I've just finished my first attempt at watercolours since 1958. From the age of 12, I went to King James I School, in Newport, Isle of Wight. It was built as a grammar school in 1613, with some latter additions to accommodate up to 120 boys. Our art master was Mr Bell, a strict disciplinarian.… Continue reading A Brush With The Past
Tag: Isle of Wight
Friendly black sheep
“All actual life is encounter”
We went to the Island for a long weekend with a couple of friends, staying at Mimosa Lodge, where I took a photo at dawn across the Solent from our bedroom window. Outside it was chilly and neither of us got to take photos, especially as we were acting as guides to our friends, to… Continue reading “All actual life is encounter”
Pastures New
I posted this when I decided to transfer from Blogger to WordPress on 15th November 2015
If I had stayed in Cowes
We took a short day-trip to The Island. I went to live there aged 12 and left at 18, so it speaks to me in tones of a golden hue, of all that I did there—and didn’t. Especially in Cowes, East and West, where I lived first. It remains much as it was sixty years… Continue reading If I had stayed in Cowes
A trip back
When I was 12 I lived in East Cowes, shown above on the left of the creek they call the River Medina. The next year we moved across to West Cowes. The two sides of Cowes are joined by a chain ferry. The constant to-and-fro of yachts on the Medina with their tall masts makes… Continue reading A trip back
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
Me and the Little Rock Nine
My Headmaster’s great vision Now that my birthday’s out of the way—it’s become a family event, this year bigger than last—the most exciting thing going on in my life is Winter’s retreat and Spring’s approach: the great drama of the seasons. I like it when nothing more than that is happening, for then I can… Continue reading Me and the Little Rock Nine
A modest school reunion
I often “dwell in the past”. It’s a fabulous museum, where you can look at the same exhibits time and again, and discover new ones you hadn’t noticed before, and see the familiar ones from new angles. My fondness for this pastime owes a lot to my sense that I didn’t live my life fully… Continue reading A modest school reunion
Under the Umbrella Tree
It suddenly dawns upon me—several hours before dawn—that there might be a point to all this. I mean the world, as it is; the discrepancy between the yearning and the reality; the intended and the manifest; the imagined joy and the actual dissatisfaction. Might it be that perpetual motion is the whole point? I recall… Continue reading Under the Umbrella Tree
Heaven-haven
Deep within me there hides a contemplative nun, who wants to do nothing in this world but observe its wondrous mysteries and pray for its wellbeing. It’s rather disturbing for a man to find this buried beneath his ingrained habit of action—to be always doing, whether or not it’s reasonable: action for the sake of… Continue reading Heaven-haven
This blessed plot
If I have a favourite spot it is Cowes, or more precisely five acres overlooking the Solent, the strait which separates the Isle of Wight from the English mainland. I lived there aged thirteen for a year; and again at seventeen, at a different house nearby. Each was a front-row seat at a non-stop theatre… Continue reading This blessed plot
At Mrs Jenkins’
Last night I watched My Left Foot, in which Daniel Day-Lewis plays the real-life Christy Brown, born to a family of thirteen in a Dublin slum with severe cerebral palsy. To his parents, it’s out of the question that he should be abandoned in an institution, but they cannot afford the home care and treatment… Continue reading At Mrs Jenkins’
First love
It was a Sunday morning in March and I was just 16. I’d been writing an essay on a stanza from a poem by William Wordsworth: “A violet by a mossy stone / Half hidden from the eye / Fair as a star when only one / is shining in the sky”. I’d been sitting… Continue reading First love
Cowes Horizons
When you live in East Cowes, your attention is drawn to horizons. Boats are constantly coming and going. All kinds: ferries, tankers, container ships, yachts, dinghies, powerboats, even fishing vessels perhaps. And it’s not just the visual movement that draws your attention to far away. The first evening, when we had set up the tent,… Continue reading Cowes Horizons
News of the fight soon reached the Queen
"One day in 1852, young Freddie Attrill was gathering shell-fish on Osborne beach when another boy came along, told him to clear off and kicked his bucket flying. Indignant, Freddie gave him a thump - only to be told by shocked attendants that he had just hit Albert Edward, Queen Victoria’s eldest son and heir… Continue reading News of the fight soon reached the Queen
