One year on…
Hey it’s 2021 and we are still blogging and still waiting to get vaccinated – no, I don’t think it’s a worldwide conspiracy of 5G paedophiles (the vaccine I mean not the blogg).
Once again we have an eclectic bag of stuff for you to peruse. I am really impressed by Alex Dufort’s dedication to his chosen task, which has been going through years of Presteigne Panto films he shot and picking out all the songs. Among them, I spotted my evangelist Electric Bike song and it set me off thinking about the lunacy that was The Tour De Presteigne. It is now ten years since the last one and so I thought it was about time I jogged your collective memories and paid tribute to one of our craziest ideas.
Sometime in the summer of 2005 I bought a very basic, old school, heavy electric bike on eBay. I rode it down to the shops a few times and quickly saw that if you had a really good one, it would be the perfect way of getting around Presteigne and the local countryside. Before I sold it (and looking for something to write about in an upcoming Broad Sheep) I went down to the charity shop and bought a lurid, plastic, tennis trophy. I then rode once around town on the bike, presented the trophy to myself and declared I was the winner of the first Worldwide Electric Bike Championship. By May the following year, this flight of fantasy had become a reality and, with the help of the usual suspects serving time as stewards and lap counters and compered by Ian Marchant, with a wave of the flag at the start line outside the old chip shop, they were off on Britain’s first electric grand prix ‘The Tour de Presteigne’. This unedited film is 36 mins so I would just skim through it if I were you but, if you bother to watch the whole of that film, two very tall guys are looming over the winner David Henshaw (editor of AtoB magazine) at the end of the race i.e. at 35min 30sec. These are the evil Snaith brothers and their firm based in Loughborough, 50 CYCLES, who have done as much as anyone to give the British electric bike business a bad name, more of them coming up!
By next year 2007 we had really got the bit between our teeth but unfortunately so had the Welsh weather. Apart from Jean Louis playing the piano at the beginning I wouldn’t bother to watch much of this film of the race, which was located up on the factory estate. It mostly consists of very wet cyclists getting wetter and wetter. Quite why we didn’t quit at that point I have no idea but luckily sunnier years were to follow.
By 2008 things had really heated up in more ways than one. The two day festival now included all this lot.
Saturday
11- 5.30 at the festival site
Exhibition of electric bikes and a chance to try all the new models plus displays of cars scooters and trikes etc. 12 noon The Hill Climb A chance for the bikes to pit themselves against one of Presteigne’s more unforgiving inclines the infamous Stapleton Pitch. 2pm THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS Question Time with Eco celebrities. Time to pose some tricky questions about the future of transport to the experts. 4pm A COUNTRY RIDE A 12 mile dawdle for all eco transport forms round some of the borders most picturesque lanes 8pm AT THE DOME Live music by Your Dad and Blakes 3, local ales, cider and wine plus a chance to chin-wag with other enthusiasts.
Sunday
11- 5.30 at the festival site Exhibition of electric bikes and a chance to try all the new models plus displays of cars scooters and trikes etc. 2.30 - 3.30pm THE TOUR DE PRESTEIGNE The Worlds Premier electric Bike rally round the streets of Presteigne. This year there will be classes for both standard and modified bikes. (Entrants must be over 14 and wear a cycle helmet.)
The evil Snaith brothers (booo, hisss) had terminated their contract with the Mr Ching’s Chinese firm eZee and were now selling Kalkhoff bikes. They had noticed that ‘Winner of The Tour De Presteigne’ looked good on their adverts and so had turned up with two specially tuned Kalkhoffs and a pair of goons with thighs like tree trunks, determined to win the race round town. Meanwhile Mr Ching had come over especially from China hoping to watch his eZees pick up their third consecutive victory on the Sunday afternoon.
The action was so fast and furious that we, the organisers, began to wonder if the whole thing was getting a bit too hairy. The possibility of a small child wandering out in front of a speeding e bike was too horrid to contemplate.
Meanwhile eZee boss Ching had been spotted hanging around, away from the crowds, down the far end of Hereford Street. Then, very soon after, the leading Kalkhoff developed a bad case of drawing pins in the front tyre!
Here are two bits of film made by Andy Leavis from that year. The first shows how fast they were going through the churchyard and how increasingly uncomfortable the wedding party by the front door of the church look as they discover they are in the middle of a tense bike race. The second film shows one of the Kalkhoff riders trying to convince Ian that he got nobbled and should have been the rightful champion.
