Shape

Photos edited by Glenys
Words written by Richard

Victoria had lots of room,
And Osborne House was her country pad.
Hayfields bronze, The Solent shines and gardens bloom.

Those of you who remember the Russell-Cotes museum in Bournemouth will recall the prevalence of images of naked ladies. Judging by the decor of Osborne House, the origins of the trend are revealed.

These do not detract (but maybe distract play) from the magnificence. Statues of children relieve the munificence.

Family dining room

Banqueting room

From the Terrace are magnificent views across the Solent and there disporting themselves are statues of naked ladies and gentlemen.

All-in-all, we feel a little overdressed.
Or, Perhaps not.


Victoria still keeps an eye on things, of course.

It is a reflection on today’s prudery that the rooms containing Queen Victoria’s lavatory and the bedrooms with secret adjoining doors, visible sixty years ago, are no longer open to the public.

Within the estate is a chalet,called The Swiss Cottage, built to entertain Victoria’s children. As well as establishing a museum there, they were encouraged to learn the rudiments of gardening under the supervision of an expert gardener.

A brisk walk from there takes us to a beautifully unspoiled beach, still much as Victoria and many children must have enjoyed it There are with views over The Solent and the picture here tells of its busy trade waters of constant and varying interest.

Victoria’s bathing machine

A little weary, we trudge up to the House again.

Just before leaving, we look round the extensive walled garden, full of produce and exotic blooms. A tribute to the heroes of the Great War is a stark, if incongruous, reminder of the horrors that were to mark the end of an era.

Photos edited by Glenys
Words written by Richard

That splendid tree could bear more figs
While prayers break silence in the gloom
Or monks tend well their rare-breed pigs.

A couple or so miles away from Shiloh Cottage is a rare, what was in mediaeval times, a fortified monastery, Quarr Abbey. Yes, you heard me right, a fortified monastery. How this reconciles with a religion of turning the other cheek and loving your enemy is hard to tell. Here we have an instance of deadly pragmatism: if you buy wine from France by special mediaeval royal exemption and sell it on at a profit you’d obviously wish to protect this and other trade, wouldn’t you? You lead a self-sufficient Benedictine life, praying, after all, for the souls of the worldly and avaricious.

Way back in 1953 a family including a child and a teenager trudged along a remote footpath to a solemn brick Church dating from the 1800s with adjoining living quarters.

The modern abbey church completed in 1912

Inside, in reality, it was dark, lit only by candles and a distant stained glass window.

In those days not a place for a child of nine to linger. Now that child, sixty-four years later, has a morbid fascination with permanent darkness. Better not stay too long. This old ruin will go and see the other old ruins.

In 1536 Henry VIII dissolved all the monasteries, confiscated their wealth and allowed materials from the extensive buildings to be used elsewhere. The rich and gorgeous religious houses all over the kingdom were thus reduced to ruins.

The foundations have disappeared under the huge field the buildings once occupied and all that is left are the church nave converted into a barn, a few ruined walls and the remains of gun emplacements.

The mediaeval nave converted into a barn. The windows are original.

Present-day monks in their cells endure the tourists and tolerate the sale of ice-creams, coffee and cream buns. In the gift shop they engage enthusiastically in the commercial life of the country. I buy GK Chesterton’s complete Father Brown then inspect the rare-breed pigs.
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On the way, Glenys notices a magnificent fig tree and wonders why it bears no figs. I recall how Jesus cursed a fig tree because it bore no fruit and the next day it withered away. That explains everything. Or perhaps with the bell calling the monks to prayer in the subdued light of the church six times a day they simply do not have enough time. We mustn’t be too hard on them.

Back to the car we go, a quick preview of Osborne House, our destination for tomorrow, and Shiloh Cottage.

We unlatched and opened the gate
To the cottage arranged for our digs
On the minute the hour and the date!

Wootton Creek

Time of Fishbourne Ferry: 1400 hrs. Our arrival time: 1230 hrs.

“Too early! You’ll have to come back at half past one, it’s busy today!” the uniformed official announces as sympathetically as he can. “Yes,” he crisply replies to the inevitable query, “There’s a car park down the road just opposite.”

