We managed to get home briefly for New Year. Home - as distinct from where our house is - is on the Worcestershire-Staffordshire border just West of Stourbridge. It is stunningly beautiful and very good walking or horse-riding country; but almost unknown by outsiders (who, after all, ever thinks of going on holiday to the fringes of the West Midland conurbation?) My daughter and I - with Guthlac asleep in the back and Mrs Byard having a rare moment to herself - went to the local park to walk around on the frosty grass, watch the ducks coping with a frozen pond and give Guthlac his first experience of a playground swing. Of such simple shared pleasures are truly golden memories forged.
The park pond offers up, however, a deeply depressing sight - bunches of wilted flowers and mawkish messages scribbled in marker pen, attached to the fence where a depressed teenager jumped over and drowned himself. Sometimes I find the sentimentality around these events more grating and nauseating than the everyday tragedy itself; part of what Alan Bennett aptly called 'the Liverpudlianisation of Britain'. There is much to be said for keeping the upper lip stiff and the private grief private.
The occasion on which I felt least comprehension for the country of my birth was the aftermath of Diana the Princess of Wales's death in 1997. I watched the media coverage from afar (Java, in fact) and was asked by many locals to explain what was happening. I couldn't, since I totally failed to understand it myself. The nearest I can get to it is a feeling that it was a kind of emotional anarchy; the media - in a desperate attempt to hide their own culpability in paying top whack to the pursuing papparazzi - had told everyone that a self-indulgent outpouring of public grief for someone they never knew was now permissible.
Anyway, after being made miserable at the park, we drove out into the country, via Ismere, Caunsall and Kinver before returning to the parental/grandparental homestead. From Ismere we could see the tops of the Clee Hills, their lower slopes hidden by mist so that the summit appeared as an apparition-like blue-grey line in the sky. (Oddly enough, the oldest administrative document dealing with the Anglo-Saxons in this part of the country mentions the local tribe as the 'Usmere'; in the reign of Aethalbald in the early 8th century land at Ismere is granted to one of the king's followers.)
I sometimes daydream about finding a job in that area and being able to move out of the Thames Valley. The Thames Valley is a very congenial place to live in many ways, to be sure, but most of the people we know are economic migrants like we are rather than people rooted in an ancient community. Even though it may seem strange for someone with a family tree like mine to be going on in a way that is perilously close to the 'blood and soil' rhetoric of the far right, I can't help feeling more at home in North Worcestershire than I do in Reading. Though come to think of it, many of my ancestors were the economic migrants of a few generations back. Maybe my great-grandchildren, if they live around Reading, will feel about it the way I do about the place I grew up.
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9 comments:
Saints preserve us all, Gyppo! What are you saying? Leave the glorious Thames Valley? Whatever for? I have just returned from a bracing trudge across Maidenhead Thicket, where the majestic roar of the A404 sliproad silences all internal demons, and the sight of the hazel's grey tassles and the points of yellow jasmine about the keeper's cottage served to remind me that we live in an unparalleled paradise. Plus, the kebab van was doing a roaring trade. Happy new year, btw.
And a Happy New Year to you too, Clarissa. Nice to see you back!
The Thames Valley is too tame. One likes the odd dramatic moment in one's landscapes. Kinver Edge, for example. Clent. The Clee Hills. Only Goring Gap comes anywhere near...
I was also away when the Queen of Tarts died, and have managed to stay away (either abroad or in academia) ever since. Actually, these descriptions provided yourself, Mrs Pouncer (in her more reliable moments) and A. E. Housman et al. are almost my only links with The Old Country these days. And how delightful it still sounds :-)
Sweet baby Jesus and the Orphans! We go from bad to worse! No drama in the Thames Valley? Where have you BEEN, Gypps? You want drama, I got it. Here's my card; knock yourself out.
Gadj, gorgeous, gracious Gadj. My heart swells as I gaze upon your name. Reliable moments will become my hallmark this new year, I promise you. 2009 stretches before me as untrodden snow, and I find myself on an even footing, at one with the world, a firm hand on my tiller. I feel as if life's barkeep has his hand rammed under my optic, and has pledged to keep me topped up. Poetic, I know, but that is how I am.
You're a poet in the style of Dylan Thomas, Mrs Pouncer, and no mistake! You could have gazed upon my (ahem) lovely visage instead of just upon my name if you'd had got your arse into gear before the 23rd, but I'll let it pass for now; a simple explanation and/or abject apology will suffice. I have a firm and manly hand on my own tiller as I write this and I too feel that this will be a year of great poetic achievement for us all.
With you there, Gyppo. I'd love to move back to my native Cerigrafu, but the Annwn brothers have long memories and a grendling iron with my name on it.
Mrs P - I meant dramatic in the topographical sense rather than the human. Even I admit that the Reading area has enough human drama to keep Jeremy Kyle occupied for a decade.
Boyo - Just say the word and I shall arrange a visit to the Annwn vardo from Django Mullens and his associates.
It was the last visit by the Mullenses that pushed me to the top of the Lynching Lottery, you seem to have forgotten.
Word Verification: avinopsi - Greek: the state of being mocked by your underlings.
Boyo - It's been some time since I visited the Border Marches Romnichal Research Centre (last seen parked illegally on a verge next to the A5).
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