Making time to stand and stare

A blue plaque now graces the wall of the Church House Inn, Pill, Newport

Sometimes it takes the words of a dead man to make us slow down and reflect upon what’s important in life; what really matters when the layers of modern society and our consumerist lifestyles are stripped away.

Lately, whenever I find myself rushing from pillar to post, getting impatient in a traffic queue or just feeling stressed about life’s seemingly endless demands, I find myself mulling over the words of the poem  ‘Leisure’ by W H Davies.

W H died in 1940 and so copyright of his poetry has lapsed, which means I'm not breaking any laws by reproducing the poem here in its entirety:

‘What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care

We have no time to stand and stare.’

No marks for guessing what our favourite line is!

But seriously, I love the sentiment behind his words and the idea that life is richer when you slow down and start noticing how absolutely perfect the natural world is.

William Henry Davies 1871-1940

William Henry Davies, universally known as W H Davies, was born in Newport, South Wales, on July 3, 1871, an era where the world at large moved more slowly (though the rapid expansion of Newport docks undoubtedly meant Pill(gwenlly) was a bustling place at the end of the 19th century).

Born 90 years apart, WH and I nonetheless have a lot in common, quite apart from the same home town, family name (my mother’s maiden name was Davies) and the day of the month on which we were born.

We both had grandparents living in Portland Street, however while WH and his siblings were brought up by his mother’s parents, Francis and Lydia Davies, at the Church House Inn, I met my own paternal grandfather just the once.

And while poetry has never really been my forté (if you want to judge for yourself, read Rope Bridges) I absolutely share WH’s love of words.

But where I truly recognise a kindred spirit is in WH’s thirst for adventure, his desire from an early age to wander far and wide. Not, I hasten to add, that I’ve done anything like the amount of travelling he did. Neither have I ever slept rough or chanced leaping onto a moving train.

Yet the wanderlust is always there, simmering below the surface, unfulfilled in part because I have children and financial commitments but also, if I'm honest, because I lack something WH had in abundance: courage.

The poet was a self-proclaimed hobo (tramp)

He was young when he headed to America that first time – just 22. Yet, that’s exactly the age you should be doing outrageous things, travelling the world, and sleeping under the stars. Because one thing’s certain, if you’re not brave enough to throw yourself at life when you are young, you never will be. You've missed the boat. Our older selves will always tend to over-think and over-plan – we need itineraries, emergency money in our bank accounts, assurances that nothing will go wrong, comfortable beds with en-suite bathrooms. The list goes on...

As the publisher’s ‘trumpeter’ for The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, George Bernard Shaw described WH as ‘a free knight of the highway, [who] lived like a pet bird on titbits’. 

The working-class poet, who had his lower leg amputated after falling from a train, was rather more blunt, referring to himself as a ‘hobo’.

I think I’d like to be the female equivalent, a free dame of the highway, with the highway in question a long-distance, high-level trail winding through varied, but always beautiful, landscapes. I can see myself now, legs toned and tanned, living on oranges and grapes, and just the occasional warm bread roll, always walking, always moving on.

In the magnificent Young Emma, WH gives a short account of the early days of his relationship and subsequent marriage to Helen Payne, thirty years his junior and a former prostitute. After sending the manuscript to his publisher Jonathan Cape in 1924, he had second thoughts about revealing just how badly he’d treated his doting young wife (he mistakenly believed she’d given him a venereal disease). He requested his editor return the manuscript and destroy two type-written copies to stop it getting ‘into the hands of strangers in about 50 years time’.

Fortunately for modern day readers, the copies were simply put into a safe and forgotten about until after his death in 1940. They were eventually rediscovered but Jonathan Cape continued to respect the author’s wishes and Young Emma was only published in 1980, a year after Helen’s death.

I recently read the book and the poet’s passion for the natural world is evident throughout. Eager to leave London, he decides to move to the countryside where he dreams ‘of passing more trees than human beings, and hearing more bird than human voices’.

Newport's 'Stand and Stare' statue by Paul Bothwell-Kincaid 

Though devoted to him, Helen/Emma never really understood why her husband’s ‘lonely country walks’ where he could ‘stop and stare’ were so necessary for his emotional well-being and creativity as a poet.

‘For while she was indoors, looking at the rooms, I was in the garden, trying to name the trees, and a dream of leaves I had: I wanted to cover the whole house all over with green leaves: around every window, all over the roof, and even around the chimney stack. But this, of course, would take years and years: and life would be generous indeed, if I ever saw that done.’

‘There appeared to be no ending to my liking for nature; whether a tree was so leafy that it reduced the whole heavens to a few blue eyes, or whether the twigs were as thin and bare as the bird’s legs that used them – it was all the same to me.’

Young Emma, W H Davies

Perhaps it’s me, but I find it slightly ironic that this passionate nature-lover, this man for whom time stood still whenever he walked in the countryside or woodland, should, in 1930, be awarded a grandmother clock by his townsfolk.

A bridge for all seasons - unless it's closed

An ingenious resolution to a tidal headache

I was delighted to read recently that Newport City Council has at last re-opened the Grade I listed Transporter Bridge. 

