My 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.

Adlestrop

Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas

AND

It Was Late June

O yes, I remember him. The man, not the name, of course. Just the man and his notebook, rounding off a funny old day.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Maximus charged.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

Copyright Thorne Moore 2009