This post is all about another Paul Cummings, who we met in Avebury at midsummer last year.

HMP by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 835x595 mm

“You reckon that’s pacified your Gods? Cos it ain’t pacified mine”.

Click to read more, and see all the pictures…

When we met him, Paul was a wild fellow, fresh from HMP, with head shaven and eyes-dark, dancing and roaring beside the fire. See him here.

Once he’d stopped trying to fight us, Paul became quite charming, and we enjoyed each anothers’ company greatly. He told us how hard it was to make art in prison, with no paint, and how he learned to use coffee granules, cigarette ash, jam and silver foil for his paintings.

“But it’s a nightmare trying to get silver-foil, though there’s loads of it, cos all the junkies want it. They’d peel it off my art if I let them.”

Other gen from Paul included prison “home”-brewing – an open carton of orange juice left by a radiator – or a loaf of bread hollowed out with sugar and water poured in the middle. Rough but effective, we’re told.

To the pictures: sorry it took so long to share them with you; the wait, we’re sure you’ll agree, is well-ended.

PS…to see a comparison between ‘our’ Paul Cummings and the very successful other one, click here. You can decide for yourself whether something’s topsyturvy…the pictures speak a thousand words…

PPS…Rumour has reached us that Paul is once more enjoying her Majesty’s hospitality. So to offer support, to attempt an exhibition, or to enquire after prints, email us here, and we’ll pass it on.

Running Hare by Paul Cummings - Coffee, tea, ash, toothpaste, pen 300x415 mm

Golden Eagle by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 415x595 mm

Dark Wood by Paul Cummings - Coffee, tea, ash, toothpaste 600x1700 mm

Greyhound by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 415x595 mm

Ron by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 835x595 mm

Hare by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 415x595 mm

Self Portrait by Paul Cummings - Coffee, tea, ash, toothpaste, pen 415x300 mm

Sun Wolf by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 600x600 mm

Black Sun by Paul Cummings - Ash, toothpaste, pen 300x210 mm

Lydon by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 595 x 410 mm

Urban Shaman by Paul Cummings - Chalk Pastel 835x595 mm

Forest Raven by Paul Cummings - Raven Coffee, tea, ash, toothpaste 300x415 mm

Sol Nigra by Paul Cummings - Coffee, tea, ash, toothpaste, pen, charcoal, silver foil 835x1200 mm

To read Paul’s descriptions of his art, click here.

as heard on BBC Oxford, boxing-day 2010

It is a study in soundscape, social history, and the multi-layered reality of space. It looks at the many-parted understandings of the road, and land surrounding it, through the eyes and experiences of walkers, singers, motorcyclists, steam-waggoners, and many more.

You can listen to the whole thing on Felix’ website, the Domestic Soundscape.

And here is a clip of our contributions to the show:

Please enjoy. And our thanks to Felix, who is, we should say, one of the best sock-knitters we’ve ever met.

The Songs We Sing

or, how we understand traditional music’s importance.

woodland winter songs

Traditional Numbers

We usually sing old songs, the ones with such deep history that no-one remembers who made them up. Throughout many eras of life on these islands, such songs have just tagged along, a mysterious but comforting part of existence. The sun came up, and the songs were there. No barcode proclaimed their origins. They belonged to no-one, or to everyone, to families, and tribes, as well as individual singers. Like the cliffs, valleys, birds and rivers, like the days of the week and the buildings all around, they were undeniable monuments of the landscape.

Till song collectors wrote them down, early archivists like Cecil Sharp and Baring Gould, these old songs were just a background hum to the rhythms of everyday life, so obvious they were almost unnoticeable. Like the English Elm, they drew attention only when they started to disappear.

It’s these ‘traditional’ songs that we love to sing. We sing them unaccompanied, without electric amplification, in two-part harmonies. That’s just me and Ed, on some drizzly back-street, with our bags stashed in a doorway, crooning a plough-song when everyone’s gone home.

background

Instruments and amps are hard to walk with, and pure voice is the oldest way to make music, with the least possible boundaries between the performer and the listener. Before the industrial age, instruments were specialized tools, crafted at great expense, unavailable to most folks. Of course, it’s a great aspect of modern life, worth celebrating, that strange instruments can be ordered with a few clicks.

But singing songs will always be free for everyone, the common pursuit, and as such, these traditional songs have been the soundtrack for real life all over Britain, for countless generations.

It can be dangerous to call the songs ‘folk’. This little word brings unwanted knee-jerk associations – stale ale, a muddy finger in one ear, and the twang of ancient rebellion seething beneath unruly forests of beard. This is misleading, because slightly true. What is certain, is that good songs are good songs, and if they have survived for hundreds of years, well they’re even better. They are not just silly, or funny, nor are they all ‘ral-dee-fiddle-o’. They address key issues, whose relevance doesn’t fade: love and social taboo, murder, the abuse of power and the perils of ignorance, the rich/poor divide, social injustice, and all possible complications of sex, death and farming.

The word ‘traditional’ is also unsatisfying. Let us be clear, this word does not mean a thing dead and gone. It signifies something that’s been around for a long time, and still continues. Traditions link the past and the future, they live in the present (or else they’re called antiquities), and they bring meaning to our continued existence on these Islands of Britain.

Song Fruit

Songs, like fruit, are delicious, enjoyable and sweet in the flesh of them, healthsome for performer and listener alike. But fruit are not just made for the pleasure of their flesh; they have an agenda all of their own. For fruit contain seeds, from which all future fruit shall spring. It is the seeds, not the fruit, that make new life, ensuring growth.

Just so with singing: each time you take in a song, not just to consume it, but to receive in your fertile depths, you’ll be ensuring the seed of song may adapt and survive. You will be hosting it in new soils and conditions, to guarantee its journey onwards.

By re-interpreting, invigorating, and sharing song-traditions, in the only available context (the here and now), songs are refreshed, and reborn as a modern configuration of meaningful associations. Songs are repositories of complex DNA. They replicate and evolve with each new-grown expression, while simultaneously retaining their core identity as a storage point of culture, information, history and knowledge.

Each new engendering of a song is a natural and unintentional hybridization of the originally learned version. Depending on the soil in which it is grown (the singer’s proclivities, voice, and influences), a new (but fundamentally similar) variant of ‘the song’ is created, which (if successful) becomes ‘the song’ itself.

in Bradford on Avon

We can carry the comparison further (which doesn’t mean we should, but we shall), in saying that recorded songs are like chilled, frozen or juiced fruit, a once-living thing that has undergone a process of stabilizing, preserving or homogenizing. Transported far from their home soils, there is necessarily a slow steady loss of original flavour, character, and fertility.

For recorded music always involves money. Expensive studio processes, skilled people, marketing and packaging, need cash repayments. But money introduced to musical transmission brings a new focus, and creates a less naive, more complex societal procedure. In this light, songs and music profit from their unavailability, keeping them in controlled channels.

We are trying to say that a recorded musical event is very different, in many ways, to a live spontaneous song sung in a village pub, or at home, by a mother to her child. Technically, it is the same song, thus the same thing. But the motivations, processes and the actual results are all very different. It’s a bit like walking and driving a car – you could say they are both varieties of travel, only at different speeds. But they too are vastly different events, like a tree and a table.

The Orchard at Large

The basic premise we’re peddling is that humans are gardeners, custodians of land and culture. That’s what our species is here to do – take care of other things, and create beauty. We are all part of the cultural landscape, and if we wish for our song-gardens to grow, we need to care for the songs that choose us as hosts, by singing them as often, as well, and to as many people as possible.

Llandeiloes Singing

The best way to make a song grow is to lovingly introduce it into your musical garden. Overheard on some wind, the seed is taken, planted, propagated, protected, and enjoyed. Then we, and our children, can enjoy the fruit onwards. So, we’re saying, if you want more good fruit bushes to grow, you must reward a really wonderful berry by pooing it outside somewhere, in good soil, and fair light. Don’t just wash its seeds away in Thos. Crapper’s flushing devices.

If this sounds strange, well it is only recently anything but utterly normal, right across the metaphor. For most of human time, on hearing a brilliant song, we’d have gone off singing it to friends and family. But today, the ‘normal’ behaviour is to take music inwards, to consume more and more of it on headphones, on mp3 and radio, and very rarely to spread it by raw analogue song output. We instead replicate perfect digital simulacrum of the same song, in the same way, by the same artists, passing recordings about, each in separate silent spaces, each imagining we are really there and the song is sung for us.

This is disempowering, and boring. It makes us punters, the entertained, rather than creators of culture. People (folk) make music. It is not an elite game, but is common as brambles and free as breath. But in our culture of industrial music consumption, output is most usually a perfect replica of the original, copied on disks for listening, but not singing. Like a banana plantation, every tree is a clone of the next.

gig

Of course, it’s still great to get bananas in England, even though they must be paid for, and cannot be found wild or grown. But there is a quality in native wild things, in songs that have been sung through human throats for generations, over those downloaded onto mp3 players. Wild food is undoubtedly stronger and more potent than its deviant cousins, the domesticated foodstuffs of mass monoculture.

Supermarket food is enslaved food, which grows solely by the will and technology of human owners. Wild food grows by its own self-motivation, by its ancestral expertise, by the same means as the first of its kind. Against all odds, in spite of all difficulty, it lives and thrives.

Just so, the value of wild-song, those old songs sung by people around you, right in front of you, is much greater than hearing something recorded on the radio, all complicated and polished, solid in its form, and seedless. Wild Song is the fundamental and original magical technology of music, available for anyone to use and enjoy, when and where they like.

As such, songs become valuable and exciting things. Holding and singing them makes you the direct carrier of a core tradition, and puts the song’s future in your own hands. Anyone can take part – and everyone does. Just by learning and singing an old song, you join the huge number of people who previously sung and changed and upheld the song. It is like suddenly being part of a new hereditary clan, and being given a whole new set of ancestors, who stretch into the past and future.

welsh botanic garden entry

The Long Journey Somewhere

Who knows why songs, fruit, traditions and people take such long paths, through so many constantly adapting forms? Who knows why some songs become lodged inside certain skulls, while others bounce off unwanted? They fall on ears, to settle, grow, and form new adaptations, to encode and cause further generative releases. In other places, they leave only an indent, the memory of a feeling, and nothing more.

