Author Archives: Tim Lenton

Long ago and far away

You wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Duke of Suffolk. Not the current Duke of Suffolk (there isn’t one), but the first one, William de la Pole.

An unpleasant character, he made a bit of a mess of the campaigns in France (we’re talking Hundred Years War here, not the Normandy landings), but despite being outwitted by Joan of Arc he managed to get himself in prime position back in England under the inept Henry VI, from where he made many people’s lives a misery through extortion, theft and a certain amount of killing.

He was a bully of the first order, and so were his friends. So no-one was terribly distraught when he was not only banished in 1450 but intercepted on the high seas and beheaded at Dover.  Obviously nowadays he would have got a community service order, but times have changed. I believe Bob Dylan said that.

Why do I bring these facts and prejudices to your attention? Not because I hate Suffolk generally, or Ipswich in particular. But because a lecture centering on the Duke and – more especially – his attacks on Sir John Fastolf, who had a castle at Caister (Norfolk), was able to attract some 70 or so people to the Norfolk Record Office on a wet and grey November Wednesday lunchtime.

Admittedly the lecture was free. And there was a splendid exhibition on at the NRO: The Pastons and the Pursuit of Power, also free, which I can recommend wholeheartedly, and definitely not because I’m a trustee of the Paston Heritage Society. Oh no.

It was one of a series of lunchtime lectures: the first three have all attracted similar numbers, and there is every reason to believe that the remaining five will do the same. But why on earth should we be bothered by events so long ago and far away? Or the Duke of Suffolk? Or Sir John Fastolf? Or his lawyer, John Paston?

It’s because, as human beings, we need depth. We can float along on our 21st century raft, unaware that there’s anything beneath us other than a drop or two of water, and no idea where we came from or where we’re going to. But it’s a very thin and unsatisfying life.

History is fascinating, if you have the time to look closely. It’s so rich that you can’t hope to take in more than the tiniest part of it. My brief encounter with the Paston Letters, starting only about five years ago, has opened a door which, if I went through it every day, would leave many acres unexplored if I lived till I was 100. No, it’s not all that far away, but still….

I am not trying to persuade you that depth is available only through history. Of course it’s not. But seeing a little bit more clearly where we came from must help us when we look to the future. Because we’re essentially the same people – then, now and tomorrow.

History repeats itself, you see. As the poet Steve Turner pointed out, it has to. Nobody listens.

Or do they?

Why we’re not good at education

You probably know this: “England is the only developed country producing school leavers who are worse at maths and reading than their grandparents, according to a damning report.”

Or, to put it another way, England is the only developed country where grandparents are even better at maths and reading than school leavers, according to an encouraging report.

Which just goes to show that in education, statistics are not much more use than they are anywhere else. This is because they are made of rubber and can be twisted into any shape you like.

So is there anything wrong with education in the UK? We would all like everyone to be educated perfectly, bringing out each individual’s best and setting him or her on the road to fulfilment and, if possible, a reasonable salary.

Perfection, however, is not something human beings are very good at. All sorts of human traits militate against the education we provide being ideal.

First, there is the desire to get re-elected: this results in a compulsion to measure something that is innately beyond measurement in any vote-gathering sense. The only way to do it is to pretend that is everyone is the same, which is manifestly untrue.

Then there is the desire to insist that academic achievement is better than any other kind. Again, ludicrous, just like the assumption that fast-talking extroverts are the right kind of people to put in charge of everything.

Next, the desire for an easy life. This results in our schools continuing to employ teachers who are in it for the holidays, or who couldn’t think of anything better to do with their degree. Teaching is an art, and if we can’t get rid of bad teachers, pupils will continue to suffer.

A Big Issue seller is reported as complaining that striking teachers “messed up his pitch” by leaving huge amounts of litter after a rally. Whether you think teachers should strike or not, the litter is an appalling condemnation of them. If teachers care so little for quality of life that they leave litter, what hope is there for children?

Among all these time-servers, however, are large numbers, thank goodness, of brilliant teachers who children never forget. And in charge of many schools, superb head teachers. I have been privileged to meet many of them.

Their efforts are sometimes blunted by another human trait: the desire to interfere. Amateur governors (OK, there are some good ones) and politicians who know practically nothing of education beyond their own childhood experience decide that they know better than the professionals and make their lives a misery – so much so that some leave the profession.

