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I have woken up this morning very early, I'm still rather tired, but the need to be up and doing something has over taken me. So here I sit, my beloved black Labradors at my side and Felix Mendelssohn's 'The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture' weaving and floating its way out of the tinny little speakers of my lap top.


I'm thinking that it's my age, that's why I awake, although I don't really subscribe to that idea because I have a feeling that I am to be doing something, I'm just not quite sure what. My rifles are locked away in their safe, the fishing rods secure in their cabinets and I have no wish to go anywhere. Mussorgsky's 'Night On Bald Mountain' now fills my dark and otherwise still little living room.


Maybe this is a ghost of an action past? Since I was a child I have woken beneath the cold morning stars, and not always I may say willingly, and with the older males of my family gone forth before the sun had risen, into the chilly winters morning, sometimes on a fishing expedition, or out with the Ferrets or Lurchers. Sometimes we would go to the allotment and pick and dig for the vegetables that we would have for our Christmas meals. I can see myself as I was then, a snorkel parka jacket and a home knitted balaclava, slip on shoes that had no place on the frozen ground or dewy grass, I would certainly have very cold and damp feet before we would arrive back home from our nocturnal forays. Always the silence as not to disturb the rest of the house, but then the silence went further than that, it was as if the magic of this strange shadowy world would be lost if the clumsy every day sounds of the world were allowed in.


Such a skinny bean pole of a child I was, never tidy, father would put a brush through my hair as I stood dead eyed and only just awake. I would soon be shrouded in the swirling mist and as I tagged along, half stumbling and with my stupid shoes already covered in cow shit I would hear the hissing whisper of my father's voice saying 'Keep up', 'Go back you dropped the bloody flask' or 'why don't you make some more noise you clumsy sod'! I enjoyed it though, the smells the sounds and the intense feeling that you feel at the dawn of a new day.


Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 slips from the lap top speakers, again my music taste this morning are another remnant of a half forgotten thought or memory, I don't know why these musical spectres have manifested themselves in this way on the this odd and mildly disturbing morning. I do know that as I left my work place and drove through the Warwickshire countryside yesterday morning that the sun was rising and the sky was the deepest of firey orange and I know for certain that I caught my breath at its beauty and again maybe it was my age or the fact that my nights work had left me tired and emotional, but the magic of that morning reached down deep into my soul and something primitive stirred with my breast. Could this be the reason that I am awake so early this morning, could my mind be working overtime, stuck on a loop of information lost and long forgotten to a modern man? It's the season of the longest and coldest nights, day light is premium and my ancestors would have already been hard at work or moving silently through the darkness towards their favourite fishing and hunting spots.

Just like my father and his hissing whisper, yes I see now, the two connect. The need to be out and gathering for the winter or at least to defy and survive it. The primitive hunter answers his need, my father and the older males of my family answered it and even I have been stirred many times to take fishing rod, purse net, Lurcher lead or rifle into the stillness of the unspoilt morning to do the same. Yet this morning I am going nowhere, but I understand now why I'm awake, to write about and convey these splintered thoughts and the nameless urge that lies behind them. It is winter my friends and there is nothing more certain that in winter we must hunt and gather for the uncertain and the unexpected. Whilst others of our breed put their efforts into rising early and venturing forth to obtain their unachievable perfect Christmas, we must use this time of perfect stillness to reflect, plan and most of all to answer that ancient call, the survival call that was answered for thousands of years by people just like us, people who knew that unless the cold dark winter's morn was tackled, was ventured into and conquered then the warmer days the longer more peaceful days that were to follow, those days would be lost to them and their dependant kin.


As Antonin Dvorak's 'New World Symphony' fills my ears and over takes my senses, I would like to finish here, but to also say to you all, that if that spark, that ancient essence that propelled mankind forward into the unknown, if it is alive in your heart, well it can not be a bad thing because it will be the one true compass in the dark days that we all know awaits us. I wish you all a good and fruitful morning my dear friends, lets grasp the nettle and make the very most of the short daylight hours and let us be about the business of survival.
Great post!! Got lost in the moment with uSmile
(9 December 2012, 08:59)Houndlover Wrote: [ -> ]Great post!! Got lost in the moment with uSmile

I'm glad, now lets run naked in the forest like the 'Children of the Night'......Big Grin

Cheers mate.Wink
(9 December 2012, 09:03)SealDriver Wrote: [ -> ]
(9 December 2012, 08:59)Houndlover Wrote: [ -> ]Great post!! Got lost in the moment with uSmile

I'm glad, now lets run naked in the forest like the 'Children of the Night'......Big Grin

Cheers mate.Wink

You're on! ;o) lol!
That made some great reading, SealDriver!
It really was awesome!

Thanks for that.
Thank you!Smile I enjoy writing articles, always have done and hopefully there will be more on here soon.
The pleasure is mine, Sir! Smile
I certainly look forward to reading the new articles.
(9 December 2012, 09:03)SealDriver Wrote: [ -> ]
(9 December 2012, 08:59)Houndlover Wrote: [ -> ]Great post!! Got lost in the moment with uSmile

I'm glad, now lets run naked in the forest like the 'Children of the Night'......Big Grin

Cheers mate.Wink

WAIT FOR ME!!!!!!
very good SealDriver, set me thinking. put me down for a copy of your first novel
(9 December 2012, 09:03)SealDriver Wrote: [ -> ]
(9 December 2012, 08:59)Houndlover Wrote: [ -> ]Great post!! Got lost in the moment with uSmile

I'm glad, now lets run naked in the forest like the 'Children of the Night'......Big Grin

Cheers mate.Wink

Room for a little 'un?

I'll bring my cowboy hat.
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