Heaven in Scarborough ... and then we went to Filey

I tried the door. St Martin-on-the-Hill was locked. But there was a sign alongside - guided tours at 10.30am every Tuesday. I looked at my phone. It was nearly 10am. I looked at my partner. Was it Tuesday? Yes, it was. 

While he took Ted dog off to sample the delights of Scarborough, I counted off the minutes until I could get in. The guide and his wife made me a cup of coffee when they arrived. I was about to enter heaven on earth.  

Almost immediately, I was struck by the similarity with All Saints Church in Selsley, near Stroud, so it was no surprise to learn that this church and that are sister churches, designed by the same architect, G F Bodley, and both fitted out by Morris & Co.  

Our guide took me and three other people who had arrived on a guided tour of the beautiful windows. I'm posting pictures of some my favourites but there are more. 

St Martin divides his cloak in two and gives half to a beggar ...

... then dreams that the beggar is Christ in Majesty, conqueror of sin and  death, holding up the cloak while angels wipe their noses on it kiss it.

The rose window in the west wall, with a central Annunciation designed by Burne Jones, and circling angels by him and William Morris 

The story of SS Dorothea and Theophilus (now demoted to non-official sainthood owing to Lack Of Evidence Of Their Existence), with the most beautiful angel/fruit bearer between them. Dorothea is modelled by Jane Morris.  Burne Jones was paid £12 for its design.

The Three Marys window, originally made for St Martin's Church in Brighton but rejected because it features Lizzie Siddal, a probable suicide 

Mary Magdalene, modelled by Annie Miller and designed by Morris

Mary the Virgin, modelled by Georgiana Burne Jones and designed by her husband

Mary of Bethany, modelled by Lizzie Siddal and designed by Morris

As well as these and other beautiful windows, there is a pulpit with panels on the front painted to designs by Ford Madox Brown and Morris. The top row shows the Four Evangelists; the bottom panels, depicting SS Augustine of Hippo, Gregory, Jerome and Ambrose of Milan, were considered close to popery by some of the townsfolk of Scarborough and had to be curtained when the pulpit was first installed, for fear of causing offence. 

To the side there are two panels featuring scenes from the Annunciation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

The organ 

The rood screen and cross, both late additions after the death of the principle benefactor of the Church, Mary Craven, the crossing of which  symbolises death

The chancel, or heaven

The east window, telling the story of the Crucifixion through the Parable of the Vineyard

The beautiful beautiful ceiling of the Lady Chapel










Tearing myself away, I met up with the Northerner, who was rather underwhelmed by the secular delights of Scarborough, and we headed off to Filey, his childhood holiday destination. I'd been enthusing about how much I'd liked it during my stay a couple of years ago, when I went to my nephew's wedding, but I hadn't had my dog with me then and now much of the beach was out of bounds to us - or under water. 

And it was really hard to find anywhere decent to eat. And a gull managed to shit on both of us with one well-aimed evacuation. 

'Never mind,' said the woman in Boots when we went in for baby wipes. 'At least it wasn't one of those horrible gulls from Bridlington.' 

Yes, even non local gulls are to be denigrated in post-Brexit Britain. 

'We must remember to buy a lottery ticket' said the Northerner as he dabbed off a second direct hit - but needless to say, we forgot. 

Still at least one of our party was having a great time ... 

William Morris and his Red House

I suppose breaking a 147 mile journey home at the 17 mile point is a little premature but how much more enticing is the prospect of breakfasting outside the coach house of William Morris's Red House in Bexleyheath than in a cheap hotel in Dagenham?

I'm a bit of a William Morris groupie and I'd already visited Red House twice before we turned off the M25 on the way home from seeing Leonard Cohen at the O2.  It is a special place, however, and as the National Trust are in the process of uncovering more and more art dating from the short time Morris, Janey and their friends spent there, there's always something new to see.  And this time someone congenial to share it with. 

After a wander around the garden, now considerably larger than in Morris' day, we joined the guided tour to see the how the house is looking these days. 

Still enchanting are Red House architect Philip Webb's stained glass birds which look as if they are about to flap off at any moment.  I'd like to have a go at reinterpreting some of them when I get my glass kiln up and running.  

