Lots of customs surround the idea of the “last sheaf” of corn. This one has been put on display – not sure what the old boots are meant to signify (perhaps old boots mean “good luck”?).

A local baker made this bread loaf in the shape of a sheaf of wheat, and put it on display.

When I went to a village show a few weeks back I found a little stall selling corn dollies – small figures made out of ears of corn. They are not toys - the meaning behind them is quite sinister.

We were supposed to go through the CVs together

Yesterday afternoon I took the CVs for the new Marketing Assistant into Neil Hancock's office to discuss which ones will get onto the short list for interview. Neil Hancock is the Sales Director, and my line manager. He does not bother to hide his contempt for marketing, and would prefer to do away with the marketing department completely (if he could!) and use the money to recruit more sales people.

Neil Hancock is aged about forty, and has a thin wiry build, with very short black hair (heavily gelled and combed upwards into spikes). He wears expensive clothes (dark Boss suits, dark Armani suits) that always manage to have a slightly crumpled look to them (I know Armani suits are supposed to look crumpled, but Neil's clothes are creased and lined, as if they need dry cleaning). His partner is very nice, and recently gave birth to a daughter. Neil Hancock is extremely rude to almost all staff in the company, and likes to humiliate people. Occasionally he is humiliated himself (he was in a local pub once with some of the lads from the Sales Desk. Scott Ryan's half-brother, who doesn't work for the company, came in, recognised him, and punched him in the face, knocking him from his barstool).

Anyway, we were supposed to go through the CVs together, but he just took the pile from me and went through them saying "This one... this one... this one..." and then told me to set the interviews up for the middle of next week. When I looked at his selection back at my desk, they were all male, and aged in their early twenties. "You don't get anywhere in this company unless you are a good football player” said Karl Gedney when I showed him what Neil Hancock had done. Karl Gedney is one of the product managers, aged about thirty and a good football player himself – moderate build, always careful over his appearance, probably the best-dressed person in the company. He is very sensitive about his slightly receding hair and combs it forward, so that you can’t tell at first glance. He has about four or five loyal friends in the company and tends to ignore everybody else (including me). He can’t ignore Neil Hancock however, and there has been a feud between the two for as long as anyone can remember. “I’ve lost count of the times he has tried to set me up” he told me once.

Anyway, as a small act of defiance I have included two selections of my own for the shortlist. And I thought: do I really want to go on being a manager? When I did the copywriting course at Watford College (a six-month intensive post-grad course, since I felt my degree in Medieval History was too impractical to get me a job straight away) my ambition was to be a successful writer. Although I worked for a year as a copywriter in an advertising agency it was very competitive, and I moved over into marketing. Now I feel I have become a Nick Carraway character (from The Great Gatsby) – reserved, diffident, always an onlooker, never taking centre stage.

You either knew about it or you didn’t

At the weekend I went to a village show held locally. No attempt had been made to publicise the event – you either knew about it or you didn’t. Increasingly I am aware, especially compared to my artificial life working in the city, that a parallel world exists where the timeless traditional ways of life continue. At first (as I began my meandering post-degree studies as an amateur local historian) I was amazed that anything of the “real England” should have survived. Now I am surprised at how much carries on, oblivious to our fake, materialist city lives.

This is especially true of the area of the county where I live – three little valleys, twenty or so villages, about a hundred farms. The past lingers here more profoundly than anywhere else (or so it seems). Sometimes I feel like an explorer or anthropologist, recording things before they disappear (for I have no doubt that they will, in time, disappear). This world also has a dark side – primitive, emotional, occasionally savage.

Anyway, the show was wonderful, despite the gloomy weather. There was so much to see. A cool wind blew, there was gaudy music from a steam organ, there was a pervading smell of crushed grass, old sacks, steam mingled with soot…




Teas were served in the big marquee, also a flower show, and local crafts (corn dollies, embroidery, pottery).

Horses are all-important in this part of the world.

The horse has been venerated here for centuries. I read in the newspaper yesterday that a new “white horse” hill carving has been discovered in Hertfordshire. It was discovered by accident by someone taking aerial photographs. Afterwards loads of people said they always knew it was there, hidden beneath the surface soil.

This steam organ belted out old tunes while the figures on the front moved backwards and forwards. It was obviously built to commemorate victory in the Boer War.

On either side of the organ were famous generals from the South African War. This is Lord Kitchener. Ferocious expression, glaring eyes, one hand grasps his sword, the other clutches his battle-plans.

