Getting spooked (part 2)

Last week, if you remember, I had a bit of wierd bulb-smashing incident when looking for ghosts in Ham House. I thought that was the end of it. And maybe it was. But something else happened that makes me think it wasn’t

Well, on Wednesday, there I was, working away. We were quite quiet in The Orangery so there was just me out front, making tea, talking about cake, etc etc. All the usual.

The coffee machine and the till are opposite each other so that if you have one person working at each, they’ll be standing back to back. I hadn’t made any coffees, just lots and lots of tea. The tea is made further along and I hadn’t touched the coffee machine at all. As I stood by the till doing money stuff with a customer, a coffee cup fell from the coffee machine (we keep the cups on top so they stay warm) and smashed on the ground next to me. It might interest you to know that it smashed on my right side, as did the light bulb.

Unperturbed, I continued serving. The man I was serving when it happened asked me if I was ok. I was like, ‘Yeh, I’ll clear it up in a second.’

But then as I was passing him his pot of tea, there was a shard of smashed coffee cup on the work surface near him. That bit was quite wierd because there is a fairly big gap between the coffee machine and the till and the rest of the cup was on the ground. How did that one shard manage to get across the gap and over by the customer?

I’m not saying anything, right. I’m just saying it happened.

My misspent teenage years….

This week, Emily and Kelly have told me to write about about going to concerts. And so I must.

I did my fair share of concert going when I was younger actually. As mentioned in The Handbags And The Gladrags, it started with Ant and Dec AKA PJ and Duncan. I went to three of their concerts. The first one was the one mentioned in the post, where my friend and I wrote a letter to them to ask if they needed backing dancers cause we were really good and had even made up some of own dances to their songs already. We were about 10 years old. We also wore co-ordinated outfits to the concert – black heeled pumps, see through tights, white denim skirts, black t-shirts that said ‘Right On’, denim jackets and small black handbags. All matching.

The other two times I saw them, I went with a girl from school. We did all the obligatory screaming until our throats were hoarse and buying t-shirts and massive posters and lingering outside hoping to see them, etc.

I also went to a few concerts that had loads of groups/singers at them. Lingering around outside after those was always good cause you were almost guaranteed to see someone. My big sighting was Shane from Westlife. That was big news with the girls in school the next day.

One time, when I was about 15 or 16 years old, a few of us at school had become really frantic about Westlife. We LOVED them. WE LOVED THEM SO MUCH! AAAHHHH! THEY’RE SO AMAZING!

We loved them. Yes, we did.

Somehow, one of the girls had got hold of the tour manager’s phone number. Now I think about it, it was probably just some bloke pretending he was so that young girls would call him up and act all silly with excitement. Anyway, this girl kept ringing the tour manager and would find out when they were doing concerts, etc.

This one time, they were doing a small private gig in Liverpool. I think it was a restaurant or something, which had a small performing space downstairs, something like that. So we went there, about four or five of us *hardcore* fans. And we stood outside and waited. And these other hardcore fans were also there and they were telling us about all the times they had met Westlife.

This one girl said to us that sometimes Brian (my personal fav) and a bodyguard sneak out of a back door and go to the car so that they can assess the situation and see how many crazed teenage fans are waiting outside to leap on them when they leave. Then the bodyguard goes back and gets the others and they leave by the front entrance.

Breathless with excitement, midnight approaching, heart beating, we snuck around to the back exit and waited, hoping this girl had been right, otherwise they’d leave by the front exit and we’d totally miss it. We giggled, we squealed, we hoped beyond hope that he would emerge, see us standing there, fall in love with one of us and whisk us off in his fancy limo. That’s not expecting too much, is it?

And finally, the door started to open… The girl had been right! A tall man dressed in black emerged, his distinctive blond locks pulled under a dark cap and a bodyguard following him.

We were gobsmacked. There were just five or six of us standing around. It was late. It was dark. It was exciting. And here we were, standing with Brian McFadden from Westlife, as he shushed us a little and quickly signed autographs.

I approached him quietly from his left side as he signed something for my friend. I could see from his hurrying that he wouldn’t have time to sign my notepad. So I did the best I could to create a lasting memory of the moment.

I touched his upper left arm with my right hand. I touched it in wonder. I held onto it slightly, as though I were going to link my arm through his and walk off with him.

