The visitation of York

The days of Redfellow Hovel are coming to an end.  The Lady in his Life and Malcolm are contemplating moving on and out of Cobbett’s —

… great wen of all. The monster, called by the silly coxcombs of the press, “the metropolis of the empire”

Where to go?

A strong probability is York.

Thanks to its ecclesiastical heritage, the centre of York, within the ancient walls, is a place of persisting character. Thanks to the rise of nearby industrial cities, York missed out on the grime of the industrial revolution. Thanks to George Hudson, it remains a major transport hub — a couple of hours in either direction from London and Edinburgh, or across the Pennines to Manchester. Thanks to Joseph Rowntree and Terry’s, there was some successful local industry. Thanks to tourism, facilities, entertainment, trade and shopping are excellent to this day. In 1617 James VI and I received a petition to establish a university at York, and it duly arrived in 1964.

The problem is finding a house of some character. Anything ‘period’, especially within the walls, is quickly snapped up — which raises the questions of whether a significant property bubble is puffing up (in London that needs an affirmative “yes”),  how long can it last, and what comes thereafter?

The Railway Magazine, No. 1, Vol. 1 (July 1897)

Here we find W.J.Scott, BA, recounting his personal experience of The Race to Edinburgh, 1888 — the Last Day. That needs some background, perhaps.

The two competing railway routes between London and Scotland are the East and West Coast. The West Coast Mainline (as it now termed) is the more difficult, particularly the climb over Shap Summit, built by the engineer Joseph Locke for the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway. The East Coast route, by comparison, is far easier, straighter and faster.

On 2nd June 1888 the West Coast announced a nine-hour (down from ten) schedule for the express to Edinburgh: thereby, for the first time, matching the schedule of the North-Eastern Railway.

On 18th July the North-Eastern reduced the timing from King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley by half-an-hour.

From 1st August the London and North-Western brought the Euston to Princes Street West Coast schedule down to the same 8½ hours. This was achieved by splitting the express at Preston, so reducing the weight to be slogged over Shap. In passing, gentle reader, you are now apprised of why Edinburgh had two major stations.

Ha! The NER had one in reserve. Two days after what was seen as the L&NW’s last throw, the NER announced the 10 am express would be in Waverley by 6 pm. Not so: on 6th August the L&NW were promising an eight hour timing for the Euston to Princes Street run. Finally, with train crews lionised and up for the competition, unofficial times were notched down day-by-day — eventually to the concern of the railway hierarchy. Peace broke out with the NER settling for the 5:45pm arrival, and the L&NW for an eight-hour trip. The Caledonian Railway, responsible for the final stretch from Carlisle to Princes Street, had a new Drummond single-wheeler, number 123, and wanted to show its mettle/metal: so consistently 123 (and she’s still gorgeous) hauled into Princes Street well ahead of  the timetabled 172 minutes for the run.

This was the first “race to the North”, and made newspaper headlines in Britain — and even in the United States.

W.J.Scott, BA, goes to York

Mr Scott didn’t make the whole trip: he baled out at York (and the 10 am from King’s Cross reached Waverley at 5:27 pm that evening). Let him dilate:

For the most part, towns on the Continent are more picturesque and interesting than those in England, though the country in Britain is far more beautiful than any we find across the Channel; but York can hold its own for quaintness and grandeur with almost any town of like size in Europe. Under a bright mid-day sun, the old city with its girdling walls and crown of towers looked very beautiful: despite some stir of life, and the jingle of tram-cars, it seemed very still, its river slipping by as great Emperor Constantine saw it glide in the self same channel, lapping the walls of houses that stood where the houses one looks at from Lendal Bridge or Ousegate Bridge stand today. Never a “buried city”: a Roman capital, a chief city of the North English kingdom, and of the kindred Danes which over-ran that kingdom; a seat of Government, the “Council of the North” in mediæval days, and now metropolis of Northern England (though the Scottish Lowlands have thrown off the yoke of the English primate), and a railway capital behind London alone in importance, Eboracum, Eoforwic, Iorvik, York, in the year 200 AD  or the year 1900, from Severus and Paulinus to Dr. Maclagan — and should we say George S. Gibb? — she still “sits a queen”. Only three and a half hours from London; but how utterly unlike London is the tongue one hears spoken — that strong, if sometimes rough, North English, which Southerners always call “Scotch”, though at least five English shires share it with the Lowlands across the border. In the garden of the toll-house of “Lendall Brigg” — since done away with — a small boy is trying in vain to catch a white rabbit.”Tak’ it up by lugs, bairn, tak’t up by lugs!” cries his elder brother, much to the bewilderment of a tourist from the south who stands listening.

