Ticked Off (Reflections on an Idyllic Essex Crime Scene)

An Idylillic Essex Crime Scene 

(SA/2023)

 

 

I. 

 

Yesterday, whilst taking a walk in what remains of and passes for the great outdoors, I came across what appeared to be an idyllic crime scene, all sealed off with blue-and-white police tape instructing people not to cross.

 

There was no indication of what had happened and no one to ask why my route was barred in this manner. So, returning home, I decided to investigate ... 

 

According to a local news site, it seems that a number of parks and green spaces in Essex have been designated as danger zones and thus closed to the public. 

 

But what is it, you might ask, that so threatens the health and safety of walkers: are there wolves in the woods; are there big cats lurking in the long grass? 

 

No: apparently, we are being protected from ticks! 

 

What next: will we be sent alerts on our phones everytime someone spots a wasp in the area? 

 

 

II. 

 

In the view of Havering Council, residents are at severe risk of being infected with Lyme disease, cases of which are rising across the UK, but particularly in the South East counties of England, including Essex. 

 

Now, without wanting to downplay or dismiss the seriousness of this vector-borne disease - caused by the Borrelia bacterium and spread by the hard-bodied, black-legged deer tick - I do think locking down the countryside and virtually declaring a state of emergency, is something of an overreaction (one which, sadly, we became all-too-familiar with during the Covid pandemic).  

 

As there was only around 1,500 laboratory confirmed cases of Lyme disease in the UK last year, one suspects that the local council has ulterior motives; namely, they wish to exterminate (or at least radically reduce in number) the deer population - a move which would be popular with many Havering residents, including this anonymous blogger who wrote:

 

Herds of deer are picturesque to look at, but, without natural predators, they breed rapidly and not only cause road accidents, damage gardens and property, but present an actual health hazard due to the ticks living on them. As delightful as we might find them, deer are wild animals and have no place in an urban environment, interacting with humans and spreading potentially deadly diseases.

 

Personally, I'm happy to keep the deer - and the foxes and the badgers - and, yes, even the ticks; it's fearful councillors and cold-hearted cunts like the blogger above whom I would like to get rid of.    

 

 

The Black-Legged Tick 

(SA/2023)

 

 

Welcome to Essex (Notes on the Dagenham Idol)

Michael Landy: Welcome to Essex (2021)

Ink on paper

 

 

I. 

 

By referring to my stay in Essex as exile, I may, perhaps, have given the impression that this ancient county - once home to Anglo-Saxon kings and fields of bright yellow cowslip - is the kind of place that one is only ever banished to involuntarily.

 

But that's obviously not true and it would be grossly unfair to portray Essex in the same negative and stereotypical manner that it is often portrayed in popular culture. It may not be the garden of England, but it's far more than merely the dumping ground of London and I'd still rather spend the day in Southend than St. Ives.

 

One artist who has done more than most to explore and celebrate the history and culture of Essex - and to challenge the pernicious myths and snobbery that this county seems to inspire - is Michael Landy ...  

 

 

II.  

 

Born and raised in Essex, Landy rose to prominence as one of the Young British Artists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But it was his performance piece Break Down (2001) which really brought him to the attention of a public more easily impressed by the showmanship of Damien Hirst and his pickled shark, or Tracy Emin's unmade bed.

 

In 2021, a new exhibition of work - Michael Landy's Welcome to Essex [1] - was born of his love for the county and featuring (amongst other things) his reimagining of the Dagenham Idol; a naked figure made of pine wood, unearthed in Dagenham in 1922, but thought to date to the Late Neolithic period or early Bronze Age [2].

 

Landy's idol is cast in bronze, but finished with gold leaf in order to give it a more ostentatious look, thereby challenging (or perhaps simply reinforcing and perpetuating) the stereotype which thinks brash and blingy is the only aesthetic appreciated by the good people of Essex, when they also like cheap and cheerful.     

