Memories & Meditations This is a long read, so you might want to take it one section at a time.
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THE SAD DECLINE of LITERACY
Am I alone, or one of a dwindling few, who is in mourning for the decline in literary standards over the past few decades?
It is ironic that although we have more means to communicate our thoughts in print than ever before- via the internet, email, text messages, advertising, plus old-fashioned printed books and magazines, there seems to have been a steady deterioration in correctness of grammar, accuracy of proof reading and precision of word choice from c.2000 or maybe before that.
Proof reading
I seldom find a recently published book that does not show up the poor quality of proof reading at present including errors in spelling, errors in grammar (that might be traced to the author rather than the proof-reader), missing words and misplaced groups of words. Also to be eliminated are annoying repetitions of words. Recently observed are the all-too-prevalent use of “many, many” and “very, very”. While Baden-Baden and beriberi are acceptable, most others are simply a waste of print and add nothing to the meaning of what is stated.
Expletives
The classical and early modern writers (with a few well-known, controversial exceptions) did not employ words that could be offensive to their readers. Now it seems almost obligatory to show how “with it” and “progressive” one is by resorting to gutter language. Even so exalted a publication as the arts magazine Apollo is not immune, as a recent article on cats in pictures by female artists (September 2024) illustrates. Avoid such language, or if you must use it, obliterate some letters with stars or a dash.
Poverty of Language
“Trusty and wele-beloved, we grete yow well.”
This was a commonly used greeting in 15th century England. Now we might just say “Hello” or “Hi”.
Never mind that the writers stood a good chance of being killed in battle or executed for treason, but at least they took more trouble over communicating with one another than we do today.
Over time the meanings of words will inevitably change, either from overuse or because their original meanings become diluted, e.g., “sad” originally meant “serious”. In our own time what mostly alarms me is how the meanings of words have been changed through being related to a political agenda.
Thus, the term “marriage” has always signified a union recognised by law, between a man and a woman with the purpose of raising and nurturing a family. Now it has lost that meaning and can apply to two persons of the same sex cohabiting: which state is surely more of an exalted friendship than a marriage according to the original meaning of the word. “Marriage” is not the correct term for this modern arrangement, but it is up to the advocates of it to come up with something more apposite.
On a lighter note, “awesome” originally meant impressive, inspiring awe, admiration or fear. Now it is just “fine” or “well done”. This casual and unthinking use of the word began, probably in the USA about 25 years ago. The word is now virtually meaningless. Other words that have similarly become meaningless are “iconic” (now used for “fully representative of”), “economy” (as in “economy sized”), “significant” (anything slightly unusual) and “fascist”, now an insult directed at anyone whose views you disagree with.
Then there is the common assumption on the part of many writers that they cannot use “he”, “his”, “him” etc., without causing offence to female readers. Do they not realise that formerly authors expected their readers to know that, if the context made it clear, words such as “he”, “his” referred to all mankind including women. If you are squeamish about this, use “they”, “theirs” etc. But do not use “his/hers, he/she” or even worse, “s/he”- (how does one even pronounce the last one?)
Finally, there is the reprehensible modern practise on the part of publishers of rewriting some authors (e.g. Enid Blyton) or issuing “warnings” that parts of a text might offend some sensitive minority. All I can say is that publishers need to stop treating the reading public as if they were nervous children but as adults in a sometimes harsh and difficult world.
MJR 12/24
CONCEPTUAL MUSIC
The artist Sol Le Witt has defined Conceptual Art as:
“(Art in) which the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work” (1)
Thus, in conceptual music the idea or concept is more important than the sounds, which may or may not actually happen. Conceptual works are more like “scenarios” outlining actions or situations in which sounds could occur if the instructions are followed. On the other hand, the sounds may exist only in the imagination of the creator or recipient of the work.
