Blind love: Munnings the horse painter

The village of Dedham is in a sublimely pretty corner of Essex  - especially on an autumn day. Many tourists come here on an art pilgrimage seeking to find out more about two artists with deep connections to this East Anglian landscape. Many of us are familiar with Constable and his famous horse-drawn 'Haywain', painted at nearby Flatford Mill, but what about the equestrian artist Alfred Munnings (1878-1959)? Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Books about Munnings at the Munnings Art Museum shop.
Munnings excelled as a plein air painter, capturing the good times and summer light,
and starring beautiful horses, girls in frothy dresses, canvases filled with gypsy life,
backdrops of the River Stour countryside, racehorses. 

I love horses but they are horrible to draw: those sleek limbs bend so awkwardly when my pencil tries to fix them to paper. And their hooves! How does a horse stand on such a little sloping triangle? These are not questions you need to ask when you see the work of Alfred Munnings hanging at his dream home, Castle House just outside Dedham which is now an art gallery so packed with his realist horse canvases that you can almost smell the sweet hay breath of his subjects.

If you know your horses you can see the thickened tendons of a racehorse turned hunter, the tucked up posture of a horse on the first world war front line, the tail flick of a gypsy pony brushing away a summer fly. But mostly Munnings paints the most beautiful horses, at peak condition. A lot of these are his own horses. Perhaps his most famous works are the race starts (which bizarrely I find I confuse with Degas' paintings) and the colourful carnival of travellers at Epsom Down during Derby race week or at horse fairs like Lavenham in nearby Suffolk.

As a bonus the Munnings Art Museum has a wonderful cafe, which opens two hours before the exhibition. The food is terrific and the setting bucolic - green lawns, green fields, birdsong.

My wife, My horse and Myself by AJ Munnings. This painting has been criticised as
"defiantly British" so it's is quite a nice touch that the horse's name was Antichrist.  (c) Munnings Art Museum

This is easy art: Munnings had an eye for beauty with a happy focus on horses and good looking women. Even for that period he was considered rather old-fashioned, although that didn't stop him liking a party. Born on 8 October in 1878, Munnings was brought up in a mill, just like the one Constable painted in The Haywain (Flatford Mill). His natural artistic skills saw him apprenticed to a lithograph printer at 14 years old. Over the years he developed a conservative style that many art critics lampooned. At the same time he had real antipathy to modern art (eg, Picasso, Henry Moore, Salvador Dali). Indeed his resigning speech as the President of the Royal Academy, in 1949, focussed exactly on modern art's limitations. It didn't go down that well with the diners.

Munnings was embroiled in the hunting set and made a good deal of money doing expensive portraits for the Belvoir Hunt followers, and others. His first big London show was in 1913, Horses, Hunting & Country Life at Leicester Galleries. By the 1920s he could charge £500 a canvas, which is £21,000 in today's money.

He met his second wife Violet McBride, who loved to hunt, at Richmond horse show. They married in 1920. She clearly brought him social status and many equestrian commissions.

He bought his first horse when he was in his 20s and kept riding until the end off his life. Munnings knew how much he owed to his horses (quoted in the book pictured above AJ Munnings by Stanley Booth on sale at the Munnings Art Museum): "Although they have given me much trouble and many sleepless nights, they have been my supporters, friends - my destiny in fact. Looking back at my life, interwoven with theirs - painting them, feeding them, riding them, thinking about them - I hope that I have learned something of their ways. I have never ceased to understand them."

Munnings Museum is in this yellow painted house. When AJ Munnings moved
here he called it his "dream home".

At the collection my friend Eugenie and I quickly found favourites. Eugenie loved Shrimp, the young traveller man often painted on a cheeky grey Welsh pony called Augereau.

I fell for a showstopper, painted in 1932 - My Wife, My Horse and Myself. It's a conceited but beautiful painting of Lady Munnings riding sidesaddle on a stylish English thoroughbred outside her beautiful country home. To the side her proud husband smiles by a canvas of the same painting. It's a show off portrait of Munnings' possessions, capturing the swank (albeit horse-centred) lifestyle of this miller boy-made-establishment. It also owes plenty to the then popular hunting writer, Surtees who barked (surely he must have barked!): "Three things I never lend - my 'boss, my wife and my name". It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1935, a rocky time in British finances, which might well be why it's also been dubbed: "the most defiantly British picture of the 20th century". Strangely it's the sort of insult that Munnings would have been taken as a compliment.

