Heraldic Headache

Posted on Jun 13, 2022 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Five and a half months since the announcement of their appointments, the installation of the Duchess of Cornwall, the Baroness Amos and Sir Tony Blair in the Order of the Garter finally took place today. Suspended for two years due to the pandemic, the ceremony was revived with the knights, ladies, heralds and soldiers marching through the grounds of Windsor Castle in all their finery.

Getting photographs of this event has proven annoyingly difficult. The Royal Household itself has not made a proper film of it, nor have the major news networks covered it in much detail, so I have had to piece it together from commercial photographers (whose shots I would not risk directly embedding here), crowd-members short films and attendees’ Tweets. The end result is less than satsifactory.

Most importantly, I have yet to see any photographs from inside the chapel since the new members were installed, so remain none the wiser as to the appearance of their armorial banners – my main reason for waiting so expectantly all this time! Sir David Amess and Sir Lindsay Hoyle remain similarly elusive.

While we’re here, it’s worth mentioning yet another podcast I have discovered: the Commonwealth Poetry Podcast by Gyles & Aphra Brandreth, whose first episode features the Duchess of Cornwall and Dame Joanna Lumley as its guest stars.

EXTERNAL LINKS

UPDATE (12th August)

By searching “Garter” on the Parliamentary Archives website, I have found this photographic album of the procession from 1996. Hopefully there will be more of its kind in the same place.

Lament for Monty

Posted on Feb 10, 2021 by Robin Stanley Taylor

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His temperament was steady, manner mild,
A marvel to all strangers who came by,
He warmly welcomed each approaching child,
Befriended anyone who caught his eye.

A dozen and two years he saw go past,
Entrenched he was in the roll of our kin.
So many of the clan did he outlast,
And many new offspring he welcomed in.

Towards the end of his long life we saw
His limbs were withered, his black fur turned grey.
It pains to grasp that one you so adore
Will in mere months decline and fade away.

Now snow falls thick above his once-warm head.
Here not forgotten, though forever dead.

UPDATE (21st February)

I have updated Homework Direct for the first time in well over four years to include the process by which Monty on the Green came about.

Rails Go Ever Ever On

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Illustration of “Edward’s Day Out” by William Middleton

The Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry’s The Three Railway Engines, first instalment in what would become the world famous Railway Series, was originally published seventy-five years before today. After his death, the franchise he created was carried on by his son Christopher. That can, of course, be said of another great English writer, though sadly his Christopher’s own demise came earlier this year. Present circumstances impede me from coming up with a more comprehensive tribute, but perhaps this could be the basis for a joint effort between Clamavi de Profundis and The Tuggster Intensifies one day:

Rails go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree.
By tunnels where no sun has shone,
Canals that never find the sea;
Ploughed through snow by winter sown,
And past the merry flowers of June,
Over sleepers lain on stone,
And viaducts o’er valleys hewn.

Rails go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet wheels that thundering have gone
Roll at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and smoke have seen,
And horror in the smelter’s place
Look at last on buffer clean,
In cosy sheds they longed to face.

The track goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the line has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary wheels,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many points and switches meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The track goes ever on and on
Out from the yard where it began.
Now far ahead the line has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with pistons worn
To silent sidings will crawl in,
To down for night and sleep ’till dawn.

Still ’round the next bend there may wait
A new branch or secret gate;
And though I long have roamed this isle,
I never could lose cause to smile
Upon the realm my line does span
West of Barrow, East of Mann.

Adapted from The Road Goes Ever On by J. R. R. Tolkien, circa 1937.

UPDATE (22nd October)

Search engine results show that at least one other has thought of this connection before I did – EndlessWire94 on DeviantArt.

A Temp’s Lament

Posted on Jan 17, 2018 by Robin Stanley Taylor

An old woman with thick white hair sits in a sunny garden with a cup of tea.

I am a temp,

I’ve no desk of my own.

When you’re on holiday

I answer your phone.

If I am lucky

You’ve left me your key,

But many a time

You couldn’t forsee

You wouldn’t be there

And they’d phone to Charlotte;

Help! we need a temp,

Please you have you got?

I’m having a bath

Or cleaning a floor,

But I drop everything

And I dash out the door.

I arrive at your desk

But can’t open the drawers.

With what do they think

I can do all my chores?

But I am a temp

And I have a large bag.

Its certainly heavy

And that is the snag

But in it I keep

All the tools of my trade,

Pens, pencils and rulers,

No typewriter I’m afraid.

For that is one thing

I’d love of my own.

Two months on a QWERTY

Now AZERTY – don’t moan.

For I am a temp

With you only a while

And whatever the problem

It’s done with a smile.

Written 15th June 1982

by Pauline Taylor (1927-2018)

Robin Stanley Taylor

Your uneasy guide to the new era

Tag Archives: Verse

Heraldic Headache

Lament for Monty

Rails Go Ever Ever On

A Temp’s Lament