Glorious Gloucestershire (eBook)

Mark Cummings (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
192 Seiten
The History Press (Verlag)
978-1-80399-754-4 (ISBN)

Infos

'Uniquely well-informed, all-encompassing and loving.' - Pam Ayres, poet 'Amazing revelations about my home county.' - Adam Henson, Countryfile presenter Did you know that Sir Peter Scott was named after Peter Pan; a Stroud man invented instant custard; and a Cotswold manor house is designed to look exactly like the Palace of Westminster? Gloucestershire has been at the forefront of world-changing innovation throughout history, has inspired great works of literature and even has its own rhyming slang. Join broadcaster Mark Cummings on a joyful journey exploring the Gloucestershire streets that gave us Scrooge and Long John Silver, find out where classic TV and movie scenes were filmed and feast on delicious nuggets about royalty, rock stars and rugby legends. Walk with Mark to London in the footsteps of Dick Whittington, discover the true meaning behind Gloucestershire's quirky place names, take advantage of unique tips leading you to hidden gems across the county and test what you've learned with Mark's 100 quiz questions, a challenge for locals and visitors alike.

Mark Cummings has been a radio and TV presenter, journalist and writer for over 40 years. He fell in love with Gloucestershire when he arrived here in 1993 and has gathered an immense knowledge of the county. He has developed a deep emotional connection with tens of thousands of listeners to his BBC Radio Gloucestershire Breakfast show which he presented for the last 18 years. He has also presented several 'West Country' travel series for BBC Points West TV. He writes a monthly column in Cotswold Life, he is a season ticket holder for Gloucester Rugby, and he is an honorary member of The Gloucester Civic Trust. In 2023 he received an Outstanding Contribution to the Community Across Gloucestershire award at the Gloucestershire Live Business Awards.

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BOOK LOVERS’ TOUR OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE

IT IS ASTONISHING that in such a small area you can find the inspiration behind so many classic works of iconic literature. Join our exclusive book club and come on a literary journey around the county. We will go through a ‘Looking-Glass’ and visit places familiar to Dame Jilly Cooper, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. We will pop through a magical door into the Dwarven Kingdom, chat about Professor Snape and Humpty Dumpty and even enjoy a refreshing cider with my friend Rosie. We will visit the Gate Streets of Gloucester and step into the worlds of Peter Pan, The Tailor of Gloucester, Treasure Island and A Christmas Carol. Our readers’ road trip starts with a tipple.

CIDER WITH ROSIE

Our first stop is the Stroud valleys, where we will be immersed in the poetry and prose of the wonderful Laurie Lee. Laurie described the feeling of growing up in the Slad Valley as ‘snug, enclosed and protective’, and he and his family nestled together like ‘peas in a pod’. I had the pleasure of meeting the female inspiration for the famous story Cider with Rosie, Rosalind Buckland, who was Laurie’s cousin by marriage. She was a twinkly, mischievous, wonderful woman who just happened to be, in her spare time, a literary icon.

We managed to track Rosie down while we were researching a radio show I was planning to present from the Slad Valley. She very kindly granted me an audience and I found myself on her doorstep with a box of chocolates and a bottle of ‘you know what’. We discussed sections of the book and explored the picture Laurie painted of growing up in the period just after the First World War. They were all very poor, she remembered, and Laurie’s mum was a very strong but kind woman who was always late for everything but was a massive influence on Laurie’s life.

Rosalind recalled vivid details of Laurie’s two aunties, who always wore long dresses and bonnets. She confirmed how horrible one of their teachers was (the same teacher who was placed on top of a cupboard by a disgruntled student in the book). She told tales of getting a charabanc to Weston for Slad’s big day out once a year and the journey taking ages on the old Bristol Road. Winters were extremely harsh as they only had one fire and no central heating.

As for the key episode from the book, what really happened? Laurie describes this pivotal moment with cider-drinking Rosie under a haywain, ‘Never to be forgotten, that first long secret drink of golden fire, juice of those valleys and of that time, wine of wild orchards, of russet summer, of plump red apples, and Rosie’s burning cheeks. Never to be forgotten, or ever tasted again.’ Rosalind told me they were there together in the field but she didn’t drink any cider and no funny business went on!

Over time she grew to accept and like the fact that the book was about her, although she hinted that Laurie’s accounts were prone to exaggeration. When she grew up she married a policeman and lived in various locations across the county, ending up in Leckhampton. She would occasionally pop over to Slad and meet up with Laurie and she showed me a couple of notes he had given her. One read: ‘For Rosie who is never forgotten, Love Laurie.’ My favourite, however, is this one: ‘To you know who, with long ago love, from you know who … The author.’

