Late-ish in the evening, I decided to tape off the kitchen, ready for a repaint tomorrow. that was done so quickly, however, that I chose to do the re-painting right away. One whole sampler pot did the room. There’s really not too much surface area that needs covering.
Certainly it’s an improvement. But I’m not 100% sure it’s quite right. Thinking I might buy another sample pot tomorrow, and do a second coat. Should I stick to the same colour, or go with something a little more sagacious?
I’ll be painting a lot of the woodwork – skirting mouldings, door, window, etc. – white. As I did in the bathroom. So I may need to buy some more Permoglaze. I’m planning to totally rebuild the kitchen cabinets, etc. But they’ll almost certainly be painted some other different colour. In the meantime, it’s nice to gradually improve things.
We need to sort out all the curtains and associated fittings as well. Then there’s the butler sink. And the outside tap… sheesh kabop. It never ends!
* Not accurate colour reproduction!
The following day, tape off:
Spice rack back up.Utensils back up.Door and curtain now need attention.
During a break from today’s decorating (well, yesterday’s, I guess, now it’s after midnight) I watched a few YouTube things. One of the suggested videos I spotted was a PBS Wyoming thing called Brotherhood of the Broadaxe (see below), which I thought sounded intriguing.
The story of the Wyoming Tie-Hacks, and the Tie-Drives, where thousands of trees are felled, and the resulting logs are turned into rough ‘ties’, for the ever-expanding railroad network, being sent from remote camps by flume and river, is fascinating.
The Warm Spring flume clings to sheer rock.
The log flumes were miles long. The Warm Spring flume looks, on maps, to be about five miles or more. Note the guy perched on the catwalk in the above pic. Precarious!
Feeding the ties through a channel in the river.
In the period and location which this documentary covers, not one fatality occurred under the auspices of the Wyoming Tie and Timber Co.
Clearing a log-jam. Dangerous large scale djenga-cum-pick-up-sticks.
When you consider the extremely hard work, long hours, and the vast volumes of timber cut down, prepared and transported, using only hand tools and very primitive methods of transport and processing, that is really quite amazing.
Ties gather…
The industry, a short-lived boom created by the burgeoning rail network, but soon to be rapidly superseded by industrialisation, lasted only one generation. It was a hard life. But judging by the accounts of those interviewed for this film, a good one… fascinating!
The Scandinavians were a big part of this particular epoch, with the Wyoming Tie & Timber Co. set up by a guy who’d done similar work back home in Norway. He got a lot of folks from the ‘old country’, and Sweden, to emigrate, and they formed the nucleus of the business.
These are the kind of men who did the work.
Local Indians and other more or less ‘native’ Americans would fill out the teams and bulk up the numbers, especially during the Tie Drives, after the Scandiwegians and other more expert Tie Hacks had done the felling and hacking, getting the wood from source to destination.
Ties at source, being poled into the river.Good ol’ horsepower was also used.Logs coursing down the flumes.Flumes cut through ravines, sometimes even through the rocks themselves.The scale of the flumes could be enormous.Ties being retrieved from the river.Ties are stacked and sorted.Processing plants grew up at key locations.
Hearing the old-timers and their wives and children reminisce about this period, it sounds both very hard, and yet very satisfying. The work was intense and seasonal, the logging locations were remote, and incredibly beautiful. Winters were hard, and skiing was an essential daily skill.
Cooks moved ahead of the work gangs, preparing massive meals. Check all the pots on coals!
The Wyoming Tie & Timber Co. really looked after their workers, building homes and camps, buying the employees kids Christmas gifts, and feeding the workers well (tourists would sometimes stop to watch the work, and were even invited to feast on the abundant victuals!). They even had programmes to look after the older less able men.
The church at Dubois, made of logs donated by Wyoming Tie & Timber.