He is right, and a waterfront shopping mall by a new concrete landmark nearby called the Spinnaker Tower provides a suitable site for lunch.

Portsmouth Harbour from the new shopping mall

The Spinnaker Tower from the ferry. (Oops!! Choppy sea.)

Replete and content, we board the ferry, traverse the historic waters of the Solent, disembark into the psychological calm and peace of the Island, successfully navigating the few miles along road and track to our destination.

The lady is pleasant enough and owns some horses not far away. We can use her private, surfaced road she tells is available through a gate instead of the rough bridleway the charming voice in the satellite tested our suspension on.

The private road beyond the gate.

She is a neatnick, though. Not only is there a place for everything and everything in its place, but every place is measured with pure naval accuracy, the pattern on every plate is oriented North-East and cup handles point South- East. Does she space initialled towels with unerring exactitude on their rails? Soon, under our supervision, any such towels will fall to the floor and cables become tripwires in just the way nature intended.

Then a brief walk in the hush of our rural setting.

Along the bridleway towards the holiday house.

The Solent blue, glittering and resplendent.

a glass of wine, more to eat, sunset from the balcony and to bed.

I have no ambition to rile,
Or engage in learned debate,
But is an Island an Isle?

Islands grip the imagination, perhaps because there is no certainty as to what precisely an island is. Australia is a land mass surrounded by water, but it qualifies rather as a continent. A lighthouse may sit atop a rock beaten from all points by crashing ocean waves, but it is not on an island. Great Britain is an island but it is compromised by constituting three nations. Just four miles off the coast of England is the “Isle” of Wight, part of Great Britain, happily referred to without ambiguity by locals as “the Island”. Some wish to build a bridge from somewhere nearby on the “mainland” but will it still be an island? Promoters should heed the lessons of doing so from the Bridge to the Isle of Skye and even more from the Eurotunnel.

Long ago there was a King of the Isle of Wight and Royals continue to be drawn towards it. Charles I was imprisoned in Cariisbrooke Castle before his execution, Winston Churchill has multiple associations with the place, clearly not compromised in its status by P.L.U.T.O – “PipeLine Under the Ocean” – which carried fuel to the Allies on and after D-Day.

And don’t forget the Romans came and called it “Vectis”. Received Latin pronunciation of “V’ is “W”. Vectis…Wectis…Wight…Wectis….Wight. Could be. Anyway, a Roman patrician built a villa on Brading Down, overlooking the sweep of Sandown Bay, now a favourite holiday resort, promising, with its micro-climate, a good chance of fine weather. Perhaps our Roman friend was reminded of the Bay of Naples. I cannot say, for I have never been to Naples.

Still, I have visited the Island umpteen times, so why not again, if only to fathom the difference between an “Island” and an “Isle”?  I may then explain why it is the “British Isles” or the “Scilly Isles” or the ”Isle of Sheppey” – now no longer an island – but “Canvey Island” in the middle of the Thames, as is simply “Runnymede”, which was given to the United States of America in memory of the signing on that Island of Magna Carta by King John.

So pack, prepare and head for the Portsmouth to Fishbourne ferry….

From *Nymans*, If you read the map,
Along the road to Coleman’s Hatch,
Towards the south, High Beeches stands.
Now May’s the month its ample lands
With blooms are bless’d without a match.
Seventy-two! So Al’s the chap-

His birthday’s not so far away,
He likes the tea rooms by the gate,
They have his fav’rite nut roast there.
So will he come, may we all share?
Let’s check to see the special date,
Will he be free the elev’nth of May?

It’s all arranged. Today’s the day!
Blue skies suggest the sun will shine.
Now if we leave around elev’n,
An hour should get us there to heav’n.
By way of Godstone will be fine,
Then Turner’s Hill – we’re here. Hooray!

Hugs and kisses!, “Greetings Al !
A Happy Birthday! You look well.
How is your foot? Are you OK?
Will it last? It’s quite a way.”
– “Oh yes, the fields and through the dell,
It’s worth it, don’t you worry, pal.”

