Tag: Richard Church

A Window On A Hill (Part Two)

Jackie and Elizabeth visited MacPenny’s Nursery today in order for my sister to buy some bulbs. They also lunched there and returned here mid-afternoon. We chatted for a while before Elizabeth departed for her own home.

The first part of this collection of essays by Richard Church illustrated by C.W. Bacon features in https://derrickjknight.com/2023/10/30/more-rain-more-reading/

As before I have scanned each page containing one of the drawings, some also featuring the author’s prose, leaving readers to make their own assessments.

I will just add that, having been determined to finish my reading and to scan this second batch of pictures today, I was tempted to skim some of the prose, but I couldn’t bear to miss a word.

This evening, while gales howled outside and rain beat a tattoo on the Velux window above, we all dined on Jackie’s wholesome chicken and vegetable stewp and fresh crusty baguettes with which she drank more Zesty and I drank more of the Côtes du Rhône.

More Rain, More Reading

Cecil Walter Bacon, MSIA (24 August 1905 – 12 August 1992), who signed his work “CWB“, was a British artist and illustrator.[1] Much of his work was in the art deco style.

Bacon was born in Battle, Sussex, England, where his father was a businessman who ran a tannery.[1]He was educated at Sutton Valence School, St Lawrence College, Ramsgate, and Hastings School of Art, being at the latter from 1923 to 1925, when he was taught by Philip Cole.[1] In 1926, he began working for an advertising agency on London, before turning freelance in 1929.[1] Between 1932 and 1935 he designed a number of posters for London Transport.[2]

During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force as a Leading Aircraftsman, before, in 1942, being assigned to work producing propaganda artwork for the Ministry of Information.[1][2]

He worked regularly for the Radio Times and in 1943, during the war, he drew an illustration for the Christmas edition, depicting a soldier holding a sprig of holly.[3]

After the war, he produced designs for, among others, British Railways[2] and the Post Office Savings Bank.[1]He was adept at scraperboard work, and in 1951 wrote a book on the topic.[2] He also illustrated a number of books, and designed book jackets, including those for first editions of early works by Raymond Chandler.

Bacon married Irene Proctor in 1929; they had two sons.[1] He died on 12 August 1992.[1] A number of his posters are in the collection of the London Transport Museum.[2] A retrospective exhibition, Designer’s Progress, took place in 1984 at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery.[1]

It was Bacon whose excellent illustrations adorned

of which this is the title-page and frontispiece,

and this, the book jacket to the collection of essays each originally published variously in the Spectator, Country Life, Christian Science Monitor and West Country Magazine.

I have chosen, in posting these pages from the collection, not to write my own review, but to leave the judgement of Church’s writing in those sections of text that accompany some of the pictures provided by Bacon, to you, my readers.

In the earlier days of my book collecting I subscribed to a number of dealers regular lists, then slipped the entries into the books. In this case the entry provided me with the publication date of 1951, which is not given in the book, perhaps because each essay would have had a different date when originally published.

I will provide a further selection the next time it doesn’t make sense to leave the house.

This evening we all dined on beef burgers, some of which contained jalapeños, and two consisting of haloumi; fresh salad; and chips, with which Jackie drank more of the Zesty and I drank Séguret Côtes du Rhône Villages 2021

The Voyage Home

I didn’t take the extra hour in bed that heralded the end of British Summer Time this morning. Instead, I reset the clocks, watched a recording of last night’s grinding rugby World Cup Final between South Africa and New Zealand, and set about my customary work on blog comments.

On this, the first day of a period of lessening light and earlier darkness, we experienced further changing, mostly wet, weather. With an enticing spell of of blue-sky cloud we were about to drive out for a sunset when thunderous rain poured from above.

I pushed open the kitchen door, met gusts of wind sending streams through the door, upon the patio paving, and from next door’s guttering. In just two clicks I caught a warm, wet, blast.

