Morden Hall Park

Morden Hall Park is a National Trust operation near Morden and a place which BH has been angling to visit for a while. So a recent visit to the nuclear medicine department at St. Helier hospital, being a split-shift business, was an ideal opportunity to tick this one off.

For some reason, while planning this outing, we wanted to find out who had preceded Morrisons in Sutton High Street, a place I have visited occasionally in the past. Was it Tesco's? Bing was not much help, beyond telling me that Morrisons was presently closed for refurbishment. Google did rather better, telling me that Tesco's had closed their High Street store back in 2000 or so, attracting adverse comment both for the loss of the facility and for the way that the 100 or more staff had been treated. There was, at the time, some talk of ASDA. So we don't yet know whether Morrisons succeeded Tesco's, and if so, whether they rebuilt, refurbished or what. Perhaps if I grubbed around in the Sutton planning database I could find something, but I can't see that happening.

We elected for train to Carshalton, then bus (No.157) to the hospital, which provided a reminder of what a grand building Carshalton Station had once been. Inter alia, lots of chimneys to make good use of all that company coal.

We arrived a little early to find a car boot sale going strong across the road from the hospital, handy for those stuck there at a loose end on a Wednesday morning.

But we, the first part of our hospital business done, took tea and bun in the volunteer run café and then proceeded by No.157 bus to Morden Hall, except that we did not manage to get off until we got to Morden. Not a big disaster as it was only a short walk back the park. We got in through the main entrance, bottom middle in the map above, just below and to the left of the car park.

Greeted by this grand entrance to what was once the stable yard. They have one similar at Polesden Lacey and a rather grander one at Wimpole Hall. Perhaps they were de rigueur in the 19th century for rich people wanting to pass themselves off as county people.

While this place is now some kind of alternative school, whatever that might mean. Probably mixed up with what was the snuff mill, although straight ahead looks more residential than commercial.

Not enough time to look around properly, but what little we did see made a further visit look like a good idea. Maybe with more time, we would turn up a Wellingtonia. It is the sort of place which might run to one.

Fencing ancient and modern. One comes across the stuff in front out in the country (or on the Isle of Wight) from time to time, dating from the days when iron was cheap.

We also came across some fish in one of the canals. Or perhaps mill streams. Or leats?

Back to the hospital to finish our business, with BH being deposited in this cheerful corner with the rollator. On my back inside some large machine for half an hour or so, not terribly comfortable, with no clues being offered as to the passing of time. To help the passing of which, I tried visualising numbers, as described at reference 1. Not terribly successful then, or later, when I have tried again from time to time.

In the margins, I learned about hot and cold toilets. The former for those who had had the special dye injected, the latter for everyone else. A refinement they did not seem to bother with outside the nuclear department.

Afterwards, to the other café to take, in my case, tea and humus sandwich, this last being a first. Not bad, if not great. Better on warm flat bread in the way of proper restaurants. BH took a BLT, which was made with ham rather than bacon. Subsequently, no less an authority than the Great British Chefs confirmed my theory that the 'B' stood for bacon and that bacon was not a US synonym for ham. Noting in passing that I first came across the term BLT in a US scene in one of Len Deighton's Harry Palmer thrillers, many years ago now, when I was young enough to enjoy reading such stuff. Younger readers may care to consult reference 3.

Out to the bus stop where we had the choice of No.157 to Carshalton, or No.2 to Epsom. We elected for the latter, which turned out to be a long and bumpy ride, if not without interest, taking us through parts of town which we did not know. We also found that Rose Hill, roughly the site of the hospital, must be something of an eminence, as from the right place on the No.2 bus route you can see both down onto the towers of the City and, in the other direction, across the downland of Surrey.

We passed the Wellingtonia outside St. Paul's church of Howell Hill, now teamed up with St. Barnabas of our own Temple Road. Things have moved on since they felt the need and had the money to build St. Paul's back in the 1960's, more than half a century ago now. We spotted the Wellingtonia previously scored at reference 4, to where, to be fair, it took me a good few seconds to run them down, to come up with the right search key.

Separate shopping when we got back to Epsom. I ordered some meat from Ben the Butcher and then visited Waitrose where I took a cheese loaf - which turned out to be very like a cheese scone in loaf format - some Spanish ripen-yourself-plums and some water, of which I was then in need. Slightly irritated that I had either to buy fancy water or six half litre bottles of cheap water. I settled for the latter, to find that cheap bottles were very thin, so thin that it was easy to get water all over oneself when opening them. Taken with some of the cheese loaf on a bench in the market square.

