| UNUSUAL NOTES FOR AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY |
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| I was born in India, in the coal mining village of Tobatand, in Bihar State at 4am on 18 May 1953. On my 30th birthday, now living in Norwich and estranged from my family in Nottingham, I decided I would go away for the day, to a place I would always remember : taking with me some reading and even music that I would enjoy. I would go alone to reflect on the thrilling and terrifying experience of time-passing. Having found that day to be good, I decided I would always make such a journey : unless kindness due to others persuaded me to be in company. In 2006, I wrote : "Yesterday, on the train, I thought I had been on a train, moving, so many times on my birthday in the past twenty-five years. It seemed so important to be moving on that day. Then, for the first time, I thought – well, on that very first birthday, I had been making that most mysterious journey – from inside my mother, in India, into the world. Suddenly I was gripped by tragic regret as I thought I should have taken my mother out on all those birthdays." As I turned 60, in Romania, in 2013, I recalled again Tess's profoundly troubling inference, and in fact absolute truth, that each year one passes though one's death-day without knowing it. Given my age and ailments there can't be many birthday journeys left.... | |||||
| YEAR |
PLACE |
OTHER |
SOUL-FOOD |
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| 1953 |
India : Bihar: Tobatand |
Birthplace | mother |
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| 1957 | England : Nottingham | Colliery Road |
family | ||
| What of my birthdays aged 5-29, in England? Like everyone's, they were spent with family or friends. I might fill in the blanks some day.One story must be recorded : for its being absolute determining of my life. One day in 1962, when I was still a mere 9 years of age, my father, who'd had to leave school at 15 when his own father died, said to me "Do you know, you have the same birthday as the philosopher Bertrand Russell. You should write to him. Here is his address." Of course, I didn't know what a philosopher was, nor did he explain. But I was a dutiful child of an intermittently fierce father : and so I wrote to Russell in Wales telling him we shared a birthday and inviting him to tea in Nottingham. He sent a lovely reply and enclosed a tiny but startlingly beautiful pamphlet. |
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| 1983 [30] |
Gt Yarmouth |
Beach |
Sayers | The Mind of the Maker |
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| 1984 | Oxford | Cowley Road, Greasy Spoon Caff |
Marquez | Chronicle of a Death Foretold |
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| 1985 | London |
Hampstead Keats House |
Keats |
When I have fears... |
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| 1986 | Cambridge |
Magdalene College Gardens |
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Dante |
Paradise |
| 1987 | Little Gidding | Chapel |
Dan | Eliot |
Little Gidding |
| 1988 | London | Big Ben Parliament Garden |
Dante | Nel mezzo del cammin... |
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| 1989 | Cambridge |
Grantchester Meadows | Celine Jean-Pierre Annabelle |
Salinger |
The Catcher in the Rye |
| 1990 | Cambridge | St Phillips Road my room |
Celine Billy |
Dante Beethoven |
Purgatory 9th (for eight hours) |
| 1991 | Nottingham | West Bridgford parent's house |
family | FA cup (tv) |
Forest lose! |
| 1992 |
Ely | Cathedral | Coleridge | Ancient Mariner : read by Burton |
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| 1993 [40] |
Denmark | Elsinore Castle alcove beetling o'er sea |
Shakespeare Pentangle |
Hamlet (all-text without looking up) Basket of Light |
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| 1994 | Kent |
Knole House |
Woolf Vaughan-Williams |
Orlando Greensleeves |
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| 1995 | Greenwich | Meridian | Eliot | Burnt Norton : read by Speight |
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| 1996 | Burghclere | Chapel | Spencer | Resurrection |
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| 1997 | London | Hampton Court |
Guilliani |
Guitar pieces |
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| 1998 | Tunbridge Wells |
Groombridge Place Gardens |
Pink Floyd |
Fearless | |
| 1999 | Poland |
Auschwitz | Kott |
Still Alive |
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| 2000 | Bosworth |
Battlefield | Shakespeare Auden |
Richard III Poems in Praise |
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| 2001 | London |
Kew Gardens |
Empson |
Love Poem |
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| 2002 | Gloucester |
Cathedral |
Scott-Fitzgerald Al Stewart |
The Great Gatsby Gethsemane Again |
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| 2003 [50] |
Italy |
Florence, Beatrice's Chapel |
Boccaccio |
Life of Dante |
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| 2004 | Glasgow | Mackintosh Museum |
Joyce | Ulysses |
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| 2005 | Cardiff | Parliament Assembly |
Petrarch |
Autobiography | |
| 2006 | Aldeburgh | Beach | Plato Williams |
Symposium Substituted Love |
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| 2007 | Nottingham |
Castle | Ivan Mick |
Shakespeare | Antony & Cleopatra |
| 2008 | Bristol | St Mary Redcliffe (Chatterton's burial Lawn) |
Poe The Eighteenth Day of May |
Stories Eighteen Days |
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| 2009 | Dover | White Cliffs |
Arnold Stirling The Eighteenth Day of May |
Dover Beach Julie Andrews Eighteen Days |
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| 2010 | Liverpool |
Lennon's House (not admitted) |
Duffy Salinger The Eighteenth Day of May |
The World's Wife For Esme Eighteen Days |
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| 2011 | Rodmell | Monk's House, Woolf's grave |
Youcenar The Eighteenth Day of May |
Hadrian Eighteen Days |
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| 2012 | Penrhyndeudraeth | Plas Penrhyn Bertrand Russell's House |
Cicero The Eighteenth Day of May |
Speeches Eighteen Days |
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| 2013 [60] |
Romania | Bran, Dracula's Castle |
Stoker | Dracula | |
| 2014 | London |
Freud House Museum Conference |
Billy, Dan, Ivan Jacquie, Luke |
Me ! |
My Conference paper! And the others. |
| 2015 | Bournemouth |
St Peter's Churchyard (Shelley's heart & all of Mary) |
Salinger Slawesnki The Eighteenth Day of May |
Raise High the Roof-beam Carpenters Salinger Eighteen Days |
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| 2016 | Broadheath, Worcester |
Elgar's birthplace | The Eighteenth Day of May | Eighteen Days | |
| 2017 | Rothley, Leicester |
Macaulay's birthplace |
Trevelyan The Eighteenth Day of May |
Macaulay's birth Eighteen Days |
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2018 |
Compton, Guildford |
Huxley's grave | The Eighteenth Day of May
Me |
Eighteen Days
Write, without deletion, of raptur |
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| 2019 |
London Chelsea |
Jane & Thomas Carlyle's House |
The Eighteenth Day of May
Sellar & Yeatman
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Eighteen Days 1066 I am now Route-age |
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| 2020 |
Cambridge |
My Green Lounge |
Covid Isolated |
Paradiso (English) | Inferno (Italian) Canto 1 |
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2021 |
London 44 Mecklenburgh Square |
Writing Room (street view) Dorothy Sayers & HD |
Francesca Wade
The Eighteen of May |
Square Haunting
Eighteen Days |
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| 2022 |
London Brunel Museum National Gallery |
Thames Tunnel Shaft St Jerome Study Painting |
Christopher Rowe
Orwell Music |
Review (email) of my Plato book Essays : Why I Write..... I forgot to play but bought a book |
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2023 (70) |
Isle of Wight, Freshwater
Dimbola & Farringford |
Tennyson's House
Julia Cameron's House |
Tennyson
Music |
In Memoriam None: I have no mobile devices |
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