tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20907860725525781792024-03-17T23:28:36.992-07:00Barbed mattersThoughts, words and opinions by Thorne MooreThorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-30383291742018419912024-03-07T03:31:00.000-08:002024-03-07T03:31:34.980-08:00HISTORY: Tales My Great Aunt Told Me - rape and high treason<p> I had a great aunt. She was the sort of great aunt that you would conjure up if you wanted to invent a great aunt. Always straight-faced, apparently straight-laced, and thoroughly wicked. I remember the exquisite agony of accompanying her, when I was a child, along the Crwys Road in Cardiff, pausing at every greengrocer (in the days when all their fruit and veg were on display outside), picking up an apple or some other fruit to inspect its quality, taking a bite, sniffing with disapproval, shaking her head and putting it back. By the time we got back to her house, she had consumed her full five a day without parting with a penny.</p><!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">She was the source of all information on my mother’s side of the family, so naturally I assumed that everything she told us was bare-faced fabrication. Such as her mother, my great grandmother, having been married twice. Her first husband was supposedly a sea-captain who drowned. When I eventually started researching my family tree properly, I discovered my grandmother was illegitimate, born to a young woman living near Cardiff Docks, her occupation listed as laundress. Probably earning what she could at the docks too, so who knows, maybe my great grandfather really was a passing sea captain.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLfTyqJAF8pdaVUjnpE5apqU1aDUGhEdsOyOT5KtoHwyRPgTIb2bUCiHihHDyOJP0HFOlFQTaiUuif6dTxFAIwlqNwcqwWHJ7bd0X_w_lq2HnFdVMhoMe7aEOy7pdxH4NJUUaPa3yNX_RtarLx0Pp__GVXofgCI78I3FFo4VQuPX5XozOu_I4DIkKXH2iL/s474/MaryJanedaughtersSM.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="360" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLfTyqJAF8pdaVUjnpE5apqU1aDUGhEdsOyOT5KtoHwyRPgTIb2bUCiHihHDyOJP0HFOlFQTaiUuif6dTxFAIwlqNwcqwWHJ7bd0X_w_lq2HnFdVMhoMe7aEOy7pdxH4NJUUaPa3yNX_RtarLx0Pp__GVXofgCI78I3FFo4VQuPX5XozOu_I4DIkKXH2iL/s320/MaryJanedaughtersSM.jpg" width="243" /></i></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Great-grandmother, my nana and baby great-aunt</i></td></tr></tbody></table>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">I was surprised, when I explained this to various aunts and uncles, that they were shocked, determined to deny the story. Of course their mother was not illegitimate. Disgraceful! I was of a generation that found it interesting, whereas they were of a generation that found it shameful.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":2487,"width":"225px","height":"225px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"left"}-->
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">It turned out that illegitimacy in the more distant past was less shameful. Even though my great aunt talked about it with a hushed voice and much pinching of lips and meaningful nods, she clearly enjoyed telling me that our family came from St David’s and her swarthy colouring was down to the invasion of Fishguard in February 1797. Apparently the legendary Jemima Nicholas, whose red flannel Welsh costume and tall hat deceived the French into thinking she was the vanguard of the British army, arrived too late on the scene to stop a French soldier ravishing one local maiden.</p><figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-2487" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/jemima-tapestry-300x300-1.jpg?w=300" style="height: 225px; width: 225px;" /></figure><p></p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">I soon discovered that my family had no connection with St David’s or Fishguard, though they were from Pembrokeshire. My great-great-great-grandmother Hannah Skeel lived there, very proud of her connection with her brother, the Reverend Thomas Skeel, an Independent minister and founder of Zion Chapel in Spittal. Hannah married a stonemason, miles from Fishguard and had a daughter born shortly after the invasion – 16 months after, so my great aunt’s tale was a complete fabrication.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":2486,"width":"288px","height":"216px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"right"}-->
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">Well, not 100% fabrication. 98% maybe, but my research revealed an equally fascinating and disturbing story. The dreaded ‘Last invasion of mainland Britain’ was modelled more on a Carry On film than on D-Day. A small French troop, including many conscripted criminals, led by Irish-American William Tate, was sent to Wales to divert attention from the main French invasion of Ireland – which didn’t happen because of bad weather.</p><figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-2486" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/invasion.jpg?w=576" style="height: 216px; width: 288px;" /></figure><p></p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">Tate’s men landed at a rocky headland, Carreg Gwastad, west of Fishguard, expecting the local poverty-stricken Welsh to rush to their side. The Welsh, being a cussed lot, picked up pitchforks and blunderbusses and skirmished with the French, a few on both sides being killed. Tate did manage to seize a couple of farms, although most of his convicts promptly deserted and ran amok in the surrounding countryside. There was indeed rape, but they were mostly looking for food. Within a couple of days, Lt Colonel Colby of the local militia and Lord Cawdor with the Pembroke Yeomanry Cavalry, had rounded up the French and obliged Tate to surrender.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">What is most interesting to me is the reaction of Colby, Cawdor and the establishment in the aftermath. Many of the French prisoners, especially the officers were well-treated, dined in style and sometimes allowed to escape. But the invasion was an excuse for a clamp-down on the dangerous revolutionaries in the local Welsh population – the Nonconformists – Baptists, Methodists and others.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":2482,"width":"260px","height":"177px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"right"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><em style="text-align: left;">“This part of the country is very much under the influence of the pernicious doctrines of Methodism. These people are like wolves dispersed over the country. They are deceitful in their manners and, under the mask of religion, with piety and meekness in their mouths, they are pests to the community</em><span style="text-align: left;">.”</span></span></div></figure><p class="has-normal-font-size"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWA0Vr6ISwyM7n2OUAMOuGx1oNwyKC_073MT6yYHs5fSNqvyssB8Snz6lLnaCmXgdY1Sr0kL_cmi4XM4B82LD3bCrN9VYozjm2EnBq9Fj42wVdwyzcrc7zn8u9Xiv0mUCRwJf8aiYbkYN_znX5c2s-qFFyLW1G2PQADcTHVaFjjydsfWBr5CDj3EC9t8U7/s520/ZionsHill.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="353" data-original-width="520" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWA0Vr6ISwyM7n2OUAMOuGx1oNwyKC_073MT6yYHs5fSNqvyssB8Snz6lLnaCmXgdY1Sr0kL_cmi4XM4B82LD3bCrN9VYozjm2EnBq9Fj42wVdwyzcrc7zn8u9Xiv0mUCRwJf8aiYbkYN_znX5c2s-qFFyLW1G2PQADcTHVaFjjydsfWBr5CDj3EC9t8U7/w400-h271/ZionsHill.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Zion's Hill Chapel, Spital. Several of my ancestors were buried there, including Hannah.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">Colby was obsessed with Anabaptists holding nocturnal meetings in the hills. <span style="color: #b45f06;"><em>“I long to get in among them.</em>”</span></p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">Winning the hearts and minds of the locals was not on the agenda. Crushing them into submission was. Several non-conformists were rounded up, accused of aiding the French, and two, Thomas John, a preacher from Little Newcastle, and Samuel Griffiths, a farmer from Poyntz Castle, were accused of High Treason, (when the potential penalty was still hanging, drawing and quartering). They were held for many months in far less agreeable conditions than the French prisoners, awaiting a farcical trial, which finally collapsed and they were released, close to ruin. Griffith's letter of complaint at his treatment is, unsurprisingly, one long scream of bitter resentment. The prosecutions scandalised the local Welsh.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":2481,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"left"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-large"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-2481" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/sarahdaviesskeel.jpg?w=216" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>allegedly Sarah Davies, nee Skeel, wife of Thomas Davies<br />though I am not entirely convinced.</i></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">Others, who were questioned as suspicious dissenters, were reluctantly allowed to go free after questioning. One was Thomas Davies, who gave a statement on oath before magistrates. He claimed he had <span style="color: #b45f06;"><em>“heard of the French landing about midnight, but he turned over and went to sleep again. The next morning early, two of his neighbours came along and took him to task for lying in bed with the French landed, so he got up and, after breakfast he went off to Hayscastle Smithy to shoe the mare. Then he set off for Pencaer with his brother-in-law Thomas Skeel. They got as far as Trefelgarn farm, just beyond St.Nicholas, when they met John Evans whose farm, Trefayog, had been taken possession of by the French, so all three of them set off for Trefayog to see what damage had been done. When they got there the French must have left, as they had some bread and cheese in peace and fed their horses. They thought better of seeking the enemy at closer quarters that day, and returned to their homes.</em>”</span></p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":2480,"width":"216px","height":"210px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"right"}-->
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<p class="has-normal-font-size">Exciting? Well, it is to me because Davies’ brother-in-law was my Hannah’s brother Thomas Skeel. So although there was no French rape in my bloodline, I am descended from people nearly charged with High Treason because of their religion. Can you imagine a situation in which people could face hostility, abuse and persecution just because their religion was regarded with suspicion in a time of crisis! Couldn't possibly happen now.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"normal"}-->
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-2480" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/revthomas.jpg?w=288" style="height: 210px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 216px;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Rev. Thomas Skeel</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p class="has-normal-font-size">I suspect that Thomas Skeel, Thomas Davies, Thomas John and Samuel Griffiths all regarded themselves, in reality, as patriotic British subjects, loyal to their king, but I really wish that they had, instead, confronted Colby, Cawdor and the rest, and smacked them in the gob, as they deserved.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-88489857593655620862024-03-05T23:31:00.000-08:002024-03-05T23:31:29.618-08:00WILD RAMBLINGS: What's In A Name?<p> I have quite a lot of flowers in my lane. For example:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPvz81DWx7yXqcKXg5wW0ZN6BXR3e3JF87HE0amNOiwirOHFpOzSTfXddvoe2v5Cy116PNEWj-tGCDZi0gYqsEV5q5OWuulZwbzt7k56RzfaCxhgj_fnUNTAUcL4nbYZER1oMKj_4G8Z9n5833_xe9GDuXpOKaD6MCyVVrL07YOfNzFn2M0cBQzONJJV12/s864/Flowers1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="864" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPvz81DWx7yXqcKXg5wW0ZN6BXR3e3JF87HE0amNOiwirOHFpOzSTfXddvoe2v5Cy116PNEWj-tGCDZi0gYqsEV5q5OWuulZwbzt7k56RzfaCxhgj_fnUNTAUcL4nbYZER1oMKj_4G8Z9n5833_xe9GDuXpOKaD6MCyVVrL07YOfNzFn2M0cBQzONJJV12/s16000/Flowers1.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia3ZDo147fDDObyBbITV6JLk96DiJhFT-8M6HQ6-cPpXX9difsrrN7vI_Ap7ta_Ej0lR5YD7mFLo510YOLaPbwgsVIZzo1HlcZecXW-PD_hPkP5CdgH2OlTm4NMW132oDByQH3WeF_Sj2ybHjtSfa59Hz-VPtNWlzclm6UtD71t2hD-mtsVvkZ6FkAYhZz/s864/Flowers2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="864" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia3ZDo147fDDObyBbITV6JLk96DiJhFT-8M6HQ6-cPpXX9difsrrN7vI_Ap7ta_Ej0lR5YD7mFLo510YOLaPbwgsVIZzo1HlcZecXW-PD_hPkP5CdgH2OlTm4NMW132oDByQH3WeF_Sj2ybHjtSfa59Hz-VPtNWlzclm6UtD71t2hD-mtsVvkZ6FkAYhZz/s16000/Flowers2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo2FKXiHWXPHv9_XOcXJiaeoMobuXF6Byebfbj9t9Og1CqadsNLPFpUdOg-8rPCikq58eGl8ONhR5GeXP1GtgGS8XeCh92m6_DwZlAaYpGfDOjsVKMq1E1_S358Qt0o5GqOWQK4LuESuXfPGSwkPRWGLgC5f2dKRyGP-7myvGaHYbFMoygnPQWuVrBP6rE/s864/Flowers3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="864" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo2FKXiHWXPHv9_XOcXJiaeoMobuXF6Byebfbj9t9Og1CqadsNLPFpUdOg-8rPCikq58eGl8ONhR5GeXP1GtgGS8XeCh92m6_DwZlAaYpGfDOjsVKMq1E1_S358Qt0o5GqOWQK4LuESuXfPGSwkPRWGLgC5f2dKRyGP-7myvGaHYbFMoygnPQWuVrBP6rE/s16000/Flowers3.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrhVkJ6T7oc7_mrjfzGJAqYYuaPAbrWp_f2Wy_sA5eJolUUR_ZVhcK9YUQ0L41wgp0nun06J2wS_41zU7GC9_TGc6mHJUGNGKrbz0fhZ0Q4TcQsg4WMP0k0iNwggPzQNKCn2si914cjFeQKr9YRdzo8qCIa8huiye6cRT21MU1myVlE8fX0yHj4ayOjOX/s864/Flowers4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="249" data-original-width="864" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrhVkJ6T7oc7_mrjfzGJAqYYuaPAbrWp_f2Wy_sA5eJolUUR_ZVhcK9YUQ0L41wgp0nun06J2wS_41zU7GC9_TGc6mHJUGNGKrbz0fhZ0Q4TcQsg4WMP0k0iNwggPzQNKCn2si914cjFeQKr9YRdzo8qCIa8huiye6cRT21MU1myVlE8fX0yHj4ayOjOX/s16000/Flowers4.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7HXlvzJoW6QERHQLeVveABwppHQlMzUXEco67mOYOF15d0inx2ttxSp6CcxE_UbvA0YbNUKapQMDOaxdKKCcT4_b2AriqjcZA_IekTbECP1bMje3GHLq46bPgFCw7rBSo9FLXqRI5JOJCx12Xnv__f_PengRi1jY5J6s1cHgeq5QeiF7md5Hv2aFQfj7/s864/Flowers5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="864" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7HXlvzJoW6QERHQLeVveABwppHQlMzUXEco67mOYOF15d0inx2ttxSp6CcxE_UbvA0YbNUKapQMDOaxdKKCcT4_b2AriqjcZA_IekTbECP1bMje3GHLq46bPgFCw7rBSo9FLXqRI5JOJCx12Xnv__f_PengRi1jY5J6s1cHgeq5QeiF7md5Hv2aFQfj7/s16000/Flowers5.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSLnDRXZJzrjL9V2vSKzyAxvKW1UTZ68KM_tX8d-k8HVQLFhhIPQkL4roM09VBmgFYOabivbgQWGKmAzjevxS_NtngHws1OYbmuVXy_sJ9rGGXhqGvC-JTKYursXsauJo5KVqIbpX49H9kBCXfzynwl-L5uHzLbvHHKuw6Wi6An9XHpEqFrUzwR9nuK2yF/s864/Flowers6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="242" data-original-width="864" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSLnDRXZJzrjL9V2vSKzyAxvKW1UTZ68KM_tX8d-k8HVQLFhhIPQkL4roM09VBmgFYOabivbgQWGKmAzjevxS_NtngHws1OYbmuVXy_sJ9rGGXhqGvC-JTKYursXsauJo5KVqIbpX49H9kBCXfzynwl-L5uHzLbvHHKuw6Wi6An9XHpEqFrUzwR9nuK2yF/s16000/Flowers6.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz6GGHykyocBLTSfMCnUJM-3WdmCoUNDYAe_GpbPKdC8H5zbzjhNKUxVgnSZDCeRhkxY_4ITw5g-K-0_0n0Ghw4x4yDtP8shnrnO48DoIS4YveqRb5Bvh4ec2kIuuZSa-2S7fpDAoPhN2EchQBdlKnG50NXFgfwz5ZbAOP12CN0sYI007hpCoic8DWb1Vi/s650/Flowers7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz6GGHykyocBLTSfMCnUJM-3WdmCoUNDYAe_GpbPKdC8H5zbzjhNKUxVgnSZDCeRhkxY_4ITw5g-K-0_0n0Ghw4x4yDtP8shnrnO48DoIS4YveqRb5Bvh4ec2kIuuZSa-2S7fpDAoPhN2EchQBdlKnG50NXFgfwz5ZbAOP12CN0sYI007hpCoic8DWb1Vi/s16000/Flowers7.jpg" /></a></div><!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">to name but a few, The thing is, with names like that to choose from, why would anyone want to call a plant Digitalis Purpurea, or Caltha Palustris, or Geum Urbanum, or Filipendula Ulmaria?</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><em>If you are a botanist, don't answer that, as it was intended as a rhetorical question.</em></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">I spent a lot of a time as a child looking at wild flowers and pressing a lot of them.. We had to make our own entertainment in those days. I can identify quite a few. Can you tell the difference between Hop Trefoil and Black Meddick? They look almost identical but one has a tiny spike in the cleft of the heart-shaped leaves. I know this because I spent several hours on my knees, helping a friend with her botanical homework, identifying every species in six square yards of pasture. The trouble is, 50 years on, I can't remember which has the spike and which doesn't. But I still like looking for them.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph --><p><br /></p>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-57290481963709825752024-02-24T01:53:00.000-08:002024-02-24T01:53:20.312-08:00HISTORY: Horseshoe Nails and Other Consequences<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">Here is a story to entertain. I wrote it as Covid 19 spread across the world, reminding me of previous pandemics. This story is not fiction exactly, it’s history, and history is always subjective, open to challenge and re-evaluation, but this is my version and it makes a good tale. Allegedly.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"align":"center","style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p class="has-text-align-center" style="font-size: 15px;">There is an old rhyme:<br /> <em> <span> </span>For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost.<br /> <span> </span>For the want of a shoe, the horse was lost.<br /> <span> </span>For the want of a horse, the rider was lost.<br /> <span> </span>For the want of a rider, the battle was lost.<br /> <span> </span>For the want of the battle, the kingdom was lost<br /> <span> </span>And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.</em></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">No one know what kingdoms will be lost when one little nail messes things up.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">Once upon a time, back in the Middle Ages, Venice was the great trading power in the Mediterranean, so aggressive against its rivals that it even persuaded crusaders to divert from their intended goal, Jerusalem, and sack Constantinople instead. That is one horseshoe nail with far-reaching consequences, but I digress. Back to trade… Other Italian city states wanted a share of the action too. Genoa moved in on the Black Sea and established a large fortified trading base at Kaffa (now Feodosiya) on the Crimean coast.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">One day some Genoese merchants, out for a stroll, got in a bit of a barny with a bunch of the Mongol locals, in the course of which a local was stabbed to death. This is my horseshoe nail. The end result of that street brawl was economic upheaval, the collapse of feudalism, the rise of capitalism, the Reformation, the break-up of Western Christendom and, ultimately, Hitler.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">How?</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":1186,"width":"288px","height":"240px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"right"} -->
