The Society For The Preservation of Nothing Very Special

I have been a member of The National Trust for nearly a year now, and I've always enjoyed their seasonal magazine- mostly because it contains one of the few crosswords I can complete! Sadly, the Autumn 2011 edition only just arrived, so despite being out of date, there was a fascinating article by Simon Barnes, a journalist who writes a regular Wildlife Column in The Times. In this article he suggests that we become active members of the "Society For The Preservation of Nothing Very Special" - a concept he believes will raise awareness of the naturally brilliant places that we take for granted every day WITHOUT making them "Special" and therefore different to the norm.

"Special" usually means rare or endangered - why would we want this for our favourite places?

Simon writes:
"That's why the SPNVP is so important, it seeks to protect living things and living places before they get special. While we still have the privilege of having them on a routine take-'em for granted" basis; while they are still part of the daily life of this country, rather than something you make a pilgrimage for. The country is full of little patches of this and expanses of that, places where you can find small brown birds and not very special butterflies...just the place for running a firghtfully quick train or putting up more houses. Why worry about these places? Plenty more where they come from"

We all have these little places. Personally, my first lies between Ash Vale and Brookwood, along the railway line (I often see such places out of train windows - adds to the moment, the fact I can't just get out and touch them!). There is some ancient woodland running by the tracks, full of broken trees, overgrown brambles and rickity wooden boundaries. Nothing amazing, quite drab really. Sometimes I see soldiers on training (very common sight around the area) other times a very contented fox curls up and watches the trains zoom by. I only see the spot for 5-10 seconds, and yet for me, its the highlight of my long journey to and from Kent! I'm sure many commuters from the Surrey/Hampshire area will tell you all they see along 80% of their commute is old trees/woodland/scrubland, so what makes it any different? And as for the fox, the plague of Suburbia's front lawns and nothing else right? I don't mind this,  as for me, those old trees by all my local railtrack and so-called "vermin" couldn't be more engaging. 

My second example, is the tall (very ugly!) half-dead hedge that runs alongside my work building in Farnham, around the back of the Post Office Depot. When i finish work around 4.30, I walk past, and the hedge is absolutely full of sparrows which are singing at the very top of their voices, making the hedge sway as they jostle about for roosting room! It only occurs for about 15 minutes, then you wouldn't even know they were there. Any town has these little brown birds fighting with the Pigeons over scraps, but at this moment, their chirping is more exciting than any of the rarer birds calls you could hear at any "special" bird watching location. Their population has already declined rapidly over the last 50 years, but thankfully they aren't deemed too "Special" yet, sadly I predict that in my lifetime, they will be.

Simon continues:

"When we think of the Natural World, we don't think with our 21st century emailing, facebooking heads on. We think with our ancient atavistic selves: as if we were still at war with hostile nature and had to fight every step of the way to keep civilisation on track. We won that war a long time ago But we are continuing, almost without noticing, a frightfully fast programme of destruction and extinction. And always, the first places to go are Nothing Very Special"

He has decided the logo for SPNVS will be the cuckoo - a bird that was once heard everywhere all the time, got taken for granted or viewed as an ugly nuisance and a bully, now has made the sad progression to "specialness" - which is a terrible shame.

With the plans for more high-speed trains, housing developments and of course all the work thats already been done on the Olympic sites around England, I think there's a lot of work to be done. We want plenty of "take'em for granted" natural occurances in our lifetimes thank you very much!

I'm sure this article will stir up similar happy locations with you! Please do add any thoughts into the comments for this post, I'd love to know!

"We all must fight with all we have, green in tooth and claw, for Nothing Very Special".

Thanks for reading!

Katie

40th Anniversary of The Aldershot Bombing

On this day 40 years ago, Aldershot found itself on the frontline of a terrorist attack. At 12.40pm a blast tore through the 16th Parachute Brigade Headquarters. A stolen blue Ford Cortina had been packed with 200lbs of explosives by the IRA. Its spokesperson in Dublin said the attack was first in a series of operations aimed at British headquarters serving in Northen Ireland. Now its also seen as a reprisal attack for the lives lost in what's now called "Bloody Sunday", all be it a "Miscalculated" one.