Cooked a seafood paella tonight, with haddock and large prawns. Followed Omar Allibhoy’s directions again, this time from Tesco’s website, rather than Jamie Oliver’s. Turned out delish! Very happy. Will defola be cooking this again. The alioli dressing really sets the paella of nicely. Yum!
Dished up, ‘n’ ready to eat.
Sitting in the lounge, watching Errand of Mercy, from the Star Trek Complete Series box set, which is really great, I just leaped up and took a few snaps of the bathroom.
View from the kitchen.
The new Feathers of a Dove colour is looking great. And the Permoglaze white woodwork is also very cool and calm. The whole room looks so much better. It’s also nice to do stuff to put out mark on all the various domestic spaces. Up till now, this has always felt like Clive’s bathroom, not ours.
View towards the kitchen.
I still don’t like the tiles, the ceiling Artex, the carpet, or the clam-shell styled bath, bog and sink. But one or two things at a time, I guess. And with each addition or change, it becomes more personal to us. The white paint is still drying, and the room’s a bit messy. Once the paint’s dry I’ll be able to tidy up properly.
In the doorway of the kitchen.
I think I’ll take a momentary break from all this DIY and home improvement mallarkey. If I do anything, it should probably be using some white sealant to properly attach the trim along the top edges of the bath. And after that, I’m spoilt for choice with a myriad of further jobs. Ranging from further garden clearing, to repainting the kitchen.
But for now? Another beer, and a second helping of Star Trek!
Today I bought two sample pots of Feathers of a Dove, from the trusty B&Q Valspar range, plus a single pot of Sculpting Clay. The Feathers is for the bathroom, and the Clay is for… well… I’m not sure yet.
1st coat of Feathers of a Dove.
I painted directly over the Quiet Rain; these Valspar paints do a great job of covering previous layers/colours.
Even though the texture of the Artex is much reduced, it’s still quite an undulating surface, which makes it more paint hungry. Getting the new colour into all the recesses is quite tiring work.
These Valspar paints cover well.
With a partial second coat wherever it looked like it was required, and the Frog tape removed, I can see – in the pic below – that I need to neaten up around the edges. But I’m planning to paint all the woodwork white anyway, so it should wind up looking much tidier. I’ll also need to paint the coving.
Frog tape removed…
Yes, looking sooo much better. It’s a lovely colour, cool, calm, but also with a warm note. Just great! And such an improvement on the more trad but overly intense blue we had before.
Much better!
With the mirror and med-cab back up, the room is looking decidedly improved. I’m itching to start in on the white woodwork.
Painting the large window.
Aargh… couldn’t resist! Started by taping off the woodwork, and have now applied an undercoat. May do a second undercoat. Or I may go straight to the wonderful Permoglaze. Either way, I’ll have to restrain myself… if I can, and do that tomorrow!
And the smaller window, etc.
Oh ‘eck… Compulsion to paint found me giving it a coat of the Permoglaze, before turning in. I reckon it’ll need a second coat tomorrow, before I can de-Frog. And I need to do the door and the wooden parts of the bath, as well. It never seems to end!
You can see what remains of the Artex texturing here.Permoglazing the window frames.
As mentioned in my previous post, the bathroom is horrible. So we decided to re-paint. I did it all today, and – due to the Artex element – it was a lot of hard work. Sunday, a day of rest? Not this time!
Valspar, Quiet Rain
Bizarrely, although the swatch we went for didn’t appear, to us, that similar to the previous colour, it wound up coming out both darker, and equally intensely blue. Not what we wanted at all. So I’m going to have to re-paint again! I’ve even left the Frog tape in situ, an open admission that I’m not content to leave as is.
Oh well… ne’er mind! Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett O’Hara says.
Bathroom repainted in Quiet Rain.
One good thing that’s come out of it all, however, is that I’ve really reduced the degree of Artex texture. I haven’t gone for a completely flat surface, as I did elsewhere in the house. But rather than the stippled nipples that we had formerly, which are spiky enough to draw blood if you scrape against them, the surface is now merely irregular. Almost like some kind of animal/dinosaur hide!?
