Scything

Tags

Alan Bates, Andrew Marvell, Antiques Roadshow, Babylon, barmkin, Ben Batt, Corydon, Damon the Mower, Deep Heat, Downton Abbey, eclogues, Farmers' Markets, Fiona Bruce, Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, Green-Winged orchid, Grim reaper, Hayter, Highgrove, Lammas, meadow management, Mower to the Glow-Worms, Mr D'Arcy, One Man Went to Mow, pastoral, Pele Tower, Ph.D, Pig-gate, Poldark, Schroeckenfux, scything, snath, Stag's Breath liqueur, The Go-Between, troubador, Voltarol, wu wei

Diana Fotheringay-Syylk was administering embrocations

and a little tlc to a recumbent Murgatroyd, who is, as some

of you will recall, the owner of a Borders Pele tower.

Privately, Diana thought that he had been over-doing things

and Voltarol was not really having a great deal of an effect on

his lumbar aches and pains.

It had not helped when he had lugged plastic crates round the

local Farmers’ Markets, selling his Empress Bangers and porcine

medallions.

Yes, Dear Reader, Pig-gate had already struck, before the

Cameronian variety hit the news.

(Photo:Alpha from Melbourne)

Once he had cleared out the pig-pen area he decided to

re-seed it, to please Diana, who had been upset when their

gardening firm had rotovated the wrong field and inadvertently

destroyed their recently established Highgrove-style wildflower

meadow and a group of what she took to be Green-Winged Orchids.

(Photo by Didier Desouens)

From then on, Murgatroyd had decided to do away with mechanical

Hayters and, Diana, having been inspired by Aidan Turner, like so

many females d’un certain age, had booked him in – Murgatroyd, that

is – for a Lammas weekend scything course in Brighton, where he was

going to learn the sociology of the bar peen.

His back-ache had been exacerbated by carrying the large A4 pack of

information he had been given at the start of the course.  Someone had

probably gained a Ph.D in Rural Studies from producing it.

That meant she could watch the boxed set of Poldark in peace, while

he practised with his new, Austrian light-weight, zero-carbon

Schroeckenfux.

However, her pastoral idyll had been disturbed by Murgatroyd’s

complaints, not in the manner of a Corydon, or passionate troubador,

but more in line with the average husband who experiences muscular

twitches, or sciatica.  He was recumbent and had hung his instrument on

the equivalent of a willow tree, while he lamented his estate, as if he

had been exiled from Babylon.  He felt as if one of the Four Horsemen

of the Apocalypse had wounded him – perhaps that skinny one with the

hoodie and the big scythe.

He groaned.

We’ve run out of  ‘Voltarol’.  You’ll just have to use the ‘Deep Heat’ until

the shops open tomorrow and  I go down to the pharmacy, Diana

informed him, noting that The Go-Between was on later that evening.

What a pity she didn’t have a little gopher, like Leo, to pop upstairs

with the tube of emollient.  She was fed up running up and down stairs

pandering to the invalid.

Having taken him a Stag’s Breath liqueur and having poured a generous

shot for herself, she settled down with the remote in a comfy armchair, in

the barmkin.

This had better be good, for she had enjoyed the Alan Bates version.

For some subliminal reason, she hummed One Man Went to Mow, Went to

Mow a Meadow…

It wasn’t too long before she found herself re-winding to check the length

of the snath handle Batt was implementing.  Impressive-and that was just

his wu wei.

Meanwhile Murgatroyd was looking at a John Deere catalogue while Ben

Batt cut a swathe through Downton‘s viewing audience and no one could

remember what Fiona Bruce had been rabbiting on about on The Antiques

Roadshow.  For, there was an attempt to high-jack a Mr D’Arcy moment for

posterity.

Later, in bed – the spare bed – Diana could not clear snatches of eclogues

from her overactive mind.  She kept thinking of Andrew Marvell poems, such

as Damon the Mower, The Mower to the Glow-worms and Mowing Song.

Snippets of the verses repeated themselves:

Sharp like his scythe his sorrow was,

And withered like his hopes the grass.

and

How happy might I still have mowed,

Had not Love here his thistles sowed.

…there among the grass fell down,

By his own scythe, the Mower mown…

T ‘is death alone that this must do:

For Death thou art a Mower too.

Well, she reflected, Life is too short for meadow

management. I think we will just pave it over again

and get some pots with pelargoniums.  I’ll go to the

Garden Centre after I’ve been to the chemist’s.

And she decided that Alan Bates had, after all,

been more satisfactory.

Coming!

Graduate of TV University

Tags

Antiques Roadshow, Beijing, buffalo, China, Deng, Guanzhou, Hope Project, Zhaoqing

(Photo by Sumeet Moghe)

You went to China, didn’t you? Brassica reminded me.

Oh, ages ago, I replied.  In the mid-to-late nineties.  We

took some students with us.  We saw quite a bit of the

country, as we travelled its length on the train, from Beijing.

That must have been fascinating.

Well, we had guides to keep an eye on us.  I think I wrote

down my impressions at the time. I’ll try to fish them out.

No doubt another poem is coming my way, sighed Brassie.

Aren’t you the lucky one?! I retorted.

GRADUATE OF TV UNIVERSITY

Our Zhaoqing guide was a smiling Tiger:

See, I used to be a buffalo boy,

he said.  And now my family benefit

because I send some of my wages home.

You’ve heard of TV University?

That’s how I studied English, got this job.

Deng’s motto was ‘not the best; good enough.’

He prattled on his microphone.  It worked.

Look! he grinned.  I even have tiger teeth.

Maybe I’ll save up for some dental work.

