As we recall those unlived years

100 Years of Remembrance

2021 marks the centenary of the year (1921) when different elements of Remembrance were combined to create the traditions we know today: Armistice Day, the poppy symbol, the two-minute silence, the service for the Unknown Warrior and the march-past of veterans and dignitaries at monuments around the UK, including the Cenotaph in London. Regular readers will know my admiration for the Royal British Legion and much more about the history of Remebrance can be found on their website.

Past, present, future

What I always reflect on is how inclusive remembrance is: men, women, young, old, all ethnicities, nationalities, religions and backgrounds can find a home within an act of remembrance. White, purple, black and rainbow poppy wearers can find a home. Most significantly, the grieving can find a home, “a moment stolen for a tear.” Lest we forget, we need to remember…. It is a process that should be applied to all aspects of leadership and political life…. We need to know the past to understand the present and plan for a better future.

We shall remember them

BFBS

British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS UK) aims to provide TV, radio and internet entertainment and information to Britain’s Armed Forces and their dependents. They reach people around the globe and have permanent studios in (to date) 10 countries, as far afield as, for example, the Falkland Islands and Bahrain. They began in Algiers in 1943 and have consistently transmitted military news, live sport, and movies as well as material like the BBC’s children’s content to an increasing number of bases in remote settings and to families stationed at home and abroad.

Ernie Rowe

Ernie Rowe worked for 30 years at BFBS and penned her own poem in 2019 to add to the world’s growing collection of Remembrance poetry:

Remembered still those souls that tried

To save the world, but many died.

A moment stolen for a tear,

As we recall those unlived years.

The camaraderie that flew those souls

Back home to those they knew,

And loved them dear and held them close

But for our sakes released to foes

The silence that they leave behind

Is space to calm the troubled minds

Of those they loved – and can’t rewind.

Again this day we give our thanks

For those returned from serving ranks

And them ‘as gave it all away

Forever in our minds will stay.

Previous blogs featuring Remembrance as a theme:

• In Flanders field the poppies blow – Saturday 7th November 2015

• Falling Leaves Like Snowflakes – Wednesday 11th November 2015

• Harry’s Last Stand – Saturday 28th May 2016

• Bastille Day 2016 – Saturday 13th August 2016

• There but not there – Sunday 11th November 2018

• The Last Post – Monday 11th November 2019

• Lockdown VE Day (Blog 300) – Saturday 9th May 2020

• Autumn Rain – Saturday 7th November 2020

Lockdown Shakespeare

Clockwise from top left: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest - all currently on BBC iPlayer

April 23rd
Every year (from 23rd March which is my Mum’s birthday) I start to anticipate 23rd April – yes, St George’s day, but more profoundly for me, the day when Shakespeare died and the day when he was likely born (given that he was baptised on 26th April 1564 and the common practice in Elizabethan times was to baptise three days after the birth.) In the front room in my childhood home there was the family Bible, a set of encyclopedias and a Complete Works of William Shakespeare, complete with Fuseli plates. I never thought to ask my parents (and it is now too late) how Shakespeare got into our house. But the book proved, for me, a doorway to a surprising, inspiring, mind-bending landscape of love, friendship, murder, passion, betrayal, pride, violence, jealousy, redemption, tenderness and magic. Every story was told with memorable language, sometimes exquisite poetry, sometimes impenetrable jokes or confusing grammar; but, despite some difficult bits, on every page, certain words and phrases bounced out and tickled my fancy….  What a pleasure it has been to revisit some of the productions I’ve seen on the BBC iPlayer (Shakespeare in Quarantine) or as part of the NTLive YouTube broadcasts.

