Poets in a Lens, by David James

Update : March 2009

2009-03-03T08:20:00.005Z

I have been pleased that in the last couple of weeks I have been contacted by a number of people who have looked at the material in this blog, and got something from it. On March 2nd. there was a program by Lee Hall on the 'Archive Hour' on Radio 4, covering aspects of the North East poetry scene, including the Morden Tower and Basil Buntings work. I was also pleased to note that the Morden Tower website has loaded up yet more of my fathers photographs - a few the same as these, but many additional ones. At 84 he was a techno-phobe - no telly, never mind a PC with Internet, so I don't know how much it would have meant to him - but I find it pleasing that his major 'hobby' has outlived him in this way.

Blog comments have been useful too - so I can update one of the photos with additional names, and correct two spelling mistakes. Poetry is about precision - so I shall put them right as soon as I can.

Jeremy James

'Bloggers Introduction'

2008-11-13T19:48:00.003Z

In July my father, David M James died, at the age of 85. Some weeks later I joined my elder brother to help clear his house – a task that we have all learned to face with some dread. The clothes, furniture, the things we need for everyday life were all old, and could be disposed of with relative ease. But he left behind a huge collection of photographs and papers, and it was out of dealing with this large collection that I came to see my upbringing in a new light.

He had always been a man of varied interests. While professionally he had been a research scientist, and then a teacher, his interests had been wide – literature, music film, art, architecture, the living world. As we sorted through these papers, I found persistent reminders of the first sights of these things that he and my mother had provided. I can’t list them all, but as I looked through the collected playbills, programmes, and catalogues, I came to appreciate just how broad these introductions had been, and at what a young age. So, here was the catalogue for exhibitions of Futurism and Surrealism, in Newcastle and Durham. The programme for a cello recital by Paul Tortellier, violin by Yehudi Menhuin, plays from Shakespeare to John Arden, sculpture by Moore, and so on.

He also took me to poetry readings, an interest of his. Much earlier, at the age of eight or nine, I had lain upstairs unable to sleep, while my parents had entertained friends downstairs. It wasn’t a normal evening – they were to have an early meal, and then listen to a play on the radio. After dinner the adults gathered in our front room, and it was at that point that I crept downstairs in my dressing gown, complaining that I couldn’t sleep. It must have been 1963 or thereabouts. I was allowed to sit in the corner of our living room and listen to the broadcast of ‘Under Milk Wood’ by Dylan Thomas, very probably the original BBC version. I was captivated, and listened to the music of the words, even though I couldn’t understand a lot of it. (Why was there a gathering ? It's inconceivable now, getting together to listen to a radio broadcast ! Dad had a very fine vhf tuner, its green glowing valves driving big Wharfedale speakers. He was proud of it, so was there an element of showing off, both the technology and the knowledge that this would be a special event?)

So I was used to sitting still and being quiet, and listening to stuff that was hard to make sense of. I can’t remember my first trip to the Morden Tower, the unique poetry venue in Newcastle, but I do remember hearing Basil Bunting read Briggflatts there. The somewhat scruffy man arrived with his grip stencilled B. BUNTING, WYLAM, containing his collected poems and a half bottle of whisky. The first part of the evening covered shorter pieces, and then there was the reading of Briggflatts. As with the opening lines of Milk Wood, so with this poem – the hairs rose on my arms and neck, as the opening line ‘Brag, sweet tenor bull’ was delivered in the most musical Northumbrian brogue.

My father’s interests in photography and poetry merged, as he started to photograph the readings that he went to. He always gave the poets and other participants copies of the photos, and some were used in books and at exhibitions. Many have been donated to archives, the Basil Bunting archive in Durham, the Poetry Society, and many will go to the Morden Tower, which celebrates an anniversary this year.

So, as we worked on clearing the house, I found a ring binder with a short work about photographing poets and poetry readings. I remembered that he had tried to get it published, 20 years ago. Well, black and white photography of live poetry readings is a small subject area, unlikely to attract the interest of publishers. But I wondered…. Could I publish it myself, in blog form, as kind of thank you for the introduction he had give me? The chapters seem to be about the size of blog entries, but I have done it backwards so to speak – so it reads as a narrative down the blog. The photographs were scanned in, the words retyped, and some minor changes made to suit the format. I probably need to explain one aspect of the work. He loved photographing women, and he was surprisingly good at persuading them to pose for him, in varying stages of dress and undress. This explains some of the references in the text.

