The Worst Journey In The Midlands – Sam Llewellyn – Heinemann – 1983

Re-reading books is something I rarely do. And for that reason, I recycled and gave away masses of books a couple of months into lockdown. Most had been read, some had not, and a few were reference books on subjects I’m no longer interested in, or subjects where I have several covering the same ground. 

Whilst I was sorting through them, I came across this book and recalled two things about it. Firstly, that it was about someone who rowed the River Thames from source to sea and secondly that it was an amusing read, something one might guess from the title which is an obvious play on The Worst Journey in the World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s account of  Scott’s ill-fated Polar expedition.

Not that having a “humorous” title is a real indication that a book is in any way funny. In fact, experience suggests it’s more likely to be the opposite.

Sam’s writing is something I first came across in the horticultural journal Hortus, where his pieces were often the best thing in each edition, standing out as funny and sparky amongst other well-written, but quite dull content.

So, of the two things I recalled about the book, one was wrong, or at least partly so. It’s the story of a journey from the upper reaches of the River Severn to the Thames at Westminster.

The planned route is from the upper Severn to Tewksbury up the Avon to Warwick along the Grand Union Canal to Oxford then down the Thames to London, a distance of 350 miles. He starts under a bridge in the town of Llanidloes, initially in an aluminium canoe, until Welshpool where he switches to Magdalen, a 10-foot Victorian mahogany rowing boat for the rest of the journey. And whilst that sounds like a great vessel, it really isn’t. It’s days as a Royal Navy transport are long behind it, when he finds it rotting under a bush on a Dorset beach. Sam sets about renovating it, which I’m sure many wouldn’t even attempt as the wood it’s built from seems to have the consistency of stilton. Nevertheless, after applying lots of plastic padding filler, silicone caulking, a copper plate and some new planking over the clinker-built relic he is set to go. Unsurprising there is a certain amount of jeopardy throughout as to whether the boat will, last, sink or just fall apart. 

But the dodginess of the boat is not the only thing that makes the adventure more of an ordeal, the weather is quite grim. Taking place in the autumn, 1982 had (to that point) the wettest October on record, although thanks to global warming we have doubtlessly eclipsed that. Plus, again thanks to climate change, it was probably colder back then. Whatever the case it is clearly pretty horrible trip towards the end.

Despite being nearly 40 years old, the book has not dated apart from a couple of references to Sony Walkman and The Jam and as it turns out the second thing, I remembered about the book is true and it is very amusing. Whilst the author is a prolific one across a number of fictional genres it is something of a shame he has not written more books like this one as it kept me entertained, amused but also yearn to get on the water myself, something I have not done for over 12 months and miss greatly.

Doing the Wainwrights – 214 Fells, Four Seasons and a Caravan

Doing the Wainwrights – 214 Fells, Four Seasons and a Caravan – Steve Larkin – Know the Score Books – 2007

This is the second copy of this book that I’ve owned. The first, which I had barely started reading, ended up completely sodden earlier in the summer having been in a pack that found its way underwater in the river Spey.

The pack was less waterproof than I’d expected, and I was disappointed at my poor preparation and at the book’s demise. Not because it had any great value sentimental or otherwise – it was signed by the author, but that’s hardly the same as JK Rowling’s autograph on a first edition. It’s just that I don’t like seeing books wasted. This replacement, as you might be able to see, is somewhat battered, with a crease down the front cover. In fact, it’s not much better looking than the first one was after it had been in the drink – although the pages aren’t matted lump of mush of course.

In truth, apart from the slight regret I didn’t feel its loss greatly; on trips I always have at least two books and I was not engaged with this one, having barely got past the bizarre introduction written by Eric Robson who was presumably chosen solely because he was Chair of the Wainwright Society. Whatever the case it feels like a mistake.

As intros go it is not very good at all and does the book no favours. Although as a source of wonder it is quite something, succeeding in being both short and rambly at the same time. It rails against the Department of Health and tasteless margarine, which is curious given Steve Larkin’s medical history and “limp-wristed theory”.

