anglesey

Many, many years ago. When Doctor Who was middle aged and wore a knitted scarf; I spent a year playing Miss Caswell in the Mousetrap. She was, I was told, a lesbian.  So they put me in a tweed suit and asked me to speak as if I was teaching a group of dimwits to play field hockey.  I must have been effective because my only note was to dye my hair because it was the same colour as the scenery.

I got a few things from that year at the St Martin’s Theatre. I got a fold up bicycle because I got fed up of people telling me they’d catch the last bus home with me if I came for just the one drink. I got proper money, because this was my first brush with earning more than you needed to fill your fridge with your weekly wage; enough to buy a ‘round-the-world’ plane ticket. And I got two friends. Peter Penry-Jones, a welsh man of intelligence, eloquence, and power, playing Giles who was the owner of Monkswell Manor Hotel. And David McAlister who was the policeman who climbed in the hotel window at the end of the first act. Who turned out to be Miss Caswell’s brother and the killer. I apologise if you haven’t seen it. But I promise you I am saving you from one of the most illogical and stupid pieces of theatre you would ever have seen. David was an actor who loved not only acting but the business of acting, which is rare.

red wharf bay. 1870

After a year, David and I could not look at each other for fear of laughing. Not helped by the day I came onstage with my leg in plaster from a bad sprain and because, as I said, he came to the play late, he just turned round and left the stage in giggles leaving us all to interrogate ourselves. David toured and toured and sang and toured until he died last year, way too early. Peter took care of me. He talked to me like I was grown up until I dared to think I might be. He filtered the world I was walking into through his intelligence and his logic and his Welsh sense of poetic resignation.

Peter or PPJ as I called him, had a wife who was an actress of talent and success and two young sons; so finding the whole business a bit distasteful; he handed over the pursuit of work to his wife and he gave his sons all the attention possible.

I lived with Peter and his family when my flat was being gutted. I visited Peter up in Anglesey in the stone cottage he had inherited from his parents. I drove Laurie, the youngest around in my father’s  sports car

(He remembers this, not me)  I went to a not very religious church with them on a Sunday morning, because Peter thought the vicar had a good mind and voice. When I came to America, I would always go and visit them in their large house in West Norwood. “ I want to live in Marble Arch.” Angie would say. “ Sigh” is what Peter would say.  And take the dog out for a walk. Rupert the elder became an actor. Laurie the younger did too. Peter feared for them both.

Rupert met his wife doing a production of “ Dangerous Corner.” He came out to LA with Dervla after the run ended and they lived next door to me. Laurie met his wife doing a production of “Liaisons Dangereuses”. He and Polly came out to live in LA for a few years.

peter and Rupert

Rupert and Dervla, Florence and Peter

Laurie and Polly

laurie and Angie

I visited Peter in that stone cottage a number of times. Once when we went mackerel fishing from the rocks. Once when Rupert and Dervla’s new baby was born and they asked me to be godmother as we were all walking across the mile long beach. Once when Peter was ill and I gave him a foot massage, which still has Angela in a state of incredulity. 

And now, some seven years after Peter has gone, to stay with Angela in the house that is full of him. From stone terraces he built with his father. To rose bushes that he planted. To the blue summer house he built high up in the orchard. To the steps he made so that Angela could climb through the stone wall to the driveway. The views from all the windows are the greatest of cinema. The desk was his father’s. the jugs were collected by his mother. The Aga was Angela’s idea. The garden was theirs.

the aga and the kitchen

peter's mother's bedroom

The sitting room

Gertrude's jugs

Although Angela wanted to live in the middle of London, when Peter died, she spent more and more time in the stone cottage on the edge of Red Wharf Bay. In Ty Mawr Llan. In the village of Llandonna.

the grocery store in Beaumaris

that grocery store again

macaroni cheese and flowers from the garden

Rupert and Dervla are coming up with their two children in a couple of weeks. Laurie and Polly will be up later.

angela

This morning, a wonderful elderly couple brought by the Sunday Telegraph as they always do on a Sunday and they stop for coffee.

David told Angela that he had sat with Peter when he wasn’t well and had asked what his one wish would be. Peter had said, “ To see my family walking along this beach.”

the cambridge air

I took my father, when he was losing his grip on the everyday, to the Santa Monica Museum of flying. There were a number of older planes. An elderly man was giving a few pointers to a small collection of visitors. My father waited to the end, and said, " I beg to differ...." and he told the man about how the controls of the Spitfire differ from those of the Hurricane.  He held his arms up like wings and showed them how the spitfire would bank against the wind.  "They should hire you," I said to my father as we walked away. He knew he was having trouble with his shoe laces, so he just smiled. " Will we be having tea soon?" he said.

