In my second year at university I wrote an essay for a Gothic Literature module where I discussed the use of what I called ‘personal mythologies’ within two texts. Rereading it again today, the argument is convoluted to say the least (and the marks it received certainly reflects the content) but I found myself thinking again about the idea of personal mythologies over the past few weeks and thought I’d give it another go.
Mysterious Statue with Symbolic Resonances
A few weekends ago I was presented with the extremely generous gift of a trip to Dublin to watch a band called ‘The High Kings’ who play traditional Irish folk songs, mixed in with some original material, and who’s music I have been slightly obsessed with for a few years.* We filled the time around the show with some sightseeing; taking a walking tour around the city and visiting Dublin Castle as well as spending a fair few hours in the local Wetherspoons. Dublin has the familiar murmur of a European capital, with towering statues with stony faces, but on a bitter but clear day we were most enamoured with its parks. We walked along criss-crossing paths and past still, cropped grass to find a reclining statue of and tribute to Oscar Wilde. In another garden, next door to Dublin Castle, we found a bright pink statue of a hero with a decapitated head at his feet. But, rather than classical dress, he was dressed in shorts, boots and a baseball cap. I couldn’t find any information on it online and there was no plaque to tell me its origin but, looking back, it was the perfect symbol of the appropriated and personalised mythologies that would occupy my thoughts in the coming weeks.
Our time exploring the city actually provided some pretty vital context for the songs I was going to hear from The High Kings. The songs are a performance of a national story; of a troubled history and a celebration of independence, often to used to punctuate a particular moment in time. But as they raced through their repertoire, they told the crowd their own stories about the first time they played a song or the musical traditions of their families.
Best £15 Ever Spent
During these stories it occurred to me that, separate from their wider context, the songs had become intertwined with the personal narratives of the band. Not only would the songs be a form of national mourning or nostalgia but footnotes in their own mythology; a soundtrack of firsts, lasts and defining moments. It was Paul O’Brien’s first time on tour with the band and maybe, amongst the performance of a long tradition, a moment in a particular show and particular song solidified itself within his personal mythology. Maybe his worst nerves, his strongest solo, the response of a crowd– something which will shape his life in minute but meaningful ways and which will be recalled, even if only inwardly, forever.
Only a few hours earlier I was sat in a pub called O’Connell’s and, sitting down with my cider (scared of Guinness), I saw the table was littered with fresh paper coasters. Instinctively, I placed one at the edge of the table and began flipping it, then catching it in midair– stacking another coaster on top with each attempt. I first saw this little trick many years ago, shown to me by a friend, and whom now I remember every time I am compelled to replicate it. I uploaded it to my Instagram and soon a second friend responded to the video, reminiscing about our time spent practising together. The origin stories of those quirks, manifesting in our daily lives, really fascinates me, especially when they are shared with a friendship group to become a common language and the foundation of how we think of and define ourselves.
Fastforward a week and I was catching a flight to Kyiv for a trip with a altogether different pace. A group of eight, patiently led by a friend of mine who I lived with at University and whose family is from Ukraine. In a way, he was my Ukrainian ‘High King’, proud of the country and very vocal about its, often turbulent, national story (although he is yet to start a Ukrainian folk band, as far as I’m aware).** I think a lot of us are guilty of shit-talking our hometowns and failing to ever un-ironically praise them– especially Lutonians– but spending time with someone who has a sincere and unashamed enthusiasm for a place that is important to them is really refreshing. The cityscape of Kyiv is beautifully eclectic; with the blunt grey leviathans of brutalism interspersed with glittering monuments and intricate exteriors coloured with pastel blues and pinks. As a train station nerd, the stretches of tunnel lit warmly with a row of chandeliers and the delightfully retro rolling stock made me happy.
Statue of a young, starving girl commemorating the Holodomor
We had gone to Kyiv for my friend’s birthday and the party consisted mostly of his school friends whom he had known, and who had known each other, for many years. While the evolving story of this new city sharpened into view, it was so fascinating to me hearing them delve into the depths of their own shared mythology; being able to evoke meaning and nostalgia with the recalling of a name or place. And, when asked, they would generously offer up the genesis of long standing jokes that are so engrained in the fabric of their friendship. Even the UoB alumni partook in some of our own folk traditions, sharing our own origins, with stories of short-lived friendships and habitual clubbing. As the second annual pilgrimage to Ukraine in celebration of a friend, more sprouts of a common language, borne out of shared experience, began to emerge.
