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Timothy John Purnell. April 2, 1952 -- February 19, 2014.
Birthplace: Bristol, Gloucestershire, England. Place Of Death: Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.
Mine was an unusual life. It began with a remarkably happy childhood. But being a profound romantic and a dreamer the path of my life thereafter was not suited to the age in which I became an adult. And from a teenager I mostly identified and followed the characteristics of recent former generations but never my own. However, as a child my parent's world still pleasingly very much existed.
I was born at Mount Hope, 10 Ashley Hill, St. Agnes, Bristol, England and was not an intended addition to the family but just a marital action by my dear father. In later years my mother once remarked about this as a method of subduing adolescent conceit but my sensitive father soon told me though this was true I was the best mistake he ever made. My father came from a respectable working class family -- though one ancestor had founded the multi-million pound publishing company of Purnell and Sons -- and was always industrious and a most work minded man. My beloved mother, by contrast, had come from a middle class family which was kept short of money by an ogre of a grandfather. He had founded the locally well known Wood Funeral Directors at 10 Perry Road, St. Augustine, Bristol and employed all his family, with the exception of his youngest son, Harold, as well as other employees on meagre wages in order to become more wealthy himself.
After entering the open world of life at 8 lb 8 oz I grew fast by a most frequent cry for my mother's milk. In the summer of 1954 the family spent a holiday at Exmouth, Devon, and my older mentally impaired brother, Robin (caused by meningitis as a baby) running away one day on this holiday became my first memory. A year later I could remember playing in the dusty street outside our home at 221A Mina Road, St. Werburghs, Bristol -- a lowly area inflicted on my parents by my paternal grandfather without considering the unsuitable district because the Blitz had destroyed their original home in Park Street, Clifton. And my favourite interest of driving a mid green peddle car -- which had been bought for my brother, Robin, but he was beyond using -- in the lane by the backyard while my mother laboriously mangled washing with red hands and nose on a bitter cold winter's day became another very early memory. My friend at this time was an immigrant Polish boy of the same age called Teddy who had a red peddle car. Soon Teddy and his parents disappeared to live in the U.S.A. The family pet was a most ferocious cat called Twinks. He was ginger and had come as a mouser from my father's place of employment at St. Anne's Mill and was valued because the home was close to a park and he industriously kept the intrusion of mice under control.
Early in 1956 my family moved to a semi-rural paradise as I thought of it at 13 Far Handstones, Warmley near Bristol and I spent the May picking wild poppies at the rear of our home and presenting them to my mother and another middle aged housewife called Mrs. Louth, who lived on the right side at the other end of this magical field. In return I was fondly given orange squash and comics to read in her kitchen while her fair haired daughter who was a few years older stood in silent jealousy. She had wanted a son and I became a substitute. I did not realize then that the magical attraction of wild poppies had been inherited from my mother. My eldest brother, Graham, who was about 14 explored the new green mysteries around with a black bicycle, riding and fishing in the surrounding pleasant countryside. I knew he also went to the nearby school and quietly dreaded the thought that I soon would have to attend. But this never happened.
After only a year there would be another world for me and this would remain for half my life. To be closer to his employment my father wanted to live on the northern side of Bristol and my mother first found a substantial house at Westbury-on-Trym but this was rejected as the foundations after WWII bombing were suspect due to a large crack so they were both immediately delighted to find a vacant house next to the home of her elder sister, Phyllis, and we moved there on a cold and damp day on January 4th, 1957. Soon I was sent to Embleton Infants School, Southmead, where I was very happy. One day while swinging on the metal driveway gate a girl of almost 8 years came up to me and said: "Can I be your friend? My name is Alison." She said her mother had sent her because I was a better class of boy to all the other local children. We were good friends until her father suddenly died when she was nearly 9 and some time later was sent away to the Red Maids School for girls as a boarder. She had been close to her father and the shock had made her prowl around their home at night which annoyed her sometimes callous mother. I most probably had been the last person to speak to her father other than his family. It was my habit to wait for her on my three wheel bike by her garden gate when I wanted to play and he came up to me after putting his car away in his garage and said she was having a bath and could not come out. They were all going to Silverstone to watch car racing the next day which was a Sunday. This never occurred for later he died from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was only 49 years old. He worked quite long hours for 6 days a week. Although his employment was never mentioned I think it very likely was at a hospital.
At Christmas 1961 I came down the stairs at about 4:30 a.m. thinking that Santa Claus had forgotten me because I had heard no sound although I had tried to stay awake. In the darkness of a dying fire I felt a very large parcel leaning against the brown leather sofa in the living room. I could not believe it. It was a bicycle! Although it was used and my mother had repainted it with mid blue paint, to me it was the most magical present in the world. And after my mother had taught me to ride it on the tree-lined pavement outside our home I joyfully and daringly rode over much of the area and into the city on it.
All through my childhood and this continued intermittently for the rest of my life, whenever a small aeroplane flew overhead I would gaze for a long time wishing I was flying it. Though much less so even larger aircraft fascinated me. Indeed, when I was about 11 years of age I even tried to make a small aeroplane to fly in from balsa wood modelled from the kind of structure the Wright brothers had built but I ran out of pocket money and had to give up. Later in life I discovered this innate love of flying had come from my mother for she too when young wanted to fly.
About this time I fell in love with music. I began reading about the classical composers from a wonderful old set of Arthur Mee children's encyclopedias in my home and then from books from the library. This inspired me with a lasting desire to be a musician and composer. My mother gave me a few rudimentary lessons on an old piano she and my father had bought for me and then sent me to a music teacher who lived at the other end of our road called Mrs. Sumner. After only one lesson I composed a simple piece for piano and violin and deliberately left it underneath some other sheet music on a chair at my music teacher's home. By the next week when I returned for another lesson I had forgotten about this and was puzzled why she was so beaming with mysterious delight. Then I embarrassingly remembered. My teacher said she had never had a pupil do this before and I thereafter seemed to become her favourite. But after only 9 months I stopped attending as I had insufficient time for my new school's homework. My teacher very kindly tried to keep me as a pupil by offering to teach me at half price but it was the time factor not the money which was the problem.
During my years at Embleton Primary School I was always head pupil in the top class and found learning most easy. So much so that when I left at 11 years of age after passing the 11-Plus examination with the highest percentage in the southwest of England, shared with one other pupil who unlike myself had been coached by academic parents, I was called into the headmaster's study. There I learned that I had collected more awards for merit at every subject than anyone else in the history of the school. My other favourite activities at Embleton Primary School were fighting, cricket and rounders. I could beat every boy my own age and held my own with older and often rough boys. My entry into cricket was not too encouraging. I missed almost every ball and was out very quickly until one day the headmaster, Mr. James, was present. He watched and instructed me precisely how to hit the ball. With this piece of information I began hitting balls farther than anyone else and enjoying the game. Because I was a hard hitter I excelled at rounders too. So much so a lady teacher told me not to hit so hard because it became difficult and precarious retrieving them from people's distant gardens.
