The Enemy Returns

Several unexpected events jumped into our lives this week. First to happen, the hot water system went off, discovered when Ann came down from a tepid bath. Our plumber said a valve had failed; he has ordered a replacement but is yet to return to fit it, so we are using the inefficient immersion heater as a standby. 

Then early yesterday, I was woken at 4 a.m. by a loud crash from the wardrobe as Ann slept peacefully on. Having listened in case it was a burglar, my guess was a hanger had given way and some clothes had fallen down, so I went back to sleep. Later, Ann came to tell be the whole rail had collapsed; all her dresses were in a heap, so I was out early to buy a new rail and fittings as Ann sorted through and reduced her stock considerably, to the benefit of the charity shops.

Afternoon tea at the Swan, Lavenham

In the afternoon, we are in Lavenham for an afternoon tea at the Swan, a splendid Tudor coaching inn at the heart of England's most unspoilt medieval town. The tea is a treat for Ann's birthday from Richard and Chris; it is over four months since the birthday, but the long delay is ours: the gift card was sent on time but we have been busy, and anticipating our delayed gratification in this splendid dining hall. We are greeted by the maître-d' in his elegant suit and waistcoat, who informs us to proceed to the desk in the restaurant whence we will be shown our table. At the desk, I am greeted again and give our names; "Yes sir, I know", he said. Ann whispers to me, "it's the same man, idiot!". He had raced through the kitchen and popped up at his other desk before we reached it, but I hadn't noticed. This often happens in our lives: Ann is far more observant than I, especially when it comes to people. Perhaps it's a woman thing; Ann always says women make the best spies. Little seems to escape their eye, and Ann certainly always seems able to read my mind just from my expression or body language; nothing escapes her. No wonder some women used to be considered witches; they appear to possess the ability of second sight.

A phone call from the consultant's secretary to ask when I will be free to speak to him sets alarm bells  clanging ominously. Sure enough, he phones to say my recent scan shows a recurrent growth on one of the lungs. I wait to tell Edwin, hoping not to spoil their holiday in Africa, but conscience beats back caution, as we have always promised to not keep anything from him, so I say that a cyst has been found on the lung. He immediately replies, "how big is the tumour?", for like his mum, he has great insight into people and events. I tell him "six centimetres diameter." He sends sympathy, and a fine picture of wild penguins bathing off the rocks on Robben Island. He is now at Victoria Falls, where I note there are such wonders as the Elephant Walk, Rainbow Hotel, Lookout Cafe, The Three Monkeys Restaurant, and Shoestrings Backpackers' Lodge. It all sounds very American commercial. 

Strangely, despite the recurrence, I feel fine with the little pain controlled with paracetamol. True, I get breathless walking up slight hills, but on the straight it is more the pain in my feet and legs that limits me, rather than the lungs. The future is clearly uncertain (well, the timing I mean; the outcome is all too certain!), but I continue to enjoy life, write this blog, and do as much as I can in the world. One advantage now is that major events seem to pass me by as I ignore the looming world catastrophes, for I will probably not be around to see their outcome.

Happy 70th Birthday, Caludon Castle School

Yesterday was brother Richard's birthday, celebrated by him and Chris in Barnstaple. He was eighty, a significant milestone, and the date coincided with the 70th anniversary celebration of the opening of our old school, Caludon Castle in Coventry in September 1954. I was just 11, and therefore the first first-year student to stand at the great entrance above the school, still in short trousers but with a new tie, blazer and school cap. The school was then all boys, with just six houses initially, all named for former knights of the castle; Morgan, Seagrave, Chester etc. As the other four houses opened, they gradually took the first two year's boys who then transferred to the more senior houses, but I was in Howard and stayed there right through to sixth form. Now, even the house names have changed to famous sports people; no one will remember the old punishments of general demeaning and caning; and it became fully co-ed after we left, with the new friendships and relationships that engenders, whereas we didn't even see girls.

We didn't come out of short trousers until we were thirteen - a great milestone for a young lad growing into manhood. I remember being very impressed on our tour round by the well-equipped labs, with separate physics, chemistry and biology sections. As befitted a school built to support a transition into the industry for which Coventry was famed, we had superb wood-working and metal-working shops, with heavy lathes, huge drills and presses, individual work benches, and a full blacksmith's shop. I seem to remember the physics classes laid emphasis on water pressure and flow through pipes, and the mechanics classes included full calculations for beams, levers and stresses, no doubt to encourage the engineering students ready for the town's apprenticeships, but the school still taught Latin, a hangover from the teachers who transferred when the grammar schools closed and Coventry became an innovative educational centre for comprehensive schools. Most boys left at 15 or 16. To go into the sixth form was rare, and I think there were hardly ten of us staying on for 'A- levels'.   There cannot be many from that year left, who went through the whole school from the day it opened, so I didn't wish to attend the reunion, for the whole school has changed and I will have little in common with those who attend.

