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A Walk in Beddington Park

It was one of those days, when you have a vague notion that you want to go out but you don't know where.

You don't even know why you want to go out, except for that vague notion. The subconscious awareness that, somehow, once you've been for a walk, you'll feel better for it, even if you can't summon up that prospect in your imagination.

We missed a train at Streatham Hill, and had to travel south to Streatham. I think perhaps it was only at this point we decided on our destination. It started to drizzle when we got on the train, but on the whole, held off for the remainder of our afternoon out.

We went to Carshalton and strolled in The Grove. Previous and subsequent visits tell me that it is a lovely park, but I felt disengaged. We passed a charity shop, well, we went in, because I spotted a dinky tiny china tea set. In some alternative universe where I have an enormous house and copious money I would probably spend a lot on china tea sets and oddments, but in the real world it's nice to buy doll's versions!

 

We wandered onwards, thinking how dull the weather was, not entirely sure where we were going, until we reached the bottom of Butter Hill, and refound the River Wandle. There are two branches that meet at Wilderness Island, but the stretch from the island to The Grange isn't publicly accessible. Stretches are visible on the road before the park, including in the tastefully-dyed-green-fountain in the pond (fortunately or unfortunately, the sheer greenness is disguised by photography)

Beddington Park is rather a jewel, and one of the great hidden secrets of South London. I guess I'm doing it a disservice by blogging about it, but I think local people know about. North Londoners won't bother, because they famously have Hampstead Heath, and if people are prepared to travel from Brixton/Streatham area, then they deserve to see a lovely park. Some information on the LB Sutton website and some previous blogposts: Rediscovering the Wandle and A Wandle ride in June

The formal garden is small but very pretty

 

I could have taken some better photos but by now it was drizzling again. It eased off as we walked along the banks of the River Wandle, little more than a chalk stream, You can easily be deceived that you are in much wilder, more remote territory.

  

I was conscious not to duplicate photos I have taken on previous visits, but the Terracotta bridge is the best of several interesting paths across the river.

 

And then, you reach the Tudor part. Manor house (now a school) and church. and a terrace of twee cottages. Again, I didn't see the point of retaking snapshots I had previously covered in better light.

Some more wildness as you approach Waddon

 

And suddenly, you're back in the urban ratrace where warehouses are jetwashed, restored and converted.

 

A stroll past the tweeest cottages in South London (and I speak as a resident of a twee South London Cottage - not one of these!)

 

So, nothing happened. The weather was okay, but not great, especially for August. We had plenty of opportunity for people watching but nothing exciting or interesting to report back. Just a pleasant couple of hours out in the open air. You feel better after it, just about 3 miles from Carshalton to Waddon station, just a gentle stroll.

Never Again: A History of the Holocaust by Martin Gilbert

I snapped this book up on a Kindle Deal. Partly because I know less about the Holocaust than I ought to, and partly because Sir Martin Gilbert, who died less than two years ago, has a reputation as a pre-eminent historian of the 20th Century.

One reviewer on GoodReads wrote 'How can you recommend this book but how can you not recommend it?'

The format is different to what I expected. It is, essentially, a travel diary. Martin travelled with the first cohort of students from his MA course in Holocaust Studies. Starting in Germany, and travelling to Czech Republic and Slovakia, before spending more than a week in Poland.

The purpose of the journey was partly to visit Holocaust sites, but just as important was to visit areas that were the centres of Jewish life before World War 2. Some of these areas had a Jewish history stretching back centuries and others were settled only late in the 19th century.

Many of the people on the journey were, like Martin, of Jewish heritage, and they were accompanied by a survivor of slave labour and death marches - Ben Helfgott. Others were non-Jewish people with a long interest in this aspect of history. As far as I know there is no Jewish heritage in my family but over the years I have been friends, colleagues and neighbours with many people Jewish and Christian (at least nominally) with families who escaped Poland. And of course I have learnt much from TV and film.

It is far more than just a travel diary of the 'we went here an saw that and experienced that emotion' variety. He made readings to his tour group either on the trains and minibus, or at specific sites, and the readings are reproduced here, an intrinsic part of the book.

It isn't a chronology of the Holocaust years and does assume a certain level of knowledge. That presupposed knowledge is a barrier. I knew about the sequence of certain events, from Hitler's installation as Chancellor, invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia, Kristallnacht, through to the retreat from Soviet troops during 1944 and 1945 and the consequent evacuation of camps and 'death marches'. If pushed, I could have differentiated between concentration camps, slave labour camps and death camps, and, like everybody I suppose, I know the outlines of the 'Big Picture', too awful to think about other than in Big but Vague terms. 

It's helpful but not essential to refer to maps, which are included in the book, although nowadays I often use Google Maps as a reading aid. I am ignorant about the geography of Poland and surrounding countries and even less knowledgeable about the changing borders of the 20th century.

There are graphic descriptions of brutality and murder, which are difficult to read. It is harder to read the acts of mindless brutality meted out on individuals than to read of the systematic 'production line' extermination of people, all of them individuals, with names. But I think one has to read these accounts and be repulsed, because we owe it to these people.

Martin Gilbert was determined not to make this a book just about people's deaths but also about their lives. They visit villages and towns and areas of cities where many Jewish people live. I have to confess not to have given it much thought but I previously had an impression of Jewish people being a tiny minority, living either in concentrated communities such as that in East London or as individual scattered families.

This book shows that Jewish people were not just recent arrivals superimposed on a 'host community' (horrible expression; I'm using it deliberately to make a point) but as much part of city and town life as 'Polish' people, whose ancestors probably migrated East or West anyway.

I get a sense of the Jewish community being somewhat separate from the Polish Catholic community, with separate schools and places of worship (of course), businesses and cultural lives etc. However, I am stating that without context. There is a long history throughout Europe of Jewish people being ostracised, restricted and expelled, so it's lazy to make accusations of non-integration. In any case, the long list of exceptional Jewish achievements in music and literature, medicine and law, as well as in business, shows a community more than eager to embrace so-called 'Western' values. I simply didn't realise, for example, that in 1931 one third of the population of Warsaw was Jewish (the largest Jewish population outside New York) and dated back to the 15th century, therefore in many ways more similar to England's Norman French population than, say, its Somalian community.

Naturally, are mentions of the structures of religion - visits to synagogues and talk of Rabbis, and the group often stops so that a small number of them can pray.  I suppose I am on the side of the Holocaust victims and survivors who knew that there wasn't a God, because how could he desert them and subject them to such cruelty? But other views exist and I have no right to criticise people who hold those beliefs.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to find out more about the Holocaust in greater detail than merely popular culture, but fears ploughing into dense academic tomes based on official archives. It may spur some people onto wider reading, and, surely, acts as a great companion to academic study. It has given me a unique insight, and its writing style is very easy to read. I found I was reading it in sections of half a long chapter or just one small chapter (20 -30 minutes on my Kindle) because the substance and content was harrowing, and I didn't want too many events and testimonies to run into each other and overwhelm. But in terms of style, sentence structure and so on, it was highly readable.

Atonement Part 3

This should be read in conjunction with Atonement by Ian McEwan - one third through and Atonement - Part 2

Contains spoilers

Part 3 of this book deals with Briony's time as a nurse probationer before and just after the Dunkirk evacuation. I wasn't far into it when I googled Bunyan Bags, and found this article:

An inspiration, yes. Did I copy from another author? No

Ian McEwan has a reputation for the thorough research he undertakes before writing his novels. But yesterday, a Sunday newspaper claimed he had "copied" the work of another author for his Booker-nominated novel, Atonement. Here, McEwan refutes the claim, and explains how he drew on research and reminiscences for one of his most celebrated books

In my previous blogpost I alluded to the research that must have happened, and at the end of the book he acknowledges the various sources. So in my mind there is no suggestion of plagiarism. However, when reading historical novels, it is important to remember that their veracity is dependent on the - often unsung  - work of others; the less input from primary sources, the more made up is the historical bit.

Taken on one level, the description of Briony in St Thomas's is worth reading for its own sake, as with the retreat to Dunkirk. It's a decent use of Primary sources. So far so good.

The final part of this section of the book sees Briony having a day out. She walks from St Thomas's to Clapham Common to Balham. This is very much my 'manor'. I get a bit tired of novelists using it but not actually living there -and as far as I can tell the writer lives in North London. But this is far from being the worst case, although it beggars belief that he refers to Balham as an Underground station even though it's obviously both Underground and 'mainline' - Southern Rail nowadays.

There is a coherent narrative that moves forward logically. The reader might not agree with the choices made by Briony and other characters, but no cause for complaint - one of the great things about fiction in general is being free to disagree with characters' choices.

You may wonder why I have expended time and energy writing three blogposts abot a book I care little for. Good question! It's about expectations. It has been drummed into for me years that there are 'better' books and 'lesser' books, and it's only recently dawned on me that this is not really a comment on their actual content, but about their genre. I know I'm not supposed to use 'genre' to describe 'literary fiction', but why not? It's just another category. It's the category that is eligible for various awards such as the Booker, but that doesn't mean that it is inherently superior, or better written, or more meaningful than other genres. for example, I suspect that Charles Dickens would not have been eligible for this category, not being literary, preferring to tell stories about characters and events. Too populist, I guess.

I suppose there is a judgement made by the English Literature industry that this certain category is more worthy than others. If others of us, outside The Industry, protest the merits of books in other categories, it shows that we are uneducated. It's an argument you can't win, because if like me, your education is in politics and history and your life experience is in politics and public admin, this only goes to prove their point. by being expert in anything applied, physical, technical, by definition you're outside The English Literature Industry. I know this could be interpreted as a post-truth lurch at Experts. Far from it. The English Literature Industry is packed full of experts in that industry. It's as if I were to present to you my expertise in audit, such as Detailed Controls Examination, Precision Gap Widening or the respective roles of first and second reviewers, rather than reflections on how well managed systems deliver for the public good, and what makes for a system that's able to deliver.

But we're told that about 'must read' books, books nominated for Booker and so on. In reality most of us read books that are dismissed by the snobs as genres. I admit, there are genres I have grown out of, and ones that just don't interest me (supernatural, dystopia, science fiction). I don't assume that readers of those genres are thick, for all sorts of reasons. Sure, I hate GoodReads 5 star reviews that basically say 'OMG, Wow, this was awesome, I got this as a free Advanced Review Copy' because, where everything is 5 star and awesome, nothing stands out. But there is no evidence  that books classified as literary  are objectively or subjectively better than books classified into other genres. 

Below I outline specific criticisms of the book with a spoiler warning.

Definite spoiler below. Do not progress if you haven't read the book

Atonement - Part 2

This should be read in conjunction with Atonement by Ian McEwan - one third through.

This contains what might be a spoiler for some people but what I think is a fairly well known fact about the book - which is 15 years old - and the film, which is 9 years old.

I continued reading Part 1 of the book, which comprises a full half of the novel. It seemed to get worse even than what I described in my previous blogpost. The twins ran away, so we had pages and pages of meaningless angst from their aunt and cousin. That of their aunt was barely credible. Unless it was to portray the woman as a complete monster who had no concern about the welfare of two nine year old boys missing at night. That of the cousin was abstract conceptual thinking, not in anyway a realistic portrayal of a 13 year old. 

Lola was raped. This is the core event around which the book revolves. He can't actually bring himself to use the word, or barely even to euphemise it, which is perhaps an attempt to emulate the times it is set in. But once she has been raped, despatched to bed and sedated, she no longer exists. He has no concern or consideration for a violated 15 year old, because she is disposable and the fact that a young girl has been raped is just one of those things.

The second part is concerned entirely with Robbie's participation in the retreat to Dunkirk. It is extremely well written. Indeed, it stands on its own as a piece of thoughtful and well researched writing. Whilst marching to Dunkirk, Robbie thinks a lot about what happened - not Lola's rape, because that didn't matter nor does Lola - but about Briony's witness statement and Cecilia's subsequent behaviour. It basically makes Part 1 of the book - the entire first half - more or less redundant. The events could have been outlined in a prologue, or just a few tens of extra words in Part 2.

My trouble with Part 2 is that it is too well written. When novelists set their fiction against an actual historical background, of course I expect them to do their research. Indeed, it would have been very strange if he hadn't read widely and deeply about the retreat to Dunkirk. This is where I have a problem.

In factual books, the writer cites their sources, either as a bridge in the text or in endnotes. A novelist doesn't have to do this. I expect that at least half of this excellent writing is based upon the real memories (published and in archives) of real soldiers, and this leaves me with queasy feeling.

I have read several fictions set against the background of the world wars, and the best ones seek to illustrate through fiction the lives of their people, albeit fictional ones, in a realistic manner that helps us learn more about the facts. But I feel that this author is just using it as a background, and because so much is taken from real accounts, I feel it is using the soldiers' experience.

Perhaps it doesn't help that the other book I have on the go is Martin Gilbert's Never Again: A History of the Holocaust, richly peppered with moving testament from both victims and survivors - real people - of the Nazis. But in Atonement, the retreat of the Armies and the displacement, injury and death of civilians is just a backdrop to a self-indulgent form of entertainment. In a different way from Part 1 this strikes me as profoundly narcissistic.

I suspect that as I move into Part 3, the existing threads will be drawn together and may make more sense, but it's a bit much to have to wait until one is three quarters through a book to see what it is about.

Notwithstanding the exceptionally good writing of Part 2, I still think this is an awful book.

Atonement by Ian McEwan - one third through

This is obviously a great book. It must be, because everybody says so. It's been nominated for all sorts of prizes, including the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black. These prizes are really important, because they indicate that certain novels are literature and not mere fiction; they virtue signal to wannabe intellectuals what they should be reading in order to demonstrate their intellectuality; and they obviously have insights into the human condition and the way of the world that mere fiction doesn't, especially not genre fiction.

There are several elements that make up a good novel, The two most important ones are character and plot. Ideally, there should be a strong relationship between the two, one influencing the other, but it can also be legitimate for a character to feel that the plot is happening to them and that they have no influence.

Other important factors start with grammar and syntax and move through paragraph structure into something called style. Difficult to define but I know it when I see it and I also know it when it's not there. In between is a standard which is unremarkable. It appears to be simple, someone telling a story or describing something in straightforward clear unembellished language. Much harder to achieve than it seems, as can be demonstrated by convoluted or flowery language, or descriptions that seem forced or false.

Other elements can help the enjoyment of a fiction but aren't necessary.  A book can conjure the essence of era, place, season or personal milestone. An author could use their specialised knowledge  to show the expertise in key characters. I've seen subjects as diverse as Local Government, Tour de France, bird watching, drug addiction, forensic psychology and Norse legends used successfully like this.

