IAN HUME TOWNSEND MACKENZIE

POET OF DESIRE

 

Notations on the Life and Death of the Poet

IAN HUME TOWNSEND MACKENZIE

(1898-1918)

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

‘To him indeed the soul was in perpetual issue with the body, and it was the soul whose claim he would serve first and always.’ [‘Forgotten Places’. 1919. Introduction by Arthur Waugh. p. 9]

 

 

 

Ian Hume Townsend Mackenzie was born on 28^th September 1898 and he was christened on 27^th October 1898 at St Peter’s, Southborough, Kent. Ian was a remarkable young poet whose life was sadly cut short and I felt the necessity to research and collate some information about this little known sensitive poet whose life-force burned bright and short with examples from his poetry. From his early works Ian Mackenzie appears to be a confident poet who did not resort to the flowery ‘decadence’ of the nineties poets and those who flourished beyond into the next century, he stands at the edge of modernity looking towards the new poetry that is already rising with sincere and strong poetic expression. He was a man who loved music, poetry, nature and cricket and he strode through life with a radiant presence and integrity.

 

DESIRE

 

This is my desire
Which burns the fuel of my soul.
O terrible white fire!
Leaping to blister the sky.
Beyond my sight;
Ever reaching higher;
My strength and my delight;
Oh out of my control!
This is my desire: -

To hear the song that beauty sings,

To refashion the earth with the joy of things,
To grasp in a corner of my mind
The sunlit clouds, the driving wind.
To let imagination fly
Up the beauty of the sky.
To hold it with me when I go
To sing my song on earth below.

This is the desire

Which burns the fuel of my soul.
O terrible white fire!
Leaping to blister the sky.
Beyond my sight;
Ever reaching higher;
My strength and my delight;
Oh out of my control!
This is my desire.

 

AND SO MAN LIVES

And so man lives

Between those shadowy gates
Where darkness covers up his memory,
And thought with thought forever separates
The disconnected things that he can see.
Those two strange steeps:
One whence he wakes,
And how he cannot tell;
One in which he falls
And knows not how he fell,
Where life with memory breaks.

.           .           .           .           .           .

Memory like water

Surging round our ears
Brings its echoes, softer
Than the sound of laughter –
Laughter of some strange forgotten years.

.           .           .           .           .           .

Someone gazing in a stream sees reflections hurry by;
Someone underneath a tree searching all its greenery;
Someone looking at a face holds a flying memory.

.           .           .           .           .           .

Broken images that pass

Through a twisted looking-glass;
Things we do and things we say
Ever fluttering away.

.           .           .           .           .           .

Disconnected things we see

In the brightness of the day:

Just a flower growing there

In the happiness of air.

Tiny little birds, that sing

In the melody of spring.

.           .           .           .           .           .

What we are and what we see

Are only shreds of memory.
Broken shreds and fragments pass
Through a twisted looking-glass.

[Two poems by Ian Mackenzie found in ‘More Songs by the Fighting Men’ Soldier Poets: Second Series. London. Erskine Macdonald. 1917. p. 95-98]

 

Ian’s father was Boyce John Mackenzie (son of John Mackenzie and Janet Scobie) who was born in 1843 in Durness, Scotland. Boyce was the first born son to Captain Boyce Mackenzie (born 1792 in Edderachillis, Sutherland; dying 27^th July 1877, Creich) of Creich House, Creich, and Jane Scobie (born 15^th June 1804 in Tongue, Sutherland; dying 15^th February 1885, Creich) who were married on 14^th October 1840 in Durness, Scotland. The next child born to the Mackenzie’s was Mackay Donald Mackenzie, born 7^th August 1846, Kincardine, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, who died on 6^th September 1934, Bexhill on Sea, (1) and a third child named John Mackenzie, born 14^th June 1848, Kincardine, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland.

In the 1871 census Boyce is living in lodgings in Lewisham, London, aged 27 and unmarried and he is a ‘Merchant’s Clerk’.

Boyce’s first marriage occurred in the winter of 1877 in Dorking, Surrey, to Henrietta Wolcot Moore, born in 1840, Cambridge. In the 1881 census Boyce and Henrietta are visitors at the home of Henry Robinson, (aged 79, born in London) in Effingham, Surrey, (Dorking); Boyce is 38 with ‘no profession’ and Henrietta is 40. Henrietta Wolcot Mackenzie died in the summer of 1887 aged 47 in Tunbridge Wells.
In the next census of 1891 Boyce John Mackenzie is living in Culverden Park Road, Tonbridge; he is 47 years old, a ‘widower, living on own means’ with two servants: Ann Shoebridge, a Cook, Domestic Servant, aged 49, married and born in East Grinstead, Sussex in 1842; and Kate Shoebridge, a single, 21 year old Housemaid, born in Kent in 1870.

Boyce re-married on 15^th April 1891 to his second and younger wife Susanna Isabella Townsend Gahan, (daughter of Frederick Beresford Gahan and Katherine Jane Townsend) (1) born in County Donegal, Ireland on 28^th September 1866. We find them on the 1901 census taken on 31^st March, living in Park Road, in the parish of St Thomas, Tunbridge Wells, Southborough, Kent. Boyce is 57 years old ‘living on own means’ and Susanna Townsend Mackenzie is 35 years old. Their first-born child is Donald Mackay Scobie Mackenzie, aged 8, born in Tunbridge in 1892 (he died in 1960 aged 67 in Birmingham). Their second child is Frederick Boyce Mackenzie, aged 7, also born in Tunbridge in 1893. The third child is Kenneth S Mackenzie, aged 5, born in Ireland in 1896 and Ian Hume Townsend Mackenzie, aged 2. It seems from this that the Mackenzie’s were in Ireland sometime between Frederick’s birth in 1893 and Ian’s birth in 1898, probably in Donegal, Susanna’s place of birth. Also at the address in Park Road is a visitor named Kathleen Townsend, aged 28, born in Ireland in 1873. The Mackenzie’s have three servants: Gessie Welch, Nurse, Domestic Servant, aged 39, born in London in 1862; Esther Tolhurst, Cook, Domestic Servant, aged 31, born in Lambhurst, Kent in 1870 and Sarah Baldwin, aged 20, a Parlour Maid, Domestic Servant born in London in 1881.

