Give Thanks to the Book of Trespass

Give Thanks to the Book of Trespass

When you’re walking footloose and fancy-free

Along some seemingly ancient footpath,

Checking your progress on the OS map,

Senses working XTC overtime,

(Apophenia! You’re part of it all! Just look at the view!)

It’s hard to remember that this feeling

Is legal in only eight per cent

Of William Blake’s green and pleasant land.

We have been enclosed by enclosure.

That’s why our footpaths are so circumscribed:

These are not footpaths to high sky freedom,

But meanders into false consciousness

And beguiling illusions of liberty:

Pilgrims’ Progress to Herbert Marcuse’s

Conception of Repressive Tolerance,

And Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’.

We look ahead and become accustomed

To the hedges, fences, walls and barbed wire.

It all seems so normal and timeless.

We forget John Clare when near a hedgerow.

And we forget the western cowboy plains,

The industrialised warfare of the western front,

And the colonial subjugation

Symbolised by the silhouette

Of barbed wire stretching into the distance.

It was called No Man’s Land in the First World War.

That land between the lines of barbed wire.

For King and Country.

Well, eight per cent of it.

‘If you want the old battalion,

I know where they are, I know where they are, I know where they are,

If you want to find the old battalion, I know where they are,

They’re hanging on the old barbed wire,

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.’

 

Written after reading The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes – inspiring! Totally recommended.

 

Walking the Wall

Walking the Wall from Walbridge to Brimscombe

In the early years of the twentieth century,

A jingoistic electoral cry appeared:

‘We want eight and we won’t wait!’

(The eight being dreadnoughts or battleships),

Well, we waited at Walbridge for a bit

And almost numbered eight before setting forth,

Not as battleships but as messengers of peace,

In an act of global solidarity:

‘Walking the Wall for Palestine’,

With a cold-wind call for Palestinian rights

And a snow-swept local contribution

To the demand for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

Our walk conjoined our local landscapes

With echoes of those of Palestine:

We stood beneath the railway viaduct,

Imagining the Separation Wall,

Eight metres high in places,

750 kilometres in length,

Cutting its way deep into the West Bank,

Preventing access to land,

Preventing freedom of movement:

The dystopia of concrete panels,

Electric fences, razor wire, watch towers …

The Apartheid Wall …

The Separation Barrier …

The Security Fence …

We then climbed up through a ghost orchard,

And through the palimpsests of allotments,

Hearing how the right to cultivate

In Palestine is oft times stolen

Through sleight of legal hand,

Legerdemain or worse

(Dissonance in the landscape);

Thence to Rodborough Fort,

Contrasting the memories of camping

For spacious recreation in the field over the wall,

With the imagining of overcrowding

In the refugee camps near Bethlehem …

Dissonance in the landscape …

We then stopped at the so-called Lonely Tree:

Conjoining the status of Rodborough Common

As a Site of Scientific Interest,

With the Israeli practice

Of defining some landscapes as nature reserves,

With consequent eviction of inhabitants

(Dissonance in the landscape) …

And as we stood high in the biting wind,

We caught Theresa’s words in the gusts:

‘Imagine every hilltop with a military or fenced community that starts off as one or two caravans … illegal settlement under international law … Israel provides military protection, settler-only roads, water and electricity …Flags fly from these houses. Palestinians nearby have lost the use of land, face harassment and interference in their daily lives. For example, theft of sheep and goats, worrying with dogs, destruction of wells, chopping down of olive groves etc.’

But we walked on to Winstone’s Ice Cream Factory:

No checkpoints for us or checking of papers,

As we reflected on the difficulties

Palestinians often face

When trying to run cafes and restaurants,

When trying to maintain family ownership

Through the generations and such length of time,

Unlike the ice cream parlour here at Winstone’s,

With its easy and lauded continuity …

Once more, a dissonance in the landscape.

We then made an aqueous descent

To the River Frome and the canal,

Running water everywhere around us,

While we listened to a discourse

Analysing and describing

The punitive inequality

Evidenced in the supply of water and

Its storage, distribution and usage …

I stood on the canal bridge and pondered …

So much of our discussion and peregrination

Had revolved around those fundamental

Half-mythologised four elements:

Fire air, earth and water …

And how on our walk we had enjoyed

The elemental magic of Rodborough Common’s skyscape:

As opposed to elemental appropriation

In far-off but now-conjoined Palestine.

