dovegreyreader scribbles

In Pursuit of Spring ~ Edward Thomas redux

For anyone in need of a bit of escapism, maybe a nice journey in search of spring (with apologies to the Southern Hemisphere), this year I'm giving you advance warning that tomorrow is March 21st, the day that Edward Thomas set off In Pursuit of Spring, travelling from the London suburbs, through Surrey, Hampshire and Wiltshire towards the Somerset coast.

The Vernal Equinox  for the Northern Hemisphere (should all these things have capitals...I like to think so)  is actually today, March 20th. The sun will pass north through the Earth's equator at 21.58 and will be ours again. Thank you Southern Hemisphere, we'll take care of it until it's yours again but now we can all heave a sigh and say that's it, we're there.

I read the Little Toller edition of In Pursuit of  Spring  last year, day by day, in tandem with Edward Thomas on his bicycle, enjoyed all his photographs along the way, wrote about it afterwards but wished that I had flagged it up to you all beforehand, so this year I am.

I wrote this on April 9th last year..

In Pursuit of Spring and Edward Thomas and I reached the last stage of our journey on March 31st having set off on March 21st...

Edward and his bicycle actually arrived in the Quantocks of Somerset on March 28 1913, but I was lagging behind a bit (puffing up those hills behind him). It all seemed like double-quick time to me and made me think what a joy the arrival and ready availability of a bicycle must have been in 1913. Few cars passed us on the road and I suppose the only other means of transport to cover this route would have been by horse or on foot. We did cross a few railway lines but most of the journey has been off the beaten track.

I have found so much to love about this book, especially the descriptions of landscape and place. enough to make me think that plenty of people have surely followed in Edward's cycle trail and repeated this journey (if there isn't a book on it there really should be) though I suspect they might have paid more than four shillings a night for board and lodging.

The book oozes with primary source social and cultural history too, gathered in that year as the storm clouds of the First World War were amassing. I was struck by all the pub names and started  listing them as Edward passed them, even looked a few up to find they were still in evidence. Many now Michelin starred restaurants...would Edward ever have imagined that.

I'm going to tag along with Edward again this year. It's been such a discombobulating few weeks that I think I nice ride on a pillion, and to be taken on a journey, will be just the ticket.

And does anyone have any other suggestions for good spring reading...

I would welcome more.

Meanwhile, as if proof were needed that the season hath sprung. We un-bandaged the greenhouse today and would you just look at my 'Solstice' variety sweet peas. I pinched them out back in December and I think they were grateful. Apparently less dependent on hours of daylight they might flower earlier than others. 

Wouldn't that be a fine thing...

 

 

 

Harold Page remembers Adlestrop...

I couldn't let this celebration day of Adlestrop and Edward Thomas end without revisiting this exquisite illustration and calligraphy that one of our number, Fran, shared with the Team Edward Thomas project.

Fran's father, Harold Page, who had celebrated his ninetieth birthday in 2011 was a retired British Rail architect. Into his eighties Harold took up calligraphy and book binding as a hobby and he had completed a beautifully illustrated and hand bound copy of Edward Thomas's poem Adlestrop. Harold died in 2013 but left a wonderful legacy with his artwork so it is a joy and a privilege to share it again here...

 

Adlestrop, June 24th 1914, retracing the journey....

"24th [June 1914] a glorious day from 4.20am and at 10 tiers above tiers of white cloud... then at Oxford tiers of pure white with loose large masses above and gaps of dark clear blue above haymaking and elms.
    Then we stopped at Adlestrop, through the willows could be heard a chain of blackbirds songs at 12.45 and one thrush and no man seen, only a hiss of engine letting off steam." (Edward Thomas)

 

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

 

On June 23rd Edward and Helen Thomas had  attended the Russian ballet in London, setting off the next day to visit Robert Frost in Ledbury, Herefordshire and to find summer holiday lodgings there. It is 104 years today since that journey and on June 24th 2011, as part of a shared reading project here entitled Team Edward Thomas, one of our number, Hilary, retraced the train journey that Edward Thomas and his wife Helen had taken on June 24 1914 by catching the train from Oxford to Malvern.

I thought today would be a good day to revisit Hilary's wonderfully atmospheric account.

 

It was a perfect midsummer morning when I left home: blue sky, a few clouds, birdsong. I had reserved a copy of "Under Storm's Wing" at the library and stopped on my way to the station to pick it up.

Throughout the day I was conscious of what would have seemed strange to a time traveller from 1914, and what would have seemed familiar. The vapour trails which we now take for granted as features of the skyscape on a fine day would not have been there in 1914, but a train journey is an activity which - in its essentials at least - hasn't changed. Oxford is quite a small station with only two main platforms. Facing me on the opposite platform while I waited for my train was a young soldier in desert combat dress with his kit bag. This was the first of several reminders during the day of the extent to which images from the First World War now shape our perceptions.

The train was full of people escaping for the weekend (in 1914, June 24^th fell on a Wednesday). Sitting opposite me were a young couple going to visit his parents in Hereford.  The husband was very young, intense and bookish-looking, and it was impossible not to be reminded of how young Edward and Helen were when they married and how unusual it must have been for an undergraduate to have a wife and child.

Oxford is still a very rural county, and on leaving the station the train quickly enters open countryside. Between Oxford and Worcester the only significant cluster of buildings is the market town of Evesham. The stations that remain on this stretch of track are small commuter stations with car parks. I had imagined Adlestrop in its heyday to be no more than a small country halt, but postcards show it to be a proper little station like those that still remain at Kingham and Moreton-in-Marsh.

Between stations the view from the window alternates between open fields and deep banks of vegetation, all very green in that unique English way that you only appreciate when you return to it after an absence. There are still willows in abundance and masses of pinky-purple willowherb. Probably some meadowsweet, but it's less distinctive and I can't swear to it. Many fields edged with red poppies which in 1914 had yet to gain their symbolic significance. No haycocks – it felt a bit early for haymaking, but I'm not really a country person so I can't be sure. And I couldn't help noticing that there is still a hiss from the brakes and the automatic doors when the train stops at a station.

I travelled to what is now the end of this particular route at Great Malvern. You can still change here for Ledbury, but the line no longer continues on to Dymock. Great Malvern station was a revelation – a Victorian station restored to its brightly-coloured glory with an original station clock, and no modern intrusions apart from a discreetly placed electronic departure board. 

Here I had a cup of tea and a slice of bread pudding in the platform tea room,which really deserves a write-up of its own:

On the way home the weather was cloudier and the train less crowded, so I decided to dip into "Under Storm's Wing". Slowly I realised that I had not only been replicating the journey that had inspired "Adlestrop"; I was also replicating - perhaps more closely - a second journey that Helen had made.

 

Six weeks after the hot journey on 24^th June, Helen embarked on another train journey. She set off from Hampshire with three children (her two daughters and a Russian pupil from Bedales who was boarding with them for the summer holidays) and a dog. They were heading back to the Dymock area to spend a month on a family holiday with the Frosts. Edward and his teenage son had left earlier to make the trip by bicycle; it seems unlikely that they would have been able to take much luggage with them, so presumably Helen had the family's luggage as well. It was Tuesday, August 4^th 1914 – the day war was declared. Helen writes:

  "As we proceeded on our journey it was obvious from the crowds in the stations ... that people were in a state of excitement. Families on holiday were hurrying home, reservists were being called up and soldiers recalled from leave, and everywhere the stations were thronged with trunks, kitbags and other luggage and with restless and anxious people. However, very much later than our scheduled time we reached Oxford. Here we were told to leave the train which, in the ordinary way, would have gone on to complete our journey. The station was in a state of chaos. It was now late in the day and I asked the station master when I could expect a train to Ledbury. He said he could not tell me, and advised me to stay the night in Oxford when I told him I had three children with me. But even if I had been able to afford such a thing, all available accommodation was filled, I was told by a man who had helped me with the luggage.

