In the April edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News, I’ve been focusing on a prominent village landmark: the Somerset Monument.
Cover #1 – I loved it, but readers insisted I lose the Italianate column
“But that looks like Italy!” “Definitely Italian.” “No, that doesn’t say English village at all.”
Such was the feedback when I showed foreign friends the proposed cover for All Part of the Charm. This new book brings together all my Parish News columns with my essays about village life.
My friends’ reaction astonished me. Like most people who live here, I’m used to the Monument serving as shorthand for Hawkesbury Upton. Its portrait is everywhere, including the cover of the Parish News. The only challenge is to find an original way to illustrate it. I was using a watercolour painted by my dad. Continue reading “A Monumental Error”→
Originally written for the March 2015 issue of the Tetbury Advertiser, this post previews the Friends of St Mary’s Waterloo Ball.
“ABBA – TopPop 1974 5” by AVRO – FTA001019454_012 from Beeld & Geluid wiki. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Until last autumn, if in a word association game I was given “Waterloo”, I’d probably have responded “ABBA”. I vividly remember watching the Swedish pop group win the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and thinking it was a life-changing moment. (In my defence, I was only 14.)
My second response would have been “Charing Cross”, because Waterloo East was the next station out of London on the branch line to Sidcup, where I lived until the year of Abba’s victory. And I’d defy anyone to think of the Duke of Wellington without also picturing Wellington boots.
At Peace with Tolstoy
I fear my historical ignorance adds point to the government’s plan to focus the school history curriculum on major historic milestones. In my day, history lessons jumped from the Black Death to the First World War, leaving me to fill the void with details gleaned from books and museums. The most I knew about the Napoleonic Wars came from reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace for a bet about 25 years ago.
This is why the Battle of Waterloo was low on my radar until just before Christmas, when a friend told me about the Waterloo Ball, to be held at Westonbirt School on Friday 19th June to mark the Battle’s bicentenary.
My crass response: “Who will know or care about that?” I recognise that in British eyes, the Battle of Waterloo is A Good Thing because we won it, but for me it had much less resonance than last year’s centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, with which I felt a personal connection. I had met relatives affected by it, such as my Great Great Auntie Edie, widowed at a young age by the Great War.
My Ticket to Waterloo
I’ve now realised the error of my ways. Especially in an election year, we should not underestimate the significance of what the strapline of the Waterloo 200 campaign describes as: “A Defining Moment in European History”.
Hawkesbury Upton’s reminder of the Battle of Waterloo
So in preparation for this great event, I’m reading up on it, with a local reference as my starting point: the Somerset Monument in Hawkesbury Upton, built to commemorate a local man’s distinguished service at the Battle of Waterloo.
My research is already proving more entertaining than I’d expected, uncovering anecdotal gems such as the Duke of Wellington’s remarking to the Earl of Uxbridge, riding horseback beside him during the Battle: “By god, sir, you’ve lost your leg.” “By god, sir, so I have,” came the reply.
Now that kind of British pluck is definitely worth celebrating.
The stunning venue for the Waterloo Ball
If you’d like to join me at the Waterloo Ball on 19th June, tickets are now on sale from the Friends of St Mary’s, Hawkesbury, at the quaint price of 60 guineas a head.
To find out more about the national celebrations of the bicentenary, visit the official government website, www.waterloo2015.org, or follow @Waterloo2015_BE on Twitter.
Hearing that there will be cocktails on sale at this year’s PTA Auction, I wondered why no-one’s ever named a cocktail after our lovely village of Hawkesbury Upton. Here are my suggestions:
The Hawkesbury Showstopper – created in honour of our annual Horticultural Show, a blend of sloe gin and dandelion wine, garnished with a three foot stick of celery and a sliver of prize marrow.
The Hawkesbury Monumental – combine in a very tall glass one measure of crème de menthe (to represent our green and fragrant fields) and one of blue curacao (for our clear skies). Make sure the glass is full of cracks and frost it in winter. Drink seven at a time, as a tribute to the Monument’s views of the River Severn.
The Hawkesbury Shop Splasher – a little bit of everything in a generous sized glass, served with a big smile and a soupcon of gossip. There’s something in it to meet everyone’s needs.
The Hawkesbury Post Office Parcel – a glass of fragrant southern hemisphere wine garnished with cottage garden flowers, gently warmed over a scented candle, to be sent to your table by Special Delivery (you’ll have to sign for it on receipt or we’ll take it away again and just leave a card saying sorry).
<The Hawkesbury Primary School Pop –warm a small carton of milk on a classroom radiator for two hours and pour into an unbreakable plastic cup. Garnish with the sticky fingerprints of at least three different children, and don’t go out to play until you’ve drunk it.
The Hawkesbury PTA Partypopper – well, it doesn’t matter what you put in that one, you know what the PTA are like – they’ll drink anything!
Hope to see you at the auction!
(The Hawkesbury Primary School PTA Auction is the village school’s biggest annual fundraiser, when we sell dozens of interesting lots donated by our supporters. This year it will take place at the Village Hall on Saturday 9th March from 7.30pm. Everybody welcome! I’ve been on the PTA committee for the past six years, by the way, which gives me licence to make jokes at its expense. I was also on the Horticultural Show Committee for 13 years, and the Youth Club Committee, and the Village Hall Management Committee. Not bad for a person who hates being on committees.)
This post was originally written for the February 2013 issue of Hawkesbury Parish News.