FAIRS, FLAGS AND FINZI

We have been experiencing some very unseasonal October weather over the past few days – a real Indian summer with temperatures reaching the upper twenties or even thirty degrees. Pat and I have managed a couple of barbeques and, as I write this, she is taking advantage of what will surely be the last days of summer – she is asleep on the garden bed soaking up the afternoon sun! To be honest, although the days have been lovely it’s all a bit hot for me so I prefer the shade.

But, whatever the weather says, Autumn is almost on us. The paths are beginning to fill up with fallen leaves, the summer flowers are starting to drop their flowers and everywhere, especially first thing in the morning, spider’s webs are clearly visible covered on early morning droplets of dew. In a few weeks or perhaps even days time Nottingham folk will looking out of their windows first thing in the morning and saying “It’s a bit Goose Fairish this morning”. By that they will mean it’s a bit chilly, misty and with, perhaps, a hint of frost. In other words – an autumn morning.

For hundreds of years the first week of October has been in Nottingham “Goose Fair”. The time when fairground entertainers and entertainment descend on the city for the annual Goose Fair – one of the great fairgrounds of England – indeed Europe. The Fair always opens on the first Thursday in October and lasts over the weekend on a special site close to the city centre. When we first came to live in Nottingham , almost fifty years ago, the children always had a day off school for Goose Fair – it was known as the Goose Fair Day. Sadly, that day has now been swallowed up on the centrally imposed school holiday pattern. It’s a wonderful thing progress!

 Nottingham's Goose Fair

The Fair dates back more than seven hundred years and its origins are to be found in the traditions and needs of medieval England. There is probably no single reason for the establishment of the Fair. It grew out of the way of life of the time. The Goose Fair started as a trade event and enjoyed a reputation for the sale of geese and its high-quality cheese, although it is now known for its rides and games. Its name is derived from the thousands of geese that were driven from Lincolnshire to be sold in Nottingham. Originally, the fair was held on the 21st of September, but in 1752, with the change to the Gregorian calendar, it moved to early October. The duration of the fair was shortened from eight days to three days in the 1800s.

Goose Fair 1912 - in the
City's Market Square

Another element in the establishment of the Fair and the timing of it is related to the tradition of “Quarter Days” – days when servants were hired, rents had to be paid and all bills settled. The Quarter Days fell on four religious festivals roughly three months apart and close to the two solstices and two equinoxes. The dates of these days were: Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer Day (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September )and Christmas (25th December) . Michaelmas Day is sometimes referred to as Goose Day – this allegedly dates from the time that Queen Elizabeth 1st received news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada (on Michaelmas Day) . She was at the time eating goose and declared from that day forward she would always eat goose on Michaelmas Day!

The huge Goose that welcomes
visitors to the Gair

Added into this story is the belief that in medieval times, once the rents had been paid, servants hired, jobs obtained, the harvest brought in (Michaelmas Day is traditionally the last day of the harvest) it was time for a celebration – everything was ready for the cold and uncertainty of Winter. So, a hearty meal of goose and some entertainment was what people wanted – and Goose Fair began!

But whatever the reason, Goose Fair has been part of the Nottingham scene for many hundreds of years. When our children were small the house that we lived in then faced Nottingham Ring Road and on the Sunday before Goose Fair we would stand for ages watching the hundreds of great lorries driving past our house all pulling the funfair rides that would be set up on the Goose Fair site and our two children would know that later that week we would all visit the fair as a family!

My neighbour's Autumn flag

And, as I said above, for Nottingham folk, the coming of Goose Fair is associated with the coming of Autumn weather – misty and chilly mornings, the shortening days, blowing leaves, conkers, the occasional frost, spider’s webs, migrating birds – Autumn is here: “It’s a bit Goose Fairish”!

And in close up

And I am reminded that Autumn is just around the corner – despite the present heat wave – each time I walk down my street. At the end of my street, the lady who lives there brightens up her house frontage and indeed the whole street throughout the year by hanging a colourful flag outside. She tells me that the flags come from the USA where there is a tradition of them –what a lovely idea. Her son sends them – he lives in the US. Beautifully decorated, colourful and a real asset to the road the flag changes with the seasons. A couple of days ago she put up a lovely flag saying “Autumn Welcome”. She has similar ones for other seasons of the year or for particular events – Christmas, St George’s Day, American Independence Day and the like – it’s a lovely touch. A few weeks ago she put up the Stars and Stripes as a mark of respect to the victims of 9/11 – again, just right, not jingoistic but tasteful and acknowledging a sad event. As we walked past the house this morning and looked at the “Autumn Welcome” flag Pat grumbled that she didn’t welcome Autumn – it means we will lose the heat wave and her sun bathing days will be gone for a few months – but there you go, you can’t please everyone!

