Academic Historian: is that true?

Myself re-enacting a medieval academic historian or chronicler.
(C) Debra McDonnell, February 2010

Tuesday was a difficult day at work last week.  Very difficult.  I had a not-inconsiderable disappointment regarding a promotion that left me very low and then, laughably, the same day I had to attend a meeting to set my incentive targets for the coming year.  I was not in the mood.  I really wasn't.  I had spent a good part of the previous weekend in silent introspection about something that has been a major part of my personal life and was already miserable.

I had been having an internal dialogue about why I could never finish my novel.  Yes, 'that novel' to the people who know me, the one I have been writing for over 30 years.  I was wondering whether I should just bin it and declare "I am not a writer!"  I pondered why I could not create a decent story arc; especially one with a strong end.  From that it spiralled into the realisation that I had become obsessed with real history and seemingly lost the ability to weave a fictional history into the chronicled gaps.  I concluded that my shift toward academic historian had impacted everything and that started to drag me down to the low I experienced at work.

Yet, am I really an academic historian (by passion) as I have put in my "Me, me, me" profile?  I'm starting to wonder.

I began writing my magnum albatross of historical fiction in my mid-20s.  I had taken it out of the realm of medieval fantasy and crossed into the turbulent history of the 12th century.  I had already started reading historical fiction but was equally consumed by the subject of archaeology.  I discovered Current Archaeology magazine at English Heritage's Temple Manor in Strood, Kent and drank in every detail.  At the same time I started reading all of Ellis Peters' Cadfael novels (20 in total) and read Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose.   I loved the simple formulaic murder-mystery nature of Cadfael and how each tale drew me into Ellis Peters' vision of pastoral and secular England in the mid-12th century.  I equally loved Eco's literary, deeply academic murder-mystery tour-de-force set in the pre-Black Death 14th century.  They became my benchmark and I was determined to condense the two styles into one.

Perhaps that was my mistake:  the arrogance of believing I could condense two styles into one - whilst not writing a murder-mystery.

The general Cadfael writing formula always seemed to be weather, dirty deed, sleuthing and denouement.  That is a massive simplification but it still inspired.  In the years before the internet, I collected a year's worth of weather reports from the Independent newspaper to give me a real weather reference to work with.  I drove around the locations of my novel (except Lisbon and the Middle East) and collected ideas such as listening to the countryside, inhaling its scents and noting the quality of light.  That was the simple part.  The Name of the Rose element, however, unleashed the perfectionist researcher in me: the veritable beast upon my shoulder yearning to wag the finger and say:  "You know nothing, (Jon Snow)".

It became the enemy of my imagination.

At one stage, I enjoyed having my imagination be inspired by a side street of obscure historic detail that was infinitely more interesting and intriguing than anything I had previously contrived.  It was exciting.  Synchronicity, too, seemed to smile on me.  I got so involved with my story I once subtitled it History of a Past Life.  Yet, over time, I lost that connection and the excitement.  I took a BA (Hons) and MA in History and Medieval History to prove I knew what I was talking about and did not notice my imagination had become disengaged.  I had lost sight of what I was trying to write and, as my wife pointed out, my work was reading more like an academic paper than a novel. 

So, had I become an academic historian?

On the face of it, yes.  But actually, no, because History was not my preferred choice of study.  I have already said above that I began to be consumed by Archaeology at the same time as I became interested in the 12th century but when I searched for a part-time degree that a mature student could do, nothing existed in Kent.  Nine years later, when I was discussing my PhD ideas with my History professor, he kept repeating one word:  archaeology.  I should have taken the hint.

In conclusion then, subconsciously, I consider myself more archaeologist than historian even though I have never formally studied the subject.  Many years ago, an old friend often said I should've been an osteo-archaeologist because I like dead people.  Maybe she was right.  To that end then, here's a photo of the a dog's skull unearthed earlier this during at site of the Anglo-Saxon era Barking Abbey, Essex.  The original Barking Dog?  Who knows: he's certainly looked better.