NT Live screenings of: Twelfth Night and Antony and Cleopatra

Lockdown Desert Island Discs

Choosing, listening, sharing
Music is a remarkable art form. It can establish moods and evoke memories. It can soothe, enliven, delight, excite, seduce, motivate, frighten, impress, shock, arouse. Music can calm you, disturb you and bring you comfort. Music has been enjoyed since recorded history and has mysterious properties that tap into the brain’s wiring in surprising ways. Musicians in Japan, for example, process music with different brain impulses than musicians in the West. Although the brain’s right (creative) side shows more activity when playing or listening to music, the left (logical) side also shows significant activity. Brain imaging research suggests that few parts of the brain are unaffected by whatever it is that music does to humans. A recent Desert Island Discs broadcast challenged non-celebrities to send in their “lockdown tracks” and thousands responded resulting in a very moving edition of the programme. Friend Michael sent out the call on Facebook and Sally and I and Sally’s sister, Julie, and many of Michael’s friends had an enjoyable 8 lockdown days of choosing, listening to and sharing music.

Julie's spontaneous choices for lockdown, exuberantly unable to narrow down to Eight choices!

The Ones I Left Behind
Choosing only 8 tracks proved trickier than I thought. On the BBC Radio 4 programme, over the years, choices seem to come in three categories:

• Discs that connect emotionally to a specific memory
• Discs that the guest loves right now
• Discs to impress the listening public

Trying to reconcile the competing motivations of the first two bullet points meant that Lesley Gore’s It’s My Party (the first record I remember from the radio) and the O’Jay’s Love Train (the first record I purchased with my own money) were in prime position until I realised that eight discs is such a meagre choice. Which Elton John should I choose? Which Beatles track?  Would there be room for David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Marc Bolan, Rod Stewart, Bay City Rollers, The Jam, Mud, The Three Degrees, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Armatrading, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Tracey Chapman – artists who have provided the sound track of my formative years? Which film soundtrack? Which song from a musical? Which classical composer? Do I include Ray Charles’s Born To Lose or Jim Reeves’s Welcome to My World or I Love You Because as they were favourites of my Mum? Or my Dad’s favourite serenading song: I’ll take you home again, Kathleen ? Choices…. choices….

My Eight lockdown choices

Tony’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• The Drifters: Kissing in the Back Row of the Movies (school discos, coach journeys, defying parents, delayed gratification – you can’t have too much fun/till all your homework’s done)
• Kate Bush: Cloudbusting (could have been many of Kate Bush’s tracks but this one has Donald Sutherland in the official video and is about fathers and daughters)
• Johnny Flynn: Detectorists theme song (a poetic lyric, a gorgeous melody and arrangement and memories of a truly great BBC TV series)
• Grieg: Peer Gynt (my Uncle Bill introduced me to Grieg, I’ve loved visiting Norway, Ibsen is a hero for me, I used the music in productions of Ghosts at university and Peer Gynt in my teaching career)
• The Beatles (George Harrison’s): Here Comes The Sun (fell in love with the track when it was first released and have returned to it time and again in times of need; it also contains one of my meta-obsessions – if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?)
• Elton John; Empty Garden (another poetic lyric by the miraculous Bernie Taupin, the connection with John Lennon, the terrific melody, the symbolism – there were many other potential Elton John songs – The Greatest Discovery probably leading the pack – but I settled on this one)
• Annie Lennox and The Eurhythmics: Heaven must be missing an angel (personal memories of a time and place…. Leek, the year before and the year after getting married….)
• Dire Straits: Romeo and Juliet (a story song, a great band, Shakespeare, set in Northumbria)

Save from the waves: Heaven must be missing an angel
Book: TH White’s The Once and Future King (all five volumes)
Luxury: Reams of paper and a fountain pen (with unlimited ink)

