A WALK AND AN UPDATE

I've never been inclined just to 'go for a walk'. I've walked because I need to get from a to b, I'm taking photographs for a blog, I'm exploring a neighbourhood, those kinds of things. Now I'm walking for my life.

As some of you already know (I left a note in the comments attached to the last post) I came out of hospital on 18th March. Unfortunately the chemo had only worked to a certain extent and the leukaemia has come home with me.

Last week I had a discussion with one of the doctors who arranges stem cell transplants. Right at the beginning she warned me that everyone who has this discussion with her leaves the room feeling grim. May as well share the grimness - and the hope.

The only way forward now is to have a bone marrow/stem cell transplant. If I don't I will die in about a year's time. They haven't got a named donor yet but they have samples in the lab and are working out if they can find a near enough match. If they can, and the donor checks out as healthy and still willing and available . . . I'll probably go back into hospital in about six weeks time. The chances of dying as a result of the transplant itself are about 5%. The chances of the transplant 'working' are 50 - 60%-ish. I'd be in hospital about five weeks. (Though after the previous chemos it took my immune system a lot longer than expected to recover so I'm bearing in mind that this 'five weeks' might stretch.) Even if it works, chances are that I'll be ill as I get over it - perhaps a couple of readmissions with infections. And I'll always be at an increased risk of other cancers, especially of the skin - will always need to wear suncream. An increased risk of cataracts too. Various other aches and pains. She didn't want to suggest this is going to be an easy ride!

'Transplant' makes one think of general anaesthetics but no. Chemo (and radiation?) will kill off my bones' ability to create 'my' blood cells. A transfusion will introduce 'someone else's' blood-creating cells. They will make themselves at home in my bones and from then on I will be producing 'their' blood. (I think this is it.) To go through this I have to be fit. My heart has been tested; and my lungs. And I'm walking. After more or less three and a half months in bed it was hard to get up the stairs when I got home. By 'going for walks' I'm getting stronger - ready to get knocked back again!

. . . And one of the places I walk is the People's Park. (I first told you about this park in December 2017 - A Parade of Bare Bottoms.)

In this urn dandelions and other non-planted plants have gone to seed.

I've never before met such a purposeful park. There are nearly always people striding out along the paths clearly for the sake of their health. Sometimes they are alone (maybe in tracksuits - tracksuits seem to be an early morning thing) often in groups. When I lived in Dorset I found myself getting irritated with joggers and runners. I'd be poking around in a bush to see what was living on the underside of a leaf and they'd pass at a steady trot, apparently oblivious to anything except their bodies. I'm trying to disentangle my prejudices. People who run - I admire. Just as I am stunned by the cross country cyclists in Yorkshire. So why I took against the keep fitters who lived near me, I don't know. It was something to do with changing the atmosphere of the place. Maybe it's because I guessed they were finding the track 'useful' rather than beautiful. But in this urban park, it feels very cheerful, people marching along and saying 'hello' to each other as they cross in opposite directions. Maybe it's because they seem very ordinary. They are ordinary people who want to be healthy and well. They are not a special race with water bottles. Meanwhile, there are others who come to sit and relax around the fountain which has water in the basin but none that squirts in the air. There's a little playground too - swings, a small slide, a climbing frame. There's something very purposeful about the way children play there. They don't hang around. They swing for a bit then leap off and run to the next thing to do.

Dead Nettles and Shepherds Purse in an untended urn.

Tell me, do you find yourselves reacting in a huffy or hostile way to people doing things in one place that you'd not object to elsewhere? Buskers might fit. There are good places to busk where the music adds to the atmosphere. And there are places where the same music would be downright irritating. Walking purposefully in a park is one thing. If I had to share the paths with joggers, that would be another. 

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SHROGGS

View from Shrogg's Park across a 'ravine'.
Until I looked at this scene I didn't properly appreciate the light and airiness
of silver birches.

Halifax is full of Victorians. All in a rush they filled the area with houses and mills. Then they went away again. In other words, they died. Or more particularly, Queen Victoria did. There's a statue of her husband Albert, and a promenade which keeps his name. But it's the ghosts of the local wealthy who hang around the place. Not with white sheets over their heads going 'ooooh' but in the landscape.

A short while back I posted about The People's Park in Halifax. (A Parade of Bare Bottoms.) Today we are crossing a wooded ravine (I expect there's a proper name for the steep, deep gullies which go right into the heart of town but 'ravine' will do) to another park - Shroggs.

