Optimistically sceptical
Hi Everyone
Things do seem to be perking up a bit and there is much talk of gigs and festivals resuming. I remain optimistically sceptical (Is that even a thing?). But in order to combat any mass breakout of rejoicing I have made you a depressing new song and video. Much of the video is set in an office but since the last office I was actually in was my civil service Dad’s office in the Ministry of Housing in 1961, I am possibly a bit shaky on the details. However, I do think these stories about Silicone Valley offices where they all sit at desks made out of surfboards, wear shorts and play basketball and pool in designated “Pleasure Areas” must be a load of old twaddle. Those American chappies need to grow up and get proper jobs. By the way big thanks to my friends who were forced to act in this video and had to put up with all my stupid directions.
Okay, time for a little funky stuff. My other video offerings this month are all from NPR music. It continues to be my go-to channel for finding good live music, really well recorded. The first is from Lous and the Yakuza. Definitely my favourite vid of the month, Lous is a refugee from the war in the Congo now living in Belgium. As the first song says "Living haunts me, everything that surrounds me made me mean”. I was very taken with the setting for this one, which is the Book Bar in the Hôtel Grand Amour in Paris. It sure looks a bit classier than most of Presteigne’s hostelries. I mentioned this to son who just said “Oh yeah bin there for drinks loads of times” (flash show off!)
The next one is Anderson .Paak and the Free Nationals. Apart from the super tight band the best thing about this is how comfy Anderson is playing his kit and singing at the same time, which is not the easiest skill in the world, especially in this soulful musical genre. Eat your heart out Phill Collins but step up for applause the late Levon Helm from The Band. In my teenage R&B band I tried to fulfill both roles. No wonder my drumming was so rubbish. Here is a picture in case you don’t believe me.
Finally here is a video especially for Dave Luke. Later on, in this blog you will see his fantastic film of five Beach Boy lookalikies tackling a Stones song. (Dad Beach Boy would never approve - of the Stones song I mean not Dave). The vid here is of Jacob Collier who has been championing this style of one-man-band music videos since 2012 when he was precocious 16. Now at the ripe old age of 25 he has a contract with Quincy Jones and in this latest video he has begun having conversations with his other selves in between songs. Who knows where this innovation could lead? I urge Dave to have a go. Who knows what hidden secrets of the soul might be revealed? I could even imagine a new lucrative form of psychotherapy in which we all begin having revealing, live conversations with ourselves. Cut out the middleman and get straight to the problem. I’m looking for £50,000 for a 10% stake in my start up company ‘Talking by Myself ‘ – just send bank details.
Pete
KEEPING THE SKIES ALIVE! Anne Belgrave
The swifts are on their way back.
They play such a part in summer evenings with their 70 mph. fly-pasts and screaming parties, yet despite their physical proximity, many aspects of their long-distance, high-altitude, high-speed lives still elude our understanding.
Their scientific name Apus comes from Ancient Greek, a classical word going back to Plato: α, a, "without", and πούς, pous, "foot”, as they were originally thought to be a type of swallow with no feet. It doesn't mean literally lacking feet, just not using them. Swifts never willingly touch the ground, their wings are too long and their legs too short to take off from a flat surface. Nesting high up and spending their lives in the air, they live on insects caught in flight. They drink, feed, sleep, find nest materials and often mate on the wing. No other birds spend as much of their life in the sky. Research has found that swifts perform vertical ascents and descents up to 25 km. at both dawn and dusk, possibly connected with establishing their orientation or the presence of nocturnal insects. Much of their behaviour remains a mystery.
They over-winter in Africa and will fly about 6000 miles over land and sea to arrive here at the beginning of May. They left the Democratic Republic of Congo in early April and 1500 or so were recently sighted over Falaise de Leucate, a large nature reserve full of marshes and lakes just north of Barcelona. At this time of year, that area is teeming with newly hatched flies and midges, a great food supply for passing migrant birds. The swifts may stay awhile to feed up before continuing on the last leg of their journey towards the UK and some will fly on to arrive in Presteigne, hopefully very soon. They’ll breed and then leave again early in August, spending just three months here with us.
We’ve lost over half of the Swift population in the past 20 years. They have shared our buildings ever since the Romans came to Britain and still nest under eaves and in gables, but modern and renovated buildings often exclude them, leaving no nooks and crannies or small openings for them to find to nest in. So think SWIFT if doing any roofing repairs. Swallows and House Martins build their cup nests with mud but swifts use a tiny crevice under the eaves, flying in at tremendous speed, to tend a delicate nest made of a few feathers, cobwebs and anything else they can find floating in the air.
