Earliest Memories, Friend and Graffiti
I read somewhere … or perhaps I just made it up in my own mind … that:
“if when you die you have as many friends as the fingers of one hand, you have
died a millionaire”
This goes to the core of what “friendship” really is. I think we are missing a
word somewhere between “acquaintance” and “friend”. Maybe as many as 90% of the
people we say “hello” and “goodbye” to and we call “friends” and are really (just?)
“acquaintances”. These are the guys and girls we shared some school years with,
played in the boulevard with, played games against, danced with at the DSA and
CSCA and Grammarians…. even were conscripted together with …
Then, from the remaining 10%, we find 9% are those guys and girls we shared closer experiences
with, socialised (& probably still do) over several years and had
meaningful conversations and arguments with. The last 1% ….aaahhhhh THAT is
where we find the REAL TRUE FRIENDS. They are there for you always and in all
ways, and so are you for them.
One such friend I have known since birth.
We are the “victory babies”. We were born in 1946, just after the end of WWII.
That was when young marrieds and not-yet-marrieds looked at each other’s eyes
and decide: The war is over … let’s celebrate!
We are the result of their celebrations!
In fact, in Gib there was so much “celebrating” that by the end of 1946 and
beginning of 1947, St Bernard’s Hospital Maternity department had no more cots
for the ever- birthing babies!
Solution: 2 babies to a cot.
Between the evening of the 27th November and the early hours of the
28th, two babies were born. One darker skin and black hair, another
pink with blond hair.
“OK, into the same cot they go, no chance of getting them confused!”
And that is how I met David Hassan.
To this day I am fortunate to share a depth of friendship that is rare. He is
one of those "..as many friends as the fingers of one hand…” I was mentioning at
the start of this chapter of my life.
No. I obviously do not remember anything about that … but amazingly enough I do
have a memory that astounded my mother when I told her about it many years later,
and astounds me to this day.
I have a very clear and sharp memory of being in a pram, the old kind, the big
ones with big wheels. It was navy blue. I was dressed in white woolly baby
clothes and I remember feeling my hands too hot and sweaty, a problem I had till
about 10 or 11 years old, incidentally. I was trying to get the mittens off but
could not so. I was crying. My cousin Julie (Balensi) Benatar, Monique’s mother,
was taking me out for some fresh air and the pram did not fit through the
twin-paneled
Let me jump waaaayyyy ahead 'cos I have just recalled a day when I tried my hand at graffiti. The jump is of about 70-odd years .... yeah, "Mr Zulu, warp drive, engage!!"
Somewhere along those years I tried my hand at poetry. it has been met with modest success and more of this later. But in 2012 I did write a very patriotic poem, an anthem in fact, reflecting our patriotism and our dislike of Spain's political attitude over the last 300 years.
I think it was around 2016 that Spain was once again turning nasty with its imperialistic demands in Gib. I woke up in a Sunday morning and decided there and then I would graffiti the poem on one of the many concrete blocks local government had been placing strategically all along Main Street. They were a deterrent against any Jihadi idiot trying to ram his car against pedestrians, something that had started becoming rather all too common in other countries.
These concrete blocks were quite naff in themselves. Originally painted white, they were far from pristine after just a week on the road. But they made a tantalizing canvas for my poem!
Camping stool, felt pens and poem in hand, I made my way to the very entrance of Main Street, just past Casemates Square, to the block every pedestrian coming into town, tourist especially, would inevitably come face to face with it.
8am on a Sunday morning....and all quiet on the Main Street front!
I sat on my stool and (nervously) wrote it all out - with a mistake or two - black upon white - literally .... and literally! 20 minutes later I packed up and returned home to Water Gardens.
Nothing much happened that day, but on Monday, Facebook was rife with comments. In fact, the GBC Facebook page showing it had over 7000 hits by the middle of the week! My own Facebook was flooded too. The great majority of comments were very supportive. Modesty aside, I am rather well known in my home town, and as I had signed it and posted the photos too, everyone know who to blame. The negative comments could be put into two camps: those that claimed I had defaced public property .... well, yes I had... and those that were irked the I had done this (& not them?)
By the end of the week I had 3 "commissions" from friends who asked me to write a poem of the block near their homes too! So on Thursday night I got my kit ready ad went for a second block. I was down to the last line of a poem called "One people, One plant", when ...
"'Alo 'alo 'alo"
... Yes, the Old Bill had arrived, catching me red-handed. Except that this PC was a very young chap, small stature ...and have you noticed how young they all look to us old timers? Like a Boy Scout in my eyes, though yes, in blue!
"Excuse me Sir what are you doing?"
"I am finishing the last line of this poem"
"But ... you cant do that!"
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because you are ...... defacing a public monument"
"No I a not. This is not a monument, it is just a concrete block ... it has no particular owner."
"Please stop a minute and let me call my Sergeant"
As he called the station, I thought .... might as well finish it now... and started to write again.
"No Sir .... you must stop that! Stop now or I'll have you arrested!"
"On what charge?" I asked innocently enough.
He grabbed the felt pen off my hand as the Sergeant came on the line.
This is how the conversation went:
"Sergeant, this is PC XXX... I have a ..."(he looked at me closely, the torch shining on my face) "...an old age pensioner defacing a monument"
"A monument? What monument? Who is it?"
"It is one of the concrete blocks in Main Street, Sergeant, but I dont know who he is Sir"
"Well ask him who he is!"
(to me) "I need to see you ID,Sir"
"Sorry, I do not have it with me"
"Sergeant, he has no ID"
"Well ask him for his name!"
I was starting to feel bad for the young recruit by then.
"What is your name?" I gave it him and he repeated it on the phone "He says his name is David Bentata"
At the other end of thre linre I could hear the Sergeant say:
"Joder, coño, es Bentata otra vez!"
I could not help snigger.
"Tell him he has to stop and he must go back home or you will arrest him!"
And so the young copper did, after confiscating my felt pen, of course. No sooner was he back on his beat that I ran back and with a second pen, finished the poem!
As expected, I was not arrested and a day or two later, es, the Monday, both concrete blocks had been repainted. That was the end of my graffiti day, though the hullabaloo continued for another week on social media.
The original poem goes something like this:
ANTHEM - By David Bentata - National day 2012
V1
Before
Europe’s Union was invented
Before
Neanderthals did roam
Calpe Woman
was already here
And she made this Rock her home
V2
Before the U.S. was a nation
Before
Trafalgar was won
Already we lived
here in harmony
And still we live here as one
(CHORUS)
I was born
in this City of Friendship
In
Gibraltar, in the British way
All I know
from that time
Is that this
Rock is mine
And it will be forever and a day
V3
You can’t
take my Rock away from me
Gibraltar
is in my heart
You can’t
take it, it’s in my soul as well
You can’t take my Rock so don’t even start
V4
The time for
fighting is over
But the
enemy’s still has this demand
To take my
Rock away from me
What part of “no” does he not understand?
CHORUS
I was born
in this City of Friendship
In
Gibraltar, in the British way
All I know
from that time
Is that this
Rock is mine
And it will be forever and a day
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