********************************************************** * * * PRAYER AND BELIEF * * * ********************************************************** G.C.Wraith 23/4/08 You do not have to believe in a deity to pray to it. What parent has not offered up unspoken prayers for his child newly launched into the world. Every creature according to its sentience must surely do the same. As it cleaves through the solar wind, our planet must leave a wake of heartfelt prayer, enough to tax a galaxy of recording angels. My grandmother, in her later life, had a much-loved dog called Freddie. When it fell ill she employed the services of a mail-order psychic healer to pray for it. Every so often she would receive from him by post a report of Freddie's state of health, scried from beyond by his mystic powers. Alas, Freddie died, but report of his progress continued nevertheless to fall upon her doormat. She wrote to him reprovingly, and received in turn the excuse that he was praying for so many creatures that it was hard to keep track of them all, and that clerical errors were bound to occur occasionally. Indeed. How our modern public utilities would have beaten a path to his door, generous salaries in hand. You must not think that my grandmother was unintelligent. In her day the education of sons took precedence over that of daughters. She was sent to an aristocratic German family, the Von Stuelpnagels, to share the expenses of a tutor with a handful of other girls. She remained in touch with the "bund" all her life. She read German fluently. I can remember that she had the complete works of Goethe and Schiller, and many others, which she often read. But she never received any scientific education, and she lamented this. Judging by photographs, I would say that she was a beautiful woman in her youth; refined and rather shy. She was married to a man with a passion for invention, whose financial adventures eventually persuaded her family that if anything were to be left for her children's education he must be persuaded to go. He departed to South Africa declaring that she was a perfidious wife, but nevertheless accepting a pension from her. The nature of their marriage is illustrated by a drawing that she made of him eating toast and marmalade from a jar of Tiptree's. It was his boast that only Tiptree's marmalade was fit to eat, and he would often state this at breakfast. He was unaware that in the interests of economy, and her children's education, she would always decant a quite inferior marmalade into an empty Tiptree's jar that she kept for that purpose. All this she recorded in her drawings. They had three children, my father being the eldest. The youngest, my godfather and uncle, James, was very bright, gaining a double first in classics and law at Cambridge. He was also a cox for St John's College First and Third. When the war started in 1939 he was recruited into Army Intelligence; he too spoke fluent German. However, eager for action, he transferred into the RAF, and on his first operational flight, as navigator in a Lancaster, was killed in a crash at Gibraltar. My mother accompanied my grandmother to visit a medium, carrying with them in an envelope a white silk scarf that had belonged to James. My mother said that she had a strong impression that the medium's words were guided by the visual clues she picked up as the session proceeded. She got a lot of things right, including my name. When I was about ten we moved into the house in which my father had been brought up, and my grandmother moved into the "tin tabernacle" on the other side of the road. This edifice was one half of a sort of wooden bungalow or chalet, the other half of which was occupied by Ruth, who had been my grandmother's maidservant. Ruth shunned human contact, but in compensation had remarkable powers with animals. My grandmother, too, had always found human company a strain. She would go for long walks with Freddie, armed with a pair of scissors, a pepper-pot and an Indian club. The scissors were for freeing sheep from brambles. Many sheep farmers would let their "wintering hogs" roam wild, and if they got stuck in the woods they could starve to death. The pepper-pot was for those occasions when other dogs would engage with Freddie, for whatever purpose, while the Indian club was for the protection of her own honour. She quite believed that no man outside her immediate family was to be trusted, and the Indian club was kept by the front door. No tramp, however, was ever turned away without a sandwich. She lacked completely any appreciation for music, or for religion. Her own mother was very religious and given to good works. She was also a puritan who believed enjoyment to be from the devil. In her childhood they never had jam on bread and butter, and if they had jam they had no butter. They had an aunt whom they visited once a year who took pity on their privations, giving them lavish food on which they would gorge. Inevitably they were sick. The aunt, rather than mitigate the richness of the food, would simply take up the carpets before their arrival. Her father turned to drink. They lived at Longlands, just outside Cartmel, which has a beautiful circular staircase beneath a central dome. Mattresses were placed at the bottom of the staircase, in case my great-grandfather fell while in his cups. Of course, his affliction led to the family's ostracism. It is no wonder that in her later years she preferred the company of her loving Freddie. It is no wonder that she was easy prey to the psychic healer. We are all easy prey; to salesmen, to politicians, to priests, to our own dreams.