Musings

Thinking things through

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Cotswold Water Features

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Autumn is one of my favourite times to go out and about in the Cotswolds.  When the children are back at school and most of the tourists have gone home, the villages and parks are reasonably quiet.  It is a pleasure then to stroll around them and enjoy the peace and quiet and natural beauty.

I live in a Spa town which was founded on the health giving properties of the natural spring water so water is a common feature around here.  Indeed just off the old Roman Road to Cirencester is an area called Seven Springs.

One of the most unusual Springs is  where the water gushes out of a stone crocodile head. I love the fact that a respected cotswold stone builder from the nearby village of Hazleton built this feature in the 19th Century.  Presumably some local landowner paid for it.  The spring water has been gushing out of the crocodile’s mouth ever since.  Some days, like yesterday, after lots of heavy rain, it is a truly spectacular sight.

Many Cotswold villages have delightful streams or rivers running through them and none is more beautiful than Bourton on the Water.  This delightful town is a favourite of mine when the sun is setting and the only activity is the ducks settling down for the night.

 

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Happy Times Past

Rest not! Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time. — Goethe

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The prompt in the Weekly Photo Challenge this week is the word ‘Nostalgia’ and my friends and I are certainly feeling nostalgic today.  We had some truly upsetting news about our old school. The huge tile frieze that we created in 1999 to mark the new millennium, was destroyed in a fire.

It is hard to imagine today just what a big deal it was being on the threshold of a new millennium.  There were all sorts of apocalyptic warnings about power failures, planes falling out of the sky, computer systems not being able to cope etc. No-one really knew what would happen at midnight on 31st December 1999 or what the new millennium would mean for civilisation.  So, as St Thomas More School was such a huge part of my life, I wanted to mark the occasion with something very special and permanent.

In the early 1970’s I watched the new school building rise in the middle of an open field that had once been farmland and an orchard. There was an ancient hedgerow all around the site and just one magnificent old oak tree in what would be the playing field. When it was opened in 1975, I was having my third child so was not available for teaching. But, as I drove past the school every day, I vowed that one day I would work there.

I got my wish in 1984 when my youngest child was ready to start school. I was offered a job and jumped at the chance. The next decade was a time of great blessing as I worked in virtually every class, teaching all age groups, then became deputy Head.

In 1994 the original Headteacher was due to retire and, to my surprise, I was offered his job. He had been such an inspirational Head that the school was a joy to work in. Taking on his role, I tried to emulate him while making my own mark and bringing my own vision for the school into being.

Due mainly to the quality of the staff and their outstanding teamwork, the school became a strong and successful community, ‘an oasis of excellence’, appreciated by staff, pupils and parents alike.

In 1999, as the new millennium approached, the staff wanted to mark the year 2000 with a special feature. We wanted the whole school community to be involved in creating something totally unique and meaningful. We came up with the idea of making a large tile frieze. Each year group was asked to brainstorm their favourite lessons, subjects, or topics, and represent their ideas on paper.

Reception class, the youngest children were just 4 or 5 years old and had only just started school. They had their photographs taken in their shiny new uniforms, so that was their contribution.

The Year 1 class had helped to build a pond and were raising ducklings which they had hatched from eggs in an incubator, so they drew pictures of that. I have a wonderful memory of the day the ducklings hatched out ~ the local policeman had called up to the school on a social visit and he watched as the first duckling struggled to crack open the shell. When it finally succeeded and out popped this beautiful and perfect little bundle of yellow feathers, he was overwhelmed by emotion and had tears in his eyes.

In Year 2 the 7 year olds made their first Holy Communion as it was a Catholic school so they drew a chalice and host. Being the most significant event in the year ~ yes honestly, not SATs! That was their contribution.

Year 3 was the first year of juniors and the children enjoyed learning about Vikings and the Human Body, so they drew lovely longboats and skeletons.

In Year 4 things got much more subject focused so Maths was represented by a calculator and mathematical symbols.

In Year 5, Creative Arts such as Music, Dance, Drama and painting were the main features, so a pot of paint and a brush was drawn. Science too was represented by the planets.

By Year 6 the children were getting ready to move on to secondary school. In order to give them a taste of independence and adventure, it was our tradition to take the class away to Shropshire for a week to stay in a Youth Hostel. Here, in the Ironbridge Gorge, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, we had a wonderful time. We visited the Iron Museum, The Jackfield Tile Museum, Blist’s Hill Reconstructed Village, River Severn Museum and of course the first Iron Bridge ever built. We also had amazing night hikes, midnight feasts and parties. Altogether it was an incredible opportunity for fun and learning. So naturally the Ironbridge at Coalbrookdale was the emblem of Year 6.  Yes, again it wasn’t SATs that featured large in their lives.  How times changed!

For our frieze the staff gathered all these pictures and images together and chose the ones that would be painted on to the tiles. The Year 5 teacher, Anne Bate Williams, a wonderfully creative artist and teacher, took on the challenge of putting all the ideas together and creating a design on tracing paper which could be transferred onto numbered ‘green’ tiles. It was agreed that we would go to Jackfield Tile Museum to create the finished work.

A representative group of staff, parents and children spent a weekend at the Youth Hostel and were each given a small area of the tile frieze to paint. Anne had done a magnificent job scaling all the children’s artwork up or down so that the frieze would truly reflect the life of our school.

It was agreed that the year 2000 would go at the top, as well as the 4 trees, oak, ash, poplar and beech, which were the school emblem.  In the top corners would be tiles depicting the Ironbridge itself.  The children’s artwork would go around the edge, and at the centre would be the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove surrounded by flames.

We painted the tiles in coloured glaze.  I will never forget the atmosphere in that studio at Jackfield as we worked on the frieze.  There was a stillness and peace in the room which was truly sacramental.  While we worked, the Spirit moved in that place and heaven happened.

When we finished, the tiles were left at the Jackfield tile Museum to be fired.  A couple of weeks later they were collected and set into a frame made by Tony O’Shea, the reception class teacher’s husband.

Bishop Mervyn Alexander of Clifton RIP came in the year 2000 to celebrate the school’s 25th anniversary and he blessed the tile frieze.

Although most of the staff who worked at the school have retired or moved on now, the frieze stayed proudly in the school hall for the last 16 years and with it, a little piece of all of us who made it.  And now it is no more.

Nostalgia  in my dictionary is defined as ‘a feeling of sadness mixed with pleasure and affection when you think of happy times in the past.’  I think this sums up our feelings today perfectly.

