Category Archives: Out and about

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Candles, paraffin lamps, electricity . . . and a ‘rule of thumb’

Once there were hundreds. Now there’s just Court No. 15, the last remaining (and carefully restored) courtyard of working people’s houses just south of Birmingham city center on the corner of Hurst and Inge Streets.

Court 15 of the Birmingham Back to Backs, with the Birmingham Hippodrome on the north (right) side. Just imagine what the area must have looked like in earlier decades with street upon street of these terraced and back to back houses.

This is the Birmingham Back to Backs, owned by the National Trust, which we had the pleasure of visiting a couple of days ago, and enjoyed a tour led by knowledgeable guide Fran Payne. This National Trust property should be on everyone’s NT bucket list.

Court 15 was completed in 1831 and its houses were occupied as recently as the mid-1960s, when they were condemned. Commercial premises on the street side were still being used as late as 2002.

Court 15 was a communal space for upwards of 60-70 men, women and children, living on top of one another, in houses that were literally just one room deep: built on the back of the terraces facing the street. Just imagine the crowding, the lack of running water and basic sanitation, leading to the spread of social diseases like tuberculosis or cholera that were common in the 19th century. Just three outside toilets for everyone.

Since coming into its hands in 2004, the National Trust has developed an interesting tour of three of the Court 15 houses, taking in the lives of families from the 1840s, 1870s, and 1930s known to be living there then. The tour, encompassing very narrow and steep (almost treacherous) stairs over three floors, takes you into the first 1840s house, up to the attic bedrooms, and through to that representing the 1870s. You then work your way down to the ground floor, and into the house next door. From the attic in that house, the tour passes into the former commercial premises of tailor George Saunders who came to Birmingham from St Kitts in the Caribbean and made a name for himself in bespoke tailoring. When Saunders vacated Court 15 in 2002 he left much of the premises as it was on his last day of trading.

A Jewish family by the name of Levi, was known to reside in one of the houses during the 1840s. The Levis had one daughter and three sons, and like many other families, Mr Levi practiced his trade (of making clock and watch hands) from his home.

On the top attic floor of this house there are two rooms still accessible on the street side, but have never been renovated.

In the next 1870s house, occupied by the Oldfields, who had many children – and lodgers! – there is already a coal-fired range in the kitchen, and paraffin lamps were used throughout for lighting. The children slept head-to-toe in a bed in the attic room, shared with the married lodgers. Modesty was maintained by a curtain.

By the 1930s, there was already electricity (and running water) in the house, occupied by an elderly bachelor George Mitchell.

The premises of George Saunders are full of all the paraphernalia of the tailoring business. An old sewing machine, and another for making buttonholes. Patterns for bespoke suits handing from the walls, and bolts of cloth stacked on shelves. There are some half-finished garments, others ready to collect. Until his death, George worked with the National Trust to document the last years of the Back to Backs.

Throughout the houses there are many contemporary pieces of furniture and ornaments. My eye was caught by this particularly fine pair of (presumably) Staffordshire rabbits.

Finally, no visit to the Birmingham Back to Backs would be complete without a look inside Candies, a Victorian sweet shop on the corner of Hurst and Inge Streets at No. 55, purveyor of fine sweets that I remember from my childhood. What a sensory delight! In fact, tours of the Back to Backs start from outside Candies, so there’s no excuse.

And finally, what about that ‘rule of thumb’ I referred to in the title of this post. Well, while we were looking at the sleeping arrangements for the Oldfield children in the 1870s, Fran Payne reached under the bed for the gazunda, the communal chamber pot (‘goes under’). In the darkness, she told us, this how you could tell, with the tip of your thumb, whether a chamber pot was full or not. Dry: OK. Wet: time to go downstairs to the outside toilet in the courtyard.

I mentioned that our visit to the Back to Backs was very enjoyable, but it’s not somewhere that I would have made a special trip. We had to be in Birmingham on another errand, and since it was just a hop and a skip from the central Post Office, we took the opportunity. The Birmingham Back to Backs are a special relic of this great city of 1,000 trades.

 

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A working-class movement for political reform

Less than 4 miles by road west of Bromsgrove in northeast Worcestershire (much less as the crow flies) lies the village of Dodford. Nothing remarkable in that, you might say.

Well, until 1849, the village didn’t even exist. The area was known then as Greater Dodford, but became a community (of sorts) when a ‘village’ of more than 40 redbrick cottages (like the one below, known as Rosedene) was built, each in its own 4 acre plot of land. That’s significant.

Feargus O’Connor

Rosedene was built by the Chartist Cooperative Land Company, and the Dodford community was the last of five that were set up around the country by Irish Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor.

So, what was Chartism and who were the Chartists?

Chartism was a national (but geographically uneven) working class movement, with violent and non-violent factions, campaigning for political reform between 1838 and 1857. The movement  was named after the 1838 People’s Carter that espoused six principles:

  • manhood suffrage (but not women)
  • the secret ballot
  • abolition of property qualifications for MPs
  • payment of MPs
  • equal electoral districts
  • annual elections.

Communities like Dodford were established to help working-class people satisfy the landholding requirement to gain a vote in county seats. That’s why each cottage was built on 4 acres of land, the minimum at the time to satisfy the landholding requirement to make a man eligible to vote.

O’Connor purchased a farm of more than 250 acres at Greater Dodford, and divided it into 4 acre plots for each cottage. The lanes around Dodford remain as narrow today as when first opened in the 1840s.

Potential occupants placed bids for the cottages, with the highest bidder receiving the ‘choicest’ plot, and so on until all plots had been allocated.

Having walked around the plot at Rosedene, I can vouchsafe that it’s a large plot for one family to manage. Many of those who came to Dodford were working class families from the cities, with little experience of agriculture. What they encountered at Dodford was a very heavy clay soil that was extremely difficult to cultivate. Eventually however, they established that strawberries did grow well, and opened up a market to Birmingham for their produce. Likewise, garlic thrived, which they sold to the makers of Worcestershire Sauce, Lea & Perrins, in Worcester, 15 miles to the south.

By the time Dodford was built, O’Connor had perfected his simple cottage design. Each cottage had a simple central living room with a range for heating and cooking, with a bedroom off to each side. To the rear was a small scullery and an indoor water pump. The ash toilet was in an outhouse (much like my grandparents’ cottage in Derbyshire that they occupied until the early 1960s). Maybe there was a pig sty attached to the enclosed small yard. Behind the cottage there is a small barn.

Bricks for each cottage were made on site. Rosedene sits on foundations of stone. I did wonder whether stones from the 12th century priory nearby (now incorporated into a farmhouse) had been used for this purpose but there is no record of that being the case. O’Connor’s design included the ‘modern’ feature of air vents low down on the walls and into the roof to reduce condensation.

The National Trust purchased Rosedene in 1997 and has faithfully restored it. We visited the cottage a week ago. There is only limited access on the first Sunday of each month between April and December (on pre-booked tours).

Unfortunately, the National Trust volunteers waiting to welcome us to Rosedene were unable to unlock the property so we never got to look inside, apart from peering through the windows.

However, you can see something more of the interior here, which also provides a potted history of Rosedene.

 

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Spring is in the air in Worcestershire

Nestling under the eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, the Three Counties Showground is home to the annual Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Malvern Spring Festival (from 10-13 May this year), just 25 miles southwest from our home in Bromsgrove.

We were lucky enough to enjoy a day out at the festival yesterday, although somewhat marred unfortunately by a journey to the festival of almost 2½ hours, such was the volume of traffic trying to get round just 3 miles of the Worcester ring road, A4440. And the return journey wasn’t much better, taking almost 90 minutes, as we hit traffic north on the M5 due to a stranded vehicle. I can’t deny I was quite relieved to arrive home, put my feet up, and enjoy a welcome cup of tea.

Later that evening, almost half of the regular Friday night Gardeners’ World program on BBC2 was devoted to the Malvern festival, filmed the day before when it was much brighter,and far fewer visitors than on Friday. Drone footage showed us just how big the site was (we walked almost 3½ miles), and showcased many of the show gardens that we could obviously only view from ground level. It’s also remarkable just how ‘permanent’ some of these gardens appear, as though they (and their plantings) had been there for years, not just a week at most.

We didn’t see any of the Gardeners’ World presenters during our visit, but gardener and broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh was taking questions from the audience in the event tent; and later on we saw Master Chef judge John Torode waxing lyrical about the use of plants in Thai cooking.

The Royal Horticultural Society is the world’s leading gardening charity, and organizes a number of flower shows around the country between April and September each year. Of course its major attraction is the Chelsea Flower Show, that takes place at the end of May in London. It can rightly claim to be the world’s most prestigious flower show that inspires millions and leads the way in innovative garden design. We enjoyed a day there in 2013 when the show celebrated 100 years since its founding. Tickets for the Chelsea (also the Malvern, Kew Gardens, and two Gardeners’ World Live shows) were Christmas presents from our two daughters Hannah and Philippa.

The RHS Malvern Spring Festival is the second in the Society’s 2018 calendar and, set against the magnificent Malvern Hills . . . is packed with flowers, food, crafts and family fun. And yes, we did have fun. So rather than describe what we did and saw, here’s just a selection of the many photos I took during the day.

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths that almost all growers and exhibitors go to, bringing plants in flower from all seasons, even though it’s late Spring. Plants like daffodils and tulips that flowered in our garden at least a month ago were exuberant. Summer flowering plants like sweet peas and so many others were displayed in all their glory. In some ways, we should have gone into the huge floral show marquee from the outset, rather than exploring to the far corners of the show ground. It seemed just so commercial, with booths offering every sort of gardening equipment, clothing, and almost anything to do with gardening (or not in some instances).

But faith was restored once we’d entered the floral marquee and I was able to breathe in the beauty of all the fabulous displays of botanical beauty.

Among my favorites were the auriculas – Primula auricula, that come in a huge range of colors. Some are covered in a powdery coating called farina.

And I can never go to a flower show without seeking out the tulips. Maybe I should have been around during the Dutch tulip mania of the 17th century.

So after my early ‘disappointment’ that the Malvern was all about commercialism, I think we must have spent at least half of our time wandering around the various flower display marquees.

Having now been to two RHS and two Gardeners’ World Live (GWL) shows, I’m not sure I can agree with Monty Don (lead presenter of Gardeners’ World) that Malvern is a real jewel. He always waxes lyrical in his praise, as do the other presenters on that program. Yes, it’s a nice show, but I think the standard of displays is unquestionably higher at Chelsea, and also at GWL. Maybe my perspectives were jaundiced by the horrendous journey we had to Malvern. I was exhausted before we even began to look around.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable visit, and a lovely Christmas present from our two daughters and their families.

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Almost 400 years of history in the vicinity . . .

