Sixth series, episode 3
All six series are available here on the HebWeb.
In this episode, George Murphy visits the Rat and Ratchet in Huddersfield and responds to poems about buskers, travels to York with PW and swots up on Vikings, shares stories remarkable and sad with a touring performer, and reviews "Wuthering Heights." Finally, readers write their responses to the last episode.
Culling buskers!
At Huddersfield's Rat and Ratchet monthly gathering of storytellers, poets, folklorists and singers, an unplanned theme of buskers arose – perhaps it's the start of their season. I'm not immune to the charms of free alfresco music in public places, but my enjoyment is often tempered by the volume of plug in singers. When my turn came, I said, "Fortunately, in Hebden Bridge, buskers have been told to turn down their speakers … or else!"
Nymphs - and buskers come away!
There's not many people seen nymphs,
Except in museums on plinths.
But, if they want to see 'um,
Outside a museum,
They should drive around here for a glimpse.
Folks know about nymphs - and their mania -
From Greece to Mesopotamia,
But nymphs Anglo Saxon
Got just as much action …
That's why our nymphs chose to remain here.
Now, I wouldn't tell this to reporters,
But nymphs still inhabit our waters.
I know for a fact –
On a rolling contract –
Are Nixie the nymph and her daughters.
It's buskers they like to attract,
But each cull is done with great tact.
Our nymphs say, "You're so cool!"
To each amplified fool,
Then wrap amp lead around t' vocal tract.
But you don't need to witness this "crime".
Nymphs sneak through a snicket in time.
As you sip your latte –
at some riverside café -
They take out young men in their prime.
Some say it's a monstrosity, that young men's curiosity at nymphs' voluptuosity should lead to such atrocity. But I just shake my head and shrug, say, "If they cared about our lugs, and amplifiers they'd unplug, then would be Dylans and Jake Bugs might get more generosity!"
Debs, Sam and Isambard
I bumped into Hebden Bridge's Brummie storyteller, singer and Globe Theatre Educator, Debs Newbold outside Little H Café, one sunny morning. She's currently touring a 90 minute performance piece on The Tempest. We talked about important matters, including gallstone operations, Samuel Pepys' penis and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's magic trick that went wrong. I'll steer you past the first two items, but will relate the great engineer's mishap.
One day, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was performing magic tricks to entertain his children and astonished them by passing a half-sovereign through his mouth and out of his ear. Unfortunately, at a key moment in his trick he swallowed the coin, which lodged in his windpipe. The great engineer's surgeon gave him a tracheotomy, despite which, the coin could not be extracted by forceps; however, the hole was kept open with a quill or a tube.
Brunel was too busy to stick around to complete the op, but according to a Dr Beach Combing (Modern Trackback, 2012), six weeks after he swallowed the coin, he found time to design "an apparatus which moved upon a hinge in the centre. Upon this he had himself strapped and his body was inverted … his back was struck gently and the coin dropped into his mouth."
I prefer Deb's description of the operation, in which Brunel was strapped to a plank on a swing he had specially designed to make use of centrifugal force. On this device, his supporters spun him over and over until it reached sufficient speed, when he opened his mouth at the optimum moment - and the coin flew out.
Debs explained that there is a weakness in human physiognomy, created when our ancient ancestors learned to walk upright. On which note, I related the sad tale of a friend who once lived on Wadsworth hillside.
Death at a dinner party
Back in the late 90s, we used to meet up with another couple once a month at a local restaurant. This PW's opposite rang to say that her daughter was home from University and had invited her new boyfriend along. So they'd like us to come over to their place for a dinner party.
The hostess was already 'somewhat intoxicated' when we arrived. During our chatter over the main course, someone made a comment which made the hostess laugh, just as she was chewing a large piece of veal. The meat stuck in her throat. She rushed to the loo, staggering on her way.
Assuming she was drunk, the rest of us carried on wining and dining, trying to ignore what might become an embarrassment to the visiting boyfriend. After a minute or two, the host sighed and went to check on his wife. Soon afterwards he flung the toilet door open and, white-faced, asked for assistance.
Whilst dad went to comfort his daughter, the other guests dashed to the toilet, where we found the hostess sprawled out on the toilet floor. Kath attempted to drag the meat from the poor woman's throat with tweezers. The young student tried to haul up his girlfriend's mum in order to attempt the Heineke manoeuvre. But whilst I rang for an ambulance we quickly realised our friend was already dead.
In the early eighties, I taught in a Sowerby Junior School and a little boy in the adjacent infant playground was running excitedly after a small, bounding black rubber ball when it bounced up then fell into his throat. Where it lodged.
Despite their best efforts, the playground supervisors couldn't save him.
(Read The HebWeb interview with local performer, Debs Newbold)
York
We took the train to York for a mini break and stayed in a Bootham hotel, opposite a handsome Georgian house, which was once home to our friends Kit and Sally. I sent Kit a photo of his former abode. He contacted me from his home in south west France. He texted that he remembered Peter O'Toole getting sozzled in the restaurant part of our hotel, on the very same day the papers announced that the film star was determined to become teetotal.