Painters Constable and Munnings would still recognise the River Stour at
Flatford Mill, just in Suffolk. It's now a very popular tourist spot.

I'm a huge fan of dog and horse portraiture, so it's always been painful to me that the late Victorian and early Edwardian animal painters, in particular Munnings but also Landseer (who painted Monarch of the Glen) and the stunning equestrian artist Heywood Hardy, all fell out of fashion as the shock of the new art exerted its magnetic pull. Country life may not have ended in the 1930s, but these days it feels as over as the time when families crowded into the mill cottages, six sharing a bedroom, and never left the county, never mind the country. You can see exactly what I mean if you also have time to visit little Bridge Cottage, now a National Trust property (free entry) a few miles over the fields at Flatford Mill.

But that doesn't stop a real sense of joy when you see Munnings' wonderful paintings - this collection has more than 4000  - in his old home in this elegant Georgian family house. It's a visual delight to go into every room, and the studio, and see pictures which such a strong sense of place (there are around 150 on display).

I've been longing to see Munnings' paintings, but took my time figuring out
how to get from Manningtree train station, Essex (seen here with a glowing sunset).
 

Munnings' work can be written off as sentimental or chocolate-boxy (if you really don't like horses that is) but he had such grit. Next year expect a complete rehang as Castle House is taken over by the portraits Munnings did in 1918 of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade as a war artist on the front line in France.

Munnings, by then pushing 40, has been blinded when he was just 19. For most of us a thorn striking your eye would be a life disaster. For a teenager starting out on his artistic career, without much money behind him, this should have signalled the end. Somehow Munnings overcame the disability forcing his sole good eye to let him paint well - damn well - again.

Gallop over to see his paintings in the house where he lived if you get the chance. And don't forget to take a break at the Garden Cafe.

How to get there: An early autumn day was perfect for the four or so mile walk across the
water meadows from Manningtree station via Flatford Mill (plus 20 more minutes from Dedham village). A friend with a car was a bonus. There are also taxis from Manningtree and a bus (see Munnings Art Museum website, then double check with coach provider).

• More info at https://www.munningsmuseum.org.uk 
• Address: Castle House, Castle Hill, Dedham, Colchester, Essex CO7 6AZ. Admission £10. Currently on show, permanent collection and wonderful paintings of days out in wooden row boats, Munnings and the River.
• Munnings Art Museum closes for the winter on 31 October 2018 and reopens on 23 March 2019 with Alfred Munnings' WW1 Canadian Paintings (admission £8).
• Check Garden Cafe opening times cafe@munningsmuseum.org.uk, tel: 01206 322127 (option 5) 

Liverpool: the place to get you thinking about ships and slavery & the Beatles

This blog looks at ways of learning about the world without having to get on a plane (in a bid to reduce our carbon footprint). While a friend sails from Liverpool to cross the Atlantic twice (respect!!) mum and daughter explore a city where travel can be a force for good or very, very bad. Words from Nicola Baird.

Clipper Race 2017 - 12 boats lined up for
display and tours at Albert Dock.
(c) aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com

1 “Thousands of ships must have left from this dock,” said the man taking photos of the Clipper Race as the first of the 12 boats headed out of the Albert Dock and towards the start line in the Mersey. As the 20 crew members, including my friend Nicky, waved excitedly to their landlubber friends and family, I found the site of the Sanya Serenity beginning her first leg of the around-the-world leg made me cry. It wasn’t just saying goodbye to Nicky, but also the thought of all those goodbyes that had happened here on the Liverpool docks.

There’s something about waving off a ship that is potent with the past. Of course some ships made their fortune in a good way, although Nicky’s goddaughter, Nell, and I had already seen a display at the Museum of Liverpool about the way hundreds of Chinese sailors, many with Liverpool families, had been compulsorily repatriated – with no warning – in October 1945. And of course we knew something about Liverpool’s slave trade history. But going to sea has the potential to be a make or break move… we know our friend is really looking forward to the challenge, but as her boat put up its sails and turned into a tiny, sleek dot on the River Mersey it felt very sad.