So here I go down Memory Lane…

1984 I think, my class with great environmentalist David Bellamy
Some colleagues at a recent reunion
whole school photo from 1996
Bishop Mervyn, RIP, blessing our frieze
Year 5 December 1987
Working on the tile frieze
Anne Bate Williams getting us organised
Keith Ross adding some touches to the tile frieze
Year 6 by the River Severn at Wainlodes 1996
Year 1 by the duck pond with recently hatched ducklings
Partners
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Partners

I just have to post photos of my grandchildren to illustrate this week’s photo challenge.  The theme is Partners and these two are definitely partners when it comes to getting up to mischief.  But they adore each other!

Following on from the surprising result of our referendum on membership of the European Union this week, I feel sad that our partnership with the other European countries is coming to an end.  So many people gave so much to bring peace and partnership to Europe during the wars, not least the combined services of army, airforce and navy.  In their honour I am posting some photos I took on Remembrance Day at Westminster Abbey in London.

Airforce Wreath
Navy Wreath
Armed Forces WReath
Wall painting on side of Gloucesters’ Museum in Gloucester

I can’t resist putting in some of my favourite photos.  Of course my little Dachsund, Dayna, is a wonderful companion for me, but her hero is my husband.  When he is at the hospital for dialysis she often sits beside (or on) his slippers waiting for his return. The pair of ponies share a field near me so I guess they qualify as partners.  And of course the garden birds are my constant delight and we have a partnership.  I feed them regularly and they reward me by coming into my garden and sometimes even into the house like this little one!

Dayna the Dachsund
Missing her hero
A partnership of ponies
Rescue

And last but not least, partners for life ….literally!

My mum and Dad lived in parallel streets as children and went to the same school.  They were friends from the age of 8 and eventually married in 1945.  They were inseparable until my father died in 1993 and she followed him some years later.

terry & stella wedding

My mum and Dad on their wedding day in 1945

 

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Curve

This week I am just posting some photos that I love for WPC on the theme of curve

The first batch are from Stratford on Avon taken this April at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage and along the curve of the River Avon looking towardfs Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare and Anne are buried.

Next are some exquisite photos of Calla Lilies taken by a friend, Anne Bate-Wiliams, in her garden.  The curves are delicate and totally unmatched in the manufactured world for beauty I feel.

 

Lastly, some beautiful curves both natural and man-made that I spotted in Dorset.  The Ammonite-like decorative lampposts are in Lyme Regis and reflect the fact that many fossils are found on the Jurassic Coast.

The other photos are from Abbotsbury and Bennets Water garden

http://abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/gardens/http://www.bennettswatergardens.com/

 

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As Pure as Driven Snow

Shakespeare used snow as a symbol of purity many times in his plays.  Hamlet says to Ophelia,

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow

my summerhouse

This week I have chosen a photo I took some years ago in my garden.  There is nothing so pure as a fresh fall of snow, and when it surrounds my sanctuary it is perfect.  This is a place where I found pure peace, in which to rest, reflect and recuperate.  You can find the story behind it, and more photos here… http://wp.me/p2gGsd-eV

Musicians,  poets and artists have often taken inspiration from snow.  To commemorate the centenary of WW1 there was an original play titled Will Harvey’s War performed at our local theatre.  I was lucky enough to play a singing farm-worker in that play.  We sang some beautiful songs reminiscent of the times. One of them was “Oh Snow”, with music by Edward Elgar and words by his wife, Alice Elgar.  It was exquisite to sing.   The music is absolutely beautiful and, with complex harmonies (I sang the Alto part) arranged by Caroline Edwards, our rendition was very moving.  The purity of the music perfectly captures a fall of fresh snow drifting and whirling in the wind.

O snow, which sinks so light,

Brown earth is hid from sight,

O soul, be thou as white

Be thou as white as snow

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Then as the snow all pure,

O heart be, but endure

Through all the years full sure

Not as the snow, not as the snow.

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Royal Numbers

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On 11th June 2016 our Queen will celebrate her official 90th Birthday and her husband, Prince Philip will be 95!  These are wonderful ages to reach and definitely worth celebrating.

London is already awash with flags and the celebrations start tomorrow.  Nobody covers royal events as well as the Daily Mail so do click to see the fabulous images of London bedecked.

I’m sure there are street parties planned for cities, towns and villages throughout the UK and beyond.  On my travels through the Cotswolds I have seen lots of bunting in the streets and flags flying from shops churches, public buildings of every sort, as well as private homes and gardens.

I went to Willersey yesterday which is a gorgeous little village.  It is quintessentially Cotswolds with its duck pond, village pubs, honey coloured stone houses, and beautiful cottage gardens.  It also has a village shop which has got to have the most helpful owner in the world.  My sister in law was desperate to buy some bread to take back to her caravan for tea so she popped into the only shop in the village.  Sadly, they had sold out of bread but the owner said,

 “wait a minute I’ve just used 2 slices out of my loaf, you can have the rest of that”

He then ran upstairs to his flat above the shop and returned with the remainder of his lovely crusty seed-topped brown bread!  Can you imagine getting that level of care and service in a city or town supermarket?

Willersey was like a model village perfectly dressed for a royal themed party.  There was bunting all over the pubs, and flags flying high in the summer breeze.  Several owners had really gone overboard with the decorations in their gardens as you can see from my photos below.  One in particular had a garden table and benches covered in union flags with more flags and bunting in the trees as well as a huge flag on a flagpole.  It looked beautiful against the poppies and colourful flowers in the border.

Willersey is holding a really royal party all afternoon and evening on Saturday 11th.  I do hope the weather stays fine for them.  There will be royal themed fancy dress and hats, races to the next village, themed picnics, and lots of musical entertainment.  There will also be a royal pageant and a whole village photo for the archives.  The day’s events will be rounded off by a Toast to the Queen and everyone writing a message in a giant card for Her Majesty.

It should be lots of fun.

The Queen and her grandchildren
Stepping out
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Stepping out

The Cotswold countryside, parks and gardens are a almost swamped by luscious green foliage this year.  The early spring and wet May seem to have benefited the trees and lawns.  It is a joy to walk amongst them.

There are lambs, foals, baby rabbits and ducklings to be seen all around and my garden birds are working overtime to feed their young.  They beaver away all day long in choreographed movements almost like a dance.

I went to a local park with my little granddaughter at the weekend and she was delighted to see six cygnets that have hatched out recently.  The swans nest on an island in the lake but they come over to the grass to feed and walk their little ones.  It is amazing and heart-warming to see how many adults and children turn up in their spare time to see and photograph the new arrivals.

Swans are very protective parents so it is best not to get too close!  As Shakespeare says…

So doth the swan her downy cygnet save,

Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.