Valspar, Asian Silk
I have a sample pot of Asian Silk, pictured above. But we intend to repaint the kitchen in a very similar sagey green. So that’s poss too close. My current favourite is Feathers of a Dove, pictured below. It’s a lovely warm grey, with some green and beige in it.
Valspar, Feathers of a Dove
I do also rather like Sculpting Clay. I have to admit I like both the colour and the name. Indeed, I like a lot of the name/colour combos in the current Valspar range. I even like going and getting the colours. I shop therefore I am. Homo Consumerus?
Valspar, Sculpting Clay
We had a bit of a panic on today, what with me going for the Artex removal as well as the painting, starting late last night and working through till gone six today. We were supposed to have an AirB&B guest arriving. And the whole house, but the bathroom especially, was a mess. Check in is 6pm, and we’d just about got everything ship shape in time. But he hasn’t shown up yet, and it’s 10pm now.
We’ve had last minute cancellations before. But this is looking like being our first outright no show.
I really wanted to get the medicine cabinet installed tonight, as well as the spice rack. But before installing it, I needed to add an internal shelf. This proved relatively straightforward. Although really I should’ve done this earlier on.
Internal shelf installed.
I used the last of the Lark Song painting the new shelf (and it still needs a little more!), and then added the wall mounting fixtures, exactly as per the spice rack.
But before putting it on the wall, I wanted to remove the Artex texturing from the portion of the wall where I plan to install it. I found just enough Ex-Tex in the shed to daub a load over the required area… now I just have to wait an hour, for the stuff to take effect…
Well, I got it up, at 11.30-ish.
Starting to remove Artex at 10.30pm is never a good idea. It’s a messy time consuming process. And I did no prep in terms of keeping the area clear and clean… oops! This has also brought home to me what a hideous state our bathroom is in all round. I don’t like anything about it!
We inherited what we have from the previous owner. And it’s one of the rooms to have received the least attention thus far, in terms of changing it to suit our own tastes. In fact this medicine cabinet is – aside from a replacement loo seat and some bathroom rugs – the very first thing in there that’s truly ours.
And already fully laden.
Next I need to get some sample pots from B&Q, and tidy up the half-arsed Artex removal. I originally only intended to remove sufficient Artex to mount the cabinet. But I ended up using the entire remains of a pot of Ex-Tex. But that wasn’t much, and only covered about 50% of the textured wall surfaces. And of that I’ve only removed about 50% of the treated area.
This has turned out to be ‘one day project #2’; my first was my saw-rack. Now I’ve made this spice rack. They have a few features in common: both use dado recesses to join the members, and both use horizontal dowels to hold stuff in place.
Glue up.
I screwed up when drilling holes for the dowels, meaning I ended up with some extra holes to plug. But as mistakes and corrections go, this was a less onerous one.
Oops, more holes than intended.
Partly inspired by pure lack of fundage, and partly by guys like Neil Pask, with his Scrapwood Challenge series on YouTube, I try to just use stuff I have on hand.
But it seems nine times out of ten I find I’m lacking something essential. So I have to pop out and buy it. Today it was a suitable diameter dowel. I wound up getting some in 9mm, from West End DIY, for the exorbitant/niggardly sum of £1.75!
Plugged and sanded flush.
I’m just waiting for the glue to set up, or go off, or whatever it does, so I can trim the protruding ends of the dowels flush. Then I can give it a lick of paint. Lark Song will be the colour, as with the med-cab.
Glued over night, ‘n’ screwed this morn’, 2nd coat of Lark Song.
Whilst painting the first coat, the top and bottom fell off. Looks like I didn’t leave the glue for long enough! I finished the base coat, re-glued, and have left it overnight. So hopefully it’s more solid now?
I think, to be on the safe side, I’d better add something – screws or dowels – to strengthen these particular joints. And I suppose all this means this is now no longer, strictly speaking, a one-day project.