The bigger story
Liverpool played a key part in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But because the enslaved were taken from Africa to the Caribbean slave markets and plantations – what’s now known as the Middle Passage – it was, at first, easy to avoid, ignore or even justify. At the Museum of Slavery there’s a huge amount of information about the slavery and forced transportation of Africans, a voyage that invariably saw many people die thanks to the terrible and cramped conditions they were kept in for the 30+ day passage.

Slavery implicated so many people. Even the foods that today we are either struggling to avoid, or may even claim we are addicted to, such as coffee, tea, sugar, chocolate (and possibly rum) were all brought to the home market from the Caribbean because of the work the slaves did. What we did was sickening but I really only heard the term “middle passage” earlier this year. A short film from the poet Benjamin Zephaniah shows him calling it a “holocaust”, which seems exactly the right term.

The exhibition also contains a section about modern day slavery, which is thankfully becoming better reported than it was, and thus easier to tackle. During the summer I’ve read about the Filipino mother abused by her employers who over worked her and refused to give her pay or her passport; the Vietnamese girls sold to be Chinese brides; the East Europeans trafficked into prostitution; the Nigerian teenagers tricked into bondage. Modern day slavery is under our British noses too: in August 2017 a UK family was convicted of keeping at least 18 people as slaves for around 26 years. 

Tip: There’s a lot to see in Liverpool but the Museum of Slavery is a must visit, and it’s free. At it’s conjoined with the Merseyside MaritimeMuseum do go and see the exhibition about the work of the Border Agency which plays a big role in identifying trafficked people – as well as tracking the illegal movement of rare animals, ivory, alcohol etc. 

2 Liverpool always seems a long, long way from my home. But once I booked a train ticket I discovered it’s really not far at all, just two hours from Euston station. As this was part of my holiday Nell and I went there via Bangor and all those Welsh tourist resorts.

Tip: Liverpool Lime Street station has baggage storage. It gets full up quickly, especially when the football is on. Solution: get there early, be super polite or pick another time to visit…

3 Liverpool is still in a building frenzy. I last visited about 10 years ago and I doubt I’d be able to recognise that Liverpool from now – although the iconic Liver birds are still atop the Liver Building near the Mersey. It’s a useful landmark if you don’t know the area well, as it’s roughly where you’ll find the Albert Dock.

Tip: Go to the Museum of Liverpool and see pictures of what Liverpool used to look like. Even when the Beatles were playing in The Cavern it was grey and positively run down. 

Classic Liverpool, there's even the Liver Building in the pic.
(c) aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com

4 Zillions of visitors head to the Albert Dock and waterfront area for the festivals, food stalls, galleries and restaurants. A taxi driver told me that three cruise ships had pitched up a week or so ago, each with 1,000 people, but still managed to be absorbed without overwhelming the city. The absolute best part of Liverpool for visitors is the incredible signposting to all the places you might want to go – The Beatles Story, the Tate Liverpool, the Maritime Museum, bus station, train station and shopping streets – and a huge number of traffic free shopping streets. Somehow this doesn’t seem to have put off drivers as they’ve been provided with 4,000+ parking spaces in the city centre. 

Tip: The only downside I came across on my 2-day Liverpool adventure is that different companies won’t accept return or all day rovers on their buses if you’d booked the initial ticket with another bus company.

5 You’ve got to find out something about the Beatles. We booked the Beatles Story (on line to ensure we didn’t have to queue), which is a fantastic exhibition. It’s pricey – but everything else on the docks to look at was free. It’s also valid for 48 hours so if you’ve only made it up to The Yellow Submarine phase you can take a break and then re-visit the following day. Like so many of the places we went to at Liverpool the staff were super-friendly. They also all seemed to have Liverpool accents, which we loved because it made us feel as if we were really travelling. Long live regional distinctions.  By the end of the exhibition I was an unexpected fan of George Harrison (his involvement in Handmade Films helped get my favourite film Withnail & I funded and he had a cameo role in Monty Python). I also learnt that Ringo Starr had narrated Thomas The Tank Engine for TV and that Paul met John Lennon at Woolton Fete; oh yes and that Eleanor Rigby was a real person, dead in a Liverpool Graveyard. 