Then while the steady upsurge in socialism was changing the larger world and spoiling it in its own image and making society increasingly degenerate my immediate world was changing even faster. After a sublimely adventurous holiday in the old and soon vanished France and Spain by aeroplane across the English Channel and then touring in our family car my father on return suffered two heart attacks. And instead of being sent to at least a good grammar school as I merited the few choices offered were only comprehensive schools set up by the Labour government that a pupil of any ability could attend and possessed lax discipline, or one grammar school called Fairfield (the film star Cary Grant had once been a pupil) too difficult to attend by daily bus. So I reluctantly chose Lawrence Weston Comprehensive School and from there on rebelliously and most regrettably lost interest in education.
I spent much of my latter school days occupied in hobbies, including building my own observatory in our rear garden for astronomy in 1966, cooking for the family, wine making and most of all piano playing, and neglected my scholarly studies. At 16 I could play the Franz Liszt Piano Concerto No 1 in E Flat Major and other virtuoso piano music with ease. I often performed them at school. I also took violin lessons for a while which I loathed from an Italian music teacher called Mrs. Campbell at Horfield who expressed amazement at my piano playing ability when she later taught me this. Since 10 years of age I had composed romantic music. Even so, I never failed any school examinations and the teachers who knew me always had a particular respect for me but I left with unhelpful qualifications. It was a sudden graduation because I was supposed to stay until I became 18 years of age and take my A levels but just short of 17 I angrily chastised the head of the upper school for being rude to my mother over the telephone instead of to me about my lackadaisical manner one mid February morning and graduated himself.
Although it had been intermittently in my mind for a long time I knew I should have studied seriously at school and got the outstanding qualifications that were worthy of my intellect instead of wasting my time on music. I was unsuited to a concert pianist's career as I possessed a high imagination. A life of monotonous practise would have bored me too much. And a career as a composer was impossible. New music had become merely trash except some film scores. Later in my life I would come to realize that my vocation was teaching as a means of reliably earning a salary as I genuinely possessed both an affinity with children and had a talent for teaching so unlike the majority of so-called teachers, and in my spare time should have done professional writing. But when I was young I had no guidance.
I soon found myself walking all over Bristol trying to find employment of any kind. My father was amazed there was so much unemployment and jobs were so extremely difficult. Being creative minded and outstanding at English at school I tried professional writing for a summer but was too young and decent publishers too few to get published so I decided the only options were military service or the police. I took an examination for the Royal Marines and passed with 94% and was most unusually given the rank of lieutenant before even leaving. Shortly afterwards my very dear father suddenly died and my mother wanted me to be with her at home. This was the end of any career. If the police were as they had been a generation or more before I would have enthusiatically joined them so that I could still live at home and attempt to rise the ranks but by 1970 being merely a car driving bureaurocrat for socialist laws I did not agree with had no appeal. So during the early 1970s I even tried boxing in London but realized my intellect was suited for something better.
Back at home I created a splendid garden and undertook odd jobs for people -- often without any payment. I bought a white coloured Ariel Leader motorcycle to find work and was very nearly killed near Tewkesbury when I was speeding at over 80 mph whilst trying to negotiate a sudden and blind hairpin bend. My interests and solace were old films, classical and romantic music, fine books and poetry. I adored Emily Bronte. I also drew portraits and painted in oils on canvasses I had prepared myself. John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough were my favourite artists. Later, I admired the French Impressionists too. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel became my esteemed composers.
In early May, 1976 my mother and I went on a two week holiday to the Lake District, staying at Keswick, and I fell completely in love with this area. We had once been there before in July, 1966 with my father in the family car but his ill health had restricted almost any exploration. This time I climbed Mount Skiddaw and rowed all over Derwentwater. Then on my return there was a castastrophe. While painting the driveway gate an Indian woman who appeared ill and I sensed had just arrived in England passed me and two days later while bathing I collapsed. I had contracted a severe fever. One night my temperature soared to 106 degrees F and my heart stopped. It was at this point all pain ceased and my spirit left my body and I was able to gaze down at myself in a state of unworldly sublime happiness. Suddenly I realized I was dead and always a fighter I willed my heart to beat again and slowly with the greatest effort it did. I was drenched in perspiration. By this rare and curious experience I came to know life in spirit truly did seem to continue after physical death.
At Easter 1977 I watched on television for the first time the 1939 film of " Wuthering Heights" and fell most deeply in love with this story. This gave me a sudden strong interest to learn about the author. Very soon from public library books I discovered most of the known factual knowledge about the Brontë sisters who had previously been but vague literary names. I had already seen the fine 1943 film of "Jane Eyre" but I now knew about the original plot details and the author. After reading some of their books -- "Wuthering Heights", "Jane Eyre" and "The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall" -- I concluded that "Wuthering Heights" is hardly a highly romantic story as is the common contention (invariably influenced by films which distort the plot for commercial reasons) but in truth is surprisingly obscurely worded, especially in the early stages, and accordingly sometimes hard going though most cleverly perceptive and fluently written; and the actual tale is one of constant unreasonable vengeance and cruelty realized by convenient providence and sustained by a most profound enduring spiritual bond.
Though there is a letter from her publishers which suggests she was going to write another novel I do no think Emily possessed the desire or ability to do such a thing and is one reason death presented a release for her. She must have known by this time that if she lived on it would be unlikely she could ever support herself. She was too private and unusual as a person to create saleable stories for the common public she wanted nothing to do with. She lived completely in her imagination and its created fantasy worlds and her solace against the restrictive unsuited material world was the freedom of the lonely inspirational moors, secret expression in poetry and giving love by befriending simple animals. Indeed while Charlotte Brontë and Anne Brontë were primarily writers of satisfying novels Emily Brontë was an unique and brilliant poet and original thinker. I love her poetry and I love her. If we could have known one another I am perfectly sure we would have become close friends for our unusual characters and important life's circumstances are most extraordinary similar. When someone unfortunately becomes famous (or are unusual) they accursedly attract a great amount of lies and insincerity as well as a world of insensitive commercialism, indoctrinated lowly visitors and cranks but my feelings are completely true. I am sure too I would have been good friends with all three respectable and gifted sisters. Charlotte was astute, ambitious and diplomatic and in awe of Emily but rather condescending towards Anne. However intensely shy and remote Emily was able to absorb a large store of local affairs from her fond and probably maternal relationship with Tabitha Aykroyd, the primary housekeeper, during her hours contentedly spent in the kitchen away from everyone else and is very evident in "Wuthering Heights". She was always closest to endearingly straightforward Anne who was the most orthodox in her religious beliefs and modestly aspired to being a social reformer. Emily Brontë will always remain my favourite poet and I hope to meet her in spirit.
