A sense of place

On the Wednesday before Christmas I found myself aching all over and unable to squeeze out another word so I took a break from my computer and watched a television programme I’d recorded called ‘The Other Irish Travellers’. It was by a film-maker called Fiona Murphy and in it she examined her Anglo-Irish roots. I was interested in it because I too have Anglo-Irish roots.

    The part of the programme which has stuck in my mind is Fiona Murphy’s uncles talking about the war years. These were a golden era for them as they left the English public schools to which they had been sent and returned ‘home’ to Ireland. Not all the family thought of themselves as Irish however. Most of them in fact thought they were English and some (including the film-maker herself who lives in London) didn’t know which they were.

    My Anglo-Irish ancestor was a sixteenth-century French Protestant refugee – a Huguenot – who was set up in Ireland by Queen Elizabeth (in order, sadly, to organise the expropriation of land from Irish Catholics). The family then had to flee yet again – to Scotland – in the Irish Troubles of the 1920s.

    So, on that side of the family (my mother’s father) I am twice-refugee’d with allegiance to four countries. Not only that, but my mother’s mother was Norwegian.

    If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning (poor you), you may remember a very early post in which I mentioned possible Jewish ancestry on my father’s side. This has now been confirmed by my aunt who has been doing some research. The family fled Prague in 1770, most members going to America but one going to London and founding a business in the City (at which my father still worked). Through the American branch I am related to Martha Gellhorn, war correspondent and wife of Ernest Hemingway. Her mother’s maiden name – Fischel – was the same as mine. (I’m terribly proud of this, so I hope you will excuse a little boasting.)

    More refugeeism.

    I’m a refugee too. Although I was brought up in Kent, I’ve been living in Devon for thirty-seven years – for reasons which I had perhaps better not go into here. At Christmas - in Devon; just me, Frog and Dog - I spent a lot of the time going for long walks, and I realised that the places I found beautiful were the places that reminded me of the Kentish North Downs, and that although I love Devon I’ve never felt that I belong here.

    Fiona Murphy’s programme made me realise how important it is to belong somewhere. But where do I belong? I may have been brought up in Kent but I’m far from being Kentish. I may hanker after the Kent countryside but the M25 now goes slap-bang through the middle of the my childhood meanderings. And, given my ancestry, perhaps the problem goes deeper than a choice between two counties.

     Tom Petty sings ‘You don’t have to live like a refugee.’
    Oh but I do, Tom. I do.

Flood!

I know that we're all suffering from the weather, but I can't resisting posting some pictures showing the situation here. (It delays having to pick up The Novel again anyway and keeps my sadly neglected blog going.)

At least we don't have water in the house (touch wood), unlike a neighbour who lives a short distance away above our house who suddenly discovered a river running through theirs - as water rolled off the hill with nowhere else to go.

The road to our house.

Frog has been down there just about every day over Christmas

and New Year with his drain rods but it hasn't made any difference.

The drive of another neighbour.

After their drive was washed away in November, they dug out their stream and filled in all the holes, only for the same thing to happen all over again at Christmas.



Landslips are another problem.

We have had two in our lane, which the council speedily and efficiently cleared for us (in spite of everything else they must have to do at the moment).

On the Grand Western Canal, mentioned in two previous posts, an embankment breach in November sent a huge volume of water into the farmland below. The canal was dammed by volunteers and council staff that night and is now open again for walkers, with a detour round lanes. More info on the website (www.devon.gov.uk/grand_western_canal ).

Pic from canal website

More about canals

Frog, Dog and I took another walk along the Grand Western Canal yesterday. This time we explored the almost derelict northern end which should join up with the River Tone (as in ‘Taunton’)* but doesn’t quite.

All water has a magic to it, but canals particularly so because the water is still. We saw few people yesterday and no boats and there wasn't a sound to be heard. When we got back to the car, I felt as if I'd been in another world.

(Sorry about the quality of the pics - I think the dial on top had jiggled itself round to the wrong place.)

