For those of you who may not recognise the two men pictured above, they are Jon Lord, in the foreground, and Tony Iommi with the dark glasses. Jon Lord plays the keyboards and he is a founding member of Deep Purple, although he left the band amicably in 2002, while Tony Iommi is a guitarist and a founding member of Black Sabbath. A little while ago, I learned that both these men are battling cancer, so as there are numerous online sites wishing them well, I thought I would add to this number and address them both myself.

Jon, the first thing I ever learned to play on any musical instrument was the opening keyboard section of Child In Time. It was back in 1971, when I had started boarding school and I had been introduced to Deep Purple In Rock, while my various friends and housemates played Child In Time so often that it ended up being banned.

Like just about everyone else, I was enthralled by these beautiful, melancholy chimes in A minor and I was taught how to play this introduction (using both hands!) by a friend of mine, on the organ in the school chapel. I won’t go into my entire musical history, but as a direct result of the thrill I had from being able to play this piece, I went on to take piano lessons. I further explored the world of music by singing in choirs and learning to play various other instruments, while I’ve also listened to most other works you’ve recorded over the years.

My two teenage children grew up listening to your music from a very early age and I’ve also been able to teach them to play and to appreciate music to a certain degree. I can’t begin to tell you of the vast amount of pleasure I’ve derived from all this over the course of the last 40 years or so, but I’m sure you can imagine, while I’m very greatly in your debt as a result.

Tony, at the same time that I was listening to Deep Purple In Rock, I was also introduced to the Paranoid and Black Sabbath albums. I didn’t get to pick up a guitar for some years afterwards, because there weren’t any around for me to practise on, but the first riff I played on a guitar – even before Smoke On The Water – was the opening to the track Black Sabbath. I didn’t realise at the time that I was playing two notes an octave apart, then a flattened fifth, but it was just so bloody exciting to be able to reproduce the haunting and unnerving main riff to a song I’d heard so many times.

You won’t remember this, but I got to meet you, Ozzy, Bill and Geezer a few years later while you were writing the songs for what would be the Never Say Die album in the old Manor House just outside Monmouth. I’d seen Black Sabbath at the Hammersmith Odeon a few months before this while you were on the Technical Ecstasy tour, then I learned you were all in the Monmouth area. I can remember all the details as if this happened yesterday, because it was a very, very big deal indeed for an impressionable teenager at a boarding school to meet you all. You all listened very tolerantly to my suggestions for the direction your next album should take, while you personally made me a cup of coffee and assured me that Ludwig wouldn’t bite me.

Even if I hadn’t met you, however, then I’m as grateful to you as I am to Jon for all the excitement, dreams, inspiration and pleasure your music has given to me over the years. I still listen to Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, among others, even forty years down the line, and I can’t see this ever coming to an end.

Like millions of other people, I was terribly sad when I heard of the illnesses that you’re both battling. I’ve long taken an interest in the world and in the people around me, so when I learn of those who despoil the earth and its creatures, and of those who lie to, cheat, steal from, oppress and generally bring misery to their fellow man, then it seems to me to be even more unjust and incomprehensible that men such as yourselves, who have always given such enjoyment to truly countless numbers of the rest of us over the years, should be fighting for your health in such a way.

Whether or not I’m alone in thinking like this, I cannot say, but I know that I am just one person out of many millions who thinks of you both with admiration, respect and real affection. And like all those many others, I send to you both my love, my thanks and my very best wishes, along with heartfelt prayers for your speedy recovery.

Almost twenty years ago, I spent the night in what was reputed to be one of England’s most haunted locations. My time there was spent outdoors, instead of inside some crumbling ruin, so as I found myself exposed to the elements, I made myself as comfortable as I could, on what was a bitterly cold night, by settling down in a spot where I could best observe my surroundings.

Instead of the malevolent atmosphere I had been primed to expect, I found that this strange place possessed an atmosphere and a sense of mystery that pervaded all the stones, grass and trees for a hundred yards or so around me. While the shadows and the gentle murmuring of the wind suggested the presence of inhabitants of some ‘otherworld’, I soon felt my gaze drawn to the void above me, where the cold, distant stars silently paraded across a sky that was as black as a raven’s wing.