 

 

Michael Landy: Essex Idol (2021)

bronze, with 24ct gold 

thomasdanegallery.com

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Michael Landy's Welcome to Essex was a free exhibition at the Firstsight (an art space and community hub in Colchester), which ran from 26 June until 5 September, 2021. Click here for further details. A short documentary film about the work and Landy's perspective on Essex can be found on YouTube: click here. See also the interview with Landy and another Essex-based artist, Elsa James, on artfund.org: click here.   

 

[2] The Dagenham Idol was found in marshland close to the north bank of the River Thames, during excavation for new sewer pipes. Eighteen inches in height, the armless figure of indeterminate sex, was buried in a layer of peat ten feet below ground level, next to the skeleton of a deer. Carbon dated to around 2250 BC, it is one of the earliest representations of the human form found anywhere in Europe.       

      Anyone interested in seeing (and paying homage) to the Idol, should visit Valance House Museum, in Dagenham, where it has been on indefinite loan (from Colchester Castle Museum) since 2010. Or, if more convenient, there's a copy of the work residing in the Museum of London. 

 

Lady Chatterley's Lover Visits Harold Hill

My local boozer, The Pompadours - 

and some Lawrence scholars find the Sun Inn, Eastwood, a bit rough ...

 

 

Harold Hill is a long way removed (in every sense) from the fictional mining village of Tevershall, which Lawrence imagines in his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). 

 

And of course, I'm no Oliver Mellors, the ex-soldier turned gamekeeper who strides through the pages of the above in his dark green trousers "with a red face and red moustache" [1], angry at the world. 

 

Having said that, sometimes when walking around the postwar housing estate on the far north-eastern fringes of Greater London that is Harold Hill [2], I'm tempted to tell the natives - whom my mother always disparagingly called Cockneys - something similar to what Mellors wishes to tell the working men and women of Tevershall:

 

"'I'd tell 'em: Look! look at yerselves! One shoulder higher than t'other, legs twisted, feet all lumps! What have yer done ter yerselves [...] Spoilt yerselves an' yer lives. [...] Take yer clothes off an' look at yerselves. Yer ought ter be alive an' beautiful, an' yer ugly an' half dead.'" [3] 

 

Of course, I'd not say this with a broad East Midland's accent. 

 

And I can't blame the degenerate condition of the locals on years of hard physical toil - on the contrary, it's the fact that many of them don't work (or exercise) that's the problem; that they prefer vegetating on the sofa watching Netflix, eating junk food delivered to their doors, driving even the shortest distance, rather than walk a few hundred yards.

 

To paraphrase Mellors: Their spunk's gone dead - e-scooters and mobile phones and cannabis suck the last bit out of them. Which is a shame, but there you go. 

 

I won't bore readers with statistics, but the stats for the London Borough of Havering when it comes to things like health don't make for happy reading. Obesity, for example, is the norm; if the 18th-century Essex grocer Edward Bright were alive today and decided to ply his trade at Hilldene shops, no one would blink an eye at his great girth. 

 

People down south often like to joke that it's grim up north, but, believe me, it's fucking grim on Harold Hill too [4].     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 46. For a full description and character analysis of Oliver Mellors, see my post of July 2020: click here. 

 

[2] Readers interested in knowing more about Harold Hill are reminded of the post published on 28 May 2016 entitled 'And No Birds Sing': click here. 

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, p. 219. 

 

[4] And if you don't believe me, see the report in the Romford Recorder which revealed that whilst Havering is home to some extremely affluent neighbourhoods, six roads in Harold Hill have been classed by the UK government as among the most deprived in all England: click here.  

 

   

Fox Tales

Photo of a fox in the backgarden 

by Maria Thanassa (2021)

 

 

I. 

 

Despite new laws to prevent animal cruelty coming into force in June as part of the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act, a secretly-filmed video emerged online over Christmas showing a 48-year-old man in Essex killing a fox with a garden fork. 

 

The sickening footage, captured by North London Hunt Saboteurs and passed to ITV News, shows the poor creature emerging from its den and into the jaws of a waiting dog, before then being stabbed repeatedly by the man, who leaves the scene of the crime carrying the dead animal with him.    

