2012 Annual Review

We have had a year of great happiness sandwiched between great sadness: two family funerals, a wedding and birth. We have also enjoyed waves of invasions of small mobile people searching for crabs, swings and angry birds.

The year was not many weeks old when Jonathan’s father Paul collapsed and died at home, just short of his 90th birthday. He had been in decline ever since his last visit to Cornwall nearly two years ago. Thankfully we have the legacy of his writing from which his voice sings out. Felicity has gained a new lease of life and visited us in April and then travelled to Switzerland on her own, much to the surprise and delight of her children.

Italy featured strongly in our overseas trips. Straight after Paul’s funeral we visited Rome, Pompei and Herculaneum with 26 Truro High School girls; it was not what you would call a ‘quiet’ break. Jonathan was pleased to note that it was 55 years since he last visited Pompei. Kate passed through Italy again in March when she grabbed a short break skiing in Switzerland.

Our major summer holiday in July involved cycling the armpit of the Adriatic: from Venice via Slovenia to Poreč in Croatia. Regular readers will know that we found the Danube route fairly flat; this was not, but the scenery was fabulous and cycling into Venice and then along the lagoon was stunning.

Jonathan missed all the Jubilee fun by heading to Bardejov, a World Heritage Site in Slovakia, where he was leading a tourism project. Meanwhile, Kate revelled in the first of the year’s invasions of small people demanding beaches, ice creams and guinea pigs. This set a pattern for the summer, allowing her to indulge her grandparenting skills and to teach the noble art of crabbing. Olly and Lana (now three and two respectively) are a delight and enjoy rock pools, sand and water-play almost as much as their grandmother and parents. Surfing and sailing cannot be far off. 
 
A real highspot of the year was Peter and Rebeka’s wedding in September at Marlow church where Kate’s parents used to worship. The event and weather were glorious with a very upbeat Polish flavour: just don’t ask about the vodka or the traffic jams but note the Top Trumps. For once, the happy couple were not allowed to sing a duet at a family wedding while we had the wonderful experience of sitting on ‘the other side of the church’ with few responsibilities.
Another delight was the arrival of Thomas Menmuir who decided to share his mother Emma’s birthday in September after a mere 31 weeks. The hospital did wonders and he eventually returned to the bosom of his family where he is daily growing. His small size makes his sister and cousin – Mischief and Mayhem - look grown-up in comparison.

Ah, you will be wondering, what do they do with the rest of their year? We still seem to be working full time. Kate is teaching Year 5 girls at Truro High School while Jonathan continues to run the award-winning Maritime Museum. This year his work included burbling into a BBC microphone for the Olympic Torch Relay and a ‘starring’ role driving a boat for the Antiques Roadshow. Neither of us is immune to the effects of the recession or the nonsenses of government policy but we soldier on. The weather hardly made it a year for great sailing but, when we could, we escaped to enjoy the wonders of this county, exploring clifftops, standing stones and ancient pathways.

The year ended as it began with sad news: Jonathan’s brother-in-law Merrick Fall died peacefully and suddenly at home in Switzerland this month. Our thoughts are with the family. But, looking ahead, we are crossing our fingers for Claire and Nick who should be following Emma and Wyl, by adding another grandchild early in the new year.

We will end as we always do: we have a large house in a wonderful county, our friends are always welcome. The sun always shines in Cornwall – when it is not raining.

Much love to all our friends from Kate and Jonathan.

See the link alongside for a fuller slideshow of the year.

Growing larger

Welcome Tom

The best birthday present a mother could have, even if he was about two months early. Young Tom arrived on 24 September.

After an anxious few days, he seems to have settled down and is starting to get accustomed to this strange world of ours.

His uncle suspects he may be a candidate for the front-row; his sister that he could be a good playmate and his grandfather that he is not quite ready to sit out on the trapeze.

Our love to the growing family.

Marriage Counsel

Congratulations to Peter and Rebeka Griffin

Marriage is like a meal,
With first of all the soup -
Foretaste of what you're going to feel.
Next stage when, cock-a-hoop,
You pounce upon your prey,
Is known as the entree.

The main course lasts for years;
You'll find there's quite enough,
But it's important that each perseveres
Through tender and through tough;
For after, as a treat,
You'll much enjoy the sweet.

And following this spread
There's coffee, peace, and kind things said
Before you go to bed.


Poem copyright, the estate of Paul Griffin

Cycling the 'armpit' of the Adriatic

Another little holiday comes to an end: cycling from Venice, through Portoroz in lovely Slovenia, and on to Porec in Croatia. Three pieces of advice: do follow this route as some of it is stunningly beautiful; don't cycle this route in near 30 degree heat without gallons and gallons of cold water to hand; and don't visit Croatian villages by bicycle as they are invariably on the tops of steep hills. Enjoy!

Nebra Sky Disc

Every now and then one comes across an item of real beauty which stops you in your tracks. It was a great pleasure to the Nebra Sky Disk to my list recently. The replica of the Nebra Sky Disk appeared in the National Museum Museum Cornwall in 2012 to accompany our Bronze Age boat exhibit. In 2022, the original featured in the Stonehenge exhibition at the British Museum. The interest in this amazing object is both intellectual as aesthetic: solving the puzzle of its history for it is probably the earliest depiction of the heavens so far found.

