A Walk to the Sea, White Pebbles, and Villette

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello. I'm sitting in my little cute pub room in a little place called Transcombe in Devon. I've come here for the night and I'm completely on my own. My husband's gone to work in London. My daughter's having the house to herself with her boyfriend, and she's looking after the animals. So for the first time in well, I just I I think probably ever. I I'm here without any dependence at all, so I can't quite believe it. I've just be I'm just sitting here, I've sorted out a little bit of admin, had a cup of tea, and now I thought I might take you down to the sea. I can't wait. Shall we go? Let's go. Right, I'm just popping to my car to pick up an extra jumper. I like it when there's weather where you need jumpers. You feel cozy in a jumper, don't you? I don't want to wear a t-shirt. I want to wear a nice cozy jumper down to the sea. Feel all fisherman-like. So Branscombe is famous for being one of the longest villages in the whole of the country, and that's because it's it's strewn like a stretched piece of bacon rind all the way down the valley, and it's not stunningly pretty or over the top quaint like you find with a lot of places, but it just comes across as a thriving, nice, successful a little community, and the pub itself is called the Mason Arms, and it's absolutely wonderful. It looks like it's had a really good refurb, and I'm now starting to puff because I'm heading to the beach. It's just a Pebbley beach. I mean, I think if it were sandy, the whole place would be different because sandy beaches in the UK are really well, they're just jam-packed all the time with people coming to them. So Pebbly beaches are the way forward because the sea is also clearer and oh tired, and you can also find interesting pebbles and shells and things. Anyway, as you can hear, I'm not the fittest at the moment, so I will see you once I get to the beach. Wish me luck. The brambles all flowering at the moment, they're pretty little pale pink petals, and they remind me of yesterday seeing the sculpture that experts think is Saxon of the ram caught in the bramble thicket. Is it Abraham's ram or is it Jacob's? Oh dear, I'm shaming myself. But I don't know if you got to see the photographs that I put on Blue Sky. Actually I don't think I've put it on Blue Sky yet, so I have to remember. And and the other one, you know the other one. But I thought it was wonderful. You can you can see almost the panic, or you can sense the panic in the ram's head, but the way that the ears have movement and the eyes are pulled back and it's gripping on to a piece of I I sus I suppose it's trying to pull at the branches or something. I'm now walking and I can see the sea in the distance and it's a cool grey because it's a it's a dull old cloudy day. There are lots of flowers out, lots of yellow flowers, heathery type flowers, and I think we've had a pretty good combination of weather this year, which means I think most flowers seem to be doing to be doing well. We have some years when, for example, the you know, the roses are just hopeless or you know that sort of thing. Oh, and it's nice to be by the sea. I I do feel a bit guilty because uh, you know, husband's in London and these trips obviously cost money, but it's nice to try and do something by myself. I haven't had the opportunity for a while, and it's been quite a stressful old time. And also my daughter, of course, is you know, she's at the sort of age where she needs time alone with her boyfriend to grow her relationship and uh have a sort of space that that that she needs. And yeah, it's lovely to be here. It's just nice to come to new places. Once I get to the beach and have enjoyed that, I will then work out when where the where the church is in this very long, strewn out place. Because no matter what what the church is like, even if it's very modern, I need to go there, see what it's like, and I don't know, I you can't go to a place without seeing its church, can you? I got a lovely message from one of you saying please don't feel you have to stay up till the early hours to keep the content uh going, and I just want to reassure you that that when I do things like that it's because I feel the need to do it. It's not the need it it's a need that's within me to do something that I know will be good for me, even if it means staying up late. And I I only do it if I know I can have a bit of a a bit of a lie-in, because if if there's been a very, very busy day, for example, if I've not had a moment to myself, then it's a great thing to do before going to bed, just to help me get a clear the slate, get a good night's sleep. It's equivalent really just to having a you know reading a chapter of a book or something like that. I'm reading a book at the moment by I think it's Michelle Brown about the life of Bede, and before I knew how strict the copyright laws were, I I think this time last year was reading a little bit from the book. And it's a very good book. It's good to go back over his life and to put into place all these saints about