Chagall, William Morris & Pugin: stained glass in Kent

Stained glass: the very phrase conjures up deeply coloured windows of biblical figures in dark churches or doors and fanlights in Victorian villas. But anyone who has seen Matisse's stunning stained glass windows in the Chapel de Rosaire just north of Vence in the South of France (see my blog archive for September) will agree that they are neither traditional or dark, the stylized and symbolic design in brightest yellow and blue.

Similarly, Braque's lovely stained glass window in the small chapel at the Foundation Maecht in St Paul de Vence. The simple, strong design shines with light through a prism of blues. Another artist who produced stained glass was Chagall and examples can be seen in the Chagall Museum in Nice although his most famous collection of stained glass are twelve windows in Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jeruslaem, depicting the tribes of Israel.

But a tiny medieval church in north Kent, of all places, also has a full set of Marc Chagall windows. Tudely is a small hamlet which boasts, pub, houses, farms and …..the Parish Church of All Saints. The first Chagall window was commissioned as a memorial to Sarah, the daughter of Sir Henry and Lady d'Avigdor-Goldsmid. Tragically, she died in a sailing accident in 1963, aged 21, and is depicted in The East window floating on the waves.

To me, something that is long-lasting and enriches the lives of others - whether in planting trees and bulbs or commissioning and donating inspirational art works – are the most moving and wonderful of memorials. These windows certainly qualify: a further eleven windows commissioned by friends and family of the Goldsmid's replaced the original Victorian glass (now installed in the vestry) over the following years until Chagall's death in 1985.

The windows are marvellous works of art – the naivety of the designs suit the simplicity of the church - that not only inspire but fill the interior with light and beauty. Chagall was a good choice of artist for an Anglo/Jewish family because he believed in the unity of humanity. The colour blue predominates in the windows as he thought that this colour symbolized love and "love is as strong as death".

Chagall had become increasingly interested in painting for stained glass and this gives the windows an ethereal quality reminiscent of some of this paintings. Adam and Eve, birds, horses, fish and angels all feature in the scenes and as the sun shines through the windows the colours are reflected onto the window reveals and floor: the effect is beautiful and just a little bit magical. This added spirituality was exactly the effect that was intended in the earliest stained glass church windows. A wonderful memorial: visit www.tudely.org to find out more.

The Gothic revivalist architect, A.W.N. Pugin, responsible for the new Houses of Parliament after they were gutted by fire in 1834, also designed stained glass windows in Kent. Next door to his house, The Grange in Ramsgate, he designed and built St Augustine's R.C.Church including the stained glass windows. These are deep and clear in colour but, like so much of Pugin's work, rich in medieval patterns of heraldic crests, stylized leaves, flowers and borders. To see examples visit www.pugin.com/pugstain.htm

The work of yet another great artist and designer, William Morris, can also be found in Kent villages only a few miles from Tudeley. Morris was certainly a Renaissance man: artist, craftsman, designer, decorator, printer, writer, poet – you name it, he did it. He was a follower of The Pre-Raphealite Brotherhood, a Gothic revivalist and a founder member of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Stained glass design and manufacture was one of Morris' early and great achievements in the art of nineteenth century Gothic revival. The windows he and his partners produced were colourful, inventive and well designed, among them those in Kent: a window by partner Edward Burne-Jones in St Mary's Church, Speldhurst is a good example. Visit www.church.speldhurst.org to see a photograph of it and visit www.huntingdon.org/ArtDiv/Morris2003 to see a cartoon of the window destined for the church of All Saints, Langton Green.

But, until very recently, I was completely unaware that even closer to Tudeley are two stained glass windows by the firm of Morris & Co in the parish church of St John the Evangelist, Hildenborough. I've visited the church several times but have as yet failed to find it open but I'll keep trying. It's great to find so much art right on my doorstep – the work of such brilliant designers: Chagall, Morris and Pugin.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
lucy.ann.white@hotmail.co.uk

An apple a day

Apples come in all sorts, shapes and sizes and that, say the supermarkets, is the problem: they don't stock locally grown apples because we – the customers – want blemish free uniformity. Apples must be either green or red, glossy and symmetrical: forget the flavour. But October apple festivals and farmer's markets show that this is not true: not only do we want the tasty old varieties, scabs and all, but we're prepared to pay for them.

