Unattended Moments

Thanks to jalbum (and a moment of inspiration as to how to get the script to display thumbnails as I wanted without resorting to tables) the photo galleries are now revamped and updated. I’ve added all the photos promised in my last post, plus some very recent photos from a visit to Cambridge the weekend before last. That was for an alumni reunion for my MA course, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, and it was lovely to see old friends again, and to meet current students and other graduates of the programme.

I’m just coming to the end of a lovely week off work, most of which I spent exploring some local(ish) attractions with a dear friend. Unfortunately both of us had succumbed to a mild cold by the end of the week, but not before we had had four good days out. We hired a car for part of the week, which meant we could get to some places I hadn’t visited before. We had a black Ford Fiesta, which was my first experience of driving a hired car (and of driving a Fiesta), and though I was initially rather nervous of the strange beast, by the second day I decided I liked it a lot.

Day One (22 Aug): Cragside
There is a bus (Arriva 508) which runs only on Sundays and bank holidays during the summer season, from Gateshead via Belsay and Wallington up to Rothbury in Northumberland. It’s very handy for days out, and we’ve had several trips on it, though this was the first time we’d gone to the end of the line - Cragside House, a National Trust property at Rothbury.

The grounds are beautiful, but as the weather was less than dry, we dived into the house after lunch (good food at the Stables Restaurant). Cragside House was the home of Lord Armstrong, a Victorian inventor, and features among other things an early dishwasher, a hydraulic lift and a Turkish bath suite. The drawing room also boasts possibly the most magnificent chimney piece I have ever seen. As we were going round, we soon discovered that each room had one item tucked away that was out of place, so that visiting children (of any age) could play ’spot the modern object’.

Having explored the house from top to bottom, we ventured out into the still slightly damp grounds, down through the rock garden to walk alongside the river through the woodlands back to the visitor centre. There is much more in the grounds which we didn’t get to see, so well worth another visit - hopefully when the sun is shining.

Day Two (23 Aug): Raby Castle
This was a day of getting used to the hired car, so we decided not to venture too far afield. Raby Castle is a magnificent medieval castle in County Durham. It was built by the Neville family in the 12th century, and it remained in their possession until it was confiscated by the crown following the ‘rising of the north’ - reputedly plotted in the Baron’s Hall at Raby - against Elizabeth I in support of Mary Queen of Scots. It is now the home of Lord Barnard.

We arrived just as the grounds were opening, and spent some time wandering through the extensive and rather lovely walled garden, and then walking through the parkland to see the herds of deer and magnificent views of the castle. Inside the castle are many sumptuous rooms - as well as the less sumptuous servants quarters, though the huge medieval kitchen - little altered and in use for 600 years - is itself very impressive.

Random tit-bit: The guide in the kitchen told us he was reliably informed that the greeny-blue Victorian paintwork in evidence on work surfaces here as in other Victorian kitchens was not simply a fashion, but was identified by the Victorians as a colour which flies did not like to settle on.

Day Three (24 Aug): Holy Island
Lindisfarne is one of the places I had been wanting to visit for a long time, though as it is a fair way away and visiting times are restricted by the tides, it’s not an easy place to get to without a car. This tides on this day meant that we could cross safely in the morning, as the tide was coming in, and were then ‘marooned’ on the island until mid-afternoon. With plenty to see and weather that promised sunshine as the day went on, we had no complaints about that.

We began by exploring the ruined Priory - the site of the monastery established in the 7th century by St Aiden, and settled by monks from Iona. This was a centre of Celtic Christianity, and it is likely that the Lindisfarne Gospels were created here. It is also closely associated with St Cuthbert, who was a monk and later bishop at the Priory.

After lunch and a tiny free sip of the honey-tasting Lindisfarne mead we took the Hopper bus to the Castle. The Castle was built in the 16th Century using stones from the demolished Priory, which was destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries (Henry VIII was into recycling, our bus driver remarked). The interior of the Castle is decorated in the style of an Edwardian country house. The Castle is another National Trust property, and where Cragside had modern objects, Lindisfarne Castle had miniature cellos hidden in each room - a theme commemorating Mme Suggia, a famous cellist who stayed at the castle. Although not as luxurious as Cragside or Raby, of the three houses we visited I think Lindisfarne Castle is where I would most like to live: not too large but with plenty of nooks and crannies, and wonderful sea views - though no doubt rather cold in winter.

From the castle we walked to the tiny walled garden to the north of the castle, by which time it was about time to head back down the A1. We stopped briefly at Bamburgh for a walk along the beach and views of Bamburgh Castle.

Day Four (25 Aug): Ford and Etal
By this time we were trying to ignore the onset of sore throats, but determined to make the most of our last day with the car. The Ford and Etal estates are in north Northumberland, not too far from Lindisfarne. Lots of different things to see and do here - we headed straight for the Heatherslaw Light Railway, a miniature gauge railway which runs two miles from Heatherslaw to Etal. This was my steam train fix for this holiday. At Etal we stopped to visit the ruined Castle, which featured in the border wars with Scotland.

After a cup of tea at the Lavendar tearooms, we headed back by train to Heatherslaw, and then on to Ford to the Lady Waterford Hall. The Hall was commissioned by Louisa Ann, Marchioness of Waterford, and decorated by her with lifesize murals depicting Biblical scenes for which she used local people as her models. The Hall now houses a gallery of her artwork - delightful watercolours and sketches.