In the 1970s the phrase limp-wristed was a homophobic taunt. In the 21st century I’m not sure the target, or intent, it feels like a general gibe at a lack of manliness, which is curious in a book where the author speaks often of his lack of courage – the book’s second subtitle is “Where there’s a wimp there’s a way” for goodness sake!

One is left wondering if Robson had read the book at all.

Assuming the reader gets past the intro they are soon engaged by the 60-year-old author’s plan to climb all 214 fells listed by Alfred Wainwright in 12 months for charity. In July, a few weeks before starting, whilst climbing Blencathra fell by way of a warm-up, he experiences chest pains. After tests, and more pain, the diagnosis is that the main artery delivering blood to the wall of the heart is blocked. This needs cardiac surgery, after which he recovers his fitness and is back walking, and back on Blencathra, by the following May.

He plans to continue with his charitable scheme, but the following February is diagnosed with prostate cancer. After more surgery he starts another journey back to fitness and by mid-October manages short walks in the Lake District, and five months later is tackling fells.

So, having overcome those events he resurrects his fell-climbing plans and starts nearly three years after the original launch date. There is a certain irony that he begins on April Fool’s Day and straightaway things again don’t go to plan and day’s targets are abandoned, in favour of gentler fells.

And so, on the book goes with Larkin, who lives in Northumberland, making three- or four-day trips, to the Lakes each month. Using a leaky caravan as a base he plans to undertake an average of two and a half fells per trip. There are ups and downs as he not always successfully follows the routes in Wainwright’s guidebooks.

Nevertheless, he finishes all bar one with 7 weeks to go and says, “I drive home feeling confident that, with seven weeks in hand, I will indeed complete the task within the allotted twelve months.”

Given his previous ill-health, and that the final fell is Blencathra where he had his cardiac episode, this might be seen as tempting fate.

Happily, five weeks later he does of course succeed – no-one writes a book about how they failed to achieve a challenge like this.

I think that most people writing about something a while after the event would rely on notes if they have them.  And I think the notes you would take recording climbs are likely to be different to those you might make if you were planning to write a book. So, I wonder if this is why the book is relatively short at 132 pages and does feel at times like an extended itinerary. This might be offset if you are familiar with the Wainwrights, or at least with the Lake District in more detail than I possess. So, whilst I did enjoy it I haven’t walked in the Lakes for a considerable number of years, reckon I would have done so more, if my locale knowledge wasn’t both limited and old. However, the prose is good around the author’s anxiety on some ascents and the reflective and summarising conclusion is perhaps the best written section of the book.

But criticism of the book seems incredibly mean-spirited. The author’s achievement is laudable for anyone, but given his age, the truly serious health issues he overcomes, plus his oft stated “wimpishness” it’s pretty impressive, inspiring stuff and for anyone wanting to replicate it (no matter how old they are) provides a blueprint, not least of all because there is a 26 page appendix of his route.

Tuppence a bag?

In my mind’s eye feeding birds has always been something for old people. Certainly, I remember from childhood both pairs of grandparents feeding birds and getting great delight from it. But we never fed birds at home when I was a kid and as an adult my attempts had been limited to putting a few scraps out when it snowed when, we are told, birds are going hungry. No-one seems to have told the birds this though, as my offerings were wholly ignored, if not scorned.

 

So, was its age that led me to spontaneously pick up a birdfeeder whilst I was queuing to pay for a new shirt in late spring? And then to buy it too? I don’t know; possibly. I had joined the Ramblers earlier in the year, a group I always thought was for the senior age group. But the story behind that is one for another day.

 

However, at the risk of seeming to be in denial, I don’t actually think it was an age thing. In my mind it was the understanding that British birds are in decline. Hell, every species on the planet seems to be in decline, except rats and humans; and reality TV stars (a mix of the two). And it all feels quite hopeless at times, but birds I hope, are perhaps something I could have an impact on.