Sally's Eight lockdown choices

Sally’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• Simon Dupree and the Big Sound: Kites (I will fly a yellow paper sun in your sky / when the wind is high / I will float a silver solid moon through your window / If your night is dark….)
• The Osmonds: Love Me For A Reason (Where other teenage girls went for David Cassidy in the 1970s, Sally had a Donny poster. They certainly rocked white suits and could synchronise their groovy dance moves.)
• The Carpenters: We’ve Only Just Begun chosen mainly to savour Karen’s rich, fragile, effortless, secure voice
• Grieg: Wedding Day at Troldhaugen – a memory of Sally’s mum’s piano playing
• Irving Berlin – Sisters (All kinds of weather / We stick together / The same in the sun or shine) and a part of the annual Christmas celebrations in the Allard-Johnson household
• Earth, Wind and Fire: Boogie Wonderland – evoking Sally’s teenage disco days and a scene-stealing routine in (a favourite) 2011 French film Intouchables where Omar Sy energises a birthday party
• Holst: Jupiter, the bringer of jollity from The Planets Suite including the beautiful melody of the hymn I vow to thee my country but, more pertinently, a favourite piece of classical music for Sally’s dad
• Stevie Wonder: For Once In My Life for the happiness it brings

Save from the waves: Jupiter, the bringer of jollity
Book: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Luxury: A comfy bed with magically changing linen

Michael's Eight lockdown choices

Michael’s Lockdown Desert Island Discs

• Joni Mitchell: For Free (specifically the version from the 1970 Ladies of the Canyon album)
• Paul Simon: Rene and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war (one of Michael's favourite artists, this song is based on a photograph Paul Simon saw in Joan Baez's house imagining artists in exile in America)
• Van Morrison: Days like this (a life-affirming song from a grumpy old git with a mean solo saxophone)
• Bruce Springsteen: Thunder Road (a poetic lyric, the live acoustic version from the Roxy Theatre)
• Bryan Ferry: Let’s stick together (excellent for bopping around the kitchen)
• Joan Armatrading : Baby I (Michael almost picked Willow or Love and Affection or Merchant of Love and I empathise because Joan Armatrading was close to making my final 8 choices)
• Tim Minchin: White wine in the sun (in tribute to the Australian branch of the Thompson-Snailham clan and in honour of a witty songwriter)
• Tom Waits: Picture in a frame (an acquired taste but a bona fide genius)
• In his FB posts, Michael explained: “The Rolling Stones Hand of Fate just missed the cut today…  no Elvis Costello, no Steely Dan, no Pretenders, all of whom could have staked a claim. Kate Bush could have been in there....”

Save from the waves: Thunder Road
Book: Nick Butterworth: The Complete Percy the Park Keeper
Luxury: Jura coffee machine with big sack of good, strong beans

BBC Radio Desert Island Discs: Roy Plomley, Sue Lawley, MIchael Parkinson, Kirsty Young, Lauren Laverne and a guest or two....

Pasta fresca

la madre e la figlia producono la pasta

Bright Cold Skies
Whilst I hacked and coughed with a dispiriting bout of man flu and eldest daughter Emily got to grips with nurse training, youngest daughter Harriet went walking with Sally along the river in Otley, soaking up the low sun, avoiding slipping in muddy patches, chuntering and chatting and setting the world to rights and, more importantly, planning an evening meal of pasta fresca – pasta made from scratch with flour, eggs and old fashioned table-top kneading.

Along the River Wharfe in Otley

Fresh, Dried or Freshly-Made?
The prevailing wisdom, I’m told, is that good dried pasta is better than the “fresh” sold in supermarkets but that better than both is the pasta made by hand using the techniques of swirling the eggs in a flour well, then rolling the springy dough until you can read a love letter through it. Job done, I’d say. I can testify it was delicious with the garlic and artichoke sauce, not to mention the crumbly parmesan biscuits (see BBC recipe below) which got everything off to a zingy start.

I will be your treasure

Detectorists
I was late to discover this gem of a BBC comedy series but became enamoured at a perfect time: my birthday month. Mackenzie Crook directed and wrote (with Andrew Ellard) this 19-episode masterpiece of friendship, love, hobbying, history, rural life and the search for Anglo-Saxon gold. The writing is understated but underpinned with quotable lines:

• We’re time travellers
• Nostalgia conventions aren’t what they used to be
• Ring pull…83… Tizer…
• Surprisingly bland
• What you’ve got going for you now is that she’s met you, Lance….
• Will you search through the loamy earth for me?

