A Child's Rumour

A Child's Rumour from Gaynor Perry on Vimeo.

We were graced with an unexpected visit from an unaccompanied falcon while making this film. From the tags on her legs, we learned her name was Ruby. She arrived at a very timely moment, the sound of a bell marking her arrival — just as I had asked the little girl in the film to run around an oak tree, as if casting a spell.

Ruby lingered for a while, hopping along on the ground and performing low swoops over our heads. Her raptorial presence amazed and inspired us. She then followed us from above as we walked home through the old, wooded pathways by the fields.

Perhaps our imagination extends beyond ourselves, reaching out toward the things we love — and maybe all of nature is listening, waiting for a chance to reach back.

The photograph above is of a mysterious copse I knew as a child. There's a stone trough in the middle and someone said they used to put foxes in it, which is strange, and unlikely. At the time, however, our young brains imagined this to be true. I would love to know more about the copse and who planted it. The trees are like gnarly-limbed old ladies, boughs tangled together in their old age. It is quite something to step into their midst and wonder. 

A Child's Rumour

In the sky beyond power lines, hulking ash clouds

the old tree, a colossus, leans backwards as if to catch the stars

I'm susceptible to ancient springs, melodious landscape

I'm pregnant with the child I was, still exploring branches

underground, a portal, all comfort denied

underneath a table, hard labour – Will Usher relayed the crime

I'm susceptible to mysteries, just like my sister

I'm pregnant with the child I was, still exploring rumour

rumour, a child's rumour

until our lives reveal the mess

our flesh grows around the rumour

caught up in the vast terrain of unanswered questions

jumping over the rose bush, laughing in the pouring rain.

This song is set in Welton, where I grew up. The second verse, "underground, a portal, all comfort denied, underneath a table, hard labour – Will Usher relayed the crime," refers to the sentence of Elizabeth Thompson, who lived there.

"Elizabeth Thompson on the twenty seventh day of October last, 1867, at Welton Wold, in the Parish of Welton, the said Riding, one table cloth, two sheets, two pillow cases and certain flannel of the goods and chattels of William Usher then and there being did feloniously steal, take and carry away contrary to the statute in such case made and provided. We adjudge the said Eizabeth Thompson for her said offence, to be imprisoned in the House of Correction at Beverley, the said Riding, and there kept hard labour for the space of three calendar months."

The truth is stranger than fiction ... gyr falcon x saker - Ruby

Before the falcon appeared, I had been creating a puppet for the film A Child's Rumour — her name is Mädchen, a nod to my German blood. While I was making her, a phrase played over and over in my mind: We carry with us the shells of our grandmother's hearts.

Mädchen

Mädchen

Mädchen under construction

Ruby

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity."

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

concept, film & music

composed, performed & produced

by © ℗ Gaynor Perry

A CHILD'S RUMOUR ALBUM 

Online mastering by Barry Gardner

Raikes Mausoleum

Raikes Mausoleum stands 38 ft (12 m) high and measures 67 ft (20 m) in circumference. It is quite something to encounter, nestled in the woods at the northern end of Welton Dale—a haunting presence. Built in 1818 by Robert Raikes (1765–1837), it was desecrated in the 1960s, during which a skull was stolen. The skull was later found near the Humber Estuary. Following a coroner's inquest and police investigation, the skull was returned, and the large vault beneath the main structure was permanently sealed.

David H Parker, who was born in the village in 1931, compiled a memoir about growing up there. He writes, "I will start at the northern end of the village at the top of Welton Dale where there are a few houses and a small church called Wauldby. This once belonged to the Raikes family who lived in the Manor House. Most of their ancestors are buried in a mausoleum which is in the corner of Welton Dale near the Beverley Road. It was built around 1818, with the main burial chamber under a round building which contained lead coffins on shelves around the walls. These had been broken into many years ago during the First World War, there was also a passage leading to another vault. A friend of mine, Bill Goldsmith, and I managed to get into the chamber when we were about twelve by removing a stone slab. While we were down there a shadow moved across the entrance. Bill and I fought each other to get out of there and didn't stop running until we got to Welton. It was only a tree branch moving across the setting sun, but it frightened us thoroughly."