I saw the film of Atonement some years back and I found it quite puzzling. Admittedly, I don't remember very much of it because it wasn't noteworthy. A lot of precious simpering around and the unfolding of events that were never properly explained - either 'why' did they happen, or why did one lead to another?

I am currently a third of the way though the book and tempted to abandon it. But it could be worthwhile to continue. I'm not one of these that 'never' abandons books. Struggling on for its own sake is stealing the time you should spend on reading a better book. On the other hand, I'm not so up myself that I don't think my judgement is better than all these literary critics, prize judges etc.

But I do think this is, so far, a case of Emperor's New Clothes. 

The first third of the book, essentially, takes place over little more than a day. Nothing actually happens, although a scene is set. We now know whom we can assume are the main characters. But we don't know them. The great characters of fiction, from Christ to Heathcliff to Miss Marple to Harry Potter - we have a sense that we know them, at least as well as we know our loose friends, neighbours and colleagues.

This middle aged man imagined himself into the inner thoughts of a teenage girl and a twenty one year old woman and got it wrong. It is disturbing to see a middle aged man project his idea of sexuality onto young women like this. I don't know where he got his ideas from. He's never been those people, it's unlikely that people like that properly confided in him at that age, or as a father. Very few writings by women/girls of those ages are in the public domain. It lacks credibility.

Two of the main characters, Cecilia and Robert have both just 'come down' from 'reading' English Literature at Cambridge. One of the tiredest tropes in literary fiction, this idea that every undergraduate attends Oxbridge and 'reads' English Lit. Even in the 30s, when this is set, this wasn't true. They're the same shallow, self-absorbed, ignorant intellectual snobs that made Chesil Beach so tiresome. Their minds have been narrowed by reading only the 'classics' and they are unaware of human feelings and personalities outside the pages of (often dated) 'approved' fiction.

The plot ponders and meanders. So far, nothing has happened.The story starts too early, with a long and tedious description of a play written by the bratty thirteen year old, which in the end doesn't get performed, and doesn't seem to have any allegorical value. We have all these people simpering around purposelessly. The mother is in bed with one of her frequent migraines - which the writer treats as a personality quirk rather than as a life limiting disability. The older daughter takes all day to put a vase of flowers in the guest room.

The book is set within commuting distance of London and with sight of the Surrey Hills. Other than that one mention of those hills, nothing that evokes place. It could as easily be set in Cheshire or Northumberland or West Glamorgan, or Connecticut or Tuscany. It's supposedly set in the 1930s. I've recently read two fictions actually written in the 1930s, and this has no resemblance. It has no humour, it's as though none of these one dimensional characters nor the author has a sense of humour. We use that phrase as a cliché - sense of humour. But say it slowly, emphasise the 'sense', pause after it. I don't expect or want wisecracks or slapstick, but levity, unintentional comedy, and for everybody to stop being so solemn, earnest and self-absorbed. 

I have read a review on Goodreads which fills me with dread. It says:

McEwan also experiments with structure in ways that are truly innovative and new without being gimmicky.... Part One of the story is extremely traditional (broken into chapters, with a clear rotation of perspectives and a uniform chronology). Parts Two and Three are much more modern - the story, which switches gears to follow the gardener into WWII France and Briony to her experiences as a nurse in London, loses structure and fluidity and uses more modern storytelling techniques. Finally, the last section is utterly contemporary - the story becomes even more abstract, with unreliable narrators and more conceptual writing favored over simple narrative.

Perhaps this reader has over-analysed this, according to a formula set by the quasi-intellectuals who teach people about book reading at universities. If she hasn't, if she is faithfully recording something that is obvious to all faintly intelligent readers, this is an affectation too far. If a piece of fiction is acclaimed for its 'structure', and is predominantly about structure, it suggests the plot, characterisation, and sense of place and time are lacking.

Fiction serves several purposes. One is purely commercial - some fairly atrocious works sell by the millions but one envies their authors, who are pure business people. Some fiction is entirely to entertain, for us to enjoy for its own sake. If it tells us anything about people and society that's a bonus. Others strive to shed a light onto obscure aspects of society, of psychology, of specialist occupations, and some of these do this better than non-fiction do.

And then there's a category of fiction which seems to exist solely for literary circle-jerkism. People who have spent three years learning about literariness can apply that learning to the reading of literature. Authors demonstrate their ability to apply that learning to be appreciated by those that also know the rules.

This category of fiction is also for those who haven't studied the rules but believe, misguidedly, that attempting to know them makes them better people. It makes them better at understanding these rules, but it can lead to an absence of critical thinking, where you have already judged this book to be great, because members of the cult have said so - hey, look, it's been nominated for prestigious prizes! I've fallen into that trap. I was already hugely disappointed by Chesil Beach  but I kept Ian McEwan on my  list of Authors to be Read - because he's important, the Guardian says so.

I will struggle on, see if I can be bothered to reach the end, and if I do, I'll blog again. 

Singled Out and Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson

Two similar books by this author, with similar strengths and weaknesses. The full titles are Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War and Millions Like Us Women's Lives in War and Peace 1939-1949.

Virginia Nicholson's qualifications as a historian or sociologist appear to be that she is the great niece of Virginia Woolf, the daughter of an art historian, and she studied English Literature at Cambridge University. In other words, virtually zero.

I consider the subjects of these books to be fascinating and under-reported. It's fair to say that Virginia Nicholson has produced two books that are eminently readable and informative, and are a tribute to the considerable amount of research that has happened.

The real strength lies in the selection of first hand reports from women of the times. Some of these reports are the published works of authors, some well known such as Vera Brittain, Helen Forrester and Nina Bawden. Many more are from unpublished or small-circulation memoirs of less known women, including letters and diaries written at the time, and some more are from interviews conducted with these - by then aging - women in the Noughties. It is in reading these extracts that one gets a real sense of the period, and has some preconceptions destroyed, or finds things one hasn't really thought about, or sees a well known event, such as D-Day, from a perspective not told.

However, I have awarded each book only three stars out of a possible five on GoodReads and in both cases it is because of the sweeping generalisations and weak grasp of statistics, and ultimately, because there is an odd thesis - she's trying to be a feminist but hasn't bothered, it seems, trying to understand feminism.

The worst aspect is the giant misuse of statistics in the 'Singled Out' volume. Granted, the 'surplus women' phrase was not her invention, and the 'two million' figure was initially reported after the 1921 census. Therefore, it really does make a good starting point for such a collection. A writer is then faced with three options:

• to debunk the statistic in one short paragraph and say 'but nevertheless, there were surplus women and this book reflects that';
• to carefully pull apart the basic statistic, to provide comparisons from pre-War and to avoid making generalisations; or,
• to see the 'two million' as a gospel truth, to keep referring to it throughout the book, and to commit other great sins against statistics.

This author chose the third option and it really is embarrassing. I cannot stress too much the importance of historians and sociologists using data correctly. After I read the book some months ago I wrote at some length on the statistical weaknesses - you can find this passage at the bottom of this post.

She finishes the book by mourning the loss of ex-Balliol students (Balliol is a college at Oxford University; she assumes that people know that, because, you know, who doesn't!), and speculating whether they would have been a force for change for the good or would have maintained the status quo ante. She doesn't mourn the young men from other Universities, and the Grammar School boys, let alone the majority with limited formal education, who would have pushed forward scientific, technological and medical progress, or as administrators or Trade Unionists, or in any number of other occupations who may have taken forward the social changes many of which were were already happening or about to happen before WW1.

There are other flaws in her methodology. For example, she quotes at some length from Vera Brittain, perhaps more so than any other writer. I re-read Testament of Youth early this year and it's understandable why Nicholson used this as a source. However, as I knew, and as transpires in this book, Brittain wasn't entirely surplus. Yes, she had lost her fiancé in the war (and I'm not the only reader who feels she was more in love with the idea of being in love than she was with a man she barely knew and hardly spent any time with). She spent the years between age 22 and about 30 as a singleton (she married at 31), but she did marry and she did have children.

But I also read Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, and Gertrude Bell gets almost no mention, despite her being a wealthy woman who lived an amazing life as a single woman long before WW1 or indeed before many of these women were born.

Other niggles include the author's unquestioning acceptance of Anglicanism as being both universal and right. She praises those women who shared her unquestioning belief, but apart from one temporary loss of faith by one pious individual, there was no mention of how many of these women questioned the established faith that was brainwashed into most of them as children: yet the War directly led to many people questioning or abandoning the religion of the Ruling Class, or turning to Spiritualism in unprecedented numbers.

In the second book, she avoids beating a dead statistic, but there are other flaws. Some of her editorialising made me revisit my earlier judgement that she 'writes well'. To be honest, she really doesn't in this - her airy fairy language, more suited to potboilers or tabloid newspapers begins to grate, especially alongside the better writing of the subject women.

She makes a great many unsubstantiated sweeping generalisations, some of them just silly - they worked in factories all week but it was clear they were more interested in femininity because they put lipstick on to go out on a Friday night - to the downright offensive - that women were more likely to be killed in air raids than men. That might be actually true, I can't find a gender breakdown for the 67,100 civilian casualties, but even if they were all women, they would still be outnumbered by the 382,600 military casualties, of whom all but a thousand or so were men. I understand the general point, but I actually find it utterly distasteful that, as in the first book, she seems to think that 'women had it much worse than men, who didn't suffer greatly because at least they were away doing war, boys things whilst women sometimes went short of stockings'. It's important to tell the women's side of history - vital, given how so often they are whitewashed out - but it does nobody any favours to do so by belittling men.

The class-based snobbery I mention in respect to the first book again rears its head in respect of the second book. Again, she has this middle class notion that all married women automatically didn't work. I think this was largely true of the upper middle classes, but is irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of the population. Even when she's discussing the great Labour victory, it's solely from the viewpoint of the middle and upper classes, including those who were vehemently against Labour (gosh, what  surprise) and the Oxford students who campaigned for Ian Mikardo in Reading. No mention of my aunt's ATS regiment, where only she and Rosie R in the whole regiment voted Conservative. Not that I'm specifically expecting my Aunt's ATS regiment to be mentioned, but I bet they weren't unique in the majority of ordinary women voting Labour.

Talk of my aunt brings me to another point. I knew from an early age that my aunt had been in the ATS, as had the Queen. I know of various female relatives who were in the Land Army, or doing various civil service jobs on the Lancashire coast and elsewhere. I certainly know of women affected by the Blitz and other bombings. So I was quite irritated before I even started reading this book, whose blurb states We tend to see the Second World War as a man's war, featuring Spitfire crews and brave deeds on the Normandy beaches.

Do we? I mean seriously, do we? If we're reading this sort of book, chances are we already have at least a passing interest. We have actually listened to the oral history passed down by our parents' and grandparents' generation. And unless we're stinking misogynists or completely without the power of thought, we most definitely don't think about it as a man's war.

To conclude, both these books are definitely worth reading, as anthologies of the many varied women who lived through these periods. Often, reading about the achievements of these women made me very excited and almost envious of their opportunities to spend their life pursuing a vocation (the 'Surplus' women) or a role in war that wouldn't have been a 'calling'. This is despite me knowing that as someone two or three generations younger, I had far more opportunities, partly (largely?) because of their efforts and sacrifices. Some amazing vignettes of the lives of remarkable women, some of whom I should have heard of, but hadn't, some that were little more than names, a few I did know something about already, and others who would never spend any time in the public eye but for this book. 

However, I don't think this latter book belongs on the shelves of Feminist studies, and I don't think it should be taken seriously as any sort of academic or reliable work, because of the grossly incompetent editorialising and opinionating of the author. It has caused me to add to my reading list several of the excerpted women, but I don't have much respect for the person whose name is on the cover.

Statistical Flaws

This weaknesses stemmed from her lack of proper academic or professional training in methodology. She comes from a background where it's just assumed that one becomes a writer and she does write well. But she has written a book inspired by a statistic, and it is clear, with dull thudding repetitiveness, that she has no idea about statistics or data. Her level of numerical ignorance runs so deep that she doesn't even know that she's ignorant about it, or that there is something to be ignorant about. I would hope that if a Social Scientist wrote a book about demography they would be aware of the importance of sound data and data analysis, but this writer crashes on making so many statistical faux pas that I could write a long review just by listing them. One could hope that an editor would correct them but I suspect that the editor is equally poorly educated. 

She writes from a position of middle class privilege, having done a degree in a Mickey Mouse subject at a University that selects/selected students on the basis of social class. In the acknowledgements she thanks several friends: I recognised one of the names as being one of the most crushing class based snob in today's news media.

The book is inspired by the 1921 census, which confirmed that which was already known - the large number of 'surplus women' caused by the slaughter of men in World War 1. She reports the surplus as 2 million, although that figure is never challenged. She repeats several times the nonsensical warning of the Bournemouth headmistress that only 1 in 10 of her female pupils would marry - and she proves that by citing the anecdotes of two people. She is ignorant of the basic statistical/social science concept of 'confirmation bias'. I have seen reference to that 2 million figure having been debunked, although a quick Google didn't provide for me any specific proof of the debunking. However, she made a passing reference that provided the basis of my first 'so what' question. She mentions that there was half a million surplus women before WW1, because more men than women went to work in the colonies (and other reasons, too, which she didn't mention!)

Edit: I have subsequently found an authoritative source that debunks the 2 million figure - it's closer to 1 million, so still remarkable. But the laziness in the author who wasn't capable of questioning lazy clichés really does cast doubt on the reliability of her research - Vision of Britain provides a narrative, tables and graphs on the 1921 census.

She fails to explain the composition of those 'surplus women'. I don't know from her writing how many of them were elderly widows who may have had children (and, hopefully, not lost them all in the war or flu pandemic) and grandchildren. Nor does she state how many of them were young war widows (or widows through other causes) who had children and perhaps a widow's pension - she makes one reference to the envy of the Surplus Women of war widows living comfortably on a pension.

I don't think this author, or any author, should indulge in what-iffery - ie if there hadn't been a War, how many men would have died young anyway, through industrial 'accidents', in road collisions (would car use have become more widespread more quickly?) and the numerous other non-military reasons that young men generally die in greater proportion to young women - or how many extra women survived as a result of not being the victims of domestic violence or dying in childbirth.

However, she fails to provide any substantial context. She makes fleeting reference to middle class women who worked long before World War 1, but doesn't offer any statistical analysis for context. And she offers almost no contrast with the lives of married women. She makes sweeping generalisations about married women being forced to stay at home, making a very basic mistake that 'middle class women' = all women. Almost no mention of the reality of many married working class women who weren't barred from the professions because of their gender but, as in the 19th century, continued to work at laborious menial jobs throughout pregnancy and motherhood - in factories and mills, as domestic servants or chars, taking in laundry or 'lodger children', or doing piecework in 'cottage industries' or working on the farm with their husband (and parents in law, and children).

