(With apologies to Angela Brazil)

A picture fell off the wall above the fireplace in my bedroom. I had rehung it without checking the wire. It fell with a crash. A great crash. The watercolour by E A Hope of a village square somewhere in France I inherited from Cousin Mary who must have bought it in the 1930s. It is large and was in its original frame with the original glass. The glass shattered and there were shards everywhere. After I’d gathered them up I picked up the fragments. I could still see the light reflecting on even tinier pieces of glass so I got to work with the Hoover. Even after that there were still dangerous pieces of glass left behind. I went downstairs and fetched Letitia. I pressed ‘auto’ on the remote and left her to it. Two hours later she was still at work but her dust container was full of dust and the remaining pieces of glass. Not a trace of broken glass was left on the carpet. Well done Laetitia!

“Colour images tell a story, whilst black and white photographs move us a step away from reality, as none of us see the world in black and white. But by subtracting colour, we as viewers, are prompted to add our own emotion to the images.” So wrote Father Paul in relation to a black and white photograph by Alex Majoli, ‘Paramedic spraying down Hospital Beds’ that he had chosen for the front cover of last Sunday’s Service booklet.

His thought reminded me of how, when I went to see the film of a book I’d enjoyed, I was frequently disappointed. It was because the way I had seen in my mind the characters in the book, as I read, was not the way they were portrayed on the screen. And it wasn’t only the characters, sometimes the landscape in the film, the light and even the atmosphere was ‘wrong’ – to my mind. I had ‘added my own emotion’ to the words. So I invest myself, perhaps, more in the black and white of a photograph than I do in the colour.

Of course there was a time when photographs could only be black and white. My early photographs, taken with a box brownie, were black and white because that was all their was for the ordinary photographer. Photography was never my strong suit which is why I took to travelling with a notebook rather than a camera. Now it’s not necessity it’s a stylistic choice, to chose black and white, that encourages the imaginative investment in the photograph.

Then again I know, from listening to the radio and from my own broadcasts that the image people have of who is speaking can be quite different from the reality. It’s obviously the case with radio drama. But more than once when I met radio listeners for the first time, listeners who had heard my programme, they said, “You’re not at all how I imagined you.” And when I asked in what way, I was often told I was taller than they thought I would be – from my voice. Do I have a short man’s voice?

From another angle the tone of voice in the spoken word can be totally and completely different from the tone I choose to hear in someone else’s written word. That is why I have had to teach myself to pause when I read what seems to be an unappealing or downright rude comment made by some public figure or even a friend. I need to hear their tone in what they are quoted as having said, not mine.

A ‘throw away’ comment in conversation is, literally, thrown away whereas in print it can’t be. It’s there for all time. A spoken witticism or comment can be quite appalling when seen in print and out of context. This surely is why so many ‘blogs’ get people into trouble. Reading is quite different from hearing. Perhaps also this is why I was brought up never to send a difficult letter I’d written until I’d slept on it and then, in a new day, read it again to get the feeling of it. I choose the colours when I look at black and white.

Somewhere in all this, when I am investing my emotions in what I see or read, I must also consider the comment made to me when I’d made a fairly critical remark about someone else, “Do not ascribe to others the motives you might have in their situation.” That shut me up. It must have done. I still remember the incident very clearly. It seems nothing black and white is black and white. Even a black and white photograph. I add the colour.

It was bound to happen and now it has. We in the slow lane of the swimming pool were joined by someone new. Someone with no manners. They are fairly rare – those with no manners. So now there were two. Two people, totally oblivious to the existence of others, in the same lane of the same pool at the same time. To be fair they may each have a condition or be on a spectrum but, be that as it may, the inevitable happened. They collided. One of them once with me and I coped but more importantly with each other. And not just once. And neither was pleased at all. They each seemed bewildered the first time it happened and rather cross the second. The third time it was not good at all. And they made it known. I happened to catch the eye of one of my fellow swimmers, one with good manners, and we smiled. We didn’t gloat but for my part I didn’t mind that it had happened. What I now wonder is whether either will have learned from the experience. Perhaps time will tell.

PS They are both of a similar age, gender and ethnicity.

In a recent television documentary about the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama she was recorded as saying, “Now that my life is entering its last phase I am putting all my energy into my art.” I’m not sure when the documentary was made but she is now 92 and still working. I find Kusama and her work fascinating and her life story no less so.

Her comment made me wonder where I am putting my energy and, more than that, where I am putting my naturally decreasing energy. For many younger people, I suspect, old age is presumed to be a time of gently, ‘winding down’. I’m not convinced that is the case. Of course there are some things that I used to be able to do that I can’t do now. Playing tennis is now totally beyond me and I can’t hop. My memory for dates is not great but then it never has been. Then there are things I can do that I’ve promised my family I won’t do. Such as going up a ladder when there’s no one else here. But within those limitations where do I put my energy? What is my aim in life?

My paternal grandmother, with whom I was close, told me of a young woman who went to visit her. Whether her visitor went for advice or just to visit I don’t know but I do know that my grandmother asked what was her aim in life. Her visitor said, ‘To be happy’. That did not go down well. Happiness, my grandmother told me, was a result not an aim. I doubt she knew of Ravindranath Tagore’s “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” But she would certainly have rejoiced in that.

And, of course, it’s not simply energy it’s energies. And it’s not just one aim there are many. Years ago in conversation with Bishop John Taylor, a great and holy man, I told him of my worry that I wasn’t following God’s plan for me. He told me, and I believe him still, that there’s not a single plan there are a myriad plans always there always ready to be positively fulfilled. He explained to me that failure was never a conclusion and that there was, always, the possibility of a positive fulfilment.

So my energies are being directed into swimming and going to church, gardening and playing patience, cooking both for myself and for friends, saying my prayers, listening to music and watching yet again a repeat of Poirot on television and, importantly, conserving my energy to do all these things and more.

We were talking about that in the changing room at the swimming pool. About conserving our energy. I told the others about my daily attempt to improve my ability to stand on one leg. One of my fellow swimmers commented, “I suppose if you have to have an aim in life to be able to put on your trousers while standing up is as good as any.”

A friend has written:

Serendipity
“July 31st “Remote Control”.
“I thought I had lost the remote control for Laetitia”. The name was new to me. So was the word. In Bath, when the sun is shining, I like to go for a walk in the delightful Henrietta Park, a short distance from my home. There are certain park benches which I favour for their seclusion. Sometimes I look at the brass plaque recording the name of the generous benefactor and send an unspoken word of thanks into the empyrean.
August 6th Henrietta Park
I selected a bench I had never sat on before. I read the plaque:-
The Harley Family. Wendy, Eleanor, Bethan, Trevor. Amicitia et risus, Laeta Tempora. Laetae Memoriae.*
In the course of my 91 years l have met the words Laetitia – Laeta for the first time within less than a week.”

* Friendship and Laughter. Joyful Times. Happy Memories