The stuff on our doorway: Ledbury

In 690 AD the beautiful and ruthless Wu Zetian became the first empress of China. and the market town of Ledbury in Herefordshire was founded. It was mentioned in the Domesday book and has a church dated from the C12th. 

St Michaels and All Angels Church

The original church has been extended several times. For example the tower was built around 1230 and the Spire added in 1733. If you look closely at the picture you can see that the tower – uniquely for Herefordshire – is not connected to the main body of the church.

Wandering around. you stop at building after building: The Feather’s Hotel, a C16 Drovers inn, 

a Butchers moved piece by piece and reassembled after complaints about the smell. It’s now a museum. You walk down wonderful streets with equally wonderful toilets, glimpse lanes you could write stories about.

Toilet entrance to the left

There were four battles of Ledbury, a Royalist stronghold during the English Civil War, and some notable people were born here, William Langland the C14th poet, Elizabeth Browning, the Victorian poet, John Masefield an inter-war Poet Laureate – notice a pattern here? I could continue. William Wordsworth wrote a sonnet about St Catherine of Ledbury, though the pattern is perhaps spoilt by Elizabeth Hurley alsol from Ledbury who has yet to write a poem.

If I may end on two curiosities:

The shoe bath for the poor, wheeled from house to house on a trolley. There was a tap on the toe of the boot, which I’ve masterfully left out. At each house some water was let out, leaving space for a ‘top up’. There are apparently only three examples of a shoe bath in the entire country.

The kettle is an ironmonger’s sign, originally hanging outside the building and a danger to both man and beast. There was little room for Health and Safety in the C17th.

Part two next week focusing on interiors  but excluding the toilet.

Bob Dylan in Lennon's bedroom

Bob Dylan has always been high in my top five bands/musicians, even now when his voice and lyrics are now beyond Delphic in live performances. I would love to have seen some of his earlier tours, in particular the Rolling Thunder Review, and I still feel sore that I missed my chance at those first historic concerts in the UK.  I could have been standing next to the idiot who shouted 'Judas'.

When I did see him in Cardiff nine years ago he sounded like a frog with catarrh. But I still loved him. Sheer perversity.

I listen to him quite a lot now in the gym. Isis is brilliant on the running machine or Cross trainer. I feel like I’m on the journey with him… ‘The wind it was howlin and the snow was outrageous…’

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But what caught my attention was a story passed on to me by an old friend. I’ve copied and pasted it below, and it just makes me appreciate the man more.

Folk legend Bob Dylan mingled unnoticed with Beatles tourists during a minibus tour to John Lennon's childhood home.

The 67-year-old troubadour paid £16 for the public trip to the 1940s semi in Woolton, Liverpool, last week as his European tour called at the city.

He was one of 14 tourists to examine photos and documents in the National Trust-owned home, where Lennon grew up with his aunt Mimi and uncle George.

A National Trust spokeswoman said Dylan "appeared to enjoy himself".

The trust said its tours of the Beatle's childhood home form "an insight into his humble beginnings".

Visitors are free to wander around the property while asking questions of the curator.

But as tourists prepared to drive out to the house to get an insight into one musical icon, they did not recognise another one sitting next to them.

"He took one of our general minibus tours. People on the minibus did not recognise him apparently," the spokeswoman said.

"He could have booked a private tour but he was happy to go on the bus with everyone else," she added.

The house, called Mendips, has been restored to its original 1940s style by the trust and contains early Lennon memorabilia.

Lennon is said to have developed his passion for music in the suburban house and wrote some of the earliest Beatles songs in his bedroom.

The spokeswoman said a number of singing stars had been on the tour in the past, including James Taylor and Corinne Bailey Rae.

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But she refused to be drawn on whether Dylan was the biggest star they had shown around.

The mysterious Stoke Edith

Like a musty old stoat, I’ve become quite partial to haunting old graveyards. As rock icons fall all about us, I predict graveyards will soon replace property-porn in polite conversation.

That’s not the reason I visited Stoke Edith, a tiny hamlet six miles east of Hereford. The reason was JohnWickens, a late C17th alchemist and confidante of Isaac Newton. The two men shared a room together for 20 years, whilst Newton walked the tightrope between respectable science and alchemy.