     So we waited and waited, after sending Edward a telegram. At last a train came in and the station master told me it was at least going in the direction of Ledbury, so I and the children got in hopefully. After a slow journey with many stops between stations, we arrived in Malvern at midnight and here we were told the train would go no further. So out we all bundled, the children tired and frightened."

Helen eventually found a cab at Malvern and arrived at her destination in the early hours, having been stopped in Ledbury by an over-zealous policeman and asked to give an account of why she was travelling by night with three children.

So this was the counterpoint to the first Adlestrop journey – not quiet and reflective, but undertaken at night by a woman on her own, weighed down with weary children, luggage and a dog.

The two journeys seem to encapsulate the bright and dark sides of Edward and Helen's life together.

Still in Pursuit of Edward Thomas

My penchant for writing down the names of the inns and pubs of In Pursuit of Spring (more than seventy by the end of the book) is only matched by Edward Thomas's obsession with noting the names and epitaphs in churchyards, and it is something that has really made me pay attention. 

I wandered across to the village church (in Sydenham Damerel, the neighbouring parish to ours but nearer to home) a few days ago with a notebook in hand. We can see the church from here and on a high summer's day it looks quintessentially Devon ...

I'm envious because this parish has an original copy of its tithe map framed and on display in the church and thankfully it can't have been in there when the church suffered the devastating fire in 1957. The tower and the bells survived but only one chancel was rebuilt.

I walk over to St Mary's several times a week, and I frequently amble between the graves, reading the headstones and wondering, but I have never taken notes before. Well, after a very engrossing hour with my notebook I realised that if ever I have a novel in me (very unlikely) there was surely a story to be written here, though it might be a bit miserable..

I could include James and Elizabeth Giddy Jasper whose son Robert died on April 2 1858 aged three months followed by another son Richard aged 2 3/4 in 1859. I usually feel sad when I see these gravestones, but I spent some time imagining their lives before the sadness...much better.

In fact perhaps there was an epidemic of something in 1859 because Richard and Eliza Freeman lost Mary Ann that year too, born in April, died in July. " Cease to grieve for children taken early from a life of pain. Ripest fruit is quickly shaken, Death to them must needs be gain."

And what on earth happened in the Serpell household...

Eliza wife of Samuel died on January 25 1879 aged thirty years along with their son Samuel aged six days

" Not dead but sleepeth."

But maybe there was some happiness in the preceding months, just a bit in the midst of the hardships.

And I'm thinking all these people probably knew each other, were friends and neighbours with the church at its centre, because unlike ours it is a tiny parish, a very knowable community and one that, unlike ours, didn't benefit from the benevolence of the Duke of Bedford. The Duke slowly bought up vast tracts of land in Milton Abbot and provided copious employment; I always envisage the Sydenham Damerel-ites having to fight for their livelihood in comparison. In fact I imagine a bit of rivalry, maybe a touch of envy because if you worked for the Duke you at least had a modicum of security.

I had been dipping into The South Country by Edward Thomas when I came across this...

'The names of the local families - gentle and simple - what histories are in them, in the curt parish registers, in tombstones, in the names of fields and houses and woods.'

And with it comes the encouragement to make notes and explore...

'Better a thousand errors as long as they are human than a thousand truths lying like broken snail-shells round the anvil of a thrush.'

I'm not a historian, I'd be dangerous if I was, so I suspect I'm going the long way around the hedges to discover what I am about the local field names along with the people who lived here in the mid-nineteenth century. Hours spent online in the library where I have free access to Ancestry and cheap printing, so the Textithe project has my full attention now I have a stitching method that feels right.

I've finished the piece about the fields surrounding us here and it is now hanging on the kitchen wall, but one of the things I noticed on the 1842 tithe map were a number of farms around us that have long since vanished, swallowed up by their neighbours, no longer in existence, their names unknown by all but a few in 2018. It seemed a natural progression to quilt some of them back into life so I am currently busy resurrecting Newton Farm on the banks of the Tamar (owned by the Duke of Bedford), with its four long-gone dwellings and home to twenty three people on the 1841 census yet no trace of the farm by 1871.

I've been to visit our neighbours who now farm the land and we spent a fascinating hour poring over old maps and making then-and-now comparisons. They have also very kindly given me permission to hop over the gate and walk the fields whenever I want to. My Tex-tithe version of Newton is now tacked and ready for quilting and I am really looking forward to settling down with it and a good audio book (suggestions welcome).

Which book would I like to quilt into this...

What I'd give to find an old photo album, but who could afford that back in the day, so who can know what happened to farm labourer John Geake, his wife Elizabeth and their children John, Jane and William who lived at Newton in 1841...

Well in fact we do know because by 1851 our house has been built (about two miles across the fields) and they are living here with William and two more children, Alice and Ann. 

Isn't that an amazing thought. 

I hope the children played in the garden, and with thanks to Edward Thomas, still providing the inspiration a hundred years on.

 

 

In Pursuit of Edward Thomas

It is the anniversary of the death of Edward Thomas today so there will be a couple of posts dedicated to him this week.

 

'Winter may rise up through mould alive with violets and primroses and daffodils, but when cowslips and bluebells have grown over his grave he cannot rise again: he is dead and rotten and from his ashes the blossoms are springing....I had found Winter's grave; I had found Spring and I was confident that I could ride home again and find Spring all along the road.'

I'm not sure what Edward Thomas might have made of the month of March 2018. It would all have been a terrible trial on a bicycle that's for sure. Devon has had double the usual rainfall and been the wettest county in the UK, we can vouch for that.

But it rained in March 2013 too, whilst Edward Thomas was on his cycling journey In Pursuit of Spring, so what did he wear...

I have a feeling it was a suit, tie and a mackintosh but he has something to say about the whole waterproofing situation...

'I have also discovered that sellers of waterproofs are among the worst of liars, and that they communicate their vice with their goods. The one certain fact is that nobody makes a garment or suit which will keep a man dry and comfortable if he is walking in heavy and beating rain...'

What would Edward have made of lycra and breathable Gore-tex...

'At first thought it is humiliating to realise we have spent many centuries in this climate and never produced anything to keep us dry and comfortable in rain.'

I seem to remember we were still getting wet in the 1970s, Gore-tex had only just been invented and most of us were still making do with gaberdine and and ridiculously luminous cagoules. Mine was bright yellow, you saw me coming from a long way off. 

'We must solve the question by complaint and experiment or by learning to get wet - an increasingly hard lesson for a generation that multiplies conveniences and inconveniences rather faster than it does an honest love of sun, wind and rain, separately and all together.'

I tell you, Edward rightly has a real bee in his bonnet about all this, and when you think he still had the trenches to come.

In Pursuit of Spring and Edward Thomas and I reached the last stage of our journey on March 31st having set off on March 21st (I got a bit of  a head start on 15th) 

Edward and his bicycle actually arrived in the Quantocks of Somerset on March 28 1913, but I was lagging behind a bit (puffing up those hills behind him). It all seemed like double-quick time to me and made me think what a joy the arrival and ready availability of a bicycle must have been in 1913. Few cars passed us on the road and I suppose the only other means of transport to cover this route would have been by horse or on foot. We did cross a few railway lines but most of the journey has been off the beaten track.

I have found so much to love about this book, especially the descriptions of landscape and place. enough to make me think that plenty of people have surely followed in Edward's cycle trail and repeated this journey (if there isn't a book on it there really should be) though I suspect they might have paid more than four shillings a night for board and lodging.

Take the city of Wells for example. Wells is one of my favourite Cathedral cities and within a day's journey of us here. If we go to Bath we often go via Wells where I have a fondness for pacing out Mary Rand's Tokyo Olympic Gold medal-winning jump inset in brass in the pavement near the Cathedral.

