Chapter ONe - a beginnning to the black book

Where else to begin but at the beginning, but when and where was that?  The story of Knockengorroch is ancient indeed.  Mine is considerably shorter, but both tales are convoluted.  How came about the renowned Knockengorroch festivals?  Was it written in the sod of Knockengorroch Meadow that one day the world should assemble here  to hear the music of the hills?  Or was it decreed or foretold by some unknown druid of the ancient past, that the music of the world should be heard amongst the mighty Cairnsmore Hills ?  The answer to such questions is one that must be sought, but cannot be answered.  Was I drawn here to make these wonders happen ?  I played at least a part.  I came from the south, where lie the temporate seas upon which sails the Isle of Albion. 

“Ya wallad al Inglizi: ‘Son of an Englishman’ – what persuasion brings you here? ” they asked me in the souq that lies beneath the mount where Nebi Ibrahim once grazed his cattle, Abraham the prophet also known.  On the northern shore of desert Arabia it all began for me, I think, with the purchase of two donkeys, together with a heavy pair of water panniers, two tractor inner tubes sewn stoutly together, that when full were weight enough for the stoutest Mesopotian jackass, two of which I became the master of, jointly with my brother.  “Oh why hast thou bought the ja-hash? ” the merchant pashas of Aleppo asked us.  In the early summer of 1965 it was a question that I could not answer.  Nor can I now…. but Yallah! To the desert would we go, we said..

We needed the two donkeys and the ruwaiyah water bags to journey in the waste that laps the olive groves of hilltop medina Al Haleb.  Aleppo: the city that they call ‘The Milk’: from the high platform summit of the Hittite citadel, where Islamic Judeo-Christian prophet Abraham stopped to graze and milk his cattle, as tradition has it, when from that great elevation I looked out on primordial desert Arabia I saw a thousand miles of arid wilderness before me, and beyond, the distant Persian Gulf.  More perfect blue than the sky above my head I imagined journey’s end, having crossed the great Arabian peninsular in one single bound. To journey even half as far on foot would suffice, but to achieve that we needed water bearers.  Two camels would have done us proudly, long striding and enduring, mighty steeds, the best for desert journeys,  but we could afford to buy only donkeys.  Never mind, we told ourselves.  Before the domestication of the camel, the humble ass served desert Arabia’s requirement, and they would serve our needs as well.

Albion was a son of Gaia and Uranus, a brother to Heracles whose pillars are the Mediteranean gateway to the Atlantic seaways, and to Atlas upon whose back the heavens ride, and to six other brothers and sisters, all of whom were banished from Olympus by triumphal Hellenic gods.  Judeo-Christian Islamic God alone knows when.  Before the fall of Troy, or Minoan Crete, before the Hebrews departed Egypt it must be, certainly before the Irish came to Ireland, the Scots to Scotia, the Welsh to Wales, before ever was there written word indeed, the nine Titans of antiquity walked the earth, as sure as any later kings and princes did.  And one amongst their number journeyed north north-west, by way of Albania and the Alps it seems, to find himself at last the pillar of the isle of Britain.
The island was known to ancient Phoenician traders, but it is not until later that we hear its name. Circa 500 BC one Himilcar “the mariner” a Carthaginian sea captain, circumnavigated the twin Atlantic isles of the “Ivernii and the Albiones”, by which time not only the Balkan highlands, and Europe’s crowning Alpine range, but the island of Britain, all preserved the Titan’s name.
 
Written in the landscape and its ancient names, the book of Knockengorroch must begin at the very heart of ancient Albany, which lay [and still lies] in SW.Scotland, on the borders of Galloway and Kyle and Carrick, centred on the brilliant shores of Loch Doon in fact, a little distance east of which lies Knockengorroch. That it is no idle claim I make it will, I hope, become apparent.

The Albion that raised me was very different to today’s puny little hopefull USA. Very different too was London and its sprawling suburbs, a world apart from the mist-clad Southern Uplands which are now my home, not to mention the blistered barren hills of northern Syria where once upon a time we ventured forth.  Where we grew up in Pinner, William and I, in the nearly defunct shire of Middlesex, there were no donkeys to be found in leafy English lanes, no wild hills or inpenetrable forests, and least of all were there any deserts.  Only well-kept lawns and rows of mock Tudor homes, well appointed, when it rained dreary, when the sun shone second-rate, secondhand, slightly tarnished demi-paradise it was, at best, even to a child’s eyes.  And yet the landscape that nurtured us was rich beyond imagining.  I grew up and roamed and climbed trees and dammed the little River Pin gushing from a drainage pipe that emerged from beneath the end of the cul-de-sac at the top of which there stood my red brick home, and my mother’s garden, truly her masterwork. I got up to as much other mischief as most others of my generation did, growing up in postwar Britain.  But though I exulted in the leafy sanctuary of old Pinnerhill woods, only little did I know then that I played beneath the trees of Cymberline’s enchanted forest …

Words have their limitations, and nowhere is this more so than when we look back to the past.  I have good reason to flounder in my tale of Knockengorroch, for it is history I speak of, living history, a story that has no beginning, no ending, though it has within it many beginnings, and more endings.  We chose ourselves.  Allah is generous.

