autumn at Partrishow

What with painting and publishing and stuff, I needed a break. And where better than the Black Mountains, when it's pouring down and the lanes turn into rivers? Where indeed? So off I went to Crickhowell, and then, with Marta on board, onwards and upwards into the seriously hilly bits. The Trav faltered a little at the last steep hill up to Partrishow, but a second good run at it got us to the church at twilight.

The fine rain, the chill in the air, the mist, the wind and the tang of sheep conspired to remind me powerfully of Hafod Fach, where I once lived, and I was grateful that, these days, I've got a more comfortable means of transport at my disposal than a pair of old army boots.

It was flymageddon in the eglwys-y-bedd, where all the local flies appear to have congregated in hopes of living out the winter. Heaps of them lay dead below the window.

Marta was very impressed by the church, as who would not be? -and as the twilight deepened and we emerged onto the mountainside, a pair of ravens bounced up the wind across the valley.

Maybe they were the same ravens that we saw back in March, who inspired Deborah to poetry  

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)

The Railway Rabbits

Most of us rabbits who disappear don't come back, Mrs, said Little Woo Woo, her dark eyes trembling. Not ever...

So begins the desperate search for Mr Rabbit....

Fresh from the printers comes The Railway Rabbits, the latest book by Geraldine Taylor, with pictures by me. She describes it as 'a story for children, written for grown-ups as well. ... for children, it's about a brave little rabbit searching for her father, helped by Hairy Old Badger, a one-eyed owl and London taxi drivers.'

It's a limited edition of 100, and if you want one then it costs £5, and is available from Geraldine Taylor c/o 28 Berkeley Rd,, Westbury Park, Bristol BS6 7PJ,   email geraldine@geraldinetaylor.co.uk

casting off

Medway Queen, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

With the poetry anthology just about ready for sending to the printers, I took some time out to pop down to the harbour for the monthly Bristol Books and Publishers meeting on the Grain Barge. And, as I'd taken down an old book about the Bristol Aircraft Company for Bill Fairney, the talk got onto aeroplanes. The Bristol book chaps are very knowledgeable about all sorts of things, and aeroplanes are one of them. At least three of them were present at Farnborough when the DH110 broke up while doing a high speed fly past...

Meanwhile, just along the quay, the Plymouth tug Christine and tug Bristolian were arranging the cables on the paddle steamer (and Dunkirk veteran) Medway Queen and getting under way down river, on her return journey ultimately to the Thames esturay whence she originally hailed. Medway Queen has been extensively rebuilt in dry dock in Bristol, and the next stage is completion of her engines, which I believe is happening in Plymouth. 

Later, walking on the Downs with Mal, we heard a loud explosion from the direction of Wills Hall. It turned out to be the sound of a giant pumpkin, dropped from a great height. We arrived in time to see another pumpkin explode.

  Mal rescued one.

two Bristol paddle steamers

Medway Queen, a Thames estuary pleasure steamer and Dunkirk veteran, was floated out of dry dock in Bristol yesterday, and is waiting for favourable weather for the tow back to her home waters. Here she is, from the same viewpoint as that used by John Nash in the 1930s, when he painted P&A Campbells's paddle steamer Britannia, when he was in Bristol in company with Eric Ravilious, on which occasion Rav almost came to a sticky end...

"...when Eric had decided to go on drawing outside after dark, and was working intently on his picture of a paddle steamer, he had suddenly heard a grinding noise and a voice calling out, 'lucky for you I saw you, old cock, or you'd have been a box of cold meat.' Eric had set up his easel, without noticing it was on the tracks of one of those light railways that are used in the docks." (Helen Binyon)

round robin

Fresh from Minuteman Press comes another Christmas card! You can get it over in my Etsy shop, or if you're in Bristol, you can pick up or I can deliver....

They're blank inside. This is the poem I wrote that got me thinking of painting the round robin. Or was it the other way round?

Not slim

And far from win-

some, the round robin sings

In unmelodious tones of things familial;

Who passed what exam, did well at work, had chil-

dren of rare beauty; feathers puffed with pride; but still

Behind the seeming gasconading, someone strove

To keep the distant bonds, with time worn thin,

In place, that complicated love

That families have

Within.

(coincidentally, Lynne Truss read a series of thoughts on round robins, on the Radio 4 Today programme. A bit unkind, I thought; it's easy to poke fun at the gaucheries of family bulletins to get clever points, after all. I've always been happy to get family newsletters; these days they tend to be from people I like anyway, and even the bad ones I used to get were good for a laugh. Let us yet be merciful....)

Uffington lark

uffington lark a4, originally uploaded by Dru Marland.

...whoops, accidentally posted this here from Flickr! -oh well, since it's here... Last picture for the anthology. All done now, and time to finish the editing and formatting. Thank goodness for Adobe InDesign, says I.

I like the effect in this picture; it's an ink drawing scanned and processed in Paint Shop Pro, except for the skylark which is a watercolour. I remember seeing the church tower in Uffington village, just like this, when I stopped on my way there a few weeks ago, as I was returning to Bristol from Oxfordshire. Though it was sunset on an autumn day, then. I got up onto the hilltop above the horse as the twilight deepened, and was alone with the soughing of the wind in the dried grass, and the call of the kestrels.