One of the great joys of the Bronze Age is that there is plenty of space for the amateur to speculate, safe in the knowledge that no one is going to say definitively that one is right or wrong. And it is to the Middle Bronze Age that we must turn: some time after 1600 BC, somewhere in the wilds of what was once Eastern Germany, on the 252 metres (827 ft) high Mittelberg hill just outside a small village called Nebra 60km to the west of Leipzig. In some sort of  ceremony a collection of two bronze swords, two small axes, a chisel and fragments of spiral bracelets were placed on the ground in front of a 32cm disk of copper covered with gold decorations which was carefully propped up against some stones. The hoard was covered over and forgotten for a few thousand years.

Skip forward to 1999 and two men with metal detectors got a signal from their machines and attacked the ground with a pick axe. Eventually they retrieved the hoard and spirited it away to try and sell in the illegal art market. Apparently metal detectors were the new toy to have in post-Communist East Germany and the countryside was being swept by people keen to turn a dishonest Euro by selling artefacts into the art trade, depriving archaeology of important information.

What followed was the stuff of a detective story with police and museums picking up rumours of a spectacular find; of the objects changing hands for ever increasing values; and of the police eventually picking up a lead. At a dramatic meeting in the Hilton Hotel in Basel, Switzerland, the police arrested and charged two people and the hoard was recovered. The finders cooperated with archaeologists before spending time in prison and the site of the find was extensively excavated.

The discovery site turned out to be in the middle of a prehistoric enclosure hidden away in what is now the Ziegelroda Forest but must once have been an open space. The area would have been on a north-south trade route with amber, copper, tin and gold thought to have been traded in this area in the Middle Bronze Age. Within sight of the hill were two 'magical' hills and a variety of henge monuments have been found in the wider area.

The treasure-hunters damaged the disc with their pickaxes when they removed it from the ground, denting the top left hand side and tearing off part of the ‘sun’ disc. They then tried to clean it, scratching the surface. The left hand arc was never found and the thought is that this must have come unstuck in ancient times. A small piece in wood found in one of the swords allowed scientists to date the hoard to around 1600 BC.

This is where the fun begins for now archaeologists and scientists had to try and work out what this strange object was, what it meant and how it might have been used. They quickly identified five stages for its creation shown by the way in which the symbols were arranged and the composition of the metals. What follows is the generally accepted view of its history. What it depicts and its purpose are the subject of wider speculation.

Stage 1: an indicator of the equinoxes?
The first stage seem to have been an indicator of the spring and autumn equinoxes which would have been useful for judging the best times for sowing and harvesting crops. As one German scientist remarked 'the winters are pretty grey and overcast in that part and it would be difficult to judge the time of year accurately'. It sounds a great tourist destination.

When originally constructed the disc consisted of the bronze disc with what look like a crescent moon, a full moon (or is it a sun?), and 32 stars, inlaid in gold. The cluster of seven stars is interpreted as being the Pleiades, a very obvious group of stars in the night sky which are a familiar sight in the northern hemisphere in winter. They disappear from view around 10 March and appear again around 17 October, close to the equinoxes which were important times for sowing and harvesting crops.

The general consensus is that the round object is actually the full moon. If the Pleiades were associated with a full moon in the Spring then they would be associated with a crescent moon in October. I have certain problems with this idea since I would have thought they would have experienced all phases of the moon during the six months they were visible but I need to find a good astronomer to explain this to me.

In an era when survival depended on agriculture, as it had done for the 5,000 years since agriculture had been invented, knowledge of the seasons must have been essential. As the nights became longer into the cold of winter - and particularly the bitter cold of a continental winter - it must have been a constant worry that the year would descend into total darkness and consequent starvation. The turn of the year when the days actually started getting longer again must have been a vitally important time, only matched by the knowledge that seeds could be planted to be followed by the green shoots of the crop.

Any signal that helped mark the warming of the ground with spring, even through the murk of a northern winter, would have been a welcome sign. Shamans would have had an important role to play in ensuring that the natural cycles happened and that they were celebrated whether by divination or appeasement of the gods or ancestors in and around significant tombs. The sky disk could help to determine this point: the spring and autumn equinoxes.

That is the easy bit: the Pleiades are the companions of winter. When they have gone we can begin to look forward to warming days and summer. When they appear then it is time to batten down the hatches for winter.

The relative position of the Pleiades and the two moons might have been used to help identify these dates. But what of the 32 stars? Why this number and so they represent some other constellation or event. Astronomers compared the layout with the night sky and could find no connection although some argue that there is an alternative interpretation to which I return later.

The currently accepted belief is that the 32 stars allow for the insertion of a leap month which is needed every three years. The astronomy is complicated but suffice it to say that 365 days is not a whole multiple of the 29.5 days of the lunar cycle. The moon lags the sun by roughly 11 days a year (12 x 29.5 = 354). Sailors and fishermen know this because the spring tides appear in roughly alternate weeks each year. The theory is that to stay in step you need a leap month every three years but at this point I lose the plot as 3 x 11 is not 29.5 nor 32 but the astronomers have an answer to this which I have yet to understand. Suffice it to say, that the 32 stars could have been a way of calculating this leap month, reassuring the shaman that the Pleiades were in the 'correct' place in relation to the new or crescent moon. If so, then it was clearly a very sophisticated piece of equipment.

