Under Dartmoor Skies and Beneath the Southern Cross

It is said that the best way of eating a mango is in the bath. I'm not sure that I agree, but I have taken to eating this delicious fruit for breakfast, along with a glass of iced water and some natural yoghurt. This is a change from the tea (at least four cups) and toast I have at home in Devon. When the temperature is in the high twenties by eight o'clock in the morning, as it has been for most of this week, your normal habits tend to change. For a start I awake very early, well early for me, around 5 a.m usually to the loud 'laughing' of the kookaburras who inhabit the Stringy Bark eucalyptus tree just outside my bedroom window.
Dressing is easy, I just pull on a swim suit and a loose sort of kaftan, flipflops or 'thongs' as they somewhat confusingly call them  in Oz, then I'm ready for the beach. All my housework is done by 7.30,  so it's on with the Factor 40, and I pack my beach bag with my 'sunnies,' beach towel, water bottle and Kindle, and hat firmly on head, I'm ready for the ten minute walk down the steep hill to Balmoral beach.
Getting back up the hill is easy because I catch the free bus service provided by the local council. It is called The Whale, and it will stop when you flag it down anywhere it is safe to do so on the prescribed route. If I use it about three o'clock in the afternoon, I share it with a lot of school children.
And a word of praise about these 'schoolies.'  They all, private schools or state, wear uniform, and they are all smart. The boys' uniform consists of shorts, open necked shirt, blazer, and straw boater; the girls' uniform is usually some sort of gingham frock, socks, sensible shoes, and straw hats, and they STAND UP on the bus for an older person. Some may think this mode of dress is hopelessly outdated. I disagree. It instils a sense of pride, and decorum (especially in the girls) which I think can be sadly lacking in the way the UK pupils dress. 
Getting to grips with the Aussie language is easy as it is, like the American language, loosely based on English! You must remember the Australians tend to shorten most things  - so 'this afternoon' becomes 'this arvo,'; 'sunnies' are sunglasses; BYO is Bring Your Own alcohol as many restaurants do not have a licence to sell alcohol. Conversely, anything short, usually a noun, they tend to lengthen, so if you're called John that immediately becomes 'Jonno,' Malcolm is 'Mal' and so on.  
Forgive me if I finish here after my 5 a.m start as it is after 9 pm, the darkness has fallen and the night is full of the sound of cicadas.
I almost forgot, I wish all American readers a very happy and safe Thanksgiving.
MJH

Under Dartmoor Skies and Beneath the Southern Cross

 

The view from the balcony of my rented apartment - Sydney's North and Middle Heads

 



A week ago I set out from my little Dartmoor village to make the long and arduous journey to Sydney, Australia. To start I have a four hour journey to London Heathrow, and departed from new Terminal 2, which is a vast improvement on Terminal 3 where I have previously left from.

My flight, twelve hours on a Airbus A380 to Singapore was long, boring and uneventful, which is the best sort of journey to make. No excitement for me. My transit through Changi Airport was smooth and conducted with Singaporean efficiency, with no problems about transiting for the onward seven hour flight to Sydney. I left on London Tuesday in the night, landed in Singapore early evening, and flew on through the night and into Thursday. I seemed like Wednesday lasted only about three hours! 

If there is anyone who, like me, has to take the journey travelling alone, and may have reservations about taking such a flight, please be reassured that it is not nearly as daunting as it may appear. Everyone, from airline personnel to fellow travellers, is friendly and helpful, and as is often the case, the thought is worse than the actual.

Having been in Australia for a week is like coming from the darkness of winter into light. I haven't yet been down to my favourite beach in the whole world which is Balmoral beach, and where I grew up. So for me it is like coming home.

 

Balmoral Beach from the Esplanade, looking towards the Island



 

The Tricolour and the Australian flags flying on Sydney Harbour Bridge



 

' my English friends warned 'Australia is a dangerous place.' Of course there are dangerous things here, but sadly as events in Paris have shown, in this modern world you are at risk anywhere. You just have to use common sense.

The appalling and tragic events in Paris has dominated the news since last Friday, and it was heart warming to see the French flag flying from the Bridge.

I'd like to finish on a good news story about the native koala bears. There is a large colony of koalas on Cape Otway in the state of Victoria. The population has grown so much that the bears were eating themselves out of house and home, and in fact were starving. Now wild life conservationists have captured about 400 bears and have moved them to  a national park where there are plenty of gum trees for them to feed on, thus saving those koalas who are left in Otway, and with the replanting of the native manna gum trees, providing plenty of food.   

 

 It's going to be hot tomorrow, about 39 degrees, so it's Factor 40 and to Balmoral beach for me.