After surviving death nearly three years before on June 28, 1979 severe total depression abruptly set in caused by the delayed after effects of this illness. It took a long time for me to recover during which my beloved cat, Midnight, suddenly died and my favourite aunt, Phyllis, who lived in the next house also died. She had long eaten an unhealthy diet and been overweight and thereby succumbed to arthritis of both hips which after two operations and too many needless medications had developed into senility. Her only son at this time persuaded her to take in a fairly wealthy elderly aunt whom she loathed -- her aunt Dolly had been left all the estate from the Wood family business as funeral directors. However, his mother died after a short time and instead of arranging for her to be admitted into a care home for the elderly he uncharacteristically took her in himself. Soon afterwards she changed her Will which left everything to him. She then was placed into public care where she died.
After my eventual recovery I decided with my mother to move away since all our decent relatives and immediate neighbours had died and our finances were dwindling from rising bills. The house was sold and on May 25, 1988 we moved to Macduff, northern Scotland, by overnight train. We bought a two hundred year old croft high above the North Sea. After seven years of beautiful summers with almost constant daylight and the awe-inspiring starry winters with the spectacle of the aurora borealis in November, because of the lack of people willing to pay for stabling their horses on our land, a precarious and corrosive water supply and constant gales and on one occasion a hurricane which exploded the large kitchen window and caused us to install special reinforced glass in all windows, we moved to a rented cottage near the small village of Gartly in Aberdeenshire. Though the view was sublime the insufficiently deep garden well was always a problem so we moved again into the village of Gartly. The pretty nineteenth century railway cottage and lovely terraced garden we rented was soon required by the owner for holiday purposes so we moved to the beautiful floral town of Forres, briefly at a house in a lowly suburb and then a flat on the rural outskirts. After just over a year the owner of the flat wanted to sell it so we moved back to Gartly.
By this time the fairly high rents for furnished accommodation were diminishing our savings so I decided to buy a motorhome and travel around which my mother especially liked. We explored the northeast and southeast of Scotland from Inverness to Edinburgh and the borders. My mother's favourite places were Cruden Bay or Port Erroll and Lower Largo but my own preference was Slains Castle which I visited about eight times. We also travelled around northern Cumbria in England staying at Longtown. After a year I decided to sell the motorhome and return to Bristol to be in our hometown and close to the family grave where we both wanted to be buried. We arrived on November 17, 2004 and temporarily stayed with my only surviving and ill-natured uncle until a home could be found.
On March 7, 2005 my mother and I moved into a rented flat in Henbury, Bristol which was close to all services and several parks which I walked in daily -- often in the early morning. These latter places were almost always deserted since people generally no longer had picnics or strolled in them and children were not allowed to play because of pretended dangers though they were exposed to the real menace of sleazy stepfathers and immoral television programmes and the only nuisance was from dog owners who used them as toilets, so I could think in peace. I spent a lot of time trying to make an income and because employers were extremely spoilt for choice as there was always a queue after the most lowly work and they only ultimately favoured fellow low class types I had absolutely no chance of procurring work, so I pursued self employment and occupied myself writing. The governments that came and went were mainly interested in making money for themselves and allowed millions of lowly immigrants to live in Britain and encouraged wives to work thus making a situation with innumerable people seeking few jobs and did nothing about the dire necessity for every true Britain to find employment. At this time I took two IQ tests which gave a result of 150 and is genius level.
The only social aspect which held any interest for me were pen friends. My first had been German and given to me by my school as an aid to learning the German lamguage when I was 14. During the remainder of my life I had a succession of pen friends from many countries. All were female and several had been platonic romantic friendships. Though when I was young I sometimes had a fancy to marry and then later for a daughter, in reality I obtained most of my enjoyment from observing other people's families. Indeed towards the end of my life I became perfectly satisfied being single. Few relationships are worth much as almost all other people at any age are selfish and changeable and not what they seem. Some people are not meant to marry and I was one. Any girls who held a special place in my heart lived before my own time. Meanwhile, I cared for my elderly and increasingly frail mother and undertook all the domestic chores though I often only did what was essential. Then after seven fairly contented years at Henbury the very worst catastrophe occurred when my beloved mother, whom I was extremely close to, died suddenly from a severe stroke.
My mother's death was primarily from old age at 97 years and 7 months but doctors contributed towards her not living a little longer. They did not emphasise the fatal danger of salt in the diet for hypertension but merely made suggestions about restricting it and did not specifically state that 0.5 g of salt a day is all that is necessary for health whereas every packaged food has the lie of 6 g as a daily guideline. This is how she came to suffer a severe stroke. I gave her a diet very low in cholesterol and low in salt but it was not low enough. And when she was rushed to hospital by ambulance the specialist doctors just allowed her to die because of her advanced aged instead of giving her a small chance of survival by using a thrombolytic drug to dissolve the clot. All she was given was aspirin. I made several complaints about this when later I had done some research. Since the hospital really did not care and the staff were only concerned with careers and money I contacted my MP and she agreed with me and kindly took my complaint forward.
The days and weeks that followed were profoundly upsetting for me since my mother and I were extremely close. I lost my only remaining interest in life. My faraway pen friends gave me much touching kindness and I appreciated this enormously but my greatest solace and comfort was from the book "Ena Twigg: Medium" by Ena Twigg and Ruth Brod which I had read before when I was young. It became my Bible. It is a truly amazing and inspirational book. For the first time in my life I also drank alcohol regularly as some relief from grief and my circumstances. As with food I prefer drinks on their own. I detest the silly modern mania for mixing as many things as possible. I like simple foods and drinks served neat. Scotch whisky and soda or gin and tonic would be drunk separately with the mixer first and chilled and the spirit last at room temperature. In this way one tastes the food and drink properly.
During this time I would read the Bronte sisters' novels and found much comfort in the poetry of Emily Bronte which I would read after dinner before going to bed. I had wanted to be a teacher and writer since early adulthood and Emily had been the same but died without any success at either. And though she lived at a much better time for good literature when ideas were fresh I would think again and again how many people really cared about anything she had written in spite of her eventual fame promoted by Charlotte and much later films. I was in precisely the same situation as her except she had been able to write in the way she wanted whereas my age was no more fertile for my ideas as they would have been for her.
Death is not feared by the truly good and the brave and I have never feared death all my life. I have always been highly moral with a heart of a child but the world changed around me. I love beauty, truth and innocence and going on long walks to think profoundly. I was baptized an Anglican Christian and from my early twenties was also interested in Spiritualism and towards the end of my life became a private Spiritualist.
"Victoria" is a poem about an extremely kind friend whom I never met and resides in Saint Petersburg, Russia. "My Destiny" is a poem about the course of my life. "Mother" is a poem about my beloved mother. "The Flowers Of Eternity" is a poem about the meaning of life.