A decade later in the 1911 census Boyce, aged 67 living on ‘private means’ and Susanna, aged 45 are living with their eight year old daughter Eileen Katherine A Mackenzie, born in Southborough, Kent on 23^rd January 1903 (possibly dying in February 1988 in Chichester, Sussex) and they still have two of their domestic servants: Gessie and Esther. Ian is away from home as a 12 year old boarder at School in Tunbridge Wells. He was educated at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate in Kent and he was very keen on cricket playing for the school XI, in 1913. Ian attended the Royal Military College in Sandhurst during the winter of 1916-17 and became friends with the writer Alec Waugh (1898-1981) brother of the more famous Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966). Ian had written a review of Alec’s ‘Resentment Poems’ which appeared in ‘New Witness’, (20^th September 1918) edited by G K Chesterton. In a letter written by Ian to Alec from Malleny Camp, Currie, Midlothian, dated 26^th July 1917, Ian writes to confirm the arrival of Alec’s book ‘The Loom of Youth’ which the author sent to Alec, and Ian writes appreciatively – ‘It is not for its great literary merit that I shall value this particular copy, nor for any money it may have cost you to buy or send it: but because I regard it as a seal of friendship from my dearest friend in all the world, it is, that I thank you from the very depths of my soul. Yours ever, Ian’.
In fact, Alec’s father Arthur Waugh wrote a breathtakingly beautiful and tender tribute to Ian Mackenzie in the poet’s posthumously published volume of poetry in 1919, ‘Forgotten Places’ (Chapman & Hall.) Arthur sketches a portrait of the young poet, a man who ‘had all the outward evidences of the poet’s heart, and all its inward spirituality. Born of a family of tall and handsome men, with a wealth of locks, and beautiful, sensitive features, he possessed many of the physical attributes of a young pagan divinity.’ (‘Forgotten Places’. Introduction. p. 8) Mackenzie’s poetic inspiration comes from Shelley and Swinburne, with a tender devotion to Tennyson and Bridges, he was, as Arthur claims, a man with ‘the heart of the hunter of the soul, perpetually seeking rest and finding none. Those who knew him best knew the secret of that spiritual solitude, and it is just that shy solitude which finds the fullest expression in his poetry. But it was only one side of his nature, and not perhaps the most characteristic. For he was a gay and gallant lover of everything that is lovely; and it is that passionate love of loveliness, with the corresponding hatred of things ugly and malign, which leaves his memory as a poignant and imperishable possession to all those who were fortunate enough to call him friend.’ (p. 8) He ‘loved cricket only less than he loved poetry.’ (p. 9) Poetry was often the topic of conversation in the evenings at Sandhurst, ‘when the day’s military work was done’ and he could ‘forget the red-books for an hour or two in the dreams of “Hyperion” and “Adonais”.’ (p. 9) Ian’s love of poetry was vibrant for it was the ‘background of all these dreams, and the great poetry of the past the staple of all conversation.’ (p. 10) Arthur, who often entertained the young poet at his home in Hampstead with his son Alec, found Ian to be ‘the very spirit of irresponsible joy’ and ‘there was nothing the least morbid about him, no sort of shrinking from the pleasures of life, no shadow of self-absorption, about his daily relationship with his friends.’  (p. 11) Ian had a great love of the theatre and a passion for Gilbert and Sullivan – most mornings he could be heard singing such works by ‘Handel, from Sullivan, from Mendelssohn, from Gounod and from Lionel Monckton, all melting into one another in one wild “musical confusion.”’ (p. 11); a beautiful youth with ‘the tenderness of a child and the strength of a man.’ (p. 12)
‘We were expecting him one week-end in the autumn of 1918; but, as so often; he had left the engagement at loose ends, and we wrote for confirmation. A reply came from his father to say that Ian had been taken ill with pneumonia. It had all happened in an instant, - and at the moment when we were expecting to see him swing through our little garden-gate, he was struggling for his life far away in a strange ward. There followed days of grave anxiety, relieved by news that he was holding his own bravely.’ (p. 12-13)

‘Forgotten Places’ is quite an exceptional volume of poetry and Ian Mackenzie writes in a modern metaphysical style which looks at the imprint the material body makes; the shape one makes and leaves in life – ‘the flesh will loosen every day / from that skeleton thing / that once was me.’ (I) One of the themes through the poems is of something hidden or obscured as in a doorway or barrier through which he is unable to pass beyond the threshold, and in the poem ‘The Darkened Ways’ the poet sense the nearness of Death and stares through the keyhole of the door that divides him from the spectre, ‘kneeling on the floor, / searching for something in the dark, behind.’ Later in the same poem the barrier appears to be ‘a dim unending wall of glass / through which I could not pass. /yet I could see the days behind, / standing there without a sound.’ And there is the childish sense at the culmination of death’s acceptance – ‘One day I wandered in a wood / And found my body lying on the ground.’

 

THE DARKENED WAYS

Death, I smote the shadowy door

That lies between you and my mind,
Stared through the keyhole, kneeling on the floor,
Searching for something in the dark, behind.
And sometimes, as the silence closed around,
I heard the door-bolt loosened from within;
I stood there, but there was no sound,
And I could not enter in.

There was a moment once,

There must have been –
Could I but catch it in my brain –
Passing that doorway,
I must have come between
What I cannot see and what is seen!
Silence splinters,
Everywhere shreds of memories flutter through…
You forget, remember, and find;
And twist the puzzle in your mind:
But most of the fragments are not there,
And your eyes are the more completely blind.

Walking from that unknown sleep,

Suddenly I was dismayed.
I felt its memories round me creep,
Making me afraid.
Then something held my frightened glance;
I was swept into a dance,
Whirled and swept – an endless white,
Blinding all my startled sight,
Then, breaking through the doors of death,
All the thoughts of my delight
Flamed into my countenance;
And I felt my gasping breath,
As I gazed into my eyes,
Till I knew my frightened glance,
As it grew amid the dance.