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjak_8mu1P0apso5iKhZrmN3XW71JoJIYwPgnRu1Wpu75g04_Rb1r9TWEgWRU75w6E5PJZg2qQ6Plj1YylYoO3MWH7Qkmess85CJfyrt6ec8V4Dc5JxhxzSwRgoQZXqIiSTwvcbvEcw9SU0S4JEvLwsinVnffaPSjOX5tTj9aVuEX5sz0chT4aOfY13yEUL/s288/Medieval-ship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="288" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjak_8mu1P0apso5iKhZrmN3XW71JoJIYwPgnRu1Wpu75g04_Rb1r9TWEgWRU75w6E5PJZg2qQ6Plj1YylYoO3MWH7Qkmess85CJfyrt6ec8V4Dc5JxhxzSwRgoQZXqIiSTwvcbvEcw9SU0S4JEvLwsinVnffaPSjOX5tTj9aVuEX5sz0chT4aOfY13yEUL/s1600/Medieval-ship.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized" style="text-align: center;"><br /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">The brawl and the death led to a riot against the Genoese, who locked themselves in their sea-side enclave. The angry locals besieging them were joined by the Mongol army, but the siege began to falter as sickness started to spread among the soldiers, as it tends to do in siege situations. Rather than simply give up, the Mongols took a last swipe at their enemy by catapulting their dead into the Genoese stronghold. The Genoese merchants tried to deal with the corpses but in the end decided to give up and head for home, escaping by sea.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">Their first major port of call was Messina in Sicily – by which time some on the ship were dead and others were dying. The inhabitants of the port realised that they’d brought an unwelcome visitor and forced them out to sea again, but too late. At each port where the ship tried to put in on its return to Genoa, it brought the Black Death with it. Everywhere that ships and trade went, the Pestilence went too, all around the Mediterranean, all across Europe, to Spain, to Scotland, to Moscow, mutating at it went, from bubonic plague (pretty deadly) to pneumonic and septicemic plague (totally deadly). In the course of 3 years, till 1350, about a third of the population of Europe was wiped out, especially the old, sick, weakened and malnourished.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">After such catastrophes, populations often spring back – the strongest have survived. A new generation was born. Then the plague returned in 1361 and hit especially hard at the young. This time there was no instant recovery. The population in England (and conquered Wales) took another 500 years to return to its 13th century levels.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">The result of it all, in England at least, was the collapse of feudalism, which had been built on the backs of vast armies of peasant labourers tied to the land. Now they were in short supply, and despite attempts to round them up and bring them back when they ran off to the big cities, they became uppity. They revolted. Attempts were made to put them down, but there was no stopping the flow. Land owners had to start paying for labour and renting out land. Meanwhile, in the cities, merchants were on the rise, relying on money and trade instead of forced peasant labour.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":1192,"width":"162px","height":"168px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"right"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1192" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/coin.jpg?w=216" style="height: 168px; width: 162px;" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">It had been happening for a long time, of course. Earlier Medieval monarchs, in desperate need of money as well as feudal levies, had relied on the only source of capital, the Jews, since Christians weren’t supposed to soil themselves with usury, charging interest on loans (the basis of most modern economies). Edward I, finding himself in more debt than he liked, had solved his problem by defaulting on his debts and throwing the Jews out of England. But that left him needing another source of finance. Italian banks, which had learned not to be squeamish about charging interest, stepped in and, when kings, once more, defaulted on their debts, the banks went bankrupt. Kings started borrowing off their noble subjects instead – and they too went bankrupt.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":1188,"width":"216px","height":"226px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"left"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1188" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/sir_richard_whittington.jpg?w=288" style="height: 226px; width: 216px;" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">But then there were the merchants of London. By the early 15th century, after the plague, a Lord Mayor of London, who had bankrolled Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, munificently tore up the debts the king owed him, to show he was so rich he didn’t need repaying. His name was Sir Richard Whittington. (The cat was added to his legend a few centuries later.)</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">It took the great landowners a few more centuries to realise that they were no longer the real power in the kingdom, but the city was already on top.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">In matters of faith, the Black Death knocked the wind out of easy early Medieval piety. The Church failed to save people. They were abandoned, forced to confess to other lay men or even, God help us, if all else failed, to women. Priests died as fast as anyone, faster if they were properly dutiful in attending the dying. God hadn’t saved them. Many abbeys that should have supplied replacements or offered help, locked their doors to keep contagion out, and their street cred plummeted.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":1187,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1187" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/pestilence.jpg?w=432" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">Anti-clericalism rose. The Church was left wallowing in corruption. Early “heresies” of men like Wycliffe were fought with flames, but no fire could stop the eventual emergence of Protestantism under Luther, Calvin and the rest. Europe was riven with religious division – which still staggers on in Northern Ireland and certain football grounds.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":1185,"width":"139px","height":"145px","sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"right"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image alignright size-large is-resized" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-1185" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/jewishstar.jpg?w=278" style="height: 145px; width: 139px;" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">Some gave up on religion entirely, opening the way for the rationality of the modern era. Others became fanatical in their beliefs instead, convinced of God’s punishment and determined to find scapegoats. Edward I had deprived England of one easy target, but on the continent murderous anti-semitism swept country after country, because it went without saying that the plague must have been caused by Jews poisoning Christian wells. Anti-semitism had been simmering for centuries, ever since St John put the blame for the crucifixion on the Jews, but now it came to the boil, and the Jews remained the main focus for amorphous fear, rage and insecurity until Hitler arrived to milk it with such industrial efficiency.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">So, don't get involved in a street brawl, because you never know where it might lead.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">What will be the long-term effects of Covid 19? As Zhou Enlai said of the effects of the French Revolution, it's too early to say.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph --><p> </p>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-53508959543625137062024-02-22T00:07:00.000-08:002024-02-22T00:07:01.633-08:00HISTORY: So Clear, So Obvious<p> There's a difference between history and historical fiction, but sometimes the two can overlap. Write about a real historical character and the author has to do all the research that an academic historian would. The facts are there and cannot be changed. The difference is that the author of fiction is free to interpret the facts and the impulses behind them, in a way that suits a dramatic narrative, inventing thoughts and words for characters.</p><p>Historians, by contrast, are expected to stick to the records. It doesn't stop them interpreting facts though, with the benefit of hindsight, and that can be a tricky matter. It can involve viewing past events through the lens of the present. And present understanding can be just as subjectively skewed as that of our ancestors. Hindsight can cast light on a great many things, but sometimes the light it casts creates wholly deceptive shadows.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":794,"width":"269px","height":"500px","sizeSlug":"large","align":"left"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-794" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/williamofnorwich.jpg?w=538" style="height: 500px; width: 269px;" /></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"small"}-->
<p class="has-small-font-size">One story whose interpretation has always fascinated me begins in 1144, when William, a 12 year old tanner’s apprentice in the city of Norwich, vanished. His mutilated body was eventually found in a wood. For various reasons (Anglo-Saxon v Norman politics, ecclesiastical quests for lucrative relics, sheer malice, overheated imaginations etc) it was concluded that William had been tortured and crucified by the Jews of Norwich. The case was taken up, with relish, by a Norwich monk, Thomas of Monmouth, and expanded into a hugely gothic account, offering dozens of proofs that little William had been ritually sacrificed by the wicked Jews. The Catholic church hesitated over recognising the miracles that followed, so little “Saint” William was never actually officially canonised, but he was recognised as a saint and child martyr in Norwich.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"small"}-->
<p class="has-small-font-size">A hundred years later, the murder of little “saint” Hugh of Lincoln was also recognised as an obvious case of Jewish ritual murder, and many of the Jews of Lincoln were promptly rounded up and hanged. The Jews of Norwich were a little luckier. They had forty-five years of freedom after William’s death before the massacres began.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"small"}-->
<p class="has-small-font-size">Little Saint Hugh was more famous. He got a mention in Chaucer and a ballad by Steeleye Span.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"small"}-->
<p class="has-small-font-size">It’s all a typical story of anti-Semitism in Mediaeval Europe, nasty but predictable. What really fascinates me, though, is the reinterpretation of the story in the latter part of the 20th century. According to Thomas of Monmouth’s colourful account, William’s body was found dressed in jacket and shoes. Just jacket and shoes? It doesn’t say, but historian Vivian Lipman, in 1967, concluded that the body must have been half stripped. Other historians then leapt to a similar conclusion that the murder was actually a sex crime, perpetrated by a child molester. Just as Thomas of Monmouth embellished the story out of all recognition, so modern historians turned supposition into irrefutable fact. The boy was last seen heading off with a stranger, and was later found naked from the waist down with mutilated genitals. I heard one such historian discussing the case on the radio and explaining, with a scornful laugh that ‘of course, it is obvious to us now that it was the work of a sadistic paedophile.’</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"small"}-->
<p class="has-small-font-size">Yes, it is obvious, in an age where child molesters are the big, nasty bogeymen who terrorise our imaginations, that it must have been a paedophile. But back in the 12th Century, an age of unquestioning religious stupidity and fear of outsiders, it was equally obvious that it must have been Jews performing a human sacrifice. We seek out and surprisingly discover our own invented monsters. The truth is that no one has any idea what really happened to William in 1144. Maybe he was accidentally killed while playing with friends. Maybe he was attacked in the woods by a wild boar. Maybe he was abducted by aliens who performed experiments on him! Take your pick and choose whatever comes closest to your personal nightmare.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"fontSize":"small"}-->
<p class="has-small-font-size">Historians in quest of “facts” should be very cautious about jumping to conclusions when interpreting them. Better to leave those to novelists, who are always right, without needing a single fact to support them.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-18799721402444889992024-02-20T07:52:00.000-08:002024-02-21T07:10:43.421-08:00HISTORY: How Travel Broadens the Mind<p>As an author (did I ever mention that), I am always fascinated with the idea of <span style="font-size: 15px;">people plucked out of their comfort zone by a traumatic event that turns their world upside down. The question is always how do they deal with it? Do they crumble? Do they meekly adapt? Or do they find hidden strengths within themselves to take on the trauma and come through?</span></p><!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 15px;">As I was wallowing in memories of childhood holidays recently, it suddenly struck me what might have sparked this lifelong interest in how people would react to terrible situations. It was a school trip and, no, nothing traumatic happened to me, other than dropping my purse in a stream. But…</p><p style="font-size: 15px;">I was twelve, and my high school (I was a first year – I don’t know what that is in new money) organised a trip in the Easter holidays to Switzerland. God knows how my parents scraped together the money for it, but it was the first opportunity for anyone in my family to go abroad (other than my father’s war service), so I went.</p><p style="font-size: 15px;"><!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph --></p><p style="font-size: 15px;">I recall Switzerland, once we’d arrived, as a picture-book place of towering, snow-capped mountains, glittering lakes, lush green meadows and happy cows, with gift shops full of cow bells and chalet musical boxes. Imagine Switzerland and it was just like that. So exactly like that that its images slipped into my memory as a neatly packaged collection of holiday snaps, dug out occasionally but no longer real. Definitely not real. I was convinced for years that I could remember driving in the coach over the old bridge in Lucerne - the one with paintings in the roof. Since it is a pedestrian bridge, that memory must be complete fantasy.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEvRWll07xcCPMguEV5WCO9Wu-BXh8Qn-DgRceomGlGROPKeM6FP2lN1y8S1RKoJmD_brU7HNhicr79ncHj_BVWGO7kHM03lhCDOZwZY4CJpU488uTCfLIwhWgiE7P8oXf9UqFhI-7P1oSwAdUBFKzscqrurS3Qg8XWAUfYZ1vQjW_10jgouPg2IJBri_7/s576/Lucerne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="576" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEvRWll07xcCPMguEV5WCO9Wu-BXh8Qn-DgRceomGlGROPKeM6FP2lN1y8S1RKoJmD_brU7HNhicr79ncHj_BVWGO7kHM03lhCDOZwZY4CJpU488uTCfLIwhWgiE7P8oXf9UqFhI-7P1oSwAdUBFKzscqrurS3Qg8XWAUfYZ1vQjW_10jgouPg2IJBri_7/w400-h278/Lucerne.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My spotted postcard home, 1967</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="font-size: 15px;">What made a truly lasting impression on me was the journey. Birds and film stars flew back then. We went in a couple of coaches, with two overnight stops. The most thrilling part of the entire holiday was waiting in the cold dark, at about 3am, with my parents, as the coach arrived to pick us up, and then arrival at Dover as the sun came up.</p><p style="font-size: 15px;">From the ferry, down across France to Reims, through farmland. First mild shock of the journey was the sight of farmers ploughing – or harrowing, or whatever it would have been at Easter – with horse-drawn ploughs (or harrows or whatever). The only horse-drawn anything I had seen before that was the cart of our local Steptoes, going up the road with a nasal call of “Ra’bong!” I was entering a time machine.</p><p style="font-size: 15px; text-align: left;"><!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph --></p><p style="font-size: 15px;">The greater shock was the graves. War graves. Regimented white markers, not in the vast cemeteries like Bayeux, but in smaller cemeteries, scattered everywhere, so casually embraced by the countryside. The first World War was no longer just a few stuttering clips of faded film and an amusing poster of Kitchener. It was blood and shattered bone absorbed into the soil, part of the land. That was one of the moments when it came home to me that “history” had once been “Now.”</p><p style="font-size: 15px;">On our second day, heading for Basel, we stopped briefly in Domrémy. My father liked George Bernard Shaw. I’d read his play, St Joan (I’d really like to see a modern version, set, maybe, in Afghanistan). Domrémy, despite its gift shops, was a reminder that St Joan had once been an actual girl, born there and deciding, at the age of 16, to fight rather than settle for life as a peasant wife, inspiring French resistance to English invaders, and being burned at the stake at the age of nineteen. I couldn’t get my head around it. Some of the school children on my trip were 16. Could they? Would they? Joan was a long time ago. People were different then.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFfRgrUI3oTbP2TOmZlTdF6-CJOFORqn36z7viM3KRbgw0RD4EWnHIbb2KxCTcTn8jPDJCdWiKHtHhAajHNZFhzIz_m5aFvikG06JvipCMCUKC3T4sRzfqMsaLH9wxVKyvasTM-BS3q9vQK65tlbz7aMQEG1xuL9uwMBSYtX694-TWs67QIesARzcJLXg/s679/JeannedArc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="679" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaFfRgrUI3oTbP2TOmZlTdF6-CJOFORqn36z7viM3KRbgw0RD4EWnHIbb2KxCTcTn8jPDJCdWiKHtHhAajHNZFhzIz_m5aFvikG06JvipCMCUKC3T4sRzfqMsaLH9wxVKyvasTM-BS3q9vQK65tlbz7aMQEG1xuL9uwMBSYtX694-TWs67QIesARzcJLXg/s320/JeannedArc.jpg" width="271" /></a></div><p style="font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="font-size: 15px;">We travelled on over the Vosges mountains, and stopped on a hairpin bend, looking down over steep rolling forests. The real purpose of our stop was to let several of the boys relieve themselves in the trees. But it happened to be the site of a memorial. A teacher explained that it was a memorial to some French resistance fighters who were captured and executed there by the Nazis. They included a father and son who were killed at the same age that my grandfather and one of my uncles were in 1967. Which made it strangely personal. And again, it rubbed in that history had been real people doing real things, not just tales in a storybook.