Robert Fripp's Diary

Bredonborough A very wet morning

19.07 

Bredonborough.

A very wet morning. There were fish in garden. That is, there were fish swimming in the garden.

July 27th. 2003…

Today I…

II...

III...

Rather than recede, the water has risen since yesterday.

A morning continung to organise World HQ. More pictures have been hung on walls; a few more books distributed on shelves.

Of particular relevance, referred to in last week’s UK GC congreet in Wirksworth, this is the Certificate of Merit awarded by the South Wales Temperance & Band of Hope Union (see item 2)  to my Mother, Edith Green, of Arael Mixed School for Excellence in Reproducing a Lecture on the Nature & Effects of Alcohol on 10/2/1927. At the top of the certificate: THE BEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS: VALOUR & TEMPERANCE. At the bottom: HEALTH IS ALWAYS INJURED BY ALCOHOL, BENFITED BY IT NEVER. ALCOHOL IS THE GREAT ALLY OF EVERY DISEASE.

My Mother lived in Aberbeeg.

http://abstuk.co.uk/uk/aberbeeg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberbeeg

A South Wales village in the first decades of the 20th. didn’t provide an easy life.
Its two main features: the coal mine & the chapel.

ABERBEEG is a village in the parish of Llanhilleth, with a station at the junction of the Blaina and Ebbw Vale railways with the Western Valleys line belonging to the Great Western Company, 173¾ miles from London, 4½ south from Blaina and 8 south-west from Pontypool.A Public Hall (which stands in the parish of Mynyddislwyn) was erected in 1891 ; it is also used for divine services. Here is also a reading room. Here are several collieries, a large brewery and a flour mill.Six Bells is 1 mile north from Aberbeeg railway station.Board School (mixed), Aberbeeg, built in 1873, & since enlarged to hold 400 children; average attendance, 240 boys & girls & 100 infants; Theophilus Evans, master; Miss Ruth Emily Evans, infants’ mistress

Railway Station at Aberbeeg, James H. Bond, station master.

LLANHILLETH includingABERBEEG

LLANHILLETH, or Llanhiddel, is a parish… in the rural deanery of Blaenau Gwent, archdeaconry of Monmouth and diocese of Llandaff, and is within the area of the Abertillery urban district… Aberbeeg, Six Bells and Crumlin are villages of Llanhilleth;

The church of St. Illtyd, standing on rising ground, is an ancient building of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, west porch and a tower with spire containing 2 bells: in the church are various monuments, an ancient font and an antique church chest: the church was restored and decorated in 1891, when the old windows were reglazed, at a cost of £600: there are 150 sittings: in the churchyard are several old yew trees. The register dates from the year 1733.

The church of St. Mark, standing in the centre of the village and erected in 1898, is a building of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel and nave and a bell-cote containing 2 bells: there are 400 sittings…

There are Baptist (Welsh and English) and Congregational chapels, two Primitive Methodist chapels, and a Calvinistic chapel of iron at Six Bells.

The two churches, of St. Illtyd & St. Mark, are within a mile of Aberbeeg; which had its own Public Hall for divine services, and 6 chapels within easy reach.

Mother’s Father, Joe Greene, was a coal miner, and I have always assumed his mine was Six Bells, but it might have been the North Aberbeeg colliery.

Temperance, chapel & the labour movement traveled hand in hand.

Most of Sunday was spent at Chapel, and it was regarded as the highlight of the week when everyone put on their ‘Sunday best’. The Chapels held very strict beliefs; in the 1860s, they were heavily involved with the Temperance Movement, and supported groups involved in it such as the Band of Hope.

The Rechabites were just one of a number of temperance organisations to spring up in the mid 1800’s the two most prominent of which were the Women’s’ Temperance Movement - which succeeded in getting the American prohibition laws passed - and the Band of Hope a children’s organisation whose aim was to encourage children to shame their parents into giving up the evil drink. One of the main ways in which the Band of Hope used to work was by encouraging children to join by offering games, trips parties and other activities. So if you nag your dad to stop drinking you can have a free day trip to Barry Island

The temperance movement was very big in Wales by the 1880s - and temperance became a pre-requisite for joining nonconformist chapel (to the extent that being teetotal was more important than being a Christian!).With conscription giving young men a much wider experience of social attitude, temperance began its decline after the first world war - a second generation going through the same cultural revolution in WW2, saw the movement and its nonconformist supporters going into rapid decline.

Joe Greene was not a drinker, his indulgence a shandy (beer & lemonade).

