Description of Open Hands Tour De Leics 2018

From Bosworth Academy Car Park the route descends towards Bocheston over the railway crossing.  At Newton Unthank the route turns left towards Markfield.  Now begins a long steady climb for about eight miles, over the M1, past the Markfield Islamic Centre, into the village.  The route reaches its highest point at 683 feet. From Markfield the route takes the rollercoaster ride that is Priory Lane.  At the junction with Shepshed road, we go straight over onto Joe Moor Lane, which travels down hill through the Golf course towards the lower edge of Bradgate Park.  As we reach the reservoir we cut off to the left towards Rothley, bypassing Cropston. At Rothley the route skirts to the right around the village centre and passes under the main duel carriage away towards Cossington. As the road arrives at the Watermead Park lakes, the route turns left into Cossington village.  At the crossroads, we pass over the Sileby road and on up Bennetts Lane to Humble Lane, and a slow climb to the main road.  At the T junction we turn right and swoop under the A46 duel carriageway toward Radcliffe on the Wreak.  Turn left into the village towards Thrussington and Hoby.   Before Hoby there is a right turn down into the valley, over the river and railway towards Brooksby College.  At the college turn left across a field road into Rotherby.  Past the church there is a right turn up a steep road to the main Melton road.  We cross this and head on to Gaddesby.  From Gaddesby, we go on to Barsby, then a left turn up the main road to a right turn down a quiet road to Baggrave Hall, and on the the first rest stop in Huggerton at Dixon Farm.

From Dixon farm the route travels through Ingarsby,  crossing the A47 at Houghton on the Hill, turning left down to Little Stretton, left again and right, on to Great Glen.  In Great Glen the route crosses the main A6 road at the roundabout.  We turn right towards Newton Harcourt, and the left over the railway and canal, passed the church and on to Wistow.  On the Wiston road we turn right towards Kilby.  As the road meets the A50 Wigston road, dogleg left and then right towards Ccountesthorpe. The route passes through Countesthorpe and on to Cosby, doing a left- right dogleg across the A426 Lutterworth Road.  Next the route passes under the M1, and into Cosby.  We pass though this village and on to Croft, turning left by the garage onto the Fosse Way.  After a mile we turn right into Croft and follow the road round to the main T junction, turning right, over the railway bridge.  By the war memorial we turn left up Croft Hill towards Thurlaston.  As the road curve right, and descends, turn left.  This route then crosses the M69, and on to our next rest stop at the chapel in Thurlaston.

Here there is a chose to return to Desford in 5 miles, or continue for the Tour De Bosworth, for. Further 25 miles.

The longer route leaves Thurlaston towards Normanton, past the sports fields.  It joins the road to Earl Shilton with a right turn.  At the top of the hill in Earl Shilton, turn right down the hill but vera left, turning towards Kirkby Mallory, and the race track.  Travel straight through the village and the road bares left towards Sutton Cheney.  At the main road does another dogleg right and then left along the main road and left into the village.  The route goes gently downhill over the canal.  We divert left toward Daddligton for a short climb before returning down over the canal again, crossing the old roman road, and on towards Shenton and Far Cotton.  The route follows the steam railway and canal.  It misses Shenton, and passes on to the Bosworth Water Park.  At the main Market Bosworth road, dogleg right and left towards Congerstone.  Turn right into the village and keep right on to Barton in the Beans.  The route goes though Barton, crossing the main A447 and on to Nailstone. Just out of Nailstone, at the top of the hill there is a right turn towards Bagworth.  At the Bagworth turn, travel straight on taken the next left to Merry Lees. The road descends to Merry Lees, and just before the railway, turn right towards Desford.  In Desford the route returns us to Bosworth Academy, for a rest and some food.

Markles, Miracles and the Monarchy

This is another case of 'heart' over 'head'. The monarchy, over hundreds of years, defines the prescribed status in our society.  Who is the most important, down to the least.  It can be argued that the Monarchy is the king pin in holding this structure together. And then blow me down, Meghan and Harry break all the rules.  It would be a tragedy of medieval proportions if we did have our first monarch with African blood, (and very little royal blood at all if the truth be told.) This is why I am a republican because it's much nicer to wish them all well, and thank them for a job well done, as they move into their council house, rather than rekindle the Richard III spirit.

Saturday the 19th of May probably did more for racial harmony, equality, and shared values, than all the government programmes put together.  Millions of people around the world will have heard Rev Michael Curry speaking about love.  Even cynical me has looked up NPR.com and read every word from the bishop's mouth . The Right Rev Michael Curry spoke the gospel truth. He also spoke from his priviaged position as a black American, fully enfranchised to talk about forgiveness in love.  He spoke from an inclusive platform, using no jargon.

I said I wasn't interested.

