Sudan | Muriel Murch

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

The sun was shining as I finished refreshing the chicken house. Blue, the rooster, led his ladies milling around, happy as they checked out the new straw and shavings. And then, out of the silent sky came the roar and rumble. Looking up, I saw nothing, but heard and felt it deep in my body. I know that sound, it was a fighter jet, flying low overhead and I thought – the war has begun.

Breakfast in the safety of the Hen house

The news media bombards us and, like the chickens scratching in the orchard, we are half-primed for the pounce of a predator coming from the surrounding underbrush. For the moment, the chickens are safe from a resident bobcat on the hill as I will not let them into the orchard, but we may not be so lucky.

With each item of news about the shenanigans happening in the Happy House in Washington DC, everything we treasure about the Constitution is under attack and it takes more strength than I have not to be afraid of, and for, America. We can hardly glance at Gaza, the Sudan, and the world. But Europe, though teetering on waves of militant bravado has woken up. Germany has just elected a Conservative government – but the seemingly strong right-wing factor is licking its electoral wounds. Even Nigel Farage has toned down his bombastic spittle. A beloved friend in England who was beginning her new life in Scotland now thinks that her old home in the Australian Outback looks safer.

Thinking back into European and American History of less that a hundred years ago is like turning the pages on an old photo album. History, behaviour, and human nature mixes and re-emerges as a sea thrusting the waves of an ocean storm circling us again.

I’m thinking of young Vladimir Putin as a keen and dedicated KGB officer, committed to keeping all the surrounding principalities herded into the USSR and then, under Putin’s watch, for it all to be upset by Mikhail Gorbachev giving back Ukraine and breaking up the Union of Russia so tightly bound by Stalin. An attempted coup – here is that word again – led to the dissolution of the Communist party in Russia and the USSR four months later. Heady and searing times for a young, ambitious KGB officer. At the same time another ambitious yet nervous young New York business want-to-be was struggling with paternal authority issues. Slipping into real estate with a million dollars, and the advice, “you’ve got to be a killer”, from his father Fred, he began. Among his successes were failures, both moral and financial but he kept playing the part until he became the business man he wanted to be. But this smiling blustering crook took more than one serious tumble and that was captured and understood by an equally ruthless and ambitious, but more serious President across the continent of enemies. While Putin’s early bruising was from Gorbachev, and remembered for the rest of his life, the US President’s crushing bruising came later, in 2011 when an African-American president, Barak Obama, returned his fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner – these personal insults were never forgotten and maybe this was the night that redemption and revenge became the main drive of Donald Trump to rule the universe he knew.

Now these two men are playing on the world stage, ruthless killers and unrepentant deal makers. It is not a good combination for democracy. Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy may be bold, clever, quick and right but crushing him and regaining Ukraine to Mother Russia remains an objective, with the candy cane of minerals and wheat for the taking. We who are older and watching what is playing out see a repeat cycle on the world stage and know that deep down all of this dog-fighting is personal. There are other young European leaders taking up the helm for Zelenskyy and Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron flies to Washington DC, sits at the right hand of the Emperor and gently laughs, humors and says ‘Ah but no no, it was like this’. The Emperor laps it up, enjoying the adulation of the younger man but will probably pay no heed to his words. Next will come the British Prime Minister, Chief Prosecutor for the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, as devoid of humor and charm as Macron is full of it. He will play another hand, appearing to be ‘taking the President seriously’ while – maybe – we can never be sure with Sir Keir – again trying to guide the US president away from his deal making with Russia.

Zelenskyy, Macron, and Starmer are young men, hard working and dedicated to Democracy and a Free Europe but they may not be strong enough to turn the US President away from the skull crushing grasp of the Russian bear Vladimir Putin.

We watch the world stage from our rural corner of California, while looking at the effects of the games played by the boys in the Oval Office. What affects us close to home? What are the things we care about? Hard working families in fear of being torn apart, rangers from the National Parks fired, books banned from Libraries and Schools.

We are older and need to tidy up our lives. We are not cleaning out the cupboards and barn stalls as we should be, instead have been writing of our work, our lives and worlds together and apart. There are family stories to repeat, cinematic history and community evolution to record. And for some lucky reason both Walter and I are managing in our own ways to remember, to write and to share our lives. Walter’s new book ‘Suddenly Something Clicked’ from Faber & Faber will be on bookstore shelves and Amazon in the UK in May and the US in July. My ‘Harvesting History while Farming the Flats’ will be scrolling out in a digital format for your Kindle in March, followed with a print version a week later. And even an Audio – as soon as I can get to it. Here is a little glimpse in the prologue of our life stories as they moved separately through the decades of our existence together.

After my husband delivered a lecture to a group of Danish Film makers and students Philip calls out, “The last question please,” and a young man stands up.

“Mr. Murch, with your work schedule and the traveling, how do you manage a home life?” then he sits down. Suddenly there is a deeper quiet in the room. Philip nods and raises his eyebrows, which always look striking with his large, round, smooth bald head. He nods as if to say, “yes this is a good question” and looks over at Walter. Walter pauses, not rushing, as he can, to answer with overflowing ideas. Then he responded.

