest, seeing solar panels in their fields as a blight on ‘this green and pleasant land’ preferring their huge combines to scoop out the earth’s resources rather than receive the sun’s bounty.
Now in October, it is the turn of the Labour Party – and even though this brand new war has caused a moment of reflection – the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is doing his thing and so is the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, she of flaming red hair and a true Council-house background. Now she is ready to roll and she does. Can she and Sir Keir deliver on housing, the cost of living, the NHS backlog, interest rates, immigration and God knows whatever else. There are some serious messes to clean up. They are an unlikely team but that in itself may help to make them work in harness. During these months and years ‘in opposition’ they have learnt ‘when to hold ‘em and when to fold them’ with each other’s style. If they can both keep focused on the country and not themselves, then there is a chance for The United Kingdom to righten the ship of state.
A little Glitter for Sir Keir at the Labour Party Conference
An interesting development is the addition to the Labour team of Marina Wheeler KC – ex-wife of ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson as Labour’s new “whistleblowing tsar”, offering advice on proposed protections for women against workplace harassment, helping the party strengthen the employment rights of women. After the mandatory six-month break between roles, Sue Grey the former Civil Servant, whose report on the parties at Downing Street during the Covid lock-down helped bring the aforementioned Boris and his boys to the dudgeon – is now Labour’s Chief of Staff. Sir Keir Starmer has more than welcomed these women – formally from the Conservative party – to join him, he has plucked the cream of the crop.
Volunteering at our Community Library has its perks beyond meeting and greeting people from our community. There are books to be borrowed and relished and – tempted by politics – and the writers I do. However the inner truth of ‘Johnson at 10’, by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell – documenting the chaos and downfall of the Johnson premiership – is too unbearable to read. But I dive into the muddled waters of ‘Politics on the Edge: A Memoir from Within’ by Rory Stewart with the heartbreaking truths of its pages showing me a Conservative party system rotten to the core and it makes me deeply afraid as I face my naiveté.
This has been a Letter from A. Broad written and read for you by Muriel Murch.
Stephany Wilkes came to the farm this winter. Sitting in the sunshine on the front deck she questioned and listened and scribbled notes. This article, with beautiful photographs by Paige Green, is the result.
We met at the Community Library where we both volunteer as best as we can. He, Ben Aitken, is holding a book In the Blink of an Eye and I am weeding the roses. “Is this your husband?” he asks. “Yes.” I reply. And then he says something else and we chat. It is great to have young people volunteering at the community library. A few days later there is a joint book reading at the library and I go along. Ben discusses and reads from The Marmalade Diaries and Freya Sampson does the same with her book The Last Library. Both authors are well-spoken and while their books touch on many themes, community – in one form or another – is a constant. Later in the summer, the community (there is that word again) library hosts a barbeque party for the volunteers. A little wine is drunk, some sausage rolls and sweets are eaten and I ask Ben if he would talk to me about his book, The Marmalade Diaries for KWMR.org our community radio station in Point Reyes California, and he agreed.
After her husband of 60 years had died, 85-year-old Winnie Carter needed a lodger to live with her at home. Ben became that lodger. And then came Covid and the lockdown. The conversation explores how those Covid Lockdown months impacted all of us, especially the old, those alone, and families. And what Ben learned along the way. How did Covid change us and how did our lives change doing those long months?
“I’ve been speaking with your Health Secretary. He says things are getting better. Poor man.” So said the Queen, dressed demurely in a mauve frock, when, last Tuesday, after fifteen months, she met in person her current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. With the cameras rolling and clicking Johnson looked the unruly but chuffed school boy he is, standing with hands clasped behind him, before the Queen’s constant good manners.
“Yes, Yes.” The Prime Minister assures the Queen and that is all we see of that moment.
Queen Elizabeth II greets Prime Minister Boris Johnson at an audience at Buckingham Palace, London, the Queen’s first in-person weekly audience with the Prime Minister since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Picture date: Wednesday June 23, 2021.
Until later in the week The Sun Newspaper hits the stands. There is Matty Hancock, Health Minister, clutching aide Gina Coladangelo in a clinch-hold on the front page, with the headline. “Face, Hands, Cock no distance” In the little-known dangers of University life, Matt and Gina first met at the Oxford University radio station. By Saturday evening, Hancock had resigned and Sajid Javid, previously chucked out as the Chancellor has been brought in as Minister of Health. A Cabinet reshuffle is not an empty phrase. Javid is a solid Tory man, called by some the First Son of Margaret Thatcher, and he will have to come up to speed quickly in this Health crisis brought about by this government.
