21 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016)
[cannot upload any images I have of memorabilia from Coleton Fishacre – now in my offline scrapbook]
An enchanted and enchanting valley in the Devonshire countryside – a combe/coombe leading down to a cove. In which many a cove has likely wandered with his love. A deep, narrow vale of such lushness, variety and beauty and yet so little known: Coleton Fishacre.
I’d never heard of the place, but then why would I as visits to Devonshire with family to visit paternal relatives in the 1980s and 1990s had seen us confined mainly to sandier shores, close to ice-cream parlours, places where you could buy not only post cards, sticks of rock, buckets and spades but also strings of shiny shells which came from far away and not from round there, the occasional seafront photographer on the promenade with their squirrel monkeys, and visitor attractions such as Buckfast and Dartington. Occasionally, bleak journeys with Dad driving us across the moors to sight ponies and other less inviting spots. Shaded valleys such as Coleton Fishacre were for adults with distinct horticultural interests perhaps. And quiet contemplation.
I was taken to the enchanted valley by Frances, a work colleague, who had moved down to the south-west to get away from London and be close to family. Not far from Totnes she had a barn conversion – with land bounded on one side by a field of menacingly attentive bullocks, who would crowd round the metal gate or gaps in the hedgerow and peer through incuriously.
Frances had great organisational capability and always had something very interesting to say and was a fantastic hostess. The evening before I left she cooked a delicious meal of pork with prunes – cooked long and slow – and surprisingly delicious with its sweet, sour, salty meaty flavours. A robust country meal, eaten in front of a huge open roaring fire.
I remember walking along the coast by the buttery gorse and being driven in her ‘Chelsea tractor’ (by now a somewhat outdated term) swiftly and safely through the dark tunnels of country lanes, with the soundtrack from Baz Luhrman’s film with Nicole and Ewan on full volume.
One evening we ended up at an olde inne down a creek – off the Helston River – or that may have been another time. I was sure I spotted a famous political PR man semi-secreted in one corner. In such a tucked away place I suppose he was seeking privacy and I thought he looked pensive (although he looks and sounds much better now judging by the TV Podcast which is almost as mesmerising as Andrew Neill’s late night programme used to be). In any case I was unlikely to disturb anyone I saw in such places. Not because it was likely to be a case of mistaken identity but because they may simply be enjoying time away from the gaze of onlookers. No need to be smuggled in here or smuggled out under cover of darkness.
Another visit was to charming ‘rainbow’-coloured Totnes, to Dartmouth straddling the estuary, with its many small vessels, and to Coleton Fishacre and it was the latter that I found at once so lovely and yet so painful as it reminded me of undercliffs at Lyme Regis and on the Isle. I think I remember some ‘exotica’ – huge ferns and so on. But mainly the slight dampness and the relative warmth and shelter. No bluebells at the time we visited. It’s a cliche to say the memory is dappled, but that was indeed the light – chiaroscuro. I must have loved the place, and the memory, as I kept the ticket in the back of an old wallet with a lot of other used tickets and what might loosely be described as memorabilia for years – the old leather one from the Ponte Vecchio.
Often I can pick odd items like these up and remember quite a lot, even without any photos there in front of me.
20 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
The inside page of Sophie Louisa Bennett’s old passport (still in my possession) and if you want to use this in a blogpost you must be desperate or a bit thick. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Peter Richerson and Rob Boyd are researchers who collaborate in the field of anthropology and genetics on work exploring how societies exert cultural preferences that affect genetic inheritance. Their inspirations were amongst others researchers at Stanford 30 years before – Feldman and Cavalli-Sforza, who sought to describe the mechanisms of cultural change and lay the ‘theoretical foundations’ of co-evolution. Boyd and Richerson aim at modelling cultural change mathematically and unlike Feldman and Cavalli-Sforza they wanted to go on believing that at some level culture changes in a Darwinian way. According to Boyd and Richerson, cultural evolution means the accumulation of learning across generations, rather as Darwin saw biological adaptations arising from the accumulation of small variations. The analogy is dismissed as ‘very weak‘ by Fernández-Armesto who emphasizes the role of ‘selection’. However, I do not see that the analogy fails to incorporate that idea.
