Scėnema CONFESSION review

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September 22, 2021 • 4 min read

Movie : Confession

Director : Chris Sullivan

” So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”

                                                        ~ William Shakespeare 

The title indicative of a number of significant revelations adds to the definitive yet ambiguous tone of a film about confessions, secrets and abuse (both mental and Physical).  

The setting of the movie reminds one of the classic tropes used in horror movies. The ticking of the clock, thunder and lightning, the sound of  church bells, a power cut, rain and candles. The visibility of these elements would take one to a world of mysteries and ominous occurences. The background score injects a sense of fear and omen, the empty space after every tune further enhances the intensity of the conversation between Father Ryan and the mysterious woman. The voice of a woman  in some kind of distress heard over the telephone on the speaker takes us to a domain of introspection where we should question the sights we deliberately looked past, the ones we ignored and the cries unheard. Perhaps those were the tears outside. The image of Jesus and Mother Mary connotes certain notions of love, mercy, sacrifice and forgiveness. It might also indicate the omniscient vision of God. A God who is watching everything, awaiting Judgement Day. The question must then surround the awareness of Father Ryan if he is not already past redemption by then. 

A priest (Father Ryan) receives a mysterious phonecall. She wants to make a number of confessions specifically in the presence of Father Ryan over the telephone. A distressing chain of events unfold. We learn about the dire consequences one might cause if he were insouciant towards everyone, too fastidious about protocols in the abode of God. Here the woman feels betrayed but she still seeks solace. She has seen things happen in the name of an all forgiving entity, yet she wants to question the extent of mercy and forgiving. The ending turns the movie into an afterthought of the spirit, its desperate urge for a closure. One is almost driven to question the source of the confession. Father Ryan, the lady on the phone, her daughter, her husband who was apparently close to Father Ryan (bought him tickets for a Manchester United game) together make the story of ‘Confession’ one about regrets, blindness and agony. The last scene resembles the first one in the movie, an indication of the circular nature of the narrative and in turn of life and the spirit (the reference to the holy spirit is apparent through the prayers of the woman and Father Ryan). The characters appear to be replaceable as the nature of these regrets appear universal, the pain brutally real. 

The performance of Chris Sullivan as Father Ryan was a result of immaculate execution. He dexterously appears as perplexed, oblivious, perplexed and scared towards the end of the movie, like the viewers. He was  not ready for the reappearance of certain incidents that lay hidden in his unconscious. Thoughts and occurrences that troubled him perhaps even after his death.

The rain outside is a picture of regrets, the misery of a million dreams shattered, for example the daughter of the woman who decided to jump of a cliff, the woman who wouldn’t find hope in a brief spell of dreary life. A priest and his soul looking for answers in circular patterns and a two way confession. Confession perhaps is also a story about darkness. Darkness which is in and around clueless, indifferent mortals that would devour light once and for all. Darkness within that cannot be extinguished even by the light of the candles lit with superfluous glee. 

San Francisco Winner Laurel

 FOR CONFESSION

https://vimeo.com/505608541

Assisted Death.

 

                              José Ferrer

This is a bit grim but when I first moved to Los Angeles I shared a house, with two others, and a Canadian playwright. He had won many prizes with one of his plays and it was due to open on Broadway, with the star, José Ferrer (above). He was a movie star at the time with a wonderful voice and was born in Puerto Rico. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for playing the title character in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950).

Before the play opened José, unfortunately, died.

My pal, the playwright, was Jewish which came as a bit of a shock to one of the housemates as he asked him if he was, in fact, Jewish and, whilst he didn't express any signs of ante-Semitism, he did cook pork a lot and offer it to my pal. No names, no pack drill so I will call him Alfredo, just for this.

In fact I used him as the basis for a character in my book and I called him Alfredo too.

He wasn't on the same wave length as the other two house mates: one was a well known actress, who was a regular in a soap opera and the other one was a retired estate agent from Florida who had worked as an extra in various TV roles; his girl friend told him he was good looking so he came to Hollywood, at the age of 70 odd to make a killing.

