Volume 2, Issue 3 Comet 30th November 2007

Comet: the Newsletter of the Norman Nicholson Society price £1.50  Cultural Landscapes: synopses of papers presented at the NN Study The Scandinavian Link— an interesting correspondence Day, June 13th 2007 27 years ago a Swedish Scandinavian countries Closing” and particularly  Nicholson and teacher of English, Mr. are perhaps not only your description of the —part 1 G ö r a n S t r a n d e l l , historically based as you b l o o d y c r a n e s b i l l , approached Norman indicate with your family Geraneum sanguineum,  Another anniversary— Nicholson by letter to name Cornthwaite but the which I myself this week Nicholson’s ‘Windscale’ ask if he could meet environment in which you happened to demonstrate by David Boyd him in during the live and have drawn to my daughters on the  ‘A Child of God’— a summer vacation in impulses for your writing islands off the Swedish poem by Wendy Cook order to discuss also resembles our west coast where we are Nicholson’s religious countryside, I think. now enjoying a fortnight’s  ‘Black Combe White’— dramas. Two of the Perhaps this type of land- holiday!

by David Cooper letters which Mr. scape generously lends Having access to this Strandell sent to itself both to the active  Schools’ Poetry letter in the archive Nicholson at that time life and living and calm Competition Winners makes a tremendous can be read in the John meditation thus giving impact on the reader as it  The Scandinavian Rylands Library as they rise to activities which is clear that not only did Link— form part of the Norman stimulate us in many Nicholson agree to talk to a correspondence Nicholson Archive. Mr. respects. I am thinking of Mr. Strandell, but that he Strandell remarked in your interest in birds and also offered him generous the second of these let- flowers shown in hospitality— ters: Your links with the “ W e d n e s d a y E a r l y [continues on page 9] CULTURAL LANDSCAPES In 1993 UNESCO introduced the of human activities, both agricultural Ranberg not only emphasizes the category “Cultural Landscapes” for and industrial, in his understanding of historical aspects of such a land- their World Heritage Sites and, as is what a living, organically evolving land- scape, its climate and topography, known to many living in and scape, actually is. but also its continuous evolution. beyond, the National Park is now in the process of putting The concept of a cultural landscape, In this edition of “Comet” there are together an application to be protected by law and supported by detailed synopses of the papers positive political action, such as presented at the Study Day at inscribed as a World Heritage Site. favourable taxation for those who use Crooklands on June 13th, and also According to a report prepared by the landscape in a culturally sensitive a continuation of the Norwegian Chris Blandford Associates (on-line at manner, has long been promoted in theme in the first of a series of http://www.lake-district.gov.uk/ Norway, perhaps partially as a result of articles which will look at index/looking_after/projects/ the eco-philosophical writings of Arne Nicholson’s fascination with his whs.html) “The Lake District land- Næss. An essay by Per Ole Andersen- Nordic heritage. scape reveals an exceptional testi- Ranberg of the Norwegian Farmers’ mony to the continuous history of Union (on-line at www.olavsrosa.no/en/ Other highlights include the results interaction between man and nature redaksjonelt.aspx?id=146722) empha- of the Schools’ Poetry Competition, over 14,000 years.” The Study Day sizes many points with which a an appreciation of “Black Combe on Norman Nicholson’s poetry and Cumbrian farmer would agree, in White” by Dr. David Cooper, and a prose, organized by the University of particular: “A journey through the response to “Windscale” by David Lancaster’s Centre for North-West Norwegian cultural landscape is a Boyd. You will also find initial plans Regional Studies in conjunction with journey through a man-made land- for 2008. In March we will mark the the NN Society, emphasized, among scape, created by farmers. It is through society’s 2nd birthday: please help other themes, how prescient clearing the forest and cultivating the us to make next year as successful Nicholson had been in his vision of a land that the landscape that we see as this one. Ideas for future events Greater Lakeland and in his inclusion today has come about.” Andersen- are warmly welcomed. AF Page 2 Comet

