Life in Chiaroscuro - Day 52

Day 52 (Sunday 21st January 2018)

52 - the age at which Harry Houdini died - by this time he had amazed and baffled people
in much of Europe, Russia and the U.S.A. On 21st January 1903 he escaped Halvemaansteeg
police station in Amsterdam. 1903 was the year when Houdini really became an icon - he was
already known for being good at escaping handcuffs but he now began to make a name
for breaking out of jails. he also managed to break into a safe for a Moscow locksmith
(who had been trying to do so for 14 years) revealing a treasure trove of jewels and
earning Houdini $750 for 9 hours work (a significant sum at the time).

Today is my husband's birthday and we are going out for a family lunch. His mother is coming to celebrate with us. She is finding life without her husband very hard. Death is, in so many ways, so painful for those of us left behind.

The post you read today is by Jacqueline Davies. It is open, honest and at times a painful read (as well as being the second post in a row with a wonderful poem  written by the contributor). Jacqueline says much about herself below, so I will only say a few words... Some of you may remember Jacqueline's Call To Arms in the final post of last year's series. At the time of writing last year she was the Master of the Guild of Human Resource Professionals (@GuildHRprofs) and the first openly lesbian Master of any City of London Guild. She was also the HR Director for the FCA (the regulatory body for much of the Financial Services industry) - a huge and demanding role. In her post she made a statement of the role of HR that has resonated with me this year, we need to be:

"standard bearers for the best of what it means to be human. To hold ourselves and others to account and to be provocative when we see integrity or conduct threatened."

I genuinely believe that HR as a profession is in the best position I have ever known it to be in. Increasingly leaders, colleagues, clients and the communities in which we work are becoming aware of the importance of culture and conduct. That does not mean we should be complacent or smug - someone in HR clearly turned a blind eye to inappropriate behaviour in Miramax when Harvey Weinstein was at his most predatory. We need HR to be the moral compass (it is no coincidence that a compass is the symbol of the HR Guild here in the UK) and to ask the difficult questions. Since leaving the FCA Jacqueline has teamed up with Tania in their own business consultancy and I think you can tell from its name that she will not be shrinking from facing things head-on - Audacity Associates. In addition, she is an advisor to the Henley Business School, a Governor of Middlesex University and Chair of the National Skills Academy for Financial Services. You can connect with her on social media - her Twitter handle is @JacquelineLD.

The beautiful Chiaroscuro paintings and photographs used to illustrate this piece have all been selected by Jacqueline.

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The Italian’s use the term Chiaroscuro to describe scenes painted in ‘light-dark’, how tonal contrasts are created to provide shape, show character and tell stories.

Life in Chiaroscuro

Seven years ago my mother died. More precisely, I gave my consent for her life support to be switched off, then she died. This decision has weighed heavily with me, replaying while I wait for sleep and returning at dawn before I can crowd it out with plans for the day. This isn’t a post about grief, it’s a post about how we can re-mix the colours on our palette to make sense of living with both darkness and dawn. How I’ve learned that a ‘Chiaroscuro filter’ can distinguish the things that matter from the beautiful, daily distractions that fill our life’s canvas.

You see I lost my Mum some thirty years earlier. She disappeared inside a black cloak of depression. Up-to this point, she loved us unconditionally and taught us how to love back. As we progressed though high school, quite suddenly everything changed. She was unable to go out, unable to get up and when she did was so heavily medicated that when we looked into her eyes we couldn’t find her. This would mean returning from school never knowing if she would be in the kitchen or in bed or if the paracetamol packets would be empty. My father, a steelworker worked around the clock. My younger sister and I found coping strategies. I had wanted to be a painter, but being the oldest, I took charge and I followed my father’s lead; I dropped Art, working relentlessly until I could flee to university. I didn’t stop; travelling like a train through a tunnel, on and on while decades flashed by through the half-light.

The Young Singer by Georges de La Tour

Then, just before I turned 40, the same age Mum was when she became ill, I sat in the hospital, holding her hand and let her go. Just a year before, I had become a Mum and the wonder of holding a new life while letting another go, meant that even the most brilliant moments were outlined by loss.

I took a year out from paid work but I didn’t stop. We moved house, I also took on the Chair of a national charity and wrote a book. I then returned to work and ploughed on. Alongside this, becoming ‘THE BEST MUM I CAN POSSIBLY BE’ became my chief preoccupation. As any new parent will tell you, our radiant daughter brought a new type of light into our lives. It was initially, searing, so bright, I had to blink through the first year learning to adjust to the profound joy and then to the greying fear that arrived. Fear of loss, fear of repeated patterns, fear of not knowing what to do next. Learning how to live with this felt like picking glass splinters from my heart.