The 2009 event, in association with Green Wheels, was even more packed with events than the previous year. There were lectures and hillclimbs, country rides and music in both the Dukes and the Assembly Rooms and after the music, a midnight ride to the top of Stonewall Hill to listen to a competition-winning ghost story, ‘The Ghost Of Stonewall Hill’. The ghost event was … ermmm, not one of my finest moments. I got seriously trashed at the gigs in the pub and Assembly Rooms and then tried to ride up Stonewall Hill but fell into a ditch and then went home to lick my wounds. Somebody thought that, as I was the instigator of the Ghost story competition, I should make an appearance so came and picked me up in a car. Once I got up to the site of the reading I wandered around the campfire shouting obscenities at poor Ian who was trying to read the winning entry.
Next day ‘Discretion being the better part of valour’ the race proper got moved to Kinsham Go Kart Track and the ride round town become a fancy dress parade.
The baddies turned up at the race with a full-on, electric motorbike. I told them it wasn’t eligible to compete in a bicycle race and they said if I didn’t allow it they would thump me. Lloyd the designated thumper (the goon wearing very becoming swimsuit in the earlier picture) later left 50 cycles to become a cage fighter and I came across one of Lloyd ‘Maverick’ Clarkson’s fights on late night TV about 5 years later. He was methodically smashing his fist into his opponent’s face who was half unconscious on the floor – nice guy.
In fact it was around this time we began having misgivings about the whole electric bike fraternity. Being used to dealing on a regular basis with musicians and theatrical types, the electric bike crew came as a bit of a shock. There were plenty of well-meaning eco types and good-natured mature cyclists, but there were also a lot of pedantic, boring old farts and some distinctly unsavoury businessmen looking for a quick buck. Also, we had just started a business ourselves ON Bike. Andy Grayland, Phil Key and Mike Field had a shop in Kidderminster and I had one at the Bamford’s in Presteigne. Was it a smart move to invite all our main rivals to set up business for 2 days right on our doorstep?
2010 saw us being a bit choosier about who we invited but the event was still pretty ambitious although the race was scrapped and the fancy dress cruise round town became the main focus. There was also a ride across Wales to Aberystwyth for those of us who still had energy left on the Monday morning.
This next bit of film shot by Dave Symonds, who used to live in Norton, gives quite a good impression of the relaxed atmosphere at the bike show on the Saturday and the mayhem of the fancy dress ride on the Sunday (which was enthusiastically enlivened by the Leominster Downhill Vintage Racers). It’s worth mentioning that by this time Presteigne was known as the capital of the British electric bike scene and I think it’s fair to say the density of electric bikes per thousand inhabitants was unrivalled.
This is a good time to sing the praises of the fantastic artists who made our trophies Andy Hazell, Will Fielden and Bob Rowberry
So finally we get to 2011. The only film I can find of this year is a rather earnest one made by the Electric Transport Association, which features a very nice, heavily accented, voiceover and a certain amount of me waffling on about the rosy future awaiting the electric bike trade. Who knew then that it would take another 10 years and a worldwide pandemic to genuinely kick-start the business in the UK.
These pictures of the final ride round town on the Sunday indicate it was another partially wet affair and I guess this helped push Alison and I to decide enough was enough although Alison’s altercation with a Stapleton resident who half way through one race challenged her right to close Broad Street and then drove straight through the middle of the parade didn’t help. Would we do it again? Never say never.
I leave you with 2 P.S.s
It’s a crime that Andy and Megan never got a prize for their fantastic costumes in 2010 and also I never got a prize for the bed bike! Plus thanks to Andy, Alex, and Louis for all their photos I have used here.
And, as in all good fairy stories, the baddies at 50 cycles finally got some sort of comeuppance.
In 2018 their bank accounts were frozen after HSBC and Barclays discovered they were trading bikes for Bitcoins. Then in 2019 they finally went bankrupt and, according to chatter on the Pedelecs forum, ended up owing £1.7 million to creditors and leaving 42 customers without bikes.
Pete
PRESTEIGNE PANTOMIMES - Alex Dufort, January 2021
Since December 2009, when Mary Compton first asked me, I have been filming the Friday and Saturday performances of the Presteigne Pantomimes. Each Christmas Mary used to press me for a finished CD as entertainment for her thespian daughters over the holiday.
In January 2010, at The Assembly Rooms, Presteigne, I showed my first unedited reels of close DV camera work, and explained to the audience that I needed an editor. A hand shot up. An unassuming middle-aged man came forward but seemed so unlikely that I asked him if he had done any of this sort of stuff before: his reply, “Barry Lyndon?” left me gob-smacked. It was Tony Lawson, Kubrick and Nicholas Roeg’s legendary editor, and new resident of Presteigne. Tony edited our videos for the next two years, but admitted defeat when he established that transforming the sow’s ear (4 or 6 hour-long shaky sequences) into a 2 hour silk purse was never going to yield a result worthy of the effort. The process took him six weeks each time. If he had charged us a half-reasonable Hollywood rate it would have cost thousands of dollars per pantomime. Mercifully HD video came to the rescue: it is now feasible to film the entire pantomime from a single viewpoint, and display the result on a high definition 1920 x 1080 screen, whose frame becomes the proscenium of a miniature show.