A Cultural Landscape Nicholson and Norway (part 1) by Antoinette Fawcett

Since olden times the main In an autobiographical fragment ship awarded to him in 1973 to visit source of livelihood in Norway which Nicholson composed after his Norway in the summer of 1974. But this wife Yvonne’s death, he moves from was not Nicholson’s first trip there, nor has been the cultivation of the reflecting on the hills which “remind was it his last. He and Yvonne travelled soil. Small individual us of where we come from” and to Norway three times in total: by ship holdings are typical for remain the “basic stuff of our world” and coastal steamer in 1965 (The in spite of the actions of humans in Coastal Tour), by ship and car in 1974, Norwegian agriculture. Over shaping the landscape to their needs, and by aeroplane, trains and coaches in 9/10 of the existing farms to describing his teenage stay in a 1978. Given that Nicholson made no sanatorium in the New Forest, the obvious attempt to travel to any other consists of less than 25 acres of return to Millom and finally his foreign country— in spite of invitations to arable land and only 37 in the “marriage to a wife who drove a car”, visit the US and Russia, and in spite of whole country have more than enormously extending the range of being able to read Italian (see the what he could know of the world by evidence presented in Stella Halkyard’s 250 acres. Many farms have personal experience. But like the article in Comet II. 2), — it is clear that however in addition to their Orkney writer George Mackay Brown the Norse heritage which Nicholson who rarely travelled away from the refers to time and again as being an arable land also natural and Orkney Islands— and when presented essential part of his own and Cumbrian artificial meadows as well as with the opportunity to extend the nature, must have been the draw. mountain pastures, and a range of his knowledge chose to go to Ireland, arguably a landscape and a Nicholson’s last published collection of great many of the farmers own history with similarities to his own, poems, Sea to the West, contains four forests. In the coastal districts Nicholson too “always seemed to be pieces which relate to his first-hand exploring my own patch of South knowledge of Norway (Fjord, Glacier, farming is also frequently . Wester Ross, Midsummer Fires on the Sognefjord and combined with fishing and in Sutherland, Shetland, Norway — all Cornthwaite), but he had announced his interest in this part of his heritage very the interior with lumbering, fur these told me more about my own home, showed me more mountain early on in his writing life in a number of production and handicraft. flowers, more sea-birds and, above different ways. In the 1944 collection all, told me more about the Viking Five Rivers the poem “For the Grieg Practically speaking all Centenary” is full of a hard and sharp Norwegian farmers own their ancestry of the Nicholsons and Cornthwaites that I sprang from imagery that links sound, dialect, farms. They work them well weather, landscape, flora and fauna (NCN4/1/4/4). together and deliberately evokes the and the yields they obtain per In the previous issue of Comet, in a Cumbrian connection to Norway. The acreage unit are among the letter sent to Nicholson’s cousin most evocative lines speak of “the highest in the world. Their Doreen Cornthwaite, we saw how Norsemen” who “foraged down the Nicholson used the Travelling Scholar- dales / Crossing the sea with the methods have kept abreast with the times, rationalization The mast-beater blows, the bow chisels the smooth sea into spray-storms: and mechanization being the watchwords at present. IMAGE REMOVED FOR REASONS OF COPYRIGHT Fertilizers are widely used and the soil is being worked to the SIMILAR IMAGES OF THE BOAT IN WHICH NORMAN AND YVONNE limit. SAILED CAN BE FOUND HERE:

Excerpted from Norway in a http://bergen-sporveis-historie.origo.no/-/image/ Nutshell show/2304139_bds-ts-leda?ref=checkpoint by Eivind Erichsen; John Grieg’s Boktrykkeri, Bergen (undated— mid to late 1950s— a relatively short time before Nicholson’s first trip to Norway.) M/S Leda The boat in which Yvonne and Norman Nicholson sailed to Norway, August 1965 Volume 2, Issue 3 Page 3

Good, Wild and Sacred Nicholson and Norway (continued)

commonly-used nouns. migrant redwing, / Thieving heifer and The thought that wild might yow and teg, / Leaving their names The same interest in the Nordic culture scotched on the flanks of the hills, / is announced in a wide variety of also be sacred returned to the Leaving also the crackling northern Nicholson’s other writings, in the Occident only with the tongues, / The dialect crisp with the drama, for instance, where Prophesy click of the wind / In the thorns of a to the Wind, although set in a dystopic Romantic Movement. This wintry dyke, / So that Solveig sings / In future after a nuclear disaster, actually reappreciation of nature the words which bind the homes of has the surviving Cumbrian people Cumberland.” reverting back to their Nordic heritage, projects a rather vague sense of living in the manner and with the Nicholson knew, of course, that many of language and names they once used. the sacred, however. It is only the topographical words which describe And in the autobiographical from very old, place-centred the Cumbrian landscape are derived Wednesday Early Closing Nicholson from Old Norse and linked to modern emphasizes both his Irish ancestry and cultures that we hear of sacred Norwegian (“fjell”, “tjern”, “tveit” and his Cumbrian-Nordic roots, drawing groves, sacred land, in a “bekk” to name but a few). He under- attention to the Norse origins of his stood, long before visiting the land in mother’s maiden name context of genuine belief and reality, that we share a similar land- (“Cornthwaite”) and to the fact that practice… scape and weather conditions, and that her family came from “Osmotherly, the birds which live in Norway in the near Ulverston, in a part of North … the back-packer pilgrims summer migrate south to us in the much colonised by the step-by-step, breath by breath winter, just as the Vikings did a Vikings”. So that in using “scotched” thousand years ago. to describe how the Cumbrian walk up a trail, carrying all

Two at least of the unusual words which landscape came to have Nordic place- on the back is so ancient a set Nicholson chooses in describing the names attached to it, Nicholson is actions of the Norsemen in the Grieg possibly emphasizing both the of gestures as to trigger poem are probably of Norse origin: violence of the sword-blade and the perennial images and a “teg” (or “tegg”), defined by the strength of the axe-blade which Chambers dictionary as “a sheep in its claimed the land in two different profound sense of body-mind second year” and “scotched”, by which senses (by conquest and by joy. Not just backpackers, of Nicholson means “gashed”, or “scored”, clearance). The Vikings literally and and which is related to the word “score” metaphorically carved out the shape of course. The same happens to which derives from the Old Norse “skor, the language, customs, culture and all those who sail in the ocean, skora”. As Nicholson realized, many farming practices which the English “sk”-starting words come from Cumbrians inherited. kayak rivers, tend a garden, our Scandinavian ancestors, including continues on p. 8 even sit on a meditative “sky” and “skirt”, two of our most cushion. The point is to The wild willow-shaker whirls hard and cold, make contact with the wild savaging the breast of my sailing swan (Egil’s Saga trans. H. Pálson& P. Edwards) world, wild self. Sacred refers IMAGE REMOVED FOR REASONS OF COPYRIGHT to that which helps to take us out of our little selves into the SIMILAR IMAGES OF THE BOAT IN WHICH NORMAN AND larger self of the whole YVONNE SAILED CAN BE FOUND HERE: universe.