It was a walk with echoes and dissonance:

A topography of limned discordance.

Saddened but wiser, I walked to the Long Table

For a communal bite to eat

And a sharing of thoughts and emotions.

I walked back to Stroud along the towpath,

Flag sodden, but still flying a message of hope.

 

This is by necessity a linear account. This account misses out so much as it pursues the linear path of our progress– the conversation about the hearts etched outside the subscription rooms … the woman who met us in the fields with such delight … the sharing of hearts and minds … the warmth of commonality and solidarity … the sense of purpose … I could go on and on … a memorable morning.

March 2nd 2024: Walbridge to the Long Table, Brimscombe.

 

Walking with Charles Dickens

Stickin’ with Dickens by Katie McCue: No Deviations

Stickin’ with Dickens-

In happy anticipation I stepped on to the platform at Paddington station with my two companions.
I was ready and more than willing to put myself in the very capable hands of Stuart Butler to be led on a Dickensian adventure for the day.

What a day! Stuart led us down streets and lanes I didn’t know existed or had paid very little attention to in the past. Fact and fiction blurred beautifully  as we gazed up at the windows of a house Dickens lived in before the Thames was tamed, when its banks were but a stones throw from the house. The river where Gaffer Hexham and his daughter Lizzie rowed in their boat searching out floating corpses to rob in Our Mutual Friend.  That same river where Martha in David Copperfield thought to drown herself.

As we talked and walked on, in my own mind’s eye, I was transforming people into Dickensian folk. It wasn’t hard to do. London’s noise and bustle; workers and walkers, dandies and down-and-outs were everywhere. As my companion said he was always telling people how relevant Dickens is for today. Right on cue, just as Stuart was telling us how Dickens would take the plunge at the Roman Baths we stood before, there huddled in front if its very gate were three homeless people. A Dickensian and sadly 21st century scene before us. One of the men called out to Stuart “Thank you Boss,” as we exchanged greetings. The young woman called out as we headed off “I was only at school for 5 minutes and now I’ve had an education. …….Dickens….I heard all  that” .

As we took to The Strand the pleasing sight of St.Mary’s was ahead of us. I could positively feel Dickens senior newly wed leaving the church when Charles was yet a twinkle in their eye.

Fact and fiction continued to blur gloriously as we stood in front of the lodgings where Pip and the pale young gentleman Herbert Pocket seem to look down at us.
The Old Curiosity shop stood empty…..but was that Little Dorrit hurrying around the corner?

Stuart led us on to Lincoln’s Inn and we spent time remembering Bleak House in which the hearings about the inheritance were held. We remembered too the reality of the undercroft at the chapel next door where babies were left in the hope of being looked after. Stuart told my companion and me how those lucky babies who survived their abandonment were all given the surname Lincoln.

…..but I’m ahead of myself. What fun it was to enter the darkness of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. The dark wood of the interior enfolded us as we stepped into the bar. I sat where I decided Charles Dickens would have chosen. A settle in the corner almost behind the door facing the roaring fire with heaps of old ash spilling out of the grate. A seat from which to watch those who entered whilst being unobserved myself. A place to consider the potential of each customer as a possible character….yes…surely Dickens would have done this as he drank ale or wine or porter in this very seat.

My account is in no way complete but these are my own “Sketches” of the day. It was wonderful and I can’t resist by ending with a favourite saying of Joe Gargery in Great Expectations: “ Pip old chap…….you and me was ever friends and when you’re well enough to go out for a ride what larks!”

I encourage you all to enjoy a day in Dickens’ London with Stuart Butler for larks of your own.

PS

James has just messaged to say that his son, who is in San Francisco, has just messaged him, describing the homelessness there as Dickensian.

A Ghost Pub Pilgrimage

A Ghost Pub Pilgrimage through Stroud and the Five Valleys
Raising funds for the Trussell Trust in September

Walk and/or bicycle your way through this list of pubs.
Tick them off.
Keep a diary or a record if you wish.
Take photos for the archive.

