Hilbre Island

Middle Eye and Hilbre Island from the Wirral Shore

At the mouth of the Dee Estuary, between the North Wales Coast and the Wirral, lies a fascinating island, or rather group of three islands, Little Eye, Middle Eye and Hilbre, which can be reached on foot at low tide.

The old Harbour Master's House
Separated from the mainland about 10,000 years ago, the islands, or Hilbre at least, was inhabited at various times. There was a monastic cell on the island for 400 years until dissolution in 1538, and in more recent times it was leased and then owned by the Trustees of the Port of Liverpool.

The derelict Lifeboat Station
In 1945 the islands came under the ownership of Hoylake Council, and then the Wirral Borough Council. Hilbre is now maintained as a nature reserve. There are still two private houses on the island, but they are not permanently occupied.

Lifeboat Station View out to Sea

Since I first visited over 25 years ago I have always wanted to stop on Hilbre at high tide, and yesterday I finally made it. I was alone, the weather forecast was reasonably good, the early afternoon high tide made it possible to go out in the morning and return in late afternoon, and it seemed a perfect place to clear my mind from current stresses in my life.

The Slip Way

Interior of the old Lifeboat Station

Fireplace in the Lifeboat Station

So carrying almost as much food as if I was setting out for Antarctica, with newspapers and a book in case of boredom, appropriate clothing in case of bad weather, there is nowhere on the island to shelter other than the toilets, I set off on the two mile walk across the Dee Estuary.

Fellow Visitor watching a Seal, in the distance the Welsh Coast The tide was clearly coming in, anxious that I had left it too late, with less than two and a half hours to high tide I walked briskly and decided to cut out Little Eye. As I approached Middle Eye I was met by a guide who reassured me that I had plenty of time, and informed me that I would not have the island to myself, two others were already there.

Wirral Coast at High Tide So I relaxed amongst the bracken of Middle Eye, and then leisurely strolled over to Hilbre where I found three other visitors who intended to stay over for four or five hours until it was safe to walk back.

Wirral Coast at High Tide, in foreground Middle Eye

It was a most delightful experience. Peace, calm, the seals bobbing in the waves, only a short light shower, and not a trace of boredom, I was rather sad to leave. On the way back I thoroughly enjoyed the view of the birds on Middle Eye, which I unfortunately disturbed, and then of others feeding on the mud flats, who took precious little notice of me or even of walkers coming out from the shore accompanied by dogs.

Middle Eye from Hilbre Island shore at High Tide

It was a fantastic day, one that will remain in my memory for a long time. Before too long I hope to do it again.

Seagulls on Middle Eye as tide begins to recede

Seagulls on Middle Eye as the tide goes out

Seagulls in flight, disturbed by approaching walker

Birds feeding on the mud flats as the tide goes out

I do rather like islands. In the past two years I have visited Madeira, Cabo Verde, St Helena of course, and a few islands in Oslo Fjord whose names I cannot instantly recall. Come to think of it I have hardly been anywhere else in that time. Obviously I am in a rut! Time perhaps to head once more for the continent, and I can think of two or three islands off the coasts of France that I would dearly like to explore.

"Almost Like Watching Brazil"

Exeter City team that played Brazil on July 21st 1914

The Brazilians, hosts of this year's World Cup, have acquired a legendary status in the game since Stockholm in 1958, when players with silky skills and exotic names such as Didi and Pelé won the first of their record 5 world cup victories by defeating the Swedish hosts 5-2.

What is remarkable is that Brazil had played what is regarded as its first match only 44 years earlier, in July 1914, against Exeter City, a mid table Southern League team. This match, at the Laranjeiras stadium, Rio de Janeiro, home of Fluminense Football Club, was tagged on to the end of Exeter City's tour of Argentina. The Brazilian team played in white shirts, but for the first time the famous yellow and green colours were displayed on their sleeves.

Brazilian publicity, with emphasis that Exeter was a professional team

The match was characterised in the Brazilian press as almost a David v Goliath contest, the amateurs of Brazil against a rather physical professional team from England, the home of course of Association Football. The fact that Exeter had been professional for only 6 years, and were in the lowly Southern League, was not given much attention! The result of the match seems to be a matter of some dispute, but it is generally accepted that Exeter lost. The Brazilian players were in those days of course all white, although the Exeter team had watched a team playing in junior football in Brazil whose players “were all niggers, as black as your hat, and most of them playing in bare feet”. (1)

The Exeter players returned to England as war began and never again played together as a team. Surprisingly they all survived the war, but some sustained injuries which prevented their playing again.

