MƒH In the Watches of the Night

Moments from History

Den Freunden in Dänemark, Schottland und Deutschland, und auch den Bodensee in der Schweiz, gewidmet.

Stark bleiben.

In the Watches of the Night

In every century, there is war, famine, insurrection and destruction, victory for one, defeat for another. The violent truth and reality of human nature marches ever onward.

In this regard, this species has no equal in Nature. It is therefore our eternal shame.

Then comes the peace for a time, harvests, security and defence and preparedness, a meeting of the minds, and the hope that the temporary peace will last longer than its predecessor.

Even to glimpse a timeline of history over the last two millennia presents sober reality. War and Peace keep pace with a fifty-seventy year cycle. Countless times, it is much less than this.

The Second World War gave way to overall peace in Europe between the major powers. That does not sidestep the Cold War, nor does it sidestep the repugnant Balkan Wars. Russia’s ruthless invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine on 22 April 2022 brought we older people back into contact with a phrase we had long thought we would not hear again… War in Europe.

War in Europe

As a schoolboy I was fascinated with the frequent references in Scripture to the watches of the night, the night watches and then, in the century preceding mine, the advent of the night watchman.

Many a night have I enjoyed the welcome brew from the night watchman, the night porter in the old Plough Inn Hotel thereby enabling me to walk my whole beat as a constable. The police car came later in service. It seemed good. Faster response. But with the car came the gradual decline and fall of that which had been the standard-bearer in every community ~ the local Constable, that silent non-threatening pillar of authority that represented the entire societal establishment, the focal point of what we find in that hallowed expression The Queen in Parliament for 70 years, and now The King in Parliament.

Unspoken, nevertheless an awareness that upon the helmet rested the office ~ The Crown. Today, I simply do not obtain that sense of respect for community authority at the sight of a baseball cap.

In The Watches of the Night

These many long nights, often challenging, sometimes dangerous, often violent and occasionally even very violent, were all taken in the stride of the “thirty-inch beat pace”, a pace that even now, on the very same pavements and roads fifty years later, I find myself slipping back into, usually to the annoyance of Gen Z social media ‘flippants’, who’d rather see all these old people out of the way, out of our town, off our streets.

If they but knew what I had seen happen on the very spots they stand or sit in a long past former age! If they knew of the blood that once poured across those paving stones in violent arrests that had followed that dreaded call 10-9, 10-9 Promenade Post Office; and an even more violent series of arrests ~ 10-9, 10-9 Hanover Street (not far from No. 37) on a hot still night in 1970s Cheltenham.

10-9 was the call sign for immediate assistance … it was the one code that prompted blue lights and assistance from all parts of the town, from every police area. Such were - and still are - the Night Watches.

And the watches of the night, are also the exclusive preserve of millions, especially those, often, very young people, who are charged with rebuilding their shattered nations.

An Enduring Hope for the Future

In the watches of the night, young minds work feverishly to rebuild a shattered nation.

Johannes relaxes well past the midnight hour,

retracing the street maps

upon which he will build

an enduring Hope for the Future.

© 2023 KTW

These images are inspired by Berlin: Imagine a City by Rory MacLean. And very soon, I will once again be at home in Germany but this time in the City of Koblenz in the Rheinland-Pfalz. The timing is just right, for it will be in the first days of glorious Autumn, and therefore enables me to reconnect with my evening strolls along the Unter den Linden in Berlin in 1991.

We know what happened to Germany, and we know the price paid, but in these digital art expressions, we see a twentieth-century equivalent of the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841). I have used MacLean’s set texts that catch my eye.

The Unspoken Thought ~ I must help rebuild this shattered nation

In the watches of the night,

young minds work feverishly

to rebuild a shattered nation.

© 2023 KTW

Bring to mind if you wish the city of Koblenz in 1945, a barren landscape, only the outlines of streets, and corners of buildings that once would have seemed to be able to withstand even the Apocalypse. That was Berlin in Schinkel’s lifetime and, thus, his commission, to rebuild Berlin.

In the watches of the night, young minds work feverishly to rebuild a shattered nation.

Now let us think of the occupied Port City of Mariupol. Let us think of the War in Ukraine. Let us stop and catch our breath. When the guns do eventually fall silent, when Russia has withdrawn, the Ukrainian Nation will rebuild.

Think also about these young and creative minds. They do not just intend to rebuild where human nature has been at its ugliest aberration. They go a step further. They understand the supremacy of Nature and our Planet and this Universe.

They understand, too, that no matter the level of human achievement, Nature remains when humanity has vanished.

Nature then rebuilds.

The cycle of life begins again in this wonderful and magnificent Universe.

The Universe has just one weak link ~ Humankind!

Humankind has but the weakest link ~ the golden boy or fake tan man ~ take your pick… One and the same.

On this haggard night lets us think on the Night Watches of the Capital Kyiv and the major provincial cities and towns of Ukraine.

Let us think upon a man charged by his nation to restore peace, and the ever growing awareness that even Narcissus is in the shade of an ancient man who will not admit because he cannot see it, that he is a man totally out of his depth, bereft and too long long from now removed by that beleaguered nation.

In this Watch of the Night I hope only that they will make the change according to the Rule of Law and with a Written Constitution that is restored and able to reflect the Twenty First Century.

All Rights Reserved


Liverpool

© 2026 Kenneth Thomas Webb

Written in the First Watch 12:18 am GMT 12 July 2023

Reviewed in the Third Watch 03:30 am GMT 28 December 2025

His pencil rests in quiet contemplation

Ernst unfolds the ancient ordnance survey. His mind burgeons forth with a million ideas in the peace and tranquillity of the Night Watches. Across the street, the bell tolls the third hour, and on its third strike, another bell a kilometer away announces the third hour and as if it has been woken out of slumber the Great Bell strikes three. There is a hint of light. The first bird song reminds Ernst not to overlook his plans for rebuilding the zoological gardens and creating that which causes people to look beyond themselves. His pencil rests in quiet contemplation. Nature ALWAYS survives. That is a Universal Quantum.

© 2023 KTW