A day in the life...

DownLand

-- Stale hay clings 

to the memory

of walking barefoot

across the Downs 

at dawn.

Alfriston flickering 

below the low slung

clouds -- rain heavy.

--- She strides ahead

100 yards, 110 yards

120... 

It is never a good time

to say goodbye...

on DownLand.

Day in the life of a Poet (September 2020)

 Wild Poppies

-- In the lee of the 
Sussex Downs,
a field of wild poppies

explode in the heat

of another

Jevington morning.

a glimpse of

heaven, along 

the lane.

-- St Andrew's

door is open. 

The silence is

fractured.

--- The Sunflower 

Ceremony.

The faintest hint 

of Absolut ---

Some kisses 

mean so much 

more than others.

The Island of Pointless Romantic Gestures (Recollections #1)

I used to live on a small island off the northern coast of Europe surrounded by the North Sea, Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It was a quiet island, inhabited by silent dreams, futile relationships and pointless romantic gestures. Invariably it was a cold and wet place with borders, history, pubs, memories, lies, arcane laws, ludicrous accents, wild folk tales and long winters.

Yet it occasionally, when bathed in a rare lemonade shade sun, transformed itself into (an albeit scaled down) version of paradise. Full of summer picnics on the Downs, languid days on the beach and late nights wrapped in the the deep embrace of cheap vodka and expensive perfume.

Pure love was the only thing to strive for and even then you had to be...Lucky.
So, very lucky!

One early spring morning I awoke in my home town (the name of which I have long forgotten) before the frost and milkman had arrived. Sitting down at my chair and loading the sheet of paper into my typewriter I proceeded to write the hundred and one things I loved about Mon Amante.

It was easy, the reasons flew to the page. I finished, showered, dressed and walked to the railway station. She lived about 50 miles away but I'd have to travel via Capital. I bought a 2nd class ticket and boarded the train, heading for the buffet car. Where I ordered 4 slices of hot buttered toast and 4 cans of full strength lager.

Despite it being commuter hour, the train was relatively quiet. I sat back on the smoke backed seat and started breakfast, reading the newspaper I'd found on the seat whilst simultaneously watching the countryside slip by at 60mph and the lager slip down at a no less impressive rate. By the time we reached Capital, I'd topped up twice on the liquid company. The portable tape cassette player I had with me had provided a delightful soundtrack. Sinatra, ACR and Sinatra some more. I double-checked the 101 and then proceeded to write a companion piece of a further 72 reasons that no love in the world had ever existed like this.

An hour later, the train reached Capital and I made my way to the river. Standing next to the obelisk, I wrote 'Lips like Honey' in Paloma Picasso lipstick beneath the Sphinx and took a couple of pictures with my Polaroid™ camera. I then carried along beside the river to the other station. My next train wasn't until midday but the station bar was open. There is nothing more romantic than sitting alone in a station bar, with a pint of lager at 11.01am.

That lager disappeared, the train arrived. A new lager arrived, that train disappeared. My notebook was creased, the words were flow/fly all over the white/lines. I popped out of the station and bought two bottles of Thunderbird Wine. I got on the 1:30 train. I had to arrive before 3:30. The train meandered though the silence of SE Capital. Stopping at all the halts, cuttings and sidings ever invented (and a few more etc...). The train arrived at Destination Central. I left one empty bottle on the seat.

DC's cab rank was empty but the freephone was working. Her address was tattooed on my arm and we'd arrived and I'd paid before I'd even had the chance to ignore the drab town centre, where the pub with the Iron Wheel outside played host to the Indie Disco every third Thursday...

Dropped off 50 yards from her house. sealing the envelope with the 101 reasons + 72 train observations, two sphinx photos, a postcard of a Young Sinatra, a bar of white chocolate and a wrap of speed - I walked up her path.  I then gently placed the flowers and bottle of Thunderbird wine behind a big grey flowerpot (obscuring it from the road and the thirsty but in view from the open door). I then slipped the envelope through the letterbox.

The Corporation bus journey back in to Capital was less than eventful, the Sinatra batteries faded and the words waxed, waned and then disappeared completely.

"It happened in.... a long time ago".

Dusk was busying itself amongst the emerging streetlights. I stepped into The Lord Nelson, ordered a full one and asked to use the phone at the end of the bar. I rang her number, she picked up the receiver and the 10p dropped. "Open the door".

I didn't wait for her answer. I was lucky, very lucky...

Even if only for that day! On that small island.

