Thoughts of home

[storeynicholas]

This came out one afternoon:


Thoughts of home from Rio de Janeiro
I have made a the break for the border - indeed a border very far away. Do I miss Britain? Yes, of course I do, for "exiles always mourn". I miss my home - but as I remember it from long ago - as Proust said: "Les vrais paradis sont les paradis qu'on a perdus". Also, maybe I love the memory of many of its physical features so much that I can hardly bear to see what has become of some of them.

I miss the very obvious things, such as: family and friends; red post boxes and the Spring rain and flowers: snowdrops, daffodils, tulips; May blossom - and keep all the orchids of the East and South for - violets. I miss cherry blossom and the gathering Summer sun - and then the Autumnal crispness; reddening leaves; blackberries and sloes suddenly in the hedges; the lengthening and the shortening of the days; distinct seasons; driving on the proper side of the road; the sight of classic cars; the joyful sound of hearty British laughter and the comforting, the familiar - such as the music introducing Match Of The Day and Big Ben on the News At Ten - but I also miss more personal things too - walks by a certain tidal river (the curlews' plaintive calls) - ending with fresh crab claws and hot, buttered crumpets and Orange Pekoe tea a point - in a pre-warmed pot, left to brew; the eye-watering smoke of bonfires of dead leaves and the crunch of ice on the ground at Christmas time; my parents' calls of: "Good Night and God bless you!"; lunch in a City pub (maybe the Bell in Fleet Street) or a club with a friend; a consoling dinner and diverting argument with another, after some self-made upset; a solitary - sometimes, winning - game of Blackjack head-to-head at Crockford's Club, under the barrelled, Wedgwood ceiling (that and the Adam dining room there, a pair of nearly hidden glories of London); the sound of gulls crying, wings flashing, in the harbours at Fowey or Mevagissey or over the sands and crashing surf at Perranporth; the surprised squeal of the brakes on a great, big, red London 'bus on the sudden declivity at the traffic lights at Aldwych; particular peals of bells - from the world famous 'oranges-and lemons' of St Clement-Danes to the less famous - but more cheerful - St Clement's on the Tresillian river; the comforting tranquillity of musty, country churches, hallowed by seven hundred years of prayer, buoying up hopefulness, sometimes, against loss and near despair; rows of the headstones of people that I knew, together in death as they were in life; monuments to whole communities of concordant feelings, common experience, rivalries and loves and hates and striving; touchstones of unsung honour and the redemption of all shame.

I miss the magic of the London museums, the theatres and the cinemas; the majesty of the Royal Opera House; the grim defiance of the façade of Buckingham Palace; the opulence of St James's Square; the grunt and rumble of a London cab or the whine and swish and roar of an underground train; the late George Melly thundering out some jazz in a low-ceilinged, smoke-layered Ronnie Scott's; the face of the man-in-the-moon.

I miss the spirit of commemoration - the statues and the plaques; the stoical faces in the rushing crowds; well-wielded irony - as well as 'a piece of my mind'; the proper appreciation of the merits of warm smalls, half hose, gloves, mufflers and Shanks's mare; the sight of the Post Office Tower and Centre Point; the grime and filth of Tottenham Court road; a solitary City walk and lunchtime communion in a City Church; Hodge's statue in Gough Square, incorporating representations of shells of oysters, that Dr Johnson walked and bought for his 'very fine cat', to soften his decline; Sofra restaurant's lentil soup on a cold day; illegally feeding the pelicans in the park; a leisurely, self-indulgent visit to the tailor's or the shirt-maker's; sound London shoes; Sheffield steel scissors - click, click, click - with all the economy of skill; the scent of after-haircut mist.

I miss blackbird song and the cooing of wood pigeons, the pheasant's startled shout and the cawing of rooks; the silhouette of twisted oaks against a setting sun; real Cornish pasties; the smell of apples on the ground and trapped sea air in mossy valleys. I miss splits and jam and clotted cream; prickly picnic rugs; the buzz of really persistent and intrepid flies on the ledrah at Trenarren on picnics long ago; the sizzle of fried hog's pudding; the scent of freshly-baked saffron cake, yeast buns and a proper cup of tea; nutty, warm, amber, hoppy, frothy English beer - and decent gin and greasy fish 'n' chips, heavy with salt and Sarson's malt vinegar; juicy bangers and mash and onion gravy and hot, hot, hot Colman's mustard and proper roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and horseradish sauce - Marmite soldiers; lamb cutlets and mint sauce and rice pudding and junket covered in grated nutmeg - and Kelly's Cornish ice cream; treacle pudding and custard. I miss slightly gritty, membrane-curling, Cheddar cheese; a glass of sherry; big, solid, dew-laden, scented roses' nodding heads - Great Maiden's Blush and Josephine Bruce; 'mend-and-make-do' and 'keep-your-own counsel' - 'pride cometh before a fall' - 'there, but for the Grace of God, go I' and 'don't make a fuss'; a sun-burnt copy of The Observer's unique mid-week edition, celebrating Churchill's life; my mother in gentle tears over that and her, always pacing up and down the house, last thing at night - locking-up, making sure; my father enjoining her to "Come on, Joyce!".

I miss first films in the St Austell Odeon with its great big single, silver screen - now all smashed down; a film later on in the Odeon Muswell Hill; a bulldog's friendly - but stubborn - face; the gentle endurance of spaniels; the sharp, sweet, stabbing fragrance of English garden jasmine.