I went to RAF Duxworth to see an air show called " Flying Legends."

There were Hurricanes and Spitfires; Hellcats and wildcats; Flying Fortresses and Bristol Blenheims; Gladiators and messerschmitts.

For three and half hours these planes poured overhead. 

From another airbase many miles away, a brand new American Raptor flew in to circle the air alongside an American fighter plane some seventy years it's senior. 

It ended with a " Balbo", which is when twenty odd planes fly in a formation that defies logic.

There were thousands of people, young and old. With cameras, with tea in a thermos, with hats and badges and hats with badges. 

There were old cars and women singing in close harmony. There were hamburgers and cones of chips with salt and vinegar.

The queue for men's lavatories was three times as along as for the ladies.

There was rain and wind and sunshine. All in the space of three hours.

My feet hurt from standing. My neck ached from looking up.  My face was burnt from the sun.

It ended with the voice of Winston Churchill saying;

 ' Let us then brace ourselves to our duties....men will still say, " This was their finest hour."'

But it started with the Dambuster March, and then from the east came seven spitfires in formation. seven of them.  Small and noisy. alone and brave. I watched them lift and twist through the ever changing skies,  and I held my breath for Malcolm Henry Murray. " You go Daddy...." I whispered.

A Dip in the Aegean

Crete, Greece.
Those that know, know that those words can come with a sigh from my mouth.  Not a " how enchanting " sigh,  but  a" when will it end" sigh.
So I am very happy to report to the world, that I sighed many a time with a " How enchanting" coming from that turncoat mouth of mine.
And those that know, know how happy I might be to find something enchanting in a place that has been buttoned up with so much disappointment over the years.
There was humour, and lots Geis sas " HALLO THERE "( sounds like jasuse); and Entaxei
" ALLRIGHT THEN";  Brava, " WELL DONE"; and kala, " GOOD."
We drank wine made down the road. We poured olive oil, made down the road. We ate bread, made over the road. We ate tomatoes and onions, from across the road. Ate Feta and Mizithra made up the hill. Scooped up yoghurt and honey, from up the mountain.
We swam in the oh-so-blue-sea that poets have written about for centuries. And yes, it really is that blue.

We saw carefully excavated remains of those clever Minoans. a culture back in 3650 to 1400 B.C. who had it all sorted when it came to the practicalities of plumbing and the beauty of art. In Aptera, five minutes from where we were staying in Megala Chorafia....can't you just roll these words around in your mouth like exploding marbles? .....Gavalochori....Kokkino Chorio..... Hang my hat, drape my mosquito net, peel me an olive and I swear, even after all that those who know, know....


 I would take off my shoes and pull me a book off the shelf and smell me some oregano and breathe out until my lungs were empty.

And can I just go back to that blue sea again? The Mediterranean, as everyone knows who has swum in it, has a higher density of salt than most seas. So you swim like a mermaid.
And when your feet hit the water of Souda bay, which you see above, and a wave covers your feet, it is with kindness. "Come in" it says. " have a chat with me, with your friends."
And Greek people do. They get in the water and they talk about their day, the politics, their children, their aches. My friends told me that they do this for forty minutes. It is an unwritten rule that Cretans follow. Maybe it came from the Minoans. They weren't stupid.

So just , for those that know, these are photos of our last remaining piece of property. Something we have always called ' the Headland.' This headland has two neighbours who believe they have rights of way across our property. One is called Harokopakis and the other is called Christolakis. They don't roll  around my mouth in the same 'marbley' way. There were these 'rights of way'.... agricultural  tracks , let's call them, across everywhere;  for people to feed and water their goats. A man walking; a man and bicycle; a man and a cart.
This, ladies and gentleman, is what Mr Harokopakis and Mr Christolakis believe are agricultural tracks..... I think I rest my case....

Mr Christolakis

Mr Harokopakis

The headland and it's view with sister



We stayed with a friend Maria, in house that she had built with her Austrian husband. An Ecological house with walls made of clay and straw bales and underfloor pipes that cooled or heated, depending on what was happening outside. with solar panels and toilets that did something clever.