Perhaps the figures disguised the high number of men who simply weren't marriageable - those with shell shock (and not just those in psychiatric hospitals) and also those with severe disabilities that made them unemployable or disfigurements that made them physically and sexually repulsive. She trivialises their plight in one passing mention. I infer from her general attitude throughout the book that the ones that mattered would have survived on a private income or supported by wealthy family members; the rest, although they were thrown into poverty and suffered greatly in the 1930s Depression, were non-people because they were lower middle or working class, and hadn't even gone to Oxford or Cambridge.

And this is the fatal flaw of this book - the focus on mainly middle class women, often from affluent backgrounds, many of whom went to University, and almost total ignoring working class women. Obviously, academics, senior civil servants and teachers will have left documentary evidence of their existence; many of the working class women were barely literate, or if literate, were far less likely to indulge in diary keeping and memoir writing. So, yes, the book was necessarily driven by the availability of source material, but hindered by the writer's blind ignorance of the existence and importance of data.

She fails to grasp the basic difference between 'proportion' and 'number' - a greater proportion of ex-public school junior officers were killed, so in Nicholson's mind this means that more women from that class were surplus. It's difficult for me, the casual reader, to provide hard stats on the numbers of people in various classes, especially when classes are ill defined. But in the absence of hard stats and with general knowledge gained from elsewhere, it is clear this writer has missed the point by a long way.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby

I remember seeing this book on my mother's bookshelves throughout my childhood. In my early teens I read Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth - Vera and Winifred shared a flat (and European travels and League of Nation advocacy) after University after the war. Yet I didn't read this until I was in my twenties. It's a curious thing, because I definitely remember the fact that I read it. I even remember talking about it with a colleague who - in hindsight - was a silly boy sneering that there was no such place as 'South Riding' (he had grown up in north Yorkshire and was a Bradford graduate). 

I've just finished reading it again, and it was like reading it for the first time. I can only surmise that when I read it it was mainly on train journeys with earphones and music dominating my brain. It's been done twice for TV, once before my time. But I don't understand why I didn't see the 2011 televising, especially considering the stellar cast.

About two years ago I decided to take a more strategic approach to reading and make a list of books 'To Be Read' (TBR). I then decided that life was too short to read (or re-read) 'classics' written in stilted Victoriana, and I would only read 'contemporary' fiction. It then dawned on me that even the 1990s isn't really 'contemporary'. Separately, a lifelong passing interest in the 1920s & 1930s has developed into something more profound. I decided that I must add inter-war authors, especially women, to my TBR, and not adolescently dismiss them as 'old fashioned' (or more damningly, as 'something my mother's into').

South Riding is almost the perfect book. Perhaps it's a bit long, and it could have been condensed into something shorter. But it would lose something if it were. It is a story, and it's told by conventional story-telling techniques: chronology, and the careful use of language to describe the people, the places and the time, without using language as a toy to be manipulated and inverted.

The place it tells about is the rural coastal hinterland of Hull in the 1930s. The characters are mixed, male and female, various ages (Alderman Mrs Beddowes in her 70s, Carne in his 50s, Sarah approaching 40, teenagers such as Lydia and Midge), and a great variety of classes. Class matters, partly because of economic factors, but mainly because of people's 'place'. Or perhaps I am wrong. Lydia's life is dictated by poverty, and Huggins's by being not as rich as he felt he ought to be. There is life and death, a lot of death to be honest, of various causes. 

Sarah is a wonderful character. A left wing feminist who develops an inexplicable crush on 'county set' Carne, despite him standing for everything she opposes. She's a dutiful, inspiring headteacher, yet she is subject to this to silliness. An idiot would call this a contradiction; it isn't. 

I highlighted two passages on my Kindle, one short:

When prayer becomes necessary, she thought ruefully, its futility is already proved.

and an utterly glorious oration from Sarah that I thought worth reproducing in these troubled times:

...that strangely moving hymn written by Cecil Spring Rice, ‘I vow to thee, my country.’ There’s a couplet in it I’ve been thinking about this morning:

‘The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test, That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best… .’

Don’t take that literally. Don’t let me catch any of you at any time loving anything without asking questions. Question everything-even what I’m saying now. Especially, perhaps, what I say. Question every one in authority; and see that you get sensible answers to your questions. Then, if the answers are sensible, obey the orders without protest.

Question your government’s policy, question the arms race, question the Kingsport slums, and the economies over feeding school children, and the rule that makes women have to renounce their jobs on marriage, and why the derelict areas still are derelict.

This is a great country, and we are proud of it, and it means much that is most lovable. But questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence. Vow as much love to your country as you like; serve to the death if that is necessary… .But, I implore you, do not forget to question. Lead on, girls.”

I have seen many articles and tweets in the past week where people are expressing genuine or hyped fears that the election of Trump, following the Brexit vote, is an echo of the 1930s and we should all be fearful. I have several different feelings about that. One is that, I'm tired, I can't change the big things in the world, I can't worry about them, because that worrying will make me ill. Another reaction is to say 'Oh get over yourself'. But that worries me, because I can't argue that the current times are wholly dissimilar to the rise of Hitler. Except that they're not, they're really not. Hitler gets a few mentions in this book, and the execution of a friend of Sarah's in Dachau - so even before her death in 1935 Winifred was under no illusions. And her Silver Jubilee speech above has to be read in that context.

Above all, this is a fascinating book about local government, about people - virtuous or self-serving - can change the small part of their own world. I actually used to believe that about Local Government, and still do, to some extent, at the margins. But back then, local councillors had far more scope to use their initiative, and now so much of that is in the purview of central government. Which doesn't currently feel right to me, although I know the big difference a good government such as 1945-51, 1964-1970 or 1997-2010 can bring about (all flawed, of course, but with great achievements).

I think everyone who calls themself a feminist should read this, and I defy anyone to read it and not understand why feminism is vital.

This book has never been out of print in 80 years, and has been published in many formats. But the cover that came with my Kindle version was chosen by somebody who had obviously never read it - some young blonde Victorian maiden swooning into the arms of a dashing youth - utterly irrelevant to the plot of the main protagonists!

Richmond Park in 3 seasons (not the by-election)

I started composing this a few days ago, since when a by-election has been declared in the Richmond Park constituency, so that's confusing my Googling and makes this blogpost seem either very well-timed or some weird irrelevance at the fringe of a byelection

Richmond Park is possibly one of the great wonders of the Modern World, the Jewel in the Crown of South London, of all London. When North Londoners attempt to assert their perceived superiority, they tend to say "Hampstead Heath". So those of us in South West London mutter "Richmond Park...Wimbledon Common...Wandsworth Common...Tooting Common...Clapham Common...Streatham Common...Battersea Park...Brockwell Park". South East London have their own contributions. Let's be honest, south London is one almost unbroken Green Space. The Capital Ring and London Loop take you on tour through this greenery, but between you and me they're a bit rubbish. By this I mean, they focus on going through parks and getting to the next one, when, frankly, you can spend a whole day in Richmond Park and not get bored.

I went to Richmond Park once as a child, and it rained. Jimmy and I went about four or five years ago, when I wasn't feeling too well, but needed to get out, and did some small strolls and longer drives.

But in the past year and a half we have been three times. Once in summer for what turned out to be a 7 mile walk circling the park, four miles in Spring, and a gentle stroll just after the autumnal equinox.

There are several vehicular entrances to Richmond Park, various car parks, and at least three cafés, and a bus goes into the Park on Wednesdays. It is possible to drive all round the park, or between entrances, and indeed many people use it for their commute or other local journeys (which is a slight pain when you're walking). It's very popular with cyclists - it was on the London2012 road race - and Paralympic Great wheelchair athlete David Weir trains there.But it's not difficult to get away from traffic.

On a glorious Spring Saturday it seemed busy in places - parents and small kids, dog walkers, hordes of students from (presumably) nearby Roehampton and Kingston Universities and assorted others. Yet even then, when we left the main drag, we could find isolation, and on a summer weekday we went for several consecutive minutes without any sign of human activity!

I want to show you lots of photos and not be distracted into telling you a story. If you hover over most of the photos the 'hypertext' will tell you which month (or season) it was taken in. At the bottom is a map of most of the 7 mile walk we did in June 2015. I had to change my phone battery just before we finished but you can pretty much guess what happened next.

Walking from Pembroke Lodge to the Ham Gate felt very much like walking in the wild. There was no audible traffic and we met very few people indeed. I developed an instant and passing fascinating with the sculpture of tree trunks

  

Off the beaten track led onto what seemed like a country lane passing through fields. This was more popular with walkers and cyclists but far from oppressive.

 

We passed a thicket where the rhododendrons were nearing the end of the season, and after a precarious crossing of the Beverley Brook by plank, we reached the Pen Ponds.

 

The Pen Ponds are popular with park visitors. Perhaps, if your visit to Richmond Park is only short, this might be the best place to head for. Perhaps it's heaving on a hot summer Sunday but it didn't feel oppressive on any of our visits. On our Autumn visit we parked near here and walked down to the ponds; on each occasion we used the café. It's only a café with outdoor seating but the coffee's good and it sells other light refreshments. some park cafés can be disappointing, complacent about their captive audience, but this is reasonably priced and of a good standard. 

 

   

When we visited in September we saw swans flocking, which I don't think I've seen often: ducks and geese yes, but rarely swans. They don't make for great photos but I also liked the contrast with the aeroplane. That is a definite downside of Richmond Park - the proximity of aircraft approaching or leaving Heathrow, and, I suppose, the reason for the Richmond Park byelection.

 

We also saw a skylark. We guessed what it was a by its strange behaviour of hovering ten feet or so above the gorse. On our march visit we had seen signs warning us to stay away from skylark nesting grounds. And this time we saw an interpretation board explaining 'skylarks'. Again, not a great picture, but worth it to say I saw it. In March we also saw another supposedly rare bird, the parakeet, but they are commonplace across South West London nowadays. Story is they were released after the filming of the African Queen at Isleworth, but Wikipedia notes this claim to be 'dubious'. Some people still don't know about the parakeets - I didn't until my Aunt's funeral less than years ago, when the wife of my father's old schoolfriend told me there were plenty on Tooting Common (several flew over my Aunt's burial).

 

On our March visit we walked up the hill to White Lodge and back down again to the Roehampton Gate car park. At first it seemed quite busy, but the other people just seemed to disappear

It was quite strange. Knowing that we weren't far from a densely populated area, also knowing that the park was fairly busy, and yet feeling isolated and remote. On the one hand there was a helicopter circling for the build up to a Six Nations match at Twickenham, and toy cars and tiny bikes travelled along distant Sawyers Hill. but on the other hand, we were alone, and couldn't see a human soul as we trudged through the woods and down the hill to Priory Lane.

In June, it was only after this point, as we walked downhill towards Robin Hood Gate that we began to see deer. Richmond Park is famous for its deer, red and fallow. It's rather nice. They are wild animals - frequent signs remind one of this, and warn us not to touch them or approach them especially in breeding season, and, of course, to keep dogs under control. However, you can get fairly close without breaching these rules, and they seem unperturbed by sensible humans. Here's a selection of photos from all three visits.

       

At Robin Hood gate is a stable. This leads to there being a Pegasus Crossing across the A3 at this point, to enable horses and riders to cross safely into Wimbledon Common, which lies just across the main London-Portsmouth road. Some riders also ride in Richmond Park.

When you walk from Robin Hood Gate to Roehampton Gate eventually you get to cross Beverley Brook. there's a walk, 6.5 miles, that takes you from New Malden to the Thames at Putney. Maybe I'll do it sometime soon!

The Roehampton Gate café is also worth a stop. It's the biggest car park (or perhaps Pembroke Lodge is), the café is very good, with lots of seating inside and out. It's also the place to hire bikes if you fancy a ride round the park, but not to it, and there are loos there, too. (Also some at Pembroke Lodge).

 From there we climbed up Sawyers Hill. To be honest, it wasn't my favourite part of the walk. In some ways, too desolate, but also a main road through the park. Sometimes you got views, sometimes you didn't. It's quite a strange place for views, in general. In some places, you feel you can see for miles. sometimes the views are very rural, and sometimes you're reminded that, basically, you're practically in Inner london. I took to a dislike to the blocks of flat despoiling the horizon. However, I later read a blogpost pointing out that these flats were council housing that gave relatively poor people an unrivalled view of Richmond Park. So I feel guilty for disliking them!

 

The final stretch of our long walk was to King Henry's Mound and the gardens around Pembroke Lodge. I admit to being hugely disappointing. There's supposed to be a great view from there, but as far as I could tell it's mainly of West London, Slough possibly, and planes taking off and landing at Heathrow.

The gardens are hugely disappointing, unkempt and neglected. This is supposedly maintained by the Royal Parks, and, frankly, they didn't seem to be doing it very well. I took the picture of Runnymede because the day we visited Richmond Park was the day that Royals and other VVIPs were in Runnymede to commemorate the Magna Carta being signed 800 years previously. In fact, it had been on my shortlist of destinations that day until I realised that it was a bad idea!

           

 

The House at the Edge of the World - Julia Rochester

I don't know why I listed this on my TBR, or why I bought it in a Kindle Deal. But when the time came to read it, the timing was interesting.

I read it just two nights, before and after the award of the 2016 Man Booker prize. This book had been nominated for the Bailey's Women Prize for Fiction. Media articles about the Booker prize remind me about my inherent confusion about fiction. One article asks "When does fiction becomes literature?". My answer - it's when the publisher puts it forward for a literary award.

I enjoyed this book but have no idea why it counts as 'literature'. I used to read so-called chick lit when I was younger - what differentiates this from, say, one of Marian Keyes' masterpieces? Or, given there is a mystery in this, why isn't it in 'domestic noir' - except for the lack of noir?

It's a relatively short novel, without unnecessarily flowery vocabulary or convoluted sentence structures. It's a simple chronological narrative of lives lived mundanely. It contains no abstract or conceptual thinking, and the only sexual references are alluded to, and banal enough for a young teenager.

Perhaps what qualifies it for 'non-genre' is that the characters are unlikeable. In chick lit, you have to like the main protagonist and her main love interest (eventually). In crime and psychological, even if you don't like the main characters there must be something compelling in their personalities.

The story is told from the point of view of Morwenna, who, to put it bluntly, is a bitch. She's not even an interesting bitch. Just a self-centred woman of rather limited intelligence who considers herself a cut above because she has done reasonably well academically. She yells too often, lacks diplomacy, and uses people, but not in an interesting way.