Northern Lights over Hundon

There was an impressive display of Northern Lights last night - great sheets in red and blue. Ben told me he could see them in Telford, so I went out to look. They are very faint and require well dark-adapted eyes, but even to the naked eye the streaks and faint red glow were apparent. The camera has much greater sensitivity and can run an exposure, getting more light in. Even the stars are bright behind the lights. This morning remains clear, with a heavy, early Autumnal frost. Unfortunately, our heating system is misbehaving again, with no hot water. Our plumber has ordered a new valve, but it has failed to arrive, so we are using the inefficient and expensive immersion heater; happily the central heating still comes on, or we would be shivering in our beds. Winter heating is currently hitting the headlines with Labour's attack on the poorest and most vulnerable in society, so I feel great sympathy for people with no heating through poverty or neglect.

Edwin and Andre are in South Africa for their great holiday. We drove them down to Heathrow to wish them farewell; theirs was one of the last flights of the evening before the airport shuts to overnight flights as part of their attempt at noise abatement, so we ate late before tackling the motorway home in blistering rain. They have sent some fine views of Table Mountain, and visited Robben Island and the cell of Nelson Mandela. Later in the week, they have booked a safari, so we await pictures of some of Africa's iconic wildlife.  

Swaledale and the Eden Valley

Ann and Theo

 It is grandson Theo's birthday. With distant separation we see him rarely, but had several good days together in the summer at Lucy and Andy's cottage above Gunnerside (The End of a Great Holiday). Looking at that photo now brings back thoughts of that good time in Swaledale, and when we met at our rented house in Eden Valley below Kirkby Stephen. 

The owner thoughtfully sent me a book called The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks, a wonderful, well-written account of managing the fell sheep and the land in which they exist by someone who spends his whole life there. To read at first hand of the harshness of deep winter snows and the duress of gathering sheep for winter feeds of hay, while recording the losses each year of favourite breeding stock that don't survive the winter, is an eye-opener and counterweight to the idyllic summer skies we were under. The fells are a beautiful landscape, but it is tough when the deep snow drifts block roads and doors. In Hundon in Suffolk, we have had but a handful of days when ice or flooding imprisoned us; but on the high moors, every winter brings entrapment when snow ploughs give priority to motorways and towns, and only tractors can get through on the high, narrow country lanes. Lying between the Cumbrian Mountains and the northern part of the Pennine Range, The Eden Valley is at the western-most end of Swaledale, criss-crossed with tiny, steep roads. We have hopes for a return visit in the New Year to witness the different winter scene, but will need a glowing, warm house to stay in and to stock up well with contingency food. 

Our gardening contacts have come to cut back the trees and clear out unwanted growth against our neighbour's garage, behind the oil tank where I cannot reach. Henry and Harry are young men, each with regular week jobs but keen to build a successful business, who always do a reliable job. Above the roof of the garage, Henry reports a hole in the tiled roof above the art studio, about an inch in diameter, though none of us can imagine how such a hole could have got there. When they leave, but I mount the ladder to fill it with glassfibre sheet and epoxy resin. These are still in the garage from our boating days, and have an expiry date of 2011, but they still seem sound and mix to the old familiar bonding paste. I will know if it is successful if I don't get a douche next time I'm painting.

On acquiring art

One of the pleasures when Ann and I ran our modest antiques stall in Clare was visiting the auctions and bidding for a miscellany of items. Books always seemed to do best, but art too generally sold well if not overpriced. Books were easiest to value, as they could usually be identified and dated online, and other copies might be for sale to suggest a retail price. Art, however, was much more tricky. Occasionally we got lucky; one picture, for instance, didn't strike immediately as impressive, and attracted little attention, then the auctioneer said, "Does no one want this fine example of Kiro?" My hand shot up and I secured a good picture for a few pounds which now hangs on our wall, though I admit I'd never heard of him. I think I was more sold on the auctioneer's speel.

Persian Market

On another occasion, we bought a large bundle of animal pictures in oil-on-canvas, again for a couple of pounds to save them from the auctioneer's bin. These were by a local artist, and I phoned her to say we'd just bought some of her pictures, and how much we liked them, though not mentioning I only bought them to resell. She said she had donated them to a charity shop to raise some money; the shop must have put them into the auction, where they didn't fetch much, but we priced them at £15 each; they were hugely popular and sold out within a few weeks. 

