Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.

 

Ruins of some of the monastic buildings in Bury St. Edmunds

As touched upon in my previous blog, I was over in Suffolk briefly for my sister’s 80^th birthday celebrations and stayed with my daughter who currently lives in Bury St Edmunds. I was en famille from Thursday to Sunday morning and for the first time had the time to explore more than the conveniently close shopping centre. Continuing my Bruggean early morning walks regime, I explored the wonderful Abbey gardens and the adjoining old cemetery and discovered more superb vistas and ancient stones than I had dreamed possible. In fact, the same fascination with beauty, history, locality, which has always gripped me with Brugge, elicited the same reactions with Bury. I hope not to have to leave Brugge till the Final Curtain, but if I did have to return to the U.K., provided the mind remained open, I would now choose Bury for its gripping historical continuity and its beautiful old stones and walkways. It is an historical and aesthetic gem.

Elizabeth Frink's statue of the boy king, Edmund.
He came to the throne of East Anglia in 855 A.D. and was
murdered by the Danes for his faith in 869.

St Edmunds Abbey, home to the remains of the martyred King Edward from 903 A.D., was one of the largest and richest Benedictine monasteries in England, established in 1020, attracting a constant procession of pilgrims and receiving Royal grants and concessions over the centuries. At the time of the Norman Conquest, Bury was the fourth Abbey in wealth and political importance in the country. I had not known that it was at Bury, in 1214, that King John’s discontented earls and barons had gathered in the Abbey, to discuss their grievances against him and committed themselves as a group to force their King to grant them a number of liberties. The following year, the sovereign met the rebels at Runnymede and sealed the Magna Carta. An extraordinary and hugely definitive act in the development of democracy in England.

The Great Seal of King John for the Magna Carta 1215.

During the 13^th and 14^th centuries, the Abbey thrived, quite often in dispute with the town, and despite problems with damage through the collapse of part of the West tower and inevitably, through the mediaeval curse to venerable buildings of fire. But in spite of setbacks, Bury St Edmunds prospered and remained politically important enough to entertain Henry V1 for four months over Christmas 1433, but it met its nemesis, as did so many other monasteries, in the person of Henry V111; in 1539 it was surrendered to the Crown and its considerable income appropriated. Valuable building material was removed from the ancient site though the Abbot’s palace survived as a house until 1720. 

A judicious mix of the ecclesiastical and the arboreal!

Beyond the once magnificent West front, a range of houses was built between the 16th and 18^th centuries. Today the venerable ruins and the Abbey gardens provide a privilege for residents of and visitors to, Bury to explore and enjoy. It is a peaceful theatre in the mediaeval heart of the modern town in which anyone can find repose and illumination.

Post Pause!

After a little gap in these blogs, back to the keyboard as I sit in the newly-peaceful, tidy apartment of old after the departure of my son and daughter. I have enjoyed a super fortnight starting with the arrival of Cait, my youngest and naughtiest, on July 27^th, a day before my 86^th. We left for Britain on July 30^th so that we could both attend my sister’s 80^th party given by her children on August 1^st then returned home the next day together with my son. They left on Friday last, August 7^th neatly beating the new 14 day quarantine restriction by the UK on all travellers from Belgium which kicked in at 4.00 a.m on Sat. Aug 8^th.! Sadly the new rule led immediately to the cancellation of my youngest grandson and his girl’s visit to me, just arranged, later this month.

The family party for Heather’s 80^th was great; it was small as my sister is at high risk, 
Corona-wise, but it was so delightful to enjoy time in a chiefly family group of different ages, in a lovely home and an especially gorgeous garden if that is the right word. My niece and her husband were able to buy two plots of the farmer’s field behind/beyond their existing garden and lawn some time ago, to provide a huge grassed area which now boasts extensive accommodation for geese and fowls; fruit and vegetable cages plus more.

We spent virtually the whole time sitting outside and often were separate in younger and older groups. I noticed that the older group was punctilious about social distancing and several of the mature group barely moved from their seats! Interesting!! I remain astonished that my lovely horsey niece co-responsible for the party, has metamorphosed into a real, a proper, gardener of fruit and vegetables. Her mother, my sister, has always been a notable gardener, responsible for creating several lovely, interesting new gardens in different locations, chiefly in Suffolk. She is the one to whom one always went for advice on plants, flowers, garden layouts etc. There is obviously late-onset gene inheritance at work here!!