Then back home, I felt the need of lentils. 8oz of lentils to three pints of water. Carrot, onion and saucisson, maybe 100g of this last. Butter for the onions. Took me about an hour start to finish.

I suspect that BH ended up stewing the plums. Too foreign to be eating raw.

PS 1: amused to read in yesterday's (Monday's) Guardian that the Australians are still flogging the Roger Hollis business. They must still be cross that we lied to them about it back in the days of Mrs. Thatcher: this Five Eyes business only went so far. Last touched on in these pages, quite recently, at reference 5. Which led me to wonder how much damage a Director General of MI5 could actually do if he was also working for the Russians. MI5 is a bureaucracy where most action is collective and a bad apple would have to be very careful in what he did or he would soon be caught. And there is no need for a Director General to actually know many secrets of real operational importance, say secrets about the guidance of drone missiles. Perhaps we ought to operate an exchange programme, whereby they have our chap and we have theirs. A good way of increasing the level of trust between us.

PS 2: in the margins of this post I was reminded of reference 6 and got as far as Amazon. But I decided, in the end, that £25 and 500 or more pages was too much for me, even if it was described as compulsively readable (which I thought improbable). I have got plenty enough to read as it is - interesting take on a disastrous muddle that this book might well be. Originally brought to my attention by a review in the NYRB.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/galtons-numbers.html.

Reference 2: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/ultimate-blt-sandwich-recipe.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Deighton.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/02/wellingtonia-66.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Hollis.

Reference 6: The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq - Steve Coll - 2024.

Raynes Park

Today saw our return to the platform library at Raynes Park Station, after what seems like a long absence over the various summer breaks. I was thinking we might pick up some of the glossy magazines they often carry from the drinks business (references 1 and 2), but instead of that, it looked as if someone had been clearing out an attic.

So clockwise from top right.

Reference 3. A slim book, first published in 1941 and in its nineteenth edition by 1943, written by Alice Duer Miller, a lady of the United States with a fine pedigree, who studied mathematics and also wrote. A book which, it seems, after a slow start, made a big impression in the US when it was published, a time when plenty of people in the US were not keen on getting involved in another war in Europe. A book which appears, on the basis of a very quick look, to be an extended poem, framed by a (first) war time romance, about what a wonderful place Great Britain was. Illustrated with lots of sketches by Hilda Austin and Leonard Cotterill, illustrators of that time with some web presence now.

Plenty of them available from Abebooks.

Reference 5. Another slim book, from ten years later. A short history of Whitbread and beer. Nicely illustrated with a range of engravings, paintings and photographs, some in colour. At one time, Whitbread was getting a lot of stick from beeries for gobbling up lots of provincial brewers, while I used to rather like their Trophy bitters, alleged to be rebadged versions of said provincial beers. I shall read this little book with interest.

In the meantime, I note that Chiswell Street, off the bottom of Whitecross Street, noticed in these pages mainly for the fine bacon sandwiches to be had there, was an important part of the Whitbread world. A place which I felt sure I had noticed in the margins of my visits to St. Luke's, but inspection of the archive reduces this to references 11 and 12. Not to be confused with the Truman brewery in nearby Brick Lane, now also some combination of business venue and visitor attraction.

A book which was once the property of the Seafarers' Education Service of Balham which appears to have provided books for small libraries on merchant vessels. One can read all about them at reference 6.

Reference 7. A regular book, with boards and 369 pages. Lots about General Gordon, but nothing about the provenance of the book itself. Given as a prize to John Jakeman in 1907 for regularity at Chipping Norton British School. According to Bing: 'The British School was built on New Street in 1854 and subsequently renamed Chipping Norton Council School and Chipping Norton Infants' School', with lots of records being held by the Oxfordshire History Centre.

In gmaps, New Street, off one end of the High Street, looks to contain a wide range of property, some quite old, but nothing which was clearly a school. I did turn up a couple of Wellingtonia in the front garden of what is now a care home. Snapped above, but it did not seem right to score them.

So far I have learned from the book that General Gordon, aka Chinese Gordon, was part of the rather messy European interference in the even more messy affairs of mid 19th century China. He appeared to believe in his God-sent mission so to do. Interference which seemed to be directed at the protection of our trade there and which was based on the rivers, canals and lakes to the immediate west of Shanghai. Interference which carried on for long enough for BH's naval grandfather to serve on some kind of gunboat in the same area in the first part of the 20th century, that is to say after the First World War. I don't suppose either of these gentlemen pushed as far up the Yangtze as Wuhan, of Covid ill-fame.