Climate change and the decline in insect populations are also factors in their decline, so farming and gardening for wildlife is important to make sure the birds have plenty to sustain them.
In the last couple of years, Knighton Men’s Shed have been making nest boxes and these will be available again soon but meanwhile, Swift Conservation sells them, as well as the Swift call CD and MP3 recordings which help to attract them to your house. The young birds from last year return alongside the older ones and look for possible breeding sites for the following year when they are ready to breed, so it’s not too late to put up a nest box. You can order or find plans for a DIY one, as well as find out more, at www.swift-conservation.org
Look out for the first arrivals…
GARDEN @ No 3 - Sabina Rüber
Well, here we are - another April. Full circle. At the moment the garden is about two weeks behind where it was last year. 2020’s pictures show the garden already full of tulips - this year, only a handful of varieties are in bloom. With the frosty mornings and waking up to snow not long ago, it's probably not surprising the garden seemed sleepy halfway through April. But now, with the warmth pushing through, it's starting to catch up.
The month began with a lot of yellow, bright yellow, which is a tricky colour and one I’m not overly keen on in the garden. However, seeing the first daffodils flowering by the roadside always cheered me up and maybe, just maybe, in this 'stay at home' year, that was the reason I ended up with pots and pots of yellow flowers shouting "Look at me!”.
The sweetly fragrant Narcissus double ‘Campernelle' and Narcissus 'Heamoor’ which, despite being very double, managed to hold itself up.
Unlike N. ‘Dick Wilden’ whose heads proved to be too heavy to support without assistance. Yellow on yellow, a lovely bright primula.
The softer colourings of Narcissus ‘Hawera’ and the dogtooth violet, Erythronium ‘Pagoda’.
The far end of the garden is now at its best - curtained in summer by hedging and trees when in leaf, it’s perfect for early spring woodland plants and wildlife.
The elegant, pure white Narcissus ’Thalia’ and small growing ’Toto’ in the ‘Dell’.
Oxslip (Primula elatior) and snakehead fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) naturalising beautifully here.
Epimedium × versicolor 'Sulphureum’ & Mr/Mrs? llyffant.
David’s Tree’ (Amelanchier lamarckii) once again in bloom and my deliciously fragrant Skimmia x confusa 'Kew Green’ - a ‘gift' from a long-ago photoshoot.
I love the acid green of Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii with the bright colours of the tulips, here: early double ‘Margarita’ with ‘Apricot Emperor and ‘Orange Emperor’.
Tulips 'Orange Emperor’ and ’Negrita’ with hyacinth ‘Woodstock’, Narcissus ‘Replete’ and ‘Geranium’. + solo - Narcissus ‘Replete’.
This is undoubtedly my busiest time of year - growing and picturing are both full-on. Hundreds of seedlings to care for, new plants and flowers to be positioned, posed and captured and the next couple of weeks are going to be frantic with the hundreds of tulips coming into bloom…...
IT'S SPRING!!!
Dave Luke’s new video
RESTORE, RENOVATE, REPLICATE, RECREATE, REPLACE, OR SIMPLY REPAIR.
© Peter Wright, April 2021
The Lugg Blogg catchment area is rich in the skills and experience needed to restore, renovate, replicate, recreate, replace, or simply repair old, broken, worn out things that are either loved or worth (as in £££) keeping. There are individuals and enterprises who seek out or are sought out by the owners of buildings, gardens, automobiles, motorcycles, agricultural machines, musical instruments, clothes, pieces of art, furniture..... all the way to electrical goods and toys. The first question asked is: ”Which of the R’s to apply to it, to save it from joining tons of plastic in a landfill tip or, almost worse still, being shipped to a poorer nation to be hopefully recycled?”
If we start with repair, a feature that is designed out of so many products today, but popularised by the BBC’s Repair Shop – more highly-skilled restoration and grief therapy than a place for simple repairs – we are able to experience all the good things about repairing objects at Rolly and Anne’s monthly Presteigne Repair Café. I hope it is as much fun and fulfilment for those who bring items in for repair as it is for those who attempt the repairs.
Perhaps the Repair Café case that epitomises its whole philosophy was the 25-year old, upright vacuum cleaner whose drive belt to the beating roller had finally failed. Amazingly, the owner went to Bennetts and came back with a packet with two new belts, one of which was fitted and the other retained by the owner. He departed happily with his repaired machine, with: “See you in another 25 years time.” Yes!