He switched off and so did we: too fatigued,

having just journeyed for 36 hours,

from Beijing to Guanzhou by the night train.

Buffalo boy would have conjured up jade

ornaments, bronzes collected by those

who appear on Antiques Roadshows.  But now,

having seen settlements in paddy fields;

putrid ponds, wallowing pigs, flash motorbikes,

ancestral headstones placed among sparse crops,

we knew where he had come from; just how far

he had travelled; understood Hope Project,

where wealthy cities subsidise the poor.

Though awash with Americanisms,

at ease in marble foyers of hotels,

he sat and ate his meals apart from us,

smiling at our ineptness with chopsticks:

romantic buffalo boy, denying

the not-so-distant cannibalism

China practised through desperate famines.

We turned up our noses at jellyfish;

he was grateful for a well-filled rice dish.

At the end of our stay he gave out forms,

requiring us to measure him against

some idealistic concept of guide.

Although he told us very little,

between the lines he’d told us quite a lot.

He got his tip, learned a few extra words

which alienate him further from his home.

So what, if he gains some gleaming moped,

pays many yuan for a cosmetic brace;

orthodontically has a Western face?

His buffalo will be slaughtered for food

and a billion tigers may show their fangs,

while we watch TV University

and travel the Web, rather than the world.

Maybe one day we’ll meet him again on some screen

and we will recognise him by his smile-

the one that doesn’t seem to reach his eyes,

but demonstrates his newly acquired bite.

Scarred for Life

Tags

Antiques Roadshow, ATS, Buckingham Palace ballroom, Camilla, Colgate, Da Vinci Lady with Ermine, Duchess Cornwall, Gavin Maxwell, Inner Hebrides, Lady Denham, Land Girls, leather gauntlet, Martini, Nutkins, Prince Philip, Pugs, Queen Mother, Ring of Bright Water, Rupert Maas, Simon Bolivar, Sotheby's, St Vitus' School for Academically-Gifted Girl

Carrie had brought her mother-in-law, Ginevra Brewer-Mead the

Saturday newspaper while she had been out walking her over-

weight pugs, Algy, Pooh-Bah and Humbug.

She had to leave them in the porch, as Magda, the carer

detested them.  Fortunately she was out shopping.

Suddenly the old lady put the newspaper down and sighed.

What’s wrong? asked Carrie.

Oh, it’s just an obituary for someone I knew.  All my friends

are popping off.

Carrie picked up the paper and scanned it.

Augusta Snodbury…passed away in Snodland Nursing Home

for the Debased Gentry…..choked on an olive in her Martini.

Oh, she was the same age as you.  How did you know her?

Actually, I knew her through her younger sister, Berenice.

Remember The Palace had afternoon tea for Land Girls in

2009? We met there.  Got talking about The Queen Mother

and what kind of gin she preferred.

Was Berenice in Glasgow too?

No, no.  She joined in 1942 under Lady Denham.  Get me

that blue photo album out of the cabinet, will you?  Third

drawer down.

See, said Ginevra, after flicking through a few pages.

There we are.  Remember that fascinator I had?  Got quite

a bit of use out of it.  Augusta is on the right.  I’m the rose

between two thorns…she giggled.  Berenice looks the elder,

but that’s because she didn’t wear sunscreen in Venezuela.

Bolted to follow her dreams of Simon Bolivar, she told me.

She was boasting that she had once helped The Queen to

clean out an engine.  You know, Her Majesty was 2nd

Lieutenant Elizabeth Windsor and a very competent mechanic.

I told Berenice she was a hypocrite.  Can’t be a Royalist and

espouse Republicanism.  Anyway, The Queen didn’t seem to

remember her, not surprisingly.  She shook my hand. 

Berenice just got Camilla.  The Duke chatted up Augusta for

quite a while.  He said he didn’t recognise her with her clothes

on.  I didn’t get it at the time.

It says here that Berenice died a couple of years ago,

commented Carrie, trying to get Ginevra off her uncharitable

tangent.  And it mentions that Augusta was Head Girl of St

Vitus’ School for The Academically-Gifted Girl.  I must tell

Tiger-Lily.

Not strictly true, muttered Ginevra.

What do you mean?

They only added the post-modifying phrase fairly recently.

It’s not the school it once was. It used to be a fairly ordinary

dumping ground for genteel girls whose parents weren’t very

affluent.  Anyone could go there if they had the dosh.  It should

have been called St Vitus’ School for the Academically-

Challenged Girl back then, or for the Financially-Challenged

Parent.

Well, it’s not like that now, said Carrie.  Oh, it says here that

Augusta became the Muse and model for reclusive early

twentieth century artist and mystic, Hamish Diecast.  She

went to live with him in a remote island in the Inner Hebrides,

but managed his sales to London galleries and helped to

establish his reputation.  I suppose The Duke might have had

a portrait of her in his private apartments… He never forgets a

pretty girl, apparently.

Didn’t you see The Antiques Roadshow from Oban? Ginevra

asked.  I think it was last year.  That blonde chap, Rupert Maas,

identified a nude portrait that a gamekeeper brought along,

wrapped in an oilskin, as being Lady with an Otter, a lost Diecast

work based on Da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine.  It went at

Sotheby’s for an enormous price.

Shameless hussy!  She didn’t have a stitch on.  Wouldn’t have

caught me holding one of those creatures without a leather

gauntlet and full body armour.  That chap that wrote The Ring

of Bright Confidence…

That was a Colgate advert, Ginevra.  Do you mean Gavin

Maxwell’s book?