 

My thinking is that whilst woodland sustains bird life, as do open fields, the habitats that birds like most are a mixture – hedgerows and woodland fringes. I don’t know if that is a very scientific conclusion, but I notice more birds at the edge of a wood than in the middle of it.

 

My garden backs onto a field and a wooded area and so has quite a few feathered visitors, partly I reckon because it also has several small trees linked by large shrubs.

 

As soon as I put the feeder up it drew in birds. It also drew in squirrels. Luckily, we don’t get many of the grey tree-rats, and a shield made from a poundshop pizza tray with a hole drilled through it mostly kept them at bay over the summer. Mostly. They do still attempt to get at the food, but a cordless doorbell hung nearby usually scares them off and so the birds get most of the food. That’s not to say they don’t go hungry. The feeder was such a success that I got two more and even then, regular topping up was required, though that has slowed as autumn arrived. I also set up a plastic flowerpot saucer as a drinking point/bath and this has been as much of a success if not more, no doubt because of the hot weather we had.

 

Although I put perches on the feeders to make them more accessible, it is largely the tits that feed from them, and we often get between ten and twenty long-tailed, blue, coal and great tits using them at one time. Robins are moderately successful on the feeders and a male blackbird is comically bad at using them. We also get a woodpecker (which I have talked about before) who is a messy eater. However, the food debris on the ground attracts a greater variety of birds with wrens, dunnocks, thrushes, a dopey pigeon and its more elegant collared dove cousins coming into feed.

 

For several reasons, amongst all these avian diners, my favourite visitor is the nuthatch.

 

To begin with, it is because it is the only bird that can hop down (underline) a tree trunk, which is pretty impressive.

 

Then, because it reminds me of the walks my son and I used to take when he was a tot. We would wander through fields and woods, always looking for something to watch or investigate. On one such wombling expedition we had stopped for a snack and were sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, when we spotted a nuthatch on the trunk of an oak. It proceeded to hammer a small acorn into a fissure in the bark, so that it could feed on it, exactly as described in books, but rarely seen in real-life.

And the last reason takes me full circle. My paternal grandmother used to put seeds out for the birds. I don’t recall ever seeing any on her feeder, but then there was generally a tribe of us kids thundering between house and garden. But whilst I mightn’t have seen many birds in the flesh (or should that be feather?) back then, I do recall enjoying the boxes the bird seed came in. They had named illustrations of individual species down the sides and it was the nuthatch I liked the best. Something about the colouring and shape set it apart from the others which seemed brown, or dumpy. Or brown and dumpy. I also loved the black bar that ran across its eyes, like the mask of a superhero, or a highwayman, or Zorro, or the Lone Ranger. It was just flat out cool.

And many years later, they still look pretty damn amazing, and even more so in real life.

A Walk on the Mild Side

A couple of years ago I used to do a lot of walking. Each weekend I would take off on a jaunt of between twelve and twenty miles, plus at least one shorter walk midweek. But I developed Plantar Fasciitis in one foot and an orthopaedic problem in the other. The latter resulted in surgery earlier this year. Accordingly, my perambulations through the countryside had ceased and I missed them terribly. By the beginning of this summer I’d managed a few shorter walks, but last Saturday I undertook something more substantial. The walk I had planned was something just over ten miles and I did not honestly know if I could do it.

But there was only one way to find out, and despite a few pediatric twinges I set out. Retracing one’s steps always feels quite tedious, so I always take either a circular route or do what I did on Saturday and take public transport somewhere, then walk home.  This does mean that you are committed, and I wasn’t without trepidation as I set out, with what felt like a heavy pack. In hindsight I did take a few pieces of kit I could have managed without, but most of the weight was food and water. Whilst my load could have been lighter, it was still a good day out, with much to see, including old signs on ancient oaks and the cottage where my father was born eighty years ago.