Madonna and Child with St Anne by Caravaggio (c1605-6)

Some seven years later, I sat still in a hospital bed watching the sun rise and fall through an oxygen mask. Pneumonia had pressed the pause button on my life. A close friend, shared a conversation with her husband that stopped me in my tracks; ‘your on the top of our list to go first because you’re living faster than anyone else’. In the year that has followed this I’ve stopped permanent work and started painting again. I’m learning to slow down, middle age is helping. I’m learning to look, to see darkness and dawn as an artist might. Noticing the line and shadow in the everyday and being able to distinguish what really matters and to teach this art to my daughter.

Photograph of an apple by Jimmy Wen

I wrote this poem to make sense of things.

Three Daughters

After you left us I waited,

Holding your hand until the silence

Holding my breath until

       the sun came up again and I could escape outside

Gulping the new morning air

And watching the circling gulls

       shrieking their songs of loss and longing, high above the hospital car park

I mostly remember your hands

How they put plasters on my grazes

Turned pages at bedtime

       stirred pots, brimming with love

These are my hands now

Life hardened palms

Stretching out to reach my daughter

       to teach her how to hold time

       and when to watch the sky.

Detail from "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" by Caravaggio (c1586)

The Mother Song, written and performed by Andrea Menard

Defining moments

Day 12 (Monday 12th December 2016)

12 literary awards and numerous accolades, including a commendation

in relation to the Nobel Prize for Literature, are a reflection of the talents of

William Trevor, the Irish writer, playwright and short story specialist

(he is widely considered to be the finest short story writer in the English

language for the past half century). He died on 20th November 2016.

We have reached the start of a new week and I am sure you will agree with me that the blogs so far have been stunning; today's, by Tony Jackson, is no exception. It is a very personal reflection on a defining moment, not just for him in 2016 but in his life as a whole. Tony is the founder and managing director of Chelsham Consulting Limited, a firm that specialises in executive, leadership and transition coaching, facilitation and people consulting. Tony is active on social media (his business Twitter handle is @ChelshamConsult or you can contact him direct via @JacksonT0ny) - he writes an excellent coaching blog, "Silos, boundary-spanners & hot spots" and publishes posts on LinkedIn. Tony is both emotionally and intellectually intelligent and is swift to get to the heart of an issue. Resilient, perspicacious and empathetic - he is a great person to bounce ideas off or to discuss an issue with, to determine a solution.

As an added treat to his post, the beautiful pictures (excluding the one of David Bowie and the final one of the Fylde coast) are all photographs taken by Tony himself.

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Defining moments


There are some moments which define you.

If ever there was a bad year personally it was 2015.  And if ever there was a bad year for the world it has been 2016 – although  remarkably it turned into a much more positive one on the personal front.

(As an aside: I genuinely felt David Bowie’s death in January as if it was that of a beloved & close family member – and somehow it seems that since that awful day it has just been one thing after another on this blue planet of ours. As if David was the one who held things together for us.)

I had a complex, difficult relationship with my father. And then he went and died in October 2015 – leaving me without parents. My dear Mum died way back in 1990. His death incited so many memories of her and so many mixed emotions. 

Genuinely complicated.

My hollow came a year later. A surreal day.

My brother was much closer to him than I ever was – and given their geographical proximity (I escaped to London at the first opportunity as a young man) had managed the estate and the house for many months. My step-mother – his second wife - had moved out and into a home near her daughter as she gradually slid into the parallel world of vascular dementia. 

So it had been a trying year as we navigated new territories in a variety of ways. And none of us had ventured anywhere near my father’s wardrobes & cupboards to do the necessary clearing. Quite a hard task.

And the time had come. I’d decided that I could probably choose to be more dispassionate about matters. Nevertheless I needed to brace myself so I did, then sped up the motorways to the Fylde, popped into the village shop to buy some bin-liners and in I went.

For reasons I will not go into, it is not a place filled with exclusively happy memories. And the village is a place about which I have blogged before so let’s not go there either.

I kid you not…the lock collapsed as I opened the front door.  As if the house was saying either do not enter or ‘I have you again – you may not leave’.

I started in the loft. Pausing on the old 78s and 45s which I remembered from my early childhood. Finding…well…finding little really.

And then in the bathroom cabinet more than one unopened Christmas aftershave which I had given him many years before. Oh so he didn’t like it after all.

