TREE QUEST 3 -MUCH MARCLE & THE DAFFODIL WAY

Perhaps I imagined it. Does anyone else remember a song called,'Much Marcle in the Marsh' sung by Flanders and Swann from the 1950s/60s? They were a duo who wrote satirical songs to well known light operatic tunes. The reason I'm asking is that this week our friends Diana and Ian took us to the place to see the Much Markle Yew in the yard of St Bartholomew's Church in Herefordshire. 

     As we entered the churchyard through a wide Yew gate we saw a small pink sign on the grass,'Mole Catching in Progress,' and ruminated on games of tag going on beneath our feet while Church Wardens prepared their gas,clubs,or traps. 

     According to Thomas Pakenham in his book,'Meetings with Remarkable Trees, 'The Yew at Much Marcle is one of about 50 gargantuan yews found in British churchyards,that is, yews of more than 30 feet in circumference.' It is presumed to be 1508 years old, so planted around the year 500. Measurements taken over a decade or so suggest it is still growing. It predates the Christian church built there in the 13th Century.

       'Once its branches might have carried Pagan trophies,or the severed heads of sacrificial victims. Christianity would have purged it of this. Until the Reformation its dark green leaves would have provided 'palms' for Palm Sunday processions...Life was the meaning of the tree that seemed itself  immortal. Death was the meaning of the poisonous,scarlet berries and the tough pink wood,as springy as steel,used for spears,arrows, bows.'

       Encircling the Yew in a horseshoe are the headstones of the dead, like a gothic audience witnessing the contemporary goings on inside the tree. The hollow interior has a skin of gargoyles and ghouls hanging from its walls. Life is represented by a birds nest and a bench fitted for parishioners' shelter. With just enough room for two it's a perfect hideout for lovers who don't mind spirit voyeurs. 

      As we left the churchyard I could hear a Flanders and Swann song floating somewhere in the chilly breeze.

     After a bit of a food quest we moved on to stroll through woods in the 'Daffodil Way' 

     Wild daffodils, or Narcissus pseudonarcissus, were once a common sight in England, but intensive agricultural practices and use of chemicals has led to them becoming less common. Around the villages of Dymock, Kempley and Oxenhall close to the Gloucestershire/South Herefordshire border, wild daffodils once carpeted the meadows, orchards and woods in great profusion.  
      Because of climate change and the exceptionally cold weather this Spring, they were late and we were lucky enough to see huge swathes mixed with fat white wood anemonies. Wild garlic ready to burst open if only it warms up.

    Our day out bringing us life after death. 

       
   

TREDEGAR HOUSE - ANCIENT TREE QUEST 2

 Yesterday we set off on our second ancient tree quest in the direction of Newport and Tredegar House. We were looking for a broad avenue of oak pollards, laid out shortly after 1664 in the old deer park, part of the Tredegar estate owned by the Morgan family for 600 years and now managed by the National Trust on a 50 year lease from Newport City Council. In their ownership it was once described as 'the grandest council house in Britain.'