One of the main delights of these rambles through the country is the wildlife, but whilst I saw many (too many) tree rats, I didn’t see much fauna. At one point I passed a large raptor calling from a tall  conifer, but I couldn’t actually see it; it was, I suspect a buzzard, rather than a red kite. And then apart from a field full of gormless pheasants, I only spotted a moorhen, and brown trout at the river and a large dragonfly, under a motorway bridge of all places.

This lack of critters was disappointing, but perhaps I wasn’t as tuned in as I used to be, or maybe my gait is a noisier one.

Farming, however, was very much in evidence. I stopped to have a few words with a farmer looking after some newly planted native tree saplings and later was held up by a Combine harvesting a field of oats through which my path ran. I was also eyed suspiciously by a group of juvenile sheep lying in the shade and was, inevitably, followed across a field by a small herd of cows.

Breaking for lunch, by the River Pang divided the trip in two and I spent about forty minutes sitting by the chalk stream enjoying the peace and quiet.

It got tougher after that and I definitely enjoyed the first leg more than the second. Although I’m glad to say I finished the walk, I did start to slow down dramatically and so took a shorter route for the end section so that I covered about nine and a half miles, all told.

Nevertheless, it was a good day and one I’ve waited a long time for.

 

 

Sitelines – Podcast Radio Hour

Like finding a beautiful clearing in the woods, it’s great to stumble across an interesting book, article or radio programme. And so it was with Podcast Radio Hour that just happened to be being broadcast last week when I was salving the lack of outdoors in my working day, by walking to a shop to buy a couple pieces of kit, as replacements for things I lost, or wrecked in Scotland.

This episode “Taking It Outside”, as you might guess is both recorded in and features the outdoors. There are three podcasts making up the issue and gives the background, an excerpt and interview with those involved.

They are:

Folk On Foot – walks with British folk musicians around a landscape that has  inspired them. The excerpt features Karine Polwart on Fala Moor,

The Wild – an American podcast by Chris Morgan, a British ex-pat, ecologist and film-maker. The featured episode is set in the Pacific North-West  coast as they head for a spot called “one square inch of silence”.

Walking – another American podcast and one where you can listen to the wordless sounds of Jon Mooallem talking a walk. Some might enjoy this ambient soundtrack of crunching footsteps, but it really wasn’t for me.  Which is a shame as the first two features were great.

Max Wenner Mystery part two

Following on from my earlier piece on Max Wenner and his mysterious death, I have been doing more research. That sounds a bit more involved than the truth of the matter, which is that I have acquired a copy of “So It Was”, Michael A. Wenner’s autobiography. He was the nephew of Max, and so the first section of his book gives plenty of detail on his Wenner forebears, including his Uncle Max, who actually features on the cover, holding a hawk, as described in my earlier piece.

I was relieved to find  that the story I had pieced together was broadly correct. And, of course the biog. gave a lot more detail and background. Some minor details in my piece were incorrect. For instance, what I stated (repeating someone else’s mistake) was a photo of Max and his brother is it seems a picture of the brother and some Icelanders. However, I suspect that it was actually Max who took the photo, because the book emphasizes Max’s keen interests in the natural world and photography.

As well as giving family background and some personal details about Max , it has suggested some further lines of research. One of which is the Royal Flying Corps, in which Max served as a pilot during World War One. This may have been where he began his interest in photography as at that point in time military aircraft had a more observational role (including photographic reconnaissance), rather than being used for combat.

On Max’s demise the book is rather brief, but does introduce a curious new element. It says as follows “I must have been around fifteen in the mid to late ’30s when Max – returning by air from a visit to Essen, the home of a German lady of whom after Dolly’s death he had grown fond – unaccountably fell to his death from the aircraft. One of his fellow passengers was a Mr John Vincent Cain, a colourful entrepreneur and former smuggler of arms and planes to Franco – and possibly a not too reliable witness. The Daily Express reported Mr Cain as stating that he had watched my uncle ‘hurry on to the airliner at Cologne and…pen sheet after sheet of note-paper at furious speed; thrust the notes into his pocket and suddenly disappear into the back compartment..The letters stated to have been written were missing when Max’s body was found and were never recovered.’

