All the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire (and Warwickshire)

Son the Elder was roboteering just outside Oxford and needed chauffeuring, so the Northerner and Cwtch the Collie joined us, on our trip to visit the places we failed to see last November, when we were making the same journey and my car broke down en route.

After dropping my son off in Botley, we headed for St Edward's in Stow-on-the-Wold, mainly to see the famous door in the North Porch, which is flanked by two three-hundred-year-old yews and said to have inspired Tolkien when he was writing about the Doors of Durin in 'The Fellowship of the Ring'.

I'd hoped to linger and take some photos of the Northerner here because he loves 'The Lord of the Rings', and maybe get him to take a possible author photo of me for my forthcoming poetry collection, but there was a constant stream of visitors rounding the corner to pay homage to The Door, so we didn't linger. 

Inside the church the things that interested me most were the remaining traces of mediaeval paintwork on the south side of the sanctuary ...

... and a splendid ledgerstone to the sacred memory of Sir Hastings Keyt, a Royalist who died, aged 23, in 1645, during the last battle of the first Civil War just outside Stow-on-the-Wold. 

I particularly like the detail of the skulls. 

In the churchyard there's a memorial to the battle itself, which saw 1000 Royalists held prisoner in the church ... 

... and also in the nearby square, scene of the slaughter of 200 Royalists and of the surrender of their commander, Jacob Astley, 1st Baron Astley of Reading. 

After lunch at the Porch Inn, which apparently dates back to 975AD and is another of those pubs claiming to be the oldest in the country, we set off for Adlestrop to pay homage to Edward Thomas, poet and wanderer, who wrote his famous poem about a brief, unscheduled stop at the railway station in 1914 just a couple of years before he died during the Battle of Arras in 1917. 

The station fell victim to the infamous Dr Beeching's axe in 1966 and is no longer standing, but the railway sign is ingeniously displayed in the local bus shelter, along with a plaque inscribed with the poem, which we read aloud, of course, in homage.

After our similarly fleeting stop, we headed for the Rollright Stones, which stand right on the Warwickshire/Oxfordshire border, not that the border existed when they were set up from the 4th to the 2nd millennium BC.

The earliest of the stones are believed to be the Whispering Knights - actually the remains of an early or middle neolithic dolmen. 

Chronologically, the next stones in the complex are the King's Men, a stone circle more than 100 feet in diameter and apparently comprising 77 stones, although how anyone can state that with any certainty is beyond me, for as we all know, counting standing stones accurately is impossible.

the Clootie tree by the King's Men

The most 'modern' of the Rollright Stones is the King himself, just over the road in Warwickshire and a sinuous curved shape thanks to the tradition earlier visitors and drovers had of chipping off parts of the stone as good luck charms. 

'Seven long strides shalt thou take 

and if Long Compton thou canst see, 

King of England thou shalt be'  

said the witch in the Early Modern folk tale attached to the site, and on the King's seventh stride a mound rose up blocking the view, and the witch turned them all to stone:  the king becoming the King Stone;  his army the King’s Men;  and his knights the Whispering Knights, forever plotting treachery.

daisies and corn speedwell; ground ivy; harlequin ladybird; hairy chervil and red campion; speedwell and stitchwort; red and white campion; butterbur leaves; hen pheasant feathers

Having wanted to see the door of the church in Stow, and the Adlestrop railway sign, and the Rollright Stones ever since I lived in Banbury 35 years ago, I was in a very buoyant mood as we headed for Cumnor, the Northerner's choice of destination, having studied Matthew Arnold's 'The Scholar Gypsy' for A-level, but having had a necessarily swift drink in a truly awful, unwelcoming pub and failed to find the Cumnor Hills, we soon moved on to the nearby village of Iffley. This has a church I was keen to visit, being Romanesque in style and dating from the 1160s. 

Beakhead ornamentation on the West Door

The South Door

Carving of a King by the South Door

the ancient Iffley yew

white and blue forget-me-nots

This sculpture in the churchyard reminds me of work by Peter Randall-Page but I haven't been able to find out who carved it.

The first thing I noticed as I stepped inside the church was the 12th century font in the baptistry, with its mismatched leg, the result of an ancient repair job, and its striking lid that dates from 2014 ... 

... and then the two beautiful, modern stained glass windows on either side of the space.

The Nativity window was designed by John Piper and made by David Wasley, and was installed in 1995 as a gift from Piper's widow, Myfanwy Piper. 

Cockerel: Christus Natus est

Goose: Quando? Quando?

Crow: In hac nocte

Owl: Ubi? Ubi?

