There’s something about spring, a time of regeneration. The daffodils have come and gone in the pot outside and one bit of my garden now has some blue flowers in it – a good deep blue colour for a flower, but an ugly design, in my mind. (I am one of the least green fingered you will come across. It only surprises me that the blue floral tributes to spring are not weeds.) Fluffy white lambs are out gambolling in the fields. And, not so long after the clocks went forward, we seem to have so many more hours of light in our days. Finally, as I write this, in Wales, I’m also pleased to observe that those days have had quite a bit of sunshine. All of this makes me feel a lot better after the long dark winter, even if I can’t name that blue flower and especially as I seem to have mislaid my umbrella, yet again!
We have only a short-term lease on this earth. To help me reconcile myself to the facts of death, I like to remember that all moves on and the dying make way and space for the younger living, who deserve the same chance as those who had gone before. (If not a better one, if only we can learn to protect our heritage as opposed to destroy it, with our current wants, needs and ways of living.) If you’re going to die, there’s not much choice in the matter about the timing, but spring is a good time to do it. Alas, this spring, as we see the daffs and the lambs, it’s also time to say a final goodbye to Dame Muriel Spark who died on Thursday 13 April and was buried yesterday.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I flicked the channels on the TV and found myself watching a film of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. I stuck with it for a few minutes, hoping it was the one I remembered from my teenage years, the one with John Castle as Teddy Lloyd and Geraldine McEwan as Miss Brodie. It turned out that it wasn’t; it was the one with Robert Stephens and Maggie Smith in the title roles. My possible disappointment disappeared very quickly and I kept watching, enjoying every minute of the remainder of the film. Having seen the more current version as a teenager and never seeing the film again, nor reading the book, I was enthralled and reminded of what had so intrigued me when I saw that film in my formative years and why it had laid a brand on my memory.
The fictional Brodie, (albeit based on a teacher Spark had experienced), was a woman who used her brain to see the world and investigate it. She formed strong opinions and followed them. She also flirted with the dangerous and the wanton in the name of “feminism”. Alas, Brodie was a woman on a train with a specific destination and not on a motorway with much potential for detour down a slip road – her beliefs and the blinkers that she had around them, proved to be her demise. As a teenager, I was able to learn that it was good to have views and beliefs, and to pursue them with a whole heart, but to remember that it was also good to keep an open mind and listen to others and their views. We need as many available facts as possible to make a decision, and, as time moves on, more facts may come to light and change our views.
Spark wrote “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in six weeks according to The Observer, in 1961, and it was published in 1962, the year I was born. The film showed me lives, and one life in particular, that were different to my own and my origins. I was born into a risk-averse family. Brodie never saw any risks, she just pursued life with her beliefs and ideas, come what may.
I’ll never be a Brodie, even if there was a time when I thought I wanted to be. But I will always appreciate the late Dame Muriel Spark for producing a great story that opened my eyes to the adult world. Rest in peace, Dame Muriel; you have left a legacy, even to the small ones like me, for which I thank you. There's a gambolling lamb out there, about to highlight, yet again, what you taught us. Be free to be fresh in this world and pursue anything and be energised , but always stop to listen. That's the legacy, I, as a recipient of Spark's "Brodie" story will always remember.
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