Lost and found in the Spring garden

It has been a long, hesitant, process.

I look back at my diary and photographs over the two months since mid-February, bemused by the intermittent unfurling of Spring 2024, here in south west Scotland. Delayed by days and days of rain. Held up by low temperatures and with winds ‘like a whetted knife’. Hindered by the persistent chill of the wet earth.

Yet curiously it’s made for a good experience. I’ve realized that Spring is not just about the excitement of new growth. There’s also the matter of balancing expectations. For like it or not, Spring in the garden is about both disappointments and pleasures.

On the negative side of the balance sheet come the frustrated hopes. I think of the 60 allium bulbs of the variety, Purple Rain. They produced an astonishing display in their first season. This year all that’s to be seen is a clump of indifferent leaves. No flower buds in sight.

Likewise the clutch of Erythronium bought last year at Hidcote Manor, my all-time favourite garden. Carefully planted in a new border that we see from the kitchen window, all that’s on view at the moment are a few tattered leaves and a single white flower, albeit rather elegant.

Over the years, I can think of various splendid plants that were nowhere to be seen come the Spring. Here are a few from memory: Fritillaria, Colocasia, Arisaema, and Penstemon. Also shrubs and trees that never again came into leaf, like Japanese Maple, various Rhododendrons, and the dead stems of Eucalpytus and Cordyline. Winter victims all, that never made it to Summer.

Fortunately, the ledger has a somewhat larger credit column. Most things do survive and year by year we have more to see in the Spring, as new plants accumulate and existing ones bulk up, mature and spread.

Let’s focus on those that have done particularly well this Spring. There’s a good list. Early entries are the humble elephant’s ears of Bergenia and the ubiquitous St Agnes snowbells. They bring drifts of purple-pink and white, and I make a mental note to lift, divide and replant both in other places, spreading the love around the garden.

Those who follow these Dumfriesshire musings, will know that I am a big fan of epimediums and hellebores. Neither have disappointed this year.  They represent under-stated elegance and stamina, respectively. The former suddenly bursting into a sprint of new leaf growth and a profusion of delicate, horn-like flowers. The latter powering on from before Christmas and even now in the case of the Asiatic varieties, showing flowers that are turning papery, yet look as elegant when the seed heads form as when in their first flush of velvety softness.

Magnolias too have had a good year in 2024. My neighbour has several of them in his garden across the Pennyland Burn and favours the white varieties for their hardiness. My Stellata, bought for 90p on impulse at a supermarket checkout over 25 years ago, has been on great form. The mass of flowers on the Camelias also did superbly well, until heavy rain and wind left them lying on the ground, in a wistful carpet of deep pink.

Not to be overlooked are a couple of new arrivals this Spring. Blown or wandered in from who knows where. Popping up in an experimental semi-wild border, are the blue-mauve of Spring Vetchling, and the rich yellow of Coltsfoot. Contrasting gems both, and equally welcome.

Beyond these puzzles of things lost and found, thriving or struggling, there is something else to consider. For a garden is more than the sum of its plants. These form the elements, structures, scents and textures, but they also combine, when we get things right, into something far more complex. They create atmosphere, emotion, empathy, calm. They make for surprise or comforting familiarity.

Spring is the season when we wake up to this. The sharp greens and shimmering bronzes are heightened by the slanting rays of a strengthening sun. The rustle of unwelcome wind and rain sets us in a panic that blooms will be flattened. The constant interest that stirs as new growth emerges and old friends return. All these factors shape our overall sensory experience of every garden we encounter.

So this Spring, amidst the late frosts, the biting winds, and the occasional hail shower, I tell myself that the ledger is perfectly balanced. Never mind the periodic losses, or indeed the unexpected gains. If the garden as a whole is in harmony with itself, then the gardener is content, whatever the season.

Cicely y David: my play in Spanish

At the end of a beautiful spring day in Pamplona, northern Spain, I am in a local theatre, waiting for the curtain to come up on Cicely and David, my play about the early origins of modern hospice and palliative care. A niche topic, certainly, but 250 people have come along to this Spanish premiere of the work, and the actors are full of nervous energy, eager to hit the stage.

The story within the play explores how in 1947 a newly qualified social worker, Cicely Saunders, became involved in the care of a dying Polish émigré, David Tasma. Their encounter in a London hospital over just a few months, was to shape the foundation of a future global movement to transform end of life care.

The story of how I come to be here in Pamplona goes back to when the play was first performed and filmed in a student production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022. For when that five night run of Cicely and David was over, I had no idea of the directions the play would soon be taking.

Within months, screenings were happening in Germany, Argentina, Slovenia, and the Netherlands, as well as at various locations in the UK. The film was being shown in various settings – at palliative care conferences, as part of public engagement activities and also on training events.

The performance in Pamplona represents a milestone for Cicely and David. For now, a new stage production is happening – and in Spanish.

The process began when my dear friend and colleague, Carlos Centeno, Professor of Palliative Medicine at the University of Navarra, read the playscript and commissioned a Spanish translation. Soon afterwards, members of his palliative care team and research group (the Atlantes group based in the Institute for Culture and Society) organized a rehearsed reading of the play, as part of an annual away day ‘retreat’. Enthralled by the experience, the participants made the ambitious decision to take it to the stage.

No one involved in the group had any track record in acting or directing, so help was sought from the theatre training programme in the Museum of the University. Six months of dedicated preparation ensued, and as confidence grew, resources were obtained for three performances in 2024. The first at an international palliative care conference in Cartagena, Colombia; then in front of their home community in Pamplona at an annual University Theatre Festival; and later for the Spanish Conference of Palliative Care, in Malaga.

On the 8th of March the players received a standing ovation from 500 conference goers in Cartagena. Now, five days later they are back home and about to perform for a second time. Many of their colleagues are in the audience, along with people from the local area, and a large contingent of students. For my own part, I can’t quite believe this is all happening!

The stage setting is elaborate and carefully orchestrated, with all five members of the cast on view throughout the drama. The attention to detail is remarkable, as they add numerous small elements to personalize and enhance the visual experience. My Spanish is far too limited for full engagement with the dialogue, but I can tell how faithfully, and line by line, they have represented the original English version. The performances are riveting.

The play lasts an hour. There are moments of great emotion (‘I cried three times’ one student tells me afterwards). Carefully chosen recorded music adds to the experience. There are back projections, imaginative props and well-conceived transitions between scenes.

Above all, the palliative care professionals put in performances of great skill and emotion. In their depictions of dying, death and bereavement on stage, we see the cast’s clinical abilities turned into powerful drama. They create moments of tension and resolution, as well as humour and irony. Their facial expressions, gestures and movements are the product of deep experience in the real life world of pain and suffering, now brought to the theatre. It’s a remarkable achievement.

When the play reaches its rousing yet poignant conclusion, the audience members are on their feet, the cheering commences and the cast come forward to much deserved acclaim. I am even invited on stage to take a bow myself.

But that’s not all.

As the applause dies away, Carlos Centeno reaches for a microphone brings the whole crew out in front of the stage for a rich and varied Q&A session that unfolds over the next half hour.

People ask how the play came about, what it means for palliative care professionals to perform it, and how it brings a message to the wider public, using drama to stimulate discussion of a topic from which many still fight shy. 

I’m asked what it feels like to see the play performed in this way and in the Spanish language.  I can speak only of gratitude, admiration and the deep satisfaction that comes from further elaboration of a story that happened long ago, and which is still having such widespread consequences.

As we leave the theatre I ponder how, despite major challenges, palliative care continues to expand its reach around the world. I even wonder if perhaps Cicely and David can play some small part in supporting that unfolding process? Perhaps it can.

You can find this post in Spanish here: https://atlantescuidadospaliativos.wordpress.com/2024/03/25/cicely-y-david-mi-obra-en-espanol/

Acknowledgements: With thanks for the support of the Pía Aguirreche Foundation and the Campus Creativo program of the University of Navarra.

Photo credits: Jorge Miras Pouso

PERFORMANCE DETAILS

Venue

Civivox Theatre, Pamplona, Spain: 13th March 2024

Cast

Older Cicely: Ana Larumbe

Paul: Alvaro Montero

Young Cicely: Alicia Hernando-Garreta

David Tasma: Diego Candelmi

Woozle: Ana Paula Salas

Direction and Production

Vilma Tropdoro: Director

Alicia Hernando-Garreta: Co-Director

Production: Carlos Centeno

Technical team: Fernanda Bastos, Cristina Bejar

Music: Albert Recasens

For more information on Cicely and David, see: https://davidgrahamclark.net/cicely-and-david-a-play/

A direct line to Paradise

Newly arrived from Virginia, Henry and Charlotte were entranced by Westminster Abbey. They had just spent two hours immersed in this Gothic-inspired royal church, full of tributes, memorials, the graves of remarkable people,  and not least, with its wonderful mellifluous bells.

It already felt like this was going to be the holiday of a lifetime. A small group of friends on a guided tour of some of the finest churches and cathedrals in Britain, and this only the beginning. Slightly jet lagged, yes, but totally enthralled by the Abbey, they gathered near the door, sharing their reactions and excitement.

Then Henry spotted something.

Just to the left of the double doors, and elegantly placed on an ornate shelf, was a golden telephone, glinting in the light of newly lit candles. He and Charlotte moved closer, to read the panel mounted on the wall beside it. The wording was concise, yet intriguing.

