​John Betjeman's Collected Poems

​We were not a bookish household, and especially not poetry, but my father got me this book after he read an article about Betjeman in the newspaper. His style didn’t do a lot for me though like Larkin I came to appreciate it, but his subject matter was all around me, from tennis clubs to the keeping of social face to the Underground trains that jolted along the tracks through leafy suburbia and were the reason we and our neighbours were here. He’s very good on death and lust (he never really came to terms with either) but can be trite in other poems; a “Collected” can be exposing, I don’t know why poets agree to them, a “Selected” is so much safer!

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The novels that have stuck with me come from my teenage years; I guess longevity in the mind is as good a test of worth as any. This is such and comes with the advantage of being one of Dickens’ shorter novels (it took me fifteen years to finish Martin Chuzzlewit ...). For me, Pip remains the unquestioning eternal child, really quite out of his depth and at the disposal of others even when good fortune comes his way. Miss Haversham is a wonderful creation and the story arc of the convict has conviction. The marshes, the graveyard, the crumbling wedding cake, have all stayed with me; no wonder it is a popular adaptation for film, television and the stage. I would recommend the novel Jack Maggs by the Australian author Peter Carey; a wonderful re-reading of the Magwitch character.  

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

This was my introduction to Hardy and his grinding wheel of fate; goodness me, that wheel was in every book and never tired of turning…..I bought The Hand of Ethelberta, his only comedy, and even in that fate was the implacable foe never to be defeated. However, I read this at an impressionable age, and in a relatively short novel (this seems to be a recurring theme based on my concentration span) I was knocked out by the story of remorse and redemption and ill founded pride and Henchard’s wish to be obliterated and forgotten. That summer I took a bicycle trip around “Wessex” staying in many of the places he renamed as locations including Dorchester and Corfe Castle, and this cemented the story in my head for ever. There was a TV adaptation at the time starring Alan Bates as the eponymous character, and so convinced was I by his performance that it was a surprise to me a couple of years later to overhear him talking to his agent in a restaurant and find that he was quite the effete thespian and not a gruff son of the Dorset soil! That was my introduction to the art of disguise and bloody actors….  

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I was in a bookshop where I grew up and idly fluffing through the shelves when I stopped at this book. I started reading the back cover when the local rabbi spoke from behind me: “Read it, you’ll never forget it”. So I bought it, read it and have never forgotten it. Led me onto many other Steinbeck books and was probably my first taste of an American author, but none of his books  topped this for ambition and story telling and a voice of righteous indignation; nowadays, he would probably be considered very left wing in the USA. He won the Nobel Prize, though I’m not sure he deserved it and you could equally argue that, say The Great Gatsby, was the great American novel. But The Grapes of Wrath has had a huge effect throughout the world (certainly the post war years) on social policy and government action and on the minds of readers. “Once read, never forgotten” is a pretty good blurb to put on a book!      

Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop

Bishop is a touchstone for me. Whenever I am struggling to make sense of the flow of a line, when I have screwed up a verse with a loud clunk, I open this collection and my way forward becomes clear. She wasn’t one for confessing, indeed went out of her way to hide herself, so many of the poems are seemingly observational (The Moose and The Waiting Room) whilst staying in the first person. One Art is probably the most famous poem here, a tight villanelle, and there are many other joys. but it’s her invisible techniques that keep bringing me back when I’ve had enough of Hughes and Larkin.
​

*Gareth Writer- Davies

Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize (2014 and 2017)
Commended in the Prole Laureate Competition (2015) and Prole Laureate for 2017
Commended in the Welsh Poetry Competition (2015) and Highly Commended in 2017
Hawthornden Fellow (2019).
 
