Autumn Cottage Diarist

A Strange Sort of Solstice

It's a strange year right to the end. Here are some thoughts on these particular 2020 Solstice days - and (as always!) a look around the garden as She rests and the year turns.

 

 

A Strange Samhain

Well - here we are again, on the threshold of Samhain 2020, and it's so different to any marking of the end of the Celtic/Pagan festival year than I have experienced before. It's normally a time of peaceful reflection, when I sit in the summer house, set up an Ofrenda for my beloved Ancestors and Loved Ones, light the candles, remember and honour them in tranquility.

Not this year - This year, the year of COVID-19, the year of confusion, of the unknown, of the unexpected, of the unwelcome - this year is different. From the death of my dear cat Pip back in February, to the alien world of Lockdown and then social distancing, mask wearing, vigilant sanitary precautions and a whole world of uncertainty about how to behave and how to relate to our fellow human beings, even for somebody such as myself who has not been personally touched with tragedy through the Covid virus, the world is a very different and strange place to what it appeared to be this time last year.

Samhain is the time when we move down into the dark days of the year, when the natural world up here in the Northern Hemisphere starts to go into a period of rest, decline, death and decomposition. As we observe the nonhuman world enter this period, then so we are reminded of our own material, corporeal beings, our own mortal existence and the fact that this will also reach a point of decline, death and decomposition.  But also - if we observe in the long term - it will become clear to us that the decomposition is a vital precursor to feeding what will come after - the new life that WILL burst forth from the earth and will continue the circle of life.

These concepts have been, I must admit, both a poetical and a theoretical idea for me up until now; but during the last few months, I have had health issues which have caused me to very literally look death - briefly - in the face. My own mortality is now a thing of reality, rather than just an academic concept. It's a tough one to start to face, no doubt about that, but it's a fact that will become only too real to us all one day. I guess it's a privilege to be given the time to get used to the idea (a LONG time I hope!) rather than having Sister Death turn up and tap me on the shoulder, out of the blue with no warning.

And now, this very evening, our Prime Minister has held a news conference to tell us that we will all be going back in to a form of lockdown for another month, in order to try to quell the upsurge in Coronavirus cases, an increase which is threatening to be larger and even more devastating than the first surge of the virus in the early part of this year. The leavening to this serious news is that we are (supposedly) better prepared - more protective equipment and staff numbers for the National Health Service, more systems in place to support the economy and a well prepared and fast (15 minute) form of personally administered testing that will be available, distributed and coordinated by the army, to be available nationwide within days. (Hmm - I'll believe it when I see it; like politicians of all colours, promises are more easily made than kept!)

But there is a little light at Autumn Cottage in all this darkness… a little cat has joined the Cawley family. We have acquired “Fluffy”, a 14 year old tortoiseshell and white little lass from the local cat rescue organisation, after we were told that her age and health problems (she has a cardiac issue) meant that little interest was being shown in her; the possibilities for her adoption did not look very bright. Since we are none too sturdy ourselves at the moment, we thought we would all make a good match and could be three old fogies together! So far, that is exactly how things have turned out to be 😊

She is, as we were warned, “extremely nervous”, though after three weeks she is a great deal less nervous than she was. She is more or less left to her own devices, spends a good part of the day sleeping and the rest of the time eating tasty morsels & little biscuit treats and getting numerous cuddles and pets. It seems to be working well and it is certainly lovely to have another little living creature in the house, though it goes without saying that she will never be a replacement for our darling Pip, nor would we ever want her to be.

So, my friends, down we go into the dark days together here; I will be calling on all my creative resources to keep me going through the next few months. I'm undertaking a memoir writing course with the University of  Oxford at the moment that is keeping me busy both with my own writing, but also in devouring lots of wonderful biographies and memoirs written by others. I also intend getting my sewing machine into action again - though this requires a certain amount of clear space in which to work, which may well be a little time in coming, according to how the energy levels go. They are slowly returning, but it may well be a long job, so stick around to keep me company in the meantime (and enjoy this little video walk around the garden this afternoon)

 

Are You Capturing Memories Right Now?

