Northumberland Uncovered

Life Matters News Digest No.072 May 2024

Nobody who received my email with the picture above at the beginning of the month guessed where it was. The nearest guess was Edinburgh, which was not bad (Loes!) - it is just 85 miles away.

The castle is at Alnwick (pronounced "Annick") in Northumberland, UK, and has been the seat of the dukes of that county for 700 years. I thought some of you might recognise it because it was used as the location of "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" in the first two Harry Potter films, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

The castle's exterior was extensively used for the "grounds of Hogwarts" and in the Outer Bailey of the castle Harry was seen having his first flying lessons on a broomstick and learning to play "Quidditch." If Quidditch is a mystery to you I suggest you watch the films! All good fun.

However, the reason I was there has nothing to do with Harry Potter. I was in Northumberland to celebrate my birthday and that of my partner, Tricia, that followed shortly after mine. Normally, we travel out of the UK at this time of year, but that was not possible for various reasons and Northumberland was suggested. If you have never stayed there, I recommend it.

Northumberland, in the northeast of England, borders Scotland to the north and County Durham to the south, with the North Sea and a fabulous coastline designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, to the east. I have driven through it many times to Scotland but never stopped until now.

I didn't get time to go around the castle itself, perhaps on the next visit, because I was there to see the gardens which have been developed over 27 years into a major attraction by Jane Percy, the current Duchess of Northumberland. The centrepiece is the Grand Cascade, a striking series of 21 weirs that cascade dramatically down a slope, circulating 250,000 gallons of water and periodically having water displays using 120 jets.

The grounds also feature some other interesting water features, the Poison Garden, one of the world's largest treehouses built around 16 mature lime trees, a rose garden, a bamboo labyrinth and a cherry orchard containing 329 "Taihaku" Japanese cherry trees.

The Taihaku, also known as the "Great White Cherry" because of its large flowers, had died out in Japan, but the last remaining tree was found in a garden in Sussex in 1932 by ornithologist Collingwood Ingram. Ingram took cuttings from the tree, which had been imported from Japan in 1899 and reintroduced it to its country of origin. All the cherry trees at Alnwick have been cultivated from that one tree. Fortunately, when I was there they were still in the last stages of their spring flowering.

We stayed at Alnmouth where the River Aln comes out on the Northumberland coast. It's a nice little town with a rugged beach and a shop selling cats. No, I'm only joking, just a resident observing the tourists from its viewing point in a shop window!

On the way up to Alnmouth, we stopped at Woodhorn Colliery which houses the collection of paintings by the Ashington Group, also known as the "Pitmen Painters." It all started in 1934 when the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) organised an art appreciation class for the coal miners & colliery workers at nearby Ashington Colliery.

It soon became clear that the miners wanted to paint and express themselves visually. Their paintings portray their everyday experiences down the mine and the activities and hobbies of the mining communities. Over time, the Ashington group paintings gained wider recognition and they have been exhibited nationally and internationally.

They display a unique and valuable documentary record of life at the time. We also got a tour of the remains of the coal mining equipment, all disused now, but well worth a visit.

On my birthday, we took a boat trip to the Farne Islands about 3 miles off the Northumberland coast. The archipelago consists of 15 - 20 islands, depending on the tide, but is best known for being one of the most important bird breeding sites in the UK. Up to 30,000 pairs of Puffins nest there in the breeding season, as well as Arctic Terns, Guillemots, Razorbills and Shags. The islands also host the UK's 3rd largest colony of grey seals.

The lighthouse above is known as Longstone Lighthouse, built in 1826 and situated around 6 miles from the Northumberland coast. The lighthouse is associated with Grace Darling who lived at there with her father, the lighthouse keeper, and her family.

In September 1838, during a severe storm during the night, the steamship SS Forfarshire ran aground on rocks near the Farne Islands and broke up throwing most of the passengers and crew into the sea. In the morning Grace spotted some survivors perched on some rocks and she and her father, William Darling, despite the dangerous conditions, rowed a small boat back and forth to eventually rescue nine people.

