PEST CONTROL

When I left the house with my bag of parcels to post, the thermometer outside the front door was struggling to reach the temperature deemed suitable for sickrooms. ‘Chambres des Malades’ it says.

Though the thermometer was probably made in China it is modelled on a French creation. This appeals to whimsical people like me who want to know at what temperature we should keep any visitors who may fall ill, or for that matter any orange trees that might just happen to be overwintering in the conservatory. So on the advice of the thermometer I kept my pullover on, despite the afternoon sun beating down outside. Maybe it reads low. Anyway I was soon too hot.

Dave was wearing a sun-hat and shorts. His wife has a debilitating illness and he’s often about when I make this afternoon trip to town. He looks askance at the pullover.

“Cold-blooded,” I say.

“How’s business?” he asks.

“Slow,” I reply.

“Why’s that?” he inquires.

“Oooh - recession, World Cup, Wimbledon, the hot weather, anxiety over the budget. Pick any two from five.”

“Ah!” he says, knowingly. “Ah!”

“But it will pick up,” I say. “Swings and roundabouts, ups and downs.”

The next day I have exactly the same conversation with George who sits on the same Government Committee as me. We were having lunch at the excellent Deli in Marks and Spencer.

I am far more concerned for him than I am for myself. He presides over a quango whose English counterpart is in line to be axed shortly. We may both find ourselves with more time on our hands than we should like. I took a glass of Cava to arm myself against the future. “Have you thought about pest control, I asked?”

Now, I was alerted to the money-spinning potential of pest control just the other day following the latest round of complaints about mice in our theatre. It’s not a big theatre and most of the time there’s no-one there. This makes it attractive to the youth of the neighbourhood, with whom we fight an attritional war of security, and mice. Though it’s not so much the mice we object to - they are expert in removing crumbs trodden into the carpet - as the calling cards they leave behind and inevitably in the most public places.

I have often thought that a small mutation leading a mouse to bury its droppings would bring considerable evolutionary advantage to the species Mus musculus. But until that time there’s the pest control man, whose help we were persuaded to solicit just the other day.

Now I’ve had no direct experience of pest control to date but it doesn’t seem a bad business to be in. Little is required by way of start up; a van with sides decorated with suitably ferocious rodents, perhaps, and some trays in which to lay bait. You then advertise your services and wait confidently for the telephone to ring.

When it does, you walk knowledgeably around your customer’s premises looking for evidence of rodent presence. You shake your head and mutter about the dire calamities, commercial and medical, that will inevitably befall you without expert help. Finally, you make recommendations and hand out fact sheets, culled either from common sense or from the Internet.

Having thoroughly frightened your customer with visions of being closed down and hauled before the Bench with sundry polythene bags of mouse-droppings given in evidence, you suggest that such a nightmare might be conveniently be avoided by a single renewable contract, payable in advance.

Then you lay down your trays of bait, purchased from any reputable agricultural establishment and move swiftly to cash the cheque. The mice disappear - for a time anyway - and your customer recommends you for good service. The fact that everything that you have done could have been done by the customer had he stopped a moment or two to think about it, never seems to occur to him.

Such were my thoughts as I stripped ivy from the theatre wall as our recently contracted Pest Control man had suggested. A convenient let out, I thought, because it was almost impossible to get all the ivy off the wall or out of the roof. If the mice came back, as they would, then he could blame the ivy, or, in other words, me.

Of the two parts of the operation then, being the Pest Control man seemed to involve being rewarded handsomely for little actual physical work; whereas being a customer involved an afternoon of precious time hacking away in the hot sun at age old ivy, blunting your saw and secateurs and probably doing your back in at the same time, and for no money at all. Like my thermometer, something didn’t seem right somewhere.

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT

I had walked down this leafy Wolvercote road several times with my aunt.  Each time, according to my child’s memory, it had been sunny and each time the bindweed had been growing over the black granite monument on the bridge.

I suppose I must have been at that golden age that arrives with learning to read and ends with the rigor mortis of serious schooling.  When you can let attentive adults attend comfortably to your wants and life is a never-ending holiday of exploration.

My stepmother, who was a bit of a tartar, described bindweed as pernicious and stripped it away with violence.  I thought this rather sad, for I loved the big, white, waxy flowers.  So did my aunt, who called them ‘Fairy Bells.’  We were entirely in tune, she and I, on the matter and we might have been content to live in a green space with walls papered by these sunny flowers with their drooping, arrow-shaped leaves.

We pushed away the encroaching curtain of vine stems and saw again on the plaque of black granite the ancient aeroplane that had crashed on nearby Port Meadow in 1912, killing its two pilots.  

