dovegreyreader scribbles

Writing Britain : Wastelands to Wonderlands at The British Library

I am already totting up more exhibitons to see on future London trips, and Bookhound and I will definitely be scheduling in Writing Britain : Wastelands to Wonderlands opening at The British Library today and running until September 25th, for our Summer Day in the City. I travel up and down to London solo many times through the year, but we try to fit in a together day every so often too. 

And I feel an affinity because the last I heard the British Library were archiving dovegreyreader scribbles for future reference material... heaven help anyone trying to find their way around it all, and on checking the archive for the first time ever, because I had completely forgotten that fact, they do seem to have 198,600 entries about us, which seems enough to keep any poor student busy in 2112.

Team Old Ways are busy reading their copy of Robert Macfarlanes' book The Old Ways and readying for their walks which they will be introducing on here very soon, and having just finished the book I can see how well this exhibition will segue into that reading.

Examining how our landscape has shaped our literature feels like a natural extension to Robert Macfarlane's quest to see how landscape has shaped ourselves, and with it comes a reminder that not every writer had such a 'religious or reverent response to the countryside,' this according to Genevieve Fox in her exhibition preview.

One hundred and fifty works will be on display and the range sounds awesome from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to Angela Carter's Wise Children and everything inbetween and including first editions, original drafts and author's notebooks. 

Genevieve Fox suggests the notebooks will be like entering a writer's inner landscape, though if you looked at mine you could be forgiven for thinking you had the map inside out. I keep notebooks with me constantly for quotes I see that I want to remember, but know I will have forgotten even where I saw them five minutes later, and for ...er... conversations I might hear...or  for taking notes when I am at a literary event (this is often as much to keep me awake during that early afternoon slot as it is to make sure I offer all of you a reasonably accurate account)  and for notes when I am wandering around the places I visit. I haven't always been such an avid notebooker but I am very conscious of the danger of remembering things that I may never have actually seen and that wouldn't do at all. And then Bookhound will take it off me and do a sketch so I am now insisting that he has a sketch book with him at all times because what could be better than a resident artist.

This being me I can't just accept that a notebook is a notebook plain and simple and leave it at that, I have to customize them with my 'love' of the moment. The first one is almost full, the next one is ready and waiting. I think you can all probably work it out... from my Angie Lewin year to my Eric Ravilious one.

I absolutely have to go if only to see George Eliot's manuscript for Middlemarch, which was on display for years but then suddenly disappeared. I always used to marvel at the thought that George Eliot wrote it by the light of a candle or perhaps oil lamps and with a scratchy old feather or something, and with hardly any crossings out.

Returning to the British Library, the exhibition will be thematically arranged bearing in mind that it is not always nature that inspires, so the industrial revolution will have its place... Rural Dreams, Industrial Muse, Wild Places and Waterlands, Cockney Visions and Beyond the City, whilst The Thames will feature as a character in its own right, so I am excited to see what that will draw into the displays. 

There are plenty of events running alongside the exhibition including one with Robert Macfarlane on June 26th and I see a Bloomsday event on June 16th  you very lucky London people. Robert Macfarlane will be at Port Eliot this year so I am hoping to lure him along to the dovegreyreader tent with the promise of a cup of tea and cake served by the catering corps (Bookhound and the Weatherman have put in a request for an urn this year.) 

Please do report back if you see the exhibition or get to any events, we'd all love to know more....is anyone planning to go??

A Visit to Dennis Severs' House

At the time of writing this it is two weeks since my twilight visit to Dennis Severs' House at 18 Folgate Street in Spitalfields. Yet I can still see and smell so much of the house which makes me think perhaps I did manage to glean something from an experience that felt like no other.

The game is that you enter the house as if you have interrupted the lives of the Jervis family, early 18th century Huguenot silk weavers who were in mid-meal when a time-traveller from centuries hence crept into their house having paid £14 for a good look around.

 Dennis Severs was 'an artist who used his visitors' imaginations as the canvas' and who apparently lived in the house until his death 1999 in much the same way as the original occupants might have done in the 1720s. I can vouch for the fact that a visit is a truly memorable and extraordinary encounter. If the intention is to have passed through the surface of a painting then I most definitely did my best. 

No photography is allowed inside the house and this feels right. To have been distracted by my camera would have felt completely wrong, as would have been any reproduction of those pictures here...I needed to see it and feel it, smell it and hear it all and let that leave an impression on my imagination which it most certainly has.

My visit started at 6.15 pm with a brief introductory talk outside from the curator who asks that I remain silent, no talking and definitely no mobile phones, thus making for a visit of complete concentration. I did make some notes and interestingly the notes revealed something afterwards of which I may have been unware at the time.

You don't need to to be able to read what I wrote...but just look at pages one and two...

and compare with pages five and six...

The whole house is candlelit, but to varying degrees and when the visit starts down in the kitchens, in the cellar, the crowded table laden with food and manuscripts, the delft tiles around the sink and the range glowing and radiating warmth from a real fire, with the freshly baked scones on the griddle, are all just barely visible to the eye. This is 18th century light and with the ceiling a scant three inches above my head below stairs, as I moved on through the house and through time, (because the final room brings the visitor into the 19th century) that light had gradually increased, but in a way that I might have missed but for my notebook.

This is still-life drama, the chance to become lost in another time, and not so much what you see as what you imagine too, and little signs and notes constantly upbraid the lazy visitor...

'You either see it or you don't...you are looking at the thing rather than what the things are doing...'

and a few rooms later another reminder...

'What! You are still looking at 'things' instead of what 'things' are doing...'

and then...

'Would you recognise art if it fell out of a frame...'

and suitably chastened I vowed to try harder.

There are bells peeling and footsteps, the floor creaks and the clocks tick and chime and then you catch background whispering which had me looking over my shoulder and about to say 'Shh' to other visitors who must have been talking ...except they were about to say the same to me, and it dawns that this is the family who have just left. As you approach they depart, as you depart they re-enter.

Then a voice off-stage says ...

'Rebecca, we'll need more fuel in the morning, keep an eye out for someone peddling it on the street..'

And a very unnerving moment when I coughed and so did the invisible resident... I'm telling myself that was a coincidence.

The smells were a heady mix of ginger and spices various and coming as a consistent and gentle reminder to use all my senses as I then heard a baby cry and bird song, and noticed the wig on the chair and upstairs in the withdrawing room, the half-toasted waffle still on the fork, the broken tea cup perhaps knocked over by the ladies of the house wearing their large hooped dresses. The sewing basket lay open, the music cast to one side..they had been singing 'Mrs Spriggs Gave Parties' just before I walked in it would seem, the little house of cards behind the chair...perhaps that was the children.

And I desperately wanted to sit down and watch and listen to what my imagination was telling me, but of course that wasn't allowed. I was a bird of passage not a resident.

Up into the bedrooms and an imprint in the cushion in the window seat...someone had seen me approaching and disappeared... leaving behind a full chamber pot I hasten to add which I decided not to sniff.

I moved on up to the attics and clearly a time of poverty has descended on the family. The light was stark, the air noticeably cooler, the fire a mere flicker in the grate though still real, and everything much grimier, crumbling lathe and plaster giving way to gaping holes in the ceilings, washing hanging on the landing, the rugs rumpled enough to snag my feet on and make me look down, a plate of oyster shells on the table perhaps not the luxury food then that we view it as now, and in the background gunfire. At this point I knew that explanations would follow if I looked hard enough and sure enough this is 1837, the King has died a new young Queen is about to ascend the throne.

The final room back downstairs and a Victorian parlour crammed to the gunwhales with all that wonderful Victorian clutter, the smell and the light different again and I realised this was the oil lamps.

I did a great deal of standing and staring which is built into and an acceptable aspect of the visit during which you are never made to feel rushed or hurried, if you go to walk into a room, or approach a stair case having missed a room, someone just silently stands in your way. In fact everyone was overtaking me but my imagination wanted its moneysworth and most certainly got it.

As I emerged blinking back into the 21st century I did have that sense of the disorientation of time travel were it possible, with every inch of my imagination out on stalks and  working overtime as I walked back along Folgate Street....

and then around Spitalfields where so many of the old buildings remain and signs of a bygone era are in constant evidence..

until in creeps the 21st century with quirks of its own..

I even managed to preserve that imagination through a journey on the tube back to Bloomsbury and into the next day and a visit to Sir John Soane's Museum, more of which soon.

But if you are in London please don't miss a visit to Dennis Severs' House, it really is magical

 

 

Home and away...

Home after a hectic few days in London, and the first thing I did was get my thermal vest back on plus more layers, on with the walking boots and out around the field. It is freezing here and was unusually cold and wet in drought-riven London too.