We were in our own bubble as the bells chimed for Brexit back home. And perhaps it is in this seemingly eternal saga that the more insidious manifestations of these ‘shared mythologies’ rear their ugly heads. These stories we wrap ourselves are exclusionary by nature, they make us prone to outrage with those whose thoughts divert from ours and distract from the need to acknowledge the lived experience of others.
Brutalist Architecture
Surprisingly, I don’t have the answers to how we ‘unify’ or ‘come together’ (as we are so often told we must do) but I thought I would end on a slightly less controversial topic. On our final night, the conversation arrived at the topic of astrology. Now, I suspect there were varying degrees of ‘belief’ in the room but I found myself thinking how a younger, more insufferable, version of myself may have reacted. In my mid-teens I was a boring, smart arse contrarian that watched Christian take-down videos and posted trite societal observations on Facebook (somethings never change) and astrology would have no doubt been another victim of my distain. But thinking of the way we consume these structures and we become reliant on them as truths not only about the world but about ourselves, I’m glad I tried to understand and defend the validity of belief in that moment. Often, we want the same thing; security, control, happiness, love. As we shoot across no mans land, with different uniforms but the same anxieties and fears and the same locket with a picture of your sweetheart back home.
As I attempt to keep this straining metaphor alive, if there is a lesson I think I’ve learnt (or, added to my anthology of origin stories) it’s to try to see the reasons people have built the mythology upon which they stand. See that it can give meaning, bring solace and find space for new footnotes or chapters in your own story.
* My personal recommendations on where to start with The High Kings are ‘Grace’, ‘Red Is The Rose’, ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’ and ‘Marie’s Wedding’
** He does, however, have a blog that follows Ukrainian football so, if that interests you, you can find him at Zorya Londonsk.
The other day I went to Shaw’s Corner. The former residence of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw; or GBS to his friends (not really). Now I didn’t really know anything about Shaw: I came across him in passing during my undergrad, I knew he wrote Pygmalion, which was adapted into My Fair Lady, but almost nothing else. I was only there because of its proximity to me and my need to try out a new camera, so I went in with an open mind. The house is quite remote, at the end of a series of long, empty roads with blind corners, lined with thick bushes and trees– the fair weather made the journey feel like a summer road trip . You arrive first in the car park, with dusty, crunchy gravel underfoot, a silver food truck and a hut housing all the Bernard Shaw-themed merchandise you could want.
We walked in to the hut and scan our membership cards and left feeling very smug and self-satsfied after being congratulated for having young person’s memberships (for we are the vibrant, promising future of the National Trust). The house itself is obscured by tall hedges along one side of the car park, but once they are rounded the house pops into view. It’s an odd sight. The walls, a reddish-brown brick accented with bright green pipes and window frames, seem to jut out at random and three rooftop chimneys complete its unusual silhouette. It feels like something out of The Hobbit or a Wordsworth poem, the greenery that clings to so much of the walls make it seem like the house itself might have sprouted from the ground.
Shaw’s Wall of Portraits
While the gardens are lovely, it was the inside of the house that I found the most interesting. For the most part it is fairly unspectacular, a big green door opens into a room with off-white walls and framed photos and paintings surround another clutter of off-white doorways that lead to more rooms. The furniture is frail, the decoration old-fashioned with gaudy flower patterns adorning the greenish-white curtains. But one particular decoration really hadn’t aged well. Along the top of one fireplace was a row of photos and drawings: first I noticed a photo of Gandhi… then Lenin, then Stalin. It turns out that Shaw was a dedicated socialist, eugenics enthusiast, dictator admirer and crackpot who thought Hitler should be allowed to escape retribution after WWII and retire to a quiet life in Ireland. It made the old curtains seem positively progressive.
A view of Shaw’s Corner from the gardens
Up the stairs, in the former room of Shaw’s wife Charlotte, was the ‘museum room’. On the wall were flowery quotes and extracts from letters, written by Bernard Shaw. Unfortunately for Charlotte, the letters were not addressed to her but to one “Mrs Pat”. Mrs Patrick Campbell, an actress and socialite, was inspiration for many of Shaw’s characters and, once they began negotiating her appearance as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, the two began an intense relationship and exchange of passionate letters. Although Wikipedia tells me it was an ‘unconsummated’ relationship, I’m sure Shaw’s obsessive gushing didn’t please his wife.