The other main characters are her twin brother Corwin, who is pompous, her mother (a suburban housewife type frustrated by living in the country), the father who falls drunk off a cliff at the start of the book, and his father, Matthew, who lives entirely within a circle of 12 miles radius. He's supposed to be interesting and enigmatic, perhaps even mystic,  but it would be difficult to find a duller individual in the whole of fiction.

That paragraph does the book a disservice. Part of its appeal lies in the fact that these people are really truly dreadful, but in a very boring non-sensational way. Narrow lives, narrow social circles, small thoughts, small experiences (even though Corwin has travelled the world as a development worker). 

The book is lightly written. Its lack of reflection and self-analysis are a strength. Things happen, in a dull way, to move the story on. There is an actual plot here, although quite a thin one. Corwin and Morwenna set out to find out what happened, but don't find themselves or anything like that. There's some mention of the supernatural, devils and even Anglicanism, but the reader knows that the writer and the protagonists don't take them seriously. Part of local folklore, which gets a mention, but isn't a main driver of the book. Just like the local topology/geography. Important to the story but resting lightly on the chronology

In some ways it's an anti-novel: dull people, living dull lives with little self-awareness, finding an answer. Not thrilling or 'cliff hanging' (except in the most literal sense!). I really enjoyed reading it and I do admire how the writer has made this so light and sparing,  when the temptation would be to introduce darkness, premonitions, disturbed minds, trauma and so on. So, quite odd, but definitely worth a read! 

 

The DI Marnie Rome series (so far) by Sarah Hilary

Early in 2015 I joined Goodreads and took a more systematic approach to my reading. I drew up a 'To Be Read' list, which now stands at over 300 authors (not books, authors) and I select the next one to read on a random number basis.

Something appealed about Someone Else's Skin; before I had chance to read it, it won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. So my expectations were set high, and it didn't disappoint. As chance would have it, my random number system suggested the sequel No Other Darkness almost immediately, and this, if anything was even better. 

That was over a year ago, and it was only this month that Episode 3 Tastes Like Fear came due for reading. 

I must admit that I had some trepidation. In the year that has passed I have read many books, especially police procedurals or domestic noir, and I would hope that I have become more discerning. I think also, one's attitude to a book can be affected by the state you're in when you read it. I took a week to read this because I kept falling asleep. Not a comment on the book; this would have happened whatever I read (the week before I was falling asleep in front of the TV and feeling wide awake at bedtime - reading time!).

As one would expect from a series there are several recurring characters, especially DI Marnie Rome and her sidekick Noah Jake. In between reading books two and three, I have read three of Marnie Riches books, and follow her on Twitter, so I now imagine that Marnie Rome looks like Marnie Riches!

At a basic level the books fulfil my requirements for well written. This covers syntax and use of language, the plot structure, and the characters, including the differentiation between characters. In series fiction, characters don't need to develop within a single episode and not all issues are resolved. Running through the series is Marnie's past - in brief, her foster brother murdered her parents. This acts as a backdrop for three very different cases and influences Marnie's attitude.

On the surface, the series counts as police procedural, although it differs from some others in this genre. You don't get an insight into forensic process,  a Shetland-like series of meandering interviews with witnesses,  the dysfunctional slapstick of Logan and Steele, or Tony Hill's insights into psychopathy.

It uses the routine investigation of unpleasant crimes to lift a lid on society - looking at domestic violence and mental illness. The third book juxtaposes the lives of teenage runaways and people on a sink estate with the current development around Battersea Power station, starkly illustrating the wealth disparities in inner London.

In all books I'm impressed by the research Sarah has put in. For the first she acknowledges Daughters of Shame, which I blogged in 2010. All books show something more than dry research, a real empathy about the social problems and those who fall victim. I read an article just this morning Crime fiction is finally getting the critical respect it deserves. The article says 

Crime fiction reveals a world far removed from the middle-class bubble many of us live in. Crime fiction is always about the outsider.

It's a fair point, but over simplified. Sarah Hilary's books are about 'normal' people, 'hard working families' and so on. Domestic violence is no respecter of class, troublesome teens can be from any background, and the perpetrators are not obviously outsiders. I live in a sort of middle class bubble, but that bubble also contains perpetrators and victims. 

There is ambiguity in all the books and in different ways. For example, in Tastes Like Fear, a victim wants to return to the man called 'Harm'. Marnie herself is ambiguous. We read about her troubled past, and I'm not entirely clear about how educated she is. DS Noah Jake is gay with Jamaican heritage and a 'bad boy' brother. You partly think he is too good to be true, but you also feel that there is a pressure waiting to erupt in his future. But the books are thankfully free of dramatic 'twists' - simply outcomes that aren't what one would predict.

The books are not excessively dramatic.  Some other series, books and TV, seem only too happy to bump off serving police officers, even though this rarely happens in Britain. Sarah's police are not mavericks with drink problems and failed marriages, although, like everyone else, they have their personal problems and psychological issues. There's a maturity in the approach to the police characters, in some ways they're quite boring, which makes than more realistic. And the perpetrators and victims are not portrayed as oddballs, making them

I do have criticisms of the book. I'm puzzled how the team manages to stretch across London - the three crimes happen in widely different areas. The third book is set in South London - Battersea and Stockwell. As an embedded Brixtonian I am hypercritical of anyone who uses my area eg I'm sure the fictional Garrett estate has to be Wandsworth, not Lambeth, and that matters to me, but probably not to almost anyone else! And, inevitably, there are certain formulae that have to go into a series - as a reader, when you know another book is due, the obligatory 'Marnie Rome is in danger' isn't frightening. 

To summarise, I would highly recommend this outstanding series. Like all series, it's worth reading them in order but, if needs must, I think you can get away with non-sequential reading. They are entertaining and engrossing and exemplify the best of crime fiction, which, for me, is the best of 'genres'. I'm drawn less to thrillers with cliffhangers and more to stories that use engaging characters and crimes to shine a light on our society. This is stronger than fiction that relies solely on one aspect:  character, plot, place or fancy words. 

I see broad similarities between the writing of Sarah Hilary and Val McDermid. I wouldn't push it too far: Val is graphic in her gruesomeness and focuses on the exceptional psychology of the perpetrator, whereas Sarah is more sociological and rather depressingly reminds us how chance can make us a victim or perhaps even a perpetrator, whilst also reminding us of the power of empathy. 

Out of the three books so far, I think that No Other Darkness  is the best, but that's entirely subjective, and, in any case, the other two are outstanding.

 

The Forgotten Daughter - Renita D'Silva

I read this last week and am still not sure what to think about it. I enjoyed reading it but yet it was a difficult read. I found it moving, but don't know whether that was because of sentimentality or something profound.

Briefly, the book centres on the lives of three women. It becomes apparent fairly early on - so I don't consider this a spoiler - that one is the mother of the other two, twins. The mother and one daughter live in India, the other twin was adopted by a British Indian couple and lives a prosperous Westernised life in England.

The book alternates chapters between the three, showing how each of the twins finds out about the other's existence, and slowly telling the story of the mother's life and how she came to give one up.

Renita D'Silva, from her photograph, appears to be of Indian heritage. Before I read this I assumed from her name that she was of Goan ancestry, although the book illustrates that the Portuguese influence in India went beyond Goa. I have been to Goa, although only on a package holiday to a beach resort so can't pretend to know much about Indian culture.

It was the close scrutiny of Indian society that I found difficult, especially the antiquated view of women's behaviour, especially as perpetuated by women. The bitchiness and judgmentalism - as I say, I know little of Indian society, but this rings true from what I have read in the Press, especially around subjects such as sexual assault, 'honour' and even access to toilets and, thus, indirectly, to education. And yet, the book is also about kindness and generosity of spirit.

So, what is the book about? It's about the lives and personalities of these three women, so I suppose if I was putting it into a genre it would be 'literary'. But there is a snobbishness inherent in 'literary fiction' that really requires its writers (and, preferably its readers) to have studied at Oxford or Cambridge, and, preferably, English Literature. I haven't studied English Literature, not even at A -Level, and certainly not at Oxbridge, so I'm not qualified to judge whether this is a good book.

But I do know that I enjoyed reading, despite (or because of?) the difficulty. The writer brought these characters to life, and wrote lovingly and evocatively about the landscape and traditions of Western India. Each of the mother's chapters started with a simple recipe for food, which is a brilliant idea, and should be included in more novels. There were weaknesses in the book: at times the dialogue was stilted - Nisha, the English twin, spoke out loud to her boyfriend using vocabulary and syntax that was surprising from a statistician, and would probably not be used by an Arts graduate except in creative writing. It was also difficult fully to accept the articulate nature of the mother's diary, seeing that she was a very poor peasant woman (and, I'm guessing, would barely be literate). But this was a legitimate literary device and not one I found irritating.

I will read more books by this author, but perhaps not any time soon. I prefer books with a plot, and with humour (however black or bleak), and, I'm afraid to say, I generally also prefer books that I can identify with: I felt frustrated by the structural sexism of Indian society. I'm sure this was the aim of the author, and it's good to address such issues, but, ultimately, I read fiction for entertainment. 

Old photos short stories: Mountains of Mojácar

I think we were away for a week, but managed two trips into the mountains. One by the local service bus to the village of Mojácar - technically we were staying at Mojácar Playa. There is a reasonably informative Wikipedia page about the area but it seems to omit plate tectonics. My half-remembered vague understanding was that an earthquake (I think - might have been a volcano) in relatively modern times had changed the topology of the land, and this seemed convincing when seeing the plains from the hilltop. The village was pleasant enough if dull, the expected range of decent eateries and tourist souvenir shops.

 

One morning we went on a 'blanket tour'. A free coach trip into the mountains (what mountains? where? I can't remember, this was 2002, I wasn't keeping a diary! Although, I've spotted Sorbas on the map and this rings a bell, so maybe it was there!). The downside was having to sit in a lecture about the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet, and an attempt to sell us merino blankets and shoe inserts - hardly an imposition, and not like the hardsell of Time-shares.

 

The Long Weekend: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918-39 by Robert Graves & Alan Hodge

I have suddenly developed a fascination with the 1920s and 1930s. Or, to put it another way, I have long had a vague passing interest in that InterWar era but have been reluctant to pursue it because of the inherent contradictions. 

This book was first published in 1940, soon after the period it covered, and has gone through several reprints, the last in 1994. Unfortunately, it is not available as an ebook, my preferred medium, and I think as we approach the century of The Peace it merits digitisation.

It really is a wholly splendid book although with numerous flaws. Very easy to read. Partly because the writing style is easy. It has been suggested that Alan Hodge did the donkey work of research and Robert Graves wrote the book. I found Goodbye To All That also very readable, and did wonder at what point the florid perambulatory Victorian prose gave way to the direct style which we use nowadays. 

It's very cleverly organised, seemingly on 24 themes, but actually, these disguise its underlying chronology. I suspect that it isn't the most authoritative and reliable source for pure facts (eg it said that Princess Elizabeth, now EIIR, was born in 1925 but I know it was 1926). But it was never intended to be an academic tome, aimed instead at the intelligent middle classes.

Some reviewers have turned their noses up at the 'bigotry' of the writers.  I tear my hair out in frustration. It's very childish to expect historical writers (Graves was born in the 19th century) to adhere to the general standard of the 21st century. You might not like it, but in days gone by, people did casually hold views that wouldn't nowadays be expressed in polite society. You have to decide: do I read books written before I was born and benefit from their richness, or do I shield myself from the possibility, not even of being offended, but being exposed to something that intellectually I think ought to offend me? For example, there is some negativity expressed by various people's actual or perceived Jewishness. In order to understand anything about the history of the 20th century, one must understand that for men like Graves, although by no means anti-Semitic, a casual derogation of Jewish people was normal, like class snobbery and underestimating the role and contribution of women. Not malicious, not even lazy, just a product of his time.

Modern History is a funny thing. When you're a child, just about anything seems a long time ago. I just about remember the early 70s, which are now longer ago than much of the period covered by this book. Much has changed in society, partly as a result of the War and partly because of the rapid rise in technology. And yet, so much is familiar about this period. The growth in motoring, leading to the mass building of roads, leading to the development of the suburbs often in ribbon developments along these roads. In the 1930s my father, then a small boy, moved with his family to Hatch End on the Metropolitan line.  I grew up in a typical boring 30s house in a dull 30s suburb. Dull and Boring but Classic. The house I lived in is replicated all over the country, and frankly, the modest suburban family home hasn't been improved on since. 

I adore the decorative arts of the era, and although I'm not particularly interested in aviation or motoring I am interested in that of this period. I've loved watching all three series of Miss Fisher' Murder Mysteries and belatedly have come to appreciate Agatha Christie's Poirot not least for its styling.

Yet this era was also one of turmoil. The northern Industrial areas were past their prime, unemployment was high, and poverty was absolute. Yet the south was prospering. This era saw the rise of Fascism, not just in Germany, Italy and Spain, but also in Britain - the 80th anniversary of Cable Street has just been commemorated. 

This era saw the rise of Leisure - largely under American influence. Cinemas, of course, but also radio, and in 1939 50,000 people had TV. Synthetic materials for industrial and domestic purposes were being developed, even the working classes were able to visit the seaside resorts and stay in holiday camps. Women were still second class citizens of course, but were making advances in the workplace. The changing attitudes to clothes enabled women to exercise - cycling, tennis and what we now call aerobics. There is a section about rambling, praising its accessibility to working class people, and the start of Youth Hostels, affordable for ordinary working people. I was appalled a few months when some of the 'select press' ran articles on the benefits of walking, and some of the usual suspects of Social Justice Warriors complained that this was patronising to working class people. Really? I thought. They don't know their history.

I think it must have been an exciting time to be alive, but unsettling and frightening, too. I was often amused at descriptions of religion: the decline in church attendance, except by those who went for reasons of social status rather than Faith, as such. 

This book is essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the era, or indeed for anyone who realises that they know too little about the birth of the modern era. I would even be prepared to lend my copy to someone I actually know, although it would strictly be a loan because I wish to re-read it in 2 or 3 years. 

Osterley Park

Armed with our National Trust membership we set out for Osterley Park. I had thought it was the rather nice green space visible from the M4 elevated section, but, on reflection, that is probably Boston Manor and the River Brent.

Osterley Park is of virtually no historic interest. The website and handbook make a very big deal of its interior being remodelled and designed by Robert Adam. But inside the house they seemed more interested in the Child Family, bankers who assumed ownership from a defaulted mortgagee. As far as I could see the Childs are of no consequence. but, trying to look at the interiors, we were harassed by volunteer guides, who simply weren't very good. 

Trying to be polite, Jimmy said of a chest 'How old is it'?

