Old Cob Wall by C.Fox Smith

I popped in to see John Tizehurst the other day (he plays the accordion in my photofilm Memories of a house). I wanted to show him the pictures of him lighting the Jubilee Beacon from back in June. He's not been so well lately and I thought they might cheer him up. We had a lovely chat about this and that and as I was leaving he gave me a copy of this poem. Spoken in the old Devon way it sounds really lovely.

Old cob wall

    Have fell at last:

Us knowed he might

    A good while past.

Great-grandad he

   Built thicky wall

With maiden earth

   And oaten strawl

He built en in

   The good old way.

And there he've stood

   Until today

But wind and rain

   And frost and snow

Have all combined

   To lay en low.

Us propped en up

   With stones and 'ood

Us done our best,

  But tweren't no good.

He gived a bit

  And then a lot,

And at the finish

  Down he squat.

And now, since barns

  Has got to be,

Us'll build another

'Stead of he.

But not the same

  He was afore,

'Cos no one builds

  Cob walls no more.

Marking time

At the end of the last Hinterlands workshop we tried and failed to leave Devon. Busy planning and then running the workshop I'd forgotten to make plans for the Jubilee and it kind of crept up on me. So Mike and I decided we would stay and not make the mass exodus to London. On the Monday, me, Mike, Big Tom and my family all went up to Blackborough Beacon to see it set alight. John Tizehurst who featured in my piece Memories of a house (playing the accordion) is one of the oldest residents in the village and he set the Beacon ablaze. 

We all stood and watched the pile of wood burn. There's something very comforting and wild about watching fire and as we watched ours we looked out on the horizon to see all the other beacons blazing. It felt we were part of the history of these beacons being burned throughout time, firstly as a tool of communication to alert people to the approach of the Spanish Armada and now part of the spirit of smaller rural communities. It marked our own ending to our time in Devon and the next day we packed our things and headed back to Bristol to plan for the next workshop. All good things must come to an end.