Direct line to Paradise: £1,000

They looked at each other, puzzled, just as a smiling Verger approached.

‘Does anyone ever make the call?’ asked Charlotte in her soft Tidewater accent.

‘Some do’,  replied the Verger.

‘A few former Prime Ministers have been known to try. Nervous perhaps about their legacy. The Right Honourable Gordon Brown is one that springs to mind’.

‘And he made the connection?’ Henry now, getting curious.

‘Oh yes, but that was interesting in itself. Whilst some have complained that the person at the other end was rather difficult to understand, Mr Brown seemed to converse with them rather easily. Curious don’t you think?’

Leaving the question hanging, the Verger drifted away. He had more candles to light before Evensong.

Now it was time for the tourists to move on too.  The schedule promised an early dinner and early to bed. Tomorrow they were heading North.

***

Lincoln Cathedral did not disappoint, sitting magnificently atop Steep Hill and dominating everything around it. Early Gothic this time, and sometimes known as Lincoln Minster, its tall towers could be seen for miles around.

The visitors strolled through the cloisters, enjoying the afternoon sunshine. There was time for tea and scones in the café and then tempting retail opportunities in the warm stone and wood interior of the Cathedral shop.

Making their way to the early Norman arch of the West door, and lingering over the Romanesque carvings, something caught Charlotte’s eye.

Sitting on a stone plinth, to the right of the doorway, was a large telephone. It was silver and  catching the slanting rays of the sun through the stained glass. Charlotte was quick to move towards it. There in a few strides, she saw a small card, easily missed from a distance. Its message was clear enough though.

Direct line to Paradise: £500

As Henry walked across to her, Charlotte turned to a volunteer guide. ‘We saw something like this in St Paul’s, London, yesterday. More pricey than this though. They said it was working’.

‘I don’t think this one is, I’m afraid. Apparently some years back, the Dean and the Sub-Dean had a difference of opinion about what the charge should be. So in the end, to settle the argument they simply disconnected the phone. It’s still here though. Now part of Lincoln legend’.

Puzzled by it all, the two Americans smiled and re-joined their group. Was this something unique to British cathedrals? No one seemed to have seen it in the guidebooks.

***

Next day at Durham Cathedral, déjà vous was setting in. Now they were actively looking for the mysterious telephone. It didn’t take long to find.  This time the appliance was bronze, and it must be said, a little dusty. But the accompanying sign was clear enough.

Direct line to Paradise: £250

‘What’s going on Charlotte. Has every Cathedral in Great Britain got this same set-up? And why does the price keep going down?’ 

‘It’s  a mystery to me too Henry. Let’s ask in the shop’.

The attendant was obliging.

‘No one seems to know how it got here, but it definitely works. Out of my price range, though’.

‘So who might have used it recently?’ Henry asked.

‘Well, that’s a story in itself. It was a well known musician. Sting, no less. Just last week at the end of a big concert he did here with all his pals. They got him to have a go. “God talks to God”, as one of them put it! So he made the call. Paid by credit card.’

Henry and Charlotte leaned in, their elevated eyebrows asking the next question.

‘Well, he said the line was a bit crackly, but someone definitely answered. They seemed to natter away for a few minutes, but Sting wouldn’t say what about’.

The rest of the morning passed most agreeably. An exquisite example of Romanesque architecture, with its vaulted nave and ingenious use of buttressing, Bill Bryson had once declared Durham the ‘best cathedral on planet Earth’. The tourists did not demur.

Then it was back in the bus.

They’d just got  underway, when the guide told them about a change to the itinerary. Instead of heading up the Great North Road immediately, to St Giles’ in Edinburgh, they would go across country, to where a special treat was waiting for them. Not a grand religious edifice, but an unusual country church, with a fascinating local history.

The group members were in good spirts, and the weather continued fine. So no one dissented. On the contrary, they were now on a magical mystery tour. They even croaked a few lines from the Beatles’ song of the same name, as the bus made its winding way over the Border hills – to South West Scotland.

***

Two hours later, the travellers pulled up on the edge of a well-scrubbed village, its two rows of simple cottages painted in a cheerful palette of bright colours. They had arrived at Dalswinton, in the parish of Kirkmahoe, Dumfries and Galloway.

Alighting from the bus, the setting was captivating. Here was a place of exquisite greens, rolling hills, and small forests. The gentle light served only to enhance the verdant and sylvan landscape, whilst in the distance stood an elegant sandstone mansion in beautiful grounds, overlooking  a reed-fringed loch that shimmered in the sunshine.

The guide turned their attention to an unusual red-painted iron church, nestling among the trees. They entered through its tiny porch to find the smell of beeswax, fresh flowers, a wood panelled interior, and pitch pine pews. An exquisite modern stained glass window, created by a local artist, filled the nave.

The minister, in a casual sweater and corduroys, gave the warmest of welcomes and explained how this beautiful little ‘tin tabernacle’ was made in Glasgow in the 19th century and had been destined for the colonies. Until the Dalswinton landowner of the day bought it to provide a church for the people of the village.  Since then it had seen many christenings, weddings and funerals, had rung to joyful singing and was the venue for occasional concerts, where fine musicians played to appreciative audiences.

The tour group murmured with pleasure and seemed content to sit for a while, perhaps reflecting on the rustic simplicity of the place, and the complete contrast with what they had seen so far on their tour.

Then, reluctantly, they began to drift outside and back towards the bus. Henry and Charlotte bringing up the rear, the Minister at the church door, bidding them farewell.

It could so easily have been missed.

The black Bakelite telephone was next to a pile of hymn books on a console table. Propped up beside it, was the now familiar notice, albeit in this case slightly abbreviated. It simply read:

Direct line to Paradise

Stopping in their tracks, they examined the arrangement carefully before asking if they might take a photograph.

‘Of course’, said the Minister, ‘it’s something special isn’t it?’

‘It most definitely is, Sir’, Henry replied.

‘You see, these past few days, we’ve come across a few other examples of something like this’.

‘Really?’

Charlotte explained what they had seen, first in St Paul’s, then in Lincoln and earlier that day in Durham.

‘That’s right –  “a direct line to Paradise” – but first at a cost of £1,000, then £500, then £250’.

‘Is that so?’ responded the Minister.

‘Yet here there seems to be no charge to make that special call! Really, how could that be?’

The Minister smiled, nodded slowly and looking across to the telephone, gave Henry and Charotte his considered reply.

‘Well my friends, the answer is really very simple indeed. You see, this direct line to Paradise, well,  it’s only a local call from here!’

Acknowledgements

I’m grateful to Professor Rex Taylor, who told me an abbreviated version of this story many years ago.

The month of cakes

It may be the shortest month of the year, but February seems replete with symbolism, ritual and ambiguity. Ancient observances jumble with Christian overlays. Calendrical quirks and lunar considerations bubble up and surface. The weather flatters, but can also deceive. The garden wakes up, though might easily turn over and go back to sleep.  Much bemoaned as a time of dreich and drear, I have found this February, with its extra day, to be a most intriguing month.

It all begins on Candlemas Eve, celebrated here in Robert Herrick’s 17th century verses (1):

Down with the rosemary and bays,

Down with the misletoe;

Instead of holly, now up-raise

The greener box, for show.

He’s referring to the end of the 40 day festival of Christmas that prevailed in his time. Musing how Christmas now lasts for more than 40 days and begins in mid-November, I nevertheless observe Herrick’s instructions, and bring some green box into the house. Bright and with tiny white flowers, it looks fresh and inspiring.

Of course, as I have written elsewhere, the Christian festival of Candlemas, on the 2nd of the month, smoored over the much more ancient celebration of Imbolc, which marked the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Candlemas thus came to be a harbinger of spring and fertility. In that spirit I mark it by sowing a couple of trays with Meconposis seeds, collected in the garden last autumn. Extraordinary to think these shiny black specks might grow next year into plants that bear flowers of the deepest blue.

The early month weather jumps about and doesn’t know where to land. For a few days it’s mild and gentle and I take the opportunity to transplant a couple of small trees. These Cryptomeria Japonica were 18 inches tall when they came from a nursery in the Carse of Gowrie a few years ago. Now maybe five feet in height, I realise I planted them in the wrong place, distant from the house and obscured from view.

I take the risk, and move them to the main part of the garden. Their coppery green foliage looks stunning in the morning light. I stake them with stout hazel rods, recently pruned, and then mulch with a lush mixture of beech leaves and grass cuttings.  The effect is slightly ‘botanical garden’, and I’m rather pleased with myself.

I’m even more delighted one early morning as I walk the dog, to hear in the darkness the sound of mallards on the garden pond. For a dozen years a pair of these handsome ducks has arrived about this time. Nesting somewhere along the burn side, I’ve never yet discovered where, or ever seen their offspring.  Today as I come near, they lift off the water with a splatter, but soon return and I have the pleasure of watching their bobbing heads from the sitting room window.

Then as the second week of the month gets underway, the frost returns, the pond is skimmed with a thin sheet of ice and by 7.30, snow is falling. I fret about the cryptomeria and notice the mallards are absent. The cold night of the 10th is star-bright, the Milky Way back-washing the sky and Orion presiding over us as the lunar new year of the dragon makes it’s fiery entrance.

