Lord Byron, 7th December 1813 Went to bed, and slept dreamlessly, but not refreshingly. Awoke, and up an hour before being called; but dawdled three hours in dressing. When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), – sleep, eating and swilling – buttoning and unbuttoning – how much remains of downright existence? The summer … Continue reading Went to bed, and slept dreamlessly
“Richard lives in an elegant, blue-tiled stable in Great Scotland Yard with fifteen other horses. His rider not only works with him, but feeds and cares for him, too, and there is a bond of understanding between man and horse… he has been trained not to fear things and he trusts his rider completely… at … Continue reading Charles Keeping, horses & people, 1973
Scenes from the home and garden created by Jeanne du Maurier (sister of Daphne) and Noel Welch. Continue reading A du Maurier on Dartmoor
In 1958 Shelagh Delaney sent her first play, A Taste of Honey, to theatre director Joan Littlewood – along with a covering letter that at one point describes her ‘enraptured frustration at the thought of what I’m going to do’. Despite its beguiling self-deprecation, she had already written for the Salford Players and had been … Continue reading Shelagh Delaney: a poem set to jazz
Victorian visions take a sinister turn in the progressive 1970s “She swished the curtain as she spoke in order to see better, and for the peering Lucy the light was suddenly changed so that instead of the dark garden she saw only a reflection of the room behind her and her own face. It had … Continue reading Come Back, Lucy: Pamela Sykes’ forgotten classic
“His memory he had about him like a scarf; his thoughts a flight of starlings.” Lucy Boston quotes Rabelais on the title page of Memory in a House (1973) “…already I had realized and accepted my destiny, which was to be the temporary vessel of the consciousness of the long, unremembered life of the house.” … Continue reading A door to Green Knowe: Lucy Boston, Mrs Oldknow and the past in the present
Alison Uttley’s 1938 novel ‘A Traveller in Time’, adapted for TV in 1978 by Diana De Vere Cole and directed by Dorothea Brooking This adaptation brought the setting into the present day: Diana De Vere Cole did a neat job, focusing on Penelope’s emotions as she slips in and out of a Tudor world (cutting … Continue reading A Mind for Magick Pt 3: ‘A Traveller in Time’ on screen
Midwinter reading and children’s classics: four homes that house the veil between the past and the present Four books and four houses: all involve travel into past centuries and immersion in history. They do so from a setting which represents ‘home’, albeit a temporary one: the protagonists are all visitors, but the issue of belonging … Continue reading A Mind for Magick – part 2
Why we look to classics of midwinter literature in the dark months One genre of children’s literature is master of ceremonies at this time of year: those books we turn to in the hope they will throw wintry sunlight and lazy candle-flame on the mind. Christmas is traditionally a time for ghost stories, but these … Continue reading A Mind for Magick
Contexts for chaos, imagination past and present: “Memoirs of a Survivor” (1981) Somewhere in this blog I wrote about trying to capture the things I responded to as a child, the things which grew and developed into the portals of the imagination that have stayed with me, and how they shapeshifted over time, with different … Continue reading Frosty winds made moan
WHISTLES IN THE WIND 