him, like Wilfred and Chad and all the relationships. I mean a lot of these people shouldn't really be saints, they're just you know, they're just to the the churchmen of the time, it would be like making all of our archbishops of Canterbury automatic saints, but I mean some of them perhaps, of course, including Bede himself and Cuthbert, of course. But yeah, and I've got now a roll of paper, that's the first step. The next step is to fix it on my wall, and then the final step is to start writing up the dates from I think I'm gonna go from BC 200 up to the present day and start writing who was who and what happened when. And I'll have columns as well with different parts of the world when it becomes more complicated. It's not really for anyone's benefit than mine, but I probably will take a photo and share it with you so you can see what I'm up to. It's a very uppy-downy, uppy-downy trip from the Mason Arms to the sea. It's half a mile, but that's good. It's good to stretch one's legs and get some exercise and feel the wind on on on my face. And I can now see the beach in the distance, and it's got the usual kind of car park, and there's there's there's often a utilitarian v look of English beaches that looks very, I don't know, maybe 1960s, something like that, very old-fashioned and and using the paints that you find when you were at school in the 1980s and everyone was everything was painted in the with the same sorts of basic pri primary colours. What I'm hoping and praying for is for there to be a place to get a hot coffee. Now, wouldn't that be a thing? I'm I'm acting as if it's there's it's not going to be possible, but I've caught a glimpse of a place with its lights on. I've just seen a lady go into it, so unfortunately my hopes now are quite raised. And also I think I've done this place down. It's it's a fine little place with a very neat car park, a post post box, a telephone box, and it all looks very well ordered and cute. If you can't make something look luxurious and beautiful, then resort to making it look cute, that's what I think. Oh, and that includes your own self, I think, don't you think? It's like as as my mother got older and older and more wrinkly, she was at her most attractive when she became all adorable and lovely in her little puffer coat looking at me and being all funny and ridiculous and vulnerable, and that's when I adored her the most. Miss her so much. Oh, that image of her I just just comes to my mind all the time. I can't look behind me because I found the cafe was open, but well, it all the coffee machines were closed down. They were just about to close, but the lovely lady there served me an iced coffee and a mug of tea, and I bought two fluffy toys for my very grown-up children who I don't know what they'll do with them, but I just want you know that instinct to to buy a present for your children. So that's that. I'm now sitting with my tea and it's windy but in a really nice way. I know that my mother wouldn't have liked it, she didn't like any wind, and I mean she was so tiny by the end, I can't blame her. And it is it is a bit of a cold wind here, but oh it's this is the scene. So imagine that whole lovely parallel thing that you get on beaches, but and and I know it's not parallel because I know the earth's obviously round, but you right in front of you you have strip of beach, strip of sea, strip of sun, and that's your view, so it's the three strips. So those are the three strips in front of me, and the going up from going bottom to up, so the strip of beach is pebbly, small pebbles, but not not those uh awful one-sized pebbles that you get in some places, like I think chasels, a bit like that. These look like a nice mix, and the earth around is a very ruddy red, and that accounts for the colour of the buildings, of course, that I've seen around here. Lots of iron must be in the earth. Well, it's all coming around to the the Jurassic part of the coast, I suppose. To my left, very high cliffs, the kind of cliffs that people, children, think I could run up those, or and they get into trouble. There are a couple of rooks, there's one flying high and wings outstretched, just floating about maybe eighty foot above me, just it seems to be enjoying the feeling of the wind underneath him. I wish I could do that. I do it in my dreams, and in my dreams I know that I mustn't wake up because then the feeling will stop. But the feeling is so strong. That feeling of being up in the air and flying. And when I know from speaking or reading, actually, I've read that that's quite normal for us to dream that, which is so strange, isn't it, considering we have no experience of it. But it's such a common dream for me. Maybe a couple of times a week I dream that I'm flying, but flying's not really the right word for it because there's no sort of propelling my arms or anything. It's just that feeling of floating and the enjoyment. I think it's a very similar feeling to the feeling you get when you're lying on a lovely buoyant, salty sea where you flee, you feel like where you are floating and it feels delicious. Or stay going