That night also brings visitors to the orchard. The following morning trees carefully tended over recent years are found stripped of bark, the horns and teeth of roaming deer having ripped in, and done perhaps fatal damage. I close the stable door after the horse has bolted and carefully wrap lengths of chicken wire round the trunks, hoping that will be enough to fend off further damage, and the trees will recover.

More pleasurably, a surprising amount of bloom and blossom appears in this transitional month.

Of course, snowdrops are synonymous with February and get pride of place. They’re also tough, and resilient to a sharp drop in temperature. In these parts they are having a good year, with great swathes in the woodlands and bright splashes along the hedgerows and loanings. Is it my imagination, or are they spreading – moving into new spaces and brightening up still more dark corners on a dark day?

Other favourites are also on display in the Dumfriesshire garden.

The Viburnum Fragrans shrub gives a double bonus of lush pink blooms on bare stems, along with a heady perfume. Some newly planted Witch Hazels send out their tentative first Hammamelis flowers, also on leafless branches and lightly scented.

In the borders, the Hellebores advance every day with elegant flowers of white, purple and yellow. For some varieties it’s good to look at them from below, to see exquisite markings and colour patterns in the gently dipping flower heads. For others, large white flowers face up to the passer-by, as the plants nestle in the leaf mould, below the acers and birches.

Even the solemn yew, a great favourite of mine, is confettied with its own profusion of delicate, male flower clusters that slowly fade and change into something like a miniature Brussel sprout. Meanwhile, in the bog garden, the flower heads of Butterbur or Colt’s Foot are sitting out like so many small cauliflowers. A solitary Vinca has also appeared.

At mid-month the first camellia arrives, regal and red among waxy green leaves, gesturing to the day of love and lovers, as Geoffrey Chaucer did in the 13th century (2).

Saint Valentine, who art full high aloft –

Thus sing the small fowls for your sake –

Now welcome summer, with your sun soft,

That this winter’s weather does off-shake.

**********

Saynt Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte-

Thus singen smale foules for thy sake –

Now welcom somer, with thy sonne sonne,

That hast this wintres weders over-shake.

St Valentine’s Day this year coincides with the start of Lent. That name comes from an old word (lencten) that simply means getting longer, a reference perhaps to the growing hours of daylight. Our forebears took some time to divide the year into four seasons. Winter and Summer were understood and named long before Spring and Autumn entered into the languages of these islands, and Christian festivals populated the calendar.

The waxing gibbus moon gets brighter and stronger.  Named ‘Snow’ or ‘Hunger’, it will be the smallest full moon of the year, but this one seems to be punching above its weight, and the pre-bedtime dog walk requires no torch. Two days before the full, it gets an earthly visitor, landing in a crater close to its south pole. Spacecraft: leave that moon alone!

As February comes to its close, days of bright sunshine and cool winds alternate with days of continuous rain and cold winds. Other than in the most sheltered spots, daffodil buds swell, then hold back, awaiting sun and warmth combined before showing off their splendour. In the arboretum field beyond the garden, their shorter native cousins, Narcissus Pseudonarcissus, are biding their time. After all, it wasn’t until mid-April, in 1802, that Wordsworth had his famous encounter with a whole host of them, and remembered them so fondly (3).

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

My month of February has seen the varied pleasures of wind, rain, sun and changing daylight. An elastic month, with a meteorological calendar that seems to speed up, slow down, to advance and to retreat with constant interest. Quite why the Venerable Bede referred to February as Sol-Monath  – the month of cakes –  I do not know. Not least as this otherwise secular writer, has given them up for Lent!

Postscript

There was one extra day left to the month when I finished writing this. The 29th turned out to be rather warm and sunny. Suddenly the blooms and blossoms burgeoned and shon out across the garden, the whole place on display. And there at the pond edges were masses of frogspawn. It seemed that Spring had arrived.

Poems

(1) Robert Herrick, Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve

(2) Geoffrey Chaucer, Parliament of Fowls

(3) William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Denise Zygadlo: making art through lines, threads, prints and performance

I think I first spoke to Denise Zygadlo at a death cafe. An occasion where strangers meet together over coffee and cake, to talk about mortality in all its aspects. I was impressed by her clarity of thought and speech and her open-ness about her encounters with dying and death in her family.

I already knew something about her work as an artist. I also observed over time how she would be present at the opening of exhibitions, at film screenings and talks: just some of the many places where creative people gather together to celebrate, to look, listen, and to share ideas.

I confess to being slightly puzzled by her work. Simply put, it isn’t easy to pigeon hole. It draws on many materials, on human bodies, on physical movement, fabrics and photocopies, print and pencil. Created in a Nithsdale glen, it seems to be anything but pastoral. It provokes, up-skittles and questions. Taken as a whole it’s a vast bricolage of inspiration, made and remade, and literally re-fashioned over time. Assiduously and with discipline.

So it was terrific for me to get such a positive response from Denise when I invited her to take part in my series of interviews with people who do interesting things as they live and work in Dumfries and Galloway. One who self confessedly likes structure and focus, she completed the email interview process far quicker than anyone else has done so far.

From her answers to my questions I learned so much about her practice, which has been developing, shifting and changing over more than five decades. I hope you’ll enjoy reading her story and taking advantage of the links which lead to various aspects of her art over time. My thanks go to Denise for sharing all this – and for creating a remarkable body of work, which just seems to keep on giving.

Can you tell me where you were born and something about  your early life, education, and influences?

I was born in Chatham, Kent and brought up in Strood on the other side of the River Medway. An only child, I was surrounded by family. We lived next door to two of my mother’s siblings and their kids, so I had four cousins close at hand. Our parents built three identical bungalows in a row after the war. It was all hands on deck for two years. We moved in when I was three months old and my gran moved into the middle bungalow with my uncle’s family. She later moved in with us for the last 19 years of her life, so I benefited from her sewing skills, especially learning how to embroider and use a sewing machine.

I went to the same school that my mother attended for one year, until the new Catholic school building was completed. School was a very happy time and where I made a life-long friend. We were inseparable and both went on to the Girls Grammar School in Rochester. I was never very academic, but always did well in art. I didn’t study History of Art, so was pretty ignorant, but we had a very enthusiastic art teacher who introduced me to various artists and took us to exhibitions in London.

I always loved drawing, from the moment I could hold a pencil. Being shy growing up, I spent many hours drawing at home, before finding the confidence to socialise. We were close friends with our family doctor and his family of six. I spent a lot of time in their house and was in awe of the fashion drawings the eldest daughter showed me. I remember clearly a drawing of an elegant figure in an evening gown she gave me to paint. I was enamoured with the Pre-Raphaelites later on and had posters in my bedroom. 

So you did encounter the arts in your early life?

In my early life I was always drawing, painting and making. My dad was very gifted, despite having no formal education, and could turn his hand to anything. Post-war parents were very resourceful and creative and this rubbed off on me. My paternal grandmother had been a milliner. My parents took me to my first art exhibition around the age of 15 – it was a Rembrandt show. I was very impressed and still have the postcards. In fact I have a vast collection of art postcards, that I’ve kept from all the exhibitions I’ve seen since.

I remember putting an illustration on my bedroom wall from a copy of the Women’s Weekly. By coincidence we were visiting friends in Birchington and my dad went to meet their neighbour, an illustrator, only to see the original painting on his wall – he was pretty chuffed when my dad told him. This made the whole art thing more real to me. I think being an only child gave me the opportunity to focus on drawing without distraction and having an enthusiastic audience without any competition.


Can you remember the first time a piece of art had an impact on you?

Gosh that is so long ago – I guess it was the Rembrandt. Also, I was always interested in fashion and would model aprons in the kitchen at the age of four and my dressing up box was used most days. Kitchen performance was a regular activity – I was a keen dancer and went to ballet and have tried various types of dancing ever since.      

What happened after you left school? 

I went to Canterbury Art School for a foundation course. That’s where I was introduced to the work of Egon Shiele, an Austrian artist whose innovative, continuous line drawings are raw and sensitive. He is still a favourite. I enjoyed every aspect of the course but found it difficult to specialise, so I was encouraged to follow the path of textile design. Then I went to Winchester to study a degree course in textiles, and specialised in print. I never enjoyed the tricky process of silk screen printing, but had a wonderful time there. Then I took a post with Courtaulds in Manchester after my degree show. The job moved to London and I worked in three different design studios after I left Courtaulds, before moving north in 1980.

That was quite a long time ago. What led you to Dumfries and Galloway and can you sketch out the range of work you have done over those years? Does it fall into particular phases or preoccupations?


We followed some college pals to Dumfries and Galloway.

My husband Mark wanted to start making Windsor chairs (he had studied painting at Winchester, where we met, but I don’t remember where this chair idea came from). Finding workshop space in London was financially out of the question, but our friends had moved to Bentpath, near Langholm as there were so many empty schools, churches and cottages available at tiny rents. Mark was keen to have a look.

Being four months pregnant and an only child, I was somewhat resistant to move so far from my family with their first-to-be grandchild. But we found a lodge house near an old school and took the plunge. This was on the road between Dumfries and Moffat and we lived there for three years, fairly self sufficiently with not one, but two children, 25 months between them. Mark gradually built up a business and joined a wood turning friend Andy Kirby to become Kirby Zygadlo, and we moved in with these partners in Penpont, where Andy already had a mill building as a workshop.

I tried to keep up my artwork, but there was no way I could continue textile designing out there in the sticks – we didn’t even have a telephone. Two more children came along and I was pretty busy bringing them up, while Mark and Andy’s business grew and grew, employing up to 16 lads and moving to a bigger mill at Cample.

