I know! I know! I told you last month that I was one step closer to a special occasion involving a little someone and her new friend. But here I am in September, still not ready, and still not properly dressed in purple, for our get together. My friends and family will tell you that’s typical of me. These days I take forever to get ready for anything, because I am easily distracted, as per my previous post where Mrs Cockalarum suddenly waylaid my attention.
And, now, thanks to a couple of queries from my lovely commenters, concerning the whereabouts of Mrs Cockalarum’s other half, I am skipping jauntily down memory lane in search of Mr Cockalarum, almost entirely forgetful of present and future social engagements.
I can’t be sure where Mr Cockalarum is today, but I have encountered him ( or possibly his relatives) in numerous locations. But the first time ever I heard him I would have been about this size i.e. pint-sized.
The first time ever I remember hearing Mr Cockalarum I would have been about this size and revelling in a fantasy world (what’s new!); that of Toad of Toad Hall.
And the first time ever I tried to record those remembrances I was in my late thirties, and living in Cairo. I typed them into our smart, new computer, and later read them as a bedtime story for my two children.
“In the half-dark of early morning I heard a rooster crow. Dear Daughter, you said you heard a rooster crow in the summer, but I don’t remember hearing him. A rooster crow is not a normal sound for our part of Maadi. It made me wonder if one of our neighbours were fattening poultry for a special dinner.
When I was little I often heard a rooster crow in the early morning. It was a sound which belonged to my waking. In the summer, or the rainy season, a rooster would crow about 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. I remember that time as the half-light of early morning. In the colder season, or the dry season, the crowing started at about 6 o’clock, just before the sun rose. That time always comes to my mind as the half-dark of early morning.
The other sounds, which were in my waking, for a few months of the year during the cane crushing season, were those of the sugar cane trains. The sugar cane trains clanged and made a ch-ch-ch chuddering sound as they prepared for work each morning. Photo by C R Auckland, August 2008 Loco no 11 entering Lautoka with a long train of approximately 45 loaded wagons.
I hear the sound of the trains here in Maadi, too, but it is not the gentle, warming-up sound of slow, old trains which I knew as a child. Rather, it is the high speed whistle and whine of a fast, modern train. ( In fact, they are so fast we haven’t seen them, have we? Perhaps the sound we hear floats all the way from the Metro Line next to Road 9, and not from the tracks next to Kimo Market.)
Another sound of my morning, more regular than the trains or the rooster, was the call to prayer from the mosque.
Although we seem to be surrounded by mosques in Maadi, I have yet to hear an early morning call to prayer. I hear all the other calls, but not the first one. In Lautoka, I often heard the first call, and, sometimes, the evening call, but I don’t remember any of the others. Perhaps I was busy at school or swimming at the club, or playing with friends during the day. I liked the first call of the day. The mosque was on the other side of Churchill Park, catty- corner to our house.
The call floated clearly over our neighborhood. I didn’t know what was being said, but I liked the song of it; the way it wove through and over the early morning air and out to an endless beyond. Later, when I was slightly older, the call changed in tone because it was delivered through loud speakers. The sublime purity of the call was masked as it struggled with the crackles and harshness of the new technology of speakers. The change made me sad for a while.
In Maadi, the mosques have loud speakers, too. Sometimes, I wish I could hear the solitary, unaided call of the muezzin again. I miss its beauty; its resonance.
What do you hear as you wake in the morning? ” Maadi, Cairo, November, 1994.
There was no YouTube in 1994 to give my children an opportunity to hear a call to prayer similar to the one I knew as a child. Today I found this clip.
This took me home again to a time of great happiness and love; a time when, by and large, my small world was a friendly, welcoming place, rich in experience, and a delight to play in.
As for the elusive Mr Cockalarum; perhaps you hear him, or have heard him, in your neighborhood.
This has been on the screen for probably several months – to be sure I had not missed a post and to let you know that you’re missed.
I hope that all is going as well as can be expected in this now-changed world.