Sadly, so many plastic items are hard to take apart without snapping something, or indeed to disassemble at all; where they are held together with screws they are often designs that have ever-weirder heads to try and outwit repairers. Apple are the masters of this. Manufacturers today do not want you to repair their products, only they should do this at a cost. Of course, what they would prefer is that you replace it.
At the Repair Shop, the first thing one hears when an object is brought in is ”What does this......mean to you?” The second question is ”What would you like us to do to it?” These two questions are the fundamentals that must be answered before deciding on whether repair, restoration, or renovation of an object is undertaken. The first question is the hardest to answer as it is so personal. Helena has tackled it in her fascinating new book, Lev's Violin, having been disturbed by the violin’s current owner telling her that he had been informed by an expert that it was worthless. How could it be? The fact that the violin and its voice inspired her to go in search of its story is surely an indication of its worth. Indeed her research reveals to her that it is the stories gathered by an object are it’s true worth, not its monetary value as an investment.
One story that illustrates this perfectly is that of a 1925 Brescia Bugatti T22. Belonging to the GP driver, and New York restauranteur, René Dreyfus,he lost it in a drunken poker game in Paris in 1934. The new new owner was not able to pay the taxes at the Swiss border and so left it there with the customs officials. In those days the car was deemed almost worthless, and so they rolled into Lake Maggiore where it resided in 173 feet of water until 1967, when it was discovered by the local diving club. For four decades it became a destination for diving expeditions.
In 2008, a teenage lad was randomly murdered at the local fair, and the club members decided to recover the car and sell it, in order to set up a charity in the boy’s name to combat youth violence. It was bought by American collector and museum owner Peter Mullin, who exhibits it exactly as it was, in a special room in his museum, lit as if it’s still resides at the bottom of the murky waters of the lake. Thousands have now seen the car, and take away an experience depending on which part of its story they identify with. Fully restored the Bugatti could be worth up to $1 million; untouched and telling its own extraordinary story, it is more than just an ancient automobile.
The Repair Shop’s second question raises the issue of how far to go in repairing, restoring, or renovating an object that is brought in. Restoration means returning it to the state it was at some point in time that has meaning to its owner; we don’t own these objects, we simply care for them for future generations. This point in time is usually when it was relegated to the attic or the barn, and before damp, parasites, atmospheric pollution and time have taken their tolls, when it was last remembered. Houses, vehicles and musical instruments in particular are subjected to hard use by sometimes uncaring humans and repaired, modified, and updated according to the tastes of their chain of owners, for further use. Sometimes there are just done up for show.
The Queen of the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach, judges exquisite restored and renovated automobiles, where no expense is spared to gain the ultimate bragging rights. The cars are more perfect than when they left the factory and are detailed with cotton buds as the judges approach. Personally, I hate modern acrylic and urethane paints used to restore an old car – Dupont only introduced spray painting in 1924, and any car built before then was brush painted with coach enamel. Equally, I detest modern leather for upholstery. Modern hides are skimmed, the hair follicles re-impressed into the surface, and plastic coatings applied to repel spilled coffee. At Pebble Beach there is even a Preservation Class, which has spawned teams of craftsman to reproduce just the right amount of decay and patina!
The Automobile magazine shuns any word beginning with an “R”, and has promoted instead the “conservation” of old cars, coining the term ”oily rag”. This involves leaving coachwork and the interior as found, bringing the mechanicals into working order, and using and maintaining the vehicle with no more than an oily rag. This is a wonderful approach provided the car in question is not raced, rallied, or rolled too often. Presteigne High Street in October provides many examples of the oily rag approach to old car conservation, although the examples are often covered in mud from the surrounding hills.
Recreations and replicas. There is nothing wrong with constructing a new version of an historic object to enable those unable to afford an or even the original to experience, appreciate, and feel what it is. A new oak-framed building or a replica AC Cobra will give its owner immense pleasure for less than 10% the cost of an original version. Modern materials do not detract from the experience but they do last longer.
A well-known and respected historic car restorer once warned me against purchasing an original Bugatti engine casting, found under a bench on a farm in rural France. “In the 1920s they made castings from melted down soup bowls and they corrode internally. We can do you a casting in a modern aluminium alloy, age it, and stamp whatever numbers you want on it; in a couple of years even you all believe it is an original!” Of course, claiming originality when it isn’t enters the well-trod territory of fakes and forgeries. Helena reviews this aspect of the violin trade in great detail in her chapter titled: Violin A and E.
