Saturday 1 August 2020

Spring Fair









Dear Reader,

One of my young daughters, back from India, came to a country fair with me.  The fair was in Herefordshire, by the river Wye and we were to have stayed in a B&B in the local town.  But having wandered about the fair for an hour or two, the daughter probably thought it would be more fun without her mother on her arm, and left me.  I spent the night, worrying in the B&B, and the daughter came back at breakfast.  When questioned of her whereabouts the night before she said she had slept by the river
till dawn broke.  Ah well...we were all young once.
                                                                                    *

I have been reading about the start of WW II, and the Duke of Windsor's abdication, so that he could marry a twice divorced American woman called Wallis Simpson.  It is a true story of passion, and all that goes with it, especially if you were born to be a king, and decided you didn't want the role.  They married and were exiled to France.  They were very spoilt and snobbish and I would think thoroughly unpleasant.  They went to stay with some friends outside Paris who already had gardeners, gamekeepers, twenty-four indoor servants and a butler but that wasn't enough for Wallis.  She wanted a pastry cook, sous-chef and a scullery boy, a second butler and footman, four maids and two charwomen, five laundrywomen, more gardeners and extra chauffeur, a telephonist, a number of golf-course workers and a gatekeeper.

I find it difficult to imagine their lives.  I used to have a cleaner who came in once a fortnight to hoover mainly but sadly I had to ask her not to return whilst lockdown was in force.   And so now Francis and I do everything in the house and in the garden.  And we are perfectly happy, laugh a lot and enjoy ourselves.

I wonder if they were happy with their lives, but I imagine not.
Wallis is purported to have said:  'You can never be too thin or too rich.'   What a ghastly woman.

                                                                                  *
Spring Fair

The young girl
and her mother, holding hands,
hurry down the hill
where the bright lights beckon,
see the big dippers hurtling,
painted horses swirling, yellow
swing boats diving, swooping,
smell the grease and diesel
hear the loud beat of music,
the children's screams.

Young men of the fair
long-haired, dark, a little wild,
eye the girls with bright,
knowing looks.
The air if full of restlessness, of quickening,
an urgency to act,
before the end of the night,
when morning light will move them on.

Dusk falls, the young girl drops her mother's hand,
stirred by the primal desire of early spring.
Running silently she disappears into the night, eager,
to share what ancient fires of life can bring.

                                                                                 *

With very best wishes, Patricia

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