Finished, but not yet mounted.
And finally, in a minor follow up to my ‘I hate TV adverts’ post, a little something on that theme. Here we have, rather like the pics on the restaurant menu in Brazil, and the coloured dollops of crud that are actually served up, a nice little juxtaposition of the box art depiction of Weetabix Crispy Minis and the reality:
Cf. box art to reality…
Allegedly they’re ‘crammed’ with chocolate chips. Rubbish! I can neither see nor taste the supposed chocolate content. Ok, so this isn’t quite on the level of the stupid mind-manipulation of most of the ads I was on about in my previous post. But it’s just as cynical.
In order to ease congestion in the kitchen and bathroom, I have a number of small projects in mind. One is a spice rack, another a small movable book case (for our cookery books), and a third is a medicine cabinet.
Homer Simpson’s spice rack.
I started work on the last of these today. I’m trying to use only wood I have on hand, after having to fork out £8.25 on a piece of plywood for the roof of the firewood storage unit. That was supposed to be made only using stuff I had already. But in the end I simply didn’t have anything suitable for that job.
Basic box and back assembled, and undercoated.
It may be that I have to do the same for the door of this cabinet. Or perhaps I might glue some boards together? If I go the latter route, it’ll mean quite a lot of work prepping and gluing the lumber, which’ll prob’ be derived from my stock of pine floorboards.
The main box is made from 12mm ply, with hand-sawn box joints, and a table-saw cut dado for the back. The back is recycled from the rear panels of our now destroyed Ikea Malm chest o’drawers, which was painted grey on one side. I’ve kept that colour as part of my design, and tacked the back on with panel pins.
My rushed and scrappy box-joints.
The finger joints were rather rushed, as I was working outside, in the fading light. There’s simply not enough room in the shed! Consequently they aren’t terrifically precise or neat. I used some ‘Brummer’ to fill a few gaps, and undercoated the box in Valspar ‘Elk Antler’.
A better viewing angle?
The box was fairly severely out of square. Cutting and gluing the back-board was hard work. Cutting it to size took several passes, gradually shaving more off. But it was getting the box itself a bit better aligned, or in square, that was hardest. Thankfully the back panel helps improve the shape a bit.
Chiselled out a recess for the catch.
All the above was done yesterday. Today I wound up having to buy some ply for the door; cost, £1.80! And whilst doing so, at West End DIY, I bought the fixings. These comprise two hinges and a catch. Cutting a recess for the main part of the catch was fun. I like chiselling out little areas like this, with a good sharp chisel.
Screws supplied with catch are too long!
Due to choosing 9mm ply for the door, the screws that came with the catch wound up being a mite too long. I rummaged around and finally found some much smaller, shorter screws which were a suitable colour/style match. Sadly they’re the flat-head screwdriver type, as opposed to my preferred philips.
Found some dinkier screws.
One thing I found amongst my hoarded junk/treasures, which’ll come in handy on this job, was a bag o’ wooden handles. I intend to paint the box a beige/buff type colour, and then stencil a big white circle and red cross on it, so it looks a bit ‘army surplus’.
Knob attached.
The door knob came from a bag of about 20 or more. One of my many very useful Freecycle acquisitions. I busked the fitting of the hardware, and mercifully it came out ok. I plan to add an internal shelf at some point soon.
Inside view of door fixings.
Once assembled, I painted it all in a coat of Lark Song, another poetically named Valspar sampler pot! This is the second coat for the main box. But only the first for the door. I’ll let it dry, and then paint the inside as well.
A coat of paint on the whole exterior.
In the pic below, as well as the medicine cabinet, you can see sheets of plywood for the spice rack, a broken nursing chair I need to fix, and the writing box I got from the local dump, also in need of restoration!
View of the lounge. Several projects to be seen!