You don’t get away with paragraphs, even sentences that complex any more. For the record:

• Severus was the Roman Emperor who attempted to reoccupy the lands north of Hadrian’s Wall, invading Caledonia in 208, and dying at York in 211.
• Paulinus (died 644) was the first Bishop of York, one of the second group of missionaries sent by Pope Gregory I.
• The Most Rev. Dr William Dal­rymple Maclagan was Archbishop of York between 1891 and 1908.
• Sir George Stegmann Gibb was the innovatory General Manager of the North Eastern Railway from 1891 until, in 1906, he went on to become Managing Director of the Underground Electric Railway Company of London (running the four main London underground lines). Gibb introduced statistical analysis and American business practices, but also applied collective bargaining and independent arbitration when dealing with his employees.

Oh, and all those timings involved a twenty minute wait at York for “dinner”.

Flow, sweet river, flow

The view from the 72nd floor

From Shadwell dock to Nine Elms Reach
We cheek to cheek were dancing
Her necklace made of London Bridge
Her beauty was enhancing
Kissed her once again at Wapping,
Flow, sweet river,  flow
After that there was no stopping,
Sweet Thames, flow softly…

Or, if you must (and you should), the original by its originator:

Though, even that has a progenitor:

From those high towers this noble lord issúing
Like radiant Hesper, when his golden hair
In th’ ocean billows he hath bathèd fair,
Descended to the river’s open viewing…
     Sweet Thames! run softly, till I end my song.

The rites of man, with Thomas Paine

Before Malcolm finishes with Kent (see the two previous posts) he would take a Sandwich.

To be absolutely correct, it was a chilli con carne and a couple of pints of Doom Bar (the Abbot had run out as Malcolm arrived). And it was at the Crispin: an excellent joint, even on a chilly (no pun intended) day.

The town

Sandwich is where the Kentish Stour reaches the sea. Well, it did once upon a time, when this one one of the Cinque Ports — now there’s a couple of miles of marshes before the sea proper. It is, though, one of those places where the yachties sport their plastic navies.

Something that wikipedia seems not to know

Sandwich somehow ended up with three parish churches: St Clement’s, St Mary’s and St Peter’s. By 1948 this was an unaffordable excess, so the three parishes were amalgamated, and — in due course — two of the churches went out of regular use. The one that interests Malcolm here is St Peter’s.

When the plague hit Sandwich in the Elizabethan period, St Peter’s was designated as the strangers’ church. The “strangers” were Dutch Huguenots, and that they were segregated suggests that English xenophobia was then as now. Anyway, that explains (allegedly) the odd Lowlands cap atop the tower (which fell down in 1661, taking with it the original south aisle — and leaving the eccentric plan we have today).

What wikipedia fails to note is that St Peter’s was where, on 27 September 1759, the corset-maker Tom Paine married Mary Lambert. Paine’s corset-shop went bust the following year, and the Paines moved to Margate, where Mary promptly took sick and died. Paine forwent his corset-manufacturing and adopted the line-of-business of Mary’s family — collecting taxes and excise. That was, at first, a more successful venture: he ended up as exciseman in Lewes, in Sussex; and became the equivalent of a shop-steward for his fellow excisemen, writing pamphlets in their interest. A further business failure, a failed second marriage, and Paine was off to America and fame.

St Peter’s has a nice graphic of the history of the church, and includes the marriage (as right).

