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Proud Poetry – a Swansea painting

Where we live is very important to us. Where we grow up shapes us for the rest of our lives, for good or bad. When I have an anxiety dream its often about moving house. I put this down to the fact that during my childhood we moved many times; Hereford, Newcastle, Whitley Bay and Gloucester. I had been to 9 difference schools by the time I was 11. I carried on moving for my education, first to Cardiff, then to Peckham and Greenwich in London and finally Swansea.

The house where I spent my teenage years in Gloucester no longer exists. It was knocked down several years ago. It was built in 1976 and was gone 30 years later. I find that odd. I have been past the spot where it used to stand and I find its absence unsettling. I think that’s why I love the solid Edwardian terraces of Brynmill, these houses have been here for over a century. The grand mock Tudor houses of the Uplands, built in the inter-war years of the 20th century will last and will, hopefully, last another century.

David Fry bought a painting of mine, “Proud House”,  a while back. Imagine my surprise and delight when he contact me to tell me that it had brought back many childhood memories for him and it inspired him to write a poignant poem about it.  I thought I’d share it with you.

WHAT I SEE – A Proud House

Join palette with oils tincture and powder to display

The artist draws down with sight and prodigious emotion

As alchemist hails a canvas sharp lined spare skilled too

An affectionate depiction smoothed fine in occult lotion.

 

What do I see in authentic rendition so germane

A rare gift in practiced thought and summit won

Is this an ethos for other endeavours by artists told?

No…mesmerised true in a story book I am held by this one.

 

Maybe I glimpsed what was intuition a fable in the making

To bind a time and way to a journeyman’s remembered sight

But mostly I am filled with a bitter sweet regret

From childhood certainty in family life to lonely night.

 

A house transcends all purpose and design

And paint surpasses in hindsight the record of focussed light

Imbued with lives lived rich and sheltered in wallpaper defined

Something raised above all description a distillation bright.

 

School friends gone their paths fade in narrow winded days

Histories will reveal life travels worn their purpose long set

Hope boxed my laughter hard with glass at times half full

But the proud house survives still and is well met.

Proud House.jpg
Proud House

I am taking a break from my Gower walk until mid-June to work as an exam invigilator for the university.

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Going up in the world (the rise of Metroland)

Light Shadow
Light Shadow
If you walk north of Brynmill, you start to go up in the world. The surburbs of Ffynone, Uplands and Sketty are perched on one of Swansea many hills. The houses that were built here after the First World War are big and spacious. Swansea, like the rest of the UK, experienced a house-building boom in the late 1920s and the 1930s. This put home ownership within the reach of many for the first time. Now families with modest means could see their aspirations realised in bricks. 
Some edgy flat roofed Art Deco houses were built. Much more popular, were detached and semi-detached mock Tudor styles with  front and rear gardens. Their interiors had to be fashionable. Art Deco fireplaces were everywhere. Electricity was also installed. That way, the family’s maid could use new domestic inventions like the wireless and vacuum cleaner. They were light, clean family homes that were both practical and elegant. This was suburban splendour.
This was the chic of “Metroland”. This so-called”Metroland” or “Metro-land” was the name given to the suburbs of north-west of London that was served by the Metropolitan Railway (The Met). The term “Metro-land” was coined by the Met’s marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide. It promoted a dream of a modern home in beautiful countryside with a fast railway service to central London. The Metroland style was self-consciously rustic. It was a peaceful Eden that harked back to a Shakespearean “golden age” of England. It was a style that was adopted by builders wanting to appeal to the professional classes of Wales too. 
Welcoming Gate
The Welcoming Gate

Metroland was part of popular culture of the 1920 and 1930s. There were several songs about Metroland. Evelyn Waugh had a character Lady Metroland who appeared in several of his books (“Decline and Fall”, “Vile Bodies” and “A Handful of Dust”).  Poet John Betjeman, wrote poems about Metroland. He even made a celebrated documentary for BBC Television,  called Metro-land, in 1973.

 

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Up Sketty

I think that I have enough paintings for my “Hollowed Community” Project, for the time being. So now I am walking further afield to find new subjects. I walked up hill to Sketty, parts of which have fantastic views across Swansea Bay. I loved this large white house on the corner of a quiet street, Grosvenor Road,  because I think there is some of the “sea-side” light on this building although it’s further inland and Brynmill, where I live.

up skettyPG.jpg
Up Sketty