 

Essex Police later arrested the man on suspicion of offences under the Hunting Act 2004, the Animal Welfare Act 2006 and the Wild Mammal Protection Act 1996. Whilst initially held in custody, he has now been released under investigation. 

 

A government minister, Zac Goldsmith, has described the incident as grotesque and called for further action to be taken. And indeed, let us hope that the man is given the maximum sentence for animal cruelty of five years and the largest possible fine (though, personally, I would like to see a far harsher punishment inflicted).     

 

 

II.

 

Back in January of this year, I had my own encounter with a fox, who was sitting under a bush in the backgarden, just resting peacefully in the winter sun, looking straight at me. I wasn't sure, but I guessed from its size it was a dog-fox in its prime, with a thick handsome coat of golden-red fur and a snow white belly.

 

For me, it was a magical encounter, as I knew it would be for Maria whom I called to come look - and, indeed, she spoke of nothing else for days afterwards, describing it as her March moment, referencing the queer relationship between fox and woman in D. H. Lawrence's novella 'The Fox' ...*

 

 

III.  

 

Admittedly, March intends to shoot the fox that is carrying off the hens reared on the little farm owned by herself and her friend Banford, but he is too clever and too quick to let himself be killed by either woman:

 

"The fox really exasperated them both. As soon as they had let the fowls out, in the early summer mornings, they had to take their guns and keep guard: and then again, as soon as the evening began to mellow, they must go once more. And he was so sly. He slid along in the deep grass [...] And he seemed to circumvent the girls deliberately. Once or twice March had caught sight of the white tip of his brush, or the ruddy shadow of him in the deep grass, and she had let fire at him. But he made no account of this." [9-10]   

One evening, however, whilst standing with her back to the sunset, her gun under her arm, and her hair pushed under her cap, March has a revelatory encounter with the fox:

"She lowered her eyes, and suddenly saw the fox. He was looking up at her. His chin was pressed down, and his eyes were looking up. They met her eyes. And he knew her. She was spell-bound. She knew he knew her. So he looked into her eyes, and her soul failed her. He knew her, he was not daunted. 

      She struggled, confusedly she came to herself, and saw him making off, with slow leaps leaping over some fallen boughs, slow, impudent jumps. Then he glanced over his shoulder, and ran smoothly away. She saw his brush held smooth like a feather, she saw his white buttocks twinkle. And he was gone, softly, soft as the wind." [10]

 

Gone - but certainly not forgotten and, after supper, she went out to look for the fox:

 

"For  he had lifted his eyes upon her, and his knowing look seemed to have entered her brain. She did not so much think of him: she was possessed by him. She saw his dark, shrewd, unabashed eye looking into her, knowing her. She felt him invisibly master her spirit. She knew the way he lowered his chin as he looked up, she knew his muzzle, the golden brown, and the greyish white. And again, she saw him glance over his shoulder at her, half inviting, half contemptuous and cunning." [11] 

It is several days before she mentions anything of all this to Banford: and, several months later, she is still (unconsciously) dominated by thoughts of the fox:

"Whenever she fell into her odd half-muses, when she was half rapt, and half intelligently aware of what passed under her vision, then it was the fox which somehow dominated her unconsciousness, possessed the blank half of her musing. And so it was for weeks, and months. No matter whether she had been climbing the trees for apples, [...] digging out the ditch from the duck-pond, or clearing out the barn, when she had finished, or when she straightened herself, and pushed the wisps of hair away again from her forehead, [...] then was sure to come over her mind the old spell of the fox, as it came when he was looking at her. It was as if she could smell him, at these times. And it always recurred, at unexpected moments, just as she was going to sleep at night, or just as she was pouring the water into the teapot, to make tea - there it was, the fox, it came over her like a spell." [12]  

 

One day, when a young stranger (Henry Grenfel) appears at her door, March (fatefully) identifies him with the fox (which, poor creature, Henry will later shoot and skin):