It could be said that, in its first stage, all composed music begins as conceptual music: the composer starts with an idea of something needing expression, an emotion or mood, or the need to depict in sound a verbal or pictorial image. However, in the act of composition the original concept is soon overtaken by the notes as they are put on paper, and finally by the performance. Except in works using improvisation, there is a “fixedness” about composed work: the specified pitches must be played in the order and with the durations and dynamics requested by the composer. The slight differences in tempo, timbre and expression which inevitably occur between each performance of a work are called “interpretation”. In traditionally composed works the only permitted differences are those which do not go against the composer’s instructions: shades of dynamic intensity or personal choices as to tempo where a specific tempo is not indicated (as in Bach, for example)
By 1960 some younger composers were reacting against this traditional type of composed work. Improvisation, which had been dormant in Western classical music for 200 years, but which was very much alive in jazz and other non-European music, began to be seriously considered, along with such liberating devices as open-form- in which sections of a work may be played in any order, aleatoric music- in which the order of events is determined by chance, and graphic scores- in which notes are not written but the performers react to symbols and diagrams presented by the composer.
Conceptual music shares with many other forms of musical experimentation the desire to involve the performer more in the creative process, and to undermine the perceived role of the composer as a “commander” whose function is to give orders to those lesser mortals-instrumentalists and singers, in the creation of (hopefully successful) “works of art”. But it goes further along the road of effacing the traditional role of the composer as “note-writer” to one of “sound imaginer”. Indeed, one does not have to have any training in composition to create conceptual musical works.
Nevertheless, the reason why conceptual music should be taken seriously lies in the perception, that I am certain we have all experienced at some time, that the anticipation and memory of actual events are often more pleasurable than the events themselves.
A parallel to conceptualisation can be encountered in dreams, in which very much heightened forms of actual possible events may occur. I once had a vivid dream of part of Brahms’ 2nd symphony. But it was a dream of a performance “out of this world” in intensity and beauty. The reality of a performance by a few dozen well-trained musicians and a conductor with all their human limitations and imperfections could never match the perfection dreamed of.
SOME EXAMPLES
In the offerings appended to this brief essay it will be seen at once that they are not “compositions” or even music at all in the accepted sense of the word. Rather they seek to focus on what I term “Ur-sounds”, that is those sounds which are timeless and not subject to changes of fashion or style, namely:
The Human Voice Stones Shells Wood Water Wind
Of those instruments which have such a long history as to be classed as “timeless” I would include:
Flutes and pipes Harps and zithers Drums and claves Gongs and bells
They are very much verbal pieces because, in the words of author William Malpas (2)
“…Conceptual artists are much concerned with writing and written texts.”
And there are few commands in these fragments, but rather suggestions of actions which, if carried out, would result in sounds being produced, and possibly musically satisfying sounds, depending on the aural imaginations of the participants. There is also a deliberate vagueness as to detail. In the event of any of the pieces being performed, choices regarding structure, timing, rhythm and duration would have to be made either by myself or the participants.
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In Conch-erto (1996) a shell found on a deserted tropical beach becomes a musical instrument. There is no notation, just a description of the finding, fashioning and possibility of sounds. The “music” is in the whole poetic idea of the events, which may or may not actually take place.
In Sounding Stones and Forest Music, the idea is to make musical (i.e. organised) sounds with natural objects- pebbles and wooden sticks, the most primitive “instruments” and therefore timeless.
Mountain music does use man-made instruments of metal, and small enough to be transported by hand. The main point in this piece is the specified location of the performance: on a mountain top (i.e. above 1000 feet).
The Overtone Study comes nearer to being a traditionally composed work, except that there is no notation, but only verbal instructions
At present the final two pieces Eclogue and Commagene are still in the conceptual stage. However, these are preliminary sketches for works which would need to be realised electronically, and were this to happen, they would no longer be conceptual but actual works.
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CONCH-ERTO
On a deserted tropical beach find a conch, clean and fashion it into a musical instrument and make music with it in praise of the oneness of all things.