“Allah Karim – God is Generous ”  in Kuwait, just inside the gate of purgatory a lounging resident gestured to the crowded little square before me and told me not to despair at what appeared to be then my dismal future, but what would come to pass had come to pass.  Not six months earlier in northern Syria, neither we nor our two donkeys had known what lay in store for us.

“Allah hu Akaba – God Most Great ” the call to prayer that awoke me from my slumber on the day we departed for the desert was un-augmented [or distorted] by loudspeakers.  Just across the street, from the rooftop of the funduq inn where was my bed, I could see a balustraded minaret and, in silhouette against the gathering light, the turbaned and bearded singer of the morning prayers, hands cupped to his ears.  A new day had begun in rapture, not just for me or my brother, but for all the faithful of the city and beyond, far beyond.  Every day, like no other the name of Allah was spoken, and so often, and in every mouth, and was heard by every waking ear.  It was a marvel and a wonder.

“In the Name of Allah the Merciful the Compassionate ” In the courtyard below the innkeeper began to intone the fatihah ?  Alhamdullilah ar’Rubbi al Aalamin - the praise is to the Lord of the Worlds…We two un-washed kafr ‘heathen’ youths were slovenly in rising, even at our most committed to the way ahead, as we were on that day. Driven in the end by the heat of the climbing summer desert sun above my head,  I emerged sweating from beneath my quilt to greet my rooftop neighbour with the peace of Islam, and he too replied with a wide smile “Wa Alaykum as’Salam – and unto you the Peace ”, while from  behind a woven screen of tall Euphrates rushes the womenfolk harim called out to us a cheerful greeting, no doubt sarcastic, or ribald, judging by the laughter that accompanied their epithets.  He on the other hand was the soul of politeness and discretion.  A Shammari Beduin of the Jurba tribe he was, and an even handed desert man, as indeed the Sheykh of a nomad pastoral house must be.

Did we go to the badiyah this day? he asked.  Yes, to the desert we would go, we replied “Bi jahash - with the donkeys - in the waste kulu wahad everyone who is a Beduin will feed you and house you and your beasts ” He was effusive, as usual.  Although we had only known him a few days, both he and his aged battle-scarred father had taken to us.  Unlike the motley assemblage of urban Syryans who were guests in the rooms that opened out onto the courtyard below, the Beduins upstairs were enthusiatic hosts.  Be-fezzed, be-turbaned and portly in their satin waistcoats and their embroidered cumerbands the jammat al funduq – the company of the inn – were friendly enough, but they did not, it seems, entirely approve of us.

We had arrived in Aleppo as backpackers, as one might say today, not that there were so many Western youths of that ilk abroad in the Middle East in those days, although there were enough to boost the income of such little inns as the one we stayed in.  With our unkempt hair, in the faded jeans that we and others of our urban generation favoured, we were a target for all manner of attention by the locals, not only touts who, in the guise of guides, would lead us to their “cousins’” cheap café, or a rooftop funduq bed, or a fumey backroom that stank of grade one Turkish hashish, not only scoundrels and scalliwags I should add; for every one of these there were two again who were wholly well-intentioned.  I would be doing Al Haleb a great disfavour if I did not also add that, unlike any other city I had known before, I was welcomed with a cheerful hug to its heart and that, far from seedy and disreputable, it ranked rather better in terms of graciousness and civil manners than did my own London town, which can be as hard on strangers as anywhere I know.