Eric Ravilious

Eric William Ravilious (22 July 1903 – 2 September 1942) was an English painter, designer, book illustrator and wood engraver. He grew up in Sussex, and is particularly known for his watercolours of the South Downs. He served as a war artist, and died when the aircraft he was on was lost off Iceland.

Ravilious was born on 22 July 1903 in Churchfield Road, Acton, London. While he was still a small child the family moved to Eastbourne in Sussex, where his parents ran an antique shop.

He was educated at Eastbourne Grammar school (weren't we all?). In 1919 he won a scholarship to Eastbourne School of Art and in 1922 another to study at the Design School at the Royal College of Art. There he became close friends with Edward Bawden and, from 1924, studied under Paul Nash. Nash, an enthusiast for wood engraving, encouraged him in the technique, and was impressed enough by his work to propose him for membership of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1925, and helped him to get commissions.

In 1925 he received a travelling scholarship to Italy and visitied Florence, Siena, and the hill towns of Tuscany. Following this he began teaching part-time at the Eastbourne School of Art, and from 1930 taught (also part-time) at the Royal College of Art. In the same year he married Eileen Lucy "Tirzah" Garwood (1908-1951) also a noted artist and engraver. Between 1930 and 1932 the couple lived in Hammersmith, London, where there is a blue plaque on the wall of their house at the corner of Upper Mall and Weltje Road. In 1932 they moved to rural Essex where they initially lodged with Edward Bawden at Great Bardfield. In 1934 they purchased Bank House at Castle Hedingham, and a blue plaque now commemorates this. They had three children: John Ravilious; the photographer James Ravilious; and Anne Ullmann, editor of books on her parents and their work.

In 1928 Ravilious and Bawden painted a mural at Morley College in South London on which they worked for a whole year. Their work was described by J. M. Richards as "sharp in detail, clean in colour, with an odd humour in their marionette-like figures" and "a striking departure from the conventions of mural painting at that time". It was destroyed by bombing in 1941. In 1933 Ravilious and his wife painted murals at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe. Ravilious engraved more than four hundred illustrations and drew over forty lithographic designs for books and publications during his lifetime. His first commission, in 1926, was to illustrate a novel for Jonathan Cape. He went on to produce work both for large companies such as the Lanston Corporation and smaller, less commercial publishers, such as the Golden Cockerel Press (for whom he illustrated an edition of Twelfth Night), the Curwen Press and the Cresset Press.

His woodcut of two Victorian gentlemen playing cricket has appeared on the front cover of every edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack since 1938. Hiis style of wood-engraving was greatly influenced by that of Thomas Bewick. In the mid-1930s he took up lithography, making a print of Newhaven Harbour for the "Contemporary Lithographs" scheme, and a set of full-page lithographs for a book called High Street, with text by J. M. Richards. In 1936 Ravilious was invited by Wedgwood to make designs for ceramics. His work for them included a commemorative mug to mark the coronation of Edward VIII, the "Boat Race" bowl and the "Garden" series of plates, in which each size of plate showed a different plant. Production of Ravilious' designs continued into the 1950s, with the coronation mug design being posthumously reworked for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Apart from a brief experimentation with oils in 1930 – inspired by the works of Johan Zoffany – Ravilious painted almost entirely in watercolour.

He was especially inspired by the landscape of the South Downs around Beddingham. He frequently returned to Furlongs, the cottage of Peggy Angus. He considered that his time at Furlongs "...altered my whole outlook and way of painting, I think because the colour of the landscape was so lovely and the design so beautifully obvious ... that I simply had to abandon my tinted drawings". Some of his most famous works, such as Tea at Furlongs, were painted there.

Writer Geraldine Bedell: - "his painting was influenced by his design. His elegant watercolours, with their stipples, hatching and drastically simplified shapes, are instantly recognisable. And he maintained his artistic identity when he became a war artist. - His work is light of touch, elegant, and hugely pleasurable."

Ravilious was appointed an official war artist in 1940, with the rank of Honorary Captain in the Royal Marines. During that year he painted at the Royal Naval Barracks at Chatham and Sheerness; sailed to Norway and the Arctic on board HMS Highlander, which was carrying out escort duties, and painted submarines at Gosport and coastal defences at Newlyn. In 1941 he spent six months with the navy at Dover, then transferred to Scotland in October. He spent much of 1942 at various R.A.F. bases, before being posted to Iceland in August.

He was killed on 2 September 1942 while accompanying a Royal Air Force air sea rescue mission off Iceland that failed to return to its base.