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.). 

Cabinet of Curiosities Pop up Exhibition

 Yesterday morning I went down to the Parish Hall for the first part of a day of Tree-related activities.  

Chairs were set up in the centre of the hall for the film later that evening, and round the walls was the exhibition on the theme of trees - and also into the kitchen.  Some of the exhibits came from the main Cabinet of Curiosities collection, like the selection of woods that go to make a piano, and there were also quotations from people who came from all round the world, talking about their favourite tree.  

Tim the Gardener wrote a poem about elms, a big part of his childhood - but when he went back a few years later, they were all gone because of Dutch Elm disease.  A Chinese lady wrote about gathering kapok blossoms, and there was a chap from Soweto remembering jacaranda trees, as well as a local little girl talking about climbing her favourite hazel tree.

Earlier in the week, Pierre had come into the Cinema Bookshop to look for The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin.  We couldn't find it for him, but there were several other forest and tree related books as part of the exhibits.  There was a whole section on cider apples, for example. 

There was also art - botanical illustrations of pears by a group of children, and leaves, a wire figure decorated with leaves and dried flowers, and some of the figures from the Cabinet of Curiosities including my favourite, the Queen of the Night.

It took some time to go round and appreciate it all properly, and meanwhile Francoise was introducing people to each other - which is how I came to meet Carrie from the Tourist Information office, who was interested in my knowledge of local ancient monuments.  She's looking for anything she can find to make visitors' time in Hay more interesting for them. 

Bus Timetables

 It was a bit over a week ago that I was going to write a rant about the lack of bus timetables at the bus stops in Hay - but a friend sent me some correspondence they had been having with Powys County Council, who are responsible for putting the timetables up.  They said they were treating it as a priority and the timetables would be up by today.

So I went to check this morning, and - rapture!

 Then I checked across the road - modified rapture!

 As you can see, someone has put up a handwritten timetable in the absence of the official one.

And telling people to scan a QR code is not entirely helpful.  I have a smart phone, but I don't know how to do QR codes, and I don't feel inclined to learn.

Sergeants buses took over the Hereford - Hay - Brecon route on 1st September, and it is now 15th November.  On the Herefordshire side of the border, the timetables went up very quickly, and there was even a special notice warning about the disruption to the service because of roadworks in Dorstone.

It would be nice if Powys County Council would do a bit more to encourage people to use the bus service, and make it easier for them to do so. 

Happy Birthday Lynn Trowbridge

 Happy birthday to Lynn Trowbridge, who has just turned 102 years old!

She used to live in one of the almshouses, but has now moved into a local care home.

And she became a published author in her 90s!  Her book is called Random Ramblings of a Nonagenarian and is available on Amazon.

Sticks and Twine at the Black Lion

 Sticks and Twine is a new knitting (or crocheting or whatever other handicrafts people are doing) group that meets in the Black Lion about once a month.

It was on Tuesday this month, from 6pm to 8pm, so I went along straight from work.  We were sitting round a table in the Lion's Den, the room across the corridor from the main bar, and it was very pleasant indeed.  As we were in one of the oldest buildings in Hay, there was quite a bit of discussion about old superstitions to protect buildings, like burying a witch bottle under the hearth so a witch couldn't fly down the chimney.

And, of course, the Black Lion has ghosts.

Originally, the present pub and the house next door and the bookbinder's  workshop beyond that were all part of the same complex of buildings.  The present owners of the Black Lion bought the house after many years of it standing vacant, and renovated it.  Before they did this, though, they had some ghost hunters in who spoke to the French ghost in the cellar.  I'm not sure how a French ghost ended up in the Black Lion cellar, but he seems to be a fixture - and he talked about going to the "other cellar" after they talked to him.  (Again, I'm not sure how they were talking to him - but something was mentioned about an app they had on their phone!  You can get apps for anything these days!)  As far as the owners of the Black Lion were concerned, there wasn't another cellar, so they thought the ghost hunters might be making things up.  Then they bought the house next door - and it has a cellar, which would originally have connected to the Black Lion.

We weren't just telling ghost stories, though -  apparently there's a new TV series about knitting, along the same lines as the Sewing Bee, but the people who'd seen it weren't terribly impressed.  They did a piece about Fair Isle knitting, and got a long and detailed letter from a lady in Shetland, which one of the ladies in the group quoted, telling them all the things that they had got wrong, or had failed to mention, despite the researchers going to the Shetland Museum and finding out all about it.  So I don't think this programme is going to be the success among knitters that the Sewing Bee was among the sewing community.

They weren't sure if there was going to be a December meeting - the feeling was that it might be too close to Christmas - but I'll keep my eyes open for information, because I really enjoyed the evening. 

T is For Tree

 Botany and Other Stories are holding a pop up Cabinet of Curiosities event on Saturday.

It's all about trees.

From 10.30am to 7pm, there will be an exhibition at the Parish Hall (exhibitions are normally at the house on Oxford Road, but that is being renovated at the moment), with botanical illustrations of trees and leaves, and all sorts of other interesting tree-related things.

