Peace on Earth, by Carol Drinkwater

This month my blog is very short. Apologies for that. I am a little unwell. On top of that, due to the loss of my mother earlier this year, my husband and I are having a very low-key Christmas.

Today, 26th December, is Boxing Day. It is also St Stephen’s Day, which is celebrated in the Republic of Ireland as Lá Fhéile Stiofán. It is a public holiday also known as  Day of the Wren, or Lá an Dreolin. In certain parts of the country such as Dingle and Galway locals dress themselves in straw hats and parade through the streets. This tradition is less common now but occasionally you might see such a parade if you are lucky. What I appreciate about most about this tradition is that those who participate are free to parade and dress as they please. Nobody stops them.

St Stephen was the first Christian martyr. He was taken outside the city of Jerusalem beyond either the eastern or northern gate - archeologists are divided on the precise location - and was stoned to death for blasphemy. In the Acts of the Apostles he is spoken of as one of the Christian Deacons of Jerusalem. Here, below, is a remarkable painting by Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto of the stoning of Stephen. It is the altarpiece of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

and here the stoning of Stephen by Paolo Uccello

I have been gazing at these two paintings while sipping my morning coffee. I have been pondering a society that allows a man to be stoned to death because he speaks up for what he believes, because his philosophy is different. 2016 has been a wretched year for barbaric acts justified by righteousness.   I am as impotent as the next when I read of or watch recordings of massacres such as we have witnessed this year in Nice, or a few days ago in Berlin to name but two.

Boxing Day has become a commercial affair - the first day of the sales in certain countries. Important though, I think, to remember its earlier meaning. 

A new year approaches. One that will trigger many changes: Brexit in Britain which might cause the reinstatement of border control between Northern Ireland and the Republic, the presidency of Donald Trump, an election in France where the extreme right is hoping to gain a majority control along with many other events that threaten to override tolerance. What I wish for tomorrow, for 2017, is that we can as a universe, as a species open our hearts to one another. If, every day, one tiny act of tolerance, a gesture for peace, is expressed we might begin to turn the tide of hate and intolerance that is threatening to engulf us.

Happy holidays. Peace on Earth.

www.caroldrinkwater.com

Postcards from the Threshold – Dianne Hofmeyr

Albert Memorial 1904 

This is not exactly a Boxing Day post – for that you’ll have to go to Dec 26th 2011 but Essie Fox’s on Christmas cards reminded me of how each year my mother-in-law put the same old favourites on display – some going back as far as the first Christmas after her marriage.

It was finding Susannah Clapp’s ‘A Card from Angela Carter’ in my Christmas stocking that reminded me of how histories can be woven from a few sparse sentences. Clapp has written this slim volume drawing from a few postcards Carter sent to her as a friend… like a paper trail of her life. Carter’s words are terse and funny and the images on the postcards often unexpected and baring no relation to the message.

The book made me dig out some of my own old postcards from the threshold of the last century. In the early 1900’s postcards would have been what email is to the early 2000’s, just as telegrams were what texting is today. Between the short sentences, it’s often the words left out that give the glimpse into history.

The Albert Memorial postcard above is dated 1904 and addressed to a Miss Brooks of The Dairy, Kew Green. It says: Hoping you have safely arrived with love to all. J. S. Where had Miss Brooks been that she might not be safe? And who is J. S.?

One from my mother-in-law written from her Junior school, Herschel in Cape Town in the early 20’s to her parents, in rounded, childlike cursive describes cutting herself on some rocks on an excursion to the sea, then she writes: I have been doing my best to please my mistress for my sake, their sake, and your sake, so please let me come home next Sunday and bring someone with me.

Her own father in his early teens arriving from Dallas Texas, to take up a position at a Stationers in London declares to his sister: I have been made fun of in London because no one wears their hair parted in the middle and I have had to adopt a side parting.

My father receives a postcard in 1913 aged six, from his father, while he stays in the Somerset Hospital in Cape Town for a few months with tuberculosis. His father writes: Hoping you are getting well. Daddy will see you on Sunday. One wonders if this, in typical Edwardian fashion, is the first visit he’ll have from any family in the time he’s been there? (the word ‘daddy’ surprised me).

The front of the card is rather gouged and shows children in his hometown of The Strand, 30 miles away, promenading on the beach. It’s all quite jolly with boys in boaters and knickerbockers and girls walking arm in arm, compared to the rather grim exterior of the hospital on a bleak seashore next to the Cape Town harbour. I wonder if the scene cheered him up or made him feel worse.

The new Somerset Hospital, Cape Town - 1897

The Strand beachfront, Cape - 1913

So with postcards and Christmas cards now a thing of the past, what about emails and texts? Will they be collected as a record of fashion and whimsy and modern comment – a new threshold to the world? In the mean time enjoy Boxing Day... or rather... the Feast of St Stephen.

www.diannehofmeyr.com