Five Word Friday

How did February go so fast and now we are into March?
Friday was the first Friday of the month and as is usual, it called for a blog post, but I was so busy doing other things that I forgot, so with apologies, it’s being written on Saturday.  So my five words this month are
FIVE WORD FRIDAY ON SATURDAY

On Friday we went to Opera in the Bay to see and hear Mozart’s “ll Re Pastore”. March 1st marks the beginning of autumn here and the supposed end of this lovely summer that we have enjoyed this year.

The day dawned a bit cloudy but within a couple of hours the sun came out, the wind dropped to nothing (which you will know is almost unheard of in Windy Wellington) and the heat was on. I had never heard of this opera, and I was particularly keen to see it.  An added attraction was the fact that it was in a garden in the Bay.

We arrived at 4:00 PM as instructed and probably another hundred plus people were there as well. My friend dropped me at the door with our picnic baskets and my walking frame and went to park her car. Because we were advised we were going to sit on the grass to eat our picnic, a couple of days beforehand I had phoned the organiser to say that I would not be sitting on the grass; I could sit down but could not get up again and so I would take my walker which has a seat and was this okay. The organiser in whose home this was held, was very helpful and agreed that her son would meet us at the gate and walk us in and onto the terrace through their garage and the house.  

We walked up a very steep drive and I was happy that I was carrying nothing: the son of the house carried our picnic baskets. He took us to our reserved seats and then returned with 2 glasses of sparkling wine. The sun was really warm, and we needed the sunscreen and the hats that we’d taken.

The setup of this home is absolutely amazing. We saw only the outside with a little peak of the interior as we were taken through to our seats near where the orchestra was setting up. The large terrace on which we sat held about 50 chairs. And there were two lower terraces and then there was a large lawn on which the opera was performed. We were sitting very close to the orchestra, almost in the orchestra pit if it had been in a theatre.

There were no microphones and as we were sitting so close to the orchestra, we could hear the singing, but we couldn’t hear the words. That didn’t matter at all what we heard was the lovely music in the perfect setting.

Many people took their picnics onto the gross and we stayed where we were enjoying the birds’ song and chatting with some of the people who decided not to move either. Apart from the picnic that we had both brought, we had ordered a picnic box from an Italian restaurant. When we opened it, we saw that we did not need to have taken anything with us. There was enough for my friend to take home for lunch today.

Almost five hours later we left this magical place and the delightful people who own the property. They do this every year and I’m really glad we went this year and will be talking about it for weeks to come.

Today the weather changed.  No sun and the wind blew. How lucky we were to have chosen to go on Friday. It will be performed again tomorrow Sunday.

Another favourite

Another favourite from long ago is Walter de la Mare’s “The Listeners.” This was brought to mind when I was rereading The Highwayman. Walter de la Mare and Alfred Noyes lived at the same time in England, the late 19th century, and were no doubt both caught up in the romance and rhythm of words leading in particular to The Listener and The Highwayman

Read the poems aloud and listen to the rhythm. In each there are horses; in the Noyes’ poem the sound and rhythm of the horse making a fast getaway and in de la Mare’s we have the horse ‘chomping the grasses’ and the “plunging hoofs”

Here is the poem The Listeners

Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,   
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;   
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;   
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners   
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   
 ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even louder,
and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,   
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,   
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Source: The Collected Poems of Walter de la Mare (1979)

Can you see how this much younger person, me, always thought of the two poems together? Having been written at much the same time.

Again, as I have said before, I hope you are enjoying this trip down memory lane via the words of favourite poets/poems. Perhaps it will encourage you to relook at poetry you read, heard, or liked when you were younger.

Even More..

Did you read Alfred Noyes poems in your younger days, or are you still reading them?

For those of you who don’t know him, he was a prolific poet and in a time when it was almost unheard of (late 19th Century), he lived a quite comfortable life off the income earned from writing poetry. He is said to have “enjoyed notable relationships throughout his life, apparently drinking tea with Theodore Roosevelt in 1919 just hours before his death, and meeting privately with Premier Benito Mussolini in 1939, just before the start of World War II.” **

One of his most popular poems is The Highwayman. It tells of the love between Bess, the landlord’s daughter, and the highwayman. It is a real love story written and told in the romanticism that played in much of the literature of the time.

The ending is sad – remember I was about 12 years old when Father introduced us to this faourite. It’s a story of love and loss, and treachery told in verse.

The story is told in two parts and begins –

“The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   
And the highwayman came riding—Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,   
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.   
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.   
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there   
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love knot into her long black hair.

