A one way trip to Bloomington, Indiana!

These have been really exciting times for us here . . . but first I must indulge in a little history.


When I was a junior editor in London, at the start of my (commercial) Publisher's career, I was already an avid hunter for books - of different sorts but especially for Illustrated Books and the productions from Private Presses. If I had a free lunch hour, I could just get to The British Museum with enough time to see exhibitions and such like but otherwise there were (then) a number of really great bookshops within reach in that part of central London and I would almost run to one or another to have as much time there as possible before more or less running back. No time for actual lunch, you notice, or a sandwich on the hoof at most. One of my favourite places to go was the emporium of Bertram Rota.






This wonderful photograph is of one of their 'homes' but, although it was a long time ago, I cannot claim to have known them in those illustrious days. This was Bodley House and I think the photograph was taken in 1964. For those who know London, the flower shop next door is at one end of Albany and it was in that famous and fashionable apartment complex that Bertram Rota started.

By the time I came on the scene, as a shy book lover embarrassed that I was always gazing at the glorious tomes laid out in their glass cases but never buying anything, Rota had moved again . . . but not far. The road in the photograph above in which the photographer seems to be standing, and which shoots off in the direction of about 8 o'clock, is Savile Row (from which I have never bought a suit!) and it was to there that they had moved in my time and where I plucked up enough courage to visit.

Time passes . . .

I begin to print and we have books to publish. In the early days, the indefatigable Frances tramps round the streets of London with a case of books hoping to get booksellers to stock them. Not easy then and pretty well impossible now! At Rota, however, she enjoyed an increasingly warm welcome until, over the years, the shop (now moved yet again to Long Acre) were happy to hold a complete set of those of our books still in print. They did us a marvellous service, of course, by showing the books to visitors to London, especially from overseas.





At this time, our great ally at Rota's was Anthony Rota (son of Bertram) and the antiquarian book world lost a giant when he died last year. Now at the helm is his son, Julian, and with him we come up to date and the start of this current little saga.

Decades ago, when Libraries and Museums had pots of money for acquisitions, we heard that a number of egregious Private Presses had had their Archives purchased and borne away to this Library in America or that Museum in the UK. If I had been asked the question, I would have thought that in today's dire financial climate, there would be little money for such activities.

HOWEVER, and here I finally get to the point, Julian Rota contacted us some months ago and asked whether we would like him to try to 'place' our Archive in this way - he being adept in this activity. We were amazed but said yes please and privately thought it a bit of a fantasy.

Finally, however, a phone call told us that he had been successful and could we pack all our relevant correspondence, documents and suchlike pertaining to the activities of The Old Stile Press over the last thirty years and a carrier would arrive to deliver the lot to:

The Lilly Library
Bloomington
Indiana
USA

As usual it was mostly Frances who undertook the searching for files and packing boxes (I was busy writing and laying out on my computer our second Bibliography - but more of that later) but eventually the day came and here are some snaps to remind us of the day when we waved all those boxes away to America!

I need hardly say that we feel enormously proud at this development. Indiana may be a bit of a step away from The Wye Valley but we know that our stuff will be in amazingly good company. The Lilly Library owns an early Gutenburg Bible, MSS by Burns, J.M.Synge and James Barrie (Peter Pan, I think) and the Archives of Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Orson Welles among many others. Can't be bad!

The Library also has the right to purchase future tranches of material relating to the Press' activities . . . so we had better just get on with it!

a bit of a special day . . .

We are not usually ones for foisting on others the more personal details of our lives but, probably encouraged but a nice lunchtime bottle of wine with our prawns, sunshine and wonderful wind in the birches and the aspen, I am posting these photos without even consulting Frances, because I would like to share our happiness with our friends.

What are we celebrating?

Our 47th wedding anniversary. Seems like only yesterday!

Worth and Value

Sometime in the early 1960s, my new job involved lots of driving round the country (UK) but I always tried to find a moment to pop into any antique or second-hand bookshop I passed. My funds then were by no means lavish but I did pick up one or two items which still give me pleasure and which retain the fascination they had when I came upon them.