Grace, just 22 at the time, became a national heroine and was immortalised in drawerbooks, songs, paintings, statues and even china and other memorabilia. The Royal National Lifeboat Association (RNLI) have a (free) Grace Darling Museum in Bamburgh.

On our way north, we also visited Hadrian's Wall, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and something else I had never visited. The wall dates from Roman Emperor Hadrian's visit to Britain in AD 122 and marked the northern boundary of the Roman Empire.

At 15 feet (4.6 metres) high and 10 feet (3 metres) wide, it was intended to keep out the Scots and the Picts. I don't know what happened to the Picts but it certainly did not keep out the Scots, they are everywhere!

Actually, the Picts, whose strength was badly damaged by the Viking raids from Scandinavia, were eventually absorbed into the Scots race, so if you have some Scottish blood, you probably have some Pict too. By all accounts, they were a fierce race, the name "Pict" coming from the Latin "Picti" meaning "painted or tattooed people" making them very fashionable in today's terms.

It's amazing to think that parts of this wall are still standing almost 2,000 years after it was built.

On our trip, we also visited Lindisfarne, the tidal island off the Northumberland coast and only accessible by causeway at low tide. Also known as Holy Island because of Lindisfarne Priory and the monks who lived there, I am afraid there is not much that is "holy" about it now.

Unfortunately, it has turned into a cash-making machine, from expensive car parking to the multiple tourist-packed shops and cafes for English Heritage who manage it. Visits not recommended - we "ticked it off the list" and left quickly!

Our last notable visit on the trip was to the "Angel of the North," the huge metal statue by Antony Gormley that towers over the A1 trunk road near Gateshead. Up close, you get a much better idea of its proportions - 20 metres (66 feet high) with a wingspan of 54 metres (177 feet) and weighing in at 208 tons of weathered steel.

Sited on former colliery pithead baths, it honours the region's coal mining history and is very impressive. In the trees below, attracted by the idea of a "guardian angel" perhaps, ordinary people have hung the branches with memorials of loved ones they have lost, making the whole thing even more poignant.

I hope that gives a good summary of our trip to northern England. But one thing more. We stayed for a week in a cottage in Alnmouth, as featured above. Of course, staying in someone else's property you are subject to their tastes, quirks and features.

In this particular instance, almost every cupboard, door and drawer had an animal figurine handle, which I found bizarre. Even the damned bottle opener had a sea lion holding up the cap lifter! The stuff of nightmares in my view.

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Pre-Dating Darwin

We tend to think of Charles Darwin as the "father of the Theory of Evolution" but it turns out there was a French naturalist who, 100 years before, had already worked out that species change and evolve.

His name was Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who worked on a 36-volume book for 50 years called "Histoire Naturelle." In it, he suggested that some animals were becoming extinct. At the time, around the 1740s, most natural historians believed that "God would never allow any species to ever disappear or arise over time." The whole concept of species change and extinction was very controversial.

In his book, Leclerc covered geology, botany, zoology and anthropology and even suggested that the Earth had formed after colliding with a comet and was much older than the 6,000 years commonly accepted as fact at the time.

Leclerc observed that different regions with similar climates and environments had very distinct plants and animals, suggesting to him that not only could species change over time but their distribution was influenced by geographical factors.

Despite being extremely wealthy, inheriting a fortune valued at $30 million in today's money and turning a 100-acre park in Burgundy into an environmental laboratory where he "let things go wild to see what happened," his ideas were stoutly opposed by the Church who rigidly stuck to a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Leclerc also anticipated the discovery of DNA suggesting that there must be "some kind of internal shaping mechanism, that life exists on an organic cellular level and there had to be some kind of recipe that reproduction followed."

Instead of evolution, he used the term "degeneration," which had no negative connotation at the time, to describe the process of change in species. But Leclerc never worked out how that change was brought about. It was left to Darwin and his co-developer, Alfred Russel Wallace, to shed light on the process of natural selection.

In later editions of his book "The Origin of Species," first published in 1859, Darwin, by this time having read Leclerc's enormous treatise, acknowledged Leclerc's work, writing to a friend, "Whole pages are laughably like mine. It is surprising how candid it makes one to see one's view in another man's words."