As my time with Rosalind was coming to an end, I produced a bottle of cider from my bag and asked if she would share a glass with me. To our joint amusement she let me have the cider while she stuck with her tea, claiming she didn’t really like the stuff and it was a bit early. Just to drink some apple juice with her was a magical moment and it was an interview I will never forget. Maybe if I had stayed a bit later, she might have had a sip of the ‘golden fire’ because there is a possibility she liked it more than she claimed. Her granddaughter said, ‘She always maintained she never drank cider. I got her a bottle of Champagne for her 99th birthday and she said, “Oh, it tastes like cider!” She gave the game away there I think!’

One of my favourite radio interviews with Rosalind ‘Rosie’ Buckland.

WHAT THE DICKENS?

Charles Dickens performed on stage at a theatre on Gloucester’s Westgate Street during a reading tour and described Gloucester as ‘a wonderful and misleading city’. He was fond of nearby Cheltenham, ‘I have rarely seen a place that so attracted my fancy.’ Tewkesbury also caught his eye and it was mentioned in The Pickwick Papers when Mr Pickwick and his friends stop at a coaching inn, the Hop Pole, on their way from Bristol to Birmingham. ‘At the Hop Pole, Tewkesbury, they stopped to dine, upon which occasion there was more bottled ale, with some Madeira and some port besides … and here the case bottle replenished for the fourth time.’ Now that’s my idea of a good lunch. One final link that might surprise you is in the heart of the Cotswolds at Bibury, known for its Trout Farm and historic chocolate box cottages at Arlington Row. A short walk from the main village is the fabulous Bibury Court Hotel. I have been to wedding receptions and long lunches here, but I didn’t know until recently that there is a Dickensian link. This Jacobean manor was formerly owned by the Cresswell family and it is thought to have been their long-running dispute over a family will that inspired the court case in Bleak House.

SCROOGE

Since Charles Dickens was a regular visitor to Gloucester, it is widely accepted that he based his character Scrooge on his knowledge of the local banker James ‘Jemmy’ Wood. Jemmy was a well-known miser who ran the bank on Westgate Street and became known as ‘the richest commoner’ in England. He was born in 1756 and inherited a shop and bank from his father. Over the years he made a mint but was unpopular with the locals because of the way he conducted his business. He was a shabby character who never spent any money on clothes and was known to go to the nearby Gloucester Docks to pick up pieces of coal from the barges moored there. He was too mean to pay for transport, so would walk huge distances. He was once walking back from Tewkesbury in the rain when he eventually accepted a lift from a hearse. He climbed into the back and sat next to the coffin. When he died he left around £50 million in today’s money but his coffin was pelted with stones and the crowds booed during his funeral procession. He is buried in St Mary de Crypt Church in Gloucester.

If you keep these descriptions in mind, you will appreciate the similarities between Jemmy Wood and Dickens’s descriptions of Scrooge. ‘The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.’ A few years ago, I met a distant relative of Jemmy Wood. He joined us on a procession through the city on Gloucester Day and was utterly charming. We took him to the pub afterwards, had several rounds of drinks and, interestingly, he never paid for single one.

Jemmy Wood. (Gloucester Civic Trust)

LONG JOHN SILVER AND W.E. HENLEY

William Ernest Henley was born near Gloucester Cross at 5 Eastgate in 1849 and spent nearly half of his life in this city centre location. This man has always fascinated me because of the huge impact he had in many literary areas despite his own physical suffering and the loss of his daughter at a very young age. We are so proud that this poet, editor and critic was born in our county. Shortly after starting at the Crypt Grammar School he was attacked by tuberculosis of the bone, an illness that plagued him all of his life. He was only a teenager when his left leg was amputated below the knee. In a search for a cure, he was admitted in his early twenties to the Edinburgh Infirmary in 1873. It was here that he met and became close friends with Robert Louis Stevenson. They were nearly the same age, both were writers and they were fighting the same disease. Henley had a big, loud personality and a gingery beard, and when Stevenson wrote his first novel, Treasure Island in 1883, he based one-legged Long John Silver on his good friend. He wrote to Henley, ‘It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver … the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound, was entirely taken from you.’

There is a blue plaque dedicated to Henley at Gloucester Cross where the four Gate Streets meet with a quote from his famous poem ‘Invictus’, written in 1875.

W.E. Henley blue plaque, Eastgate Street, Gloucester.

It is thought the inspiration for the poem came from his struggles with his health and loss of his leg. His motivational words inspired the title of the 2009 film about the South Africa rugby team’s bid to win the Rugby World Cup, and Nelson Mandela famously recited the poem to his fellow prisoners while he was in prison on Robben Island.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.9.2024
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Regional- / Landesgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Schulbuch / Wörterbuch ► Lexikon / Chroniken
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Schlagworte: bbc radio gloucestershire • Cheltenham • Cotswolds • dick whittington • Forest of Dean • Gloucester • gloucester gift • gloucester quiz • Gloucestershire • gloucestershire people • Gustav Holst • Long John Silver • mock mayor of barton • RICK ASTLEY • scrooge • Stroud • walls ice cream
• ISBN-10: 1-80399-754-0 / 1803997540
• ISBN-13: 978-1-80399-754-4 / 9781803997544