Lord Roberts. Another so-called tin-pot general (literally tin-pot, since I think the whole organ was made out of tin). Someone has placed a vase of flowers in front of him, presumably to placate any martial spirit that may linger in this imperialist idol.

There was a demonstration of steam threshing and baleing. It reminded me of the steam threshing scene in Tess (wonderful film – I wish I could see it in a cinema instead of just on video) where Natasha Kinski is on top of a haystack and refuses to come down.

A battered old tractor.

An old car (there was a woman sitting in the passenger seat wearing a headscarf – she was such a character that I wanted to get her in the picture, but just at the last moment she ducked down).

A row of pitchforks.

Shears on an old sack.

A box of rusty old spanners.

He was refused entry

Simon Jordan, who works on telesales, came into the office this morning complaining of being beaten up last night. He had gone out drinking with a group of friends, visiting various pubs in the small commuter town where he lives. About the middle of the evening, when he had consumed seven pints of beer (seven pints on a weekday!) the group came to a pub where the entrance was protected by a large doorman. His friends were admitted, but because Simon was wearing an England football shirt he was refused entry (there had been a lot trouble in the town caused by men wearing England shirts and the pub had responded with a blanket ban on the garments).

After some negotiating Simon managed to get into the pub wearing a friend’s coat, which completely covered the offending shirt. “That was good thinking” said Adam Russell, who was listening to the story. “That’s because I’ve got it up here” Simon Jordan said, tapping the side of his head.

After a while Simon and his mates managed to get a table in the very crowded pub, and they sat down and continued drinking. Because it was hot, Simon took off his borrowed coat. The doorman came over to him and began to remonstrate, complaining that Simon was not keeping to his side of the bargain. Simon responded with various drunken smart-alec remarks. The doorman insisted that he couldn’t remain in the pub wearing an England shirt. Simon’s response was take off his England shirt and sit at the table half-naked.

The doorman pulled him to his feet, bundled him through the crowd, and threw him out into the street. During this process Simon Jordan was considerably manhandled and bruised (“people were punching me as I went past” he said). After he had been ejected from the pub, his friends did not follow him, but remained inside drinking.

This morning, telling us about his experiences, Simon was very matter-of-fact. “The professional bouncers are okay, the ones who have been trained” he said. “But you get the odd one who is just looking for a fight.” He said this philosophically, completely ignoring the fact that he had provoked the incident.

The house looks quite sinister and mechanical

Janet Street-Porter's house

Sometimes I have to go to the office in the City. I hate going there, as the experience is always unpleasant (they are not nice people). Anyway, I got off the tube at Barbican and walked up a back way (mainly to delay the time of my arrival). And on the way I went past Janet Street-Porter’s house.

Janet Street-Porter is Editor of The Independent newspaper, and one of those media personalities who seem to have a strong opinion on everything. She is very tall, her hair is bright red, and she talks with an exaggerated East End accent. I have never met her, but I was once standing in the doorway to the City office talking to Marcus Horner (a very weak and vapid “rep” who used to look after some of the City clients) and he suddenly gasped “Janet Street-Porter’s just walked past!” He cried this out, as if it was a seminal moment in his life. By the time I turned round to look, there was only the usual passing stream of people, and the celebrity (if it was her) had gone.

The house looks quite sinister and mechanical. The windows are screened by ornamental bars, which make it look a bit like a fortress. The metal roof tiles look like the scales of some kind of reptile. On the impractical-looking balconies are colossal brooding stone heads, like artefacts brought from Easter Island.

The house is on a steep hill and just below it is a little public garden, always with one or two homeless people sitting on the park benches (except at lunchtimes when office workers go there to eat sandwiches).

I am always (always!) in a despondent mood when I go to the City office, anticipating yet another no-win situation. But passing Janet Street-Porter’s house usually manages to cheer me up. I don’t know why.

A fussy little man

There is a history in my family of sight problems, and I have a slight genetic risk of becoming partially-sighted. This doesn’t bother me at all, since the condition only becomes serious if it is neglected. The odds of this happening are very small (I don’t even wear glasses), but it means I need to have regular eye tests by a specialist.

I have just had one of the tests.

The optometrist occupies a three story Georgian house at one end of the market place in the local town. You go up three high steps and push open the front door (which is on a spring, so you have to push hard to get it open). Inside is a large communal room, very well-appointed, with heavy swag curtains, and deep pile carpets. All around the walls are elegant hardwood stands with displays of glasses. On plinths in the centre are glass heads, wearing glasses.