We had two days of fine weather. Having just missed the Viking Weekend celebrations, I reread some Viking history.
The Norsemen invaded York in 866. Back then, it was the only town north of the Humber and boasted Roman walls, a monastery famous for its learning, and markets that attracted foreign traders. It was an opportune time for their raid, because, Aelle, the Northumbrian king of York was in a civil war in Northumbria, against Osbert, York's previous ruler.
The Vikings hated Aelle because he had captured their great leader Ragnar Lothbrok during a previous raid and put him to death by throwing him into a pit with poisonous snakes.
The sons of Ragnar led the raid in 866. They captured York, but Aelle wasn't there. He was off fighting Osbert. But in March 867, the kings combined their forces and managed to get their army into the city. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle states that both kings were captured and their army was defeated with 'an immense slaughter'. Viking lore claimed that Aelle was tortured to death by having a blood eagle carved into his back by Ivarr, son of Ragnar Lothbrok, possibly as a sacrifice to a heathen god.
"Wuthering Heights"
We went to see 'the film that divided critics' at the Picture House. It's scripted and directed by Emerald Fennell, who played Camilla in the TV series The Crown and directed Saltburn. PW remembers her as a lead actor in BBC's Call the Midwife.
The action starts with young Cathy Earnshaw and her paid companion Nelly Dean witnessing a hanging and being thrown into a sexual frenzy by the hanged man's visible erection! There's a dark humour about sexual transgression elsewhere in the rest of the film, including suggested, but not quite seen BDSM, involving servants Joseph and Zillah and then the sex starved Isabella Linton (a grotesquely comic turn by Alison Linton) who becomes infatuated with Heathcliffe when he returns as a well-groomed, wealthy heart throb.
Australian lead, Jacob Elord, practised capturing Heathcliffe's accent by listening to a CD of Ted Hughes reciting Lovesong, a poem about Sylvia Plath's Lovemaking:
'Her love tricks were the grinding of locks/And their deep cries crawled over the floors/Like an animal dragging a great trap …His promises were the surgeon's gag/Her promises took the top off his skull.'
In contrast, some of the film has a fairy tale quality, especially when Margot Robbie's Catherine returns from visits to Thrushcross Grange in a variety of richly elaborate black, red or white clothes, when the colour coding and tightness of fit signals her changing moods.
Directors will always tinker with Emily's dark, erotically charged tale. Wuthering Heights has long been criticised for its loose plot structure when compared with Jane Eyre. But it was Charlotte's controlled but compelling novel that DH Lawrence labelled 'pornographic'. Jane got Edward Rochester when he was incapacitated. Connie Chatterley loved Mellors when her husband was emasculated.
I Swear
This remarkable film, based on a true story, is now available on Netflix. Watching it, I realised how the severe Tourette syndrome condition shares features with schizophrenia; although, with the latter condition, the sufferer often apologises for the loud, unwanted, voices in his head that others can't hear.
There's a great British cast and Robert Aramayo deserved his leading actor award at the Baftas.
Don't forget:
The Hebden Bridge Film Festival runs from Friday 20th March till Sunday 22nd.
The Festival desk will be downstairs at the Trades Club, from Friday, 10am to 5:30 pm, and then throughout Saturday and Sunday in order to book tickets or pick up your passes.
Readers respond to the last episode
On the Kiszko trial
Campbell Malone: Thanks George Murphy for the plug and covering the tragic tale of Lesley Molseed and Stefan Kiszko.
George Murphy: I was shocked to discover how often Castree (the real murderer) was arrested and how puny were the fines.
Campbell: Yes George. Castree fined on two occasions for serious sexual offences against a child. Our court appearance coincided with the start of Stefan's trial. No one connected the dots! No one that is except for Stefan.
A lot is said about his his mental faculties. Naïve and ingenuous he was and, possibly in the early stages of schizophrenia, but there was nothing wrong with his IQ. After his death, and that of his mother, we were going through his papers from his time in prison and he had cut out newspaper reports of the case. Sadly, nobody else picked it up and, of course, it was pre-DNA.
On the Gorton and Denton by election
George Murphy: "I'm still getting my head around green issues not being mentioned … Polanski instead took up the George Galloway tactics of appealing to one part of the local community."
Ithell Evamy: … "I read your episodes of Murphy's Lore with great enthusiasm, and anticipate them every month. As someone who has recently moved to Hebden Bridge, I enjoy gaining insights into local history and folkways that you write about so eloquently.
"In your latest piece, however … You said that the Greens won the by-election by appealing to one part of the local community in Gorton and Denton, and didn't talk about green issues.
"As a member of the Green party, and someone who campaigned in Gorton and Denton to keep Reform out and send a message to the Labour Party, I can say that the Green Party appealed to all parts of the community with an incredibly diverse group of fellow Greens, from all over the country, of all age groups and backgrounds, fighting for hopeful politics.
"George Galloway … uses divisive, identity politics to get ahead. The Green's campaign was far from this. After all, it resulted in a decisive win for a party led by a Jewish gay man."
George Murphy: It's great to hear from a new offcumden.
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