Henry VIII encouraged his gardener to produce better fruit, which he set about doing in his nursery close to Brogdale in North Kent. In 1806, the Horticultural Society in Chiswick, London recorded 1,400 varieties of apple: the society moved in 1875 to Wisley and then to the horticultural research station at Brogdale in the 1950's.

This is now the Brogdale Horticultural Trust (www.brogdale.org) where the National Fruit Collection is and where research into gene bank, grafting, stocks, plant identification, cultivation and so on is undertaken. A guided tour of the Trust is not only informative but fun too, viewing the orchards from the back of a tractor trailer, and there are unusual varieties of the fruit for sale in the shop there.

But the government puts minimal value on this sort of research: little investment is forthcoming to fund this most well-known fruit. March 2008 is crunch time: the management trust is out for tender and then…...who knows.

The cultivation of the apple (Malus domestica) is part of our national heritage; apple orchards part of our historic landscape. The sight of Kentish apple orchards in glorious bloom – snowy white froth or pink tinged petals - is absolutely beautiful and draws coach loads of tourists. Generally apple trees tolerate a wide range of soil types and like the British climate, some varieties doing better in one part of the country than another.

In Scotland 'dooking for apples' was a favourite game at Halloween: children, hands behind their backs knelt down and tried to catch an apple from several floating in a tub of water. If you caught the apple you kept it: more often than not a good soaking was had, everyone falling about laughing at the efforts. We loved it. In England it's called 'bobbing for apples' but this old game played around Bonfire Night is less well known now. The eating of toffee apples, though, remains as popular as ever at this time of year.

As a child my parents grew varieties of desert and cooking apples, the rows of trees set out in rows on a north-south axis: one for every month of the winter. And every day we took one to school for break. Beauty of Bath, Laxton's epicure and fortune were eaten straight off the tree; Worcester pearmain would last till October, as would Ellison's orange and James Grieve. From the last half of September until November we would eat Laxton's fortune, pioneer and Lord Lambourne.

Then Cox's orange pippin - so often eaten too early - was best from late November until February with Laxton's superb ready late in December right round to March. In supermarkets we expect to find our favourite apple all the year round: lost is the concept that the apple changes as it matures which gives it a quite different taste and texture. Some apples best cooked in November have become eaters by the following March.

Apart from cider making (see my blog archive April, 30) the preservation of the fruit was always part of the housewife's work in centuries past: apple chutneys and jellies were made as was apple cheese. Apple sauce accompanied roast pork, apples were casseroled with game birds and a roast goose was stuffed full of them.

In the United States apple pie is considered as American as can be, and why not: the golden delicious apple was discovered in Virginia, 1895, and the variety Jonathan even earlier in the 1820's. But in England, where hundreds of apple varieties have been grown since Roman times, we've lost our appreciation for the many famous varieties of the past and the methods of cooking them.

During my childhood Sunday lunch was always accompanied by a pudding and ten to one it would be made of apples. Early Victoria was used for apple crumble, cobbler or Charlotte because it cooked down to a soft consistency: for apple pie or stewed apple Reverand Wilks was favourite because it kept it's shape. And for baked apples – stuffed with currants and brown sugar and served with custard – it was our Monarch, Warner's king or King Edward VII varieties that we used. Nowadays in supermarkets there is the ubiquitous Bramley, rarely any other.

We can buy attractive, clean, blemish free apples wherever we shop: what we cannot necessarily buy is flavour, distinctiveness and variety. But, nevertheless, they remain packed full with other good things: an apple a day still keeps the doctor away.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
lucy.ann.white@hotmail.co.uk

Lest we forget: poetry and prose.

'Lest we forget' is the final line of the poem, For the Fallen (1914), by Laurence Binyan. Today, 11 November, is Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the end of the First World War when the 'Ode of Remembrance' – a favourite recitation at memorial services for the fallen of the 1st and 2nd World Wars throughout the Commonwealth - finishes with these words.