(1996)
SOUNDING-STONES
Take a handful of small pebbles
Music may be made by
Shaking a few of them in closed fist(s)
Tapping two of them together
Pouring them at varying speeds- quick, moderate, slow-
onto various surfaces
Cloth
Paper
Wood
Metal
Pouring them into water
Dropping them one by one onto various surfaces
Grinding a few of them together in closed fists.
In other ways not specified above.
FOREST MUSIC
From a wood or forest collect sticks, dead branches with leaves intact, pebbles, seed pods, cones.
In the studio one or more performers make music with them.
Employ simple rhythmic patterns such as:
(Other patterns may be invented).
Each performer may either repeat one pattern or may switch to other patterns during the course of the piece.
Duration: c.5-10 minutes.
MOUNTAIN MUSIC
For any number of performers on hand-held metal percussion instruments.
The performer(s) should climb to a high place 1000 or more feet above sea level.
Begin with very quiet, widely spaced sounds, un-damped. Gradually decrease the time between successive sounds while increasing the dynamic level. Attain a climax of dynamics and activity and stop suddenly. All performers should endeavour to stop at the same moment. Allow sounds to vibrate until they die away.
(Duration c7 minutes)
(August 1994)
OVERTONE STUDY
One or more guitars
Any melodies or fragments of melodies remembered by the performer(s) played slowly and entirely in harmonics.
(2-4 minutes)
ECLOGUE
A work using recorded sound. An evocation of the sound world of Virgil’s Eclogues.
Background:
Wind in trees - cicadas, birdcalls, sheep, goats
Foreground:
Occasional vocal cries (as of shepherds to their sheep), fragments of song, flute music (very simple and modal), spoken Latin (indistinct) possibly from the text of the eclogues.
Duration: c 5 minutes.
COMMAGENE
The image of Yeats’ “Lost Kingdom” (in his play “The Dreaming of the Bones” ) was the starting point for “Commagene” named after an Armenian kingdom which flourished briefly 2000 years ago but is now almost forgotten. Commagene stands for any lost realm; I used it because I like the name and am fascinated by the eerie giant stone heads which remain on the sanctuary of Mount Nemrut in Eastern Anatolia (but which I have only seen in photographs).
The sounds of Comagene are the wind, howling over an immense expanse of barren land, cries of birds of prey, fragments of human speech in Greek & Armenian, a few notes on flute and harp (very indistinct). The notes gradually form into a high pitched and sinuous melody (using microtones). An indistinct vocal chanting is heard, but no words are clearly audible. All very reverberant and distant sounding (as if dreamed).
Duration 2-4 minutes.
M J Regan ©2009 (Rev. 2024)
FOOTNOTES
1 Paragraphs on Conceptual Art, Art Forum, June 1967
2 Richard Long, Crescent Moon 2008
Reminiscence
Regret mingled with nostalgia for the present condition of the city, on the margins of which I have resided for over 70 years.
Regret for the urbanisation of just about everywhere via our electronic devices churning out information 24 hours a day. Do we know too much about too much...? Mobile phones – the modern curse? Train journeys made in the company of those who, instead of viewing our wonderful countryside, stare into their mobile phones, or play games on them, or just fondle them lovingly.
Memories
Hanging Almost 12.00 noon…and I remember my mother quietly remarking, as the time approached a certain hour on certain days of the years from c.1950 – 1960, “So-and-so will be for the drop soon” How did she know? Was it from the “grapevine” of local gossip or from the newspapers. Was there a column for “executions” to go alongside “births, deaths & marriages”? By whatever means the news got about, I suppose to most of us, it just seemed that justice was being done. Few disagreed with the practice- it was just accepted as one of those unfortunate results of transgressing the laws of the land. Most of the population could never (and still cannot) reconcile “an eye for an eye” with “love thine enemy”. But the “love thine enemy” faction in parliament voted to abolish the death penalty in 1965 without consulting the population as a whole, presumably because a referendum on the subject would almost certainly have resulted in favour of retaining the death penalty.
