more on lightships

This is the film that Peter Brownlee made of my poem, the English andWelsh Grounds Lightship. It was for Liz Brownlee's project for National Poetry Day, and was shown along with lots of others, in Bristol's Millennium Square.

...Stuart Lees, of the Cabot Cruising Club, recently sent Liz this picture that he took of the buoy that replaced the lightship, and there are the Transporter Bridge, Ysgyryd Fawr, and the Uskmouth power station, in the background, as described! Funny to think of a buoy replacing that big vessel with its crew; sending a buoy to do several men's work, indeed... (boom tish)

launching a new poetry anthology

On Tuesday 29th September at Bristol Central Library, we'll be launching Hailing Foxes, a new illustrated poetry anthology, as a part of Bristol's poetry festival. Here's what the book's all about...

Unseen in the street plan of any city run the paths of the wild creatures whose lives are lived alongside ours, and which occasionally cross our own. And sometimes a door will unexpectedly open to that other city,  showing us something startling and unforgettable; foxes, falcons, mice, whales, balloons, reckless pilots, lost ships. All we need to do is pay attention.

Hailing Foxes follows Inking Bitterns, our previous book of poems and pictures about wildness; and this time we look at what’s around us in Bristol, in this year when the city is Green Capital.

Here's what you'll get at the library that evening: further details over on the Poetry Can website

Wells Fountain Poets performing Waterwoven

Wells Fountain Poets are a group of highly talented and entertaining poets who have been meeting in the city of Wells, Somerset for twelve years. Tonight group members Clare Diprose, Jo Waterworth, Ama Bolton, Morag Kiziewicz, Sara Butler and Andrew Henon (kindly stepping in tonight for Ewan McPhearson) perform their extraordinary poetry show Waterwoven. 

Rachael Clyne is an artist and a poet, who lives and works in Glastonbury. Trained at the Bristol Old Vic, Rachael was, for many years a professional actor on both stage and television. She then became involved in work with cancer patients and families, setting up London’s first cancer support centre, now celebrating its 30th anniversary. This work led her to train as a psychotherapist. Rachael is sustained by her creativity as an artist and poet and is also passionate about ecological issues and love of the land. Her published books include her poetry collections: Singing at the Bone Tree and She Who Walks With Stones.

Dru Marland & Friends launch Hailing Foxes
Poet and Artist Dru Marland launch's her new book Hailing Foxes, irresistibly illustrated by Dru and containing poems about nature in Bristol, especially its urban wildlife, from poets including: Alan Summers, Ruby Fowden-Willey, Hazel Hammond, Jinny Peberday, Ben Banyard, David C Johnson, Rachael Clyne, Kathy Gee, Tom Sastry, Vanessa Whiteley, Stewart Carswell, Liz Brownlee, Pameli Benham, Deborah Harvey, Dominic Fisher, Pat Simmons, Shirley Wright, John Terry and, of course, Dru.

greening a man

Here's a series of pics of my progress with a picture for the new book, Hailing Foxes.... finished picture at the top, obv....

making a film about the lightship

Peter Brownlee sets up the opening shots

Liz Brownlee is collecting poems on the subject of 'light', in readiness for National Poetry Day, on 8th October. There's an event at Waterstones in Bristol. And Peter Brownlee has been making films of the poems, which I understand will be on show in Millennium Square.... 

...so Liz mentioned in passing that it was a pity there were no lighthouses on hand in Bristol. "But what about the lightship?" I replied. 

What indeed? The former Light Vessel 55, built for Trinity House by Charles Hill in Bristol, is now moored up in Bathurst Basin, where the Cabot Cruising Club have their headquarters on board. I was determined to write something about it because it seemed such a good thing to write about. 

And so I did. Here it is, in my previous post.

And having done so, Peter and Liz liaised with the folk at the cruising club, and we all met up down there a few days ago and made a film. Well, they did. I just stood in the background.

