Discovering Dunster is like stumbling on an amazing secret that to know fills you with the warm feeling of being privileged and proud. Just a small village on the north Somerset coast it has the power to make you feel patriotic and dominant, whilst retaining the capacity to make you feel small and swept to a land faraway in time or geography.
For over a millennium, the hill at Dunster has been fortified and the castle still rises out of the tree-line subtly but unashamedly; a defensive building bristling with latent power.
Standing on the castle’s main terrace it is curiously easy to feel like a king. With the solidity of Exmoor’s hills on one side, field upon field disappearing into the distance in front and land sloping gently into the Bristol Channel on the left, the visual impression and internal impact is one of positional advantage.
At the foot of the castle the perspective changes, but is no less effecting. In the immediate shadow of the castle are lush, tranquil grounds. Idyllic might fall from ones open lips in initial awe, but the implication of carefree simplicity misrepresents what the place is about. Heaven on Earth comes closer. A Garden of England is more befitting.
In pleasing relief to the formality of the castle building, its gardens appear wild, without defined beds or borders. Nettles are left to grow next to delicate flowers, whilst vague paths and naturally occurring peep-holes are an indifferent guide through the sprawling shrubs and plants. It is testimony to the art of the castle’s army of gardeners that their hands are invisible, though clearly kept busy.
Contrary to naïve expectation, the estate is not dominated with rose and oak. Redwood’s shape the skyline; lilies sprout amongst the ferns beneath; whilst outsized rhubarb leaves easily fill large expanses along the meandering river. These stems are not for filling a crumble to compliment a Sunday Roast, though. The giant foliage belongs to Gunnera originating from South America. For this is what a Garden of England must of course contain – evidence of travel, of empire; of expedition and acquisition, cultivation and integration.
Step beyond the castle grounds and the village that ripples out from the fortifications is full of charm and humility.
A mill once powered by the free-running river that circumnavigates the castle mound now provides fuel in the form of scones and tea served from within for walkers. A petition against the opening of a restaurant by the National Trust hints at an enduring battle between tenant and master. That the village’s uneven cottages, once the homes of smiths and farmhands, are now occupied by the wealthy and well-mortgaged is evidence of where the upper hand still lies.
On the village outskirts is a road half-submerged by the passing River Avill. A stone-built bridge a few strides upstream betrays the capacity for the water to be permanently breached, but the impressively crafted arches are for now only used by visitors looking to play Pooh Sticks.
The ford being left untouched sums up Dunster’s enduring respect for nature and history – a deferential bow to the permanence of the countryside despite the onslaught of progress.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Dancing on Egg Shells
Is it me, or has the actual point in the Strictly Come Dancing race row been totally missed?
I'm not a million miles away from agreeing with Brucie's initial assessment that there is a tendency to blow big over small issues in current society. The trouble is that the knee-jerk response is one based on fear, not motivated by education. The very potential of an accusation of racism is such that there is seemingly an instinctive and instantaneous outrage at any comment on skin colour or mention of ethnicity at all. This failure to openly debate WHY there is problem in the phrases used or implicit messages conveyed in throw away remarks prevents us as a collective becoming more articulate and understanding about ethnicity. Instead we remain strait-jacketed by competing arguments about the rightness or ridculousness of 'political correctness'.
There is a massive issue in referring to someone as a Paki in the way that Anton du Beke referred to the newly spray-tanned Laila Rouass. Having only picked up on the incident in the media coverage, what struck me was a limited (non-existent?) consideration of WHY this is unacceptable. The only reference I picked up about the consequences of the comment was that Laila Rouass was upset by reference, but was moving on from it.
What began troubling me about the response to this incident, though, was when I found out that Ms Rouass is of Moroccan descent. Her outrage, therefore, cannot be strictly personal. She can of course be upset by the wider ignorance displayed and the wider hurt caused to individual Pakistanis or other minority ethnic groups who suffer at the mouths of similarly crass labels applied on the basis of darker skin tone or countries of birth. She is not, though, the victim in this.
The problem with Du Beke using a term like Paki in the way he did is the association of something he perceived as negative with a pejorative term that depersonalises an entire ethnic group. I doubt that Du Beke intended to offend a cultural group. I don't know him, but don't assume that he is a xenophobe (he is afterall an Englishman called Tony Beke who actively chooses to call himself by an overtly non-English moniker). However the ease with which he responded to darker skin with the term he did reveals a lack of appreciation of the insult and how its use may have a negative effect not only on Pakistani people listening to it, but to our society as a whole where similarly unthinking others need no encouragement to ignore the views, experiences and beliefs of other cultures.
This is not a chance for a witch-hunt to expose prime-time racists, though, it should be an opportunity to inform. Du Beke should be made an example, but not by firing him (which would only serve to make him a martyr for the thoughtless 'political correctness gone mad' brigade). He should be publicly educated on the issues of ethnicity. Publicly as his example could be one for many more who are not on TV, but who have never stopped to think about WHY saying Paki is wrong.
I'm not a million miles away from agreeing with Brucie's initial assessment that there is a tendency to blow big over small issues in current society. The trouble is that the knee-jerk response is one based on fear, not motivated by education. The very potential of an accusation of racism is such that there is seemingly an instinctive and instantaneous outrage at any comment on skin colour or mention of ethnicity at all. This failure to openly debate WHY there is problem in the phrases used or implicit messages conveyed in throw away remarks prevents us as a collective becoming more articulate and understanding about ethnicity. Instead we remain strait-jacketed by competing arguments about the rightness or ridculousness of 'political correctness'.
There is a massive issue in referring to someone as a Paki in the way that Anton du Beke referred to the newly spray-tanned Laila Rouass. Having only picked up on the incident in the media coverage, what struck me was a limited (non-existent?) consideration of WHY this is unacceptable. The only reference I picked up about the consequences of the comment was that Laila Rouass was upset by reference, but was moving on from it.
What began troubling me about the response to this incident, though, was when I found out that Ms Rouass is of Moroccan descent. Her outrage, therefore, cannot be strictly personal. She can of course be upset by the wider ignorance displayed and the wider hurt caused to individual Pakistanis or other minority ethnic groups who suffer at the mouths of similarly crass labels applied on the basis of darker skin tone or countries of birth. She is not, though, the victim in this.
The problem with Du Beke using a term like Paki in the way he did is the association of something he perceived as negative with a pejorative term that depersonalises an entire ethnic group. I doubt that Du Beke intended to offend a cultural group. I don't know him, but don't assume that he is a xenophobe (he is afterall an Englishman called Tony Beke who actively chooses to call himself by an overtly non-English moniker). However the ease with which he responded to darker skin with the term he did reveals a lack of appreciation of the insult and how its use may have a negative effect not only on Pakistani people listening to it, but to our society as a whole where similarly unthinking others need no encouragement to ignore the views, experiences and beliefs of other cultures.
This is not a chance for a witch-hunt to expose prime-time racists, though, it should be an opportunity to inform. Du Beke should be made an example, but not by firing him (which would only serve to make him a martyr for the thoughtless 'political correctness gone mad' brigade). He should be publicly educated on the issues of ethnicity. Publicly as his example could be one for many more who are not on TV, but who have never stopped to think about WHY saying Paki is wrong.
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