The IsamBards in the City on Shakespeare Day

One year and thirteen days after the last IsamBards in the City walk, we found ourselves at it again, on Shakespeare Day this time, and with our full complement of Bards this time too. 

This time we started at Electricity House, a Grade II listed 1930s landmark, which we always called the SWEB building when I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s, and which is now, inevitably, 'luxury student accommodation'. 

We started with an introduction from Professor Lucy English, Poetry Queen of Dragons and Joint Director of the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival, of which our walk was one of the events, and we were off, starting with David Johnson who gave a potted poetry history of Electricity House.

Dominic conjures an Electric Fish Market

This is me reading a poem about nearby Christmas Steps.

We then wandered down the Centre to our next stopping point, the now empty plinth where the statue of notorious slaver, Edward Colston, once stood.

Pameli reading 'In the Centre of the City'

Remembering George Floyd

Cwtch enthralled by the story of what happened here before she was born

It was then time to head to our next stop, down by the statue of Neptune and the Hippodrome.

Alfie the whippet studies his paws in rapt concentration ...

... although Neptune has rather rudely turned his back

Pameli reading her poem 'Mr Matchem's House of Marvels'

Our next stop was at the head of St Augustine's Reach on the Floating Harbour, which almost has a view of the Central Library and was therefore just the right spot for a communal poem protesting the threatened and revoked and then re-threatened plan of the Mayor to sell that beautiful Arts and Crafts building (which is ours, actually) and rehouse it in the empty Debenhams building, or Joneses as it used to be, over in Broadmead.

'Or sell our Central Library / sell everything it means / but beware its darkened aisles / in the library of your dreams' 

Our penultimate stop was further along Narrow Quay, within sight of Pero's Bridge, where we remembered one of the few slaves in Bristol whose name (albeit only his slave name), birthplace and dates we know.  

I also read a poem about a little known, but grim episode in Bristol’s history concerning three Inuit captives – a man, a woman from a different tribe and her infant son – who were brought to Bristol by Captain Martin Frobisher, following his voyage to Canada in 1577. He’d planned to present them to Queen Elizabeth I but all three died before that could happen, within weeks of their arrival.

 

I was a bit disconcerted to realise we were standing right outside the room where my wedding reception was held almost 37 years ago, but then the Northerner reminded me that reading poetry in that spot was the perfect way to lay any residual ghosts and he was right.

Our final stop was nearby Queen Square, which used to be a marsh before the River Frome was diverted in the 1240s and which contains a fanciful statue of King William III dressed as a Roman Emperor and sitting on a steed, both of which points of interest were referred to in various poems.

'It was all right as these things go,' said Cwtch, 'but there was only one mention of bones and no dogs whatsoever.'

Four IsamBards

A Bristol Newfoundland

Another sub-zero morning on Friday, in which the bedroom window was frozen shut and could only be opened with a mighty heave. 

I was lucky enough to be teaching a poetry group in town, which meant I got to see Bristol's floating harbour in this winter's freeze. (I've seen it float on a raft of mist before, but never ice.)

 A frosty John Cabot ... 

... surveying this new found land, with the replica of Matthew in ice

Pero's bridge

St Augustine's Reach, looking north ...

... and south

 College Green

I wondered whether there might have been a bit of a thaw by the early afternoon, as I retraced my route to car park, but there was little sign of one.

Sunlight spotlights on a tree ... 

... and stained glass in the cathedral

The leadworks chimney and Bristol wheel

Stranded ferries on Narrow Quay

Prince Street bridge from Mud Dock

Looking over to Redcliff Wharf

'What's colder than ice? Death, evidently. Pass, pigeon.'

A frozen sunset to end the day at Cribbs Causeway Asda

The IsamBards in the City

Normally, when people ask me what I did on the weekend - polite younger colleagues, mostly, who actually get up off the settee and go places - I can't think of anything much to say, or worse, can't remember. Erm, walked the dog? I suggest, hopefully. Not so this weekend. It's been busy and memorable.

