These old photos have been put online mainly for family, but regular readers of Wayfarer's may be interested too . . . Mark in 1955 “Is it legal to take stones from the massive deposits lying around the mountains? If it is illegal then who should I contact to collect said stones?” “No, it would… Continue reading Greenhayes Across the Years
Category: family
Happy Birthday Mary
Some pictures of Hastings that you and I will recognize from childhood. Much has changed since, I'm sure. Welcome to Memory Lane! . . .and there's a cave, long abandoned but didn't smell nice when I looked in as a child
Mom’s Sunflowers
Grown in Mom's garden cut for us yesterday Mom and Vincent lounging on sofa. Photo by Karleen
Mother’s Day Visit
In England, Mother's Day was on Friday March 19th, a celebration for three Jamaican mothers who live in England. We're not in a position to visit them in South-East London, as we don't have a car any more. What with this and that, we weren't able to meet up till last Saturday 20th May. We… Continue reading Mother’s Day Visit
A Midwinter Night’s Dream
I meet this wild girl at a strange event, outdoors and indoors, it keeps changing like a chameleon. At first it’s just a place where people are gathered, like a town square in Italy, with café tables open day and night till late. It’s all well-mannered and sedate. Then I find myself drawn into a… Continue reading A Midwinter Night’s Dream
Eagle Flew Out Of the Night
Waking up at 3 am, I find a song playing endlessly in my head. Not just the tune, but some of the words too. It's one of the most extraordinary popular songs, more potent than anything by Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen. Peter Gabriel has his own explanation for how it hatched in his mind… Continue reading Eagle Flew Out Of the Night
An Old Cockney song
We've been together now for nineteen years, An' it don't seem a day too much, 'cos there ain't a lady livin' in the land As I'd swop for my dear old Dutch.
“Thank You NHS”
I went up to the hospital for a blood test and took these snaps of the approach road. They've been painted here for more than a year, and reflect a massive manifestation of affection for our National Health Service since the pandemic hit us. At various points it has drastically overloaded its workers at all… Continue reading “Thank You NHS”
What looks after us
Posted on Jan 4th , ’21 by Vincent I’ve been wanting to write about the role of angels in my life. Like most words in any language, it’s loaded with baggage going back millennia. Let’s strip off that heavy weight of meanings, leave it in a heap and walk lightly away. I want to go… Continue reading What looks after us
Life-story part 2
I looked again at this post today, it's not good enough, nobody will follow its intricacies, & nobody but I will care. Will try to make it more readable. Consider it as under refurbishment. "My father died in the war," I used to say, "so I never met him." It wasn't true but I wasn't… Continue reading Life-story part 2
There and back
We had a ten-day window free, so we seized it, took a plane to Jamaica. It was partly a surprise visit to see Karleen's granddaughter on her 21st birthday; but also to catch up with many old friends. It was too long since we'd last seen that extraordinary island, Karleen's home for more than fifty… Continue reading There and back
Eleventh Child
I woke in the night after a dream, went downstairs to jot it down in the great leatherbound book from Margaret in Canada; then went back to bed and slept again. On awakening once more in the morning, I jotted down another dream. I tried to polish up the drafts into something coherent, but it… Continue reading Eleventh Child
Tsundoku
I’m writing this for Rob, to celebrate the fact that we have known one another 42 years, and that he rang me the other evening, and it was good. When we have been in touch he has been generous, but we have also fallen out a few times. When I was in need he was… Continue reading Tsundoku
What was and might yet be
In my last I tried to convey something of the fascination of Cowes in a few shots all taken within a hundred yards of each other. But I’m hardly interested in picturesqueness for its own sake; only in what touches the soul. Moving to Cowes in 1954 was the beginning of a new life. Till… Continue reading What was and might yet be
Into the Zone: a trip
" /> The Precinct looking west Trip, n(1): 3. A short voyage or journey; a ‘run’. Apparently originally a sailor’s term, but very soon extended to a journey on land. 5. slang (orig. U.S.) a. A hallucinatory experience induced by a drug, esp. LSD. I’ve learned that following others isn’t my way. Nor do I… Continue reading Into the Zone: a trip
Invitation to a Close Encounter
I was invited to an evangelical-charismatic church service lasting a couple of hours. The invitation arrived by email: “On Sunday, if you would like to come with us to our church (it is an experience not to be missed!) we would love it ...” The church hasn't found a building of its own: that’s another… Continue reading Invitation to a Close Encounter
Reunion
I felt pleased on finishing my last piece, on Everything. What else was there to say? Much as Thomas Aquinas must have felt trying to wrap up his great work, Summa Theologica, but in a tiny way. But then in his latter years, Aquinas saw things in a different proportion, and said one day to… Continue reading Reunion
Life’s Predicament
Woke up this morning to recall that it’s my first ordinary day for weeks. I've emerged from a season of interruptedness, in which celebration took the form of reuniting with family; not all at once in a single gathering but serially; noting my kinship and resemblance with this one or that; seeing the big or… Continue reading Life’s Predicament
The pull of heredity
“When I was someone else, that I am not now ...” this is worth investigating. So said Ghetufool, commenting on one of my recent posts. I agreed the phrase is worth investigating, and it took me back through history, that fascinating subject, both the human and natural kinds, and especially the mysterious parts that we… Continue reading The pull of heredity
Nightmare
I’ve taken a vow to post here daily, to discover what is happening to me. A million things hit my consciousness each day, so what can I mean? I shall write in accordance with blind compulsion, with no guarantee of truth, other than some poetic kind. Yet, as they used to say in the slot-machine … Continue reading Nightmare
The Climbing Gene
I mentioned in my last that Dolomite Strongholds is illustrated by the author, with his photos, colour lithographs and pen drawings. As I browsed this beautifully-produced book, a delicate sheet of folded paper slid out, containing pen drawings (traced on top of original pencil sketches) on both sides. None of these were incorporated into the… Continue reading The Climbing Gene