Yesterday, Steph and I traveled some 40 miles southeast from our home in Bromsgrove in north Worcestershire, to revisit the National Trust’s Upton House and Gardens near the village of Edgehill in Warwickshire, that lies some seven miles northwest from Banbury (map).

We were last there in July 2012, combined with a trip to nearby Farnborough Hall. Take a look at a web album of photos that I posted afterwards.

Edgehill was the site of the first major battle of the First English Civil War, on Sunday 23 October 1642. Here the Royalist supporters of King Charles I clashed with Parliamentary forces under the Earl of Essex. The King had commanded the high ground and his troops marched down the Cotswolds escarpment to join battle with the enemy, arrayed below. The battle ended in stalemate.

The roar of cannons has long faded, as have the tramp of troops or galloping of horses, the clash of steel on steel, and the screams of wounded and dying men. Over the past four centuries the landscape must have changed immeasurably. Probably back in 1642 there were no fields, just open country, intermittently broken by woodland. And there certainly were no vivid blotches of bright yellow oilseed rape that are so typical of farming in the UK today.

A panorama over the site of the Battle of Edgehill, and north across Warwickshire.

We could see almost 40 miles west to the Malvern Hills, just visible (using binoculars) through the distant murk of an approaching weather front (that finally arrived with a vengeance overnight, and it has been raining heavily since). But what a magnificent view we had, almost perfect weather on May Day, even if a little chilly.

We had been intending to visit Upton just a few weeks ago, and enjoy the National Trust’s recommended ‘What a View’ Walk from Upton house, that takes in the Edgehill escarpment and the glorious view, a circular walk of just under 2½ miles that took around 1½ hours before arriving back at the car park to enjoy a welcome picnic.

We decided just to take a look at the gardens, rather than tour the house again. That would be a better option when the weather is inclement. Yesterday, after weeks of poor weather, it was just too nice to be inside.

The south front of the house overlooks the Main Lawn towards a ha-ha that disguises a steep drop to the Mirror Pool in the valley bottom.

The Main Lawn, looking south to the ha-ha, from where the garden drops steeply to the Mirror Pool. The open fields can be seen beyond the brick wall of the garden (see image immediately below).

The Mirror Pool from the ha-ha, with the Hazel Bank and Sunken Lawn on the right.

It’s remarkable how the landscape was adapted to create quite an intimate garden. We really must return again a little earlier in the year and enjoy the Spring bulbs. Most had already flowered, although there were some patches of Narcissi and beds of tulips adding a vibrancy in the early afternoon sunshine.

Looking west across the Mirror Pool to a magnificent yew behind the Kitchen Garden and the Dry Banks above.

A panorama of the Kitchen Garden and Dry Banks across the Mirror Pool, from the south. The ha-ha is at the top of the terraces, immediately below the Main Lawn.

 

 

 

 

 

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‘High hills surround the valley, encircling it like a crown’ (Walter Daniel, 1167)

After the Normans conquered England in 1066, they quickly achieved hegemony over much of the country. By 1086 the ‘Great Survey’, the Domesday Book, had been completed for much of England and parts of Wales.

At the same time, different religious orders began to spread their influence and established communities around the country. In a peaceful and secluded valley beside the River Rye in the heart of the North York Moors near Helmsley, a Cistercian community founded Rievaulx Abbey in 1132, their first monastery in the north of England. A second magnificent Cistercian monastery, Fountains Abbey, lies about 27 miles west of Rievaulx.

Originally a cluster of wooden buildings, the abbey expanded over the next four centuries until Henry VIII’s Suppression of the Monasteries (after 1536). The abbey was abandoned and became the ruin we see today, still standing proudly in the landscape where it was founded. Not much can have changed in the intervening centuries. Rievaulx still exudes a profound sense of peace and tranquility.

It’s not my intention here to provide a detailed history of Rievaulx Abbey. English Heritage owns and manages the site, and a detailed history of Rievaulx’s founding and growth can be found on its website.

I first visited Rievaulx in the summer of 1968 at the end of my first year at university, when I went on a youth hosteling holiday on the North York Moors. Fifty years ago! I can hardly believe it.

Then, in July 1988, when Hannah and Philippa were ten and six, we made a family visit while on holiday near the coast north of Scarborough. In 2013 we visited the National Trust’s Rievaulx Terrace that overlooks the abbey ruins (see below).

A week ago we took the opportunity of a visit to our younger daughter Philippa and her family in Newcastle upon Tyne—and the improving weather—to visit Rievaulx once again. It’s actually only a few miles off the usual A19 route we take when traveling to Newcastle these days.

It was a glorious sunny day. In fact, we enjoyed the first sensations of summer (the weather has since deteriorated, and it feels more like autumn as I write this blog post). The drive north from home (in Bromsgrove in northeast Worcestershire) took a little under four hours, including a 35 minute coffee and comfort break at the Woodall Services on the M1 south of Sheffield. On arrival at Rievaulx, we enjoyed a quick picnic lunch, then headed off to explore the ruined abbey and museum for about an hour and a half.

Rievaulx Abbey ground-plan (courtesy of English Heritage). Click on the image to open a PDF file of this plan, another one and a map of the valley where the abbey stands.

One’s first impression of Rievaulx are the ruins of the church, with tiers of pointed gothic windows on each side. There are some rounded and earlier Norman arches around the site. The eastern end of the church (enclosing the Sanctuary and Choir) was for use only by the monks. The western end, the nave (now completely demolished except for the bases of the main columns), was used by the lay brothers.

Rievaulx Abbey
Flying buttresses on the north side
Looking through the nave towards the Crossing between the west and east ends
The Crossing beyond the Nave, withthe North and South Transpts on either side
The North and South Transepts either side of the Crossing from the Nave
Looking towards the east end of the church and the altar
Looking east, and southeast from just beyond the Crossing
Flyingbuttresses
Rievaulx Terrace can be seen above the ruins high on the hillside beyond
Tiers of gothic windows
Looking west from the east end of the church
The South Transept from the southeast

The Cloister and its Arcade must have been magnificent in the abbey’s heyday. Just one small fragment of the Arcade has survived, in the northwest corner of the Cloister. Immediately east of the Cloister are the remains of the Chapter House where monks came for their daily meetings. Several abbots are buried there, but the body of William, the first abbot was moved to its own shrine in the 13th century

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To the south of the Cloister is large building housing the Refectory, and kitchen. The Day Room is located to the east of the Refectory, and this is where the monks worked on various activities, from mending clothes to copying manuscripts. South of the Day Room are the Tanning Vats where leather was prepared.

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Further east is the Infirmary Cloister and a staircase to what became the Abbot’s House. Above the doorway is an original in situ figurative sculpture of The Annunciation.

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There is a small museum displaying some interesting artifacts that have been uncovered on the site, as well as sections of sculptures that once adorned the various buildings of the abbey.

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During its 400 years Rievaulx Abbey suffered several changes in fortune. There were raids from across the Scottish border, and the Black Death hit during the 14th century. The abbey was finally suppressed in December 1538, and the monks were cast out although they received a pension. The abbey was sold to Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland although the most precious items were reserved for the crown. Thereafter the abbey buildings fell into ruin as we see today.

But there has long been a fascination with Rievaulx Abbey, and in the mid-eighteenth century, Thomas Duncombe II constructed Rievaulx Terrace high on the hillside above the abbey ruins where his guests could be entertained and walk. There are some spectacular views of the abbey from there, as we experienced in 2013.

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‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here . . . ‘

Well, that was what I thought. Until a few days ago, that is.

On the outskirts of Southwell (pronounced Suthell, or more precisely /ˈsaʊθwɛl/or /ˈsʌðəl/) in Nottinghamshire there is a large redbrick building standing in about six acres of land. This is The Workhouse (or Greet House), beautifully stark in its Georgian symmetry.

Built in 1824 during the reign of King George IV, The Workhouse was ‘home’ to about 160 destitute men, women and children who were provided with ‘Indoor Relief’. The cost of providing support, under the Poor Laws, to recipients in their homes (so-called ‘Outdoor Relief’) had become less sustainable. So the Workhouse was built at Southwell to provide shelter for a limited number of paupers, many old and infirm.

Life in The Workhouse was no bed of roses, but maybe not as harsh as many others around the country, where everyone toiled in the most appalling conditions. But shelter and food was provided, and both boys and girls received a basic education, learning to read and write, and do sums.

No doubt the workhouse regime changed from time to time, as each new Master was appointed and took control of their lives. The Master and his family lived in a suite of rooms above the main entrance.

Workhouse Master Herring and his family in 1855

The Workhouse at Southwell was featured in Episode 4 of the second series of Secrets of the National Trust broadcast recently on Channel 5, and presented by Alan Titchmarsh. I have to admit it presented such a despondent scenario, a visit there didn’t seem very appealing. Consequently, Steph and I decided we wouldn’t make a special visit there, but combine it with another trip in the vicinity. And, as it happened, a diversion to Southwell last Monday added only a few miles to our return journey to visit our younger daughter and her family in Newcastle.

I mentioned my preconceptions about The Workhouse (based on the Titchmarsh program) to one of the volunteers. From what he told me, it seems that Titchmarsh wanted to present a more balanced picture of life in The Workhouse, but the series producer somewhat ‘over-egged the doom-and-gloom pudding’ story of The Workhouse. As I said there’s no denying that life inside was tough for the inmates. Life would probably have been tougher on the outside.

Now, having made a visit to The Workhouse I am so pleased that we did. It was revealing, interesting, conscience-pricking (although it’s not altogether appropriate to judge what The Workhouse stood for by today’s standards), and the National Trust volunteers (mostly in contemporary costume) brought the story of The Workhouse to life and made the visit even more enjoyable. They were very convincing, particularly the skivvy in the cellars who answered all my queries, in character.

The Workhouse consists of a three-story main building (with cellars), divided into separate sections for men and women, and able-bodied or old and infirm for each. Each group had its own exercise yard, with a privy in the corner from which ‘night soil’ was collected as manure for the garden.

Plan of The Workhouse. (5) is the National Trust entrance; (6) is the wash-house; (8) is the garden. The exercise yards can be seen either side of the main entrance to The Workhouse, with a privy in one corner of each. There are now gaps in the wall between the exercise yards to facilitate the flow of visitors. (4) is an assembly point for guided tours.

Husbands were separated from wives, and children from their mothers beyond the age of two. In the children’s dormitory, the glass in the windows (at least the lower panes) was frosted so they could not look at and see their mothers working in the yards below.

A block of outhouses to the rear of the main building contained the laundry, a bakery, and the ‘dead’ room.

Water was collected from the roof, and stored in a 160,000 gallon storage tank underneath the kitchen. Food was stored in the cellars.

Able-bodied men, who were unemployed outside The Workhouse, were considered lazy, and set to work on menial tasks such as unpicking old ropes or oakum. The old and infirm often had no work to do.

The various dormitories were on the first and top floors.

Many of the upper rooms have deteriorated and are in urgent need of conservation.