It was my father who first took me here. I expect on the way to the Trout Inn at Godstow, then a more primitive and bucolic establishment than it was later to become.  Just another river pub in fact, where he and my step-mother went sometimes in the early evening, and where I became bored with my insipid orange juice and fractious at the lack of visible trout.

I doubt he took me there a second time. But when my aunt - or I should say my great aunt - started to take me out on empty Saturday afternoons I would ask her to take me to Wolvercote to see the little bridge and the granite monument and the ‘Fairy Bells.’ 

We’d catch the number 4 bus up the broad Woodstock Road, she demanding of the conductor in her best Edith Evans voice: “one and a half to the terminus, please.” We always sat on the upper-deck, if possible in the front seats, bouncing and swaying on top of the world. Auntie and me: off to another adventure on a maroon and green Oxford bus.

She would have been in her early sixties.  And yet I cannot remember a time when she wasn’t ‘old,’ or ‘elderly’ as she preferred to describe herself;  (as a child I am not sure I knew the difference), and generally we got on well.  Indeed I would have preferred to have lived with her rather than my icy step-mother with whom I seemed always locked in tempestuous conflict.  

With Auntie the rules of good, or at least of satisfactory, behaviour were few; neither were they difficult to learn. Besides, if you transgressed the sin was soon forgotten. I knew she welcomed my company, particularly as she lived alone.  This was not the case in my step-mother's household.

So we would run up to friendly Wolvercote and then walk slowly - for in addition to being ‘old’ Auntie suffered from perpetual rheumatism - towards Godstow and its ruined abbey where the beautiful Rosamund Clifford, mistress of Henry II, lay buried.  

Maybe Auntie knew this.  If so she certainly would not have told me, for she never quite seemed to understand sexual lust nor would she forgive the scrapes and scandals that have befallen our incontinent Royalty down the ages.

Or maybe she did; even so she never managed to fall far enough off the impossible perch of her own high Victorian principles of ‘proper’ behaviour to lead to any sort of relationship. She never married, still less had children, leaving that unspoken-about side of life to her sister, who did marry, had one child (my father) and then died. 

Auntie had then stepped in to run the bereaved household and assumed that this life would continue with her as dowager when my father transacted a succession of two hasty marriages in the heady days of wartime and its aftermath.  But both wives in their turn threw her out.  A little unkindly, I thought. 

So now her liberal attentions turned on me.  I was in any case too young for tales of kings and and mistresses and anyway far more impressed by a more vivid history of crashing aeroplanes.  Perhaps it was here, on the bridge over the Thames, that I resolved to learn to fly which, after a fashion, I eventually did.  But not before I built several model aeroplanes that looked like the one on the monument and which showed an equal propensity to fall suddenly and disastrously to earth.

Still, having paid our afternoon homage to piloting and bindweed, we would wander back to the sleepy village for a cornet of ice cream and maybe we would share a pot of tea.  Then, there would be the bus, waiting at its terminus in the dusty lane, with the conductor shouting to us to climb aboard. 

A BRUSH WITH HISTORY

I read in the paper the other day that we are living through a triple conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus. What this means I am not quite sure. It is a rare event and possibly beneficial, so the paper says. It started on 8 June and ends sometime next January, so I am on the look-out. Three herons flew over the house yesterday in formation, so you never know.

What I do know is that orders for our little business are becoming slower. Instead of half a dozen parcels to ship out each day, we are lucky to have one or two. This may have something to do with the triple conjunction (though if it has we shall be broke by next January). Or it may have something to do with the rather less astral World Cup, in which case things may be back to normal a little sooner.

Anyway, these things need to pondered so I took myself off yesterday to the beautifully peaceful grounds of St Quentin’s castle, less than a mile from where we live. The past always helps to put the present in perspective

Although the Castle’s crag above the river Thaw has always been fortified, the ruins that you see today were begun some 700 years ago on the orders of Gilbert de Clare, aged then about 19 and the last male de Clare left. Well, of course you want to build castles at that age, don’t you? What’s more Gilbert even had the wherewithal to stock them with real soldiers.

How much or how little he was involved personally in the building of St Quentin’s we don’t know. (The Castle is named after the Norman Lord who had built some wooden fortifications here in the 12th century). It’s a small castle as castles go (but then there’s not a lot of room on the crag) and just the sort of castle that a nineteen year old might commission.

So, having set the building in motion, Gilbert then went off to join Edward II’s army en route to relieve Stirling Castle. But happily or unhappily, depending from which side of the border your ancestors hail, there was a little skirmish at Bannockburn during which Edward’s army was routed and poor Gilbert was killed. That was in 1314 and before he had managed to sire legitimate offspring of his own. Exit the de Clare line.

