Clare on Radio 4

[Clare's Cottage in Helpston]

This morning at 7:20ish Paul Chirico was interviewed about the Epping to Helpston walk starting today, cluminating in the opening of Clare's Cottage. Here is the programme running order extract:
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The Cambridgeshire cottage where 19th century poet John Clare lived is to open to the public. Members of the John Clare Trust are retracing an 80 mile walk to the cottage, that the poet once made, to celebrate the opening. Dr Paul Chirico, senior tutor at Fitzwilliman College Cambridge, discusses why the cottage is being turned into a centre dedicated to environmental education.

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Here is John Clare on the same walk in 1841

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I've wandered many a weary mile
Love in my heart was burning
To seek a home in Mary[s] smile
But cold is loves returning
The cold ground was a feather bed
Truth never acts contrary
I had no home above my head
My home was love & Mary

I had no home in early youth
When my first love was thwarted
But if her heart still beats with truth
We'll never more be parted
& changing as her love may be
My own shall never vary
Nor night nor day I'm never free
But sigh for abscent Mary

Nor night nor day nor sun nor shade
Week month nor rolling year
Repairs the breach wronged love hath made
There madness—misery here
Lifes lease was lengthened by her smiles
—Are truth & love contrary
No ray of hope my life beguiles
I've lost love home & Mary

Helpstone (lines 1-10, 30-40)

In the week of the 2009 John Clare Festival at Helpston (see below), a short extract from Clare's poem 'Helpstone' - above a photo of the Clare monument in the centre of the village.

Hail, humble Helpstone! where thy valleys spread,
And thy mean village lifts its lowly head;
Unknown to grandeur, and unknown to fame;
No minstrel boasting to advance thy name:
Unletter’d spot! unheard in poets’ song;
Where bustling Labour drives the hours along;
Where dawning Genius never met the day;
Where useless Ignorance slumbers life away;
Unknown nor heeded, where, low Genius tries
Above the vulgar, and the vain, to rise.

Hail, scenes obscure! so near and dear to me,
The church, the brook, the cottage, and the tree:
Still shall obscurity rehearse the song,
And hum your beauties as I stroll along.
Dear, native spot! which length of time endears;
The sweet retreat of twenty lingering years,
And, oh! those years of infancy the scene;
Those dear delights, where once they all have been;
Those golden days, long vanish’d from the plain;
Those sports, those pastimes, now belov’d in vain.

Festival 2009

7:00pm - 11th July 2009 - John Clare Festival (Helpston)

The landscape holds the memory of everyone who has ever trodden it… all we have to do is listen. In this programme of story, music, poetry and song Chris Wood and Hugh Lupton put their ears to the ground and tell the story of John Clare. It is a performance that explores the porous boundaries between language and place, madness and exile, love and loss.

Hugh is a master wordsmith, Chris is the leading folk musician of his generation, together they weave a beguiling magic.

“Sheer wizardry in the guise of utter simplicity…a packed house sat in a thrall of enchantment, no movement, no intrusive sounds… Hugh Lupton is joined by singer/fiddler Chris Wood, whose style is timeless and beguiling, his songs wonderfully evocative.”
Eastern Daily Press

“It's rare to hear work as powerful as Chris Wood and Hugh Lupton's. With beautifully sculpted prose and carefully honed music they seduce the minds of those who listen, skilfully drawing on the past to make sense of the present... This is welcome nourishment for those who like to think for themselves"
Verity Sharpe (Late Junction & The Culture Show)

“…. The images that billowed and faded in that darkened auditorium were quite different from those that unspool across a screen. I could put my hands in front of my face and the pictures would not vanish. They were inside me. They belonged to me. They were part of the history of the whole of human life.”
The Times

This is a programme that sings of the unsung and remembers the forgotten histories of the soil. Hugh & Chris are the winners of BBC Folk Award for Best Original Song 2006 for ‘One in a Million’.

John Clare Festival 2009

Not too long to this year's John Clare festival at his birthplace in Helpston. 10th - 12th July the weekend is packed with events.

2009 marks the 200th anniversary of the Helpston Enclosure Act, therefore 'Enclosure' will feature in much of the programme.

FRIDAY 10th

1.30pm at Helpston Parish Church

The Midsummer Cushion Ceremony. The pupils of the John Clare Primary School, Helpston bring the cushions of flowers to place around the grave of John Clare. The pupils’ prize winning poems are read, followed by a song and prayers.
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6pm – a guided walk around Helpston.
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6.30 pm – a guided walk around Maxey Pitts

An opportunity to experience this wonderful, brand new wetland reserve being created between Maxey and Etton. Meet outside the old Post Office at 6.15 pm. Transport provided.

