The Breakfast Room

INTRODUCTION

Two years ago, my father-in-law passed away just before Christmas Day. A few weeks into that new year, my wife and I helped her mother go through some of his belongings.

I gravitated to his favourite room, the breakfast room, in which he kept most of his books. Finding me with rag in hand and an open cardboard box, my grateful mother-in-law told me I could keep whatever I wished. She had tried for ages, in vain, to get my father-in-law to gradually give his books to charities as he got older.

So, I kept a doomsday booklet titled Russia's Fatal Invasion, the Poems and Prose of Gerard Hopkins, and the long out-of-print The World's Greatest Sea Disasters by Kenneth S. Allen.

These items are not in a good state. So, I've decided to give my opinion about each of them, before settling on their fate. As well as giving some thoughts on the actual breakfast room itself.

BOOKLET

Russia's Fatal Invasion tells the reader that the beginning of the end is near. A Mad-Max-like scenario is about to play out across the planet, particularly in the Middle East. Handspikes, spears, horse-drawn carts.

The booklet is disturbingly violent in nature. Millions of people die in hideous ways. And then get thrown into an eternal lake of molten lava.

The booklet, written in 1980, begins by reminding the reader that Russian troops had entered Afghanistan. It then becomes riddled with lies and word games. Nobody knows where Kush once lay; "rosh" foretells Rosh-ia; Moscow lays north of Jerusalem.

In fact, land-wise, it's Lebanon, and, ruler-wise, it's Turkey. Moscow (longitude 37.6 E) lays north-east of Jerusalem (35.2 E). Kush once lay over parts of Sudan and Egypt. And, "rosh" means chief or head, as it's always done.

Doomsday booklets and books always reveal two things about the author. The first, evidently, the desire for tons of money, through false means. This particular theologian had a radio show in Michigan at the time, and his claims would have increased his listenership, which would have ultimately increased his bank balance.

Secondly, these publications, whether the authors realise it or not, show us the person's psyche. In this case, the author doesn't hope that the Cold War ends, or, logically, takes into account that most Russians of the day did not like communism and their own government. He wants them all gone, dead, suffering; along with atheists too.

When you take away the dressing, the ancient sentences, you're left with the bare framework: the author wanted genocide followed by the dead suffering post-death, and he wanted atheists entirely removed from the planet too.

These guys know exactly what they're doing. That's why they feel there's always enough time to write a doomsday book or novel, despite the world's imminent end. And when you take away the dressing, you always get the framework, whether that be prejudice or jealousy, the inability to be a good or private neighbour, or the childish hope that anyone a bit different to them – in race, nationality, or ways – meets their demise.

Now, the fraud is bad enough. But, what really upsets me is the harm these books and booklets cause. Children and teenagers believe them, and then, later in life, when the hypnotic effects have worn off, become depressed or loathe themselves, longing for the years they'll never get back.

GERARD HOPKINS

I hardly ever read poetry, but I kept the Poems and Prose of Gerard Hopkins for his journal entries. Father Hopkins and his friend Ed Bond head off to Switzerland for the month of July 1868.

Hopkins' entries are at times clunky or almost point form, as one would expect from an imperfect, personal journal. However, even without being flowing, he still paints a colourful picture of his time in Switzerland.

Mossy banks along the Rhine. A shepherd below a misty rainbow. A train ride to Basel. A full moon above a bridge.

Ridges and chimneys backed by chestnut trees. A silhouetted figure at a village window while music plays. A starlit sky above the Bernese Alps. Lunch at a waterfall on the Wylerhorn (sic).

Youngsters yodelling while snow moves in hollows. Flowers backed by fir trees. A tumble down a grass slope. The lilac and greenery of the Grimsel [Pass]. Sketching rock plains at the Aar. Flatfish swimming in its isles.

The jagged peaks of the Rhone Glacier. Unusual clouds above a moraine. Floral scents on the breeze. A lightning-lit dawn at the Breithorn.

SEA DISASTER

In October 1913, the Volturno set off from Rotterdam, with the intention of taking eastern European immigrants to America. It also carried with it chemicals and oils.

Early in the morning of the 9th, in the mid-North-Atlantic, the forward hold suddenly exploded, injuring the ship's captain, Francis Inch.

Troubled passengers came out on deck and put on lifebelts.

Then, a second explosion blew up half the engine room.

An officer in the radio cabin sent out an SOS.

While a gale-force wind blew, surviving crew tried to put out the flames with hoses.

Then, more explosions blew up the cargo of cotton.

Inch launched the first lifeboat, but it whacked into the side of the Volturno and capsized. Most of its occupants drowned in the rough sea.

The second lifeboat whacked into the side of the ship too, and broke in half.

Further attempts heralded more capsized boats, and a boat swamped and carried off by strong waves.

Terrified crewmen tried to use a remaining lifeboat, but a pulley jammed, flinging them into the sea of death.

The Cunarder, Carmania, replied to the SOS – but even at full speed, it would only be able to get there three hours later.

Volturno passengers, now at the back of the ship, were beside themselves. A rabbi's assistant blew on a shofar.

The Carmania finally arrived and its First Officer and some crewmen tried to get out to the Volturno on a now oily sea, but the rough waves forced them to turn back. They grabbed onto rope and so forth just in time, the sea yanking away their boat.

It was now almost four in the afternoon.

Gratefully, the Seydlitz and the ocean liner Grosser Kurfuerst (sic) (German) also arrived on the scene.

As did the Kroonland (Belgian).

And, around the same time, the Minneapolis, Devonian, La Touraine, Rappahannock, and Czar (various countries).

Seydlitz's captain thought outside the box – he lowered empty boats in the hope they'd float over to the Volturno. But they just drifted away.

Narragansett, an American tanker, radioed to say they'd join in the rescue, but would not be able to get to the scene before the next morning.

That evening, Volturno's Second Officer and four crewmen, chanced the very last lifeboat – and reached the Grosser Kurfuerst.

Then, a desperate German passenger, Walter Trintepohl, chanced a swim to the Carmania, where a searchlight spotted him, and a tied rope got him out of the water.

That night, while the gale-force wind continued blowing, Volturno's chart room blew up. Passengers jumped into the rough sea and drowned.

So, when the crews of the Grosser Kurfuerst, Devonian, and Minneapolis rowed lifeboats towards the Volturno, encouraging its remaining passengers to jump into the water, they were too petrified to do so.

A rudder of a Devonian lifeboat fell off, and the Carmania had to be repositioned in order to rescue its occupants.

The Carmania's searchlight then spotted crew and passengers who had chanced jumping off the Volturno.

By sunrise, the wind had died down, but the fire now approached cases of gin.

The Narragansett finally arrived on the scene, and pumped oil into the sea to calm the waves. Lifeboats were now able to rescue Volturno's surviving crew and passengers.

Injured, bleeding, exhausted Captain Inch was the last figure to leave the ship.

That would make for a great movie or historical novel. People of different nationalities banding together to help and save one another.

BREAKFAST ROOM

My parents-in-law's house goes up for sale soon. The house in which my wife grew up.

She must have so many memories of that airy, usually sunlit breakfast room. As do I, even though I didn't really get along with my father-in-law, who had a tendency of being wilfully grumpy.

The fraudulent, harmful booklet of disturbingly violent wishes, and its rusty staple, can go in the bin, where it belongs. Father Hopkins' Poems and Prose is unfortunately extremely blotched and faded, and will have to go into a recycle bin.

But, for my wife, I'll find a spot for The World's Greatest Sea Disasters, on my bookcase, and retain it till we're old and grey. Written by someone named Kenneth, her father's namesake.