Stage 2: indicator of the solstices?
The next development went further. Knowing the equinoxes was one thing but what about midwinter and midsummer? The henge monuments would have indicated this with their equivalent of Stonehenge's heel stones aligned on the relevant sunrises and sunsets.

At some point two bands were added to the outside edges of the sky disk. These relate to the rising and setting of the sun in midsummer and midwinter and make the sky disc a device which explains how to find the equinoxes and also the solstices.

To add the bands meant that four stars had to be covered up. One was moved a short distance. The archaeologists suggest that this shows that the disc's use as a calculator of leap months was then lost, possibly because it no longer worked or because the shamans had lost an understanding of the system.

An off-the-wall suggestion is that it was not the knowledge that was lost but the sun. We do not know exactly when the great eruption of Thira (Santorini) took place but it is generally believed to have affected the climate. If the sun, moon and stars were blotted out by years of cloud, or the morning and evening skies were filled with dust, preventing an accurate sighting of the place of rising and setting, then the disc would rapidly have lost its utility. Pity the poor shaman of the time.

The bands  divided the year into four: the seasons. But here again, I have a problem. The disc would only work effectively if it were fixed to the ground and yet there are no signs of fixing and no signs of any alignment points such as notches.It would have been little use as a portable measuring device without some way of orientating it. Where is the mark showing where north or south are so that the whole could be aligned?

South is relatively easy to find on any day: it is either in the direction of the sun at its highest point - not very easy to measure - or half way between the sunrise and sunset. All you needed was a good sunrise and sunset, bisect the angle and there was south. Point the sky disk towards south and the position of the sunrise or set would give you an indication of how far the year you were like a giant portable sundial. Without a mark for south on the disk, this was not an option.

An intriguing idea, however, is that it could be used as an architect's plan for a henge. Imagine you were building your henge and needed to know where to put the entrances so that they aligned on the relevant sunrises and sunsets. You could wait a whole year, putting sticks in the ground to mark the movement various positions but it would have been much easier to call in the sky disk shaman. He could have told you exactly here to put the entrances, using the bands. Sadly, this would not have been terribly accurate, however.

The 82-83°angle between the midwinter and midsummer sunrises - or midwinter and midsummer sunsets - shown by the bands is very significant. This angle would only apply in a relatively narrow band of locations across Northern Europe, on a latitude which includes modern places like Bristol, London, Amsterdam or Warsaw. Nebra is close to this zone. This suggests that it was manufactured for use in these latitudes, ruling out the idea that it might have been produced by a 'more sophisticated' society in or around the Mediterranean. Mycenae, for example, was at its height at this time.

Stage 3: ritual object?
The next stage of the disc's life may well have been as a ritual object of some form. A third band was added at the bottom.

This device is very unusual and archaeologists think it might represent a boat, especially because of the little marks on the side which might represent oars. It was certainly added by a slightly different technique and carefully avoided any of the stars.

The image of a boat was often used with one of a sun in the Bronze Age on artefacts from as far afield as Scandinavia and Mesopotamia. The Egyptian sun god, Ra, is often depicted on a boat. This has led to the suggestion that people in this period believed that, once the sun had set in the evening, it was given safe passage through the night on a boat, to rise again the next morning.

Again, this sets the mind racing. If you lived in the middle of Northern Europe then how could you imagine the sun travelling on a boat? The natural place to invent such a myth would be on an island where the sun could be seen rising out of the sea in the morning and setting into it in the evening. If the sun went into the sea at night and reappeared out of it in the morning then the only way in which it could have got from one place to the other without sinking, would have been by boat. But in Northern Europe it would have disappeared behind a hill and reappeared from behind another one. How could one imagine a boat as being useful? The myth could of course have travelled but I would not have wished to have explained it to a bright Bronze Age child.

Stage 4: simple decoration?
The last stage of the sky discs use was probably as a simple decoration. About 38 or 40 small holes were punched around the outside of the disc, damaging parts of the decoration. The craftsmanship was lower suggesting it was of less importance. Perhaps this was done to attach it to something: a piece of cloth, a tunic or a post. The damage suggests that the disc was losing its power: it was not seen as being as important for calculation as it had been formerly. Or maybe they had finally realised it needed to be fixed to the ground to work effectively.

And then there was the burial. It was buried in the ground, standing upright with the ‘boat’, or south, at the bottom of the disc, and with its back resting against a stone. The other items of the hoard were laid out around it. No body or signs of a body were found close by. This was not a casual act or done in a hurry when invading tribes threatened. This suggests a deliberate and careful burial, perhaps with an associated ceremony.

What helps to make the disc so significant is that the image of the Pleiades and sun boats predate those from Babylon and Egypt, making it the earliest such depiction yet found. Up until now, archaeologists thought that detailed understanding of the stars and astronomy had started in the Middle East and that the Bronze Age society of Northern Europe was relatively primitive. The discovery of the disc turns this belief on its head and suggests that sophisticated knowledge of the stars was available in Northern Europe much earlier than previously thought. 

An alternative explanation?
I said at the beginning that the joy of the Bronze Age is that we are all allowed our own interpretations. Someone called Anders Kaulins has written perhaps the most complete alternative explanation. He agrees with much of the 'conventional' story set out above but argues that Stage 1 of the disk actually shows the solar eclipse of 16 April 1699 BC. This happened to take place near the Pleiades at the same time as Mercury, Mars and Venus were nearly in conjunction. The large object is indeed the sun. These planets, in his interpretation, are the three dots by the crescent moon. The dots to the left of the 'sun' are an interpretation of Ursa Major, the familiar shape of the great bear. Other constellations included are Lupus, Eridanus and Capricorn.

