The Law of Inanimate Objects

A delve into the shady realms of Teecpee and The Tramp, compulsions and super-sensitivity. . .

I find myself writing a lot about birds, trees - the life going on around me; but what of the inanimate? The apparently lifeless, non-conscious, non-breathing, non-feeling objects which pepper our world; both elemental and man-made creations alike.

I used to live in a world dictated by the polarising forces of ‘teecpee’ and the tramp (explained in the extract below!)¹ This was a world in which one had to abide by the law of inanimate objects and treat them. . . all of them. . . with the reverence and dignity which they silently demanded.

Growing up in the shadow of ‘World in Action’ - tonight - at eight thirty. . .

It all started when I was a little kid. I was repeatedly told I was too ‘soft-hearted’ when it came to beasties and living things in general. I extended this care to the plant kingdom, and then transferred my ‘do no harm’ tenet to the realm of the inanimate. . . until basically everything around me was covered by my moral code of nonmaleficence! My emotional reaction to harm was (and still is) extremely intense. I was brought up believing this trait was a weakness; that I was too sensitive for the world which I had to grow into. The grown-up world seemed a harder place; a place where childish sensitivities did not belong. This is perhaps not surprising given that I grew up during the Thatcher years. . .

At supper time the TV was switched on to the news. . .

Always dramatic, almost threatening, opening titles. . .

The screen filled with fire, clouds of smoke, yells of fury, mounted police, police on foot with plastic shields, truncheoning rioters in a frenzy of primal righteousness. . .

Defiance on the streets, war on the streets, missiles hurled, fire. . . smoke. . . darkness. . . 🔥

And then there was the scariest programme on TV (aside from Dr. Who, of course). . . World In Action² - tonight - at eight-thirty. . . I can still hear the continuity announcer‘s voice after a trailer for the programme; which to me always seemed to involve more of the above. . . smoke, fire, horses, hurled missiles, frenzied truncheons, shouts of fury (in reality, it covered a whole plethora of news items, not just the Brixton riots and the miners’ strike - given that it ran from January 1963 to December 1998!)

But for me, the scariest thing of all was the programme’s opening titles . . . an aggressive-red dynamic outline of Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Vetruvian Man;’ menacing news items flashing behind the severe gaze of possibly the most famous, multi-limbed naked man in the world. On Tuesday nights, when I was a little older and able to stay up after 8.30pm, I would steel myself, approaching the TV screen with a thrill of unease, as the growl of the pipe organ sounded the opening bars of the theme tune.

Da-da-daaaaaa. . . . .

The terror of the pipe organ

Photo by Dinu J Nair on Unsplash

The opening notes could be those of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor³: a piece of music which simultaneously frightened and enthralled me in equal measure. A piece of music which I used as a prop at the school’s Hallowe’en disco, when I was in Primary 7. I was Dracula. Not content with just dressing up, I hid in the school cloakrooms, pressed play on the tiny cassette recorder concealed under my black, velvet cloak (audio equipment courtesy of big sister), and emerged from the shadows bat-like and sinister; startling any friends passing by, with glow-in-the-dark teeth bared in a deranged grin. To me, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor was the epitome of Gothic horror; the lowest notes of the pipe organ sending unnerving vibrations up from deep beneath the floor, filling me. . . up through the feet, up through the bone marrow of the legs and right into the core, the very root of the body. . . coursing up and down. . . fixing me to the spot as an electrical conductor. That very sound unsheathes my nerves. . . exposing the copper wiring beneath frayed cables; stripping me back to a raw collection of atoms - all firing synapses and neurotransmitters. It’s as if I have become the organ pipe - a vessel of vibrating sound particles. For a time, I am rendered motionless, suspended within a delicious thrill of trepidation. . .