Then I ran an exercise class which was really popular, as there was nothing else available at the time. My first class attracted 50 people! It ran for five years. Later on I taught for years at a Friday art class in Thornhill. I also began community arts projects, – Steps and Stitches – with a dancer, Vida Hedley. This was commissioned by the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association, which is no longer with us. From this experience, I made a Community Quilt with Thornhill folk, which you may have seen in Thomas Tosh sometime.

Once I had studio space in the steading where we live now (this is our 31st year in Auldgirth) I began designing furnishing prints and worked with an agency in Manchester. But it wasn’t financially viable (I was never a natural textile designer) so I then worked for Help the Aged, fundraising with schools for two years.

It was after this that I began focussing on my own artwork and had my first exhibition at Designs in Castle Douglas in 1999, with Judith Goldsworthy. But our eldest child was about to go to university, more funds were needed, so I then joined the NHS psychology department in Dumfries part-time, as a Self Help Guide. This was a pilot project, I was the first S.H. guide, using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy principles. It was so successful that it became permanent and became a team of ten, giving access to Self Help to every general practice in the region. The post grew to four days a week and I was no longer an artist working part-time with the department, but a Self-Help Guide that worked part-time in a studio!!

During these years I joined the Society of Scottish Artists and exhibited work most years in their Annual show at the RSA. I have also taken part in about 11 of Dumfries and Galloway’s Spring Fling Open Studio weekends since they started in 2003.

So now to the work itself. I have always drawn, as I mentioned before, and I was keen to get back into drawing around 2009. I began a series that would become 13 drawings of a dancer – Tara – using photographs that I took myself. I wanted to draw unusual poses, using a lace top to describe the body beneath and leaving hands and body areas in outline only, but drawing the hair and lace in great detail. These upper body works were almost life-size and later included her legs. I exhibited several pieces from this series in Spring Fling, Scottish Society of Arts, VAS and the Society of Women Artists in The Mall, London. [You can find a list of Denise’s shows and activities from 2011 here].

I love the quality of a photocopied image and made a lot of work using my own body and cloth to transfer onto silk and canvas. I made collages of the body, photocopied a piece at a time, and printed them onto lengths of silk using a Dylon product initially. It took forever but the result was slightly stiff and un-washable, so eventually I used the Centre for Advanced Textiles in Glasgow to digitally print the images from photos. The result was beautifully soft and floaty and can be washed! Some images of details of cloth and body I made on canvas. I am interested in the relationship we have with cloth as a second skin.

In 2012 I had a solo show at The Mill on the Fleet, Involutus Memet, with the silk hangings and wall pieces, and collaborated on a performance with Florencia Garcia Chafuen for the opening. In 2014 I expanded on this show and created Wrap, a solo show at the Gracefield Arts Centre in Dumfries, with hangings, canvas works and video projections. It opened with a performance created by myself and two dancers accompanied by a live string quartet playing a classical piece composed especially for the performance by my son Rudi.

I joined the Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh in 2016 and have shown work with them in their gallery and online. In 2018 I had a small solo show there with large works on canvas, using transfer printed collages of my body mixed with classical sculpture.

In 2020 I had an online exhibition with Arusha exploring treasured garments that I have kept; looking at ways to express my connection with them. I used painting, drawing, printing and collage in that exhibition. Collage runs through most of my work.

Another strand is performance. I have been involved in performances with the group Oceanallover and a group that my husband Mark created – The Secret Ministry, and a few solo works.

It’s a remarkable personal and artistic journey that you describe. Can you say some more about the underlying themes of your work? For example, you mention the relationships between skin and cloth, and seem to have an enduring interest in embodiment, as well as clothing and sustainable fashion …?

My series of Tara drawings focus on lace, in detail. I never show the face of the wearer and like to find an unusual pose or angle that may take a while to identify. This draws in the viewer and gives them ownership of what they discover. The use of a dark, black pencil 6B-8B gives a depth and solidity to the work.

I am interested in the relationship we have with cloth. I have always loved dressing up, since I was tiny, and had a dressing-up box, overflowing, in the cupboard that led to the attic. I delved into it most days and took on different characters. I am fascinated by fabric and will always want to feel its textures. Looking back at my first picture books in my fifties, I remembered the smooth feeling of Old King Cole’s hose and the soft puffiness of the kitten’s silky quilt.

Cloth surrounds us from the moment we are wrapped as a new-born, to our final windings. Clothing, furnishings, bedding, towels, face-cloths. Cloth holds memories and significant moments that evoke previous times in our lives. Our choice of clothing gives us an identity, our second skin.

I use collage, in some form, in most things. The photocopied image has a special quality with a heightened contrast, again the deep blackness, that I like to use. For my classical sculpture series, I enlarged photos and combined them with photocopied images of my own body parts and cloth. They have a surreal feel to them and include objects that relate to the subject. The texture of the canvas sometimes comes through the image, making it part of the surface.

Can you say something about how these works are shaped and influenced by underlying beliefs, values, questions? For example, is Catholicism an enduring influence? 

My most recent works are concerned with treasured clothing. Cloth and clothing, textures and collage, memories and connections. I am also a keen ‘make-do-and-mend’ advocate.

I mend everything – our socks are more darning than original sock. When I decide I will no longer need or wear a particular garment, I think of someone who might like or suit it and pack it up in an appropriate wrapping and send it or leave it as a surprise at their door. This is my Pass-It-On project. I gave up buying new clothes several years ago and only buy if absolutely necessary and then only from Charity/Second-hand shops. The damage the fashion industry creates is horrifying and it is so important for us all to support sustainable fashion.

Once a Catholic … I haven’t practiced for 50 years, but it’s definitely in the blood and I have replaced it with other rules for myself: diet and exercise rituals to name but two. If it comes out in my work, it is not intentional.

And what about a sense of place. Am I right in thinking that the rural setting of Dumfries and Galloway seems in some ways to be at odds with the provocations in your work?  Or are you inspired by the idea of making such arresting art in what some might consider a counter-intuitive context, which you have called here, ‘the sticks’? 

My work comes to me organically, triggered by images that occur to me or just what crops up. I don’t research for my work. I tend to work towards a goal, an exhibition for example. At the moment I am making a daily collage as part of Februllage organised by the Edinburgh Collage Collective, who give out a one word prompt each day through the month of February. [NB – some stunning images here, check them out on Denise’s Facebook page]. I thrive on structure, another influence from Catholicism.

I’m not a landscape person, but I do love living in it and experiencing all aspects of nature. During COVID my youngest son Rudi and I had a daily art swap to keep us motivated. His way of looking at the world made me see things anew. His way of looking at the world made me see things anew. His creativity is a constant source of inspiration to me. It was exciting to try different things and I spent time in the woods and fields in an attempt to interact. I found a large antler-like branch and made a short video with it on my head. My grandson also got into the spirit of this and spent an afternoon helping me, taking a series of ‘antler-moment’ photographs, from which I made four drawings – The Wild Woman series.

Your work seems to evolve without dramatically obvious changes of direction or approach, the ideas and methods looping in and out and back, without visible ‘breaks’ or ‘shifts’. Is it possible to speculate on where it will go next?

Thank you for noticing this. My works does jump about, but the underlying themes weave in and out consistently.

I am interested in all aspects of art and like to have a go at most things if there is not much process involved – I’m very much a ‘hands on’ artist and jump from one material to the next, often coming back to a project months or years later to pick it up again. 

I am currently making daily collages for Februllage, it gives me structure during this dreary uninspiring month, and I thrive on structure. I have stretched some paper ready for my next drawing, although I’m not sure what the subject will be yet and I have made a list of relevant points, from previous work, to follow up on – there are a lot. This is an attempt to find a way back into work, having been very unwell after my last Spring Fling exhibition. I am taking stock and reviewing my life as a whole, it has been an enlightening experience. I’ve realised how much I rush and I now make time to try to be more mindful and appreciate each moment. It has a calming effect, increases awareness and productivity.

While we are still able, my husband and I intend to stay living in the countryside, with our spacious studio/workshops, so I would like to make full use of such a luxury. I have a beautiful etching press which I hope to continue exploring and would like to experience more collaborative projects. Recently I have been involved with Re:Dress Scotland and their slow fashion projects. This has been the best fun and fulfils my desire to dress up and fool about with extremely big hair! All for a good and important cause, I hope to do more.

And finally, as my energy returns, I look forward to discovering new and exciting ways to develop my own work, perhaps combining drawing with large-scale collage and bringing in video and writing with a dash of performance.

I wrote some haiku-type poems for Involutus Memet, to accompany the exhibition. This one might help trigger my next work and send me off in a new direction. The first line is based on a dream I had.

find the fire in your belly

dip the cloth in tallow

and run the torch

****************************************************************

Featured image: Victoria Murray

Overhead image: Rudi Zygadlo (Rudi is a composer, musician, performer, artist and writer. He is the sound designer for the Guardian daily podcast and has had three written features with them and one for the Observer. He also makes very funny videos for You Tube).

