One Small Church, Three Stories

Our stay with Tim Sheppard was a perfect end to our first day in England.

We met his lady, Diane, and spent a delightful evening in their garden, hearing about thebadgers, birds and other wildlife that visited even so close to the city, and just talking and catching up. I think the last time I saw Tim was at least 10 years ago at a storytelling conference here in the states. Thank goodness for the internet that allows us to keep in touch with friends in faraway places.

Before we left the next morning, Tim showed us the church on his lane. This is St. Luke's, and it contains a few interesting stories.

First, see those little figures in the tower? Tim told us that it is believed that these represented two members of the De La Warr family, One of this family, Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, became the governor-for-life of the new colony of Virginia. It was he who took three ships, outfitted at his own expense, to the new colony of Jamestown and arrived just in time at Grapevine Point on the James River to convince the colonists to stay. Surprisingly, I once stood on Grapevine Point--my son was stationed at an Army base in Virginia which now encompasses the site. I have a thick, twisted piece of vine on my porch that came from that place. Strange how our lives can twist and touch, isn't it?

The De La Warr name became the name of the Delaware River, the state, and the Anglo name for the natives who lived in the valley of the river. 

Another odd little tidbit I picked up from my cousin John who writes the blog By Stargoose and Hanglands: you will see many English churches at below ground level, like this one, with the drainage around them. This is because over the centuries bodies were added to the graves, raising the ground level around the church. Indeed, according to some accounts, there was sometimes only enough soil and space to barely cover the corpse! The custom of putting flowers on a grave might have more to do with killing the stench than anything else. Somewhere recently I read or heard that at one church the minister stopped mid-service because the smell of rotting corpses was so overwhelming. Hard to imagine, isn't it? I wish I could remember where I got that bit of information.

This is the market cross, also referred to on the church's website as a preaching cross, It denoted the place where people could gather to sell their goods. Based on the structure of this one, I think Tim's identification is correct as this does not appear to have ever have had a crossbeam as a cross would have had, although I suppose it could have been a symbol to call people to worship. Over the years it also became a favorite place to take group photos. If I remember rightly, Tim said it was moved to its present site many years ago.

And the last intriguing mystery in this churchyard: the grave of Thomas Newman, aged 153 years at the time of his death. The inscription reads: 

1542

Thomas Newman 

Aged 153 

This stone was new-faced in the Year 1771, to perpetuate the great age of the Deceased

Was Thomas Newman really 153 years old? Or is this an old, old joke? 

Paul Townsend posted this about the stone on Flickr: " In Brislington church cemetery there is a grave which states that a Thomas Newman was 153 years old when he died. TWO mysteries surround the grave of Thomas Newman. Firstly, the inscription states that he was 153 years old when he died in 1542, but the record for the oldest person we know of is 120.

So did a local wag, or even the stonemason, add the figure one to the 53 way back in the 16th century and nobody noticed, or did Thomas really live to that great age?  

Secondly, the gravestone in St Luke's states: 'This stone was new faced in the year 1771 to perpetuate the great age of the deceased.' ut the greater mystery is that there is another grave of another Thomas Newman, also aged 153, in Bridlington, Yorkshire, with almost the same inscription. So, is the Brislington stone the one that disappeared from Bridlington hundreds of years ago? Or was a headstone put in each space because nobody was sure where Thomas lived?

But would people living in 16th-century England know that there was both a Brislington and Bridlington hundreds of miles apart? Could there have been two Thomas Newmans who both lived to 153? I doubt if the truth will ever be known.

The celebrated farmer Thomas Parr, who was buried in Westminster Abbey in the 17th century, claimed to be 152! - When the average life span for a male was only 30?" 

A mystery indeed! 

According to the book The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset by John Collinson, it was all a hoax. According to the author, someone carved in the number 1 in front of 53, to make this man older than another reputed to have died at 152. Truth, or not? Who is to know today? I suppose scientists could dig him up and do tests that might determine his actual age, but then there would be nothing left to wonder about, would there?

So many stories in one small church, and I know that this is only the tip of the iceberg, for any place that has seen human activity for over 1000 years will surely have more stories than we will ever learn. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

And So We Began in Bristol

Our trip began in Bristol, where our flight landed. And our first culture shock was almost immediate: getting the rental car and learning to drive on the right hand side of the car on the left hand side of the road. That was Larry's job, and after the long overnight flight he was not really ready for it. But there was nowhere to do a little practice, so with prayers and crossed fingers off we went.