The choice of constellations in this interpretation seems haphazard. On 16 April Aries should dominate and yet is not mentioned. And why would anyone miss out the very recognisable and bright stars of Orion, or the Pole star which even a Bronze Age shaman should have worked out was the one star that appeared never to move in the heavens?

How was it made?
The sky disc is a fine object requiring many hours’ work to create. From a rough-cast flan of soft bronze, the maker beat out the disc until it was c. 32 cm in diameter. This would have been no easy task.

Bronze is an alloy of copper with a small amount of tin. Extensive research of the trace elements in the bronze has suggested that the copper came from an ancient mine near Salzburg in Austria about 350 miles away from the find site.

The tin is a different story. Research suggests that the tin actually came from Cornwall. We can be even more precise about the gold for stage 1: this came from somewhere near Carnon or Feock on Restronguet Creek, possibly washed down from the Poldice valley.

Manufacture of the disc in, or near, Central Europe seems likely. The heavier part, the copper, coming from Austria and the two minority metals, the tin and the gold, being traded all the way from Cornwall. Naturally, those of us living in Cornwall, prefer to think that it might have been manufactured here.

To unite three minerals from so far apart implies trading routes and, at some point, the goods would have had to cross the sea to reach mainland Europe. The discovery of the remains of a Bronze Age cargo off Salcombe is evidence that coasting transport was in use.

Knowledge follows trade routes. The sophisticated knowledge of the makers of the sky disc might well have filtered back to Cornwall. We cannot know. All we can do is stand on a high spot in Penwith, surrounded by the remnants of the Bronze Age, look out towards the sea and dream, wondering at the skill of those craftsmen nearly four thousand years ago, trying to understand what they were trying to tell us.

See also: Wikipedia, the Kaulins explanation,

Back on the trail

A bright sunny day and there is a choice between anti-fouling, varnishing, weeding, standing stones and exercise. With the threat of a holiday on bicycles in a few months, we decide that the time has come to see if the winter muscles can be persuaded to perform. So the Bissoe trail it is, only this time we start by going downhill to Point and Penpol, thus formally completing the full crossing of the peninsular albeit a few months (years?) after we did the rest.

It had been raining and so we were soon covered in brown measles, especially as one of us forgot that he is no longer a 15 year old boy and yet behaved as though he was whenever confrotned by a puddle or hillock. The trail has lost none of its charm and the Poldice valley remains one of the charms of the county: if only it was just a teeny bit flatter. But the return from the Fox and Hounds to Bissoe is worth all the 'uppy' effort.

14.88 miles and nearly 500 calories burned off. That is surely worth a pint or two, even if the boat still needs varnishing and anti-fouling.

The Tinner's Way - part 1

According the ever-reliable Craig Weatherhill, the Tinner's Way is the original trackway from St Just to St Ives, Hayle and Penzance. Starting in St Just, its line can be followed along the crest of the hills until the charmingly named Bishop's Head and Foot where, within sight of the Mount, the track splits to head for each of its destinations. En route, the track passes close to a wonderful collection of archaeological sites.

Mulfra Quoit

Being awkward creatures, we decide to walk from east to west and park at the foot of Castle an Dinas, now much ruined by the modern quarry and the folly of Roger's tower, and set off towards Carnaquidden downs. This trip is notable for a combination of some of the worst map reading for many years and a general habit of the Penwithians to move whatever path the OS claims to exist. We emerge on an open trackway which a bossy man tells us is 'not a right of way' despite it being marked as one on the map. He haunts us for several miles but eventually we emerge at the foot of Mulfra hill. Here another local appears to have developed a 'thing' about adders as she has seen one and tells us twice to beware. Eventually we find the quoit and settle down in the warm sun for our very sparse picnic. The gorse around it has been burned making the landscape look particularly bleak but the Mount is visible in a deep blue sea, Penzance is twinkling and the Lizard is also visible in the haze.

Oh, you want to know about Mulfra Quoit. Yes, well, it is Neolithic and one of the smallest Penwith chamber tombs. Sadly its capstone has slipped and leans at a jaunty angle. Around it can be seen the shadow of a mound which must have been about 11m across. If you follow our later trips on the Tinner's Way, you will see some much more typical quoits.

We return by another route, through Boscreege farm, missing Try menhir on the way, but emerge, back on the track again at the foot of Castle an Dinas, exhausted, after our longest walk so far; but the sun was glorious and we feel Much Better.

Distance: 10.21 miles; Time: 4 hours 8 minutes More pictures

Chapel Porth (again)

A blustery north-west wind and bright sunshine means you should walk on a northern cliff. We set off in search of a beacon, a headland and the world's greatest mushroom croque (think garlic and clotted cream). And there was, unsurprisingly, not a swimmer in sight.

3.9 miles at 2.5 mph and some rugby to watch while I doze in front of the box.

Message about Paul Griffin

Felicity Griffin has sent the following around to friends and family:

Thank you for writing. There have been so many letters from friends that it will take time to respond personally to all of them. All the reminiscences and memories, grave and gay, have been of comfort and joy to me and my family, for which we are sincerely grateful.