Whatever.  (Ginevra had picked up this insouciance from her

grand-daughter, Tiger.)  He had an assistant called Squirrel

Nutkins, or something, who had parts of his fingers eaten by

Maxwell’s vicious little pet.  Augusta was lucky she wasn’t scarred

for life, though she probably was, emotionally.  Diecast was a

womaniser and a weirdo.

Anyway, she is at peace now, conciliated Carrie.  You know,

I have just had a thought: isn’t there a Senior Master at St

Birinus Middle called Snodbury?  I wonder if he is any relation?

Maybe he is the love child of Diecast and Augusta?

Shouldn’t think so, pronounced Ginevra. She was more

interested in power than sex. She wasn’t attracted to men

in that way.  She told me.

While you were at the tea at Buckingham Palace ballroom?!

Oh, we old girls cover a lot of ground!  I suppose there must

be a connection, but I wouldn’t think she had had a son.  No,

not with him.

A key was rattling in the porch door.

‘ello!  I am back.  Oh, shut up, you stupid little dogs!

Carrie took her leave and went to rescue Magda from the

tangled leashes round her ankles.

I got your paper! she addressed Ginevra, triumphantly.

But her charge had already read it.  It was destined for

doggy purposes.

 

Basic/Better/ Best

Tags

Antiques Roadshow, Basic/ Better/ Best, Blackberry, Border Terrier, breach of promise, Easter Island, Fiona Bruce, Flog-It!, flugelhorn, marimba, Miller Guides, Moai, Moorcroft, Polynesian figure, Quorn, Radio 4, Rocky Road, Sotheby's, Tesco, The Moral Maze

Some archival material which, I think, deserves a second airing!

There was an amateur Antiques Roadshow in Suttonford’s Community Centre on Saturday afternoon, on behalf of the charity, Curs in Crisis.  The organisers had asked local auctioneer, Hubert Wormhole, to give of his expertise and they charged £5 per valuation.  The queues snaked out into North Street, but thankfully it wasn’t raining.

Ginevra Brewer-Mead had donated a quirky, mystery object as a prize.  It was to raise fifty pence a guess as to its identity and use.  The winner would be allowed to keep it.  It was all good fun.

Ginevra had bought the ugly thing many years before, at a jumble sale.  It usually resided on her mantelpiece and her carer, Magda, had encouraged her to get rid of it, as it freaked her out.  (Magda was becoming more and more proficient in her utilisation of Slanglish.)

People were laughing as they wondered aloud which of their friends and neighbours most resembled the figure with the over-sized head.  Pollux nudged his twin and whispered: Caligula!  They both sniggered, but their mother, Brassica, reproved them and said that it was rude to make comments about their teacher.

Hubert had set up a table with Basic / Better/ Best cardboard signs, which was an idea that he had stolen from the real BBC show.  Three examples of Moorcroft pottery stood behind the labels.

Again, people were invited to pay fifty pence to guess the relative worthiness of the three items and, if they were correct, they were given a delicious cluster of Rocky Road from a Tesco bucket.

Brassica’s twins had been issued with their pocket money that morning, and, miraculously, still had some left.

Castor walked over to the table with the hideous figure and realised that he had seen it before, at Ginevra’s house, when he had been visiting with his mother.  He had been fascinated by it and had looked up similar objects online.  He knew that such figures dated from the Pre-Moai period, when Easter Island had been afforested.  A similar object had sold at Sotheby’s in the eighties for £100,000.

He was hopping up and down with suppressed excitement when he asked the woman on the stall, who happened to be Sonia, if he could borrow a pen.

Then he concealed his writing with his arm crooked, as he was wont to do in school tests, so that John, his partner on the double desk, would not copy his answers.  He wrote very carefully:

Rair deety Ester Iland

He appended his father’s mobile number.  Thankfully he was more numerate than literate, so there was a chance of the adjudicator being able to contact him.

He posted his entry in the cardboard box.  Sonia said, I think you might be a lucky boy.

Pollux usually did the Arts subject preps and he did the Maths and Science ones.  Between themselves, they did quite well.  However, on this occasion, he did not collaborate with his twin, nor did he inform him of his entry.

Some people were becoming annoyed as they had guessed the Moorcroft conundrum correctly, owing to an over-exposure of such ceramic art on Flog-It!  They thought that they should have won the best object of the three, but even the Rocky Road was unavailable, as it had been consumed by little boys with light fingers and sweet tooths, no, teeth.  And, in particular, by twins who had been feeding their Border Terrier who lay under the table, with the chocolate and marshmallow moreish morsels.

These small-minded adults had paid and guessed in vain and they were very disgruntled and said that charities should put humans before canines. They expressed other sentiments in terms which little boys should not have overheard.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Brassie was in her kitchen/diner, cooking supper and the twins had been finishing their flugelhorn and marimba practice next door.  She called them to the table.

But, mum, we’re not hungry, they complained.

That’s because you stuffed yourselves with Rocky Road, she lectured.  You know I don’t allow sugar treats and now you can see why.  All this lovely wholesome Quorn is going to go to waste.

The twins simultaneously eyed their Border.   They felt sure that he would oblige in any hoovering up operation to do with leftovers, even though he had consumed a fair amount of the sweet clusters himself.

Darling!  She shouted up the garden in the direction of the observatory.  Supper’s ready.

Cosmo was already coming down the path, fiddling with his Blackberry.

Castor, he said, it’s Mr Wormhole from the roadshow this afternoon.  He says there has been a terrible mistake.

I know, dad.  They didn’t pick up on the Polynesian figure.

What? said Brassie. (The phone always rang at mealtimes).  I’ll take it.   She held the mobile up to her ear with one hand while she stirred the unappetising looking Quorn mish-mash.  Easter Island?  Rare?  Pre-Moy, what?

