Jolly Hockey Sticks

students in training at the Bergman Osterberg Physical Training College

We have never been fond of organised games. Well, if the truth is to be told, with the notable exceptions of board games, Mah Jong and playing cards, we do not participate in games at all. Not for us the hockey field, rugby pitch, or even watching from the sidelines, and never have we attended Wimbledon, Wembley or White City. And, in the summer of 2012 we shall most definitely not be found in the Capital.

a game of Netball in progress

But for Sheila, our friend and Brighton neighbour, physical activity has, and continues to be, central to her life. She embodies the positive effects of an active lifestyle. Straight of back, sure of foot, slight of build and looking far more youthful than her years, she is an exemplary outcome of a physical education regime which, in its day, led the field.

Kingsfield, Kent, where Madame Osterberg established her College

From 1949 - 1952 Sheila studied at Dartford College in Kent, previously the Bergman Osterberg Physical Training College established in 1885 as the first Physical Education College in the United Kingdom, by the redoubtable Swede, Martina Bergman Osterberg. Kingsfield, a handsome country house sitting in 14 acres of Kent countryside, was the base for the College. There Madame Osterberg converted the ballroom into a gymnasium, where the principles of Swedish gymnastics could be taught, and from the surrounding fields courts were created for the playing of Netball, an Osterberg invention following her travels to America and her observation of Basketball games.

Madame Osterberg's aim was to provide professional opportunities for women in Physical Education and, some sixty years on, her legacy was still firmly in place when Sheila attended the College. Gymslips [an invention of one of Madame's students] were the uniform of the day, discipline was strict and sporting excellence was the goal. But, above all, the creation of a strong mind in harmony with a healthy body was an overriding tenet.

students forming a human pyramid

Throughout her own career Sheila put these enlightened ideas to good use, first in schools and then in the training of other teachers at Roehampton. And now, as she looks out to sea from her Brighton apartment, we are sure that she remembers with great fondness her days of hockey on the sandy beaches of Weston-super-Mare.

A Taste of Brighton

Caroline at work in 'Artisan' in Kemp Town, Brighton [click to enlarge all images]

We do not believe that, by any stretch of the imagination, we can be considered practical. Even in our otherwise reasonably distinguished schooldays, whilst others presented their proud parents with sausage plaits, tapestries and even wooden spice racks, neither of us succeeded in producing anything remotely edible, beautiful or useful. And unashamed as we were, and are, of our later gardening achievements, we were always happiest when dreaming up ideas for others to turn into a reality. It is, therefore, no wonder that we hold the greatest respect for those individuals who are masters or mistresses of their crafts.

All of which takes us to our favourite Brighton delicatessen and coffee house, 'Artisan', a shrine to the delectable, the delicious and, importantly for us, the handmade.

a variety of coffees, teas and sandwiches advertised on the board

Here hand roasted Lazy José coffee is skilfully transformed into Lattés, Espressos, frothy Capuccinos and the 'on-trend' Flat Whites. Plump olives and sun dried tomatoes tempt in large white bowls, quality oils and vinegars are decanted to order and handcrafted loaves of sour dough, rye and wholegrain are delivered daily from a family bakery in Hove. Award winning cheeses, slow roasted hams, spicy salamis and hand raised pies are testament to the knowledge that this is a shop which takes its food seriously.

some of the local and Continental cheeses available from 'Artisan'

And from our favourite table in the window we consider how the 'Artisan' customers are every bit as individual and interesting as the delicacies which are on offer: a former pianist to the youthful Ivor Novello, a local food critic, artists, musicians, students, television personalities [or so we are told], and a ninety-two year old, retired civil servant who, accompanied by her dog, Bunty, hates cooking!

the open door acts as an invitation to passers-by

For, although only in its first year of trading, former banking executive Simon and established painter Stephen, have, together with manager, David, within a very few months established 'Artisan' not only as a superb delicatessen and coffee house, but a meeting place for the wealth of creative talent for which Brighton is so well known. We are lucky, as we despair over our knitting needles, to count them as our friends.

An Aesthete in Albemarle Street

letters from Graham Sutherland to Andrew Révai [click to enlarge all images]

If in the 1960s London was said to be swinging, then Andrew Révai, or The Doctor as we referred to him, was to have none of it. With a calm, if forbidding, authority he presided over an empire which bore more resemblance to a gentleman's club than ever it did to a highly successful art publishing house.

Albemarle Street. The Pallas Gallery was situated at 28b [below Garrard]

The Pallas Gallery at that time occupied the second floor of a house in Albemarle Street in the heart of London's Mayfair. Affiliated in some unspecified way to The New York Graphic Society, it was the brainchild of Andrew [or András, for he was a Hungarian emigrant] Révai and his partner Robin Chancellor. As the Bright Young Things of our day we danced in decorative attendance, mere Pucks before Oberon, whilst the great and the good of the contemporary art world glided in and out of those closely carpeted, eighteenth century rooms.

