Book Group meeting Monday 16 February: 2014 Man Booker prize winner

Introduced by Lawrence Youlten, Richard Flanagan's novel The Narrow Road to the Far North, was of particular interest to those members whose friends or relations had personally experienced the conditions under which the prisoners of war captured at the fall of Singapore had been used as slave labour to build the Burma Railway. Many did not survive the appalling conditions, and deaths among the native population forced to work alongside the PoWs were also very high. This is a theme that has been treated in several notable films (eg The Bridge on the River Kwai) and books, both fiction and non-fiction (The Railway Man). Flanagan's novel draws largely on the recollections of his schoolteacher father who was such a prisoner. In the novel, the protagonist is a doctor who has to try and cope with the deprivations, illnesses and injuries suffered by the other Australian prisoners. The story of this phase of his life is interwoven with his experiences before and after the war, and one criticism of the book was that the interweaving of the stories did not succeed convincingly. Others were not impressed by the attempts to draw parallels between poetry by Tennyson and the haikus liked by one of the brutal camp guards. Some doubt was expressed about the authenticity of the descriptions of appalling violence directed against the prisoners, but a timely obituary of a British PoW survivor, Henry McCreath, published in theTimes on 20 February, included details every bit as savage as those in the book. Some of our members had found the book unreadable, and others, as I did myself, had found it a moving and thought-provoking story. These disparate opinions were parallelled by the reviews in the literary press,  that ranged from the vituperative, (London Review of Books) to the adulatory.(New York Review of Books). Two members of the book group who had lived in Tasmania, (where Flanagan was brought up), were able to provide some interesting background to the author. Whatever we thought of it, the Man Booker judges gave it the thumbs-up.

Our Speaker on 20 March: The King James Bible: from Word of God to Work of Art

Stephen Prickett is Regius Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature, at the University of Glasgow and honorary Professor of English at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He has also taught at the University of Sussex, the Australian National University in Canberra (where he had the chair of English), Duke University, North Carolina, and Baylor University, Texas, where he was Margaret Root Brown Professor, and Director of the Armstrong Browning Library. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, former Chairman of the U.K. Higher Education Foundation, former President of the European Society for the Study of Literature and Theology, President of the George MacDonald Society, and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Artois, in France.
    He has published one novel, nine monographs, ten edited volumes, and over a hundred articles on Romanticism, Victorian Studies and literature and theology. His fourteen-language, Reader in European Romanticism, (2010) won the Jean-Pierre Barricelli Prize for the best book published in Romantic Studies that year, and his most recent publication is The Edinburgh Companion to the Bible and the Arts (2014).
 

Desert Island Books for Cooks

Our first 2015 meeeting, on 16 January was a very enjoyable and well-attended talk on the literary aspects of cookery books by Sarah Giles, the latest in the long list of speakers introduced by Jonty and Ann Driver. (See post below). Sarah brought with her a number of examples from her treasure trove of books. She finished her presentation with her list of "Desert Island Cookery Books" which she has kindly allowed us to post here:

"1. Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course is top of my list. All the basics are in here – it’s so useful for when you forget the ratio of sugar, flour and butter for a crumble topping, which for some reason I often do, or need reminding of the oven temperature for choux pastry

2. would be Leith's Cookery Bible for pretty much every cookery technique known to man, plus some great recipe ideas for out-of-fashion ingredients like rabbit or beef cheeks.

3. A handwritten recipe book I put together when I was at school in the 5^th form - when I had much neater writing than I do now. I’d want this one with me if only for the most delicious lemon biscuit recipe it has in it. You can tell by all the rather unhygienic food stain on its pages how often this has been used over the years.

 

4. Larousse Gastronomique – apart from being an excellent reference book, this is the go-to book if you’re in the mood for a little foodie entertainment. For example, if you look up the word ‘supper’, it will give you a basic description – ‘a light meal taken in the evening’. It then goes on to describe this history of supper as a concept, including its late-night incarnation in 18C France, where it would include such treats as wild boar kidney, oysters with cream, cakes, tarts, salad - finishing, rather bizarrely, with peas poached with eggs.  And that’s all on one evening, by the way. 

5. My second-hand copy of Mrs Beeton’s Cookery Book. I love the fact that it’s obviously been well used in the past and, even better, that when I bought it a whole host of cuttings and clippings fell out of it including a newspaper cutting referring to a recipe for what’s described only as ‘A Good Cake And Easy To Make’. The letter writer states this is  ‘much loved by the Navy’. 

6. Next on my list would be a slim little booklet which was produced by my friend and former editor of Good Food magazine, Orlando Murrin, when he was running a wonderful boutique B&B near Toulouse in France. The food there – all of which was cooked by Orlando himself – was wonderful and he was asked for recipes so often that he put together a series of these little books for guests. I love the descriptions that go with each recipe, including  one for what he describes as ‘The best-ever pommes dauphinoise’.

7. Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book: probably the most comprehensive book on vegetables ever written. There’s lots of history in here – Jane tells us, for example, that John Evelyn, whose salad and vinaigrette recipe I read out, used to order cauliflower seed and celery seed form Italy so that he could grow the best new varieties to cook. As someone who grows and cooks their own food, I like the idea that he was poring over seed catalogues in winter ready for spring, in the same way as I do. But as well as the historical facts, it’s also packed with marvellous recipes and clear instructions on the way to prepare everything from artichokes to watercress.

8. Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty would come next on my list. Yotam is a London chef who has become rather a celebrity over the past few years. Every recipe I’ve tried – and I’ve tried a lot of them – has worked beautifully. There are lots of Middle Eastern influences and I can heartily recommend his recipe for fried butterbeans with feta, sorrel and sumac which transforms a rather bland and tasteless bean into something truly wonderful.

9.  A Girl Called Jack by Jack Monroe. She became famous when she was interviewed by a newspaper about trying to feed herself and a small son while living in a tiny, damp flat with absolutely no money – rather than feeling sorry for herself, she decided to see it as a challenge and has come up with some wonderful recipes. You’d never know they were created with a strict budget in mind. Her Keralan Aubergine Curry is to be recommended!

10. And finally -  Levi Roots: Caribbean Food Made Easy. Levi was a successful applicant on the TV show Dragons' Den where people approach a group of millionaire business men and women to get them to invest in their business. Levi’s product was a bottled chilli sauce called Reggae Reggae and it wowed the millionaire panel, not least because he brought a selection of his own homemade Jamaican dishes to try with it. Some of these dishes are recreated here and for me, it brings back wonderful memories of a Jamaican holiday where the food was an unexpected highlight of that lovely Caribbean island."

27 February Meeting: Talk by Richard Thomas on "Sagas"

Richard Thomas spent three years in Iceland as part of a diplomatic career, having earlier studied a very little Old Norse when he was at university. Both experiences contributed to an interest in sagas.

Books for Cooks, talk by Sarah Giles on Friday 16 January, 2015

Sarah Giles is Editor of BBC Easy Cook magazine. Her passion for cooking started with the encouragement of two 'fantastically inspirational' home economics teachers at school and having learnt all the basic, essential recipes and good old-fashioned techniques from them, she went on to cook as a hobby for many years, eventually becoming a finalist on Masterchef in the early years of the show. 

She has an ever-growing collection of cookery books that is, to quote her words, "currently threatening to take over her home".

December Meeting. An Appreciation by Alan McKinna

"On Friday 5 December the society welcomed Denis Moriarty to talk about

the life and works of John Betjeman. This was an inspired choice because 

Moriarty has studied one of our most loved recent Poets Laureate;

clearly he respects the man, not just as a poet but as one who put so much

effort into saving great Victorian architecture.

 An audience of over forty packed the Lower Court Hall to hear Denis take us 

 in less than ninety minutes from Betjeman's birth in Highgate in 1906 to his death in 1984. 

The only child of a cabinet maker, Betjeman had a lonely childhood that was lit up by several

holiday visits to Cornwall. His schooling in Highgate and Oxford led him to

board at Marlborough College before going up to Magdalen College, Oxford. There

he failed a Divinity exam - enjoying the less academic parts of undergraduate

life - and did not complete his degree. That did not prevent him taking a couple

of Prep school teaching posts.

Aged 24 he joined "The Architectural  Review" as assistant editor and a year

later published his first book of poems. Soon afterward he met and married

Penelope Chetwode, daughter of a Field Marshal who disliked his new son-in-law.

Mr Moriarty illustrated this biography with pictures of several of the couple's

homes before they settled in Uffington, Berkshire. There Betjeman wrote more poetry,

commentaries on architecture and began his definitive series of Shell Guides to

the Counties of England; with some of the earliest examples of English

landscape colour photography accompanying Betjeman's text. 

His prolific writing took him to Dublin in 1941 as Press Officer to the British

Representative - later it was said that when the IRA read his poetry he was

saved from assassination as a spy !!  Coming back to England in 1943 he worked

for the Ministry of Information and continued writing for several publications.

John, Penelope and their nine year old daughter, Candida, settled in Wantage in

1951.

Always they would frequently visit Cornwall, where a home in Trebetherick on the

North Coast near Padstow was a place for relaxation, more writing and escape

from the pressures of frequent appearances on the wireless and television. 

"Collected Poems" in 1958 and an autobiography in verse,"Summoned by Bells" in

1960 established his poetic authority, and he continued to make architectural

salvation a vital part of his prodigious output, especially for decaying English

Parish Churches.

He parted from Penelope and for 33 years was accompanied and supported by

Lady Elizabeth Cavendish. He also evidently had a four year relationship with 

Margie Geddes in the 1970s. He was knighted in 1969 and made Poet

Laureate in 1972 but did not welcome the need to write verse to order for

specific Royal or National occasions. The last few years of his life  were spent

more and more in Cornwall with his mobility limited by Parkinson's disease; he

died there aged 77 and is buried in the little church of St. Enodoc in the sand

dunes of Daymer Bay, near his home in Trebetherick.

