28th October-2nd November

Now the light falls

Across the open field, leaving the deep lane

Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon

(East Coker, TS Eliot)

Finally have a chance to catch up after a hectic few days of bardic busyness – it’s that festival feeling again, as a flurry of events occur around Halloween, the deadline of the year (in Celtic Tradition the festival was celebrated as Samhain, summer’s ending, and Celtic New Year – for Celts, midnight was considered the middle of the day, and so the ‘midnight of the year’ – as I feel Samhain is, more than the Winter Solstice, which has a glimmer of light, as the sun is ‘reborn’ – would similarly be its negative axis – the dark pole around which the wheel of the year turns).

As Mary Queen of Scots put, stitching the shortening threads of her alotted time: ‘In my end is my beginning’ and as TS Eliot added in The Four Quartets, ‘In my beginning is my end.’  It is an Alpha/Omega time of year (although in truth, things are always ending and beginning – it just depends on when our awareness starts). With the nights drawing in, it feels like a shift of focus, a turning inward – nature hunkers down – but life, alas, has other plans for us human animals! Hibernation is not an option!

Wednesday saw another Guest Writers in Conversation with fabulous female poets, Helen Moore and Rose Flint talking at Bath Writers’ Workshop, the event I co-run with screenwriter David Lassman. Helen and Rose’s work and ethos shared some common ground but also has interesting differences – teased out through the insightful talk and critical response they gave. They both performed a selection of their work and answered questions from the audience. Another superb evening – it was fascinating to hear the poets talk about the evolution of their work and themselves as writers. Lesser know writers rarely get a chance to discuss their work in such depth and have a fellow writer interview them and offer an insightful response. Both are great poets – check them out!

Thursday, after an exciting test run of a beautiful Triumph Legend – my next bike! – I went to Bristol with David for the Cafe of Ideas, a monthly forum. I was invited to be on a panel discussing narrative with a bank manager, professor and BBC presenter. Held at Co-exist, an arts collective based at Hamilton House, the space was transformed with performance poetry, music and a buffet. A sister event (same theme, format and panel) will take place at the Chapel Arts Centre, Bath, on November 26th.

Friday I was a guest performer at What a Performance! – a monthly open mic held at St James Wine Vaults, Bath. MCed by Richard Selby, keeping the spirit of Dave Angus (it’s founder and original host) alive and kicking. The evening was dedicated to the writer Moyra Caldecott - in her eighties and now unable to perform her work due to a stroke. Moyra has been a great influence and inspiration on me – she has supported my work for the last ten years – so it was a pleasure to participate in this event to honour her. I read out 3 of her poems as well as my own 14 page epic, Dragon Dance (from memory). My fellow guest performer Kirsty was on form with her three fabulous tales – and there were many other great contributions.

Talking to Ronald Hutton at Stanton Drew

Saturday I attended an OBOD open ceremony at Stanton Drew, a stone circle not far from Bath. It was very moving, as we were asked to think about those we have lost, and what we wanted to let go of. A pint in the Druids Arms afterwards  helped to bring us back into the land of the living! Later, for something ‘completely different’ I went to a ‘Halloween Chic’ party. It was interesting – two very different ways to celebrate the same festival!

Entering Stoney Littleton long barrow - something watches from inside...

Sunday looked like it was going to be a washout but the skies miraculously brightened after midday and I went for a quick rideout to Stoney Littleton long barrow, travelling back five thousand years as I crawled into the narrow Neolithic burial chamber to remember my ancestors at the time of Samhain.

Anthony Nanson launches Garden of Awen with a spooky tale - Chapel Arts Centre, Bath, 1st November 2009

Later, I hosted the first Garden of Awen at Chapel Arts Centre, Bath – an event I put on with Svanur Gisli Thorkelsson, whose Icepax Productions did the business once again. A guest, Rosie, said she had never seen the venue look so good. A Bath Spa art student, Jennifer, painted two great backdrops to help create an Arcadian feel. Foliage was festooned on screens. Green candles and poem flowers decorated the tables. Chapel technician Jonathan provided some snazzy lighting. Svanur brilliantly choreographed the acts: Anthony Nanson, storyteller, got things going with a gripping and stylish start with an atmospheric tale about a vampire. Nikki Bennett launched her new poetry collection, Love Shines Beyond Grief, with a bang (or a pop and a fizz – as we wet the baby’s head with flutes of Cava). David Metcalfe ended the first half with a powerful set of British death ballads and his spine-tingling poem, The Last Wolf. The second half started with a tune from Marko Gallaidhe, just back from Bampton Festival, but with still enough puff in him for a song. Richard Austin shared his poetry with aplomb. Marion Fawlk, also from Stroud, looked regal on the stage in her lovely velvet dress – sharing her deeply felt goddess poetry. The evening ended with a blistering set from guitar-shaman and sublime songsmith, James Hollingsworth. He was ‘resurrected’ for a stunning encore of Led Zep’s classic ‘In My Time of Dying’ – a suitable way to end our evening themed on ‘Death & Rebirth’.  And so, the 1st November, Celtic New Year, saw the birth of a sparkling addition to Bath’s literary firmament – a professional spoken word showcase on the first Sunday of the month. Writer Crysse Morrison, in her blog said: ‘

‘Great to see such an atmospheric venue join the local network of alternative entertainment.’

The Garden will return with its ‘high quality diversity of spoken word and music’ on the 6th December with an amazing line-up. Check out www.awenpublications.co.uk for details.

Meanwhile, I’m going to get me some quality zeds…

The elusive time-traveller - a rare photograph from the chrono-archives

Sunday 25th/Monday 26th October

I went time-travelling on two wheels yesterday – six thousand years into the past – and early this morning we were all time-travellers, briefly, as the clocks went back (as a nation, the UK travelled one hour into the past – a country-sized time-machine).

Imagine the Good Ship Great Britain slipping through the Vortex, in a kind of update of The Philadelphia Experiment (in which a US Navy vessel travels through time, with disasterous consequences).

Sounds like a plot for Dr Who…

Apart from the Gallifreyan time-lord’s stubbornly retro police box, there have been steam trains & De Loreans, (both Back to the Future), battleships, starships (in Star Trek IV: The Journey Home, and many of the TV series episodes) and countless other plot devices, including some which do away with hardware or even rationale (The Time Traveller’s Wife). The pioneer of time-travel, HG Wells (author of The Time Machine, originally called The Chronic Argonauts, until he wisely changed it) who stayed briefly in Wookey which I visited today on a rideout, had a more modest chrono-conveyance, a bicycle. He once said: ‘When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair of the human race’. Wells clearly did despair, going by his gloomy prognostications, which he saw come true with dread inevitability – tanks, war in the air, genetic engineering, atomic bombs… On his grave he wished to have the epitaph: ‘I told you so, you damned fools!’ Wells spent an autumn at Wookey (he attended the National School there as a pupil-tutor in 1897, at the impressionable age of 13). In the long and winding road to his becoming a novelist, he endured various jobs including that of a draper in London – the experience of which fed into his cycling idyll, The Wheels of Chance, in which he wrote: ‘you ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow.’ It tickles me to think of the young Wells cycling about Somerset, dreaming of time machines… I speculate that his time at Wookey, however brief, fired his imagination – the underworld of the Morlocks seems to have been inspired by the famous caves at Wookey Hole and Cheddar, where Neolithic remains had been found – to the Victorian mind, sub-human cavemen living below ground…

Hart Leap Point

(from field journal)

awens of light breakthrough the cloud, spotlights cast upon the Levels – I watch the drama of light and darkness unfold. A kestrel hovers, poised in the hollow of the wind – he’s come up here, to this high place, for his lunch, like I. In the car park a cluster of vehicles – people having their lunch inside. [I eat my sandwiches on a bench in a bracing wind] A pair of frilly knickers by my bike – cast off in the throes of passion – a quicky in a layby – and left, a tawdry memento. Orange peel scattered by the bench I sit on – spelling whose initial? A glider arcs high overhead, beyond the wheeling birds. A black bird [a raven?] flips itself as it flies along, marking an odd cry. A swathe of rain rakes the dark line of the Quantocks on the opposing side of the Levels – gloominess passes. The sun breaches the cloud and the Levels are flooded with light.

Wind dances around me, light and shadow. Peace and stillness. Blue skies after the gloom. Rising above it all. Finding the centre amidst the maelstrom. Heights from the depths. Warm sun on my face, balancing the chill in the air. Memorial trees and benches – the phantom of other lives linger, here, on these Hills of Peace.

After, I descended, passed Ebbor Gorge, taking some notes from the interpretation board [Pre-10,000BC: remains of Ice Age animals – cave bear, cave lion, hyena, reindeer, wild ox, steppe pika: 3000 BC: Neolithic people sheltered in caves and under rocky ledges] down into Wookey itself, and then through the traffic lights of Wells to Glastonbury. I took the back lanes to the Tor – up through Wick Hollow – parked up and climbed, making heavy weather of it in my leathers, feeling ancient in my bones! On top I let the wind scour away any remaining cobwebs as I surveyed the vista. Here is supposedly another great circle of time, the wheel of the stars of the Glastonbury Zodaic, the local field patterns providing a Rorschach Test for Katherine Maltwood in the Twenties. We see what we wish to. Maltwood is not unique in inventing secret or ‘lost’ knowledge to make her self feel special. Glastonbury is full of such types. I’m sure some would accuse me of being of the same ilk! But what ‘mystery’ do I offer, except ’stand and stare’, be fully present, cherish each moment and find your creative self?

Finally, I rode on to Shapwick, after a friend had mentioned the starlings which gather in stunning swirling clusters at this time of year. They seemed camera shy when I was there, although I did see countless flocks on the telegraph wires on the way there, as though waiting in the wings for the cue of dusk. I still enjoyed visiting the site of the Sweet Track and the Post Track – the earliest known trackways in the UK. Raised wooden walkways, they provided passage across the reedswamp between Polden Ridge and the ‘island’ of Westhay, a distance of 2km (1.3 miles). I love the fact that the Sweet Track was named after Ray Sweet, who discovered it while ditch cleaning in 1970. The timbers had been preserved in peat and hidden from humanity for nearly six thousand years. Radio-carbon dating has enabled the creation of the trackways to be pinpointed precisely, the Sweet Track 3806BC, and the Post Track 3838 BC. Various offerings (to the ‘Gods of the Wetlands’ as the interpretation board speculates) or lost items have been found alongside the tracks – flint arrowheads, a jadeite axe from the Alps, yew pins, a child’s toy wooden axe – giving us a tantalising window into the people of the Levels. In that quiet place, sitting on a bench dedicated to a Gladys Hill (1903-1996), on that dark autumn day near dusk, it was easy to imagine

the ancestors passing by…

(from field journal)

Ancient Whispers

Wind through the reeds

sighing with time

ancient sound

timeless sound.

Susurration of grasses,

whispers of ancestors,

here in this place

where they laboured

six thousand years ago

to build a crossing place

between two islands,

two communities -

one for the living,

one for the dead?

A Neolithic Avalon.

Dry hiss of leaves,

sucked dry of summer’s juice,

heavy with age,

ready to fall,

giving up the green ghost

in a pyre of colour,

ablaze with memory.

The same sound they heard,

so long ago.

