March 2022 – Page 4 – derrickjknight

Keeping The Little Church In The Park

This afternoon I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/03/08/a-knights-tale-113-terminal-illness/

Having read more of ‘Bleak House’ I scanned the next four of Charles Keeping’s exemplary illustrations.

‘It was a thing to look at, the three children close together’

‘Jo comes out of Tom-all-Alone’s’

‘How tranquil and happy she looked’

‘The little church in the park’

This evening we dined on Jackie’s tasty liver and bacon casserole; creamy mashed potatoes; crunchy carrots; and tender runner beans, with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Ceo Mencia Bierzo 2019

A Knight’s Tale (113: Terminal Illness)

One evening, late in 1997, over the space of three hours, what seemed to be ‘flu’-like symptoms reduced my wife Jessica to a terrifying inability to swallow. I telephoned the emergency GP service and spoke to a most unhelpful doctor. He refused to visit and told me to give Jessica aspirin. ‘If she can’t swallow, how am I going to give her aspirin?’, I asked. The response was that I should contact my GP in the morning, and if I became concerned in the night take her to casualty.

In the small hours of the morning I drove my wife to Newark Hospital’s casualty department, by which time panic had set in. There we were seen by a man in white, presumably a qualified medic. He stuck a spatula into her mouth, peered into it, and said he couldn’t see anything. He took a blood test, told us to go home, and said we would have the results in three days. I stood between him and the couch, faced him squarely, and asked: ‘If you can’t see anything, why can’t she swallow?’. At that, without a word, he walked out of the room leaving us alone. After what seemed like an age another man came in and announced that we were being sent to Nottingham. There followed a 25 mile ambulance trip.

Within minutes in one of that city’s casualty departments, with the aid of more sophisticated equipment, epiglottitis was diagnosed. I asked the doctor on duty what would have happened had I not stood firm. He replied that at the next stage Jessica would have been unable to breathe and would not have lasted the night. She was treated, rapidly improved, and we thought that was that.

Jessica seemed well, we forgot about the blood test, and I resumed my commuting to London. A couple of days later, in my consulting room 125 miles away, I received a phone call from my GP sister-in-law. ‘It’s myeloma’, she announced. I had no idea what that incurable bone barrow cancer was. This is what the test had revealed.

Naturally I complained in writing both to the hospital and to the GP services. I had no energy left to pursue the bland responses I received. There were much more important channels for it.

There was a sequel to this story. One of the professional tasks I undertook in Newark was the supervision of other freelance therapeutic counsellors. One day one of my supervisees spoke of a couple with whom she was trying to engage. She said she was unable to work with the man who was unbelievably chauvinistic and treated his wife very badly. She asked me if I would take over this piece of work. I replied that I couldn’t because this was the emergency GP, in fact a psychiatrist, who refused to visit Jessica.

There followed ten years of various treatments, including blood transfusions, two stem cell transplants, and finally, an unsuccessful donor transplant.

Knowing that her first bout of chemotherapy would result in hair loss, she asked her friend Jane Keeler to cut it all off for her.

Mostly she was treated as an outpatient, but there was one week when to visit her in hospital I travelled by train from Lindum House to Kings Cross early in the morning, carried out a normal day’s work, took a train to Nottingham, visited, then took another train to Newark. I was relieved that I only had to do that once.

Initially, periods of remission were such that Jessica was able to continue working as an emergency duty social worker. The months of relief gradually became shorter and shorter, and the relapses longer and she retired on ill health grounds after about five years. She died on 4th July 2007.

Farewell to Margery

After a telephone conversation with Sam this morning he sent me a parental questionnaire for me to complete and e-mail back to him. I did my best.

I then sent our friend Paul Clarke links to a number of posts featuring his mother, Hilda Margery Clarke, artist, tutee, and friend of L. S. Lowry. Margery, just a year or two younger than our mother, died recently.

This, taken at The First Gallery on 30th November 2014, is my favourite.

Afterwards I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/03/07/a-knights-tale-112-the-best-big-brother-ever/

This evening we enjoyed second helpings of yesterday’s Red Chilli takeaway with which I finished the Appassimento and Jackie drank fizzy water.

