‘Potted Herring’ 2010
Numerous are the ways readers discover the works of one of the Powyses. For
singer Diana Johnstone it was to be Driftwood by
Philippa
Powys. Holidaying in and
around Lulworth, Diana eventually found herself in East Chaldon
where four of the Powys siblings once lived: Theodore, Llewelyn,
Gertrude and Philippa.
Following a sign for ‘Writers Walks’ around the village – ‘Every
Wednesday, June to September,
a five mile guided walk around the rolling landscape that
inspired members of the Powys family, Sylvia Townsend Warner and
others’ –
Diana arrived too late for the walk itself so decided to explore
St Nicholas Church and was struck by a collage by Elizabeth Muntz of the Nativity.
Outside, two chance meetings in the churchyard and later in the
village, with people who were obviously passionate about the
village and its history of the writers and artists who had lived
and worked there, Diana first encountered the name 'Powys'!
Fascinated by tales of these “extraordinary inhabitants in this
extraordinary village” and particularly intrigued by accounts of Philippa, she was lent a copy of
Driftwood. These poems
immediately struck a deep and resonant chord and it wasn’t long
before that joyous sense of discovery, empathy, spiritual
affinity and “coincidence” resulted in a concert jointly
organised with Chaldon residents, John Brewster and Jeremy Selfe. Less than three
weeks later, on
Saturday 28th August 2010,
an audience of around fifty, including Louise de Bruin and myself,
gathered in St Nicholas to listen to Diana, and Dorset-based
folk musician and playwright
Tim Laycock, present ‘Potted Herring,
A Nostalgic Evening of Songs and Poems from Coast and Land in
Celebration.’ The first half of the concert consisted of fine
renditions of traditional and sensitively self-penned songs,
with Diana on acoustic guitar and Tim playing concertina and
hand bells, interweaved with suitably evocative poems of shore
and sea.
The second half
continued in similar vein but this time interspersed with a
selection of Philippa's poems, including ‘The Under-Cliff’,
‘Cowslips’, ‘To The Blue Butterfly’, ‘At Dusk’, ‘Tangible Life’
and ‘To Gertrude’, the last of which prefaced Diana’s own
delicate and moving song to her sister, ‘Spinning.’ Just before
the audience were invited to join in for the finale, and Tim's
internationally acclaimed song 'Row On', Diana concluded with
her own setting to music of Philippa’s ‘Ploughing' (which would
unequivocally merit inclusion on her next CD album).
It had been a unique, utterly enchanting evening of spontaneous
kinship and many discoveries to which that all-too overused word
‘magical’ would, in this instance, most justifiably apply. Of the ten copies of the
Society’s edition of Driftwood that Louise and I had brought,
a copy each went to Diana and Tim while the remainder were
eagerly purchased by members of an appreciative audience, many
of whom subsequently headed off to the village hall by the gates
to St Nicholas for a splendid supper. Over wine, good food,
laughter and convivial conversation, Diana, Louise and I also
discovered that Tim had adapted ‘A Poor Man’s House’ by Philippa’s great love, Stephen Reynolds, for the
Sidmouth International Festival, performed in the Manor Pavilion
in 1992 and again in 2005. It seemed it had been an evening of
coincidences, or perhaps not: Louise had inscribed in Diana’s
copy of Driftwood: ‘There are no coincidences!’
Outside, we all gradually dispersed, receding into the darkness as a
hallowed wind moved through the moonlit valley.
The Powys Society Newsletter No. 71
November 2010
More about Diana Johnstone and Tim Laycock can be found at their
respective websites:
PHILIPPA POWYS
Novelist, Poet and Playwright
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St Nicholas Church |
THE BLACKTHORN WINTER
First UK edition (1930)
Philippa Powys |
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DRIFTWOOD
Powys Society edition (1992)
Philippa Powys |
PHILIPPA POWYS
(in later life)
Oil portrait by Gertrude Powys |
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