And it was fine. I've had such a fear of attempting to drive in Britain but after 1200 or so miles, I am here to tell you it's doable. Not that I was ever behind the wheel! I was navigator and Larry drove because the insurance for both of us to drive was too expensive. So my job was to remind him to stay on the left, to help navigate the hundreds of roundabouts, get the GPS (or SatNav as they call it over there) set up with our next destinations, and generally  keep Larry on track.

We didn't have a GPS for the first leg of the trip but we did have a good, new road atlas which got us around fairly well except for in Bristol. We'd hoped to meet storyteller Tim Sheppard for lunch but we never were able to find the place and after many laps around the city--so many that people began to think we were casing the place, I think--we gave up and headed to Bath for a late lunch. Bath proved to be far too busy and crowded a place for travel-weary us, so after lunch we left, and drove to the small town of Saltford where we discovered a lovely old church, and our first pub of the trip.

We needed this quiet break.

I could not believe the size of this tree, a yew I believe.

This is St. Mary's Anglican Church, which is over 1000 years old. It is believed to have been built by the Normans, and the tower is believed to be Saxon, although it has been added to, as you can see in the photo. There is a Norman baptismal font inside that was once used as a cattle trough, but was found and returned to the church.

Soft country views were balm to our souls after a hectic 48 hours.

Looking through one window to another.

We followed the narrow lane past the church and found ourselves beside the River Avon. (A different river, as my cousin corrected below, than that of Shakespearean fame.) This is the view from the Jolly Sailor pub, where we stopped for tea for me, and Guinness for Larry.

The long boats barely visible in this photo are canal boats (click to see better images of them) and some of them had their laundry hanging on their roofs! There was a simple locks on the river here that the canal boats let themselves through as they traveled. Wish I had a photo of that, but I was fairly brain dead by this time.

We left Saltford and drove into Keynsham to my friend Tim's home. And from that visit came stories. More about that tomorrow.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Home from England! And Lots to Share

Home at last, and getting ourselves sorted. What a trip we had! I have about 800 photos to sort and will be sharing the best of them here in the coming month. There is so much to tell, so much to remember. It was, I think, the trip of a lifetime and I am so very glad we went.

Now it is back to life as usual. We picked up my computer which was getting files from my old one transferred while we were gone, got groceries and gas on the way home. It was awesome to be greeted by our happy dogs and cats, who all looked quite contented and well fed thanks to the good care by our neighbors while we were away. The gardens are pitiful from the lack of rain; apparently it was very dry while we were gone. Larry found a few cucumbers and some nice tomatoes though, and there are a few other things hanging on. Hoping for rain this week. Everything is so dry.

I got our suitcases unpacked and started on the mammoth pile of laundry, sorted out the mail that our kind carrier had held and delivered yesterday. Then we watched some Doc Martin, laughing when we could identify the places we'd seen in Port Isaac, where the show was filmed. Bed felt so good; I was glad we'd changed the sheets before we left. We'd also left the house in pretty good order so coming home was not stressful. Instead, it was relaxing to know there was nothing pressing waiting for us to do.

Here are a few teaser pics for this morning. I'll be writing more and posting more because this blog is the best place I have for capturing those memories.

Nice to be back with you, friends!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Pumpkins! And That Fall Feeling

Larry planted pumpkins in the rich dirt of the old chicken yard, and they have been trying to take over the earth, I swear. Yesterday he harvested them and got a right wagonload. This is minus a half dozen already given away.

I posted a lot of pumpkin recipes a few years ago. Go here to find lots of ways to use up pumpkins!

I am loving the fall feeling in the air, even though the temperatures are not giving up. It's still too hot but mornings and evenings are cool, and the moon has been gorgeous. Leaves are drifting down, some of them because it's time, others because of the dry weather we've had the past two weeks. The gardens are slowly dying back although we are still getting some vegetables for the table. I hope it can hold on til frost.

This morning the air was so clear as we took our walk out to the church and back. We got home, had an enormous breakfast and then took our coffee out on the swing. We have a lot to do today, but it's nice to take a slow start. Tonight I'm storytelling in Beckley, WV at the beautiful Tamarack Arts Center.

