Blue sky thinking

This time last week I spent a wonderful afternoon at Tremenheere Sculpture Garden outside Penzance, with a newly discovered old friend who lives in the area. The sun was shining, daffodils were growing in the surrounding fields, and St Michael's Mount was a magical mirage out in the bay.The cafe and gift shop were in a simple light bright and colourful building, reminiscent of the Level Centre in Rowsley where I used to work. It had the same spacious, contemplative feel, almost a place of worship. Which is interesting, because the surrounding gardens were once the vineyards for the monks at St Michael's Mount. The sculpture garden is small and very beautiful. Different from the Bretton Hall sculpture garden, which to me has a very Yorkshire feel to it - sheep and rough pasture. This garden is exotic in its gulf stream lushness. There's something of a fantasy or faerie landscape there. The sculptures are amazing. A James Turrell skyscape, similar to the one at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the old deer shelter, but oval and mediterranean in it's white and sky blueness. His water reflective installation was closed last Saturday, but I have a sense of what it might be like. Many years ago when I lived in Morocco some friends took me to see a famous cistern in El Jadida. It had been used as an underground store for water since Roman times.As you stepped into the space, your mind played tricks. The water was so completely still that the walls and vaulting were a perfect mirror image and you couldn't tell if you were on your head or your heels. Unforgettable. David Nash's blackened oak trunks looked like a family group in a clearing. A camera obscure messed with our minds - slight panic as I tried to find the door handle in the pitch dark! The whole experience was a treat for the senses. Today I am looking at three foot of snow in my Derbyshire garden. Cornwall really is another world.

Ghost walk in St Ives

St Ives was full of memories - memories from the past and memories made for the future. We missed Shanty Baba's Sunday Ghost Walk, but we heard him perform his beautiful piece about the shifting times and tides of the town. I will never forget the Thursday night Frug at St Ives Arts Club, a place I had always wanted to visit. It exceeded all expectations thanks to the mix of artists, musicians, poets and players there. The Bootlegger DJ and his amazing collection of blues and psychedelic 45s, played on a customised record deck that featured mermaids and pirates. Natives of St Helen's connected in St Ives.Poetry was performed. Virginia Woolf's lighthouse could be seen from the upstairs window. Mere days before our visit the waves had crashed over the roof of the boat boarded building. Barbara Hepworth had danced on those floorboards, by the red velvet curtains. Who had babysat for the triplets that night? Every view of the sea was an artist's impression. I watched old cine films from the 50s and 60s, shown in a church with a welcoming congregation, braving the torrential rain for a fund raising evening. Many in the audience recognised friends and family, local characters and events. Fisherman in shirts and suits, baiting their lines. Little girls in white dresses dancing round the Knill monument to a tune played by an ancient fiddler. One of them grew up to become the wife of the man sharing his father's old cine films.Streets of fisherman's cottages still had lines of washing strung across them. Cats thronged the quayside. It was poignant, a time past, alive in the present for those watching. Perhaps film really can steal your soul.I stood in Bernard Leach's pottery watching old film footage of him at work, his boots in the corner of the room next to me. Dead man's shoes. We visited Barbara Hepworth's garden and studio, where her presence is palpable,not just in her work rooms, but in the simple single bed with its blue and white cotton bedspread, still made up in the summerhouse.There were postcards in a file, written by children who I am guessing must have visited with their schools. Arthur wrote in his newly acquired handwriting , after the heading 'Dear Barbara" - "I am sorry you are dead'. I know just how he feels, but the wonder of this liminal place on the cusp and threshold of so many worlds, sea and shoreline, past and present, land and sky, is that it's all still there just waiting to be recognised. I was sorry to miss the Ghost Walk. It was a ghost walk in St Ives many years ago that inspired me to start mine in Bakewell, and that in turn helped me to do an MA in folklore and cultural tradition.The rest is history.

