Surviving St. Jude

I'd been pretty blasé about the great storm that was forecast for Sunday night.  I'd survived 1987 ok in London (though the awning over a neighbouring building site was blown away and landed on top of my car, successfully flattening it).  We were out to dinner on Sunday evening and the wind was getting up, but I thought we'd been there before.  The wind funnels up our road, so there are often times when it's a bit of a battle walking down it - particularly if you're accompanied by two small dogs that might be transformed into kites at any moment.  It's even worse when there's horizontal rain in your face.

We had all of that for the final dog walk on Sunday evening.  But the scary bit was in the early hours of the next morning.  Wind howl down the chimneys is one thing, but feeling the house rock slightly is another.  Again, we'd experienced this when staying next door in No. 8 when the building works were going on here in No. 7 - that part of the building is timber-framed, so there's a degree of give in it.  When the bedside table starts rocking beside you it's a bit scary.  However, I now know that it's even scarier when you're in No. 7, in the brick-built bit, and that starts moving.  Reminding yourself that the place has stood for 200 years becomes quite difficult when the wind is hitting the side of the house like a giant hooligan.

Today, of course, the sky is clear and sunlit and it's difficult to imagine there was any problem at all.  None of the trees on the other side of the valley seem to have been toppled, and we appear to have got off rather more lightly than other places.  But I'd still like to have a good long time before we have a repeat.

Antony Mair

Fairytale endings

The story about the little girl allegedly abducted by a Roma family in Greece - and subsequently found to have been given away by her true mother, another Roma in Bulgaria - happened to surface at the same time as I'd been to see Matilda the Musical  in London, closely followed by Hänsel and Gretel  at Glyndebourne.

Four of us went to see Matilda, and two of us found the ending disconcerting: the parents, who have consistently mistreated their brainbox of a child, go off to sunnier climes, abandon Matilda to the willing care of her loving teacher.  Matilda, who has survived by dreaming of an ideal father and mother, is delighted with the outcome.  There seemed to be a subversive anti-family message here.  One of our number was of the view that it was not untypical of fairytales, where a child manages to escape from wicked parents.  This gave rise to much discussion over a dinner afterwards at Mon Plaisir, round the corner in Monmouth Street.

When it came to Hänsel and Gretel the problem was reversed.  In the Glyndebourne production the parents of the sweet-loving duo are portrayed as, respectively, a harrassed mother who doesn't hesitate to hit her offspring and a well-meaning alcoholic.  When the wicked witch finally meets her deserved end in her oven the children are reunited with their appalling parents in a loving finale that somehow lacks conviction.

In neither case were we left with an entirely comfortable ending: Matilda had arguably already been damaged by her rightful parents, while Hänsel and Gretel were probably heading for some pretty rough times.

Which brings me to the little girl in Greece.  Her rightful mother claims that she had given her to the Greek Roma family because she couldn't afford to keep her.  Now she wants her back.  I'm not sure that the future is particularly rosy for the little girl in either event.

Antony Mair

Hastings Bonfire Night again

I hadn't realised,  until I read the programme issued by the Hastings Borough Bonfire Society, that all this November 5th junketing derives from James I's decree in 1605 that the foiling of Catesby's plot to blow up Parliament was to be celebrated annually for ever after.  Why the good people of Sussex in particular, should have taken it up with such alacrity, and still use the occasion each year for torchlight processions, bonfires and fireworks, still remains a mystery.

Hastings, of course, is not the same as elsewhere, and instead of the November 5th date the townsfolk have chosen to junket at the end of Hastings Week - thus linking the commemoration of the famous battle of 1066 with that of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605.  It's always struck me as a bit curious that the Hastings population should celebrate the 1066 battle - it's rather as if the locals of Waterloo had annual festivities to celebrate a foreign victory.  The Gunpowder Plot was another matter - if you were a Protestant, that is.  And anyway, if the king tells you to have a party, who's going to protest?

So each year at the end of Hastings Week we have the torchlight procession round the town, in which a panoply of bonfire societies parade in full fig to the sound of many drums.  It's an eerie occasion, because of the dark and the torchlight and the strange outfits of the various societies.  Skulls and Victorian undertaker costumes and strange face-paint abounded last night.  Most curious of all were the members of the Burgess Hill Bonfire Society, who were dressed like Aztec Indians.  Not sure what that was about, but it added a touch of the exotic.