The explosion hit in the very heart of the Army town. But by an irony not unusual in such situations, the only army officer killed in the attack – which was meant to target army officers – was Captain Gerry Weston, a Roman Catholic chaplain. He had recently returned from service in Ulster, where he had acquired a reputation as a successful peacemaker.

Six other civilians, who all worked in the mess, were also killed in the attack on February 22 1972: Thelma Bosley, Margaret Grant, John Haslar, Joan Lunn, Jill Mansfield and Sheri Munton.

I remember being told the story of the attack when i was younger, and I couldn't understand how War could come to my hometown in one afternoon, but of course sadly now, its a concept we're all familiar with.

The bomb wrecked the three-storey building, shooting a plume of grey-brown smoke into the air and shattering the windows of shops in the High Street.

In a bumper edition of the then Weekend News, published after the explosion, the true devastation of the event was described.

“Within seconds, ambulances and fire tenders were on the scene,” the news article read.
“And men from nearby barracks whose windows had been blown in had already dashed to the dust-shrouded wreckage to claw at the rubble with their hands to release the trapped victims.
“On the scene itself, the square mess building stood a mere skeleton – with a heap of rubble as high as the ceiling of the ground floor spewed out in front of it.
“Grey concrete dust covered everything and soon the grim-faced rescue workers took on as pale a look with the powder on their faces as the injured they dragged from the debris.
“Pieces of cars – including the one used in the attack – rained down on buildings up to 150 yards away and charred wreckage from the vehicles littered Pennefathers Road.”

Within 10 minutes of the blast, police and army personnel ringed the entire area and searched traffic in and out of the barracks.
More than 150 extra police were brought into Aldershot, from Thames Valley, Surrey and the Metropolitan, and an inquiry was immediately set up.

My Dad and Nan were having lunch about 1 mile away when it happened, they said they felt a VERY strong shake in the ground, and the deep blast sound reverberated in your ears for a while after. They knew immediately what had occured, it was only the plume of smoke seconds later than confirmed their fears. Looking out the front door, they saw debris raining down. 

Frightnenly, my Grandad was on route to the Parachute Officers mess (where he was working as an accountant after coming out of the army) when he was called back for a cup of tea by the kitchens cook at a Barracks up the road - because he always went through the kitchen door rather than the front. Horrible to think that fellow women army cooks up the road were killed only minutes later, he could have been in THAT kitchen instead. I don't think he could believe his luck that day. But for all my Dad&Nan knew, he was there when it happened. I can't imagine how frightening that must have been for all of them. He said missed it by about 5 - 10 minutes. Makes you think.

Hundreds of soldiers and civilians flocked to the scene, where eyewitnesses described people running from the building, covered in blood. It was within two hours of the bomb going off that the Official IRA claimed responsibility for the attack. The branch said the operation, which was the first of a wave of IRA bombings against army targets on the mainland throughout the 1970s, was carried out as a reprisal for the ‘murderous killings perpetrated by troops’ from the Parachute Brigade in Derry.
But it later backtracked when news reached Dublin that its operation ‘success’ had killed a Roman Catholic army padre, five female kitchen staff and a gardener. The Official IRA admitted a ‘miscalculation’ had led to the murder of the civilian mess staff.

Noel Jenkinson was convicted of the murders after a 21-day trial at Winchester Crown Court and died four years later in prison.

Today to commemorate the tragedy, a service is being held at the (usually sealed-off) memorial in the former Montgomery Lines barracks in Aldershot. The event, organised by landowners Grainger and Rushmoor Borough Council, takes place at 12.15pm.

Thanks for reading!

Katie

Evelyn Dunbar

I thought I would dedicate this weeks entry to a very talented lady, Evelyn Dunbar who was born in 1906 - a true artist and all-round heroine. I believe she is one of the most important artists of WW2, and who still holds a unique position in twentieth century British art.

She was described by Sir William Rothenstein, principal of the Royal College of Art, as having ‘real genius’ and was the only salaried woman war artist in the Second World War.

