The Hour of Our Death

When I "went public" with my cancer diagnosis in October 2006 on this blog; and when I wrote two "op-ed" pieces on cancer and blogging and the consumerism of the pink ribbon campaigns ("Shop for the Cure" -- urrghh) for the Sunday Age, I was unprepared for the correspondence that ensued.

My blog was only a few months old and was only just starting to expand beyond its intended readership, when I suddenly had to start thinking of myself as a sick person, when I became a somewhat different person from the woman who had begun the blog. Moreover, I don't think I fully understood the nature of blogging; or rather, the engagement with readers that would follow.

So in addition to comments on the blog, I received many letters, emails and phone messages, because of course I have never been a pseudonymous blogger, and am easy to find. Most people who made contact were very sympathetic. Some were less so, especially after my criticisms of the schmaltzy, sentimental marketing of unhealthy or infantilising products to women in the name of "breast cancer awareness".

Most were simply heartfelt messages, from people who were similarly struggling with cancer, or who had nursed partners who had died, or were living in fear of the disease with mothers or sisters who had been ill. I am by nature, I think, a person who finds it very easy to empathise with others, and so I found these stories very moving. But I also found that being ill had shaken me up completely, so that I had very little emotional strength, many days, to hold myself together.

Going back to work last year, re-appearing in public, was immensely difficult. There was only one day when I got as far as the car-park, sat there for ten minutes then drove home again, but there were many other days when I felt the same way.

So while I might have wanted to help others, I felt pretty much unable to do so.

One of the things about sickness is that one develops a very sensitive antenna to one's disease. You see it everywhere. And when that disease is a very common and highly publicised one, like breast cancer, the problem is magnified. So the death of people like Jane McGrath and Belinda Emmett strikes hard. And you know pretty clearly that other people with cancer will be feeling the same shudder, asking the same question of how much time we'll have left, and what will be the nature, and the hour of our death. And yes, even people like me, in (relatively) excellent health.

But today I heard of the death, earlier this month, of Graham, from another faculty at Melbourne. He had written to me after one of the pieces I wrote in The Age, and we exchanged a few emails. Graham was suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumour; and seemed to be doing ok, until he collapsed with another inoperable one. He wrote to me in April:

After a couple of days they moved me down to a general ward, as the risk of another seizure diminished, but I'll probably not be allowed to drive for the rest of my life. I'm currently having daily radiation therapy to my brain to try and slow these down a bit, but it looks like I have only months to go. This is upsetting, obviously, but I'm ok - I'm cherishing every day with my family, as much as they'll let me, you know how it is! ;-) I'm still enjoying a bit of work, you know, replanning the entire university's strategy, solving all the world's environmental problems, that sort of thing! ;-)

I'm going to fight this hard - I believe in benefits of faith, and have it by the truckload. Sometimes I get weak, and falter, but most of the time I'm strong. You know, its about being there for the kids, being strong for the kids, so they remember me that way. I don't want to falter too much in front of them - they need to learn something from this about life, but sometimes its inevitable to break down and look weak.

I never met this man, but his death reminds me that in addition to the high profile deaths around us, there are hundreds of people like Graham who face death with quiet dignity and courage, still teaching, even in their dying. I couldn't do anything for Graham. I could have made an effort and gone to visit him, but I didn't. There was an instant ease and camaraderie about our correspondence, an instant recognition, if you like, but there were also huge limits to what I felt I could do, by way of reaching out. Tonight, though, I'm holding his spirit here for a moment.

Saturday Garter prose blogging

Oh well. In line with my theory that blogging is the perfect example of the pleasure principle at work in the life and time-management of a busy academic, it'd be no fun if we kept all the rules all the time.

So yesterday was a day for running round. In the morning, two completely ridiculous examiners' meetings, where we struggle vainly and furiously (in both senses) to make our marks and grades fit the straitjacket of faculty and university requirements about averages, spreads and distributions of grades, etc. while also making sure we protect the postgraduate scholarship chances of our best honours students. Then a dash to the hairdresser where I fell asleep during the head massage. Bliss! And for the second time in my life had my hair ironed...

