Listen to the past's long pulse

According to this article I'd read, Lord Byron invented 'wild swimming' on 3rd May 1810 when he swam the Hellespont from Europe to Asia. Though our ancestors swam in rivers and ponds for centuries before tin baths became commonplace, to get clean and probably for fun too. 

'Oh, Mum,' scolded Offspring the Eldest. 'Don't you know something only starts to exist when a posh boy does it for the first time?'

The posh boys at hand were wetsuited and occupied the whole of the narrow river beach. We sat down by a patch of goldenrod and waited for them to move on or even just up a little. From time to time they looked as if they were getting ready to leave but then started to jump in and out again. Even their sploshes had posh vowel sounds. In the end we left before the whole afternoon was lost to resentment and ill-wishing.

On the way down we'd been diverted through Stanton Drew following an accident on the A37, and it transpired that Offspring the Eldest hadn't visited its famous stone circles, so we stopped off there on our journey back. 

Stanton means Stone Town. The last time I'd visited was with my then neighbour, Cathy. I'd taken my Collected Poems by U A Fanthorpe with me and read the poem 'Stanton Drew' aloud, to her and the stones and the sheep. 

Two days later U A died. 

There's an argument to be made that you should always carry a copy of U A's poems with you, in case of unexpected happenings like an ad hoc visit to Stanton Drew. I'd overlooked this eventuality, however, and was poetryless. 

In any event we weren't on our own. Instead of sheep, there were heifers in the field, and at the entrance, a father trying unsuccessfully to get his two children to smile for the camera. 

As we approached the stones, the father caught me up. 'I'm so glad you're here,' he said. 'My two kids wouldn't walk past the cows till they saw you do it and live to tell the tale.' 

We watched them running, laughing, climbing and striking poses. They don't know yet that it's the stones that have the power. We were glad to have facilitated this first encounter, however ... 

... since it's good to get up close and personal with the stones. Listen to the past's long pulse, as U A says ... 

... even if you can hear the traffic on the B3130 and an aeroplane coming in to land at nearby Lulsgate Airport at the same time. 

Maes Knoll

U A Fanthorpe's poem about Stanton Drew invites the listener or reader to remove everything from the landscape that wouldn't have been there when the circles were created.

Since I was there last, a couple of beautiful dead trees have disappeared. 

More will grow up and grow old and the stones will outlast them. 

A Pile of Old Stones

I had a two hour window of opportunity while Son the Elder was tea partying in Salisbury today, so I bundled him out of the car and belted up the road to Stonehenge.  

The facilities at this World Heritage Site are as down as heel as ever, although work has apparently started on the inordinately long-awaited 'state-of-the-art Visitors' Centre'.

You do have to wonder about the wisdom of the prehistoric people who chose this site, however - I mean, why so close to the A344 AND the A303?

Actually, considering the stones are supposed to have come from the Preseli Hills, 180 miles away, they missed a trick.  They could have just schlepped them down to Saundersfoot, sailed them across the Bristol Channel, then up the Rivers Torridge and Okement and they'd only have been a stone's throw (so to speak) from Dartmoor.  Which already has lots of stone circles and rows of its own.  You can go up there in August and not see a soul all day.  How much more atmospheric would that have been?   :-)  

As it is, you're no longer allowed to touch the stones, or even go within twenty feet of them.  I have a clear memory of climbing on them as a very young child, and being overwhelmed by their size and age.  My kids never got the chance to do that, thanks to the intolerance and spite of the loathsome Margaret Thatcher, although since 1999 there is access at the solstices and equinoxes.

I wonder if Constable or Turner would have included a No Entry sign if they were painting or sketching Stonehenge today?  And where would Hardy have Tess arrested for the murder of Alec d'Urberville?  In the queue for the toilets?
  

U A Fanthorpe ends her brilliant poem about the stone circles at Stanton Drew with the following lines:

Stand inside the circle. Put
Your hand on stone. Listen
To the past's long pulse.

And I'm tempted to say, how can you get a feel of a place when you can't touch it?  And yet ... there they were, crowds of people wandering; chatting in at least a dozen different languages; listening, rapt, to their audio guides and, less attentively, to their teachers; and posing for countless photos.  Everyone, it seemed, wanted proof that they'd been there, and surely they wouldn't if they had no sense of the exceptional nature of this place.

And me?  Well, I was totally beguiled, even though I've been there more than a few times.  It doesn't seem to matter how much you are herded and monitored, Stonehenge still works its magic.  Standing before those stones in their varying configurations is like jemmying open the door to the past and realising that you are standing on the edge of a precipice.  Whooooaaaa!  What's this about then?