Welcome to justthoughtsnstuff

I started posting to jtns on 20 February 2010 with just one word, 'Mosaic'. This seemed an appropriate introduction to a blog that would juxtapose fragments of memoir and life-writing. Since 1996, I'd been coming to terms with the consequences of emotional and economic abuse that had begun in childhood, and which, amongst other things, had sought to stifle self-expression. While I'd explored some aspects of my life through fiction and, to a lesser extent, journalism, it was only in 2010 that I felt confident enough to write openly about myself. I believed this was an important part of the healing process. Yet within weeks, the final scenes of my family's fifty-year nightmare started to play themselves out and the purpose of the blog became one of survival through writing. Although some posts are about my family's suffering - most explicitly, Life-Writing Talk, with Reference to Trust: A family story - the majority are about happier subjects (including, Bampton in rural west Oxfordshire, where I live, Oxford, where I work, the seasons and the countryside, walking and cycling) and I hope that these, together with their accompanying photos, are enjoyable and positive. Note: In February 2020, on jtns' tenth birthday, I stopped posting to this blog. It is now a contained work of life-writing about ten years of my life. Frank, 21 February 2020.

New blog: morethoughtsnstuff.com.

Sunday, 11 November 2012

autumn leaves, aa gill, edward thomas, a conscious englishman by margaret keeping, streetbooks

















A beautiful autumn day. Or should that be winter's day? Not quite winter, I think. Not least because there are still so many autumn leaves on the trees. The relentless rain seems to have been good for keeping them on, if for nothing else.

A great article on Edward Thomas by AA Gill in the Sunday Times. (Sorry that link won't work for those who don't have access beyond the News International paywall...)  I liked the following especially:

'Barely two of his poems mention the war and then only in passing. But altogether they are an almost unbearable memorial to the trenches, not as dispatches from the front or descriptions of horror, but as a departing view of what was fought for and what was lost.'

The article anticipates the play about Thomas by Nick Dear at the Almeida. Meanwhile, A Conscious Englishman by Margaret Keeping, which will be published by StreetBooks on 7th February 2013 is showing on Amazon, Blackwell, Waterstones and other major online retailers. See also, Margaret's excellent blog, Publishing my Edward Thomas.
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous14 November 2012 at 15:31

    I, too, read the article on Thomas in the Times and was irritated (but not surprised given Gill's historic hostility towards the Welsh)by it's title ('The Quiet Voice of England')and not even a passing acknowledgement of his Welsh roots (both his parents were Welsh)of which he was very proud, to the extent that he gave all his children Welsh names (Merfyn, Myfanwy and Bronwen), and note, his son's name spelt the Welsh way, with an 'f' rather than a 'v'. And now here's this book, 'A Conscious Englishman.'
    If, by this, certain English people are trying to stake an exclusive claim on Edward Thomas as being one of their own, then it is a deception that does not bear scrutiny.' There is no doubt that he loved England, but he is more fairly described as an Anglo-Welsh poet.

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    1. Margaret Keeping15 November 2012 at 14:51

      As you say Frank, 'I am rapidly becoming a conscious Englishman,' was a significant statement in his growing belief that he had to 'do something'about Britain at war. He called himself an 'accidental Cockney', was described by a very close friend as 'A Londoner with a covering of Oxford', and the truth is that English language and literature, writers and preoccupations filled his thinking constantly. His prose 'Beautiful Wales' is lovely, but only two poems relate in any way to Wales - Mountain Chapel and Helen of the Roads - a pity.His poems and 90% of his prose are specifically placed in southern England, no doubt reflecting demand for the prose and daily influence for the poems. So in a way Gill is right.
      But do read Thomas. He saw 'lovers of the Celt'as poseurs:
      'Their aim and ideal is to go about the world in a state of self-satisfied dejection, interrupted, and perhaps sustained, by days when they consume strange mixed liquors to the tune of all the fine old songs which are fashionable...I cannot avoid the opinion that to boast of the Celtic spirit is to confess you have it not.'
      Ouch! You can always rely on Thomas for honesty.

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  2. Frank15 November 2012 at 09:10

    Thanks. The title is a quote from Thomas himself--see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_All_Roads_Lead_to_France. In the novel Thomas' pride in his Welsh roots is made very clear. (I am half-Welsh and appreciate the points you make.)

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  3. Margaret Keeping15 November 2012 at 16:38

    Of course in that he says,'I am rapidly becoming...' does imply that he was not a conscious Englishman beforehand. He is using England to mean Britain as he disliked that term and thought it meant nothing: people only relate to their own 'holes and corners.' It's annoying but I think it was even more prevalent then than now, when we are a bit more attuned to separate identities.

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