Hi Everyone

The Blogg is back again and people are continuing to send Sally stuff so there is obviously a demand for it.

However still no sign of any return to normal service as far as the live music scene goes and I am beginning to get serious withdrawal symptoms, although I am not crazy keen to sit in a tiny venue with another 50 or so herberts.

My main outlet at the moment is sitting at the computer and wrestling with various annoying film and music programs. This brings me neatly round to this first video which is a song I wrote about Hay on Wye.

It is a song in support of my theory (often boringly expounded at social gatherings) that Hay is the British town that has changed the most in the last 50 years while still, more or less, sticking to the same town plan and buildings. People often disagree and cite places like Hebden Bridge or Margate as better examples. My theory is backed up by two particular memories I have from the early seventies. One is standing around with Richard Booth in the empty basement of one of his first bookshops discussing whether or not there were enough people around to start a small Café / Restaurant. There were none in town at the time but we still decided no! The other memory is of a knife, presumably thrown at the band, quivering in the front of one of our amps during a particularly feisty gig in the hall behind The Crown. We made our cowardly escape via the gents. Aaahhh happy days.

The hardest part of making the film, to go with the song, was getting Hay to look like it was jam packed with tourists. Every time we started filming people obligingly jumped out of camera range so as not to interfere, or maybe the sight of Ian in ermine just scared them away.

The second bit of film is called Anges and was made a couple of years ago by Neil Moriceau in association with those crazy people from Machines of the Isles of Nantes, who are responsible for the mighty mechanical Elephant and our friend the amazing piano player Jean Louis Cortes. Jean Louis has been to Presteigne many times both with and without his mobile electric piano and we were hoping to bring him over and get him to play a concert and show this film on the same evening. However since we might not see him for quite a while here is your chance to see this delightful short film.

Pete

GILL TENNANT-EYLES: Lockdown ceramic experiments

For me, and I suspect many other makers and artists, there has been a schadenfreude aspect to the lockdown - concern for the social and economic impact of Covid, and regret at all the galleries, exhibitions and festivals which have had to close or been cancelled, countered by a sense of relief and relaxation at the withering of deadlines and the attendant pressures. Dare I admit it, but suddenly I had time to experiment and be creative without consequence.

Which avenue should I pursue? Like a painter faced with a blank canvas the possibilities for ceramicists are endless, which can be a somewhat daunting prospect. The plethora of choice left me a little anxious so I decided to revisit some of my earlier work and anchor my 'play' to that.

Some years ago I made a series of sculptural 'Sea Shards', spiral forms which were Raku fired. They had sold well but the failure rate was high, and about a third were lost in the making. I needed to find a more stable form and eventually decided on the ellipse, which immediate suggested seed pods, some shell forms and egg shapes.

The egg is a very strong structural form so I started with that and amended it in various ways to suggest, but not mimic, seeds, empty nut shells and sea shells. Would this form withstand the rigours of Raku firing? So far it has.

I like to break the rules when it comes to making and finishing techniques, as this can result in spontaneous and unforeseen effects. Hence my love of the Raku process. In this new work I have also introduced some elements of terra sigillata, which, like Raku, is another ancient technique.

For those unfamiliar with the term Raku, it dates from seventeenth century Japan and is identified with the Tea Ceremony and the making of tea bowls. It is also the name of a Japanese pottery dynasty responsible for making these tea bowls which had specific Zen qualities. These bowls were quickly made for each ceremony, roughly hand formed, fired to red hot temperature and withdrawn from the kiln into the air, or plunged into water, cracking the glaze, an expression of the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, or the art of imperfection and impermanence.

There is an immediacy and spontaneity about these bowls which, in the early 20th century, appealed to potters such as Bernard Leach in the UK, and Paul Soldner in the US, and which coincided with a time of renewed experimentation in the ceramic world. The basic technique of fast firing and removing the pot from the kiln while red hot was an exciting process and was rapidly taken up and altered and adapted in many ways, so that western Raku is now to many potters just a fast fire technique without the philosophical undertone.

