New Romney, 14.5.06: Speedwell and Prussian Airs

Trip drawing to a close. We spent yesterday doing a rubbing of the Ips effigies and inscriptions in the Old Romney church, then on to New Romney where we spent the night at the Romney Bay Hotel beside the sea.

Brass rubbing successful. Steve stood in one of the infamous pink pews to reach it. I assisted by holding paper straight.

As we worked, the churchwarden came in—churchwarden purissima. She was a short gray-haired lady with lovely blue eyes, sharp nose, rather florid complexion, buxomy without being stout: in other words, a replicas of thousands of other Kentishwomen.

She came into the pew, straw basket of daisies from her garden in hand, and stood right beside us, chirping away in that inimitable manner of elderly Englishwomen of a certain type and class. She told us the gallery and pews are Georgian, as are the plaques, from a period when the church must have received a donation.

It’s the historic poverty of the Marshes that has kept the church relatively untouched, she noted: e.g., the ancient primitive wood vaulting on the ceiling has never been covered, as in so many other English country churches.

I begin to realize that because this was once the seacoast—Old Romney was a port—the land is still marshy. This is what gives it that special character of being still on the oceanfront—sandy soil, sedgy plants, the cast of light and aqueous marine sky. But it also makes the church sink: hence its heavy buttresses, which Steve noticed immediately.

As we talked, her assistance came in, basket on arm—more daisies and a rose-colore clematis. More twittering and chirping. They dusted and arranged flowers and the warden then left, wishing us a good day.

Then in came a couple from Baden-Baden seeking directions to St. Mary of the Marsh church. We talked in German, they, too, coming into the pew with us. It was a series of unanticipated rencontres intimes.

I had remembered a map somewhere showing all the churches in the Romney Marsh and went to the tables with pamphlets and postcards to seek it out as Steve headed to the care for the OS map of the area.

The warden’s assistant came to help me—browner and mousier than the warden, but equally demure, with just a touch of Kentish cross-grainedness about her. She showed me a post card that had all the churches depicted on it, and I gave the kleine Karte to the couple. Steve showed them in plodding, helpful German detail precisely how to reach the church.

Assistant and I continue to talk. I admire the flowers, asking about the purple one that comes up in our garden as a weed. If I was pointing to the same plant as the one was have, its folk name in England is honesty, and its foliage is dried in winter to add a touch of silver to arrangements.

I think we call it dame’s rocket, and it definitely dies back in our hot summers. She also told me the name of the small blue flower that grows at the bottom of hedgerows, and I should have written it down, since it has gone clean out of my head. A common name from English novels and nature books, but I now can’t recall it—an occurrence more and more common.

Then on to store our luggage at New Romney and shop. We drove to Hythe, touted as a shopping mecca, but I found it frankly tawdry.

The approach to it is horrible—a high wall blocking the sea vista on one side, and a dismal coteries of trailer parks—yes, in England—ice cream and chip stands interspersed with carpet outlets—on the other. It was an English version of Daytona Beach, and seems to attract the same ilk—I suspect the same class of Cockney folks who historically came from London’s east end to pick hops and berries in Kent in summer. The folks about whom that novelist—is it Beryl Bainbridge? H.E. Bates?—has written so inimitably.

Perhaps my impression of Hythe is colored by the fact that we were called poofs by a boy shopping with his grandma, as we passed them in the street. They laughed behind our backs, never a happy experience.

We encountered them later in a thrift ship and I realized they must be Gypsies—or perhaps Spanish. She had a long plait of gray hair down her back, sharp nose, brown face, and hooded eyes. I wanted to go up to them and say something smart, but thought better of it. Gypsies have the capability to curse back volubly and expertly. I do wonder if he realizes at any level that his antennae for poofs—and predilection for rummaging for knick-knacks with granny—might point towards his own future.

I need to learn to leave such retributive tutelage to the One Who Weaves the Web. And it’s time for breakfast—but I must not fail to make a note late of last night’s supper.

