Religion – something from seaview

Yet more Anglo-Saxon treasures …

By a remarkably fortuitous chance, in the last fortnight we have seen two of the most wonderful Anglo-Saxon pieces of faith and art: the Bewcastle Cross … and the Lindisfarne Gospels …Both of them date from the 7th – 8th centuries and were products of the golden age of the Kingdom of Northumbria.

They are jaw-droppingly extraordinary. It goes without saying that this is firstly because they are so very old and so very beautiful.

But further. The Bewcastle cross is carved from a single piece of sandstone and stands outside in all weathers, as it has since it was carved over 1200 years ago.

The Lindisfarne Gospels are believed to be all the work of one man, the extremely talented Bishop Eadfrith, – and they have survived Viking raids, falling in the sea as the monks fled these same Vikings and desecration by King Henry VIII’s commissioners when they dissolved the monastery at Durham. They are much travelled …

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Towards the end of September we headed for the Cumbrian fells …This is one of the wildest places in England – north, north, north, beyond Carlisle, and approaching the border with Scotland. Backroads here now, but in Roman times Maiden Road ran past this lonely spot, linking Birdoswald fort with Hadrian’s Wall. The Romans built a fort here too, and, later, in the eleventh century, a castle was built on the site of the Roman fort. Today the church and its graveyard sit next to the castle …As you approach the little church of St Cuthbert, you get your first glimpse of the cross standing almost insignificantly beside the church …But of course, it isn’t insignificant. It’s gorgeous with carvings of saints and trailing leaves, and fruits, and intertwining patterns …Even more extraordinary, it is thought that it was originally painted in bright colours. Though I think to our modern eye, the more subtle colours of the stone are perfectly beautiful in this rural setting …There is a tiny museum attached which gives helpful information and pictures of this cross (so-called even though it is missing the cross shaft at the top). The people carved on the stone are thought to be St John the Baptist holding the lamb of God at the top, Christ in the middle, and possibly St John the Evangelist with his eagle at the bottom …The clue to the why and wherefore of this cross is in the church’s dedication to St Cuthbert …Step back those 1200 years or so, and these Cumbrian lands were part of the sizeable kingdom of Northumbria. The kingdom stretched from Edinburgh down to the Humber river, and over from Carlisle on the west coast to Bamburgh on the east. With the conversion of the Northumbrian King Oswald to Christianity, missionaries – inspired by St Cuthbert’s life of sanctity – set out to convert the rest of Northumbria. Preaching crosses such as the Bewcastle cross were set up to remind people of the Christian story they had newly learned.

The Bewcastle cross is believed to have been commissioned by Benedict Biscop whom we met briefly in my last blogpost on Bede. Benedict Biscop was Abbot of Monkwearmouth. And it was his monks from Monkwearmouth monastery who are thought to have carved the Bewcastle cross …They were spreading the Word from the eastern shores of northern England where St Cuthbert once preached and worshipped on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne …As was Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne who is believed to be the creator of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Preaching crosses told Christian stories for the hoi polloi (who couldn’t read), but the educated and learned religious were gradually acquiring access to books.

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We visited Newcastle’s Laing Gallery last week to see the Lindisfarne Gospels – a rare and precious trip north from their usual home at London’s British Library. The book was open at the beginning of the Gospel of St John, with its so-called carpet page on the left and “incipit” (introductory) page of the right …

It’s hard to explain the sense of awe this one book inspires. It is so very very old, carries with it such a story, and contains such exquisite workmanship.

Everything from the choice of smooth creamy perfectly-scraped calfskin to the still-bright colours (red lead, verdigris, orpiment, carbon, indigo and woad) and tiny gold highlights is just perfect.

Each Gospel writer gets a carpet page and an introductory page at the beginning of their writing – this is St Matthew’s carpet page …And this is the introductory page. The detail is exceptional, this is truly the work of someone with a remarkable imagination …But it is striking that you’re seeing here the same curls and whorls, similar interlacing patterns with animals and beasts and fruits and flowers all worked in together as those that are carved on to the Bewcastle cross. Perhaps we need to take a step further and imagine that sandstone cross as it might once have been, painted in these colours …

And it’s worth remembering that Bishop Eadfrith worked on these gospels in the harshest of harsh conditions. Lindisfarne at this time boasted no stone buildings, no glass windows. The winds howl in from the North Sea.

We visited one November several years ago when the mist lay heavy and unmoving. Just driving over the causeway was disconcerting. These are the dank, dark conditions Eadfrith would regularly have been working in …It’s easy to get waylaid by the beauty and skill in these objects. But it’s important to remember that they were produced in faith for the furthering of faith. The creators strove to do the best they could for this purpose. All to the glory of God, not for their own aggrandisement or pleasure.

I believe those men would like to think that the Bewcastle cross and the Lindisfarne Gospels still cause us to stop and reflect on our life’s journey – even if we cannot agree with everything that Bede says below …

In the footsteps of the saints

You can’t live in Northumberland without being conscious of the presence of the saints of old who once lived here. Modern street names remind us of them, they are remembered in the local names for wildlife – and their stories crop up all over the place.

Our own most neighbourly saints here in north Northumberland are Cuthbert and Aidan who are associated with nearby Holy Island – but there are others not much further away. And one of our projects earlier this summer was to explore a little further afield and find out about these more distant saints.

May took us to glorious Galloway on Scotland’s west and most southern coast. Late spring flowers were at their very very best …We were staying in Wigtown, a place noted for its very tempting second-hand bookshops. We were indeed tempted by them … There are fantastic walks – this was our regular evening walk along the Bladnoch river with the Galloway hills in the distance … And so much history. This beautiful walk amid the wild garlic took us from Garlieston to Rigg Bay where they tested the Mulberry Harbour used in the Normandy Landings. That curious concrete shape is all that’s left of this important project …Fascinating little old churches – this was Cruggleton Church lost in its surrounding field …But oh so inviting …Tantalisingly locked …And then there was the heart-breaking story of the two Covenanter women, Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson, who were tied to stakes in the Bladnoch river to drown when the tide came in. They were Scottish Covenanters who refused to acknowledge Kings James VI and Charles I as head of the church. This memorial to the Wigtown Martyrs is a hauntingly sad place – inconceivable to our modern minds that people should be executed for such beliefs …But we were particularly drawn to a much older story – that of the 4th-5th century Saint Ninian. Compared to the previous stories I’ve touched on above, next to nothing is factually known about him – it’s so very early that most of the stories about him are entwined in myth and legend, with just nuggets of actual history. Of course, the real challenge for archaeologists and historians is to identify what the nuggets are. What we do know is that Ninian lived at least some hundred years earlier than the much better known St Columba of Iona (521 – 597 AD).

We are indebted for the earliest mention of him to the remarkable early historian, Bede, who was writing in the 8th century – a good many years after Ninian lived. And what Bede recounts, he has in fact acquired through disparate traditions …Bede tells us that Ninian came as a missionary to the southern Scots (other sources add that he came from Ireland) and that he led a strong revival of faith at the Candida Casa (White House) of Whithorn in Galloway.

Despite a series of excavations, this White House has never been found, but other excavated evidence does prove that Whithorn in the 5th century AD was indeed a thriving and sophisticated Christian centre.

