Category: Past

For the Love of a Chartist

PRESS RELEASE

FOR THE LOVE OF A CHARTIST

STROUD THEATRE FESTIVAL

Chartism was a working class movement of the 1830s and 40s that wanted to establish democracy in the country, at a time when only the aristocracy and middle class men had the vote.
It was based upon 6 points: the secret ballot so there could be no intimidation; payment of MPs so that working people could stand; same-size constituencies to prevent the old rural aristocracy lording it over the new industrial towns; ending the ownership of property rule to become an MP, so that working people could stand; votes for all men over 21 (there were Chartist groups in favour of votes for women even back then, however); annual parliaments so that governments would keep their promises.

All but one of these is now the law, of course, but you could easily end up in prison in Chartist times for supporting these ideas … lose your freedom, your job and home for wanting a democratic government…

It’s time to remember these freedom-fighters, and rescue them from what EP Thompson called, ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’.
And so this show – our counter-heritage rescuing of two special working people from the enormous condescension of posterity: George Shell of Newport and Charlotte-Alice Bingham of Stroud.

PRESS RELEASE

FOR THE LOVE OF A CHARTIST

STROUD THEATRE FESTIVAL

Chartism was a working class movement of the 1830s and 40s that wanted to establish democracy in the country, at a time when only the aristocracy and middle class men had the vote.
It was based upon 6 points: the secret ballot so there could be no intimidation; payment of MPs so that working people could stand; same-size constituencies to prevent the old rural aristocracy lording it over the new industrial towns; ending the ownership of property rule to become an MP, so that working people could stand; votes for all men over 21 (there were Chartist groups in favour of votes for women even back then, however); annual parliaments so that governments would keep their promises.

All but one of these is now the law, of course, but you could easily end up in prison in Chartist times for supporting these ideas … lose your freedom, your job and home for wanting a democratic government…

It’s time to remember these freedom-fighters, and rescue them from what EP Thompson called, ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’.
And so this show – our counter-heritage rescuing of two special working people from the enormous condescension of posterity: George Shell of Newport and Charlotte-Alice Bingham of Stroud.

This performative presentation was commissioned by the Chartist Convention to commemorate the 1839 Newport Rising, in general, and the death of George Shell, in particular.
Parts might be repeated, again, on the anniversary of the Rising next November, when we might perform by candle light in the graveyard of St Woolas Cathedral in Newport.
It was there that the dead insurrectionaries were secretly buried at night by the army to prevent any public displays of grief with consequent martyrdom. So circumspect was this military procedure, that all the horses’ hooves were muffled…

Stuart Butler
07923489663
stfc12@hotmail.com
www.radicalstroud.co.uk

Chip Shop Walk

Chip Shop Hop

A group of us gathered at the corner Bath Road and Frome Park Road, initially in search of the legendary Rodborough Chip Machine
https://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-face-that-launched-thousand-chips/

We then flexibly followed the score from walkwalkwalk – thanks to Clare Qualmann, Gail Burton and Serena Korda – (see at the end), so as to be part of a worldwide chip shop exploration. Our chip shop heritage pilgrimage took us from Bath Road to Cainscross, to Cashes Green to the High Street, to Simpsons, to Nelson Street and so to sunset and bed.
We had a lovely time chatting with staff in all the shops and explained our quest, emphasizing that this was not, as Deb Roberts put it, anything to do with ‘Chip Advisor’. Robin Treefellow wrote a poem especially for the occasion, which he performed in two different locations, once outside a cloth mill and once, natch, outside a chip shop.
Chips are not from Hell
they come from Heaven Highest
chips are winged angels
flying with greasy wings
coated in sparkling salt
into our contentious world
where they relieve our tearful cries
for help is here
the chips, the excellent and goodly chips
we partake of their ambrosia
soaked in vinegar
stubbled in salt
hot and rewarding between the teeth
as we swallow
the chip carries us up to the golden light
in the knowledge our troubles have passed
the chips!
O, heavenly chips!
Sanctus, Sanctus, Excelsus
Amen.

Thanks to Deborah Roberts for the above photos.