.           .           .           .

Bewildered, suddenly I turned round,

To see a dim unending wall of glass
Through which I could not pass.
Yet I could see the days behind,
Standing there without a sound.
Flesh, I am weary of your company.
I feel your ugliness every day.
Shuffling, hustling you are me
And I cannot get away.
There must be some doorway,
That we cannot find,
Between the body and the mind.

When stillness covered all the land,

I could never understand
Why I did not make a sound,
Until one day I wandered in a wood
And found my body lying on the ground.

We all have philosophies,

Cover them with cap and bell,
Deck them out in fineries,
Till they are mythologies.

Then there is a pause:

No man can tell
What lies upon the ground,
The other side of sound.

There is a God! but he is the air,

And the trees and the fields.
He lives in laughter and shining hair,
In the night, in the sunset,
In the pale green of twilight,
In lights and shadows and windy flowers,
In flying dust and in laughing showers,
He lives where the rabbit scampers and delves.
He lives in us. He is ourselves.
He lives in the wind and the flying sky,
And he is Memory when we die.

[Forgotten Places. Chapman & Hall. 1919. p. 20-24]

 

The poet utilises the imagery of the bolting and unbolting of doors to signify perhaps the impression of the mind over the body; the senses and the flesh – in the poem ‘Dust’ there is a desperate longing to equate the inevitable end of the material body with the history and story of life contained within the dust we shall become –‘a pebble glittering in the sun / whispers a tale, but you will not hear; / it is so tiny and so still, / of love that was known, / and anger and fear / one time, near some forgotten hill.’ And the ultimate conclusion remains: ‘Dust cleaves to dust, / And life desires life.’

 

DUST

Yesterday upon a hill

I stood looking down below,
Watching crowds that come and go,
Each with some purpose to fulfil.
People meeting now and then,
Chattering to friends they know,
Hurrying away again to some work that they must do.
Dust is flying everywhere:
Uncertain fragments flutter about.
Knowledge shuffles here and there,
Trying to find the mystery out….

A fallen tree lies on the ground, shattered and old.

It is crumbling away, and the earth will fold
Her darkness over it very slow,
Till she draws it into her heart below.
A bolt has dropped from a rotted gate,
Eaten and seared with rust;
It will be for a long time there in the moss,
Breaking away into dust.
Winter: the trees and the fields are white,
Covered with flakes of snow.
A bird that sang in the spring last year
Falls dead on the grass below.
Anxiously watching beside the bed
A mother feels each minute creep.
Her child, who has coughed the whole night through,
Suddenly falls asleep.

A dead man lies on the burning sand:

Vultures tear his flesh:
His bones
Will soon fall apart and lie
Scattered among the stones.

A pebble glittering in the sun

Whispers a tale, but you will not hear;
It is so tiny and so still,
Of love that was known,
And anger and fear
One time, near some forgotten hill.

A baby wakes and suddenly sings…

Oh, how shall we understand!
Of strange forgotten happenings
In another land.

People are rushing about in the square,

Thinking of this, thinking of that,
A man on the pavement over there
Catches a sudden dream
Of trees overhanging a sunlit stream.

In the body of one man there must

Be many million flakes of dust,
Bird and flower, sky and tree:
Oh, if each separate grain could hold
A separate memory!

Dust creeps to us: we touch it everywhere:

We live with birds and trees and flowers, and there
Is always some familiar thing reminding us
That we are still the same;
Some colour, some sound or shape we know,
That seems to flow between,
And call to us:
A terrible arch dread,
Welding together life with life,
And the living with the dead.

It holds us in the faces of the flowers;

A petal bitten terribly with gold,
A flaming poppy seems to hold
Some deep unfathomable fear
That calls, that beckons us to come
Beware! Beware!
Lest a flower root you down by the hair!
Dust cleaves to dust,
And life desires life.
There is some strangeness here.
A flake of dust will nourish in the flesh
Then suddenly appear, and live and move.
It holds the fear,
That strange fear in the hearts of men
You cannot put away again.
And it is old… oh, who can tell how old?
How peacefully it lies
In its green valleys,
Flowery woods and hills,
Or where it sleeps
Among huge tranquil plains
That reach towards the edges of the skies.

For on its sunlit march it comes,

Breaking in clouds of golden spray,
It heralds the day
With greens and golds:
It scatters colour, through it flows
The burning sunset like a rose.

[‘Forgotten Places’. p. 24-27]

 

In ‘The Secret World’ the poet dismantles his body, saying ‘take these eyes. I yet shall see: / let them blossom silently.’ And then turns to his ears – ‘take these ears, let them bring / flowers for the butterfly: / I still shall hear the wild bird sing….’ There is a real wealth of beauty in these wonderful verse and Mackenzie seems to speak to me directly, I find, like no other poet I have come across for some time, there is a personal affiliation which resonates within –

 

‘I remember the sliding lawn – the scent of heavy foliage,
The lilac, the tall trees at the end,
And the moonlight
Twisting itself into wisps,
And pushing through the leaves,
Like fine white feathers of grass.’ (Eyes. III)

In the poem ‘Self’ the poet climbs ‘Time’s futile stair’ and dreads the emptiness of the last step:

 

SELF

I

Don’t look round! No need yet to look round:

There are hoarse voices muttering in my ear –
And clumsily I scale the useless ground,
With dread of words I am afraid to hear.

Knowing there’s nothing, nothing I can hold.

Nothing I’ve written or preserved, or spoken,
When all man’s love seems perishable gold,
And the one thing I trusted in is broken.

And so I go, climbing Time’s futile stair,

Shutting my aching eyes, lest I should learn;
Dreading the emptiness that will find me, where
On the last step I make, I too must turn.

II

Look at the shape you’ve made;

The uncertain limning knife.
And face it unafraid,
A mockery of life.

Do you bring this, elate
For praise of memory?
Fool! you only imitate
Other men’s tapestry.

Some day your farce will stop.