Richerson and Boyd talk about the ‘decisions, choices, and preferences of individuals‘: these are not independent of evolution (or indeed a parent looking over your shoulder, breathing down your neck or admonishing/advising you). These two know that biological evolution and cultural change can throw up ‘maladaptations‘ which may be functionless or dysfunctional, that selection fails to ‘excise‘ (by which he means fails to cut out – precisely why Crispr gene-editing techniques were devised) – and these can also account for cultural divergence. Most culture is of this kind, resembling at best a phenomenon, marginal to ‘mainstream‘ evolution (by which Fernández-Armesto presumably means the genetic variation, mutations even, and selection process by which fundamental biological survival is conferred/transmitted). And then there is always the role of ‘chance‘ and ‘bad luck‘, which has nothing whatsoever to do with culture or biology. The author even acknowledges this, stating that ‘some cultural changes occur randomly and are imitated capriciously‘.
Let’s take the use of surnames as an example of the capriciousness or randomness of aspects of cultural practice and change. Surnames are a recent addition to human society, relatively speaking. For a large part of human history they were not necessary: people could be identified by their forenames and certain features (the one with the tool-maker, big head, long legs, red hair, big house, farm…), but as our populations expanded and we wandered further from our roots, surnames became an inevitable requirement. As a means of closer identification of kinship and belonging.
I don’t know what the science of the study of surnames is but there is an evident story to be told there, and we can link in some of Fernández-Armesto’s themes and those of other researchers into history, culture and genetics. ‘Richerson’ (as in Richerson and Boyd) for example – where does this surname come from? Same root as Richardson? Did someone at some point hear his name wrongly and wrongly transcribe it? Was his real name French or Norman – was he from a Rich(e) family, or the richer of the two sons of Richard, or himself a Frenchman, a ‘Rikard’ maybe – and decided to change that name so that the Frenchified culture he was entering would accept him more readily? Perhaps a Norman scribe at the time of Domesday (1086) wrongly inscribed his name on a piece of vellum? Ah, you are a Richerson? No, I am Richardsson – son of Richard. Ah, oui Monsieur, Richerson – c’est ça. Next please. Now such a change would require a deed poll; then it could be achieved by the merest misunderstanding. Precise cultural transmission was not quite complete, but did not evidently burden the bearer of that name with a particular disadvantage over time, as the name Richardson has survived and thrived.
There was a boy at school – primary school I’m talking about – whose name always fascinated me as it sounded Elizabethan or Tudor. But perhaps intervention by a Norman scribe had a part to play here too. Next please – Yes, I am Hayrick, sir. Ah, Herrick you say? No, Hayrick, as in a rick of hay. Quite so. Indeed, sir… Herrick, très bien. Next, please. ‘Descent with modification is a fact’, as Marion Blute would say.
A favourite ‘game’ of mine over a longer period now has been to guess from the credits on any film or TV programme which I just caught the end of where that programme was made. Sometimes these credits are seemingly endless – leaving me/you wondering whether these people had all really been employed in these capacities or if this was some sort of false accounting. In the UK you will find a mixture of ‘typically’ English or Welsh, Scottish or Irish surnames, mixed in with some Indian, West African and, increasingly, Eastern European ones (a higher proportion of Eastern European ones if you’ve ever watched Plebs, a programme I identify with completely); in the States you will find a lot of German/Jewish names mixed in with Hispanic and British surnames, along with a smattering of other European names – Scandinavian, Eastern European – and Asian ones too; in Canada a few more French ones mixed in with the aforementioned; in Australia, the credits are characterised by British, Italian and Greek surnames and now maybe the odd Asian surname but few Aboriginal. And I notice more hyphenated names today as couples want to celebrate their unity: however, at some point the following generation, if there is one, may have to decide whether they carry this tradition on. They may even have to choose ‘sides’.
I knew a young man at University long ago (he’s caught in time in the background of one of my graduation photos) who joked about the absence of use of surnames amongst us as undergraduates. Always assuming a degree of familiarity which wasn’t there, but then we were always associated by virtue of having matriculated together. About how we knew each other by our first names: ‘Sophie’, ‘Karin’, ‘Jane’, ‘Ashley’ even ‘Richard’ and so on and yet in quite a few of those cases we either did not know their surnames, even within the same College, forgot them soon after introduction and never asked again, assumed wrongly a sense of familiarity which would enable such a lack of deference, or maybe felt this wasn’t important at all in a small, relatively cloistered and closed ‘society’. Now we will probably be getting to the stage where we still use the first name but struggle to remember this a little and use the word “thingy” quite a bit. You know thingy who could always drink you under the table and still get up for lectures on time the next morning… By the same token I would say, as experience dictates, just because you know somebody’s first name and surname, share a nationality, a birthplace perhaps, speak the same language(s), even belong to the same family, do not assume any deep knowledge of them as a person. Indeed, descent with modification, such that you may not recognise them as being from the same lineage.