Chip Shop Hop

A group of us gathered at the corner of Bath Road and Frome Park Road, initially in search of the legendary Rodborough Chip Machine
https://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-face-that-launched-thousand-chips/

We then flexibly followed the score from walkwalkwalk – thanks to Clare Qualmann, Gail Burton and Serena Korda – (see at the end), so as to be part of a worldwide chip shop exploration. Our chip shop heritage pilgrimage took us from Bath Road to Cainscross, to Cashes Green to the High Street, to Simpsons, to Nelson Street and so to sunset and bed.
We had a lovely time chatting with staff in all the shops and explained our quest, emphasizing that this was not, as Deb Roberts put it, anything to do with ‘Chip Advisor’. Robin Treefellow wrote a poem especially for the occasion, which he performed in two different locations, once outside a cloth mill and once, natch, outside a chip shop.
Chips are not from Hell
they come from Heaven Highest
chips are winged angels
flying with greasy wings
coated in sparkling salt
into our contentious world
where they relieve our tearful cries
for help is here
the chips, the excellent and goodly chips
we partake of their ambrosia
soaked in vinegar
stubbled in salt
hot and rewarding between the teeth
as we swallow
the chip carries us up to the golden light
in the knowledge our troubles have passed
the chips!
O, heavenly chips!
Sanctus, Sanctus, Excelsus
Amen.

This is part of the overall project: A Wander is not a Slog

https://awanderisnotaslog.wordpress.com

Other walks are scheduled for London, Greece (aiding refugees), Canada and the USA. It may be that our expedition is the only one in the world featuring chip shop poesy.
The piece immediately below is about the social history of chip shops within the context of the industrial revolution:

Common

Common – Low- Coarse – Vulgar – Immodest – Inelegant – Indelicate – Plebeian – Uncouth – Uncultivated – Unrefined – Lower class – Working class – Humble – Mean – Simple – Plain – Obscure – Low born – Rude – Base – Unwashed

‘You’ve had your chips’

Fish and chips and football and fags and fog:
Steam trawlers off the Dogger Bank,
Or off Iceland or in Arctic waters,
Home to Hull and Aberdeen and Grimsby,
North Shields, Milford Haven,
And then the railway lines to Billingsgate.

While down at the other stations, railway halts,
Markets, depots and railway sidings:
Potatoes, peas, coke, gas, oil, lard;

While over in the engineering works:
Trays for fish, trays for chips,
Scuttles and scoops and baskets for spuds,
Batter bowls, fish slicers, cruets, egg whisks,
Washing, peeling and chopping machines,
Refrigerators, tiles,
Shop fittings, counters, chairs and tables and cloths.

And in the fish and chip shop:
Steam and smoke and condensation,
Collective conviviality,
Eating with your fingers while reading
Last week’s newspaper’s football results;
Betting, the pools, a smell of beer,
Undomesticated housewives spurning cooking …
Common …
Such a loud and visible working class merriment
That fuelled middle class condescension,
Snobbery and suburban distaste:
As with Hemel Hempstead’s mayor in 1913:
‘I think that probably the fish frying trade
is the most terrible in existence.’

But seven years later came the music hall song:
‘Chips and Fish! Chips and Fish!
Eh! By gum it’s a Champion Dish!
Oh! What a smell when they fry ‘em,
Just get a penn’orth and try ‘em.
Put some Salt and Vinegar on, as much as ever you wish,
You can do, do, do without supper when you’ve
Had a bob’s worth o’ Chips and Fish!’

There were over 30,000 chip shops then,
Keeping the working class going through war,
The General Strike, the Great Depression,
Unemployment, short time working,
Debt, rent arrears, and shared kitchens,
With a welcome alternative
To the ubiquitous bread and dripping,
Bread and jam and milky tea,

I don’t know how many chip shops there are now,
But they still offer solace as well as sustenance,
For who can forget Jilted John:
‘I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chip shop’ –

But what happens when the last real chip shop closes for the last time?

‘You’ve had yer chips, mate.’

Unless we keep the real chip shop frying
And the chip shop red flag flying.

Inspired by a re-read of Fish & Chips and the British Working Class 1870-1940 John K. Walton Leicester University Press 2000

The Chip Shop Walk Score

‘To be practised in unknown cities (or parts of cities) or any place with potential for multiple chip shops. 1. Locate a chip shop. 2. Buy a bag of chips. 3. Have them wrapped ‘open’ to eat whilst walking. 4. Choose a direction to walk in. 5. Walk and eat. 6. When you locate another chip shop, repeat from step 2. 7. If you finish your chips before locating another chip shop, ask passers-by to point you towards one. 8. Cease when exhausted/sated … Best practised in a small group (sharing chips) in order to avoid chip poisoning. Can be adapted to other foodstuffs, depending on local ubiquity.’

Addendum
We walked on August 16th: the 199th anniversary of Peterloo. We commemorated this tragedy with a reading of Oliver Lomax’s poem – each walker was given a copy of the poem to wrap around their chips and read as they walked. Here’s the first stanza:

Peterloo
I beg you will endeavour to preserve the most
perfect silence. Put your hand to the ground and
take its pulse.