"Victoria"
Ah! she was to me a path to be
So distant ne'er to walk,
And along this path visions free
To wander, wandered thought.
So much was new, so much was mine,
Sad clouds e'er soared away,
Noon star on a smile benign
For hopeful, hopeless day.
Her purer heart, the soul in mine,
Her clever labours charmed,
Love's truest from thoughts so kind
Gave joy, joyful sweet balm.
Time's but change, 'tis all life's being,
Light creates dark shadows,
Her gathering soul may oft' cling
In silence, silent woes
.By Timothy John Purnell. June 12, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"My Destiny"
To be sure, I am my own world:
Whilst society has all,
In all I remain one allured
Alone to love's visions pure.
Fellow students could know me still
Though they'd be strangers to me,
Success has kissed their steps until
World tide drowned their entity!
Nought am I, never to prosper,
Never to be as others
For others: useful trade monger
Sustaining pride of mothers.
I walk the silence of my heart
Among untrue beings' noise,
Beauty, free and ever apart
I take to eternal joys.
By Timothy John Purnell. June 28, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Mother"
Day dreaming I could not but rudely awake in woe,
And even my every other thought dared be so;
Untroubled, reason and chance remembrance feel just needs,
But my broken soul 's heart rests under grass and weeds.
All awhile my lonely thoughts and lonelier spirit
Seek and sense your soul's true fate in the infinite:
Revelations -- honesty can but trust its own source --
Once I entered your dimension with youth's remorse.
Life by living must gain from nought to obscurity
And thus gained affects still another entity:
Unnoticed, humble honest steps once trod meekly by
Making the touched ground sacred to my awestruck eye.
Stars twinkle on and all is mute in the universe,
All that was you is now me alone and some earth;
This Side, the great expanses of divine mystery --
Yet common life -- cares not its best has gone save me.
By Timothy John Purnell. July 18, 2013
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"The Flowers Of Eternity"
Lives are but whispers in the twinkling darkness,
They come from yonder nowhere and go the same,
A voice cries alone scornful of worldliness;
A pure child sweetly sighs its last freed of blame.
All joys are for new dreams of another time,
But for a sweet moment when sadness can hide
A charmed miracle seems to touch one's own time,
And charged bygone airs are one with this side.
Potential world captive of balanced changes,
Our minds, our senses, blindly sustain conceit,
As mute secrets with no end slip like pages
Unseen, when beguiled forces of this life meet.
All that is common is allured to its kind
As Beauty trodden is chosen by the rare,
The flowers of eternity weep and pine,
Sorrows whisper: "soon, be freed spirits of care!"
By Timothy John Purnell. August 17, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Individualism"
Born are a thousand minds, but how few can find a grave:
So easily every thought entered from another,
So changed, warped and united their low dependence gave,
Corrupting but bright memory with all it smothers.
Then ponder history's tales saved from mindless fodder,
Saved from pawns to perform the infected leader's' schemes;
Still worse, supporting evils of world war to model,
And seduce children that quantity is what it seems.
When diverse birds in every far tree sing the same song
Is it not perverse and unnatural? Why is flight
With strange species coerced though in instinct ne'er belonged?
And freedom is but a mute call for lone bird of right.
War strikes! pliable society listens to men:
Their enacted powers capture the brave and fearful;
But the wars within peace become beguiled by women:
Deft crusades by the few whose battles too are vengeful!
Ah! enlightenment in pretty far years: divine path
When noble quality ruled its own with care its breath;
"'Twas never so," scorned but a lowly few in their wrath
And upended all above so no-one need confess.
'Tis true, reformers fair create diverse ills for good,
Their foolish ways ennoble them from visions too stark;
Nature ne'er blends its hostile forces for common good
But destroys the uncommon bloom for the weeds to mock!
By Timothy John Purnell. September 26, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Life"
Life ne'er dares ask life to appear
Nature needs a bold plan;
With its unending fated zeal
Comes unending fixed sham.
Changes, oft' unnoticed, fleet by,
Sap and Hope sustain all;
Fancies and youth stir freedom's lie
While plodding to Fate's goal.
Looking back, looking back, what days
Comfort regretful tears,
But though we long for other ways
They would all bring us here!
By Timothy John Purnell. October 26, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Grief's Truth"
Tears, such uncontrollable tears gush free!
Sadness: overwhelming hope's void takes me;
Lone soul wherever and forever,
Gladly, my lamenting breath I'd sever.
Silence within gives thoughts a listener,
Methinks, do spirits long for their mourner?
They have returned to a tranquil pre-birth
Where sweet hearts await in enlightened mirth!
By Timothy John Purnell. October 29, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
My father, Gilbert George William Purnell, my mother, Frances Alice Purnell and myself, Timothy John Purnell, as a baby near our home at 221A Mina Road, St. Werberghs, Bristol in 1953.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 6, at a fairground.
Photo taken in 1958.
Timothy John Purnell on holiday at Granville, France. As a young child I adored making things from wet sand and could be left alone for hours in a blissful world all my own.
Photo taken in June, 1963.
Alison Gooding aged 8 years. My first girlfriend. As children we were good friends and her mother thought that when we grew up we might marry.
Photo taken by me in 1958 on the front lawn of our home at 14 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol. (She lived at 20 Charlton Road.)
Embleton Primary School, Bristol, England, Class 1962. Timothy John Purnell is in the back row second from the left. The teacher, Robert Horton, tragically died shortly afterwards from cancer, aged 42.
Photo taken: Summer 1962.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 11, dressed in football attire standing on the driveway of my aunt's home at 16 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol in the summer of 1963.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 13, trying to compose classical music sketches.
Photo taken on holiday at Tenby, Wales in July, 1965.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 17, standing in an abandoned RAF station whilst on holiday near St. Agnes, Cornwall in July, 1969.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 19. Summer 1971. Detail.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 19. Summer 1971.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 24, standing on the shore of Derwentwater, Keswick, Cumbria in May, 1976.
Timothy John Purnell writing in their holiday home at Keswick, Cumbria, May, 1976.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 53, at home in Henbury, Bristol in 2005.
14 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol where I grew up. Photo taken about May 1973.
14 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, England showing the rear garden. I laid out most of this garden and built an observatory on top of the brick built air raid shelter just behind where the camera is positioned in 1966 spending many bitterly cold nights stargazing in winters.
The tall horse chestnut tree appearing in blossom above the house was about 60 feet in height and dated from 1848. I read "Little Women" under it and had a special affinity for the tree as it dated from the real story. Photo taken about May 1973.
Pine Tree Cottage, Gartly, Huntly, Aberdeenshire. Our second home in Scotland. Photo taken about March 1996.
A Tale Of My Imagination
Timothy John Purnell. April 2, 1952 -- February 19, 2014.