+ + + + +

Speedwell. I think that’s the name she told me for that wildflower. Which means it’s a form of veronica? And I don’t think dame’s rocket and honesty can be the same flower. Isn’t dame’s rocket related to mustard, while honesty is the lunaria plant, the money plant?

And the dinner last night: four courses. It began with sea bass, fresh caught that day, served with onions cooked with fennel on a bed of rice and celeriac, with a thyme sauce around.

Continued to guinea fowl, served with small roasted potatoes on a bed of tomatoes, onion and perhaps more potatoes mashed. After that, crème brulée with rhubarb in a spun-sugar-and-butter basket: sprigs of red currants, gooseberries, strawberries, and blueberries, and a garnish of mint (a sprig of fennel with the fish and of parsley with the fowl).

Cheese, crackers, and walnuts followed, and we drank an Italian pinot grigio with it all.

The ambience was . . . strange. Almost all young couples being very formal and la-de-dah, but none even acknowledging anyone else. I believe the ones across from us were South African—she a sullen horse-faced blonde and he a red-haired churl who ate alternately slouched back on his tailbone or elbows propped on the table.

One couple who sat on a sofa beside us (oh, yes, drinks beforehand in a drawing room) were French. She announced as they were led to their places that she shouldn’t sit near anyone since she talks so much. At one point, she said things had better be good, because he had paid so much and promised her a good time.

The strangest couple of all were a very la-de-dah pair already in the drawing room when we sat down. She flashed a smile in which her teeth but not her eyes participated.

I believe I heard her say at one point during dinner—an announcement to the whole room—that she was Prussian. Not German, mind you: Prussian. They both spoke with those clipped vowels and staccato tempo of Brits imitating the upper crust, but who inevitably sound as if they are imitating a BBC murder mystery cast instead.

It was all extraordinary, a scene not even Evelyn Waugh could have invented. All took place in the conservatory of the old house, with candle light. I watched for the Hound of the Baskervilles to spring across Romney Marsh at any moment and reduce us to the pulp we deserved to be, such airs we were affecting.

Tenterden, Kent, 12.5.06: Hobbits' Lanes and Painted Pews

Writing now from Tenterden in Kent—sleepy little country inn. It’s crawling with the kind of Brits who are perhaps afraid to venture any closer to France than the chunnel, who stay on the English side of the channel and drive across for a quick foray. Middle-class pretending to be posh. Most are old, going down with the ship, dressing for dinner, murmuring torpidly over the unexciting food after a round of taste-numbing drinks.

A horrible ugly—in all senses of the word—woman who sat directly behind Steve last night made some comment in a loud voice about keeping “the” Americans away. The remark was directed to the whole room—but conspicuously not to us.

+ + + + +

A rich day, and I grow weary of writing in this journal. Drove to Old Romney. St. Clement’s church there is phenomenal—the original stone altar preserved, a rare thing for England. When the Cromwellians demanded that all stone altars be removed, it was used (hidden) as a stepping stone for the porch, which is on the north side of the church, though south is usual. 

The church is low and simple inside. Crude wood vaulting. Painted pews—pink and white, the gated kind. I like them. They give the church an almost Baroque feel.

Must be controversial. A long defense of them on a curious funeral-home-fan-shaped device at the back of the church, pointing out they’re made of plain deal wood and wouldn’t be beautiful if unpainted.

Walls have Georgian sayings, bible verses of the memento-mori ilk, painted on plaques. Similar plaques either side of the altar have the creed and ten commandments.

Low porch; ribbed ceiling, simple and austere, with old unadorned wood ribbing. Outside, a beautiful churchyard surrounded on all sides by sheep pastures, from which (the churchyard, that is) the wildflowers pressed on this page come.

The brass for John Ips and wife Margaret has been removed from its place on the floor of the main aisle in front of the rood (as John Ips’ will requests his burial location to be) to the south all of the church. A guide to the church notes that the Epps family is well-represented in Kent, especially the Romney area, and has descendants in Virginia.