The very early Candida Casa may not have been discovered, but there are fine ruins of the much later priory church (dating to the 12th century). Whithorn remained a pilgrimage destination for many years. King James IV (1473 – 1513), for example, is known to have made a yearly visit …The magnificent Romanesque doorway beckoned invitingly – but it is tantalisingly out of bounds for visitors until an archaeological health and safety inspection has taken place …Early Christians may not have left their history in definitive texts, but they did leave clear markers to their faith in the magnificent stone-carved crosses – many housed in Whithorn’s Priory museum. They are so beautifully displayed – the building has the air of respect that’s found in a church … The Monreith cross (dated to the 10th century) is perhaps the most stunning …As knitters and stitchers we were struck by the patterns (so reminiscent of Irish Aran cable knits to my mind), displayed here in my montage of photos …The carvings on the so-called Golgotha stone are the simplest, but it is one of the most powerful stones. It was found in Whithorn’s graveyard …And the Priory Museum also houses the stone crosses that were found in Ninian’s Cave …So that is where we went next …A brief walk along a shingly beach takes you to a dent in the rocks – I’m not really sure you can call it a cave … Legend has it this is where Ninian retired for long hours of solitary prayer …The only distraction being the view of sparkling sea and rock …It is still a powerful place of prayer for many who visit. They leave their own prayer markers – Christian …And otherwise …Such beautiful flowers along the beach …We picniced here – a suitably respectful distance from the cave …A fantastic holiday, lots of interesting things to explore and enjoy, – but we were left with a hazy – if glowing – mental image of St Ninian. At the very least we know he was one for long solitary prayer. For me, he stands as a saint of the Irish tradition who communed with God in the natural world.

A month after our trip to Galloway, we set off on a day trip to Bede’s World in Jarrow – not far at all, just 60 odd miles down the A1 from our home. So easy that we felt truly remiss not to have made the journey before…Bede’s World adjoins the historic church and monastery of St Pauls, Jarrow. This museum complex was set up following the excavation of the monastery by Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp in the 1960s and 70s.

It tells the story of the Venerable Bede and his world. We were there to investigate our next saint: Bede …In contrast to Ninian, we know a great deal about Bede. He was a writer, historian and teacher, and it is largely from his own writings that we learn the facts about his own life. And, yes, this is the same man who wrote the book which tells us about Ninian (pictured above in Ninian’s story).

He was born about 672 AD in the lands just south of the River Tyne in the north of England. These lands had been gifted by King Ecgfrith of Northumbria to the very early Christian church. Ecgfrith asked local nobleman Benedict Biscop to build a church and monastery there. Biscop, a devout Christian, had travelled several times to Rome. He was an enthusiastic reader and collector and brought back Roman building ideas, as well as books and other artifacts.

The first church he built was St Peter’s, Monkwearmouth (just a few miles south of Jarrow) and it was this church that Bede entered – aged about seven – in 680. Bede moved to nearby St Paul’s, Jarrow (shown below) when it was founded just five years later by Abbot Ceolfrith …Remarkably the dedication stone is still here, high up above the chancel arch – the oldest known dedication stone in England …

The tiny chancel is the nearly complete Anglo-Saxon church that Bede would have worshipped in … High up on the right of the picture above you can just make out these tiny Saxon windows through which Bede might watched the sunlight streaming in just as we did …

The window on the left contains fragments of 7th century glass found during the excavations …According to the Bede’s World museum, this area was an exceptionally important centre for glass making at the time …. Going outside again, we walked around the ruins of the monastery that Bede would have known …It is extraordinary how close one is able to feel to Bede with so many of the buildings he would have known still there – and so many of his writings available for us to read too …

But – if you lift your head just over the monastery walls, you can see the 21st century pressing in …It is miraculous that the Jarrow monastery remains, given that this area of South Tyneside became a centre for heavy industry from the 1850s onwards. This 1963 aerial view (reproduced courtesy of Tyne &Wear Archives & Museums) gives an idea of how the landscape has changed from Bede’s time. Every scrap of land was used for machinery and housing … But if you look down to the little river Don which borders the Jarrow monastery’s land, you must be seeing pretty much what Bede would have seen some thirteen hundred years ago.

Bede spent his life here, dying in his cell in 735, aged 63 …Both these saints were extraordinary – after all they clearly made a powerful impression on their very different Anglo-Saxon worlds.

In many ways, it’s Bede who speaks to me more clearly over the centuries. It’s not just that the buildings he knew so well still remain – it’s the books, the writings. We take literacy so granted nowadays, but it was very unusual in Anglo-Saxon times. And to embark on such a major project as his “History of the English Church and People” from scratch, so to speak, – well, hats off to you, Bede!

But aren’t they two sides of the human coin? Bede the cerebral one, and Ninian the saint of contemplative mysticism? I have no doubt I’m simplifying them here. Ah, but what it is to stretch back the imagination over the centuries!

What I can say without any doubt is that in both places these saints were much loved by their modern curators, church wardens and tour guides.

Exploring Dod Law

Goodness, what a long time since I last posted!

It’s not that I haven’t thought about it – or been without topics to write about. It’s more that I have questioned the whole raison d’être of personal blogs …. the internet seems so crowded … who am I to add to the general digital busyness ….

I have sort of resolved this in my own mind. I can’t resolve the problem of internet busyness, but I do really love blogging when I get into my topic. And right now, that seems a good enough reason …

So here I am, with a wonderful wonderful walk from last week, in one of our very favourite parts of North Northumberland – the lands about the Cheviot Hills and the Milfield Plain.We were looking for something, something that we had looked for before and not found. Would we be successful this time …. ? Hmm, you’ll have to wait and see!

Our walk started from the village of Doddington, parking not far from what appeared to be a Holy Well. I would guess this was an ancient sacred spot, Christianised perhaps in the 19th century with the addition of the cross …A trickle of fresh water running gently at the foot of the cross … this is a mysterious and elemental place – a good start for a walk into mystery …Not far up the road we found a worn and shabby signpost, barely legible for the lichen … but it’s definitely pointing the way to Dod Law … just half a mile up the hill!So up we go! You’ll remember that I’m always behind …
Into the gorse …Where pretty soon it becomes clear that this path isn’t walked often …. the gorse so overgrown even the sheep are finding it tricky to get through … But then it opens out, and really this is the best sort of walking, the ground springy underfoot, the bracken too young and freshly green to give anything but pleasure …And the flowers! Foxgloves looking statuesque amid the gorse …Little white starry flowers underfoot … I wish I knew what they were!
Even more delightful when mingled with small blue flowers, some of which are Speedwell (thank you, we will) but I can’t identify the others. Any ideas?
And the bell heather is just coming into bloom …Just when it all seemed to be going so well, we hit a problem … This stile has collapsed. As I said earlier, this route no longer seems to be much walked. The path over the stile takes us onto Access Land (private land where permissive walking is granted but no right-of-way footpath exist). The unrepaired stile is probably a reflection not of landowner disinterest but austerity. Footpaths such as these were once the responsibility of local authority councils but their budgets have been so heftily slashed that footpaths must be bottom of their to-repair list.

Never mind – I did get over it, but only just. Lucky there’s no barbed wire on top!
Onwards and upwards … you can clearly tell which way the prevailing wind blows …Exposed they may be, but these trees clearly offer welcome shelter to sheep …
Onwards and upwards again … And then up to scrubbier ground – with providentially a bench for respite …
With what a view!The land stretching down and round over the Milfield Plain …Gaps in the bracken show clearly where the farmer has burnt back growth – so much preferable to treating the bracken with herbicidal sprays …Just a little further and we find ourselves at the hill fort – that’s Stephen ahead, just entering it. This hill fort is thought to have been constructed about 300 BC.Sadly it’s very difficult for an amateur photographer such as I am – and on the ground too – to give a real impression of the magnificence of these remaining earthworks. But the farmer’s trackway gives an idea as it runs through the inner and outer ramparts.Over on those hills in the distance were many many other hill forts … An almost unimaginable world …Just as we are immersing ourselves in the magic of this place, we look back to see somebody spraying the adjoining golf course! Aagh! is not even a spot as wild and beautiful as this safe from the common use of pesticides?!The hill fort is a magnificent distraction, but it’s not what we’re really here for … We’re looking for rock art! Some of the most intriguing and fine specimens are to be found on Dod Law.