This summer, to celebrate the centenary of the match, Exeter City are sending a team to play in Brazil, and the city itself is commemorating the tour with a specially written musical production at Exeter's Northcott Theatre.

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1. Almost like Watching Brazil When Saturday Comes 157 March 2000

"Fornicators, Homosexuals, Obama Voters .. : Hell Awaits You"

Gay Marriage demonstrations in the United States

I was interested to see this fairly comprehensive list of doomed groups displayed on the back of this Christian fundamentalist protester in the United States.

Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims are apparently bound for hell. So too are Feminists, Immodest Women, Democrats, Liberals, Evolutionists, and of course Atheists, and a few other categories that I have chosen not to repeat.

This is a fascinating insight into the world view of contemporary American fundamentalist Christianity, transformed by three decades of politicisation into a rather mean spirited movement which seems to me to have little to do with the teachings of the founder of their religion, not to mention the desire of the American Founding Fathers to keep matters of faith out of the political sphere.

This is not the kind of thing I usually blog about, except that I too was brought up with a strong fear of hell's fiery furnaces, but now like Iris Dement am not so sure! The nonconformist world in which I grew up set itself apart from the "world" of money and power, represented in rural England by Parson and Squire, it was narrow-minded and at times hypocritical, but I think there was a kindliness and an absence of hatred which differentiated it from the man with the board on his back.

The Travels of Dr Dodge: Kampala to Cape Town in a little Ford Car in 1962

A breakdown on the road to Iringa, April 1962

From 1960, when he arrived in Uganda to take up an appointment as a pathologist at Makerere Medical School, my friend Robin Dodge accumulated a very large collection of travel slides. Over the last few years I have been digitizing these slides and have now begun to post a selection on my flickr account.

"RAB" Butler arriving in Nyasaland, April 1962 Over a period of 40 years Robin met but of course did not photograph Hail Selassie, met Lech Walesa and visited his garden in Gdansk, photographed "Rab" Butler arriving for a crisis meeting in Nyasaland, toured Hungary when few tourists did, and visited Afghanistan and Yemen when they were still peaceful and safe places.

Malay Quarter Cape Town, June 1962

In the course of his travels he also met and photographed many ordinary people, and these for me are often the most interesting.

On top of Kilimanjaro, June 1961

During his stay in Uganda Robin travelled extensively in East Africa, and visited Ethiopia and Egypt. He also climbed Kilimanjaro with a local guide and a single companion from the medical school, a rather amateurish expedition that from the perspective of a health and safety conscious world now seems rather foolhardy!

The Ford Anglia on the way to Iringa, April 1962

Perhaps the most unusual journey, and certainly the longest, was his trip in 1962, unaccompanied, in his Ford Anglia, through Kenya, Nyasaland, Rhodesia and South Africa. One of my favourites from that trip is the colourful breakdown scene photographed in the early stages(first photo above).

One of a number of ferry crossings, April 1962

Basutoland, May 1962

Basutoland, May 1962

Arriving in Cape Town he and his car were transported back to the UK. In 1965 when he moved from Sheffield University to take up an appointment at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, the Ford Anglia came with him.

Dr O.G. Dodge, Christmas 2011

L.S. Lowry and a Missed Exhibition

Portrait of Ann, 1957

Over the years I have made a number of visits to the Lowry Centre, "a monstrous memorial cultural centre in Salford" according to the art critic Brian Sewell, and before that to the University of Salford where the collection used to be housed. Each time I seem to have focused on something different.

Man Lying on Wall, 1957 On my earliest visits it was the paintings my young daughters found amusing, most notably the man sleeping on top of the wall, or "the man going to University" as my youngest daughter always called it. More recently it was the seascapes and the haunting self portrait.

The Man With Red Eyes, 1938

This time, perhaps influenced by revelations about Lowry's dark side, it was the stylised portrait of Ann, whose identity is unknown, and may not have existed, although Lowry always claimed that she did, or at any rate once had. This painting surprised the London art world when it was exhibited in 1957, and it probably would have surprised most of the people who flocked to see the recent exhibition at the Tate Modern which focused primarily on Lowry's representation of the industrial landscape.

