Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk

 I was going to just huddle at home after I'd been to see the Craftland talk at the church - but I had noticed that there were free music events in between the Festival talks up at the Castle.  One of them was the Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk.

Anyway, early in the afternoon I decided to listen to a podcast.  Next on my list was Druidcast - and Damh the Bard was interviewing his friend Phil, who is one of the Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk group.  It was such an interesting interview that I had to go and see them in action after that.

They are influenced by Border Morris - the sort where they bang sticks together - but they put together their own dances. They wear black tatters, and each dancer has an individual hat or head dress, sometimes based on the dancer's totem animal (there was a girl with a brilliant fox mask).

I saw three dances (there was another session later that night that I didn't go out for).

They started as a choir, singing a Pagan song about the changing seasons.  Then they performed a dance based on the Skirrid Inn, where a horse skull was found under the floor (no-one knows why it was put there).  They have their own, blue, horse skull, which is not a Mari Llwyd, but an English variant - I can't remember the name.

The second dance was based on the Anemone, the Flower of Death, and the third was a solo Irish jig in honour of the Black Hairstreak moth, which only lives in hedgerows where blackthorn grows.

There wasn't a lot of room in the Castle Great Hall - the group has about fifty members, so they were only able to do a cut down version of their usual performances, but it was great fun, and a good taste of the sort of thing that they do.

At the end of the performance Nino, a stray Shantyman, passed by.  The friend I was standing with said that the Hay Shantymen's performance had been packed out, earlier in the afternoon. 

Craftland

 Yesterday evening I was at St Mary's Church to see James Fox talk to Kate Humble.

He's an art historian, but for his latest book he has turned his attention to lost and vanishing crafts around the UK.  Some crafts are critically endangered, meaning that only one person is carrying the craft on - and without apprentices to learn the craft, it will die out.  Five crafts went extinct while he was writing the book.  There is only one man in the UK, at the only bell foundry left in the UK (in Loughborough), who has the specialist skills to accurately tune a bell when it has been newly made, for example.

But it's not all doom and gloom - other crafts have been brought back from the brink of extinction and have a much brighter future.

We're very fortunate in Hay to have a wide variety of craftspeople - Christina Watson, who has painted shop signs around the town for many years (and more recently trained as an icon writer), was in the audience, and she said that the various craftspeople help each other out with work.  Walking round the market earlier in the day, there were basket weavers, and potters and spinners and dyers, knitted and crocheted goods, wooden spoons and knives and bowls, and more.  The sponsor of the event was Shepherds, the ice cream makers - that counts too, and so does cheese making and brewing. 

In the past, people in Hay made straw hats, or cut wood for the soles of clogs, and there were tailors and dressmakers and cobblers, blacksmiths and carpenters.  Some of those still survive, but one of the things James Fox talked about was how hard it is to learn those traditional skills now.  My sister learned dressmaking at City and Guilds evening classes, for instance - those no longer exist.  Technical colleges are much fewer in number, and no longer offer the same sort of courses in engineering as they once did. This is all part of government policy over many years, seeing these things as unimportant, and easy to cut funding for.  I remember a friend seeing a government retraining scheme advertised a few years ago, so she applied in order to learn how to mend saddles - there's a need for that in this area.  But they were only offering computer courses.

However, there are charities across the UK (James Fox works for one of them) that support craftspeople to train up new apprentices, and to provide workshops and tools for them.

And kids want to make things!  James Fox was talking about his own kids, but I saw exactly the same thing when I was a Viking re-enactor going into schools to teach kids a simple form of weaving.  There was a real hunger to do something with their hands, and there was no time in the curriculum for anything but academic work.

The other thing about crafts is that they last.  Shops are full of plastic rubbish that has been brought half way around the world, and it's cheap - but it doesn't last.  A craftsman-made mug can last a lifetime, but will be more expensive to buy.  James Fox treated himself to a pair of Sheffield steel scissors - they cost £100, but they will last his lifetime, and far longer than 10 pairs of £10 scissors would last.

In Japan, skilled craftspeople are honoured as National Treasures, and encouraged to pass on their knowledge.  In France, Notre Dame was rebuilt so quickly after the fire because there were trained young craftspeople available to do the work.  We desperately need something similar in the UK. 

Winter Festival

 I was going to do a lot more than I've been able to manage over this weekend, having been totally wiped out by a bad cold for a few days.

So I didn't get to the talk about the future of books at the Globe, and I only got to the Quantum Revolution because I'd spent £15 on the ticket and didn't want to waste it.

The foyer of the tent at the Castle this year was quite small - just the Festival Bookshop and gift shop, and a stall selling coffees.

Paul Davies, of the University of Arizona, and Vlatko Vedral from Oxford University, are both physicists, and both have books available.