In all this time, I have never been able to describe the sensation properly, so all I can say is that it was as if the shadows, skies and stars were somehow singing to me, while listening to this Otherworldly melody was an indescribably beautiful, if slightly unnerving experience. As I write this in the early hours of December 24th, I’ve just returned from a gentle stroll around the fields that surround my home, while most of my time was spent simply gazing in awe at the vast constellations above me.

There is something truly magical about this time of year, whether you subscribe to the belief that Christ was born on the 25th of December, or if you celebrate the Winter Solstice, the triumph of Sol Invictus and the gradual lengthening of the days from this point on. For my part, I cannot help but be caught up in the enchantment bestowed upon us all by Mid-Winter, so it seems a perfect time to address those friends of mine who may read this.

To those of you I may have neglected, I am sorry for not being in touch more often. All I can offer in my defence is that it has been an exceptionally trying year for me, so I shall try to do better as time and circumstances allow. I find it hard to improve upon the idea of Peace on Earth and Good Will to All Men, but I truly wish you all health, success and happiness, a sentiment that extends to my family as well as to my friends, of course.

As for myself, my personal wish or prayer remains the same as it has for seven years or so:  “Give me a firm place on which to stand, and I will move the Earth”.

Love to one and all.

My interest in football is virtually non-existent, but it was impossible to miss the terrible news of the death of Gary Speed, manager of the Welsh national football team, and not be to deeply moved by it. I cannot and will not attempt to make an original observation about this man’s untimely death, so I will just say that I read of his outstanding career and achievements, as well as noting how much he was genuinely respected and loved by so many others, before wondering what on Earth it could possibly have been that drove him to take his own life, as seems to be the case when I write this.

Throughout the course of this week, I’ve seen a multitude of heartfelt tributes to Gary Speed, all made by people who are clearly bewildered and filled with a terrible sorrow at his death. Today – Saturday 3rd December – there were more, the length and breadth of Britain.

Today also saw the last appearance of Shane Williams as a member of the Welsh national rugby side and while Wales didn’t win, Shane scored his 58th try for Wales with the last move of the game. Immediately afterwards, he was interviewed in front of an adoring and grateful crowd, clutching his two young children and trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears.

After the interview, Shane was applauded by the crowd and by his Welsh team mates, while every last member of the triumphant Australian side queued up to hug him and shake his hand in one of the most moving and uplifting spectacles I’ve seen in a long time.

During the course of this interview, Shane had the good grace to tell everyone that Australia were the best side on the field that day. He was also asked how much it had meant to him to wear the Welsh jersey, to which he replied “It’s meant everything….”

Shane, on the off-chance you’re reading this, I’ve done many things in my life that I’m proud of and I’ve written about some of them elsewhere on this site. I would gladly swap them all just to be able to say that I had played for Wales once, but it was not to be. Rather than go over your truly illustrious career in detail, I’ll just say that you’ve done us all very proud indeed over the years, so for that, I thank you and I wish you the very best of luck in whatever you go on to do.

My Eternal Idol site, which was set up to provide original information on Stonehenge, Silbury Hill and related ancient mysteries, is currently enjoying an unprecedented period of popularity, judging from the sheer amount of traffic it’s receiving.

In the last week, there have been two highly newsworthy developments concerning Stonehenge, one of which was a proposal to have the ruins illuminated by night. I’ve looked into this in depth in the latest post entitled “Stonehenge, Lady Pakenham and the Age of Enlightenment“, but there are three posts before this one which deal with some recent ‘revelations’ by archaeologists concerning Stonehenge’s secret history.

Stonehenge illustration [above] provided through the generosity of Juris Ozols of MOJO Productions, Minnesota.

I wish to add my voice to all those others supporting the Welsh rugby team. Win or lose against France, you’ve done us all proud, so thank you.

In February 2010, I published a story dealing with North Sentinel Island on my Eternal Idol site; shortly afterwards, I was contacted by Captain Robert Fore, the helicopter pilot who had rescued the crew of the stranded freighter the Primrose, after it had run aground just off North Sentinel Island in August 1981. His rescue mission had saved the 33 men aboard the ship from certain death at the hands of the unbelievably hostile inhabitants of North Sentinel, so I was intrigued and delighted to hear from a man with such a unique experience.