Ah, if we could roll back the clock – I often think that those old days were better… a simple life is nice, but it’s also lovely to have modern communications and can know people who live on the other side of the ocean — and feel good because you know there’s a ‘good person’ over there….
with love,
lisa
So true. We would be lost without our modern communications. Thank you for missing me. I am contemplating my return to WordPress.
I hope you are doing fine. The world is going nuts and nothing is as it was. It looks like you are busy with something. Stay safe!
We are living in strange times! Thanks for coming by. I am busy, and tired. My blogging time has slipped away somewhere. 🙂
Nice blog
Thank you.
Gallivanta, how are you doing these days?
Hanging in here, Lavinia, but not on WordPress all that much. I hope you are well. Not sure if I have mentioned to you that my mother passed away in December. And my sweet little Jack died at the beginning of March, from heart failure. And now of course we all trying to come to terms with COVID 19. So many adjustments, all of which seem to have dried up my creativity. Keep well and thanks for checking on me.
Our household is still well, and weathering the storm. I was not aware your mother is gone now, too, and dear little Jack. Your father’s tree was planted back in January, a young cedar. We will make that spot the memorial for your parents and Jack. It will get daffodils added in the fall. I am sorry you have had so much sorrow, but glad to hear you are well.
Great story and you have reached a very impressive level of story telling.
Thank you so much. That is a very kind comment.
So well written Gallivanta, thank you for taking us down a path to another place and time.
Thank you, Karen, for taking the path with me.
Are you familiar with James R. Flynn, an emeritus professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin? The overall rise in IQ scores over the last century has been named the Flynn effect, based on his research.
Yes, I know of his work and have heard him speak on the radio. But I was not aware (until I went looking) that his latest book has been rejected by a publisher in the UK. And I wasn’t aware until today that his son, Victor, is a professor of mathematics at Oxford University.
Suppression of free speech has become a problem at many American (and other countries’) universities. The fact that a book about that would be accepted by a publisher, scheduled for publication, included in the publisher’s September 2019 catalogue, and then suddenly un-accepted, came to my attention in an article by Flynn posted this week:
https://quillette.com/2019/09/24/my-book-defending-free-speech-has-been-banned/
That’s where I noticed his affiliation to the University of Otago, and why I thought of checking with you to see if you knew about him.
It is surprising and sad that the publisher decided not to publish because I would imagine that the book is very well written and researched. He may find another publisher in due course because the book, despite what he writes, hasn’t been banned. It has simply been rejected by one publisher. The subject of free speech is a big issue at NZ universities, too.
I love this journey into your auditory remembrances. While I’ve never heard the muezzin, I have experienced the rooster’s crow and learned that it isn’t just for the morning hours! These days I’m very lucky to be awakened by the soft coos of mourning doves.
Ah, the loveliness of doves. You are very lucky indeed. The soft coos of doves are part of my auditory experience when I visit my sister in Australia. They were part of my childhood experiences, too. Thank you for reminding me of them.
In all these years, your easy eloquence always soothes. Magical
Thank you for your lovely comment. Your photos and quotes hold magic, too.
I’m glad there was time for a little detour before your esteemed guest arrives. What a wonderful memoir – and some great photos – have you considered writing a memoir?
Dear Andrea, Thanks for the vote of confidence but I don’t think I could write a full memoir to save myself. Sometimes a little memory pops into my head and if I can write it down I feel very pleased with myself. I don’t have the stamina or patience to do more than that. 😦
I loved immersing myself in this rich, evocative reflection on the past. It reminded me of the pleasure I used to take in the sounds of waking as a child. I need to get back to them. As for Mr. Cockalarum, he lived near Shirley Touchette’s house, and his internal clock was broken, so he could only sound off at random intervals to annoy the neighbors.
Thank you for coming with me on my little excursion into my early days. As for Mr Cockalarum, I am sure his internal clock was working just fine. He simply chose to ignore it for the sheer joy of crowing whenever he felt like it. 😀 Hopefully, his joyful calling didn’t land him in the Touchette dinner pot.
Nope, no dinner pot, just nasty remarks about insensitive neighbors.