Although I have thoroughly enjoyed lock-down since March 13^th, nonetheless, to return home on August 2, in a car, [a rare occurrence] with my son and younger daughter who then stayed for most of the following week, was great and has been a total treat for me though must admit that around ten or eleven days with other people was unsurprisingly tiring, cumulatively. My lovely Ger

Enjoying oysters in De Mangerie

man boys were also here for the chiefly cancelled MA Festival so we have met up several times for lunch and beers and even a concert in the nearby Sint Gilliskerk on Saturday evening. [Surprisingly, I didn’t enjoy the latter; discomfort from ghastly chair, hot mask and dirge-like music, combined to have me shuffling in my seat longing for release!] This is in fact, fortuitous for my main beloved activities like the conversation Thursday evening group and the Mah Jong etc are all now discontinued as the Belgian Covid19 response has reduced meetings to a bubble of five, AND the same people in the bubble each week. As I don’t have such a bubble I think it is almost back to lock-down though there are no restrictions yet about outside distance so my early morning walks alongside canals are still fine. And I do treasure those!!

The three of us did manage one little outing to Oostende for lunch at a fish restaurant, discovered in February. De Mangerie at 10 Albert Eenste Promenade can boast wonderful food at pretty reasonable prices with just the most superlative service imaginable. We loved it and my daughter enjoyed her longed-for wander along the beach with a soupcon of paddling in the warm sea. I made a brief effort to try the sand but it was far too deep and made walking in it, much too effort-ful so I quickly retreated to walk along the promenade with my kind son! But it was a pitch-perfect day; sun not too hot; clouds bobbing overhead in a sapphire sky; long beach with not too many people, it being a Tuesday. Altogether gorgeous for what may have been at least my third special meal to celebrate my birthday!! However, one never needs to justify over-enthusiasm in one’s eighties!!

On my actual birthday my daughter had taken me to the super Park Restaurant on Minderbroedersstraat near Astridpark where we had a marvellous meal again accompanied by amazing service. Rose petals on the cloth; complementary glass of champagne; fab food and wine. And Axel as over-the-top host!

Host Axel dressed for birthday congratulations!

Mapp and Lucia

 E.F. Benson 1867-1940

During the increased opportunity for reading with the expanded time available during Lockdown and the current post-Lockdown, I came across an omnibus edition of three of E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books which I first met at the end of the Eighties I think, courtesy of my husband who was a total fan. I have just re-read this wonderful three books-in-one, Lucia Victrix comprising Mapp and Lucia, Lucia’s Progress and Trouble for Lucia, a volume inhospitably large to read while also attempting to balance a glass or a cup of coffee on the terrace. I love the bold announcement on the front cover:

“We will pay anything for Lucia books.” Noel Coward; Gertrude Lawrence; Nancy Mitford; W.H. Auden. That signals the high level cult which grew around the Mapp and Lucia books during the 1920s and 1930s when the artistic and literary communities in Britain became entranced with the comedic characters in the Lucia stories of E.F. Benson.

 The Benson Brothers
1907

His fictional world has character, situation, prose, which feeds the glorious satire he produces, both through then-current social obsessions like health fads, plus the ridiculously and wonderfully overblown social surveillance of communal life in Tilling. He demonstrates skilfully what can be achieved when characters are gathered together to do battle over their own flaws and insecurities.

 Prunella Scales as Miss Mapp and
Genevieve McEwan as Lucia in the
1985 BBC production.

Benson’s main sublime characters were introduced in two separate books; Queen Lucia in 1920 and Miss Mapp in 1922 but his decision to bring the two together on a social collision course was a stroke of genius. Separately, the two ‘ladies’ thrive but by uniting these two extraordinary characters into one saga, Benson enables the creation of a truly high standard of literary humour. Lucia decides to leave Riseholme, the little town where she has reigned as undisputed Queen for many years, following the death of her husband, Peppino, and take up first temporary, then permanent, residence in Tilling, along with Georgie, her dear, outrageously-dressed, camp friend and confidante who also manages to find a suitable dwelling for himself. They decide to bid Au reservoir [ the famous Tillingite goodbye] to Riseholme to conquer fields anew.