The same sound heard

six thousand years

hence?

Brilliant Failures#4: The Adventures of Baron Münchausen

Theatrical release poster

Terry Gilliam’s new film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opened on Friday to a flurry of stories about its ‘troubled production’ (Heath Ledger’s tragic death during its making; the death of one of its producers, William Vince, two days after completion. Cue hoary anecdotes about the ‘the curse of Gilliam’. The ex-Python’s doomed attempt to bring his Don Quixote to the big screen, as immortalised in the heart-breaking documentary, Fulton and Pepe’s 2002 Lost in La Mancha, has encoded Gilliam’s legend as the Quixotic director who is forever tilting at windmills. In that catalogue of woe the lead actor, Jean Rochefort, died during filming, the Spanish air force took target practice nearby and the whole set was washed away in a flash flood. And still referred to in disparaging terms in the movie world is the ‘debacle over The Adventures of Baron Münchausen, Gilliam’s 1988 film that has become a byword for over-budget production disasters – and yet behind this myth, like many of the illusions in the director’s films (who, let us not forget, has turned in modern classics like Time Bandits, Brazil and The Fisher King), is something far more down-to-earth and to scale – and a film that does what it intends to, tell a rattling good yarn.

Once Upon a Time

Baron Münchausen is a semi-folkloric character from The Surprising Adventures of Baron Münchausen by the fabulously-named Rudolf Erich Raspe — a collection of German wonder tales published in 1785, based on the real-life German adventurer Karl Friedrich von Münchhause, who was prone to exaggeration it seems – and has subsequently given his name to the psychiatric disorder Münchausen Syndrome. Münchausen’s story has been made into films four times previously, in 1911 (Les Aventures du baron de Münchhausen), 1943 (the notorious Nazi Münchhausen, script by Erich Kästner), 1961 (Baron Prášil) and the Russian Tot samyi Münchhausen in 1979. The Baron seemed a perfect choice for Gilliam, a match made in heaven that had to go through hell.

Production Purgatory

The original producer, David Puttnam, was fired and with the subsequent regime change as one studio (20^th Century Fox) was taken over by another (Columbia Pictures), the film was ‘buried’, a victim of Hollywood politics. The studios were still embittered about how Gilliam took them on over his previous film, the dystopian Brazil, famously taking out a full page ad in Variety, asking ‘why won’t you release my film?’ In the US only 117 prints were released of Münchausen (even arthouse movies get a standard 400). Despite this  apparent sabotaging from the studio, the film opened well in the few cities it was being screened in – but not surprisingly, the box office was dismal ($8 million – a figure pounced on by critics to prove its failure) yet in Europe, with better distribution, it faired better and gained a healthy afterlife in VHS and DVD sales as its cult status grew.

A Stellar Cast

Gilliam has a knack of attracting a great ensemble cast to his films. Previously he has worked with Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis (Twelve Monkeys); Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges (The Fisher King); Connery and Cleese (Time Bandits); and subsequently, Ledger and Matt Damon (Brothers Grimm). Münchausen is no exception: it has an ‘unknown’ Uma Thurman as Venus: Oliver Reed, doing an hilarious stint as Vulcan; fellow Python Eric Idle; an uncredited Robin Williams as the King of the Moon; cameos by Sting, Alison Steadman, Don Paterson, and Jonathan Pryce, previously the lead man, Sam, in Brazil, hamming it up as the ultimate killjoy city official ‘The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson’ – defender of ‘reason’. Jonathan Pryce’s character becomes a symbol of the studio financiers, always trying to shut Gilliam/Münchausen down – blue meanies of the imagination.

A Solid Structure

On one level Münchausen, scripted by McKeown and Gilliam (Parnassus sees them reunited) is a riff on Scheherazade (the female fabulist of One Thousand and One Nights) – the storyteller indefinitely postponing death with her tale-spinning. In the framing narrative, set in a ‘beseiged city’, Münchausen interrupts a poor rendition of his life with a ‘real tale’ of how he narrowly escaped losing his head in a wager with the King of the Turks over a bottle of Tokay. With the help of his four super-powered allies (Berthold, the world’s fastest man; Albrecht, the world’s strongest; Gustavus, with the keenest hearing; and Adolphus, with the keenest eyesight) he wins the day and the admiration of the ‘lovely ladies’ of the harem. When the ‘seige’ interrupts his fabulation, the crestfallen Münchausen decides to die, but is forced to act to save the city (for the sake of a little girl, Sally Salt, who is won over by his tales).  The Baron, escaping the city on a cannon-ball, seeks out his former companions and in doing so goes on a quest for wholeness. Each of his companions seem to represent a different element (air, fire, earth, water) – only when all four are brought together can wholeness be achieved –a kind of Jungian individuation. In Parnassus – five is the magic number (the number of souls Parnassus must win, to save his daughter, Valentina, played by Lily Cole, from the devil, Mr Nick, played by Tom Waits) although it is four different versions of the initially suicidal Tony who save the day, played – after Ledger’s death, by 3 fellow A-list actors and friends, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrel and Jude Law (who donated their fees to Ledger’s daughter).

Smoke and Mirrors

As in many of Gilliam’s films, there is a metanarrative that revels in the ‘smoke and mirrors’ of cinema. In Münchausen, and now in Parnassus, we see ‘real fakirs’, illusions that prove true and received wisdoms that are revealed to be false, unmasked like so many wizards of Oz. Münchausen’s framing narrative is quite chilling. The ‘enemy’ is not at the gates – the ‘fear of the other’ is just a myth created by those in power to control us… This proved prophetic when the Berlin Wall toppled the year following its release, ending the Cold War – and seems just as relevant to today – when we have bogus WMD, a never-ending ‘War on Terror’ and an erstwhile enemy.

Award-winning

Despite its lambasting in the popular press, Münchausen received 4 Oscar nominations and a gaggle of others for its design, special FX, and other technical skill. The film gained some positive reviews (85% positive on Rotten Tomatoes). US film critic Roger Ebert concluded that, despite its faults, “the wit and the spectacle of Baron Münchausen are considerable achievements”.

Cult Classic

Perhaps due to all of this, as much as from its neglected delights, Münchausen has attained cult status – enshrined at last in Movie Valhalla in the hearts of film fans. When you look at the GNP of small nations spent on films like Titanic, Spiderman 3 and Avatar, the budget for Münchausen seems miniscule now, even compared to most modern Hollywood movies – Münchausen is cited as having a budget of $23.5 million, and came in at $46.6m, although this has been disputed. The film’s original producer, Schuly, says the film’s original budget was closer to $35m, but Columbia, when they took it over, reduced this to $25m. It seems Gilliam’s bad press was a stitch up, a rumour mill fuelled by the Completion Bond Company and those with bad feeling towards Gilliam from Brazil. The maverick director had challenged the powers of the studios and was paying the price.

A Vaulting Ambition

Münchausen – like Quixote, like Parnassus – seems to be an alter-ego for Gilliam himself, a chronic fabulist, one who refuses to let reality win. The latest news is Gilliam’s Don Quixote project is back on, albeit without Depp, who is booked up for the next ten years. Gilliam has said he cannot wait that long, joking that he may die before he gets a chance to make his dream project. The director narrowly avoided the Reaper as Parnassus was in post-production, after being knocked over by a people carrier. As the Baron himself would put it: ‘only one of the many occasions on which I met my death’.

‘Everyone Who Had a Talent for it Lived Happily Ever After’

Imaginarium is the first film Gilliam has story-boarded himself since Münchausen and early reviews hail its visionary verve – the Gilliam trademark. There is no greater living screen fantasist. May the Reaper not catch up with Gilliam for many years yet.

©Kevan Manwaring 2009

View previous Brilliant Failures articles by Kevan Manwaring on The Big Picture website:

http://www.thebigpicturemagazine.com/

on Solsbury Hill - Sunday rideout

21-27 Sep

This week I have been catching up with myself after the week on Iona – there’s been alot to sort out as new terms start, etc, but amidst it all I’ve launched my new novel and been involved with other literary events…

It’s really felt like ‘back to school’ and a shift of emphasis – from the outward to the inward spiral. At the time of the autumn equinox it is perhaps not surprising that it has felt both light and dark/good and bad … my week certainly has reflected that duality.

Monday I spent mainly ploughing through my inbox and replying to messages. In the evening I was due to start my new evening class in creative writing at Chew Valley School but it was aborted due to low enrolment (apparently a fate several of the arts classes suffered, no doubt a byproduct of the tough economic climate). Instead I went to the Bath Storytelling Circle at the Raven, though I didn’t feel very dynamic, still struggling with a cold – numbers were down there so I did force myself to share a story in the second half to help out David, the host – I told a Scottish tale, the Well at the World’s End.

the launch of The Well Under the Sea

Tuesday was the launch of my new novel, The Well Under the Sea – the plan was to launch it with a river cruise – but a phone call in the morning kaiboshed that idea, the Pulteney Princess’s lights were on the blink (and the dim-witted staff seemed to be equally in the dark). Suddenly I had to find a new venue. I looked at a couple of boats, but  it was rather late in the day, to say the least. Fortunately, the Rising Sun came to the rescue, which just so happens to have a boat in the beer garden! So, this served as an agreeable substitute – the place has been tastefully done up since the days when the storytelling circle used to be housed there and the staff were friendly and helpful. The skittles alley provided a wet weather option, which turned out useful, as it started to drizzle – talking about raining on my parade! Still, despite the set backs it turned out to be a good night – I gathered guests in the garden to toast the book with a glass of mead as I stood on the prow of the boat, so at least I could say I launched the book on a boat! Then we repaired inside where I did a reading and answered questions. The atmosphere was pleasant – it was nice to see my friends there. It was a small event, but felt like it had served its purpose – The Well was well and truly launched!

Book launch on a boat! (beer garden of the Rising Sun, Grove St, Bath)

Wednesday was a busy day for Bath Writers’ Workshop (David Lassman & me): we both had events in the Jane Austen Festival – I ran a writing workshop (Writing Jane) and David gave a talk (Adapting Austen) – both were very popular events (sold out). Straight after, we had to go and host the 4th Wednesday event at the New Inn – Guest Writers in Conversation, once againt a Bath Writers’ Workshop production – with Jay Ramsay and Anthony Nanson down from Stroud. This was a superb evening – both authors gave excellent readings/performances and talked eloquently and insightfully about their work with each other. A high calibre event that could easily habe  been in the Bath Literature Festival and certainly deserves decent funding (at the moment we don’t get any – sponsorship welcome!)

Friday was my first class of the term with the Community Learning Service, with a lovely group of older learners at Saltford Library. Afterwards, I helped my Finnish friends Mika and Maarit to move (they are moving to Helsinki). Fortunately there were a few of us to shift the many boxes and bits of furniture out of the house and into the carpark, where they piled up, awaiting the men with the van who got lost in Bath’s one-way system (turning up 2hrs late!). In the evening I went down to Glastonbury to do a second launch event for The Well… at the Cat & Cauldron.

Saturday morning I ran one-to-one writer consultations in Bath Central Library. In the evening I went to Amy & Tim’s joint birthday bash – a wild wild west party in Wookey – which was great fun (much needed after a tiring week). On Sunday morning I rode back in the sun, glad to be a bard on a bike!