Eggs laid at Abbotsbury Swannery
Mother protecting her eggs
Swans mate for life and are very protective parents
Eloquent Barcelona
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Eloquent Barcelona

Anna in Barcelona

I’m feeling very jubilant today as my middle daughter, Anna, has started her own business in the wonderful arty quarter of Gracia in Barcelona, Eloquent Barcelona  Anna has lived and worked in Barcelona for many years, having travelled the world as a dancer and fallen in love with the Mediterranean climate.

Spain, like everywhere in the world these days, is a hard place to build a successful business.  It would give Anna so much encouragement if all my blog’s followers logged onto her website and sent her good wishes and positive vibes.  And, if you are on Facebook, could you like and share her Eloquent page please.  This would give her just the boost she needs.

I know I am her mother, BUT, she really is a multi – lingual, very talented, highly skilled and experienced, hard-working and beautiful young lady.  Not only does she provide English language lessons and tutoring for adults & teenagers (age 16-19) in Spain, but she also offers bespoke language services for businesses, including translations, editing and copywriting. She is also able to provide language & logistical support for International businesses setting up or working in Barcelona.

Anna local in Gracia Eloquent Barcelona

 Thank you

 

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A Tribute

W L Langsbury Printers front

It is quite normal these days to see small shops close down in High Streets up and down the land.  And, after a few weeks or maybe months, the passing shoppers don’t even notice they have gone or forget what was there before.  But just occasionally, a shop is so well loved by its regular customers that its closure is a genuine shock.

This was the case for me recently when I popped to W L Langsbury, the local printers in Suffolk Road.

I arrived to find a simple notice on the door saying, ‘closed due to bereavement’.  My heart missed a beat on reading this.  I hoped that it was not the lovely old printer who was known to me, and all of his regular customers, as Bill Langsbury and to his family as Lionel.

I used to pop in to Bill if I wanted anything special printed for school in my teaching days, before we had computers and photocopiers in the school office.  Then after retirement, when I became the secretary of our WI.  Many of our older members did not have email but they all needed monthly minutes and agendas as well as occasional newsletters.  I produced a master copy on my computer and then Bill printed out enough for everyone.  He did the job to perfection ~ quickly, efficiently and cheaply.  He took great delight in telling me that there is no VAT on newsletters.

It was always a joy to step inside the door of his shop.  The smell of metal, ink, wood and paper is a heady mixture, like a steam train in a timber yard.  It was for all the world like the living museums at Blist’s Hill or Beamish and yet the jobs got done if not immediately, always by the end of the day!  The machinery looked ancient, in fact one of the printing presses was a 1938 Heidelberg and it still worked perfectly.  On the walls there were pictures of Cheltenham in days gone by and posters from the 1940’s warning that ‘careless talk costs lives’! Almost every inch of wall and floor space in the front shop was used to store boxes of paper of all sizes and colours.  There was also a wonderful selection of notepads which Bill made himself from the paper offcuts.  These he sold for pennies and they were great for shopping lists or jotters.  Some were so old they still had the price in pre-decimal currency.

In the back room of the shop where the serious work was done there was a treasure trove of vintage wooden shelves and drawers full of cast metal numbers and lettering of different sizes and fonts.

High up on the walls was the ‘filing system’, which I am sure only Bill or his brother and workmate Ken could understand.  Beyond, there was a narrow hallway with a staircase leading to where Bill lived, above the shop.

I suppose I find all this a delight because my grandad had a general store in the 1950s after he left the army.  He and my grandma lived above the shop and I loved staying there.

But of course the shop would be nothing without the character of the printer himself.  I was full of admiration for him and the life he had lived over 83 years.  It is the living history that fascinates me.

Bill was born in Shepherd’s Bush, London, in December 1932 when King George V was on the throne. He moved to Ealing with his parents where his brother Ken was born in 1938.  There they lived through the short reign of King Edward V111 who abdicated in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, a divorcee.    He was a young lad of 7 when the bombs started dropping on London during the Blitz of WW2 in the reign of King George V1.  When a neighbouring house was destroyed by the bombs his parents, Harry and Queenie Langsbury moved the family to Cheltenham for safety.

After a brief stay with in-laws they lived in a cottage behind the King’s Head Pub in the Lower High Street where Queenie worked.  The boys went to church 3 times on a Sundays and went to local schools.  Bill was a keen student and talented artist enjoying cartoon drawing.  So he went on to the art college which is where he learned his printing skills.  By this time our Queen Elizabeth 11 was on the throne.

Leaving college he got a printing job in a pharmaceutical company but he had an entrepreneurial streak.  He managed to save his money, and, with the help of his brother’s paper round money, he bought his own second hand printing press by the time he was 16 and set up business in the family home.

Bill did his National Service in the catering corps with the RAF in the early 1950’s and returned to Cheltenham where his mum had bought the terraced house in what was Andover Road and is now Suffolk Road.

At first Bill, aged just 24, was printing in the front room while the family lived in the rest.  However, Bill got so many orders that he took over the back room too and the family were relegated to upstairs.

Bill’s brother Ken married and moved on to have his own family.  Bill, staying single, lived with his mum until she died aged 93.

Eventually Bill had so much work that his brother Ken came to work with him.  It is wonderful to think that these two brothers got on so well that they worked together for over 40 years.  But you couldn’t not get on with Bill.  He was an eccentric, sweet, kind gentleman.  He loved his work, his shop and his machinery.  He lived a simple life with few mod cons and no visible luxuries, but he was always cheerful.  Printing was his passion.

In 2016 W L Langsbury Printer’s celebrates 60 years in business.  To commemorate this Bill produced a special edition of his letterpress Gloucester bold calendar, containing a selection of proverbs from a collection first published in 1640.

Bill worked a normal day in his printer’s shop on 14th January 2016.  He had a problem with his leg but didn’t bother anyone about it.  This was typical, as according to his brother, Bill had not visited a doctor between 1948 and 2015 and he only went in 1948 because the National Health Service had just started and his father took the boys for a free health check!  He ran a bath and sitting on the edge his kind heart finally and peacefully took its rest.  His brother found him there next morning.

The shop is now closed and the fittings will no doubt go to letterpress collectors or to auction.  I feel sad that this delightful, Dickensian shop with its vintage machinery, which is a feast for the senses, will be open no more.

But mostly I feel sad that Cheltenham has lost a truly irreplaceable character.  I, and many other customers I’m sure will miss him greatly.

