It was a rare impulsive moment on a freezing cold day. As I drove by the giant box that is Ikea on the A610 near Nottingham, I saw a sign that said “Eastwood: Birthplace of DH Lawrence” and thought: why not? It’s true that the miner’s son may now be one of our most unfashionable writers (if not the most) but I have read all of his books and always imagined Lawrence-land as gritty but beautiful.
Hmm, I thought, spotting the Lady Chatterley pub (Wetherspoons) on a high street full of Lawrencian references. The terraced home that is now the birthplace museum was shut but, by now, I was feeling invested in the quest. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” I thought, instantly wondering in what corner of the mind these ridiculous phrases lurk.
I ended up walking the DH Lawrence trail around the town, the freezing rain providing perhaps too much of an idea of how grim it could be. The views of the surrounding countryside, as seen from one of his homes in Walker Street, are green and impressive, though. “I know that view better than any in the world,” he wrote. “That’s the country of my heart.”
Scattered remains
There was only one place to go after that. To his grave, of course. But I soon learnt (it took some time to unthaw and to do a Google search) that the writer is not buried in the country of his heart at all.
In later years Lawrence travelled widely and lived abroad, in France and Italy as well as, latterly, Taos in New Mexico. He died from TB in 1930 and was buried in Vence in southern France but five years later his widow Frieda dispatched her lover Angelo to exhume the body, have it cremated and bring the ashes back to Taos. But Angelo later admitted that, to avoid red tape and charges, he had dumped the ashes at sea and procured some random ashes in America to give to Frieda for the shrine.
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It seems his French gravestone, which boasts a pebbled phoenix, is now at his birthplace museum in Eastwood. I must return to see it.
Following orders
For once, I am doing everything that the government has suggested. I am working from home. I have taken a lateral flow test. And last night I went to a Christmas party that may not have been a party. It makes no sense but who am I to argue with the government?
Talking trees
Soon we may be only going to parties vicariously, of course, so can I recommend that you watch Succession (series three, episode seven) to catch the 40th birthday bash put on by mega-rich Kendall Roy. Guests entered through a giant re-creation of his mother’s birth canal (ouch!) but my favourite was something called a “compliments tunnel”, a magical forest in which people dressed as trees whispered positive affirmations to guests passing through.
“You are full of grace,” susurrated one tree to a reveller. “Wait, are you being sarcastic?” he snapped back. So bad it’s good, in every way.
Lifeline for the landline
My friend has moved house and, just like that, dispensed with her landline. I pretended not to care but I see it as part of a worldwide conspiracy to make us talk on mobile phones. BT says it is getting rid of landlines by 2025. We’ll see about that. The campaign starts here.
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Purblind to the truth
My word of the week is “purblind”, which you may already know but which I have never heard anyone say. This must be remedied. It refers to when you are being dim-witted or unable to understand something, as in: “She was purblind when it came to the subject of landlines.”