Stay safe - and warm!





Under Dartmoor Skies - Remembrance et Vive La France

In common with many other little villages, towns and cities on Sunday in our 13th century parish church, we commemorated Armistice Day 11th November, the day in 1918 the guns of World War One fell silent. Ours is a very simple ceremony, there is no procession, the congregation stands and the last post is played, not by a trumpeter, but on the organ. At 11 a.m we hold our two minutes silence. I say 'silence' for it was a very windy day, and the wind blew hard and played havoc with the huge copper beech trees nearby where the rooks nest in spring and filled the ancient granite church with 'wooshing' sounds . Then the names of those men from the village who were killed in both world wars were read out by Michael Ash, followed by the national anthem - all very moving. In our prayers we especially remember the servicemen from the USA and Canada who came in such numbers in 1944 to Devon in preparation for D Day landings as well as those who fell in subsequent conflicts.

 

The following story is how I came to make a contribution to the Imperial War Museum. A few years ago I was working for a large national charity, and as I was in charge of closing a lot of little offices throughout Devon. One day a volunteer handed me a little black leather diary which had been found at the back of a desk in one of the offices due for closure. It was a diary for 1940, and it was full of poems written in ink during the years 1940 - 1942, and signed with the nom-de-plume 'Michael O'Dwyer.'

In the front the author had written "If this little book is ever lost, the writer of these poems would be very grateful if the finder would return it to the owner." There followed an address and a London telephone number. The phone number given was in the long since vanished London telephone codes e.g FRObisher, FREmantle, SLOane to name a few. All the poems were about the war in London, starting with the Blitz and how people went down into the tube stations to shelter during a raid, and continuing with the entry of the United States in 1941 with an entry about Pearl Harbour, the fall of Singapore in January 1942, and in the back the names and addresses of the many people he met, the vast majority service men and women. The last entry, I think, was in November 1942.

For many years this diary lay in my desk, for all efforts of tracing 'Michael O'Dwyer' had come to nothing. The London address had been crossed out, and another address in Devon was listed, so I had to assume that 'Mr O'Dwyer' had retired to the West Country. I followed this lead, but the only person who remembered Mr O'Dywer was the post mistress. She thought he had died 'sometime in the Seventies,' and as far as she knew he had not been married, there were no relatives, and the bungalow where he lived had long since been sold.

What should I do? In a strange way I felt solely responsible for this little book of poems, which had obviously meant a lot to the owner. As he was obviously a civilian during the war, there was no regimental or service link to follow up.

So, for many years it lay forgotten in my desk, when one day I came across it during one of my very sporadic cleanouts. Then on the BBC I listened to a programme about the Imperial War Museum in London, and I emailed Maria from the IWM. Much to my delight she expressed an interest in the poems, and on my next visit to London I made an appointment to see her, complete with the diary. 

I was so pleased and in a way relieved that Maria accepted the poems for their archives as she regarded the book as an important part of social history during WW2.

At last Michael O'Dwyer's poems has found a final home, and I like to think that if he knew he would be surprised and delighted. 

 

Under Dartmoor Skies - at Halloween

 

 Dartmoor at Dusk on All Hallows' Eve

It couldn't have been timed better, for just as the night was closing over the moor the mist came up from  the valley below, and wispy grey fingers reached out and enveloped everything in its path. It seemed as I walked back home the entire village and everything around me had disappeared. Spooky, and just right for Halloween.

     It was not too eerie for long though, for shortly after six o'clock the Trick or Treaters came calling, and of course I had my bag of sweets ready.

   Cheeky Tom and brother George



 

Where Have all the Hedgehogs Gone? Wherever they are they are certainly not here. Maybe it's because at approximately 500 metres, or c1200 feet above sea level we are too high for their habitat. A couple of years ago I took George and Tom to Mrs Tiggywinkle's Hedgehog Sanctuary where my name had been put on a waiting list to 'Adopt a Hedgehog.'

     At last, after a wait of about three months, the great day came, and Tom, George and I set forth to collect our hedgehog, complete with an old baby blanket in a cardboard box in the car boot. We called our new arrival "Pickles" - it was meant to be "Prickles" (very original!) but Thomas had a slight lisp and couldn't pronounce the R - and we arrived home and released Pickles into the garden. Off he went, scurrying into the undergrowth and he was never to be seen again - ever. After reading up on hedgehogs I was amazed to learn that they can  walk up to three miles in their nocturnal ramblings, so maybe Pickles went AWOL in search of a Mrs Pickles and wandered down the hill to the neighbouring village.   