In fact we were all there to make some kind of killing.

The play Alfredo had written had played in Canada and San Francisco and now he wanted it to play in Los Angeles.

He saw various producers and theatre companies and after a while he found one and he wanted me to play the leading role.

He loved my voice. Now this wasn't a thing I was known for in the UK but it seemed very popular in LA. Other directors also liked my voice, which they seemed to stress whenever I was cast in a movie and, in fact, I did loads of dubbing in leading feature films. It's called looping – it's matching a line to an actor where they either couldn't understand what was said or was a bad recording. I did everybody from David Bowie to Alistair Sim – in A Christmas Carol – it was for The Sopranos where a TV, I suppose, was playing in the background but I don't think it was shown.

So Alfredo wanted me to play the leading role in his play. The character was a lot older than me and my agent said it might not be a good idea as I needed to show myself at my then age. 'But it's only a rehearsed reading' I said 'believe me' she said 'anybody could be there.'

So I didn't play it. George Segal said he would do it, then some guy from a TV show called, I think, The Love Boat; he dropped out and another famous (ish) movie star played it – John Saxon.

So it didn't happen for me, but we were good buddies, even though the artistic vacuum of an ex estate agent would make fun of Alfredo.

We wrote a screenplay together and developed it up to a first draft but it didn't happen. He moved out to somewhere near the Hal Roach studios and I moved into Hollywood as my wife was coming over to join me from London.

After a while, Alfredo drove his old car to Canada, British Columbia, in fact. He wrote once and I didn't hear from him again till a couple of years ago. He told me he had prostate cancer and Giant Cell Arteritis. Of course he had his play and wanted me to play in it again 'You must be old enough, now' he said.

I said I would try and film some of it which I did with a friend of mine but it didn't kind of work out.

Since then he would send me his later work and I would send little suggestions – maybe moving a word to be the first word in a sentence instead of the last – Why?? because the next line to be answered without a pause and if the last word is what you are reacting to the other character doesn't really have enough time to react.

He told me if ever I didn't hear from him in a while to get in touch with his daughter.

I sent him my novel, by the way, or maybe as a talking book and he liked it, but didn't recognise himself – so that was good.

In June I noticed I hadn't heard from him for a while so wrote to his daughter and she wrote back and said he was in hospital. She said that she knew me as her dad 'speaks of me so very fondly.' Which I found moving.

It was obvious he was on his way out. She gave me a phone number for him and we spoke a few times; it was good to hear his deep Canadian voice and we broke each other's balls a bit.

Then some time in July his daughter told me he was being moved to a hospice – I think I spoke to him once there and he sent an email or two, then his daughter wrote and said she was away but had had a message that her dad was finding it hard to breath so she was returning.

The next day she wrote and said that her dad had chosen to end his life on July 29^th at 11.30 am their time.

Now that to me was a bit of a shocker. When you reach sixty a lot of friends die, it's something you feel sad about, it comes as a shock, but you get over it. But this!

I hadn't seen him since 1996 but I'll miss him – it's strange as you do miss them when they go but . . .

I have no strong opinions about assisted death – even now.

Just football, I suppose.

 

                                                                      Ron Flowers

I am a proper football fan, I've been a fan for so many years that it is ridiculous always following the same football team. As with other, and fair weather, fans I enjoyed 'The Euros' and the England football team. I liked the manager, or the coach, as they say these days, Gareth Southgate, even though I think he should have picked a better team as he had brilliant players on the bench. 

In fact three of the best players, in the team, were the three who missed penalties. Rashford, for example, hit the most perfect penalty apart from it being one inch to the left. The perfect penalty is to send the goalkeeper the wrong way and he was unlucky.

Marcus Rashford will probably end up being the Prime Minister, one day, with the work he does away from football. But one of the things Southgate didn't consider was that Rashford needed shoulder surgery and, if he had known he was not going to be used at all he could have had the surgery instead. As it is he has to miss a few matches with Manchester United at the start of the season which starts in a week or two.