</p><p style="font-size: 15px;">As children, we tend to believe that everything before us is fantasy. The second world war, to me, had been, like cowboys and injuns, simply the subject of black and white films with thrilling music on Sunday television. My parents had been through it, but that was when they were young, an enormously remote time. By the age of 12, though, it had dawned on me that it had been happening, bombs had been dropping, people had been dying less than ten years before I was born. I had been alive longer than the time between the end of the war and my birth. I was on its heels.</p><p style="font-size: 15px;"><!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"15px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph --></p><p style="font-size: 15px;">It was suddenly much closer and behind the heroism and the pantomime villainy of war films was a terrifying and horrible truth. The Nazis had been real, they had done unspeakable things, they were merciless and they were strong. It was easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to take their defeat for granted, but at the start of the war, it was their victory than seemed far more likely. Would my relatives, if they had lived south of the Channel instead of north, have dared to risk torture and death, to join the resistance against Nazi occupation? Would I dare? How would any of us react if confronted with challenges we’d hoped never to face.</p><p style="font-size: 15px;">I was standing where people were murdered because they had dared to resist, knowing the likely cost. It was that scene, on a forested hillside, that drilled deepest into me, out of all the delightful things I witnessed on that holiday. An unknown memorial on some anonymous hairpin bend in the middle of nowhere.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9FZKldU9x2IZS51cG1uAQ1GV2cWa4D1gGCoDTz42jk5PDddWce1wEM-EYY-Y8epHvnJKwS-48uAV0hAocUYeO7g6dCAAAeyTqQhz9tmsPnHqorT9evd5WSreLvLDv3lNSlv01V6DhFeNbHfXJhzEPQtGCXsfOJtddmjA0PgFD253OxKN_kjtmy3sluEi/s576/MemorialSteingrabenY.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="576" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9FZKldU9x2IZS51cG1uAQ1GV2cWa4D1gGCoDTz42jk5PDddWce1wEM-EYY-Y8epHvnJKwS-48uAV0hAocUYeO7g6dCAAAeyTqQhz9tmsPnHqorT9evd5WSreLvLDv3lNSlv01V6DhFeNbHfXJhzEPQtGCXsfOJtddmjA0PgFD253OxKN_kjtmy3sluEi/w400-h285/MemorialSteingrabenY.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="font-size: 15px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="font-size: 15px;">There’s nothing quite so useful as Google maps and Street View to help you find spots you can’t quite place. I knew it was in the Vosges mountains. Turns out, it’s quite easy to find. A very spectacular hairpin bend with the Memorial de Steingraben. I don’t know if it was identical in 1967, but the spot is certainly the same. A pity that I can’t find anything about it on the internet apart from pictures of the memorials. One day I’ll have to go back and pay my respects to the place and the people that had such an impact on me.</p><p style="font-size: 15px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjom9OiDy5iAg6YQJickmNVnRDTfdZSvCVL4OAE6T1KyZm-0_Jc2a0Vx-UHVPdD_e0qdQUEauuO7kxfQGOrlTAHGMgx5qiTW6rVI93udArDLPsiBUETAXkByAD215XA8b71k9Hwm1YtdAl9ACw096WtxSghq8UnjH3rmPIYwXals8cVODkmr7cNhNIHETwf/s576/MemorialSteingrabenX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="576" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjom9OiDy5iAg6YQJickmNVnRDTfdZSvCVL4OAE6T1KyZm-0_Jc2a0Vx-UHVPdD_e0qdQUEauuO7kxfQGOrlTAHGMgx5qiTW6rVI93udArDLPsiBUETAXkByAD215XA8b71k9Hwm1YtdAl9ACw096WtxSghq8UnjH3rmPIYwXals8cVODkmr7cNhNIHETwf/w400-h224/MemorialSteingrabenX.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-3817554455089984192024-02-19T11:20:00.000-08:002024-02-21T07:09:45.722-08:00HEARTH AND HOME: Going Up In Smoke<p> <span style="font-size: 17px;">The Tudors didn’t invent brick, or chimneys, but they experienced a small revolution in house-building, by making common use of both.</span></p><!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4878,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4878" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/hamptoncourt.jpg?w=1024" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Bricks, made of clay fired in a kiln, had been around since Roman times, but they had to be mass-manufactured so they had less appeal as a cheap and readily available material for building than timber, wattle and daub. The wealthier could afford them, and so, as the country grew wealthier so did more and more people. Ironically, the Black Death helped. It may have wiped out between a third and a half of the population, and put back its recovery by several centuries, but England began to move from being a third-world supplier of raw materials to a manufacturing economy (okay, the Welsh kept goats and Scotland was Scotland). There was less pressure on land and… well, let's just settle that the country got richer, with funds available to be spent on building more substantial and durable houses.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Despite the Wars of the Roses, Spanish Armadas, Civil Wars and general uprisings, the country also became a little more civilised. There were less anarchic warlords chasing each other around and laying siege to their castles, which were no longer quite so safe now that gunpowder was on the scene. So castles of stone with walls twelve feet thick gave way to country manors and palaces built of brick.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4873,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4873" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/tresriche.jpg?w=576" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">from the Tres Riches Heures de Duc de Berry. Quite a few chimneys</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Chimneys had long existed in buildings that were several storeys high, or there would be no chance of heating them without choking everyone to death. Stone-built castles were one obvious example. In modest urban dwellings of only two floors, a smoke void at the rear would be sufficient, but for prosperous merchants who had no option but to build upwards rather than outwards, because of lack of ground space, chimneys were de rigeur.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4882,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4882" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/tenby.jpg?w=531" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Where there was space to expand, in the country, it was more normal, in Medieval times, for at least one hall to be left open to the rafters, to allow the smoke to rise and escape through high vents.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4675,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4675" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/bayleafa.jpg?w=800" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bayleaf at the Weald and Downland museum</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Brick changed this. One of its benefits was that, unlike timber, wattle and thatch, it didn’t catch fire, so chimneys became a must-have feature of every house but the humblest hovel. Even in half-timbered houses, brick allowed a chimney to be added.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4881,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4881" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/lowerbrockhampton.jpg?w=800" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">New houses could be built around a huge central chimney with several flues, bread ovens, and enclosed hearths. The taller the flue the better the draw on the smoke. The need to have a hall open to the rafters, was gone, and that meant that upper floors could be inserted. Blackened timbers, nursing old soot, hidden away in closed lofts are a sure sign that a house once was once open to the rafters.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Brick could be moulded or cut, and chimneys were regarded as a sign of status, so naturally chimney pots became a means of boasting and an outlet for artistic exuberance. No small discreet pot for the Tudors, with a cowl to keep the rain and jackdaws out. Tall and extravagant was the order of the day. If you had it, flaunt it.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4879,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4879" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/hamptoncourtchimneys.jpg?w=719" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Even when building with stone, the chimney was a dominant feature that demanded attention.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4885,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4885" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/conistonoldhall.jpg?w=640" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">While chimneys allowed for upper floors and carried the smoke away quite successfully, the hearth usually remained much as it had been when it had occupied the centre of the hall. A serious bonfire was needed to heat a good-sized room. In some cases, fireplace were large enough to be almost rooms in their own rights - inglenooks, where people could sit cosily round the fire.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4877,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4877" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/cilewent03.jpg?w=600" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">fireplace at Cilewent farmhouse in St Fagan's Museum</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Raising the fire on firedogs or grates allowed a better airflow into the flames, but it wasn’t until the end of the 18th century that improvements were made, with the Rumford fireplace, shallower and angled to reflect more heat into the room and siphon the smoke away more efficiently. Since I always try to mention Jane Austen, General Tilney boasts that he has improved the fireplace in Northanger Abbey. Catherine, who hankers after all things Gothic, is not impressed.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4886,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4886" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/rumford.jpg?w=576" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Fires were not only used for heating, but for cooking, of course. Bread oven and charcoal ranges for saucepans could be added, but generally kitchens had open fireplaces with assorted ironware – spits and cradles and hooks - for roasting and boiling. </p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4880,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4880" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/ironware.jpg?w=500" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">one of several fireplaces in the Hampton Court kitchens</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">With the coming of the industrial revolution, coal replaced wood as the fuel. It produced very efficient heat but also unpleasant and noxious smoke. Roasting on a spit before an open fire was no longer possible without tainting the meat, so enclosed ranges were introduced, with an iron oven and, frequently, a water boiler with tap.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4890,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4890" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/range.jpg?w=640" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">This did mean that the roast beef of Olde England became the baked beef of Modern England, which is mostly what is eaten today. They were roasting large joints on a spit before a wood fire in the Hampton Court kitchens when I last visited, but they wouldn’t let me try any. Health and Safety, I ask you.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"align":"center"} -->
<p class="has-text-align-center"></p><div style="text-align: center;">Fancy visiting a few places?</div><div style="text-align: center;">Try</div><strong><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="https://www.wealddown.co.uk/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Weald and Downland Museum</a> </strong>(near Chichester)</div></strong><strong><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="https://museum.wales/stfagans/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">St Fagan's museum of Welsh life</a></strong> (Cardiff)</div></strong><strong><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Hampton Court Palace</a></strong>.</div></strong><p></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-18200855232327856512024-02-19T02:57:00.000-08:002024-02-21T07:09:13.297-08:00HEARTH AND HOME: Timber!<p> <span style="font-size: 17px;">Here's another post about old houses.</span></p><!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Some places have a lot of easily splitable or workable stone, and if you had it, you used it, but elsewhere the most convenient material for building houses was wood. After the last ice-age, Britain was largely covered by woodland, although that was seriously reduced with the arrival of agriculture. As an aside, I say woodland rather than forest because in Norman times ‘forest’ was a term that referred to royal hunting grounds with gory penalties for poaching, rather than an impenetrable blanket of trees.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">The woodland was largely oak and hazel which, when combined, made very effective structural materials that have come to epitomise Tudor England. Oak – especially heart of oak – is hard, strong, resistant to rot and woodworm and was used (is still used, if you can afford it) as the framework for buildings, with huge timbers pegged together, allowing a bit of charmingly quirky shifting and creaking.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4682,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4682" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/framing.jpg?w=576" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pegged timber framing illustrated at the Weald and Downland Museum</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br />The spaces between the timbers were filled with woven split hazel wattle, liberally daubed with a mixture of clay, mud, straw and cowdung. Yummie.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4686,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4686" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/tinternabbeywattle.jpg?w=640" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">wattle and daub illustrated at Tintern Abbey</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">One of the earliest types of timber construction used cruck beams, which made use of the natural curve of some massive timbers, taking the weight of the house from roof peak to ground. Use two or more pairs of crucks, as the basic support for a house, and build the rest around them.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4689,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4689" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/cruckweobley-1.jpg?w=640" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">A cruck-built house in Weobley, Herefordshire</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Smaller curved timbers were also used to brace framework, and stop the whole thing from collapsing. Bayleaf, a satisfyingly elegant wealden house at the Weald and Downland museum illustrates the bracing beams, in a house that is more wattle and daub than heavy timber.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4675,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4675" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/bayleafa.jpg?w=800" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bayleaf</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">But timbers were often used more liberally. Two variations were common. Box framing produced a grid of vertical and horizontal timbers. This was especially common in the west of the country.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4692,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4692" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/eardisland.jpg?w=800" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">Box-framed house in Eardisland, Herefordshire</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">In the east, close vertical studwork was favoured, as in this example at Ightham Mote in Kent.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4703,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4703" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/ightmoatstud-1.jpg?w=504" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br />The traditional image of Tudor England is of two-tone houses with startlingly black timbers and brilliant white plaster. In reality, untreated oak will weather over time to a silvery grey.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4687,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4687" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/yewtreehouse.jpg?w=480" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">silvered timber on a cottage in Kent</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br />Limewash or plaster was often used to protect not only the wattle and daub but the timbers too. This house in Eardisley (Herefordshire), illustrates both plastered and exposed timbers.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4680,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4680" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/eardisleyplaster.jpg?w=640" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br />Plastering, especially in the east, was taken to decorative extremes with the art of pargetting, as with this example in Saffron Walden.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4684,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4684" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/pargetting.jpg?w=600" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br /><br />Ship’s timbers, blackened with tar, produced the picture-book image of black and white houses, especially in the west and Welsh marches. The contrast of timber and plaster was recognised as a forceful visual statement, leading to timbers being used not merely as supporting framework but as decoration in their own right. The Feathers Inn in Ludlow is a prime example.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4681,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4681" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/feathersinnludlow.jpg?w=426" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br /><br />The Feathers also illustrates how timber framing could allow houses to increase in height, expanding as they did so, with jutting floors. In many Medieval and Tudor towns, houses on either side of lanes could jut out so far they nearly met. Most examples were demolished and replaced in later times. One five-storey example that survived until the 18th century, to be recorded in an etching, stood on the corner of Chancery Lane in London, resembling the stern of a galleon.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4697,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4697" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/chancerylanetimber-1.jpg?w=432" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br />By Tudor times, brick was becoming ever more common as a building material. Timber was still used as framework, but herringbone brickwork began to replace wattle and daub as the infill.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4676,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4676" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/brickfill.jpg?w=800" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brick infilling at the Weald and Downland museum.</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br />The appeal of at least the appearance of half-timbering survived its decline as a genuine means of construction. The Gothic revival that began in the 18th century resulted in stone or brick houses being given a fake half-timbered facelift, like Plas Newydd, in Wales, a stone house “improved” by the Ladies of Llangollen.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4685,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4685" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/plasnewydd.jpg?w=800" /></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}} -->