      We hoped we'd be more successful than our first search in Aberthaw. An avenue of pollarded trees should be easy to spot we thought, but in 90 acres of garden and parkland, who knows? Pollarding  is a pruning system in which the upper branches of a tree are removed, promoting a dense head of foliage and branches. It has been common in Europe since medieval times.Traditionally, trees were pollarded for fodder to feed livestock or for wood. Pollarded trees tend to live longer than the unpollarded as they do not have the weight and windage of the top part of the tree. Older pollards often become hollow, so can be difficult to age accurately.
        I'm discovering that when you set off on a quest you don't necessarily find what you are originally looking for. Sometimes you bump into something else more interesting to surprise you. So it was when we entered the Cedar Garden and were confronted by a magnificent
Cedar of Lebanon, its leafy arms outstretched giving cover and shade to Sir Briggs buried in its shadow. Sir Briggs was the steed of Godfrey Morgan, First Viscount Tredegar. Both fought in the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava in 1854. Alongside were the graves of three family dogs. All framed by magnolias and herbaceous borders of tulips and hyacinths,whose sweet perfume perfaded, lifting the chilly Sunday afternoon.
         At the end of the 18th century the Morgan family had originally owned 40,000 acres in Monmouthshire, Breconshire and Glamorgan. The last Viscount of Tredegar, Evan Morgan,kept wild animals inside as well outside the House, including a boxing kangeroo and a flock of birds that according to Phil Carradice on his BBC Wales blog, did his bidding. He was known as,'The Black Monk,' being an expert in the occult and even built himself a 'magik' room,where he performed rituals. He was a high ranking officer in MI8 in WW2, responsible for monitoring racing pigeons. After a court martial for leaking secrets, he put a curse on his CO, who later contacted a mysterious illness and nearly died.
         So I wondered as we came on the broad avenue of oaks,what memories and secrets were they hiding in their hollowed trunks and in the pores of their scarred rhino skins.As we walked among them, flat palms on rough bark, Black-headed Crows danced on the grass around us. We counted more than twenty-five oaks on each side of the avenue that led back to the grand entrance of the red-bricked House. I saw gold and black carriages carrying gentry in procession towards licentiousness. The trees' hollows became vulvas and arse holes mocking them en route.   In my weird imagination of course.
       Ahead of us,the M4 cut across what would have been the continuation of the deer park. We could see the avenue continuing up the hill on the other side of the motor way, its marine roar bringing us back to the Twenty-first Century with a jolt.
   
     

RIGHT ROYAL SEND OFF?

What's the difference between a military and state funeral? A couple of million or two? I couldn't help but watch the event on TV today. Mainly, to see the demonstrations against Maggie but also to witness how a military funeral could cost £10million. Despite very strong anti-Thatcher feelings, I personally couldn't have danced on her grave or demonstrate at the event. It just didn't feel right. It appears from BBC News that her supporters clapped out the sound of any opposition. Perhaps there were lots of other people who felt like me. So I wore something red, went for a walk, had a minute's reflection on the consequences of her policies to the South Wales Valleys.
      I was working in Rhondda from 1983-1988 with Rhondda Community Arts and Spectacle Theatre in Education and Community Theatre. Later, with Mencap I had an All Wales remit, so I got to visit the Valleys quite a bit.
      Of course the Unions at the time needed to be brought under control and some of their restrictive practices curbed, but what Maggie's policies did was to emasculate them and the working class communities of South Wales and the north of England.
      No thought was given to the consequences of closing the mines. The pit had been the centre of the working community.There was little if any other employment. Miners wages paid for the establishment of welfare institutes- centres of self improvement, leisure and education. Beautiful buildings fell into a state of disrepair-too expensive to maintain without their financial support. The Government first denied that there was a plan to close all existing mines in Wales. Then it was announced that they would be closed because it was no longer economic to mine coal. No large scale alternative sources of employment or re-training of the workforce were planned, or funded, or new businesses established, before the closure of the mines and long after. Communities felt abandoned. It was the start of generations of men who were never able to get local work, the rise in drink, drugs, social problems, poverty and deprivation.
       It would seem that those who support the assertion that Maggie was the greatest prime minster of the twentieth century, and was Britain's saviour, live mainly in the affluent areas of South-east England where the financial service industry has flourished and there was already an established culture of private enterprise. Speak to anyone round here and it's no wonder that people think and feel differently.
        Today, a friend reminded me of the 'Spirit of 45.' the recent Ken Loach film about the aspirations and policies of post-war Britain. It was a time of wanting the world to be a better and more equal place for all sections of society. A concept that Maggie said never existed. Thatcher's children and grandchildren have been brought up on the cult of the individual. Take what you can for yourself and bugger anyone else. Survival of the fittest. Maggie Thatcher may be dead and buried but Thatcherism is still alive and kicking.

VERTIGO

We’ve been coming down to Pembrokeshire for the past thirty years.  Every year as we walk the coastal path, look into deep chasms of old red sandstone , watch white foam creeping up a pebbly shore or waves blasting off cliffs, I’ve said, ‘I’d love to paint that.’  Well this week I did something about it and enrolled on a course with Indigo Brown Creative Holidays.

