Sipping Red Wine By the Sea

Red wine in the verandah

We have just returned from a few days at our favourite hotel – the Langstone Cliff Hotel in Dawlish, Devon (see blog: In praise of the Langstone Cliff: March 26 2011). We have been visiting this place regularly for many years and love it as much now as when we first visited. Dawlish itself is a quiet place with no pretensions; if you want designer restaurants, chic shopping malls or beaches  rivalling those of the Caribbean then Dawlish is not for you. But if you want a quiet, homely, relaxing and “honest” seaside place then you will not be disappointed. The hotel is only a few hundred yards from the sea and you can sit, as we did last week, on the verandah or at one of the tables on the lawn and enjoy one of the finest views in England over Lyme Bay as you sip your beer or wine, or enjoy an al fresco lunch. The Langstone Cliff Hotel is not only  a wonderful and much loved hotel in a much loved place but it is also our "bolt hole", our place to recharge the batteries, our place to get back our bearings. We are not alone in that - each time we go we see other guests who are also regulars and have been so for many years. It is quite simply home from home.

As always when we visit the Langstone for a few days we take a book or two to read – part of the relaxation and recharging of the batteries – and this time I was reading a book written about twenty years ago by  Richard Hoggart: The Way We Live Now. Hoggart, who died in 2014 was an academic and  Professor of English who had leapt to international fame in 1957 with his seminal work The Uses of Literacy – a review of British working class culture and the impact of mass and popular culture on late 1950s Britain. The book was without a doubt a game changer. In it Hoggart sought the answers to two basic questions: when a society becomes more affluent – as Britain did in the 1950s – what impact is there on that society’s values and, secondly, how is a society which is increasingly affluent and more able to access non-essential items such as cars, TVs or washing machines, better provided for in terms of health and social care, and increasingly well educated and literate impacted upon by the growth mass and popular culture. It is an understatement to say that The Uses of Literacy was a ground breaking work; it has often been called the most important and influential book of the twentieth century such was its profound effect upon the thinking, the politics  and the society of the second half of the twentieth century both in Britain and across the western world. Even today it is still essential reading for those involved in social, cultural or academic provision. 

Richard Hoggart

I first read The Uses of Literacy in the summer of 1963. I  had just qualified as a draughtsman but had decided to change career and was about to embark on an A level course at Blackpool Technical College with a view to going to teacher training college. Prior to the A level course beginning I had been given a reading list by the Head of the A level Department, Mr Parkin – a man who, because of his military bearing and military  moustache, we teenagers always called “The Colonel”. The book wasn’t specifically related to any of the subjects that I was studying (History, Geography & Economics) but, said Mr Parkin, it was a book (together with others such as Plato’s Republic , The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, The Rise of the Meritocracy, Family and Kinship in East London) that I should read to widen my understanding of the world. I can so well remember that summer sitting in the local park or at home devouring these books in addition to those recommended for my A level subjects. But more than any I can remember reading Hoggart’s book, my mouth often agape at what I read. It was hard going and at that stage I didn’t understand all of it – but I can still vividly remember thinking and feeling that as I read it the book was speaking to me. It didn’t only make sense to me but much of it was about me and my life. It was what I could see going on around me – a boy from very much a working class background, suddenly exposed to education and a world unknown to my working class parents. The quotes, comments and prophesies that Hoggart made – based upon his own upbringing as a working class boy - were exactly, almost word for word, what I experienced and both heard and saw every day. The feelings and ambitions that he described were my feelings and ambitions. The subtle changes that he noted as increasing affluence impacted upon ordinary people were what I witnessed and experienced each day.  And as both mass and popular culture took off, the Beatles, the teenage world, American films, pop stars, TV, advertising, the media and the rest were all slowly starting to influence both the life and times of the nation and my own life. I knew that Hoggart was on to something.

Over the years I have often returned to Hoggart’s book and recalled or reread bits of it but a few weeks ago I bought what one might term its sequel,The Way We Live Now. Written in 1995 Hoggart did what it says on the title - looked again at society but, now, as it was in 1995. It is, like The Uses of Literacy  a controversial, hard hitting and compelling book as Hoggart conducts an examination of late 20^th century society. The result is almost a melancholia for a lost past rooted in real human experience and unmediated by commercial mass culture. If anything it is even more pessimistic than The Uses of Literacy as Hoggart reflects upon the twin evils of intellectual relativism and rampant consumerism. He suggests the latter years of the twentieth century saw a growth in morally vacuous and intellectually vapid ideas most notably witnessed in the ideology of Margaret Thatcher,  her ideological successors, and the rise of the global consumerist society.