A similar figure went for an absolute fortune at a London sale of Tribal Art in the Seventies, said Hubert, suddenly very authoritative.  Naturally, Mrs Brewer-Mead had no idea what she had donated.  Even I wasn’t certain until I went home and referred to my Miller Guides.

But Castor guessed correctly, she insisted, amazed at her son’s vast store of knowledge filched from http://www.geekologie.com etc.

What’s all this about? asked Cosmo, confused as ever.

He says that Castor can’t have his prize as he spelled the answer incorrectly.  He’s offering him the best piece of Moorcroft instead, Brassie stage-whispered, holding her hand over the Blackberry.

We’ll see about that, said Cosmo masterfully.  He won it fairly and squarely, as far as I can make out.

No, they’ve had a lawyer on to it already and Ginevra seems to be within her rights to withdraw the prize and to offer a substitute.  Brassie was frantically trying to remember where she had seen the advertisement for No Win/ No Fee legal services. Mr Wormhole thinks that Mrs Brewer-Mead, I mean Ginevra, has already appropriated it, as it was not on the table at the end of the afternoon.

Mr Wormhole rang off, saying that they could discuss things further on Monday.

Now do you see the importance of spelling, you careless boy? snapped Brassie.

Castor’s lip trembled, but he rallied: My teacher says that you can still get an A* so long as she and the examiner people can make out what it is you are trying to say.

Well, now you know that that is a load of rubbish in the real world, stressed Brassie.  I’ll have to have a word with Ginevra on Monday about the EU and Children’s Rights and breach of promise.

Pollux tried to draw the blame onto himself-and succeeded; his father had more experience and kept a low profile.

 I’d have known how to spell the answer, he piped up.

Oh, shut up, Smart-Alec, they all said.

Pollux crept over to the Border’s basket to stroke his little, furry friend and as a tear plopped onto the dog’s wiry head, it looked up quizzically, and, as it did so, it gagged.

Give! ordered Pollux.

After a tussle, he forced open its jaws and a carved splinter of something very Moai-like shot out across the kitchen flagstones.

Mum! he screamed.

Andy, the Border, had evidently carried the figure home in his mouth and had been worrying at it throughout their music practice and Brassie’s meal preparation.

They all agreed to say nothing and to accept the Moorcroft gracefully.  However, Brassie could feel the discomfort on the back burners of her conscience.  She felt that it was the kind of dilemma that The Moral Maze would like to have grappled with on Radio 4 and she felt that they would not emerge smelling of roses.  She wished that Castor had never seen the wretched thing.  It must have emitted some evil power, as she could see how destructive its forces would have been in her family and community.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Think of all the Dewlap Gins I could have bought, said Ginevra, wistfully.

It freaked me out, replied Magda, her carer.  You only lost 20 pence effectively.  But you still have your friends.

Let’s drink to that, agreed Ginevra.  Bottoms up!

And Magda understood the expression, as her English and Slanglish was coming on.

Prost!

Wyvern Mote

Tags

Alan Titchmarsh, Alexander Armstrong, Antiques Roadshow, Boris Johnston, Bunny Campione, Bunny Guinness, Cavalier, clay pipe, Gertrude Jekyll, Grinling Gibbons, Henry Moore, herbaceous border, Inigo Jones, King Charles Spaniel, linen fold panelling, Lulu Guinness, Pointless, Pomeranian, pre-nuptial, pre-prandial, Prince William, pug, Rokeby Venus, Roundhead, Songs of Praise, Strictly, stump work, sundial, William the Conqueror

Hi!  It’s Diana again. I’m still here in Suttonford. Sonia had taken us to

Ginevra’s house, as the nonagenarian was allowing Dru to use her tablet

to Google ‘ Wyvern Mote.’  (I must say that a lot more goes on here than in

Bradford-on-Avon.)  That’s why I am moving back to these airts and parts,

I suppose.

Magda, the Eastern European carer, brought tea in for Sonia, Dru and

myself, but not for Ginevra.

She was having something a little stronger.  Early in the day, I thought.

Tell me about your Aunt Augusta, she commanded Dru.  I think that she and

I would have a lot in common.

You do, replied Dru, without taking her eyes off the screen.  You both like

Dewlap Gin for the Discerning Grandmother.

But she isn’t a grandmother, is she?  I am.

Nevertheless.. Dru’s voice trailed off and then she exclaimed excitedly:

The original earls had Wyvern Mote decorated by Inigo Jones.  There’s a

photo on this site of a portrait of a rather pink and billowy-or is that ‘pillowy’?-

female called Lydia Van Druynk, who is recumbent on some kind of a divan,

like the Rokeby Venus.  She’s surrounded by King Charles Spaniels.

I prefer pugs, or Pomeranians, opined Ginevra.

Dru ignored her as far as she could, considering that she was

borrowing the old girl’s tablet.

It says that the spaniels are significant, as the langorous lady, far from

being inactive, set the said dogs on a Civil War unit, thereafter influencing

and modifying the motto on the Van Druynk coat of arms, which then read:

Begone vile blusterers!

I take it she was on the side of the Cavaliers? said Sonia.  I know all about

that contingent.  As you recall, I have to live with one of them occupying

my attic.  He doesn’t even pay me rent.

And would you call him a considerate house guest otherwise? asked Ginevra.

Not too bad, but I wish he’d take off his boots, as I can hear him pacing up

and down the length of the attic.  He’s a bit of an insomniac, as I am.

I’m surprised that you haven’t exorcised him, commented Diana.

