(Mis)Remembrance of Things Past

 The Way of Swanns....

Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people.

Marcel Proust

Swann's Way

Stack, 2022-2024, Nicole Eisenman

I am taking tea in the sumptuous drawing room of Trent Park, where Sir Philip Sassoon, looking relaxed in a blue silk smoking jacket and slippers of zebra hide, offers me a Madeleine with a clipped sibilant lisp [His offer, I assume, not the Madeleine? Ed.]

And with me in this effete temple is Sir Philip's sister, the beautiful Sybil, later to become the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, grandmother of David, the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, of Houghton Hall in Norfolk. Sybil tells me of her friendship with Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, Woman of the Bedchamber to Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and mother of Frances Shand Kydd, herself the mother of Diana, the subject of a recent book by her brother..... 

Small world? 

[Six degrees of separation? Ed.]

What I didn't realise was that we were being overheard. Every utterance of that clipped sibilant lisp was being recorded in the basement:

Where the tea was not being served in madeleine moments:

Rather it was part of a programme of edited involuntary memory - not-so-precious fragments of the essence of the past, though even with the recordings, the chink of a tea cup, the snuffling of a dog, the accuracy of the account could be impaired.  A word mis-heard here, the tone mis-interpreted.  We are such stuff as dreams are made on - nothing is quite what it seems.....

Times change.  The world spins on.  In Trafalgar Square the latest plinth-hopper strides away from the past, into an uncertain future, in search, perhaps, of lost time - time to make reparations, or time to forget.....

Lady in Blue, Tschabalala Self

And now I am in Dulwich, at the Picture Gallery.  Here images of American Cities pose a selection of by-products of other memories.  

It's an inspiring exhibition, 

But the title is misleading: it is neither a portrait of A city, nor is it a comprehensive century of American photography. No mention, for example, of Lee Miller.  Nor Ansel Adams.  Nor Cindy Sherman.  For example.....  Though Garry Winogrand has plenty to say.....

But on the back of this show, I roam the busy streets of London by night, looking for images, taking photographs, however stupid the term.

Taking photographs....  [You can't give them back.... Ed.]

And then, as if by magic, I find myself enjoying omelette norvégienne (Baked Alaska) with my friend Nicola.....

But don't ask me to explain.... I cannot remember everything....

Ah well.  Nothing is complete.  As Marcel Proust said, Always try to keep a patch of sky above your head.....  Which is what I cannot quite achieve in the Serpentine Pavilion the following morning:

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 by LANZA atelier

The shadow of a Praying Mantis.....

Then, last Saturday was my paternal grandfather's birthday.  I share the date with my brothers, for we remember, fondly, the old man at the head of the table, his tongue-twisters, his bald pate a skating rink for flies....  He would have been 141.  He died at the age of 86.  Do the maths (as they say), but we still remember.  We cannot forget.  He died with a piece of German shrapnel lodged in his left humerus (it wasn't funny).  His troop ship had been torpedoed and sunk off Malta.  He had been run over by the British Consul in Alexandria.  He had dysentry in India.  But nobody needs to know this.  It's just involuntary memory - precious fragments - and I will keep them to myself.  It's not for sharing.....

I walk by the Serpentine, lost in my thoughts.  Water here.....

No water here:

But it is still beautiful - peaceful - and is still a part of the collective consciousness.  If you don't recognise it, never mind, it won't make a difference.  The swans on the Serpentine glide by, elegant, temporary but timeless.  No need to explain.  No need to probe their self-identity.

My grandfather was my grandfather.  Had he not married my grandmother - had he married someone else - he would not have been my grandfather, and I would not be me.  The world spins this way, or it spins that way - it just depends on how you look at it, or where you stand.

I have just been to the Coop. I went to get a newspaper, some bananas and some cream. It's a step away. I came back with a newspaper and some bananas. I had misremembered the cream. I can remember my grandfather. I cannot remember the cream. Is my hippocampus just a circus ring? Or am I merely fallible?

Is the past just one person's story?  Or is it the work of many people collectively sharing someone else's story?

Which, inevitably, will never be the whole story......

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

W B Yeats

The Wild Swans at Coole

Anna Pavlova was my mother's godmother. She was, in many ways, a swan.....

And then, gradually, the memory of her would fade away, I had forgotten the girl of my dream.

Marcel Proust

Swann's Way

This one is dedicated to my friend's family.....

A Family Celebration

 98 not out!

The Baker and McMullin families
Putney, June 18th 2017

It is March 8th, 2023 and we are in Putney, south west London.  My aunt, Eve, reclines on a sofa, a blanket across her knees.  The room is full of vases of cut flowers.  Cards are arranged on the mantelpiece and on the table.  A large fish tank contains a silent chorus of colour, choreographed to spell out Happy Birthday in the imagination.  The television lights a corner by the fireplace, subtitles misspelling the news.  My cousin, Nick, brings a telephone to his mother: “It’s Mark….”  Eve listens and speaks.  Another cousin, Sarah, explains to me that this was Isobel (her long-departed sister)’s partner, who regularly keeps in touch. 

Eve at 98

 

My aunt, Eve, was born on March 8^th 1925, in a bungalow on Arnakal tea estate, at Vanderperiyar, 3,000 feet up in the Cardamon Hills in Kerala, southern India.  She was the third child of the family, my mother, Anna, being the second, just two years older.  Robert had been the firstborn, in 1921, and Peter was to be the last, in 1927.

Eve and Peter with their father, Major Robert McMullin
Arnakal, India, 1933

 

Of these four, Eve is the survivor; all the others, including their partners, with the exception of Adrienne, Robert’s wife, who was born in 1934 and who lives in Toronto, Canada, have now passed on.

 

Peter and Eve, Arnakal

None of this will matter to anyone outside our family circle.  Indeed, it doesn’t matter much at all, but I am happy my aunt survives and I celebrate the warmth of relationships.  If we turn our back on our nearest, then how can we care for others? And this human world is bad enough without any further loss of love.

 

Eve’s life is to be celebrated.  It isn’t over, yet, but it has run a fine course, bringing light and life to others.  And it is remarkable how alive some of Eve’s memories still are.  In the course of my brief stay that morning we talked about her mother, who I did just know when I was little, and about coming to England as a child, and going to school, with her sister, my mother.  She even recalled the name of the school, Storrington, in Eastbourne, where the two of them were boarders.  

Eve and Anna, c 1938?

 

After their father had brought the family home from India, he set up a Silver Fox farm at Robertsbridge, in Sussex, and the two girls would make their way by train to the school in Essex.  On the way through London, Eve still recalls, they might pass a little time at the newsreel cinema (I think I remember them as Jaceys, showing Pathe News) in one of the rail termini in the city.  I know this to be true as my mother also told me this years ago, but it is remarkable that such experience is still there to be related in Eve’s mind, and she cannot have been much more than eleven at the time, some 85 years ago. 

Eve at Pean's Farm

 

Eve wasn’t very happy at school as she was homesick and missed the gardens and the house at Arnakal where she had spent the first nine years of her life. In later life she wrote a book, The Tea Planter’s Children, all about her experiences there, which is still available. In her introduction to this she wrote that, All four of us, the Tea Planter’s Children, have always looked back on our life at Arnakal as a time of great happiness, and tranquillity. For our parents, too, it was the happiest time of their lives.

 

Peter and Eve, c 1941

Yes, Eve was literate, and an integral part of her life was a writers’ group, which she organised, and she was an artist, and became an excellent potter, producing beautiful glazed ceramic plates, cups, jugs and bowls some of which are still among my treasured possessions.  For years she exhibited annually with a friend and had her own kiln.

One of Eve's creations

For all her immediate family, the Second World War interrupted their lives and the four young people served in various ways. Although she was only 14 when the war broke out, Eve spent time after leaving school (which she remembers was evacuated to Devon) in the WAAF, as my mother did.  Then, after the war was over, she met Wilfred Baker, a friend of her brother Peter from University, and in the summer of 1951, they married.