[photo of Darwin and non-human animal on a two pound coin from 2009 to be inserted here just as soon as the download maximum exceeded message is removed]
Source of materials from the one referred to as ‘the author’:
Fernández-Armesto, F. (2015) A Foot in the River. Oxford: OUP
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, who loves the fact that Nature and Nurture – and Accident – gave rise to her.
19 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Football Rules (KC 1987, Cantab 2020)
A corner flag and football (aka soccer ball if you are from the USA), in a corner of a football pitch. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Česká republika/Czech Republic (sorry, Czechia – does that make them Czechians?) versus Portugal
I was so glad yesterday to see an absence of shirt-pulling on the playing fields of Germany; lovely Leipzig to be precise. But mad as hell to note so much pushing and shoving. It seemed that the Czechs would have won that competition outright. One Portuguese player seems likely to have been a can-can girl in his spare time. Worrying, but very diversity and equality minded. No doubt he was wearing frilly knickers under the shorts.
So unfortunate were the Czechs that they gifted Portugal a goal and assisted another: Hranáč, having an off day, or an on day if you are Portuguese, will need time out now.
On the strength of Portugal’s performance, I can honestly say I am not going to either rule out or rule in following them further in the competition.
The player of the match for me was Czech – Provod – brought up on Pilsen it seems – even if his goal was, thus far, just edged out by the magic of Güler.
And now for some tennis…
All I can recall of Queen’s so far is the banana-coloured Nike kit and the yellowing-browning grass. I don’t know what all the purple is about, but I’d be puce at the state of the courts. And would be docking points and giving warnings upon any evidence of the now infamous Djoko-slide technique. I say that with a rye smile on my face.
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, reporting from a community which has a large playing field frequented by local football teams, young and older, used to have two hard courts (and a tennis club run by volunteers), and now has a Wickstead play area complete with wooden ‘boat’.
19 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020)
Sophie Louisa Bennett’s copy of a Naxos recording of Swedish classical music featuring Anders Zorn on the front cover. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Midsummer is approaching again. So why not get in the mood by listening to some classical music I have always felt especially suited to expressing its sheer specialness by Hugo Alfvén (1872 – 1960): Swedish RhapsodyNo. 1 (Opus 19). You can hear the sun rising in this piece called Midsommarvaka in Swedish (Midsummer Watch). A cor anglais no less introduces the central “hauntingly beautiful melody which evokes the stillness of the Swedish night […] There should be no difficulty for the listener to hear in this music the moment when the sun rises or to imagine when the merrymaking starts on Midsummer Day. Like Vaughan Williams in England, Alfvén derived much of his inspiration from folk music. He was the first Swedish composer to use folk music in symphonic form and Midsommarvaka contains several of these elements. The catchy tune which beins the rhapsody, for instance, is said to go back to a melody that Alfvén had heard whistled by a farmer in the region of eastern Sweden called Roslagen.” There is no attribution for these words from the cassette sleeve of an EMI Records compilation of 1982 (see below) which I had at King’s Cambridge and which was both mocked (on acount of Lumbye‘s The Copenhagen Steam Railway Gallop) and loved enough to have been used by the Organ Scholar for his dissertation piece (but that was Wirén). Praeludium by Järnefelt (a Finn), also on the tape, might also be midsummer-worthy.
If you prefer, there is also a very suitable alternative recording of seasonal Swedish music by Alfvén from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Niklas Willén: Dalarapsodi, Opus 47 (Svensk rapsodi nr. 3); En skärgårdenssägen, Op. 20 (Legend of the Skerries/Archipelago); Symphony No. 3 in E major, Op. 23.
Alfvén is regarded as representing the spirit of Sweden and its countryside. He was however no narrow ‘provincial’, but a highly sophisticated musician who spent 10 years travelling throughout Europe. Nor were his talents confined to music: he was a write and an accomplished water colourist who once contemplated a career as a painter (notes from a translation by Kerstin Swartling).
