The Whispering Swarm Read Online Free
Author: Michael Moorcock
actions, had helped create the horrors of the past twenty years or so. The Church of England, which still turned up on Sunday BBC, and was effectively the conscience of Parliament, was associated with the âcaringâ aspects of the paternalistic establishment. Nobody thought much about that. The church created colourful traditions, of course, and probably we were none the worse for having them, but anyone who seriously believed in God as anything but a philosophical abstraction was sadly deluded. Even T.S. Eliot, the Church of Englandâs big catch, wasnât sure Jesus had existed. It was left to romantics like me to ask what a rational world had got for us already if it wasnât Stalinism, Hitlerism and fascism. All of which promised a golden future but without much attention to detail. We would discover romance in a big way in the 1960s.
After Uncle Fredâs lease ran out I got a couple of the better .22 rifles and some boxes of cartridges as souvenirs. He wouldnât let me keep Mystic Mary. She was sold off with the rest. He had a share in the Bucket oâ Gold down in Leicester Square, which eventually became a rock-and-roll venue and where I opened with the reunited Deep Fix a few years later. Uncle Fred left six figures when he died not long after he retired. He was eighty-one. Left the lot to the Labour Party, for services rendered he said. The gold he divided amongst us the day before he popped off, singing âThe Red Flagâ in his reedy old voice. Nobody but me joined in. âCowards!â he whispered, and was gone.
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2
FRIAR ISIDORE
With Fredâs death my mum was heartbroken and her nerves began to worsen. Increasingly, she dyed her hair badly and put on her makeup erratically. She rarely got out of the same few cosmetics-stained clothes and gave most of her wardrobe to Oxfam. Mr Ackermann came âround to console her, but she was never quite the same after Fred died. She had loved Fred and continued to love Mr A. But she and Fred had memories together going back all her life. Fred had understood her and known how to cheer her up. His love was reciprocated. As well as her talent for fiction, Mum had a huge, almost childish, capacity for unconditional love, and, like Fred, she still celebrated liberty and spoke disparagingly of children whose parents clung to them. When I met a bunch of like-minded teenagers and started hanging out in the Soho coffee bars, she didnât try to stop me. She invited us all back and became quite good friends with some of the people I knew.
By 1955 the times were definitely on the change. Especially for me. And it wasnât just the rock and roll. I was getting more ambitious in general. I wanted to write a novel. And make a record. I learned to play a few chords on my cousinâs Gretsch guitar. I became a fan of American folk music. I added Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson to my pantheon. A bunch of us in Brookgate had formed The Greenhorns (who became the nucleus of the first Deep Fix line-up) and we were hanging around Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, who played blues in the jazz clubs and were regulars at a place near Kingâs Cross. For a while my greatest musical heroes were Gene Vincent and Muddy Waters. I met Gene once and Muddy a few times. I wrote to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and they replied! At fifteen my literary heroes were almost all aliveâP.G. Wodehouse, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury and E.R. Burroughs. Burroughs wrote the Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books. He was the first writer I tried to emulate. My enthusiasm for âERBâ, as his fans called him, would lead to me getting my first editorial job. But for that, I would never be telling this story. I would not have been introduced to the Sanctuary by the old monk, Friar Isidore.
Between the ages of fourteen and seventeen or so I put out an ERB fanzine, Burroughsania . The thing was typed without a ribbon so the keys could cut clear impressions
After Uncle Fredâs lease ran out I got a couple of the better .22 rifles and some boxes of cartridges as souvenirs. He wouldnât let me keep Mystic Mary. She was sold off with the rest. He had a share in the Bucket oâ Gold down in Leicester Square, which eventually became a rock-and-roll venue and where I opened with the reunited Deep Fix a few years later. Uncle Fred left six figures when he died not long after he retired. He was eighty-one. Left the lot to the Labour Party, for services rendered he said. The gold he divided amongst us the day before he popped off, singing âThe Red Flagâ in his reedy old voice. Nobody but me joined in. âCowards!â he whispered, and was gone.
Â
2
FRIAR ISIDORE
With Fredâs death my mum was heartbroken and her nerves began to worsen. Increasingly, she dyed her hair badly and put on her makeup erratically. She rarely got out of the same few cosmetics-stained clothes and gave most of her wardrobe to Oxfam. Mr Ackermann came âround to console her, but she was never quite the same after Fred died. She had loved Fred and continued to love Mr A. But she and Fred had memories together going back all her life. Fred had understood her and known how to cheer her up. His love was reciprocated. As well as her talent for fiction, Mum had a huge, almost childish, capacity for unconditional love, and, like Fred, she still celebrated liberty and spoke disparagingly of children whose parents clung to them. When I met a bunch of like-minded teenagers and started hanging out in the Soho coffee bars, she didnât try to stop me. She invited us all back and became quite good friends with some of the people I knew.
By 1955 the times were definitely on the change. Especially for me. And it wasnât just the rock and roll. I was getting more ambitious in general. I wanted to write a novel. And make a record. I learned to play a few chords on my cousinâs Gretsch guitar. I became a fan of American folk music. I added Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson to my pantheon. A bunch of us in Brookgate had formed The Greenhorns (who became the nucleus of the first Deep Fix line-up) and we were hanging around Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, who played blues in the jazz clubs and were regulars at a place near Kingâs Cross. For a while my greatest musical heroes were Gene Vincent and Muddy Waters. I met Gene once and Muddy a few times. I wrote to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and they replied! At fifteen my literary heroes were almost all aliveâP.G. Wodehouse, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury and E.R. Burroughs. Burroughs wrote the Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books. He was the first writer I tried to emulate. My enthusiasm for âERBâ, as his fans called him, would lead to me getting my first editorial job. But for that, I would never be telling this story. I would not have been introduced to the Sanctuary by the old monk, Friar Isidore.
Between the ages of fourteen and seventeen or so I put out an ERB fanzine, Burroughsania . The thing was typed without a ribbon so the keys could cut clear impressions