Deborah Burrows

I’ve been away from Oxford for much of the past few weeks, on holiday in Devon/Somerset, and in Scotland with Toby for a conference and a revisit to the place we were married.

I’ve also been writing furiously (up to 35,000 words) and reading many books, because you can’t write if you don’t read. That aphorism should be emblazoned on the cover of every prospectus for a writing course. Wide reading gives you confidence, humility, inspiration and energy to work on your own project. And it’s crucial if, like me, you need to research an historical period. Unfortunately it is also rather damaging to the bank balance, but the joy of England is the easy access to second-hand books. We’ll need to send home a shipping container when we return in 2016!

Thanks to Joanna for organising our wonderful week in Somerset and Devon in early September. We stayed at Riscombe Farm, which is in the Exmoor National Park, in a cottage that used to be part of a farm building:

Home

There were flowers everywhere and the farmhouse itself is around 200 years old. It is owned by Leonie and Brian. Leo went to school with Joanna and we were all invited to the farmhouse one afternoon for a real Somerset high tea. We reciprocated by inviting Leo and Brian to the big cottage for gin and tonic, with Karen’s amazingly tasty local Swedish gin.

Joanna whipped us into shape with walks on the moor and the coast, and the beach and the woods…

We walked up to Dunkery Beacon, the highest point in Exmoor, through the heather and bracken, eating whortleberries and blackberries along the way.

We all became adept at finding berries.

One day we visited the Tarr Steps, a Bronze Age Bridge, which local legend says was built by the Devil himself. Myth has it that he still has sunbathing rights on its stones.

Apparently, when he first built the bridge, the Devil swore to kill anyone who crossed it. A cat was sent over the Bridge to test this claim. Poor kitty was vaporised in a puff of smoke. The terrified locals approached the parson, who went himself to meet the Devil midway on the bridge. After much bad language and intimidation the Devil conceded that people might pass, except when he wants to sunbathe.

After lunch we went for a walk in the pretty woods around the river.

Another day we walked a coastal route. On the other side of the estuary is Wales:

The views were lovely, but I prefer our white sands:

This is the Caratacus stone, which is thought to date from the 6th century. The inscription is translated as “grandson or immediate descendant of Caratacus” and it’s generally thought that the stone was erected as a memorial to a person who claimed the first-century British chieftain Caratacus as an ancestor.

The hedges in Exmoor are really interesting. They’re formed by bending saplings to grow horizontally:

This can lead to some interesting phenomena if the ground underneath is washed away.

Another day we went to Lorna Doone territory. I loved that novel as a young teenager.

We even saw wild Exmoor ponies

I have to say that Exmoor is amazingly beautiful and could match New Zealand for being Tolkienish. We found these weird creatures in a forest glade. The photo is untouched – the ‘eyes’ are little mushrooms.

And some of the houses were straight off the lid of a chocolate box:

The little fishing ports were delightful. We had a pommie picnic at this one, all rugged up on an overcast day:

Next time, Scotland the Brave – Stirling and Loch Lomond.

It’s hard to settle into writing a blog. When I do the characters in my new novel (who are a jealous bunch) clamour at the back of my mind, demanding attention. Scenes of wartime London intrude as I try to describe a lovely trip to the country, there is a vague unease that I’m not hammering out that plot inconsistency instead of sharing our visit to Towerseay, or describing the smell of a bombsite in just the right way rather than the scent of our Iffley garden after rain . . .

Oh, well. . . today is cold and wet and my characters are quiet, so I’ll tell you about a few outings we’ve had lately.

On Saturday 9 August we joined our dear friends, John and Rosemary Payne for lunch at the national trust garden of Stowe, in Buckinghamshire. They are a stunning example of eighteenth century landscaping, the first project of Capability Brown. The house is now a very posh school, but the grounds belong to the National Trust.

When you arrive, you go down a very long driveway, at the end of which is a stunning Corinthian Arch. It’s designed to tell you that this is a Very Important Place.