I have removed just two rather scathing references to individuals. Time has passed, and I have no wish to cause any offence to any who are pictured here. I have also removed a page of deeply technical information on photography, which is unlikely to be of interest due to changes in technology. It is possible that some of the pictures have been published before, but I have no reason to suppose that copyright has been infringed. If anyone does feel that they have copyright in any of the material presented, or that they would prefer not to have the photographs reproduced here, please contact me, and I will rectify the position.

Jeremy James, November 2008.

Poets in a Lens : Introduction

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This is a book of pictures, the subject being readings of poetry in the North-East of England from 1969 to 1987. My eye has wandered from poets to audiences, both have provided me with a great deal of innocent fun.

You will notice that very little is said about the poems. This is because although I enjoy listening to them, I understand little of them, at any rate on a first hearing.

There is rather more about the photography, useful tips about taking pictures in difficult circumstances, with minimal light, and where the clunk of a shutter may be an intrusion. The only advice not in the text is: “File your negatives in a proper album from the word go.” I wish I had.

I : The Morden Tower

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I first heard of it in the late sixties, when of course its great days were over, as they always are. The name of Basil Bunting caught my attention, and brought an echo of my schoolboy past in the mid-thirties. I had seen it in Ezra Pound’s “Active Anthology”, borrowed from Croydon Public Library (a treasure house, incidentally, of Trotskyist books, put there at the suggestion of a local radical called Arthur Ballard; books which had an influence far more immediately intoxicating than that of poetry, though of far less enduring value). Among the alliterative and otherwise funny names Basil’s stuck in my mind; his poetry didn’t, nor has it yet, though his reading of “Briggflatts” was well worth hearing, and can be heard on an L.P.

Tom Pickard had dug Basil out of obscurity, and Tom ran the Tower.

Basil Bunting in the Morden Tower, 14/02/1975.

Basil with Jonathan Williams and Thomas Meyer, Colpitts, 18/11/1977.

The Morden Tower, outside 04/06/1982

The Morden Tower, inside 29/01/1971

Connie (Pickard) awaiting Carol Rubenstein, 11/09/1969

The Morden Tower looks its age on the outside, and on the inside has beams, wall mouldings and white-washed walls, decorated with posters and line drawings, varying with time. In one phase, fortunately short, it was lined with pictures in glazed frames. Nowadays there is warmth and electric light and some modest seating, but in 1969 when I started going there were piles of damp cushions and a chill. A note in my album to the picture of Connie Pickard above says: “Connie at the Morden Tower, awaiting the arrival of Carol Rubinstein, who occupied the Bard’s Cushion and read her poems.”

Morden Tower reading by Hugo Williams and Galway Kinnell

There was a long period during which the lights failed, due to vandalism or possibly to unpaid bills. This was overcome by storm-lamps and candles, making for a stage-Bohemian effect, a challenge to the photographer, not to mention the reader.

Jerome Rothenberg Tower, 02/11/1971

David Wright and Philippa Reid 08/06/1972

Adrian Henri and Nell Dunn, Morden Tower, 29/09/1972

For a while a move was made to the upstairs bar of the Old George. These were the days when illumination was still provided in pubs; though I must in fairness report that amid the gloom of the downstairs bar of the Old George it is still possible in 1987, to obtain a pint of D.B., and Archie Rice need not yet emigrate. These middle class surroundings attracted a matching audience, the lumpenproletariat of duffle-coated students was leavened by some more academic figures, notably the tall ascetic-looking figure of David Burnett, librarian and poet, who appeared later as an anchor-man of the Colpitts.

Tom Pickard, The Old George, 05/12/1973

Jeremy James note : I saw Basil Bunting at the Tower, and heard him read Briggflatts three times - there, in Harrogate, and at Durham University. One of the web links has a recording of him reading 'What the Chairman told Tom' and there is the start of Briggflatts. I never heard an accent like his, until several years later I came across an IBM engineer with the same Northumbrian burr. "Tchere may be a fault wit' the chard chreader". It made this prosaic piece of electromechanical IT kit sound like something that could accompany the holy grail. I've inherited the LP of "Briggflatts".

II : Listening Women

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The picture of Tom Pickard and Connie illustrates an aspect of poetry readings, the figures in the audience (I shall come to the poets later). Here are captive models. There are men listening, but I don’t take much account of them. Often the women remain unattainable figures, remote objects of contemplation; sometimes, as in the case of the delightful Ann Bellingham, I make an acquaintance : “Three years at the university ? It’s gone like a dream. I had to take a General Degree, because of my social life, you see.”