And I stared. My mouth was probably hanging open. I may have been dribbling. I honestly couldn’t tell you. He signed two or three autographs then gently told us he had to hurry off.

And then he was gone. Just like that. Out of our lives forever. He ran up the slope toward the front and got in the waiting car. As the girl said he would. Then we ran to the front entrance and waited for the other four Westlifers to come out. As the girl said they would. We were obviously at the back of the crowd because we had spent all our time waiting for Brian at the back. We saw the tips of their heads at most.

But it didn’t matter.

I had held Brian’s arm. His arm, goddamnyou! His ARM! Does it come much better than that?

I think not.

Llangollen (Part 2)

Morning, readers. It’s time for Rambler5319 to finish a story he started telling us a few weeks back. Enjoy!

 

If you remember my post from a couple of weeks ago (The Aqueduct, 4.9.13) well this is part 2 of that trip (or the rest of day 1). After the aqueduct we headed out of town just a couple of miles to what is called Valle Crucis Abbey. It means valley of the cross. (You’d never have guessed that would you?) The cross in question is actually another ancient monument which we’ll come to later. Now LLM was mentioning old stuff in her Monday post so I couldn’t resist this as I can beat her, twice actually! Firstly this Cistercian abbey was built during the reign of King John in 1201 – that’s 14 years before the Magna Carta and beats her sink by about 124 years! (If you remember the post from 15.5.13 on St Winifred’s Well, Basingwerk Abbey was also Cistercian & Welsh, from 1132, so pre-dated Valle Crucis by about 70 years.)

Here’s a pic.

You’ll prob notice things like no roof or glass in windows. Apparently there were about 3 fires in its early days and that’s the reason for some of the damage and the brown tinge on the light coloured stone around the arched doorway. However the chapterhouse around the grass quadrangle is in better condition.

Here’s the arch at the end of that block. You can see the different types of stone and the crack above the arch. And a view looking inside

As part of their subsistence living the monks at Valle Crucis had a large fish pond; apparently monks were forbidden to eat meat from animals with four legs. For any of you searching for monastic fish ponds in Wales look no further – I can tell you this is the only surviving one!

This small building, next to the pond, had a date stone showing 1773 over the door so much later than the original abbey.

Coming out of there we walked along the road to find the “cross” which the abbey is named after. Here it is unfortunately surrounded by railings so you can’t get close up to it. It is called Eliseg’s Pillar and is built on top of a burial mound.

And here’s the info board

Now the number is not that clear but it does say the 9^th century. Yep, read that again, THE 9^TH, which means built in the 800s. This is the second time I beat LLM’s sink but this time by about 500 years!

Think it’s worth saying though that it’s not just the age that is interesting. I agree with LLM that once I’ve told you it’s nearly 1200 years old and you’ve said “Wow!” you do just move on. No, for me the interest is in the stories behind the object, building or place and their connections to the present day. I’m imagining how in the 800s a guy commissioned a stone mason to make the pillar and then for it to be moved to where they put it up. I wonder how much he was paid as it was a royal commission. Was it put on a horse and cart to take it there? Did the guy work on the stone first then move it or work on it at the spot where it is now? What made the man who commissioned it want to do it? A person? An event or historic victory? It’s all those sorts of things which make it interesting.

Another thing which makes historical things interesting is their rarity or in some cases uniqueness: the fish pond for instance being the only one in Wales; the pillar, as we’ll find out later, celebrating a king and a victory. If you know there’s only one of something and you’ve seen it you kind of feel as if you’ve achieved something in finding it or coming across it if you hadn’t gone looking for it.

At the Abbey I’m wondering how these monks actually got all the work done to build the place and then to grow, fish or hunt enough to survive in what is a fairly isolated place. Some questions can be answered by referring to other historical documents and sources but some remain cases for speculation. Basically I suppose I think places of historical interest are as interesting as you the viewer want them to be. One person can be very excited at the surroundings and the stories associated with them but another may just think it’s boring. (“Each to his own” comes to mind.) I think the most interesting historical bits you come across are those that relate to your own family history. Knowing about the history of the area around Llangollen is one thing but know about where your actual ancestors (grandparents, great-grandparents etc) lived makes it so much more relevant and personal to you. It’s your story and it means something because your family is associated with that place. If any of you watch that programme Who Do You Think You Are? You can’t fail to notice how emotional some people get when they’re taken to places their ancestors lived or worked or had something tragic happen there or meet living relatives of their ancestors. There’s a kind of bond even though they’ve never met before.