Birthplace: Bristol, Gloucestershire, England. Place Of Death: Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.
Mine was an unusual life. It began with a remarkably happy childhood. But being a profound romantic and a dreamer the path of my life thereafter was not suited to the age in which I became an adult. And from a teenager I mostly identified and followed the characteristics of recent former generations but never my own. However, as a child my parent's world still pleasingly very much existed.
I was born at Mount Hope, 10 Ashley Hill, St. Agnes, Bristol, England and was not an intended addition to the family but just a marital action by my dear father. In later years my mother once remarked about this as a method of subduing adolescent conceit but my sensitive father soon told me though this was true I was the best mistake he ever made. My father came from a respectable working class family -- though one ancestor had founded the multi-million pound publishing company of Purnell and Sons -- and was always industrious and a most work minded man. My beloved mother, by contrast, had come from a middle class family which was kept short of money by an ogre of a grandfather. He had founded the locally well known Wood Funeral Directors at 10 Perry Road, St. Augustine, Bristol and employed all his family, with the exception of his youngest son, Harold, as well as other employees on meagre wages in order to become more wealthy himself.
After entering the open world of life at 8 lb 8 oz I grew fast by a most frequent cry for my mother's milk. In the summer of 1954 the family spent a holiday at Exmouth, Devon, and my older mentally impaired brother, Robin (caused by meningitis as a baby) running away one day on this holiday became my first memory. A year later I could remember playing in the dusty street outside our home at 221A Mina Road, St. Werburghs, Bristol -- a lowly area inflicted on my parents by my paternal grandfather without considering the unsuitable district because the Blitz had destroyed their original home in Park Street, Clifton. And my favourite interest of driving a mid green peddle car -- which had been bought for my brother, Robin, but he was beyond using -- in the lane by the backyard while my mother laboriously mangled washing with red hands and nose on a bitter cold winter's day became another very early memory. My friend at this time was an immigrant Polish boy of the same age called Teddy who had a red peddle car. Soon Teddy and his parents disappeared to live in the U.S.A. The family pet was a most ferocious cat called Twinks. He was ginger and had come as a mouser from my father's place of employment at St. Anne's Mill and was valued because the home was close to a park and he industriously kept the intrusion of mice under control.
Early in 1956 my family moved to a semi-rural paradise as I thought of it at 13 Far Handstones, Warmley near Bristol and I spent the May picking wild poppies at the rear of our home and presenting them to my mother and another middle aged housewife called Mrs. Louth, who lived on the right side at the other end of this magical field. In return I was fondly given orange squash and comics to read in her kitchen while her fair haired daughter who was a few years older stood in silent jealousy. She had wanted a son and I became a substitute. I did not realize then that the magical attraction of wild poppies had been inherited from my mother. My eldest brother, Graham, who was about 14 explored the new green mysteries around with a black bicycle, riding and fishing in the surrounding pleasant countryside. I knew he also went to the nearby school and quietly dreaded the thought that I soon would have to attend. But this never happened.
After only a year there would be another world for me and this would remain for half my life. To be closer to his employment my father wanted to live on the northern side of Bristol and my mother first found a substantial house at Westbury-on-Trym but this was rejected as the foundations after WWII bombing were suspect due to a large crack so they were both immediately delighted to find a vacant house next to the home of her elder sister, Phyllis, and we moved there on a cold and damp day on January 4th, 1957. Soon I was sent to Embleton Infants School, Southmead, where I was very happy. One day while swinging on the metal driveway gate a girl of almost 8 years came up to me and said: "Can I be your friend? My name is Alison." She said her mother had sent her because I was a better class of boy to all the other local children. We were good friends until her father suddenly died when she was nearly 9 and some time later was sent away to the Red Maids School for girls as a boarder. She had been close to her father and the shock had made her prowl around their home at night which annoyed her sometimes callous mother. I most probably had been the last person to speak to her father other than his family. It was my habit to wait for her on my three wheel bike by her garden gate when I wanted to play and he came up to me after putting his car away in his garage and said she was having a bath and could not come out. They were all going to Silverstone to watch car racing the next day which was a Sunday. This never occurred for later he died from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was only 49 years old. He worked quite long hours for 6 days a week. Although his employment was never mentioned I think it very likely was at a hospital.
At Christmas 1961 I came down the stairs at about 4:30 a.m. thinking that Santa Claus had forgotten me because I had heard no sound although I had tried to stay awake. In the darkness of a dying fire I felt a very large parcel leaning against the brown leather sofa in the living room. I could not believe it. It was a bicycle! Although it was used and my mother had repainted it with mid blue paint, to me it was the most magical present in the world. And after my mother had taught me to ride it on the tree-lined pavement outside our home I joyfully and daringly rode over much of the area and into the city on it.
All through my childhood and this continued intermittently for the rest of my life, whenever a small aeroplane flew overhead I would gaze for a long time wishing I was flying it. Though much less so even larger aircraft fascinated me. Indeed, when I was about 11 years of age I even tried to make a small aeroplane to fly in from balsa wood modelled from the kind of structure the Wright brothers had built but I ran out of pocket money and had to give up. Later in life I discovered this innate love of flying had come from my mother for she too when young wanted to fly.
About this time I fell in love with music. I began reading about the classical composers from a wonderful old set of Arthur Mee children's encyclopedias in my home and then from books from the library. This inspired me with a lasting desire to be a musician and composer. My mother gave me a few rudimentary lessons on an old piano she and my father had bought for me and then sent me to a music teacher who lived at the other end of our road called Mrs. Sumner. After only one lesson I composed a simple piece for piano and violin and deliberately left it underneath some other sheet music on a chair at my music teacher's home. By the next week when I returned for another lesson I had forgotten about this and was puzzled why she was so beaming with mysterious delight. Then I embarrassingly remembered. My teacher said she had never had a pupil do this before and I thereafter seemed to become her favourite. But after only 9 months I stopped attending as I had insufficient time for my new school's homework. My teacher very kindly tried to keep me as a pupil by offering to teach me at half price but it was the time factor not the money which was the problem.
During my years at Embleton Primary School I was always head pupil in the top class and found learning most easy. So much so that when I left at 11 years of age after passing the 11-Plus examination with the highest percentage in the southwest of England, shared with one other pupil who unlike myself had been coached by academic parents, I was called into the headmaster's study. There I learned that I had collected more awards for merit at every subject than anyone else in the history of the school. My other favourite activities at Embleton Primary School were fighting, cricket and rounders. I could beat every boy my own age and held my own with older and often rough boys. My entry into cricket was not too encouraging. I missed almost every ball and was out very quickly until one day the headmaster, Mr. James, was present. He watched and instructed me precisely how to hit the ball. With this piece of information I began hitting balls farther than anyone else and enjoying the game. Because I was a hard hitter I excelled at rounders too. So much so a lady teacher told me not to hit so hard because it became difficult and precarious retrieving them from people's distant gardens.
