steepholm

Back when your granny was a wee lass, there was a small railway station at Ashley Hill in Bristol, just where Ashley Down meets Purdown, and in the shadow of the Muller orphanages. It looked like this:



Later, Dr Beeching (or a similar functionary, but let him stand for all, a la Judge Jeffreys) closed the station, and so it remained for many a year. The orphanages were by this time part of Brunel College, and were then converted to flats, while in their grounds had little houses built on them, in one of which I lived from 2006 until 2020. For much of that time, there was talk of re-opening the station under the name Ashley Down, and whenever it came up we were a little excited and a little nervous, but only a little because we never thought it would actually happen.

It did happen, yesterday. To celebrate the event, I took a two-minute journey from Stapleton Rd to visit the new, clean, yet untagged station. Not railway station, as in old-fashioned British English, not train station, as in US English, but "rail station". This is the shining new world we live in.










I felt a little self-conscious, I admit, photographing train things like an otaku in an anorak, but I was far from alone. The only depressing bit was this bench-cum-misericord, presumably designed like this to deter homeless people (because if only we didn't encourage them they wouldn't insist on being homeless?), but equally deterrent of passengers, I imagine.

Walking home from Temple Meads today, I saw that Easton has given its own verdict on the proclamation.



Of course, I can't approve this, as it's been several generations since a king of England employed a Groom of the Stool.

"You have cute elbows," said a small piece of graffiti that I passed this morning.

That may seem rather a random message, but it brought back very clearly a time, about 15 years ago, when I actually did secretly pride myself on the cuteness of my elbows. Other parts of my body might have started to sag and wither, I would reflect, but my elbows were pristine - pert and smooth, and altogether (as it seemed to me) in remarkably good condition. I even said as much to the person I was with at the time, when the subject of "body parts I can bear" came up.

I was surprised and rather appalled when they laughed at me. Even now, I'm not sure whether it was the general idea of elbows being cute or my particular claim that elicited such mirth. Either would have been humiliating in its own way. In any case, it knocked my elbow confidence for six, and I've been careful not to flaunt ever them since.

Meanwhile, yesterday I took a turn around Bristol harbour. I realised I'd never actually sought out Banksy's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring,' with or without its COVID-19 addition, so I finally did, before moving on to the the boatbuilders in Underfall Yard, where they are halfway through fashioning a tidy keel for 'Mad Ray of Rye.'

Today I go to pick up the goose that was to have fed me, Haruka, my brother and his partner on Christmas day. Of course, that's no longer going to happen. Theoretically it might be possible to travel from Brighton to Bristol and back in a day, in accordance with Johnson's latest panicked edict, but it hardly sounds fun, especially as everyone else will also be on the road. So, goose till March, then (although it now seems that Ayako will be free to join us, and may be good for a leg). My plan to give Haruka a very traditional English Christmas has gone a bit haywire, unless 1348 counts as "traditional."

At least my tree looks nice! I bought it from "Refutrees," a pop-up shop run by Aid Box Community, a local charity that specialises in aid work and wordplay. Coincidentally, the other day I was hailed on the street by a Syrian refugee who was looking for the charity, and walked with him to their base, where they were happy to see him, though he looked a bit nonplussed on arrival to find that the charity he'd been seeking was (to the untrained eye) just a room full of Nordic spruces.

Two nights ago, in my festive fury, I took Haruka to Westonbirt Arboretum's Enchanted Christmas Trail, where the trees were lit up prettily, some animated, with occasional sylvan holograms, music, lasers, and so on. It would have been very charming, had it not been raining steadily throughout. I felt especially sorry for the woodland elves who had been hired to interact with the questers for the 'West Pole' (us) and perform little skits. That they were all carrying umbrellas was entirely understandable, but did take a little from the magic, especially since they were made of plastic and not (as one might have hoped) giant rhubarb leaves. Still, life's been hard on Equity members this year, and at least it was a gig.

I've lost count of how many streets claim to be Britain's steepest, but Vale St in Bristol is one of them - and that's the setting of Banksy's latest masterwork (photo courtesy of Ayako, who lives nearby).



Coincidentally, Colston St, so named in the nineteenth-century by aficianados of Bristol's formerly bestatued slaver, is to revert to its mediaeval name: Steep Street. It will be hard to make the usual "erasing history" objection stick when it's actually an act of restoration. As citizen, as scholar and as smartarse, I approve.

(Yes, Bristol is hilly.)

sovay asked about the "Seven Saints of St. Pauls" murals I mentioned in my last post. As I was out today, I had the opportunity to photograph four of them. Expect the other three in due course...

In a couple of days, all being well, I move about a mile and a half, from Ashley Down (on top of Ashley Hill) to St Agnes (at the bottom). Confusingly, Bristol actually has two districts called St Agnes: mine is the one that abuts St Pauls.

