In Passing

This summer, when we were on the train from Portsmouth to Dover, I was lucky enough to get a glimps of this: The Long Man of Wilmington. I wouldn´t have seen it at all - much less gotten a snap of it - if the guy across the aisle hadn´t been bending down over some paperwork. The Long Man is near Eastbourne and plays a part in "The Language of Bees", one of Laurie R King´s Mary Russell mysteries.

From My Photo Album

About where the Brontë sisters would have sat, listening to their father´s sermons. Haworth, Yorkshire, 2009.

Learned landscapes

I really like this picture. It was taken this summer as we were walking around Cambridge. It makes me think of Constable´s painting of Salisbury Cathedral, which I love.

Maybe it´s the cow that does it, and the contrast between the grandeur of the buildings and the pastoral idyll.

In a lot of big cities these old buildings, built to impress, have been engulfed by modern skyscrapers, but in Oxford and Cambridge, the intentions of the architects have really been respected and preserved. Fabulous, I think.

Divine thought

I once, some twenty years ago, heard someone (whose name I can not remember, I believe she was an architect) speak about how beautifully shaped ceilings promote our quality of thinking. She firmly believed, I think, that the modern, snug, office-like spaces where our best minds are forced to dwell, were not promoting the progress of civilization.

This is the Divinity School in Oxford, an old lecture and seminare hall. If she was right, that ceiling should deliver some extraordinary thought.

 

This room has also been used by film makers. It´s been seen in "Shadow-
lands" with Anthony Hopkins (an excellent tear-jerker about C S Lewis tragic love) and one of the Harry Potter-films (as an infirmary, not a teaching hall).

Virtual reality

If our lives, as some psychologists and philosophers would argue, are stories that we construct, if our brains create order in the form of fictions to help us make sense of the world, then are completely made-belief people less real than flesh-and-blood-people? If Inspector Morse, or Elisabeth Bennet, or Tintin and Captain Haddock, and their stories live in millions of peoples minds and hearts and affect them deeply and permanently, are they less alive than ordinary folks who live and die and never make it into a "bigger" story than a private family one that dies with those few who have known them? If life, society, history, is a construction in the form of a story, then does it matter if the hero of the story is born into the real world or onto the pages of a book? Are we more influenced by a real historical figure like Buddha or Abraham Lincoln than a fictional one like Yoda or King Arthur?

If we are all living in some great consciousness, more or less available to us in our human form, will we, if that consciousness is somehow our ticket to immortality or "afterlife", be as likely to meet our fictional friends "on the other side" as we are likely to meet our friends and family?

One thing is for sure, many of us spend more time with, and are more emotionally involved with, fictional characters than real people. Is that a weakness, or a strength?

Spooky place

A couple of years ago we went for a short fall holiday to Berlin. We arrived late afternoon and took an evening stroll, to taste the atmosphere of the place. Only a few minutes up Unter den Linden we came upon this sign, and it made me shudder a bit.

Bebelplatz was the place where the famous book burning took place in 1933. Imagine that. It´s not that I´m overly sensitive about books being destroyed, the world is full of them and we can´t keep them all. But burning books as a demonstration, banning certain kinds of books, certain kinds of art, certain kinds of living, certain kinds of people. That is hard to take in. I rarely feel "ghosts" but this time, I did.

Brideshead Revisited

This is impressive Castle Howard, also in Yorkshire. I´ve been meaning to see the tv-series "Brideshead Revisited" (after the novel by Evelyn Waugh) again, in it´s entirety, and read the book, but "stuff" (like other books and tv-programs...) keeps getting in the way.


When I got home, I was happy to see an episode of "Time Team", my favourite arkeology programme, where they were digging (in just three days!) to try and find the old village that was simply moved by the earl of Carlisle, who built it in the early 18th Century. As I recall, they didn´t find much...

Anne Brontë´s grave

Beautiful Scarborough, on the Yorkshire coast, is a hugely varied and interesting town, that has far too much to offer for a single day. My travel companions are returned there as I am writing this, and I am not just a little envious!


Our first stop was, of course, the grave of Anne Brontë, the single reason for our visit here (but not the reason for returning). You can see we are not the only pilgrims, the grass on either side of the gravestone is has been worn off by all the fans posing next to it!

An assortment of flavours

The landscape of Yorkshire is the landscape of such creations as "Emmerdale Farm" (I don´t follow it now, but everybody watched it in the 70´s on swedish television), "Dalziel & Pascoe" sleuth novels by Reginald Hill, "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë, Bram Stoker´s "Dracula", James Herriot´s "All Creatures Great And Small", and more.

Atmosphere

Some places just makes you want to linger all day, soaking up the atmosphere. I am toying with the idea of returning to Haworth, staying with sweet Mr Hutchinson at the coolest B&B ever, Ye Sleeping House, taking long walks (the "real" Wuthering Heights is not far away) and generally drink lots of real ale, read, sit and just soak it up. For you: the Brontë Parsonage.

Branwell´s pub

Visiting a place like Haworth, with three famous authors having grown up there, and lived there most of their lives, it´s bound to be packed with memorabilia and significant places.


First thing we did when we got there? Had a pint, of course!

The pub is just next door to the church, and we arrived on a rather wet evening in April, which kind of lets you feel the mood of the Brontë´s novels.

It was the perfect prelude to our excursions in Haworth the next day!

Sylvia Plath´s grave

I should be blogging about this year´s journey to England, shouldn´t I? Well, I still haven´t digested all my impressions and the pile of pictures is just to high to tackle at the moment. Instead, my thoughts turn to last year´s journey and how one´s interest can lead to unexpected experiences. I was travelling from Manchester to Haworth, and pure luck in the form of a Guardian article made me aware that Sylvia Plath´s grave was on my way. So, I decided to stop and search for it. It made me discover one of the most charming towns in Yorkshire, Hebden Bridge.


And it gave me a good hike as well!

Banbury Road pilgrimage

Yes, that´s me, on Banbury Road, where Chief Inspector Morse lives...

Bletchley Park

Our first stop in England were at Milton Keynes (which is possibly the least english-looking town in England, basically a series of big empty parking lots and big empty shopping malls when we arrived late on Sunday evening), which is where one finds Bletchley Park, the secret place where the Brits cracked the enigma-code during the second world war. It´s located just smack in the middle of everything, between Oxford and Cambridge, on the big roads and railways from London northbound. At the same time, it´s in the middle of nowhere.

This is a view over the small pond, with one of the "huts" in the background. Just behind the trees to the left is "hut 8", where Alan Turing had his office, and there is also a statue of him on the grounds. I have even heard a story about a treasure he is supposed to have buried in the woods neighbouring the place, apparently he was not entirly balanced (and he finally committed suicide).

Bletchley Park is run by a bunch of enthusiasts who have recreated the machines used for the decyphering of the german codes, the Bombe and the Colossus. All the original machines were dissembled on Churchill´s orders at the end of the war and until the 90´s it wasn´t really common knowledge what had gone on on these grounds. The whole place was very close to being demolished for a modern estate!

When we came home last night from our trip, we immediately re-watched the film "Enigma" with Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott and were very dissapointed to find that they had filmed it at a whole different estate, not at Bletchley Park at all. However, the machines were used in the film, and a couple of the old cars that are still in the garage.

Of course, they had a shop on the grounds, and a well-stocked bookshelf. I had promised myself not to buy anything on this trip, but I fell through on the first day. I bought "Bletchley Park People - Churchill´s geese that never cackled" by Marion Hill. I will write more about it later, when I have had time to read it. And there are many more pictures to show of the park...