Then while the steady upsurge in socialism was changing the larger world and spoiling it in its own image and making society increasingly degenerate my immediate world was changing even faster. After a sublimely adventurous holiday in the old and soon vanished France and Spain by aeroplane across the English Channel and then touring in our family car my father on return suffered two heart attacks. And instead of being sent to at least a good grammar school as I merited the few choices offered were only comprehensive schools set up by the Labour government that a pupil of any ability could attend and possessed lax discipline, or one grammar school called Fairfield (the film star Cary Grant had once been a pupil) too difficult to attend by daily bus. So I reluctantly chose Lawrence Weston Comprehensive School and from there on rebelliously and most regrettably lost interest in education.
I spent much of my latter school days occupied in hobbies, including building my own observatory in our rear garden for astronomy in 1966, cooking for the family, wine making and most of all piano playing, and neglected my scholarly studies. At 16 I could play the Franz Liszt Piano Concerto No 1 in E Flat Major and other virtuoso piano music with ease. I often performed them at school. I also took violin lessons for a while which I loathed from an Italian music teacher called Mrs. Campbell at Horfield who expressed amazement at my piano playing ability when she later taught me this. Since 10 years of age I had composed romantic music. Even so, I never failed any school examinations and the teachers who knew me always had a particular respect for me but I left with unhelpful qualifications. It was a sudden graduation because I was supposed to stay until I became 18 years of age and take my A levels but just short of 17 I angrily chastised the head of the upper school for being rude to my mother over the telephone instead of to me about my lackadaisical manner one mid February morning and graduated himself.
Although it had been intermittently in my mind for a long time I knew I should have studied seriously at school and got the outstanding qualifications that were worthy of my intellect instead of wasting my time on music. I was unsuited to a concert pianist's career as I possessed a high imagination. A life of monotonous practise would have bored me too much. And a career as a composer was impossible. New music had become merely trash except some film scores. Later in my life I would come to realize that my vocation was teaching as a means of reliably earning a salary as I genuinely possessed both an affinity with children and had a talent for teaching so unlike the majority of so-called teachers, and in my spare time should have done professional writing. But when I was young I had no guidance.
I soon found myself walking all over Bristol trying to find employment of any kind. My father was amazed there was so much unemployment and jobs were so extremely difficult. Being creative minded and outstanding at English at school I tried professional writing for a summer but was too young and decent publishers too few to get published so I decided the only options were military service or the police. I took an examination for the Royal Marines and passed with 94% and was most unusually given the rank of lieutenant before even leaving. Shortly afterwards my very dear father suddenly died and my mother wanted me to be with her at home. This was the end of any career. If the police were as they had been a generation or more before I would have enthusiatically joined them so that I could still live at home and attempt to rise the ranks but by 1970 being merely a car driving bureaurocrat for socialist laws I did not agree with had no appeal. So during the early 1970s I even tried boxing in London but realized my intellect was suited for something better.
Back at home I created a splendid garden and undertook odd jobs for people -- often without any payment. I bought a white coloured Ariel Leader motorcycle to find work and was very nearly killed near Tewkesbury when I was speeding at over 80 mph whilst trying to negotiate a sudden and blind hairpin bend. My interests and solace were old films, classical and romantic music, fine books and poetry. I adored Emily Bronte. I also drew portraits and painted in oils on canvasses I had prepared myself. John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough were my favourite artists. Later, I admired the French Impressionists too. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel became my esteemed composers.
In early May, 1976 my mother and I went on a two week holiday to the Lake District, staying at Keswick, and I fell completely in love with this area. We had once been there before in July, 1966 with my father in the family car but his ill health had restricted almost any exploration. This time I climbed Mount Skiddaw and rowed all over Derwentwater. Then on my return there was a castastrophe. While painting the driveway gate an Indian woman who appeared ill and I sensed had just arrived in England passed me and two days later while bathing I collapsed. I had contracted a severe fever. One night my temperature soared to 106 degrees F and my heart stopped. It was at this point all pain ceased and my spirit left my body and I was able to gaze down at myself in a state of unworldly sublime happiness. Suddenly I realized I was dead and always a fighter I willed my heart to beat again and slowly with the greatest effort it did. I was drenched in perspiration. By this rare and curious experience I came to know life in spirit truly did seem to continue after physical death.
At Easter 1977 I watched on television for the first time the 1939 film of " Wuthering Heights" and fell most deeply in love with this story. This gave me a sudden strong interest to learn about the author. Very soon from public library books I discovered most of the known factual knowledge about the Brontë sisters who had previously been but vague literary names. I had already seen the fine 1943 film of "Jane Eyre" but I now knew about the original plot details and the author. After reading some of their books -- "Wuthering Heights", "Jane Eyre" and "The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall" -- I concluded that "Wuthering Heights" is hardly a highly romantic story as is the common contention (invariably influenced by films which distort the plot for commercial reasons) but in truth is surprisingly obscurely worded, especially in the early stages, and accordingly sometimes hard going though most cleverly perceptive and fluently written; and the actual tale is one of constant unreasonable vengeance and cruelty realized by convenient providence and sustained by a most profound enduring spiritual bond.
Though there is a letter from her publishers which suggests she was going to write another novel I do no think Emily possessed the desire or ability to do such a thing and is one reason death presented a release for her. She must have known by this time that if she lived on it would be unlikely she could ever support herself. She was too private and unusual as a person to create saleable stories for the common public she wanted nothing to do with. She lived completely in her imagination and its created fantasy worlds and her solace against the restrictive unsuited material world was the freedom of the lonely inspirational moors, secret expression in poetry and giving love by befriending simple animals. Indeed while Charlotte Brontë and Anne Brontë were primarily writers of satisfying novels Emily Brontë was an unique and brilliant poet and original thinker. I love her poetry and I love her. If we could have known one another I am perfectly sure we would have become close friends for our unusual characters and important life's circumstances are most extraordinary similar. When someone unfortunately becomes famous (or are unusual) they accursedly attract a great amount of lies and insincerity as well as a world of insensitive commercialism, indoctrinated lowly visitors and cranks but my feelings are completely true. I am sure too I would have been good friends with all three respectable and gifted sisters. Charlotte was astute, ambitious and diplomatic and in awe of Emily but rather condescending towards Anne. However intensely shy and remote Emily was able to absorb a large store of local affairs from her fond and probably maternal relationship with Tabitha Aykroyd, the primary housekeeper, during her hours contentedly spent in the kitchen away from everyone else and is very evident in "Wuthering Heights". She was always closest to endearingly straightforward Anne who was the most orthodox in her religious beliefs and modestly aspired to being a social reformer. Emily Brontë will always remain my favourite poet and I hope to meet her in spirit.