Well, apparently so. But last time we visited we couldn’t find them. On that occasion we approached Dod Law through the golf course (a route almost parallel to the more circuitous one we had taken today), and we walked round and round and round and round – and found nothing.

You see everywhere – all over Dod Law – there are stone slabs lying exposed to the elements … You can ramble around here, through the golf course, over the hills – and find nothing .. Despite having Ordnance Survey maps, mobile phones, and hand-drawn maps from the master, Stan Beckensall’s Prehistoric Rock Art in Northumberland …OK, we did find the trig point – and were pretty pleased with that.And – just above the Shepherd’s House – we found some very moving modern rock carvings …
Bless you, Sadie and Tom Young – what a place to be remembered! You must have loved it very much up here …
And then suddenly it clicked! And the maps made sense, and I found the three clearly exposed pieces of rock art on Dod Law!

This is the first we found, and probably the most indistinctive of them all. The problem isn’t just that my iPhone wasn’t really up to the task. A June day – even if cloudy is not a good time to see the markings clearly. Best days to see the rock art are in the low light of autumn and winter.

However, if you look very carefully you may be able to make out the cup and ring marks near the top.You can see the engraved spiral much more clearly on this slab.And it’s not too difficult to make out the patterns on this so called Main Rock. These are the most distinctive and unusual patterns.I can’t quite tell you how mind blowing it is to see these carvings, worked so many thousands of years ago (latest thinking is that they were made by Neolithic people between 6,000 and 5,000 years ago). But to stand on Dod Law with these very ancient rock messages and the Cheviots in view and a lark singing takes you, I reckon, almost as close as it is possible to our very distant ancestors …Nobody knows what our ancestors meant with these rock carvings. There has to be a religious element, surely – some expression of peoples’ relationship with place and nature and life and death?

I’m intrigued to have read recently that a new project, Belief in the North East, has been set up under the aegis of Durham University “to explore the rich archaeology of the belief, religion and ritual of North-East England”. Studying the local rock art will be part of their brief. I wonder what they will come up with ..

Back down the hill – just as pleasing as coming up, if not more so for mission accomplished – and the views as good as ever!

To Cumbrae and back through the Scottish borderlands

Last Monday we left our home near Berwick and drove over the country to the Scottish west coast, roughly on exactly the same longitude as our home in England. It has always fascinated me that we are so close, have so much in common … and yet are so different.To our delight, whilst English Berwick on the east coast was bitterly cold, Cumbrae, in Scotland on the west of the UK, was sky-blue – shorts and sandals weather! We waited for the ferry to take us from Largs to the Isle of Cumbrae.Our visit to the Isle of Cumbrae was prompted by my wish to visit West Kilbride and some very talented Scottish craftswomen there. Stephen was tasked with finding us somewhere to stay in the locality … and he came up with the College of the Holy Spirit, which adjoins the Cathedral of the Isles on Cumbrae.These establishments were designed by William Butterfield in 1851, at the request of the 6th Earl of Glasgow, George Frederick Boyle. Boyle was an enthusiast of the Oxford Movement, believing in the reinstatement of older Christian traditions. He wanted the College to train priests for the Episcopal Church – perhaps like the men enjoying the College grounds in this old print below.Alas, Boyle, an enormously generous and devout man (he was also pouring money into the building of Perth Cathedral at this time) depended too much perhaps on divine providence – Dominus Providebit (God will provide) is the Boyle family motto – and went bankrupt in 1885.Luckily the College Chapel had been consecrated as Cathedral for the Scottish Episcopal Church United Diocese of Argyll & The Isles in 1876, so the Diocese was already responsible for these buildings.

The Cathedral Spire towers over the island, even when glimpsed from the hills above.We first glimpsed it through the trees. You get an idea of Butterfield’s original concept from this drawing that appeared on the front of “Butterfield Revisited”, edited by Peter Howell and Andrew Saint, and published by the Victorian Society. The Cathedral stands proud, surrounded by manicured lawns, with a young avenue of lime trees.That’s not how it is now! The Diocese may have funded the Cathedral buildings, but there was no money to pay for garden upkeep.

By a magical transformation, those uncared gardens have become wild and more beautiful than one could imagine. Trees have grown up everywhere – the lime avenue is enormous. Underneath the trees, are masses and masses of flowering ramsons (wild garlic).The fine lawn banks host bluebells as well as the ramsons.I do so hope George Boyle is not turning in his grave as he contemplates the changed garden! He is indeed buried here – in the large flat tomb in the foreground of this picture. He must have loved this place very much. It is extraordinary to find such buildings on such a tiny island. Butterfield’s vision of this small group of buildings is harmonious and elegant. Here you have the windows of the Lady Chapel, the Cathedral and the Refectory – all varied in pattern and size, but united in stone and form. And look how very deftly Butterfield has highlighted the Cathedral window with the descending dove of the Holy Spirit above it.We stayed in the North College which had once housed the choristers. Our room was the upper left hand window, set amidst the tiles. We had the place to ourselves for the first couple of nights, and after that only another couple came and stayed at the other end of the building. It was extraordinary!The rooms are called after Christian virtues. Ours was Fortitude ……hmmm.Inside was all dark wood and heavy carving. The corridor …The fireplace in our bedroom ….. huge and cumbersome!The common room …What I didn’t like was the inside of the Cathedral. It looks OK from here …But once you go up into the Chancel, you get tile madness! I don’t care for the Victorian tones of green and brown anyhow, but, that to the side, it looks to me as though some student was told to see what variety of patterns they could come up to fill the space available. It’s truly tile pattern madness!Sometimes we joined Warden Amanda and Lay Chaplain Alastair for morning and evening prayers – quiet and peaceful, though the Scottish rite (just slightly different from the Anglican one we know) caught us out a bit …Outside the calm inner sanctuary lurked danger … In the evenings we explored Millport. I don’t think the authorities meant us to take this image away with us ….And we chuckled at this …..There are lots of boarded up properties round Millport, looking just a little bit sad and unloved … Masses of rabbits everywhere … (not an easy place to be a gardener, I guess) …Including several black ones (or was it the same one and it just got round a lot?) …After our evening walks, we went back to the College and lowered the ecclesiastical tone, sitting in the warm, evening sunshine with a bottle of wine …The road round Cumbrae is perfect for cyclists of all ages. This looks like a 1960s group setting out to enjoy a bicycle ride en famille.You can hire all sorts of cycles …We hired two quite ordinary bikes to get round the island. This was extremely brave of me since I haven’t been on a bike for well over 15 years. It was a glorious ride, and despite much moaning on my part (the seat was horribly uncomfortable), it was a wonderful experience.Picnic lunch and an opportunity to enjoy the view of the islands of Bute and Arran (grey and lowering in the far distance).I don’t think I have ever seen a war memorial as powerful as this. It is dedicated to the men and women of the British and Allied forces who have no known grave.After our bicycle tour of the island, we spent a couple of days on the mainland about West Kilbride. I got to do the workshop that I have longed to do for so long with lovely Lorna of Chookiebirdie. We spent an entire day sewing together …. Oh, just look at this sewing heaven!Lorna was teaching me to make paisley botehs like these ones of hers.And I was so thrilled with what I made that I have only just stopped carrying it round with me!Another day I finally got to visit Old Maiden Aunt’s yarn shop in West Kilbride – somewhere else I’ve longed to go to for ages! So many gorgeous colours. And we got to peak into her dye studio too. As an amateur dyer, it’s fascinating for me to see her professional systems – though perhaps the multi-coloured spatters behind the pots is the give away that Lilith herself might not call it that …I have to confess that I find yarn buying overwhelming. I may have decided that I am going to make a green scarf, and need green wool, but when I see the yarns available, all my carefully thought out plans go awry. This is what we came away with – all lovely stuff, but not a lot of green, and certainly not the grassy-greens I had in mind …At the Barony in West Kilbride we found an amazing exhibition of Radical Craft. Doesn’t this Landfill Tantrum by Pinkie MacLure just say all you really long to say about waste and rubbish and pollution?!!Who could not love Rosemary McLeish’s What I Do When I Don’t Do The Ironing ?! Dedicated I think to all those who hate this chore …But the pièces de résistance for me were these two works paying homage (as it were) to Angus McPhee. They were both made by Joanne B Kaar – the boots are copies of Angus McPhee’s orginal boots (those too fragile to be exhibited now) and she made the hats in the spirit of his work. I came upon the story of Angus McPhee from Donnie Monro’s song, Weaver of Grass. As far as I can see the pop song world is dominated by mostly saccharine love songs, so it amazes and delights me to hear such a glorious song about a mentally ill man. Perhaps it is really a love song in another guise …..