Well, in a funny way he keeps me company, said Sonia.  But I wish he

wouldn’t smoke all these clay pipes and leave the broken shards in my

herbaceous border.  I wrote to Gardeners’ Question Time, but Bunny

Campione just said that the clay detritus probably helps with drainage.

She could have put you in touch with one of those bee keeper types and

they could have smoked him out, suggested Diana.  Like the way they

fumigate greenhouses.  They use a puffer thing.  By the way, I think you

mean Bunny Guinness.

Sonia looked horrified.  But I like my Cavalier, she protested. He’s got

attitude, as they say.

She continued, You know, I always thought these two Bunnies were the same

person- just one amazingly talented woman who knows everything about

groundwork AND stump work. 

Doesn’t one of them make designer handbags as well? Ginevra chipped in.

That’s Lulu Guinness, interposed Dru, who was becoming slightly rattled,

particularly as she couldn’t afford one of these desirable accessories, yet

most of her boarders could.

I’m not criticising gardeners, clarified Sonia.  Gertrude Jekyll is a bit of a

heroine of mine, but nowadays they are not of the same ilk, to use a clan

reference.  I mean, Alan Titchmarsh may be compost mentis, but he simply

doesn’t have such a breadth of cultural knowledge as the two women, even if

he does present Songs of Praise, in my opinion.  They could have that

programme fronted by a Singing Snowman; it’s not particularly challenging.

I don’t think it is meant to be, Diana tried to point out.

(Which Bunny?)

Dru tried to keep the peace.  The motto proliferated onto stair newel

posts, shields on the linen fold panelling and was featured on a particularly

fine lead sundial which was regrettably stolen from The White Garden in 1995.

It was recovered three years later when some idiot brought it to an Antiques

Roadshow and one of the experts remembered its loss had been reported in a

professional journal.

Why was the person who brought it an idiot? asked Diana.

Because he had been the gardener at Wyvern and someone recognised

him, according to this article.  He was put away for a couple of years.

Well, at least it wasn’t melted down for scrap value like some of those

Henry Moores probably have been, ventured Sonia.  Where is all this

information published?

It’s from a Newspaper Archive site.  The article came from ‘The Rochester

Messenger’..Hey! There’s an earlier headline from 1946 which says:

‘Missing Heir Found Safe and Well.’

Read it out, ordered Ginevra.

Dru scanned the front page.  There had been a supposed accident. 

Peregrine, the younger son of the estate had been thought drowned. 

He’d been missing for nearly a week. Estate workers dragged the moat

and searched surrounding woodland.  His mother was frantic.  She had

questioned Lionel, the older boy, but there was something evasive in his

replies.  He had been known to bully his ten year old sibling.

The tutor testified to the police that he had observed Lionel engaging in

what the nasty child called ‘giving the little sprog a good trouncing’ and

the teacher had endeavoured to enlighten his charge regarding his abusive

behaviour. He found the boy intractable.

Lionel even jealously tortured his mother’s favourite pet, a spaniel that was

directly descended from one of the dogs who had sent off the Roundheads and

whose life-like ancestor featured in a lozenge-shaped cameo carved by Grinling

Gibbons over the mantel in the Red Sitting Room.

Sounds like that awful boy that everyone talks about at St Birinus, Ginevra

butted in.  There’s nothing new about bullying.

Dru screeched suddenly: It says that the boys’ mother had no husband to

support her in her grief, as she had been widowed.  She turned to the boys’

tutor, a young man called Anthony Revelly!  He seems to have saved the day.

He is called a hero.

I need a drink, said Ginevra.  Let’s all have a break and you can tell us the

rest after I have had my pre-nuptial.

Prandial, corrected Diana, before she remembered that she was the guest.

Then, Yes, Dru, she advised.  Let’s have a hiatus while we take all this on

board.

Anyway, Ginevra stated.  I want to watch ‘Pointless’ just now.  Magda and I

always like that Armstrong chap.  I wish he’d do the stupid dance though- the

one he did with his friend on his comedy programme.  You’d never think that

he was related to William the Conqueror.  Not when he wore a tank top.

I didn’t know they had tank tops in 1066, said Sonia.  I don’t think they

even had tanks.

Somehow you’d expect someone of that stature to be able to dance more

elegantly, Ginevra persisted.

Who? William the Conqueror? asked Sonia.

Well, him as well, now you mention it.  Mind you, Boris Johnston isn’t that

great a mover and he’s more royal than Prince William and the whole bang

shoot of them.

Boris was jiggling around at the Olympics, if my memory serves me aright.

Not a pretty sight.  Mind you, some of those big ones can be light on their

feet. You see it time and again on ‘Strictly’.  But I don’t think Boris would do

an appearance .  I mean, who would be his partner?  Poor Alyona has had

enough of the weaker candidates. It’s time she was given a winner.

Top me up, Magda!

The rest of the article would have to wait.

Ring Cycle

Tags

Antiques Roadshow, family jewellery, price of gold, wedding bands

Yes, it’s a shame the price of gold went up recently, said Carrie.  It

encourages you to melt down old pieces of jewellery which are lying

around in underwear drawers.  But sentimentality can’t always be

recovered so easily.

I know, I said. Youngsters today don’t seem to like old-fashioned

things, but our generation loved them for the memories they held,

rather than for their material value.

It’s like the people that polish up old bronze artefacts and actually

de-value them by removing the accretions of centuries, I concurred.

You see it time and again on The Antiques Roadshow, where the patinas

have been stripped off, added Carrie.

You know, that reminds me of a poem that I wrote years ago about how

much I treasured a Victorian ring passed on to me by my grandmother. 

