A Sup And A Yarn

On Friday nights there came a regular knock at the door. Dad's friend Fred calling for him to go for their weekly drink. In those days you dressed up to go to the pub and, sure enough, there stood Fred sporting a white shirt and fancy tie beneath his tweed jacket, hair Brylcreemed in place, and grey flannels with cycle clips. His Friday night bottle of Harvest Brown Ale was the highlight of Fred's social life; he took only one week off from work each year and that was in the Spring so that he could get his garden in order. Even then he walked up to the farm twice a day to do the milking.

It wasn't actually a pub they were going to though, but a Social Club, set up by the men of the village in response to their local pub closing down - it was happening even back then in the 1950s. Though the economics of running a village pub was very different in those days as most publicans had day-jobs to supplement their income.

Many village pubs had some kind of small-scale farm attached to the business. My local pub still has an old barn (disused now) and a few acres of land, though much of the space is now taken up by the car park. My grandfather, when he kept The Fox Inn, had pigs and chickens too. The last vestiges of this practice still remained in one or two pubs when I began to use them; The Jolly Brewers always had boxes of vegetables on the bar and you could, if you so desired, buy a sack o' taters with your pint!

The first pub I drank in was The Blue Ball at Grantchester, which is still a small, beer-drinkers' pub even in these days of gastro-pubs and wine bars. Back then though the Lounge Bar was just like sitting in someone's front-room with its armchairs, standard lamp and radiogram, complete with 78 rpm records and a few, very "square" LPs. The landlord, Ernie, worked during the day in a toyshop in Cambridge and, if you got in early enough, you could catch him still eating his dinner, with his napkin tucked into his collar and gravy down his chin.

Just down the road, at the Red Lion, things were much more sophisticated. The Lion prided itself on being a hotel. There were a few guest rooms and a restaurant but the bar still had a dartboard and a bar-billiards table. The hotel side of the operation seemed to be run most of the time by the permanently flustered and overworked Turkish waiter, Harry. I remember hearing him answering the phone one evening as he was dashing from the restaurant to the kitchen, "Hello, ees Harry here. Head waiter? Head waiter? You wanna spik to the head waiter? No, ees Harry, the only waiter!"

On Saturday evenings a lady from the Salvation Army always arrived attempting to sell copies of Warcry magazine. She was a powerful personality and usually persuaded several of us to part with some of our hard-earned cash for a magazine we did not want and to support some cause in which we had no interest. It became customary for most of us to decamp to the safety of the gents' toilet. This worked well until one night she was accompanied by a male colleague who, as our bad luck would have it, came into the Gents', only to find some twenty men crowded into the small space, each of us clutching our pints.

Most pubs in those days had two draught beers - bitter and mild - and a small selection of bottled beers such as brown ale, stout, Burton and barley wine (which was more like a beer than a wine). There'd be a few bottles of spirits, usually whisky, gin and rum. Also there'd be drinks which were exclusively for the wives who occasionally came in with their husbands - Babycham and later Pony. If you felt peckish there were crisps (Smiths, with a little blue twist of salt), pickled eggs in a jar on the bar, and sandwiches on darts night. Some pubs had pork pies too. I remember asking for one in the John Barleycorn - "What you think this is? A flamin' butcher's!" came the cheery reply from mine host.

Perhaps the most basic alehouse in the area was the Exhibition, in the village of Over. I discovered this little piece of history when friends moved into a cottage nearby. I went into the pub first and took a couple of steps inside. This located me in the middle of the room where I stood looking around in some puzzlement. You see, there was no bar counter, no beer taps, no spirits bottles.....just a room with wooden tables and benches. 

At length I was approached by an elderly lady asking me what we wanted to drink. She scuttled off and came back with a tray bearing the beer. I gave her the money which she stowed in the pocket of her apron before she went and sat down on one of the wooden settles. For entertainment there was a box of dominoes (not allowed on Sundays) or the newspaper. Failing that you had to talk to each other, or to the redoubtable Grace Bullen who ran the place.

Similarly archaic was the Harvest Home at Fen Ditton, though at least that had a bar, and even a dartboard for when you tired of listening to the ticking of the clock. Three of us called in for a drink one evening and someone suggested a game of darts. 

"If you'd like to make up a four", said the woman behind the bar, "I'm sure my husband will join you". 

An old man shuffled into the room wearing his slippers and proceeded to show three young whippersnappers just how the game should be played. "Used to have a good darts team in here back in the day", he confided, "only not so many folks come in these days". 

"Moved away have they?" suggested Steve. 

"Oh no, all dead". 



Take care.

The Deer Park

A deer park? In the centre of Cambridge? Well, yes. Sort of.

