A Mythical Childhood in The Far West - World Autism Awareness Week Day 4

Last May, in Warsaw for Our Mythical Childhood, I presented my Choice of Hercules resources for the first time in Life is Cool, the café run by autistic people which I look forward to visiting again next month. The title of the workshop I ran there began thus: ‘At every crossroads…’ As I explained, I’d gone for ‘crossroads’ because of key things the activities are seeking to do. Those using them choose, with Hercules, between two paths in life. As I also explained, the phrase ‘at every crossroads' is my translation of Jacques Brel’s ‘a chaque carrefour’ from Quand on n’a que l’amour.

A Brel moment followed when Dorota, the translator who working with the café staff, sang part of the song. Now this was a deep moment for me and I shall now convey a little of why it went so deep. I’ll build up to a direct connection - via the ‘mythical childhood’ of our project, and the ‘mythical childhood’ of Jacques Brel [1] - to an initiative, supported by Brel, which has been making a difference for decades to the lives of children, including autistic children. 

Those of us collaborating on our project named Our Mythical Childhood have discussed often how our own childhood experiences have informed our work for the project. We have engaged in play as well –something fun, and also something serious. This includes when, with Liz Hale as our play-leader, we made the fortune tellers. I recalled this in my posting on this Week’s Day 2. As I have discussed previously, autistic children grow into autistic adults.

Jacques Brel’s writing is often concerned with childhood, including childhood as a time that adults carry with them, knowingly or unknowingly. Childhood is Brel’s ‘Far [‘Wild’] West.’ It’s a place that, in Mon Enfance (My Childhood’) has been conquered by his ‘oncles repus’ (‘grown-up - or ‘smug? - uncles’). In the film Le Far West (1973) – where Brel's character, Jacques, claims to be Hercules at one point (!) – childhood is a time and place that adults long for and yet which remains with us. At least I think that this is the case. I’m likely hugely simplifying – but it’s is something that has struck me each time I’ve watched the film.

The film includes a performance of one of Brel’s most explicit reflections on childhood – a song whose very title is L’Enfance (Childhood). Here is where the explicit fit with autism comes in. Proceeds from the song went to a foundation for disabled children. The Fondation Perce-Neige (‘Snowdrop’) was set up by Lino Ventura, Brel’s co-star in the film. The Fondation still very much exists, and this week it is marking World Autism Awareness Day: please see here – last checked 04.04.19.

The song is performed during the film and a key figure from the song recurs in the soundtrack. I’ll end with Brel – with the second verse:

"L'enfance
Qui nous empêche de la vivre
De la revivre infiniment
De vivre à remonter le temps
De déchirer la fin du livre"

"Childhood: who stops us from living it, from reliving it infinitely, from living by rewinding time, by tearing up the end of the book?"

Till tomorrow...

[1] Sara Poole even writes of Brel’s ‘mythical childhood’ in her discussion of childhood in his work (Poole, S., 2004. Brel and Chanson: A critical appreciation, University Press of America, pp. 59, 60.)