About Me

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Bristol , United Kingdom
Poet and poetry facilitator. Co-founder of the Leaping Word Poetry Consultancy, which provides advice for poets on writing, editing and publishing, as well as qualified counselling support for those exploring personal issues in their work - https://theleapingword.com. My sixth poetry collection, Love the Albatross, is now available from Indigo Dreams or directly from me.

Monday, 18 August 2025

A Tale of Three Erics



The winter of 1981-82 was freezing. I was living in Morecambe, Lancashire at the time. The attic room I rented for, I think, £6 or maybe £6.50 per week, had purple walls - 'like the inside of a Ladyshave box', one fellow-student quipped - which were so damp, mushrooms started growing all across them. One day we borrowed a thermometer off some physics students and took the temperature in the bathroom, which had a broken window. It was minus 18°C. Then our horrible landlord, who would walk into our bedrooms unannounced, decided to store a load of bricks in the bath, so we couldn't use it anyway.


Since I was only one year old during the fabled winter of 1962-63, 1981-82 is the coldest winter I can remember.

And it was dire. We had to go to the pub to use the toilets when all the pipes in the house froze. We took to bunking down on the floors of students lucky enough to have rooms on campus to try to get warm. I developed a hacking cough, which became a chest infection, which caused a weakness that was to plague me for some winters to come. My boyfriend broke up with me. Worse yet, I took him back a short while later, and - a few years after that - married him. And yet ... and yet ... there were things about Morecambe that winter that I loved. The bleakness of the bay - all those soft greys all the way to the horizon that were so easy on my eyes, and reminded me, somehow, of my beloved Dartmoor. The huge rise and fall of the tides that were remiscent of my native river, the Severn. And across the bay, the mountains of the Lake District, capped with snow for months on end. 


They weren't snowy yesterday - the first time I'd been back in 42 years - but my heart sang to see them again. Morecambe! Not the most beautiful place I've ever been to, but with one of the best views, even on a hot summer day. 


The Northerner, my blessedly lovely now-partner, and I didn't realise dogs aren't allowed on either the North or South beaches until we'd wandered from the Battery as far as the Midland Hotel, but since we clearly weren't disturbing anyone, we decided not to worry about it.



I must not start collecting gull feathers, I must not start collecting gull feathers ... 

`

... but curlew and oystercatcher feathers? Of course.


We stopped for a coffee in the 1930s extravaganza that is the Midland Hotel, largely because I wanted to see the artworks by Eric Gill, which had been in danger of being lost in the early 1980s, such was the delapidated state of the hotel, but which have now been saved and restored.


The frontage


Eric Gill's seahorses ...


... which look like they've been rather too free with the collagen lip injections. (Carved in situ by Gill and Donald Potter.)


The main staircase reminded us both of our local 1930s edifice, New Filton (Pegasus) House, which is part of Airbus and was completed a year earlier, in 1932.



Medallion featuring Neptune and Triton, designed and carved by Eric Gill and painted by Denis Tegetmeier, his son-in-law 


Bas-relief carved in situ by Gill, depciting Odysseus being welcomed from the sea by Nausicaa, as the epitome of hospitality 


My favourite artwork was the map of the coastline from Birkenhead (far right) to Whitehaven (far left). Such a strange perspective, and so whimsical and quirky, with the Midland right at its very centre. 



And yes, I know it's Eric Gill, and yes, I know he's problematic, to put it mildly:  being a fan of the Arts and Crafts Movement, I read Fiona MacCarthy's revelatory biography as soon as it was published in 2011 and was duly appalled, but at the same time, I love Picasso's art despite his apparent psychopathy, and Degas' despite his anti-semitism, and Gauguin's despite his propensity to impregnate underage Polynesian girls and give them syphilis; likewise, I admire Ezra Pound's 'The Cantos' and love 'Tarka the Otter' by Henry Williamson, though they were fascist sympathisers both. I believe works of art transcend their makers, and should stand on their own merit, though there's always a line to be drawn, and for me it's at J K Rowling, whose dangerous behaviour is happening right now. Not another penny of mine will finance her persecution of trans people.

 

Seahorse mosaic, desighed by Marion Dorn

The other art I would have loved to have seen in the Midland Hotel was the mural painted by the second Eric of the day, Ravilious, on the circular wall in the cafe, but the plaster it was painted on was poorly finished and it was lost a couple of years after it was completed, which was long before my time. 


Another thing that was missing was the Central Pier ... gone! Apparently, it caught fire in 1991 and was demolished the next year after being deemed unsafe - the second pier Morecambe lost, following the demolition of the West End pier in 1978, after it had sustained serious storm damage. And you know what they say about piers: to lose one may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. 





And yet there was some new art, much of it bird-based. I adored these - well, I'm not sure if they're cormorants or shags, but they're lovely and I wanted one, but they were quite firmly fixed to their posts.



And we went to see Eric no 3, of course; Eric Morecambe, who died the day after my finals finished in May 1984. The flag at Lancaster University was flown at half mast.




More cormorants/shags at the entrance to the stone jetty ... 


... and along its length ... 


... plus this brooding 'Mythical Bird', near the lighthouse. I loved all of it. I wouldn't go so far as to say Morecambe's been gentrified since my last visit, but it certainly feels like it's loved these days, and that's far better. 




Monday, 11 August 2025

Dog Days in the Frome and Trym valleys

I love woodland in summer; how it's different each time you walk through it, and as it's the holidays, I can be as leisurely as I like, wandering around Bristol's urban woods. I've even found myself feeling happy on occasion, which is quite unprecedented. 