I must have been exposed to something on TV, when I was very young, which involved pipe organs and uncanny circumstances; something which created the association of the aforementioned musical instrument, with the thrill of terror - probably World in Action 😂! This association was strengthened in the run up to my teenage years, whilst reading Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators: The Secret of Terror Castle. Of all the Three Investigators mysteries in the series, this particular one sticks in my mind. It featured a ghostly pipe organ which played unnerving subsonic notes, in order to scare everyone shitless. . . and succeeded. . . including me of course!⁴

And. . . returning to the ‘World In Action’ theme. . .

After the stern threat of the opening notes, da-da-daaaaaa, the World In Action theme tune unfurls with the same sense of foreboding as Bach’s Toccata, but with an additional cheerless quality, guaranteed to suck any remaining joy from your life. In husband Rob’s own words, “World In Action was scary; it was a programme for adults. And that theme music was morbidly depressing. It made me change the channel!”⁵

I never got any further than the opening titles. . .

A whole new level in the TV scary stakes. . .

Mind you, I soon discovered something even more disturbing when, one day, I casually flicked to channel four, beguiled by the curious name of a certain scientific documentary series, new to Sunday evenings. . . Equinox.⁶ I sat in front of the TV transfixed, but not without a degree of apprehension, as the title sequence got underway with the sound of a sliding shutter, followed closely by a series of motorised clicks and whirrs and electronic sound samples (the mechanics of a motion control rig, explored dynamically through vision and sound). Add to this, the accompaniment of industrial ‘panting’ and I was led to the climax of the piece - a synthesised ‘ping’ whereby the sun hit a target, activating a laser. . . a rapid crescendo of mechanical clunking, like an aged piece of plumbing. . . then. . .

“E-QUI-NOX!”

A harsh distorted voice delivered the immortal word, from an obscured face caught in the blue of the laser beam. A face with only the mouth showing; a mouth which uttered this word with such irascible urgency, that every viewer was sure to sit up straight in his or her chair and pay attention (or in my case leg-it out of the living room before ‘the mouth’ spoke). It became a game to see how long I could leave it before getting the hell out of there, just in time to miss ‘the mouth.’ Just like with so many everyday occurrences, it soon became imperative that I missed ‘the mouth’ or something bad would happen. . . And of course as a result I liked to torture myself by seeing how close to the line I could make it; or tempt fate by making myself watch the short sequence to the bitter end. . .⁷

In complete contrast to the harsh adult worlds of World In Action and Equinox, the science and philosophy documentary series Horizon was a blessed relief, with its benign opening titles, filled with an ambience of synthy panorama, and a clean angular perspective.⁸ Oh no! And don’t even get me started on the British current affairs programme Panorama. . . 😱

I was an easily disturbed child, but speaking to some of my peers, many felt the same about some of the TV programmes of their youth. I just always seemed to go one step further in the fear stakes, by making myself endure that which terrified me (much in the same way as many folk relish watching horror films or reading ghost stories, despite being scared stiff). I needed to be thicker-skinned to be able to endure the adult world.

The ‘blessing’ of inanimate objects coupled with the law of even distribution 🤯

My treatment of inanimate objects became obsessive. Each time one was ‘harmed,’ or moved, or even touched unintentionally, I had to bless it and basically ‘kiss it better.’ This ‘blessing’ was the briefest touching of my fingertips to my lips (the kiss) followed by an intentional touch, like giving someone a wee pat of sympathy. Very soon, this involved ‘blessing’ the object with the other hand too, in order to balance out the first touch. If I mistakenly touched it again, I would need to even it up by blessing it yet again to invoke ‘teecpee’ and ward off the tramp (I could never do anything three times, as this was the number associated with the tramp). Even if I knocked against a table with my elbow, say, when passing, I would have to turn myself around and gently make contact again with the other elbow. The ‘kissing’ aspect was gradually and eventually eliminated, but not before walking on the ground became a form of harm itself; and I had to bend down and bless the ground with every few steps taken!

This was the law of even distribution - of equilibrium. But with most regulations, there was an exception. . . the number five. Despite my all time favourite number being eight, five was sacrosanct; it did not need balancing out as it was the number which was favoured by ‘teecpee’. It does make me chuckle to think how far inside my own head I was, and the solemnity with which I practised my rituals; but back then it certainly wasn’t something to laugh about; it became my way of life. I needed to carry out these practices and care for all that was inanimate as well as animate, in order to live with no harm. . . and it caused me a lot of stress and anxiety over the years.