1938 Heidelberg Printing Press
Printing Press
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Once More Unto the Breach

Still in full Shakespeare mode after joining in the weekend’s events at Stratford on Avon commemorating the 400th anniversary of his death, I went to watch a brilliant version of Henry V last night.  This was performed by a young theatre group called Anticdispositions

England’s idealistic army marches to war, certain of a swift and glorious victory. France proudly rallies to defend her borders from invasion. But as nations clash, it is the common soldiers who pay the ultimate price in the bloody mud of the battlefield.

Marking both the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and the ongoing centenary of the First World War, Antic Disposition’s critically acclaimed production of Henry V returns for a season of special performances in nine stunning locations around the country.

We are still marking the First World War in Europe and this production managed to weave the horrors of that battle and the momentous events of the Battle of Agincourt together seamlessly.  It was very powerful and moving.  I honestly don’t know how they managed to pull it off with so few actors and in such a small space, but they excelled themselves.

The cast and dialogue was a mixture of French and English which was unusual but very effective.  The audience had to concentrate but the acting and pace was so good that no-one seemed to breathe or move for the whole performance.  The rendition of the famous battle speech was breathtaking.  You can watch and listen to a famous film clip of Henry’s great battle speech here :

The setting for the performance helped too.  It was performed in the Quire of the magnificent Gloucester Cathedral.  The audience was seated in the choir stalls, which were not very comfortable and it was as cold as only a vast and empty cathedral can be.  But the backdrop of the huge stained glass East Window was enough to take my mind off the discomfort.  One of the clergy who attended reminded us that the Cathedral had been in existence for almost 300 years before the Henry V came to the throne.  It was founded in 1022 as a Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St Peter.  The Abbey was dissolved in 1540 by Henry V111 and became Gloucester Cathedral the following year.  She also reminded us that the East Window had actually been in place for over 60 years before the Battle of Agincourt occurred in 1415.  A sobering thought.

By the end of the play I was again in awe of Shakespeare’s genius and overwhelmed by the architecture and history around me.  I was moved and saddened by the futility and almost inevitability of war, and the horrors it inflicts on ordinary people. I was reminded of what a difference great leadership can make to any undertaking, and uplifted by the admirable courage shown by ordinary people in desperate situations.

At Agincourt Henry V had around 6,000 English and Welshmen of whom over 5,000 were archers. They were sick with dysentery, soaked, muddy and exhausted from marching in torrential rain.  The French meanwhile vastly outnumbered them with at least 30,000, many of whom were knights and princes.  They were fresh, rested and well fed.  It is unimaginable odds.  Yet by the evening on that St Crispin’s Day, the small English army were victorious and had entered legend.

You can click to read a good article in The Telegraph newspaper about the Battle of Agincourt and why we should remember it.

We weren’t allowed to take photos during the performance so I have copied the publicity photos from the AnticDispositions website.  Hope this is ok!

Abstract
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Abstract

400 celebration face of stars4

For All Time

“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”

from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

What an enjoyable weekend I just spent in Stratford on Avon.  I was there to join in the celebration of Shakespeare’s birthday and to commemorate his death 400 years ago on 23 April 1616.

The town, where I lived during my teens, was festooned with flags and shields from almost every nation in the world.  There were banners with Shakespeare’s likeness waving high across the streets or pinned to railings.  There was blue and yellow bunting in side streets and blue and yellow market stalls along the waterside leading to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.  Shakespeare’s colours of blue and yellow amuse me as in theatre superstition wearing blue and yellow means you will forget your lines! My school uniform at Shottery Manor in Stratford was mainly purple but with blue shirts and blue and yellow striped ties. We wore straw boaters in the summer months with a purple blue and yellow band round them.  In the winter we wore purple felt hats with the same coloured band round them. Wearing the hats at the wrong angle on the head was considered a very serious misdemeanour and a detention would surely follow if spotted.

The RSC put on a special celebration, Shakespeare Live!, in honour of the occasion.  It included Opera, Comedy, Ballet, Hip-hop, Poetry, and of course extracts from the plays.  I thought the whole evening was a resounding success.  It appealed to almost everyone whatever their age or tastes in entertainment.

The well-known, justifiably renowned and much-loved, stars who took part included Judi Dench who took the part of Titania falling in love with Bottom played by comedian Al Murray.  The costumes were brilliant, the set was great, and the acting was superb.  The overall effect was slick, professional and absolutely hilarious.  I loved it.  There is a wicker sculpture of Titania and Bottom outside the theatre in the new Stratford Garden.  The flowers in it are all mentioned in the plays and the effect should be quite impressive when they grow.

Among lots of memorable performances in Shakespeare Live!, the most moving I thought was Sir Ian McKellan’s rendition of a speech handwritten by Shakespeare for the character of Sir Thomas More.  I, like most people listening I imagine, had visions of the horrific ‘Jungle’ at Calais and the wretched scenes of migrants behind the barriers and fences, which have been erected along European borders to keep them out.  Sir Ian McKellen brought tears to my eyes with this speech.  You can hear an earlier rendition of it here

The whole speech is written at the end of this post and here is a link to the very relevant and learned Shakespeare Blog.

On Sunday and Monday I indulged myself by taking a walk along the river Avon and revisiting many of the houses and museums connected with Shakespeare.  The weather was changeable but I managed to get some reasonable photos, especially at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage where the garden is a riot of spring colour with flowers including daffodils, bluebells and tulips.  I also spent some time in the newly restored Swan Theatre with its amazing abstract sculpture, ‘For All Time’ created by Steven Follen.  This representation of a head, shown in photo at the top, is made of 2000 stainless steel stars suspended from the ceiling by fine wires to make the shape of a 3 metre tall human face.  It is surrounded by other stars which closely represent the position of the constellations on the day of Shakespeare’s birth.

There are two additional places to visit in Stratford now, which in previous years were not open to the public.  One is King Edward the Sixth School for Boys, which Shakespeare attended.  His actual schoolroom is open to the public with professional actors dressed in costume teaching Latin and chatting to visitors in character.  It was a surreal experience being inside the actual classroom.  I have been to the school before in the days when Mr Pratt was Headmaster, but it was a joy to visit the most ancient parts of the building, which have been beautifully restored.

The second is Harvard House where John Harvard was born in 1607.  This is a three story Elizabethan house almost opposite New Place, the house which Shakespeare bought in 1607.  It is remarkably authentic in its preservation and restoration, with lots of oak beams and areas of ancient wall paintings.  John Harvard eventually married and emigrated to Massachusetts in America where he was a preacher and teaching elder.  When he died of TB he left 230 books and a very generous legacy to a fund for the founding of a new college.  This was to become Harvard College, the oldest institution of higher education in America.  The house is owned by the American University but looked after by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.  It is worth a visit just to see the Bible Box.  This is a beautifully carved oak box for storing the treasured Bible.  After Henry V111 declared that all bibles should be written in English (not Latin) so that they were accessible to ordinary folk who could read, it became fashionable for families to keep a Bible at home.  Wealthier families would store their bible in such a box.