I find it a little odd that the book’s author has relied on a newspaper article to tell this part of his  history, after all he was fifteen years of age at the time; hardly a child, but perhaps his recall failed him, nonetheless it does seem strange to me.

The newspaper tale is not entirely accurate since, as we have seen, the letter (singular) was found on the poor man’s body.

What is also curious is the presence of an arms smuggler in the story.  This only adds weight to the Agatha Christie-esque colour of the whole tale.

I shall in due course update my earlier piece, to include more of the background to Max Wenner, provided by this biography. And there are of course more lines of research to take forward, not least of which is the curious Mr Cain, for whom my initial research has proved largely fruitless.

The Max Wenner Mystery

Max Wenner was a person who was referred to in a previous blog post, having fleetingly been mentioned in the book The Prince of Poachers.

That slight reference really engaged my interest and since then I have done a little internet research. By that I mean I have looked for the full story and, having failed to find one, have pulled together various references (from the links at the foot of this page), some of which are prime sources and  others not, to piece together the story. The picture that emerges is a hazy, but intriguing one. It could perhaps form the basis of a film, certainly a book and undoubtedly a documentary for television. But that is not to trivialise, however, one man’s tragic demise.

So let’s start with my own original datum point, the book excerpt. Quoting it in full, starting by talking of Long Mynd moor it says:

“I think it must be the ideal spot for a gliding club; there seemed to be very few windless days. A German gentleman, Max Wenner, was a leading light in this gliding idea there. He fell – or was he pushed? – out of a plane over the Channel. He was staying in a pub in Minsterly. Somehow Father was in on the search of his rooms. I remember seeing a gun in the shape and size of a fountain pen that fired a three-sided bullet.”

This is, my research has shown, is very much a mixture of vagueness and error – mostly the latter.

The man in question was an Englishman of Swiss extraction (not German) and very anti-gliding, which he felt disturbed the grouse on the Long Mynd moor shoot. He was co-owner of that shoot, which explains why the author’s father, one of the shoot’s gamekeepers, was present when the rooms were searched (or perhaps just cleared). Though mention of him having rooms at a pub is curious as Wenner lived fairly locally. And finally, his death was on the other side of the Channel and not above it.

Mr Max Victor Wenner was of Swiss descent from a family of wealthy textile manufacturers who had settled in England during the 19th century. Born around 1888, he was the son of Alfred Wenner and his wife Malvine (nee Egloff). Alfred had initially been married to Louise Egloff. They had three children together before she died aged just 25. He subsequently wed her older sister, having six more children.

Albert’s family wealth came from the textile industry and that is no doubt what drew him to the cotton capital of Manchester. He had premises in the city at Greenwood Street and seems to have diversified his business interests, and articles can be found where he is selling drilling machines and “an invention of improvements in fire bars and grates.”

The family lived in Earnscliffe Villa, a large house in Alderley Edge, Cheshire.

Albert died in 1911 at around 56 years of age. The following year, Max Wenner gives his address as Woodside, Trafford Road, Alderley Edge, though I don’t know if this is solely his home, or the whole family relocated following the patriarch’s death.

Malvine died in 1925 aged 77 by which time, or following which, Max had moved to Garthmeilio Hall, Langwm, Conwy, North Wales.

Max was keen on the outdoors, particularly birds and more generally shooting and fishing.

He was elected to the British Ornithologists Union in 1912 and appears in their publication “Ibis” and  a number of other periodicals. For example a 1926 issue of The Field quotes him talking about stoats’ interest in the guts from rabbits he’d shot and there are a number of articles on birds carrying his name, including one from December 1933 on “Vipers Preying on Young Birds” – including photographs.

