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, 17 September 2017

old stoic day, the years went - where?, lions, first fires of autumn, hangover square and netta the fish





Returned to Stowe for our year group's Old Stoic day yesterday... Forty years since we left. Help!

The years went - where?

Lovely, lovely to see close friends from school days - close friends too little seen.

Other friends not seen at all since that time. Gosh.

And such a different school. The grounds managed by the National Trust; the stately home restored to former glories, when the Dukes of Buckingham lived there. An extraordinary place to be at school - then as now.

The lion on the South Front shown in the photo - one of a pair - was recently reinstated (having been sold off in 1921, before the school was founded) after it was discovered in a park in Blackpool. On extended loan now. See this YouTube video: https://youtu.be/fogGLSoyMdQ

Really enjoyed talking to the school librarian too.

At home, we lit our first log fire of the autumn last Sunday and have lit one each day since. It's been freezing out!

Finished Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton. Beautifully written and constructed, from a page-turning point of view - it has amazing momentum - but I found the short section told from Netta's perspective, in which her personality and attention span is compared to those of a fish, seemed both reductive and contrived. How much more powerful the book would have been if her interior life had remained a mystery. I even wondered if that section was added later. A fascinating novel of its time, nevertheless.
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