http://hurtigrutene.stormposten.no/?page_id=409 Gary Snyder

Excerpted from: The Trumpeter, Vol. 3, http://www.hurtigrutemuseet.no/historien/skip-i-hurtigrutens- no. 2, Spring 1986. Online at: http:// tjeneste/ms-nordnorge-iii/ trumpeter.athabascau.ca/ index.php/trumpet/article/ The ship must have been Nordnorge III... view/558/930

M/S Nordnorge—in which Yvonne and Norman sailed on their Norwegian Coastal Tour, August 1965. The ship had made its maiden voyage on June 11th 1964. Page 4 Comet

SYNOPSES OF THE PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE NORMAN NICHOLSON STUDY DAY 13TH June 2007 Starting Rather Late: Norman conservation of Cumbrian and Eskmeals. Considering the Nicholson and his Lakeland landscapes and wildlife? fashion for what came to be known as ‘Pylon Poetry’ in the Predecessors – Grevel Lindop Landscapes in a Claude Glass: 1930’s, and the influence of As a Lancastrian writer on the Norman Nicholson and Lake Dis- Eliot and Auden, this is not edge of the Lake District, trict Tourism - Ian Whyte surprising. Norman Nicholson was acutely Norman Nicholson is much better Millom, as a theme, was aware of his closeness to the known for his poetry than for his territory of several great something of a godsend, but it prose but his achievement in this took the publication of Robert p r e d e c e s s o r s , n o t a b l y g e n r e i s n e v e r t h e l e s s Wordsworth but also Ruskin, Lowell’s Life Studies in 1959 to considerable. In particular in his show him that he had until then Coleridge, Gray and others. He book The Lakers (1955) he developed a range of strategies omitted to mention the people of looked at how changing land- Millom and members of his own for dealing with this inspiring scape aesthetics in the eight- but also potentially intimidating family. eenth and nineteenth centuries heritage. influenced the development of The closing of the Millom

These ranged from arguing with Lake District tourism. He Ironworks can be seen as giving his predecessors, to chronicling examines in detail the his later poems a sense of their doings in prose and Picturesque view of landscape in finality and of narrative direction. reworking their themes and the late eighteenth century and Thinking Global, Acting Local: titles in his own poems. He was how picturesque landscapes N o r m a n N i c h o l s o n ’ s able to draw on the industrial were ‘consumed’ by visitors with engagement with the literary and heritage of Millom and on his the aid of a Claude Glass and a artistic networks within and position near the geographical William Gilpin guidebook. He beyond the North West region of margins of Cumbria, to create a appreciated, however, that there – Stella Halkyard body of work which takes an were other views of the Lake ironic view of Romanticism, but District landscape at this time, Norman Nicholson was a also extends and refreshes including that of more scientific defiantly self-defined provincial. Romantic insights by bringing visitors, who saw Cumbria as a The weft of his own history, them into the industrial and place full of scientific curiosities; heritage and identity was scientific territories of the waterspouts, bog bursts and seamlessly woven into the warp twentieth century. floating islands. Wordsworth’s of the community he was born conversion from a picturesque to into and the landscape it The result is work which is inhabited. In his work he drew rooted in both the landscape a romantic view of nature heralded a new phase of land- upon the images, references and the Romantic tradition, but and subject matter of the region has its own distinctive flavour scape perception which was codified in the various editions of to which he belonged and in his and concerns. critical writings he often adopted his Guide to the Lakes. Norman ‘Mountains and Morals’ – was Nicholson, as geographical a a regionalist stance. However, N o r m a n N i c h o l s o n a poet as Wordsworth, has refined his rootedness in a particular conservationist? – Ian Brodie our view of the human and community, and its North Western industrial setting, physical landscapes of the Lake Norman Nicholson had a District through his prose as well s h o u l d n o t s e d u c e passion for wildlife and land- as his poetry. commentators into overlooking scapes especially of his native the fact that Nicholson was a heath, subjects which often Norman Nicholson & the writer of considerable virtuosity, informed his poetry and Cumberland Coast - Neil Curry engaged in an ambitious artistic topographical writings. Despite N o r m a n N i c h o l s o n ’ s project within the arena of a these interests he lived in an topographical books concentrate national modern poetics. Using industrial landscape and gave on what we recognise as being the notion of the Imagined paramount recognition to the The Lake District, whereas this Community, this paper will social needs of people. He had rarely features in his poems. provide an account of how he also strong views on nuclear From the outset it was not the made a home within the issues. The paper discusses typical tourist areas but the Republic of Literature, Letters these topics before asking how industrial coast which interested and Art and explore his important were these interests him as a poet and there are interactions in the literary and for Nicholson and what, if any, poems about such unpicturesque artistic circles of his day. It will was his contribution to the places as Askam, also describe some of the Volume 2, Issue 3 Page 5

UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER CENTRE FOR NORTH-WEST REGIONAL STUDIES litera ry friendships and its simplest terms; rock, water boots; close observation, associations he cultivated which and air. This is our dependency reflection and result. nourished his work. on natural landscape. There is Processes of weathering away little natural landscape left in The Lake District, just a piece of and carrying away mountain- the Lake District; perhaps in the tops down to the sea make a rock – Denys Vaughan highest hills, the rugged west central theme. The journey of a John Ruskin said many people coast and the lonely miles of salt fragment of Coniston Old Man look, some see, and a few under- marsh we can still find some to Duddon Marsh may have stand. Norman Nicholson not uncultured or semi-natural land- taken 500 million years but it is only saw; his insight was clear, scape. already part of a new process. and expressed also in plain Nicholson believes the universe Endless wearing down, language. He called the Lake works to a pattern and purpose, re-forming then being raised District a Piece of Rock, and, like which goes beyond physics and again is for Nicholson an everywhere on the Earth’s crust, chemistry and we should look for expression of purpose which it is indeed at bottom, just a purpose in the way the universe reflects the birth, life, death and piece of rock. works. Does he convince us that resurrection of people.