 

"Whether it was the thrusting forward of the head, or the glisten of fine whitish hairs on the ruddy cheek-bones, or the bright, keen eyes, that can never be said: but the boy was to her the fox, and she could not see him otherwise." [14]

 

On the night of Henry's arrival March has the following vivid dream:

 

"She dreamed she heard a singing outside, which she could not understand, a singing that roamed round the house, in the fields and in the darkness. It moved her so, that she felt she must weep. She went out, and suddenly she knew it was the fox singing. He was very yellow and bright, like corn. She went nearer to him, but he ran away, and ceased singing. He seemed near, and she wanted to touch him. She stretched out her hand, but suddenly he bit her wrist, and at the same instant, as she drew back, the fox, turning round to bound away, whisked his brush across her face, and it seemed his brush was on fire, for it seared and burned her mouth with great pain. She awoke with the pain of it, and lay trembling as if she were really seared." [20]

 

Now, you might think that March would take this as a warning against involvement with Henry, the werefox with an invisible smile. But no - reader, she married him! 

 

Still, that's another story and not really my concern in this post where I simply wanted to make the point that human-animal encounters can be truly inspiring and leave a tremendous impression upon us, if only we allow the spirit of the animal to enter into communion with our own. 

 

Thus, if you are ever lucky enough to encounter a fox close up, then I suggest that rather than reach for a gun or a garden fork - or even a camera - you just give yourself up to the moment before going your separate way in peace and gratitude.            

 

 

* D. H. Lawrence, 'The Fox', in The Fox, The Captain's Doll, The Ladybird, ed. Dieter Mehl, (Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 5-71. All page references given in the text refer to this edition. 

 

  

Day of the Dead (Essex Style)

Day of the Dead 
SA / 2019

In Mexico, November 1st is a day of celebration in which the people remember friends and family members who have died and, perhaps, recall also their Aztec past, prior to European colonisation, allowing them the opportunity to decorate their homes with marigolds and loosen the aura of necessity surrounding categories of the present in which only life is sanctified.

Watching over events is the goddess Mictēcacihuātl, queen of the underworld, who renders the flesh and washes the bones of the dead; she who threatens to one day swallow all the stars in the heavens above.

Meanwhile, in grey-skied Essex, one sad-looking crow sits on a wire-mesh fence overlooking the train tracks and unlovely Romford landscape where, in a sense, every day is given over to death and there seems to hover a doom so dark one feels as if one might lose one's mind.

"Then I say to myself: Am I also dead? Is that the truth?"*

* D. H. Lawrence, 'We die together', Poems, Vol. 1, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 544.

Reflections on Exile

Able was I ere I saw Essex

It's been suggested, rather snidely, that my Essex exile is entirely self-imposed; something voluntarily entered into and which I'm thus responsible for.      

Of course, I'm far too fatalistic a thinker to accept this piece of naive psychologizing which rests upon the rational-moral fallacy of a free-willing subject exercising complete control over the course of actions and events.

But, however it came to pass, my Essex exile is an unfolding reality and a profoundly unpleasant one at that.

It's not that I feel banished from a beloved homeland - something that the Greeks regarded as a fate worse than death - so much as shut-out from a way of life which, limited as it was in opportunity and human contact, was nonetheless my own; i.e. a piece of chaos to which I'd given style. 

Thus my Essex exile is more a form of aesthetico-existential deprivation rather than geographical displacement. I do miss London: especially Soho. But mostly I miss the series of small habits, daily routines and rhythms that enabled a reassuring and necessary consistency and continuity of self (or at least the impression of such).

As Deleuze and Guattari note, even nomads happy to wander homelessly in that savage realm of dangerous knowledge outside the gate have to keep enough elements of subjectivity in order to be able to respond to the dominant reality when they wake up in the morning.

And so, as poets from Ovid to Oscar Wilde have discovered, exile isn't much fun or easy to bear if it involves a loss of soul and not merely a loss of familiar streets and favourite haunts.