You can learn more about Denise’s work at: http://www.denisezygadlo.co.uk/ and https://www.facebook.com/denise.zygadlo and you can make contact with her at: denisezygadlo@btinternet.com

For more interviews of this type, see: https://davidgrahamclark.net/interviews/ 
































	


	





	

		
Wintering through January
	


	
			

				
			


		
	

		

With the Christmas decorations packed away and the New Year holiday behind us, I found myself pondering on those moments in the depths of Winter when the darkness persists and the weather forecast hangs over our plans and commitments. Too early yet to think of Spring, despite the slender daffodils in the shops, but maybe a time to think differently about the affordances of mid-Winter.





Wintering. It’s a word I’d mainly considered in relation to animals and birds. Those that hibernate or migrate. It’s a grammatical curiosity. Winter is a noun (‘in winter’), or tenuously, an adjective (‘a winter soup’) and yes, just possibly a verb (‘they winter here’). But wintering? In fact it’s the present participle of the verb, but now used as an adjective. It seems to be coming more prominent in the lexicon. Not only applied to animals and birds, but more and more to us humans too.





Used in this sense, wintering seems to take on an active meaning, albeit not it in the conventional sense of active. It’s about slowing down, reflecting more, thinking deeper. It manifests itself in such things as the preparation of certain foods, especially the kind that take a long time to cook on a low heat. It’s associated with reading, with walks, encountering the natural world, or simply doing nothing very much, but in a purposeful way. So having read a little about the practice of wintering, I decided to apply myself to it in the first weeks of 2024. I’ve tried to capture some of the experience here (in the present tense!).





***





The month begins with a flurry of writing. Mainly editing. My first novel, composed in the year past is now complete and I spend some time finessing and fine tuning the manuscript, chapter by chapter. I tend and weed my words, like an assiduous gardener. 





Clearing my head after each session, I walk from the house up through the conifer plantation, to the open moor with its wide vistas across the Solway Firth, looking over to the South and to the distant Lakeland fells.





January is a good month for red sunrises around here, and these early-year mornings don’t disappoint. The feathered silhouettes of beech trees stand out against flaming skies, over-seeing my start to the business of the day. Once or twice there is the sketch of a dawn chorus, as optimistic birds encourage us to think towards Spring.  Too soon, I murmur to myself, and the birdsong indeed proves short-lived.





In these early, stumbling, days of 2024 the weather alternates from damp and mild to cooler and sunny. It’s pleasant enough but unsettled, perhaps exactly as we feel about our prospects for the new year.





***





By Epiphany, things have changed.





Even in the late afternoon the temperature struggles to get above freezing, only to drop again as the light fades. We move into a settled spell of weather. Flurries of snow accumulate on the frozen ground. Ice patterns itself in swirling arabesques, forming on the greenhouse windows and refusing to budge from dawn to dusk.





As the frost settles in, the clear night sky is charted with constellations. Walking  the dog before bedtime, I hear the hoot and screech of tawny owls calling into the Dumfriesshire darkness.





Immersing myself in this extended piece of Winter, I take to lighting the wood burning stove in the pre-dawn, as soon as I get up. I bring in fuel from the cold woodshed at least a day before it will be needed. I chop kindling from logs of sycamore and birch. To these I add thin twigs I collected last Winter from underneath larch trees, each twig bearing a string of tiny cones. The sticks and twigs together make perfect firelighters.





I notice the grey heron has moved from waterside to field. Thick ice on the garden pond has put a pause on food supplies. Now, hunched and out of kilter with itself, the heron stands for long periods in a frost-laced meadow adjacent to the house. Motionless by some frozen molehills and attentive to the slightest movement, it waits for the promise of sustenance.





Outside my kitchen window the most frequent visitors are blackbirds, chaffinches, blue tits, sparrows and robins. I feed them each day and as the cold spell continues they grow in numbers, sometimes pushed out of the way by jackdaws, wood pigeons and a solitary pheasant. The scattered feed is soon eaten up, though the robin is always first and last on the scene and never fails to spot an overlooked morsel, however small.





***





Then, as January commences its second half, the weather shifts. The air is suddenly warmer, and with that, the rain arrives. I have five bare-rooted Scots Pine trees that came in the post just as the frost sank into the soil and had the ground ringing underfoot. But now there’s an opportunity to put them where they belong. It’s wet and windy outside, but a total pleasure to be in the elements and doing one of the most elemental things I can imagine: planting trees.





The five trees are an extension to a clump of six that I first planted a few years ago. In this field, or arboretum, to use its Sunday name, I have planted about 250 trees in the last decade. Down one side are 100 silver birch, now approaching 30 feet in height. Several species are planted in circles: oak, beech, hornbeam, hazel and dogwood. There are a few specimen trees, dotted here and there – redwood, holly oak, and cedar. Mown paths link them together, leaving patches of meadow in between. I’ve added a few cairns and large rocks here and there. Now in mid-Winter, the full structure of the place is on view. When the sun shines the cornus ring with colour: sanguineous, sharp green and purple-black.





The conjunction of Jupiter and the waxing moon seems to be a portent. Soon afterwards, Storm Isha arrives. The hatches are battened down and a restless night ensues, so wild it’s hard to figure from which direction the wind is coming. Next morning comes the cautious inspection. Big branches litter the ground. But no trees are down. A flag has appeared in the hawthorns: a gaudy plastic bag, wrapped round a stem and flapping noisily in the stiff breeze, too high to reach.





More is to come. On the evening before Storm Jocelyn, a remarkable sunset clothes the horizon, its shifting orange light reflecting and shimmering across the flood plains and the ghost lochans (1). But Jocelyn’s aftermath is modest and we wonder if the worst of the winds have now gone by.





***





Meanwhile, safe indoors, other aspects of wintering creep into my routines.





In the kitchen, long a culinary improviser, I now turn my attention to recipes and their diligent application. I slice, chop, sweat and brown. Prepare onions, mushrooms, carrots, leeks and garlic. Become closely acquainted with beans and pulses of all types and colours. The ensuing vegetable soups are conjured up and served for lunch, the cheese sandwich now a distant memory.





Likewise, my daily diary entries, valiantly kept up over the years, now become more reflective. I shift from lists of activities to thoughts about the day, the times, the things that seem to matter most.  I take even more pleasure in writing my weekly letters, emails even, to distant friends and relations.





In such wintering times, it’s not surprising that my orientation to reading also shifts somewhat. Normally pushing on with a pile of new books that must be read, I now turn back to the bookshelf and re-read two short volumes by Claire Keegan. A writer of exquisite economy and observer of quotidian detail, she seems to exemplify the best principles of wintering. Measured, restrained, each sentence weighted for its beauty and utility, nothing extraneous, her works delivering even more pleasure and insight when encountered for a second wintering time.





***





In recent years this practice of ‘wintering’ has become the subject of scrutiny, a steadfast activity in its own right. Whole books have been written about it.





Horatio Clare has journalled his struggles with Winter. Seasonal depression, hopelessness, feelings of failure. This type of problem with Winter has clinical dimensions that he seeks to manage by turning outwards, to nature, to weather, to landscape, to finding beauty among bleakness and the absence of colour.





For Katherine May , wintering seems to be more a concept than an activity or period of time, indeed it need not necessarily apply to the cold months of the year at all. In her memoir, she uses the dark months of Winter as a metaphor for making sense of an extended time of challenge and misfortune in her life. Winter is far more than a season of the year, it can also be a fallow period when a person must retreat in search of repair. So wintering is a response to these situations, in Katherine May’s case through a range of activities, rituals and daily practices.





My own ‘wintering through January’ has been thankfully free of these deeper challenges, but the broader idea still holds good. When I started this blog three years ago my purpose was to deepen our encounters with daily practices and actions. ‘Wintering’ has added a new dimension to this in the dark and stormy early weeks of 2024.





Indeed, I’m already looking with new perspective to what February may bring.










(1) I have borrowed the term ‘ghost lochan’ from Dr David Borthwick, in appreciation.

	


	





	

		
Where the music takes me – an interview with Stuart Macpherson
	


	
			

				
			


		
	

		

Among the many pleasures of life in Dumfries and Galloway is its thriving music scene, the product of a rich and varied community of singers, players and composers. It’s a place that fosters collaboration and, with that, experimentation across styles and musical genres. In recent times it has also produced creative partnerships with poets and writers, film makers, photographers and sound artists.





Very cool stuff, in other words.





Which is why I contacted one of the active people in this space, Stuart Macpherson, and asked him to take part in my series of interviews with inspiring and creative people living and working in rural south west Scotland.





Stuart came to the region as a child and has pursued a diverse musical career from his base in Nithsdale. 





Here in his interview,  he talks about a musical and collaborative journey of fascinating twists and turns, with much achieved to date – and an exciting future ahead! 





My thanks go to Stuart for taking time for the interview. I hope you enjoy reading it.





Can you tell me where you were born, brought up and went to school? I think you moved to Dumfries and Galloway at some point in your childhood?





Yes, I was born in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness in September 1983.  We lived in the Crown area of the town and I went to the local primary school until I was seven, when I moved with my parents and my two brothers to Thornhill, in Dumfries and Galloway.