Reference 8. A slim booklet. An improving booklet, mainly about design in the home, showcasing the work in that department of the Nordic countries. A field which I imagine was then taken by any number of much more glossy offerings to be had from the likes of W. H. Smith, now by a rather smaller number of television programmes.

There were some others, too slim to notice here. A good haul, even if the beverages failed us.

PS: a little later: as far as I can make out from references 4 and 9 (a lengthy memoir, written by her husband a few years after his wife's death), 'The White Cliffs' is a work of fiction. I have yet to find that the author was ever in the UK. As a young married woman she was in Costa Rica and after that mostly a working writer in New York. See also reference 10, the top of which is snapped above.

References

Reference 1: https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/.

Reference 2: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/.

Reference 3: The White Cliffs - Alice Duer Miller - 1941.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Duer_Miller.

Reference 5: Whitbread's Brewery, incorporating 'The Brewer's Art' - Whitbread & Co - 1951. Produced by Adprint, whoever they might have been.

Reference 6: https://www.marine-society.org/history.

Reference 7: Life of General Gordon - anonymous, possibly various - before 1907. Published by Nimmo, Hay and Mitchell of Edinburgh. Listed by Project Gutenburg as No.54 in their Empire Library.

Reference 8: Design for study: Design and our homes: A book on design in the home and in the shop, raising ideas for discussion and suggestions for activities in groups and classes in the Co-operative movement - Margaret Llewellyn 1951. Produced by the Cooperative Union Ltd and the Council of Industrial Design.

Reference 9: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b106273&view=1up&seq=7.

Reference 10: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/162513/not-senseless-not-angels.

Reference 11: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/back-to-st-lukes.html.

Reference 12: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/trios.html.

On the bone

A couple of weeks ago now a festival of beef, with the beef provided by Ben the Butcher of Upper High Street. The order was for around 3kg of forerib, on the bone, untrimmed and unchined. Plus maybe 1kg of bone taken off other peoples' beef.

And he produced the goods, all 3.106kg of it, with a good long tail, almost like the fine forerib we once had in Florence. Decent amount of fat blanket. 6lbs 14oz in old money. The only catch was that with all this bone, 3kg meant two ribs rather than three, which was enough for one good meal. Something to bear in mind the next time.

He offered to take off the old face, upper side in the snap above, but I declined. We have had old faces before and - well oiled before the off, as here - they turn out fine. The other side, which was where the joint had been cut, looked much pinker and fresher. In the event, I think I carved from the young side, with one of the girls present getting the opening slice, which I imagine tasted pretty good. Chewy and succulent, like the meat from around the bones.

Stock for gravy fired up in the big stew pan the afternoon before, cracked out from the upper cupboard for the occasion, giving it about 4 hours. Bones, onions, carrots and celery. No cabbage on this occasion. Stock strained and the debris rinsed with a little more boiling water, taking it to around 3 pints. Set aside. Nibbled at the bones after they had cooled a bit, with what little meat there was being quite tasty.

Stock in the fridge, early the following morning, to harden the fat off. Rather more of it than last time. Maybe half the fat went to roux'ing the flour for the gravy, in due course.

The joint went into the pre-heated oven at 190°C at 11:00, with the intention of giving it two hours. During which time I prepared two heads of greens (three would have been better) and 2lbs of potatoes - mash being the potato of choice when we have real gravy.

The form there was roux up some flour with the fat from the stock, then slowly stir in the stock, having used it to wash out the roasting tin. A bit careless at this point, so a bit lumpy, which was a bit of a pain to deal with, but I did. The end product was fine.

On the table, the standing juices having been poured off into the gravy. Some of those present were young enough to think that the string was a great treat.

Somewhat cut, looking rather well.

Not bad on the (special porcelain) plate either, with a little gravy added to the potato in due course. Some people take rather more than I do. Beef taken with a spot of Costcutter's Fleurie, as noticed at reference 2.

Followed by the chocolate cake which is traditional on these occasions. Plus the traditional, loud & lusty rendering of 'Happy Birthday'.

We then moved onto a telephone enabled version of Pictionary. You did a sketch of something - choosing one of the options provided on your card - and the telephone guessed what it was. I guess there were perhaps a couple of hundred options altogether, so the telephone's task was far from trivial. Simple to play and good fun.