A couple of days spent at the London Book Fair and how fascinating to see behind the scenes of the publishing industry and hear the conversations that are taking place. This is where all the business is done, acres and acres of publishers and agents from around the world converging on Earls Court to do the deals.

I had a few appointments and had also been invited to take part in a seminar on Social Reading by The Reading Agency. It is always a pleasure to talk about the way that we are able to share the inspiration of books and reading here. I told them about you ...all of you, and how much I value the discussions we have about each book, and how your comments are the oxygen that keeps it all alive here, and someone put that quote out on twitter, so you have all been tweeted and are all very famous now. It was good to meet everyone there as well, fellow panelists, people in the audience who I knew and plenty that I didn't but who came and said hello afterwards. Stewart, of the legendary Orkney Library, also on the panel, confirmed that I can join the library for a week when we are up there in the summer, so I plan to stock up on local books for us to read inbetween eating, mountaineering, eating, sleeping, sea-watching, eating, abseiling, cycling the islands, eating, wild swimming, sea-kayaking,  sleeping  base-jumping off Hoy and all the other things we plan to watch the Tinker do.

I went to some excellent seminars including one on Apps given by, amongst others, the developer of Faber's The Waste Land. We had a sneak preview of the next one due very soon, Shakespeare's Sonnets, very covetable, 154 readings to camera, it will fly off the .... the.. through the ether. And wait until you see Leonardo da Vinci - Anatomy, also coming soon and quite quite stunning, the Queen's collection as an App, with commentary and overlays which show the accuracy of Leonardo's findings, together with a spyglass facility which allows for close-up examination of the drawings.

Earls Court exhibition space is the size of a small continent and I must have walked miles, so I was very happy to park myself in a chair on the Book Guild Publishing stand, publishers of Effie A Victorian Scandal, and had a lovely catch up with Laura Lockington. If you have been reading here an awfully long time you may recall Laura's must-read book Cupboard Love which I wrote about eons ago. It was so good to meet Laura at last, and to continue our ongoing debate about the whys and wherefores of bubble and squeak, Laura would live on it, personally I think it should be a banned substance.

You will all have an opinion I feel sure so please state it in comments and we can have a Bubble and Squeak poll.

I took you all on some fabulous visits away from the book fair too which I hope you will all be enjoying on here soon once I have had a chance to ruminate over them.

The twilight visit to Dennis Severs' House in Spitalfields was everything I had expected and much much more besides. Please book and go if ever you are in London. I was swept away by the intensity of it and only wished I'd had my artist with me (who was at home building a garden wall.) I will write much more about the experience when I can find the right way to describe something that in a way resists being put into words.

Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields was a perfect follow on because having been encouraged to use my imagination by Dennis Severs I carried on the trend as I wandered around this most intimate and amazing house. 

My visit to the Hunterian Museum across the way at The Royal College of Surgeons (now I know where all those doctors get their F.R.C.S. from) was, on the other hand, an exercise in leaving my imagination sitting on the seat outside, even with my strong nurse's stomach. Though it was lunchtime when I emerged I was relieved that there was no cafe on the premises, half of me could have murdered a nice big slice of coffee and walnut cake, the other half of me was ever so slightly queasy after the sight of so much pickling.

By the time the No 19 bus had delivered me to the King's Road I had recovered sufficiently unto a lunch, and after a wander and some shopping I headed back to The London Library where Elena very kindly gave me a personal guided tour and let me take lots of pictures for you... you'll love them.. books on shelves and more books on more shelves, our very favourite subject. I had my imagination back in full working order and feel sure I saw George Eliot in the stacks. Oh Oh Oh, what an incredible place, if we lived in London I'd find a way to afford membership somehow.

So plenty to look forward to here, but in the meantime I have to do a very swift turnaround (I knew this week was going to be like this) get the frocks in the wash and off to Reading on Friday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the Elizabeth Taylor centenary day on Saturday, and then on my way home I am stopping off at Bath on Sunday to talk at the West Country Writer's Association's Annual Congress. My subject is Blogging to the World, so I fully expect you will all get another very huge mention, and I will send them your regards too.

In readiness for the Elizabeth Taylor day I have read A Game of Hide and Seek, a new one for me and an experiment to see if one book would allow me to pull out all the strengths of Elizabeth Taylor's writing that I have come to value ...it did and more. I have also re-read At Mrs Lippincote's and Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (I am facilitating the reading group discussion about Mrs P on Saturday) and can report the books get better and better with each read. One of the highlights for me will be to meet and talk with Elizabeth Taylor's son and daughter, I know some of you will be there in person, but don't worry I'll sneak the rest of you in vicariously to share the day and will report back.

Now please can we just sort out this bubble squeak thing once and for all...I'm right aren't I...it's a crime...

 

London Under ~ Peter Ackroyd

I am currently in London for the three days of the London Book Fair, still in touch here thanks to the technology, and will be speaking on Wednesday as part of a panel on the subject of Social Reading. My sincere thanks to The Reading Agency for the invitation as well as the opportunity to be sitting on a panel with the legendary tweeter who is Orkney Library.

I love going to the smoke because, though I was born in Exeter, I grew up on the very outskirts of London which, cost permitting, made it readily accessible to us as children, and for school trips, and whilst I may feel my heart has been in rural Devon for a long time now, there is always a bit of me that thrives on the London buzz....and then the coming home. 

So in amongst all the Nature Table reading I am keeping my eye on the city life too, and when Peter Ackroyd's book London Under arrived I was intrigued. Robert Macfarlane's book The Old Ways (update on Team Old Ways very soon) is already making me acutely aware of what may be beneath my feet as I walk, whilst Bookhound's recent DIY redistribution of the garden, in the final landscaping after all the building work, is making us both acutely aware of what lies beneath our feet.

A shed-load of earth is what...

It is only when we (as in the Royal we) do a job like this that we sit in the midst of the gigantic molehills during Bookhound's alloted tea break and ponder firstly why we are never the lucky people to find the cracked pot yielding so many Roman coins that it takes two of you to lift it out of the ground. Like this one we saw at Bristol Museum, and which a man found whilst digging a fishpond... a fishpond I ask you ...we've gone half way to Australia and found one bit of a broken plate, a doll's arm and a teapot spout.

I am so disappointed in the ancestors.

Peter Ackroyd suggests that

' the temptation to bury precious objects is very strong especially in times of danger.' 

Clearly not enough of that around these parts.... have you ever found anything interesting??

I'd be really happy to know at least one of you had.

Anyway, once we get over that let-down we sit and wonder about the hand labour that would have been involved in the fields around us in years gone by, and having now read London Under I am marvelling at the idea that there really can't be much earth left to dig out beneath the metropolis and so much of it done pre-JCB.

I am afraid this is one of those books that is chock full of 'Did-You-Know...' moments and I have regaled Bookhound with a bevvy of those followed by plenty of 'Guess-How-Much...' 

It had just never occurred to me that whilst London sits on a bed of sand, gravel, clay and chalk making it eminently possible to dig down, Manhattan is established on layers of hard rock meaning the only way is up. And it would seem that London has never been able to stop itself digging down even further; vast sprawling networks of tunnels, chambers, catacombs, rivers, sewers (I'll come back to those) vaults (the Bank of England vaults hold the second biggest horde of gold bullion on the planet) command spaces and complete subterranean worlds.

Secret London accessed by invisible, unnoticed portals.

Who knew that 100ft below High Holborn there is a vast underground structure accessed via a very insignificant door at No.31. A lift will take you eight floors down to a network of tunnels, rooms, dining rooms, communal living areas and private cubicles... and that all connects via more tunnels to Covent Garden and thence to Trafalgar Square, a 'miniature city' according to Peter Ackroyd. I feel like I may be giving out classified informaion, but it is all in the book so fair game.

Each successive digging reveals more history too, a Roman Baptistry discovered underneath Oxford Street in 1865, a flight of sixteen steps down to a room with red brick walls and arches, a pool with spring-fed water in it to a depth of six feet... all destroyed and probably now the site of Top Shop or something.

And all far more than just the London Underground network and a few Cabinet war rooms as I had imagined. The Underground itself a very chaotic mess of obsolete tunnels too, I didnt know there used to be a tube station called The British Museum for example, and apparently if you look carefully as you leave Holborn Station travelling west you may catch a glimpse of the old tiled walls. The iconic tube map meanwhile a designer's effort to make some sense of it all, as you will know it you have ever tried to walk what looks like that short hop from Earls Court to Olympia because there are no trains running.  

I love the idea that a man with a wooden leg was employed to ride up and down the first escalator in 1911 because everyone was too scared to use it... such a good advert. Yet each tube line has its own identity, almost a personality, and this made for fascinating reading... did you know that the Bakerloo line is 'disconsolate and brooding' and now I consider it, yes it is, and the Northern Line is 'intense and moody'.