After surviving death nearly three years before on June 28, 1979 severe total depression abruptly set in caused by the delayed after effects of this illness. It took a long time for me to recover during which my beloved cat, Midnight, suddenly died and my favourite aunt, Phyllis, who lived in the next house also died. She had long eaten an unhealthy diet and been overweight and thereby succumbed to arthritis of both hips which after two operations and too many needless medications had developed into senility. Her only son at this time persuaded her to take in a fairly wealthy elderly aunt whom she loathed -- her aunt Dolly had been left all the estate from the Wood family business as funeral directors. However, his mother died after a short time and instead of arranging for her to be admitted into a care home for the elderly he uncharacteristically took her in himself. Soon afterwards she changed her Will which left everything to him. She then was placed into public care where she died.
After my eventual recovery I decided with my mother to move away since all our decent relatives and immediate neighbours had died and our finances were dwindling from rising bills. The house was sold and on May 25, 1988 we moved to Macduff, northern Scotland, by overnight train. We bought a two hundred year old croft high above the North Sea. After seven years of beautiful summers with almost constant daylight and the awe-inspiring starry winters with the spectacle of the aurora borealis in November, because of the lack of people willing to pay for stabling their horses on our land, a precarious and corrosive water supply and constant gales and on one occasion a hurricane which exploded the large kitchen window and caused us to install special reinforced glass in all windows, we moved to a rented cottage near the small village of Gartly in Aberdeenshire. Though the view was sublime the insufficiently deep garden well was always a problem so we moved again into the village of Gartly. The pretty nineteenth century railway cottage and lovely terraced garden we rented was soon required by the owner for holiday purposes so we moved to the beautiful floral town of Forres, briefly at a house in a lowly suburb and then a flat on the rural outskirts. After just over a year the owner of the flat wanted to sell it so we moved back to Gartly.
By this time the fairly high rents for furnished accommodation were diminishing our savings so I decided to buy a motorhome and travel around which my mother especially liked. We explored the northeast and southeast of Scotland from Inverness to Edinburgh and the borders. My mother's favourite places were Cruden Bay or Port Erroll and Lower Largo but my own preference was Slains Castle which I visited about eight times. We also travelled around northern Cumbria in England staying at Longtown. After a year I decided to sell the motorhome and return to Bristol to be in our hometown and close to the family grave where we both wanted to be buried. We arrived on November 17, 2004 and temporarily stayed with my only surviving and ill-natured uncle until a home could be found.
On March 7, 2005 my mother and I moved into a rented flat in Henbury, Bristol which was close to all services and several parks which I walked in daily -- often in the early morning. These latter places were almost always deserted since people generally no longer had picnics or strolled in them and children were not allowed to play because of pretended dangers though they were exposed to the real menace of sleazy stepfathers and immoral television programmes and the only nuisance was from dog owners who used them as toilets, so I could think in peace. I spent a lot of time trying to make an income and because employers were extremely spoilt for choice as there was always a queue after the most lowly work and they only ultimately favoured fellow low class types I had absolutely no chance of procurring work, so I pursued self employment and occupied myself writing. The governments that came and went were mainly interested in making money for themselves and allowed millions of lowly immigrants to live in Britain and encouraged wives to work thus making a situation with innumerable people seeking few jobs and did nothing about the dire necessity for every true Britain to find employment. At this time I took two IQ tests which gave a result of 150 and is genius level.
The only social aspect which held any interest for me were pen friends. My first had been German and given to me by my school as an aid to learning the German lamguage when I was 14. During the remainder of my life I had a succession of pen friends from many countries. All were female and several had been platonic romantic friendships. Though when I was young I sometimes had a fancy to marry and then later for a daughter, in reality I obtained most of my enjoyment from observing other people's families. Indeed towards the end of my life I became perfectly satisfied being single. Few relationships are worth much as almost all other people at any age are selfish and changeable and not what they seem. Some people are not meant to marry and I was one. Any girls who held a special place in my heart lived before my own time. Meanwhile, I cared for my elderly and increasingly frail mother and undertook all the domestic chores though I often only did what was essential. Then after seven fairly contented years at Henbury the very worst catastrophe occurred when my beloved mother, whom I was extremely close to, died suddenly from a severe stroke.
My mother's death was primarily from old age at 97 years and 7 months but doctors contributed towards her not living a little longer. They did not emphasise the fatal danger of salt in the diet for hypertension but merely made suggestions about restricting it and did not specifically state that 0.5 g of salt a day is all that is necessary for health whereas every packaged food has the lie of 6 g as a daily guideline. This is how she came to suffer a severe stroke. I gave her a diet very low in cholesterol and low in salt but it was not low enough. And when she was rushed to hospital by ambulance the specialist doctors just allowed her to die because of her advanced aged instead of giving her a small chance of survival by using a thrombolytic drug to dissolve the clot. All she was given was aspirin. I made several complaints about this when later I had done some research. Since the hospital really did not care and the staff were only concerned with careers and money I contacted my MP and she agreed with me and kindly took my complaint forward.
The days and weeks that followed were profoundly upsetting for me since my mother and I were extremely close. I lost my only remaining interest in life. My faraway pen friends gave me much touching kindness and I appreciated this enormously but my greatest solace and comfort was from the book "Ena Twigg: Medium" by Ena Twigg and Ruth Brod which I had read before when I was young. It became my Bible. It is a truly amazing and inspirational book. For the first time in my life I also drank alcohol regularly as some relief from grief and my circumstances. As with food I prefer drinks on their own. I detest the silly modern mania for mixing as many things as possible. I like simple foods and drinks served neat. Scotch whisky and soda or gin and tonic would be drunk separately with the mixer first and chilled and the spirit last at room temperature. In this way one tastes the food and drink properly.
During this time I would read the Bronte sisters' novels and found much comfort in the poetry of Emily Bronte which I would read after dinner before going to bed. I had wanted to be a teacher and writer since early adulthood and Emily had been the same but died without any success at either. And though she lived at a much better time for good literature when ideas were fresh I would think again and again how many people really cared about anything she had written in spite of her eventual fame promoted by Charlotte and much later films. I was in precisely the same situation as her except she had been able to write in the way she wanted whereas my age was no more fertile for my ideas as they would have been for her.
Death is not feared by the truly good and the brave and I have never feared death all my life. I have always been highly moral with a heart of a child but the world changed around me. I love beauty, truth and innocence and going on long walks to think profoundly. I was baptized an Anglican Christian and from my early twenties was also interested in Spiritualism and towards the end of my life became a private Spiritualist.
"Victoria" is a poem about an extremely kind friend whom I never met and resides in Saint Petersburg, Russia. "My Destiny" is a poem about the course of my life. "Mother" is a poem about my beloved mother. "The Flowers Of Eternity" is a poem about the meaning of life.