Who knows where the song goes? Who knows what motivates a tree to make fruit? Is it a blind robotic impulse to survive, or is there some destination waiting ahead, a strange attractor set in an irresistible future? To create such delicious fruit, such unique and refreshing flavours, seems to indicate a tree’s passion and intelligence. And the same is true of songs. They seem to have an internal intelligence, a clever survival method and a destiny being pursued. The life of a song is very long, an unknowable journey of cultural osmosis. Who knows what paths a song has taken, before it reaches you? And yet – it has arrived here, in your head this morning, on your tongue this afternoon, obeying an internal impulse all of its own.

Songs move in mysterious ways. A big showy performance might bounce right off, while a passer-by’s hummed melody can haunt for years. Songs operate on levels we do not fully understand. How many times have you been thinking of a lyric, only to hear someone else start to sing it? Being born into an unknowable past, by mysterious people whose stories we cannot know, traditional songs have followed the most miraculous of paths to reach us today.

We are just their stepping stones, evolutionary moments in their greater development and life-cycle. We are their vehicles, and they use to continue and spread themselves. And every song is travelling on its own journey, toward the right time and place, when the right person will sing them, to achieve exactly the right thing.

Frampton Court Songs

How this may happen, the awaited destiny of the songs we sing, is of course entirely conjectural. History doesn’t write such things down. But the cumulative steps of destiny, the entire series of happenings that have caused the song to get where it is today, defy chance and coincidence. Despite such long odds, every song has passed such a process, step-by-step, right through hundreds of lives throughout every living moment of history.

And perhaps it will be you, holding the song at its great moment of release. That little number you’ve sung while washing up with for the last 10 years, is maybe just waiting for you to sing it out, give it breath, release it, and let it do its work. It may then effect another’s mind, with its deep soul magic, to change the world we live in. This is not mystic cherry-chat, but a solid nod to the mechanistic ‘cause and effect’ of cultural influence. A lament about fishermen, sung in the ears of a future executive planning-officer, could make a serious difference to the reality of life for coastal communities. A song can definitely change the world.

Please, then, take seriously the eating of fruit, and the receiving of traditions, and songs. Take them in well. Share them. Do not just consume one and demand another. Ensure they are growing well in the wild, and in your garden, till such boundaries are overrun. Be grateful for the joys that the old songs will provide throughout your life, so freely and so merrily.

And do not forget, that you yourself are the expression of deeds done before, like the apples, like the songs. You are the outcome so far, of every season’s growth and death, every pain, hope, passion and disaster that has occurred before you. You are the purpose, the result, of everything that has come before. We all are. All of us, alive, the freshest fruit of evolution, and each of us singing in the good old future.

We look forward, and hope to see you there.

]]> http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/culture/arts/the-songs-we-sing/feed/ 6 http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/culture/arts/cartoon-cut-out-ed-and-will-2 http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/culture/arts/cartoon-cut-out-ed-and-will-2#comments Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:01:06 +0000 admin http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/culture/arts/ A man from St. Austell once sent us a picture.

We were flattered, because it was of us, and it was very good.

To find out more, please read on…

This imago-weaver is called Trystan Mitchell, an illustrator of great skill and renown. His images grace all sorts of books, and he is (we believe) even writing his own Wooden Book. He sign-wrote the Rick Stein fish restaurant in Padstow, the Speaking Tree in Glasto, and is a remarkable source of meaningful coloured lines.

We say: Trystan is a sculptor in the medium of story. To understand this, grab a look-see round his webbles:

Red Bubble

Studio Bigfoot

Bigfoot Blanket Blog

Flickr

One of the more surprising good things Trystan did for us, was to create these cut-out paper models, depicting us cartoonly.

copyright Trystan Mitchell

They are part of his range of ‘Noggins‘, paper-toys and action figures. Trystan has made a whole society of these papery peoples. They can thrive in all sorts of scenarios, and with a little ventriloquy, they’ll sing too.

To download the instructions to make these cut-outs, press HERE. Trystan recommends that they are printed on medium-weight card.

We like such cartooning. It reminds us that our journeys represent simpler shapes and older symbols than we can see. It tells us that the archetypes we sometimes inhabit are not ours, that this rambling life is not our idea, that we’re just borrowing it awhile.

For other prompts in the art of the being alivehuman, keep looking at Trystam’s other works.

And to buy images of the good old future, the wayward past, and the rum denizens of all their borderlands, have a hunt around HERE.

Sincere respect to Trystan Mitchell.

So he’s done a lot of knife sharpening, trying many configurations and possibilities. Always, his trials are informed by a thorough grounded understanding of the tool itself, and the job it has to do.

Man at Spoon

And having found a good way to ensure a sharp blade, Barn on this video shares with us his findings in keeping a knife keen.

Many thanks to Barn the Spoon. Look out for him on a footpath somewhere, fresh green spoons lining his smock, small knives glinting in the wooded sunbeams.

Please press MORE, and read it up.