At 7pm, there will be a film, also in the Parish Hall, called The Hidden Language of Trees, followed by a Q and A session with a panel.  Matthew Prior, a journalist, will be the facilitator of the panel, which will be formed of Jeremy Armstrong, Jenny Dicker, Imogen Cripps and Emily Warner.  These are all trustees of the Botany and Other Stories charity.

There will also be a walk along the Offa's Dyke path, starting from By the Wye Glamping.  There will be a children's version and a more scientific adult version, observing the trees along the river in the context of climate change.

I've got my walking boots ready! 

Remembrance Sunday

 

The latest Post Box topper.

New Vicar for Cusop

 Cusop parish is looking for a new vicar at the moment - the official title in the Link magazine is a Rural Pioneer Priest for the Borderlink Benefice.

Rev. Luci Morriss is the priest at the moment, but she's moving on to the new Black Mountains Benefice to the south.

The job isn't just for Cusop - the priest has to cover Preston-on-Wye, Blakemere, Moccas, Bredwardine, Hardwicke, Dorstone and Clifford as well.  So all the representatives of those parishes are meeting to discuss what they want from a new priest, to go into the job description.  They're hoping to hold interviews in December, but the application process is open now, and they're hoping to have a new priest by Easter next year. 

Ian Jardin's Funeral

  Cusop Church was packed for the service - there were even extra folding chairs at the back.

Rev Jane Rogers took the service, and the chief undertaker was a very smart woman in a low top hat.  It was all beautifully done.  The coffin was a wicker casket, and the church was decorated with autumn foliage and flowers, including an arch under the Norman arch to the chancel.  A piece of piano music was played which had been written for Ian by a friend of his.  There was a donation box to give to the upkeep of Cusop churchyard.

A family member spoke about what Ian had been like when she was growing up, and a long term colleague of Ian's from English Heritage spoke about his professional life.  When he and Tracy moved to Cusop, he put his project management skills to good use when the Cheesemarket was being brought back into use, and he was also a long term member of Cusop Parish Council, starting with ten years as the Clerk of the Council, and then becoming a councillor, and leader of the council.  He was very much involved with the local history project on Cusop Castle (just across the road from the churchyard) and the churchyard itself, which is an early round churchyard.  He'll be greatly missed in the local community.

We left the church to the music of the Levellers - "There's Only One Way of Life", which had a lot of people tapping their feet to the beat.  Ian was buried in Cusop churchyard, and then there was tea at the Village Hall - everyone had worked very hard, and it was a very good spread. 

Old Hay in Photographs

 There's a talk at St. Mary's on Wednesday 5th November at 7pm.

Tim Pugh will be giving a slide show of Old Hay in Photographs.

It should be a fascinating evening.

Tickets are £5, in aid of St Mary's Church, and the St Mary's bar will be open. 

Patchwork - a talk about Jane Austen

 I had a great time at the talk at North Books on Thursday afternoon.

They run a stitching bookclub, so most of the regulars had brought along their knitting projects - this was an extra event, with the author and artist of the book Patchwork, Kate Evans. This is a graphic novelisation of Jane Austen's life, and the title comes from the fact that she actually did help to make a patchwork quilt.  

There are digressions about the fabrics used - muslin  and chintz from India, linen from Ireland, cotton woven in Lancashire and grown by slaves in the United States. 

Some of the pictures are created on a sewing machine - Kate made panels of patchwork and machine embroidery which have become a frieze something like thirty five feet long!  Far too big to display at North Books, but she is doing a talk at a big country house later in the year, and there will be room to display it there.

At the back of the book are the footnotes - quotations from the novels and notes about what is happening in the text.  She was insistent that the book reflected the academic research she had done for it.  She had a short and heart-felt rant about how comics/graphic novels are overlooked by reviewers in the UK, and considered to be for children (if they're not about superheroes).  So an adult book, written as a graphic novel, is difficult to place - people don't generally go into a comic shop to look for a biography of Jane Austen, and ordinary bookshops find them difficult to place, too. 

She also had a bit to say about Beau Brummel, and the beginning of modern men's fashion.  Before Beau Brummel, who was a good friend of the Prince Regent, and therefore very influential in fashionable circles, clothing for the wealthy was all about displaying your wealth through your clothing - so fine silks, embroidered waistcoats, and so on.  Beau Brummel was all about the tailoring - still fine fabrics, but not in bright colours, and with little or no embroidery - and in tying the perfect cravat.  

She also had quite a bit to say about how women's work is devalued.  Women at every level of society did sewing, all the time.  All clothing was hand sewn, as well as curtains, sheets, and everything else made of fabric round the home.  There are many quotations from Jane Austen's novels about the women having their workbaskets with them (even Lydia thought about trimming a bonnet!) and several characters are shown to be idle and worthless because they don't do any sewing - this would have been very apparent to the contemporary readers of the books, though not so much to us now, where dress making is no longer a common skill (and so manufacturers can palm off just about any old rubbish on us in the name of fast fashion!).

So, I had a wonderful time, and I bought the book and had it signed - Kate asked each person she signed for to turn to a random page in the book, and she would write a quotation from that page.  Mine was "What is the line between imagination and reality?"  which I am delighted with!