Everyone round here has a Laurie Lee story...do you have one to add?

I first fell in love with Laurie Lee’s poetry when I was still at school. It carried the sensuous qualities of nature along with a strong dash of romance, the two elements which were closest to my heart at the time. I still have the edition of ‘Pocket Poets’,  marked to indicate my favourite verses, for instance:

                                When red-haired girls scamper like roses                                                   over the rain-green grass,
                                 and the sun drips honey.
                                             ('Day of these Days')

It seemed to me that he understood the magnetic pull of the English landscape, something I felt intensely from early years, and which perhaps has kept me here ever since. Even though I have  had the travel bug, England is home, and I’ve always felt that I can’t give up the bluebells and the dew on the grass and the village fetes on a hot summer’s afternoon.  In those days, I hadn’t travelled much,  mostly by boat and train which was the norm then, but when Laurie Lee wrote about coming home across the Channel, I recognised what he was talking about. In the poem 'Home from Abroad', he says that Kent is merely a ‘gawky girl’, a pale shadow of the sultry wonders he has discovered abroad. But within a short time, her presence is transformed into ‘the green-haired queen of love’ whose ‘rolling tidal landscape’ drowns foreign memories in ‘a dusky stream’. The subtler charms of England have lured him back again.

Now we live near Laurie’s old stomping ground, the Slad Valley in Gloucestershire, barely fifteen minutes’ drive from the place he wrote about in such a compelling way in Cider with Rosie and in his poetry. And it often seems that he’s not quite gone from there. We are relative newcomers to the area, but practically everyone who’s been around Stroud for longer has a tale to tell about him. Just recently we watched the play of Cider with Rosie  at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham. Two well-dressed middle-aged ladies in the row behind us were discussing him:

‘So did you see Laurie Lee often, then?’

‘Oh yes! I used to meet him about twice a week, at the Imperial.’

Hmm.

My acupuncturist mentioned casually that he was once her landlord, a musician friend related how he used to  perform with him, and a local, now well-established writer, revealed that she’d marched up to his front door when she was still a teenager, asking if she needed to go to university in order to become a writer. ‘You don’t need all that,’ he told her, and it seems he was right.

So, as one who is always late to the party (metaphorically speaking), I never met Laurie Lee, but I can still revel in the legacy he left and the landscape he inhabited. Yesterday, in brilliant sunshine, we walked up Swift’s Hill which lies on the other side of the steep Slad Valley. Ponies were basking in the sun, a buzzard or two soared overhead, and the primroses were out in the hedgerows. We looked across to Slad, picking out the phone box, the pub, and the cottage we thought Laurie had lived in. (Rose Cottage, at the end of his life; the cottage from 'Cider with Rosie' is still there too.) There was curling woodsmoke in the air – ‘having a bonnie’ as the garden owner told us later - which added a touch of the old-world to the panorama. As we continued our walk, tracing the contours of the valley, we admired the charming, steep-gabled grey stone houses that were sprinkled across the hillside, ranging from tiny cottages like something out of a nursery rhyme to grander dwellings with many eaves. This local Gloucestershire architecture is my favourite of allEnglish styles; no two houses seem alike, and their quirky individuality seems to be a feature of people who live in the area, too.

Back in Slad later, we paid a visit to the Woolsack pub, Laurie's old watering hole, taking a look at the Laurie Lee bar, but hoping we wouldn’t get mistaken for tourists. Which in one way we were, of course – but maybe we were more pilgrims for an afternoon, on the L.L. trail. We found his tombstone in the churchyard, and later I looked up his poem ‘The Wild Trees’, which begins with the following lines:

                                               O the wild trees of my home,
                                            forests of blue dividing the pink moon,
                                            the iron blue of those ancient branches
                                            with their berries of vermilion stars

            and ends:                      Let me return at last….
                                              to sleep with the coiled fern leaves
                                              in your heart’s live stone

Do you have a Laurie Lee story? Please post it as a comment here, and if we get a few, I'll create a separate blog post for them.

Interviews with Laurie Lee can be downloaded at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/focus/2003/07/laurielee1.shtml

An album of Johnny Coppin with Laurie Lee, 'Edge of Day' (1989) can be purchased via http://www.johnnycoppin.co.uk

I have included these quotations in good faith that they don’t breach copyright due to their brevity, and hope that those in charge of Laurie Lee’s estate will consider this permissible use, but if not, please contact me and I will remove them.

I’ve covered another legendary local writer, W. H. Davies, in an earlier blog of July 26th 2012. Select ‘poetry’ in topics to find it.

