Rigby Taylor

Yes, Any1 - just as your name is rather clever. Sanspere = without a father Desolé = desolate bleak, dismal, grim… Fee Lyne = feline Rex Trovert – [r]extrovert Mr. Noall = know all Guapo = [in Spanish] handsome Achilles = Greek hero I always have a bit of fun with names. Thanks for reading, I hope you also enjoy the story. Rigby.

A thirty-six year-old man’s reconnection with his estranged family has an unexpected consequence.

I will read it next. Being a Renaissance man I've always discounted the 14th Century as an inferior precursor to the 15th. So shallow.

Don't tell me... you are named...? Also strange is that it is my favourite name and as a youth I always wanted to be called Anthony - not Tony, and when I lose things I ask Saint Anthony of Padua to assist..

Thanks to your reference I am reading Tuchman's The Guns of August. Discovering that she is an excellent writer, wondrously researched, and most interesting. [How could I expect anything else if you were impressed by her?] Callas was sometimes better than Sutherland, especially in Barber of Seville. You are not yet old, and certainly not beyond saving. 😊

Ha, Ha Anthony, you are far too kind. But that doesn't stop me appreciating your very generous compliments. If you met me you'd find a scrawny almost 80 year-old as silly and impetuous as the 20 year-old who set out to see the world... Some people simply never mature, it seems... apart from nicely maturing wrinkles, of course.

Well deserved. 😊

Thank you, Canuk for accompanying me with your comments for the last 2 weeks, and for your generous praise, it is very appreciated. The potted bio of the last 50 years was added only after someone wrote and complained when the story finished with my meeting Jurgen... he demanded to at least know if we stayed together, so I wrote the epilogue. Writing a memoir when I am not famous, was already presumptuous enough, without continuing with a memoir of the rest, and it wouldn't be that different from many other people's lives. When I started, all I wanted to do was compare the difference between the 1960s and today, because I do not think the changes in the interim have improved the well-being of life on earth. I'm impressed that you and your partner explain your differences patiently, I hope that next time I'll be born with a more placid temperament. 75 is a bit young to fall off a twig, although as long as it's quick and painless it's better than dragging on forever. Years and Years sounds a bit creepy to someone who sees humans [and most other animals] as discrete individuals. All the best to you too, R.😊

And thank you Mfa607 for taking the trouble to tell me. Very appreciated.

Thank you Lorenzo for commenting and enjoying the story. I'm pleased you have found a good relationship after those closeted years. As for more stories, have you read the 8 novels listed at the end of Dancing Bare? All the best, R.

Living apart was not an option! But Europe wasn’t united. I wasn’t allowed to live permanently in Holland. Jürgen couldn’t get permission to live in France. Heterosexuals could get married to solve that problem. We had to live together! But where? The only options were countries that accepted both Dutch immigrants and British colonials. That meant Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. It also meant I would have to quit my favourite country, and Jürgen his homeland and family. We tossed a co

Way out of mine now too, but oh the lure of filthy lucre and audience applause. Never heard of Barbara Tuchman. One of Jurgen's first questions was What do you think of Maria Callas? We then argued the respective merits of Sutherland and Callas. Ah me, that was nearly 54 years ago, and we still haven't stopped talking.

Thanks, Anthony. You're a sweetie.

I was young, Anthony, rude with energy and enthusiasm. I'd never do it now--far too enervating. However, it would be worth going when, as Canuk suggests, there are not too many other tourists. It might not worry you, but I find it impossible to appreciate places when in a queue of hundreds shuffling from one place to another following a guide whose imperfect English makes it even more incomprehensible, then returning to a bus park where the air is heavy with diesel fumes of a dozen other busses so the driver can keep the air conditioning going for his comfort. Egypt is not different from the rest of the world's 'must see' tourist spots--they are all ,ass production tourism money-makers. The days when you could be a private individual, finding your own accommodation and making you own way around interesting places while mixing discreetly with locals, are gone, along with reliable weather. Packaged tours remain profitable, so loads of people must be perfectly happy to be bussed and bossed around by couriers, doing as they are told, insulated from reality. It's just not my idea of how to see the world. If I had the urge to see certain sites again, I think I'd don a pair of virtual reality goggles and enjoy them in comfort rather than wast time and money being disappointed at seeing something that looks exactly as you expected, only not so impressive and not in the least romantic, being surrounded by the modern world.