As he approaches Wells, Edward Thomas sets the scene...

'At a turning overshadowed by trees, at Dulcote, a path travels straight through green meadows to Wells, and to the three towers of the Cathedral at the foot of a horizontal terrace-like spur of oak, pine and beech, that juts out from the main line of  Mendip leftwards or southwards.'

I'd like to think those meadows haven't been consumed by a housing estate or a motorway now, but if they have at least there is a record of the way it was. (worse things may have happened, I've just done a search and seen the words 'Dulcote Rubbish Tip')

Moving swiftly on to Wells itself...

'Rooks inhabited the elm tops and swans the water. Rooks are essential to a cathedral anywhere, but Wells is perfected by swans. On the warm palace roof behind the wall - a roof smouldering mellow in the sun - pigeons lay still ecclesiastically...'

And Edward talks about the houses that you see in close proximity to any Cathedral, 'discreet, decent, quiet houses.' I had never thought of that before but Exeter has them too, in Cathedral Close. In fact, doesn't the fictional (but no less real for that) Simon Serraillier live in just such close and peaceful circumstances to the Cathedral in Susan Hill's Lafferton.

More pursuing of Spring to come because this has been exactly the right read at the right time for me this year, lots of inspiration. And meanwhile, in pursuit of more Edward Thomas reading in recent weeks I have found a couple of little gems.

Here is the first...

Edward Thomas A Mirror of England by Eliane Wilson with calligraphy and illustrations by Frederick Marns. Published in 1985, I took a chance on this at 1p plus postage from You Know Where.

A pristine hardback copy appeared from a prolific marketplace seller whose usual assessment of a second-hand book's condition I always find a little optimistic, so this was a Pleasing. The book has an informative introduction that added more to my knowledge rather than repeating the usual biographical information and the selection of poems is beautiful. Somehow made even more so by the exquisite calligraphy.

I'll leave you with this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Pursuit of Spring ~ Edward Thomas & an Easter Gallimaufry

I'm settling into an Easter break on here, as has been my tradition since starting dovegreyreader scribbles twelve years ago, but can you believe I missed the blog birthday on March 6. I think it's because that is now the anniversary of the day we said goodbye to The Tinker, and also this year, by chance, the day my bus pass arrived. As well as remembering my dad I was too exercised in wondering where I might find a bus...he'd have loved it. So a belated thank you to all of you as always for being there, for reading and commenting and for supporting the scribbles as we head into our thirteenth year and towards four million page views...eek.

The Easter break has its origins in childhood recollections of Holy Week, and especially one of not being allowed out to play on Good Friday, and certainly not on any Sunday, but especially Easter Sunday. I might be lapsed in any regular Anglican observance but not in the traditions, or the chance to take a bit of time out to be quiet. I have been sewing and listening to some wonderful choral music on Radio 3.

I have finally found the right format for the quilted tithe map. I wanted to stitch the names of the fields around home back into existence from that original 1842 map and had done all the research at the Devon Heritage Centre and Tavistock Library.

You might recall, this was my first attempt with the sewing machine. Bondaweb, bias strips, hours of Bernina blanket stitch...

But somehow it didn't feel right. It was too stiff, lacked life and contours and much more besides. In fact it seemed to lack heart, as if Bernina had made it not me. I put it away and still don't quite know how to finish it.

In the same way that I walk it all on foot rather than drive or cycle it, the land around us all needed to be hand-stitched without the help of a machine. All quilters and other craftspeople will know how much of yourself and your life you hand-stitch into a piece of work, and in my head I had a much better idea, I just needed some time to do it. Well, I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed working on this...

 Twitter seemed to like it too. More about it dreckly.

  Alongside this, and each day since March 21, I have been reading a slice of In Pursuit of Spring by Edward Thomas and also revisiting his poetry. I spotted the Little Toller edition on a recent trip to The Bookshop, and decided this might be a pleasing journey to do from my armchair while we awaited the arrival of the season.

 Edward Thomas set out to cycle from London to Somerset 'in pursuit of Spring' on Good Friday, March 21 1913 and wrote a book about his endeavours. As Edward gazes over Salisbury Plain I could feel myself gazing alongside...

'It makes us feel the age of the earth, the greatness of Time, Space and Nature; the littleness of man even in an aeroplane, the fact that the earth does not belong to man, but man to the earth'

It's a feeling I get when I stand up at the woods and look across the Tamar Valley...

So much detail has caught my attention, not least following Edward's route on Google Earth. He describes the landscape in such detail  that it is easy to do, and fascinating to find so many features still in evidence. And then looking up some of the inns that he names along the way. In fact I started to write them down, a bit like the Tinker and I and our list of 'Caravans We Have Seen' all the way to Orkney ( 'Oh there's another Coachman Mirage, that's the fourth today'.)

Rose & Thistle, Holly Bush. Jolly Sailor, White Hart, Hop Poles, Barley Mow, French Horn, Bear & Ragged Staff, Ox, Roebuck, Haunch of Venison, Round of Beef, Sea Horse, Wool Pack, Miller's Arms, Chequers, Anchor... 

Many of them still in existence today as pubs, or restaurants. This edition contains many of Edward Thomas's original photographs from his journey, and tantalisingly a few of them of unknown locations. It will be interesting to see if anyone recognises them.

And something else struck me too...the vast numbers of elm trees that Edward Thomas sees and notes...

'This is a country of noble elms, spreading like oaks, above celandine banks.'

Between Melksham and Holt in Wiltshire...

'Elms of a hundred years' growth lined the road. some upright, most lying among the wreckage of their branchwork far out over the grass...' 

Such a rare sight in the UK these days, and certainly not in anything like the numbers before Dutch Elm Disease struck in the 1960s. I had to look it up on the Forestry website to remind myself of the devastation...

'Within a decade about 20 million elms out of an estimated UK elm population of 30 million were dead. By the 1990s the number was probably well over 25 million. In lowland central and southern Britain, the new epidemic took rapid hold, especially of 'English' elm trees (Ulmus procera), during the early to mid-1970s, leading to the death of most mature English elms by the early 1980s.'

How fortunate we are, in that case, to have a little group of four old elm trees in the village, behind the church, complete with very noisy rookery. Bookhound and I went up to have a look at it yesterday...

'The rooks were now silent dots over the elms of the Trowbridge rookery...'

Not so ours, what a noisy, persistent parliament they were, and by the time you read this I should have uploaded some video onto the Instagram feed over here <<<<<<<

'To the low, dark-blue elm country away from the Plain [Salisbury] - that is, northward - and to the far wooded ridge on its horizon, the westering light was beginning to add a sleeplike softness of pale haze. Over the low hedges I saw league after league of this lower land...'

On reading In Pursuit of Spring the American poet Robert Frost encouraged Edward Thomas to write poetry and its not hard to see why.  There is so much lyricism and rhythm to this prose it was a natural progression. More about it to come.

Meanwhile, this week I shall be returning to The Magic Mountain and have a few more books lined up for some Easter reading with no idea whether they will be 'right' or not, and one in particular...

I have invested in The Friendly Ones. the new novel by Philip Hensher on the basis that I loved The Northern Clemency  (so much so that I wrote not one but two blog posts about it in 2008) I am hoping this may be 'of that ilk' because sadly much that he has written since has not appealed to me. The book is winning on cover art  ( Kleinkinderschule auf der  Kirchenfeldbrucke by Albert Anker ,1900, oil on canvas) and nice-to-hold size already but  at 600 pages...well, we'll see. I will report back.

But how about you...

Some good Easter reading lined up...

Any sewing or similar in progress...

Has Spring (or Autumn) finally sprung...

And Edward Thomas... do we still share the love.

 

 

 

 

Thaw

Over the land half freckled with snow half-thawed 
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed, 
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as a flower of grass, 
What we below could not see, Winter pass.