And it tells how

King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.   
But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!   
There was death at every window; And hell at one dark window
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
lot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!   
Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light.
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,   
Then her finger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

And –
He turned. He spurred to the west; he did not know who stood  
Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!   
Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear   
How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high.
Blood red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.“

And the story ends –

And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,   
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   
A highwayman comes riding Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.   
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there   
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Bess the landlord’s daughter
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

There’s so much to the story. Read it all here.

This poem is apparently, based on a true story that the poet heard while he was on holiday in “that part of England” Where highwaymen used to lie in wait for stagecoaches. – Growing up we believed that it was Essex Forrest and the Hackney Marshes, close to where we lived.

Note -** The Poetry Foundation

So another favourite poem heard so long ago and remembered forever. I. hope you are enjoying my trip down memory lane in poems

And Another

J M W Turner.
HMS Temeraire being towed to be broken up
Original held in National Gallery in London.

Today while making the bed (the trivial round, the common task) I looked at my framed print of the magnificent painting by J W M Turner and marvelled anew at Father’s fascination with English art and poetry, and his determination to share it with his girls.

I have said before, that because of need he left school at 13 and for the next 80-plus years he continued his own education. He it was, who taught us the love of words and took his three daughters from a young age to exhibitions, museums, and galleries so that we. could learn and appreciate that which he had taught himself.

The Fighting Temerair has been a standby in my life. He loved it and so do I. Read it aloud , hear the beat, and fill yourself with the pride in which the “British rulers of the oceans” held these fighting ships and the men who sailed on them. The final stanza of the poem puts it best =

Now the sunset breezes shiver,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
And she’s fading down the river,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
Now the sunset’s breezes shiver,
And she’s fading down the river,
But in England’s song forever
She’s the Fighting Téméraire.

On a visit to Petworth House in Sussex, which houses one of the largest collections of Turners in private hands, I purchased three prints of his Temeraire. As you will know from earlier posts, my children were inculcated with poetry from a young age. So we each have a framed copy hanging in our homes.

And now to the poem by Sir Henry Newbolt based upon the story of The Fighting Temeraire.

It was eight bells ringing,
For the morning watch was done,
And the gunner’s lads were singing,
As they polished every gun.
It was eight bells ringing,
And the gunner’s lads were singing,
For the ship she rode a-swinging,
As they polished every gun.

Oh! to see the linstock lighting, Téméraire! Téméraire!
Oh! to hear the round shot biting, Téméraire! Téméraire!
Oh! to see the linstock lighting, And to hear the round shot biting,
For we’re all in love with fighting On the fighting Téméraire.

Click here to read the rest of the poem

On its website, The National Gallery tells us -“The Temeraire was a 98-gun, three-decked ship of the line that had been launched in 1798, during the French Revolutionary War. Her name is a French word that means bold or fearless.

“On 21 October 1805, under the command of Captain Eliab Harvey, she had a chance to live up to her name. The occasion was the Battle of Trafalgar. When Admiral Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory came under heavy fire from the French, the Temeraire came to her defence.”

So that’s it from this very aged woman, who now has time to remember things from the past and write meandering blog posts about them. I hope you are enjoying my favourite poems each written so long ago and remembered by me so many years later.

Waitangi Day

Today February 6 is a public holiday in New Zealand – Waitangi Day.  It celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi the nation’s founding document that was signed on this day in 1840.

The document was signed on behalf of Queen Victoria by William Hobson, the then Governor of NZ, and by various Maori chiefs representing their tribes.  NZ Maoris are tribal and there is not one Maori nation and so the Treaty had to be taken around the country for signing by other Maoris.  The two versions of the Treaty (one in English and one in Maori) are not identical and over time there has been much debate as to what the two sides actually agreed.

The Treaty of Waitangi is currently on display in the He Tohu exhibition at the National Library of New Zealand/Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, in Wellington. “This climate-controlled exhibit space opened in 2017 and displays the Treaty, 1835 Declaration of Independence, and 1893 Women’s Suffrage Petition. The documents have not always been so secure.“

The Treaty gives Maoris the rights of British Citizenship and rights to their land.  The English version of the Treaty promises to:

• protect Māori interests from the encroaching British settlement;
• provide for British settlement; and
• establish a government to maintain peace and order.

while the Maori understand it to :

• secure tribal rangatiratanga (most often defined as chieftainship); and
• secure Māori land ownership.

However, apart from the Treaty, we do have the Waitangi Tribunal where claims by Maori for redress for breaches by the Crown are made.  The claims and settlements have been a significant feature of race relations since 1975.

Traditionally, celebrations are held at the Treaty House in Waitangi.  Politicians and other leaders are welcomed onto the marae, (a sacred open meeting place) by Maori elders.  Recently there has been a lot of dissension and Waitangi Day has become the focal point for Maori discontent. This year Maori have been particularly vocal as they see the new tri-partite government undermining rights that have been in place for many years.