Interesting times in our lives deserve to be captured...along with the every day.

 

 

And so the Festivals of Light are Come

…Winter Solstice..Yule…Christmas.- all over the Northern Hemisphere, in places where the darkness rules at this time of the year, grew the Festivals of Light, to lighten the darkness of an otherwise mysterious and fearsome world. Though I am not now a Christian, I grew up in a Christian home, so my earliest experiences were of the beautiful Christian story and its artefacts - the Nativity, The Gifts, animals everywhere, an abundance of stars (and one in particular!). A story combined, in my house as in so many others, with the older Pagan traditions of marking the Winter Solstice by bringing in greenery from outdoors; always a decorated Christmas tree (Thank you, Prince Albert!) but rarely a Yule Log - except in the form of a chocolate cake with robins, Father Christmas and tobogganing Snowmen, all added with abandon!

When I had my own family, I continued the old traditions and added some of our own - each year I buy and make one or two 'special' ornaments to hang on the tree, to join the obligatory toilet-roll Santa, made by Tim at nursery when he was three, and cross-stitched, bamboo chomping Panda, crafted by Hugh around seven years old. Both of those are non-negotiable. They go on first, in pride of place.

I also made Advent Calendars for the boys for three decades - covering a cereal packet in Chrismassy paper, attaching the annual gift of a religious ('proper') Advent calendar from their paternal grandmother, and filling the box with tiny, individually wrapped little gifts that I had collected through the year. For several years, these included the eternal egg laying plastic chicken from Hawkins Bazaar, which was an absolute treasury of ideas - the arrival of 'The Box of Stuff' from Hawkins was an event in itself each December..

Well, Tim had his last calendar when he was 30 - and now I have decided that Stockings are also no longer appropriate for the moment. Finding 'stuff' to put into them got harder and harder…I know that there was a groan  when the apple, tangerine and banana were retrieved, (but, I suspect, never eaten) and one more can of car de-icer would be one can too far this year!

So  this year, Baskets will take over - now for both boys and their partners - and material gifts will include more creative items than in the past… (can't give away TOO many secrets…) - but the tree is still up, the Naff Gnomes and Nut Crackers will still make an appearance, The Santas will once again convene on the desk in my hall.

The Ancestors will still get their bits of tinsel on their heads (whether they like it or not, though I think Sir Henry, as Queen Elizabeth 1st's Champion was more than used to a bit of glitter and bling) and I will still worry about the abundance of The Banquet (Who can eat what?, will there be ENOUGH? and will the roast potatoes be DONE??)

All will be as it should be - including last minute anxieties and panics. There will, of course, be more than enough…and we will all be, and have, more than enough, because we will have what I value more than anything material these days.  All around me, I will have my dearly loved ones. I need nothing else.

Enough!!

If you want to know what my own childhood Christmases of the 1950's were like - listen to this - Dylan Thomas reading his own 'Child's Christmas in Wales'. It is a blueprint for the way working class family festivities in Wales played out for decades, probably centuries, and a Transport of Delight for me each time I listen to it.

Make time to sit with your families and friends this Midwinter festival time, dear readers. Tell the stories…happy and sad. Write them down…remember them. Remember those no longer with us…for in your remembering, you make them immortal. Remember and love, as best you can,  those who are with us in the Here and Now - for in the end, love is all that is necessary, all we need and all that will remain, when the tinsel and trees are down and disintegrated into dust. 

Make Merry and Make Memories, my friends -  and the heartiest Greetings of the Season, however you celebrate it, to you all, from all of us at Autumn Cottage!

They Also Served

I'm also remembering two of my own ancestors this weekend. They came back…and so, I am here.

This is George Arthur Silcox - my maternal grandfather

- a Boer War veteran, he re-enlisted, aged 31, in October 1914, becoming a member of the Royal Defence Corps - 'for those too old or unfit for active front line service'. From his military records, however, I have gleaned that he pestered to return to active fighting and in 1918 was once more a Sapper with the Royal Engineers, on his way to France.

and here is Arthur Henry Latham - my paternal Welsh 'Grampy'

- a Royal Welch Fusilier who I think may have been involved in an extraordinary and exhausting march through Mesopotamia and from there to India - he certainly ended up in Bombay, and his regiment was later known to be in Mhow.