Cologne. So tired I slept on the concrete platform of the railway station all night waiting for the London train. I arrived in London a wreck. Cold, dank, dirty, described both me and the city. Misery compounded by the realisation I'd come to the wrong country. Why hadn't I gone to France? A public bath restored my appearance enough to enquire at London Berlitz about a job in France, hoping for Nice so I could laze on the beach in the sun and join all those elegant, sexy young men promenading am

I think you have travelled more intelligently and knowledgeably and doubtlessly with more appreciation of places than I in my ignorant early twenties. All was new, I had little knowledge of the history of places, I was just curious and enamoured by the cultural and mental differences between the British way of life and cultures we had been taught to scorn as less civilized than us. In later years I taught the History of Renaissance Art, so am pretty sure I'm no Renaissance Man, but as a compliment it is wonderful. We've been back many times to all those places, and noted the differences, mostly not good, but beneath it all, the "people" remain the same. Such is the tragedy of humanity.

After changing money at one of the innumerable Beirut Bureaux de Change advertising competitive exchange rates, the others went sight-seeing, shopping and night-clubbing, I said I'd meet them in two days and hitched north to Byblos. Poetry in stone. An amphitheatre topped by a row of elegant Roman columns on a hill against a backdrop of the azure Mediterranean. Below nestled an ancient little port with fishing boats the Phoenicians might have sailed in. After making a couple of sketches, I hitch

I'm so pleased to find another fan of Durrell. As for the Tunisian minister, he was more cuddly than imposing. Emitted no dangerous 'vibes' whatever. Like all politicians his desire to be liked hadn't been extinguished. It wasn't bravery on my part, just an acceptance that I was in a situation and had to do what kept things safe. Most people are knowable, not dangerous, cruel, nasty... they're just like everyone else at heart--unless aroused. I've been gifted with the ability to soothe the savage beast, and use it often. I'm never confrontational -- I think that's stupid.

Egypt is a narrow strip of ancient black dust that becomes fertile if it is wet; hard as stone if lumps are left to dry. The railway line isn’t wet, so interminable hours later, black with dust, thirsty, hungry, and exhausted I joined Duff on the platform at Aswan. The edges of the old town were disfigured by featureless concrete apartment blocks built for Russian workers constructing the High Dam. After cleaning up at the youth hostel we visited the construction site and my heart bled at th

At Gabes, Tunisia’s largest oasis and the closest to the sea, I swam at a deserted beach and, to my joy, was joined by a perfect specimen of Negro manhood who arrived, stark naked, on a bicycle. We swam then romped in the sand where I gave succour to the largest penis I have seen in my entire life – a horse would have been jealous! Gabes is supposedly where Odysseus was enchanted by Circe. I was enchanted by my young man on a bicycle, but he had work to return to and cycled away, still stark

Good point about Marseilles and Athens. Violence and criminality know no borders. One is as much at risk in one's own town as in 'foreign climes'. f\For political reasons we have been propagandised to fear and despise different cultures . Other races are not as 'human' as us... Vile nonsense, but it keeps the lucrative war machine profitable. Palatable old age... mmm... yes, in an odd way memories do that. It means I don't feel as if I've missed out on anything, and am happy now to stay at home and experience a bit of peace and tranquility.

We had little in common, Duff and I. I made friends easily; Duff frightened them away. I chattered constantly, giving my opinion on everything. To get an opinion out of Duff required Dominican Inquisitors. I kept fit through useful activity; Duff swore by 5BX, the Canadian Air-Force fitness programme. He was strongly muscled but narrow of body and face as well as outlook. In his swimming togs, he looked tough but not attractive. Eyes too close together, lips pursed, frowning, humourless, pinched

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said to someone... That is extremely sad. Have you met your namesake? You are wiser than I when it comes to meeting people, I should have been more gregarious, but then might not have ended as a happy recluse.... As you say, what if... That sort of thinking leads to nightmares. You do read very quickly, clearly not like current Australian students who, according to the News this evening, are among the poorest educated in the world in Maths, Science, Reading and writing... All those education cuts to balance the budget... 😧

If we accept that life imitates Art, then writers, artists, architects, and musicians are culpable for most of humanity’s blunders. Certainly, the architects of cold, grey, granite Aberdeen must take some blame for that city’s dour inhabitants. The bleak youth hostel squatting in a row of similar stone dwellings, opened its doors at five o'clock. Hikers were given preference, so veteran hostellers parked their cars and motorbikes a block away, donned rucksacks and staggered to the door. I pa

What a joke -- embarrassment money to handle ladies underwear. Oh yes, the rain -- "Ach, just a wee Scotch Mist," the locals would sneer as we huddled under umbrellas. The castle's a bit of a bore inside the walls , you didn't miss much. Shame our paths didn't cross. 😢