Time then to say goodbye to the little Isle of Cumbrae. The weather was changing as we headed back to Largs …On to sunny Sanquhar – another place I’ve wanted to visit for a long time because of their famous knitting designs. The little Tolbooth Museum there is a gem …Holding information about and examples of lots of historic Sanquhar knitting patterns …..We were also interested in the displays there about the local brickworks.As it happens, we have a small collection of lettered bricks. This started with us finding them on our local beach at Spittal. There is an entire history of northern English and Scottish collieries and brickworks to be revealed from those names. Luckily the lovely museum attendant at the Tolbooth Musuem knew just where to send us!And so we found ourselves quite unexpectedly rooting around the old Sanquhar brickworks.There were the sad remnants of the buildings ….And we found a brick or two …..Most poignantly, Clarks Little Ark, an animal rescue shelter at this site, have constructed a memorial wall of the old bricks for those dear ones they have lost.Time to go home now – perhaps crawl would be a better description for our heavily-brick-laden car. The weather got nastier and nastier as we travelled up through the Lowther hills …Still extraordinarily beautiful ….We had decided to travel back via the source of the River Tweed, high up in the Lowther Hills. There, masked in the mist and murk, we found this sign. From this point, a tiny stream and all the little tributaries that run into it flow eastwards to where it meets the sea on Spittal beach.This is an iconic spot to many (including us) because it is a great river. Appropriately there is a finely ornamented stone, incorporating words that speak off the Tweed: “it is one of Britain’s cleanest rivers …”Sadly, it was not a clean site. The rubbish was disgusting and a terrible reflection on lazy, casual visitors. I have an uncomfortable idea that people feel they have license to behave so because Dumfries and Galloway council have not provided a litter bin ….Oh dear, what a negative way to end a great holiday! So I won’t. As we travelled through the Borders, the sun shone through the damp leaves, and we slowed down to enjoy the wonderful countryside …. and an antique Rolls Royce … Festina Lente!

Christmas makes

Part of the fun of Christmas for me is the making of both gifts and Christmassy stuff. It’s an excuse to make all sorts of things. In the lead up to December, we were busy with lots of such projects, but because they were presents, I haven’t said much about them. Now – with Christmas well behind us – this is the opportunity to show what we were busy with in those autumn months.

I started my GiveWrap making in September with lots of fabrics spread around, and some very intriguing printed pieces from my cousin Polly. When I’m working with Polly’s prints, I sort them first into colours, and themes. These two predominantly blue GiveWraps mainly incorporate a mix of her human body prints. Her images are bold so I try to marry them up with fabric that has equally strong images – thus, in the top example, there are striking Japanese ladies from an old yukata, and some wonderful owly pieces too. The images in the lower givewrap are softer in colour and tone, and have accompanying softer fabrics.Other prints from Polly inspired work in different colourways. Her “little people” are all facing inwards here, dancing to the central tune, in a golden melange. It’s a particular favourite of both of us.This wine-coloured GiveWrap is at heart a worn-out cushion cover of Polly’s. I covered up the holes with bits of new fabric, and built up the edges.Later in the autumn, I made more GiveWraps. These blues, yellows and golds worked so well together that I got carried away and made two more similar GiveWraps.Another old cushion cover (this time an old green one of mine) got re-pieced here. The holes and stains were removed and I added some strong contrasting purple. Interestingly, this GiveWrap attracted more interest and likes on Instagram than any other that I have made.Lastly, I made a small red silk GiveWrap with my mother in mind. This to my mind is the best of the lot! I loved it – was sad to part with it – but my mother loved it too. And when a recipient loves the gift that is best of best!Off they went to new happy homes, bearing Christmas wishes and love!Apart from GiveWraps, there were practical things to make like the Christmas cake – here garlanded with our own gorgeous glossy holly.We also made jams and jellies. Here’s Stephen concentrating intensely as he pots up his chilli pepper jam.The finished products – chilli pepper jam and spicy harvest jelly – don’t look bad for Christmas presents, do they?I made two little Toft monsters this year as gifts. The patterns come from Kerry Lord’s brilliant flip book of patterns, Imaginarium. A mix-and-match pattern book to enable the crochet creation of just the monster you want. The other little monster I made is quite different – but that’s the whole point of a book with so many pattern choices!Different they may be, but they look like good friends, sitting here together.You may have read an earlier blog I wrote this autumn about our Seaview poppies … we collected as much seed as possible, and packaged it up to send off to friends and family, hoping to spread a little bit of poppy colour in other gardens.I made hats too. Some I forgot to photograph. But one I did remember to photograph was this pink two-eared beanie for my daughter. The pattern came from my beloved ancient (1977) Paton’s Woolcraft, and I knitted it using odd pink scraps from my stash. The scraps included some Rowan Kidsilk Haze so together with the alpaca pompoms, it was a fluffy hat!Just right for our beach walks …My son is fascinated (and most knowledgeable about) the periodic table. So what better to give him than periodic table pillowcases?! Stephen found the fabric on the internet, and I sewed them up. Does he now dream of the elements of the periodic table? …. I must ask him …There was the usual making as well. You might say, the bread and butter making. Wonderful to have a man around who makes all our bread.Stephen made some wonderful knits for Christmas presents. He wrote in an earlier blog about the blanket he knitted on his knitting machine as a present for his youngest daughter. That knit incorporated a knitted monogram of his daughter and her husband’s first initials: J and E. My cousin admired it especially because her two daughters share those particular initials. So how about some cushions with your daughters’ initials on them as a Christmas present for my cousin! Here is the maker man himself with his wonderful knitted cushions.He made two scarves for other daughters.
Stephen here: Here is one of the scarves I knitted about to be cast off the machine. For the technically mind it is knitted in 2-colour tuck stitch using every third needle with tension dial set at 10 (the largest possible stitch size) to give a lovely loose feel. The wool is Rowan baby merino silk double knit – in all I needed 100g of each colour. When washed carefully they came out beautifully soft, though somewhat narrower and longer than anticipated.

I also experimented with some Christmas designs. Here are two panels I knitted just for fun. The left hand one is of random snowflakes ( see the end of our blog Ellie’s Blanket for more details of this design) and the second is derived from typical Scandinavian Christmas designs and made using their traditional colours.Perhaps by next year I will have my own machine-knitted supply of Givewraps.

Katherine here: I’ve written so far about the pre-Christmas preparations. But there was one project we made that involved all of us who were here over the Christmas period.