You’ll be no more, you alone:
And all you mean to do will drop –
O self, wake up, get something that’s your own.

[‘Forgotten Places’. p. 32-33]

In the poem ‘The Room’ written at Sandwich in 1918, Mackenzie recalls his time of thought in a room ‘closed by clean whitewashed walls’ by the light of day and later where ‘the dark shadows crept, / Leaving it slowly colourless, submissive to the night.’ His thoughts ‘stretch out beyond it and away, / Reaching to something memory cannot find’ –

‘O you who enter here, when I have gone,

You will not know the hidden lips that cry
To you “safety,” as the night comes down.
You will not understand the fear
In the grey waste of grass and sands
That lie
Past the shutters closed against the wind,
(Ceremoniously closed, by your vain, foreign hands)…
And you will take the security of those walls,
Not thinking of the compact strength in them.
And when moon unfolds between the curtains
And the shadows creep; there will be beauty, then, that calls.
You will not hear.’

[‘Forgotten Places’. The Room. IV. p. 37]

He found that the ‘ugliness of the material life distresses him, but it never overwhelms’ (Introduction. p. 14) and Waugh concludes his touching tribute, saying that ‘the laughter and the love of Ian Mackenzie were of eternal stuff. They were born of the sunlight, and return with it again. For they are “memory when we die.”’ (Introduction. p. 15)

 

MEMORIES

The scented winds blow down the night,

And darkness creeps to me;
Suddenly the stars shed light
On some unremembered sea.

Sometimes I can grasp again

Something I have known;
A thought of love, a stab of pain
Float like shadows through the brain,
And quickly they are gone.

So I can remember

Lives I must have lived before:
A sudden gleam of golden hair,
Kissed passionately I know not where;
For memory shuts his shadowy door.

[‘Forgotten Places’. p. 59]

 

While he was a cadet at Sandhurst he had a severe illness and was left with slight heart trouble and not passed for service abroad and he became a 2^nd Lieutenant in the 3^rd Battalion, Highland Light Infantry and spent the war years in Scotland at the Regimental Malleny Camp, Currie, Midlothian, Scotland. Ian Mackenzie contracted pneumonia (Spanish Flu) and was sent to hospital in Cambridge; he was told that the war was over on Armistice Day, 11^th November and during the night ‘his brave heart fought its last fight, and failed him…’ (p. 13) he died later on Tuesday 12^th November 1918, aged 20 years old. His parents Boyce and Susannah were living at 30 Court Road, Tunbridge Wells at the time of Ian’s death and Ian is buried in Cambridge City Cemetery, c.3391.

 

THE HOUR

Oh, one glad hour, flung from the trembling skies –

Life of our lives – yet, it cannot remain;
But as some gorgeous flower must fall and wane,
Thus in one night all men’s love breaks and dies,
And the dead years still echo with their cries.
Time cannot render back its joys again.
Our tears and griefs were borne, that out of pain
We might feel love like this burn in our eyes.

We have known all. Strong let us go as one,

E’er yet the glory round our souls has fled.
Darkness, while yet the brightness of desire
Is splendid as a coronal of fire,
To light the sullen faces of the dead.
Proud let us go, down the dark road alone.

[‘Forgotten Places’. p. 54]

Ian’s brother Frederick Boyce Mackenzie died just a few short months before Ian – Frederick Boyce Mackenzie was born on 3^rd May 1893 and he also attended St Lawrence College, Ramsgate; he was School Captain in the cricket team 1910-11 and cricket XI 1909-10-11. He became a Captain in the 71^st Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery and served almost three years at the Front, mostly the Ypres Salient. He married Mildred Snell (born 2^nd December 1895, Kenley, Surrey; dying 25^th August 1984, Mill Valley, California) on 6^th February 1917 in Stonegate, Sussex and in 1918 Frederick was sent back to England and based in Winchester. In early July of that year he visited the New Forest and met some friends for lunch and because it was such a lovely day Frederick decided to spend the night in the Forest. He met a local farmer in the Forest and they got talking and the farmer offered Frederick his hay loft to sleep in. Early the next morning the farmer was awoken by cries of ‘Fire!’ as the hay loft was ablaze. A pony was rescued from the barn but Captain Frederick Mackenzie burnt to death on 4^th July 1918. He was twenty-five years old. The verdict was ‘accidental death’ and there is a memorial in Fordingbridge Cemetery, Hampshire. There were no children from the marriage and Mildred re-married in Paris on 16^th June the following year, to an American named Whitney Braymer Wright.

Ian’s father, Boyce John Mackenzie died on 15^th June 1921 in Tunbridge Wells, aged 77 and his mother, Susanna Isabella Townsend Mackenzie died on 14^th March 1949 aged 83 in Fulmer Grange, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire.

 

TO I. H. T. M.

Like fire I saw thee

Smiling, running, leaping, glancing and consuming;
Like fire thine ardent body moving;
Scorching and scouring the mind’s waste places
Like fire: like fire extinguished.

Now in my hands

Holding thy book, these ashes of thee;
Still fire I know thee
Gloriously somewhere burning,
Who wast so keen, more keenly;
Who wast so pure, more purely;
Beyond my vision,
Somewhere before God’s face,
Eternal.

[Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff. (3) October, 1919, from his dedication in ‘The Song of Roland’. 1919. The author also dedicated the volume to two other literary friends who died in the war during 1918: Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge who was killed in September (4), the poet Wilfred Owen who was killed on the 4^th November, a week before the Armistice and Ian of course a short time after in November]

 

 

NOTES:

1. Ian’s Uncle Mackay Donald Scobie Mackenzie, born 1849 is recorded in the 1901 census as living in Bristol, Gloucestershire, a 54 year old Bank Manager with his wife Florence M Mackenzie, aged 40 from South Shields, Durham, and their three children: Marjorie Scobie Mackenzie, aged 13, born in 1888 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland; Boyce Mackay Scobie Mackenzie, aged 12, born in 1889 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland and Barbara Scobie Mackenzie, aged 3, born in 1898 in Clifton, Gloucestershire. Mackay Donald Scobie Mackenzie married Florence Margaret Stevenson (born 1861 in South Shields, Durham) in 1886 in Lanchester, Durham. In the 1911 census Mackay Donald Scobie Mackenzie is a 64 year old widower and retired Bank Manager living in Bexhill, Sussex. His son Boyce is a 22 year old Undergraduate.