What do I love about it?
It’s a series that presents profound themes in a deceptively light-hearted way. The use of the music by Johnny Flynn and Dan Michaelson connects characters and motifs. (A brilliant cameo song by The Unthanks sisters (Magpie) punctuates a key episode in series 3.) The production values, acting and authenticity to its original premise remain loving and attentive. Lies are told, confrontations occur, but redemption happens, the truth comes out and life moves on. The huge dramas remain buried (in the loamy earth) or are in the distance, fleetingly glimpsed. I was lucky to see Mackenzie Crook live on stage in the brilliant Jez Butterworth play, Jerusalem, a work which reminded me of why I love England; and Detectorists has a similar feel, connecting to ancient truths about tolerance and acceptance, the mongrel nature of our society and how precious is the land beneath our feet. We must learn from history and nature and be better people – there’s a truth to the gold of ordinary lives…. If you’ve yet to discover Detectorists, I envy the treasures waiting for you….

I will be your treasure
The theme song (composed and sung by Johnny Flynn) contains all the themes about digging for the truth of what matters in life and how patience is a true virtue. The compassion and kindness riddling through the seams of Detectorists are patterned into pairings who are all given perfect TV moments:

• Andy and Lance (Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones)
• Andy and Becky (MC with Rachael Stirling)
• Andy and Veronica (MC with Diana Rigg)
• Lance and Maggie (TJ with Lucy Benjamin)
• Lance and Sophie (TJ with Aimee-Ffion Edwards)
• Lance and Kate (TJ with Alexa Davies)
• Lance and Toni (TJ with Rebecca Callard)

And there are telling moments between each pair variation; I’m thinking here of the arc between Rachael Stirling’s Becky and Rebecca Callard’s Toni and their scene under a tree in the final episode. If Andy and Lance are the centre of the show, all the other characters are equally vivid:

• Maggie and Tony (Lucy Benjamin and Adam Riches)
• Art and Paul (Simon Farnaby and Paul Casar), aka Terra Firma, aka Dirt Sharks, aka AntiquiSearchers, aka Simon and Garfunkel

Danebury Metal Detector Club
Then there is the rest of the club, genius characters all (hats off to the casting by Catherine Willis):

• Terry and Sheila (Gerald Horan and the sublime Sophie Thompson)
• Louise and Varde (Laura Checkley and Orion Ben)
• Russell and Hugh (Pearce Quigley and Divian Ladwa)

Detectorists is a character-driven show, though the setting (Framlingham pretending to be Danebury) is also memorable with exquisite shots of the countryside and its creatures, including some memorable aerial shots, by the technical team led by cinematographers Jamie Cairney (13 episodes), Mattias Nyberg (6 episodes) and John Sorapure (1 episode) and editor Colin Fair (all 19 episodes.)

Singer (and actor) Johnny Flynn plus Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook in Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem

Full lyrics for Johnny Flynn’s theme song (click here to hear him sing it)
Will you search through the loamy earth for me
Climb through the briar and bramble
I will be your treasure

I felt the touch of the kings and the breath of the wind
I knew the call of all the song birds
They sang all the wrong words
I'm waiting for you, I'm waiting for you

Will you swim through the briny sea for me
Roll along the ocean's floor
I will be your treasure

I'm with the ghosts of the men who can never sing again
There's a place follow me
Where a love lost at sea
Is waiting for you, is waiting for you

Would you drift o’er the rolling fields for me
Hoard me in the highest bough
I will be your treasure

But in history’s rhyme there’s a place and a time
And a truth to the gold
That the folds cannot hold
I’m waiting for you, I’m waiting for you

Colemanballs

For no other reason than I think they’re funny (and I have a fondness for the perpetrators)
The magazine Private Eye coined the phrase Colemanballs to mean the funny verbal phrases and sentences that come out of the mouths of sports commentators. It was originally applied to David Coleman whose enthusiasm and involvement in his job meant he made many endearing gaffes during his 46 years as a highly respected sports commentator. 