Publications: 
"Bodies" (2015)  "Cry Baby" (2017) via Indigo Dreams

https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/gareth-writer-davies/4587920255
https://www.indigodreams.co.uk/gwdcrybaby/4594091370
 
"The Lover's Pinch" (2018) The End (2019)  Via Arenig Press
 
https://www.arenig.co.uk/product/the-lovers-pinch/
https://www.arenig.co.uk/product/the-end-gareth-writer-davies/
​

On a recent visit to Wales to visit friends and family in the Valleys, we spent some time in Brecon including a rainy evening when we took shelter in the Coliseum Cinema and saw the new release Bohemian Rhapsody. Neither of us were massive Queen fans, though I've always enjoyed the old favourites, particularly on drivetime radio, but the film was extremely entertaining, and doubly so because of this cracking little cinema. Opened in 1925, when our mothers were both one-year-olds, it is still going strong at 93 years of age, with its original facade, foyer and interior decor. No chilly, faded flea-pit either, but lovely and warm, with seats brightly re-upholstered in red velvety fabric, clean loos and a welcoming staff - and everything any lover of cinema could wish for, including great sound and vision (I'm fussy about that!) with nice vintage touches like proper cinema tickets that spring out from a metal slot at the pay kiosk, a bijou sweets counter and an usherette in the aisle selling ice-creams from a traditional tray between the adverts/trailers and the start of the main feature.
​
There are two screens, and the cinema also hosts the Brecon Film Society, whose 2018-2019 season includes a selection of 'the best new releases and classic movies from British and World Cinema' - usually shown on the first Monday of each month. At £35 a year (£30 concessions) it's great value, with non-members welcome at £6 a film.

I've blogged elsewhere about the wonderful Cinema Museum in London and other loved cinemas. Most of the great Valleys cinemas have long gone, and apparently the multiplex at Merthyr Tydfil has lured some locals away with its offer of £5 a pop and a two-for-one eatery next door, but that's a 36 mile round trip, and if I lived in Brecon I'd definitely support this beautiful old cinema, whose demise would be a sad loss to the community.

coliseumbrecon.co.uk/brecon/now/

Readers of this blog and my book will know that I have an abiding interest in the lives of those who fought in the Great War. One particular aspect which has always aroused my deep compassion is the fate of those who survived, but were badly disfigured. Some lived as recluses for the rest of their lives, and others braved the looks of horror they encountered when venturing out in public.

There is a historic relationship between those injured and the skill, not only of surgical teams, but of artists too. The German artist Otto Dix was one of those who portrayed the unpalatable face of war that, while disturbing, allows us to look at an image which, in a photograph, is so much starker.

I have a copy of Ernst Friedrich's 1924 anti-war book Krieg dem Kriege. I have actually stuck a post-it note on the fly-leaf, inscribed 'Warning! Contains very graphic images', and I keep it on a high shelf as I would not want little ones to come across it while exploring our bookshelves. The photographs are shocking. It was Friedrich’s aim to bring to readers' attention the true cost of war. The only other place I’ve seen images like this is at the tatty profit-making private exhibition next to a cafe  near Ypres, behind which is a wood including what is  claimed to be  an original trench system. It has made a fortune for its owners, and is abhorred by the local museums, although some teachers leading trips prefer it, feeling it shows pupils something the others have sanitised.

I recently visited the Faces of the Great War exhibition at Hall Place in Bexley, Kent (and heard there a talk on a related subject: blog to follow).  The exhibition told the story of the pioneers of plastic surgery in Britain from the point of view of the medical staff led by New-Zealand born surgeon Harold Gillies and their patients, based at the Queen Mary Military Hospital in Sidcup, which opened in 1917. Gillies, who moved here from the Cambridge Military Hospital , was inspired by the pioneering skin graft French surgeon Hippolyte Morstin, and in the next World War, Gillies' cousin Archibald McIndoe went on to reconstruct the faces of badly burnt airmen at East Grinstead.

Gillies recruited leading artists, including Henry Tonks and sculptor Kathleen Scott, widow of Scott of the Antarctic, to help in the work of rebuilding the ruined faces of the severely-wounded.  More than 5,000 wounded men from Britain and its Empire came to Sidcup, and more than 11,000 operations were carried out.

Henry Tonks,  a trained surgeon himself, went on to become a celebrated Professor at the Slade School of Art. Gillies asked him to make a record of men's facial injuries which could be referenced for operations and subsequent recovery. Tonks chose to work in pastels, as it was a quick medium that could be easily blended with the finger, and he wanted the men to sit for the shortest time possible. Today, these pastels can be viewed, upon request, at the Hunterian Museum in London. A number had been loaned to Hall Place, and they were displayed in a curtained-off section, again with a warning that the images might disturb. If today, with all we can see on the media, this notice is still considered necessary, how much harder it must have been for those with disfigurements to step out from the safety of their hospital wards or homes. 