The 'war' poetry of the Great War in particular often expresses deeply felt emotions very poignantly (see my blog archive, Flanders Fields, 29 July) but prose of the period can do the same. There are many memoirs and novels by men who served in this war that recount the politics, battles and tragedies of it all and their memories of fallen comrades, lost brothers, dead sons are so very moving.

But for every young man that died there was a woman – whether mother, sister, daughter or lover - who suffered years of loss. Not that it was only young men that served in the 1914-18 war: women didn't fight but they did do everything but. Many took over the jobs of the men who had left to fight and it's well known that their contribution – not to mention skill, dedication and bravery - during the war finally (in 1928) scotched the arguments against womens' suffrage.

Many women wanted to be in the thick of it, so to speak: some joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) either doing all sorts of 'manly' jobs or nursing - often risking their lives in on the front line. Others became members of the Women's Auxillary Corps (WAR), engaged on military services at home and abroad.

I make mention of two of these women who subsequently became journalists and writers: both gave up their hard won places at Oxford University to serve their country in time of war. They later met whilst studying there and became firm friends. Winifred Holtby served in France in 1918 as a volunteer in the Signal Unit of the WAR and Vera Brittain became a VAD, nursing in London and then in a field hospital at the front line in France.

Vera Brittain fell in love with Roland (a friend of her brother's) who was unfortunately killed in 1915. Sadly, her beloved younger brother, Edward, was then also killed (in 1918): many of their friends also met their death in the Great War. The first part of Brittain's autobiography, Testament of Youth (1933), chronicled those years: the story of 'the lost generation' and the changes it brought about in the lives of so many turned Brittain into a pacifist and an active member of the peace movement.

Some of the material that Brittain drew on when writing her autobiography was eventually published in 1998: Letters from a Lost Generation was a collection of the letters of Brittain, her brother and their friends, Richardson and Thurlow. These are a moving personal record of the terrible effects and results of a war that destroyed so many lives.

Winifred Holtby was also a committed pacifist and feminist; unfortunately she too died tragically young in 1935, just managing to complete her best known novel, South Riding, before she did so. It won her the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (posthumously) in 1936. This is a novel that encapsulates life in rural Yorkshire in the years between the two world wars: it gives telescopic view – looking through the wrong end of the lens to what life was like before 1914 and through the other end to the 1920's when women were making a mark as never before.

Both Holtby and Brittain were women of their time: university graduates, journalists and writers in what was then very much a man's world. They were increasingly confident that their views should count and that there was a need to change politics for the better. After Holtby died Brittain wrote Testament of Friendship (1940), a tribute to her friend and a chronicle of their relationship.

I came across both these writers again whilst researching my novel, A Little Blue Jacket. Holtby lived in South Africa in 1926 for a while and championed, among other things, the unionization of black workers: Brittain describes this South African experience as a watershed in Holtby's life. Her own interest in politics and womens' rights was influenced by reading Women and Labour, by the South African novelist and feminist, Olive Schreiner.

The writing of both Holtby and Brittain are still in print and are even enjoying a renewed interest: it's not just the many thousands of men who died that we remember today but also the thousands of women who served their country. And some who wrote about it, lest we forget.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com
lucy.ann.white@hotmail.co.uk

Book Note: I find the poems of AE Houseman particularly moving and here is a simple, understated one that sums up what so many bereaved women must have felt, and sadly, are still experiencing in our war torn world today when no body is repatriated.

The half-moon westers low, my love,
And the wind brings up the rain;
And wide apart lie we, my love,
And seas between the twain.

I know not if it rains, my love,
In the land where you do lie;
And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,
You know no more than I.

Blood & Sand

Blood & Sand, our book group choice for last month, October, is Frank Gardner's account of his time as a correspondent in the Middle East and his subsequent injuries after being gunned down by terrorists.

Gardner read Arabic and Islamic Studies at university and fell in love with the landscape and peoples of the Middle East during visits there. After a less than enjoyable spell as a banker he finally plucked up the courage to become a lowly paid journalist in order to live in and visit the lands he loved.