Iona Hostel,Lagandorain

Friday 11th September 2009

Sailing to Iona (ferry from Mull)

Arrived yesterday early evening on the ferry from Oban (via Mull). Beautiful golden light – the skies clearing as we approached the island. Smooth crossing after a bumpy ride on the Mull bus with a grumpy driver. The night before we had stayed at Anthony’s friend’s place – Peter, an old university friend, who was most hospitable – offering us a beer from his fine collection (I had a bottle of ‘Ossian’). His wife made a lovely meal, and the company was pleasant (another of Anthony’s old college friends happened to be staying as well – Andrew) but I was too tired to really enjoy things and went to bed as soon as dinner was over. It had been a tiring few days – with the preparation for the trip and the launch of Mary’s book at Waterstones the night before we departed – which was a big event for us.

Book launch at Waterstones, 08.09.09

Our trip to Iona is, in a way, a pilgrimage for Mary: last year I published her book iona and this year we are taking copies of her new book to the island – to the Iona Community Shop. Anthony has managed to arranged a reading on Tuesday night, so it feels like we will be honouring our friends memory in a meaningful way – it marks the end of the journey that began earlier this year. In January I suggested to Mary a collection. In June she died. Three months after her death we published Tidal Shift, and now here we are. We were asked to bring up a 20-30 books for the shop – we couldn’t quite manage that (!), but still 10 books each on top of all our kit made for a heavy load, and with the provisions we bought in Glasgow, even heavier. The worst bit – in terms of effort & endurance – was the hike from the quayside in Iona to the hostel, right up the north end of the island. Yet the evening was beautiful and was euphoric to have finally arrived on an island I have been meaning to visit for a number of years. I feel it was clearly not meant to happen until this year – in the wake of Mary’s death and the launch of her book it is especially resonant. What with my publishing Mary’s Iona collection last year and her Tidal Shift this year, and our planned reading on Tuesday it feels like we are participating and even contributing to the island – not just being ‘consumers’. Regardless of these connotations and plans, I wish to experience the island as itself and let it work its own magic on me. I come with no agenda or script. I want to open and receive, savour and relish. The island awaits to be explored, discovered. It is like a present awaiting to be opened.

May it also open me.

arriving at the hostel

Evening
Stunning day of glorious sunshine. Walked with Anthony to south end of the island, via the Iona Community Shop, where we dropped off the copies of Tidal Shift for Tuesday. We lazily ambled along the coves, stopping often to soak up the sun. We had no map or itinerary. It felt wonderful, after days of intense, time conscious activity – meeting deadlines, etc.

view from Iona - north end

We stopped at high bluff overlooking the sea around the southern end of Iona and had our lunch of soup and sandwiches, relaxing in the sun. Then we wended our way towards what turned out to be Columba’s Bay, where he apparently landed. Here we stopped to write on separate outcrops and ended up having siestas. Afterwards, we made our way back north, stopping on the Hill of the Lamb to talk about woundings – our conversation had turned in this direction after I mentioned how Columba was probably suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder when he arrived in Iona, and guilt – having been the cause of a massacre of 3000 warriors in a calamitous battle back in Erin. He had chosen the white martydom – never to see his homeland again – as the ‘bay of the back of Ireland’ suggests. Perhaps he hoped that the isle of druids – the first place he made landfall – would purge him of his sins. He arrived, a man wanting to be shriven. The island worked its magic and turned him into the legend he is. Finally finding a track (we’d spent most of the day bog-trotting) we headed back to ‘civilisation’ – the tiny hamlet where a bar and a cold beer awaited. We couldn’t resist as we passed one by the quayside, where we sat on the terrace enjoying the Mediterranean climate and vista: turquoise sea, brightly coloured boats, dramatic mountainous backdrop. We were truly blessed on our first full day in Iona with one of the best days of the year here. We returned to the hostel in the ‘hollow of the otter’ satisfied and pleasantly weary. Tea and ‘tiffin’ awaited. As Anthony prepared dinner (taking his turn) I watched the full disc of the sun slip over the horizon – the end of a perfect day on Iona.

Saturday 12th September
Bay of the Woman of the Dislocated Shoulder

We both slept well and so were in better shape the next day, which was just as well. After a relaxing start to the day – no timetable, no rush – we packed some lunch and headed up to Dun I, the tallest peak on the island. Here we sat against the walnut whip-shaped cairn and read and wrote in silent contentment. Anthony read to me the first draft of a new poem, composed on the spot. I shared some musings and we discussed various literary arcana. Then we descended, following the north-west coast of the island around – wild and unvisited – a rocky terrain interspersed with spongy bogs across which we trotted. It was satisfying to just strike out into wild country, with no map, following no path. Of course, we had the reassurance that on a small island you can’t get lost. We stopped in a cove for lunch, laying back against a perfectly sloping rock by some ‘flotsam art’.

flotsam art, the pebbly beach

I got up and walked to a rock ledge, where I sat – enjoying the crashing waves, when something caught my eye – it was a stoat of some kind (a pine marten?) popping up its head from behind a ridge of rocks to my right thirty foot away. I froze and it deliberated whether I posed a threat or not. Thinking better of it, it retreated, but I felt blessed by the wild. We finally made it to Ban bay mid afternoon – a beautiful wide beach – the sand made of ‘granules’ of shells. Here, we took off our boots and socks and bathed our hot feet in the chilly Atlantic waters. We bumped into a Dutch lady staying at the hostel. Anthony had had a good chat with her and her friend Yvonne the night before. She wandered off as we went for a paddle. Then we saw her waving from the rocks. At first I thought she wanted to take a photo. We went closer – still I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Then we were within earshot. She had hurt her arm in a fall. I inspected it and it felt like something was sticking out, but not breaking the skin – a dislocated shoulder or a bad sprain, I couldn’t tell. I fashioned a sling from her scarf and appraised the situation. We had to extricate her from the awkward rock pool area she had trapped herself in, which took some doing. I went in front, Anthony behind. We had to wade through a slimy pit of seaweed. Fortunately nothing nibbled our toes and we made it to the sand. We sat her down on my fleece and tried to call – no signal. I ran up to the rise and tried again, to no avail. So we decided that Anthony would stay with her and I would go for help – so taking a swig of water, off I ran. Ali had left her hire bike by the gate back by the road – I leapt on this and pedalled furiously in search of help. I came to a house on the left – and ran up to the front, where an old lady was sitting outside, a local I ascertained. She was very helpful, ringing round – first we tried the hostel, figuring John there would have first aid, no luck. Fire Station – no response! She tried various friends – there was a nurse, but ’she wasn’t in the first flush of youth’. So we decided to try and collect her in their car – Douglas, her husband turned up and was not flapped at all. He drove his family car back to the beach – I opened and closed the gates. He managed to get his car all the way to the top of Ban Bay. We helped Ali up to the car, and she was whisked off to the nurse, who it turned out had broken her arm recently as well! She couldn’t do much to help – the doctor on Mull was rang and they advised Ali was taken over on the ferry. Douglas instantly agreed to do this, bless him – and Anthony went with them, as Ali didn’t want to be alone. I took Ali’s bike back to the bike hire and caught my breath, writing a couple of postcards by the quayside. What an afternoon! So much for a relaxing siesta on the beach…but it was good to be there to help Ali. I wearily walked back to the hostel, and informed John – who was going to the ferry. He didn’t see Douglas or Anthony there so we assumed that A was stuck on Mull. Fortunately, he had got an earlier one back and was rendezvousing with Ali’s friend, Yvonne – breaking the news to her. Meanwhile I recovered over a cuppa. A new guest, a German guy living on ‘an island’ in Switzerland’ offered me the rest of his spaghetti – angels appear when you need them.

Sunday 13th September
Wild-sleeping

One day, when St Columba was living on Iona, he set off into the wilder parts of the island to find a place secluded from other people where he could pray alone. (III,

Yesterday Anthony and I decided to ‘do our own thing’ – not through any fall-out, just to take it easy. As with all our decisions so far, we came to it quite quickly and effortlessly. One of the joys of this holiday has been the spontaneity and commonality of feeling. We’ve decided to do things in the moment and with ease. Having had three days together, the preparation and long journey up on top of the book launch made for a tiring schedule we’ve slowed to an island pace of doing things, the Iona groove. Although we usually wake around 8, and begin the day with a solo walk along the beach – as today (enjoying the glorious morning along an unspoilt stretch of sand) we haven’t been leaving the hostel til 10ish, often being the last. Today, I was even later – deciding to have a crack at my novel, The Wounded Kingdom, which has a section set on versions of Iona and Staffa. I sat in the dorm room (#1) and read through some of it on the laptop, tweaking and enhancing my description of the island. It was difficult to get into the zone with all the comings and goings, (3 older American ladies who had stayed in our dorm, one in the top bunk above each of us – Anthony, myself and the Glaswegian geologist – were in a flurry of leaving, to continue their 3 week tour of Britain and Ireland, turned out to be nature writers) but at least I made a start. That morning, before breakfast (porridge, honey & apricots) I walked to the ‘White Strand of the Monks, its beautiful name and appearance belying its bloody past: here in AD806 Viking raiders massacred 63 monks. As I went to urinate (the toilets taken over by the morning rush) I noticed a white stone in the sand – I picked it up. It was a smooth pebble of quartz – it seemed an apt souvenir of Iona, an island of ‘white peace’. I walked along the pale sand, taking in the vista of mountains and sea, slowly waking. I spotted some tracks that I speculated could have been those of the kind of stoat I saw yesterday. I tracked them as they wove along the beach, between the rocks. I reached a buttress of rocks where I recited my morning praise, glad to be alive. The weather here has been fair for three days now – and I feel truly blessed by it. Reaching the far point, I walked back through the long, dew-soaked grass, silvering in the waves of wind and sunlight.

Finally extricating myself from the hostel – it was a glorious day and it would be a shame to waste, though it was nice to indulge in some finger-tapping – I walked along the road to the Iona Community Shop opposite the Abbey, and waited contentedly for it to open at noon, it being a Sunday. Inside, I noticed with pleasure the lovely poster they had done for the reading Anthony and I are giving there on Tuesday. I purchased the excellent map of the island with all the fabulous place-names on. I scrutinised it with pleasure over a cup of coffee (‘cheaper than Starbucks!’ I had joked to another customer). With this in hand I headed back along the lane to the start of the footpath up to Dun I – from there I took a bearing to the Big Hill of the Querns, where I hoped to find the legendary Well of the North Wind. It was satisfying to strike out with a compass and a map by myself. Away from the main attractions, Iona quickly becomes wild. I didn’t see anyone for the next two or three hours as I made my way across the boggy landscape to the rocky outcrop of the Big Hill. Here, at the far end, I discovered the Well – a circular enclosure beneath the far western cliff. It could easily be mistaken for a sheep-fold. Perhaps it was, but I couldn’t see anything else that fitted the description. After enjoying my packed lunch I descended to it and made my ‘offering’ – a length of plaited material I had found. I asked for a blessing on The Windsmith Elegy, then I found myself singing a melody that rose up with conscious thought – two parts, alternating, interweaving. It would have probably sounded painful to the casual listener, but it felt good to do it, to give voice to the wind.

