Whittington 2014

Another village show, another fine day (for the most part). Silver Band, ice creams, dog show, white elephant, the Press thronged. I went up on my own, and met an old friend, Richard who hadn't been before. So it was especially good to see it all through his eyes.

At the Court, we paid for entrance, an excellent £2 worth, I reckon. (I had never done this before.)

There seemed to be more present than ever, and no wonder. It's the epitome of a traditional village day, with something for everyone.

St David's Day

Today dawned with evidence of a sharp frost on the car windscreen, the first for ages. Last night was clear, but we failed to look out for the aurora borealis as we left Whittington, having had supper there. The Press has recently published a beautiful volume of super-size posters: I enjoyed poring over them as Caroline was upstairs looking at materials.

I took this photograph of today's Saint (the window is by Kempe) in St David's Church, Moreton-in-Marsh last week.

The Whittington Show

Despite an iffy forecast, it has been a fine day as usual for the Whittington Show. Charlotte came to lunch, and we took her up Ham Hill with us, sneaking in the back way and parking outside Kim and Ruth's. Doing this, we get to see the fête proper twice, on the way to the Court and on the way back: otherwise, it can be an effort to drag ourselves down to the village and back, what with the attractions of the Press, the church and the Court itself - where Jack was today looking particularly dapper, sitting in splendour in the bay window of his bedroom. Hugo presided in the hall, having to close the door when too many threatened to invade the house. Jenny, Lucy and Giles were on downstairs room duty.

At the Press, John cruised genially; Rose and Patrick were busy selling, and 20 or so stalls were set up under the trees, showing fine books from other presses, marbling, weaving, bees and much else: it's a unique gathering surely; and more and more come each year. Miriam peered through borrowed specs.; Freddie brought Zazie and guests; Kitty, Antonia, Rory and Judith, Toby and Ursula and family, Heather, Julian... And by the produce tent, I spoke to Jill and the Frys, and of course Ian with photographs and fudge as well as beef brochures. Roger and Dave were around the Hall, where we paused for tea before returning to the car, clutching second hand books for the grandchildren, the brass band still playing, but clouds gathering to spoil the brightness of the afternoon.

The Whittington Show

Once again, it was a fine afternoon for the annual show at Whittington, the parish where we lived between 1983 and 1994. The queue of vehicles stretched back to the A40: Rose Randle, of the famous Press, thought she had never seen so many cars parked. It never ceases to amaze me how such beautifully printed books emerge from a former gardener's shed, the contents of which are in such seeming disarray. But there is method in the Randle madness: in its 40 years or so the Whittington Press has earned a worldwide reputation, and the Open Day is a magnet for collectors and lovers of fine printing. The Show too, spilled over from the Village Hall and Green into the adjacent field, attracts its own regular adherents from all round the place, not just the many Parish alumni who turn out.

J. & W. Mitchell Ltd.

Mitchells was my father's place of work, and his father's before him. At the request of John Randle of The Whittington Press, I wrote my recollections about the business for Matrix 26, which was published in 2006. Some long time after that, someone from the British Association of Paper Historians rang and asked if I minded my article being reprinted. "Not at all," I said, and forgot all about it.

Now, a couple of copies of the BAPH's journal, The Quarterly (for January 2010) have plopped through our letter-box. Re-reading the article, I rather think it should have been re-written!

Mitchells' sample books are now deposited with the Sir Kenneth Green Library of Manchester Metropolitan University, as an addition to their special collection of fancy papers.

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.