2. Frederick Beresford Gahan (1821-6^th July 1904) of the 57^th Regiment [son of Major Beresford Gahan, 5^th Dragoon Guards and second wife Henrietta Ann Townsend] and Katherine Jane Townsend (born 20^th December 1834 in India, dying in 1920) were married on 31^st October 1860 at Kilgariff, County Cork; Frederick Beresford Gahan was a surveyor and they had the following children: a) Frederick Beresford Townsend Gahan, born 1861, died1862. b) Edward Hume Townsend Gahan, born 1864, died 1875. c) Susana Isabella Townsend Gahan, born 28^th September 1866 in Donegal, died 14^th March1949. d) Frederick George Townsend Gahan, born 7^th December 1866, died 31^st August 1955 – Frederick worked as a civil engineer for the Congested Districts Board; the Land Commission and the Electricity Supply Board. He married Winifred Mary Waters and had three sons and two daughters all born in County Donegal except for Frederick Dermot Gahan. e) Beresford Horatio Townsend Gahan, born 9^th April 1868 in Donegal, he took Holy Orders, married and had two children. f) Horace Stirling Gahan, born 3^rd December 1870, died 3^rd February 1958, aged 88, he also took Holy Orders and became Chaplain of Christ Church in Brussels from 1914-22 [he visited Edith Cavell in the prison of St Giles on 11^th October 1915 and later administered the Last Rites to her on the day before she was shot by firing squad]. Horace married and had two children: John and Susan. g) Reginald Hume Townsend Gahan, born 27^th July 1879, Reginald was a Land Agent who married and emigrated to Canada. He had no children. h) Walter Henry Townsend Gahan, born 3^rd January 1881, died 5^th June 1963. Walter was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and he took Holy Orders; he married Florence Rose (died 6^th March 1963) and had no children.

3. Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff (25^th September 1889-28^th February 1930). A Scottish writer mostly known for his translation of Proust. He was educated at Winchester College and became a friend of Christopher Sclater Millard (1872-1927) the enthusiast and bibliographer of Oscar Wilde. Scott Moncrieff attained a Law Degree and an English Literature Degree from Edinburgh University and it was during this time that he met and befriended the undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge. Scott Moncrieff attained a commission in August 1914 to the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, 2^nd Battalion and served at the Western Front from 1914-17. In January 1918 Scott Moncrieff attended the wedding of the poet Robert Graves and met the war poet Wilfred Owen with whom he fell in love.

4. Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge, born 19th September 1890 in Edinburgh, the son of the Reverend Philip Thomas Bainbrigge (1848-1919) and Helen Jane Bainbrigge nee Gillespie (1866-1904). Philip attended Rottingdean Prep School in 1902 and won a King's Scholarship to Eton College in 1903 where he excelled in Greek and Latin. He won a Scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1909 but decided to enter Trinity College, Cambridge on 1st October of that year where he studied Classics and won a First in that subject. He won the Bell Scholarship Award in 1910 and attained his BA in 1912 and MA in 1916. In 1913 he became a Classics Master at Shrewsbury School before enlisting in the Army in 1917 as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, attached to the Welsh Regiment. He was killed in action on 18th September 1918 at the Battle of Epehy the day before his 28th birthday. He is buried in Five Points Cemetery, Lechelle, France. Grave B.24. He is best known in the literary world as the author of a privately printed verse play titled 'Achilles in Scyros: A Classical Comedy' (1927). For more information on Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge see Jennifer Ingleheart's excellent 'Masculine Plural.' Oxford University Press. 2018.

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS

BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

It is said that he who has the keys to the Sanctuary also has the keys to the bedchamber, and it is equally said that he who hath the ear of the Archbishop, also hath the rear of the Archbishop, which when one comes to think of it is not as preposterous as it seems, for that which is the wine of Aphrodite is also the sauce of Alexander! But the measure of our amusement should not be so casually thrown to the non-believers, for that way surely madness awaits and nonsense grows apace lest we should find some woven strand to call the beginning and there begin! Through the call of great rejoicing there stood a man, of no particular stance or shape yet I should persist in description for those who hath fallen far and for those I say that he was of a rotund perspective with a length of beard that reached far and wide and nowhere in its simple conclusion, which was that behind the tangled waves of unkempt and distressed fibres, there lay a man of deep emotion and folly, a man of sanguine turn and pure learning, a man not content with this world in search of God whose eager spirit drank from a holy well of thought. This man, in Divine circles was the noble essence of free-thinking, religious notions that swept across a puritanical country filled with peasant folk and simple beliefs; a man half-ashamed at his country men and women for their insistence upon the strange desires of a pagan authority which no longer had precedence. The man, if we must name him, was Hieronymus Ramsbottom, Father of the flock, Lord Protector of the souls within his keep and a man deigned by Christ as Bishop to shepherd his nimble parishioners from the phlegm of Catholicism. Among this flourishing flock there was a lamb, a young boy who had great learning potential and showed great interest in the works of our Lord among the Sanctuary of the Spirit; a boy orphaned by birth, fair of face and feature who went by the not too disagreeable name of Peter Saxonby. Peter was an apprentice to the forge-master, an ogre of uncommon and uncontrollable passions whose eye would rove over the curvaceous contours of his young apprentice who had made his thirteen summers sweet with sweat in the fiery heat of the forge where his eyes of magical amethyst pierced through the dark smoke and flickering shadows of the forge like twin orbs of desire and the blacksmith, sodden with ale worked his mental hands over the slender, long-necked boy in lascivious, serpentine ways and it was to the Father and the Protector that Peter looked for his salvation and Hieronymus offered the young swan the succour of the Church and the arms of the Lord who presides over all, and so it was that the Bishop handed the smithy six pieces of silver and took Peter to be his young Deacon who would attend to his ecclesiastical needs.