The Hermit's Cell, 'remote hollow', Iona

Feeling I had honoured Boreas, I went to the ‘Hermit’s Cell’, the remains of a roundhouse nearby: a low circular enclosure of stones, with a doorway facing South West (for maximum light). I entered and immediately lay down on the soft grass opposite the entrance and nodded off, feeling deep peace in this secluded spot. It seems I have spent the last few days having naps in beautiful places – it could be a new outdoor fad like wild-swimming: wild-sleeping. Could I get a book deal for a book about sleeping my way across Britain, as the late Roger Deakin did with Water Log and swimming? I could see why a hermit chose this spot – it lacks a decent view, hemmed in on three sides by rocky outcrops, but is sheltered and feels miles from anyway, when in fact, it’s only a kilometre from the Abbey. Yet it might as well be in another world – for the whole hour I was there, in the middle of the day, I saw no-one, even though its meant to be on the ‘Pilgrim Route’, the trail that loops around the island which I was trying to follow, but with clear signs, I soon lost it and found myself once more bog-trotting (another new Olympic sport?) as I headed southwest towards the Bay at the Back of the Ocean through dramatically rugged country. Somewhat anti-climactically, I emerged from this wilderness onto a golf course, of all things. Half the island seems to be taken up by its manicured fields – God’s fairway. I reached the glittering bay and flopped into a sandy hollow. By this point it was hot enough to go for a swim but it was too exposed and frequented to consider skinny dipping. Having run out of water, I was forced to head back to the village, retracing my steps from yesterday at a rather more leisurely pace. On the way I ended up chatting to a lovely old couple from Ayrshire, up with a party of fellow Christians. We talked amicably about how lovely it all was. I bid farewell to them at the quayside and bought myself an icecream, which somewhat restored me – enough to get me back to the hostel in good time to cook (my turn – curry) before the daily feeding frenzy started.

Highland Coo

Of Stars and Toads

After our ‘Wetherspoons special’ of veg curry and lager, I freshened up and decided to accompany Anthony to the Abbey for the evening ‘quiet space’ service. As we left, the sky was a dramatic sandwich of dark cloud, orange horizon and dark sea, which reminded me, somewhat prosaically, of a Jaffa Cake. When we arrived, just before 9pm, the Abbey was lit up with candles and looked beautiful. It had been fashioned with local stone had a wonderful ‘rough-edged’ quality to it, no doubt partly due to its destruction and reconstruction. It was a painless ecumenical service, with little in the way of liturgy, the focus being on (mostly) silent prayer – although the reverent peace was challenged by my spectacular sneeze at the start, then further coughs, etc, from the congregation. I enjoyed the ambience, the chance to taste a little of Iona’s sacred heritage and tradition, and also the extract of Thoreau read out by the American reader, which seemed uncanny considering our encounter earlier that day with the nature writers (they claimed the US had given the world nature writing, something A & I amusingly debunked). The service was short and sweet – a nice end to the week – and as we stepped outside into the night we were greeted by the most spectacular star-field, at which we gazed in awe. It felt like the interior of the Abbey, with its rows of candles had been turned inside out and magnified beyond comprehension – and now we worshipped in the cathedral of the stars. We walked along the lane and passed St Oran’s Chapel, glowing in the night, from which emanated haunting plainsong in some Eastern European tongue. A large image of a saint could be seen, eerily, framed in the doorway.

St Oran's relicary, Iona

We decided, on a whim, to go for a beer – Ali, having returned, arm in truss, from Mull, had given me back the deposit for the bike she had hired. So I bought us drinks with it in the third place we tried (the rest were closed) Martyrs Bay Bar, which was lively for a late Sunday. After a local ale, I sampled a shot of the local malt, ‘Iona’, hoping its medicinal properties would help the cold I felt coming on. We wandered back merrily to the hostel, talking about Star Trek. I spotted a shooting star and thought of a loved one back home. We came across two toads in the road – feigning Kirk’s unique cadence, I asked ‘Spock’ to attempt a mind-meld. Alas, this devil in the dark remained taciturn. We also stopped to admire a long-horned snail with our torches. At last, we were back in the ‘hollow of the otter’. Contentedly, but clumsily, I returned to our dorm while Anthony read in the common room. In the darkness I became the cartoon drunk, trying to clamber into my bunk, before falling effortlessly to sleep – even Anthony’s anti-snoring device of an umbrella failed to disturb me from my slumber.

Monday 14th September
Fingal’s Cave

This morning we decided to go to the world famous Fingal’s Cave on Staffa. The weather was overcast for the first time in four days, but the seastate was fine and visibility was okay and, despite feeling a bit grotty, I decided to go, accepting that the forlorn weather created a suitably melancholic air for visiting such a Romantic iconic landmark, immortalized by Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Mendelsson. We parked and walked down to the quayside to catch the Iolaire, which happened to have two spaces spair. The skipper was a charismatic Scotsman with a great accent and line in yarn-spinning. He had a good local knowledge, which he was happy to share as he worked his way around the boat. I was feeling ‘under the weather’, which I was worried would impair my enjoyment of the place, but as we raised anchor and put out into the Sound of Iona, my spirits raised. It was great to be sailing to a magical island. Along the way, we spotted baby seals on the rocks. Anthony, a keen twitcher, scanned the waters for the sea-birds: the shags and cormorants. Before I realised, we were there. I stood up and was greeted with a full view of the island: amazing.

Fingal's Cave, Staffa by KM

From a wave-smoothed granite base rose the basaltic columns to a ‘head’ like a giant stone muffin, an island with elphantitus. It was weird – a mixture of the organic and artificial, like some alien spaceship. And the famous cave was dramatically dark and, well, sexual.

The sun had broken through at this point and created a dramatic play of light and shadow, revealing the variegated delineations of colour – black to ochre to rust, indigo to slate blue to grey.

The formation by the jetty was weirdly beautiful, the columns bent in every direction, like polyps on coral frozen in motion. It looked like a piece of modern art, the Gugenheim itself planted into the Atlantic, an Atlantis of art.

sculptural shapes on Staffa

We alighted and made a beeline to the cave. Visitors nervously edged along the side of a narrow ledge that led a little way into the cave. An orange power boat took other visitors right to the back – I half-expected a giant eye to flick open and then a vast maw to open and devour them, but it was me who was nearly gobbled up! As I made my way along the line and stood looking in awe at the sight out of legend, one of the day-trippers brusquely pushed past me and nearly tipped me into the dark waters below with not a word of apology – completely unaware of his clumsy actions, it seems. I teetered on the brink, but the Cailleach didn’t claim me this time!

on the threshold of Fingal's Cave

When the crowd thinned Anthony and I tried an awen. Our voices reverberated amongst the cathedral-like columns of the cave. It was a magical moment, spine-tingling. The rocks seemed to respond, come alive.

Anthony on the Wishing Chair, Staffa

Afterwards, we picked our way back along the columnar stepping stones, stopping to make three wishes in the wishing chair. An old fella sat in it, looking content – further on, I’d asked him if his wishes had come true yet. He said he had been coming here for thirty years, so maybe he had – at that age (he looked ninety) another year of life might be all the wish you need. Then we ascended the steps up to the ‘roof’ of the island, covered with squelchy grass, but our time was running out. An hour isn’t enough to do the island justice, and reluctantly we made our way back to the boat. We were the last to return and I was the last to step aboard.

boarding the Iolaire, Staffa

Our skipper put out and we left Staffa, admiring its stern flanks one last time. It had certainly been worth it, a dream come true.

seal pup seen from Iolaire - Staffa cruise

Returning to Iona, we had tea at the Argyl hotel, being persuaded into brownies and shortbread by the Aussie waitress. Yet the pots of tea were capacious and it was pleasant to sit by the shore and reflect on our experiences, although serious writing was rather hampered by the chatty Lancashire ladies on the adjacent bench (A was able to pinpoint their accent – 15 miles from his hometown). A bought a couple of stamps from the tinshack postoffice – a wonderfully ramshackle affair – and posted my postcards, hoping they will arrive. Then to the Spar for essentials, before checking out the Iona bookshop, as elusive as Brigadoon to catch open. I wasn’t feeling up to serious browsing by this point and headed back for lemon and honey and the soothing tones of Jennifer Crook on my laptop.
Man Flu
Tuesday, 15th September

Down with a cold so took it easy today, staying in, nursing myself & feeling sorry for myself (Argyll Gazette: ‘Outbreak of Man Flu on Iona – island in quarantine. Vaccine of malt whisky and DVDs flown in. Girlfriends on round-the-clock breakfast & massage duties). Wrote this morning – well, worked on book. The weather had turned and was wet and miserable so felt quite happy to stay. It brightened up later, so managed go for a little walk around the headland after lunch and practised the poems I was going to read later for Mary – Anthony had managed to arrange a reading at the Iona Community Shop. I tried to save myself for this, having a very lazy afternoon. I cooked with our dwindling supplies. Then we set off. It went well – we had a twenty folk there, which for Iona is a crowd. It felt well received and very poignant to do – the end of a journey for us, in terms of the book’s creative arc, but hopefully the beginning of the book’s journey. We shifted eighteen (10 stock, 8 sor) so our bags will be a lot lighter going back! Leaving the shop in the gathering dusk, I felt unburdened. It is done.

Anthony & I after reading for Mary - Iona Community Shop

16th September
All’s Well that End’s Well

Today we went on a final walk around the island. I was feeling a lot better – my head was clear and it felt like I had some life in my limbs. And so, in our usual way, we bimbled about and final left about 11 – but made a full day of it, not getting back to gone 9pm. We started off heading back up Dun I, to visit the Well of Eternal Youth, which is lodged in a gap in the northernmost crag. The setting is spectacular. We both drank – Anthony, being the eldest, went first. We both took three sips – I for youth, maturity and age. The idea of being young forever is not appealing. I think each age of a person’s life has appeal, like the seasons – we should experience them all fully. What is Spring or Summer without Autumn and Winter?

drinking from the Well of Eternal Youth!

From one well, we walked to another – I lead A to the Well of the North Wind by the Big Hill of Querns, or at least what I thought it was. But closer inspection of the map revealed it was slightly further north. We managed to find it – a boggy corner under a rock – and was disappointed. Preferred my first choice. But it was still satisfying to locate it. We sat in the Hermit’s Cell for a while as well. Very peaceful – we imagined living there a hermit life.

Headed on to the Machair – the stretch of common land abutting the Bay of the Back of the Ocean, glittering in the sun. The tide was out. We sat and took a sip of water, then pressed on to the Bay of the White Stones, to have our lunch on a little grassy knoll in the lee of the wind, watching the spectral spumes of water from Spouting Cave.

writing stop, port of the white stones, Iona

We stayed here for a while, writing and reading. Anthony was clearly inspired and could have stayed all afternoon! But we had an island to circum-navigate, so onwards we went, ascending to the southern plateau where we navigated to the Cairn of the Back to Ireland, where St Columba was said to have done just that, turn his back on his homeland, taking the ‘white martyrdom’. Here we were content to sit in the sun, enjoying the dramatic views over the southeastern end of Iona and the shimmering sea beyond. Here we found peace and wisdom.

