Evelyn Waugh did not have an overly happy time when he first went down from university. Funds were not overly available, and there were a succession of half hearted attempts to find a direction in life which culminated with a period as a schoolmaster in Wales which culminated in an attempted suicide.
His personal life was also far from secure. After Richard Pares had been spirited away by those who saw clearly his academic potential (and the threat posed to his reaching it by the company he kept), Waugh had fallen into company with Alastair Graham. Somewhat indulged by Graham's mother, the friendship/relationship/affair prospered for a while, and included a period where they shared a caravan on the fringe of Otmoor.....
....which brings us onto the Abingdon Arms, in Beckley. It was in the grounds of this pub, with its commanding views over Otmoor, that the caravan stood. Even after the affair with Graham broke up it continued to be a place that Waugh returned to - he spent the honeymoon of his first marriage to Evelyn Gardner here, and, in much the same way as he would do later in life with Chagford, adopted the pub as a literary retreat. It is believed that he wrote parts of Decline and Fall here, along with elements of other works of the period.
I've always had a soft spot for the Abingdon Arms - tucked away down a narrow lane it is one of those places where time feels like it has been standing still for a few decades. The food and beer hasn't been bad either. However, it has changed hands with alarming frequency over the years - possibly because being so tucked away means it has struggled for passing trade or impulse visitors. Recently it closed completely, and there were fears that it was going to become just another former pub (Oxford has depressingly many of these), whose attractive building will make a fine house for someone with the requisite amount of money.
To their credit, the local community organised themselves to fight this possibility and now we read in the Oxford Mail that their proposals (and more importantly money) have been accepted. The Abingdon Arms is moving into community ownership, and so this little piece of the literary landscape is saved for another wave of people to draw inspiration from its beautiful surroundings.
The caravan's long gone though.
Tuesday, 14 February 2017
Sunday, 12 February 2017
The old elemental forces...
Sometimes you see a programme on television that ticks so many boxes you can practically see the commissioners delight when they first saw the pitch. It's exactly what the public wants, here's your cheque, go away and make it.
Sometimes something gets made and you think "ok, well it was a brave risk" when it doesn't quite work.
Then there's Penda's Fen.
Looking at it from 40-odd years on, it's difficult to fathom exactly how Pebble Mill got away with making it. David Rudkin's sprawling, soaringly ambitious entry into the Play for Today canon is *so* far beyond the run of the mill that you wonder who was braver - Rudkin for writing it or the BBC for not holding him back.
As a narrative I've always felt that it shares a kindred spirit with O Lucky Man! It's not a satire, but it is bitingly, howlingly angry. Angry about all sorts of things - conservation, organised religion, sexuality, myth, the government, the establishment, the education system; very little escapes Rudkin's attention.
The plot is slight - a teenage boy is forced to confront his emerging sexuality in an almost overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere. As the film progresses, his rigid certainties (he's quite an unpleasant chap anyway) are one by one stripped away through a series of occult/mythic encounters - from the ghost of Elgar through angels, demons to the hillside denouement meeting with the spirit of King Penda himself. Penda was the last pagan king of England and stands for all the things that the hero starts out despising - the unruly, untidy, impure and non-conformist.
Beautifully shot in Worcestershire, Penda's Fen gets under the skin of the English sensibility and questions who the English are. It's quite an intense experience, blending cinematic pastoralism with Hammer horror. The effects are clearly dated, but I think are none the less unsettling with the patina of naivete which the passage of time has given them. Some scenes (one in particular) are so horrific that they remain burned into my mind years after I first saw them.
Overall it's a difficult, troubling film, that asks difficult troubling questions. Play for Today ranged widely in its styles, and the subjects that it tackled, but with Penda's Fen I think it reached a high water mark for experimental television. There's just no way that it would have been made today - it's difficult enough to believe that they made it then!
Sometimes something gets made and you think "ok, well it was a brave risk" when it doesn't quite work.
Then there's Penda's Fen.
Looking at it from 40-odd years on, it's difficult to fathom exactly how Pebble Mill got away with making it. David Rudkin's sprawling, soaringly ambitious entry into the Play for Today canon is *so* far beyond the run of the mill that you wonder who was braver - Rudkin for writing it or the BBC for not holding him back.
As a narrative I've always felt that it shares a kindred spirit with O Lucky Man! It's not a satire, but it is bitingly, howlingly angry. Angry about all sorts of things - conservation, organised religion, sexuality, myth, the government, the establishment, the education system; very little escapes Rudkin's attention.