I found these portraits, accompanied by biographical detail, very touching. They included the following:
 
Private Robert Davidson, RAMC Orderly, was wounded in April 2016. He was initially reluctant to mix with his fellow patients, but after his discharge in 1919 he continued to work at the Queen Mary Hospital in Sidcup until the 1960s, having married Sidcup resident Alice Wise.

Private George J Stone, 1st Newfoundland Regiment, suffered a gunshot wound to the upper lip in France on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, aged 21. He contracted a severe infection six weeks after wounding, so his first operation was delayed until three months after the initial injury. He underwent six operations at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot and at Queen's Hospital, Sidcup. By August 1918, Private Stone declined any further treatment for facial injury, and returned home to Bell Island, off Newfoundland, to work as a machinist.

Private S Gardiner, a 35 year old New Zealander serving with the 7th Canterbury Regiment, suffered a gunshot wound on the First Day of the Somme which fractured his jaw. He underwent three operations, and ten months after his injury, surgeons tried to graft bone to bridge the gap in his jawbone. Because he lacked teeth, the wound didn't heal properly, and the graft was removed. In 1950, Gardiner returned to visit Gillies in the UK, reporting that six of his seven sons had served in the Second World War, all returning to NZ with their jaws intact.

Sadly, Lieutenant Dudley Grinlington, of the 48th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force, did not fare so well. He was admitted to the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot, in August 1916 after a gunshot wound to his left cheek nine days earlier. Discharged in March 1917, he returned to active service and was killed in action on 17 October during the Battle of Passchendaele. Having been shot in the knee, he perished, in the same casualty clearing station he had passed through a year earlier. He is buried in Nine Elms Military Cemetery, near Poperinghe.

The exhibition was curated with a sure, light touch - not overwhelming or overstuffed. I was glad to see and learn of some new things, among them:

The GRI Silver badge, first issued in 1916, was worn by those not able to fight: discharged owing to wounds, ill-health, or had reached the age of 51. Hopefully these helped to fend off the advances of the white-feather brigade...

Steel helmets were not standard issue to soldiers until 1916; before that they had soft caps.

Blue benches were provided along the road from St Mary's hospital to the village of  Sidcup exclusively for recovering patients to sit on when out for a walk, which could be avoided, presumably, by more squeamish local residents (though many treated the soldiers with great kindness).

Ironically, the MG08 machine-gun, which could fire up to 400 rounds per minute, and was used by the German Army in WW1, was an adaptation of Hiram Maxim's original 1884 Maxim Gun, manufactured in Crayford (6 miles from Queen Mary's Hospital)  by Vickers at the time when Maxim was resident in Bexley.
 
 
Further reading:

Krieg dem Kriege: Ernst Friedrich - Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munchen (reprinted 2004)

My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young (grand-daughter of Kathleen Scott)
A wonderful novel which I also learnt from.
​
War, Art & Surgery: The Work of Henry Tonks and Julia Midgley (Ed. Samuel JMM Alberti, Royal College of Surgeons, 2014)

Related Links:

The Tonks Pastels  (Please note: graphic images)
http://www.gilliesarchives.org.uk/tonkspastels.htm

Otto Dix - article with images from The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/may/14/art-apocalypse-otto-dix-first-world-war-der-krieg-in-pictures

Vickers Factory, Crayford
http://www.crayfordhistory.co.uk/index/history-of-vickers-crayford/

There were lots of things that scared the hell out of me when I was little: earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanoes, tarantulas, and then perhaps the more likely things, in our corner of Kent, like the idea occurring to me of my mother dying. Then there were the books and pictures I came across on the shelves around the house. One of these which left a lasting impression was a volume of Hieronymus Bosch paintings - scenes of giant men cut in half with little demons sticking pitchforks into them. They held a horrible fascination for me.