So, Autumn is just around the corner. I love Autumn – more than any other season. Summer I find too hot and sticky and Winter too cold – especially now that I am a little older. But Spring and especially Autumn I love. I love the cosiness of night’s drawing in, the morning mists, the “nip” in the air, the dew on the grass. When I was teaching one of the favourite songs of the children – and of me – was called Autumn Days”

Autumn days, when the grass is jewelled, And the silk inside a chestnut shell
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled, All these things I love so well
So I mustn’t forget, No, I mustn’t forget, To say a great big thank you, I mustn’t forget.


Clouds that look like familiar faces, And a winter’s moon with frosted rings
Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces, And the song the milkman sings.
So I mustn’t forget, No, I mustn’t forget, To say a great big thank you, I mustn’t forget.


Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered, And a swallow curving in the sky
Shoes so comfy though they’re worn out and they’re battered, And the taste of apple pie.
So I mustn’t forget, No, I mustn’t forget, To say a great big thank you I mustn’t forget.


Scent of gardens when the rain’s been falling, And a minnow darting down a stream
Picked-up engine that’s been stuttering and stalling, And a win for my home team.
So I mustn’t forget, No, I mustn’t forget, To say a great big thank you I mustn’t forget.

Autumn leaves on
our village green

Yes – jewelled, cloudy skies dew covered grass, conkers, silky spiders’ webs, frost, cooked breakfasts, rainy days, hedges covered with red berries, warm dinners rather than daily salads, the start of the football season............... I like Autumn. The flag is just right “Autumn Welcome”!

And finally, as we enter this season of “Mists and mellow fruitfulness.....” - to coin the words of the poet John Keats when he wrote his wonderful poem “To Autumn” in September 1819 – I am reminded of some wonderful music. The music is not strictly autumnal nor was it written with Autumn particularly in mind. But I find it wonderfully evocative of the season. The music is by the English composer Gerald Finzi and two pieces in particular are, in my view, very autumnal.  The two pieces are his “Five Bagatelles” and “Eclogue”.

Finzi was born in 1901 and died in 1956. He was best known as a song and choral composer but also wrote other pieces – including a wonderful Clarinet Concerto (which has a very Autumnal third movement) and the two short pieces that I mentioned above. Finzi’s music teacher was  killed in the 1st World War and his three brothers, too, died. This made him reflective, perhaps with a bleak outlook on life and a confirmed pacifist and I believe this is reflected in much of his work – slightly melancholy, gentle and harking back to a more peaceful, simpler time.

Gerald Finzi

Many pieces of music capture the spirit of a place or period: Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring” is redolent of the early settler communities in the Appalachian Mountains in the USA; hot, dry Spanish days can be pictured in Rodrigo’s “Concerto de Aranjuez”; Debussy’s “Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune” makes me think of a hot, sultry afternoons in a shady  wood; the frozen Venetian lagoon in Vivaldi’s “Winter” movement from “The Four Seasons” is rich in colour and texture, and Smetana's Má vlast ("My Motherland") is as good as a painting for describing the countryside and traditions of his beloved Bohemia – the movement called “Vltava” (or “The Moldau”) is the most wonderful musical depiction of the river's course through Bohemian fields and mountains.

And, many English composers, too, have successfully captured aspects of English life and times – Vaughan Williams, Elgar (especially in his great Cello Concerto), George Butterworth, Peter Warlock, Gustav Holst. But for me Finzi is the one – reflective, gentle, evocative of the countryside at different times of the year. Much of Finzi’s work was inspired by English poetry – especially that of Thomas Hardy and his music also, I think, reflects the man himself – gentle, a man who enjoyed his garden, who grew apples, who lived a secluded and quiet life. Finzi never felt at home in the city. His first home as a young man was in Painswick Gloucestershire where he composed in the tranquillity of the Gloucestershire countryside – his first published work was a song cycle “By Footpath and Stile” to accompany words by Thomas Hardy. Later, having married the artist Joyce Black, he settled in Wiltshire, where he devoted himself to composing and apple-growing, saving a number of rare English apple varieties from extinction. He also amassed a valuable library of some 3000 volumes of English poetry, philosophy and literature, now in the library of the University of Reading, and a fine collection (some 700 volumes including books, manuscripts and printed scores) of 18th-century English music, now at the University of St Andrews. The Gerald Finzi Trust describes Finzi thus: “20th century English composer, renowned for inspired, flexible Thomas Hardy verse settings and lyrical instrumental style. Lover of reading, collector of books, conservationist - whether of 18th century music or apples: scholar, aesthete, stalwart citizen - directing amateur music-making, hosting war evacuees. Cherished husband of Joy, artist and poet.”