Recently I have extracted all the musical performances from each pantomime. These are 2-3 minutes long, and are numbered by year and order of appearance. It is wonderful to see how the Pantomime has nurtured young talent over 9 consecutive years, with increasingly sophisticated song and dance routines and burgeoning confidence.
Equally, I was struck by the wonderfully high standard of musical composition and playing led by Pete Mustill and John Hymas. Few village hall pantomimes could possibly have such professional accompaniment.
Sally Butler asked me to suggest a selection of six clips for The Lugg Blogg, which has proved nigh-on impossible as there are at least a dozen “old stagers” that regularly take the limelight. I have therefore chosen a few early songs of which I am particularly fond:
Sheep Music in The Rain chorus from 2009
The final love song in an American in Powys 2009
Policeman’s Song
Salt and Myles doing the 2010 Bennetts window display song
Ian Marchant’s 2010 Elda’s Coffee House salsa
Kate and Charlotte Spring singing The Doctor’s song 2012
John Beddoes is Cool 2013
To access the entire folder of all the pantomime songs from 2009 - 2019, click the button link below. In total, all the material will provide you with a clip a day for 3 months.
DVDs of the 2019 Presteigne Panto performance are available to buy at Lorna's and Deli Tinto
All of the money raised goes to the East Radnorshire Foodbank
The panto was able to give the first instalment of cash to the food bank before Christmas, but the need is not going to disappear. Although The Workhouse is currently closed, because of Welsh lockdown rules, the DVDs are still on sale in Lorna's and in Deli Tinto. They make excellent presents and provide the perfect entertainment for a cold winter evening! Watch this space for further panto information in future Lugg Bloggs.
GARDEN @ No 3 - Sabina Rüber
Dreaming of colour …….
All images © Sabina Rüber
10 YEARS OF SKYBORRY CIDER - Dani Davies
At the end of 2020 we completed our tenth harvest, that’s ten years of commercial cider making at Skyborry Cottage.
Skyborry Cider was the brainchild of my brother Adam Davies. He had been working part-time for Martin and Jannet Harris of Butford Organics in Bodenham, Herefordshire. helping with the pruning of the orchards and pressing of the fruit for their Cider, Perry and apple juice. I had been living in London for seven years and was giving up my lease to head over to Brittany to help a friend renovate a house for the summer. I had no new accommodation set up for my return, so when Adam suggested attending a short course in cidermaking at Peter Mitchell’s Cider Academy in Hartbury, Gloucestershire in September, I decided on that, with a view to embark on our own cidermaking venture after, both living back in Knighton.
The first year we made cider Adam had made a press out of green oak sleepers and some big bolts. We had a tray to catch the juice welded at a fabrication workshop on the Rotherwas Industrial Estate in Hereford and we used a 10 tonne hydraulic bottle jack for the pressure. We harvested a couple of trees at Panpwnton Farm, an old orchard by Clungunford and a few sacks from here and there. We milled the fruit and pressed it on the driveway at Lower Skyborry Cottage, the family home since 1985. The 50 gallon food-grade barrels that had been collected from Smiths of the Forest of Dean sat in a line on the right-hand side of the garage to ferment. The juice was carried in buckets from the press, that clicked and strained under the pressure of the jack.
Adam had bought me the book ‘Ciderland’ by James Crowden that I found very inspiring. It featured various cider makers from the West of England and their different styles and methods. It featured local makers such as Ivor and Susie Dunkerton in Pembridge whose cider we were enjoying regularly, Newton’s from by the Cadbury factory past Leominster, and larger makers like Westons of Much Marcle. My favourite section was about Rosie Grant’s ‘Cider by Rosie’ of Winterborne Houghton in Dorset. She had a vintage French hydraulic press painted a beautiful blue colour and fermented in shiny clean stainless steel vessels she referred to as ‘sputniks’. She practised the Normandie Method of making naturally sweet ciders using Dorset Varieties such as Tom Putt. I got to try her cider when camping with friends down near Worth Matravers and the famous cider pub the Square and Compass, where traditional ciders are served alongside pasties from a hatch in the wall. I bought a couple of bottles from a shop in Swanage. That evening we drank them while we ate a sea bass cooked over a fire that James had caught in Chapmans Cove where we had pitched our tents just above the tidal line. The cider had a rosy like quality to it, it was dry and conditioned in the bottle and tasted fresh and fruity. I liked it, I wish to taste some again.