One of my most treasured Christmas decorations that comes out every year looking sadder and more worn is the crib my children made when small out of toilet rolls, tissue paper, and a bit of glitter and trim. There’s only one shepherd these days, and one king has gone AWOL.I put this picture on Instagram, and a helpful virtual friend of mine from Nice suggested it was missing a Ravi as well. You don’t know what a Ravi is?! Well, a character from the santons of Provence, the Ravi stands amazed at the events taking place, with his (or her) arms in the air. So we got to work, and we got delightfully carried away. I made a Ravi, Stephen created a new king, and son James added a Cagador. (James knows this character as a Cagador having lived in Spain, but it is elsewhere known as a Caganer.) When the Cagador turned round and revealed his true intent, the King and the Ravi turned away, a bit giggly and embarrassed.But they all came together to make a much happier crib scene … Several other creatures and presents crept into the mix … but that’s life isn’t it? All can come to the manger …

Lane problems and a tale of the Derwentwaters

We’ve had heavy heavy rain in the UK over the winter – particularly bad in the west of the country with serious floods in Cumbria and Yorkshire. In the North-East we have had nothing to compare with those troubles, thank goodness. But it has caused particular problems with the rough farm track we drive along to get to our house.

The farm track has always been a bit dodgy. But this winter’s lane problems were new. Heavy, heavy rain meant the surrounding fields were waterlogged, with old duck ponds and boundary brooks reappearing. Finally, yet more rain over Christmas meant the land could take no more and water poured off the fields down the only path it could find: our lane.

Deep runnels, pits and channels appeared. The rain continued. The runnels got deeper, the lane more pitted and craggy.

Driving became precarious. Those of our neighbours who had 4-wheel drive came home with confidence. Those with sports cars and low-slung suspension travelled much more cautiously. Our little Suzuki Alto did not like it at all. When temperatures dropped and the water froze, we decided it was far too tricky to drive home, and took to leaving our car in the car park near the sea, at the bottom of the hill. Hard work carrying shopping up from there!

We hit crisis point, and some neighbours decided action must be taken. But it is very complicated because we do not know who owns parts of this lane. Such land ownership problems are not unusual, but ours have a particular history behind them – which is romantic and tragic.

The surrounding farms belong to the Greenwich Hospital Estate – and they used to own our cottage (in the old farm steading) and most of the old cottages about. Yes, we live in the most northern part of Northumberland, just a few miles south of the Scots-English border, and yes, Greenwich Hospital is in East London (some 400 miles away). (You can read more about the Greenwich Hospital and its responsibilities and functions in its 2012-13 annual report here)

Before Greenwich Hospital owned these lands they belonged to the Earls of Derwentwater. Their family home was at Dilston, near Corbridge, in the south of Northumberland. But the Derwentwaters owned large parts of North Northumberland. They were said to be the wealthiest and most powerful Jacobite family in the north of England.

Tragedy struck for the 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, who (a devout Catholic and Jacobite) was one of the leaders of the 1715 Jacobite uprising. The British had deposed their Roman Catholic King with the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and replaced him with his Protestant daughter, Mary, and her Dutch husband, William. But many longed for the return of Roman Catholic Jacobite rule, among them the Earl of Derwentwater.

The rebels were defeated at the battle of Preston, and Derwentwater and the other rebels were captured and taken to London where they were lodged in the Tower of London. Despite the reprieve of some of the other leaders, the King was determined to make an example with the Lords Derwentwater and Kenmure, and they were beheaded on Tower Hill on 24th February 1716. (Below detail of print showing the execution.)

This story of Derwentwater’s fall is told in Devil Water by Anya Seton. She’s a rather forgotten historical novelist these days, but I read – and loved! – all her books when I was young. I re-read Devil Water when we came to live here and there is no doubt her historical research was excellent. Her writing about this area of Northumberland is accurate and evocative.

With his execution, Derwentwater was stripped of his honours and titles, and his estates confiscated. In 1748 the Derwentwater Estates were granted by Act of Parliament to the Royal Hospital at Greenwich.

The Derwentwaters are almost forgotten here, though the odd (mis-spelt!) street sign about still remembers them.

But Greenwich Hospital is still very much part of the area. They continue to manage a Northumberland Estate of 8,000 acres – and that includes the farm fields around us. Their name is also common in the locality.

So how does this tally with our lane problems?! Well, the old farms here were very small – completely impractical for modern farmers – so as farming families came to the end of their leases and moved on, the fields were given to other farms and the houses and buildings sold on. Life has changed so much – in sales of the last century, people didn’t always have their own cars to drive to their home, there were vegetable-growing allotments where modern owners might want enclosed private gardens, and old pathways with habitual rights of way were thought sufficient for new owners.

We know half the lane is co-owned by the four steading cottages at its end. It is the other half – the bad part! – whose ownership is unknown. The cottages alongside have sometimes done some repairs – and Northumberland County Council has even visited recently and made vague encouraging noises.

But we can’t wait for the Council’s deliberations – the track was almost impassable! Initially, a small group of neighbours gathered with a digger and a massive delivery of tarry road chippings, which were helpfully deposited in large piles along the troubled parts of the lane.The idea was to run a pipe across the lane and under the new chippings, channeling the water further down the hill, out of harm’s way.There was just the simple task of spreading the hardcore.I never saw myself working as a navvy …Unfortunately – another night’s heavy rain, and all our good work was washed away.The water completely overwhelmed our nice little pipe arrangement. So much for amateur engineeringOn a recent weekend, an another impromptu neighbourly working party was assembled, pick axes were mounted on unpractised shoulders …trenches were dug … – and water was diverted with a new larger pipe! Yeay!More gravel was spread over the damaged lane …We haven’t had any serious rain yet to put the working party efforts to the test, but for the moment the lane is passable. At least we can drive home!

But before I finish this post, I want to return to the story of the Derwentwaters. It was only when I started writing, and checked my facts that I realised the relevance of the date on which James Radclyffe, the 3rd Earl of Derwentwater was executed: 24th February 1716 – by some strange coincidence that’s 400 years ago this week. So, it seems appropriate to mark this anniversary.

What I hadn’t realised was that Derwentwater was only 25 when he found himself the leader of the uprising in 1715 – 26 when he was executed the next year. So very young. According to some accounts he was a very decent man. His contemporary, the Scottish writer, Tobias Smollett, called him “brave, open, generous, hospitable and human.” The Reverend Mr Patten’s description was even more glowing: ” [Derwentwater was] formed by nature to be universally loved for his benevolence was so unbounded that he seemed only to live for others.” (Patten was another contemporary, and the chaplain to the other uprising leader, Thomas Forster).

Fine comments indeed. Some dismiss them saying this was only propaganda by reactionary writers, and actually he was a person of little importance and weak character.

What I can definitively say is that he was brave indeed at his execution. I’m going to quote here some of the very moving description of that event from Christopher Sinclair Stevenson’s book, Inglorious Rebellion:

“At ten o’clock […] he drove in a coach to Tower Hill and then walked through the ranks of
soldiers to the scaffold draped in black. his face was ashen as he mounted the steps to the block, but he retained his calm composure. A few prayers were followed by his speech. It was an extraordinarily moving address in which he retracted his plea of guilty made at his trial, spoke with great warmth and feeling of James III, and assured his audience that the country could have no lasting peace or happiness until the restoration of the Stuarts. His last words were devoid of bitterness: ‘I die a Roman Catholic; I am in perfect charity with all the world, I thank God for it, even with those of the present Government, who are most instrumental in my death. I freely forgive such as ungenerously reported false things of me; and I hope to be forgiven the trespasses of my youth, by the Father of infinite mercy, into his hand I commend my soul.”

His body was taken to Dilston, where he was buried in the family vault.

There’s a nice little accompanying story to his end. Apparently, the Northern Lights were particularly brilliant at the time of his beheading, and in some places they became known as the Earl of Derwentwater’s Lights. As it happens, there have been some fine showings of the Northern Lights in recent days (though we haven’t actually seen them here) – who knows? Perhaps there will be a magnificent replay of the Earl of Derwentwater’s fabulous lights to mark the 400th anniversary of his death …

Whatever, James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, RIP.Picture of James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater reproduced from Wikipedia (public domain)

Hard lives

Beached up on the north Northumbrian cliffs, we are exposed to all that the weather can throw at us. Over this winter so far we have endured violently squally and bad-tempered Southerlies bringing rain, rain and more rain. Recently the winds have changed to sea-salty and much colder Easterlies.