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Temperance

(3) The inclusion of children in temperance organization goes back to 1847, when a society was formed at Leeds, in Yorkshire, of juvenile abstainers who had taken the pledge; it took the name of Band of Hope. The practice spread, and in 1851 a Band of Hope Union was formed. There are now a number of such unions, for the United Kingdom, Scotland, Ireland and separate counties in England; the Bands of Hope are said to number 15,000 in all. There are also several other juvenile organizations, some of which are branches of the adult societies. By far the largest is the juvenile section of the Church of England Temperance Society, which has 485,888 members (1910)… (4) The teaching of temperance in schools, which has become a great feature of the moral propaganda, was begun by private effort in 1852, when the late Mr John Hope inaugurated a regular weekly visitation of day-schools in Edinburgh. In 1875, at the invitation of the National Temperance League, the late Sir Benjamin Richardson wrote his Temperance Lesson Book, which was adopted by many schools as a primer. In 1889 school-teaching by travelling lecturers was taken up by the United Kingdom Band of Hope Union, and the example was followed by many other societies. The Band of Hope Unions in England alone have spent over £3000 a year for the last twenty years in itinerant lectures; object-lessons on the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks are given to children in the higher standards. The Church of England Temperance Society carries on similar work in diocesan schools, and examines the children in the subject of temperance; in 1909 it had in use 6000 lantern slides for lectures, and set 7598 examination papers.

Perhaps the Board School (mixed), Aberbeeg, built in 1873 became Arael Mixed, which is now Arael Primary School on Aberbeeg Road, Abertillery. Aberbeeg Road was my Mother’s street, a steep walk leading down & into Abertillery from Aberbeeg, at the top.It is currently a mixed school of Non-Denominational religion.

There were proposals to close the school in 2002. (pdf  version here) .

I’m not sure of Arael’s connotation in a Nonconformist Welsh mining village of the 1920s, but it’ll be in the Old Testament somewhere.

Today, Arael is today the 15th Angel, of the birds & the spiritual flight towards God…

There is also an alternative rendering of The Meaning Of Aberbeeg…

aberbeeg v. [From the place name. "Of amateur actors, to adopt a Mexican accent when called upon to play any variety of foreigner (except Pakistanis - for whom a Welsh accent is considered sufficient)." - Douglas Adams and John Lloyd in The Deeper Meaning of Liff.]

So, onto the wall…

… above the Phoenix, in The Forbidden Stitch, and below that…

… is an old photo of Fore Street, Evershot, look up to the Old Mansion. This was where we lived in West Dorset before moving to Bredonborough, although the name of the house had been changed, along the way, to The Old Manor.

http://www.imagesofdorset.org.uk/Dorset/093/intro.htm

http://www.evershot.demon.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evershot

This photo came to me on the death of my Mother’s Mother, Gladys, c. 1982…

… of Gladys’ own Mother. Most likely, given the relative age of the subjects, Glayds’ Mother is standing beside her own Father, my maternal Great Great Grandfather, who was a Parfitt. Most of Gladys’ family emigrated to Australia, while she stayed at home, the wife of a Welsh miner.

Now, on the wall above two other old photos of Evershot…

… with two Fripps to their left…

The same view on July 19th. 2003…

The opposite wall today…

… and on July 19th. 2003…

The two pictures, to the right of Groves’ in an Edwardian secretaire bought from my Father’ saleroom c. 1980…

The top picture is of Mount Etna, Sicily, brought back from my Father’s Mediterranean cruise of 1935.

http://www.bestofsicily.com/etna.htm
http://www.volcanolive.com/etna.html
http://www.volcanoetna.com/

When Dad took over Welch & Lock, Estate Agents & Auctioneers in the early 1930s, life was hard. Dad’s first property sale paid for this holiday. The momento hung on the walls of Fripphomes during our growing up, and is hung today, not quite as fine art, but as part of celebrating Family in this room of Family. Below, the sistery Person as a very young Sistery Person…

Our Father was a keen amateur photographer, and we have an extensive archive of Fripp family photos. This one is framed by Bob Berke, our pal from San Francisco.

So much for additions to the walls, but what of books at HQ? A recent poster to the Guestbook asked if I was aware of Christopher Alexander’s work.

http://www.patternlanguage.com/leveltwo/ca.htm
http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Christopher_Alexander.html
http://www.natureoforder.com/

Right bay, fifth shelf down…

Second-from-left bay, fourth shelf down…

Yer tiz…

Also on shelves upstairs, a draft of Study Of Order sent to me by a pal on the Board at Claymont. At Claymont Court, one of the residents was a student of CA & built a house on the property following Alexandrian principles (regrettably without building & zoning permission). This was known as The Dom House & introduced me to CA & his work.

23.28  DGM HQ.

An evening drive here, recently arriving. Rain all the way from Worcestershire to Wiltshire.

Workstation…

23.59 The floor…