DINTON CHURCH

Yesterday I decided I couldn't waste such a fine day by sitting indoors and knitting so hopped into the car and drove about 4 miles towards Thame to visit Dinton Church. Despite its nearness to home I've never been to see it though I did know some things about it.

The first thing that greeted me was a vista of molehills - all dug by 'the little gentleman in the black velvet coat'. I have moles, or a mole, in the garden from time to time and you know he's about because plants are leaning over sideways where they've been undermine

As I rounded the corner of the church I could hear singing - Michael Ball and 'Love Changes Everything'. I found the door open and a couple of ladies making flower arrangements for a funeral being held today. They were testing a tape to see if the songs on it would be suitable. For me, it meant that I didn't have to go and find a keyholder if it had been locked.

The Norman door to Dinton Church is well known for the carving on the tympanum above the entrance.

On the lintel it shows a dragon deciding to attack St. Michael who is holding out a small cross. The larger carving shows monsters eating fruit from the ?Tree of Life.

The porch, which helps to shelter this carving, also has some carved corbels. They aren't in very good condition looking as if they've been subjected to weathering over many centuries.

I've seen an etching of the door from the 19th century and there is no porch. Perhaps the church couldn't afford top notch carvers in the first place as they seem to be rather naive faces.

The stocks used to be on a patch of grass ouside the church boundary but at some point they've been brought into the porch's shelter. I wonder if they had a one-legged trouble maker in Dinton - there are 5 leg holes....

Inside, the church has a high ceiling and it's light and bright unlike Stone church which is stone walled and grey. The pews have kneelers made to different patterns depending on the interests of the maker. This is just a selection and it wasn't an easy choice. They are all hung on hooks on the back of the pew in front.

Dinton font is an example of the 'Aylesbury type' of font, ie, a cup/goblet shape.

I asked the flower arranging ladies why various items were covered in these blue cases - because there are bats in the church and it stops their deposits from damaging the items, though only certain objects were shrouded like this.

I took a photo of the organ, which is large for a small church but - it wasn't good enough to include. There are some hand worked representations of the village done in wools and materials and framed behind glass - and out of the light.

The plaque commemorates a member of the Currie family whose home was next door in Dinton Hall. The Curries played a part in the wider district - in 1931 Sir William Currie had attended the opening of Stone's 'vastly improved bowling green'.

In the spring of 1944 Lt. Currie was killed at Kohima, the furthest point which the Japanese reached in their attempted invasion of India. It was 'the scene of some of the bitterest fighting of the whole Burma campaign.' The road to Imphal was re-opened after huge casualties from hand to hand fighting, where for a time the Deputy Commissioner's tennis court formed a no-man's-land. It has been outlined in white concrete and this is the site of the cemetery. It holds Commonwealth soldiers, Hindu and Sikhs. There is a memorial to the 2nd British Division, a large stone which bears the inscription -

When you go home

Tell them of us and say,

For their tomorrow

We gave our today.

(This information comes from Vol.3 of an Imperial War Graves Commission booklet, pub. 1958, which I picked up in a charity shop many years ago. Its title is TheirName Liveth. )

As I left the church I walked round the exterior and saw this grotesque high on the wall near the roof.

I'd have called it a gargoyle but I've recently seen a QI programme where the host, Stephen Fry, said gargoyles are for diverting rain water away from the building and this type of carving is known as a grotesque. I believe him!

Dinton Hall was renovated over several years but I don't know what its use is these days; one web site suggested a gentlefolks' home...There is an amazing range of twisted chimneys which in my photo look like a block - I was paying too much attention to the patterning on the roof.

In the time of the Civil War in the mid 17th Century it belonged to Simon Mayne, friend of Cromwell and one of the signatories to Charles I's death warrant. When Charles II returned to England Mayne was incarcerated in the Tower of London but is buried at Dinton. Just along the road is a pub called The Dinton Hermit which used to have a sign of a man in old-fashioned clothes.

The man was John Bigg, Simon Mayne's clerk. Alison Uttley says, in her Buckinghamshire book, that tradition has it he was Charles I's executioner and, struck with remorse, lived as a hermit. One of his leather shoes, patched, repatched and patched again until it became enormous, is in the Bodleian Library, according to a website. I can't remember whether I've seen it or not...

