Angela Brazil, Philip Larkin and Coventry, Warwickshire

'THE QUADRANT

 

'BUILT CIRCA 1860, COVENTRYS [sic] FINEST EXAMPLE OF TERRACED HOUSING FOR THE PROSPEROUS MIDDLE-CLASSES OF THAT ERA. THE NEO-CLASSIC TERRACE IS BUILT IN SIX INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS EACH WITH ITS OWN VARIATION IN DESIGN.'

'ANGELA BRAZIL

CHILDREN'S WRITER

LIVED AND WORKED HERE

1911 - 1947'

Angela Brazil (1868-1947) lived at 1 The Quadrant (at present ugly with scaffolding), and by now, most of those who have heard of her will know that she pronounced her surname to rhyme with 'dazzle': she was that kind of person, and her tales of slangy, spunky young teenaged girls did represent an innovation in the genre. But if today her novels of girls' schools and girls called Lesbia, with lots of homosocial kissing and enthusiasm, etc, seem dated and perhaps a little too obvious to be completely innocent, whatever message they were or weren't intended to have wasn't lost on the young Philip Larkin.

 

In the 1930s, Larkin often used to see Brazil around Coventry, and reading her schoolgirl fiction was an influence on him: as 'Brunette Coleman' (the jazz interest clearly showing through), Larkin wrote schoolgirl fantasies in the Angela Brazil style in the early forties, although Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions wasn't published until 2002, some years after his death.

 

This book doesn't exactly show the best of Larkin, and some people may call him a cheeky little monkey, but why give him a ragging for the frightfully topping time he must have had writing them?

For the curious, a number of Angela Brazil's novels are online: What fun!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Lady Godiva

The statue of Lady Godiva stands at the entrance to the Cathedral Lanes shopping center in Coventry.

The legend of the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia riding naked through the streets of Coventry as a protest against her husband's savage imposition of taxes on his tenants - and the later added story of Peeping Tom being struck blind for looking at her - is well known. But Tennyson's poem is less known. 

 

On two sides of the statue are engraved four lines from Tennyson's poem 'Godiva', which he wrote in 1842 on leaving a visit to Warwickshire for London. This is the poem in full:

I waited for the train at Coventry;

I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To match the three tall spires; and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this:


Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve!"
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve".
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache
For such as these?" - "But I would die," said she.
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
"O ay, ay, ay, you talk!" - "Alas!" she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do."
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.


So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.


Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.


Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall.


Then she rode back cloth'd on with chastity:
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep'd - but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers,
One after one: but even then she gain'd
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.

Ellen Terry and Coventry, Warwickshire

Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928) was for many years a leading Shakespearean actress who is perhaps best remembered today for her correspondence with George Bernard Shaw. Terry came from an acting family, her parents being in a touring company. She made her debut at the Prince's Theatre in London in A Winter's Tale at the age of eight, and very briefly married the 46-year-old artist George Frederick Watts at the age of 16. This blue plaque is on the wall of a building near where she was born on Market Street in the center of Coventry.

Ellen Terry at the age of 16, by the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

Philip Larkin in Coventry, Warwickshire

I was initially surprised to learn, in James Lasdun's review of David Foster Wallace's posthumously published The Pale King – a work in progress that Wallace's editor Michael Pietsch painstakingly fashioned into an unfinished novel following the author's suicide – that Larkin had been one of Wallace's favorite writers. But on reflexion, and particularly bearing in mind the main theme of boredom in The Pale King, the interest in Larkin seems much more understandable. And the remark of Wallace's friend Jonathan Franzen that he died of boredom means that this on the surface slightly insensitive, slightly throwaway line develops a deeper significance.

But I digress, as usual. Last year I drove to Kingston-upon-Hull for the weekend and made a long post here about the 'Larkin with Toads' temporary (mainly street) exhibits of fiberglass toads commemorating the 25 years since Larkin's death. I uploaded many of the photos taken, which included all of the 40 toads apart from two which had been vandalized and taken away for repair, and one which the Calvert Centre chose to keep hidden out of hours. Out of all 450 or more posts in this blog, Larkin's toads remains by far the most popular one, and a TV company even contacted me to ask for my permission to copy Magenta Toad, which had been stolen from the Melton industrial estate.

