Chipping Campden, Carversville and an American Cry for Help
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Note from Anne: I wrote this reverie in May, 2008, when Anne of Carversville was still a baby not quite sure what she would be when she grew up.
Writing now about Kate Moss photographed wearing no makeup at her house in the Cotswolds and her friend Stella McCartney last week, at her Cotswolds house nearby, I went searching for this piece that I wrote about Fleecydale Road in Bucks County and my first trip to England.
Some of my worst concerns have come true regarding the global economy and America’s in particular. Yes, we may recover but we are now essentially a two-class society of rich and moderately well-off people and poor ones. Our middle class is gone and we are all learning to make do.
The British are experts at ‘making do’, recycling and a host of progressive sustainability intiatives that keep them close to the land. I do believe they — like the French — have something to teach us about the next chapter of American life.
Yes, the luxury market is back in full swing. The bonuses on Wall Street will set all-time records, according to press reports. But that’s only one part of our American story. These reflections are for the rest of us.
Originally written on May 8, 2008
Each time I drive down Carversville’s Fleecydale Road, I think of Chipping Campden, in the English Cotswolds. I speak often of my sailing trip to Ithaca, in the Ionian Sea. In fact, on that same May trip, I spent a week in England, touring the English Countryside.
My attachment to Carversville is surely inspired by my memories of the English landscape and an entire week when not one drop of rain fell on my head. Decades later, I can vividly recall my English experience, enhanced now by Helen Mirren’s fantastic portayal of Elizabeth II in “The Queen”.
Flowers and nature are a long-time passion of mine, and I marvelled at the sight of so many beautiful gardens in a single ride through the English countryside. Roaming through Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire, I was mesmerized by fields of vibrant rape, captured here by Flickr photographer algo:
Today, I read that an estimated 600,000 hectares of land are covered in rape, with production expected to top two million tons this year.
Wisdom With Aging
I’m partial to my babyfaced Babydoll sheep on Cuttalossa Road in Bucks County, but I admit that these Cotswold sheep have their own charm. Besides being living proof that even sheep can have a bad hair day, this breed possesses a kind of inbred, centuries-old wisdom.
Enjoy Bad “Wolf’s” Cotswold’s Farm Park photos
I cannot adequately convey the atmosphere of historical continuity in Chippping Campden, the most memorable stop on our May tour. Nearly every house is made out of the Cotswold’s distinctive honey-coloured stone enabling buildings spanning several hundred years. The use of this building material blends together many architectural styles into one coherent and picturesque townscape.
YouTube’s Megan, the campdenwonder, takes us on a lovely two-part tour of Chipping Campden.
A Short Tour of Chipping Campden, Pt 1
It’s impossible to wander through these centuries-old villages without reflecting on thoughts of duty, the passage of generations, and one’s attachment to nature. The hardy, British “keep a stiff upper lip” approach to life lives in the sturdy sensibility of the landscape, as a metaphor for British life.
A Short Tour of Chipping Campden, Pt 2
Looking at these picturesque English cottages, I remember selling watercolors painted by Andrea Thomas in my New York shops. Her sister made the most wonderful rag dolls. The women are gone from my life, and I’ve searched more than once for them in London’s Covent Garden Market.
I should take better care of people who matter to me. Like nature, they are not disposable or available for retrieval with my whimsical changes of heart.
In Hallowed Halls
I adored walking through Oxford University. It’s true that I’ve always been winesappy over Chariots of Fire, the story of British athletes competing in the 1924 Summer Olympics. The story took place at Cambridge, not Oxford, but I was full of its optimistic sentiments, roaming through the hallways of Oxford that May day.
Oxford Walking Tour
The struggle at the heart of ‘Chariots of Fire’ is the desire of two men, Scotsman Eric Liddell and the Jewish athlete Harold Abrahams to honor their religious heritage as athletes. The racing scenes are compelling, but the real message of the movie is that victory attained through devotion, commitment, integrity, and sacrifice is the most admirable feat that one can achieve.
‘Chariots of Fire’ is not inspired by life on contemporary steroids. And while the values of the movie are my own, they do not seem to be the values of our modern American life.
Chariots of Fire - Jerusalem
The 2006 movie “The Queen” articulates the push and pull of British history … specifically the Monarchy … with modern life. My favorite scene from “The Queen”, one in which Elizabeth II talks with a majestic, 14-point stag being hunted in the lush, Balmoral countryside, resonated deeply with me.
In stark contrast to the seemingly stone-faced, propriety-at-all costs woman we see in the film and in real-life public events, the stoic Elizabeth breaks down in quiet tears in the company of this stag, now targeted for culling (death) because of his age. For me, this scene underscored the potential relevancy of old style reticence in today’s high-emotional, therapeutic, global culture.
The Queen - Trailer
Twenty years later, rape is plentiful in the English countryside.The centuries-old values of the Cotswold fight on for a relevant role in contemporary life.
It seems to me that these hills have something to teach us now, at a time when we moderns have potentially sabotaged our own futures. If I think about England … my friends there, my travels … especially that long-ago, sun-drenched week in the English countryside … I simmer in thoughts about not always breaking things, in order to replace them.
Repair, rejuvenation, replenishment are not American ideas.
Our brash optimism and bravura assume a way out of every mousetrap, but I assure you that I’ve never heard so many Americans ready to listen to our elders and their ideas about finding the best way out of this current mess.
Privately, Americans are deeply concerned that the jig is up, as they say. So talk to us from across the pond, please. We’re honestly not sure what to do next.
Love,
Anne
More reading:
Stella McCartney’s Love of Land, Family & Design Sustainability