to the four seasons or somewhere like that, where the swimming pool feels warm and bulbous and uh just lustrous underneath you. Anyway, off on a tangent, the cliffs are to my left are white actually, so not red, but the cliffs to my re right are red in colour, so and then then there's a sort of gorge between them. So a geologist would be able to explain what's happened here. And I know there's been a lot of mining around here, so there are mining stories to be told. The sea's coming in quite quite hard. Oh, and that hello, hello rook. The rook just came floating past me to show off. He just said, Look what I can do, look what I can do, and all you can do is just sit there and dream about it. And off he goes, up to the cliffs to my right, looking beautiful with the sun on his glossy black wings, the sun shining on the on the sea to my right, and so the sea looks silver and gold and beautiful, and beyond that I can see land in the distance, but I I'm not sure what I'm looking at. No land to be seen to my left or in front, and the sea is much darker blue looking east, and the the crests of the waves are coming in white and fluffy. And once I've had my tea and put my litter in the bin, I'm going to go right down to the edge and look at what how it looks to or there are three boys. It's such an English scene. Three boys in the sea. I don't know how old they are, maybe twelve or maybe eighteen. I can't, you know, just three pink chests. One maybe darker, but the others look very British, very pink, and one's come back already as though to say, Oh, I'm too cold. And then is it a girl or mother or girlfriend? I don't know, it's come down. Is she going to give them a towel? I don't know. The other two are bravely going on, but every time a wave comes, lifting up their arms, desperate not to get there. That you know how you just desperate not to get the tops of your arms and your hands, ridiculously, your hands, you don't want to put them in the water. And I I know how it feels. And if I were braver, I would do it. Oh, one boy really bravely has just dived into a wave. That's what you've got to do. You just got to put your head into a wave. Because otherwise, you're just standing there for such a long time, and then when you're finally in, you think, oh, why did I spend 50 minutes getting used to it? But that feeling of getting cold, it's such a memory of childhood, and I don't know why it's amusing for us all watching, but I think the amusement comes not from the watching so much as what it reminds us of what we feel we we we felt like when we were children. Anyway, I'm gonna drink my tea now, and then I'll gonna take you right down to the tippy-toe front of the sea. Right, before I wander down, I found an information board. Uh the cliffs around Branscombe display fascinating geology and a part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. The red rocks formed in deserts 230 million years ago. The yellow and white rocks formed in tropical seas between a hundred and eighty-five million years ago. So the red rocks were formed first two hundred and thirty million years ago. Can you get your head around that? And we're sitting for millions and millions of years, so for 160 million years, they were on their own. And then the yellow and white rocks formed, and that was a hundred million years ago. I I really find I can't, my brain doesn't have enough brain power to really understand and fathom. Well, not not it's you can pro you can understand something, but at the same time, you can't understand it properly, if you see what I mean. Storms and landslides have created this beautiful coastline, but they can give rise to hazards. Castal change can be a threat to local communities, and the beach at Branscombe is monitored regularly to understand the processes that shape it. What else have I got? Wander along the valley footpath on the left hand side of the beach cafe. This leads to the historic, beautiful village of Branscombe. Visit the working forge, open weekdays, Manor Hill, and the old bakery tea rooms. The old bakery tea rooms look lovely, a nice yellow painted thatch. Stay safe when you're out and about, check tide times, keep your dog under control. What else? But I want something interesting for it to tell me. It's got some maps. It says look out for peregrine falcons around the clifftops. So far I've just seen rooks, and then there's also a southwest coast path, which it would be nice to do, but I think that's a thing to do with husband when when daughters left school in another in a year's time. And I don't want to wish that time away, so it's one of the reasons why I'm not planning anything at all yet. I just want to try and live in the moment. And then there's a huge anchor here, and it says the beaching of the MSC Napoli. This is the anchor from the MSC Napoli, a 62,000 tonne container ship that was beached off Branscombe's coast in January 2007. The anchor, weighing 14 tonnes, was presented to the people of Branscombe by the ship's owners, Metravale Limited. It's probably because the owners were thinking they don't want to have to work out how they