Garsington Will Live On

I was pleased to read this morning that Garsington Opera is to be rescued by the Getty family, who have stepped in to give it a new home.   The present owner of Garsington Manor, Rosalind Ingrams, had said that she no longer wanted to hold the month-long season at her Oxfordshire house, but now Mark Getty, son of Sir John Paul Getty, has offered his Wormsley Park estate near High Wycombe, from 2011, and the name Garsington Opera will be retained.

Garsington was one of the loveliest settings for English country house opera.   The house itself, originally built in Tudor times, has an interesting history (though that is another story).   The late Leonard Ingrams, the previous owner, and his wife Rosalind, founded the opera festival there in 1989, every year presenting a short summer season of first-class opera, often sung by up-and-coming young singers.   Some of the operas were lesser-known revivals, others joyous productions of well-loved works.

In the true tradition of English country house opera, guests in evening dress and black tie would set up their tables and drink champagne in the beautiful gardens before listening to the operas, which were staged on the terrace of the house in front of a temporary (but quite comfortable and covered) stand, and always introduced by Leonard Ingrams himself.   During the interval picnics would be consumed, as dusk fell over the yew hedges, statues and ornamental ponds.   Afterwards one might be lucky enough to be invited into the house for a final drink.

Garsington Opera had its problems:  the locals were not always supportive, objecting to the cars arriving and leaving, and the sound of the music.   They even resorted to using fly-mowers to drown the singers, and once hired a light aircraft to buzz the house while the opera was going on.   But on the whole, it was much-loved and the tickets were hugely sought-after and always sold out early.

I spent many happy evenings at Garsington, listening to wonderful music in a beautiful setting, and it is very good to know that it will not all be lost.  

 

St. George's Day and Shakespeare

Today, April 23rd, is St. George's Day, when we celebrate our patron saint (or not, as is sadly perhaps more often the case).   St. George was a 3rd century Roman soldier, martyred for refusing to deny his Christian faith.   His emblem, a red cross on a white background, was adopted by Richard the Lionheart, and he became patron saint of England in the 14th century.   It is traditional today to wear a red rose in one's buttonhole.

The Cross of St. George needs rescuing from football and the BNP.   It is a potent symbol of our nationhood and should be proudly flown, especially today.

But April 23rd is also the birthday of the greatest poet ever born, our own William Shakespeare.   We know that Shakespeare died on April 23rd, but regarding it as also his birthday is much less certain, and it is more of a tradition than a fact.   The English are lucky to "speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake" and to be able to read him in the original.   Think of all the people in the world who can't do that and must rely on translation!   How much they miss and how fortunate we are!

The Queen's Birthday

April 21st is the birthday of HM the Queen, who is 84 today.  

To my mind we are inexpressibly lucky to have the Queen as our Head of State.   She is a woman of utter integrity, who throughout her long reign has never put a foot wrong.   On her 21st birthday in 1947, when she was with her parents and sister on tour in South Africa, she made a famous speech, saying:  "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service", and she has remained true to that promise for all the years between.

She has seen out many prime ministers, from Churchill to Brown (or you might say from the sublime to the ridiculous), and her wisdom and steadfastness have been of inestimable help to them all.

Her poise and dignity, her vast experience, her total discretion, her selfless dedication, her sweet smile and sense of humour, all go to make up someone whom in many ways we take for granted.   We should never take her for granted, but appreciate all she has done for us and realise how lucky we are to have her.

Happy birthday, Ma'am!

Be Proud of Being English!

I was sad to read the results of a recent survey that found the English to be the least patriotic people in Europe, at least in the sense that they did not know when St. George's Day is, and would not fly the Cross of St. George for fear of appearing racist, or politically incorrect.   Six percent said they were actually scared to fly the flag, and many were afraid that they would be told to take it down.  By whom? one might ask.   This amorphous fear of doing the wrong thing in someone's eyes and being judged, possibly attacked or even prosecuted, is eating away at the heart of England.   Can you imagine such a thing 50 years ago?   Englishmen were proud and independent then, not to be told what to do by an overpowering state.