A family history

In the nave (that’s the southern of the two remaining colonnades) we find the organ — apparently St Peter’s was very forward in gutting such an appliance of science. Close by is one of those delightful memorial tablets which tells quite a tale. The text reads:

In a VAULT on the outside of this Wall are deposited the
remains of KATHERINE HARVEY, youngest Daughter
of SAMUEL HARVEY Esq. and KATHERINE his Wife,
who on the eve of her intended Marriage was suddenly
attacked with the alarming symptoms of a rapid decline
which closed her prospects of earthly felicity, separated
her from all family and endearing connexions and
terminated her existence in this World by removing
her to a better on the 28th day of May, 1807, aged 23 years.

Likewise were removed into the same Vault the remains
of ANN ISABELLA the wife of Lieut Col: HARVEY
only Son of SAMUEL and KATHERINE HARVEY
and Daughter of WILLIAM PINDER Esq of the Island of
Barbadoes, who also died of a decline on the 4th day of Feb
1807, in the 28th Year of her age, leaving issue one son.

Let the young and the cheerful learn from hence,
that sublunary happiness is vain and uncertain,
And that only beyond the Grave true toys are to be found.

ALSO to the Memory of the above Willm. Maundy Harvey Esq.
Lieut. Colonel of the 79th Regiment of Foot, Colonel in the
British Army, Brigadier General in the Portuguese Service
and a Knight Commander of the Portuguese Order of the
Tower and Sword. He died at Sea on his passage home from
Lisbon on the 10th of June, 1813, aged 38 years, and was
buried in the Atlantic Ocean in Lat 45.37, Long 9.42.

Cock of the walk

No connection whatsoever with that previous post (except they originate in the same county).

Beware! Pavo cristatus ferox!

Here’s the all-purpose warning at Leeds Castle:

 

And here, unashamed, unabashed and cocky with it, is the potential perp:

 

And, let’s be fair, he has a fine walk to be cock of …

From troubles of the world, we turn to …

… not, on this occasion, Frank Harvey’s Ducks:

When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones, in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves — quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God’s jokes are good When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves — quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God’s jokes are good — even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, I think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And he’s probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill! 

Frank Harvey was a prisoner-of-war and inmate of Holzminden Prison when he composed that. And, yes, Malcolm has been this way before.

Similarly, yesterday, Malcolm was incarcerated in a metal box (made in Wolfsburg) and whisked from Harrogate to York, and then on to London.

At several points along the road there were cheering glimpses of ducks. More often there were mole-hills. Lots of.

So, from troubles of the road (and a fine late lunch at the George in Stamford) Malcolm turned to matters talpine (Talpa: Latin, “mole”). Actually, Malcolm was on the point of congratulating himself on formulating a “new word”, only to find that the spoilsports at the Oxford English Dictionary had a precedent:

talpine adj. pertaining to the moles, of the sub-family Talpinæ.
1860   R. G. Mayne Expos. Lexicon Med. Sci.,   Talpinus,..talpine.

Yorkshire moles seem to prefer the grass banks of roads, and build on a linear principle. There are stretches of the A59 which seem particularly well-excavated. Have the moles learned, by bitter experience, to avoid the tilled fields, and now seek a safer, if not quieter life along the verge?

Yet the greatest proliferation of moles (or rather their mole-hills) seemed to be further south, in Lincolnshire. Areas around Colsterworth, and the upper reaches of the River Witham apparently amounted to moley metropolises.

Last autumn there were reports such as:

An explosion in mole numbers threatens to turn thousands of lawns into mountain ranges overnight, uprooting prized flowers and burying manicured turf beneath unsightly mounds of soil.

Soggy weather in late spring and early summer created ideal breeding conditions for the garden pests, softening the ground for males to dig tunnels just below the surface in search of mates.

Redfellow Hovel, with its far-from-sprawling acres, is free from such disturbance: no self-respecting mole would take on solid London clay.

Even so, to extrapolate Frank Harvey’s theology, if God had intended clipped suburban lawns, he would not have created the mole.

Bizarre!