The two men may or may not quarrelled, but after 20 years, John Wickens suddenly upped sticks and decamped to Stoke Edith where he ended up as rector. He later married, more Wickens appeared, and in due time John Wickens, rector and alchemist died.

So, why should this interest me?

The answer lies in Mr Nousel’s Mirror, a short story in my collection ‘Tales from the Murenger.’ It was researching into this particular story that I first came across him. I fell in love with the name ‘Stoke Edith’ and now at last— with our inbuilt ‘satnav’ —  we duly set off.

Stoke Edith has a population of just over 300 people though this must surely include neighbouring villages and the local graveyard, because when our nice sat-nav lady said we’d arrived, all we could see was a lane.

We followed it and arrived at a deeply hedged crossroads with glimpses of countryside beyond and a winding track to the C14th church where Wickens ended his days.

My apologies for the ghostly thumb

I kept expecting John Wickens to walk out and wave.

But he didn't.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Earlier this week I read about students at Guelph University in Canada apologising for including Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ on their playlist. It was deemed transphobic. For someone coming of age when the record was first released, the reverse was the truth. Northern culture in the sixties was intensely homophobic, especially amongst young males unsure of their ‘manhood.’

What Lou Reed did was to publicise the reckless courage of transvestite pioneers such as Holly Lawn and Candy Darling who became part of Andy Warhol’s entourage.

Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.

Hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A.

Plucked her eyebrows on the way.

Shaved her legs and then he was a she

She says, ‘Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side.’

The lyrics are subversive and exciting, creating a cocktail of sleaze and glamour, daring and recklessness. It probably did more for trans culture than boxes of sociological tomes and pamphlets. But the Guelph Central Student Association didn’t see it that way and bent the knee to an imagined offence:

“We now know the lyrics to this song are hurtful to our friends in the trans community and we’d like to unreservedly apologise for this error in judgement.”

The grovel continues

We have committed as an organisation to be more mindful in our music selection during any events we hold. We will be meeting to discuss how we can create better playlists in the future. If there are students or members of the campus community who overheard the song in our playlist and were hurt by its inclusion and you’d like to talk with us about it and how we can do better, we welcome that.”

My God, there are people in this world who have more on their minds than a student’s playlist. Manchester for one. The weaselly grovelling tone of this reminds me of those forced to recant in Stalin’s show trials; Mao’s Red Guards enforcing their version of purity and truth.

I find the term ‘Snowflake’ amusing but the phrase is an aspect of a greater reality. We’re talking about ‘puritans,’ and puritans manifest themselves on a cyclical basis in every culture and time. Puritans, Mrs Grundy, Tee totallers, Red Guards, Hitler Youth, Wahabis and Isis. Divided by culture and time, they share one thing in common. Theirs is the truth, and those who demur deserve all that they get.

I remember when some southern youngsters were encouraged by their pastors to burn Beatle albums on the basis of one remark by John Lennon. At the time I found the response more laughable than anything overtly sinister. Looking back their response did have one great redeeming feature: It was a response to their ‘here and now.’

What we have now are responses to the dead and gone. How sad is that?

If we can dismantle statues of Confederate icons, petition to remove sculptures of dead imperialists from Oxford Colleges, change place names in Bristol, why not continue with this brave new direction began by the students of Guelph University? Here are just a few suggestions as to records we can begin burning and deleting from playlists:

‘Eleanor Rigby’ as a patronising affront to all spinsters,

And the Rolling Stones of course, in particular ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Under My Thumb,’

‘Drive ole Dixie down’ for its overt Confederate sympathies,

Bob Dylan’s ‘Just like a woman.’

Cliff Richard’s ‘Living Doll.’

The Strangler’s ‘Peaches’

The Kinks 'Lola'

The problem may however soon be solved since a recent study has revealed that song lyrics are now fewer and more repetitive. I defy anyone to find offense in such literary classics as:

Fatboy’s Slim’s Rockafella Skank with its:

Right about now, the funk soul brother

Check it out now, the funk, soul brother (x20 times)

Dillon Francis and D J Snake’s Get Low

Brrr, Brrr!

Brrr, Brrrr!

Get low, get get get low (x28 times)

But with regard to earlier more coarse and primitive times, I’ll leave it to you to suggest other offensive records we need to ‘cleanse’ from our playlists.