Next to Peterhouse is a very small deer park (once the smallest in England) and there haven't actually been any deer for nearly a hundred years but the name persists, even though it's officially called The Grove.

Though the deer have perished the daffodils flourish, much better than they would have if the deer were still around anyway. The medieval walls which stopped the deer from straying can also still be seen.

Although pretty titchy for a deer park it's a wonderful space to find in the centre of town, and one which is never suspected by people roaming the city streets. If you know the area then you might be able to get your bearings from the picture above - the building in the background is the back view of The Fitzwilliam Museum.

The reason this small college, which only admits about 75 undergraduates each year, has so much space is probably because it was originally on the edge of the old city. The "Peter.." element of the name derived from the church of St Peter-Without-The-Gate, with which it was once closely associated. "Without-The-Gate" meaning that it was just outside the gates of the city, not that some villain has lifted it off its hinges. Although some of the daffs were past their best, others were just coming into bloom. And there's still wildlife to be seen....

This magnificent cock pheasant has found a wonderful sanctuary, away from the attentions of the shooting fraternity.

I haven't got much to tell you about the above photo so perhaps now is a good time to point out something which I forgot to mention last time: 
   Remember the Hall, the oldest building in Peterhouse, the one which has served as a dining-hall for over 700 years? I should have said that it was once at the cutting-edge of technology; it was only the second building in the country (after the Palace of Westminster) to be lit by electric light. This was a gift from Lord Kelvin, who'd studied at the college, to mark the college's 600th anniversary.
 

Another unexpected piece of modernity is the William Stone Building, which you can see from the gardens. At eight storeys tall it almost counts as a skyscraper in Cambridge, which has very few tall buildings. Although it's part of Peterhouse it stands at a considerable distance from its historic core.

A gate leads through to the Scholars' Garden which, though perhaps not at its best in April, is home to this strikingly planted border.

There are statues too in the garden, as well as more daffodils. All in all a delightful place to wander.

While poking about, looking for things to photograph, I chanced upon a gap through the bushes which revealed.....

.....well, not deer for sure. Longhorn cattle are grazing on the neighbouring common land, Coe Fen. These are British Longhorns, of course, rather different from their Texan cousins in that their horns curve inwards, framing their faces.


Take care.
(especially if crossing Coe Fen).

Meet Peter

Peter is quite small and very old, very old indeed. Peter can be found in Cambridge and has a reputation of being a bit old-fashioned and set in his ways. Lately though he's been doing his best to move with the times.

Those of you who remember me introducing you to Sidney and Selwyn might suspect that there's more to Peter than first meets the eye. And indeed there is , for while Sidney and Selwyn turned out to be Sidney Sussex College and Selwyn College, Peter is actually Cambridge's oldest college - Peterhouse (1284).

Peterhouse (not Peterhouse College, you'll notice) has an unusual layout for a Cambridge college. There is no fortress-like gatehouse and it's the Chapel that takes centre-stage, connected to both sides of the quadrangle by attractive, though not very functional, collonades.  

The doors to the Chapel, which was built in 1628, are usually shut but a gentle push soon reveals that they are seldom locked and you are free to go in and look around.
 

The carving behind the altar dates from the 15th century and shows the Virgin Mary cradling the dead Christ.

Back outside again and on into the second courtyard (there are only two at Peterhouse) which is less interesting both historically and architecturally than the first, though I'm rather fond of the corner pictured above with its exotic greenery.

Lets return to the main courtyard then. Dominating the southern side of the court is the Hall, the oldest part of the college, dating from the 13th century. It's said to be the oldest building in Cambridge which is still used for its original purpose, in this case a dining hall. Not much of the original structure is visible as several restorations have taken place over its lifetime, the most recent of which was in the Arts and Crafts style in the 1860s.
 

The door was open, no one was about and there was no sign saying "private" so in I went, though half-expecting some college functionary to come, huffing and puffing, to ask me to leave.
 

So that's the High Table, situated next to the great window, where the senior members of the college partake of their meal. 
 

On the walls is what you might first take to be wallpaper but which is actually stencilled paintwork designed by William Morris.

Once more into the courtyard to admire the graceful proportions of the Chapel, flanked by its collonades. A handful of other tourists had now appeared, the first I'd seen in Peterhouse. It often amazes me how little-known some of the city's attractions are, even to residents. As you'll see in my next post there are also other unsuspected delights here too.
 

Just as I was leaving a rather red-faced man appeared, huffing and puffing, from the Porters' Lodge; "Excuse me, sir, but have you viewed the Chapel; a lot of people don't realise that it's open". 


Take care.