Something nice to end on. I walked for about a mile on a flat road and on the way back to the car saw these violets shining in the grass.....

HOW DAFT CAN YOU GET???

You don't have to answer that!

I don't use emoticons or other 'thingys' made up of ) : or ; etc but I thought this cat was a giggle. He miaous if you put the cursor on his forehead, on his tummy makes him purr. He'll also try to catch it as it passes in front of him and his tail'll twitch, too. And he follows where you're sending the cursor, of course. I just have to remember to turn on the sound - and then off again.

Good old Sarah, since I couldn't place it where I wanted it...

SPITFIRE MEMORIAL

This is the beautiful winning design for the Spitfire Memorial which will be erected in Southampton in due course. Designed by R.J. Mitchell this iconic plane flew there on its first test flight in 1936. Last Saturday there was a flying display by Carolyn Grace in her two-seater Spitfire to commemorate the 75th anniversary, taking with her as her passenger Nick Hancock who designed the memorial.

Her husband had rebuilt the plane, taking 5 years to do so, but sadly he was killed; now Carolyn flies the plane.

There's a fund set up to enable the public to contribute towards the £2m cost of the memorial. Just put spitfirefoundationtrust.com into Google and all the info will appear.

A SINGLE STARLING

I've had a single starling come into the garden for a couple of weeks now. It has an unusual way of feeding, laying the side of its head along the ground and scooping up some seed. Another starling came down yesterday and one of those fluttering up in the air displays ensued then both flew away.
I've managed to get a photo of it showing the way its beak is both extra long and crossed. This is the reason, perhaps, for it being unwanted by the rest of the group. I wonder if it will survive.

A WALK ROUND THE CHURCHYARD

Last weekend Sarah 'translated' the info in the camera manual regarding using the Macro setting. It was a nice sunny day yesterday though a very cold wind so I braved a walk round the churchyard to try it out. These 'day's eye' flowers were the first effort and were OK so I tried a patch of moss
growing on a stone 'lump' which is supposed to be the base of the church cross.

Round the corner to the west door to find the only two figures represented on the outside. Kilpeck it's not!!

According to Alison Uttley's book of Buckinghamshire (rather fanciful reading about life in the good old days) this is meant to be a bishop and the one below represents a king. He looks a bit young to be a king, I think.

I thought this pine bark was just like ripples of chocolate, if you look at it sideways!

I think they're Scots pines but I have hardly any tree bark knowledge.

Here's one way of finding the watering can next time it's wanted!

And a bit of history to end with - sorry!

This wall seems to be the one referred to in the Vestry Minutes (the parish council took over from the Vestry several decades later). It's a bit, um, unpleasant but it's parish history all the same. Don't read if you're squeamish!!!

Because of the asylum burying so many of their patients there a problem arose which had to be solved.

On 24th March 1870 'it was moved, seconded and carried unanimously that the Vicar be requested to apply to the ensuing court of Quarter Sessions for help to enable the vestry to build a wall before a certain portion of the churchyard and to puddle the same with clay to prevent the effluvia from the dead bodies interred in the churchyard by Order of the Committee of the Visitors of the Asylum escaping through the fence.'

No Health and Safety issues there then.

STREET NAMES Part 2

It seems ages since I blogged about Faithfull Close and Jefferies Road in the village being named after two WW2 casualties whose names are on the War Memorial. So here are the names of a couple more roads plus a bit about the Asylum.

You have to know that Stone was once home to the Bucks County Pauper Lunatic Asylum. About 1844 Parliament decreed that every county should build a lunatic asylum and after a great deal of haggling and NIMBYism it was this village which was chosen. The site was out in the country, that is, about 4 miles from Aylesbury, it was on the turnpike road, now the A418, from Aylesbury to Thame and Oxford and had a 'southerly aspect'. Despite all these qualifications it did not have an adequate supply of water which was to cause problems for years to come.

The photo at the head of this blog shows the asylum, which opened in January 1853, from a postcard which probably dates from the late 19th or early 20th century. I'm guessing that the man in uniform on the right hand side of the photo is the gatekeeper, Jeremiah Warren.

The name was changed several times - from County Pauper Lunatic Asylum until after WW1, when it was changed to Bucks Mental Hospital.

