John DeLorean and Gerald Durrell: born on the same day?

I noticed an interesting coincidence recently: two very different men with very different lives and outlooks share the same birthdate. 

The automobile engineer and executive John DeLorean was born on January 6th 1925 in Detroit; the author, naturalist, zoo keeper and wildlife conservationist Gerald Durrell was born in India on January 7th 1925. Allowing for time differences, they were born at much the same time – and under the sign of Capricorn.

One appears to be on the whole one of the good guys, the other was a fraudster. From his obituary in The Guardian:

“Almost everyone who had business dealings with car-maker John DeLorean … suffered either money losses in the millions, public vilification for the vanished cash, or both. Through all this turbulence, DeLorean remained unscathed: even if he did lose a fortune, he had not been entitled to it in the first place… DeLorean was a world-class conman, despite a brilliant early engineering career at General Motors. Among his victims of fraud, embezzlement, tax evasion or defaulted loans, were the governments of Britain, the US, and Switzerland…”

John DeLorean called the British government ‘suckers’ and his Irish workers ‘dummies’; Gerald Durrell built good relationships with various authorities and made friends with and allies of ordinary people wherever he went. 

John DeLorean ruined the livelihoods of many people; Durrell saved several species from extinction.

A coincidence involving Levelers and Huguenots

A good example of a ‘coincidence’ happened to me this week. 

It all began when I saw a TV programme about the New Forest. I started to think about The Children of the New Forest, a children’s classic written by Captain Frederick Marryat in 1847; it was one of the first historical novels written for young people. 

Such books never gripped me the way that fantasy and science fiction did, but I learned a lot of history from reading them. I had not read, seen or even thought about this book since I was at school, but suddenly some fragments of dialogue popped up in my mind:

“Levelers, to horse!” and, “What’s a Leveler?” (Levelers or Levellers were radical supporters of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the Civil War). I tried to remember what I had learned about them from this book at the time.

I had also decided recently to learn more about the Huguenots, persecuted French Protestants many of whom took refuge in England. 

I went out for the day to a town of great historic interest but decided to cut my losses and come back early as it was a bit of a disappointment. 

There were some people on the train on the way home whose conversation was very loud and very boring. 

Nicholas Stuart Gray’s witch: Huddle

Nicholas Stuart Gray wrote a wonderful fantasy book for children called Over the Hills to Fabylon. I remember reading it when I was very young. It is out of print now; I have tried to find a copy from time to time without success. Even if it did come on the market, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it.

I searched for it again recently just in case and found another of Stuart Gray’s books, one that I hadn’t read. The price was reasonable so I bought The Edge of Evening, which is a book of short stories. 

It begins with The Sky-blue Whistling Spark, in which the main character is a witch called Huddle. The story is very light and only 13 pages long, but it contains and confirms some interesting and important points about witches.

The demons arrive

Huddle is a typical fairy tale witch, a skinny old woman with grey hair who lives in a damp, squalid cottage in a wood. She is bad tempered, proud and conceited. Most of her time is spent trying to bring off strong, black, interesting, successful magic: she wants to be a great and evil witch, one that people are afraid of. 

Unfortunately, although she has enough innate ability to work small spells that bring minor misfortunes to her neighbours, she has not got what it takes to perform the really big stuff i.e. strong Black Magic. This level of spell casting is beyond her powers: her best efforts bring unexpected or no results. 

Her failures make her crosser and crosser; she eventually decides that she needs a demon to be her slave and instruct her in the performance of sorcery. Then she will be able to take her rightful place in the world. 

What do Noel Streatfeild and Isaac Asimov have in common?

Many years ago, I read about two very similar incidents in the autobiographies of two very different people.

The first incident was recounted by Noel Streatfeild in her autobiographical work A Vicarage Family. It comes from her school days.

The glamorous, exotic Russian Ballet visited London in the summer of 1911; everyone was talking about them; everyone longed to see them. A teacher took those older girls who could afford it to London for three nights to see some performances. 

Noel (Victoria in the book) was not in the party, despite being obsessed with ballet. She was enthralled by what she heard about the company and was desperate to learn, even if it was only at second hand, all she could about the dancers and the ballets. She listened eagerly when she heard some of the starry-eyed girls discussing the outing with the teacher on their return, trying to catch some of the magic from what they said. 