Let these pub names and addresses
Come alive again
(‘Have another?’
‘I don’t mind if I do.’)
And help us all out in these hard times;
Let’s find them and toast them with imaginary pints
On a series of Ghost Pub Pilgrimages on foot or on bicycle,
And if you know of any other ghost pubs or inns,
Please send them in …

Do the list in any order.
On your own and/or in a group.
And raise funds in any way you wish for the Trussell Trust.

Perhaps you have personal or family memories
Of old times spent in some of these inns:
Got stories to tell? Please send them in.
Perhaps draw pub sign for these lost gathering places,
Or perhaps write a poem about the pub name,
Or have a group rendition of The Listeners by Walter de la Mere.

With thanks to Geoff Sandles
and his invaluable and necessary
Stroud Valley Pubs Through Time
And his wonderful website
https://www.gloucestershirepubs.co.uk/
And Pubs of the Old Stroud Brewery,
By Wilfred Merrett

Painswick
Adam & Eve, Paradise, (formerly The Plough Inn), A46
The Bell, (bombed 1941) Bell Street
Bunch of Grapes, Cheltenham Road
Cross Hands, Stammages Lane
Fleece Inn, Bisley Street
Golden Heart, Tibbiwell Street
New Inn, St Mary’s Street
Red Lion
Star Inn, Gloucester Street
White Horse, Vicarage Street

A Ghost Pub Pilgrimage through Stroud and the Five Valleys
Raising funds for the Trussell Trust in September

Walk and/or bicycle your way through this list of pubs.
Tick them off.
Keep a diary or a record if you wish.
Take photos for the archive.

Let these pub names and addresses
Come alive again
(‘Have another?’
‘I don’t mind if I do.’)
And help us all out in these hard times;
Let’s find them and toast them with imaginary pints
On a series of Ghost Pub Pilgrimages on foot or on bicycle,
And if you know of any other ghost pubs or inns,
Please send them in …

Do the list in any order.
On your own and/or in a group.
And raise funds in any way you wish for the Trussell Trust.

Perhaps you have personal or family memories
Of old times spent in some of these inns:
Got stories to tell? Please send them in.
Perhaps draw pub sign for these lost gathering places,
Or perhaps write a poem about the pub name,
Or have a group rendition of The Listeners by Walter de la Mere.

With thanks to Geoff Sandles
and his invaluable and necessary
Stroud Valley Pubs Through Time
And his wonderful website
https://www.gloucestershirepubs.co.uk/
And Pubs of the Old Stroud Brewery,
By Wilfred Merrett

Painswick
Adam & Eve, Paradise, (formerly The Plough Inn), A46
The Bell, (bombed 1941) Bell Street
Bunch of Grapes, Cheltenham Road
Cross Hands, Stammages Lane
Fleece Inn, Bisley Street
Golden Heart, Tibbiwell Street
New Inn, St Mary’s Street
Red Lion
Star Inn, Gloucester Street
White Horse, Vicarage Street

read more

East India Company Walk

The information boards at Chalford intrigue,
Because of the lack of information:
At Chalford Vale and along the canal,
We are told about the local links
With the East India Company,
But we are not told about the practice
Of the East India Company;
The information boards are products of their time …
Times change and context is needed.

We start this contextualisation
Revealing a hidden colonial history
Within this leafy Cotswold landscape,
With a heat-wave peripatetic.

We start at Seville’s Mill in Chalford,
‘Today I would like to acknowledge
The Tory new mantra for History:
‘Retain and explain’,
Coupled with their ‘Culture Wars’ assertions:
‘You can’t change and airbrush history’,
And ‘The British Empire was a Good Thing’,
By letting the ‘Past Speak for Itself’,
From the pages of Jack P. Greene’s erudite tome,
Evaluating Empire and Confronting Colonialism
in Eighteenth-Century Britain’:

The information boards at Chalford intrigue,
Because of the lack of information:
At Chalford Vale and along the canal,
We are told about the local links
With the East India Company,
But we are not told about the practice
Of the East India Company;
The information boards are products of their time …
Times change and context is needed.

We start this contextualisation
Revealing a hidden colonial history
Within this leafy Cotswold landscape,
With a heat-wave peripatetic.