"Victoria"
Ah! she was to me a path to be
So distant ne'er to walk,
And along this path visions free
To wander, wandered thought.
So much was new, so much was mine,
Sad clouds e'er soared away,
Noon star on a smile benign
For hopeful, hopeless day.
Her purer heart, the soul in mine,
Her clever labours charmed,
Love's truest from thoughts so kind
Gave joy, joyful sweet balm.
Time's but change, 'tis all life's being,
Light creates dark shadows,
Her gathering soul may oft' cling
In silence, silent woes
.By Timothy John Purnell. June 12, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"My Destiny"
To be sure, I am my own world:
Whilst society has all,
In all I remain one allured
Alone to love's visions pure.
Fellow students could know me still
Though they'd be strangers to me,
Success has kissed their steps until
World tide drowned their entity!
Nought am I, never to prosper,
Never to be as others
For others: useful trade monger
Sustaining pride of mothers.
I walk the silence of my heart
Among untrue beings' noise,
Beauty, free and ever apart
I take to eternal joys.
By Timothy John Purnell. June 28, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Mother"
Day dreaming I could not but rudely awake in woe,
And even my every other thought dared be so;
Untroubled, reason and chance remembrance feel just needs,
But my broken soul 's heart rests under grass and weeds.
All awhile my lonely thoughts and lonelier spirit
Seek and sense your soul's true fate in the infinite:
Revelations -- honesty can but trust its own source --
Once I entered your dimension with youth's remorse.
Life by living must gain from nought to obscurity
And thus gained affects still another entity:
Unnoticed, humble honest steps once trod meekly by
Making the touched ground sacred to my awestruck eye.
Stars twinkle on and all is mute in the universe,
All that was you is now me alone and some earth;
This Side, the great expanses of divine mystery --
Yet common life -- cares not its best has gone save me.
By Timothy John Purnell. July 18, 2013
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"The Flowers Of Eternity"
Lives are but whispers in the twinkling darkness,
They come from yonder nowhere and go the same,
A voice cries alone scornful of worldliness;
A pure child sweetly sighs its last freed of blame.
All joys are for new dreams of another time,
But for a sweet moment when sadness can hide
A charmed miracle seems to touch one's own time,
And charged bygone airs are one with this side.
Potential world captive of balanced changes,
Our minds, our senses, blindly sustain conceit,
As mute secrets with no end slip like pages
Unseen, when beguiled forces of this life meet.
All that is common is allured to its kind
As Beauty trodden is chosen by the rare,
The flowers of eternity weep and pine,
Sorrows whisper: "soon, be freed spirits of care!"
By Timothy John Purnell. August 17, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Individualism"
Born are a thousand minds, but how few can find a grave:
So easily every thought entered from another,
So changed, warped and united their low dependence gave,
Corrupting but bright memory with all it smothers.
Then ponder history's tales saved from mindless fodder,
Saved from pawns to perform the infected leader's' schemes;
Still worse, supporting evils of world war to model,
And seduce children that quantity is what it seems.
When diverse birds in every far tree sing the same song
Is it not perverse and unnatural? Why is flight
With strange species coerced though in instinct ne'er belonged?
And freedom is but a mute call for lone bird of right.
War strikes! pliable society listens to men:
Their enacted powers capture the brave and fearful;
But the wars within peace become beguiled by women:
Deft crusades by the few whose battles too are vengeful!
Ah! enlightenment in pretty far years: divine path
When noble quality ruled its own with care its breath;
"'Twas never so," scorned but a lowly few in their wrath
And upended all above so no-one need confess.
'Tis true, reformers fair create diverse ills for good,
Their foolish ways ennoble them from visions too stark;
Nature ne'er blends its hostile forces for common good
But destroys the uncommon bloom for the weeds to mock!
By Timothy John Purnell. September 26, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Life"
Life ne'er dares ask life to appear
Nature needs a bold plan;
With its unending fated zeal
Comes unending fixed sham.
Changes, oft' unnoticed, fleet by,
Sap and Hope sustain all;
Fancies and youth stir freedom's lie
While plodding to Fate's goal.
Looking back, looking back, what days
Comfort regretful tears,
But though we long for other ways
They would all bring us here!
By Timothy John Purnell. October 26, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
"Grief's Truth"
Tears, such uncontrollable tears gush free!
Sadness: overwhelming hope's void takes me;
Lone soul wherever and forever,
Gladly, my lamenting breath I'd sever.
Silence within gives thoughts a listener,
Methinks, do spirits long for their mourner?
They have returned to a tranquil pre-birth
Where sweet hearts await in enlightened mirth!
By Timothy John Purnell. October 29, 2013.
© 2013 Timothy John Purnell
My father, Gilbert George William Purnell, my mother, Frances Alice Purnell and myself, Timothy John Purnell, as a baby near our home at 221A Mina Road, St. Werberghs, Bristol in 1953.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 6, at a fairground.
Photo taken in 1958.
Timothy John Purnell on holiday at Granville, France. As a young child I adored making things from wet sand and could be left alone for hours in a blissful world all my own.
Photo taken in June, 1963.
Alison Gooding aged 8 years. My first girlfriend. As children we were good friends and her mother thought that when we grew up we might marry.
Photo taken by me in 1958 on the front lawn of our home at 14 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol. (She lived at 20 Charlton Road.)
Embleton Primary School, Bristol, England, Class 1962. Timothy John Purnell is in the back row second from the left. The teacher, Robert Horton, tragically died shortly afterwards from cancer, aged 42.
Photo taken: Summer 1962.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 11, dressed in football attire standing on the driveway of my aunt's home at 16 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol in the summer of 1963.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 13, trying to compose classical music sketches.
Photo taken on holiday at Tenby, Wales in July, 1965.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 17, standing in an abandoned RAF station whilst on holiday near St. Agnes, Cornwall in July, 1969.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 19. Summer 1971. Detail.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 19. Summer 1971.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 24, standing on the shore of Derwentwater, Keswick, Cumbria in May, 1976.
Timothy John Purnell writing in their holiday home at Keswick, Cumbria, May, 1976.
Timothy John Purnell, aged 53, at home in Henbury, Bristol in 2005.
14 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol where I grew up. Photo taken about May 1973.
14 Charlton Road, Westbury-on-Trym, England showing the rear garden. I laid out most of this garden and built an observatory on top of the brick built air raid shelter just behind where the camera is positioned in 1966 spending many bitterly cold nights stargazing in winters.
The tall horse chestnut tree appearing in blossom above the house was about 60 feet in height and dated from 1848. I read "Little Women" under it and had a special affinity for the tree as it dated from the real story. Photo taken about May 1973.
Pine Tree Cottage, Gartly, Huntly, Aberdeenshire. Our second home in Scotland. Photo taken about March 1996.
A Tale Of My Imagination