We'd been kindly invited to a party in a flat in Pelham Place, right opposite the fireworks on the front.  The display was pretty amazing.   James I would have been proud of it, I'm sure.

Antony Mair

Fireworks seen from Pelham Place

St. Pancras - high speed hub

The new St. Pancras - staircase fit for a ballroom

I was in London the other day, and instead of returning to Hastings had arranged to meet Paul in Rye.  This led to my discovery that little old Rye is now only an hour and a quarter away from London by train - as a result of the high speed connection from St. Pancras to Ashford International.

Café society near the Eurostar gates

My return journey was, as a result, a bit of a voyage of discovery. For starters, I  hadn't been to the new St. Pancras, which left me fairly gobsmacked.  Gone are those old days of draughty platforms and concourses that are wastelands dominated by vast boards with details of departures.  Now the trains are tucked away out of sight and the traveller is lured to shops and bars. (Since this is the departure point for the Eurostar service, it wasn't surprising that the café nearest to it should be called "Le Pain Quotidien", cleverly managing a Gallic whiff and a scriptural allusion at the same time.)

Once I had recovered from the gobsmacking, though, I got a bit lost: the thing is that the station now serves not only Eurostar but also trains to the Southeast and the East Midlands.  Finding the Ashford International train was sufficiently bewildering for me to have to ask someone in a fluorescent jacket (it wasn't clear whether they were staff or not but I thought the jacket was a bit of a giveaway) where to go.  Just as well I'd been warned by London friends to allow extra time.

The next surprise was the speed of the journey - stops at Stratford International, Ebbsfleet International and then suddenly lo and behold Ashford International (the international bit has got a bit devalued, I reckon, but it arguably adds a bit of glitz to the experience).  Until you get to Ebbsfleet International the scenery is pretty dire - a lot of concrete on either side of the tracks, broken by vistas of light industrial estates.  But suddenly, abracadabra, and you're in Ashford and ready to change over to the dinky two-carriage train that chugs along to Rye and then on to Brighton.

Rather less of the café society atmosphere near the Ashford service!

The vast infrastructural cost was all too apparent from the whole experience.  But at the same time, when the world is shrinking and we can jet off to distant lands in a few hours it seems only right to connect parts of the same country more efficiently.  This experience has rather altered my perspective on the disputed HS2 proposals.  London has become such an important economic centre of this country that it needs to be joined up to other parts - otherwise I sometimes feel that the disparity between the metropolis and the provinces is just going to get greater and greater.

There was another thing that struck me: in this hugely costly labyrinth the workers - i.e. the station staff, the barista who served me at Prêt à Manger and then, on the train, the ticket collector - were all well-trained, efficient and charming.  Everything I have read leads me to believe that they are all on low wages, and probably have to travel long distances to get to their workplace.  But you'd have thought that their sole purpose in life was to make me feel good.  No wonder tourists enjoy coming here. 

Antony Mair

Mixed events start Hastings Week

Hastings Town Hall

Michael and Elaine Short

We're now into Hastings Week - a series of local events, commemorating the skirmish that occurred nearby on October 14, 1066, and culminating in Bonfire Night this Saturday.   Last Saturday we had "Books Born in Hastings", a mini-bookfair in the neo-Gothic splendour of the Town Hall's Council Chamber, where local authors and publishers peddled their wares.  Michael and Elaine Short were there, dressed appropriately in a Mad Hatter's hat and what looked like a velvet fez, to publicise their slim volume Utter Nonsense in Hastings about the Hastings connections of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.  This is published by the enterprising Circaidy Gregory Press, a sister company of the Earlyworks Press, run by Kay Green.  Also present was Victoria Seymour, who has created an industry of local social history and writes a weekly column in the Hastings Observer.

Philip Terry

If you're at all interested in poetry you come across small publishing companies all the time.  They are usually run by idealistic and highly-motivated individuals, more for love than money.  Volumes are slim and print runs are short.  It's all the more pleasing when one of their products hits the jackpot.  This has happened to my neighbour Ken Edwards and his company Reality Street, with Philip Terry's book Tapestry, which also featured strongly in last Saturday's event.  Ken describes his company as specialising in "left-field poetry".  This means it is not always immediately accessible to the general reader.  Philip Terry has produced a book written in prose rather than poetry, which is written in what he describes as faux-mediaeval English.  It is about the making of the Bayeux Tapestry by a small convent of nuns, who each have their own story to tell.  The faux-mediaeval spelling conventions took a bit of getting used to, but once into the book I enjoyed its originality enormously.  I was delighted to hear that it had been shortlisted for the newly-established Goldsmiths Prize.