We start at Seville’s Mill in Chalford,
‘Today I would like to acknowledge
The Tory new mantra for History:
‘Retain and explain’,
Coupled with their ‘Culture Wars’ assertions:
‘You can’t change and airbrush history’,
And ‘The British Empire was a Good Thing’,
By letting the ‘Past Speak for Itself’,
From the pages of Jack P. Greene’s erudite tome,
Evaluating Empire and Confronting Colonialism
in Eighteenth-Century Britain’:

read more

Stroud Scarlet and William Cuffay: An Exploration

We have written before about Stroud Scarlet, the slave trade, and triangles of conjecture. (See point 5 at https://sootallures.wixsite.com/topographersarms/post/a-community-curriculum )

But what of William Cuffay?

William’s mother, Juliana Fox, was born in Kent, whilst his once enslaved father, Chatham Cuffay, made it to Kent from St Kitts. William Cuffay, of mixed-heritage, born in 1788, became a famous Chartist leader in the mid nineteenth century and then an activist after transportation to Tasmania. ( See https://sootallures.wixsite.com/topographersarms/post/william-cuffay for an imaginative reconstruction of William’s life.)
William is one of the first working-class leaders of colour, and possibly the most famous. There is a campaign for a memorial to honour him in the Medway area of Kent:

‘Hi Stuart …
We are working with Medway Afro-Caribbean Association to get a plaque for Cuffay in Medway, hopefully in time for Black History Month. They need at least £3000 and have been talking to Medway Council who have only offered them £1500. This is something the Trade Union Movement could (and should) easily pay for and we will be approaching local branches and national unions for support. It might even encourage them to think about some sort of memorial to Cuffay in London.

There is much more to Cuffay’s story than can be put on a plaque so we are also looking to organise some sort of annual event so that Cuffay and the Chartists, a key part of both Black and working-class history, become much better known.’

We have written before about Stroud Scarlet, the slave trade, and triangles of conjecture. (See point 5 at https://sootallures.wixsite.com/topographersarms/post/a-community-curriculum )

But what of William Cuffay?

William’s mother, Juliana Fox, was born in Kent, whilst his once enslaved father, Chatham Cuffay, made it to Kent from St Kitts. William Cuffay, of mixed-heritage, born in 1788, became a famous Chartist leader in the mid nineteenth century and then an activist after transportation to Tasmania. ( See https://sootallures.wixsite.com/topographersarms/post/william-cuffay for an imaginative reconstruction of William’s life.)
William is one of the first working-class leaders of colour, and possibly the most famous. There is a campaign for a memorial to honour him in the Medway area of Kent:

‘Hi Stuart …
We are working with Medway Afro-Caribbean Association to get a plaque for Cuffay in Medway, hopefully in time for Black History Month. They need at least £3000 and have been talking to Medway Council who have only offered them £1500. This is something the Trade Union Movement could (and should) easily pay for and we will be approaching local branches and national unions for support. It might even encourage them to think about some sort of memorial to Cuffay in London.

There is much more to Cuffay's story than can be put on a plaque so we are also looking to organise some sort of annual event so that Cuffay and the Chartists, a key part of both Black and working-class history, become much better known.’ read more

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #6

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Newbridge to Oxford 14 miles
The Windrush joins the Thames at Newbridge,
Flowing beneath the elegant Taynton stone bridge,
Once a port of call for honeyed Burford quarried stone
On its way to Oxford and London,
As well as a defeat for the Parliamentarians …
Yet today,
So many swans gliding on the waters,
So close to King Charles’ Oxford,
With their mute depiction of feudal hierarchy:
These birds are for monarchs old and new, not
‘Yoemen and husbandmen and other persons of little reputation’;
A heron interrupted the flow of my thoughts downstream
To Hart’s Weir footbridge – more English quaintness:
The weir has gone, but a right of way remains to Erewhon;
Then Northmoor Lock, before reaching literary Bablock Hythe:
Matthew Arnold’s scholar-gypsy,
‘Oft was met crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hythe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,
As the punt’s rope chops round’;
None of that now at the Ferryman Inn and its chalet purlieus,
Instead a meander inland before returning to the waters
At Pinkhill Weir, before another short roadside detour,
And a boatyard and chandlers and a stride to Swinford Bridge
(Swine-ford),
Where feudalism and modernity meet:
A toll bridge, built at the behest of the Earl of Abingdon in 1777,
Where a company still charges drivers today
(But not pedestrians!),
Then on to the now invisible Anglo-Saxon cultural importance
Of Eynsham, and Eynsham Lock,
Evenlode Stream and King’s Lock
(King denoting kine),
Underneath the Ox-ford by-pass
(You’ve heard its constant roar for over an hour),
To Godstow: ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’;
‘The use of detectors is strictly forbidden’;