     I mention hedgehogs as the next big event for us is Bonfire or Guy Fawkes Night on 5th November -  not I hasten to add, do we intend to roast a hedgehog! Quite the opposite. For the last few weeks we have been gathering wood and now we have a respectable pile on the village green, complete with the inevitable guy. In these days of Health and Safety everything is very controlled, from checking the bonfire for hedgehogs to a nominated Responsible Person to Let Off the Fireworks. Apart from the fire to keep the adults warm there will be a spicy punch to drink, then as the blaze is reduced to glowing embers, there will be a strategic retreat to the pub for a fish 'n chips supper.

 

 

 But if the weather is anything like it has been over this past week, it will not be cold.

     It is said that while the rest of the world has a 'climate', we Brits have 'weather,' and the weather is indeed a national topic of conversation, especially recently for it has been exceptionally warm for November. Last week-end I went across the road from my house, over the stile, and down a bridle path, and into a large field.   At the end of the field there are three or four enormous holly trees laden with a blaze of orangey red berries, and the temperature must have been over 20 degrees in the November sun. The trees were truly a magnificent sight, and if the old wives' tale that masses of holly berries on the trees means that we are in for a hard cold winter, then we had better start stoking up the fires already. I won't mind, because I shall be Down Under, sitting on the verandah having just come up from the beach after my swim in the balmy waters of the Pacific ocean, sipping my chilled white wine, and asking my son-in-law to throw another prawn (and Aussies, I do NOT mean an Englishman!!) on the barbie, please.

In the meanwhile, Remember, Remember the fifth of November

                              The gunpowder treason and plot ...

 

 and the plot still resonates today as there is the ritual searching of the cellars of the Houses of Parliament before each state opening of Parliament by the Queen.

 Until next week when we shall be commemorating Remembrance Day have a safe Fifth of November. 

Under Dartmoor Skies

Last rays of the sun

 

Last week end we put back the clocks and reverted to GMT that means it starts getting dark about 4.30 p.m. Time to draw the curtains, make a cup of tea and sit in front of the fire. It also got a lot colder, and suddenly there was an influx of wild ponies into the village. Sometimes they can be better than a weather forecast because they sense when the weather turns for the worse, and come off the high ground to seek shelter.

 

Today when I went for a walk I met Michael and I would like to tell you a little more about him. He is the sort of person that people describe as 'the salt of the earth.' He was born in a neighbouring village, and has lived in this village in the same woodland cottage for most of his life. A man of few words, he is tall, and as slim as a rake. Turn him sideways, and he wouldn't cast a shadow. A life long bachelor he works as handyman and gardener to many, including me. He is also the chairman of the Parish Council; a member of the PPC as well as grave digger, church warden, sexton and verger, and holds the ancient post of portreeve (the position of portreeve dates back to Saxon times and it refers to the guardian of the city gates.) He is the eyes and ears of the village; he knows the moor and all its moods, its customs, legends and laws. If there are any queries which cannot be answered the usual refrain is 'Ask Michael.' What he doesn't know about the village and the countryside can, as my French teacher once memorably remarked about my knowledge of French, be written on a bee's knees.    
The following is a short version of a conversation I had with Michael earlier this summer. We were 
discussing cleaning the church before a wedding, and I was on the church cleaning rota for that month.

Michael (in soft West Country accent):What about the poos?
Me (alarmed):What about them? What poos?
Michael: The poos in the church. 
Me: Have the sheep got in?
Michael (slight exasperation that I was being so thick): No, not the poos, the POOS!
At last the penny dropped.
Me: Oh! you mean the pews.

 Soon I shall be exchanging this season of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness,' and wonderful October starry night skies - we have no street lighting - for the bright sun, blue skies and the hustle and bustle of Sydney. In fact in just over two weeks I should be in Singapore's Changi airport en route for Australia. I shall have to get my skates on at Changi because my transit time is under two hours, and Changi is a vast airport complete with a train to take passengers between terminals. And why is it you always seem to arrive at Terminal 5, or something like that, and depart from Terminal 195?
But I will be here for Halloween, and I have my bag of sweets ready for the village children's annual Trick or Treat. I know there are many people who don't like this, and I can understand their reasons, but here it's organised by the Youth Club, and all the youngsters, small ones and not so small, come around in one large group accompanied by several adults. If you don't wish to participate, don't leave your light on by the front door, and you'll be left alone. As for the lanterns, there's a big debate whether or not you should have the large bright orange pumpkins favoured by our American cousins, or the more traditional ones carved out from a turnip or 'neep. Personally, I find the pumpkins soooo much easier to carve.
Now, where's my knife .....