Nowadays, most Raku ware is not plunged into water but placed from the hot kiln into sawdust or similar materials and smoked to produce carbon blackening of the exposed clay and of the crazing in the glaze.

'Terra sigillata' or 'sealed earth' is a finishing technique used by the Greeks to decorate their beautiful black and red urns and by the Romans as a common finish for a wide range of everyday pottery. Terra sigillata is a form of very fine clay slip applied to the surface of the pot. By taking this ancient finish and subjecting it to the Raku process, the different maturing temperatures of the fine earthenware and stoneware slips means that the slip either resists or accepts the carbon during smoking creating a range of contrasting effects.

Much can go wrong with this barely controllable process of Raku firing but when successful, it can produce striking and unique objects.

It has been rewarding to revisit past work and processes and evolve them further. I might just carry on......I am fortunate indeed to be retired and to be able to use this troubling time in a creative way, and I count my blessings.

Gill Tennant-Eyles, August 2020.

VERA VAN HEERINGEN AND DAVE LUKE

Vera van Heeringen, accompanied by Dave Luke, performs a couple of songs from her current album 'Won't Be Broken', live, acoustic and al fresco. Go to the website to buy the album:

Wāti Güde Mangü, the Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole.

A story about the origin of pottery clay from NW Amazonia.

Narrators: Paulina Barasana and Ricardo Barasana

Translation: Stephen Hugh-Jones

Long ago, people didn’t have any pottery. They had to cook their food by leaving it out to heat in the midday sun. In those days, Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole and Dragonfly were neighbours. They got on very well together – at least until Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole killed Dragonfly’s children. It happened like this.

One day, when the women in Dragonfly’s house set off for their gardens, they called their children to come with them. But the children refused to follow and stayed at home – like children do. Later on, Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole came to the house on a visit. He looked like a kind and handsome man and arrived with a basket full of dance ornaments – feather headdresses, ankle rattles, arm bands and stuff like that. ‘Let’s have a party’ said the spirit. And soon the children were dancing and having fun.

On hearing the women coming back, the children said ‘Can we do this again?’ ‘Yes - but whatever you do, don’t tell your mums’, replied Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole as he grabbed his basket of ornaments and fled from the house.

This went on for several days till, at last, one of the children couldn’t keep their secret anymore. ‘Well’ said his mother, ‘take this knife. Next time the sprit comes, cut his basket strap nearly through. Then, when he leaves, he’ll leave those ornaments behind. They sound really good!’

Soon enough, the women had the ornaments they coveted. But Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole was furious.

The next time the spirit came to the house, he arrived with a basket full of edible caterpillars. ‘Bring some water and some firewood’ he said to the children, ‘We’re going to have a feast ‘.

He made a fire in the middle of the house and put the caterpillars on to boil. ‘They’re ready. Come and eat’ cried Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole, calling the children to gather round the pot. But as soon as they arrived, he pushed them in, one after the other. Only the eldest managed to escape. He had become a Yago Mini, the bird of bad omens, and flew off calling ‘sia si. sia si, sia si’.

‘Oh no! Not the children!’ cried Dragonfly as he heard this, rushing back to the house from his work to see what was up. But it was all too late.

Scooping the children’s bones out from the pot, Dragonfly carefully laid them out in sets on a banana leaf, one set for each child. Then he took his bag of kapok and covered the children’s bones with the fluffy brown fibre. As he did this, the children turned into capuchin monkeys and ran off into the forest calling ‘ho ho ho ho ho’.That’s why these monkeys look like people – if the spirit hadn’t killed them, they would still be people today.

Many months went by until, finally, Spirit-With-No-Arse-Hole decided to risk a visit to his old friend. But Dragonfly swore vengeance and had already plotted to kill him.

That night, as they sat talking, Dragonfly, let out a loud fart. ‘Hey, did you hear that? What was it?’ said the Spirit, ‘How did you do that?’. ‘It’s easy’ replied Dragonfly, ‘you just use your arse-hole’. ‘But I haven’t got an arse-hole’ said the Spirit sadly, showing him the smooth, shiny skin on his behind. ‘Well, we can soon fix that’ replied Dragonfly, ‘I’ve made arseholes for all my kids – and for the women too. We’ve all got one. I can make one for you too if you like’.