Grand Design’s Kevin McCloud – we all love him, don’t we? – wrote an article in Octane a while ago, bringing his experience of restoring houses to a particular historic car issue. A collection of 59 classic and historic cars was discovered in a barn in France, belonging to the family of the deceased magazine publisher: the Baillon collection. Among them was a 1961 250 SWB California Spider Ferrari. It was discovered covered in the dust of decades, under piles of magazines. It went to auction, still with its original dust and sold, dust and all, for $18.5 million.
Kevin’s point was about what would happen to it next: would it be restored or would it be left alone with the dust carefully preserved? This story reminds me of Sir Hugh Casson,
Director of Architecture at the Festival of Britain, who said: “A thing worth having is a thing worth dusting.”
LOCKDOWN LORE - Mark Williams
Or the pleasures and pitfalls of the pandemic
For those of us that still read newspapers, and for all I (don’t) know, on social meeja and online news platforms too, the Covid pandemic has revealed the resourcefulness and, paradoxically, the inherent indolence in all mankind, or at least in highly-paid columnists who’ve had damn-all else to scribble about this past year. So being an erstwhile columnist whose never-very-well-paid work has totally dried up thanks to Covid, or possibly ‘cause I wasn’t very good at it, as lockdown gradually eases I found myself musing on how it’s changed life in the Marches, to whit:
THE GOOD
More sleep – there’s much less to get up in the morning for, except the early shift stewarding punters outside Premier
Stewarding punters into shops on Presteigne High Street – which provides one with a slightly virtuous sense of Doing Good for the community and possibly diminishing the spread of the wretched virus, although that didn’t stop two shopworkers actually catching it, and invites occasional hostility from some of the punters one’s trying to protect. Interestingly (or not), no other local town has adopted this tactic, which town councils seems oblivious to
More time to read – although diminishing attention spans appear common amongst those addressing Tolstoy, Roth and Danielle Steele after years of willful neglect, but seed catalogues, colour supplements and accumulated back-issues of magazines one no longer subscribes to seem to fill the literary void
Enhanced culinary adventures – although the growth of ghastly, vacuum packed meals by mail from the likes of Parsely Farm is one sinister consequence of Covid, the evening meal has assumed greater importance hereabouts and thanks to my ex-colleague, Lindsey Bareham’s daily recipes (www.lindseybareham.com) one can try exciting new stuff. However as most of these are for two people there are lots of leftovers sitting sadly in the freezer, and/or trying to make soup out of yesterday’s ginger and lemon pork croquettes can be a bit of a challenge… and even Deli Tinto doesn’t have chorizo chipolatas.
More exercise – rambling hither and yon in the hills that surround us is good for the soul as well as the body, but remarkably few others have slots in their busy Covid-wracked schedules to join one which, in the case of we singletons for whom was almost the only (legal) way of socialising, was a bit of a bore. But my smart-ish phone tells me I do at least 10,000 step most days, plus 150 sit-ups and 10 minutes of upper body weights, all totally undermined by…
THE BAD
Increased consumption of boozo the wonder drug – Long gone are those two or three smug, alcohol-free days a week and Tuesday morning stewarding outside Premier as they unload two pallets of beer, cider and cheap red wine at least reassures us that we are not alone. And then there’s chocolate…
Cinemas, music venues, art gallery and theatre closures meant a loss of the cultural nourishment we once took for granted, and also denying me a happy day each month delivering Broad Sheep to welcoming venues from Newtown to Builth, the upside-downside of this being…
We’ve all become t.v. addicts, hooked on dramas that bespeak deep human nastiness (Unforgotten, Intruder, Succession, Spiral), deep human selfishness but witty with it (Call My Agent, Ozark, Schitt’s Creek) and/or mindless froth (TOWIE, Temptation Island), much of it on terrestrial channels which soon won’t exist because we’ll all resent paying our licence fee on top of the all-important Netflix, Amazon Prime, Sky etc. subscriptions… and the BBC’s new director general is a Tory donor
Housework – we’re not doing it because no-one’s allowed in except us and we’re slobs who don’t now have to pretend otherwise anymore, although I did dust down the DVD player last week when the wi-fi went down.
Personal Hygiene – see above, and anyway, we’re saving the planet by consuming less gas, water and whatever hideous chemicals go into making roll-on deodorant.
