Being Somewhere

Music in a child’s ears

There was always music playing in the house I grew up in (except when there was football on the telly). My earliest musical memory is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. I have a possibly romanticized recollection of my mother putting that on the record player while she did the housework.

Apart from classical music my parents liked but didn’t know much about jazz. There was an Ella Fitzgerald album. What really brought me in the direction of jazz was my mum’s love of the swing music she used to go out dancing to as a young woman. She could sing too.

Folk music was often to be heard. We watched a programme on BBC every Tuesday evening, where all the top names of the folk revival of the early sixties appeared.

There was a Paul Robeson album that got played a lot.

Wandering in nature

Every Sunday we went for a walk somewhere as removed as possible from concrete and tarmac. At first it was always Hampstead Heath but as I grew and could walk further we went more into the country. Every holiday was a walking holiday. We usually stayed in youth hostels. In England then, they were strictly for people who came under their own steam – walking or cycling – and every morning you were assigned a task to be performed for the general upkeep of the hostel.

My parents loved to immerse themselves in nature, for which they had love and respect. Although they probably wouldn’t have used these words, they understood themselves to be part of nature, not just visitors to it*.

I might have grown to hate all that but I loved it and that love – for the physical movement, for being (Being) in nature – has never left me.

Social Engagement

My parents both came from poor backgrounds. Both believed that a better and fairer world was necessary and possible and they were committed to trying to do something about that. For them it wasn’t just about economic issues but also social and environmental. That commitment stayed with them up to advanced old age. How they’d have felt about the mess we’re in today, is another matter but certainly one relevant to me.

I grew up with that and never saw any reason to question it. We disagreed on some things but we shared a view on what “better” might look like. That view and the desire to do something about it, has stayed with me, although I won’t claim to have as consistent a record as they did. Nonetheless it has a lot to do with how I look at the world and how my life has developed and it comes out, at least implicitly, in what I write about. Why else would I care about those things?

*I couldn’t have used those words either until many years later, when I learned to put all this in a coherent frame, as part of my Masters (Sustainability and Responsibility).