So, back to the pillar. I can tell you that it was erected by Cyngen, the last king of an area of Wales called Powys, in memory of his great-grandfather Eliseg who recovered the land of Powys from the English. It commemorates a great victory. The inscription also tells us that Eliseg was a descendent of Vortigern, a 5^th century warlord, who after a tragedy in his own family apparently took refuge in North Wales and also, via marriage, of the 4^th century Emperor Magnus Maximus one of the last Roman rulers of Britain.

Then it was back to the hotel and a quick change. We met up outside for a short walk to our evening meal. It was in a converted mill. Here’s the info sign. You might recognise a connection with our earlier visit to the abbey.

You see how those bits of history link up. The monks from the Abbey we’d just visited 2 miles up the road were responsible for building this.

Not surprisingly it is called The Corn Mill. We had a great meal & good service – no complaints at all. While we were sitting at our table I noticed an old advertising sign which had been framed and was hanging on the wall.

If you can see it (or enlarge it) at the bottom it says the firm is based in London. In my own family history I am researching a possible connection with the company. My paternal grandmother, who lived in London in the area near their factory, may have worked for them back in 1901 so that made this sign very interesting for me. There we were eating in a mill originally founded by the monks who built the abbey we had visited earlier in the day and with a possible connection to my family ancestors. For you it’s very probably a shrug and move on to the next bit because it has no connections for you but for me it’s those connections that make it interesting and that’s history. Getting things into a context with events at the time and a historical timeline are what bring the story together. And that’s as interesting as you personally want it to be.

We did a brief walk around the town before heading back to the hotel.

Here’s an interesting little building.

And then there was this display in Gale’s of Llangollen Wine shop window

I could only get the first three in the display. There were another 6 going down in size so a total of 9 bottles.

For those of you who are not familiar with champagne bottle sizes. The standard measure is 75cl (0.75L) and is actually called a bottle (should serve 8 glasses). All the sizes going up from this one are multiples of the “bottle” size so it goes Magnum (2 bottles, 16 glasses) = 1.5L, Jeroboam (4 bottles) = 3L, Reheboam (6 bottles) = 4.5L, Methuselah (8 bottles) = 6L, Salmanazar (12 bottles) = 9L, Balthazar (16 bottles) = 12L & finally Nebuchadnezzar (20 bottles, should serve a whopping 160 glasses!) = 15L. The full Nebuchadnezzar is going to weigh you down a bit as it tips the scales at 38 kilos! Not something your plastic supermarket bag is going to cope with. And I guess it’s going to empty your wallet too! (I checked on line and some brands retail at about £1200/$1911!)

In case you’re wondering where the names for these sizes come from there seems to be no definitive answer. One source thinks it’s because a French Benedictine monk (Dom Perignon, 1638-1715) was involved. One Bordeaux wine maker says that they have been using the name Jeroboam since 1725 and that the Champagne region then adopted it. The larger sizes, it is said, came in during the 1940s.

So who were these guys who got champagne bottle sizes named after them (going in order):

Jeroboam (3L) -The nation of Israel had been just one nation until after the reigns of King David & then his son Solomon. During the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam there was a revolt. The kingdom split into two. Jeroboam became the first king of the ten tribes who revolted and formed a completely separate nation in the north of the country. He reigned from about 931BC-910BC.

Rehoboam (4.5L) – His dates seem to be somewhat disputed but from anywhere from about 937BC to around 907BC. After Jeroboam’s revolt he ended up king over the two tribes who remained in the south of the country.

Methuselah (6L) – You probably all know of this guy. He’s the person who has lived longer than anyone else. The book of Genesis gives his age as 969 years. He was the grandfather of Noah (of Noah’s Ark fame).

Salmanazar (9L) – He was king of Assyria 727-722BC and defeated the ten northern tribes who had revolted against him. They were taken into exile.

