In Memoriam G L Webster 09/03/1948 - 12/04/2021

We are glad you passed this way.....

G L Webster, Trajan's Forum, 1981

Sometime last autumn, when we weren't quite locked down, I was in a London street, and my friend Lindsay Webster rang me. He asked how I was, so I burbled on about my aches and pains and how life was tough, etc, and then I asked how he was..... Not so good....  He had been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.....

The train has left the station....

Last Monday morning, April 12th, he died. He was just 73.

Kirkby Hall

I met Linds in Sheffield, in the late sixties.  He was at University with my older brother, and he was one of a small group of friends sharing a fondness for beer and curries, amongst other things.  

Linds and my bro, Simon, in Howarth.  We had a running joke about the exchange of cash. No idea why....

Over the ensuing years we met regularly, though sometimes in a fog, here, and there.  At our home, where my younger brother fondly remembers his signature raincoat, and in Kettering and environs, where he lived and worked, as a teacher, firstly at Tresham College and latterly at Brook House College, Market Harborough.

We made many trips together, including an early morning drive over the Pennines from Sheffield to Lancaster, empowered by bacon butties and mugs of tea from all-night cafes; and a particularly frenetic visit to Paris in the early seventies, fuelled by absinthe and steak tartare.

During a visit to Palestrina, with another great friend, Antonio, in 1981.  Note the raincoat.....

In 1980 he attended my alma mater in Lancaster for a Master's degree, and I recall waking him there with the snap and fizz of a can of beer - we had a common interest in the intellectual qualities of alcohol - and then subsequently, in '81 he came to visit me in Italy, at Christmas time, where we explored the delights of Ancient Rome and then, with a rented car, the wines and spirits of Siena, where, after a bitterly cold evening in the Campo, he barricaded the hotel door against imaginary pursuers, only to find, in the morning, that the door opened outwards.

After that he was particularly anxious not to miss his flight home, so I accompanied him to Rome Ciampino airport, and he took off in the hope that a beautiful Polish girl would be waiting for him back home.  After taking a taxi from Luton airport, he found that he was indeed in luck, and not long after he and Anna married, to enjoy forty years of life together.

Ten years ago, Linds and I began a series of July excursions, fitting in a few days walking and a few nights beering between the end of term and either a holiday with Anna or one of his many journeys to the Far East or Asia Minor to recruit students for his college.  

Our first such adventure, in 2011, was to Lindisfarne, which I then commemorated in a blog piece which ended thus.....

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne’s name originates as the island of the people from Lindsey or Linnuis (OE Lindesege) which was the name of a small Anglo-Saxon kingdom, which lay between the Humber and the Wash, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century.  The name Lindsey itself means the 'island of Lincoln' which derives from the fact that it was surrounded by water and was very wet land and had Lincoln towards its south-west corner.  A fitting name all round. (The picture shows old friend Lindsay thinking about St Aidan, and the dangers of water.)

The following year we stayed in Blakeney, Norfolk, and walked (some of) the Norfolk Coast Path.  It was not the first time we had visited here, as this next photo reveals - a youthful Linds near Wells-next-the-sea - so many years ago now that I don't recall the details, except that he had 'borrowed' a tiny cottage and it was only in the early hours that we discovered that the owners were not entirely aware of the arrangement.....

In 2013 we ventured to Suffolk; in 2014 to the Peak District, where our advancing years began to show ascending Jacob's Ladder, and even more on the subsequent trail down a very rocky gulley. 

 The year after that we stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon, took in Volpone (in a hospital bed) and wandered on the Malvern Hills, checking out Elgar's cottage and his last resting place. In 2016 it was the Cotswolds, where we followed in the feetsteps of Laurie Lee. 

2017 had us in Leeds and the Yorkshire Dales, on the trail of J B Priestley. In 2018 we stayed in the glory of Tracey Emin's Margate, breathing in the dust of T S Eliot, and then, in 2019 we were in Essex, savouring the salt at Great Maldon but also admiring John Constable's country.