‘Oh, yes, please’ said the Spirit. At this, Dragonfly’s grown up daughters began to fart in unison to keep up the spirit’s enthusiasm. ‘But won’t it hurt?’ said the Spirit. ‘Not really’ replied Dragonfly, ‘look at my kids. They’ve all had it done and they’re all fine!”. ‘Alright’, said the Spirit, ‘let’s get on with it’.

Dragonfly showed him a stick with a deep red stain coming almost to the top of its long, paddle-shaped blade, the stick he used for stirring the bright red leaf juice when he made red carayurú powder for face paint. ‘This is what I use to make the hole. It has to go in right up to here’ said Dragonfly as the spirit looked anxiously at the stick. ‘You’re not afraid, are you?’ asked Dragonfly. ‘‘Course not;’ replied the spirit. ‘I’m a man. If your kids can stand it, so can I!’.

‘Well bend down over there with your bum in the air and hang on tight to that house post’ said Dragonfly ‘You’ll be able to make really good farts when we’ve done’. ‘Right’ said the spirit as he bent over, ‘I’m ready’.

Dragonfly began to hammer the stick in, blow by blow. ‘Does it have to go in much further?’ asked the spirit. ’Still a bit to go’ replied Dragonfly, hammering more and more. The spirit began to scream. ‘It’s really hurting’ he cried. ‘Nearly there’ said Dragonfly reassuringly, as he hit the stick harder and harder, driving it up to the hilt till the spirit fell dead. The stick had pierced his heart, gone up his throat and came out through his mouth. ‘There you are’ said Dragonfly, ‘that’s what you wanted. That’s for killing my children’.

Dragonfly dragged the dead spirit’s body out from the house and on into the forest, round and round from one place to another. As he did this, the spirit’s body turned into clay. Today, everywhere that Dragonfly stopped to rest, these are places along the river banks where we can find good clay for making pots. The Spirit-with-no-Arsehole is the father of pottery clay. That’s why we’re so frightened of spirits when we go to get clay for our pots. And that’s why women who make lots pots often get sore eyes. The spirit women come and rub their eyes – some women even risk losing their sight.

Good pots are like Spirit-With-No-Arsehole – they don’t have holes in their bottoms!

IT STARTED WITH THE SPIDERS - TONY LAWSON

or Just An Excuse To Hear An Old Song

Good, it was raining and that meant I could stop working outside.

But that was later.

First there were the spiders. Well, the spider webs really.

Descending the stairs early one morning, the sun streaming through the window and illuminating all the dark corners, there they were. They were enormous. Some seemed to stretch from one side of the room to the other.

Enough, I couldn’t ignore them. I remembered Quentin Crisp on cleaning, “After four years, the dirt doesn’t get any worse” but then had visions of Miss Havisham’s wedding feast.

I set myself a task, a spider blitz, one-room-a-day.

I thought it would be easy, I mean they’re just cobwebs. How long could it take?

But it’s not like that; you have to move things, bookcases, sofas, beds. Pictures have to be taken down, the glass cleaned. The only way I found to get through was to put some music on the turntable, start with the ceiling and gradually work around the whole room.

After the third day the novelty was wearing off.

I persevered and eventually completed the task. No more cobwebs.

And then, one sunny day, walking around the house I noticed the exterior paintwork, it was flaking. I thought, “At least I don’t have to think about spiders.”

So off I go with a wood repair kit and paintbrush, one-window-at-a-time. It’s slow, but the weather was good, gradually I work around the house, I’m on the ninth window when it starts to rain… and rain.

So back inside, and yes, spiders, like rust, “never sleep.”

I don’t have the heart to do the whole thing again, and I remembered a 78 record my father had.

“The sun comes up and the sun goes down. Hands on the clock they just keep going around. I just get up and its time to lay down. Life gets tee-jus don't it?”

It reminds me that there is a cyclical nature to life.