Nicholson strips away all we call the universe, the rocks and our- It is impossible to explore his culture, mountains of guide selves are the work of a divine Seven Rocks in half an hour, books, acres of paintings and creator? Part of the sheer but Mountain Limestone is prints, changing needs and enjoyment of being among essential and St Bees fashions during 10,000 years of mountains comes from our Sandstone is the most readily people trying to make a living sometimes feeling swept up into accessible of his deepest and others trying to stop them. the plan, where every end is a thoughts about rocks, process, Nicholson’s rock is more than new beginning and every death purpose and motivation. what collectors once gathered for is a new birth. t h e i r d i s p l a y c a b i n e t s . Rocks are not as unchanging as The Poetics of Provincialism: Identification is important, but they appear. In summer the sun N i c h o l s o n a n d M i l l o m rocks are part of a system, not bakes the rock, and in winter the David Cooper just part of Nature’s grinding frost cracks it … every hour of Throughout the 1950s, Norman machine. every day the becks and rivers Nicholson demonstrated a

We must know already:- The and waterfalls are at work on the sustained interest in defining variety of the landscape, the surface, scrubbing and scouring both provincial experience and texture of the and the form and grinding it down. We all provincial literature. This paper of the buildings and even the understand weathering, as it e x a m i n e s N i c h o l s o n ’ s colour of a town street are all to slowly demolishes our houses, theoretical engagement with be accounted to the rock. It is but are we aware of the vast these ideas and suggests the the rock which makes the land quantities of loose stuff in the w a y s i n w h i c h a n and the land has made the landscape, where it has come understanding of the provincial people. Have we considered from, where it is going to and i n f o r m s h i s p o e t i c processes, and purposes ade- how it gets there, and then representation of Millom. what? NN tells us:- The entire quately? To look at scenery with- In his Dictionary of 1755, Dr mountain dome of Cumberland out trying to understand the rock Johnson famously defines the and Westmorland is gradually is like listening to poetry in an ‘provincial’ as that which is being worn flat as a pancake. unknown language, you hear the ‘rude’ and ‘unpolished’. The We are reminded that during beauty but you miss the mean- first part of the paper traces this 500 million years many ing. You don’t have to be learned pejorative understanding of the pancakes have been made of to understand the rock, Nichol- term, as reinforced by such the Lakeland dome and for son offers readily accessible canonical writers as Matthew example we get a brief ideas in both prose and poetry. Arnold and Ezra Pound. I then introductory tour of his nearest argue that Nicholson, through a Remove the film of life between valley, Dunnerdale, along with series of critical texts published rock and air, the temporary the estuary, marshes, sea-shore in the 1950s, attempts to veneers we call culture or what and mountains which make up construct an alternative model passes at a time for civilisation, Nicholson’s Lakeland. His of what may be called positive and his basics remain:- In the understanding is not a mere provincialism. Focusing on the bare unpopulated parts of the re-gurgitation of book-learning, articles, ‘On Being a Provincial’ earth’s surface you can see our but based on experience, and (continues on page 10) physical environment reduced to learned through the soles of his Page 6 Comet

The First Norman Nicholson Schools’ Poetry Competition WINNERS AND HIGHLY COMMENDED Where I am… What if I listen, What if I World War I learn

Listen Where I am What if I listen, what if I learn, Can you hear the rippling World war one water flowing What if I cry, what if I gurn, Tanks are coming over the bumpy rocks, What if I love, what if I hate, Ranks are running it sounds like a waterfall What if I’m true, what if I Bombs are dropping trate, Lives are stopping never ending - What if I dance, what if I play, Explosions are exploding the crispy crackling seaweed What if I steal, what if I pay, Erosions are eroding on the rocks Fear is crowding me sinking into the soft sand. What if I talk, what if I shout, Death is shrouding me Look What if I trust, what if I doubt, Machineguns are firing me can you see the black headed What if I listen, what if I learn, My boss is hiring me common gull on the shore What if I wait until it’s my

Smoke is rising front, turn? Soldiers are sighing looking for its dinner? Emilie Slater (age 11) 1st Prize (11—14 category) The captain is dying Can you see Privates are crying the waves on the damp sand Planes are crashing by the running river Where I am…

Tanks are smashing and the cool breeze blowing Where I am Gazing at the view like you’re the soft sand into the ridges? on top of , World war one Look at the never ending river Observing the swooping Jed Miller can you see the sparkles seagulls dive like an F430, Smelling the rich pine 1st prize St. James Primary touch combine with fresh air, Grasping the pine tree I am in Haverigg the damp sand which is as spiky as a hedge- feel hog rolled in a ball, I am in Haverigg, smooth shells Listening to the birds cheep softly like they are singing in listening to the birds telling Can you touch the seaweed a Christmas choir, on the slippery rocks? Each other secrets… Feeling the soft breeze like a I can hear the quiet whisper Smell the strong salty sea velvet bed sheet with cool breeze running of the wind rustling in the trees. blowing about gently

I can smell the freshly cut grass While leaving memories of I am and, when I touch it, it feels like where we’ve been before and Still gazing at this wonderful a world where we are now. warm rug. As it circles me Claudia Bradley Once more. David William Jackson 1st prize Haverigg Primary School Mitchell Townson 2nd prize 3rd prize Haverigg Primary School Haverigg Primary School Volume 2, Issue 3 Page 7