 

Interred Intelligence

Just off one of the busier roads on the outskirts of Cambridge there's a little burial ground. To get there you walk down a gravelled lane and soon you see a rather undistinguished little Victorian chapel that you first glimpse through the ivy-clad trees and bushes.

Not the kind of place you'd expect anyone of note to be buried then. But you'd be wrong. This is the final resting place of many of the finest minds of the last 150 years, including no less than three Nobel Prize winners and innumerable professors and academics.

These graves tell the recent history of Cambridge University and include many people of other faiths, many of no faith at all and also several women who have made their mark on the intellectual development of the world.

Tucked away, appropriately enough, in a distant, dark shadowy corner is the grave of John Couch Adams, the astronomer who first suspected the existence of the planet Uranus. He is unique in that he also has another memorial in Westminster Abbey.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                








                                                         
Perhaps the grave which attracts most visitors is that of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He was pronounced as a genius by Bertrand Russell no less, though I'm not sure that anyone else understood what he was on about; that's what Wittgenstein himself believed anyway. Typically of the man, the slab on his grave just bears his name and dates, the bare facts which he could be sure were irrefutable.    

The many admirers who visit the grave rather mess up the stark simplicity of the stone by leaving flowers and other tokens.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

There are several descendants of Charles Darwin interred here including the poet Frances Cornford. Never heard of her? Here's one of her odd but appealing poems.....

The Guitarist Tunes Up

With what attentive courtesy he bent
Over his instrument;
Not as a lordly conqueror who could
Command both wire and wood,
But as a man with a loved woman might,
Inquiring with delight
What slight essential things she had to say
Before they started, he and she, to play.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

If you are old enough you may recall the name of John Bascombe Lock, the writer of Mathematics text books. They were certainly still in use when I went to school. His grave however seems rather forgotten and neglected, though his books are still in print some 100 years after they were written. Here's what Rev J B Lock had to say:

                                           
                                                                       Poetry!                                                                                                                                                               

A C Benson was the son of an Archbishop of Canterbury and himself became Master of Magdalene College. He is mainly remembered as the man who wrote the words of Land Of Hope And Glory. He was also famous in his day as a writer of ghost stories. Everything he did in life was successful: in death he is remembered by one of the ugliest tombstones I've ever set eyes on.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Amongst all these academic heavyweights we find George Smee, a mere solicitor. However, as if to make up for this, he and his wife lie beneath a memorial designed and carved by Jacob Epstein which ensures that their grave is not passed by.

We could go on searching for the monuments to Nobel Prize winners like the nuclear physicist Sir John Cockcroft, or Max Perutz, the molecular biologist. And countless classicists, astronomers, historians, diplomats, scientists, philosophers, poets.......as well as many less celebrated former citizens of Cambridge.

Or we might just wander back towards the chapel and take a quick peek inside the door....

It's now the studio of American-born lettering artist Eric Marland, some examples of whose work can be found in the burial ground, including another poem by Frances Cornford.

Take care.

30 By The Roadside

There's never a chance that I'll exceed the thirty-mile-per-hour speed limit as I pedal my bike through the lanes of East Anglia, seeking out interesting items to tell you about. It seems that these posts, featuring random snippets of curious information from odd corners of our history and landscape, are always popular with readers. Some have demanded that I come up with more of this stuff, though unfortunately it's not always as easy as that.

However this is now the thirtieth such post - hence the roadsign on the left. If you click on the 30 at the end of this post you can read all of these should you want to see the pearls of wisdom that you've missed.

The Royal Arms

In the village church at Therfield I discovered this royal coat of arms. As I've mentioned before every church in the country is supposed to display the royal arms of the current monarch who is, nominally at least, the head of the Church of England. In most cases the churches fail miserably at this; many have no royal crests on display while others are hopelessly out of date. This only makes it even more fun to look for them.

You can tell the date by the changing designs of the arms. This one seems to come from the time of James I (1603-1625), though these particular arms were revived by Charles II after the restoration of the monarchy, and were again used by Queen Anne. Despite the intricate carving of the arms there is, unusually, a spelling mistake on the garter - "PEИES" rather than "PENSE" just below the unicorns hoof.

Will Kempe

A while ago I told you the extraordinary tale of the Shakespearean actor Will Kempe who Morris danced his way from London to Norwich back in 1600. I said that I didn't know if he'd done it for a bet or out of sheer exuberance. It turns out, according to a report on a local BBC TV programme, that the truth is even more remarkable. He did it in a fit of pique after - wait for it - an argument with William Shakespeare about the lack of funny bits in Hamlet !

You see, Kempe was a member of Shakespeare's theatre troupe and was famous for portraying Sir John Falstaff and other comic characters. His fame was such that he felt people came to watch him rather than listen to the bard's versifying. He was so put out that no comic role existed in Hamlet that he left the company and, in an attempt at self-publicity, embarked on his epic dance to Norwich.

