Imagine – ++++

Imagine a place where, when you are returning from Easter choir-practise in the evening, a dodgy white-van driver chases and attempts to strangle you in dimly-lit alleys, where your door-bell rings at three in the morning and a voice shouts “I want to talk to you.”

Imagine a place where you receive a summons from the Court to explain why you stole a venetian blind (which you never did because you weren’t there) from a spot which someone claims is their land (although it never was because it is a public road).

Imagine a place where the white van-driver says “I don’t need to learn the language of this place” and tells you you’re showing off if you speak it fluently. Imagine a place where a decorated official from your old teaching union back in the UK decides to settle in and then threatens you off his front garden when you call on him.

Imagine a place where a schools psychologist, noted for her management of disruptive behaviour in London East End schools, scuttles away when confronted with it there.

Imagine a place where you, as member of the area’s arts committee are never told about an arts course to take place there. (It never has, anyway, for three years in succession). Imagine a place where the few people who live there spend most of their time avoiding each other and where a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate the Fallen at their memorial is attended only by the person who lays the wreath.

Imagine a place where the usual suspects crowd around you as you are whisked into an ambulance for an emergency and where, when you return, no-one asks if you’re OK.

Imagine a place which is talked about in all parts of Bagni di Lucca, the bars, the casino, the theatre, the library (and beyond), which is apologised for in front of you by respected citizens of the town and the other villages who say it’s an exception and has been one for years, a comune to which you have given almost ten years in contributing in your own modest way to life and learning through conferences, activities, singing, teaching and writing, a place which, otherwise is so beloved of you, (a place where to the white-van driver “Nessun Dorma” is a Japanese camper truck), a place where you wonder how all these ignorant white-van drivers, misguided psychologists, intimidated locals, arrogant Essex policemen, pompous retired-union officials, frightened headmistresses and superannuated rock-stars could have found their way to-  such an otherwise idyllic place – and tried to spoil it in some unforgivable way through their complete ignorance and insensitivity.

Nothing’s going to change my world…..

I’ve been told by several of my friends that the world is now truly being turned up-side down: the degree of maliciousness, jealousy, envy and simple bloody-mindedness has increased exponentially – so let’s change this “Imagine”, likewise, by thinking positively and remind ourselves of that wonderful song by the great John Lennon:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say
I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one