😀 😀 😀
Excellent.
Thank you, Rabirius. You also tell some excellent stories in your photos.
Such a wonderful, evocative post. Strangely, chickens and the Muslim call to prayer are forever joined in memory because of my time in Liberia. The nearest town, Gbarnga, had a relatively large mosque, and during my first years there, the muezzin had the most glorious voice that projected some distance across the town. The town also happened to have some of the freest ranging roosters and hens you could imagine, and there were times when the crowing of roosters intermingled with the call of the muezzin.
Beyond that, I may have told you about my pet rooster, Mr. McBawk, who roosted on some bicycle handlebars on the back porch at night. It was to protect him from night varmits, of course — including some two legged ones who would have loved to throw him into their stew pot. Eventually my neighbor, a surgeon who resented being wakened at 3 in the morning by a rooster, offered cold cash for him. The deal was struck, and Mr. M ended up in a stew pot anyway.
I’m glad you added the photo of the train. One of my readers from Panama has written about the trains on the banana plantations, which seem to have been much the same sort.
Speaking of the passage of time, it’s been five years since I wrote about Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, and you shared some reflections from your time there. His description of the call to prayer never fails to move me. Remember?
“In this context too, I recover another such moment, lying beside a sleeping woman in a cheap room near the mosque. In that early spring dawn, with its dense dew, sketched upon the silence which engulfs a whole city before the birds awaken it, I caught the sweet voice of the blind muezzin from the mosque reciting the ebed – a voice hanging like a hair in the palm cooled airs of Alexandria…
“The great prayer wound its way into my sleepy consciousness like a serpent, coil after shining coil of words, the voice of the muezzin sinking from register to register of gravity ~ until the whole world seemed dense with its marvelous healing powers, the intimations of a grace undeserved and unexpected, impregnating that shabby room where Melissa lay, breathing lightly as a gull, rocked upon the oceanic splendors of a language she would never know.”
I may repost that piece. It certainly is time for a re-read of Durrell.
Thank you for reminding me of your post on the Alexandria Quartet. Durrell’s description of the call to prayer melts my heart. I am glad you also know the mingling of the rooster crows with the call to prayer. It seemed a little irreverent to put the two together but that is what I remember and what I wanted to tell my children. My brother said I forgot to mention the noise of the dogs. Well, that is a story for another time. Poor Mr McBawk. I hope he was more appreciated in the pot than he was in life.
Having grown up on a farm, I have warm memories of roosters crowing in the middle of the night. The crowing didn’t really wake me, but rather just seemed like a background “white noise.”
Yes, “white noise” of comfort. I feel that way about the birds which call through the night at my sister’s home in Australia. It makes me smile a little that people now buy white noise machines and white noise apps to help them sleep.
What a lovely childhood you had, Ann 🙂 🙂 And who cares how long it takes to get ready? You will be fabulous!
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jo. It astonishes me that I can out-dawdle a toddler!
Lovely memories and tales. I remember a rooster in the morning at 4am….it was in Italy on holidays. It drove my mum crazy. She couldn’t locate it though so he didn’t appear on the dinner plate. She had to endure it. Your stories always make me remember different things from my past. Thank you for that!
That’s a cute story about your mother. You would have been astounded if it had turned up on the dinner plate!
Loving this storytelling, G. 🙂
Thanks, Kevin. It’s the Myrtle the Purple Turtle effect at work! I am sure that’s a thing, right?
Absolutely! 😀
🙂
I love these memories, Mandy and envy you your time in Egypt. I have always wanted to visit that country but I don’t suppose I’ll ever get there now, for a number of reasons. I have never heard the call to prayer except on radio or TV. I have, however, heard a cockerel crow. Not when I was young but very often now that I live in the country. Most people keep hens and get rid of their cockerels but our neighbours didn’t and kept them all, giving rise to cockerel crowing contests in the very early morning! All have gone now because of frequent visits from Mr/Mrs Fox.