A dog burial discovered on land that was once the wharf of Barking Abbey in the Anglo-Saxon era. 
(C) Philip McDonnell 2018

My deafness and music

An iPhone pic from the Pink Floyd exhibition "Their Mortal Remains".
Philip McDonnell 2017

I am deaf.  There's no simpler way to put it.  For years I could claim to be profoundly deaf which means little or no useful hearing.  I have now gone past that to profanely deaf, perhaps.  Fortunately, 10 years ago, I was given a cochlear implant by our beleaguered but still fabulous NHS (Guys & St. Thomas' in London to give the name of the trust) that has given me considerable audio restoration.  The only thing is: cochlear implants are speech processors, not music processors and music was one of those creations of humanity that was very important to me.

I began going deaf when I was 27.  I actually noticed I couldn't hear birdsong.  I got tested at a local hospital and they told me I was losing high frequency audio.  My threshold of pain from loud noise was also dropping.  That was 1991.  It would be another 16 years of decline before I would undergo tests for being fitted with an implant.

The audiologists said it was noise damage and I have since recognised the cacophonous world I lived in.  From an early age, I helped my father in the garage repairing cars.  That often meant standing in front of revving engines whilst unwittingly playing with lengths of asbestos rope used to seal exhausts.  That's how we lived back then: carbon monoxide and asbestos - life on the edge.

As a teenager, I discovered 70s heavy rock, namely Black Sabbath, AC:DC, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Iron Maiden, Rush and later, less heavy, Kansas and Pink Floyd among others.  I also discovered motorbikes followed by motorbikes with almost straight through exhausts. There was nothing like the sound of a four-stroke roar as you belted through the Dartford Tunnel at illegal speeds.  Finally, to complete my noise map, I starting work in the construction industry which eventually decided that noise was bad for you.

But the damage was already done.

Slowly, insidiously, I started to lose the ability to hear high fret guitar work.  Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street has notes played on the 23rd fret.  Gone.  The solo on Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb with the harmonic D on the 8th fret; gone.  Jethro Tull's Broadsword; badly distorted.  The introductions to Iron Maiden's To Tame A Land and The Mission's Deliverance; gone.  Fleetwood Mac's I'm So Afraid and Lindsey Buckingham's soaring guitar solos; gone.  Kansas' intro to The Wall and Rush's violin component of Losing It; also gone.  And with every year, I could hear less and less...until the cochlear implant.

I was fitted with the Med-El device on 28th July 2008.  My head was bandaged like a turban and I had to wear that for a week or so.  It came off quick enough and a stupid plaster was put in its place that fell off just as the opening ceremony of the Chinese Olympics began.  How's that for a memory?

At the beginning of September, I finally received the external sound processor of the implant and was 'switched on'.  Everyone sounded like R2D2 having a conversation with a Dalek.  Bloody awful, Like Pinky & Perky on crack.  But within days I could hear noises I had never heard; the bleeping of ATM's as keys are pressed; the warning alarms on buses and trains before the doors close.  And sounds I had forgotten like birdsong.  But music was my goal.

I sat on the floor with my future wife one night listening to music I knew.  The audiologists said listen to stuff I knew well.  The only track they recommended I avoid was Baker Street.  That, they felt, was the Holy Grail to me at that time.

I remembered listening to Jethro Tull and saying: "I know that's the flute but it just sounds wrong."  Yet, I hadn't heard it for years so at least there was progress.  And quickly some semblance of musical appreciation returned.

When I had the final test before the implant surgery, I could here one in five words in each ear.  After the op and once accustomed, I rose to eight out of ten words. Yet music, especially synthesiser and guitar-based work remained difficult and even today I am limited to that music I had a good audio-memory of before I went deaf.

Pop music was the easiest to hear.  Savage Garden became a favourite of both of us.  I persisted with Jethro Tull as Broadsword and the Beast was and probably remains one of my favourite albums of all time.  I could listen to Placebo's Pure Morning, Andrea Bocelli's Canto della Terra, Muse's Hysteria and a lot more besides and enjoy them.  But it was Kansas' The Wall, Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb, and Gerry Raffety's Baker Street that formed the trinity of my salvation.