The poem can be found in its entirety here: https://www.wcml.org.uk/blogs/Lynette-Cawthra/A-new-poem-about-Peterloo/

Synchronised Global Walking May 12th 2018

It was May the 12th, 2018,

Synchronised walking was happening all over the globe

Via a shared urban score:

‘Cities tend to start in the middle and spread outwards, thinning as they go…

a familiar phenomenology … in the middle of things.

But where is that exactly, and how can we be sure?

…you are unlikely to encounter a sign telling you that you have arrived.

This is, of course, one of the surest indications …

that you are back in the middle of things:

the signs pointing the way will have dried up.’

But we were in the country,

Far away from the City of London;

How could we see, hear, touch, taste and smell

The space-time of a city, out here in the shires,

Far away from Jeremy Corbyn and the TUC Rally,

Far away from William Blake and London:

It was May the 12th, 2018,

Synchronised walking was happening all over the globe

Via a shared urban score:

‘Cities tend to start in the middle and spread outwards, thinning as they go…

a familiar phenomenology … in the middle of things.

But where is that exactly, and how can we be sure?

…you are unlikely to encounter a sign telling you that you have arrived.

This is, of course, one of the surest indications …

that you are back in the middle of things:

the signs pointing the way will have dried up.’

But we were in the country,

Far away from the City of London;

How could we see, hear, touch, taste and smell

The space-time of a city, out here in the shires,

Far away from Jeremy Corbyn and the TUC Rally,

Far away from William Blake and London:

‘I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe …

In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear …’

But we did descry the Reverend Kilvert
As we wandered into the spring of 1870,
Slipping down some wormhole of time:
‘Hay in the distance bright in brilliant sunshine …
Every watercourse clear upon the mountains in the searching light …’,

We wandered past the wooded site of the Battle of Bryn Glas,
Where Glendower’s and Mortimer’s armies clashed,
In bloody carnage in 1402:
‘The noble Mortimer …
Was by the rude hand of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered …’;
And there, farther in the distant hills,
A tumulus at the source of the River Lugg,
And there, Offa’s Dyke,
There, a deserted medieval village,
As we made our way through woodland and holloways,
And through a profusion of flowers and names:
Bluebells shimmering on high spring sward,
Ferns and bracken unfurling their fronds,
Primroses, daffodils, stitchwort, cuckoo flowers,
Lady’s smock, cuckoo pint, lords and ladies, priest’s pint,
Campion, sanicle, rhododendrons in a churchyard:
‘Some village Hampden that with dauntless breast
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood’;

The churchyard conjoined William Blake and Thomas Gray,
The churchyard conjoined the time and space,
That connect shire and city –
For those twelve days taken from the pay packet of 1752,
Take us to a TUC rally on old May Day in London in 2018,
And William Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’,
Transmitted across the country on the BBC,
Just like a city-walk …
a familiar phenomenology …
Comfy old BBC,
Entertaining, informing and educating …
But just as a city changes shape with the centuries,
With a centre that wanders away from itself,
So the BBC’s signposts,
Now turn only to the right.

A Nine Mile May-time Walk around Nailsworth

With thanks to Bob Fry for the prologue and Robin Treefellow for his stream of consciousness imagery.

Dusty spikes of blue Bugle
Sanicle.
Yellow Archangel.
Hemlock Water Dropwort.
White Deadnettle.
Cow Parsley and May Blossom, shining white in the green hedgerows, everywhere.
Early swallows skimming the air above the buttercup meadows (where Robin recited his poems)

*

The Dream of Nailsworth

The waters’ intonation
washed in Nailsworth.

Before the cloth mills,
before the cars brought their disquiet
the waters sang among alders.

The world was a flicker of a fish
hiding from the heron.
Nailsworth knew nothing of Egypt’s pyramids
or the fall of Carthage.

Softly persisting to go where its water went,
Nailsworth bred dreams and spawned thousands of little worlds in marshy meadows.

With thanks to Bob Fry for the prologue and Robin Treefellow for his stream of consciousness imagery.

Dusty spikes of blue Bugle
Sanicle.
Yellow Archangel.
Hemlock Water Dropwort.
White Deadnettle.
Cow Parsley and May Blossom, shining white in the green hedgerows, everywhere.
Early swallows skimming the air above the buttercup meadows (where Robin recited his poems)

*

The Dream of Nailsworth

The waters’ intonation
washed in Nailsworth.

Before the cloth mills,
before the cars brought their disquiet
the waters sang among alders.

The world was a flicker of a fish
hiding from the heron.
Nailsworth knew nothing of Egypt’s pyramids
or the fall of Carthage.

Softly persisting to go where its water went,
Nailsworth bred dreams and spawned thousands of little worlds in marshy meadows.