At the Cairn of the Back to Ireland, South Iona

As the afternoon was pressing on, we headed east to the Marble Quarry in the southeastern quarter – a strange postindustrial site of Heath Robinson like machinery, rusting and broken, and gigantic piles of marble blocks, cut and abandoned, like some Maui-esque Easter Island cult.

Summoning our last reserves of energy we headed north across the Plain of Wine, dreaming of our evening meal, which we enjoyed at St Columba’s Hotel – a treat to end our fantastic week on the island. Tomorrow, we sail back to the mainland, and our lives – but we take a little bit of Iona back with us, inside.

waiting for the ferry back to Mull

The journey home was a long one – 18 hours – but it was made agreeable with Anthony’s company (we jokingly modulated our accents the further south we went – from hammy Scots to Brummie!) and gave us a chance to reflect on our time on Iona. I arrived at Bath Spa station – after 2 ferries, 2 buses and 4 trains – at midnight. Wearily, I lugged my pack home, knowing at 5am I had to be up to get to Stonehenge to run a ceremony for Jamie George of Gothic Image tours – no rest for the bardic! Although it was an effort, the morning was cold, clear and beautiful and to return to England in such a manner, from Iona to Stonehenge, felt a privilege and gentle reintroduction to the wheel – from one sacred site to another, from the Island of Stones, to the Great Circle of Stones. I blatted back along the virtually empty pre-rush hour roads, had a long soak to thaw out the chill of the dawn and then dived into my delightful bed to blissful oblivion, glad to be finally back home.

Iona - a place of peace

Time & Tide, Great Yarmouth, 4-6 September

Over the weekend I went on a long rideout (500 miles) across England to Great

Yarmouth, to give a talk at the Folklore Society’s annual conference – this year held at the Time and Tide maritime museum – on ‘The Sea in Legend and Tradition’. Having seen the call for papers I decided that a talk on lost islands (connected to my book from Heart of Albion Press) would be apprpriate – I proposed it and was accepted.

I set off Friday after lunch – taking my usual route back to the old town across the Cotswolds. It was dry and I made good time. Had a pitstop at Delapre Abbey about halfway, arriving in Great Yarmouth, the other side of the country, at 8pm.

I dumped my stuff in the B&B and hit the town, following the gaudy neon seafront in search of sustenance. The vegetarian options were limited, to the say the least. Why British seasides have to be so tacky, I don’t know – why can’t they try for a Mediterranean ambience? We may not have the climate, but that doesn’t mean it has to be always so naff. Does the modern holidaymaker actually want deafening amusement arcades, tatty piers, crazy golf, noddy trains, and Z-list cabaret?

I met up with some of the fellow delegates in the Old White Lion, apparently Great Yarmouth’s oldest building and pub – shame one has to run the gauntlet of the dodgy backstreets to find it. It was easy to spot the conference crowd, as one of them was in the middle of a sea ballad. The convenor, Jeremy, identified by his purple balloon, was friendly enough and I got chatting with a chap called Mark, who was there to talk about lighthouses. My greeting to my fellow delegates (‘Ya-haa ship mates!’) failed to elicit a response. The pub’s pooch was  friendlier, a cheeky fellow called Spider, who delighted in jumping up on the seats next to the customers. At least the beer was alright, but I was too tired from my long ride to have more than one.

On the way back to the B&B I made a detour onto the beach and enjoyed the full moon glittering upon the dark sea, gleaming through the mother-of-pearl cloud – a touch of sublime beauty amidst the kitsch seaside ‘attractions’, going some way to redeeming the ’set-your-teeth-on-edge’ aesthetic of the place.

Wandering those moon-drenched shores, I started to have strange hallucinatory thoughts about werewolf mermaids, so I thought it was time I went to bed…

The next day I arrived at the museum and signed in, getting my badge. There followed a number of papers on diverse subjects: sea beans, oysters, cannibalism (!), selkies, ghosts, shanties & ballads…

My turn came around 3pm – I started by declaring my interest (passion) for islands. I shared an extract of Oisin and Niamh – a classic lost island myth, which I used as a framing narrative in my book. And then I went into the Call, the Crossing, Arrival and Return. It was all over rather quickly (30 mins, including questions). I felt drained, nodding off in the next talk, but seemed to do okay – because I sold 6 books, and at least two said it was down to my style of talk, my approach.

After the day’s proceedings, went to check out the Maritime Festival with my new friend, Mark. There was a couple of impressive tall ships, but the rest was underwhelming – perhaps because it was winding down for the day.

Worn out by the day of talks, I went back to the B&B and crashed out, soothed by Mendhelsson’s Scottish Symphony on the Proms. Went out to eat – reading Austen whilst dining alone in a cheap ‘taverna’ with the most awful table wine. After freshening up made my way back over to the Old White Lion, hoping to bump into some of the conference crowd – but they had all gone off to some restaurant. Quaffing a pint of Spitfire, I headed back to the digs – resigning myself to a rather dismal night in. An excellent Beatles documentary and, appropriately, Pirates of the Caribbean (yo-ho!) offered some mild compensation for the lack of company… but not my most exciting Saturday night!

Next morning awoke early, looking forward to hitting the road. I packed and polished off a large breakfast, before taking the bike down to the seafront, where I sat and enjoyed the view, waiting for things to start. The morning was a ‘light’ one, with a story, a documentary and a talk. Once things had finished, I dropped some books at A Novel Idea and headed west, relieved to be leaving but not altogether dissatisfied with my weekend: the booksales had helped to cover my costs and I was good to see the sea and imbibe the obscure maritime arcana…which whetted my appetite for my imminent pilgrimage to Iona with Anthony later this week.

Stopped off to see my Mum for a cuppa (which also made it worthwhile) before gratefully heading back across the Cotswolds – the landscape getting increasingly beautiful the further west my wheels took me. As always, it was with huge relief I returned to the oasis of Aquae Sulis. It was good to be back in Bath.

into the east - Great Yarmouth beach

Gathering in the Harvest

30th August-1st September

silver apples of the moon...

It’s been a busy time preparing for the new season/term. It has felt as though I’ve been gathering in the harvest in terms of projects & plans coming to fruition.

But at the same time I’ve been wringing the last few drops of summer as the holidays come to an end. The sizeable lady hasn’t sung yet!

Saturday I held an Awen Summer Gathering around my place. Awen authors and kindred spirits convered in my garden to discuss ideas and plans for the small press. Jay Ramsay talked about his inspiring initiative Angels of Fire, and Peter Please (Away Publications), Skip Palmer (Tuff Talk Press) and David Lassman (Bath Writers Workshop, Jane Austen Centre) shared their experience and expertise. Loads of great ideas were shared – and with such talented people to collaborate with, anything is possible!

Kevan goes the 'Full Darcy' in Prior Park, photo by Crysse Morrison

Sunday I performed in a Cascade of Words and Music at Prior Park – an event organised by local Poetry Society co-ordinator Nikki Bennet-Willis, to celebrate its centenary. Featured poets included the ever fabulous Rose Flint and Crysse Morrison, plus storytellers Anthony Nanson and Peter Please. It was a little drizzly and overcast but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the connosieurs of verse gathered – the venue couldn’t be more conducive to romantic musings (the Palladian Bridge was used in the film of Pride and Prejudice; and Henry Fielding lived on the edge of the estate, inspired in part by Ralph Allen in his writing of Tom Jones). I tried out some new poems and the response was very positive. It was nice to have a drink afterwards with Anthony, Svanur and Ola – the latter a wordsmith from Bonn, Germany, but able to converse with my Icelandic friend in his native tongue. Talented polyglots!

Monday I took a day off from it all and went on a blat to Stoney Littleton long barrow and the white horse of Westbury – after it stopped raining – enjoying a ride out on my wheels, a year on from when I first purchased her in Plymouth, thanks to my friends Nigel & Jenny.

Tuesday I set up an exhibition of Awen titles in Bath Central Library (with help from the industrious Mr Lassman), to kick-start Awen Autumn – a whole season of events connected to my small press: book launches, talks, workshops, performances… More than you can shake a spear at! The best thing is to go to the website to check out the brimming diary:www.awenpublications.co.uk

That evening Fire Springs gathered around the Cauldron to record a sampler CD to send to potential venues. No rest for the bardic!

Wednesday, Bath Writers’ Workshop restarted with my session at the New Inn, workshopping poetry, prose fiction and creative non-fiction. We had 8 – regulars and new faces. David and I have co-ordinated a whole programme of creative writing events for the coming months: surgeries, seminars, courses and guest writers. David has prepared a snazzy newsletter, called ‘Follow Your Bliss’ after Joseph Campbell’s famous dictum, and I have built our website: www.bathwritersworkshop.co.uk

Tomorrow off to Great Yarmouth to give a talk at a conference on The Sea in Legend and Tradition about my book Lost Islands…before then I’ve prepared another title for publication – The Angel in the Forest, Niamh Clune (published October 16th in Vancouver Island)…Before then have Mary’s posthumous launch on Tuesday (8th Sep) at Waterstones, Bath, with readings from family and friends (proceeds to Dorothy House Hospice) and mine, for the third Windsmith novel, The Well Under the Sea, on a boat, the Pulteney Princess, Sept 22nd – book your space today!

Now, I better get some sleep before the long ride ahead!

40th Birthday Bardic Showcase

22nd August

the green man at 40 - birthday bash, Bath

Oh, my head…!

I turned forty last Wednesday (had a lovely dinner party in my garden with close friends) and decided to push the boat out with a big bash at Chapel Arts Centre on Saturday. Having had a few quiet birthdays, I mulled over how I would like to spend my fortieth and decided that I could think of no more agreeable a way of celebrating than having a bardic showcase featuring my friends, and so, with this in mind I set to work.

I planned it months in advance, but as ever, everything seemed to need doing at the last minute. After a fraught week it all fell into place.

My good friend from Iceland, Svanur Gisli Thorkelsson secured the venue, prepared the buffet and MCed the evening – what a giant! He had returned from his homeland the day before (I half expected a beard rimed with hoar-frost, fresh back from the ‘land of ice and snow’ but he was, as ever, freshly shaven ;0) We caught up over a quick drink at the Brazz and then…we set to work.

While we ‘hunted and gathered’ for the buffet in the sterile wilderness that is Sainsburys, Jonathan the venue manager for the night set up the sound and lights.

Everything was prepared, ready – and looking great (cabaret style seating, atmospheric lighting, a showreel of embarassing photos, good tunes…) by the time the first guests arrived.

And the party began!

Svanur introduced the evening and got everybody to sing happy birthday to me in Icelandic!

Happy Birthday in Icelandic - courtesy of Svanur

Then I came on and did a couple of ‘old classics’ of mine: Maid Flower Bride (for all the women who’ve blessed my life – and had to put up with me!) and One with the Land (my green man poem – for all the guys). I got everyone to join in on the second one – and it seemed to work. Relieved of my bardic duties, I then got down to the serious business of making merry.

I sat back and was entertained by my dear, talented friends…

Jay Ramsay, poet and psychotherapist from Stroud, did some wise and heartfelt poems, delivered with complete authenticity and passion.

Brendan the pop poet, and 6th Bard of Bath did a couple of his classics on request.

Brendan the pop poet rhymes again

Saravian, sexy jazz siren performed some lovely cool numbers.

Anthony Nanson, fellow storyteller of Fire Springs, performed an amazing feat of memory with his wonder voyage of Bran mac Ferbal. A lost island myth close to my heart!