It's strange for me, being basically Irish, following the England football team but if they played Ireland it would be Ireland I would be shouting for.

My son asked me, the other day, what I learned on the first day at school and I told him that I found out I was Irish. Arriving there, after a lot of protesting on my part, I found that the kids didn't speak like me. They spoke with Birmingham accents and would always ask me what I was saying. I would say 'for' and they would hear 'far' and I needed to be understood and, more to the point, children can be cruel. It's inherent in us as humans, we are cruel to strange things and things we don't understand and as we grow up we become tolerant and hopefully not selfish. So, I blended in. 

Now one thing I didn't like about the final was the fact that when the England team were given their runners up medals, a lot of them removed them from around their neck. They should have been proud of them especially as they weren't the second best team in the competition.

When you see the Olympic Games on the TV, you will see the silver medallist celebrate their medals, especially in the relays, maybe because they realise what sportsmanship is, what winners are.

The little fella from England, who won gold in the synchronized diving recently, won his gold medal at the fourth attempt. Tessa Saunderson, the British Gold Medallist in 1984, didn't get gold at the first attempt and the reason England football teams have only won the world cup once is that they try too hard without enjoying the game – hey it's a 'game!!'

When I watched football as a child supporting Aston Villa, whilst a lot of my pals supported Birmingham City, what my brother calls Small Heath, those players had other jobs. They would finish at the end of the season and go back to a regular job in the summer. The most they would earn, per week, would be about £20 which, is around $30.

I saw a movie about the World Cup of 1950 and they portrayed the English players as toffs – no they were working class men with working class accents, not speaking as if they had a plum in their mouths. It was an American film about the American team who had beaten England 1-0, the goal coming off the back of the head by one of the American team – but they won, fair and square. I remember a line in the movie saying that the Americans were only getting around $50 per week. A bit of research would have revealed that the English players were probably on $15.

Those were the players I watched and enjoyed and they were my heroes and later when they started to earn big money a pal of mine wouldn't go to see them any more and would prefer to watch schools football where, maybe, it was the gig kids who shone.

But I know why he did it. We used to live in Wellington Shropshire and I followed Wellington Town Football Team. They had a proper stadium and were a non-league team. Later they became Telford United when the name of the place was changed from Wellington. We followed them to Wembley in the challenge cup and the team was managed by Ron Flowers, who was in the England World Cup Squad in 1966.

These days money runs football, billionaires just buy a team and think it's clever but it's not.

CONFESSION: review

 

UNIVERSAL CINEMA

FILM AND TV JOURNAL

By Chris McClure

July 26, 2021

For at least a century, church attendance rates have been declining. This phenomenon has been more pronounced in Europe than in the United States. Scholars have wrestled for decades trying to explain why this is so. The most obvious reason, the one that jumps immediately to mind, is that modern science has made it very difficult to believe a lot of what it says in the Bible. But there could be several other explanations.

What if Christianity is in decline in many places because it is no longer adequate as a moral system in modern democratic states? In the past, communities were more closely knit together. But Jesus offered each individual personal salvation and immortality. In modern times and in modern countries, there is a more individualistic culture. But at the same time, public morality, if we can speak of such a thing, is more egalitarian. It may well be that despite the individualism of modern societies, there is a stronger sense of duty towards others and groups of others. That sense of duty is also bound up with the fact that more and more people view this mundane life as the only one. Fewer and fewer believe that their real eternal lives begin only after death.

In the film, Confession, written, directed by and starring Chris Sullivan, we face these sorts of questions head on. The film is gripping, disturbing and thought-provoking. It has the look of a 1970s era British police procedural. It’s very simple, having essentially one setting and one scene. We watch a priest coming home after a long day, only to be interrupted by a phone call from someone named Sibyl (voiced very convincingly by Lynn Verrall). The fact that this is set in the not too distant past allowed Sullivan to avoid the obvious inconvenience posed by the invention of smart phones. Instead, we’re faced with an old rotary phone. And luckily, it’s a phone that the priest is able to connect to a small speaker so we don’t have to watch him with an earpiece against his head for the entire film. But more importantly, the reliance on this old technology allows the director to convey a real sense of frustration at the priest’s inability to communicate.