(An extract from Welton As I Remember It: A personal recollection of life and times in the village by David H Parker).

Welton is the site of many springs, the one pictured above is near to the old watermill. Water runs through the village to the mill pond by the church, dropping down from a weir and beyond that in streams down towards the river. My composition Home Ground is inspired by the water and landscape of this place. As a child growing up there it has haunted and inspired me equally. I recall exploring wood and hedgerow, daring to stir up dark bodies of water with stones and little feet, vanquishing ghosts.

Robert Schuck: Clarinet

Composed, performed & produced © ℗ Gaynor Perry

For more, see my previous post Home Ground, May 2010.

Wauldby Chapel at the top of Welton Dale

Welton Water Mill (High Mill) conversion – 28 April 2015

Home Ground

I grew up in the shadow of a radioactive chimney. Capper Pass, once one of the world’s largest tin smelters and owned by Rio Tinto, operated on the outskirts of Hull between 1967 and 1991, when it was decommissioned. Some of the by-products released into the River Humber and the East Yorkshire air were toxic, carcinogenic, and radioactive. Radioactive emissions from the Capper Pass plant included Polonium-210. The press referred to the imposing chimney as ‘Dante’s Inferno.’

There was a high incidence of cancer among the residents of the surrounding area and the workers at Capper Pass. Tragically, many lost their lives due to the pollution. Even as far back as the early 1970s, lead and arsenic were found in cattle that grazed near Capper Pass. Livestock and crops had to be condemned on several farms. It was believed that public awareness of the situation would cause alarm if the facts became widely known. The environmental damage was extensive.

Despite the long reign of this invisible threat, the village near Capper Pass where I grew up continues to thrive, inspiring the likes of me with its dark bodies of water and impassable woods. These places remain my childhood haunts.

Carol Coiffait is a poet who lives in the village. I knew her as a child. We share the same sentiments about the movement of the water flowing through the village from the wolds, teeming with life and possibilities — how it has shaped our lives. My dreams often take me back to these old haunts, and I wonder if the water draws my dreaming self there, towing me along in the undercurrent.

“In the heart of the village the water shows itself again. Chatter from the mouth of the tunnel into sunlight caressing the gravel, the roots of cresses and minulus. Past water shrimps, minnows down towards the river.” —Carol

The chimney itself was rarely out of sight — a peripheral stigma. On sleepless nights, I gazed at it from my bedroom window, the warning light blinking in the dark. Hypnotising. As a small child I personified the chimney and believed that it could read my mind.

I wanted to capture the spirit of this place, as it has captured mine, and share some of Welton's stories — there are many to tell.

Home Ground is the final track on my album A Child’s Rumour and features the immensely talented clarinettist Robert Schuck, who is sadly no longer with us. 

Written, performed and produced by Gaynor Perry

Clarinet: Robert Schuck

***

"Home Ground" 

a poem by Carol Coiffait

I know these contour lines, this cleavage

between rib

and rib of chalky wold.

I know these arms of scrub and scree

where, in autumn, black bryony

and sloe reach between

her knees.

I know how wolf-winds curse and whine

through stands of sycamore

and pine.

I know the glint of streaming eyes

and how her shoulders hunch

against the winter's worst.

I know of no soft options for her skin,

her teeth of chalk

and flint, crazed

by an east wind's flat out drought.

I know up here that spring steps

slow, while down below

the gleet of water

feeds her secret flowers.

I know that they run wild

across her lap.

The snowdrops, dog violets

and winter aconites

conspire

to hide something she doesn't wish to own.

Carol Coiffait, photo: Hugo Schlechter

***

Painting: "111" oil on board.
Inspired by Welton and my imaginary childhood friends.

***

Capper Pass, photo: Internet



Capper Pass Chimney Demolition 1993
(action starts 0:45)

Victory Against RioTinto