'It goes back quite a way' said the guide, and went on about how beautiful it is when opened out, containing secret passages and so on. We had to take her word for it, given that it was closed and she obviously wasn't going to open it. 

Another room was labelled as 'Mrs Child's Dressing Room'. Another guide explained to me that it was Mrs Child's Dressing Room, and that Mrs Child would entertain there while her husband went hunting. Her unambiguous tone of voice and facial expression told me:

• she gets damp thinking about the Childs
• the Childs were rich, therefore important, and thus, to be worshipped
• history boils down to studying the idleness of the rich
• all women - her, me, Mrs Child - are indistinguishable from each other and being female, love to entertain our gossipy friends indoors while husbands do manly man things

As we entered the 'Robert Adam Room' containing drawings of his work, a third guide tried to block our way and force us to look at portraits of the Child family in the corridor. Dull, grim pictures of a forgotten family, portraits commissioned largely for vanity reasons.

Between them, they managed to make me hate the place, and that was before we went to the kitchen. The rest of the house is presented as it was in the 1780s but the kitchen was clearly 20th, if not 21st Century. No labelling, so no way to make any sense of it. The Long Hall is packed with paintings with no obvious theme or connection, no labelling (subject or artist) and packed tight on the wall like posters on a teenage bedroom, some too high to be seen. 

Just to make our visit complete was a mother and toddlers, doing Conspicuous Learning in a loud voice. I think she wanted to impress us with what an interactive parent she is, but she just struck me as being one of those people who rarely sees her children - the conversation was just too stilted: parents who know their children tend to talk in half sentences and show occasional irritation. I did wonder if perhaps she was an aunt, but she was addressed as Mummy. The children were far too young to take in details. I see no harm in taking children round stately homes, but surely the experience is visual and impressionistic. I have a clear vision of the dining room at Chatsworth, visited when I was toddler, but I wasn't open to learning facts, simply seeing something that was very different from my normal environment.

Then the café was chaotic. I realise NT cafés are largely staffed by  volunteers, but they seemed untrained or collectively lacking the initiative to serve refreshments to a captive audience. My tea (Taylors of Harrogate) was very nice as was my sandwich, but my Victoria Sandwich was dry, almost stale, and didn't taste very nice, and Jimmy's Damson Shortbread had a soggy bottom.

The better part of the visit was the formal garden and meadow/woodland area. Most visitors, understandably, go in the wider parkland, which is free (except parking) - probably locals using it for a routine Saturday afternoon park trip. The garden and meadow charge admission, except of course to NT members. 

Although the formal garden was small, it was lovely, nicer than some more famous places one visits specifically for the gardens. I think the photos speak better than words.

 

 

The woodland walk was pleasant although not exciting. We pretty much had it to ourselves. One family had all but camped in a secluded clearing, making a day of it, letting the Primary School age kids run a bit wild and climb trees, not in anyway imposing on other people. Two women, mother and daughter, passed in a mobility golf cart (available to borrow on site), which struck me as a good idea. Just because one of them, for whatever reason, can't walk far, they're not going to let that prevent them 'going for a walk'.

 

We had to cut a bit off to get back out of the garden by its 5pm closing time. It does annoy me when places close at 5 in June. I'm not, therefore, demanding that they stay open later, but it does seem a shame and waste of so much open land on a glorious Saturday in midsummer. but then, on the way home, we drove across Clapham Common. There were more people crammed into the tiny triangle inside the S. Circular one-way system at Clapham South than on the whole of the rest of the Common. So perhaps people don't appreciate nice places anyway!

Dinton & Sonning

I found the Dinton walk in an AA book of walks in the South East. Three miles, easy territory and negligible inclines. Near Reading, Winnersh. It was quite a distance to go just for that, so I looked at the map and identified a riverside village to adjourn to. 

I don't know much about Winnersh, except that Audit Software is based at Winnersh Triangle. It's not actually called Audit Software, I'm quite delighted to have forgotten its real name! It took as long to get from home to Hammersmith as it did to get from Hammersmith to the wilds of Berkshire.

The car park was fairly busy but everyone seemed congregated around the café. I suspected that we would see barely anybody as we progressed. And that was broadly true.

Dinton Pastures Country Park is six artificial lakes created from the flooding of redundant quarries. I thoroughly approve of that. I often see on TV how Nature has reclaimed old mine works and just recently saw two different TV programmes showing the greening of landfill sites - Mucking Landfill in Essex and  Fresh Kills landfill site on Staten Island. 

 

Unfortunately, Dinton Pastures was exceptionally boring. Six lakes bordered by thick vegetation with few gaps. The paths were manufactured and maintained. There were boasts of wildlife trails, but the wildlife was mainly wildfowl on some lakes, and at that time of year, dragon flies, which I determined to photograph but failed. A manicured and sanitised version of nature, but even though it kept people well within their comfort zone, there weren't many people. Jimmy didn't think it was a place for children, but I thought - if people can't do anything more adventurous, it might expand the horizons of small children, developing their senses, and looking beyond an enclosed space.

 

We were sat on a bench minding our own business. A couple of dog walkers, women in their 30s, walked past. The dog came over and mounted onto Jimmy's knees. Calmly and politely I asked the women how they would feel if we went and touched them up, or got into their personal space and behaved in an intimidating manner. They looked genuinely shocked, as if it had never occurred to them that not everyone wants to be pestered by dogs. Now, Jimmy quite likes dog, having had dogs in the past, but he disapproves of stupid dog owners who can't control their pets and let them pester total strangers. 

 

Next stop was the village I found on the internet. I had found a three mile circular, but I didn't fancy walking through fields. Still, a mile or more along the river was an enticing prospect.

A lovely village with some seriously twee houses. But very congested, with vehicles waiting for the traffic lights to go over a single track humped back bridge. Somewhat lost, we followed the queue, but realised we were heading into Oxfordshire, so we pulled over onto an island midstream. We turned round in the driveway of a house that had big intimidating 'Private No Parking' signs. But we were only turning, I hoped they wouldn't mind.

Finally we found somewhere to park and walked past a house called Turpins. Famous highway robber Dick Turpin had lived there with his aunt. 

Ancient church, interesting and yet boring, nice churchyard, planted with trees and bushes.

Then we walked onto the river towpath and turned right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Past a hotel that was closed for refurbishment. Next door was a house with a large garden, CCTV etc. Somehow we got chatting to a slightly strange couple moored outside this house. They were saying 'He usually comes out and says hello'. We nodded and smiled, and I later found out via Google and Wikipedia that this was Uri Geller's house. I believe he has since put it up for sale.

After  a pleasant stroll eastwards, we turned and went west, to a delightful tea garden at Sonning Lock. We got there just in time before closing, and it was very nice to sit in a sun baked garden drinking fairly decent tea and eating lusciously fresh Victoria Sponge.

While we were in the tea garden, I looked up the village on the internet. I discovered that the house whose drive we had turned round in is owned by George and Amal Clooney. Yeah, that actually happens in real life, you get lost and end up at George Clooney's house!

Reportedly other local residents include Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) and Glenn Hoddle. The local MP also lives in the village. At the time, Theresa May was Home Secretary and I had only just left the Home Office, so I got a slight anxiety attack remembering our various bizarre encounters in the recent past. She's subsequently gone onto higher office. I haven't. But when Amal Clooney was, rightly, criticising the government's awful attitude to refugee children I did wonder if she and Theresa couldn't just meet down the tea garden at Sonning Lock and sort it out.

Sonning Lock is a particularly pretty lock and we had caught the loveliness of a beautiful late afternoon in mid-June. Perfect temperatures of low-to-mid twenties, brilliant sun shining onto a peaceful riverside location.

We finished off the day in The Bull Inn, a gorgeous pub, somewhat strangely owned by the church. I don't know why we didn't stay for dinner because it looked okay. Still, it was very lovely sitting outside, even though the beer courtyard doubles as a car park. I will always remember those few lovely hours spent in this village. Obviously, I'd never afford to live there (and if I won the Lottery and could afford to, I still probably wouldn't) but it really is very nice to visit. 

Bit of a nightmare journey back having to crawl along the M4 and A4 and feeling very frustrated. But that's the downside of going out!

I saw this at Dinton. Supposedly a birdwatching hide, erected by some corporate 'day out' venture. I'm no bird watcher but it's pretty useless. No shelter from the rain, and if you're my height, 5'2"  you can't actually reach to see out

Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain

No book - or other creative work by someone else has ever 'changed my life'. However, this book has twice had a deep influence on me. I first read it at the age of 13, having seen the second half of the serialisation on the TV. I started reading it again at Christmas 2014, in acknowledgement of the centenary of the First World War. 

It wasn't the first book for adults that I read, but it was the first book that was so difficult to read - and satisfactory because of that. As an aside, I will admit to skipping most of the poetry. WW1 inspired a lot of poetry, but, in my opinion, very little can match even mediocre prose. But this is typical of me. Although I like some poems, I'm not a fan of Poetry, and rarely find poems that move me as much as prose.

The basic synopsis is well known. Vera's father was self-made and clearly comfortably off - she and her brother both went to boarding school. When War was declared, her brother and his friends, being dutiful public school boys, signed up for military service. She deferred her studies at Oxford and signed up for the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), unpaid nursing assistants. She served in London, at a hospital opened in a school building, as an extension of King's College Hospital, and in France and Greece. Her brother, his friend and her fiancé Roland and other good friends were killed in military service

The meat of the novel lies in her vivid eye witness accounts of this service. Although she never saw fighting conditions first hand, she saw the aftermath and impact in the military hospitals, and she was deeply affected by the deaths of so many men of her exact generation. She also had battles on the Home Front - for example, being summoned home from her war work by parents failing to cope with the departure of servants, which did strike me as being extraordinarily selfish.

Several things permeate this book, most of all melancholy and depression. Nothing I have read or seen since conveys so powerfully the lack of hope, the futility. And afterwards, her disinclination to celebrate the Armistice, and when she eventually went to University, her conflict with younger students who wanted to forget all about the War. It was interesting reading about her and Winifred Holtby. They shared a flat together in Fitzrovia, which, I suspect would not have been allowed before the War. Vera toured around speaking on behalf of the League of Nations society. I find this startling. 

I can see why someone like Vera would see such a desperate need for peace, and at the time, the League of Nations was seen as the greatest hope. But even though I have been an activist in the past - and acknowledging my benefit of hindsight - I don't see how earnest meetings in Village Halls could have made the slightest difference to what transpired in the Thirties (this was published in 1933).

She and Winifred visited Germany in the aftermath of War and Reconstruction, and I would have liked to read more about this (I have subsequently read Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, a very readable account of his travels through Netherlands, Germany and Austria and in 1934.

I realised reading this last year that Vera's writing style had deeply influenced my own teenage diaries. I was less influenced by her fight for Higher Education. She was born in 1893. My Great Aunts were born in 1888 and 1894 and studied at Newnham College Cambridge and fulfilled all the requirements to graduate, except one. Cambridge forbade women to graduate until 1948, whereas Nottingham admitted women on the same basis as men right from its start in 1881 as a University College of London University. Vera Brittain was part of the campaign for Oxford to award women degrees, in 1920.

I went to a girls' school in the 1980s that was very keen on preparing pupils for University, or, as it was then, Polytechnics and colleges of higher education. It was implicit that by going to University you were giving yourself an advantage in the job market. Many of my school contemporaries are now successful in the professions and business. It was only because of obituaries three years ago that I discovered that one classmate had become a Professor. Like the few University friends who undertook postgraduate studies, the focus was on applied science.

Vera was different. Her aim of going to University was to enter the Academy. As it happened, by being a writer she applied her skills. But I have to confess to being puzzled by this desire to perpetuate academia, as if it were an end in itself. I'm not phrasing this well, because I know numerous people who teach in schools, and some that teach in Higher Education, and those institutions and young people would fail without them. And many people carry out research with more freedom and effectiveness in Universities than they would in industry. Perhaps it's my prejudice against English Literature (the subject she studied in 1914/15, switching to History after the War). I should also acknowledge that Vera's struggles even to be admitted to University and for women like her to be awarded degrees, is not something that my generation experienced directly. But I've seen this in other books - the desire to go to University in order to spend your life at University, when, even then, there was a whole world out there to discover - as Vera did.

I don't think that the 1979 BBC2 serialisation has ever been repeated. I am still waiting for the 2014 film to appear on TV (It's available to 'buy and keep' from Sky but not to rent, let alone to watch 'free' as part of my expensive package).

 

Old photos, short stories - Mojácar

Oddly, my first ever visit to Spain wasn't until 2002. I had had my digital camera for over a year but was still thinking like an analogue photographer. Only the previous week I had taken delivery of a new PC - Windows 2000, I think -  to replace the one that had been running on Windows 95. I could find no photo editing programme that worked with Windows 95, and the PC didn't have the facility to burn CDs for back up.

Many of the photos I took were of Jimmy (or he took of me) working our way round the bars, restaurants and ice cream parlours of Mojácar, in Almería, south east Spain We went on two excursions into the mountains, and also to Granada, which I shall blog in due course. But we spent most of the time round and about the town.

We stayed in a lovely apartment block. Although we had only booked a double room we had a two bedroomed suite (no photos), and the complex included a few shops, a bar and a swimming pool (didn't use it). We had arrived late at night and the tour rep had suggested we turned right to find an English pub that served food. We turned left to find a Spanish place where I remember getting a filling & delicious fish soup. I later discovered that the English pub was much more of a walk, and would have stopped serving food by the time we arrived!

Unfortunately, we had the worst possible neighbours, an extended Irish family. We often spotted them round the complex, or around town, the adults palatic by lunchtime, the kids bored stupid and running around inside when every other kid in town was down on the beach. We were there during the World Cup, broadcast during the day from Japan and South Korea. When England were playing, the hotel laid on a big screen, and face painting for the kids, and this lot were pushing their way to the front, demanding Irish flags. At night they were noisy - but fortunately, we were generally drunk, so slept through all but the worst of their fighting. They left before us, and we had a peek into their apartment where the chamber maids had a Herculean task of restoring what was a wreck!

A pity, because there were several other parties we met from time to time to have pleasant inconsequential chats with, and they, like us, had deliberately chosen a resort that was less lary than some of the better known places.

We also ventured to the nearby fishing village of Garrucha a couple of times. Slightly bizarrely, when we were enjoying coffee in a pavement café we realised that the bloke at the next table lived on our road. He was waiting for his girlfriend - they had taken a year out to live over there, but were planning to return to Brixton. I never saw them again, so I guess they liked it so much they stayed.