This is a dreadful indictment of our society and what it has been reduced to.   The English have perhaps never felt the need to show overt patriotism:  just being English was enough, without making a great show of it.   Now, however, with the European Union doing its best to erode our sovereignty and reduce us to just another "zone" of Europe, with our own politicians working against us, and political correctness extending its dead hand ever further over our national life, it is becoming more and more important that we should hold on to our English identity.   The English ARE patriotic, but in the present climate they are afraid of being seen to be so.   Is that not a sad and terrible thing?

Be proud of being English!   You have drawn first prize in the lottery of life.

St. George's Day is on Friday, 23rd April.

The EU Strikes Again

There is a new EU directive which bans methyl bromide, an insecticide used to treat willow.   It is alleged that this damages the ozone layer.

As we all know, English willow is used to make cricket bats, and the cricket bat industry has no other means of treating the wood.   The industry, which has a turnover of £10 million a year, could be bankrupted within three months.

Another example of how we benefit from membership of the EU!

The Medieval & Renaissance Galleries at the V & A

A week or two ago I went to see the new medieval and Renaissance galleries at the V & A.   These were opened last December, after a major refurbishment, and they are stunning.   The V & A has a fantastic collection and much of it is world famous.   The objects on display in the early galleries are unbelievable for their beauty and the skill of the craftsmen who made them: delicate carvings of ivory, enamel so fine that it is translucent (the Mérode Cup), embroideries of silk and silver, bronzes, marbles, superb carvings of wood and stone, illuminated manuscrips - it is hard to know where to look first, and indeed one needs much more than one visit to see everything.

One of the most amazing and beautiful creations is the above miracle of the mediaeval goldsmith's art, the Cologne Tabernacle, decorated with enamel and ivory figures and one of only two such objects in the world.   An enamelled casket, showing the murder of Thomas a' Becket, was made to hold his relics only 20 years after he was murdered.   Then there is the Gloucester Candlestick, made for Gloucester Cathedral at the beginning of the 12th century, covered with tiny gilt metal figures of men and monsters, and again virtually unique.

  

The galleries themselves are excellently restored and a pleasure to wander round in.   My only minor criticism would be that the captions are very small, rather hard to read and in some cases almost impossible to find.

Upstairs there are world-renowned Renaissance statues by such artists as Donatello and Giambologna.   I didn't have time to explore properly, but I will definitely be going back.

The Story of Sprig

Many congratulations to Don't Push It for his Grand National win on Saturday, and to Tony McCoy, winning at last after 15 rides in the race.

In 1927 the Grand National was won by a horse called Sprig.   Sprig (by Marco out of Spry) was bred in Herefordshire by my husband's great-uncle, Dick Partridge.   Capt. Partridge had always intended to ride his horse in the Grand National, but sadly he was killed in 1918, with just weeks to go before the end of the war.   His mother decided to fulfil her son's dream and sent Sprig to leading trainer Tom Leader.   He proved very successful over both hurdles and jumps, and after two unsuccessful runs in the big race, finally won in 1927, ridden by his trainer's son, Ted, and carrying 12st. 4lb, more than any horse has won with since (or ever will, since top weights are now much less).

Apart from Sprig's win, the race was notable for two other reasons:  the King was present, and congratulated Mrs. Partridge, and it was the first time the race had been broadcast.   In the Golden Valley, Sprig's home in Herefordshire, people coming home from hunting that Saturday heard all the church bells in the valley ringing and knew that their local horse had won.

Mrs. Partridge and Sprig

Sprig eventually retired to Herefordshire and lived to a good old age.   When he died he was buried in one of the fields, but my mother-in-law decided to preserve some mementoes of him, so she had him dug up again and cut off his tail and his hooves - which we still have!

The Abbotsbury Swannery

The Abbotsbury Swannery is a nesting colony of mute swans near Weymouth in Dorset.   Swans generally nest in isolated pairs and there are only a handful of known nesting colonies in the world.   Abbotsbury is the largest group of swans on earth.
What makes the Abbotsbury Swannery unique is that it is managed by man - and has been for at least 600 years. The first swan count at Abbotsbury was carried out in 1591, when there were 410 adults and 90 young swans.   The swans are not tame, and they do not have clipped wings, but visitors can walk safely through the heart of the nesting colony, to which the swans return, year after year, to mate and raise their young.

Usually at Abbotsbury there are about 150 pairs nesting at any one time.   This year, because of the cold winter, nesting and egg-laying are a few weeks later than usual.   The female swans, the pens, lay an egg a day for five or six days, with the male, or cob, standing guard over the nest.   The cygnets will hatch after about six weeks.  

The Night They Invented Champagne

It can't, of course, be called champagne, since by law that word can only be used for the French stuff, but in fact England makes excellent sparkling wine, quite the equal of all but the very best champagne.   There are 400 vineyards in England, mostly in Sussex, where soil and climate conditions compare well with Champagne across the Channel, and the same varieties of grape are also used to make the wine.

The really interesting thing is that although we have all been taught that champagne was "invented" by Dom Pérignon in Épernay, the méthode champenoise was in fact first described and documented by an Englishman, Christopher Merret (1615-1695), in a paper presented to the Royal Society in 1662 .   The owners of the multi-award-winning Ridgeview estate in Sussex are trying to establish his name as a generic term for English sparkling wine, as in "Let's have a glass of Merret".

I am looking forward to a glass of Merret on May 7th!

At Last!

As I write, Gordon Brown has just returned from Buckingham Palace, where he asked the Queen for a dissolution of Parliament, and a General Election has been called for May 6th.   At last - at last! - we have the chance to turn out this appalling government and get rid of the man who for 13 long years has blighted the country, either as Chancellor or Prime Minister.  Together with Tony Blair, who is equally to blame, he has brought the country to the edge of the abyss, and a further Labour term would undoubtedly bring us to ignominious destruction.

The economy is important indeed, but there are other things that are even more important.    When we look around at the devastation Blair and Brown have wrought, the crime, violence and drunkenness on our streets, the gangs and ghettos, our failed schools and dumbed down universities, the state of the NHS, the police who have to spend their time filling in forms and persecuting motorists but fail to solve 90% of burglaries and seem totally to have lost the confidence and goodwill of the public, the ludicrous Health & Safety regulations (emanating of course from Brussels) and the equally ghastly political correctness (not only absurd but dangerous), the thousands living on benefits and refusing to work, the pensioners struggling to make ends meet while the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider, the army unable to fight properly for lack of men and equipment, the decline of family life and the huge number of teenage single mothers, the mean, deliberate destruction of country life, the lying, manipulation and sheer incompetence, the billions that pour out of the country into the coffers of the undemocratic, profligate, despotic, corrupt, deceitful EU, which makes 80% of our laws, in which we have no say whatsoever – all, all the result of their policies, we realise how desperately important this election is - as David Cameron has said this morning, the most important for a generation.

We do now have the chance to make a change, and I am confident that with the common sense of the English people we will vote to make that change.

The Boat Race

This very English annual event takes place this afternoon on a stretch of the Thames between Putney and Mortlake, as it has done nearly every year since Cambridge first challenged Oxford in 1829 (with the exception of the two world wars).   So far Cambridge have won 79 times and Oxford 75, with one dead heat.   The course is 4 miles and 374 yards long, and is rowed upstream on an incoming tide.  

Cambridge win in 2007

It is estimated that 250,000 people will be watching from the river banks, and of course millions more on television, most of them fervently supporting one side or the other whether they have any connection or not.

There have been all sorts of dramas in the Boat Race's long history - collisions, mutinies, sinkings, collapses from exhaustion, injuries, family legends.   Nowadays the crews tend to be large American post-graduate students, but in the old days they were all genuine undergraduates and to get a rowing Blue was the height of any young oarsman's ambition.   Boat Race Night was a favourite theme of P. G. Wodehouse, when the young Bertie Wooster and his chums would celebrate a little too freely, knock a policeman's helmet off and earn themselves a night in the cooler and an appearance before the beak in the morning.

Good luck to both crews this afternoon.   I am an Oxford supporter (my father got his degree there in the 1920s) and I expect all my family to be so too.   Come on Oxford!

Maundy Thursday

Today is Maundy Thursday, one of the holiest days in the Church calendar.   Today is remembered the Last Supper and the first Eucharist, the night before the Crucifixion.   It marks the beginning of the end of Lent, the day before Good Friday and the start of the Easter weekend.

Maundy Thursday is the name used in England for what is sometimes called Holy Thursday, particularly by the Catholic Church.   Today the Queen will give the Royal Maundy to deserving old people, one man and one woman for each year of the sovereign's age, a custom dating back to King Edward I in the 13th century, and possibly even earlier.   The coins are specially minted and distributed in red and white purses.   Until the death of King James II the monarch would also wash the feet of the selected poor, echoing Christ's actions with the Apostles on the night before His death.   The service takes place in a different church each year in England and Wales:  today it will be in Derby Cathedral.