Teach your children well

In 1970 I was 16. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young brought out Déjà Vu and my boyfriend of the time introduced me to their music. I knew about Graham Nash because of the Hollies and I lived in Manchester. Graham’s love song for Joni Mitchell, ‘Our House’, was our dream, but we never did get to live together. A few years later I went off to teach English in Morocco humming ‘Marrakesh Express’ as I got on board that train for Casablanca. As I got older and thought about having a family, ‘Teach your Children Well’ was the song that expressed my feelings about having and bringing up children. I have three, and spent many years as a single parent, supporting them, loving them, keeping them safe, providing a roof over their heads, encouraging them to be themselves and follow their dreams, whilst trying not to lose sight of my own in all the responsibility. In 2011 I had the amazing experience of seeing Crosby and Nash at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, and their set included ‘Teach Your Children’, as powerful then as back in the day when I first heard it when I wasn’t much more than a child myself. A couple of weeks ago my nineteen year old son left home. My older two are in their mid and late twenties, and had left to go to university. Neither have come back home, and both are doing well, following their dreams. My youngest son didn’t want to go down the university route and I was seriously concerned that he would find it financially impossible to strike out independently. A live in job has now given him the chance, and I am thrilled. Then suddenly it hit me that I am now on my own – always a parent, but no longer the responsible adult. I tried not to feel tearful, and was doing OK until I realised that I had fulfilled my teenage dream to teach my children well.