Dartmoor Autumn

Dartmoor Sunset

We have had such a wonderful Indian summer, but now strong winds and swirling mists and evenings that are drawing in ever earlier have signalled that Winter is fast closing in. I have begun to light my wood-burner in the evenings now, a sure sign that the weather is getting colder.

For me however, I don't face the prospect of a long winter, because I am like a swallow(!) and migrate every year to the southern hemisphere - to the land of my childhood, Australia (and have been following with unapologetic enthusiasm the Rugby World Cup - Advance Australia Fair!)
In common with hundreds of grandparents in the UK who have a member of their family living there, my younger daughter now lives in Sydney with her husband and two children. In the strange twists of Fate they are living within five streets from where I lived, and my grandchildren swim in the same open air swimming baths where my sister and I learned to swim, although the old wooden changing rooms have long gone, and it is called The Enclosure.

There is a substantial migration in December every year when people who have family living in Australia go. The attractions are obvious - you escape, for a time, the winter; it is summer in Australia and it coincides with the end of the school year and the start of the long summer holiday; and obviously most working people have at least two weeks off work at Christmas. Of course there are drawbacks  - if you don't wish to stay, or it is not possible to stay with your relatives the cost of renting in Australia, especially Sydney, is very expensive. There are places advertised for (usually) grandparents to rent, and if anyone would like more details I can post them on next week's Under Dartmoor Skies blog.

Also, if you are travelling on your own, as I am, and think the journey is too daunting - because there is no denying it, it IS a long way and it is a LONG journey - please do not let this fact deter you. I have undertaken this journey many times, and have never experienced a problem ... watch this space!

Under Dartmoor Skies



Dartmoor Morning

From having been brought up in Sydney then lived in Japan and Hong Kong, Singapore and Scotland the northern reaches of Dartmoor National Park have now become my home. It is here where my two daughters were raised, and where two of my grandchildren live, and where I now live in a converted late Victorian coach house - or more realistically where the pony and trap were once housed - and where I now write.

My first efforts at writing were inspired by a tiny hand written and obviously home made red book which I found deep in the recesses of a walnut writing box that I acquired at an auction rooms in East Devon. It was written in  pencil by a little girl called Harriet in 1904 and was all about the 'pets' she and her brother William and her friend Alison played with at their house Clare Cottage in Kent. 

I wrote the story, and this was published by  the magazine Devon Life in 2009. This small success inspired me to further writing efforts, plus I really wanted to find out what happened to Harriet and her brother William. My journey to find their story  will be revealed later. What happened to William and did he survive World War One, which started exactly a hundred years ago this year? Who was Harriet, and how did she come to move from Kent to Devon. And what happened to her best friend Alison after they played in the Edwardian  summer of long ago? Perhaps some one out there can help me find the answers.

So this part of Dartmoor is my home, and the land has been farmed since prehistoric times. The village and farming community have been established here since the Saxon era. The village was recorded in the Domesday Book (1086) where one Richard 'has eight villeins, and five bordars, four serfs, four head of cattle and forty sheep ..... half a leuga of wood, eight acres of meadow, one leuga of pasture.' It was worth thirty shillings a year. 

The Beginning of a Turf War on Dartmoor?

Right now I am glad we have all survived the floods and gales of this winter. We have a strong village community of around 200 plus. Our village hall is the centre for many of the village activities, and such as it houses a post office which comes two mornings a week, and on one morning there is a thriving morning café where you can get a selection of homemade scones, cakes, tea or coffee and chat - and it raises much needed funds for the Village Hall. It looks as if there is going to be a rival to this coffee morning as there has been an application to turn an old disused Sunday school hall into a full time café. This will breathe new life into a building in need of repair. Will this take away custom from our much loved weekly Café, and  therefore take away the Village Hall custom? Is this the beginning of a Turf War on Dartmoor? Should we be worried, or will there be enough business for all?

I like to think so - it is a very pretty village and we gets loads of visitors and moor walkers, and not just in the summer - they come all the year round. Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing? It would be interesting to hear. Most residents welcome the proposed new café, however some are against the venture, and fear an increase in the road traffic and possible parking congestion.  Oh  dear - the old hot potato Village Politics? There is a meeting of the Village Hall committee tonight when the new café is on the agenda. As a member of the committee I shall be there so I will be able to report back in my next blog in two weeks how the potential Wars of the Cafes proceed.

 In the meantime I shall keep my head down and look for the signs of spring. Even this morning I felt the warmth of the sun on my face as I walked to collect my post, and could hear the birdsong. Many snowdrops thrive by my front gate, and the first green shoots of the daffodils are thrusting through the dark soil. The daffodils 'that come before the swallows dare, and take the winds of March with beauty.' A Winter's Tale is nearly over.

See you in two weeks,

Mary Jane.