Hello Javid
On his first day in office he said ‘Yes’ to every question put to him. Sometimes adding the unnerving, ‘Absolutely’. Back to hypocritical, humbled-for-the-moment Hancock, who made a public apology for ‘breaking the rules on social distancing’ and says he will continue to serve his country from the back benches. After lying to our Queen, ‘Things are getting better’ and taking his eyes from ‘working around the clock’. Opinions from the dustman to the politician run between – ‘long may he rot there’, to ‘how dare he show his face in Westminster’. His constituency of West Suffolk is none too pleased with their minister’s behavior and if not exactly cries, there are certainly mutterings of “Off with his head.” Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts was ahead of her time. Even with their budgetary caution, the BBC has added their voice to the clamor from Labour and opposition government parties with outcries of ‘shame’, Johnson should have fired Hancock. Johnson knows as well as any man, that when the little brain takes over there is not a lot of logic going on.
Anglican church memorial to British officers in the Afghan war. 1866
But wait – stuffed behind a bus stop in Kent – someone – who was that – happens to find a bundle of soggy classified documents from the Minister of Defence. Information on the HMS Defender trying out a quick sail through the Black Sea checking on Russia’s response to edging a wee bit close to the Ukraine and Crimea was laid out in those soggy pages. Russia made their position clear with a quick response. This is a shell game over the waters and one can only hope that the fish have something to say about it. As NATO prepares to leave Afghanistan to its fate, Britain is thinking it might move in – again. While visiting India in 2004 we stopped at an old Anglican church. Along the nave, beside each pew, was a scabbard in which the British officers should place their swords. A memorial Cross stood outside to commemorate British officers who had died in the Afghan War – of 1865.
Following last week’s closure of the Apple Daily Newspaper in Hong Kong a seventh senior editor, Fung Wai-kong, was arrested as he prepared to leave Hong Kong for the United Kingdom. Now another newspaper, Stand News, has removed all their past published Opinion pieces. The Chinese Government’s net is tightening its draw string.
Meanwhile Alexander Lukashenko responded to the Western worlds imposed sanctions by sending plane-loads of Iraqi refugees to be unloaded in Lithuania while moving Roman Protasevich and Sofia Sapega from jail into house arrest. But this is no picnic or sign of safety for Roman, Sofia or any of the young people in Belarus, calling for a more democratic government. The IT industry that was booming in Minsk is disintegrating in the sewer of government impositions. Those young IT engineers that can, are leaving for the neighboring Ukraine.
Angela Merkel is lobbying the European Union to adopt Germany’s ruling that everyone coming from Britain to Germany go into quarantine. She is to visit with Boris Johnson in England this week and then onto the US before she leaves office in the autumn. She may be being very sensible and cautious, but so far the rest of Europe is not going along with her idea.
In this little island we are dealing with the crater-hole of one Minister falling on his sword and another picking it up out of the gutter. On Monday Chris Whittey, England’s chief medical officer, went to St. Jame’s Park for a little sit and think and was set upon by two men, angry, frustrated and feeling helpless in this continued uncertainty. Police were called to investigate, but will get no further than form filling.
Guillen Nieto with the Abdala Vaccine
But on another Island, Cuba, there is news that lifts the spirits with the development of their own Covid vaccine. Named Abdala – as a latin country would – from a poem by José Martí. It has so far proved 92% effective and thus is on par with BioNTech, Pfizer and Moderna. There is no attacking scientists or health workers in Cuba where political Isolation from the US embargo, their reluctance to take vaccines from China or Russia has kept the country poor and yet rich in its independence and humanity with a health system to be proud of.
While America turns the ignition key for political movement and change, Russia yanks its hand brake hard bringing dissension to at least a temporary halt.
If Alexei Navalny is to carry on his work, he needs to return to Russia. The price would be high and he knew the Kremlin would come for him. As Vladimir Putin’s strongest critic, in print and on the streets, Navalny has been a thorn in Putin’s side for a long ten years. The Kremlin tried to corral him to silence him, sending out their best guard-dogs to nip at his heels. They herded him into courts, penned him in house-arrests and jail, before finally, in exasperation, tried a botched poisoning attempt by the Federal Security Office, the FSO, that was rebirthed from the old KGB.