Then drinks for a colleague who's just been promoted — congratulations, Nikos! — then dinner with friends, then back to pick up Joel from the house of our normal Friday night companions. We'd had a lovely meal, but still sank into their chairs and started wondering when they were going to order pizza.

Anyway, no time yesterday to blog, and today is a prose day. Here's an extract from Virginia Woolf's Orlando. I had forgotten about this moment till I was scanning around the blogs the other day and came across this image:

‘Come!’ she said. She was sitting bolt upright beside the fire. And she held him a foot’s pace from her and looked him up and down. Was she matching her speculations the other night with the truth now visible? Did she find her guesses justified? Eyes, mouth, nose, breast, hips, hands—she ran them over; her lips twitched visibly as she looked; but when she saw his legs she laughed out loud. He was the very image of a noble gentleman. But inwardly? She flashed her yellow hawk’s eyes upon him as if she would pierce his soul. The young man withstood her gaze blushing only a damask rose as became him. Strength, grace, romance, folly, poetry, youth—she read him like a page. Instantly she plucked a ring from her finger (the joint was swollen rather) and as she fitted it to his, named him her Treasurer and Steward; next hung about him chains of office; and bidding him bend his knee, tied round it at the slenderest part the jewelled order of the Garter. Nothing after that was denied him. When she drove in state he rode at her carriage door. She sent him to Scotland on a sad embassy to the unhappy Queen. He was about to sail for the Polish wars when she recalled him. For how could she bear to think of that tender flesh torn and that curly head rolled in the dust? She kept him with her. At the height of her triumph when the guns were booming at the Tower and the air was thick enough with gunpowder to make one sneeze and the huzzas of the people rang beneath the windows, she pulled him down among the cushions where her women had laid her (she was so worn and old) and made him bury his face in that astonishing composition—she had not changed her dress for a month—which smelt for all the world, he thought, recalling his boyish memory, like some old cabinet at home where his mother’s furs were stored. He rose, half suffocated from the embrace. ‘This’, she breathed, ‘is my victory!’—even as a rocket roared up and dyed her cheeks scarlet.

There are a couple of instances where we know the Queen did tie the garter on with her own hands, as a sign of special favour, but it's extremely rare to see this portrayed visually. In fact, I know of only one other illustration of a monarch, whether Edward III or anyone else, tying the Garter on anyone else's knee. The example I have is a book for children, with a drawing of the original moment of Edward tying the Countess's garter on his own knee (The Story of St George's Chapel, 1981). I'd love to know if anyone else has ever seen an illustration of the monarch kneeling.

The other reason this moment from the movie is so cool is because it is so ... queer. Quentin Crisp cross-dresses as Elizabeth to tie the Garter on the knee of Tilda Swinton cross-dressed as Orlando, who will later become female. I'm going to write a section in Chapter Six called "The Queer Garter" and will use this moment as the starting-point for thinking about Dinshaw's queer historicism and what it might mean for the Order's medievalism. I'm not saying I've done any of the thinking about this yet; I'm just saying I've got a juicy bit of text to talk about.

Doing Things in Groups

If you had asked me, say, four years ago, whether I preferred doing things in groups, or on my own, I would have answered resoundingly with a preference for the latter. Exercise, research and singing would have been three obvious categories for me where solitude was the preferable state.

But over the last few years, I have come to see the fun of working and teaching collaboratively. I still prefer to walk or run (in the rare intervals when I have calves and ankles that will sustain such activity) or swim on my own: that kind of exercise is meditative for me. But now that I am getting stronger at tennis, I am starting to enjoy the communality of playing doubles.

These days, I'm working on three big research projects. One, the book on the Order of the Garter, is a solitary project. I've just finished a draft of Chapter Five (yay me!). Another is a co-authored book and related projects on theories of medievalism with Tom. The third is our collaborative project on Australian medievalism: I love this team, and working with Louise, Andrew and John, and also Toby and Anne. I'm also thinking about cooking up another international collaboration on the teaching of medieval studies and medievalism...

Today, too, I took part in three joyous group activities.

First up, the Middle English reading group. We are reading Havelok the Dane, for an hour, every fortnight. It's hysterical and fun, even on days, like today, when I've been too busy to do any preparation. Anyone in Melbourne want to join in? Email me.