Tom Pickard & Connie, Morden Tower, 29/01/1971

Ann Bellingham, Colpitts, 18/11/1977

Ann Bellingham, Colpitts, 12/05/1978

From time to time my attention is caught by the poetry, or I recall my duty as recorder of the poet, but my interest always reverts. They are often students, though not always, as in the case of Audrey Cummings, or my regular stars Posy O’Neill and Patty O’Boyle.

Audrey Cummings at Castle Chare, Durham. 18/01/1980

Audience at Paul Buck’s reading, Colpitts. 19/01/1976

Posy O’Neill at Ed Dorns reading, Big Jug, Durham. 12/06/1981

Posy O’Neill, Castle Chare, Durham. 02/05/1980

Patty O’Boyle, Castle Chare, Durham. 20/02/1981

Patty O’Boyle, Castle Chare, Durham. 19/10/1984

Bron Frith, Castle Chare, Durham. 07/05/1983

‘Dark Beauty’, Castle Chare, Durham. 29/04/1983

Martha Lewis, Castle Chare, Durham. 09/03/1984

Audience at Anne Stevenson reading, Castle Chare, Durham. 07/02/1986

Peter Porter reading, Colpitts, Durham. 10/11/1978

Ric Caddel, Morden Tower, 14/02/1975. In the background Connie Pickard & Gael Turnbull.

The women fascinate me, and I take their pictures for their own sake. Sometimes, however, they form subjects along with the reader, and by their attention personify the attention of the audience. But where is my attention?

III : The Colpitts

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Ric Caddel, librarian, poet and publisher, who had been for some time helping to run ‘The Tower’, set up a poetry-reading circle in the back room of the Colpitts Hotel in Durham City. The small back room was lit by one or two bulbs hung form the ceiling and heated by a gas fire; its trademarks are the wallpaper (Contemporary design, c 1951) and the dart board. It was frequently noisy from bar-chatter in the corridor outside, but had a good rectangular pattern of seats, and was seldom either over-crowded or embarrassingly empty. I would arrive early and take a seat at the far end, to command a view of both reader and audience; there-after it was pot-luck whether I retained an open view, but I seldom moved, taking obstructions, along with the available light, as conditions of the occasion.

Colpitts Hotel, Durham City, July 1982

Carol dusting, Colpitts Hotel, Durham City, July 1982

Carol drawing, Colpitts Hotel, Durham City, April 1986

The readings at the Colpitts came to an end in 1979, and the back room now has a pool table. But even without poetry the pub is well worth a visit : the beer, notably Sam Smith’s ‘Old Brewery Bitter’, the arrangement and fittings, including an active open fire of coal in the public bar, remain obstinately traditional.

The following pictures illustrate the room during readings. Tony Jackson’s hot water bottle was of more than merely symbolic value at the start of a reading in March.

The last reading in the pub itself was in June 1979. There-after the title “Colpitts Poetry” was kept, but the readings were moved, in the first place to the castle Chare Arts Centre nearby. This was a converted school, and at the start had all the cosy charm of a Sunday School, and what’s more no booze on tap, though that was put right later.

Tony Jackson (L) with Adrian Neatrour, Colpitts Hotel, Durham, 12/03/1976

Ulli McCarthy reading with Matthew Doyle, Colpitts Hotel, Durham, 11/03/1977

Ian Sinclair (L) and Chris Torrance, Colpitts Hotel, Durham, 20/05/1977

(Note that the focus is more appropriate to the previous chapter)

Tony Lopez and Lee Harwood, , Colpitts Hotel, Durham, 03/03/1978

John Riley, Colpitts Hotel, Durham, 02/12/1977

Audience at reading by Andrew Crozier, Colpitts Hotel, Durham. 06/05/1977

(Jeremy : interestingly, when doing web research on Andrew Crozier, a photograph at the Colpitts which I’m sure was taken by my father !)

Jeremy's comments : During my last year at Durham University I lived up the road from the Colpitts, in May Street. I used to cycle down there, fill a flagon with four pints of Sam Smiths, and wobble back up the hill with the flagon hung precariously from my handle-bars. A friend at University, Steve, had actually found the Castle Chare site unoccupied in 1974, and initiated the work to turn it into an Arts Centre. So when my Dad first went there, and compared it unfavourably with the Colpitts, I knew both locations - but not as poetry venues.