       The last time I’d done any painting on paper was at school 50 years ago and that had ended badly. My art teacher was a neurotic elderly nun, Sister Bridget, a traditionalist, who discouraged creativity and freedom of expression. I wasn’t interested in drawing static objects. I preferred Lichtenstein to Leonardo then, and consequently failed O level dismally.

        Twenty years on I did mural painting, kind of painting by numbers-filling in blocks of colour in the design drawn up by my husband. We called ourselves, ‘The Gwaelod-y-Garth Mural Workshop’ and together with some of the young people in the area did several community arts projects.  It was fun, and I loved the times when I was on my own, painting large areas with just the river and birds for company. 

         Thirty further years of admiring other people’s art work and the desire to paint wouldn’t go away.  I saw a course, ’Art for the Terrified’ and thought, ‘Perfect.’   The tutor threw Horse Chestnut conkers and autumn leaves onto the table and invited us to draw them. Panic and terror!  It was the longest two hours of my life.  Even less psychologically minded than Sister Bridget, she invited us to walk around the table and contemplate the work of the other twenty students. It was obvious many were not beginners and if they had been terrified it didn’t show in their accomplished lively sketches. My conker resembled a sputnik, my leaf a rocket.  I felt the exposure and shame I imagined Eve might have felt after God had evicted her from the Garden of Eden.  

       ‘Have you thought about having lessons on a one to one basis? ’Judy Linell, a visiting tutor at Indigo Brown asked me, as my emotions took me by surprise  and a pudding- size pebble stuck in my oesophagus.   I felt near to crying and I’m not usually prone to blubber.  We strode side by side up to the top of Garn Fawr.  She’d only asked us to do a sketch. Why was it such a big deal for me? I’d admitted the previous evening to being a complete beginner and having been on a disastrous course for the so-called ‘terrified.’ I soon discovered I was the only beginner. Meaning well and intending to help, Judy and Maggie, both inspiring and accomplished artists, would say,’ Now where’s my terrifed lady?’ I began to feel that I stood out like a Limpet wimp. I mean let’s get a sense of proportion here. I wasn’t being asked to climb Everest or put my life at risk. I was only asked to put some marks on a piece of paper.

      ‘I don’t want to draw a house,’ I said stroppily, when Maggie suggested I start with something easy. ‘I’ve come to paint the sea.’ I imagined the tutors laughing at me with the other students. ‘What does she think is going to happen? Fall off her sketch book?’  The wind raged and nearly blew me off the trig point as I clambered up and turned full circle to see the stunning views of Strumble Head, the wild Atlantic, headlands dissolving in silver mist, freshly furrrowed fields of monotone, and John Piper’s cottage tucked up cosily under the lichened limestone.

        ‘Are you the lady who doesn’t know anything?’ one of the other students asked me when we returned to Maggie’s artistic home, and sat drinking coffee. I nodded. I guess that probably summed me up. ‘I felt like that up there,’ she said, and later as we played with watercolour, she said, ‘I just want to run away.’      Me,too.

        I did go back the next day and so did she. She produced some lovely little paintings. Judy and Maggie did their very best to encourage me. I loved watching Judy perform her magic in demonstrations, and playing with the paint myself and getting some interesting effects .Getting a composition I was happy with defeated me-on this occasion. There was some beautiful work produced by other students. At the end I was the only student not to put their work up for critique. I couldn’t go that far. However, I did feel a door has been opened for me. The next time I fall into a navy blob of watercolour or off the edge of a piece of cartridge paper, I’m sure my fall won’t be so terrifying and my landing will be much softer.