What is remarkable is that The Workhouse was still being used as an emergency shelter to house homeless families, in the so-called ‘bedsit’, as late as the 1980s.

If walls could talk, what tales they would tell us. But in the able-bodied men’s exercise yard (on the right on the panorama immediately below), and presumably out of view of the Master, at least one of the inmates did leave a legacy of their days in The Workhouse. Clearly etched on several bricks, someone has marked off the days.

It’s hard to imagine just how tough life must have been for the inmates of The Workhouse at Southwell. Surely it cannot have been worse than what they had endured, penniless and hungry, outside. With the enactment of the Poor Laws, society provided (limited) support for those who had fallen on hard times. In many ways, society has a lot to answer for today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Daffodils and doves . . . but no fireworks

Yesterday (18 April) was, in many parts of the UK, the warmest day since the end of August 2017. After the lingering cold and grey weather we have had to endure in recent weeks, the prospect of a bright, sunny day certainly was encouraging. And, not being ones to squander an opportunity to be out and about when possible, we made the short trip to Coughton Court, a National Trust property on the outskirts of Alcester in Warwickshire, just 12 miles from home.

Coughton Court is one of our ‘local’ National Trust visits, and we’ve been there on several occasions mostly to walk through the bluebell wood and gardens. It has been in the same Throckmorton family for over 600 years, and the family still has apartments there.

We were too early to see a carpet of bluebells in the ancient wood to the east of the house. But we were not totally disappointed and some had already begun to bloom.

The Daffodil Society is holding its 2018 show at Coughton this weekend that we would have liked to attend, but have other plans made. So our visit yesterday was to view the extensive planting of daffodils in the grounds of Coughton Court. We were concerned that they would be past their best, but because of the dreary weather (and access issues at Coughton due to waterlogged car-parking) just hadn’t been able to schedule our visit before now.

Yes, some daffodil varieties were past their best, but there were still plenty more to lift our spirits.

In the orchard, there was a carpet of purple and white fritillaries under the apple trees (just about to come into flower) mixed with primroses and grape hyacinths.

Afterwards, we headed a further two miles southeast to view Kinwarton Dovecote¹ that stands alone in the middle of a field. Built in the 14th century (probably during the reign of King Edward III), the circular dovecote has more than 500 nesting niches, from which young pigeons or squabs would be taken for their meat.

It has walls that are about three feet thick, and it rises at least 20 feet to the top of the nesting ledges. A ‘potence’ or pivoted ladder (in need of repair) provided access to the highest niches. What an impressive structure that has stood proudly in the Warwickshire landscape for six centuries. What stories it could tell.

Kinwarton Dovecote

But what about the reference I made in the title of this blog post to ‘fireworks’. Well, the Throckmorton family of Coughton Court were implicated in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to overthrow recently crowned King James I (and VI of Scotland) by blowing up the Houses of Parliament. The plot, on 5 November, is celebrated each year by fireworks displays nationwide.

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¹ We have visited other dovecotes owned by the National Trust and you can read about them here.

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Before the ‘Beast from the East’ strikes

Friday 23 February. A bright, sunny day, and not too much of a breeze. Although the day dawned with a covering of frost everywhere, it was not as cold as I feared. Still, there was a need to wrap up warm.

It looks like things will be rather different next week when the Beast from the East hits the UK. Beast from the East? That’s what the weather system from deepest Siberia has been labeled, and due to hit the UK early in the week, with Arctic sub-zero temperatures, and possibly significant snow fall. There’s a more or less stationary high pressure system over Scandinavia to the northeast of the UK, blocking ‘warmer’ weather systems driving in from the Atlantic, and at the same time drawing in all that cold Siberian air on a strengthening easterly air flow.

So, with much more inclement weather forecast, Steph and I decided that we’d better take advantage of yesterday’s decent weather and head out for a walk, and visit yet another National Trust property: Knowles Mill, a derelict 18th century flour mill alongside Dowles Brook in the heart of the Wyre Forest on the outskirts of Bewdley, about 18 miles west from Bromsgrove.

Knowles Mill along Dowles Brook in the Wyre Forest, with the mill cottage (privately-owned and undergoing renovation) behind.

There are no National Trust signs to Knowles Mill. It’s located within the Wyre Forest National Nature Reserve, and parking (with space for up to a dozen cars) can be found at the end of the very narrow Dry Mill Lane. We arrived around 10:20, and took one of the remaining spaces. Best to get there early although by the time we departed, just after noon, many of the cars had already left. As with all my blog posts, just click on the images to open a larger version.

We decided to follow the Dowles Brook Trail (marked red on the map below), although there is a public bridleway on the other side of the brook, and a bridge over it at Knowles Mill.

This route initially follows the Wyre Forest Butterfly Trail along the bed of the disused Tenbury and Bewdley Railway that was opened in 1864, and closed in July 1961. Then there’s a steep walk down into the valley, with the path emerging behind the mill and cottage.

So what was a mill doing beside Dowles Brook, how long had it been there, and what was its history?

The millstones and gearing mechanisms inside the mill are still in quite good shape.

On the west side of the mill the skeleton of the water wheel can be seen, and beside that the drained mill pond (although with some standing water today).

I couldn’t help wondering how life at the mill must have changed once construction of the railway began in 1860. The peace and tranquility of the site must have been shattered as the gangs of navvies moved in to build the massive embankments across all the small valleys that cut through the hillside above Dowles Brook.

After visiting the mill, we headed upstream, passing Cooper’s Mill (just a cottage now) before crossing over Dowles Brook and returning to the car park along the disused railway. At the car park we enjoyed a hot cup of coffee (we’d brought a flask with us) before setting off home in time for a later than usual lunch.

The walk, just on three miles, had no challenging sections to speak of, and combined the best of both worlds: local history and the enjoyment of beautiful woodland landscapes.

Note: there are no toilets at the car park.

 

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Mark making tools, paper, and a steady hand

Ask anyone to name a famous English composer and they’d probably mention Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) or, more probably, Sir Edward Elgar.

Elgar was born in June 1857 in a small cottage, The Firs, in the village of Lower Broadheath, a stone’s throw west of Worcester, and 20 miles southwest from our home in Bromsgrove. The cottage (formerly the Elgar Birthplace Museum) came into the care of the National Trust in 2016 following an agreement with the Elgar Foundation. Closed for a year for some refurbishment, and the addition of a tea-room at the existing Visitor Centre among other improvements, The Firs re-opened in September 2017.

As the weather forecast for Friday (yesterday) had looked promising from earlier in the week, Steph and I made plans for a day out. But where to go? Looking through the 2018 handbook I came across The Firs (which had not featured in the 2017 handbook for obvious reasons). And with the added attraction of a two-mile circular walk in Elgar country in the vicinity, this was just what the doctor ordered!

Our visit to The Firs was beyond my expectations and unbelievably moving, even bringing me to the point of tears as I watched the 15-20 minute film about Elgar in the Visitor Centre. Throughout our visit, but especially in ‘Elgar’s Study’, I really had the feeling of being in the presence of greatness, and I can’t recall ever having had that reaction before.

Elgar’s parents William and Anne had seven children, although two died young.

William was a piano tuner, and held a warrant from Queen Adelaide (wife of William IV).

Although Elgar moved away to Worcester with his family at the age of two, he retained a life-long attachment to The Firs. At the bottom of the cottage garden (see map) there is a lovely life-size sculpture of Elgar sitting on a bench (by Jemma Pearson) gazing through a gap in the hedge towards the Malvern Hills that he loved so much. It was commissioned by the Elgar Foundation in 2007 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Elgar’s birth.

Elgar’s daughter, Carice (born in 1890) was the inspiration, in 1935, to acquire The Firs as a memorial to her father.

Entrance to the house is by timed tickets. There’s obviously not a great deal of space inside to accommodate too many visitors at a time.

Inside the entrance porch was a small room with an iron range for heating water and cooking. Today, the National Trust has decorated the room with contemporary though not original-to-the-house items, including a piano tuner’s set of instruments.

On the ground floor, the Parlour (dedicated to Carice Elgar) has a lovely piano, possibly played by Elgar.

At the top of the stairs is a room the full width of the cottage (perhaps earlier divided into two rooms) where Elgar was born. Two other rooms and this one have displays of various musical instruments, his sporting and scientific interests, and other personal belongings such as watches.

Elgar was apparently a keen cyclist, and on one wall of the Visitor Centre there’s a mural of an exuberant cycling Elgar. We were told, although this may well only be anecdotal, that Elgar once cycled from Malvern to Wolverhampton to watch his favorite football team Wolverhampton Wanderers play. A round trip of 100 miles!

Alice and Edward Elgar in 1890

Inside the Visitor Centre, an exhibition illustrates highlights from Elgar’s life and career. He married Caroline Alice Roberts in 1889. Her parents disapproved of Elgar—a ‘jobbing musician’—and did not attend their wedding in the Brompton Oratory in London. I hadn’t realized until yesterday that Elgar was a Catholic.

Alice (who died in 1920) was his inspiration, and early on in their relationship recognized his genius. And that leads to the second point I didn’t know. Elgar received no formal musical training. It wasn’t until 1899, with the first performance of the Enigma Variations, that his growing reputation as a composer was sealed.

In ‘Elgar’s study’ there are original scores of some of his most famous works, as well as the desk at which he worked.

Alice used to prepare the paper on which Elgar composed. Apparently, specially printed paper with the staves was not available, and had to be drawn by hand using the five-pointed pen you can see in a couple of the photos above.

‘Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the free‘. Famous words by Arthur C Benson put to music in Elgar’s 1901 Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, sung here by contralto Clara Butt.

A page from the original score of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’

Who hasn’t heard Land of Hope and Glory? It’s the theme accompanying high school and university graduations around the world. Our two daughters graduated from Manila International School in the Philippines in the 1990s, and it was used then.

Another large room in the Visitor Centre, the Carice Room, is used for concerts, and where we watched the film about Elgar. There was also a lovely exhibition yesterday of watercolors by Worcestershire artist David Birtwhistle.

After a spot of lunch—we even sat outside at one of the many picnic tables—we set off on our walk, which took just over an hour. The walk begins on a public bridleway just behind The Firs, and then crosses three fields sown with oilseed rape and winter barley. By the time we reached terra firma again at Bell Lane, it felt  as though we were carrying half of Worcestershire on our muddy boots.

And at this point I must come back to Vaughan Williams for a moment, because as we were walking across the barley field, and looking back towards Worcester Cathedral to the east, a skylark rose into the air in front of us, singing lustily throughout its ascent and as it glided slowly back to earth.

What a wonderful sight and sound, reminding me instantly of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending premiered in 1920, although originally written for violin and piano in 1914.

