Kipling Gardens

The Kipling Gardens were once part of the Elms which was from 1897 – 1902 the home of the  writer Rudyard Kipling. Kipling rented the house for 3 guineas a week and it was here that he wrote Stalky & Co, Kim and some of his famous Just So Stories. After Kipling left the house it was rented out to various tenants until it was purchased in 1929 by Sir Roderick Jones, the head of Reuters.
Following Sir Roderick’s death, the house and walled garden became derelict and in 1980 Sir Roderick’s daughter, Laurian, sold the house and the gardens were offered for development. The following year plans were submitted for six new houses with double garages on the site. Incensed at the thought of a housing development on the historic village green, Rottingdean Preservation Society raised £51,000, largely from a bequest, to buy the derelict garden.
During the next three years the walls were renovated, the brick paths laid and the wilderness cleared and planted. In 1986 the Victorian-style series of walled grdens were formally handed over, in trust, to the then Brighton Borough Council to maintain in good order as an ornamental garden for the benefit of the villagers and other visitors. The Preservation Society continues to take a keen interest in the Gardens and contributes financially to special projects.
http://www.rottingdeanpreservationsociety.org.uk/the-kipling-gardens/

 “This is a brief life, but in its brevity it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.”
 “There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Among the many interesting monuments in the Chichester Cathedral is the fourteenth century table tomb on which lie the effigies of Richard Fitzalan Earl of Arundel (1313-1376), and his second wife Eleanor of Lancaster (1318-1372), holding hands. This is the tomb which inspired the poet Philip Larkin to write his poem : 'An Arundel Tomb'.

An Arundel Tomb

 

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would no guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-littered ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigures them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

PHILIP LARKIN

Barley

Oh Good Ale

It is of good ale to you I'll sing
And to good ale I'll always cling,
I like my mug filled to the brim
And I'll drink all you'd like to bring,
O, good ale, thou art my darling,
Thou art my joy both night and morning.
It is you that helps me with my work
And from a task I'll never shirk
While I can get a good home-brew,
And better than one pint I like two
O, good ale, etc.
I love you in the early morn
I love you in daylight dark or dawn,
And when I'm weary, worn or spent
I turn the tap and ease the vent,
O, good ale, etc.
It's you that makes my friends my foes,
It's you that makes me wear old clothes,
But since you come so near my nose
It's up you comes and down you goes,
O, good ale, etc.
If all my friends from Adam's race
Were to meet me here all in this place,
I could part from all without one tear
Before I'd part from my good beer,
O, good ale, etc.
And if my wife did me despise
How soon I'd give her two black eyes,
But if she loved me like I love thee
What a happy couple we should be,
O, good ale, etc.
You have caused me debts and I've often swore
That I never would drink strong ale no more,
But you for all that I forgive
And I'll drink strong ale just as long as I live,
O, good ale, etc.

 Sung by Bob, Ron and John Copper on the Song for Every Season LP
http://www.thecopperfamily.com/

Airbourne 2013 - Red Arrows

Scaffolding

Caterpillar