The word "Maundy" probably derives from the Latin mandatum, from the verb "to give".   The term is only used in England (not Ireland or Scotland) and is one of our oldest and most faithfully observed rituals.

Ted Hughes and Poets' Corner

The news that Ted Hughes is to have a memorial plaque in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey is very welcome, though I can't imagine why there should have been any doubt in the first place.

Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998) was Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death from cancer in 1998.   He is one of the greatest of English 20th century poets, his poetry darkly redolent of his native Yorkshire and his close connection with the land.

At his memorial service in Westminster Abbey, Seamus Heaney, who gave an address, said:

"No death outside my immediate family has left me feeling more bereft.  No death in my lifetime has hurt poets more.  He was a tower of tenderness and strength, a great arch under which the least of poetry's children could enter and feel secure. His creative powers were, as Shakespeare said, still crescent. By his death, the veil of poetry is rent and the walls of learning broken."

I knew Ted Hughes fairly well, and regard it as a privilege to have done so.   He wore his fame lightly and was a kind and thoughtful man, not to say excellent company.   His great passion was fishing.

Poets' Corner has been the repository of memorials to our poets since Geoffrey Chaucer was buried there in 1400, and among others the following are commemorated there:

John Betjeman, Robert Browning, Thomas Campbell, William Congreve, Charles Dickens,

John Dryden, John Gay, Thomas Hardy, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Rudyard Kipling,
John Masefield, Edmund Spenser, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ted Hughes will join them in 2011,

Labour's Legacy

I think the following figures deserve a far larger audience than I can give them, and I hope serious commentators will make sure that everyone realises what has been done to this country in the last 13 years.

When Gordon Brown arrived at the Treasury in 1997 he inherited a deficit of £6 billion.   It is now £67 billion.

The UK was the seventh most competitive economy in the world.   It is now 13th.

It was the fourth most competitively taxed:  it is now the 84th

It was the fourth most lightly regulated:  it is now the 86th.

The scale of Labour's failure is scarcely imaginable.   We cannot go on like this - but we will, if Labour are re-elected, and we shall truly end up a bankrupt, third world country.

Whistle Down The Wind

The figures reported yesterday for the production of electricity from wind farms show more or less exactly what we already know - these things are pretty useless.   20% of the sites produce less than 20% of their maximum capacity, and some produce less than 10%.

The problem is the grants for green energy, which encourage developers to build wind turbines on unsuitable sites.   Without these subsidies, it is doubtful whether many of the turbines which so mar our landscapes would have been built.   And the Government is still planning to increase research and development funding - though probably for offshore sites, which are not so objectionable.

Obviously renewable energy is important, but the impact on the landscape, and the importance of beauty and tranquillity are also extremely important and should be taken into account, as should the fact that they kill so many birds.   In view of the inefficiency of these monsters in relation to their cost, and the destruction they cause, not to mention their unreliability, my view is that we should regard them as a failed experiment and concentrate on something silent, invisible, efficient and reliable.   Nuclear energy perhaps?

Too High a Price to Pay?

I have been reading what is going to happen to Greenwich Park when they start preparing for the Olympic equestrian events which are to be held there in 2012, against the wishes of most people in the horse world, not to mention the locals.

Parts of the ancient park are to be closed and fenced off for five years, starting next month.   A 9ft. security fence will be installed, with spotlights every 80ft and CCTV cameras on 16ft. poles.   The soil will be quarried and replaced, the ground will be levelled, the paths excavated and 72 trees pruned, with some losing main branches.   Dozens of temporary buildings will be erected, including a 23,000-seater stadium.   Historic gates will be removed.   There will be a total of 6,500 lorry movements in the park  - about 60 a day - together with 36,000 vehicle movements during the actual events.

Greenwich Park is home to a number of sweet chestnuts which are among the oldest living things in London.   As Andrew Gilligan says in The Daily Telegraph, they were young at the time of the Great Fire and 130 years old during the French Revolution.   Their branches shaded King Charles II and his mistresses.   It is beyond understanding that such a place should be subject to the treatment proposed.

