Early Modern Notes

Well, I’m back in London after an, er, eventful journey (train broke down on the line in front of us; good job I had plenty of reading material). I can feel the pollution-induced sneezing coming on already, and it’s so damned stuffy here. My holiday is well and truly over. (I can’t wait until November when this research trip will be finally done… just in time for winter in west Wales.)

Mind you, I shall feel a lot less grumpy about being in London next week when I’m in the NFT soaking up the genius of Kevin Brownlow…

The Old College was the original home of the university in Aberystwyth, opened in 1872 and the first university in Wales (grand total: 26 students; the first female students arrived in 1883). The Penglais campus on the hill (with important outliers at Llanbadarn) is now, with the expansion of the university in the second half of the twentieth century, the main site for teaching. Old College is now largely used for administration, although two major departments, Welsh and Education, still reside there.

In a period of building expansion with the coming of the railway line during the 1860s, it had originally been built as a hotel, but the company went bust before completion and offered it to the recently established university committee. It was a bargain; about £80,000 had already been spent on the building works, and the university got it (though incomplete) for £10,000. But it was still a struggle to get the university up and running. Much of the early funding came from public subscriptions within Wales (it’s clear that getting any aid at all from governments was an extremely difficult task until the mid-1880s), and many of those were very small sums, the “pennies from the people of Wales” as authors (rather sentimentally) put it. But perhaps that had advantages; as a result, they regarded it as their college and were prepared to fight for its survival at the most desperate time after the fire of 1885, and when official policy (and money) would have ignored Aberystwyth in favour of colleges at Cardiff and Bangor.

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Well, holiday is almost over. I didn’t get to the library last week, so I have to go in tomorrow. (But at least I don’t have to go back to smelly old London for a few more days.)

I’ve read plenty of fun stuff (especially Christopher Brookmyre); watched videos (last couple of days have been catching up on missed early episodes of Queer as Folk - the British original, not that rubbish American version); eating far too much (I made coq au vin the other night, for the first time; tonight however was time for an old favourite, tortilla. And let’s not talk about how much cheese I got from the deli… although it was exceedingly good cheese). I’ll have a few more photos for you over the next few days. For now, just one. I showed you my local pub the other day. There are a lot of ‘em in Aber, from trendy student bars to cosy old-fashioned hostelries.

But there are also many chapels, although it’s probably fair to say that the town’s nonconformist heyday is long past. (But I think it’s true that chapel and church here still play a far more significant role than they do in most English towns…) There’s still a dizzying array of denominations, often in both ‘English’ and ‘Welsh’ versions. Some are modest, but there are some very grand nineteenth-century buildings too. This is Seion Welsh Congregationalist chapel, built in the 1870s.

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make it Donna Moore’s tale of the number 62 bus. (Donna is guesting at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. This is gonna be fun.)

After reminding myself of it the other day, I quite fancied watching Holiday again. I don’t have a copy of my own - I have a tiny video collection, due to having spent most of the last 10 years watching other peoples’ (until 6 months ago I hadn’t even owned a VCR for over a decade). So, I trotted off to the local video shops.

And this is when you’re reminded of the disadvantages of living in a small town miles from anywhere. In fact, because we have a film studies department at the university, we probably do better than many places of this size (something that is often the case). We have a local video rental store that has a pretty impressive selection of non-Hollywood and b/w films, and the town library has a surprisingly eclectic range too (mmm, might have to watch Edge of Darkness again. And how long since I watched I, Claudius?).

Nonetheless, no Holiday. So instead, I’ve just watched His Girl Friday instead. What a script. Too many fantastic gags to quote. And Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are just amazing. (As are Russell’s outfits.)

Tomorrow night I have Croupier to watch. Would you believe I’ve never seen it?

Yesterday was a truly glorious day. (Today not so brilliant; the weather forecast is not great at all. Well, it’s August Bank Holiday weekend. Of course it will rain…)

Wander down to the seafront and turn right (realising that it might have been good to remember my sunglasses).

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There are views that you simply have to visit the place to see properly. My camera certainly can’t capture them for you. Still, here’s a sort of tour of what happens if you leave my flat and head up the hill towards the university.

First, you have to get past my local (in need of a new paintjob perhaps; they did some work and haven’t got round to repainting). Good company in both Welsh and English, good beer, no jukebox.

Then, upwards. There is a particularly steep, though mercifully short, stretch if you take the back way to Y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, the National Library of Wales.

Ok, that’s a pretty impressive building; but much better is what you can see if you go up to the main entrance and face out. This may be the place for the best views of Aber, a panoramic sweep of the twon and Cardigan Bay. Um, use your imagination.

After the deliriously loopy Old College in town, there isn’t much on the main Penglais campus that’s worth getting excited about. It’s just another concrete campus, albeit one dramatically perched on the side of hill and with plenty of greenery and sea views. But perhaps the Physical Sciences block deserves an honourable mention. I like curvy buildings. And red and mauve…

A few pictures before I go out for the day.

There is a great tradition around these parts of painting shops and houses (which are mostly stone built) bright colours. It has a practical purpose; it’s surprising how much damp (big issue by the seaside) a couple of coats of heavy-duty waterproof paint will keep out. But it looks darned pretty too. Imagine whole rows of houses all in different colours.

And here are two of my favourite shops; food for the body and the soul…

(this is the best photo I could get, since the traffic was getting busy. Well, I did at one point have a perfect clear shot… except that a bloody cyclist came whizzing straight in front of me on the pavement just as I pressed the button. Grr)

Those who have been reading this blog for a while will have gathered that I’m rather fond of this small seaside university town. Now I’m here with my camera, and avoiding any ’serious’ blogging for a few days, I’m going to take the opportunity to show it to you.

This is the view from my bedroom window, facing south-west

And here is the Old College in all its Victorian Gothic barminess (sorry about that road sign. And it isn’t really that crooked; that’s the camera…)

A close-up. What drugs were they on when they designed this door?

And last but not least for today, the promenade in the early evening with a mild breeze catching the sea. That’s Constitution Hill sticking up at the back

After being away for three weeks, I’m unusually sensitive to things I don’t usually take much notice of: the sound of the waves (I can hear them as I type), the salty-seaweedy smell. And I can take a deep breath here without immediately having a hay-fever/pollution induced sneezing fit.

Tomorrow I should be going up the hill, so fingers crossed for some good views.

… because I’m home in Aberystwyth again.

And there was a note in the post to say that UWP is accepting the thesis-book proposal. Perhaps I should frame it. OK, that does mean I have to really get down to the revisions now…

But bad things may have happened with the video taping while I was away. The digital decoder box was showing a blank display, which is never a good sign. There might have been a power cut. Or the box (it’s one of the old ONDigital boxes; they’re crap, but I haven’t got round to getting one of those new decoders) just had one of its periodic fits. Anyway, I shan’t know what, if anything, I’ve lost until I wind back the tape.