Deborah Burrows

Happy Birthday, Nige!! It’s my handsome, smart, savvy and altogether gorgeous step-son’s birthday.

It’s been a quiet couple of weeks, although we made a point of doing a bit of sightseeing. It’s such lovely weather that we’ve got to get outside. Otherwise we spend all day in front of our respective computers – Toby downstairs and me upstairs, Toby working on his project and me writing, with a break to eat lunch in the garden.

On Thursday the week before last we went into Oxford and attended a free daytime concert at the Ashmolean Museum. It featured a baroque cello and an original harpsichord from the museum. The cello was played by an Australian friend of our next-door neighbour Venetia, who is originally from Melbourne. It was a very elegant room and the music was delightful, and included Bach partitas.

We had afternoon tea at the museum and then walked home via the Turf Tavern, which looked lovely with its baskets of flowers:

Last Sunday we went for a drive in the country, to the lovely village of Dorchester. It is a largely unspoilt old village, as they built a bypass in the 1980s, which keeps out most of the traffic. As with many of the villages around here, there are some thatched cottages and lots of flowers.

The village has the claim to fame of being in more than a few episodes of Midsomer Murders. In medieval times it was an important trading centre and had an Abbey. Now all that is left is the imposing church, which has a very impressive lych gate. It was saved from destruction at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries by the local lord of the manor. He, very sensibly, bought the church and gave it back to the village.

We saw the local Vicar outside the church and asked her where would be a good place to eat lunch. She was diplomatic and said that she shouldn’t play favourites, but then a shifty look came over her face and she said quickly (after a glance around) that the Fleur makes its gravy out of stock made from bones, “the way it should be done”.

We took the hint and it was one of the best roast dinners I’ve ever eaten. The gigantic Yorkshire Pudding (to share) came on its own plate, there were lashings of gravy, mustard mashed potato, cauliflower cheese, crisp roast potatoes and home-made horseradish. Not surprisingly, the Fleur was also used in an episode of Midsomer Murders.

After lunch we walked across the fields to Day’s Lock on the Thames – from where you can look up to the hills of Wittenham Clumps, which we’d climbed a few weeks before.

We saw poppies in the wheatfield, which were lovely:

We next spent some time in the local history museum, which, along with the tea-room is located in the 14th century former Abbey guest house. After learning that the area is one of earliest occupied in the country and boasted a Villa in Roman times, we had to try the home home-made cake for afternoon tea. The Abbey guest-house also featured in an episode of Midsomer Murders (of course!). It was the one when Joyce joins the local historical society. I can’t remember which Midsomer village Dorchester was supposed to be in that episode: Midsomer Parva, or was it Midsomer Mallow, maybe Midsomer Wyvern. Couldn’t have been Badgers’ Drift…

On the way home from Dorchester we stopped by another little village, Sutton Courtenay. It’s where George Orwell is buried under his real name of Eric Arthur Blair. He had no connection with the village, but his publisher asked the local vicar if he could be buried in a spare plot in the churchyard, and the vicar agreed. It’s a lovely, peaceful spot.

This may look like an unknown entry to Moria, but it’s actually a Norman doorway into the church:

In the bright midsummer here in Oxfordshire we have lots of lovely flowers.

The jasmine outside the back door releases its heavy scent night and day and we’ve seen real bumble-bees, enormous things that tumble around the blossom. Toby even mowed the lawn yesterday – it grows three centimetres in a week – but it’s soft and springy and only around 15 minutes work with the electric hover mower. He doesn’t even break a sweat.

This week’s highlight was a visit to Kelmscott Manor, the former house of William Morris on the upper Thames. When we went there last time the house wasn’t open. It was worth the wait, though, as it’s in much the same state as when Morris died over a hundred years ago. It’s full of beautiful and interesting furniture, artefacts and books – as well as Morris’s woollen overcoat! The gardens were lovely.

Anyone for croquet?

Toby surreptitiously picked and ate an apple in the orchard. Here’s a photo of the Apple Thief:

One unusual feature was the three-seater privy (outdoor toilet) in a shed at the back. For practically the whole time the Morris family was there, this was the only toilet:

Kelmscott is close to the Thames. We walked down there, to a lonely stretch of the river looking pretty in the glorious sunshine.

And on the way we passed a somewhat incongruous World War II concrete bunker lurking in the trees on the bank. There are hundreds of these all over Britain. Apparently the Thames was going to be a line of defence for the Home Guard in the expected German invasion. But what about those pesky paratroopers, Cap’n Mainwaring?

We’re still getting used to this island weather. It’s been hot in the past couple of weeks, and the weather man said that a storm was on its way last Saturday.

Storm clouds brooded overhead for most of the day, but no rain. Toby was sitting in the back yard with his book and I came out and said, ‘was that a drop of rain?’ Then the heavens unleashed! Thunder. Lightening. A good four inches of rain. Hail. It all lasted about twenty minutes and then the clouds rolled away and we saw a little sunshine.

The same thing happened in London yesterday. It was heavy humid weather. We were sitting outside a lovely cafe in the gorgeously named Lamb’s Conduit Street in Bloomsbury. I said, ‘Is that a drop of rain?” And it happened again – thunder, lightening, torrents of rain. Then peace.

I’m writing steadily and doing a lot of research. I love it here, but for the first time, on the bus back from London yesterday, I had a bout of homesickness. Maybe it’s watching the Commoonwealth Games, but I missed Perth. It passed…

We spent the week in Lausanne, Switzerland. Toby was attending and speaking at a digital humanities conference and I was ‘accompanying person’. Sadly for me, it was cold and wet all week. That should have meant I could spend time researching and writing, but I didn’t do much of that. Instead I got a good dose of writer’s block and read trashy novels instead.

The Swiss have a zany sense of humour. This is what the rubbish bins in Lausanne look like:

Tuesday night I had room service in Toby’s absence, but on Wednesday night Toby and I went our for dinner to the very busy Cafe Romand, which dates from 1951 and is rather a Lausanne legend for its fondue and traditional dishes. We decided to pass on the suggested local delicacies of cervelle au beurre noir (brains in black butter), tripe, pied de porc (pork trotters) and had – of course! – fondue. I don’t think I’ve had fondue since the 70s. Those of us who are old enough will recall that everyone seemed to get a fondue set for a wedding present or a 21st present in the late 70s.

The fondue served at the Romand was very, er, cheesy, but make no mistake, it was very tasty. I told Toby that the secret is to also order something sharp to cut through all the cheesy gloopiness, so we ordered sides of pickles and boiled potatoes and had a really enjoyable meal. This is a photo from the web; the restaurant was absolutely packed when we went:

On Thursday night we met up with some of Toby’s colleagues, to celebrate the amazing Deb Verhoeven’s 50th birthday. We went to a really excellent restaurant, the Elephant Blanc, in the old part of town behind the Cathedral. We had the top floor all to ourselves (the table of Americans near us just up and left for no discernible reason) and my meal – sole with risotto – was excellent.

On Friday morning Toby and I were determined to take a cruise along the eastern side of Lake Geneva. We dodged rain showers as we went on deck to see the views from our beautiful ship, La Suisse, the flagship of the Belle Epoch fleet:

It is one of eight steam powered ships built between 1904 and 1927 by Sulzer Brothers in Winterthur. They’ve been beautifully restored. The engine is remarkable:

Here we both are, proving that we took the voyage:

Lake Geneva is really lovely, although it was a shame about the weather.

Nevertheless, we saw some pretty little villages on the lakeside, and terraces of vines:

And even a medieval castle:

This is the sister ship of La Suisse, on her journey:

France lies directly across from Lausanne, specifically, the town of Evian.

On Saturday morning we managed to climb the myriad stairs and hills of Lausanne to have a walk around the old centre of the town. It was a pleasant (if mainly uphill) walk.

Is this the prettiest Police Headquarters in the world?

A weekly market had been set up in the streets and it was jolly to wander past little stalls with flowers, and spices and vegetables. And cheese! Amazing cheeses, Gruyere straight from Gruyere which is a couple of miles away; all sorts of cheese. The scent of them was heady.

Where’s Toby?

In the main square is a pretty statue of Victory:

And of course, it being Switzerland, there is a clock behind her, a type of cuckoo clock, with figures that wind around to a sweet little tune.

Switzerland comes in for a lot of ribbing about its cuckoo clocks, all because of the movie The Third Man, in which Orson Wells states:

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
/The Third Man (1949), by Carol Reed/

But maybe it’s just jealousy for the peace, order and prosperity, which over the years Switzerland has established using a direct democracy.

I did manage to do some research, as I’d taken with me my new book: “Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle for Britain”, which was written in association with the Imperial War Museum. It sets out quotes from those who lived through it all, not only the British pilots and civilians, but also German pilots who flew on the raids. I found it incredibly moving and interesting. I had to force back tears on the Swiss Air flight home yesterday, as I was reading about the human cost of the battles and the bombings.

This in particular I found amazing. Robert Grant-Ferris, a British MP and fighter pilot, was asked to move the loyal address at the opening of Parliament six weeks after the end of the Battle of Britain in 1941. The writer and diplomat Harold Nicolson (also the husband of Vita Sackville-West) had the perfect peroration (ending) to his speech, but was was unable to get it to Grant-Ferris in time for him to include it.

It is a poem, written in 1737 by Thomas Gray, who is well known for his “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”.

The day will come when thou shalt lift thine eyes
To watch a long drawn battle of the skies
And aged peasants too amazed for words,
Stare at the flying fleets of wondrous birds.

And England, so long mistress of the seas
Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty
Her ancient triumphs yet on high shall bear
And reign the sovereign of the conquered air.

Amazingly prescient, given that it was written 200 years before the Battle of Britain, and way before humans took to the skies.

I’ve been reading novels written during the Second World War, to get a feel for the language and the sensibilities of the time. As I’ve said before, it is amazingly easy to get hold of any book you want here and I’d better be careful or I’ll use up all of my savings in books!

And yet . . . one of the reasons I write historical fiction is because I enjoy the research so much: wandering through London working out what areas were bombed, cooking meals from a book called “The Ration Book Diet” to eat what my characters might have eaten, crying (or rather trying not to cry) over the personal accounts of bravery and horror, checking dry war histories to ensure that my dates and accounts of battles and bombings are correct, enjoying the exquisite phrasing of novelists such as Elizabeth Howard, Duff Cooper, Marghanita Laski or Patrick Hamilton as they describe their very real, very flawed characters, who lived in such a different England to the one I live in now.

We’re back in Oxford at present and we’re going to stay here for a while! I need to write and research and Toby is also going to be very busy. I’m happy to be home and very grateful that I’m able to call such a lovely place home.

Sorry if I’ve not replied to various emails, as we’ve been in Cornwall and out of internet and even telephone reach. Its been a hectic week and a half.

On Saturday 28 June (which is my darling mother’s birthday; she would have been 94 years old) we went into London. It was a grey day, with light drizzle, but I was on a Mission and didn’t let that worry me.

I’d bought a copy of “A Wander through Wartime London: Five Walks Revisiting the Blitz”, and I was determined to do the Bloomsbury walk. So Toby and I wandered around Bloomsbury in the drizzle, revisiting the Blitz.

I feel very comfortable writing about the area now, because I’ve now walked the streets where my heroine drove her ambulance and I’ve seen the site of her Auxiliary Ambulance Station 56A in Woburn Place. It was in the garages in the basement of this huge apartment block:

It was a fascinating awalk, which included various sites where bombs fell, in both world wars. Did you know that Bloomsbury was pounded by the Zeppelins and Gotha bombers in the First World War, as well as by the bombs of the Second World War? And, sadly, it was hit again in 2005, when the 7/7 bombings occurred.

We went into the crypt of St Pancras Church, which was used as an air raid shelter. I wondered what it must have been like to come here, night after night, and wait for the All Clear as the walls shook with each bomb that hit nearby.

It’s fairly easy to spot where there was a direct hit in the Blitz; a street will be a picture of Victorian elegance and then a jarring note appears – a new building completely out of character in the street in the middle of a row of eighteenth or nineteenth century houses.

You can see in this picture that the top floor of the building was destroyed and rebuilt in differently coloured bricks.