Despite trying many ciders over the years, there are very few that I can remember being exceptional and unforgettable, Rosie’s was one. Another was that of Cyril Zangs, a Normandie producer whose cider was a big inspiration to us when deciding the style and presentation of our own. I’d bought a few bottles from a tiny wine shop run by a French chap on Hackney Road in London that is long closed, he described Zangs as a ‘genius’. His cider was beautiful, refined and aromatic, with clear differences to the West Country style we were used to.
In 2018, I went to the Loire with a friend where we tripped round to different winemakers looking for importing potentials. It was a proud moment when the winemaker Julien Preval produced a bottle of Zangs cider and cracked it open to drink alongside a bottle of Skyborry. We stood around an old barrel at the mouth of his cave and tasted them with a couple of other winemakers that had pulled up in an old Citroen van. They liked it and I don’t feel shy to say that it stood up in comparison.
Two years in at 2012 we had begun experimenting with making the cider using the Normandy method called ‘keeving’ and conditioning in champagne bottles with cork and muzzle. While helping a local footpath contractor digging in a stile at The Warren in Hay on Wye, I had met Devlin Price, a Welsh farmer who kept an orchard and some pigs a short way from the river. He had many great cider varieties there and that year we bought a few tonnes of Dabinett and Yarlington Mill. We have been friends since and, although he no longer owns the land, we stay in contact.
We harvested Devlin’s orchard for six years before he sold it. It was at the auction of the land that he chatted with another local farmer about the prospect of us using his orchard and now we harvest a large portion of our apples from Hawkswood farm just outside Hay on Wye. The apples had gone to Dunkertons cider mill until they fell surplus to requirements. After Ivor Dunkerton’s death, the cidermaking operation had been taken over by the son and moved to a larger facility in Cheltenham.
In the winters of 2010 and 2011 we had also planted our own orchard on the edge of Knighton on some land owned by our grandparents. The field was called Lower Jackets, so this has become the Lower Jackets orchard. Now, ten years later, it is beginning to bear enough fruit for us to make our first home orchard ciders. ‘KNIGHTON CIDER’ a short run of 200 bottles was released before Christmas. We sold most of it, but made sure to keep a few cases back for future reference. The orchard is a mixture of Welsh and English Perry pear varietals, as well as traditional cider varieties Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Stoke Red, Browns, Breakwells Seedling, Frederick and Dabinett. Adam grafted a good portion of the trees himself from scion wood he had collected. Orchard work feels like sacred work and time spent in them soothes me. We have harvested Perry pear trees more than 250 years old, and to think that the varieties were selected, grafted and planted for this purpose, feels incredibly special.
It was in the harvests of 2015 and 2016 that we found a process of cidermaking that we have stuck with. We had experimented with the Normandie Method of ‘keeving’ since 2012 with some success, but the method we tuned in to did not require the adjuncts for keeving and was less nerve racking and far easier to explain. Now we could present a bottle of cider to anyone interested and say ‘there is only one ingredient in this bottle (fruit)’. We begun to call this our ‘Rural Method’ cider a translation of the French wine style ‘Methode Rurale’ similar to ‘Methode Ancestrale’ and ‘Petillant Naturel’. A simple method resulting in bottles of naturally sparkling cider and perry with residual sweetness present from the fruit. We now make nearly all of our cider and Perry in this style.
We were mostly learning about fermentation for the first 5 years (and are still learning of course) but, since we’ve rested on this process, it feels like we have begun to turn more to the fruit varieties and the different qualities each one brings. Less anxiety, and with our cider being popular in its little corner of the market, we generally feel more confident about what we are putting out.
Making cider in this fashion, without the commercial yeasts and sulphites, pasteurisation and many other possible interventions, undoubtedly opens you up to many unpredictable happenings - each vintage providing different surprises (not always good ones). The variables are infinite, but you can begin to get a rough idea of what may happen as experience is gained. We are not big note keepers, and it could aid the learning process if we were, but we do things more intuitively. If you end up with something special, it is in my opinion far more delicious than anything the mass produced alternatives can offer. In the pursuit of a consistent product for the mass market, the juice is heavily tampered with and while drinkable beverages can be made, the magic is lost.
Within the boundaries we have set ourselves, fruit and nothing but the fruit, there lies a lifetime’s worth of experimentation, and I hope we are still tinkering away for many years to come. We remain small, producing roughly 6000 bottles a year that find their way to various shops and restaurants around the UK. 2020 saw our first export to Canada, with some hopefully heading to Japan this year. There are exciting new orchard projects on the horizon and we are always looking for better fruit and ahead to the next harvest.
Dégustacion outside the wine cave of Juliene Preval, Montlouis, Loire Valley 2018.