Some emails are weirder than others, especially when one lives in London …

The hotel on question is eight miles from Nottingham centre and equidistant from Derby — that other sun-trap of the Côte du Trent. It is perfect, however, for the sybaritic excesses of Junction 25 of the M1.

A small puff

Ooops! here we go for a slight boost in Malcolm’s derisory stat-porn (© either Iain Dale or Guido Fawkes — who cares, anyway?).

For why?

There’s a BBC page on 20 of your songs that changed the world, of which perhaps half-a-dozen get the Malcolmian seal of approval.

Furthermore, Nena’s one-hit wonder, 99 Luftballons is in the list. Quite properly:

Europop doesn’t come much better. Not that there’s huge competition in that category.

Nearer home:

Malcolm worked that one into a rumination on a DARPA experiment and a trip to the Sloany Pony in Parsons Green. Quite which aspect there keeps pulling in the gongoozlers he doesn’t know: it remains, however, one of the 1678 (officially) posts on Malcolm Redfellow’s Home Service that still drags ‘em in.

Here’s another, older but perhaps better:

A week ago the Pert Young Piece dragged the Lady in Malcolm’s Life and the man himself to Berlin’s Warschauer Strasse S-Bahn station. From there down to Mühlenstrasse, to walk the mile long East End Gallery — the well-graffitied remaining stretch of the Wall. Damn cold; but not to be missed.

The Wall has been expunged for most of it length — though a keen eye tells the lingering architectural and other differences between the old East and West. On tatty, crappy Warschauer Strasse there can be no doubt.

Which brings us to another song that should have changed the world. Alas, back in 1962 (when Wayne Shaklin gave it to his wife Toni Fisher) we’d be waiting over half-a-century for the abomination to be ripped down:

We’ll weather the weather, whatever the weather

This post is a bit of a rummage round the lumber-room of Malcolm’s mind. Take it as such, or leave it.

Let’s start navigating at the prime meridian

In 1941 Myles na gCopaleen , a.k.a. Brian O’Nolan, published An Béal Bocht. It is to Irish literature as Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm had been a decade earlier to the English of-the-earth, earthy stuff.

Alas! Malcolm’s Irish (failed Leaving Certificate) was never up to appreciating the original Irish, and an English translation, magnificently illustrated by Ralph Steadman, only became available in 1996. So for too long, whenever the works of the Great Flann, Myles and Brian came into the conversation, on any mention of An Béal Bocht, Malcolm could but nod sagely, and seek to redirect onto more familiar Dalkey Archive territory.

Flann/ Myles/ Brian was never averse when it came to Épater la bourgeoisie. Thus with An Béal Bocht. Irish officialdom, especially since the ascent to power of Éamon de Valera, was heavily promoting da kulcha  — in this parallel universe, the main ‘Culture’ was agriculture — not for nothing did the Dubliner refer dismissively to ‘culchies’. No Fianna Fáil bun-fight was complete without a flush of Fáinní (those ring lapel-pins to indicate an Irish speaker). Such types were indoctrinated to revere Peig Sayers as the true voice of “real” Ireland, and so inflict her serial miseries on the school-student.

For the record the prevalence of Fáinní in Fianna Fáil has declined in direct proportion to their increase among Sinn Féiners. When Gerry Adams began sporting a Fainne, that was the ultimate no-no! in polite political society.

A bit of plot (Sacs-Béarla version)

It’s always raining torrents in Corkadoragha, home of the first-person narrator Bonaparte O’Coonassa. Corkadoragha is about as impoverished and unreconstructed as anywhere could be in deprived, rocky, drenched Connacht. Or, as the Dalkey Archive edition blurb has it:

The Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O’Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family’s daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs. A scathing satire on the Irish, this work brought down on the author’s head the full wrath of those who saw themselves as the custodians of Irish language and tradition when it was first published in Gaelic in 1941.

Yet it has one natural resource: the Irish spoken in Corkadoragha is regarded as the most perfect in the island. Annually, therefore, Corkadoragha becomes infested with language-revivalists from the city — until the weather and the all-too-”authentic” poverty drive them away again.