The area around Romney fascinating, reminiscent of the Low Countries. Flat; ditches in pastures, full of water. Sky everywhere. At one point, an amazing cast of light between gray, green, and yellow.

It’s like a world in miniature, far more manicured than Somerset or Shropshire, as if hobbits live down each laneway.

A brochure in the church advertised the studio of C.B. (Betsy) S. at M.C. near the church. We walked there, since a sign said the road was unsuitable for vehicles (though it was clearly driven on).

In front of the cottage (which was two-storied and far from cottagey) a very elderly man on a bench. Fine, warm, sunny day. We exchanged pleasantries about the weather and sheep. He was in coat and tie with the hems of his pants frayed in back from walking on them.

He asked what I was seeking. I said M.C. Blank look. I repeated it. Blank again.

Then something clicked and he said he’d been posted as sentry. His wife, the artist, was in New Romney. She’d be back shortly. Why didn’t we have a look around.

He took us into the house, a warren of damp, low-ceilinged rooms with shabby wonderful old furniture and old books—first editions of the Waverley novels and Gaskell’s life of Charlotte Bronte (to my chagrin, Steve peeked).

Room after room of paintings, mostly pastoral scenes from the area and still lifes and one droll picture of her King Charles spaniel, bug-eyed and wall-eyed. I chose one of the Romney church with a storm on the horizon and a field of sheep, and one of a field of flax for Philip and Penny.

Mr. S. doddered (quite literally) outside, looking for “them” and saying how stupid he was. He kept coming in to say, “They shan’t be a moment,” and “Perhaps I can sell you the paintings,” and then,“Won’t you sit in my room and read the papers?”

This was a door marked private and we hadn’t entered it. It was a perfect little world—more shabby furniture, more old leather-bound volumes, blotting paper, a writing pad with letter opener affixed to it by a strap, a tray with all the accoutrements needed for writing.

And then came Betsy S. and we transacted business after much to-ing and fro-ing about her upcoming exhibit. Apparently she’s not "open" till then, though the church brochure clearly says, Open every day 10-2, incl. Sundays. Which must mean something entirely different to the English . . . . (And they were truly lovely people.)

And speaking of the English, I must get something off my chest, dear reader. Have you noticed (I certainly have) that, while they’re hesitant to show almost any emotion, they have absolutely no problem demonstrating displeasure or disdain? A look I saw on the face of a woman in Chard as we approached on the sidewalk would have curdled milk.

Chard is, I’ve decided, as Geo. Washington said of Charlotte, a piddling little place. Some of the surliest people I’ve seen in England, and many ill-favored . . . .

And after Old Romney, a drive to New Romney to make arrangements for our stay there tomorrow night. Bought fish and chips and ate them by the seashore, which was misted over with haze from the warm, humid day.

And then an afternoon of shopping in Ashford, which was obliterated in the war, and is a surrealistic conglomeration of shopping malls in outré architectural styles and international centers.

+ + + + +

Jan Morris, Wales (NY: Penguin, 2000): “The climate of Wales is anything but preservative in a physical sense, but it is marvelously retentive metaphysically, and the mana of such old Welsh sites, their sense of life and movement, magically survives the ages” (51-2). 

“Another detectably Celtic trait is a certain sense of the dream of things, a conviction that some state of being exists, invisible but sensible, outside our own windows” (58).

“The holiest Welsh place is Dewisland, Pebidiog, a stony protrusion from the coast of Pembrokeshire which was once a spiritual hub of the whole Celtic world. Not only does the countryside there seem holy by its very nature, so ascetic but so exciting, all bare rock and heather headland falling to the wild Atlantic sea, but its associations too are intensely sanctified” (83).

“Visitors sensitive to numen, though, will hardly notice these things [i.e., the architectural details of St. David’s cathedral] but something more ethereal, a tremulous combination of light, hush and muted colour” (84).

“It was all part of a wider magic, hud in Welsh, which is really a key to life and matter itself—the sense that the divine resides in everything around us. This has powerfully affected the Welsh view of creation at least since the days of the Druids” (91).