Today and yesterdy

From my maternal Grandfather I inherited quite a number of characteristic, long slim fingers, red hair and an incredibly long memory with almost photographic recall. I am able to remember events which occurred when I was barely eighteen month sold, often to the consternation of my parents who were of the opinion that small children either do not notice or soon forget things that happen when they are very young. I can remember running to my grandfathers home across the field with a cushion on my head because it was raining,I was two at the time. I wish I did not remember the night my cat Panda was drowned, I cried for days , I was three years old and vividly recall pleading desperately for her life, alas to no avail,in those days if was the usual answer to unwanted kittens. The memory of that dreadful night haunts me still.

There is however a magical glorious memory of a beautiful summer evening when I was five years old. I was sitting on an old gate, its timber silver with age and watching the cows coming home to be milked. The days heat had left haze in the air and the smell of crushed grass was wonderfully sweet. As the cows progressed slowly up the hill they stirred up clouds of pollen from the buttercups,floating all around them and gilding the air. In the farmhouse behind me the radio was playing such a heart heart-rendingly beautiful piece of music,I had no idea what it was but I was spellbound by the music and the golden pollen, I forgot to open the gate for the cows and the lead cow, her name was Fancy, pushed gently at my legs to remind me. Through my childhood the wonder of the music stayed with me,every note wound through with a haze of gold. I did not hear it again for many years,until I was thirteen and sitting for a portrait, suddenly there it was and now I knew what it was, it was Ralph Vaughn Williams Five Variantes of Dives and Lazarus. Now I could hear it when ever I wanted and over the years I must have listened with the same sense of wonder a thousand times or more, yet every time I hear the opening notes I am a child of five years old again and
, sitting on and old oak gate watching the cows coming home, their flanks gilded with buttercup pollen and the evening sun.

It was many years later that I discovered that the composer died in August of the year that I was five, I am so glad that I was not aware at the time that this was so.