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales - a medieval text full of language fun

Honourable History
Ballsing up the English Language has a long history with deliberate language jokes as far back as Chaucer’s medieval Canterbury Tales and embodied in the misspeaking of Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals. Apparently as early as the 1949 Oxbridge Boat Race, the BBC commentator John Snagge announced “I can’t see who’s in the lead, but it’s either Oxford or Cambridge” which falls into the category of Stating The Bleeding Obvious. Some of David Coleman’s utterances fall into this category.

Sheridan's Mrs Malaprop - the "very pineapple of politeness"

Verified Colemanballs

• If that had gone in, it would have been a goal.
• This evening is a very different evening from the morning we had this morning.
• He is accelerating all the time. The last lap was run in 64 seconds and the one before that in 62.
• He’s 31 this year – last year he was 30.
• Forest have now lost six matches without winning.

A few of my favourite Colemanballs not by Coleman

• They didn't change positions; they just moved the players around.
• I don’t want Rooney to leave these shores but if he does, I think he’ll go abroad.
• He’s one of the greatest players in the world, if not one of the greatest anywhere.
• I never make predictions and I never will.
• This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.
• Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.
• If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.
• He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it – in fact you can see it all over their faces.
• Here they come, every colour of the rainbow: black, white, brown.
• And he missed the goal by literally a million miles.
• He's pulling him off! The Spanish manager is pulling his captain off!
• The game is not over until it is.

RIP David Coleman

Helmsley to Rievaulx

Malorie Blackman on Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC programme that contributes regularly to the soundscape in my life. More often than not the interview and the choices of record, extra book and luxury item prompt plenty of follow-up things to talk about. The intimacy of discussing a life in terms of music choices is a perfect format and, in my opinion, Kirsty Young is a skilful presenter. On Saturday 15th September, driving along, we caught up with the podcast version featuring writer Malorie Blackman and, for whatever elusive reasons on that particular day, it caused within me a boundless burst of joy and inspiration. Thank you, Malorie.

Standing beneath the boughs
“We” on that occasion was Sally and her sister, Juliet, and we were about to walk one of our favourite walks, from Helmsley to Rievaulx Abbey and back again…. chatting, putting the world to rights, racking up steps to stay fit. And looking forward to a delicious banquet back at Juliet’s home – in this case, rich, tasty homemade moussaka. A desert island day, shelving the barrage of concerns to “stand beneath the boughs” – a gorgeous walk, nature all around, echoes of history, and feelings of pure relaxation. Streaming through my brain on days like Saturday 15th September is a poem I learned by heart at primary school – a sentimental poem, possibly, but containing truth – one by the “SuperTramp” poet, William Henry Davies: 

Leisure by W H Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Gunpowder, Treason and Plot

Sally, me, Harriet, Emily, Chris at Bolton Abbey bonfire 2017 - all pictures from the night by Emily, Harriet or Chris

Chariots of Fire
Fireworks to make the brain gasp…. food, drink and a mighty bonfire…. 2017 November 5th at Bolton Abbey. Mulled wine and stodgy snacks…. a treat of a night after a sunset walk along to the Strid and through the spooky woods.

No Flaming Guy
Happily there was no guy on top of the bonfire so Guido Fawkes (and my Primary School teachers) can rest easy. No “Let’s burn the Catholic” sentiments…. I assume Fawkes’s school in York, St Peter’s, continues to refrain from burning their former student. And there were no bones either, as far as I could tell, on the Bolton Abbey bonfire, even though that’s where the word comes from: bone-fire, the fire that burnt all the dug-up bones when medieval priests needed to make more room in the cemetery…. ah, the lovely traditions of the UK…. we’ll stop burning human bones after the Gunpowder Plot and instead celebrate the incineration of a particular Catholic who was caught red-handed in a London cellar on November 5th 1606.