Whenever Navalny decided to return from Germany to Russia he knew the world’s journalists would be following him. Booking tickets on the same plane, they crowded in on Alexei’s last hours with his wife Yulia who must have accepted that this is the price they needed to pay.
What did Alexei and Yulia discuss, that they haven’t already? How far ahead can they look into the lives of their children, the family, his work, and how much can be continued if he were to be silenced forever? They must have known that Moscow’s police service had orders to immediately detain him for parole violations. The question of how long to detain him, where and for what, is a thorny political decision for Vladimir Putin as the world watches. And the world is watching, or rather glancing, for at the moment, there are other players in the world stage this week.
Police officers speaking with Alexei Navalny before leading him away at Sheremetyevo airport on Sunday. Photograph: Reuters
On Wednesday, as this program airs on KWMR the United States is inaugurating Joe Biden as their 46th president and with that act completed the United States and the world stages will change and a new act begins. While Putin may shrug off concerns for world opinion the question still remains for him, ‘What to do with this constant festering thorn in his side’.
Arrested again, Navalny is held and now jailed for a month pending his three-year prison sentence. He was last seen speaking from a holding area surrounded by masked police, and urging his supporters to take to the streets. Though the temperature is 20º below freezing, the sun is shining and his supporters are gathering and protesting for him. But the fear of the Covid virus and Covid restrictions may be enough to dampen support, and Alexei Navalny can be quietly herded into the past tense.
Text messages ping through within minutes of each other on both of our phones. “You have been invited to book for your local First COVID-19 (Astrazeneca/Oxford) vaccine this weekend” There are instructions, ‘attend alone unless you need a carer, don’t come at all and rebook if you are feeling unwell,’ and more. This is the true excitement highlight of this week. The Belsize Priory Health Center in Kilburn is on the number 31 bus line, but are we up for getting on the number 31 bus? Not yet. Just as we step outside, Mr. Habtu returns home from a client. I tell him we are off to get our vaccines.
There is no hesitancy,
“I will take you.” ‘No no.’ “Yes I will take you. Let me get a clean mask.” and he disappears up to his flat and returns to park his Addison Lee SUV at our doorstep. It is in the kindness of such gestures that we are reminded how much people need to give as well as receive. He is more than happy and we are more than grateful to be driven to and back from the Belsize Priory Health Center in Kilburn.
It is raining. Not hard slogging-down rain but neither is it just a soft rain. The queue stretches out and winds around the cold utilitarian buildings that look older than their years. Belsize and Kilburn all look worn down and even their tiny community garden is hiding in the rain. Umbrellas are needed as we move along from under the overhanging walkway, across the small courtyard, and into the first building. Traffic flow has still to be worked out, as there are check-ins to be done here, questions to answer there, and then another walk – winding around to the clinic building offices. Here we are firmly told where to stand. Nobody is going to get sick on this volunteer’s beat. How many of the staff are volunteers, medical staff from the clinic, or retried doctors and nurses recruited for this effort, it is hard to say. But everyone, before noon on Saturday, is still upbeat and kind. Across the country, health centers, pharmacies, and even cathedrals are rearranging the furniture to become vaccination centers.
The health scares of smallpox and polio with their vaccination programs for children that followed in the 1950s are strong memories from our childhood. Now those children, including ourselves, are the vulnerable seniors, once again waiting our turn and grateful for science to save us. From self-isolation at home, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announces that vaccinations are now available for those 70 years and older and that as of today over four million people have had their first vaccination in the United Kingdom. Though the UK death toll from COVID-19 is still rising, the number of new infections in London is down 30% and there is a glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel.
People queue outside Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire, to recieve an injection of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.
What will this week bring for American politics, for England’s Covid vaccination news, and for all of us living in these times?
With Brexit a done deal, opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer is washing his hands of any Brexit redux, leaving the freedom of travel for Europeans and Britons in the hands of the European Union. Sad as it is maybe he is right to let the English people grumble and suffer on with Boris Johnson’s non-deal.
