Monday, February 21, 2011

South Riding





Humber Estuary at Sunk Island
I tried not to watch South Riding. I sat at the other end of the sitting room and tried to look at Tweedeck, but before I knew it I had put  #southriding in a column to see if it was trending.  I have been on an emotional roller coaster ever since. Its not the book. Its a great book. Its not Winifred Holtby. Anyone who once lived with Vera Brittain  wrote great books.  I wonder if Shirley Williams ever did a trip to the real South Riding. Its not the not happy ever after end of the book, or the empathy with the schoolteacher thing, especially after last nights romp thro the snobs of Literature with Sebastian Faulks, and my wonderfully wrong Miss Brodie, who I could so easily have been. 
It was the place

  • Oh !the road on Sunk Island, that tree lined,ditch lined road to the prospect of mud
  • Oh! the talk of 1953 High Tide
  • Oh ! the landscape of dead trees from the salt bath
  • Oh ! Skeffling
  • Oh ! Hilston and Withernsea
  • Oh! Connor and Grahams
  • Oh ! Mulberry Tree
and all the more poignant because I always always remember my childhood haven in Holderness when the snowdrops are out. 
I know that as my sisters read this post they will too remember fondly maybe, a beautiful Georgian house, once the vicarage of Skeffling,  we visited often . It was the home of Whitfield and Margaret Carter, friends of my parents. It was an outpost of all that was different, exciting and stimulating in the seemingly dullest of landscapes that I now love, and in a tightly controlled 50's childhood where conformity and towing the line defined  and provoked the wild child in me wanting to get out. 
Everything about Skeffling was about Possibility after escape. I write this as the house here is silent, the road outside as quiet as  that road to the Humber from Skeffling- That road past the sloes, and bullrushes to just a bank looking out to the Humber , and the prospect of mud and clay. 
I am thinking of all the forays around those coastal half villages , where every visit before the  scramble down the boulder clay cliffs  would be pre-ambled by a discussion of how much of the car park had fallen into the sea since last time.
The Old Vicarage was full  of glorious objects fashioned by  Michael , the son of the house, from the Skeffling Clays, and his alarming paintings all like my own of his , with its sticker mark from an exhibition in the 1950s. The kitchen was where I learned things so removed from the 50s austerity and bland recipes of home, for Aunty Margaret brought French Canadian flair to Holderness . I learned to grind coffee into the waiting wooden drawer  in a little hand  grinder. I smelled the bran mash machine where the chicken food was made, and  always hoped for waffles with maple syrup, or a walk to the Mulberry Tree.



Skeffling Clays - geograph.org.uk - 316537
Skeffling Clays



The real people who lived in my  Holderness have had a huge impact on my outlook and interest as an adult .
When I married, the first thing I did in my own garden was buy a packet of  Nasturtiums ,like those  that came up year after year in the garden at The Old Vicarage. I thought they were magical, the colours and the smell,and the way they grew over everything. I could not understand why everyone didnt grow them. And then the Elderflower  and Elderberry wine which I made every Spring and Autumn until a few years ago when I stopped drinking,  as a drink always made me want a cigarette, which I gave up in response to nagging and my own good sense (for once).
So , all those railway carriages , which as the Shacks in South Riding , are remembered  by me , as 'Holiday homes' of the 50s, or chicken Houses, lurking next to a hedge in the fields of Patrington and Easington,  Hilson and Hollym. 
Michael Carters 1950s painting of 'God knows What but I like it'
I am not going to re-read my battered copy of South Riding. I might just go to Rudston tomorrow and look at Winifred Holtbys grave, or re-read the wonderful Sunk Island of Hubert Nicholson. As soon as it gets a bit warmer, but is not a school holiday I'm off for a drive to the real Sunk Island again , with its Crown farms and Stone Creek, lunch at the Hilyard Arms in Patrington and home thro all those tiny coastal villages , Roos, Tunstall , Rollston Camp and maybe Hornsea  with Pevsner. I wonder if David Hockney fancies Holderness for a change, only 10 miles from Brid in another direction from His Bigger Puddles and Trees.

Monday, February 07, 2011

RIP Brian Jacques

File:LongPatrolUK.jpg
Some things come to you later in life than was intended, but the timing is perfect. Such was the discovery of the Redwall novels by Brian Jacques for me, for I devoured them with a childish repacity when nearly a grandmother. Since The Long Patrol assaulted my senses , and tempted my palette  with Eulalia, hares and deeper than ever beetroot and turnip  and potato pie,I have devoured all the books as soon as they were published. My last purchase, The Sable Queen, was read and enjoyed just before Christmas. 


There is a recipe for all the novels.

  • The Goodies-mice; hares, moles, shrews, otters, squirrels, and badgers , with  appearances from occasional large birds,
  • and the Baddies; foxes, stoats, ferrets, weasels, wildcats, rats, snakes and toads. 
  • Then there is the food, nutcream and bramble pasties, mushroom soup,salads, and the deeper than ever pies beloved of the moles.
  • Then the cruelty of the enemies, the dungeons, the slavery
  • Then the love and ultimate success of the heroes after trudging for days through swamps, forests, and mountains
  • A feast
  • Then the appearance in each novel of the GUOSIN Shrews with their 'Log a log ' leader
  • Then the antics of the baby animals in the idyllic community of Redwall Abbey 
  • A map
  • Lots of poems
  • A battle or two, with war cries and death of a hero or two
  • A supernatural intervention from Martin the Warrior
  • A lot of hilarious antics from hares who eat all the time
I wait for each ingredient in each book. Sometimes I am surprised by a twist, but never , never disappointed. I read one and keep on going. Usually after about four , I have had enough until my next taste.

So Brian Jacques REST IN PEACE You have given me some of the best reading I have ever done. I haven't read Doomwyte , but it is the only one .I will try tomorrow to order it.

Friday, February 04, 2011

A picture of Holy Tone

Tony Moralee in 1983 with his god-daughter , our Alice Rowling 
This post is an add- on to the blog of Gary Jenkins  Redhill thoughts. You need to read both his posts Ministry by Degrees and Holy Tone  to see a Godincidence.


Tony was a key player in the faith Journeys of Colin and I. He lived across the road from us in Wincanton Road, Southfields, and had worked for Rowlings the printers for many years, before becoming caretaker at a Local Primary school . He baptised Imogen or first daughter  in 1974, when a lay-reader, as we were in an interegnum at St Michaels Southfields. He stood God-father to Alice ,our second daughter and married Alice to Guy in 1998 at St Martins Dorking, where we worshipped as a family.


will send Joan his widow the blogs, Paul Moralee their son has just celebrated his silver wedding, he was one of my cubs in 'The Gordons' pack 6th Wandworth (I think) in 1968-71, when I first lived in London, a raw northerner , teaching at Belleville Junior Girls School.Battersea. Back in Yorkshire for 20years, Colin and  remember fondly a
Godly man. 



Wednesday, February 02, 2011

For Mary , Miguel and Nancy

http://brucearchive.blogspot.com/


I am going to post pictures and docs here at the Bruce Archive blog for you in Future. Its not got much on it, but is better to put in one place, Shall I put the photos on Picasa or Flickr  -I have lots!! Will do when I can.


This is my working  record. It is not accurate.Just a Guideline.

For Mary

Death of Christian Sutherland Bruce 1820
Children  of William Bruce and Christian Sutherland m1793