<p style="font-size: 17px;"><br />The lure of Merrie England reached the spread of middle-class suburbia in the 1930s, with a rash of mock-tudoring. Never miss an opportunity to slap on a bit of timber.</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->
<!-- wp:image {"id":4678,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"} -->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4678" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/coulsdonroad.jpg?w=800" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coulsdon Road, Couldson, Surrey</figcaption></figure>
<!-- /wp:image -->
<!-- wp:paragraph {"align":"center"} -->
<p class="has-text-align-center"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Recommended Place to Visit</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.wealddown.co.uk/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://www.wealddown.co.uk/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Weald and Downland Museum, Chichester</a></div><p></p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-42557214289894762582024-02-19T02:38:00.000-08:002024-02-21T07:08:48.972-08:00HEARTH AND HOME: Ancient Houses<p> <span style="font-size: 17px;">I spent thirty years making hand-crafted, carved and turned miniature furniture. Well, you have to do something, don’t you? My business, Pear Tree Miniatures, came to an end because I reached retirement age but, more importantly, my eyes could no longer cope with the fine detail. But as I relinquished my business website, along with all the articles I had created on the subject of (British) old houses and furniture, I thought I would transfer much of it here, to my author’s website. So here’s the first instalment, about the very earliest houses in prehistoric times i.e. in times before written records.</span></p><!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":4532,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4532" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/creswellcrags_nigel_homer.jpg?w=504" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em>Creswell Crags, image by Nigel Homer</em></figcaption></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">There’s a lot of talk about the property market, regarding houses as investment, but down the centuries what a house really meant was a home. Homes start with shelter. In a society of hunter gatherers, permanent shelters are not required. Better to make do with a hastily raised shack of whatever is available, or maybe an available cave, if not already inhabited by something hairy with big teeth. </p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Starting about 4,000 BC in Britain, the neolithic era introduced farming, which meant settling down to tend a particular piece of land, so shelters were intended to be more permanent. Their inhabitants worked on turning them into an environment of their choosing, with furnishings and, most important, a hearth for cooking and for warm. The majority, built of wood, wattle or turfs, have long vanished into the dust but the homes of Skara Brae on the Orkneys were built of the only material available - stone, and were buried in sand that kept them surprisingly intact until are more than 4,000 years old, until a storm in 1850 uncovered them. </p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">It wasn't just the houses of Skara Brae that were built of stone. It was the furniture too, which has survived to proved that they but they had it all, even toilets. The houses were all similar, half buried int the earth for extra warmth and protection, without windows, but with an all-important central hearth, a dresser facing the doorway, cupboards, bed frames. Pottery and beads have been found there.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":4513,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4513" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/skarabrae_m_j_richardson.jpg?w=558" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em>Skara Brae,</em> <em>image by M J Richardson</em></figcaption></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">The Bronze-age, starting in Britain in about 2,500 BC, didn't make significant changes to house styles, using materials readily available, and since they were usually wood or wattle, very little has survived other than post holes and burned hearths. An exception is the bronze-age village at Must Farm, in the fens, which was built on piles over water. When it caught fire, it collapsed into the water and was buried in silt, so for once timbers, wattle, thatch and textiles have survived. </p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Round houses continued to be the normal construction through the Iron Age (from about 800 BC in Britain), and through and beyond the Roman occupation. Since a reconstructed Iron-age village, Castell Henllys, is just around the corner from me, I have got to know them quite well.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":4516,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4516" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/castellhenllys1.jpg?w=576" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em>Castell Henllys Chief's house</em></figcaption></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Round houses are big. The chief's house at Castell Henllys is 13.75 metres diameter (45 feet to those still using groats, furlongs, bushels and gills). There is just one room but areas are partitioned around the central hearth - areas for sleeping, for food preparation, for weaving etc.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":4580,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4580" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/chwattling.jpg?w=568" /></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Construction is all guesswork, of course, but based on the postholes left by the originals. The wall are woven with hazel wattle, finished with daub containing essential ingredients such as hair and urine.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">The most important place in the house was the central hearth, providing heat and a source of cooking, although clay ovens could be built for baking. There is no hole for the smoke to escape. If there were, the house would probably burn down, set ablaze by flying sparks. Instead, the smoke is trapped at the top of the house, quenching sparks, before gradually filtering out through the thatch.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":4583,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4583" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/chfire.jpg?w=432" /></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Then the Romans came, bringing with them roads, windows, upper floors, under-floor heating, pretty mosaics and nice square corners, at least for the wealthy Romanised Brits, living in villas.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:image {"id":4518,"sizeSlug":"large","linkDestination":"none","align":"center"}-->
<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="wp-image-4518" src="https://thornemoore188256901.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/northleigh_richard_croft.jpg?w=576" /></div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><em>North Leigh Roman Villa, image by Richard Croft</em></figcaption></figure>
<!--/wp:image-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"style":{"typography":{"fontSize":"17px"}}}-->
<p style="font-size: 17px;">Most people probably continued living in round houses, and virtually nothing of what the Romans brought was adopted by later generations. It all disappeared into the earth... except for one thing: writing. As history is about written records, the arrival of the Romans marked the end of prehistory.</p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->
<!--wp:paragraph {"align":"center"}-->
<p class="has-text-align-center"></p><div style="text-align: center;">For more about <strong>Castell Henllys</strong>,</div><div style="text-align: center;">check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYoZcvqWE2g" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Tiny Homes of the Ancient World</a>.</div><strong><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Places to visit</strong></div></strong><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/skara-brae/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Skara Brae Prehistoric Village</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pembrokeshirecoast.wales/castell-henllys/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Castell Henllys Iron-age Village</a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Find out more about <a href="http://www.mustfarm.com/bronze-age-settlement/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Must Farm</a></div><p></p>
<!--/wp:paragraph-->Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-9432997438134298762020-05-30T00:00:00.000-07:002020-05-30T00:00:44.548-07:00The Aberystwyth Mystery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fEpB6Yjbl9A/Xr6Ya_oywvI/AAAAAAAAB6c/2iwGfcprUzc7Zzs7ygBTvx6Y5xKYE85QwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/box1.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="303" data-original-width="432" height="224" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fEpB6Yjbl9A/Xr6Ya_oywvI/AAAAAAAAB6c/2iwGfcprUzc7Zzs7ygBTvx6Y5xKYE85QwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/box1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
About forty years ago, my great-aunt died, the last of my grandparents' generation, and various keepsakes and trinkets came into our possession, including this box. A good, solid, well-made box, but there was, apparently, nothing of real interest in it, just a few beads and buttons.<br />
<br />
At the bottom, presumably put there as extra lining, was a small sheet of yellowing paper, which we ignored. The box was used for various things over the years - playing cards, spare fuse wire, keys, monopoly houses fished out from under sofas and kept for safety until someone could remember where the monopoly box had been put, and those little bits you find that must surely be a part of something so you don't want to risk throwing them away in case they're vital.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WPQb4hltykM/Xr6Ya-tl3eI/AAAAAAAAB6g/8VrnGW56XA8FfStz_eExeDovI201Uts8gCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/box2.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="432" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WPQb4hltykM/Xr6Ya-tl3eI/AAAAAAAAB6g/8VrnGW56XA8FfStz_eExeDovI201Uts8gCPcBGAYYCw/s320/box2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Years later, I finally fished out the yellowing paper - no idea why - and discovered that it was a double page torn from a pocket notebook in which someone, in faded pencil, had kept a journal of a most exciting visit to Aberywyth. I have no idea who wrote it, or when. Early in the 20th century or maybe in Victorian times. My great aunt was born in 1900, but she lived and died in the Cardiff house that had also been occupied by her sister, my grandmother, and their parents, back to the 1880s, so it could have been written any time since then.<br />
<br />
Some of it, I guess, was written on a knee, and is nearly illegible, but here is the thrilling transcript.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
...........</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SxmnzMWmZKg/Xr6Ya43M20I/AAAAAAAAB6k/4GdXvGFFi5sNiHiQanD-8b__dySpf9cPwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/box3.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="432" height="222" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SxmnzMWmZKg/Xr6Ya43M20I/AAAAAAAAB6k/4GdXvGFFi5sNiHiQanD-8b__dySpf9cPwCPcBGAYYCw/s320/box3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Got to Aberys at 5.30, went to our Lodge — out for a walk, returned at 8.30, found our host drunk. Left there to look for another place, found one, returned to bed at 10.10pm. Could not sleep until morning. Found another young man in bed in the same room. Got up, had ham and eggs for breakfast. Went to the Congregational Chapel at 11.0am. Had a very good sermon but the singing was very inferior. Came home, had dinner, green peas and potatoes and mutton. Went out for a walk around promenade. Came to tea at 5.0. Went to the Welsh Baptist Chapel at 6.0. Very good sermon and splendid singing.<br />
<br />
<b><u><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NNyRYwze1gE/Xs4MeDu5jFI/AAAAAAAAB9A/YK71HG2uTf09LdK873VNl979pc5qceIRQCK4BGAsYHg/Devilsbridge.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="640" height="202" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NNyRYwze1gE/Xs4MeDu5jFI/AAAAAAAAB9A/YK71HG2uTf09LdK873VNl979pc5qceIRQCK4BGAsYHg/w320-h202/Devilsbridge.jpg" title="Rheidol Valley at Devil's Bridge ©Trevor Rickard" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="1">Rheidol Valley at Devil's Bridge (c) Trevor Rickard</font><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Monday</u></b>.<br />
Went to Tregaron. Aber at 8.30, Llanrhystyd Road, Llanfair, Trawscoed, Strata Florida, Tregaron 9.30 am. Left Tregaron 4.5pm. (<i>Ate</i>?) at the Talbot Hotel, had a (<i>illegible</i>), and went to D. Rowlands the (<i>illegible</i>) Man. Returned at 5pm. Meet JJ and GH at the train.<br />
<br /><b><u>Tuesday</u></b>.<br />
Went to Devil’s Bridge 11am in a cab. 5 of us had food at Devil’s B. Returned at 7pm from the most beautiful scenery I ever saw. Went to concert at 8pm in the Pier Pavilion.<br />
<br />
<b><u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b3eik_lAxig/Xs4M3e3UZYI/AAAAAAAAB9U/UARx_Hiua94zMpmEI7JIK7Hiddthv0PmACK4BGAsYHg/constitutionhill.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b3eik_lAxig/Xs4M3e3UZYI/AAAAAAAAB9U/UARx_Hiua94zMpmEI7JIK7Hiddthv0PmACK4BGAsYHg/s320/constitutionhill.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Wens</u></b>.<br />
Went around town in the morning and to Constitution Hill at 2pm, a lovely place. Returned at 5pm and then to Flower show in the Pier pavilion. Grand show of vegetables and flowers.<br />
<br />
<i>Suit of clothes, 3 / 1 / 0½</i><br />
<i>For Constipation 6 / 5</i><br />
<i>For grave and T? 15 / 0</i><br />
<i>Miss Broad 10 / 6</i><br />
<i>Charles 5 / 0</i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
........</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
This mysterious journal raises so many questions besides the identity of the writer. Why was he so anally obsessed with time-keeping, but couldn't think of a thing to say about Tregaron? Who was D Rowlands and what did he do? What exactly did the writer have at the Talbot Hotel? Who won the flower and veg show? And what did Miss Broad do to earn ten shillings and sixpence?<br />
One thing is obvious, though. They certainly knew how to have a good time back then. Whenever Then was.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.thornemoore.co.uk">www.thornemoore.co.uk</a></div>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-60788076152410429712020-05-09T00:12:00.002-07:002020-05-09T00:12:45.878-07:00Dances on the Head of a Pin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5GTB22ytT3Y/Xq6V3flymdI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/qqwn0Hvg-4I8BGz5tzmRmHaqyrFlhugVQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Monument.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="324" height="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5GTB22ytT3Y/Xq6V3flymdI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/qqwn0Hvg-4I8BGz5tzmRmHaqyrFlhugVQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Monument.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>Since I mentioned the monument in the middle of Haverfordwest in my last post, I thought I might as well slip in the short story I wrote about it.</i><br />
<i>So here it is...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
DANCES ON THE HEAD OF A PIN</div>
<br />
‘Well, man. And you are?’<br />
‘I am? I don’t understand you, sir.’<br />
‘I am asking your name, man. What is your name?’<br />
‘Oh, I am William. That is my name, sir. Yes. William.’<br />
‘Very well, William. Let us begin this examination.’<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
……….</div>
<br />
There’s a lump of stone. A heavy piece of uninspiring Edwardian workmanship. You’ll find it in the cleft of the road, a little way below the church. It’s an unpleasant red, like steak that has begun to go off. It is polished like prized linoleum and shaped much like the pillar box that stands close by, along with a green plastic litter bin, a grey cubist telephone booth and a lamppost bearing traffic prohibitions. It’s surrounded by a low stone wall and a flight of slate-slab steps that connect one fork of the road to the other. Wall and steps provide a useful perch for the inevitable colonisers of street corners.<br />
Like the adolescent couple who sit there now, smoking. He finishes a can of lager and crushes it into a ball.<br />
‘I’m doing a survey. Can I ask you some questions?’<br />
The boy shuffles away, along the step, but the girl is more curious. ‘Yeah, okay. Right. Go on then.’<br />
‘Do you visit the town centre often?’<br />
‘Yeah, well, sometimes.’<br />
‘You live in the area?’<br />
‘Yeah.’<br />
‘What concerns you?’<br />
‘What you mean?’<br />
‘What questions keep you awake at night? What tugs at your heart and soul? What worries you?’<br />
‘Oh. Right.’ She nudges her boyfriend. She thinks she knows the answer I want. ‘You mean jobs and stuff, right?’<br />
‘Aren’t no jobs,’ mutters the boy.<br />
‘Jobs,’ I jot down.<br />
‘And housing. Yeah, ‘cos we can’t find nothing.’<br />
‘Housing.’<br />
‘And…’ She’s being tentative, trying to gauge my reactions. ‘Is it drugs? Is that right?’<br />
‘What about transubstantiation?’<br />
‘You what?’<br />
‘Transubstantiation.’<br />
‘Is that like, trannies? Gays, like?’<br />
‘Not really.’<br />
‘Don’t know nothing about it, then,’ says the boy. He’s had enough. He scrambles to his feet, dragging the girl with him, and tosses the crushed can over his shoulder. It lands at the base of the polished red stone, not far from the litter bin.<br />
