A spicy mix of Oxford stories from a house once belonging to a city sausage maker.
Trevor Joseph was three when he moved with his mother to Fourth Avenue, Slade Park, Headington. 64 years later and we are trying to find the location where his house…
But there is only one blue plaque. Displayed on the wall of number 16 it remembers the artist William Turner, who lived and worked here from 1833 until his death in 1862. Close by The Oxford Sausage headquarters, it is not uncommon to witness tour guides introducing the place as the home of JMW Turner, arguably England’s most famous Romantic painter. But this is a different Turner altogether.
Today I am venturing a short distance out of town to a place known as Pleasant Land. I don’t as yet know why it is called this. I am just thinking what a wonderful name with its promise of green pastures and natural beauty, both of which are in evidence as I make the steep climb away from the busy city up to Boars Hill, an area of countryside between Oxford and Abingdon.
‘The Silent Traveller in Oxford’ by Chiang Yee is inscribed in a flowing red script along the spine of a cream linen bound volume, with its Chinese calligraphic equivalent written vertically from top to bottom on the front cover. Open its pages and there are exquisite watercolours, deliciously comic cartoons and beautifully written poems and travelogues describing Yee’s perambulations around the city in the early 1940’s. A snip, I thought, at £14. When I return home, I discover that Yee was something of a celebrity.
Bring out the mustard, dish up the mayonnaise, keep ketchup at the ready. For today I am both astonished and delighted to be celebrating the second anniversary of The Oxford Sausage. Publishing a weekly Oxford Sausage story for two years makes for over one hundred of the things. Several strings I’d say and enough I’d hope to make the party go with a bang. You are all invited.
In between showers last week I cycled over Magdalen Bridge to East Oxford to meet with photographer Simon Murison-Bowie. He’s written a book in which he explores some of the very first photographs taken of Oxford back in the 1840’s.
Hurly burly, higgeldy piggledy, nitty gritty – what’s not to love about these delightful, reduplicative words. They infuse the English language with humour, playfulness and well, a little bit of razzle dazzle. So when I discovered there was such a thing as a crinkle crankle wall and that one resided in Oxford I felt compelled to search it out. Easy peasy I thought.
Emma Coleman-Jones draws trees. In all seasons. In all weathers. Come blazing heat, bitter cold, rain, snow or high winds she will be out in the elements, sketchbook in hand looking for that serendipitous moment in time and place when something catches her eye.
I’ve always found something earthy and unpretentious about this form of entertainment, thought to have arrived here from Flanders, the word derived from the French ‘Morisque’ meaning ‘dance’. Played out away from the stiff ceremonials of the University, the Quarry side is part of an age-old social ritual unconstrained by the conventions of the highbrow institution down below. Indeed, the part played by the ‘fool’ with his inflated bladder on a stick used to berate the other dancers was itself a playful mockery of the sticks used by officialdom; for these are festivities created by working people, to take a break from the day job, seizing the chance to let their hair down. Washed down with large quantities of local ale.
Don’t make the mistake I made, and call it tapestry. That is woven on a loom. This is canvas work, beautifully designed, meticulously hand stitched on to church furnishings, vestments, banners and the like. There’s a lot of gold. The old stuff: real gold leaf wrapped around a central thread, its modern equivalent synthetic, shinier, a touch more bling maybe but just as handsome.