Moving was a bit of a change, going from Inverness where we were very much in the town, to Thornhill … which I guess is technically a town (barely), but very much a small rural one. The countryside and outdoors were right there in a way that they weren’t before.   It was brilliant.  I mean I really love Inverness and definitely have a strong affinity to it, but I’m so grateful that we moved when we did and for the childhood in the countryside.  Most of my friends lived on farms or in/around small villages, so there was a lot of time spent outside … on bikes, walking, playing football, building dens in the woods, swimming in rivers, camping … all pretty wholesome really.  In terms of family life it was pretty standard, both my parents worked (dad was an architect, mum an occupational therapist) and I was the middle child of three … and possibly the one that gave my parents the hardest time! But it was a loving and supportive family set-up, with the usual teenage friction … we all generally like seeing each other now that we’re grown up.  Today I live just a few doors down from my folks.  Most of our school holidays involved spending time up at my auntie’s small-holding on the west coast (near Arisaig) – another place that I have a very strong affinity with.





When did you begin to develop an interest in music and what form did that take? Which instruments and types of music were you drawn to?





I’ve always loved music and would say that I was around it a lot growing up. Not live music particularly, but my parents played a lot on the Hi Fi and in the car. I’ve got very strong memories of long road trips to my auntie’s listening to a mixture of Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham, JJ Cale, Neil Young and JS Bach and lots in between – bit of an eclectic mix!  When I started learning the guitar in primary school and particularly when I was at high school, all that had a pretty major influence on the things I ended up listening to … Hendrix, Zappa, Grateful Dead, The Band.  I was listening out for more of the guitar driven stuff and was always more drawn towards instrumental music. In high school I started to listen to more jazz … Miles Davis, Django Reinhardt, Herbie Hancock.  





Was music an important part of your education and did you go on to study it after school? 





Yes, it was. In primary school I had an enthusiastic guitar teacher who really encouraged me. This definitely helped me going into high school and gave me a drive to improve my playing.  I studied music throughout my time at high school and was regularly playing with other musicians (school ceilidh band, blues trios, and accompanying singers).  I didn’t go off to study music directly after school – I knew I wanted to be doing music in some way but was just not sure if I wanted to go to study it.  I actually went to art school instead, but all my time in Glasgow, I was playing in bands and active in the music scene up there. I actually left art school because the band I was playing in at the time was doing well and I wanted to be more focussed on it. Well it didn’t work out in the end, and after quite a few years of being a bit lost with where I wanted to be, I ended up going back to study music as a mature student.  In a way it worked out pretty well for me doing it that way round, as I had a real thirst to learn when I went back, I knew I really wanted to be there whereas if I had gone straight from school, I don’t think I would have got as much out of it, I didn’t have that focus.





That’s really interesting, can you say more about how your approach to music changed during your years at University?  





So, I went to study Applied Music at Strathclyde University, on a course which unfortunately they no longer offer. The students were made up of a right mix of musicians – jazzers, folkies, classical players and rockers. I think one of the great things about the course was that you could really hone in on the areas that were of interest, mine being composition and jazz studies. I could quite easily have got into more of the music production too. Because I went back as a mature student I was really clear about my goals and what I wanted to get out of studying, so it was a pretty focussed (and intense) period as both our kids were still very wee (toddler and a baby). It definitely gave me a confidence in my ability, and that showed me that there may be a way of carving out a viable existence as a professional musician.





You have talked about your guitar playing and guitar driven music, but when did you take up double bass and where did that start to lead you?





I started playing the bass guitar at high school.  My friend (another guitarist) and I had decided to play a blues at the school Easter concert and we had another pal who played drums – I said I’d play bass guitar for this one and it kind of stuck.  I also really enjoyed playing the bass – I was drawn to the sound and the bass lines.  It wasn’t until I had left school that I started playing the double bass, I had been performing with a system alongside other live musicians, and actually got an electric double bass. Having no frets meant I could pitch alongside the records and remain in tune with them as they mixed different tracks. I’ve always loved the sound of the double bass, so naturally wanted to get better at it.  My double bass tutor at University was particularly good, he’s the principal bassist with Scottish Ballet but also plays in Mr McFalls Chamber as well as being well versed with jazz.  Like me, he’d started as a bass guitarist and evolved from the horizontal to the upright bass, so I think he could really understand where I was coming from.  He wasn’t one of those tutors that pussy-footed around: if I was out of tune or my bowing was crap – he’d tell me all about it – quite direct.  I respond really well to that though, so we got on well.





You have an interest in ‘found sounds’ and recordings of sounds around you. How did all that begin and where does it fit into your work?





I guess ever since I started recording my own musical ideas I’ve enjoyed the process of recording/editing/manipulating sounds. I’ve often sampled sounds and incorporated them into pieces, but previously it was more in a studio setting as opposed to field recording. I’ve learned a great deal about that over the last few years (particularly from Pete Smith) and have enjoyed pulling that aspect into my work. It requires a different level of patience to working in the studio. I like how it makes you sit still and listen … often for pretty long periods of time. But you get these magical moments or you stumble across something that sparks your interest. I guess from a composer’s point of view it gives me more colours and textures to use.





Tom Pow’s prose piece with music,  ‘Nine Nests’, was in a way commissioned by me for a one day festival I held in Dalswinton some years back. Can you tell me how you got involved in performing with Tom and where it has got to subsequently?





Well, I don’t think I actually performed “Nine Nests” itself . There was a performance of it right back in the early days of The Village and The Road where we performed both pieces back to back – but I think it was just Wendy Stewart and Ruth Morris performing the Nine Nests part with Tom.  But Nine Nests was very much a precursor to The Village and The Road.  Wendy has worked a lot with Tom Pow over the years and he had come to her after Nine Nests with another piece of writing he had been working on that could maybe work with live music.  It was a piece of writing based on dying villages – this would become the Village and the Road.  Wendy had suggested that it could work really well with a new group that we had just formed.  Wendy had recorded an album “Folds in the Field” on which Ruth Morris (nyckalharp), Gavin Marwick (fiddle) and myself were invited to play.  We really enjoyed playing music with each other and wanted to do more, so The Galloway Agreement was born.  





We secured a bit of funding to develop the piece because initially it was a pretty stagnant, with Tom reading his words while we underscored it with live music. Yet it always felt like it could be more. It really took shape though, when we worked alongside Director Matthew Zajak to turn the work into a piece of theatre.  The Village and the Road has grown legs and arms since then.  Particularly in the last year or so, with selection to be part of the Made in Scotland Showcase with performances at the Fringe and most recently performances in Japan.





I was incredibly impressed by your multi-media production of Solway to Svalbard, which had its premiere in October 2022. It combined your own compositions, spoken word, film, photography and immersive sound to track the journeys of migratory geese, together with the stories, communities and legends that appear along the flyway.  Can you say how it came into being, how it was done, the challenges and opportunities – all the things involved in producing something of such ambition, richness and emotion. Sorry for the long question – you can see I am a fan!





Well, funnily enough it all started off with a commissioning opportunity through the Stove Network for one of their members to create a piece of work responding to a brief about migrating birds. It was to coincide with the opening of Kathy Hinde’s Luminous Birds installation that was coming to Dumfries. At the time there was another Stove project exploring Dumfries’ ties to Norway and I thought I’d explore the avian link between Norway and Scotland. I knew the barnacle geese that came to the Solway each year had something to do with Norway but didn’t realise that was just their spring staging point and they in fact came from Svalbard, in the far north. Pretty impressive … there’s also loads of really cool mythology surrounding the geese, which is fascinating.





Anyway, the resulting piece that I created was “Flight” – a migratory soundscape incorporating field recordings and free triggered samples. Pretty early on in the process of making that piece I started to think about where the geese stop on their journey and the idea of exploring those environments. I really liked the idea of incorporating visuals and some proper field recordings. Also, I guess I had grown a bit of a fondness for the geese through working on “Flight” and felt that I wasn’t quite finished with them yet!





It’s important to me that I make work that has a relevance to where I am and with what is around me. I also wanted to work on this project with other artists that have ties to the region, Emma Dove and Pete Smith were obvious choices. I love both their work, they’re really good at what they do and in fact both had been involved in some level with “Flight” too.





Initially the folklore surrounding the barnacle geese was the bit that got me hooked … the idea that folk actually thought they hatched from barnacles on bits of driftwood … totally brilliant!  But I guess very quickly there was an admiration that grew for them … it is amazing what they do … the distances they travel each year.  They evoke a lot and represent and mean all sorts of different things to different folk … all the while they’re just being cool wee geese flying between here and the High Arctic, trying to eat the best grass when it grows and raise a family … I like that.  





The actual process of pulling it all together was a bit of a labour of love, I think because the project was running and in development for such a long period of time (the initial Stove commission for Flight was back in Autumn 2016, the first discussions with Pete and Emma about collaborating were in 2017, and the first residency at Caerlaverock was in March 2018). It’s gave us plenty of time to really drill down into what the project could be.  It started off with birds, but in a way ended up very much about people.  One of the things I’ve loved about this project is the connections that have been made.  I’m regularly in touch with my Norwegian pals on the islands updating me on the barnies and other interesting happenings.





In terms of challenges there have certainly been a few – obviously funding is an issue for a work like this – Svalbard is far away and expensive, so thankfully we managed to secure funding from various different organisations for various elements of the project (Creative Scotland, PRS Foundation, Help Musicians, DGU, DG Arts Festival, NTS, The Stove Network, DMC). It also involves a huge amount of people to make a project like this. The core creative team of myself, Pete and Emma worked extensively with musicians, lighting, sound, production and particularly Davey Anderson (Director). Even getting everybody together at the same time is challenging.  Thankfully Covid happened after we had managed to get to Svalbard (that would have been an absolute disaster!).  One of the lasting challenges with this work though is the logistics. Unfortunately it’s not the easiest show to put on, due to the high technical demands and the number of performers.  Part of the beauty of the piece is the scale and I’m rather loath to downsize it – but I would dearly love for it to have a life beyond the premiere so I am looking into possibilities for it going forward.





