Ancient Cities -- Bedrock

Thinking of ancient cities and my lack of personal experience in the real world, took me back to childhood and my love for the cartooned world of the Flintstones. They lived in the suburban area of a stone age city called Bedrock. I would have moved in with them, anytime. I was fascinated by their household appliances and gadgets which amused me more than the storylines. I would be spellbound for the entire twenty minutes or so of each episode. This wasn’t confined to childhood. In my early 30s, I would get up at some crazy time to watch an early morning episode before travelling out of town to work. I lived alone, so no raised eyebrows or questions. Somewhere, I have a DVD. I’m shocked that my grandchildren are not the least bit interested.

I planned to visit the Holy Land in my mid-twenties. It was an organised trip, like a pilgrimage, with a group of people from the church I belonged to at the time. I looked forward to setting foot in the ancient cities and places I had heard about and grown up with from the Bible stories of Sunday School and my Christian upbringing. It couldn’t happen. My father had always been supportive and encouraging, taking an interest in my endeavours, but he was clearly unhappy about this. There was conflict in the Middle East. Israel had invaded Lebanon and the thought of me going into potential danger ‘on holiday’ was something he really didn’t want. I couldn’t let him worry himself sick, so I didn’t go.

My travels abroad haven’t taken me anywhere ancient, more modern history, like being in Virginia, USA and learning about the American Civil War. I was staying with my family who live there. Their home was close to an area where battles had taken place, which ignited my interest. One of my cousins had studied The Battle of Bull Run and we spent time in Manassas, another battlefield and home to a museum. Not an ancient city, though.

Born in Manchester, lived in Lancaster, visited Colchester and many Roman cities in the UK. Stonehenge, not a city, but ancient, as is Calanais standing stones on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Not far from there is the village or township of Garenin, which is a collection of black houses, restored as an historical monument. No one lives there now, but some of the buildings are habitable and open for paying guests to stay for the experience. I haven’t stayed overnight, but I wouldn’t mind.

I’ve chosen Lemn Sissay’s poem about Canterbury, which I think qualifies as an ancient city.

Cantuarian

I ha’ant the time to rest at night
I hold the moon and satellite
I am the librarian of light
For Canterbury for all its might

And I roll beneath I roll
And I hold I hold I hold
And I swirl and I swirl
And waves uncurl

This Cantuarian
This latitudinarian
Carried the stones
Of the Trinitarian

In the river of the broken sword
(The failure of the knighted hoard)
In that winter – sheath unseen –
I washed it clean I washed it clean

Time and river entwine a ripple of twine
A shiver of rhyme this rhythm of mine
I carry the story out to the sea
The west wind addresses me

By bank and by bed, red and deeper
The city head the secret keeper
I bathed the uncivilised scream
I washed it clean I washed it clean

And I roll beneath I roll
And I hold I hold I hold
And I swirl and I swirl
And waves uncurl

I am the librarian of light
For Canterbury for all its might.

                               Lemn Sissay, OBE FRSL

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Enslavement - History

When I was young and starting out in my working life, I was amused by a cartoon poster on the staff room wall depicting a group of disgruntled workers, with one of them shouting, “They can’t sack us, slaves have to be sold!” It was harmless and was meant in good humour at the time, but it wouldn’t be acceptable now.
 

Recently, a statue of merchant Edward Colston was toppled and pushed into Bristol Harbour during the George Floyd protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement. Colston was a figure of controversy for a number of years, concerning his involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. He is one of many British merchant / slave traders and there are things to learn about all of them, good and bad. Colston’s statue was removed from the harbour and will take a place in a Bristol museum with his full details. Perhaps that would be the way forward with other controversial figures.  Every city and town in the United Kingdom has area names and street names that can be traced back to a potential slave trade origin. It would be wrong to rename them. Morally, history cannot be changed, rewritten or hidden, as in Orwell’s ‘1984’. We learn from history and move on.

Across Morecambe Bay, on Sunderland Point, lies Sambo’s Grave, a place I have visited many times.
Sunderland Point was an 18^th century port serving Lancaster and surrounding areas with cotton, sugar and slave ships from the Caribbean. Sambo is thought to be a young slave belonging to a ship’s captain.  He took ill and died at Sunderland Point, and as a non-Christian, was buried in unconsecrated ground.
 

From Wikipedia – ‘Some sixty years after the death, a retired head master from Lancaster Boys’ Grammar School, Mr James Watson, heard the story and raised money from summer visitors to the area for a memorial to be placed on the unmarked grave. Watson, who was the brother of prominent Lancaster slave trader, William Watson, also wrote the epitaph that now marks the grave,

 Slavery is still out there, hard to spot, but it exists in different forms, some of it close to home. County line drug runners, under-age prostitution, sweat shop factory workers. Vulnerable people from here and abroad promised a better life. Modern slavery.

Sonnet to William Wilberforce

 Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,

     Hears thee, by cruel men and impious, call'd

     Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose th' enthrall'd

     From exile, public sale, and slav'ry's chain.

     Friend of the poor, the wrong'd, the fetter-gall'd,

     Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain!

