Life in Dymock
Jackie Tweedale
On May 2nd the Abercrombies, Gibsons and Edward Marsh saw Drinkwater’s play ‘Rebellion’ in Birmingham. Drinkwater had finished writing this play at The Gallows in February 1914. Drinkwater was a versatile man- a poet, playwright, actor theatre producer and director. He worked with Barry Jackson at the Birmingham Reparatory Theatre. On May 15th Robert Frost’s ‘North of Boston’ was published and the second issue of New Numbers appeared. Frost’s poems met with widespread praise and he soon had a growing reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Abercrombie was to favourably review North of Boston in June 1914 and it was this review that made the Americans take notice of Frost. Frost wrote in 1915 saying,”Yours was the first praise over there, and there will never be another like it”.1
John Drinkwater was a ‘townie’ but passionate about the countryside. He made frequent visits to The Gallows to plan New Numbers. Catherine Abercromie recalls how once he turned up with a sleeping bag and announced “that he wanted to set up camp under the great elms at the bottom of the garden, but that night he roused us up in great perturbation to let him in”.2 Apparently, a horse in the next field had scared him! In between visits to each other or meetings in London the poets wrote many letters making arrangements to meet or exchanging ideas. The post was obviously efficient with letters arriving the day after they had been sent.
Frost had 4 children and they hated English schools so they were taught at home by their mother. They gardened and according to locals had a good vegetable patch. Their son Carol was allowed to join the fruit pickers at Glyn Iddens. Life at Little Iddens was haphazard with no set meal or bedtimes and hours spent out of doors exploring. Eleanor Farjeon noted that the Frosts didn’t live by the clock; the clock conformed to the Frosts. Meals might consist of potatoes or cold rice. The children produced their own magazine called ‘The Bouquet’ made up of poems, stories, riddles and illustrations typed on an old typewriter. It appeared monthly but only 6 issues survive. The single issues of the magazine were passed around the friends, via the post, before eventually returning to Lesley, the editor. The children tried using ‘clever paint’ – green lichen, dandelions or blackberries and mixed it up with sand on a cocoa tin lid. However, the pencils and watercolours they also used were more successful. Contributors included the Thomas children, Merfyn and Bronwen, with letters being exchanged between them and other family friends. Thomas and Frost also wrote poems for the magazine such as ‘The Coombe’ and ’Locked Out’.
The Frosts loved the Gloucestershire countryside and Elinor Frost writing to her sister said, “I wish I could make you feel what a lovely country this is. When we first came, the meadows were covered with yellow daffodils and the cuckoo had just begun to sing. For nearly 2 months it sang all day long, but it has already stopped singing. The pastures here are so rich that they are just as green as the mowing and wheat fields…from a hill about 4 miles away, one can see the Severn winding along and the mountains of Wales in the distance”.3
Putting in the Seed
You come to fetch me from my work tonight
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea),
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs
Robert Frost4
1Linda Hart. Once They Lived in Gloucestershire. Green Branch Press. 2000
2Linda Hart. Once They Lived in Gloucestershire. Green Branch Press. 2000
3Lesley Lee Francis Robert Frost: An Adventure in Poetry. 1900-1918. Transaction Publishers. 2004
4Keith Clark. The Muse Colony. Redcliffe Press. 1999
Into My Own: The English Years of Robert Frost. John Evangelist Walsh
