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Update: 13 July 2010:
I've just been advised by Fif, that Paul has experienced an unfortunate fall, the result of which he has broken his arm. He will be in hospital for about 5 weeks, which means August's blog will either be late or skipped. Paul, our heartfelt sympathies go out to you, get well soon.
Mark - webmaster.
BURA’S BLURB (JULY 2010)
HELLO AMIGOS!
BELATED TRIBUTE
(To Charley Morris)
Charley Morris was the publican of the Cardinal’s Cap, a small backstreet pub in Canterbury, Kent. On the walls were pictures (all signed) of all the stars and would-be stars of the Marlow Theatre, for this little pub was the home of the humble actor and actress, known affectionately as ‘THE CAP’ (Yes, I’m aware that most actresses would prefer if I were to address them as ‘actors’!). But Charley Morris was this little pub’s STAR!
He was a tall, imposing, bald, warm and welcoming figure, always be-suited and always wore a bow-tie! He spoke with a slightly nasal voice which smacked of a London accent!
Every time for instance (and I was NOT a star nor an up and coming one, though I had written and narrated the script for THE TITANIC SUITE which was performed at the Marlow; which ‘went down’ very well [Ha!]) I was to come in the pub he would take hold of my hand in his two hands (I remember that he had very small hands), bow, kiss it, and in his nasally laugh (though I say so myself I do a good impression of Charley) would always utter:
“Heh, Heh, Heh, ‘ullo Paul, bitter lemon and a castello (cigar) is it? Heh, Heh, Heh!”
Charley was always accompanied by his wife Phil, a small little lady with strange teeth who wore slippers and a cardigan…always, who would just sit behind the bar and imbibe; occasionally if ‘The Cap’ was particularly busy she would help out and occasionally she would ‘fall over’, she frequently fell over imbibed and Charley – ever the gentleman – would just pick her up and carry her to the back room and return as if nothing had occurred!
If there was fun to be had then Charley was up for it.
One day he took a delivery of some two dozen individual steak and kidney pies and set them down on the bar. The pies were still warm so Ian (a regular) ordered one and decided – as he had had a few - correction it was a ‘lock-in’ and they’d ALL had a few – to hurl the pie (in jest, you understand!) at Charley who, in turn, returned the gesture. Suddenly a chain-reaction of pies was seen to be chucked with incredible precision (and abandon) at everyone within range!
Just about EVERYBODY (including the women) was covered with rich brown gravy which oozed itself down their faces carrying with it the pies contents: pieces of steak and kidney with pastry that you would just die for – they were exquisite pies!
Death by an individual steak and kidney pie, a projectile used as weapon, not chewed and swallowed but delivered at speed… catapulted from the OUTSIDE but created for the INSIDE!
James Bolan (of The Likely Lads long running TV sit-com with Rodney Bewes) and his wife (also an actor) took Charley to the races, now THAT’S how popular he was. Charley was so proud of the photographs taken that day with James and his wife.
Tim Brook-Taylor of ‘The Goodies’ was doing pantomime for the duration, could be seen occupying a quiet but dignified position at the bar.
Pat Durkin – he worked with Tommy Cooper during his TV shows - did 10 minute ‘stand-up’ standing on the bar.
However, Charley’s wife Phil was taken ill.
Charley’s wife came first when all is said and done and The Cap came second.
Phil was very ill with a psychotic episode brought on by her drinking and died a few months later.
Charley took up residence managing The Black Dog in Canterbury and my sister Josie helped out.
It just wasn’t the same anymore and soon after Charley died!
Here’s to you Charley Morris for all the laughs and all the gags, all the pure entertainment that ‘The Cardinals Cap’ generated, with you, my dear Charley, at its centre, at its very heart.
I didn’t manage to say ‘thank you’, Charley, or indeed ‘goodbye’ so here 35 odd years later I think I just did!
*******
HERE COME THE POEMS!
RIN-TIN-TIN TO THE RESCUE
(I really was a Samaritan)
I’m a Samaritan!
I’m on duty in five minutes
But it will take ten to get there – unless.
To hell with that red light!
To hell with never overtaking on a bend!
To hell with any thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit!