Eve and their lovely Tansy
c late '50s

 

Wilfred was a businessman, and developed an import/export business in optical equipment.  For many years this was successful and their life together moved from a modest house (whose basement rooms flooded in heavy rain) in Holland Park, to a more substantial house near Portobello Road, to a fine big house in Putney, where I joined the family for a while as their interior decorator.  They also had a holiday cottage in Mayo, not far from a branch of our Irish family who lived in Westport (the McMullin family had had property in Sligo, but this is now lost).

Eve and Wilfred on their Golden Wedding, 2016

 

There were five children, three girls and two boys, and there was always a buzz about the place.  I had grown up with two brothers, and I enjoyed staying with my cousins.  I also enjoyed going for drinks with Wilfred, sometimes at the Grapes near Aldgate, where he had an office, sometimes at Gordon’s Wine Bar near Embankment Gardens, and more often at the Spread Eagle in Wandsworth.  Wilfred was excellent company, even though he quite often forgot to carry cash....

 

The house was alive, and there were always people coming and going.  The children had their talents, with Isobel taking after her father as a serious pianist.  Chris was a fine artist, and was for a time one of the original puppet makers for Spitting Image.  Sarah went from a teaching degree to work for the National Theatre, before moving to Italy as a professional artist.  Jenny was, and is, a great cook and Nick developed his skills as a carpenter.

 

Unfortunately, however, Wilfred’s business partner let him down, and they had to downsize, twice, over the years when he should have been able to retire comfortably.  Separately he developed Vascular Dementia, and at his death in 2017, Eve had to manage some difficult finances, but, as ever, she carried on, keeping her head, as she had done earlier when Isobel died, and later when Chris passed away.  

 

Taking in lodgers, and keeping a tight hold on the purse strings, Eve came through, and she was always warm and welcoming whenever I visited her.  And she was full of reminiscences and her bright memory shone to illuminate my interests in family history.  Even now, today, her 98th birthday, she remembers her mother, who was private secretary to Anna Pavlova in London before her marriage, and corrects me on details from a lifetime ago.

Eve and Anna's last meeting

 

Although she is weak and thin now, and depends on social workers, family and lodgers a great deal, her voice is still clear, with an unaffected accent that I believe carries a hint of Ireland and a touch of India and which breaks into a smiling laugh every now and then.  Old age can be a terrible thing, but Eve is weathering that storm, for now, and she gives hope to those who feel old before their time.  She engages with people and with life and always has done.  I left as Lauren, one of her eight grandchildren, arrived to pay her respects (and there are also three great grandchildren, so far....)  

Succeeding generations will remember Eve with great affection, love and gratitude for the part she has played in all our lives.  She did need to be reminded that it was her 98th birthday, and then she chuckled as if she didn’t quite believe it......

 

 

 

Big Butterfly Count

Ode to Psyche

Silver-washed Fritillary

In Greek folklore the soul was pictured as a butterfly. In classical mythology Psyche (which is Greek for Soul) was a princess of outstanding beauty who aroused Venus’ jealousy and Cupid’s love. Psyche was portrayed as having butterfly wings and Aristotle gave the butterfly the name psyche. Many cultures relate butterflies to the human soul. 

Peacock

Butterflies are an important part of our culture, for various reasons. The Russian Ballerina, Anna Pavlova, said this:  When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away. 

Chalkhill Blue (m)

Dolly Parton, not known as a Ballerina, had this to say:

Love is like a butterfly

As soft and gentle as a sigh 

The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings 

Love makes your heart feel strange inside 

It flutters like soft wings in flight 

Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing 

Green Hairstreak

And John Keats, not generally known as a Ballerina nor as a Bluegrass singer, offered this in his Ode to Psyche:

O latest born and loveliest vision far

Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy! 

Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star, 

Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;

Which, as it was his first attempt at Ode-ing, just goes to show that the more you practise the better you get.....

And also that anyone can have an opinion about butterflies - and it won't make a blind bit of difference.....

Gatekeeper

  

So, I hear you complain, why bang on about them? Well, today is the first day of The Big Butterfly Count, which is a nationwide citizen science survey aimed at helping us assess the health of our environment. It was launched in 2010 and has rapidly become the world's biggest survey of butterflies. Over 107,000 citizen scientists took part in 2021, submitting 152,039 counts of butterflies and day-flying moths from across the UK.