Have a listen:

GARDEN @ No 3 - Sabina Rüber

This blog is all about dahlias which together with tulips earlier in the year are flowers I love to grow to excess.

It is fair to say that the dahlia has had something of a renaissance over the last few years. New cultivars in tempting rainbow colours, different shapes and sizes finding their way onto the market make for the perfect flower for an obsessive person like myself.

Browsing the internet for new (and old) beautiful varieties I’m happily tempted to add to my ever-growing collection. Loving the anticipation and 'playing with colour' in my mind through those bleak winter months has become an annual ritual that makes spring arrive faster.

What started as an innocent ‘lets see what happens when you cover tubers with soil’ has grown - we now have around 120 dahlias, a few here @No 3 but mainly off site in long rows. So, a few of my favourites - some I’ve had for years some newly discovered.

Can’t really call it work : dead heading in a version of paradise.

Dark leaved dahlia ‘David Howard’ and the even darker ‘Karma Choc’.

Dahlia ‘Jowey Linda’, very vigorous and beautifully formed.

One of my all time favourites : Dahlia ‘Preference’ and new love: ‘Linda’s Baby’, fashionably peachy with long stems.

The beautifully coloured, black stemmed 'American Dawn’ and ‘Classic Rosamunde’ a bubblegum pink.

The pale colours of ‘Wizard of Oz’, ‘Preference’ and the hugely fashionable 'Café au lait' and a selection of sunnier colours.

Dahlia ‘Edinburgh’ a striking variety I’ve grown for many years and still loving it.

'Hamari Gold’ - the perfect mellow yellow and with other autumnal colours in a rather opulent arrangement.

…and there are so many more...

GEORGE VASS

As many of you will know, the Presteigne Festival was cancelled this year because of UK performance restrictions resulting from COVID-19. With all the resilience we could muster, we moved pretty quickly and, back in July, filmed a series of events which are now available to view online until 31 December – we’ve already had a staggering number of views from across the UK and all over the world – with many lovely comments about the fabulous performances and high production standards.

The ‘Presteigne Digital’ homepage is here – presteignefestival.com/2020-presteigne-digital. There is an online programme book and links to each of the 11 events. The 8 concerts featuring the Carducci Quartet, Australian saxophone virtuoso Amy Dickson, fabulous pianists Clare Hammond and Tim Horton, tenor and harp duo Bradley Smith and Oliver Wass, young British violinist Mathilde Milwidsky and actor Christopher Good narrating a fantastic new piece (based around the writings of Saki) by Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade with members of Nova Music Opera under my direction.

The literary events, which were filmed in and around Presteigne by Barrie Gavin and David Stevens, include readings from Peter J Conradi, Nicholas Murray and Fiona Sampson. The Festival’s president, Michael Berkeley, even wrote a little ‘Presteigne Fanfare’ as a signature tune. All the events are free-to-view, but please consider making an online donation to the Festival – we are certainly not out of the woods yet.

I spent a lovely evening in Presteigne last Saturday staying at the newly re-opened Radnorshire Arms – it felt somewhat surreal to be in Presteigne on August Bank Holiday without the Festival going on, the first time I hadn’t been part of it since 1988. However, it was really wonderful to be back in ‘the Rad’ again after what seems like a very long time – the building is such an important community asset, the heart of the town. If my visit was anything to go by, Martin and his friendly new team are working extremely hard to please everyone and to make the Rad a real community hub once again.

We had hoped to announce the programme for the Winter Festival Weekend (27-29 November) by now, but we await new Welsh Government and Diocese of Hereford guidelines on indoor public performance. Whatever the advice, we’ll have to socially-distance everyone, which will mean our audience in St Andrew’s Church will be nearer 80 than the usual 260 plus – nevertheless, I hope we’ll be allowed to arrange some live events later this year and that we will be able to meet again in person.

TIM CRADDOCK - Presteigne at the Corner of Three Worlds

For those who have travelled the world from Presteigne in recent years, horizons for some months now, and for the foreseeable future, have become much less broad. In February we were in Granada in Southern Spain with a view over the Alhambra, set against a deep blue sky and the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Others from Presteigne were in the jungles of Rwanda watching the mountain gorillas, or in the theme parks of Florida or on the beaches of Thailand. The furthest we, in this particular household, have been since early March is Birmingham.