The pandemic blew us off course in 2020 and that, sadly, is that, for now, though in addition to the July sorties there were also meetings in London, Manchester, Sheffield, and in the vicinity of his home town of Kettering. 

 

Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds

Much of all this was informed, subtly, by Lindsay's erudition.  He was well educated - a classmate had been David Hare - and his relationship with professor William Empson was not solely steeped in spilt drinks.  Indeed, on March 9th this year, Linds wrote to me (with reference to something I had written):  Before his annual poetry reading we used to take him out. Me, "Prof. Empson, can I get you another drink?". Him, "Another. You're politely reminding me it is my round."  Double gin and peps for all followed.  Later as he stumbles over the threshold of a Chinese restaurant he puts his hand on the head of a bemused Chinese child saying, "I wish I could tell you something but you know it all already".  Needless to say the reading was always entertaining if at times difficult to follow.  I gave a copy of his poems to someone inscribed with a note.  When she asked him to sign the book, "Someone has already signed it.  Are you sure you need me to do so?"  !  His shadow provides lasting shade.

Linds himself was very well read, though his interest in international affairs and politics was lightly worn.  We would walk and talk, and apart from his engaging relations of adventures in China, Nigeria or Kazakhstan, he would always be ready with a quotation or reference to literature stored accurately for appropriate use.

I should also record that Linds was a proper European. His father was an upstanding Englishman. His mother a resolute Irishwoman.  His wife a native of Poland.  

But behind that Linds was a true cosmopolitan. There were no boundaries. As a youth he had worked on a Kibbutz in Israel, and travelled in North Africa and the Middle East. In later years he went on numerous recruitment trips for his colleges to many countries, from Viet Nam to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, often extending his trips at his own expense to explore the culture and history of the region.  (And, quite recently, giving helpful advice to my daughter before she herself went to work in Azerbaijan....)

Sadly this is over now.  His store of knowledge and anecdotes of crazy hospitalities are archived.  

But all is not lost. 

While it is sadness crystallised to lose someone, especially if it is sooner than expected, we must know it will happen to all of us, and what remains is the love we had all along.  We remember the kindnesses, the laughter, and, in some cases.... the drinks.

I was going to see Linds again in London when lockdown eased.  Anna was planning to bring him to see us in Norfolk for some sea air and we would have met again.  We have to accept this cannot now happen, but instead we have to reflect on how much we enjoyed what was allowed to us all.

The process of dying is the difficult part. But, whatever faith one has, death itself shall have no dominion. What is done is done, and everlasting peace is the gift of the deceased.  

{I have tried here to paste in a video of some pictures taken on trips with Linds over the years.  It may well not work for all, if any, so apologies if not....}

I have been privileged to have had good friends. Between us we will suffer individual deaths, but we will forever share the laughter and twinkling memories of lives that have not entirely been wasted....

With apologies to both Luke Kelly and Michaél O'Caoimh, I quote a few lines from Luke, A Tribute, sung by Christy Moore.  I met Luke Kelly in Dublin when I was a very young thing, and heard him sing.  He left a deep impression on me, and when I heard this song, some time after he died (in 1984) I couldn't help but weep.  

The sentiment still applies to Luke, but transfers just as well to my dear friend, Lindsay:

I still can clearly hear your voice

Though your time with us is o'er

For memories are all we have

When we think of you today

Your name we'll always honour, (Linds),

We're glad you passed this way

Somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales.  Pies, mushy peas, and pints of ale.....

Lindisfarne

Cul-de-Sac

When Lionel Stander (Dickie) pushes a stolen car, with dying Jack MacGowran (Albie) at the wheel, into the picture at the beginning of Roman Polanski’s 1966 film, “Cul-de-sac,” he probably wasn’t thinking of St Aidan and the early Christians in Britain, but he was most definitely following in their footsteps.  It is a weird, and wonderful, causeway that links Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, to the mainland, (and it still traps a few incautious travellers every year). 