There are primarily two interesting facets to the book: firstly, Garner gives a fascinating and knowledgeable insight into the Islamic world, including that of such terrorist groups as al-Qaeda. His story is a personal one but politics are very much part of it: the differences and complexities of the tribes and cultures are very apparent.

Secondly, Gardner's strength of character (active, determined, intrepid and courageous) shines through: it was this that fuelled his second career and also what brought him through the disability he suffered. Other more negative characteristics were what possibly got him into the fix: stubborn, arrogant, single-minded and competitive.

He appears marvellously and commendably lacking in bitterness although there is still disbelief that he, an Arab lover and admirer, should suffer such terrible injuries in their country and at their hands. It seems that the attack finally made him realise that the Arab in his own land is not always an honourable being: he certainly observes that the fundamentalist terrorist is not a true follower of Islam.

Gardner is clearly a talented journalist with a wealth of knowledge of the Arab world but what he is not is a writer: on the whole the text is plodding, stuffed with too many details and the jokes are forced. It was almost impossible to keep track of characters, countries and creed and every one of the group was thankful that a map was included for reference.

However, when Gardner stays for weeks in the tents of a Bedu tribe – and he desists from bombarding us with his achievements and contacts – his writing suddenly soars. His description of the landscape and the people becomes more lyrical and the reader really gets a feel for the place and understands what it is that he loves about it all.

I admire the manner in which Gardner never tried to instil his own culture or ideas on the people he met with but wholeheartedly embraced their way of life whether it was to sleep in a rug on the floor, to eat at their communal meal or respect their religious belief.

Everyone in the book group found Blood & Sand interesting: we all learnt a great deal (when we concentrated) about the Middle East and recent events there. Much of it was fascinating but not everyone finished the book – due to the plethora of facts or the plodding.

But it did cause as all to think because discussion of the book turned into political discussion generally: the Iraq war, the fate of the Palestinians, the role of the US, Israel, al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, the Taliban and the role – or lack of power – of women in the Islamic world. Of course, left to us – a roomful of women – we could have that whole lot sorted in a matter of months.

We agreed that Blood & Sand (originally Life, Blood & Sand in the hardback version) had probably started as a form of therapy for Gardner and every one of us was full of admiration for a man that has so spectacularly and successfully come to terms with his changed circumstances. Would we read it again? No, but we might give it to a husband, brother or son – they seem to like facts and Blood & Sand is a very macho title.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Book Note: for those in love with the Middle East the definitive book must surely be TE Lawrence's, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922). Now there was another singular man and one who's commitment and love of the Middle East shines through all his writing. It was my grandfather's favourite book but I have to admit I've never finished it. Better to start with Robert Graves biography of Lawrence, Lawrence and the Arabs (1934), on which the film ´Lawrence of Arabia´was based, one of my Best Beloved´s favourites.

The Tudors

The Tudors, a swashbuckling TV take on Henry VIII's court produced by an American film company is gathering pace. So starved of historical drama are we, that the historical inconsistencies and the soap opera style still have us glued to the set.

But don't let this lull you into disdain, many North Americans may have an ersatz view of merry olde England but some of them are a great deal more au fait with our history than we are. Some of their historical novelists – those whose blogs I read - or fans of the genre have a breadth of knowledge of our kings and queens that quite put me to shame.

The only thing I remember with clarity is what happened to his wives, helped by the old rhyme: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. I have to check with the trusty Pears encyclopaedia if I'm to be sure of my kings and my dates but these guys can reel them off without pausing for breath.

A sense of the past surrounds us to such an extent in Britain – architecture, landscape, names, traditions – and is so much part of our daily lives that we don't recognise, appreciate or cherish it as much as some of our American cousins do. Living in west Kent, so close to the environs of London, we're surrounded by reminders of the Tudors and we take it all for granted.

At Lullingstone Castle in Eynsford, the young King Henry VIII often visited his friend Sir John Peche who had built the original Manor House there. They jousted together on the ground outside the gatehouse, where an area was raised so that spectators had a better view. Sir John remained a friend and accompanied Henry to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.

