Still protesting after all these years...........

To Tavistock this morning to help out at an information stall in the middle of the town organised by the small, but determined, Tavistock Peace Action Group. We meet monthly to promote the causes of peace, nuclear disarmament and human rights. Every now and again we erect our stall on Market Day and try to engage the passing locals in a relevant topic. Today our twin themes were the current situation in Palestine and the anniversary of the dropping of the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. And we were also trying to raise some money to send off to the Palestinian Relief Fund.

No-one pretends the situation is anything but incredibly complex and controversial or that there is an obvious solution. Our discussions with passer-by's reflected this, with all shades of opinion being voiced - with varying degrees of heat. From what I saw and heard, I'd say the score was 'Palestine 100: Israel 1'.  Lots of signatures were collected for our petition and a reasonable amount of money collected for the charities.

Will our activities change anything? In the wider context, no. Locally, yes, because it brings the issues into the spotlight for a while and gets people thinking about them. A small, infinitesimally small, step along the way......

Getting signatures for our petition was much easier than we expected.

No-one wanted to speak to Marlene!

Lots of literature available for people to take away and we did have a reasonable level of interest

 

Not a good shot of our banner which is a shame because it's rather well designed around a dove and olive branch motif.

Family at War: Part 2: Charles Bowyer

The next subject in this WW1 themed series is my great-great uncle, Charles Bowyer, son of my maternal great-great grandfather, also Charles Bowyer. I know very little about the personal details of Charles Jnr but I do know that he was born in Old Sodbury, Gloucestershire, in 1888 and was, according to Cousin Beattie (who was in her late 90's when I talked with her many years ago), "a nice quiet boy". I also know that he crossed the Atlantic in 1911, leaving Avonmouth in the SS Royal George on 22nd February and arriving in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 1st March. His immigration papers suggests that his final destination was Montreal but, after that, the trail goes cold. I've got no idea what he did in Canada: perhaps he followed his stated occupation of 'motor car driver'?

Whatever happened in between, Charles returned to the UK (Was he answering the patriotic call to arms?) to enlist in the 1/4th (City of Bristol) Battalion of the Gloucester Regiment. The date of his enlistment is unknown but, as the entry on his Medal Roll Card shows, he was certainly with them when his Battalion entered the French Theatre of War at Boulogne on 31st March 1915. After a relatively quiet 1915, the 1/4th Battalion had a horrendous 1916, taking a full part in all aspects of the Battle of the Somme and suffering heavy casualties in the process. Sadly Charles was killed at the very end of the Battle of the Somme, on 6th November, when the 1/4th was operating in the Bazentin Le Petit/Martinpuch area. The Battalion war diary does not suggest any significant contact with the enemy at the time and it is likely that Charles was killed during the sporadic shelling of trenches that was a regular feature of frontline life. His body was not recovered and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial - the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. He is also listed on the Westbury-upon-Tryme War Memorial, which was where his mother was living at the time of his death.

Where are his medals? Hopefully still with a family member somewhere. He did leave a will and his mother received his estate of £200, worth around £10,000 at present day values. But this would have been of little comfort to her as, going back to Cousin Beattie's recollections, "she never got over the death of her beloved son".
  

Not a good photograph and not one that enlarges with any clarity. Which is a shame as it is the only one I can find of the 1/4th Battalion on the Somme. It was taken in June 1916 and shows the men posing with some captured armaments. The chances are that Charles in there somewhere but which one?



Westbury-upon-Tryme War Memorial on which Charles is listed.

Charles's Medal Roll card showing his entry date into France and his posthumous medal entitlement. His fate is acknowledged with the terse 'KIA'. Killed in action.

An extract from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.

A copy of the probate entry covering Charles' will and estate.
 