The BFI one-line synopsis of this film reads: “An eccentric couple living on a small island are terrorised by gangsters,” and there is something about this statement which resonates beyond the film and into the reality of this romantic outpost of civilisation.  When the tides draw back in summer the gangsters, in family sedans, mobile homes and charabancs, flood into the car park, and trail around the village, swarm over the ruins and wind their way into the castle, intimidating and intruding upon the eccentric locals, of whom there are more than a couple, but less than a couple of hundred.  On the website http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/general/welcome.htm you can read the following statement:  “The small population of just over 160 persons is swelled by the influx of over 650,000 visitors from all over the world every year,” and although these visitors bring prosperity, and perhaps happiness, the disparity of numbers can be quite terrifying.

 

Once the tide begins to rise, however, the majority of visitors slip away and peace returns.  If you have timed it right, and the tide cuts the island off for the evening, you can almost feel you have the place to yourself (and a few seagulls) and the sense of isolation that St Aidan must have found here in 635 AD when he founded the Priory can be imagined.  It becomes an island.  There is peace.  The wildlife, which can flock as much as the trippers, at least keeps itself to itself, or flocks in the more remote areas.  A seal, head above the water, bobs in the waves.  As seals do.  As seals have done since the Ice Age or before.  It watches me, camera inadequately pointed, inadequately lensed.  This is no David Attenborough crew, and he (or she) knows it.  God, I love a seal.

But, back to the past.  Hard to really get the picture of 635 AD.  The Romans:  long gone (Flavius Stilicho, c.365 – 408, was the General most responsible for the withdrawal of Roman forces from Britain).  The Vikings:  not yet really up to much (their raids on Britain didn’t begin ‘til the end of the 8^th century).  Picts:  having disposed of the 9^th Legion they seem to have slipped into Art and Design in northern Scotland (spectacularly as it happens).  Martyrs:  past their heyday (though the custom was still alive).  And St Aidan.  Represented in art by a stag (so perhaps quite a chap?) – born in Ireland, trained on Iona (a small island just off the south-west tip of Mull in the Hebrides) and sent to sort out Northumbria by his friend King (later Saint) Oswald who had recently (633) defeated (and killed) the Welsh King Cadwallon of Gwynedd at Hexham and reclaimed his father (King Ethelfrith)’s kingdom.  So Aidan walked across the causeway to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and set up camp (in 635).  It must have been quite a journey.  I have just checked and from Iona to Lindisfarne would probably have taken weeks if not months!  It is 272 miles, according to the AA, and though the roads are probably slightly better these days the traffic is more intense!

So what was going on?

The Dark Ages (roughly the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance – though scholars still dispute the Dark/Middle definitions)?  A time of extraordinary artistic production (e.g. “The Book of Kells” - but don’t try and get that on your Kindle, or the motherboard might erupt - but also e.g. “La Divina Commedia.”)  A time of consolidation and reformation (if that word hasn’t been misappropriated?)  The Romans had left the islands of Britain without a core in any sense and yet Christianity was becoming something of interest.  In 597, a Roman monk named Augustine was sent by Pope Gregory the Great to England (the land of the Angels) and in 601 he was enthroned as the first Archbishop of Canterbury.  Though Augustine died in 605, and despite his lack of success in converting the indigenous population to Christianity, he started a trend which did eventually catch on, though Ireland, having been evangelised by Patrick (385 – 461), was way ahead at the time (it had become almost exclusively Christian by the early 6^th century). 



It was St Columba (or Colmcille) who, with twelve followers, founded the monastery on Iona in about 563.  He was born in Donegal in 521 (and is not to be confused with St Columban, who was born in Leinster in 540 and who ended up in Bobbio, in Italy) and died in 597.  Among his many achievements which impressed the northern Picts was the expulsion of a water monster from the river Ness.  Anyway it is unlikely that St Aidan knew Columba, but he was originally from Ireland and was certainly on Iona in 635, as it was in that year that he was sent to Lindisfarne, with the specific remit of replacing his predecessor who was reputedly too rough in his missionary tactics.