When Henry rode out to Eynsford from London he could ride on with ease to Knole in Sevenoaks. Knole had been built by the Archbishop of Canterbury and in 1538 the house was given to Henry VIII. Elizabeth I gave it in turn to the Robert Dudley and then to the Sackvilles in 1566.

Nearby was Penshurst Place: Sir Philip Sidney, the Elizabethan poet and courtier, inherited this lovely estate in 1552. Built of mellow sandstone with crenellated towers, mullioned windows, tall chimneys and ancient doorways it's everyone's idea of a Tudor manor house. As beautiful today as it was then, even the medieval structure of the gardens Sir Philip laid out are still clearly visible.

But it was Knole's deer park of over 1000 acres that was the most popular place to hunt and it was at another property a short ride away that Henry took his hunting to another level: hunting that was to produce the future Queen Elizabeth I. Ann Boleyn was born in Hever Castle - another romantic medieval house - but spent most of her childhood at court in France.

When Anne became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon she attracted Henry's attention: absenting herself from court she stayed at her family hunting lodge, Hever, and it was to there that he pursued her. After her marriage to Henry in 1533 and subsequent death Henry gave Hever to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.

However, over a number of years Hever fell into disrepair and in 1903 was bought by the millionaire, William Waldorf Astor. And this knight in shining armour who restored Hever Castle with imagination and a great deal of money was – wait for it – an American. So I think that an American TV serial about the Tudors can be allowed a little licence if it gives us all a bit of fun and entertainment.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Book Note: There are so many good novels about the Tudor era but Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl is about Anne's sister, Mary, and its an interesting view of the court at the time.

The Great Storm

The Great storm, the worst that Britons had experienced for over 300 years, struck 20 years ago this week. Deaths were caused, electricity supplies cut, cars were flattened, roads blocked, railways lines closed, house roofs blown off and landscapes devastated as trees were uprooted.

In London there was a blackout, the first since the Blitz in 1945 and it was thought at the time that the Kent and Sussex countryside, devoid of its trees, would never be the same again. The historic town of Sevenoaks was dubbed One Oak when it was learned that six of the old trees had crashed to the ground, hitting the town's very identity.

In addition, the ancient deer park of Knole in Sevenoaks, now owned by the National Trust, lost seventy per cent of its trees. Many of the trees over 200 years old -oaks, beech and chestnuts - were uprooted by the gale force winds, crashing to the ground felling others in their wake. The park, so beloved by the inhabitants of the town, was a scene of utter devastation.

In towns and villages throughout the South East similar damage was experienced: no-one could go anywhere for days and the sound of chainsaws was constant. But in fact it was amazing how few deaths there were and how many families and properties survived such a terrible storm. This was due in large part to the fact that the hurricane struck overnight.

The Met office had failed to predict the hurricane: some lucky souls slept through the entire thing, shocked when they opened their curtains on scenes of mayhem and destruction. This happened to me, I could hear there was a storm and peering out of the window saw the branches of our large purple beech flapping as if ready to take flight: Best Beloved slept on.

Terrible wind, I thought, and went back to bed. In the morning we were shocked to see two conifers – one at the back of the house one at the front - had fallen parallel to the house: lucky or what. If the wind had been coming from a different direction we may never have got up at all.

Non-native evergreen conifers are densely leafed – the wind didn't pass through their branches – and shallow rooted they fell by their thousands. And venerable hardwood trees are vulnerable in high winds: in fact many of the trees that were uprooted had passed their sell-by date.

Britain had been steadily deforested over hundreds of years: wood was needed for fuel or arable land, timber framed houses or fighting ships. Later, when vast estates were owned by the landed gentry and passed on form generation to generation, tree planting was something that was natural: ones heirs would benefit. Nowadays, when the average time to live in a house is about five years, there is less incentive for the home owner to plant for posterity.

In the last fifty years new forests have been mostly coniferous and existing hardwood forests have not been renewed – previously pigs or deer had kept the under-storey of broadleaf woods clear of saplings and invasive species without which the woods slowly lost their good health. Old trees were not taken out so hysterical had we become about 'saving' trees. At the same time Town or Borough Councils planted fewer and fewer roadside trees – paranoid about being sued for anything - our townscape the poorer for it.