Smoking, and the odour of tobacco smoke in buses, trams, trains, cinemas etc.- is now a thing of the past. There were no health warnings on cigarette packets then, tobacco was widely advertised, and smoking was seen as “cool” as that famous photograph of Dexter Gordon wreathed in cigarette smoke during a break from a jazz session c. 1959 shows. My dad smoked 40 a day, accompanied by two or three whiskies in the evenings, that aided much to his final physical decline. To be successful in business in those days you were expected to smoke your head off and drink daily with the other chaps during business meetings in the pub at lunchtimes. Teetotallers and non-smokers were thought of as oddballs in those days. Now it’s those addicted to tobacco and the habitual drinkers that get castigated.
Radio was all we had until c1952 when we were able to purchase our first television set, a small wooden box with a screen approximately the size of an A4 envelope! I can vividly recall some of those long-forgotten “interludes” between programmes: the potter’s wheel comes to mind, as does the attractively patterned “test card” that would be on the screen before transmission began. My favourite programme was “Bill & Ben, the Flowerpot Men” (not forgetting “Weed”) which enjoyed a revival a few years back. And I was an avid watcher of just about every Western programme on screen during those years of black-and-white television: Hopalong Cassidy, the ‘Cisco Kid, the Lone Ranger et al.
LONDON’S “LAST TRAM”
This summer (2022) will mark 70 years since the last tram ran in London, on July 6th 1952 to be precise. They were certainly not beautiful. But they were imposing. Imagine 17 tons of metal, wood, fabric and glass perched on sets of metal wheels unglamorously termed “bogies”, gliding along metal tracks inset into the roads. And you had to risk life and limb to get on and off because for the most part they stopped in the middle of the road. I think I remember them… I would have been 5 years old when the last tram ran in South London. And, even if I never actually rode in one, our existences overlapped by a few years. That Last Tram to New Cross Depot could stand as a symbol of all that has disappeared, altered, and degenerated over the past 70 years and has transformed London from a cosy, tightly knit city of, predominantly, Londoners (i.e., those born and raised in the city and its environs) to the city we now seem to have, largely made up of transients and recent immigrants who probably cannot have that long-standing affection for the place that the locals have.
London then was grimy, smoky, prone to dense late autumn and winter fogs; much was decayed, crumbling away; the predominant hues were grey, brown, black and that singular shade of beige of London brick. Most of it was no more than three or four storeys high. The tower blocks, often shoddily built and now too often today’s slums, were not to come until the ‘60s.
In what was surely one of the most mistaken decisions ever made by the overseers of public transport in Britain, the trams were gradually replaced by motorbuses and electrically powered Trolleybuses – and I well remember riding on the latter on holidays in Bournemouth (they were a lovely warm yellow with brown trimmings). From my secondary school on Gunnersbury Avenue, I used to see London Transport trolleybuses running along the Great West Road at about the time when the Chiswick Flyover was under construction (c. 1960) and a couple of years before all London trolleybuses were withdrawn. Alas!
My earliest memories coincide with what were termed the “austerity years” (c. 1945-60) when, after a most expensive and debilitating war, the cost of reconstruction meant that goods, and especially luxury goods, were in short supply. The motor car was available to middle- and upper-class earners only, and our first one was an old Austin (or maybe a Morris) built about 1930 or so. Colours of cars during my childhood years were various shades of black, brighter hues being seen only on buses, trams, and delivery vehicles. Our earliest cars had the unfortunate habit of breaking down, usually in the most awkward places, and often necessitating being pushed manually out of the way of other traffic. Once, when my father was driving me the short journey to my primary school, a front wheel came loose and shot off down the road ahead of us, to the amazement of passers-by.
Austerity clothing for men was suits, jackets, and trousers in various shades of grey, brown, or black. Some sort of outdoor headgear was expected of all males of the lower middle class and upwards. My dad wore a flat cap, although he was lower-middle- rather than working-class.
Bright colours were worn only by madmen or poets, until the “swinging ‘60s” arrived in their multicoloured splendour and sudden fashionable casualness of attire. But that is another story.