We are all comforted to know that Paul’s anxieties during the last few years are over, and that his end at home was so swift.

The funeral at Huntingfield and the reception among friends were a loving tribute to his life.

Thank you.

Paul Griffin - final farewell

On behalf of the family, may I say how very good it is to see so many people here today from so many parts of Paul’s life. He would be overwhelmed. Your very presence is a testament to the man and the way he could affect other people.

I do not intend to plot every stage of his life. Many of you played significant roles in that, giving to him and I am sure receiving something in return. He may never have told you how much he appreciated you. But he did. Very much.

We have given you a copy of his obituary as a simple account of his life. Paul Griffin: soldier, scholar, teacher, churchman, writer, husband, father and grandfather.

Instead I want to talk about the man himself, some of it through his own words as we are very fortunate to have these as a legacy.

His nearly ninety year span was broadly divided into three phases: growing up, teaching and then writing and preaching. Or learning, doing and communicating.

None of us here experienced the growing up phase. He was an only child who buried himself in books.

War broke out when he was seventeen. Finishing his studies at neighbouring Framlingham, he joined up and opted for India: a fine show of independence for a lad who had not travelled much further than 200 miles from Chingford.

His optimism must have taken a big hit when his new best friend was killed by a sniper. Tough on a sensitive boy in his early twenties.

By 1949 he was finishing at St Catharines, Cambridge. He had gone there to read Maths and swapped to read English; an early sign of the breadth of his abilities.

He was married. He had a daughter. He needed a job. What was it to be? He had written poetry and a life of writing would seem an obvious choice.

In a Man for All Seasons Thomas More advises Richard Rich to be a teacher. ‘And if I were, who would know it?’ asks the ambitious Rich. ‘You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public that. Oh, and a quiet life.’

Not a bad description of Paul’s choice for the next phase of his life either, although I am not sure about the quiet life.

He started his teaching career at Uppingham under the charismatic Martin Lloyd. Paul collected heroes – good men he called them - throughout his life and was fiercely loyal to them. Martin was just such a man.

But he wanted a new challenge. He achieved this by becoming a headmaster: first in Nicosia, then at Aldenham and finally a ‘more normal 9 to 5’ job running the Anglo World Language Centre back in Cambridge.

At all three places he gathered around him a loyal and supportive staff. Many entered his pantheon of heroes, inspirational people who welcomed the trust he showed in them and thrived on it. All seemed to unite under his leadership. I am sure some stayed on longer than was good for them because of the positive atmosphere he engendered.

One described him recently as a ’man to emulate in his devotion to duty and steadfast moral purpose … with an impish and infectious sense of humour’.

Another was perhaps more ambivalent for he named his dog ‘Griffin’. I have never dared visit Yorkshire ever since as I do not know whether I will be patted, kicked or made to fetch sticks.

Neither Nicosia nor Aldenham fulfilled my understanding of a ‘quiet life’. Bombs were going off in the streets of Nicosia and at Aldenham in the sixties, British youth were rebelling, wanting a much faster pace of change than Paul was prepared to give them.

It must have been difficult for a man who had seen his friends lay down their lives to preserve one form of society, only to see young people rebelling against such seemingly trivial aspects of it.

He did not always do things by the book. One former pupil wrote this week about the in-school Community Service that Paul organised for him in lieu of serious discussions about drugs with the Police.

The loyalty endured. A string of pupils and staff from both Cyprus and Aldenham have kept in active contact with him by email and visits, giving him a lifeline to the world outside Suffolk and enriching his life in retirement.

He had that Mr Chips ability to remember former pupils. He would arrive home and say ‘Joy, I have just met Smith JR in the street. He was in my English set at Uppingham. He could never really get the hang of Houseman’s metre but he went on to Cambridge and has done very well …’

He was a polymath. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible, Shakespeare, Dickens, all of English poetry, well, English literature in total. But that did not stop him arguing with a physicist about the Brief History of Time.

He was always learning and had an incredible memory. At different times he studied or turned his hand to gardening, fungi, trees, sailing, brewing, archaeology, birds – he had fantastic eyesight which probably helped with shooting at which he excelled; horse racing, cricket, rugby – he played hooker for Suffolk schoolboys; golf, tennis and so it goes on. Once he had mastered the intellectual challenge of each he was an expert.

This made him a fount of knowledge:  a walking encyclopaedia which was useful to have at the end of the phone. I rang him from work quite recently as I often did when I needed a reference or advice on the placing of an Oxford comma, and asked:
‘Changes and chances what’s the next line?’
‘I am not sure.’
‘Well, you wrote it’
‘Did I? I must check’.
He rang back a moment later
Changes and chances, 
Dirges and dances
This is the curious pattern of men;
Picking the daisies
Driving like crazies
Silent at breakfast and shouting by ten


Laughing and crying
Living and dying
Never the same for a minute on end;
Changes and chances
Dirges and dances
That’s what it is to be human my friend

‘You are right. It’s awfully good, isn’t it?’ He said. A typical example of Paul’s honesty.

When retirement loomed another hero said that that everyone should have two careers. He predicted that Paul’s second would be the church. In fact it was the church and writing.

Teaching and running schools had been a 24 hour task requiring total commitment and he had had little time to write.

He became a very active Lay Reader locally, ministering to communities in this area and especially here in Huntingfield. His Faith was fundamental to Paul throughout his life. His stories and poems are littered with references to God. One whole book is dedicated to poems of Faith.