But whatever the weather throws at us, we sit tight in our small sandstone cottage, and are good at keeping busy and toasty.My eye is always drawn out – when the grey allows ( and we’ve had a lot of grey this winter) – to Holy Island on the horizon, and to wonder how the monks there coped with the wind and the cold and the rain.We know about these monks because some of them were so exceptional, so saintly, that Bede (himself an exceptional early historian) recorded their history. In the early 7th century, King Oswald of nearby Bamburgh had summoned the monks from Iona to bring Christianity to his kingdom. It was St Aidan who stablished the monastery, and St Cuthbert was to follow there as bishop.

We don’t have Bede’s histories alone to tell us about these early monks. We have inherited from this place and these early years one of the most remarkable and beautiful illustrated books of all time, the book of the Lindisfarne Gospels, apparently made by the later Bishop of Lindisfarne, Eadfrith, in honour of God and St Cuthbert.

First page of St Matthew’s gospel. Image made available to the public domain by Wikipedia.

These are the ruins of the monastery church on Holy Island today. Life in these buildings would have been hard and rough enough, but, in fact, these aren’t the buildings Cuthbert, Aidan and others knew. These are 11th century buildings. The early monks would have had oak buildings thatched with reeds.From the security and warmth of our windows, I often look out on Holy Island and wonder about the monks’ lives. And that manuscript – how on earth could the scribes do this skilled, delicate work in such bitterly cold conditions – no windows, remember?

Hard lives. Hard and dangerous lives.

Extreme danger, in fact, with the earliest known Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793. Eventually (in 875) the monks fled, taking with them what they valued most: the body of their beloved St Cuthbert. A life-size wood carving in the church on Holy Island commemorates their journey. It gives a sense of the struggle to carry the coffin and body, but what of the panic, the fear, the gut-wrenching terror.From our small cottage we can see the sea and down the coast to Lindisfarne, and when there are large bonfires on Holy Island, we can often see their smoke too. Farmers here might have seen the approach of those terrifying Viking longships, or the smoke from their destructive fires.Skip through the generations to the 13th century, and people here endured a new menace: the Reivers. The Border lands, the ungovernable country between the separate kingdoms of Scotland and England, experienced years of lawlessness (right up to the Union of the Crowns in 1603) because of the depredations of the Reivers.

Novels have been written and ballads sung of the Reivers, the wild lawless men who grabbed and took whatever they wanted – especially if it belonged to another family that they were at odds with. It was Sir Walter Scott who really put the Reivers on the map. His Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border established the tales of the Reivers as romantic, glamorous, and exciting. Actually, they were nasty, cruel and vicious.These Border lands were divided into six Marches, and Berwick lay in the English Eastern March. It was better governed than most.

But it was bad enough. It’s not hard to find examples of defensive architecture. In our adjoining parish of Ancroft, the church itself had a secure tower to offer safety when the Reivers swept in. The walls are 1.35 metres in thickness, the upper windows are tiny. You can climb to the top of the tower, and there are fine views around. It might have been used as a look-out, and it’s possible warning beacons may have been lit from here. This tower is certainly no ecclesiastical adornment.Even in more recent times, life was miserably hard in these parts. Coal was mined under the neighbouring fields, and the tramway bearing coals to transport ships runs across our view ( it’s the uneven shrubby line of trees running from the top right of the landscape across to where it meets the modern Eastcoast Mainline running along the coast).In the local churchyard, there are several sad gravestones which tell of deaths at the colliery. One of them is for John Harbottle who was accidentally killed on the 21st November 1865, aged 45 years. We don’t know how he died, but you can read more on these accidents at Scremerston Colliery at the Durham Mining Museum webpage. No Health and Safety Inspectorate in those times. But of all the troubles in this part of the world, it was surely the sea that caused most grief.Just up the coast at St Abbs, these small statues stand as a reminder of the terrible cost of fishing disasters. These are the wives and children of Charles Purves and James and William Thorburn who lost their lives in the great storm of 1881. 189 fishermen from the east coast of Scotland perished in that storm.Another extremely dangerous (but potentially very lucrative) sea-faring enterprise was whaling. Berwick’s last whaling ship, the Norfolk, left on its last voyage in 1836. She sailed over to the North American coast in the spring, but come winter, found herself trapped by ice in Pond Inlet (of Baffin Bay) with several other ships. The Captain of the Norfolk recorded on 15th January 1837: “…The frost is very severe and the ice has been pressing to a great height all around us.” They did not escape the ice until mid-March. Many, many men died of scurvy as well as frostbite.

One Berwick whaling-ship owner proudly announced his trade on his front door.Those are harpoon heads on the front door panels.These balustrades on the roofs of local Spittal houses are sometimes know as widows’ walks. From them pacing wives and ship-owners might scan the sea, looking for sight of ships.The whale oil was processed in the manufactories where the last Spittal chimney now stands. It was a foul-smelling and obnoxious process. Is it surprising that people fled, leaving this beautiful area for places where they hoped they might have a better life?I am left to reflect on my twenty-first century luck to be living here, safe and warm and healthy – so as to be able to enjoy it in comfort.

Oh, alas for all those poor souls who lived in these parts for whom life was such a miserable and dangerous struggle.

Misty Moisty* on Holy Island

There has been dense fog over much of Britain for the last week or so – not cold, just moist and very misty. You can sense the sun is trying to break through.And there have been days when the sun has actually broken through … even if it is only for a little time. So when the weather forecasters said the sun might break through on the Northumberland coast, and we saw that the tides were convenient (so to speak), we decided yesterday was the day for a walk round Holy Island.

Crossing the causeway was forbidding: the fog was deepening.The car park – not surprisingly for a grey foggy day at the beginning of November was almost empty. (Contrast this with our summer visit several months ago.)It wasn’t cold – just very damp, very grey, and not a little bit disappointing. But we’d set the day aside for this walk, so better make the most of it. And how very rewarding it turned out to be.With so much mist – such limited vision – you see things differently. Dark, decaying plants stood out strongly. Colours – even the smallest patch of gold lichen on the wall – leapt out at us.Plants that had been silver earlier in the year were now turning gold.There were clearly cattle around – much evidence of them: the ground churned up, cow pats. But we never saw them. I was imagining how they would look looming through the mist.Would the mist lift when we got to the beach. No, far from it – the fog was denser there than ever!What I can’t convey with these pictures is how haunting the sounds were as we walked round the island. And nowhere more so than on the beach. We found – and heard – a couple of curlews amid a plenty of gulls – and our favourite little sanderlings (for whom we have set out searching before).

This was the view – or lack of it – from the hide. It’s usually busy here with people settled in to watch the water birds. But yesterday? Nobody else – just the water birds busy and noisy. What colours and splendour of bullrushes! We met nobody else on the walk – until we had passed this hide. The sense of walking in the pervasive grey and damp with just bird calls floating out and about was extraordinary.

As we drew near to the castle, we passed the cairns shrouded in mist. Visitors construct these out of local stones – in memory of loved ones or perhaps for fun? I don’t know. Today they were beautiful and mysterious.Somebody had left a message …And then we approached the castle … or did we …where was it? Never before have I seen (or not seen) Lindisfarne Castle like this!Curiously, it is even more magnificent glimpsed in fog.