can get it back. It's better just to leave it and say it's a present. It was installed on this site by East Devon District Council. Very good. Then there's a little row of beach huts. Beach huts feel like a very British thing. Not just beach huts, but the smugness of people in beach huts. I don't it's not something I think, but I know that it's a thing that's thought of that people always think people who own beach huts look like the smuggest people in the world as they as they open the doors and wink their cups of tea and set up their little table and look out as they to say, this is my territory and you're not allowed here. A bit like the chat door looking at me as they just say, you can't do this. Right, and now we're walking across the pebbles and it's very windy, which is so the trouble is you're not able to experience the noise of the pebbles. I think what I'm gonna do is stop talking, drop my microphone to down with my hand, if you see what I mean, down by my side, and then walk to the sea. So I'm experimenting as I go because I really want you to get the sounds of everything, but at the same time, I don't want the the sound to be knocked out by the sound of the wind. It's I feel like maybe I need some advice on all of this sort of stuff. Okay, let's give it a go. How's it going? What can you hear? Can you can you hear pebbles? It's quite a nice sound, actually, isn't it? And it's quite nice. I I'm wearing trainers and it feels quite uh satisfying. There's a lot of different colour pebbles. I I I'm particularly drawn to the white ones. I often collect a few white pebbles and pop them in my plant pots at home. Now the sea is very loud. I'm really hoping you can see hear the seed. I will unplug my microphone just to say that you definitely can in a minute. Wind or no window. This isn't a sea that's at one with us. This is a sea that's uh irritated with this case and wants to chomp it away and seize what it can. I'm gonna walk along a bit now and see if I can find some pretty white stones and I will get back to you in a minute. I've had a bit of an idea. I'm gonna try and collect a couple of dozen. No, I think I only need one. Dozen white the tiny little white stones, and then in my next package to the paid subscribers of you, I will send a little white stone. So when you're in America and you open it and you s hold your little white stone, you you will know that it's it was formed all those millions of years ago here in a different part of the world. Although I suppose at that stage we were all connected, who knows? I think it must be very hard to be a geologist and have and have faith. The idea that that you've got that you've got faith in a God and he's building a world for millions of years and then humans come at the end of it just seems you know very strange. The only thing I think is that I I I'm not sure that that we have the brain tools to understand really the full meaning of of time, and it's it's beyond our understanding, passes our understanding. But is that a cop-out? People would say it is, but it's a way I can let it rest. I've collected some lovely ones, and there's a really nice looking gentleman. I say gentleman, he's got that kind of gentleman look about him, maybe in his sixties, sort of slim jeans and a shirt. And he he was watching me because he must have thought I was mad because I don't know if you've done this, but if you've walked on the beach where the sun's been shining all day, and if you put a smooth stone to your lips and then just sort of, you know, feel it with your lips, your lips can feel the smoothness of the stone and the warmth of the stone, and it feels really nice and satisfying. And so I was picking white stones up and then I'm doing it now as I talk okay, so I've got this lovely one here and putting it to my lips, and the white stones are really smooth and beautiful. I might put them together as a little collection tonight on the bar table or something, take a photo. And uh he he I don't know if he thought maybe I was picking stones up and licking them. That's certainly not what I was doing. Anyway, I don't know how I'm not accountable to strange not strange, but gentlemen on the beach. But uh yeah, the white one's beautiful. And some of them though, because like the one I've got in my hand is like a it's like a duck that's in in a sheet and it's trying to get out. It's sort of pulled its sort of head and its its form is pulled against a sheet uh a sheet, like some kind of structure, a modern modern art structure. And yeah, I like it when they look like animals. Oh dear, come on, when am I gonna grow up? This is what's lovely about the beach. I think the beach brings out a child in all of us. Or the other thing is woods, trees, and you know what what adult doesn't want to climb a tree when we see low branches and we think I could just leap up that and then if you're foolish enough to give it a go and you're not not as agile as you once were, you think, oh well, maybe I couldn't. Sometimes it can be a shock, can't it, when you try something. It happened to me about six years ago. We went to this water park