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Newbridge to Oxford 14 miles
The Windrush joins the Thames at Newbridge,
Flowing beneath the elegant Taynton stone bridge,
Once a port of call for honeyed Burford quarried stone
On its way to Oxford and London,
As well as a defeat for the Parliamentarians …
Yet today,
So many swans gliding on the waters,
So close to King Charles’ Oxford,
With their mute depiction of feudal hierarchy:
These birds are for monarchs old and new, not
‘Yoemen and husbandmen and other persons of little reputation’;
A heron interrupted the flow of my thoughts downstream
To Hart’s Weir footbridge – more English quaintness:
The weir has gone, but a right of way remains to Erewhon;
Then Northmoor Lock, before reaching literary Bablock Hythe:
Matthew Arnold’s scholar-gypsy,
‘Oft was met crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hythe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,
As the punt’s rope chops round’;
None of that now at the Ferryman Inn and its chalet purlieus,
Instead a meander inland before returning to the waters
At Pinkhill Weir, before another short roadside detour,
And a boatyard and chandlers and a stride to Swinford Bridge
(Swine-ford),
Where feudalism and modernity meet:
A toll bridge, built at the behest of the Earl of Abingdon in 1777,
Where a company still charges drivers today
(But not pedestrians!),
Then on to the now invisible Anglo-Saxon cultural importance
Of Eynsham, and Eynsham Lock,
Evenlode Stream and King’s Lock
(King denoting kine),
Underneath the Ox-ford by-pass
(You’ve heard its constant roar for over an hour),
To Godstow: ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’;
‘The use of detectors is strictly forbidden’; read more

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #5

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Lechlade to Newbridge 16 miles

I walked past Shelley’s Close by the Church …

Where Shelley wrote his ‘Summer Evening Churchyard’,
Crossed the bridge and turned left for London,
It was just the sort of light I like for a riverine walk:
Waves of silver rippling through the dark waters,
Moody clouds above Old Father Thames’ statue,
Once of Crystal Palace, now recumbent at St John’s Lock –
But the nineteenth century was soon forgotten:
It all got a bit Mrs Miniver and Went the Day Well?
After Bloomer’s Hole footbridge:
I lost count of the pillboxes in the fields and on the banks
(‘Mr. Brown goes off to Town on the 8.21,
But he comes home each evening,
And he’s ready with his gun’),
As I walked on past Buscot, with its line of poplar trees,
Planted to drain the soil in its Victorian heyday of sugar beet
And once with a narrow gauge railway dancing across
A lost Saxon village at Eaton Hastings;
Then on past William Morris’ ‘heaven on earth’
At Kelmscott Manor (‘Visit our website to shop online!’),
Walkers occasionally appearing beyond hedgerows,
Like Edward Thomas’ ‘The Other Man’;
Then to Grafton Lock, and on to Radcot’s bridges and lock
(The waters divide here with two bridges:
The older, the site of a medieval battle after the Peasants’ Revolt;
A statue of the Virgin Mary once in a niche in the bridge, too,
Mutilated by the Levellers, before their Burford executions;
The newer bridge built in the hope and expectations
Of traffic and profit in the wake of the Thames and Severn Canal),
Past Old Man’s Bridge, Rushey Lock and Rushey Weir:
A traditional Thames paddle and rymer weir
(The paddles and handles, called rymers,
Dropped into position to block the rushing waters).
Now it’s on to isolated Tadpole Bridge on the Bampton turnpike,
Now past Chimney Meadow – once a Saxon island,
Then Tenfoot Bridge – characteristically,
Where an upper Thames flash weir sed to pour its waters,
Until Victorian modernity silenced that;
Then past Shifford Weir and the hamlet of Shifford,
Once a major Wessex town, where King Alfred
Met with his parliament of
‘Many bishops, and many book-learned.
Earls wise and Knights awful’.