Second, we held the first of our methodology workshops for research students. Now that the old Department of English has become part of the new School of Culture and Communication, our students are part of an enormous cohort that straddles "English", Theatre, Creative Writing, Cultural Studies, Publishing, Media and Communication, Art History, Arts Management, Cinema Studies and parts of the old School of Creative Arts. So when we hold School-based "work in progress" days for students, they are talking into a ferociously interdisciplinary context. And while that's tremendously interesting, there was the danger of losing a degree of focus, so we have decided to hold regular methodology workshops for graduate students in English, Creative Writing and Publishing, and today's was the first. It was wonderful to have two terrific presentations from John and Anne, PhD students approaching the first major hurdle — confirmation — of their candidature. Heaps of people turned up: perhaps 25? People concentrating hard, thinking and talking and asking and answering questions, with a tremendous spirit of collegiality and co-operation. Really, an ideal example of supportive and collegial work. Frankly, I was unspeakably proud of our students.

Third, our weekly tennis fixture. I play with a group of women from this newly aggregated school, plus the partner of one of our male colleagues, plus a woman from another school who's just come through the fiery trials of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and is grapping with the rigours of hormone therapy. And sometimes Joel comes along, as he did today. The poor boy is still sick. He nearly made it to school today, but couldn't in the end get up from the breakfast table to get dressed. But he dragged his aching knees and his barking cough onto the court this afternoon and had about a fifteen-minute hit with me and Denise. We all love our tennis. You might look at us and think we are very uneven, and not all that good, often, and mock us for not being able, or not caring enough, to keep score properly, but you could not dispute the pleasure we serve up (!) to each other. Even Joel caught the spirit and was cheerfully talking about going back to school tomorrow (he's missed 7 days, which is a lot for a thirteen-year-old).

So... groups? I'm converted!

But what's missing from this picture? "Exercise, research and singing..." I wonder, could I really find a choir to join???

Mind, Matter, Nature: Paper, Scissors, Rock

On my walk this morning, I came to the spot where I regularly pause, and make a modest obeisance to the goddess, and breathe deeply and in the morning sun visualise any cancer cells being rinsed from my body and passing down the creek. As I approached the spot, I saw there was a little clump of brown mushrooms glistening in the sun.

Oh good! I first thought. Here's a sign that something is working: a kind of energy field I have tapped into, or produced (honestly, I'm not normally one who goes in for this kind of thing, but the radio was full of Jane McGrath and breast cancer and death, so I reckon I'm excused).

But then I thought. Oh no! This clump of mushrooms is almost exactly the same shape as the image of breast cancer cells I had also posted about. Was this an omen of a less positive kind?

But then I thought. Oh good! This means my meditations are working; as the cells have been expelled from my body.

What an elaborate mental game of paper, scissors, rock to play with oneself, reading and re-reading signs from nature in this way.

I also had a dream about Glenn McGrath last night: we were saving some dolphins, or discovering some new ones after another had died. Vague, shifting memory I can't fully recall now. Perhaps also coloured by anxiety about my child, now heading in to the ninth day of a horrible flu.

There's obviously something here about the power of celebrity death to cathect emotion. But I don't have time to process it further: just entering the chaos of the last week before going to England for three and a half weeks.

Our Sisters, Our Selves. R.I.P. Jane McGrath

Can't help but be moved by the death of Jane McGrath this week, after complications from surgery for secondary cancers. If it's easy, sometimes, to mock the WAGs of international football and cricketing stars, here was a woman who faced breast cancer and its ghastly aftermath with courage and grace.

When I was given my passport to the country of illness, it was inevitable to look around me and acknowledge my travelling companions. Over the months of waiting in doctor's rooms, I read more than enough trashy mags, but always poured over stories about Kylie, Belinda, Jane. Of course all these accounts are heavily mediated, but the McGrath story always moved me, because the two of them just seemed so matter-of-fact about it all. And it was fascinating to get a glimpse of the non-cricketing side of Glenn McGrath. Sports gossip says he has a tremendous temper, but there was no sign of it in their dignified accounts of their struggle. Jane McGrath was only 42 when she died, but she and her husband established a foundation which raises money, very practically, for specialist breast care nurses, especially in regional areas.