Mostly those who hailed us in Aleppo were youths of about our own age in fact, earnest rafiq guides to the medina, as is proper and correct, as Islam requires. They were also eager to count Westerners among their friends, to practise textbook English, to be amongst “modern” folk who shared, they thought, at least their lack of reverence for outmoded custom, and their taste in fashion, which was to us unfortunate.  Very soon we found ourserlves attended to by a self-appointed guide.  In his “drip-dry” nylon shirt and “off the peg” sharp trousers and his two-tone Italian shoes, the Syrian lad who led us through the souk was personable, but he was also fawning, that is say his attention was cloying, and we could not shake him off.
“I am student at Al Haleb university” he offered  “First-a-class!”
“What-a-class are you?”
Music this was not to my ears, or my brother.  We had heard the like before.
“Nah-noo talaab il ’Sahrah - We are students of the desert” I still remember William’s gruff reply, pointedly in Arabic, which I have to say was better than our friend’s  English, although not much.  These were the early days of our Arabian travels.  I cannot speak for Bill, but I could manage essentials, although I understood next to nothing.  The situation would improve for both of us, but even then our converstation with the lad would have been more successful if it had been in Arabic.  The strange thing was that our guide did not appear to be aware of it.
“Nah-nah ar riyd ish’tirri jamal – We want buy camels” I thought I said, or something very close, but elicited the reply: “Yes I show you Al Haleb, it is beautiful … Many schools, many hotels, many tourist places ..”
“We want camels” Bill repeated.  Probably I adopted some kind of music hall posture
“Jamal!” our rafiq repeated finally in Arabic “You want buy camels?”
“Aywa-Aywah – yes!” we said unison.
He was slow in coming round, not to say more than a little dubious.  We were both of us, I think unfairly, impatient with him.  If I had been approached by two strange Arab lads in the Edgware Road and asked where I could buy a tractor for them, I would have been prone to disengage forthwith, before things got any weirder.  It was to his credit that he did no such thing, and I warmed to him. “Camels there were not any in the city” he informed us, no doubt hoping we would drop the subject and move on to more exciting things.
It was not to be, however. We knew better, and we told him so. Three camels we had seen not five minutes earlier, loop-necked, slack-jawed, doleful, overbearing muzzles that rose disdainfully above the crowded mortal heads of this Halep they call also Umm es Suq - the “mother” of all market souks.

Nigh on two days we had sweated and tramped the labyrynthal streets of the city of the Milk, until we had accomplished our first objective, to equip ourselves with pack-beasts. It soon became apparent that even a single camel was way beyond our modest means, and we must content ourselves with donkeys.  Our rafiq was less than enthusiastic at first.  While he had agreed, reluctantly, that yes there were some Bedu “desert folk” who drove their camels sometimes into Al Haleb, he was not about to go and get his new shoes dirty.
We pressed him hard, and would not drop the matter.
“Come-a-wid-me!” he said finally, and with that we had begun a day of wandering, which I have to say was magical and wondrous, although at the end of it we were not much nearer to success than when we began it. The young student who befriended us was solicitous in all things pertaining to our comfort and delight in this his beloved city, but a little less so with respect to our outlandish mission, as it seems he regarded it. 

We had entered a world of subterranean enchantment. From the hubbub of a brassy middle-eastern  metropolis through a low stone gateway we had stepped into the cloistered lanes of antiquity, and after the heat and confusion of the outer streets the souk was cool and pleasant.  The fumy stink of motor traffic gave way to fresh inviting smells, a host of fruit and vegetables, more than ever I can name. The roar of diesal engines, the raucous clammer of impatient horns and screeching brakes gave way to the sound of merchant’s entreating calls, and donkey-drivers’ surly cries, and women haggling.

Out from the windswept austere boundary streets of Western deprivation we had returned to the sumptuous hearth of time honoured civility, like prodigal sons, and ancient civilization had greeted us.  The sights before me then were such as I have not seen since. Through isles of green watermelon stacked to the arched stone roof we passed, beneath cascades of green produce, red, yellow, orange peppers, and onwards transported, jostled by a cheerful river of humanity. In gracious flowing robes, or gathered waisted pantalons, from the good earth Bilad Haleb the “land of Milk” they thronged the narrow lanes of Aleppo. Fallahin or“Country-people”, and Yekr?d upland Syrian Kurds, and Bedu “Desert-folk”  rubbed shoulders here together, and city Pashas, merchants, clerics, Shaykh “Elders”, Immams, and Ullema. One great Jamat or“Congregation” of Haleb it was we followed, till I was lost and all agog, when at last we stood beneath the vaulted roof of the central aisle that was the very heart of old Aleppo. 

Jamat al Umawi this street is called.  The concept is Islamic. My translation surely falters.  The street of the “Congregation of Motherhood” may I offer, on the basis that this ancient covered mall is surely the mother of all such illustrious thoroughfares.  Here we stopped to regale ourselves on ice cold mushy tamera date juice, while before us amongst the processional cavalcade that thronged the street there passed a constant stream of equestrian traffic.  Mounted horses and mules, and great white pack-asses, and snorting donkeys bearing seemingly impossible loads, all passed before my eyes, till I remembered with a start what was our purpose there.
And then - “Bi kam flüs hada - How much is this?” Suddenly my brother had lunged forward to grab the halter of a passing donkey, and to accost its startled driver.  Our rafiq was disconcerted, but the burly Fallahin was not slow in naming us a price, whereupon, assisted by our student friend we set about the task of bargaining …

Four more days like this would pass, before the sunny morning I awoke to the call to prayer, and said farewell to our Shammari friends, and at the driving end of two sturdy ja-hash we stepped out into the future, where of course begins my story also of the past …