Minding the gap
Dec. 5th, 2025 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustLast Friday we went to our one and only event in the Books on Tyne Festival: On Sycamore Gap: Words of Music, Loss, Hope & Renewal with poet Kate Fox and musicians Staithe. Here's the listing on the festival website.
The starting point is the book Kate gave us when we saw her on Lindisfarne at midsummer, a collection of poems arising from the felling of the sycamore tree that used to grow on Hadrian's Wall. It's a nice little book: attractive production, abundant simple but pleasing illustrations by printmaker Cat Moore and, yes, I liked the poems too. I'm sceptical about the outpouring of emotion over the felling of the tree: it leaves a gap in our landscape, but how much of its fame comes from its (entirely fake) role in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves? I always wondered why a tree had been allowed to grow in the stonework of Hadrian's Wall: it couldn't be good for it, surely? But that's sycamores for you, turn your back for a moment and a tiny seedling has become a tree. I was reassured by Kate's explanation that she had been approached by the publisher, it would not have occurred to her to propose a book on the subject; and I enjoyed her appreciation of how important the tree was in how many ways, tempered by just enough distance. I appreciated her take on the tree's unexpected place in heritage marketing (in her poem on John Clayton, the antiquarian who may have planted the tree).
Here's a glowing review (by - oh, goodness, it's by Julie Ward; long story). It conveys much of what is good about the book, but its praise gives away some of my reservations - it's a perfect gift, apparently. (And I admit, it is).
Given the involvement of Staithe, I had expected a poetry reading with songs; and that's how the first half of the evening went (because, said Kate, "we are our own support act.") But the main event was constructed as a whole: Staithe's Nick Pierce, introducing it, told us it might provoke strong emotions, and this was all right (oh, dear!) but also invited us to save our applause until the end (which we mostly did). Staithe are a duo, new to me, but I realised that I had heard Bridie Jackson before with her band Bridie Jackson and the Arbour: not my music of choice, but it worked well as counterpoint to Kate's words (what was that thing that Nick Pierce was playing? The internet tells me he is a viola player: was it an electric viola?).
I enjoyed the performance, but I was not overcome by strong emotions. This may indicate hardness of heart on my part - but I note that the passage that provoked the entire audience to spontaneous applause was Kate's "Alan Bennett monologue" as one of her fellow attenders in the public gallery at the trial.
The starting point is the book Kate gave us when we saw her on Lindisfarne at midsummer, a collection of poems arising from the felling of the sycamore tree that used to grow on Hadrian's Wall. It's a nice little book: attractive production, abundant simple but pleasing illustrations by printmaker Cat Moore and, yes, I liked the poems too. I'm sceptical about the outpouring of emotion over the felling of the tree: it leaves a gap in our landscape, but how much of its fame comes from its (entirely fake) role in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves? I always wondered why a tree had been allowed to grow in the stonework of Hadrian's Wall: it couldn't be good for it, surely? But that's sycamores for you, turn your back for a moment and a tiny seedling has become a tree. I was reassured by Kate's explanation that she had been approached by the publisher, it would not have occurred to her to propose a book on the subject; and I enjoyed her appreciation of how important the tree was in how many ways, tempered by just enough distance. I appreciated her take on the tree's unexpected place in heritage marketing (in her poem on John Clayton, the antiquarian who may have planted the tree).
Here's a glowing review (by - oh, goodness, it's by Julie Ward; long story). It conveys much of what is good about the book, but its praise gives away some of my reservations - it's a perfect gift, apparently. (And I admit, it is).
Given the involvement of Staithe, I had expected a poetry reading with songs; and that's how the first half of the evening went (because, said Kate, "we are our own support act.") But the main event was constructed as a whole: Staithe's Nick Pierce, introducing it, told us it might provoke strong emotions, and this was all right (oh, dear!) but also invited us to save our applause until the end (which we mostly did). Staithe are a duo, new to me, but I realised that I had heard Bridie Jackson before with her band Bridie Jackson and the Arbour: not my music of choice, but it worked well as counterpoint to Kate's words (what was that thing that Nick Pierce was playing? The internet tells me he is a viola player: was it an electric viola?).
I enjoyed the performance, but I was not overcome by strong emotions. This may indicate hardness of heart on my part - but I note that the passage that provoked the entire audience to spontaneous applause was Kate's "Alan Bennett monologue" as one of her fellow attenders in the public gallery at the trial.