ANCIENT TREE QUEST

Yesterday marked the start of a new joint project with Rhys. We are going in search of ancient trees.Our idea is for Rhys to paint them and me to write about the experience.
       We went looking for the True Service Tree (Sorbus Domestica). considered by some to be over 400 years old. According to our guide book-Heritage Trees Wales by Archie Miles, this rare species is to be found on the lime stone cliffs at Aberthaw, a few miles west of Cardiff Airport.
      We hadn't been to Aberthaw for years. To get to it you pass through the pretty village of Gileston. We were not prepared for the cubist acropolis that towers over the village,and that is the West Aberthaw Power Station, providing electricity to homes in South Wales. How could  a rare species of tree survive here?
        The little car park was nearly full of dog walkers coming and going. It was a beautful sunny day,the first for a while, the sun playing on the Bristol Channel with the Somerset hills in view. We set off on the concreted footpath that circuits the Power Station on the left with the sea wall on the right. The scale of the Power Station is immense.The fence has 'Keep Out' notices and a patrol car with flashing lights stalking the fence.
      'Trees!' Rhys said, as I tried to pretend I wasn't taking photos.
      'You mean logs,' I muttered,snapping vigorously. I remembered hearing that the Forestry Commission was providing trees for burning in power stations.  Then I spied chugging slowly over the horizon coal wagons,with the EWS logo. We often ponder where they are heading when we are woken up in the early hours as they pass the bottom of our garden, from several miles up the valley.
       After several poo alerts and a pulverished ash tip we reached the headland to discover another monument behind the fence. It looks like huge wire wings, but is an environmental/alternative energy centre,with solar panels on the roof of the building below. On we walked until we reached the Aberthaw Bio-Diversity area; a lake with swans and young trees,and on the edge what looked like the ruins of a building that may have burnt lime. We read the notice,'Respect,Protect,Enjoy!'
and on the plaque among the other species you could find there, a washed out picture of our quest.
       'Brill!' Not far now,'we said.
      We scoured the cliffs as we descended onto the salt marsh with mallards chuckling and families making fires on the the rubbish strewn beach.
       'That could be it!' Rhys shouted, several times, pointing upwards as we tripped our way through the plastic debris, avoiding danger signs of people falling off cliffs. Above us was Fontygary Caravan Park. Last winter a few caravans hadn't heeded the sign and fallen over the edge as the cliff crumbled.
         'It says in the book that the leaves are like the Rowen or Ash with distinctive fruits,like little clusters of small ruddy pears.'
         'Pity, there are no leaves on the trees then, let alone fruit.'
         'They may have been introduced by the Romans...I'm sure it's that one, up there in the ivy.'
         'It's impossible to tell.  Everything's covered in ivy.'
         'Or is that one?'
         'Or that one?
         'I'm sure it's that one.'
         'Are you hungry?'
         'You are!'
         'Barry Island, Fish and Chips?
         'Come on. We'll come back in the early autumn,when it should be easier
          to identify the True Service Tree.'
         'Hmm.'
       
     
       
   
     
     

MEMOIR: A REFLECTION ON THE PROCESS OF LIFE WRITING

_{In January to March 2013 I attended a course in Life Writing/Memoir at Cardiff  University’s Life-Long Learning Department, led by the excellent tutor, Amanda Rackstraw. It got me writing again after a half year or so slump.}

       _{I’ve found the process fascinating. Amanda used the senses primarily as her stimuli for writing exercises. I produced several short pieces and completed a 25 page piece interweaving my experience in Indonesia with my earlier childhood. I also did a lengthy piece on my career and approach to activism. It’s as if the past has become the present and I can’t distinguish them. I’m re-living my past in a way that makes me feel like a time-traveller. Or am I getting dementia?  Certainly, I’ve become obsessive finding out more about the current lives of people who were important to me and those that shaped and influenced me forty or fifty years ago.}

        _{Some of these people have died quite recently and that’s triggered my thinking about the nature of friendship,memory and connection. My attachment issues raise their grubby backsides again!} Some have reached lofty places in their careers.  Some have married, had families, got divorced. Some of these people are hard to trace, while others, through the internet, could be a phone call or email away. But what would be the point? What would be the benefits to me and them? Would they even remember me? and, What might be the unintended consequences of re-connection?