Nearer home, and a few points east

A blog-artist of some ability has adopted the persona of ‘Bonaparte O’Coonassa’ — though, to be honest, there cannot be many literary grotesques who don’t have an afterlife on the net. Mr Downey of Romford (where Malcolm was once a borough councillor) has a nice sense of humour, is sound on the things that matter (Nick Griffin is a piece of shit), though is lamentably soft on cats. Nobody is perfect.

Fond of Romford as Malcolm (almost) is, he would usually be visiting Mr Downey blog, and passing by without acknowledgement. However, a wrinkle appeared.

Whale song and Zentz

Riffling through a drawer Malcolm had come across a well-worn key-ring. Beyond decipherment of any text on the plastic tag was a memory source: that New Age coffeehouse/bookshop the Redfellow entourage visited in Cortez, Colorado — back in the summer of 1994.

He recalled that the ambiance was being reinforced by whale song on the muzak channel. That seemed a trifle odd, since Cortez CO is some mean distance from either ocean.

Somehow that recollection triggered another: a song by Bob Zentz of Norfolk, Virginia:

Zentz, as a young man, had served in the US Coast Guard, and this song recalls being on watch. Yes, it’s sheer romanticism; but — one way and another — it persists as a repetitive soundtrack to Malcolm’s life. Here is the lyric is full:

Ocean Station Bravo, North Atlantic Ocean,
Somewhere west of Greenland, somewhere far from home.
Nothing on the radar, nothing on the sonar,
Hove-to and drifting on this ocean all alone.

CGC Sebago, high-endurance cutter,
Ocean station vessel number 42,
Studying the weather, aids to navigation
Plotting ships and aircraft as they come sailing through.

In the middle of the ocean, center of the circle,
There’s nothing but horizon, wind and sea and sky:
This whole world in motion, blowing from the northeast,

Not a hint of sunshine, just the gray clouds running by.

Then the lookout calls the bridge-watch, objects in the water —
Moving surface contacts off the starboard bow:
Plot ‘em on the radar, fire up the sonar
Listen for their echoes, can you hear ‘em now?

Well there’s echoes in my headphones, whale sounds on the speakers,
Filling all the spaces inside CIC:
Songs of loves and travels, songs of generations,
Echoes of the ages in cetacean harmony.

And me, I had to answer, I sang, I talked, I whistled.
Well, I even played the mouthharp through that microphone;
And they returned the favor with chirps and clicks and whistles —
A sound of celebration not so different from our own.

And when the watch was over, it’s out onto the bridge-wing
To view them sounding singers as they sing and sport and play:
Just a pod of humpbacks, farewell flukes a-wavin’,
A memory worth saving as they travelled on their way.
For we’d had a conversation with Leviathan that day.

Skirting the board …

That was somewhere on the periphery of Malcolm’s mind while he was daubing white paint onto bedroom skirting-board.

In a senior moment, he realised he couldn’t quite recall the name of the author: Zing? Zane? Zlotz? So, downstairs and crank up the search-engine.

Weather Station Kurt

One of the bits of serendipity that cropped up came from Mr Downey’s Poor Mouth, which for this post was very rich. One of the themes Mr Downey seems to revisit is “Backwaters of history”, little gems of actuality that have dropped out of consciousness, or only been rediscovered. In this particular post, Mr Downey has the quite remarkable tale of

… the only armed [Nazi] landing anywhere in North America [which] took place in Canada in October 1943 when a U-Boat landed a small party in Northern Labrador to erect an automatic weather station.

It looks as if Mr Downey resurrected this one from wikipedia. It was a good find, makes a good story, and provided Malcolm with a welcome diversion from the glossing task in hand (his knees, in particular, thank Mr Downie). It is a story, in its own way, almost as bizarre as anything in Myles.

Here’s one for the diary

 

Dulwich Picture Gallery. Note the dates.

Get there early, enjoy, then retire for a leisurely lunch, with suitable imbibings, at the Crown and Greyhound (a.k.a. “The Dog”).

Oh, and if you’re in Norwich, the Castle Museum has two thousand — two thousand! — Cotman paintings and sketches.