HURDLES IN A COPPICE WINTER

Hurdles, or wattles, are transportable wooden panels, bound together by the weaving and wrapping of horizontal rods around fixed upright rods (aka ‘sails’). They are a geodesic approximation of a flat surface, a plain constructed of long round poles.

A Hurdle, in its 'natural' environment

We needed hurdles as flooring, as we were unwilling to import to the woods the only viable free alternative, unwanted pallets. While pallets are free and available, they all contain nasty old nails, and our promise to leave the woods with nothing that would not biodegrade, meant no iron-bound pallets.

So hurdles it was. We were backed by extensive tradition, which we were keen to rediscover. Wattle and daub is a historical catchphrase, and indeed formed one of the oldest building methods whose structures still survive. Wattle and daub, loosely, comprises of a hurdle (probably with unsplit rods, for greater longevity) being covered with mud, or clay, or cob, or poo.

Our eventual hurdled floor achievement

This seemed to work for generations of people in Britain, as a cheap, easy, effective form of house-building that used only abundant local materials.

In fact, most of our traditional British industries (going back a distance) were dependent on the woodlands, our greatest land-based resource. This meant that people of these lands once took very seriously the production of suitable materials from the woods. Hurdling, for example, requires lots of straight rods, and so woodland managment needed to provide this resource. By such prompts, or market-demands, was the system of coppicing developed.

Coppicing is a word that is unknown in much of the world. It is the practise of cutting broad-leaf trees at various regular points of their lives, over a wide section of woodland, and then letting them grow back again.

It has created man-shaped woodlands in Britain which, while not ‘ancient’ or strictly ‘natural’, are very old, very diverse, and very productive. It also created woodland-shaped humans, who were disciplined, observant, and diligent custodians of their wooded landscapes.

Most people react strongly against a tree being cut down, and see it as an unnecessarily early end to a beautiful story. But in a non-fiction world, the coppicing of a broadleaf tree ensures its regeneration, that it may remain ever-young.

Hazel, untended by man, will live for around 100 years, until it falls from its own weight, or rots, and in falling opens its base to the assault of microbia, insects, and fungi. But hazel constantly cut down to the stool, will  live for 1000 years+. The same is true of many trees, although the method of regrowth depends on the tree. Elms sucker from the root. Ash grows above ground, from the stump. Conifers, native or otherwise, will not survive being felled.

These days, when our ‘economy’ justifies the importing of timber grown a thousand miles away, as ‘cheaper’ than wood grown a mile away, old coppices in Britain are often left to rot of their own accord. Many woods are now privately owned, and their owners often espouse the belief that non-maintenance is good maintenance. And perhaps it is true, that in time old coppice woods will revert to a more ‘natural’ state; but it is also true that such a woods will be of limited value to builder-man.

Hurdle floor in Ed's mini house

Coppicing, as a regulated cycle, provides materials for industry, as quick-growing small rods, or as longer-cycling of bigger ‘standard’ trees for timber. It also produces fire-wood, and charcoal from the littlest bits, and a good harvest of nuts or fruits (depending on the trees).

But crucially, it also allows wide biodiversity, and a safe refuge for much wildlife. The piles of dead wood that are left in the woods become a valuable habitat. There were buzzards, tawny-owls, hares and woodpeckers in our patch.

And because an area of coppice is worked in rotated sections (coups), there are all stages of growth in a functioning coppice. This ensures a regular dose of direct sunlight onto all parts of the woodland floor, to awaken wild-flower seeds who would not grow in constant darkness, like Foxglove, and to knock back the constant presence of shade-lovers, like Dogs Mercury. And because there is change, within a regular cycle, coppice woodlands allow the presence of what ecologists call a ‘guild’ of plants, meaning groups who are mutually supportive, and can live in conjunction without competing. Primroses, Anenomes, Bluebells and Violets form one such guild, which thrive on coppice floors.

To our neolithic ancestors, the appearance of such wildflowers, especially two or three years after cutting, when the benefits of all that extra photosynthesis have been assimilated, would have given vital medicinal (and some edible) benefits. But these ancestors would doubtless also have delighted in the mostly-aesthetic considerations of the modern eye.

The ancient (and recent) inhabitants of these islands valued local materials in industry and craft, having few other options. Their systems of woodland management would have been painstaking, always keenly observed, with a constant memory and respect for the working traditions that led them there.

They duly learned that trees cut simultaneously over a wide area are more likely to regrow straight, as there is no sideways growth necessary in such an egalitarian competition for light (the only way is up). This was of considerable importance in industry, as regular materials are easier to work than lots of odd shaped and twisty bits. Also, on felling a single tree, many new growths emerge, so there seemed to be an ever-increasing wood to replace what was taken. This was probably pleasing to our projected ancestors, and perhaps we can imagine that such ongoing bounty was taken as a sign of approval, from divine powers, for the good act of coppicing.

Of course, we have mainly out-grown such humility; but then, we’ve also mostly forgotten about coppicing. This island was once entirely wooded, and it is only humans who have altered this. We now enjoy approx 8.4% of England as woods, which to be fair, is an improvement on 200 years ago. But we have also suffered the massive increase of sitka spruce plantations, an Alaskan tree whose fast-growing properties make it the cheapest softwood timber to produce. Today, approx. 30% of trees in England are Sitka. While more trees is always good, such a boom of one species usually occurs at the cost of another, and native woodlands and coppices, whose format and scale are less economically rewarding, are the usual victims.