The plot is slight - a teenage boy is forced to confront his emerging sexuality in an almost overwhelmingly oppressive atmosphere. As the film progresses, his rigid certainties (he's quite an unpleasant chap anyway) are one by one stripped away through a series of occult/mythic encounters - from the ghost of Elgar through angels, demons to the hillside denouement meeting with the spirit of King Penda himself. Penda was the last pagan king of England and stands for all the things that the hero starts out despising - the unruly, untidy, impure and non-conformist.
Beautifully shot in Worcestershire, Penda's Fen gets under the skin of the English sensibility and questions who the English are. It's quite an intense experience, blending cinematic pastoralism with Hammer horror. The effects are clearly dated, but I think are none the less unsettling with the patina of naivete which the passage of time has given them. Some scenes (one in particular) are so horrific that they remain burned into my mind years after I first saw them.
Overall it's a difficult, troubling film, that asks difficult troubling questions. Play for Today ranged widely in its styles, and the subjects that it tackled, but with Penda's Fen I think it reached a high water mark for experimental television. There's just no way that it would have been made today - it's difficult enough to believe that they made it then!
Tuesday, 7 February 2017
Where the Iron Heart of England....
Growing up in Birmingham (or at least going to school there) as I did, you quickly got used to the fact that most of the rest of the country tried to act like the city didn't exist.
Birmingham was perennially the "flyover" city - on the way to everywhere, but a place that people knew nothing about, except New Street Station, Spaghetti Junction, and *that* accent. I say that accent, what most people think is the Birmingham accent is actually that of the Black Country. Birmingham's is a wee bit softer. Paul Anderson, as Arthur Shelby in Peaky Blinders, nails it.
The problem was always that Birmingham was good at too many things. The workshop of the world, or city of a thousand trades, never had one identity around which its reputation could coalesce. It was never the capital of coal, the city of steel or cottonopolis. That's not to say that it lacked major employers, between them Cadbury, Austin and the BSA employed enough for a small city by themselves. Just that it was always the city of artisans - which it remains today in areas like the Jewellery Quarter.
And because it was good at too many things, it was a target for the Luftwaffe. Birmingham suffered in the war, and then suffered after the war when the city fathers decided to remake Birmingham in the image of Detroit. Britain's motown. This perhaps reached it's apex in the promotional film Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. I'm not making this up, look on YouTube. Allegedly Kojak phoned in his performance from a studio, and never visited the city he extolled. Remember that as you hear him wax lyrical about the disco dancing competition in Cannon Hill Park...
By the 1990s it was rather battered, bloody but unbowed. The outdoor escalators of the Bull Ring were mildewed, the Electric Cinema (Britain's oldest) was reduced to showing the more "interesting" end of the cinemascape, and New Street station was a dark, cavernous hole in the ground. There had been the odd attempt to break out of the grimness, Symphony Hall was a triumph, and a great setting for Simon Rattle's CBSO before he took himself off to Berlin. Then there was the ICC, with it's bridge that wasn't quite wide enough (allegedly), and the turn of the century development of Brindley Place.
Personally, I think fortunes turned with the publication of Jonathan Coe's hymn to Birmingham, The Rotters Club. I'm not sure why that should be, but I went off to university and devoured Coe's depiction of the 1970s, and a school I knew very well, then came back to discover that the city had finally had the rockets put under it. The new Bullring may be a temple of shopping, but it is a supremely intelligent. light and airy bit of architecture. Selfridges is like something that has landed from another planet. The good thing throughout is that the bombs and the 60s planners made a lot of central Birmingham a blank canvas for architectural experimentation. You don't have to like the new buildings, but these days it's rare that anything worthwhile has been demolished to create the space for them.
This trend is likely to continue. Railway enthusiasts mourn the loss of the Euston arch, and the other buildings of the great terminus of the London and Birmingham railway. Well HS2, if it ever gets built is going to breathe new life into the terminus at the other end. Curzon Street still stands, isolated in the wasteland of an abandoned marshalling yard. If you go and look round it on the rare open days you find a building comparable to the best Georgian industrial architecture of the nation's dockyards. Stone faced, sweeping stairs, light and airy, Curzon Street is an unlikely and forgotten survivor and it's about time more was made of it.
Of course, there have been casualties along the way. The 1930s saw the start of the trend of civic vandalism with the destruction of Barry and Pugin's King Edward's School in New Street (although these days, I suppose, King Edward's House which replaced it is worthy of a preservation order itself). It was by the time of demolition utterly unfit as a school building (the school itself relocated very successfully to Edgbaston) but you can't help but feel that they wouldn't demolish it now.