Sarah Allen, Stuart Lees and Jacqueline Corcoran, of the Cabot Cruising Club, prepare for an ensemble reading of the final verse.

Peter Brownlee in action

...and then we had a guided tour of the boat. Everything from the gunwales up is modern, after the fire that was intended to destroy her. (The dense timbers thwarted that plan, in the hull). Down below feels very old indeed. And rather nice. Good place for a poetry reading, I reckon...

a model of the lightship 

downstairs, or below decks as we sailors say

a stage, even!

mixed messages

Boat Teenager and I lunched out, as it had stopped raining. Large pasties from Joe's Bakery, sitting on a bench on the Downs. "We're causing even more pain for the joggers", she said, "all wishing they had pasties too".

"Maybe they aren't the sort of people who like pasties," I suggested. "Modern people can be pretty strange."

We had a bit of a laugh about quinoa, and went charity shopping. Got some good stuff too, the sort that cheers you up if you ever needed cheering up.

Heading back up the hill, I paused in the right filter lane before turning into Coldharbour Road, to let a hesitant oncoming cyclist, who had right of way, decide whether he was going to go down the hill or turn left. 

He stopped. 

A shiny black BMW was behind us. The driver hooted his horn and, through the dark windows, I saw him gesticulating, apparently at the junction. "F*** OFF", I mouthed at him, and set off. He may be happy to run over a cyclist, I thought, but I'm not.

A little later he tried to overtake us, on a section of road that is really entirely unsuited for overtaking.  An oncoming car stopped him.

We turned left. He followed, honking his horn.

I passed Boat Teenager my phone. "Get ready to call 999 if we need to," I said.

At the next junction, he tried to force his way past us again. I stopped; he got out; "It's all right, I'm not going to rob you just because I'm black," he said, holding out his hands palms outward, with a rueful sort of smile.

"I never thought you were," I said, quite truthfully. 

"....just that your brake lights aren't working," he continued. 

"Oh! Thank you"

We exchanged smiles and he went on his way.

Bristol's greener arena

Some folk in Bristol have expressed their dismay that there is no arena in the city huge enough to persuade U2 to play here. Ignoring the nay-sayers who reckon that they like Bristol precisely because of that, they gaze wistfully at the sleeve notes of Joshua Tree while sitting in their rather-too-tight jeans, in the drawing rooms of tastefully-renovated victorian semis from St Andrews to Sneyd Park, and remember their fairly-wild student days when they had a leather jacket too.

Happily for these folk, the move towards construction of such an arena continues apace, with the shortlisting of five designs, all suitably anodyne.

As Chief Architect of Gert Macky Enterprises (publishers, bicycles fettled, a song a dance a merry quip, oh and arena designers to royalty), I drew up some plans of my own, as you see from the picture. Sadly, despite the optimism of The Bristolian, it doesn't appear to have made the shortlist, even though it would add to Bristol's green credentials ("it's an elephant! GREEN! We'll paint it green if you like, to make it even greener!") in this year of Bristol, Green Capital.

Here, by the way, is the elephantine colossus of Rhode Island. Thanks, Lauren! 

blazing the path

Testing Little Willy, the new bike headlight (all the neat names like Blinder and Predator were already taken)

Here at Gert Macky (publishers, bicycles fettled, a song a dance a merry quip), we always have our eye on what's going down on Teh Street. And this winter, what's been going down a lot on both the street and on the towpaths and roads near us has been intrepid cyclists striving for ever brighter headlights. Now, auntie Vera was in the ATS during the war, operating a searchlight on a hill near Bristol, and she happened to mention a disused hangar Somewhere In The West Of England that was stuffed with the things at the end of the war. 

Reasoning that a light intended to pick out a Heinkel 111 flying at 15,000 feet would be perfect for sticking on your bicycle when riding on the Bristol to Bath cycle path, we hot-footed it down there and blew away the cobwebs. Result! They are quite bulky, but with a bit of tweaking we got them to fit on the handlebars of some test bikes, and sent out our researchers to road test them.

Results have been extremely positive. Of course, there have been objections from some antisocial fuddy-duddies, suggesting that things were already bad enough when cyclists used lights more suitable for blazing a trail through the uncharted wastes of the Rockies or Carpathians, than for a gentle commute on a well-defined path through suburbia. As our testers pointed out:

You can always look away

Of course we can't dip the lights, that's how they're set up

I'd fall off my bike laughing if some self-appointed warden told me to dip my light

It's just light envy

F***ing wanker

There's always someone complaining*

*all these points were made by cyclists on a couple of Facebook posts discussing this very topic

Spitfire

This bridge traverses so much sky,

Such clear depth of open air

As tempts my aircraft under there;

It seemed ungrateful not to try.

I held my breath. A sudden flick

Of shadow on my face; my joy

Reflected in that waving boy;

The cliff face zipping by so quick-

Now, zooming high, I see the far

Welsh mountains in the dawning glow

While Bristol's half-asleep below,

And steer towards the morning star.

I was in Bristol yesterday for the IsamBards' second poetic outing, a walk around the Clifton Suspension Bridge. This poem was my small contribution, which they kindly invited me to make as I'm so keen on the stories of the pilots who've flown under that very bridge.


Laura Hilton, the Clifton Suspension Bridge's Visitor Centre Manager, introduces the poets Deborah Harvey, Pameli Benham, Stewart Carswell and David C Johnson

mapping

Here's a new map I've just done, for a walk guide. It's of Clifton, the suburb of Bristol that's poised on the side of the Downs overlooking Hotwells and the Avon Gorge. It was a challenge to try to represent the characteristic buildings in a way that worked within the limited space, and didn't interfere with the clarity. Not sure just how successful it has been.

I drew the map in black ink, then scanned it and coloured it in Paint Shop Pro. The same technique as I used for this picture, which is intended for the cover of this year's Wales Antiques Guide

de la fenêtre d'en haut

As I've mentioned before, my flat gives me a grandstand view of Bristol and the surroundings; I get to see ravens circling overhead, the local foxes and magpies, psychotic seagulls, loads of aircraft, the occasional car thief (he got away, that one)

I was leaning out of the front window yesterday, as you do, and saw a young man walking a pug. The dog stopped at a tree and stood on tiptoe, arse in air, up against the tree. I watched more closely; someone has been leaving dog poo on the pavement around our way, and it is of a size to make the pug a likely source.

Dog finished its business, while bloke stood there patting his pockets as though hoping to find a plastic bag in one, and looking around to see if he was observed. He bent down, pretending to pick it up, then rose and began walking away.

"Cooeee! Don't forget the dog poo!" I called down to him.

"I was going to get a bag," he shouted; "I live just there." He pointed to a house two doors down. "Haven't you got anything better to do?....transvestite" he added, the intended insult tacked on in a slightly quieter voice as though he didn't want to be challenged on it.

He did reappear, with a Sainsburys carrier bag, and threw the dog poo into a wheelie bin. 

And he walked off muttering what were no doubt further rudenesses, for his own benefit, as I couldn't make out the words.

Have I got anything better to do? -I do have lots of things to do. But time spent watching the world from an upper storey window is seldom time wasted.

the barking of the fox

Here's Garden Fox, barking at twilight. It's one of a range of calls the local foxes make; yickering when they play or fight, screaming in the mating season. There's not been any screaming this winter; at least, not yet. I wonder if some of the local foxes have died? -in the past few years, there has been a group of three; but this winter I've only seen two at most, and only the solitary one recently. 

a wartime bomber crash in Bristol

An incident over Bristol in April 1941. A Wellington bomber from a Cambridgeshire based Operational Training Unit was on a night training flight. They were supposed to fly to Andover, then turn and go to Sharpness, the harbour on the Severn estuary north of Bristol, presumably to drop practice bombs on a bombing range in the estuary.