My research is ongoing into both these stories…for the stories never end, do they?

Send the Bloody Politicians to Fight the Bloody Wars!

Boxing Day, 1908. In front of the beautiful, Georgian, Henry Holland designed façade of Berrington Hall, surrounded by gardens landscaped by Capability Brown, Sir Frederick Cawley sits astride his hunter, his four sons at his side.

They are masters of all they survey. En-titled, privileged, wealthy, secure. Sir Fred has already made his fortune as a Lancashire mill owner and now sits in the House of Commons - and here he looks upon the fruits of his labours. The world is their oyster. In the background, their mother looks on, with what must be burgeoning pride and satisfaction. Four fine sons at the top of their game.

A month short of ten years later, as the Armistice Treaty is signed, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, three of those sons do not sit astride their equines - they lie buried in the blood and ordure filled battlefield earth of France and the Dardanelles. John, a Hussar died in the first few months of the war, ambushed at dawn while endeavouring to calm his stampeding horses. Harold fell in the disastrous campaign in Gallipoli, and Oswald died at Merville in France, just three months before the war ended.

It is said that their mother never recovered. Neither would any mother, I think. Father expressed his grief as men often do…with rage. Winston Churchill felt the full force of his anger, hushing him only (and probably temporarily) by 'kicking him upstairs' to the House of Lords.

I often hear the comment that 'the politicians should send THEIR sons to do the fighting'…well, this one did. In fact, Sir Fred, himself a Member of Parliament, sent two of those sons as politicians - here is the 'Recording Angel' memorial bearing their names (on Panel 2 and Panel 8) which stands in St Stephen's Porch, Westminster Hall. (There is also a heraldic shield to Oswald behind the Speaker's Chair in the House of Commons).

And so it has been, forever, both before and after the great conflict of World War One, that young men and women from all backgrounds, of all classes, colours and creeds, have gone off to 'do their duty'; to be wounded or die for their country, and for causes which we so easily criticise with the glorious benefit of hindsight and broader information, but causes in which many (if not most) of them believed at the time. How else could they have endured what they did?

However we feel about War and the responsibilities of those in power, let us not take away from these individuals the fact that sacrifice was made at all levels, by all sorts of people (A subaltern's life - many of whom came from public schools, averaged six weeks at The Front) Their deaths and injuries always left (and still leave) not just one tragedy, but the many tragedies of bereaved and traumatised mothers & fathers, parentless children and both selves and families wracked with grief - one emotion which knows no boundaries of any kind.

Whether rich or poor, all of our mortal remains, in the end, occupy the same space. For those left behind, a broken heart cannot be mended by pound notes or privilege…just by the love, support and understanding of others. Perhaps cultivation of that understanding and support is one way, even 100 years later, in which we can help fulfil their 'bright Promise' to change the world that they so wanted to make better for us all?

...Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:

Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,

“Come, what was your record when you drew breath?”

But a big blot has hid each yesterday

So poor, so manifestly incomplete.

And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,

Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet

And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

(From 'Such, Such is Death' - Charles Hamilton Sorley)

 

 

A Truly Price-less Treasure

Amongst my more peculiar traits, (of which my friends know there are many!), is a propensity to 'rescue' old prayer books and bibles. They are hardly wanted and rarely seen in secondhand bookshops these days - but I always feel so strongly that at one time, they all would have been precious to someone - a cornerstone of a faith which may have sustained those individuals though all manner of life's ups and downs. Such artifacts are not, to me, to be sniffed at, but to be respected and retained.

So when I spotted this little Book of Common Prayer in the Sue Ryder charity shop in Newbury this morning, I felt sorry for it and picked it up to purchase it. I showed it to the assistant, who somewhat hesitantly said - 'er - it's a prayer book...'. I said I understood that - and how much was it, please? To which she gave a rather lovely reply.

She told me that the Founder, Sue Ryder, had stipulated that no Bible or prayer book was ever to be charged for - so if I would like to take it, please to do so - for free. I was very moved by this philosophy, but also felt that I could not take it and pay nothing - so I popped a pound in their collecting box - and we were both very happy.