When on a walking holiday in the Wildschonau in the Austrian Tyrol this summer, I popped into a small chapel at the side of the parish church in Oberau and found a series of truly gruesome depictions of the hell that awaited unrepentant sinners. Blimey, I bet these kept the congregation in line!

But for all the representations of the Devil and his works that mankind has pictured, surely the only true manifestation of evil on our beautiful planet is when human self-will runs riot. Events in the world so far this year have led many of us to wring our hands in despair -“What can we do about it?” But surely, each of us can do something, however small, each day, right now. For example, the Romanian nurse who, though very busy, gave her full attention to kindly soothing and aiding my mother yesterday when Mum, suffering from a chest infection, couldn’t breathe properly. 

It always surprises me when people say that if there is a God, how can he let things like famine, war, natural disasters and pestilence happen? Well, disasters and disease are part of the natural world, surely, and as for the other two - it’s not a Higher Being, surely, who hoards more food than he needs, who adjusts the price on the market so he can get a higher profit, or appropriates more than her fair share?

​Just saying.

We recently visited Eltham Palace for the first time - a birthday treat for the pot and pan - with our son, daughter-in-law and baby grand-daughter. It was a lovely summer’s day, and the beautiful grounds around the old palace and its adjoining 1930s house were full of happy visitors - other multi-generational families were having fun too, listening to jazz on the lawn, or with kids playing in the adventure playground next to the cafe, relaxing and enjoying the  cameraderie of their fellow human beings.

There is something for everyone here: mediaeval architecture, 1930s modernist style, unusual garden plants, and in the distance a wonderful panoramic view of London - from Alexandra Palace across to the City, with many of its famous landmarks clearly depicted against the skyline. When Stephen and Virginia Courtauld had their 1930s Art Deco mansion built, incorporating the Great Hall where Henry VIII and his forebears once resided, there were critics abounding, but today, since its restoration by English Heritage after the Army Education Corps vacated the premises in 1992, most of its visitors would no doubt agree it is a splendid house.

Having both recently read William Woodruff’s wonderful memoir The Road to Nab End, it struck us, seeing the opulence here of a house created by its millionaire owners, with money no object, that there was, of course, another vastly different side to life in 1930s Britain. I urge you to read his book if you haven’t yet. It will remind you of what has been achieved in the last eighty years, and what we stand to lose if we are not careful...

Wandering out into the sunshine, we wondered what the strange-looking berries were on the tree at the end of the lawn. They looked like large, luscious raspberries crossed with blackberries. We had the good fortune at this point to bump into an Iranian family, who explained that they were mulberries; the family told us they had, on various outings in and around London, mapped most of its mulberry trees. I love this kind of serendipitous encounter, all the more so on this occasion, after discovering we were fellow bloggers, making the acquaintance of Mehrdad Aref-Adib, whose websites are treasure-houses, boxes of delights, which will bear many hours of happy browsing!

www.aref-adib.com
www.shahrefarang.com
  

I popped down to Yeovil last week for a couple of days, and was delighted to see that the trees by the Library in King George Street had been poetry-bombed! Notices attached to the nearby benches explained that this was organised by Yeovil in Bloom - Words in the Street, whereby residents in South Somerset were invited to write a short poem or phrase about what nature meant to them.

There were too some wonderfully planted beds, a mixture of flowers and vegetables, by the Church of St John the Baptist in the centre of town, where my co-workers and I sat and ate our lunch  on the lawn enjoying the August sunshine.

Later that evening a further blooming of 21st Century culture manifested itself near the Library - crowds of youngsters with their faces lit by mobile phone screens, playing Pokemon.

“I thought you were supposed to walk round catching them on your phone?” I asked a colleague.

“Apparently, there’s a Pokemon gym here where you can fight other people.”

You learn something every day!

(I see, thanks to my friend Google, that there is an active Community Arts Association in Yeovil, so I look forward to attending some of their events on future visits.)

www.yeovilarts.co.uk

My son is an artist and an art teacher, and one of his favourite artists is Pieter Brueghel  the Elder. We both love the painting entitled Children’s Games, and much enjoy identifying the different activities.