Once a Catholic

Pope Benedict announced his resignation this week. What is going on with the Catholic Church? The first pope to resign since 1415. It’s an historic occasion. Back in early April 2005 I was sitting in a café in the sunshine in Dharamsala, Northern India. I was spending a week there, taking the opportunity to see the Dalai Lama and the home of the Tibetan government in exile. It was the fulfilment of a long held ambition. I had read Heinrich Harrer’s ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ when I was about seven years old, and was entranced by the story of the Dalai Lama. The news had just broken that Pope John Paul II had died. An Irish couple shared the café table with me, and we discussed popes and Catholicism. They had been in India when the previous pope had died, on their honeymoon. Here they were, visiting India for their own significant anniversary, and history was repeating itself. I was very aware that with the death of the pope the only spiritual world leader on the planet was living and preaching a matter of yards from where I was sitting. I appreciate that the Dalai Lama has handed over political power to Tibetan representatives, but he is still considered to be a spiritually motivated political leader by many, including the Chinese government. A couple of years later I visited Rome, and went to St Peter’s Square on the Sunday morning to see the Pope give his blessing from his balcony. I was there for the rugby, and it was my non Catholic companion’s idea to go and see the pope. Catholicism is still something I resist and reject in many ways, and a pope’s blessing would not have been high on my list of ‘to do’s’ when in Rome. It was fascinating to see the crowds of tourists there, most of them spiritual tourists I am sure. There were the obvious groups of nuns, but there were also young people bursting into happy hymn singing for the occasion. It was a very different way of identifying yourself as a card carrying Catholic. Some years later I attended a series of lectures at Nottingham Arena, given by the Dalai Lama on one of his visits to the UK. There was a question and answer session, and someone asked him about the difficulties he was experiencing becoming a good Buddhist. The Dalai Lama gave some very interesting advice, and I am sure many people there may not have welcomed it. He recognised that many of the people who are drawn to Buddhism in the west are spiritually inclined, and this inclination comes from having been born into a recognised religion. Basically he said follow the religion you were given by birth, work to make it what you need it to be. For me this was a very radical statement, and I think for many there it went over their heads. It set me thinking. I have been drawn to Buddhism throughout my life, perhaps as a result of reading Heinrich Harrer’s book. I have even thought of becoming a Buddhist nun, but I have never taken the decisive step of becoming aligned to any of the Buddhist organisations that exist in the West. I am one of the growing number of people who describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious. I have struggled with Catholicism most of my life to. As a teenager in a convent boarding school I became very sensitive to its hypocrisy, and resisted having religion shoved down my throat. Luckily at a girls’ school it was only religion that was. As the years have gone by a series of scandals have hit the Catholic Church, usually involving priests and those they were responsible for. I am sure it was ever thus, but there is a culture of revelation now, both within the church and in the wider media. The Magdalene Laundries, ‘Oranges and Sunshine’ and the scandal of Australian orphanages, powerful films like ‘Doubt’, the Jimmy Savile scandal – people forget he was a Catholic. My own education and upbringing was as a Catholic in Manchester, with a lapsed Catholic father, but my mother took us to church every Sunday and we went to Catholic schools. It was an appealing culture influenced by the Irish backgrounds of many of our school friends. Convent boarding school was something different. The nuns there were part of the culture that could maintain and condone the Magdalene Laundries. Teenage girls in the late nineteen sixties and early seventies were seen as the embodiment of occasions of sin, damned before we had started, in spite of going to confession and communion weekly. There was an insidious cruelty, sometimes physical, but more often than not psychological, part of the creation of the famous Catholic Guilt. Everything we did was wrong, and we were worthless sinners. There was a comic element to all of this too – boxes of tampax and non-regulation underwear were confiscated when discovered. Psychological cruelty started at the junior branch of the school, where children were made to sleep in a room they thought was haunted as a punishment. The nuns wouldn’t have believed for a minute that it was haunted, but they knew the power of fear. Throughout my four years there my younger sister was a pupil at the junior part of the school. My middle sibling and I were at the senior school, literally across the road. We were not allowed to cross that road to visit or maintain family contact with our youngest sister, who started at boarding school when she was seven. The older I get, the more horrifically unkind and uncaring I find this attitude. At worst, religious Catholics, especially the clergy, consider themselves above the law of humanity. They can go to confession, make penance, have their sins forgiven, and guarantee their place in heaven with the Nine First Fridays. How ridiculous is a religion that bans contraception, makes the use of condoms a sin, even where Aids and HIV is rife, insists on celibacy for its clergy and dares to tell people how to manage their personal relationships. As teenagers we were intrigued by the rebel Dutch priests who broke away from the church and married in the sixties. I wonder what became of them. It’s no wonder that the abuse of power has resulted in priests sexually abusing those in their care, whilst vilifying same sex relationships. How can I reconcile myself to the faith and the church I was brought up to be part of, as the Dalai Lama suggests? Strangely, I find myself drawn to fellow Catholics, especially lapsed ones. There’s the shared childhood history, attitudes of generosity and acceptance, ‘do as you would be done by’. It’s the ones who have rejected the pomp and circumstance of the religion who seem to live the most thoughtful and caring lives. The Catholic Church has done much for the poor in some parts of the world, and priests have been punished for being political rebels. Perhaps a new Pope, elected in these strange circumstances, before the death of the old Pope, heralds in a shift of attitude. I don’t imagine that he will be anything other than conservative, whichever country he comes from, but at least the possibility of a non-European Pope is being talked about. I have enjoyed the Father Ted related Facebook posts, proposing Dougal or Father Jack for Pope. In fact ‘Father Ted’ with its very Irish Catholic scenarios and humour helped reconcile me to Catholicism when I first discovered the TV series. Recently there has been a lot of publicity about American Catholic nuns working for ecology. I have bought the book ‘Green Sisters’ and look forward to reading about them. The Catholic Church has been responsible for so much harm in so many ways over the centuries. I’d like to think I could reconsider its role in my life, as the Dalai Lama suggested, even if it is simply to reconcile myself to the fact that I was once a Catholic.