The front cover of the CD I have however does not feature any of Alfvén’s paintings but one (albeit ‘flipped’) by Anders Zorn (1860 – 1920) “Outside” aka “Outdoors“, featuring three naked women indulging in some wild swimming, assuming they will be unobserved, presumably somewhere on the archipelago. Hence perpetuating the (stereotypical?) image of Swedes being free and easy with their bodies. I wonder if this ploy was at all successful in selling the recording…
Sophie Louisa Bennett’s 1982 recording of Swedish Rhapsody and other Scandinavian classics… mocked and loved, perhaps not in equal part at King’s Cambridge, featuring a watercolour by Goodwin. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Albert Goodwin, RWS (1845 – 1932) – “Right“, the painting on the front cover of Swedish Rhapsody, looks Scandinavian but I have no idea why Goodwin was chosen over a Scandinavian artist, other than the fact that the cassette compilation was recorded mostly by UK orchestras, notably both the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Bournemouth Sinfonietta.
17 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
Keir Starmer’s family tree as published in You Magazine (Mail on Sunday), 16 June 2024. Photo of magazine page: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
I was rather mystified – rather than misty-eyed – to read in one Sunday newspaper supplement that Sir Keir Starmer has Lincolnshire roots. Not only was he showing off his working class urban credentials and connections to the healthcare system, but also seemed to be ramming his rural roots down voters’ throats as well.
Several generations of Lincolnshire farming heritage? As a Yellowbelly, I felt quite violated. And I wondered whether I might even be related to him distantly or indirectly a few generations back… Still, it seemed appropriate that someone whose forebears had once been gamekeepers was now turning poacher… The genial smile and the genealogy being another ploy to win votes in areas traditionally seen as strongly Conservative. In a Sunday publication, aimed at women, also perhaps mistakenly seen as being more towards the right than the left.
A Yellowbelly with a yellowing belly. Photo of own tummy showing scar (for distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy) and laparoscopic instrument points: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
I felt embarrassed by the sickly sweetness of the article – I’d be voting for a politician not marrying their other half. It all seemed a bit sexist, since the magazine I was reading is generally regarded as being intended for a female readership. I am surprised there were no photographs of him sitting on a Massey Ferguson or John Deere (with strategically-placed manifesto), or maybe in the cab of a combine harvester, handling a billhook or barefoot, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of straw while wearing denim dungarees – no shirt of course and certainly no tie.
This feature came a bit too late to have any effect on me as I had already popped my postal vote into the red box. And I’ll be czeching it arrived at its destination too.
What a postal vote looks like for the 2024 UK General Election. Photo of own paperwork, prior to marking the paper: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett – political rural ‘grass roots’ (no jokes about cows ripping grass out by the roots – I already had that one cud-vered) correspondent of no publication whatsoever but loves the idea that people might even read this and either agree or be annoyed.
14 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
Mum was pleased with a purchase this morning: the ultimate in quick, cost-effective breakfasts – a packet of cornflakes from the Co-op for the grand sum of 85p. Compared to approx. £3 for the branded variety. A distinctly more affordable price.
She said she might eat them for breakfast and I reflected that they were often a quick and nutritious evening snack for some of the consultants staying late in the office on a project for this or that client.
I checked out the packaging, suspicious at the exceedingly low price. I found that post-Brexit trade freedoms seem to have enabled the Co-op to negotiate good deals with both Argentina and Hungary for their maize. Hurrah for Brexit!
I wondered whether buying from either country sat well with the Co-op’s ethical image. And I also wondered about the growing methods in both countries, the transportation etc. So, I consulted the Global SDG rankings[1](based on the UN’s 17 sustainable development indicators) and found that Hungary performed better than Italy and Argentina better than Costa Rica.
Maybe my attitude to sustainability is flakey at times, but it doesn’t stop me pondering these things. And asking myself whether it is up to me as a consumer to put more pressure on producers or whether this should trickle or filter or scatter down from above.