I reckon I’ll start, and maybe even finish, the spice rack tomorrow. And I’ll hopefully also paint the white roundel and red cross on’t medicine chest, n’all.
It’s tomorrow now. Here are two pics of the current state of the medicine cabinet. Nearly finished! And I’m happy with it.
Wow! What an amazing film. It really is epic. And, rather amazingly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the entire film before. Sure, I’ve seen parts. It’d be difficult not to have been exposed to at least some snippets of a film that’s so legendary and celebrated.
The venerable lobby cards.
When you include the musical segments – overture, interlude, etc. – The whole thing is the best part of four hours long. Personally I think that’s part of what makes it a great film. Perhaps like an American celluloid version of Tolstoy’s War And Peace, it takes the time it requires, not to mention the space and the scale, to tell a big story in a big way.
It’s curtains for Scarlett.
There is a kind of deep irony embedded in the heart of the film. At least as far as I’m concerned. And that’s to do with the juxtaposition of the truly huge stories, to do with the slave-dependant way of life that has ‘gone with the wind’, and the romance. Both are universally interesting aspects of the human story, and both are about social conventions and power structures. Consequently both have a nigh on universal appeal to the viewer.
Mammy laces Scarlett up.
But the romantic aspect is the more easy to sugar-coat and sell, whilst the slavery/racism side is harder to digest. And the irony I mentioned can be highlighted by the fact that Hattie McDaniel was the first Afro-American actor to receive an Oscar, for her role as Mammy, but she couldn’t attend the première of the film, because … it was held in a segregated cinema. Unbelievable!!
Loew’s Grand, the première.
Leaving this shocking aspect of the films history for now, and turning to its aesthetic appeal, the mixture of romance, grandeur, and lush technicolor, make for a winning combo. It’s clear that no expense was spared. There are numerous scenes that really are breathtaking. From the beautiful, such as the views of Tara at sunset, to the awful, like the Confederate open-air hospital, shown below.
Epic stuff.
Viewed from our contemporary position, some of this remains very effective, whilst other moments are clearly staged. There are numerous scenes in which action occurs against or in what is quite obviously a painted backdrop. The feats of this pre-CGI production remain, however – even in those obviously stagey/fake moments – extremely impressive.
Amazing!Burning…
Apparently the film was delayed for numerous reasons, including Selznick’s obsessive desire to get the right people in certain key roles. Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable as Rhett Butler are the two key players, of course, and Selznick certainly struck gold with them. They both look the part, and they both play their roles with complete conviction.
Beauty and the beast.
Indeed, in this make-up test production photo, Leigh even looks like a convict.
An interesting production photo.
But many of the supporting roles are played with just as much verve, such as Olivia De Haviland as Melanie Hamilton, and Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes. Melanie and Ashley are the yin to Scarlett and Rhett’s yang, and in this respect the film is almost operatic in style. Perhaps another reason for the films great success is that it’s almost fairy-tale like in its reliance on archetypes?
Ding dong! A pair of beautiful Southern belles. [1]The first part of the movie follows the various characters as war approaches, and is fought, and, for our Southern folks, lost. Here the weather that rages is in the events of the nation, as much as the individuals. But in the second half the highs and lows, pretty much bi-polar in extremis, are more tightly focussed on the individuals, and Scarlett and Rhett in particular.
Several of the key events of the second half loom with the predictability of classic tragedy: they are seemingly inevitable, and yet lose none of their dramatic or emotional impact. This was the period known to the South as Reconstruction. Although that hardly seems appropriate to the relationship of the two key players here!
I found the film very involving and very moving.
A very moving scene. I wept!
Based on a Margaret Mitchell novel I’ve never read, some of the ideas at the core of the film, and presumably the book as well, are a bit hokey to say the least. Or, worse yet, sentimental and hypocritical, with the Old South portrayed as a land of genteel manners and friendly relations with the slaves. But despite these moral and cultural caveats, Gone With The Wind remains, essentially, a very humane story
The novel.