We couldn’t leave – on a day like this – without paying our respects at the Priory. Most disappointingly, it was shut, so we couldn’t get inside. Still plenty to see outside.Walking round the graves in the churchyard, you can’t help feel how appropriate the old festivals of All Saints and All Souls are for this time of year. Remembrance Day also falls in November, for the very good reason that Armistice Day, when the guns of the First World War fell silent, is on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Here amid the grey mists and grey graves, it comes naturally to remember. These lost souls almost stood around us.Such an enjoyable walk – how very surprising! When we got to the pub for lunch, the few other tourists there were complaining about the weather: Such a horrible day! We knew better.* Misty moisty are technical weather terms of Stephen’s.

The Book of Psalms

Over the last couple of years, I have been re-reading the Psalms. I was brought up in a Church of England family, and went to Church of England and Roman Catholic schools, so I am familiar with the psalms from church liturgies. However, I don’t think I have ever read the psalms straight through before. And although I’ve been a Christian for much of my life, I wouldn’t call myself one now – theist, yes, but not a Christian.

I don’t know why I decided to re-read them again, but there is sufficient distance from the Christian that I once was for me to be able to read them afresh.My reading copy of the Psalms is this nice little cloth-bound and gold-tooled copy which I bought for £1 in a second-book shop in Hay-on-Wye on one of our summer holidays in the 1990s – so it has been with me for some time!

It has the benefits of both including a Latin translation and red rubrics. Don’t know what red rubrics are?! My mother was obsessed with them! – no prayer book or Bible came up to scratch unless it had red rubrics. They are the red letters denoting the titles and numbers at the beginning of each psalm – and actually my mother’s phrase “red rubrics” is a tautology because the word rubric is also a reference to the redness of the script.

They do look nice – perhaps my mother was right to place so much importance on them.

As for the Latin – well, in my youth I was a student of Latin, and I still find it a helpful gloss on places where the English text is curious.This is a very old English translation, and it is salutary to remember what it cost some brave and very principled men to give us a translation in the vernacular. Miles Coverdale (1488-1569) is credited with this version but his translation was based on those by William Tyndale, Martin Luther and others. Some of these men died for the principle of providing a Bible that everyone could understand; others experienced long periods in exile and many trials and tribulations. It is almost beyond our modern comprehension that some five hundred years ago, you couldn’t hear the texts of your own religion in your own language (nor read them either, but then most people couldn’t read anyhow).There are all sorts of treasures to be found in the Psalms.

Firstly, there is great honesty with the human condition. The psalmist knows how shitty life can be and truly excels in recapturing how absolutely miserable one can feel: “I am feeble and sore smitten: I have roared for the very disquietness of my heart.” (Psalm 38)

The psalmist is also good on how nasty one can feel when things are going well for everybody else, and just rotten for you. How spiteful is this: “… it shall come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones…Let it thus happen from the Lord unto mine enemies…” (Psalm 109)

But the psalmist is also good on comfort: “Thou tellest my flittings; put my tears into thy bottle: are not these things noted in thy book?” (Psalm 56) What an exquisite image of our tears being so valued that they are bottled!

Evocative language just flows from Coverdale’s pen, and one of my favourite psalms (and I think the most beautiful) is Psalm 121. A psalm of great comfort, it is commonly read at funeral services because of the last verse: “The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in: from this time forth for evermore.”It is the first line of this psalm that intrigues me most (of perhaps all the lines in the psalms). I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills: from whence cometh my help. Some years ago we found it engraved on the window of a small church of Capel-y-ffin in Wales. The trees were a bit overgrown, but you could just see the hills behind that the little window looked out on. What a beautiful use of the psalm! So comforting, so reassuring – but why? What is there in the hills that is so full of help?

Levavi oculos meos in montes, unde veniet auxilium mihi. No clues from the Latin. A phrase to ponder over.There are great stories in the psalms too, and nowhere more poignantly than with Psalm 137:

“By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept: when we remembered thee, O Sion. As for our harps, we hanged them up: upon the trees that are therein. For they that led us away captive required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness: Sing us one of the songs of Sion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song: in a strange land?”

Perhaps, like me, you have Boney M’s version in your ears now?!

It’s the story of the Jews in exile, of course, who cannot muster their spirits to sing as their Babylonian captors demand – a despair shared with other captives, at other times, in other places. In the Iliad, Homer wrote poignantly of Andromache lamenting to her husband, Hector, about the treatment she could expect as a captive when he was dead. In recent times, we have heard the heartbreaking stories of Yazidi women taken into slavery and Nigerian girls stolen from their land. This Jewish lament in the psalms is the song of all these captives. The beauty of the lament moves us just as much the anguish expressed.

Small phrases crafted by the psalmist and his translator (they were all men) are just wonderful. You don’t have to be spinner to enjoy “He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool: even as the drops that water the earth.” (Psalm 72). or know confusion to recognise “For I am become like a bottle in the smoke: yet do I not forget thy statutes.” (Psalm 119)

What I am left with above all else after my re-reading of the psalms is that these are the musings and poetry and songs of a people looking for answers to the human condition – just as we all are. Who could not sympathise with the exasperation with which this psalm addresses God: My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing the fire kindled; and at the last I spake with my tongue: Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days …” (Psalm 39)

There is great and deep comfort – similar to that a mother might offer when she croons over her crying child and reassures the baby that it’s alright. She doesn’t, of course, know that things will always be alright for her child, but in that moment – yes, things are alright, and she is being completely honest. Psalm 121 again: The Lord himself is thy keeper: the Lord is thy defence upon thy right hand; so that the sun shall not burn thee by day: neither the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil…”

Now – there’s something else in this little book – something that I missed until now, and I can’t think why I didn’t see it before!There is a purple stamp on the front page. Researches on the internet reveal that it is the permission stamp for the prisoner-of-war camp at Bad Colberg in Saxony where captive British officers were housed during the First World War.Look at the front page. I reckon that there are four hands here. Somebody has printed J.H.Goodall at the top of the page in pencil. There is a £1 marker below that. Then somebody has written JHHGoodall in ink – this looks like a signature of ownership. Below that is my name, and my notes on where I acquired the book. We can account for the £1 price marker too as it is linked with my acquisition of the book.

But the printed pencil name and inked name are the same and it has always puzzled me why there is this duplication.

Further searches on the internet, using the London Gazette website and the ICRC records of POW camps, reveal that a Captain J.H.H.Goodall was seconded from the Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment to the Royal Flying Corps in March 1917. But in June 1917 he was listed as missing, and then just a month later he was reported as being a prisoner in German hands.(Bad Colberg sanatorium/POW camp, courtesy of the Great War Forum)

It is likely that the ICRC supplied small religious books as well as letters and parcels to POWs. This would explain the pencilled name at the top of the page, and the personal signature below.

I just hope this little psalter was a comfort to him.

Extraordinarily, I even found a photo of Captain J.H.H.Goodall – aah, the miracles of the internet! (He is standing at the very back – he was nearly 6 foot tall – , and his brother, Marcus, who died in the fighting on the Somme, is in the row just in front of him. This photograph, taken on April 13th 1915 on the steps of York Baths, courtesy of the Yorkshire Film Archive.) Finally – and almost by chance – I happened upon the full story of Captain John Humphrey Herbert Goodall and his courageous war service on the Hazlewood School Great War Roll of Service webpage.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne

I will let you into a secret. It was for this view that we moved the 400 miles from Devon to live in Northumberland.You are looking out of the window, over the fields, over the Eastcoast railway line, over the sea, towards Holy Island. That bump that you see towards the right of the picture is the Elizabethan castle standing proud on Beblowe crag. In differing lights the island looms grey or shimmers as a mirage. Sometimes it is wrapped in mist. It is always fascinating.

It is as though one is glimpsing Avalon, the Isles of the Blest, a place associated with deep yearning and longing – and peace.

Although I have always felt drawn to this distant vision, I haven’t always enjoyed going to Holy Island.

