Gatwick, 15.5.06: Up to Downe and Purgatory at Gatwick

Gatwick airport. Since Papa Ratzi has officially abolished limbo (hasn’t he?), I suppose it’s purgatory we’re in. These hotels at airports are particularly purgatorial—with a minimum of comfort disguised by a maximum of flash.

The Hilton was no exception. Though all brochures repeated insistently that we were paying for the privilege to access pay t.v., the feature would not work on our t.v.

We called the desk and got put into a squirrel cage of customer-service reps, an ascending hierarchy of technicians, and, finally, “the” electrician.

He told us the problem was irresolvable from his end, since it originated in how we had been booked into the computer system of the hotel. Which means it was resolvable—by one Karen, whom he called from our room and informed of the problem, and who was clearly unwilling to address it.

He suggested to her that she shift us to another room. It was clear that she wasn’t willing to do that. She finally and reluctantly provided him with a room number and he went and checked to see if the t.v. was fully operational.

It was, and we moved, Karen promising to send up new room keys. When they hadn’t materialized within half an hour, Steve went down to get them, finding a shift change was in progress and all was chaotic.

The reason all of this mattered was that we arrived about noon, were advised to turn in our rental car, and had nothing to do but pack for today’s flight, perambulate the less than scintillating airport, and rest. The rooms themselves were hideous: little boxes with worn carpets and smelly bathrooms. Heat was on to its maximum. We turned it to the minimum. Still stuffy.

After we had our stroll, returned to the room. T.v. problem had reappeared. Called for Karen. No Karen available. Ellen, a German woman, was the new Karen.

Came to room. Fiddled with t.v. No, sorry, it’s not working. How may I compensate you? Meal vouchers? No, sorry, I’ll give you vouchers for two drinks.

Beds were horrible, worst of the trip, with poly-cotton sheets. I spent a tossing-turning night dreaming of a disparate cast of strangely assorted characters—Jim G., Kathleen F., etc.

Now we find our flight delayed and our attempt to go and sit in our boarding lounge was soundly rebuffed by the airport or Delta official who is the gatekeeper, though we arrived at the time we were told to. And now we see from the flight board our flight’s delayed 45 more minutes—which means in airline lingo 3 hours, I suspect.

Yesterday: picked up the paintings we had bought from C.B. Betsy S. She informed us that the parish network had already told her of our brass-rubbing expedition the day before. Met us at her gate, spaniel in arms, tweed clad, apologizing for (well, no warning about) the dog’s tendency to jump on strangers.

We received the paintings and headed off. Bit of dog talk at the gate. She asked what kind of dog we had, thereby indicating that either she or the parish network recognized that we were a couple.

We told her that we had a corgi with an unfortunate tendency to nip. She said she’d had a similar one, also female, and it was the only one of her dogs she had frankly not been unhappy to see go. It met, she said, a tragic end—which she left unspecified.

Of anyone we’ve met on this trip, it’s clear to me that C.B. S and her husband are nearest to gentry—the kind of county families who once formed the backbone of the gentry across the nation, though I have no idea at all whether they’re an old Kentish family or simply people of status (and, clearly, education) who have settled at Old Romney.

Then on to Downe. Steve wanted us to stop, too, at Detling, but because the only information I have on that place is that some of the Epes lived there in the 1500s, I suggested we forego it.

So on to Downe. Though it’s very close to London, it’s deeply rural and village-like, accessible only by a narrow wooded lane that was lined by high banks of bluebells. On the drippy gray day—only the second such we’ve had in our entire trip—the color was gorgeous.

One climbs to Downe; one goes up to Downe. When we arrived, light on in the church, to which we walked through a fresh-mown graveyard wet with the recent rain.

Inside, a man who turned out to be a parson, a visiting priest, we gathered: we thought the parish has no resident pastor. Also an elderly woman Joyce, who must be churchwarden.

Had we come a moment sooner, services would have been on. A moment later, Joyce would have locked up.

She showed us around, obviously proud of the church’s treasures, and indirectly lecturing us on its history—the connection to Darwin, an Italian glassblower Elizabeth brought in to teach the English his art: Giacomo Verrazzano?

She was delightful, a true Kentish woman, sharp-nosed, short, buxom, plain-spoken. She said some of the Darwin records she’s locked away, and is not eager to let researchers know the church has—that Kentish secretiveness and distrust of “foreigners.”

She kindly brought a Manning crest—shield, she called it—out of the safe. One can still see the tomb of the John Manning on which it was affixed in the chancel floor.

We photographed the shield and the brass of that tomb and of an Edward Manning who was page to Charles II, which is in the nave. It was clear Joyce was reluctant to let us do a rubbing. It was her church, and we were going to abide by her rules.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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).