Thaw by Edward Thomas (written March 10 1915)

It was Edward Thomas's birthday yesterday, a day I always sit and read some of his poetry or prose whilst remembering the wonderful time we had exploring his life and work on here a few years ago. It was really cheering to find so many poems about Spring as I read.

Having posted 'Thaw' on Instagram, with a picture of our 'freckled land', can you imagine how thrilled I was to receive a comment from the poet's great-grandaughter (we follow each other's images but I had no idea of her connection).

I just wanted to record the moment here for posterity too as the big thaw sets in. The ice on our granite trough is creating a work of art...

And let's hope winter is indeed passing here in the Northern Hemisphere, the baton will soon be yours Southern Hemisphere friends.

Edward Thomas ~ 9th April 1917

Some of you may recall that back in 2011 a group of us (Team Edward Thomas) read Now All Roads Lead to France by Matthew Hollis and then shared thoughts about the book on here, and for anyone who is interested the posts are gathered here. It was a wonderful shared reading experience that also included a meet-up in London to visit the Faber archive followed by tea at the Covent Garden Hotel with Matthew Hollis. Fran rounded off the project with a visit to Edward Thomas's grave in France on behalf of us all, and today, on the centenary of his death in World War I, it seemed like a good opportunity to revisit that original post and Fran's incredibly moving account.

 

Agny Military Cemetery ~ a visit by Fran September 19th 2011

Whilst on a road trip to relatives in France recently I was able to visit Agny Military Cemetery. Arras is a short way off the main A26 road from Calais, and with the aid of local maps I had the cemetery pin pointed, and the route written down. Although I had looked at the area on Google Earth and noted it's proximity to the road into Arras it never occurred to me there would not be an entrance gate in off the road. Spotting a signpost by a wall we stopped and discovered the small footpath seen in the photo. Of course it was then I realised that this is a WW1 cemetery so no longer used. There is no need for an entrance road.



I made my way along the backs of gardens, where cosmos flowered, tomatoes and courgettes grew and children played. Two stone pillars mark the entrance, and in front of me were six long rows of identical white stones, a cross halfway up one side and three short rows by the hedges. As with all cemeteries managed by the Commonwealth War Graves commission it was immaculately kept. Flame red roses still bloomed amongst the well tended graves, and on all sides it was surrounded by large trees.



Throughout my visit I was aware of the wind in the leaves, a gentle, soothing sound. Finding row C, grave 43 took no time for it is close to the entrance. I stood in front of Edward Thomas' grave. Like some of the others it bears his rank, name, regiment and the date of death. Right at the bottom, half obscured by the plants is engraved "POET".




I have seen the house where he was born, those he grew up in and the three in Steep he lived in with Helen. Now I stood at his final resting place. All I have read of this summer about this talented yet enigmatic man ended here. So far from home, from loved ones, from his beloved English and Welsh countryside yet this is quiet corner in France now; only trees, birdsong and wind here. He may have liked the solitude, I doubt he found any when here in 1917.

Looking around I noticed two large cherry trees planted near the entrance. Iwondered is their blossom white? Does it fall like snowflakes across the grass and headstones each spring? It brought to mind "Cherry Trees" written in May 1916

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.

The day before we left for France I had gathered some rosemary from my garden along with marjoram, to lay on the grave as a tribute from the Adlestrop group . Rosemary for remembrance and the marjoram I chose as I knew it grew close to ET's memorial stone up on Shoulder of Mutton Hill in Hampshire. I had written out the last three verses of "Roads" to lay with the flowers.

Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living, but the dead
Returning lightly dance:

Whatever the road bring
To me or take from me,
They keep me company
With their pattering,

Crowding the solitude
Of the loops over the downs,
Hushing the roar of towns
And their brief multitude.

These I left on his headstone on behalf of us all.



I think I speak for everyone when I say how much I have learned reading Matthew Hollis' book, and the pleasures enjoyed on all the trails I have followed on from it. I have come to like the crisp, clean lines of verse which manage to convey so much, sometimes in not many words.

Turning back to the entrance I signed the visitor's book and photographed the entry for Edward Thomas for you all to see.



I then spent some time looking at the rest of the headstones. There are 413 burials here, and it did not take long for me to realise probably less than half had a name on them. So many simply read; "A Soldier of the Great War".



Some had a regiment added, but too many are simply unknown. I am not able to fully comprehend the horror of the trenches yet seeing row upon row of those who left no name has led me to have some awareness of the enormity of loss across Europe during 1914-1918. Agny cemetery is just one of so many all over this area. We passed at least another six on the road taken that day.

Then away we drove passing signposts with names I had read of in Edward Thomas' War Diary; Dainville, Mendicourt, Achicourt, Doullens. I was reminded of a description of the area Edward had written about in a letter to Eleanor Farjeon:

"This is a fine hilly country with trees on the roads and in a few woods. The
villages lie along the slopes above the streams, with tiled roofs and mud in
brick walls, and churches with towers and short spires something like
Sussex…...there are hardly any hedges".

The countryside around Arras is little changed today.

Any Questions...

I have a request for you today...for questions.

Curzon, a regular commenter here and a member of Team Edward Thomas, is gamely going to represent Team ET at a recording for a forthcoming edition of BBC Radio 4's Book Club with James Naughtie, where the chosen book for discussion will be Now All Roads Lead to France. The author, Matthew Hollis, will be answering the questions which Curzon has to submit by this Friday (27th) for selection prior to recording, and the programme will be broadcast on Sunday November 3rd at 4pm.

It is a book many of us loved and we had some great discussions about at the time, as well as wonderful blog posts from team members various (remember Hilary's Adelstrop train journey and Fran's pilgrimage to the war cemetery and Edward Thomas's grave on our behalf ) I for one have been reading Edward Thomas's poetry regularly ever since...

So would any of you like to suggest questions for Curzon to ask Matthew Hollis about the book??

About Edward Thomas...

About war poets...

About anything else connected...

Please do add them in comments and I will add mine too.

 

On This Day ~ Edward Thomas

It is our old friend Edward Thomas's birthday today..



and some pictures of his beloved South Downs taken by Fran, who did the memorial walk there as part of our Team Edward Thomas project a while back...

and one of my favourite poems to mark the day.

 

For These

An acre of land between the shore and the hills,
Upon a ledge that shows my kingdoms three,
The lovely visible earth and sky and sea
Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:

A house that shall love me as I love it,
Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash trees
That linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinches
Shall often visit and make love in and flit:

A garden I need never go beyond,
Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one
Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:
A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond:

For these I ask not, but, neither too late
Nor yet too early, for what men call content,
And also that something may be sent
To be contented with, I ask of Fate. 

Edward Thomas

The Dark Earth and the Light Sky ~ Nick Dear

Water water everywhere, and not a train in sight so I was desperately sorry to miss a London trip at the end of December to meet up with Kate, Curzon and Fran. We were going to see a performance of The Dark Earth and the Light Sky at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, but my ticket thankfully went to a good home.Morag who reads here, and who has also become immersed in the life and poetry of Edward Thomas after reading of Team Edward Thomas's adventures (the Adlestrop Group) last year.

My thanks to Fran who has done a write up for us, and one that makes me feel as if I was there watching.

Over to Fran...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meeting up with three ladies for the first time to attend a matinée, with lunch before, could be slightly intimidating. Yet knowing from previous occasions that everyone I have met connected with DGR and Lynne to be utterly delightful, and passionate book lovers too, I was looking forward to Saturday's outing immensely. It was tinged with sadness that the weather had stopped Lynne from coming, but meeting Morag who had taken up her offer of a ticket was a pleasure. 

Morag, Kate and Fran

Hurrying to our seats I only had a short time to take in this small theatre before the lights went down. The set was minimal, an earth floor and backdrop of blue sky with wisps of clouds, or in some scenes, starry. Few props were used and with a stage which projected well into the theatre the actors were right in our midst. It was easy to see and hear all. 