One such item is pictured here . . . although it only got its frame a couple of years ago and previously lived in a portfolio, being visited rather seldom. But each time I renew acquaintance I am stunned anew. I get tingling up the spine as with certain pieces of music. I get a magnifying glass and go for journeys round this enchanted land.





Here are a few close-ups and, if you click, you should get them much bigger.




The complete piece of paper is only 18.5 x 10cm but look below at the trio (or quartet, if you count the horse!) to the extreme left. These characters, walking or riding up the hill with their long pikes or staves are recognizably individuals - and each about 1mm.




Below is my favourite bit, much enlarged. The idea of sailing under those wind-blossomed sails towards that idyllic shore-side town seemed utterly romantic.





So, what do we have here? Clearly it was a piece of an engraving but, until recently, my almost complete lack of knowledge of the subject did not help me towards an identification. A year or so ago, I did have the opportunity of talking to an 'expert' and I showed him the sliver of paper. For a few seconds I could almost hear the hard-disk whirring in his head and then a finger shot out and pointed to a spikey thing about a quarter of the bottom edge in from the right. 'Ah', he said, 'It is Albrecht Durer's The Sea Monster but you have lost all the main subject and an inch off the top. It is, I am afraid, OF NO VALUE'





INDEED! Here is the proper thing (off the internet) and it is indeed magnificent but what have I got?
I have a piece of paper more than five hundred years old on which is printed an image which was drawn and engraved in 1498 by Durer, aged 27 at the time. It is, I gather, now thought that he probably did not actually cut his wood blocks himself but I am sure that it would be he who was guiding the burin So, at the very least, this paper was directly printed from a piece of metal that was touched in one way or another by this consummate artist.

Of no value . . . . . . ?

Another coincidence

For the past many weeks, I have hardly been in my printing office at all . . . rather I have been holed up with my computer, camera, Photoshop and InDesign wrestling with (but actually much enjoying) the putting together of the 'sequel' to our Bibliography, now ten years old. The photograph below is of a selection of spreads in rough proof form. I am hoping that my task will be completed in a few weeks so then it will be up to the printer and binder how long it will be before publication. I will keep you posted.



It happened that I was working on the four pages concerning the book, The Girl from the Sea that was published quite recently. This is a posthumously published "Play for Voices" by George Mackay Brown with wonderfully atmospheric woodcuts and wood engravings by the American artist Michael Onken.



On that very day we had the pleasure of being able to welcome Llewellyn Thomas and his family for a short 'motorway stop' in their journey from west Wales to their home in Kent.





The coincidence lay in that it was Llewellyn who had, way back in 1991, made the (fiendishly detailed and difficult to print!) wood engravings for In the Margins of a Shakespeare also by George Mackay Brown. This book (long out of print, sadly) was one of my favourites and we were all greatly pleased when George said how well he thought of it.

He was unable to see the 'Selkies' book of course but I hope (and feel) that he would have approved as much.


So . . . now back to the Bibliography!

Sensuality in the garden!

When, years ago, I first saw the flower photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, I stared and stared to try to work out how he made them so unashamedly erotic. Yes there was choice of subject, angle, reflections on the surface and so on but I ended up reckoning that much, if not most, of Nature really is, shall we say, sensual.

Now is the best time of year of course so . . . out came the camera.









I hope you can click the three above as large as possible. Living Rodins!














And here, by way of a coda, is a cool Frances walking into the light. When I look at the composition of this I find myself thinking of a painting of Stanley Spencer. I can't quite think why!

Silent Printer

A dish of elderflower cordial to share with all those with whom I used to communicate on a reasonably regular basis but have hidden away from for far too long! I am so sorry. I am not going to attempt excuses or even explanations. It is just that this exquisite month has swung the balance so spectacularly away from the horrors of the winter that pleasure in life returns and (almost) some creativity. I am happily battling away with writing, photographing and laying out the second Bibliography and working on a programme of books to print, which may be somewhat shorter and maybe simpler than in earlier years but it will keep me happy and busy and will, I am sure, produce some worthwhile additions to the catalogue.