Another batch we bought as an assorted box; most were poor quality, but two caught my eye. The loupe clearly showed they were originals rather than prints, being opaque watercolour, ink and gold on silk; they looked like ancient Persian Art, so I had hopes that they were truly old and valuable. Edwin has a friend who is just starting to work in the British Museum art section. She wrote back with the incredible detail of a true professional, "Your artworks depict scenes in the manner of Persian/Safavid manuscript paintings, but the figures look noticeably different, particularly in their clothing and facial features.  It struck me though that in one of the artworks, three of the figures in the image are wearing the ‘taj’ - a cap with a tall, thin shaft that is seen in early Safavid paintings, during Shah Ismail’s reign (1501-1524), as the characteristic headdress of so many figures.  This continued during Shah Tahmāsp’s reign (1524-1576) with the addition of feathers.  But by the reign of Shah Abbas the Great (1587-1629), the headdresses lost the shaft, and the turbans became more elaborate.  So my guess is — the artist was trying to depict a Persian/Safavid scene and appropriated the Safavid 16th-century headdress."

Persian Camping Scene

She continues: "Tent and canopies, ornamented on the interior and exterior can be seen in 16th-century Safavid paintings.  A ravishingly idealised portrayal of a desert camp in a painting from a Haft Aurang by Jami demonstrates this point.  The complex pictorial structure is anchored by a half-dozen brilliantly decorated tents and canopies.   Reciting poetry during feasts, between hunts, was a favoured courtly entertainment." 

Alas, she concluded: "It is noteworthy that in 1555 the members of Shah Tahmasp’s court and his great amirs took an oath to renounce all acts forbidden in Islamic law.  The puritanical turn of the Shah’s mind also resulted in his releasing artists, musicians and poets from the court service.  Many of these artists, scribes and poets emigrated to India and served in the Mughal court. It is possible that the images in your artworks were produced by an artist in India who took inspiration from Persian manuscript paintings which were prized in India, particularly the Mughal emperors and members of their court in the 16th- and 17th- centuries." 

We have since discovered copies of prints on Google showing similar themes and compositions at modest prices, that probably were created in India. Our pictures seem to be low quality copies of copies, produced for the tourist market. Therefore our two, though still attractive and interesting, are unlikely to swell the inheritance sufficiently to add to the death duties.

 

The end of a great holiday

Ben and Luke up Helvellyn

 We returned from our two weeks break in Cumbria yesterday, a long seven hour drive though not so hard as the drive up, when both the M6 motorway to the west and the A1 Great North Road to the east were closed due to accidents.

The first week, sharing the house and the wonderful, warm Autumnal weather, were Edwin and Andre (see A Whimsical Return). Andre had been at the hospital with his eye infection for 12 hours, not returning till 4am once he'd been assessed, and had to return next day for an appointment with the ophthalmologist who was Brazilian, so they conducted the consultation in Portuguese. They finally left with instructions to attend for follow-up at West Suffolk Hospital. There, the referral letter was missing, so they had to repeat the whole performance just for a checkup.

The children enjoy the gardens

On Sunday, other family members came to share tea and the good weather; Matthew and Rosie with the two little ones, and Lucy and Andy with Theo. Ben and Luke also shared time with us; earlier they climbed locally to Mallerstang, a Celtic name meaning bare hill where we were staying, but with rain and a gale blowing. Yesterday on their last day, they tackled Helvellyn, the third highest peak in England before setting off on their own return. All in all, a very worthwhile two weeks, with the potential for a romantic retirement, if we can ever summon the energy.

A strange day in Lancashire

Brief Encounter, filmed in the war and released in 1945, is a much-loved Noel Coward classic filmed by David Lean, has become a British classic. Carnforth Station, where the major scenes were filmed, was only saved from the Beeching axe because of the film's fame, and we had intended to pay homage to the station on this trip to the Northwest. First off was to stop by the tearoom, famous for where Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard met and fell in love. Far from the stale, dried sandwiches of that era, we had delicious jacket potatoes and herbal teas served by unusually quiet staff. 

A small art and craft shop next door provided Ann with a new hat with a bright red rosette, in the style of the French revolution, but the man running it broke the news that the heritage centre was to be closed through lack of funding and increased costs of heating. The staff had only been told that morning that they had three weeks left, so that explained the gloomy atmosphere in the tearoom. We immediately went to the heritage centre, where they were so upset they were waiving the admission fee for the day, but there they were very talkative, sharing their disappointment at the lack of consultation. The exhibition was a mix of remarkable film memorabilia, including a full exhibition celebrating David Lean's work, and separate rooms of old railway exhibits. 