So Sitka (and other conifers) are usually produced on the site of ancient woodland and coppices, which are grubbed (destroyed) in order to make way for more profitable pine farms. These monocultures of non-native trees are grown with little regard for biodiversity, and they do not coppice, but are cyclically felled and replanted. Much of this is due to the post-war ‘scientific’ forestry techniques championed by the newly formed ‘Forestry Commission’. We’ve heard many tales, from long-term local old-boys, of how local fishing streams became dead, brown and fishless, after the FC felled and sold the broadleaved trees, and replanted with soft pines.

Forestry Commission Stewardship in Action

Today, much of this island’s remaining ancient coppice woodland is overstood, that is, in desperate need of regenerating, if the ancient trees are to live on, and if the culture of sustainable management is to be retained.

On arriving at our winter woodland base, we had coppicing on the mind, and were soon put to work on cutting down the hazel, as low to the ground as possible. In 10-12 years, there should be a woodful of straight, bonny hazel rods, all ready for craft. But for us, there was instead a hodge-podge of twisty, gnarly stuff, with some good straight bits thrown in. This, however, is also a working benefit, as it ensures the woodland coppicer is always looking ahead, and planning for the future, for the houses of his grandchildren and onwards.

A Wattle Woodshed we made, beside the Outdoor Baths of Mellowcroft

Luckily for us there were acres of woods to be coppiced, so our only shortages were in motivation, to hunt down the good straight wood and drag it back to camp.

We tried making hurdles in our first days there, with Rose as a primary instigating experimenter (a role she played very well). But the mystery of how to keep the hurdles from falling apart, on every side, seemed impenetrable, despite books galore on ‘how-to’.

Then into our camp strolled Hopper, who was a friend of the wood owners, and has been making hurdles for most of his life. It was his main career for many years, and he still makes them on order today, although he admitted that there is better trade in willow, which is easier to work.

Hopper listened to our plans, and told us we were crazy, that a hurdle panel floor would take too long, and we should find another way.

But he also told us everything we could need to know, should we decide anyway to pursue our unreasonable and unlikely plan.

We found Hopper’s knowledge to be beyond expert. He is a born teacher, and could explain what he knew in simple and accessible ways.

WE BELIEVE…it is the mark of a true professional, an artisan and an artist, for someone to be willing to openly share the “secrets” of their skills, without thought of recompense or competition. Anyone who refuses to divulge such information, a hoarder of knowledge, is (we surmise) a charlatan, afraid more to reveal their lack of understanding, than of losing their perceived information monopoly.

But we may be wrong on that.

Lee carries one home

So here is Hopper’s guide to Hurdle-making, as we heard it.

A further instructional video, of Hopper teaching us how to split hazel rods, is available HERE.

Please, as ever, ask any questions that you may feel prompted by this post, and its accompanying video. And please feel affected by all arising issues.

We really want you, the person on the other end of the wire, to let us know what you know, about coppicing and hurdling (and unrelated other things too). We compile and release information not only for the outward education, but also to attract further (and alternative) knowledgeable responses. So share your findings, in the vital and wholesome arena of traditional woodland management, and we’ll all have a jolly dialogue.

See you in the good old future.

We look forward.

Hurdled loo hole

Hurdle floor underside

Ayla in a hurdle hangout, beside the bathside

Good luck. If you succeed, please send us a photo…

Press More for cut-outs

The Ed Noggin

page 1 of cut-out Ed

Page 2 of the Ed monster

Page 3 cut out Ed

page 4 of the Ed bot

The Will Noggin

page 1 cut-out Will

page 2 Will bot

Page 3 make a Will man

Page 4 Will cut-quick

A compost loo was the best quick idea we could see to solve this problem, a big hole in which the rich nightsoil (we like that word) could break itself down, and harmlessly enrich the local earth.

First was the hole, which as we’ve mentioned, provided clay for the window-cobbing. Next, we placed 4 straw bales around the trench, and pegged them down with hurdle rods, so there could be no dreadful tumbling accidents. The bales also heightened the action position, meaning our hole did not have to be so deep.

Then a specially designed hurdle was made, with a hole in it.

This meant our loo was a squatting only contraption, which everyone knows is the only way to poo wholesomely. For guests who couldn’t handle this, there was a traditionally seated compost loo ten minutes walk away, at the other end of the wood.

Lastly, a hazel dome frame was dug in and woven over the top of the bales and hurdle, which was itself covered in canvas, to keep the our heads, and the composting deposits, dry.

What we dropped therein, we covered with either wood-ash, a useful double use for our regular stove clean-out. If wood-ash was short, then leaves sufficed. This helped with the breakdown.

We often wonder how people justify dispatching their poo with drinkable water, when there is such a shortage in this land, and in others. For one thing, water is expensive! And it is heavy. Having to carry our water only a quarter of a mile made us appreicate the daily duty of water.

Toilet paper was something we initially did without, but the regular guests in our winter home meant that this odd luxury was brought in, and often lingered after guests left. Certainly, the most local moss supplies ran low, and we were often glad of our toilet roll stash.