And that is probably not a bad thing. Travel, and the exploration of the newly discovered, and the experience of the new, is, after all, still possible in a walk of several miles or a car journey of an hour or two. We have learnt not only to appreciate much more what is immediately around us, but also that the possibilities for travel and discovery within a relatively short radius are virtually endless.

During lock down I came across this passage in a 1930s travel guide “Presteigne is one of the most charming of the smaller Welsh towns, and having ready access to Radnor Forest, the black and white country, the Deerfold Forest region, the middle valley of the Wye, and the Shropshire Highlands, is a most useful strategic centre for the lover of varied scenery. Here is a comfortable inn, the Radnorshire Arms, a genuine half-timbered antique, once owned by a relative of that Bradshaw who signed the “martyred” Charles’s death warrant; and there is abundance of humbler accommodation. The average of physical beauty among the townspeople is here again high”. Aside from its totally predictable throw away remark on the town’s people, that passage shows so clearly how Presteigne is at the corner of three almost entirely distinct, and quite extraordinary, separate worlds : the counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire on one hand, and the whole of Wales on the other.

Despite the advantages of its position, it is more than a little strange how our topography in this area can also have a limiting effect on what people who live here see as their “territory”. We live on Stonewall Hill but well within the boundaries of Presteigne. We are equidistant in time from both Presteigne and Knighton. But we did notice that as lock down eased and travel to slightly more distant destinations became possible, that the natural focus of friends in Presteigne became the till then distant prospects of a shopping trip to Leominster, or even Hereford, while those who lived up the Hill started to resume their journeys to Ludlow or Shrewsbury. It can seem that though the three distinct worlds have their corners in Presteigne, they sometimes do not overlap.

We hope that we at least have learnt to take advantage of the remarkable lands that surround us in all directions. And we hope too that others have felt that they too have travelled and explored in as valuable and as enjoyable a way as if they had been in the jungles or deserts of Africa. The surrounding lands do beckon :

Shropshire (From the Beauties of England 1801-1816)

Of the beauties of England, perhaps no other county contains a more interesting share than Shropshire. It possesses every variety of natural charm: the bold and lofty mountain; the woody and secluded valley; the fertile and widely cultured plain; the majestic river and the sequestered lake. It is no less rich in the remains of ancient times, which awaken a thousand enthusiastic reflections, by engaging us in the contemplation of the memorable events of our history.

Herefordshire (from an early Pevsner)

There are not many counties in England of which it can be said that, wherever one goes, there will not be a mile which is visually unrewarding or painful. Rolling country is the rule, though there are the little picture book hills rising suddenly and isolatedly about the Pyons, and there are of course the Malverns and the mountains of the Welsh border. No one can deny the beauty of Herefordshire or say that variety is lacking.

And Wales, dear Wales, which has given us some of the best days of recent years during this strange post-lock down period, and in the Upper Teme Valley near Beguildy or Heyop or Dutlas, or high up on Offa’s Dyke it has been like being in the Britain of the 1950s with little traffic and so few people in such a vast area. A stunningly clear, hot, July day stands out. Coffee and a visit to the wonderful bookshop in Llanidloes (which is so like Presteigne in so many ways), a hike in the Dylife gorge on the mountain road from Llanidloes to Machynlleth, a picnic on the track to Plynlimon, and a paddle in the sea near Aberdovey with a view from the the purple peaks of Snowdonia in one direction to the distant Pembokeshire coast in the other.

Horizons, even in these times, can be as broad as you make them.

JOHN HYMAS - Shipbuilding

This song has always been a favourite of mine.

It was written in 1982 during the Falklands war, and reflects on the irony of bringing back prosperity to the traditional areas of shipbuilding by having to replace ships lost in the conflict whilst also sending the sons of those areas to fight and potentially to lose their lives in those same ships.

This is the second in a series of arrangements for String Quartet and Pedal Steel which I’ve been working on with ace Steel player David Rothon - my brother in-law.