 

 

Family at War: Part 1: Clarence Wilfred Stiff

Unlike those politicians who seem to think the First World War should be either 'celebrated' or 'glorified' (but happily not reflected in the TV coverage I have seen), I think it should be a time for sober reflection about the consequences of war. As part of this, I thought I'd remember family members who were involved, starting with Mrs P's first cousin once removed (her grandmother's brother's son), Clarence Wilfred Stiff.

Clarence lived in Clomendy Road, Cwmbran, in a house next to that of his grandparents. He enlisted in the 2nd Monmouthshire Regiment in October 1914, and went to the Western Front in 1915, landing in France on 17th February. He was killed in action on 6th May 1915, aged 17. His obituary in a local newspaper noted “Though only 17 years of age he was a fine youth, towering over 6 ft. Up to the time of the reserve battalion leaving Pontypool he was in the bugle band. He was an enthusiastic cricketer, and a member of the Cwmbran Cricket Club. He was also a scholar at the Cwmbran Wesleyan Sunday School. His father, Mr J. J. Stiff, of Clomendy-road, Cwmbran, has been an honoured official of the Wesleyan Church for 21 years, and is at present treasurer of the Trust Funds.”

He was killed during the Second Battle of Ypres, when the trenches sheltering his regiment came under sustained and heavy German bombardment with shells and gas. His body was never recovered and he is listed on Panel 50 on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres in Belgium. He is also commemorated on the Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds' (GKN) panels on the Cwmbran WW1 memorial in Cwmbran Park and on the British Legion Memorial in St Gabriel's Church, Cwmbran.

That Clarence is mentioned on the GKN memorial panels indicates that he was working at the steelworks in Cwmbran and it may be that he joined many of his work mates in enlisting in the 2nd Monmouthshires. It is clear that he was under the official age of enlistment at the time but, in the fervour of the times, this was not an unusual occurrence.

We are lucky in having copies of much of the documentation received by the family after his death and these are shown below. Collectively they show the price of his death - some bits of metal and some pieces of paper.

The letter accompanying the medals, awarded posthumously, gained by Clarence Stiff.

The family of everyone killed in WW1 received this commemorative plaque, known as the 'Death Penny'.

The scroll that accompanied the Death Penny.

The GKN panel on the Cwmbran War Memorial.

The British Legion memorial in St Gabriel's Church in Cwmbran.

Clarence's entry on the Commonwealth War Grave Commission's Website.

More coprophilic literature for the young

In an earlier post (here) I mentioned the poop-themed childrens' book 'The Story of the Little Mole' that I had enjoyed reading. Well, here's another one in a similar vein that was brought to my attention recently. Entitled 'The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet', its heroes are Danny and Dino the Dinosaur who venture into space. But when Danny realises he's forgotten Dino's lunch box, the very hungry dinosaur eats everything in sight, including their only way home - the rocket! I won't give away the plot but I will say that there's poop, planets and pandemonium galore.

It is a perfect book for my three year old grandson as it has two things he loves - dinosaurs and poo. To be honest, I'm quite partial to such plotlines as well. And I do like the fact that the book rhymes throughout. And what a lovely ending:

"And just when you thought all the pooping was done,
 A Mars cat plopped out of the dinosaur's bum."

A closing thought: if there's ever a film made about the book, then how about this as a basis for a poster campaign (with apologies to Ridley Scott)?

What's in a label?

Yes, I do need to get out more and, yes, I do need to get a life but.....is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the labels on clothing seem to be getting more and more voluminous? At one time, labelling was confined to such essentials as size and manufacturer; how many years did 'St Michael, size 12' convey all the information I needed to know about what I was buying? However, if the labels I have just cut off a jumper and scanned (sad, isn't it?) are anything to go by, those days are long gone. How did we find ourselves in this sorry state of affairs? No doubt someone has done a detailed analysis of the trend. And no doubt it is printed inside a pair of underpants somewhere.

And talking of underpants, the day can't be far off when they have to display a 'may contain nuts' label. And I hope I'm not around when my jumpers come with a fat content warning. 