And then those wardrobes. With each new door a memory was provoked. Still some things which belonged to my mother. Clothes of his which hadn’t been worn for decades. Multiple packs of new shirts (his recent habit had been hilariously over-ordering on the internet). Medical paraphernalia. Now I’m feeling wistful. The overnight bag he’d taken with him on that final admission into hospital. Still packed. Now I’m feeling hollow.

Hollow with the realisation  that something profound has happened.

A generational shift.

There’s no longer anyone ahead of me.

I am the responsible one. 

Fylde coast

Lest we forget

Day 6 (Tuesday 6th December 2016)

6 number one hits - Bon Jovi proved their enduring ability to 

entertain when their latest album "This House Is Not For Sale"

(the Group's 13th studio album, released November 4th 2016) reached

top spot on the Billboard 200. The band were formed in 1983 and play 

Hard, Pop and Arena Rock and Glam Metal.

Today's piece is a sober read from Alan Gilmour, which touches on one of humanity's hollows. It puts many things in perspective and it certainly made me think. Alan's writing does that. Alan has a day job as Head of Acquisition and Retention for the Police Mutual, but since he last contributed to the Advent Series he has taken up a not-for-profit Non-executive Directorship with BCRS Business Loans - an organisation that provides money for SMEs who struggle to access funds through traditional banking channels. 

Alan is a delightful and broad thinker - he studied Chinese History at Glasgow, long before China had risen to its position of global prominence and has an MBA from Aston. I am one of many who enjoy Alan's company, debate and engaging/thought-provoking opinions. You can follow Alan on Twitter (his handle is @alan_gilmour) or read his (sporadic) personal blogging.

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Lest we forget  

So what moved me in 2016?

An interesting question for a dour Scot. As a race we are not easily moved. Life is easier that way.

But this year while idly gazing at a board which listed the Head Boys at a local school, I noticed something that achieved this rare feat.

For on the list was one K.R. Owen, Head Boy in 1913.

I know nothing of this individual or his family or his circumstances.

Maybe I should.

But what caught my eye was the next board. A list of all those who gave their lives in the Great War.

And there was the name, K.R.Owen, again. Killed in action in 1916.

In the space of 3 years this boy had grown into a man and become a memory.

Tragic.

A member of the Army Chaplains' Department (AChD) tending
a soldier's grave during the Battle of the Somme, July 1916. © IWM 

Every day I, like many others in business, spend time poring over numbers and spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks with statistics, charts and graphs.

Every day we obsess about sales, income, costs, FTEs, profit, capital, assets, liabilities, and many more numbers. These are the heartbeat of business.

School boys being taught about Zeppelins 1916

But as we say goodbye to 2016, a year that remembered that the 100^th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, here are the numbers that really matter.

Numbers that should give us a real sense of perspective.

141 days. 420,000 British casualties. 127,000 British dead, 19,000 on day one alone.

Plus many more hundreds of thousands German, French and British Commonwealth casualties.

And if we include the families, millions of people seriously impacted by the events of those 141 days on the Somme.

Like a ripple across a pond.

Numbers like these make you think. They bring it all home.

And should make us think when we obsess about the numbers that govern our daily business life.

For our numbers are not a matter of life and death.

They do not amount to a hill of beans.

We may think they are important but when stacked up against the numbers of 1916 and the lives of the many, many K.R. Owens, are they really?

For they come to nought when stacked up against the lives lost, lives ruined, by the events of 1916.

It is all too easy for the anonymised count of the slaughter to obliterate the human cost for war. Any war.

It did for me as a historian. I deal in facts and figures and dates. Not people.


Until I saw the name of K R Owen. Twice.

The numbers that I deal in are unlikely be remembered by the end of January 2017, never mind recorded and remembered and commemorated 100 years hence.

Unlike K. R. Owen and his ilk.

Who went from boy to man to a memory on a board in 3 years.

He may not even have been involved in the Somme.

But that doesn’t matter. That is not the point.

It was potential lost. Brilliance snuffed out. A tragic loss.

And that is my abiding memory of 2016.

A memory that has humbled me.

The lesson I have learnt.

Christmas 1916 on the Somme Front, painting W.B. Wollen

Our numbers may be good. They may be bad. Even indifferent.

They might please or disappoint our bosses.

But we still get to go home every night, limbs and minds intact.

Unlike K.R Owen.

Ensuring that I go into 2017 with a more acute sense of what matters and what doesn’t. More acute than ever before.

Thanks to K.R. Owen and the memories from the Somme.

Lest we forget.