Please see the post below, but www.radicalstroud.co.uk is now superseding this blog ... please go to that website in future ... pictures, categories, search box and so on ...
Well, that was a walk, that was, and even
though it’s over, it’s hard to let it go.
Well over one hundred people gathered in
the Ale House in Stroud for the stroll through Stroud up to the cemetery, and then
other people, attracted by our purpose, joined us as we made our way through
town. It was a most - literally – moving sight, to witness such a number of
people making their orderly way along Nelson Street and up Bisley Road. It must
be a long time since those streets saw such a scene: a scene of gentle, studied
pilgrimage.
I was feeling a little nervous as the clock
approached four, our starting time. I expected twenty people, but was beginning
to wonder that we might have fifty; Angela Findlay, my co-presenter thought seven
would turn up, with the threat of rain; I then began to witness an almost
biblical sight as more and more and more and yet more walkers, visitors to the
town, artists, notables and historians relentlessly surged into the front bar,
like some epic flood.
We met in the Ale House not just because of
the excellent beer festival, but also because a key text for our walk lies upon
the wall in the front bar: a commemorative 1842 plaque praising the beneficence
of the workhouse overseers. I contextualized this with an introduction about
Chartism locally and nationally; Angela contextualized this with a prologue
about the relationship between Stroud’s workhouse and the cemetery.
Next, some performance: I read a poem about
the paupers’ graves; Gemma Dunn, visiting from London, read a first person
account of the May 1839 Chartist mass-meeting on Selsley Hill, and Tim Johnston
from Historic England read a 1795 anonymous threatening letter from Uley.
It was hot and humid and full to the
gunnels, and after each speaker had alighted from their stool in the thronged
room, our troupe made its way to Nelson Street. It looked almost Pied
Piper-like - but this was a collective walk that broke down the barriers
between guide, performer and audience: the line of walkers seemingly had its
own collective mind, as well as both a conscious and unconscious sense of
direction.
I came up the rear – and joined the orderly
assembly by the Black Boy clock. The little triangle of land, opposite, with
its overhanging tree, provided a natural stage and here we discoursed on General
Wolfe, Stroud Scarlet, rioting weavers, Gloucestershire slave owners, local
parish registers, the Black Atlantic, the black boy clock, and
counter-memorialization. Janet Biard
read a first person account from the 1825 riots; Chris William spoke of forty years
ago when the Black Boy flats were the teachers’ centre - one of his tasks was
to wind up the clock every three days; John Marjoram spoke of his time with the
clock, too; Trish Butler gave each walker a copy of a Stroud Scarlet poem, in
the spirit of active counter-heritage.
I found this utterly moving: the sun was
shining, we were reclaiming the streets – we had to make way for one car only
in the half an hour we were there in Castle Street – and such a open air
meeting was a compelling medium for a discussion on 18th century
history: entirely in the spirit of the subject matter in a lah di dah
self-referential post-modernist sort of way. There was also talk of
psycho-geography and mythogeography, but time marches on and we needed to
walk up Bisley Road to the cemetery.
A long line of walkers made its sentient, serpentine
way along the pavements: this was an absolute spectacle in itself, and to
witness one hundred people making their studied way up the steep incline of
Bisley Road is something I will never forget. It’s hard to find a parallel or
simile for such a sight – there probably isn’t one. It was a unique and
ineffable experience. Thanks to Stroud Fringe for making it happen.
Angela addressed us from the front of her house; she
spoke of its history as the Cemetery Gate Lodge, former home to the Cemetery
Superintendents, and the symbolism of the sculptures in the cemetery, before before leading us to the chapel, where she spoke to us from the
back of a waiting and handily placed open van. She spoke of the ecumenical
nature of the internments and Pauline Stevens informed the crowd of the
comprehensive research available on the Stroud Local History website. Other
members of the audience added their thoughts too, in the spirit of this shared
experience. Angela spoke of her work on memorialization and
counter-memorialization.
It was now time to move to the area of the
paupers’ graves. The
audience was visibly moved by Angela’s recitation of her research and previous
art installations, counter memorials to those long forgotten by history. A
litany of the occupations of the buried indigent inmates of the workhouse,
gleaned from the Death Records and revealing Stroud’s industrious
past, plus details of the rudimentary nature of their graves, left an almost tangible, numinous atmosphere in the leafy, shadowed gloom of
the graveyard. A fellow walker later
told me that he was moved to tears by Angela’s gentle evocation within such a
mute yet haunting landscape. I know from other later conversations that he was
not alone.
Jim Pentney concluded with a few words
about our Allen Davenport Chartist pilgrimage along the banks of the River
Thames. Jim held aloft the stone he has carved from Allen’s birthplace at Ewen;
we are taking this to the Reformers’ Memorial at Kensal Green, where Allen’s
name appears. Finally, in the spirit of the shared collective experience of our
walks and explorations, Jim said that all are welcome to join our Thames side
ambles to London; information will appear on this website.
Some
of us then retired to the Crown and Sceptre for some excellent and varied beer,
where Angela, enthused and overwhelmed by the huge and positive response,
thought that we really should put it on again next year. She most definitely has a point: as I first left the Ale House, some
visitors who couldn’t get into the bar for the introduction, had already asked
me if we could reprise the event.
What a day: well, that was a walk, that
was; it’s hard to let it go.
