DEMOLITION – Man & Boy

Photographs; WHB 2015

DEMOLITION – Man & Boy

What is my joy in destruction?
Why does it give me a kick?
It grants me a sense of elation;
I once thought I was just downright sick.

As a toddler I remember I wanted,
As soon as a tower I’d built,
Just to knock it all over and giggle
Without any feeling of guilt.

Then when I’d taken up Lego,
I’d just love, after building my farm,
To smash it to bits with my mallet;
Didn’t think I was doing it harm.

And when in a History lesson
I said I’d like to have been
One of those men who wrecked churches and abbeys.
 The teacher near ruptured his spleen.

He sent me to see the headmaster,
Saying I must be beyond the pale;
For taking part in such Dissolution
He considered me right off the scale.

They decided I must be a vandal,
And said I would pay for my sins.
Abbeys and shrines were verboten,
I mustn’t wantonly damage such things.

Well, now I’ve left school and I’m happy,
My job suits me down to the ground.
I work hard with great satisfaction,
And no one will push me around.

For now I’m a demolition expert,
I can continue my hobby with pride;
Destruction now is my trade
As on top of a huge truck I ride.

Mechanical shovels and drills,
Excavators and large JCBs,
Bulldozers, cranes and dump trucks,
All these I can manage with ease.

And now that I’m married with children
I watch Joe build towers with his bricks,
Then demolish them with glee and I know
He’s a chip off the old block of tricks.

DEMOLITION – Man & Boy

What is my joy in destruction?
Why does it give me a kick?
It grants me a sense of elation;
I once thought I was just downright sick.

As a toddler I remember I wanted,
As soon as a tower I’d built,
Just to knock it all over and giggle
Without any feeling of guilt.

Then when I’d taken up Lego,
I’d just love, after building my farm,
To smash it to bits with my mallet;
Didn’t think I was doing it harm.

And when in a History lesson
I said I’d like to have been
One of those men who wrecked churches and abbeys.
 The teacher near ruptured his spleen.

He sent me to see the headmaster,
Saying I must be beyond the pale;
For taking part in such Dissolution
He considered me right off the scale.

They decided I must be a vandal,
And said I would pay for my sins.
Abbeys and shrines were verboten,
I mustn’t wantonly damage such things.

Well, now I’ve left school and I’m happy,
My job suits me down to the ground.
I work hard with great satisfaction,
And no one will push me around.

For now I’m a demolition expert,
I can continue my hobby with pride;
Destruction now is my trade
As on top of a huge truck I ride.

Mechanical shovels and drills,
Excavators and large JCBs,
Bulldozers, cranes and dump trucks,
All these I can manage with ease.

And now that I’m married with children
I watch Joe build towers with his bricks,
Then demolish them with glee and I know
He’s a chip off the old block of tricks.

CAEDMON: The First English Poet

Caedmon Memorial, St.Mary’s Churchyard, Whitby. N.Yorkshire

Inscription … “To the glory of God and in memory of Cædmon the father of English Sacred Song. Fell asleep hard by, 680.

 Caedmon is credited with being the first English poet.

He lived in the 7^th Century A.D.  His actual date of birth is unknown. What we do  know of him is chiefly found in The Venerable Bede’s, ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ written in 731 A.D.,  50 years after Caedmon’s death. In fact the language Caedmon recited and sang in was Old English.  His works were recorded by others and passed on to subsequent generations.  As Bede reports, Caedmon began as a lowly herdsman working mainly in the fields and grounds of the Northumbrian Benedictine monastery of Streonæshalch (later to become Whitby Abbey) on the coast of North Yorkshire during the time when the renowned St Hilda, or Hild, was Abbess between 657 and 680 AD.

The Abbey occupies a dramatic position, exposed as it is at the edge of the cliffs above the town of Whitby, and facing directly out to the North Sea.  It was disestablished and fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early 16th Century.

Caedmon’s story is a fascinating one, with few sources for verification of its authenticity.

  Over the 3 days, starting tomorrow, I hope to present, translated by me from the original Old English, Caedmon’s own version of his life story. 

DISSOLUTION

Priory Arch from, the Applegarth

DISSOLUTION

These remnants of the past adorn the present, 
Relating the aspirations of their birth,
Attaching the future to their past.

How dominant in silhouette
The ruined priory stands;
How assertive its very existence.
The faith that built its aspiring arch,
That held its hope through devotion
And a staunch religious life,
Remains in every desecrated stone,
Each weathered rock;
Still a monument to conviction,
A parable of faith.

What distinction a ruin can give,
Purpose disclosed in symmetry.
The shell recalls its torrid past, but
Hope was not destroyed along with stone.
These skeletal embers still speak of belief;
The story told in its remains,
Its hold on today still firm.

This bygone glory, the Dissolution’s ruins,
Transformed into the splendour of today;
Despair turned into hope.
This testimony from the past
Now, our treasure of the present.
Destruction brought about by time,
Ruins preserved in dignity,
Have now conveyed perspective to the present.
The toil of centuries brought to ignominious end,
Their dissolution brought about a resurrection.
In dissolution – a new life was created;
These remnants of the past adorn the present.

Gothic Arched East Window

Norman Arch and Medieval Dovecote

My photographs were taken on a recent visit to Gisborough Priory on the northern edge of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.  My thoughts as presented above, although they followed from this visit and from many previous visits, apply also to the very many historic remains throughout the United Kingdom subsequent to the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th Century.

Viewers of Roland’s Ragbag will note that an image of this same Priory East Window (not my own photograph) is used as header to all my blog pages.