While we were sampling literary delights, classic cars had massed on the Stade for an audience of motor buffs.  Nostalgia hung heavy in the air.  Fortunately the sun also shone from an almost cloudless sky, so that the assembled vehicles glittered.  Everyone likes a bit of reminiscing, and there were lots of people for whom the gathering brought back memories of parents and grandparents: leather seats and walnut fascias, running-boards and chrome radiator grilles, picnic hampers in the boot and a rose in a silver holder on the dashboard.  Lovely stuff.

Antony Mair

It's autumn, and the opera season starts again

Nemorino pleads with the doctor for the love-potion

We were back at Glyndebourne the other evening for the opening night of Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore".  One of the better-kept secrets is the Glyndebourne Touring Company's few weeks in October and November, where you can see a terrific production from the comfort of the stalls for two thirds of the price of a seat up in the gods during the summer.  Ok, you don't have the glitz of black tie and silver service picnics, but I'm happy to settle for a seat where I can see things close up.

Adina dances with the philandering soldier

And this production was worth every penny.  The plot is slight - village dolt adores capricious girl who rejects him; he purchases fake elixir from quack, persuaded this will change her mind; his uncle dies and leaves him rich; village girls pursue him, at which point capricious girl thinks she needs to get in ahead of the competition; happy ending.  The music, however, is divine.  The two leads, sung by Christopher Tiesi, making his Glyndebourne début, and Joélle Harvey, were entirely convincing.  (Nemorino, said village dolt, is thick as two short planks but then, as the person in the seat next to mine at another performance said "He is a tenor", so you can forgive him anything.)

Nemorino pleads with Adina

 There was a lot of stage business, and the cast were obviously enjoying themselves.  So did we.

If Glyndebourne comes and goes, alas, we nonetheless have the Met Opera live transmissions to occupy us in the interim.  Last Saturday we went along to Hastings Odeon and saw the divine Anna Netrebko play Tatiana in Eugene Onegin.  It was the first opera I ever saw, around forty years ago, and I still love every minute of it.  On this occasion Piotr Beczala put in a wonderful performance as Lenski, and I was moved to tears by his aria before the duel.  There's nothing like a good weep to make you feel good.

Hastings Odeon's live transmissions can be a bit capricious, like Adina in Elisir.  There was a famous occasion last year when the subtitles were in Russian throughout the first act.  This time they started off in German, and I shot outside to tell the youthful assistant.  They managed to get them into English, but we had unfortunately lost the initial dialogue, where the whole theme of the opera is outlined by Tatiana's mother, telling of her own experience of love and marriage (basically, they don't go together).  But we got on the rails after that, and the wonders of the plot unrolled with all the sumptuous dignity of a Greek tragedy.

Antony Mair

Nemorino and the doctor's assistant

And it's back to school...

The Chaplaincy spire at Lancaster University

If there's been a bit of a gap since the last post, the reason is simple: there's been a lot happening!  chief of which is my becoming a student again.  I started my MA in Creative Writing with the University of Lancaster a few days ago.  Thanks to the miracle of internet contact, I am able to be a student at this northern establishment while sitting in the comfort of my Hastings study.  

It means, of course, that my fellow students - there are 22 of us on the course - are also in their respective cubby-holes, and that we shall not be meeting either each other or our tutors until the end of the academic year, when we make a pilgrimage to the distant north (I exaggerate - it just seems a long way from this southeastern corner) for a week on campus.

There's been a certain amount of scrambling around and a threat of toys out of the pram (you know what creatives are like) because of the software, which has had a major revision over the summer, as a result of which we are in a slight Natwest situation, with people unable to access parts of the site.  However, there are soothing messages from Lancaster gurus assuring us that these glitches are being resolved, and we have now made tentative incursions to chatrooms and forums like so many timid mice venturing out of their holes in freshers' week.  

I have said that I want to do poetry only, and find myself with Eoghan Walls as a tutor.  Since I have a strong Irish bias, life could hardly be rosier.  The only source of slight panic is that, having loaded up six of my better recent offerings for a pre-tutorial, I find myself having to do another batch for the first tutorial proper on the 21st.  This may be taxing my productivity rate - particularly since I have been battling with one poem for several days without seemingly getting anywhere.  Grrr.  Back to the notebook.

Antony Mair