Replete with coffee and nut roast,
We’ll pay while at the ticket hut
And shyly claim the agėd rate.
The blooms are fine! Were not too late.
Then through the gate and pull it shut
We pause, blue skies stretch to the coast

Rhododendrons grace the slopes,
With purples reds and white ones too.
Azaleas, their flowers are yellow
Suddenly emit sweet smell – Oh!
We can’t resist and wander through
To fill our sense and raise our hopes.

In ecstasy we move along.
Rare trees look down upon us fools
For they are old and much more wise.
No soporific can disguise
That all shall die – those are the rules –
So live and love – learn well that song.

Strengthened thus, we linger by
The waters and the gushing streams
That take us through the wooded dell.
We’re weary, but you cannot tell.
Up through the field to oaken beams.
Now for a cream tea (on the sly!).

Is Natural Selection enough
To make from a handful of fluff
And physical laws
A single life force
Or is it all really a bluff?

I’m not saying NS is wrong
It’s just for an answer I long
Given time, dimension and rule
With energy there as a tool
Is it rhyme and rhythm and song?

Did it start with layers and layers
Of swirling muddle and chaos,
Or was there a brain
That took hold of the rein
And made out of the clay – us?

By Richard

Whether you are German-Polish, Swedish or British you have a claim to the measurement of temperature.

Fahrenheit, Celsius and Lord Kelvin have given their names to different scales but only Kelvin remains in its original form, using absolute zero and the “Triple Point” of water (whatever they are). It turns out from its adaptations that a single Celsius degree is now equal to a single Kelvin degree. Fahrenheit was originally based on the freezing point of water and body temperature, though now changed to, well, you know, 32 °F (note the space), water’s freezing point and 212 °F, water’s boiling point.

Brought up on °F it has been very difficult to adapt meteorologically to °C despite my unquestioning use of it in science at school and its complete elimination, by degrees, from weather forecasts.

Mercifully, the USA has stuck loyally and officially to °F. There’s something more natural and human about it. Perhaps because of its original association with blood temperature.

A °F is about half a °C, so it’s more accurate – and more fun. As an 8 year-old on a sweltering June day classmates and I watched the thermometer in the classroom. 83-84-85-86!-87!!-88!!!-89!!! … not quite 90. The same humanity attaches to lbs, stones, inches, feet, yards, miles, £, s and d. How much cosier they are than gm, kilo, cm, m, km and €, tidy or astronomical though the latter may be.

If you really want to be a European, just deduct 32 from °F, then divide by 9 then multiply by 5 for °C.

Last Wednesday we were told it was going to be 23 °C in London and we had an appointment in Harley Street. Arriving at Victoria Station we, and everyone else there, were dressed flimsily and the ladies colourfully. People smiled and kissed. There was a jauntiness in their steps. London was decked in a burgeoning show of green and birds sang in the trees. The blue, blue, blue River Thames moved silently and gracefully at the turn of the tide, ripples reflecting the morning sun in a thousand and one bobbing dapples arranged by Monet. Then I realised why: 21°C is …  70 °F  !

Time for a few snaps. Alas, they do not do justice to the joy, expectation  and, yes, youthful beauty, at every turn.

Harley Street

Wimpole Street

Oxford Street Looking South

Oxford Street Looking North

Regent Street Looking West. My paternal grandmother’s father had a greengrocer’s shop in a little road to the left – Foubert’s Place – that leads to Soho.

Regent Street Looking North. That’s John Nash’s All Hallow’s Church at the end. The BBC’s Art Deco old Broadcasting House is just out of view to the left. Is much extended new Broadcasting House is just behind All Hallow’s.

And the temperatures continue to rise. On Saturday, for the London Marathon, they are set to be 24 °C. That’s over 75 °F. Phew! I never knew it was that much.

Here’s the garden today, lawn mown and trimmed on our return from London

By Richard with significant input from Glenys and some images from the Guide Book for the Russell-Cotes Museum.

Seascape from the Russell-Cotes Museum

Easter Sunday , what a relief! Jesus Christ is Risen Today!

This is the most important day in the church calendar. For many Christians, it is the only day they attend formal worship. For ourselves, we plan to celebrate mammon by a visit to the Russell-Cotes museum, just along the cliff.