We can recommend heartily the act of compost-loo building, as an alternative to wasting gallons of good water a day. Every other living creature lets their excrement fall to earth, and we believe humans can do this too.

]]> http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/outdoor-living/our-compost-loo/feed/ 3 http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/outdoor-living/crafting-a-house-in-the-woods-some-extra-details http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/knowledge/outdoor-living/crafting-a-house-in-the-woods-some-extra-details#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:03:13 +0000 Branching Arts http://www.awalkaroundbritain.com/ This winter, we made all sorts of things from the wood around us. When we arrived, we had some rudimentary hand-tools, but nothing electric or powered. Good axes were brought from home, and a boot fair provided us with hand-drills and bits, an iron digging stick, a good shovel and a bow-saw, the best of available technologies.

the finished job

Materials-wise, we were coppicing, so hazel rods were plentiful, and standards (timber trees) were also being felled, so ash and oak were available too. Everything but the roof of our house (which was of secondhand canvas) was made from immediate resources – except for parts which we liberated from the local tip. We prided ourselves on using no metal or plastic in it, until the perspex slabs were donated for window use. The breaking of resolve on this point meant that we did finish one window with 10 little metal tacks. It was 20 times quicker than carving hazel pegs ourselves, and by then we were really getting tired.

Rose and Ayla were driving forces in the ‘free-time-equals-craft-time’ paradigm, and we are well grateful for all they taught us this winter, in practical and motivational terms.

Here is a short video compilation of the house, as it pops up to nestle us. Please enjoy.

Press MORE to see more crafty details of the house, built from ideas, sweat and hazel.

The House

Our first big challenge, which had to be done before the cold really kicked in, was the main house. This needed to be temporary, but strong enough to withstand anything the unknown winter ahead could throw our way.

Thankfully, we were between hillsides and treelines, so the wind’s worst lashes were avoided.

We had various plans, and they were all adapted in situ, for pragmatism overwhelmed all. But stage by stage, we got there. The hazel dome on stilts took 1 month to create, with the four of us working full time (alongside all the other necessary doings of woodland life…).

While it was being built, we all lived either under thin plastic sheets, or in the A Frame. Neither option was off the floor, so we became pretty savvy about the nocturnal habits of the wood mice (apodemus sylvaticus).

A platform was the first adaptation we made to our general hazel dome plan, as the woods were damp, and the millions of wood-mice wanted to sharpen their ever-growing teeth on anything we valued.

But a platform needed to flat, and we had no access to machine-made plywood. So we had to improvise, with hazel hurdles.

platform is strong

hurdle undersides make great waterproof storage

This was a learning process all of its own, which we discuss here.

The next step was in creating the upright structure, to hold the canvas and straw insulation off our heads.

dome arising

We then needed to weave the structure with long hazel rods, cut and trimmed with the billhook. This made the dome structure strong enough to support the canvas, and our weight. It is amazing how a single piece of flexible hazel wood can be woven with others, to create something many times stronger. Weaving seems to be a core human technology, for baskets, hurdles, fabric and clothing, and even computer information is woven (010101101100).

Anyway, next the canvas was draped and arranged, with twine from side to side, to encourage it to stay in place. It is pretty heavy stuff, so there was little danger of it blowing away, but better safe…

ed grapples canvas

Rose gets comfy

A hurdle foyer then provided the transition space between outside and inside, somewhere to remove shoes (which were never worn indoors).

the foyer gets made

Straw was then stuffed, by the slab, into the space between the canvas and the interior blanket layer. This kept the heat in, and made the whole thing look like a puffa jacket.

puffy with straw

The next step was in fixing the windows, which Rose decided would be best done with cob.

When i’m cobbing Windows

The perspex window panes were donated by a kind lady, and they were framed with hazel sticks, gouged out and pegged with hazel to hold all together. The gaps between these windows, which were bound onto the main house hazel frame, were decided to be best plugged around with cob.

Heavy clay subsoil, dug from the compost loo pit, was mixed with straw and rainwater in a tin tub borrowed for the task. The straw supplies the lengthy fibres which bind the clay together, and stop lumps dropping off. We mixed in as much straw as we could, Rose’s hands almost falling off with this job, but a surprisingly small amount of straw could be persuaded to mix in.

Old bottles were added to the mix, to allow light transference, and a splash of good morning colour.

free coloured glass

This was all done, and an overhang designed to protect the cob from the worst of the driving rains – a good hat and boots, they say, ensures cob will endure.

good cobbed windows

The old wood burner we installed in a corner of the house helped greatly in drying the cob out thoroughly, and likewise in keeping us alive during the chillier snaps.

It would have been cleverer to cob in the summer months, when there is no danger of freezing. But no such option existed.

cob and ice should be kept well seperate

Some sand in the mix would also likely have helped, as the clay has little sand in it. But, with the materials at hand, the job was bodged sufficiently well, and the windows let in light, while the cob kept out draughts.

what do you see?

This technology worked very well, and it is no surprise that as a temporary shelter, cob and hazel has such a solid ancient reputation – wattle and daub, they call it, and in places it has lasted many hundreds of years.

