"Literary Links" - London is hell !!

"Literary Links" is a series of posts celebrating Britain's wonderful links with great authors, dramatists and poets.

The southern bank of the River Thames became a real den of vice and dissent.  The outcasts from the city gravitated to this area – some by choice to rub shoulders with other criminals and religious dissenters and others by force to spend time in squalid prisons like the Clink.

The Welsh Poet Tomas Prys (1564-1634) wrote a charming little poem called ‘London is Hell’ in which he compares Wales to Heaven and London as hell.   In his description he mentions these foul Southwark prisons by name and talks of the destitute inmates whose souls have been sucked out of them.

“there was no fear of hell but one: it is London”

A similar comparison was made by the poet Percy Shelley (1792-1822) who begins his poem Peter Bell the Third with the lines:

“Hell is a city much like London -  

A populous and a smoky city”

In another poem Shelley repeats this hell like theme with: 

“You are nowIn London, that great sea, whose ebb and flowAt once is deaf and loud, and on the shoreVomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more.”

This is an excerpt from the tour London River Walks - South Bank which explores the southern bank of the River Thames.  The full tour is found on  www.obelisktours.co.uk

"Literary Links" - John Ruskin in Oxford

"Literary Links" is a series of posts celebrating Britain's wonderful links with great authors, dramatists and poets.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) attended Christ Church College, Oxford as an undergraduate and like many of his fellow students came from a privileged background.  He showed early signs of talent even before he arrived here.

Christ Church College, Oxford

His influence was enormous.  He became an accomplished poet, writer, artist and critic and an invaluable patron to the arts.   His thoughts on social issues were often ahead of their time and continue to inspire today. For instance, his book Unto This Last (1860) inspired Mahatma Gandhi who said, “I determined to change my life in the light of this book.  My belief is that I discovered some of my deepest convictions reflected in this great book of Ruskin’s…”

Ruskin was a generous benefactor to Oxford and founded The Ruskin School of Drawing in 1871 using the rooms and art in the Ashmolean Museum.  It continued there for a century where it was renamed The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in 1945.  In 1975 it found its new home here on the corner of the High Street and Merton Street.  In 2014 it became known as the Ruskin School of Art.  

This is an excerpt from the tour Oxford’s Noble and Great Ones - Part 1  which explores around the southern part of Oxford.  The full tour is found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

"Literary Links" - John Betjeman in Oxford

"Literary Links" is a series of posts celebrating Britain's wonderful links with great authors, dramatists and poets.

John Betjeman

·John Betjeman (1906-1984) came from a middle class family selling furniture.  As a boy he was taught briefly by T. S. Eliot and gained a love for words.  In Oxford his tutor was C.S. Lewis which sounds like a match made in heaven – but neither thought highly of the other.  But… supported by his travelling companion – a teddy bear called Archibald Ormsby-Gore – and armed with his love of the English language he acquired a growing appreciation of architecture and fell in love with Oxford.  Academically he failed, but his subsequent career was a delight.  He wrote guidebooks, co-founded the Victorian Society, composed poems, campaigned to save buildings, and became a television personality. 

This is an excerpt from the tour Oxford’s Noble and Great Ones - Part 1  which explores around the southern part of Oxford.  The full tour is found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

"On the Road" - Lest We Forget

"On the road..." is a series of posts about our Discovery of Britain's highways and byways.  Whether it be some family fun, a surprising connection or just a beautiful spot we want to share our love for this country with you.  

Today we visit Ledbury's War Memorial

This Sunday is Remembrance Sunday and around the country thousands will pay their respects to those who died protecting our freedom.   Today we visit just one such memorial to conduct an exercise of more detailed remembrance.

Opposite the gateway to the alms houses is a war memorial commemorating Ledbury’s dead from both World Wars.  On the lower First World War section are some charming mosaics of an angel, a seaman, and a soldier.   The upper Second World War section adds an airman. 