The staff and volunteers at The Firs were outstanding, and their friendliness and readiness to engage with us added to the enjoyment of our visit. As I said at the outset, we didn’t have any particular expectations when deciding to visit Elgar’s birthplace. I came away deeply affected by what I saw, heard, and learned, and I’m sure that the emotion will stay with me for many days to come. And, coincidentally, as I am finishing writing this post, while listening to Classic FM, Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85 has just been featured.

 

 

 

 

 

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Taking in the central sierra . . .

September 1973. One of our first road trips in Peru, a circular route taking in Pisco on the coast south of Lima, before heading up into the Andes to Ayacucho, before heading north to Huancayo, and then back down to Lima. I’m sure the trip today is much easier than 43 or 44 years ago.

On the first day we drove south just as far as Pisco, spending one night there before attempting the next stage over the mountains to Ayacucho. Apart from the coastal Panamerican Highway and the road from Huancayo back to Lima, which were paved, the others were dirt roads in various states of repair. At the highest point on the road between Pisco and Ayacucho, we encountered one particularly stretch of muddy road that I thought we just might halt our trip. But with some expeditious maneuvering, I managed to extricate us from mud almost up to the axles.

The road up from Pisco.

If I remember correctly, the road dropping down to Ayacucho seemed to last forever, a long and relatively gentle decline. It was above Ayacucho where I took this photo, one of my favorites in all I took during our three years in Peru.

Staying at the turista hotel just off the main square, we spent a couple of nights in Ayacucho, and enjoyed its pleasant climate, lying as it does in a wide, fertile valley, just below 2800 m above sea level.

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North from Ayacucho the road crosses a wide, high altitude plain, dotted everywhere with cacti. Further north, it follows the steep-sided valley of the Mantaro River, and is carved into the side of the mountain. Maybe it has been widened today, but back in the day, it was so narrow that traffic flow was one-way only on alternate days. This had to be factored into our road trip planning of course.

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It was an easy day’s drive between Ayacucho and Huancayo, and we spent a couple of nights there. As the International Potato Center (CIP) had its highland experiment station close to Huancayo in the Mantaro Valley, and Steph and I would travel there almost every week during the potato growing season between November and May, we took the opportunity of passing through Huancayo to check a few work-related items before passing through on our way back down to Lima along that familiar road that crosses Ticlio at almost 5000m.

This trip must have lasted about seven days, maybe eight. With the others we made, as well as the various potato collecting trips that I made as part of my work, we were fortunate to explore many parts of this beautiful country.

Here is a list of those trips:

 

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Wishing I was in Cuzco . . .

The 10th World Potato Congress takes place in the southern Peruvian city of Cuzco at the end of May this year. I wish I was going.

It would be a great opportunity to renew my links with potato research, and revisiting one of Peru’s most iconic cities would be a joy.

I like this quotation from the Congress website: Potatoes are the foundation of Andean society. It shaped cultures and gave birth to empires. As the world population explodes and climate change places increased demands on the world’s farmers, this diverse and hearty tuber will play an instrumental role in feeding a hungry planet.

Cuzco lies at the heart of the Andean potato culture. The region around Cuzco, south to Lake Titicaca and into northern Bolivia is where most diversity in potatoes and their wild species relatives has been documented. When I worked for the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru during the early 1970s I had several opportunities of looking for potatoes on the Peruvian side of the border, and made three (possibly four) visits to Cuzco. I see from a quick scrutiny of the street map of Cuzco on Google maps that the city has changed a great deal during the intervening years. That’s hardly surprising, including many fast food outlets dotted around the city. The golden M get everywhere! Also there are many more hotels (some of the highest luxury) in the central part of the city than I encountered 45 years ago.

At Machu Picchu in January 1973

I visited Cuzco for the first time within two weeks of arriving in Peru in January 1973. The participants of a potato germplasm workshop (that I described just a few days ago) spent a few days in Cuzco, and I had the opportunity of taking in some of the incredible sights that the area has to offer, such as Machu Picchu and the fortress of Sacsayhuamán on the hillside outside the city.

Steph and I were married in Lima in October 1973, but we delayed our honeymoon until December. And where could there be a more romantic destination than Cuzco, taking in a trip to Machu Picchu (where we stayed overnight at the turista hotel right beside the ruins), Sacsayhuamán, the Sacred Valley, and the Sunday market at Pisac.

In the early 70s, the Peruvian airline Faucett flew Boeing 727s into Cuzco. In January 1973 I’d only ever flown three times: in 1966 to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland on a BEA Viscount turboprop; from London to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines to attend a scientific meeting in Izmir; and the intercontinental flight from London to Lima with BOAC.

Flying into Cuzco was (is) quite an experience. There’s only one way in, and out! It is quite awesome (if not a little unnerving) dropping through the cloud cover, knowing that some of the highest mountains in the world are just below, then seeing the landscape open as you emerge from the clouds, banking hard to the left and follow the valley, landing at Cuzco from the east.

The city has now expanded eastwards beyond the airport, but in 1973 it was more or less at the city limits. The main part of the city lies at the western end of the runway, and hills rise quite steeply just beyond, thus the single direction for landing and the reverse for take-off. Maybe with new, and more highly powered aircraft, it’s now possible to take off to the west. Those attending the World Potato Congress should have a delightful trip from the coast. By the end of May the dry season should be well-established, and the skies clear.

So, what is so special about Cuzco? It’s a city steeped in history, with Spanish colonial buildings blending into, and even constructed on top of the Inca architecture. That architecture leaves one full of wonder, trying to imagine how the stones were brought to the various sites, and sculpted to fit so snugly. Perhaps the best example is the twelve-sided (or angled) stone in the street named Hatun Rumiyoc (a couple of blocks east of the Plaza de Armas). This is taken to an even greater level at Sacsayhuamán, with an enormous eleven-sided stone.

My first impressions of Cuzco were the orange-tiled roofs of most buildings in the city.

All streets eventually lead to the main square, the Plaza de Armas in the city center, dominated on its eastern side by the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin, and on its southern side by the late 16th century Templo de la Compañía de Jesús (a Jesuit church).

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One of the finest examples of the Inca-Colonial mixed architecture is the Coricancha temple upon which was constructed the Convent of Santo Domingo. The Incan stonework is exquisite (although showing some earthquake damage), and inside 16th/17 century paintings have survived for centuries.

Another aspect of Cuzco’s architectural heritage that caught our attention were the balconies adorning many (if not most) buildings on every street, at least towards the city center.

In the early 1970s steam locomotives were still in operation around Cuzco and, being somewhat of a steam buff, I had to take the opportunity of wandering around the locomotive shed. During our trip to Machu Picchu, our tourist diesel-powered train actually crossed with another pulled by a steam locomotive.

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Outside the city, to the north lies the Inca fortress citadel of Sacsayhuamán, the park covering an area of more than 3000 hectares. Steph and I spent a morning exploring the fortress, viewing it from many different angles, and pondering just how a workforce (probably slave labour) came to construct this impressive site, with its huge stones so closely sculpted against each other that it’s impossible to insert the blade of a knife.

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Among the most commonly visited locations by many tourists is the small town of Pisac, some 35 km from northeast of Cuzco at the head of the Sacred Valley, where a vibrant market is held each Sunday. We took a taxi there, and joined quite a small group of other tourists to wander around, bargain for various items (including an alpaca skin rug that we still had until just a couple of years ago). This is not a tourist market, however—or at least it wasn’t in December 1973 when we visited. As you can see in the slideshow below, it was very much a place and occasion frequented by people coming from the surrounding communities to sell their produce, and meet up with family and friends. Whenever I look at these photographs I always feel quite sad, as it’s likely that many who appear have since passed away.

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It’s no wonder that Cuzco and surrounding areas have been afforded UNESCO World Heritage status (as so many other treasures in this wonderful country). So, as I think about the opportunities that potato scientists from all around the world will enjoy when they visit Cuzco at the end of May, I can’t help but feel a tinge of envy. However, they’d better take advantage of the odd cup of coca tea, or maté de coca, if offered. An infusion of coca leaves (yes, that coca!), it really does help mitigate the effects of high altitude and the onset of so-called ‘altitude sickness’.

 

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A stroll in the park . . . at Croome

Croome Court, some 20 miles south of our home in Bromsgrove, and nestling beneath the Malvern Hills, is one of our ‘local’ National Trust properties. In fact, it was the second property we visited, at the end of March 2011, just after we’d become members of the National Trust.

And a couple of days ago, on a very bright but cold morning, we made our fifth visit to Croome. The ideal setting for a bracing walk, and not only to recover from some of the excesses of Christmas, but also take a peek inside the house since we’d not done that since 2011.

We can see the Malverns from Bromsgrove, and there is often a clear view south down the valley of the River Severn near Croome, with the Costwolds outlier of Bredon Hill on the east side and, more spectacularly on the west, the line of the Malverns stretching some eight miles north to south and separating Worcestershire from Herefordshire.

As we drove south along the M5 motorway I wasn’t expecting to see the Malverns as we did that morning, covered in snow, and looking even more stately, impressive, and higher than we normally see them. What a surprise! Once at Croome, we had magnificent views of the whole line of hills due west. The snow had somehow ‘etched’ new landscape perspectives that we’d never observed before.

The magnificent Malvern Hills, looking more like the Alps than a modest range of hills on the Worcestershire-Herefordshire border.

The northern end of the Malverns, with Croome’s Temple Greenhouse on the far right, and the Croome River snaking past trees towards the left.

The Panorama Tower has a view westwards towards the Malverns, and east towards Croome Park itself. It lies about 1 mile as the crow flies due west from the house.

First things first, however. We arrived just after 10:45, after a 30 minute drive from home. Fortunately although the night before had been very cold, with a little dusting of snow and some icy patches on rural roads, we did not encounter any holdups at all. Nevertheless, the first place we headed to was Croome’s 1940s-style canteen to enjoy a cup of frothy cappuccino to set us up for the walk around the park.

In the past we’ve taken in the whole circuit of the park, to the far end of the Croome River (see map). But on this day, we walked as far at the Island Pavilion (21 on the map), and back along the far side of the Croome River to the Chinese Bridge (16). After touring the house, we headed to the Rotunda (13) and along the east side of the Walled Garden to exit through the Visitor Centre. It was a walk of around three miles, and most welcome.

The winter walk . . .
Looking east along the ha-ha to the Church of St Magdalene
The Temple Greenhouse
Croome Court from the Temple Greenhouse
The Island Pavilion
The south facade of Croome Court from the Chinese Bridge

A painting by Richard Wilson in 1758 is on display in one of the ground floor rooms. Not much has changed in the intervening 260 years.

Since our first visit, the main entrance to Croome Court is now through the Hall on the north side of the building. Inside, there are few significant changes from our last visit, although I think there were more rooms open on the first floor.