And this inability to communicate is essentially the theme of the film. Sibyl calls Father Ryan demanding that he perform an emergency confession. He doesn’t want to, since, of course, confessions are meant to be done in church at certain times. But she eventually convinces him and she relates her sins: she’s had impure thoughts and overall hasn’t been a very nice person. Father Ryan tells her to say a few Hail Marys and calls it a day. Why is this the stuff of an emergency confession? It turns out that Sibyl has more to say.

Without going into any more detail, I’ll just say that the rest of the film revolves around the question of whether a priest has a duty to report a crime that he’s learned about in the confessional. Psychologists, we know, are bound by strict rules of confidentiality. That is, unless they hear about something criminal or about a dangerous situation. Then the psychologist is bound to contact the authorities.

But with a priest, this is not the case. Confessors are, in theory and very often in practice, anonymous. But they are also not bound to report any crime that they learn about to the police, and are in fact bound to complete secrecy. This is because their only responsibility when giving confession, is to absolve confessors of their sins. And sins, of course, are very often also crimes. Say a confessor steals a loaf of bread. That’s a sin. He feels guilt. He goes to confessional and confesses. The priest tells him what to do to be forgiven and he does it. He wipes the slate clean and is no longer, so far as he knows, in danger of eternal damnation. What about the victim of the crime? That’s not the priest’s concern.

So can we blame a priest for not reporting an ongoing crime? Should he do something about it if he happens to know why the perpetrator is? According to his vows, the answer is very simple: No. He’s not a police officer and his only concern is the salvation of his flock. He looks to eternity, not to this vale of tears. This, though, seems to be a repugnant position in modern societies. Since we tend to believe this world is all there is, we tend to view those who have a different view, as in the case of Father Ryan, as cowards at best, and at worst as accomplices who will be damned to hell themselves for their seeming indifference. But in order to take this view, that the priest is responsible, we must also believe that the priest doesn’t really believe what he’s staked his entire life on believing. So while watching Confession, keep asking yourself: to what extent is Father Ryan responsible? It’s not an easy question. But the film is absolutely worth watching.

 

 

© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.

Don't Burn the Bloody Toast!

 

Now here's a little story, and to tell it is a must – yes that's from 'My Old Man's a Dustman' by Lonnie Donegan. 

So we'll start again: Here's a little tale – it came to me; some of it's true but it's laced with a bit of imagination: it's a character I have been playing with – see if you like it; I must have written it about ten years ago and never progressed and I think it was a post on here from the past. You might say it's about time you started with it and I would say . . . why not?

So here is an excerpt from the 'novel of the century.'

Horace Melia had one fifth of his sight in his right eye and his left eye had no sight at all; he needed a hearing aid as his hearing was bad too. If he watched television he would have to sit next to the set and watch from a distance of two or three inches, just to the side so as not to block his wife’s view; the sound on the television had to be on maximum volume and his neighbours learned to know his favourite programmes. They didn’t like to complain as they knew he had no choice. He also listened to the radio at full blast and had been an avid fan of ‘The Archers’ since they started in the nineteen fifties.

His neighbours bought a walkman radio for him so that he could listen on head phones but his wife complained that she wanted to listen to it with 'her Lol,' as she called him; in any case he couldn’t hear properly on the head phones as he said when he put them on he couldn’t get them close enough to his ears; one of the neighbours tried to get a walkman radio with an attachment that would plug straight into his hearing aid but Horace couldn’t work it out.

The hearing aid Horace used was the old fashioned kind which had a device with wires which went to his ears.