Armand, you are also right and wrong

In Professor Armand Marie Leroi's fascinating documentary entitled ' Aristotle's Lagoon', Leroi explains how he discovered that Aristotle was perhaps the first published biologist working in the 4th century BC.  Leroi is professor of evolutionary biology at Imperial College. What he feels Aristotle gets right is the observation of inheritance, or 'ados'.  Also that animals group in families, or genera. What he gets wrong is the concept of spontaneous existence. He observes maggots and flies emerging from dead meat, an eels miraculously appearing out of the mud, noting that on dissection, they have no gonads.  Aristotle also believes in the everlasting endurance of the world. Our hindsight helps us to know that nothing is permanent. Leroi is also surprised that Aristotle does not write about the extrodinary petrified forest to be found on the island of Lesbos, where he spent two years studying nature. Why did he appear to be blind to fossils?

But Leroi repeats the mantra first spoken on national television by Attenborough in 'Life on Earth' that there are two explanations for the existence of life. One is 'Religion', the other is 'Science'. In my mind this translates as 'mythology', and 'rational explanation'. He says that if he were to believe in God, his God would be the one that Aristotle believed in. This is a remote, benign God; a God who does not interfere.  To me this is the God of the atheist. Invoking this God is of no consequence.

When Aristole dissected an animal, he was looking for the life force, or soul. He noted that animals continued to show signs of life even after he had removed their pumping heart. It is this concept of the soul which endures across all human existence. It's the fact that as Leroi, like Attenborough, notes, as a species we have the ability to create and destroy, and the amazing thing is, we know it.

Walk at Lunchtime

Trev is the great lunchtime walker, and I walk with him on Tuesday's and Wednesdays, his working days.  We start out from our clinic on the edge of Leicester along a pavementless road.  It feels such an irony to me as our building is so risk-averse that coat hooks have been removed (risk of hanging) and windows open but an inch (fear of jumping), despite all being on the ground floor.  This road is the main route for pushchair pushing parents, past an ambulance station were blue lighted, sirens blazing ambulances provide not an ounce of reassurance that it is not 'us' who is their intended next patient, holding some preminision of our imminent demise. The road, in all it's awfulness, is a great source of blackberries in September.  It also borders a horse field, managered by gypsies, but owned by the terrible David Wilson, of David Wilson Homes.  He is the person who got his London barristers to ensure that the visiters to the new National Trsut building, Stoneycroft, arrive in a minibus from a car park 1/4 of a mile away.  The fields around our clinic all belong to him, and soon all countyside will be obliterated under brick.  While we have green, we walk.

The route crosses the horse field.  The fences look as if the horses would only need to sneeze for them to fall down.  A family of rats scuttle brazenly in front of us.  The fields are full of crows and magpies.  Some sit on the backs of the horse, pecking off insects, reminiscent of a view of wildebeest on the African savanna. The horses are supplied with water from a fire hydrant, which I am sure is wrong, and sometimes it is left to gush water into a moat the horse owner has created, presumably to keep gypsies out.

The first buildings we come to are a collection of old farm buildings, the glenfield farm.  This used to be a farm attached to the large hospital nearby which provided work for long term inpatients with learning disabilities.  The farm closed when the wards were emptied, and is now a curious compound of very small houses surrounded by the churned up horse fields.  The population of horses seems to change on a very regular basis.  There is a mystery about what they are for.  I once spoke with the gypsy about what he would do when the property developers move in.  He told me he had a very good barrister and he would fight of the right to continue using the land.   It's wrong to think of gypsies as poor.

Our route either does a 'Trev', down an avenue of trees and skirting through Glenfield Hospital, or it does a 'Gurjit' as I call it, after an old colleague and friend who always preferred the route around the edge of a housing estate.  The 'Trev' passes the secret garden, an old walled and overgrown garden.  A banner on the wall urges us to join the working party to save the secret garden.  With Trev we're usually talking about his latest trip round the world.  He was a wonderfully organised wife and my mission is to tell him how fortunate he is to have her.

The 'Gurjit' passes a dormitary estate for local doctors.  A lot of them are Indian and I notice wonderful names such as Asha Niwas, or Shanti Niwas, (Grace House and Peace House). The views from the path around their homes are lovely, going straight up to Bradgate Park.  The noise from the sunken western bypass is less beautiful.  One day when all cars are electric it will be more graceful and peaceful, but by then David Wilson may have turned the whole of Leicestershire into one massive housing estate.

Semper Eadem

Prelude
I imagine my life stretching back like a river.  From 'slow' and 'deep' currents, memories flow upward, becoming light and nimble,  jumping back up over rocks.  Then shrinking smaller and smaller into a trickle, and to nothing. These beginnings are so vivid to me. They are alive and precious. They define my origin and my foundation. They are like the place the salmon return to instinctively.

So much has changed now. I am old.  The children around me today speak a different language to the one I grew up with.  We were high up in the gorge-lands, were the winter ice was so harsh we would hibinate just like the bears, sleeping snugly together under skins. Deep in the protective darkness of our caves, with stockpiles of food. We lived around the radiating heat of the stone caldron of broth, simmering in the middle of our hearth.  This fire was our life giver, sustenance, light and warmth provider. Only songs, stories and warming exercises releaved the monotony, until the green shoots reappeared with the promise of new birth, vigour and discoveries to come.

