For Me, No Easter Sunrise On Holy Island.

Story and Photos By Uncle Monty

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So off I went on Good Friday to The Holy Island of

Lisdisfarne so that I could witness the Easter Morning

Sunrise around me, but I never got to get there due

to circumstances beyond my personal control of

transportation mishaps and the island's tidal

waves. Instead, I found myself at Ecosse's

Edinburgh and Scottish Borderlands for

my Eastertide.
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Swarms of Asians I now saw upon my unplanned

Easter arrival at Scotland's Edinburgh, which I'd not

seen for forty years or more since I lived there very

briefly at Fountainbridge and just doors away from

actor Sean Connery's mom who came with her baked

jam tarts for me and my fellow Edinburgh University

students at the turn of the 1960's.

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At first I thought Edinburgh looked quite unchanged

from my days there, but once I saw the swarms of

Asian youthz racing down the streets I knew, then

and there, it wasn't the same city I once knew of so

many years ago ... Even though I was back in Edin-

burgh, I distinctly felt I was still in England with all

its foreignized and ghettoised communities that I

cannot avoid no matter where I go in London and

elsewhere all over the UK. It seems the whole

country is now a minefield of foreign towns and

cities at where if one is not a foreigner you feel you

are almost unwelcomed and unwanted in your own

British country that has been subjugated by every-

thing that is so foreign and so unEnglish. The political

curse of mass immigration has robbed us of our own

country. And Scotland seems to be no exception,

if to a milder degree, from what I can see.

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Edinburgh also seemed so Anglicized -now, compared

to my days when everything Scottish was so proudly

rendered before you. I saw more Union Jacks flying

here than I did of the St. Andrew flag of Scotland. And,

brand name retailers at the hideous shopping centres

have now taken a hold here, too. I saw only one small

local shop with taylored tartan kilts for sale in its neat

little shop window set against the brash and ever-

commercial stores of the well-known brands.

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Snowflakes came somewhat hapharzardly as I

bumped into the first begger of the day on Easter

Saturday. I was moving rapidly along Princes Street

at about 8:00am to keep myself warm from the free-

zing tempertures that hit me badly and the begger

I soon photographed. Then it was the Romanian

girl I saw next who was too scared to be photo-

graphed full-faced, but I told her to pull her

hood more over her face and to stand to her

side so that I could photograph her as a street

vendor of The Big Issue. I bought my first

Scottish edition of the mag from her at her

pitch near St. James Shopping Centre. She

spoken only pigeon English at just age 20.

She spoke more English than I can speak

Romanian for sure ... Forty years or more

ago there were no Romanians to be seen

on the streets of Edinburgh nor The Big

Issue. Such had never been heard of then

and perhaps in the next forty years or more

such will have long disappeared, too.

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The Romanian girl (above) called hereself "Nicole."

That's hardly a Romanian girl's name, I suspect.

Her name of "Nicole" sounds so American to me.

She seemed quite happy to be here in Edinburgh,

but I wasn't frankly. I'd prefer to remember the

city has it once was to me, not what it has become

today. The problem with sentimentality is that it

always shatters one's memory and emotion when

it faces today's new reality of what one once rem-

embered of things from all those past yesterdays.

And so, my fond memory of Edinburgh has now

been permanently shattered here by coming

back after forty years or more. I wish I'd never

come back, like I did today. I simply hate all the

new reality being a deep sentimentalist at heart.

As a Capricorn, I am more comfortable with

things of the past than with new-fangled things

that seem so shallow and so empty at best and at

worst a most unwelcomed and forced reality.
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And, Now To The Borderlands.

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The Borderlands of England and Scotland

are best understood from The Walled City of

Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was once Scotland's

richest city until the English conquered it and

claimed it as their own. I include a couple of

my pictures of my visit to Berwick that is

a major jumping-off stage to go on to The

Holy Island of Lindisfarne, that's if the tides

are low and if not then you're stranded to stay

at Berwick like I did for Easter Day. Being so

near to Holy Island and yet so far was so

frustrating to me especially after travelling

almost 400 miles to get there and then another

400 miles to return to home base after being

unfulfilled in my purpose for wanting to go there

for Easter Sunrise as a devout and affirming

Anglican that I always try to be ...

