Community tapestry - Mount Felix Military hospital

When I was a girl and I lived in Walton, by the river, there was a derelict site at the end of the road called Mount Felix, where there had been a Big House - which had been used as a military hospital during "the War". In fact, the hospital had housed so many injured New Zealanders that it had had to be extended into "huts" along a row which became called New Zealand Avenue and which is now a main road in Walton-on-Thames. (The adults meant the war which they couldn't remember - although Grannie and Grandad could - the Great War.) The building was Italianate in style with a square tower which was quite a landmark, but eventually it was razed to the ground and we used the stony ground, with its patches of concrete (probably originally the driveway) to play football, and we also used to slide down amongst the trees on the muddy bank to the pond. There was plenty of room for a few groups of children to play there.

This is the "land" side of Mount Felix, with its tower.

This is the river side with its pond (now a marina).

One of the other groups of children came from Ridgeway (a road on the bridge side of Mount Felix), and I met one of them at a meeting of the stitchers who are making the community tapestry to mark the centenary of World War 1. We are now women firmly into middle age and yet she shared my childhood!

 I have to say that it's not really a tapestry - it's an embroidery. I came together with three other women who have done some embroidery but not much - to form a group, and now we call ourselves "Stitched Up" because we never knew each other before this project. But now we meet every two weeks.

The history is probably not that interesting unless you are a local or otherwise interested in World War 1, but if you are please find a link to the website

We have just finished our first panel! Here it is!






Our panel is number 11 (or 14) and it shows trench warfare in Gallipoli.
I did a lot of flies and stray bullets. We had a lot of dull sand and
sandbags to do, but we tried to make it as bright as we could.

 

Still looking for the source of the Thames

If you remember, once before we went to look for that holy place where the water that becomes the Thames comes out of the ground. I have never seen this (except in Ampleforth, Yorkshire, where the streams on one side of the road flowed perpetually across the road and nobody remarked on it. We could have used that water!) But I particularly want to see this miracle as it happens and becomes the Thames. You remember that before we went as far as the pub:

and went along an extremely dangerous road and through a railway bridge and up a field and there was a lovely stream, but the path went away from the stream; we didn't know how far we had to walk; we had walked a lot that day and it was getting dark and so we gave up.

This time we discovered that if we had only poked our heads into the pub doorway there was a large, detailed and very clear map showing you how far you had to go and how to avoid some of the highly dangerous bit of road. Anyway, this time we went up the path marked with an orange arrow before you get to the railway bridge, and we followed the path beside the railway before it  joins the Thames path. Then we saw the marker from a distance and found it at last and I took photos but I was not happy. I was not happy because the ground there was lacking an essential element. Water.

This is very clear.

In front of these markers there is a pile of rocks which people have left to show they got here and they saw the water coming out of the ground, but there was nothing to see yesterday.

So we walked off in search of the first sign of the stream.



We walked down this field. By the way, at one time there was a statue of Old Father Thames in this field but it was vandalised, so it was moved to the first lock on the Thames.

This is the river bed - I kept listening for sounds of trickling water. No joy

The river bed is quite marked and easy to follow - the grass is greener : there are more kinds of  weeds.

I seem to remember seeing the stream here last time.

In the river bed. The river is supposed to run under both of the arches of that bridge. 

We went over to the other side of the road. No blooming river. So once again we did not find the source of the Thames. But the lack of water is surely an indication of a problem: empty aquifers. Overuse of water I think as we have had enough rain this year. 

Virginia Woolf's diary, part 1, 2nd post

Virginia Woolf didn't "do" introspection and whether this is right or wrong I don't know. Perhaps she feared that looking inward would damage her confidence. She preferred merely to record events and describe them with her own bias, which again, she didn't analyse. She used her diary in the following ways:

1. to loosen up her writing style - for example, to practice making unusual similes. She wrote it as quickly as possible "before tea". Could be any time - before tea! But she was involved in writing novels and reviews at the same time, so this writing, a record her life, allowed far more freedom.

5th Jan 1915 After lunch we took the air in the Old Deer Park, & marked by a line of straw how high the  river had been; & how a great tree had fallen across the towing path, crushing the railing beneath it. Three bodies were seen yesterday swiftly coursing downstream at Teddington.

26th Jan 1915 I wrote, as usual, over the fire, with an occasional interruption by Lizzy [an inept maid] who is like a rough coated young carthorse, with muddy hooves.

 e.g. 8 Sept 1918  Yesterday poor Bunny came for the night, bringing 8 combs of honey, for which he charges 2/6 each. .. Poor old Bunny! He is as if caked with earth, stiff as a clod; you can almost see the docks and nettles sprouting from his mind; his sentences creak with rust. He can now only lay hands on the simplest words.

 2. to keep her hold on reality because she has had a history of  psychosis; here she writes soon after a bout of illness only about the simplest facts.

e.g. 7 Aug 1917 Queer misty day. Sun not strong enough to come through. Went to Brighton after lunch. German prisoners working in the field by Dod's Hill laughing with the soldier, and woman passing. Went to Pier; tea at Booth's horrible men at our table; staged at Lewes on way back. Bicycled back from Glynde. 

