Ten snapshots of the past reviewed whilst drowning

Seven years old, standing alone beneath a mature Oak tree whilst a beautiful sunset paints itself about me. The suburban council estate curiously empty, curiously silent. A giant hush, as if witnesses everywhere were holding their breath; a flush of colour touches the square of neatly cut grass I stand on; a blush falls across the face of the brick houses...everywhere magic is afoot.
Somewhere a voice whispers that it is time to go in. Instead I immerse myself in the swirling wash of deepening colour losing sight of time and sense of self , happily drowning in the beauty and the peace.

Orpington, Kent 1964. It's getting dark. Young Jeremy Beadle,16, same as me says he has a little car...not stolen but no licence/tax/insurance...and wouldn't it be a laugh to go to Brighton in it! Eight of us climb in and have a great time for a couple of hours until the car breaks down. We have no money to fix it and are stranded in the middle of no-where. Realising my fabricated story now won't stand up, I wonder with a sinking heart, what my parents will say when I get home.

On a busy street in London W. 1. 1975, coming up from the basement of the Theosophical Society where I live and work, holding my five year old daughter's hand, I see a flock of Arabic women in black burqas coming along the street from the opposite direction. As they reach me, one swoops up a small toddler, expertly pulls her pants down and holds her over the gutter. The child pees. As she rights the child and straightens up, the woman looks straight at me through the small window of her niqab. Our eyes lock and we both smile broadly. It is a meeting of mothers.

London 1984 August 5th. As soon as it gets dark, my daughter, Tammy, aged 14, and I creep around the back streets of East Ham with some chalk, a pot of white paint ( hidden as much as possible, under my trusty duffle coat) and two large brushes. Every so often, having kept a look out for police, we stop, and one of us lies down on the pavement and draws around the other's form in chalk. Then we paint around the outline. It is a great adventure and we giggle at being outlaws but remember often the horror of Hiroshima when innocent people were reduced to a shadow left imprinted on the streets. After an hour or so we return home, both splattered with emulsion, for cocoa and biscuits.

1985 San Francisco, Oakland, California. December 31st countdown to New Year...standing amongst thousands of other 'deadheads' in an ocean of tie-dyes, peace signs, skulls, roses, rainbows in a thick haze of sweet smelling smoke...one big family sharing candy and drinks, fruit and smokes, smiles and hugs...auditorium buzzing...minute to midnight...the place going dark...the noise falling away...midnight beginning to strike...surfing on the excitement...final stroke...a cheer like one voice exploding into thousands embracing three pieces of music Old Lang's Syne, Happy Birthday, the Ride of the Valkyries weaving a surreal pattern over the loudspeakers whilst spotlights reveal a 30ft, 4 tiered, pink, birthday cake with a native American Indian, Miss World, Baby New Year, Superman, a dozen life-size muppet characters dressed as skeletons dancing on the tiers and at the very top...Bill Graham in Old Father Time costume...beneficent and larger than life, between the fireworks, great, giant golden sparklers, raining freshly-cut, long stemmed, red roses down onto the audience amongst the waterfalls of sparks and light... as the cake processes up the aisle from the back of the Coliseum...inimitable Ken Kesey commentating on the spectacle..a stream of incoherent,wonderful, crazy, banter,and everywhere laughter, delight, unbelievable, jeez, wow, awesome man..The Grateful Dead on stage now striking up Midnight Hour...the music, liquid gold streaming in scarves, in amongst the swirling skirts, the smiles, the sweating bodies and as one..they...the members of one loving tribe raise their arms to greet, in wonder, the multi coloured multitude of balloons shaken free from the vast nets strung up high on the ceiling ...one big melting pot of pure unadulterated joy!