Tip: The Beatles Story is totally recommended. It’s pricey – but everything else on the docks to look at was free (and pints are cheaper than down south which eased some of the pain). The entry ticket is also valid for 48 hours, so if you’ve only made it up to The Yellow Submarine phase you can take a break and then re-visit the following day.

6 On a two-day break we also had time to visit the Tate Liverpool and the Walker Art Gallery, both with fantastic art displays in huge, beautiful buildings. I particularly loved the Walker Art Gallery as it reveals much about how Liverpool tradesmen saw themselves and it’s also been curated to make clear why this picture is here in this Liverpool gallery. 

Nicky's godchildren Nell and Max (with Zimbabwe flag) pose in Liverpool.
(c) aroundbritainnoplane.blogspot.com

Summing up: in 2008 Liverpool was nominated as a European cultural capital, alongside Stavanger, Norway and it has the bonus of having several city centre areas designated as World Heritage sites. It’s an old city and a busy one with a long industrial record which has kept its pride thanks to the Mersey Beat (especially the Beatles). Slavery was a hideous part of its history, but one - as the Liverpool museums make clear - that wasn’t very obvious thanks to the dirty work of shipping people across the Middle Passage so many miles from where the ship originally set sail, or returned home. We know more now and it is important not just to see the historical evidence, but to understand why that’s created an imbalance of power between the status quo and black African and Caribbean-heritage families here in the UK.

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There are many heroes who made efforts to bring slavery to an end from Wilberforce to Plimsoll, but it is quite shocking to learn how the slave owners were the ones to get compensation when their “property” was begrudgingly freed. In a just world it would have been the people given their freedom who’d have been offered additional financial compensation to help them find their feet. But it isn’t a just world, still.

In today's Liverpool the obvious signs of great wealth (fabulous public architecture for example), and the people able to have fun without watching their wallets, are never far from the homeless or families in very rundown homes. It's not slavery, of course, but it ought to make us all think about ways we as individuals can help the people who have a great need.  

Nicky, my sailing friend  who was the reason we all went to Liverpool in August has set up a fundraising page to raise money for Migrants Organise, which works with refugees. If you'd like to donate that would be fantastic, here's the link. Thank you.

Another country: the crazy art world

This blog looks at ways of learning about the world without having to get on a plane. Discovering art is very low carbon - enjoy the inside story of self-proclaimed art terrorist, AK47, who stole a Banksy.  Words from Nicola Baird.

Meet AK47artist at home. Pic is screenshot version(c) Portable Networks Graphic Image

The Banksy Job – five years in the making – is a real treat. It's an eccentric art movie about larger-than-life character (but perhaps not exactly an artist) Andy Link. As AK47 he creates an anti-art movement supported by his white-overall clad followers, Art Kieda. AK47’s plan is to steal a massive Banksy sculpture, modelled on Rodin's The Thinker, but reposed to become The Drinker. Success sees the stolen sculpture planted in AK47's back garden. And then in a bizarre twist how it gets to be reinstalled in Shaftesbury Avenue.

The directors, Ian Roderick Gray and Dylan Harvey, call it a heist movie. It’s shot as a documentary, but mocks itself, its characters and the art world with proper British eccentricity. There’s also some choreographed scene stealing from AK47’s overall-clad art crew too.

If you like street art or are bemused by artistic pontification The Banksy Job
is a perfect film. Photo taken at the Prince Charles Cinema premiere.
Left is question master Amanda Mo with artist AK47 and the directors,
 Ian Roderick Gray and Dylan Harvey.

Curiously I was sent a free ticket courtesy to the premier by the PR for Andrew Lamberty who runs the Lamberty Gallery on Pimlico Road. According to the press release the gallery is: “A busy and pioneering showcase for extraordinary pieces. Lamberty sources and sells the very best in 20th century and contemporary art and design. Alongside this, Lamberty is known for discovering and developing cutting edge emerging talent, representing now some of the leading names in the contemporary furniture design and art scenes.”

 I loved it, and really enjoyed the humour. Enjoy the trailer:

https://youtu.be/QRMDcvM0UqM

The Banksy Job may have a name that hints at car chases and Italy, but it Is most definitely a London film, covering street art turf wars. It will also introduce you to the bizarre authentication system that Banksy runs, Pest Control.In other words you don’t have a Banksy until it’s verified by Banksy. Not having a Banksy I really didn’t know this. But one day perhaps...

The film's done well in the US and Paris - but it's an oddball movie so the best way to see it is via download. Enjoy.

Directors: Ian Roderick Gray, Dylan Harvey

Star: AK47 “very fuckin contemporary innit”

Downloadable from 19 June - even the trailer is a lot of fun. Find it on netflix, etc.

Many hands make light work & powerful statements

Can art ever say anything important about the political issues of the day? This blog looks at ways of learning about the world without having to get on a plane (because this blog is all about travelling without racking up a mega carbon footprint). Words from Nicola Baird.

Inspiring piece by Lorenzo Quinn, Support, 2017 (c) Lorenzo Quinn

Today my hallway is a clutter of boxes filled with Green party leaflets. The idea is that I contact keen local Greens and get them to take a clutch and deliver to nearby households. It's a slog contacting people (there is a politico or SPUD term which calls this something like 'phone banking'). Admittedly it is a thrill when you match a genuinely keen Green with a really useful job.

But can art do the work of politicians? Apart from Picasso's La Guernica and other war pictures I wasn't sure if art could be used effectively in a campaigning way.

But I love this new sculpture by Lorenzo Quinn which shows two huge hands emerging from the Grand Canal as if they are propping up the five star Ca' Sagredo Hotel. Admittedly I know very little about the buildings in Venice - other than climate change is putting them at risk of collapse. But the artist is quite clear about his intent:

"I wanted to sculpt what is considered the hardest and most technically challenging part of the human body. The hand holds so much power – the power to love, to hate, to create, to destroy. Venice is a floating art city that has inspired cultures for centuries, but to continue to do so it needs the support of our generation and future ones, because it is threatened by climate change and time decay," says Lorenzo Quinn who calls his sculpture Support.

This sculpture is on show for the Venice Biennale from May to November 2017.

This is the second fantastic artwork about climate change that has really impressed me. The other was of four 3m high horsemen emerging with the low tide along the banks of the Thames by Jason de Caires Taylor visible near the Houses of Parliament in September 2015. I still have a picture of it, cut from the Guardian, pinned up on my fridge. But I daren't add it to this blog as it is a Getty image. But hope to the Guardian site and have a look.

So what?
Both artworks make powerful points about the need to pay attention to climate change in the most witty and thoughtful ways. And that gives me energy to keep on making those calls encouraging people to deliver another run of leaflets... A perfect example of how thinking global can re-energise you to act local.

Over to you

What art work have you seen that helps raise attention to problems like climate change?

• More info about Lorenzo Quinn @LorenzoQuinnArtist via @HalcyonGallery Halcyon Gallery website (or visit 144-146 New Bond Street, W1) which specialises in "inspirational art". Nearest Tube: Bond Street
  FREE Entry. Visitor Information: 020 7100 7144. Exhibition opening times: Monday to Saturday 10am–6pm, Sunday 11am–5pm

Turning Japanese with the amazing Yayoi Kusama

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. Tokyo-based Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's work is inventive, tactile and fun - a good way to be cheered up. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

This is a 10 minute queue for All The Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins (2016).
I like the way there are quite a few Japanese visitors in front of me.

The astonishing art of Yayoi Kusama - born in Japan in 1929 - is on show for free at the Victoria Miro gallery on Wharf Road in Islington. You may know her work - think spots and dots - and this time expect pumpkins, hallucinations and mirrors. You might think of these combinations as a visual burst of happiness. The only snag is that you will have to queue for a long time to see her work.

Inside this artwork by Yayoi Kusama the images are so clear, but I seem to have taken
a photo of a crowd of aeroplane landing lights!

Admittedly it's amazing having a private 45 second moment with the Chandelier of Grief. I didn't know what to expect, and in the mirrored twinkling light security of the chamber I had to work hard at keeping calm. There's a definite feeling of being lost in space, or a vision of Heaven. And either of those rather imply that you're dead. But it's beautiful too, so strange how such a short time can feel so long.

I then went up the stairs and enjoyed a 30second private view of All The Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins - a much more cheerful piece of work. Dress for this exhibition - you'll enjoy the three mirrored chambers far more if you have colour blocked your wardrobe. I think black works best but yellow would be OK too.

There's another mirrored chamber - again 30seconds -  called Where the Lights In My Heart Go in the garden. By this time I'd got used to being locked in with the art and actually relished the sudden quiet, lit by tiny pinpricks of light and some air holes drilled into the capsule. Back outside the giant silver baubles amongst the lily pond, the Narcissus Garden, looked equally captivating.  There is one final gallery at the very top of the fabulous Victoria Miro Gallery which is filled with Kusama's so-called Infinity Nets in various colours (canvases of a base colour covered in tiny spots of another colour - check out the texture contrasts).

"I've been Kusamaed!"

The gallery is bizarrely tricky to navigate - it's not just the super steep, super long stairways - it's the lack of signage about where to go next. So staff wearing Yayoi Kusama designed spots point the way. I loved the young man who laughed when I asked about his outfit, claiming he'd been "Kusamaed".

You can also enjoy a virtual tour of Yayoi Kusama's work via Artsy which also sells her work.

According to Artsy, their "Yayoi Kusama page, has Kusama's bio, over 150 of her works, exclusive articles, and up-to-date Kusama exhibition listings. The page even includes related artist & category tags, plus suggested contemporary artists, allowing viewers to continue exploring art beyond Kusama."

Artsy has done a fascinating review of 86-year-old Yayoi Kusama claiming that if she was "a rockstar she'd be Mick Jagger". She's lived in an old people's home (a sanitarium) in Tokyo since the late 1970s but her playful spirit hasn't deserted her, even her wheelchair is covered in spots. She's been a force of nature on the New York art scene since the 1960s, but intriguingly it's only since 2015 that she's become properly well known following a year of firsts with stunning exhibitions in Scandanavia, Louisiana and Russia.

So what got me heading to her show? I was intrigued to see some mirrored balls while canoeing on the canal (at least I think that's what I saw), but it's what led me to go to Yayoi Kusama's show at the Victoria Miro gallery. Seeing art - and understanding its size is the best way to enjoy it - but if you can't make it, then a virtual tour is a good second best. And of course the more you know about the artist the more you get out of seeing the show.

Verdict: Be warned, once you've met Yayoi Kusama's work all you want to do is place spots in unexpected places - the garden roses, on pumpkins in the vegetable aisle of supermarkets or simply round the bathroom mirror. And do take a companion or a gripping book to see you through the long waits between your one-on-one private views.

• Victoria Miro gallery exhibition at 16 Wharf Road, N1 (Tuesday-Saturday 10am-6pm) ends 30 July. Nearest tube is either Angel (you can walk along the canal to reach it or take a bus towards Old Street) or Old Street.

The big poppy row: remembering World War One 1914-1918

This blog is about low-carbon family travel. After visiting the Tower of London's ceramic poppy field I wanted to find out if this type of public art has a useful effect on my 13 year old daughter. If you like a quick read, then the answer is yes. Here's why...

888,246 poppies to remember the British & colonial servicemen who died during World War One.

In early November volunteers cleaning up a canal in Mile End - London's East End - found an unexploded World War 2 (1939-45) grenade. Debbie Vidler from the Canal & River Trust gave the BBC a marvellous quote:

"We often find weird and wonderful things in the bottom of canals. Today we discovered numerous shopping trolleys, bicycles, mobile phones... but we were not expecting to find a 70-year-old unexploded bomb..."

It's the unexpected that brings history closer, and although it's 100 years since the carnage of World War 1 (1914-18) began, its effect lingers on just like that other war's unexploded bomb.

I've been to see the ceramic poppies at the Tower of London (more a cycle past type of salute) as have tens of thousands of people. It seems to be something non-Londoners feel compelled to do. Indeed most of my Hertfordshire-based family have come up for a look and my brother organised for our great-grandfather Mervyn Hamilton's name to be read out before the last post was sounded. He died of his wounds after one of the early battles.

Names of lost servicemen at the Menin Gate

Looking over Ypres's oddly shaped square towards the Menin Gate.