From the start I was struck by physical resemblance of the actors playing Edward, Helen and Eleanor. Edward, with his fine boned, lean face and Eleanor, quite short, dark, with gentle almost apologetic ways. I was slightly surprised by the height of Helen, who, in my minds eye, was a shorter person, but her features were straight from the photos; glasses and a circle of plaits around her head. Yet, even after thinking it over for the past few days I am not sure that Helen in real life was quite so vocal and loud. Rightly exasperated at times by Edward, but would she really have been so shrill and dismissive? I am not convinced she was. I had to keep reminding myself this was a play, written using a lot of the sources I have read, but equally one person's interpretation, and how he envisaged how it may have been. 

The play concentrated mainly on Edward's friendship with Frost and Eleanor Farjeon, his relationship with his wife Helen, and interestingly also, the strained relationship with his father. There were some flashbacks to events which happened before Robert Frost met Thomas in 1914. For those in the audience unfamiliar with Edward's life this could have been confusing, but the main thrust of the play was Edward's inability to be at peace with himself, and his relationships with friends who tried to give him the confidence he needed to write poetry. His decision to enlist gave him some kind of peace within himself although even his CO feels he has a "death wish" when he asks to be sent to the front line. 

The character of Edward came across well; his mood swings and lack of self confidence as well as his dreamy personality and love of walking. There was plenty of humor and his obvious delight in the company of Frost and Eleanor. But time and again he clashed with Helen. Her memoir tells us this, but both she and Eleanor, as a spectator to some cruel words by Edward to his wife, don't give me the impression that Helen reacted with quite such vehemence, her retorts so condemning. If this was how Helen really was (which I doubt) I am not surprised Edward went away for long stretches of time!  

The scenes between Edward and his father made clear how difficult that relationship had been, starting with Edward flunking the walking race when at school. A race which haunted him throughout his life.

Towards the end there was a scene which struck me as particularly poignant. Helen is seen trying to understand why Edward has enlisted, "on", ( his words,) " a whim". Typically as the doting wife she was, she bemoans the stiffness of his uniform while she struggles to understand what Edward has joined up for. This was more the Helen I felt I knew. This scene must have been replayed in so many houses up and down the country, especially before conscription was started in 1916. The patriotism, the " doing my duty", a mans warrior instinct to protect his family; how many thousands of women struggled to understand why just as Helen did. With the earth floor stage Edward does, of course, pick up a handful and declare he was going to war "for this". 

As part of the Adelstrop group I have immersed myself in Edward Thomas, reading several accounts of his life other than that found in Now All Roads Lead to France. Each book has given me a slightly different picture of this complicated, enigmatic man, and also his friends. Those books written by Helen Thomas and Eleanor Farjeon give first hand accounts, although there are slight discrepancies between them.

My perceptions have changed the more I have read. At first I felt Thomas was moody, melancholic and at times self pitying, yet I could see he did not shirk his responsibilities as a father and husband despite resenting the fact that it was his hack work which paid the bills. The more I read the more I saw him as a loner, a solitary and a nature lover but who also loved his friends, and enjoyed the company of like minded people. A light and dark character indeed. 

Difficult as it is to pin Edward down, Helen Thomas also comes across in different lights in her own and other memoirs; possessive in her devotion to Edward, at times despairing at her inability to help him when he was depressed. Her own insecurities become more evident as Edward becomes accepted by the literary circles of his day. She wants him all to herself, although wisely sees it better to "share" him with Eleanor Farjeon in order to diffuse what else could have been. In the play there is a meeting between Helen and Eleanor after Edward’s death which extends this thought into accusations by Helen. Another interesting speculation; I am quite sure the thought did cross her mind at times as Edward wrote and saw Eleanor a great deal in the last four years of his life, and she did talk to Eleanor of her “love” for Edward.

Seeing this play has certainly challenged some of the perceptions I have made previously and I have been thinking a lot over the past few days about it all, especially the character of Helen. Maybe Edward was a little more "hen pecked" than I had previously thought. Maybe he was driven from home by Helen herself rather than the general chaos of family life? He does state at times he felt he couldn't give her what she wanted; himself, completely. As it had been in the first heady years of their youthful courtship. 

The scene with Helen talking to Robert in 1928 about the banning of her book in the States, and Robert cutting out his dedication to her in his made me realise that in all my reading around Edward I have yet to read about Robert Frost, and hear the story from his point of view, or how his biographers perceive it.

Seeing Edward's life as a play was a delightful and moving experience. I have been re-reading since, both Matthew Hollis' book and those by Helen and Eleanor, fascinated still by his complex character. I am sure I shall continue to read what continues to be written about Thomas, the Adelstrop group has been such an enriching experience. Above all I have returned to his poetry. The end of the play with Edward reciting Lights Out gave me goose bumps. Once again I have started to dip into the poems, one at a time.

I have come to the borders of sleep, 
The unfathomable deep 
Forest where all must lose 
Their way, however straight, 
Or winding, soon or late; 
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track 
That, since the dawn's first crack, 
Up to the forest brink, 
Deceived the travellers, 
Suddenly now blurs, 
And in they sink.

Here love ends, 
Despair, ambition ends, 
All pleasure and all trouble, 
Although most sweet or bitter, 
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter 
Than tasks most noble.

There is not any book 
Or face of dearest look 
That I would not turn from now 
To go into the unknown 
I must enter and leave alone 
I know not how.

The tall forest towers; 
Its cloudy foliage lowers 
Ahead, shelf above shelf; 
Its silence I hear and obey 
That I may lose my way 
And myself. 

Edward Thomas

 

 

 

 

 

Team Edward Thomas ~ Fran's visit to Agny Military Cemetery.

Agny Military Cemetery ~ a visit by Fran September 19th 2011

Whilst on a road trip to relatives in France recently I was able to visit Agny Military Cemetery. Arras is a short way off the main A26 road from Calais, and with the aid of local maps I had the cemetery pin pointed, and the route written down. Although I had looked at the area on Google Earth and noted it's proximity to the road into Arras it never occurred to me there would not be an entrance gate in off the road. Spotting a signpost by a wall we stopped and discovered the small footpath seen in the photo. Of course it was then I realised that this is a WW1 cemetery so no longer used. There is no need for an entrance road.

I made my way along the backs of gardens, where cosmos flowered, tomatoes and courgettes grew and children played. Two stone pillars mark the entrance, and in front of me were six long rows of identical white stones, a cross halfway up one side and three short rows by the hedges. As with all cemeteries managed by the Commonwealth War Graves commission it was immaculately kept. Flame red roses still bloomed amongst the well tended graves, and on all sides it was surrounded by large trees.


Throughout my visit I was aware of the wind in the leaves, a gentle, soothing sound. Finding row C, grave 43 took no time for it is close to the entrance. I stood in front of Edward Thomas' grave. Like some of the others it bears his rank, name, regiment and the date of death. Right at the bottom, half obscured by the plants is engraved "POET".


I have seen the house where he was born, those he grew up in and the three in Steep he lived in with Helen. Now I stood at his final resting place. All I have read of this summer about this talented yet enigmatic man ended here. So far from home, from loved ones, from his beloved English and Welsh countryside yet this is quiet corner in France now; only trees, birdsong and wind here. He may have liked the solitude, I doubt he found any when here in 1917.

Looking around I noticed two large cherry trees planted near the entrance. Iwondered is their blossom white? Does it fall like snowflakes across the grass and headstones each spring? It brought to mind "Cherry Trees" written in May 1916

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.

The day before we left for France I had gathered some rosemary from my garden along with marjoram, to lay on the grave as a tribute from the Adlestrop group . Rosemary for remembrance and the marjoram I chose as I knew it grew close to ET's memorial stone up on Shoulder of Mutton Hill in Hampshire. I had written out the last three verses of "Roads" to lay with the flowers.

Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living, but the dead
Returning lightly dance:

Whatever the road bring
To me or take from me,
They keep me company
With their pattering,

Crowding the solitude
Of the loops over the downs,
Hushing the roar of towns
And their brief multitude.

These I left on his headstone on behalf of us all.

I think I speak for everyone when I say how much I have learned reading Matthew Hollis' book, and the pleasures enjoyed on all the trails I have followed on from it. I have come to like the crisp, clean lines of verse which manage to convey so much, sometimes in not many words.

Turning back to the entrance I signed the visitor's book and photographed the entry for Edward Thomas for you all to see.

I then spent some time looking at the rest of the headstones. There are 413 burials here, and it did not take long for me to realise probably less than half had a name on them. So many simply read; "A Soldier of the Great War".

Some had a regiment added, but too many are simply unknown. I am not able to fully comprehend the horror of the trenches yet seeing row upon row of those who left no name has led me to have some awareness of the enormity of loss across Europe during 1914-1918. Agny cemetery is just one of so many all over this area. We passed at least another six on the road taken that day.

Then away we drove passing signposts with names I had read of in Edward Thomas' War Diary; Dainville, Mendicourt, Achicourt, Doullens. I was reminded of a description of the area Edward had written about in a letter to Eleanor Farjeon:

"This is a fine hilly country with trees on the roads and in a few woods. The
villages lie along the slopes above the streams, with tiled roofs and mud in
brick walls, and churches with towers and short spires something like
Sussex…...there are hardly any hedges".

The countryside around Arras is little changed today.

Team Edward Thomas update...

Team Edward Thomas, comprising a group of nine brave souls who volunteered for the experiment and have been reading and discussing Now All Roads Lead to France, Matthew Hollis's biography of the last years of Edward Thomas's life, have not been idle behind the scenes.

The book has opened innumerable reading trails for many of us, digressions through Helen Thomas's memoir Under Storm's Wing giving us completely new perspectives on her life now that we have more knowledge of Edward... explorations of the lives of some of the women with whom Edward had very close friendships, including the poet Eleanor Farjeon and the artist Edna Clarke Hall. Other biographies and diversions into collections of letters and other memoirs have come onto the radar too, and Fran has topped it all off for us by taking advantage of just about every location she finds herself in, unearthing an Edward Thomas connection and sending pictures.

Fran's father, Harold, who has just celebrated his ninetieth birthday and has also been on a walking holiday in the Lake District recently, is a retired British Rail architect. Into his eighties Harold took up calligraphy as a hobby (Fran and I do like to keep our respective octogenarian fathers busy) and he had already, by chance, done a beautifully illustrated and hand bound copy of Edward Thomas's poem Adlestrop...our group's chosen working name.


Harold's exquisite illustrations have enchanted us and I am very grateful to Harold and Fran who have agreed I can post them here for you all to see.






The Team Edward Thomas project was all a bit of an experiment, but it seems to have worked and I know that I feel extremely fortunate to have been a part of it all because it somehow encapsulates what can be achieved... take one blog + one book + a group of enthusiastic readers, light the blue touch paper and off we go.

As we near the end of our shared journey with Now All Roads Lead to France, it has been a good time to reflect on what the book has done for me.

I feel I am nearer to the truth about a life that had been previously wrapped in some rather airy fairy romantic notions about a war poet tragically taken before his time and leaving us this wonderful legacy of words... well to an extent that is true, but my impressions are now tempered with the harsher and sometimes less palatable realities of Edward Thomas's life and loves. I won't reveal more because having finally sent our questions about the book off to Matthew Hollis, he may be addressing many of those issues in his responses which I will post here in due course.

This week a group of us (and we will be taking all of you along virtually of course) will be meeting up at Faber HQ in London to talk with Matthew in person... Nancy is flying over from the US to be there, so it will be our first and last gathering to talk about this book. Full report and pictures to follow of course.

I have come full circle and am back with the poems and not just Adlestrop, and remain grateful for the fact that, thanks to a combination of circumstances and friendships, Edward Thomas did allow that poetic grace to surface and make itself known.The poems really do reward close attention and I am getting a real feel for them now.

My current favoured one...

For these

An acre of land between the shore and the hills,
Upon a ledge that shows my kingdoms three,
The lovely visible earth and sky and sea
Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:

A house that shall love me as I love it,
Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash-trees
That linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinches
Shall often visit and make love in and flit:

A garden I need never go beyond,
Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one
Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:
A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond:

For these I ask not, but, neither too late
Nor yet too early, for what men call content,
And also that something may be sent
To be contented with, I ask of Fate.

I have also emerged with a much clearer understanding too of the important context of the poems on a timeline, straddling the Georgian poets and their inclination for tradition and nostalgia, via the Imagists and their precise clarity through to the Modernists spear-headed by T.S.Eliot, who just broke all the rules because that's what rules were for.

Meanwhile the redoubtable Fran again, off to France to visit family a few weeks ago, made sure that her route took her to Agny War Cemetery and a visit to Edward Thomas's final resting place on behalf of all of us.

Fran's moving account of that visit with her pictures will be on here tomorrow.

 

 

Prize draw :: Edward Thomas book bags and books

I promised a very lovely prize draw today and that's exactly what we have...

From the good people of Faber (not forgetting & Faber) nine perfectly lovely gorgeous canvas Edward Thomas book bags, and a signed copy of Matthew Hollis's own poetry collection Ground Water

And for one lucky person a bag containing signed copies of Ground Water, and Now All Roads Lead to France and a copy of Edward Thomas Selected Poems... which might not be signed.

Names in comments and these can go worldwide... oh ye very lucky people.

Now All Roads Lead to France - The Last Years of Edward Thomas ~ Matthew Hollis

Edward Thomas left the dugout behind his post and leaned into the opening a moment to fill his pipe. A shell passed so close that the blast of air stopped his heart. He fell without a mark on his body.

So Matthew Hollis recounts on the first page of Now All Roads Lead to France and I'll admit to being stunned. I had no idea of the circumstances of Edward Thomas's death and being 'stunned' can be quite a good way to start a book I think. So through all my recent reading there has been a steady bass note pulsing along in the background, and that is the Team Edward Thomas shared pre-publication read of Now All Roads Lead to France by Matthew Hollis which is published today, ninety seven years to the day since the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

I managed to squeeze in a trip to Dartington a few weeks ago to hear Matthew Hollis talk about the book, and if you find him speaking at an event near you I can highly recommend it. Somehow the use of the solid stone wall of the ancient Great Hall as a screen for Matthew's pictorial presentation seemed entirely appropriate when talking about a poet whose quintessential Englishness was being discussed.

The presentation also included a poignant moment when we listened to a recording of Helen Thomas reading Adlestrop to a backdrop of pictures.

Helen Thomas.... dear Helen and how we have all pondered Helen's life and the rather sunny account she gives in her own autobiographical writing Under Storm's Wing. Edward Thomas a depressive man who most certainly needed the freedom which Helen gave him, and how often I have pulled myself up sharp as I read of Edward's travels and sojourns with other poets and thought about Helen and her life alone with the children.

Whilst on August 4th 1914 Edward Thomas and his close friend the poet Robert Frost seemed little exercised by events in Europe, it would be Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, and Edward Thomas's interpretation of it as a serious and moral tale about taking responsibility for one's own destiny, that would eventually tip the balance of his indecision and compel him to enlist. Matthew Hollis's book takes the reader on that journey too and I have been spellbound by my very slow-paced read of Now All Roads Lead to France.

I think Team Edward Thomas have enjoyed it too and my thanks to them for sharing a flavour of their thoughts today. We have more to follow from what has been a fascinating project and I think we will have plenty of questions to ask Matthew Hollis when he stops by here to talk with us in early September.