ORDINARY MAGIC: A HOME BIRTH IN LOCKDOWN - Jessica Eve Watkins
April is warm, and brighter than usual, each morning bringing clear skies and bare limbs. My belly like a beachball, Rose lends me a pink kaftan from a long-ago trip east, and I sit outside the Bamford’s flat eating picnic lunches, waiting for our baby to come. I crave elderflower cordial and anything fizzy. We are staying here while the dust sheets cover our building site home. My partner Jake joins us to eat every day, but we go six weeks barely seeing him, as he plasters walls, contemplates water pipes, installs our bathtub; labouring against the clock of a growing baby. All shops and builders-merchants close around us, making it hard to get essential supplies. Nobody is allowed inside our house to help him.
The Bamfords give me pumpkin and melon seedlings to plant, and show me photos of their 1970s A-frame cabin. We see no-one else except our mothers; this is the first Welsh lockdown since the pandemic began, and I’m nine months pregnant in a completely unknown landscape. Whether I’ll get maternity allowance, whether a midwife will come to my birth, whether there’ll be food in the supermarket all feel like great anxious unknowns to me.
Rose buys a sack of potatoes and leaves it out in the wooden trough by our door. I bake bread and cakes, spend afternoons on end playing games alone with Forrest, who is now two-and-a-half and bouncing off the lockdown walls. Our days as a duo are numbered. I try to describe what a new brother will be like. We wander up the Clatterbrook stream often, watch the water-caterpillar chrysalises floating under the bridge. His candy-floss hair gleams silky white in the sunlight.
At night I sleep in a French linen smock, listening to hypno-birthing affirmations, a magic powerlessness to my waiting. I’m exhausted by the adrenalin of having to be ready. The mornings are fresh though. Yoga. By lunch, I am exhausted once more, and cannot sustain the weight of pregnancy, anxiety, a curious toddler, my surging hormones, without drifting away for an hour again.
On May 3rd, our baby’s ‘due date’, we decide to move home. There is still no hot water, no hose-to-tap connector to fill the birth-pool... but the walls are white and the floor is clean. Jake asks the baby to give us a few more days, and a few days are granted. Soon, hot water in the taps! A working cooker and fridge! And even a drawer full of washed baby clothes. The birthing pool sits deflating in the living room, unused but for Forrest reading his storybooks in there.
More days pass, and I’ve paced all over the hills, and up and down the Frith. Through the night I feel soft surges, almost too faint to notice. By 5.30am I’m wide awake, another bright spring day dawning. Jake brings me buttered toast to eat in bed. I stay lying down, counting the gaps between surges on an app for as long as I can. At 11am I admit there’s no way around it, and tentatively clamber downstairs, to lie on the floor in agony and then peace, then agony and then peace. It’s stronger than last time. We’re slow to fill the pool and slow to call Liz the midwife, and by the time I fold my body into the warm water and smell of sterilised rubber, the baby is well on his way. My waters break like a water-bomb, bursting into the pool, and I grip Jake’s hands too tightly, unsure if everything is ok. It’s just us two, and the bright blue pool in our half-finished living room.
Liz arrives at the very end, and as she struggles to get her PPE on I am shouting out her name so I can crush her hands too. I had imagined candles and incense, dim lighting, the woodburner crackling. But I am oblivious to the external, having transported to that deep distant realm within. Holden is born into the stark 1.30pm world, and the water in the pool turns crimson. Outside in the street people take their daily lockdown walk, oblivious to a new life birthed, just a few feet away.
I hold him and convulse with full-body relief, to feel tiny pink limbs at last, and suckling lips hunting for my nipple. Forrest gapes at him. I down two cups of sugary tea and eat the fizzy sweets so thoughtfully left on the door handle. The placenta slips out onto the floor. I shake until the following morning.
For the next three months, Holden and I barely leave the faded green armchair in our cocoon. Feeding, sleeping, nuzzling, like newlyweds. The house fills up with flowers and cards and meals and cakes, dropped off silently outside our door by invisible people. Nobody can meet the new baby. I read magazines and books, scribble down passing thoughts about nothing, and the summer stumbles into autumn. I feel utter grief for Forrest, like I’ve betrayed him. He suddenly looks so tall, and like he’s fading away from me. I miss him with an ache that’s only just beginning to normalise, eight months on, now Holden can be without me for moments, and I’m free to play goodies and baddies, uninterrupted.
These days Forrest likes to chastise his baby brother, usually by throwing cushions at his head. But, he also seems to find him the funniest person in the world, and I often hear him boasting about 'our baby' to people passing by.
SNAGGY MOUNTAIN AND WHY I DRAW DOGS - Helena Watt
With my fiddle slung over my shoulder and a sketchpad under my arm, I boarded a flight to New York. Heartbreak had inspired this escape from the U.K.
