Playing with trains

When I was a boy, I played with my Hornby OO train set - I can remember fitting together the curved pieces of track - there were three rails - a tiny metal tongue under the toy locomotive picked up the frail electric current -

The train set was packed in a bright cardboard box - there was an image of a sleek speeding express train upon the lid - my set contained the locomotive and tender, two green coaches and the sections of track - there was a small transformer, with a lever you moved to increase or decrease the speed of the locomotive -

In my imagination, a complex rail network spread out over the lino and carpet of our living room - I made a tunnel for the track under our radiogram - I would lie under the radiogram, my cheek pressed against the lino, listening to Sing something simple - the train would go round on its oval of track -

I would read Railway Modeller, marvelling at the layouts described upon its pages - in my mind's eye, I was a fearless railway engineer, or a fireman, riding a powerful beast of steam and fire -

I can remember, but only very vaguely, the smell of the steam trains I travelled on with my family - I have a picture in my head of clouds of steam, billowing over the platform at Waterloo - my skin was flecked with dots of soot -

Sadly, I stopped playing with trains - I don't know why - Len still does - he has a complex layout set out in  the attic - the passage of the trains is controlled by a computer - Dave Marris, my first Chair of Governors, had a splendid layout - I miss him still - he had a wonderful snuffling laugh, and was very wise -

I saw this train set in a shop of curiosities in Salisbury - it took me back, immediately, to a time when the world was full of promise - my heart was full again -  of delight and excitement -

Kingston Lacy, snowdrops and Dorothy Wordsworth

Last February, I went for a walk in the gardens of Kingston Lacy - the story of William Bankes had long  intrigued me - I imagined him travelling back to his home incognito, riding across dark fields - an indiscretion with a guardsman had prompted his flight to Venice -

In the miniature by George Sandars, William is slender and epicene, light brown hair curled over his forehead - a fur stole is draped over his right shoulder - he looks at you with an intense, yet measured, gaze -

But it was not the house I had come to see - I had walked around it, with Anne, on another occasion - she had questioned the morality of the extravagance we saw - the Spanish Room was hung with gilded leather - there were glorious paintings by Titian, Brueghel, Velazquez and Van Dyke - marble stairs swept down from the upper apartments in frozen cataracts of gleaming stone - the library was lined with volumes bound in calf leather, with gold lettering upon their spines - portraits of fleshy beauties by Sir Peter Lely were set in elaborate frames -

I'll pass over the sharp exchange we had with one room guardian -

I had come to see the snowdrops - I love these tiny brave flowers - my spirits are lifted by the sight of their white petals -

I passed by the cedars, with their immense trunks and noble foliage - hedges had been cunningly shaped into the likenesses of faces - I thought they looked like the faces of archaic gods - I brushed past rhododendron bushes, with their red flowers and glossy dark green leaves -

There - there were the snowdrops - galaxies of them, scattered over the rough grass - I stood, stock still, looking at them - how wonderful they were - I thought of the words - surprised by joy -

I remembered reading Wordsworth - but it was his sister, Dorothy, I thought of then - I had a sudden wish to see this wild spirit - I imagined her, coming towards me, over the snowdrops -

Yussef the Barber, and the young man playing the lute

My friend Richard has hair that is still dark, whereas my rug is a startling white - I reel when I see myself in a mirror - I'd thought of buying some Portillo trousers recently - pale red trousers, as worn by the thawed Thatcherite, on his jaunt across Europe with a 1913 Bradshaw - 

The changing cubicle was, inevitably, stiflingly hot and brilliantly lit - Anne said that the trousers were too baggy "at the top" - I caught a glimpse of myself in a cruel full length mirror - who was this man with wild white hair, trying on oldster's trousers? - was it me?

Richard, clearly, has none of these rug related anxieties - he goes to Yussef the Barber to get his hair cut - once, says, Richard, there was only one barber in Albert Road - Melmont Hairdressers - now there are many establishments - all of them with two or three chairs, steamed up front windows, copies of The Sun, the latest Koi Karp magazine and a take out menu for The Akash - 

Once, Richard saw that one of the young men in Yussefs had put down his scissors - he was playing the lute to his girl in Lebanon - he had his mobile propped up on the chair - she would hear the music on her phone -

I thought of the music, pure and aching, flying across the ether - from this louche chill street to a courtyard under a burning sky - of their love and desire for one another like swallows, swooping down from the clouds -

A storm over Kimmeridge Bay, waking up to adventure

Last year, in a stormy February, I drove to Kimmeridge with Anne - the village is overlooked by the Purbeck Hills - the road from Church Knowle and Corfe Castle snakes through silent woods, winds down steep chalk slopes, crosses fierce streams in small forgotten valleys - tumuli line the high ridges -