It had belonged to her sister who died even as she was knitting a matinee

jacket for me, while I was still in the womb.

What happened to it? asked Carrie.

I wore it through bad times and then passed it on to my daughter.

I would never have sold it.  Tell you what, though, I’ll publish the poem

in the next post of The Suttonford Chronicles.

Good idea, said Carrie.

So here it is:

RING CYCLE

Three generations of women treasured

this symbol of fidelity.  It spun

on deal tables in the few, snatched, leisured

moments with neighbours, who felt they had won

respite for gossip and a cup of tea.

I’ve heard it said they rang rings round spouses,

and some have said similar things of me;

that I’d cause trouble in empty houses:

we have a common loop genetically;

conjoined by temperament and by moods,

not only by this piece of jewellery.

Worn through their married lives and widowhoods,

this band has outlived consummations, wars,

anniversaries and births; invested

with the hallmark of experience, for,

in its time, it came to me, bequested,

not requested, after Death had levelled

the last family tree. So, dead ringer

that I am, I now smoothe its worn, bevelled

edge, calling up their presence, my finger

not yet gnarled. It slips off with ease, not grease,

unlike the struggle my arthritic gran

soapily enacted.  Gangrene worries

beset, but finally her mortal coil

sloughed by degrees.  In her circle I can

read other exertions, feel its loyal

linkage to those outwith my orbit.  So,

ring of authenticity, I’ll pass you

on to my daughter, for then she will know

gold’s tried and tested standard: forged, but true.

Basic/Better/Best

Tags

Antiques Roadshow, Blackberry, Border Terrier, Brassica, Easter Island, Flog-It!, Moai, Moorcroft, Radio 4, Rocky Road, Sotheby's, Tesco, The Moral Maze, Tribal Art, www.gekologie.com

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There was an amateur Antiques Roadshow in Suttonford’s Community Centre on Saturday afternoon, on behalf of the charity, Curs in Crisis.  The organisers had asked local auctioneer, Hubert Wormhole, to give of his expertise and they charged £5 per valuation.  The queues snaked out into North Street, but thankfully it wasn’t raining.

Ginevra Brewer-Mead had donated a quirky, mystery object as a prize.  It was to raise fifty pence a guess as to its identity and use.  The winner would be allowed to keep it.  It was all good fun.

Ginevra had bought the ugly thing many years before, at a jumble sale.  It usually resided on her mantelpiece and her carer, Magda, had encouraged her to get rid of it, as it freaked her out.  (Magda was becoming more and more proficient in her utilisation of Slanglish.)

People were laughing as they wondered aloud which of their friends and neighbours most resembled the figure with the over-sized head.  Pollux nudged his twin and whispered: Caligula!  They both sniggered, but their mother, Brassica, reproved them and said that it was rude to make comments about their teacher.

Hubert had set up a table with Basic / Better/ Best cardboard signs, which was an idea that he had stolen from the real BBC show.  Three examples of Moorcroft pottery stood behind the labels.

Again, people were invited to pay fifty pence to guess the relative worthiness of the three items and, if they were correct, they were given a delicious cluster of Rocky Road from a Tesco bucket.

Brassica’s twins had been issued with their pocket money that morning, and, miraculously, still had some left.

Castor walked over to the table with the hideous figure and realised that he had seen it before, at Ginevra’s house, when he had been visiting with his mother.  He had been fascinated by it and had looked up similar objects online.  He knew that such figures dated from the Pre-Moai period, when Easter Island had been afforested.  A similar object had sold at Sotheby’s in the eighties for £100,000.

He was hopping up and down with suppressed excitement when he asked the woman on the stall, who happened to be Sonia, if he could borrow a pen.

Then he concealed his writing with his arm crooked, as he was wont to do in school tests, so that John, his partner on the double desk, would not copy his answers.  He wrote very carefully:

Rair deety Ester Iland

He appended his father’s mobile number.  Thankfully he was more numerate than literate, so there was a chance of the adjudicator being able to contact him.

He posted his entry in the cardboard box.  Sonia said, I think you might be a lucky boy.

Pollux usually did the Arts subject preps and he did the Maths and Science ones.  Between themselves, they did quite well.  However, on this occasion, he did not collaborate with his twin, nor did he inform him of his entry.

Some people were becoming annoyed as they had guessed the Moorcroft conundrum correctly, owing to an over-exposure of such ceramic art on Flog-It!  They thought that they should have won the best object of the three, but even the Rocky Road was unavailable, as it had been consumed by little boys with light fingers and sweet tooths, no, teeth.  And, in particular, by twins who had been feeding their Border Terrier who lay under the table, with the chocolate and marshmallow moreish morsels.

These small-minded adults had paid and guessed in vain and they were very disgruntled and said that charities should put humans before canines. They expressed other sentiments in terms which little boys should not have overheard.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Brassie was in her kitchen/diner, cooking supper and the twins had been finishing their flugelhorn and marimba practice next door.  She called them to the table.

But, mum, we’re not hungry, they complained.

That’s because you stuffed yourselves with Rocky Road, she lectured.  You know I don’t allow sugar treats and now you can see why.  All this lovely wholesome Quorn is going to go to waste.

The twins simultaneously eyed their Border.   They felt sure that he would oblige in any hoovering up operation to do with leftovers, even though he had consumed a fair amount of the sweet clusters himself.

Darling!  She shouted up the garden in the direction of the observatory.  Supper’s ready.

Cosmo was already coming down the path, fiddling with his Blackberry.

Castor, he said, it’s Mr Wormhole from the roadshow this afternoon.  He says there has been a terrible mistake.