I was musing further on the sight of the deer among the poppies (see my previous post) and remembered a wonderful and wonder-ing poem by W H Davies, our ‘local’ poet as those of us who live in the Nailsworth area like to think. Davies was an extraordinary man, a self-styled ‘supertramp’, an émigré from Wales and late settler in Watledge, on the edge of Nailsworth, where he lived in contentment with his much younger wife, a former prostitute. At last there are signs that his old cottage is being restored – we need a local literary landmark!

See how the restoration is going at http://www.stroudpeople.co.uk/work-restore-Glendower/story-14455261-detail/story.html

More on that, perhaps, later. For now, here’s the poem. The confluence of deer and poppies echoes the rapture that Davies felt when experiencing the cuckoo’s song and the rainbow at the same time.

A Great Time

Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad,
Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow --
A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord,
How rich and great the times are now!
Know, all ye sheep
And cows, that keep
On staring that I stand so long
In grass that's wet from heavy rain --
A rainbow and a cuckoo's song
May never come together again;
May never come
This side the tomb.

William Henry Davies 1871-1940

‘Parents, would you now take your children to the graveyard?’ 
Mirth from assembled company. Flustered, the announcer continued: ‘For the treasure hunt. And would you please ensure that they avoid the Garden of Remembrance. The square rectangular.’
More laughter.

We know how to have a good time in this village. Early rain provoked the sombre shaking of heads and the decision to scrap the celebration on the green. The church would have to do instead. And so it did, swiftly transformed into a scene of revelry, and something cunning done with the pews so that we could sit facing each other. Heralded by Morris men (mostly Morris women) a-dancing down the green,  with our Pimms and beers in hand, we all entered the portals where Robert and I stepped up to get married three years ago, picking up our disposable packs of red or blue plate, ditto cutlery, and Union Jack napkin on the way. Flags to wave were already on the tables. You could say that it was the perfect lunch club venue – I can see the write-up now: ‘gracious interior with lofty ceiling, elegant stained glass windows and raised area for live music.’

With 300 tickets sold, overspill guests had to go downstairs in the Parish Rooms. But we got the better deal, with the amazing Gloucestershire Constabulary Band, playing up above. Who’d a thought it? All those policemen making the most incredible, harmonious sound together, everything from the Dr Who theme to the – wait for it, you’ll never guess – Land of Hope and Glory. They got about three standing ovations. If I see one of you on the beat, dear coppers, I will go straight up and kiss you!

Char ladies aka chaps from the choir dressed up conducted the band as the mood took them, drew the raffle and played merry pranks all afternoon, including stealing my flag when I wasn’t looking. Formerly reserved neighbours swung, danced, waved and sang with abandon. The children were having fun, too, till they were despatched to the graveyard.

Indeed, I didn’t think it would be so much fun. Oh, and the Coronation Chicken was pretty good too.

Every year on or about May 13th, our life changes radically.  No, it’s not necessarily off with woolly jumpers and on with the suncream , but it’s time to keep the gates shut and watch where we tread when we step out into the lane. The cows are out again.

We live in a Gloucestershire village bordering a huge stretch of common land, owned by the National Trust. Apparently it has always been common land, and remained as such because the locals were a fierce lot who refused to be subdued when the Enclosures Acts, which began in 1750,  forced England’s open spaces into private ownership. The villagers around the common (then known as The Wasteland) probably gave any officials a good trouncing, and so they were eventually left alone. It also had a reputation for highwaymen, but that’s another story.

So the commoners’ rights to graze their livestock have never been usurped. Among the deeds for our house, which backs onto the common, is permission from the County Council for us to keep ‘two beasts’ there. We are still considering this. Not absolutely every animal is a cow. Last year, four ponies appeared though, much to everyone’s delight. So will we choose something exotic? Llamas? Horses? Camels? Goats? Once, while out for a walk, I was thrilled to see two grey goats tethered there; when I got closer, however, they turned out to be rocks. I had gone out without my glasses that day. But whatever we choose, they aren’t allowed up there in winter, so stabling them could be something of a problem.  May 13th is the magic day, the first of the grazing season.

At this time, the common is covered with an amazing carpet of cowslips, buttercups and purple orchids. Luckily, it takes quite a while for the 500 or so cows, released in herds small or large by a variety of farmers, to munch their way through these. The National Trust takes good care of  the land, and it’s now known for its different species of flowers. I have found a bee orchid, Star of Bethlehem, yellow rattle, milkwort and plenty more.

The cows are not confined to the common but roam as far as they can, through a number of lanes and villages, stopping to trim the ivy from the walls and, if they can force the gate, to strip our neighbour’s pear tree. Good defences are essential, and although we find the roaming herds utterly charming, we will change our minds if they manage to get into our garden one day.