I miss shyer girls, with auburn hair, smelling of Chanel and the earth of which they are made and clean hair and summertime, dreaming their dreams in their books, on the train or the 'bus. I miss the irreplaceable, individual scents of the houses of those I have loved and the smell of a room where I succeeded in something against the odds; even the unforgettable smells associated with apprehension, fear and sadness. I miss shops where I am instantly understood; jars of proper sweets - succulent liquorice and butterscotch gums and crunchy sherbert lemons (Bless you, Maynards, for taking in Lion sweets - and Dad too for sending them to me!) - and melting milk chocolate and fudge and big, hard, painful chunks of toffee - and Veuve Clicquot - without a mortgage form; Louis patisserie sausage rolls and melting chocolate triangles at Swiss Cottage, after a Sunday walk on Primrose Hill; blackish-crimson carnation, camellia and gardenia buttonholes; a really well-made Bloody Mary - a meal in itself; dripping umbrellas; the smell of bristly, tweed, country caps and big, warm, wet, rubbery, beige riding macs; the smack of a golf ball against the beating wind; the scent and smudge of English mud and rain and the dew of moorland mist; a high, hard left-and-right; the tremendous sight of a tiny, middle-aged woman mastering, as a matter of hard-earned course, a great, snorting Arabian stallion and, eventually, letting me ride her second favourite horse; my sister on ponies called 'Twinkle' and 'Stardust'. I miss my sister's grave.

I miss the curling-up of fine pipe tobacco smoke and the twisting, bluish fumes of well-kept Havana cigars; crystal brandy balloons and the trapped sunbeams in pre-1914 Armagnac; long-lived port wine and the sulphurous glow of 'England's Glory' matches; the smells of lit cedar spills and apple-wood fires - with orange peel thrown on - horses and hounds across the coals; the smell of the damp and mustiness of attics, hiding pointless secrets of old clothes in long-forgotten, dirty trunks and broken picture frames; Floris scents; the first ripe peach; sun-warmed, garden raspberries; the comforting, comfortable, well-worn leather of a club chair, when no one knows where you are; the solid satisfaction of a seat in a train or a 'plane, when you are travelling alone to somewhere that you really want to be; the views of London from Muswell Hill, 'Ally Pally', Highgate (half close your eyes and think of a twisting road at home), Hampstead, Parliament Hill, Primrose Hill, and Greenwich Park; springy, tended English lawns; bowling greens and men in summer whites and dogs on leads and cats that don't caterwaul all night; a noisy, shambles of a summer carnival that takes a week to arrange, lasts a sensible three quarters of an hour - and ends in the village pub: the dilettante attitude and the devil-may-care.


I nearly even miss the smoke of the Euston Road.

[Huzir]

Thank you, Mr. Storey. Beautifully written, and very very moving.

One of the (meagre) consolations of exile is the marriage of lyricism and clarity when writing of Home. Distance allows us to surmount the quotidian; leave aside our gripes about this or that government policy; forget our distress at the growing coarseness of life. We have the space -- and the time -- to celebrate the place we once knew.

And who was it who said of Joyce that if he had stayed in Ireland he wouldn't have written his books, he would have talked them?

[carl browne]

NJS

That's quite a heady distillation!

You make me yearn for what I've only just tasted.

Carl

[storeynicholas]

Terribly sentimental; I remember my sister and myself being overcome as small children when we first saw the film Random Harvest but such gusts of feeling, I think, bring a curious mixture of pleasure and pain.
NJS

[yialabis]

NJS , this is one of the best posts I have ever read in this forum . Thank you , I really got very emotional and I 'm glad I will be in London in two weeks time . I've spend some very nice and some difficult years of my life there and I have been to many of the places and done many of the things you 've mentioned so tastefully . The way you 've written is pure elegance .

Regards
Vassilis

[storeynicholas]

Thank you all for your kind appreciations of the piece. I had been watching the film The Lost City and it just tumbled out; no doubt, it had been sub-consciously forming for some time - Vassilis - give my regards to Piccadilly!
NJS

[JMurphy]

Very powerful and evocative, Mr. Storey, and that comes from someone who has only spent a few weeks in England. Further, as a life-long American Irish-Catholic melancholic, I hasten to mention that were I you, I'd do my best to look at my situation thusly: "Dudes! I'm in freaking RIO!!"

[storeynicholas]

Very powerful and evocative, Mr. Storey, and that comes from someone who has only spent a few weeks in England. Further, as a life-long American Irish-Catholic melancholic, I hasten to mention that were I you, I'd do my best to look at my situation thusly: "Dudes! I'm in freaking RIO!!"

It has its compensations here
NJS

[Luca]

Evocative indeed.

For all the cyclical gnashing of teeth and political nonsesnse, London remains an alma mater to all who have known her.

The other day I was riding with a friend in cab from Tooley Street to West London.
We couldn't help commenting on the mix of silken elegance and raffish charm that exudes from every street of London.

[storeynicholas]

Just last night, prompted by a good supper, I burst into song with Hubert Gregg's simple song Maybe it's Because I'm a Londoner and, moved, maybe by the violence that the rendering did to the tune - or otherwise - my small audience started sniffing. But, Luca, you are right: it'll take more than a generation of political correctness and all the other flummery to still London's spirit: not Rule Britannia and not Cool Britannia - but True Britannia.
NJS