“Apple Day” organised by an organic society

Recently I went to an “Apple Day” organised by an organic society at a local school hall. On tables all along one side of the hall were examples of apples displayed in rectangular wooden frames like some kind of surrealist installation. As well as the formal displays there were also lots of different kinds of apples to taste.

The place was packed with people who had brought along apples to be identified.

In front of me in the queue was an elderly couple clutching a small cardboard box filled with apples. They were wearing identical beige-coloured raincoats. The woman’s hand was on the man’s arm.

“We’ve recently moved into an old house with an overgrown garden” the man said. “We have ten apple trees in the garden. We are hoping someone can tell us what they are.”

Above: Horticulturalists were identifying the different varieties. They rely on memory and also comparing the samples to the named varieties on show, looking for similarities in shape, colour and aroma. There is a system of Apple Passport Numbers (APNs) that will compare twenty or so points of reference and give each a numerical value (the APN of the Merton Beauty apple is 26-4-13-1-345-238-19-2-2-36-78-38-258-8-56-3-28-89-34-3-3-8-3-123).



Above: There are a huge number of apple varieties – approximately seven thousand five hundred. The Guardian recently did a free wall chart on apples which was very feeble – it only showed about forty varieties, half of which were the mono-culture varieties sold by the supermarkets. At the Apple Day there were about a hundred and twenty different apples on show.



Above: The Merton Beauty apple was first grown by a Mr Crane in 1932 at the John Innes Horticultural Institute in Merton, a suburb of south London. The tree is easy to grow and gives a good crop - aromatic apples tasting slightly of aniseed. Not to be confused with a Camberwell Beauty, which is a butterfly.



Above: Nonpareil is a variety introduced from France, probably in the 17th century. They are small apples, yellow-green in colour with streaks of brown russet and a faint orange flush. French scientists claim that the typhoid bacillus will not live in the juice of the Nonpareil apple.

Nonpareil means “unmatched” - there is a bird called the Nonpareil (http://www.oiseaux.net/photos/barry.kent.mackay/passerin.nonpareil.2.html) as well as a type of almond and a kind of sugar confection used to decorate cakes.

In A la recherché du temps perdu Marcel Proust wrote: “To return to Combray, we need only turn down an avenue of oaks, bordered on one side by a series of orchard-closes, each one planted at regular intervals with apple-trees which cast upon the ground, when they were lighted by the setting sun, the Japanese stencil of their shadows; then, sharply, my heart would begin to beat, I would know that in half an hour we should be at home…”



Above: Claygate Pearmain is a wonderful apple, crisp and heavily scented. The taste is very nutty. It was discovered by accident growing in a hedge in Surrey about a hundred and eighty years ago. In appearance the fruit is large, with red stripes and russet polka dots. Edward Bunyard (a very opinionated writer on the topic of apples) describes it as one of the top twelve finest apples in the world. It used to be widely grown in Victorian and Edwardian gardens but has now become quite rare. There is an old county remedy for sore eyes that involves rotten Claygate Pearmain apples used in a poultice.



Above: Gascoigne’s Scarlet was first grown by W. Gascoigne of Bapchild Court in Kent. As the name implies, the colour is a deep blood red. It keeps well (picked in September, it will last until January). Apparently it is good for growing on chalky soils. It is a “duel purpose” apple which means it can be used for cooking (apple pies, apple dumplings, apple puddings etc). Shakespeare’s Henry IV mentions a dessert made from apples and caraway.



Above: Histon Favourite is a yellow apple first grown by John Chivers (from the famous jam family) around 1850. It has a sort of acid taste that the experts describe as “brisk” (Bunyard describes it as “indiscriminate and undistinguished”). It was widely grown in Cambridgeshire to supply the London market.



Above: Peasgood Nonsuch was grown by accident by a sixteen year old girl who planted five pips from an unknown cooking apple. Only one of the seeds germinated and eventually produced gargantuan apples, each apple over a pound in weight. Many families in the county used to plant an apple tree whenever a son was born (and a pear tree for a daughter).

Sir James Frazer records rituals that accompany the tasting of the first-fruits of the apple crop each year. Unless these ceremonies are performed there is a danger that the “tree spirit” may be offended. Frazer also mentions how a straw man would be placed in the boughs of the oldest tree in an orchard, representing the tree spirit that would revive when the blossom appears in the spring.



