Memory lane

This week's Wednesday outing started from the Royal Oak car park, Andoversford. Apart from the task of finding (lost amidst the new houses) the footpath opposite the old market, it was plain sailing. This is because of our time (1973-94) living along the way we took.

Mind you, everything has changed, as Gill Hyatt agreed when we chin-wagged briefly in Sevenhampton Churchyard. Syreford's once-reasonably humble dwellings are all mansions, with the trappings of the prevalent horsiculture, electric gates, weathervanes and the like. Sevenhampton seemed deserted, many of the properties being second homes. A large house seems to be going up along the tranquil lane to Brockhampton (Gassons). The trees on Elsdown have been thinned no doubt to afford the now-converted barn there a view. Did the walk make me homesick? It's not a world where I would now feel at home, but I was glad to have renewed its acquaintance, especially on a fine Spring day.

The same goes for Saudi Arabia. Wajda, at the Film Society film last night, unfolded a delicate, wry and at times painful-to-watch picture of life in that country, all the more affecting because filmed by a female director. "Is it any wonder," Caroline asked, "that Muslims criticise us for the laxity of our children's behaviour?"

Fairytale stuff

Five years ago, I described a pretty perfect wedding that we went to in Eton College Chapel. One of the groom's sisters has since tied the knot beside the ocean in Kenya: yesterday, another of his sisters made it - rather late! - to the altar of St Andrew's Church in their home village near here. The sun shone. The church was full of flowers, music and under fives (and more than currently the usual quota of us old codgers). No cars were needed to take us to Manor Farm's Dutch Ground, where the sides of an enormous tent were hung with sarongs, and all our family (for a few moments anyway) were able to find themselves amongst old friends once more.

Memory lane

It's been warm and dry again today, too warm for wearing my dark suit. I put it on as we were attending Val's memorial at St Andrew's, Sevenhampton.

Brian too, in order to see his mother off, was smartly suited - a new one might even have been bought for the occasion: the village would not be used to seeing him look so tidy. Pat of course was her usual naturally elegant self. She would have been proud of her three daughters, for the well-chosen contributions they made. Matt's family too was out in force, including his two lovely-looking Woodmancote nieces.

Val's good friend Carol took the service with just the right degree of affection and seriousness, another nail in the coffin for those clinging to the idea of an exclusively male clergy. As usual, Gill told us where to sit and Muriel played the organ.

Everyone was there. Skip's sideboards, as bushy as ever, are now newly-back in fashion, thanks to Bradley Wiggins. Vera and Dennis hadn't changed much, but Clem looks older: her daughter Georgina has clearly taken over a more presidential role in the village. Ann and a deafer John, Robert and Lynne represented the Manor Farmers.

Robin and Sarah of the extended Smith family were alongside us in church, Sarah still playing hockey, and looking not much different from when she arrived as our efficient office cleaner a couple of decades ago, possibly more. Moving closer to Val's late husband, his nephew Jess, for ever known to us as Young John, was smiling as broadly as ever. And then there was David, in our early days in the valley, the young entrepreneur: now he enjoys the best position of all, up at Elsdown. From just over the fields beyond there came Ian: we reminisced about times even longer ago, when we both had back row seats in the sun around Elsa Marland at Dover's Court, and were spooked by her friend Ken Hay's Captain Hook arm. (Had he been in the wartime SOE asked Ian?)

Last but not least a clutch of Val's closest, including Bill and Sally, who helped us at Hill View as young teenagers.

The late Bill Waterhouse

From this photograph of Bill that I took five years before his death (last Autumn), you might think he was a Master of Wine, or possibly even an alcoholic, but he was neither: we were sitting across the table from each other at a post-wedding party, and Bill was talking with habitual earnestness: the subject could have been anything, but was most likely not to have been that about which he knew best: Bill was a pre-eminent practitioner on the bassoon.

"A worthy fellow, Ratty, with many good qualities, but very little intelligence and absolutely no education." So says Toad (in The Wind in the Willows). Superficially, Bill Waterhouse might be said to resemble "dear good old Ratty", with his unmistakable physiognomy – though equally perhaps Moley, ceaselessly industrious; Badger (with his fancy waistcoats): even (dare I say) Toad himself, when kitted out in his leathers and astride his motor bike. What is certain is that Bill indeed had many good qualities – but (unlike Ratty) they included a very unusual intelligence and a continuing zest for education!

His bassoon (and wider musicological) prowess has been well recorded, but as a neighbour I chiefly recall his appetite for his community and his joie de vivre. Bill was a regular attender at the Sevenhampton Produce Show and also the Whittington Summer Show – since 1981, as he recorded in a learned article he wrote for the celebrated Whittington Press's Matrix 26.

Bill and Elisabeth's cottage was situated well apart from Sevenhampton itself, but everyone at all interested was welcome there for the Waterhouse musical afternoons - at Christmas, Easter or some other occasion dreamt up for celebration. On arrival Bill would be standing (in his fancy waistcoat) directing the traffic and getting splashed with mud. Inside the Musicbarn, we perched on garden chairs or just a cushion on the floor. We always emerged feasted.

A neighbouring village gave its name to a scratch group that used to put on an annual concert, with what might sometimes be described as uneven results. But when the Shipton Consort performed Mozart's Requiem, with its opening bassoon motif, we all gasped: it was Bill playing.

Never having been to Highgate before 23rd November last, the day of Bill's Memorial Service, I asked myself what he would have done to mark the occasion. Of course! Yes, after a magical remembrance of Bill in prayer and in music, I sought out Karl Marx's splendid tomb in Highgate Cemetery, and George Eliot's more modest one. The eclectic Bill would surely have approved.

Yesterday, visiting Elisabeth and having tea with her in Bill's beloved Musicbarn, I met the musicologist Jim Kopp and his wife Joanne. They are hard at work completing the book Bill had agreed to write on the bassoon for the authoritative Yale Musical Instrument Series. It will be a long task, but one that's clearly in good hands.

HFA

"HFA" stands for "Hadfield Fine Art", which was unknown to me till yesterday, when we tumbled upon its Autumn Exhibition.

We had been visiting Caroline's brother, to wish him a happy birthday (and to admire the work they have been doing on their house restoration). I vaguely knew that there was an art exhibition on nearby, so we sought it out: round and round the parish of Sevenhampton we drove - stopping to admire an incongruous paddock full of rheas (see photograph) as we went along Gassons - when eventually we came across the HFA sign only a door or two from where we had started.

The gallery was once a indoor swimming pool: it is big enough to show off well the work of 14 contemporary artists (potters as well as painters). The paintings are principally landscapes, still lives and abstract subjects, very varied. Caroline (the expert on this sort of thing) thought the work was of pretty uniformly high quality. And I agreed.

If you want to see the show, hurry: it finishes on 12th. Though the Gallery is open at other times, you need to ring for an appontment save during the exhibition at weekends between 10 and 5: see their website for details. (We arrived late in the evening, without an appointment, but we realised quickly that that wasn't really fair.)

Besides the high quality displays, it's worth visiting HFA just to see the view across the infant River Coln towards Brockhampton Quarry: one of the best in the Cotswolds.