Their arrival sparks intentions in Miss Mapp, hitherto Queen of all she surveyed, to gather in the newcomers without condescension, so that she can present them to her admirers in town and thus

 Tilling, shown in a photograph of Rye, East Sussex.

underline her own social superiority, but Lucia immediately, artlessly but artfully, sets about establishing her own regal presence in the town. The battle between the two ‘ladies’ is riveting to spectators and readers alike, as teas, dinners, pot-luck suppers, art shows, callisthenic classes, fund-raising fetes and bridge evenings, become the battleground for the sublime yet savage social battle to range. The apparent self-sufficiency and tranquillity of Tilling is a world in itself, where the inhabitants quietly know Everything about each other but politely rarely challenge each other, relying on hugely relished social gossip to keep abreast of happenings and developments. The social surveillance involved in Tilling’s communal life is effortlessly and entertainingly portrayed. The peace and perfection of the place offer a boundless theatre for countless vicious social battles to be enacted. One should mention that Tilling is a very thinly-disguised Rye in East Sussex, where Benson lived for many years in Lamb House, and where, like Lucia, he served as Mayor.

The Benson family were eminent Victorians, all high achievers and almost certainly homosexual. The father, Edward, who was not, progressed quickly up the clerical hierarchy and, via the Chancellorship of Lincoln Cathedral and the Bishopric of Truro, he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1883. His wife, Minnie, to whom he proposed when she was 11 and he, 23, had a number of romantic affairs with other women while bearing her husband six children. Those offspring who

 The Garden Room, Lamb House, Rye,
the model for Mallards in Tilling.
Destroyed by a German bomb in August 1940.

reached adulthood, were all incredibly successful, distinguishing themselves in public life. Arthur became Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge; wrote the lyrics of Edward Elgar’s hymn, Land of Hope and Glory; and co-edited Queen Victoria’s letters for publication. His brother, Fred, of Mapp and Lucia fame, also wrote a formidable and successful array of fiction, including ghost stories. Sister Margaret became an amateur pioneering Egyptologist and the first woman to lead an archaeological dig with subsequent publication of her findings. Younger brother Hugh, became a notable Roman Catholic, was considered a magnetic preacher and was also a best-selling author. Altogether, the family published more than 200 volumes.

 Discovering the initial delights of Tilling.

Father Edward invited his wife’s lover, Lucy Tait, daughter of the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, to live with them and three years after his death, Minnie moved house with Lucy, still her lover, and Minnie’s daughter, Margaret, the Egyptologist, came to live with them, bringing her female lover. An extraordinary and gifted family in many ways; reliably eccentric and always able to disregard social attitudes which did not suit them. But perhaps one might claim that it is Fred's, E.F. Benson's, literary legacy which has burned longest and brightest.

 Oil painting of West Street, Rye
showing the admirably-placed
Garden room window.
Artist: Ellen Emmet Rand 1875-1941

Horatio's Gardens

My particular restorative floral green space

 Chelsea Physic Garden established in 1673.

A perfect day weather-wise with the anticipated cascade of notes from ‘my’ visiting blackbird to charm the air. His intermittent daily serenade is predictably and refreshingly nourishing. I sat on my terrace which is looking delightful now, for coffee then a reading break and I noticed in the weekend Financial Times magazine, a lovely article entitled Mind, Body And Soul, by Clare Coulson, about the therapeutic power of green spaces and gardens. I had no idea that in 1673, when London’s Chelsea Physic Garden was established by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, within a walled four acre plot close to the River Thames, the healing power of plants was not merely acknowledged but established as an intrinsic part of life. Gardens were viewed as restorative and contemplative spaces. In truth, in the seventeenth century Britain was chiefly an agricultural and rural society and though many did not own, or have access, to a beautiful garden, the green and open countryside was on the doorstep, as it were, of the majority of citizens who, unknowingly, reaped the benefits.

In Thomas Bewick’s Memoir, he begins Chapter 2 thus:

“From the little Window at my Bed head, I noticed all the varying seasons of the year and when the Spring put in, I felt charmed at the music of Birds, which strained their little throats to proclaim it.”

The boy who would become the famous artist-engraver, was born in August 1753,and lived in Cherry-burn House near the small Village or Hamlet of Eltringham in the Newcastle area. Though his talent was prodigious, his early life was spent almost entirely in ordinary, every day pursuits in the nearby countryside which he loved and which helped to form him, as it did his friends and family. His series of superb wood engravings for his two major works of natural history: General History of Quadrupeds and History of British Birds were considered to have aroused a huge contemporary popular interest in natural history. Thomas’s love of, and absorption in, the natural world was unconscious but central to his youthful experience and growth. One would like to think that this immersion in the great, green outdoors fed his growing creativity.