After our walk around Bloomsbury we made our way to Aldwych Tube Station, which was at first known as the Strand, which was closed down in the 1990s. It is available for a week each year for guided tours of the old station. It opened in 1904 and still has many features of that gracious time. It was also used as an air raid shelter in WW2, and nowadays is often leased to film and television companies who want to shoot scenes set in the underground. It was a fascinating tour.

On Sunday we headed off to North Cornwall. Our lovely neighbour, Venetia, offered us the use of her family’s 200 year old fishing cottage, which is located at the head of Port Quin, a really beautiful little bay, next to Port Isaac, which is the setting for the Doc Martin TV series.

It’s a long journey to Cornwall, even on the motorways, but we got there at around 5.00 to see this:

Quay cottage is at the very end of the quay.

It is filled with antiques and has a view of the water from every window:

Port Quin is a tiny village with less than a dozen stone houses, now almost all owned by the National Trust. This is a view of the village from the headland, with Quay Cottage on the left.

It was amazingly restful, just to watch the tide come in and out, which it did in rather spectacular fashion twice a day. At low tide the bay looked like this:

As opposed to high tide, when it looked like this:

The sunsets really were spectacular:

We went exploring at low tide into the sea cave we could see from our windows, where kayakers had paddled just hours before.

We made friends with a robin. One morning he got a bit too friendly and came inside the cottage. I had to act quickly to wrap him in a calico bag and get him outside. He seemed no worse for wear, though.

The seas were millpond calm the whole time we were there and it rained only on the day we left. Here are a couple of sea kayakers. They’d set up and depart from our bay, then paddle out past the headland, on a sea as gentle as I could ever imagine.

And we certainly got our exercise by walking along the coastal path both ways. The scenery really was spectacular and the photos don’t do it justice. One day we walked up a hill and over a field and came to Doyden House, where Venetia grew up.

Venetia’s family used to own most of the land, the fishing cottages, the farm, Doyden House and Doyden Castle, which is an early 19th Century folly that looks like a tiny castle set right out on the headland. Her parents left it all to the National Trust, with the exception of Quay Cottage, which the family kept for themselves. The National Trust now rents out the cottages, the house and the castle and looks after the area.

This is Doyden Castle. If you’re a Doc Martin fan, it’s where the baby was dangled out of the window. We were told this interesting fact by a couple of passing walkers as we gazed at it. The National Trust rents it out as a posh holiday cottage, and to TV and movie producers.

And here are the House and Castle together.

These are old abandoned mine workings. I dropped in a few rocks but couldn’t hear them hit the ground.

On Monday we met our friends Sally and Ian Vanderfeen, who were serendipitously in Cornwall visiting relatives as part of their 3 month grand European holiday. We had tea with them in Port Isaac, a very pretty little village but oh, so touristy due to Doc Martin.

On Wednesday we drove out to Tintagel, a spectacular part of the coast and the next bay along from Port Isaac. Again very touristy and, very hot!! Too hot to scramble over rocks.

So we had a look at a medieval house in the village:

and went on to Boscastle, a pretty harbourside village a little further along the coast.

On our last evening – and the light lasts until 10.00pm so the evenings are long and lovely – we went for a last walk along the coastal path towards the town of Polzeath via Pentire Point and the Rumps. It’s a wonderfully craggy coastline.

And on Pentire Point we found the plaque commemorating the spot where Laurence Binyon composed ‘For the Fallen’ in 1914. This is the poem which contains what is now known as the ‘Ode of Remembrance’:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Binyon said, in 1939, “I can’t recall the exact date beyond that it was shortly after the retreat [from Mons]. I was set down, out of doors, on a cliff in Polzeath, Cornwall. The stanza ‘They shall not grow old’ was written first and dictated the rhythmical movement of the whole poem.”

It’s a lovely spot to write such lovely words, which always make me cry.

I managed to get in some writing myself and am now up to 8,500 words. I’m never really happy until I’m at 10,000, which is 10% of the finished novel. It’s easy to write when the only sounds are the haunting cries of the English gulls and the gentle waves lapping below the cottage.

Here is Toby, relaxing in the sun:

Then we drove back to Oxford. Tomorrow (Monday) we fly to Lausanne, on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Toby is to deliver a paper at a conference there and we’re away for the week.

Love to all
Deb