Birthday Bash with OAE

 

I used to have a birthday party every ten years. My fortieth was in Sydney, with the fiftieth at a half-built Shakespeare’s Globe in London (Endymion playing Mozart and Krommer), and since then they have been held in our village on the Northamptonshire-Oxfordshire border, King’s Sutton.

 

But, as time seems to be truncating (see welcome guest Julian Barbour’s The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics), I’ve been having one every five years.

 

This time around, we were lucky enough to get the Soloists of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment playing Schubert (the Trout Quintet and his earlier Adagio and Rondo Concertante in F), plus Hummel’s Piano Quintet in E flat minor. This last was the great discovery for many.

 

The church was filled with an appreciative audience, its acoustic near perfect, our 1870 Broadwood piano well-tuned, the players – a mix of wonderful old friends and brilliant young ones – in top form, with virtuoso double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku (above) at her most animated.

 

All this followed by a convivial tea party in the garden at home with family and friends – efficient waitress-service provided by daughter Dora and BFFs. Deep joy all round.

 

Other buildings of King's Sutton

There has been a gap of forty years between editions of the Northamptonshire Buildings of England. Bridget Cherry was Nikolaus Pevsner’s partner in 1973, but the newly-published one has been the work of Bruce Bailey.

And while the book has roughly doubled in size, the entry concerning our village, King’s Sutton, remains virtually untouched at a little less than two pages, over half of it devoted to the parish church, plus (briefly) two other churches and two houses (the Manor and its near neighbour the Court House).

 

Mr Bailey perhaps came here on a wet Tuesday.

Buildings that might have made their presence felt by now could include the Neo-Gothic Old School House of 1847 and the Lutyens-style St Rumbolds of 1922; a number of interesting 18^th century dwellings (Lovells and the Bell House in The Square); some 17^th century cottages of character (Monks Cottages, also in The Square, Q Cottage in Wales Street – yes, really, Q-shaped – and the Old Lace House in Astrop Road). Also, up towards nearby Astrop, the 18^th century Gate House with its interesting semi-circular gable end, College Farm and the mysterious Grey Court and its various subsidiary buildings of note.

An interesting discovery of recent times at the parish church, not noticed by Mr Bailey, are the sculptured forms of St Peter and St Paul, high up on the west face of the tower. They were first noticed by a visiting Australian chorister from Oxford, and they appear to the naked eye to be far earlier than the fourteenth century building of the tower – perhaps saved from a previous building campaign.   

Maybe, a further forty years from now, another edition will appear with some of the above included. Just a thought.     

Finding a niche in the eating out market

Our lovely village on the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, King’s Sutton, offers so much... Three pubs, three shops, two churches, a fine village hall, a multitude of clubs and activities, including regular live music. But no good restaurant food. Until quite recently, that is.

When we first came to live in the village some twenty years ago, the White Horse pub was an ancient, dingy drinkers’ den, not really to be entered unless one was an insider. Then someone saw its potential and converted it into an attractive but rather basic gastro-pub. The aged drinkers abandoned ship.

Somehow or other that change never worked commercially. Managements came and went, each one tweaking the offer, but none able to make the property make a dollar.

Recently arrived a new young couple, Julie Groves and Hendrik Dutson – she the landlady and he the chef – and the food they are producing (and the welcome) is of a quite different order from what has gone before.

Sophie and I have now sampled both lunch and dinner there – with great pleasure. So we hope that, this time around, the White Horse, Julie and Hendrik are here to stay.

Learning quadratic equations first

The organist and director of music at Birmingham Cathedral, Marcus Huxley, came to play for us - a lovely organ recital at our parish church in King’s Sutton last Saturday.

It brought to mind his wonderful mother, Molly Huxley, who had lived for many years in the village. She was a vibrant personality who had a chemistry degree from Oxford and coached young people in mathematics in later life.

When she was just a few days old, I took my now eleven year old daughter Dora to see Molly.

“I’d like to book you to teach her calculus,” I told Molly, who was approaching 100.

"Well, she’s going to have to learn quadratic equations first,” she responded, quick as a flash.

Drying the bitter tear

We had our celebration of William Lisle Bowles’s 250^th birthday at the weekend. Sixteen readers of twenty four of his poems at his birthplace, King’s Sutton.

This is one of them - quite representative of the style that was so influential for Coleridge and others. The effect of time on grief:

Sonnet: July 18th 1787

O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest unperceived away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile—
As some lone bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:—
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch included it in his edition of The Oxford Book of English Verse of 1919. 

Does it speak to you today?

Re-assessing the first Romantic poet

Born in 1762 in the village where I live on the borders of Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire was a poet. He was one of the earliest, perhaps the first, of the English Romantics. I wrote about him briefly in April.

His name, now substantially forgotten, was William Lisle Bowles.

In his own lifetime, as his biographer Robert Moody puts it, “… had any educated person been asked whether he or she had heard of William Lisle Bowles the answer would surely have been a resounding ‘But, of course!’.”

He was a major influence on the young Coleridge, Wordsworth and others. He did battle with Byron.

To celebrate his 250th birthday and to re-assess his work we shall be holding a reading (with music) in the parish church of King’s Sutton, where his father was vicar.

SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER at 3:00pm.

Do come and join us!

Stepping out with William Lisle Bowles

Aside from my regular daily walking regime, yesterday afternoon I “went out” for the first time in a while. Quite a step.

I led a meeting of our local village reading group – on our own local Romantic poet, William Lisle Bowles, now almost totally forgotten.

Bowles was born in 1762 in King’s Sutton and lived his first seven years here, where his father was the vicar. So this year is the 250th anniversary of his birth.

In short, he was one of the earliest pioneers of the move into Romanticism. So his poetry, mainly in sonnet form, influenced many of those who followed – Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Keats etc. In 1794 Coleridge wrote a sonnet in fulsome praise of Bowles.

This is one of William Lisle Bowles’s own sonnets. See what you think.

O TIME! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence,
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
Stealest the long-forgotten pang away;
On Thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on many a sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile --
As some poor bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, tho' its wings are wet the while: --
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure,
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!