Merton Russell-Cotes was of the exceptionally wealthy new Victorian British middle class risen out of both trade, the driving force of imperial expansion, and the first industrial revolution, a product of the Enlightenment, each feeding off the other. His father, a successful businessman, died when he was eight years old and relatives in Glasgow took him in. He met and married Annie there, subsequently taking up a post with an insurance company in Dublin. After a visit to Bournemouth for health reasons (he suffered recurrent bouts of lung disease throughout his life) he came to live there and opened the Bath Hotel . It was outstandingly successful and attracted the highest in the land, including the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and became the Royal Bath Hotel.

The Royal Bath Hotel, as it is today

Extreme wealth, doubtless derived from this success, enabled Merton and Annie to travel throughout the Empire and beyond to Japan and the Far East, buying and shipping back artefacts of every description. All acquisitions were legal and above board. A Japanese Ambassador once paid a visit and and expressed his appreciation of the quality of the Japanese collection.

Merton filled the Royal Bath with objects, which had the effect of luring even more VIPs, and lent his artworks to public museums, so increasing the financial and cultural worth of his collection and allowing him to promote the hotel. Both he and Annie applied their increasing fortune to charitable works and, in particular, Annie opened a local school.

Eventually, in 1899, Merton built a house next door to accommodate what had now become his museum and art gallery. Unusually for the time it had electricity, plumbing,double-glazing, central heating and a telephone with the number “Bournemouth 1”. Merton presented the house to Annie for her 66th birthday.

At the first level is the original front door.

The Russell-Cotes Museum, from the seaward side

The Conservatory, enjoying beautiful views of the sea and coast

The Main Staircase

The Empress Eugenie’s Cabinet

Empress Eugenie of France, the wife of Napoleon III and a powerful woman of high intellect in her own right, fled to England with her family in 1871 after her husband was deposed in 1870. Merton had bought the cabinet at auction not knowing it was originally hers. In those days you were expected to give to royalty anything they expressed a liking for but Merton had given it to Annie and never handed it over.

Henry Irving, the first actor to be knighted, was a friend and there is a collection of his theatre props and personal items that Merton acquired at auction.
[ceiling]

Merton seems to have had a predilection for depictions of naked ladies – in the best possible taste, of course. Peacocks also feature everywhere in the museum.

This upstairs balcony was, until the addition of the art galleries, the principal display space for the pairs growing collection

Among the notable paintings is a Landseer, Flood in the Scottish Highlands filled with anxious people and their animals. Its location in a dark corner made a photo impossible with my little camera, and flash wasn’t allowed.

Here is the pre-Raphaelite Venus Verticordia by Rossetti, his only nude, for which Andrew Lloyd Webber reputedly offered the museum £30m. Fortunately the offer was not accepted.The dusky pink roses represent love, while the honeysuckle in the foreground represents equality. The original model was an unknown cook Rosetti noticed on a London street. He repainted the face with a more favoured muse. It took four years to complete and nearly bankrupted him. He ordered a daily delivery of flowers that he painted from life. It was the practice of the pre-Raphaelites to paint from life.

It is difficult to select items from the vast array of pictures and artefacts, and only the pictures, generally speaking, make successful photographs.

“Anno Domini” by Edwin Longsden Long (1883)

In 1907, when he was Mayor of Bournemouth, Merton gave the house and the collection to the town for public benefit, and so it remains today.

Annie and Merton were married for sixty years and had five children. She died in April 1920 and he died nine months later.

Annie’s Wedding Dress as skilfully reconstructed from photographs

The museum remained open throughout the Second World War, although many of the valuable works were loaned to local schools and churches for safety. The basement was converted to a gas shelter and much of the garden given over to growing vegetables. French soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk were invited to tea.

Feeling culturally, religiously and digestively fulfilled after a mushroom soup and roll in the cafeteria, I spoke of Boscombe, the resort a couple of miles along the coast. I have a photograph of me aged three at the guest house, memories of a swimming pool at the end of the road, pine-scented walks down the chine, dragging my spade behind me, to the trolleybus turntable by the pier and the golden beach. The soft thud of couples in their whites playing tennis provided a musical background.