A Knight’s Tale (112: “The Best Big Brother Ever”)

At the beginning of 1986 snow lay on the ground for the first three months. This was the last year I remember a decent amount of snow in London. Matthew took his little brother and sister for a sledge ride on allegedly thin ice beside the Waterfowl Sanctuary on Tooting Common.

During that prolonged winter, Sam’s and Louisa’s expressions show quite clearly how cold it was when Matthew, dubbed by Louisa ‘the best big brother ever’, took them out for a buggy ride from Gracedale Road.

It was clearly much more cosy when he read them a story.

It would have been that summer that Jessica, Sam, and I spent a week in Mary Dewsberry’s holiday home in Haslemere. Last year’s bracken and autumn leaves lingered in the country terrain.

Jessica, Sam and Louisa feeding ponies 1986

This may have been the occasion when we discovered that the two children both had allergies to horses, the touch of which caused their eyes to swell up alarmingly.

Under the cloak of a little coppice, Louisa made a diving effort to reenter her mother’s womb. Sam insisted that there was room for two.

Mary’s son, Nick, and his children Jack and Dora, welcomed Sam and Louisa into their boat maintenance crew. Louisa made a quick recovery after her early tip-up, and everyone set to with gusto.

Inimitable

This afternoon I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/03/06/a-knights-tale-111-a-photographic-assignment/

Jackie is feeling rather better today, but we thought it wise to stay indoors.

I read more of ‘Bleak House’ and scanned another set of the inimitable Charles Keeping’s illustrations to my Folio Society edition.

‘Mr Snagsby at his door’

‘ ‘Don’t leave the cat there’ ‘

‘My Lady lounges’

‘I saw Mr Guppy looking up at me’

‘Old Mr Turveydrop, in the full lustre of his Deportment’

In the early days Charles Dickens wrote under the pen name of Boz, and facetiously signed his letters ‘The Inimitable Boz’. I had not known that when first applying that epithet to Charles Keeping.

This evening we dined on Red Chilli’s excellent takeaway fare. We both enjoyed Ponir Tikka starters, a plain paratha, and egg fried rice; my main course was tiger prawn dhansak while Jackie’s was chicken sag. I drank more of the Appassimento.

A Knight’s Tale (111: A Photographic Assignment)

http://www.visitoruk.com/Grantham/fulbeck-hall-C567-AT215.html tells us that

‘Fulbeck Hall is a fine country house dating from the early 17th-century, but largely rebuilt in 1733 by Francis Fane whose family had lived there since 1632.

The house, now a Grade II* listed building, was completely refurbished following World War II, by Henry and Dorothy Fane, having been left in a desperate state of repair by the army who had requisitioned it during the conflict.

The house, with 11 acres of formal gardens, has been restored back to its former glory and is now a private residence. It is not open to the public.

Visitors to the nearby Church of St. Nicholas will see monuments to the Fane family, residents of Fulbeck Hall for nearly 400 years.’

A more detailed history is provided by Wikipedia. From the following extracts I have deleted those sections in need of reference citations.

‘The hall was purchased, in 1622, by Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland, 8th Baron le Despenser and de jure 8th and 6th Baron Bergavenny, of Apethorpe Hall, Northamtonshire, from Sir George Manners, who remained in residence until he became the 7th Earl of Rutland in 1632.^[11] The hall then went to the Earl of Westmorland‘s son, Sir Francis Fane,^[11] a courtier, Royalist and commander of the King’s forces at Doncaster and Lincoln.

Under the Commonwealth, the estate was confiscated, however, Sir Francis Fane was allowed to buy it back, and before the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, he and his wife Elizabeth Darcy, daughter of Sir Edward Darcy MP, grandson of the executed traitor Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy, occupied much of their time in rebuilding the Hall in Restoration style. It was burned down 30 December 1731,^[11] and was rebuilt 1732-1733. His son, also Sir Francis, married Hannah Rushworth daughter of John Rushworth MP and private secretary to Oliver Cromwell .