13 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
A page from my souvenir album of a two-week holiday in Prague/Bohemia and Moravia in 1992. Photo of Kafka performance attended with ex-boyfriend: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Franz Kafka was a novelist and story writer, and is considered to be one of the most important writers of the first half of the 20th century. He was born in Prague on 3rd July 1883 at a time when Prague and the Czech Republic/Czechia was part of the Austro-Hungarian, and died at Kierling (near Vienna) on 3rd June 1924. Kafka was the son of a middle-class, well-to-do Jewish businessman. As a young man and throughout his life, with the exception of the final few years, Kafka suffered poor mental health as a result of his sensitive and introverted nature; it is implied that this was the consequence of Kafka being the son of a father who was exclusively concerned with social advancement and commercial success. Kafka dealt with his issues in ,,Brief an den Vater” – Letter to my father (November 1919).
He attended the Prague-Altstadt Grammar School (Deutsches Gymnasium Prag-Altstadt) between 1893 and 1901 – successfully completing his schooling, contrary to his own perspective on this period. Interested in Ibsen and Naturalistic drama, Spinoza and Nietzsche, influenced by Darwin’s evolutionary theories and an avowed Socialist.
In his first two Semesters at university he switched between various subjects – appearing to remain undecided. Under August Sauer he studied Hebbel and Stifter. Then in accordance with his father’s wishes Jurisprudence/Law. Alongside which he participated enthusiastically, but rather passively, in Prague’s literary circles. He became influenced by readings of Brentano, Flaubert and Hoffmansthal. Somewhere around this time he struck up a friendship with Max Brod, who was to become his literary executor, posthumous editor and publisher. He took his law degree (for State certification) in the summer of 1903. In July 1905 a stay in the sanatorium at Zuckmantel (Schlesia) is noted, during which time he met a woman (thought to have inspired Hochzeitsvorbereitungen auf dem Lande – Preparations for a Country Wedding, 1906/07). Then between November 1905 and June 1906 he completed his doctoral exams and became Dr. jur. (Dr of Law). After receiving his doctorate he spent more time in the sanatorium at Zuckmantel. Autumn 1906 to autumn 1907 he undertook his articles or the practical element of his legal training, and was subsequently taken on – hopefully to the satisfaction of his father – by Assicurazioni Generali, an insurance firm.
On 30th July 1908 Kafka started work as an assistant officer at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Corporation[1] for the Kingdom of Bohemia (Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungsgesellschaft für das Königreich Böhmen) in Prague, where he quickly made a name for himself as an insurance lawyer. However he does not find the work fulfilling. He becomes increasingly withdrawn, from both his literary and social life and keeps company only with a small circle. Any dialogue becomes the monologue of his diary, which he wrote from 1910 onwards and in which he conducted his own merciless self-analyses, wrote down his dreams, outlines of work he intended to write, epigrams and his thoughts on whatever he read.
Holidays provided a break from the monotony and loneliness of his life: in 1909 he travelled to Italy with Max and Otto Brod (Aeroplane in Brescia – Taking Flight to Brescia), went to Paris in 1910, to Switzerland, Italy again and Paris with Max Brod in 1911 (Richard und Samuel, 1912), travelled to Leipzig in 1912 with Brod, where he became acquainted with the publisher Rowohlt and Wolff, and then on to Weimar in the footsteps of Goethe. In 1911 he started to study the Jewish (his) faith and Hebrew, in earnest it seems. Between August 1913 and 1917 he found himself in an unstable relationship with Felice Bauer from Berlin, to whom he was engaged twice. In the autumn of 1913 he met a young Swiss woman in the sanatorium Riva. From 1915 he lived in his own apartment in Prague.
Kafka interpreted the outbreak of tuberculosis in August 1917 as a sign that Destiny was working against his future plans, and, as a result, he parted from Felice Bauer for good. Prolonged stays in the country, first with his youngest sister Ottla in Zürau near Saaz, were interspersed with attempts to go back to work, which ultimately failed, with the result that Kafka went into early retirement. He intensified his engagement with the Jewish religious tradition, undertook light outdoor work, swum and went walking. From 1919 there ensued stays in various different sanitoriums. In the autumn of 1919 he got engaged for the third time, but this did not last long. In 1920 he met Milena Jesenska-Pollak in Meran (Briefe an Milena – Letters to Milena, 1952). Mental and physical pain. Renewed reading of Kierkegaard and an existential struggle with his Jewish faith. In 1921 he made the acquaintance of Robert Klopstock who would later, as a friend, supervise him medically in the final stages of his suffering.