Loving these days and these times.

Have a great day, my friends.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Little Apple Tree

There is a little apple tree in the woods close to the house.You can just see it off to the top right in the above photo from 2010. It is twisted and runty and usually has lots of watersprouts. It is not a pretty tree.

I remember when it was a baby when I first moved here, just a littel spike of a thing, I left it alone because it was not likely to make anything of itself anyway.

The little tree is in the center of this photo, hard to see, when it was in bloom, This was taken about 4 years ago,
 I've never actually taken a photo of it by itself.

My first clotheslines were ropes stretched between the trees in these woods. The little apple tree was too small to be a support but it wasn't in the way. It had its first blooms five years after I first found it. There were no apples on it, though, not that year.

Years passed. I divorced and remarried, had another son. I went off to work and to college. My sons grew up and moved out into lives of their own. Grandchildren arrived and grew up. The little tree was still there, and every spring I enjoyed its blooms. But there were no apples.The bigger trees, the oaks and the persimmons and the ash and hickory, overshadowed it and made it grow twisty. It looked odd but it bloomed and that was enough for me.

Until this year. This year it had about a dozen apples. Two or three were BIG! But most were small and runty. I picked them anyway, and this morning I used some of them to make apple pancakes.

Oh. My. Goodness. Those apples were delicious! Spicy, sweet-tart, full-bodied flavor and just the right texture.

Forty years of waiting. And finally an imperfect crop. But the little tree is still a favorite of mine, twisty and funny looking as it is. Maybe it will give us more apples one day, maybe not. It doesn't matter to me. I'm happy with it as it is.

This tree reminds me of the Aesop's fable of the farmer and his apple tree.

A peasant had growing in his garden an apple tree which bore no fruit at all. It served only as a place for crickets, grasshoppers and sparrows to get out of the heat. The little creatures often sat chirping in the tree's branches.

Disappointed that the tree produced no fruit, the man decided to cut it down.

"Please don't destroy our tree," the grasshoppers said. "Where will we sit and chirp if there is no tree here?"

"Please don't cut this tree," begged the birds. "We sit in its branches and sing to you every day. Would you not miss our songs?"

"Please leave the tree alone," said the crickets. "We rest on its bark and make our music to lighten your work. Where will we go if you cut the tree?"

"No," said the man. "The tree gives me nothing. Why should I keep it in my garden? At least its wood will warm me in my fires this winter."

The man picked up his axe and gave a mighty swing. He quickly discovered that other creatures were living in the hollow center of the tree: honeybees! The large swarm buzzed angrily as it protected its large store of honey.

"Aha!" said the man. "This tree is worth keeping after all. Who knew that it contained such treasure?" He picked up his axe and left the tree standing, and its inhabitants continued to sing, chirp and buzz.

My little tree doesn't hide such treasure. Or perhaps it does, in the sweetness and scent of its blooms, and in the unexpected pleasure of a surprise harvest.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Riverbend Booth: Changes and Then More Changes

We have continued the patter this week: walks, painting, gardens, canning and booth work. Last week we took new things to the Riverbend Antique Mall in Ravenswood, WV. We were worried that we would not have room for it all, but when we arrived we learned that a big dresser and one of the parlor chairs had sold. Whew! Space!

Here's a look at what we did last week:

The turquoise dinette got settled in after some shifting of other furniture. Several things on the tabletop in this photo are already sold. Pretty cool!

The chrome ice bucket, blue acrylic candles and the Sapphire Blue Philbe casserole are all gone.

More about this cabinet later in this post.

I so love this little table! It was ugly, ugly, but now it has real class.

The wood grain on its top is just beautiful.

And the red desk and chair made it into the booth too, with a little wiggling.

The day after we were there, the Hoosier cabinet sold on eBay, and the people who bought it arranged to pick it up this morning. So today we were back at the mall, re-arranging to fill the space left when the cabinet was gone. You might remember that this was the Hoosier cabinet we found in the trash--it needed very little work and was one of our favorite pieces, really. Now it has a new home in Ohio.

Here's how we filled the space:

The Pyrex bowls get a little more visibility on the table. I like that red holiday one a lot.

Tomorrow I'll be back to painting to get a few things ready for our Marietta booth later this week. It's a stuff in, stuff out business for sure!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.