Until I began this post, I'd assumed there had been a 'Mr Shroggs' and that he'd given the land for the benefit of 'the people' just as Mr Crossley gave land for The People's Park. But no. It turns out that 'shroggs' means 'scrubland' or 'brushwood' or 'area of stunted trees'.

Woodland walk in Shroggs Park, Halifax.
To the right there is an almost sheer drop to a busy main road.

Victorians liked shrubberies and stumperries and rockscapes. I've always assumed it was just one of those things. A fashion that came and went. But perhaps it was more to do with Victorian practicality. Presented with an area of stunted trees and rocky outcrops, one might as well take advantage of what's already there and enjoy the drama. Sling in some formal beds and wide walks and a drinking fountain, perhaps a band. Et voila! An enjoyable mish-mash of the contrived and the wild! Victorian furniture sometimes has mirrors in odd places. This wasn't so people had to crouch down to pluck their eyebrows. It was a way to brighten the atmosphere. Victorians liked tinkering. Sometimes they over-did it. Never mind the age of a church, bung down a regular pattern of tiles in the nave. But they weren't frightened of big projects. Find an area of unproductive ground, plant 60,000 trees and shrubs to give shelter and make it pleasant, put up some impressive gates to give access and open it to the public every day of the year!  Take what is, pitch in and make it 'better'. They were truly 'hands on'.

One of the wide walks in Shroggs Park, Halifax.
There are also formal flower beds and a mass of cocuses in some areas of grass.
(February 20th 2018)

Yesterday, someone compared Halifax to Luxembourg. 'It's a similar topography with ravines splitting the town. But in Luxembourg they've kept the rivers above ground and made it all beautiful.' Having looked at some pictures of Luxembourg, I can see what he means. Some day I'll have to check up on why the rivers in Halifax have largely been channelled into narrow spaces, out of the way places and underground. In the meantime I'll guess it was to prevent flooding, to reduce the amount of soggy ground and maybe (perhaps even primarily) to use the water for power. (I should probably have found out before embarking on this post but if I waited to know everything I'd never say anything - which would not be good.)

Twisted trees on the steep bank at the side of one of the paths.

But in 1872 one Colonel Ackroyd decided to give the people of Halifax a park. What's fun about this is that whereas The People's Park was a place to contemplate ancient statues and walk around quietly, Colonel Ackroyd decreed that in 'his' park people were to play games and music as well as walk along its broad paths, drink at its water fountain, admire its formal beds and sit between its trees. If you take a look at Historic England's site you'll see his intention right from the beginning was that there should be provision for 'cricket, bowls, archery and other games'. (You can now add football and a children's play area. I don't know about archery!)

In making this comparison, there's an awkward gap. The People's Park was designed in 1857 and Shroggs in 1872. But if I were a fiction writer I'd make Crossley and Ackroyd proper contemporaries so I could write a block busting novel about their contrasting approaches. One (Crossley) going for the working man's quiet contemplation and education (the classical statues) and the other (Ackroyd) consciously providing space for games and flirtation (what other use for a shrubbery?). It would be followed by a television drama which, spread over several episodes, would be as successful as Downton Abbey and make my fortune.

Looking down on part of the complex road network from a hill opposite the park.
If you click the picture it will enlarge and you will be able to see how roads are
weaving over and under each other and how cars are coming in and out at
different levels. 

There are no modern-day local-benefactors on this scale. But here's something interesting about Calderdale Council which is currently resisting the amount of new housing the government wants for this area.

According to our local paper (The Halifax Chronicle) the leader of the council (Tim Swift - Labour) says the special topography of the area has to be taken into account. (There are, after all, what I call 'ravines' as well as slopes so steep we might as well call them cliffs - that's me doing that explanation, not a quote from the article). And Councillor Dan Sutherland (also Labour) says "We need to strike the right balance between providing enough housing for the future and both maintaining and improving access to the green spaces we all enjoy."

As you can see from the picture, roads go over and under each other in order to connect the multiple layers of industry and housing in Halifax. (Shroggs Park is above the upper top left of the picture). Given that some areas of town are highly populated . . . a park here and there is no bad thing.

Victorian men like Crossley, Ackroyd and Saville (who in 1866 gave a large area of land to the council on condition it did something about smoke pollution) used some of their wealth to create parks. I used to think if I were truly rich I'd put up clocks all over the country. I've now switched to grants for repairing roofs in Halifax. (In my dreams!)

If you had oodles of money to give away for the public good, how would you spend it?

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A PARADE OF BARE BOTTOMS

I don't much like parks. They are too much nature tamed. They have walks without purpose and flow with an atmosphere of worthiness, municipal community and alone-nes. They are uncomfortable places.

