Dear Readers

As the year draws to a close, it’s time for me to look back at the places I’ve discovered because of my love of literature, and look forward to 2013 and the surprises it holds.  This blog was a chance for me to visit and share museums and villages where certain writers lived at some point or other during their lives. I must admit though, I didn’t expect to make some of the discoveries I have made.  It’s been a thrill for me to step into the past and well, just imagine.

Lady Macbeth Stratford Upon Avon, Charles Dickens Museum London & Old Thatch Gardens Bourne End.

 

I think the most memorable places that I’ve visited and shared with you would have to be Stratford upon Avon and Bath. I enjoyed all of the Shakespeare stuff and would gladly do it again, and The Jane Austen Centre was a treat not to be missed.  But even though I enjoyed these places the most, I’ll never forget trudging all over Hartfield to get myself a gold Winnie the Pooh sticker, or my visit to Bourne End and Old Thatch. Closer to home though, I loved the Dickens Museum and Keats House, both of which are very accessible from where I live and visiting the Sherlock Holmes Museum with my sons was a pleasure. It’s amazing to think that I’ve been an avid reader all of my life and now I finally have the opportunity to see all of this stuff.


Clockwise from top left, Pooh Country Hartfield, Keats Grove Hampstead, Sherlock Holmes Museum London,  Roald Dahl Museum Great Missenden & Jane Austen Centre Bath.

 

It’s not just the exploring that’s I’ve enjoyed this year though.  My family and friends have enjoyed the journey too as I come home with little gifts from various places and they like to know more about the discovery.  They in turn have bought me presents to help me with my escapades, in the form of books of course, and you can never have too many books. Along the way I’ve collected several things myself which have now become a part of the sacred blog book I’ve created to help me collate information so that I can find the houses and monuments and so forth that interest me. It contains bus routes and train lines that help connect me to the gems that I love to seek out. There are post cards and travel tickets stapled to the pages and I now have hundreds of photos of buildings, monuments and graves on my laptop.

So, what does 2013 hold for me?  Firstly, I plan to travel a little further afield.  This is a big wide world full of literary treasure just waiting for me to explore it.  So for a sneak peak, let me just say that I hope to visit places such as Brasov in Transylvania and perhaps Prague and Odense.  Dublin is definitely on the list and so is Edinburgh. Closer to London, a trip to Canterbury isn’t out of the question and I think a weekend down in Devon might be in order.  When my sister visits later in the year, we’re heading for the Lake District to Wordsworth country and of course we’ll be seeking out the world of Beatrix Potter. The list doesn’t end there though, there’s a lot more on the horizon for us which I’m sure you’ll enjoy.

With all of this in mind, I must say that the thought of 2013 excites me and for the last time this year might I add that Once upon a time in London, I discovered something that consumes my life and makes me truly happy to share it with you all.

Happy New Year and thank you for reading.

Luke 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

The Holy Bible

When I was thinking about my first Christmas blog, I researched a lot of Christmas stories. I’m not particularly religious and if there is a saviour as written in The Bible, then I’m probably going to hell, but I’m not above admitting that this book has been a big part of my life. 

I lived in Somerset when I was a little girl and went to Sunday school every week at the wish of my mother. My family left for Australia when I was five years old and when we left England the Church gave me a little white Bible which I still have.

In the front of the Bible the following is written;

Dec 22^nd 1968

To Sandra from the Newtown Methodist Sunday School with God’s blessing and our Good Wishes for your future.

Paulton Somerset England

The inscription in the front on my Bible

I have to admit right now that I’ve never read this book from cover to cover but out of all of my books, this is one that I’ve had for the longest time.  I took it half way around the world with me on a journey and bought it back to the UK 42 years later. It’s sometimes strange how things turn out.

The slightly grubby cover

As I flick through my Bible, I notice the dog eared pages and the musty smell. The pages were gilded around the edges, but a lot of that has come off and the once pristine white cover is kind of grubby. There was a cord bookmark attached but now the end is missing and it just reaches the bottom of the pages. My Bible is the King James Version and I know that there are a lot of different kinds out there, but I believe that this is one of the more popular, as far as Bibles go.  For me it’s one of those books that just sit on the shelf forgotten and only gets moved when I do the occasional dusting or move house.

To say that I’m slightly sentimental would be an understatement and when I hold this book in my hands, I remember my mother and each family Christmas of the past.  It takes me back to when my children were little and even further back to when I was a little girl myself and reminds me of the true spirit of Christmas. I love singing Christmas carols and when I walk along Oxford Street in the evenings, I get kind of dreamy when I see the Christmas lights. It’s the same kind of feeling I get when I think of how I’ve hung on to my Bible for so long. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I’m not particularly religious, but I do love my books and The Bible is a book.

I could have blogged about a story with Father Christmas or reindeers in, but since it’s my first Christmas blog, I figured it only fitting to write about the book that includes the story of the first Christmas. Whether you believe it or not, I’d also like to say that Once upon a time in Bethlehem, a child was born whose birthday would become one of the most celebrated days of modern times. So Merry Christmas to all who read this and *Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.

*Corinthians 9:15

 

Peter and the Wolf

Sergei Prokofiev

You know how we skip through life and along the way we see or hear things that kind of stick in our minds but eventually get filed away to resurface when you least expect it? Well, not so long ago I was sitting with my sister Pauline watching Red Riding Hood on DVD.  The woodcutter in this particular story was named Peter and she said, “Isn’t there a story called Peter and the Wolf?”

 

This question from my sister reminded me of a scratchy (vinyl) recording I’d heard when I about nine years old.  I think it was in music ♪ class and we had to listen to the record and the way the different instruments portrayed the characters. This memory encouraged me to do a little research into the story and its origins.

