Judith Johnson
  • Blog
  • About me
  • Poetry
  • Travels
  • Projects
  • SWM Extra
  • Miscellanea
  • Pen Portraits
  • Contact/To Buy

Horse-Crazy!

24/8/2013

1 Comment

 
PictureFeeling a bit worn-out at Moat House!
I'm not sure what triggered the revival in my breast of a longing to get back on a horse and start riding again. It may have been reading Cormac McCarthy's novel All the Pretty Horses, or my strange new love of cowboy films (see my husband's blog on that subject!). Or it may have begun a while back when I saw Monty Roberts in an extraordinary one-off demonstration onstage at the National Theatre, presenting a real live horse to the puppet-horse Joey from War Horse.
 
I was a horse-crazy little girl. I disdained to play with dolls - my tomboy childhood was spent saddling up Champion, the Wonder-Horse, tightening his girth, filling his saddle-bags with gold, and stroking his beautiful Palomino flanks. He stood at twelve inches high, but that was no problem: I could keep him on my chest of drawers and talk to him whenever I wanted. I had a horse-shoe alarm-clock, a bookshelf full of the Pullein-Thompson sisters' Pony Club books, My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty (over which I sobbed loudly), The Horse and His
Boy etc.
 
I had riding-lessons with Cherrie Hatton-Hall at the Moat, her Benenden riding-stables,  where Princess Anne, at boarding-school locally, also rode. I met Cherrie later in life, now become Sister Chiara, a Roman Catholic nun, but still working as Honorary Life Vice-President of Riding for the Disabled*. I loved my riding hat,  jodhpurs, riding-boots, and I was fearless over jumps, never minding falling off. 
 
My friend Joanna lived down the road from us in Cranbrook in a stunning Elizabethan manor-house, Goddards Green. Her father bred Arab horses, and they had a particularly beautiful stallion, Great Heart. I used to walk up to his field and breathe gently into his nostrils, and stroke his velvety nose. Bliss! I was usually mounted on little ponies at the Moat, so was quite envious when my Mum, courageously taking up riding in middle-age, was given a large and gorgeous chestnut mare to ride.
 
When my father's friend Philip Yorke inherited Erddig, near Wrexham, he invited Dad to bring the family up for a holiday. Phil had numerous enthusiasms and collections which had all fallen off when he ran out of cash - one of these was his little band of pet horses, all not quite properly trained. We kids loved them - they were naughty but spirited, and we used to gallop through the woods on the estate and the wide Maes Goch (translated from Welsh: red field, legend telling of a great battle once taking place there) in front of the house.
 
One day I was out with my brother Jonny when his horse Major bit mine hard on the backside. Roddy complained loudly and set off at a fast gallop along the road. I was about thirteen, I think, and didn't know that losing the other stirrup would have given me a better chance of balance. It was terrifying, and more so because I wasn't sure of where Roddy was going - I pictured him taking the fork towards the road out of the park, and colliding with an oncoming car, or crashing into the tall wrought-iron gates. But Roddy was aiming for the stables, and as we approached, a man came out and grabbed him briefly by the reins as I slid off, shaking. My Dad appeared then, and bravely went into the paddock off the stables, where Roddy had fled, and tried to catch the horse so that I could get back on. But Roddy kicked out at him, catching his ankle, an injury which would leave lasting painful effects for Dad.
 
They say that after a crash or an incident of this kind, you should always get back in the seat or the saddle as soon as possible, to overcome the shock. Sadly, because we couldn't catch Roddy, by the time the next morning came, I had completely lost my nerve, and even getting up on another of the horses for a photo made me tremble with fear.
 
Ever since then, I have never got back in the saddle. Aside from losing my nerve there has also been the question of funding for riding while bringing up baby and paying the bills. But taking up running in my mid-50s has shown me that it's never too late to follow your bliss, so I'm hoping to enrol soon for some riding-lessons at our local stables. The inner warrior is raring to go!


* When I met her in 2001 Sister Chiara Hatton-Hall told me some fascinating things about her work with Riding for the Disabled. She told me that the benefits for people with disabilities has been recognised for over 3,000 years since the time of Hippocrates, and research shows that the movement of a horse at a walking pace encourages and develops the coordination and balance of the rider and stimulates every part of the body, rotating the pelvis, so it reproduces, for those unable to walk, the same movement as if they were themselves walking. In Munich, France and Denmark, amongst other places, riding is used in psychiatric cases, with autistic children, children who have never spoken, and people with cerebral palsy. The medical profession, she told me, was becoming increasingly aware and accepting of the benefits of this therapy, especially in Europe, where it was professionally practised with remarkably successful results.



1 Comment

The Passion Play of Oberammergau

10/8/2013

0 Comments

 
PictureTwo of the seven ages of woman!
I first heard of the Passion Play of Oberammergau in my childhood. My Mum worked for five summers as a courier for a British tour operator in the Austrian Tyrol, and my younger brother and I went out each summer for a two week holiday. There were the usual excursions on offer, and in the late 1960s we visited the Bavarian sights of Schloss Linderhof, one of King Ludwig's palaces, and the nearby Oberammergau. If you bought an item in one of the gift shops in the village, you could get your passport stamped, and if it was a year when the Play was not being performed, you could have a tour of the theatre, the costumes, and see the local woodcarvers at work.
 