Above: Reverend Tom Putt, Rector of Trent near Sherborne, is supposed to have first grown the famous Tom Putt cider apple in the late 1700s. Orchards of Tom Putt apples can be found all over the west country. “Wassailing the orchard-trees”' on Christmas Eve is a custom that still survives in the west (it used to be widespread in all counties). Farmers go into the orchards at night accompanied by their families and drink to the health of the trees in cider before throwing the remainder of the drink onto the tree trunks. Shotguns are fired into the branches, and special songs sung. Wassailing bowls were very ornate (http://www.swanseaheritage.net/article/full.asp?ARTICLE_ID=207).

Cider apple vinegar is a powerful detoxifying and purifying agent – you can buy a very pure version by mail order from Goldshield (http://www.goldshield.co.uk/products-ST02632-CV02/Cider-Apple-Vinegar.htm).



Above: Cider press in operation. Recently on Film4 I watched the 1998 film version of Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, directed by Phil Agland and starring Rufus Sewell. It is set in the New Forest in the nineteenth century and includes a very effective scene where woodsman Giles Winterborne holds a party in his humble home hoping to impress his promised fiancée (in a sort of arranged betrothal) Grace Melbury. The yokel neighbours also invited to the party become excessively inebriated with cider, and their drunken behaviour so disgusts Winterborne’s prospective father-in-law that the match is broken off (with tragic results). The drinking is not mentioned in the novel and is one of the few occasions where a film has improved upon a book. The Woodlanders is supposed to have been Hardy’s favourite among his novels.



Above: I usually stop at roadside stalls to see what they have on offer. In September I bought some incredible carrots – they must have just been pulled out of the ground. We had them at dinner and they were very succulent, completely unlike any carrots I have had before (I suppose most carrots get a bit dried out when being transported to the supermarket).



Above: Crab apple jelly. Crab apples are wild apples that are tiny in size and extremely sour (the final jelly is very sweet, copious amounts of sugar having been added when the apples are boiled up). Almost every farm has its own recipe for crab apple jelly, many involving alcohol.

Above: Baskets of windfalls were lined up for you to help yourself.

Apples feature prominently in mythology. The Trojan War began when Paris gave an apple to Aphrodite. The legendary Isle of Avalon is supposedly the “Island of Apples” (traditionally located at Glastonbury which is an area noted for its apple orchards). Eve tempted Adam with an apple from the Tree of Knowledge (more likely to have been a pomegranate as the Middle East is too hot for apples to grow).

In the medieval period a relic purporting to be the apple given by Eve to Adam appeared in Egypt and was venerated at a church in Alexandria (Sir John Mandeville makes an oblique reference to this). It was stolen in 1365 during the Alexandrian Crusade and conveyed to Cyprus, and then Malta. According to notes left by Canon MVG (an amateur antiquarian, therefore not entirely reliable) it later shows up as one of TWO holy relics at a Cistercian house in Wales, one relic being the apple from the Tree Of Knowledge, the other being an apple from the Tree Of Life. The credibility of these two objects doesn’t seem to have been very high, even in medieval times, and the cult following was negligible. At the Reformation both of the apples are supposed to have been put in a box and sealed in a wall of the monastery, identified by MVG as Strata Florida. However in 1998 I stayed with Alan Nixon at his home in south Wales (the MVG papers belong to his family) and we thought that Cymer Abbey might be a better candidate. We drove up there the next day (if you have ever travelled from south Wales to north Wales you will understand what a difficult journey that was) but it was a wasted trip – there were hardly any walls of the abbey left standing, and none of them seemed wide enough to contain a hidden box. Had we found a box would we have dared open it? The apple from the Tree Of Life would be a relic that even an M. R. James character would have been wary of.

Political Correctness is the New Colonel Blimp

I spoke to someone who did History with me at university. He went on to do an MA then a PhD and now has a minor academic post (doesn't pay very much). It is the sort of career I once contemplated. Anyway, he has just written an article on the historical context of Political Correctness, demonstating that it is related to the Colonel Blimp phenomenon, which I thought was quite interesting (Political Correctness is the New Colonel Blimp - not sure what journal).

Note: Colonel Blimp was a cartoon figure of the 1930s that satirised establishment opinions: pompous, contradictory, hopelessly out of touch with the real world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Blimp
http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/cardiff/gallery/col_blimp.html

Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre

I went to see Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Avon. It was the matinee performance on the last day (we put off going for weeks and nearly risked not seeing it at all). We went to Stratford by train, which was a mistake as both going there and coming back there was massive disruption, breakdowns, signalling problems.