There are always several assistants flitting around the place – women in their late-twenties or early thirties, attractive in a refined sort of way, dressed in dark grey and navy blue (they are not in uniform, but certainly uniform colours have been specified). They always move quickly. There is always a quiet hush to the place. At a big Reception-type desk is the optometrist’s wife, a hard-faced and unsmiling woman, thin and angular, with grey hair in a severe style. An exception to her austere appearance are the diamond rings she wears – her fingers are adorned with stones of such size and magnificence that it is a wonder she can lift her hands. Behind her, on the wall, are two simple drawings in gold frames, each sporting the signature “Miro” (surely they can’t be genuine!).

The usual procedure was followed. I was asked to wait, and then (after about five minutes) asked to go to the Reception desk. The optometrist’s wife made a quick call, then asked me (or was I told?) to “Go through please”. Going-through meant going through a door opposite, crossing a corridor, and going through another door (I always feel I have to knock, even though I am the client and paying for the eye test).

Inside is the optometrist’s consulting room, a spacious room got up like a gentleman’s study – more of the deep pile carpets, a leather Chesterfield sofa, Victorian-style “partners” desk with matching chairs (his with arms), more of the deep-blue swag curtains (always kept closed in this room, the electric light on). On the walls are three professional diplomas from Durham University, and four or five very attractive hand-coloured 19th century prints. Adding a sinister note to this domestic graciousness is a series of large medical contraptions all in shiny chrome and gun-metal grey.

The optometrist is a fussy little man, very plump, in his early sixties. His head is almost bald, with some grey hair at the sides and back. He wears spectacles, a pin-stripe suit (grey), white shirt, gold cuff-links. Unlike his wife he is amiable and avuncular, with a very soothing northern voice. The eye test takes about forty minutes and consists of a rapid sequence of examinations at all the different machines.

The two of us move about the room at a bewildering pace – first at the desk where he asked a series of questions, then I sat in a huge contraption and my sight was tested, then to a machine where I had to look into a light and click a button every time I saw anything move, then to a machine where I looked into a green light and the optometrist sitting opposite was able to look right inside each of my eyes, then out into the corridor and up a back staircase to a tiny dark room where I sat at a machine and jets of air were blown onto my eyes… All the time the electric light was going on and off (most of the exercises had to be carried out in darkness), and the optometrist was talking, talking, talking (talking, but not really saying anything, since I had no idea what was going on). Each time the electric light was switched off the darkness was complete except for a subtle light that illuminated a big 19th century water-colour of a market scene (a sheep fair, gentleman-farmers in top hats).

We finished up sitting on the Chesterfield sofa, and he suggested things I should be eating to help my eyes stay strong (fresh vegetables, less fat, all the usual advice) and recommended some vitamins I could buy (only available from optometrists!). Then back across the corridor where one of the assistants took my credit card and charged me £70 for the session.

I find the poetry of T. S Eliot a bit difficult

I’ve often been to Little Gidding, a village made famous by the poet T. S. Eliot. I took these photographs on a drive over there this week. Although it’s in Huntingdonshire it’s not very far away, so it makes a nice trip out if anyone comes to stay (although no-one comes to stay these days). There is hardly anything to the village. You need to know where you are going otherwise you can easily become lost. You turn off a lane, drive a mile or so, turn off into another lane, drive another mile or so, then turn off into a long narrow rough track (grass growing up the middle) and finally come to Ferrar House and the little church.

Despite the T. S. Eliot connection it hasn’t become a great tourist destination. You rarely see any other visitors, particularly during the week. There’s no guide book or souvenir shop.

The village was abandoned during the Black Death, and was deserted until Nicholas Ferrar founded a religious community there in 1625, seeking seclusion from the world. King Charles I visited in 1642. T. S. Eliot visited in 1936 and had a sort of mystical experience where he saw the importance of time and the relationship of “timeless moments” and later wrote the poem Little Gidding as part of his great sequence The Four Quartets (published in 1942, the last work he published).

I have to be honest and say that I have not found the village of Little Gidding a particularly mystical or moving place. The name Gidding is connected in my mind with a former work colleague who used to live in Great Gidding (he was completely unmystical and ran the local rock-climbing club). Also, I find the poetry of T. S Eliot a bit difficult. But I keep visiting the place, so it must have something going for it.


Little Gidding - looking towards Ferrar House