Grey light coming in. It’s morning. Birds outside, shrill little rattles, and bits of piping tune. Gone quiet now. There they go again. Always make most racket this time of the day – seems so anyway – when I’m relaxed and warm in bed – it’ll be cold out there in the garden, but they don’t care.

   Now radio’s come on, blasted thing.

   ‘Surgeons in a Los Angeles hospital, in a ten hour operation, have grafted the liver of baboon into a sixty-two year old man who was dying of a fatal liver disease.’

   Disgusting! Poor baboon. Do they think of that? Wonder if he got a good breakfast before he died. Don’t suppose so; expect he had to be starved to have him all clean and ready. Was it a ‘he’ baboon? Rich man nearly drinks himself to death, and buys surgeons to play God. Could it happen in this country I wonder? Could write to my MP.

   ‘Dear Mr Conway-Osborne, I am writing to draw your attention to a disturbing news item on the radio this morning about the surgical transplanting of a baboon’s liver into a man in America. Such interference with the sanctity of life is an abuse of Nature and a betrayal of Humanity. We are in danger of losing the desire and courage to face death with resignation and at peace with God. I like to think that such a procedure would not be permitted in this country. I hope you will be able to reassure me on this matter or, failing that, inform me of the regulations which relate to the use of animal tissues and organs, and tell me where I can obtain information about activities of this kind, so that I can try to use my influence, and that of others, to sway the consciences of those involved. I intend to raise this matter with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Yours etc.’

   Makes me sound like a religious person that, which I’m not, but politicians, especially Tory ones like ours, probably expect you to bring God into an ethical issue. Never have written to a Church leader. Probably get a two line standard reply or a chunk of propaganda – just like from my MP. Wouldn’t necessarily be any stronger than the politicians on moral values anyhow, Christianity having such a history of wars and persecution. Screwed up their credibility, seems to me, ought to shut up shop altogether.

   You can’t force morality on people. Ten Commandments, right and wrong, good and evil, that kind of thing – it doesn’t help. It divides people: some people do what they shouldn’t out of cussedness, and the obedient ones feel smug and disapproving. All you need is love, I say – and being in small enough groups so it’s all in the family, families are too small these days, of course. Personally, I’d include that baboon in my family – rather than that bloke with liver disease. Why should his life matter more than the baboon’s? Because individuals count with humans but not with animals or plants. But maybe it isn’t like that at all. Perhaps there’s no such thing as the individual, and we’re not as separate as we think we are. We’re taught to be separate as babies. Who’s that in the mirror then? That’s you. This is me. That’s yours, this is mine. It’s the same with souls too – humans have them, other creatures don’t – which could be something we’re told just because it’s part of religion. So if you have baboons in your family, you wouldn’t be religious. Perhaps that’s why hardly anyone goes to church in Britain nowadays: we’re a nation of animal lovers.

   Lots of people still go for religion, don’t they. Had a holiday in Sicily once at Easter time. Not many animal lovers there, judging by the furs and leather they parade around in. There was a Palm Sunday procession – hoards of people, big families, children, all waving palm leaves. I got one: they weave them into fancy shapes. Then on the following Friday there was a gloomy procession where they carried a stature of Mary weeping and one of the dead Christ: horribly realistic with yellow skin and red wounds. The main ritual in Christianity is eating Christ’s flesh and blood. With the Catholics, for some reason, only the priest gets the blood. They really believe the bread and wine turns into flesh and blood. Seems disgusting to an outsider – torture and cannibalism – but there must be something in it – some mystery we can’t understand.

   I read the Bible now and again – there is something fascinating about it – but you can’t get religion just from reading. It’s a history book mostly – his-story: the story of men; not many women in the Bible. I wonder what happened to her-story: the story of women; there must be one. Perhaps women didn’t feel the need to write it down, they just lived it. But when writing down became the important thing, women had to adopt men’s religion and history because their own was invisible. Personally I’d like a her-story without religion and morality in it: perhaps not even Love, with a big ‘L’ – just life with a small one.

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