But what of the pre-toad Larkin, the young Larkin? It was time for a visit to Coventry.

The leaflet 'Philip Larkin's Coventry' was published in 2009, with text by Don Lee of the Philip Larkin Society, and most of my comments here – even a later one on Angela Brazil – are culled from that publication.

Larkin's parents Sydney and Eva (née Day) moved to Coventry from Birmingham when Sydney was appointed Deputy Treasurer in Coventry. He was made City Treasurer on the same year that Larkin was born, in 1922.

Philip Arthur Larkin was named after the poet Philip Sidney (1554–86) and Eva's brother Arthur, and was born on  9 August at 2 Poultney Road, Radford, Coventry, which at the time of course would not have, er, boasted the stone cladding. This is a private residence.

Larkin was baptized in the old cathedral on the month after his birth. There's a slight case of converging verticals there, but then I did almost have to position myself almost on the ground.

The ruins of the cathedral, which was destroyed during World War II in 1940. Sir Basil Spence's very impressive new cathedral stands at the side of it.

After a few years at Cheshunt Preparatory School on Mason Road, Larkin went to King Henry VIII School on Warwick Road. His first prose publication, 'Getting Up in the Morning', appeared in the school magazine, The Coventrian, in 1933. Five years later, it published his first poem: 'Winter Nocturne'.

Arthur Moy, who lived with his parents at 21 Stoney Road, was a great influence on Larkin, who regularly went there to listen to music with other young friends. Larkin was later to be a huge fan of jazz.

Lee's text declares that Larkin went to the Golden Cross Inn on the corner of Hay Lane and Pepper Lane to be with friends, read books borrowed from the library, and 'ogle the barmaid'.

Larkin left Coventry for St John's College, Oxford, in 1940, and by the time he had earned his degree, his family had moved to Warwick. On Platform 1 of Coventry railway station is the first verse of Larkin's poem 'I Remember, I Remember', written in 1954 when the train Larkin was on made a surprise stop at Coventry:

'I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER

COMING UP ENGLAND BY A DIFFERENT LINE

FOR ONCE, EARLY IN THE COLD NEW YEAR.

WE STOPPED, AND, WATCHING MEN WITH NUMBER-PLATES

SPRINT DOWN THE PLATFORM TO FAMILIAR GATES,

"WHY, COVENTRY!" I EXCLAIMED. "I WAS BORN HERE".

'PHILIP LARKIN

POET AND COVENTRIAN

(1922-1986)'

The following year, the poem was published in Larkin's collection The Less Deceived.

 

The toad blog post is below, along with additional posts:

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Larkin with Toads in Kingston upon Hull

Philip Larkin in Newland Park, Hull
Philip Larkin in Cottingham Cemetery

William Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

From this family tree, we see that John Shakespeare married Mary Arden in 1557, and that William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was their third child and first son.

For many years, Shakespeare's birthplace in Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon has been a shrine to Bard worshippers, and The Shakespeare Trust has preserved a window in the 'birthroom' where various people have etched their names in the glass, some of the more noteworthy including Shelley, Keats, Dickens, Carlyle, and Mark Twain. Towards the end of the 19th century, the working-class poet Joseph Skipsey (1802–1903) was the curator of the house/museum for two years.

Shakespeare's daughter Susanna married the physician Dr John Hall in 1607, and they lived in Hall's Croft in the town:


One of Hall's patients was the poet Michael Drayton (1563–1631), who was born in Hartshill, Warwickshire:

Susanna and John Hall's daughter Elizabeth married Thomas Nash, and William Shakespeare bought the very imposing house next door to Nash's House: New Place, where he spent his final years. The house has long since been demolished, although the Elizabethan-type knott gardens are open through Nash's House (shown below):


The stone below, in New Place gardens, tells the story:

'On this site stood from 1483 to 1702 the house called New Place, which Shakespeare purchased in 1597, and in which he died on 23, April 1616.

'The residence passed successively to Shakespeare's elder daughter Mrs Susanna Hall who died in 1649. And to Elizabeth, Shakespeare's only granddaughter and last surviving descendant, who died in 1670.

'Subsequently the house was owned in turn by Sir Edward Walker, Garter King of Arms, and by his son-in-law Sir Hugh Clopton.