It could be deemed trivial or banal, in that it places the romantic misadventures of a vain coquettish Southern Belle over and above the much tougher subject of slavery/emancipation, etc. But just as human power relations between the ‘races’ [2] are an evergreen subject of interest, so to are male female relations. And this no doubt, alongside the lavish production, helps explain the films enduring appeal.
Tomorrow is another day…
We spread our viewing out over two evenings, our intermission being more or less 24 hours. When the end finally came, it really had been an awesome rollercoaster of a ride. And it didn’t feel too long at all. Indeed, in some ways the ending cries out for more.
NOTES:
[1] This photo is terrific in that it captures, solely in facial expressions, the open candid innocence, or the what you see is what you get nature of Melanie, and juxtaposes it with skittishly moody and ever changing mirage of Scarlett’s countenance.
[2] Some current science writers argue that race, as commonly understand in human terms, is a false category, and therefore – ironically (and logically paradoxically) – inherently racist.
NB: This is another archival post, albeit slightly modified for inclusion here. I’m an Amazon Vine reviewer, and was sent this book several years ago. I’m winding down one of my other older blogs, and gradually transferring content from there over here.
Teresa and I like visiting ye olde churches on our travels. They are usually peaceful places, and sometimes quite beautiful. This is my thoughts on a great guide, written by poet and church-freak John Betjeman, which I was fortunate enough to be given a free/review copy of.
Betjeman’s original book* covered twice as many churches (approximately 5,000). Unlike the first edition, this newer shiny hardback coffee-table version is lavishly illustrated, and as a result cuts the number of churches covered in half, at roughly 2,500… still plenty!
Comberton Baptist church, Cambs. [1]First I’d like to point out before going any further that I’m not Christian. I am, using A. C. Grayling’s pithy phrase, a naturalist and free-thinker. Nonetheless I, like this country and our culture, am steeped in the ever-evolving Christian tradition. I was brought up Christian, and went to several churches (none of which were deemed interesting or beautiful enough for inclusion here!). And the legacy on our landscape, and in our lives, from our language to the sights and sounds we deem typically English, are all bound up with the history of Christianity, or rather, as Kenneth Clarke presciently clarifies in Civilisation, The Church.
And even if we were to disregard all of this cultural heritage mallarkey, some churches are just very beautiful. Okay, maybe not the one pictured above! More on that in the accompanying footnote, below. Certainly I’ve often enjoyed stopping at a random church and wondering around inside, connecting in my own quiet, personal and meditative way, with all that life and history. So, when offered this on Vine, it was a must have.
Betjeman visits a church in Diss, Norfolk.
I confess I know precious little about Betjeman outside this book, except that he was a poet – indeed Poet Laureate for a while – appeared on the BBC a lot years ago, and is known for rhapsodising about trains. When reading his introductory essay I was struck by how he chooses to spell the word ‘show’ using the rather archaic British variant ‘shew’. Fittingly eccentric and antiquarian, but perhaps also mildly irritating. Why? Well, I feel, and indeed my brain is wired, through learning commonplace English, to think that it should be pronounced to rhyme with shrew, stew, brew, or even, for that matter pew.
In light of this I was not initially sure I could go with the TLS quote on the cover, which effusively describes Betjeman’s introductory essay as ‘pure gold’. In fact at first I found it rather crabbily and fustily conservative – rather like some of the church wardens you may bump into when visiting churches using this book – if very erudite and occasionally quite funny, as for example: “If the path leading… wealthy unbelievers … key from there.” (p23) Well, that’s certainly priceless, but not necessarily because it’s ‘pure gold’!
A DVD reissue of Betjeman’s BBC TV series, A Passion For Churches.
As well as making some very prescient remarks he also says a few things which, to my mind at least, are a little odd, such as “It must be admitted that spirituality and aesthetics rarely go together.” I guess this depends on you how you define spirituality, a nebulous term at the best of times. But many admirers of culture, including eminent scholars of religion, for example Diarmid MCulloch, stress the great contribution religion makes to our aesthetic culture.