Supermarket and Amazon delivery vans – which have proliferated during lockdown and will make Leon’s, Deli Tinto and the rest’s survival even tougher once the lockdown gloves come off. Yes, Every Little Helps (kill off the High Street)
Loneliness – isn’t everybody suffering to some extent from this? Still, YouTube is full of cuddly little critters doing amusing things with knitted goods to keep us company, and I’m hoping the frog spawn in my pond will eventually yield some amphibian companionship
Getting on a bit – because The Economist magazine predicted that due to the societal and commercial changes wrought by lockdown that by the end of 2021 Britain would become 2030. Which means I’ll soon be in my early 80s and further cluttering Hereford Street on my mobility scooter and instead of the mere 50% now, the only topics of conversation will be about ill-heath, ill-fitting dentures and the passing of friends. Which brings us to…
THE UGLY
Willy-waving Boris Johnson and his cohort of ill-equipped, duplicitous, Brexiticious but fiercely loyal cabinet chosen for exactly that last reason. The only thing they got right was the vaccination programme, which they’ll use as a smokescreen for everything else that they didn’t, not least their insultingly low NHS nurses pay rise, cronyism and infidelity. And if you can handle more on this, try my friend Roslyn Byfield’s witheringly forensic blog www.therapistinlockdown.co.uk
1958 PILOT PANTHER SHOWMAN’S WAGON NOTES FROM VILLAGE CIRCUS, 2021
- Alexia Tucker
Our story with the Pilot Panther Showman’s wagon began with an arson attack on Monday 19th August 2013.
Willo’s self built camper van was parked in London, his canopies on board, ready to head to a festival for a job the next day, overnight someone decided to torch it. After hours spent talking with police and insurance companies, Willo sat alone, contemplating his loss. For some reason at that moment, he decided to look up vintage caravans on eBay, and there it was. A new adventure.
Once he had acquired the Pilot, they both wound their way back to Wales, and Willo and his mother Alison made a start on fixing it up, including having it sprayed dusty blue, modernising the space to open plan living, and installing the Shaker style kitchen. The oak panelled areas remain largely original from its first fitting for the Russian Circus troupe, Duo Russmar (we’d so love to know tales of this time). Remarkably the original features had not a single coffee ring stain, we like to imagine there were a lot of doilies in there once!
Once up and running, the showman’s wagon was used by us, Village Circus, on festival tours, adapting easily from site office, to green room, to glamping rental, as needed.
In 2015 Willo met Lex, and employed her to create a bizarre new venue with him, The Club House. His biggest venture yet, it features a huge arena filled with daft participatory games. They spent the first two days conjuring up mad ideas and laughing endlessly. At the end of that second day Lex found herself taking pain relief for a bizarrely sore face, it wasn’t until she went to bed that evening that she realised her face hurt from laughing (this is Willo’s proudest moment to date). In late 2016 they had a son, and the Pilot continued to provide site support at festivals, often becoming the family home on the road for the following few festival seasons.
Thinking back to the spaces we’ve shared with it, we see,
An empty field become a thriving home for a collection of well traveled crew
Marquees and camp kitchens unfurl from trailers
Hand made props come to life, from giant tennis rackets, painstakingly strung with tiny lights, to hand sewn banners and a painted ‘herd’ of racing sea hobby horses.
A groundsman marking the weekend’s arena with rolling white lines.
Off the wall characters emerge from frenzied dressing rooms, and somehow form an orderly line to begin a show.
Glittered characters, glowing from a day’s performance, kicking back and sharing tales of the days hilarity.
An LED clad duo lighting up for a night of performance.
A hoard of mismatched sporting performers swarming together for a team photo.
A film crew gathering backstage snippets from the team.
A small boy watching Mauri practice the Haka backstage.
Mass team banquets, opening nights, wrap parties, backstage games continuing into the early hours.
A family and business growing and evolving between festival seasons.
During these times, surrounded by wild and colourful happenings, the Pilot provided a quiet shelter from the madness, a place to stop and think, and a soothing room for our baby to wind down before bed.
We cherish the memories we have had with it, and look forward to seeing its story continue at Glen Dye.
COAL AND GAS - Nigel Dodman 2021
GAS
For quite a long time now the U.S.A. has been producing and exporting not only huge amounts of natural gas and shale gas, but also a less obvious G.A.S. – Guitar Acquisition Syndrome – because it is the home of most of the finest guitars on the planet.