Of course I visited Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare, his wife Anne, and other members of his family are buried.  It is traditional for all the dignitaries and important visitors who attend the bard’s birthday celebrations, to bring flowers to the grave.  At this time of year, when daffodils are still abundant, the sight and smell in the church is quite literally breathtaking.  There was a rather unusual floral tribute with Shakespeare’s dates on it.  It was standing on trestles with a huge candle at each corner.  It had been processed through the town earlier in the day looking rather coffin-like.

I have celebrated Shakespeare’s birthday in Stratford many times, most notably the 400th anniversary  one in 1964, but I have never before attended a commemoration of his death. It was odd as both events occurred on the same date.  But I have to say it was all very tasteful ~ well except for the countless people wearing Shakespeare masks?!

Do enjoy some of my photos below.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

Swan Theatre the oldest part of the theatre
Side of the Theatre
Foyer of Swan Theatre newly restored
The Stratford garden
Stairs to Gallery and new exhibits including the Abstract head made of Stars
The Seven Ages of Man on Stained Glass in the Swan Theatre

Queen in Stained Glass
Babe in Arms ~ 1st Age
Schoolboy ~ 2nd Age
The Lover ~ 3rd Age
Soldier ~ 4th Age
The Justice ~ 5th Age
Old Man in Pantaloons and Dying man ~ 6th and 7th Age
Holy Trinity Church

Shakespeare’s Grave
Shakespeare’s Grave
Shakespeare’s Statue
400 years Floral Tribute
400 years Floral Tribute
The font in which Shakespeare was baptised in 1564
Anne Hathaway’s Grave
King Edward Sixth School

Shakespeare’s Schoolroom
Schoolroom for younger pupils
Rear of Shakespeare’s school
Inspiration ~ Travelling players performed in Stratford when Shakespeare was a boy
Prefects table covered in initials
Portrait given to the school for the Tercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth
Around The Town

Harvard House
View of the Market from the Theatre Tower
The Stratford garden
River Avon, swans and Holy Trinity Church
The Other Place
Hall’s Croft
Hermaphroditus Staue
Flowers in Font at the Guild Chapel where Shakespeare’s Father spent a great deal of his time
Bridge Street with Flags and Bunting
Boats named after female characters in Shakespeare’s Plays
Youth Band led a procession
Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Shottery ~ very close to my old school!

The perfect cottage garden
Blossom on the trees
http://theshakespeareblog.com/2015/09/shakespeare-sir-thomas-more-and-the-immigrants/

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another….
Say now the king
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whether would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour? go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,
Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? this is the strangers case;
And this your mountainish inhumanity. 

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“O this learning, what a thing it is!”

In honour of Shakespeare I found appropriate quotes for my grandchildren.  They are my treasures, full of life, fun, personality and potential.  But what are their prospects?

Thankfully, they are too young for school yet.  They are busy enjoying whatever experiences their family can offer.  They are soaking up knowledge, developing skills, growing in understanding, and learning a rich vocabulary, as they play.  They don’t have a target in sight except to have as much fun as they can with people they love and trust.

“O this learning, what a thing it is!”

With all the furore in UK over proposals to turn all schools into academies over the next few years, I do worry for their future.

I am so concerned that I wrote to my MP and we continue to have a very rational debate about the issue.  But it is always on my mind.  That and the educational methods employed these days.

While wallowing in the peace of Kew gardens, I observed the various stages of development of the different trees and wished that one day we could have a Minister for Education who truly understands child development.

As the bard said~

“No profit grows where no pleasure is taken In brief, sir, study what you most affect”

But sadly we often seem to be saddled with pompous people who, as in the present case, have never studied either education or child development.  And, as the bard knew~

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool”

As Shakespeare knew, it is so much easier to tell teachers what to do, than to train, gain experience, develop your skills, complete further study and work night and day for the good of your pupils~

“It is a good divine that follows his own instructions I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”

I believe that each and every person, of whatever age and ability, has the right to an education which equips them with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need, to discover and learn from the past, to experience, explore and enjoy the present fully, and to enrich the future.

For this they need stimulating experiences and active learning to trigger their interest;. They need a variety of ways to express themselves (poetry, art, music, drama). And they need enthusiastic, knowledgeable facilitators/teachers/mentors/carers to work alongside them, enabling their learning.

They do not need arbitrary targets to aim for, endless tick sheets and multiple choice questions to answer, and pointless tests at the end of every learning opportunity.  Having watched my older grandchildren doing homework I can say that these methods kill any potential excitement in learning and discovering.

What was, What is, and What will be!  3 Trees on the same day, all beautiful, all allowed to develop at their own pace.  Would that children were!  Shakespeare knew it, even Solomon knew it!  Pete Seeger, the influential folk singer and activist of the 60s paraphrased Solomon’s words from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 in his song released by the Byrds in 1965 ~ Turn, Turn, Turn.  You can hear the song by clicking on ‘when they are ready’ at the end of this post!

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven”

 

London Plane Tree not yet blooming
Tree in full bloom April
Magnolia Tree in full flower
I believe children need to learn about the past, enjoy the present, and enrich the future and they will ~ given the opportunities ~ when they are ready!

Landscape ~ For ever, for everyone
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Landscape ~ For ever, for everyone

 

Tailor of Gloucester Shop on left

The Tailor of Gloucester’s Shop recreated inside and out as illustrated by Beatrix Potter

Landscape is the theme for the Weekly Photo Challenge and it inspired me to get out and about on a literary trail with my little Panasonic camera.

So many of our great writers were, and still are, inspired by the landscape.  I know I have previously blogged about Thomas Hardy’s Dorset, and I have probably exhausted my readers with photos of Shakespeare’s Stratford on Avon, so just for a change, I set off for Gloucester, and The Tailor of Gloucester’s house in particular.

I chose this because 2016 marks the 150th birthday of Beatrix Potter who wrote a delightful story about the Tailor of Gloucester following her success with The Tale of Peter Rabbit and the Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. I am auditioning this month to be part of a community choir that will perform in the Everyman Theatre’s professional production of The Tailor of Gloucester and I could not be more excited.  The theatre, in my home town, is putting on the play to celebrate the 150th anniversary, and to celebrate the fact that a new Beatrix Potter story has been discovered. The new book, called The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots, is to be published on 1 September 2016.