Quite apart from our own largely Christian heritage, which has plenty in it that’s clearly paganism absorbed and transformed, one need only think of the incredible non-figurative arts of Islam, the rich iconography of Buddhist mandalas, or the great traditions of religious music, to wonder if perhaps Betjeman has made a mistake with this particular pronouncement.
From the pilgrimage churches of Bavaria…to Islamic art and architecture…and Tibetan Mandalas… ‘spirituality and aesthetics rarely go together’?
In the context where he makes this rather bizarre sounding statement, it does actually make sense; lamenting the more recent restorations and additions to a church that are, by and large “practical and unattractive” (ugly modern heating, and P.A. equipment, and the like), he begs that we remember “however much we deplore it … [these ugly things] have been saved up for by some devout and penurious communicant.” Whilst this sonorous phrasing has an appeal, its rendering of the ‘spiritual’ is open to debate. And much of this passage reads like unadulterated Puritanism of a very dull dour sort. Despite England’s break with Rome, I don’t think Christianity, or humanity for that matter, was suddenly and totally bereft of aesthetic awareness. [2]
Indeed, that’s more than half the attraction of this book: these churches are not only frequently very interesting, but also often, in part or in whole, quite beautiful. It is true, there are some horribly oppressive Christian buildings across these islands, and even some of the churches we’ve visited using this book belong in that category, but fortunately they’re in a minority. However, when he follows his line of thought to the conclusion that “Conservatism is innate in ecclesiastical arrangement” I can’t disagree. But perhaps this observation helps define the difference between religion and spirituality?
The Crypt of St. Wystan’s, Repton (Derbyshire).
In addition to a general review, I feel I have to mention at least one church we visited thanks to this book. And there’s really no contest for me as to which that should be. It’s St Wystan’s, Repton, on account of the fantastic subterranean crypt (pictured above).
Returning to the book: “Who has heard a muffled peal and remained unmoved?” Well, ironically part of the appeal of hearing church bells, at least to folk like me, nowadays, is the comparative rarity with which you hear the sound. In the times where I’ve lived close by a regular ringers’ church they have sometimes grown annoying. And what has annoyed me is not that “they are reminders of Eternity”, but that I’m being reminded of a belief which I don’t share, a belief whose omnipresence and omnipotence is, thankfully, receding.
One little technical criticism is that the photos which illustrate points being made in the introductory text give only the village/town name, and then the church name, but not the county. This could very easily been included, and would have been very useful in determining if the church shown is within easy reach. So, for example ‘EAST SHEFFORD: ST THOMAS’, which happens to be on the page I was on when this shortcoming struck me, could so very easily have been ‘EAST SHEFFORD: ST THOMAS (Berkshire)’.
St. Wendreda’s, March (Cambridgeshire).Interior, St. Wendreda’s.
One final note, and an addendum to my original review; Teresa and I moved to the town of March a couple of years back. And St Wendreda’s, March, is one of the churches Betjeman really effuses over, saying it’s worth cycling 50 miles into strong headwinds to visit! I’m not sure I’d go that far. But it does have a pretty splendid roof, with carved wooden angels (see accompanying pics).
The angel roof, St. Wendreda’s.
A big heavy book, this is more coffee-table campaign planner than handy guide to tote on your travels. Attractive, informative and fascinating, if you find British churches – and it is very much parish churches, Betjeman doesn’t cover cathedrals – interesting or beautiful, or even occasionally both, then this is well worth having.
* Or possibly books? This might in fact be anthologised from a number of church books by Betjeman.
[1] One of several churches we attended during my childhood. Unsurprisingly it’s not mentioned in Betjeman’s book!
[2] This is what Eamon Duffy is alluding to in the title of his book The Stripping Of The Altars. But that’s another whole topic, for exploration some other time and place.
