Evenings by rivers, a week by the sea

[shewhomust]

Written yesterday evening at the kitchen table at Farne View, nine o' clock and still full - though not bright - daylight; posted, I hope, via the internet connection we have found in the spare bedroom, if you sit right over by the window. Ten to ten, and I'm writing by daylight. Anyway, add a day's distance to all that follows...

we - durham_rambler and D. and I - have reached Lindisfarne and unpacked our belongings and dined and done most of today's crossword. I have been out for a short walk, between showers, and found a fragment of willow pattern on the beach - a fragment with a boat on it, which seems appropriate. And we have a week ahead of us, which is a good thought to slow me down after today's dashing about.

Two nights ago we were in Sunderland - at Sunderland Minster, and who Knew Sunderland had a minster? - for 'Song of the Shipyards', a compilation of film clips accompanied by music from the Unthanks. Odd to be sitting in a church with a glass of wine, being sung to and watching men at work building ships, and elegant ladies launching them (because evidently the launch was the moment in the construction of a ship most often thought worth filming). At one point the film came with its own sung soundtrack, and I thought, "I know that voice" (it wasn't until the credits I realised it was Alex Glasgow). The project sprang from Tyneside, and the Unthanks were properly apologetic about bringing something so Tyne-centric to Wearside. ("The biggest shipbuilding town in the world," my father used to say. There were places where more ships were built, but all of them cities. I often wonder what he would make of the trnsformation of Sunderland into a city - and a university city at that.)

Last night we were at 'One night in Gateshead' at the Sage. We've been to a series of concerts under that title at which older folk musicians perform and talk about their lives and careers: it was, I think, one of the things Kathryn Tickell set up when she became Artistic Director at Folkworks. Last night was Kathryn Tickell's own 'One night in Gateshead' and it was completely different, a game of three halves. The "main concert" (according to the programme) was a series of arrangements, each based on a folk song and played by the Northern Symphonia (now, apparently, and for reasons I have not yet discovered, the Royal Northern Symphonia. This was presented as a Good Thing. But I digress..) At first I felt that these didn't come off, that they were neither one thing nor the other, but the later ones were more successful, Bobby Shaftoe, Bonny at Morn and a triumphant Water of Tyne. This concert was preceded by Philip Trevelyan's short film, made in the 1960s, of the 'Ship Hotel - Tyne Main' (which durham_rambler and I recognised as the pub where we had lunched the day we bought the car), film of another country where everyone smoked and men wore ties, and people sang in pubs. And it was followed by an extraordinary grab-bag of local celebration - for Kathryn Tickell is also a major force behind the current Festival of the North East - with primary school children singing Tyneside music hall songs, and David Almond reading a piece he had written for the Guardian about the power of usng dialect, and dance and Kathryn's new band and...

After which I'm ready for a few days' rest.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

One night in Gateshead makes a hard man humble...

I remember that beach at Lindisfarne; the flotsam and fragments of all the stuff was fascinating. So cool that you found a lovely piece of daily life. And then there were the seals singing...apparently they don't do that very often.

Email sent...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I can see you've sent an e-mail, but can't get through to the mail. Patience...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the boats - I'm afraid the comments get old very quickly, for me...

And the seals sang All The Time; there were lots of them, too, more than usual I think.