The terrace for breakfast and for dinner. Do we all remember what the night sky looks like when you can see all the itty bitty stars? Dark Blue sky and freckles of silver? How you tilt back your head and think, how clever of whomever it is that got to design all of this?

And there was a dog who lived across the road in a fenced -in yard, who sat on the wall to greet us whenever we came or went. And Maria will have that dog, or I will go back and steal that dog. Because he is an Einstein amongst his species and he needs a place to have a bigger conversation.

And there is just a time when you look at yourself and think, I want to be a singer.  It worked for John Denver. It will work for me. You rock ONO ENA.

So all that is left is the water the food and what takes your breath away...... 

My deckchair, my sister...testing the waters

The splash way out there...my feet, kicking for some Olympics.

and we will always have to talk about tomatoes

and we will fly away and remember this.

that bump on the left. Apocoronou. Plaka. Where my father carved out a place on the rocks to sit naked after a swim to dry off. where my nephews played heroes with towels pegged to their shoulders and spatulas stuck in their belts, where so much more, so much more....
fouff says the world. fouff says time. fouff says the tomatoes. ......

because we will always be bigger than our history.

Snippets from the South Bank

Double rainbows on the Thames. 

When I used to go to London to stay with my friends R & G in their Walnut Tree Walk home, I would leave their black front door and turn right. It would take me to the river, close to Lambeth Palace and the start of the wide pavement,  that follows the river from bridge to bridge until I ended up at  Southwark Cathedral.
In foul weather or fair, it was an unhurried walk away from the streets with their taxis and buses and delivery boys on motorbikes. The fastest vehicles were the boats in the Thames and nobody knew where they were going. When the tide was very low, one could climb down stone steps to the small banks of sand that would appear on the southside. Pure Dickens. Looking for the un-named bodies of Our Mutual Friends.
As I passed by Westminster Bridge ( 1862) I could see the landing platforms, presumably for Henry VIII to scold Thomas Moore, at the Palace of Westminster, I would pass by the old Shell Building, which is no longer owned by Shell and is now dwarfed by the largest of Ferris Wheels, called the Eye.
I would have seen the buildings that we always believed housed the secret Service on the back side of Whitehall and walk under the Hungerford Bridge  (1864) which carries the trains out of Charing Cross. I could see the Savoy with it's distinctive stepped roof and tell the time by it's clock before I espy Waterloo Bridge (1945)  and the shape of Somerset House on the northbank which used to house all the records of all the people born or died in the British Isles.
On the south bank is the festival Hall, built I think in the 50's and the Hayward gallery, not known so much for the art in it's galleries, but the skateboarders who have created a kingdom in it's concrete underbelly and covered it's walls in graffiti art.
Literally under Waterloo Bridge, is the BFI and it's weekend book sellers with their thousands of Used books.

hip hop dancing outside the National Theatre

Breakfast at the BFI with David

And then, be still my beating heart, there is the National Theatre with it's red shed, built to hold shows whilst the smallest of it's three theaters was out of action and now it just sits there. It is concrete, it is ugly, but sitting in it's purple seats have given me some of the thrills that have made my life so good. .
and all along this section there are pieces of the limestone pavement that have poems inscribed into  them.

Glide gently, thus forever glide,
O Thames! That other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! Come to me.
O, glide, fair stream! Forever so
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds forever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.

William Wordsworth
Remembrance of Collins

On the north there is the old Guildhall , the College of London, where my father went to school.Before he got evacuated to Marlborough, before he lied about his age and got into the RAF. (But that is another story)  Both ancient and red brick. There is the red paint on the Blackfriars bridge ( 1869), and the modern station they have now built alongside,that spans the entire river.

blackfriars bridge

 I would have walked by the New Tate and seen the small pockets of Silver Birches that feel like they belong in a Chekov play. The Oxo tower and the millennium Bridge, ( 2002)  where I would have been able to have had a clear view through to St Pauls Cathedral. The most unlikely survivor of the Blitz Bombing. The millennium bridge that was opened by the Queen and after she walked across it they promptly closed it down because it was deemed unsafe. Oh the beheadings at might have ensued if she had tipped into the Thames.
 On the right there are the start of the tall wharf houses and the sight of the odd glass structures of the new City behind them. And on the right the Globe Theatre taking me down to the green and yellow bridge of Southwark. And the Cathedral tucked in beside it. Where Shakespeare is buried.
God bless his wordy soul.

Southwark Bridge