A room full of books in Shaw’s Corner
The whole thing reminded me of Thomas Hardy who developed similar infatuations with female acquaintances. Florence Henniker, a writer with whom Hardy eventually collaborated, was forced to reject his romantic advances (despite his being married at the time), although was later used as inspiration for Sue in his final novel Jude the Obscure.
Later in life, the actress Gertrude Bugler became an object of interest for the now eighty-year-old Hardy as she played the leading roles in the stage adaptations of many of his novels. This time, when Gertrude was due to star in Tess of the D’Urbervilles in London, Hardy’s second wife gave in to her jealousy and refused to allow it. While I don’t have Thomas Hardy posters on my wall or drift off to sleep listening to his poetry, it leaves a slightly bitter taste when someone who’s work you admire has their raw, unfiltered character revealed to you.
All this made me think of how we deal with the complexity of our cultural heroes. George Bernard Shaw is undoubtedly significant, his work should be read and not thrown out along with his troubling personal philosophies. I am glad that the photo of Stalin remains on the fireplace as a record of Shaw’s reality, but it seems to be just an inconvenient footnote attached to a monument to his brilliance. And I concede that the house may exist as just a snapshot of a famous person’s life for posterity but the National Trust website just delivers a watered down version of Shaw’s socialism that feels a bit intellectually insincere; a way to justify the celebration of the man. But it has to be possible for people to exist both as venerated celebrity and flawed human.
An annotated manuscript
In the social media-influenced dialogue, however, it seems that there is a shrinking space for complexity and nuance. I think ‘Cancel Culture’, perhaps rather controversially, can be a useful phenomenon… sometimes. When a public figure’s reputation is so concretely positive and elevated, it can take a collective effort to pierce the facade of perfection. But, in a sphere where everyone craves clickable, shareable and digestible opinions, people must be heroes or villains– and the distance between those two states seems to be shrinking.
In the current climate, this piece could be considered a concrete cancellation of George Bernard Shaw, and the National Trust’s literary hero becomes a villain. But I think really it is just unveiling another aspect of a messy, human life and, while it takes more effort to untangle appreciation for achievements from dogma and ideology, it makes for a far more interesting story. Surely Winston Churchill can be both a white supremacist and unalterable enmeshed with the story of Allied victory in WWII and any complete deification or vilification is unhelpful. But perhaps those who were made victims at his hands would rightly call out my insistence on balance and nuance.
A statue in the gardens at Shaw’s Corner
I don’t know what the right answer is but what I have decided for myself is that not only should you not meet your heroes, you shouldn’t make them in the first place. And as we were leaving Shaw’s Corner, we went up to the silver food truck and bought a couple of drinks. While the girl was grabbing them she told us about Shaw’s office in the gardens outside the house. ‘It rotates so he could face the sun whenever he wanted, ‘ she told us, ‘and he called it London, so his housekeeper could tell unwanted guests that he was away in the capital’. I chuckled thinking about the clever system and decided perhaps one should not meet their villains, either.
In the vast gardens of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, at the end of one of the many gravel pathways, is the Roman Ruin. A pale yellowy arch, held aloft by the typical tree-trunk pillars and flanked by two walls which create a kind of courtyard. Scattered everywhere are chunks of stone and broken ornaments, the decoration on pillars and walls are cracked and everything was layered with the dirt of passed time. Turns out, none of this stuff is Roman. It’s not even technically a ruin. It is a scene, carefully constructed in 1778 to look like a ruin from antiquity. This practice wasn’t even uncommon, the fuck-off-rich people of the 18th Century often turning to the fake ruin as the pièce de résistance of their massive gardens.
One of the many paths running through the gardens
Although I’d like to say I knew straight away that it was definitely fake, that I could recognise the materials weren’t as old as they ought to be, I really wasn’t sure . But once I found out after, and thought about it a little bit, it seemed quite ridiculous to me. I (as illustrated by the content of this blog) love old stuff but would I want to have a fake old thing built, at huge expense, in my back garden? Isn’t the appeal of old things that they’re actually old, that you have something that brings you closer to history, an object enchanted by the passing of time.