Saturday was a Twelve Red Kite Day. This is number 11, which flew over my daughter Jenny's friend Jenny's wedding to Michael in Swallowfield, Berkshire. (Lots of red kites up there.) (Have I mentioned before how much I like them? I think I probably have.) Even without taking the kites into consideration, it was the loveliest day. 

Today it was back to poetting in public again - not something we've been able to do much of these last couple of years. This morning's poetry walk with the IsamBards through some of the more hidden parts of old Bristol was part of this spring's Lyra Poetry Festival. Unfortunately, Pameli Benham couldn't join us as she had to self-isolate prior to a medical procedure that had been brought forward unexpectedly, but between us, Dominic Fisher, David Johnson and I managed to read her poems as well as our own, so that she was with us in spirit.  

Our starting point for the walk (and the poems) was the Haymarket, in the sunken roundabout that has been known since the 1970s as the Bear Pit (not that there was ever one there - you need to have visited Bristol Zoo before the end of the 1960s to have seen one of those in these parts).  

Here David regaled us with what did happen here in past centuries - notably, St James's Fair, which, come to think of it, almost certainly would have involved a bear or two - while Dominic meditated on the subject of lunchtime drinking, and I observed how cities change all the time, even if it's just people taking down their bean sticks. 

We then proceeded to St James Barton, which was rather more peaceful. 

David read Pameli's poem about The Bristol Giant, who was actually Irish and called Patrick Cotter, while Dominic read his poem about Charles Wesley, whose wife, and the five of his children who predeceased him, are buried near here. 

By the Art Deco Odeon, I read Pameli's poem about entrepreneur Oskar Deutsch, a Hungarian Jew who opened 258 cinemas around the UK in the space of 10 years, and David pondered/contemplated/mused/ruminated on why Peter Mark Roget's stay/sojourn/residence/stop over in Bristol from 1798 - 1799 isn't yet commemorated/memorialised/remembered/observed with a blue plaque. 

At the junction of Nelson Street and All Saints Street, we paused again in the doorway of what used to be a bank but is now something involving bowling. Being a Sunday, it wasn't too noisy, but even so there was a need to project and gesture a bit too.  

Here, we learnt about the people, and the river, buried beneath our feet, courtesy of Dominic ... 

... and I read my poem about the 15th century topographer, William Wyrcestre, and how his record of Bristol offers up occasional glimpses of a much older city.

The next section of our walk took us up St John's Steep and along John Street to Hasardysgarden, the churchyard that belonged to St John the Baptist's Church, also known as St John on the Wall. Here I read a poem about the tailors who used to play dice there before it was consecrated in 1409. We then moved on to Broad Street for poems about Edward Everard Printing Works, the steeple of St John's and the street art of two Civil War-era duellists.

My favourite bit of the walk was through the lanes that hug the ancient city wall, very little of which remains. Having traversed Bell Lane, we paused again in Small Street for poems from Dominic about Coleridge on the hunt for his publisher friend, Joseph Cottle, and St Leonard Lane, and one from me about the Flemish weaver, Edmund Blanket, who died in 1371 and is buried in St Stephen's Church. 

We were now a short step from the city centre, where David mused on the changing city and I told the story of my great-great-grandmother Mary Block and the day her ship came in. 

Our walk ended at the empty plinth where the statue of Colston once stood, and I'm pleased to say, there was absolutely no nostalgia for him or regret about his long over-due removal from anyone present. 

I read my poem about this righting of this shameful wrong, and a second about Pero Jones, the slave for whom the footbridge spanning St Augustine's Reach beyond the Centre is named. 

All that was left was for David to read the final poem, Pameli's 'In the centre of the city', and a little chit-chat and book-selling before we returned home, full of the sunlight and salt air of the city we're passing through during this lifetime.