<br />
A businessman trots hurriedly down the steps, cutting off the corner as he hurries to his office.<br />
‘Can I ask you your views on transubstantiation?’<br />
‘No time, no time.’ He shoos me away.<br />
<br />
An old lady, puffing up the hill, takes the opportunity to pause for breath.<br />
‘Have you any thoughts about transubstantiation?’<br />
‘No use asking me, love. Haven’t got any thoughts except about getting home and putting the kettle on. Electricity substations, was it? I don’t know anything about that, except my bills are too high.’<br />
She wheezes on her way. A lorry passes and a cloud of acrid fumes envelops the polished red stone.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
……….</div>
<br />
‘William, you must answer us,’ says Justice Horne. ‘Do you understand?’<br />
‘Oh yes. You ask things and I answer.’<br />
‘That is right. So listen to Father Gregory’s questions and answer him honestly.’<br />
‘Yes. I am an honest man.’<br />
Father Gregory leans forward, eyes big and dark, almost pleading. ‘But are you an honest Christian, William? Do you believe in your soul’s salvation through the sacrifice of our Lord, Jesus Christ and the intercession of the Catholic church?’<br />
William gapes. ‘I go to church,’ he says, slowly.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a4eg2rKRlpQ/Xq6bptsXYSI/AAAAAAAAB48/EszDBKYzZRE8aknuOwiClGohtUQX_FD8QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Eucharist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="262" data-original-width="288" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a4eg2rKRlpQ/Xq6bptsXYSI/AAAAAAAAB48/EszDBKYzZRE8aknuOwiClGohtUQX_FD8QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Eucharist.jpg" /></a></div>
‘Very good. And when you attend Mass, and the priest raises up the host, before the high altar of God, do you know what he is doing?’<br />
‘He’s holding it up.’<br />
‘Yes, yes, but this is important, William. The holy Eucharist. That is what we are speaking of. The bread and wine of the Mass. Do you believe that the blessed sacrament is truly the body and blood of Christ, Our Lord?’<br />
‘Oh no,’ says William, cheerfully. ‘It is only bread and wine. I was told that.’<br />
A hiss.<br />
‘Do you understand what you say, man?’<br />
‘I know it is bread and wine.’<br />
‘But in the course of the Mass, it becomes the actual flesh and blood of Christ, is that not so?’<br />
‘No, no, I don’t eat man flesh. That would be wicked. It is only bread and wine. I was told.’<br />
‘You were told wrong. Who told you this wicked lie?’<br />
‘I was told. I must believe it is only bread and wine, or my soul will burn in Hell.’<br />
‘You are wrong, William. Your soul will burn in Hell if you do not acknowledge, here, before us all, that the blessed sacrament is the very body and blood of Christ. Say it!’<br />
William’s slack lower lip hardens and juts out. His dazed eyes narrow as he tenses with a flood of obstinacy. It is, doubtless, the unthinking obstinacy that comes to his rescue when he is jostled in the street, or when bullies order him around. ‘Will not! It is only bread and wine. I was told.’<br />
Father Gregory sits back, shaking his head, his face racked with misery.<br />
Justice Horne knits his brows as he surveys William. ‘A sad business. Take him back to his cell. We can do nothing with him.’<br />
<br />
Father Gregory clasps his hands in fervent, silent prayer. Justice Horne waits for him to finish, then crosses himself.<br />
‘A bad business.’<br />
‘A terrible business, Justice. A terrible heresy that will claim countless souls if it is not rooted out.’<br />
‘He is a simpleton, of course.’<br />
‘Clearly, but a misguided one, and those who taught him to spout these vile lies will surely feel God’s wrath. But it is his soul that is our business now.’<br />
‘He is a mere child in a man’s body, is he not? Talium est enim regnum caelorum. Such is the Kingdom of Heaven.’<br />
‘Yes. Yes, he is a child. Sinite parvulos et nolite eos prohibere ad me venire. Suffer the little children and forbid them not to come unto me. It is for us to lead him back to the true God, and let the simple soul enter the gates of Paradise.’<br />
‘Quite so,’ says Justice Horne. ‘A child, most dear to God. Better to have found a home and refuge in a monastery than be cast adrift in this busy and relentless world.’<br />
‘Indeed. In the bosom of Mother Church, he could have found true sanctuary.’<br />
‘But alas, there are no monasteries now, for such simple souls and it is left to us to give him peace – us to decide what must be done with him.’<br />
‘Yes. A solemn duty.’<br />
‘We’ll burn him, of course.’<br />
‘Of course! He must burn. Better for him to face the agonising purification of the flames now and, in them, find repentance, than to face the fires of Hell for all eternity. I would be betraying my duty for the care of his soul, otherwise. For his own salvation, he must burn.’<br />
Justice Horne nods politely. ‘And for the salvation of this land – for the sake of peace and order. As our noble Queen Mary and the law have decreed, so shall it be enforced. Heresies will be rooted out. We cannot permit beliefs contrary to the law—’<br />
‘To the teachings of Holy Mother Church.’<br />
‘To the teachings of the church, as decreed by the law. There must be one understanding of truth in this state, or how can the centre hold? If it were seen that a simple man could defy the law, with wayward views, there would be anarchy. There would be chaos. The rabble would rise and gentlemen would never be safe again. Peaceful order is everything and it is for us to enforce. If only to teach others the wisdom of obedience, he must burn.’<br />
‘Amen.’<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
‘William. Look there. Do you see the stake they have prepared for you? The chains to bind you to it? Do you see the faggots that will be piled around you? Do you hear the baying crowd, come to see you burn?’<br />
William stares, vacantly. Does he understand?<br />
‘Repent, William. Stand up before this crowd and recant your heresies. Acknowledge the teachings of the true church, as established by the law. Tell them you admit the truth, that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Christ. Tell them that, William, and you will not burn. Do you want to burn, William?’<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8PQsfoY_UOw/Xq6XWx-PivI/AAAAAAAAB4k/ASgGEIXP6YobgTkXp0wtKKPNj6MTY3qpACEwYBhgL/s1600/Stake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="230" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8PQsfoY_UOw/Xq6XWx-PivI/AAAAAAAAB4k/ASgGEIXP6YobgTkXp0wtKKPNj6MTY3qpACEwYBhgL/s1600/Stake.jpg" /></a></div>
‘No! I don’t want to burn. I don’t like being burnt.’<br />
‘So tell them.’<br />
‘But if I tell a lie, I will burn in Hell, forever. I don’t want that. No. This will be quicker, will it not?’<br />
‘So be it, William. If you will not repent… Take him. Let us do this thing, before the crowd grows restless.’<br />
<br />
‘These clouds look black, Father Gregory. Is that a drop of rain? I hope so. Better that sodden faggots will smoke and smother him. I confess, I take no pleasure in the sound of these screams.’<br />
‘No, Justice. Don’t pray for rain. Pray rather that the fire burns and his screams continue in unabated agony to the end, for in them pour forth his pleas for mercy to Our Lord and his blessed mother, who will lead his soul to salvation. Only thus is a soul saved and the truth maintained.’<br />
‘Even thus,’ agrees Justice Horne, settling back in his chair, to watch to the finish.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
……….</div>
<br />
Two middle-aged women, well-dressed, heels clicking, are winding up the hill, pausing at the lump of stone.<br />
‘Excuse me, would you be willing to answer a question or two? It will take no time at all.’<br />
One looks wary, lips pinched, prepared to brush me aside, but the other is too polite. I don’t look like a mugger, or foreign, so perhaps I am all right.<br />
‘Well, maybe. What is it about?’<br />
‘Could you tell me your views on transubstantiation?’<br />
‘On, er…’ They look at each other. The reluctant one is unwilling to voice her ignorance. The polite one gives an embarrassed laugh. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what that is.’<br />
‘It’s something to do with the EU,’ snaps the other. ‘More typical bureaucracy.’<br />
‘Not quite,’ I say. ‘Do you go to church?’<br />
The reluctant one nods. The other repeats her embarrassed laugh. ‘Not at often as I should.’<br />
‘Transubstantiation is the belief that, in the celebration of the Eucharist, the bread and wine becomes the actual body and blood of Christ.’<br />
‘Oh. Well. I’ve never really thought about it. Um. Why?’<br />
‘You will have noticed this monument here.’ I point to the lump of stone. ‘It commemorates the burning at the stake of a man who refused to accept the principle of transubstantiation.’<br />
Their gaze follows my pointing finger and they read. “On this spot, William Nichol, of this town, was burnt at the stake for the truth. April 9th 1558.”<br />
‘Well I never. Horrible. I mean, horrible to think they did things like that.’<br />
‘The priest who helped to condemn him died a martyr, certain of his place in heaven. He was hanged, drawn and quartered, for refusing to deny transubstantiation.’<br />
‘Oh nasty. I don’t know which is worse.’<br />
‘This burning is listed in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. “The suffering and martyrdom of William Nichol, put to death by the wicked hands of the papists.”’<br />
‘Well, fancy!’ says the polite one.<br />
‘Oh, papists,’ says the other. ‘I don’t care much about them. It’s the Muslims I worry about. And the Poles.’<br />
‘Of course,’ I say, and let them depart.<br />
I look again at the lump of stone. A small dog, running loose, is sniffing around it. He cocks a leg, pees and scampers on.<br />
William Nichol’s ashes were dispersed long ago, mingling with the stardust of creation. So too were the remains of Father Gregory. Different agonies, but the same stardust. Whereas I – I merely fell asleep in my bed, having gone on, for many years, to administer justice in the name of Good Queen Bess, the Anglican communion and the laws of the land.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lz8N7yeqvYU/Xq6cY_5bcxI/AAAAAAAAB5M/QyRjcPlXJA8_0-oKuKM7VqaRi8rUXyRrgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Match.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="288" height="246" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lz8N7yeqvYU/Xq6cY_5bcxI/AAAAAAAAB5M/QyRjcPlXJA8_0-oKuKM7VqaRi8rUXyRrgCEwYBhgL/s320/Match.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I don’t seem to have mingled with anything. I linger. It’s the world around me that shimmers and transforms. Did the centre hold? It shifts. I no longer know where it lies. What is it we believe, these days? I am out of touch. Some days, I no longer remember why I had to burn William Nichol, but I know it must have been important. So I come here, clip board in hand to remind myself. Of course he had to burn. Didn’t he?<br />
No matter. Times have moved on. There will always be another cause worth dying for. Worth killing for.<br />
Who shall we burn today?<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.thornemoore.co.uk/">www.thornemoore.co.uk</a></div>
Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-10009387825014873312020-04-10T00:01:00.000-07:002020-04-10T00:01:06.338-07:00Isolated Thoughts<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4huCJHLtmk/XocrcaK-OtI/AAAAAAAABy4/IWqKXuK3z0AC7jrdG2OXPnTCJXvSeHG2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Mitsy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="864" height="280" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--4huCJHLtmk/XocrcaK-OtI/AAAAAAAABy4/IWqKXuK3z0AC7jrdG2OXPnTCJXvSeHG2QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Mitsy.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>any excuse for a cat picture</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Like everyone else, I am in isolation. It means I don’t get off the property day after day. I don’t see anyone, apart from two members of my family here with me, except the postman, from a distance, and my sister who delivers our shopping once a week.<br />
<br />
It worries me, which is odd because it’s actually no different to the way I normally live. I’m in the country, down a farm lane in the middle of nowhere, quarter of a mile from the nearest house, a mile from the nearest village, I work from home and someone else does the shopping. I love it. Most days the postman delivers something and occasionally I drive off to see a friend, but otherwise I live in splendid isolation. Now, apart from not being able to see a friend, nothing has changed. So the worry is born solely of the fact that my isolation is now compulsory, not merely voluntary. I am a bit like my cat Mitsy, who will settle anywhere and not move all day, just as long as the door is left open. Shut it and she'll be up and scratching at it. A case of sheer perversity for both of us.<br />
<br />
Thinking about it, not only have I embraced isolation for years, but it has also been a major theme in my writing, because a sense of isolation, physical and emotion, is a compelling dramatic theme, a gift for any writer.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1_yqm1fRs8E/XocsFNd8ZnI/AAAAAAAABzA/R5oqPdwGpgAmnHYge49-ehM6AqvKCaZlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/3books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="720" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1_yqm1fRs8E/XocsFNd8ZnI/AAAAAAAABzA/R5oqPdwGpgAmnHYge49-ehM6AqvKCaZlQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/3books.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
In <b><i>A Time For Silence</i></b>, Gwen’s physical isolation, in a cottage in a remote dark valley, amplifies the emotional isolation that traps her, and the isolation of her community also plays a significant part in the story. In <b><i>Shadows</i></b>, Kate is isolated, wherever she goes, by the knowledge that she has feelings that no one else shares, and it has raised impenetrable bars around her. In <b><i>The Unravelling</i></b>, Karen is isolated by mental derangement (or re-arrangement). Regarded as a freak and pariah, she isolates herself in fiction.<br />
<br />
I’m not the only one, of course. Authors have always dwelt on isolation, accidental or chosen, enforced or embraced. Hansel and Gretel, Robinson Crusoe, <b>Dickens</b>' Miss Havisham, <b>Jane Austen</b>’s Fanny Price and Anne Elliot, <b>Charlotte Brontë</b>’s <i>Jane Eyre</i>, <b>Waugh</b>’s Tony Last in A<i> Handful of Dust,</i> <b>Naipaul</b>’s Salim in <i>A Bend in the River</i>, Gollum, Harry Potter… Could I include Adam and Eve?<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EmUa-aU9sW4/Xocs_6T_rDI/AAAAAAAABzM/dlXkk_Q4rV42FFB-RBhS9cP99jK70YxHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Wuthering-heights.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="576" height="296" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EmUa-aU9sW4/Xocs_6T_rDI/AAAAAAAABzM/dlXkk_Q4rV42FFB-RBhS9cP99jK70YxHQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Wuthering-heights.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wuthering Heights</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Isolated houses are irresistible as setting for novels. <i>Wuthering Heights</i>! <b>Agatha Christie</b> was the mistress of trapping a whole cast of suspects within one country house. I can’t resist isolated houses either. Give me an empty window in shadows and I'm off, whether I'm peering into a tiny cottage like Cwmderwen or a mansion like Llysygarn.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PoKNSq2mDVg/XocwNzqbx2I/AAAAAAAABzY/op0qPCLwDew7tkcns-rXSI0yvEBhdnk5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/LongshadowsFARsm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="216" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PoKNSq2mDVg/XocwNzqbx2I/AAAAAAAABzY/op0qPCLwDew7tkcns-rXSI0yvEBhdnk5wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/LongshadowsFARsm.jpg" width="198" /></a><br />
Isolation is not always a bad thing in literature. In my set of novellas, <b><i>Long Shadows</i></b>, my medieval girl, Angharad, longs to escape from her suffocating life at Llysygarn and see the world, but finishes up embracing confinement, while the 17th century girl, Elizabeth Bowen, wants nothing more than to be left alone with her isolated house.<br />
<br />
I have no real cause to complain about my isolation and as a writer I can feed on it, inflicting it on my characters. But even in the best of times, there are people abandoned in loneliness and people who feel most alone when surrounded by crowds. My sympathy is for all those out there isolated in desperation, anxiety and loneliness, shut up away from family, in homes or hospital wards, trapped in their own heads. We are in territory beyond fiction now.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-59899753658493705082020-04-02T23:00:00.000-07:002020-04-02T23:00:34.291-07:00Block<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N67SUi6MpLo/XoHNbzopBKI/AAAAAAAAByc/5oHQ3dymmS416g_hhDdVNX_3cka92SbeQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Brickwall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="576" height="266" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N67SUi6MpLo/XoHNbzopBKI/AAAAAAAAByc/5oHQ3dymmS416g_hhDdVNX_3cka92SbeQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Brickwall.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
It was bound to happen. I am disappointed but not surprised. My new novel, <i><b>The Covenant</b></i>, which was to have been published on July 16th, has now been put on ice until August 20th (fingers crossed). By then, I hope, bookshops will have reopened, distributors will be operating their warehouses again and Amazon will have books back as no.1 essentials. Meanwhile, of course, I can always get on with another book, except...<br />
<br />
I can’t write. Well I can, because I’m writing this, but otherwise I am faced with a brick wall.<br />
<br />
All I ever wanted to do was write (and read). I turned down very sensible career advice from my headmaster (study law, get rich), because I didn’t want to do anything except be a writer. I made a mess of my first degree because I’d virtually given up on studying in order to write instead. For years my primary occupation, when not having to work for a living, was writing. My secondary occupation was watching for the postman to deliver rejection letters. I never, ever, considered giving up.<br />
<br />
And now, with Covid 19, I am confronted with insurmountable inertia. I’ve never experience writer’s block before. I’ve had times when I’ve had to put things aside while I worry over why something isn’t working, or where it will go next, or if I’m bored with it, but I’ve never been faced with such a total lack of desire to write until now.<br />
<br />