 Thomas Bewick 1753-1828

Gardens can transport a person and revive the psyche. I derive great pleasure from working on my terrace, which is really a garden in miniature; from the searching for plants; the actual planting and placing; the changing of mind and position of pots; the watering and dead-heading; the evening stroll around my tiny estate and the blessed sitting out there in the sun or shade, to read or write. A plus for me now is that a terrace asks for much less physical effort, which is a blessing in fact! But the amount of calmness derived and the aesthetic beauty inhaled, the silent delight in just being there, do not depend on size and effort in the upkeep; just the walled green space, presently be-floralled and perfect, is enough.

 Bewick illustrating the extreme contentment
of immersion in a green space. Albeit with
the added charms of tobacco and beer.

The benefits of green spaces are increasingly recognised in the provision of therapeutic gardens attached to hospices and specialist care centres. I read last year, I think, of Horatio’s Garden Charity which creates and nurtures green sanctuaries chiefly in N.H.S. spinal-injury centres, to improve the psychological health of patients who may spend months in hospital. These life-affirming gardens are in memory of Horatio

 Horatio Chapple

Chapple whose idea it originally was. Horatio, who wanted to become a doctor, volunteered to work in 2010/11 in Salisbury Hospital where his father, David, is a spinal surgeon in the Duke of Cornwall Spinal Treatment Centre. Horatio asked why there was no outside green space for long-term patients to enjoy. In discussion with his father, Horatio came up with the idea of a therapeutic garden and he designed a questionnaire to discover exactly what patients wanted. Tragically, Horatio (17) was killed the following year, by a polar bear on a school expedition and this prompted a flood of donations to establish what came to be called Horatio’s Garden, designed by Cleve West, a notable, award-winning garden designer, at Salisbury Hospital. Salisbury has proven to be the first of a series of Horatio’s Gardens attached chiefly to spinal injury treatment centres throughout the country. The unbearable poignancy of this story, nonetheless, illustrates at least, the considerable achievement in the splendid realisation of therapeutic gardens available to an increasing number of spinal treatment patients with huge benefits for them. A powerful memorial fitting for a young man of empathy and vision.

 Horatio's Garden, London

Ennio Morricone. Nov 10th 1928-July 6th 2020

 Morricone at Cannes, 2012.

Such a sadness yesterday when I heard the news that Ennio Morricone had died. In fact, sheer gratitude and delight are what I normally, formerly, felt at the sound of his name. He was not a classical musician, orchestrator or composer in the way of the greats in the past, like Beethoven or Mozart but he was worthy of equal adoration and renown and many classical musicians were ardent admirers of his work. His fame was world-wide and inspired a huge devotion in the world of film/cinema, theatre, radio. I do wonder if, in fact, young people have even heard his name? Probably not but all anyone needs to do is just go on Wikipedia with an hour to spare to read all the biographical information available, and familiar names associated in particular with the film world, will bubble up and some recognition take place.

 Goffredo Petrassi, composer and teacher.

Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone 1973

Morricone, born in Rome, attended the Conservatory there from the age of 12 and studied trumpet, composition and choral music under the tutelage of Goffredo Petrassi. His instruments became the trumpet and the piano. He was a total musician eventually becoming world famous for his distinctive, manifold compositions, creating highly poignant, melodic and emotional music. Friends observed that he did not sit at the piano to compose but that entire compositions arrived, finished, in his head. His fame burst into the wider public in 1964 after Sergio Leone, the Italian film producer and early fellow student,, appointed him to write the score for the first of his Spaghetti Westerns, A Fistful of Dollars, The great success of this film spawned two more by Leone, A Few Dollars More, 1965 and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 1966. All three so-called Dollars Trilogy starred Clint Eastwood and relied on Morricone for his highly individual, memorable scores. For Leone, the music was not background; it was integral to setting the mood, establishing the character, heightening the tension, calming the clamour. On 14 August 1968 Morricone was awarded a Golden Record for over 500,000 copies sold in the U.S. alone. The U.S. was an important market for Morricone but, in keeping with his refusal to learn English, he always resisted Hollywood and cared little for his standing in America, preferring to spend his life based in his beloved Rome. He subsequently composed the music for Leone’s Once Upon A Time in The West, 1968, and A Fistful of Dynamite in 1971. A stunningly fertile partnership.

Ennio and Sergio at school together, 1937.

"Most of the time, people experience the music in a film as a subconscious suggestion. In other words, music manages to show what is not visible, to work against the dialogue or, even more, tell a story that the images do not reveal." Morricone wrote in 2019.