The 106-year-old bridge, which has been threatened with permanent closure more than once in its long history and has been temporarily closed more times that I care to remember, will remain open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm, until the end of September.

The Transporter Bridge was designed to overcome a very specific problem – the unusually high tidal range of the 120km long River Usk. The vast variation in water levels meant it was impossible for a ferry to operate at low tide, but difficult for tall-masted ships to pass under an ordinary bridge at high tide.  

A rather unusual river crossing

Fortunately for we Newportonians, the brilliant French engineer Ferdinand Arnodin managed to overcome the tidal problem with his innovative design. A 74m tower on each bank of the river linking a horizontal beam at 54 metres above the road provided plenty of head height for passing ships, while a hanging gondola transported vehicles across the river at a speed of three metres per second.

When it opened on September 12 1906 (Godfrey Charles Morgan, 1^st Viscount Tredegar performed the official opening ceremony), it was the town’s second river crossing (after Town Bridge); in 2013, it’s the fourth vehicular crossing in the city (there is also a footbridge alongside the university) and the lowest crossing point on the River Usk.

The Transporter Bridge's claim to fame is featuring in the 1959 film Tiger Bay starring Hayley Mills, although artistic licence saw it located near Cardiff rather than Newport docks.

My dad was born in the shadow of this giant, in a tiny cottage long since demolished. Although I grew up on the opposite side of the river on Corporation Road, the bridge also played a major part in my own childhood.

The gondola holds six carefully positioned vehicles

We kids would often walk the two miles or so to Coronation Park. Once we’d tired of the playground, we’d hop onto the bridge’s gondola and while away the afternoon crossing the River Usk. I remember being fascinated by the orderly way in which up to six cars drove onto the platform and waited, stationary, until the gondola reached the far bank, only to disembark just as impressively.

There was no charge for pedestrians, although it did cost 5p to walk over the top and you had to ask one of the operators to unlock the gates for you. If you happened to descend on one side of the bank while the gondola was being loaded on the other, you could be imprisoned on the lower steps for up to ten minutes.

I must have been about fifteen when I finally plucked up the courage to climb the tower steps and take the high road. I was frightened to death, perhaps one of the reasons I had no inclination to repeat the experience until around 2000.

Smiling but terrified @ 1976

Another reason was that the bridge closed in 1985 due to wear and tear. It remained closed for a decade, continuing to dominate Newport’s skyline but sadly dormant. In 1995 it reopened after a £3m refurbishment, but when more maintenance was needed at the end of 2007, the bridge was again closed, its future uncertain. 

There was a rumour that our beloved bridge could have the same fate as the 1831 London Bridge, which was dismantled in 1967 and sold to the US for a cool million. It now stands proudly in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where it forms the centre of an 'English' theme park. Fortunately, our fears proved unfounded or maybe the price was just too high.

Around 2000, I ventured across the top again (I know it was a Bank Holiday Monday because, at that point, it was the only time it was open to the public). I took my three daughters along, two teenagers and a little one. I tried desperately to hide my terror but it was no good. 

As my youngest hopped and skipped her way across the bridge, I clung to the barrier and edged along, trying hard not to look down. I’ve kept well away from those towering steel girders for more than a decade.

My daughters are fearless at the top of the Transporter Bridge

Fast forward to July 2010 when Newport hosted the prestigious Ryder Cup and vast amounts of money were spent trying to give visiting golf fans the impression that Newport was a vibrant, modern city. Call me cynical, but I don’t think the re-opening of the Transporter Bridge that year was unrelated.

You’d think that would be the end of the story, but was it ever? In 2011, the bridge both closed and re-opened. By now, I think most local people had lost track of whether they could cross the river in Pillgwenlly or not (I certainly had). I presume that’s why the official Wales Coast Path directs people farther up river to the unimaginatively named City Bridge (I actually remember our local newspaper, the South Wales Argus, running a competition to name this new bow-string arch bridge and that, it seems, was the best anyone could come up with!). Anyway, most people still refer to it as the SDR (Southern Distributor Road) bridge after the major road it’s located on.

But interesting as the SDR bridge is, it will never dominate Newport’s skyline in the way the Transporter Bridge has done for over a century.

Towering over the River Usk for 106 years

I doubt I’ll ever pluck up sufficient courage to climb those steps again. But that doesn't mean I don’t applaud Newport council for finally recognising this magnificent structure, the largest of the eight remaining in the world, as Newport’s most significant tourist attraction.

I recently suggested to my grand-daughters, aged eight and six, that they might like to follow in grandma’s footsteps and venture up those flights of steel steps but they weren't too keen. 

Perhaps I should have reminded them that with the bridge’s chequered history of closure and re-opening, 2013 might be their last opportunity to cross it as children.

Charges have gone up substantially since my childhood. In 2013, you’ll pay:

• Cars: £1.00 per crossing
• Foot passengers and cyclists: 50p per crossing
• Day visitor including access the motor house and high level walkway: £2.50 (children and concessions: £1.50)

Travelling on the gondola was a childhood passion