I had spent the rest of the day completing my reading of the third volume of Charles Church’s autobiographical trilogy.

This is the blurb from the first edition of 1964 printed on the inside of the jacket:

I would accept this as a good outline of the man and his work, while adding some additional observations on this episode.

The quality of his flowing prose with its fine poetic descriptions continues largely as reported in my reviews of the earlier volumes, https://derrickjknight.com/2023/10/20/over-the-bridge/ and https://derrickjknight.com/2023/10/26/the-golden-sovereign/

He certainly demonstrates honesty and insight.

There is, however, one central section in which my interest wanes. This concerns the portraits recounting of his Civil Service and literacy acquaintances which lack his usual roundedness and would need more knowledge of the subjects to fully appreciate. I wonder what some of these characters would have thought of his sometimes less than flattering descriptions.

Soon after this we learn of his despairing breakdown, which may have a bearing on his writing here. He acknowledges the help of loved ones to aid recovery.

He names neither wife nor children, mentioning the latter rather peripherally; perhaps wishing to protect their privacy.

This evening we all dined on tender roast lamb; crisp Yorkshire pudding; creamy mashed potato; perfectly cooked carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mint sauce, and tasty gravy, with which Jackie drank more Zesty and I finished the Garnacha.

The Golden Sovereign

This second of what was to become an autobiographical trilogy by Richard Church takes us from the struggling teenager to the young man of 1920.

This is an honest and insightful journey demonstrating the changes in relationships following grief and its consequent collapse of a loving home; a sacrifice imposed by family circumstances; the conflicts between desire for life in the arts and the need to secure an income; the pain of first love; the importance of friendships and encouragement; how the nature of parental relationships affects our later choices.

Church’s poetic descriptions of his surroundings and events are a delight. He enjoys simile, metaphor, alliteration, and other wordplay. Sequences are both excruciatingly painful and wryly humorous.

Our author is a master of sentence length conveying the essence of his narrative, be they long or short.

Attuned to music and the sounds of nature as he is, this reader can imagine the prose read aloud. His study and knowledge of the painterly arts is detailed.

Once again, I hope to leave the specific elements of the story to readers I have been able to entice into his world.

Despite what is written about conclusion on this jacket, there is another part to the tale which I will begin to read later.

Over The Bridge

In 1955, when he first essayed into the world of autobiography, Richard Church was already a well established author.

At birth, in 1893, he had entered a world of gas lights, lamplighters, muffin men, horse drawn cabs, solid-tyred bicycles. His first eight years overlapped Queen Victoria’s last.

Living near enough to walk to The Mall, young Richard witnessed the queen’s coach in her diamond jubilee procession of 1897 and four years later her funeral.

His life therefore heralded a new millennium and all the changes that went with it.

As befits the poet the writer was, his splendid descriptive prose of flowing, resonating, language is so beguiling as to render it beautiful for itself, quite apart from his sensitivity to his memories.

He writes honestly with considerable insight into the family relationships in the family of four, including his beloved parents and brother Jack. Despite flaws, imbalances and darknesses we are in no doubt of the joy in the household. Church’s analyses of all their personalities are candid and credible.

I won’t attempt to précis the work, but so say that his depictions of the London of his time, including starting of in Battersea and move to Dulwich resonate strongly in the Londoner in me; tossing up sycamore leaves and watching them gyrating and rocking to the ground we all played helicopters, except that Church had no word for them when the flying machines had not yet been invented; the five year old’s magical awe when, provided with his first spectacles, he could recognise sharp detail in the world around him, is palpable.

This acutely myopic and sickly child gained access to a Convalescent cure because his father gained access to the Civil Service Medical Officer who made the referral which strengthened the boy despite it being a traumatic wrench over the residential period.

The drawing which appears on the book jacket is of The Author in Later Life by Robert Austin, R.A.

The author’s philosophy of life is woven into this first volume of autobiography. It is enough of a recommendation that as soon as I have posted this, I will open the next one.