vendredi 4 février 2005

Out of Town... Writing fewer words is a good exercise Even before I left my design job wth Granada TV to become a freelance photographer I used to supplement my income by adding words to pictures. The trouble was that I used to spend too much time doing and not enough time editing my writing to fit the column it was hopefully destined for. It wasn't as if I was in the dark... I used to research the specialist magazines and local newspapers for leads and knew, in general, what they were looking for. But it took a long time before I realised that lengthy text took time to edit and the chances were odds-on that important chunks would be given the editor's blue pencil treatment. When I realised that my time was also important and should be costed as well I began to improve my success rate. It did take one big disappointment, though, to make this sink in... three months after signing my first contract with a photo book publishing house and presenting them, ever so proudly, with 125,000 words in Tippex-corrected double-spaced typing with a carbon copy (this was long before the days of word-processing and computers) the commissioning editor simply handed it back with a curt comment and told me to cut it in half. I'd thought, and assumed, that to give the publisher twice what we'd discussed, and I'd signed up for, would be a bonus. Needless to say I never made the same mistake again. I've picked a couple of typical examples of my work from the 1980s... planned beforehand, researched further and photographed on one round trip (along with two further locations published a few months later) and written for mailing to the editor the next day. Research was largely done on the spot in those pre-internet days... in a typical newspaper journalist's way... in a pub! So it was lucky that at the second location which was off the beaten track... there was a pub. How times have changed... the fruits of research in those days were jotted down on the back of a beer mat (or a fag packet when I smoked)... nowadays it's copy-and-paste keystrokes on my iMac. The trick I had to learn in those days was how to relate a story in 250 words... I hardly ever got more space than that to do it! Duntisbourne Rouse - A little Saxon and Norman church clings precariously to the side of a steep valley below a Roman road The Cotswolds offer an unparalleled softness and warmth to the traveller's eye and heart. The creamy limestone of the region has not only slowly weathered into the rounded hills you see today, but has provided man with materials to build walls and roofs, which themselves have weathered over the centuries. The Duntisbourne villages - Rouse, Abbots and Lear - lie in a quiet backwater below the Roman road from Cirencester to Gloucester, the Ermin Way. The Duntbrook stream, a tributary of the Thames, wanders past villages and farms, and across fords. The ancient church of St. Michael at Duntisbourne Rouse was built amply long enough ago in Saxon times to have blended in with its surroundings. The site slopes so much that if you approach from the road above the squat saddleback tower dominates the building, giving the church a narrow, precarious look. I you come up from the valley the steep, stepped roofs give the impression of a toy building. "Everything here is diminutive," Alec Clifton-Taylor wrote, "except one's pleasure." The slope enabled the builders to put a crypt under the chancel - a rare feature in a village church. There is Saxon herringbone stonework in the nave, Norman windows, a 13th century font, late medieval tower and choir stalls. Walking around the churchyard with it's 14th century cross and table tombs there is an air of utter tranquillity shared by church and valley. Duntisbourne Rouse, Gloucestershire, is 3 miles northwest of Cirencester, off the A417. And then I drove to... Sapperton Tunnel - A grand portal in the classical manner gives entrance to what was once the country's longest tunnel. Few visitors to the picturesque Cotswolds realise or see much evidence that the area was once traversed by a working canal system. Joining two of England's greatest rivers the Thames and Seven Canal carried a flourishing trade along its length of 29 miles until the arrival of the railways made it increasingly redundant. It was finally closed down in 1911. Towards the eastern end of the old canal (which joined the Thames at Lechlade) and a mile from the source of the Thames can be seen a splendid relic of industrial architecture. This is the eastern portal of the great Sapperton Tunnel. The tunnel, two and a half miles long, was begun in 1784 and completed five years later. It was the longest in the country at that time, 15 feet in diameter and a tremendous feat of engineering. It has been carefully restored by the Stroudwater, Thames and Severn Canals Trust (now overseen by the Cotswolds Canals Trust) which rescued the pediment from the canal cutting. The empty niches on either side of the tunnel mouth, however, never contained statues of Father Thames and Madame Sabrina as originally intended. The portal is in a wooded cutting, beautifully situated, and visitors can take refreshments at the nearby "Tunnel House Inn." This was built as the "New Inn" originally by Lord Bathurst to house the navvies who built the canal and later as lodgings for the "leggers" who propelled the barges through the tunnel by lying on their backs and walking along the roof. Sapperton Tunnel, Gloucestershire, is just off the minor road from Coates to Tarlton, 5 miles west of Cirencester. 9:28:36 PM    comment []