I shuddered when I first heard the news this afternoon, and when we were watching the tv news tonight, I had to hold in a little sob. She leaves behind a loving husband and two young children. Requiescat in pace.

Friday Garter Poetry Blogging: A Nuptial Ring

I'm willing to bet my entire fortune (heh) that whoever invented blogging did not conceive it would be used to disseminate poems written about the Order of the Garter. And who amongst us would have thought the genre would be so much fun?

Today's poem comes from the reign of James I. It's memorable for its excruciating syntax — "Catcht up the ribbon had a leg imbract/That never capor’d with a step unchast"; its unabashed avowal of the Order's homosocial bonds being like marriage — "A poesye in’t, as in a nuptiall ring"; and for its triumphal protestantism: "God keepe our King and them from Rome’s black pen".


The Originall and Continuance of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, as it was Spoken before the King’s Majestie on Saint George’s Day Last, anno domn. 1616. By W.Fennor.

Edward the Third, that truly potent King,
Whose temples worthily wore England’s Crowne,
This Noble Order, of whose fame I’ll sing,
Invents for Britaine’s trophy of renowne.
Salsburie’s Countesse hath all Ladies grac’t
That loose their garter, yet keepe honour chast.

From honor’d chastitie the Garter fell,
And in a moment rose to Royaltie;
King Edward grac’t this Ladie’s favour well,
Who humbly bends his Kingly Majesty,
Catcht up the ribbon had a leg imbract
That never capor’d with a step unchast.

The Lady dies her cheekes with tell-tale redde,
Which blabs she blushes that her garter’s found,
By him that had advanct it to a head
Which with Imperiall dignity was crown’d;
The Nobles murmur, and the King, by chance
Perceived, spoke, Hony soit qui mal y pense!

Exchanges lawlesse love for lawfull armes,
Buckles on armour, weells [wields] his warlike sword,
Beats his brac’t drums, with trumpets sounds alarms;
Thus like old Hector rode he to the field,
Subdued his foes, and for his deeds in fight,
Of the rich Garter was instal’d a Knight.

Which bred such luster in each noble brest,
As if new Troy had mustred up the sonnes
Of strong-back’t Priam, and amongst the rest,
The bold Blacke Prince to th’ field most fiercely runs,
And with his sword hammer’d in Vulcan’s forge,
Made the French Dennys kneele to English George.

For which he with the Garter was instal’d,
And made a Knight of that most Noble Order;
With many other Nobles that were call’d
Worthy by Fame, that ancient true recorder.
The Garter bred such luster in great hearts,
Each strove for excellence in armes and arts.

Saint Patrick’s Crosse did to the Garter vayle,
Saint Jaques’ Order was with anger pale;
Saint David’s leeke began to droupe i’th’tale [tail] ,
Saint Dennys he sate mourning in a dale;
Saint Andrew lookt with cheereful appetite,
As though to th’Garter he had future right.

But dragon-killing George, that still depends
Upon the Garter since Third Edward’s dayes,
In this age present hath as many friends,
As well deserving high eternall praise;
As many ages ever had before,
Never at one time better, never more.

Hannibal strove for Rome’s triumphant bayes,
Scipio for the Carthaginians’ bough;
But thanklesse Senators did dimme the rayes
Of these two worthies, and would not allow,
Nor wreath, nor branch; they died and left their fame.
Unto the glory of the Garter’s name.

Impartially a Royall King bestowes, it,
Upon some subject worthy of the wearing;
His armes advanct within a church that owes it,
The oath administred in publique hearing,
Which being falsifyed, the Honor’s crost
By heraldry, the Armes and Garter lost.

Say that a man long languishing in love,
Whose heart with hope and feare grows cold and warme;
Admit some pitty should his sweethearte move,
To knit a favour on his feeble arme;
All parts would joyne to make that one joint strong,
To oppose any that his love should wrong.

The Garter is the favour of a King,
Clasping the leg on which man’s best part stands;
A poesye in’t, as in a nuptiall ring,
Binding the heart to their liege Lord in bands;
That whilst the leg hath strength, or the arme power,
To kill that serpent would their King devoure.

For which the George is as a trophy worne,
And may it long, and long remaine with those,
Which to that excellent dignitie are borne,
As opposites unto their country’s foes.
God keepe our King and them from Rome’s black pen,
Let all that love the Garter say, Amen!