It isn’t that I am too terrified of imminent death to think of anything else. It isn’t that I am sick with worry, about falling ill, about my nearest and dearest falling ill (which I am), about whether we’ll go mad in isolation (not me, I’m used to it). I am nursing pangs of guilt that I’m not worrying about where the next meal is coming from, whether the house will be repossessed, whether the shops will have anything in or whether my money will run out. I know how lucky I am not to be worrying about those things.<br />
<br />
So why can’t I write? Everything else is on hold. I have the perfect excuse to sit at my laptop, without interruption, and write non-stop from dawn till dusk. But I can’t, because everything I was writing, with a contemporary setting, seems now so utterly irrelevant. How can I write about a world that, when we eventually come out of all this, will no longer exist? Should I turn to writing historical drama? Somehow everything historical is now imbued with a heavy weight of inevitability, leading to an inexorable present that is sinking like a stone. All I can see, looking back, is greed, stupidity, bigotry, pointless conflicts and an endless stream of futile mistakes, peppered with plague and disease. Plus ça change. Should I write about the future? It will be dystopian, won’t it? It always is, and that now seems a little pointless, when faced with the actual thing.<br />
<br />
I think I shall just have to dig the garden, plant seeds and crawl back inside the 1530s with Hilary Mantell. It’s going to end with a decapitation; if that doesn't cheer me up, nothing will. Then, when it’s all over and the world has decided which way up to land, I’ll start again.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-52797403522963014222020-03-27T00:02:00.000-07:002020-03-27T00:02:12.353-07:00Threnody<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XxQzGS0oOvI/Xnym9-9IU8I/AAAAAAAAByI/VkXbpBGVCl4ptA8je7gEUL5Qz0rbqXIRwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/pippinpurple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XxQzGS0oOvI/Xnym9-9IU8I/AAAAAAAAByI/VkXbpBGVCl4ptA8je7gEUL5Qz0rbqXIRwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/pippinpurple.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I sing of Pippin, family friend,<br />
Window yowler,<br />
Loving lap-warmer,<br />
Soothing snuggler.<br />
<br />
Lean lady of the lane, she did not rest<br />
Sleek sable-suited sentinel of the high hedges.<br />
Purring prey pouncer,<br />
Mistress of mangled mice,<br />
Sharp-toothed shrew shredder,<br />
Wren-wrangler,<br />
Fierce foe of pheasants (or would be, had they been smaller).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ychksgQQAcU/XnynZUlMwOI/AAAAAAAAByQ/-t6EKQsoMzQbVqP_IaUsZXQDyBpGv7ILQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Pippinorion2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ychksgQQAcU/XnynZUlMwOI/AAAAAAAAByQ/-t6EKQsoMzQbVqP_IaUsZXQDyBpGv7ILQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Pippinorion2.jpg" width="297" /></a></div>
Eighteen Easters, she held sway,<br />
Mitsy’s mentor with firm paw.<br />
Provisioner of the Pear Tree,<br />
She did not hold back:<br />
Gift-giver (mostly spleens).<br />
<br />
Weary now, wait no longer.<br />
Marooned in maidenhood (my doing),<br />
Diana's new moon bow bends, beckoning.<br />
Stellar dust once more, stream star-ward.<br />
Hunt now the high ways with Orion.Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-57506339066847090502020-02-28T00:21:00.001-08:002020-02-28T00:21:09.161-08:00TV detectives on the page.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IIsRgWGKb90/XkVUevZ-0GI/AAAAAAAABqs/L_Q1aVzsjDMFMKCAhAuaq0sHjX4_rGXUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Blue-lamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="180" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IIsRgWGKb90/XkVUevZ-0GI/AAAAAAAABqs/L_Q1aVzsjDMFMKCAhAuaq0sHjX4_rGXUwCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Blue-lamp.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>
I have been watching TV crime dramas since I was knee-high
to a bank robber. I’ve taken in everything from Dixon of Dock Green to White House Farm.
These days, now that I have 150 TV channels to make my heart glad, I am usually
stuck on ITV3, with endless repeats of Poirot, Frost, Midsummer Murders and
Morse. Although the BBC has produced many, and American TV even more, you can't beat the ITV series for haunting and stylish theme tunes and opening credits.<br />
<br />
I know that authors can have very different attitudes to adaptations of their books. Colin Dexter was obviously happy with having Morse taken out of his hands, since he appeared in every episode, whereas R D Wingfield wasn't so happy with A Touch of Frost. It must be disappointing to find your work ripped up and remodelled by other hands, although I defy any author to say they wouldn't love to be in a position to risk the disappointment.<br />
<br />
It has recently occurred to me, tearing myself away from the screen, that though many of my favourites
began as novels, I had never read any apart from a few Agatha Christies. So I
decided to try a few and see how they compared with the TV series they
spawned.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yx0pj6FT9wI/XkVR2o_tRqI/AAAAAAAABqA/Ten8DKuDw0AN5PgSUBTPL33PSuZacIovACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/MorseB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="302" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yx0pj6FT9wI/XkVR2o_tRqI/AAAAAAAABqA/Ten8DKuDw0AN5PgSUBTPL33PSuZacIovACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/MorseB.jpg" width="120" /></a></div>
I began with <b><i>Last Bus to Woodstock</i></b>, by <b>Colin Dexter</b>, the
first novel to introduce Chief Inspector Morse. I don’t expect TV
adaptations to stick to the book, so I wasn’t expecting the Morse in the book
to be identical to the Morse of John Thaw, and he isn’t. Which is
fine. I would have been interested to explore a different character, though I
can’t say I like him. The phrase ‘dirty old man’ comes to mind. I didn't particularly like this Morse and there wasn't really anything about poor Lewis to like or dislike.<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ASbagKWzjXw/XkVR2vanyGI/AAAAAAAABqE/Vg2Aj37qU_k4TEpHSOfz6W233t3dRLHAgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Morse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="303" data-original-width="288" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ASbagKWzjXw/XkVR2vanyGI/AAAAAAAABqE/Vg2Aj37qU_k4TEpHSOfz6W233t3dRLHAgCEwYBhgL/s200/Morse.jpg" width="190" /></a><br />
I found myself put off by the style of writing, though I suppose it's what you would expect of Oxbridge. Do people perambulate? "Impatient at the best of times, and this was not the best of times, he waited restlessly and awkwardly, pacing to and fro, consulting his watch and throwing wicked glances as the portly woman inside the kiosk who appeared ill-equipped to face the triangular threat of the gadgeted apparatus before her, an uncooperative telephone exchange and her own one-handed negotiations with the assorted coinage in her purse." ... And breathe. I can't help thinking of Disraeli's description of Gladstone as <span style="background: white; color: black;">being
inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity</span>.<br />
<br />
The real problem though was the fact
that although I had seen the TV version many times (admittedly a totally
reconstructed story), the day after finishing the book, I couldn’t actually
remember who had done it in the end. Nor did I really care. It petered out into
an over-long explanation or who, what, why, when and where, going interminably
over ground already covered, and I longed for the improbable simplicity of Poirot
herding all his characters into a drawing room and revealing all over a
nice tisane. I shall happily go back to watching every rerun of Morse (and
Lewis and Endeavour), regardless of their unbelievable plots, but probably not bother with another of the books.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XiNELAf1qI0/XkVSYLG9R6I/AAAAAAAABqQ/UXFI_6gSUJMkIHFYB3CGUVDkCtGVUk-vQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/MidsummerB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XiNELAf1qI0/XkVSYLG9R6I/AAAAAAAABqQ/UXFI_6gSUJMkIHFYB3CGUVDkCtGVUk-vQCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/MidsummerB.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
Next was <b><i>The Killings at Badger’s Drif</i></b>t by<b> Caroline Graham</b>,
the first Midsomer Murders. Very different in style, of course, being classified
as Cosy Crime and, to my mind, much more readable. The setting is as delightfully absurdly
twee at the TV version and the characters are larger than life, their physical
appearance described in intricate detail, while their characters and
motivations are left comfortably untroubled.<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vAopLXAp8u8/XkVSYF6CS4I/AAAAAAAABqM/XFOyfA28UOQeIdzdMbO-W1XTvLurikDSQCEwYBhgL/s1600/Midsummer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="309" data-original-width="288" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vAopLXAp8u8/XkVSYF6CS4I/AAAAAAAABqM/XFOyfA28UOQeIdzdMbO-W1XTvLurikDSQCEwYBhgL/s200/Midsummer.jpg" width="186" /></a><br />
Unlike the Morse book, the TV
version of this Midsomer Murder didn’t seem to deviate from the book at all,
so I knew who was who and what was coming, which slightly deflated the surprise
element. The only thing that did surprise me was the difference between the
Barnaby of the book, who is unexpectedly dour and grumpy, and the John Nettles
version who seemed to revel in Gothic gore amongst the thatch and shrubberies
of rural England.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It did leave me thinking how the world has changed in a
relatively short time. <i>The Killings at Badger’s Drift</i> was published in 1987, a
world when villagers relied on telephone boxes for communication, policemen recorded
details on index cards, and no one had a Facebook profile.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5LnJwBkW5O8/XkVStuWUhvI/AAAAAAAABqc/rQfhox_U2tUW-n5Bg2dVf5rFe5_pLTNQACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/VeraB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="331" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5LnJwBkW5O8/XkVStuWUhvI/AAAAAAAABqc/rQfhox_U2tUW-n5Bg2dVf5rFe5_pLTNQACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/VeraB.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
The last book I tried was <b><i>The Crow Trap</i></b> by <b>Anne Cleeves</b>,
the first Vera Stanhope book. Entirely different. I can’t say if it compares
with the TV version because it must be the one episode I have failed to catch,
but I found the Vera in the book sufficiently similar to Brenda Blethyn's portrayal, except that
the book has no reference to her sounding like a boy, whose voice is breaking, strangling
a cat in a high wind.<br />
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3XyHR66S5Q8/XkVStqMP5WI/AAAAAAAABqY/yu_d2WG7hio4KGsmdci_8SKDYPdeworWwCEwYBhgL/s1600/Vera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="324" height="153" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3XyHR66S5Q8/XkVStqMP5WI/AAAAAAAABqY/yu_d2WG7hio4KGsmdci_8SKDYPdeworWwCEwYBhgL/s200/Vera.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
What struck me most was that it was simply an excellent book,
defying genre definition as the best crime novels do, knee-deep in atmosphere
and perceptive character studies. In fact, as Vera doesn’t actually come into
it until about halfway through, I’d forgotten what sort of book I was reading
and her sudden appearance startled me. Of the three, it’s the only one that
left me wanting to move on to the next book in the series.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Now, back to ITV3, while waiting for the call to adapt one of my books...</div>
<br />Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-55911250319055330762020-02-16T00:11:00.000-08:002020-02-16T00:11:34.356-08:00My Favourite Poems XII: Gerard Manley HopkinsFavourite poem, no.12 of a dozen, although really it's no.1. Actually I could have picked 12 of GMH's poems as my favourites, but if there's just one, it has to be this one. I know a windhover is really a kestrel, but I think of this poem whenever I see buzzards playing on thermals above my garden for the sheer hell of it. Or when I'm watching the last flicker of a dying fire.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Windhover</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bzAzuRdDDuI/Xkj4hEPktvI/AAAAAAAABrk/ACFHjzlZdXMSDmGV7cqbENkMaraJaj9xQCEwYBhgL/s1600/KestrelSunset.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="288" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bzAzuRdDDuI/Xkj4hEPktvI/AAAAAAAABrk/ACFHjzlZdXMSDmGV7cqbENkMaraJaj9xQCEwYBhgL/s320/KestrelSunset.JPG" width="280" /></a></div>
I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's<br />
Dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding<br />
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding<br />
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing<br />
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,<br />
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding<br />
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding<br />
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!<br />
<br />
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here<br />
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion<br />
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!<br />
<br />
No wonder of it: shèer plòd makes plough down sillion<br />
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,<br />
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold vermilion.<br />
<br />
<i>Gerard Manley Hopkins</i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-50229191852147706542020-02-13T23:09:00.000-08:002020-02-13T23:09:36.440-08:00My favourite poems XI: Edward Thomas (and me)A short delicious poem painting a picture and capturing a moment perfectly... and my slightly longer story capturing the previous moments.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Adlestrop</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t7nEyOwRP5E/Xj1zxfb37LI/AAAAAAAABoc/JugZlqJE-HYb_CbKLJfF8xMZpiqH729WACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Adlestrop-station.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="640" height="192" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-t7nEyOwRP5E/Xj1zxfb37LI/AAAAAAAABoc/JugZlqJE-HYb_CbKLJfF8xMZpiqH729WACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Adlestrop-station.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Yes, I remember Adlestrop --<br />
The name, because one afternoon<br />
Of heat the express-train drew up there<br />
Unwontedly. It was late June.<br />
<br />
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.<br />
No one left and no one came<br />
On the bare platform. What I saw<br />
Was Adlestrop -- only the name<br />
<br />
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,<br />
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,<br />
No whit less still and lonely fair<br />
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.<br />
<br />
And for that minute a blackbird sang<br />
Close by, and round him, mistier,<br />
Farther and farther, all the birds<br />
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.<br />
<br />
<i>Edward Thomas</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>AND</i></div>
<br />
<h3>
It Was Late June</h3>
<br />
O yes, I remember him. The man, not the name, of course. Just the man and his notebook, rounding off a funny old day.<br />
<br />
It began with a crystalline summer dawn. The world was at peace with itself. Dew on the grass, shreds of mist on the woods, a fox sidling by and then…<br />
<br />
Funny how some tiny trigger can set the ball rolling. Or, in this case, Tommy Bradley, who came rolling out of the woods amidst a cacophony of thrashed leaves and pheasant calls. A happy boy, Tommy Bradley, ginger-haired and gap-toothed, but not the most law-abiding of children. I watched him pelt across the field and pause, carefully opening the gate instead of vaulting over it. I could see why. His pockets were bulging with stolen eggs and he was determined not to break them.<br />
<br />
They must have been a treasure indeed, for Tommy to take such care. He was so intent on examining the contents of his pockets, to ensure they had come to no harm, that he clean forgot to shut the gate behind him. Hence the chain of interesting events that followed, as I can bear witness.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zn5bfyyyguI/Xj3IzGGKRII/AAAAAAAABpE/23ocuUknatE-BMYi_aBJhinbwwTor2tyACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Tripe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="360" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Zn5bfyyyguI/Xj3IzGGKRII/AAAAAAAABpE/23ocuUknatE-BMYi_aBJhinbwwTor2tyACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Tripe.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
I am not usually up at such an hour, you understand, but on this occasion we had a little crisis to resolve at the White Hart, where I work. An unexpected guest had arrived, a French gentleman who, being French, was ridiculously picky with his food. He had volubly expressed dissatisfaction with Mrs. Tyler’s Gloucestershire brawn hotpot with mashed swedes, and with her boiled tripe. This was difficult. Mrs Tyler, excellent in many ways, but limited in imagination, had only two recipes in her repertoire: Gloucestershire brawn hotpot, and boiled tripe. She was at a loss, until Jack Spry assured her that the French only ate frogs, snails and larks. Mrs Tyler drew the line at frogs and snails, but larks would do and I was dispatched, before dawn, to catch some.<br />
<br />
I hadn’t had any luck with larks, though I had managed to bag a couple of starlings and a rather sickly sparrow, but once they were encased in Mrs Tyler’s soggy suet pastry, I doubt if M. LeClerc would notice the difference.<br />
<br />
I was creeping up on a recalcitrant blackbird, which had cheekily evaded me twice before, when I saw Isaac Drew herding a beast into the field that Tommy had just vacated. The blackbird fluttered out of my clutch yet again, as I watched Isaac Drew’s prize bull, Maximus galumph heavily across the field, spy the open gate and charge straight through, onto the lane leading directly to the village High Street.<br />
<br />
I decided to give up on the blackbird and take my catch back to the White Hart. I crept in through the back and Mrs Tyler dished me up a large breakfast in payment, so it was some time before I stepped out of the front door, and beheld Maximus, in possession of the High Street, pawing the ground beneath the George III oak in whose branches Mrs. Tavistock and the curate were precariously perched.<br />
<br />
I always say that it takes a crisis to show the true metal of men. Mr. Bellingham the butcher showed his by firmly closing the door of his shop. He did this in a nonchalant manner, muttering loudly about flies swarming, and humming a few lines of Abide With Me as if he had no inkling of the drama, but no one was deceived. His faggots plummeted from that day.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FU2IH9ZRXh8/Xj3K4pVjtdI/AAAAAAAABpU/8LqciNrPVmwVB1HmoFBCUEp4fWH0lSuQgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Herefordbull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="360" height="195" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FU2IH9ZRXh8/Xj3K4pVjtdI/AAAAAAAABpU/8LqciNrPVmwVB1HmoFBCUEp4fWH0lSuQgCEwYBhgL/s200/Herefordbull.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