The play is one of Shakespeare’s most famous, but possibly not his best. I have seen it many times before – as a live performance and also on film (the Zeffirelli 1968 version and the Baz Luhrmann 1996 version starring Leonardo Di Caprio). This production was good apart from the tap-dancing fight scenes, which I thought looked silly. The set designs referred to 1950s Italy and seemed to be a bit skimpy. Rupert Evans played Romeo and Morven Christie played Juliet. The play was directed by Nancy Meckler.



Above: There is an aura to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon that adds an indefinable quality to the experience. You think that because it is being performed in Shakespeare’s birthplace it must be the definitive production. We wanted to see Troilus and Cressida at Stratford when it transferred from the Edinburgh Festival but we left it too late and missed it. The theatre is to close shortly for rebuilding. The plan is to make the building bigger and grander while incorporating the original features. The reopening is scheduled for 2010.



Above: Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet has inspired many other artists – writers, painters, musicians. Prokofiev used the play as the basis of his ballet Romeo and Juliet (which I’ve seen at Covent Garden). 1980s band Dire Straits had one of their most famous hits with the song Romeo and Juliet (although the original video with its waddling bespectacled hero is seldom seen now).



Above: How realistic is the characterisation in Romeo and Juliet? Obsessive first love between teenagers can seem pathetic, even when ennobled by the poetry of Shakespeare. You might think that teenagers these days are far too cynical to fall in love (this is the era of Vickey Pollard). During the summer I was sitting at a table belonging to an outdoor café. Anyway, I began to notice a teenage couple walking backwards and forwards. They didn’t just pass by once – they went up and down the street several times. They caught my attention for several reasons. First because they were dressed very similar (there is a theory that couples end up wearing similar clothes). Also they were walking with great speed, the boy with a determined look on his face, while they went into clothes shops, gadget shops, sports shops etc. But what really marked them as unusual was the way in which they were clinging to each other. The boy was striding along while the girl had to give little runs to keep up, all the time hanging onto his arm. I looked at them and thought: that’s Romeo and Juliet.

The Wicker Man

I went to see The Wicker Man at the weekend. The film stars Nicholas Cage as a Californian police officer who goes to a remote island off the coast of the state of Washington to investigate a missing child. Directed by Neil LaBute it is based upon the 1973 British film The Wicker Man (supposedly one of the six best British films ever made), but so hacked about that the final result is very poor.

Had the film been a straight remake, even transposed to an American setting, it would have worked. Had it taken a completely new direction, using the screen play but reinterpreting it completely, it would also have worked. But there were so many references to the British film (directed by Robin Hardy, screenplay by Anthony Shaffer) that all that it did was remind you how inferior the current version was to the 1970s original. The 1973 film portrays a weird society where the mundane co-exists with the fantastic so that you are able to imagine such a place existing. The American version never really develops a credible world of its own. There are some good moments (perhaps worthy of an episode of the X-Files), but far too much action and breathless characters explaining things to each other.



Above: The image of “the wicker man” has been adopted as an alternative ecological symbol (I took this photograph at an event where various “new age” pseudo-hippy stalls promulgated alternative lifestyles).



Above: In the closing scenes of The Wicker Man the Nicholas Cage character was burned alive in the organic idol (a giant “Waste Man” was constructed in Kent recently and set on fire producing similar images http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/5394550.stm ).



Above: the American Wicker Man lost all credibility for me when the woad-painted harpies started to appear. Are Hollywood producers so ignorant of basic history that they did not know face-painting with woad died out in the Iron Age? Or did they know the truth but chose to portray a falsehood because it looked better?

Face-painting with woad is also a feature of the film Braveheart which projects a retarded image of thirteenth century Scotland (http://www.movieconnection.it/schede/braveheart.jpg). In a film filled with many comical anachronisms the woad-painting was the most crass. Braveheart has been a tremendously successful movie, but one that I find unpleasant and disturbing. There is a sense of history being manipulated by Director Mel Gibson in a way that is not really acceptable. 13th century western Europe was a society where personal fealty was the universal social structure, and knighthood represented an international fraternity that crossed the borders of different kingdoms (which were very fluid anyway and grew or retracted according to dynastic alliances). Nationalism based on ethnic origin was a nineteenth-century invention, and ethno-nationalist conflict a twentieth-century development.