More recently we've seen the destruction of the Central Library, which wasn't to everyone's taste but stood as an example of the best brutalism you're likely to see. I even supported those who wanted to list it as a warning to the future if it would save the damn thing but it wasn't to be.
Birmingham now stands on the threshold of a new age. The West Midlands region, with it's own mayor is waiting in the wings, and this should be the opportunity for Brummies to seize back control of their destiny.
They're a quiet lot, the people of Birmingham, but they know what they're doing. They don't need the glitz and glamour of the brash northern upstarts like Manchester or Leeds to know who they are and where they're going. The Second City is back.
Birmingham was perennially the "flyover" city - on the way to everywhere, but a place that people knew nothing about, except New Street Station, Spaghetti Junction, and *that* accent. I say that accent, what most people think is the Birmingham accent is actually that of the Black Country. Birmingham's is a wee bit softer. Paul Anderson, as Arthur Shelby in Peaky Blinders, nails it.
The problem was always that Birmingham was good at too many things. The workshop of the world, or city of a thousand trades, never had one identity around which its reputation could coalesce. It was never the capital of coal, the city of steel or cottonopolis. That's not to say that it lacked major employers, between them Cadbury, Austin and the BSA employed enough for a small city by themselves. Just that it was always the city of artisans - which it remains today in areas like the Jewellery Quarter.
And because it was good at too many things, it was a target for the Luftwaffe. Birmingham suffered in the war, and then suffered after the war when the city fathers decided to remake Birmingham in the image of Detroit. Britain's motown. This perhaps reached it's apex in the promotional film Telly Savalas Looks at Birmingham. I'm not making this up, look on YouTube. Allegedly Kojak phoned in his performance from a studio, and never visited the city he extolled. Remember that as you hear him wax lyrical about the disco dancing competition in Cannon Hill Park...
By the 1990s it was rather battered, bloody but unbowed. The outdoor escalators of the Bull Ring were mildewed, the Electric Cinema (Britain's oldest) was reduced to showing the more "interesting" end of the cinemascape, and New Street station was a dark, cavernous hole in the ground. There had been the odd attempt to break out of the grimness, Symphony Hall was a triumph, and a great setting for Simon Rattle's CBSO before he took himself off to Berlin. Then there was the ICC, with it's bridge that wasn't quite wide enough (allegedly), and the turn of the century development of Brindley Place.
Personally, I think fortunes turned with the publication of Jonathan Coe's hymn to Birmingham, The Rotters Club. I'm not sure why that should be, but I went off to university and devoured Coe's depiction of the 1970s, and a school I knew very well, then came back to discover that the city had finally had the rockets put under it. The new Bullring may be a temple of shopping, but it is a supremely intelligent. light and airy bit of architecture. Selfridges is like something that has landed from another planet. The good thing throughout is that the bombs and the 60s planners made a lot of central Birmingham a blank canvas for architectural experimentation. You don't have to like the new buildings, but these days it's rare that anything worthwhile has been demolished to create the space for them.
This trend is likely to continue. Railway enthusiasts mourn the loss of the Euston arch, and the other buildings of the great terminus of the London and Birmingham railway. Well HS2, if it ever gets built is going to breathe new life into the terminus at the other end. Curzon Street still stands, isolated in the wasteland of an abandoned marshalling yard. If you go and look round it on the rare open days you find a building comparable to the best Georgian industrial architecture of the nation's dockyards. Stone faced, sweeping stairs, light and airy, Curzon Street is an unlikely and forgotten survivor and it's about time more was made of it.
Of course, there have been casualties along the way. The 1930s saw the start of the trend of civic vandalism with the destruction of Barry and Pugin's King Edward's School in New Street (although these days, I suppose, King Edward's House which replaced it is worthy of a preservation order itself). It was by the time of demolition utterly unfit as a school building (the school itself relocated very successfully to Edgbaston) but you can't help but feel that they wouldn't demolish it now.
More recently we've seen the destruction of the Central Library, which wasn't to everyone's taste but stood as an example of the best brutalism you're likely to see. I even supported those who wanted to list it as a warning to the future if it would save the damn thing but it wasn't to be.
Birmingham now stands on the threshold of a new age. The West Midlands region, with it's own mayor is waiting in the wings, and this should be the opportunity for Brummies to seize back control of their destiny.