But it was all the connotations of the underworld that Peter Ackroyd brings to life here that held my attention too. The way that life heads into the ground any way it can when it feels threatened and needs to feel safe, thus the war bunkers and the rush for the tube stations during the Blitz. The sense of foreboding attached to any notion of 'being underground' coupled with the sense of foreboding I felt as I read that London is slowly sinking into its foundations as the groundwater rises. I don't want to worry anyone living there, especially ahead of London 2012, but 15,400,000 gallons is being pumped out daily.

And then there are the sewers.

Living as we do without mains drainage and courting our close companion the septic tank, and with my background in ghastly diseases, I am always interested in sewers.

Did you know that London has Mr Bazalgette to thank for its 82 miles of main sewers and 1000 miles of minor ones built in the 1860s and still intact ??

And did you know that the deposits of fat gripping the sides are, in places, 40 inches thick??

And that picture at the beginning is after the cleaning...

Here's the before...

You learn things here.

 

Beautiful Book Alert ... Spitalfields Life by The Gentle Author

I know I have mentioned it already, but I hadn't actually laid eyes on a copy then. Now that I have I am compelled to mention it again, because every once in a while a book just takes my breath away as I open the package.

It will need to pull off something spectacular to do that, there will need to be difference, and having been eagerly awaiting the arrival of my bought copy of Spitalfields Life by The Gentle Author I can't tell you how delighted I was when this thing of beauty was revealed.

It's the square bound spine and the sizing at 6" x almost 8" and 428 pages that all make it so satisfyingly chunky. With high production values, quality paper and illustrations by Mark Hearld (he of that grey doveflight fabric I am coveting) Lucinda Rogers and Rob Ryan (of papercut fame) and greyscale photos throughout I am utterly convinced this will become a book to treasure for me and for many out there. A silk ribbon bookmark (preferably of Huguenot origin) would have meant complete happiness but I can forgive and will make my own, because this is the most perfect book to keep to hand and read one chapter a day through the year as there are 365 of them, The Gentle Author's first year of blog posts.

I mentioned that I have been following Spitalfields Life since reading the recent Random Spectacular journal, and this book is a compilation of those daily blog entries which follow the life, history and culture of Spitalfields and environs, and at the heart of which must be the beautiful market.

But this book is not solely about history past because The Gentle Author includes the 'here and now' as well as the 'there and then'... an important record, the history of the future I suppose, the car washers, the rappers, the stall-holders I stood and watched on my walkabout all feature here, as does Tubby Isaacs who I was delighted to find is still there too..

Tubby Isaacs was a landmark when I lived in Whitechapel back in the 1970s, some things never change...namely the fact that there still exist those strange inexplicable people in the world, Bookhound being one, who adore jellied eels. His family are Bethnal Green born and bred, I suspect he may have been weaned on them.

Nicholas Hawksmoor's Christ Church, built between 1719 and 1729, is writ large on the Spitalfields skyline..

and seems to peek around every corner...this Brick Lane and Fournier Street...

First new I-didn't-know-that fact learnt from the book ... Spitalfields the name is a derivative of St Mary's Hospital Fields which used to be located here, and the history is fascinating as The Gentle Author tracks the legacy of the Jewish families, the Huguenots and the silk trade, the Irish weavers, those fleeing the Russian pogroms who had meant to go to America but stopped over in London and stayed. Then in the post-war era, as the Jewish people moved to more prosperous areas of London so the Sikhs, Pakistanis and Bengalis arrived and made Brick Lane the multi-cultural centre it is today.

Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane obviously came to mind as I I wandered around there last week and discovered a wonderful haberdashery emporium with the friendliest, most helpful man imaginable behind the counter....Mr Butt I presume.

Nothing was too much trouble as I browsed and tracked down webbing for bag handles at £1 a yard and then bought two scarves I couldn't resist at £2 each, having passed on the £30 ones in John Lewis the day before.

As The Gentle Author suggests, the acceleration of change in the East End is very rapid and Spitalfields Life aims to record those changes with a daily post to record that transformation, and through the medium of a blog (I like) with its 'nascent literary form... unique qualities and potential.'

But the book is the thing and Spitalfields Life evidence, were it needed, that though it is all there and free to read online, there is still something very special about the book in the hand, especially when it is a work of art in its own right. I will be cradling, stroking and reading this one, and commenting on it here throughout forever I expect.

I walked from Brick Lane to explore my old patch around The London Hospital and to seek out the hospital museum; who knew I could get quite so spectacularly lost around streets I thought I knew like the back of my hand... no one told me the whole place had been rebuilt while my back was turned, more soon.

 

Spitalfields Market

If you are in London I can certainly recommend a visit to Spitalfields Market.

A feast for the eyes if you love bric-a-brac, or if you have run out of pigeon-racing certificates and rosettes or hanker after a Bakelite wireless...

or perhaps you have run out of knives, or are most annoyingly missing that one crystal drop from your chandelier, or you fancy a rummage around some old photos...or you want to create your name out of old print blocks..

or perhaps you want to add a new song to the repertoire..

or you have felt for some time that life is just not complete without a cat on your head...and I'll admit I did a double take and had to give this a gentle poke just to be sure (yes, dead)

or perhaps you are just browsing without purpose as I was, and soaking up the atmosphere and the colour.

A note for anyone who is Pinterested or for anyone who may be wondering what is this thing called Pinterest... it is a pin-board style photo-sharing website where you can create and manage theme-based image collections. You can find my embryonic pinboards here or by clicking on this button which is also on the sidebar over here >>>>>

Currently you can add and share any pictures you may particularly like from here to your own pinboard using the pin-it button at the base of each post (keeping in step with the zeitgeist) and dovegreyreader will automatically be acknowledged as the source. Though Pinterest is not about self-promotion I do take far more pictures than ever make it onto here so it might be my repository for some of the excess, a sort of virtual version of the suitcase on that stall. But already I am seeing a few pictures extracted, re-shuffled and gathered together under new headings like Patterning and adding more form elsewhere, and thinking it might make me look even more keenly through my camera lens.

Meanwhile to see how it should be done check out Kate, who I know visits here sometimes. Now Kate really does know a thing or two about this Pinning lark, and if you are a Pinner too please add your link in comments and this novice will trail around after you to pick up some Pin-tips and nab some of your pins.

And if you think the last thing the virtual world needs is somewhere else that demands your attention, and eats away at your time, then please just ignore all that.

 

PS The Pinterest button now reduced to this because the larger one just didn't suit my decor...

What day is it...

It's been a bit like that for the last forty-eight hours, and it's not even as if I've crossed a time zone or anything, but I have had a whirlwind few days and have some thank yous to make...

Thank you to Bookhound first of all for chauffeuring me to and from stations to the tune of about 170 miles in two days, and 100 of them after midnight last night to meet the 1.15am into Exeter, which was delayed thanks to a gas leak at Bridgewater. There is something heart-warming about this late-night sight when I arrive at Paddington too, as long as I get on the right train that is...

Home beckons but aren't trains eerie places when they are stationary, on dark tracks in the middle of nowhere, complete silence and you are almost the only person on board. But how grateful I always am to find Bookhound waiting for me on the platform, he takes my bag(s) and copes with an instant rush of enthused chatter. It's usually Tedburn St Mary before I remember to ask how he is. 

Thank you to The Biographer's Club for inviting me to take part in their 'What do Reviewers Want' panel discussion alongside the newspaper literary editors. I struggled a bit when it came to the question of my editorial policy etc as in...well...er... it's what I fancy reading, but I hope I was able to convey what I wanted to say. That whilst the review pages can give us all a good starter for ten, we now have the blogs that can give a wide range of  books some legs and help them run, and hopefully the two are now working as a complement to each other rather than with any sense of opposition, as seemed to be the thinking in the early days.

Thank you to all the friends various who came to the event and especially Diana who did make it from California at the beginning of her UK visit, and who I really hope is now thoroughly enjoying her London week before some walking in the Cotswolds. How good it was to be able to introduce Diana, who had won a copy of Magnificent Obsession in the prize draw here, to Helen Rappaport the author who was also at the event. 