'In 1702 the edifice was completely rebuilt by Sir Hugh Clopton and in 1756 it was acquired as a summer residence by the Rev. Francis Gaskrell, who demolished it in 1759 [to avoid paying taxes on the property]. Since that year the land has remained vacant.'

Not far from Nash's House, in Church Street, is Mason Croft, which is now the University of Birmingham's Shakespeare Institute, although it was once the home of another author.

The popular novelist Marie Corelli (1855–24) moved to Mason Croft in 1901, and believed that the building had belonged to Shakespeare's daughter. She was a very colourful character noted for activities such as having herself rowed along the River Avon in a gondola, and having a photo of herself altered on the frontispiece of her books to make her seem much more attractive than she really was. The Sorrows of Satan (1895), perhaps the only one of her novels still in print, is notable for its anti-New Woman stance. Corelli adored Shakespeare, worked hard to preserve Stratford's architectural heritage, and this plaque is close to the entrance to Mason Croft.

Shakespeare was probably educated at King Edward VI school.


The Gower Monument stands in Bancroft Gardens by the River Avon, and a plaque reads:

'These figures were designed and modelled by Lord Ronald Gower, who presented the Monument to the Town of Stratford-upon-Avon in 1888.

'The work was executed in Paris and took twelve years to complete. Associated with Lord Ronald in his task were his assistant, Monsieur L. Madrassi, the firm of Tassel, who made all the figures save that of Hamlet, which was entrusted to Messieurs Graux and Marley, and the House of de Cauville and Perzinku, who cast the wreaths, the masks, the fruit and the flowers.

'The Stone used in the Monument is partly Boxground Bath, partly York. The group was erected on its original site by Mr. Frederick Taylor, Contractor, under the supervision of the Architects, Messieurs Peigniet and Marlow, of Paris.'

A more recent interpretation panel adds more:

'In 1769, [David] Garrick's Stratford Jubilee festival in honour of William Shakespeare started a growing public appreciation of the Bard in Startford-upon-Avon, an appreciation which is reflected in the grandeur of this memorial statue.
'[...]

'Each [figure] stands in front of individually-modelled bronze masks with flowers symbolic of each character. Hamlet represents Philosophy with ivy and cypress; Lady Macbeth is Tragedy with poppies and peonies; Comedy is represented by Falstaff with hops and roses; and History is represented by Prince Hal with English roses and French lilies.

'Originally, the statue group was situated on the other side of the theatre, with Falstaff aligned to face Holy Trinity Church. In 1926, the theatre was destroyed by fire. Following constructon of the new Memorial Theatre, the entire monument was moved to its present location in 1933 when the alignment was changed and the statues moved further from the base.'

The figures around the monument are very impressive, and of course very predictable: Hal's reformation glittering, like the crown he holds, o'er his faults; Hamlet telling Horatio he knew Yorick well; Lady Macbeth asking herself if these hands will ne'er come clean; and Falstaff after a cup of sack too many. Delightful.




Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway (1556–1623) in 1582: he was 18, and she was 26. Anne Hathaway's cottage is at Shottery, a very short distance from Stratford itself, and this is the Hathaway home where she lived before her marriage.

At Wilmcote in Warwickshire, Mary Arden's House, or Farm,– as it was continuously such – was the childhood home of Shakespeare's mother.

As we left Stratford in the afternoon on our way to Anne Hathaway's Cottage, car parks were full, the streets were becoming more crowded, and a thought occurs: is this town the most significant shrine in the world dedicated to a writer?

The Grave of John James Britton (1832–1913) in St Mary's Churchyard, Halford, Warwickshire

Unfortunately, I didn't have the benefit of a churchwarden's guidance when I briefly visited Halford late one Saturday afternoon about five and a half years ago, on my way to seek out schoolboy Lionel Britton's activities in Redditch. As a result, I didn't find John James Britton's grave, which Robert Hughes – who again supplied the photos – informs me is 'near the eastern wall of the graveyard, about 25 yards from the north-east corner (OS map ref.: SP 25921 45616)'. For this information, many thanks: I shall use it on my next visit.

The source of the inscription at the base of this cross – 'I see I know I understand' – is at present unknown.