NUMBER 6
For Arthur Kemelman
‘To find the right road out of this despair [the pain of those who walk through the night blindly] civilized man must enlarge his heart as he has enlarged his mind. He must learn to transcend self, and in so doing to acquire the freedom of the Universe’. THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS, Bertrand Russell, 1930
The village post office in Penrhyndeudraeth,
Merioneth, was very busy
during the Cuban Missile Crisis
with telegrams to Kennedy and Kruschev
from Bertrand, 3rd Earl Russell – philosopher,
logician; mathematician, author;
moralist, socialist, pacifist.
He lived nearby, down a lane, in a late
seventeenth, early eighteenth century house
with a veranda that commanded views
of the Glaslyn estuary, Porthmadog,
Traeth Mawr, and, south east – if the earth were not
almost round – beyond the tip of Ireland
the Americas. There he had been
labelled – “a believer in free love…
a free thinker…a commie”. ‘Americans,’
he believed, ‘are terrified of thought’.
Below, on the promontory, hidden
by deciduous woods is Portmeirion,
the fantasy village, where Russell once stayed –
an invited guest with Noel Coward,
H.G. Wells and King Zog of Albania –
and laid the foundation stone of the Dome,
a modest homage to Brunelleschi.
Perhaps one bright afternoon in ’66 –
on the veranda in his cane chair,
observing the sun over the Atlantic,
smoking a pipe of his favourite
Friborg & Treyer’s Golden Mixture –
he thought he heard, vivid as in a dream,
someone declare, ‘I am not a number…’
John Huddart
September 30, 2022Serious right up to the end, and then that perfect reminder of No Six, and philosopher McGoohan. Such humorous aplomb!
David Selzer
September 30, 2022Ah, yes! A white and blue packet, if I recall correctly.
Alex Cox
September 30, 2022I wonder if McGoohan knew that Russell lived above The Village, and had laid that foundation stone. If so, perhaps Number One wasn’t a glowering space rocket, but a philosopher king on a verandah…
Ashen
October 2, 2022At that time, during the mid-60s, uncertain as to where I was headed, I stayed with this elderly family friend at Oakwood Court, near Holland Park. My host told me that Bertrand Russell had a London residency nearby. I told my family friend that I liked what I had read of Russell’s philosophy, and liked his anti-war stance, but not his views on eugenics. I would have liked to ask him about this.
Mary Clark
October 4, 2022Alex Cox, that’s good, ‘a philosopher king on a verandah’. I suppose some people are number 6, that is respected enough to be in the top ten, as B. Russell thought he was, and may’ve been, and close enough to the leader to whisper in his/her ear, but also not having any real power. It starts with recognizing you’re trapped in a fantasy village, of course. Cool poem, McGoohan-style.