Beatrix Potter was passionately interested in conserving and protecting the landscape to be enjoyed by everyone.  She was a great supporter of, and benefactor to, what is now the National Trust, whose Motto is the title of this blog~ “For ever, for everyone”.  She was so generous to the trust in fact that when they moved their headquarters to the site of the Steam Museum in Swindon, they named it Heelis, which was Beatrix’s married name.  Altogether Beatrix bequeathed to the nation the 15 farms she had bought in the Lake District comprising over 4000 acres of land, farm buildings, cattle and flocks of rare Herdwick sheep.

The building which now represents the Tailor of Gloucester’s house and shop can be traced back to 1535.  It is in a historic cobbled street which leads through an ancient archway into the cathedral grounds.  Having been through many changes, the building was eventually bought by Beatrix Potter’s publisher, Frederick Warne and Co Ltd in 1978.  Using the illustrations which Beatrix did for the story, they replicated her vision of the inside and front of the building.  

While in the shop I read an account of the remarkable background to the story:

“The inspiration for this story came in May 1894 when Beatrix Potter was staying with her cousin, Caroline Hutton.  Whilst at the Hutton’s home, Harescombe Grange, which lies 5 miles South of Gloucester, Caroline told Beatrix the curious tale of a local tailor.  Closing the shop at Saturday lunchtime with a waistcoat cut out but not sewn together, he was surprised to discover when, on Monday morning he opened the shop again, that apart from one button hole, the waistcoat had been sewn together.  A tiny note was pinned to the button hole which read, ‘no more twist’.  Beatrix requested that they visit Gloucester the next day when she saw the tailor’s shop and sketched some of the city’s buildings.”

Spoiler Alert!

The actual event did of course have a much more logical prosaic explanation than the wonderfully magical one imagined by Miss Beatrix Potter.

There was an actual tailor in Gloucester called Mr Pritchard who worked in a building at the end of the lane leading to the Cathedral.  He was young and very keen to succeed.  He did have an order for a very important client which he had not managed to complete.  He left the garment all cut out when he closed up his shop on Saturday lunchtime ready to be finished on Monday.  However, his two assistants, knowing how worried he was about the garment, came back over the weekend and finished it beautifully for him.

Poor Mr Pritchard, who had obviously been worrying all weekend was amazed when he found the garment completed so beautifully.  In fact he was so surprised that he put a sign in the shop window saying he believed fairies had sewn the garment.

It was some time later that his assistants admitted their part in the mystery and his wife eventually broke the story.

But of course Beatrix had elaborated on the event as only she could, making it Christmas and the poor tailor ill.  It is believed that she actually used her Gloucester friend’s coachman, Percy Parton, as the model for her illustrations of the tailor.  Her other illustrations were drawings that she had done in and around Gloucester and Harescombe Grange.  The most identifiable picture is of College Court, the lovely old lane leading from Westgate Street to St Michael’s Gate, an ancient entrance to old Abbey, now the Cathedral precincts.

Beatrix chose number 9 College Court as the setting for her tailor’s shop and this is the building which Frederick Warne and Co Ltd purchased and restored just as Beatrix had imagined it in her illustrations.

Below are some of my photos from the actual shop.

 

The tailor’s materials
Look through the shop window
Peter rabbit by the fire
Waistcoat illustrated by Beatrix Potter and faithfully made by ladies of Gloucestershire WI
College Court as it was
Peter rabbit inside the Tailor’s shop
A view of College Court today
Beatrix Potter in Gloucester

Do enjoy some landscape photos from around the Cathedral Grounds and the Gloucester Docks close by the Tailor of Gloucester’s shop.

College Court as it was
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Getting Romantic in Stratford on Avon

Brenda and the Bard

To celebrate Valentine’s Day we treated ourselves to a weekend in Stratford on Avon.  The weather was perfect; crisp and cold with a hint of frost in the mornings, and glorious sunshine in the afternoons.  Spring is such a beautiful season in the UK and it has definitely started early this year.

I could never tire of going to Stratford.  I always learn something new about the life and times of William Shakespeare, and new details about the town catch my eye, which are worth a photograph. I find Stratford such a stimulating, yet relaxing place, whatever my state of mind.

During Valentine’s weekend there were smatterings of snowdrops under the trees in the churchyard and along the banks of the River Avon. It seems appropriate that snowdrops were brought to England in the early 16th century, so maybe Shakespeare would have seen some of the first ones.

There were white doves circling the spire of Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare is buried.  They sparkled in the winter sunshine reflecting the snowdrops below.

White Doves around steeple.JPG

At the entrance to the church I photographed the small Sanctuary Door and knocker.  This door is set into the massive 15th century doors.  I have passed through it countless times not realising its importance.  But I learned that anyone who held on to the ring in the knocker of the sanctuary door, would be let in and given protection for 37 days.  This was a custom started in Saxon times to protect poor people from the harsh penalties for crime, and even from lynch mobs.  It was upheld across the land and continued well through Shakespeare’s time until 1623.

Sanctuary Knocker

There was also a striking streetlamp outside our hotel, which I had not noticed before.  It was donated to the town by the Government of Israel.  There are wonderful decorative statues and lamps all around the town, mostly donated by ambassadors from countries where Shakespeare is revered.

Lamp donated by Israely Govt

 We stayed in the Arden Hotel, which is right opposite the Shakespeare Theatre.  In fact the building was previously owned by the theatre along with many buildings along the Waterside.  Naturally many famous people have passed through its doors over the years and inside there are some wonderful photographic portraits of famous actors in role. Put your cursor over the pictures to find the names and roles.

So my Valentine weekend was a great success, perfect weather in a beautiful season in my heart’s true home.  In the Shakespeare Centre I came across a sketch of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife and mother of his children.  It is the only known likeness of Anne and she was very beautiful.  But she looks so sad.  I suddenly saw her as a real person whom Shakespeare must have loved and missed very much.

Sketch of Ann Hathaway from her lifetime. The only one in existence

Enjoy some more of my photographs below.

The Birthplace became a Pub and Inn for some years. Shakespeare extended the house at the back.
Rear of Shakespeare’s Birthplace where his father John had a glovers business. There was a Tannery behind
Holy Trinity Church
The oldest part of the church
West Window
Beckett Chapel with Tibor Reich curtain
Handmade kneeler in the church
Ancient Carved pulpit
The Arden Hotel
Shakespeare Theatre
Theatre seen from the River Avon
Extracts from plays performed in Centre
Extracts from plays performed in Centre

 

The Art of Love
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The Art of Love

 

Keats quote on River Avon

As we will be celebrating Valentine’s Day this weekend, I thought I would post about my favourite Romantic poet.  Bless him, Keats died when he was only 25 years old but, in a truly inspired period of just three and a half years, he produced some 150 poems.  He said that love was his religion.  It is said that his best poetry was written in the last nine months of his life, when he was madly in love with Fanny Brawne, his neighbour in Hampstead where he had lived.