Where I am Where I am What if I listen, What if I learn

Sitting in a classroom, I am in a classroom. The boats sailing on I can hear the teacher but I’m not I can hear a bird chirping. the smooth quiet sea. listening. A bird chirping reminds me The green muddy grass More important things are going on. of the colour squelching. Outside it’s raining, Orange. Where I am. Wet damp clouds rough But that doesn’t stop anything. and fierce. I look out the window, I am in a house, The tall sharp mountain tops - My head against the glass. I can hear the kettle boiling. big. It’s cold but I don’t care. A kettle boiling reminds me The things I can see and what I can of the Megan MacDonald (age 7) hear, Is just amazing. colour Purple. Where I am. I see…. I am in a swimming pool. Clouds in the sky, I can hear a person screaming. All different shapes, The Laughing Children Cars and motorbikes People screaming remind me Whizzing down the road. of the colour The laughing children I hear…. Red. Where I am. were really screaming The rain beating the ground, And the teachers were really Like a big drum, I am in a hospital. laughing The birds in the sky, I can hear a baby crying. The food was flying Chanting and squawking to each other. Babies crying remind me of across the room the colour Hitting several people I taste, I smell… Blue. Where I am. Wafting through the open window, on its way. The mix of cake and chlorine Ross Bickerdike The smell of chips wasn’t From the swimming pool and Fec. that strong The sweet taste of frozen lemonade, Melting on my tongue. The Hill The gravy was sticky and thin. Ellen Watson The hill’s arms enclose a 1st prize Millom School garden. And that was my dinner over. The bell rang. Judges’ Comments Here one sits,

Along the water, The smell of thick We were immensely impressed by the Sloppy gravy stayed up my high quality of the entries and could Where the weeds grow, see how much the pupils had enjoyed nose this project. We were so impressed Like vines, amongst the The taste of hard and chewy that we decided to give out some ex- wall. chips tra prizes, including a Special Com- This is where I sit, mendation to the pupils of Black Stayed in my mouth Combe School who made a wonderful Just sitting, sitting, sitting, And the sight of the awful video of their poems. We also in- Watching, watching, teachers creased the prizes in the 7 - 11 cate- watching, gory to allow for joint 1st, 2nd and 3rd Stayed in my mind prizes, and awarded a joint 1st prize Waiting, waiting, waiting, All day long. in the 11—14 age-group to allow Emi- lie Slater to be “promoted” into the For IT to strike. next category for her well-handled

poem. We hope to print more of the winners and highly commended en- Jodie Floyd Bethany McCloy tries in the next Comet, including 3rd prize Matthew Crowther’s lively description 2nd prize Millom School of a cricket match (3rd prize: 11-14). St. James’ Primary School Page 8 Comet

CERTIFICATE The Coastal Tour (Nicholson and Norway— continued) So perhaps it should come as no lent support to Nicholson in making a OF ARCTIC surprise to the reader to discover that record of those things which might at CIRCLE on the rare occasions when Nicholson some point prove to be fruitful in terms chose to travel abroad, he only visited of his writing. (I say “they photo- Norway. In fact, it could be argued that graphed”, although my guess is that Yvonne was the main photographer, as I, Njord, he was not travelling abroad at all, in the sense of travelling to discover a new she had kept a clear record of her God of all the Seas, and different culture – what he was climbing and walking holidays in doing was not broadening the mind, but Scotland before her marriage to Nicholson, and as Norman, on hereby give witness that deepening it, coming to a better occasion, appears in the photos of this understanding of his own locality by trip). We would expect Nicholson to be going to a place of origin and seeing for attracted to more than the standard Mr. Norman Nicholson himself what the relationship was. picturesque tourist views, and, indeed, the 30th day of August The first trip was made in August 1965 there are photos of cranes on the and was taken in the summer holiday quayside at Newcastle, for example, 1965 just after Yvonne took early retirement and boat machinery on the Nord On board the ship from her teaching job at Millom School Norge, the combined passenger boat, (information from Peggy Troll). Previous post-boat and workhorse coaster on M/S to this major trip, holidays with Yvonne which the Nicholsons made their had been taken in Scotland – the most coastal tour. The Hurtigruten, or NORDNORGE recent in 1961 (according to evidence Express Boat, trip can still be taken, from the photo albums in the John but the conditions now are more Of Ofotens Steamship Rylands Archive). The title page of the comfortable than those which the Company, Norway 1965 and 1974 album is Nicholsons would have experienced. carefully and proudly lettered: In no way was their trip a luxury cruise. crossed the Arctic Circle 1965 COASTAL TOUR. The first glimpses of Norway are of mountains and water— a cloudy-bright Throughout the album there are notes sky— and the Leda docked at Bergen May good luck and on the subject of each photo, some of where the Nicholsons stayed at the which are quite extensive. Based on Orion Hotel close to the quayside and happiness follow him the knowledge that Norman Nicholson’s the medieval Hanseatic warehouses. on this voyage and for adult handwriting was notoriously Although Bergen is now being difficult to read, and having made a promoted as a World Heritage City, in ever. comparison between his and Yvonne’s large measure because of this script, we can be fairly sure that Yvonne Hanseatic connection, a guidebook to was the author of the album and Bergen almost contemporary with the picture her diligently and meticulously Nicholsons’ visit underplays the putting it together after their return from architectural interest of the town, this adventure. This, after all, was saying that there is “nothing Nicholson’s first trip abroad. particularly outstanding about the They set sail from the North Tyne Docks houses themselves” and not even on the ship the “Leda” (an appropriately giving the famous Bryggen ware- poetic name), a classic passenger boat houses a mention (Bergen in a Nut- built in 1952, complete with funnels shell; John Griegs Forlag). But the and lifeboats and lying much lower in Nicholsons did notice the warehouses the water than today’s lumbering giants. and have pasted in a large colour post-