I n fact, though Morricone won huge fame and prestige through his Spaghetti Western compositions, he composed for a wide variety of film including horror films and comedies plus, for example, my all-time favourite film, Cinema Paradiso. Oh, those swelling heartstrings! His repertoire of over 500 scores captivated countless listeners with its emotional fascination. He was also prolific in the number of concerts he gave. Certainly, when no longer young, in 2001 alone, he gave 250 concerts during a world tour with Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta. His 75^th birthday concert was at the Barbican, in London. During 2003-2004, Morricone appeared in concert in Paris, Vienna, Tokyo, Munich but I saw him in April or May 2005 when he appeared in Firenze before a crowd of at least 2000. I happened to be living there [and almost ready to leave that June] and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the poster! The concert was one of the high spots of my life!

 Ennio Morricone with his only Oscar, at 87
in 2016!

 Clint Eastwood in
The Man With No Name.

When one reads of all that Morricone did and achieved in his 91 years, one is overwhelmed, almost, with admiration. He seems to have possessed enough energy and creativity for several men, and the music which remains as testament to genius, is sublime.

Chocostory and the Friet Museum

 Huis de Croone before the major
restoration 1978-1984,
The main entrance was to the left
of the facade.

On the corner of Sint Jansplein and Wijnzakstraat, there is an absolutely beautiful building. The Huis de Croone, a former wine tavern in what was the wine-trading district of mediaeval Brugge, is a Gothic building from the second half of the fifteenth century. After hundreds of years as a wine tavern, it became a place to buy patisserie for a long time and in the twentieth century it was variously the H.Q. of the Employment Exchange; a police training school; the Credit Communal de Belgique; and the VDAB, the Flemish Employment Bureau. Now it is a Museum telling the story of Chocolate and there is also Lumina Domestica, a splendid collection of lamps in one part of the building.

 Madonna and child, Huis de Croone.

Built probably around 1480, it has had major alterations at several points in its history. In 1830, for instance, the lower windows were further lowered and the cross frames replaced. In 1967/8 there was a major historic restoration by the then owners, Gemeentekrediet, when the lowered windows were restored to their original position and many missing corbels, consoles and wall studs were inserted. Below the front four bays is a two-aisled cellar, and a basement below the back house, with barrel vaulting plus a Gothic fireplace. Fernand Bonneure describes the house thus: ”This typical high brick gabled house with numerous windows in flawless bays illustrates the splendour with which the houses in Bruges used to be built and looked after.” Certainly, normally as one passes by, it is the perfect elegance of the Huis de Croone which catches the eye and delights. It is one of the most distinguished buildings in an urban landscape of special buildings. And I must admit that I always wonder if the most appropriate use for such a special building of such venerable age and quality, is to house a chocolate museum.

 Huis de Croone in its present glory.

The former Genoese Embassy;
Saaihalle; and now the
Friet Museum.

Continuing my prejudiced outlook, my mind leaps effortlessly to the Friet Museum on Vlamingstraat, owned by the same Van Belle family as the Chocolate Museum, and apparently, and mysteriously, very popular indeed with tourists. In one of those uncanny connections that life occasionally presents, this museum, too, is housed in one of the most gorgeous and special mediaeval buildings in Brugge. In former times it was the House of the Genoese, reminding of the trade between Brugge and Genoa from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Genoese traders settled in Brugge from around 1375, selling spices, silver, gold and precious stones and buying cloth, yarn and grain. The volume of trade quickly grew and in 1395, Philip the Good negotiated a treaty transferring the Genoese commercial centre from London to Bruges and that was the year that the present building became the virtual Genoese embassy. Goods were stored, and marketed from, here while, from 1411, the Genoese Consul lived nearby in a purpose-built house in Grauwerkersstraat. This successful arrangement continued until 1516 when the Genoese hanse, together with those of Florence and Lucca, left Brugge to settle in Antwerp as the commercial viability, and consequent importance of Brugge began their long decline. With the silting up of the passage to the sea, Brugge ceased to be the great market of Western Europe and gradually began the long decline into relative poverty and picturesque commercial insignificance.

St George on the facade of the museum, housed in a building
which is a masterpiece of Brugge, to be treasured.

