Sad News: John Barry RIP (1933-2011)

Just heard that he passed away early today; I think John Barry was my favourite composer before I knew I liked music, the excitement and drama he brought to Bond films and Zulu etc suffused my childhood. A rare talent.

In praise of Tat.

Mass of humanity
Originally uploaded by bltphoto

I was wandering back through town this week and it was flea market day in Barnsley and was pleased to find a good supply of tat.

It's a bit more formal than Deptford no big mounds of old clothes or really broken bric and brac. But stalls with books and comics, football programmes, one bloke selling piles of those easy listening book sets which always look better than they sound.

I suppose I like tat (some say tut) partly because it's kitsch and nostalgic but also because it's not tasteful and has an exuberance and a faded vitality that stuff cloggingup the shelves in Next interiors or worthy craft shops just doesn't have. Also there's the surprises you get, when were you last surprised in a regular shop? But almost weekly I'm cheered by some ancient badly cast cat come ships wheel tableaux or a mad C&W lp sleeve. Also snapping pictures means I don't fill my house with boxes of playmobile figures and can have the "beauty" without  the mounds of mouldy boxes and musty flysheets.

The ultimate question: Which side are you on?

So what's it to be Egg or Pineapple?

Beware lonely water

Beware lonely water
Originally uploaded by bltphoto

There's a wonderful stretch of reclaimed canal near our house , lovely except for the end bit that does't half remind me of this "scare the bejesus out of the kids just before Magpie " health and safety gone mad public info film classic

Patrick Keillers "London" for Free!!

LONDON
Uploaded by BFIfilms. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

One of the best films about any city anywhere .

Sylvia Plath, Cheese and Onion & Ted: A walk up the Hill and back

I walked up to Heptonstall yesterday mainly because I can see it out of my Bro’s front window and I needed the exercise. It’s quite a climb but I kept on. The road up is steep (going from the valley bottom to 600 ft plus in the space of a mile) all the way my vertigo kept leaping up, it’s an odd thing there’s nowhere very dodgy on the road but the combination of high wind, rain, low walls and steep tree lined hills sent me tingling and nervous . Even typing about the climb now puts me slightly on edge (this being said I have been up the World Trade centre and half way across the Humber Bridge but the loft ladders still make me nervous).

Anyway I made the top, Hep’s a little village perched on a hill overlooking Hebden, it’s got a distinctive parish church which you can for miles and the older part is made up of  narrow cobbled streets of stone built weavers cottages (that have dates from the 1600’s carved above their doors).

“Thems fresh cut” the man in post office said of his pre-packaged trading estate sarnies, amongst the usual sparse display of “fruit jam”, short bread and women’s magazines. Picking my way through his modest selection of snacks(I wasn’t feeling flush enough for the Tea Shop), who the hell wants “Cajun Tuna” I settled for a cheese savoury and some crisps and after a longer than necessary peer at my £20 quid note, I’m off out into the drizzle.

The village museum is shut until Good Friday so slipping on the rain shined paving, I look for a bench to have lunch. The winds up and no one is around, the church up close is a handsome if bland Anglican affair which is also closed. There’s a ruined of older church in the graveyard surrounded by a flat pavement of older grave stones shining in the wet, their fading inscriptions full of Samuels, Joshuas and Emillys.

Although not by any stretch my main motivation for coming here it would be perverse not to try find Sylvia Plath’s grave. It turns out she’s in the over spill graveyard across the road, a slightly more plain affair over looked by newish houses, it’s the usual mix of grave stones: Old plain gray, pale white marble from 70’s,the later ones black with gold letters and even a few reserved sharp cut sandy coloured limestone military memorials.

I sat on John Browne’s bench (no mention of where he was or what state he was in) and munched my lunch, flicking the crumbs off, I went for a wander. A few rows over there was a head stone for a RAF gunner and Radio operator who died in 1943, laying over his grave is another stone put there over a half century later for his wife, who passed away in 1998. Ben and Ethel together at last.

In the corner of the churchyard there’s a children’s garden trampoline, as I was examining this odd piece of fly tipping, my Brother rings and tells me this is quite normal apparently the wind picks them up round here and dumps them across the countryside. I am choosing to believe him.

I was about to go when I noticed that a grave next to me had a laminated photo pinned to it , which turned out to be Sylvia Plath’s. I had expected more votive tat but apart from the odd pebble, plastic love heart and a fairy doll the main feature was large tub of biros (do famous pharmacist get pestle and mortars on their tombs and what do accountants get?). The inscription is “Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted”.

Walking out of the graveyard I notice Sylvia’s only two rows over from her in-laws (Ted being interned down south). I know there’s all sorts of controversy about SP’s grave, in the end I think most graves are sadly alike and the view from Heptonstall is much better than Poets’ corner.

Of course the Parish church isn’t the best church in Heptonstall that honour goes to the Methodist Chapel. Since I was kid I’ve been wandering round places of worship at first taken by my parents (yes we would have preferred a water park but nowadays I am glad I’ve been to Chartres too) and now of my own accord. I’ve seen big churches St Peter’s, new ones, bleak 50’s brutalist estate churches and small tiny one room affairs in the middle of fields. I must admit I find the smaller places the most involving and Heptonstall Methodist is one of those.

The smell as you enter of dust, hymns books and damp is always evocative for me the tight box pews, the mix and match stain glass windows and wooden balcony above make it a intimate space. We it comes to my view of the place I suppose it helps that it’s where my brother got married but I also find the idea of the people who built inspiring these tough hard working weavers etc who didn’t want to be told how to worship, found some land on the side of this windy hill and built this simple "Modern" before it’s time church. The tight Octagon shape dangerously new for its time. Perhaps too plain for some people’s taste but the function defining the form so that everyone could hear the preacher and that sound of the singing would envelope the singers. Oh and it was open on rainy day (never much gold plate to nick from Methodist) with sign on the door to tell you stop the cats getting in and need some peace.

Rested in mind and shank I wandered down the hill back through Hebden and along the canal only looking back when I got home.

Here's some more pictures the usual forlorn soft toys, catholic snow globes and some flowers made of dusters

After MP

After MP
Originally uploaded by bltphoto

It's not super hi-res as I took it on my phone but here's the same view Martin Parr took of Hebden (25 years ago) main difference is how much trees have grown. Of course his looks like dutch painting and mine looks like a crappy mobile snap.

here's the orginal

there's been a murder.....

Alder
Originally uploaded by bltphoto

The only up side to the clear felling of some local trees, was the sight of an alder stump glowing arterial blood red in the muddy gloom yesterday.
I went back to today and found this chip. The colour will fade but you can see why the Norse , Celts, Saxons all had tales of the alder, its root in water, its wood soaked blood red, its where wood folk lived and danced and seduced the unwary and some say that the first man was made from an alder, his maid from a willow, who's shiny white stump was there next to the alder this afternoon in the sharp winter sun. Most likely they will coppice and grow again, old trees like all stories are hard to kill.