Stations The Mind cupboard

 Dear Reader,

Gauloises cigarettes were launched by SEITA in 1910.   Traditional Gauloises were short, wide, unfiltered and made with dark tobacco from Syria and Turkey, which produced a strong and distinctive aroma.   The brand is most famous for its cigarettes' strength, especially its original unfiltered version.

Between the World Wars the smoking of Gauloises in France was considered patriotic and an affiliation with French "heartland" values.  The brand was associated with the cigarette-smoking French infantrymen in the trenches and the resistance fighters during the Vichy Regime.  Their slogan was "Liberte toujours", Freedom Forever.  

Gauloises Disque Bleu launched in 1954 was linked to high-status and inspirational figures representing the worlds of art, viz. Pablo Picasso, and the intellectual elite, Jean Paul Satre, Albert Camus and Jean Baudrillaro.  In popular music the British icon John Lennon smoked Gauloises.

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I absolutely loved smoking Gauloises Disque Blue cigarettes in the 1950's.  I thought I looked so cool and sophisticated, and I enjoyed the glamour of it all. Sitting in a restaurant drawing in the smoke was, I thought, bliss.   I was seventeen so knew nothing of what tobacco was going to do to my lungs and smoked happily until I was forty.  Eventually of course I got lung cancer.  I am now paying the price with breathlessness and chest pains.  

 

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From William Cowper  June 13th  1783 in Buckinghamshire

'The fogs......still continue, though till yesterday the earth was as dry as intense heat could make it.  the sun continues to rise and set without his rays, and hardly shines at noon.   At eleven last night the moon was a dull red; she was nearly at her highest elevation, and had the colour of heated brick...Dead ducks cannot travel this weather, they say it is too hot for them, and they shall shrink.' 

From Horace Walpole  June 14th  1791 in Middlesex

'It froze hard last night:   I went out for a moment to kook at my haymakers, and was starved.   The contents of an English June are hay and ice, orange-flowers and rheumatism.   I am now cowering over the fire.'

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Stations

 

are full of people,

people angry, people joyful

people sad, people anxious,

people disappointed,

people running,

people excited,

old people,

young people,

middle aged people

the odd dog

 

Stations are full

of smoke

the smell of frying onions

gauloises cigarettes

pigeons

lost luggage

people hurrying to and fro

the crashing of doors

noise and emotion

 

Stations

are the beginning

or the end

 

the alpha

the omega

 

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The Mind Cupboard

 

 

 

My mind cupboard overflows

with unwanted debris.

It needs a spring clean.

 

I will brush away the cobwebs

of cheerless thoughts.

Scrub out the stains of childhood.

 

I will replace the brass hooks

corroded with salt tears,

empty all the screams

hoarded through the years.

 

I will replace the accumulated ashes

from the worn shelf-paper,

with virgin tissue.

 

I will chase and catch the wasps,

relieve them of their stings.

I will refill this cupboard

with love, and learnt, brighter things.

 

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With very best wishes, Patricia