2006: poetry, hate crimes in the news, and a loss still keenly felt today
It’s an entry from 2006 that, every year since, gets an impressive flurry of hits around GCSE exam time. Thankfully, I know the information I posted in Carol Ann Duffy: A Beginner’s Guide, all about one of Britain’s most successful poets, is correct—but really, despite GCSE results around the country usually being quite good, it concerns me that kids are still using the Internet for last-minute revision despite all the warnings that, when it comes to study, books should be used and not websites that haven’t been given a stamp of educational authority. I mean, I know the stuff I wrote isn’t fiction, but I agree with the advice. Sites like Wikipedia are most often used, despite anyone being able to contribute to them.
This was the year that the US government sided with Iran, Zimbabwe and China against allowing pro-gay advocacy groups to join the UN’s Economic and Social Council. Evil, like misery, loves company—until such time as the haters turn the hate on each other. The parents of the killers of gay barman David Morley clearly demonstrated why we have feral children turning into murderers, when they hurled abuse at Mr Morley’s parents as they left the court, one of them drawing a finger across his throat to indicate that the desire to kill ran in the family.
Bad begets bad, and no political party has the guts to start taking children out of anti-social families and into care on a large scale before they become violent criminals. The ’sticking plaster’ approach is used—children are removed from obvious target homes, involving drug abuse (and then only sometimes) and sexual predation, while everyone else is ineffectually urged to bring their children up responsibly. Yet, in Britain today, the terrifying fact is that there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of families in which children are starved of loving discipline and moral guidance. Probably because the same is true of their parents, when they were kids.
Another post I wrote back in 2006 that remains popular in terms of hits is that reporting on the UK’s National Blood Service being branded homophobic and outdated for still rejecting the blood of gay men, despite HIV being an issue for everyone, despite all blood being effectively screened. Sadly, more than two years after posting the story, nothing has changed. I for one would love to give blood to help save the lives of others, and seethe every time I see another call put out in the media for donors to come forward because there’s a shortage. The NBS doesn’t seem to realise, it doesn’t only lose the blood of gay men, many heterosexuals won’t give blood because they don’t agree with the ban, either.
There’s one 2006 event that I will never forget, and that was the death of my 19-year-old tabby cat, Dolly. She passed away in my arms at precisely midnight, ushering in the longest day of the year, the Midsummer Solstice. For that reason, I found the Midsummer Solstice in 2007 and 2008 both difficult, indeed impossible, to celebrate without spending time thinking about that remarkable creature. She was the first animal I took responsibility for as an adult, back in 1987 when I was just 20 years old, and she was at my side through some difficult years. It’s not an upbeat choice of post to present to you as being the entry of 2006, but I’ve so far in these retrospectives tried to highlight events that defined me as I am today, in 2008. Dolly’s death was surely one of those.
A candle is lit for her and she is honoured in memory at various times of the year—Midsummer, Samhain, and Yule, to name but three.The loss of my first true familiar will always be keenly felt whenever my thoughts turn to her, as they often do.
After telling the world Dolly had died I went on to post a detailed entry explaining just why she was a unique animal, an essay that was part-obituary for her and part-autobiography for me. The life story of an extraordinary cat was publicly available for several months, until I decided to make it a private entry for reasons I won’t go into here. I’ve now made it publicly accessible once again. Enough time has passed and, revisiting what I wrote, I think I did her proud. Certainly, the feedback I got from readers indicated I’d managed to convey something they could connect to, and appreciate.
Dolly is also remembered in a wonderful book: Ghost Cats, penned by a lovely lady called Dusty Rainbolt. Do I still catch sight of Dolly sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, or otherwise sense her around, even though we moved a year and a half after her death? Yes. Yes, I do. I think she will always be with me, whether that’s in memory or resulting from something altogether more mysterious.
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