Jean Dufy: Le Bois de Boulogne. Works by this artist hung in Albemarle Street

They were all there: Hitchens, Moore, Nicholson, Piper and Sutherland, their work joining that of Dufy, Eisenmayer, Kokoschka, Soutine and Vlaminck, paintings propped, paintings positioned, but paintings rarely hung. And we, the callow youth of the day, so much more interested in the occasional appearance of Daniel Carroll, famous then as Danny La Rue, who, in pursuit of one of our number, Jimmy, would emerge from the lift flourishing bunches of beautiful flowers.

Graham Sutherland, at the time having completed work on the tapestry for the new Coventry Cathedral, was the most frequent visitor, no doubt on account of the publication of 'Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph. The Genesis of the Great Tapestry in Coventry Cathedral', a dialogue between Andrew Révai and the artist himself.

Christ in Glory - the Graham Sutherland tapestry in Coventry Cathedral

But all of that is now a long time ago. The play is over and we, the shadows on the wall, are since dispersed. Or so we thought. Yet as recently as a year or two back, through a mutual friend, Robin Chancellor invited us to see the daffodils in the park at Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire where he continued to live in the handsome Inigo Jones pavilions which he, and Andrew Révai, had so lovingly restored some fifty years before.

Inigo Jones pavilion at Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire

What is left now are the memories. Memories revived yet again earlier this year when Bonham's put up for auction a collection of letters, a correspondence between Sutherland and Révai. Such a strange, small world!



N.B. Whilst we shall remain in touch with our Followers and friends over the coming week, travel through Europe may delay the timing of our next post. 

Top Banana!!

the British Leyland MGB GT V8 in 'Harvest Gold'. Click to enlarge all images

We once owned an MGB GT V8. It was long, low, corn yellow and fast.  In those heady days, when we were in our thirties, it mattered not that to alight from this car one needed to roll out onto the pavement, nor did it then concern us that the boot ['trunk' to our valued American readers] held only a vanity case and then was full. Those were the times when we were supple enough to cope with such manoeuvres and when the erratic availability of 5* petrol, combined with limited luggage space, did nothing to discourage forays into the remoter counties of England and Wales. We loved that motor car with a passion which subsequent vehicles of convenience never managed to equal.

the bonnet lifted to reveal a V8 engine designed to run on 5* petrol

And we are reminded of our golden speed machine as the Magyar Nagydij [Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix] circus rolls into town. This weekend an international crowd of drivers, mechanics, bodyguards, press officers, WAGs, groupies and aficionados will gather at the Hungaroring at Magyoród near to Budapest. All in the name of crowning the 2011 Hungarian King of Speed. 

The Hungaroring has been the site for this annual contest since 1986 when Bernie Ecclestone historically negotiated a slot in the F1 calendar for Hungary, a country at that time behind the Iron Curtain. And so it remains to this day the only country in Eastern Europe represented in Formula One Grand Prix Racing.

a highlight of the 2010 Hungarian Grand Prix at Magyoród near Budapest

The track is the slowest, the twistiest and the driest of all those in the F1 series and has earned itself the dubious reputation of a 'procession race' as it is, apparently, so very difficult for drivers to find opportunities to pass.

This year's race will be the centenary for the 2.4 litre V8 engine, compulsory since 2006.

the tailgate of the MGB GT V8 motor car

So when in a day or so those gleaming, low slung , metal bullets on wheels roar round the tight bends, as they will, then we shall raise a glass and drink a champagne toast to our own erstwhile days of burning rubber!

Bland by Name but Not by Nature

Mary had a very distinctive way of talking. She extended her vowels, drawing them out almost to the point of a drawl, and prefacing most of her sentences with, 'Oh'. As a result, she would often address us with, 'Oh, Lahhhnce, oh, Jayyyne......'. We delighted in it, as she delighted in life.

the Book Committee of Faber & Faber 1944 with T.S. Eliot on extreme left

Although she died almost exactly four years ago, and we miss her dreadfully, we feel most fortunate to have counted her amongst our closest friends. Originally secretary to T.S. Eliot, the Anglicised American poet and playwright, most famous for 'The Waste Land' and 'Murder in the Cathedral', Mary had married David Bland, a director of the publishing house, Faber & Faber, who, at the time, was its commissioning Art Editor. So it was that Mary moved in the most literary of circles, including among her friends poets, such as John Betjeman and Anne Ridler, and the painter John Piper whose work hung in her home.

Following the early death of David, Mary established a successful business selling second hand gardening books from a shop in Mortlake Terrace, on Kew Green, London. The shop continues to this day.

stockpiles of second hand gardening books

 From there she entered the milieu of the gardening cognoscenti, for years taking a stand at the Chelsea Flower Show for the sale of her antique and rare gardening books. Often we would join her for a preview of the show on Press Day before its opening to the public.