Our first visit was in August 2004. Like the rest of the day-trippers, we’d checked the tide tables and driven over the causeway in a busy queue of holiday makers. We were directed into a huge busy carpark, and followed the stream of people walking into the village where it’s all busy and bustling, and you can join the rest of the crowds in the tiny Lutyens castle, the mediaeval priory or the usual mish-mash of touristy shops.

Nothing special there. Just busy, bustling and bustling. How to reconcile this with the spiritual intensity of St Aidan and St Cuthbert, to draw near to the harshness of life that those amazing monks experienced who produced the Lindisfarne Gospels, to understand the holiness of the place?

Well – we have learned the way. Now I can feel the island calling to me when we have not visited for a while. It has worked its magic on me, and I am a disciple.

So – let me tell you about our visit earlier this week.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is not really an island. It would be much more accurate to call it a peninsula. Peninsula – from paene meaning nearly in Latin and insula meaning island. It is just that: nearly an island.

You have to cross a causeway to get to Holy Island, and the causeway is flooded by the tide twice a day. So for approximately eleven hours of each day it’s inaccessible by road.Before the causeway was built in the sixties, you had to approach by boat, or else walk with your donkeys over the sands as these two good ladies did.Were you to cross when the tide was high, you would be unable to drive right over the causeway. You would have to take refuge in this rickety little wooden hut and wait for the tide to go down.You are still directed into the huge busy carpark. Even though it’s a long way off the school summer holidays, the carpark is crowded and busy. Holy Island is an immensely popular visitor attraction. But it is from here that we diverge from the masses. While most people walk into the village (or catch the local hopper bus), we back-tracked and walked along the road to a footpath that takes you over to the dunes. The expedition has begun!! You can immediately see how different this area is. The wild flowers are fantastic. There are poppies and daisies….and cowslips and orchids and buttercups and vetch…..There is also piri-piri. At this time of year it is young and green and harmless. There are warnings about piri-piri, and rightly so as it is most tiresome and we definitely do not want it to spread.One year, later in the summer, I unwisely trampled in the piri-piri and this was the result. This plant has the best survival tactics of any I have ever known – it attaches itself with little wiry hooks which are the very devil to remove. and then it travels with you until it finds a nice new uncolonised spot to invade. After you leave the meadows, you climb up into the dunes, and there is the sea! The vegetation is different here – more sparse and lower growing. Everywhere the birds are calling. I cannot capture the many larks we see as they fly up and up and up with their glorious singing. But believe me, they are there, and their song is beautiful.We sat on the edge of the dunes and looked down on this wonderful white empty beach. Not a lot of birdlife here today, and no people at all. Strange – there are usually oyster catchers, curlews and redshanks, and at least the odd beach-comber competing for finds.There are, however, quite a few kittiwakes chicks in nests on the cliffs. We can see one nest quite clearly. There is a very demanding chick there! You can see its open greedy beak, and boy, could we hear it! When parents arrive with food, the chicks go wild and make an unholy din.After watching the birds, we turn inland again and head for the castle. It is fascinating how many different sorts of terrain there are on one small island. We call this part the Moon Landscape. It is actually what was once Nessend Quarry. This is where, in the 1860s, they quarried for limestone. The extracted limestone was fed into the limekilns (at the foot of Lindisfarne Castle) where it was roasted into quicklime (commonly used as an agricultural spread for neutralising acid soils). You clamber out through sandy dunes and are back in meadowland again. We are once more in the land of verdant greenness.There are traces of old dykes and ditches. The monks farmed here so these may be very old indeed.We turn onto the old tramway that once carried the limestone to the Castle lime kilns. This is very comfortable walking after the rough terrain of the quarries and dunes. They’ve clearly been shearing the sheep – bits of their fleece are scattered all over like snow. But it’s a coarse fleece – I shan’t be taking any home to spin. Now we’re beginning to draw closer to the castle, and we can see the sheep whose fleece I’ve been inspecting.I love Lindisfarne castle. The washed colours remind me of an Uccello painting.It is not an old castle as British castles go – nor did it see important action. A castle was first built on the protruding rock of Beblowe Crag in the 1570s as part of the English defences on its unruly Scottish borders. But in 1603 the crowns of England and Scotland were united under James (1st of England, 6th of Scotland), so after that the castle was rather unnecessary (although a small military garrison was maintained there for another three centuries).

It was reborn into modern life in the early 20th century when Edward Hudson (the owner and founder of Country Life magazine) acquired the building. He appointed the distinguished architect, Edwin Lutyens, to convert the castle into a home. Lutyens made a magnificent job of it. It is enchanting inside – simple magnificence combined with a strong eye for detail.

On the shoreline below the castle people make cairns with the local stones. We may not all visit Holy Island as Christians, but without doubt many people find in the place a deep spirituality. I think this couple were building a cairn to commemorate the scattering of cremated ashes. I can well understand why you would wish to leave the ashes of those precious to you in the care of these little islands on the Northumbrian coast.

You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid (T S Eliot: Little Gidding)

On the distant horizon is the Inner Farne Island, whither Cuthbert retreated when he could no longer cope with the busyness of Lindisfarne. Now we are rounding the shoreline and the old tram road path leads up to the Castle (those arches on the left are the Lime Kilns). The castle sits like a galleon sailing in these magnificent Northumbrian skies.We are nearing civilisation …But first, glance up at the golden lichen on the castle approaches. Lichen thrives where the atmosphere is pure. And look down, at the banks of valerian on the lower castle reaches.We are back now with our fellow tourists. The ruins of the Priory are in our sights.A sunny lunch in the local pub. It’s quite an ordinary little pub, but how many other pubs sit so casually next to such magnificent ruins? It was St Aidan who brought Christianity to these islands at the request of King Oswald of neighbouring Bamburgh Castle. The sainted Aidan was much loved and is still revered as a great saint, as is his successor, Cuthbert. But in many ways it has to be said that Cuthbert has overtaken Aidan in the popularity stakes. This is Cuthbert’s country. He was – and still is – hugely special to Northumbrians. They remember him locally as Cuddy. If you look carefully you’ll see the Cuddy duck (actually an Eider) nestling at the foot of this rather curious statue of Cuthbert. Crinoid fossils found on the beaches are Cuddy beads, and were once used to make rosaries. Today there’s a ginger cat asleep nearby, oblivious to everything but the sunny warmth. Aidan and Cuthbert never knew this stone built Priory. Aidan came here in 635, and Cuthbert is thought to have arrived here some 30 years later. They lived and worshipped in wooden buildings which have completely disappeared, but are thought to have been on the same site. Given the simplicity of the monks’ lives here on Lindisfarne it is truly extraordinary that one of the finest books extant, the Lindisfarne gospels, was copied and illustrated here. The Lindisfarne Gospels are thought to be the work of Bishop Eadfrith, Cuthbert’s successor on the island. They are now one of the greatest treasures of the British Library. First page of St Matthew’s gospel. Image made available to the public domain by Wikipedia.The monks left Lindisfarne in disarray when Viking raiders began a series of attacks on the monastery at the end of the 8th century. But they took the body of their beloved St Cuthbert with them, and a fine wooden carving in the church commemorates their devotion.

In the 12th century monks returned to build the Priory that we see today. It is a beautiful building, and despite the exposure to the elements still looks amazing. You can still make out the details of the chevrons on the columns. Even in the Priory, it is the Castle perched on Beblowe Crag that dominates. It intrigues me that when I speak of gazing longingly at Holy Island, it is a conflation of the image of the Castle and the ethos that the monks created that sits in my mind. The Castle is the stronger visual symbol of the place, but without the history of Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith, and all their fellow unknown monks, it could just be another castle. Of course, Mother Nature has a strong part to play in making this place remarkable too!Time to face the world again. There’s the whole Lindisfarne/Holy Island retail experience. And then we join the pedestrians walking back to the car park. I hope they will return to the mainland as refreshed by their visit to Holy Island as I have been.