Come back tomorrow for a really very lovely prize draw.

Hilary...

Edward Thomas’s transformation from a journeyman writer into a late-flowering poet is fascinating, but two other things stay with me after reading Matthew Hollis’s book and refuse to go away. One is the extraordinary length of the shadow cast by the First World War and our continuing feeling that what happened a hundred years ago is still relevant and still shaping us. How do we account for the extraordinary popularity of, say, Downton Abbey? It’s tempting to dismiss this as nostalgia, but there is surely more going on than that.

The second is the sexual politics of Edward Thomas’s life, which seems to have been so irrevocably determined by getting his girlfriend pregnant when he was still at university. All his subsequent decisions were influenced by his need to support a family, and it seems to me that while we are used to talking about the impact of children on women’s lives and choices, we should not forget its impact on men.  

Jeannette...

I discovered Edward Thomas by accident, while doing research on an unrelated subject. I had read an account of his interest in the young, vulnerable daughter of family friends and I saw the saddest photograph of a child --his son -- and wasn’t able to put it out of my mind.  His wife’s very frank memoir told me more than I needed to know about his unkindness toward his family and his persistent reluctance to provide for them properly.

So I had developed a strong dislike for him before I’d read anything that he’d written.

Now All Roads Lead to France is a detailed account of the redeeming choices that Edward Thomas made in what were to be the last 4 years of his life and the book has offered me a chance to give Edward Thomas the benefit of the doubt. It was a fascinating read about his extraordinary creative process and his belief in the choices he made.

Cheryl...

...As the book began to focus on the friendship with Frost and the theory and practice of Thomas’s poetry I was totally engrossed. It helps so much that this was written by a poet. I’m now looking forward to reading all of Thomas’s poetry and the poems which he influenced in Branch Lines. I want to understand more about poetic influences and the history of poetic development.

Fran H-B...

From my reading of All Roads I have discovered the childhood haunts and adult homes of E T. Standing by his memorial stone looking out over a favourite view I thought how hard it was for him to decide to enlist and leave England behind.
Yet being in uniform and the prospect of fighting in France seems to have developed his growing ability to write poetry. Did it lift his depressions despite him never seeing all the poems published? Did enforced separation from his family rather than leaving them of his own will heighten his poetic skills? Two questions I am still asking myself.

Bet...

I have to confess that before I learned about this book I had never heard of Edward Thomas, though I am very familiar with the poetry of Robert Frost and have read an anthology of WWI poets. While I was waiting for the book to make its way across the pond I found some of ET's prose and poetry at various local libraries and read Helen's memoir. I was impressed with some of the poetry and found the prose rough going. And I must also confess that I found myself thinking that ET was... a jerk! Perhaps Helen was portraying herself as more patient than she really was, but I thought it was wonderful of her to be so supportive of his living by his writing and not getting a "real" job, as his father was pressuring him to do. I doubt if very many wives, even in those days, would have been so willing to live in such poverty with a man who could have been earning so much more. I know he might have been depressed, but he seems to  have had more control over his moods when he was with those other than his family (as most of us do), so I felt he was being self-indulgent at home.

 

 Kate...

In 1914 Edward Thomas had to decide which road to take , the road to France and war or the road to America and farming with his friend Robert Frost. The latter choice seemed to be  more alarming, it would mean transporting his family and starting a new life and a new career.
Edward Thomas  had an indecisive nature, prone to depression; and he was also sensitive about his physical and moral courage. His friendship with Frost provided the encouragement and stimulus to try verse,  Hollis writes of the friendship and  the outpouring of poetry that began in November 1914. It continued to flow and he achieved much, even if not publishing success at that time. Thomas must have felt positive about this decision.
Positive too were his experiences of war, his diary shows him to have been a committed officer. The young soldiers with him must have been aware that he could have chosen a safer posting  and perhaps admired his courage.   His wife Helen* in a letter to Frost says, 'Oh, he's just fine and full of satisfaction in his work'. There appeared to be no trace of his persistent bouts of depression whilst in France.
I sense that Edward Thomas was convinced of the rightness of his choice of roads and that in the months before he died he was happier and more fulfilled than at any time in his life.

Bill and Nancy...

       Matthew Hollis ends the "Autumn - Dymock 1914" section with the sentence "Edward Thomas was about to become a poet."  In the following section, Hollis presents a detailed description of Thomas's initial efforts to write a poem that culminated in the typing of  "Up in the Wind" on Thursday, 3 December 1914.  He was 36 years old which is not too late to start writing poetry, except in Thomas's case he had only three years left to live and write. He had been encouraged to write poems by his wife Helen before he met Robert Frost in
1913.  He had been writing reviews of poetry for a number of years, he was in the company of poets and other writers many times, and discussed the writing of poetry with numerous poets, but the development of his close friendship with Robert Frost and their discussion of the language of poetry gave him the impetus to write his first poem.  Hollis's discussion of this poetic relationship is exciting to read and leads me to wonder about other such relationships that have resulted in a poet's first poem.  That Thomas did not write poems before this first poem is the real mystery here.

Adlestrop revisited..

So on June 24th Hilary retraced the Adlestropian footsteps of Edward Thomas (and we now discover his wife Helen was on that train journey too) by catching the train from Oxford to Malvern, here's her wonderful account and I particular love this very 21st century addition...

It was a perfect midsummer morning when I left home: blue sky, a few clouds, birdsong. I had reserved a copy of "Under Storm's Wing" at the library and stopped on my way to the station to pick it up.

Throughout the day I was conscious of what would have seemed strange to a time traveller from 1914, and what would have seemed familiar. The vapour trails which we now take for granted as features of the skyscape on a fine day would not have been there in 1914, but a train journey is an activity which - in its essentials at least - hasn't changed. Oxford is quite a small station with only two main platforms. Facing me on the opposite platform while I waited for my train was a young soldier in desert combat dress with his kit bag. This was the first of several reminders during the day of the extent to which images from the First World War now shape our perceptions.

The train was full of people escaping for the weekend (in 1914, June 24^th fell on a Wednesday). Sitting opposite me were a young couple going to visit his parents in Hereford.  The husband was very young, intense and bookish-looking, and it was impossible not to be reminded of how young Edward and Helen were when they married and how unusual it must have been for an undergraduate to have a wife and child.

Oxford is still a very rural county, and on leaving the station the train quickly enters open countryside. Between Oxford and Worcester the only significant cluster of buildings is the market town of Evesham. The stations that remain on this stretch of track are small commuter stations with car parks. I had imagined Adlestrop in its heyday to be no more than a small country halt, but postcards show it to be a proper little station like those that still remain at Kingham and Moreton-in-Marsh.

Between stations the view from the window alternates between open fields and deep banks of vegetation, all very green in that unique English way that you only appreciate when you return to it after an absence. There are still willows in abundance and masses of pinky-purple willowherb. Probably some meadowsweet, but it's less distinctive and I can't swear to it. Many fields edged with red poppies which in 1914 had yet to gain their symbolic significance. No haycocks – it felt a bit early for haymaking, but I'm not really a country person so I can't be sure. And I couldn't help noticing that there is still a hiss from the brakes and the automatic doors when the train stops at a station.

I travelled to what is now the end of this particular route at Great Malvern. You can still change here for Ledbury, but the line no longer continues on to Dymock. Great Malvern station was a revelation – a Victorian station restored to its brightly-coloured glory with an original station clock, and no modern intrusions apart from a discreetly placed electronic departure board. 

Here I had a cup of tea and a slice of bread pudding in the platform tea room, which really deserves a write-up of its own:

On the way home the weather was cloudier and the train less crowded, so I decided to dip into "Under Storm's Wing". Slowly I realised that I had not only been replicating the journey that had inspired "Adlestrop"; I was also replicating - perhaps more closely - a second journey that Helen had made.

