Postcard from the Yorkshire Dales (3)

Saturday, 11th February 2006

It is snowing. Not only that, it is settling. Big, white, fluffy pieces of snow fluttering down as though God were silently shaking an icing sieve over the landscape.

Snow was not forecast; at least not in the version I read. Not that it matters. Adaptability is what counts here. A walk had been planned. However, that is no longer a sensible option; at least not at present. The Yorkshire Fell Rescue Services can do without me setting up an impromptu exercise for them.

It is on days like this that the cosiness of a cottage comes very much into its own. Suddenly, we are given the best possible excuse for laziness. The Daily Telegraph and all its various sections will be digested in a leisurely fashion and, following that, I will continue working. Working, that is, in the sense of reading a copy of Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories, about which I have been asked to write a review. Indeed, it is a hard life.

* * *
Two hours later, the promise of an indolent day had receded to being nothing more than a wistful notion as the snow stopped falling and the sky lightened. A walk it had to be and thus we found ourselves in the Strid car park at Bolton Abbey.

The Bolton Abbey Estate, the Yorkshire seat of the Duke & Duchess of Devonshire, has a beauty of its own at any time of year. However, my favourite time is the period between autumn and spring, when the valley is almost deserted. The summer sees hoards of families descend on the estate in order to enjoy picnicking on the banks of the river Wharf, whilst their children play in the clear waters. However, at this time of year the footpaths are more or less our own and we can enjoy the peace and tranquillity.

The descent through the woodland towards the Strid was accompanied by the regular high-pitched ‘see-too’ call of coal tits as they flitted through the tops of the trees. Here and there, the monotony of leafless branches was broken by a profusion of catkins, as the common hazel trees come into flower during February. Occasionally, small streams broke the slopes of the wooded hills, the water tumbling down from the fells toward the river below. From one or two early vantage points, the ruins of Barden Tower, a 15th century hunting lodge, could be seen nestling between the trees higher up the valley.

In the region of the Strid, a series of water-filled potholes within the limestone rock, the Wharf is an alluring mix of rushing water between stretches of calm, almost unbroken pools. Anglers fishing for trout are a common sight here during the summer.

It was William Carr, Rector of the parish in 1810, who persuaded the 6th Duke of Devonshire to open Strid Wood to the public. We owe much to the Rector’s endeavours, for it is a beautiful area. Whilst we stood looking down upon the scene, the clouds broke, exposing a patch of blue sky above us. Through this the sun, as though a spotlight straight from Heaven, illuminated the immediate area of trees, rock and water with a gentle lemon yellow light. Such a scene renders the valley’s attraction to the likes of the artists Landseer and Turner, and the poet, Wordsworth, very understandable.

Our walk continued from the Strid to an area known as Sandholme, a large open, grassy space next to the river, a popular area at any time of year. From here we crossed the river via a footbridge and walked back along the opposite bank of the Wharf and ultimately through pastureland to the Victorian aqueduct; a splendid castellated bridge which serves to hide the pipe carrying water from the reservoirs at the top of Nidderdale to the cities of West Yorkshire. Crossing the aqueduct, we regained the western bank and returned, though a wooded conservation area, to Strid Wood and thence home to tea and toast.

Word of the Week – Columbarium

‘I am a bear of very little brains and long words bother me.’

Such is the delightful line written by A. A. Milne for his character, Winnie the Pooh.

The subject of long words has been extensively researched. As a result, it is well known that the average reading ability of the population of the United Kingdom equates to the standard of writing in the Sun newspaper. An appalling truth, if there ever was one.

Intent, as I am, on rescuing as many ignoramuses as I possibly can from the mire of lexical ignorance, I have once again dipped into my well-worn copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Such action, like charity, is twice blessed. It (hopefully) serves the purpose of educating my reader, whilst ensuring that I am able to preserve my own place amongst the literati. (O.K., that all sounds very pompous and arrogant, which is not what was meant. However, it did enable me to use some rather good words!)

On this occasion, I have a double helping, my first offering leading to another discovery.

The first word of this week is columbarium.

According to the trusty C.O.D., a columbarium is ‘a building with tiers of niches for reception of cinerary urns’. The pleural form is columbaria. The word is actually Latin for ‘pigeon-house’. However, the word is, apparently, still in modern usage.

Having made this discovery, I then had to confirm my understanding of the word ‘cinerary’. It does indeed mean ‘of ashes’, as in a cinerary urn, i.e. the urn holding the ashes of the dead after cremation. Thereby, I discovered the second word for this week. It is cinerarium.

A cinerarium is a recess in which a cinerary urn is deposited.

