JournalKenneth WebbJanuary 12, 2022Galleries, Movie Theatre, Edward the Eighth Our King, Shangri-la

A Wander Round the Gallery

JournalKenneth WebbJanuary 12, 2022Galleries, Movie Theatre, Edward the Eighth Our King, Shangri-la

Journal

Volume 3
I

ONE OF THE joys of life is to visit Galleries and Museums.

A Gallery enables me to gain a better perspective, a new perspective even. Often, a whole new dimension of thought opens up. Some galleries have me returning many times, with a beeline to a particular display or artwork. Hence, on this website, we have a whole series of Galleries.

A painting can be gazed at for an hour. Often, nothing else is seen as I make my way to the exit. Yet, it is as if I have stepped through the fireplace in the wall into a world beyond. So many things are noticed. Upon return, things which eluded me last time, I now see clearly when, before, they were merely suggestive, a hint, a whisper. Still others are seen for the first time. Yet this is - in fact I’ve lost count - the latest in a whole collection of previous visits to this painting.

I can explain this more easily by placing here part of chapter nineteen from Windsor Street Days.

As a boy, on sleepovers at my Grandparents’ in Windsor Street - not called ‘sleepovers’ of course in those days but ‘staying the night’ - it was akin to visiting Shangri-la. The boys’ bedroom where my father and his brothers grew up, had wonderful books in there.

Each morning I’d awake and watch Grandad pass the door en route to the bathroom.

‘Morning Ken, Morning Grandad …’

I knew the drill. All these picture books. I’d then hear Grandad downstairs, whistling; Judy - the chocolate-coloured Heinz 57 ‘I almost became a golden retriever but ended up a very chocolate coloured retriever’ - would be let out, and then the chink of cups and saucers, then the whistle of the kettle … and then back upstairs, Grandad walking in with a cup of tea and that ever-present smile. That was always a GRAND moment!

I’d hear Grandma … there would be adult talk, adult ‘good morning dears’, and a little while later, Grandma would pass by, also en-route, to the bathroom, a long robe on, smiling;

‘Good Morning Ken, Good Morning Grandma.’

‘When I’ve finished, you can get up dear; I’ve put your clothes ready on the other bed; and come down for breakfast when you hear Grandad return with Judy.’

And all this time, I’d be pawing over ‘my’ books; books that took me to a lifetime before the war.

III

My favourite was the Coronation of George VI.

Next came a lovely grey-coloured hessian-covered book entitled EDWARD THE EIGHTH - OUR KING in capital letters that started magnificently with a full colour portrait of the new and quite young King in 1936 inside the front cover, in reds and golds, a lot of braid and tassels, and a fantastic sword!

A book, though, that came to an abrupt stop with a black and white photograph of two vaguely sort of ‘happy-unhappy’ people at Fort Belvedere on their wedding day. And no longer king either. In fact the photograph before that one was very detailed, close-up, and the King was speaking into a BBC Microphone. Except that when the King was announced, they said instead His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor.

Without realising, I was taking all this in like water to a sponge, simply because we lived in Windsor Street. I was not old enough to join up any dots, but my world, it seemed, was very real.

And before that hessian book, was the picture book of the Funeral of King George V.

And before that, the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary, both looking a lot younger in the Olden Days - and guess what? A quarter of a century earlier! I mean!! That’s TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. And I’m SIX!

And then this HUGE book - very heavy - SIXTY YEARS A QUEEN. This was the Queen Empress Victoria. Wow! The longest reigning Monarch. And I can spot all the crowned heads of Europe in 1899, and her grandson, the Kaiser, and the Tsar and Tsarina, her granddaughter. How on earth did they all end up killing each other?

Ermmm… Grandma and Grandad are from the Olden Days … I must ask … Especially, as Grandad, and my other Grandad were both in the other war, the war that came before the last one.

From downstairs, “Come along Ken, breakfast is ready.”

These picture books taught me to study form.

Not that I knew that at the time; but tracing back the years - we do this a lot when we’re older - working out the whys and wherefores of attitudes, opinions, even beliefs now held, starting out. Some maintained, others retained, and still others cast off, as we navigate the decades and learn about “man’s inhumanity to man”.

Equally, while passing through the decades - meandering around my own galleries - the realisation that so much hog-wash is sold as literal truth, even now, as children which, god only knows, we somehow hold on to, despite now plainly aware of all the evidence to the contrary.

If a story is an allegory then emphasise its allegorical status. To not do so is a disservice. To not do so because one’s view is that it is not allegory but proven fact, then there is foul-play.

Humankind is unmatched in its ability to make people into gods, to weave a story, to interweave a whole collection of different and most incredible stories seemingly into one story. This interweaving, we’re informed, stretches across millennia, appearing to present a seamless thread of redemption. In almost the same breath, we’re also informed that as all these religions all doing the same thing, are written over thousands of years, then it would be impossible to write such a story, so that it all fitted seamlessly. And because no person could possibly do this single-handed, then the conclusion is obvious.

Really?

We seem to forget our ability to make white seem black, and black seem white. To make truth appear to be a lie, and a lie most definitely warranted as truth. We overlook our tendency to rewrite history - especially religion - in order to fit the politics of the day. Then, a century later, we conveniently turn a blind eye to the umpteenth U-Turn.

The Galleries on the website represent my own art gallery. I like to imagine large and spacious rooms on different floors in the Liverpool Docklands around the Albert Dock. Another room is the Gallery’s movie theatre.

For me, this is crucially important.

Why, so? We all have video clips at a click on our iPhones.

I recall what Daesh did at Palmyra and what those religious maniacs did to the gentle and courageous Curator at Palmyra. The world watched on, shocked at the destruction of ancient monuments stretching back thousands of years to long gone civilisations yet stifling an international yawn when the 6pm news announced that the curator’s life had, after months of incarceration and ill-treatment, suffered decapitation on bended knees within the Palmyra ruins.