Then - as I put it in my bag, this dropped out…

…a tiny, tattered photo, it adds a whole other dimension to my find.

Apart from knowing that this book of Common Prayer and hymns Ancient and Modern was given from 'Jack' to 'Gertie' in October 1913, I know nothing of who possessed this little book. But my imagination likes to think that the donor and the owner are perhaps both in the picture; maybe Gertie is even the woman close to the centre of the photo, her head is graced by the particularly magnificent beribboned hat? And oh, would that the colours of the ribbons were visible…which my imagination sees in green, purple and white - but in the realms of my imagination that conjecture has to stay. I have no concrete evidence of anything or anyone. (My imagination does not care about that...)

All I can say is that today, I honour whoever those people may be - all someone's daughters and sons, many of them ancestors, and all living in a world that was about to change out of all recognition.

Your little book will be cared for, Gertie and Jack - and my imagination will continue to have a creative feast on what you have left behind.I give you both my thanks.

So What IS it About Family History That Gets Right Under Our Skins?

I've discovered some new resources for researching my own family history online in the last few days; The National Library of Wales has generously put millions of Welsh Newspapers Online  and searchable - (free) while London Lives also have a number of databases covering the 18th century in London - also free to search. Since I discovered - a few years ago - that my Somerset based grandfather had, in fact, been born in Sheffield, I have struggled to find out exactly where and recently acquired the address of his birth, from which a photograph was found on the immensely comprehensive Picture Sheffield site.

Interior of St Andrew Holborn - London place of my 3x Great-grandfather's wedding in 1777

It is no exaggeration to say that I have spent two days like a woman possessed - hopping from one link to another to another, copying, downloading, extracting information - filling in gaps, adding pieces to the jigsaw, imagining who these people were, how they lived, hope they coped, what gave them joy - what devastated them.

Rustlings Place, Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield - birthplace of my maternal Grandfather, George Silcox

But apart from the individual details about how my own small life is connected by a web to so many others, it also makes me regularly think about why I find the topic so fascinating - and why society has become so increasingly absorbed with the concept of 'Who We Think We Are' in the last couple of decades. The internet undoubtedly has a lot to answer for - researches which would have taken days, weeks, even years, and entailed  the expenditure of many pound and travels of many miles can now be done at the click of a key. Moreover, the links between people - the matching up of dates and descriptions - can also be done almost instantly, with cross referencing and thus validation of otherwise tentative links, giving us the confidence to go forward.

Memorial to a Welsh ancestor - my 4 x G-Grandfather, the Rev. George Williams of Llantrithyd

But I think there are also other issues at play; as families and communities become fragmented, stories get lost or forgotten - and our stories tell us who we are. I believe that we all have a deep need to 'know our place' - we need to know where we fit in to the stories - the stories that stretch back before our own tiny lives (our lives get to feel quite tiny and insignificant as we grow older and experience setbacks as well as accomplishments, don't they?) and will stretch forward, into the future, carrying our own contributions to the as-yet-unwritten story that will stretch forward after we are gone.

When working as a bereavement counsellor, I sometimes hear people saying things like 'I feel as if part of me has died/been buried with (the deceased loved one)' - it may seem like a metaphorical description of how bereavement feels, but clients are often very comforted and uplifted when I affirm to them that - in one way - that is exactly what has happened;  part of my client's story that was shared with the loved one  has indeed  died - but I also remind them that part of the loved one has also remained with them - memories of words and actions which influenced them, built them, moulded them - the parts that cannot die while they are still kept alive -  by remembering and acting upon them - building their lessons into our own lives.

It's yet another reason for writing things down, my friends; write down your stories…save, contemplate, discuss and act upon those images, artefacts, words… it's one way that we can all grasp a fragment of immortality: by remembering - and learning from the richness of our shared, collective stories.

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Saved from the Jaws of Destruction!

