They are a challenge, but I keep trying. Here are some new attempts:
Our Acer is in fresh, soft leaf; it yields a fine stencil.
Note how the ivory unleaded enamel turns green over fire scale and shrinks away from the leaded to produce a relief effect.
And how bare copper can oxidise to red.
Gained some interesting aches this morning — been out with conservation volunteers to Yatts Farm near Pickering. The sensation of doing a bit of good and spending time with people of like mind, lifts the spirits.
We cleared gorse (locally: whin) and hawthorn that is invading a delicate site that’s home to rare orchid and butterfly populations.
It’s a lovely limestone valley that needs to be kept free of scrub.
I disturbed the hibernation sleep of this peacock. I move her to a safe place and built her a new bed chamber of bracken.
Fifteen and I’m growing strong and Durham County is dotted with coal mines. The collieries on the coast dump rock spoil and slaggy coal mixtures by conveyor belts straight onto the inter-tidal zone. Tides wash back and forth, they suck the waste into deep water only for storms to fling it back onto the beach. All the while sorting and grading by size, shape and mass, sifting the shining coal from the rubble of Carboniferous rock.
A strong current runs offshore. The Longshore Drift pushes the sea-coal further south, slicks it onto the North Sands, or traps it feet thick amid the rock pools off the Hartlepool headland. This February night I’m on the shore close to the Palliser Works as the tide ebbs. I scan the run of the sea for telltale signs in the falling water. It’s a good tide tonight. There’s moonlight laying the shore pale and flat, and a biting north-east wind, likely from Siberia, straight off the North Sea. It gets through my knitted balaclava. I shine the bicycle lamp at the curling waves, and nod. The breakers are black and hiss with coal. Peter, my black and tan mongrel, is messing about in the soft sand at the foot of the dunes. He’s found a dead gull. He’s rolling on it now. His long coat will stink. My shout stops him and he slinks down the beach looking guilty. I lean against my bike and wait; rake, jute sacks, and shovel ready. Coughs and spits and points of light reveal three other gatherers who know the signs. They wheel their bikes into position. I have to hold my place. Only if the rough men come with their lorry will I move.
My fingers are numb, I put them in my mouth, four at a time, and suck on them. I recall the night I found big coal in the dark but had to scrape off an inch of snow to get at it. Tonight the coal will come in rounded by the action of sand and water. It might be as small as match heads and spread so thin on the sand that it’s useless to gather. But not tonight. After yesterday’s storm it could be the size of walnuts and lay six inches deep. I listen to the gravelly rattle of coal as the waves crash and slide up the beach. Tonight it will be the best. A wave recedes and I run forward with the rake, plunge it into the coal, and pull. Roundies! Beautiful round black coals the size of a good plum. I’ll sell it for half-a-crown a bag! This cast will be fifty yards long, and there’ll be others. More bike lamps and torches are coming down the beach. Get a move on.
I rake and heap the roundies into three piles, watch them drain, then shovel them into jute sacks. Three bulging sacks, tied at the neck is all I can manage. I’ve fifty yards of sand to negotiate before the hard surface of the Palliser Works track. I drag the bags over the sand, one by one, to the track and load up. Three hundredweight is enough for my old, but tough and heavy, CWS bike. Two bags beneath the crossbar and one on top. I’m sweating now — so much so that the nithering wind is welcome. I lay across the loaded bike, inhale the reek of wet jute, and push. She moves and gathers momentum. I’ve a mile to go. The trick is not to get into a wobble and spill the bags — they are strained and dripping — they could burst. This lot is worth seven shillings and sixpence. Peter trots ahead as we enter the tunnel under the railway embankment. He gives his usual deep bark, and barks again at the echoes.
I’ll get the coal home straight away and go back for more. Tomorrow, once Mam and Dad have their share, I’ll call at my regular customers. They love roundies, they burn so bright. But they are rare. In calm weather the sea-coal is small stuff the size of barley grain. I struggle to get a shilling a bag for that, if it sells at all. Mam will use it, though. She rams the fine stuff into an old cornflake box and lays it on the fire so that it bakes and the tars bind the fines into a solid brick that burns nice and slow. I’m making money. Soon I’ll have enough for a road racing bike.
Signs of Red Grouse on Sleights Moor. Thirteen flew off, cackling as they went – I stood and watched . . . so no picture.
They went that way.
New shooting butt; all ready for soft-handed fund managers from the great cities, clutching hip flasks and shotguns.
The burial mound has watched them come and go.
And the older standing stone.
I hope her suffering was brief.
I’m away now. Bye!
Another pipeline comes.The Sioux and other nations are in protest. Now’s a good time to read the thoughts of a neglected early American poet.
Indian Names
Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney 1791-1865
Norwich, Connecticut
Ye say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave,
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;
That ’mid the forests where they roamed
There rings no hunter shout,
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.
’Tis where Ontario’s billow
Like Ocean’s surge is curled,
Where strong Niagara’s thunders wake
The echo of the world.
Where red Missouri bringeth
Rich tribute from the west,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia’s breast.
Ye say their cone-like cabins,
That clustered o’er the vale,
Have fled away like withered leaves
Before the autumn gale,
But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.
Old Massachusetts wears it,
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it,
Amid his young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachuset hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust,
Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.
Ye call these red-browned brethren
The insects of an hour,
Crushed like the noteless worm amid
The regions of their power;
Ye drive them from their father’s lands,
Ye break of faith the seal,
But can ye from the court of Heaven
Exclude their last appeal?
Ye see their unresisting tribes,
With toilsome step and slow,
On through the trackless desert pass
A caravan of woe;
Think ye the Eternal’s ear is deaf?
His sleepless vision dim?
Think ye the soul’s blood may not cry
From that far land to him?
This is a continuation of excepts from Harry Nicholson’s excellent book, Tom Fleck. –Jeff Guenther
Introduction: “Tom Fleck is partly a response to the flush of novels about Tudor royalty. I feel small connection with those great lords and their ladies; I sense more kinship with the lives of ordinary folk. So I’ve imagined the lives and adventures of unknown men and women, people without heraldry, people who left no marks of their passing except for the blood that flows in our veins.” –Harry Nicholson
More Fragments of Tom’s world:
Tom is with his father, about to dig into a burial mound on the Cleveland Hills:
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An invitation to guest post on “8 Great Story Tellers”:
Today’s guest poster is Harry Nicholson. I met Harry on Goodreads and was very impressed by the quality of his writing. And his poetry. And his artwork. The following post showcases his evocative prose, selections from ‘Tom Fleck,’ a novel. –Jeff Guenther
Tom Fleck Amazon Link
Introduction: “When I was tapping out Morse in the pitching wireless cabins of tropical steamers in the 1950’s, story-telling was not in my mind. A career in television studios might have brought it about – thirty years working with stories in pictures soaks the mind with images. These days, in a valley below the moorlands of North Yorkshire, I have more time to imagine at leisure. My first tale is about a humble farm labourer and his struggles to be free in Tudor England.”
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