Taste and Trust

This week has been full of the scandal surrounding horsemeat masquerading as beef. I am a natural vegetarian. I never liked the taste and texture of meat as a child and growing up in the hippy era, it was easy to avoid it once I left home. I have eaten meat to avoid embarrassment when it has been cooked for me. I know it doesn't make me ill or sick. When I worked in Morocco I would be invited home by some of the students, and meat was what was served to guests. I have cooked chicken and bacon for my children. It's a matter of taste most of the time, and ethics some of the time. Vegetarian cuisine is so much more varied and international, and because I am squeamish easier for me to cook. I appreciate that the powers that be are saying horsemeat isn't harmful. The jury still seems to be out on whether it might sometimes contain potentially harmful drugs.I also recognise that there are many creatures that provide food in different cultures, including squirrels, rabbits, ostriches, hares and even rats and dogs. It's a cultural thing.When I lived in Casablanca there was a horse butcher's stand in the Marchee Central with a beautiful plaster painted model of a horse's head to advertise its wares. When my friend's son made the connection he turned vegetarian. Meat was raw there- exposed to the flies, out on the street, whole sheep or goats slaughtered in public, bunches of chickens hanging from their legs on motorbike handles. In this country we have become very distanced from our food sources, not least because of the popularity of processed food, especially meat products. At boarding school we were served beef and gravy that came out of a tin. I am convinced that those slices of meat were horse. I have never seen beef with that sort of muscle fibre. Years later on family holidays in Anglesey, I was aware that some of the horses grazing in the fields next to the caravan site were on their way from Ireland to the continent as a food product. Not so many years ago I was told I could purchase a rescue pony for my children via the business connection of a friend. The business sent horses and ponies from the UK to the continent for slaughter. Earlier this week, with all the fuss about horsemeat, I wondered if I had remembered this offer correctly. The local press ran an article today about proposed protests at a Bakewell based business, doing just this, so I guess that would have been the source of my rescue pony. We don't eat choose to eat horses here - at least not knowingly. While I am sure there are meat eaters who would be curious or unconcerned if they did, this is about trust. It's not just about whether anyone has been harmed by it. It's about food being what it claims it is, doing what it says on the tin. In this time of banking scandals and government spin and u-turns we are treated as fools in so many ways, but please don't assume we are foolish.I will never forget reading a very small article in a national paper when the scandal of BSE broke. I was weaning my daughter on home cooked vegetarian food at the time. Heinz had released a statement to reassure customers that their baby food did not contain brain or spinal cord. I wonder how many of us had ever considered that it might.

Family history

I went to a good friend's 60th birthday party at the weekend. I have to say that 60 must be the new 40. None of us look our age! Or maybe it's more about not acting the age you once thought 60 represented! Everyone there was young at heart and having a great and lively time. Tamla Motown to dance to and a very nice live band to listen to,featuring my friend's husband and fellow blues musicians. Friends are the family you choose for yourself or so they say. That's how it feels for me, and there were people there I have known for more than forty years. It's a different style of family history. When we were young we called our parents' friends by the title of Aunty or Uncle. That tradition seems to have been lost, but there's nothing to replace it. Some of my good friends play that role in my youngest son's life, and have helped him to find a full time job with their caring and practical support. Family history for my youngest son is already turning out to be a very different experience too. His father has children by 3 different women, so my son has 5 half siblings who share his father, as well as his brother and sister who are my older children from my marriage. When his father left us, I never imagined that we would connect with the oldest family of siblings, but one night Charlie was watching his dad's performance at a folk club on YouTube. He posted a comment about his dad. Within minutes someone else had posted, that's my dad too! You must be my younger brother! And so Charlie connected with a whole bunch of half brothers and sisters, in-laws , cousins and nephews.My daughter is working on some aspects of our family history, and I used to help people trace theirs when I worked in the local library. I can't imagine how future generations will unpick their family stories, though I am sure the Internet will help, perhaps in some unexpected ways.

Flog It! Blog It!

