Yes I know they sound unlikely companions but bear with me…
Earlier this week I went up to London for what turned out to
be a double pre-Christmas treat. The Imperial War Museum (IWM), which is about
to close its doors in January for six months, is currently hosting an
exhibition of Cecil Beaton’s war-time photographs. I’d borrowed several books
from the local library; his diaries and a book from the County Reserve
stock of his war photographs published in 1981. I tried to persuade myself that
reading the books would be sufficient for a glimpse of the man as I had neither
the time nor the funds to add this exhibition to the evening’s planned theatre
trip. I knew however that I’d be very cross with myself if I didn’t make the
effort.
So I made my way through Lambeth’s drab and rainy streets to
reach the museum somewhat wetter and colder than I’d have liked. The Museum is
already being emptied with most of the planes gone from the rather chilly main
hall. Then I stepped through the doors of the exhibition and there was Beaton
in his official photographer uniform, with a serious expression but half
smiling – look what I’ve got to show you…
The war was the making of him and he knew it.
‘Hitler has been responsible for enlarging my photographic
horizon. The English do not approve of propaganda but they are content that
events should be recorded.’
How hard he worked without complaint and paying no heed to
his won comfort and safety. Of course he was often photographing men who he
knew were likely to be killed.
“One is astonished at the youthfulness of these seventeen
year olds with their subtle English looks, clear complexions, and thatch of
hair shorn closely over the ears. One bright young man asked when my picture
would appear, and in answer to my ‘in six weeks time’ said, ‘Oh, most of us will be dead by then."
The
years between, p86 Beaton
I had the exhibition almost to myself and was able to spend
as long as I wanted with each photograph and the artefacts, his cameras pages from his
diary and letters to him. Nonetheless I still managed to bump into someone – he
was stepping back to have a better look at a large-scale photograph of the
bombed interior of a church and I was moving away backwards from a collection
of memorabilia in its glass case. To the amusement of his male companion we
both did the British thing of apologising to each other.
Then I made my way towards Waterloo to meet a friend, Judi
for supper. Thanks to modern technology I did eventually find said restaurant –
Tas ‘no it’s not on the Waterloo road Caroline it’s on the Cut, opposite the
Young Vic’. The food was very good and for London not that expensive. It was
well worth meeting up there rather than trying to find somewhere on Upper
Street, near the Almeida.
The second part of my treat was the play about Edward Thomas
The Dark Earth and the Light Sky and it was stunning. Readers of this blog will
already known about my interest in Thomas.
I had the benefit of reading the reviews before booking the
tickets. The play gives you his whole life and how he haunted the people in it,
his wife Helen, his poet friend Robert Frost and his other writer friend
Eleanor Farjeon. I knew the story but it came to life on stage and how forty
years after his death each of them could summon him back. The play should not
have worked. It stuck closely to the narrative arc of his life in which there
was no happy ending – he did not come back from the war. And yet somehow both
last night and this morning as I write this he is still alive. I had that
unearthly feeling which I got listening to Matthew Hollis and others at that
reading on the South bank that somehow Edward Thomas was there listening,
watching and echoing the words of his poems.
And the link with Beaton. Well Thomas needed the crucible of
the first world war to allow him to make something of himself didn’t he?
Lights Out
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends,
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter and leave alone
I know not how.
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.