It's 100 years since quantum theory began, with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and we're at an exciting time for the future of quantum science.  To set up what they were talking about, they explained the many worlds/variable state theory, in which atoms can be seen to be in several different places at the same time, or they can teleport.  There are disagreements about whether this means full-on parallel universes (like Mirror, Mirror in Star Trek) or whether it is one universe in several different quantum states at the same time.  They're also hoping that recent developments mean that they will be able to work on the problem of how quantum science and General Relativity fit together.  At the moment, quantum works for very, very small things, and General Relativity works for big things, but nobody's quite sure how they fit together, or even if it's possible for them to fit together.

There's a race between the world powers to develop a working quantum computer - and fears of a quantum apocalypse,  in which the quantum computers could break any current method of cryptography - so bank details, spying, and anything that had been encrypted could be made public.

Hopefully, before that happens, there's potential for a medical revolution, where molecules can be individually tailored to repair cells or block receptors so diseases can't spread.  They even talked about the potential for a helmet like something out of a 1960s superhero comic - processes inside the brain cause magnetic fields which can be detected outside the brain, so a helmet that could pick up those fields could literally read your mind!  They were thinking more along the lines of people being able to control robots, or prosthetic limbs, though.

There was a digression about geckos - their feet have hairs so fine they extend into the quantum realm, and that's how they can walk across ceilings!

In the questions at the end, they were asked what science fiction they read, and Paul Davies mentioned The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle - partly because Fred Hoyle gave him his first job!  (Watching him on stage, I got the feeling that he would have enjoyed the company of Brian Aldiss).  Vlatko Vedral said it was very difficult to go to the movies as a physicist - what was portrayed in Interstellar, for example, doesn't work like that!

Another question was on ethics - is there an ethics department working alongside the physicists to maybe say "Well, you could do this - but should you?" 

They obviously do take ethical considerations into account - but knowledge of quantum science is worldwide, and maybe everyone wouldn't be quite so careful.

By the time I got out of the marquee, the Christmas Lights had been turned on, but the square was still full of people - and traction engines, and a fire engine. 

Hay Talks at the Globe

 The Winter Festival starts this Thursday, with lots of interesting talks over the weekend, plus the traditional Turning on of the Christmas Lights, and Father Richard playing the organ accompaniment to a silent film (Faust, this time).

There's also a talk going on at the Globe, which is not part of the Festival programme.  The title is "Do Books Still Have Power in the Digital Age?"

(I'm going to say YES to that one, obviously!)

This will be a panel discussion, and could be very interesting.

It's on Thursday 27th November at 7.30pm at the Globe 

Getting Home from Holiday

 I had an absolutely wonderful time in Manchester, and by Wednesday lunchtime I'd done all the things that I had on my list - the John Rylands Library, the Museum of Science and Industry, Castlefield Roman fort, Afflecks (three floors of quirky little shops), Forbidden Planet, the Art Gallery, Books and Friends bookshop and cafe, drinking at Peveril of the Peak (Victorian green-tiled pub) and the Victoria Tap at Victoria Railway Station, eating at Richmond Tea Rooms and the Molly House, and the cafes at Afflecks and the Central Library.

I'd got about on the free Bee Network buses and the trams - Zone One, for the city centre, costs £2.70 for a one day travelcard, and I was able to hop on and off all day. 

I'd allowed myself until 4.30pm before I got the last train back, which would connect with the last bus home from Hereford at 18.53, but I'd run out of steam. 

The X44 timetable online says that there are buses from Hereford train station to Hay at 15.22 and 17.22  so I confidently boarded an earlier train.

At Hereford, I waited.  And waited.  

Finally I checked the bus timetable at the bus stop, and it had the letters "VS" next to the 15.22 bus and the 17.22 bus.  At the bottom of the timetable, this was explained as "Saturdays and school holidays only".

Here I was on Wednesday on a school day, and there was no bus back to Hay between 13.22 and 18.53.

I didn't want to wait around in Hereford in the freezing cold for three hours, and fortunately I had some holiday money left.

I took a Blueline taxi.  It cost £60 and was totally worth it. 

The Secret Language of Trees

 The last part of the Tree event on Saturday was the film at 7pm, The Secret Language of Trees.

The Parish Hall was full, and the film was fascinating.

It talked about how trees can communicate with each other through their root systems, exchanging chemicals with other trees nearby to warn of predators so that the other trees could defend themselves more quickly, and about how the shared root system could keep stumps of felled trees alive.  The trees also share nutrients to help weaker trees, and can "decide" together when it's a good year to produce lots of acorns or beech mast or other seeds.  (This year has been a very good year for acorns locally - they were everywhere on the Offa's Dyke walk.)

They also talked about "mother trees", which are important to the health of a lot of other trees around them, and how plantation firs or other evergreens do better if there are birch trees in the mix.  They talked about using horses to pull the felled trees out of the woodlands rather than heavy machinery that compacts the soil, and lots more.