The young children loved Mister Melia, as they called him, because he was a very good conjurer; once in a while, if any one visited him with children, Ada Melia, his wife of fifty three years, would ask her Lol to do a few tricks.

He had one trick which involved a handkerchief and a match: he would take a match, wrap his dirty handkerchief around it, break the match and when he opened the handkerchief again, lo and behold the match was still in one piece. His handkerchief was usually dirty because he would shine the brass door knocker every time he went in and came out of his front door even though he could hardly see it.

Another thing he used to do was throw a coin into the air and find it behind a child’s ear. It was easier when pennies were in circulation but with decimalization in nineteen seventy one Horace had to practice his tricks with smaller coins and eventually the pound piece; Horace would always give the coin to the child at the end of the trick so decimalization made his tricks more expensive.

He would rise very early and clean out the fire place; then he would put the ashes in to a special metal bin and go back in to the house and light the fire. He did this the old fashioned way with loads of newspaper, a few fire lighters, bits of wood and coal. Sometimes, when the fire was burning in the grate, he would throw on a few chopped logs.

Ada had the habit of sitting too close to the fire and, consequently, her legs were permanently red.

As the pipes, which came from the water boiler at the back of the fireplace, spread their heat through the walls to the bathroom upstairs and the kitchen downstairs, the house got hotter; so from about eight thirty onwards the fire would blaze in the fireplace and warm the whole home.

This is when Ada would wake up.

Every one in the village knew when Ada woke up: they would hear her call to Horace:

“Lol!”

No answer – don’t forget Horace was deaf.

A little louder:

“Lol!”

That one had two syllables – Lo – ol.

Still no answer – he’s still deaf.

Now again but even louder:

“Horace!”

Then almost at once:
”Horace.”

Horace would be sitting at the table with a magnifying glass trying to read the newspaper.

“Horace! Horace!”

Then she would lean out of bed, pick up Horace’s spare white stick and bang the floor – bang bang bang bang!

Horace would hear this; it happened every day so he would be expecting it; then he would go to the foot of the stairs and call up:

“Yes, my love.” - and in his mind 'my little nest of vipers.'

“I’ll have a nice cup of tea,” she would say “two slices of toast and marmalade . .”

And then she would roar:

“And don’t burn the bloody toast!”

Everybody in the cul-de-sac heard this; they heard it every day. The cul-de-sac consisted of ten houses and apart from the ends of the blocks they were joined together.

Horace and Ada had lived in the house since it was built in nineteen fifty and they had lived alone for twenty five years since their only son, Ralph, had moved to San Francisco upon his marriage to Jill, an American girl he had met on his first holiday abroad. Not only was the trip to Spain Ralph’s first holiday abroad, it was the first time any one in the cul-de-sac had ever travelled out of the country; but Ralph never came back.

Joining the SAS - a memoir.