A new book on Leclerc has just been published by Jason Roberts, called "Every Living Thing".

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Saving Their Voice

At 1,599 miles (2,574 kilometres) long, the Zambezi River is huge but only the 4th largest in Africa, passing through 6 countries on its way into Mozambique and then emptying into the Indian Ocean.

Along the middle reaches of the river in Zimbabwe along the Zambezi Valley lived the Tonga people. The river was an integral part of their cultural heritage and traditions. Apart from agriculture and fishing, music and dance and their spiritual beliefs are all intertwined with ancestor worship and linked to the river and nature.

Between 1955 and 1959, the Kariba Dam was constructed, significantly impacting the lives of the Tonga people.

The enormous Kariba Lake that emerged as a result, flooded their homes, farms and fields, swamped their ancient burial grounds and effectively cut them off from their relatives and fellow Tongans on the other side of the river.

At its widest point, Kariba Lake is 40 kilometres (25 miles) wide, has a length of 223 kilometres (139 miles) and covers an area of 5,580 square kilometres (2,150 square miles).

Because of the growing lake, the Tonga people were forcibly dispersed to new locations inland away from the water and the river that had been part of their heritage for centuries.

In the new locations, they often felt marginalised and discriminated against and to fit in had to speak Shona rather than their natural language, Chitonga.

Thirty years ago, a book called "The People of the Great River" was published, written by Michael Tremmel, who lived with the Tonga for 8 years, and the Tonga elders. It told their story of life on the great river and its importance to their culture and language.

Much later, Tongan youngsters reading that book got together and formed the Basilwizi Trust which protects and promotes the Chitonga language and culture and, along with the Tonga Literacy Project, arranges funding to print books in their language. As a result, Chitonga is now one of the 16 official languages of Zimbabwe and is taught in schools up to university level.

The struggle to keep the Tonga language and culture alive for future generations continues. If you would like to contribute to the Tonga Literacy Project, please click on the link - it will make a difference.

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My Dutch friend Loes Roos did the excellent illustrations for the original book and they have been used again in the video above about the Tonga story (and in this article).

Loes and her husband Kees worked for decades in Africa helping indigenous communities grow, prosper and engage with the modern world.

If you would like a different sort of holiday, they now run the Heliconia Inn and Tanager Ecotours on the Pacific coast of Panama.

Photo Credits: Peter Clifford x 31, Host and Stay.co.uk, Truro Historical Society. org, Guardian/Donna Ferguson/Jason Roberts/Heritage Image Partnership/Alamy, Drawings x 4 by Loes Roos.

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END PIECE

Have struggled a little to get this one to you, somewhat later than planned, but I hope you found it interesting particularly our trip to Northern England.

Observing world events, it just seems to get worse and worse - with the occasional bright spot!

The continued slaughter of innocent women, men and children in Gaza just tears at your heart. I know Israel is justified in going after Hamas following what happened in October 2023 but the killing of 35,000 Palestinians? Nothing - but nothing - can justify that.

And sadly, I doubt after all the bombing and the reduction of all of Gaza to rubble, that Israel will find any of its remaining hostages alive. Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government need to be condemned to the rubbish bin of history as soon as possible.

And talking of right-wing views, Donald Trump's conviction on 34 charges yesterday did send me to bed with a smile on my face. It was not a set-up job as he and his supporters like to claim.

He fiddled the books to cover up his payments to a porn star and to save his reputation during an election. God help America if he wins again in November 2024. If he does, the US will be heading for a dictatorship and that will have consequences for the whole world.

Not least of all for Ukraine where they are valiantly struggling to keep Russia at bay. Trump claims he could stop the war in 24 hours. The only way he could do that was to cut off military aid and finance to Ukraine, condemning its people to Russian servitude. I am hoping for a better outcome.

Lastly, a general election in the UK is long overdue, as is a change of government. We will see if the replacement can do any better, but like many of you, my confidence in politicians to govern us well is severely reduced!

Stay strong, take good care of yourself - and be kind caring, generous and patient with those less fortunate than we are.

All good wishes,