Neither Bing nor Google obliged with the box that I remember, but the one snapped above looks as if it is, at least, in the right area. Manual versions of the game, not involving telephones or computers, have been around for ages.

The beef scene later in the afternoon. 

At this point, I took a stroll around town. Wetherspoon's and the Marquis were still busy. The place which was the 'Plaice to Eat' was doing OK, as was the place which was a South American butcher and which has now morphed into a café. TB rather quieter.

Gravy on white bread for tea. Not bad, but the white bread from Holne was a bit feeble for this purpose. It might have been better had it been stale.

And despite appearances above, we got one more meal out of the beef the next day, even if the slicing was none too pretty. Good flavour though.

We polished off the cake on the same occasion. Some mutant brand of smarties involving peanut butter, also traditional.

All very satisfactory.

References

Reference 1: https://www.bensbutchery.co.uk/. 

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/the-last-cherries.html.

Lidl

A week ago, I had business with Ben the Butcher and the Odeon in Upper High Street. Then, thinking to complete my morning circuit by continuing up and then hanging left, rather than heading back down, I came to the large new-to-me branch of Lidl. The people who built their headquarters in Jubilee Way, as noticed at reference 2.

On this occasion, I did not pay much attention to the building as a whole, which looks from Street View to feature flats above, but I was intrigued by the ramp, which led up to the shop over the car park, perhaps for residents rather than shoppers. How would my trolley - aka rollator - fare on the ramp?

I associate to the middle class ladies one used to come across in Lidl (or perhaps Aldi) in Leatherhead who used to volunteer elaborate excuses for their being there - anything rather than admit that it was cheap and cheerful.

Up the ramp without incident and into the shop which seemed bright and cheerful enough, with a good range of stuff on offer. I selected a pair of Polish sausages and a bottle of Argentinian wine and proceeded to the rather crowded checkout area, mostly DIY.

While I was waiting, a young man removed his purchases from the checkout nearest me, and rather than going out the way intended, pushed back through the short queue of us waiting. I did not think anything of it at the time, but when I went to use the checkout he had used, it eventually dawned on me that he had left without paying. He must have waited for a moment when neither of the two attendants were looking his way and sneaked out. Perhaps opportunistic, perhaps planned. Leaving one of the attendants to sort out his checkout, which was by now demanding payment. Leaving me a little cross, first for not having noticed and second for having to pay for his groceries (as it were).

Having paid for my groceries, I headed for the down ramp, which I found a little challenging, with one's trolley all for charging on ahead. How do they stop small boys having (possibly dangerous) fun of this sort?

Back to East Street via Church Road, where I found that the church in question is being repurposed. Difficult thing to carry off with any verve. Slightly puzzled that the road was named for what looked like a relatively new church.

My purchases. The sausages were quite like French garlic sausage and I thought good value for £2.99. the wine was rather dearer and it yet to be tasted.

According to reference 3, apart from its many lakes, Masuria is a place with a complicated history. Lots of talk of Old Prussian (a Baltic language, not particularly closely related to German) and you even had some Prots there at one point. But I have not been able to find out much about its sausage, apart from the face that lots of supermarkets - places like Iceland - sell it. Maybe it is an umbrella term covering a range of smoked, pink sausages?

PS 1: another case this morning of my hands remembering a password when the brain, for some reason or other, was not sure.

PS 2: the first frost that I have noticed on the extension roof this morning. Not a hard frost, but frost nonetheless.

PS 3: Old Prussian does not make it to the chart at reference 4, but investigation with Ruhlen at reference 5, snapped above, suggests that it belongs in the green, Slav section.

References

Reference 1: https://www.bensbutchery.co.uk/. 

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/collecting.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masuria.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/08/aryans.html.

Reference 5: A guide to the world's languages. Vol. 1: Classification – Merritt Ruhlen – 1987.

Church two

I have had much pleasure and interest out of the second volume of the Church autobiography (reference 3), the first volume of which was first noticed at reference 11 and then again at reference 1. A chance find which both BH and I have been very pleased with. 

This second volume which covers the decade 1910-1920, takes Church from the ages of 17 to 27, from the drawn-out death of his mother to the birth of his first daughter by his first wife. A time when, during the day, he was a civil servant, mostly at the Custom House in the City. At other times he was learning to be a poet, with his literary career starting to move by the close of this volume. 