Kimmeridge Bay is just over a mile away from the village - the roof of a cottage in the village was being re-thatched - you could see bundles of slender reeds, stacked upon the scaffolding - the icy drizzly gale lashed our faces -

We walked into the churchyard - dark yews sheltered the lichened gravestones - there were beautiful pale wild primroses amongst the grass - snow drops were like tiny delicate jewels upon a Victorian grave -

Inside the church, it was dark and calm - stained glass windows glowed in the shadows - I saw the haloes of sacred figures - there were tombs underfoot - on the walls were the memorial tablets of the gentry - vases contained arrangements of flowers and dark leaves -

Kimmeridge Bay is just over a mile from the village - we walked towards there, by way of a footpath, skirting sodden fields - Anne turned back - the rain and the gale increased in violence - I was drenched by the time I stood at the sea's edge -

I looked down into the furious water of the bay - there were crescents of stinging foam - I could hear the waves pounding upon the rocks and shingle - the long salty blades of grass were blasted by the turbulent air - I could see, on the headland, the shape of Clavell's Tower - it was built around 1820 by the Reverend John Richards Clavell of Smedmore House as an observatory and folly - Pesvner says that the tower has a scholarly mixture of motifs, as befits a folly -

I then saw, darting across the mad waves below, the brave spectacle of two windsurfers - I could see their sails, one blue, one yellow - the two taut figures shot from one side of the bay to the other, skillfully, crazily - flying past the sharp rocks, whirled from one wave crest to another -

I suddenly felt full of excitement - I could feel my skin tingling - I thought of all the adventures one could have - how it was never too late -

Thinking about markets, remembering Marrakesh 

I have always been drawn to markets - something deep within me loves the disorder of the stalls, the hoarse cries of the vendors, the sharp eyes of the women, examining fruit with the concentration of a diamond cutter - there is, I think, something primeval, something anarchic, about markets -

In Mornings in Mexico, Lawrence talks about markets being above all a means of humans coming into contact with each other, bargaining, communicating - he describes a market in a small pueblo, lost in a parched plain, surrounded by mountains - he sees the Zapotec Indians, arriving with their merchandise, faggots of wood, sacks of charcoal, the men, shining in their white cotton garments, the women, with their blue black hair -

I have heard some voices mocking Lawrence - but I am beguiled by what he says here - how, all day, the Indians "have had the sound of strangers' voices in their ears, they have asked and been answered in unaccustomed ways" -

I have skulked and stared in markets in Turkey and Morocco - I can remember the glorious vegetables heaped up like a dragon's amazing hoard in the weekly market held at Mugla - the dark unfathomable faces of the old women, weighing fat tomatoes in scales held by hand - the bright eyes of thin boys, darting round the stalls, with orders for cay - 

So, in Salisbury, reeling with sadness after visiting the cathedral, I went to the market - I hid behind a stall selling crocs, and spied upon the man selling second hand CDs - I had had seen that same guarded expression under brilliant skies, worlds away - I love music, and I remembered the tiny kiosk I'd lingered at in the Jeema el Fna - I'd handed over half a breeze block of dirhams for some Rai CDs - Tim, the Australian, had lent me some wrap around shades - to avoid eye contact, he said - he also advised me to say I was Irish if asked my nationality -

Standing in the freezing market, under a leaden sky, I thought about Marrakesh - how markets, proper markets - not ersatz markets, frequented by the privileged - were a universal phenomenon - in their ragged precincts, surely, there was to be found evidence of shared humanity - the power of the powerless -

Mysterious Studland

Twilight has always seemed to me to be a magical time - a time between worlds - shadows lengthen, whilst the last rays of light fall from the sky - streets become corridors for ghosts - you can hear voices in empty gardens - you become aware of the fragility and beauty of things - how your life is a dream -

In December, I walked along the beach at Studland with Anne - the sun had just set behind the dunes - the sea was almost motionless - small lazy waves rippled onto the smooth sand - the sky and the sea were stained a light, delicate, red -

I felt that I had been transported, to be within a Caspar Friedrich painting - there was the same light, the same melancholy, the same sky and sea -

A yacht was moored, in the lee of Old Harry - a water skier zoomed past, far out from the shore, like a tense exotic seabird -

Darkness gathered over the woods beyond the beach - sea and sky met in a blur of beautiful light - the thin dark line of the horizon was, I thought, that country to which my soul would fly -