The planning application is to come before Greenwich Council on Tuesday, and the fury and disbelief of the local residents is apparent in more than 2,000 objections.   The application provides for the preservation of some of the heritage features, but others will only be "preserved by record", which is to say destroyed, but only after records have been made of them.   It is doubtful what funds will be available for the restoration of the park after it is all over.

Why did those in charge not choose Windsor or Badminton for the equestrian events?   Both places are used to hosting large-scale equestrian competitions, and both were available.   Windsor is near enough to London (Eton has been chosen for the rowing events), so why wantonly destroy an ancient and beautiful park for the sake of a few miles?    And why did the Royal Parks Agency allow it?

Where Are The Daffodils?

"Daffodils, which come before the swallows dare,

And take the winds of March with beauty"

Just about everyone in England is waiting for the long-delayed arrival of the daffodils.   It is hard to remember a year when they have flowered so late - usually they are with us by late February, but after the coldest winter for 31 years there is as yet there little sign of the seas of gold which so lift our hearts in early spring.

In my own small garden the forsythia is just beginning to show a haze of yellow, but our magnolia stellata, which by now is usually in full bloom, is still keeping its buds tightly shut.  

Spring may be late, but it will be all the more welcome when it finally arrives, and there is nothing in the world to compare with an English spring!

Where Our Money Goes (4)

More details of EU spending have emerged, for instance:

*   £72,000 for a trip to the Italian Alps for the children of MEPs and officials (£72,000!! Did they stay in a five-star hotel?   How can this possibly be justified?)

*   £8 million - the budget for Europarl TV, the European parliament's online TV channel, which broadcasts live parliamentary events and debates, and is little more than EU propaganda (and I don't suppose anyone watches it anyway).

*   £2.4 million for a renovation of the parliament sports centre.

It was also disclosed that in 2008 47,781 days were lost to sick leave, an average of 8 for every one of the EU parliament's 6,000 workers.

The total budget for the European Parliament is £1.3 billion, a great deal of which is squandered on unnecessary luxuries, perks and self-promotion.   Some MEPs, in particular the brave souls of UKIP, do their best to rein in the extravagance, or at least bring it to our attention, but, as we all know, there is little we can do about it.

The Blanket Repeal Bill

Matthew Parris, in this week's Spectator has produced a brilliant idea for the Conservatives when they are back in power.   He suggests that they should introduce a measure, which he calls "The Blanket Repeal of Legislation (Failure of New Labour 1997 -2010) Bill.

The effect would be to repeal at one stroke all the new legislation brought in since the fall of the Conservative government in 1997, the only exceptions being "those measures which, by affirmative resolution of both Houses, parliament votes to rescue".   All the needless, pointless or positively dangerous new laws made over the last 13 years, such as the fox-hunting ban, ASBOs, hate-speech crimes, identity cards, badly-drafted anti-terrorism legislation which results in no one being able to take photographs in a public place, etc. etc, would vanish in one go, and if anyone thinks any of these are a good idea, it would be up to them to persuade parliament to keep them.   The question for parliament to answer would be "Why?", instead of "Why not?".

After the last, disastrous 13 years, the thought of wiping the slate clean of New Labour interference in our lives is hugely attractive.   It would take very little time to achieve and leave the next government free to concentrate on rebuilding our shattered nation.  

I am with you, Matthew!

The Lovely Bones

The other night we dined in a fairly upmarket restaurant in Fulham - a first-class dinner, which we all enjoyed.   After he had finished his rack of lamb (deliciously pink and tender), my son was left with the bones on his plate.   He asked for a doggy-bag to take them home to our dog, who would greatly appreciate them.   The sweet young waitress disappeared and came back after a few moments to say that "Health & Safety" would not allow this.   The dog might suffer in some unspecified way from the bones and we might sue the restaurant - so no doggy bag.

What has happened to this country?   Well, actually I know what has happened - 13 years of New Labour have produced a culture in which it is almost impossible to lead a normal life.   The European Union has helped, with its mad rules and regulations, under which we struggle with remarkably little protest.   The election of a Conservative government might help to change things, though it is by no means certain.   Maybe things have just gone too far.   Will there always be an England?   With a heavy heart I am beginning to doubt it.

We wrapped the bones up ourselves and took them home with us, where they were indeed much enjoyed, to the benefit of the dog and the environment both.