There were scientists and tree experts from Canada, including an indigenous woman who is also a scientist, who talked about the importance of indigenous knowledge of how their local forests grow, and a forester from Germany, talking about how German forests are managed.

After the film there was a Q and A session with four of the trustees of Botany and Other Stories, and the son of one of the trustees, who is also, I think, a soil scientist.

They spoke about the importance of sourcing local trees or seeds to replant woodlands - one of the problems of sourcing the cheapest trees from abroad is that they can import diseases, like Dutch Elm disease.  Also, they are less likely to be well adapted to the local conditions if they come from the other side of Europe.

In the Midlands, the National Forest scheme is trying to link together scattered patches of woodland, which will be good for biodiversity as animals, plants  and birds can move more freely between their habitats.

When talking about commercial forestry, they agreed that monocultures are a bad thing, and selective felling of mixed woodland is better, though they were doubtful of the possibility of scaling up horse power to commercially viable levels.

A Swedish lady who has recently moved to Hay talked about her time living in Scotland, where she had seen selective felling of trees targeting the trees described as "mother trees" in the film, which is very bad for the health of the woodland.

They talked about the need for long term planning, and for forestry and agriculture to work together - hedgerows are very important for biodiversity, for instance.  Leading on from the walk in the afternoon, they talked about the need for sensitive intervention in woodland - you can't just leave trees to do their thing, because woodlands in the UK have been subject to some form of management for centuries.  There is also the problem that about 75% of woodland in the UK is now privately owned - state owned woodland has quietly been sold off bit by bit.  So where once the Forestry Commission could implement a policy across the country, now there has to be a lot of negotiation with private owners of woodland.

And it's no good just planting a bunch of trees anywhere - around Birmingham there is a lot of heathland, a valuable habitat in its own right, which is destroyed when trees are planted on it, and it's not the best place to put the trees, either.

One of the trustees said she had been working in the sector since around 1978 - and things were improving, but there is still a long way to go!

So there was a lot to think about, coming out of the meeting, and a lot of expertise on the board of trustees of Botany and Other Stories.  It's quite reassuring that people with that expertise are getting together to do positive things. 

 

Tree Walk

 I'm back from a few days away (I had an awesome time in Manchester) and I still have a lot to say about the Tree event on Saturday (which seems like an awfully long time ago now!).

At 2pm, there was a tree walk down the Offa's Dyke path, starting from the Treehouse Cafe just over Hay Bridge.  The day was wet, and cold, and grey, but still about 20 people turned up.  There was some talk of doing an adult talk and a children's talk, but they decided to just go with the adult talk, and let the kids tag along.  If they got bored, there was plenty to do in the woods along the path, where there are a lot of outdoor games set up.

I'd been expecting a walk that pointed out the different types of trees, and one person had brought along a tree recognition booklet - but it wasn't really about that.

One of the trustees of Botany and Other Stories was there to talk about problems like ash die back - there are a lot of ash trees on that stretch of the riverbank.  One of the dying ash trees is right next to the cafe, covered in ivy, and they're trying to save as much of the tree as they can because the ivy is really good for biodiversity, nesting birds, insects and so on.

The owners of the land, who are actually doing the management of the woodland, were along for the walk, and they pointed out the strip of land that they can't touch to manage it because it is an SSSI.  Apparently, back when the UK was part of the EU, the Welsh Government could get EU grants for wildlife if a certain amount of riverbank was designated as SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest).  So, there is nothing actually special about this bit of woodland, but it was there to make up the numbers - and they can't touch it, unless it's to pull out the Himalayan balsam, or thin out sycamore trees, which are counted as invasive.  So it's basically just sitting there.  Meanwhile the woodland around it, which is being managed, has enough light to the ground to encourage flower species that indicate ancient woodland, like bluebells and celandine, and wood anemone, which make the woods look so beautiful in spring.

Coming out to the (slightly flooded) meadow, we were experiencing a completely different environment.  For the past couple of years, the owner has been mowing the meadow.  They tried other ways of managing it, but nothing really worked well - now, though, the clear stretch of meadow between the trees supports a lot of insects in the summer, and there is enough space for the swallows and martens to get a long flight path to eat the insects, so that's working very well.  

They also pointed out a couple of saplings, just in the water.  These were elms - but sadly, since Dutch Elm disease wiped out most of the elms in the country in the 1970s, any elms that do start to grow get to about the size that these trees are, and then die.

It was rather sad to learn that the woodland that looked fine at a casual glance actually had a lot of dying trees in it (and there's nothing they can do to stop ash die back or Dutch Elm disease), but at the same time, it's a hopeful sign that the woodland is supporting 76 species of birds, along with everything that the birds eat.

There was also a bit of discussion about what sort of woodland we want to see in the future - what sort of trees should be planted to be more resilient to disease and climate change, and so on.

It was a fascinating walk - worth getting my feet wet for!  (I wore a pair of boots that I thought were waterproof.  They were not.).