To hell with that twenty-mile-an-hour coal truck!
I’m a Samaritan!
I must get there on time.
I might be able to talk someone
Out of blowing their brains out!
DEATH’S REHEARSAL
(For my mother's birth to my sister Melly)
She told me once
When the midwife hadn’t
Answered her call:
“I found myself rising upward.
Arms of sweet smelling roses
Caressed me, encouraged me.
Heavens music played in my ears
Whispering that all was well;
My soul soared on willingly, unafraid.
Then a voice of calm beauty spoke to me:
Your time is not yet, my child,
You have a daughter now who needs you.”
She said that she was no expert on death
But that she had enjoyed the dress rehearsal.
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ADIOUS AMIGOS
UNTIL NEXT MONTH!
LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER!
Paul Bura
*****
BURA’S BLURB (JUNE 2010)
HALLO AMIGOES!
About fifteen years ago I got called out to a house haunting. Andy Thomas (Crop Circle lecturer and author of: VITAL SIGNS ‘The Definitive Guide to Crop Circles’, and his latest tome: TRUTH AGENDA) and Jason Porthouse (film editor whose work includes BBC’s Panorama) accompanied me to a little village in Sussex just outside of Brighton. This is what happened!
GOING HOME
Andy had met this couple during one of his music gigs (he is also a musician) and they had told him the story of ‘the haunting’ where the TV kept being switched on and off and the lights likewise. But the weirdest of all – a child’s footprint appeared on their kitchen floor and no amount of bleach would erase it! There was no fear involved in any of them, just acceptance!
The three of us sat down in the front room of this little house. Almost immediately I felt that there was someone else there – excluding the couple that had called us out in the first place – and this ‘entity’ was trying to communicate!
I went into ‘light trance’ mode almost immediately (Light Trance is where the medium [me] is aware but in complete control and knows what is being said and done, as opposed to Full Trance where the medium knows and feels ‘nothing’!) and I saw a man and a small child. His words were words of fear and anxiety and concern for his ‘son’. He told us of the fire that had raged through their house where they had died [it was not clear as I recall that they ‘knew’ of their demise] and they had been trying to attract the attention of anyone who would take notice of them and help them!
I explained to them that they were in the ‘in-between world’ and hadn’t yet ‘passed over’. The man didn’t seem to understand but he was willing to try anything as long as his son was safe.
I told him to look around him and try and see if they could see a light of any kind. In fact they COULD see a light but were in mortal fear of it as they thought that it could do them further harm! I assured him that this was not so, in fact the opposite was true.
When I had calmed him down he decided that they hadn’t anything to lose. In fact the more they looked at it [the light] the more welcoming it became…then they left me. And it was done! In the words of Tommy Cooper: just like that!
During the next few days that little footprint, the footprint undoubtedly of the child this father was trying to protect, disappeared!
Andy Thomas, consummate delver in truth as he was (and still is!), went to the village church where the village records were stored.
Over a hundred years ago a father and son died in a fire on that exact location.
This piece is called GOING HOME and I know that is exactly where this man and his little son truly went, where they were deemed to go all along!
*******
This is a well overdue poem. My mother passed three years ago. This is her poem!
< THE PASSING
1920-2007
Three times I knocked
Before I entered
Her stillness being
My only suspect:
“Oh mumma oh mumma
Oh my beautiful mumma
Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye, my darling!”
She lay on her back
Her mouth open and concave.
I kissed her forehead
And stayed with her for a while.
Her arms were getting cold
So foolishly I tried to lift them
And cover them, so as to keep her warm,
But my useless polio arms were too weak
So I left them and her…
For the last time?
I knew otherwise!
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ADIOS AMIGOES
SEE YOU NEXT MONTH!
Paul Bura
*****
BURA’S BLURB. MAY 2010
HALLO AMIGOES!