Later she gave up Chelsea, critical of the designers who, latterly, with notable exceptions, she viewed as untalented, and the awards handed out for mediocrity, as well as the growing presence of non gardeners obsessed with celebrity status. All of which, regrettably, remains unchanged. But Mary never spoke with rancour. And in all the many years of our friendship only once did she proffer advice against the developing acquaintanceship with a young person who, uncharacteristically, she regarded as devious.

at a party we held in Budapest shortly before Mary's death. Seated centre Mary Bland. Clockwise Alan Harding, Joan Griffith [hidden] Werner Guttmann, Jane Hattatt, Natasha Guttmann

But it is through Mary's deep knowledge of gardening and her love of books related to that subject that we have, over time, built up our own gardening library, concentrating mainly on first editions dating from the late nineteenth century up to the present day.

a bookcase containg a selection of our gardening books

Today Mary's remarkable and informative catalogues, stemming from the mail order business of her later, retirement years, no longer, alas, drop through the letter box. They, but much more so she, are truly and sadly missed.

Of Palaces, Prizes and Pulmonary Diseases

the garden front of the Esterhazy Kastély, Csákvár, Fejér Megye, Hungary

Now this is on the very best authority. Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, the British born actress who, as Julie Andrews, achieved a considerable international reputation for her role in the film version of 'The Sound of Music' once remarked, "I don't do country.".

Yesterday we 'did' country. After an early start, when we were collected from home by friends Zoli and Viktor in their gleaming, and immaculate, motor car, we set off into some of Hungary's most picturesque, and remote, countryside rather in the manner of a latter day Dr. David Livingstone.

entrance barrier and guard house to the Esterhazy Kastély, Csákvár

Imagine the excitement early on in the day when we chanced upon the former Esterhazy Kastély, concealed from public scrutiny, the entrance barred by military style barriers, a Baroque mansion of 1781 right in the heart of the village of Csákvár. A friendly word with the security guard, and we were in.

the entrance front of the former Esterhazy Kastély, Csákvár, Fejér Megye

interior views of the former Esterhazy Kastély now a State owned sanatorium

Such magnificence! Confiscated by the State, this splendid palace, with its extensive English style parkland, is now run as a sanatorium for the treatment of pulmonary disease and has, as a consequence, seen somewhat better days. But much remains. Not least some fine, if incongruous, statuary, a massive stone grotto serving as a look-out, and some wonderful, largely intact, ironwork.



grotto, parkland with statue and seated patient, and door to women's cloakroom



Best of all, a private chapel, of the period, sadly locked, but currently in use as a store for books and patients' case files.

exterior views of the chapel with seated patients in designated smoking area!

But this is all by the by. For this perfect day, in which we 'took in' a ruined castle, the stylish lakeside town of Balatonfúred, with drinks in the Yacht Club, and a second palace, ended with the most thrilling of news. For upon opening our email messages late last night, we discovered to our great surprise and joy that we had won a giveaway, a prize of [and could anything be more appropriate?]  a most attractive and immensely practical Field Bag and Field Notebook, ideal for 'doing' the country.

For anyone who loves 'Home', 'History' and 'Nature', then Country Weekend is the blog to follow. Jen's posts are always a delight to read, whether she is describing a summer's walk, a vintage find, a recently read novel, life in her lovely store, or giving us a glimpse of an art work, a step into the past, or simply reflecting on today and what tomorrow may bring. Whatever her subject, she writes with both feeling and a quiet authority, never failing to engage her audience.

As for the Field Bag, just as soon as it arrives, we shall be heading straight for the outdoors!

The King That Never Was

view towatds Lake Balaton from St. George's Hill, Tapolca Basin, Hungary

For some, the death early last week of Otto Habsburg-Lothringen, eldest son of the last Emperor of Austria, and so by default the last King of Hungary, marks the final closing of a chapter. To others, and here we should include our Hungarian friends Zoli and Viktor who merrily lunched with us on Saturday, the demise of this nonagenarian in exile in Germany largely went unnoticed.

Although, as has been suggested, his heart is to be buried in Hungary, it is very unlikely that the chosen spot will be this wonderful Baroque church which sits in splendid near isolation on a hill of the same name high above the Lake Balaton in the Tapolca Basin.

the Church of St. George situated on St. George's Hill overlooking Lake Balaton

detail of the Church of St. George showing the Saint [top, centre niche]

But there is a connection, albeit remote, for this, and the adjacent house of the wine maker, shabby chic surely at its best, both share the now faded colour wash, Habsburg Yellow, which takes its name, and hue, from the original Habsburg flag of 1686.

house of a wine maker on St. George's Hill showing entrance to wine cellar

detail of the entrance to the cellar of the house of the wine maker

And whilst the Austro-Hungarian Empire might be no more, lonely settlements such as this continue to delight the occasional traveller whose fortune it is to pass this way. As, indeed, it was ours during our recent, and most memorable weekend, spent with the Kondors at their home in nearby Kapolcs.

a general view showing vines, woods and farmland in the region of Lake Balaton

For this is a land which time has almost forgotten and where traditions, centuries old, of a life determined by the seasons and the soil persists.

the National colours adorn a post set among the vineyards of Hungary

Kings may come, and kings may go, emperors too, but just for now, and for this we are grateful, this most lovely piece of our adopted land remains true to itself.