You’ve made your life in Dumfries and Galloway. What challenges and opportunities does that bring for a full-time musician?





Obviously living rurally and away from the city means there aren’t as many gigs on your doorstep – I used to be doing a jazz gig most weeks when we lived in Glasgow, but there isn’t as much of a scene here and it isn’t worth travelling up there, as the economics don’t stack up! (I remember hearing a joke about a typical jazz gig where you get a musician playing a £5000 pound instrument, travelling in a £500 car to do a £50 gig).  But at the same there is a good traditional music scene down here, and that is something I’ve embraced more, although I don’t get out to sessions as much as I’d like as I’ve been a bit preoccupied recently with a pretty major house renovation.  





I think the pace of life here suits me, I definitely do better where it isn’t as busy – it makes writing a lot easier and perhaps comes from a more grounded place.  My writing is so influenced by what is around me and the environment that I am in.  I think on the opportunity side of things there are more interesting projects appearing down here now, particularly if you’re open to working with other disciplines.  I‘ve really enjoyed working with artists that have a totally different skill set (dancers/painters/film-makers/actors). It can be really refreshing to see a piece of work through a different lens, instead of just as a musician.  I think more and more musicians regardless of where they stay have to be adaptable – there’s only a small number of virtuoso players that make a living out of performing alone, but for most of us the reality is that you need to have a few pans on the go at the same time.





And finally – with all this in your back catalogue, where do you go next?





Well, part of the Solway to Svalbard journey was for me realising quite how important that outdoor element is for me in my work – I think it brings a balance to my practice.  Much as I love playing music, writing and rehearsing with others, most of it involves being cooped up indoors. So being able to get out and right in amongst the stuff you’re writing about makes such a difference – and is very refreshing.





I think after Solway to Svalbard I’m keen to explore a bit closer to home. A lot of the themes that were explored in it are still very relevant and no doubt will continue to manifest in my work – environment, belonging, place, migration and of course, birds. I definitely feel that my work is drawing me more into collaborative work and multi-art form realms.





I’ve been in the midst of a house renovation for the last wee bit so I’m really feeling ready to get back into a project and to start writing a new body of work.





Photo credit: Kirsten McEwan and with thanks to The Stove, for part of the section on Solway to Svalbard.





If you wish to contact Stuart, he can be reached at: 





info@stuartmacpherson.net 





https://www.facebook.com/stuart.macpherson.music/





https://www.stuartmacpherson.net/





Stuart’s interview is part of a whole series of conversations with inspiring and creative people living and working in rural Dumfries and Galloway, south west Scotland. For a list of them all, please look here: https://davidgrahamclark.net/interviews/ 

	


	





	

		
Catkins at New Year
	


	
			

				
			


		
	

		

Towards the end of last winter, this hazel bush was pruned hard and the older stems carefully removed. The treatment appears to have been beneficial, and the show of catkins now is like none it has produced before. The benefits of the right intervention at the right time!





On the afternoon of Hogmanay, the sun appeared briefly and a gentle breeze blew through the garden. Perfect conditions to spread the catkin pollen through the monoecious shrub. 





I spent some time watching the catkins shimmer brightly in a beautifully choreographed aeolian dance. Delicate, soft green tails, each said to comprise over two hundred flowers.





So there’s every prospect of a good crop of cobnuts from Avellana Corylus come the autumn. If, of course, our resident red squirrels don’t get there first!





Meanwhile, the catkins shine out, as they light our way with hope into a New Year in the Dumfriesshire garden – and in the world beyond it. 











	


	





	

		
Epiphanies and Robberies Chapter 12: The Advent of New Ways of Being
	


	
			

				
			


		
	

		

Whilst Andrew nurses a bad cold, Anne-Marie and Caitlin are Christmas shopping, and Michael is discovering a new-found enthusiasm for things culinary. Meanwhile the art robbers are awaiting sentence following their guilty plea and DC Harris makes arrangements for the safe return of the stolen goods. On the night of the Winter Solstice, The Maxwell Band gives an outstanding first full performance of Calendarium, and the record company team make a surprise trip to hear it. The morning after, Andrew is invited to a breakfast meeting in which he is given an unprecedented opportunity to do something major for Nithsdale. Christmas day brings contentment for Senga’s mother, for Michael and his family, and for Caitlin and Anne-Marie. In the afternoon, the three amateur sleuths gather for Christmas lunch, at the end of which Andrew makes his two new friends an offer of remarkable generosity.





************





Copyright © David Graham Clark 2023





AUTHOR’S NOTE: In this story I mix up and blur chronologies, geographies and biographies. Any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely coincidental. The 12 chapters of the novel Epiphanies and Robberies appeared sequentially throughout 2023. They have now been re-drafted and are in search of a publisher.





The novel also has a playlist to enjoy, you can find it here: http://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XSzB1w8hfrRPUBzs4KFNF?si=JkkDbGmRQM2WeHjcOrFO

	


	





	

		
The unreliable narrator: a Christmas mystery story
	


	
			

				
			


		
	

		

In writing not one, but two previous Christmas mysteries, I have come to be regarded as something of an ‘unreliable narrator’. One who misleads and beguiles the reader in order to gain advantage. Apparently, it’s a trope much loved by writers, but I have to say it’s not one I care for.





After all, I’m a social scientist. I gather evidence, analyse it carefully, and present the results in a balanced way. I try to be rigorous, to proceed in an ethical fashion, and to declare my biases. I strive, you might say, to be a reliable narrator.





But can truth be taken at face value? Sometimes it must be elaborated, or stretched. That’s certainly what seems to be going on in this, my third, Christmas mystery story.





So, please make what you will of what I have written here, and perhaps form your own judgement about the narrator. Reliable or not? It’s you who must decide.





***





The past year at the University had been pretty grim. So it was a relief to get away from London for a few weeks, and to be with my parents and my sister in Dumfriesshire, south west Scotland, for the Christmas holidays.





My first meal back home is always special. It’s a moment to assess the mood of the household as well as catch up on quotidian matters, village gossip, recent achievements and new enthusiasms.





That evening we ate a home-made lasagne and drank a bottle of Valpolicella, a favourite combination of mine. Mum was full of talk about a recent exhibition she’d seen, on the restoration of degraded peatland.  My sister was preoccupied with her revision schedule for the holidays and the ‘pre-lims’ that awaited her thereafter.





Yet dad, smiling and nodding as ever, and certainly not devoid of appetite, was oddly quiet at the table. When we repaired to the sitting room afterwards and he took up his usual position in a chair next to the stove, he soon fell asleep. The occasional snore, being his only contribution to the conversation.





Later, in the kitchen as I dried the dishes, my mother elaborated.





‘He’s been like this for a while now. Two or three times a week he disappears after lunch and isn’t home until dinner. Then he has his meal, not saying much, and promptly nods off in the chair, or even goes for an early bath and bed’.





‘Are you worried about him mum?’





‘Well yes, I am. I’ve no idea where he goes and I don’t really want to ask him’.





‘Has he done this sort of thing before?’





‘That’s just it. Not at all. You know as well as me that he always gives chapter and verse about where he’s off to. Even if it’s only taking the dog out’.





‘And you’ve no clue about what he’s doing?’





‘Absolutely none. More strangely, he’s even switched off his location tracker!’





‘His what?’





‘On his phone. The three of us use it, so we can each see where the other two are. It’s incredibly useful living out here, with late buses, road works, flooding and so on’.





‘So you’re all electronically tagged!’





‘I suppose you could say that. Sounds a bit sinister, but it was your sister that suggested it and it’s been a great help’.





Trying to conceal a rather obvious suspicion about my father, I rapidly changed the subject. But in my bed that night I was puzzled.





Surely not?





***





Next morning I settled down to do a few hours work on a book outline I was preparing for a publisher. A series of essays on growing old as an inner journey, spirituality in later life, finding meaning through new practices and beliefs, like modern day pilgrimage. All vaguely ‘New Age’, but with a serious twist. 





Around 11 o’ clock, and pleased with my progress, I took a break, made a pot of coffee and talked plans for the afternoon with the rest of the family. My mum and my sister had plenty to do, but dad wouldn’t be drawn. An hour later, he grabbed a sandwich and headed out to his Land Rover, sketching a ‘things to do’ kind of wave as he closed the garden gate.





‘You see what I mean’, said mum, gazing up the track at dad’s disappearing vehicle.





‘I do. That’s not like him at all’





‘There’s something stirring, but I just can’t put my finger on it’.





‘Or maybe you just don’t want to, mum. Some kind of personal crisis, maybe?’





‘In a retired man, your dad’s age!  I suppose it’s possible, but you surely aren’t thinking  … are you?’





‘These things do happen, as we all know’.





‘OK. But I’m not going down that road. Maybe in the past I did wonder once or twice. But not now. Over the years we’ve been here, I’ve thought how content he is, and if I may say so, very solicitous and kind to me. We’re very happy together here. No, no. It can’t possibly be that’.





‘You’re right of course, mum. So maybe we should stop speculating – and get down to enjoying the build up to Christmas!’





***





But the following lunchtime when the same thing happened, my curiosity got the better of me.





