I never read a book in America

I like every kind of book, though I draw the line at the poems of Alexander Pope. I still have fond childhood memories of Biggles, Bulldog Drummond, Sax Rohmer, and Roderic Graeme, whose collected Black Shirt stories I recently re-purchased on Kindle.

I particularly like old books; the language, their archaisms and rhythm. The language demands patience, something easier to say than attain in a world of instant gratification. There’s the initial struggle, like pushing a reluctant door into a dark and dusty room, until the author’s voice takes hold, and you find yourself in the mindscape of earlier centuries, and you become part of it. 

There’s real joy wandering through the world of Fenimore Cooper, the muscular, sometimes over-pious language transcending the limits of film. I remember reading Thackeray’s The History of Henry Esmond, struggling with it at first, until gradually drifting through deep-hedged lanes, cow parsley and wild roses. 

It was the same with Middlemarch, read when I was seventeen trying to impress my first girlfriend who went on to press Crime and Punishment into my hands, introduce me to Rachmaninov, and then moved on to a boy with better prospects.  

That’s the peculiar things about books, the significant ones at least. You remember who gave or suggested them, and you remember where it was you first read them. Middlemarch and the Brothers Karamazov I read in our freezing cold front parlour—the fire only put on when we had guests. 

I remember reading Romany Rye, Lavengro, and Rookwood in a sunny Uplands flat in Swansea, Joni Mitchel’s Blue playing in the background. 

 

 On a darker note, I remember reading Great Expectations in the middle of a break-up. The Brittany cycling holiday pre-booked and paid for, we cycled some distance apart and I read Great Expecations in a small tent alone. The irony didn’t escape me.  

I still have my James Bond paperbacks, Thunderball of especial significance. School-yard rumours that an obscure newsagent two and half miles away had copies in stock. (In pre-Amazon days you depended on such rumours along with a degree of commitment) After school and through pouring rain I cycled there and returned home late but triumphant, and wet.

Then there's my collection of 'Saint' paperbacks bought in competition with Billy Shaw, the son of our 

local chemist. Boys tend to be completist, and some like to hoard.

 It’s why I can’t get rid of books, even those I may never read again. They each tell a story. 

Then there’re the books bought, but never read; harder to defend perhaps, unless like me you’re quietly convinced you have decades yet to live. Four years ago, I won a vicious bidding war in an auction and returned home with the collected works of Sir Walter Scott—twenty-two beautiful blue leather volumes and all for £32. I stroke them now and again, occasionally open a page at random and admire the quality of the paper or browse several evocative engravings before closing the book with a sigh. One day.

Walter Scott - still to be read

                                               A book at random, Quentin Durward

Gilded pages gleam a pale gold

Published in 1904, these editions boast thin, but pristine white pages and evocative engravings. Book porn. Mea culpa.

At this point, you may be wondering about the title of this piece—I never read a book in America.  You may be tempted to think it was some kind of snide and ill-informed comment on American culture. Far from it. The truth is that my year teaching in America was the culmination of a childhood dream. (Teaching not so much.) The experience of just living there meant I had no time to read! Escapism wasn’t called for. I had escaped. The weekend edition of the New York Times for which you needed some serious weight training and accept grey fingers from the ink, was more than enough.

When I am really old and perhaps blind, I’ll know where my books are shelved, and touch will bring back memories.

Belia

Yes, it is marketing time, which is much more difficult than writing and nowhere near as much fun, marginally better than toothache, especially for one as lazy as me.

Here goes.

Belia is a young adult novel and can be summed up in a sentence: an ex-highwayman and his daughter are cast into a demon haunted future, where they battle carnivorous moss, haunted forests, demons, and Belia—a witch out of time.

 

It is also a triple time-slip novel taking the reader from C18th Newport to the C21st and Newport in the far distant future. It also features the iconic Murenger pub, which plays a key part in events. Newport then enjoys a leading role and those fortunate to live there will recognise many landmarks both past and present—none though in that distant future, where the landscape is one of rolling hills and meadows.