There are black cows, brown and white cows, mottled cows, striped cows (I have named my favourite Tiger), white cows, fawn cows, red cows and every combination imaginable. My theory is that some farmers buy ‘bin end’ cows at market, the odd-looking ones, and use their free grazing rights to fatten them up over the summer. Fate unknown.  Actually, we do know the fate of the Belted Galloways, the ones that look like furry black and white humbugs. The National Trust owns two herds, one of which is ‘thinned out’ at the end of each season. We collect a box full of delicious organic steaks, joints and stewing beef from the NT each November. Some cows meet a sadder end, hit by cars or lorries. Despite warning signs and speed limits, motorists don’t  always manage to brake in time and around 6 or 7 each year die in this way. Not very good for the vehicle, either.

Some cows give birth on the common, apparently without needing barns or vets, and then you’ll see a wobbly chestnut or milk-white calf staggering after its mum through the tall grasses. Speaking of milk, none of the cows are in milk, in the sense of needing to be milked. Once turned out, they’re in residence for the season, which usually ends in late October. Car drivers who don’t know the area shout at the lumbering beasts when they lurch, in slow motion, across the road. Shouting does nothing. Most things do nothing, in fact. When a cow wants to move, it does so, slowly and irrevocably. The only thing you can try is winding down the window and banging the side of the car.

Golfers have to contend with ambling cows dropping messy splats on the greens. Yes, there’s a golf course on the common – a shame, I always think, but then it’s not my idea of fun, and I console myself by remembering that it’s very historic, dating  from the late 19th century, long before the National Trust took over. But walkers and cows co-exist peacefully, as long as you don’t try as one woman did, to reunite a calf with its mother when they became separated by a road. She was buffeted and bruised for her pains.

By the end of the season I guess that most of us are relieved that we can leave our gates open if we want to, and don’t have to worry about meeting a black cow on a dark road. But we miss them too, when they go. At the beginning of May, the now famous village Cow Hunt gets us in the mood again. We’re not looking for real cows then though, only dressed up wooden cows with silly names like Romeo and Mooliet, Moonet the artist, and Pirates of the Cowibbean. Then there’s tea and fabulous cakes on the common – something that would be impossible to enjoy to two weeks later, when the real cows are out.

Today we set out in search of the Dymock daffodils. Three neighbouring villages host daffodil weekends in this slice of countryside between Gloucester and Herefordshire, and I’d heard tell of the walks that pass through myriads of wild daffodils. It was our first visit to Dymock and we were drawn there in particular because of the connection with the Dymock Poets – a loose-knit group that included Robert Frost, John Drinkwater, Rupert Brooke and Edward Thomas, poets who lived in and around Dymock just before the First World War. Robert and I are especially fond of the poem by John Drinkwater called ‘Cotswold Love’ as it was read out at our wedding three years ago this April.

In Dymock village the pub was doing a roaring trade, and the brilliant, hot sunshine had brought out the straw hats and the daffodil hunters in their droves. Watching a purposeful young couple stride out along the Poets’ Path, I felt as though we were launching into some kind of medieval pilgrimage, heading towards a golden goal.

Actually, the daffodils weren’t much in evidence for the first mile. Then we found a vast field studded with clump after clump of the delicate yellow and white wild daffodils, where we sprawled blissfully in the sun among them. A celestial carpet.

The idyll lost its lustre just a little as we headed back through a field of rusting caravans, towards the sturdy, pyramid-style steeple of Dymock church – a Herefordshire style, I think, in contrast with the slender spire of Gloucester Cathedral, a few miles off. But our enthusiasm revived as we spotted other fields, orchards and banks with liberal scatterings of these delicate, ethereal flowers.

They’re in full bloom now, with the hot weather, so it’s an urgent mission if you want to catch them before they go over. Dymock hosts its own official daffodil weekend on Mar 31st, so if you’d like to join a merry crowd and have tea in the church, go visit. http://www.dymock.org.uk/

Cotswold Love
John Drinkwater
Blue skies are over Cotswold
And April snows go by.
The lasses turn their ribbons
For April’s in the sky.
And April is the season
When Sabbath girls are dressed
From Rodoboro’ to Capden
In all their silken best.

An ankle is a marvel
When first the buds are brown,
And not a lass but knows it,
From Stow to Gloucester Town.
And not a girl goes walking
Along the Cotswold Lanes
But knows men’s eyes in April
Are quicker than their brains.

It’s little that it matters,
So long as you’re alive,
If you’re eighteen in April,
                                                                                                   Or rising sixty-five.
                                                                                                   When April comes to Amberley                                                                                                                    With skies of April blue,
                                                                                                    And Cotswold girls are briding
                                                                                                     With slyly tilted shoe