Being wantonly indulged

For my birthday, Anne arranged a spa day for the two of us - when I entered the Haven Hotel, I felt that I was boarding an ocean liner in the 1930s - smooth marble floors gleamed in the light of brass chandeliers -  fountains played over bronze nymphs - soft voiced staff showed us to the spa - an art deco restaurant overlooked the sea - I half expected to see Hercule Poirot sipping a vermouth, or a woman with a secret, smoking a cheroot -

The indoor pools were overshadowed by succulent plants - dark spiky leaves glistened in the warm steamy air - balconies overlooked lolling swimmers - light streamed in through floor to ceiling windows -

Outside, there was a heated pool, set within a terrace - yachts sailed by, a few hundred yards away - we quickly changed into our swimming costumes, lazed in thick white robes - we read crisp newspapers, sipped sparkling water -we swam energetically in the glittering pool -

Later, we lazed in the indoor pools, were jazzed up by the zinging violent bubbles of the jacuzzi - sat dreamily in the steam room - were broiled in the sauna -

Then, we were massaged - a sinewy blonde woman pumelled me for half an hour or so - I lay, like a pasha, helpless and indulged - I went into a reverie - I thought I heard harpsichords playing Vivaldi's concerto - I imagined that I was on an embassy to Venice - the Sublime Porte was a galley's long voyage away -

Thinking about sailing, Dinghy Park, Knoll Beach, Studland

I have often day dreamed about sailing a trim dinghy - I can imagine climbing into a brave boat, its blue sail taut in the wind - the boat would set off, heading out to deeper water from the beach - I would feel the salty air upon my skin - bright necklaces of spray would mark my progress -

I read Swallows and Amazons as a boy - I got the book on loan from Elson Public Library - the library was a single storey affair, with a zinc roof - there were lines of bookcases, with an aisle between them - I can smell, even now, the special library smell of those hardback volumes -

I loved the maps in Swallows and Amazons - I traced voyages I might make - I looked at the coastline of Wild Cat Island - I splashed, in my imagination, bare legged through the sea at the landing place -

I also loved dearly the water rat, in Wind and the Willows - I glowed with happiness looking at the illustrations by Ernest H Shepard, especially the one of the Water Rat taking Mole for a jaunt in a sleek skiff -

Since those early imaginings, I have sailed on yachts - but I've been, I have to confess, very much in the character of the Mole, awkward upon the water -

For a number of summers, we sailed on Jane and Ken's yacht - around Corsica, and from Istanbul, across the Sea of Marmara, to Erdek - I swam in the warm water, around the yacht, being chased by transparent jelly fish -

This summer, Deo volente - I hope to gain a RYA Competent Crew Certificate - the sailing school is based near Split - I intend exploring Diocletian's Palace -

There may, who knows, be a special certificate for semi-competent crew - 

These dinghies and Hobie Cats are to be found at Knoll Beach, Studland - we walk past them often - the sight and feel of their slim hulls has prompted us to action -

We saw a yacht, far out on the sea, under a pale half moon - what finer sensation could there be, than looking up at that moon, hearing the water lap against the sides of your fragile craft?

Snow falling on East Stoke

When I woke up last Friday, I was aware of a different texture to the light - I pulled open the curtains - I looked out at the garden below me - large snowflakes whirled past the window - a dull white sky hung low over the valley - the light was dim, as though we had been transported into a vast shadowy space - thick snow covered the lawns - the firs and the apple tree were vague white shapes - all was very still - no Waterloo trains raced along the railway line beyond the hedge - 

I got dressed very quickly, and went outside - I felt the same excitement I'd felt as a skinny boy in the winter of 1962 - then, the snow had lasted for many weeks, heaped up on the sides of Bramber Road in grey frozen mounds - the sea was iced over in the harbour - I'd walked, with my dad, over the thick ice covering the moats of Fort Brockhurst - man high rushes splintered when we pushed our way  through them - the rushes had been turned by the winter into fragile ice spears - 

I stood under the white branches of the apple tree, looking up at the falling snowflakes - there were no footprints of any creature upon the snow covered lawn - snow coated the slates of the roof of the house -

Later, I walked with Anne down the lane - we were thickly layered in wool - the world of our valley had been changed into a frozen one, beautiful and silent - only the river moved, swirling through the water meadows, now knee deep with snow - 

We saw three horses in a field, patient and noble, standing stock still - their winter coats were shaggy and furry - their breath steamed in plumes from their muzzles - 

I expected, any moment, to hear the runners of a sleigh, hissing upon the snow - would I be offered Turkish Delight, followed by a scalding cordial, served in a golden cup?