But the more I thought about it, the less strange and more familiar the idea seemed. Last year I had a weekend in Grantham and stayed at a very beautiful hotel with a garden; tightly cut grass sat underneath old, stoic trees and a neat path traced through it. Having seen the pictures beforehand, I packed a pair of trousers, a white linen shirt and a pair of brown brogues and for parts of the trip I pretended in my mind to be a character in a Poirot novel. This was heightened by the fact that we went to a speakeasy-themed cocktail bar and got suitably drunk. Now obviously I know that it wasn’t a real speakeasy, and that the facilities of this hotel far exceeded those of an Interwar equivalent, but it was fun play pretend and to indulge in the feeling of history. It isn’t always about veracity or authenticity but also mapping those conceptions we hold about periods of time onto our own lives and bathing in that kind of nostalgia. While I was dressing up binge-drinking as a classy evening out in a 1920s bar, maybe the Hapsburg’s were borrowing their own associations of antiquity to attach to themselves.
It’s the same compulsion that leads people to take Polaroid photos or even get an app on their phone that mimics a Polaroid. The photo is captured in poorer quality but it also imbues it with a kind of importance and it implies it must be treated with the reverence of an old, special, and thus preserved, object. People makes movies on film, artists record songs on vinyl and, while both can be artistic choices, these processes are often used as a shortcut to nostalgia and significance regardless of the actual content. But of course, the romantic, idealised past is a tool that comes in forms a lot more malignant than Instagram filters.
The irony of the ruins to me is that they have come to mirror the decline Schönbrunn Palace itself. The crumbling Roman scene simultaneously pays homage to the ideals of that time period while acknowledging its decline and the need for it to be succeeded, presumably by the Hapsburg’s themselves. But while I walked around the Palace grounds and saw it full of common people like me, walking past the Emperor’s toilet, uncovering every aspect of their private lives, it showed the same decline the Hapsburg’s saw in the Romans, and the Romans in their predecessors. Both the Roman ruins and the palace itself stood as a kind of benign monument to the past, a way for us to satisfy our obsession with the past but to remember that we have moved on– changed. It amused me to think of the Emperors looking into their garden, disgusted to see me eating a whole packet of Tuc biscuits while listening to a boy playing Oasis songs through a small amp. I think for the most part, times change for the better– dynasties and empires fall and are replaced with different ideals and philosophies– but we must remember that we won’t be exempt from the relentless ‘progress’ of humanity and we will probably be reduced to our most quaint or romantic clichés.
As it so happens, there are some real Roman ruins in Vienna. You can see the remnants of walls and windows but the dirty reds and greys of the old brick walls make this sight a far less glamorous one. But does its realness make it more appealing or more worthy of adoration? I’m personally conflicted. On the one hand, the choice to fake a Roman ruin gives us an insight into the values of the people that desired it, their admiration for the beauty of classical forms and structures, their dancing with the past and its connotations that feels so familiar. But on the other hand, there isn’t really a shortcut to nostalgia. I think the real relics from history earn their feeling of enchantment over time and the people responsible for those relics are stuck with whatever conceptions develop of them and their artefacts. Just as it isn’t the grainy, distorted overlay of a Polaroid that evokes the feeling of love or longing or grief within a picture but the truth and the story that the picture contains.
At about 1pm on a lazy Sunday we decided to head to Wimpole Hall. The estate is in the village of Wimpole, just outside of Cambridge, and on the 45-minute journey we drove through sleepy retirement communities, passing signs for whimsical places like Litlington and Bassingbourn-cum-Kneesworth (seriously). As we approached the estate a small sign told us that the Estate was ‘full’, which was slightly concerning. But while it was not, in fact, full it was what I described as bloody busy. We circled the car park a few times to no avail before waiting in the ‘overflow carpark’ (a big field) for a space to become free. It was the first genuinely sunny days of the year which was the impetus for our trip but it also meant that, with the upcoming half-term, the vast grounds were filled with middle-class families complete with long-haired children and Hunter wellies.
The Old Stable Block
On the way to the hall you pass the old stable block– now a courtyard set inside four walls of bright red brick, the entry way topped with a narrow clock tower, finished with white columns and a flimsy weather vane. Further up the path there is a church, made a bit less welcoming to visitors by its placement behind a row of bushes and black, metal fence. This, too, displays the beautiful red bricks on about four fifths of its exterior, the rest is made up of large beige blocks betraying the combination of old and new structures. “A Frankenchurch” I said out loud, met by an entirely deserved silence on the still air. Finally, after rounding a slight corner, you reach the hall. Again, the red brick is on display, interrupted by dozens of windows which are accented by dirty white borders. But the most striking thing about the hall is its unfaltering, incredibly satisfying, symmetry. Three tall rectangles with ornaments dotted along the roof, flanked either side by a slightly shorter pair of rectangles.