This 12 year old Norfolk Schoolboy holding down an E chord, is clearly suffering from early symptoms of G.A.S. The guitar is not even his own: it’s his older brother’s, and the footrest is his
father’s retired working Cocker Spaniel. He would rush home from school 30 minutes before his brother, grab the guitar from under the bed, play frantically for half an hour, wipe it down to remove fingerprints and replace it. Later, as a pre-pubescent teenager - everything arrived late in Norfolk in those days – he bought it. It was the first of many and the start of something very big.
Fast forward to 2010, when a good friend handed him a copy of Cahalen Morrison and Eli West’s first CD “The Holy Coming of the Storm”. The sound of the guitar on track 13 blew his mind, as did Eli’s brilliant playing.
The next year, he saw this amazing duo playing in a small venue in Pembrokeshire, and during the break told Eli that he loved the sound of that guitar he was playing, especially on the track “I’ll Not Be a Stranger”.
“Oh that’s not this guitar. That one’s back in Seattle. In fact, I’m thinking of selling it”.
Back to coal: it turns out that it was hand made in Virginia as a special order, with Brazilian Rosewood back and sides and an Adirondack Spruce top – all triple A grade tone-woods. It was a copy of a pre-war Martin D28.
“Good job it’s in Seattle!” he replied, thinking that the regulations prohibiting the import/export of certain rare and endangered hardwoods might curb his desire and keep him safe.
“We’re coming back over next year. I could always bring it with me if you’re really interested” He’d moved in for the kill. Musicians are allowed to travel internationally with their own instruments.
To quote Patrick Kavanagh “I saw the danger, yet I trod, along the enchanted way…..” That guitar now lives in Radnorshire.
Cahalen and Eli played here for us three times, and shortly after the last visit they parted company to pursue solo careers. The absence of their unique fusion of Poetry, Bluegrass, Old Time, Gospel and Country, with a sprinkling of Jazz, has been widely mourned. However, new shoots are appearing. For a few years now, Cahalen has fronted his own Country band, Western Centuries, as well as recording several solo albums. Last year he was invited to join The BBC Transatlantic Sessions Tour and has ended up living in Scotland. His latest CD, Wealth of Sorrow, a truly solo project, has received great reviews and awards, and includes this track written in Radnorshire one morning before breakfast. This video of that song is taken from one of their last performances together.
Eli went on to perform and record a beautiful album – Hand to Play - with Norwegian fiddler Olav Mjelva. Their first (warm up) performance on the UK tour took place in The Workhouse, where they played to a small, very privileged audience.
Eli’s first solo album, The Both, featured some very well-known guest artists, including legendary Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, and his second solo album, Tapered Point of Stone, has just been released. It illustrates beautifully how young, talented musicians can take the broad range of influences that they have absorbed to new and exciting heights. Once again, it features some of the best acoustic musicians and vocalists around, including the wonderful Julie Fowlis, and showcases the man’s vocal and instrumental skills to maximum effect. They also manage to squeeze in a trio of Old Time instrumental favourites. This final clip is taken from the recording of the title track.
Make no mistake though, this mild-mannered man from the Pacific North West is a danger to all who suffer from G.A.S.!
So far no one has come up with a cure, and be warned, it is contagious. Meaningful exchanges between fellow sufferers can, however, help to reduce individual burdens – Just ask Mick Westrip or Dave Luke!
We miss the frequent visits from all these wonderful North American artists and can only hope that, in time, they will be able to return to our venues and festivals.
SEARCHING FOR STONES - Alex Ramsay
It wasn’t for many years that I realised how rich in prehistoric monuments this area is. Following in the footsteps of many others, I have finally begun to explore what this corner of Radnorshire has to offer the amateur stone seeker. Roughly 4000 years ago the Walton Basin was one of the more densely populated areas in Europe. Post holes have been discovered which indicate that there was a vast palisaded area enclosing as much as 35 hectares of land, with about 1400 oak posts standing 18 feet high and weighing over 4 tons apiece, built for some unknown purpose. There was also at least one cursus - a double line of ditches - running for perhaps as much as 4 km. Standing stones and tumuli (burial mounds) dot the countryside. We can only guess, but it seems likely that this was a ritual landscape of huge significance to many generations of people.
The Four Stones circle is of course the best-known locally, but there are so many more monuments nearby - even St Stephen’s church in Old Radnor is thought to be built on a Bronze Age mound, and there is a probable standing stone in the churchyard, repurposed as a gravestone. Some say that the massive church font (from the original sixth-century church destroyed by Owain Glyndŵr) was itself carved from a pre-Christian ritual stone.