Balthazar (12L) – Might refer to one of the three kings (Balthasar, Gaspar (or Casper), and Melchior) who came to see the baby Jesus. Could refer to Daniel (of lion’s den fame) who was renamed Belteshazzar by the Babylonians who took him and his three friends away from their homeland to live in Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar (15L) – This is probably Nebuchadnezzar II (605BC-562BC). He had a number of dreams which Daniel interpreted for him as his own “magicians and astrologers” couldn’t. (His son Belshazzar was the king who saw “the fingers of a man’s hand writing on the wall” at a feast he was having. Very probably this is where we get our expression “the writing’s on the wall” from.)

And there you have it. Some strange connections but interesting I think.  

Stuff and money

Well, it had to come up at some point, didn’t it? You can’t put an advert like that on TV and think that there wouldn’t be some discussion about its ridiculousness here. Anyone not living in the UK, thank your lucky stars that you have not been exposed to this advert.

There are plenty of awful awful things about this advert, it’s hard to know where to start. I guess we should start with Barbara Windsor, AKA Peggy Mitchell from Eastenders, or ‘Stenders, as it is *lovingly* known. I say *lovingly* with undisguised overtones of sarcasm. O god, she’s awful. If you don’t already know who she is, picture this.

She’s a bit too old for the bright blond piled-on-top hairdo that she sports. She’s small and, typically of small people, she’s very loud. And very rough-London. Her laugh is her most awful feature. It fires out, at five billion decibels, violating your ears with its machine gun fire-esque sound.

The advert in question is the latest in a series of adverts in which she wears brightly coloured court jester-type clothing and laughs a lot. “AH AH AH AH AH AH AH AH!” Loud and insistent. Maybe she says some words too, I couldn’t tell you. I’m too busy recoiling from the TV in horror.

In this latest advert, maybe they’ve realised that no-one is listening to her words actually, because the whole advert consists of a song with two words.

The words are STUFF and MONEY.

And the song goes like this, are you ready for the inspirational genius-like work which must have gone into creating it?

Verse 1
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Money money money.
Stuff stuff!

Verse 2
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Stuff stuff money money stuff stuff.
Money money money.
Stuff stuff!

Inspirational words, hey? From the song, I have concluded that it must be a betting place telling you what you can win if you give them all your hard earned cash. While this song goes on and on, SillyBollocksMachineGunLaugh sits on a big throne thing, grinning maniacally and kind of arm-dancing along with an audience, who are all up on their feet, clapping and cheering. There are also an array of strange inexplicable things and people on the stage with SillyBollocks, as though there’s a gameshow happening.

Now I don’t really know anything about the advertising world. Maybe approval is only needed from the boy who fetches the tea in the office, which explains how this awful advert made it into my front room. But I was under the impression that there are more levels of approval needed before it could be broadcast.

Someone must have thought it up, pitched the idea to their boss, taken it to a brainstorm meeting where all the ideas were presented, that one idea must’ve been picked (the ingenious idea to make it consist of just the words ‘stuff’ and ‘money’ must have been too persuasive), they must have had to get it approved to film and made it and watched it back and gone, “Yeh, this is really good.”

I just can’t understand why no-one stopped them at any point in that process and said, “Guys, you can’t make this advert, it’s crap.”

Show me the Old Stuff

“Wow, is this the original table that was here in the chapel in 1330?” I asked the room guide in the Old Chapel at Ightham Mote.

“It is definitely of that period. You can see it was quite stylish for the time because….”

“Yeh, but is it the actual real table from 1330? From here?”

“Well, it has been acquired by the Trust to replicate what would have been here but it’s not the original from this room, no.”

“Ah.”

And I wandered off, looking for some actual old stuff. I found one of the sitting rooms and a lovely little fireplace.

“Is this an original fireplace?” I asked the room guide, all excited.

“Yes, it was built in the Victorian times.”

Pfft! Victorian times! Whatevs. I need medieval or nothing.

When I reached the kitchen, I found out the sink had been built in 1330 and I just stood looking at it going, “O wow. What an old sink.” I wanted to get my Indiana Jones on and start having an archeological adventure but the truth is, I’m not equipped with the historical knowledge to really draw any fascinating conclusions about the development of sink building by looking at the sink.

Actually, after about 30 seconds of going, “O, wow,” the people I was with had moved into the next room so I just walked off.