 Angela Hill, who introduced us to Denis Moriarty, with JB at St Pancras

Denis Moriarty is an accomplished lecturer and tutor in subjects musical and

architectural; he was a director and producer in the Arts and Music sections of

BBC Television for several years - introducing viewers to much-loved programmes

such as a series on ENGLISH TOWNS with Alec Clifton Taylor,

FACE THE MUSIC with Joseph Cooper and Joyce Grenfell and ONE HUNDRED 

GREAT PAINTINGS. His enthusiasm for John Betjeman was infectious, spell-binding

 and eye-catching with his various slides - only surpassed for many of his listeners by his

delivery of several poems."

John Betjeman, a talk by Denis Moriarty. Friday 5 December

Our Subject: JOHN BETJEMAN 1906 – 1984 First and last loves of Architecture

John Betjeman, the Poet Laureate who died in 1984, was one of the best loved public

figures of our time. His poetry, a delight of rhythm, metre and rhyme, had

immediate accessibility and appeal; his Englishness went to the heart of England and

the English. There was nostalgia and melancholy for sure, but also a vibrant good

humour, and a capacity for uproarious laughter and hilarity - at our society, our

institutions, and, above all, ourselves. His first and last loves were architecture -

particularly churches and railway stations, the foibles and frailties of human nature,

landscape and the spirit of place. This lecture, illustrated by slides and generous

references to the prose writing and poetry, is set in the context of his biography; a

north London childhood, holidays in Cornwall, education at Marlborough and Oxford,

early married life in the villages of what was West Berkshire. Later, in London, he

became an architectural writer and was a pioneer in creating an awareness for con-

servation and the preservation of good architecture, John Betjeman sharpened

perceptions and heightened a sense of aesthetic appreciation. He inspired and showed

a public not only where to look at with love, but what to love and look after for the

future.

Selected Bibliography:

John Betjeman: Collected Poems, John Murray, London 2003

                                    First and Last Loves, John Murray, London 1952

                                    Ghastly Good Taste, Anthony Blond, London, 1970

                                    An Oxford University Chest, John Miles, London 1938

                                    Summoned by Bells, John Murray, London, 1960

                                    Letters (2 vol, ed Candida Lycett Green), Methuen, London,1994 & 95

                                    Coming Home, an anthology of prose, Vintage, London, 1998

Bevis Hillier                  John Betjeman, abridged biography, John Murray, London, 2001

Three volume biography: Young Betjeman, 1988; New Fame, New Love, 2002; The Bonus of Laughter, 2009

A N Wilson                  John Betjeman, Hutchinson, London, 2006

                                   

Our Speaker: DENIS MORIARTY (Who kindly provided the above information)

Denis Moriarty is a lecturer and Study Course director who spent most of his earlier working life

as a BBC television producer. He was educated at Reading School, and after national service as an infantry officer in the Royal Berkshire regiment in Germany, read history at St John's College, Oxford. He joined the BBC in 1959, and after a short period in radio and personnel, became a director and producer in television Music and Arts. His programmes included the series on ENGLISH TOWNS with Alec Clifton-Taylor, FACE THE MUSIC with Joseph Cooper and Joyce Grenfell, ONE HUNDRED GREAT PAINTINGS, EDWIN LUTYENS MASTER ARCHITECT, THE TRIUMPH OF THE WEST, and films on Egypt in the CHRONICLE and TIMEWATCH series'

He lectures widely for the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies - NADFAS - visiting many societies in the United Kingdom, on the continent and in Australia; he also addresses meetings of the National Trust, English summer festivals, civic and literary societies, and he has been a tutor at Cambridge University's Extramural Department at Madingley Hall. He has directed study courses at music festivals at home and abroad - Prague, Salzburg, Schwarzenberg (Austria), Vienna and Flnland, and leads architectural and historical tours in England and to France, ltaly, Portugal and the Azores, Spain and Malta, Sri Lanka, north and south India, and east coast America. He has also worked in Egypt, cruises on the Nile, Mexico and Latin America.

Denis Moriarty's prime interests are music - he sang for a number of years in the Philharmonia Chorus - and architecture; he has a special love of England and its churches and enjoys long walks in the countryside. He is a keen opera and theatre-goer, and at university performed in plays and revue with, among others, Dudley Moore, Denis Moriarty is a former Mayor of Henley-on-Thames, and was twice a parliamentary candidate in the two elections of 1974. He lives in central London.

Denis Moriarty edited Alec Clifton-Taylor's papers and architectural notes for a posthumous

publication BUILDINGS OF DELIGHT - Gollancz 1986, who also published his own book Buildings of the Cotswolds in 1989, both reissued as paperbacks in the Building Heritage series 2000. He contributed the article on Alec Clifton-Taylor to the Dictionary of National Biography, OUP 1990.

 Clicking on the link below will tke you to his website

 http://www.denismoriarty.com/