36 barrels
The conspirators positioned 36 barrels underneath the House of Lords. Robert Catesby’s plot may well have succeeded had (probably) one member not warned off his brother-in-law. It’s possible the gunpowder might have been degraded so far as to be useless since the event kept getting postponed. But if Guy Fawkes (aka John Johnson – an excellent secret agent name!) had indeed lit the fuse and the explosion succeeded it would have taken out an area with a radius of 500m from the impact, certainly enough to kill the king and a great number of peers of the realm gathered for the State Opening of Parliament. Although the original cellar was destroyed in a fire during the Victorian period, the Yeoman of the Guard still parade through the cellars of Westminster, looking for explosive devices, in the hours before the State Opening of Parliament today.

Pope Day
Why don’t we commemorate Robert Catesby, the ringleader, rather than Guy Fawkes? The recent BBC dramatisation of events suggested Catesby was fuelled by personal revenge as much as political and religious belief. The design of the production certainly caught the tensions and paranoia throughout the land following the end of Elizabeth I’s long reign. And captured accurately the arbitrary and often violent punishments given to recusant Catholics. In America Bonfire Night was called “Pope Day” throughout the 17th Century.

Broken neck
Do we remember Guy Fawkes because James I apparently admired the guy for surviving two days of torture before finally (supposedly) making a confession? The Attorney General ordered that each of the (surviving) conspirators would be drawn backwards to his punishment, by a horse, with his head nearest the ground. They were then to be be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both" by cutting off their genitalia which would be “burnt before their eyes.” Their bowels would then be removed in full view and, if the condemned were still alive, their hearts would be removed. They would then be decapitated and their dismembered bodies displayed in “different corners of the land so that they might become prey for the fowls of the air and the instruction of all.” Guy Fawkes, refusing to have his bollocks removed whilst alive, jumped from the dismemberment platform to break his own neck.

Josh's Screaming Skull pumpkins and creations by neighbours

The U certificate rhyme

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot?

Impressive pumpkins by Harriet and friends

The (now-forgotten?) verses (note the later ones!)

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament
Three score barrels of powder below
Poor old England to overthrow

By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match
So, holler boys, holler boys, let the bells ring
Holler boys, holler boys, God save the King!

A stick and a stake for King James’ sake
If you won’t give me one, I’ll take two
The better for me and the worse for you

A rope, a rope to hang the Pope
A farthing o' cheese to choke him
A pint of beer to rinse it down
A faggot of sticks to burn him

What shall we do with him?
Burn him!
Burn him in a tub of tar
Burn him like a blazing star
Burn his body from his head
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.

Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah! Hip hip hoorah!

Terrorists or freedom fighters?

Anne Lister and Shibden Hall

Shibden Hall, home for a time to Anne Lister (bottom centre), "wife" of Ann Walker (top right), subject of Sally Wainwright's forthcoming series, Gentleman Jack, as played by Maxine Peake (in 2010) and Suranne Jones in the new series

Gentleman Jack
Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax, Scott and Bailey, To Walk Invisible, Unforgiven amongst many others) is currently preparing an 8-part mini-series about a Yorkshire heroine/anti-heroine/larger-than-life personality, Anne Lister. Anne is going to be played by Suranne Jones, having been played in a one-off film by Maxine Peake in the 2010 Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister. The production should be broadcast on the BBC and on HBO during 2019. A family outing to Shibden Hall perched on a south-facing slope in Halfax’s happy valley revealed plenty and to spare about the remarkable Anne Lister.