IV: The Telling Moment

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This is the photographic art at its most distinctive, the snapshot. The sports photographer, with his leaping hurdlers and fouling footballers, is better provided with such moments, for which however he may need the 300mm f2.8 lens. They are more subtle and occur more rarely in poetry readings, but they call for no more than a 50mm or 85mm f2.8 lens. I have never possessed a motor-drive, nor would I be inclined to use one, it seems like taking a machine gun on a deer-shoot. Not that I’ve ever shot anything except a target, and no regret.

Alas, I cannot say what Barry McSweeney was telling us. On the other hand, I can say that Peter Mortimer was telling Dominic Behan, ever so nicely, to shut up. Peter had been reading when Dominic suddenly announced from his corner: “It’s shit, Peter!”

The audience was frightfully embarrassed. English type cries, “I say, give the man a chance!”, “Disgusting!”, “Fair play, there!” alternated with the doggedly repeated Irish literary criticism,

“It’s shit, I tell ye!”, which was now being enunciated from a standing position. The audience was further embarrassed by the suspicion that while the form of the criticism was deplorable, there might be something in its content.

Barry McSweeney, Castle Chare, Durham. 09/11/1979

Peter Mortimer and Dominic Behan, Morden Tower, 23/06/1978.

The telling moments are usually those of activity, but the picture of Alexander Trocchi (now dead), author of “Cain’s Book” and acknowledged heroin user, seems to tell us something.

Alexander Trocchi (R) with Dave Westerley (L), Morden Tower, 19/03/1971

Paul Buck reading, Colpitts, Durham. 19/11/1976

Tony Jackson, Castle Chare, Durham. 15/02/1980

George McBeth, ‘Coelfrith’, Sunderland, 11/05/1982

Richard Kell, Morden Tower, 08/05/1981

Bill Griffiths had the bad luck to be paired with Geraldine Monk at a reading in the Castle Chare in 1980. From the moment she appeared, in scarlet dress and black stockings, he hadn’t a hope. (It was one of the few occasions when I should have welcomed a colour film. I tried to recruit her as a figure model when I sent her copies of the pictures, and had some hope of success, but she eluded me). He was luckier in 1985 at the Tower, along with Bob Cobbing, who performs in a curious and effective chant.

Geraldine Monk with Bill Griffiths (L) Ged Lawson (R) Castle Chare, Durham, 01/02/1980

Bob Cobbing, Tony Jackson, Bill Griffiths, Morden Tower. 01/03/1985

V : Reading Women

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Geraldine Monk was giving a reading, though it is not apparent from the pictures: she is there for her appearance. I regard the women who read in the same light as those who listen, which is disrespectful, but I must add that my attitude to their actual readings is different.

Geraldine Monk with Ged Lawson, Castle Chare, Durham, 01/02/1980

Susan Musgrave introduced her poems as describing “what it feels like to be a sexy young woman of 23.” I have no experience of what it feels like from the inside, but plenty of what it looks like, and she’s a fine specimen of the type. Such poems are however unusual, as unusual in this matter as the early poems of Dylan Thomas.

Susan Musgrave, one of three Canadian poets, Morden Tower. 03/11/80

When it comes to the poetry, I find nothing to distinguish the work of women from that of men, unless they deal with subjects such as Motherhood or Feminism. The idea of ‘Wimmin’, to use Private Eye’s economical word, bores me. Writing women are just writers, to be judged by their writing alone. I doubt if anyone who mistook Joyce Cary’s sex on the basis of the name would be corrected by a reading of “Herself Surprised”; and I should be quite prepared to believe that Hemingway was written by some Ernestine.

Against that is a simple and awkward fact. The English novel has since its early days counted women among its outstanding practitioners, and this continues today. Over the same period, when women have been accepted as writers, I cannot think of single outstanding woman poet. This century has produced the novelists Woolf, Compton-Burnett and Spark, but no woman to set alongside Belloc, Eliot and Betjeman.

Anne Cluysenaar (R) with Diana Surman, Colpitts, 14/11/1975

Elaine Feinstein, Colpitts, 04/11/1977

Wendy Mulford, Colpitts, 27/04/1979

Vicky Feaver with Colin Falck, Morden Tower, 13/03/1981

Frances Horowitz, Castle Chare, Durham 04/12/1981

Gillian Clarke with Roland Mathias, ‘Coelfrith’, Sunderland 11/02/1982

Nicki Jackowska, Morden tower, 04/06/1982

Helen Dunmore, with publisher Neil Astley, Morden Tower 20/05/1983

Lorna Tracy (R) with Nicole Jouve, Morden Tower, 29/01/1982

VI : Music with Poetry

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The picture of Wendy Cope, who is one of the rarer and valuable species, the comic poet, was taken at the Ceolfrith in Sunderland (the name is pronounced “keel” not “coal”, being related to ship-building). This flourished in the Arts Centre, Grange Terrace, from 1980, under the leadership of Roger Garfitt, and declined in activity when he left in 1982. The readings shared the evening with musical performances, making well balanced programmes.