When I worked at a large girls’ school which boasted an excellent library, I was known by the librarians for checking out the weighty tomes which, more often than not, no pupil or indeed teacher had ever borrowed. One such book was the acclaimed study by Iona & Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, which took me weeks to plough through, but not without reward!  One of the things that interested me was their conclusion that the learning of  games in the main by-passes adults: it is mostly children who communicate and pass them on to other children.

When I was a girl, it was fashionable to hold seances, and I remember the time I set up a circle of letters round a glass in my older sister’s bedroom (most of the family were out), and I and two cousins began to summon the spirits. As the glass started to move we rose as one and fled screaming from the room! Later in life I met a 1960s alumna of above school who recalled the time when a seance had been organised in one of the dormitories.

“Is there anybody there?” was asked.

At this, the glass began to move, and after affirming that there was, spelt out the word F-I-R-E. Seconds later, the school fire-bell went off, and it transpired that at that moment a fire had been discovered in the Domestic Science block, formerly the great house’s stables. Needless to say, the girls were terrified, and the story spread round the school rapidly. The Bishop of Dover was summoned by the Headmistress and spoke at Assembly the following Sunday on the evils of tampering with the dark arts of the Ungodly.

Reading Pepys’ Diary last night, I was delighted to come across a mention of a lunch-time game we played at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School in the late 1960s/early 1970s, which was clearly being played by children at least 400 years earlier. I recall six of us standing around another girl, who lay on a table in the empty art room. We went round the circle, ceremoniously uttering in turn the words:

“She looks pale.” This was followed, one line at a time, and each reciting by rote, by the following:

“She is pale.”

“She looks ill.”

“She is ill.”

“She looks dead.”

“She is dead.”

And with this, we each slipped one forefinger under the prone girl and, together, lifted her several feet in the air with seemingly no effort at all, as if she was weightless.  We had no idea how it worked, but it did work, and it afforded us great satisfaction!

So when I came across Pepys’ entry for 31 July 1665, I called out to my husband: “Listen to this!” (he had also, I knew, played the game at school):

This evening with Mr Brisband speaking of inchantments and spells, I telling him some of my Charmes, he told me this of his own knowledge at Bourdeaux in France. The words these:

Voicy un Corps mort
Royde comme un Baston
Froid comme Marbre
Leger comme un Esprit
Levons te au nom de Jesus Christ.

He saw four little Girles, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them upon one knee; and one begin the first line, whispering in the care of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through. And putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead. At the end of the words they did with their four fingers raise this boy as high as they could reach. And he being there and wondering at it (as also being afeared to see it - for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words in the room of one of the little girls, that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words), did, for fear there might be some sleight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, called the cook of the house, as Sir G. Carteret’s Cooke, who is very big, and they did raise him in just the same manner.
 
Fascinating, eh? Love to hear from any of you with your experiences and stories about children’s games - comments welcome!

Some years back an elderly lady who was moving into sheltered accommodation made me a present of three lovely gifts: a Himalayan blackberry briar from her garden, a vintage Creda Debonair spin-dryer, and a complete set of the Latham/Matthews version of The Diary of Samuel Pepys in hardback (ten volumes including Companion and Index).

My bedtime routine includes writing a diary, followed by a nightly dip into Mr Pepys’s - I’m currently up to July 1665,with the Plague building to a crescendo.

I’ve a few things in common with Samuel, I find. I hope, for instance, that I might be distantly related to his clerk, Mr Thomas Hayter, whose character, the Companion informs me “seems to declare itself in his neat and regular handwriting”. I lived for some years in both Islington and Hackney,  Pepys’s favourite summer jaunt , and may have cycled past some of his childhood haunts in Kingsland and Newington. We were both born under the sign of Pisces, love London, art, music, reading, and derive great pleasure from the execution of an administrative task well done! Were he alive today, I think Samuel would have been tickled to know that George Frederick Handel, another devoted Londoner, was born on his 52nd birthday. I hope he would also relish, as I do, the sea-stories of Patrick O’Brian featuring Captain Jack Aubrey & Stephen Maturin.