The Robert Adam ceiling in the Long Gallery is a sight to behold. The decorated plaster-work of the dining room is as delightful as ever, likewise the main doorway and ceiling of the Saloon. The bare wooden walls of the Tapestry Room are testament to what was; the tapestries now hang in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The wallpaper in the Chinese Bedroom on the first floor caught my eye, as did the portraits of the 9th Earl of Coventry and his wife propped up against the wall of an adjacent room.

Two exhibits stand out above the others. I love porcelain, and in the dining room there is a stunning exhibit, The Golden Box (designed by Dutch artist Bouke de Vries, whose War and Pieces we saw at Berrington Hall in April this year), of some of Croome’s porcelain. The Golden Box took my breath away.

On the first floor, in what was Lady Coventry’s Dressing Room, is the recently opened ‘I AM Archive’, a vortex construction that will eventually house information and documents about Croome. A truly inspirational design.

Finally, it was outside again through the doors of the Saloon, and on to the south-facing steps flanked by two sphinxes. In the early afternoon sunshine, the light coloured stone of the façade glowed a deep gold. At the Rotunda there was a good view over much of the park to the west and south.

Croome was heaving with visitors, all taking advantage of the lovely day, many following children along the ‘Gingerbread Trail’, or taking dogs for walks in the park’s wide open spaces. Everyone seemed to be having fun, as we did, and we look forward to our next visit some time during 2018.

 

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And pigs might fly . . .

Steph and I made two road trips together to the small town of San Ramón (see map), that lies at just over 800 m on the eastern slopes of the Andes in the Department of Junín.

Nothing particularly special or interesting in that, you might ask, especially if you know the region. The International Potato Center (CIP) opened an experiment station there in the 1970s, as somewhere it could evaluate potato breeding lines against several pests and diseases that appeared more regularly at this site than at higher elevations. But also for testing potatoes in their ability to grow under higher temperatures than usual for potatoes, a temperate crop that evolved in the Tropics. This emphasis on adaptation to high temperatures, with the aim of potentially expanding potato production worldwide into less favorable environments, was work I would continue once I moved to Costa Rica in 1976.

San Ramón today has a population of 30,000 inhabitants but was very much smaller when we first visited. It was not normally on our itinerary, since Steph’s and my work only took us to Huancayo high up in the central Andes, at over 3000 m.

Our first trip, in August 1973 (with CIP plant pathologist John Vessey and physiologist Ray Meyer) was just a few weeks after Steph joined me in Peru. This was our first experience of the hot and humid lowland tropics. Little did we imagine that just a few years later (from 1976) we would spend almost five years in Costa Rica living under those conditions in Turrialba, nor that almost two decades later we would move to the Philippines for 19 years.

Our second and short vacation trip was in September 1974.

I’ve been back only a couple of times, once in early 1976 before we headed off to Costa Rica, and another¹ in the mid-1980s when, working at The University of Birmingham, I had a research project with CIP, and took the opportunity of a visit to Lima to travel from Huancayo to San Ramón.

Dropping down to San Ramón the only road passes through the town of Tarma, famous for its flower production. What a delight. Higher up, the road sweeps round broad valleys with it patchwork of fields, one of the most attractive views I think I’ve seen in all my travels across the Andes.

Below Tarma, the valley narrows, and winds its way beside a fast flowing river (that becomes the Chanchamayo River beyond San Ramón), with numerous tunnels carved through the rock, and barely wide enough in places for two vehicles to pass. There are steep precipices into the river below at numerous locations.

And given that the San Ramón region and beyond is (was) a particularly important fruit-growing one (especially for papayas), there was always a constant stream of lorries loaded with fruit grinding their way out of the valley to climb over Ticlio (at almost 5000 m) before dropping rapidly to Lima on the coasts.

Steph’s first trip to Huancayo (and San Ramon) in August 1973.

On the second morning of our September 1974 trip, we set off after breakfast along the Chanchamayo River towards La Merced, stopping frequently to look at the vegetation, explore the river bank, and take photos. It’s hard to imagine that La Merced now has a population approaching 170,000. Beyond La Merced we had thoughts of eventually reaching Oxapampa, but as the road deteriorated so did our expectations of being able to travel there and back in a single day. With some regret we turned around. Oxapampa was (is) an interesting community, founded in the 19th century by German immigrants, and retaining much of that influence today.

Our trip on the third day was much more eventful. Following a suggestion by John Vessey, we decided to take advantage of the local light aircraft flights from San Ramón servicing communities further out in the lowland areas (the ‘jungle’) and visit one such beside the Pichis River, Puerto Bermúdez (some 550 m lower in altitude than San Ramón). Today, Puerto Bermúdez is connected by road to La Merced and San Ramón, a drive of some 176 km, and about four hours. There was no road in 1974, and flights were the only option. From satellite images, the town does not appear to have an airstrip anymore. What looks like a former airstrip is flanked by buildings and criss-crossed by streets. Maybe with the road now reaching the town, an air bridge to San Ramón or other towns is no longer economically viable.

Having purchased our tickets, we arrived at the airfield early the next morning, and found ourselves squeezed into the rear seats of a single engine plane (probably a Cessna) for the 45 minute flight to Puerto Bermúdez. We were scheduled to return mid-afternoon, and had decided that we’d try and rent a boat for a trip along the river.

In 1974, Puerto Bermúdez was a very small settlement, and the area is home to one of Peru’s largest indigenous communities in its Amazon region, the Asháninka².

We soon found somewhere to buy a quick cup of coffee, and someone who would rent his boat to us for several hours for a trip along the Pichis, a river that flows north to join the even bigger Ucayali River south of Pucallpa, being some of the headwaters of the River Amazon.

In this gallery of photos, you can see the type of dugout canoes that are common along the river, with their long shaft outboard motors. In the distance along the river you can also see the Andes rising in the west. And also some of the communities we observed along the riverbanks, and the rafts carrying fruits. This was our first experience of an environment like this, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Everyone was most friendly.

After a quick bite to eat for lunch, we headed back to the airstrip for our mid-afternoon flight back to San Ramón.

And that’s when we had our next surprise. There was an aircraft waiting for the return flight. We were the only passengers. But the aircraft had no seats for us. There was some ‘freight’ to take: several dead pigs that were loaded along with empty beer crates that we were to use as seats. No seat belts!

Communicating with base back in San Ramón, the pilot told us that the weather had ‘closed in’ and that our departure would be delayed. And there we sat, looking westwards towards the Andes and wondering when we would be able to take off. After about an hour, the pilot told us that there was still ‘weather’ along the proposed return route, but ‘bugger it’ or words to that effect in Spanish, he said we should leave, and we’d better climb aboard if we wanted to return to San Ramón that same day.

With some trepidation—that I can still feel after all these years (I’ve never been the world’s best flier)—Steph and I climbed aboard, settled ourselves on our respective beer crates (or maybe they were cases of beer), and held on for dear life to anything we could as the plane hurtled down the runway and took to the air.

All was well for the first half of the flight. We gained height easily (after all the plane was carrying quite a light load  and I was very much lighter than I am, unfortunately, today). We could see the foothills of the Andes approaching, with rain squalls across our path. Needless to say things became rather more uncomfortable as we crossed that weather system, and bounced our way into San Ramón. But we lived to tell the tale.

Given the chance to make a journey like that again, I’d probably decline. The enthusiasm of youth, the risk taking. In any case one might hope that today, safety regulations are much more assiduously applied. The only time I’ve ever shared a flight with three dead pigs.

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¹ The 1980s were the Michael Jackson years. The singer, not me. Arriving at our hotel in San Ramón, it didn’t take long before a very large crowd of children had assembled outside the hotel and chanting ‘We want Michael Jackson‘. Some mix-up!

² Puerto Bermúdez’s Asháninka suffered during the years of the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla insurrection of the 1990s, and many inhabitants of the town were massacred.

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Heading south to the highest lake in the world

At 3812 m above sea level, Lake Titicaca straddles the border between Peru and Bolivia, and is the ‘highest navigable lake in the world’. It’s more than 1200 km south from Lima by road, and was the destination of a trip that Steph and I made in November 1974. Our first idea was to drive to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, some 256 km southeast from Puno. However, we decided that would be one sector too far in the time we had available.

Most of the drive follows the Panamericana Sur for 850 km through a coastal desert, one of the driest in the world.

The highway crosses the Nazca Plain about 450 km south of Lima, and is the site of the world famous Nazca Lines (yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site in Peru!), ancient geoglyphs that can only be appreciated from the air. Sadly, we never took the opportunity for a flight over the Lines¹.

The Nazca monkey. Photo taken by renowned archaeologist Maria Reiche in 1953.

Much further south, at Camana, the road branches north towards the southern city of Arequipa, some 180 km away, and at an altitude of around 2330 m. Puno is reached from Arequipa after a climb to well over 4000 m before dropping to 3800 m on the shore of Lake Titicaca, crossing (among other locations) the Reserva Nacional Salinas y Aguada Blanca (and its flamingos).

We had already decided to drive ourselves just as far as Arequipa, then take a colectivo (a communal taxi) for the rest of the journey to Puno, and use taxis to move between the various sites we wanted to visit around Puno. On reflection we could have taken our VW the whole distance given some of the other trips we made around Peru and the state of some of those roads. From Arequipa to Puno we left the asphalt behind, travelling on a graded dirt road.

We spent the first night in Nazca, traveling on to Camana and its turista hotel on the second day. Like most of our travels there were frequent stops to admire the landscape, take photos, and investigate the local flora, especially the various cactus species, a particular hobby of Steph’s at that time.

This cactus, possibly an Echinocactus species, was less than 3 inches in diameter.

On the Nazca plain
Earthquake damage in Ica

The highway crosses quite a number of rivers that flow down from the Andes. In the desert, and along the valleys themselves, irrigated rice cultivation is quite important. I had no idea when looking at these rice paddies in the 1970s that I’d be working on that crop across the other side of the world two decades later².

In Arequipa, we found a garage where we could leave the car safely for a few days while we traveled on to Puno. And then spent the next day and a half walking around the city to enjoy some of its sites.

Arequipa, founded in 1540, is (was) an elegant city, with a skyline dominated by the symmetrical cone of the Misti volcano, rising to over 5800 m. It is seasonally snow-capped, but with the effects of climate change affecting so many mountain ranges in the Andes today, I wonder to what extent Misti now has any snow cover at all during the year.

There were two sites we wanted to visit: the Basilica Cathedral, located on the north side of the Plaza de Armas, Arequipa’s central square. It has a facade of beautifully carved white stone, like the cathedral in Cajamarca that we visited in June 1974.

It was constructed over more than two centuries beginning in the 1540s. Progress was interrupted many times by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and the church had to be reconstructed several times. As recently as June 2001, one of its towers was toppled by a powerful earthquake that shook southern Peru. It is a building of great beauty, and dominates the Plaza de Armas.