The iconic staircase, forerunner of a million Tudorbethan imitations.

The newly restored blue and gold landing ceiling.

Although he manufactured wallpaper for others to buy, Morris preferred to hang his own walls with tapestries and embroideries. In the absence of any suitable candidates, this papered wall with its door leading into the dining room with its oxblood red dresser looks well enough. 

 What other Pre-Raphaelite works of art lie behind the brown paint job on the hall dresser?

 Always a favourite of mine, the fireplace in the dining room with its Delft tiles ... 

... and the single M for Morris carved into the hearth ... or is it a W for William?

While at Red House, Morris conceived a series of 12 embroidered hangings for the dining room based on women in Chaucer's poem 'The Legend of the Good Women', to be embroidered by his wife, Jane, sister-in-law Bessie, and anyone else in the vicinity who was handy with a needle.   Only seven were ever completed, and this one - of Aphrodite - returned to Red House in 2008 after an absence of 142 years.   The rest, plus two of the planned dozen fruit trees to accompany them, are scattered across the world. 

Morris's motto - here in French - sings from a round upstairs window.  On an early hanging now at Kelmscott Manor, it is also embroidered in English - 'If I can' - harking back to the inscription 'Als Ich Kan' inscribed on the frame of Jan Van Eyck's 'Man in Red Turban'.  

Discovered behind a cupboard in William and Jane's surprisingly small bedroom, this mural is a representation of the Book of Genesis, featuring Adam and Eve on either side of a tree complete with serpent, Noah and Rachel amonst others.  It is designed to look like a tapestry hanging in folds and is believed to have been painted by Lizzie Siddal, who died before it could be completed.  

Another mural has been uncovered in the drawing room, painted by Burne Jones and illustrating the Romance of  Sir Degravaunt, with Morris the model for the knight and Jane his bride, Melydor, seen being married on the far left of this photo, and then forming part of the wedding procession in the adjacent panel.  

    
In this picture, Morris and Jane are seen in the background at the wedding feast. Unlike Sir Degravant and Melydor, their marriage was an unhappy one and within five years of its being built, they had left the Red House, with all its hopes and dreams, behind them.  

Writing Poetry as an Extreme Sport

It’s clear that for performance poets, poetry is something of an extreme sport.  I am far more of a page poet although I do enjoy reading my work in public and one day I might even pluck up the courage to perform it a little.  But it’s writing the stuff that thrills and exhilarates me.

By the time I start a poem, the seed of it has usually – though not always – been dormant in my head for some time.  Then, as I feel my way towards it, I fall in love – with its subject, its sound, the look of it on the page, the adrenalin rush of hunting down the right word and trapping it, only to have a tiny doubt – ‘surely there must be something a bit more perfect? Yes, here it is, look!’ – until it’s done.  Obviously interspersed with all that passion are stretches of doubt and discouragement  of the ‘God, this is total crap’ variety, but unless I put it to one side in despair, nine times out of ten I end up with my mouth full of something that pleases me.
  

Then obviously I start something else, look back after a week or so and realise how buck-toothed and bespectacled my previous amour was.  So I ignore it for months, then finally go back to it for more tweaking, its weaknesses having become obvious in our estrangement.

There’s a picture of Lizzie Siddal, painted by her husband and dark star, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, called ‘Beata Beatrix’.  It depicts Beatrice Portinari from Dante Aligheri’s poem ‘La Vita Nuova’ at the moment of her death.  I’m not a big fan of Rossetti or his art.  Although he was supremely talented, much of his later work, particularly of Jane Morris, is too decadent for my sensibilities.  And he treated both Lizzie and William Morris, whom I venerate, shamefully.   But this canvas is sumptuous in colour and composition.  With her face upturned, her eyes shut and her hands held out to receive the poppy which Death’s messenger, a red dove, is about to put in them, Beatrix is anticipating – even welcoming  - her death.  The biographer Jan Marsh has identified Lizzie’s posture as being reminiscent of someone in the throes of drug-induced euphoria, and poor Lizzie being addicted to laudanum, this is entirely plausible.

I mention this partly to have a beautiful picture to post with this blog, but mainly because that is how I feel about writing poetry.  It’s a rush, an addiction, a passion and a thrill.  I hope it never gives up on me.