There is the same thing when I am demonstrating in the Ham House kitchen. People always ask which bits are the oldest. Once they’ve looked at the table, I tell them that the mantelpiece thing over the range is original.

They go up to it – it’s a peice of painted wood on the wall – and they look at it really closely and they go “O wow.” Then they walk off.

I could understand it if I was going to do a bit of dendochronology and start dating the origins of the room by looking at the wood. But once my insatiable need to see The Old Stuff has been met by something old, I just go, “O wow, it’s so old,” then walk off.

What is this Old Stuff obsession about? Is it a bit of one-up-manship?

“I’ve totally seen older stuff than you. I saw a kitchen sink built in 1325. Beat you!”

Of moats and medieval knights

On Friday, it was Away Day at Ham House. The great thing about working or volunteering with the National Trust is that Away Days are spent at other fabulous National Trust properties (none of them as good as Ham House, of course, but they’re still nice).

This year’s Away Day was to Ightham Mote in Kent (pronounced Item Moat).

And yes, it is surrounded by a moat. This is the view of it from one of the windows in the house.

It was built in, are you ready for this, 1325! Isn’t that mind-blowing? Almost 700 years old. It had lots more bits and pieces added over the next five centuries but the original buildings are from 1325.

This kitchen is from original build, as is the Crypt…

In one of the upstairs rooms, there is a glass panel in the ceiling so that you can see through to the original oak beam roofing.

The house has been owned by medieval knights, sheriffs, MPs, generals, businessmen and many others. In one room, the wall on my right was built by Isolde Inge (they think) in 1330, the wall on my left was part of a later addition built by Sir Richard Clement in 1530 and the motifs on the window are someone else’s addition but they don’t know the exact year.

As opposed to the extreme grandeur of Ham House, this house was a place I could imagine myself sitting down in, perhaps reading a book, perhaps lingering by the warm fire in the billiard room. One of the rooms actually, the Oriel Room, has been made back into a sitting room so guests can have a little sit down part way around. (Ham House is still better though, our stuff is sparklier.)

The New Chapel at Ightham Mote is an interesting room, mainly for this fantastic ceiling, painted in situ in the early 16th century.

Another interesting thing is the way over-the-top Jacobean fireplace in the Drawing Room, which they actually had to lift the ceiling in order to fit in. Anyone else might just make a smaller fireplace. But not the Selbys (whose ownership of the house spanned 300 years). They got hold of the ceiling and pushed it upwards, for the fireplace must be put in and it must be huge.

We then saw some rooms furnished as its last owner had them. He was an American businessman from Portland, Maine and his ashes are in the Crypt. Interestingly, his relatives traced his ancestry back to medieval knights.

After wandering out of the house, we saw these buildings opposite.

It turns out they were built in 1457 and are currently being let out as holiday cottages… New cool weekend away destination, maybe?

We then lunched (not after I snuck into the kitchen to chat to the chef for a bit!) and I had the difficult choice between joining a garden tour for my last 45 minutes or raiding the shop for cookery books.

Guess which one I chose?

Getting spooked in Ham House

A few days ago, I expressed an interest in becoming a tour guide at Ham House. As luck would have it, the very next day there was a training session on how to guide the ghost tours.

I jumped at the chance so the following morning, the training was due to begin at 10am. The house is generally kept quite dark, to avoid light damage to any of the delicate things in the rooms. This makes the whole place a bit spooky. My plan was to go into the house at 9.30am and have a little look around for some ghosts while the place was still quiet and dark.

I went and stood in the chapel, where the Duke of Lauderdale’s body lay for a week after his death and where a woman dressed in black has been seen kneeling by the altar and where a handprint was found in the dust one morning, at the Duchess’ pew. I stared into the darkness and my heart beat fast and eventually I lit up my phone to scan the room for ghosties but didn’t see one.

Next I went to to the Round Gallery where, in the book I recently talked about, one of the main characters sees some ghosts. While I am not claiming this book is based on anything factual, I still thought I might come across something, given all the portraits on the wall.

Nothing.

Back downstairs, I went into the Duchess’ bedchamber. This is the room where she spent the last years of her life, ridden with gout and feeling trapped. I can’t remember the exact quote but she writes about feeling imprisoned in her beloved Ham House. There have been ghostly sightings by room guides here, who’ve been so scared by what they saw, that they have been unable to return to the house.