Noel meant only to listen, but there was so much she wanted to know. She asked some questions that, she later realised, might well have sounded puerile to a teacher who had actually seen the Russians and who was probably tired after the exhausting trip. The teacher reacted strongly and negatively, telling her that if she had nothing more sensible to ask she should say nothing at all. 

Noel felt snubbed and deeply hurt.  Tears came into her eyes. How could anyone be so mean after three lovely days of seeing ballets in London as to refuse to describe them to someone who was too poor to go and see them for herself?

Noel decided that she was not going to forgive her teacher.

Unseen influences: seasonal depression and the autumn equinox

Depression at this time of year is common. I think that there is more to it than the feeling that autumn is here, winter is on the horizon and another year of our lives will soon be gone forever.

The occultist Dion Fortune said that one is on or off one’s contacts: they all break automatically at the equinoxes. That would explain a lot. I think of it in different terms - I would say that one’s personal firewall drops at this time of year and in the spring - but the symptoms are the same.

Charlotte Brontë had a lifelong sensibility to equinoctial changes. She wrote in a letter to Mrs Gaskell that the effects lasted approximately one month to six weeks around both equinoxes; sometimes she got severe headaches, sometimes she had to endure the feeling of being ground down to the dust with deep dejection of spirits.

Feeling tearful and empty and pessimistic about the future is to be expected. The best way to deal with it is to be prepared and ride it out.  Autumn especially is a time for staying in and reading or watching DVDs: children’s fantasy fiction and films are very suitable for this purpose. This is what I do, and it does help.

We may not feel like going out, but I have found that going on expeditions to see the beautiful autumn leaves helps to improve my mood. Sitting quietly near trees and water raises my spirits too. 

The painful feelings will recede – until another equinox comes round again.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - MBTI

I lived much of my life without ever hearing of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is a form of personality assessment. 

I had always assumed that personality tests were superficial, generalised and irrelevant; I had never taken any interest in them. Someone mentioned the MBTI to me a few years ago: she asked me what my MB type was. I was interested, and decided to give it a go after finding some free tests online. 

In all cases, I came out very strongly as INTJ: introversion, intuition, thinking, judgement.  

I read some good-quality material describing the characteristics of this type and listing possible career options: it all seemed spot on. It explained a hell of a lot. It confirmed some things that I had always known or suspected. I have always said, “Does it work?” and expected things to make sense, and this is exactly what the descriptions say INTJs do! 

Long before I took the test, I had come to realise that certain missed opportunities that I had regretted very much, both at the time and for many years afterwards, would not after all have been right for me.  Some of the material I read provided an objective confirmation of my insights; these cases could now be closed for good.  

The material also confirmed my theory that the life I was forced to lead in my formative years might have been deliberately designed to ruin my prospects and cause maximum suffering. 

It was not just that my education was grossly deficient and that the work I had been forced to do could not have been more unsuitable, it was not just that my abilities, aptitudes, interests and personality had been completely ignored, it was as if someone had read the details of INTJ people and created the worst possible life for someone of this type. 

Unseen influences: are we sometimes our own worst enemies?

A very recent, very positive experience has inspired me to write an article about transforming our lives by transforming ourselves. In other words, we can change our lives for the better on the outside by changing ourselves for the better on the inside.

Circumstances over which I had no control brought me into contact with a random selection of ordinary members of the public, complete strangers with whom I needed to work closely for several days. 

Everyone in the group I was assigned to was healthy, stable, civilised, intelligent, articulate and very pleasant to work with. 

Everyone took the project seriously and made a useful contribution. They all made good points, sensible suggestions and insightful remarks. They all had open minds and balanced viewpoints.

There were no energy vampires and no negative people. There was no one who was out of touch with reality; there was no one who was irrational, obsessed with something, uncooperative, obnoxious or inflexible;  no one  lowered the tone of the discussions; no one dragged everyone down.

These people had not been assessed or pre-selected in any way: it was just ‘chance’ that brought us all together, and made an experience that I had been dreading into one that I actually enjoyed and benefitted from.

I have heard very different reports from people who have been involved in similar exercises. Is it really just chance and the luck of the draw that determine whether we have good or bad experiences, or are other factors involved? Are unseen influences at work?