Thank you too to Rowena who comments here and who had travelled from 'oop north to be there. Rowena gave me a box of Hummingbird Bakery cupcakes. If you want to know Can a Cupcake Save a Life then the answer is a resounding affirmative. When I eventually headed back to my room after the event, and after a busy day, and with that sense that my blood sugar might be non-existent, I savoured one over a cup of tea whilst doing that thing you should never do which is think of all the things you meant to say but didn't. Rowena it was delicious, and you will be pleased to know that I kept my hands off the other two which you asked me to share with Bookhound...I notice one has gone already and we can't blame the Gamekeper any more

Thank you to The Penn Club in Bloomsbury who, if you don't know of them, are the very best budget option accommodation in London which means I really should keep it a secret. Run by the Quakers, a central and homely location off Russell Square, the rooms are always clean and warm, lovely breakfast included and peaceful sitting rooms plus a key to the front door which all makes it feel like I have a home away from home when I am away. So much so that I woke with a jump at 4am because I heard a car outside and thought it was someone trying to steal the dogs, because no car ever goes past home at 4am. As I went to leap out of bed I realised the wall was in the way and I wasn't in Devon at all, but I was wide awake so praise by for iPads I say. I am the world's worst for feeling very homesick and very fed up in hotels, the Penn Club has proved to be the answer for my whistlestop London visits.

Thank you to Spitalfields because I had the most wonderful walk around an area of London that has changed out of all recognition since I was last living on the doorstep in Whitechapel. A real and fascinating shift in both culture and economy, and as I wandered along Brick Lane nothing seemed to bring that into finer focus than the site of a mosque and a church sitting happily side by side, and I am sure this is the mosque that had previously been used a synagogue??

I have been following the blog Spitalfield's Life for quite a while now and was delighted to read more in that recent Random Spectacular journal. This is penned by an anonymous scribe known as The Gentle Author, who is writing a post a day about living in Spitalfields and who has just this week published the book of the blog. I have ordered a copy and can't wait to read and write about it more.

Thank you to one of my oldest friends, as in years known, Gt Ormond Street student nurse life shared & bridesmaid's duties done etc. Finally I am in London on the day that she looks after her sixteen month-old granddaughter in Bloomsbury, and with a toddler in a buggy we had our passport into Coram Fields, no entry without a child, and a favoured venue for us as junior nurses charged with giving those children well enough to leave the ward some fresh air for the afternoon. There is nothing to beat those friendships which survive time and distance, and which you pick up seamlessly where you may have left off. Both of us have staggered towards nest-emptying, both of us agreed we never knew it would take so long (as in thirty years of our lives) or how hard it can be for the fledgings to support themselves and keep a roof over their heads etc these days, but of course we also had a good nostalge over tea and cake too.

Thank you to Penguin Books for the Bloggers event at Waterstones in Picadilly, twelve authors talking about their books. Cost implications mean I am able to get very few of these unless they happen to coincide with something else, so to manage two in a matter of weeks feels like something of an achievement. It was good to meet even more bloggers that I haven't met before, the both very lovely Rachel at Booksnob and Naomi at Bloomsbury Bell, and I particularly wanted to get to this event because I have always wanted to meet Nell Leyshon. It was Nell who introduce me to the work of John Caple after I wrote about her novel Black Dirt here back in 2007, so it was an absolute delight to thank her and then
talk like fury about it all. My other big reason was to talk to Penguin about a project I want to to do here with you on Robert Macfarlane's forthcoming book The Old Ways mentioned yesterday. It was so good to meet and talk with Robert, and to hear him read from the book plus I now have the project sorted and agreed, so more about that next week.

And finally, thank you to the Fire Brigade who obviously eventually sorted out the gas leak at Bridgewater and allowed the train to glide through the station, onwards and westwards and home.

 

A Bloomsbury Day

A funny thing happened on the train to London this morning.

Usual thing of having a reserved seat but no sight nor sound of seat 53A nor one with a ticket in it saying Plymouth to London, I'm not sure how this works at all. So then the search begins for an empty seat with a reservation ticket that precedes Plymouth so I know I won't face the humiliation of a turf out when the rightful owner, who somehow does have a ticket with the right number on it, suddenly appears. So I settled into a Par to Reading seat and decided I could immediately check out this 3G connectivity on the iPad. Hey presto it worked and there was Linda Grant tweeting that she was on the Par to London train and wished the buffet was open. 'Me too in coach D' I tweeted back 'I'm in A & there is an empty seat next to me' came the reply.

So my journey to London whizzed by as we talked about Linda's next book, writing in general, a bit of litgoss and books we've both been enjoying, namely Pilcrow by Adam Mars Jones. This seemed very apt as we sped through Taplow and I reminded myself to check whether there ever had been a Red Cross Hospital there. I have never really wanted to read Adam Mars Jones because he writes some really waspish reviews, has trashed a few books I have loved and I had decided I just wouldn't like his books. I am eventually going to have to take it all back, eat humble pie and eulogise because I am captivated by PIlcrow. If you like books set in the 1950s, if you quite like children in novels and especially if you are a nurse, but even if not, you might want to check it out.

Then a lovely walk into Bloomsbury, Bedford Square and the home of Bloomsbury publishers who had laid on a wonderful afternoon for a bevy of book bloggers. First and most importantly there was cake and conversation as we all caught up with each other and chatted with the publicists who are better known to me as names on the end of emails, so it's lovely to add faces to them all. Piles of books around the room...perhaps I should have made that most important thing, and then authors dropping in to talk about their books ( very important) followed by editors ( ever so important) to tell us what is coming up this year and safe to say a good time was had by me at least, and I am sure everyone else.

Of interest to me because I really did enjoy Kate Summerscale's last book, is her follow up to Mr Witcher...hmm exact title eludes me (can't multi task and look things up and be sure I'll find my way back here yet) but it's about a Mrs Robinson and we can expect a similar true tale of Victorian intrigue, but this time think along the lines of Madame Bovary. Kate had us on the edge of our seats and very much looking forward to the book later this year.

Suzanne Joinson talked about her debut novel A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar , and it sounds very tempting. A dual narrative set in both present day London and the 1920's world of the female Christian missionary to be published in July. The Bloomsbury gals had been cycling around the metropolis, in appropriate Edwardian gear, delivering proofs this morning apparently.

More later about the evening event which featured Susannah Clapp in conversation with Christopher Frayling and a fascinating discussion about Angela Carter.

Meanwhile it's 10pm and I am sitting on the train home, surrounded by a great huge pile of books and a table to myself because who in their right mind travels on a train that gets them in at 1am and with an hour's drive home to follow. I have just had kittens and then puppies as the train manager announced the stations...Weston Super Mare?? Nailsea?? Eventually Exeter did come up on the list but we would seem to be getting there via an extended tour of off the beaten track Devon railways.

Linda Grant says I have to buy the Faber app of The Wasteland and gave me a quick demo of it this morning. I was convinced once I discovered that it had a recording of Ted Hughes reading so now here I am, just pulled into Reading and headed who knows where in a westerly direction so I'm going app shopping as a souvenir of a lovely London day.

I do have some photos of the day of course but I had better not run before I can walk with my Blogsy app. I am now going to press the button and see what happens...

Update at Swindon : Courage mon brave...a photo added perhaps?? 

 

Two Temple Place... Astor and Morris

Fran and I continued our London Day of Culture to Perk Up the Spirits in Dismal January (and which we enjoyed so much we might make into an annual event) with a short stroll from the Museum of London, along the Embankment to Two Temple Place and the William Morris exhibition. This had been in my sights on my last two London trips but William and I just couldn't co-ordinate our dates no matter how hard we tried... closed on Tuesday ...closed again for a private function on the Wednesday I had planned to visit a few weeks later, so I was relieved to get there just before Story, Memory, Myth closes.

The rest of London, if not the country, if not the world had had the very same idea, and on that day too would you believe it, so the place was heaving.

No party thrown by original owner William Waldorf Astor can ever have involved so many people trying to get up and down the staircase at any one time, and what the famously flamboyant carved Four Musketeers gracing the newel posts must have thought was anyone's guess. I don't know about you but I am fine in crowds until my 'elf and safety' lobe kicks in and I think 'what if there was a fire?'. I don't panic, I just want to clock the exits and start to make my way out quietly.

It happened to me once at a Boden Sale; those pop-up bargain days they used to hold in rural venues and for which they would send out about 10,000 invitations and 9,999 people would turn up. Powderham Castle near to collapse under the weight of loaded baby buggies being passed over heads in order for people to get a foot nearer tables piled high with...well, what looked like a load of jumble. I actually rang Bookhound from the corner I was trapped in to ask him to contact someone at Boden HQ, report the mayhem and send in the troops, and to tell him I may be some time making my escape so don't put the dinner on yet.

Fortunately common sense prevailed at Temple Place and as Fran and I burst out of the doors, carried in the general direction of the exit on a sort of mosh pit of Morris-mania, admission had been stopped and was being ticketed for later in the day. We did manage to get a glimpse of some fabulous tapestries, sketches, paintings, wallpapers and also the Astor house, the perfect setting. I would love a closer look at the house another day, so much carving and panelling, all very sumptuous and Fran and I were both drawn to this wonderful stained glass window.