Then … no Bard of Glastonbury, (lost in the mists of Avalon…?) and so we went straight to the break, as we were running a ‘bit behind’.

This was fine – allowed people to chat, for me to mingle with my guests and be inundated with more presents, rapidly filling up the front of the stage. Oh, and drink more champagne (mixed with mead in a dangerous concoction called ‘Druid’s delight’ – although after the hangover it gives me I think it should be renamed ‘Bardic blight’)!

Things were going swimmingly -  the second CD had kicked in, ‘Dancin’ Pants’ and the atmosphere was buzzing, the hall looking pretty full  – there had only been a couple of technical hitches. We couldn’t get the Chapel’s system to play my first prepared CD, ironically it was called ‘Let the Ceremony Begin’! And the projector proved temperamental – at one point the photo showreel disappeared completely and Jonathan struggled to get it back. He finally gave up, but suddenly, during the second half we had my desktop projected onto the stage. I struggled to relaunch the showreel – my cursor wavering behind the heads of the performers. Hilariously, I wasn’t able to see the image clearly as I didn’t have my glasses – so I just had to hit and hope and fortunately, it kick-started the photos again.

There was a fantastic crowd, but also absent friends – and I missed my dear old Dad (rest his soul), brother and sister not being there – but many of them were represented in the photos, which was an inadvertent portrait of my relationships/friendships over the years as much as anything.

Marko - a man you don't meet everyday

After the break we had Marko Gallaidhe, a man you don’t meet everyday. He was somewhat caught on the hop and in the gap – while he made his way to the stage – everyone sang me happy birthday, which was very touching. I felt truly blessed.

After Marko did a couple of fine tunes (‘Danny Boy’ and ‘Between the Tweed’) Richard Selby came up and did a great story.

Another Fire Springer followed, Kirsty Hartsiotis, with a tale and a beautiful poem by her mum, inspired by me called ‘Bard Song’ (below), which blew me away.

Then, it was the turn of Wayland, who was delighted to see had made it down from his Smithy in Oxfordshire to perform a fine story. A former bardic student of mine – he has come into his own as a good performer.

The first of a pair of friends from Northampton came next, Jimtom Say – a true shaman bard who shared some of his incredible poetry and a song.

Peter Please was next on, but was nowhere to be seen – but then he turned up right on cue, just arrived from his singing group … and, a true pro, was able to go right on stage and deliver his great stories.

Finally, it was the turn of my oldest friend, Justin, who delivered a blazing set of poetry and music, culminating in a poem especially written for me, for my big day – based (bizarrely, but brilliantly) upon the Billy  Joel tune ‘He Didn’t Start the Fire’: ‘2009: A Kevan Odyssey’! Hilarious and impressive:

‘He didn’t start the fire, but he his Bardic learning helped me keep it burning.
He didn’t start the fire, but he helped me light it … though I tried to fight it.’

(J. Porter, after B. Joel)

Justin gets his groove on - Birthday Bash, Bath

I thanked everyone and then … it was time to dance! I was looking forward to this and it was great to ‘cut some rug’, even if we risked looking like the adults that were embarrassing to watch dancing when you were a kid! But that’s was all part of an old git rites-of-passage I guess!

It was great to get down with my friends.

you can dance if you want to...

Alas, all good things …. after a few stomping tunes, we’d passed the curfew and the music was turned down – but I had allowed for this, arranging to go around the corner to the Lounge. About twenty of us left for this ‘promised land’ – Sara insisted I led my merry band, mead horn in hand. We piled downstairs, where we took over the room. Unfortunately the music was rather jarring – hard techno – so I went back to get my CDs only to discover their machine ‘couldn’t play them’. Instead, Marko did a rousing ballad after I had revived him with a glass of wine. And then Justin led the Southern Baptist song ‘Down to the River’, which we all joined in with in a drunken religious fervour! It felt like the foundation of some kind of guerilla folk republic – but it was short-lived, as the music came back on. Fortunately, this time it was decent Latin Jazz, and suddenly we were up dancing. It was a great way to end the evening. After that, things went downhill – J got a round of tequilas in, then knock them over before we could knock them back. Maybe should have seen that as a sign…It was definitely the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had to be helped home – the guys managed to get a taxi to take me after some difficulty. I somehow got home and into bed – it’s all a blur…

The next day, I suffered…In the immortal words of Withnail ‘I feel like a pig shat in my head’. A weak, pathetic bed-ridden thing unable to hold anything down or even hold a conversation for long, I wallowed in my self-inflicted misery. Fortunately, the guys got it together (three of them had crashed in my living room). My old friends Justin and Jimtom went back to clear the place and collect my stuff – stars! – amazingly I hadn’t lost anything in my drunken stumblings. They dropped Wayland off at the station – and hit the roads themselves … onto another party!

I went to bed.

Yet, despite my sufferings – it had all been worth it. Without a doubt, one of the best night’s of my life. I glow with happiness at the memory of it all. Never had I felt so truly blessed. It felt like the first forty years of my life had … meant something.

That evening, slowly recovering, I savoured opening the many presents I had been showered with. I have a pile of beautiful things, for which I am deeply touched, but, of course, true friendships forged (old and new) are the greatest gift of all.

To all those who made the effort to come, and made it such a success – thank you!

PS there were many talented friends there at the Chapel – not all of them could perform, but I would like to share some of the beautiful words they gave me (stars all):

To Bardic Kevan

Shaman of his clan,

word spinner,

story weaver

from the warp and weft

of Celtic love.

Miner of the Loadstone

of Arcana,

May you wear

your star studded

cloak of wisdom

with youthful ease,

even as this birthday

heralds a milestone

in your timeline.

Brian Goodsell

Stuff and Nonsense

‘They’ say that life begins at forty

but ‘they ‘are really rather naughty

for life, we know, starts on day one

and only ends when all the fun

and games are well and truly done

No-one can say when that will be

It is the greatest mystery

of many that elude our knowing

so all our days can be spent growing

and intimations of mortality

serve just to make us feel more free

forty’s not old if you’re a tree!

‘live in the moment’, ‘embrace the now’

though nobody can tell you how

it’s no rehearsal one time show

you write the script, as you well know

So I hope today we’ll celebrate

and dance and sing until it’s late

and night brings sleep and golden dreams

and all that is and isn’t seems

to melt into a tale of things

yet to be told by Kevan Manwaring…

…within these pages perhaps

Happy Birthday!

Yvonne (accompanying a lovely journal)

Bard Song

He sings the song of the earth.

Finds among the rocks a small seed,

nurtures and tends

and from it grows

The tale.

Rooted and strong limbs stretching,

Reaching, unfurling.

The words seek out the shy creatures,

Give colour to the flowers

And music to the hum of life.

He sings the song of the sea.

Words like waves

Rolling, flowing,

Tell the tale.

From deep and secret caverns

The bubbles rise and burst,

Rush to the shore

and sparkle, glowing.

He sings the song of the air.

Flying free, words like wings

Tell the tale.

Up over the green earth

Over the blue, grey sea.

As one.

He sings the song of the world.

Brings life into the earth song,

Finds depth in the sea,

Spills light into the air song.

And gives, of himself,

The tale.

To Kevan, Happy Birthday from Cherry Wilkinson

aka Rescue Dawn: Snowdonia

11-15 August

Llanberis Path from the Pyg Track

‘Help, I’ve come on holiday by mistake!’ These words, paraphrasing the classic Withnail & I, were ringing around my head as I prepared to leave Cae Mabon, Eric Maddern’s inspiring eco-retreat centre in Snowdonia. Having been up for the May Day weekend, I wanted to go back and experience the place some more. I was planning to go up first week in August for one of the open weeks, but circumstances prevented me. So, instead – unwisely as it turned out – I decided to go up the following week. A deep ecology group called Green Spirit were running what they optimistically called a ‘wild week in Wales’. I got the impression it was meant to be open to all and a chilled out, co-created thing, with everyone pitching in ingredients to the catering and the ‘programme’, so I understood from the blurb:

‘People who attend are invited to bring something they can share, like a workshop, stories, songs, favourite recipes, musical instruments…Ideas and suggestions are welcome.’

It turned out somewhat differently.

Feeling a bit ‘iffy’ on Monday I delayed coming up rather than ‘risk giving them all swine flu’ as I explained to Hilary, the organiser, over the phone. Perhaps I should have listened to my body and misgivings – and not gone at all – for I had a lot to get on with. But I felt summer was slipping by without me making the most of it, so I decided to cease my slothful whimperings and head for the hills. I woke up Tuesday morning, feeling full of beans, and did just that. It was long but lovely ride up in the sun, on what turned out to be the best day of the week. I took the Welsh Marches route and the last section of my journey through the Llanberis Pass was spectacular. After inadvertently taken a wrong turning and ending up on the first part of the actual Llanberis Path up Snowdon passing lots of amused and bemused climbers on my bike, I finally made it to Cae Mabon (I had been following Eric’s directions, which said take a left at the first roundabout when you reach Llanberis, which I did … but they turned out to be the directions coming from the North! After 6 hours on the road, I think I’m allowed to make this kind of dumb-ass mistake). Spaced out, but exhilarated at arriving, I rollled into the Cae Mabon carpark (which was going to become familiar – more later). It was about 2.30pm. I met one of the group on the way in, lugging my stuff down, sitting on the Pilgrim Bench overlooking the valley of Llyn Padarn, Llanberis opposite. Bumped into Hilary – they had finished lunch, but I was offered food. I said a cuppa would be fine, having had my sandwiches in Betws-y-Coed, where I stocked up on Welsh beer and a Welsh scarf, having left mine at my brother’s and feeling the chill on my neck as I rode along. I was handed a cuppa and an apple was made welcome – so far, so good. I dumped my stuff in the Chalet allocated me.

My home for the week at Cae Mabon -                  Black Sheep Chalet

With its bunkbeds it’s not the most charming of Eric’s fabulous eco-buildings, (perhaps because the others are so beautiful, everything else pales in comparison) but I was glad of a roof over my head – and that I wasn’t sharing. At least I had somewhere to go when I needed ‘my own space’ – this became essential as the week progressed.

Hobbit Hut – Cae Mabon – opposite my chalet

I chilled out, unpacked, read, then went for a swim in the lake (there was a warning about the blue-green algae but we all took care and were fine). I was told it was nude bathing, so I stripped off and dashed in, only to discover half the people there had costumes on. Ah, well!

In His Element

Skinny dipping in Llyn Padarn,

washing off the dust of the road.

Shocked awake

by its cold embrace.

After the resistance,

relief. It’s not so bad after all.

I bask in its stored sun

Boundaries challenged, blur.

The stream flows into the lake

to become one.