There was however a decisive change for the better in Kafka’s life story when he met Dora Dymant, the 20-year-old of Polish-Hassidic descent, on the Baltic coast in the summer of 1923. At the end of July 1923 he moved to Berlin, breaking away from Prague and his parents. Despite both material hardship and poor physical health he experienced relatively happy months with his companion by his side, and a phase of quiet productivity. But he was nonetheless dogged by illness. In March 1924 Brod was the one who brought the ailing Kafka – at this stage terminally ill – back to Prague, which the latter saw as a final triumph of his father’s will over him and over his life. He was defeated. He spent his final days in the sanatorium in Kierling near Vienna, where he was barely able to eat due to tuberculosis [Kehlkopf– indicates larynx – so was this a form of cancer rather than TB?] and was only able to communicate with Klopstock and Dora Dymant in written form. On his final day on earth he set about correcting the volume Der Hungerkünstler – The Starving Artist (1921 – 1924). Kafka died on 3rd June 1924. He was laid to rest in the Jewish cemetery Prague-Strašnice on 11th June 1924.
During his lifetime Kafka published only a limited number of his works: 6 publications in book form, plus a few contributions to magazines. The majority of his writings were published by Max Brod, against his express wishes which were to destroy anything unpublished. The editions Brod produced are not without their faults (,,nicht einwandfrei” – what is I ask myself?), since Kafka left no instructions on how the work was to be organised. This issue has even preoccupied researchers, who have discussed the possible arrangement, organisation and order of the chapters of Kafka’s novels.
Source of biographical material:
Kunisch, H. (1965) Handbuch der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur [Handbook of Contemporary German Literature]. München: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung [Published ,,unter Mitwirkung von Hans Hennecke” – in collaboration with Hans Hennecke]. The section on Kafka: 325-329. This book was acquired as surplus stock from the Institute of Germanic Studies while I was a library assistant/SCONUL trainee between 1991 and 1992.
[1]Gesellschaft can be translated directly in the sense of ‘a [cooperative] society’, in the context of corporate bodies, but I have chosen a different word. ‘Company’ is also frequently used – as in a business entity.
Titles of some of Kafka’s works may not be what you are anticipating – e.g. Hungerkünstler is evidently more commonly translated as “The Hunger Artist”.
11 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists 1998)
A greyscale version of a shot of Lincoln Castle (Observatory Tower) from withing Castle itself, with Lincoln Cathedral behind. Taken some years ago and sent to my brother in Italy as he wanted something from home for his family. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with either Panasonic Lumix or Nikon D40 and Microsoft editing
Of actual castles and castles in the air…
I hadn’t been to Bad Iburg for many a year. Bad Iburg which I was proudly – not to mention mischievously shown – by my landlord and -lady during my year abroad 1989/1990. The reason I use the word ‘mischievous’? Because the joke was that the castle or chateau at Bad Iburg was the home of Princess Sophia/Sophie Charlotte of the House of Hannover/Hanover: I was Sophie and they knew I had a sister called Charlotte. They would also joke (like we British do too) that the Royal Family was in essence still rather Germanic… I loved the thought – I considered the castle at Bad Iburg to be mine and the lake below was obviously Charlotte’s. Plus we were both from a City with a very fine castle of its own – Lincoln. I’d also visited numerous castles in other parts of the UK, both in company and alone…
Sophie Louisa Bennett in 2006, on a day off from volunteering at RSPB Arne, during a summer break from the University of Lincoln (BSc Conservation Biology). I’d walked/rambled from the Reserve alone to Corfe Castle – and then back. Photo taken by a kind passer-by with Miss Sophie Louisa’s Olympus Mju camera – photo of photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
I was also shown many a wonderful palace/château/stately home (Schloss) and castle (Burg) in my times in Germany – I’ve probably lost count now – in Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, the Rhineland Palatinate, Bavaria, Potsdam, Saxony and Thuringia. To name most relevant locations, I hope.
It was June 2018 and I was in ‘that part of the world’ for a silver wedding anniversary and a significant birthday. On this particular day however, we were off to the Gartenschau: literally Garden Show, or Horticultural Show or even Flower Show, or, simply, Show – as there were many things besides flowers and horticulture to see. The most impressive installation, which wouldn’t fit in any normal garden was the Wipfelpfad or Wipfelwanderweg – a canopy-high walkway made in Bavaria and installed in the beautiful woodland of the site on the far side of the lake. We were Queens and King of the Castle – in fact higher than the castle, I think.