His brother Captain Alfred Emil Wenner was a British Army officer and the pair were photographed earlier that year on 14th July, by the River Thvera in Iceland, after they had caught 55 Salmon by lunchtime, with another 22 landed afterwards.

Much of this family biographical information comes from the WebPages of the State Archive of St Gallen in Switzerland, which also includes photographs of Earnscliffe Villa,  Garthmeilio Hall and of Max and his wife. In one, which I think might be at Garthmeilio Hall judging by the balustrade in the background, he looks very much the countryman. Wearing a heavy jacket, plus-fours, thick socks and stout shoes, he stands before the camera with a hawk perched on his left hand.

By 1934 Max was living at Batchcott Hall. when he bought the manor of Church Stretton, to the east of Long Mynd moor. Manor here seems to be in the sense of a tract of land, rather than a manor house. He was one of three owners of Long Mynd, and it might be assumed that this ownership came with the manor. Batchcott is a hamlet to the north of the moor.

He owned 6,000 acres in all and spent a large sum improving the hall and building a bird sanctuary and lakes for trout fishing.

He’s also said to have put a lot of effort into developing shooting on the moor and so when gliding started there in the summer of 1934 he did not approve. Though It’s not clear whether that was due to thinking that the gliders themselves disturbed the birds, or because of the hoi-polloi, who came to watch the engineless planes, tramping across the land (it does seem to have been a spectator sport). Legal action followed, presumably initiated by Wenner and partners, with a four-day hearing closing on 15th March 1935 with Justice Crossman “effectively” banning flying gliders from Long Mynd, as it “interferes with grouse shooting”.

Wenner is described as “devoted” to his wife, Martha Alice Spinner, known as “Dollie”. She was about eight years his senior and aged around 58 passed away in July 1936.

He was in the habit of flying to Germany and Switzerland for winter sports.

On one of those winter sports trips in Switzerland, he befriended the 34 year-old Olga Buchenshultz. She was secretary to the Swedish Consul-General at the German town of Duren.

The friendship developed and they became engaged to be married in the second half of 1936.

Olga apparently had doubts whether a German woman should marry an Englishman, perhaps because of the European political situation, or was this to do with the 15 year age gap – probably not as that was not unusual at the time, I would suspect his recent bereavement.

Whatever the case during Wenner’s visit to Olga in Kupferdreh, a district in the south east of the German city of Essen on December 30 she promised to marry him. Wenner’s brothers and sisters it seems were aware and agreeable to this engagement.

On Monday 4th January 1937 Wenner started the journey back to England taking a Belgian airliner from Cologne to Brussels.  Fellow passengers described him as seeming agitated and spending 20 minutes writing a single letter of many pages, which he put in his pocket and then left the compartment going to the rear of the plane.

The aircraft was flying at 3,000 above unbroken cloud over Limburg, when the other passengers heard a bang and felt the plane lurch. This was ascribed to the plane’s rear door slamming shut and they seem to have guessed what the reason for that was and a nurse was who was onboard fainted.

The man’s body was tragically found four days later on 8^Th January, in a forest outside Genk, Belgium. It was apparently unblemished apart from “a scratched nose and buttons torn from his coat, there was no visible sign of injury”, apparently due to the trees slowing his fall. An unfinished letter to Olga was found in his pocket.

Belgian officials called his death a “mysterious accident” and it seems one of his brothers looked into matters speaking to Fraulein Buchenschultz.

Other passengers flew on in another plane to Croydon (Britain’s major international airport at the time) where they spoke to the press and the story was reported in newspapers as far away as Singapore and Australia.

Shortly before his death Max had made a will. This was perhaps sensible given his wife’s passing. I’m assuming here that she was a significant, if not his sole beneficiary. However, in light of his curious demise, one might view this differently, particularly as he left Olga Buchenshultz, £2,000 “in case anything should happen to me before our marriage.”