The record of this first trip to Norway, as card of them (at this point, it is clear presented in the album (NCN16/114/1) that they do not yet use colour film themselves). shows an experience which must have been full of amazement and wonder for After a short time in Bergen, probably the Nicholsons, but which at the same only one night, the coastal tour begins. time is now a relatively common There are photos or postcards of light- retirement trip for today’s older houses, churches, including some with generation. And because they were not bold modern architectural features, travelling on their own steam, but on a fishing boats, new bridges, teenagers pre-determined tour, the places which lolling about on a quayside with their they visited may seem fairly predictable bicycles with the comment “The teen- to us. But the choice of scenes which agers turn up for the daily event”, Norwegian Travel they photographed tells us something “Lapps in traditional costume”, Brochure (late 1950s ?) about their joint interests — or at the glaciers, and several sunsets, narrow least tells us that Yvonne was an excel- fjord scenes and so on. But apart Volume 2, Issue 3 Page 9

The Coastal Tour (continued) And on page 25, almost at the end of the tour, as the boat is returning to Dragon from the human interest of knowing Bergen, there is a comment on the that Yvonne and Nicholson stood at Hornelen Rocks under a black and the North Cape and dutifully white photograph showing a jagged Like a bird in photographed the sign pointing North rocky landscape: “2,900 ft sheer (captioned “On the top”), and the from sea level. The deep gash is the sky fabulously colourful, stylized gradually widening. We were told Gliding down in certificates which they received, that the ships may not sound their depicting a map of the north which sirens in case the vibration causes the valley clearly shows Britain as well as the rock mass to slip.” Apart from Diving through the mist Scandinavia, the most interesting the comment on the teenagers aspects of the record of this tour are, (Yvonne’s teacherly eye?) and a wry Smashing walls with its tail for me at least, the somewhat longer remark on sunbathers near the captions relating to geology. Breathing fire. Russian border, these are the most On page 24 of the album, next to a informative captions in the record of small colour picture most probably cut the trip. I feel that given Nicholson’s out of a tourist brochure, there is the abiding interest in the way that rock Ryan Duffy (age 11) comment: “Torghatten Island with “makes the land” and the land Hestmannen’s arrow-hole (geological makes the people, we can see here a my 70th birthday which gave fault eroded by frost and sea 80-115 part of what fascinated him about the kind of celebration which ft high 175 ft long + 40-80 ft wide)”. this country. AF Yvonne would have enjoyed so much. I can imagine, too, t h e p l e a s u r e w h i c h The Scandinavian Link (continued from front page) Nicholson would have taken “a kind offer of accommodation”- they are in the Cumbrian land- in knowing that his work was tactfully refused by Mr. Strandell scape, should have appealed so liked and respected by some- who intended to travel to England strongly to a Swedish reader— so one from Scandinavia — a with his wife and daughter, and much so that Mr. Strandell wished foreign region made native clearly did not wish to impose to carry out postgraduate studies first by his historical himself on the writer. on these texts. sensitivity and responsive But the correspondence also The past may be a different imagination, and then by the vibrates with mystery. Did Mr. country, but people living in this visits he made to Norway. Strandell carry out his plans and present state can at times cross a The postcards Mr. Strandell actually meet Nicholson? Did this seemingly impassable border with has sent me of his part of link between Cumbria and Scandi- the help of a native guide. Göran Sweden show a rocky sea- navia ever bear fruit? The Archive Strandell still lives in Sweden and strand, skerries, hills in the as it stands gives us no answer. has recently written to the editor of distance, rowing boats and What it does give are Mr. Comet to confirm that he did sailing boats, wild flowers Strandell’s preliminary thoughts indeed meet Norman Nicholson in and wild birds, and the on the significance and impact of the summer of 1980 at 14, St. setting sun to the west Nicholson’s theatrical works. George’s Terrace: he was very making a glittering golden amiable and kind (invited me to my path on the sea-waters… Nicholson’s dramas are under- first glass of whiskey) - I was valued compared to his poetry and topographical writings, and perhaps too nervous. And ever to the true north of yet in their time they were well- This correspondence from the the rock respected and well-performed, 1980s, which could have been Is polarized the compass of having the support of such read as merely formal and the bone, theatre directors as Dr. E. Martin incidental, has been made warmly Browne, well-known for his personal by the generous response Pointing to time beyond the direction of T.S. Eliot’s dramatic of Mr. Strandell to my enquiries. shifty clock, works and for his revival of the We know now that Nicholson wrote Pointing to land beyond the medieval York cycle. Indeed, it is to his Swedish correspondent on homely stone. apparent from Mr. Strandell’s several occasions — the last letter (NN: The Land under the Ice). letters that it was on Martin being dated 30th August 1986, Browne’s recommendation that nine months before his death on It seems fitting that he first became acquainted with the 30th May 1987. In this letter Nicholson should find such Nicholson’s oeuvre. It is Nicholson talks of his feelings s t r o n g a d m i r e r s i n immensely interesting that about the loss of his wife, Yvonne, S c a n d i n a v i a . Nicholson’s dramas, rooted as and about the year 1984: that of AF Page 10 Comet