A closer look reveals really intricate detail but having settled down on the surprisingly empty window seat to study it, only to find ourselves surrounded by the hordes on the guided tour, we quickly moved on and then bought postcards in the shop.

It was all enough to fire me up for the read of Fiona McCarthy's biography, Edward Burne-Jones, The Last Pre-Raphaelite as there was plenty of EBJ in evidence, but I also hot-footed to the shelves when I arrived home to find the book on the Astor family. I read When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan on a seven hour flight back from Houston a few years ago and it was good to remind myself of this excellent read whilst swotting up on the background... death of cousin Jack on the Titanic and dear old William Waldorf, described by Justin Kaplan as every Englishman's nightmare...

'the American invader who bought his way into society, bought estates that were part of the nation's heritage, denied the public access to them...and could outspend, outcollect, outentertain, and outbuild anyone in England.'

Two Temple Place was bought and renovated with added crenellations as William Waldorf Astor's London pied-a-terre and business HQ in the dying years of the nineteenth century.


Serving as a private museum for his art and books collection, apparently including Shakespeare folios, the house was a place where he could also escape his family back in the Carlton Square residence and entertain who he pleased. H.G.Wells who interviewed him there revealed the partial extent of the Astor wealth...

'he was drawing gold from New York - perhaps $6 million a year in rents...as effectually as a ferret draws blood from a rabbit...'

In fact William's inheritance from his parents was estimated at between $150 million and $300 million, give or take the odd million which all meant he could afford a really flamboyant weather vane for the roof as well...

Always fearful of kidnappers and theft, Astor kept a loaded pistol to hand and the building was apparently equipped with a state-of the art security system which at the press of a button would lock and bar all windows and entrances ..which always feels like another fire hazard to me. Of course the wealth also stretched to the purchase of Cliveden followed by Hever Castle, and you can't knock it, at one point he was keeping 840 workers employed in renovations.

Anyway the exhibition was fabulous in every sense, the tapestries especially breathtaking and it was thankfully possible (with elbows) to look at them very closely and see the intricate and complex stitching, as well as brushstrokes and pencil workings for the wallpapers and their designs, and whilst I don't want to be the instigator of a stampede, if you do live nearby it is the final day of the exhibition today.

 

 

 

London calls again...

Thank you for all the Team Middlemarch discussions over the weekend. We are off to a flying start with our year-long read conducted at Victorian instalment speed. Some of us are loving it, others are persevering and if you fancy joining us on board the virtual brougham it is never too late so here are a few housekeeping arrangements.

'Joining' only involves getting a copy of the book, either real or digital, reading Part One Miss Brooke and leaving a comment with your thoughts, or discussing what others have written on this weekend's post here, and to read any previous posts in the build up just click on this Team Middlemarch tag. Part Two Old and Young arrived through Victorian letter boxes on February 1st 1872 so we will start reading that on the same day 140 years later and then gather here over the weekend of March 24th - 25th to share our thoughts.

So back to the real world and the training days last week were actually not as terrible as even the optimist in me had feared.

The course leaders were excellent; engaging, assertive, clear and unequivocal about the issues which is exactly what you need where child protection is concerned, and nicely terrifying enough for me not to even think about taking the prolonged blink which then has you falling off your elbow in the post-lunch session.

I was in a 4* hotel nearer Bedford then Luton so that could have been much worse, and working from home and online I only meet up with my work colleagues twice a year, so it was lovely to see them all.

I found myself sitting opposite a consultant gynaecologist on the way to London. Well the briefcase advertising a world conference suggested as much (unless he'd bought it on eBay of course) ... and his diary, though impossible to read upsidedown looked very full indeed. He was reading Colm Toibin's The Master just for your information, and making copious notes. I did take The Virgin in the Garden by A.S.Byatt and it was perfect reading, both on the train and at 4am in a hotel room with an inaccessible wireless signal and strange pillows that just refused to meet my exacting standards of comfort. Needless to say I dropped off at about 6.50am ready to be woken by the 7am alarm, but only a hundred fifty pages to go.

I had planned an overnight stop in London on the way home rather than arriving in Plymouth towards midnight and had scheduled in an evening of browsing in Foyle's and a day of exhibitions before catching a late afternoon train home the following day and it all went nicely to plan.

Undaunted by the weather on Wednesday morning...

The secret is to go with someone who has been sensible enough to bring a large-scale map which won't need glasses, and to have looked up the bus numbers beforehand...

And so it was lovely to spend the day in Fran H-B's company as we headed for the Dickens exhibition at the Museum of London, passing the London Wall, which to my chagrin I don't think I have ever really noticed before...

Early for our 10 am tickets we nipped into Postman's Park just opposite the museum and behind St Botolph-without-Aldgate Church (the other secret is to go with a professional 'Nanny' who has prammed her way around most of the city and knows these little tucked away corners)
A neat little pond...

and there, surrounded on all sides by the towering City of London, the G.F. Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice...

Everday heroes immortalised in a plein-air gallery of exquisite, Arts and Crafts-like tiles...




No pics allowed in the Dickens Exhibition but well worth a visit if you are interested, and especially if you want to pay homage to the famous desk and the chair. Given to Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in 2008 to auction for funds and now in a private collection but on loan for this exhibition. The commentary of Dickens's essay Night Walks, narrated to a film playing on a loop in a side gallery, provided an interesting backdrop to the viewing, the occasional words would float up and out into the air... houselessness...Newgate... are not the sane and the insane equal at night as the sane lay dreaming... and it would seem completely relevant to whatever I was looking at.

From there we were headed for the William Morris Exhibition at 2 Temple Place (more of which soon) and walked via St Paul's to get there. I pass no judgement whatsoever on the Occupation or the reasons for its existence, but suffice to say we were slightly dubious about a large container of very yellow-brown liquid outside one tent. Fran suggested it was beer, the nurse in me thought more a by-product of consumption.

Anyway here's a picture of the dome with a leafless wintery accompaniment and always a splendid sight.

 

A mooch around the British Museum.

Whilst in London, and with a few hours to spare before meeting up with Helen and heading off to her talk at the V&A, I wandered into the British Museum for a mooch.

Really there can be no better place to amble as I discovered on those cold, rather grey wintery London afternoons back in the 1970s when I lived very nearby. Often I would come off duty after an early shift, everyone else would be working a late shift or the nurse's home in Bedford Place would be tip-toe quiet because my room-mate was on night-shift and still asleep, and it was also a bit chilly.

So I'd go to the British Museum for a wander.

In those days it really was, dare I say it, deathly boring to my nineteen-year old eyes and a mind full of the excitement of London life and this new career I was embarking on, but it was nearby and my feet were usually killing me, and it was free, it was quiet and it was warm. Now of course a bustling, user-friendly and inviting place, still free and if it was good enough for George Eliot (who I am discovering often visited daily) then it's good enough for me.

Being a keen Olympian I nipped up to look at the exhibition of the 2012 medals, this being the nearest I am likely to get to seeing one. Some of the ore mined at Salt Lake City, some in Mongolia, tens of thousands of tons of it to make the 4,700 medals, and each one taking about ten hours to make at the Royal Mint in Wales.

And then I just had a bit of an aimless, map-less wander and isn't it just amazing what you see.

I looked at these for ages, foot guards from umpteen years BC,
and pondered all that careful attention to the toenails and the hinges and wondered when might your average Grecian wear them ...

And then a dazzling treasure trove, the largest quantity of coins ever found in Britain (I think) and I spent a while wondering what it must have been like to be the one to dig this lot up... and I wish I could remember where it had been discovered. It might be the Hoxne Treasure??

After a wander around the Grecian urns I just followed the noise because of course the Egyptian Galleries, devoid of the living bar me on those grey 1970's afternoons, now one of the museum's main attractions for school visits. Harrassed teachers were trying to control over-excited children who were supposed to be drawing things but were mostly playing hide and seek around the antiquities.

But there they were, all me old mates...


Still a source of endless fascination forty years on.

And as I left the Museum thinking it was really time I read Penelope Fitzgerald's The Golden Child again, of course a glance upwards to the spectacular roof which illuminates even the greyest of days.

London calling..the train journey.

The train journey up to London is a bit of a distant memory now until I check out the pictures which I can never resist taking along the way, and don't you just love a good train journey in the middle of half-term week...

Somehow I ended up in a backward-facing seat which is never my direction of choice, but hemmed in on all sides, mainly by Child R, Mother of Child R and their dog, a large lurcher/collie cross called Chippy, I decided to stay put.

I had some nervous moments over R's very precarious and inordinately large cup of juice I can tell you...

