OK. The first three words of the title are a bit clichéd. But
I like it because of the Lawrence
reference, and also because it seems to sum up my feelings tonight, as I pore
over a map of England and think about ten years ago, around the time we made
the fateful and fatal decision to pack up and leave. And come home. Back to
Australia. I think of King Lear,
poring over his own map, readying himself to divide up his kingdom amongst his
three daughters and three new son-in-laws. But my reasoning is different to
his- unlike Lear, I don’t have a ‘darker
purpose’- I merely wish to wallow in my beautiful memories of a decade ago.
At this time, ten years ago, we were living in
Gloucestershire, the market town of Newent, specifically. I remember I had been
teaching at a soul destroying school in the north in a former mining town
called Mansfield. I only barely survived, getting through with the help of the
spectacular car journey every morning and afternoon: the beautiful green of the
English wintry countryside, watching birds settle on ancient fence posts, old
cottage-sized post offices in little towns with grand red pillar boxes, waving
to anonymous school kids on the side of gravel roads, the air distinctly cool
and fresh, and above all Nick Cave
belting out songs like ‘Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow’ and ‘The Sorrowful
Wife’, released just a year earlier on ‘No More Shall We Part.’
I saw the advertisement for Newent Community College
somewhere, and as a good omen knew people in the gorgeous nearby town,
Ross-on-Wye, near Wales, and drove down for an interview. There were a number
of those old black and white timber buildings in the town, very seductive for
people like me from new Australia, including the fish ‘n’ chip shop built in
1493. I got the job, which is why, ten years ago I was living in Newent,
Gloucestershire, weighing up whether or not to come home or move, after two and
a half years, to another spot somewhere else in England. If we stayed,
Yorkshire was a distinct possibility. We had been to the north, but only stayed
for a period of time as high up as Lawrence
country, in the Midlands. Then there was the pull of home, and the family,
and my old job, and Penny, the family cat. Oh, and my books, and ordinary life,
and the feel of being more settled. Of course we could have stayed in England and eventually feel
settled as well… but we didn’t. We came home in December, 2003.
As I pore over this map of England, I fantasise about living
there again, and contemplate all the treasures that England beholds. At the
same time I try to remember in my blinded idealism and rose coloured glasses
that there are horrors in the UK that one can’t help but being glad to have
escaped. The pernicious royal family is one, and the revolting pomp and
ceremony of the ridiculously looking and ridiculously named ‘Beefeaters’, the
sickening talk all the time of Viscounts and Barons and Lords, the Duke of
Buckley and the Duchess of Kent, the vomit inducing National Anthem that they
tried to force all of us to sing in Melbourne way back when…
Despite all of this, how I wish I was there!
The top right hand side of my map is an area just below
Scotland, encompassing the moderate sized county of Northumberland. It is
chiefly known for its castles. It is a place I could easily spend the rest of
my life. We visited the castles that Turner
painted long ago, crumbling then and still crumbling further, but such a great
part of the Romantic landscape- Dunstanburgh, Alnwick, Bamburgh. And there’s
Norham Castle, fixed in my memory as the subject of a majestic Turner painting of yellow and blue
housed at the Tate Gallery.
I recall a tourist page that had a picture of the
one of the world’s most beautiful birds, the Puffin. Alas, we didn’t see any.
But we did go to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. You have to be careful to
remember to go back to the mainland before the tide comes in or you are stuck.
Holy Island, if I recall correctly, features in the novel ‘Border Crossing’ by Pat Barker. It is her territory. The
accents are beautiful in this part of England, which could easily have been
Scotland. I imagine they feel a little bit separate to the English. I saw an
old book called ‘The History of Northumberland.’ I remember thinking how lovely
it would be to live here and read this book in the conservatory of the house I
am living in one day.
Directly below my map is the county of Durham, featuring a University
and one of many counties that boast a glorious Cathedral, although not my
favourite in England. The counties just south and west of Durham interest me a
lot more. What could be more impressive than Cumbria? ( formerly known as
Westmoreland, from memory). It is the
glorious setting for Wordsworth’s moving
‘Prelude’ and it is the location for Lizzie’s trip with the Gardiner’s in
‘Pride and Prejudice’- “what are men to rocks and mountains?” I don’t even know if there is a school in
Cumbria. Of course there must be, but when I think of Cumbria I think of
Lizzie’s rocks and mountains, and famous lakes, everything remote to work or
working. It was when he was touring the lakes that Lawrence learnt of the end of the First World War. It strikes me as
a great place to find out a war has ended. I could live in Cumbria, but every
day I would be pinching myself. The thought is just too surreal. I could enjoy Van Morrison’s song ‘Summertime in
England’, all Wordsworth and Coleridge, even more because it is set
here, in Kendal. It is one of two songs that contain my favourite lyric in
music: ‘Can you feel the silence?’
Yorkshire is next on the map, and in my mind a more realistic
option. This is because it is where we were going next, if we didn’t come home.
The Bronte’s resided there. We went
to the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth
countless times, just like Sylvia Plath,
and saw the little green sofa that Emily supposedly died on, on December 19,
1848. Yorkshire also features the majestic Castle Howard of ‘Brideshead
Revisited’ fame, and Scarborough, where Ann
Bronte is buried in a last ditch effort to save her life by the raging
waters. The school in which there may or may not have been a vacancy- I can’t
remember- was called ‘Skipton Girls’ High School’ in Skipton, North Yorkshire.
This is where I fancied working throughout 2003 and beyond. A tranquil life of
teaching Literature to enthusiastic English girls, and living on a little farm
with some goats and sheep. We would have one of those ancient fences around our
property that are characteristic of the area. They are made of blocks of blue
stone that are piled up randomly and have been there for centuries. Someone in
the UK said that Yorkshire is ‘God’ Own Country’, and I’ve heard it said about
other places as well, but in the case of Yorkshire I can almost believe it.
Of course there is another important literary legacy in
Yorkshire- it is where Ted Hughes
comes from, his parent’s farm called 'The Beacon' in a town called Mytholmroyd, with poor Sylvia Plath buried quite close by,
in Heptonstall. We visited the pub they used to go to, 'The White Lion' and I sat, like
countless others before me, astride the gravestone with the memorable epitaph:
‘Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.’ If you know anything
of her, you will know why the ‘fierce flames’ and ‘golden lotus’ are absolutely
perfect.
The north of England is a beautiful part of the world. But it
is just one of many options I would gladly take up if I could live in England.
I’m putting my map away to become enticed with other places in England, another
time.
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