Eventually, I played them all with Baker Street being the last just before Christmas 2008. And there were notes played on the 23rd fret.  They weren't fabulous and they will never sound the way my audio memory and my dreams (yes, I dream songs sometimes) replay them but they were there and I cried.  The Grail was within reach.

Today, I still struggle with improvised, extended and live versions of songs I like because they do not match my memory.  However, last year I went to the Pink Floyd Their Mortal Remains Exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the last room I visited played the first and last tracks the core four members ever did:  See Emily Play and Comfortably Numb.  The latter blew me away.  I just stood and let the music swamp me and video footage mixed with the psychedelic projections left me in awe.  I stood there through two repeats and cried...again.

My hearing will never be fully-restored.  At 54, it never will be as perfect as it was when I was a teenager but maybe I could push 90% restoration rather than 80%.  There has been some progress using stem cell research in America and the Government here is hinting it may insist all previously single-implanted adults are to be double-implanted - something that has usually been reserved for babies and small children.  It may help but I'm not holding my breath.

I can hear a good amount of the music of my youth and enjoy it.  The rest?  Well, that is lost in my memory or just noise in my electronic hearing.  Maybe I will dream some of those lost tracks someday.

Another iPhone pic from the Pink Floyd exhibition "Their Mortal Remains".
(C) Philip McDonnell, 2017

It's about time...and me.

It's not me.  It is a doorway head-stop of the church of St Helen & St Giles, Rainham, Essex.
(c) Philip McDonnell, 2018

As the musician Lenny Kravitz once sang:  "I was born long ago, I am the chosen, I'm the one..."  ("Are you gonna go my way", 1993).  Exactly what I've been chosen for I am still waiting to discover.  And the one?  No idea.  At least the long ago bit is true.  That's enough about me...well, not quite, I suppose.

I was born in Rochford, Essex, lived in Leigh-on-Sea until I was 21.  I moved to Kent, got married, got divorced, met someone else, split from her, lived in Kent for 23 years, then met my wife, fellow blogger Debbie in London, to whom I've been married over 7 years.  We live in West Essex (Dagenham to be precise but I'm a snob).  Academically, I achieved a First in History at the University of Kent in 2009 and a Masters with Merit in Medieval History from Birkbeck in 2012.  I have no plans to do a PhD...yet.

I set this blog up years ago but never actually bothered to use it.  I was being too precious about its design and probably pretentious about what I wanted to write about.  I originally intended it to be about architectural, graphic visualisation and historical subjects which really meant old buildings, 3D art of...old buildings...and the history of well...anything including Latin and...old buildings.  Quite boring really.  Then I decided to use WordPress and fiddle-arsed about with that for a year as a prelude to a PhD before putting it to one side because I had more important things to do (professional qualifications).  This year I will park that site, cancel all subscriptions and just be content with this simple Blogger account.

This site, then, has had a revisioning - as the Hollywood types like to espouse before mangling a perfect good oldie with special effects, inappropriate casting and scripts written by the factually ignorant.  This version is like a director's cut done by Freddie Kruger; I've slashed all the original pages and make copious use of meta-tags/ tags or labels to compensate.

As for the title?  Scribo was chosen because it is Latin for "I write" (I told you I could be pretentious).  There was nothing more to it than that.

The header or masthead design is not a photo taken of the parched grass of this year but the parched grass around Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon burial ground from a few years ago.  The pictures inset in that background are of, from left to right, a scene from the Bayeaux Tapestry (taken from David M Wilson, Bayeux Tapestry, Thames & Hudson, 2004 masterly text whilst doing my MA) and two iPhone snaps, the first of Rochester Cathedral's nave entrance and the second of West Stow Anglo-Saxon village in Suffolk.  The main background photo was taken with my Nikon at Fountains Abbey in 2017.

That's it for a first post.  To finish, here's a picture of a squirrel.  No reason.  Just a squirrel with the nickname Danglars le Gros (apologies to Alexander Dumas) because he's fat and dangles upside down to take peanuts from our bird feeder.

Danglars Le Gros.  (c) Philip McDonnell, 2018