the chalky children of evermore

[ashlyme]

 

We live next to the cemetery on London Road; the back windows look over the graves, and I've wandered round both halves (it's bisected by a railway) many times. A Victorian account describes it as having ‘more the air of a gentlemen’s park than a city of the dead’. 

 

In the older half is an Anglican chapel, built in a Norman style, sporting animal-faced grotesques that look both too old and too Surrealist to have been carved in the 1800s. The chapel was renovated a few years ago and is now in use as a community and arts space. Saturday night we went to a gig by two local musicians there.

 

It was advertised on the poster as an evening of 'folkish drones'. The first set was pure magic - an hour of medieval instruments (shawms, recorders, and crumhorns) looped with pedals and synth. It didn't take long to feel I was elsewhen; the fact the performer was washed with aquamarine light only helped to reinforce that. (Her name is Jude Rees; unfortunately she doesn't have a Bandcamp or solo releases out.) I went out for a roll-up in the intermission. There was a tang of bonfire smoke between the old graves; a half-moon peeked through the trees. Afterwards we found a pub in a wasteland of industrial estates and student housing (not including the aptly-named Short Street, a stubby survivor I'd guess of an older neighbourhood). The landlady invited us to attend Kazoo Night.

 

Currently reading Alan Garner's POWSELS AND THRUMS, which is a patchwork of memoir, poems, and essays; often hilarious, sometimes heart-breaking - the chapter on AG's friendship with Alan Turing made me put the book down for a while while I seethed. Get it when you can.

 

Comments

[cmcmck]

My first owned house looked onto a graveyard which included the unmarked grave of James Jershom Jezreel- the local religious nutcase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jezreel

[teenybuffalo]

Aw yeahhh local cult leaders! I love knowing about small local cults and their ways; if they left structures, even more thrilling for me. I regret that the tower is long gone. Thank you for telling me about Jezreel.

[cmcmck]

Y're welcome.

Oddly enough, the Jezreelites ended up having a good reputation for honest business dealings in the locality.

[ashlyme]

Oh, Jezreel! I've got a vintage postcard of his tower on the bookshelf. An "interesting" man...

[cmcmck]

He really was and it's a shame the tower didn't survive- we lived in Gillingham for a number of years.