That must have made for some very noisy mornings. I wonder if the cockerels were actually trying to make their owners aware of the presence of a fox. I may have asked you before but have you been to a performance of, or listened to, The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins. My brother was fortunate to attend a performance in a cathedral when he was visiting the Cotswolds in 2018. He said it was magnificent.
I haven’t heard this music, though I think I remember hearing of it’s first performance. I must seek it out and have a listen. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, Mandy.
🙂 🙂 🙂
I loved reading this as it does awaken my own memories of childhood when life was not necessarily better but definitely simpler. I have loved the sound of trains since I was 6 and the train put me to sleep each night. Roosters I love as well since I’m one of those that get up with them. I have never heard the morning call to prayer because I’ve never lived in that part of the world to my dismay. But in Germany, we had church bells going off all the time and I loved them. I would stop each time to truly enjoy them. I miss church bells, Beautiful post. Memories are funny. Two people can be in the same place and time and remember the event differently or not at all by one. So interesting.
Marlene, I adore church bells, too. I miss them. I also miss the chimes of the city clock in one of the places I lived. I find it a little sad as well as a little funny that people will often complain about roosters or trains or church bells being too noisy yet are happy to listen almost non-stop to car radios, or TV or items on their phones. I am not an early riser , but the other day about 8 am I was woken by a rooster crowing. After some investigation it turned out to be the alarm on my son’s iPhone! He slept through it, of course. We live a short distance from a railway line in Christchurch but I only hear the trains if the wind is blowing in the right direction. I am glad you have happy memories of roosters and trains. Does your sister share them?
My sister and I have very different memories of the same places but she is 5 years younger and sees life very different than I. I very often have the TV on but the sound off. I know many people find those sounds annoying. I find them soothing. I think it’s funny your son can sleep through the rooster call. My daughter has to set several alarms. 😉 I’ve never needed one.
I prefer to wake up naturally but sometimes an alarm is a necessity for me, as in when I don’t want to miss an early morning flight. 🙂
I set an alarm for a flight too but never sleep well enough so I’m awake when it goes off. 😉 I wish it weren’t so. We don’t want to miss those. 😉
Teehee, I have done that, too.
So lovely to read these reflections and see those gorgeous pictures. Like you, I wish I had kept a proper journal over the years, and envy those who have a shelf full of diaries to browse through. But perhaps in the end the memories we hold in our minds, whether factually accurate or not, are the most important. X
Perhaps they are, Liz. And they may also be our greatest creative endeavour. 😉
you did touch my heart… for many reasons… and btw, I love both badgers and beavers!!! ❤
Do you know, despite my knowledge of both badgers and beavers, I haven’t ever seen them in real life? I am quite astounded by that realization.
badgers are quite common in the French forests and I did see beavers – dam builders(LOL!) in Canada years ago…
🙂 🙂 🙂
Some lovely memories here and so many involving sound! I remember hearing a call to prayer when we were in Nablus a few years back – strangely comforting. Thanks for triggering that memory for me too.
That’s lovely to know. I have certainly found the call comforting at different times in my life. Maybe it is not only the sound but the routine of it. These days I am enamoured and soothed by the basso profondo voices in Russian sacred music eg https://youtu.be/jYpMrVyWwGc
You’ve lived such an exotic-sounding life, full of vibrant details and memories! It’s good that you’re writing these things down.
I wish I had kept a diary or a journal. It would make writing memories so much easier. I showed this piece to my brother. He confirms the validity of some of my memories but he has no recollection of roosters crowing. So, I write but how accurate are my memories?
Rich, colourful memories!
Thank you, Juliet. Just writing such a short piece about my memories was hard work. I am in awe of the memoirs you have written and the amount of work that must have been required.
Very nice memories. I am wondering you liked to hear to sound of rooster crow when you were young? I think when I grew up, I heard their sound early in the morning too but I didn’t think I like the sound though 🙂
YC, I did like the sound but, perhaps, that was because it was in the distance. I might have been unhappy if it was very close by. 😀
Awww, thanks for sharing these great memories.❤️❤️❤️
I love a good story and you’ve shared one rich with sounds that give me a welcome glimpse into your travels through this life and bring back good memories from my own as well. How lucky are we to have experienced such things!