One of my birthday treats this year was a visit to the National Maritime Museum to see their exhibition: Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution. I love the NMM in its beautiful setting, with the Royal Observatory above on the hill. It never fails to touch me when I walk past the model of the Rawalpindi on the way in, and remember the fate of those who died in her in World War 2, including  a man from the town where I live.

I was a little bemused initially by the half-light in the exhibition rooms (emulating 17th century light levels ?), but it was great to see the many artefacts and portraits on display, including the John Hayls portrait of Pepys. I loved the large slipware plate which commemorated the Boscobel oak in which Charles II hid after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 (am I mistaken in recalling that the tomb of his companion on that day, Richard Penderel, was located in St Giles’ Churchyard off London’s Denmark Street? Last time I went there I found the lettering so eroded, it could no longer be read).

The engraving of a man being prepared for the surgical removal of a kidney stone was twingingly graphic, the medical instruments displayed even more so! The stark digital presentation of the numbers who died during the time of Plague showed  how shocking the mounting death levels must have been, peaking, in August and September 1665, in  over 7,000 per week in London alone. I was prompted, on my return home, to download the Kindle version of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year for further reading!

Pepys’ diary, together with documenting the great dramas of life, recording historic events and encounters with the great and the good, also brings home the truth that people from earlier centuries shared similar concerns with our own: worries about job prospects, upsetting the boss, financial insecurity, family squabbles, aging parents, marital tiffs, overspending, aches and pains, and (for we churchgoers) the occasional boring sermon, etc! There was a reproduction in the exhibition of a large group portrait showing a visit to Christ’s Hospital of the King and courtiers, with Pepys (a Governor of the School) perusing a map. It included  some charming detail depicting schoolchildren doing the things children  do - and being ticked off in the same way they presumably have been since time immemorial!

Pepys dearly loved having family and friends over for a meal and a good time, and the day after our visit we enjoyed a jolly get-together. We were very merry, in true Pepys fashion, and, amazingly in this smartphone age, we realised, once everyone had gone, that no-one had taken the now almost obligatory photo for Facebook, so only fond memories and my diary must stand as a record of the occasion. I feel glad for that too!

The exhibition has left me determined to take a trip some time to Magdalene College, Cambridge to see Pepys’s library, and another to the Historic Dockyard at Chatham. In the meantime, for those of you who might like to see the Exhibition at Greenwich, it closes at the end of this week on 28 March - so hurry if you want to catch it!

I was thrilled to have the chance to meet French visual artist known as Delit Maille from Lille (her nom de plume is a play on the Daily Mail newspaper title) at the World Travel Market last week, and to have a tour with her of the 540 knitted soldiers lined up, as if they were marching, part of the Wool War One art installation (there are 750 soldiers in total), originally commissioned for an exhibition at La Piscine Museum, Roubaix, dedicated to remembrance of the First World War.

The artist had initially declined the invitation to contribute a piece to the exhibition. Part of her work, which, as a writer and artist, she sees as an aspect of her desire to tell stories, is knitting a response to what’s happening on the news. She felt that the First World War was too serious a subject for her to address, but, after an extensive tour visiting the War Cemeteries in the Somme, she was moved and inspired to accept the offer.

Maille appealed, via her blog delitmail.blogspot.com, for help from interested volunteers  in the task of  knitting a collection of miniature soldiers representing the French War Dead, but quickly realised that there was a desire from many to include their own lost countrymen, and subsequently enlisted 500 knitters out of around 1500 volunteers  from around the world, including France, Germany, Great Britain, China, India, Newfoundland and Belgium.

Each knitter received a pack in the post including patterns and wool, and a request for a specific piece of uniform - coats, hats, trousers, rucksacks;  an average of ten knitters worked on each soldier. Maille supervised the knitting of the soldiers themselves which were made locally, and also met and knitted with volunteers across France (at events named Woolstock), at which they discussed what the work would mean to them. Finally she assembled the soldiers.