A lush sap soaked mind prevailed
as Nailsworth wrapped woods about its hills,
it was all you could hear: the pulse of sap to water to sap.
Rolling inward like a vortex
drawing a secret power.

Unknown to the world
Nailsworth in its valley
singing other times.
Flashing dragonflies,
coughing deer,
the animals are gods in Nailsworth’s bosky gospel.

 

Nailsworth

Where is the nail?

In the bend about water running

going up the boggled lane

through the settled crease of one cottage

a throw of luck stone

towards the moon’s dying corner

where is the nail?

in places snickering with froxsome springs

where delving badgers are between

the meadows once here with roots under gone
to weaving whereabouts to dreams in soil deep

of worms singing to butter tub moons

I know by irksome way and fiddly path

the nail is here.

there in the creak croak of fulling mill,
rumbling wheel rolling water

the clatter whack of loom frame in a damp walled hug slope cottage

in crying out owls from mouldy heart ash trees

by slippery sliding road ice

the nail is here.

Jingling in pennies and knotted in travellers joy.

in the places, the lostings and found things, today and yesterday,
moon lamped and in the going, the staying.

the nail is what put it together.

the nail is what had the cockerels crowing.

(Robin Treefellow)

Paris 1968 50th Anniversary and The Prince Albert Beer Fest Anniversary too

This anniversary coincides with the 11th Prince Albert Beer & Music Festival, Thursday 3rd – Monday 7th May
Real ale, cider and perry. Food available all weekend.

And here are some slogans from Paris, fifty years ago.
You could declaim one or two,
over a pint or two, if you fancy it.

Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie.

The barricade blocks the street but opens the way.

Refusons le dialogue avec nos matraqueurs.

Let us not dialogue with our persecutors.

On achète ton bonheur. Vole-le.

They buy your happiness. Steal it.

Sous les pavés, la plage !

Beneath the paving stones – the beach!

L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

*Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie.

No re-plastering, the structure is rotten.

This anniversary coincides with the 11th Prince Albert Beer & Music Festival, Thursday 3rd – Monday 7th May
Real ale, cider and perry. Food available all weekend.

And here are some slogans from Paris, fifty years ago.
You could declaim one or two,
over a pint or two, if you fancy it.

Soyez réalistes, demandez l’impossible.

Be realistic, demand the impossible.

La barricade ferme la rue mais ouvre la voie.

The barricade blocks the street but opens the way.

Refusons le dialogue avec nos matraqueurs.

Let us not dialogue with our persecutors.

On achète ton bonheur. Vole-le.

They buy your happiness. Steal it.

Sous les pavés, la plage !

Beneath the paving stones – the beach!

L’ennui est contre-révolutionnaire.

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

*Pas de replâtrage, la structure est pourrie.

No re-plastering, the structure is rotten.

Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié ne font que se creuser un tombeau.

Those who make revolutions by halves do but dig themselves a grave.

On ne revendiquera rien, on ne demandera rien. On prendra, on occupera.

We will claim nothing, we will ask for nothing. We will take, we will occupy.

* Ne négociez pas avec les patrons. Abolissez-les.

Don’t negotiate with the bosses. Abolish them.

Le patron a besoin de toi, tu n’as pas besoin de lui.

The boss needs you, you don’t need him.

Ni Dieu ni maître!

Neither god nor master!

Comment penser librement à l’ombre d’une chapelle?

How can one think freely in the shadow of a chapel?

Vivez sans temps morts – jouissez sans entraves.

Live without dead time – enjoy without chains.

* Il est interdit d’interdire.

It is forbidden to forbid.

Dans une société qui a aboli toute aventure, la seule aventure qui reste est celle d’abolir la société.

In a society that has abolished all adventures, the only adventure left is to abolish society.

L’émancipation de l’homme sera totale ou ne sera pas.

The liberation of humanity will be total or it will not be.

Je suis venu. J’ai vu. J’ai cru.

I came. I saw. I believed.

Cours, camarade, le vieux monde est derrière toi!

Run, comrade, the old world is behind you!

Il est douloureux de subir les chefs, il est encore plus bête de les choisir.

It’s painful to suffer the bosses; it’s even stupider to pick them.

La révolution est incroyable parce que vraie.

The revolution is incredible because it is real.

Les motions tuent l’émotion.

Motions kill emotions.

Bannissons les applaudissements, les spectacle est partout.

Let us ban all applause, the spectacle is everywhere.

Un seul week-end non révolutionnaire est infiniment plus sanglant qu’un mois de révolution permanente.

A single nonrevolutionary weekend is infinitely more bloody than a month of permanent revolution.

Le bonheur est une idée neuve.

Happiness is a new idea.