Holidays
The season of holidays has passed for most of us, leaving only memories.
Holidays -holy days- should be days during which to recover wholeness. Casting off the fragmented life of work and daily routine, we do something different. We try to achieve that wholeness of purpose that in ordinary circumstances we find almost impossible to accomplish, divided as we are between so many conflicting chores and duties of varying degrees of urgency.
My own singular purpose on holiday is to focus entirely on spending time with the family [not forgetting the dog]. I do not write music or bother about students for the one week in the year when I can be free from all that.
My holiday routine is to wake early, usually before 6.00 am and stumble my unfamiliar way to the kitchen [of our rented holiday cottage] to make a much-needed cup of coffee. Then, return to bed and allow my brain to thaw out from the chill of early dawn, helped by the coffee, of course.
I idly plan the day ahead – or at least imagine what it could be like…
Then, breakfast of egg and bacon, more coffee, and a glass of red wine [it’s never too early, and the next one will not be until evening]. Then wait for the other members of the family to emerge gradually from their respective rooms, while I check the weather, map, places to see etc. and maybe catch up on my reading.
Finally, and only after some considerable fussing about do we all head off to wherever we might have decided on.
Choosing a warm day, and on a spread towel, weighted down with pebbles at each corner to stop it blowing away in the wind, I lie with one ear to the beach.
Passers-by seem to move vertically, the crunching sound of their footsteps magnified by the expanse of pebbles. The sea, a long way off and separated from the pebble beach by 100 or more yards of damp sand, murmurs lazily. Occasional voices, children, dogs, seagulls, break the calm. An incessant wind cools the air but is less noticeable at ground level. Brightly coloured kites soar above, straining to break away from their tautly stretched cords.
Each year that this long-awaited one-week event happens, we focus our attention on a town. Last year [2020] it was Westward-Ho in Devon. This year it was Rye in East Sussex, one of England’s best-preserved medieval towns and justly popular with visitors. I think we all fell in love with this much-lauded ancient Cinque Port that still has a vestige of its original harbour and is a maze of narrow streets and narrower pavements, almost every street inclined. Architecture from several centuries [medieval to modern]. Cobblestones in the backstreets and alleyways. A hill town overlooking the flat land of the great Romney Marsh. But- it has too much traffic, being on the main road to Hastings. Needs a bypass!
We also spent one rather damp and cloudy day at Dungeness, one of Britain’s oddest landscapes and “our only desert”. Flat as the proverbial pancake. A flat-earther’s vindication perhaps. This vast expanse of shingle, much of it covered with a scrub of maritime flora, appears on the map as a blank space, but once there you see a scattering of wooden huts and more substantial structures including a disused power station, two lighthouses, odds and ends of industry, stranded boats in various stages of seaworthiness, and the Pilot Inn, described by Derek Jarman [one of the area’s more famous inhabitants] as providing the best fish and chips in Kent!
Holidays (Continued)
2022
4th – 12th August
In old age, every day, I try to achieve something, even just posting comments on my activities in the hope that someone else might find them of interest. Who knows?
Our yearly holiday. And this year, at the request of my daughter, we visited the Yorkshire Dales, a region of England that she has become very attached to, having visited twice before this, and fallen in love with.
The North. Stone everywhere you look. Sheep on bare, green, rounded hills, and, as a backdrop, ranges of low mountains, part of the Pennines. Several flat-topped peaks looking for all the world like much higher mountains whose summits have been neatly sliced off, which, geologically speaking, is pretty much what has occurred over millennia as the limestone of which these mountains are made has been eroded.
A long drive on overcrowded roads, and thoughts on how mankind must in future take to the air for private travel and say goodbye to this traffic-madness. On arriving at the village of Askrigg, after about seven hours of sitting in a car, two unfamiliar sensations: cold, and rain (not felt down south for weeks!)
6th A.m., to the Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest inn. Cool and windy but not actually cold – c. 12C. A good lunch here. The narrow winding roads become tiring to drive along as one must keep a constant watch for oncoming vehicles. Impatient locals just can’t wait for an opportunity to overtake at 60 mph!