Follow Me - Angela Clarke

I've been on Twitter almost 10 years and blogging for over 14, and see 'social media' as an integral part of my life. It surprises me that internet use is peripheral in most contemporary novels. Perhaps deliberately, because there's something quite odd reading a tech-heavy book from the Noughties, or even worse, the Nineties, that's all a bit ooh gosh. Funny that other technologies, such as cars or household appliances, seem 'period' rather than 'dated'.

Angela Clarke's debut novel is entirely driven by Twitter. The blurb says:

The ‘Hashtag Murderer’ posts chilling cryptic clues online, pointing to their next target. Taunting the police. Enthralling the press. Capturing the public’s imagination.

It's not my role to give a precis of the plot, suffice to say that this is a police procedural where the police get several leads from the killer's tweets. 

The main protagonist is Freddie, a  sort of journalist (gigging free for a thinly disguised Daily Liar) and looking for that big break, that scoop. She ends up as Social Media Adviser to the murder investigation team. That part is a little contrived, and, in my opinion, unlikely - or unlikely to have happened so swiftly, without bureaucracy. But I'm happy to forgive this because it sets the reader up for a stupendous novel.

When I like a book so much I  am happy to give it five stars (out of five) I also try to find reasons to criticise it. (Conversely, I try to lavish praise where it's due on 2 and 3 star reviews). But it's actually very difficult to find reasons to criticise this.

There's a Thing in the past of Freddie and Sergeant Nas. They used to be BFFs and then this Thing happened. I find that vaguely irritating, but it seems to be a current fashion, perhaps forced onto writers by box ticking commissioning editors. It was a bit superfluous, perhaps it would have been enough to say they had drifted apart - Nas being sent to a different school. The thing is, you start to imagine the worst, like slaughter of all the first born in Hertfordshire (spoiler, they didn't do that), so the reveal is always going to be an anti-climax.

I'm a bit sceptical that Nas is already a Detective Sergeant at 23. I assumed for a while she had joined the police at 18, but, no, she had been to York University (and Freddie to Loughborough - marvellous invoking of universities that aren't the usual timeworn clichés). But this is minor nit-picking!

Otherwise the book is just perfect. The pacing is excellent. People often give the highest praise to a book with the cliché 'I couldn't put it down'. But I was enjoying this so much I wanted to put it down, to rest in between episodes, to get a sense of reading it in real time. We had some strong characterisation. Freddie was the leading character and the book was largely from her point of view. Not especially likeable, but very real. Mouthy and rash, we were also privy to her vulnerability and fear. Some very minor characters - such as the woman who provides the breakthrough by phoning the incident room - came to life, however briefly, which is a special writing talent. There were several police personnel where I was confused about my feelings  - were they good cop or bad cop? - until I realised that that's how we mainly feel about people who flit through our working life.

Great plot, excellent resolution. Arguably a 'twist' but not one that clunkily announed itself 'here comes the twist'. It was actually hinted at early on, but I disregarded the hint because the author didn't make a big deal of it - as the police didn't, either!

Some people might not  like the sordid casual sex. It amazes me that some people are content to read murder novels, often with gruesome post mortem descriptions, and always perpetrated by someone on the wrong side of morality, but the slightest hint of consenting adult sex gives them the screaming heebie jeebies and leaves them running for the hills. When they have the vapours in GoodReads or Amazon reviews, I wonder if it's a subconscious attempt to pressure the author into leaving out sex.

I want to say to all authors - keep it in! Your readership is mostly adult and can formulate their own views. I didn't get aroused by the sex, nor did I wish to emulate it, but I did feel that it was an honest look at the life of a random millennial (rather like the lives of random Gen X 25 years ago!).

A very contemporary novel - set less than a year ago. I don't know how it will age, but right now, I'll say read it for the whodunnit and some strong engaging personalities. It captures perfectly the zeitgeist of 2015 - which leaves me to wonder how authors will reflect the malfunction that is 2016!

Murder on the Links - Agatha Christie

I have read a lot of books in the past 21 months, and posted reviews of them to GoodReads. Which is daft, because my blog should be the prime place for my writing.

Like most people I have seen  many dramatisations of Agatha Christie on the TV, which is perhaps why I didn't read her books. I read some Dorothy L Sayers when young but never Agatha. Perhaps I felt I would read them when I became old.

She wrote about 60 books; assuming I live another 30 years, I'd have to read at least two a year. Not overly ambitious. Daft not to. I currently find crime fiction to be my preferred genre. The best tells us more about society and human nature  than any other genre. The not-so-good is still reasonably entertaining.

Separately, I'm developing my interest in 1920s/1930s history. I'll no doubt write more about this in due course. The political history is interesting and important, but the more I think about it, the more I feel that the end of the First World War was the start of the current era. From urban development to motoring, to some small level of female emancipation to relative prosperity for the middle classes (albeit amidst the poverty for those in industrial areas already bring run down by globalisation). No, no, this is too simplistic. And that is the fascination of that period, Prosperity and the Great Depression, an amazing art form, Art Deco - not actually coined until the 60s but now universally understood - and fascism. Contradictions.

I've not actually seen many of the TV episodes of Poirot. Life getting in the way of TV (Marple was different, being shown mainly at Christmas). But I have seen this one and didn't think much of it. And, I have to say, I don't think much of the book, either.

Agatha Christie is the world's best ever selling novelist. There comes a point with 'great' or 'popular' where it looks stupid to criticise them, at least in generality. For a start, nobody wants to know. So I draft my criticism of this book carefully. 

It was her third, and her second Poirot. Looking at GoodReads, I'm struck by how many readers say, having read many more of hers, this really isn't the best. I'm encouraged by this, because I found it less than memorable. I wonder, if I had read it in 1923, would I have persevered with further publications? Fear of missing out is a bad reason to read a book. On the other hand, it's worth listening to the voices of experience, a luxury we have today in respect of Agatha Christie.

No point me regurgitating the plot - don't you hate it when reviewers do this! But, you know, there were murders.

I don't especially like the character of Hastings. From the distance of over 90 years, he seems like a caricature of a stereotype of the posh but dim type. Clever enough to fit in into his social echelon, and competent at knowing facts and so on. But never trained to think analytically or laterally, a great failing of many British men, and not only of that era. I enjoy Hugh Fraser's portrayal on the TV, playing him absolutely straight as an upper-middle class man educated beyond his intelligence.

More particularly I don't like the structure she adopts in this book. I believe it doesn't feature in most of them - of Hastings narrating a tale. What this boils down to is lots of reported speech - or Hastings telling us what Poirot told him. It gets a bit tedious and makes Poirot seem several steps removed. It also means a lot of dialogue. I think, but can't be sure, that books of this era featured a great deal more dialogue than those of our era. But nowadays, great advice on writing is 'show not tell', and this has Poirot doing a great deal of telling.

Series have the advantage of being able to show character development gradually over time, and a reader coming to this in 1923 would be learning about Poirot. I think we 'all' know a great deal about Poirot now. And i suspect that he will be forever David Suchet's interpretation - which is brilliant and inimitable. But it does mean that I, as a middle-aged woman in 2016, am coming to this book with preconceptions which would not have existed for my equivalent in the inter-war years. 

I'm currently working my way through ITV's dramatisations - I've just finished Series 1. Above all, and notwithstanding the brilliance of Agatha Christie and David Suchet, I love most of all the visual art. Some lingering camera shots just for their aesthetic value. Use of period buildings and cars, and the exquisite interiors. I even like that the clothes are not high fashion but have convinced me that they are what prosperous people wore then.

To conclude, not a great book, but one that needs to be read in my attempt to read all of Agatha christie over my remaining decades.

Pyrford and the River Wey

This was another walk suggested by the AA and one I think I would recommend. Pyrford lies just off the A3, using the same junction one uses for Wisley, which I blogged about last year. I like the A3, even though it gets congested in the parts near to me - Clapham, Battersea, Wandsworth and into Putney. But as it progresses through the outer suburbs, Kingston by-pass and out into Surrey becoming a motorway-standard trunk road, it retains a whiff of romance, some evocation of the interwar years when the road network was being improved and motoring was everybody's dream and many people's pleasure.

I love the 1930s architecture, mundane though most of it is, that we pass, even though I could write long essays about how damaging these roads are, ploughing their way through residential areas, and that now all urban planning seems to revolve around the motor car, and that's before I even touch on pollution. But there's a stage in the journey, around New Malden and Tolworth where in my imagination I'm back in that Golden Age of Motoring. 

Pyrford is only just outside London, but very much in Surrey, a suburb of Woking. It's a highly desirable area to live, with house prices that reflect that. But it's free to visit! 

As deserted rural churches go, St Nicholas was pretty interesting. Mainly because it dates from 1140 and has frescos also from about that age, which were uncovered relatively recently.

     

Nice little churchyard, too. I've developed a habit of taking photos of War Memorials in most villages I visit.

 

There was a larger graveyard across the road, with the graves tended by a woman, in what struck me as an act of futility. Probably most of the relatives don't specifically request it, and I suspect that the time spent on the dead is time not spent on the living. Will anyone miss her and tend her grave when she is gone? Not that it's any concern of mine of course!

Our walk took us across fields and through a small wood. Sun beating down, leeks growing, electricity pylons and lines strung across the fields. And no one to be seen.

 

Despite the path being well way-marked by Surrey County Council we took a wrong turn from our AA route and started walking in the wrong direction through an opulent residential development. We almost bumped into some other human beings but when they saw us coming they hurried into their driveway. An odd area, deserted and zombified. There's actually a lot of history around Pyrford but their village website, pleasantly boastful in a likeable small town way, tells of how they have deliberately and systematically destroyed their historic village - the village green is now incorporated in a golf course. 

The footpath crosses - and pre-dates - the golf course, but the waymarking signs have been vandalised. An ugly place, a desecration of nature - mown grass, no flowers or productive plants. Trees planted under sufferance in a straight line, and the path through a small copse is criminally neglected. It takes you onto a footway-less road called Lock Lane, rather than the logical destination, Pyrford Lock. And all this for all of six people!

We ate lunch in the beer garden of The Anchor Pub at Pyrford Lock. Very pleasant. The fish and chips were decent enough, but that interlude beside the river is how you imagine lazy sunny days to be. Maybe you want to spend more time in riverside pubs on sunny days but, in the end, you don't because everyone else has the same idea and they're often too packed. But this was nice.

 

We walked along the river, which is a lot more difficult after a big plate of fish and chips and a pint of cider! Relatively little river traffic and many boats moored. Too many of them looking as if they  haven't been used in a long while. Do people buy boats and just abandon them when the novelty wears off?

 

We passed a house with its own riverside access, with landing and mooring. That's something I've always quite fancied in a passive way ie not really, but it sparkles the imagination.

 

Onto the next lock, Walsham Gates, which was really quite lovely. At this point in my life (little over a year ago) I didn't know how locks were constructed. I now know that locks are generally accompanied by a weir, to enable the water levels to be managed.

    

We were passed on the towpath by several serious cyclists. I only realised later that Pyrford was on the route of the Olympic road race in 2012, but I don't recall them going along the towpath! An elderly woman was sitting reading on a folding chair on the riverbank next to her moored-up narrowboat. Other than them, barely a soul. I did realise our walk was coming to an end when I spotted casual strollers, proof we were barely 100 metres from the car park. A man in normal clothes leaning on his bike on the riverbank, drinking from a can of lager, a family group including 70ish grandma, a toddler and a dog.

The remaining stretch of the river might qualify for my 'happy place'. Perhaps it was a trick of the sunlight, reflecting on the yellow fields. Perhaps because there were several elements that contributed to an English idyll: riverbanks not reinforced against flooding, meadows, a lone kayaker silently gliding by, geese in a field and a ruined Priory. We all know, at least vaguely, how the monasteries were sacked by Henry VIII. Perhaps stranger is how the ruins have been left slowly disintegrating but by no means destroyed for 450 years.

       

 

 

A day out in Dorney

It was supposed to be so simple - follow the AA's instructions and have a gentle partly-riverside walk not far from London. A vague recollection in the area of the Slough parishes I audited half a lifetime ago, and a distant view of Windsor castle. An accidental trip the into the neighbouring Berkshire village of Eton Wick before we sussed out where the car park is - hidden, difficult to find, not well-used, and free!

It was almost the epitome of a lovely English summer's day as we crossed Dorney Common. Blue skies, fluffy white clouds, warm but not uncomfortably hot. Not as beautiful as the commons local to me but picturesque in a bleak way. Some of the houses near the common were worth a second glance.

 

    

Going into the village pub was a mistake. In hindsight, it wasn't entirely their fault, for reasons that will become apparent. The place was absolutely heaving and chaotic, understaffed and with no apparent system - and it was an hour from arrival to when we got our food, which wasn't really worth the wait, to be honest, rather overpriced for indifferent grub, eatable but bland.

However, in their defence, there was an event nearby, call the Colour Obstacle Rush. Apparently, you run a short distance and get powder paint thrown over you, which, apparently, is a great day out. Okay, I can see the attraction, sort of, but it was very badly organised. As far as I could tell, they had suggested that participants go to the pub for food but had forgot to tell the pub to expect them.

We followed a sign to a "12th century church" but I think it was probably 17th century, at the earliest, built on a previously used site.

 

From there, following the AA instructions we walked up to Eton Dorney lake, in order to gain access to the Thames Path. But access was blocked, by the Colour Obstacle Rush. It seemed a truly ghastly event - low rent formulaic dance music blaring out at ear bleeding volume, a paltry selection of dismal stalls, and a huge number of people, clearly non-participants, just hanging around. Oh and a snotty scraggy steward, who was very rude when she officiously informed us that access to the river was closed. Oh thank you for your ever-so-helpful but non-existent signs on the main road. But, apparently, we could walk down the lake and access the river from there. But, she added, it's two kilometres and the look on her face was 'but I doubt you're up to that unlike my bunch of jogsters'. One of those sad bitches who's 'into' sport but isn't any good at it, so hangs around organising 'events' and insulting people who aren't interested in her particular inane activity.

I tell you, Eton Dorney lake is the most boring 2 km imaginable. A taxpayer gift to the hugely over-privileged boys of Eton College, used for just a few days for the Olympics, desecrating the countryside, and blocking access to the Thames Path. We trogged along the path behind some sad specimens of humanity eg two blokes who had brought their toddler out and said toddler was now fractious. Who seriously thinks that low rent loud dance music is a great day out for a toddler?

 

God, that walk was boring. I wouldn't have minded if there had been some rowing action taking place, no such luck. No wildlife around the lake just managed grass and concrete. I did see two ducks but they were obviously lost. So boring. I cannot emphasise how boring that was. Really really really boring. 