And for some reason, probably because I was in the Entertainments Carriage again, I decided to watch something. I was glad of R sitting next to me who at the age of 4 & 3/4 proved completely techno competent on the screen buttons, so I watched out of the corner of my eye as she worked through the screens and lined up Angelina Ballerina for herself and then chose my film.

Now don't ask me why I chose This is It, the final Michael Jackson film, when Julie and Julia was available and I've really been wanting to see that, but I did, and it proved in strange ways not incongruent with the Paul Robeson concert I was to see that evening.

For all his flaws, what a consummate performer Michael Jackson was, meticulous and tireless in rehearsals on stage for the projected fifty venue concert tour he was about to embark on... and there we were, cynics all saying he'd never manage it. Well sadly he didn't, but had he lived, and having now seen this film, I have no doubt this would have been the slick spectacular to beat all slick spectaculars.

I can't believe I'm recommending it so highly but I am and I do, if only for its retrospective on music that, whether we like or not, has been part of our lives since the Jackson Five first hit the charts with I Want You Back in 1969. But also with the trial of his doctor in progress somehow Michael Jackson's tragic and sad demise is in the spotlight once again...and I look at him, gifted in so many ways and wonder quite how awful life and sleeplessness must have been for him to resort to what he did. What utter desperation he must have endured.

I'm not sure if I might have been singing along with my headphones in, which may be why Child R moved across the aisle to sit on on Mother of R's lap (leaving me to stress about the precarious cup of juice) but anyway we approached the sea wall at Teignmouth, and because I was facing backwards I had a completely different view of the sea. Now usually the tide is in, it's dank and overcast and it looks a little murky and menacing, but as Michael started singing I Just Can't Stop Loving You the train emerged from the tunnel and this is what I saw...

My heart wasn't downcast, but if it had been this sight...the beach we would walk along with small children and the Tinker and my mum (who lived for many years in Teignmouth)  plus the music would have been sufficient gladdening in itself.

Chippy (remember Chippy...the lurcherollie dog??) on the other hand was very downcast.

Sprawled across the aisle of the train people had to step over him and lift great huge suitcases over him precariously for the entire journey, and to the FULL VOLUME tones of Owner of Chippy and Mother of R exorting CHIPPY with much exasperation to MOVE...SHIFT...SORRY...STUPID DOG...C-H-I-P-P-Y each time, which was about every thirty seconds.

No matter by this time Michael was onto Thriller and I was gone... almost dancing perhaps.

 

 

London calling ... The Souvenir Press 60th Birthday Concert

Well London was predictably marvellous but after three full-on days, a lot of excitement and many miles walked I was ready for the train home and Devon, but plenty to tell you about.

Tuesday evening was a lovely way to kick off my week with an invitation to the Souvenir Press 60th Birthday concert. Hard to imagine an independent publisher with a more eclectic and unusual list, and run by one man, Ernest Hecht, now in his eighties, and I was honoured to have been invited. I use a lot of Ernest's books in my day job and wrote most recently about Jane Darke's Held By The Sea here. So we gathered for champagne and canapes (I'm boringly tea-total, and even more boringly am shedding some weight having decided that giving birth is no longer a valid excuse when it was twenty-six years ago, so I stuck with water) in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert hall at the Royal College of Music prior to a very special event in the Benjamin Britten theatre also in the college, and I didn't know a soul apart from Ernest. It's not something that bothers me because I'll just park myself next to someone and start a conversation and they can run when I blink if they want to.

Anyway the victims couple I plumped for turned out to be the widow and daughter of the man who discovered the Mary Rose, and what an incredible conversation we then had. Alexander McKee, whose books have been published by Souvenir Press, was long-denigrated for his supposed wild-goose chase which of course eventually found Henry VIII's flagship, and it was wonderful to reminisce about the day we all sat rooted to our TV screens back in 1982 as the ship was finally raised. Alexander McKee's daughter and widow were there of course, watching it all for real but none of us could forget that terrible moment when it all lurched sideways and almost sank again, and as of one the nation gasped.

Next it was into the theatre, an exquisite and intimate venue where we were treated to a performance by Sir Willard White and his 'Robeson Re-Explored' concert...well... quite astonishing. I hope you may be able to sense Willard White's stage presence from this picture, now add in a beautiful bass baritone voice...

Accompanied by a brilliant pianist and guitarist, Sir Willard White sang us through Paul Robeson's repertoire interspersed with dialogue about his life of which I knew very little, but now know a great deal more. There is so much more to the man than Ole Man River which Sir Willard sang as his finale before a much deserved standing ovation, but on the way he took us through spirituals, folk songs (had a job not to stand up and join in with Skye Boat Song and Joshua, both in Vocal Harem's repertoire) some Gershwin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and perhaps my favourite of the evening, Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo. A song I didn't know I liked until I heard it sung by Sir Willard White.

But how grown-up and twenty again did I feel, as I made my way back across London at 11pm to my room in The Penn Club in Bloomsbury, right opposite the old nurse's home I had lived in back in the 1970s. A good night's sleep was in order because if it was Wednesday tomorrow, then that means it was Team Edward Thomas Day.

A really lovely evening and my grateful thanks to Ernest Hecht for the invitation and a truly memorable concert and conversations.

 

Getting to Grips with Ghosts ...Susan Hill & Sarah Waters in conversation @ The Royal Society of Literature

It seems light years since that first evening of my three-day trip to London, but having arrived at lunchtime and spent the afternoon in the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green and then done a quick nip to The Women's Library in Aldgate, it was time to scoot over to The Strand. Somerset House in fact for my evening mixing it with the "Fellows" at the Royal Society of Literature because membership seems to include a great number of the nation's revered writers who have been elected in.

At this point perhaps it would be helpful to outline the current aims and objectives of the RSL founded by King George IV in 1820, to ‘reward literary merit and excite literary talent’.

'The aim of the Royal Society of Literature is to nurture, celebrate and defend Britain's outstanding tradition of writing. To this end it organises public lectures and debates, makes awards to new and established writers, and campaigns for the encouragement and appreciation of authors.'

Well I can heart all of that having discovered the RSL via a chance find of the annual magazine in Waterstone's, now readily available to the un-fellowed general public and well worth reading.

So I walked along the Embankment and climbed umpteen flights of stairs up to the venue to hear Susan Hill and Sarah Waters in conversation with Philip Hensher on the subject of ghost stories, and all to the lively accompaniment of the opening night party for the ice rink next door resonating through the walls... what a shame. A cold winter's evening in London, the building lending itself perfectly to some subdued lighting and whispered talk of all things ghostly, the Kenneth Clarke lecture theatre packed out, and all had to be spoken at full volume into microphones in order to compete with the band. Never mind, this is England, everyone soldiered on and tried to ignore it all and concentrate on the matter in hand.

Philip Hensher opened proceedings with an extract taken from Casting the Runes by M.R.James investing it with sufficient atmosphere for us all to be increasingly oblivious to the backing singers.

Asked about her own approach to ghost stories, Susan Hill cited several favourites, A Christmas Carol, The Turn of the Screw and the writing of M.R.James before elaborating on the challenge she has taken up of attempting to write slightly longer ghost stories, hence The Woman in Black and I would add Mist in the Mirror. Quoting M.R.James's economy and his own premise that whilst reticence creates effect but blatancy ruins the good ghost story, Susan proceeded to talk about the slow build up required and the constant need to stop and leave the reader waiting and wanting thus creating a fine balance between satisfied and unsatisfied.

Sarah Waters shared her own favourites, The Monkey's Paw by W.W.Jacobs and The Keepers of the Wall / Well (my apologies, I think the singers were hitting a final line so I didn't quite catch this title or the author, so that's your starter for ten) before talking about her own slant on gothic and the eruption of the irrational, the poltergeists and uncontrolled energy that she had invested in The Little Stranger whilst also applying herself to the complexities of post-war class differences.

On questioning from Philip Hensher about the malevolence of inanimate objects, Sarah Waters confirmed her fascination with this and their relevance to the ghost story whilst Susan Hill favoured the malevolence of place citing the overgrown garden as used in her recent novella The Small Hand as an example. Incidentally, concerned at avoiding any pigeon-holing into the genre of ghost story writer, Susan assured us that she has promised not to write another for five years...you read it here and if you haven't already heard the news, The Small Hand is to be televised by the BBC next Christmas.

Discussing the writing of the ghost story as a technical challenge Susan shared her tips...a list of ingredients needed to make it work, and whilst a ghost may seem obvious it is imperative that it does not induce laughter and must have a reason and purpose to be there, atmosphere to be created, a sense of place and weather, whilst Sarah Waters starts with an effect and likes to build up the uncanny within the boundaries and rules required by the paranormal whilst 'making strange'.

