Published in Windlesora 15 (1997)
© WLHG
“Writers in Windsor” by Hester Davenport
Book Review by Raymond South
Writers in Windsor by Hester Davenport was published in November 1995, just too late for review in Windlesora 14. In the twelve months which have elapsed since then there has been time to savour the book in a more leisurely fashion.
The subject is a happy choice. There comes a time when there is almost a superfluity of books about an historic town like Windsor. There are, however, still niches left to explore and Hester Davenport has found one of them. Perhaps someone – why not Hester Davenport herself? – will give us a volume on ‘Tourists at Windsor’ (this offers a prospect of many fascinating avenues of research) or even ‘Windsor and its Historians’. but Hester Davenport has chosen Writers in Windsor and the result is a narrative evocative in its range and delightful to read.
The book may be said to consist of a series of pen portraits set in the context of Windsor. Sometimes the association is with the Castle, sometimes with the town, occasionally with both. A good instance is that of Jonathan Swift. The author quotes Swift’s familiar and vitriolic judgement on the town as ‘scoundrel’. He does not expand on this, but Hester Davenport skilfully makes use of the ample contemporary evidence about the insanitary conditions that prevailed in Windsor not only in Swift’s day but for many years after. Swift made periodic visits to Windsor, where he hung about the fringes of the Court in the hope of church preferment. There are many allusions to these visits in his Journals to Stella, a friend (her real name was Esther Johnson) with whom he corresponded frequently and intimately. Later he had a close relationship with Esther (or Hester) Vanhomrigh, who we know as Vanessa.
It is his Journals to Stella, however, that give us such vivid insight into Swift’s life at Windsor: is lodgings in the Castle where, despite the shortcomings of his Irish servant Patrick, he enjoyed ‘a fine view of Eton and the Thames’; his portrait of Queen Ann, lethargic, fat and dull except when her love of horses and hunting drove her into unusual activity. She had a special one-horse hunting chariot. ‘She drives furiously, like Jehu’ wrote Swift,’ and is a mighty hunter, like Nimrod’.
A special place is reserved for Margaret Oliphant, the prolific Victorian novelist, who with her thirty years residence in Clarence Crescent has more claim to the title of Windsorian that most others in the book. Charles Knight had deeper roots in Windsor; he was born and bred and
played a notable part in its public life. He lived away from Windsor, however, for most of his adult life, finally returning for burial. The portraits of Mrs Oliphant and Charles Knight are among the most satisfying in the book.
Swift, Mrs Oliphant and Charles Knight are three among many. What Hester Davenport achieves is a whole portrait gallery – Chaucer as Clerk of the King’s Works; James I of Scotland penning his love poems while a prisoner in the Castle; Shakespeare delighting Queen Elizabeth with his presentation of ‘Falstaff in love’ in The Merry Wives of Windsor. From Shakespeare the promenade through Windsor’s literary history takes us up to the twentieth century, where I found H G Wells’ associations with the town fascinating.
If I have any criticism, it is that the canvas is sometimes too overcrowded. The author is perhaps too anxious to be as comprehensive as possible. The connection of some of the writers with Windsor is tenuous. She does, however, generally make out a case for their inclusion. I am not sure that the story of Charles Dickens’ clandestine love affair with a lady at Slough is strictly relevant. But it is a good story. Moreover, some like Osbert Sitwell, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell in the final chapter are Etonians rather than Windsorians.
And there is Queen Victoria, with her Leaves from a Highland Diary. Victoria was a writer, but what kind of a writer? Disraeli addressed the Queen with his ‘We authors ma’am’. Disraeli with typical cynicism knew the value of flattery and that, where royalty was involved, it needed to be laid on ‘with a trowel’.
Some may find the absence of an index a drawback, but only a full (and lengthy) index would have been satisfying and I for one am prepared to do without it. The author does, however, include a bibliography – it is a further piece of evidence of the range of reading behind every page of her narrative.
Last but not least, the book is graced by delightful illustrations, for which Michael Bayley and the author’s daughter, Olivia, share the credit. They add further charm to a book which is replete with good reading, pleasantly printed and produced, and yet available at a moderate price.
Published by Cell Mead Press 1995, 148pp, £4.99
ISBN 09526678 0 0
“In Search of Herne the Hunter” by Eric Fitch
Book Review by Hester Davenport
In Tintagel in Cornwall you can buy yourself a plastic Excalibur and then have a cuppa at the King Arthur tea-rooms, while in Nottingham, Robin Hood and his Merry Men adorn tea-towels and T-shirts: perhaps it is time that Windsor started exploiting its own legendary figure, Herne the Hunter.
Eric L Fitch, whose In Search of Herne the Hunter seeks to unravel the “web of connectedness” which links Herne with other British and world mythologies, discovers points of contact between the Herne legend and those of Arthur and Robin Hood. Unfortunately for would-be entrepreneurs however, Herne is no benevolent hero but a terrifying ghost, half man, half horn-clad beast, who in the tradition of similar continental figures is leader of a wild and grotesque hunting pack. He is to be avoided: if on a dark and lonely night your blood curdles at the sound of ferocious yelling and hounds in full cry, best stop your ears and shut your eyes.
Certainly don’t pick up any stray hunting horns and blow a blast, or like the “teddy-boy” of 1962 whose tale is told by Fitch, it may be the last thing you ever do. It might be worth remembering to take a large handkerchief with you on walks, since standing on a white cloth will apparently keep Herne and his kind at bay. Alternatively you can ask him for some parsley or salt, which will equally drive him away.