I have photos from this week to add to the photo galleries, but I am currently in the process of redoing these pages. This is taking quite a while as I have a backlog of photos which I’d never got around to adding - hopefully another update to follow before too long.

Yesterday I was somewhere near Chesterfield co-leading a session on Jewish and Quaker ideas of prayer and worship at Limmudfest, which is a weekend-long Jewish event with workshops and sessions galore. This came about because Jonathan, my co-leader, contacted Friends House in London to ask if there was a Quaker who would be interested in leading such a session. The request went to the secretary of the Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (which I’m on), and she knowing my interest in Judaism, passed it on to me. Jonathan is a modern orthodox Jew who has one way and another become interested in Quakerism, and I’m Quaker who has one way and another become interested in Judaism. We decided that we would each share something of our personal journeys, and then move into a discussion of contrasts and connections between the two traditions, based around some texts on prayer and worship.

At Limmudfest there are quite a few different sessions happening at any one time, so we had no idea how many would turn up for ours. As it turned out there were about 20 people, and we had to move out of the small Sukkah¹ where we had planned to hold the session and reform our circle outside. The people who came were very interested in learning something about Quakerism, and we had a interesting discussion, which focussed mostly on the contrasts between the traditions (importance of words vs emphasis on silence, structure vs lack of structure in worship), though with an idea that they may be contrasting ways of approaching the same thing. One connection that I hadn’t previously been aware of was that both Quakers and orthodox Jews will not swear an oath (e.g. in court), but instead make an affirmation.

It was lovely to see unexpectedly some friends from the Ruach Chavurah - the Jewish renewal group that I was part of in London - who also came to my session.  I hadn’t been to a Limmud event before, and though I had heard about them I did not really know what it would be like.  Everyone was very welcoming, and I was left feeling that I would like to experience more.  After our session I had a chance to sit and chat and also listen to some live music before I had to catch the train home.

For interest, here are my preparation notes - I didn’t read these out so it’s not exactly what I said, however I wrote out what I wanted to say in some detail to give me an idea of where I was going:

Personal Journey
Quaker Worship and Prayer

¹A Sukkah is a temporary structure with a roof of branches and leaves, built for the festival of Sukkot, which remembers the years of wandering in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt

I’ve been thinking about experimenting with a blog at this site for some time, and have finally accepted that thinking about it is never going to tell me whether it will work, and the only way to find out is to try it and see. So… I’ve started a revamp of the site with a new layout and an installation of Word Press. Thanks to the tutorial at Jonathanwold.com I was able to integrate Wordpress with my own layout design. (I hope. It looks ok to me, but I never know what other browser and operating system combinations are going to do to it.) Much of the content still needs to be updated / reorganised, though I have already redone the fanlisting pages.

As for the blogging… yes, on Friday I saw Hamlet in Stratford, with David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Claudius (and the Ghost). I’ve been looking forward to this for months - I persuaded my parents to get tickets as my birthday present, and we were so lucky to get them as the entire run is now sold out. As it was we could only get tickets in the gallery described as ‘restricted view’ - though actually we could see just fine. The performance completely lived up to my hopes: the entire cast was good and DT and PS were both excellent. It wasn’t the complete text of Hamlet, but at 3 1/2 hours there were fewer cuts than in some other productions I have seen. Not that I noticed the length of the performance - it was gripping from beginning to end.

It was by far the funniest Hamlet I have seen, due in no small part to the evident delight which David Tennant’s Hamlet took in poking fun at the pomp and circumstance of the court, and in finding and parodying the ridiculous in those around him. Initially appearing ill-at-ease in the ceremonies of the court, it seemed that his adopted madness gave him the freedom to express his real feelings. At the same time, I have never seen a Hamlet who was so overcome by grief at the memory of his father’s death, and while I believed his madness to be part feigned, at times it seemed that he was truly driven to distraction by grief and anger. DT played the full range of Hamlet’s emotions - from the outbursts of grief and the periods of depression when life seemed drained of meaning to a fierce joy at seeing his friend Horatio, and a genuine delight in the players.

Patrick Stewart presented a very human Claudius. I’m used to thinking of Claudius simply as the villain, but this time I saw him also as a tragic figure in his own right. I believed in a genuine affection between Claudius and Gertrude. Claudius has determination, even courage - he keeps his head under pressure and ultimately does not flinch before his own death; but he is brought down by ambition and greed, his qualities are used for selfish ends. In this performance, small touches - like forgetting the name of Hamlet’s university - suggested the limits of his interest in others, particularly in relation to Hamlet.

Mariah Gale deserves a mention as Ophelia - never an easy part to present. I saw a modern young woman without the experience to deal with the situation in which she found herself, which made sense for me of her descent into madness - and her mad scenes were convincingly played. Not yet entirely schooled to the formality of the court, and with a quick perception of her brother’s double standards (while he warns her against Hamlet, she pulls incriminating evidence from his luggage), I could see how she and Hamlet could be drawn to one another. I had the feeling that they could have made a good couple, if only she had had perhaps a little more maturity, and the courage of her convictions in the face of pressure from her brother and father.

It was a modern Hamlet, and a very accessible production with the modern setting and modern dress highlighting the continuing relevance of its themes. Minimal changes to language to fit the production or to clarify the meaning did not interfere with the rhythm of Shakespeare’s language. If you do get any chance to see this production, take it. For my part, I would eagerly sit through it all again.