Schloss Iburg as seen from the Wipfelwanderweg at the Gartenschau, 2018. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic LumixSophie Louisa Bennett on Bad Iburg Gartenschau’s Wipfelpfad/Wipfelwanderweg in 2018 with the Schloss behind. Photo is a selfie taken with a Panasonic LumixA well-known well-loved couple on a bench on the Wipfelpfad/-wanderweg at the Bad Iburg Gartenschau 2018. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Below, were various ground-level walkways and displays – a few gardens and many ‘nature’ gardens, even a wildflower meadow, statues and quirky sculptures, a sponsored Strandkorb – a ‘beach basket’ of the type normally seen on north German beaches (maybe even on lakesides) at places such as St Peter Ording or Warnemünde, on Föhr or Sylt. I had never sat on one on a beach, only here far inland at Bad Iburg and then in a back garden in Belm – typically landlubberish. I always found them to be a superior piece of German engineering: something to protect you from the elements with integrated storage under the seat and space for two if you hutched up, in blue and green and even red and white vertical stripes with a protective hood above.
Sophie Louisa in a Strandkorb (literally: beach basket) – but not by a beach – maybe close to some Beeches however. Photo at the Bad Iburg Gartenschau 2018: Marianne with Sophie Louisa Bennett’s Panasonic Lumix
At lunchtime we snacked on a portion of Pommes – French fries, hardly chips. Served in an edible container (see below) made of what tasted like ice-cream wafer, only thicker. And as a consequence stuck in your mouth a bit unless you swigged a mouthful of water from the reused bottles we had brought. A fascinating idea.
Bad Iburg, Gartenschau, 2018. A portion of chips served in an edible container (albeit on a plate that later had to be washed). Photo of Marianne’s portion: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
Having wandered round the show gardens and enjoyed one or two of the delights of the indoor areas, we walked across towards the castle itself. Schloss Iburg (both a chateau and a fortification) looking down on us as we viewed the flower beds below, took a short stroll through the tropical tent with its butterfly collection and then returned to the car…
For a long time I have fantasised about holidaying on the Baltic coast and sitting in one of those chairs – a Strandkorb – on the beach, on white sand, with the dunes behind or around me, looking out to a calm sea.
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett
More Strandkörbe on post cards received from M and W over several years. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett with Panasonic Lumix
10 June 2024 – Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, PhD Conservation Biology (Lincoln 2016), MA Modern and Medieval Languages – German and Swedish (KC 1987, Cantab 2020), Diploma in Translation – German into English (City University/Institute of Linguists)
An exhibition display – of a project which has already been approved – showing what some of our development gain is to be spent on in the local community. Photo: Sophie Louisa Bennett, 8 June 2024, with Panasonic Lumix
Housebuilders don’t like paying development ‘gain’ to communities, but the money needs to be paid and it is up to those in the local community to decide on what. Formerly known as Section 106 monies, these financial contributions are also referred to as a community development levy, and are paid out in relation to the size of the housing development. Some might cynically refer to it as bribery or a pacifier. Not infrequently a developer may decide to incorporate elements of ‘infrastructure’ offering services such as play areas etc into a new development of larger size, but not always and is not bound to under Planning Law. (This is over and above an obligatory contribution to education and healthcare which is determined by the local authority itself.) Where the developer doesn’t provide any ‘extras’ it pays an amount to those seen as having some responsibility for decision-making in that community to decide what else is needed. The issue is in establishing the need in my view. Having torn my hair out on many an occasion both while on a Parish Council and as a private individual about the arguments which ensue. Often behind closed doors, but also in public meetings.
Of course this becomes contentious in local communities where the use of the income is the responsibility very often of councils consisting of unpaid volunteers[1] with varying levels of local (historical) knowledge, experience, expertise and interest in assessing community needs. Albeit they may ask for advice. And these same people, since they will be regarded as elected representatives of a community, are also within their rights to make decisions on behalf of a community and are rarely challenged. Without consultation this of course would be wrong. Some would say without a public vote – or poll – this would also be wrong.