Pilgrimage to Cowes
I've had my camera two years but only recently realized it can hold hundreds of photos if I put in a larger memory card. Just as well, because I was able to take some beautiful photos of a recent visit to the island where I spent my teenage years, the Isle of Wight. Here's a… Continue reading Pilgrimage to Cowes
Fog on the Solent (Norfolk House 5)
Royal Yacht Squadron, 1921: Norfolk House would be behind tree at right of church tower The Solent may have been the busiest sea-lane in the world and the most varied in its traffic. There were ferries between the mainland and our Island; the Royal Navy base at Portsmouth; the transatlantic liner port at Southampton; the… Continue reading Fog on the Solent (Norfolk House 5)
Norfolk House 4: Vignettes
In “Nest of Dreams” I referred to awakening sexuality. A boy, especially if he has come into contact with no girls, doesn’t necessarily associate his burgeoning virility with those giggling, teasing creatures. It doesn’t surprise me that some take the other direction and stay that way. In my case, wet dreams had always been accompanied… Continue reading Norfolk House 4: Vignettes
Norfolk House 1
(continued from here). . . Norfolk house was pulled down long ago. We moved there from Powys House, a tall granite Victorian building which still stands, a mile from Queen Victoria’s holiday home at Osborne. Norfolk House was in West Cowes: an Edwardian mansion with broad veranda and balcony overlooking the Solent, that busy strip… Continue reading Norfolk House 1
The school yard
Me; the bullied boy; Rasmussen That aerial photo of the school helped arouse many memories, which in my life seem to be fastened upon places more than upon people. In that respect, I am more of a cat than a dog. I’m more introverted, solitary, not made to hunt in packs and defer to the… Continue reading The school yard
My new school
a: headmaster’s lawn (archery & other photogenic activities for school prospectus & to impress special visitors) b: school yard, cadets' parade ground etc c: bicycle shed d: WCs e: urinals f: Nissen hut (housing three classrooms) g: Headmaster’s study h: Form III (my first classroom) i: Assembly Hall j: kitchens k: (off picture) the Cadet… Continue reading My new school
Beach Party
I mentioned in my last that my mother started to assert herself in Powys House to try and dispel the ghosts of E. (Blackett’s first wife) and the easy ways of an engineers’ messroom in the Merchant Navy. To this end she now persuaded Blackett a) to buy a car and b) to hire some… Continue reading Beach Party
New day-school
My most vivid memories are not of the first days at my new day-school, as you might think, but of coming back home each afternoon. I’d been five years at boarding-school and could not imagine a greater luxury. Let out at 3.45, I’d arrive home from a country-bus ride, ravenous. My mother let me cut… Continue reading New day-school
Peter and Johnny
Peter a few years later in school photo Ladies below are the school cooks David Battie, at left, is now an antiques expert on popular TV programmes I was 12 by the time I went to live on the Isle of Wight. The School Magazine of the Newport Grammar School, so kindly given to me… Continue reading Peter and Johnny
The Wooing of Blackett
English divorce in the early Fifties wasn’t a sedate exchange of paperwork between lawyers. If you wanted to contest it—there was every reason to do so—you had to appear in court, and risk your pain being turned into Sunday morning entertainment by reporters from the News of the World. This humiliation happened to my mother… Continue reading The Wooing of Blackett
The Princess Flying Boat
Saunders-Roe Princess Pic: John Howard Worsley Continued from Woodside. Some time after my ninth birthday my mother finally walked out on my stepfather. According to her story it was more like she ran not walked, with pots and pans hurled as she fled down the stairs. But then she was suing for divorce on grounds… Continue reading The Princess Flying Boat
Woodside
Aged eight to eleven, I was often taken by my mother & stepfather to Woodside, on the Isle of Wight, in the summer holidays. We reach the end of the country road. A sign says Woodside House Private and we go through the white gate, down a long winding drive to a red-brick residence, from… Continue reading Woodside
The Deck of Cards
It was the glorious summer of 1960. I had just left school and the world was mine. I went to a seaside resort, Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. I knew nothing about women, girls I should say: I disregarded any over the age of 21. I got a job washing dishes at a hotel,… Continue reading The Deck of Cards
a wayfarer’s notes 