The countryside is changing

Above: field of sunflowers with wind turbines in the distance. An example of how the countryside is changing. John Prescott describes wind turbines as "beautiful" (fat lot he knows). In isolation one or two can look striking, but large numbers amount to visual pollution of the landscape. Fields of sunflowers are increasingly common, making parts of the county look like eastern Europe. When I drove past this field this morning the crop had been harvested.

Apologies for not updating recently - with the staff shortages at work, and my car being off the road, and everything else that's happening I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.

No virgins ringing handbells!

Note: click on the photos and when an icon appears in the lower right corner of the image click again to enlarge the pictures to their fullest extent).



Above: giant haystacks down on the plain (Giant Haystacks was also the name of a wrestler in the 1970s). The harvest in most of the county seems finally to be gathered in. Combine harvesters do the cutting and threshing all in one, the grain being transported to grain silos and the straw baled for cattle litter. Before mechanisation the corn was cut by lines of scythe men (note to US readers: corn in England means grain, not maize). The women of the village followed behind, tying the sheaves and standing them up to dry. The sheaves were then carted back to the farmyard to be threshed. The straw was baled and put into stacks. To protect the stacks from the winter weather they were usually thatched (like a house). Elaborate straw finials were put onto these temporary roofs to denote ownership of the stack and also ward off bad luck (http://www.strawcraftsmen.co.uk/finials.html).



Above: sheaves of wheat are used to decorate the churches ready for the harvest festival (held towards the end of September). One sheaf was always left standing in each field, traditionally because it was the abode of the “corn spirit” and needed to be cut and carried to the church in a ceremonial way to placate the supernatural forces which governed village life. There is evidence that farmers encouraged belief in these old practices to control the activity of gleaning – gleaners would not go into a field until the last sheaf had been cut.



Above: sieves (or riddles) decorated with flowers and put up in the chancel of the church. The frame of the riddle would be made from thinly-split pine wood, with the mesh formerly made of horsehair (but now almost always metal). The surname Riddler indicates someone who would winnow grain with a sieve.



Above: hedgerow berries used to decorate the chancel steps.



Above: sheaves of corn have been placed on either side of the high altar. The last sheaves of wheat from each field would be cut and brought back to the village in a procession. The grain from the last sheaves would be ground and the flour used to make a special harvest loaf in the form of a sheaf of wheat. This loaf has actually been placed upon the high altar. Puritan critics in the 16th century condemned such practices as blatant worship of the corn goddess (Ceres in her Romanised form). However, the incorporation of pre-Christian symbols into Anglican rituals dates from St Augustine’s mission to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (http://www.heraldav.co.uk/showdisk.php?diskNum=200) and was intended to demonstrate that Christianity had supplanted the religious beliefs (mostly nature cults) of the Angles and Saxons.



Above: in my cursory interest in the customs of the county (it really isn’t my primary focus – I just record these things in case they should vanish without trace) I had hoped to find an example of the procession “bringing in the sheaves” from the fields to the church. I managed to find on the internet the above Victorian drawing which illustrates the ceremonial march (apologies to whoever owns this image – I copied it without noting the url). I also managed to locate a procession that was held annually each harvest at a small village down on the plain, but the last one had been held eight years ago. Then the trail went cold. There were lots of anecdotal accounts by people who remembered such processions in their childhood (shire horses decorated with coloured ribbons, maidens of the village traveling on the cart ringing hand-bells, traditional songs etc). But none of the villages (on the plain or the escarpment or the uplands) still held a procession, so that I thought the custom had finally died.



Above: then I went to a museum of rural life where the theme of the weekend was “the harvest”. I had actually gone there to see an exhibition of shire horses. At the end of the afternoon all the horses gathered in the central ring. Each horse had been carefully groomed and decorated with coloured ribbons. Furthermore, at the end of the parade was a shire horse decorated with ribbons and horse brasses, and pulling a wagon painted with wheatsheafs. Although just an exhibit at a “living” museum, it appeared to be an authentic portrayal of the ancient performance. Because working horses were so valuable they were “protected” by horse brasses – amulets made of brass and incorporating lucky symbols. Hundreds of thousands of these horse brasses still survive, and they can be bought quite cheaply at antique shops. There are about four thousand different designs, the earliest ones being crescent-shaped.