The photo of the crest was taken about 5 years ago. In the top photo it can be seen over the main door and was obviously thought worth saving. It's now in the grounds (though unnoticed) of Tindal Hospital in Aylesbury which was once Aylesbury Workhouse...now it has a role in providing Mental health facilities. And it's opposite Aylesbury prison, one Victorian building facing another. (I had fun trying to find this, asking people in various establishments round about whether they could direct me to it. It produced frowns and puzzlement and comments of, 'I've seen it but I can't remember where.' Obviously not big enough!!

When the NHS began in 1948 the name changed again to its final designation - St. John's Hospital. Then it was decided by Bucks CC to demolish this vast building for development, ie, housing. The roads on the site are named for the original wards but this Street was named after a doctor who died in WW2, though his name isn't on the war memorial - he's a 'foreigner' from Scotland.
Aged 25, Norman James Haggar married in Stone Church on 10th September 1939. He served on HMS Kashmir as a Surgeon Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He died on 9th April 1940, the day the Germans invaded Norway and has no known grave.

This oddly-named road is a name from the 1776 Enclosure Map. [Common land was enclosed taking away the long held rights of the common people to keep a cow, thus losing access to dairy products, and to take fallen wood.] The area it covered then is now a housing estate, part of which is called The Spiert. It has been suggested the name could mean 'a spring' or alternatively a willow plantation. Perhaps it's a bit of both as there are underground springs all over the high ground where the A418 runs now and willow grows near water.

GARDENING'S BEGUN, 2011

Gillian, my lady gardener, came yesterday to start the gardening season - a month earlier than previous years. She's been coming to me for a couple of hours once a week since 2005.

I've always kept a gardening book so I knew what I'd bought, where and the cost, what had been sown or planted and all the other work I'd done in the garden. However, getting older limits what you can do - It's so much trouble struggling to get up that it's not worth trying to kneel down these days, so my gardening is limited to strolling up and down the path with the book during the week making notes about what needs to be done. I can still prune, sweep the path, a short burst of anything that needs attention at ground level but I'm mostly a gofer and tea maker.

The picture above is the pink hellebore (at Gillian's feet) and a selfsown primrose among the bloomin' oak leaves. I have a couple more pink hellebores which flower later, including one which my daughter brought from Holland last year and which has a nice fat bud on it now. To Gillian's left are the common creamy hellebore although they do have different markings. They self seed like crazy!

This hedgehog holly produces flowers every year but they don't turn into berries.

Gillian cuts my little patches of grass which separate different areas of the garden, wheels the barrow away when it's full of weeds, prunings etc and brings back the pots of bulbs which have spent the winter behind the shed at the bottom-ish of the garden.

The honeysuckle which covers my trellis arch is sprouting. A couple of weeks ago I asked Stuart to come and oil the weathervane which had been stuck all winter and wondered why he was laughing when he returned. A honeysuckle had wound itself round the upright of the weathervane and, although cut, hadn't been dragged off! Mind you, the weathervane is tilted because the pigeons find it a comfortable perch, the space between the owl's wings just fits their undercarriages.The tilt is exaggerated because of where I'm standing - and it's raining!

UNUSUAL GATE LATCH

While I was reading Bernard's blog this morning and he mentioned a repaired keyhole at the church in Sydenham, I remembered I'd taken a photo of a different kind of gate latch at Westcott Church when I was there in 2006. Once I'd searched through my different caches of photos I eventually found it.

It's a simple idea but effective with a large staple on one side of the gate, a latch on the other side which swings across and a heavy metal peg on a substantial chain, fastened above the staple, is pushed through the loop. I wonder if the village blacksmith made this.

There must be so many examples of handmade and practical items around, I really must look harder!

STOP HS2

Unless you live along the proposed route of this Government Vanity Project you probably won't have heard of it, perhaps only in passing. Campaigners against this project say the environmental impact has not been assessed, it's not 'green', the business case is based on unrealistic assumptions. There's no benefit to Bucks as the trains will power through on their way to saving 20 minutes on a trip to Birmingham from London.

It will affect people in Stone Parish as the line is scheduled to run near Bishopstone and Hartwell House, just about a mile from where I live. It's not just the line but the area which will be cleared each side of the track - wider than Wembley football pitch - but there will be viaducts, embankments and tunnels plus a depot.