Fif Hugenholtz and I are compiling a book entitled: DOWNLOADS FROM THE HIGHER SELF (the God self, the divine spark, the soul etc) in which I go into the ‘Silence’ and wait. Sometimes I am inspired to write, and sometimes not. Fif’s contribution is to add her (own) insights in relation to these ‘downloads’ and to sort them into flowing (I trust her) categories. Hers is the most difficult work of all! There are 200 ‘downloads’ but in no way should they be labelled ‘religious’, perhaps a ‘mystical science’ if you must! If you consider the words ‘soul’ and ‘divine spark’ religious then that’s your hard luck. They are – to my mind – universal, philosophical terms.
DOWNLOADS FROM THE HIGHER SELF
-
Bear me up until we meet soul to soul and we have the whole of creation to play in, the whole of creation that you and I, soul to soul, had a hand in creating.
- Linger with me a while longer until again I take up a physical body. But this time I will not forget you or who I really am…at least that’s the plan.
- All religions, even the most corrupt, lead you eventually to me!
- Communication between the spirit worlds is not a no-go area neither is it a no-go area to search the planets for life. All the planets AND the spirit worlds are teaming with it, though not perhaps as you know it! The only person holding you back is YOU. Curiosity is the cure!
- Love is the essence of ALL things; let no man or woman tell you different!
- As long as you have love in your heart that feeds the spirit then all things are possible.
- Death is the homing motion of the soul.
- In the end nothing really matters…except love.
- Death is just a blip in the continuation of consciousness. The difference is that you leave those who mourn to those who welcome.
- If you try hard but still don’t succeed, your power lies not in your failure but in your intent to succeed.
- There is no separation. No line can be drawn between one thing and another, either in time or in space.
- I am that that is foreign; I am that that is familiar.
- Love is the centre, the creative principle, I am a particle of that and yet I am ALL of it!
- Tune in to me and when tuned-in I will forever remain a constant!
- I am a child in the mind of the Infinite: playful and innocent. Nothing can harm me. Nothing!
- There exists only me all else is illusion. That being said illusion can be fun and a delight. Illusion, when realised for what it is, is a plaything and leads you back to me singing and dancing!
- To mourn is to leave that which you have whether objective or subjective (object or soul). But you must come to terms and understand that loss. For it – soul or object – is never lost…only your sight of it, your perception of it, your understanding of it that is lost!
- That that is lost (seemingly) can be found and that that is found (seemingly) can be lost. All is One!
- Anger and frustration are like a heavy stone thrown into the centre of a calm pond whose rippling-out is immediate! Heighten the sides of your pond (mind) by the breath. Breathe deeply in and out, in and out thus containing your anger. Then no matter how angry or frustrated you become, soon by this mere act of containment alone anger will not touch you.
- Do not become ‘Earth Addicts’, addiction to all things 3- Dimensional whether food, drink, drugs, sex. They are very attractive and addictive. If you wish to progress in the nature of the spirit then balance and control of the senses are necessary. Addiction is a terrible thing; if you want to leave this beautiful earth at some time addiction to Her is what will bind you!
- Freedom is a state of the mind. Even when paralysed the mind and spirit can be in a state of freedom. You will have to live for many life-times before attaining real freedom. But union with ‘The One’ is the absolute. This means that you can take a body (or not) anywhere and still be at ‘home’ with ‘The One’.
*******
And Now a Poem:
< Watching the Sea
I saw the old man
Lay down on the shore,
Pull the blanket of the sea
Up around his shoulders,
Put out the sun with his west hand
And there he slept soundly till morning.
I saw the old man
Lay down on the shore,
Pull the blanket of the sea
Up around his shoulders,
Draw the curtain-clouds over the sun
And there he blissfully died until Eternity woke him.
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ADIOS AMIGOES
UNTIL NEXT MONTH!
LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER
Paul Bura.
*******
BURA’S BLURB (APRIL 2010)
HELLO AMIGOES!
I wrote about my earlier days before polio and this particular incident is high up there in my memory banks. I plan to take the odd extract from my ‘on line’ book: LITTLE RESTAURANT ON THE PROM every now and again!
My Grandfather and the Bomb
Croyse White had been trying unsuccessfully to retrieve it with a stick. I watched him try and try again. It was bright yellow and had fins. No, not a fish but it was to cause quite a stink, though. Croyse gave up on it. He walked dejectedly up the beach and out of sight.