‘Sandra’s little religion’

It all sounds most silly . . .

or. . . perhaps I shouldn’t say that. . . ‘Silly’ or ‘funny’ were the words of others, describing my actions. I heard them and believed that’s what I was. What was important to me was silly to everyone else. I wasn’t ‘normal.’ I felt ‘other.’ These words were said with a certain quirky fondness, but they trivialised what was happening in my world.

I remember one particular evening walk, with my sister Fiona and her wee Westie Cora (bless her). . . Fiona kicked stones and cones and watched me scramble around blessing them all frantically; trying to return them to their places, before another one could be dislodged. There was no intentional malice in my sister’s actions, but she thought it was amusing to wind me up and watch me go. Not content with that caper, Fiona then picked up a stick and scraped it gleefully along the high fence to the academy playing fields. I was stressed and distraught, trying to bless the fence with both hands along the length ‘harmed,’ whilst she continued to scrape. She had no idea the effect this had on me.

It was exhausting having to carry out these behaviours; and as I got a wee bit older, I became self conscious and embarrassed by my need to perform them, almost every minute of the day. I tried to do it covertly, so that people wouldn’t notice, which turned out to be even more draining. . . as they had to be done! I was being tugged in opposite directions, between the desire to ‘fit in’ with my peers, and the need to comply with my elaborate system of balancing my contact with everything around me; ensuring that everything remained unharmed and in equilibrium.

It was the last year of primary school and I was eleven years old. . . Whilst having a classroom discussion about New Year, our teacher, Mr. Malley, asked everyone in turn, what their resolutions were going to be for the year ahead. I can’t for the life of me remember anybody else’s but I do remember mine: “To stop doing silly things,” I stated simply and concisely (a first for me!). The class giggled, but not unkindly, and our headteacher followed up, with a hint of amusement in his voice, “What do you mean, ‘silly things, Sandra?’” I expanded, detailing episodes of running from lamppost to lamppost trying to beat the next car that would come along - with dire consequences if I didn’t make it. I left out the bit about teecpee and the tramp, obviously, and vaguely referred to my compulsion to touch things without elaborating fully. A couple of boys in the class volunteered that they did something similar along the lines of: if I don’t get to a before b arrives, then c will happen - with c always being something bad. . . I felt a little relieved and a bit less odd!

“Sandra kisses the ground, like the Pope!”

I thought I might be able to leave peer knowledge of my wee rituals behind me, when I transitioned from primary to secondary school. . . however, I hadn’t bargained for Barry (although I should have, given his propensity for cheekiness - the class clown, but a sharp one at that!) Tracy and Barry accompanied me from primary school into Class 1/6 at Inverurie Academy. And to my horror, Barry took mischievous delight in telling my new classmates that “Sandra kisses the ground like the Pope!” I groaned inwardly. . . To be fair, I had more or less stopped this practice and after a bit of laughter and incredulity at the time, it was forgotten. Thankfully, my days of having to bless the ground, every few steps or so had finally petered out.

Photo by Ajayjoseph Fdo on Unsplash

Rituals in the toilet. . . compulsive touching strikes again

In my mid to late teens, my compulsion to bless and touch began to diminish; only rising to the fore again in really stressful situations, when I felt anxious or under pressure, or even just benevolently high with adrenaline! I remember once going to the toilet at Levena Taylor’s Dance School, between classes. I had been a class pianist (the wifie in the corner on the piano😆) from the age of fourteen, and continued with this wee part time job for around ten years. On this particular occasion, I felt highly strung for some reason although I can’t quite remember why. . . Maybe I had to sightread some new music, or more than likely I was wound up or excited about something after class. Who knows. But what I do remember is feeling agitated and starting to touch things with both hands equally after having washed and dried them. . .

