InfoBritain

 

Personal Note Archive February 2008

8th February 2008

"I got out at Ketchworth and gave up my ticket, and walked home as usual, quite soberly, and without wings, without any wings at all." - Brief Encounter

Recently I made a visit to the Bluebell Railway in Sussex, and have been pondering ever since on the atmosphere I felt there. The age of steam travel is often now pictured as a lost age of romance. Brief encounters between proper people on smoky platforms; locomotives alive with power, burbling and breathing before pulling away from a platform in a kind of long explosion. Unlike modern locomotives the power and vitality of a steam engine is so apparent, pouring out at the funnel, around the wheels, at every seam and joint. Watching a steam engine pull away from a platform it is easy to see how such vibrant machines could have been thought of in human terms. So why do steam engines give rise to these feelings? What makes them so different to nice quiet, clean electric locomotives? Read more...

 

14th February 2008

Valentine's Day had me thinking about history and romance. Richard the Second would be a good historical figure to go for if you're seeking romantic historical chat over a candle lit dinner. Richard has been badly served by history, being made to look weak, corrupt, authoritarian, and mad by the man who stole his throne, Henry the Fourth. In reality Richard the Second was a thoughtful, sensitive cultured man living in the midst of a dark age where his qualities were not often appreciated. Richard loved love. He presented his wife Anne with what must surely rank as the ultimate in romantic gifts, Leeds Castle. Here he spent dreamy days with Anne, escaping the harshness of life in the fourteenth century. The chronicler Jean Froissart describes how at Leeds Castle in 1395 he gave Richard a richly illustrated book. Richard, Froissart wrote, was delighted when he was told that the book was "about love." Read more...

 

24th February 2008

A few days ago we took a trip to Box Hill in Surrey. In 1817 John Keats stayed at the Burford Bridge Hotel at the foot of Box Hill. It was here that he finished his poem Endymion. Box Hill is a lovely place, almost other-worldly as you leave the busy road heading into Dorking, and quite suddenly find yourself above it all. And yet this isn't some distant nirvana; this is a place that people visit for a walk on a Bank Holiday. There's a National Trust kiosk where a nice lady will do you a cup of tasty soup with some chunky bread. Keats is often thought of as an escapist poet, which is actually misleading. Keats did indeed want to drift away, but his escape always seemed to allow deeper and more satisfying involvement with the world. Box Hill is just the sort of place to give this combination. There is a sense of escape in going there, but rather than fairy tale escapism it's a down to earth variety, within reach of people who are wondering what to do on their day off. George Meredith was another writer who visited Box Hill, got carried away, and then came down to earth again: "I am every morning at the top of Box Hill - as its flower, its bird, its prophet. I drop down the moon on one side, I draw up the sun on t'other. I breathe fine air. I shout ha ha to the gates of the world. Then I descend and know myself a donkey for doing it." Read more...