A chap with great sensitivity to the world outside, particularly to nature, to music and to poetry – with this last being his vocation. Also dogged by uncertain health, despite being a keen cyclist, uncertain health which kept him out of the First World War. A chap whom people appeared to have liked: there are lots of anecdotes about all sorts of people taking to him, providing important help and generally being supportive. 

The title of this volume is a reference to an early disaster, losing one of the three sovereigns which were his first month’s pay as a regular civil servant down a Camberwell drain. It is also a reference to the need of young men from ordinary backgrounds to earn their crust. They might be keen on arts or sciences, but these last do not pay the rent. In this case, I feel that his time in the civil service, tedious though it may have been a lot of the time, provided the space he needed to grow into a working writer. A space inhabited, in those days, by plenty of people with a serious interest in one or other – one or more – of the arts and sciences.

I have reminded myself about gold sovereigns, the gold standard and stirrups at references 7, 8 and 9. Stirrups because the chap on the horse – a design from 1816 – seems to have a very short sword for getting at a grounded dragon, given that he does not have any. Useful devices which reference 8 suggests arrived in this country in the tenth century, quite a long time after their central Asian invention. 

I associate first to FIL who came from a similarly humble background, who did not make the rather high bar of his time and was denied access to higher education. His consolation prize was war service which led to a respectable career in mental health. Then to my own father, ten years older, who had the good luck to come from a large rural family who pooled resources to have one of their number – him – properly educated – with several of his sisters going half-way and getting trained as teachers, a common route up at the time. Despite this, he did not make it to Goldsmiths to become a teacher, his first choice, and settled for dentistry instead. A choice of occupation which gave him both the leisure and the income needed to pursue his interests in painting, music and what I might call scientific philosophy. The first two as a consumer, the last as a practitioner, producing a learned book which almost saw the light of day. 

What with one thing and another, Church was driven to learn, using as many of the hours that were not claimed by Customs as was humanly possible. Seen from this distance, it seems terribly undisciplined, but it also involved learning to read in the most unlikely circumstances. So he often spent his bus and tram journeys stood up, jammed against the other passengers, but reading. And when he was tired at home, he stood back to a wall, forcing his head back to stay awake, and carrying on reading like that.

I was impressed by the sense of mission, of vocation and by the amount of work which went into becoming a respectable poet of the mid 20th century. Also by the amount of stuff turned out which never saw the light of day. I dare say this is the story of many arty people: to succeed you have to be driven - which I never was. His drive to learn and, more important, his drive to write poetry and to talk about poetry: words just poured out of him. In the beginning, it seems likely that he wrote and talked a good deal of rubbish. But he persevered and learned, and gradually he started to get stuff published and he started to meet other literary types. He gradually climbed into the literary world, without yet casting off from the security (and relative poverty) of a civil service job. I associate to an old friend who, having made a different choice, was rudely dismissive of relatives who, on his account, were obsessed with job security and a pension. Which one might think fair enough if one came from a background which was both unsettled and poor. 

One of the themes of this book is the idea that the Civil Service around the time of the First World War was something of a haven for those who did not fancy the rough and tumble of the real world, the real world where wealth and money were made. There is also the observation that the civil service of his time included plenty of well-educated people who cultivated outside interests and who were happy to help the present author in his efforts to become a poet. A haven that the present author eventually found the energy to escape from to make his living in the world of letters – if not exactly in the real world. In my own time in the Civil Service, which started more than half a century later, there was still some of this, but rather diminished and the service was working hard to be an up-to-date, professionally run organisation. But a service which still found house room for a decent number of the less able. Probably easier then than now, when so many of the lower grade jobs have been automated away – or outsourced. In Church’s day, a customs service which also found house room for a humorous house magazine, ‘Spirits and Whines’. I believe there was something of the same sort when Scott’s last expedition overwintered in the Antarctic. So perhaps such things were very much in the spirit of the times. I associate to the penchant – in my own time – of Ministry of Defence people for elaborate games in the evenings, charades rather than Monopoly, a penchant perhaps born of being stuck out in far flung places for protracted periods of time. 

As a young man, Church saw a dichotomy between noble things of the mind and the ignoble world of money. The latter was somehow dirty and bound to taint. A view which I recognise, both from my own younger days and some of the writing of the (famous) Tolstoy. It was good if one could grow and make enough for one’s needs without needing to get into the dirty of business of going to market, of buying and selling, of lying and cheating. While Church writes that he gradually grew out of this sort of thing. 