The man seems to be his music – or should that be the other way around!

A woodcut -
"The Shepheardes Calendar" -
 printed in a
sixteenth century edition of
Eclogue 1 by Vergil

Sadly, in 1951, Finzi learned that he was suffering from the then incurable Hodgkin's disease and had less than ten years to live. He died in 1956. The first performance of his Cello Concerto having been given on the radio the night before.

The two pieces that I love are both very short – each only a few minutes long. “Eclogue” was originally a movement from a piano concerto that Finzi was writing when he died and so did not complete. “Eclogue” means a pastoral or idyllic poem or piece of music. Finzi’s piece for piano and strings seems (to me!) to speak of Spring or Autumn mornings or evenings; of the English countryside; of smoke curling up into the sunset from a country cottage; of red berried trees; of a long gone world of quiet country lanes and village festivals; of wood smoke and silence; of a coming rain storm followed by a return to quiet peace. It would in my view make a wonderful accompaniment to a reading of Keats’ “To Autumn” or indeed to that greatest of English pastoral poems “Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” :

"Season of mists and
mellow fruitfulness"?

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me............”

And the other piece – or rather five very short pieces –“ Five Bagatelles” is similar. The pieces are not, I think, intentionally pastoral or Autumnal but, like ”Eclogue”, they speak of English apple orchards; of village merrymaking; of red sunsets: of the gathering in of the harvest; of misty damp mornings and spiders’ webs; of lowing herds and an England that is perhaps no more. My particular favourite is the third Bagatelle which is entitled “Carol” - a very quiet, reflective piece and similar to “Eclogue”.

Berries on the hedge -
a sign of a hard winter?

Finzi had first written "Carol" in December 1925 for the daughter of fellow composer Herbert Howells. It is a setting for a poem also entitled ‘Carol’ from the collection of poems “Severn and Somme” by 1st World War poet Ivor Gurney. The poem begins “Winter now has bared the trees............” All Gurney’s poetry reflects his love of the Gloucestershire countryside and his desire to return there from the devastation and death that he was witnessing each day on the Western Front. “Winter now has bared the trees” is as much a metaphor for the destruction and death of the war as much as it is a statement of the season. This, too, was something very near to Finzi’s pacifist heart – and in my view his sympathetic feeling for Gurney’s words come through in the music. The quiet combination of piano and clarinet give the piece a melancholy air of the fading year – Autumn.

And, finally, as I researched this blog I discovered something else – which I like. And those who have read my pieces before will make a connection from my recent blog “Smoke – and other things – gets In Your Eyes”. In that blog I mentioned the long running radio programme “Desert Island Discs”. One of the guests in that programme a few years ago was the broadcaster and antique porcelain - especially Royal Worcester - expert Henry Sandon. Sandon, has with his appearances over many years on the TV programme, “The Antiques Roadshow” become nationally and perhaps internationally famous – almost a national treasure. He is everyone's stereotyped picture of an Englishman – jolly, round of face, rich Worcestshire accent. He could easily be a character from Dickens’ “Pickwick Papers”. One can just imagine him sitting near a roaring fire with his pint of English ale in some country inn surrounded by the locals – or sitting with a jolly smile atop the haycart as the harvest is gathered in. And Sandon’s favourite piece of music, the one he would have on his desert island? – a piece by Finzi “Salutation” from Finzi’s “Dies Natalis”. And Sandon’s favourite book? – the great English poem of the countryside, the seasons and the years - Houseman’s epic masterpiece“A Shropshire Lad” – a poem very close to the heart of Finzi as a nostalgic depiction of rural life and young men's early deaths in war. A poem which would “fit” sublimely with “Eclogue” or “Five Bagatelles” :

Henry Sandon - porcelain expert
 and fan of Finzi

“........On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves........”

So, Goose Fair mornings, “Autumn Welcome” flags to brighten my street and the evocative music of Gerald Finzi – I’m almost already snuggling down with my cup of cocoa, closing the curtains and forgetting the hot sticky unseasonal heat wave that we have had in the last few days. This morning as I showered I noticed, for the first time this year, a spider in the bath! When that happens we always know that Autumn is upon us. He scurried up the bath side as the spray fell into the basin and hid beneath the tap. I somehow managed to let him crawl onto my finger and I deposited him safely in the darkness of our bathroom airing cupboard – but no doubt he will be back again later today!

Yes, Autumn is here - "Autumn Welcome"!