Latin Quote Set in Stone.
We stopped briefly to take some photos before heading up the gravel path and inside. The first room you step into is pretty ostentatious, with faux marble pillars and Latin quotes, quite literally, set in stone underfoot. ‘Nec Cupias Nec Metuas‘– neither desire nor fear, to want for nothing and to fear nothing as Google reliably informs me. These extravagances, along with bright white busts that sit below murky paintings of a dog and horse, made this room the most typically ‘country estate’ and the least homely. But as you move further into the house a strange combination of antiquated extravagance and the ordinary becomes apparent. The hall was passed from Sirs, to Earls, to Dukes, Lady’s and Viscounts before ending up with Elsie Bambridge, daughter of writer Rudyard Kipling. And until 1976, the year she passed and bestowed the house to the National Trust, Elsie remained.
As I mentioned before, the house definitely has its indulgences and excesses. There is a huge bath in which the whole village could probably bathe, a magnificent library with thousands of leather spines on display (which, as a hoarder of books, made me extremely jealous), not to mention a private chapel and a space, the size of some people’s flats, that remained relatively empty because the owners couldn’t decide what to do with it. But as we wandered around the hall, the things that constantly caught my attention were the remnants of an old lady’s life who lived not too long ago, an uncannily familiar world that is just slightly out of reach. In the pantry, for example, was an old Terry’s Milk Chocolate packet that must have been from about 40 years ago which made me imagine Mrs Bambridge indulging in her favourite sweets on a winter evening. Also, despite the seeming grandeur of the paintings hung on the walls, they expressed a sense of humour and humanity. Firstly, if you’re looking for paintings of animals then Wimpole Hall is the place to go– it seemed that every other painting had a majestic horse posed in its foreground or at the very least a dog placed at the feet of its owner. But, one painting in particular stood out as highlighting the levity with which Mrs Bambridge treated her decoration. Lit from below by the painfully yellow glow of a dusty lamp, there hangs the portrait of a cartoonish, young woman cradling a green bottle in her left hand and raising a glass in her right– cork unscrewed on her lap, eyelids heavy and mouth shaped into a playful smile.
In many cabinets there were these small porcelain figurines– so delicate looking and painstakingly decorated with watery colour– that reminded me of something my grandmother used to own. She had this snowy white figure of a woman, accented with sky blue, and she was holding an umbrella that you could remove (though I don’t think we were supposed to). In fact, the most overwhelming part of the experience was the smell. It smelt like my grandmother’s house. The floors creaked like her floors would creak under the same thin carpet. Jess said the pantry smelt like her grandmother’s kitchen– the musty glow of spices kept for decades, trapped in the old wood. All this made the hall feel familiar, lived in, real and with the fingerprints of a real woman all over it. A man in the basement of the house told us about a radio that still had the old names of stations on it and how he would listen to Radio Luxembourg because that played pop music. Another told us about the hall’s late adoption of electricity, lacking it even when she was a young adult in the 60s. While other historic buildings and sites can feel cold, all this gave Wimpole a distinct vitality. Its story felt tantalisingly close– in reach– as though if you tried hard enough you could step back there and live it, Mrs Bambridge having just popped out for tea.
Wimpole Hall
Lately I find recent history more and more fascinating. Partly nostalgia and sentimentality but also partly, I think, because it is easier to discover and imagine the human aspect in those stories– the minutiae of experience. I heard in a video someone use the term ‘relics of humanity’ to describe the clues of previous owners found within or attached to second-hand purchases they made on eBay and I think that phrase sums up the main reason I felt enamoured by Wimpole Hall. After the long line of aristocratic owners, the hall ended up in the (relatively!) ordinary hands of Elsie Bambridge. And behind her, in a house full of excess, she too left her own relics of humanity, the things that cut through and resonate beyond the conceits of a stately home and remind you that these people existed not in the abstract of a booklets and plaques but in the same world of joy, pain, loss and love that we do. Their voices still seem to ring around the rooms, the beds seem still warm.
The other day I went to see Stan and Ollie, the film about the iconic comedy duo featuring Steve Coogan and John C. Riley. The film is really great: it moves between the light-hearted, almost cartoony set-pieces and its more earnest moments seamlessly— it is nice, if not slightly safe, and a real laugh-and-cry movie. I find John C. Riley incredibly endearing and, for me, he stole the show supported by a slightly more subdued performance from Coogan.