P.m., Waterfalls reached by steps- tiring to negotiate. Thoughts on next year’s holiday: somewhere flat and warmer, and near a beach!
7th A.m., Hawes. A fine stone-built sprawling village, but not much of it visible beyond the huge number of cars, vans and motorcycles cluttering every available space! Bought sweets & Wensleydale cheeses.
P.m., Bolton Castle. Still just able to climb up & down its spiral staircases – but doggedly clinging to the handrails with both hands. The castle is well-preserved, and the stone flights of steps and landings just need Errol Flynn sword-fighting a few villains for completeness.
In the grounds a display of birds of prey (an owl from India and a local [?] falcon). The windy weather prevented them from flying, so we were given adequate and interesting verbal information instead.
8th A.m., Middleham Castle. About 50% complete but much has been removed. Our dog did not like this place AT ALL! She kept close to the ground and refused to go forward. Ghosts perhaps…?
P.m., Richmond, and the superb Green Howards Museum. I sympathise with pacificists, but I can also see the attraction that the military life has for some men (and women). The excitement, camaraderie and possible honours achieved for valour in battle are incentives to become a professional soldier (as was my paternal grandfather). Armies for defence are fine. For aggression- not so fine.
9th A quiet, relaxed day at home.
10th To Semmerwater, a natural lake surrounded by the Pennine Mountains. A gentle breeze coaxed ripples on the surface of cobalt blue waters reflecting a cloudless sky.
Then – Cotter Falls, a little-known waterfall gained by walking a long way. And in high temperatures, probably about as warm as it gets in Yorkshire (c. 27C)
11th Our final day here. The famous and much-photographed viaduct. Hot! Then to Malham Cove and Gordale Scar, both well-known tourist attractions, but not very crowded today.
12th Returned along those overcrowded motor roads. Visions of transport of the future: personal aircraft / air taxis / plus a much improved public transport system using trams in cities and more use of the air between cities… maybe?
My own very personal reflections: as a Southerner, I feel that north of Birmingham is a foreign land, good to visit, but I would not want to settle there. I would miss the warmth and gentle topography of the Southlands.
(This was the 1st holiday when I felt the pangs of old age: too much walking; too much driving a car; and young ones sometimes impatient of my slowness.)
MJR 08/22
Postscript
Just a note on some curious place names from Yorkshire: Wham, Whaw, Crackpot (an asylum here maybe?), Simon Fell (oops!), Foxup (up what?), Blubberhouses (a miserable place to live maybe?).
Holidays - Continued
2023
4th-11th August
I have now reached the age (76 years) when proposing to walk around or through places of interest has more substance than actually doing it. I find that even after 5 minutes of just what to most younger ones would be a comfortable stroll, aches and pains begin to be noticed around my back and middle areas. I suppose I should feel guilty about this – for not doing enough regular exercise, but my wife who is 11 years younger than me, gets tired even before I do on anything more than a few hundred yards of walking! So now I walk just enough to savour the atmosphere of a place and then later read about it in detail in a comfortable chair at home.
This year we all set off for the Kent Coast for a week in Sandgate, which is really a suburb of Folkestone, and a one street village lined with mostly older houses and shops (c. 1850-1900) backed by the tail-end of the North Downs and fronted by a long pebble beach extending all the way to Dungeness. That local architectural detail, weatherboarding, is much in evidence here and found all over Kent, and to some extent in Surrey & Sussex.
4th To Sandgate by road. A journey of about 2 ½ hours.
Our holiday cottage was an old weatherboarded two-storey house crammed between two larger [& newer?] houses.
All was a bit small inside – the photographs in the advertisement did not tell us anything about dimensions. But the interior was thoroughly modernised.