Asked whether ghosts have to be malevolent Susan said no and cited The July Ghost by A.S.Byatt as evidence whilst Sarah mulled over the scenario of the unwelcome return of the loved ones who may not seem as appealing as they had in life and offered John Charrington's Wedding by E.Nesbit as a good example.

Philip Hensher suggested that The Small Hand begins where M.R.James leaves off and asked how Susan created that crescendo of tension to which Susan offered her instinct and experience as a writer and feel for the pace by way of explanation.

Audience questions followed and much discussion that, despite changing cultural norms and a far less repressed society, the ghost story retains its nineteenth century popularity and perhaps that's about its timeless ability to delve into the human psyche and probe what lies beneath, perhaps it chimes with deepest fears. The talk ended with suggestions for forgotten ghost stories and authors so I came away with a nice list to explore before heading out into a cold London night to walk along the Strand with these in mind...

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton and links to several online editions here
Elizabeth Bowen - The Demon Lover
Kipling - They
Mrs Oliphant - The Open Door
Henry James - The Jolly Corner

My thanks to the RSL for the kind invitation and to the friends I met there, if you're reading this it was lovely to meet up. Now I'm sure you'll be able to add your favourite ghost stories to the list so please do, I'm in the mood for reading more.

War Horse @ the New London Theatre

There's been a good game going on in West Devon recently called 'Spot the Spielberg' because our bit of Dartmoor is one of the preferred locations for the filming of War Horse and Stephen is on our Manor, so we are taking it all very seriously.

Radio Devon ran a little phone in slot for Spielberg sightings and of course as the maestro has been staying at that nice hotel up the lane (thanks for the intelligence Jim the Postie) we'd probably have had plenty of sightings to report had we been looking. The Gamekeeper did return from the local pub with news that Stephen was in there enjoying the smelly-welly-dung-spit-and-sawdust ambience, but the GK and his ilk are very hard to impress so they all pretended not to notice, as you do.

Why is that?
Do you see someone famous and then work very hard not to notice?
I was standing right next to Angela Rippon at the counter in Boots a while back, it was her voice that gave it away of course and then I tried my utmost to be nonchalent as she bought her hairspray and I stocked up on shampoo.

If ever we go to the theatre we tend to sit up in the dress circle, foregoing the stalls as a bit too expensive and anyway you're too near and can't see everything. So when I was debating my War Horse visit with Will Rycroft, who is currently playing Major Stewart in the production, and Will very kindly offered to book my ticket for me, I sent off my cheque and guessed he'd know where the best seat might be.

Too right, Row D Seat 3 people.

Not so near the front that you are kissing the stage, but near enough to feel completely involved in the action and the exact spot where some of the most dramatic of that action takes place. I'll own up that my heart sank when a row of children filed into Row C because The Woman in Black experience remains a traumatic memory, but I should have known better than to fret because these were American children. Impeccably well-behaved (I know, I'm sure UK children can be too, just not at the Plymouth production of The Woman in Black) to the point where I didn't even notice them, and nicely short so I could see over their heads.

I suspect the story of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse is well-known, and my thanks again to Curzon who sent me both the book and the play after she had seen it a few years ago. Set in Devon on the eve of the Great War, Farmer Narracott heading to the auction three sheets to the wind blows the mortgage money on a foal which his son Albert takes on and trains up. Joey is a bit of a mix, mostly a hunter but under pressure from his father Albert teaches Joey to plough. When the war breaks out and horses are required for the Front, Albert's father sells Joey to the army and off he goes to war. Inevitably distraught at the loss of his best mate it's clear Albert, though only sixteen, will follow.

So how on earth can all that be conveyed on stage?

If you've seen it you will know how magical this is, if you haven't this trailer will give you a clue and there are also some fascinating video diaries made by the cast all available on youtube..

It's all in the ears and the breathing; as the horse's torso rises and falls it gives a clear indication of mood and I could feel my eyes welling up as soon as I caught sight of the gangly foal, let alone the fully grown Joey in battle. I was near enough to the action to catch all the delicate nuances of equine expression, the tilt of the head, the arching of the neck, the swish of the tail and the twitch of the ears, the pulling back when cautious and uncertain, the ranging forward when fearless and all so cleverly done by the puppeteers. The notion that they are puppets is quickly forgotten, the puppeteers blending seamlessly with the horses and making all the horsey noises too through what must be a physically draining performance and surrounded by a great cast of actors.

So I'm completely immersed and only just stopped myself shouting out (in true Plymouth style) at a few key moments and I won't reveal the context but there is a moment when I wanted to shout

'Put it on Joey, he'll know what to do...'

and I'm crying at puppets and I wasn't the only one with tears streaming down my face by the end either... yes I saw you man sitting next to me, but an incredible theatre experience that I can't recommend highly enough. Bookhound wasn't with me on this trip but we will definitely be going again when he is. Nor can I quite see how this is going to translate into a film though I feel sure Stephen's got that sorted, but it was good to meet up with Will Rycroft aka Major Stewart afterwards and to complement him on that clever leap onto the horse with nicely co-ordinated draw of the sword and battle charge which seemed to be heading right for D3, so my thanks to him for nabbing me that brilliant seat.

I'm not sure whether Devon has made the trek up to London to see this but I really do hope if this production goes on tour that it at least comes down to Plymouth before it heads off to New York and everywhere else. We're pretty good at horse etiquette down here, slowing down when we see riders ahead of us in the car, proceeding with caution down the lane in case there's a horse around the bend etc, so we can only hope that translates to the theatre and the horses won't be spooked by any screaming .

Back home...

Back home from London in the early hours of this morning and having left three men at home with a combined total age of 109, (and had the Tinker called round that would have upped to 194) you do wonder what may await the return. On occasion they can be like a pride of lions with some roaring boys mixed in, but all entirely capable so everything was fine and dandy in my absence but for the state of the kitchen floor, which none of them seem to notice though I am assured it was 'swept'. The Vileda and I have reclaimed that from oblivion now so all's well.

Firstly I have to say a huge thank you to Erica Wagner for those very special 'dovegreyreader asks...' replies which I think we are all agreed were something very special and a big thankyou to all of you for making Erica so welcome here.

Secondly a Happy Thanksgiving to all U.S. readers whether at home or abroad. I know from comments on here in years previous that this day means a lot to all of you wherever you are. A time for home and family and a raid on the turkey population a month before we embark on ours so I hope you all have a wonderful day.

London was everything I had planned and more, and thank you to London for not raining.


I try and walk as much as I can when I'm there, and the cold but dry weather made all that a real pleasure. You might be surprised at my train reading too because I splurged my Waterstone's card points on a copy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson for the e reader. Never have I arrived at Paddington or back in Plymouth quite so fast, or so it seemed, and yes I kept switching it on at every available spare minute on the tube as well. For all that the book is dying and e readers are it, I didn't see another single one all the time I was there, just real books, lots of them.

You'll be pleased to know I took you to plenty of places in between the reading, The Threads of Feeling exhibition at the Foundling Museum, the V&A Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green and The Wellcome Collection.

Then there was the invite ages ago from the Royal Society of Literature to attend an event there, and this I finally fulfilled on Monday evening. Susan Hill and Sarah Waters in conversation with Philip Hensher about writing ghost stories, and incidentally exciting news now made public today that Our Susan will be one of this year's Booker judges.

The Persephone Lecture this year was given by David Kynaston, author of Austerity Britain and Family Britain, and with his emphasis on the importance of womens' diaries in his research I left to catch my train last night feeling inspired all over again to write one. It would seem that the ordinariness of what many women shared in their diaries provided much of the important information required for social history research, the day to dayness of lives recorded matters a great deal.

I was also fortunate enough to meet with Matthew Hollis the author of Now All Roads Lead to France, the Last Years of Edward Thomas, to be published by Faber in August 2011 and I'm very grateful to Matthew for sparing the time to talk to me. Me new to the life of Edward Thomas and with those half-formed largely half-baked ideas shaping up into questions, Matthew sharing the details of his research and news of a book I am very much looking forward to.

And then there was War Horse.

Well what can I say? I emerged a gushing heap and it was good to meet up afterwards with fellow litblogger Will Rycroft, who currently plays Major Stewart in the production and I had to stand at the stage door and everything. How grown up was that being out on my own in London at 11.30pm.

Then as if that wasn't all enough excitement for three days, I also met up with Justine Picardie in Hampstead for a yarn and a stroll around some literary corners including paying homage at the grave of Penelope Fitzgerald which I had been wanting to visit for ages.

Not a word more, I'll be sharing it all over the next few days and weeks.

 

The Art Workers Guild wherin we must talk about the chairs.

Elaine Showalter's event for Persephone Books was held at the Art Workers Guild in Queen Square last week and a rather select and lesser-known venue it is too.
Hard to believe that as this building has been in the possession of the Guild since 1914 how many times must I have walked past it in the 1970's and never even noticed it?
Established in 1884 in an effort to bring together the disciplines of art, sculpture, architecture (and probably knitting now) it's a bit like a very exclusive club and in a way that is what it remains. Artistic work submitted for approval by a committee, even William Morris had a job to get in back in 1888 and, if membership is forthcoming, names inscribed in white on the wood panelling that surrounds the room. Names then converted to gilt after death  and the walls lined with sombre looking portraits of Past Masters of the Guild. I was delighted to be seated within the beady eyeline of my old friend Edwin Lutyens, that garrulous chap of the Thiepval Memorial on the Somme who visited us here a few weeks ago.

The issue of women members was a thorny old chestnut and it seems they weren't admitted to the ranks until the 1960s when wood engraver Joan Hassall finally chipped her way in through the door and hopefully complained vociferously about those chairs.
The seating?
Well I'm very sorry but I must mention it.
Beautiful ladder-backed, rush seated chairs based on a design by Ernest Gimson according to Gavin Stamp (who also visited us here with Edwin a few weeks ago) and I must agree with Gavin, though magnificent works of art in their own right they are mightily uncomfortable to sit on, even with the little cushions provided.
So there I perched, daintily and literally on the edge of my seat in this very atmospheric venue wondering just who else had sat there likewise down the years...C.R. Ashbee,( founder of the Chipping Campden Arts & Crafts movement and where I found myself recently)  Walter Crane, Edward Burne Jones, Sir John Betjeman, George Bernard Shaw,  Frederick Leighton, Basil Spence, Arthur Rackham...and yes, scouring current membership lists, there is just one knitter in there,
Congratulations to Rachael Matthews of Prick Your Finger.
Now there's sensible progress for you, and yet another London shop for someone to go and visit on our behalf.

Divine retribution and a dog called...

I already knew the entire run of The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden was a sell-out but perhaps they were fibbing?
They weren't so I joined the returns queue for the afternoon matinee and stood (yes stood, my poor feet) for an hour waiting.
Would God look down on his kindly, good and faithful yet lapsed servant ?
Six tickets were returned and, you guessed it, I was seventh in the queue.
Divine retribution for not forking out the £10 for St Paul's and now I'm even more determined to stay lapsed Anglican.
By this time I'd gone right off Covent Garden so I had an amble around Islington and Camden Passage and then headed off for my final hour pre-train which is always spent in Waterstone's in Piccadilly. God clearly hadn't finished with me, the heavens opened and as I sloshed in the door of that lovely old Simpsons building, bedraggled and with a tidemark of water rising slowly up my trouser legs, I walked right into an immaculately suited, tanned and coiffed Julian Clary and dog Valerie doing a book signing (Julian not the dog that is). I decisively nudged my dripping self into the ranks of heavily armed press photographers shouting 'This way Julian' ...' Pretend to sign the book Julian'  ' Smile Valerie' to grab that all-important picture for my readers. Sorry about the ghostly five-legged Valerie pic, never work with animals, that dog would not keep still.

Julian's first novel Murder Most Fab now out in paperback, the cover's pink and I didn't buy one.

Unusually tranquil train journey West, not a sign of Family Hooray as I headed into the setting sun, and now we just have to wait for The Observer on Sunday July 13th to see what all the fuss is about. Oddly the very day of the dovegreyreader event at Dartington that I know at least two people are coming to.
Will my worst fears be confirmed?
Did I look a complete idiot leaning against the wall of the Tate Modern? Did I remember to stand in that way you must to conceal chins?
What exactly did I say in the interview with Jay Rayner, or more pertinently what does Jay Rayner think I said to him ?
Shall I just hold those thoughts on his book for a while longer?

Bloggers, Boris, Ballet, Bruno and Lord Kitchener

Back to London this week for more photos for this Sunday mag piece and at this rate you'll be expecting a whole supplement plus cover given over to me me me so I'd best clarify. It's me and half a dozen others and it's a feature about bloggers and critics and this time we caused quite a stir leaning against the wall of the Tate Modern. Speaking for myself and modelling not really being my forte, we looked very inertly Band on the Run-ish (remember that album cover?), but caused enough of a commotion for passers-by who, not knowing us from Adam, also stopped to take pictures just in case we might somehow be famous. It suddenly felt like a moment of high symbolism, bloggers with backs to the wall or waiting to be shot?
We all laughed at the impossibility of it all before everyone dashed back to their day jobs and I carried on wandering around London because it was my day off and I had seven hours to kill before my train home.
Frankly, having been up since 4.45am I would have killed for a snooze on a bench somewhere.
A London wander is always fantastic when you don't live or work there and I love it. Suddenly the dirty old Thames looks like a magical river and the London skyline dazzlingly exciting and different from all the grass and trees I'm used to.

The Wobbly Millenium Bridge was in high demand for photo-shoots, there was a lot of posing in progress.
I wasn't quick enough to snap Mayor of London Boris Johnson, gone in a vanishing haze of floppy nordic hair, but I did catch these ballet dancers who, dare I say might be more pert and more pleasing on the eye than our Boris?
That might be unfair because, as yet, I have no picture of Boris in tights to make an informed comparison.

Then on to the next gathering on the bridge and this was obviously a Strictly Come Dancing event because judge Bruno Tonioli was brewing a tango with dancer Erin Boag. With apologies to Erin, I didn't really catch her best side.

Moving swiftly on across the bridge, St Paul's Cathedral perfectly placed and I realised I hadn't been in there for years. There is something uplifting about a cathedral wander, from the history in the smoothly worn flagstones beneath your feet to the soaring echoing lofty spaces, the windows and the memorials, but less so if you have to pay £10.
Now I know it costs to keep these buildings afloat but since when a compulsory £10 entry charge?
They've even covered the 'oh but I just want to sit and reflect' angle with a big sign pointing you towards a little chapel inside the door and set-aside specifically for said purpose with an on-call chaplain hovering ready to be summoned. I did wonder what would have happened if I'd pressed my case with 'but I want to reflect under the dome not in there'.
Could you legitimately be turned away from a place of Anglican worship because you didn't have £10?
Feeling even more lapsed and less and less Anglican I walked out and, ignoring all signs about no cameras /no mobiles /no candy floss / no kite-flying, snapped Lord Kitchener in quietly chilly and lonely repose behind bars.

I trudged off to have lunch in The Salvation Army cafe. They let me in without charging, perhaps I should defect? Don't be misled by any images of dreary East End hostels, The Sally Army have a state of the art headquarters by the Millenium Bridge with a beautiful light, bright cafe serving reasonably priced and very appetising food downstairs.

Then I went off on my afternoon adventures having been egged on by the West End Whingers that very morning, plus I sighted another 'celebrity' and a dog in the afternoon too, but that's enough excitement for one day.
Contain yourselves, more tomorrow.

A London Day

Just surfacing after a lovely bookish day in London yesterday, Long Barn Editorial Board meeting and then a meeting about the publicity for the Tinker's book which is all starting to build and soon he'll be donning the disguise he has at the ready so he doesn't get mobbed in the streets...he's actually very easy to clock as he insists on wearing his glasses on a luminous pink dangly chord so that he can find them easily.
Talking of glasses, if you're going to lose a pair then I think losing my Specsavers buy one get one free pair in the Groucho Club (name-drop-moment) is probably top notch.I had to go and buy some off the peg to get me back to Exeter, imagine that train journey and just having to stare at the cover, lovely though it is, of The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies. As it was I managed a hundred or so pages of my first official Bookerthon 2007 read inbetween tea and snoozing.
I did my usual little run around the bookshops,and once I'd done Piccadilly I concentrated my efforts on the Charing Cross Road end of town.I just like to get a picture of what's front of store and what's hiding round the back.
Now I'm happy to report that Marie Phillips is the buzzword of the moment.The Gods are Behaving very Badly  fantastically everywhere, just everywhere and it's so exciting. Books just flying out of the doors and Marie up into the twenty-somethings on the best seller lists with a first novel in hardback, that is amazing.
Every single shop I went in, Waterstone's, Hatchard's, Foyle's, Blackwell's and Borders had prominent displays and posters catching my eye the minute I walked in the store.All had diminishing stock of signed copies, so I what I want to know is, who is Ma Phillip?
I think Ma Phillip must now be nursing that very welcome trophy, the Author's Ailment.A repetitive strain type injury, possibly a tenosynovitis of the wrist, even having opted for the abbreviated signature that must have meant marathon sessions everywhere but I'll bet Ma Phillip is not complaining.