 

For those who want more than a one sentence summary: …when in the winter of 1710, the highwayman Rafe Sadler steals an opal from a malignant woman of power, he is cast into the far future, an apparent ‘Golden Age,’ but one haunted by demons, and a dark secret acknowledged reluctantly and with pious guilt. This far future is a ‘paradise built on bones,’ the result of an engineered cull in a previously overpopulated and ravaged world—a world now threatened by demons.

Rafe’s daughter, Rosie, attempts to follow him but lands in twenty-first century Newport, where she meets a fellow time traveller—a refugee from that distant future. The three time periods play their part in the story as our heroes battle against carnivorous moss, demons, and Belia—a ‘witch’ out of time.

 

Though Belia is complete in itself, there is a sequel Tai-Lin which explores the same three time-periods, and takes us from an C18th America, a demon ravaged future, and the wilds of Tartary and Tibet. 

I hope you enjoy Belia, and Tai-Lin when it's released later this year..

City of the Beast

Aleister Crowley remains an enigma, for some a romantic, the last burning ember of revolt against Victorian conformity, for others, something more sinister, an ardent Satanist, for others again a deluded charlatan deftly deceiving the gullible.

He has long since become a literary commodity and figures in The Gift Trilogy largely because of his association with another who dabbled in the dark arts, Evan Morgan, Lord Tredegar. 

There is only one recorded account of a Crowley visit to Tredegar House, but there are rumours of other, longer visits when blood flowed in the cellars. 

I have no doubt that there are those who have sold their souls for fame, wealth and power, so it seems mighty strange that Crowley died an ailing addict in a Hastings boarding house. There is though, another way of looking at it. For the Christian ascetic or saint, material wealth means little in comparison to their communion with God. And so, it may prove with the practising Satanist, communion with the devil a reward in itself.

It’s a perspective that helped me in reading Phil Baker’s book, City of the Beast. The London of Aleister Crowley. On one level, the book is intensely depressing albeit with unexpected nuggets of gold. 

The book falls into the  psychogeography genre, detailing Crowley’s peripatetic life in London from grand hotels to every shabby bedsit that housed the great man.  It describes the restaurants and clubs he frequented and above all his sexual conquests. The man was obsessed, on the prowl night after night. It makes you wonder how much time he was able to indulge in ‘magic,’ though it helped that he was able to bring sex into it. The key was to focus on a profound need before and during ejaculation. So now you know. 

How did he attract so many women? It may have been his ‘sexual magic,’ a magnetic personality or, perhaps, his perfume: a concoction of musk and civet on a base of ambergris, which Crowley rubbed on his skin and into his eyebrows. ‘It gave him a sweetish smell and made horses whinny after him in the street.’

Some argue satanism too narrowly defines Crowley, but it’s undeniable he shared key Luciferian qualities: over-weening pride, deceit and manipulation. His most well-known dictum, ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Every man and every woman is a star. Love is the law, love under will. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.’

His reference to ‘love under will’ is far from wholesome or pure.

He was, for example sexually attracted to black women but showed nothing but contempt for their ethnicity, each of them listed in his diary: ‘Phyllis. The poor zebu (a type of humped cow) …quite upset when I pointed out that her chief charm was her musky nigger stench.’

He was a merciless sponger talking quite viciously about his various benefactors behind their backs. He referred to one Australian benefactor as an ‘imbecile hag’ and as the ‘Wailing Wombat of Wagga Wagga.’

He was outraged by the idea of state pensions. They discouraged ‘honest ambition,’ increased taxation, and took away from what should be spent on military defence. He wanted the death penalty to be extended to cover lesser crimes and championed the expulsion of ethnic minorities. 

Pride, an almost childish conceit, dominated his life along with food, drink and drugs.