Images of Anne Lister, Maxine Peake (top right) playing her in 2010, and Helena Whitbread (bottom left) whose careful work has helped decode the millions of words of Anne's secret diaries

A woman ahead of her (and our) time
Determined to become an independent, commercially successful woman, the free-thinking Anne took on the testosterone-heavy might of Industrial England and, in many ways, triumphed. In surprising ways. Having had a passionate affair with a doctor’s daughter, Mariana Belcombe, (an affair that continued after Mariana’s marriage to a wealthy man, an affair that combusted during a weekend in Scarborough), Anne inherited Shibden Hall without the means for its upkeep or to fulfil her plans to enter the coal industry as a mine-owning entrepeneur. She was also lonely. So began a campaign to woo wealthy heiress Ann Walker. Unbelievably (but truthfully) they had their union blessed in a church and wore wedding rings. Despite the sneering of the gentry who nicknamed Anne Lister Gentleman Jack (the title of Sally Wainwright’s script), Anne and Ann were notorious celebrities and were invited to the unlikeliest of soirées.

Shibden Hall

Go to Shibden Hall
Anne’s ambitions to climb mountains and travel to Persia proved her undoing and she contracted a fever aged 49 in what is now modern day Georgia. The grieving Ann had Anne embalmed and took six months to transport the body back to Halfax – you can only imagine the trauma of that journey in the winter of 1840 to 1841. Ann Walker’s own story is just as astonishing as Anne Lister’s. What happened to both women and how we know as much as we do owes a great deal of thanks to a woman called Helena Whitbread who narrates some of the features of Anne’s life in a display at Shibden Hall. The hyperlinks in the first paragraph of this blog will reveal more. I’m looking forward to Gentleman Jack being broadcast but, in the meantime, a visit to Shibden Hall is to be recommended. And, to recover from your awestruck wonder at Anne’s life, call in to nearby Dove Cottage nurseries and hidden garden (open March to September.) Smell nature. Anne Lister, you are remembered. You were a marvel. A force of nature.

The hidden garden at Dove Cottage Nursery near Shibden Hall

The grand old Duke of York

City walls of York
The walls of York began as an earthen and wooden stockade surrounding Eboracum (the Roman name for York.) Stone sections were added during the Roman occupation of Britain and a few of these remnants are still visible. During the centuries of Anglo-Saxon and Viking York (Eoferwic and Jorvik) it is likely that the walls were patched up in places but generally left to the weather’s ravages as the city focused on Christianity and Trading. During medieval times, though, when York became the York we know today, the walls were enlarged and reinforced and it is mostly these walls that have been renovated enough to walk on when you visit the city in 2016.

Barley Hall

York has a formidable distinction of being a thriving contemporary city (with its forward-thinking EU Remain-voting populace.) It is also a place that exploits its past for the tourist pound, but in a mostly respectful (and academic) fashion. Barley Hall is a prime example of the potential for forging new economic possibilities from a building that was about to be demolished – until the archaeologists realised how much of the original medieval structure was still intact under the layers of additions and alterations. In a recent visit I enjoyed a vivid display of the costumes from the BBC’s adaptation of Hilary Mantell’s Wolf Hall. Even without the headline-displays Barley Hall is evocative of a distant past that, in some ways, reveals itself to be unnervingly similar to today, even though swans and peacocks rarely feature on 21st century dining tables.

O tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide!

I’ve always loved York since learning at a young age that the castle nearest my childhood home in Wakefield, Sandal Castle, was the site of the nursery rhyme

Oh, the grand old Duke of York!
He had 10,000 men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again….

Tragically, of course, the grand old Duke of York also had the blood of his son, Edmund, smeared over his face by Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI and effectively the commander of the Lancastrian army at Sandal Castle during the Wars of the Roses. To add further humiliation Margaret placed a mock paper crown on the Duke of York’s head before slaughtering him and removing his head to be hoisted on a pike above Micklegate Bar in the city of York. Is all that true? It’s not in the nursery rhyme, that’s for sure, but Shakespeare has it covered in Henry VI Part Three. Ah, the good old days….