This isn't taking into account the Listed Buildings, homes, businesses, farms etc which will be either destroyed completely or have to live with the incessant noise. No one ever considers wildlife in these kind of situations.

The sign at the top of this blog is the usual one which is seen, sometimes marking where the line would start to where it would end, giving an idea of the width of the proposed work, but the one immediately above here is by the Chiltern Society which represents an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - well, it is at the moment, at least!

There's a website which covers the aspects which will ruin our County for ever - do look if you have a moment. It's stophs2.org. By typing stop hs2 into Google you'll find you'll find plenty more plus a map of the route of the proposed line.

SPAM

Do you look in your Spam box? I don't, I don't even think about. I went there the other day and was annoyed to find comments there which you've left and were perfectly valid to go in the post they referred to. Something makes a decision and opts out comments 'it' thinks are spam. I wish it would let me make the decision about whether I want to keep it or cancel it!

One of the comments was from my granddaughter, Sarah, who is at Uni taking Costume Design and Photography, who sent a message to remind me - on the Twenties blog - that she'll be 20 this year. Ah! my youngest grandchild!

She's more interested in the photography side of the course and these are a couple of sample covers for the Vogue assignment which is this term's subject. I have her permission to post these.

But, at the moment I can't even get into the spam page, I just keep getting 'information' which doesn't help. How do you retrieve comments from the spam box to put them into the blog they were intended for? Does anyone know???

THE END by A.A.Milne

This is the fourth or fifth time I've had a go at this post so I hope it goes well this time!!!

I was driving home from somewhere or other and this poem popped into my mind so I decided to illustrate it as best I could.

When I was One,

I had just begun.

We lived in Winchester Street in London at the time and I'm in my pram on the pavement. Needless to say I don't remember this at all! The railings in the background have 'spear points' on the top, not favoured by architectural salvors or maybe they're illegal nowadays.

*

When I was Two

I was nearly new.

Once a year my Dad would hire a car and we'd 'do' all the relatives in one go - they lived a long way from London - all the way to Woking and Bracknell. This is taken at the cottage in Bracknell where an elderly couple lived. I know now they were my maternal great-aunt and her husband. My strongest memories (the only memories, actually and from years later) were that the toilet was outside and didn't flush. When I queried this I was told that men came to clean it out so I guess it was a privy. There was a piano in a front room where the curtains were drawn to keep sun off the furniture and left a green underwater light. The garden had a rose arch but that's all that stuck in my 8 year old mind. I wonder if it's still there?

*

When I was Three,

I was hardly Me.

Good old hand knitted cardis. Once a year we had a week's holiday 'at the seaside' though I have no recollection of how we got there. Perhaps it was by coach? My Dad isn't in these photos but my Gran, who lived with us, is in most of them. This was on the front in Margate - with Dreamland still there to be visited and rides on the scenic railway and merrygorounds and ice cream. The book is called, 'Cherry the Boot Boy'... The pushchair did service for many years, too.

*

When I was Four,

I was not much more.

Mum's favoured hair style for me - a 'horse's tail' which I was stuck with for years. No plaits for me though I managed those by the end of the war. This is Southend pier, which means we went north of the Thames, into foreign country... South Londoners went south - to Brighton, Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs. I wonder why we managed to infiltrate Southend??? Looks like typical English summer weather, too.

*

When I was Five,

I was just alive.
Heavens! No horse's tail! This is a studio photo, probably Jerome's, as they seemed to have the most studios at this time - I'm still a couple of weeks away from being 5. Nowadays I'd look at the material and think it would be ideal for patchwork.

*
But now I'm Six, I'm as clever as clever.

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

Guess which is me. The other children are in summer dresses, and what do I have on? A jersey, naturally. I can't make out what I'm holding, it doesn't ring any bells at all. My friends lived close by and we all went to the same LCC school - which is in the background. The infants had a sleep in the afternoons which seemed very odd to me, I wasn't tired. The playground was on the opposite side of the road and Mum would bring me a cup of cocoa at playtime when the weather was cold...we lived in flats a few hundred yards away. Apart from the afternoon sleep all the memories I have of school are washing out paste jars used for painting, and the headmistress, Miss Vincent, slapping a 'naughty boy's' hand, her charm bracelet rattling and clattering. Mum kept sheets of sums, cut out paper d'oyleys and all my letters sent home when I was evacuated in 1939.

