Taking the cure at Fountains Abbey

River Skell seen from Surprise View, quite a climb but worth the effort for the view of the Abbey in the background

The Lake, with Fishing Tabernacles either side of the bridge - the Valley of the Seven Bridges is away
 to the bottom left of the picture

The Watergarden.

 

 The place is so very special because my Dad took me there as a child. He used to go on holiday to Ripon, where his grandad was a gentlemen's hairdresser (he didn't like the term 'barber'). At one time his three sons - my grandad, his two brothers Arthur and Albert, along with his half-brother Edgar, all worked in the business. Albert was killed at the end of  October 1917 near Ypres, while Arthur was badly wounded in a mine explosion on the Western Front.
He was rescued from the carnage by a German patrol. Taken prisoner, he had to have extensive surgery, which led to him losing over half his stomach. Arthur, who never married, returned home to Ripon, where he took to wandering late in the evening and during the night - Studley and Fountains were his favourite stamping grounds, and I like to think that here he found peace after the horror, loss and suffering of war.


             Cure of Fountains

In the Chapel of the Nine Altars by moonlight

And in the Valley of the Seven Bridges at dusk

Arthur, a man scarred by war and captivity

Chooses to walk alone and in peace

Under the ruins of the great tower

And by the fishing tabernacles

His cares and pain are eased by

The beauty of ancient tranquillity

Here gods and Greeks and Aislabie’s folly temples

Wrestle for attention in the moonlight and cool

Of evening shade

And the curse of war is banished

By Arthur’s nocturnal wanderings.

 
For more of my family history, the life story of Ripon's oldest Barber and a 100-year-old mystery, read Heirloom.

Homage to Finkle Street

The trip to Ripon Library culminated in the discovery of my great grandfather's obituary, as well as that of his son, my great uncle, who died in WWI. Also discovered that three great aunts all 'succumbed to pneumonia on attaining womanhood' (1937 speak for died aged 19, 23 and 25, so heartbreakingly young). Now hope to learn more about their brother who emigrated to Australia three years after the end of WWI. At 80, my great granddad was 'Ripon's oldest hairdresser' when he died - says so in the title to his obituary, left me feeling rather proud of the old boy. He worked in his own shop, at 7 Finkle Street, top of the Market Square - must have done a roaring trade on market day, with various of his sons, for just over 44 years. That's a lot of snipping.  Bet he also did a nice line in 'something for the weekend, sir?' sales.

A new year family history lesson

While visiting a friend of a friend's FB timeline, I was dismayed to see that she 'liked' a group that declared England was full. A short scroll down, however, came a mild reproach from an older relative. This reminded her that great grandma came here as a Jewish refugee from Tsarist Russia, and how she met and married great granddad, whom she then nursed for the rest of his days because he was gassed while fighting in WWI.
There are few families, and my own certainly isn't among them, that can trace a presence here going back more than a few centuries. Indeed, the  vast majority of people have at least one grandparent who came here from somewhere else, but a depressingly high proportion of us seem to want to pull up an imagined drawbridge.
I've never been frightened by an immigrant/asylum seeker/ foreigner (insert word of choice), but racists scare the crap out of me. Hold that thought in 2015.

Happy Anniversary

The picture was taken 100 years ago today - my grandparents married at St Andrew's Church, Burley, Leeds on 1 June 1914. Just 27 days later, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Sarajevo - a place that most of the people in the photograph would never had heard of. But by the beginning of August, WWI was declared and within 4 years my grandfather would be fighting in Flanders and of his two brothers, Arthur would be a prisoner of war in Germany, and his youngest brother, Albert, would be dead - killed in an air raid at Ypres. Of two of the male cousins in the photograph, one would lie about his age to enlist and another would endure the opprobrium and ridicule reserved for the conscientious objector. Before the public displays of remembrance start, I want to offer my family as an example - on this, the centenary of my grandparents' wedding - as a reminder of what war did to ordinary people, and how they coped with the horror of events way beyond their experience or control.

World War I commemoration - far too important for the politicians to control or direct

I know he was selling a book, but Paxman came across well on Graham Norton last night, and the audience approved of his repeated criticism of Cameron's idiotic linkage of WWI commemoration with Jubilee celebration. While the First World War is now beyond personal memories, it is certainly still a large part of collective folk/family memory: how many families have granddad's or great granddad's medals in a tin or drawer? The commemoration needs to focus on that shared memory - not made easy, as many of that generation followed their orders not to talk about the suffering and loss when they came home. Damn the British sense of deference to our 'elders and betters' - something that should have sunk in the mud of Flanders, but sadly limped on for a few more years. We don't want cloying sentiment or triumphant flag waving - that would only serve to cheapen and demean the memory of those who suffered; but we can't afford to let the political class make the running either. August 2014 is less than a year away from the general election due in May 2015 and it would be appalling if Cameron, Crosby, Osborne et al were to try create a patriotic smokescreen to garner a few votes. Remember those who went before us - those ancestors who returned and those who lie in Commonwealth War Grave cemeteries (Britain legislated against returning their bodies, partly to prevent the full extent of the losses becoming known, for fear of undermining the war effort or encouraging civil unrest). Remember, but don't allow any hint of 'celebration' to enter the equation.