I wrote this, originally, in 2010 It's here again as I am having a bit of trouble with the blog. When I was eighteen, I decided to join the territorial army in Britain; it wasn't a sudden idea as I'd spent the previous four years in the army cadets; the ACF, as they call it, the Army Cadet Force; not the CCF, the Combined Cadet Force, which the Public and Private Schools of Britain encourage where they have teachers as officers; Public School in the British sense, by the way as opposed to state schools. In the ACF we were attached to a Territorial Army Regiment and the regiment we were attached to was the Royal Artillery. I reached the rank of sergeant and, as a teenager, I taught drill, map reading, including how to use a prismatic compass and, as I was also the solo drummer, I taught the drummers how to play the military drum. In my day job I worked for the post office delivering telegrams on a motor bike; that was the best job any teenager could have; riding a motor bike all day – in all weathers, though, which wasn't always that much fun. By the time I was eighteen I had my fill of the military but a friend of mine who I will call Gary, suggested we join the SAS; Gary is not his real name his real name was George and . .well I jest!! We all know what the SAS is these days; it's one of the so called special services, but in those days I hadn't heard of the Special Air Service, to give it its full name. Gary was about six feet four and I was pushing five feet nine on a good day and when we went to apply we looked like the long and the short of it; I was very fit as I played football and cricket and loved to run and when we got to the barracks they said I was the ideal size. Seeing other SAS men over the years I can see what they mean as they are usually short and stocky hard men - but I wasn't exactly stocky. They welcomed Gary too but mentioned it would be very hard on him when it came to jumping out of an aeroplane. If you know me you would wonder why anybody like me, these days, who is left leaning, politically, and interested in drama, literature, poetry, music and movies would be interested in army life and I have only one answer – I was eighteen and knew no better and in any case it was an adventure. Unlike my four years in the cadets, in the SAS we hardly did drill, we didn't have to keep our boots highly polished and we didn't have to blanco our belts – don't ask!! We wore black belts and grey berets but most of the time we didn't even wear our uniforms so we would show up in our civvies at the barracks – and what was my nick name? James Bond; they called me this because I would wear a black shirt and white tie and one of the guys had read the James Bond books said I reminded him of Bond; in fact he always called me Jimmy from then on. This was before the James Bond films were made, of course, as he didn't mistake me for Sean Connery, but I was his idea of Bond. We were introduced to unarmed combat, survival skills, Morse code and map reading, including using a prismatic compass, (which I used to teach in the cadets) in preparation for the selection course which included being left by ourselves in the wilds of Scotland. There was a NAAFI, which is the bar, and it was in the NAAFI that I was introduced to cheese rolls and raw onion which we downed with our pints of ale; I still have a weakness for raw onions now and it was before the days of 'instant beer' came along when they would brew it; so it was real ale. At the weekends we would go away to camp or to a range and, as I was a marksman when I was in the cadets, the range wasn't anything new to me apart from using an SLR as opposed to the Lee Enfield .303 rifle. As I worked for the post office, I was allowed paid leave and as much as I needed whenever I was needed for military duty. I had signed the official secrets act as the post office was a government organisation in those days and I had to sign it again with the SAS; I also got paid by both organisations so I was well off even though neither pay packet amounted to much but what did I need money for? I was single and didn't have any debts or commitments so apart from beer and cigarettes I didn't need much. One time we arrived at the barracks on a Friday evening and were told that as it was very foggy we wouldn’t be departing for the usual weekend camp till the following morning so we could either go back home and come in early or sleep on the hard floor of the barracks – Gary and me, and a fella called Flash (real name) decided on neither; we went for a drink and instead of heading back to the barracks we looked for a piece of waste ground near the pub. We wandered through the fog of the city and found the ideal place which seemed quite remote till we woke the next morning, when the fog had lifted, to find a bus load of people looking at us; you see the word “tent” never came into the conversation either there or when we got to Scotland; we slept under the stars with a poncho wrapped around our sleeping bags and our heads sticking out and this was what the people on the bus saw as we lay there. Gary had woken up, in the night, just as some drunk was walking across the waste ground. As he sat up, the drunk must have thought he’d seen a ghost and rapidly sobered up enough to muster a run and a scream. I still have this image of him running with his jacket streaming out at the back and a scream so loud you’d think he’d seen Godzilla. For the selection course we went to a place called Fort George, in Scotland, and stayed with the crack Scottish Regiment The Black Watch. We slept four to a billet and after a night in the NAAFI, on the first night, we overslept. Apart from Gary, we shared with two guys, one who later became a policeman in civvy street and a fella called Bunny who went to Angola to be a mercenary; we woke up to see everybody on parade outside. That meant we were put on fatigues for the next morning and