In 1767 Fulbeck Hall was left to Henry Fane of Brympton owner of Brympton d’Evercy who was a grandson of Sir Francis Fane, the second of Fulbeck and Hannah Rushworth. Henry Fane of Brymton made a fortune as a successful Bristol privateer and he left his Wormesley estates in Oxfordshire to his younger son Henry and his estates in Somerset, Dorset, and Lincolnshire were left to his eldest son Thomas Fane, 8th Earl of Westmorland Thomas, 8th earl inherited the estates of his father and his cousin the 7th Earl making him one of the richest landowners in England. He left Fulbeck Hall to his younger son the Hon Henry Fane MP in 1783. (This man) followed a long list of Fanes as Members of Parliament for Lyme Regis the famil[y’]s pocket borough inherited from an uncle, John Scrope MP, Secretary to the Treasury and grandson of the executed regicide Colonel Adrian Scrope. The constituency at times provided the Fanes with two members of parliament at the same time and between 1753 and 1832 twelve separate members of the family represented Lyme Regis in the Tory interest. Throughout this period the Fane family also represented Constituencies in Somerset, Lincolnshire, Kent, Hampshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. In 1777 Henry Fane married Anne Buckley Batson, heiress of the Avon Tyrrell estate in Hampshire, by whom he had 14 children.

During the 19th century the house was home to General Sir Henry Fane MP for Lyme Regis who was Commander-in-Chief, India as well as his brother General Mildmay Fane. Sir Henry bequeathed a life interest in the estate to his eldest son Col. Henry Fane(d.1836).^[12] His nephew General Walter Fane who raised Fane’s Horse a regiment of volunteers to fight in China during the Second Opium War succeeded him at Fulbeck Hall. This regiment still exists as part of Pakistan’s armed forces. General Walter Fane is not to be confused with his brother Colonel Francis Fane of Fulbeck Manor, who raised the Peshawar Light Horse in 1857 as an irregular cavalry unit to fight against the mutineers during the Indian Mutiny. This regiment was disbanded in 1903.

During the Second World War 1939-1945 the house was requisitioned by the British Armed Forces and it was the location of the 1st Airborne Division before they left the United Kingdom for the Battle of Arnhem.

Many of the contents of Fulbeck Hall were sold by Sotheby’s in October 2002.’

In February 1993, I was commissioned to make photographs to feature in a brochure for Mary Fry, the then owner, who was a schoolfriend of Jessica’s.

Here Mary stands at her open door

leading to the entrance hall,

off which is found the reception room.

A sundial can be seen standing before the main door in the initial picture. The avenue drive leads the eye from this to the gates.

The elegant drawing room is beautifully furnished with fine furniture, ornaments, paintings,

and a grand piano.

Here is one corner of the room.

My accompanying text is written in the present tense, as in 1993, but I have no idea whether this shapely vase, seen beneath the mirror above;

this landscape painting; or any of the other contents in my pictures, survived the sale of 2002, which followed Mary’s early death.

Chasing Shadows

When I ventured out into the early chilly spring sunshine to photograph the shadows it cast on the western fence I had no idea that this would be

the last I would see of it today.

This afternoon I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/03/05/a-knights-tale-110-banknotes-and-phonecards/

We dined this evening on further portions of Jackie’s pasta arrabbiata with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Appassimento.

A Knight’s Tale (110: Banknotes And Phonecards)

When Louisa was very young she became interested in foreign banknotes. I took great delight in scouring Newark market stalls for samples with which to enhance her collection. In her teens she moved on to other things and returned them to me. In 2006 I was to pass them on to a client who was a collector.

Phonecards required me to be a bit more adventurous. In the 1980s, when Louisa began collecting them, I was working in London, which is, of course, full of phoneboxes. These cards contained a reader which recorded the time left available on them. When exhausted, they would often be abandoned in the boxes. Rich pickings for someone prepared to tramp the streets and, if necessary, cross the road to forage. They would come in sets. I remember one celebrating Goldeneye, a James Bond film starring Pierce Brosnan. I would happily try to fill in the gaps for my daughter, proudly presenting them on my return to Lindum house in the evenings.