As part of an effort to make sure my children's history is wide-reaching during the summer we went to Ypres in Belgium (by train). There's an amazing museum in the rebuilt Cloth Hall called In Flanders Field. It caters for multi-languages, all ages and interest in WW1 - but in particular the dead relatives from that war who come from everywhere and from every side. The Allies may have won the battle, but like the Germans the impact of the war had fearful emotional repercussions on many Europeans - and many others too. For those who lost a father or uncle or brother or husband that impact trickles down the generations. And so many did: there were 37 million military and civilian casualties.

At the Menin Gate - where the last post is played at 8pm every night - there are 1,000s of names inscribed into the pale Bath stone. All the names are of servicemen who were unable to be buried because their bodies were never recovered - something my 13-year-old found hard to understand (thankfully). It's chilling.

And that's what the poppies are not.

The poppies at the Tower of London make you glad to be alive. They are a beautiful red carpet put together by craftsman to make (hopefully) a temporal art work that has got us all thinking about WW1's anniversary.

"I found it really pretty and a great way to remember the one's that didn't make it," said Nell who went with her Dad to the Tower to have a look on a very rainy Sunday during half-term. A mix of activities have helped her understand the war far better than I did at her age. She's performed in a school production of Oh What A Lovely War!, has already been to Ypres (by train) and is due a school trip (by coach) to the battle fields of the Somme soon. She is also reading a proper page turner (historical romance for teenagers, although I loved it too) called Valentine Joe by Rebecca Stevens.

Now politicians are calling for the display to last a little bit longer than 11 November, Armistice Day. I guess it's a win for the MPs as the poppies will surely take as long to remove as they did to install. This is a proper crowd-sourced project that has spread far further than the Royal British Legion's fundraising efforts. As an art work I don't like it much - far too saccharine for a war memorial, but as craftsmanship I rate it and as a way of getting so many of us talking about World War 1 I think it's been sheer genius.

What do you think?

Brazil hints thanks to street art

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a look at just one football image to get into the World Cup 2014 Brazilian mood. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Street art by Bambi in Islington, London. But who's the boy - he looks kind of familiar.

Sassy urban street artist Bambi reminds us that World Cup football isn't that important, and that it's kicking off big time in Brazil. I like football but 11pm starts for us UK viewers are hopeless - I doubt I'm going to watch any games this time.  For an interesting look at how to get a taste of football in as small as your own locale have a look at my other blog, here. You should be able to find a taste of every country, without  leaving your postcode!

For any non UK readers, do let me know if you also play this low-carbon, low-cost travel game.  

Good luck to your World Cup favourites.

Thinking Japanese

Shakespeare at the Globe in all the world's languages (well, some), and next door at the Tate an art show doing its best to help us spot what's an international language.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to enjoy a long wet weekend learning new languages.  This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   

Japan - the home of cute and fluffy. Diminutive. Polite. Actually the polar opposite of Japan's most famous female artist - Yayoi Kusama. She was born in 1929, an immense length of time ago, in a town 130 miles away from Tokyo.

Now 83 years old, she's got a major exhibition at Tate Modern (rivalling Damien Hirst's naughty shock show of sharks, jewel-encrusted skulls and butterfly farming).

Kusama spent years living in the States - imagine that leap of faith after what her generation had lived through during World War 2. She seems to have fallen into pop art before the pop artists and is without fail going to impress you.

Nell's 10-year-old friend Anna went to see it and claimed the show was mostly about spots. I was quite surprised to find it's mostly about willies in the early 1960s, although spots definitely become the main focus as she grows older.

It's sad that she's spent so many years living in a Japanese hospital - but the spots keep multiplying, and her output is amazing, and very pricey to buy. Clearly that's the sign of fabulous health care.

See Kusama until 5 June 2012 at the Tate Modern.

The joy of Essex

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Take a mini break to Colchester for culture, oysters, history and views that are often Italinate (even in a damp mid-winter). This post is by Nicola Baird 

Colchester is a market town with a big history. As Camulodunum (translation - fortress of Camulos [a Celtic god of war]) it was once the capital of Britain. It was a vast Roman colony and even now the materials used in the Norman castle give you the impression you are mid Mediterranean, maybe Florence with the warm terracotta tiles on the castle's narrow bricked towers and the strange white elephant watertower, known locally as Jumbo. It's the history that is exciting though: it was viciously destroyed by Boudica and her Celtic allies (who also destroyed London and St Albans); fought over in the Civil War, and has more traditions about oysters than you can serve up with Lee and Perrins....