Leaves on the surface of the water,

looking like a Japanese (?) painting:





Disused lime kilns: 







Tunnel entrance:

This is weed growing under the water from the
bed of the canal, but because the water is so clear
it looks as if it's growing above the water:



*I’ve just looked up the derivation of ‘Tone’ and apparently it’s a Celtic word meaning ‘fire’, ie ‘sparkling’, an incentive - if we needed one - to take another walk in the area and follow the dried-up canal-bed as far as the river 

Weretigers and other monsters

According to Asian folklore, man-eating tigers have supernatural origins. Either they are inhabited by gods or demons, or they are human shapeshifters. Patrick Newman, who has lived in Asia and been fascinated by such creatures all his life, has just had a book published on the subject.

    His book, Tracking the Weretiger, draws information from an array of sources and I am aghast at the work that must have gone into it. It is however written in an easy style, with vivid stories and telling details, such as the fact that tigers eat fleshy parts first such as buttocks so that often only the head, hands and feet of victims are found, and one belief that tigers stalking woodcutters synchronised their footsteps with the chops of the axe. Brrr.

    Equally vivid is the picture of colonial times – how the British slaughtered the wild animals, plundered the forests depriving tribespeople of their livelihoods, and drafted in locals as cheap labour.

    He examines some of the reasons why tigers – and other big cats – who usually shun humans should start to eat them. One leopard for instance who terrorised an area 500 miles square for eight years, entering through windows and barred doors to take people from their huts by night, was thought to have acquired the taste for human flesh during a flu epidemic when there was no time to burn the dead.

    This leopard is also the subject of the last chapter. Locals called in famous hunter Jim Corbett who after eight months got the better of the beast. Surveying the dead animal, he wrote, ‘Here was only an old leopard . . . whose only crime – not against the laws of nature, but against the laws of man – was that he had shed human blood, with no object of terrorizing man, but only in order that he might live.’ Corbett later turned conservationist.

With discussion of European werewolf traditions, full references, a glossary and full index, this is a comprehensive and authoritative work. And the fact that Pat is the partner of one of my sisters has not influenced my opinion in the least.

    The book is published in the States, but available through both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com .

While on the subject of family and talented writers, I must also mention my sister Emma Fischel, who has just had a children’s novel published called The Gorgle. It’s for 8–11s who like a shivery bit of comic horror. (And for 50-somethings. I read it at the weekend and was gripped. It’s very clever.)

    She also writes children’s non-fiction, such as quiz and puzzle books, history made fun and girly books, under the name Lottie Stride. Recent titles include Meerkat Mischief, The Time Traveller's Handbook, Girls Only, Girls' Miscellany. (Frog was gripped at the weekend by the girly books.)

    The Gorgle is the one to buy as Em gets royalties on that. She doesn’t get royalties on the Lottie Stride books, so it’s better to borrow them from the library as then she gets PLR (Public Lending Right – fees for each borrowing).

Thank you!

Walking and writing

Hello again after an absence of four months.

THE WALKING BIT

Here are some pictures from a walk Frog, Dog and I took yesterday along the Grand Western Canal.

This originally ran 24 miles from Tiverton in Devon to Taunton in Somerset but now only runs for 11 miles from Tiverton. Unfortunately this is too short for a boating holiday, but it does mean that the canal’s lovely and quiet.

I call this our ‘OAP walk’ as it’s all on the flat (and that’s hard to find in Devon).



Weedy (green) water because few boats come through, and muddy (brown) water after rain and flood



Swan family (two parents and two cygnets, but one parent thoughtlessly swam out of shot and then it began to pour so I had to put the camera away)



Ayshleigh Chapel

THE WRITING BIT

  

Since July I’ve been madly revising my children’s novel, which I first started about eleven years ago, and finally put down about five years ago. It was great coming back to it after such a long interval as its faults were so much easier to spot and, I hope, to put right. I’ve entered it for a competition run by Mslexia (a magazine ‘for women who write’). It was great too to have a purpose and a deadline, instead of writing in a vacuum.

Sadly, I now have to return to my adult novel which is at a much earlier and therefore (to my mind) more tricky stage. (Hence the blogging!)