A short distance north of the Plaza de Armas, the 16th century Dominican Convent of Saint Catherine (Monasterio Santa Catalina) is a quiet haven among the bustle of a busy city, and open for tourists to visit. Well, that was the situation four decades ago, so it must be even more so today. It has the feel of a small Spanish village, with winding streets, open doorways off to the side, and colonnaded hidden courtyards. And all decorated in a glorious umber.

The nuns could not receive visitors inside the convent, but could communicate with the outside world through grills. Natural light brightens the visitors’ corridor through skylights hewn from rock crystal. Inside the convent there are beautiful murals dating from as early as 1516. That’s interesting, because in the article about the convent on Wikipedia linked to above, the founding date is given as 1579, and Arequipa was not founded until 1540. Maybe some early buildings were incorporated into the convent. Nevertheless, there are some date inconsistencies I need to check further.

In Puno, there were three attractions we wanted to visit: the harbour and its large steamships; the floating islands made from the local totora reeds (Schoenoplectus californicus subsp. tatora), and home to a community of indigenous Urus; and the pre-Incan archaeological site of Sillustani, some 32 km northwest from Puno towards the airport town of Juliaca.

Some of the vessels that ply (or used to ply) Lake Titicaca are remarkable for their size. So how did they come to be sailing around the lake? The SS Ollanta was built in 1929 in Kingston upon Hull in England, in kit form, and sent out to Peru in pieces. The original Lego! Transported from the port of Mollendo to Puno by rail, it was riveted together on the shore of Lake Titicaca, and launched in 1931. It is still sailing today, but no longer on any scheduled services.

Tourism was, and must still be, a significant source of income for the Uru community that lives on the totora reed islands just offshore from Puno. Steph and I took the short motor boat trip from Puno to spend a couple of hours there. It is quite a remarkable community, seemingly self-sufficient, and getting around on their beautifully-crafted reed boats (the inspiration for Thor Heyerdahl’s Ra II expedition).

Given my interest in potatoes, I was fascinated to come across this brilliant example of potato hydroponics. Now that’s a good use for an old totora reed boat. Ingenious!

Although we didn’t make it into Bolivia, we did head out along the south shore of the lake towards the border, as far as Juli, just over 80 km southeast from Puno. As with so many small communities in the Andes, the town is dominated by a Catholic church, that we took the opportunity of visiting. The opulence of its interior was quite unexpected.

Our final visit in the Puno area was to the pre-Incan cemetery of Sillustani constructed by the Qulla people on the edges of Lake Umayo, and comprising a series of round towers called chullpas. The stones making up the chullpas are smooth and regular is shape, and one is left, yet again, with a sense of awe, at how such beautiful pieces of architecture were actually constructed. Interestingly, the Qulla are an indigenous people of western Bolivia, northern Argentina, and Chile. Sillustani must have been at the northern limit of their territory and range.

And then the vacation was over and we were headed back to Arequipa, to pick up our car and drive to Camana on the coast for an overnight stop. I think we made it back to Lima from there is one very long day of driving.

Besides this visit, I’d been in Puno on two previous occasions. One of my abiding memories was to seemingly acquire a taste for the algarrobina cocktail, made with Pisco. While I love a delicious Pisco sour, the thought of this rather sweet concoction now sends shivers down my spine. Happy days!

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¹ The Greenpeace delinquents who staged a protest on and defaced the Lines in December 2014 should have faced the full force of the law.

² In about 1996, the then President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori (now disgraced and serving a prison term for various human rights crimes, among others), visited the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños, Philippines. I showed him around the genebank, and then joined discussions with IRRI’s Director General George Rothschild about rice production in Peru. Peru grows a number of IRRI varieties that have fallen out of favor in other parts of the world because of their susceptibility to pests and diseases. These, including IR43 and IR48 were less affected in Peru.

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Coast and mountains – remembering a 1974 road trip in northern Peru

During the three years that Steph and I lived in Peru between 1973 and 1976, we made several long-distance road trips. In those days, once you turned off the main coastal highway, the Panamericana, you left the asphalt behind and traveled only on graded dirt roads.

We also drove a car—a Volkswagen Variant—that had good clearance, and traveled comfortably on these roads. We had also fitted heavy-duty shock absorbers as well as a good set of radial tyres. So we were never concerned about leaving the paved highways. In fact, we often spent time during the weekends visiting one of our favorite destinations on the eastern side of Lima, climbing route 116 into the Andes mountains in the Santa Eulalia valley near Chosica. We enjoyed hunting for wild potatoes on the higher slopes.

In the Santa Eulalia valley, hunting for wild potatoes

In May 1973 and May 1974 I’d made two trips into the Departments of Ancash and La Libertad, and Cajamarca, respectively to collect cultivated varieties of potatoes to add to the world germplasm collection curated by the International Potato Center (CIP) for which I was working as a germplasm expert and Associate Taxonomist. Steph also worked in the germplasm program as an Associate Geneticist.

Both trips took me through some stunning landscapes, and interesting cities like Cajamarca. So, in June 1974 we made an eight-day trip to visit some of those same places. Joining us on the trip were our friends and fellow Brits, John and Marion Vessey. They were our witnesses when Steph and I married in October 1973, in the Lima suburb of Miraflores.

After our wedding ceremony in the Miraflores Municipalidad, we enjoyed lunch at the Granja Azul near Chosica.

John also worked as a plant pathologist at CIP on the same bacterial wilt disease that I’d spend several years studying when I transferred to Costa Rica in 1976. John’s work often took him to Cajamarca and beyond, almost always by road, a round trip of almost 1700 km.

Anyway, our plan was to visit the Callejon de Huaylas in Ancash, see the highest mountains in the country, and from there returning to the coast and traveling north to Cajamarca via Trujillo, taking in several interesting archaeological sites on the way both in the mountains and on the coast.

This was a round trip of almost 2800 km or thereabouts, and John and I shared the driving. Setting out from Lima early one morning, our first destination was Huaraz, the departmental capital of Ancash, in the heart of the Callejón de Huaylas, with the highest mountains of the Cordillera Blanca on the east side (including Peru’s highest peak, Huascarán) and the lower Cordillera Negra on the west (or coastal) side.

Looking north along the Callejón de Huaylas towards Nevado Huascarán.

The gallery below shows Cordillera Blanca mountains at the southern approaches to the Callejón de Huaylas, near the turn-off to Chavín de Huántar. The last image in the gallery shows the Cordillera Negra on the western side of the Callejón de Huaylas.

The Callejón de Huaylas runs north-south, parallel to the coast, and was the site of a major earthquake in May 1970 that destroyed the towns of Ranrahirca and Yungay north of Huaraz, and killing tens of thousands of inhabitants. The gallery below shows where the landslide fell from Huascarán, with boulders the size of houses, obliterating Yungay and Ranrahirca. In Yungay, just a few palm trees and a statue of Christ at the cemetery were all that remained of the town in 1974.

We spent three nights in the turista hotel in Huaraz, traveling on the day after our arrival to Yungay, and then higher still to a lake nestling in a valley beneath Huascarán, Laguna de Llanganuco at 3850 m above sea level.

The day after we made a side trip of just under 100 km each way to the east of the Cordillera Blanca, to visit the ruins at Chavín de Huántar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, built by a pre-Inc culture at least 3000 years ago.

On the journey to Chavín (I was driving at the time), and only a few km short of the town, I was coming round a blind bend, and found myself facing some difficulty to avoid a rather large rock in the middle of the road. So I attempted to straddle it, but was unsuccessful; some part of the chassis connected with the rock. It sounded bad, but a close inspection underneath the vehicle showed no visible damage, so we carried on. The next morning we loaded the car and set out due west from Huaraz to cross the Cordillera Negra before dropping down to the coast near Casma, where we planned to stop at the archaeological site of Cerro Sechín.

As we climbed out of Huaraz, I could hear unnerving creaks and groans emanating from behind me. So after about 30 minutes we stopped to make another inspection underneath. To my horror I saw that there was a visible crack in one of the shock absorber mounts. I could see daylight! I hadn’t realised just how hard I’d hit that rock the previous day.

Well, we couldn’t continue with that sort of damage, so I carefully reversed the car and we returned—slowly—to Huaraz and found a repair shop alongside the road. When the mechanic jacked up the car, the absorber mount gave way. In such a remote location there was no chance that any dealer would have the exact mount in stock. However, all was not lost, and with great skill the mechanic welded a piece of steel around the fracture, taking less than an hour to make the repair. And we set off, much relieved with a vehicle almost as good as new, although we’d lost about 4 hours in total, putting back our destination for the night at Trujillo further up the coast until after dark.

Cerro Sechín, a few km inland from the Casma, is a very unusual site. Excavations began there 80 years ago, and the site has been dated to almost 4000 years. Its outstanding features are the stone bas-reliefs depicting victorious warrior-priests and their dismembered victims. What do they all mean? Some suggest that this is the site of a battle, others that it commemorates the vanquishing of a rebellion. Perhaps we’ll never know. What I can say is that I never saw any other archaeological site in Peru with any similarity to Sechín.

After spending a night in Trujillo, we took a morning to visit the extensive ruins of Chan Chan just west of the city, whose mud walls and reliefs have survived the ravages of time in this extremely arid desert. Dating from the mid-ninth century AD, it was the capital of the pre-Incan Chimú, who were defeated by the Incas in the fifteenth century. Chan Chan is now a UNESCO World heritage Site.

Along the coast, and even in some of the valleys heading into the mountains, there are mud brick pyramids, known as huacas standing proudly in the landscape, reminders of ancient pre-Incan cultures that once thrived there.

Huacas erected in coastal valleys.

In 1974, the highway to Cajamarca diverged from the Panamericana just north of Trujillo. It climbed along a fertile valley with rice cultivation alongside the river, then crossing over into the valley of Cajamarca at around 2500 m or so.

I’ve visited Cajamarca three times. It is undoubtedly one of my favorite cities in the whole of Peru. Located in a broad and fertile valley, it has an agreeable climate. No doubt it has expanded considerably since I was last there in about 1988.

Cajamarca (from the north) in the early morning light. You can see the steam from the Inca baths on the east of the city.

The beautiful Cathedral of Saint Catherine (Santa Catalina) occupies the northwest side of the main square, the Plaza de Armas. Begun in the seventeenth century, it has the appearance of a half-completed building. But this does not take away anything from the exquisite construction and carving of white stone on the entrance facade.

The Plaza de Armas, with the Cathedral of Sant Catherine on the left.

To the east of the city, by about 3 km lie the Baños del Inca, a site of geothermal hot springs where we luxuriated in the spa’s deep and soothing waters.

It was also in Cajamarca that the army of the last Inca emperor Atahualpa was defeated by Francisco Pizarro and his band of adventurers. Captured and imprisoned by Pizarro, Atahualpa was executed in July 1533 bringing an end to the illustrious Incan culture, and the subsequent colonisation not only of Peru but much of South America by the Spanish.

