Summa: diary (November 25-28, 2025)
‘In the end, John, it’s all stubble and straw ‘ (Marilynne Robinson, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA (April 16, 2011)).
November 25 (Tuesday). 6.30 am: Blisteringly cold in the house. 7.00 am: A review of the week ahead, and of responses received from national institutions to emails about the current project, which I’d posted last week. 8.00 am: News of a neighbour’s death, which took place while I was away, came to my attention. As is so often the case, it wasn’t the one I’d expected to go first. All deaths speak of our own, ultimately. The older we get, the more this inevitability moves from the periphery to the centre of our consciousness. One day, our death will be as much a fact of life as our birth. When one person passes away, the whole world seems to change to that degree. They leave behind a space and a silence made in their own image.
7.30 am: Writing. 10.00 am: Studiology. The composition of ‘Catherine Jones’ and ‘Lewis Jones’, followed by a review of, and modifications to, the third track: ‘A Model of Catastrophe (1958, 1963)’. 11.30 am: Onto the fourth track: ‘Water Music (1910-66)’. They’re a pair, in one sense: musicless soundscapes of, first, industry and, secondly, the natural world. Two elements that fatefully and catastrophically intersected in the immediate pre-history of the disaster. 12.30 pm: Onto the fifth track: ‘The Last Assembly (October 20, 1966)’. The composition refers to the school roll-call and gathering for worship at 9.00 am on the day before the disaster struck.
1.45 pm: A little ambulation and an even smaller shoppery in the town, which was today vitalised by the crisp bite of autumnal light. It was uplifting to be outdoors. Some of the tracks are more-or-less complete at phase 1, and require only minor adjustments to the samples’ alignment. The third phase of compositional development will involve a sample-by-sample adjustment for relative loudness, equalisation, and spacial positioning. Only then will the compositions fully cohere as a listening experience. 2.30 pm: ‘Listen, listen, listen, and listen again, John’, goaded the inner-tutor. 4.45 pm: The current track was complete.
7.30 pm: I don’t wish to shrink to the size of the project that I’m currently focused upon. Once and a while I stand back and survey the broader landscape, and discern: what I’ve done; what I no longer do; what I no longer need to do; what I no longer enjoy doing, what I should return to doing; what I miss doing; what I can do; what I must do; and for whom I should do it. It can be an uncomfortable shakedown.
November 26 (Wednesday).
Art — before it’s either work, or a calling, or a career — is a way of life — a way of breathing and sustaining life. Art is a domain, over which we can develop full control. Art is ours. Art is a sanctuary — ‘a place of safekeeping’. Art is a solace, and that ‘still small voice of calm’. Art keeps faith with us, even when we’ve been unfaithful. Art is what we leave behind. Art endures.
8.30 am: Studiology. ‘Robert Jones’ and ‘Glenys Jones’. Onto the sixth track: ‘Let Me Tell You About My Dream Last Night (October 20, 1966)’. It refers to a premonitory dream experienced by Eryl Mai Jones (1956-66) — who was a student at Pantglas Junior School — the night before the disaster.
11.30 am: Morning coffee and a conversation at the National Library of Wales with my friend, the author and intrepid and reckless explorer, Julie Brominicks. It was encouraging to hear about her varied and fascinating projects in progress. Her blog is well worth following. Meanwhile, in the Library’s shop … Walter Benjamin would have a field day with these reproductions of a reproduction (sold as a print by Sunlight Soap) of Curnow Vosper’s original watercolour entitled Salem (1908). The aura of authenticity is clean washed away.
12.00 pm: Back at the studio, I moved onto the seventh track: ‘The Fall (October 21, 1966)’ — the avalanche and its aftermath, predicted in Eryl’s ‘vision’. I introduced a section of absolute silence, in response to the testimonies of some who experienced such immediately following the tip slip:
In that silence you couldn’t hear a bird or a child.
And then it stopped. And there was such an eerie silence I remember.
Aberfan resident & Teacher, Pantglas Junior School, in Iain MacLean & Martin Johnes, Aberfan: Government and Disaster (Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press, 2nd ed., 2019) 2, 4.
The final section — after the silence — comprises a ringing (which resembles something between a period alarm clock and an ambulance bell) along with a pulsating drone, derived from the horn-like sound heard earlier in the composition. To which was added a siren-like sound, which recalls the firemen’s summons to the station in response to the disaster. 7.30 pm: In the evening, I began to enlarge the project proposal.
November 27 (Thursday). A happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in the USA. 7.15 am: Morningtide.
7.30 am: I returned to the enlarged proposal. 9.00 am: Studiology. Track eight: ‘On their Hands They Will Bear You Up (Reach Out) (October 21, 1966)’. It describes the desperate efforts made by mothers, fathers, firemen, and miners to extricate the children and adults from the coal slurry under which they’d been buried. The title is taken from Psalm 91.12 (NRSV). In the original setting, ‘their’ refers to the angels. In the context of the disaster, the ‘hands’ are those of the rescuers. ‘Reach out‘ refers to the title of a song by the American quartet The Four Tops, which was number one in the UK singles charts in the week of the disaster.
10.30 pm: A phone call from my GP to discuss the results of tests and various metrics. A remote voice cannot be as reassuring as a face-to-face consultation. While I fully appreciate, given that pressures doctors are under, why this filter is necessary, the success of a doctor’s telephonic discussion with a patient relies on the latter’s ability to describe their symptoms clearly and correctly. Far from either an ideal or a safe transaction. One day, no doubt, I’ll be talking to an AI avatar of the consultant. So, for now, I’m grateful.
10.45 am: I returned to the larger-proposal until and after lunchtime, and into the evening.
November 28 (Friday). 7.15 am: Writing, accompanied by a gentle inundation of ‘Black Friday’ reminders (as if I needed them) in my Inbox. Well, at least it’s not the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont’s infamous ‘Black Wednesday’ (1992) on an annual basis today. 8.00 am: I reviewed and tweaked the enlarged-proposal throughout the morning. Outdoors, the clouds gathered, the wind rose, and the rain poured. 1.00 pm: A solid first draft completed.
1.30 pm: An ambulation and shoppery in good weather. 2.15 pm: Studiology. Back to where I let go, yesterday, and into the murky world of MIDI players and VST software. Every so often, a ‘plonk’ in my Inbox enticed me with another unbeatable sale. ‘I’m immune to your temptations!’ 5.00 pm: Eventide.
See also: Intersections (archive); Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice