The Fortnightly Flag
1st August 2017
WRITING AND ART ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY STAGE AND SCREEN
WRITING AND ART
This week I went to the Senior Open Championship www.senioropenchampionship.com at the Royal Porthcawl Golf Club.
The weather was atrocious even by the standards of South Wales which, let's face it, can be quite moist but the Royal Porthcawl is one of the best links courses (don't go by my opinion - this was from Tom Watson who described it as an 'unsung course') and the tournament was very well organised so, rain and wind apart, we had a good time and saw some of the top golfers we have followed since we were all a lot younger and less grey.
This got me thinking about how much sport in Britain has influenced our art and literature. My favourite golfing book is P. G. Wodehouse's charming and funny collection of short stories as told by the Oldest Member 'The Clicking of Cuthbert'. No prior knowledge of golf is needed. It will make you laugh anyway.
ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY
New discoveries at Tintagel - Life in Post-Roman Cornwall
My first novel 'The Serpent's Cove' was set near Tintagel and I am currently researching post-Roman Britain so I was excited by the news that archaeologists at the site have made important new discoveries there. Last year's dig by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit, the first research excavation at the castle in decades, confirmed that it was certainly a royal site with links to Ireland, Scotland and Brittany south to the Eastern Mediterranean. Finds included a fine Phocaean red slipped ware bowl from Turkey, imported amphorae from Southern Turkey or Cyprus and fine glassware from Spain.
Evidence showed that someone did live like a King at Tintagel on a diet of oysters, roast pork and fine wine, dining and drinking from good quality imported tableware and glasses from Spain.
It used to be assumed that the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain threw the islands into obscurity but finds at Tintagel confound this suggestion which is good news for me, of course, as it also adds evidence to the argument I put forward as a result of my own research in my book 'A History of Post-Roman Britain: The High Kings".
Jacky Nowaskowski, the project director at the archaeological unit says their plan in 2017 is to open up a much larger area on the southern terrace to get a good look at the scale and size of the stone buildings they have unearthed. Photos and more information can be found at www.englishheritage.org.uk/tintagel.
Although the archaeologists say we do not know which kings lived at Tintagel this is not strictly true. King Mark of Cornwall and the King Arthur of the Tintagel legend are both mythical but Constantine II, the nephew of the real King Arthur, was King of Cornwall and succeeded his uncle in 543 AD. He is mentioned in Gildas (c 560 AD) as a contemporary who was still alive at that date. His son, Conanus Aurelianus, also mentioned in Gildas, succeeded him, so we know of at least two of the kings from documentary evidence, who would have been based at Tintagel in the late sixth century and who were the likely owners of the objects unearthed in the dig.
Royal Porthcawl Golf Club - Local History
I unexpectedly learned a bit of local history at the Senior Open. The Royal Porthcawl Golf Club is a historic local institution. It dated back to the 13th November 1891 when H. J. Simpson and the Vivian brothers, Willlie and Harry (the Vivians were an influential family in South Wales - I once lived at Clyne Castle in Swansea which belonged to the family of wealthy copper manufacturers - along with some other locals met at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff to set up a Golf Club. Porthcawl, which had originally been a coal port, had recently become a quiet holiday resort, as it was superseded by the larger docks at Barry and Cardiff to take the bigger coal ships that could not fit in the harbour at Porthcawl. The first site for a nine-hole golf course was Locks Common but the club gradually moved north, leaving the original course which was full of cart tracks and holes left by cattle to the ladies (!) and an 18-hole course was established behind the convalescent home 'The Miners' Rest' (where Florence Nightingale once worked - I didn't know that either) where the distinctive red club-house still overlooks Rest Bay.
STAGE AND SCREEN
I mentioned in my last blog Alan Ayckbourn's new play "The Divide" (in two parts lasting six hours) will have its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival @edinfest. Edinburgh International Festival www.eif.co.uk runs from August 4th to August 28th 2017 presenting performers from the worlds of opera, music, theatre and dance for three weeks.
Also in August are two music festivals which feature performance art and visual arts as well as music.
For campers and glampers Wilderness is at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire from August 3rd to August 6th. The line-up includes Two Door Cinema Club, Grace Jones, Artwork, Nightmares on Wax, Bonobo, Michael Kiwanuka, Toots and The Maytals, Ray BLK and Sigrid.
Curated by Craig Richards (no relation) Houghton includes visual art and sculpture as well as a musical line-up including Ricardo Villalobos, Nicolas Jaar, Floating Points, Seth Troxler, Andrew Weatherall, Ben UFO, Optimo, Joy Orbison and Cassy. It will take place at Houghton Hall, London from Friday 11th August 2017 to Sunday 13th August 2017.
Watford Palace Theatre are holding an 'Elton John's Glasses' Open Day on 10th September, which is free for all, in conjunction with their autumn production of 'Elton John's Glasses'. There will be backstage tours and a display of objects from Watford in 1984 (I remember that!) including items from the FA Cup Final. They are collecting for Watford Museum and the Hertfordshire Heritage Hub and are interested in objects, photos, clothing and memorabilia which illustrate what was happening in Watford in 1984. My mother was teaching at a local primary school so may have some photos I can look out. The theatre is asking people to bring their items along to be digitally recorded and/or potentially donated to the Museum.
Finally, Tom Hanks will be speaking about his book #Uncommon Type at @southbankcentre's London Literature Festival this November. Tickets go on sale at 10:00 am on 2nd August.
po.st/TomHanksTickets#UncommonType.
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