. . . beginning with the towel (touch touch),

the soap (touch touch),

the taps (touch touch),

the sink (touch touch),

the edge of the bin (touch touch),

the dustpan and brush, leaning against the wall (touch touch),

the toilet roll (touch touch),

the top of the toilet brush (touch touch),

the cistern (touch touch),

basically every-other-small-moveable-object within the room (touch touch, touch touch, touch touch, touch touch).

Then on account of all the touching, I had to go and wash my hands again! And then it began again. . .

However, it wasn’t as if I were in there for ages faffing about in a whirlwind of manic compulsion; it was all conducted so swiftly, that I was soon back on my piano stool ready for the next class, as if nothing had happened.

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

The demise of the fruit juice carton: the tenet of ‘no harm’ persists

Although still making an appearance in the pre-race rituals of the starting blocks in swimming competitions, for many years to come, the laws of equal distribution and equilibrium had generally faded into the background. Nevertheless my tenet of ‘no harm’ towards inanimate objects was still as strong as ever. If something happened to an inanimate object, especially within my care, I was disproportionally grief-stricken and often inconsolable.

I remember in my mid teens, I was at a swimming competition in Ellon and it was break time between sessions. It was a fine summer’s day (yes, in Aberdeenshire it does happen!) and packed lunches were taken outside. I will always remember that lemon Svali carton⁹. The one my mum had bought for me. The one I was going to have the pleasure of drinking alongside my sandwich. The one that was taken out of my lunchbox by Steven Binnie just to wind me up. The one he held out of my reach and taunted me with. The one which led me on a merry dance through the car park trying to get it back. And the one that I can still see today framed by a cerulean sky, as it was hurled through the air and landed with a carton-like thud on the ground, near the front wheel of a parked car. I gazed slack-mouthed as the lemon juice seeped from the motionless body, lying on its side on the unforgiving tarmac. Then after several frozen moments, a feeling of intense grief welled up inside me, as I burst into hot tears of rage and hurt - for the demise of the object itself, and also for my mum’s choosing of it. . . its destiny. Up until that point Steven’s face had been filled with gleeful menace. But the light of malevolent triumph went out of his eyes as soon as he realised how upset I actually was! Bless him - he didn’t actually mean to burst my drink; little did he know what the consequences would be. . .

Black bananas: ‘spreading the inanimate love.’

I had a lot of difficulty making choices as I always felt sorry for those items that weren’t chosen, whether they be clothes, books, food - anything really. I often based decisions on the remainder that would be left if I chose what I really wanted. So basically I would ‘spread the inanimate love’ by not choosing my favourite object but instead opting for one of the ones that would be left behind. Confused? So am I! But there is some sort of weird logic in there that I can still identify with at times.

Photo by Boudewijn Huysmans on Unsplash

I recall buying three baby blackened bananas from a wee corner shop in Leominster, when travelling around England in my early twenties. Nothing unusual in that I hear you say, but I don’t particularly enjoy eating ‘past it’ bananas, except when mashed down and heated, with a liberal dash of cinnamon on top. I felt sorry for them. Who would buy them now? No-one. I imagined them lying in a refuse heap. . . forlorn. . . wasted. . . destinies unfulfilled. Then I pictured them being bought by me and taken back to the B&B where they would be lovingly eaten and provide me with nourishment. . . It was a no brainer; I bought the wee blackened bunch, went back to the B&B clutching them in a little brown bag, and made myself ‘enjoy’ them. Destiny fulfilled. I still display this tendency from time to time. In fact only about half an hour ago from writing this, I bought an extra orange, merely because one rolled in an adorably needy manner when I plucked its neighbours from the display tray. I can’t help myself! The law of the destiny of inanimate objects. . . 🧐 another belter of a regulation of which I had to adhere. This remnant from past compulsive behaviours still finds a way of coming to the fore when my will is at its most shaky and vulnerable.

The need to eat EVERYTHING!