From 1558, the exquisite building became the Saaihalle where white wool was traded, a very successful commercial industry begun by fugitive weavers fleeing the French Flemish city of Hondschoote because of religious persecution. This use of the building gradually ceased towards the middle of the 18^th century after which it served a variety of uses including as a pub, a shop, a dance hall, a Seemanshaus during WW1 and a brothel for German soldiers. Later, after WW2, it became a cinema, the Coliseum. From 1978 to 1984, Luc Vermeersch directed a much-needed restoration for the badly-neglected old building and the Generale Bankmaatschappij turned the place into a prestigious meeting place for seminars, lectures, receptions and exhibitions. It has housed the Friet Museum since 2008. Again, one feels it would be wonderful to have this historic building with its exceptional facade, in use for public events like lectures, exhibitions etc.

The Plague by Albert Camus

Lockdown is beginning to creep away leaving a certain reluctance to throw oneself too ardently into former activities, despite longing to do so. This week, we are trying to reinstate Mahjong on my terrace and hopes are high! An attempt to re-start our Thursday evening get-togethers at Oud Huis Amsterdam has been thwarted owing to the immoveable barrier of the closure of the hotel which had been briefly open.

 Oud Huis Amsterdam, Genthof 4.

Boris, recently. 

A lovely idea that I have thought of, to visit Britain and go to see my sister on our birthday in late July, has caused me quite unexpected anxiety about the big effort neded to travel by train from Brugge to Bury St Edmonds. A considerable journey of at least 6-7 hours in a wretched mask amid other travellers, in a country (the U.K.) which has not so far been very successful at managing Covid 19. Incidentally I read a lovely little thumbnail of Boris by Christine Burns, a trans campaigner and author. “Johnson is a Pound Shop Trump, slightly more acceptable and less utterly crass.” Which rather cleverly manages to be rude about both men and cheered me up considerably!

I am currently reading The Plague by Albert Camus, published in 1947, thus, I discover, joining tens of thousands of locked-down readers during this Corona period, all fascinated by what seems to have become the defining book of Covid19. Camus “uses a biological epidemic to illustrate the dilemmas of moral contagion.” [Tony Judt. 2001] It is the story of a dreadful plague of rats in the fictional town of Oran in French Algeria when rats emerge from the sewers in their thousands to die with bulboes bursting. Soon humans are similarly affected and eventually, after disbelief in pestilences [“they only happen in history”] causes uncomprehending, comfortable stasis and scepticism, the enormity of what is happening hits home. The numbers afflicted rise; first slowly then exponentially and by time the plague-arriving Spring gives way to a sweltering summer, over 100 deaths a day are occurring. The New Normal governs lives. Emergency measures are rushed in; city gates and the commercial harbour are closed; sporting activities and beach bathing are prohibited. Food shortages emerge and rationing for basics is introduced. Plague profiteers prey on desperation and bewilderment; sufferers are isolated; entire suburbs are locked down; hospitals become overwhelmed and schools and other public buildings are converted into makeshift hospitals.

Part of the plague of Nazism

Mosque in Biskra in Algiers, similar
to the fictional Oban of the novel

Camus meditates tellingly on the psychological and social effects of the epidemic on the townspeople. A plague makes exiles of people in their own towns and homes; separation, isolation, anxiety, boredom and a quotidian claustrophobic repetition become their shared fate, seemingly without end to the sufferers. The living cannot even bid farewell to their dead. Camus’s plague is also a metaphor; when it was written, the plague was Nazism which had taken over and destroyed millions in unimaginable distortions of normal human behaviour. A character in the book, Tarrou, identifies the plague with people’s propensity to rationalise killing others for religious, philosophical or ideological causes. And it is in this sense of plague that the closing words of the novel observe:

 Camus, 1972

“..that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and enlightenment of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.”

But Camus’s narrator concludes, after the unaccountable dissipation of the plague when quarantine is lifted, gates open and families and lovers are reunited, that, in spite of all the horrors he has witnessed, “there are more things to admire in men than to despise.” He goes on to suggest that it is in ordinary virtue with people doing what they can for each other in the face of adversity, that extraordinary things happen to protect people from the worst depredations heaped on them by epidemics, whether from 'natural' causes or tyrannical governments or ideologies.. "There's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency."

The apparent prescience of The Plague considered in today’s pandemic seems extraordinary. Camus describes so exactly our present situation: our fears, our mystification, our boredom, our longing for normalcy to return. He illustrates the moral dilemmas faced by humanity when in the throes of a plague and the range of human behaviours in response. But when it was published, the plague was recognised as Nazism and its attendant evils and Camus was widely recognised as a genius and awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. It remains one of the most important books ever written.

 Triumphant post script. Mahjong this morning!