So much for perfection. But that is by no means all. There is much that militates against a good education from another source: the pupils themselves, and their parents. This may be summed up as the desire to do badly. Or to put it more kindly, the complete lack of a desire to do well – to learn, to discipline oneself, to be receptive.

A generation has arisen which thinks that everyone deserves the same, even if they make no attempt to earn it. The result? Lack of discipline in the classroom, lack of support from parents for the teachers, and no desire to put children in the way of learning anything.

This is a cultural problem. So few people in this country think that anything really matters. The belittling of religious certainty spills over into a lack of respect for tradition and accumulated knowledge. Those who do well in other countries have a solid centre to their lives. They believe that becoming educated is important both to them and to others.

I cannot believe that the cultural vacuum in the UK will persist indefinitely. Many of the young generation that I meet are keen to do well, and to discover what appears to be missing from the national Weltanschauung. This is encouraging, although I am sure it is not universal. Nothing, after all, is perfect. We are all human.

Meanwhile, no doubt those statistics will keep bouncing around, and I advise you to keep out of their way. They may be heavy, and you could get hurt.

South from Whitby

Outside Fylingthorpe
we start to climb
away from the sea

The bus shudders through tight corners
hunching its shoulders,
brushing the sideburn hedges,
dislodging leaves and branches,
creaking down through the gears
as if straining from ledge to ledge
by its fingertips

then hauling itself up
on to the moor
with the failing shreds of its energy

and we look back
toward the black skeleton of the abbey,
the bare bones of the day,
distant harbours

Ahead, bright evening September sun
blinds us in the smudges of the screen,
and the destination board rattles
as if uncertain

We head for the future anyway,
and the road continues to plunge and climb
unexpectedly
past woodland for sale,
yellow paths,
the heights of Ravenscar,
the depths of Boggle’s Hole

And then we slip into Scarborough,
where we alight in a cooling wind,
and you congratulate the driver
on getting us up the hill
out of the bay

Ah, he says,
I were a bit worried about the brakes,
once or twice

The magic of Mr Cohen

Through the generosity of a friend, I got my first glimpse of the O2 arena – from the inside – this month. Transformed dramatically from its original incarnation as an exhibition centre, it was transformed again for me by the presence of Leonard Cohen – poet, songwriter, singer, Canadian Jew, shepherd and lazy bastard living in a suit.

That last bit is his own self-mocking description. It is typical of his modesty and his wry sense of humour. Now in his late seventies, he would not be the first choice of a novice impresario intent on filling 20,000 seats. There is no glamour, no self-glorification, no ambient racket.

Instead there is a quiet but stunning magic with both words and music. Backed up by formidably talented musicians who he praises often on stage, Mr Cohen presents a range of inspired songs, from the widely known and much abused (by other singers) Hallelujah to sparkling gems admired by a much narrower circle.

It is typical of the man that two of his finest songs are given to his backing singers. Alexandra Leaving – a breathtaking piece of poetry – is sung by the multi-talented Sharon Robinson; and the fragile and beautiful prayer, If It Be Your Will, comes with all due delicacy from the Webb Sisters. It is a matter of personal preference which works best: I liked the latter, while my friends preferred the former; suffice to say that it takes a major performance from anyone to come anywhere near the master’s versions.

Mr Cohen’s magnetic presence shrinks the arena into an intimate setting, with the audience as friends who have dropped by, and who the singer is surprised and delighted to see. His injection of spiritual awareness into everything he writes gives a depth that is lacking in so many modern lyrics, and the musical arrangements come with matching profundity, but with lightness too.

The O2 is not perfect. The toilets, for instance, are woefully inadequate. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen such a long queue of quietly desperate men. The audience, too, is not perfect. Someone thought it was a good idea to bring a baby, and a thirsty middle-ager in sweat shirt and glasses mistook the event for a cricket match and marched regularly out and in with fresh glasses of beer, beaming round as he went.

He seemed to think he was the star. But there was no doubt who the star was, and it was great to be there, light years away from the ordinariness of what we so often mistake for reality, basking in the warmth of something truly out of this world.

Illegal parking at the hospital

Hard yellow lines form stitches beneath my car;
on the threadbare verge beyond the bonnet
drunken cones lurch forward, eager,
like a bleeding woman who wants to touch.

Red and white tape hangs like bandages
listlessly from iron spikes,
holding the crowds back.
There are no crowds.

Vehicles arrive now and again,
pause at the barrier,
which salutes, gets their attention.

Behind, the wounded buildings wait,
like patients, for some kind of operation –
a sting, perhaps, to net illegal parkers,
break bones or mess with minds.