Six weeks after the hot journey on 24^th June, Helen embarked on another train journey. She set off from Hampshire with three children (her two daughters and a Russian pupil from Bedales who was boarding with them for the summer holidays) and a dog. They were heading back to the Dymock area to spend a month on a family holiday with the Frosts. Edward and his teenage son had left earlier to make the trip by bicycle; it seems unlikely that they would have been able to take much luggage with them, so presumably Helen had the family's luggage as well. It was Tuesday, August 4^th 1914 – the day war was declared. Helen writes:

  "As we proceeded on our journey it was obvious from the crowds in the stations ... that people were in a state of excitement. Families on holiday were hurrying home, reservists were being called up and soldiers recalled from leave, and everywhere the stations were thronged with trunks, kitbags and other luggage and with restless and anxious people. However, very much later than our scheduled time we reached Oxford. Here we were told to leave the train which, in the ordinary way, would have gone on to complete our journey. The station was in a state of chaos. It was now late in the day and I asked the station master when I could expect a train to Ledbury. He said he could not tell me, and advised me to stay the night in Oxford when I told him I had three children with me. But even if I had been able to afford such a thing, all available accommodation was filled, I was told by a man who had helped me with the luggage.

     So we waited and waited, after sending Edward a telegram. At last a train came in and the station master told me it was at least going in the direction of Ledbury, so I and the children got in hopefully. After a slow journey with many stops between stations, we arrived in Malvern at midnight and here we were told the train would go no further. So out we all bundled, the children tired and frightened."

Helen eventually found a cab at Malvern and arrived at her destination in the early hours, having been stopped in Ledbury by an over-zealous policeman and asked to give an account of why she was travelling by night with three children.

So this was the counterpoint to the first Adlestrop journey – not quiet and reflective, but undertaken at night by a woman on her own, weighed down with weary children, luggage and a dog.

The two journeys seem to encapsulate the bright and dark sides of Edward and Helen's life together.

 

...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.

Team Edward Thomas are reading to a leisurely schedule having set ourselves an almost Adlestropian pace at which to enjoy our pre-publication reading of  All Roads Lead to France - The Last Years of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis, and a wealth of associated books leading us along a variety of trails. For those interested in reading along those trails with us you will find a list of books over here >>>> somewhere, and we will be sharing thoughts on those eventually too as well as welcoming Matthew Hollis here to answer our questions and to talk more about his book.

But we are also busy on the  tracing footsteps front.

Hilary is this very day travelling on the Oxford to Worcester train line that Edward Thomas also travelled,

and on the very same day June 24th and ninety-seven years later that his train made that unscheduled stop at Adlestrop. Even the timings will be almost identical, and though the station was a victim of the Beeching cuts in 1966 this remains a historic literary journey, so we are very grateful to Hilary for setting out on our behalf today and greatly looking forward to sharing her thoughts on here soon.

Meanwhile Fran has walked around and about the village of Steep, one time home of Edward Thomas and his family, the surrounding landscape the inspiration for much of his poetry. Fran's pictures and commentary and a wonderful moment of homage on our behalf have had us all entranced, bringing so much of what we are reading to life, so I feel sure you will enjoy them too....over to Fran.

 

Last Friday I spent a glorious afternoon following an Edward Thomas walk around Steep in Hampshire. The PDF of the walk as published by East Hampshire can be seen here.

Steep is still a small village just outside Petersfield, a small country town. Bedales school is right in the middle, where the Thomas' sent their children. Sadly the noise from the A3 road now disrupts the peace of this sleepy place, although there was plenty of birdsong to be heard on Friday. Throughout the walk the sound of blackcaps, blackbirds, thrushes, robins, wrens and dunnocks were to be heard. Both Edward in his prose and poems, and Helen in Under Storms Wing mention hearing the nightingales often whilst living here, but none heard by me although they are known to sing in the day as well as at night.

The hedgerows were full of all the flowers of which Edward Thomas wrote; dog and field roses, honeysuckle, foxgloves, elderflowers, a few common spotted orchids and when up on the open part of the hanger, cushions of thyme,marjoram, plenty of rock rose and the evidence of many cowslips. These were at their best about a month ago on the Downs near to where I live. It must have been a picture up by the memorial stone then. 

The War Memorial was sobering. I sat awhile on the bench, and counted fifty four names.
The village is not large now. Before WW1 it must have been a small, spread out rural community. Six of the names appear twice, so those families lost more than one son. The enormity of the losses felt by each and evey town and village in the country could be seen from this sad record.

 

 

On up the Shoulder of Mutton Hill and The lanes were steep sided just as Thomas describes in his prose work, full of ferns and trees over head, mainly yew, ash and beech.

The part along the stream and pond was particularly delightful; clear running water, then the silent pond fringed with iris, and a moorhen with her chicks.

The path then climbed steeply up the wooded hanger, until I reached the eastern end of Cockshott Lane, and walked along to the far end to catch glimpses of The Red House and The Bee House. Both had high hedges and I didn’t want to intrude too much as they are private homes. Walking back towards Shoulder of Mutton Hill, the road unmade for much of the way, I felt it was not that dissimilar to how it would have been when Edward walked that way with one of his children up on his shoulders. Up here there was only the sound of the wind in the trees, and the birdsong. It was worth that stiff climb....what a view. Having rained the day before I probably could see for "sixty miles", the Downs rolled away endlessly in both directions.

I spent a while near the memorial stone, and laid a bunch of wild flowers I had gathered in the afternoon, on behalf of all of us. I just wish we all could have visited together.

Then down the hill again, to see Berryfields. In the photos taken from up on the hill it is the small house set sideways on the right of the complex of buildings. I noticed the unusual way it was built of both brick and flint, and then the next day in Under Storms Wing I read Helen Thomas' description of it.


Of all their houses in Steep I think this was the one they liked best. It is in a delightful situation with views up to the wooded hills, a stream nearby and deep tunnels of lanes all round.
My last stop was at the church to see the two engraved windows, by Laurence Whistler to mark the centenary of Edward's birth.

I was met with the sad notice that one of them had been broken recently during a break in. As they are clear glass it is difficult to photograph them but it was a fitting end to such an enjoyable afternoon, and one that has brought to life much of the prose I am reading.

With thanks to Fran for that wonderfully evocative walk, and I'm sure the members of Team Edward Thomas will be along in comments soon to give their early impressions of reading so far.

But it all set me a-thinking...what of other literary walks or journeys, there must be so many, can you recommend any others??

Team Edward Thomas...

... Bet, Carol, Cheryl, Curzon, Fran, Hilary, Kate, Jeannette and Nancy (thank you Faber for a few extra copies) have all been informed and are busy doing that 'ice-breaker' thing of introducing themselves behind the scenes whilst they await the arrival of their proof copies of All Roads Lead To France by Matthew Hollis.

Do you receive me Team Edward Thomas?? Perhaps you could hop into comments and say a little about why you are as riddled with excitement as I am about all this, and where your reading trail may lead.

I can promise the rest of you a very exciting ongoing project on here once we embark because some inspired reading and 'visiting' trails including 'that' train journey have already been suggested. We are keeping in touch behind the scenes but will be sharing our thoughts and discoveries on here as we go along.

I've armed myself with a very beautiful edition of Edward Thomas The Annotated Collected Poems edited by Edna Longley and published by Bloodaxe.

In fact, you can probably guess that I have been completely seduced by the cover art, Spring in the Trenches, Ridge Wood, 1917 by Paul Nash.

There will be a fiction project coming along in the future too and a chance for another eight of you to receive a copy of the chosen book to read along with me and talk to the author ... more soon.

But War and Peace calls and having made a start on the current instalment ( Book Three Part Three, p880 and the next 34 chapters in the OUP Maude translation ..Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind...) I think we are in for an incredible discussion on the first three chapters alone this month, I've already had to read them several times over.