Wendy Cope, ‘Ceolfrith’, Sunderland 16/02/1984

This was occasionally done at other readings, though usually as part of the poetical performance: James Simmons, for example, at the Morden Tower. I bought a copy of his record containing “The Ballad of Claudy” and played it to a school assembly, where it caused a sensation.

James Simmons, Morden Tower, 17/12/1970

Chris Torrance played a sort of flute at the Colpitts; I remember that reading well, because after a poem which he had said to be placed in Croydon, I asked him whether it described Duppas Hill, and with some astonishment he said it did.

Chris Torrance (R) with Iain Sinclair, Colpitts 20/05/1977

‘The Wylam Singers’, Coelfrith, 03/02/1981

Tristram Robson, Ceolfrith, 27/01/81

At a reading by Vince Morrison, Ceolfrith 17/03/1981

Only the Coelfrith made music with poetry the regular form, and one of the nights (“The Sweetest Thing”) was a performance of thirties ballads, “The Folks who Live on the Hill”, and “Dinner for One please, James”, poetry indeed.

“The Sweetest Thing”. Dick Bradshaw (L) singing “Dinner for One, please, James”, with Ken Stitt. Ceolfrith 02/02/1982

VII : Anchor Men

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This picture show, incompletely, Duncan Brown in the capacity of double-bass player; he was the chief organiser of the Castle Chare Arts centre in Durham, which provided a home for the Colpitts poetry after it left the pub. Castle Chare was an ugly place at the start, but it improved considerably over the years, and was a loss when it had to close in 1987 due to the Church’s demand for a greatly increased rent.

Poems by Adrian Mitchell with (L to R) Duncan Brown, Jon Bennett and Fiona McPherson. Castle Chare, Durham. 20/06/1986

Peter Reading helped to run the Coelfrith. I’ve never heard a chairman quite like him, he seemed to regard the proceedings as a joke, whether (as in the case of Gavin Ewart) jokes were on the agenda or not.

Gavin Ewart reading, with Peter Reading, Coelfrith 03/03/1981.

David Burnett, an accomplished poet who often chairs Colpitts readings, does so in an entirely different manner, tentative, as if too positive a statement would destroy the very miracle that the poet would read at all. This quality of manner is not to be discerned in his poetry.

In this photograph he flanks Mrs. Gascoyne, who is herself her husband’s impresario. She tells the story of how she gave readings to hospital in-patients, and one day read a poem by David Gascoyne, unaware that he was in the audience. He introduced himself at the end, and she brought him out into renewed life and work.

David Burnett, Judy Gascoyne, David Gascoyne, Castle Chare, Durham 19/10/1979

David Burnett with reader Matthew Sweeney, Castle Chare, 14/02/1986

Roger Garfitt is seen in charge at Coelfrith during a poetry reading by D.M.Thomas; this was shortly before Thomas attained fame as a provider of high class sex-books, starting with “The White Hotel”.

D.M. Thomas reading, with Roger Garfitt, Coelfrith, Sunderland 27/01/1981

Michael O’Neill (husband of Posy O'Neill) and David Fuller (husband of Cynthia below) are both directors of the Colpitts enterprise.

Michael O’Neill with Cynthia Fuller at her reading, Castle Chare, 01/05/1986

Ric Caddell founded the Colpitts, but dropped out of it by degrees in the 1980’s. Here he is seen reading a sequence dealing with wine labels. There is a degree of ironic detachment or parody in some of his work, and wine labels provide fine material for that, since the ambition of the label bears no obvious relation to the quality of the wine. I can’t imagine anyone being successfully ironic about the label of Chateau d’Yquem.

Ric Caddel, Castle chare 09/03/1984

Christopher Logue, whose reading is being chaired by Ric, was said in a newspaper article I read to have a reputation for rudeness. If so (and one of the penalties of old age is that you have a decreasing belief in the accuracy of newspapers), then I don’t know why; his courtesy to me was outstanding. In repayment for a few snapshots he sent me, by return of post, a hardback copy of his collection “Sweet and Sour”, from which incidentally I learned of Wendy Cope.