They're a quiet lot, the people of Birmingham, but they know what they're doing. They don't need the glitz and glamour of the brash northern upstarts like Manchester or Leeds to know who they are and where they're going. The Second City is back.
Monday, 6 February 2017
Notes from Moseley
And so we roar back into life with a look at rugby union. It seems appropriate to begin with a note on Joost Van Der Westhuizen, who died earlier today aged 45. That's no age at all. I don't suppose anyone who saw it will forget the immense tackle he put in on Jonah Lomu in the 1995 World Cup Final - helping the Springboks on their way to a famous victory.
At a time when there's more money in the global game than ever before, stories are beginning to break in the press that the fans have known were coming for years. Rugby below the premiership in the UK is suffering. Championship and National One rugby has been an entertaining "product" for years, but it doesn't get the crowds that the spectacle deserves. It's not hard to see why when so much of the money in the sport is kept at the Premiership level. London Welsh tried valiantly to beat the system, winning the principle of fair funding, but much good it did them - their liquidation was announced the other week. Now we read in the press that the great and good are considering introducing a promotion playoff between the team finishing top of National One, and the side that comes bottom of the Championship - and so drawbridges go up, players lose hope, and fans lose interest.
Of course, the problems started when the game went professional - the RFU lost control very early on, and put the leading clubs in the driving seat. Some prospered, others, like Moseley and Coventry, got themselves into enormous trouble trying to keep up. And so we've ended up in a place where the top clubs have bought their spots around the table, leaving the others doomed to spend eternity hanging round the fringes, grateful for the scraps.
Nevertheless, Moseley vs Rosslyn Park on Saturday afternoon was as entertaining as you'd expect, with a blizzard of tries from Mose's Ed Sheldon, more yellow cards than you can shake a stick at, and enough entertainment to send the crowd home happy. But as you stand in the clubhouse at Billesley Common, it's difficult not to feel that the place is haunted by the ghosts of the past. Names like Teague, Webster, Finlan, Doble, Jeavons, Everest, Warren. Names from a time when the country looked at Mose vs Cov as the England trials game; when sides feared to come to the Reddings.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Thankfully, there are supporters who have kept the faith with Moseley, and that there is rugby to watch at all is little short of astonishing after the lows the club experienced - losing the Reddings, a period on the pitches at Birmingham University, and the early infrastructure-light days on the Common. But to kick on Moseley needs investment. Birmingham needs Moseley. It shouldn't be difficult, but it never seems to happen.
Us fans just have to keep the faith and hope something will turn up.
Up the red and black
At a time when there's more money in the global game than ever before, stories are beginning to break in the press that the fans have known were coming for years. Rugby below the premiership in the UK is suffering. Championship and National One rugby has been an entertaining "product" for years, but it doesn't get the crowds that the spectacle deserves. It's not hard to see why when so much of the money in the sport is kept at the Premiership level. London Welsh tried valiantly to beat the system, winning the principle of fair funding, but much good it did them - their liquidation was announced the other week. Now we read in the press that the great and good are considering introducing a promotion playoff between the team finishing top of National One, and the side that comes bottom of the Championship - and so drawbridges go up, players lose hope, and fans lose interest.
Of course, the problems started when the game went professional - the RFU lost control very early on, and put the leading clubs in the driving seat. Some prospered, others, like Moseley and Coventry, got themselves into enormous trouble trying to keep up. And so we've ended up in a place where the top clubs have bought their spots around the table, leaving the others doomed to spend eternity hanging round the fringes, grateful for the scraps.
Nevertheless, Moseley vs Rosslyn Park on Saturday afternoon was as entertaining as you'd expect, with a blizzard of tries from Mose's Ed Sheldon, more yellow cards than you can shake a stick at, and enough entertainment to send the crowd home happy. But as you stand in the clubhouse at Billesley Common, it's difficult not to feel that the place is haunted by the ghosts of the past. Names like Teague, Webster, Finlan, Doble, Jeavons, Everest, Warren. Names from a time when the country looked at Mose vs Cov as the England trials game; when sides feared to come to the Reddings.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Thankfully, there are supporters who have kept the faith with Moseley, and that there is rugby to watch at all is little short of astonishing after the lows the club experienced - losing the Reddings, a period on the pitches at Birmingham University, and the early infrastructure-light days on the Common. But to kick on Moseley needs investment. Birmingham needs Moseley. It shouldn't be difficult, but it never seems to happen.
Us fans just have to keep the faith and hope something will turn up.
Up the red and black
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