3. to record her life's events with her own personal slant and interpretation

e.g.  Last Friday (14th June 1918) we went to a League of Nations meeting. The jingoes were defeated by the cranks. It was a splendid sight to see. The chief jingo was H.G. Wells, a slab of a man formidable for his mass, but otherwise the pattern of a professional cricketer. He has the cockney accent in words like "day". He was opposed by Oliver, Mrs Swanwick and Adrian. There were also present such gnomes as always creep out on such occasions - old women in coats & skirts with voluminous red ties, & little buttons and badges attached to them - crippled, stammering men, & old patriarchs with beards, & labour men, & ourselves.

e.g. 10 Jul 1918 Rain for the first time for weeks today & a funeral next door; dead of influenza. 

e.g. 12 Jul 1918 Great storms have been beating over England the last 3 days, the result of the Bishop's importunity, God being, as usual, spiteful in his concessions, & now threatening to ruin the harvest. 

4. to air her prejudices  

e.g.  4th January 1915. I do not like the Jewish voice; I do not like the Jewish laugh: otherwise I think there is something to be said for Flora Woolf.

e.g. I bought my fish and meat in the High Street - a degrading but rather amusing business. I dislike the sight of women shopping. They take it so seriously.

 e.g.  On the towpath we met and had to pass a long line of imbeciles. ...and then one realised that every one in that long line was a miserable ineffective shuffling idiotic creature, with no forehead, or no chin, & an imbecile grin, or a wild suspicious stare. It was perfectly horrible. They should certainly be killed.

e.g. The odd thing about the Woolf family, to me, is the extreme laxness of it. In my family, the discussions and agitations that went on about the slightest change in one's way of life were endless; but with the W's it doesn't much seem to matter whether they turn farmer, run away with another man's wife, or marry a Polish Jew Tailor's daughter.

 5. to remark the small things that give her friends and acquaintances personality

e.g. 27th Jan 1915 She seems to like everyone equally, as if they were all the same. She told us how she used to go to bed with a basket of socks by her side, so as to start darning first thing in the morning.

e.g. I talked mainly to Ermengard - a rare visitor, but somehow familiar. As L. remarked these country women get a slow bovine manner, rather refreshing to my taste. She breeds prize bulls, plays a double bass in the evening & writes improper stories for children. She seems to have settled into a corner absolutely fitted for her, where she exists pleasantly, having a Quaker faith now to round her off. I got the impression of some large garden flower comfortably shoving its roots about & well planted in the soil - say a Stock, or a holly-hock. 

e.g. Adrian looks immensely long, & his little bow tie somehow gives him a frivolous rather than distinguished air, as if a butterfly had settled on him by mistake. He has some job in an office.

e.g. 23rd Jul 1918  Lytton & Carrington were alone. No servant was visible & most of the waiting seemed to be done by Carrington. She is silent, a little subdued, makes one conscious of her admiring & solicitous youth. If one were concerned for her, one might be anxious about her position - so dependent on L & having so openly burnt the conventional boats.  

6.  and as a store of material to use in stories and novels (can't separate this and the previous very well.)

e.g. 1st Feb 1915 In St James's street there was a terrific explosion; people came running out of clubs; stopped still and gazed about them. But there was no Zeppelin or aeroplane - only, I suppose, a very large burst tyre. But it is really an instinct with me, & most people I suppose, to turn any sudden noise, or dark object int he sky into an explosions, or a German aeroplane. And it always seems utterly impossible that one should be hurt.[used in Mrs Dalloway].

e.g.  28th May 1918 Harry Stephen told his old stories, wrinkled his nose, & alluded several times to his great age. He is 58. An undoubted failure: but that has a freshening effect upon people; they are more irresponsible than the successes; but yet one can't call Harry exactly irresponsible either. He is modest; humorous; all his pride for his father and ancestors. He still takes out an enormous pocket knife, & slowly half opens the blade & shuts it. [VW used this for Peter Walsh in Mrs Dalloway.]

e.g. 1 May 1918 We [Leonard and V] had a  tremendous talk about the Equator. In the middle of a demonstration with two pebbles ... this diverted my attention. A serious reprimand had to be administered.. It was discovered that I took the Equator to be a circular mark, coloured dull red, upon the end of a football. The ignorance and inattention combined displayed in this remark seemed so crass that for about 20 minutes we could not speak. [VW used this too in Mrs Dalloway, see previous entry.]

7. and of course, for enjoyment.

e.g.  28th May 1918  The heat was such that it was intolerable to walk before tea; we sat in the garden, I indolently reading, L. not sitting but gardening. We had the best display of flowers yet seen - wall flowers in profusion, columbines, phlox, & as we went huge scarlet poppies with purple stains inside them. The peonies even about to burst. There was a nest of blackbirds against the wall. Last night at Charleston I lay with my window open listening to a nightingale, which beginning in the distance come very near the garden. Fishes splashed in the pond. May in England is all they say - so teeming, amorous & creative.

Went skiffing - first time for 6 months

It was a lovely day - it was very like this, but more Springlike

We were able to see the damage done by the floods to the other bank. One landing stage was a ruin as the footings had been washed away. But there were euphorbia and alyssum in the gardens, and the weeping willows  were very bright. I felt much better after coming quite quickly downstream. aha, coming downstream was easy!