Christopher Logue reading, with Ric Caddel, Big Jug, Durham 19/03/1982

VIII : Lighting and Arrangement

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In the studio, the subject and lighting arrangements are under the control of the photographer. The conditions at these readings are exactly the opposite; they are made by the organisers for the convenience of readers and audience, and must be accepted as they are.

In particular, a flash must never be used. Even the noise of a shutter can be an intrusion, and pictures often must be taken during the introduction to a piece or when the audience laughs. The use of flash is an unpardonable rudeness. There is another reason for not using it, and that is that it produces lighting which the audience never sees, and therefore does not reproduce the atmosphere of the reading.

Arrangement during a reading is static, unless the reader chooses to prowl to and fro. The interval produces many different arranges, as in the picture of Gareth Reeves and Patty O’Boyle, which depends on back-lighting and an accidental conjunction of figures. This is selected, I should add, from several similar negatives, and one must be prepared to take a good many more shots than are finally used. It would be a mistake to wait for the ideal picture to compose itself, better to take sighting-shots, because the ideal may not materialise, and waiting for it would produce nothing at all.

Gareth Reeves and Patty O’Boyle, The Bridge Hotel, Durham 14/10/1983

Gareth, lecturer in English at the University, poet and son of a poet, is an anchor-man of the Colpitts readings and of the magazine “Poetry Durham”, which he is seen here pressing on the audience.

Gareth Reeves selling “Poetry Durham”, Castle Chare, Durham 07/02/1986

The pictures of Seamus Heaney and Tony Jackson depend for their effect on the spillage of light from sources within the frame of the picture. Those of Jackson reading, and of his baffled audience, were on the other hand taken in the flat lighting of several fluorescent tubes, and depend for interest entirely on the figures themselves.

Jackson does have this effect on people. His work consists largely of a celebration of literary clichés, which he assembles in the spirit of DIY. No-one could feel the same about a spy thriller or a pornographic novel after taking a course of Jackson. He was, by a magnificent municipal misunderstanding, accused of bringing the Newcastle festival into disrepute in 1969 by reciting pornographic works.

Seamus Heaney, Morden Tower 18/02/1972

Tony Jackson, Colpitts, Durham 12/03/1976

Tony Jackson, Castle Chare, Durham 15/02/1980

His audience.

The lighting problem is essentially that of contrast. People sometimes ask me how I can take pictures in dim light without flash, but this is not the difficulty; provided the light is directional, its weakness is unimportant. Sometimes there is too much light, an example being the spotlight on the face of the pianist (plate 33b –Stitt). The result can then be an over-exposure sufficient to reduce the contrast, and the face is reduced to a white mask. Burning it in simply produces a grey mask; this can be seen in many a newspaper photograph taken with a flash mounted on the camera. In plate 52 B, however, a spotlight has produced an acceptable picture, because it comes from the side of the face.

(technical section on cameras and lenses removed from here)

Provided there is enough light, exposure is not critical. I usually meter a wall at the start, and adjust the exposure thereafter by guesswork, according to subject.

I use only monochrome, and have no experience of colour-print films of speed 1000 ISO and faster. I have yet to find anything for this sort of work to equal the conventional 400 ISO films such as Kodak Tri-X. Their claimed speed is genuine, and can be up-rated by extra development to a genuine 8000, and by genuine I mean with detail in the shadows, not merely density in the highlights of the negative.

For general photo technique my handbook is Eric de Mare’s Pelican book “Photography”. It is dated regarding cameras and some materials, though his recommendation of Ilford Microphen developer remains sound. I would add Kodak HC 110 used at double strength for up-rating speed; neither of these will produce fine grain with such a film, but I find a grain which would be objectionable in large areas of continuous tone such as skies to be acceptable in the sort of work shown here. The book is particularly informative on the pestilential and unavoidable subject of ‘spotting’ of prints to remove defects. ‘Burning in’ over exposed parts of the negative must sometimes be done, the screen in plate 37 A for example, which on a straight print would be plain white.

The Big Jug in Durham provided a variety of lighting, form daylight in the early summer evenings to dramatic spotlights. It was unusual in the wide and deep spread of the audience, and my f2.8 lens found most of its use there.

Peter Laver, ‘The Big Jug’, Durham 25/02/1983

Robert Sheppard, ‘The Big Jug’, Durham 05/03/1982

Tom Pickard paid a visit to read at the Jug in 1981, accompanied by his Polish wife. He was at that time spending half his year in Warsaw; she kept him in good order I think. Also visible in the picture with her is Geraldine Monk. She regarded me with a quizzical eye; we did not converse.

