Adult, child and dog water fountain, the Green Park, July 2017.
Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park are crammed with dogs. Why are there no dogs in the Green Park, that has a dog fountain, or St James’s Park? This is one of life’s unsolved mysteries. Another is why a gem like St Mary, Harefield is “undiscovered”.
It’s in the Domesday book (1086) boasting a priest. I hate that word used in that context. The Domesday book didn’t boast, nor, probably did the priest but that’s what people write these days. Anyway, let’s digress. Last month I mentioned an epitaph to an angler in Ripon Cathedral (Tale of Two Churches) and now, unseasonally, I have come across this one to an anonymous gamekeeper at Shrawley in Worcestershire although I am aware that gamekeepers are busy all the year and not just when they present the birds at their shoots.
He sleeps! No more at early morn
To wake the woods with mellow horn:
No more with willing dog and gun
To rise before the laggard sun;
No more before the social can
To-morrow’s sport with joy to plan:
Death took his aim, discharged his piece,
And bade his sporting season cease.
Now, if you can be patient, I’d just like to slip in a bit about my first Prom this year. My great-uncle Paddy Bellew was a professional cartoonist and this one surely belongs in this digression.
The First of the Season, Paddy Bellew.
Well, my first Prom this season was not an unqualified success. I asked an unreliable (she has form) but much cherished and dear old (she’s a Joanna Lumley lookalike) friend. She asked exactly where and when to meet. Knowing her, I told her to be at Cadogan Hall at 12.40 for Baton-Up at 1.00, leaving a margin for error. She lives within walking distance of Sloane Square so what could possibly go wrong? Her first message was that she would arrive at 1.00. Her second message was that there didn’t seem to be a concert and where was I? She knows there are lunchtime recitals at the Wigmore Hall and that is where she had traipsed. I hope Fidelio on Friday at the Albert Hall will pass off more calmly.
Now I’m in a pickle. Some of you, I’m thinking of you Cousin Caroline, will be thinking, super, now there’s going to be a blast of 60s music to jig around to. The more erudite reader – if there is one – will be hankering after more about St Mary, Harefield. The judge’s decision is final and we will return to SM Harefield soon. But if I can’t please you the Beatles, maybe, can.