Evelyn photographed April 1941 in the Lake District

She is especially known for her unsentimental paintings of the Women’s Land Army and of domestic life during the war, such as people queuing for fish and chips and rations. However, she was also an accomplished muralist and illustrator, as well as an inspiring teacher at The Ruskin School of Drawing and of Fine Art, Oxford. While she was still an RCA student she collaborated on murals at Brockley Boys School in Kent:

Brockley Murals, Prendergast-Hilly Fields College (Formerly Brockley School) 1933-36

An enthusiastic gardener, she collaborated with her mural tutor Charles Mahoney to write and illustrate Gardeners’ Choice,  As Elizabeth Bulkeley (Charles Mahoney's daughter) notes in her biographical essay, “They presented the plants that they liked to draw, paint and grow. The were sculptural and bold, yet subtle, and unusual for their time. Each was described lovingly, as if in sharing their favourite plants they were sharing their mutual happiness."

The inspiration for much of Dunbar’s early work lay in her devotion to nature and the natural world, and in particular the garden. She held a deeply rooted affection for the Kentish landscape and, like Charles Mahoney, had a passionate interest in plants and flowers and knew them in all their moods, and various stages of development. This empathy and understanding is embodied in her work and demonstrates what interested and preoccupied her for most of her life.

The outbreak of WW2 in 1939 closed Evelyns newly opened gallery, so she wrote to the War Advisory Committee (WAC) which had been set up to keep artists from being killed fighting and to keep culture and art thriving through the war, to be selected for a role as a war artist. The appointment of Dunbar, as a war artist by was announced in The Times on 25 April 1940 and she was the only salaried woman artist of the painters and sculptors employed.

Dunbar went to Sparsholt Farm Institute near Winchester for the first time in June 1940 to record the training of recruits to the recently reformed Women’s Land Army (WLA). She also travelled to Usk, Berwick and East Malling to complete WLA paintings. It was at Sparsholt that she met Michael Greenhill, one of the instructors, with whom she collaborated on A Book of Farmcraft.
 

 ‘A 1944 Pastoral: Land Girls Pruning at East Malling’ by Evelyn Dunbar

 A Land Girl and the Bail Bull (1945)

 Singling Turnips, 1942

These vivid, stirring paintings provide an important documentary record of women's work and contribution to the war effort. Like many other war artists she tended to fall out of sight of the mainstream,modernist art world, instead following the cessation of hostilities. It was important to show the enemy that Britain was thriving, and so these paintings became part of a touring exhibition. These works have become important documents of the change in society at the time, despite it being terribly hard work, these women found a very liberated existance, they could have independance after all! Many found it difficult to return to the "domestic" housewife role after the war, after all, they'd helped kept this country running for years, why go back to constant cooking and cleaning?

Dunbar’s most extensive body of work portrays other vital aspects of the war effort that she recorded included nursing subjects, and the Home Front. She wrote to the WAAC to inform them that she was:
“Now able to embark on the great work. I am being slow on this commission, as the subjects were so completely unfamiliar to me, and it has taken me some time to feel at home in them"

 Convalescent nurses making camouflage nets, 1944

 A Knitting Party, 1940

One of her most recognised works of the Home Front was "The Knitting Party" - a collection of women determined on sending home comforts to the men at the front. Activities such as this were a moral booster as well as a chance for the women to socialise and reclaim some normality - you can almost feel like you're there with them when looking at this painting, stunning light through that back window! The setting is the Dunbar family drawing room in Rochester

 The Queue at the Fish Shop, 1945

Evelyn recorded important shifts in society in a very honest and (I believe) typicaly 'British' fashion. Her colour choices are always perfect, the moody blues and greys of domestic life contrasted to the bright natural greens and yellows of the open fields where Land Girls found their freedom. I also think they are now nostalgic in the best possible way, they show what we should be proud of from that time. Her style was utterly unique - lyrical but true, using very brave perspectives which stem from her love of classical murals, but also, her love of people and in general, life. She was unafraid to show the everyday mundane moments which lay untouched by the more famous Male commissioned artists.

Evelyn sadly died at only 53 years old whilst walking with her husband near her home in Kent. She is a fine example to all those who have a passion for art, nature and finding beauty even in the most trying times. She worked extremely hard and didn't let day-to-day circumstances faze her, always remembered the importance of being passionate to learn. She should be considered a National Treasure of that time forever. The Imperial War Museum holds a collection of her work if you want to see more, or the fantastic book "War And Country" by Gill Clarke is a uncompromised study of Evelyns life.