Flog It! Blog It! In early October BBC’s Flog It! got in touch with Haddon Hall, where I work, to discuss the possibility of filming in November. Members of the production team came to have a look at our facilities and to discuss how Haddon could be used for a Flog It! Valuation Day. The proposed date of filming came during what is now laughingly known as our closed period in November. They came at the end of a week that had included a two day Rowan Yarns photoshoot and a TV shoot for David Starkey’s new series ‘Music and Monarchy’. The Hall may have been closed to the public, but it was certainly open for business. When Flog It! choose a venue they have to be sure that everything from power supplies, parking and refreshments can be provided, as well as a steady stream of people with items they would like to have valued and ultimately sell. One of the attractions for Haddon was that the programme is due to be aired in March or April 2013 – ideal publicity at the start of the season. They make 5 episodes from each venue, and then they repeat and repeat and repeat – you get the picture! I am involved with the Old House Museum in Bakewell, an award winning independent museum, run by volunteers. The Museum is part of the Bakewell and District Historical Society and had been left a very generous bequest by a former member of the Society. There were some interesting antique items and a decision had been made to keep the Blue John and Ashford Marble pieces as they could be included in the Museum’s collection, but the ivory pieces were more problematic. I realised that I could take them to Flog It!’s valuation day, and possibly get some publicity for the Museum into the bargain! At this point we weren’t sure when the pieces dated from, and the magic year is 1947. After that CITES rules came in, and ivory can’t be sold on. Some of the pieces were a mystery – a long stick, and an elongated dragon carving looked as if they might have belonged together once, but been broken. There was also a small round ivory container with a lid – the kind of thing that might have once been part of a dressing table set. The two main pieces were carved groups of figures – an Indian god and his rather voluptuous attendant, and some Chinese or Japanese boys playing with a horse. Having dropped various hints to the researchers, I didn’t get an offer to be fast-tracked, so at 10am on Saturday November 17th I joined a long queue of hopefuls outside Haddon Hall. It was great fun, because everyone had a story, and in the two hours it took to get through the main queuing process I heard them all! Paul Martin, the presenter, was filming short pieces to camera, and I am always amazed by the tediousness of a presenter’s job! It’s a lot of repetition and re-takes. I have seen the Antiques Roadshow being recorded several times, and was once on a TV quiz, as well as on a Time Team dig. To me there’s nothing glamorous about it! As lunchtime approached James Martin, Bamford’s auctioneer came and asked if anyone had items they definitely wanted to put forward for auction. Some people go for the valuation and information, but don’t wish to sell. Unlike the Antiques Roadshow, Flog It! depends on people going to auction for its entertainment value. I was able to catch his eye, and Michael Froggatt , their expert on ivory, came over to have a quick look at the carvings. I was then taken into another waiting area – where hot drinks and sandwiches were provided! - and again was there for a couple of hours. More interesting people with fascinating stories, especially when they came back to report on their valuations. On the Antiques Roadshow you get taken into hair and makeup before filming – even the men - but there was no such preparation here! Eventually Michael Froggatt sat down at a table with me and told me about the pieces, repeated a couple of times for the camera. All were pre-1947, which was good news. The Indian god was Krishna, and was probably 1930s. It was very good quality ivory. He turned the Japanese carving upside down to show me that it was carved from a walrus tooth. There was even a little design underneath to disguise the soft centre of the tooth, and the artist had followed the curves of the natural tooth. To my surprise he told me the ivory ‘sticks’ weren’t connected. One was Indian and possibly ceremonial. The other was Chinese, and was probably a parasol or walking stick handle. He painted a lovely picture of a woman strolling in Shanghai in the late 19th century with a beautiful parasol, its handle formed from an exquisite ivory carving of a dragon with the pearl of immortality in its mouth. He gave me valuations too, and guide prices for auction. The pieces were signed for and taken away to be photographed and catalogued for the sale that would take place at Bamfords new salerooms at Peak Village, at the beginning of December. I was glad I didn’t have any attachment to them. Michael’s enthusiasm for them and the information he gave would have made me want to keep and appreciate them! The Flog It! team kept in touch with me about arrangements for the auction on December 5th. There were several familiar faces from Haddon and the Old House Museum, as well as new acquaintances from the valuation day. Everything was behind schedule, but eventually it was my turn. Huddled in front of the camera with Paul Martin and Michael Froggatt, with a massive stuffed animal display cabinet as backdrop, there was hardly time to think as the bidding for the Indian figures started. No second takes here, I was disbelieving as the bidding soared past the estimated £120 to a magnificent £340! Unbelievable! The Japanese figure reached its top estimated price of £120, but sadly the group of bits and bobs, including the parasol handle didn’t attract any bids. The parasol handle had become a favourite for Michael and I. Bamfords offered to put it into the next sale, so perhaps by now it will have found a loving home. The programmes will be broadcast in March or April. I was aware that Paul Martin was trying to give the museum a plug during the auction, so I hope it doesn’t get edited out!