I made a vow this summer to explore parts of the Frome and Trym valleys that I don't know, as well as the more familiar paths, and in the case of the Frome, it's been fascinating to see the extent to which it impacts the city's topography, even though for the most part it's invisible, either deep in its gorge or culverted. 

Having tried twice before - and failed - to reach Bury hill fort at Frenchay from Winterbourne viaduct, I was really pleased to get there on a couple of occasions, once with Cwtch the collie, and once with Cwtch and my old friend, Liz.






stone stiles



The hill fort was constructed in the iron age, but earlier flint chippings and an axe head discovered there attest to earlier occupation of the area. Cwtch and I had a wander through the ditch between banks on our first visit, and saw two roe deer in their red summer coats, leaping through the bracken and brambles.



A couple of miles downstream are Lincombe Woods in Downend, through which a fork of the Frome runs down to the river. The Frome walkway is on the opposite side of the river at this point, but you can still walk a short way north-east, and south-west down to Frenchay bridge, at the top of Snuff Mills. First, though, a detour to nearby Britannia Woods, so called because in 1957, a prototype Bristol Britannia aircraft crashed there, with the loss of all of on board - fifteen people in total. There's a plaque commemorating the incident on the wall of Lincombe Barn.


There's a big dip in the wood, and I couldn't help wondering whether that was where the plane came down, though it's situated on a hillside anyway, so maybe not.


I'd been intending to visit for a long time, as there was a strange sort of family connection to this event, in the form of an anecdote my mother told about how she'd dreamt the Britannia crashed just a few days before it did. She a said she always felt guilty for not telling anyone the authorities, but of course it's highly doubtful anyone would have taken any notice of her. The strangest thing about this story is that my mother had no interest in the subconscious or the supernatural; it really was an aberration as far as her mindset was concerned.


Lincombe Woods



Where fork meets Frome


A piece of hoggin bolstering the path between Lincombe Woods and Frenchay bridge. More about hoggin later.


Frenchay bridge


Quarry in Oldbury Court estate

I've also been walking along paths on the opposite bank of the Frome from the tried and tested footpaths. It's funny to see familiar sites from childhood from a new angle. 



Poor Cwtch was less impressed, as she mistook the leaves and dirt up against the barrier - you can just see it at the far end - for dry land and fell in the river.





'Can you please stop talking to that tree and get on with my walk?'


'No, cream first!'


School Lane, Stapleton

There were more familiar spots seen from the opposite bank from usual when we headed down the Begbrook to the Frome and walked as far as Glenfrome weir.


The island, covered in Himalayan Balsaam


Part of Glenfrome weir from the back


High above the Frome is Purdown, part of  Stoke Park estate, and Cwtch and I have been up there a fair bit this summer, skulking in some of the less frequented parts of the wood on the hunt for moulted feathers.



Having just thought to myself how good it would be to add a few more Great Spotted Woodpecker feathers to my collection, I did come across a sparrowhawk predation site early one morning, with a full quota of twenty wing feathers, plus a few tail, feathers, and red head and rump feathers. A question of being careful what you wish for. 


More about feathers later.


Autumn coming on apace


A felled ash refusing to die


Yum!


Strangely glittery purple poo

We've also been walking a lot at Blaise Castle, above the Ruver Trym, trying different starting points at the various entrances to the estate.


Tree on Castle Hill 


Giant's Footprint



Bridge on the River Trym


Sheltering from torrential rain one Sunday morning


Knobbly roots


'Observe a tree' carving


Up on King's Weston Down


There are lots of Mr Bumps, painted by Bumpsy, in the local areas neighbouring Blaise, as well as on the estate. This one is near Henbury golf course.



Fewer flowers than earlier in the summer: here's (clockwise) yarrow; great burdock; fleabane; cuckoo pint; great willowherb, wtih escapees crocosmia and evening primrose; cyclamen; burnet-saxifrage; and ragwort as tall as me

 

fungi


Clockwise: the ladybirds were swarming mid-July in the hot, dry weather - I hadn't seen so many since the drought year of 1976, these on a stone in the middle of the River Frome; female beautiful demoiselle; hogweed with ladybird, red soldier beatle, narrow-barred fusehorn, large ectemnius and ichneumon sarcitorius; noctua pronuba; ladybird on great burdock; buff-tailed bumble   


hoggin, which has been harder to spot than usual with the leaves falling early following the hot weather


TOP ROW: blue tit; magpie, tawny owl, jay covert, goldcrest; jay covert and primary; 2 x buzzard, magpie, and 2 x jay secondaries; magpie, jay and great spotted woodpecker tail feather; magpie, goldcrest, 2 x jay coverts, mistle thrush, great spotted woodpecker; jay primary and secondary; buzzard, magpie, jay tail feather, tawny owl

MIDDLE ROW: 2 x buzzard, 2 x tawny, jay primary; magpie, tawny and blue tit; 2 x tawny, magpie, jay covert, buzzard; magpie and jay tail feather; 2 x magpie, 2 x jay tail feather, 2 x jay primary; jay tail feather; green woodpecker, jay tertial and tail feather, 2 x magpie; wren primary

BOTTOM ROW: tawny secondary and primary, green woodpecker, sparrowhawk, 4 x buzzard including primary and tail feather, 2 x jay primaries; 2 x jay tail feathers, buzzard, sparrowhawk and tawny; 3 x buzzard, 2 x magpie and a jay secondary; jay primary and covert, goldfinch and tawny; tawny and jay tail feather; magpie; jay tail feather


A dou-blue-n!