Now it was my turn, my chance to have a go at trying to possess this interesting looking object. At 6-years-old I was nobody's fool and wearing my wellies was able to get that much closer to it than Croyse. I attached a piece of wire that I had found round one of the fins and started to haul it in. Every now and again it got stuck and I had to yank it. At last I hauled it in.
I dragged it clear of the water and was just about to lift it up when my grandfather, taking a stroll along the beach after a session in the pub, wobbled down the beach to see what I had got.
"I'll give you a hand, son, " he slurred.
Now my grandfather had been in BOTH world wars, and you may have thought that it might just have occurred to him that, what resembled a bomb, would have sent various alarm bells ringing.
"Don't worry Granddad, I can manage."
I heaved the bomb up in both arms and carried it up the beach. Granddad, slightly unsteadily, followed after me.
Now I had to negotiate some very steep steps and CLANG! I rested the bomb on one step whilst I got up. Then CLANG! I rested the bomb on the other step. There were three steps in all so that made three CLANGS!
I made my way the short distance to my father's restaurant with my grandfather in tow trying desperately to walk in a straight line. As I walked into the restaurant I couldn't understand why people were hurling themselves at the doors and disappearing rather rapidly. I walked into the kitchen.
The look of horror on my parents face when I presented my trophy:
"Now..er, put it down gently, son," said my father, "NO! not near the gas stoves!"
He gave out a sort of strangled cry and had trouble breathing.
"Put it down GENTLY on the table AWAY from the ovens!" he urged gently but firmly. At this point I didn't really know what all the fuss was about. I soon did, though.
"There, that's it. Gently does it."
I put my bomb carefully on the table indicated whilst all hell broke loose. The police were called and the bomb squad! A kindly policeman spoke to me about the dangers of “finding things lying on the beach, lad” and I, in future, was to “leave ‘em alone”.
The bomb turned out to be a 2nd-world-war 'flare'. If it had gone off in that small space…well it doesn't bear thinking about, does it?
My grandfather? My Grandma saw to him!
*******
This poem is a tribute to a fellow ‘polio person’: Anne Mount, who trod a similar – no, almost an exact path to my self. She was eleven years older (the memories are surfacing) and used to come in with her boyfriend, Alan Mount (who she later married and what a great guy HE was!), to my father and mother’s fish restaurant: THE OYSTER BAR on Herne Bay seafront. She caught polio at aged five (I was seven) and was put into an iron lung (as was I). She had, through polio, a double curvature of the spine (mine was a single curvature) and underwent an operation called ‘spinal fusion’ (me too). She dispensed with callipers (as I did) and became a champion Modern Ballroom Dancer. Now this I couldn’t do as my balance is so crap. She worked so hard for various charities up until the day she passed, aged 75. This poem I recorded for her funeral. She was SO popular that over 200 people crammed into that little chapel. Now that’s what I call fame!
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AND MAYBE...
(for Anne)
(for Anne)
And maybe you will
Want to know of her life.
And maybe:
How brave she was.
But I can tell you
Right here and right now
That the word 'brave' offends.
(She will tell you that).
I know because I have
Been on the end
Of the word 'brave'.
Are we not all brave
At one time or another?
Cheerful is another word
That offends, tagged on to her condition.
But cheerful in the light
Of whom she was
Not cheerful through adversity.
I celebrate her life
Because of who she was
Not of who she might have been.
She was happy because that
Was the very essence of her being,
The fabric of who she represented.
She loved life in all its craziness.
She loved and fiercely protected her family.
She was an independent soul.
If she could do it on her own,
Without help, she would.
Or maybe she just couldn't do it
But she would try just for
The shear hell of it!
Does that make her brave?
Well perhaps it does in some small measure.
She just LOVED life,
Embraced it, just as she now
Embraces eternity.
She can get a whole lot more eternity
In her arms than ever she could here!
And if you believe in St Peter
At the gates of heaven
She won't even have to knock
She'll just flash him her smile
Or tell him a joke
And he'll let her in.
And maybe one day
I'll even write a poem for her.
I think I just did!
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ADIOS AMIGOES!!!
LUV N’ LITE N’ LARFTER
Paul Bura
*******
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