Weeks were spent weeping into the soil on a farm upstate, shivering in my poorly selected sleeping bag from Sainsbury’s whilst gripped by fear of the bears that surely lurked in the dark woods around me. I took a long breath, and reached inwards to feel for my armature, it felt strong. Nets were cast out for new connections, and I soon felt the healing effects of tiring days spent with the my hands in the earth, chatting to a new Italian friend. The cold pink dawns, firelit parties and an encounter with a porcupine lightened my mood. On the eight hour Megabus ride to Vermont, I felt my shoulders drop, and my eyes began to dry.
A plan was made to meet up with Jesse, one of my favourite humans. She and another friend were on a journey in the East, and our paths were to meet in at Snaggy Mountain, a community of artists and musicians in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I knew I’d brought my violin for a reason! On the bus south, my head filled with a fanciful vision; strolling through woodlands I stumble upon a ramshackle cabin, where I’d definitely find a bearded old Carolinian bluegrass fiddler who’d invite me, through whistling teeth, to sit on the porch with him. He would spend hours teaching me tunes and reels, imparting his old time musical wisdom upon me and thus I’d leave the woods a bluegrass master!
There were beards, there was music, and indeed ramshackle buildings, one of which was our living quarters. A tin barn, which rattled as the wind howled through the gaps in the walls. Three in a bed, three blankets to keep us warm, once waking to find snow falling softly onto our bed. My memories of our time at Snaggy shimmer with gold. To a soundtrack of constant live music I roamed through the forest, learned to make eggs in a basket, and got to know some interesting American folk. We danced through nearby towns, drinking beers, watching neon-lit bands strum guitars and banjos.
Jojo, a charismatic clown, the curly-haired ringleader of this creative paradise, had the heart of my best friend which anchored us there in the mountains until the snow came and more hearts were broken. The deal was, work on the land or pay some money for your keep, but I’d exhausted my funds and there was already enough hands to help. Having seen and liked the work in my sketchpad, Jojo suggested that I pay my way with drawings of his animals.
Icy-eyed Mushi was my first subject, followed by the ducks, Rosie the beagle and Jack, king of cats. Next my sketches were admired by another resident at Snaggy, a viking-esque eco warrior, who requested a drawing of his beloved hound, Marion. Then came the lightbulb moment, and this is when I finally get to the point of my story that links it to where I sit now, in my studio in Presteigne… “People seem to like my drawings, and adore their pets. This is how I can make a living doing something I love!”.
Back on U.K soil, I began taking commissions, and have since been building my pet portrait business. In 2016, life washed me up on the shores of Presteigne, where I remain today, still close by the side of my dear friend and travelling companion Jesse, who I now happily share a studio space with. Between slingin’ pizzas at Daphne’s and helping to care for an enigmatic Dutch artist, I have fortunately been able to continue drawing through the dreaded lockdowns of 2020. Please take a look at my website: helenawattportraits.com to see what I’ve been up to, and get in touch if you're interested in commissioning a drawing.
WINTER LANDSCAPES - Andrea Gilpin
All images © Andrea Gilpin
THE SEVEN BAR BLUES GATE - Pete Smith
Seven bars each of seven broken hearts creates the name of the gate and the reciprocal pattern that plays gently on the mind should you care to let it in.
The size of the gate was determined by the size of the original motif, which in itself was the product of a “go with the flow” forging session. Everything advanced in height and width from there until a natural proportion was reached. The gate frame was then constructed to accommodate the design using the Megalithic yard(MY) bringing Prof Thom’s theory to life. To do that I made a brass MY rule.
The lightweight construction and hinge arrangement allow the gate to be removed as required and the latch is designed not to interfere with the lines of the inner design. It also allows the gate to open either way and is not sprung, gravity being fast enough for the latch to self locate to its keep. The stock bars were forged down to MY measurements prior to construction and the finish is a rather pleasant blue linseed oil paint. The gate is now in service keeping rabbits out of the veggie patch here at Bluefoot.
AN INJECTION OF MUSICIANSHIP - Catherine Beale
The vaccination of the elderly in Salisbury Cathedral to an organ accompaniment ranging from Pachelbel’s Canon in D to ‘I do like to be beside the seaside’ has lifted the nation’s eyes, in the last week, to the organ loft. This, and an inquiry from Clare Stevens (for which sincere thanks) prompted me to dig out notes about the eminent former organist of St Andrew’s, Presteigne, Huskisson Stubington (1897-1971).
