Ravilious at St Bride

If you're interested in the work of Eric Ravilious, you may want to come along to this evening of illustrated talks at the St Bride Library in London, on 2 December. Four of us are speaking, each with a very different approach. I'll be looking in-depth at half a dozen watercolours painted by the artist around the Sussex Downs, exploring stories and characters behind the scenes. It should be a great evening.

Paul Nash: how to write a guidebook

They don't write them like this any more. In 1935 Paul Nash edited the Shell Guide to Dorset under the general editorship of John Betjeman. His erudite, informative and opinionated essay on the county focuses on the primeval and picturesque, and he has this to say about Maiden Castle:

It is a phenomenon which must be seen to be believed if you consider that it was constructed throughout a series of occupations, the earliest of which can be ascribed to a period approaching 2000BC. Its presence today, after the immense passage of time, is miraculously undisturbed; the huge contours strike into even the most vulgar mind; the impervious nitwits who climbed on to the megaliths of Stonehenge to be photographed slink out of the shadow of the Maiden uneasily.

Perhaps he had been given some style pointers by Betjeman.

Thoreau's apples

"It is remarkable how closely the history of the Apple-tree is connected with that of man."


Henry David Thoreau was not a big fan of the fat, red, commercially-grown apple. He liked instead to harvest apples as he roved around the countryside, and made his own list of fruit to rival any pomona or nurseryman's catalogue:

There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (Malus sylvatica); the Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods (sylvestrivallis), also in Hollows in Pastures (campestrivallis); the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-Hole (Malus cellaris); the Meadow-Apple; the Partridge-Apple; the Truant's Apple (Cessatoris), which no boy will ever go by without knocking off some, however late it may be; the Saunterer's Apple - you must lose yourself before you can find the way to that; the Beauty of the Air (Decks Aeris); December-Eating; the Frozen-Thawed (gelato-soluta), good only in that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the same with the Musketa-quidensis; the Assabet Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple (Malus viridis) - this has many synonyms; in an imperfect state, it is the Cholera morbifera aut dysenterifera, puerulis dilectissima; [Footnote:The apple that brings the disease of cholera and of dysen-tery, the fruit that small boys like best.] - the Apple which Atalanta stopped to pick up; the Hedge-Apple (Malus Sepium); the Slug-Apple (limacea); the Railroad-Apple, which perhaps came from a core thrown out of the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in our Youth; our Particular Apple, not to be found in any catalogue, Pedestrium Solatium [The tramp's comfort.] also the Apple where hangs the Forgotten Scythe; Iduna's Apples, and the Apples which Loki found in the Wood; and a great many more I have on my list, too numerous to mention - all of them good.

Most of these, he goes on to say, need to be enjoyed where they are found. Indoors they lose their magic and their taste.

Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs

'Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs' should be out next month, and the cover will look something like this. In December I'm giving a talk based around watercolours in the book at the St Brides Library in London, as part of a Ravilious evening, and other launch events are being planned.