Here is my OFFICE and my WORKSHOP! Not true, of course but I have to say that a goodly amount of time this month has been spent here (I insist on referring to it as my 'stately pleasure-dome'!) or elsewhere out of doors . . . depending on strength and direction of sun and other important details!

"Ee says to me . . . and I says to 'im"

A few more transfigured trees . . .

"Never knowingly understood"

The photograph immediately above will be instantly recognizable (to all that have fallen under his spell over the years) as Ivor Cutler . . . of blessed memory. The, probably unfinished, portrait above was painted by Hans Schwarz (who was a neighbour and purveyor of weird and wonderful prints, books, antiques and all sorts when we lived in Blackheath during our 'life' in London) and discovered by us recently.

Here are a couple more photographs of the great man whom I first saw in 1963 in London's Comedy Theatre at An Evening of British Rubbish with Bruce Lacey (with his robots) and The Alberts. His long-faced songs, unique Scottish accent and tortured portable harmonium combined to keep me (and thousands of others) in stitches of laughter.

A song entitled "Shoplifters" involved (naturally) a request to know whether you would like your shop lifted - high, up in the sky.








I now get to the reason for this post. A number of years ago Frances and I were part of a Private Press Book Fair being held in The Royal Festival Hall. Suddenly I looked up and realized that Ivor (or Mister Cutler as he insisted with a twinkle on being addressed by those he had not been introduced to) Cutler was walking down the aisle straight towards us. I was instantly turned to jelly. I almost ran away and perhaps that would have been better than the ludicrously awful performance of shyness and nerves that I subjected the poor man to. Believe me, it was dreadful. He was most understanding.

The next year, the same event happened again and there was Mr Cutler bearing down upon us. This time, the dear man came straight up to me, shook my hand and suggested a little walk. We walked and talked and ended up in The Poetry Library (which used to be within the RFH) and compared notes on poets we liked. Then he was on his way leaving me to realize that this whole exercise had been to put me at my ease and to expunge my blithering idiotness of last year.

He did also introduce us to the wallet which contained his famous Able-label 'publications' and he handed over to us ones that he thought we would enjoy. I have always thought this one of the most powerful publishing formats ever devised and a study of the internet shows that there are many others who treasure the tiny tracts that were solemnly handed to them.

As one and then another were passed to us, Frances said she was sad not to have something to give to him. He retorted that he did not give things to be given something back and that Frances looked the sort of person who would appreciate the gift and share it with others.

We kept the treasures in a pot on our mantlepiece and they came out regularly to be shown to visitors. About a year ago I looked in the pot and found nothing. Had some over-zealous cleaner (which we do not have) thrown them away? No amount of searching revealed them.

Then suddenly, just the other day, when looking for something quite other, there they were . . . 'tidied away'. They are now safely returned to the pot to delight suitable visitors but also I was able to photograph them. I hope this shot can be clicked big enough to allow you to read every word.

And yet . . .

. . . having said so firmly that I was not going to 'traipse round with my camera', today was so deliciously lovely that I couldn't resist! I will just let these images speak for themselves on the subject of the piece of heaven in which we are lucky enough to live. Small wonder that an old name for this corner of the Wye Valley was "God's Pocket".

Transfiguration

The dramatic blast and whoosh of Spring this month (despite jackets and heating still being needed the moment the sun goes behind a cloud) has been so universally felt and talked about that I do not feel a traipse round the garden with a camera would add very much to this blog or to the world at large.

And yet I feel it SO fiercely. The winter we have just gone through was so cold and dark, metaphorically for us as well as meteorologically, that I despaired of ever being returned to the light.

But the Green Man finally began to stir and some brave birds began to challenge the darkness with a tentative chorus at dawn. Now there is an ecstasy of song from every bush and yesterday we saw three martins flying, although they have not yet returned to our nests. The sunlight lays open the unimaginably youthful greens of the trees and it is this one sight that I have tried to capture - to stand for all the rest.

This Aspen is my favourite tree. It looks wonderful, it sounds wonderful and we planted it!