Meanwhile the Covid Vaccine timetable is being rolled out. Health workers are getting vaccinated, the Queen and Prince Philip have been vaccinated, and white-haired seniors can been seen shuffling along in the cold, queuing outside of drafty tents. Minister of the Cabinet, Michael Gove, does admit “Transport for seniors may present a bit of an issue.” All I can think of is bladder control.
The First BioNTech-Pfizer Vaccine given to ninety-year-old grandmother Margaret Keenan. Photo by Jacob King
The stillness is beginning to get oppressive. Though there are still clusters of young people milling around the High Street coffee shops, not yet able to give up on the social connection or the metabolic addiction of their cup of Joe. Once again, I write out a grocery list and send it along to Parkway Greens. Later in the day, there is a rat-a-tat-tat on the door, and an overflowing box of fruit and vegetables is laid on the steps.
£ 5 left over special
In Hampshire, where I grew up, the statistics are set out in graphs so color-coordinated I can’t follow them. But next door, Surrey, the homiest of home counties, has begun to build temporary morgues on discrete army grounds. While making room for 800 bodies, the County Council are still concerned that this will not be enough. The small hamlets and villages that surrounded my childhood are dotted with Covid virus cases and death. Old names – Ash Vale, Frimley, Bagshot, Camberley, Farnham, Elstead, Tongham, and Guildford, all a part of my childhood – are now saddened with a startled grief. The home counties suburbs are struggling in their perceived privilege with its lack of discipline as much as the industrial working north is with making a lively-hood.
A friend in London admits to now watching afternoon television. Something she would never have considered even six months ago. We are not there yet except for the momentous events of last Wednesday in Washington DC. But the death this autumn of Dame Barbara Windsor, star of the long-running TV drama East Enders reminded us of the hunger to escape into a fantasy world. And, often I do switch on my Roberts radio, tuned to BBC Radio 4, and catch the fifteen minutes of ‘The Archers’ which this year turned 70. First subtitled ‘The Every Day Story of Country Folk’ with a five-part pilot in 1950, it was created in an effort to educate farmers and improve agricultural production in the early post-war years and had a heavy government influence in the scripting until the 1970s. I can remember it playing on the wireless in my nursery where I would be having supper and someone would be ironing. Our generation listened to it for years, it was as ingrained in our minds as a Catholic catechism. School term times came and went, and whenever we returned ‘The Archers’ would be playing in their 6.45. p.m. slot. You could dip in and out of the village story, for it never lost its charm or its relevance to rural living. Even when television came nipping at radio audiences with their soap operas of Coronation Street and The East Enders that focused on working lives in London and the north of England, The Archers carried on.
Over this summer, the episodes of The Archers continued with a story of three British-born young men kept as slaves in a secret location on the outskirts of Ambridge, each one having a learning or mental health disability. This is the appalling reality that The Archers’ editor, Jeremy Howe, chose to confront as well as to challenge. According to the Global Slavery Index, it is thought there are up to 136,000 victims of modern slavery in the United Kingdom.
“It’s not simply a problem involving immigrant labour,” explains Howe. “It can be a British problem involving British slaves and British gang-masters.”
Reading the Saturday Financial Times paper on Sunday, I found a small article tucked in a lower corner. The South Korean Government knocking on Japan’s door once more for recompense for the Korean Comfort Women kept for the Japanese soldiers during WWII. The Japanese are, naturally, dismissing any further claims of compensation for the now very few women left alive. I first came to this story with Nora Okja Keller’s book “Comfort Woman” published in 1998 when for KPFA and KWMR we had a conversation about her book which was loosely told from her grandmother’s remembrances.
Three hungry young men
Slavery, and enforced indenture-hood, in today’s world, is nothing new, but something we don’t always look to find on our doorstep. Simple dramas like The Archers can do that for us. And so can the three young men of undetermined Slavik European lineage who “worked” for what we now call our Irish Rogue Roofers in 2016. We were taken for a right royal ride and I can only shake my head at our stupidity. And I remember those young men who devoured all the food I fed them and spent the longest time relishing hot water as they cleaned up at the end of the day in our bathroom. Photographs and recordings given to the police yielded nothing more than a night-time stop-over in a local police station for the family patriarch. In the silence of these restricted and cold winter months, with no work available, I pray that those young men are somewhere safe today.