The will was proved in May 1937 and he left a large part of his estate, including Church Stretton manor and his share if the grouse moor to his friend and former agent William Humphrey, a renowned breeder of English Setters.

According to one reference I came across Max Wenner is said to have been ‘well connected in the highest political circles, both in England and Germany” and so it has been supposed that his unusual death had a “connection with espionage”. But I have found no prime source for this speculation.

As a true-life story, it does have the ring of an Agatha Christie novel.

Returning to the origins of my research, the mention of a fountain pen that fired bullets does make us in these times think of James Bond, but back in an era when the sword-stick was not uncommon, pen-guns were not necessarily the preserve of spies and spooks and this was a man who would have been au fait with many firearms.

The mention of Wenner having rooms in a pub at Minsterley is curious though, as it is not far from his home (about 32 miles by road) but is perhaps a mistake by an unreliable source.

All in all, it is an intriguing, but tragic tale.

There is a follow up piece to this post.

 

SOURCES

 

http://www.ukairfieldguide.net/airfields/Church-Stretton

http://www.ukairfieldguide.net/airfields/Long-Mynd

https://m.facebook.com/graysgundogs/posts/1797086413838175

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/salop/vol10/pp72-120

https://www.churchstretton.co.uk/

http://mvsetters.com/MrHumphrey.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Mynd

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v051n02/p0271-p0278.pdf

https://www.lax-a.net/good-old-times-in-iceland/

https://www.pestsmart.org.au/behaviour-of-stoats/

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/singfreepressb19370204.2.87

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/58778222

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47776628

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11954611

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/straitstimes19370106-1.2.41

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34404/page/3617/data.pdf

http://scope.staatsarchiv.sg.ch/detail.aspx?ID=114333

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results/1937-01-01/1937-12-31?basicsearch=max%20wenner%201937&exactsearch=false&retrievecountrycounts=false

https://prabook.com/web/michael.wenner/564292

http://scope.staatsarchiv.sg.ch/Detail.aspx?ID=114334

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=444746.0

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1474-919X.1914.tb06642.x

https://archive.org/stream/britishbirds2319unse/britishbirds2319unse_djvu.txt

https://archive.org/stream/ibis_21914brit/ibis_21914brit_djvu.txt

https://archive.org/stream/britishbirds2219unse/britishbirds2219unse_djvu.txt

http://scope.staatsarchiv.sg.ch/Detail.aspx?ID=114211

http://scope.staatsarchiv.sg.ch/detail.aspx?ID=114197

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/24001/page/3514/data.pdf

https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/articles/tm4_mach19.pdf

South West Coast Path Coincidences And Books

It’s pretty much certain that I have spoken about life’s strange coincidences and synchronicities, a few times, there are a couple of posts here that I can think of .

On Sunday I posted about Simon Armitage and linked to a review I did about Walking Away his book telling the story of walking the South West Coastal Path. Then yesterday a colleague told me that later in the Summer she is walking  a hundred mile stretch of that route.

She’s someone I often talk to about books and so I mentioned Simon’s memoir and also 500 Mile Walkies by Mark Wallington, which is also about the Path. It’s a good book, but not one I’ve read recently, or even thought about for some time. Certainly not one I recall ever reading anyone else mention.

And then this morning I was reading Walk magazine, and in it was an article that referenced Mark’s book.

The piece in question was about Raynor Winn who has written a biographical account of walking that path (where her husband was mistaken for Simon Armitage), at a time of extreme personal difficulty. It’s called The Salt Path and of course, the coincidences involved means I must add it to my reading list.

A Prince Amongst Poachers – Bill Tuer

A Prince Amongst Poachers – Bill Tuer – C C Publishing (Chester) 2004

Despite wracking my brains I have been unable to think of a book that I have read which I found such hard going. Not because it was heavy, or traumatic, or anything; after all I have read some quite turgid “classics” and some exceedingly dry educational texts. No this was hard going because it was all over the place.