I associate here to a version of the story of the money changers in the Temple, whereby the money changers were needed to change the regular money of the day into the sort of money that was suitable as an offering in the Temple. Not greedy parasites at all. A version which I believe I got from a book from the Hyam Maccoby of reference 6. 

Odds and ends

I also associate to a colleague during my time in the Department of Employment Group, telling me of another poet, one C. H. Sisson, who doubled as a senior civil servant there. I knew of him from pieces in the Times Literary Supplement. 

Church talks of there being various divisions and classes in the Civil Service, of which he was in the lowest. Which rang bells, because my union (by accident of statistical history) was called the First Division Association and I had heard of the Administration Class, that is to say the top class. Also of middle ranks, the various executive officers. Then the other ranks – including here clericals, industrials, hostel wardens, temporaries and scientists – with some of these last being much more highly qualified than I was. I tried asking Google about all this and did not get anywhere. I tried emailing someone in the Cabinet Office whose job title suggested knowledge about these matters but got no reply. So maybe the Sisson effort at reference 15, now winging its way from one of the shops sailing under the Abebooks umbrella, will help. 

There is also much talk of the grim old Custom House (reference 13), right next to the stinks of what was then Billingsgate Market. Both presently more or less unoccupied and awaiting redevelopment. 

The river frontage is rather less grim than the street frontage, with rather more decoration, now rather obscured by trees. 

Against which background, I was interested to read recently in the FT at reference 14 that, before the First World War, customs was most of government revenue, and the Custom House would have been far more important in the scheme of things than it is now, with customs overtaken by income and other taxes – many of them levied by the Board of Inland Revenue – this name now being in its proper perspective. 

For a while, Camberwell Green was an important way-station on his way home from London Bridge, a green snapped above from StreetView and which I, occasionally, used to pass through myself. I learned something of trams, an important part of public transport in the first half of the 20th century, before being swept away by the arrival of motor buses. Church spent a lot of time in their swaying, sweaty, smelly and smoky interiors – while still managing to read. It also seems that tram tracks could have sharp edges, but I have failed to find out what that was about.

There is a lot of talk of the pianos in his life – his brother was an accomplished pianist who became a teacher – and the pianos he comes across. And Church seems to be as sensitive to sound as he is to words, including here the different tones of different pianos. Perhaps in his music conscious age, before the arrival of much radio or television, people discussed pianos – with many people owning at least one – in much the same way as suburban husbands might now discuss cars.

I have managed to score just three of the nine listed above. When I attempted to do something about the red underline, Word started talking French, so I abandoned that one. 

Church writes of the effect of being very close to his dying mother when he was in his teens. It appears to have made him very sensitive to the moods and needs of ladies, but it also made him knowing and old before his time – a taint which hung over the Folkestone romance in the interval between his mother and his first wife. A romance which eventually failed. 

He had a difficult relationship with his father, keen on cycles and the open road, but he shared the cycling. He cycled a lot despite his uncertain health and was a bit obsessive about keeping his cycles in perfect condition. 

An urge, a need to pour out words in poetry seems to have gripped him throughout this period. During which he was, in this way, learning his trade. In which connection, he observes at one point that one needs to practise, in the way of a musician – or a sportsman. A poet should be writing lots of stuff – not necessarily poetry – all the time, to get the machinery well-tuned. A sentiment with which at my own humbler level I can agree: practice might not make perfect, but it does help. 

He also observes that words in poems should carry meaning, not just sound. Which is fair enough, but there is compromise: one might want a word for river, but the needs of rhyme and rhythm might make you settle for some near synonym – say silver stream (I associate here to Homer’s wine-dark sea) – the meaning of which word or phrase was not part of your original meaning. Meaning creeping in through the back door. 

I also associate to the fact that compression can sacrifice legibility. One can, with cunning, get a lot of meaning into a small number of words – except that few readers other than their author are going to notice. A practise which may be encouraged by the need for brevity when reporting upwards, say to ministers or to the board. Or as FIL once observed about a pamphlet which I showed him about mental health: all very fine and good – provided you know it all already. Not so good for the beginner. 

Quotes from famous poems are scattered through the book. Bing obliged and I tried to engage with some of them – but failed. Despite my interest in Church, this did not translate to the poetry that so moved him. I also got the impression that Church was strong on rhythm and its importance in both literary and human affairs, so maybe my own weakness in that department is what causes my failure on the poetry front. 

There are reports of levitations scattered through the book. This seems to be an illusion of more or less flying over the heads of crowds, which Church can call upon when stressed. He sometimes uses it, for example, to get him through the rush hour crush back across London Bridge after work. An illusion first reported in the first volume. 