I’m sure we must have stayed at the turista hotel in Cajamarca close to the Plaza de Armas. Around the square were many small restaurants where, as in so many Andean towns and cities, you could enjoy an excellent and reasonably-priced meal. But Cajamarca is famous for one dish, and a sweet one at that: leche asade (crème caramel), one of my favorite desserts. There was one restaurant on the northeast corner of the Plaza renowned for its leche asada.

After a couple of nights in Cajamarca, we headed back down to Trujillo on the coast, and made it back home to Lima the next day. Quite an eventful trip, taking in some breath-taking sites and landscapes. As I reflect on all those magical Peruvian experiences, I realise more than ever, just what attracted me to want to visit all those years ago when I was just a small boy. Ambition fulfilled, and beyond expectations!

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Has global warming changed the landscape?

During the three years Steph and I lived in Lima, working at the International Potato Center (CIP) at La Molina on the eastern outskirts of the city (now totally enveloped by it), one or the other of us had to travel almost on a weekly basis between December and April from Lima to Huancayo. At an altitude of more than 3000 m above sea level (over 10,000 feet), Huancayo was the location of CIP’s highland experiment station.

During the first season I worked there (between January and April 1973, and before Steph joined me in Peru) most of the potato hybridization work I did was carried out in the garden of the parents of one of my colleagues, Dr Maria Scurrah. CIP didn’t have any facilities of its own during that first year, and also rented land north of the city to grow its large germplasm collection of indigenous potato varieties.

It was only after I’d moved to Costa Rica to become CIP’s regional leader in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean in 1976 that permanent laboratories, greenhouses, and a guesthouse were constructed (put in jeopardy by the rise of the terrorist organisation Sendero Luminoso in the late 1980s and 1990s).

A distance of almost 300 km by road on the Carretera Central, the journey would take around six hours. Usually we’d leave CIP before mid-morning, and aim to reach San Mateo (about 95 km) a couple of hours or so later, in time for lunch. Sometimes we’d drive as far as La Oroya on the eastern side of the highest point of the road. La Oroya, a town dominated by ore smelters and awesome pollution is one of the most depressing places I have ever visited. The fumes from the smelters have blasted all the vegetation from hillsides for miles around.

The road to Huancayo crosses the Andes watershed at the highest point, Ticlio, at 4843 m. From there the road drops quickly towards La Oroya before flattening out along the Mantaro River, and southeast into the broad Mantaro Valley.

We usually travelled, after 1974, in a Chevrolet Suburban (like the one illustrated below) that carried about four passengers plus driver, or in a pickup.

In early 1974, when I took the photo on the left, snow covered the ground at Ticlio. Two decades later during a meeting of the Inter-Center Working Group on Genetic Resources, there was hardly any snow to be seen.

One of my colleagues at CIP, and Head of CIP’s Outreach Program from 1973-76 or so, was Richard ‘Dick’ Wurster who had spent some years with a potato program in East Africa (Uganda I believe) before being recruited to join CIP. Dick was independently wealthy, and a licensed pilot. He brought his own aircraft with him! And CIP took advantage of that to use it to ferry staff to Huancayo, landing at the unmanned airstrip in Jauja, now the Francisco Carle Airport served by scheduled airlines. It was a six-seater I believe, maybe a Cessna O-2 Skymaster. Anyway, CIP had a full time pilot. A year or so later, CIP purchased its own aircraft, a much more powerful model with a longer range.

To fly to Jauja safely, the flight path had to cross the Andes at around 22-24,000 feet. Dick’s plane was not sufficiently powered to climb directly from Lima over the mountains. So it would take off from Jorge Chavez Airport (Lima’s international airport) on the coast, and climb inland, more or less following the Carretera Central, before turning around and heading back to the coast, climbing all the time. Then it would head east once again, having gained sufficient height in the meantime to cross the watershed, and miss all the mountains that stand in the way.

Flying on a cloudy day was always a tense trip, because the pilot had to dead reckon where he was, then, seeing an opening in the cloud cover, dive down to come in over the Mantaro Valley, making at least one pass over Jauja airstrip to check there were no human or animal obstacles blocking the runway.

That’s looks like Dr Parviz Jatala (one of CIP’s nematologists) alongside the pilot.

Anyway when I recently came across the photos below (taken around 1974), on a clear day crossing the Andes, I was struck by the amount of snow and ice cover, glaciers even. And that made me wonder, in these times of global warming, how that phenomenon has affected the snow cover on these Andes peaks today.

A serious decline in snow and ice cover would have considerable knock-on effects in terms of water availability east towards the Mantaro Valley, and more seriously to the west, down the River Rimac to Lima that depends so heavily on this source of water from the mountains.

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Around the world in 40 years . . . Part 18: Where East meets West

Byzantium. Constantinople. Istanbul. The bridge connecting Europe and Asia. Gateway to the East or the West, depending from which side of the Bosphorus you look.

An ancient city, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Fought over for millenia, before falling to the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. Where religions meet, and Islam became the dominant force.

The Bosphorus Bridge, opened in 1973. Two more bridges have now been added, and a tunnel under the Bosphorus.

I once spent a whole day in Istanbul. It was late summer in 1978 or ’79, or thereabouts. I’d attended a meeting on potatoes organized by the International Potato Center’s regional office in Izmir, and was headed back to the UK to meet up with my wife Steph and daughter Hannah to complete our home-leave before heading back to our home in Costa Rica.

I must have taken the earliest flight possible from Izmir to Istanbul. In those days, Turkish Airlines flew DC9s on many of its internal routes, and they were fearsome flights. Hardly had we left the runway when the cabin was thick with the smoke from dozens of foul-smelling Turkish cigarettes. (I’m a non-smoker, so any cigarette smells are unpleasant; these cigarettes were particularly so).

A Turkish Airlines DC9 (with a Boeing 707 behind).

And I think many of the pilots were ex-air force, given their propensity to ‘throw’ the aircraft around the sky. In those days the DC9 had one of the steepest rates of climb of any aircraft, and the pilots certainly exploited that performance. It was also not unusual for the pilot to deploy the ailerons at 20,000 feet, and the plane would drop like a high-speed lift. Talk about losing your stomach.

Since my flight to London didn’t leave until the evening, I’d decided to take a tour of Istanbul. But for the life of me I can’t remember how this was arranged. I do remember that I had a taxi driver to myself all day, who picked me up at the airport, took me round the city, waited while I visited various attractions, and then dropped me off at the airport. Now whether this had been pre-arranged, or I just chose the first taxi I came across and negotiated a ‘tourist deal’ I simply cannot remember. Not surprising really, almost four decades later.

There were three attractions I wanted to see: the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, and the Topkapi Palace. And any other views along the waterfront of the Bosphorus that would give me a good view over Istanbul. I was not disappointed.

The Istanbul skyline, with the minarets of the Sultan Ahmed or Blue Mosque on the left, and the Hagia Sophia lower down to the right.

Taking in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque, dominates Istanbul’s skyline, with its six minarets. I find Islamic art and architecture very beautiful, and the interiors of the mosque are a joy to gaze at.

It was built at the beginning of the 17th century during the rule of Ahmed I.

Not too far away and closer to the shore on the northern side of the Bosphorus, the Hagia Sophia stands proudly, though not quite as grand as the Blue Mosque.

Hagia Sophia – Greek orthodox cathedral, mosque, and now a museum.

It is more than 1500 years old, Hagia Sophia was the first Christian cathedral of the Roman Empire, became a mosque in the 1400s, and a museum in 1935. Rather plain on the outside, it contains some of the most beautiful icons and mosaics you can behold almost anywhere. They lift your spirit. I’m not a religious person (in fact, an enthusiastic atheist), yet I was moved by the spirituality of this wonderful creation.

The Topkapi Palace, also on the north shore of the Bosphorus, was the administrative headquarters and residence of the Ottoman sultans. It was built in the mid-15th century. It’s now a museum, and houses many fabulous treasures. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many large gemstones (diamonds and emeralds) as I saw on display there. And lots of exquisite porcelain from China. I have few photographs from inside.

The sultan’s throne perhaps, or from inside the harem

Then along the shore of the Bosphorus, as people waited for ferries across the water, or shopped for fresh fish, I’m sure the hustle and bustle today must be much more than when I spent one memorable day in Istanbul, taking in its centuries of Greek, Roman, Christian, and Muslim heritage.

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Around the world in 40 years . . . Part 17: Not quite a Damascene experience

If you are interested in the origins of the crops we grow, as I am, and the history of civilizations in general, then a visit to the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East must be high on your list of travel destinations. This area encompasses the so-called Fertile Crescent, one of the cradles of agriculture dating back some 10,000 years.

As I recently wrote, I had an interesting visit to Israel in 1982, and saw many of the wild relatives of wheat and barley, and legumes such as lentil and chickpea, growing in their native habitats, and learning more about the importance of ecology in the evolution of these plant populations.

I have also visited Syria a couple of times. The first time was in January 1995 when the CGIAR’s Inter-Center Working Group on Genetic Resources held its annual meeting at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Aleppo¹. The second time was in 2000 when I went for a job interview at ICARDA. On both occasions I had overnight stops in Damascus, and on the second had the opportunity of touring the city, exploring the famous souk, and purchasing some beautifully-woven fabrics.

I regret there was never enough time to explore Damascus and its region, or visit Palmyra, the World Heritage Site of an ancient Semitic city that has been in the news in recent years after the philistines of Daesh (Isis, IS, ISIL, so-called Islamic State) destroyed so many of its iconic buildings and priceless artefacts.

Paul the Apostle will be forever associated with Damascus, as it was supposedly on the road to that city that he had his ‘Damascene experience‘. I was never struck the same way. He spent some months, after his conversion to Christianity, in the city of Ephesus that was once one of the most important port cities of Ancient Greece, on the western coast of Turkey. Did St Paul set sail from Ephesus to Rome? It seems a plausible conclusion.

And, of course, Ephesus became immortalized in Paul’s Letter (Epistle) to the Ephesians, the tenth book of the Bible’s New Testament that was written from Rome. But perhaps not by him after all.

I’ve had the good fortune to visit Ephesus on two occasions. In April 1972 I attended a meeting² in Izmir, about 80 km north of the site of Ephesus. Then, in about 1978 or 1979, while on home-leave in the UK, I attended another meeting in Izmir, this time on potatoes organized by the International Potato Center’s regional program based in that city. And we enjoyed another excursion south to Ephesus.

Just the other day, I came across a set of 35 mm slides from both trips, and that has been the impetus for this blog post.

Approaching the site of Ephesus, the first thing you see is a hill fort at the town of Selçuk, that grew up alongside the ancient city. I’ve read that the Ayasuluk fortress is Byzantine, and that the walls date from the Seljuk period (11th and 12th centuries) and Ottoman empire that superseded it.