The Jug also provided good arrangements of the audience, with views from front, side and rear. Its poster covered walls were exciting at the start but soon became a cliché in the pictures, and I should have welcomed a return to Colpitts Contemporary.

Tom Pickard, ‘The Big Jug’, Durham, 19/06/1981

Mrs.Pickard (L), as above.

In the matter of arrangement the interests of the photographer and the reader surely co-incide. There can be nothing worse for either than the classroom arrangement, with the audience in parallel rows, facing the speaker. If it is set in some sort of ring whihch includes the reader, he feels part of the body of the people rather than set apart; and the photographer can place himself so as not to point his machine straight at the readers face, nor at most of the audiences, but can obtain various side angles.

The Castle Chare, no doubt because of its origin, was especially classroom-like at the start, and this re-appeared in the Staff Common Room in the Union building at Durham. Fancy lighting, or business with cabbage were needed to cope with this gloomy arrangement.

Ken Smith, Staff Common Room, Durham Union, 23/01/1987

Student with cabbage, Castle Chare, Durham 01/05/1980

U.A. Fanthorpe reading at the Staff Common Room, Durham Union, 20/02/1987

The entrance to the poetry reading room, Castle Chare, Durham 21/01/1983

X : Finnegans Wake

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In the spring of 1982 John Cayley, specialist in Chinese at Durham University, had the idea of a collaborative reading of Finnegans Wake. It was open to all volunteers, none of whom turned out to be very familiar with the book; but all were enthusiastic, and eventually it became four readings, culminating on Bloomsday, June 16^th, in the large and hideous hall of the Castle Chare.

The first was in the small bar of the Colpitts Hotel, and since there was plenty of bright daylight I used the Rolleiflex; the next two were in the upstairs room of the Bridge Hotel, again at lunch time, and I used a fixed-lens compact camera, the Olympus 35RC, surely the best of its type ever produced, and still doing hard work.

I can claim to have read and re-read the whole of Finnegans wake, largely thanks to having borrowed the Skeleton Key, without which I should have given it up, baffled. Also to my invariable policy of skipping when a book begins to drag.

My mother first made me aware of the existence of “Work in Progress” , and I borrowed “Anna Livia Plurabelle” and “Two Tales of Shem and Shaun” from the admirable Croydon Public Library, but could make nothing of them, even after borrowing “Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress”. I first handled the whole book in 1954, again without success; it was a production of Mary Manning’s “The Voice of Shem” by the Questors Theatre, Ealing, in September 1958 which really introduced me to it; I bought the book, and later the record of Cyril Cusack reading Shem, and Siobhan McKenna reading ALP. This record was a great help when I chose to take the part of Shem in these co-operative readings. The main hazard was that of adopting a bogus Irish accent.

It so happened that my third and last son, Stephen, was born in March 1958. He was not a contented child in his early years; his immediately elder brother, Jeremy, was already showing that out-going character which was to make him a great party man – his parties in the early seventies have given me a rich photo-archive of goings-on. It became clear to me that here I had a classic case of Shem and Shaun, and I was most satisfied to find an existing artistic pattern in my own life.

Finnegans Wake is a fine funny poetic book, and this fact animates the pictures.

David Fuller and Anne Stevenson at the Finnegans Wake reading, Colpitts, 17/04/1982

At the same reading.

Patty O’Boyle and David Burnett at the Finnegans Wake reading, Bridge Hotel, Durham 08/05/1982

At the same reading.

Finnegans Wake reading, Bridge Hotel, Durham 22/05/1982

Bron Frith at the same reading.

Finnegans Wake reading, Castle Chare, Durham 16/06/1982

John Cayley, same occasion.

Overhead projection of the Wake, p617.

IX : The Booze

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This element has already played a prominent part in the pictures. The Castle Chare eventually obtained a bar licence, and this made it a more cheerful place. The caretaker can be seen below, dispensing the stuff. Before that, one had to bring it in, and I had provided myself with a bottle of home-brew for John Montague’s reading; poor fellow, he was so overcome by drought that he begged a swig of it.

John Montague, Castle Chare, Durham 17/10/1980

Booze is not essential to the reading of poetry, though poets have spoken to us highly of it, notably Omar Khayam, via Edward Fitzgerald, Li Tai-Po, and Gustav Mahler, Chesterton and Belloc directly. As a school teacher I have often read poetry, dry. But most seem to prefer a drop; Basil Bunting usually had a whisky by him. A modest dose of alcohol can raise one to a higher plane, where truths and connections appear which had been hidden.