Successive Governments have attempted to compensate Maori for the loss of their land and quite large settlements have been awarded.  This too has caused dissension, particularly among the Pakeha (the Maori word for those not Maori) and some of the Maori tribes who have not received compensation.

So while February 6 should be a day of rejoicing and celebration, it is regularly marked with protest.  This year the the deputy Prime Minister (who in my opinion is a definite racist) was drowned out by protesters when making his speech; the Prime Minister was allowed to speak but the leader of the third party did not fare so well

Our peaceful bi-cultural nation is hurting under the arguments and protests and in the end, nobody wins.

Yet Another Poem

“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness
and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sound.“
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
1792-1822

Poetry has always been part of my life. As a family, we used to recite to each other and we all had favourite poems and favourite authors. I have shared some with you but now wish to share a lighthearted one that has been on my mind all day.

If no one ever marries me, circa 1912, by William Loudan.
Gift of R. Hannah and Co., 1912. Te Papa (1912-0005-1)
“This image has a rights statement of No Known Copyright Restrictions“

William Mouat Loudan’s painting of a little girl gazing in a mirror was inspired by this charming 1897 poem by English novelist Laurence Alma-Tadema.

If no one ever marries me, –
And I don’t see why they should,
For nurse says I’m not pretty,
And I’m seldom very good –

If no one ever marries me
I shan’t mind very much;
I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,
And a little rabbit hutch;

I shall have a cottage near a wood,
And a pony all my own,
And a little lamb quite clean and tame,
That I can take to town;

And when I’m getting really old, –
At twenty-eight or nine –
I shall buy a little orphan-girl
And bring her up as mine.

The painting is held in Te Papa, the National Museum of Aotearoa, New Zealand.  We are told by Wikipedia “The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand’s national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa (Māori for ‘the treasure box’). It opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand and the National Art Gallery.[ An average of more than 1.5 million people visit every year, making it the 26th most-visited art gallery in the world. Te Papa operates under a bicultural philosophy and emphasises the living stories behind its cultural treasures.”
And a treasure chest it surely is. It’s a joy to visit for young and old, and those in between. I used to take my grandsons there and they dug for dinosaurs in the sand, walked on rope bridges, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. In time they progressed to the other ‘grown-up’ things to be admired and commented upon

Shortly after my misadventure in 2016, I wrote about an exhibition that my No. three Grandson took me to –Galipoli Another senseless war with so many young. men’s lives on both sides lost

Here endeth another meandering post from this very aged blogger.

Hop Picking in Kent

I have been looking back some 70 years to growing up in London during and following the end of the Second World War. There were few luxuries to be had and little money to pay for them. Holidays were one of the luxuries many couldn’t afford.

At its height, from the Twenties to the Fifties, about 200,000 East Enders – mostly women and children – made the annual pilgrimage down into the Kentish hop gardens, filling the ‘hopper’s specials’ trains which left from London Bridge station in the early hours of the morning.
The Rita family, (Papa’s family) mothers, fathers, and children all went hopping in Kent each year as their summer holiday and to make some extra money.
But our family never went. Mother thought this beneath us. Only the poor went hopping.
I remember hearing about the fun all the cousins had. Long, hot days virtually unsupervised when the mothers picked hops.  During the week the fathers stayed in London to work. They, of course, went down at the weekends and joined in the hopping.
I wanted to join them, but Mother was adamant – we didn’t go hopping.
But I remember being taken to the hop fields one time. Father’s older brother, Uncle Fred was a chauffeur and I presume, he was allowed to use the car for his own purposes.  Who knew? I was a small girl and just accepted that this uncle would drive us to Kent.
So, with Father and my elder sister, Christine, we piled into the limo. Mother, of course, would have none of it, choosing not to mix with the rest of the family at this awful place. Marianne the baby, was considered too young to be away from her Mother for the whole day.
And it was an awful place. The conditions were rudimentary, to say the least. The hoppers lived in unheated sheds and took their bedding and anything they needed for the six-week stay, with them. Cooking was done over fires outdoors or in huge concrete cookhouses. No provision was made for laundry and clothes were mostly washed, if at all, in a stream.
September and it was hot on the day we went to Kent. Even though this was a top-of-the-line limo, perhaps an Austin Princess, there was no air conditioning. It was after all, early 1950s and shortly after the war had ended. So, the car was luxurious but not what we have come to expect today.
As was usual it took ages to get out of town. Just after the war and there were few cars on the roads usually, but because it was a sunny, warm Sunday it seemed that everyone who had a car had decided to go out for the day.
We lived in the east end of London, north of the river and had to drive through London to join the main road. There were no motorways then: they weren’t introduced until 1958 when The Preston Bypass was opened.
But back to our day. The journey took forever.
Eventually, we arrived to be greeted by a horde of cousins laughing and screaming and delighted to see some new faces.
I think the family must have hired a couple of vans to take all they would need for the time in Kent. I seem to remember there were couches and chairs and tables around their huts, although most of the other huts weren’t as well furnished.
We had a great day. Father caught up with siblings and their spouses and Christine and I played happily with our cousins. I really wanted to go with them next year.
But then it was time to go home. Goodbyes were said and we moved over to the car. Helping us in, Uncle Fred unfortunately slammed the door onto my hand. Tears from me and consternation from the family. “What would Dora say?” Yes, Mother was considered a bit of a harridan by the others. Well, she rarely joined them and when she did, she always sat apart.
The hand was not badly hurt. A bandage was brought out and I got to sit in the front seat all the way home as a present for being such a good brave girl.
And Mother really wasn’t at all impressed, backing up her thoughts on hopping.