Saturday III

Islington

Fed and watered (well, pinot-ed and Broadsided), the Lady in Malcolm’s Life upped and offed in search of whatever Ladies do when “shopping”. The arrangement was to meet up in Islington for more scoffing.

In due course, Malcolm headed the same way. The bus stop at Islington Green is close by an Oxfam book shop.

Oxfam’s conspiracy against the book trade

The individual Oxfam book shops are not, strictly, a big deal in the second-hand book market. Collectively, though, they are number three in the UK book market, and the second biggest seller of used books across all Europe. The specialists moan the operation is hoovering up the stock, and is somehow unethical:

Oxfam’s success in the books market has caused complaints from high-street retailers. Tim Godfray, chief executive of the Booksellers Association, which represents the likes of Waterstone’s and Blackwells, is concerned by the new, slick image of Oxfam bookshops.

“Oxfam are really professional, and therein lies the rub, says Godfray. “In the old days, charity shops projected an image of, dare I say it, amateurism – books stacked on trestle tables run by well-meaning volunteers. But now the retailing arms of many charities are run by hard-nosed professional retailers. Oxfam has more outlets selling books than Waterstone’s.

“In general, registered charities pay no more than 20 per cent of normal business rates on the buildings they use. Because of this, they are able to offer lower prices than commercial booksellers. Charity bookshops like the ones Oxfam run are now competing against our own members and, as they obtain these preferential fiscal benefits, we believe the competition is unfair.”

Serendipity

Any individual Oxfam bookshop will have a very limited range on offer. You missed out on the oeuvre of Dan Brown, and need to catch up on The Da Vinci Code? Oxfam books will happily have a whole stack. Beyond that, too much depends on what got chucked in their direction in the last few days.

On the other hand, that is the attraction of the operation. You have an unrequited love for all things Sumerian. Professor Glompotz, the world-renowned expert on Sumeria, recently popped his clogs. His long-suffering daughter dumped a couple of shelf-loads on the local Oxfam shop. Bingo!

Thus, in Islington Malcolm hit on a collection of small curiosities, obviously the bequest of some like-minded loopy lefty.

Fifty years on

One thin Fabian pamphlet that kept him going to the early hours was Austin Mitchell’s Election ’45.

It consists of little more than a menagerie of contemporaries reminiscing about how they were selected, how they fared, how they felt, about the great Labour landslide. Alongside the later greats (Lieutenant Callaghan, Major Healey, Flying Officer Lever) we hear individual voices of the grassroots.

Writing his preface for 1995 Mitchell reports:

Of sixteen hundred and eighty-three candidates, a hundred and ten are still alive half a century later. Of six hundred and forty MPs, forty-three are still alive. I was privileged to interview thirty-three, the most enjoyable piece of research I have ever done …

Enjoyable to research, delightful to read. If nothing else, it reminds how successful the 1945 generation were, and how mediocre were the achievements of the next Labour landslide of 1997. When comes such another?

Besides which …

From as far back as 1989, Adrian Mole’s creator, Sue Townsend explains Mr Bevan’s Dream: why Britain needs its Welfare State. Very personal, very angry, and, at times, very funny. Savage indignation about Thatcherite savagery and denial of dignity.

A couple of other items, including the star of the show: Fame is the Spur, Howard Spring’s great, great novel of the rise of the Labour movement — and intimations of its inner corruption.

This will be the third, or possibly fourth, copy that has come Malcolm’s way. The first (a Fontana paperback) fell apart with  re-readings and being passed around TCD student circles in the early ’60s. The second, a hardback from the ’50s, was rescued from being given the heave-ho by a school librarian who thought it too “heavy”: that’s still on the attic shelves.. And now this, so the Pert Young Piece may have her own copy, be enlightened, be warmed, and be warned.

All, some five items, for some thirteen quid or so.

Whoever you are, your generous donation to Oxfam does not go unappreciated, and unloved. When Malcolm’s clogs, too, need popping, it is to be hoped some successor finds a small trove in a later Oxfam.