Journal | The Enjoyment of Research
A Journal Entry with Frau Rita Schneeweiß of K Rheinland-Pfalz, Deutschland
A popular poetry blog is Tewkesbury Abbey.
The original version written on 2 October 2016 remains in situ on the Poetry Blog.
I am, however, reworking this with the aim of running it on this website on 4 May 2023, the 552nd Anniversary of the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.
The current version speaks of the terror that took place within the Nave and at the High Altar.
In my local town, Winchcombe, above me five miles up the road, always a wonderful town to walk around is, as I have mentioned elsewhere, an Antiquarian and High-Value Original Publications Books & Ink Bookshop that opens occasionally. By all means, find it by searching.
On my last visit, the bright cover of a tiny book by Edward Foord, edited and illustrated by Gordon Hone, caught my eye, entitled
GLOUCESTER
TEWKESBURY & DISTRICT
CATHEDRALS, ABBEYS
& FAMOUS CHURCHES
It simply had to be purchased
and once at home with a pot of tea and the sound of a storm in the near distance, I’m glad I did!
The booklet is published in MCMXXV (1925)
This is why I love to research.
It simply had to be purchased, and once at home with a pot of tea and the sound of a storm in the near distance, I’m glad I did!
The writing of the Battle of Tewkesbury is in great detail. Hence my need to write a revised edition in time for the Town’s commemoration on 4 May 2023 of the infamous and disgraceful Battle of Tewkesbury.
The booklet is published in MCMXXV (1925) ~ how extraordinary that I look at the all-too-familiar Roman Numerals that trotted beside me from my first year in Infants School MCMLIII to my final year in Secondary School MCMLXX.
It is like meeting old and familiar friends. The language too. In the 1950s-1980s we were still writing in the formal style. We had a command of the English language, which was essential in my work as a lawyer. MCMXC arrived and, from then on to MMXXIII it has been not so much a gentle side slip, more of a nose dive!
This is why I love to research. Yes, it requires discipline, and yes it is easier today because of the Internet.
Let us take that next step. Let us actually visit or visit again some place of which we read or about which we write.
In this particular subject, I will need to revisit Bloody Meadow.
I close with this thought as I recall the text of Edward Foord’s observation. That beneath the stone slabs of the Nave and Altar lie the bodies of people who were left as they were slain. I think when I next attend, albeit infrequently, I shall pay more regard when I next sit quietly in the Nave with the very same pillars towering above me that towered above that horrifying scene in 1471, my preferred service Evensong.
27 February 2023
All Rights Reserved
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2023
The Nave
Great Columns
Yet did they stand
and witness carnage
within their holy
then ghostly precincts,
when darkness
and the Angel of Death
did Pass Over
and desecrate this
hallowed ground …
© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2023
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