***

Snowdon beyond Llyn Padarn

Dinner was at 7.00pm in the main hall. By this time, after my long journey, my stomach was making noises. I was ready to tuck in, but we had to all stand and sing ‘Grace’, Green Spirit style – some tuneless ode to Mother Earth. I brushed this off as charming eco-fluffiness, but it became apparent over the week that I had misjudged the nature of the group. Although coming across as a New Age green group, with ‘Creation Spirituality’ at their core – which I took as a take on Deep Ecology – it turns out they are mainly a bunch of Christian eco-fuddy duddies (not that I have anything against anything green, wrinkly or Christian – in small doses – I have a couple of good Christian friends and I’m planning to go on a pilgrimage to Iona next month for another, whose book I’m publishing). The average age of the group was 60. At 39, pushing 40, I was suddenly the ‘young ‘un’ of the group (and ended up feeling typecast as the ‘grumpy teenager’ all week – I can see why they get like that: disenfranchised, refused a voice, a vote, a chance to contribute). When we met at 4pm to plan a Council of All Beings ceremony I jokingly said, when introduced to the group – ‘So, is this the Council of Elders’. I wasn’t being rude. I had in my mind (mistakenly) that was the ceremony planned – which sounded good to me, as it might have served as a rite-of-passage as I approach 40 (next Wednesday). Alas, it was not the case. Another woman called Hilary (‘an Everest of Hilarys’ I suggested as a collective pronoun) decided we were all going to do this and take three days over it – this was accepted by the group without question. Suddenly the week was looking less ‘organic’ and co-creative, and more like a kind of Green Fascist Butlins. The first part of the ceremony was called a Truth Mandala, where there would be four quarters in which to share grief, sorrow, worry and not knowing. Having spent the first half of the year doing all of those things in abundance, I didn’t fancy spending ‘however long it takes’ wallowing in them on what was meant to be some light R&R in the lovely Welsh countryside. It was agreed to be ‘okay’ if you didn’t join in – I took their word on this – but, being the only one who opted out, felt something of the black sheep.

Basically, it felt like the unwritten protocol was ‘you can do what you like as long as it’s what we have planned’.

Later, I tried to establish what the rota was for cooking and washing up, but the answer I got was ‘we all just pitch in’. The notion of 14 people trying to simultaneously do these chores seemed a little absurd to me – and I wanted to know when I was ‘on duty’ so I knew when I was off duty. Instead each meal time turned into a possible guilt-trip. I decided to myself to would help once with each as my share, and that would be that. It was hard to find my footing, to find out what ‘The Rules’ were, for there certainly seemed to be some. Everyone else seemed to know them except me. When to eat, when to stand, when it was okay to offer a contribution to the ‘open mic’, when music was okay… I couldn’t discover how things were arranged – when all these rules were decided. They seemed to be no opportunity for negotiation…or for offering alternatives to ‘the programme’. Then slowly I discovered the majority of the group had been coming since the mid-Nineties. They were, except for one other, all old friends. I had ended up on a private holiday where everybody knew the jokes except I. I was in a paradigm ruled by a super-annuated oligarchy. It was like something out of the remake of the Survivors, earlier in the year. Welcome to Paradise. This is our way of doing things. You vill obey.

Now, I feel they are all probably good people – certainly pretty harmless – but just not my scene. Despite the apparent common ground they were coming from a very different place, which is fine – I’m all for accomodating paradigms in principle – but I don’t want to have it inflicted on me for a week, on my ‘hols’. My mistake, I know – although the website perhaps gives the slightly wrong impression. I imagine I may well become a green wrinkly one day – and certainly risk becoming a grumpy old git – but not yet I hope!

In the roundhouse later I was looking forward to a loose ‘bardic circle’ of poems, songs and stories. To my surprise I was handed a song sheet…which in the dark, without my glasses, I couldn’t read even if I wanted to. It was all very Sunday School. I don’t mind the odd person doing a tuneless song (everyone else had head-lamps to read the song-lyrics by – like a Dalek choir) if it’s the best they can offer around the campfire – but when you are more or less expected to join in, it becomes quickly tedious. Then someone read out a long ‘poem’ by Les Barker (the Benny Hill of poetry), who should be put on trial for crimes against poetry – what could be called versicide. I once had the misfortune to see him at Priddy and was astonished by how popular he was. It is clear that the masses have no taste, except for what they are spoonfed (‘the public wants what the public gets’). Like the doggerelist if you must, but don’t make me listen to it! I had come to Snowdonia for enchantment in the mountains, not Pam Ayres meets Songs of Praise (Barker puts on a ‘knowing fool’ act – a faux naif style, which simply is a mask for truly awful poetry). I shared my Bladud story (my home town tale) and a couple of poems – to the green man and to Mother Earth, then I went to bed. I had other poems and stories I could have offered, of course, but never got a chance over the week … maybe I could have made an opportunity, but my heart went out of it quite quickly.

The next morning I took it easy, reading my novel and the manuscript of The Way of Awen, which I had optimistically brought up to proof-read (I managed about 74 pages of the 220). In the afternoon I gave the ‘Truth Mandala’ a wide berth, hoping to see Eric, the owner – but he was out and so I went for a walk in the area to try and wake up (I spent most of the week feeling sleepy – Cae Mabon is one of those Sleepy Hollow places – nod off against a mossy rock and you risk waking up 300 years later). I guess the journey and the last few weeks had taken their toll. But I had sufficiently recovered by the next morning to climb Snowdon, which I had been meaning to do for a number of years but circumstances had conspired against me until now. It is possible to walk up Snowdon and back from Cae Mabon in a day. I walked into Llanberis and got the Sherpa bus to Pen-y-Pass. From there I opted for the Pyg Track. I walked all the way back down on the Llanberis Path (boring on the way up, but offering spectacular views on the way down). Two hours up, two hours down – not that I was racing or anything. I went at my own pace, giving myself plenty of time to ’stand and stare’. I spent an hour on the summit, savouring the experience. I had ostensibly gone up to ‘get in touch with my animal’ for the Council of All Beings. Snowdon is known as Eyri, the Eagle’s Nest, so I felt connected with the mighty bird as I gazed out across the void, the mist occasionally parting to reveal a vertiginous chasm (although the only birds I spotted was a seagull, eyeing me as I ate a Snickers, and an extraordinary ‘fat grouse’ -  perhaps this was my power animal! – who waddled about nearby, oblivious to the hordes swarming around the summit). Being on a mountain gives you a perspective on things – whatever the visibility. It felt great to get away and achieve this by myself – it had made the whole trip worthwhile, whatever else I experienced (or endured!)

***

Climbing the Mountain

It stands there,

always waiting for us.

Sombre, mute, magnificent.

Magnetised with all our expectations.

Looming over the hustle and bustle,

the tittle tattle,

calling to us.

White nodes of longing.

We spend half our lives

wanting to get there.

Half our lives trying.

And in the struggle, the

breathless slog,

when, red in the face,

puffing like a steam train,

we somehow keep going,

we are never more

fully alive.

All our efforts of life

are in that ascent.

Some flicker of belief,

a flash of vision,

sustains us.

Yet when we get there

we find

the misty summit so crowded

there’s a rota,

puffins jostling on a rock,

a teashop,

key rings, mouse mats,

people chatting on mobiles:

‘I’m on the mountain!’

Taking photographs,

filming fog.

Their holy grail is a cup of hot chocolate,

a flushing loo,

an oggy or bun.

A whistle blows, they leave,

back to the grind.

On the way up

they had passed by

the very thing they had

hoped to find.

Kevan Manwaring

14/08/09

***

Summit on Snowdon - misty mountain hop

I returned to Cae Mabon feeling great (if rather sweaty & sleepy). I showered, then soaked in the hot tub with a beer (Snowdonia Ale, from Purple Moose Brewery, ‘Bragdy Mws Pys’ or something, in Porthmadog). I was asked if I was still intending to join in with the ceremony the next day – yes, and I went and painted my mask in preparation, listening to some Sigur Ros on my laptop (the ethereal music of this Icelandic group beautifully expresses dramatic landscapes – mountains, deep valleys, glaciers – and thus, echoed my walk up Snowdon). Later, when dinner was served I asked ‘would anyone care for some gentle music to dine by?’ you would have thought from the reaction I got that I had suggested eating steaming faeces as a hors d’oeuvre. ‘Certainly not!’ one of them snapped and the others tutted and scowled in sympathy. ‘Could I put it to a vote?’ I asked, hoping for a little bit of democracy. One of them put their hand up in support – others might have felt inclined but clearly didn’t want to breach the party line. Shame I didn’t get a choice whether to listen to their tuneless warblings or not.

It was then I realised I had nothing in common with these people.

Fortunately, Eric was in and I took up a couple of beers. Having a chance to chat to him made up for a week with that lot. It was like breathing air in comparison. The conversation flowed.

Then late that night something dramatic happened which proved the final straw.