5th A.m. Rain. P.m. More rain! But we drove into Folkestone & parked near the harbour. From here you get a view of the Old High Street snaking its way uphill, that gives some idea of what the town looked like nearly 200 years back, when Constable painted it. A narrow street lined with ancient & decrepit houses and shops brightened up in various shades of blue & orange. It could be somewhere on the Mediterranean, but the illusion of this only extends to this one street & the adjoining square; the rest of Folkestone is solidly Victorian, when it was a fashionable resort of the nobility, & modern when it had lost its earlier upper-class appeal & become just another southern seaside town catering for the middle- and working-classes.
6th To Dungeness, one of those places that I think about often. There is probably nothing else like it inBritain. It’s weirdness is a magnet for those who like the lonely life (lonely at least in the colder seasons when the visitors depart)- artists, writers & naturalists who make themselves comfortable in a variety of huts, shacks & more substantial dwellings all situated at a respectable distance from each other & intermingled with old boats, rusting scraps of iron, coils of rope and other maritime paraphernalia.
Now, Dungeness is one of my favourite places & I am pleased to see that further development has been banned to preserve what exists of its wildness & strangeness.
We travelled to Dungeness on the miniature Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway. Our diminutive wooden carriage was pulled by a ¼ size steam locomotive of c.1927 vintage. The unfamiliar odour of burning coal wafted through the open windows from time to time to add piquancy to the 1 ¼ hour journey from Hythe to Dungeness. Being prepared for a slow trundle on the 15-inch gauge track I was a little startled to note speeds of probably around 40-50 mph on the mainly straight track!
On the return journey we stopped at New Romney for 1 hour & not realising that the station was not in the town itself, had to walk the mile or so to visit the town’s one main street, of no particular interest, except that the inhabitants seemed to be very proud of their name. From the bench upon which I eagerly parked myself I observed the following on a row of shops opposite: New Romney Butchers, New Romney Pet Shop, New Romney Funeralcare, Romney Marsh Carpets and New Romney Library. So, there could be no question about where I was!
7th The White (actually off-white) Cliffs of Dover. Sadly, much of these are now covered in a grimy dark blanket of vegetation (?) & need a thorough clean. I did not see any bluebirds. Maybe Vera Lynn was luckier…?
Much of Dover itself is decrepit & seems to cower under its fearsome cliffs & threatening castle. Much of it seems haphazardly put together, but the colourful house-fronts to some extent alleviate the general air of tiredness, amplified by the heat of summer, that the town exudes.
P.m. Relaxed. Then, a stroll along Sandgate Beach in wind & sun as far as the Castle dating from 1539 & constructed as a warning to any would-be invader, at that date most likely the French.
8th We headed to the Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge.
I don't know very much about this as my interests are mainly Ancient & Medieval history, but it took place in 1940 over southern England & cost the lives of a total 4,127 young men both Allied & Axis. The object was to defeat, or seriously weaken, the German air-force & it was successful in this. I wandered around rather dazed by the enormous amount on display & methought how the young people today so seem to be so worried about the climate or getting a mortgage on a first property should visit this to see that their worries are as nothing compared to what their grandparents lived through. What amazed me is how much has been gathered together from complete aircraft, engines, fragments of aircraft, documents, information on pilots of both sides, uniforms, weapons etc. plus a 1940s double-decker bus! Too much to take in during one visit. Photography was not allowed.
9th A.m. The beach. We all lazed until it became too hot. I got sunburnt after 30 minutes!
P.m. Dymchurch. Another mainly one-street town on the Kent coast, that has set itself up as a children’s paradise with amusement arcades, gift shops, sweet shops, fish & chips, and a wide sandy beach. Gaudy & overcrowded. We stayed for about 1 hour.
10th A.m. Back to Rye (last visited 2 years ago). Hot & full of visitors! Confirmed my previous thought that a bypass would much improve the quality of life here. A beautiful old town spoilt by the noise & hazard of constant traffic. Even the cobbled alleyways are not free of it!
On the return journey we stopped briefly at the Romney Marsh Visitor Centre (that much overused word – but for once used correctly because this was just about in the centre of the Marsh). A brief walk & then I will read at home in comfort.
11th Return.