According to Butterfly Conservation, We count butterflies because not only are they beautiful creatures to be around but they are also extremely important. They are vital parts of the ecosystem as both pollinators and components of the food chain. However, they are under threat. Numbers of butterflies and moths in the UK have decreased significantly since the 1970s. This is a warning that cannot be ignored.

Butterfly declines are also an early warning for other wildlife losses. Butterflies are key biodiversity indicators for scientists as they react very quickly to changes in their environment. Therefore, if their numbers are falling, then nature is in trouble. So tracking numbers of butterflies is crucial in the fight to conserve our natural world. That's why taking part in this massive citizen science enterprise is of great importance not just for our butterflies but for the wider environment and biodiversity in general.

Small White

The Butterfly Conservation website tells us that butterflies are highly sensitive indicators of the health of the environment and play crucial roles in the food chain as well as being pollinators of plants.

• The UK has 58 species of butterflies – 56 resident species of butterflies and two regular migrants – the Painted Lady and Clouded Yellow.

Clouded Yellow

• The State of the UK’s Butterflies 2015 report found that 76% of the UK’s resident and regular migrant butterflies declined in abundance, occurrence or both over the last four decades.

Small Tortoiseshell

The report concludes:  Butterflies are culturally important [too], as demonstrated by their frequent appearances in art and literature through the ages. Their beauty and graceful movement are pleasing to the human eye and their metamorphosis, from caterpillar to butterfly, is widely used as a cultural symbol of spiritual growth, progress and making a new start. 

Perhaps the Conservative party could bear this in mind?

Brimstone

Butterflies conjure up images of sunshine, the warmth and colour of flowery meadows, and summer gardens teaming with life. Sadly, four butterflies became extinct during the last 150 years and three-quarters of British butterflies are in decline.

Comma

Habitats have been destroyed on a massive scale, and now patterns of climate and weather are shifting unpredictably in response to pollution of the atmosphere but the disappearance of these beautiful creatures is more serious than just a loss of colour in the countryside. 

Conserving butterflies will improve our whole environment for wildlife and enrich the lives of people now and in the future.

Red Admiral

I have been out and about with my camera recently in the Norfolk countryside (with the exception of three of these photos they were all taken not far from my current home this year: the Clouded Yellow, the Small Tortoiseshell and the Brimstone were taken in Hertfordshire before we moved).  It's a delight to follow these jerkily flighted insects in their short lives, and it is great when they pause for a moment to recharge their solar batteries.

Chalkhill Blue

Just the other day I was at Warham Camp, near Holkham, photographing these little blue fellows (above) when two enthusiasts came past hurriedly, calling excitedly out Clouded Yellow! and inviting me to follow.  I didn't manage to see that one, but their enjoyment of the chase was infectious. 

Chalkhill Blue

I have no pretensions to be a lepidopterist, nor an expert, but I take an interest in my surroundings and in the health of the world about us all.

Meadow Brown and Ringlet

I recently visited Foxley Wood, a Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve, on the trail of the White Admiral.  On the way I caught site of large Silverwashed Fritillaries, Commas, and this little one:

Speckled Wood

And then, fleetingly, I caught sight of my target, flashing amongst the leaves.  He didn't pose, and I struggled to focus, but in the end I captured something of his soul:

White Admiral

And then, just for good measure, he turned and showed his underside as well.....

Smartypants

So, today was the first day of Big Butterfly Count, and I checked my garden this morning in the sunshine for fifteen minutes, counting several Small Whites, a Gatekeeper, two Peacocks, a Small Tortoiseshell and a Comma.

I shall have fifteen minute counts in different locations in the next weeks (it is open until August 7th) and log the findings on the App on my phone.

Join me!  

https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org

Small Skipper

These little, short-lived but beautiful creatures may seem fragile, and insignificant, but don't underestimate the shadow they can cast......

Now I'm just off to see my Psychiatrist....

With thanks to Adrian M. Riley for his invaluable book, British and Irish Butterflies, 

(available from www.bramblebybooks.co.uk)

and for his help in identifying some variants.