It was a red-letter day when I found one of the first cards ever issued. Since this was some time after its publication, I imagined it had been deposited by a tourist on his or her return to England. I once mentioned this obsession to a friend of mine. Now, these boxes also contained cards of another nature. Often bearing obviously lying glamour photographs, sexual service advertisements were frequently pasted on the walls. My friend got quite the wrong end of the stick and pulled my leg unmercifully. Cursory glances into more recent telephone boxes on my return to Victoria demonstrated that these wares are still being marketed through this medium. Most are now torn off, leaving stubborn fragments attached to the glass. They look rather like a price label attached to a present, or a charity shop paperback, which you cannot completely remove. Whilst carrying out my research I rather hoped that no-one watching would also get the wrong end of the stick.

That early phonecard, issued by BT (which in those days did truly stand for British Telecom) has now been superceded by a myriad of companies issuing cards without a reader; and the mobile phone has severely limited the call for public phone boxes. Louisa eventually also donated that collection to me. I don’t know where it is now, which is a pity because the Goldeneye set still shows a profit on e-Bay.

Tractor And Trailer

Today I can post the Charles Keeping illustrations from ‘Bleak House’ that I prepared yesterday:

‘Mr Jarndyce was standing with an attentive smile on his face’

‘The portrait of the present Lady Dredlock’

‘They all looked up at us as we came in’

‘This fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead’

On the first sunny afternoon for a while Jackie was determined to go for a drive into the forest, so that is what we did. Having felt the pinch of petrol prices at Tesco – one of the cheapest, I stopped to photograph another

felled oak on either side of Caird Avenue. It was fascinating that while the mighty tree had not survived the recent storms, the tiny yellow celandines and white daisies press successfully through the often flattened grass.

We paused at Bransgore to purchase more cold medication. The verge along the row of village shops sparkled with daffodils and crocuses;

as did many other roadsides like this on on the approach to Ringwood where a drooping willow has lost a limb.

A couple of cock pheasants took a leisurely stroll through a hedge across Bennett’s Lane where a field horse sported a rug and goats gambolled in the distance.

As we ascend Crow Hill we encountered a used Christmas tree on the road ahead of us. Then a couple of wooden boxes. Then a crawling red car.

Then the culprit. A tractor with a loaded trailer spewing untied contents at intervals as it progressed at 6 m.p.h. This sinuous slope precluded easy overtaking. The red car managed to get past sooner than we did.

The occasional pool along Forest Road was in a fine reflective mood.

I was not the only person enjoying the ponies pasturing on the verges outside Burley.

Jackie had made a bland spaghetti Bolognese sauce for the children’s dinner at Elizabeth’s Garden Rescue event. Most of the youngsters left before the time for serving it, so we brought some home. This evening, with the addition of plentiful chillies, she turned it into a hot pasta arrabbiata. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Christian Patat Appassimento 2020.

As will be seen Jackie is back in harness, although she still has an unpleasant cold.

Triple Living Memorial

On another dismal-drizzle-dank day Jackie, despite feeling rather unwell, insisted on driving me to Ferndene Farm Shop for some salad items and a few other provisions.

Perhaps in search of sunnier times, this afternoon I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2022/03/03/a-knights-tale-109-ferry-across-the-solent/

I was about to scan four more illustrations to Bleak House by Charles Dickens, but am now keeping them over until tomorrow, because I have just received

a very touching e-mailed photograph from Lavinia Ross of Salmon Brook Farms.

She and her husband, Rick, planted a Western Incense Cedar in memory of my son Michael upon his death in February 2019. When my mother died last October Lavinia encircled this tree with daffodil bulbs dedicated to Michael’s grandmother and to his own mother who had died in September 1965.

They are experiencing similar weather to us in Oregon, so, perhaps appropriately, the daffodils have bowed their heads.

This evening we dined on more of Jackie’s chicken and vegetable stewp with fresh crusty bread, and neither of us imbibed.