Above: the wagon had been loaded with a sheaf of wheat, a pitchfork stuck into it (but no virgins ringing handbells!).



Above: in the church was this black and white photograph, obviously pre-Second World War, garlanded with flowers. It shows heavy horses pulling a plough. Until the 1940s millions of shire horses were employed on British farms. Horse power was the main means of getting things done. A farm of a hundred acres would usually require three heavy horses, plus horses for hunting and transport. Now if a farm keeps horses it is usually for sentimental reasons.



Above: at the museum of rural life was a demonstration of ploughing using shire horses. I think this is one of the best photographs I have ever taken (something to do with the horses outlined against the sky – it just seems to be very moving). You might have to click on the image to get the full impact.



Above: after the harvest was brought home there were harvest suppers (with apple pies) – either in the farmhouses of the wealthier farmers or in rooms at local pubs. Part of harvest culture relates to the full moon that appears in late September, known as the Harvest Moon. This moon rises at a point opposite to the sun, and because it is so low in the sky often has a yellow tinge (one of the more famous representations of the Harvest Moon is by Samuel Palmer http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/detail/Detail_palmer_samuel.html?noframe – note: the routing of the M25 motorway through Samuel Palmer’s “valley of vision” was a terrible blow to conservationists everywhere).

They have met a bewildering number of people

A photograph sent by one of the team who has gone out to India (to liaise with the call centre staff). The city is one of great contrasts – the hotel where they are staying is comfortable and modern, but the view from the window (taken on a mobile phone) reveals a world that is hard and unrelenting. Although the hotel is only a hundred yards from the offices our personnel are conveyed there in taxis. They have to work UK hours, which adds to the disorientation caused by jet-lag. They have met a bewildering number of people in the couple of days they have been there. Next week they have a programme of team games and fancy dress parties.

Very occasionally the stiff heavy handle will turn...

There are perhaps fifty or so doors, spread throughout the county, that I routinely try just on the off-chance that one day they will be open. Whenever I am passing a particular building I want to get into (I have a list) I will stop the car and try the door. Almost always I am disappointed.

But very occasionally the stiff heavy handle will turn… and continue turning. The lock will click. The door (after some pushing) will slowly open…

Last Saturday I had just such an experience when driving through a small town on the uplands (not much more than a large village, although it has a weekly market). Everyone says the tombs in the church are worth seeing, but every time I have tried the door it has been locked. Occasionally I knock at the Rectory next door to ask for the key, but there is never any answer.
On Saturday however the church door opened.

Inside it was gloomy but very spacious. It was one of those buildings that look bigger on the inside than on the outside. I picked up a guide leaflet and walked round, noting the items of interest (wooden angels on the hammerbeam roof, some Victorian stained glass in lurid colours, monument to an explorer who claimed huge areas of Canadian perma-frost etc).

I knew the tombs were in a family chapel, and I was prepared for the chapel to be locked (often the case). But in the north-east corner of the building I found the chamber, separated by an arcade from the chancel, the door wide open. The tombs were incredible – lots of recumbent medieval effigies.



Above: There was this alabaster tomb of 1396. Note the railings which separate the chapel from the rest of the church. Seeing these railings reminded me of the moment in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (and also in Polanski’s Tess) when Tess looks through similar railings at the tombs of her ancestors and wishes she was dead among them, so burdensome had her life become.



Above: There was this stone tomb of 1348. The couple look as if they are lying in bed. You can just make out that the knight has his legs crossed which is supposed to mean that he had been on a crusade.



Above: The tomb filling the whole west arch of the chapel was the most magnificent. Supported by ionic columns and entablatured with Latin texts, the monument includes three lifesize figures of a monk and two woodwoses. The three figures are standing on the tomb chest itself, and between them are two stone busts of the deceased (looking as if they were rising out of the grave in some petrified act of resurrection). Seen through the dim light of the late afternoon, with the oblique sunlight making the stone glow gold, the effect was very impressive. Note the monumental brasses on the floor of the chapel, cordoned off with a rudimentary barrier of rope tied to four chairs. You may need to click on the photo (and then click in the corner to enlarge it again) so that you can see all the detail.

Portaits from the globalised world Number 5: No-one gets paid what they are paid

One of our cats went missing recently – it’s very unusual for either of them to stay out all night. I thought she might have got locked in one of the barns by accident (the old farmyard beyond the garden is still partly used by a local farmer). This morning at 7.30 I heard the noise of vehicles in the farmyard so I walked round there to see if the cat ran out when the barns were opened.