Plus je fais l’amour, plus j’ai envie de faire la révolution.
Plus je fais la révolution, plus j’ai envie de faire l’amour.

The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution.
The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love.

Je jouis dans les pavés.

I find my orgasms among the paving stones.

La perspective de jouir demain ne me consolera jamais de l’ennui d’aujord’hui.

The prospect of finding pleasure tomorrow will never compensate for today’s boredom.

Construire une révolution, c’est aussi briser toutes les chaines intérieures.

Building a revolution is also breaking all the inner chains.

Le sacré, voilà l’ennemi.

All that is sacred – there is the enemy.

La poésie est dans la rue.

Poetry is in the street.

*La culture est l’inversion de la vie.

Culture is the inversion of life.

L’art est mort, ne consommez pas son cadavre.

Art is dead, don’t consume its corpse.

Ne me libère pas, je m’en charge.

Don’t liberate me, I’ll do it myself.

Si vous pensez pour les autres, les autres penseront pour vous.

If you think for others, others will think for you.

Professeurs vous êtes aussi vieux que votre culture, votre modernisme n’est que la modernisation de la police.

Professors you are as old as your culture, your modernism is only the modernisation of the police.

Debout les damnés de l’Université.

Arise, you wretched of the University.

Même si Dieu existait il faudrait le supprimer.

Even if God existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

Je t’aime ! Oh ! dites-le avec des pavés !

I love you! Oh, say it with paving stones!

Travailleurs de tous les pays, amusez-vous !

Workers of the world, have fun!

Pouvoir à l’Imagination.

Power to the Imagination.

Je participe
Tu participes
Il participe
Nous participons
Vous participez
Ils profitent

I take part
You take part
He takes part
We take part
You all take part
They profit.

Ne changeons pas d’employeurs, changeons l’emploi de la vie.

Let us not change employers, let us change how we employ life.

Stonehouse, Standish and Haresfield Walk

Words of the day were obvs bound to be
Metaphor, Palimpsest, Serendipitous,
Inscription and Superscription,
On such a walk as this;
A train ride to Stonehouse
And then a walk through what once was Standish Hospital,
Now a Dystopian Derek Jarmanesque seeming film set,
A Victorian mansion built as a temporary home,
Becomes a Great War hospital,
Becomes a sanatorium,
Becomes an NHS hospital,
But now a building site in limbo,
Fencing all around the mouldering mansion,
The once-were stables,
The towering red brick chimney at the boiler house,
The Japanese knotweed infested lakesides,
The art deco sanatorium: its clean air and sunlight,
Long gone the way of all flesh;
We continued past streams and brooks and railway lines and bridges,
Past ridge and furrow and Revenants,
Past round barrows etched on the skyline,
Past churches and graveyards and lost villages
(And Standish, where the body of Edward the Second rested en route
From Berkeley Castle to Gloucester Cathedral),
To see the line of motorway and the cathedral of the Anthropocene:

Thanks to Deborah Roberts for the above photos.

Words of the day were obvs bound to be
Metaphor, Palimpsest, Serendipitous,
Inscription and Superscription,
On such a walk as this;
A train ride to Stonehouse
And then a walk through what once was Standish Hospital,
Now a Dystopian Derek Jarmanesque seeming film set,
A Victorian mansion built as a temporary home,
Becomes a Great War hospital,
Becomes a sanatorium,
Becomes an NHS hospital,
But now a building site in limbo,
Fencing all around the mouldering mansion,
The once-were stables,
The towering red brick chimney at the boiler house,
The Japanese knotweed infested lakesides,
The art deco sanatorium: its clean air and sunlight,
Long gone the way of all flesh;
We continued past streams and brooks and railway lines and bridges,
Past ridge and furrow and Revenants,
Past round barrows etched on the skyline,
Past churches and graveyards and lost villages
(And Standish, where the body of Edward the Second rested en route
From Berkeley Castle to Gloucester Cathedral),
To see the line of motorway and the cathedral of the Anthropocene:

‘We are Stroud travellers to an antique land,
Who saw two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the waters … near them, in the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is INCINERATOR, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level river stretches far away.’