From a young age, this same compulsion extended to the act of eating food; possibly stemming from gentle parental chides to finish my supper, so I could see the picture on the bottom of the bowl. I had the most beautiful ‘Bunnikins’ bowl with rabbits running around the perimeter and a gorgeous fanciful image of a rocket launch on the bottom. I was always a good eater, but if something was left I was taken on a guilt trip (not the intention of my parents, I hasten to add) with comments such as, “Aw, what a shame. . . poor little tattie left all on its own!” It’s little wonder I grew up being unable to leave anything - not even one single pea or grain of rice (which I inadvertently called a ‘rouse’) - on my plate. This inevitably resulted in real problems in my teens, where I felt compelled to eat everything, even if it made me ill. I could never just leave it. This culminated in one of the worst bouts of IBS I have ever experienced. Aged nineteen, in Cyprus with my parents enjoying a meze meal with small plate courses which just kept coming. . . and coming. . . Delicious food, but all I can remember was the need to finish every plate. I doggedly kept on going even though my parents urged me not to make myself ill (a bit of a change of direction from the instructions in my early years!) I remember being supported by my parents, one on each side, all the way back to our holiday apartment, as I could hardly walk. I felt almost delirious with the pain in my gut. Passers-by believed I was drunk and gave us a wide berth. I was in agony. I lay in the darkness of my room writhing for hours until the pain finally subsided. At that point I realised things had to change; slowly I began a fight against my most detrimental and unhelpful compulsions:

• The compulsion to choose a little of everything from a buffet, including things I actually disliked, so that nothing felt left out (even though I’d make myself ill in the process of eating it all).

• The overriding compulsion to clear my plate in a restaurant.

• The compulsion to avoid the number three at all costs.

• The necessary compulsion for equilibrium and the even distribution of touch, when anything was moved, knocked out of place or ‘harmed’ by force.

• The need for absolute perfection in the manner and order in which my possessions were organised and placed.

• The acute distress and irrational fear of the consequences, if any of the above were not observed. . .

I had to let them all go.

So. . . what remains?

Thankfully, I am now left with only tendencies which might manifest at a point in time of extreme anxiety or panic. Today, my reasoning mind can step in (over hurdles and obstacles, of course) to whisper words of reassurance to its reptilian, overreactive counterpart; managing to quell all the old psychological manipulations trying to rear their ugly heads. I’ve emerged stripped bare of unhelpful compulsion and left only with. . . a high level of sensitivity.

Only now have I come to realise that my sensitivity is, in fact, an asset; something to own and to use to help others. Compassion and empathy are soft yet powerful forces, which are absolutely crucial to society! I have successfully stripped away the masking which I built up over many years to hide my sensitivity, and although my uncovered rawness hurts like hell sometimes¹⁰, I know that this is the way I’m meant to be - a being that can feel intensely; not numbed by society’s expectations of how one is meant to feel. The only difference is that now, whilst I still (for the most part!) treat inanimate objects with respect, I am no longer governed by their law; ruthlessly enforced by the intrusive voices of Teecpee and The Tramp; and later, when the childhood associations had faded into the background, the voice of my own shadow self.

I’m pretty certain now that I was born an animist, recognising and respecting the spirit in all things. To celebrate the childlike joy inanimate objects can bring on a daily basis, I intend to post a series of snapshots - detailing the mundane and the bizarre which have made me smile whilst out and about.

1. Extract taken from ‘Who is Thomas?’ Like the Slap of a Wet Daffodil archive:

My first recollection of the Other was in early primary school.  There were fervent Chinese whispers leading to wildly exaggerated talk, quickly rising to a widespread and manic fear of ‘The Tramp’.  The Tramp was the eternal bogeyman of storybooks: the sort of character we are soothingly told is not real when the bedtime story has planted a seed of terror in the over-imaginative infant mind.  “It’s just a story” would be the words of reassurance before the kiss goodnight. 