His sermons or addresses were renowned for their inspiration and humour. I recall one in which he discussed our different approaches to sea fishing. Apparently I just tried to catch fish: he indulged in a mental struggle with the fish. He was more successful of course.

His writing which brought him a new audience through his regular contributions to the competitions especially those in the Spectator and the Literary Review; and in collections of parodies. Some were serious, others simply clever.

He had a sure ear for all the great writers, and could reproduce them at will. Kipling, WS Gilbert, Shakespeare or, I suspect his favourite, AA Milne:
Christopher Robin is drawing his pension
He lives in a villa in Spain
He suffers from chronic bronchitis and tension
And never goes out in the rain.

Christopher Robin goes cougherty, cougherty
Cougherty, cougherty cough
All sorts and conditions of Spanish physicians
Have seen him and written him off.

The physicians never wrote Paul off but he certainly kept them busy, showing a typically intellectual interest in the puzzle that was his body.

As a poet he was a true master of his craft and could rattle off the most complex triolet or sonnet on demand. His competition entries rarely took him long to complete: a flash of inspiration and it was there. Like the works of Mozart, another hero, they seemed to spring fully-formed to his mind.

Winning the Seatonian Prize gave him great satisfaction. It conferred academic recognition and reassured him that he was not just a jobbing parodist.

Poems had to rhyme, scan and make sense. And that was Paul all over: a traditionalist. What one of his friends called ‘The best of Englishmen’.

As well as his poetry, there are several books: novels and short stories. None was published because he was far too diffident to risk multiple rejection slips and was never writing truly commercial material.

Alongside Paul was Felicity: the perfect foil. She had fallen for his words and poems from India and he continued to write poems for her throughout his life, showing his love for her in the way he knew best.

They were a perfect couple for he was pretty impractical: domesticity was the one art he could never master through intellect. Even hoovering was not worth the family tension.

She, on the other hand, is a brilliant housekeeper and provided a loving home and endless meals for all and sundry. She mothered him, cajoled him – not always easy - loved him and devoted herself to his career, being drawn into the 24 hour life of a headmaster’s wife and caring for him to the last: doing her duty. The school bell does not stop in retirement and meals were always on the dot.

Without her, he could not function. She managed him for two thirds of his life.

We were a tight knit family, but there generally three children not two. The third, and sometimes it seemed the most important, had four legs. There are several poems about dogs: rather fewer about children.

Retirement was a happy time. A time to travel. Mum and Dad had ‘done’ the classical world from Cyprus and so they ‘finished’ the Mediterranean on a variety of cruises. He loved his adopted Suffolk and enjoyed the company of other retirees, working on song cycles or putting the world to rights in the back bar of the Crown adding his uniquely wry, Eeyorish optimism.

And he was winning competitions right up to the end. A letter arrived this morning confirming that he would not be winning the Seantonian again posthumously: they are not awarding it this year.

Mum could develop her own interests, the benefits of which you see above and around you. And there was pleasure in the growing family.

He put the delight of retirement very well in Happiness:
Happiness is being old
Watching others cope with tension
While we purchase with our pension
Joys too numerous to mention.
Youth is tinsel, age is gold.

Happiness is being grey,
Showing years without disguises
So that people say ‘How wise is
That old thing when he advises;
He grows wiser every day!

Happiness is watching youth,
Giving tuts and even titters
At their follies and their jitters,
Sipping at our gin and bitters
As they stumble to the truth.

Perhaps his most famous poem is the one that won him the Literary Review prize as Poet of the Year: Love in an English Garden

We loved, how many years ago?

So thoroughly we seem to know
The shapes of these autumnal trees,
The patterned shade, the sound of bees,
The garden perfume on the lawn
The light, the leaves, and there
The crumpled water on the pool,
Casually beautiful –

So thoroughly, we half forget
The circumstance in which we met,
When each on each was so intent
We could not see what gardens meant.

Love is not gone, but it has grown
Aware of growth itself, has known
How autumn crocus, golden rod,
Can turn our grateful hearts to God
And help this perfect place to prove
A living witness to our love.

Yet autumn brings another smell,
An ancient message we know well:
Compost and wood smoke, rotten plums, 
Wet grass, and old chrysanthemums,
A choir of smells that faintly sings
A requiem for living things.

This winter compost that we scent
Is food for life’s replenishment
But what of love? When we are dead
Can it remain, and lift its head
Triumphantly, some future spring,
With every other living thing?

How may we hope to find this place
When time has turned away her face?

‘You, your pupils, your friends, God: not a bad public that. And a quiet life.’

He was principled; he was intelligent.
He taught us; he informed us; he guided us.
He was his own man; not one to suffer fools; edgy and not clubbable in the social sense.
He could be ill at ease socially; always unsure of showmen and yet happy to be centre stage.
He was wry; he was witty; he was irreverent.
He made us laugh; he made us think.
He watched us grow.
He was my father.

We all have much to be grateful for.

‘May flights of angels sing him  to his rest.’