We are blessed! Do you have memorable sounds from your childhood?
Crickets! Frogs! Waves against the shores of Lake Michigan. Crisp autumnal leaves crackling beneath my feet. I could go on!
Oh, I was wishing you would go on. I like all those sounds. Ellen, a blogger I follow, always has the loveliest photos of Lake Michigan. I am quite enchanted by it. https://ellenolinger.wordpress.com/2019/09/02/friends-and-seasons/
Thank you for sharing Ellen’s blog with me and giving me a glimpse of my favourite body of water 🙂
🙂 🙂 🙂
When we visited my brother while he was living in Muscat in Oman, we heard the early morning call every day. It sounded quite beautiful.
That’s lovely to know. Was that recently?
No, it was January 2010. My blog started with posts about that trip. You might enjoy them, beginning with the first one. https://theeternaltraveller.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/lines-of-symmetry/
Such a fascinating account of your travels in Oman. Thank you for the link. The symmetry of the mosque is special. It’s a place I would like to see, but perhaps never will. Is your brother still in Oman?
Oman is a great country to visit. We did a short tour with a driver for five days and that was an easy way to see a lot. Sadly, not long after we visited my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumour and he passed away the following year. I will always be grateful for those weeks we spent together.
Oh how very sad. These are very precious memories, then. Hugs.
Yes, way too young. This was definitely a holiday we will treasure.
🙂
Oh, and so pleased you enjoyed those posts.
“This took me home again to a time of great happiness and love; a time when, by and large, my small world was a friendly, welcoming place, rich in experience, and a delight to play in.”
I remember times like this as well, but they are no longer present in my country now.
I love the call to prayer. So beautiful.
Dear Cindy, I hope many of us have these special memories. One of the reasons I skipped down memory lane was to explore how these early childhood experiences of diversity, security, and self-confidence feed into the adults we become. Cynthia Reyes series on Myrtle the Purple Turtle gently explore those same issues with today’s children who must often find their environments very challenging. I feel very sad for the little ones in the US, starting school right now and having to learn how to keep safe if a shooting incident occurs.
Lovely to have all these strands of your past soundtracked by cock crow, and to have more glimpses of Cairo. You went there the year we returned to Nairobi after nearly a year in Zambia, so you were tapping at your new computer, while I had just reclaimed my old laptop and was trying to conjure up some fiction. Times past.
There were laptops back then? And I thought I was ahead of trends with my new computer. 🙂 Actually, we had our first computer when we were in Zambia. That was in 1984. I didn’t have any interest in that computer. I was still diligently writing with pen or biro.
There’s a lot to be said for writing by hand. Not sure I could do it now though.
Me neither. I still write my shopping lists although write is hardly the word; I scrawl them. But that and my signature are about the only things I write by hand these days.
Same here.
🙂
It’s a curious thing hearing a rooster crow for the first time… I used to hear one, occasionally, when I lived in (urban) London, though I’ve no idea which of our neighbours kept it! These days we hear pheasants crowing… often in our own garden, but not our pheasants – they’re their own pheasants. 🙂 That call to prayer is beautiful – particularly how it resonates as silence enters between the vocalisations. If you’ve not heard it, try the one recorded by Peter Gabriel of Baba Maal, it’s very different but no less beautiful.
Oh, Val, you have found the perfect words to describe the Call to Prayer. Thank you. I was struggling to describe what I heard, and now you have done it for me. And, thank you, too, for alerting me to Peter Gabriel’s recording of Baba Maal. It is very beautiful. As for the pheasants’ crows, they may be easier on the ear than those of the domestic roosters. Would you agree? Keeping roosters in urban Christchurch is against council by-laws, so I haven’t heard a rooster crowing in years. I haven’t ever heard a pheasant crow (except on online recordings).