The striking female shape of the Whimble dominates the valley, and the willing eye can easily see alignments and correspondences between several of the menhirs (maen hîr, long stone) and this and other summits around. Each stone I find and photograph encourages me to go a little further and seek out more.
CATS ON THE MOON? Kenneth Rodmell
TECHNICALLY they're called Mare Cognitum, Mare Nubium and Mare Humorum but such things were lost on me when I took my first serious binocular look at the Moon in 2012. What I saw was a family of cats. It was fortuitous that the lunar phase and illumination were just right for them to stand out at their best (about 3 days before full moon) and that my observation time placed these adorable felines the 'right way' up. Had time or my latitude been different, I'd probably have missed them. Had I looked through an astronomical (i.e. inverting) telescope I'd almost certainly have missed them.
I can't claim to have seen more than a fraction of the material published about our nearest heavenly neighbour but, in everything I have seen, I recall no mention of these cats (though I stand to be corrected). At the time I was owned by a long-haired adopted stray cat (now sadly lamented) and her intense eyes seemed to stare longingly from the centre of the red circle (superimposed on picture). Look closely inside the circle at the ten o'clock and two o'clock positions and you'll even see her ears! Outside the circle, radiating from the half-past-ten, you'll see her big fluffy tail, a.k.a. Mare Cognitum.
Dangling from the circle's seven o'clock is a fore-paw. I guess her other one is lost in that enormous ball of wool she is tangling with (actually the far-reaching and bright splash lines from crater Tycho, prominent outside the circle's half-past four position). Since making my feline 'discovery' I've never been able to look at the moon the same way since!
But there's more. Look just outside the circle's one o'clock to see the heart-shaped face of one of her kittens. Mother and kitten share the Mare Nubium and, like its mother, this kitten has a raised, fluffy tail. Her other kitten's face lies just outside the red circle at the nine o'clock, the axis of its eyes forming a straight line with those of its mother. With a dumpy Walt Disney cartoon character style body (Mare Humorum) its tiny paws and tail project forward, close to the mother cat's fore-paw.
Our ancestors' imaginative interpretations of the heavens have survived for millennia and many remain familiar today. In my (pre-Covid) 'pavement astronomy' outreach sessions, my Cats on the Moon proved a hit with passers-by, something they'll hopefully delight in showing to their kids. Right now, with so many conflicting calls upon youngsters' time, they need all the help and encouragement we can give them – if we are to kindle their interest and have a next generation of astronomers. Who knows, maybe one keen, upcoming Patrick (or Patricia) Moore might even identify the long-lost absentee father responsible for the feline brood – though, if he's to be found lurking anywhere, it's important to remember there’s a dark side to the moon too!
YVONNE CROSSLEY RWA - Lois Hopwood
Yvonne Crossley’s solo exhibition, Consequences, Oriel Bleddfa, 29 April – 30 May.
The exhibition opens on Thursday at 11am and includes some of her three series of works produced over the last 5 years; .
-‘Serial Consequences’: 40 small works which trial a myriad of evolving sequential ideas, and some larger pieces of resolve.
- ‘Improbable Containers’: a series of works which reference unfulfilled wishes and unresolved problems.
- ‘Twixit’: works which attempt to look at existence between two places or states of being.
Central to Crossley’s work is the human figure, often female or ambiguously gendered and sometimes incomplete or distorted. This imagery serves as commentary upon those issues that are of increasing concern to an artist of mature years, drawn together in the three series of works in this exhibition. Her aesthetic is underpinned by complicated, repeated imagery, overlaid by drawing and collage. The resulting work is dense and complex, requiring close examination producing multiple readings.
After graduating from Goldsmiths School of Art, Crossley received various scholarships to develop her practice in Italy, Germany and Brazil. Since then she has sustained her work as an artist in tandem with a career in art education.
In 2004 she left her post as Professor and Vice-Principal at Wimbledon School of Art to set up The Drawing Gallery, firstly in Central London and later in the West Midlands.
She has been included in a number of significant exhibition selection panels including: The Jerwood Drawing Prize, Drawing Prize RA Summer Exhibition, Drawn RWA Bristol, and The Derwent Drawing Prize.