As a result they didn’t bother finishing St Quentin’s. There’s a respectable twin towered gatehouse all ready for a portcullis and a drawbridge but nothing much beyond. Still go through the gatehouse and you arrive in an elegant bailey surrounded by curtain wall 5 metres thick in some places but considerably thinner in others. The works appear to have run out of money and then been finished off as quickly and cheaply as possible.

That didn’t matter - for there is no record of the castle being attacked, or defended. It withstood no siege guns or sappers' tunnels. No Maids Marian were held in dungeons waiting to be rescued. No defenders fired blazing arrows at the attackers below or poured boiling oil on soldiers swarming up the walls. Nothing ever happened here.

In fact I’d like to be able to say that is why the place feels so restful today. With its trees and newly mown grass pristine in the evening sunshine it seems more like a park of peace than a structure of war. The lower gatehouse was used as a temporary prison in the eighteenth century but that’s about the grimmest it can muster.

And by then the castle had been ruined anyway. Not by gunfire but by builders come to steal stones in the night. Half the village was built of the dressed stone plundered from the castle.

Yet it is would be an ideal place to hold a pageant. Perhaps that of Gilbert’s mother - Joan of Acre - born to King Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, while they were on crusade in Syria. Joan had a turbulent life and was married twice - the first to Gilbert’s father; the second, scandalously to a lowly squire, Ralph de Monthermer, whom she married for love, in secret, and much to the dismay of her regal father, who then had Ralph imprisoned, I suppose for lèse-Majesté. Fortunately, he relented.

She died, supposedly in childbirth, at the age of 35, when young Gilbert was just 16. It is tempting to think he conceived the idea of this castle as a tribute to his mother and that is why it is so peaceful. She is after all supposed to be saintly. Fifty years after being interred the body was still, so the chronicle relates, in a perfect state. Indeed, when pressed with the hands her nipples ‘even rose up again.’

Goodness, whatever could she have been dreaming of? How does one put that in a pageant?



Photos are of the castle and the peaceful bailey

THE IMPORTANCE OF GOING TO SEE 'EARNEST"

Not a real blog this - just a review (wot I wrote) of Rain or Shine's recent production of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' in our neck of the woods. Just in case anyone reading this might be wondering whether to go and see it. The answer is 'yes.'

The Importance of Being Earnest. Rain or Shine Theatre Company - Bryn Garw, Bridgend. 9 June 2010.

If you love theatre then don’t miss Rain or Shine’s latest production of Oscar Wilde’s classic ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’ They are touring throughout the summer and what better entertainment could there be to accompany your midsummer picnic? Light as a meringue, yet deep as the earth, Wilde’s genius is a vivid today as a century ago. The play ages not at all.

As with all Rain or Shine productions, the pace is fast, the acting bold, the costumes extravagant, the staging witty and the direction deft. You are promised a treat and take away the memory of a treat and a half.

Moreover, as with all their shows, you, the audience, are part of the production. The wind that blows on the actors faces blows on yours as well. The rain....... well, this time we were in a marquee! Five minutes into the performance a storm of tropical proportions broke above our heads. Jack’s exchange with Gwendolen about the weather "Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing......" took on vivid new meaning.

Yet, it is hard to watch a performance of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ - even one as true as this to the buoyant fripperies of the times - without being reminded of the sadness and despair from which Oscar Wilde constructed this lightest and most intelligent of comedies.

He had had a cruel interview with Lady Queensberry, the mother of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas; Lord Queensbury arrived on the first night of the show with the aim of pelting Wilde with vegetables as he took his bow. Fortunately, he was denied entry. As Wilde rapidly descended into social disgrace the show was pulled after only 83 performances. As Lady Queensberry lived in Bracknell, her transmutation into Aunt Augusta (Lady Bracknell) must have been yet another aggravation for the family.

So this is a play of savage contrasts. Wilde takes accepted wisdom and gives us the reverse. For each Victorian value - thrift, hard work, respectability, gravitas, his characters find a reason to do (or be) the opposite. We can laugh now at Wilde’s pricking of Victorian pomposity, but a hundred years ago some of the lines must have been close to the bone.

But ‘Earnest’ is also a play about identity, about trying to escape fate by pretending to be who we aren’t. “All women grow up to be like their mothers,” says Algernon. “That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” Is there a hint in James Reynard’s direction that Pippa Meekings' Gwendolen is fast following in Aunt Augusta’s footsteps? I think so.

She, it has to be said, is not your traditional Aunt Augusta, though she shakes her walking stick in a manner to make the stoutest of hearts quiver. Hilary Derrett plays her as an intelligent matriarch who carries pencil and paper and who uses etiquette simply as it may suit.