Eventually, after what seemed like several days' hard trudging, we reached the top of Lake Boring. If we had known from the start that we couldn't have accessed the Thames Path near the village we would have walked there and back from this point, which was just yards from where we parked the car. But I calculated that 'there and back' would be another 6km at least, I really couldn't be bothered.

Instead we walked down to Boveney Lock and sat there a while. A busy lock, controlled by a lock keeper, and with boats queuing to enter from each side, able to take four boats at a time. On a hot Sunday afternoon in June, there is no shortage of entertainment at a lock. They take time to get through, might as well relax, put the kettle on even.

When people have come from the higher part of the river, they hop out of the boat onto the lockside. The water level falls, the boat sinks down the lock, and the people realise they have quite a long jump, onto a boat that isn't securely rooted!

Not in my nature to laugh, not at all - rather them than me, though!

Between the lock and the car park was a little chapel. I'm not into religion at all, but regard churches as a useful repository of social history, usually the only accessible one in most locations. So I was interested in the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, and that it served the bargemen and other river workers when there was a wharf nearby (can't be having that sort in the standard village church, what). I noticed a sign advertising The Friends of Friendless Churches. I'm not sure what to think. The country is over-provided with churches, and the need to preserve them in aspic hinders progress. But not all progress is positive, and I'm not sure which historic, medieval churches I would propose to demolish.

Before lunch

 

and after, along Lake Boring

Dining at The Exhibition Rooms

I have decidedly mixed feelings about the Exhibition Rooms on Westow Hill in 'Crystal Palace'. On the one hand, their food is almost invariably of a high quality. On the other hand, there are aspects of the restaurant that make me reluctant to recommend it, and reluctant to go there more often than I do. I have written before about unpleasant encounters, and, in fairness, these can happen anywhere and can be resolved.

But there are little things you notice. On one occasion I went to the downstairs loos and found that not one of the three cubicles contained any loo paper. So I went to the downstairs 'disabled' loo instead. This didn't affect me, but I noticed that it was also used as a storage for high chairs, a ladder and all sorts, and I doubt whether anyone in a wheelchair could have actually got in.

 

We had surly service on Christmas Eve. It was clear that the wait staff wanted to be anywhere else but at work. On one level I can sympathise, on another level, I wanted to remind her that we were paying a great deal of money and she was being paid to work, partly out of our money. Just little things, like rushing to take a wine order before we'd even seen the menu (not a drinks order, understandable, which we'd already declined by saying we'll just have wine with the meal).

 

Even stupid things like, they have a coat rack, but they sit people directly underneath it, which feels odd when you're retrieving your coat and twatting someone in the face as they're trying to eat. I don't especially want my winter coat trailing on the floor, but, more to the point, I knew where I was sitting was a route for the staff to and from the bar and my coat was a trip hazard.

 

Ah, but the food! A really nice menu, generally, and I have liked every single dish I have ever been served there. By 'like' I mean, 'like a lot'. Good quality fresh ingredients, served in imaginative ways without being outrageous or too novel. sometimes the presentation is less than perfect, as if someone knows what they want but haven't quite got the eye. But I don't mind, because it's never messy and always tasty.

Foodwise, it's verging into 'fine dining territory'. But the lack of attention to detail at the 'customer interface' disappoints me. The lighting is about right for atmospheric dining but not great for food photography!

 

Sissinghurst

We visited Sissinghurst in June last year. The time when the delicate pastels of Spring transform into the brilliance of summer. Owned by the National Trust (so free entrance for members), lying in a triangle between Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone and Ashford.

It's almost impossible to read anything about Sissinghurst without mention of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson, who nowadays are primarily famous for creating this world famous garden. Much like the film Elvira Madigan being largely famous for featuring the much more famous Andante from Mozart's 21st piano concerto. 

 

It was the first time I have been down the A21, and the first time I have noticed a strange thing - that on the Greater London-Kent border, the A21 is also the M25. So one minute you're ambling down an A road albeit a motorway standard trunk, and the next moment you're on Britain's busiest motorway, with very little warning or preparation, confronted by the most aggressive drivers in existence.

Also, it was the first time I properly realised that Kent is hilly. For some reason I had thought that Kent was flat, but it's dominated by the Weald Forest Ridge, ancient heathland forests that remind one that Kent is more than just the hinterland of London. Off the trunk road, along the typical rural winding single carriageway A road, you notice Oast houses or modern buildings that mimic that vernacular style. Sissinghurst is poorly signed. A few days before writing this post I repeated a good deal of the journey, to Hastings, and didn't see one brown sign for the place, although I saw plenty for equal and lesser visitor attractions. Even in the village of Sissinghurst, it's not entirely clear where the castle is.

   

Of course, the main reason to visit a world famous garden is to look at the beautiful flowers and how the garden is laid out. The garden is laid out in a series of 'rooms' which apparently was quite innovative when they initially designed it, but seems quite commonplace to me now. The formal gardens are quite small and you can see everything you want to in less than hour. 

 

The car park was very full, with the overflow in operation, and I expected the gardens to be heaving on this gloriously sunny, bright warm day. Although busy, they were not unbearably so. Perhaps some people were inside in the exhibition about people I'm not frightfully interested in. I suspected it would be quite sanitised, anyway, because, apart from creating Sissinghurst, their main claim to fame was an open marriage and Vita's affair with Virginia Woolf.

    

It seems people go to NT places mainly to eat. Quite perplexing! We'd brought a packed lunch, and stopped at a Wild Bean Café petrol station for much better coffee than the National Trust could ever offer.

Trips to these visitor attractions are such a great opportunity for observing the bizarre behaviours of the middle-middle classes. That started in the pebbles-in-dusty-gravel car park, where people sat on deckchairs to eat their sandwiches, eschewing the large green central and free picnic area provided for visitors.

  

On arrival, you are given a free leaflet with a map of the grounds, both the formal gardens and a choice of walks around the Estate - a basic one mile walk, which you could extend to three miles. Hardly taxing for most people, I would have thought. Walking to the lake we were overtaken by one couple, and encountered another couple on their way back. Beside the lake, I saw two more couples and a lone dog-walker. And that was it!

A heaving car park, busy gardens, and a whole eleven people venturing beyond the boundaries of safe, curated, structured. The rest compliant and biddable, doing what they imagine an Authority is telling them to do, scared of their own shadows and of the Great Uncertainty in the fields and copses of South East England.

One shouldn't generalise, of course, but it struck me that the fittest most robust person I saw was a woman in her fifties, walking with a stick, looking perhaps as if she was awaiting a hip replacement. One can sympathise as to why she and her friend didn't venture far, but she looked more lively than just about everyone else, who mainly looked dead from the neck down (that's not ageist - many of them were younger than me and hip woman, and most of them were younger than Jimmy. This wasn't a Pensioners' Special,as you would normally expect on weekdays at gardens).

 

I expect some of them sincerely believe that their slow shuffling walk around the gardens is moderate exercise, and pride themselves on how they get out and stay active. I was also surprised - shocked even - by the absence of Mindfulness. I would not be surprised if many of those people have spent money and time in Mindfulness classes and apps, but spectacularly failed to apply the lessons. Snippets of conversations overheard, strands of life - children issues, conspicuous consumption, fashion, holidays, anything but the bloody plants in the flaming garden!

A group stood in the herb garden, at a junction of two major paths, effectively blocking access to a quarter of the garden, nattering inanely about owt and nowt. When I said 'excuse me', they barely moved, and grudgingly, and I had to twice squeeze past them. No one else ventured into that quarter of the garden, because of fear of these Ghastlies who lacked awareness of their surroundings and other people. "Some people! So rude!" I exclaimed to Jimmy, slightly louder than necessary!

The walk down to the lake was almost the quintessential summer's day, and so tranquil. Only us and nine other people, all of them wanting solitude and quiet. Grass gone to seed, buttercups in the meadows, lambs gambolling in the afternoon sun, and this all to ourselves.

 

On the way back I noticed two things. Just near the long term roadworks outside Tonbridge, I watched a police van slowly reverse into another vehicle. No damage done, but lots of drama as they manoeuvred to park and exchange details. On the south circular, I spotted a woman probably coming home form work, wearing black woolly tights, a reminder of being back in London, where people have appalling body thermostats and lack the ability to regulate temperature.

A really nice day out. I haven't written much about the plants, but I hope you enjoy the photographs, just a a selection from many more which are in my Sussex photo album. I have tried to identify at least some of the flowers, but it's partly guesswork. If you know better, please say so in the comments.

 

Old photos, short stories: Nottingham University Campus

Ultimately, I chose my University because its campus looked lovely in snow. It snowed on my Open Day and I was smitten. It wasn't that great a department for my subject (Politics). Staid, small and right wing, focusing almost exclusively on Western Europe and the USA, with just Soviet & Eastern European Politics outside that (I did that module in 1987-88 but deferred the exam until 1989, thinking that not much would change in the interim, oh woe!)

Recently I had a chat with a friend who attended Durham University at about the same time, and admitted that she still hasn't been in Durham Cathedral. We agreed that we wasted our student years. I went into Nottingham often enough, for entertainment, shopping, drinking, transit, but never went to the Trent (except to cross it on the way to Nottingham Forest's ground). And, given I was living on such a glorious out-of-town campus, I feel ashamed at how little advantage I took of it. Walks, if not to lectures, tutorials or the library were to the Portland building or to other Halls. Occasional boating expeditions on the glorious lake. I suspect that I 'went for a walk' less than half a dozen times and probably only twice on my own. 

        

 

I still haven't found a boating lake to match the one at University Park. It felt like an adventure, rowing beyond and around the island, the full length. One day there was a Midsummer's Day rock festival; out on the lake in a rowing boat was a splendid way to enjoy part of it.

          
 

I took fewer photos then than now - constrained by the cost of film and developing. And most of my photos were, rightly, of the people I spent my time with. Even so, I am shocked at how few photos I took of campus on my three years there (2 in Hall, one living in Dunkirk, just a stone's throw away). And these are the best of them.

 

Rye Harbour to Winchelsea walk

I was inspired for this walk by an AA book of walks in South East England, which, coincidentally, I bought in Rye a few years ago - photos in my Sussex photo album. The walk is available on line. I would rate it as 'mixed' - although advertised as a circular, it's essentially there and back, although on parallel paths. 

 

 

 

 

There's a decent café in the harbour, but without a coffee machine - but capable of making a good strong mug of tea. The history of Rye is slightly odd, with the town originally being on the coast - one of the Cinque ports - but violent storms in the 13th century changed the course of the River Rother and cut the town off from the sea. Hence Rye Harbour, little more than a hamlet, albeit one well geared up for tourists, being some distance from the bustling town of Rye.

  

As soon as we set out we encountered the rule of '100 metres from the car park'. Seemingly hordes of people, many of them acting passively-aggressively and/or attention seeking. "Oh look, we've friends visiting for the weekend and look at us we're going for A WALK. We're better than you and we're going to string ourselves out across the width of the path". And within minutes they had nearly all vanished into thin air. Corporate lawyer types, couldn't have got as far as the beach, but would probably spend the week boasting about their country walk.

We walked down to the beach on a path constructed across salt marshes and shingle. This part of East Sussex has much in common with England's only desert, Dungeness, just along the coast in Kent. A wide panorama of views, although perhaps not to everybody's taste.

 

As the path reached the shoreline, to our left was the broad golden expanse of Camber Sands, and to our left a shingly beach.

 

We turned right, and from then on encountered very few people indeed until we were within about 100 metres of the village of Winchelsea Beach. The walk was through a Nature reserve, with some occasional interpretation boards. It was quite strange, because for huge stretches we couldn't see the sea, because of a wall of shingle that had been built up, presumably for Coastal Protection.

  

The Nature Reserve includes Turnery Pool and several other expanses of water, ideal for bird watching. Indeed we went into the bird watching hide. I reflected that bird spotting or identification will never be one of my strengths. I'm not knocking people who pursue a hobby with almost negative impact on others. As part of the generation brought up on Ladybird, Observers and I Spy books, there's a vague part of me that feels I should have more knowledge about birds. But the idea of sitting for hours would bore me, and I'm really not a ticker of lists with an objective of completeness. 

  

We passed the abandoned lifeboat station and read about the Mary Stanford disaster. The whole of the 17-man crew of the Mary Stanford Lifeboat were drowned, practically the whole male fishing population of the village of Rye Harbour. Ironically, the ship they had set out to rescue had been rescued by another vessel, but the RNLB Mary Stanford crew didn't see the 'stand down' signal.

   

As we approached Winchelsea, people, especially dog walkers, became more prominent. One silly woman in her 60s in a red anorak. The dog bounded over to me, sniffing and invading my personal space, which I didn't like. She came out with that trite meaningless "He won't hurt you." I was quite angry when I told her that dog walkers say that too often - I simply don't want a dog bothering me. I suspected she was one of those who barely allowed her overweight dog any sort of walk, confirmed only a few minutes when we saw her walking in the other direction, barely half a mile.

Another woman walked slowly with a small yappy dog. I hesitate to criticise one individual, because I don't know her personal circumstances. She might have been ill for a long time, and this excursion, taking a friend's dog for a walk, might have been a major achievement for her and a vital step on the road to recovery. Or not. It wasn't that she was overweight - who am I to talk - but she had no muscle tone and didn't really seem to know how to walk.

In contrast, we saw another woman with a black lab. She reminded me a little of a friend of mine, the woman, not the dog, lean and strong and pushing 60. The dog looked fit and muscular. They moved briskly through the marshland, effortlessly but swiftly, the dog not on a lead but clearly under control and not bothering passers-by.

  

As I said above, the route back was effectively a doubling back, albeit more inland. Thinking about it now, we should have gone into Winchelsea Village and found a pub, but AA walks don't mention this. I realise they're trying to discourage drink-driving, but you don't have to drink alcohol in a pub. If you do, there is a legal limit, and if you've still got two or three miles to walk, that should reduce the alcohol in your blood stream. 

I was mildly interested by a row of houses that looked out over the marshes and out to sea. They had an air of solitude whilst not being far from neighbours or civilisation.

   

My phone battery went flat before I had finished the walk, and I didn't notice, so couldn't replace it with the spare. But it doesn't require much imagination to extrapolate from this map what happened next.

After we had eaten our packed lunch in the car park at Rye Harbour, we drove into Winchelsea. I actually really like this town, and the beach is amazing - pictures from January 2010

 

But you do feel that a proportion of the residents may have moved there because the name includes the word 'Chelsea'. Not the posh inner residential suburb but the football team. I noticed several union flags flying on homes, more than you normally see, and I suspected that it was a demonstration of 'nationalist' pride. Later in the day I read that the boatmen of Winchelsea had voted not to take part in the evacuation from Dunkirk, although, ironically, the town was used as a stand-in for Dunkirk for shooting a film in 1957. Patriotism is a funny thing, isn't it?