I missed that exhibition, but have looked with some interest on the feedback on the Tate Modern's website. Most find their preconceptions about his matchstick men and identification with late Industrial Lancashire confirmed, some appear to believe that his work was a faithful even photographic representation of how the North was, or maybe still is, and some find it hard to believe that Lowry was a political conservative. Others, who appear to be in a minority are underwhelmed and sometimes scathing about his work, perhaps echoing Brian Sewell's acerbic review:

The myth of Lowry as a great painter will be given momentum by this unsatisfactory exhibition and the sentimental mush that it has already generated but we should treat his work with some art historical severity if we are ever to settle the debate. Lowry was not “a Wiganish sort of Corot”, nor a Boltonish sort of Goya, nor the Pendlebury Bruegel, nor any other grandee painter, nor was he Manchester’s recording angel. I do not share John Berger’s view that his pictures document the collapse of Lancashire’s industrial heritage between the wars and express the workers’ stoicism in the face of continuing decline, nor even that Lowry was trapped in the grim ethos of the Great Depression. His paintings were not about the nation’s economy; nor were they about pity and sympathy. Indeed Lowry denied that he had any feelings at all about the figures that he painted: “They are symbols of my mood, they are myself … made half unreal.(1)

Although I don't share Sewell's view of Lowry's work, I think he makes a good point. When I look at Lowry's paintings I am always aware that this is the unique vision of one human being, a man born in the late Victorian period who lived through the swinging sixties, detached, voyeuristic even, a man who always suppressed his own feelings and probably failed to connect with a single other human being throughout his entire life. That for me makes him and his work far more fascinating than if he had set out to document the misery of the industrial working class to support a social change agenda. Whether he is a great artist is not something I would consider myself competent to judge, but I think Manchester, or more strictly Salford, is quite right to be proud of him.

The Funeral Party, 1953 On my most recent visit I found that the gallery's current "Picture in Focus" is the Funeral Party, which was apparently inspired by Lowry's fascination with Pirandello's play "Six Characters in Search of an Author". This picture is the choice of the cleaning supervisor at the Salford Arts Centre who is probably far better acquainted with Lowry's work than any one else on the planet. In her explanation of why she liked this painting she pointed out the high heeled shoes, unusual in Lowry's paintings, and the woman with the smile on her face. "Perhaps she knew she was in the will" she commented.

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1. Brian Sewell on Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life, Tate Britain - exhibition review Evening Standard, 4th July 2013

All My Sons: The Talawa Production at the Royal Exchange

I have just managed to catch The Talawa Theatre Company's Production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons", now nearing the end of a very successful run at Manchester's Royal Exchange. Performed by an all Black cast, with the wonderful Don Warrington playing the lead role of Joe Keller, it was an engaging and powerful performance from start to finish.

The Talawa Theatre Company, founded as long ago as 1986 to provide creative opportunities for Black performers and directors, is now Britain's primary all Black theatre company. There is no special ethnic reason for the production of "All My Sons" by an all Black Company, its themes are universal: individual responsibility, conscience, and the relations of individuals and families to society in the large. Set in the latter part of the second world war, the play portrays the disintegration of a family amidst the sacrifice the profiteering and the criminality which coexist in modern war.

As always the Royal Exchange's Theatre programme is thought provoking, and this one carries a piece written by Arthur Miller in 1958 in which he acknowledged his debt to Ibsen,

If his plays, and his method, do nothing else they reveal the evolutionary quality of life. One is constantly aware in watching his plays, of process, change, development. .. dramatic characters and the drama itself, can never hope to attain a maximum degree of consciousness unless they contain a viable unveiling of the contrast between past and present, and an awareness of the process by which the present has become what it is.

Elsewhere in the programme Don Warrington and Director Michael Buffong explore the play's relevance to the the present, to the collapse of "turbo capitalism" and the need to find a way of living together that is not based on pure greed. "All My Sons' was written at a time when free market economics and individualism were widely considered to be an extreme ideology responsible for the pre-war economic breakdown which led to mass unemployment, fascism and to war. It was a time when many shared a belief that it was possible, out of the ruins of war, to create a better, more socially responsible world. I don't detect such optimism now, simply a cynicism about the politicians' demonstrably absurd claims that "we are all in it together," but that perhaps makes Miller's play even more relevant.

Anyway I hope this production is staged elsewhere, it deserves to be seen by a wider audience. I also rather selfishly hope that the Talawa soon return to the Royal Exchange.