I lingered around, looked in the mirror, looked at the portrait of the Duchess as a young woman and waited.

Nothing.

Undeterred, I went into the White Closet, a beautiful little room that was one of the Duchess’ private closets in which she entertained only her closest friends.

As I stared at a painting of the back of Ham House and the gardens, I remembered someone saying that this painting contains most of the people at Ham House who have been seen/heard as ghosts. So I started looking for them in the painting. And I heard a noise…..

Whirrrrrrrr…..

Oo! Oo! It’s the ghosts! Through there! Up there! In the next room! I snuck along following the noise, with a beating heart, and found….

One of the staff members hoovering the floor in the Long Gallery.

Ah. Yes. Of course that was it. Silly me. Ghosts don’t whirr, everyone knows that.

I did tell him off, though, for hoovering while I’m looking for ghosts. How can they walk around or say hi to me if he’s busy hoovering them up? It takes them bloody ages to get back out of that hoover so I wouldn’t see them until much later in the day.

By this time, it was 10am and the training was starting so I went upstairs and complained about the lack of ghost sightings. We talked a lot about how a tour should run, then a few of the experienced guides did a sample tour for us around the house.

I still didn’t see any ghosts on this tour but not for lack of looking.

Anyway, the training finished and I left, clutching my notes and dreaming about being the Best Ghost Tour Guide The World Has Ever Seen, and ran into my manager from the cafe, who told me about a name scratched into the kitchen window in one of the house steward’s flats upstairs in the house.

The story is, briefly, a young man called John McFarlane was at the house. He was in love with one of the kitchen girls but she was in love with the butler. He was super distraught about it and threw himself out of one of the upstairs windows and died. But not before scratching his name into one of the window panes – John McFarlane 1790.

So we went to see this name scratched in. I was really having to restrain my excitement. People have photographed this window before and seen an orb in the photo! I attempted to take a photo of the name but my phone was like, “There is no more space for photographs on your phone.”

Humph.

So I deleted some photos to make space and tried again. Same thing. I deleted some more and eventually I got one but I couldn’t take any more. After walking through the front room into the hallway, we decided to look around upstairs.

As we approached the stairs, Sarah said to me, “There are stories of a little boy ghost on these stairs,” then she turned the light on…

And the light popped and the bulb threw itself out of the socket and it hurtled down the stairs towards us and smashed on the ground, only just missing us. I tried to photograph the smashed glass but the phone was having none of it. Sarah checked the fuse box but nothing had blown….

Make of it what you will, my friends. Make of it what you will.

School photos

This week, the Blog Hop subject over at The Waiting and Are You Finished Yet is school photos. Now, I’m not going to lie and pretend I have an awful lot of fascinating/amusing stories to tell you about school photos as I really don’t remember a lot about them. What I do have, though, are a few old school photos that you may or may not enjoy looking at. If you’re lucky, I’ll dredge a few memories up (possibly I’ll throw some fake ones in there too, as a filler) to kind of bind the whole thing together.

Here goes.

Look at this photo.

Look at little me there, obediently putting my hands on my knees. I’ve obviously been told to do so by the photographer lady who, if I remember rightly, was Elizabeth Pie’s mum. And why, o why, did we never sing ‘Who ate all the pies?’ to Elizabeth Pie?! What a wasted opportunity for entertainment at another child’s expense. And, let’s face it, school was made up of entertainment at the expense of other children. I was never really that child. There was always the buffer zone of a fat friend to absorb the teasing before they got to me.

I do remember it being quite good fun to wait for my older brother to collect me from my class to get a photo together. That was exciting because the other kids looked in wonder at him, like he was the coolest thing thing since sliced bread, simply because he was ten and we were seven.

I remember always sitting on the front row for the photos though, being on the smaller side. I think there’s another photo lingering on here. Let me just run and get it.

————————————-

Yeh, I couldn’t find it. But what I did find was a photo of me eating crisps from a bucket. What’s not to love?!

And a photo of me sitting in a chair, wearing a Hello Kitty tshirt when I was definitely old enough to know better.

Look at me, full of life and always smiling. She’s so damn cheerful all the time, that’s what everyone used to say about me. Sort of.