Aidan was consecrated Bishop and made his headquarters on the island, where he set up a monastery which specialised in training English boys to become missionaries among their countrymen.  According to the Venerable Bede, St Aidan “was a man of remarkable gentleness, goodness, and moderation,” and his practice was to recycle, rather than accumulate, any wealth, so that any surplus went to the benefit of the poor.  Aidan survived the death of his friend and patron King Oswald, and was fortunate in having the continued support of his successor, Oswin, but when he was murdered in 651, Aidan died of grief a fortnight later.

At this point, on August 31^st 651, a seventeen year old Northumbrian by the name of Cuthbert had a vision of angels accompanying Aidan’s soul to heaven and he became a novice at the monastery at Melrose.    In 664, in the company of St Eata, he went to Lindisfarne, but in 676 he went to live as a solitary on one of the remote Farne islands some distance off the Northumbrian coast.  He was called back to the mainland to become a bishop in 684, deftly swapping Hexham for Lindisfarne with his friend Eata, but only managing two years there, before, sensing his imminent death, he retired finally back to Inner Farne, where he died on March 20^th 687.  St Cuthbert had a touch of the St Francis about him, with a keen interest in birds and wildlife, but also a very charming and practical nature.  Bede refers to him repeatedly as, “a child of God,” and he was deeply attractive to his flock.

As an aside, in the meantime, there had been an ongoing problem between the Celtic Church (following from St Patrick, but illuminated by the Ionians) and the Roman Church (stimulated by Pope Gregory) about the date of Easter, which reached something of a conclusion at the Synod of Whitby in 664, when King Oswy of Northumbria voted in favour of Rome and the Celtic die-hards retreated to Iona.  Although the fixing of the date of Easter is still being discussed to this day, it was the Venerable Bede, born in 673 near Jarrow, (and who died in 735) who wrote on calculating time and it was by using his exposition of the Great Cycle of 532 years - the interval between two ‘identical’ years – that the Church was able to calculate the date of Easter.  Bede’s scholarship covered many areas beyond Christianity and although his most famous work, a key source for the understanding of early British history and the arrival of Christianity, was “Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum” or “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People,” (which is also the first work of history in which the AD dating system is used), he also wrote of nature, of how the earth was a sphere and how the moon influences the cycle of the tides – very advanced stuff at the time.

Anyway, when Cuthbert died in 687 the monastic community on Lindisfarne started a cult in his name. It is known from the history of other cults, such as those of St Wilfred, St Columba and St Brigid, that a major cult would have required a beautiful Gospel Book. The Lindisfarne Gospels was probably begun as the major icon for the cult of Cuthbert.  This work is one of Britain's greatest art treasures, and it was almost certainly made on Lindisfarne between 680 and 720. The gifted artist-illuminator was called Eadfrith, who was bishop after Cuthbert, until his death in 721. Although it was written in Latin, the manuscript contains the oldest surviving translation of the Gospels into English, added between the lines by another hand around 970. The Lindisfarne Gospels reflect many influences: native British, Celtic, Germanic, Roman, Early Christian, Byzantine, North African and Middle Eastern, as Britain was a land of many cultures, with an emerging national identity and enthusiastic new forms of learning, literature and art. The Lindisfarne Gospels was a stunning creation of this new 'insular' culture and is an amazing testament to the fact that, far from being a dead end, Lindisfarne was in touch with the rest of the world.  To stand there today, after the tide has washed away the trippers, is to experience something of the insular solitude that Eadfrith must have relished.  He would have risen early and, between prayer and sustenance, laboured in the scriptorium, the high stone windows filtering in the chilled light from the sea, the cries of gulls and the washing of the waves, the music in his ears.  According to the British Library, “this work is evidence of its time, showing a fusion of the beliefs, politics and challenges of the day. But it is also timeless. It offers us clues to the past and inspiration for the future….. Eadfrith employed an exceptionally wide range of colours, using animal, vegetable and mineral pigments. It was an enormous act of faith.”  It is most unusual that the whole work seems to have been all his own, as most illustrated manuscripts were the product of team work, but in some places this manuscript remains partly unfinished, suggesting that Eadfrith's cherished work was ended prematurely by his death. 