To get there I had to leave my garden, walk along the lane, and go into the farmyard from the main entrance. In the big turning area was a lorry just leaving after dropping something off. Locking up one of the big sheds was a man aged about twenty-five whom I had never seen around the farm before. I explained to him that I lived in the old farmhouse and wanted to look in the barns (they are our property anyway). He just shook his head, uncomprehending. I repeated my request, pointing to myself and then pointing to the barns. He replied in very few words that he was Polish and didn’t understand. By sign language I made him realise that I wanted him to unlock each of the barns. In the last shed the cat came out as the door was opened.

The influx of Polish people into the local area has become considerable. My brother was walking past a nearby farm where they have a tiny caravan site (only about six caravans in a little copse of trees) which they used to let out to holidaymakers. He said the caravans are now lived in by Polish people who stay there all year round working on the fields and in the packhouses).



Above: Over half a million Poles have come to the United Kingdom since Poland joined the European Union in May 2004. Eighty per cent of these immigrants are men aged between 18 and 34, making them a valuable addition to the population (very hard working, because they are young they are generally healthy so there is no drain on the NHS, as they start to pay taxes they will boost the national economy etc). Although they are poorly paid by UK standards, they are famously wealthy in their home country (no-one gets paid what they are paid, no-one can afford the luxuries they can afford).



Above: At first you would see groups of Polish men, but increasingly you see couples. Although most of the Polish immigrants say they will eventually return to Poland, this is unlikely to happen. I’m basing this on the 20th century migration of Irish people to England where most intended to work for a short while, but ended up settling permanently, the majority becoming completely subsumed into the English population (the only key to their origin being surnames such as Kelly or Murphy).



Above: Please excuse this lopsided picture (I don’t have access to Photoshop at the moment). I took this photo in the car park of Asda where a group of enterprising Poles offer to wash your car (by hand) while you do your shopping in the store. The implications of this are striking – Asda is a downmarket store where mostly C2s and Ds do their grocery shopping. Despite being on low incomes, the C2s and Ds can still afford to have their cars washed (by hand) by the new immigrants. Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations demonstrated that value is ultimately related to labour. The movement of half a million (and rising) people from Poland to England represents a considerable boost to the capacity of the economy.



Above: In Tesco I noticed that these Polish gherkins have appeared on the shelves, presumably to appeal to the new immigrants. I bought a jar for my brother (I cannot stand gherkins personally). The label design is attractive but also alien.

Passage to India

Above: Passage to India is a restaurant in the High Street (not one of my best photographs – I had to stand in the middle of the road to take the picture).

Passage to India is a 1924 novel by EM Forster, counted by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best novels in the English language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India) and later made into an Oscar-winning film by David Lean.

“No passage to India” effectively describes my current situation.

For two weeks most of the staff in my office have gone five thousand miles to meet the personnel at our Indian call centre in a sort of inter-departmental exchange and international “jolly”.

Therefore this week and next week I am almost alone in the office (apart from one creative in the studio and one person who has resigned and is working his notice and in any case is on holiday today). Why, out of all my colleagues, am I the one to be left behind? Obviously someone needs to be left in the UK office to cope with any emergencies (and also keep an eye on the builders who are altering the downstairs back offices). But it is also true that my omission from the India trip could be interpreted as a snub. Since arriving at the office a year ago my progress has not been altogether smooth. As one of the PAs said to me: “You’re too outspoken – only yes-men get ahead in this company”.

The offices have an odd feel to them. They are darker since there is no point in switching on all the lights. They are completely silent apart from the hammering from the builders downstairs. There is no-one to talk to since the two friends I have in the company have gone on the India trip. There are less phone calls (lines have been diverted) but every call that comes in I have to answer. The post is already beginning to heap up on the desks of various people.

It’s going to be a long two weeks.

Stubbs would have grouped the horses more artistically

Sunday was a “Heritage Open Day” which is when buildings normally closed to the public open their doors for an afternoon. All sorts of places, that normally you would struggle to get into, become available (I think there’s a requirement for listed buildings receiving grants from the government to open to the public occasionally). The problem is deciding which one to choose, especially as different buildings open on different years, so it could be quite a while before a particular place can be seen again (unless you go through the rigmarole of writing for a formal appointment to view, and then you turn up and get treated like an official inspector from English Heritage).



