On Saturday I popped into the museum for the opening of the exhibition. I was late and missed that, missed the boring speeches, missed the cheap red wine, missed the cakes, so I went home again before I didn't miss the washing up.
Today the first thing I did was wash up the left over cups!
The thing about art exhibitions is the people that this attracts. Tuesday mornings, especially dreich damp ones, are usually quiet however by not long after ten thirty I had dealt with ten people already! So it continued, art lovers, both local and distant arrived and will continue to arrive in their droves as long as the exhibition lasts.
When doing the war memorial it was clear most of the men in the village were agricultural labourers, horsemen or stockmen. It is no wonder that after three or four thousand years of such work the men took the chance to move to Canada or Australia for a better life! What future would there be unless you found an exceptional talent and the opportunity to use it?
No doubt that also enabled many to enlist in 1914. Several volunteered and occasionally one or two were already in the army,the temptation of regular pay and the opportunity to see the world too strong for some. In those days the army was a rough place to be but at least there was the chance to be rough in India or China, Africa or some other hot exciting spot. The fact that you might get shot didn't loom high at that moment.
In the late twenties when Bawden and Rivellious arrived the village would have been a quiet retreat from the big market town. The small village surrounded by fields would, in the Spring, offer a delightful opportunity for painters to wallow in country living and express this on their canvasses. Quite what the farm labourers really thought as they slugged away at twenty tons of potatoes or turnip while some chap drew sketches of them i cannot say. I know what might have crossed my mind however.
We have this exhibition on until April 15th so I expect to be an expert on these men and those who followed them by then. Just listening to the folks this morning was interesting, though few of them bought much from the books and cards we have on offer however! Bah!
4 comments:
I was quite tickled by the idea of bird watching in Essex....caters for a multitude of tastes...
I think life as a peasant anywhere must have been pretty awful. Imagine getting up at the crack of dawn to take the horses out all day in the freezing wind and plough the mud. I talked to an old lady once who was young in the 1920s very near Braintree and she said she always remembered walking along the lane and seeing a young woman in a field, working, the woman was about 20, and she suddenly stopped working and just stood there and she seemed so unbelievably tired and worn out and fed up that it even impressed this little girl skipping along the road with how horrible it must be to be a farm worker.
At least you didn't get out of the doing the washing up. You see, your expertise as doing it precedes you wherever you go. You'll just have to stop being so good at it...that's the only solution!
Thanks for your posts...I learn a lot from them. :)
Fly, I often indulge myself in this...until spotted!
Jenny, A German POW based up the road here told of the hand picked turnips and the like he dealt with in winter on local farms. Terrible work on poor food. Peasant life changed little for centuries.
Lee, I'm already washed up...
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