On through sinuous paths through wide open fields:
Blackthorn smoking in the vaporous air,
And not just a profusion of spring flowers,
But also a profusion of names for the same flower,
Down there, by the gravesides:
Cuckoo pint, arum lily, lord and ladies;
Lady’s smock, or shall we call it cuckoo flower?
Then on past shaded, modest violets,
Scented wild garlic,
Alexander, primroses, bluebells,
Stitchwort, hemlock, honesty,
With tales of Tyburn Tree and conspiracy,
Lost Roman settlements and treasure,
Medieval moats and mottes,
Skylarks soaring and rooks calling to their parliament,
Past echoes of milk churns at long lost country platforms,
To sit beneath the milk-white pear blossom,
Here at the Beacon and Railway Hotel,
And the level crossing,
Penning these lines,
Before ascending to Haresfield Beacon,
And ramparts and ditches and bulwarks,
With Will Kempe morris dancing for Elizabethan company,
To reach a copse where Robin Treefellow hypnotised us:

Up on Broadbarrow Green
grazing my milch cow and two sheep
on the rough turf
my two feet on common earth.
The wind blows freely about the haw thickets
loosens smells of young green beech leaves
put in mind
of my life
hard grace from God
services and labour through the year.
I lend all myself to fending
off hunger.
Broadbarrow Green is the only earth
I can stand on without bending my back
in toil to my lord
no only my milch cow and two sheep
are my care up here.
Up where on ridge and edge
I can see below
Standish Manor
with open fields
that know my foot’s trudge
my aching bones.
So I speak their names
to send them to the clouds:

Stony Field
Lynch Field
Little and Great Combe Fields
Ridley Field
Odmarlow Field
Clayardin Field
Wayardin Field
Shutfurrow
High Field
Podley Field
Cooknell Field
Broadcroft
Great Harefield and Little
Charcroft Field
Moncraft Field
Marsh Field
Meadland Field
Breach Field and the Stopple.

I’d linger a while longer
on Broadbarrow Green.
For play and merriment
in bagfuls bids me shrug
the fields for a snatch in this heaven
and know that grace of being light footed again like my youth
when I chased Mabel about the lizzory trees.

Addendum: ‘In The Open Air‘ by Richard Jefferies published in 1885 –
‘There shone on the banks white stars among the grass, petals delicately white in a whorl of rays – light that had started radiating from a centre and become fixed – … Give me that old road, the same flowers – they were only stitchwort….’

The Yin And Yang Of Football

It has been said that football is a religion. It is true that for many, attending a match can seem like a religious experience. The blind faith that one day your team will reach the promised land (of the Premiership), the sense of belonging, the passion and the weird attire all replicate that of many religions. Even the killing of the opposition supporters has been known to happen, but thankfully not to Inquisition style proportions.

I suggest that the links to religion don’t stop there.

I have been reading a book recently by the psychologist Jordan Peterson and in his opening chapter he makes the comment “Chaos and order are two of the most fundamental elements of lived experience”. We order our lives in a way that can cope with the chaos that life throws at us, whether it is health issues, financial problems or the elements of nature that are doing their best to make life difficult.

By Clay Sinclair.

It has been said that football is a religion. It is true that for many, attending a match can seem like a religious experience. The blind faith that one day your team will reach the promised land (of the Premiership), the sense of belonging, the passion and the weird attire all replicate that of many religions. Even the killing of the opposition supporters has been known to happen, but thankfully not to Inquisition style proportions.

I suggest that the links to religion don’t stop there.

I have been reading a book recently by the psychologist Jordan Peterson and in his opening chapter he makes the comment “Chaos and order are two of the most fundamental elements of lived experience”. We order our lives in a way that can cope with the chaos that life throws at us, whether it is health issues, financial problems or the elements of nature that are doing their best to make life difficult.

I also follow Forest Green Rovers football club.

I have been following with interest their first season in the English Football League. The club are now known more for their cuisine than their football, as it prides itself on being the only vegan football club in the world. It has been a tough season for FGR and they have flirted this season with relegation and an immediate return to non-league football. But on Saturday they gained a much-needed win against local rivals Cheltenham Town. What pleased me most about this game was not the result but the little bit of mild hooliganism that the Forest Green ‘casuals’ expressed before, during and after the game. Now I’m pretty much a pacifist, can’t stand violence in any form, and am glad I can go to a football match and know I won’t get attacked. So why did I smile when I heard a group of lads had been causing disturbances in Cheltenham town centre, letting off green smoke canisters in the stand and invading the pitch to celebrate the winning goal?

The answer maybe lies in the ancient Taoist symbol of Yin and Yang. Jordan Peterson uses this imagery to help describe order and chaos. How both are needed for us to flourish and grow. A life controlled by order is dull, unimaginative, predictable and at worst, totalitarian. In contrast, lives dominated by chaos resemble a living hell and frequently lead to unhappiness, unfulfilled potential and even premature death. He writes “To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure.”

Football as a sport is a little Yin and Yang. There are two teams in opposition, wearing uniforms of contrasting hues and offer a divine combination of brutality and subtlety. I would argue that it is also the perfect symbol of order and chaos. The rules of the beautiful game are rather simple if you exclude the offside rule. But within that framework there are infinite possibilities of how a final score of 0-0 can be achieved.