Even in those days before social media, or any sort of media for that matter, he attracted huge interest and, although he called his trip The Nine Day's Wonder, it took him rather longer than that. He found there were many excellent inns and pretty serving-maids between London and Norwich and these understandably delayed his progress.

Hodson's Bathing Temple

This odd-looking building (or is it just part of a building) stands beside the River Cam on the outskirts of Cambridge. I remember glancing at it as I punted past in my youth but never knew what it was, or cared what it was if I'm honest. However, recently it was proposed to knock it down which inspired someone to create an on-line petition which I, and lots of other people, signed. It's still there so maybe it's been reprieved. 

In fact it should have been knocked down years ago or should never have been allowed to be built in the first place. The land on which it stands was annexed from a piece of common land by the local builder, John Hodson, in 1887. He enclosed the area with a high wall, which still stands, and built the summer-house above which bears his coat-of-arms. From here he could supervise his daughters swimming in the river.  

Hodson lost most of his money when the railway speculator, Whittaker Wright, fled to America taking the cash with him.

Tough, Rugged Polar Explorer

No, not the old chap with the whiskers, that's just me showing you how small the boat is. It's the boat that's the star.

The exploits of the Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton, are rather eclipsed in the English-speaking world by the legend of Scott's tragic expedition. Once Amundsen had reached the South Pole, Shackleton set his sights on crossing Antarctica via the pole. Shackleton's ship, Endurance, became stuck in pack ice and it was decided that the only course of action was to wait till the ice thawed in the following spring.

When the ice began to break up it exerted so much pressure on the ship that it began to sink. The crew set up camp on a large ice floe and hoped it would drift towards Paulet Island where they knew that supplies had been cached. However the ice floe began to disintegrate and the men took to the three lifeboats and began a five day journey to Elephant Island where the exhausted men set up camp.

Here the ship's carpenter made some modifications to one of the lifeboats and six men were selected to attempt to get help. They travelled 800 miles through mountainous seas and hurricane force winds in their little lifeboat - yes, just like the one above - and somehow navigated their way to the island of South Georgia. The three fittest men then had to cross 36 miles of mountains to the whaling station to get help. How they achieved this in their exhausted state, with nothing but a length of rope and a carpenter's adze to serve as an ice axe, I don't know, but achieve it they did. Eventually all the men from the expedition were saved.

Name That Parson

Back to Therfield Church and one of those boards that list all the former vicars, reaching back to Medieval times. For some reason you can't help but stand and read some of the names. There's no point whatever in this exercise - it's hardly likely that you knew any of them after all! However some do have unlikely names, so I leave you in the pastoral care of:

Almeric Shylond

though he dates back to the 1300s when you'd expect names to be a little different.

But even within the last hundred years we find the economically named

Humphrey Humphreys

as well as the extravagantly monickerred 

Harlovin Harwood ffolliott Eliot

one would have liked to have known him 

even if he turned out to be a lot more staid and conventional than his name suggests.

Click on the number below if you want to read all the "snippets" posts 

30

Take care.

Would You Care For Another Dance?

A little while back I shared with you some videos of English traditional dances which are being kept alive (and kicking) by enthusiasts across the country, and elsewhere. Here are a  few more such dances gleaned from the vaults of YouTube. 

Stepping With Percy

Last summer I visited the East Anglian Traditional Music Day at Stowmarket and showed you some videos of the step-dancing. One of the dancers paid tribute to Percy West who had recently passed away. I've managed to find a short video of Mr West doing his inimitable thing......

.....this was filmed by Amanda Frost who has many videos of step-dancing and other entertainment to be seen in The Swan pub at Worlingworth.

 
Dancers From The Wild West

The wild west of England that is. Border Morris flourished along the English-Welsh border counties and was always thought to be a little wild and primitive. Beltane Border Morris seek to celebrate the dance's pagan roots.....

......borrowed from Douglas Latham's YouTube channel which includes lots of excellent videos of Border Morris dancing.

 

An Old Broom Sweeps Clean

Dancing with a broom turns up in all sorts of places, though it's difficult to see why anyone should have ever thought of it in the first place - and if you can dance with a broom why not with shovels or rakes? This example is more energetic and gymnastic than many....

.....from Judith Proctor's many fine videos of Morris dance related subjects. 



And Finally....

Many of you were very taken with the clog dancing of Hannah James, so here's another video showing us a close-up view of her amazing footwork.....

.....originally posted by lesley1607 who has a huge number of videos of mostly English folk singers and bands in concert.


 Take care.
 (And take the time to go and see traditional dancing if you get the chance).