The Passion Play was first performed in the village of Oberammergau in 1634, in thanks for the villagers' lives having been spared in the bubonic plague which killed many of the surrounding population. They vowed to continue performing the play regularly.  Ever since then, the play has been performed roughly every 10 years, with the exception of 1940, when the Second World War intervened. Over half of the population of more than 5,000 men, women and children of Oberammergau take part in it, as cast members, singers, instrumentalists and technicians. 
 
Martin and I were fortunate enough to be given two places on a trip to see the Passion Play in 2010. We would be travelling with stops en route in Baden-Baden and Kaufbeuren, and we had an amazing escape, as did all of the passengers on the coach, not an hour out of Calais, when a lorry driver, whose attention was briefly not on the road, wrote off our coach by driving into the back of us.  The French emergency services were astonished that there was not one single casualty in our group, aside from a few drops of blood on my husband's face caused by the shower of safety glass that fell on him as he slept. Another coach came out from England, and we carried on with our journey, though delayed (as were thousands of other people on the motorway) for several hours. When we arrived in Kaufbeuren, staying in the Goldener Hirsch, a stunning 14th century inn, we were invited to visit the adjacent convent church, where the nuns sang the 23rd Psalm from the balcony above us, and blessed our onward journey.
 
On our arrival in Oberammergau we were met by the owner of our guest-house. She told us that she would normally greet guests in her dirndl, but that she was in the crowd scene at the opening of the play, and was dressed in jeans so that she could make the necessary quick change. The play is in two parts, with an evening meal in between. After lunch we made our way to the theatre, and en route were passed by a number of villagers pedalling along with small children on the back  of their bicycles. Every family in the village has members taking part in this enormous production, and once the cast has been decided, men are required to let their hair and beards grow during the long rehearsal and playing period. One young man told us that he was pleased to be cast as a Roman character, as these are all clean-shaven. When you visit Oberammergau during this period, you will see bakers, builders, policemen etc looking like sixties hippies - quite a sight! Carsten Luck, one of two men playing Judas in 2010, played Jesus in the 2000 production, which must surely be a strange juxtaposition of roles for any actor.
 
I knew that I was in for a treat with the Passion Play, but even so, I was not fully prepared for the impact of its beauty, the obvious sincerity and devotion of its cast, the stunning Baroque music, and the performances. I am not a practising Christian, but I have a faith in a God of my own understanding, and as a product of my times and culture, the figure and teachings of Christ are a significant part of this.
 
The Play is spectacular. When Christ drives the traders out of the Temple, there are 1,000 people on stage, sheep and goats running around and doves, released by Jesus, fly up into the sky. The Crucifixion scene is harrowing. As a mother of a much-loved son, putting myself in Mary's shoes, I wept. The actor playing Christ (one of two) carries the cross onto stage, heavy, though made of hollow pine. Bracelets with welded nails slot around his hands and feet, but give no support, as they rest on tiny ledges, and he hangs, arms outstretched, for more than 20 minutes. Both actors, though keen sportsmen, needed to train for this physical ordeal.
 
But there were two other moments in the play when I felt deeply moved and tears sprang to my eyes. The first was the opening scene, when the stage is filled with a huge crowd of men, women and children, and Jesus rides in on a donkey, dismounting to sweep a child up into his arms, smiling: the humble Christ of my childhood Bible stories come to life. The second was in the scene where Jesus is invited to give his judgement of the woman, caught in adultery, surrounded by a crowd who are ready to put her to death by stoning. He says, with such natural authority, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," that the crowd just melts away. For me personally, this is one of the most profoundly beautiful sentences in human history, and to see it enacted in this way was a powerful experience. 

There is a long social history of the Passion Play and Oberammergau, which is well-covered by James Shapiro's book Oberammergau, and there have been accusations of anti-semitism in the past, but the current director Christian Stuckl has striven to make changes. Jesus is portrayed as the Jewish Rabbi he was. He carries a scroll of the Torah into the Temple. The
villagers playing the main roles travelled with the director to Jerusalem before rehearsals started, visiting the holy sites.
 
Tickets to the play were sold in packages including accommodation, so we didn't know where we would be seated until our hotel gave us the tickets they'd been allocated. Our coach was split into two groups, and while we were delighted to find we had seats two rows back from the front, the other group found themselves so far back that they thought the living tableaux featured in the play were actually paintings. I understand that the ticketing system may be under consideration for change.
 
I was moved by the devotion of this community to their ancient promise. The rehearsals and length of the performance season are arduous, and there is no heating in the cast's dressing-rooms. Our young guide told us that the weather in 2010 had been uniformly cold since the play opened on 15 May, and it had snowed on the Monday before we saw it at the beginning of June. Most of the cast had suffered from chills, heavy colds and even flu, but had all soldiered on regardless. In days gone by, taking part in the play meant losing your job. Today, these are usually kept open, and alternating casting in the main roles makes this more possible.
 
If you have a chance to see the Passion Play in 2020, I can recommend it. For us it was the chance of a lifetime to see something truly extraordinary.

Click here for the official website

0 Comments
    Picture

    Author

    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

    If you would like to subscribe to my blog, please click on RSS Feed link below:

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Arts
    Books
    Family Matters
    History
    Miscellaneous
    My Fantastic Five
    Natural World
    People
    Running & Walking
    Travel

    Archives

    February 2021
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    November 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    September 2009
    July 2009
    February 2009
    January 2009

    RSS Feed