In this case, the bogeyman had become manifest.  I screamed at night and remember lying in bed, fingers crossed on both hands imploring “teecpee, teecpee, teecpee. . .”  What I had meant to say was “peacies” but I had picked up the term wrongly from the playground (we used to say “peacies” and cross our fingers during a game to guarantee immunity from being caught; e.g. when we were tying laces or putting crisp wrappers in the bin).  I performed ritualistic actions and mind games to ward off this monster.  The Tramp pervaded the life of my six-year-old self.  I tortured myself daily with psychological threats:

If you step on a join in the pavement, The Tramp will get you.

If you don’t get to that lamppost before the next car, The Tramp will get you.

You can’t touch that door once!  You need to touch it with the other hand.  No, don’t touch it again by mistake as that’s three times and The Tramp will get you!  If you do, you’ll have to do five times so that The Tramp won’t get you.

And so it went on for months on end. . . in fact it lasted years, as The Tramp transformed from a real perceived threat to a psychological demon always lurking in the darker side of my psyche, to be brought out in times of stress or uncertainty.  

I never actually saw The Tramp.  One afternoon a host of screaming Primary Ones invaded our Primary Two classroom claiming that The Tramp had appeared at the window.  When we went through to look, he was nowhere to be seen.  On another occasion my friends Emma Reid and Louise Sim, the Queen Bees of the class, were adamant that The Tramp had been sighted in the school toilets and was ‘nicking school ties’.  This information was relayed in all seriousness, and due to the authority of the source, it was taken as gospel.  In hindsight, this last sighting is hilarious but at the time it bred absolute terror in the minds of our young selves.  The man had frequently been spotted on the bench outside Fine Fare (now the Co-op); however, I rarely ventured up West High Street, as I resided on the High Street side of Inverurie.  This was possibly why I never saw The Tramp.  He lived on in my vivid imagination and I can still see him today.

2. World In Action was one of the UK’s most successful long running current affairs programmes.

philo1978 on YouTube:

3. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV565 by J.S. Bach

Jean-Baptiste Dupont on YouTube:

4. Arthur, Robert Jr. 1964 The Secret of Terror Castle (an Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators mystery).

5. Improvised by Shawn Philips and organist Mick Weaver, but officially and rather dubiously credited to producer, Johnathon Weston. Here is the full improvisation!

profrumpo on YouTube:

6. Equinox was a British science documentary series, broadcast on Channel 4. It ran from 31 July 1986 to 21 December 2006. Be ready to run from ‘the mouth!’

20ten81hero on YouTube:

Incidentally, ‘the mouth’ belongs to producer Andrew Fowler, an amiable looking guy whose sinister transformation terrified a whole generation of kids growing up in the UK. If only we had known what he really looked like at the time. Mind you, if that was the case, it is likely that the opening titles would have not have etched themselves so firmly in our minds for decades to come!🤔

7. For more on the making of the Equinox title sequence, the following blog by Tim Dickinson is a fascinating read. And it’s life affirming to see that he felt the same fear of ‘the mouth!’ 😄 ‘Equinox’ title sequence (Channel4, 1986-2006)

8. Horizon is a BBC science and philosophy documentary series, which first aired on 2 May 1964 and is still going strong!!

grodvin on YouTube: A blast from the past listening to the preceding BBC continuity and programme trailers. . .

9. Svali fruit juice made with Icelandic spring water, was a staple of my post training packed breakfasts; snack breakfasts which were consumed with my team buddies at the tables in the swimming pool’s reception area, before heading over to school. Ooh, that takes me back to a time of yummy lemon curd sandwiches made with the softest of soft white softies from J.G. Ross the baker. . .

10. I recently shed tears upon discovering a forkietail (earwig) trapped between the bowl and the base of the birdbath. The glue like substance emanating from its abdomen prevented it from getting away, no matter how hard it tried. I gently managed to liberate it and it scrambled onto a leaf. I placed the wee beastie amongst leaves on the grass with reverence and a feeling of connection to another soul. Before you scoff or dare to think “it’s just a forkietail” I’ll tell you this - they are excellent and caring mothers! Yes, they can nip but they are remarkable creatures who just love frequenting post boxes at certain times of the year!