The Bishop rose and his stature exhausted the stars beyond him and he stood with pensive eyes downcast as he began to speak whispered words that softly lilted upon the dying of the evening air that called unto the night – ‘I hath never looked mine enemies in the back, Peter, for you must look them in the face with great sympathy to see yourself reflected in eyes of torment and corruption’, and his magnificent beard shook as he bathed Peter with the sacred drops of spittle that issued from his lips as his brow was bathed in moonlight; Peter could not discern the saintly folds of the vestments that the Bishop wore nor could he gather in his eyes the encrusted saliva that lay drying upon his beard and collar or upon his own tunic which shone gloriously with the great globules that the Bishop shot from his lips and poured forth. It was the same sacred spittle that the Bishop blessed his flock with, washing his parishioners in the beautiful liquid sustenance of God that splashed hither and nither upon the rejoicing congregation like raindrops. And so he preached unto his lamb like Prospero unto Caliban in gentle yet damp manner for many hours until the moon, a moon of witchcraft and sorcery where unholy terrors reign was fair over his shoulder and much yawns and drooping of eyes showed that sleep was near and eager to be surrendered unto. Nightfall had crept upon them like a thread of hope between the spider and the fly and Peter watched with fearful eyes as the moon yielded to the slumber of the innocent and so the night was passed in the arms of the corpulent church until dawn heralded the glory of the sun.
With the new day upon them the Bishop told Peter of some of his work amongst the poor and destitute and how he administers prayers of healing to the sick, and he showed Peter a strange unction kept in a leather pouch which the Bishop used as a balm during the healing work of the Divine. ‘I will show you how to make it and you will prepare it for me!’ the Bishop said and Peter asked what was in it and how does it heal, to which the Bishop answered that it is a simple paste made from the leaves of mint and sorrel and placed upon wounds as a poultice; of course there is no medicinal property therein itself and it is only able to heal after I have blessed it and it is deemed Holy in His name and only then can it do His work amongst the lame and the sick. And Peter was shown how to pick the mint and the sorrel in his role as Deacon and how to crush the leaves in preparing the balm and to boil the herbs and strain the liquid to form a tincture.
Peter and the Bishop set about their journey to the next village where there would be no welcome to ministers of the church among the sensualists and sinners outside of the faith. The road was arduous and several times they had to stop to rest but they persisted over hill and along valleys and through coppiced woodland until at length a mile from the village of Forlorn they came upon a rider, a uniformed man of stoic resolution who dwelt beneath the name of Captain Horsenbutt; the rider pulled up to the wayfarers and seeing the Bishop and the boy who showed signs of exhaustion, greeted them cordially and offered them water to drink, which they accepted. The Captain, who by birth had been spoon-fed a constant yet nourishing diet of malicious hatred from a long ancestral line of malevolent monsters, took an interest in the boy’s complexion and asked if he would rather an easier life as a stable hand in his regiment, to which Peter shook his head, saying ‘my path is beside the Bishop who has shown me great favour and trust!’
‘You have a rare child there Bishop! Treasure him well for I see great things of him!’ the Captain snarled at the portly man of God with a look of treachery in his eyes, and he rode off at the gallop on the tide of his own arrogance. ‘Your loyalty does me honour!’ said the shepherd tenderly to his lamb.
Many nights passed on the road and together the boy and the Bishop were inseparable and a great tenderness grew between them which was delivered by Divine hands and lit with spiritual approval; much hardship did they suffer and when the boy grew sick the Bishop nursed him diligently through his fever and back to health, such was the bond of friendship forged in their wandering. Peter looked upon the Bishop with admiration and the tenderness in his youthful ways was most agreeable to the older man of God who had spent many years in the wilderness of solitude like the petals scattered upon a lake wearily winding towards some end through the tempest of his own unreality and imperfections; there was no shame that fair love had drifted through sorrow and Peter called the Bishop ‘Father’ and the Bishop called the boy ‘Son’ and Peter wore the Bishop’s spittle with pride. Through the long nights Peter became accustomed to relating tales which seemed to amuse and comfort the Bishop, who would break out in merriment of laughter and it was good to see him laugh for he was often of a mournful temperament. One night, as the wind blew the Bishop’s beard in every direction of the compass, Peter began a strange tale on how punctuation came into being and he began with the full stop, ‘but surely’ said the Bishop, ‘that is the end!’ and Peter leant upon his elbows at the feet of the Bishop and said, ‘no, that is the point of origin of the story for everything begins from a single point!’ and the Bishop chuckled and said ‘continue, my little goose’. Peter went on to inform the Bishop that the full stop, or to give it its rightful name, the ‘stoppydotty’, felt very uncertain of his beginning and even less unsure of his end until he found another like him but with a tail which went by the name of ‘loopydot’ but was actually a comma and so loopydot and stoppydotty joined together to form sentences which was really quite astounding in itself! They were so excited that loopydot jumped into the air to form the ‘toploopydot’ or the apostrophe as it is now known and stoppydotty laughed so much he split his sides in twain and doubled with laughter he became two stoppydottys one above the other to make a ‘doubledotty’ which came to be known as the colon which was good at introducing things to each other and not wishing to be outdone the stoppydotty and the loopydot joined together to form the 'loopydottystoppy' which as everybody knows is the semi-colon. The Bishop could not contain his laughter and burst out bellowing through his wild and wiry beard, ‘and what about the exclamation mark my little swan of Jerusalem?’ asked the Bishop, ‘I was just coming to that,’ said Peter, who continued as quick as a flash, saying that ‘one day the doubledotty, or colon, decided that it was tired of introducing things and suddenly began to shout very loudly until the topdotty of the doubledotty suddenly stretched itself upwards in his attempt to be heard and thus was born the exclamation mark or the 'uprightdotty'! But as the exclamation mark grew old he suddenly developed a hunch-back and instead of shouting he began asking questions and thus we arrive at the question mark, previously known as the 'curvydotty'! Don’t you see?’
‘Very good my boy!’ said the Bishop, ‘very good!’ and the Bishop shook with laughter for a long time afterwards. And so the hours would pass in tales and contemplation of great and Godly things. Then the Bishop struck a more serious note, asking Peter if the blacksmith ill-treated him and that he was not to blame himself for the evil of others, for the wickedness that lies in the hearts of men seeks glory and gratification in its condemnation and utter corruption of innocence. And Peter, whose eyes became tearful by the light of the fire, a fire whose flames had transported him back to the unspeakable torments of the forge, looked soulfully to the Bishop for further explanations, muttering something about Captain Horsenbutt and how his eyes bore into him, to which the wise man of God who had long meditated upon the stem of his existence, uttered softly through his beard – ‘you have seen how the bee looks upon the flower and you have seen how the spider looks upon the fly: Peter, you are at once the flower and the fly!’ Peter did not altogether understand but he thought he would with time.
The weeks passed by and one village was much like another until they came upon the little hamlet of Hope Lost where there was much need of the Bishop’s balm as there were plenty in need and sick for there was some strange ague or air fever rife thereabouts and it seemed that no-one was safe. A young girl of about nine years of age, for the parents were uncertain of the child’s birth year, was put before the Bishop for she was in an advanced stage of suffering and the Bishop in his capacity as God’s healer of wounds applied the herb poultice and administered the tincture and sat with the young girl in solemn prayer. The next morning the girl was found to be incomprehensible and in the grip of seizures to which no amount of prayer would abate until just a few hours later the girl became radiant with the still, silence of death and the Bishop, who was at a loss as to why death should have overwhelmed her young soul, crossed himself, made his excuses and left. But the parents were furious and enraged with malice and sought justice from the Squire, a man of great power whose hands dispensed a form of jurisdiction amongst his tenants and so he sent his men to apprehend the Bishop and have him brought to the Squire’s manor house.  
The Bishop and the boy had walked many miles along the road contemplating God’s ways and the many mysteries that do not concern the gentle flock of His creation. They walked on and came to a little stream where they could see a brazen and colourful young man recumbent with one leg in the air. ‘Good day to you friend!’ bellowed the Bishop towards the horizontal youth who in turn gazed upon the travellers and squinted through his long lashes at them before nodding his head and clearing his throat as if to respond but sound was not forthcoming! After a little while he said ‘pleasant day’ and looked with furrowed brow upon Peter. The youth, who now visibly wore a chaplet of wild flowers in his hair, explained that he was a rhymester by the name of Thomas Dodds and that all the world would hear of Master Dodds and his verse! The Bishop looked upon the pale and placid versifier whose dark hair framed his eyes which seemed like coins exchanged by night with a measure of distrust for the rhymester had not yet attained full-sail and was becalmed beside the stream, his soulful eyes fixed upon Peter, who seemed a little overcome and embarrassed by the attention. Dodds, who chose his words carefully and chewed them over twice or thrice, fell to dramatic swooning as was his wont in new company. Unmoved by the theatrics, the Bishop, trying exceptionally hard not to besiege the young man with his saliva, engaged him in conversation and learnt of his background, which the versifier was at first reluctant to enter into, but after gentle persuasion expressed a few historical facts as to his nature. Peter grew weary under Dodds’ gaze and before long the young songster began to sigh soft yet long before entering upon his song:

‘The frail rapture of my ruined heart in hurtful sleep

Hammers upon the vault of my passion, dispossessed; I weep
No more for the content within love’s sweet celestial bliss
That worshipped thy lips long ago, ay long ago, yet longed to kiss
The soft contours of thy mouth… This emptiness haunts my soul
And echoes relentlessly through this expanse of my regret!
Hark! What fatal thought resides in mind motioned to love and set
In monstrous brain and bay where the horror of the heart has stole
The delight from curved limb; the moonlight from my nakedness?’

And so on went the songster, untiringly through verse after verse of love lyrics that seemed would never end. The Bishop was decidedly unimpressed with the songster’s verse and Peter seemed even more bewildered by it, but strangely flattered to be the recipient of the poet’s wild-eyed devotion throughout the song and returned a sweet smile and cast his eyes downwards before looking sideways at the Bishop. The Bishop forced a polite note of gratitude and thanks towards the versifier who by now had attained his full stature beside the stream and they exchanged pleasant farewells as the young man of song gazed long upon the boy as if he were some young and beautiful maiden to be courted.

Night fell and the Bishop and the boy found an old barn in which to lay their heads for the night. As they settled down to sleep Peter said how amusing it was to meet Dodds and he hoped that one day they might find him again to which the Bishop replied – ‘yes, a harmless fool and we shall surely have paths cross again for don’t forget the world shall know of Master Dodds!’ and they both looked at each other and chuckled. It was a warm night and the stars were bright in the dark curtain of the cosmos above as the weary travellers fell fully into the folds of sleep. The next morning the pair was rudely awoken by a rough and manly voice which seemed oddly familiar:
‘Gather thy yesterdays and thy tomorrows priest!’ said Captain Horsenbutt at the blunt end of a sword, who had bloody vengeance in mind and together with his accomplices Turbot Barnstrom and Douglas Crabheart, hot-blooded brutes who talked overmuch in their cups, they seized the Bishop and the boy and accused the old man of God of heresy and unnatural associations with the boy whom he held under some spell, possessed of devils. The balm was found and described as a devilish bile or ‘tincture of Satan’ used in bewitchment. The Bishop was taken away until he was made to confess his activities in the black arts and his unholy bewitching of the boy; during his incarceration at the Manor of Squire Stackpole he was pricked all over and found to bleed from the wounds which surely showed he was a brother of the black arts and he was heard speaking in an unknown language which was actually Latin but he was accused of speaking in dead tongues and consorting with the devil and the evidence against him was enough to damn the poor Bishop and sentence him to death; the sworn testimony of Turbot Barnstrom alone accused the Bishop of several deprived and unholy acts along with attempting to bedevil his accusers with the ‘waters of witchcraft’ that ‘flowed unhindered from the Bishop’s mouth’ which would seem had already sealed his fate. Young Peter was distraught and pleaded on behalf of the Bishop for mercy from Squire Stackpole, a man who carried considerable weight within the shire and equally carried a sizable portion of pustules upon his face, but the Squire was not willing to listen to anything except incriminating evidence against the Bishop and a sworn confession from Peter as to the Bishop’s fiendishly, filthy hold upon the boy which was the work of witchcraft; when the boy refused to confess he was put to the wrack and lashed with course, twisted rope until he bled and lost consciousness; no sleep, no food or water was he to take until a signed confession was forthcoming. Peter held true to his innocence and to that of the Bishop’s and not a word of untruth passed his lips; he would never betray the dear Bishop!
The Squire, the result of a long line of depravity whose one tooth rocked to and fro like an old wooden post between his cracked and festering lips; a man who commanded several wenches to bestow themselves upon his rotten and bloated body who secretly mocked and despised him, grew impatient and as surely as the red wine did flow upon his table did the fire ignite within his heart and he wanted the matter dealt with swiftly and resolved.
And so the Bishop was taken from his place of incarceration and hung one frosty morning from a tree along the avenue which led to the Squire’s manor house and his body was left there wearing a chain of dried spittle around his neck and a stream of congealed blood from his mouth which glistened in the moonlight like diamonds and rubies; he was left as a measure of his sins against God and the good people of England!
The fate of young Peter is not known as the hand of time has washed much that is true away and left little but rumour and lies, but it is idle to speculate that perhaps that young sonneteer, Thomas Dodds, who alas would not become known by all the world, who saw something sensual in the boy’s misfortune, like the young Galilean, gave tender affection towards the rose, yet plucked before gentle budding and marched towards manhood and onwards to a simple grave and a wake of unfinished rhymes… the deception of time leaves nothing to confirm except that love is a commonplace executioner!

St Michael's, Church Stowe

THE ST MICHAEL'S MASTERPIECE

CHURCH STOWE

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

 

 

 

 

 

St Michael's Church dates back to Saxon times and was built upon a Neolithic worship site. The church was originally dedicated to St Ninian and then to St Peter and St Paul before its rededication in 1560 to St Michael. The tower with its medieval battlements is original (circa 950-1100) but the body of the church has been rebuilt twice, once in 1639 and again in 1859. Preserved in the church are seven early Roman and Saxon carved stones; three built into the tower and the others are in the Baptistry. There is an old legend which says that the Lord of the Manor had chosen a site for the church but some supernatural entity, sometimes the devil in these instances, moved the foundation stones of the church to a different location over eight consecutive nights before being built on its present site.

 

 

 

 

 

Upon entering the Sanctuary around the altar, on the right side can be seen a marvellous funerary monument by the great sculptor Nicholas Stone (c. 1586-1647) Master Mason to King James 1st and to King Charles 1st. The effigy is of Lady Elizabeth Carey, born Elizabeth Neville around 1545; she married Sir John Danvers (1540-1594) and later in 1598 Sir Edmund Carey (1557-1637).



 

 

 

 

 

The marble monument was commissioned by her son, the Earl of Danby and it was completed in 1620, ten years before Lady Elizabeth's death in 1630 aged 84. So we can say it is a very good likeness of her Ladyship as she les there resplendent in all her finery.



 

 

 

 

She lies as if sleeping in a fine ermine robe which is open to reveal a masterfully carved and delicately embroidered bodice. her head is partially wrapped in cloth but rests elegantly upon an equally well carved pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

The exquisite detail even down to her tiny shoes, one of which is supported by her heraldic griffin, is awe inspiring and one can see why this is one of the greatest pieces of funerary monuments, certainly of the works of the master Nicholas Stone, second only in importance to his monument to the poet John Donne in St Paul's Cathedral.

 

 

 

 

 

The marble monument cost £220 in its time and this magnificent tomb has lain almost hidden and escaped the destructive hand through the passage of time; it is a true treasure and a testimony to the art and skill of the Master Sculptor - Nicholas Stone. 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving Lady Elizabeth to sleep away the centuries, on the opposite side of the altar, the left as you enter the Sanctuary, is another stone effigy, that of Gerard de Lisle (1304-1360).

 



 

 

 

The grey Purbeck marble tomb of Sir Gerard de Lisle shows him as a medieval crusader knight ( he was knighted in 1327 and created  Baron Lisle in 1357). he lies cross-legged with his tunic over his chain mail and in his left hand he is holding a shield with a long-tailed lion. the front of the tomb bears a shield depicting the arms of the de Lisle family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

in 1310, during the reign of Edward 11, the Lord of Stowe, Sir Gerard's father, took up arms against the King and was taken prisoner and executed. Stowe Manor was seized and held by the King. 

 

 

 

 

 

When Gerard showed loyalty to the Crown and took part in the Crusades, his father's possessions were restored to him and he became Lord of the Manor. Gerard fought at the Battle of Crecy in 1346 and married twice: Eleanor de Arundel sometime after December 1329, and Elizabeth le Strange, sometime before July 1351.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But there are other great monuments to see within the church and after admiring Sir Gerard, we should turn to his left side, left of the altar to see the magnificent monument on the north wall.

 

 

 

 

This is the memorial to Dr Thomas Turner, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who bequeathed the manor and estates to the governors of a charity for the relief of poor widows and children of clergymen. This vast wall tablet is by Thomas Stayner (1668-1731) and is perhaps his most ambitious work. Carved of variegated marble and erected by the Sons of the Clergy Corporation in gratitude for a legacy of £18,000 with which the Corporation bought the Manor of Stowe.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

The two life-size figures on either side show Doctor Thomas Turner on the left, holding a book and resting one foot on a terrestrial globe, while on the right (above) the other figure represents 'Christian Faith' balanced on a celestial globe.

Before leaving the church also take note of the Monument to John Day, also on the north wall. Day was the Controller of the Foreign Post Office and his monument was erected in the church by his daughters who commissioned John Middleton of Towcester to do the work. One of his daughters was the third wife of the Reverend John Lloyd D.D. who was Rector of Stowe from 1754-1789.