I don’t often get a sensory description right, so I’m glad about that. 🙂 One isolated crow from a pheasant is easier on the ears than a rooster, but the problem with pheasants is they keep it up and can do so for a long time… which then becomes just as annoying! (What is fun about pheasants – particularly the male – is when they are eating, many of them have a strange extra noise that they make in their throats which is quite amusing. I remember an online friend years ago describing a similar noise her chickens made, as ‘purring’.
Chicken purrs! I like that. I have had a quick google of pheasant and rooster vocalizations. It’s a fascinating subject. Apparently there is a crowing etiquette if there is more than one rooster in the yard. The head rooster gets to crow first.
They also have a range of stares – they stare at each other, then crow then fight. Some times of the year though they’re fine together, male pheasants.
🙂 🙂 🙂 How interesting. Apparently there are an estimated 250,000 pheasants in NZ. I have seen a couple of that number during the last 20 years.
That’s a lot of pheasants! One day I must post to my other blog about the ones that visit our garden. 🙂
That would be lovely. I look forward to it.
The trip down memory lane was made more enjoyable with your photographs that spark our further interest.
Thank you, Sally. My father had an excellent camera and enjoyed taking photos, so we have a great collection of family photos. We, the rest of the family, didn’t enjoy having our photos taken, though, because our father spent a lot of time setting up and getting everything just right!
A beautiful accounting of earlier times, Gallivanta!
Thank you, Lavinia. I enjoyed recalling all these memories, although it was a challenge for me to collate them. Did you recognize the song by Peggy Seeger? The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Have you sung it? I considered including her other song, The Chickens are Crowing, just for the chicken reference. https://youtu.be/lQHOD_zrwiM
I never knew who wrote that song! I only knew Roberta Flack’s version. I never attempted to learn it, but may give it a whirl.
The chicken song is new to me. Chickens certainly have made it into a number of folk songs. 🙂
🙂 🙂 🙂
Actually, Peggy Seeger’s husband, Ewan McColl, wrote the song *for* Peggy!
Yes, that is true. My comment wasn’t very clear. I should have written sung by Peggy Seeger!
For two months, I lived in an apartment in Salinas, CA, over the low coast range of hills from Monterey. One of the neighbors had a rooster that faithfully announced dawn– the danged fowl did not understand weekends. The apartment was also near the Spreckles sugar factory. I don’t know if the factory was the source of the wonderful chocolate smell I smelled whenever I went to the communal laundry room to do laundry and lose a sock.
Ha! Yes, roosters are not great at knowing which day of the week it is! I was fascinated by your mention of the Spreckles sugar factory. Because I grew up with sugar cane sugar, I tend to forget about beet sugar. I couldn’t find any reference to chocolate making at their factory but they did supply sugar to a chocolate maker, Ghirardelli Chocolate Co http://californiabountiful.com/features/article.aspx?arID=312 I wonder if the chocolate smell came from by products of sugar processing ; possibly molasses. A lovely mystery anyway, along with “where do socks go?”
Hi. It’s good to revisit the past. I enjoyed this essay.
What years did you live in Egypt?
Neil Scheinin
Thank you, Neil, for your appreciative comment. We lived in Cairo from 1994 to 1998. Have you lived there or visited?
I was in Cairo and the surrounding area for a few days in 1985.
Hope it was a happy visit. I was overwhelmed by Cairo at first but by 1998 I was loathe to leave.
The trees are so beautiful (August 2008). There is still beauty everywhere. We must celebrate it.💕
My home town was full of beautiful trees. It’s good to see, in recent photos, that many of them are still there.
I don’t recognize you in the first photograph. Surprisingly, I do in the second, even with a partially covered face. 1994 is so recent and yet so far, with some or even many alive then no longer with us now.
I am impressed you recognize me under the badger head piece but would you have recognized me as a badger if I hadn’t labelled myself as such? 😀 Our house in Christchurch was built in 1994. When we bought it in 1999 we thought of it as new. It’s hard to believe that it has now reached its quarter century mark.
You’re correct that I recognize the face in the second picture because I already know it’s you.
As for the passage of time, I’ve started to feel that two is the new one, meaning that something that happened two years ago seems as if it happened only one year ago.
I would agree that two is the new one!