Incidentally, when I sat down to write this post I had intended to say something about the current situation in Gaza. But I could not get beyond an unstructured and vitriolic polemic that threatened to send my keyboard up in flames. A little whimsy for now as a displacement activity restored my equilibrium.

One thing I learnt whilst on holiday.........

And that was not to leave our i-Pad on top of the car and then drive off with it still there. Thirty minutes later when it dawned on me what I'd done, we retraced our route and found it flattened in the middle of the road. Surprisingly, when I connected it to my PC, I could still back-up the data. Despite that glimmer of hope, I really think it's beyond economical repair. Sigh!

Pigs 'Ere Blog Part 10: Mud, mud, glorious mud

Routine check on the pigs this sunny afternoon:
Food - tick
Bedding - tick
Water - tick
Kitchen scraps - tick
General well-being - tick
Obstructions of electric fence - tick

What a happy bunch they are and, my goodness, they are putting on some weight. It's best to avoid getting a trotter on your foot now.


Water from the automatic troughs has spilled over to form an ideal pool for wallowing. First one..................

...........and then a couple more. They love it. Note to self: keep well clear in future when they shake themselves after having a dip in the mud. The splashes get everywhere.

And we are fastidious in telling our grandchildren to wash their hands before eating.

Just in case anyone is wondering, familiarity with the pigs is not diminishing my eager anticipation of tucking into a good joint of roast pork. Speaking of which, perhaps I can recommend a short story I've just read entitled 'A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig'? It was written by Charles Lamb, an essayist of the late 18th and early 19th century, and tells how a rather gormless ancient Chinese lad, Bo-bo, discovered roast pork – by accidently burning his house down, with the pigs in it, then licking his fingers to soothe the pain when he burnt them as he touched one of the bodies! Lamb, who claims to have read about this in an old manuscript, says that until that point people ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal.

 

The pig tasted so delicious that Bo-bo gorges himself on handfuls of scorched skin and flesh, much to the horror of his father, who considers that eating burnt pig is most unnatural. Bo-bo persuades his father to try this new food, and the older man is equally enthusiastic, but warns that their roast pork must remain a secret – otherwise, he fears, their neighbours may stone them for thinking they can improve on the meat provided by God. Eventually, of course, the story gets out because people notice that their cottage burns down more frequently than ever. There was ‘nothing but fires from this time forward’, says Lamb. There is a court case, and things look grim, but the foreman of the jury wants to take a look at the cooked pig, so he handles it, burns his fingers, licks them... and the rest, to coin a phrase, is history. Soon everyone is setting fire to their home at regular intervals – until they realise they can roast a pig without destroying their houses in the process.

 

It's a good read and I can recommend it, along with the other short stories Lamb wrote in the same collection. Luckily we'll be able to enjoy the fruits of our labours with resorting to arson.

 

 

Out and about in the sun in Kent

A hot day here in Kent and, in a lull in the domestic proceedings, I took myself off for a short walk in the nearby orchards and fields. Totally different scenery to that we have become accustomed to in Devon and Cornwall but none the less pleasurable. I took my camera along to fiddle with some of its settings and see what they did. From the top:

1. A bee on a very late blackberry flower. I think it was a white tailed bee but can't be certain about this as none of the photographs give a good view of its nether regions. I took successive shots as a burst using a fast shutter speed in the hope that one of them got what I wanted. That shown was #17 of 30.

2. A little post-editing on our i-Pad enhances some of the brown tones. An improvement?

3. A rose bud from a nearby garden, dodging the garden sprinkler in the process.

4. Rose bay willowherb. This is a so-called 'pioneering plant' as it is one of the first to colonise waste ground after fires etc. It is also known as 'fire weed' and is the county plant of London, because of its rapid appearance on bomb sites after the Blitz of WW2.