As an example: I have two sons. One plays cricket and the other football. To stop me interfering with the children (with my unsolicited coaching advice), I take photos and send them to the parents, coaches etc… What I have noticed is that almost every photo in football is vastly more interesting than the cricket photos. Cricket is about rules, technique and has a clearly defined action area. Bowling crease, batting crease etc… The movements created by both batter, and bowler, are repetitive. The photos are therefore predictable and to be honest, quite boring. Whereas when I download my latest batch of football photos I am constantly surprised by the variety of shots. Bodies contorted in different shapes, player positions and combinations always changing and the ball never in the same place twice.

Is there a better sport that symbolises the perfect balance between order and chaos?

But the point I really want to make is what is happening to the fans, what is happening to football in England and what is happening at Forest Green Rovers.

If you look at these through the lens of order and chaos/ Yin and Yang it really starts to make sense. While the authorities have taken a little of the chaos away from what happens on the pitch with rules that reduce the chances of a broken leg or bruised ego, they are really the same as have always been. But the real changes in football have been for the fans. The biggest being the elimination of terraces for teams in England’s highest divisions. The terrace is naturally the place where chaos, creativity and passion thrive. It is from the terraces that conversations are entwined, that ideas are hatched and life is lived in flow.

But in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster the terrace is now perceived as a relic of the past.

There is a cost to this policy and is maybe symbolic of our ever controlling society and creeping totalitarian state. English football has become sterile at the highest level and I suggest it might not just be because of over inflated player wages, match tickets and media saturation. Could it be the elimination of the football terrace?

Is it a coincidence that Germany has some of the most passionate supporters? Germans are not perceived as people of the most emotional nation. Put them in a safe terrace, which all clubs have and passion happens. Flags waved are not those handed out by well meaning club owners. They are home designed and made, reflecting the organic enthusiasm the supporters have for their team. There are even smoke bombs, which add to the atmosphere.

Is it a coincidence that the passionate, creative supporters stand in solidarity on the terraces tolerating the worst views and often the lack of shelter from the elements?

I think not.

So what is happening at Forest Green? The well-meaning owner with genuine ambitions to change the world for the better has invested his millions in to his local football club which not long ago had a fan base of a few hundred. The club is doing well and is used to promote green issues, environmental sustainability and veganism as some of the solutions to help humankind. Meat and milk of the traditional variety are not available in the ground.

While this does exert further control over the supporters, Forest Green fans of the more passionate variety congregate in the South Stand terrace. This is where the rebellion festers. This is the area the manager fears when things are not going well and it’s where all passion emanates on match day. Healthy chaos and rebellion are on the terraces of The New Lawn and long may it continue.

My fear is that this creativity will be crushed by those who wish to sterilise football even further to placate the authorities who wish to control all aspects of the game.

Yin and Yang football please, along with a few smoke bombs.

The Best Goal I Ever Scored

Alas! George Bowling and George Orwell’s Coming Up For Air: the spot where I scored my best ever goal is now a housing estate.

The Best Goal I Ever Scored

It must have been 1965,
We were having a lunchtime kick-about.
‘It’s Good News Week’ by Hedgehoppers’ Anonymous
Was playing on someone’s transistor
Just behind the goal nearest the school,
Phil Vine was puffing out on the wing,
And crossed hopefully towards the edge of the box,
Where I had strayed, and where I stood,
Predicting the precise path of the ball.

Alas! George Bowling and George Orwell’s Coming Up For Air: the spot where I scored my best ever goal is now a housing estate.

The Best Goal I Ever Scored

It must have been 1965,
We were having a lunchtime kick-about.
‘It’s Good News Week’ by Hedgehoppers’ Anonymous
Was playing on someone’s transistor
Just behind the goal nearest the school,
Phil Vine was puffing out on the wing,
And crossed hopefully towards the edge of the box,
Where I had strayed, and where I stood,
Predicting the precise path of the ball.
It came, as anticipated, at waist height:
I leapt from the ground before the ball’s arrival,
Levitating horizontally a metre up in the air,
To meet the ball on the volley,
And send it hurtling into the top left hand corner
(The nets were up for an after-school house match).
I landed on the ground, elated,
Knowing that Linda Silcox was watching.

It was the best goal I ever scored,
A perfect harmony of prediction, execution and ambience,
And it was all so perfect that I didn’t even celebrate,
I just stood there in a Zen state of bliss,
Knowing that such an immaculate conception
Only happens once in A Good News Week Lifetime.