I know, dad.  They didn’t pick up on the Polynesian figure.

What? said Brassie. (The phone always rang at mealtimes).  I’ll take it.   She held the mobile up to her ear with one hand while she stirred the unappetising looking Quorn mish-mash.  Easter Island?  Rare?  Pre-Moy, what?

A similar figure went for an absolute fortune at a London sale of Tribal Art in the Seventies, said Hubert, suddenly very authoritative.  Naturally, Mrs Brewer-Mead had no idea what she had donated.  Even I wasn’t certain until I went home and referred to my Miller Guides.

But Castor guessed correctly, she insisted, amazed at her son’s vast store of knowledge filched from http://www.geekologie.com etc.

What’s all this about? asked Cosmo, confused as ever.

He says that Castor can’t have his prize as he spelled the answer incorrectly.  He’s offering him the best piece of Moorcroft instead, Brassie stage-whispered, holding her hand over the Blackberry.

We’ll see about that, said Cosmo masterfully.  He won it fairly and squarely, as far as I can make out.

No, they’ve had a lawyer on to it already and Ginevra seems to be within her rights to withdraw the prize and to offer a substitute.  Brassie was frantically trying to remember where she had seen the advertisement for No Win/ No Fee legal services. Mr Wormhole thinks that Mrs Brewer-Mead, I mean Ginevra, has already appropriated it, as it was not on the table at the end of the afternoon.

Mr Wormhole rang off, saying that they could discuss things further on Monday.

Now do you see the importance of spelling, you careless boy? snapped Brassie.

Castor’s lip trembled, but he rallied: My teacher says that you can still get an A* so long as she and the examiner people can make out what it is you are trying to say.

Well, now you know that that is a load of rubbish in the real world, stressed Brassie.  I’ll have to have a word with Ginevra on Monday about the EU and Children’s Rights and breach of promise.

Pollux tried to draw the blame onto himself-and succeeded; his father had more experience and kept a low profile.

 I’d have known how to spell the answer, he piped up.

Oh, shut up, Smart-Alec, they all said.

Pollux crept over to the Border’s basket to stroke his little, furry friend and as a tear plopped onto the dog’s wiry head, it looked up quizzically, and, as it did so, it gagged.

Give! ordered Pollux.

After a tussle, he forced open its jaws and a carved splinter of something very Moai-like shot out across the kitchen flagstones.

Mum! he screamed.

Andy, the Border, had evidently carried the figure home in his mouth and had been worrying at it throughout their music practice and Brassie’s meal preparation.

They all agreed to say nothing and to accept the Moorcroft gracefully.  However, Brassie could feel the discomfort on the back burners of her conscience.  She felt that it was the kind of dilemma that The Moral Maze would like to have grappled with on Radio 4 and she felt that they would not emerge smelling of roses.  She wished that Castor had never seen the wretched thing.  It must have emitted some evil power, as she could see how destructive its forces would have been in her family and community.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Think of all the Dewlap Gins I could have bought, said Ginevra, wistfully.

It freaked me out, replied Magda, her carer.  You only lost 20 pence effectively.  But you still have your friends.

Let’s drink to that, agreed Ginevra.  Bottoms up!

And Magda understood the expression, as her English and Slanglish was coming on.

Prost!

Compassion Fatigue

Tags

4x4, Andrex puppy, Andy Murray, Antiques Roadshow, Barrier Reef, Big issue, cashmere, CERN, charity shop, Chewbacca, Co-Op, compassion fatigue, David Battie, Feeding of Five Thousand, Fiona Bruce, Galilee, Jesus, merino, Nanking wreck, neighbour, Oxford Brookes, Roger Federer, Shakespeare, SIM, Suttonford, tennis, Tesco, texting, tramp, vegetarian, Wimbledon

CANDIA, CANDIA, WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOUR LIFE?

I may have had love at thirty and even love at forty, but there didn’t seem to be such a score as love fifty.  I even thought that my name was a cross between a sexually transmitted disease and an artificial sweetener.  Or was it that, as a femme d’un certain age my frankness and candour had become eponymous and self-fulfilling?

I looked out of the window.  The rain it raineth every day.  I wondered if it had been the wettest June and July since Shakespeare’s time, let alone since records began.  (My English degree sometimes surfaces like a rogue shark on the Barrier Reef of my endangered intellect.)  I decided to venture forth to surf the main street of Suttonford.)

The lure of Tesco Express hooked me in.  Yellow stickers on a few packets of prawns helped me to rationalise that what I saved on comestibles would subsidise the purchase of a few designer garments in the sales.

Co-op or Tesco?  Difficult, as I’d have to negotiate the Charybdis of a Romanian Big Issue seller who had taken to making himself very comfortable on a teak garden chair, right outside the entrance to TE, causing the automatic doors to go into overdrive; or I would have to steer clear of Scylla, in the form of Suttonford’s designer tramp who sat cross-legged, texting his currency dealer, or checking his Visa account on his mobile. I was in danger of extreme compassion fatigue.  It was no use asking myself: “What would Jesus do?”

Probably He would have been able to address the Romanian in his own language and could have introduced Himself as the original Big Issue, or He could have given the technological tramp advice on a hotline to heaven that didn’t involve indulgences in the form of top up cards.  Maybe He could have transformed intermittent reception owing to SIM malfunction, rather than to sin.  Anyway, I doubted that the tramp would have appreciated being told to take up his bed and walk.  I thought he’d prefer another can of the lager that the public-spirited locals tended to supply.

