Richest fluency
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body." Walt Whitman
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Another extract from my manuscript 'Dreams'
She had seen, in another of the grand houses (home of a doctor), a drunken woman, the lady of the house, and it was to mark her, an eleven year old girl, psychologically for life. The woman was Mrs Anderson, and Emma had been so impressed with this family (including the little boy Kenneth that she was looking after), that she would later name her second son Kenneth. One of her jobs had been to get Mrs Anderson's medicine. One day when she got back with it, Mrs Anderson came lurching out of the dining room, staggering drunk and grabbing for the bottle, which was obviously alcohol. Emma was so horrified by the shock of seeing this great lady drunk and lurching and desperate for the next shot of brandy, that she was never to drink alcohol throughout her long life, she was to have her children also swear off it, and she was to have us all join one of the institutions of the temperance world - the Independent Order of Rechabites. Charles also had a history in the Temperance movement, his mother being a leading light in 'The Band of Hope' in England. He had been treasurer for the Rechabites (Motto - 'We will drink no wine') in England.
It was a strange movement, named after Rechab, an otherwise unknown figure of the Old Testament - 'We shall drink no wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons, forever' (Jeremiah 35.6). It was organised into 'tents' (as in tents in the desert of the Middle East), or lodges, each with an inspiring name 'Jubilee Tent' 'Victory Tent' for example. The tents were based in suburbs, and many suburbs in Perth had one, and they were grouped into districts. Each tent had an adult branch and a juvenile one, and my membership of the local juvenile tent had been ordained at birth, with my grandparents staunch members and leading office bearers. The members called each other Brother and Sister - Brother Young, Sister Young.
The office bearers had some odd titles, Guardian, Levite, Deputy Chief Ruler, Chief Ruler, Past Chief Ruler, based on the Bible. An adult Superintendent provided overall supervision of the children's meetings. The officers sat in prescribed places in the hall, the ordinary members sitting around the edge. One was a doorkeeper, another sat in the middle, one on one side, and three at a table. The table was covered in a ceremonial cloth, the name and number (numbers like 123 showed the size of the movement) of the tent on it. Each office holder wore ceremonial regalia, a kind of necklace sash which went around the neck and hung down the front, with the name of the office on it. Something similar is now mainly seen in the Northern Ireland Orange Order lodge sashes.
You moved through the offices in strict sequence, starting at the door (the doorkeeper's role was to admit new members and show them on to the next office bearer and so on), and the sash was placed over the head by the previous occupier of the position. In the junior lodge the idea was presumably that you would move through the sequence in say 6 years and then join the adult lodge, but few people did this by the time I was a child, if they ever had.
There was a meeting during which a pledge of abstinence was spoken in unison (as if at a wedding. The pledge I hadn't thought of in 40 years, though once it was a fixture of the furniture of my brain. Reading it again now brings back the sound of the meeting like nothing else, and I remember exactly the places where the Chief Ruler paused for the members to repeat the words: 'I promise to abstain' 'I promise to abstain' 'from all Intoxicating liquors' 'from all Intoxicating liquors', from all home made wines | from all other wines | and to do all I can | to promote total abstinence | to 'abide by the Rules | to obey the officers | and ever strive to be | a faithful Rechabite'. The words 'a faithful Rechabite' were always the loudest). Formal meeting proceedings were held (the 1948 book of General Laws for the Western Australian District records 243 laws. dealing with the procedures of meetings and the running of the Tent generally. There were constant revisions - in his copy of the 72 page book Charles Henry had carefully pasted in dozens of revisions over the top of the revised laws, in some cases just a two lines of fine print - 'Law 113 page 27 in line two delete the word "the" and insert in lieu thereof the word "a"'). The Rechabites were supposed to be non-religious and non-denominational, but our meetings were held in the Methodist church, and I think most of our members were probably Methodists, it being as hard to imagine teetotal Catholics and Anglicans as it was to imagine a drunken Methodist.
After the meeting there were games, the big attraction for children for whom there were few entertainments available. The adults also had a game, shared with the kids, carpet bowls. After the meetings the table and chairs were pushed back and a bowls carpet with markings rolled out. The box of balls were opened and the kitty placed on the spot. The rules were the same as lawn bowls, that is the aim being to get your team's ball closest to the kitty, and then as many other balls from your team as possible before the first of the opponents. The difference was in the smaller size of the bowls, in proportion to the length of the carpet, and that the narrow width made it impossible to make so much use of bias to curve the ball. Games were hard fought. The adults had a league of home and away games. The kids I think had tournaments one or more times a year. Home and away games were significant because the home floor, particularly in a rickety old building like our church, was a big advantage, the ball sometimes taking strange deviations as it went over a bump or hollow or loose board. Many a game has been won or lost for want of a nail.
When I was a young teenager I was allowed to play in the adult team occasionally. This was a big event. You got to ride in a car (Bob Humphries' huge black car) through the night (and it was very unusual to be out at night) and go to a strange hall - perhaps Mosman Park, or Claremont or Subiaco. After the game was supper, tea of course and scones or pikelets or biscuits. Then home, even later in the night.
It is hard to recognise it now, but the Rechabites were once a major force in West Australian social life, a fact long forgotten. In 1935 they celebrated the centenary of the movement in WA. There was a grand centenary dinner on 26 August held in Rechabite Hall in William Street in the heart of the city at 6pm ('arrival at 5.45pm will facilitate arrangements'). The souvenir toast list is headed by the Rechabite crest (with a motto 'Peace and Plenty the reward of Temperance') a strange conglomeration of images supported by two biblically robed ladies, one an angel, the centre part with a disembodied all-seeing eye, and images including a beehive, a sheath of wheat, a sword, a lamb, sun moon and stars, a snake, an unrecognisable animal, and three tents in the desert.
There were many toasts (in soft drink or tea of course) "The King" (by the District Chief Ruler, Brother Judges), "Centenary of Order" (by A. Panton MLA, a politician recognising the size of the Order), "Old Members" "The Juveniles" "Kindred Societies and F.S. Council" and "The Press" (this one responded to by 'Representative of the Press'). The toasts were interspersed with songs, alternately by Bro. Lyle and Miss Thelma Neill (Accompaniste Sister Warren), and the singing of God Save the King ended the proceedings.
I didn't realise it then but the 50s were the end of the flourishing Rechabites which had seemed to be such a permanent fixture of the social scene. The adults were generally those who had joined in the 20s, 30s and 40s, and by the 50s they were ageing. The days when you could buy, as my grandparents had done in York in 1910, a little water jug with a picture of a fishing boat and a legend that read 'Drink like a fish - water only', were long gone. The juveniles (as they were called) had been designed to furnish the next generation of total abstainers (no 'temperance' for Rechabites). But there was no enthusiasm among the kids of the post war generation for what was increasingly a meaningless ritual. Kids went for a while to be with their mates, and to have a night out, but they went home to families where the father went to the pub on a Saturday night, and there was sherry on the sideboard.
The main Rechabite families like ours had several generations coming through the ranks, but no new families came into the fold, and the juveniles dropped out earlier and earlier, in spite of attempts to water down the ritual further and further and make it almost just a games night. As a young child there was some status in working your way through the offices, and of being on the bowls team, but they weren't accomplishments you would boast about or even admit to outside the Rechabite circle, and by the time I was a young teenager they were not things I wanted to be part of any more and dropped out totally.
The movement had its roots back in England, but the leaves of the Australian branch were withering and falling. The juvenile groups disappeared, and the tents closed one by one, the survivors huddling together in combined lodges. The movement survives as a tiny fringe group, its major function being, appropriately, funeral benefits for the members.
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