Sunderland Point, just past Carnforth. In the 16th Century, it was a small port serving slave ships from the West Indies and North America, but is now the burial site of a black cabin boy or slave on unconsecrated ground in a field near the small village. It is only accessible via a narrow road, which crosses a salt marsh and is cut off at high tide. We checked the tide table and noted high tide was not due for an hour, so decided to risk the crossing, but unfortunately lacked the time to explore of find the grave for already the water was lapping the edge of the roadway, so we turned round to retreat. As this picture shows, many people still remember the child and those dreadful times, now leaving painted stones in memorial.

Following our causeway adventure, we went on to Lancaster to see Glasson Dock on the opposite side of the River Lune, whose opening brought about the decline of Sunderland Point. The peninsular is approached by a small swing bridge over a lock, which was currently shut to allow a waiting craft to enter. We joined a queue of cars, and I got out to lean over the fencing and watch the locking in. The lower gate was closed, the water emptied, the lower gate opened, the boat entered, the gate closed again, and water allowed to refill the lock.  During all this, all the cars in front of ours had turned round and left, so Ann was left behind and had to get across to the driving seat to move up to the lock gate. Meanwhile, an Amazon driver who had been cursing at the delay decided to walk across the gate to do his delivery, rather than wait in the queue. He had an armful of parcels, and two or three slipped from his grip to fall on the narrow walkway over the water; he was lucky not to lose them in the water. Some minutes later he was back, one parcel still in his arms that he'd been unable to deliver. Gradually the boat before us, rising from level with the roadway to a height where we could see the hull. The lockkeeper, an old, grey-haired and bearded man, was winding up one of the sluice-gates when there was a sudden crack and rattle of a chain running out. He stooped and picked up a piece of ironwork and said, "it's broken!" The pawl had snapped off and the chain had disappeared, so he walked over to our window to announce the obvious: "The lock's broken; the bridge won't open." We were now the only car remaining, so I turned round, leaving the lock closed, and the ship still trapped between the gates and blocking the swingbridge from turning back.

 

A Whimsical Return

Two days ago  was the second anniversary of the day I was told by the oncologist at Addenbrooke's that I would be dead within twelve months. I have now survived five years since my first melanoma operation, and six years since my bladder carcinoma treatments. We are celebrating with a long holiday in Cumbria, enjoying lakes, sun and mountains in an old farm cottage near Kirkby Stephen. It is a bit of an extravagance, but with Kier Starmer newly named the "Grannie Harmer", we feel there's no point in conserving our savings too tightly. This government will either tax them away, of take them from us at death so no one will inherit much anyway, so we might as well spend our savings while we can enjoy them and give pleasure to others. 

Returning the sheep

The cottage is accessed up a footpath and behind a gate, which the owners emphasised must be kept closed to keep the animals out. We stayed in a similar place in Western Ireland once, and the woman told us to "keep the gate closed to keep the darkies out". We were bemused until we realised, with her heavy Cork accent, she'd said "keep the donkeys out". Yesterday, Ann went out to open our gate and suddenly noticed a herd of sheep in a pen by the footpath had nudged open their own gate and were now trotting down to the road. I banged on the door of a caravan in the field and told a distrusting shepherd - who seemed to think we must have tampered with his gate - that his sheep had forced their way out and were now down to the road. He went to his barn, came out on a quadbike with his old collie on the back, and set off in pursuit. Sure enough they were all heading back in a few minutes, neat as a show trial.

We now enter Autumn, a mellow season with warm skies and days still long enough to enjoy before the chill sets in. I chose to remember summer with a fresh painting for Ann, a solitary sunflower she was given as part of a bunch of flowers. It now lights a dark corner of our hall. 

The End of Summer

It has been a glorious week of Indian Summer, with exceptionally high temperatures, clear blue skies, and no wind. We have made the most of this unseasonal weather, with long walks and outdoor pub lunches. I even managed to walk to the Ribblehead Viaduct, nearly two miles in total, the furthest I have walked since my pre-cancer days. This clear, pure Cumbrian air is clearly doing me good.

Edwin and Andre are staying in the cottage for a few days, but today Edwin shot off first thing to buy his new Apple phone, insisting he gets it the day it's released. He looked up the nearest Apple centre to Kirkby Stephen and it was either Leeds or Gateshead. Andre unfortunately has developed an eye infection and is resting in the cottage, so Ann had to leave early on an unexpected side visit to Metroland.