One line of  figures represents the men from Newfoundland. Maille told me she was particularly touched, on visiting the Beaumont Hamel Memorial Park, 9k from Albert, to learn what had happened to them. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, no unit suffered heavier losses than the Newfoundland Regiment. They had gone into action 801 strong; roll call the next day revealed that the final figures were 233 killed or dead of wounds, 386 wounded, and 91 missing. Every officer who went forward in the Newfoundland attack was killed or wounded. Young Canadian volunteers  spend a year guiding visitors around the Park, telling  the men’s stories. I promised to send Maille details of one more brave Newfoundlander, George Furey. Who knows, it may move her to knit the story of George and HMS Firedrake.

When our son was small we didn’t have funds for theme parks, but we had no regrets about that - we had long, interesting walks together, played board games, enjoyed family meals with conversations about our days, and, of course, visited museums! Our idea of an excellent time was seeing Stonehenge, Avebury Circle and Silbury Hill over one weekend!

My parents-in-law did take us to Blackpool for a weekend, and we went up the Tower and thrilled to the acrobatic acts in the circus, but we didn't fancy the big rides. Even when I was small I wasn’t too keen on the Dive-Bomber or rollercoasters, though I was always up for the Dodgems. These days my limit is a turn on the Big Wheel or a whizz round on the Chairplanes!

No surprise then that my only visit to the best-known Paris theme Park (fronted by that world famous mouse!) was not a standard experience. If you don’t go on any of the rides you’re left with watching parents trailing overtired kids on a sugar-high looking for the costume characters, occasionally seen hiding round the back of buildings with their heads off, having a sly Gauloise! My favourite bit was watching house-martins flying in and out of their nests on the walls of the nearby TGV station...

I have, however, wanted to visit Futuroscope, in Poitiers, for a while, so was pleased to be offered a short trip there recently. We travelled by train, so some quality time for catching up on reading! We arrived in time for the evening laser show, Lady O, which takes place at the lake in the middle of the park. We sat on the open-air amphitheatre seats in the warm southern air, with a large enthusiastic crowd of all ages, and watched the spectacular display of light and music, relating a story about nature versus machines. Futuroscope is in a beautiful  setting, and has a uniquely French feel to it, with modernistic buildings, sculptures, and tastefully planted flowers beds and borders with aromatic Mediterranean shrubs, which waft their fragrance as you walk past. There are some lovely touches, like the softly-glowing red globes hanging high up among the branches of trees in the evening. When I described the large abstract sculptures of outsize females to my son he correctly identified them as works by the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle. Fun and culture, what's not to like?

The rides include Dancing with Robots, where some of our party (non merci!) were whirled around by a giant robot arm to music by Martin Solveig in dance-club lighting, and plenty of 3D simulator experiences. We laughed a lot on the Time-Machine ride, which features Les Lapins Chretins (the crazy rabbits), not least while queuing for entry, where the walls are covered with versions of famous paintings featuring aforementioned crazy rabbits,  which included Munch’s The Scream and Botticelli’s Venus Rising from the Sea. This is just one example of the wit and  imagination that characterises the whole park. I tried one more ride, but it was all a bit too much for me, and I sat on one of the static seats at the side for Arthur, the 4D Adventure! Our guide quipped that a lot of teenagers  consider themselves cheated if they don’t feel queasy after a ride...  There are also some great open-air play areas and games in Children’s World, which I’m certain it would be hard to drag younger family members away from.

My personal favourites were the IMAX films, which I’d also been looking forward to most: Cosmic Collisions,  and Deep Sea. It was really relaxing to sink into the comfy seats in the dark and become immersed in stunning, narrated films about outer space and  the ocean depths - an opportunity to see things I’m unlikely to experience in the flesh. I learnt that our moon was formed in just 4 weeks from the debris which circled Earth after a massive asteriod collided with our planet. Always nice to find out new things, and  be reminded of our place in a huge universe!

I hope to go back to Futuroscope - there are always new things being developed, and I’d really like  to see the rest of the park, particularly Mission Hubble, where visitors join the rescue mission to repair the Hubble space telescope, and Journey into the Dark, where blind guides take you through three areas in the dark, which give you a sense of what it is like to make your way without sight - from the Louisiana bayou to New York city, and up to the highest Himalayan peak. This last is the only attraction in the park which incurs a cost - a requested donation of 5 euros per person which goes to charities aiding the visually-impaired.