Lamb: Bethlem! Bethlem!

detail, Piper window

The second window, designed by Roger Wagner and installed in 2012, continues the theme of the Tree of Life, with Christ crucified.

looking up through the nave, tower and chancel to the altar

The sumptuously carved stone was reminding me of Bristol Cathedral Chapter House, which is probably my favourite space in all of Bristol, and when I got home, I checked the date and discovered it too dates from 1160.

 the altar

one of many delightful carvings, this one a bird on its nest

It was time to go to the pub, for a swift drink before picking Son the Elder up and driving back to Bristol, but before I left, I resolved to return to St Mary's, Iffley next time I'm in that area, and stay a little longer.

I really love you, I do ... [hic]

The Next Big Thing

David Clarke has kindly tagged me in an on-going project called ‘The Next Big Thing’. This involves writers answering a set of questions about a book which has been or is about to be published. They then tag other writers who keep the chain going.  If you follow the links up and down the chain, it will be like going on a jaunt without even leaving the settee. It turns out that my preferred tag-ees - Roselle Angwin and Alison Lock - have already done it: you can read their respective responses here and here. 

The book I’m going to talk about is my novel, ‘Dart’, a story about a family living on Dartmoor during the Black Death.  It’s due to be published on 4^th February 2013 by Tamar Books, which is an imprint of Indigo Dreams Publishing.

1. Where did the idea for this book come from?

I have a passion bordering on obsession for Dartmoor and I think the idea came to me in snippets of information that I gleaned while reading up on walks that I was preparing to do.  For example, I was intrigued by the fact that there's an area at Merrivale known as Plague Market, where the townsfolk of Tavistock would collect food stuffs placed there by moor-dwellers during times of contagion, leaving money for what they took.  And that the crossroads called 'The Watching Place' outside Moretonhampstead is believed to have been so named because it's where villagers watched to see whether the inhabitants of a plague-affected longhouse were dead before burning it to the ground in an attempt to halt the spread of infection.  These details gradually coalesced inside my head into a story.  

2. What genre does your book fall under?

I suspect that it's a  novel for young adults first and foremost, but please don't tell my publisher, Ronnie Goodyer, because he doesn't publish children's books!  I think it kind of slipped in under the radar:  Ronnie and his partner, Dawn Bauling, were already publishing my collection of poetry, Communion, and since we had all bonded over our shared love of Dartmoor and border collies, I resolved to submit the requisite three chapters anyhow, in the hope that the location might blind him to what I believed my target audience to be.

That said, 'Dart' explores many themes which will also resonate with a more mature readership, such as coming to terms with loss; remembrance and continuity; finding one's voice; and the triumph of the spirit in times of adversity.  I like to think that it will also appeal to the crossover and/or reading group market.  And in any event, as Tolkien observed in 'On Fairy Stories', we impose a false dichotomy between adults and children in terms of story-telling and the use of the imagination. 

3. What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Well, I'm sure Lauren Ambrose, who played Claire Fisher in Six Feet Under, would make a fabulous red-haired witch!  Though to be honest, I feel it would be a mistake to cast stunningly beautiful Hollywood stars.  People just didn't look like that in England in 1348!  So I'd be on the look-out for ordinary people with interesting faces who could be dressed down a lot.  

4. What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

And I thought writing a three page synopsis was hard enough!  Erm ... The End Of The World Is Nigh!

5. How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

When I started writing it, my four kids were much younger and more demanding of time than they are now, so I had to fit my writing in around them and my part-time job. I'd try to set aside one day per week during term time for research - I did an awful lot of reading up to get the historical and geographical detail right - and writing.  (During the school holidays, when I couldn't write, I marched them over Dartmoor instead, checking out locations and mapping my characters' movements.)  I don't know about the first draft - I can't remember - but I do recall that it was seven years between the germination of the story and the point at which I felt it was ready to make its way in the world, several drafts later. 

6. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Dartmoor was a huge inspiration, as I've already mentioned.  I also wanted to write it for my inner seven year old, who wanted nothing more than to become an author when she grew up.  I'd lost track of her over the years and wanted to do something kind for her.

7. What else might pique the reader's interest?

Well, we're constantly being told by the media that we are overdue a pandemic.  If one actually comes along, it would increase my story's topicality no end!

8. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

As I mentioned before, it's being published by Tamar Books.  As far as arranging readings goes, I'm the person to contact as I don't have an agent - in fact, I'd be surprised if any poets of my lowly stature do.  That's what I see myself as first and foremost - a poet who happens to have written a novel.  In fact, I'm putting together a putative second collection of poems right now and falling in love with the whole process all over again.  

 Illustrations by Dru Marland.