The only guy I really connected with out of the group was a chap called Don. At 3.15am he had some kind of seizure – crying out in pain and falling out of bed. This woke Ian, sharing the hogan, who found him unconscious. He was unable to revive him. Thus followed a surreal drama, made more so for being in the middle of the night when everyone was half asleep. The first I knew about it was waking up to go to the toilet at 4am (funnily enough Don had talked to me in detail about his prostrate problems that morning over breakfast). Maybe I had sensed the comings and going, but it was a call of nature that got me out of bed. However, as soon as I stepped out of the front door I was accosted by Richard, who briefed me on the situation and warned me to ’stay out of the way’ for a helicopter was on its way. I said ‘I’m not planning to a do a circle dance, I just want to go for a piss if that’s okay!’ It seemed like I had spent the whole week being told what to do or not to do, and my patience was wearing thin. Having relieved my bladder I went back to bed, only to be woken up by the helicopter hovering over the site. Half asleep, all I could see were lights through the trees, which were being whipped into a frenzy. The sound was deafening. It was like a scene from a sci-fi movie, perhaps Forbidden Planet. Some monster was coming through the trees to snatch one of our number away. When it finally left, I thought it had taken Don with it and I wished him well. It turned out they hadn’t managed to collect him as the winch on the Sea King wasn’t working! They had to go back to the base to get another chopper! Just as well Don wasn’t dying of a heart attack, because their mistake might have cost him his life. Finally they returned and by now it was starting to get light. I was woken again by the incredible noise directly overhead. I pulled on some clothes and went outside to behold the helicopter hovering over the main circle. From it a medic was winched down, like some kind of spaceman in his gear – sharply contrasting the Iron Age-style roundhouse he landed in front of. Two other medics were already attending Don. By this point he had recovered a little and was able to be escorted out to the circle, where he was fitted into the harness and winched up with the medic and his enormous pack. And then the yellow chopper flew away into the morning light – a Welsh Rescue Dawn. Having read about Arthur being taken to Avilion to heal of his grievous wounds earlier (and discovered that Llyn Llyndaw beneath Snowdon is associated with the famous scene, when a barge comes with three queens to take the mortally wounded king to the Otherworld) I could not help see the mythic resonance of the whole scene. But it was upsetting. Don was the only one I really got on with – and now he was taken. The rest of the week was looking rather bleak. After a dreary day (the weather had worsened) with everyone in slow motion after a sleepless night, exhausted from the high drama and worry, I decided that I’d had enough and wanted to leave. I hated to leave ‘under a cloud’ but I couldn’t bear another night there with those self-righteous people. Don’s drama had brought us all together a little – through common concern – but it didn’t change what they were like. With everyone else taking charge, etc, I felt more the outsider than ever. I packed and lugged my stuff up to the carpark and loaded my bike. I went to see Eric before I left and again our conversation redeemed the experience. I felt I had connected with one human soul at least. Strangely chiming with the Arthurian mythic theme ’streaming live’ into Cae Mabon, Eric was the picture of the wounded king. The last time I was up, he had recently injured his Achilles’ tendon – and it had got worse over months. Earlier that day he had gone into Llanberis for a doctor’s appointment and returned with a serious foot support, which looked like the kind of footwear Darth Vader would wear. He showed me the scar where he had received surgery – and it was refusing to heal properly. Yet, despite this, Eric’s ‘kingdom’ was far from a wasteland. Cae Mabon was going well – but it must be hard work to maintain and very difficult with such an injury. I had my own wound, I realised – and Don’s collapse and departure (possibly to the otherworld – for it seemed to be serious), brought it up for me. The prospect of this likeable man being taken so abruptly was a painful repeat of my various bereavements over the last five years. Hearing that he was out of the danger zone and possibly coming home made me feel a little better about leaving, but the Fates had other plans. All togged up and ready to hit the road, I turned the ignition and nothing happened. I tried various methods to fire up the old girl but nothing worked. Cursing my luck (so much for a swift exit!) I was forced to ring for my own ‘rescue’, via Green Flag. A garage from Caernafon was arranged. Unfortunately, as it was a bike, they weren’t able to send someone out until the morning. Aargghh! Reconciling myself to another night with the Green Wrinklies, I put basics in the caravan in the carpark (which Eric had suggested I could crash in if I couldn’t hit the road) and went back down to the site. It was dinner time and I was called in. Fortunately I had missed grace, if they had done it (I had pointed out to them that on Wednesday the dinner was late in coming and they were so hungry by the time it had arrived they had just fell to it without ceremony: I found this an amusingly endearing act of human weakness, but I feel my observation didn’t go down well). It seemed I was destined to put my foot in it with these people (on the morning I went to Snowdon I visited the compost loo, only to accidentally come across one of the ladies about her business. I apologised and quickly shut the door (no locks!) and used the next cubicle. I passed her on the way out and said ’sorry about that’ but she just gave me a frosty look as though I had done it on purpose, that I was some kind of twisted pervo who got his kicks out of bursting in on ladies on the throne. Give me patience!) The final meal passed relatively painlessly, although the singing that followed seemed to rub salt into the wounds (‘Country Home Take Me Home’; ‘I Shall Be Released’…) I finally managed to get a word in edgeways, offering a poem of Don’s which seemed strangely apt, ‘Angel Wings’ from his book Moving On. Immediately afterwards, Hilary1 was called out by a text – Don was on his way home. I went up to the carpark and waited in the caravan – listening to some suitably melancholic Nick Drake. Finally Ian and June returned with our wounded adventurer and I helped escort him down into the site with my torch (it’s a steep path and perilous in the dark). I made the travellers drinks, and relieved that Don seemed well enough to eat and chat, I hit the sack. It meant a great deal to me to have someone, for once, come back, from the brink of death. It felt like I was meant to be there for that moment of his return – and now finally, I could leave. In the morning, after saying goodbye to Don after breakfast, the man from Gwalia (a nice scouser, with whom I blathered like a man just let out of solitary) Garage finally turned up and, quickly identifying the problem, but unable to fix it on site, we pushed the bike into the van and I was whisked to Caernafon (my own Rescue Dawn) where it was soon fixed (flat battery due to a dodgy connection) and I was finally on my way. It was lashing down but I didn’t mind: I was on my way home!

All good material, anyway ;0) When you’re a writer, nothing is wasted – everything experience is redeemable. However excruciating at the time, such experiences are, for a writer, priceless. Thank you, Green Wrinklies. I had hoped to find inspiration in Snowdonia, and I certainly did!

About to leave Cae Mabon - when my bike is fixed!

Harry Patch Memorial, Wells

6th August 2009

Harry Patch procession to Wells Cathedral - captured by various media!

On Thursday I went down to Wells with my friend (and former bardic student) Matt, aka ‘Wayland’, to pay our respects to Harry Patch, the last veteran of the First World War trenches, born in Combe Down, Bath, who died on the 25th July at the incredible and symbolically apt age of 111 – a numeric echo of the Armistice Day, signed 11am on the 11th November 1918. To the end Harry’s message was peace and reconciliation (‘”Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims”.) – and to me, this makes him a hero – not the fact he got caught up in the ‘War to End All Wars’, like so many young men of his generation. He was the quintessential accidental hero, and the fact he was ‘an ordinary man’ was emphasized again and again at the moving service at Wells Cathedral, witnessed by a 1400 inside, many outside on the green in the rain (including us,  happy to be ‘with the people’) and countless others around the world via TV and internet.

The Ginger Hulk outside Wells Cathedral

Matt had called me, expressing an interest to attend Harry’s memorial (which was going to be a full state funeral, until he and fellow veteran Henry Allingham quashed that notion). I researched the details and applied for tickets. Matt is partially sighted and would have struggled to get to Wells as there was no direct rail link – it required a long and winding 80 minute bus journey from Bath over the Mendips. To his credit he made it to Bath Spa and booked himself into the White Hart hostel. I met him the next day and we caught the bus from Bath’s new terminal (the ‘transport hub’ resembling a some kind of kitchen appliance). Matt’s balance is poor, because of a hearing impairment (which seems to be selective – the trigger word being ‘chocolate’ or ‘cheese pasty’) and so taking him pillion on my bike wasn’t an option – and so we were ‘Bards on a Bus’ for the day! Oh, the joys of public transport…

We sat at the back at Matt’s insistence and began gabbling away when we were soon interrupted by a man who turned out to be a journalist from the LA Times, no less, who was on his way down to Wells to cover the memorial. We ended up chatting to Henry Chu for a good half an hour and he asked us why we, a 39 and 33 yr old, were going to a funeral of someone we had never met, from a generation thrice removed.

It was a good question.

Matt seems obsessed about military history from certain periods – and he discovered recently he had a relative who served in the First World War, surname Shoesmith, and so he had a personal connection.

I’ve felt connected to the First World War since learning some of the haunting poetry from that period at school – heart-breaking windows into misery that brought it home to me more than forgotten history lessons – in the early Eighties, when Britain was fighting another futile war, this time in the Falklands (the tabloids fuelling a sickening ‘bulldog’ spirit, which went on to help the Tories get re-elected at a time when they were struggling – one could all see it as cynical manipulation of the populace. When things are difficult on the domestic front conjure up ‘the New Bad’ to distract and terrorise… plus ca change) and the constant shadow of the Cold War made the prospect of being forced into some nightmare conflict very real. The thought of conscription seemed very real at the time – being forced as cannon fodder to the front. The poets of the First World War expressed the futility, the waste, the chaos, the tragedy, the ugly face of conflict, the fact that War is Terror – there is nothing noble about it and violence is never justified, never the solution – as Patch epitomised: what is poignant about him is not the fact that he took part, but that he survived and had to live 91 years with the aftermath. That it took him 80 years to talk about it. That he could vividly recall the horror of war all that time later – the death of his comrades in one devastating blast. One act of violence – nearly a century to ‘recover’. The sound of gunfire and bombs may fade, but the impact lasts for generations. This is the terrible price normal people have to pay. War is a crime against humanity. It is obscene and all those advocate it are war criminals. Patch summed up the aftermath of war to me – of those who have to pick up the pieces and carry on. Trying to imagine what it must have been like, to be the one who survives – the one who outlives all of his comrades and most of his loved ones…the nearest I can come to comprehending it is mythopoeically – a word coined by another First World War veteran we may have easily lost, JRR Tolkien – through the legend of Oisin, who returns to Ireland 300 years later to discover all that he has known and loved has turned to dust. He shares his story with St Patrick, (as Patch did with Richard Van Emden, co-author of The Last Fighting Tommy) before finally expiring, a super-annuated soul out of his time, a living ghost left behind.

I also felt the need to honour Harry because I had recently finished my five book paean to the lost of history, The Windsmith Elegy  within a few days of both Harry and Henry Allingham dying (who briefly crops up in the second volume). It begins on the eve of the First World War and ends on the eve of the Second, linking these two major conflicts which have shaped the world we live in – and charting the ’space between’, the Twenties and Thirties. Having spent half a million words exploring these issues, imagining the impact of these events on ordinary lives, yes, I felt connected. I felt. like I had gone on a journey and this marked the end of it

I wanted to honour this last living link, not just for the brief time he endured in that awful conflict, but the achievement of his long life, to way he kept on going. That is perhaps the hardest thing of all.

The service was a well-managed and moving combination of tributes from various people – the most eloquent was the rendition of Seager’s classic anti-war song ‘Where have all the flowers gone’ and the anecdotes about Harry the ‘ordinary man’ by the Scottish chap. Being unable to get hold of a copy of the Order of Service, we were left none the wiser as to who was speaking – although I did recognise the local Dean. Services Minister Kevan Jones observation that the day was also the anniversary of the dropping of the first bomb of Hiroshima was very poignant, as were his comments about the horror of war. I’m glad they didn’t turn it into some military trumpet-blowing exercise – although the playing of the ‘Last Post’ at the end was very moving in an iconic way. The fact that soldiers from France, Belgium and Germany helped carry the Union Jack covered coffin was a brilliant gesture of reconciliation. The crowd outside the cathedral consisted of a wide cross-section of ages and backgrounds – seeing teenagers and kids there, being respectful, showed how much Harry meant to the nation. As the hearse passed, the crowds lining the street burst spontaneously into applause.

Afterward the service, we took cover from the deluge in the Cornish Pasty shop – our stomaches offering no resistance – before we searched for a portrait of Patch rumoured to be on display in the town – we discovered it in the town hall, displayed in a stairwell – it was rather poignant to see it there, hanging quietly on the wall after all the pomp and ceremony. Depicted in a rather pop art style, with bits of glittery bling attached, the old tommy had become an icon.

Harry Patch portrait, Wells town hall

Matt signs book of condolence

We signed the Book of Condolence and then left, catching the bus back to Bath. Later on I discovered the journalist’s article on the LA Times website – he had posted a dispatch with alacrity. And there we were – cited as ‘Copley and Manwaring’ as though I’m Matt’s sidekick rather than the other way round! Still, it was a nice footnote to the day. Matt got quoted directly and my comments about the poetry and the breakdown of class divisions seemed to be included in Henry’s good account of the day. The perspective of outsiders is always fascinating, although his conclusion that as a nation we don’t seem to be willing to forget is perhaps misjudged – I doubt anyone wishes to cling to such a painful past, but we should not forgot if we don’t want to disrepect the sacrifice made by brave men and women  – and if we don’t want to make the same mistakes again. The fact that we seems to seems indicative of our collective amnesia. How can we let war happen again – indeed, even will it – after so many lives have been wasted by it, communities and countries devastated? If only the First World War had ended war.

Henry Chu’s article can be read here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-britain-funeral7-2009aug07,0,995903.story

Sublime band Radiohead (who have a Bath connection through their illustrator, Stanley Donwood, a local character – author of  ‘Catacombs of Terror’, a prophetic ’swine flu’ comedy – flesh-eating pigs running amok in tunnels beneath the city of Bath!) have released a single inspired by Harry, raising funds for the British Legion. It was recorded in Bath Abbey. You can download it via their website. http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/

Rest in Peace, Harry – with your mates and loved ones at last.