 

I hope you have enjoyed reading! Many thanks to http://paintdropskeepfalling.wordpress.com for providing some fantastic images from the "War and Country" book.

Katie

Winter Woodland Wanderings!

I'm sad to say that my faithful Yashica T3 has given up the ghost this week! There may still be hope if we take it apart...but at least the last roll in it was a good one! These were from Mine and Bruce's and Thom's woodland walk after New Year, Thom was trying out his recently purchased (from Bruce) Mamiya! Its our usual Hargate Forest route in Tunbridge Wells, you can't beat it!

And then the snow came of course! So here's the last picture the poor little Yashica managed to take:

Lets hope it makes a full recovery! For now, the Olympus will come to the rescue! Hope you're having a good week....it's just started snowing again!

First snow of 2012

I was awake bright and early this morning (mostly because due to ANOTHER cold I couldn't sleep properly!) on the plus side, I got to see the snow before my barmy dog went out and kicked it up in excitement! The birds were out in force, but our little robin chases away any that dare come near his mealworms - grumpy little fellow! Meanwhile in the garden...

We then headed over Rowhills for our usual stroll with Mollie, was quite the winter wonderland but the squirrels kept sending snow all over our heads as they ran about in the tree tops, we got home absolutely soaked!!

Some brilliantly clear badger tracks (mixed with Mollies!) We saw someone over the woods with a torch about midnight last night, I wondered if the ranger was out putting jumpers on the badgers and foxes? I think it's a plausable explanation... :) The one on the far right looks like a bears paw doesn't it?? - we can dream!

Let's see how long it lasts for this time - as i have two driving lessons booked this week i'd quite like there to be none left by Wednesday please!!

Hope you're all enjoying your snow sunday!

Katie

War Horse - Part Two

As promised, here is the follow up to my last post - including a very interesting video that i found recently, which gives a strong insight into the horses used in WW1. 

The proportion of soldiers to animals on the battlefields was 4 men to 1 horse. Of the one million horses and mules sent to the Western Front during the conflict, only 67,000 returned home to the UK with 933,000 killed through injuries or illnesses, which were rife in the terrible conditions of the trenches. 

Horses in the Great War are as much a symbol of that conflict as the mud or the gas mask. A sad fact of the Great War battlefields is when a field was ploughed, the most common bones were horse or mule. I visited the battlefields a few years ago, and this fact was never mentioned. Many officers wanted to be buried with their horses if they fell, and there is at least one war grave where that indeed happened. These animals were loved and brought great comfort, perhaps a reminder of the "Green and Pleasant Land" they'd left behind.

A Cavalry horse stands over the body of its rider - from the book The War Horses

As author Simon Butler explains, this was not just ‘the first and last global conflict in which the horse played a vital role’, but also a war which changed the entire relationship between society and the horse. A nation which had depended on domestic horsepower up until 1914 suddenly lost its workhorses to the front and had to find mechanised alternatives. By 1918, there was no going back.

You can purchase his book HERE. It has many powerful photographs of horses from both sides of the fields, a very in-depth read.

  General Jack Seely and Warrior.

The tale of War Horse's equine hero exploits is fictional, however a similar tale about "Warrior" who carried General Jack Seely of the Canadian cavalry throughout the horrors of World War I are all true and documented documented in a book written by General Jack Seely, in 1934. Seely's book spoke about his time at battle with his beloved war horse who he called a 'courageous animal.' A group of cavalrymen dubbed Warrior 'The horse the Germans couldn't kill'. He writes how the horse's extraordinary character and some unbelievable twists of fate, helped him survive a war which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of horses. The first time General Seely rode the Warrior through shell fire, it was at the battle of Mons, on the French border and he was amazed to discover that Warrior did not try to run away and instead the thoroughbred 'was pretending to be brave and succeeding in his task.' I thought the portrait of the both of them above was truly spectacular.

The recent popularity of the play and film War Horse (based on the book by Michael Morpurgo) in my view, can only be a positive. It's imperative to inform a wider audience about such sacrifices, and despite some arguing about correct uniforms/language etc etc, it will undoubtedly encourage people to ask more questions, and discover the truth for themselves, particularly those who might not have previous interest of military history.

Here is the mentioned video, thank you for reading!