But the scene that I found the most moving was the final scene. *moderate spoilers ahead*. Due to his declining health, Ollie has been unable to perform the duo’s signature dance at the end of their stage show, instead opting to sing a song. But, realising that the end of ‘Laurel and Hardy’ is fast approaching, in their closing show Ollie announces to the surprise of everyone present that they are going to do a little dance. It’s a simple dance that to me isn’t particularly funny or intrinsically special but it is definitely shot beautifully and was very affecting. The camera ignores their audience almost entirely and focuses in on the two performers and their connection on-stage. After the film, I wanted to figure out exactly what is was about that scene that makes it so poignant.
I think the key to this scene is that it embodies one of the main themes of the film: sacrifice. Throughout the film characters are shown to struggle with the sacrifices they make for the sake of art, friendship and marriage and these ideas are all brought to the fore in the film’s climax. For example, the driving force of the plot is the professional sacrifice the two men are making for the sake of their artistic vision. They have agreed to a UK tour in small venues, staying at less than luxurious hotels, to generate interest for a new Robin Hood movie they have conceived. This also coincides with a kind of sacrifice of their egos. They quickly find out that there will be no bell-boys to take their luggage, the theatres will not be full, people will be surprised to hear the two of them are still around. But, rather than preserving their egos, they continue for the sake of their art. All of this while away from their wives, yet another sacrifice willingly made.
Similarly, Stan is shown to kick some of his more indulgent habits– mostly encouraged by his wife Ida– in an attempt to preserve his health. However, it is Ollie who is shown to sacrifice his physical health the most throughout the film. The severely overweight Ollie struggles to keep up with the rigours of the tour, constantly dealing with aches and pains and, of course, being forced to swap dances for songs. But, when it becomes clear that the only way to improve the lacklustre attendance of their shows is to fill their days with publicity events, Ollie agrees and sacrifices his body further. It is during one of these publicity stunts– judging a swimwear competition– that Ollie collapses after suffering a heart attack. The doctors advice is simple, retire immediately to prolong your life– and thus his sacrifice is laid out before him. True to form, Ollie ignores the reccomendation and takes to the stage for the final leg of their tour, ending with this final dance.
The final scene, therefore, seems to be the culmination of this sacrifice and embodies its beauty. Despite his struggling body, he choses to dance– despite the knowledge that their Robin Hood movie will never be made, they dance– despite the toll it takes on their family life, they dance. And they do all this for the sake of the performance. The movie takes the pair’s genius for granted and so this final scene shows them choosing to give the full extent of their gifts to the audience while they still can. The significance of the scene is only heightened by Ollie’s earlier admission that he knew all along that the movie would never be made (something Stan tries to hide from him) and so his continuing commitment to the tour and their act is also to preserve their friendship and partnership, not only to entertain an audience. By the end of the film, both men recognise that their career together is coming to a close and so they make these sacrifices to please each other and to give their relationship the conclusion it deserves.
However, I don’t think this is the full story of sacrifice in the film as, while it is ever-present within the narrative, it is never entirely glorified or even justified. I think that Ollie’s wife, Lucille is the figure who contextualises the sacrifice and illustrates its limits. While I initially felt she was simply a device intended to exacerbate problems in Stan and Ollie’s friendship, she too displays a significant degree of sacrifice. She is away from her husband for long periods, she must give up her anonymity for a life in the public eye and is forced to watch the health of someone she loves deteriorate. As such, we cannot see Ollie’s sacrifices as wholly beautiful and noble as Lucille provides the proof of their consequences. So, when Ollie announces that they will dance on that last night, Lucille watches on filled with anxiety.
But, despite her presence, I still think this final moment is moving. The important thing is that everyone recognises that this is it. Lucille’s worry and suffering shows us that these sacrifices can’t be sustained and they have to stop sooner or later. Therefore it is this recognition that they must stop that makes the final sacrifice all the more poignant– it is their last hurrah and isn’t it worth the shortness of breath, the pain in the chest one last time to recapture the magic.
For my birthday a few months ago I was gifted membership to the National Trust for the year and I have decided to try and write a short review or post about anything that struck me during my trip- so here we go.