And here are two Very Important Visitors:

We wandered around the lovely grounds – 250 acres – while I pumped John about his childhood in the Liverpool Blitz and as an evacuee child in Wales. We had lunch in the cafe, finishing with ice-cream on the lawns, while I pumped Rosemary about her childhood in outer London during the war. They’d even brought me notes of what they remembered, and items for ‘show and tell’ such as a real ration book and photos. According to Rosemary, the only fruit she saw when she was a child were apples, blackberries, plums, rasberries. She never saw an orange. she said: “Bananas: I first saw when 12/13 years old, when a girl brought one to school to show us. We gathered round and watched her peel it!”

There are various follies and temples and monuments in the grounds:

Commemorations are in full swing here for the centenary of the start of the Great War. I was very impressed by the commemoration to the Commonwealth war dead at the Tower of London: As part of the exhibition, 888,246 poppies will be ‘planted’ in the Tower of London moat this summer to represent the British and Commonwealth deaths in WW1. So I bought of the three beautiful ceramic poppies to commemorate the members of Toby’s and my families who died in the Great War.

We’ll visit the installation when we’re next in London and we’ll get our poppies in November:

Breathtaking Photos of the Tower of London Adorned with 888,246 Ceramic Poppies to Commemorate WWI

Two poppies are for our great-uncles who died at Gallipoli:

(1) my great-uncle George Douglas Eastwood (my mother’s father’s brother). He was English (from the Isle of Man) but happened to be in Sydney when war broke out. He joined the First AIF and fought with the 18th Australian Infantry Battalion. He was 26 years old with he died at Gallipoli on 27 August 1915. He was shot in the water, so he never reached Anzac Cove.

(2) Toby’s great-uncle by marriage, John Thomas Clegg, of the 9th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, who was killed at Gallipoli 21 August 1915, aged 40. He left a wife (Esther, nee Burrows) and eight children

(3) The third is (now) for Reginald Benton, who is Toby’s Great-uncle, his father’s mother’s brother. He died on the Western Front in October 1916 at the age of 34 (according to the Roll of Honour), and was also from the Lancashire Fusiliers. He left a wife and a son.

We decided to walk back from Oxford a different route the other day, and discovered Aston’s Eyot, formerly the municipal dump (if you’ve read Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers, the dump is unfavourably mentioned). The dump was closed in the 1960s. It is now a 33-acre (13 ha) nature reserve on an island partly bounded by the east bank of the River Isis (Thames). Eyot is another spelling of ait meaning small island. The island is roughly triangular, bounded to the northwest by the River Cherwell and to the southeast by the Shirelake Ditch (AKA the Cherwell Cut).

It’s part woodland, part open/scrub, and entered through Jackdaw Lane, beside the scrap metal yard. It’s delightful.

And it’s full of surprises. When it was the municipal dump unused veges and fruit of the Covered Markets would end up there, so it has apples and pear trees galore. Apparently it also has badgers and deer and other animals, protected from humans by huge swathes of nettles and thorny blackberries. This time of year it’s full of blackberriers with pans and tubs and bags, risking pain for the sweet fruit. (We were lucky enough to taste some of the spoils in a fabulous blackberry and apple pie cooked by the delightful Rebecca Banks, who had us around for dinner at her All Souls flat).

The blackberries were ripe and plentiful:

And Toby had to try them:

There are apple trees, like something out of Eden:

and sunlit glades

with enormous poplars

We went down to the banks of the Isis

and took little paths through the bushland:

and wandered into dark copses

We found the ‘Cherwell Cut’, which joins the Cherwell with the Isis (Thames),

and watched rowers enjoying a family day out.

It’s a magical part of Oxford, and so close to the city.

We were in Oxford last week and I suggested that we should look at a couple of colleges. Teddy Hall (St Edmund Hall) was open to all for free and as we looked around I remembered going to a ball there in 2001. The old church is now the library and students wander through the graveyard to get to it:

And I took a picture of the pretty gardens, with the ‘dreaming spires’ in the background.

Then it was off to Magdalen College. You’re supposed to pay 5 pounds to enter, but I mentioned to the nice boy on the desk (who happened to be Australian) that I was an Oxford graduate, from Linacre, he let us both in for free. I must have a trustworthy face, as he didn’t ask for any id.

Magdalen is one of the really outstanding colleges (even if it does charge 5 pounds, when the others only charge 2 pounds or nothing to enter). The college was founded in 1458 by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor, who wanted a college on the grandest scale.

We met an angel:

This is the main quadrangle:

And an arty shot from the cloisters:

Toby thought that this was a medieval JarJar Binks (that’s a Star Wars reference, for those who have – quite rightly – refused to see Eps 1,2 and 3):

CS Lewis had rooms in this elegant building:

We visited the dining hall – very Harry Potterish (although those scenes in the movies were filmed in Christ Church dining hall, down the road):

We finished with tea in the student cafe by the Cherwell, and watched the punters:

Next . . .
Agatha Christie’s grave and Maple Durham

I’ve thought for a while it would be nice to include a post that showed the tow path walk along the Thames (Isis) that we take when we walk into Oxford. Most of these photos were taken not long after we arrived, in May; the walk is similar now, but there are less flowers.

The lock keeper’s pretty house, which dates from the 1920s, dominates the lock. It has a gorgeous garden, kept in order by volunteers. Now the lock is run by different shift workers, paid and volunteers, and sadly the house is their headquarters, not a home.

I love how the dog is the only one with a life-jacket, and I love the name of the narrowboat:

The geese at the lock are still a major feature, and you don’t get between them and the goslings:

A little way past the lock is a really lovely bridge across the slipway.

Then we (usually) walk past the Isis Tavern, dating from the 1840s and open on weekends. You can’t drive to it and access is only on foot, bike or boat! It is a fantastic place, with good food and beer (and cake!)

Next to the Tavern is an large meadow. I love this photo, which could date from any time: the child and its mother walking through the long grass in the meadow, towards the river.

Is it the river Isis or the river Thames?

As Wikipedia says: The Isis is the name given to the part of the River Thames above Iffley Lock which flows through the university city of Oxford, England, past Christ Church Meadow and the focal point of rowing for Oxford University.

Historically, and especially in Victorian times, gazetteers and cartographers insisted that the river Thames was correctly named the River Isis from its source until Dorchester-on-Thames, where the river meets the River Thame and becomes the “Thame-isis” (from which the Latin, or pre-Roman Celtic, name Tamesis is derived), subsequently abbreviated to Thames; current Ordnance Survey maps still label the Thames as “River Thames or Isis” until Dorchester. Since the early 20th century this distinction has been lost in common usage even in Oxford, and some historians suggest the name Isis is nothing more than part of Tamesis, the Latin name for the Thames.

Whatever the name, it’s lovely to look at or to sunbathe beside:

It’s a magnet for narrow boats, which moor along the river.

And for the rowers and scullers – and bicycles:

Further along the path is Dorrington Bridge. Its rather obscure graffiti has been there since my Oxford days in 2000, it reads: ‘Hanu is God’.

We love the large meadow past the bridge, in which horses graze alongside geese. Toby swears that they’re gypsy horses.

In spring the towpath was lined with lilac blossom.

A little further along the path takes us past a very large boatshed, which is shared by several colleges:

Once, it was open and we had a look around:

A little further the path the older College boatsheds are visible on the other side of the river. They stand where the Cherwell and the Isis meet:

The Cherwell (pronounced Charwell) is the main punting river in Oxford.

The river can get rather crowded there:

But the route takes us past a peaceful brook off to the side:

Now we’re getting closer to Oxford and it’s a bit more crowded and a bit less salubrious.

A prize if you can find the little white dog in this photo.

Close to the end of the path is Oxford’s answer to a Venetian mansion.

And then, it’s the Head of the River pub:

Beyond the pub is one of the sights of Oxford, the rather creepy Statue House on the river:

And now we’re in Oxford. It’s just a short walk up St Aldates past Christ Church to Carfax, the centre of town.

Next time – Beautiful Stowe gardens, Magdalen College and more…

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.