‘Stubings’ as he was affectionately known locally, came to Presteigne in 1928. The town’s great benefactor Alexander Wilson of Middlemoor (donor of the land for Wilson Terrace, the Playing Field, daffodil bulbs for the new Council House gardens, and a good deal more) had donated to St Andrew’s that year the ‘fine three-manual organ’ (Howse, Presteigne Past & Present) installed in the Lady Chapel after completion of works to the nave and chancel. Wilson further paid the Churchwardens a sum to be invested to supply a stipend for an organist. This endowment, plus an income from duties as Music Master at the Grammar School (today’s John Beddoes), enabled Stubington to accept the post and settle here. He married early the following year (in Brentford) Wilhelmina Higham (whose clergy father had been ‘missioner’ to the men working on the dams of the Elan Valley) who was about a decade his senior (they had no children). They settled, initially in Presteigne.
Although born in Jersey (Channel Islands), the only child of elderly parents (his father was fifty-seven when he was born; his mother thirty-nine) Stubington’s music education began at St Clement, Bournemouth, where his parents lived from 1901. He later studied under Hubert Hunt (Organist and Master of Choristers) at Bristol Cathedral, before joining up in 1916 as a Gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery. He saw active service in France and Belgium during the First World War.
In the decade between the war and coming to Presteigne, Stubington held four posts: the first two in Kent, at St. Mary's Parish Church, Westerham (1921 to 1924) and Kemsing Parish Church (1924-1925). Contemporaneously with the latter post, he is recorded as organist and musical director of St. Benedict’s Church, Ardwick, Manchester, before moving for the two years before coming to Presteigne, to Gloucestershire as organist of St. Mary's Church, Wotton-under-Edge.
During his time in Presteigne, Stubington would have been occupied with choir practices, besides the week’s church services for Revd HL Kewley. The rector was a noted supporter of music in Presteigne and had revived both the choral society and the town band. In addition, Stubington would have been giving music lessons at the grammar school as well as private lessons. He nevertheless found time to publish books about the organs of Bournemouth Pavilion (1929), Downside Abbey (1931), and St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol (1935).
During the 1930s, the couple moved to Little Bryan’s Ground on Letchmoor Lane. Mina’s widowed mother lived with them. Here, Stubington was able to pursue two other pastimes, photography and gardening, at both of which he was, by family accounts, rather good. In September 1939, when war broke out, Mina’s sister and children were on holiday in Devon. Instead of returning to London, they moved in with Stubington and Mina until the following year. Stubington nevertheless (or perhaps in reflection of unusual circumstances) published, in 1940, a volume on ‘Practical Extemporisation’.
Before the War was over, in 1944, Huskisson Stubington was lured away to the prestigious post of organist at Tewkesbury Abbey. There he also served as accompanist to Tewkesbury Choral and Orchestral Society (1944-46) and in 1947 he co-founded and was the first President of the Gloucestershire Organists' Association.
His time at Tewkesbury is chiefly noted today for Stubington’s attempt to connect the separate organs of the Abbey so that they might be played from a single console. These included the exceptionally important Milton Organ (formerly at Magdalen College, Oxford, then Hampton Court Palace) and unique Grove Organ, as well as a smaller instrument in the apse, the sound of which, heard from afar, might lend interesting new texture. His aim was never accomplished, and has tended to leave the false impression of Stubington as an eccentric Heath Robinson.
Far from it. Stubington’s abilities were recognised by his formal qualifications as FRCO (including the award of the prestigious Turpin Prize), and ARCM. During the post-War years, Stubington travelled extensively on the Continent. He contributed thirty-five beautifully-written and scholarly articles to The Organ magazine about instruments that he tracked down in France, Belgium and Germany. Dr Roy Massey, Organ Advisor to Hereford Diocese, recalls regularly turning to Stubington’s articles as a reliable source.
Dr Massey’s memories offer, besides, an insight into the generous character of Stubington. As a music student, Massey had arrived at Tewkesbury by chance, and received a full tour of the various instruments. Stubington willingly gave of his time to the younger organist, leading Dr Massey to recall him as “very, very kind and generous”. Stubington’s nephew recalls being thrilled by expeditions into the high, hidden corners of the Abbey. One Tewkesbury parishioner, in an obituary to Stubington in the Parish Magazine recalled “an extremely able and, above all, kindly man, full of rare old-world charm and courtesy”.
Presteigne was therefore fortunate that Stubington returned to St Andrew’s in 1966, after retiring from Tewkesbury Abbey on the grounds of ill-health. He and Mina were helped by the family to purchase a modern bungalow on Letchmoor Lane (today’s Sweet Briar), which overlooked the town. After Mina’s death in March 1969, Huskisson moved to a retirement home, his place funded by the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund. He died in 1971 and is buried, with his wife, to the left at the top of the cemetery steps nearest the town, close to his former home.
So far as I am aware, no organ music is being offered at the local vaccination centres at Knighton or Builth. Should your Lockdown constitutional take you as far as the cemetery steps, you might care to spare a thought for Huskisson Stubington, who brought his musical excellence to Presteigne fully half a century before the Festival came to town.