Journey Papers Presented at the Nicholson Study Day (continued) ‘The Provincial Tradition’, the paper phasizes his own position as a social highlights what Nicholson identifies to insider. We finally appeared again be characteristics of quotidian The paper ends, however, by raising out of the night-fog. provincial life and what it might mean questions about Nicholson’s model of And no-one recognized anyone. to articulate that everydayness in the positive provincialism and by identify- poetic form. ing the inherent problems of writing Underway we’d forgotten how: The second half of the paper draws from within a small, enclosed Nor did anyone demand: upon these theoretical writings to community. I argue that Nicholson’s Who are you? read a selection of Nicholson’s Millom poems are almost invariably Millom poems. I argue that underpinned by a sense of social From “Through Naked Nicholson attempts to use both the dislocation as the poet’s articulates, Language” by Tarjei Vesaas geography and the inhabitants of his perhaps unconsciously, a series of (trans. from Nynorsk by Roger home town to show the universality of anxieties regarding his necessarily provincial experience. I also illustrate solitary vocation. Greenwald). how Nicholson’s provincial poetic em- David Cooper 50 years after the Windscale Fire… David Boyd assesses Nicholson’s views on the nuclear industry Just over 50 years ago a near- West Cumbria, the economy of Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant meltdown and serious fire at the which nowadays depends so very [THORP] chimney has been added No.1 nuclear reactor pile at what much upon the nuclear industry and to the Sellafield vista, along with the was then Windscale [now rebadged all its associated industries and earlier addition of the highly as ‘Sellafield’] released services, now that most of the distinctive and now-disused considerable quantities of others have disappeared entirely. ‘golfball’ of the plant’s Advanced potentially harmful nuclear material In contrast to the scathing tone of Gas-cooled Reactor [AGR]. into the environment. his ‘Windscale’ poem, NN adopted a When featured on ‘The South Bank Despite living for much of his life more reflective and balanced Show’ on his 70th. Birthday in 1984, almost on the doorstep of stance in ‘Portrait of the NN himself read ‘Windscale’ in his exceedingly heavy, dirty and Lakes’ [1963; page 176], stating usual, masterfully bardic, way, but I hazardous industry in the form of that he was ‘not one who thinks think with a quite apparent strongly Millom Ironworks and the that the splitting of the atom is critical and indignant feeling, associated iron ore mines, where likely to be a boon to mankind’ but especially when saying the phrase one of his own uncles died as a conceding the manifold training and ‘sewers flow with milk.’ result of an underground accident, employment opportunities it Possibly NN was factually mistaken NN seems to have regarded the brought to West Cumbria along with in his reference to ‘meat is carved- West Cumbrian nuclear industry ‘our most impressive industrial up for the fire to eat’. [The thyroids with a mixture of bemusement, architecture since the blast- of slaughtered cattle from farms bewilderment and concern which furnaces’ – a rather different image near Sellafield were identified and expressed itself, following this to ‘towering toadstools’ etc.! NN incinerated because they would nuclear accident as the clear- even went on to declare that the have concentrations of radioactive loathing which inspired ‘Windscale’, industry ‘has given the once- iodine but meat generally wasn’t his very well-known poem about the isolated West Cumbrians a sense of incinerated as far as I know.] But incident, subsequently much- being in the front line of the this writer vividly remembers, as a promulgated by anti-nuclear groups twentieth century’ but immediately small child at the time, the local such as CORE [Cumbrians Opposed adds that ‘we have already paid for milk being poured down the drains, to a Radioactive Environment] this dubious honour by pouring our as well as the image immortalized who have published an illustrated milk down the drains….we may pay by the photographer Ivor Nicholas: poster, their own description of a higher price in the future.’ But, he the masterful picture of churns of which reads:- concludes, ‘at present, Sellafield milk on a lorry at the dairy being ‘CORE has combined the work of helps to keep more than just the poured into the sewers with a big Geiger counters ticking.’ two well known Cumbrian artists in placard on the lorry roof proclaim- the form of a poignant colour poster Now the site is largely being ing how healthy to drink was milk ! which is now offered for sale. The ‘decommissioned’. No longer do The poem itself brims with the most poster incorporates the gobbets of steam plume skywards startling and original contrasts and reproduction of the oil painting from Calder Hall’s massive cooling juxtapositions, largely based "Towards the Sea, Scafell" by Julian towers and soon these enormous perhaps upon the violations of Cooper, member of the famous pieces of industrial architecture are ‘God’s fresh air’ brought about by Heaton Cooper family of painters likely to be erased completely from [post-nuclear] Man. Windscale’s from Grasmere. Depicting the the skyline – strong echoes of the blunderings with Nature have rugged beauty of the Lakeland fells closure and dismantling of Millom literally turned Life and Nature with the stark threat of Sellafield Ironworks here? Of the two original upside-down with the totally crazy just discernible in the coastal back- Windscale reactors, with their result that ‘dirt is clean’, ‘poison ground, the scene cites the poem towering, rather grotesque and pastures quick and green’ and "Windscale" by the late Lakeland sinister-looking concrete chimneys, ‘storm sky, bright’. But, to Scafell poet Norman Nicholson of Millom.’ only a lone one remains, this being [God ?] it’s all a transitory, though This industry can be a very the one which caught fire in 1957, cankerous, itch between the toes. still dangerously radioactive and controversial and emotive Truly, then, NN sees and evokes presence, evoking strong, often difficult and expensive to dismantle even today. The much more modern ‘hell in a grain of sand’. polarized and sometimes ambivalent feelings in all parts of but arguably equally sinister-looking David Boyd Volume 2, Issue 3 Page 11