And now, having failed to find any school photos apart from that one at the beginning, I shall slink off and admit that this week, I did not do the Blog Hop proud.

The time I hid

When I was about ten years old, I had an operation on my hip, which was dislocated since birth. I had to have plaster from just above my belly button down to my ankle on one side and to my knee on the other, with a bar across the middle, like a capital A.

This capital A shaped plaster was inconvenient, to say the least. It made me so wide that when I was allowed home from hospital, they had to give me a hospital bed that was set up in the front room and that was were I spent all my time.

I couldn’t walk, obviously. I couldn’t go to the toilet. I had to have a bedpan thing. I couldn’t really sit up because the plaster came quite high to my belly button. I also couldn’t sneeze without a lot of pain in my pelvis so I took to stifling the sneeze until it kind of exploded a bit in my nose, to prevent a proper full-on sneeze that would shake my whole body.

I used to watch Sesame Street every lunch time and my mum would make me a jacket potato with cheese melted all over it. She used to drive me crazy by cutting it into bits then feeding it to me. I was always like, “My arms and hands work fine! Let me feed myself.”

My friend, Ruth (of The Handbags And The Gladrags fame), used to come over most weekends, to cheer me up. This one Saturday she was over and we were going to go out. Someone had made me a V shaped board to sit on in the wheelchair, like an extension out the front, to accommodate my awkward shape. I would have to be sort of slumped down in the chair bit with my massive plastered legs sticking out.

I must have been a bit apprehensive the whole time we were getting ready and one’s childhood is so fraught with embarrassment anyway that it must have just got too much for me. I remember feeling like an awkward shaped peice of furniture being manoeuvred around a corner.

I was in the wheelchair, there was a blanket over me, Ruth was quite excited for the little adventure, my parents has their coats on. We were all ready to go.

And then I just hid.

I pulled the blanket over my head and I hid.

I imagine there was confusion, they probably looked at each other uncertainly. What’s going on? Should we just go out anyway? What’s she doing?

I think they probably tried to speak to me and I think I just stayed silent the whole time. I stayed under the safety of the blanket and refused to look out or to tell them whether I still wanted to go out. They left me in the hallway on my massive awkward wheelchair and waited for me to talk. I didn’t. I just stayed under my blanket.

I think Ruth ended up going home given that I, her best friend, had spent the majority of her visit hiding under a blanket, refusing to speak. I think my parents pottered off to make tea and eventually I must have emerged from my blanket.

And if I remember rightly, we never spoke of it again.

Gradbach Mill

Good morning all. I’ve got a guest post from Rambler5319 for you today. Sit back and enjoy.

 

I recently visited an area of Staffordshire which is close to a point where three different counties meet: not surprisingly it’s called Three Shires Head. The three shires are Cheshire, Derbyshire & Staffordshire and they meet on the SW end of Axe Edge Moor. We stayed in a Youth Hostel called Gradbach Mill.

It’s interesting to look at the Ordnance Survey Map of the area and see some of the place/farm names. Here is a sample all within a few miles: Hangingstone Farm, Burntcliff Top, Hawk’s Nest, Wolf Edge, Old Hag, Gun End Farm, Spring Head, Wildstone Rock, Adder’s Green, Daffodil Farm, Green Gutter Head, Far Hole Edge, Cut-Thorn, Wildboarclough & Thick Withins. (If you’re thinking Wuthering Heights that was supposedly Top Withins/Withens and of course in Yorkshire.) Don’t tell me they don’t conjure up a picture, in your mind, of days gone by with very primitive living conditions and people walking across rainy windswept moorland and valley areas (or is that just me remembering Kate Bush).

Bit of history to start. The mill was probably built in the 18^th century and was restored after a fire there in 1785. In the reign of George III (1760-1820) imports of flax and hemp had duty charges placed on them and subsidies were given to try to stimulate the domestic production; the mill was initially involved in flax production. The reason for it being in a rather isolated spot is because it was the River Dane that provided the power via a very large waterwheel. Check out the stats on the wheel (which is no longer there): diameter 38 feet (11.6 metres), 96 buckets each one holding 35 gallons (159 litres), one complete turn of the wheel, via the gearing wheels, is believed to have turned the main shaft inside 2,500 times. That’s one big wheel! In later years the mill produced silk but that finished in the 1870s. The next owner used it as a saw mill and for joinery work. At some point in the 20^th century the YHA took it over.