Although intending to make my first trip as a member as soon as possible, life– of course– got in the way and it wasn’t until this past weekend that I made my inaugural trip. I was going on a weekend away with family in Norfolk and so decided to find the nearest site to where we were staying, which turned out to be Oxburgh Hall. Because it was being chosen on the basis of its proximity to us I read very little about it and booked tickets to a tour highlighted on its page- again taking little notice of the its substance.
The approach to the hall is inauspicious: the taller sections of grey wall appearing from behind a cluster of trees. It was only as we pulled up on its gravelled carpark that I noticed sections of the house surrounded by scaffolding. Concerning– yes, but other people were walking towards the ticket booth unperturbed so we followed suit. After a few minutes of queuing we approached the small window, set inside an archway of an exterior wall that surrounded the gardens as well as the hall itself.
“So you know the house is closed today?”
It seemed that our lack of planning had backfired on us and the promised tour was never to be taken.
“Oh, but we booked a tour online.”
This seemed to be the secret password as we were told to meet in the courtyard just before 2pm. But before we were sent on our way, we were duly told off after our group of eight was reduced to four due to slightly less interested family members dropping out last minute. The house itself is very pretty. It was a grey and rather miserable afternoon but the rectangular building stands stoically against its backdrop. The bricks have this pale, almost pink colour and its angular outline makes it look like a beginner level castle. We walked over the moat encircling the hall and entered the courtyard, in which the full extent of the scaffolding became clearer. The entirety of one side of the house was covered in the metal framework, making it completely inaccessible. , However, before we could speculate further the tour began.
Oxburgh Hall, set against the grey afternoon sky.
Unfortunately, I have committed the cardinal sin and have forgotten the names of the two brilliant tour guides who showed us around the house (a sin I vow not to repeat) but we were lead by a grey-haired and bearded gentleman who spoke with a kind of rural wisdom, kind of as though he had breathed in his knowledge via the country air. He was joined by a diminutive woman who looked, in her long coat, like a schoolmistress with a softer and more kindly demeanour. They seemed like a Brian and Mary, but that’s probably not true.
It was soon explained that we were, in fact, on the Winter tour in which the majority of the house’s furniture was covered with off-white sheets while then house was being cleaned. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly disappointed but it became clear that the house had a lot more to offer than what was under these sheets. The scaffolding, it turns out, was a scar from an extremely unfortunate event. One of the three dormer windows on top of that wall, having not been integrated properly into the existing brickwork, simply slid off the roof. It had been held in place from over a hundred years with a wooden beam but once it rotted to the point of breaking the window broke free. Upon subsequent inspection of the house, more and more structural inadequacies were discovered and the hall was suddenly facing millions of pounds worth of repair. And this was the state of the house in which we encountered it.
The Courtyard, with scaffolding to the right.
The guides did their best to convey the history of the house in spite of the circumstances. Its creation (in its current form) in 1482 as a house to impress rather than defend. Some tapestries woven by Mary, Queen of Scots and a medieval drawing etched onto bare wall usually hidden behind the wallpaper. While the house’s history is definitely fascinating, the thing I was most struck by was the state of flux in which the house was existing. Many of the features of the house (including the ill-fated dormer windows) were additions during a period of huge renovation by the 6th Baronet in the 19th Century which made the current renovation seem like part of a cycle, an ebb and flow of stasis and change. Similarly, when previous generations sold their personal homes to save Oxburgh Hall from property developers the storage of their belongings rendered some rooms unusable, just as the current renovation had done with the Queen’s Room. Even the story of the current occupant who, present on the night of the accident, was evacuated by the fire brigade made the tale of the house seem alive and continuing.
A small section of the garden surrounding the hall.
Although in less than desirable circumstances, I felt as though instead of looking back at a static picture of history I was seeing it being made in front of me. It was a reminder that we aren’t immune to the passing of time and that stories will be told about the things we did– whether we rescued the house or let it fall in to ruin, whether we continue to be curious or let its secrets fade from memory. The modern custodians, too, has a responsibility in the way that the narrative is told, as proven by the discovery that the King’s room is simply a reference to, rather than the site of, Henry VI’s visit to Oxburgh. As the guides drew back the curtain on the day-to-day running of the house and spoke about the struggle to innovate and engage with the public in the face of the repair bill it only highlighted the feeling that the history and continuing vitality of the house can coexist- that it is not only a story to be told but one still being made.
I would recommend the house if not only to support their repairs then also to experience the its flux and change. The staff were knowledgable as well as welcoming and endearing while the house has a subtle beauty and grace.
Uncultured Review 