Below the fortress lies the Basilica of St John the Baptist, who spent his last years at Ephesus and is reported to be buried here. The Basilica was built in the 6th century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

The region around Ephesus has been occupied for more than 8000 years. The site of Ephesus itself is indeed impressive. A brief description of each of the locations on the map can be found here.

Entering the city along Curetes Street, with a view of the Library of Celsus in the distance, one can’t help wondering about the three millennia of history since its founding. Of course Ephesus has strong links with the founding and dissemination of Christianity in the Middle East and westwards through the Mediterranean, a region where three great religions of Juadaism, Christianity, and Islam came together, and in conflict regrettably.

When I first visited Ephesus, the Library of Celsus was in ruins, destroyed by an earthquake. By the end of the 70s it had been partially reconstructed.

In the upper part of Ephesus alongside Curetes Street, lies the Odeon (a sort of mini-theater).

Then, further down the street, also on the right, is the Temple of Hadrian.

Past the Library of Celsus, Marble Street brings you to the mighty Theater of Ephesus, or Great Theater, which took 60 years to build.

From the theater there are views along Harbour Street to the west. The sea is now more than three kilometers away.

There are the remains of many other buildings, isolated columns, mosaics, and statues lying around the site. Unfortunately, I no longer recall where these photos were taken around the city. Nevertheless, they show the beauty and magnificence of what Ephesus must have once looked like.

Among the distinguished residents of Ephesus was Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who died around 475 BC, whose writing is known only as a series of fragments. I wonder in which corners of this once great city Heraclitus found solitude on which to ponder the nature of life and relationships?

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¹ Due to the civil war in Syria, and the destruction of much of Aleppo, ICARDA has now moved to new sites in Lebanon and Morocco.

² Hawkes, JG & W Lange (eds.) 1973. European and regional gene banks. Proceedings of a Conference on European and Regional Gene Banks, Izmir, Turkey, 10-15 April, 1972. Wageningen, EUCARPIA.

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Around the world in 40 years . . . Part 16. Crossing the glittering mountains of Canada

In July 1979, Steph, Hannah (aged 15 months) and I enjoyed a couple of days or so in San Francisco, and then headed up to Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. I was to attend the annual meeting of the Potato Association of America. Arriving in Vancouver we headed to conference venue, the beautiful campus of the University of British Columbia, sited on the western end of a peninsula jutting out into the Strait of Georgia opposite Vancouver Island.

It was a bit of a scrum, to say the least, when we arrived to the hall of residence where we had reserved a room. I say ‘room’, because the conference organizers wanted to put the three of us in separate rooms, not appropriate for a family of three. After discussing this vigorously with the staff behind the reception desk for almost an hour, a two-room suite was miraculously found, with its own bathroom. We made up a bed for Hannah with blankets and the like on the floor. It must have been fine since she slept soundly, and hasn’t mentioned it or complained about it since!

Well, having taken a few days out on the way north from home in Costa Rica, after the conference we planned to hire a car and drive across the Canadian Rockies, to meet my elder brother Ed and his wife Linda in Banff, Alberta, before driving on together to their home in Edmonton. Ed was a professor in the Department of Geography in Edmonton.

From Edmonton, our itinerary would take us by air to Madison, Wisconsin where I’d would spend a couple of days with plant bacteriologists Profs. Luis Sequeira and Arthur Kelman in the university’s Department of Plant Pathology (both had links with my employer, the International Potato Center). Luis was also an adviser to one of my potato research projects in Costa Rica. We also planned a side trip to the USDA’s Potato Introduction Station and its genebank at Sturgeon Bay in Door County on the shores of Lake Michigan in the northeast of the state. And from Madison, we would fly home to Costa Rica with transit stops in Chicago and Miami. Quite an adventure for a 15 month old toddler.

The conference sessions lasted four days. On the penultimate evening we enjoyed, along with all the other delegates and their families, a wonderful Northwest Pacific salmon barbecue on the campus lawns. It was an idyllic evening, no need for warm clothing.

But while I was stuck indoors during the conference, Steph took advantage of several tours to get out and about around Vancouver, at Stanley Park, crossing Lion’s Gate Bridge, and taking the cable car up to Grouse Mountain for spectacular views over the city.

At many of these conferences, it is customary to offer several day excursions from which you can choose. While most of those at the Vancouver meeting looked at many different aspects of the potato industry in British Columbia, the one I chose (as most appropriate for the family) was a day trip by steam train, the Royal Hudson, from Vancouver along Howe Sound north to the small community of Squamish. Imagine my surprise on arriving at the station to find a large number of delegates waiting for the train, many of whom I’d expected to take the more ‘technical’ excursions.

The Royal Hudson 2850 was the locomotive that, in May 1939, pulled the train carrying HM King George VI and Queen Elizabeth across Canada, during the first visit to Canada by a reigning British monarch. Our locomotive was 2860. I’m pretty certain that it was oil-fired rather than coal. Anyway, it was a delightful way to spend a day, see the mountains along Howe Sound, and the spectacular mountains that are a backdrop to Squamish itself.

I believe the conference finished on the Thursday lunchtime, and that gave us plenty of time to set off on the road trip eastwards up the Fraser River valley to Kamloops, some 225 miles, where we’d booked a room for the night.

To Banff the following day would be another 300 miles, and take all day. We met Ed and Linda in Banff, and the next day made a side trip into the Athabasca icefield at the southern tip of Jasper National Park, just north of Banff. Needless to say the drive through the Rockies was breath-taking, and there were ample opportunities to stop, and stretch our legs, especially important for an active toddler. It’s remarkable looking back on this trip what ‘risks’ we took. Steph sat in the backseat with Hannah on her lap. I’m not sure if Steph had a seat-belt. Hannah did not have a child seat. Wouldn’t be allowed today, and we wouldn’t even consider travelling under those circumstances.

Leaving Banff, it was downhill all the way, skirting Calgary, before heading north to Edmonton, a distance of just under 260 miles. We spent a few days in Edmonton before it was time to move on, and continue our trip in Madison.

I’ve seen various parts of the Rockies over the years, in Colorado, around the edges of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming (including the Teton Range). Magnificent as they are, they don’t really hold a candle to the Rockies further north in Canada, and I’m pleased that we were able to enjoy them almost 40 years ago.

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Since that trip to Canada in 1979, I’ve been back just once, to Ottawa, Ontario in April 2002. I had arranged meetings with my contact at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), both of which supported IRRI’s budget.

Arriving for my early morning appointment at CIDA on the opposite side of the Ottawa River in Quebec, I found the building closed because of a water leak the previous day. There was only a skeleton staff on duty – but not my contact, who’d not had the courtesy to inform me (before I even flew up to Ottawa) about the problem, or cancel or reschedule our meeting. I was left to twiddle my thumbs for a few hours before I could head off to IDRC, so took advantage of the fine weather to look at the Ottawa River, a canal that connects the Ottawa River with the Rideau River, and Canada’s beautiful Gothic Revival parliament building on Parliament Hill. I spent two nights at the Fairmont Château Laurier, just to the east of Parliament Hill.

Looking across the Ottawa River to Quebec
Across the Ottawa River to Quebec
Statue in Major’s Hill Park
The canal that connects the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers
Parliament Hill from the banks of the Ottawa River
Parliament Hill
Fairmont Château Laurier

 

 

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Around the world in 40 years . . . Part 15. In my father’s footsteps

Almost 50 years after my father visited Brazil, I made my first trip there in early 1979, when I attended a meeting of the Latin American Potato Association, ALAP. Its meeting that year was held in Poços de Caldas, in southwest Minas Gerais State, about 280 km north of São Paulo.

I was living in Costa Rica, and to fly to South America it was necessary to transit via Panama City. The itinerary took us from Panama to Bogotá in Colombia, then a Varig flight to Rio de Janeiro with an intermediate stop in Manaus on the Amazon in central northern Brazil. From Manaus, we flew south for hours to land in Rio in the early hours. It was that flight that made me appreciate just what a huge country Brazil is.

In Panama I’d joined up with other delegates to the same meeting, from Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama. Our flight to Rio didn’t leave until the late evening so we had almost a whole day for some sight-seeing around Bogotá. One of the places we visited was an emerald dealer, where I couldn’t resist the temptation and bought a nice stone for my wife¹.

Colombian emeralds in Bogota

A Varig 727 on the tarmac at Rio de Janeiro. Varig ceased operations in 2006.

We arrived in Rio in the early morning, in time for the first air shuttle (Ponte Aérea or air bridge) flight from Rio de Janeiro’s Santos Dumont airport to São Paulo’s Congonhas airport, a journey of a little over an hour, affording some spectacular views of the coastline south of Rio. Then it was a four or five hour road trip from São Paulo to Poços de Caldas.

Christ the Redeemer
The coast south of Rio
Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo
The highway bridge across Guanabara Bay
Cafe do Brasil
On the road from Sao Paulo

Poços de Caldas nestles in a valley in the surrounding rolling landscape. Very agricultural, and obviously an important potato growing area.

Heading back to Rio de Janeiro a week later, several of us decided to stop over there for about three nights, and explore this vibrant city.

The Sugar Loaf from Corcovado

Whether it was such a violent city then (or even when my father visited) as it is today, I have no recollection. We moved around the city seemingly oblivious to any such threats, spent an afternoon and evening on Copacabana beach, taking in all the ‘sights’: tangas to the left, tangas to the right!

Copacabana beach
The beach at Flamengo
The beach at Flamengo
Along Copacabana
Copacabana
Av. Infante Dom Enrique in Flamengo

But we also made the mandatory excursion to the top of the Sugarloaf, from where there were magnificent views north and south over the city and its beaches.

Botafago from the Sugar Loaf

Also we made the climb by taxis to Corcovado, where the statue of Christ the Redeemer stands, on a 2328 ft granite peak, looking out to sea.

These next photos were taken by my father (who was a professional photographer) in Rio all those decades ago. How that city has grown in the intervening years, and even how much more since I first visited in 1979 as we saw during all the TV broadcasts from the 2016 Olympic Games.

Botafago from the Sugar Loaf – compare with the 1979 photo above

There’s no doubt about it, Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s iconic cities.

I’ve been back to Brazil just one other time. In 1997 I attended a CGIAR workshop on Ethics and Equity in Plant Genetic Resources², held in Foz do Iguaçu, close by the magnificent Iguaçu Falls. I then flew on to Brasilia, to negotiate participation of Brazilian institutes in a major rice biodiversity project there and in Goiânia, transiting through Rio de Janeiro on leaving the country.

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¹ It wasn’t until about 2005 or 2006 that this stone was finally made into a ring, flanked by a couple of diamonds that I’d picked up in Israel in 1982.

² (CGIAR) Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. 1997. Ethics and Equity in Plant Genetic Resources. Proceedings of a workshop to develop guidelines for the CGIAR, 21–25 April, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. IPGRI, Rome.