There might have been advantages even in the comparative isolation of Lindisfarne, but also perhaps advantages in not being quite as remote as Iona.  Perhaps it benefited from being on the north/south route (very close to the A1 indeed) and yet anyone stopping off there had to stay for more than a glass of mead!  Miscalculate the tides and you could be stuck for at least a night!  And so, possibly, scholars and thinkers, artists and traders, brought fertile interruptions to the tranquillity of this island.  Far from being a cul de sac, it might have been a lay-by of great interest. 

It certainly has a lure to it.  Whether it is religion or architecture that is your personal metier, or whether you are a bird-watcher or a walker, the island is rich in resources.  Roman Polanski returned only five years after shooting “Cul-de-Sac” there, using the castle (sixteenth century in its core, but remodelled by Edwin Lutyens in 1903) as a location this time for Glamis Castle (with some cardboard additions) in “Macbeth” (and nearby Bamburgh castle for both Cawdor and Dunsinane). 

The crabs that scuttle through “Cul-de-Sac,” a jokey symbol of the cancers in society, are no longer present.  The Beckett-like dialogue, representing the tragedy of pessimism, such as in the lines croaked by Jack MacGowran, “Well, here we are.”  Which prompts Lionel Stander to query: “Where?”  And Jack MacGowran to reply: “In the shit….” are replaced by Shakespeare’s tragedy of optimism, (“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.….”)

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne, to give it its full title, is a glorious place to visit.  In some respects, it is a cul-de-sac, as you have to retrace your steps to leave it, but that’s no defect.  In fact it is a positive, as you have to make the effort to go there, and your arrival, and departure, will be affected by the rhythm of nature in the tides.  And so is the presence of others, so that if you come to stay, you will find there is plenty of space and the stillness of early morning or the calm of evening can be savoured.  Natural England staff a 3,500 hectare Nature Reserve here, with a constantly shifting landscape of sands and a coastline of dunes, mudflats and saltmarsh – heaven in the autumn and winter for drifts of birds from the arctic -  though you are warned to beware quicksands and unexploded ordnance.

It is a wild, natural place.  I stay at the Ship Inn, wander the shore line, take in the views – across to the Cheviot Hills, to Bamburgh, and out to the Farne Islands.  The skyscapes and seascapes are breathtaking.  The air is invigorating, fresh and salty.  The wind pushes and pulls me, powerful and elemental.  I feel cleansed and inspired, without complications of having to be somewhere else, of having to meet any deadline or catch some appointment.  I think of the Celtic past, of the Anglo-Saxon world.  The stones of the ruined Priory stand firm, despite the destruction they signal.  The castle stands proud, like a crowned molar, defying the decay of nature. 

I think again of the term cul-de-sac, and am then reminded that when originally picked-up for American distribution by Filmways, the film “Cul-de-Sac” carried the advertising tagline, “Sometimes There’s Nothing Left To Do But Laugh!” and I wonder how much those elders of the early Church liked to laugh? For a moment I sit in the bar of the Ship Inn and imagine Saints Aidan and Cuthbert in the corner, sharing a conversation over a warm glass of mead.  The tide is up, the causeway flooded, and I believe I can hear them chuckle.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne’s name originates as the island of the people from Lindsey or Linnuis (OE Lindesege) which was the name of a small Anglo-Saxon kingdom, which lay between the Humber and the Wash, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century.  The name Lindsey itself means the 'island of Lincoln' which derives from the fact that it was surrounded by water and was very wet land and had Lincoln towards its south-west corner.  A fitting name all round. (The picture shows old friend Lindsay thinking about St Aidan, and the dangers of water.)