As dad drove up the track and away, I jumped into my car and followed him at a discreet distance. Reaching the T junction, he signalled right and I paused on the brow of the hill behind him. When I reached the junction he was no longer in view, so I preceded cautiously along the main road. Rounding a bend, there was his car. He had the window down and was talking to a cyclist travelling in the same direction.





Suddenly engulfed by the madness of what I was doing, I drove up behind the Land Rover, signalled, and as I overtook, gave a cheery wave, before speeding up and heading out of sight.





Feeling quite the fool, I had to detour about seven miles to get back home without immediately re-tracing my route and being seen again.





***





When he left after lunch two days later, mum and I gazed at one another and said nothing for a while. Then she spoke.





‘Have you seen the state of his hands?’





‘No, I haven’t looked. Something strange about them?’





‘They’re rough and bruised. His nails, broken and torn’.





‘But aren’t they normally a bit like that? He’s always gardening, stacking wood, dragging rocks out of the burn’.





‘You could be right, I guess. But surely, he’s not going to carry on like this after Christmas: away for hours at a stretch and then asleep when he’s home?’





‘Oh for goodness sake you two! Can’t you give it a rest?’





It’s my sister, walking into the kitchen, and forthright as ever.





‘Isn’t it obvious he’s working on something or other and doesn’t want to tell us about it just yet. Leave him be! All will be revealed. Or as Julian of Norwich famously said: ‘All shall be well’.





Bemused at the quote, I nodded and went back to my book proposal.





***





Christmas Eve came with a change in the weather. After days of mild Westerlies, the wind backed round to the North East, bringing flecks of snow that soon thickened and began to cover the ground. Twinkling Christmas lights were on before breakfast and the morning was a relaxed bustle of preparations.





Dad was on great form and asked me to give him a hand lighting up his outdoor oven. Fortunately he keeps it in a covered lean-to, out of the rain and snow, and with wood to hand. Not just any wood of course. For his signature dish, of hot smoked salmon, he prefers apple and plum, using cuttings he takes each year from the orchard. 





We spent a pleasant hour firing up the stove, chatting about my work, and pondering on the state of the unstable world. When the salmon came out after exactly 12 minutes of cooking, burnt-orange and sizzling, it smelled delicious. A large handful of chopped winter herbs went on top and it was taken to the kitchen, for a brief moment of ritualised and gendered admiration.





By the end of the morning a whole array of dishes had been prepared for our dinner that evening. My parents have a thing about Denmark, and have travelled there a lot. So over the years we’ve adopted a Nordic theme for our Christmas Eve meal: fish, meat balls, pickles, rye bread and lots of remoulade. All washed down with pilsner and a small glass or two of aquavit.





With the feast in mind, our lunch comprised a modest bowl of soup, along with a chunk of bread. Then there were a few hours to read and take a nap, before darkness fell.





***





By the time we left home for the early evening carol service in our local red tin church, the julebord of comestibles was fully laid out in the dining room, and covered with a large, chequered cloth. There seemed to be enough food for half the village.





Kitted out in boots, thick coats and woolly hats, and assisted by Nordic poles, we slithered down to the crowded church, just in time to squeeze in together, on a pew near the back.





As is normal for this popular event, the singing made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in skill. My sister however, carried off a reading from the pulpit with considerable aplomb, gaining admiring glances in the process. The proceedings concluded with We Wish You and Merry Christmas, accompanied by much foot stomping on the wooden floors. Then we spilled out into the Christmas Eve night, said our greetings to all and sundry, and prepared to make for home.





Or so we thought. For just then, dad spoke.





***





‘Listen up folks, I’d like to take a different route back, if you don’t mind. It’s a bit longer, but there’s something I’m keen for you to see along the way’.





Mum’s eyes met mine as we each silently guessed. Might this be the key to the mystery?





We trudged in single file along a snow-covered path that was clearly familiar to dad. In no more than five minutes we reached a clearing in the wood. I immediately remembered it as a place where pheasants had been reared in years gone by. Back then it had high netting round its square boundary, inside of which were roosting huts and feeding stations.





But now these were all gone. Getting closer, I could see the whole space had been cleared, and moreover, seemed to be illuminated from flickering fires in metal baskets. A few people were already mustered at the edge of the enclosure.





Straining my eyes, I made out some kind of pattern on the ground. We reached the entrance and everyone gathered together. The main actors, it seemed, were dad and three of his friends. They stood smiling at the folk they’d brought along.





Then each spoke in turn.





‘Welcome to this inaugural occasion, and what better moment than Christmas Eve for it to happen?’





‘You may have been wondering where we’ve been going and what we’ve been doing on all those afternoons these past weeks, coming home with aching backs and sore hands’.





‘We’ve created something to provide a space for reflection and contemplation, somewhere for people to come in all seasons, in darkness and in light’.





‘We’ve laboured long and hard to get to this point. But now the work is complete. It’s an inexact copy of something first created in Chartres around 800 years ago. Dear friends and family members, please join us in walking for the first time, The Labyrinth of Nithsdale’.





I looked at mum and saw tears welling. We hugged in mutual relief. My sister jabbed me in the ribs and as a sibling might, noted that her prediction had been correct.





***





We set off to walk. After the initial chit chat, a calming silence fell on our small group.





A single path, perhaps two feet wide, turned and looped through some eleven circles, in four connected quartiles, and gradually brought us to the centre. Here a rose shape of six petals was where we turned to retrace our steps.





The path was thick with pine needles and beech leaves. Now veiled in snow, it was comfortable under foot and bounded on each side by exquisitely mossy rocks and small boulders.





The walk took some time. We progressed towards the centre, only to be brought further out again in circumnavigations that led us forward and then back. This was repeated in reverse as we made our returning way, to the starting point.





When we emerged, there was much embracing and kissing. I couldn’t deny that my first labyrinth walk had produced some kind of deep effect in me. Others seemed to feel the same. It was the most unusual Christmas Eve experience I could remember.





***





Then my mother clapped her hands to get attention.





‘Listen everyone. This has been so fantastic and we should all congratulate the labyrinth makers. Those four people who for weeks have had the rest of us guessing what they’ve been up to!’  





At this, cheers and applause broke out.





‘So … since our house is just on the other side of the wood, can I invite you all back there? We’ve plenty of food on the table waiting to be eaten, and some unusual drinks as well. So please, follow me and we should be there in less than 10 minutes’.





Everyone came. Our torches and smartphones illuminated the way. Urged on by a sense of group wellbeing, as well as hunger and thirst, we found our way back through the snowy wood, to the road, and then to the track.





As we approached, the house seemed unusually bright. From the dining room I could see candles flickering in groups. Surely we didn’t leave them on when we left? More disturbing were the shapes of moving figures inside. I felt a sense of alarm rising in my throat, and got myself to the front of the group, suddenly going into protective mode.





But as I reached the front door, it swung open and a smiling man, rather oddly dressed, welcomed me inside. I had no sense of danger and followed him, turning right from the hallway to where the meal had been laid-out before we left. People pushed in behind me and soon all the labyrinth walkers were gathered together in one room.





***





This is what we saw.





The oblong dinner table, which we had left laden with provender, had disappeared completely. Now a round table of marble stood in its place. It was covered in an ancient cloth, of what looked like Flemish tapestry.





Around it stood four bearded men, dressed in rough woollen smocks, fastened with rope at the waist. Each with a wooden cross at the neck and fur boots at the feet. The eldest addressed my father and his three friends by name.





Then in accents of ancient inflection, they each spoke in turn. Their utterances were in Old French, yet by some mysterious process, we could understand them perfectly. 





‘We are privileged to have travelled down the centuries to visit you here in Scotland, on the night before our Lord was born’





‘By the grace of God, we have come from the city of Chartres, where we worked on its cathedral for many years.’





‘There we constructed a labyrinth to aid pilgrims on their journey’.





‘Now we are honoured that you have recreated the labyrinth of Chartres in the woodlands near here. May all who walk it in meditative hope, find peace and insight’.





With this, the cloth on the table was pulled away, to reveal a beautiful labyrinth detailed in brown and black marble. It was of course an exact copy of Chartres. The four men then stepped back from the table and invited us to come forward and look in detail.





Taking our time, we traced fingers through and back, as the men quietly sang an old French carol, in rough harmony. Then, our family, friends and visitors, with the masons of Chartres, formed a circle around the table, and joined hands.  





As we stood in silence, an electrical impulse seemed to pass through us and the room filled with the brightest, but softest, of radiant light. Then as it grew dim, leaving only the candlelight, the French masons slowly faded from our sight, and were gone. So too was the marble labyrinth.





We were now left facing each other across the oak dining table. Restored to the room, it groaned with food, all ready to serve.





No one spoke. Then my mother broke in.





 ‘OK folks’ it’s going to be a buffet tonight, so just circle round the table and take whatever you want – before it all disappears!’





***





There we have it. Am I still the unreliable narrator would you say, or can I now be trusted? I’m not even sure myself!





At any rate, I hope you can trust me to tell a Christmas mystery story.










For my two previous Christmas mystery stories, see:





2021 - The Christmas Eve Dinner https://davidgrahamclark.net/2021/12/21/the-christmas-eve-dinner-a-mystery-story/





2022 – The Missing Person https://davidgrahamclark.net/2022/12/19/the-missing-person-a-christmas-mystery/