Alas, seventy-one years have taken their toll. Now it is the boot camp of leather on football, the smell of decaying food in the snack bar, yells of indulged children on the crazy golf and a scruffy path to the beach where the noddy landtrain staggers along, belching diesel fumes from its overloaded locomotive.

We mounted this conveyance and spent the next hour travelling the two miles back to the Hotel Miramar, churned like butter and spiritually decommissioned. Never again!

“Innocence Personified ” (1946)

Those familiar with the Apostles’ Creed know that the crucifixion of Christ is to do with the Fall of Man. Thus it was that a little after lunch today, while on a short social call as the rest of family party waited patiently by the entrance to the pier, this man tripped and fell. Not quite a mortal sacrifice to save humanity from sin, but more a circumstance requiring his own salvation as he writhed like a wounded serpent.

The day began innocently enough, having regard to its religious significance. In my childhood, Good Friday was a day of weeping and gnashing of teeth on hot cross buns. But Saturday was the day Christ descended into Hell. Yes, God descended into Hell, no doubt to give the Devil a bloody nose.

The rain cleared and this panorama was visible briefly from the balcony.

While lingering in the hotel foyer we were suddenly swept into a guided walk – a foray into Bournemouth’s hidden secrets, conducted at a challenging pace in an Antarctic gale.

The Victorian hotel, with its Arts and Crafts associations is impressive viewed from its pleasant gardens.
Originally it was the Austrian ambassador’s seaside cottage. In the 1920s, however, it was turned into a hotel and the carbuncles were added on either wing. Room104 is the carbuncle in the left, first floor(second floor, American usage)

JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in room 205 on the first floor – right in the centre there.

Not that he liked Bournemouth that much, irritated as he was by the small-town gossip. He went for his wife’s sake, who did, and who liked to sit on the patio. He preferred to shut himself away to write. At the first opportunity he’d high-tail it back to Oxford for the more congenial company of his fellow dons.

The dining room was the inspiration for Terence Rattigan’s Separate Tables. Will this knowledge cause me to view the hotel’s single diners in a more morbid light?

At the start of the Second World War, the Hotel was requisitioned and handed over to the Red Cross. Subsequently the American Women’s Army Corps occupied it. All hotels were ultimately requisitioned for troops and in July 1944 the sea was filled with warships readying for D-Day.

On the clifftop is this memorial to the two pilots who gave their lives here performing with the Red Arrows.

Every year the aerobatic team return to give a spectacular display, at times flying at supersonic speed just feet below the monument, along the cliff face earning thousands for charity. Alongside is the memorial stone to the Canadian former Battle of Britain pilot who in 1947 crashed his Spitfire into the sea after a loop.

Down The zig-zag path we go.

Bournemouth has seven miles of golden sands and is a popular spa.

Through the mist you can just see Hengistbury Head,the closest point to the Isle of Wight in the far background.

It was at Hengistbury Head that Charles Rolls (of Rolls Royce fame), an early aviator, crashed his primitive plane and was killed. He was the first to fly across the English Channel non-stop in both directions. Soon we reached the promenade. See the beach huts, each costing more than a house. Here is the hut erected in 1909, reputedly the first in the world.

The stone in the next shot marks the laying of the first section of the first section of the promenade in 1907.

Kaiser Wilhelm II stayed in Bournemouth and drove his Rolls Royce along the promenade. He was mightily popular in those days. How Are The Mighty Fallen!

Underneath the new paving is a Victorian sewage system. Effluent is pumped up to the outskirts of the town, purified and let into the sea. The resort boasts a clean, pollution-free beach as a result of this forward-looking enterprise. Around the corner is Where Are Today The Humble Fallen!

By English standards Bournemouth is a new town. Neighbouring Christchurch, for example, began as a priory founded in 650 AD. Bournemouth rose from naked heathland with a single house in 1812. A little later another was erected for a wife overcoming depression after a miscarriage. Here it is, overlooking fine views towards the Isle of Wight. Its garden covered eight acres now dedicated to public use and enjoyment.

A bourne is an undergound river that rises to the surface from time to time after heavy rainfall – currently closely associated ideas. Here it is channelled above ground through the gardens.

