The Golden Room
Jackie Tweedale
Just a few months before the First World War in June 1914, Lascelles Abercrombie met Rupert Brooke in London for the first time. They went to the premiere of “Le Rossignol”, an opera by Stravinsky.
On 23rd June, Edward Thomas went to stay with the Frosts for a few days at Little Iddens, to discuss a longer stay in August for the whole Thomas family. Rupert Brooke came to stay overnight with the Gibsons at The Old Nailshop to discuss the next issue of New Numbers.
It was a glorious summer and on his way from London to Gloucestershire Edward Thomas’ train was delayed. The Oxford to Worcester express stopped at a small station 5 miles from Stow on the Wold called Addlestrop. Thomas’ notebook records the stop, the sounds, plants, birds and stillness of the moment. Later, this stop and what he saw and heard was to form the basis for his poem “Addlestrop”. He stayed 3 days with the Frosts enjoying the weather, long walks, conversation and a visit to May Hill. Thomas records” 24th-27th at Leadington with Frost always in hot weather”.1
During the stay, the Frosts and Thomas spent an evening at The Old Nailshop together with Lascelles and Catherine Abercrombie, Rupert Brooke and the Gibsons. In 1925 Wilfrid Gibson was to write a poem vividly recollecting this evening called “The Golden Room”.
“Do you remember that still summer evening
When, in the cosy cream-washed living room
Of The Old Nailshop, we all talked and laughed”2
At about this time Abercrombie received a letter from Ezra Pound, an American poet challenging him to a duel. Their disagreement was over their views on poetry. Pound allowed Abercrombie to choose the weapons and he responded by saying that they should bombard each other with unsold copies of their books. The duel never took place.
On 28th June, Eleanor Farjeon received a postcard from Thomas sent from the Dymock area. On the same day Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated lighting the spark of war.
Addlestrop
Yes, I remember Addlestrop –
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Addlestrop – only the name.
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas3
1Sean Street. The Dymock Poets. Seren (Poetry Wales Press Ltd) 1994
2Keith Clark. The Muse Colony. Redcliffe Press. 1999.
3Linda Hart. Once They Lived in Gloucestershire. Green Branch Press. 2000
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