with inflatables, and I was really looking forward to it, thinking I I would love just leaping across them all, and and I got r you know ready and I just couldn't believe how difficult it was. You know, once you fell over to to get up, and once if you fell in the water into the lake, difficult to get up, and I just I thought I'd be this agile nymph leaping from inflatable to inflatable. And sadly it wasn't the case. Um, you know, my son, who was maybe nine at the time or something, was hauling me out. I've got a stone in my hand at the moment, and it's got some it's got two little holes to make a perfect pair of eyes if I wanted to and that's what you do, don't you? You get a local artist coming along because there's another one I just spotted that looks like a little owl. I might get that. That looks like a lovely little owl. Yes, that local artists, they pick things like this up and decorate them and and then sell them, why not? Alright, time to get back to my accommodation and then I might have something to eat, and then I've brought a few of our books with me because I'm really keen to find out what happens next in Villette. It's such a long time since I read it that I'd forgotten just how detailed and nuanced the story is and it's really enthralled me. I'm now back in my room and I want to read you the last sentence of chapter twenty eight. You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in life's sunshine. It is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes because you tease him with an obtrusive ray. And now chapter twenty nine Monsieur's Fate I was up the next morning an hour before daybreak, and finished my guard, kneeling on the dormitory floor beside the centre stand for the benefit of such expiring glimmer as the night lamp afforded in its last watch. All my materials, my whole stock of beads and silk, were used up before the chain assumed the length and richness I wished for. I had wrought it double, as I knew by the rule of contraries, that to suit the particular taste whose gratification was in view, an effective appearance was quite indispensable. As a finish to the ornament a little gold clasp was needed. Fortunately I possessed it in the fastening of my sole necklace. I duly detached and reattached it, then coiled compactly the completed guard and enclosed it in a small box I had bought for its brilliancy, made of some tropic shell of the colour called Nakarat, and decked with a little kernel of sparkling blue stones. Within the lid of the box I carefully graved with my scissors point certain initials. The reader will perhaps remember the description of Madame Beck's fate, nor will he have forgotten that at each anniversary a handsome present was subscribed for and offered by the school. The observance of this day was a distinction accorded to none but Madame, and in a modified form to her kinsman and counsellor, Monsieur Emmanuel. In the latter case it was an honour spontaneously awarded, not plotted and contrived beforehand, and offered an additional proof, amongst many others, of the estimation in which, despite his partialities, prejudices and irritabilities, the professor of literature was held by his pupils. No article of value was offered to him. He distinctly gave it to be understood that he would accept neither plate nor jewellery, yet he liked a slight tribute. The cost, the money value did not touch him. A diamond ring, a gold snuff box presented with pomp, would have pleased him less than a flower or a drawing offered simply and with sincere feelings. Such was his nature. He was a man, not wise in his generation, yet could he claim a filial sympathy with the day spring on high? Monsieur Poole's fate fell on the first of March and a Thursday. It proved a fine, sunny day, and being likewise the morning on which it was customary to attend mass, being also otherwise distinguished by the half holiday which permitted the privilege of walking out, shopping or paying visits in the afternoon. These combined considerations induced a general smartness and freshness of dress. Clean collars were in vogue, the ordinary dingy woolen class dress was exchanged for something lighter and clearer. Mademoiselle Zelly Saint Pierre on this particular Thursday even assumed a robe de soi, deemed in economical labascour an article of hazardous splendour and luxury, nay it was remarked that she sent for a coiffure to dress her hair that morning. There were pupils acute enough to discover that she had bedewed her handkerchief and her hands with a new and fashionable perfume. Poor Zellie. It was much her wont to declare about this time that she was tired to death of a life of seclusion and labour, that she longed to have the means and leisure for relaxation, to have someone to work for her, a husband who would pay her debts, she was woefully encumbered with debt, supply her wardrobe and leave her at liberty, as she said, to gote unpeu. It had long been rumoured that her eye was upon Monsieur Emmanuel. Monsieur Emmanuel's eyes were certainly often upon her. He would sit and watch her perseveringly for minutes together. I have seen