Cameras swivel menacingly,
trying vainly to get to the heart
of the problem.

And I wait for someone to escape
down the dry earth between the trees
and say it’s all right, really,
parking here: we can go now.

Out of sight, someone dies.

Popping into the neighbours’

It’s always tempting to take a look into the neighbours’ house, especially when it’s a bit bigger than yours. So it was with some enthusiasm that I joined those popping into Houghton Hall in North-West Norfolk, to see how the Cholmondeleys furnished their rooms.

It was a bit of a special occasion, as the Cholmondeleys had borrowed a few pictures to spice the place up and called it Houghton Hall Revisited, even though I hadn’t been before. The pictures came from Russia and were returning temporarily to their original home, thus presumably making them homing pictures.

The current owner of Houghton Hall is a descendant of Britain’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who first collected the pictures. They were acquired in the 18th century by Catherine the Great when the Walpoles ran desperately short of money – a common problem at the time, when top people pulled out all of the stops in the eternal cause of impressing each other.

To be honest, I was less impressed by the pictures – excepting the odd Rembrandt and Poussin – than I was with the ceilings. This is not something I say very often. I am quite capable of spending a whole day in a house without noticing the ceilings at all. But these were exceptional ceilings, and if you go to Houghton Hall I recommend looking up.

The walls and furnishings are impressive too – almost as impressive as the price asked in the cafe for a piece of cake and  bottle of lemonade, though I guess transporting pictures from Russia to England must be a little pricey, especially as they almost certainly came first class, or even Special Delivery.

Houghton Hall is, truth to tell, a magnificent building in a superb setting. After touring the interior, we walked in the grounds. It was raining lightly, and the sculptures shone in the sunlight. A mole started to emerge from the ground, then changed its mind. Looking back, we saw a rainbow arching over the hall.

And then we found James Turrell’s Skyspace – a magical building with a square open to the sky and benches for meditation. Now that’s something I’d like in my garden. Of course, I’d have to demolish the house.

 

Scotland: you can’t miss it

Going to Scotland has always seemed to me like going home. Not because I am Scottish – my family, extensively researched, comes from a rather boring part of the East Midlands, which is about as disappointing as you can get.

My paternal grandfather, born near Peterborough, moved to Norwich by way of Mansfield,  where I believe he was living with or near his wife’s relatives. She came from Sheffield, which is at least a step in the right direction.

My mother’s ancestors came from Brighton by way of Cambridge, which is not very exciting either. So why do I feel an affinity for Scotland?

My parents were fond of the place. In fact my wife and I honeymooned in the same cottage in Strathyre that they had rented – or borrowed – for their honeymoon in the 1930s. I have always loved mountains, and during our honeymoon we climbed Ben Nevis and The Cobbler. Norfolk is a wonderful part of the world, but its lack of mountains, or even an apology for hills, is a sad deficiency.

The closeness to Scotland that I feel today, however, started around 1990, when I lived in Norwich (as I still do), and our next-door neighbour was Derek, a friendly fellow from Aberdeen. After a couple of years we had tuned into his accent, and we told him how much we loved his native land.

It turned out he had a sister who owned a cottage in Ballater that she might be persuaded to rent to us – because, like my wife, she too was a teacher. And so it came to pass. The “wee house” in Ballater, just down Deeside from Balmoral, became our home from home, and until last year, when it was sold, we stayed in it almost every year for 22 years.

Not that we were ignoring other parts of the world, but Ballater was something special, and it remains so: perfect size, ideally placed for a wide selection of mountains (I walked up all the local Munros – the Scottish name for 3000-footers), friendly and with a stunning river and some excellent restaurants.

But isn’t Scotland cold and full of midges? Well, it can be cold, but so can England. In summer you are as likely to happen on a warm and dry spell there as here, and when you get rain, it rarely lasts all day. Midges have been conspicuous by their absence, but Ballater is not on the west coast, and we tend not to camp by rivers. Or anywhere else.

This July, it was mainly hot. So hot that our walking was severely curtailed. But that didn’t matter. We were in the right place – a place we knew well – and there was plenty to do in stunning landscape and with a refreshing absence of crowds. There were familiar restaurants and cafes, and a couple of new ones. Familiar faces, too. We had supper at a pub restaurant by the River Dee with the original owner of the wee house: she and her husband are salmon fishermen and know everyone. There is a real sense of community.