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8pm Folk music in the Barn at the Exeter Arms.

SATURDAY 11th

From 9.30am – coffee in the Botolph’s Barn – behind the church!

10:00am Festival opens in the school hall

Stalls include the John Clare Society sales, booksellers, local tourist offices and exhibitions.
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Book for the Coach Tour and the evening performance of ‘Common Ground’ with the poet and story teller Hugh Lupton and the talented musician Chris Woods

10.30am (Marquee)

Welcome and Introduction to the Festival from the Chair of the Society. The Annual Meeting of the Society.

11.15am (Marquee)

President’s address by Ronald Blythe.

12noon – 1:00pm and 1.30pm – 2.30pm

Poetry Workshops in the school for children aged 6 -12 years led by Keely Mills – teacher and Poet Laureate of Peterborough.

Lunches in the Village Hall: John Clare Cottage open, Botolph’s Barn open: Morris Dancers and the Peterborough Folk Dance Society perform.

2:00pm (Marquee)

'Who Hung the Moles?', the story of enclosure – an illustrated talk with poetry readings by Richard Keymer and Richard Astle, from the Langdyke Countryside Trust.

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3:00pm Coach outing

To Glinton where Clare went to school and Mary Joyce is buried. There will be a short village walk, poetry and song and teas in the church.

3:00pm Guided walks round Helpston - meet at the Butter Cross

3.15pm – 4pm In the church

Read your favourite poem.

Teas in the Village Hall

5.30pm

In the church another chance to your favourite Clare poem

7:00pm (Marquee)

‘Common Ground’ [Not to be missed]!
With story teller and poet Hugh Lupton
And the renowned musician Chris Woods

Tickets (£10 and £8 concess.) are available in the school hall or from Stamford and Peterborough Tourist Offices.

Later the Northamptonshire folk group Ock 'n Dough play in the Blue Bell.

SUNDAY 12th
11:00am Family service in St. Botolph’s Church

Celebrating Clare led by Vic-Chair of the Society Revd. Ron Ingamells.

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HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE...

Footpaths (final) - from Footpaths

Theres somthing rich & joyful to the mind
To view through close & field those crooked shreds
Of footpaths that most picturesqly wind
From town to town or some tree hidden sheds
Where lonely cottager lifes peace enjoys
Far far from strife & all its troubled noise
The pent up artizan by pleasure led
Along their winding ways right glad employs
His sabbath leisure in the freshening air
The grass the trees the sunny sloping sky
From his weeks prison gives delicious fare
But still he passes almost vacant bye
The many charms that poesy finds to please
Along the little footpaths such as these

Now tracking fields where passenger appears
As wading to his waist in crowding grain
Where ever as we pass the bending ears
Pat at our sides & gain their place again
Then crooked stile with little steps that aids
The climbing meets us—& the pleasant grass
& hedgrows old with arbours ready made
For weariness to rest in pleasant shades
Surround us & with extacy we pass
Wild flowers & insect tribes that ever mate
With joy & dance from every step we take
In numberless confusion—all employ
Their little aims for peace & pleasures sake
& every summers footpath leads to joy

Footpaths - from 'Out of Door Pleasures'

The day is all round me the woods and the fields
And sweet is the singing their birds music yields
The waterfall music, there's none such at home
It spreads like a sheet, and then falls into foam
The meadows are mown, what a beautiful hue
There is in green closes as I wander through
A green of all colours, yellow, brown and dark grey
While the footpaths all darkly goes winding away
Creeping onto a foot-brig that crosses a brook
Or a gate, or a stile, and how rustic they look
Some leaning so much that the maidens will go
Lower down with their buckets, and try to creep through
There is nothing more sweet in the fields and the sun
Than those dear little footpaths that o'er the fields run

Footpaths - from 'The Wheat Ripening'

[Image from Simona Cola in Italy]

What time the wheat field tinges rusty brown
& barley bleaches in its mellow grey
Tis sweet some smooth mown baulk to wander down
Or cross the fields on footpaths narrow way
Just in the mealy light of waking day
As glittering dewdrops moise the maidens gown
& sparkling bounces from her nimble feet
Journeying to milking from the neighbouring town
Making life light with song—& it is sweet
To mark the grazing herds & list the clown
Urge on his ploughing team with cheering calls
& merry shepherds whistling toils begun
& hoarse tongued birdboy whose unceasing calls
Join the larks ditty to the rising sun