Inprint Eulogy

The Inprint shop and building in the High Street in Stroud,
Resembles nothing so much as something out of Dickens,
An Old Curiosity Shop,
Defying straight lines of logic:
A seeming hexagonal structure,
With Wemmick-like turrets at the top;
The shop doorway on the corner at an angle,
With a fading palimpsest gable end advertisement
For something delicious and ‘home made’,
And a mysterious door numbered 31a,
That might – or might not- take us up flights of stairs,
Past so many Great Expectations,
And so to Mr. Wemmick’s castle up on high.

But far better than such an ascension,
Let us examine the shop windows:
Displays that follow the high ideals of public broadcasting,
Spectacles of books and comics and posters and maps,
All artfully and painstakingly arranged,
A tableau of colour and half-remembered past time,
A street mis en scene that arrests the eye,
And one which informs, educates and entertains,
A business that improves the mind of the passer-by,
As well as tempting the bibliophile;

Thanks to Deborah Roberts for the above photos.

The Inprint shop and building in the High Street in Stroud,
Resembles nothing so much as something out of Dickens,
An Old Curiosity Shop,
Defying straight lines of logic:
A seeming hexagonal structure,
With Wemmick-like turrets at the top;
The shop doorway on the corner at an angle,
With a fading palimpsest gable end advertisement
For something delicious and ‘home made’,
And a mysterious door numbered 31a,
That might – or might not- take us up flights of stairs,
Past so many Great Expectations,
And so to Mr. Wemmick’s castle up on high.

But far better than such an ascension,
Let us examine the shop windows:
Displays that follow the high ideals of public broadcasting,
Spectacles of books and comics and posters and maps,
All artfully and painstakingly arranged,
A tableau of colour and half-remembered past time,
A street mis en scene that arrests the eye,
And one which informs, educates and entertains,
A business that improves the mind of the passer-by,
As well as tempting the bibliophile;

When you enter the shop via the corner door,
Even though a bell doesn’t ring,
I always hear one,
A magical rite of passage,
For I am sure the bookshelves reach to ceilings
In rooms that seem to carry on for ever,
With posters and pictures and mechanical contrivances
Also inhabiting this liminal space.

It is as unlike George Orwell’s bookshop
As unlike can be –
‘books give off more and nastier dust
than any other class of objects yet invented …’ –
For at night, when Stroud’s High Street is muffled
In pitch-black silence,
The books come alive in Inprint:
Talking of their origins and import,
Boasting of their wisdom and sagacity,
Like nineteenth century backbenchers –
But their colloquy always ends in agreement,
For as dawn approaches,
The Old Curiosity Shop and
A la recherché du temps perdu,
Hop down to the table; stand upright,
And propose their daily toast:
“And so we conclude our discourse
Ladies and gentlemen,
With this question:
Are our owners Goodenough?”
And all the books reply in unison,
Banging the shelves with their pages
And the walls with their spines,
With an occasional tear but always a smile,
“No! They are sans pareil!”

But when the shop closes for the last time,
And Inprint goes online,
There won’t be a dry eye in the house,
When that toast is proposed for the final time –

But remember:
A la recherché du temps perdu
Reminds us all
That we can still enjoy our memories of this wonderful shop,
Be grateful for its existence,
Visit it online,
And cherish our madeleine moments,
For Joy and Mike Goodenough,
And dear old Inprint,
(Please raise your glasses,
Ladies, gentlemen and comrades)
Are simply,
“Sans pareil!”

Fractal Light Show at St. Laurence’s

They met by a sacred oak tree:
The Celtic-British church delegates,
And Laurence and Augustine from Rome;

A sacred oak near to a great river near here:
At Cricklade on the River Thames perhaps,
Or Arlingham on the River Severn;

The wind soughed through the branches
Silver light stippled the water,
A coracle cast its steady shadow,
In the year of our Lord,
603.

A millennium and more later,
A scintillant refulgence,
A dazzle of artful light;

There, in Saint Laurence’s in Stroud,
Fractals of illumination,
Stained glass manuscripts;

They met by a sacred oak tree:
The Celtic-British church delegates,
And Laurence and Augustine from Rome;

A sacred oak near to a great river near here:
At Cricklade on the River Thames perhaps,
Or Arlingham on the River Severn;

The wind soughed through the branches
Silver light stippled the water,
A coracle cast its steady shadow,
In the year of our Lord,
603.

A millennium and more later,
A scintillant refulgence,
A dazzle of artful light;

There, in Saint Laurence’s in Stroud,
Fractals of illumination,
Stained glass manuscripts;

The numinous and the mundane,
Paradise lost but regained,
Heaven and Earth conjoined,
In the year of our Light,
2018.

A celebration of our world,
Music, song and spoken word too,
A spectacle of the senses;

And over there, by the altar,
The Venerable Bede and Caedmon,
Smiling gentle smiles of approbation.