Paul Griffin

2 March 1922 - 29 January 2012

Paul Griffin was born an only child at Chingford, Essex, in 1922. His father spent his life in a London bank, except for service in the Great War. Money was scarce, and Paul’s top Scholarship to Framlingham College was a relief to the family. When the Second World War broke out, Paul, as captain of the School, volunteered in a scheme for public schoolboys to go to India and join the Army there. He was accepted and was still 18 when he embarked for Bombay. Paul joined the 3/6th Gurkhas, based at Shagai Fort in the Khyber Pass; he became a Captain at 20 and learned Pushtu. His battalion spent time in Waziristan and was then selected for Wingate’s Chindits in the jungles of Burma, a highly dangerous posting. Bouts of malaria and dysentery, coupled with his obvious ability, led him to becoming a specialist Air Staff Officer and a Major while still under 23.

On his return to the UK, he married Felicity Dobson, the sister of a Framlingham friend, Patrick (later General Sir Patrick) Howard-Dobson, and went up to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, to read English Literature. With money short, life was not easy. Their daughter, Angela, was born while he was still an undergraduate, and their second child, Jonathan, at Uppingham where Paul had been appointed to sort out the teaching of English. After six years, Paul took the post of Principal of the English School in Nicosia, Cyprus, a school founded in the belief that the Greek and Turkish communities could be brought together through education. He worked towards this end and showed great courage in walking the talk, making lasting friendships in all Cypriot communities. He was fully involved in local life and activities, including acting and reading the radio news during the Emergency under the pen-name Peter Lyon. He was awarded an MBE for his contribution to education.

When independence came, having lost staff, buildings and many pupils to terrorism, Paul returned to the UK, and was appointed Headmaster of Aldenham, where he spent 13 years. Through his dedication to teaching and to insisting on the highest standards, he inspired enormous loyalty and respect among those in his charge. These were times of great social change and youthful rebellion: a challenge for a man who had experienced the order and precision of the military life during wartime. He described himself in those days as a cautious progressive, for which in retrospect many of his former pupils will surely be grateful. Not unusually, he liked to walk the dog, but did he sometimes, as a rumour had it, almost prefer dogs to people? 

A new phase began with seven pleasant years starting a language school in Cambridge, before retirement to Southwold, in Suffolk. He had been writing sporadically ever since India, and won many literary competitions, contributing regularly to “The Spectator” and other periodicals. In so doing he came across a group of writers with whom he wrote a series of humorous books, including How To Become Ridiculously Well-Read In One Evening. After that, he published a number of volumes of his own poetry. He was awarded £5,000 for providing the winning entry in the Literary Review’s National Poetry Competition with Love in an English Garden; and on three occasions, the last as recently as 2010, he won the Cambridge University Seatonian Prize for Religious Poetry.

Throughout his life his religious faith was deep and uncompromisingly orthodox, and was expressed in some of his most moving poems. He enjoyed preaching, first as Headmaster and then as a Reader of the Church of England, and leading services in various parishes in Suffolk. While at Aldenham, Paul had joined the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, of which he became Treasurer (Chairman). He also devoted himself to the work of St Mary’s, Huntingfield, in whose Rectory Felicity had grown up and where they were married.

To everything he did he brought a fierce intelligence; while loyal to a fault, he was always more at home as his own man than in the role of willing subordinate.   In Southwold, many of the local Suffolk boys whose authenticity he relished will fondly remember him on the beach at night, with windbreak and tilly-lamp, casting his line for dabs.

Paul Griffin, teacher, churchman, poet, born 2 March 1922, died peacefully at home 29 January 2012, five weeks short of his 90th birthday. He leaves a wife, Felicity, and two children, Angela and Jonathan; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Walk to Ruan

A birthday and dry weather gave another excuse for the usual mix of Sunday, fresh air, walk and pub. This time it was a walk to the King's Head at Ruan Lanihorne (you will note that this blog is also becoming a guide to eating places in Cornwall). Feeling that we needed a bit more than a stumble from car park to pub, we parked in the middle of nowhere: well actually it is called Gare, a dead end on the Tregothnan estate (which does not narrow it down much). Here a rather large house and mature shrubs hints at past prosperity.

The bridle path took us down muddy tracks into the depth of Lamorran woods which are mostly beech, oak, sweet chestnut and birch - all bare at this time of year - emerging on the banks of the upper reaches of the Fal. Work had taken place to clear some of the undergrowth but it was clear that not much sunlight reached the woodland floor even in high summer.

A short detour led to Lamorran church, founded around 1261, refurbished in the mid 19th century and unlikely to have been used except for funerals since then for there are only three houses alongside and one of those is the rectory. It is undeniably pretty though, tucked away on a small muddy, tidal creek, and has an unusual, detached belfry. Upstream is a damned pool whose purpose is unclear but is home to two swans.

On from there to Sett Bridge, effectively the head of navigation of the Fal from where we canoed home on one occasion. Here we met Judith and Richard and headed off for a celebratory and yummy lunch in the King's Head (highly recommended). We had barely got past item seven on the agenda before we had to cut short Any Other Business and Date of Next Meeting for there was a threat of dusk in the sky. The world will have to survive a bit longer without our having put it completely to rights.

We headed back for the thirty minute hike uphill to walk off our pudding. Such is the charm of the Roseland that GPS signals do not reach that far and so I can only report that we walked for 90 minutes.

Happy birthday to the younger one of us.