This is the story of meetings made while walking last year, on the oath to Saint Davids (Dewi Sant).

It takes place while Ed and Will were accompanied by Rose, and sees them arrive in Carmarthen, or Caerfyrddin, the City of Merlin.

It tells of Merlin and his Oak, of throwing axes, of Carmarthen Police Force, and of the most beautiful music we’ve ever witnessed in a pub folk-session.

And it has interesting recordings too. So please press ‘more’, and read on…

We were tired, as the day was already long. The night before’s sleep had been wet, and thorny, in an unkempt copse. Today Ed had a knee problem, causing him pain and worry, which he deemed the fruit of soul troubles.

unsettled skies

So we headed for the City of Carmarthen, source  of the famous black book of Cymraig myths, home of the historic Merlin, and hopefully a good place for rest and strengthening.

yawn and sneeze?

As soon as our feet touched the concrete pathways of the city outskirts, the rain, in warm lumps, began to fall.

ufos zapping trucks

As well as too wet, it was also too late  for busking, for the shops were starting to close, and the centre almost deserted. We took shelter at the friendliest inn we could find, and consulted our possibilities (we checked emails).

We soon discovered the invitation, kindly sent 3 months before, for us to join a small group of musicians, on any monday night, in a particular Carmarthen pub. Checking the calendar (for the weeks pass like clouds), we discovered that today was monday. We would make the meeting, and hopefully find some soul relief for Ed’s troubled patella.

But not wanting to spend the next 5 hours in the pub, we stepped out into the now gentle rain, and rejoiced as clouds cleared abruptly into strong new sunshine.

Sitting in a small park, we decided to benefit from this sun, and so we spread our damp sleeping bags and clothes over the bushes.

A policeman approached. He stepped up to Will, and asked: “So what do you lot think you’re doing?” He was using the words of authority, but with no aggression behind them, to see how well we would meet this challenge. He was guaging our reactions, and sounding our intent.

Such challenges we have met many times, and we know now that they are only tests to see if we will become angry, and seal our own unwelcome. Knowing this, but nonetheless slightly flustered, Will replied: “Well, we’ve walked here from Canterbury, and we’re just drying our kit a little bit. We’re travelling singers, you see, ans we collect traditional songs from people, to learn and perform back in the community. We’re not setting up a camp or anything, we promise. We’ll be off in an hour or two.”

“From Canterbury, eh? Singing old songs?” He may have been trying to sound credulous, but their wistfulness in his eyes was clear, as he muttered: “Men after my own heart”, and half-smiling, strolled slowly away.

trustworthy types

The second park meeting came a half hour later, as we were re-packing our now dry kit back into the nooks of our backpacks.

A young-looking man, with sunglasses and a bandana, had been hanging around on the other side of the park for some time, and as he slowly approached in a familiar looping trajectory (closer, but seeming further; curious, but cautious), we called greetings loudly. He seemed relieved, and came over, to release the questions he held.

His name was Cash, and as he removed his shades, we saw he was older than we imagined. We guessed his roots were from Bangladesh, which he confirmed. He set to gripping the details of our situation (“You’ve been walking for 6 months? And you’ve got no place to stay? No place to wash and eat?”), and then had a flash of inspiration (the kind we love), as he announced: “Why don’t you use my place? I’ve only just moved in, but the shower was plumbed yesterday, and you’d be welcome.”

So we walked to his flat, and took turns in the new shower. It is a sweet relief to wash the road from your body, with hot water, after a long day.

Cash asked Ed about his knee problem, and questioned its link to earlier foot pains, before massaging his leg for a half-hour, which Ed professed helped greatly.

And then we made dinner for us all, a huge salad, which Cash found to be an amazing revelation. “How do you do this? You have a gift…”

We told him our plans for the pub, and music that evening, and he asked for a song before we went. We sung. He nodded, happy. “But guys”, he asked slowly, calculatingly, “do you do any reggae?”

How could we say no? Tthree little birds, and chatty chatty mouth, with all joining in, made the whole flat rang. He was right, we thought. Traditional Folk, sometimes, is just not quite it.

Then it was farewell to our new friend Cash (although we were to meet him 3 months later, as we attempted to bicycle back from St Davids back to Canterbury).

And onward, to the pub, at the promised time, to make the next meeting, we went.

We won’t tell you which monday night pub is the one. If you’re in Carmarthen, listen out, and find it yourself. The gang who meet here go by the name of Elin and the Tribalites, and they involve one beautiful young girl on the harp, a tough lad on watchful violin, an older chap on epic complex guitar, and a fellow called Simon, playing sundry homemade stringed things, and singing.

And singing. With power we hear rarely in the ‘best’ of the professional performers. The second song they played together, about a local river, had us gasping for breath with the sheer beauty of it. Their music was awesome, huge and sweet and devestating. Small weeping seemed perhaps inapporpriate, but it was necessary to cope with the music.

We were overwhelmed as they ended their song, to the applause of 3 or 4 listeners. Ah, there is the quiet majesty of folk music, the unbelievable sublime heights, in the quiet backroom of a pub with no-one listening. We were lucky to be there.