had to clean all the cooking equipment in the cook-house; we were given an early morning call at 4:30 which I had to sign for. We did a week of manoeuvres which we were all used to, of course, as we were boys and used to playing soldiers but here we had thunder flashes, blank rounds in our rifles and also visited a hand grenade range; I kept the key that I pulled from my first grenade as a key-ring for some years. The second week was part two of the selection course. All of us were piled into the back of a big army truck and driven miles from anywhere; we went along lonely winding roads, which were at the base of canyons and moors, and on the hillsides we could see smatterings of sheep and grass and then nothing; just big hills and sky. A name would be called out and a trooper would struggle with his back pack and rifle through stinky bodies, given a six figure map reference and a time to be at the RV (rendezvous) the next day and that was it. When it was my turn I watched as the lorry disappeared and then silence; not a sound anywhere; I looked left and right – nothing; I liked the silence; this was in Sutherland very close to Cape Wrath which is the tip top of Scotland. The hill I climbed seemed to go up at ninety degrees and after a hundred yards I was finished; I sat down and dived into my bag for something to eat.I wasn’t as domesticated as I am now so the first thing I found was a packet of Kraft Cheese Slices – not very sensible for somebody who was going to have to rough it for five days – and a can of beans. I decided on the beans and then came my first mishap – I couldn’t get the bloody stove to light and I ate the beans from the can cold; then I had to bury the can. At the top of the hill I took out my map and tried to take some bearings with my compass but couldn't see any landmarks essential for finding my position so I took a few guesses and eventually met the officers at my RV the next day. They gave me another six figure map reference and off I went again. One morning I woke up and it was raining so I pulled the hood over my head and went back to sleep. When I woke again I saw a figure approaching and when he got closer I saw it was a Scottish SAS corporal. He was one of the judges, so it would be okay to travel with him, which meant there would be no breaking rules so when we came to a river we didn't use the bridge; we walked across it with the water up to my chest holding our rifles above our heads. When I say an SAS Corporal, I mean he was actually in the SAS. The rest of the soldiers, on the course, were from other regiments, mostly the Royal Signals, and that's what uniform, woth flashes, they wore. Only Gaary and me had the SAS battle dresses. Not that we wore those on the course as we were in our denims. After a few days everybody gathered at the final RV and we were relieved of our back-packs – leaving us with our emergency packs – and teamed into pairs; luckily I got Gary. The more we walked the more it rained. We were wearing ponchos but we would have to sleep sometime, and somewhere. I kept saying “what”s the matter with settling down under that tree – or that bush?" But Gary never thouyght it was a good idea. When it got dark we walked close to the road and in the distance we could see by its lights a vehicle approaching. We kept low and as it got closer we made out a mobile grocer’s van so we jumped out like bandits and flagged it down."Do you have any milk?" "No but hop in and I’ll take you to a farm." We got in to the back with the groceries. At the farm we could see the farm house through the dark in the distance. As walked to it Gary said “Look there - a barn!” A place to sleep. A youth of sixteen answered the front door of the farm house “yes?” he said.We were standing there wearing ponchos and each holding a rifle and it was around 9:00 pm; I don''t know what we looked like but he didn't seem bothered. "Can we buy some milk?" I said. "Milk?" “Yes and can we sleep in your barn?” said Gary. "Hang on a minute" he said. He disappeared and then his dad came to the door “You want to sleep in the barn?” ‘Yes please.’ ‘That’ll be okay,’ he said, wearily, and he took us to it. After a while a female voice called through the door “can I come in?” ‘Yes.’ A very beautiful young girl came into the barn; “hello” she said, and already I can hear you say, bullshit, but she was very beautiful and really friendly. This was the farmer’s daughter “we have a cottage if you would like to use it.” We accepted, of course. There was nothing in the cottage apart from a bed and a pile of blankets – “would you like to come up for supper?” Would we like to come up for supper!!! "Come up to the house when you are ready" she said. Oh the jokes about the farmer’s daughter that went through my head. "God she's gorgeous" I said. "Don't you try anything" said Gary - as if I would. Bacon and eggs, sausage and tomatoes; all served with hot tea and warm bread rolls; all wonderful. The next morning our clothes were delivered to us before we got out of bed and we were given boiled eggs and toast for breakfast. Later on, after we made it to our final RV, an officer came up to me and said “Your socks look rather dry there?” "Yes sir" I said “I took them off and hung them up to dry this morning.”"Well done" he said “good piece of initiative.” We passed the selection course, not many of the others did, and a few more from the post office tried later courses but none of hem passed. but the short time we served with them, to me, was never nearly as exciting as the course itself; we went on manoeuvres, played at being at war and got out before it became serious; at least I did; I don’t know what Gary did as we lost touch. This was in 1961 or 1962, can't quite remember, and all I had to show for it was the pin from the first grenade I'd thrown, an SAS tie and Christmas Card and a great memory. But what ever happened to that farmer's daughter?