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My selected pictures of Berwick-upon-Tweed

show the city 1, from a panoramic view; 2, the

perimeters of the historic walled city; and 3,

the lovely memorial to Lady Annie Jerningham

with her beloved dogz of 1902. Her husband,

Sir Hubert, was the local M.P. at the time of her

death. Here, too, is Britain's oldest infantry barr-

acks that I tried to visit but it was too tough for

me to climb at its long and very steep incline at

the high elevation of the walled city. I saw plenty

of young military recruits though going up and

down the steep incline with perfect ease. And,

Berwick, like Edinburgh, was too wintery cold

for everybody even on this Easter weekend ...
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Here's are a couple of other photos of the full-

time beggar and the unbadged street vendor

there that I encountered while on the streets

of Ecosse's Edinburgh:

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I wouldn't take a word of what he said

with two grains of salt. Clearly, he was a

"professional" beggar. Look how clean he

looks with a nice clean colorful blanket

and new dark blue bag and a nice, clean red

bowl and not to mention his carefully crafted

beggar's sign so carefully place in front of him.

His sign declared: "I Am Hungry And Homeless.

A. Please Can You Spare A Little Bit (of)

Change. Thank You. B. I Have Got Learning
Disabilities."
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You sure have buddy!! Your only "disability" it

seems to me is you DON'T want to earn a living

by working, at age 26, instead of professionally-

bumming on the streets of Edinburgh to get money

from suckers such as me and others!! Right, mate?

Get off your smelly ass and do something with your

life and don't panhandle it away until you're so old
they'll bang you away in some care home for old

men of wasted lives like your's will eventually be ...
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See no Big Issue badge on this street guy,

do you? For those who might like to see it,

I add my photo of the front cover of the

Scottish edition of this week's Big Issue.
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As for my fancy Berwick dinner at the King's

Arms Hotel restaurant called Il Porto di Mare,

I got what I paid for I pretty well think.

Here's what I got for almost $20.00 or

£9.75 in local money: Organic Grilled Tweed

Salmon with crispy Bacon masked with Suffron;

white wine and chive sauce and Duchess cream

potates. Followed by Raspberry Pavlova mer-

ingue Shell-filled with Chantilly cream and

Raspberries Coulis, costing me another $9.00 or

£4.50. And, a nice big pot of tea at only $3.00

or £1.50. It was better to sit comfy and dine

warmly inside, no matter the cost, than to stand

and wait in the freezing cold and the on and off

sleet for my final 400-mile or so ride back to

London just before midnight.

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What I saw of Berwick's so-called "nightlife"

was the common scene of British hot-to-trot

nights of boozing and screaming at the local

Golden Square by the native yobz and loutz

with girlz half-dressed (or half-naked, if you

wish!) like local slutz despite the bitter cold of

the night. I saw one black fella drunk as a newt

and he skipped and hopped from one side of the

street to the other. He then charged like a black

bull in a bull ring and crashed his head right into

a blank, brick wall. But he seemed unfazed as he

then carried on to wherever he planned to rest his

bloodied face and his drunkened head. Just minutes

earlier, two young woman copz had stood watch but

they seemed clearly outnumbered by the public fray.

A couple of more other copz came by later show-

ing their tallness and maleness to those who would

just dare challenge them. They'd missed the black

bull, of course!

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So finally, I got my long ride back to home base.

For me, then, no Easter Sunrise on Holy Island as

I journeyed through the English night and after

my visit back to Ecosse's Edinburgh and my first

visit to The Borderlands of Scotland and England

with a touch of Easter just for me at The Walled

City of Berwick-upon-Tweed ...

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Britons Still Believe In Christ's Resurrection

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=1760

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And now, HAPPY and BLESSED EASTER

to you all. Faithfully, Uncle Monty.

Easter Day, 2oo8.

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A Letter from America ...

Howdy Uncle, Keep pumping out those stories of your own

style. They're readable plus honest. What happened to you hap-

pened to my family when we could not get across to Holy Island

when the low tides came. We stayed in Berwick for the night. As

for the night life, we were so tired we saw none of it. What you

wrote about the night life there was shocking plus revealin'.

You're truly a marvellous feature writer. You write a big range

of subjects I see from your blog. Plus, those photographs you

take are well taken. Take good care, good Uncle Monty.

Keep writing more for us all. Chio.

Casey Dahl, Kennebunkport, Maine, USA.