Starting with the title. You would expect, not unreasonably, that it would be full of tales about clandestine hunting, getting one over on the rural powers that be and narrow escapes, but there is scarcely any poaching in it. There is a little bit of trout tickling and some stealing of breeding pheasants from a rival estate, but mostly the book describes the activities of a gamekeeper’s son centred around raising birds for the wealthy to slaughter for fun, which is pretty much the opposite of poaching. Still I suppose Prince of Poachers has a more poetic and better alliterative ring to it than Toady to the Toffs.

If I’m being unfair and the author was an ace poacher who chose not to write about his less than legal activities, then fair enough, but if that is the case – then call your book something else!!

The opening chapter talks about the shit-house at the end of the garden and the Romans building Stonehenge. Having read it three times I was still none the wiser as to what the author was trying to say. My best guess is that he was trying to indicate that he learned more from listening and watching his old dad than anywhere else. But that doesn’t actually seem to be borne out by the book, where he talks mostly about learning from the village blacksmith. Whatever the case, the opening chapter sets the tone for the rest of the book which is beset by non-sequiturs, pet phrases and part stories. An example of the latter is where he talks about his father making a driptorch to burn heather. He doesn’t say why, and I assume that the heather regrowth was either food or better cover for the grouse. He then says he “put one together in a hurry to remove some gentleman who had been causing some trouble in a cornfield in Belgium.” This was presumably a wartime event, but we are left to wonder why it was necessary to burn down a cornfield.

The book’s digressions and conversational style made me initially think it was a book made from transcripts of recorded conversations.  But I’m not sure it is, even though the thirty-seven (!) short chapters do come across as a collection of anecdotes.

About two thirds of the way through it shifts away from the land to WW2. This is certainly the best written section if the book, which isn’t saying much, and more interesting because it is slightly more factual.

It is not a book entirely without merit, I laughed out loud at the tale of dropping a live chicken down the school mistress’s chimney, and was genuinely moved by the sad tale of how, aged 10, young “Billy- Lad” had to put down his lifelong pet dog. And though it was of no interest to me, royal biographers would doubtless get over-excited at the involvement of a twenty-something Edward VIII in pinching the pheasants.

There are a couple of interesting people mentioned in the text who I was not previously aware of. Firstly, the uniquely named Dr Buck Ruckston, a murderer who the author claims to have caught after serving him with petrol. This doesn’t tally with the reported facts of the case , but the court record does refer to petrol being purchased.

The second person is really fascinating, despite, or perhaps because of, only being mentioned in six short lines. It really is a shame there isn’t more on him. Max Wenner is described as a German who fell, or was pushed, out of a plane over the Channel and owned of a gun the shape and size of a fountain pen. Quite how you can touch on such an interesting individual and not elaborate I don’t know. But then perhaps the author did not know more.

The author comes across as an inventive and practical man, and perhaps an amusing raconteur, but alas that does not translate into making this book a very engaging or amusing read. This is a great shame, as with a co-writer, I don’t doubt a half-decent memoire of the early 20^th century English countryside could have been created.

Simon Armitage – poet laureate

Earlier today BBC Radio 4 broadcast a profile of Simon Armitage, to mark his appointment as 21st poet laureate.

The programme does not explain what a poet laureate is, and my understanding was that it was a honorary appointment linked in some way to the crown, so that the principal activity was to write some toadying nonsense in honour of a royal marriage, or birth.

Curious to check my understanding, I looked up the post, and found I was broadly right. Still, you do get some cash and a barrel of sherry, so it’s not entirely pointless.

I have not read any of Simon’s poetry, but he has also written more than verse. He used to have a column in The Guardian’s Saturday magazine writing about LPs, which I mostly recall as being charity shop finds. That may be a false memory on part, but I do recall it as one of the more readable sections of the publication.

He has also written a couple of walking books, the second of which Walking Away was one of the earlier reviews on this blog. The earlier travelogue Walking Home is something I have also read and will appear here at some point.