Sidney Watts, pushing past me from the White Hart, having ready consumed his usual five-pint breakfast, was no such coward. He declared as much to anyone within earshot, including the bull. Maximus turned to study his challenger, with an expression that sent the rest of us scurrying for the nearest doorway, but Sidney stood his ground. Nay, he even advanced, as true to the Matador stance as his unsteady feet could manage. He gave a valiant roar, seizing Agnes Pultney’s red petticoat and flaunting it with gusto before the enraged beast.<br />
<br />
Maximus charged.<br />
<br />
I suppose Sidney should have earned some praise for showing such spunk. But the flaw in his plan, as critics were quick to point out, was that Agnes Pultney’s petticoat still had Agnes Pultney in it. A universal groan went up. Agnes was of Rubenesque build and her terminal goring was extraordinarily squidgy.<br />
<br />
I believe I caught some mutterings about Agnes having her just deserts for giving short measure in mint humbugs, but when it became clear that any one of a dozen totally innocent folk could be next, panic set in. The bull’s appetite for a fight was whetted, and he was looking for a target.<br />
<br />
It was Fred Appleby who saved the day, with his idea of releasing Hubert Grimes’ 67 strong dairy herd into the High Street to divert the bull’s attention. Everyone knew Fred was nursing a serious grievance, because Hubert had fired him, only the week before. You would have thought Fred would want nothing more to do with Grimes livestock, but, in this moment of crisis, grudges were forgotten.<br />
<br />
His ruse worked. Maximus instantly turned his attention to the cows. However, it seemed that some of the bovine ladies, however, were more interested in sightseeing and it was Sybil Cole’s attempt to shoo them from the bakery with a broom and a wrought-iron oven peel that led to the stampede.<br />
<br />
Everyone leapt for cover. The vicar usually confined his morning ministry to counselling sessions at the bar of the White Hart, but on this occasion the Grimes herd persuaded him, fatally, to change his ways. He strode, one might even say cantered, for the church porch and disappeared behind the three-inch thick cow-proof doors, just two yards ahead of Daisy May II at the gallop.<br />
<br />
And so it came to pass that the Reverend Pettifer chanced upon a dozen hassocks, M.leClerc and Mrs. Pettifer, neatly stacked, in that order, on the baptistery floor.<br />
The surprise of finding Mrs. Pettifer in the throes of adultery was shock enough, coming on top of the Reverend’s contretemps with Daisy May II. Coming as it did on top of M.leClerc, it was all too much. Was it possible that the wife of his bosom, his own Hilda, that model of matronly Christian chastity and decorum, could contemplate anything other than the missionary position?<br />
<br />
Something within the Reverend must have snapped. Mumbling Ezra II, verses 3-35, he ran into the bell tower and promptly hanged himself with one of the bell ropes.<br />
<br />
The sudden and unscheduled clanging of the church bell was heard far and wide. It alerted Major Barnaby at the Manse, who concluded that an invasion had begun. Never a man to stand by while England was in peril, the Major acted, firing the beacon he had constructed in an iron basket over the clock on the disused stable block, to summon his well-trained reservists to the defence of the realm.<br />
<br />
Mrs. Pettifer, meanwhile, was seized by shame and remorse, though no longer by M. leClerc who fled in embarrassment, tail not quite between his legs. Hilda’s anguish was unbounded. Her guilt had been exposed and her husband had died, in a deafening manner, without expounding on the significance of Ezra II v.3-35. Screaming with shock and vexation, Mrs Pettifer ran naked down the length of the High Street – no mean feat, as it was still heaving with cows.<br />
<br />
Hearing her garbled explanation as she ran, we were too stunned to react. Ezra II, v.3-35? What could it mean? Fortunately Zechariah Postlethwaite was at hand. Zechariah was a grim pious man, who had been rescued as a child from a local cult of practising Methodists, and had had the adamantine enthusiasm of a convert ever since. Being churchwarden, he felt perhaps a privileged interest in the fate of the vicar and his erring wife, and immediately began interpreting Ezra II v.3-35 in tongues, which, fortunately, all sounded like Gloucestershire English, so we were able to gather the general gist.<br />
<br />
Much later, when I had a chance, I did check Ezra II v.3-35 for myself and, to be honest, I could find no reference in it to justify burning Mrs. Pettifer at the stake. But of course, I am no theologian, and Zechariah had made a study of these things – although it is an odd coincidence that all his biblical interpretations to date had involved burning someone at the stake. This, though, was the first time that his exhortations were equalled by the slightly hysterical stirrings of community spirit.<br />
<br />
I will say this for our village. It does have a gift for concerted action. No sooner had the idea been raised than Mr. Richards donated an eight foot length of 4x4 for the stake and Harry Carboys and the Fanshawe twins set about erecting it, under Zechariah’s supervision, in front of the church porch, while cohorts from the W.I. organised the gathering of wood and binding of faggots.<br />
<br />
Mrs Turby, thrice winner of the biennial St. Theodora’s floral tribute competition, was, naturally, to be in charge of the faggot-arranging, but she feared a timetable clash. Could the burning not be rescheduled for the afternoon? Zechariah would not be swayed, so Mrs. Turby was obliged to knock on the door of the room over the post office and interrupt the lodge meeting of the Seventh Seal Black Pentangle Satanists Society, to tell them she wouldn’t be bringing them morning coffee and biscuits as usual.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UJVGZ-rNUm0/Xj3MJzGfgfI/AAAAAAAABpk/gYJTlZeaeoQC9Kbd_4K3CA-88NJwPVBGACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Pentagram.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="288" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UJVGZ-rNUm0/Xj3MJzGfgfI/AAAAAAAABpk/gYJTlZeaeoQC9Kbd_4K3CA-88NJwPVBGACLcBGAsYHQ/s200/Pentagram.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
The Seventh Seal Etceteras were a very hush-hush society, although Mrs. Turby gave us regular updates of Lodge activities over the post office counter, and once or twice she had persuaded Grand Warlock Moloch (a.k.a. Mr. Turby) to offer a brief résumé of Lodge business for the village newsletter. As a result, the bickerings, feuds and petty rivalries in our local Satanic circle were well known, so what followed was hardly surprising. For Mrs. Turby’s absence from the lodge coincided critically with the Grand Warlock Moloch’s summons, as volunteer fire-fighter, to the blaze at the Manse, which had already demolished the abandoned stable block and was establishing a firm grip on the delightful Queen Anne west wing.<br />
<br />
With both Turbys absent, the rest of the coven was wide open to mutiny. Ill feelings had been smouldering ever since the Beltane Black Mass ritual sacrifice, when Mrs. Enwright’s Tiddles had escaped up the chimney at the critical moment and Grand Warlock Moloch had decided to substitute Sister Ashtaroth’s pet goldfish. He claimed he’d had no other choice, with Sister Frig forbidding the use of her Johnny because he had his piano exam the next day. Sister Ashtaroth, however, still bore a grudge, and with the Turbys gone, she promptly nominated Brother Beelzebub (Mr. Ashtaroth, as ‘t’were) to challenge for the role of Grand Warlock.<br />
<br />
There was no real opposition to the move. Grand Warlock Moloch had aggravated a lot of people with his rigid adherence to official Post Office opening hours. Nevertheless, rules being rules, Brother Beelzebub had to establish his credentials in the approved manner, by leading the coven three times widdershins round the church at midnight, to summon Satan.<br />
<br />
This was tricky. The various fires, at the Manse and under Mrs. Pettifer, would surely be out by midnight and the Turbys would be back, demanding to know what was going on. The Grand Warlock Moloch might be browbeaten by a show of unanimity, but everyone could recall his good lady warding off a critical post officer inspector with a corkscrew and a pair of silver sugar tongs. Better, surely, if the Turbys could be presented with a fait accomplis. Brother Osiris remarked that 12 noon here must be 12 midnight on the other side of the globe, and just how picky was Satan anyway?<br />
So, at 11.50 a.m., the coven of the Seventh Seal Etcs emerged from the post office in full regalia and made its ceremonial way to the church, through the still milling cows and a slightly deflated Maximus.<br />
<br />
It was certainly a magnificent sight, but it failed to quell the unusual tetchiness abroad that day. The Seventh Seal Etcs, in their energetic tramp widdershins round the church, succeeded in demolishing the beautifully arranged faggots erected by the W.I. round the stake and Mrs. Pettifer, prompting Zechariah Postlethwaite to pursue the quasi-Grand Warlock Beelzebub into the vestry and there smite him hip and thigh with the parish register. Sides were taken, and the level of violence exhibited by both the W.I. and the Seventh Seal Etcs dispelled any notion that this was just a Friendly.<br />
<br />
In the end it was Mrs. Pettifer’s surprisingly colourful exhortations to the Satanists to crucify the bloody W.I. bastards that really helped to pacify the situation. The vicar’s errant widow had been all but forgotten in the skirmish, but Mrs. Rearden pointed out that if they all got on with the burning of Mrs. Pettifer, the Seventh Seal Etcs could in turn get on with their widdershins parade, without having to clamber over the pyre en route. A delay was unavoidable, but as Brother Osiris pointed out, 1p.m. would do just as well, it being midnight somewhere or other.<br />
<br />
So a compromise was reached and all went well, to everyone’s satisfaction. It was unanimously agreed that Mrs. Pettifer’s immolation was a great improvement on the shabby and rather disappointing Michaelmas ox roast, where lack of an ox had been a serious handicap. Satisfied with a job well done, the Seventh Seal Etcs were left to their widdershins parade and Zechariah Postlethwaite led the W.I. off in a pilgrimage of flagellation round the adjoining parishes.<br />
<br />
The smoke had barely dispersed from the church porch when the chain of events sparked off by that carelessly opened gate reached a most unfortunate crisis. Isaac Drew came face to acrimonious face with Hubert Grimes in the High Street. It was Isaac Drew’s contention that prize bull Maximus’s favours were a valuable commodity and that Hubert Grimes owed him an arm and a leg for the servicing of 67 cows. In his turn, Hubert Grimes was demanding compensation for the ravishing of his herd of pedigree Jerseys by a Hereford bull.<br />
<br />
Neither bull nor cows seemed disposed to join in the quarrel. Appeased or exhausted, they wended their way peacefully homeward, leaving an empty expanse of High Street between the two fuming farmers. Neither would give way, neither would listen to reason and when Isaac went for his shotgun, it was hardly surprising that Hubert should do the same.<br />
<br />
Isn’t it odd how coincidences happen? Isaac and Hubert had always vied for the honour of Worst Shot in Gloucestershire, and there wasn’t a rabbit or crow in the county in the remotest danger of being hit by either of them, and yet that day they both managed to score a perfect bull’s eye.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the fire-fighters arrived triumphant from the gutted Manse shortly after, in search of refreshment at the White Hart, and were persuaded, in return for a free helping of cider and starling suet pudding garni all round, to turn their hoses on the High Street and swab down the gutters. It was high time. What with the goring of Agnes Pultney, two shot farmers, a surprising amount of ash from Mrs. Pettifer and the deposits of 67 over-excited Jerseys, those gutters had become pretty messy.<br />
Soon our cobbles were back to their usual pristine state and the village, washed clean, was sparkling in the afternoon sunshine. As I remarked to Ethelrede Pode, things were looking set fair for a remarkably pleasant summer. A stroll, I thought, would do me good, clear the lungs which were a little choked with ash. I turned up the lane to the railway station and waved to Mrs. Jakes as she alighted from the 3.03, back from her wrestling match in Fladbury.<br />
<br />
It was a charming afternoon, disturbed only by the distant alarms of shell-shocked birds marking the progression of Zechariah’s flagellation party. Then I saw that my blackbird had returned to taunt me. How appropriate it would be to nab it at last by way of rounding off such a glorious day. I was just creeping up on it, round the edge of the platform, when a non-stopping express train forgot itself and stopped. Only briefly, delayed by the obstruction of a couple of hearses down on the level crossing, which had raced too forcefully to be first through the gates.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9SxrILM-7AU/Xj3HgOZgiLI/AAAAAAAABo4/L7uO0MA0JQwWV0JcJM7yXZrcva_higfMQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/LateJune.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="432" height="284" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9SxrILM-7AU/Xj3HgOZgiLI/AAAAAAAABo4/L7uO0MA0JQwWV0JcJM7yXZrcva_higfMQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/LateJune.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I waited, curious, but no one alighted. One passenger did wind down his window and peer with interest at the station sign. It seemed to inspire him. He sat back and took out a notebook and pen, and my heart leapt. A journalist? How thrilling for our quiet little community to make the news at last? I racked my brain for something that might interest a journalist, but it was no good. The world wants more excitement than the domestic doings of a parochial backwater like Adlestrop.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<i>Copyright Thorne Moore 2009</i></div>
Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-27685635975463980202020-02-11T23:56:00.000-08:002020-02-11T23:56:51.802-08:00My favourite poems X: Irene McLeodAnother poem from my childhood, one long quote imprinted on my memory, and wonderfully defiant.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Lone Dog</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2qoFrbfSVZo/Xj1xrYj4LqI/AAAAAAAABoQ/2li4yUAeUJcDAaB7t8dyO8qQWfQWcW59wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Lone-dog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2qoFrbfSVZo/Xj1xrYj4LqI/AAAAAAAABoQ/2li4yUAeUJcDAaB7t8dyO8qQWfQWcW59wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Lone-dog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I’m a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog and lone,<br />
I’m a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own!<br />
I’m a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;<br />
I love to sit and bay the moon and keep fat souls from sleep.<br />
<br />
I’ll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,<br />
A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat.<br />
Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,<br />
But shut door and sharp stone and cuff and kick and hate.<br />
<br />
Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,<br />
Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.<br />
O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,<br />
Wide wind and wild stars and the hunger of the quest.<br />
<br />
<i>Irene McLeod</i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-38482747863770275502020-02-09T22:37:00.000-08:002020-02-09T22:37:22.214-08:00My favourite poems IX: Robert BrowningAnother poem, a pure party piece, to be recited with sneering arrogance by candlelight. Just for fun. Or listen to Julian Glover reading it. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5AoZY6a_kE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5AoZY6a_kE</a><br />
<br />
<h3>
My Last Duchess</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFBBqaEcvpg/Xj1p_pOWPcI/AAAAAAAABn4/SV3c-TNQW7gZkOS7e_3tp9XLAo4aKfRgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Duchessframe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="432" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BFBBqaEcvpg/Xj1p_pOWPcI/AAAAAAAABn4/SV3c-TNQW7gZkOS7e_3tp9XLAo4aKfRgwCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Duchessframe.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,<br />
Looking as if she were alive. I call<br />
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands<br />
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.<br />
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said<br />
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read<br />
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,<br />
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,<br />
But to myself they turned (since none puts by<br />
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)<br />
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,<br />
How such a glance came there; so, not the first<br />
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not<br />
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot<br />
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps<br />
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps<br />
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint<br />
Must never hope to reproduce the faint<br />
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff<br />
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough<br />
For calling up that spot of joy. She had<br />
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,<br />
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er<br />
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.<br />
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,<br />
The dropping of the daylight in the West,<br />
The bough of cherries some officious fool<br />
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule<br />
She rode with round the terrace—all and each<br />
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,<br />
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked<br />
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked<br />
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name<br />
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame<br />
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill<br />
In speech—which I have not—to make your will<br />
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this<br />