It's generally not appreciated that much of the hedged and wooded landscape we love –and often think of as natural – was in fact planted for sporting pursuits. Farmers and landowners are less inclined to plant trees – which are not a very lucrative crop – as there's no longer fox hunting and less need for pheasant coverts. When there were, these small parcels of woodland were managed (see my blog archive of May 8) and the woodlands healthy.

After the Great Storm the landscape is certainly not the same, but it has regenerated. Many woods lost trees that should have been felled long ago: after losing them the new clearings opened up the woodland floor allowing wildflowers, birds and insects to flourish. In the woods bluebells, which had disappeared from many woods due to lack of light, were suddenly thriving again.

Surviving trees grew well without the need to compete for nutrients or light and a massive tree-planting programme, undertaken throughout Britain with the help of grants and philanthropists, added to the stock.

The loss of so many trees created a collective appreciation for the beauty of the natural environment and we began to treasure our woodland as never before. Now, twenty years on, the scars have healed and we have beautiful and healthy woodland again, better able to weather any storm.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Tate Modern is scary

The spider is back, but this time it's lurking outside. The conversion of Bankside power station complete, Tate Modern finally opened its vast doors to the public in 2001. Inside was installed Maman, the spider, a giant steel structure by Louise Bourgeois.

I wrote in a newspaper column at the time: "it is doubtful any state-of-the-art structure could have been more suitable for a museum of modern art than the austere, art-deco influenced building at Bankside. To begin with, economics would never have permitted such a vast Galleria as the Turbine Hall to be included in the specification of a purpose built gallery…

The most stunning area is undoubtedly the Turbine Hall. Here Louise Bourgeois' giant sculptures suit the scale of the space. Thirty foot towers with stairways and looking glasses are interactive pieces that mirror the industrial style of the building.

Next to them lurks a monster spider sculpture – this awe inspiring piece is almost an Alice in Wonderland experience. The spider looks down – as visitors do from the galleried mezzanines above – on Gulliver-sized figures.

Surreal: giant spider, miniature people; one's perception of the real world turned on its head. The juxtaposition of its organic, natural form with the rigidity of the powerful man-made building is equally interesting."

A large retrospective of Bourgeois' work has just opened at Tate Modern. The large show is chronological and traces her work of decades – she is now 95 – from painting, to geometric sculptures onto organic pieces in a variety of materials.

She admired Giacometti, liked Bacon's work, knew Duchamp and Brancusi and was a pupil of Leger: there are few artists alive today who could claim that lot. And she is still imaginative and still exorcising childhood demons in her work.

Bourgeois' pieces are not for the faint hearted: when in the turbine hall her dark, giant arachnid stood on its enormous jointed legs guarding a pile of its marble eggs. The observer could feel the menace, the fierce protectiveness of a mother.

You may be able to plumb the depths of the artist's psyche better than me but I must admit I wasn't too taken with what I thought I could see there. A secure and happy place it did not seem to be but perhaps a little angst is what great artists all need. I suspect that children will think of Maman as pure Disney and teenagers as computer graphic and not be as affected as some of us more pathetic souls.

The giant spider now stands outside Tate Modern and if you suffer nightmares or don't like horror movies, you'll know right away that it's not the place or the show for you. And it seems that this could apply if you venture inside too: Doris Salcedo – a Colombian artist - has a new installation there called Shibboleth. It's a 167m long fissure that zigzags across the floor of the Tate and it widens to such an extent that visitors could fall down if not alert.

Like an earthquake Shibboleth rents a landscape in two: Salcedo sets out to show the conflicts that divide us whether of thought, politics, immigration or art. Is it a crack or a scar, a negative space or two spaces, a chasm that is ripping our society apart or what exactly?

I haven't been to the show yet but I must, it sounds so thought provoking. And I have a feeling that it will be as impressive as that giant spider - the one that's lurking outside – but I hope not as scary.