A sunny day in Bristol, summer1986 I sit with my old mate Pete Brown, potter, novelist, shirt-maker, baker and all round good guy on the steps before the house, with Ngozi, who is 6 (and in my class) and Ayotunde her sister (9), The girls are staying with me for the weekend as their mother has problems (though I suspect otherwise). The children are bored and so we put our heads together to think. Two hours later we are in the busy shopping precinct. We are all brightly dressed and made-up as clowns. We have stuck a five foot, many branched tree, made out of broadsheet newspaper and painted black, onto an unused shop hoarding. 'Reasons to be cheerful' blares out from the ghetto blaster. We invite passers by to write something that makes them happy on paper leaves and stick them on the tree. Soon the leaves proclaim 'my mum' 'rainbows' 'a good book' 'my family' 'my dog/cat/rabbit' 'music' 'holidays' all in bright colours. I face-paint passing children whilst Pete walks about watering the lampposts with a little flowery watering can. A woman wants to give us money but we laugh it off. She sends her child back with a pound with the message, 'Please put it towards your expenses.' Ngozi and Ayotunde organise the sticking of leaves to the happiness tree and do little spontaneous dances and Pete and I join in. When it is time to go back to my home, they are sad but I remind them that tea-time is a reason to be cheerful.

1987, on a grassy hillside, next to a little wood, in Wookey Hole. Earlier in the day, a friend and I had pitched 3 tents and built a fire, helped and hindered by 12 exuberant, six year olds (all boys except for Ranjit) pupils from my class, from one of the poorest parts of Bristol. I hadn't bothered to unpack my lesson plans..such was the effect on me of the children's wild joy at being in the countryside. Instead, we had explored and played all day and when dusk fell, ventured bravely, into the darkness of the little wood, processing in single file, armed with torches, looking for bears.
Sitting in the moonlight, beneath a glorious starry sky, with all my precious charges asleep in their tent, poking the dying embers of the fire I thought back on the day and hoped that when they were grown, each one of them would remember it as fondly as I knew I would.

1989 Bristol..Not having been allowed to register our co-op as Wakan Tanka Housing Uncooperative, we registered ourselves as Wakan Tanka Housing Cooperative. There were 6 of us. Unbeknownst to any of us, Rob had stopped taken his meds and had begun to have notions of me being an incarnation of the Goddess Tara. He maintained that he was a Samurai warrior, who before incarnation, had promised Tara, that at a time and place known only to himself, he would wipe her out with the single stroke of a sword. (This being a compassionate act to free her from her human prison).
Tammy set about hiding the knives.

Northern India 1997. Because of Holi celebrations, Venetia and I are stuck in Ramnagar desperately wanting to get up into the foothills of the Himalayas. We trek through the dusty streets, as night is falling, to yet another shabby hotel when I see 2 Indian young men climb out of a land rover. I smile at one and say 'How much to take us to Nainital?' They laugh and we agree a price and throw the rucksacks into the back. It's a moonless night but the stars are amazing. The journey is hazardous as we snake around bends, hugging the cliff walls. We can't see the road but as we climb higher, the lights of the little villages below shine in the darkness. I recognise the dangers of the journey, (another day I would see the skeletons of vehicles, whose karma (the boys tell us) had been to plunge over the mountainside.) Indian pop and bhangra music blares out from the front seats where the boys laugh and practice their English on us, as our ears pop and we climb ever higher in the darkness. Blissed out, I wonder if you can die from an excess of happiness.

The Big March in 2003.Central London,...one to two million people speak out against war...the Raging Grannies featured this morning in 'The Times' newspaper, are recognised and met everywhere with shouts of 'It's theGrannies!'........................................................................... walking along the London streets, past famous landmarks in granny costume, complete with bedroom slippers and flowery bonnet is surreal...stopping at the foot of Downing Street cordoned off by police ...launching into 'Don't Beat about the Bush, Tony' to the tune of 'Don't Jump off the roof, Dad'.and There's No Business like War Business' which we conclude by bending over and throwing up our skirts to reveal our bloomers, lapping up the laughter and applause and oh.. the glorious, wonderful sense of PEOPLE POWER...family...goodness...light!