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,<br />
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let<br />
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set<br />
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—<br />
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose<br />
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,<br />
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without<br />
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;<br />
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands<br />
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet<br />
The company below, then. I repeat,<br />
The Count your master’s known munificence<br />
Is ample warrant that no just pretence<br />
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;<br />
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed<br />
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go<br />
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,<br />
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,<br />
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!<br />
<br />
<i>Robert Browning</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-73638358672440426642020-02-08T00:07:00.000-08:002020-02-08T00:07:42.014-08:00My favourite poems VIII: W J Turner, RomanceAnother of my favourite poems. Poetry can be intellectual or it can be a gut thing. As a child I never understood this one, and as an adult I still don't understand it, but it still gets me every time. I only have to hear "Popocatapetl" and I am jelly.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Romance</h3>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b9lrkTepDng/Xj1ksLWxUQI/AAAAAAAABns/GJ6a7NxbV-ImB-TkRXxzEUw3OX7ZWNZDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Popocatepetl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="243" data-original-width="432" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b9lrkTepDng/Xj1ksLWxUQI/AAAAAAAABns/GJ6a7NxbV-ImB-TkRXxzEUw3OX7ZWNZDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/Popocatepetl.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
When I was but thirteen or so<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
I went into a golden land,<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Took me by the hand.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
My father died, my brother too,<br />
They passed like fleeting dreams,<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
I stood where Popocatapetl<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
In the sunlight gleams.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
I dimly heard the master's voice<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
And boys far-off at play,—<br />
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Had stolen me away.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
I walked in a great golden dream<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
To and fro from school—<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Shining Popocatapetl<br />
The dusty streets did rule.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
I walked home with a gold dark boy<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
And never a word I'd say,<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Had taken my speech away.<br />
<br />
I gazed entranced upon his face<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Fairer than any flower—<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
O shining Popocatapetl<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
It was thy magic hour:<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
The houses, people, traffic seemed<br />
Thin fading dreams by day;<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
They had stolen my soul away!<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<br />
<i>W.J.Turner</i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-18545053935683340592020-02-06T08:16:00.000-08:002020-02-06T08:16:00.358-08:00My Favourite Poems VII: Stevie Smith<br />
Another poem. Again, another lesson so cheery I could weep.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Alone in the woods</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TPuV72OSMu4/Xjw7GqSFhJI/AAAAAAAABng/hUtLP-Cb9yooGR5xACZx3xs4klet1FNOQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Greentrees.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="324" data-original-width="432" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TPuV72OSMu4/Xjw7GqSFhJI/AAAAAAAABng/hUtLP-Cb9yooGR5xACZx3xs4klet1FNOQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Greentrees.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Alone in the woods I felt<br />
The bitter hostility of the sky and the trees<br />
Nature has taught her creatures to hate<br />
Man that fusses and fumes<br />
Unquiet man<br />
As the sap rises in the trees<br />
As the sap paints the trees a violent green<br />
So rises the wrath of Nature's creatures<br />
At man<br />
So paints the face of Nature a violent green.<br />
Nature is sick at man<br />
Sick at his fuss and fume<br />
Sick at his agonies<br />
Sick at his gaudy mind<br />
That drives his body<br />
Ever more quickly<br />
More and more<br />
In the wrong direction.<br />
<br />
<i>Stevie Smith</i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-70220616665567407902020-02-04T22:33:00.000-08:002020-02-04T22:33:48.517-08:00My favourite poems VI: Seamus HeaneyAnother poem. I've read many attempts to analyse this, mostly concluding that it's about the need not to be sentimental when living in the country. I think that rather ignores the blindingly obvious hint of the title. You don't purge animals, you purge people. You start with small cruelties and you end up herding children into gas chambers.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Early Purges </h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XyazEFyu3yE/XjkjSM95pwI/AAAAAAAABnU/BG_AjssdUR0K-sJcXJ2x0Zf8Wu0iJOBDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Pumpbucket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="288" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XyazEFyu3yE/XjkjSM95pwI/AAAAAAAABnU/BG_AjssdUR0K-sJcXJ2x0Zf8Wu0iJOBDQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/Pumpbucket.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
I was six when I first saw kittens drown.<br />
Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',<br />
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,<br />
<br />
Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din<br />
Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout<br />
Of the pump and the water pumped in.<br />
<br />
'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.<br />
Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced<br />
Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.<br />
<br />
Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung<br />
Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains<br />
Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung<br />
<br />
Until I forgot them. But the fear came back<br />
When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows<br />
Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.<br />
<br />
Still, living displaces false sentiments<br />
And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown<br />
I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense:<br />
<br />
'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town<br />
Where they consider death unnatural<br />
But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.<br />
<br />
<i>Seamus Heaney</i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-81047019054031121632020-02-02T00:37:00.000-08:002020-02-02T00:37:33.312-08:00My Favourite Poems V: R S ThomasIt's Sunday so why not have a poem by a vicar? This is not the most complimentary poem about the land of my mothers, but it does sum up what I've been intensely aware of, ever since I moved back here in 1983.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
Welsh Landscape</h3>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9EJlMC99XFo/XjaJXQsNfJI/AAAAAAAABnM/XI4FCSTn14Q9gnZgkMzETF-X1bxTV2wRgCEwYBhgL/s1600/PentreIfanSunset2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="502" data-original-width="1000" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9EJlMC99XFo/XjaJXQsNfJI/AAAAAAAABnM/XI4FCSTn14Q9gnZgkMzETF-X1bxTV2wRgCEwYBhgL/s400/PentreIfanSunset2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
To live in Wales is to be conscious</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
At dusk of the spilled blood</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
That went into the making of the wild sky,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Dyeing the immaculate rivers</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
In all their courses.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It is to be aware,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Above the noisy tractor</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And hum of the machine</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Of strife in the strung woods,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Vibrant with sped arrows.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You cannot live in the present,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
At least not in Wales.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There is the language for instance,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The soft consonants</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Strange to the ear.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There are cries in the dark at night</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As owls answer the moon,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And thick ambush of shadows,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Hushed at the fields' corners.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There is no present in Wales,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And no future;</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There is only the past,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Brittle with relics,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Wind-bitten towers and castles</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
With sham ghosts;</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Mouldering quarries and mines;</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And an impotent people,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Sick with inbreeding,</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Worrying the carcase of an old song.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>R S Thomas</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-31249169228050946722020-01-30T23:57:00.000-08:002020-01-30T23:57:54.243-08:00My favourite poems IV: George HerbertI am not religious. I don't pray. I know a lot of Christians who do and I'm not sure what they get out of it. Sometimes it seems to be a shopping list of requirements, sometimes a request for an answer confirming what they've already decided, sometimes a buttering up of a strangely narcissistic God, sometimes just ritual. George Herbert managed to come up with a definition that makes it far more meaningful. And I love the way the poem is just a string of mystical metaphors.<br />
I'll post this one today, because this, of all days, needs all the prayers going as the doors slam shut.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ofTeJidYtR0/XjK50pu0r7I/AAAAAAAABms/MaUUnf349j0dNEvVaKxW1e7uxVOsHTW4ACEwYBhgL/s1600/Smilingangel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="288" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ofTeJidYtR0/XjK50pu0r7I/AAAAAAAABms/MaUUnf349j0dNEvVaKxW1e7uxVOsHTW4ACEwYBhgL/s320/Smilingangel.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<h3>
Prayer </h3>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Prayer the Church’s banquet, angels’ age,</span><br />
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,<br />
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,<br />
The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth;<br />
Engine against the Almighty, sinner’s tower,<br />
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,<br />
The six-days-world-transposing in an hour,<br />
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;<br />
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,<br />
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,<br />
Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,<br />
The milky way, the bird of paradise,<br />
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,<br />
The land of spices; something understood.<br />
<br />
<i>George Herbert</i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-31107022679460699452020-01-27T22:53:00.000-08:002020-01-27T22:53:18.543-08:00My favourite poems III: escape<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<h4>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Another poem, which everyone knows. If, like me, you are sitting for hours on a hard hospital chair, waiting for a bed to become available for your mother, the thought of being anywhere else at all is wonderful.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;">It also taught me how to use rhythm to paint a picture.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;">I do wonder, though, how a rowed ship owned by Nineveh (access Persian Gulf) can make it from Ophir (possibly Sri Lanka or Red sea port) to Palestine (Mediterranean) before the building of the Suez canal. This sort of thing worries me.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Cargoes</h4>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZ_fjr2XODo/Xi_XickDLQI/AAAAAAAABmY/U7N__ljRbYYNtjZ6xKkvGPnokIWXSVXGgCEwYBhgL/s1600/quinquireme.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="421" height="183" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AZ_fjr2XODo/Xi_XickDLQI/AAAAAAAABmY/U7N__ljRbYYNtjZ6xKkvGPnokIWXSVXGgCEwYBhgL/s200/quinquireme.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,<br />
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,<br />
With a cargo of ivory,<br />
And apes and peacocks,<br />
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1QMiRgdrqSU/Xi_X1B0pAHI/AAAAAAAABmk/0vLoc-Al8NkSvK7RibyTW6itqXhI2S64wCEwYBhgL/s1600/Galleon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="360" height="165" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1QMiRgdrqSU/Xi_X1B0pAHI/AAAAAAAABmk/0vLoc-Al8NkSvK7RibyTW6itqXhI2S64wCEwYBhgL/s200/Galleon.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,<br />
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,<br />
With a cargo of diamonds,<br />
Emeralds, amethysts,<br />
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rj2FgcV7tsQ/Xi_Xoo0eCWI/AAAAAAAABmg/YRwXSRficcY7w1UguqTxznhXe1jTgVvQgCEwYBhgL/s1600/Coaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="360" height="186" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rj2FgcV7tsQ/Xi_Xoo0eCWI/AAAAAAAABmg/YRwXSRficcY7w1UguqTxznhXe1jTgVvQgCEwYBhgL/s200/Coaster.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,<br />
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,<br />
With a cargo of Tyne coal,<br />
Road-rails, pig-lead,<br />
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.<br />
<br />
John MasefieldThorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2090786072552578179.post-40680585366617063542020-01-25T00:43:00.000-08:002020-01-25T00:44:11.608-08:00My Favourite Poems II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Here's another poem, which is an entire Dystopian/Utopian novel in miniature, by Edwin Muir. Very green.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JaUbkRcbGTk/Xiv-ZxgFrhI/AAAAAAAABl4/a3Tyc2JYJyo2F-n8PCd_BuuA3wO8ciImACEwYBhgL/s1600/Horses2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="568" height="194" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JaUbkRcbGTk/Xiv-ZxgFrhI/AAAAAAAABl4/a3Tyc2JYJyo2F-n8PCd_BuuA3wO8ciImACEwYBhgL/s320/Horses2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Horses</span><br />
<br />
Barely a twelvemonth after<br />
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,<br />
Late in the evening the strange horses came.<br />
By then we had made our covenant with silence,<br />
But in the first few days it was so still<br />
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.<br />
On the second day<br />
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.<br />
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,<br />
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day<br />
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter<br />
Nothing. The radios dumb;<br />
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,<br />
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms<br />
All over the world. But now if they should speak,<br />
If on a sudden they should speak again,<br />
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,<br />
We would not listen, we would not let it bring<br />
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick<br />
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.<br />
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,<br />
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,<br />
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.<br />
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening<br />
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.<br />
We leave them where they are and let them rust:<br />
'They'll molder away and be like other loam.'<br />
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,<br />
Long laid aside. We have gone back<br />
Far past our fathers' land.<br />
And then, that evening<br />
Late in the summer the strange horses came.<br />
We heard a distant tapping on the road,<br />
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again<br />
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.<br />
We saw the heads<br />
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.<br />
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time<br />
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us<br />
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.<br />
Or illustrations in a book of knights.<br />
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,<br />
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent<br />
By an old command to find our whereabouts<br />
And that long-lost archaic companionship.<br />
In the first moment we had never a thought<br />
That they were creatures to be owned and used.<br />
Among them were some half a dozen colts<br />
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,<br />
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.<br />
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads<br />
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.<br />
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.<br />
<i>Edwin Muir</i>Thorne Moorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09389651921517683358noreply@blogger.com0