For the first time, someone asked me if I was local. I wished I was.

So why don’t I just up sticks and move to Ballater? Roots, I suppose. I love Norwich too, and Ballater is such a long way away from here, and from family and friends. I can’t complain about that: if it wasn’t such a long way away, it would be inundated with visitors, which would not be good.

Unreasonably, we want to preserve Ballater just as we’ve always known it: we were deeply shocked this year when our favourite restaurant (in the world, probably) suddenly became an Indian. Don’t get me wrong: we like Indian, but this was an appalling loss.

Scotland as a whole, however, is a tremendous gain for anyone with a love of beauty who can get past those ugly wind farms in the Borders.  Every time we drive down the wonderful A93 into Braemar, then alongside the Dee past Balmoral and into Ballater we are at home – a feeling I believe has rubbed off on everyone we’ve taken there.

Forget exotic holidays abroad: Scotland is special. It’s impossible to stay away for long.

Heat

During the tenth day
under a single-minded sun
the thickening air conjures
shapes out of nothing:
dazed rabbits, uncertain insects
and something unclear,
beyond the trees

The mountain shifts uneasily
afraid of faith that comes by heat, not light,
on this quiet Sunday
where stillness broods
on the face of the earth

Those who would climb
turn back, unseasonably scarred,
finding nowhere to hide
in the scorched and holy rocks

Those who can fly do so,
while those who remain touch nothing,
create no miracles:
time itself fades,
and colour drains from the tree
clinging to a fragile cliff

Bring on the underdogs

Tennis fanatics – among whom commentators loom large – hate to see the big names lose. If Nadal (or Federer or Djokovic) loses in the first round at Wimbledon, this is seen as a major tragedy. How can it be a proper tournament without the champions?

I, on the other hand, love to see it, even if I know Nadal is a nice bloke, and even though I can see he is limping. Why do I feel this way? Because for me the true excitement in sport is to see the underdog win.

I take no joy in the same man winning year after year, even if he is the best, and even if he is a very pleasant fellow who does good deeds and rescues damsels from dragons in his spare time. The same goes for women, in case you were wondering.

If someone rated 200 places below the champion succeeds in knocking him out, this for me is cause for rejoicing. I am in awe, because somehow it seems the natural order has been overturned and the impossible has happened. Someone has exceeded what seemed to be their abilities.

Perhaps this is because deep down I know I have not done justice to my own abilities. I could have done much better. If I had applied myself, not been quite so lazy, I could have been very, very good… what at? I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure it’s not tennis.

And in case you think I harbour delusions of grandeur, I believe this is true of almost everyone. Brendan Foster, the former British middle distance star athlete, once said he was not the best middle distance runner in England: he was not even the best middle distance runner in Gateshead. But all those other potential stars had never given themselves the chance.

All those tennis players stuck in the lower hundreds (in the world!) have amazing skill. So do many club players. What they do not have is crazy application – the willingness to push and push and push until their skill does not just flare up now and again but remains at a scorching high level – all the time. That is what makes a champion. A work ethic. Willingness to accept punishment. But perhaps it also makes them slightly less than human.

They deserve to win, don’t they? Yes, but there is a problem for us, and it is boredom. When it begins to look as if Vettel is going to win every Formula One race in the foreseeable future, the whole competition goes off the boil. When the same man keeps winning Wimbledon, what’s the point?

We like to see the dark horse come through, late in the race, on the inside, unexpectedly. Was there ever a more exciting Olympic 800 metres than that won in 1964 by Anne Packer, a woman who had not even run an international 800 metres before, but stepped up from 400 metres at the last minute? Or the amazing finish of the outsider Dave Wottle in 1972?

That is the kind of thing that takes your breath away, not the same old winners, winning again.

It is not fair on the champions, of course, but champions have their reward: they are champions, they receive adulation and, in most sports, a great deal of money. As well as satisfaction.

As for me and my house, bring on the underdog. For we are underdogs ourselves. And we know the feeling. Or we’d like to.

No boundaries

Beyond history,
when the desert swam
in the homeland of martyrdom

west beyond the devil’s cave
there were no boundaries

and when the sand came
and the words were written

I could see nothing:
an indescribable shape
and unrecognisable colours

because terror has no beginning
and no end
where love is lost in the storm

and time sent to heal
repeats itself and fails

I look desperately
for some horizon
creeping up through the mist

silently, like a saviour

 

 

I wrote this poem after visiting the exhibition No Horizon at the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK