Monday, July 23, 2018

08:00 Lois and I get up and after breakfast we change the bed linen on our daughter Sarah's old double bed: it needs a good wash, no doubt about that! We have got in the habit of sleeping in Sarah's old room because it is cooler: it overlooks the backyard and we can keep both windows open at night without any traffic noise.

10:00 We drive over to Bishops Cleeve, a small town approximately 3 miles north of Cheltenham. Lois has to swing by the local branch of Lloyds Bank to pay a check into the business account she manages in connection with her sect's bible seminar program.

To our surprise and disappointment, we find that the branch is going to close in October, and that after that, the branch in the center of Cheltenham will be our closest - damn ! Many banks are currently in the process of closing their smaller branches, and also closing many local ATMs. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of cash.

We walk about 600 yards from the bank to the village post office to ship a package to Australia, two "Peter Rabbit" children's magazines for our (soon to be) 5 year old twin grandchildren, Lily and Jessie. On our way back to the car, we swing by the village's fruit and vegetable shop to buy a few things. We come home and relax with a cup of coffee on the terrace.

13:00 Lunch on the terrace and afterwards I go to bed and take a huge afternoon nap. It is very hot today, stuffy too, and I do not feel like exercising myself too much. I get up reluctantly at 4pm and we relax with an ice cream and a cup of tea on the terrace. Heatwaves are so tiring.

18:30 We have dinner on the terrace and spend the evening watching television and listening to the radio. We hear an interesting radio program all about the (now) quiet Irish village of Burtonport on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, where in the 1970s Jenny James, a young charismatic Englishwoman, established a kind of hippie commune called the Atlantis Foundation.

Jenny led daily therapy sessions for the members of the commune where the main therapy method was so-called primary therapy. That's why the members of the commune were known in the village as "the screamers". They kept goats, cows and chickens, and grew their own vegetables. The commune was awash with birth control pills, sexual promiscuity and all round free spirit.

Lois and I find it a little nostalgic to be reminded of how much the 1960s and 1970s were characterized by ideas of destroying traditional norms and somehow finding "the secret of life". Of course, such a secret does not exist, we know that now, but at that time some people were always announcing that they had discovered some amazing new way of life ha ha! But that was just the spirit of times, when all's said and done.

Jenny decided to establish her commune in a quiet, peaceful, beautiful area of Ireland where the few inhabitants were surrounded by a rather desolate landscape of heathland and rocky shores.

You would have been suspected that local residents would have reacted violently to the members of the commune with their aggressive, confrontational therapy sessions and promiscuity. However, in fact, it seems they pretty much ignored them, and did not even gossip about them, which was nice. However, a local woman living there today recalls that her mother used often to get annoyed when the commune's goats escaped and ate large parts of her shrubs.

Nowadays primal therapy is considered an extremely destructive process and for the most part it isn't used any more. Jenny James, the charismatic leader of the colony, suffered from a broken childhood and youth, she used to say. She once said that if she had managed to find a lovey-dovey man and have 3.5 orgasms a week she would never have ended up in that remote corner of Ireland surrounded by screaming bunches of people who, like her, didn't fit in anywhere.

Jenny James (left) with her daughter, in the Atlantis Foundation commune

Lois and I have never practiced screaming as a therapy method, and I suspect we would not be very popular in the neighborhood if we tried it now - not much doubt about that!

Our immediate neighbors are all retirees, like us, and tend to go to bed early and take afternoon naps, etc. We suspect that they rarely practice primal therapy methods and so are forced to be satisfied with just their weekly 3.5 orgasms.

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzz !!!!

Danish translation

08:00 Lois og jeg står op, og efter morgenmad skifter vi sengetøj på vores datter Sarahs gamle dobbeltseng: det trænger til et godt vask, ingen tvivl om det! Vi er kommet i vane med at sove i Sarahs gamle værelse, fordi det er køligere: det har udsigt over baghaven og vi kan holde begge vinduer åbne om natten uden trafiklarm.

10:00 Vi kører over til Bishops Cleeve, en lille by, der ligger ca. 3 miles nord for Cheltenham. Lois behøver at smutte ind til den lokale Lloyds Bank-filial for at sætte en check ind på forretningskontoet, som hun administrerer i forhold til sin sekts bibelseminarprogram.

Til vores overraskelse og skuffelse finder vi ud af, at filialen bliver lukket i oktober måned, og derefter vil filialen i midten af Cheltenham være vores nærmeste – pokkers! Mange bank er nutildags i gang med at lukke deres mindre filialer, også mange lokale pengeautomater. Det bliver hele tiden sværere og sværere at få fat på kontanter.

Vi går hen ca. 500m fra banken til landsbyens postkontor for at afsende en pakke til Australien, to ”Peter Rabbit” børnemagasiner til vores (snart) 5-årige tvillingebørnebørn, Lily og Jessie. På vej tilbate til bilen smutter vi ind i landsbyens frugt- og grøntsagshandler for at købe et par ting. Vi kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe på terrassen.

13:00 Frokost på terrassen og bagefter går jeg i seng og tager en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Det er meget varmt i dag, også lummert, og jeg har ikke lyst til at bevæge mig. Jeg står modvilligt op kl 16 og vi slapper af med en is og en kop te på terrassen. Hedebølger er så trættende.

18:30 Vi spiser aftensmad på terrassen og bruger aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn og lytte til radio. Vi hører et interessant radioprogram, der handler om den (nu) stille og rolige irske landsby Burtonport, der ligger på Irlands atlantiske kyst, hvor Jenny James, en ung karismatisk englænder, i 1970’erne etablerede en slags hippie-koloni, kaldet Atlantis Foundation.

Jenny ledte daglige terapi-sessioner for koloniens medlemmer, hvor den hovedsagelige terapi-metode var den såkaldte primalterapi. Derfor var koloniens medlemmer kendte i landsbyen som ”skrigerne”. De holdte geder, køer og kyllinger, og dyrkede deres egne grøntsager. Kolonien flød også med p-piller, seksuel promiskuitet og frisind.

Lois og jeg finder det lidt nostalgisk at blive mindet om, hvor meget 1960’erne og 1970’erne blev karakteriset af ideer om at ødelægge traditionelle normer og på en eller anden måde at finde ”livets hemmelighed” – selvfølgelig eksisterer denne hemmelighed ikke. Nu ved vi det, men dengang troede nogle folk at de havde opdaget et eller andet fantastisk ha ha! Men det var tidsånden trods alt.

Jenny besluttede at etablere sin koloni i et stille, roligt og skønt område, hvor folk var omgivet af et temmelig øde landskab af hedebakker og klippefyldte kyster.

Man ville have mistænkt, at de lokale indbyggere ville have reageret voldsomt på koloniens medlemmer med deres aggressive, konfrontative terapisessioner og promiskuitet. Men faktisk lader det til at de for de meste ignorerede dem, og ikke engang sludrede om dem, hvilket var rart. En nuværende lokal kvinder minder imidlertid om, at hendes mor ofte blev irriteret, da koloniens geder undslap og åd dele af hendes buske.

Nutildags er primalterapi betragtet som en ekstremt ødelæggende proces, og den bliver ikke brugt længere for det meste. Jenny James, koloniens karismatiske leder, led selv af en ødelagt barndom og ungdom, plejede hun at sige. Hun fortalte, at hvis det havde lykkedes hende at finde en kærlige mand og have 3,5 orgasmer om ugen, ville hun aldrig have havnet i denne fjerne hjørne af Irland, omgivet af skrigende masser af folk, der alle var, ligesom hende, på en forkert hylde.

Jenny James (til venstre) sammen med sin datter,  i Atlantis-kolonien

Lois og jeg har aldrig praktiseret skrigeri som terapimetode, og jeg mistænker vi ikke ville være meget populære i nabolaget, hvis vi nu forsøgte os med det – ingen tvivl om det!

Vores umiddelbare naboer er alle pensionister, ligesom os, og har tendens til at gå tidligt i seng og tage eftermiddagslure osv. Vi mistænker at de også kun sjældent praktiserer primalterapimetoder, og er tvunget til at nøjes med deres ugentlige 3,5 orgasmer. 

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzz!!!!