To follow the WPC theme for this week, which is “Life Imitates Art”, I have added an extract from one of his poems to a photo I took of the River Avon in Stratford, where I often took shade for whole summers on school holidays.

Keats (1795-1821) died in Rome when he was just twenty-five years old.  He had left his home in London’s Hampstead to seek a better climate, hoping this might cure him.  But he left behind some of the most exquisite and moving poetry ever written.

00000948Before he gave his life to poetry, he had qualified as a surgeon-apothecary at Guy’s Hospital in London.  But he had to give that up as his health was fading.  There is a beautiful bronze statue of him in the garden of the hospital, which was unveiled in 2007 by another wonderful poet, Andrew Motion.  I went to visit it with two of my dearest friends.

Keats famously said, “Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject”.

He remains to this day one of the greatest of British poets.  Who knows what he could have achieved had he not died so young of TB. But what he left us, his beautiful poetry, will survive.  And, contrary to what he thought, he will never be forgotten.  In one of his later letters to Fanny he was obviously feeling despondent, as he wrote,

“If I should die,” said I to myself, “I have left no immortal work behind me-nothing to make my friends proud of my memory-that I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered”

But of course he is remembered and he was truly loved by Fanny although her family disapproved.  She wore the ring he gave her until the day she died.

He knew that whatever sorrows, difficulties or even tragedies we face in this world, there will always be beauty in nature and art.  He wrote about this in his exquisite heroic poem, Endymion

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its lovliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkn’d ways 
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils 
With the green world they live in; and clear rills 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, 
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: …

There was a film called “Bright Star”, starring Abbie Cornish as Fanny, and Ben Whishaw as John Keats, released in 2009.  I haven’t seen it so I can’t say whether it does him justice.  But if you would like to see a clip the link is here.

Below are some photos I took in London while visiting Keats’ statue, Enjoy x

Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day everyone x x x

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Henry Stephens invented Stephens Ink and Wood Stain which was used at the buildings of the Great Exhibition of 1851

View of the Shard from St Thomas’s
Tower Bridge seen from South Bank at 11pm
Dear friends in London
Gardens opposite the Soane Museum in Lincolns Inn Fields
Keats and friends
Inside St Thomas’s Church
Inside St Thomas’s Church
Inside St Thomas’s Church
The Tower in fog
Tower Bridge in the fog
Friends by City Hall on the South bank of the River Thames
In the Plaza off Shad Thames, Southwark, London
In the Plaza off Shad Thames, Southwark, London
In the Plaza off Shad Thames, Southwark, London
Public Art
St Saviour’s Wharf. This is the area Charles Dickens knew well and he used it as the site of Bill Sykes’ murder!

 

 

 

 

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Time

It is my daughter’s birthday today, a fitting opportunity to look back over time and see how we both have changed.

Happily I see only good things when I pore over her old photos ~ from babyhood to now she has always been a gentle beauty with a strong mind.  She has an independent and adventurous personality, a big heart, a deep love of all animals (well maybe not sheep at the moment but that’s a long story), and the courage to follow her dreams and make them come true.

She’s living her dream in California now, an American citizen after 20 years working and living in Vermont.  But she is happy and visits us in England 2 or 3 times a year so I am very blessed.

I love her dearly and wish her a Very Happy Birthday.

I then got to looking over my old photos as this week’s theme is Time.  My life has not been as adventurous as Lisa’s but I have lived it to the full so far.  I loved my career and adore my family.  I have travelled a great deal ~ in Africa, Russia,  Switzerland, America, Canada, Spain, France, Norway, Austria, Finland, Karelia, Poland and Germany, so I have some wonderful experiences in my memory bank.  On the whole, life has been good to me and I hope it continues for long enough to see my children enjoy their lives and watch my wonderful grandchildren grow up.

1947
1957
1967
1975
1980
1997
2006
2014
2016
Age of Kings
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Age of Kings

Age of Kings Tibor Reich Red

Age of Kings Red

This is one of the most vibrant pieces of printed cotton I have ever seen.  It was made by Tibor Reich and I have one of the original panels, which were made for the opening of the Shakespeare Centre at Stratford on Avon in 1964.  The Centre was opened to commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth.

Tibor Reich was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1916.  His father was a wealthy businessman who had a factory making decorative braids, ribbons and haberdashery for military ceremonial uniforms and folk costumes.  Here, the young Tibor learnt about textiles and colour.   As a child he visited the factory and was spellbound.  He once said, “Here I noticed cerise, kingfisher, very bright emeralds, flame reds and deep oranges…”

Following his parents’ divorce, Tibor went to live with his grandmother and immersed himself in drawing, painting and photography.  Until, in 1933 at the age of 17, Tibor went to Vienna to continue his studies.   Already artistic, his talents blossomed in the creative atmosphere of pre-war Vienna.  He studied textile design and technology as well as architecture and poster design.  But as Nazism spread, Tibor left Vienna for England, where he went to Leeds University to continue his studies in textile technology and woven design.

Tibor brought the vibrancy and colour of his homeland, of Hungarian folk music and peasant costumes, as well as the beauty of nature, to the UK in his work.  And, not long after leaving Leeds, he moved to Warwickshire and set up his own woven textile design business in Cliffords Mill using old hand looms that he repaired and renovated.

Being totally original, he quickly established a good reputation, and worked on the highest profile contracts.  In fact it is true to say he revolutionised textiles in post war Britain with his use of colour, pattern and texture.  By the 1950s Tibor’s textile weaving business was well established and he expanded into printed designs.  His projects included the Royal Yacht Britannia, Concorde, The Festival of Britain and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre as it was then called.  Here he designed and created curtains, wall hangings and carpets each named after a Shakespearean character.

He also produced his own range of pottery called Tigo ware and designed a most unusual house for his family which was very innovative and modern.  I visited him here in the 60s as a teenager, with my mum who was in Stratford art circle and seemed to know everybody!   I was amazed by the huge onion shaped open fire which stood in the centre of the room and went right up through the house to the roof.  I had certainly never seen anything like it.  I visited again last week and took some photos.  I believe the house has been renovated and I didn’t see inside, but the garden with its earthen embankment is established now and the fir trees are huge, providing a very useful privacy screen.  Tibor did not like the idea of fences and walls, preferring natural boundaries.