They were a few miles south of their intended course, and flew into the cables of two of Bristol's barrage balloons, the second one at Stapleton Road Gas Works sports ground (the site of the present IKEA). Trailing the cable, they lost height and crashed into St Andrew's Park. Of the six crew, three were killed and three survived.

The full story is here at Wellington T2905, a website devoted to this incident.

Bedtime Story

Here's Alana Farrell, reading her poem 'Bedtime Story'. I've added the words.

This recording was made at the launch of Inking Bitterns, at Acoustic Night, Halo, Gloucester Road, Bristol. Thank you to David Bosankoe, who recorded the event!

I See You

Here's another recording. John Terry reads his poem 'I See You', and then tells the story behind how he wrote it.

The weather vane in the picture is a gudgeon, and it's on the little jail in the middle of the bridge at Bradford on Avon. I was looking at pictures of the bridge on the BBC website yesterday; with the recent floods, great trunks of trees had become wedged against the piers, and workers were doing their best to haul them up.

a caganer for Bristol

 Here's Bristol mayor George Ferguson as a caganer, a figure used in Nativity scenes in Spain but not so much over here... at least, not yet.

I've been occupied with rebuilding the engine on the Traveller, after that blown head gasket last week. House Teenager was unimpressed, of course.

"Why don't we just get a modern car?"
"Because I couldn't fix it if it went wrong"
"They don't go wrong."
"Oh yes they do, and if the head gasket blew on a modern car it would cost hundreds of pounds to fix. And this cost me fifteen pounds to fix. And the Traveller nearly always gets us where we want to go....."

...and so on.

Oh, and the winter lurgie. Yuk, snotty and norrible, and a voice as growly as a bear whose pint you've just spilled.

Still, it's passing. And the car is now running sweetly. Touch wood.

guerrilla marketing

guerrilla marketing idea, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

The cosily leafy suburb of Bristol's Westbury Park is mostly untainted by manifestations of unsightly consumerism and the throwaway society. The huge new 4x4s parked on the pavements block the view, for one thing.

Cycling past Westmorland House yesterday, though, I saw this mattress (one careful owner, no obvious piss stains) and was struck by its potential. 

So, ever one for exploiting a business opportunity, I'm happy to offer a bespoke service to go-ahead Bristol businesses. Get your message to the heart of the comfortably affluent, with a catchy slogan! (custom graphics available, enquire for prices, terms and conditions may apply).

inking bitterns - poems and pictures for wild places

 ...is now published.

It's a collection of poems from Colin Brown, Liz Brownlee, Stewart Carswell, Alana Farrell, Deborah Harvey, Alan Summers, John Terry and Cathy Wilson;  and it's illustrated throughout by me.

It costs £5, and you can easily buy it online from the Gert Macky website. Or, if you have the good fortune to live in Bristol (and if not, then why not?) - you can get it in the Durdham Down Bookshop, or Stanfords in Corn Street.

After our quick jaunt round Wiltshire yesterday, it can also be found at Devizes Books and the Corsham Bookshop,  both fine shops worth a visit even without the prospect of this particular book.

We'll be reading from the book at Halo, Gloucester Rd, on Monday 2nd December, and at Foyles on Friday 6th December.

And I'll be at the Local History Book Fair at the Bristol Record Office on Saturday 7th December, which is very handy for the Create Centre, who have their Festive Fair at the same time.

An open letter to Councillor Simon Cook and Mayor George Ferguson from Bristol book publishers

Dear Councillor Cook and Mayor Ferguson,

In response to Latimer's suggestion that architect Charles Holden would be appalled at the thought of a primary school moving into his specifically designed book storage areas beneath Central Library (Post, October 8), we the undersigned would like to add our voices to the growing campaign to oppose the change of use.

Bristol Library service celebrates its 400th anniversary this year and during that time has amassed an important collection. The reference library is accessible to all the people of Bristol to benefit from that collection unlike the reference collections held within our universities.

It is our view that the entirely inappropriate change of use would make much of this collection inaccessible to the people of Bristol.