I haven’t managed to find a family photo of that time but if you click here you will be taken to Spitalfields Life and many photos of that time and activity.

Cricket on the Green

The thwack of leather on willow and I am taken back to England when as a newly married young woman, I was introduced to cricket on the village green.

My DYS (Dashing Young Scotsman) was an avid cricket fan and most Saturdays in the Summer would find us at a cricket match where 11 serious young men (and often not so young men) in whites would attempt to hit a leather ball bowled at them by one of the11 players in the opposing team.

The thwack is unlike any other sound I have ever heard. The ball has to be leather and it consists of ‘a cork core wound with string then a leather cover stitched on,’ I once saw a fielder hit in the arm by a ball. He had his arm in a sling the next time I saw him. The bat is made of willow and most batsmen have their own bat.

All this was brought to mind today on the way to lunch. Passing a local sports field I saw the players and had to stop to hear the thwack. Once again I was in that little village watching the men play while the women chatted or made afternoon tea for the players and spectators. The afternoon teas were always good, being tea in a variety of cups (no coffee) and dainty white bread sandwiches and home baking. And as visitors, we were always made most welcome More great memories.

And because I am on a bit of a poetry binge at present I thought of Sir Henry Newbolt’s Vitae Lampada. Do you know this poem? It’s so very English.

“There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight —
Ten to make and the match to win —
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it’s not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,
But his Captain’s hand on his shoulder smote —
‘Play up! play up! and play the game!“
Sir Henry Newbolt,   English poet, novelist, and historian
1862 – 1938

To read the rest of the poem and one man’s take on its meaning go to The Haunting Beauty and Relevance of Vitai Lampada

Five Word Friday

Friday, February 2 – it’s the first Friday of the month and so time for Five Word Friday. 

My five words for this month are The Way Through the Woods

Do you know the poem The Way Through The Woods by Rudyard Kipling, the English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist? He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. 1865-1936

Maybe you know him through The Jungle Book or IF. But I have been a lifelong lover of his poetry and for the past few days, The Way Through The Woods has been drumming in my ear.

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods

It started when I was hanging out the laundry on the line to dry on a lovely summer’s day. While there I looked out a gate that the boys used to use when they lived at home. It was a well-defined and well-used path through the bush leading to a friend’s house further down the hill and then to the village. But when the boys left to go to Canterbury University in the South Island, one to study architecture and one engineering, the path was no longer used. So apart from the gate being in place there is no sign of the way through the bush. But it didn’t fall into neglect and disuse in seventy years as in Kipling’s poem but in a matter of five years.

A walk in the bush

Note -In Aotearoa/New Zealand, we refer to the woods as the bush

And for the rest of the Kipling poem click here

The first of the month

Among the many things I miss now that my elder sister is no longer with us, is a silly thing. On the first of every month since we were little girls, she would ask “Did you say white rabbits?” This continued until all three of us were married and had our own families. All so very far apart in distance, Christine, the eldest in Los Angeles, Marianne the youngest in London, and me, the middle child here in Wellington, NZ. For many years when phone calls were an exorbitant price (relatively speaking), she would always add the question in a letter – ‘did you remember to say White Rabbits on the first?” And then with the introduction of the internet and emails, we received the question on the day.

So today I miss her question. Do other people still say White Rabbit? And of course, because I love discovering the etymology of a word or phrase and using Mr Google, I had a hunt on the internet. I found a site called Word Histories and here they give several thoughts on the origin. It’s said to be a British incantation calling for good luck throughout the year.

And of course, Wikipedia has much to say on the subject.

So another lovely day here in Aotearoa comes to an end, 

And so another lovely summer’s day in Wellington, Aotearoa comes to an end. 
As I have said you can’t bear Wellington on a good day
and this has been a cracker.