Category: Poetry

Diaries

Since last November George Lyttelton and Rupert Hart-Davis have been my companions at bedtime but all good things come to an end and I have come to the end of their letters. There are more than six hundred and they span some six years.

The Fox’s Prophecy

  Charles Moore in his Spectator column this week recalls listening to Tristan Voorspuy recite The Fox’s Prophecy when he went on safari with him in Kenya. As you will have read, Tristan Voorspuy was murdered on his farm in Kenya and Charles Moore remembers him with affection.

Ego

I mentioned at the beginning of last month diarist and theatre critic, James Agate (Men of Letters). I have the second volume of his diaries, Ego 2, but Lyttleton, Hart-Davis and Leigh Fermor have stopped me reading it.

We are the Music-Makers

If you don’t have a clue what a herpetologist does, I will give you one; Gussie Fink-Nottle. That’s right, he studies reptiles and amphibians. Today’s subject (not Ken Livingston) was a herpetologist.

A Memorial Cross

Is it a bit morbid harping on about graves and war memorials? I hope not. The first World War I memorial in London and perhaps the country was unveiled today, 4th August, a hundred years ago. The date was significant in 1916 because it was exactly two years since the outbreak of war. The memorial… Continue reading A Memorial Cross

War Artist and Poet

Yesterday morning the Queen’s birthday parade assumed especial significance. The Duke of Edinburgh turned ninety-five the day before and it was Her Majesty’s official 90th birthday. The crowds in the Mall were larger than usual. The parade was broadcast by the BBC and their programme included an interview with Captain Alexander Ritchie, Coldstream Guards, whose… Continue reading War Artist and Poet

In Memoriam

This is a verse from Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek’d against his creed I haven’t entirely unraveled what it means. Poetry can be tricky to interpret but perhaps it’s relevant to the recent installation of… Continue reading In Memoriam

Big Bang Theory

I enjoyed sounding the gong to announce meals at Barmeath in my childhood. Under my grandmother’s instruction my technique improved from loud bashing (think Top Cat summoning the gang) to a subtler, gradually increasing crescendo, beating around the edge of the gong, culminating in a final stroke, fortissimo, to the centre.

La Vie Rurale

  Gers is a department in the south west of France. It is musketeer country, created from part of the provinces of Gascony and Guyenne around the time of the French Revolution in 1790. The fourth musketeer, d’Artagnan was Gersois.