Recorded and Knit together by WSM. (Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz gave the welcoming address as all the members of the G 20 summit were made visible on the big Zoom Screen. The summit was hosted by Saudi Arabia but without the lush, welcome goody bags that must have been missed. Here were twenty nations coming together, to talk, or in this instance, to listen, trying to come up with a positive action in this COVID year that has affected every nation. President Putin looked suitably serious, President Merkel was as clear and concise as ever. Prime Minister Johnson huffed and puffed his way forward, while ‘you know who’ got up after the first photo shoot and went golfing. The consensus that emerged was that COVID-19 vaccines should be made available world-wide, and equally accessible to poorer countries.
There were no cozy tete-a-tete in the tea rooms or bars of the hotels where so much, for better or worse, can be discussed, suggested or mooted. So it was no surprise that the U.S. Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, slipped off touring the Arab states and ‘had a word’ with the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, M.B.S. undoubtedly picking scabs in Irainian politics with Pompeo saying “It’ll be our policy until our time is complete.” One wonders what the ‘it’ is, beyond giving President-elect Joe Biden a headache on entering the White House in January.
In England, beyond Brexit, beyond COVID, beyond a Prime Minister in isolation again, the UK government has another little problem. Sir Alex Allan, as adviser on ministerial standards, clearly decided that the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, had breached the ministerial code through yelling profanities and bullying. For whatever reasons Johnson sat on the report for months, though now it is clear that Patel’s role as dark haired handmaiden to the blond bumble may be in jeopardy. While Sir Alex Allan resigned, a few ministers came forward uttering variations of:
“I’ve never seen her behave badly,” The business has left another bad taste in the mouth of the public that is barely being rinsed away by the news of COVID Vaccines soon becoming available, or the promise of the national lock-down being lifted and Christmas having some element of normality.
European and international news is buried deep in back page paragraphs. In Belarus the 16 weeks of protest continue though the weekends arrests were down to 200. Three young Hong Kong activists including Joshua Wong, have been charged with activism and each face three years imprisonment. Exhaustion and the COVID Virus have caused many demonstrations to fade, though the women of Poland are still visible, struggling for the last vestiges of control of their bodies.
Seeing all this harsh political power-playing behavior, being isolated in COVID quarantine, and feeling powerless has been countered by the human kindness we met this week.
By Friday night, after a little biopsy on Thursday, my body had taken offense and raised my blood pressure to the extent it needed to let off steam, or blood, and, as there already was a wound available, it did. After doing all the right things it became clear this wasn’t going to stop without help. We had been instructed, “Dial 111 if you bleed for longer that fifteen minutes.” And I felt nothing but relief when two slender men in green uniforms strode into our cottage and joined me, sitting, and dripping, in the bathroom. Mike and John had been a paramedic team for over 20 years. Though both were now retired they had responded to this spring’s outreach call and came back into part time service for COVID.
After a bathroom sit and a chat it was clear that it was time to return to University College Hospital where a hand-off, such as I recognized, took place. Two young nurses tucked me up, watched my not good blood pressure and gently cleaned what they could of the continual stream of blood that was flowing into unmentionable creases. We were well connected before a very jolly God’s-gift-to-whoever doctor bounced in.
“We’re giving you some medicine for your blood pressure and now if you just hold this here with a little more pressure. And why did you have a biopsy?”
“Well it wasn’t for fun.” brought laughter to the little cubicle in which he had the grace to join in. I was wheeled off to a holding pen ward to wait, while continuing to drip, for the facial surgeon.
“And you are?”
“The Doctor.” A beloved young Asian Muslim knelt by my bed to talk at my level. I held out my hand and he took it, receiving me into his care. His soft brown eyes held my old bloodshot ones as he gently explained what he was going to do. He had done the first healing with acceptance and tenderness and now with his skill and experience he cleaned up the mess. I was beyond grateful.
While he went off to write up his notes, completing this minor event for him, I wondered if he realized that his healing had begun when he knelt by my side to look me in the eye. At one time he too must have had to overcome the fear of ‘the first time’ that was still carried by the young doctor who had performed the first, maybe her first, biopsy. We have all been there, learning the procedures, by the time honoured, “see one, do one”, been an assistant who lets their hand be squeezed so tightly as to bruise, before becoming the experienced practitioner who has the assurance to heal.
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
Muriel Murch 