The photo now heading my blog was taken by my brother, Sir Hugh, as I sat on the Bowder Stone a boulder the size of two-storey house adjacent to Buttermere in the Lake District. Detached from the human subject I find the photo sweetly composed. It has also profited from judicious cropping.
I'm pleased with the result. An "honest" portrait, I tell myself, given the well-defined turkey wattles, the leathery cheeks, the way the glasses partially obscure the eyes, and the slight sacklessness of my open mouth. The shirt - an old favourite - helps. Not pretty, not over-dignified but in no way a cliché. A man with a history slightly more interesting than the one I have actually endured.
(Top pic) Once, when I was much younger, I jumped naked from this bridge, a drop of about fifteen feet into the mercifully deep river below.
(Middle pic) The misty skyline here is that of the Sellafield spent nuclear fuel plant on the Lake District coast.
(Lower pic) Dead centre in this interaction of contours is Great Gable. A mountain.
You look as though you are on the point of saying something, which is appropriate for a photo heading a blog. What words should be introduced into an imaginary balloon leading to the "the slight sacklessnes of your open mouth?" I wouldn't dare...But I like to think that it would be something like Alan Bennett's observation: "If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means."
ReplyDeleteYou were singing, obviously. That's a deep bass note coming from your throat and floating off into the hills.
ReplyDeleteJoe: I was probably bossing Sir Hugh about regarding the taking of the photograph. Thank goodness he ignored me; I am truly impressed by the way he composed this pic.
ReplyDeleteNatalie: Would that it were true. Here's a sonnet which mourns yet another of the changes wrought by adolescence - you need only read the final couplet.
Sonnet – Wednesday night practice
The darkened nave entailed a womb of light
Gilding our boyish group. Standing, we sang
The Nunc Dimittis, Angels ever bright,
Stainer – all proof our aims were Anglican.
The words were null, my job to recreate
The notes with an unthinking treble voice.
I soared the heights towards the perfect state
Where notes become a licence to rejoice.
Fatigued by descants, holding volume low,
I left betimes starved like a refugee,
Ate Marmite toast then turned my face from woe
Dispensing with the evening’s ecstasy.
Oh wasteful child who lost that gift along the way
And deeded me this false reed in decay.
Sad but lovely sonnet. Your pre-teen voice must have been truly memorable.
ReplyDeleteRhyming 'sang' and 'Anglican': I like it!