Community development levies – what to do? Developers, I know from those in the know, do not give a monkeys fundamentally about what is done with the money – their responsibility stops at the point of payment. Well, why doesn’t more of the money go towards ‘essential’ infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, rather than letting rank amateurs decide how best to get rid of relatively huge amounts of cash (can be hundreds of thousands of pounds) on (pet) projects that may or may not be needed. In fact, perhaps the next parliament should go ahead and change the rules regarding the somewhat wrong-headed community development levy (or whatever it is called these days) and allow monies to be used on maintenance, renovation, restoration and upkeep rather than on brand new projects. (Yes, there is a stipulation that these gains go towards something new.)
Change to the ‘gains’ could be more sustainable. There are, for instance, spaces in communities that matter to people which need maintenance and repair and upgrading, and it is all very well pointing people in the direction of grant funding but for some projects that just isn’t available. I can think of one historical building in my own community which is well-loved by many and well-used at certain times of the year… Heritage, pah, that is history and history does not seem to matter these days. It’s all about making new memories, so I’ve been told.
I’m not proposing anything radically new here: this is something that many many people have discussed in private and on Parish councils for decades now.
Humility check for councillors and those who comment on what councillors do: remember – you didn’t have a single original thought ever – there is nothing new under the sun and even the Neanderthals[2] had more than likely thought about most of the subjects you have, including housing, and possibly even in just as sophisticated a way.
Dr Sophie Louisa Bennett, former Chair of Skellingthorpe Parish Council (2018 to 2019) and former member of the Planning Committee (which at village level has no real power to pass or refuse an application and only the capacity to comment or give limited advice). In total I ‘served’ as a Parish Councillor for around 7 years or so…
[1] Let me make it clear here: I’m talking about Parish Councils (in some cases Town Councils) which are the lowest level of local government in the UK and often consist of unpaid volunteers from the resident population. This is distinct from the District or County Councils where the Planning Departments and the deciding bodies are located, who pass planning applications big and small and determine how those plans will look on the ground. They themselves take advice from agencies such as Natural England, The Environment Agency and those within Planning Departments etc. Incidentally, contrary to images shown on national television in recent times, there is no issue with Nimbyism in North Kesteven District historically, as far as I am aware.
[2] Neanderthals were, contrary to popular belief, both more developed in their social and cultural habits, and even had a bigger brain than homo sapiens. They appear to have cared for their sick and elderly, pursued ritualised burials, left some evidence of being artistic/creative, and anthropologists have even now determined that their anatomy shows they were capable of speech. Furthermore, their species endured for approx. 300,000; longer than the current permutation of Man.
The illustration on the front cover of Kafka’s The Trial is a sketch by the author himself – that is sometimes how it feels to be a Parish Councillor…Even if you haven’t been one for some years.And ‘people’ keep going on about this that and the other. Somehow always ‘on trial’.
Afterthought (17th June 2024):
Periodically, you would get people moaning about planning applications thinking that Parish Councillors were responsible or to blame for this and that. (Always a bit irritating – but irritations are one thing you need to learn to handle with at least the semblance of a smile – that’s a clue – if you see me smiling then please do feel free to check eye and eyebrow movement – if only there were some kind of psychological calamine lotion.) Well, they weren’t and they probably did wish they had more influence and power. Decisions were/are voted on by District Councillors of North Kesteven District Council (and, if a larger infrastructure project, Lincolnshire County Council). And for those of you who are surprised that Skellingthorpe should be in the North Kesteven District Planning area when you might have received an invitation to cast a vote for your MP for the Borough of Lincoln – I’m afraid that’s life for the moment, barring a change in the authority and electoral boundaries for Members of Parliament. Our planning decision-making for Skellingthorpe takes place in the main in Sleaford and NOT in Lincoln, and that is also why on any maps you may have seen for the Western Growth Corridor Planning around the Swanpool area the boundary cuts off at the Lincoln Bypass (A46) – that is for Lincoln and ‘we’ are not Lincoln, for that purpose at any rate.
There are many village residents in Skellingthorpe who have thought for a long time that it would be more straightforward to be part of Lincoln for planning purposes. Are you one of those? Personally, I would be very happy if ANY planning authority could stick to any landscaping or environmental plans. That’s not to say that any residents thereafter would though.
Into-English-Translations 