In 1964 he helped to furnish the brand new Shakespeare Centre, which is in Henley Street adjoining Shakespeare’s birthplace, for its opening to mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth.  And this is where our paths crossed.

I have written before about the 1964 celebrations, which were undoubtedly one of the highlights of my life.  I worked at the Shakespeare Centre and the sights and sounds produced there I will never forget.  Shakespeare’s plays on a loop, pomanders and dried petals creating the perfumes of the Tudor age, all brought Shakespeare to life.  Added to that was the music of the age and Tibor Reich’s exquisite carpets, curtains, textile panels and wall hangings, some of which are still there today.

The tapestries and wall hangings evoked so brilliantly the scenes from the plays I loved, especially the Age of Kings panel.  This material, showing the kings from Shakespeare’s plays, was produced as stage curtains.  Panels of it were created in several vibrant colours, red, gold, orange, blue etc.  I am lucky enough to have the original red version as a wall hanging.  It was designed by Pamela Kay and made by Tibor Reich in 1964.  I also have a detail from A Tournament and an original of “garrick Jubilee”.

Recently, a new gold curtain was put up in the historic Becket chapel at Holy Trinity Church.  The chapel is dedicated to the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, who was assassinated in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170.

I went to see it last week.  The golden fabric was commissioned for the chapel by The Friends of Holy Trinity Church and comes from the Tibor archive of 20th century design stored in Stratford and in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

If you would like to see Tibor’s textile and pottery work for yourself there is a retrospective exhibition on from 29 January – August at the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6ER.  www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk

And you can even see a clip of Tibor Reich and see him at work here.

More of his work is on display at the Gordon Russell Design Museum in Broadway until 12 October, and at the V&A Museum in London.  The Tibor Reich family, son Alex and Grandson, Sam hold an archive too which they are currently using to relaunch the Tibor Ltd brand.  They are lucky enough to still live at Tibor House in Avenue Road, Stratford on Avon.  It is a beautiful tree lined road near the open countryside on the way to Warwick.

This year, 2016, marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.  I know that the whole town of Stratford on Avon is busy preparing for the massive celebrations in April.  I can’t wait to be there to join in the festivities and see what Stratford can do to match or better the celebrations of 1964.

Garrick Jubilee 1969
Age of Kings Red
A Tournament detail
Age of Kings Blue
Age of Kings Orange
Age of Kings Gold
Age of Kings detail
Agincourt
Tibor House in Stratford in original state
Tibor House today
Tibor House, Stratford on Avon 2016
Natural garden boundary at Tibor House, Stratford on Avon 2016
Rear of Cliffords Mill today
Front of renovated Cliffords Mill

 

 

Optimistic? Not really!
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Optimistic? Not really!

Wednesday is now our day for going out for a drive and maybe some lunch.  It is a precious time for both of us, especially my husband, as it makes a change from the endless hospital appointments and dialysis sessions. I love it because we get to spend time together visiting all of our favourite places, and discovering some new ones.

However, on waking last Wednesday, we were greeted by the first hard frost we have seen this winter.  It was one of those magical days when the icy mist merges with clouds low enough to touch, when every tree is decorated with nature’s icing and the ground sparkles beneath your feet.  Bravely we decided to head out anyway to a place that is very dear to our hearts, Prinknash Abbey.

I go there very often and have written about it many times before.  But I was especially keen because I had heard about a designated Holy Door at the old St Peter’s Grange.  I guess this means nothing to many if not most of my readers, but it is of great significance to me.

It has been a long tradition in the Catholic church to use the Holy Door as a symbol to mark a Jubilee.  This year has been designated a Year of Mercy by Pope Francis.  Being a practical ‘man of the people’ person, the Pope knows that most people can not just travel to Rome.  So he has allowed Cathedrals and special Holy buildings all over the world to prepare a Holy Door.  St Peter’s Grange has named the old door, pictured above, which leads into the chapel, as a Holy Door.

We all pass through doors countless times a day without a thought I’m sure, but if we stop to think about it, some doors are like portals from one reality to another.  I am reminded of the Holman Hunt painting, Light of the World, which shows Jesus standing at a door knocking.  The door has no handle so Jesus can not enter unless the door is opened from the inside to welcome Him in.  In the case of the Holy Door everyone is welcome to open it and enter into a sacred space to be at peace, to pray and to find mercy and forgiveness.

In the year 2000, the previous Jubilee year, I was lucky enough to visit Rome and see the Holy Door in St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.  That was a wonderful experience.  But the most spiritual experience I have ever had was on entering the Porziuncola of St Francis of Assissi.  St Francis loved this little church more than any other in the world. It was here he began his religious life and community in a very small way, and it was near here he came to die. Walking through the door into this little chapel is truly like walking into heaven.  It feels like holy ground.

So I was optimistic that this experience would be as good.  I have a very special hope for this year of mercy but I think I may be over-optimistic!  I read about the radical reforms that Pope Francis was introducing to the annulment process and my heart leapt.

You see I was born and raised a catholic and I lived my faith to the full. I studied in a Catholic College run by an order of nuns and I went on to teach for over 20 years in Catholic schools.  I married in the church and brought my children up in the faith.  Sadly my marriage failed and I got a divorce then an annulment in 1984.

I brought my children up alone, rather successfully I think, and stayed on my own for the next decade.  Eventually I met a divorced non catholic and, wishing to remarry with the church’s blessing, we started annulment proceedings for him.  After lots of form filling, interviews, evidence gathering, a wait of several years, and paying costs in the hundreds of pounds, our application was refused.  We then ill-advisedly appealed direct to Rome as there were changes of personnel going on in the local diocese.  This was a disaster because entirely new forms were sent from Rome which we never received.  So after many years of patient waiting, praying and suffering we tried to find out what had become of the application and were told that the case had basically been closed as we hadn’t replied, and we would have to start all over again!

We tried appealing for compassion to local priests and canon lawyers but to no avail so in 1997 we married quietly in a registry office with just 2 witnesses and no guests.  This was deeply upsetting on a personal level as it went against everything I believed in and I felt rejected by the church I had given my life to.  We have been together now for 25 years and happily married for 19 of them.  But I don’t go to church any more as I don’t feel I belong. Now we are getting older and it is still the source of much sadness.  My dearest wish is to have our marriage recognised by the church before one of us dies.  Is that too optimistic do you think? Or will Pope Francis’s reforms make it possible in this year of Mercy?

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