online: 25 july 2010 modified: 24, 25 july 2010 19 july 2010 new friends
highest seat
...sitting on the highest seat while reading the radio plays of Gunter Eich* i am surprised by a woman coming to sit beside me...
...then came two others who stood and posed to photograph the view and each other... soon i heard behind me the voice of a man who addressed me as 'young man' and introduced the three women and himself, who are from Turkey (and was it Turkmenistan?)...
...immediately we fell into friendly conversation... the man is a chef at a nearby restaurant... and the women are students of english... and perhaps other subjects...
...we got to know each other quickly... and as they left they waved and waved until out of sight...
...and now, looking at the distant city beyond the gorse bushes, and at the mist or rain which seems to be advancing towards this point... i remember their vivid presence and marvel at the speed at which we got to know each other... as parts of one world...
25 july:
as i edit this five days later i still remember these four Turkish people who left me feeling the warmth of their old world manners such as may have died in Europe but may be recoverable with the help of our not always so welcome immigrants to, and joiners of, the European Union?...
*Gunter Eich, Journeys, two radio plays, translated by Michael Hamburger, Jonathan Cape, London 1968.
...though Gunter Eích wrote for doctor Goebbels' propaganda ministry he is nevertheless respected for the poetic atmosphere and dialogue of his radio plays... in advance of what is usually to be heard on BBC radio...
...why is this?...
...is it because changes of form threaten the status quo more than do predictable messages and meanings?
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