The play has many memorable lines - lines that have entered the collective memory as vividly as any Shakespearian quip: ‘the truth is rarely pure and never simple;’ ‘to lose one parent, Mr Worthing, might be described as a misfortune.......’ and, of course, the totemic ‘a handbag!?’ (Edith Evans once said that she started that line by clenching the buttocks!).

Ah - the handbag! The one ‘point faible,’ I’m afraid, unless it was some substitute handbag that had made an accidental appearance at Bryn Garw. It seemed more of a briefcase and certainly not something within which to deposit an infant, even one asleep at the time. Surely, Miss Prism would have been carrying one of Mr Gladstone’s inventions, some voluminous carpet bag, especially to carry the manuscript pages of a three volume novel of ‘revolting sentimentality.’

Mmmm.. sounds rather intriguing - and like all missing manuscripts, I rather wonder what might have become of it, after it was found in that ‘remote corner of Bayswater?’

Still, clearly a five star show. Go see and enjoy!

HAY FEVER

I was supposed to be meeting the Minister at half-past twelve. I had an email to say so from his private secretary. So I arrived in the hospitality tent a deferential seven minutes early. It was almost empty. A waitress brought me a glass of cold Cava, apologising for it not being in a flute. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We’ve got some home-made lemon drizzle cake,’ she offered, breathlessly. ‘That would do nicely,’ I said. She bustled off. I pulled out a magazine at random and took a sip of the Cava.

A slim and attractive middle-aged woman slipped into a seat at the adjoining table and began eating a salad. She gave me a penetrating glance. ‘I see you’re reading Cam, she ventured. Are you a writer?’ I hadn’t yet looked at the title: she seemed better informed than I was.

Indeed, I might have been a writer. This was the Hay Literary Festival after all and the marquee was labelled ‘Artists.’ Whether the Minister was an artist I hadn’t really any idea but I hoped he would be giving a lecture. After all my little organisation was sponsoring him. Thus I explained my presence.

‘I do, though, write a little,’ I think I must have said turning back to my Cava and wondering whom she was, and hoping she wouldn’t be disappointed.

‘What do you write?’ I hummed and ha-ed. She spoke firmly but quietly. Strangers don’t normally take an interest in what I write and she seemed to be doing more than just making polite conversation.

‘Oh...websites,’ I said dismissively. ‘Brussels, European politics.’ Occasionally I write things for fun. Privately. Again I turned away, not really wanting to labour the conversation. Besides the lemon drizzle cake accompanied the Cava singularly well.

Feeling compelled to return the ball, I ventured a couple of polite inquiries - had she come far? - that sort of thing. She was chairing a discussion at 1 o’clock, she said. She’d been helping a couple of old friends. She’d lived in London most of her life; but had recently moved to Nottinghamshire. Her face was deep and intriguing, alert, inquisitive, focused. I felt myself being drawn in.

The non-appearance of the Minister continued, despite frequent glances at my watch. The two of us were still pretty much alone. Except for Ruby Wax who flitted in and out for no apparent reason without saying anything.

Thanks to her persistence rather than mine the conversation at last began to leave its hesitant nursery slopes. Prompted, no doubt by the sparkling wine and the billowing draperies of the hospitality tent we set out along an easy green run on the subject of weddings.

It was silly, I suggested, to invest vast amounts of money in a single day, when anyway it might rain, or on which you might be afflicted by some ordinary and debilitating condition like a cold. To be sure of satisfaction you needed to give your wedding temporal and geographical space. Besides, most newly-weds depart the scene after hardly more time than it takes to change one’s clothing. What did she think then, I offered, of the travelling wedding, which would take place in a sequence of venues each with a different cast of friends and relatives. Would that not be more fun? She seemed to think so.

By now I had quite forgotten my Minister. Whoever might be this stranger with the penetrating eyes I felt the two of us were getting along famously. Indeed, I was on the point of ordering another glass of Cava and perhaps one for her when she stood up abruptly and in the pleasantest way possible, said her goodbyes. It was exactly ten to one.

What now if my Minister didn’t appear? What if he had been waylaid by some terrible crisis, personal or governmental. Might I have to ‘appear?’ If so could I talk about travelling weddings - or my other innovation for the social calendar, practice funerals?

But he did turn up of course, full of apology. ‘No, no, no matter,’ I said. And for once this was heartfelt rather than mere politeness for I was quite sure that his conversation would not have been as interesting as hers nor he as receptive as she to my theme of travelling weddings.

Later I spent hours perusing the programme trying to work out who my stranger might have been; she with the burning intelligence and happy sense of humour. Carefully I went through the lists of all the Chairs and Interviewers at Hay, googling them and looking for their pictures. I drew an absolute blank.

Eventually I found her. Not an interviewer, nor a chair either - at least not primarily so. She was the author, Rose Tremain.