The story and the music were written/composed by Sergei Prokofiev who was born in 1891 in Sontsovka, a province of Eastern Ukraine. This guy composed his first piece at the age of five and he started on his first opera at the age of nine. In 1904 Prokofiev was successful in gaining entrance to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. After finishing his studies, he travelled to the US and started a successful solo career in New York. Prokofiev composed a lot of works including ballets and operas.  I don’t really know much about any of these, the only one that really interests me is Peter and the Wolf.  He wrote both the story and the music ♫ in 1936 in the USSR. This entire composition was completed in four days – that’s a tiny ninety six hours in case you were wondering.

I love the way the instruments represent the characters and I’ve had Peter’s tune in my head all week. When I listen to the recording, I can picture the composer thinking to himself, what might a bird sound like if it were music?

Although this was never an official book without recording, it kind of made me think about the whole print on pages thing and the way the music describes the tale. It also prompts me to let you know that Once upon a time in a decade left behind, I discovered that you don’t necessarily need words to tell a story. So sit back, click on the link below and enjoy Peter and the Wolf.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g7Bl-HtjhE

 

What really matters is what you do with what you have – H G Wells

When it comes to the genre of the humble book, I don’t really have a favourite.  I’m a typical reader of books that are written well and tell a good story. Whether it’s romance, action, suspense and so on, if the style and language are right for me, then I’ll read it.  I don’t tend to give into to marketing ploys, I prefer to go to a bookshop, open the book and read a page or two.

Sometimes the most bizarre situations are the most likeable. This is usually where you meet the strange characters that create the weird worlds of the sci-fi genre. So when you think of the kind of mind needed to create that unsettling universe, you can’t discount Herbert George Wells.

 

H G Wells was born in 1866. Around the age of eight, Wells was a victim of a terrible accident that left him with a broken leg.  Bedridden, he started reading books that his father would bring him from the library which fuelled a craving to write.

He attended Thomas Morley’s Commercial Academy until his father broke his hip and was unable to pay the fees, after which Wells took an apprenticeship as a draper. Needless to say, this experience was the muse for his work, The Wheels of Chance and Kipps.

Wells’ failure over the years with work was plentiful, however, his writing prevailed. His work such as The Island of Doctor Moreau and The time Machine are classics and have both been portrayed by Hollywood, but my favourite is The War of the Worlds. The book is based on an invasion by Martians in the Woking area.  It presents as a genuine account of the Martian invasion. Now I have had the chance to see the places where the aliens invaded, I could probably think of better places for Martians to land, but I didn’t write the book.

Martian Tripod in Woking

Whether you prefer the half man-half beast, Morlocks or Martians, you really should read an H G Wells novel.  The plots are exquisite and I promise that the stories are enjoyable, even if you’re not a sci-fi fan.

H G Wells passed away in 1946 and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. His ashes were scattered at sea. Of course the books that I’ve mentioned in this post are not his only work, but those that I find the most appealing.  Looking back over his life, there was plenty of stumbling, but also a perseverance to succeed.  Even right to the end, he endeavoured to pick himself up and now at the end of this post I have the opportunity to tell you that Once upon a time in London, we lost a writer whose apparent last words were ‘Go away. I’m all right.’

 

 

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – Jane Taylor

This week I’m visiting a nursery rhyme which is special to me in two ways. Firstly, I like it and secondly, it’s the first rhyme that I taught my children actions to. I had no idea of the origin of the nursery rhyme and so began my research.  Initially the rhyme was a poem called The Star by a poet called Jane Taylor.  Naturally I started on my quest to find out more about the author of this well-known verse. 

Jane Taylor was born in 1783 in Lavenham, Suffolk.  She wrote the poem in 1806 whilst living in Shilling Street, Shilling Grange.  When I found out that she was buried in Ongar - just outside greater London, I set out to get a picture of the grave for my blog.  

After catching the tube to Epping, I caught the 21 (bus) to Chipping Ongar. I hadn’t been there before, so I wandered down the High Street trying to find the churchyard. I was a little disappointed when I discovered there were only a few graves there and none of them had her name on.  I think there must be some in the back of the church, but it was all locked up and I had no way of getting in so I missed out on the pic. 

United Reformed Church Ongar

Wandering back up the street, I noticed a sweet shop on the other side of the road and crossed to investigate. Mr Grumpy’s Old Fashioned Sweet Shop looked warm and inviting, so I went in - after all, it was only 3 degrees. Luckily for me the sweet shop was a front for Tilly’s Tea Room and I soon ordered a cream tea.  It was just what I needed. The tea was hot and the fruit scone was the most delicious scone I've ever had.  The intimacy of Tilly’s made it possible to hear all of the conversations going on in the room and there was one old geezer that was sprouting about the history of the village.  Apparently he’d lived in the area for God knows how long so I struck up a conversation to see if I could find out how to get into the churchyard. Poor old bugger didn’t have a clue; all he wanted to do was talk about the heritage listed buildings and eat his soup. 

Back on the bus for Epping, I engaged in conversation with another of the locals who was heading my way.  She actually told me that the Taylor family had lived in a house in the area and there was a plaque on the outside of it.  Another missed opportunity and I felt like kicking myself.  The lady whose name is Christine, took my email address and promised to get in contact with me if there was anything coming up where I might snap a pic. Of course, she told me the best time to visit Ongar is in the summer because they have a lot more events and so on. I will return to Chipping Ongar, but it won’t be before this blog is posted.

Jane Taylor passed away at the age of 40 and is buried in an elusive churchyard in Ongar, Essex.  Her works include many poems for children and although I missed out on the pictures, I can still tell you that Once upon a time in 1806 a poet penned a rhyme and although her light has faded, The Star will twinkle forever.

 

http://www.tillystearooms.biz/