It’s only as you drive to the place that you realise how isolated it is because back then most people would be walking.

Here’s a pic of the mill.

And here’s a reminder of the raison d’etre for the whole Youth Hostel Association. The original idea of Youth Hostels came from a German schoolteacher over 100 years ago and the first English ones opened in the early 1930s.

We booked in and grabbed the bottom bunks in our room to save struggling up/down from the top. A quick change and we set off for short(ish) walk. This sign was just opposite the front entrance to the hostel so we headed that way.

We were interested in seeing what Lud’s Church was as we didn’t think there would be a church in the middle of the woods in an isolated river valley.

This is the start of the path

It was totally quiet. Not a sound apart from a few insect-y things in the bushes and trees and the river in the background. I love the sound of running water in the countryside. Then we came to this tree.

Just look at how many roots are showing and how far they spread out.

And en route we passed Castle Cliff Rocks.

Then a confirmation that we were on the right track

It was a really warm day. Then we arrived at the entrance to Lud’s Church

I know what you’re thinking but bear with me.

Immediately we got between the rocks the air was really chilled and as we turned the corner at the bottom there was a mist rising. It almost felt like you were walking into your fridge. Yep that’s right a really warm day and a chilly mist coming up from the ground. Bit spooky. Anyway here’s the view at the bottom. It was quite muddy but there was a wooden plank to walk along to avoid sinking into it.

And a log which had loads of coins bashed into it. Not too sure what the idea of this was but believe from other sources that it is a very recent thing.

So why is this narrow passageway (a few metres wide & 18 metres deep) between sheer-sided rocks called Lud’s Church? There are a few theories and suggestions. The very first mention of the name Lud occurs in the Bible in Genesis ch10 verse 22: the eldest son of Noah was Shem and his 4^th son was called Lud. Maybe there’s an ecclesiastical root to the name.

It’s believed to have been a sacred place to early Pagans. Lud is actually a Celtic deity but not necessarily purely local to this area but again a possible religious connection.

Those of you who know something of the Arthurian legends may remember the story Sir Gawain & the Green Knight; some believe the Green Chapel in that story is Lud’s Church. The Green Knight’s outline is supposed to visible once you’re in the right place.

For those unfamiliar with the story it goes like this: one day the Green Knight comes to Camelot (supposedly on a green horse)and issues a challenge to the Knights of the Round Table; Sir Gawain, one of King Arthur’s knights, accepts that challenge; the challenge is that Sir G can strike the Green Knight if he (Sir G) will accept a return strike from GK a year and a day later; Sir G has his go and with one blow chops off GK’s head; job done? No, wait – GK then picks up his head and tells Sir G not to forget the deal. If you fancy finding out how the story proceeds and ends look it up; check out Lady Bertilak’s rather interesting role during the year & day. I wonder what you would have done in Sir G’s place.

There is also a tradition that Robin Hood used the place.

Perhaps more likely is the view that the Lollards (followers of the reformer John Wycliffe, 1320-84) are believed to have used the area for worship in the early 15^th century when they were being persecuted by the authorities. A man called Walter de Ludank (or Lud-Auk) was captured there and it’s possible this is where the Lud name came from. Anyway whatever the origin it is just a very interesting place to visit.

We climbed out the other end of the passage and retraced our steps to the hostel. We set about preparing the evening meal in the communal kitchen often to the sound of Dido over the PA; one of the chefs is a fan and so am I. We were struck by the number of chopping boards.

Here they are

Why so many colours? Because they’re all for different foods; and here’s the key to which one to use.

We needed a wooden spoon for stirring our baked beans. We could see only one. How about this?

I mean how big does your pan have to be to need that one? Anyway it did the job. (Wonder if LLM’s Ham House has one of these?)

Remember that isolation I mentioned at the start? If you’re into modern gizmos be aware Gradbach has no reception for modern technology (TV, PC, mobile) although one person said that if you walked for north for about 15 mins and climbed the hill just over the river you could get a few bars on the mobile! We played a few games of backgammon and retired to bed. Day 1 over, day 2 to follow soon.