Intrepid Victorians
I've inherited a little volume, illustrated by the author, who was also my great-grandfather, entitled Dolomite Strongholds: the last untrodden peaks; published in 1894. Don’t you love that Victorian prose, its characteristic style at once lofty and light, beloved of those who would make parodies of the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, particularly those… Continue reading Intrepid Victorians
Portrait of Two Kings
I'm sure it was done by a professional photographer. I don’t think amateurs would have been able to do much indoor photography in 1867. Electric flashguns had not been invented. If they had, there would be the problem of synchronizing flash with the camera's shutter. I'm no expert but remember from childhood a book which… Continue reading Portrait of Two Kings
In the industrial valley
Posted by Vincent on Saturday, August 09, 2008. I shall take you on a guided tour of my part of town. You can click on any photo to enlarge it. We are in the valley bottom, where the factories were built at the end of the nineteenth century. I don't know what they… Continue reading In the industrial valley
Purpose
Outside the supermarket a three-year-old boy was expressing his distress in voice and reddened face. Solicitous, his mother bent down to him. No doubt he had wanted something in the shop and been denied it. He looked like me at that age and in a flash I recalled how I used to behave: a lot… Continue reading Purpose
Ant vs. sluggard
A factory near my house now demolished & replaced by a block of flats with this plaque After my last post, you may be wondering what happened to the green slug? Has it yet found its way back into the kitchen yet after being flung to the other end of the back yard? Reader, I… Continue reading Ant vs. sluggard
Bus station
I was waiting at the bus station, that haunt of pensioners, new immigrants and indigent travellers---in short, the dispossessed. I feel at home there. For the first time in fifty-three years, the name of Morton Spencer came back to me. Katie Spencer was my mother’s schoolfriend: vivacious, pretty but still a spinster, still in her… Continue reading Bus station
Cherrydown (3)
There’s still a ragbag of memories to share with you about the time I spent in that house. If they have any common theme, I suppose it is wonders and miracles. I’m not saying there actually were any miracles: just incomprehensible things. I mentioned in a previous post that my mother started to suffer from… Continue reading Cherrydown (3)
Problem Solved
Problem solved I’ve solved the problem that has baffled mankind through the ages. It’s taken me many years and I thought it might take as many years again to explain it to the world, to help others come to the same realization that I have reached single-handed about the true nature of God when seen… Continue reading Problem Solved
Writing Instrument
We think we know somebody. They think they know us. It’s nice because we can always be surprised.My son takes present-buying seriously. He went to a hippy shop and toyed with getting me a piece of angel merchandise or a Native American dream-catcher; but fortunately thought better. I received a hastily-wrapped book and opened it… Continue reading Writing Instrument
The old telephones
One of the useful functions of retirement must surely be to relive one’s youth. In between comes a time of working-to-support-a-family-and-pay-a-mortgage, which can be irksome to the spirit. It’s easy to forget how hard it was to become adult: to find somewhere to live and pay a month’s rent in advance plus a month’s deposit… Continue reading The old telephones
King James I School
At the school there was a Scout Troop in addition to the Cadet Contingent. At some point in my bookish diversions I had read Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys and been seduced by it just like millions of others world-wide. The essence of this seductive power was contained in the bush-hat, the neckwear and the badge-adorned… Continue reading King James I School
I bear his name
I’m clearing things out and waiting to move to another house and it’s a jittery time for there are delays and dramas, so I cannot write anything coherent. On the other hand I can’t do anything practical till things clarify. Meanwhile I discovered this photo whilst gathering old papers together and deciding what to throw… Continue reading I bear his name
How I learned the truth
(Continued from previous post) My mother’s beloved Singapore roadhouse was called The Gap: a prophetic name. After the war, it was nothing but a gap; one that she mourned forever and never really replaced. The gap in my life was a father. When I met him fifty years later, he admitted having been in the… Continue reading How I learned the truth
On Coombe Hill
My favourite and only sport is frisbee. No rules, no training, no special clothing. The only equipment required is a plastic disk available from any general store. It holds an hypnotic attraction for participants and spectators alike. Above all, it’s not competitive. It’s co-operative: you adjust your throw so that the other person can catch… Continue reading On Coombe Hill
Divine Anarchy
Twilight on Christmas Day: Dashwood Mausoleum (illumined) & St Lawrence’s Church with Golden Ball I want to speak theologically, to say what I think about God and angels. But then, it’s a bit hard putting abstractions into words. No, that’s completely wrong. It is all too easy to put abstractions into words, and give them… Continue reading Divine Anarchy
Wasp honey
We’d had family over Christmas, and as luck would have it, just as they were leaving after two days and we were seeing them off, a couple of Karleen's friends arrived with a bag-full of drinks to spend the evening with us. To a solitary like myself, the boredom of exchanging inanities for several hours… Continue reading Wasp honey
Fragile
The eastern sky glowed golden yesterday morning, over the chimney pots and the tower of All Saints’ Parish Church. I saw the outline of a hundred wheeling birds, swallows I think, gathering for their departure to North Africa. Later as I went walking, some half-denuded shrubs were full of birds chirping and hopping excitedly from… Continue reading Fragile
What is life?
I’ve lived long enough to see lots of changes: both in the world and in me. I’ve been astonished in recent months, especially on solitary walks through the countryside, letting memories flow as they please, to discover that in essence I am the same person as I always was. Same person? This is extraordinary. Had… Continue reading What is life?
a wayfarer’s notes 