30 years after his encounter with this strangest and most remote of islands, I was very pleased indeed when Captain Fore agreed to speak to me and to reflect on the events of that day. This interview runs to something in the region of 8,000 words and is awaiting publication in Mindscape magazine, but in the meantime, you can get an idea of what lies ahead from this video, where you can see and hear Captain Fore briefly reminiscing about his recollections of North Sentinel Island.

I’ve spent most of my life actively investigating mysteries of one kind or another. The vast majority of this time has been extremely gratifying, but it has been a particular pleasure to make the acquaintance of Captain Robert Fore and to have been able to speak to him at such length and in such depth about his encounter with what is surely the most enigmatic, forbidding and tantalising place on Earth.

I was very saddened yesterday to learn of the untimely deaths of four of my fellow countrymen; Phillip Hill, Charles Breslin, David Powell and Garry Jenkins, who all died in the Gleision Mine. These men have my unbounded admiration for their courage, because no matter what safeguards are put in place, the business of digging in the bowels of the earth, deep underground, will always be a frightening and dangerous one.

My grandfather on my father’s side worked in the coal mines, but I’ve never been down one myself. The nearest I came to this was when I explored the crumbling galleries, shafts and voids inside Silbury Hill in 2007, and while I had little idea of what an unnerving experience this would turn out to be, it seemed appropriate at the time to wear a Welsh shirt in honour of my countrymen who lived and died down the pits over the centuries. The miners who showed me around the inside of Silbury Hill were from Newcastle and I was very struck by their good humour and sheer bravery, so I don’t doubt for a moment that the men who died in Gleision Mine possessed identical qualities.

Being a writer can be very rewarding, especially when compliments and words of praise are sent in to me, but this disaster in which four men lost their lives underground is a blunt reminder that without the miners, other people would not have the warmth, power and light with which to read my books. My family have little cause to fear for my well-being when I retire to my study to write, but it is a completely different matter for those whose fathers, sons and brothers venture daily into the dangerous and uncertain depths for a living and for the benefit of the rest of us.

Ten years ago, in the early afternoon of Tuesday, September 11^th, 2001, I received a worried phone call from my wife while I was at work. She wasn’t entirely clear about the details, but she had seen reports on the lunchtime news in Britain of two aircraft flying into two tall buildings in America, while there were rumours of other hijacked aircraft and reports of yet another having crashed into the Pentagon.

When I returned home later that evening, I spent many hours watching with near disbelief as images of passenger jets hurtling into the World Trade Centre were replayed over and over again on my television screen. It didn’t seem possible that these scenes of hell-fire could become any worse, but then I sat mesmerised by the sight of the two gigantic towers collapsing to destruction in an apocalyptic fury an hour or so after they were first hit, followed by long shots of the vast, brooding pall of smoke and dust that enveloped Manhattan after the attacks.

I was painfully aware of the anguish, shock and fear in the footage I was watching, but it immediately occurred to me that I was looking at some mediaeval vision of Hell, despite the undeniably modern setting. The dreadful scene made me think of the Lightning Struck Tower, card XVI in the major arcana of the Tarot deck, while this idea was reinforced when I later saw the distressing footage of people falling or jumping to their deaths in their hundreds from the crippled towers in New York.

We are all surely familiar with the details of that day, and with what followed in their grim wake, so there is no need to linger over the horrors. The events of that September morning, a decade ago now, unleashed a tsunami of human misery that erupted in New York, but whose ripples touched us all, to a greater or lesser extent. It is remarkable to me that so few men could have had such an effect upon others all over the planet, but more remarkable still that that they achieved this using little more than a few small blades, which they’d smuggled onto the aircraft. Of course, there were other weapons in their arsenal, most notably their willing acceptance of their own deaths and the heavily-fuelled aircraft themselves, but these small knives and box cutters were instrumental in penetrating the defences of a superpower and in wreaking havoc on a previously unimaginable scale.

With this in mind, it seems inevitable to me that an ingenious man or woman will one day do or create some thing that will be a mirror image of 9.11, in that it does nothing but good and enriches the lives of all those who learn of it. This thing will come into being as a result of observation, imagination and planning, as was the case with the 9.11 attacks, while the tools for its creation will be simple words, musical notes, paint, light, or a chisel for sculpting stone, perhaps.