What I am unable to clarify is whether each niche of a columbarium is a cinerarium!

With such a conundrum hanging over me, I am beginning to develop more than a degree of sympathy for Winnie the Pooh…and perhaps my self-appointed membership of the literati is not quite as secure as I would have wished for!

Internet Resources for Writers

I have occasionally been asked about internet resources for writers. So here are some of my favourites:

Writing Magazine & Writers’ News
http://www.writersnews.co.uk/main/asp

Freelance Market News
http://www.writersbureau.com/

Poetry Society
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/

First Writer.com
http://www.firstwriter.com/

Writebuzz.com
http://www.writebuzz.com/

BBC Writers’ Room
http://www.bbc.co.uk./writersroom

Askaboutwriting.net
http://www.askaboutwriting.net/

Prizemagic.co.uk
http://www.prizemagic.co.uk/

Freelance Writer UK
http://www.nickdaws.co.uk/

Thought for the Day

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Dawn Chorus

The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn.

Thomas Babington Macaulay
Essays contributed to the Edinburgh Review (1843) Vol 2.


Macaulay was not speaking of the dawn chorus when he wrote those words. However, if they are to be applied to all living things, then, around here the blackbirds take first prize.

I am uncertain as to when they started. Nonetheless, for the past week I have been aware of a growing clamour around the hour of 6 a.m. I am sure it is only the blackbirds at present, although the robins may well be contributing. As I have sat here in my garret in Lincolnshire, their singing has pierced through the cold darkness of the early February mornings, bringing with it the promise of light, new growth and fresh opportunities.

The dawn chorus, being the signal that winter is retreating, is usually associated with spring. Male songbirds sing to identify their territories and to attract potential females. The singing reaches its greatest intensity around 4 a.m. in May, stopping as soon as it is light enough to look for food. There is actually an annual celebration of the world’s oldest wake-up call, with the International Dawn Chorus Day this year being on May 7th.

So, with the song of the local blackbirds being heard this week, the first in February, has come a question. Have they started earlier than usual this year? I am uncertain as to the answer. All I can say is that the beautiful sound brings with it an uplifting of my spirit and I am delighted to welcome its presence.

Now, has anyone heard a cuckoo?

Pushing His Luck

A young man attended the evening surgery complaining that his penile warts had recurred. He was duly advised to attend the local Genito-Urinary (V.D.) Clinic. His response was to complain bitterly that he was unable to travel to the local hospital. However, after a fairly protracted discussion I managed to persuade him that the clinic was the most appropriate place for his warts to be treated and that he was perfectly capable of using the public transport to travel the distance of fifteen miles. He finally agreed, albeit with great reluctance.

Imagine my surprise when, as he rose to leave my room, he proceeded to proudly inform me how he had just returned from successfully completing a fifty mile charity walk in China!

(First published in GP Magazine, March 2005.)

Reflections after the Memorial Service

For me, a memorial service is a bitter sweet occasion.

On the one hand, it is infused with sadness for the loss of someone who was loved, held as a dear friend, admired or simply respected. On the other hand, it concentrates the mind on the enormous reality, the sheer privilege, of being alive. It is as though the person departed is sending one final message to all who have gathered in his or her memory: ‘I am no longer with you in body, but the spirit of my life must live on within you. You must now pick up my mantle and continue the work I can no longer do myself.’

It may be that one is unable to continue the precise work which was once the remit of the deceased. However, that does not stop one being energised by the spirit of that person’s worldly actions; to take on their enthusiasm and energy, their humanitarian ideals, their love for life and their respect for those around one.

So, memorial services are, in my opinion, correctly termed “a celebration of life”. They should be times of thanksgiving for the value a person has brought to this World – a celebration of their life. But that is not where the matter should rest. Each and every one of us who attends a memorial service should leave with the idea of reviving those humanitarian traits within ourselves which may have started to fade. Each one of us should renew our resolutions to achieve the aims we have set, or, indeed, set newer and higher ones which may stretch us just that little bit further. In other words, memorial services should also serve as a private celebration of our own lives, that is, the fact that we are alive and have the advantages, the benefits and the opportunities that such fortune brings to us.

We owe such actions to the memory of the one who has departed this life and we owe it to those who, perhaps, one day will attend at our own memorial service. That we, through our own endeavours, may serve to act as the spark of revitalisation which may one day enthuse others to lead their own lives in the spirit of our own life and work.

And if all that is insufficient to make you reflect on the great privilege of being alive, then perhaps the following quotation will. I am uncertain as to its origins and therefore cannot properly attribute it. However, the words themselves have, for many years, been an inspiration to me:

‘I do not wish to find, when I come to die, that I have not lived.’