5. A field of golden corn.

Ince Castle Visit

A pleasant afternoon stroll around the gardens of Ince Castle. It is situated on the north bank of the River Lynher and is, or so the guide book says, the oldest brick-built dwelling in Cornwall. The fact that it is not made of local granite must say something about the wealth and/or ostentation of the original owner.

The castle dates from the early 1600s and is  square with a tower at
each corner. An unlikely local legend has it that one previous owner had
four wives, one in each tower, and managed to keep them secret from each
other. The green blob in the centre is a balloon that a child had just let go of.

An interesting water feature in a courtyard.

You never know what's lurking in the long grass and bushes,
in this case winged statues.

I'm sure that these two ornaments originally adorned the
corners of a church tower somewhere, upon which they
are a quite common sight to those who lift their eyes.

A shell-encrusted door leading to a shell room within a tower.
Apparently the shells were collected during the travels of a recent
owner who was a minister in the Foreign Office.

Looks like a bee or a wasp, but it is neither: it is a hoverfly. Excellent
nectarers and pollinators and there are lots of them around at
this time of year. My 'A' Level Biology tells me that Hoverflies are excellent
examples of Batesian mimicry in that they mimic something nastier,
in this case bees and wasps, for their own protection. 

Crimson bottle brush, without the hoverfly I was trying to get in the shot.

Nothing but doors

Just back from an overnight stay in Exeter. It's a great place to walk around and it's something we vowed to do more often. After all, it only takes an hour to get there. Reviewing the photographs I took, doors seemed to feature prominently. Not a conscious decision on my part but they are attractive.

A side door to the cathedral.

The cathedral façade.

Another side door.

This one leads to the Dean's residence.

And he lives behind this one.

The carving at the top of this door, Parva Domus Magna Quies,
is translated as Small House, Great Peace.

You never know what you'll come across when
you wander off the beaten track.

St Mark's Parish church founded in the early 9th century.

Poem that spells it out............

Next time you hear someone claim that immigrants are destroying Britain, show them this clip. Spoken word poet Hollie McNish spells out, in a poem called 'Mathematics', what’s wrong with most of the arguments used against immigration. I do like this ranty form of poetry and I think the style suits the subject matter. She cuts through the lies and misinformation and reflects the anger I feel at the naiveté of many of the views about immigration promulgated by irresponsible politicians and tabloid newspapers. Their xenophobia should be challenged at all opportunities. 

An evening walk in Lydford

An circular evening walk with our regular group, based on Lydford just over the border in Devon. An interesting village whose present sleepy appearance belies its past importance as one of the four 'burghs' in the county founded by Alfred the Great. If you look closely at maps, the Saxon road layout is still discernible as are defensive earthworks at several points on the outskirts of the village. It once had its own mint and the Lydford Penny turns up in all sorts of unexpected places. Apparently, the best collections of them are to be found in museums in Scandinavia, the result of the well documented attacks on Lydford by the marauding Danes.

And the walk? About 4.5 miles in very pleasant early summer evening conditions. Our route took as along ancient byways, over a stretch of open moorland, along a disused railway and then back to the Castle Inn for a decent meal. A good way to spend a few hours.

St Petroc's church at Lydford. For all the many times we've been to the village, we've never been inside the church. We really must do something about it - maybe next time.

The Castle Inn with the 'castle' in the background. It's not actually a castle but rather a free standing tower (built in the 13th century as a courthouse and gaol) with an earth embankment pulled up around its sides.

An interesting gateway/dove cot poking up near the car park.

A muddy track but not any old muddy track. This is part of the original Saxon way linking Okehampton with Lydford.

The skies were blue all the way around.

In homage to Kenneth Williams, I call this one 'Carry on up the Digitalis'.

I'm not an orchid expert but I think this is a Lady orchid. Some say that the individual florets are manikin shaped, with the petals cleft into arms and legs. I can see that this is the case for some but not all.

A rubbish shot over the fields towards Widgery Tor with its stone cross on the top. It's a lot higher than this view might suggest.