If you can’t do three things at once, how about a place that can offer you three things in one!
In the small, ancient hilltop town of Winchelsea, East Sussex, bathed in spring sunshine, breezy sea winds and fluffy white clouds, there are 3 great names who form an association with its long history. Let’s be introduced:
Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) lived in a white clapboard house just off the church square.
He produced a constant stream of critical, journalistic, biographical and fictional works during the Edwardian period. Although too old for war in 1915 he volunteered for active service; yet it was not a glorious affair. What it did lead to was the writing of ‘Parade’s End’ (this is a mammoth book with extraordinary insight and perspectives). It is an evocation of war in all its mundanities, confusions and horrors. Many local towns are mentioned in his writing including Rye, Camber and Udimore. He also wrote a small amount of simple, yet strikingly observant war poetry:
‘In the dim gloom. These are the women of Flanders. They await the lost.’
(extract from Antwerp).
John Everett Millais (1829-1896) painted ‘The Blind Girl’ in 1856 (now at Birmingham Art Gallery). The town in the very top of his painting is Winchelsea, and the very same church, St Thomas’s is visible. The vivid, vibrant coloured landscape, forever captured by Millais, remains as unchanged today. I have seen the fields and visited the painting.
Spike Milligan (1918-2002) writer, poet, comedian, musician, playwright and soldier who brought much laughter and joy to so many people of every age group, died in Rye and was buried in the graveyard of St Thomas’s, Winchelsea with the epitaph ‘I told you I was ill!’ (written only in the Irish). A comic to the end!
‘The ABC’ by Spike Milligan is one of the best loved children’s poems; it put me through to the final of my school’s independently-judged poetry reading & presentation competition.
Thank you Spike, thank you one and all!
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