She has exhibited widely in open exhibitions throughout the UK and has held a number of solo exhibitions including at: The Ikon Gallery (Birmingham), The Laing Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne), Battersea Arts Centre (London), and Royal West of England Academy (Bristol).
Oriel Bleddfa is open Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday 11a.m. - 4p.m.
MY MOTHER a free-spirited woman - Martin Minogue
Had she still been around, my mother Josephine (Josie) would have celebrated International Women’s Day enthusiastically. From an urban mining family in the North East, but married to a Yorkshire farm labourer, she constantly rebelled against the constrictions she met with in rural estate and village life. This often meant being precipitately kicked out of the tied cottages that came with my Dad’s job, regularly remonstrating with surly farmers about the appalling conditions she was obliged to live in: no running water, no bathroom or inside lavatory, no electricity, no hope of improvements or repairs. Her running battles meant that we made a peripatetic progress around Yorkshire, and I went to three primary schools in five years.
Mum’s readiness to defy authority, regardless of the consequences, is best illustrated during the second world war, when our local village life was more than a little disrupted by a variety of incomers, including land girls, conscientious objectors, and prisoners of war. The latter two groups were treated with unremitting hostility by most village people, but not by my firmly socialist and internationally minded parents. Conscientious objectors were welcomed into our house, as was their penchant for radical political talk, and continued these friendships after the war was over.
But the real clash with authority came because of the friendliness shown to prisoners of war. Mum and Dad made firm friends with some of the Italian PoWs, especially a downed pilot, Rosario Pistritto, in civilian life an artist. This was made known to Dad’s employer, Sir Benjamin Dawson, by a local woman widely known as ‘the Ministry of Information’ because of her readiness to tell these kinds of tales. The whole estate staff were lined up in front of Sir Benjamin and the local British camp commander, and told that such fraternisation was unpatriotic and would henceforth be punished. Dad was more circumspect after this, not wanting to lose his job and home; but my mother didn’t waver, secretly smuggling packets of woodbines to Rosario and his fellow prisoners, while encouraging me and my sister Maureen to continue our own form of fraternisation with these cheerful and lively companions.
The Italian PoWs were repatriated in 1944, when Italy dropped out of the war. Soon after, we received from Rosario Pistritto, now in Messina, Sicily, a letter enclosing pencil portraits of my sister and mother; the letter ‘in grateful remembrance of a friendship which will last eternalli’ and ‘con amore a chi Josie’, (with love to dear Josie). Whatever the constraints of war, Mum had defiantly done her bit for good international relations and humanity.
Pencil portrait of my mother by Italian Pilot Rosario Pistritto
LOVE the Lugg, FOLlow the Lugg - Christine Hugh-Jones
CALL FOR CITIZEN SCIENTISTS!
F O L - Friends of the Lugg
Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales & Radnorshire Wildlife Trust
WHATEVER HAPPENS ON THE WAY FROM HERE? -
Headwaters, near Llanfihangel Nant Melan, Powys
- TO HERE?
Lugg near Presteigne. Photo Gareth Rees Roberts
- AND HERE?
Lugg near Kingsland, Herefordshire after extensive bank remodelling. December 2020
We need local people-power to help find out so we can protect our rivers. Join in with the Citizen Science Project to monitor water quality of the Lugg, Arrow and Upper Wye in Wales under the umbrella of Cardiff University.
Do you live on of the Welsh streams or rivers which flows into the Arrow or main Lugg?
Perhaps you live near, Clatter Brook, Cascob Brook, Gilwern Brook, Gladestry Brook, Upper Hindwell Brook, Knobley Brook, NortonBrook, Summergil Brook or the Lugg or Arrow itself. Bleddfa, Dolley Green, Evenjobb, Gladestry, Kinnerton, Newchurch, Norton, Presteigne, New Radnor, Old Radnor, Whitton and many smaller settlements and streams are in the area we would like to cover.
We need people to monitor throughout the Welsh Lugg rivers and also people to help with organisation and to support the citizen scientists with data entry.
If you live in the Powys Lugg catchment and would like to take part in this project, please contact secretary@brecon-and-radnor-cprw.wales with heading “Friends of Lugg.”
(If you want to help but live in the Powys Upper Wye catchment please contact “Friends of the Upper Wye” via their website www.fouw.org.uk.
We are planning a training session for local people to test the quality of the water in their local river every week or two weeks. We want to begin in May as soon as the training materials are ready for volunteers. The data will go towards an understanding of what is happening for the whole Wye in Wales and England.
THE QUIZ!
(Answers here)