Our community always sensed it's fragility.  We knew that we were like small birds, surviving only because the great bear could not be bothered to raise its mighty paw and squash us.  I guess I always knew we were also special, particularly when I discovered other communities to make this comparison.  I think the way my community organised itself, it's traditions and sense of fun was exceptional. Perhaps all peoples have this egocentric, prejudiced view of the world.  We knew we were not perfect at all, just that we were very much better than the rest. But I guess it's when this arrogance is coupled by an ability to get others to do things your way, that real trouble begins.  We were never in that position.  We never had the inclination to impose anything on others.  No other community about us could have felt the least bit threatened by us.  It was other communities it transpired, that could not resist messing about with us.  Suffering in my early days was nothing compared with the experiences in my latter years.  This is why I now tell you this story in a different language to my own.  Indeed, I have not heard my own language for many years. My attire is different, and daily life, though certainly more comfortable, has not got the colour and vitality we shared. As I tell my story however, I feel a  rekindling of  the spirit of my past.  'Looking back' can be the bravest thing anyone does, especially if it is in search of hope.  It takes a similar courage to look forward.  Joy completely outshines the pain of loss.  What has happened can never be repeated.  These experiences are sufficient for that moment.  They are gifts, like flowers, to be celebrated, and allowed to wither away, or sunsets, or rainbows, mesmerising, then gone.  The dances and singing that engulfed us from time to time, with intense feelings of joy and wonder, are what has made my past.  This is why my memories of those days remain crystal clear.  It is a pleasure to unfold them here and now.

Whiteness

I'm now listening to a book called 'The Good Immigrant', edited by Nikesh Shukla.
50 Black, Asian and East Asian writers have contributed essays on their experiences of being part of a minority in Britain.  These are voices I respect and honour.  The book reminded me of the research I never completed when I was doing a MA in family therapy.  Again I felt a twinge of mourning the loss of my place on that course.  I was preparing to interview my fellow students about their awareness of being white, and what they felt that meant to them, and how they worked with white clients. 'Well there is nothing there to observe,' you might say.  But that's the point.  It's invisible, or 'white' - no colour.

My thoughts trace back to a conversation with Pete, and old colleague. He told me about the account Mungo Park wrote about his trip across West Africa to find the source of the Niger.  This book is reproduced in its entirety on the Internet at www.publicdomainreview.org .   I read it with interest but did not find reference to this story.  It does sound convincing though.  Pete told me that when Park made it to the source, he was surprised to discover that the inhabitants where expecting him.  He knew nothing about them, and was fascinated by all he observed.  They on the other hand knew a lot about 'the White Man'.  "We knew you would get here eventually," they said.  A so it pays for the less dominant force to know a lot about the dominant force, and for the opposite to be optional.

Whiteness is like my picture of the goldfish conference where the existence of water is hotly debated.  Outsiders come into our society and can see the power dynamic clearly.  They feel and know whether they are included or not.  It is said that three year old children can detect the relative value given to them and their family by society; where they fit in the pecking order.

For me the power of 'whiteness' is a bit like gravitational forces.  Two bodies attract each other, but the one with great mass moves less than the lighter body. Thus the immigrant finds that gradually their culture and ideas change to conform with the greater mass, creating a homogeneity.  What about the Jews of Central Europe, who over hundreds of years retained their unique qualities? Yes, but Yiddish food is very similar to Eastern European food, and Yiddish is very similar to German.  Jews have lots of different ethnic backgrounds because they mixed.  'Faith', is one quality of human existence which is very resistant to change.

So dominant cultures tend to have very little cultural uniqueness, because their culture becomes desirable. We all know what wearing a toga means.  American culture is now an international culture.  Western values are dominant world values. (What a relief because of course we are the most enlightened!)

Whiteness is a reference point, a benchmark. I do not have to consider what it might mean because it is understood to be domient, the colour of the background. Minority is ethnic, it is definable. Majority is normal, it is boring.

An example from the perspective of disability. I notice a car parked on the pavement and I walk out into the road tutting.  The wheelchair user is presented with a dead end. Their day is spoilt.  I got an idea of racism when I was in the East End of London, and saw sprayed on a railway bridge 'toffs out'.  I thought I might be considered a toff.  In the same way at university, I was asked to do the test for dyslexia.  This cost £250. Fine, it was subsidised by the university.  What would I get from doing this? Not sure, no guarantee of anything.  So I am out of pocket with no benefits. This is the experience of disabled people, and the Disability Discrimination Act is supposed to be a big thing.  It's like being grateful to your burglar for returning half your possessions. And I did the dyslexia pre-test, which told me I wasn't dyslexic, but I was dyspraxia. Stupid thing, and I am supposed to be grateful for all this rubbish.  Now I am sounding as if I have got a chip on my shoulder.

Much as I might not like the idea of whiteness: my girls chose to call themselves peach: the power of whiteness exists across the globe.  In China we noted that we did not recieve any special treatment.  But we were in any other skin colour. Maybe whiteness is also relative.

I think the best way to understand the subtle power of whiteness is to compare it to other power differentials such as age, gender, sexuality and disability.

I again recall visiting a restaurant in Sheffield were the waiter had a significantly disfigured face. His face distressed me.  I think 'I don't want to go back there again,' and the thought shocks me. I think I will have to go- but that is for all the wrong reasons.