“Truth be told I don’t. I am often on a project for a year, maybe longer, sometimes eighteen months, even two years – and in that time I may not know where I will be six weeks ahead. You will have to ask Aggie that question.” He smiles and looks up briefly before Philip calls out, “Lunch. We will reconvene in an hour.”

‘Harvesting History while Farming the Flats’ is my answer.

Available March 7 2025
as an ebook ISBN 9781960573544
Print ISBN 9781960573698
www.sibyllinepress.com

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

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

Written and Produced by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side.

August slipped into autumn not bothering to wait for September while most of London went on holiday, leaving the city almost as subdued as Paris. Along the canal, three teenage ducklings are swimming alone as if their parents have regretted their final feathered fling in the water and are just too tired to raise one more brood this year. The ducklings look lost, paddling from one clump of weeds to another in the mindless way of adolescence. It is blackberry season and we are late for our semi-annual ‘Poaching in the Park’ moment. We go in the middle of the week – with less chance of being caught – though this little corner of Regent’s Park is now sorely neglected. There used to be a thriving small sports school here, a place to practice your tennis, golf, or cricket. But now the cricket practice nets have moved close to a central concrete hub with a cafe, overlooking the big open pitches that serve both cricket and football in often overlapping seasons. There is a small tennis club close to Queen Mary’s Rose Garden but the golf nets were removed altogether. Now the wilderness has taken over – as it should – and the blackberry brambles climb the Hawthorne shrubs and surround the adolescent oak trees. The King is in Scotland striding out on the moors for a good bit of fresh air, while the Prime Minister is back home in Yorkshire, maybe looking to see if the Green Peace ‘Stop Oil’ Delegation have left him any more notes on how to run the country. So we can pick and gather our bramble harvest which quickly became eight pots of jam. Six are stored away. One goes straight into our fridge and the other to Howard who – in years gone by – was one of the tennis coaches on the courts now covered with brambles. Howard lives close by and while closing into the other side of his eighties we often stop and chat. Howard is fond of the written word and from time to time pops a poem through our letter box.

The nightly news can barely be bothered with the wars that do not stop in the Sudan and Yemen. The Human Rights Watch write that Saudi border guards have been reported killing hundreds of Ethiopians trying to cross into Saudi Arabia from Yemen. And the war in Ukraine is not ending soon. The maps showing – in red, purple, and white – whose troops hold which cities and coastlines in Ukraine – are confusing and seem at odds with the reporting. If all that land – in red – is occupied by the Russians, how is Ukraine ‘making ground’? We see villages and cities bombed – and the long, low trenches slicing through fields and countryside appear no different than those dug for World War One – where Ukrainian soldiers crouch and fire, fire and smoke, and slog on. Summertime is wearing for soldiers and politicians alike. But there is a useful police mess-up from Manchester and a horrific tale of infanticide to keep us distracted from the wars and the Government debortle with the Biddy Stockholm barge. A few asylum seekers were being marched onto the barge two by two – when it was discovered – at least a week before reporting – and the marching on – that the barge water supply contained traces of the legionella disease bacteria long known to cause severe pneumonia and death. Time to pack their bags and march those foot-weary seekers of asylum and hope off again.

Sometimes I miss the small thud when the paper lady pops the Camden New Journal through the letterbox every Thursday morning. I glance through it, knowing there will not be not much I care to read but that sometimes, something will catch my eye. Last week – another August moment – there was no home delivery – so this week I made sure to read it. And there it was: a small column slipped into the side of a page. ‘RIP 168 – the bus stops here’. This route will be closed in September. ‘Oh No.’ How could they – who the heck is ‘they’ – let it happen. ‘They’ turns out to be Transport For London (TFL for short) and to whom we pay our bus and rail fares. They did a survey – even reporting that of three hundred respondents, only 18 agreed with the scheme to scrap the 168 bus route. And still, they went ahead. It is this kind of lock-jaw response that drives us all crazy. The government does it with their ‘there will be an inquiry’. It is – to put it mildly – upsetting.

Upsetting and inconvenient for people like me perhaps but downright devastating for people like Jim. Jim and I have been friends for twenty years and know much – and yet little – about each other. Jim is Jamaican, his wife was German and I often wondered what brought them together – if in those early years of their courtship, they both felt the chill of English disapproval. Jim was a Camden Garbage truck driver until he retired. His route brought the truck onto our street and he lives just two blocks away in a council flat. He had a Yorkshire Terrier dog, small, black and brown, and always keen, pulling Jim along as she raced up our street galloping towards the hill. Even at 17 – a serious senior for a little terrier – she was always ahead of Jim – until she wasn’t – and one day Jim quietly took her to the vet to say goodbye. Now he is alone, and as he gets older doesn’t go out and about so much. But we meet from time to time. ‘Ello darlin’ He calls to me, having long forgotten my name and it being too old a friendship to ask to be reminded. And we chat, about this, that, the other, and loneliness. A kiss is always welcome. The last time I saw Jim he was walking slowly with his cane, going to the bus stop for the aforementioned 168 bus on his way to The Royal Free Hospital in South End Green where the bus stops right outside of the hospital – in both directions. What will happen to Jim and so many others if TFL takes this moment of independence away? Each little cost-saving denial from them leads to a retreat and loss for us all.

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