Legends and folklore, however far-fetched and irrational, are a fascinating study, putting us in touch with an ancestral past beyond the reach of recorded history. Fitch is an enthusiast for his subject, and he has gathered together a super-abundance of material in this book. After recounting the legend of Herne, each chapter explores one of its aspects – his oak tree, the antlers he wears, the wild hunt, and so on – searching for origins and possible parallels in our own and other folk-lores. Fitch justifies his statement that “British folklore is especially rich, inheriting aspects from the various ‘invaders’ of these isles the Celts, Romans, Saxons, Vikings and Normans”. Beyond these peoples Fitch casts his net into the world-wide pool of folk art and tales, revealing the many similarities between what would seem to be diverse cultures.
There is much therefore in this book to intrigue the general reader. However, the all-inclusiveness creates problems, and there might have been some judicious editing out of material which is not strictly relevant. The chapters could be better organised too: each becomes something of a wild hunt in itself, darting from culture to culture and backwards and forwards in time.
One has to have other reservations about this book. In his initial retelling of the Herne legend Fitch draws not on some antiquary’s researches but on fiction: Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Harrison Ainsworth’s 1843 historical romance set in the reign of King
Henry VIII, Windsor Castle. Shakespeare’s account of a one-time keeper in the Forest who “Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,/ Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns“, is the first written reference to Herne, and most commentators accept it as evidence of what the legend was in Windsor in the late sixteenth century. But since Ainsworth’s recounting of factual history is fanciful, it seems unwise to be so reliant on him for Herne’s origins.
Fitch is not completely reliable on history himself : Henry IV, for example, died in his bed and was not murdered. If I cannot trust him on matters that I know about, how can I trust him where I know nothing? Discussing folk-lore presents particular problems of course: since the subject is dependent on hearsay and rumour it is easy to blur the edges between fact and fantasy. Thus Fitch recognises the contentiousness of “ley-lines”, yet continues as if their existence were proven.
But the most serious criticism of In Search of Herne the Hunter must be its lack of scholarly citation. A comparison with Michael John Petry’s Herne the Hunter: a Berkshire Legend (1972), which covers much the same ground, shows the difference: every story, every comparison, is foot-noted, so that the reader knows where it comes from. That “teddy-boy” story for instance: one reads it in amazement and wants to know more. Where did it originate? Was there a mystery death in 1962? Did it get into the newspapers? From Fitch one learns nothing of its provenance, but the same tale in Petry is referenced (and proves to be more vaguely dated). True Fitch does have a substantial bibliography (which includes Petry’s book), and he does often in the text reveal the name of the writer from whom a story or theory emanates, but clear referencing of all material would hugely have increased this new book’s status. There is much in it to interest and entertain, but as a study of the legend of Herne it cannot be said to supersede the earlier one.
Published by Capell Bann Publishing 1994, 165pp, £9.95
“A History of Berkshire” by Judith Hunter
Book Review by Sheila Rooney
Judith Hunter’s latest book covers the history of Berkshire from the earliest times. The first chapter, entitled “Man and the Natural Landscape” begins the story of the county in the Jurassic period and emphasises the importance of the rivers Kennet and Thames in the shaping of the county. A useful time chart on page 21 will help those readers who are unfamiliar with palaeontology to understand the changes which lead to the Iron Age.
Berkshire’s importance lay in its proximity to London and that city’s need for trade and food for its burgeoning population. Acting as a corridor for a route to the west country, Berkshire and its rivers were crucial communications routes. From medieval times the Bath road was one of England’s great highways as it linked London with Bristol. In more modern times its importance increased with the coming of the railways and the building of the M4. There has been a Royal residence in the area since Saxon times, when the King and his court found Windsor Forest an attractive hunting ground, hence the title of Royal County of Berkshire, an honour confirmed in 1957.
Dr Hunter’s two years of research and much hard work, have produced an excellent book where the very readable text has plenty of illustrations to elucidate a fascinating history.
Published by Philimore 1995, Casebound, £14.95, 144pp, ISBN 0 85033 729 1
“FJ Camm – The Practical Man 1895-1959” by Gordon Cullingham
Book Review by Pamela Marson
FJ Camm was the younger brother of Sir Sidney Camm, designer of the Hurricane aeroplane, and he had been rather overlooked until Gordon Cullingham took an interest in him. An exhibition was staged at Windsor Heritage Centre by the Royal Borough Collection for which Mr Cullingham did the research, and this book was produced in association with that exhibition. It begins with a brief history of the whole family in their little terrace house in Windsor and their association with Windsor Model Aero Club.
FJ worked for George Newnes the publisher and was the pioneering editor of no less that seven of the “Practical” magazines. These were affectionately known as “Camm’s Comics”. He wrote many of the articles in the magazines, mostly under pseudonyms, and edited 117 books.
One cannot help but be impressed at the quantity and range of the work he produced. Most of his subject matter was highly technical – wireless, motoring, aircraft, television, radar and other engineering topics though Practical Money Maker was one of his titles. However, he did not just write about engineering, he designed and made model aircraft, engines and a cycle car that eventually was manufactured and sold to the public. The “Cambro” cost just £20 and full details are in the book. FJ also knew many of the pioneers of flight and modern engineering.
The book is extensively illustrated with facsimilies of his drawings and pages from his magazines and is a fine tribute to an amazing man.
104pp, £7.50 + £2 post and packing from the author 54 Alma Road, Windsor SL4 3HA.
Windsor Local History Group 