Sutherland, Scotland.

 

A place where you'd see, nothing but sheep;

Have little food and little sleep;

Hide under your poncho, as the rain would pour;

A miserable place is Mauvalley Mhor.

I wrote that little verse when I was doing just that. Hiding under a poncho – and if you don't know what a poncho it's what Clint Eastwood as the man with no name wore and it that doesn't ring a bell you need to get out more.

The place Mauvalley Mhor is somewhere; I have looked for it on maps of Sutherland, which is right at the top of Scotland, almost as far as Cape Wrath which is the top on a slightly different peninsular and to the east of Jon-o-groats. But I can never find it; can't even spell it. The poncho was right over my head and I was huddled up with my knees near my face. 

Somehow I was supposed to read a map to see the six, or was it eight, figure map reference where I had to be for a certain time either later on, or the next day, and the light was fading even though I was in the lightest and the latest part of Britain.

Aged just eighteen my eyes were at their most perfect, in later years they were 20/10 and up to ten years ago they were 20/15; at the moment they are 20/20 which is great for a fella my age, even though the left one has taken a hike. Very little sight in that one, now, but it still twinkles.

At eighteen I joined something called the SAS; I have written about it before, but at the time I had no idea what it was. My pal wanted to join and I went along for the craic. From the age of fourteen I had been in the army cadet force, which is slightly different from the schools version of the army cadets which is run by teachers. So before going on the course, which is what I was doing under the poncho, I had map reading skills, weapon training and with 20/10 eye sight I was a crack shot. Thinking back I would have had a shit job in the army – a sniper. What a nightmare that would have been.

We were stationed at Fort George with the Black Watch and had been in the wilderness for a few days. Don't ask me how many or even how many weeks we were there. We socialised in Inverness where I met a girl and when she spoke to me she was a cockney. Well I say cockney, she was from London. Everybody is a cockney if they're from London if you are from any other part of the British Isles but it's not strictly true. There is a church in east London, in Bow, in fact, and you have to be born within the sound of Bow Bells to qualify as a cockney.

Sometimes in Los Angeles, someone would not quite be able to understand what I was saying and they would say, 'I can't understand your cockney.'

But London is 567 miles from Inverness so the last thing I expected to hear from a beautiful girl was a London accent and I might have been wondering about her as I crouched under the poncho. I was worried about the rain going down the back of my neck. I wore an SAS grey beret which seemed to be keeping the rain from actually drowning me.

I was just what they were looking for, in the SAS, the exact size they want but my pal was over six feet four and they didn't fancy his chances. When you think about it, it's not surprising – too big for a racing car, a space ship, a comfortable parachute jump – just think about it. At the end of the course we had to join up and just like the story of the tortoise and the hair when Dan crossed over the finishing line he found Christy waiting there.

Not really there was no finishing line, or anything like that, but I was the lazy one. I didn't care that I was sleeping in the middle of a field when morning came I didn't want to get up – still like that now. But on the last day I found my second wind and passed with flying colours.

It was tough training but I was eighteen and, even though I smoked like a trooper, and drank with the boys, I was fit.

So if you come across a place that sounds like Mo Valley More, but looks more like, Mauvalley Mhor, let me know. I think Mhor means big.

The movie is still doing the rounds. The Chicago Festival contacted me last night so who knows.

Take a look:

https://vimeo.com/505608541