Basil Bunting, Harrogate, 11/08/1969

Geraldine Monk, Castle Chare, Durham 01/02/1980

Geraldine Monk with Bill Griffiths reading, Castle Chare, Durham 01/02/1980

Whether or not booze is desirable for poetic inspiration, I have found it essential for photographing readings: it simply provides Dutch courage. I often start out quite terrified of pointing a camera in these gatherings, and may sit through the whole of a first half without doing so; but as the magic of ethanol works the difficulties disappear.

There was no difficulty with Geraldine Monk, who took her own draughts, and based her performance on whisky as well as beer. On this occasion, maybe as a specific against nervous collapse, Geraldine did herself, and us, proud. The women in the audience are seldom as uninhibited, but they make nice pictures with their glasses. Many now take beer by the pint, as is proper. I don’t like half-pints, they make me nervous.

Curiously enough, the onset of intoxication does not make my hand shake, if anything I lose fewer frames to camera shake than when I’m sober.

Posy O’Neill, Castle Chare, Durham 17/05/1985

Hugo Williams (out of focus), Staff Common Room, Durham 06/03/1987

John Cayley, The Bridge Hotel, Durham 08/05/1982

XI : Reading to Children

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The pictures in this book are related to performances of poems and other written works; and while I cannot give any general appreciation of them, it seems a pity not to say anything about their content. There is one specialised way in which I have had reason to assess them, and that is by their suitability for reading to children. Of course, most of them including Finnegans Wake were not written for that purpose.

I further specialise here, being concerned with audiences aged 11 to 16 years. By the time my own children were eleven I had practically stopped reading to them, and when they were young I chose, not to the exclusion of others, the firm foundation of Alice, Pooh Bear, and Ginger and Pickles. These are all books in which the adult reader can take as much pleasure as the child, and can better appreciate the sharp wit and psychological insight which inform them.

My readings at school were given as end of term treats to classes which normally came to me for science lessons. The requirements, in a comprehensive school of little academic distinction, are quite demanding, There is a certain amount of goodwill in the audience, without which the enterprise would be impossible, but not very much: the work must create its own appreciation. It must not call on too wide a cultural background or language ability, but it must treat the audience seriously; I reject the idea of purveying ‘the culture of the masses’.

My standard works for this purpose are by Hillaire Belloc, mainly his “Cautionary Tales”, and by Don Marquis, his “Archy and Mehitabel”. These are poetical, and make their impact by their music (good thumping rhythms and rhymes) and by their tart and cynical attitudes, which promote the child to the status of adult, complicit in their wickedness. My third standard work is in prose, “Cock-a-doodle-dont” by Ivor Cutler.

Ivor Cutler, Morden Tower, 16/09/1970

The same, 23/01/1976

Ivor Cutler, Morden Tower, 09/10/1980

Nigel Wells, listening to music, Coelfrith, Sunderland 02/12/80

Audience, listening to music, Coelfrith, Sunderland 02/12/80

Ivor Cutler’s quiet precise little Scots voice is familiar to those who listen to BBC Radio 3 and to his records. The pieces in this book are prose, much of it dialogue, which have the conciseness and craftsmanship of poems. Since they are in any case gnomic, the child is at no special disadvantage in failing to grasp their strict logic. They offer the reader some opportunity to perform too; “This Man Want that Woman” performed with sufficient energy and conviction, always makes a good end-piece.

To these authors I must add one, and only one work of his at that. This is “Nativity” by Nigel Wells, which is in his collection “Winter Festivals” (Bloodaxe Books, 1980). I have read this most Christmases since 1980 to school assemblies: it is a poem of great power.

XII : Lament

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No stait in Erd heir standis sicker;

As with the wind wavis the wicker

So wavis this Warldis vanite;

Timor Mortis conturbat me.

Though I now have my “Collected Dunbar”, I first encountered this poem, appropriately enough for one of my frivolous type of mind, in Michael Innes’ thriller “Lament for a Maker”.

He hes tane ROULL of Abirdene,

And gentill ROULL of Corstorphine;

Two bettir fallowis did no man se:

Timor Mortis conturbat me.

Of the writers whose pictures appear in this book, these are already dead:

Basil Bunting;

Alexander Trocchi;

John Riley;

Frances Horowitz;

Peter Laver.

Of these, only Basil can be said to have reached his proper term.

Sen for the Deid remeid is non,

Bets is that we for deid dispone,

Eftir our deid that leif may we.

Timor Mortis conturbat me.

William Dunbar

David M James, 1988