It is as important to those who continue after us. We owe it to them to take action to ensure that they will not find, when we come to die, that we have not lived. We must take great care not to squander this great gift of life that is in our possession.

The time for doing that living is now…today…this very minute.

As for those to whom we have paid our last respects:

Requiescat in pace

In Memoriam

Ian George Ridgway

1st May 1946 - 8th January 2006

http://member.sja.org.uk/news/default.asp?id=987

Thought for the Day

Four things come not back:
the spoken word,
the spent arrow,
time passed,
the neglected opportunity.

Omar Ibu Al Halif, 7th Century Muslim

Word of the Week - Obmutescence

For as long as I can remember, I have had a fascination for words, especially long ones and those not frequently heard in everyday language.

It probably started at Primary School, where there was a weekly spelling test of twelve (we were pre-decimalisation then) very long words, or so they seemed to a nine year old. However, rising to the challenge, I set my sights on achieving a score of 12/12 each week. So successful was I, that after some weeks of perfect marks, the teacher decided that my development would be better served if she gave me the task of finding twelve suitable words for the weekly test. I was even given my own dictionary in order to complete this task. What joy!

However, the realisation, on the part of the teacher, that it didn’t take me long to open the dictionary at random and select the longest word on the page (a process repeated twelve time in as many minutes), meant that I was soon put in charge of marking the test for the rest of the class.

Neither did it stop there. If one of my classmates dared to ask the meaning of one of the words, the teacher would call my name and I would have to stand up and tell the class the definition. Such opportunities to display my talents were greeted by me with all the self-effacing reticence of the fairground showman; something which, with hindsight, did not endear me to my peers. I now also wonder whether the teacher was simply trying to catch me out, as opposed to diligently progressing my literary ability.

However, such things are character building, and my love of words was born. Therefore, in order to share such delights with you, I have decided to introduce the concept of the ‘Word of the Week’. This week it has entailed me opening The Concise Oxford Dictionary at random and selecting the first word I have never heard of.

This week’s word is obmutescence.

Obmutescence, (being derived from the Latin mutescere, which in turn derives from mutus, meaning dumb), is a noun meaning ‘obstinate silence’. It may be used as an adjective, as in: ‘he was so obmutescent’.

There, I am sure you are the better for knowing that. The delight for me is that even the spell-checker on the computer had not heard of it before. I have since educated it. My old teacher would be proud…I think.

The Aspirant Polymath

I have long been intrigued by the concept of the polymath. Umberto Eco was initially to blame for this interest, which at times has bordered on being an obsession.

It all started with the film of his book, The Name of the Rose; a chance finding on the television late one night, many years ago, as I sat in the company of a gin and tonic. The film was so good it led me to read the book itself. From there I progressed to another of Eco’s books, Foucault’s Pendulum; a tome guaranteed to send the sanest of minds into paroxysms of cerebral contortions as the reader attempts to keep pace with Eco’s brilliant weavings of mysterious plot and arcane symbolism.

On the dust jacket of Foucault’s Pendulum was a short biography, whereby Umberto Eco was described as a polymath and a professor of semiotics. At that stage, I reached for the dictionary.

A polymath can most simply be defined as someone who is ‘greatly learned’. Traditionally, it more particularly describes a person who is very knowledgeable in multiple fields, across the arts and sciences.

The term ‘polymath’ should not be confused with the word ‘genius’. A genius is someone who has an extraordinary creative or intellectual capacity, usually excelling within one particular field. In this respect, Goethe and Leonardo da Vinci may be considered as being polymaths. However, Albert Einstein, albeit a genius, was not a polymath; likewise with Mozart.

During the Renaissance period, gentlemen were expected to become polymaths by having a broad education encompassing the learning of languages, writing poetry, playing a musical instrument, etc. It is thus that the term Renaissance man and polymath have become synonymous.

So, when does one know that they have succeeded in the aim of becoming a polymath? I am not sure that it is a term that can be self-applied. Rather, it is probably best kept as a form of accolade bestowed by others. Apart from the inference of arrogance, which surrounds the idea of the self-bestowed title, anyone who is an aspirant polymath is likely to subscribe to the concept: ‘the more I live, the more I learn; the more I learn, the more I realise the less I know’. True sentiments, reflected in the words of Socrates, who said ‘all I know is that I know nothing’.

Then there is the wit that remarked, ‘if you know the definition of a polymath and think you may be one, then you are not’.

Therefore, an aspirant polymath I will have to remain…unless you know better!

Now, returning to Umberto Eco, just what is a ‘professor of semiotics’?