him give her a quarter of an hour's gaze while the class was silently composing, and he sat throned on his estrad, unoccupied. Conscious always of this basilisk attention, she would writhe under it, half flattered, half puzzled, and Monsieur would follow her sensations, sometimes looking appallingly acute, for in such cases he had the terrible, unerring penetration of instinct, and pierced in its hiding place the last lurking thought of the heart, and discerned under florid veilings, the bare, barren places of the spirit, yes, and its perverted tendencies, and its hidden false curves, all that men and women would not have known, the twisted spine, the malformed limb that was born with them, and far worse the stain of d or disfigurement they have perhaps brought on themselves. No calamities so accursed, but Monsieur Emmanuel could pity and forgive if it were acknowledged candidly, but where his questioning eyes met dishonest denial, where his ruthless researches found deceitful concealment, oh then he could be cruel, and I thought wicked. He could exultantly snatch the screen from poor shrinking wretches, passionately hurry them to the summit of the mount of exposure. And there show them all naked, all false, poor living lies, the spawn of that horrid truth which cannot be looked on unveiled. He thought he did justice. For my part I doubt whether man has a right to do such justice on man. More than once in these his visitations, I have felt compelled to give tears to his victims, and not spared ire and keen reproach on himself. He deserved it, but it was difficult to shake him in his firm conviction that the work was righteous and needed. Breakfast being over and mass attended, the school bell rung and the rooms filled. A very pretty spectacle was presented in class. Pupils and teachers sat neatly arrayed, orderly and expectant, each bearing in her hand the bouquet of felicitacion, the prettiest spring flowers, all fresh, and filling the air with their fragrance. I only had I only had no bouquet. I like to see flowers growing, but when they are gathered they cease to please. I look on them then as things rootless and perishable. Their likeness to life makes me sad. I never offer flowers to those I love. I never wish to receive them from hands dear to me. Mademoiselle Saint Pierre marked my empty hands. She could not believe I had been so remiss. With avidity her eye roved over and around me. Surely I must have some solitary, symbolic flower somewhere, some small knot of violets, something to win myself praise for taste, commendation for ingenuity. The unimaginative anglaise proved better than the Parisian's fears. She sat literally unprovided, as bare of bloom or leaf as the winter tree. This ascertained, Zelly smiled, well pleased. How wisely you have acted to keep your money, Mies Lucy, she said. Silly I have gone and thrown away two francs on a bouquet of hot house flowers, and she showed with pride her splendid nosegay. But hush a step the step. It came prompt as usual, but with a promptitude we felt disposed to flatter ourselves, inspired by other feelings than mere excitability of nerve and vehemence of intent. We thought our professor's footfall, to speak romantically, had in it a friendly promise this morning, and so it had. He entered in a mood which made him as good as a new sunbeam to the already well lit first class, the morning light. Playing amongst our plants and laughing on our walls, caught an added lustre from Monsieur Poul's all bing benignant salute. Like a true Frenchman, although I don't know why I should say so, for he was, of strain, neither French nor La Bascurien, he had dressed for the situation and the occasion. Not by the vague folds, sinister and conspirator like of his soot dark, pale to were the outlines of his person obscured. On the contrary, his figure, such as it was, I don't boast of it, was well set off by a civilised coat and a silken vest quite pretty to behold. The defiant and pagan Bonny Grec had vanished. Bareheaded he came upon us, carrying a Christian hat in his gloved hand. The little man looked well, very well. There was a clearness of amity in his blue eye, and a glow of good feeling on his dark complexion, which passed perfectly in the place of beauty. One really did not care to observe that his nose, though far from small, was of no particular shape, his cheek thin, his brow marked and square, his mouth no rosebud. One accepted him as he was, and felt his presence the reverse of damping or insignificant. He passed to his desk. He placed on the same his hat and gloves. Bonjour, Mizemi, he said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl, not a jocond good fellow tone, still less an uncuous priestly accent, but a voice he had belonging to himself, a voice used when his heart passed the word to his lips. A voice used when his heart passed the word to his lips. And on that note I'm going to publish this, go to supper, and then continue after supper. Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll ho I hope you'll join me for the next episode later on this evening. Lots of love and thank you.