To my mind, one such creation is the Hubble Space Telescope, which has given us images that never fail to inspire awe and wonderment, while my personal favourite, at the end of this piece, is known as the Pillars of Creation. It appears to show a star nursery and it’s hard to imagine a more beautiful, evocative or allegorical vision than a place where alien suns are born; distant fires that adorn our night sky like diamonds on a raven’s wing.

Of course, the Hubble Space Telescope is a wonder of modern engineering, but at its heart is the simple principle that was discovered and put into practical form by Hans Lippershey in 1608, to be greatly improved upon shortly afterwards by Galileo. Stonehenge still possesses the power to evoke awe and wonderment in all who see it, 4,300 years after the deceptively simple arrangement of a circle of curved lintels atop 30 uprights was put into place in the wastes of Salisbury Plain, but there are many other artistic and architectural triumphs that have captured our imaginations as the years have gone by.

The Mona Lisa is just one of countless portraits of women that have been painted over the millennia, but nearly 500 years after it was completed by Leonardo da Vinci, six million people annually make a pilgrimage to the museum in which it hangs to gaze upon the enigmatic features of the long-dead woman immortalised on canvas.

I could continue indefinitely in this vein, but what matters to me is that it is potentially within the power of each and every one of us to affect the lives of our fellows on a global scale, and to bring joy and wonderment into their lives by using the most basic of tools such as words, paint, light and music. The late mediaeval horrors of the sixteenth century exist now only as dark curiosities in history books, while 9.11 is inevitably destined for such a fate, but the words of Shakespeare have long become common parlance and have enriched our language, while the sublime melody of Greensleeves will doubtless enchant us for as long as humans exist.

It is not simply a matter of adopting an optimistic viewpoint, that good will always triumph over evil, because just a simple glance at the history books and at our lives today demonstrates for me that the Pillars of Creation will always be more memorable than the seeds of destruction, that the pen is mightier than the sword and that men and women from the most humble of origins are capable of making the tantalising visions they glimpse in dreams into an uplifting reality for the rest of us.

“Somewhere, something wonderful is waiting to be discovered.”
Carl Sagan, 1934 – 1996.

Mindscape III is out shortly, while I’ve already seen an advance copy and very good it is too, containing many excellent and intriguing articles.

In amongst these pieces is an essay I’ve written on the subject of the ancient Silures tribe and the island of North Sentinel; entitled “Hearts of Darkness Part I”, it is a precursor to a much longer and entirely original feature on North Sentinel, a place that’s arguably the most mysterious and most hostile location on our planet.

It will be a world exclusive, commemorating a unique event and it’s something I’m honoured to have been a part of, but I’ll write more about it shortly.

I was interested to see this recent feature from the BBC news website, announcing that the SETI programme is to be resurrected. Some years ago, the SETI League honoured me by inviting me to write a guest editorial, that was placed alongside original contributions from the late Sir Arthur C Clarke.

It is little wonder that funds have been found to restore the SETI programme, even if it’s only on a temporary basis, because it is hard to imagine anything more captivating than finding proof of life elsewhere in the cosmos, while as the astronomer Carl Sagan once observed “Somewhere, something wonderful is waiting to be discovered.”

The subject of extra-terrestrial intelligence or life forms is one that’s captivated me for decades, if only because it’s impossible to gaze at the night sky, as I frequently do, and not wonder about who or what else is out there. I think there’s another means of finding signs of alien life besides using arrays of telescopes, and in the course of my reading over the last few years, I was astonished and gratified to discover that someone else had had my idea before me.

As I understand it, the experiment was curtailed, but I can see no good reason why it cannot be restarted, although there’s every likelihood that someone, somewhere is doing precisely this. I also think there’s a reasonably reliable means of learning where we should direct our attention or enquiries, inasmuch as life not of this Earth is concerned, but it’s something I would wish to undertake properly or else not at all.

One day, I intend to write about this in much greater depth, but if I’m to ever meaningfully add to the existing canon of extra-terrestrial studies, it will require a lot of time and effort. If the concept were ever properly put into practise, I don’t doubt that the results would immediately enthrall all who were privy to them, so we shall simply have to see what tomorrow holds.