Garter curtain ties

I'm replying to Highly Eccentric's comment on the previous post in a new post, as I wanted to show some pictures. This is Edward, Prince of Wales, from Bruges' Garter Book of c. 1430, with a much older version of the ties holding the mantle:



And then by Charles I's time, they had become so long (especially on a young man: here he is as Duke of York) they had to be looped up into his sword belt:



At the Restoration, Charles II regularised the Garter "underhabits" with "the old trunkhose" of cloth of silver, which persisted at least until Edward VIII's time (shown here as Prince of Wales, complete with enormous ties):



And yes, you are right that the blue ribbon is worn when the full robes aren't being worn. The image of St George on a ribbon is called "the lesser George", and replaces the big chain, or collar, with the little model of George killing the dragon you can see hanging on William's chest in the previous post. By 1508, it was recognised that this collar was to be worn only on feastdays, and "on the other days the image of St George shall be worn at the end of a little gold chain, or in time of war; sickness or on a long journey, at the end of a silk lace or ribbon." In the early seventeenth century, it became customary to put it over the left shoulder and under the right armpit, "for conveniency of riding or action" in Ashmole's words. You sometimes see this in portraits that emphasise the military accomplishments of the knights.

As ever, I'm indebted to Peter Begent and Hubert Chesshyre's authoritative book, The Most Noble Order of the Garter: 600 Years, published by Spink in 1999, for many of these details.

Life in the OG

One of the things I love thinking about with the Order of the Garter is the slightly uncomfortable effect of dressing up. The Queen's recent encounter with Annie Liebovitz touched this nerve; and there is always something "lunatic" about the Order and its pageantry (the word is the Duke of Edinburgh's).

So I was delighted when C sent me this link to a bunch of pictures of Prince William's recent investiture with the Order, with this wonderful moment of abashedness across the young Prince's face:



There is also a lovely shot of some royal women, and Prince Harry, who aren't members of the Order, smiling and waving at the others: is there a soupçon of mockery in those smiles?



I'm also fascinated in Baroness Thatcher's dress, very similar to the gown the Queen and Princess Anne wear under their Garter robes. Has this become, by default, the women's Garter uniform? In August, I start writing my chapter on dress and fashion and costume in the Order: will need this photo again then!

One word ..... LLLLLooooyyddddyyyyyyyy!!!!

See the Bomber fly up, up...

Edward's Silk or Richard's Leather? Friday Garter Poetry Blogging

While the traditional story about Edward III picking up the garter of the Countess of Salisbury (or the Queen, or some other woman) persists in English tradition, there has long been a rival theory, propounded by those who cannot accept that a military and chivalric order can have been organised around such a chance encounter, and such a "mean" item. Accordingly, it is often proposed that Edward was reviving a tradition that dates back to Richard I at the siege of Acre. Wanting to encourage his knights to further heights of courage, he is said to have promised to found an Order around a strap of leather or a buckle, perhaps, that he would take as a symbol of chivalric brotherhood. Of course this actually repeats the pattern of elevating a trivial object to symbolic greatness, through the masterful exercise of sovereign power; but it does have the advantage of displacing the messy world of women's underclothes.

In 1631, Charles Allen, writing The Battailes of Crescey and Poictiers under the Leading of King Edward the Third of That Name; and His Sonne Edward Prince of Wales, was cheerfully insouciant about the origins of the Order.


Yet in the raigne of this first sonne of Mars,
All is not sternely rugged, some delights
Sweete amorous sports to sweeten tarter-wars,
And then a dance began the garter Knights.
They dwell with love, that are with vallour fild,
And Venus doves may in a head peice build

As Sarum beauteous Countesse in a dance
Her loosened garter unawares let fall,
Renouned Edward tooke it up by chance,
Which gave that order first originall.
Thus saying to the wondring standers by.
There shall be honour to this silken ty

Some the beginning from first Richard bring,
(Counting too meanelie of this pedegree)
When he at Acon tyde a leather string
About his Soldiars legges, whose memorie
Might stir their vallour up, yet choose you whether
You’ll Edwards silke prefer, or Richards leather.