Come on Irene
Irene is derived from εἰρήνη,the Greek word for "peace".
Come on Eileen is a song by Dexy's Midnight Runners, released in 1982.
There's a smell of succession in the air. Our cool young uncle died last weekend. He played with Dexy's Midnight Runners in the 80s and taught us things like the twelve bar blues in the front bedroom of my grandparent's bungalow. When Andy's album was produced by George Martin, we had to wait, late for school, to catch a glimpse of him on the telly.
Now his older brother, that dad of mine, who has been labouring through the slow decline of Alzheimer's, appears to be pondering whether it's nearly time. People have started to talk gently to us about end of life care.
And Marina O'Connell, the pioneering permaculturist to whose farm I moved in 2017, left us in September as well.
There seems to be a turning of the sod. It is heavy going but I'm comforting myself, knowing that there are dormant seeds at the ready, waiting for their time in the light. There's always the next chapter.
We are mid poppy season. Poppies became symbolic of the war dead, as you probably know, due to the phenomenon of ecological succession. As the land in Flanders was disrupted, these tiny seeds found their moment and the fields were flooded with bittersweet, bucolic red. We call these kinds of plants, in permaculture circles, pioneers.
So poppies found their way into the annals of our national, ceremonial marking of the Great War, and the wars that came next, and the wars that came after that. There have been many.
Ecological succession is a wonderful thing to behold. If you adopt a ragged looking piece of land, thistle bound, or tired from being over-farmed, you can do very little and yet change happens. It's what nature does. I've been hanging out quite a lot on a very thistle-y field and slowly, as the months move to years, and the thistles are scythed and paths are worn, new plants have moved in. The thistles, which were the pioneers, are making way for clover, burnet and oxe-eye daisies.
I've not worn a red poppy for a long time. As I found myself at home in the Society of Friends (Quakers) around 18 years ago, I left the red behind and wore a white one instead. The white poppy stands as a peace symbol and, especially for me, it is a marker of remembrance of all those killed in war. It is always worth reminding ourselves that, nowadays, the greatest number of people killed in war zones are civilians. This war business goes way beyond the military.
People can be quite tight around the red poppy. Wearing a white one has not always been smooth sailing. A headteacher has raised an eyebrow, a parent has wondered to my colleagues whether I realise I am being disrespectful.
This year, however, I have detected a change. Is there a natural succession happening? As we Quakers will often say, 'Hope so'.
I attended the iJade Conference last week and its theme was Peace. I was lucky enough to be a guest speaker with the ineluctable Dr Penny Hay. I talked about the work around peace that I had undertaken with a primary school and how it had been a wonderful and fruitful thing. I noted how we had focused on peace-making. What do we have to be able to do to be peace-makers? Why is it important? How can we be peace-makers in our family, in our classroom, in our school?
This seemed to be of great interest to people. I sense that there is a collective shift towards questioning whether there is something slightly different we should be exploring with the young people we teach. Is selling poppies in the playground what the world needs now? Should that be their introduction to war? David Aldridge, Professor of Teacher Education at Edgehill University, has wondered this, well before me. If you want a long read on the matter, I recommend his piece, How Ought War To Be Remembered in Schools, which he wrote in 2014.
He settles, in fact, on the notion that, 'We ought to remember the horror of war so that we continue to make every effort to avoid.. unnecessary conflict in the future.' This is surely a call to arms (if you pardon the expression) that engagement with peace and peace-making is absolutely the work we should be doing. Expecting 7 year olds to undertake 'remembrance' for long lost soldiers, represented by a floral crimson haze - not so much.
So can we release our tight grip on our red poppies and our wreaths, or at least evolve our practice? What would this time of year look like if we considered with the children how they might make sure there was no conflict in the future? There is no requirement to festoon our schools with red poppies. Should we let the forces at large pull us on a slow turn towards something slightly different? I sense succession in the air.
Red poppies were pioneers but, like all pioneers, they make way for the next chapter. Those red poppies will not dominate forever in the war fields over there. In fact, they are long gone.
Come on Irene. I think it might be your time.
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P.S. I mention peace-making in the final section of my recently published book, The School Ready Governor. Give it a whirl!
I attended the face to face day of the IJADE Conference and my talk was around Sir Herbert Read and his 1948 book “Education for Peace”. Not as out of date as you might think.
ReplyDeleteWhile some of his phrasing might seem dramatic by contemporary standards, the core message—that education requires a transformation in purpose and method—is still vital. It’s an idea that aligns with the evolving focus on holistic, values-based education, which not only develops intellectual skills but also nurtures social responsibility, emotional intelligence, and cultural awareness. Read’s vision continues to invite educators and policymakers to rethink education not as a means to an economic end, but as a powerful tool for societal harmony and resilience. He founded the International Society for Education through Art in 1954 and his influence continues through our work. I’ve also worn the white poppy for the last decade and will continue to do so. Thanks for your thoughtful blog writing.