The writer Maurice Richardson met Crowley at the French Pub in Dean Street, the great occultist smelling of ether having just drunk half a pint of the stuff. Asked what he wanted to drink, Crowley opted for a triple absinthe, followed by two more triple absinthes before setting off for a gargantuan lunch at L’Escargot. 

On another occasion, ‘After a few large vodkas (he enjoyed) lobster bisque, roast duck, and a runny Brie, washed down with several litres of Chianti followed by Cyprus brandy.

And talking about drugs, his diary extols  the virtues of heroin, comparing it to: “…thirteen masturbations, a menstruation orgy, a five-man buggery competition, sixteen rapes of assorted quadrupeds … and a pot of marmalade thrown in.”

Marmalade!

Despite a life of drugs, alcohol and every kind of excess, he achieved the quite respectable age of 72 before dying in the obscurity of a Hastings boarding house. The year December 1947, the month and year I was born – a good enough reason to reject reincarnation.

Accounts of his final words vary, which is par for the course with Crowley: 

I am perplexed.

 Satan get out. 

Sometimes I hate myself.

Whatever he thought of himself at these final moments, I suspect he may have been 'cancelled' today. Then again, maybe not.

For those interested enough to read a more sympathetic analysis of Crowley I can offer this.

 

Pershore

The Abbey is dated to the reign of King Edgar in the early C10th, though likely founded upon an earlier C7th  monastery. It had a tempestuous history, in its time buffeted by earthquake, fire, the depredations of malicious dukes and kings. Duke Alphere was a ferocious predator but met a timely end and a horrible death: ‘being eaten by vermin.’ His son, Odda restored what his father had plundered and vowed to remain a virgin lest a son of his should prove guilty of similar crimes. He lived a saintly life and on his death in 1056 was rewarded with a mention in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and burial within the Abbey. For much of the Middle Ages, the abbey largely prospered, though not without its ups and downs. Then, in 1539 the accusations of a disgruntled cleric gave Thomas Cromwell the excuse to close it down and pension off the remaining monks. 

Little is left of the original abbey, much of it collapsed or cannibalised in the years following the Reformation. In 1913 two large flying buttresses were added to strengthen an almost collapsing west wall.

The Chancel. The altar is largely obscured by temporary seating for a choral performance.

Note the ‘ploughshare’ vaulting, so called because of their resemblance to the medieval plough. 

Note the stone carved roof boss above, one of many, all originally brightly coloured until the Victorians cleaned them.

The stained-glass windows were installed by the Victorians in 1870. One shows the history of the abbey from Saxon to Victorian times.

The baptismal font is carved with images of the twelve apostles. It was rescued from a garden in 1921 long after the Victorians had discarded it in favour of a spanking new alternative. 

The Crusader’s Tomb is thought to be that of Sir William de Harley, a local knight who held  land from the abbey and fought in the crusades. He is famous amongst military armour experts because the carving shows three buckles in his right armpit that fastened his back and breast plates together. It is the only known carving in England that illustrates this feature, and it is wonderful to think there are military tomb obsessives who would have noted and recorded it. Equally wonderful that medieval craftsmen would have paid such attention to detail.

The two tombs are of the local wealthy Hazelwood family, who dominated the area from the  C16th to C18th 

And as for Pershore

Horny Moses

I was intrigued to discover Moses came down from Mount Sinai, not only with Ten Commandments but also flaunting a  pair of magnificent horns on his head. Michaelangelo too, was clearly impressed, sculpting Moses wearing horns that would make a stag proud.  

                                                            Okay, I exaggerate a little

Who else in the ancient world could boast such a fine pair of horns, or to put it another way, what do Alexander the Great and Moses have in common—other than horns? 