Above: Anyway, I decided to go to the south western part of the uplands. The escarpment at this point is much more gentle (but you still go up quite a rate in a short distance). There was hardly any traffic on the roads.



Above: Once up on the top there was an undulating landscape of cornfields alternating with paddocks. I stopped to look at the map and take a photo of this equestrian scene (Stubbs would have grouped the horses more artistically). The day had become extremely hot and sunny – the hottest September day since 1949.



Above: Eventually (after a couple of wrong turnings) I came to a small village and had to double-back twice before I found Old Church Lane. This road was hardly more than a track. Driving down it for a quarter of a mile I came to a hand-made sign saying “Car Park” and turned into a grass field where I parked next to three other cars. Continuing down the track on foot, the way curved ahead of me mysteriously – although I knew a redundant church was down there somewhere, I had no idea what it would look like. The heat (after my air-conditioned car) was enervating. Insects filled the air (dragonflies, horseflies, midges).



Above: The hedgerows opened up into a clearing, and the small church came into view, declared redundant when the Victorians built a new church (a livid red building) on higher ground in the centre of the present village. Pevsner says that the old church had originally been medieval but rebuilt in the 18th century (you can see that the brick walls rest upon stone foundations). The land around the building was subject to regular flooding so in the nineteenth century the village had moved to higher ground, the new church had been built and the old one abandoned.



Above: Inside it was light and airy, painted white, completely empty apart from some bulbous Communion railings (although the building was redundant it was still consecrated). The windows were clear glass protected by mesh, presumably to prevent intruders since the place was so remote. Two Purple Emperor butterflies (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/405.shtml) fluttered about, trying to find their way out.



Above: I walked back down the track. Opposite the field where I parked my car was a lesser track leading to Old Church Farm. A small poster announced that teas were available with an exhibition of “bygones”. I went down to the farmhouse and a very well-spoken lady came out and asked if I wanted a cup of tea, indicating that I should sit at one of the small tables set up in the farmyard. No-one else was about. I sat down and looked around – the farmyard was remarkably neat and tidy, with tubs of flowers, picturesque barns, pretty views into the surrounding fields.

The lady returned with my cup of tea (cost 50p):

“We’ve been here four years” she explained. “When my husband retired we looked about for our dream home and we found this. It’s perfect.”

Although she and her husband were “retired” they only looked in their late fifties. Even though they were now “farmers” they didn’t need to make the establishment pay economically. They were restoring the house and barns to their Victorian appearance. They had conserved and extended the hedgerows around all the fields (in a scheme in partnership with English Nature). They were stocking up on rare-breed farm animals. They were commissioning an archaeological survey (in partnership with English Heritage) of the deserted village around the redundant church. They cut the grass around the redundant church and provided a guide service to visitors tracing their ancestors among the old tombstones. They researched the history of the deserted settlement. Their dream was to track down all the old church furnishings and try to return them to the building.



Above: In one of the barns they had set up their own little private museum of rural “bygones” which they had collected over thirty years in local antique shops and on markets.

“The linen was a wonderful find. It came from a woman over at the next village who was clearing out a relative’s house. The place was piled to the rafters with junk, and among it all was a tin trunk filled with Victorian linen. You see, when people know you collect things they start to look out for you. The linen was amazing. Clothes not worn for a hundred years or more!”.

I went over and looked through the collection. There were all sorts of domestic items (china, ancient kitchen utensils, old farm tools). There was a “rag rug” which had been specially commissioned from an old boy locally who was still turning them out. In another barn there were the contents of a Victorian chemist from a nearby town (when the family business closed they bought up all the pre-1900 items which had been just stacked in a back room). Most poignant of all were stacks of family photographs from the 1880s and 90s. The whole collection represented a considerable labour of love.



Above: In the fields you could see traces of the former strip and furrow agricultural system. Ponds had been reinstated (presumably contributing to the hordes of insects). The couple had bought the fields around the redundant church to ensure that the archaeological remains of the deserted village were conserved for a future excavation.



Above: “Those are long-wool sheep. Fairly rare animals. They are kept for their wool more than their meat.”

My tea cup was frequently replenished. The hot sun streamed down, contributing to the humidity. The couple seemed pleased that someone was taking an interest in all their hard work.