Home is the river, first, where one is not
anyone in particular, but part of the
whole picture, the nature of things. I am like
a duck, doing my thing, as they do theirs.
I’m at home in a boat, with a pair of oars, rhythmically
chonking my blades in the water, effortfully
pulling through and stretching forward, carefully
taking the catch and thinking about the skill;
pulling through evenly, using the feet to press
harder again through the stroke. Suddenly goes
the green flash of a parakeet, or the grey
angled outline of a heron, then I fail to think.
When the light falls on the water in the spring,
I hear my boatman voice, and the song that I can sing.

Original Poems by me

Prince

He came bounding over the threshold –

His skin was rich, plush, warm to the touch

Under the sumptuous velvet of his coat,

I closed my eyes and caught

The scent of a waterfall: rising sky,

And a cloud of oxygen filled me:

I hardly breathed

Soul-shaken: winded, bass notes blown

So softly I was not aware of music

Only the drowning depths of the sea

Resounding echoes in the vast dark.

Gently he said: “This can be trusted, but

You have only one taste.” The tang was blood salt

Vital.  It healed my tongue so

I could speak, and from my idiot throat

Came a song I had never heard

Speaking and singing I was free,

Amazed

And shaking with newfound laughing.

Of course I searched for him in vain;

After sightings in various locations:-

Brighton, Sydney, Berlin, Bangkok:

I sold my pearls for tickets and information

Tracked him to the giggling denials

Of princessy boys prancing on a Phuket beach.

In Tijuana I scented his fresh presence

In the dressing-room of that snake-hipped dancer

Who lisped his lies, laughed mockingly

While I cajoled, beseeched, despaired,

Finally shattered my glass heels

Stamping on his stupid sombrero. 

 Scarlet dancers

Scarlet dancers, imperfect in your pointed petals,

You unfurl and dangle your pollened parts

so gracefully, and your bright arms are sturdy

postured prettily to shield your skirts,

as the rain patters, and the chill wind

brings down the dull brown leaves.

You have no choice but to wait for

Some rare late bee, bumbling softly

Brushing at your delicate bunches

Your vivid little toes. But the cold

Keeps him, or he fell, lumbered

By a plenitude of days. He will not come.

So I put you in this vase, be warm.

It’s November.

The river

I come from the wide flat Thames flood plain

It’s fertile land that yearly drowned in silt

A century ago a flood was a valued gain,

But then the meads were sold and houses built.

It’s the stockbroker belt and the green belt

And there are pretty towns, pubs and churches

But you haven’t known the land until you've felt

Part of the river: swum on its depth, tasted its wet

Waded in it and felt silt jelly your toes

Netted the water-boatmen and nymphs,

Caught a one-legged frog and forty minnows

Stood watching in a humming quiet reed patch

The shining needles of dragonflies hover

Inspected the nets of the fishermen’s catch

And when black clouds have gloomed the river over

Dread comes to you, and all your mind is pressed

Tense against the glass, for when the river’s anguished

Nothing can prosper. I was a river-child. Possessed.

Chiswick Bridge by Rob Adams
see painter's website

The Wey floods in Weybridge, tree falls on boat trailer

This is as high as the Thames has come for many years.

This is meant to be a canal: the lock is completely submerged

Another tree collapses

This one has smashed a boat much needed by the rowing club

The River this winter

Around here, when we say "the river" we mean the Thames. We know it very well because we row on it and in the summer, occasionally we swim in it. We keep an eye on it and we get a feeling for beauty through it. The river is not a natural river, because at some point it was dredged, changing its profile from a saucer shape with a huge flood plain, to a flat bottomed U shape. On both sides, the banks were reinforced and people built nice homes alongside. They started as holiday chalets that the owners accepted would be flooded sometimes, but now they are brick and concrete houses that have to be insured for hundreds of thousands of pounds. So a flood costs the insurance companies millions.

My niece is in this picture - and friends of mine.
To avoid flooding, the river is carefully managed. The policy is to let the water out to the sea as fast as possible, reach by reach. This means that the bottom of the river is scoured of all the jelly-silt that used to build up, which was the breeding ground for all the water life, and it also means that we rowers cannot use the river, because the stream is dangerous. This winter we have had a lot of rain (and sleet and snow) and I have rowed on the river twice. A few years ago I rowed on it every week! But this winter has been awful.

Here you can see the new style houses on the other side of the river. They have replaced modest, flood-able dwellings. I resent the way the river is managed just to save the stupid people who invested all their money in a house on a flood plain. Get real, people! Have a look at the properties further down at Hampton and Sunbury - yes, they are floating. You need to get yourselves a houseboat.

Nice, huh?

Today there was a race at Hammersmith and my husband rowed in it - he said the wind was awful and there were huge waves. At least one crew capsized due to the river conditions, and had to be rescued by the safety launches.

Maybe it was a bit like this (the Boat race, 1912)

On the Tideway, the river is not affected so much by the rain and floods, but it is nearly always rough down there. the wind! the Waves!