My hopes that I’d discovered a Von Daniken style link between ancient leaders and alien intruders were almost immediately dashed. In the case of Moses, it amounted to a simple mistranslation. The ancient Hebrew script for horn and shining are almost identical and so easy to mistake. (garan for shining face, geren for horn. To confuse things further, the vowels were usually omitted) Instead of coming down from Sinai with horns, he simply came down with a shining face. So, the theory goes—largely due to St Jerome who translated the bible into Latin using the wrong ‘grn’ and giving Moses a pair of horns. Others offer more subtle interpretations. 

In the case of Alexander, it was sheer opportunism on the part of the man who had just conquered Egypt, and Egyptian priests who knew a thing or two about flattery. Alexander was clearly the son of Amon, an Egyptian deity, usually portrayed with pair of ram’s horns on his head.

Ram or bull, horns indicated potency and power throughout the ancient world, and in more recent history, Native American shamans were similarly partial to buffalo horns. 

There remains though, one mystery: the cuckold usually portrayed with horns on his head. The word itself poses no problem, coming from the old French cucuault with its root in  cucu ie cuckoo, which lays its eggs in another bird's nest. But why link cuckolds to horns in such a disparaging way?

The answer may have its origins in early Christian propaganda, dissing the pagan world view and linking horns with the devil who from this period onwards is rarely seen without his horns. From the bestial, the satanic, to the hapless husband, horns are no longer seen as an enviable accessory, a  symbol of power – except amongst Morris Men. 

Evesham Abbey

There’s nothing like walking through ruins on a cold winter’s day

Evesham Abbey in its prime

A present day remnant

Abbey wall and its grounds, the surviving parish churches of St Lawrence, and Holy Saints.

A fragment: the Abbey Bell Tower

The 110 ft Bell Tower, built between 1524 and 1532 was the work of Clement Lichfield, the last Abbot of Evesham. The gateway through its base led from the Parish churchyard  to the monks’ graveyard.

Monks were buried in a shroud, placed on a wooden board and placed in a grave with a simple wooden marker. Abbots and rich benefactors were buried in the Abbey along with their regalia.

 The clock at the top of the tower once had an elaborate panorama showing the phases of the moon. Above it were two wooden figures designed to strike a bell every 15 minutes.

Some buildings seem to linger in between worlds as if here on temporary loan. It was a bit like that walking through the remains of one of the great abbeys of medieval England. 

Maybe Eof the swineherd experienced a similar feeling towards the end of the C7^th  when he experienced a vision of the Virgin Mary. There he was, peacefully minding his own business and pigs when Mary appeared in front of him. 

Regaining his composure, Eof  rushed off to Ecgwin. bishop of Worcester. When Ecgwin accompanied Eof to the forested bend in the river, he too saw the apparition of the Virgin Mary and persuaded the king of Mercia, Ethelred, to found a monastery in that exact spot.

 And thus Evesham Abbey was founded, named after a Saxon swineherd and the Saxon word ‘hamm’ meaning land in the bend of a river. Ecgwin for his troubles became a saint.

 All Saints Church side view

Within the grounds of the Abbey, St Lawrence, and All Saints have served as parish churches for the town of Evesham since the C12^th.  They were built for ordinary folk as Evesham grew into an important market town. The Abbey Church was reserved primarily for the use of the monastery and has now vanished along with the monks.

The two churches survived the Reformation, the wonderful stained glass windows a later installation.

In its early years, the Abbey became known for its miracles and grew wealthy from pilgrims. It also had powerful patrons, including Lady Godiva who, presumably fully clothed, gifted a new church to the Abbey. 

Over the next 800 years the abbey grew in wealth and power, until in 1540 it was blown away in a puff of wind—or less poetically—when Henry VIII turfed the monks out in the middle of their Vespers. Little remains of the monastery now, other than the Bell tower, the cloister arch and remnants of walls. Much of the stone was cannibalised by local townsfolk some of which you can spot in the houses nearby.  

Entering the abbey grounds

Remnants of original Norman stone work

                                                      Adjoining lane and buildings

                                                                     And coffee!