Tangentially I must relate an overheard conversation, 40ish mother, with 4 kids (perhaps not all hers) - 2 teenage girls and boys of 12 and 9. She mentioned that she had started with £200 and now only had £180 left. Charlie said she must have spent £30. Mum said that his Maths wasn't great. As an afterthought "It's a good thing you're so pretty!" His sister remarked that he's not even pretty. "Really, he hadn't got much going for him at this point!" Poor kid. Made me laugh, though.

 

Dining at Chez Bruce (& Glasshouse)

Chez Bruce is a Michelin star restaurant not far from where I live. It's just a few paces from Wandsworth Common station. It's within easy cycling distance, but I have never contemplated cycling there - I'm not sure I could cycle anywhere after a three course boozy lunch. That having been said, when we were there a few months ago, we followed a couple into the restaurant who were wearing cycling gear and said that they'd like to ditch the gear before they settled at table. The Glasshouse is a companion restaurant, also Michelin starred, and located very close to Kew Gardens station. I have only been there once, but would go more often if it was nearer to home. They also have La Trompette in Chiswick, but I've never been there.

 

I suspect that some people are deterred by going to Michelin star restaurants for a variety of reasons. One, of course, is price. I'm reluctant to express opinions on affordability because everybody's perception is different. What might be affordable for one person joining a group of friends might not be affordable for a couple expected to pay for young adults or elderly parents. 

 

At Chez Bruce, you can have a weekday lunch of 3 courses for £29.50 and I consider this very good value for money. Of course, you pay extra for drinks - and their wine menu doesn't really have a 'cheap and cheerful' option - and like just about everywhere, you pay more again for service. So it's not the same as nipping out to 'Spoons for a pie and a pint. We went to the Glasshouse because, when you go to Chez Bruce, you get a time limited money off voucher (and, I think, vice versa).

  

Perhaps people are intimidated by their perception of Fine Dining restaurants. For example, dress code. Again, I wouldn't dress as I would for a pie and a pint at 'Spoons, and I don't see many - any - people wearing PE kits. Some people, old school, dress very smart, or in red trousers, but for most people there's quite a broad definition of smart casual - during half term we saw a group of teachers. One or two in their best dresses and one or two in neat blouses and jeans.

 

The staff are trained to a high standard. That standard is to be pleasant and helpful, and, above all, to be responsive. They don't tell you anything about themselves, and they don't keep interrupting your eating with "Everything alright guys?" In fact, they don't address you as 'guys'. Most importantly, they don't have airs and graces. The first time I went there, I thought it would be painfully obvious I was a bit out of my depth, but the welcoming attitude made me feel more at ease than in less 'exclusive' places. 

   

As for the food. Well, I keep coming back! Chez Bruce opened in 1995 and has kept on going. They don't go in for gimmicks - their Head Chef has Retweeted several 'We Want Plates' monstrosities. You can be sure that dinner will always be served on a plate, not on a board or in a pair of wellies! They're not at the cutting edge of trendy presentation, and are 'on trend' rather than ahead of the curve in fashionable ingredients. Bruce, his senior staff and his restaurants just don't do TV.

 

You eat at Chez Bruce - and at Glasshouse - for good quality ingredients thoughtfully combined, cooked to perfection, and presented in an attractive appetising way. I've never had anything less than perfect, and I've even enjoyed ingredients I thought were almost on my 'don't like list'. You know how it is, you see a dish on the menu that looks very enticing but it contains something, not something you absolutely hate, but something you'd never buy to cook at home, but you order the dish because of everything else, and realise your unfavourite ingredient is actually okay. My pet peeve is that sometimes fish dishes are prepared with 'meat juices', which is annoying for me, but I feel reluctant to actually criticise a restaurant for not pandering to my personal quirks.

As I said in my recent post about photographing food, the quality of the photos will vary partly depending on the ambient light. But this post includes a selection, eaten on various occasions. If you mouse over the photo, you will (mainly) see text describing the dish. Most were taken at Chez Bruce, but those with 'GH' at the end of the description are from Glasshouse.

All these photos, and more from many other places are in my Food and Drink album

Morden Hall Park

It's now a few years since I discovered Morden Hall Park, and that was by accident. Nevertheless, I should have discovered it much earlier. I had read about The Wandle Trail; I'd acquired a bicycle. I'd built up a decent level of fitness. 

It now seems familiar, and quite difficult to recreate the sensation. I had cycled along the River Wandle from Colliers Wood, along a lightly wooded path, through an area with signs pointing to a wetland, and emerged, in mid afternoon late summer sun into what seemed a different world. A world of delicate bridges that spanned tinkling chalk brooks that criss-crossed lawns where people lounged in the shade and children played innocently, where rays of light bounced from canopied trees to paths, and everyone was cloaked in joyful mood of repose and beautification.  

  

I've lost count of how many times I have visited since, sometimes to traverse, and sometimes to explore. I've never quite recaptured that initial magic feeling, but I still keep returning. 

It's National Trust owned, and the terms of the legacy means they can't charge admission or even for parking. I've never seen it deserted, although occupancy varies as expected with the seasons and the weather, from weekdays to weekends, and depending on schooldays or school holidays. 

It covers fifty hectares, and includes a hall, but this is not open to the public. Apparently the lease is owned by Whitbread/Beefeater but doesn't operate. Beyond the formal gardens is parkland, some of it beside the Wandle. The Wandle winds through and feeds the Wetlands that are managed for nature conservancy. 

 

The photos in this post were taken on two visits, in April last year and late February this, both on weekdays outside the school holidays. On both occasions it was possible to wander, not quite alone, but without a sense of being crowded. As with almost everywhere I visit, most people stay close to the central area - especially the Rose Garden - or around the Garden centre and café. Few people venture outside the carefully delineated safe space. This is great, because it leaves the parkland and Wetlands almost deserted. Such a missed opportunity. So many parents of small children keen to get them in the open air and physically active. Not wrong in itself, but a sole focus on the body and ts achievements just encourages a self-absorbed narcissism. Whereas, kids who are encouraged to walk observantly in a place like the Wetlands can begin to see how different species are interdependent, for example how birds rely on a certain type of habitat. Or see the natural wastage of trees coupled with how humans manage the space. Obsessionally sportsing tends to lead to obsessional self-absorption and disregard for others. 

    

I have to say, I have quite strong views about how the National Trust make their managed land more attractive to children. Morden Hall isn't the worst example - more to come in future blogposts. 

In defence of the National Trust their 50  Things to do before you're 11 ¾ is inspired and doesn't need to be limited by age. But other activities seemed geared at encouraging children to charge around, using but ignoring the environment. Easter Egg hunts are a trivial but widespread example of this. I passed through the park this week, on a partial ramble of the Wandle Trail, and noticed that a few interpretation boards have been erected, to explain 'nature'. Well meant, but surely of little interest or use to anybody over the age of 7 or so. Words about toadspawn and Canada Goose Eggs, but no pictures of a Canada Goose. It seems an ideal place to put pictures of waterfowl and woodland birds, and the various trees that grow. It isn't difficult - because I've seen them elsewhere - to have boards that appeal to fairly small children and to non-expert adults. Perhaps something about the old and recent history of the River, about the waterwheel and the industry it supported. 

It's nice that there's an adventure playground - I didn't take pictures of the equipment children were playing on. It as only when I exited that I saw a sign that adults were only allowed when accompanied by children. Still, it's a bit like the signs that say 'keep dogs on leads in Wetlands to protect the birds' - no reason to pay any attention.

 

 

It's only when you venture from the manicured safe areas that you notice things. A tree uprooted, its roots standing vertical, taller than a human, as leaves (its own? anther plant's?) wind around the dying wood.

 

Sometimes it's nice to sit on the lawn for a few minutes. Sometimes, it may be a convenient place to pause when you're walking or cycling the Trail. Sometimes, it's better than nothing - a few weeks ago, in Richmond Park, I saw two parties sit down within feet of the carpark. One was a family of a tiny baby and toddler and all the equipment and panoply that accompanies them; the other was a couple including a young man who was struggling to 'walk' on his crutches. But it's amazing what you can see if you venture just a few hundred metres within the confines of an urban park. 

Old photos, short stories: Mystic Seaport 1989

When I stayed with my Aunt on Long Island, we caught the ferry from Port Jefferson to Bridgeport Conneticut, and drove about 70 miles to Mystic Seaport, the largest Maritime History Museum in the world. Needless to say I hadn't heard of it, but a few weeks after arriving back I watched and enjoyed the film Mystic Pizza starring Julia Roberts.

We started at Mystic Aquarium, which I enjoyed at the time, especially the performances by performing seals and so on. But I've never felt any desire to visit an aquarium since - perhaps there are certain experiences one only needs once in a lifetime.

 

 

I really enjoyed walking round the seaport. From all these years later I can't now remember much what I saw or learnt, but I'm sure that I learnt many things - some of which added to previously acquired knowledge and some of which was later consolidated by other learning experiences. It was only my second full day in the States, and it was really my first opportunity to 'see America'. In the end, what you remember about a place is the space and its big features, and it was a very pleasant day.

 

Photos taken on film, on a cheap camera, and scanned many years after P&P.

 

 

St Aubin, Jersey

Our September visit to Jersey was blessed with beautiful weather. In using the word 'blessed' I am following a custom of the English language, rather than suggesting that weather systems are endowed by a non-existent God specifically onto deserving or lucky people. I am merely commenting that the changeable British Isles weather cannot be predicted with sufficient accuracy often even just a few days before.

It was sunny and warm, verging on hot.

We caught a taxi down to St Aubin, the hottest town or village on Jersey. They like their obscure saints on Jersey. We were staying in St Saviour's Parish, just outside St Helier. St Aubin is in the parish of St Brelade and opens into the Gulf of St Malo. 

Jersey is a Crown Dependency of the United Kingdom and a self-governing parliamentary democracy with its own financial, legal and judicial systems,and the power of self-determination. It prints its own money, which has the same value as sterling. English notes and coinage are accepted in shops, but only Jersey notes come out of ATMs; they are easy enough to deposit in a bank on return to England. Residents with no connection to the UK are considered British Citizens; sadly, while we were still on the island, a man from Jersey (and his friend from Norfolk) were murdered in Thailand. they were referred to as 'British Tourists' & the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office carried out similar duties for both. 

As soon as we got out of the taxi, we saw a group of men playing Petanque, on a space set aside for any member of the public to play. This reminded this that Jersey has a dual culture: I think of Petanque as typically French, and in England have only seen it in a quirky pub, decades ago. 

 We wandered about the village enjoying the sights. It wasn't spectacular but a very pleasant way indeed to spend the middle of a glorious Sunday. There was no shortage of places to rest for coffee. In the background below is the restaurant that suffered the fire on Friday - a large place, this explains our wait for a taxi.

  

I really liked this courtyard but would have preferred to photograph it without the car!

We walked down the jetty, and back to the Town Square. I snapped this photo of the Bureau des Centeniers, essentially a police station, because it recalled the fictional Bureau des Étrangers in Bergerac. It was reassuring to find a tourist monthly magazine in our hotel room featuring John Nettles on the cover. I think he is effectively worshipped as a demi-god in this Bailiwick. 

 

In the town square Jimmy and I both experienced...I don't know, an epiphany, perhaps? There is a land train that runs between St Helier and St Aubin and back. A board advertised the departure times. We watched and listened as a couple, perhaps in their sixties, and otherwise seemingly averagely intelligent, repeatedly read out the times. "11.55, 12.55, 13.55, 14.55, 15.55". Struggling to memorise this, one of them wrote it down. They didn't seem to detect a pattern. For us, it was obvious. We asked each other later - how do people cope unchaperoned in public?

We walked along the bay for a while, and then back, spending a couple of hours lying on the beach. A gorgeous expanse of golden sand,  gloriously hot weather, and barely a soul about. My phone registered the temperature next to the sea wall in the 40s, although, obviously, this wasn't the general air temperature. I have no idea why we didn't go into the sea. Perhaps we were perfectly content on the sand, and hadn't been short of swimming opportunities in our hotel. There was so very few people on the beach, I couldn't really understand why. Of course, there is more coast line per head of population than on larger islands, but, even so - where were they all?

          

We finished off with an early dinner in a delightful Italian restaurant on the seafront. It was an odd time of day, so our choice was limited, but we had a lovely meal. The décor seemed like a throwback to the Eighties, but not in a tired, shabby way. The food was excellent and service good.

 

Our flight on the Monday was early afternoon, so were able to spend the morning in and by the pool, basking in a hot summer's day. When I returned to work on the Tuesday, people were astonished by my tan. Well, people who hadn't known me long enough to know how quickly and easily I go brown!

After breakfast we posed for photos with the hotel's gorilla statue, promoting the Durrell Wildlife Park

 

Petts Wood walk

Trying to sort my photos, but also trying to sort my 'My Tracks' application, which Google are dumping at the end of April, I have detected a pattern. Late March, through to June, there's a lot of activity, and then it peters out. I think partly because there were at least 4 outings in August that were purely to the seaside, purely to lie on beaches, but I fear there are deeper reasons. In Spring, it only has to be mild and bright, but come the height of summer, you're demanding high summer weather. Even though that is relatively rare, and, also, not great for much other than lying on beaches. 

If you want detailed instructions on this - or 26 other walks near London - just click here

This is the actual route I walked, and, unusually, managed to follow the instructions fairly precisely.

The walk was just shy of 4 miles, and I'm surprised I didn't take more photos than I did. Perhaps it was the sheer joy of being out on a gloriously sunny day, striding through rural London, enjoying the fresh air and the exercise, which was far from strenuous.

And again, once we had cleared the immediate area near the car park, we barely saw a soul until the final stretch through Jubilee Park. I know I'm really labouring this point, but once again, I saw clearly conscientious parents doing the right thing and taking their kids out  - into a bland, tended field of grass, rather then into the woods , clearings and back paths. We saw no weirdos lurking nor any wild animals bigger than a squirrel. Perfectly safe for children, especially when accompanied by an adult, and brilliant for their intellect and mental and physical health. 

 

No great merit to these photos but I took them just to say "Look! This is London! This is not how you imagine London to be!"

 

I took this photo as we approached the car park, having completed the circular ramble. The metal gate was constructed with the sole purpose of stopping bikes being ridden through. The metal and the labour probably come to a few hundred pounds. Utterly pointless expenditure, as proven by a couple of small kids with their Dad who, unsurprisingly, biked through the open gaps to the right! But hey, it probably deters disabled people on trikes or in wheelchairs, and parents with double buggies, so Job Done.