Naturally we wish, for those to whom we send Christmas cards, ‘a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’. The question is - what is a Happy New Year, and what is happiness? I suppose if we were galley slaves, happiness would consist of the galley commander missing us with his whip and hitting somebody else in mistake. One of the songs in the 'Arcadians' goes like this ‘See how the Gods their gifts allot, for A is lucky and B is not’. Many people equate luck, or random happenings with happiness and misery as the case may be. Therefore a few musings as to what may have in my case constituted happiness. Of course being in love is a happy experience, but it is also a private one. Let us start then with the fruit of love, the gift of children.
Holding the baby… I was walking down a country lane accompanied by two female relations one of whom had recently had a baby. I was young and only recently married. The woman carrying the baby said, without previous warning. ‘I'm a bit tired, you can carry the baby for a while?’ She placed the child in my arms. I was acutely uncomfortable. Babies soil their nappies, do they not? Babies are sick over ones good suit. The women fell about in great merriment. About a year later my own firstborn arrived. Having visited the mother I was shown into a room full of babies, most of them crying, This was known to the staff as ‘The music room’. The nurse indicated which of them was my daughter. Now this baby was different. This baby had two eyes, a nose and a full complement of finger nails. This baby grasped my proffered finger surprisingly firmly. This baby looked, so help her, like me. I was entranced.
‘Magic Casements… opening on the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn’, so says the poet of the vista revealed by the song of a bird. Music is there, from the rumble of an earthquake to the squeak of a bat. The mighty spirit put it there, we just codify and perform it. As a teenager I liked popular music, which at that time meant songs like ‘South of the Border down Mexico way’, ‘Tippy tin waltz’, ‘Romola I hear a thousand voices calling’, ‘Amapola my pretty little poppy’. My parents liked the classics, so naturally I reacted in the opposite direction. One day a pal, a fourteen year old like myself, who attended a different and slightly posher school than my own, said ‘what about coming to our school concert?’ Thinking this would be a sort of uncostumed pantomime I agreed. It was in fact orchestral Beethoven, Schubert and all that. It was an instant conversion. They performed well and I found myself elevated into a world of true melody harmony and counterpoint. How odd that Mum and Dad knew about this wonderland already.
‘Hey ho, many a year ago… when you and I were twenty five I wore my old shako. Now here's to every soldier boy who wore his old shako, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ago’. So goes an old ballad they used to sing at seaside pierrot shows. Much of army life consists of being one of a number of people doing something disagreeable in unison. But there were., and are, solo spots. So it was when I found myself as regimental trumpeter. In addition to the uniform with its highly polished buttons and badges there were brass crossed trumpets on each arm and a brightly coloured cord or lanyard, known as an aiguilette, which supported the instrument when it was not being sounded. At a prearrange-d time I would step out from the waiting crowd, march smartly across the parade ground to a spot near but slightly off centre. Then clicking to attention sound the ‘Fall in A, fall in B, fall in every company’. Markers would come forward, then the serried ranks. I would click again and circuit the parade and fall in behind it. Nobody shouted at me, I was a law unto myself. Every year, when my telly offers the Trooping of the Colour, I watched with pleasure as the corporal drummer marches out on his own to deliver the taps which summon the others. I know exactly how he feels.
Promotion cometh neither from the East nor the West… (Psalm 75) One gets fed up with being the card at the bottom of the pack and no bottom card is more humble than a private soldier. I had started being unhappy about this state of affairs. Knocking at the door of the Colonel's office I was bidden to enter the presence. ‘What can I do for you’ said the great man. ‘Sir, everybody gets promoted except me’ I blurted out. ‘Yes, Sutton, you've got a point - go down to the QMs stores, draw a set of Lance Corporals stripes and I'll gazette you in orders tomorrow morning’. I spent the evening with needle and thread adorning my previously stripeless jacket and overcoat with the insignia of rank. The following day he was as good as his word and I was designated as a temporary, paid, Lance Corporal. My arms felt as heavy as lead. I was as self conscious and happy as a girl with a newly acquired engagement ring.
Reading… My schoolteacher mother was eager to augment the instruction in that essential basic art which the school already provided. At weekends, when she was at home for the midday meal, I was expected to stand near the head of the table and read the leading article from the Daily Express. Prosing on about Mr Baldwin and the League of Nations was jumping in at the deep end but ensured that long words were no terror. At seven I was issued with my own public library ticket. The first book I took out was a volume of First World War stories by 'Sapper', famous as the creator of 'Bulldog Drummond'. Then worked my way through Rider Haggard. Umslopagaas, M'Koomazaan and the witch Gagool were as real to me as if they were looking through the front room window. I think that the writers of specifically child oriented books provide a halfway house which can be a sticking point. Read and understand Haggard and you are all set for Tolstoy, Proust or what you will. But a book can be taken anywhere, and whether in a sitting room armchair or in a muddy slit trench, transports us to an alternative world where we can lose ourselves in the happy or unhappy adventures of other people.
The man of the moment… I firmly believe that the most enjoyable jobs are those which nobody else wants to do. Working as a gas service layer qualified to repair gas pipes of all dimensions I volunteered for call out duty. This meant being called out on emergencies at all hours of the non working day and night. Because drunken driving had not at that time been tackled by the breathaliser, the festive season produced its annual crop of felled lamp posts. It was Christmas eve and I had spent most of the evening wearing my best suit and playing chess. Supper, duty as 'Father Christmas' for my little daughters (my son was not yet born) and to bed with hopes of sleeping till the dawn of the Feast. About 2 am there was a grating at the bedroom window. It was a familiar sound and consisted of a small handful of gravel thrown at the window by a policeman. Being told where I was needed I hastily dressed and loaded the necessary equipment onto a barrow. Down the lane, onto a main road which followed the line of a canal and some way along a lamp post lay on the ground with gas hissing out of a broken supply pipe and more coming up from the fractured main. Cold mist swirled from the canal and a group of anxious householders stood at a respectful distance with the policeman who had roused me keeping them back. I did what was needed. It was cold, it was damp, it was inconvenient, but how nice being the man of the moment who knew exactly what to do about it.
The priestly vocation… Does this bring happiness? I believe it does. There are little things you would hardly think about. Imagine the people who slave at a desk all day with only the wall of an adjacent building to look out upon, imagine being tied to the rhythm of an assembly belt, with a brown coated foreman watching your every move, and a rather gritty shop steward who calls you 'brother' without having any real brotherly feeling. Imagine, on the other hand walking past a congregation of friendly people to an altar covered with a spotless fair white cloth and its shelf decorated with lovingly arranged flowers and gleaming with industriously polished brass. And some Vicars talk about having days off. And then there is that search for God and sometimes finding him, about which my last paragraph will be concerned.
What is it all about… You will have noticed that I don't, in any of these thankful memories, mention money. That's not to say that I am so high minded that money doesn't interest me at all, but that looking at life in perspective, it never seems to stick out as the main issue. Of course, the lack of proper sustenance and the wherewithal to provide it can be a personal tragedy, but one which, in the West, we rarely experience. I have mentioned, in a slightly humorous vein, the joy of being the regimental trumpeter, so much of our happiness is bound up with our role as individuals. We live in a miraculous universe in which getting to Mars is really like opening the back door and putting out the milk bottles. It doesn't seem to be random to me, and I believe it possible to be aware of the presence of the Mighty Spirit behind it all, provided we be still and listen.