St Michael's Way - part 2

Last week we left you, gentle reader, poised on the top of Trencrom Hill, staring blankly into the low cloud expecting stunning views of St Ives Bay across to Godrevy Light and southwards towards St Michael's Mount. This was harsh and so, this weekend, we returned to the hill for the third time this  year to prove that it really is a hill worth climbing and that there are indeed great views. From the top of Trencrom (or Trecrobben) you, or the giant that once lived here, could easily toss a bob-button over towards St Michael's Mount. From here, Iron Age man could control the isthmus between St Ives and Marazion. But enough history, let us get on with this week's walk.

There were four of us, one sporting some brand-new Chinese wellington boots, plus one four-footed friend who had thoughtfully fragranced the car so we were all in need of fresh air. The day was bright, the wind brisk and cold; ideal for walking. A quick climb up the hill followed by a check on the well and hut circles before we set off towards a charming converted chapel at Ninnes Bridge. Here there was a delightful small garden with a row of standing stones with their own little celtic cross.

Before long we found ourselves adopted by a large and friendly black labrador who decided he needed to show us the way. Nothing we could do would persuade him to return home and he confidently headed off in the right direction at every stile. Before long, we crested a rise and there was the Mount, directly due south of us. What a sight this must have been for the pilgrim heading for Compostela: evidence that Cornwall was a country of faith and beauty.

The path crossed fields, down into valleys and up the other sides, with stunning views down to Mount's Bay almost all the time. In the distance kites and a windsurfer suggested that even on a brisk January day some hardy souls were taking advantage of the conditions.

Ludgvan was our planned lunch stop but the pub was packed and food would take an hour. The black labrador was obviously a regular for he went straight into the pub as though he belonged. This gave us the perfect excuse to leave him there to drink his fill as we set off for the last leg towards Gulval.  No doubt someone would carry him out at the end of the day.

The country changed and we soon found ourselves on what must once have been the pre-A30 main road with sandy Mount's Bay fields on either hand, following the contour between the two villages, the roar of traffic a constant companion and nothing to ruin the view except for B&Q, Curry's, Halfords and the shambles of buildings that is Long Rock industrial estate. On the distant hilltop, Paul church beckoned us on.

Gulval is charming and clearly something of a Bolitho model village from 1895. We did not regret missing the White Hart in Ludgvan one bit for we discovered the Coldstreamer whose food was top notch, the soup, cake and coffee all being remarked on; in other words, everything we ate. Highly recommended.

Oh, all right, if you insist, here is another picture. Has earth anything to show more fair: Cudden, the Greeb, St Michael's and wonderful memories all on a crisp winter's day?

5.9 miles in two and a half hours.
The St Michael's Way story in pictures
The St Michael's Way map

St Michael's Way - part 1

On a day when the cloud was down to ground level - an Englishman might say it was almost raining - we tackled the northern end of the St Michael's Way. This runs from Lelant to St Michael's Mount by a route which is said to be the part of the route to Compostela if you are Irish. Landing at Lelant at the head of the Hayle river, you would walk across to Mount's Bay and from there catch a boat across to Brittany.

Anyone who followed the marked trail had serious geographical problems as it starts by going along the coast for 3km northwest when you really want to go due south. We ignored the northerly bit, parked in Carbis Bay and headed uphill to Knill's monument, raised to celebrate the life of a former mayor of St Ives. His motto was Nil Desperandu (sic) and we were glad of the reassurance having been promised spectacular views over St Ives Bay towards Godrevy light.

The views, as you can probably see, lacked the promised clarity. Onwards along paths and roads, across a camp site and paddock; past a barn and out into a field where the Beersheba menhir stood 3m high.

From here there is a charming little downhill path, everything a Cornish path should be: squelchy mud underfoot, a stone wall either side and covering shelter of black and hawthorns. This took us past a lonely cottage where camellias blossomed until we emerged by the bowl stone. This magnificent stone was one of many tossed by the giant of Trencrom hill: a perfectly smooth pebble no doubt collected from the beach.

Crossing the road, we made our way uphill once more in a field which was full of other smaller pebbles the giant had tossed aside and a large herd of bulls who had so churned and manured the ground that boots got stuck and panic nearly set in. Emerging on the far side, we thankfully mounted the grounds of the hill itself, entering the fort through the eastern gateway with its large gate posts. The fort has a lovely surface of short-cropped grass with rock outcrops and the hints of hut circles to tantalise the archaeologist. Around the crown of the hill is a well-brackened defensive wall.No doubt on sunny days one can enjoy the views of Mount's and St Ives Bays but this was not one of those days.

A biscuit revived us before a short exploration of the 300BC fort including one of its wells (the other is said to be too well hidden and anyway, we were tired after our fight with the mud).

The return journey took us back to the menhir, thoughtfully obvious on the crest of the opposite hill, through the camp site and then across country on a contour walk through more Cornish paths before emerging tired but refreshed in Carbis Bay three hours after we had started.

No doubt someone will explain why, as well as camellias, we saw osteospermum, campanula, lithodorum and campion in flower in the first week of January.

New year ...

Our guests have had enough. They have left and the new year has arrived with rain and a watery sun. The rubbish monster has been honoured with yet another dose of empty bottles, cardboard, bin bags and dirty nappies. Henry has been fed, refilled, fed again (Raisins 476, Cheerios 505; dead flies 535). Bathrooms re cleaned; towels washed; cots moved; floors scrubbed; Christmas cards, tree and lights removed.

Tomorrow is a work day once again as the cycle of the year begins again and the memories of the past festivities become dimmer with time. Images remain to jolt our us to remember.