When I turned over the October page of my Moomin calendar a few days ago, I was not surprised to find that it showed a tall thin house, rather more characterful than the one I'm moving to, but still, I like to think, its spiritual twin.



That Moomins calendar has been a kind of sortes virgilianae for me all year. In March, it weirdly predicted the onset of lockdown, toilet-roll hoarding and all:



Despite stocking up, by the following month, Moomintroll and Snufkin had been reduced to using the three-shells method - or at least to working out what it might be. (This didn't actually happen to me, but only thanks to my Brexit stockpile.)



And in May, when I was taking woodland long walks in Stoke Park and around Purdown (see entries from that time), Moomintroll similarly was hugging a tree, as if for comfort.



What will November and December bring? The only downside to being at the bottom of the hill is that my new house is right next to a river, and the Moomins don't have a great track record with flooding...

At least once a year I make a crumble from the apples growing in my garden and the blackberries growing wild a hundred or so yards away. Free food always was the most delicious - but if I ever manage to move house, this will be the last year I do it, I suppose.

Today the statue of Edward Colston in the centre of Bristol was pulled down by Black Lives Matter protestors, and thrown into the harbour. People from outside the city may not understand the resonances of this act, other than that Colston was a slaver who bequeathed much of his wealth to the city. A lot of things in Bristol are consequently named after him, including my children’s very multicultural primary school (although that name was changed a few years ago).

Possibly you think that a statue to someone who died 300 years ago is just part of the historical fabric, and should be left as such. But the statue to Colston has been a living controversy for many years – it’s not ‘just’ history.

First, of course, it wasn’t put up on Colston’s death but almost two centuries later, in 1895 – itself a political act. At that point the plaque beneath it read: “Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city”. There was no mention of slavery at all.

Many people have argued for the removal of the statue, while others resisted. In 2018 the city agreed a compromise, suggesting wording for a new plaque that would give a fuller picture of Colston’s legacy:

Edward Colston (1636-1721) was a Bristol-born merchant, long honoured as the city’s greatest benefactor. He made vast donations to restore churches, establish schools, almshouses and various charities in Bristol and across the country.

Much of his wealth came from investments in slave trading, sugar and other slave-produced goods.

When a high official of the Royal African Company (1680-1692) (which had the monopoly on the British slave trade until 1698), he played an active role in the trafficking of over 84,000 enslaved Africans (including 12,000 children) of whom over 19,000 died on their way across the Atlantic.

As MP for Bristol (1710-1713) he worked to safeguard Bristol’s slave-trading interests. His role in the exploitation of enslaved Africans and his opposition to any form of religious or political dissent, has in recent years made him the focus of increasing controversy.

Pretty uncontroversial, you might think? But it was too harsh for the Merchant Venturers, Colston’s club, which is still a power in the city. In 2019 they commissioned a former curator of the City Museum to write a softer version:

Edward Colston (1636-1721) was a Bristol-born merchant and the city's greatest benefactor. He supported and endowed schools, almshouses, hospitals and churches in Bristol, London and elsewhere. Many of his charitable foundations survive. This statue was erected in 1895 to commemorate his philanthropy.

Some of his wealth came from investments in slave trading, sugar and other slave-produced commodities. From 1680 to 1692 he was an official of the Royal African Company, which had the monopoly of the English slave trade until 1698.

Thus, he was involved in the transportation of approximately 84,000 African men, women and children, who had been traded as slaves in West Africa, of whom 19,000 died on voyages to the Caribbean and the Americas.

Notice, among many other differences, how “trafficked” has become “transported” – as if the slaves were either a) criminals or b) passengers, rather than traded goods; while the blame for slavery has somehow been shifted to Africa itself.

All this wasn’t in the distant past, mind. It was a year ago.

The Mayor of Bristol (himself descended from enslaved Africans) unsurprisingly rejected this proposal – and there, until today, the matter rested, pending ultimate agreement on the wording.

The destruction of the statue cuts that Gordian knot. It's about time.

I went walking up on Purdown again yesterday, for the first time in over a week. What a difference 10 days make! Here are two photos of the same horse chestnut, one taken on 15th April, the other on the 25th. Such is the power of Spring (cue Stravinsky):



Also, the May is very much out, so cast clouts at will.



If you look carefully at the photo above you will spy the crouching form of an amateur entomologist. I was able to identify her as such from the way she tap-tap-tapped at the branches of the hawthorn while holding an inverted white umbrella beneath it. This is characteristic entomologist behaviour and distinguishes them from outwardly similar species such as mycologists and botanists. She told me she was counting insects for the City Nature Challenge, which was kind of cool in a Hemulinish sort of way.