We are told that one could, on occasion feel the guns of Flanders through the ground – presumably the same chalk underlies both – of Limpsfield in Surrey. Then unspoiled country at the foot of the north downs, now next to the M25 between Redhill and Sevenoaks. 

David Grieg of reference 5 is mentioned just the once, near the beginning of the book. 

Conclusions 

A lucky find indeed. Full marks to the Bugle of Brading. A bugle which gets an outing at reference 12.

PS: some clerical glitch meant that the first edition of this post was in the wrong font. Editing the HTML proved tiresome, more so than simply starting over, which is what I ended up doing. Must be more careful!

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/church-one.html.

Reference 2: Over the bridge – Richard Church – 1955.

Reference 3: The golden sovereign – Richard Church – 1957.

Reference 4: The voyage home – Richard Church – 1964. 

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/a-pub-crawl.html. 

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyam_Maccoby.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_(British_coin).

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirrup.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Church_(poet).

Reference 11: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/raynes-park-on-sea.html.

Reference 12: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/more-trivia.html.

Reference 13: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custom_House,_City_of_London.

Reference 14: Trumponomics: the radical plan that would reshape America’s economy In a bid to boost manufacturing, the Republican candidate is promising sweeping tariffs. Critics warn they would cause huge damage and heighten global tensions – Colby Smith, Claire Jones, James Politi, Financial Times – 2024.

Reference 15: The Spirit of British Administration – C H Sisson – 1959. A copy is to be found at https://archive.org/details/spiritofbritisha0000chsi/page/168/mode/2up. 

Water tablets

Having something of a water retention problem, I take water tablets in the form of a large, twice daily dose of Furosemide. So I was interested to come across a rather grand tomb in Bunhill Fields this afternoon memorialising a water problem - and its solution - from three hundred years ago. If the inscription is to be believed, this lady was drained - by means unspecified, but presumably mechanical rather than chemical - of four (UK) gallons of water a month for more than five years.

The context.

The other side.

Bing knows all about it, turning up, inter alia, references 2 and 3, with reference 2 supplying the snap above. From there and elsewhere I learn that there are various complaints which result in massive water retention and tapping simply means sticking a suitable drain into a suitable place. Apart from the discomfort - not to say pain - involved, it looks as if the main risk was and is infection. Complaints which are still around today.

Reference 3 is a curious document, with the snap above being the anti-penultimate and penultimate pages: 2 pages of forward, 25 pages of funerary & improving sermon, 4 pages of oration, 3 pages of ode and 2 pages of advertisements for other offerings from the same printer - a printer whose business address appears to be a tavern. All this for 6d, that is to say 6 old pence or 2.5 new pence. All this as specified in the last will and testament of the deceased, Dame Mary Page.

PS: I might say there was talk of drains in my case at one point, but I am glad to say that it did not come to anything. And I was certainly not, in any case, in her league.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunhill_Fields.

Reference 2: https://ask.metafilter.com/329694/Tapd-66-times-What-did-Dame-Mary-Page-endure. 

Reference 3: https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-funeral-sermon-occasio_harrison-thomas_1729/page/4/mode/2up.

Steak and kidney

Around ten days ago, we paid a joint, middle of the day, visit to the Oaks Suite Annex. I thought it appropriate to walk there with the trolley, so the plan was to eat at Wetherspoon's afterwards, something we have not done in Epsom for a while.

Picked up a fine red rose somewhere on the Chase Estate, I forget exactly where. The telephone has not done a bad job on it, except that it has gone back to making the foreground object look as if it is has been pasted onto a background. Visual field integration has come unstuck again.

Then in town, we were reminded that the place that was Bill's for a while, across South Street from Wetherspoon's, is going to be Persian. Coming soon: the only catch there being that it has been coming soon for a while and I suspect a hitch. Hopefully they will make it, as the menu at reference 1 looks interesting. Not stuffy about alcohol either, with an interesting wine list, from where I associate to reference 2. Not that I have looked into the religious affiliation of these Persians: maybe if you call yourself Persian in the UK, you are probably some kind of Christian rather than a Muslim, Shia or otherwise. And Wikipedia suggests that there are far few fewer Zoroastrians than Christians. Never recovered from the Muslim conquest, at around the time that we were being bashed about by the then pagan Saxons.