Every so often I feel the need to 'run away' from the humdrum domestic environment for an hour or two; in my case it is almost always to the little town of Hungerford in West Berkshire, which is about a twenty minute drive from Autumn Cottage. When I arrive, my well trodden pathways usually include a ramble around the Antiques Arcade, which I have been visiting for at least twenty five years.

Through that hallowed portal, my feet always carry me first to 'The Junk Shop' - not far inside the main door and a repository of a complete and mysterious miscellanea. Its contents span a spectrum from 'undiscovered treasures' (until they are discovered my me!) through weird and wonderful 'stuff' right down to the frankly trashy (but keeping in mind *always* that what is my trash will undoubtedly be another person's treasure - so there is a place for all of it).

A recent 'find' in the Junk Shop - watercolour of Wallingford Bridge, late C19th

After a first look in the Junk shop, I then make straight for 'Countryside Books' - the permanent showcase of Martin Smith, the second-hand and antiquarian book dealer from whom I have bought many, many treasures over the last fifteen years - some of which have sent me off on intriguing searches and  wonderful adventures.

Northern Golden Plover (Shorelands Summer Diary, C.T. Tunnicliffe,1952)

I had several happy 'finds' in Martin's unit yesterday - most particularly two books illustrated by Charles Tunnicliffe - whom I consider one of the finest wildlife illustrators of the 20th century.

His watercolours so skilfully capture the intangible but  essential nature of the animals (mostly birds)  which he closely observed over many years from his home on Anglesey - but it is also to his striking wood engravings that I am drawn - I think even more closely than his colour work.

Ruffs (Shorelands Summer Diary, C.T. Tunnicliffe,1952)

I also purchased a translation and printing of a fascinating illustrated journal, originally created by one of Napoleon's offiicers - on the ultimately disastrous Russian campaign. The artwork is talented, capturing the costumes of both invaders and invaded, the landscape and the gradual dawning that victory was about to turn into terrible tragedy of freezing and starvation as the Imperial army retreated through the cruel Russian winter.

Napoleon Outside Viasma, 30 August 1812 (Memoirs of Major Faber du Faur, 1812/2001)

I happily left the Arcade with these 'treasures of the day', making my way back to my car (which I park at a friend's house, some hundreds of yards away) but was distracted on my way by some brightly coloured china in the window of a charity shop on the other side of the road. Did I need more 'stuff'? - no, of course not, but…it was just across the road. No harm in looking!

Having peered into the window and discovered that the items which caught my eye were nothing that I wanted, I turned to go to the car - but the little voice on my shoulder was whispering to me.  'Oh, go ON  - no harm in just taking a look inside, is there?'. I was unable to resist the little voice!

I poked around the shop for a minute or two, but there were no other visible items of any interest, and my bag of books was now getting heavy. I asked to put it down near the counter while I took a VERY last look around, and as I did so, there, beside my bag, was a box of books which looked neglected and in poor condition, but the Inner Radar deemed worthy of taking a look at. All piled in a jumble, and pretty 'tatty' but some old illustrated children's books were included on top - which I have collected for years. So I asked the price - and was told that they were not really for sale, but had been placed there ready to go 'for pulping - they are old and damaged and nobody wants them'. Ahem - at least one person did!

I asked permission to look through the box - which was happily granted, and was excited to find, further down in the box, two old and stained but interestingly covered cookery books (dated 1890) and also a tiny little leatherette bound book with 'Burial Service' embossed on the front. Treasure was mine! and even better - treasure rescued at the last minute from almost certain destruction.

Along with two modern, but original and very nicely framed little watercolours of Venice, I offered ten pounds for the lot. I left the shop with a very happy smile on my face.

My smile got bigger when I came home. Looking through the little 'burial book' I discovered both the full name and date of burial of the person (Captain John Wright Westby - 03 May 1912) for whom it had been used. The name was printed inside the front covers of what seems to be a pro-forma book produced by the undertakers, Hanningtons of Brighton). Inside one of the other books was inscribed a woman's name (Constance Westby) with the same surname as that of the deceased in the Funeral Service. Ten minutes of an internet search has already furnished details of his marriage, (to Charlotte Sarah Constance Westby) his military career and - sadly - the death of their son on the Somme. What more of their story can I now discover? This treasure hunt is waiting for me to begin.