I was evacuated to Brighton with the school and this is on the seafront in November 1939 when I'm 7. Another jersey and the usual pleated gymslip and, I would think, the sort of plaited cord which tied round your waist.

***

Having bored everyone with that here's a spoof on the poem above from a book by Christopher Mayhew called 'Now we are Sixty (and a bit)'.

THE BEGINNING

At sixty-one

I had too much sun.

At sixty-two

I had dreadful flu.

At sixty-three

I couldn't pee.

At sixty-four

I felt really poor.

At sixty-five

I took a dive.

But at sixty-six, to be perfectly frank,

I'm as fit and as strong as a Sherman tank.

That's all Folks.

(You have to be of 'a certain age' to recognise the sign-off line!)

MISCELLANY FROM PRINCES RISBOROUGH

I was shopping in Risboro' this morning (before the sun came out) and spotted a few bits and pieces which might be of interest.

This butchers'shop has always had interesting blackboard notices - one says 'Wild Rabbits' so I wonder what would happen if it said 'Tame Rabbits' one day, would anyone notice??? Anyway,

I went in to ask whether it meant old and expensive or some old lady was being recycled but the assistant assured me no-one was missing...

This is another advert from 2007 but who read it as it's written???

Coming back round the corner I came face to face with this - my usual bugbear - outside the sandwich shop/cafe which had the Exiting Job Offer (though that wasn't their spelling!

Sounds as if it's something in Hobbit-land.

Across the road, outside the town library, there's a memorial to a US pilot who died when his aircraft crashed in 1943, saving a disaster in the town.

And the text on the plaque.

Twenty six (or twenty one) year old Clyde Cosper and his crew left their B17 base in Bedfordshire on a mission to bomb the U boat pens at Bremen. Bad weather caused the plane to encounter problems and the pilot ordered the crew to bail out while he stayed at the controls, steering the plane away from the little town of Princes Risborough. It crashed just outside the town and the full bomb load exploded. The pilot was awarded the Air Medal and Purple Heart. Some memorabilia is on show at Wycombe Air Park.

A local lady organised for the memorial to be built and in 2001 attended the opening of the State Veterans Home named after Clyde Cosper.
Nice to know he's not forgotten.

THE TWENTIES

This is another post without illustration- sorry...

Do you find that, in your life, a certain series of numbers follows you around? For me it's the 20s.

My birthday is on the 27th;Stuart, my son was born on 28th; his son, James, was born on 27th and my daughter in law's birthday is the 26th.
I was married on the 25th, divorced on 29th - after 20 years.
I have lived at 26, 23 and currently at 20a.
I broke my shoulder in a fall on 20th October.

What next???

LANGWIDGE PUZEL

Last night I was looking through my Dictionary of Phrase and Fable where all sorts of extras get filed - alphabetically, of course! I came across this and thought it might raise a smile on a gloomy, rainy Thursday morning.
I'm inclined to think it's a London based poem, just based on the language but it's also a social comment on the 'working-class' life probably about the late 19th or early 20th century. A 'two-up. two-down' house in a road of identical homes, a scullery (where the running water and sink was) and the loo outside. The parlour would have been the Front Room, not used, kept for best and for important visitors.
The cutting comes from an old This England magazine and was in the letters section under the name of Jim McCue in SE1 - Lambeth. Unfortunately, I didn't date it so don't know when it was published. Read it out loud if you have a problem...

We wunce had a parler for tea on Sunday,
John cleaned his bisickle ther on the Monday.
Charles and his fren Hamelia Rite
Sat in the dark ther on Toosday nite.
An Wensday, bein erly closin,
it sooted me to ave a dose in;
On Thursday it were used fer nowt
bekors the missis scrubed it out.
On Friday it was clean and tidy,
redy for the Vicar's lidy;
Feeling extra ale an arty,
On Sattiday we ad a party.
***
But ther aint no party now-
an wi?
The L.G.B.
e ses ter me,
You giv up this ere luxeree,
Tis not the likes ov you, ses e,
as shud be avin cumpernee-
besides you av a skuleree.
Wots rong wiv you, e ses ter me,
Is that your wiges is, ses e,
too i.

L.G.B. perhaps means the Lord Gor Blimey but it's not certain.

It's certainly 'how the other half lived'.