Our business in the Annex concluded, we returned to town, to take late afternoon refreshment at Wetherspoon's. BH studied the interesting bakery item in the house magazine, snapped above, while I studied the menu. She failed to work out how it had all been done, but I settled on steak and kidney pie, a dish we have taken several times before, although I have wondered in the past whether three of them between two would be the right way forward. On this occasion I stuck at one as BH went off-piste with some kind of veggie burger - but added a garlic pizza bread instead, or something of that sort, visible left in the snap below.

Satisfactory, perhaps half the price of the Marquis over the road, but I felt that Wetherspoon's had been fiddling with portion sizes and so on to keep the price down - rather in the way that chocolate bar manufacturers fiddle with the size of chocolate bars so as to hold what they see as the right price to keep the punters coming. 

The plates were not part of the recent makeover as we remembered them from before.

There was a new carpet, looking a lot better in real life than might appear from the snap above, much better than the one that was there before.

A poster explained that it was especially woven for the job, picking up on various bits and bobs from the location. I suppose with computer controlled looms, specials are not as special as they might once have been. And I would have been more impressed had they bothered to involve the art college up the road, although young creative types might well have turned their noses up at floor coverings for a public house. I remember that they got a contractor in to do their house logo rather than knocking something up themselves. The job needed a specialist apparently.

Edward Dorling is to be found at reference 6, but I have found no connection with the Christopher Dorling of Dorling Kindersley books, the people that do a lot of educational picture books, books which were once found all over the place. Now swallowed up in some bigger operation although the name survives, along with a website (reference 7). This despite it being an unusual name and the older Dorlings having a printing business.

We also solved the mystery of what they do with the first floor. As you face the building from the market square, the left hand side is given over to the customer toilets, including very generous provision for the ladies. But I never worked out what the right hand side was used for, quite a large chunk of space to be standing idle. Was it staff accommodation? Do Wetherspoon's do that? On this occasion, I noticed a dumb waiter at the side of the bar and the barman explained that it connected the bar with the kitchen above, not the cellar below. So the right hand side is the kitchen, plus a staff rest room. Although users of this last have to come downstairs to use the main coffee machine if they want a hot drink. Obvious enough when you have been told, but I had failed to work it out for myself.

Quite busy with pensioners eating at 16:00, much quieter by the time we left at around 17:00.

Out to attend to the trolley, noticed at reference 5, picking up the plums snapped above, and then over the hill to home. 

The plums turned out very well, some of the best plums we have had this year. Wet, green flesh coming away from the stone, as it should. Two duds from the eight, perhaps to be expected if you are buying ripe: can't expect them all to reach the line at the same time. Making the effective price near 40p each, getting on for the price of a decent orange at Sainsbury's, of the order of 50p.

Some anemones looking really well in the early evening  light, although you would not know that from the snap above. A very popular flower just at the moment, with one coming across them all over the place - including our very own front garden. Parks are quite keen on them too, often planting them in masses, where they also do well.

And someone who wants to stay on the spot to keep an eye on the builder. Not something that I would want to do: much better to move out properly and keep an eye on things from a safe distance. Things which must be fairly serious as the house has since acquired a tin lid.

A late plum.

PS 1: we were impressed by the size of the veggie menu, snapped above. A bit longer and a bit cheaper than that at the Rubbing House, fine house though that is.

PS 2: also that the leader of Brent council is moving in on their infestation of ebikes.

PS 3: Thursday morning: I suppose we should be grateful that Starmer's clothing troubles are not in the same league as those of the Mayor of New York. For whom, at reference 8 we have: 'Eric L. Adams, a retired police captain who was elected as New York City’s 110th mayor nearly three years ago on a promise to rein in crime, has been indicted following a federal corruption investigation … Days later, in a dramatic scene on a Greenwich Village street, F.B.I. agents told the mayor’s security detail to step aside, climbed into his S.U.V. with him and seized his electronic devices'.

References

Reference 1: www.dibarestaurant.co.uk.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/boozing-in-iran.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism. 

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Iran.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/09/trolley-726.html.

Reference 6: https://www.michaelchurchracingbooks.com/the-dorlings-of-epsom/.

Reference 7: https://www.dk.com/uk/.

Reference 8: Eric Adams Is Indicted After Federal Corruption Investigation: The indictment makes Mr. Adams the first sitting mayor of New York City to be charged with a federal crime - William K. Rashbaum, Dana Rubinstein, Michael Rothfeld, Edward Wong, Chelsia Rose Marcius, New York Times - 2024.