I don't much like flatness. I once stayed a week in Huntingdonshire in an area that was counted as 'semi-desert'; not because it was dry but because so few people lived there. To ride on a bus you needed to phone in advance and ask the driver to collect you; and you could see everything for miles and miles.There was no-where to hide. There were, I suppose, advantages to this flatness. For instance I could so easily see a storm coming in advance of its arrival there was time to get home before it began to rain. I'd rather have sheltered under a hedge though - if there had been hedges. But there were none. Just miles of visibility.

Hills are tiring to walk in but because you can't see everything at once there's more to see. Constant surprise. What's over the brow? What's around the bend?

* * *

Venus

Scotland has a new five pound note. I heard about it by chance on 'Woman's Hour' this morning.* It has a portrait of Nan Shepherd on it. I'd not heard of her before and know little about her still - but the interviewee on Woman's Hour read a bit of something she'd written; comments on how you can see static things 'move' merely by shifting the angle of your head, your eye, your body. Turn upside down.

* * *

Last week I visited The People's Park in Halifax. I'd been there a few times before. It's growing on me - but on my first visit I decided it's exactly the kind of park I don't like; more or less flat with a fountain that's never turned on and a short, stagnant 'serpentine' stretch of water with a grassy bank in the middle so ducks have to come out on one side and up-and-over if they want to swim its full length.

According to the Wikipedia entry, Francis Crossley - the man who established this park - was so impressed by the scenery of New England he returned to Halifax eager "to arrange art and nature so that they shall be within the walk of every working man in Halifax; that he shall go to take his stroll there after he has done his hard day's toil, and be able to get home without being tired".

The idea that everyone in Halifax would be able to walk there for a stroll after a hard day's work is a bit of a far hope as it's not in the centre and it is up a hill - but it had already begun to strike me (as I softened towards it) that in a town as hilly as Halifax a flat space to walk in might have been a luxury after a day working hard for Francis Crossley and his relations.

I don't think he and I would have got along. I may well say more about his attitude towards workers in another post but even on lesser things we'd probably have irritated and puzzled each other. Why did the White Mountains of New Hampshire inspire him to provide Halifax with a large area of flat grass? (I don't want to under-rate him - there were trees and plants too - but you get the jist.)

Historic England's entry about The People's Park says it 'It provided for quiet enjoyment of the scenery and for walking, and all meetings, games and dancing were forbidden.' (Oh joy!) Lots of games in the summer now though, and a children's playground.

Telemachus
who has not put on his armour
but has propped it against his left buttock instead.

When the park was opened in 1857, a troupe of copied statues was brought in: Hercules, Venus, Diana, Telemachus and Sophocles. (Apollo arrived broken.) I don't know why visitors would want to see a load of semi-naked men on pedestals while they were walking quietly round the paths after a heavy day at Crossley's carpet mill . . . and I don't know why these giants of mythology and Greek and Roman religion never got the hang of getting dressed. And the extra surprising thing about the arrangement of these statues is that when walking along the broad path beside them one is presented with a selection of bare bottoms. 

Slowly we return to Nan Shepherd . . .

Hercules looking strongish because the colours are deep in the photo.

The idea that things look different from different angles is basic to the kind of photographs I take. It's easy to say and perfectly obvious to all but not always acted upon or taken seriously or even noticed. Different lights send different messages. Different directions bring out different strengths and different weaknesses; and different colours and different lichens. Photographs of ancient and Victorian statues tend not to explore this too much except by chance. Each statue is left to say it's own thing - which is more or less 'look at me, I'm on a postcard'.

Hercules looking as if he's dropped his bath robe
and is stooping to catch it  - because the colours are weaker.
(Actually he's leaning on a club over which is draped the skin of the Nemean Lion.)

Hence the range of Hercules photos here - rear view and from different angles. I'm not sure what he's holding behind his back but suspect it's apples he's stolen from the garden guarded by the Hesperides. (Briefly, I thought of explaining this but got bogged down and bored . . . perhaps they are not apples but oranges? Who cares?)

Hercules looking looking like a teacher who has confiscated a yo-yo.
My viewpoint here perhaps influenced by having experience
of overbearing teachers but none of  apple-scrumping heroes.

Francis Crossley would not have liked me. Definitely not. Nor do I think I would have liked him. I imagine he'd be disappointed to know I don't appreciate these statues in the way he probably intended. He might even be cross. And I doubt he would have been pleased to see me hurrying up and down laughing and taking photos. (Though he might have been interested in examining a digital camera before anyone else of his age.)

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