Follow its course and you emerge in Westover Road, once a fashionable parade where visitors sauntered up and down in their finery to browse the expensive wares displayed in the shop windows.

Note the Odeon Cinema.

Here it was that the Beatles were booked to appear in 1962 or 1963 before they were widely known. When ultimately they did appear they had become a worldwide phenomenon. Screaming teenagers packed Westover Road in pursuit of their idols. They stayed on the top floor of what is now a Premier Inn, the far building.

The band’s photographer saw a shaft of sunlight slanting through a window and captured this iconic photo.

George Harrison was unwell and wrote his first song “Don’t Bother Me” here. John Lennon bought a bungalow in the town for his mother  and later Yoko Ono bought a house for herself.

Up the hill is St Peter’s Church. Note the grave of Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, and her parents.

Also buried here is the cremated heart of her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, who had died in a sailing accident in Italy.

This is the grave of Dan Godfrey, founder of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and next to it that of Constantin Sivestri, Its musical director and conductor responsible for raising the orchestra to international renown.

The graves deserve more careful attention, our guide tells us.

The second grave along from the 39 steps representing the 39 articles of the Book of Common Prayer

is that of Hubert Parry, composer of the music for the hymns Jerusalem and Lead Us Heavenly Father Lead Us.

He also composed a Coronation Anthem.

After a few more items of more parochial interest we returned safely to the starting point in the warmth the foyer, near collapsing with mental and physical exertion. We retraced our steps, however, to meet Emily, Lee and Mary at the biggest fish and chip restaurant in the world, Harry Ramsden, and its 407 tables. Alas, there was no room at the inn so we found somewhere else to eat and watch the world and his wife and his dogs go by.

Then came my trip over the step,followed by a walk to The Square for Deep Heat, a support bandage, Cocodomol and, more importantly, a hair clip for Mary. Then back to the hotel. Thus achieving the walk twice in one day.

Dined, conversed, consulted Lee concerning the progress of my injuries and received valuable advice for the relief of the symptoms.

And so to bed, uplifted, enlightened as to Bournemouth’s illustrious history and of the dangers of life without the Divine Presence.

Good Friday and we’re off to Bournemouth, iconic resort of the English Riviera, for a stay at The Hotel Miramar, the oft-frequented haunt of JRR Tolkien. The inversion of ”Miramar’ and ‘Hotel’ should hint of exotic associations for, to the east, some ten miles across the Solent, lie views of the Isle of Wight and to the west Poole Harbour, a haven from the World-Heritage but wreck-littered Jurassic Coast.

Daughter Emily, her husband Lee and their own daughter Mary are to join us en route.

“Good” Friday is a hard description to justify, having regard to the event it commemmorates. No doubt it is possible to do so. The village of Effingham, twenty miles into the journey, is, on the other hand, appositely named. It lives up to its hidden curse. The cold winds and rains have started. On they persist, through Guildford, along the Hog’s Back to Farnham and all the way to Winchester.

The River Itchen, normally gentle, races through the watermill there and under the bridge. The downpour is relentless. Waterfalls cascade from the awnings in the High Street. Deep puddles force a halting, weaving progress. On we battle to arrive at The West Cornwall Bakery Co, the old castle gate in the basement. Here is shelter, and the reassuring odour of prize-winning Cornish pasties in the microwave.

An unsuspecting, but impressed and friendly, middle-aged woman of moderately stout proportions sits at a table in a window of the upper floor, a ready audience for a lecture on the benefits of a sugar-free diet.

In due course, Emily, Lee and Mary join the party. Five mouths envelope five pasties and five pairs of eyes watch as bobbing umbrellas pass by, one way then another.

All sightseeing abandoned, the two cars in convoy, we all resume our challenge to the elements. Romsey, location of Broadlands, the late Earl Mountbatten’s long- and high-walled stately home, then Cadnam, The New Forest, Ringwood and finally Bournemouth. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain.

Room 104 boasts fine views of the rain, if you are foolhardy enough to venture on to the balcony.

On the wall, at least, is a picture of what might have been.

Down to the dining room for a welcome repast and a bottle of wine.

And so to bed.