Despite all these stories it’s not a traditional place to head for a wedding anniversary weekend. Strange because it surely compares with Lille or Bath or Winchester. Indeed the staggered reaction from a friend who used to live there, and my aunt who is based in Essex - but does her best to avoid Colchester - suggested I might regret letting Pete pick the venue. But that's the point of Aroundbritainnoplane, getting to know the UK better.

Turns out that Colchester offers an astonishing history trail (and thanks to the choice of B&B and restaurant Pete and I had a lot of fun too). The Norman castle is the biggest in Britain - because it was built on foundations made by the Romans. The foundations are 3,000 years old, and when the Normans arrived these were already 1,000 years old. When I think about the subsidence in the two Victorian homes I’ve lived in this seems puzzlingly brilliant engineering.

We took a taxi from the station to Trinity Street where we were staying in a house once owned by John Wilbye, the man who invented madrigals in the late 16th century. I always ask taxi drivers the three best things about the place where they work, often with interesting results. The woman we’d picked was an utter down.”There’s nothing good here. It’s just cold. There’s shopping, but I don’t like that, except in Williams & Griffin (a department store run by Fenwick).” When pushed she admitted there were some pubs, but these were occupied by squaddies and students so we wouldn’t want to go there… Well we did, the Purple Dog was fine, and most pubs seem to offer real ale.

Within 100 metres of exiting the taxi – she couldn’t drive to the front door because of the excellent pedestrianised shopping lanes (sort of like Brighton) off the High Street a lady in Tudor garments had invited us to watch a Tudor dance being performed in the CO1 community centre run by a charity that finds things for teenagers to do. Irresistible, and though Tudor dances are reasonably staid, it was fun watching a performance of Ding Dong Merrily on High (originally a dance) and the anachronistic doubletake of spotting a Tudor dancer sit out with mobile and a mug of latte. Could spots like this have inspired Damon Albarn from Blur?

Top 5 highlights of Colchester (other than the zoo)

1. Colchester Castle – stunning Roman collection which is labelled for maximum enjoyment for anyone who knows Essex or interested in Boudica. It costs £6 to enter but offers at least an hour of displays. You can also book a £2.50 tour of the Roman foundations of the Temple of Claudius which Boudica destroyed (along with 20,000 people) and go on to the castle ramparts for a 360 degree view across today's town. 
2. FREE A walk that takes in the old Roman wall by the Hole in the Wall pub and a vast red-brick retired Victorian water tower known as Jumbo. Then head the other way and find the Old Seige House which looks Tudor but has many red painted bullet marks on its inside and outside walls – marks from the conflict between Cromwell’s troops and the Royalists. Finish off with a patrol of the incredible new arts centre, Firstsite. In fact Firstsite might be a reason to go to Colchester - it's as good as The Baltic up in Newcastle upon Tyne.
3. There are some nice parks, including the castle gardens which also has the FREE toy museum beside it, all a few strides from the shopping streets. Look carefully between and in stores and you’ll see Roman memories everywhere. We ate a good dinner (with frighteningly speedy service) at the Lemon Tree which boasts a massive Roman wall between the dining rooms.
4. A place to get curious about: allegedly Humpty Dumpty was a canon parked at St Mary in the Wall during the Civil War conflict (find it near the Mercury theatre). And there's the Dutch Quarter where in 1806 Jane Taylor is claimed to have dreamt up Twinkle Twinkle Little Star... and it's old name, Camulodunum may have been the basis for the nursery rhyme Old King Cole. As for the TOWIE craze back in Brentwood (and the nation's sitting rooms), well I could see no evidence other than a canvas tote in a super tacky shop that boasted "I've been vajazzled".
5. Pick the right Sunday in December (11 Dec 2011) and then you can enjoy the Christmas market which has the high street closed to traffic. 

More info about things to do in Colchester here. More info about Colchester at wikipedia here (including references in two Dr Who episodes, Moll Flanders and 1984!)