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert
Lechlade to Newbridge 16 miles

I walked past Shelley’s Close by the Church …

Where Shelley wrote his ‘Summer Evening Churchyard’,
Crossed the bridge and turned left for London,
It was just the sort of light I like for a riverine walk:
Waves of silver rippling through the dark waters,
Moody clouds above Old Father Thames’ statue,
Once of Crystal Palace, now recumbent at St John’s Lock –
But the nineteenth century was soon forgotten:
It all got a bit Mrs Miniver and Went the Day Well?
After Bloomer’s Hole footbridge:
I lost count of the pillboxes in the fields and on the banks
(‘Mr. Brown goes off to Town on the 8.21,
But he comes home each evening,
And he’s ready with his gun’),
As I walked on past Buscot, with its line of poplar trees,
Planted to drain the soil in its Victorian heyday of sugar beet
And once with a narrow gauge railway dancing across
A lost Saxon village at Eaton Hastings;
Then on past William Morris’ ‘heaven on earth’
At Kelmscott Manor (‘Visit our website to shop online!’),
Walkers occasionally appearing beyond hedgerows,
Like Edward Thomas’ ‘The Other Man’;
Then to Grafton Lock, and on to Radcot’s bridges and lock
(The waters divide here with two bridges:
The older, the site of a medieval battle after the Peasants’ Revolt;
A statue of the Virgin Mary once in a niche in the bridge, too,
Mutilated by the Levellers, before their Burford executions;
The newer bridge built in the hope and expectations
Of traffic and profit in the wake of the Thames and Severn Canal),
Past Old Man’s Bridge, Rushey Lock and Rushey Weir:
A traditional Thames paddle and rymer weir
(The paddles and handles, called rymers,
Dropped into position to block the rushing waters).
Now it’s on to isolated Tadpole Bridge on the Bampton turnpike,
Now past Chimney Meadow – once a Saxon island,
Then Tenfoot Bridge – characteristically,
Where an upper Thames flash weir sed to pour its waters,
Until Victorian modernity silenced that;
Then past Shifford Weir and the hamlet of Shifford,
Once a major Wessex town, where King Alfred
Met with his parliament of
‘Many bishops, and many book-learned.
Earls wise and Knights awful’.

read more

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #4

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust

In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

Day Two: Cricklade to Lechlade 11 miles

William Cobbett visited Cricklade in 1826 on his Rural Rides: ‘the source of the river Isis … the first branch of the Thames. They call it the “Old Thames” and I rode through it here, it not being above four or five yards wide, and not deeper than the knees of my horse … I saw in one single farm-yard here more food than enough for four times the inhabitants of the parish … the poor creatures that raise the wheat and the barley and cheese and the mutton and the beef are living upon potatoes …’
Plus ca change …

A haiku exploration:
Ridge and furrow fields,
Once beyond the river’s reach,
Now puddled and drowned.

Peasants till the fields,
Barefoot ghosts and revenants
Follow in our steps.

Silhouetted trees,
Pewter sky and silver clouds,
The water’s canvas.

Swans glide the field-flood,
A limitless lake’s expanse,
Burnished willow boughs.

And at Inglesham,
A medieval village,
Lost to Time’s waters.

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust

In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

Day Two: Cricklade to Lechlade 11 miles

William Cobbett visited Cricklade in 1826 on his Rural Rides: ‘the source of the river Isis … the first branch of the Thames. They call it the “Old Thames” and I rode through it here, it not being above four or five yards wide, and not deeper than the knees of my horse … I saw in one single farm-yard here more food than enough for four times the inhabitants of the parish … the poor creatures that raise the wheat and the barley and cheese and the mutton and the beef are living upon potatoes …’
Plus ca change …

A haiku exploration:
Ridge and furrow fields,
Once beyond the river’s reach,
Now puddled and drowned.

Peasants till the fields,
Barefoot ghosts and revenants
Follow in our steps.

Silhouetted trees,
Pewter sky and silver clouds,
The water’s canvas.

Swans glide the field-flood,
A limitless lake’s expanse,
Burnished willow boughs.

And at Inglesham,
A medieval village,
Lost to Time’s waters.

read more