The Son of Man once had nowhere to lay His head either, but things might have been improved if Nevisport down sleeping bags had been around two millennia ago.  Mind you, maybe the Apostles hadn’t needed such protection, as climate change hadn’t made camping in Galilee as warm and wet as in the present time.

Furthermore, I wasn’t sure if I should offer the indigent, if not mendicant, anything, since I had witnessed my neighbour’s dismay on proffering him the leftover sausage rolls from the Jubilee Feeding of the Five Thousand street party.  He had politely, but firmly declined: No thank you, madam.  I’m a vegetarian.

My neighbour wasn’t used to a tramp taking the moral high ground.  The cheek of it!

Oh well! Better trundle off with my funky trolley out and head for Help the Ancient, before any of the rapacious so-called pre-empt me and bag all the bargains.

I used to find lots of treasures in charity shops before the prices rose in the time of austerity.  Even the rich are feeling the pinch, so why do charities double the price of clothing, which is then unsold and has to be re-distributed to lowlier branches in less salubrious areas, where it is offered at half the price to the same rich bounty hunters, who simply have the plastic wherewithal to put enough petrol in their 4x4s so that they can travel further afield in their materialistic slash and burn forays?

No, not all the elderly are rapacious.  Some volunteer in such shops, but find multitasking challenging.  You must never distract them at the till and it is essential to check the chip and pin, or you can end up paying £8,000 for a pilled pullover, already pricily tagged at £8.  The manager usually has to be summoned like a genie from some steamy esoteric activity behind a back curtain.  Then, to the accompaniment of impatient dismay from a line of jealous vultures who have just spotted your potential purchase of a Merino, or Cashmere find, but who haven’t noticed the moth holes, a till roll with Cancelled, the absurd length of which would  delight any Andrex puppy, will be issued. I always doubt the assurances that a sum that equals the deficit of Spain will not appear on my next statement as an outgoing.  Still, I can’t keep away from the places of temptation.

Hello, Candia.

It was my least favourite volunteer.  Rather than thanking people for donating sacks of goodies, she delighted in deterring them from depositing bags after some arbitrary time of day and she could spot an electrical item faster than a Heathrow sniffer dog uncovers a kilo of cocaine.

When a breathless woman whose twins were squabbling in a vehicle on a double yellow line came in, gasping as she heaved a bulging black bag, the do-gooder delighted in delaying the drop-off by asking all sorts of intrusive questions as to whether the  donor was a UK taxpayer or not.  Eventually the woman snapped:

How can I be a taxpayer when I have never worked?

I didn’t know the volunteer’s name and she wasn’t wearing an identification badge.  I launched in, nevertheless:

You know that Ming vase that I was cajoled into buying last week for a fiver?  Well, it had a hairline-no, not an airline- crack.

She turned up her hearing aid. I continued:

That means that it isn’t fit for purpose and David Battie always says that there is a difference between a firing crack , which wouldn’t affect the value of a piece materially, and a hairline. I know you are a charity shop, but the Trades Description laws apply to you as well. Can you give me, at least, an exchange note?

Certainly.  Do you still have the receipt? Fifteen love.

I hesitated. Well, no.. You see, it said £500,000, so I destroyed it in case someone thought I was into money laundering. Thirty love.

Ah, well, I’m sorry. We can’t do anything without it.  As a decorative item, I’m sure that it is worth what you paid.  I stopped scoring.  The ball was in.  Okay, they were not going to get my old Manola Beatnik slingbacks that I’d bought in a Moroccan souk. I will take them to the next Roadshow valuation day.  They might be worth something in the very distant future.  Maybe Fiona Bruce could try them for size.

My next stop was Costamuchamoulah, a trendy “must-seen” coffee shop, where the price of a cappuccino was commensurate with the cost of one of the rare beans from which its beverages were produced.  A single example had excited more fever on the Stock Market than a tulip bulb had raised in Amsterdam at the time of the girl with the pearl ear-ring.  They sell other things too- such as sprouted beans that might be Ming rather than mung and could featured in a barter system where rare porcelain Nanking wreck discoveries could be exchanged for one millionth of a gram.  Still, as the adverts keep reminding me: I am worth it.  Instant gratification here I come!

Darling!

It was a deeply insincere parent of a dreadfully dim girl that I had once taught.

Look at this amazing double egg cup in goose, hen or quail sizes.  It has such cute little sheeps’ heads on it.

Sheep plural, I scoffed silently.

I simply must buy one for Becca’s Biology teacher.  He really helped her to get an A* with all those extra lunchtime sessions he provided.

The ones which she didn’t bother to turn up for with me, I brooded.

(This A/ A* obsession was becoming as annoying as having to observe all those Chinese silver medallists blubbing because they feel they have let down the Motherland.)

Yes, that’s what got her into Biological Sciences at Oxford, the proud progenitor persisted.

Brookes. I silently supplied the post-modifier.

Instead I said, How marvellous!  And how is – I fudged the name– doing now?  As if I cared.

Oh, she’s landed a superb internship for next year at CERN.  She wants to research Botox particles and can’t wait to jog around the collider when it’s not switched on.

I grimaced.

She was at a party in London and met a girl who babysits for Roger Federer- you know, the tennis player..

(Yes, I do know, you patronising… This sotte voce.)

..when he is at Wimbledon.  Now she’s really into all things Alpen.

Muesli for her, I muttered in an embittered tone.  Must dash. Say her old English teacher was asking for her. (Maybe Becca or Chewbacca, or whoever, could get me a discarded sweat-drenched towel from Wimbledon.)

I will, darling, if she remembers who you are/were.  Ciao.

I couldn’t help wondering who babysat for Andy Murray’s mum?  Presumably Kim.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012