It is easy to walk on by our country’s war memorials without considering what they represent.  Let me give you a small sampling of what I mean.  On the World War One Section you will find:

Thomas Andrews – a 42 year old bricklayer.    Frank Davies: a 21 year old footman.  Leonard Hathaway: 21. Baker.    Victor Henley:  19. Grocer’s assistant.   William Ranford: 25. Fruit farmer.  And John Watts 23. Bank clerk. 

It is easy to just see names and forget that they all had simple lives in a small, English market town.  

The youngest was 18 years old.  The oldest 55, with an average age of 26. 

It is easy to forget they were husbands, fathers and sons.  21 were married, 58 were single -a generation of young men wiped out. 

For instance:  David Evan Owens aged 34 was a monumental mason and had a six year old daughter.

Walter Bradley was just 19 - unmarried with his whole life ahead of him.   His step-brother Thomas Pritchard aged 26, was married and died two years later. 

Benjamin Chadd aged 33 and Robert Chadd aged 19 were the oldest and youngest sons of James and Emma Chadd.  Both sons were killed at sea - one in 1914 and the other in 1918.   A third son, Walter Clifford Chad aged 27, died in Egypt. 

These men are all buried near to where they fell – scattered around the world in Turkey, France, Italy, Israel, in Flanders fields and some, like James Theakstone, aged 20, are lost at sea – he was aboard a ship mined off the coast of Ireland killing 350.

Only three of these World War One names made it home, but even they did not survive long.  Ledbury cemetery contains the graves of Frank Walters (19) who died of his wounds in England along with Harold Wilks (27) and Archibald Chadd. 

A similar exercise could be done with the World War Two names, but the message would be the same:  these are not just names engraved on a pretty plaque.  These were very Real people who made a very real sacrifice.   In the words of Laurence Binyon (1914):

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

This is an excerpt from the tour Ledbury which explores this medieval market town.  The full tour is found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

"Literary Links" - Herefordshire Poets

"Literary Links" is a series of posts celebrating Britain's wonderful links with great authors, dramatists and poets.

Ledbury is rightly proud of their homegrown poet Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, but she is not the only poet to emerge from Herefordshire's influence.

·         William Langland (1332-1386) was born in Ledbury and wrote the famous medieval poem Piers Plowman (1379), which relates the tale of a man falling asleep on Malvern Hills and dreaming of the true Christian life.   The poem was influential in its day, and was often connected with the 1381 Peasant’s Revolt - though the text seeks reform of the church and society it was not advocating rebellion. 

Robert Frost

·         The American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) lived in England during 1912 to 1915.  He often went walking around Ledbury with Edward Thomas (1878-1917) who was consistently indecisive about which route they should take.  That inspired Frost to write the poem “The Road Not Taken”…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The poem was meant to be playful, but Thomas took it seriously and decided to enlist to fight in World War One.   That road certainly made a difference for two years later he was killed in action leaving a widow and three children.  

John Masefield

  

·         John Masefield (1878-1967) was born in Ledbury where, as a young man, he became acutely aware of the beauty around him and the power of using his imagination to create stories in minute detail.   After the early loss of his parents he joined the navy at age 13, enjoyed living in the "dazzling, beautiful exciting city" of New York at age 17, and returned to live in England at age 19.  After marriage (1903) and fathering two children (1904 & 1910) he rekindled his creative voice and finally found success in 1911 with the release of the narrative poem "Everlasting Mercy".  He had a prolific creative career writing poems, novels, plays and non-fiction.  Some of his poems drew heavily on his childhood such as "Reynard the Fox" describing fox hunting around Ledbury, and "The Widow of Bye Street" - Bye Street being a major street in the town.   In 1930 he was made Poet Laureate.

This poetical tradition along with the nearby Dymock Poets influenced the founding of the annual Ledbury Poetry Festival in 1997 which is held over ten days each July.  It is claimed to be Britain’s largest Poetry Festival.

This is an excerpt from the tour Ledbury which explores this medieval market town.  The full tour is found on www.obelisktours.co.uk