Margaret of Anjou kills the Duke of York (in Shakespeare's version) at Sandal Castle, Wakefield

What country should give you harbour?

Romans in Britain, A Doll's House, Richard II, Behzti (Honour)

A play may be dangerous
Thomas Middleton’s words (in the sub-heading above) were true in Elizabethan and Jacobean times just as they can be true now: a play may be dangerous. Drama has always had the capacity to be contentious and provocative, although the Internet is the forum today where controversies are most easily stirred up. Shakespeare’s Richard II was banned in its day (because of the scene where the king is forced to abdicate on stage); Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was credited with women walking out on their husbands at the end of the 19th Century; the director of Howard Brenton’s The Romans in Britain was prosecuted under the Sexual Offences Act; and as recently as 2004 British-born playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti was forced into hiding following death threats after her play Behtzi (Honour) had to close after two days of violent demonstrations outside Birmingham Rep.

Turbulent times
An Act of Parliament in 1543, while Henry VIII was establishing the Reformation in England, forbade plays that explicitly explored religious issues. 100 years later in 1642 the parliament (who seven years later would execute King Charles I) banned stage plays altogether.
Between 1543 and 1642 current affairs were in a dangerous state:

• Who would succeed Henry VIII?

1. Would it be the young Edward VI, who was keen on his cousin Lady Jane Grey succeeding him?
2. The pro-Catholic (Bloody) Mary I?
3. The daughter of beheaded Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I? 
4. (In the event they all did, including Jane, albeit Jane for only nine days!)

• Could the old Catholic forces and new Protestant Church of England find a non-violent accord?
• Could the country manage the effects of the colonisation of the Americas (the New World)?
• Would the economic boom and bust caused by new trade routes ever stabilise?
• How would the population of England deal with the influx of migrants from the new trading partners abroad?
• Could the racial and sectarian conflicts, especially in London, be quelled by the authorities?
• Would the increasing social mobility give the lower and middle classes an inflated sense of their rights and influence?
• Would Spain invade?
• Would the pockets of civil disobedience spread out of control?
• Would the plague destroy the whole of society?

Turbulent times indeed.

Turbulent times in Elizabethan and Jacobean England

Ian McKellen in Stratford-upon-Avon
I enjoyed (most of) the BBC2 broadcast of the Shakespeare Live! presentation from the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Company on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death – April 23rd 1616. One “act” that struck me as blindingly contemporary was Ian McKellen’s impassioned extract from Sir Thomas More. It’s astonishing that the speech McKellen delivered is the only known example of William Shakespeare’s own handwriting.

Shakespeare's own handwriting

When I saw Sir Thomas More in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2005 it was clear that a central section was indeed by Shakespeare – it had echoes of Coriolanus, King Lear and the Henry VI trilogy and vocabulary that was recognisably Shakespearean. Scholars agree the original work was by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle but that at least three other playwrights contributed revisions or additional scenes: Shakespeare, Thomas Dekker and Thomas Heywood.

Judi Dench as Elizabeth I and Simon Callow as Sir Edmund Tilney in Shakespeare in Love

What country should give you harbour?

The Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney (played by Simon Callow in the movie Shakespeare in Love) is known to have banned the play unless major revisions were made – “Leave out the (riot) wholly” he demanded – a clear sign of political censorship. Within Shakespeare’s scenes is the climax of the May Day riot of 1517 when the character of Thomas More persuades the crowd to calm down by imagining the plight of the refugees and asylum-seekers:

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs, and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires....
....What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour?....
....would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth?

The text is timeless; Ian McKellen delivered the speech as if it were about 2016 not 1517; the sentiments and questions are as powerful now as they were in Shakespeare’s time. If you were an asylum-seeker or a migrant in another country, how would you hope to be treated? The crowd replies to Sir Thomas More:

Faith, he says true: let’s do as we may be done to.

Images of Thomas More (Paul Schofield, Anton Lesser, Nigel Cooke and "wretched strangers"