This is the delight of these finds to me - the books themselves are worth almost nothing as saleable books - but to me, the details inscribed incidentally inside their pages both tell a story in itself and offer the possibility of further searches and revelations  which may take me to visit places and meet people who are as yet unknown to me..

The second 'cookery' book is intriguing in its own right. It is actually a manual for bakers and confectioners - filled with advertisements for bakers supplies and recipes for all areas of the profession.

Interesting in itself, it is much more so to me, as it is exactly the sort of book my grandfather - also a baker and confectioner - would have consulted. More story telling - more 'filling in the gaps' - more many happy hours spent discovering the bigger picture.

Not a bad outcome for an afternoon of running away!

 

Turn Out Drawers, Turn Up Stories

 

Putting away the last of the Christmas decorations and cleaning up rooms where Christmas was mostly spent, I found myself doing today what usually happens at this time of the year. I ended up making more work for myself by turning out drawers and cupboards in order to both discard unwanted items but also make room for things I do now want to keep. Today I took on the drawers from a particular desk, including all the little 'hidey- hole' ones and the (not so) secret compartments into which all sorts of garbage had been stuffed over the years. How come I have not tackled this before? Well, there are certain items that look insignificant but that hold great power, and it is only now that enough time has passed after which some of them can be contemplated, decided upon, kept or discarded. I suspect you all know what I mean.

For instance, how the flood of memories surges forth from a tattered 1999 'Hawkins' mail-order catalogue, from which the boy's Christmas stockings were always filled with a marvellous miscellany of gadgetry, wizardry and silliness; and here is a drawer full of the board games over which we have shouted with enthusiasm and hooted with laughter through many Christmas nights. There, just a single page from a letter from Mother in Law, requiring - nay, demanding - that some particular attention should be paid to a particularly unwanted task (leaving her voice reverberating in my ear, even though I have not heard it in actuality for several years now and her mortal remains were laid to rest months ago. Not so the remains of her imperious voice, which will, I am sure, reverberate down the ages!)

There's the fascinatingly antiquated little calculator used by the boys in school - only a couple of decades old, already consigned to history, but conjuring up so many memories of homework tussles between us. Less welcome, and certainly less amusing, the dark power of an insignificant little penknife, powerfully eliciting unhappy but very real memories. They are all part of our stories - they are all part of us.

On first opening the drawer, all I saw was, quite frankly, a pile of junk to be discarded, but as I sifted through, the items prompted the stories and the stories are what I call the *REAL* Family Treasure - the strung-together Pearls of Memory. For each of us, these unique combinations of memories are treasures which can never be repeated, never be replaced. All the material items bring to life stories, and stories in turn give substance to people and events. Recalling our stories, Re-membering ourselves with both our own stories and with those of others who interlace them, binds us all together in the ongoing community of the living and the passed. Our stories remind us of who we are and help us decide who we want to be.

For some wonderful examples - and a fascinating read - of over 30 essays on how 'things make people' as much as people make things, I highly recommend one of the books on my Christmas list (which turned up in my Christmas stocking!) 'Evocative Objects - Things we think with', edited and with an Introduction by Sherry Turkle, ( MIT Press, 2011 (paperback)). Could 2013 be a year when some of you start to note down fragments of your own stories? Why not turn out just a small drawer to start the ball rolling? Yes - it's OK to start and stop the clean-out in order to note down your memories, and one thing I promise you - you will ALL find at least one item of treasure when you thought there was only junk. And when you come across that Evocative Object - why not come back here and tell me the story?

(Speaking of stories… We had our monthly supervision meeting last night at the local branch of the national bereavement charity for which I do voluntary bereavement support. My supervisor there has just been bereaved of his own dear father, at the grand age of 95. This is the fact - but he then recounted how his Dad was actually one of the last people to remember meeting Beatrix Potter, as he had worked for her husband, Mr. Heelis - and is mentioned by name in one scene of the film 'Miss Potter' - listen out for 'George' to be thanked for bringing the documents, as she signs the deeds for one of her farms. Now that's what I call a story - I hope J has jotted it down!)