The lyrics were written by Elvis Costello with music by Clive Langer. Elvis’ version features an iconic trumpet solo by Chet Baker and is well worth checking out. This arrangement owes more to Robert Wyatt’s rendition with a nod to Costello’s at the end.

DAVID ASHBY - Revolution in the Head

As much as it is enjoyable to set off on a journey, returning has a deeply warm feeling especially now that home is in the Lugg valley. When Furrow Hill hoves into sight the rest of the world seems to slide away during those last short furlongs. And then what always makes me want to punch the air as I drive past is the ‘Welcome to Presteigne’ sign and below it the perfect accompaniment ‘Home of the Free’. Recently that made me think of the line in the chorus of the Presteigne panto song. “Home to the Brummies, the hippies and me . . . “ and it cast me back a few years to when I was standing in the epicentres of where those often much maligned hippies originated.

I stood at the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. An old man walked past wearing technicolor surf shorts, a Hendrix T-shirt, flip-flops, large yellow-rimmed sunglasses and a San Francisco baseball cap. It was a vision both appalling and hilarious, a walking spectre, as though a child had been artificially aged. But it made me smile to think that fifty years after The Summer of Love took over this part of the city in 1967 some of that spirit still endures.

During that period around 100,000 young people congregated in this San Francisco neighbourhood. Drawn by a shared suspicion of their government, a rejection of consumerist values and opposition to the ongoing war in Vietnam the hippies had arrived to party, to raise awareness and to dance, love and meditate a new type of consciousness into being. Most surprising of all for establishment stalwarts was that most of these kids were middle class Americans to the bone, young white girls and boys from the right side of the economy.

It must have been a lovely summer, encouraged as they were to “Tune in, turn on and drop out’. Musicians from Hendrix to Pink Floyd played for free at the Fillmore or in Golden Gate Park. Haight-Ashbury was a warren of ‘crash pads’ accommodating these beatifically idealistic flower children.

And where are they all now, those golden youth now turned senior citizens. How did their dream of a better world pan out? Lured to California by utopian ideals some succumbed to a life of sex, drugs and lethargy. Others, having dabbled in the counter-culture came to realise that their ‘soft revolution’ would involve a far longer and harder struggle against the entrenched plutocracy. They grew up and headed off for vocations in the ‘real’ world, perhaps running a weed farm in Humboldt County or becoming CEO of a Hi-Tech firm in Silicon Valley.

However, much of what the flower children set their sights on has failed to materialise. America’s addiction to war has only escalated. Watching Fox News later that day I was disgusted to see ‘talking senatorial heads’ gloating over the Clown-in-Chief’s dropping of the largest bomb in the Pentagon arsenal on Afghanistan. Watching the satellite reply of the blast they were positively priapic with delight. Cruise missiles and massive bombings (as long as they are on foreign soil) are like viagara to these people, the drone strike replays their snuff porn.

But whatever its multi-faceted agenda was, the hippie movement was first and foremost a political movement to free American - and European - society from suffocating conformity and legally enforced racism and sexism, and in that, it succeeded moderately well. It also set the ball rolling for the very powerful environmental movements that today are tackling some of mankind’s most urgent issues.

So as someone who was 5-years old when The Summer of Love was playing out in San Francisco I am grateful to those happy hippies. Thanks to them I have been able to wear jeans and a T-shirt to work, to invite girlfriends round for the night beneath the parental roof and to embrace a personal philosophy that places people above profits, kindness and compassion above material success and superficial achievement and a reliable moral compass above self-aggrandisement.

I recently read this comment by one of America's former presidents, Woodrow Wilson, and it had a good ring to it.

"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand".

Long Live the Hippies! (long-haired, short haired and no-haired)

And finally - THE QUIZ!

(Answers here)

And just a reminder, if you would like to contribute something to this ‘not so lockdowned now’ blog in the form of art, photography, music, travel, Presteigne history, literature, local lore, gardens, food which you think might fit into future issues, please send your stuff to luggblogg@outlook.com. We’ll keep it going a little longer.