Black Combe White A Child of God Editor’s note: Wendy Cook is a founding In Nicholson’s churchyard member of the Norman … there, beyond the roof-tops, where Nicholson lies Nicholson Society who wrote this poem after Bulging from the flat ledge of the horizon where light rains down from the sea close by visiting Millom in September 2005 for Like a blister on the white paint of the window a stone -sill, one of the Heritage somewhat smaller than the Open Days. She had Black Combe—its unmistakable cleft forehead, rest, reads been listening to Neil No bigger than a thimble now, outlined in A Child of God Curry’s talk on chalk A Boy N i c h o l s o n a n d afterwards went into On the blue distemper of the sky. A tiny body discovered the graveyard to locate with history undiscovered Nicholson’s grave. A gravestone paid for by She writes: […] subscription six simple words for its

And now, from my own doorway, between gable inscription and chimney, A Child of God A Boy We must see the That harsh, scarred brow, entirely stripped of grave, “Let our eyes at snow, the last be blinded not

Impending over yard and attic sky-light, by the dark but by Wendy Cook dazzle.” A dark, parental presence. Shoulder by shoulder, the identical grey gravestones echo the identical grey shoulder-to-shoulder houses Norman Nicholson of this quiet, comical town.

THE TEXT OF THIS POEM HAS BEEN RE- A cricketer in the field next to the graveyard scores a DACTED FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS. boundary and we walk past the grave of a baby boy, “A Child of God”, a little dead body aged 15-18 months found on the slag bank. An unsolved David Cooper responds to this poem overleaf and sadness. invites members of the Society to respond with further comments. More of Wendy’s writings will follow in a future issue of “Comet”. Please do send responses, in any form, to any of Nicholson’s poems, for the Favourite Nicholson Readers are reminded that creative responses to Nicholson’s Poem column. The Editor will try to use all sub- work and/or themes are always welcome, as well as critical missions. and biographical pieces. AF VISIT TO THE NORMAN NICHOLSON ARCHIVE: DECEMBER 8TH 2007

The editor will not be able to attend the visit to the NN Archive at the John Rylands Library. Members are invited to send in their own reports on this forthcoming visit, to be published in the March 2008 issue of Comet.

Contact Peggy Troll for full details about the visit and to book a place: 01229 772 603 or [email protected] ‘A dark, parental presence?’: Nicholson and Black Combe

In Sea to the West, Nicholson’s sequence of Black Combe poems – ‘Cloud on Black Combe’, ‘The Shadow of Black Combe’ and ‘Clouded Hills’ – can be read as the ultimate expression of his lifetime commitment to a particular patch of land. These poems highlight both Nicholson’s knowledge of localised weather conditions and his understanding of a spiky topography which remains all too frequently concealed beneath the Cumbrian cloud. What is more, these poems are characterised by Nicholson’s intimations of his own mortality as the poet imagines his corporeal self being absorbed into ‘the Ordovician catacomb’ (‘The Shadow of Black Combe’) which looks down upon his home town of Millom. This imaginative preoccupation with ideas of landscape, rootedness and impending death is underscored by turning to the 1978 pamphlet, The Shadow of Black Combe, in which this short sequence was first published. Brian Wade’s front cover photograph offers a barren image of Black Combe as a ‘round, / Turfed, cobble- dashed dome’ (‘The Shadow of Black Combe’); whilst, on the back of the publication, a flat- capped Nicholson is photographed leaning on a tombstone in the churchyard of St George’s, Millom. These poems, then, look back to a life spent in the one environment and look forward to an eternity within that same familiar place.

Is it right, though, to suggest that these poems offer an unproblematic articulation of physical and spiritual belongingness? Or is the sequence informed, instead, by a deep-rooted uncertainty and ambivalence? Perhaps the key poem is ‘Black Combe White’: a text which, for this reader at least, raises significant questions regarding Nicholson’s assertion, at the end of Wednesday Early Closing, that he remains profoundly grateful for a lifetime spent in his home town. Nicholson’s speaker refers to the ‘unmistakable cleft forehead’ of the titular and, later on in the poem, describes the ‘known tight streets, / The hunched chapels, the long canals of smoke’ of Millom. Yet, alongside this, Black Combe is said to bulge ‘from the flat ledge of the horizon / Like a blister on the white paint of a window-sill’; and, in the final section of the poem, the fell is presented as a ‘harsh, scarred brow, entirely stripped of snow, / Impending over yard and attic sky-light, / A dark, parental presence’.

What is the reader meant to make of these images? In ‘The Shadow of Black Combe’, the named landscape offers a reassuringly fixed point: the speaker envisages that it is the site at which his body will return to the earth. In ‘Black Combe White’, however, the attitude towards the Cumbrian topography remains fundamentally unclear as the speaker oscillates between images of protection and suffocation. What do other readers think? It would be great if members of the Society were to write in to Comet with their own readings of ‘Black Combe White’. Let the debate begin!

David Cooper 10 November 2007 FORTHCOMING EVENTS

December 8th 2007: Members’ Visit to the Norman Nicholson Archive. Limited numbers (tel. 01229 772 603 for details)

January 12th 2008: Norman Nicholson Birthday Event— Guide Hall, Millom, 11.00 am to 3.30 pm. Showing of South Bank Show and Look Stranger Please bring poems or passages to read out and food for sharing.

March 2008: Words by the Water— An Exhibition of Art Work curated by the University of Cumbria in response to the work of Norman Nicholson.

Other events: planned events for 2008 include the AGM on April 8th and an event at the Beacon, Whitehaven. Further details and further events listings will follow.

Comet: The Newsletter of the Norman Nicholson Society. Editor: Antoinette Fawcett 3, Burlington Street, ULVERSTON, Cumbria LA12 7JA. [email protected]

Grateful thanks to all contributors without whose efforts there would be no newsletter. Also to the Centre for North West Regional Studies for permission to re-print the synopses of the papers presented at the Study Day, and to Stella Halkyard, Fran Baker and Göran Strandell.