At first, we had no songs to return, but we soon told a ‘Rolling in the Dew’, with Will as the girl character. They laughed, appreciating the comedy, and soon enough it was time to close.

“You’ll be coming back to the farm with us all, won’t you?” Simon asked. We would.

will and the ax target

And here we stayed for 2 more days. Simon taught us to throw the doubled-edged axe, and a solid war-cry to guide our efforts. He showed us his chainsaw carvings, which astounded us.

And the cherry of all was the carving of Merlin, from an oak which was said to be related to the now-fallen famous ‘Merlin’s Oak’.

Merlin’s Oak was the most famous of all Carmarthshire trees, and a prophesy protected it: “When Merlin’s Tree shall tumble down, Then shall fall Carmarthen Town”. It was indeed pulled down by an impatient council, at the turn of the 20th Century, and the year it went, Carmarthen, tallying with the 6th Centruy prophecies, suffered the worst floods it has ever known. So there you go.

But now Merlin in the Oak is returning. A shopping centre in Carmarthen has agreed to buy the statue, and display it proudly from the front of their roof, where Merlin can once more look out over his city, a good thing we feel. For whether or not you care a jot for the historical figure of Merlin (a well documented personage), or think there is anything in his written prophesies, you must know how important it is for a town or community to have its own story. This is not an isolation thing, to close doors to other people, but a handle, by which a community can identify itself, a secure context from which to welcome the world in.

While staying with Simon, we visited the town centre and made sure we sung for the wandering shoppers. This was the second time in town we caught police attention. Two PC SOs (support officers, unpaid volunteer uniformed people), saw us singing, and came over to cause trouble.

They started to tell us the law, and we held up a hand, while we finished the last verses of the song. You cannot stop mid-song, it would be bad DJing. This aggrivated the PCSOs, but it gave us the support we needed, as watching coffee drinkers applauded massively at the end, far more than they had done before the coppers turned up.

A little surprised at such a warm reaction from the seemingly indifferent crowds, the police people looked around again, a little more unsure now.

“Listen up, you need a license to sing here, and I bet you’ve not got one, right?”

“That’s right officer, we’re just passing through.” we informed him in politest gentlest fashion.

As this exchange was going on, a number of people got up, and came over to throw money in our now heavier hat. “Nice one lads” said one; “Best thing i’ve heard in hours” said another. “You’d better keep singing” said an elderly lady, looking firmly at the young police peoples as she spoke, “I like songs with my tea, and i’ve not heard enough yet.”

The police chap sighed, confused perhaps, but unwilling to cause a scene for no good reason. “Well, we’ll be back in an hour. You’d better be finished by then, ok?”

“As you say.” we nodded, “we’ll just sing a few more and get moving, shall we?”

“Right then.” And they left. Looking back quickly as if there were something more to say, but thinking better, the policeman disappeared up the street, looking for more illegals to hassle.

So on we sung, and good fun it was too.

We’ve no problem with police doing their job. It seems to us, however, that things like industrial pollution, dangerous driving, abuse and violence, racism and theft, should present a more pressing concern than a little unauthorized singing.

Anyway, that was that. We recommend Carmarthen as a place to visit. There are many good people to be sought. Be nice to the buskers there, you’ll have more influence on their day than you can know.

And look out for Elin and the Tribalites, and of course for Merlin in the Oak of Carmarthen.

Lastly, please enjoy these recordings made of Simon, singing his own songs, in his home. They are the proverbial marmite: certainly good for you, but something you’ll either love or not like. The instrument Simon plays is the creation of his own hands. The singing/playing style is, likewise, idiosyncratically his.

Ride of Green

Come Along

Thankyou Simon, and Carmarthen, and Myrddin Emrys too.

wizard carved the day we left,with Ed as handmodel

chain-sawn protection

We leave you with poems of Myrdin, ‘the fosterer of song among the streams’. c.573ad

He speaks of the fall of Celtia, the driving out of their traditions by the Saxons and the Roman church. He draws our distracted attention away from human concerns for power and wealth and directs our sight towards nature’s bounty.

Myrdin was said to be receptive to the new ideas of christianity when they first came to Britain, and for a time the Celtic circle and the teachings of Christ stood side by side in mutual understanding. It was when the Saxon church started to persecute those who did not adhere to the Roman doctrine and the church’s authority that trouble started, and the end of Myrdin’s time drew near. He is said to have ended his life at that time  in the wilds, lamenting a broken circlet of beauty as the poets are shunned and a new order is established in Britain, which he calls ‘the enemy of the city of the Bards’.

Listen, O little pig! Is not the mountain green?

Listen, O little pig! Are not the buds of thorns

Very green, the mountain beautiful, and beautiful the earth?

Listen to birds whose notes are pleasant.

Listen, O little pig! Hear thou the melody

And chirping of birds by Caer Reon!

Listen, O little pig! thou little, speckled one!

List to the voice of sea-birds! Great is their energy!

Minstrels will be out, without their appropriate portion;

Though they stand at the door a reward will not come,

I was told by a seagull that had come from afar.

To me it is of no purpose

To hear the voice of water-birds whose scream is tumultuous.

Thin is the hair of my head; my covering is not warm.

The dales are my barn; my corn is not plenteous.

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