ILLUSTRATION DURING LOCKDOWN - Alexia Tucker
Lockdown has taken me on some illustrative adventures, which have been a real pleasure. On a normal year I don’t take commissions from June - September as I am busy working the festival season, as part of our company Village Circus. The pandemic putting a stop to all event work gave me a window of opportunity to get stuck into new work, it was particularly refreshing to have this run of time after finishing maternity leave in March.
Initially, Hay Deli asked me to whip something up to put in their window, to cheer up costumers out buying essentials. Derek, who runs the Deli, didn’t feel it was right to have a promotional window display, so I was tasked with creating something fun using imagery that I already had, to keep the budget down. “A Brighter Day” was the result of some happy hours digitally collaging many of my animal drawings into fantastical jungle scene, of course, there needed to be a rainbow as our symbol of hope and appreciation of our NHS & key workers. I hope the image brought some smiles during this odd time. I have enjoyed seeing the postcards and prints flying out to bring a splash of colour to people’s mail.
I then moved on to a commission that has been in the pipeline since my second son, Nuadha, was born in March 2019. I posted about his birth on social media, and a company that makes beautiful, ethical Merino wool base layers and baby sleeping bags got in touch to share the director’s similar home birth story, we got chatting about me doing a fabric design some day. A year later we got the ball rolling. Superlove Merino started by asking me to update two designs they had on their product range, to give them a more illustrative feel, as they were trying to move away from their more digital print style. I was only too delighted to work on this project, having been a customer, I knew their product well, and was really pleased to be working with an earth conscious independent business. Designing a repeat fabric was new to me and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. We are about to release the second fabric ‘Bumble’, so I can’t show you that yet, but it will be on my social medial pages asap.
The fabric that has been released, is ‘Up and Away’, the brief was to feature hot air balloons and sky borne things. I took this a little further by having the balloons carry different smaller items you might find in the sky - leaves, feathers, a frisbee, a butterfly... My intention was to get children and parents storytelling while taking time to spot each item on the print. If you look closely there is a little nod to breastfeeding Mamas in the form of a boob shaped balloon, I added this after a particular phone call, with the director Suse, was interrupted by a hungry toddler!
Superlove Merino won Gold this year at the Junior Design Awards, for their sleeping bags. And I was pleased to see a mention of the new prints - the judges “loved the new range of beautiful unisex prints inspired by nature and the elements”.
Having finished the fabric design - after much back and forth with printers and samples - which was all a fascinating insight into the world of fabric production, I made a start on a logo for Castle Green Grocers in Hay, a family run business that had been working overtime to provide for the locals during that first scary lockdown, when so many people couldn’t get food supplies. They wanted a logo to represent their shop, and nothing felt more fitting than the vintage greengrocers cart they have outside their shop, loaded with colourful fruits and vegetables.
Next up was a map for Chapters Restaurant in Hay-on-Wye. Mark & Charmaine source all their produce from suppliers as close to the restaurant as possible. They also forage many ingredients for their menu and they wanted me to represent this with a map of the places they forage.
The main challenge was getting the layout of the map right, it needed to be portrait to sit in the hallway of the restaurant, and there was a lot of information to be included. I went through a variety of potential layout options, before deciding to follow the flow of the river as our central navigation. And then, for me, getting lost with my pen, drawing plants/vegetables/fruit and all their detail, is always a pleasure. The map will be on display in their restaurant when it opens, and I believe there will be a postcard printed too.
Coming towards the end of one full year of pandemic life, I am back working for Lost & Grounded Brewers, who’s branding I initially designed in 2016. The illustrations of their core range of beers make up a panorama of scenes including the winged hippo I designed for their logo. This month has seen me add two more beers to this panorama, they are not yet released, but look out for local stockists, or in Waitrose, and you may spot one in a few months.
Looking back over the year I am very grateful to have had so many interesting projects to get my teeth into! I have certainly, in moments, felt the strain of lockdown life affecting my creativity, some moments were exhausting, moving from parenting at home all day, everyday, to trying to pull ideas from a head that needed a dose of freedom and inspiration. And as a family that travelled often for work, it has been a huge adjustment learning to stay in one place for so long (there are pros and cons to this!).
On the tough days, we found getting outside onto a big hill, with a “hot lot lut” (as my smallest would say) and, ideally, a sunset, was a good pick me up. And now let’s bring on long sunny days, and socially distanced picnics this spring!!
THE QUIZ!
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HAPPY (BELATED) NEW YEAR!
If you would like to contribute something to the next Lugg Blogg in the form of art, photography, music, local lore and events past, literature, poems, gardens and food which you think might fit in, please send your stuff to luggblogg@outlook.com.