Former head librarian Anthony Beeson has previously pointed out in the Post that the basement houses the entire reference periodical collection with many thousands of often huge volumes and the majority of the art library reference collection, one of the largest such collections in Britain.

There is an entire room filled with valuable illustrated volumes, both private press and illustrated historic works. The same floor also has the local history library's illustrations collections and the entire lending library reserve of many thousands of volumes that are constantly drawn upon to supplement the open access stock.

In addition, of course, there are offices, meeting rooms and book-ordering and interlibrary loan departments on these floors and the library staff within them. 

At a time that Birmingham has invested £80 million in a new library and Liverpool has spent £55 million on revamping its Central Library, it is our view that the change of use would lead to a decline in services that could eventually lead to the closure and relocation of the Central Library. Surely it would be wiser to look at making Bristol’s own collection more accessible along the same lines as Birmingham and Liverpool, rather than lose Holden’s masterpiece to short-term opportunism.

We urge Post readers to lobby their councillors against the plan and to sign the online petition at http://epetitions.bristol.gov.uk/epetition_core/community/petition/2348

Libraries are places of the imagination. 

Yours,

Clive Burlton, Martin Powell, Joe Burt (Bristol Books CIC)

Editorial Collective (Bristol Radical History Group)

William Fairney (Diesel Publishing)

Roy Gallop (Fiducia Press)

Mike Manson (Past & Present Press)

Dru Marland (Gert Macky Books)

Mark Steeds (Long John Silver Trust/Black Spot Publications)

John Adler (Pomegranate Books)

John Sansom (Redcliffe Press Ltd)

Philip de Bary (Rudi Thoemmes Rare Books)

Alastair Sawday (Sawday’s)

Richard Jones (Tangent Books)

(this letter appeared in the Bristol Post, paper edition)

egret triolet

So white a bird, the egret sails
Serene above the Severn mud
That smirches us, but can't assail
So white a bird; the egret sails.
Our boots sink in; we flounder, flail.
We'd rise and follow, if we could,
So white a bird. The egret sails
Serene above the Severn mud.

Ann Wood-Kelly flies under the Clifton suspension bridge

(available as a print)

Ann Wood-Kelly was an American pilot who came to Britain in 1942 and flew for the Air Transport Auxiliary, ferrying warplanes around Britain and, later in the war, Europe. Whitchurch Airport, in the suburbs of South Bristol, was an ATA base, as well as an important centre for civilian flights abroad; it was on a flight headed for Whitchurch from Lisbon that the Douglas DC-3 carrying Leslie Howard was shot down over the Bay of Biscay.

It was on delivery flights to Whitchurch that Ann Wood-Kelly twice flew under the Severn railway bridge at Sharpness, once in company with another pilot who led the way, and then next time alone; on the latter occasion, the tide was in, and there was 30ft less clearance than on the first time. Her obituary in the Guardian relocates these flights to the Clifton suspension bridge, which is presumably an error; but I thought it would make a good picture anyway, and who knows, maybe Ann did indeed fly under the Clifton suspension bridge- it would certainly have been less of a squeeze than the Severn railway bridge!

As for the poularity of flying under the Sharpness bridge, here is a description of it during the war from Brian Waters, in his book Severn Tide:

"The builder constructed this bridge so that river traffic could pass beneath it. What would he say if he could return to see airmen in their Spitfires and Hurricanes diving beneath his bridge like swallows on the wing? I admired their daring, until I saw the men whose job it is to paint the bridge, hanging in their cradle, while an aircraft dashed within a few feet of them"

The Clifton Suspension Bridge was also quite popular with pilots; I've found stories of Gloster Meteors and even a Canberra going under it; and Ken Griffiths, of Bristol's Fiducia Press, recalled watching a Vampire whizz by as he stood on Observatory Hill. This was not the most usually-recalled Vampire underflight, which ended in disaster....

Severn railway bridge; photo by Ben Brooksbank (Creative Commons)