     Thou hast achiev'd a part; hast gain'd the ear

     Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause;

     Hope smiles, joy springs, and tho' cold caution pause

     And weave delay, the better hour is near,

     That shall remunerate thy toils severe

     By peace for Afric, fenc'd with British laws.

     Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love

     From all the just on earth, and all the blest above!

                                                  By William Cowper

   Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Cushion - Creature Comforts

My recent travels have included some out of the way places and destinations I may not have the opportunity to revisit. It has been important to me to collect meaningful souvenirs, so as well as buying a touristy tea-towel from the Isle of Barra’s airport on the beach I have some beautiful sea-shells from many Hebridean shores and it was my mission to buy authentic knitting yarn and Harris Tweed cloth at source. I obtained plenty of both and I have enjoyed knitting memory cushion covers from wool that I watched being spun.

Most of my cushions are special. There’s the one making an embroidered statement of ‘Love is all you need…’, a treasured gift from my husband, and a comfy, soft fabric L.S.Lowry print of ‘Going to Work’, a treasured gift from a close friend. When I couldn’t bring myself to discard some old balls of wool from a sweater that my late mother had made, didn’t like and unravelled, I knitted a cushion cover with it. Something of my mum’s recycled into a useful and loved item. She would be proud. I’m in the process of fashioning a cushion cover using a piece of my late aunt’s unfinished knitting combined with my own. It’s working out very well. If you’ve read my previous blogs and I’ve left you thinking that my house is a museum of relics from dear, departed relatives and I can’t be separated, well no, it’s nothing like that, I’m just saving significant memories.

There’s a cushion in a box upstairs waiting to be rehomed. It’s part of a birthday present for my eldest granddaughter and as she adores Minnie Mouse, I know she will love this big cushion of Minnie’s head, made by Disney.

Here’s a new poem from me,

    Red Cushion
    How lovely to see you! What a surprise!
    A flying visit?  That’s just fine, my dear.
    Yes, I’ve really been under the weather,
    But I’m fine and it’s great to have you here.

    It started with leg pain and weariness,
    And my blood count is too low on the scale.
    Just thinking saps all of my energy
    So I remain in repose, ill and pale.
 
    Pass me a cushion, that red one will do,
    Just the knitted one, not the crimson plush,
    And before you go, please close the curtains
    If you don’t mind, unless you need to rush.

   Of course it’s red, what else would you call it?
    An orangey coral? Don’t be so daft!
    It’s a red cushion, if ever there was.
    Made by Mum and me, a joint handicraft.

    Pillar-box or cardinal, let me see.
    Scarlet it isn’t, nor vermillion.
    Nowhere near ruby or blood-red maroon,
    Oh can we just call it the red cushion?

    I’ll draw the curtains if you need to dash.
    Thank you for calling, it’s nice to see you.
    The flowers are lovely, you’ve made me smile,
    I’ll be much better next time you come through.

PMW 2019

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

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Cottage - I Belong in a Crofter's Cottage

 Isle of Barra

There’s something very appealing about escaping to a crofter’s cottage in the north of Scotland.  It is good for me to break away from the rat race and the negative trappings of modern living from time to time.  I would love to spend all winter up there with snow and freezing winds then come indoors to the warming glow of a peat fire and wholesome, home-made food.  Wishful thinking, I know, but I’m fortunate enough to have stayed in some sympathetically renovated ones with electricity and running water and nothing could be more perfect.

Years ago, driving westward along the north coast of Scotland, not too far from John O’Groats, I came to Dunnet Head and what I would call a living museum, Mary-Ann’s Cottage, which is open to the public for guided tours at limited times. The crofter’s cottage is exactly as Mary-Ann left it and is a fascinating insight into her life. If you like social history, I strongly recommend a visit if your travels take you anywhere near.

I like to be ‘off the beaten track’ and Harbour Cottage on the Isle of Barra (my photo) certainly provided everything I wished for in May this year. A wonderful, stone built cottage with ground floor walls at least three feet thick and a fireplace, not that we needed to make a log fire in the unusually warm climate.  Lovingly renovated and extended to make three first floor bedrooms and a sun lounge, Harbour Cottage was a delightful holiday home. I have the same opinion of the fabulous, tiny crofter’s cottage in Lochboisdale, South Uist last year, (my photo). I would happily return, but there are other places to see first.

 

South Uist

My favourite lodges in Dumfries and Galloway are a home from home and somewhere I go to for a break at least twice a year. This year it will be three visits and would have been four if one of my chosen times hadn’t clashed with work. They are not exactly cottages, but get unpacked and settled, and the feeling is just the same, relaxed, cosy and free.

My poem, written after a stay at a cottage near Gairloch, North West Scotland,

 

I’ll Take the High Road

 

Sun-yellow gorse meets a bright blue sky

Where mountains seem low and clouds are high.

Single track, crumbled edge, shared with sheep,

The drop is sharp, the climb is steep

Then dips to touch the shore of the loch

Where gentle waves lick tumbled rock.

Then swift ascent and a chance to pause,

Admire the view and brown-heather’d moors.

Mile after slate-grey mile and some more,

Then, at last, we reach our cottage door.

The road ends where the loch becomes sea,

Dolphins are playing and I feel free.

 

 

                                                                      Pamela Winning.  May 2014

 

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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