I heard on the radio this morning that it was on today's date that the Canterbury pilgrims set out from the Tabard in Southwark.
"Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote.."
or, in Nevill Coghill's translation of Chaucer's Prologue to The Canterbury Tales:
"When in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
The veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower...
Then people long to go on pilgrimages
And palmers long to see the stranger strands
Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands..."
The shrine of St. Wite, in Whitchurch Canonicorum, was one such place of pilgrimage, one of only two in England which survived the Reformation.
No one seems quite sure who she was. Christine Waters (in her booklet "Who was St. Wite?") seems to support the local tradition that she was a local hermit, "a Saxon holy woman, martyred by Danish pirates during a 9th Century raid on neighbouring Charmouth". As a hermit, Waters speculates that she may have acted as a coastguard, responsible for keeping alight a beacon or lantern on Golden Cap.
A raid did occur in 831.
The shrine of St. Wite, in the North transept of the Church, is of immense interest.
Of even greater interest, to some, is the grave of Georgi Markov, buried in the churchyard at Whitchurch Canonicorum. We know a lot more about him.
Markov was the 49 year-old Bulgarian dissident novelist, playwright, opposition activist/BBC broadcaster in political exile, who was attacked on 7 September 1978 by an assassin on Waterloo bridge, allegedly with a pellet of ricin (the famous poison-tip umbrella case; the alleged assassin, working for the Bulgarian Secret Service, has since been named). Markov died four days later, on 11 September.
As Annabel Markov (Annabel Diklke), his widow, writes in her introduction to "Georgi Markov, The Truth that Killed" (London, 1983),
"My husband Georgi Markov is buried in an ancient and beautiful country churchyard in the West of England...he died, as his stone says, 'in the cause of freedom.'".
From Alexander Gretcheninov, Liturgia Domestica, op. 79
Two good reasons for an April pilgrimage to Whitchurch Canonicorum, and to Golden Cap. It was amazingly beautiful up there yesterday. I was also reminded of something I wrote in 1992:
St Wite and the Writer: Strange Pilgrimage
If Markov had had
The luck of Havel,
I wouldn't be here
In this Dorset churchyard
In Whitchurch Canonicorum,
Sensing that I'm not alone
Searching for a stranger's gravestone,
For the writer they murdered on Waterloo Bridge,
Who died for a Europe
Reunited, freed,
In seventy-eight, not eighty-nine.
I say thanks to the Saint,
St. Wite, in her shrine.
Whitchurch Canonicorum,
May Day Bank Holiday, 1992.
In Memoriam Georgi Ivanov Markov, born Sofia, Bulgaria 1.3.1929, died London, England, 11.9.1978.
BBC Radio 4, The Murder of Georgi Markov - 45 minute radio programme
hey, i knew georgi markov. secker & warburg had a bought a novel by GM and a witty engilshman, about a monkey who became PM. georgi and the other bloke came often to discuss how to get the publicity right for this burning satire.
ReplyDeletei had a lunch with him one day and a girlfriend had spent the night had read a chunk of the proof copy. as we took the tube in she asked me again who i was meeting for lunch and i told her. she pointed to a neighbouring daily mail where it was the headline news. "i think not," she said.
during the day, some burly secret types in tightly-belted raincoats came to have a word with the editor, the brilliant david farrer, and actually drove him away to wherever they did their secrecy but they never talked to me.
david was wonderful. he'd been beaverbrook's PS and wrote a memoir of those times called "G for God Almighty." i asked him about the title and the story was amusing.
Beaverbrook once told David to take a letter but David could not catch the name thru Beaverbrook's rasping canadina accent. exasperated, Lord B spelled it out: G for God Almighty, A for Apple N for nobody, C for C**t Y for You. GANCY, fer chrissake.
some time later they were walking in town and met mr Gancy whereupon farrer could not hide his smiles. as they walked on Beaverbrook turned on David "jesus christ, farrer, that was embarrassing - WTF was all that about."
david reminded him of the dictation of which his boss had no recollection but expressed pleasure at his choice of spelling aids.