Looking out over Lyme Bay from our room at the

Langstone Cliff Hotel

I had completely re-read The Uses of Literacy prior to going off to Devon for our stay at the Langstone Cliff and as we enjoyed the delights of the hotel and the few days by the sea I read Hoggart’s 1995 sequel. Each evening, I sat on the verandah of the hotel looking out over the lawn and the sea and sipping my glass of red wine and pondered Hoggart’s observations. My overwhelming reaction was that this book was written about twenty years ago so it was very easy to assess how unerringly accurate, powerful, articulate and prophetic Hoggart's  arguments were and, worryingly ,how much more so would they be today in 2017. When he wrote this book social media was largely unknown, the financial and consumerist excesses of the latter years of the twentieth and early twenty first centuries was still to come, the internet was very much in its infancy, mobile phones, i-pads and the like were dreams in the minds of people like Steve Jobs, and things like digital broadcasting bringing a host of TV opportunities and race to the bottom programming were still largely waiting to be manipulated by global companies like SKY and Fox News. Globalisation  was in its infancy; looking back to those days we could never have imagined how much the world would change within twenty years. Hoggart’s criticisms and fears for the “health” of society in the face of the growth of mass culture and populism made him both anxious and angry – how much more so would he feel that today if he was still alive.

I could write a whole series of blogs on the issues thrown up by Hoggart’s books but as this blog starts and ends with our visit to the seaside I will concentrate upon just one - those relating to what Hoggart saw as the decline in literary taste and standards.

In The Way we Live Now  Hoggart expresses concern and regret that although as we are better educated and have greater opportunities than ever before there has been a tendency for what I will call “dumbing down”. In particular he reflects upon the paradox of the written word; today, more people can read, more books are published and more widely available than ever before - yet increasingly “good" literature is being side lined in favour of popular/mass works. Look at the best seller lists and they are largely filled with literary dross. True, there are various awards for "quality literature" but the sales of these books are totally dwarfed by the sales of popular, light weight novels. Hoggart also cogently argued that the quality of even these lightweight works is dismally poor, reflecting the lack of aspiration in wider society. Libraries are closing at a rapid rate and those that remain are increasingly focusing upon popular works or even non-book (such as CD/video/internet) use rather than literary works of merit. Hoggart is not alone in his comments: linguist, philosopher and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky makes much the same point in his book How the World Works. Chomsky writes: "I travel a lot and often visit the airport book store to buy a classic or maybe one of the current recommended quality texts. Now it's almost impossible anywhere in the world....I think it is just plain market pressures. Bestsellers move fast and it costs money to keep books around that don't sell quickly. Add to this that the big book chains which pretty much dominate the market don't want non-sellers on their shelves so the books are not displayed or increasingly not published". The result of this is, of course, that since the books are not on display or promoted the public know less and less of their existence so are unaware of what they offer. The whole thing becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. In short, dumbed down sells; mass and popular culture have increasingly taken hold of the intellect, the desires, and the literary tastes and abilities of the public. The literature of modern western society is increasingly becoming lowest common denominator stuff. Proof of that can be seen easily by walking along the shelves at any chain bookshop, by looking at the best seller lists or by taking a brief look at Facebook or other social media sites with their banal “posts”; they prove poet W H Auden’s commentary of half a century ago “Be interesting and weak like us, and we will love you as we love ourselves”. Auden wrote that in 1944 of what he saw then of popular and mass culture – what would he say today if he reviewed Facebook, the tabloid press, the contents of our book shops, the content of our TV programmes, or the superficial trash that Hollywood produces so thin in story line, characterisation and use of language that it has to be "sexed up" with digital technology and a steady stream of faux violence. But the public have, sheep like, learned to love it for increasingly they know no other.  As a committed and passionate social democrat I am wedded to the notion of equality and bitterly against the increasingly divided societies that global capitalism is creating in the western world. But, it is increasingly my view that equality should not mean "ordinary" - too often today there is a tendency to reject great art, music or literature as "elitist" and instead value the ordinary; Mr & Ms Joe Public increasingly want to be one of the crowd, liked, loved, not pushy, not "toffs". It is a worrying trend.   

"I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky"

One important area of literature, poetry, has suffered especially and Hoggart is damning in his criticism of society's increasing lack of enthusiasm for poetry. Children no longer, it seems, learn or recite great poetry at school; too often poetry and poems are perceived as old fashioned and elitist, perhaps only to be used for special occasions. And yet, poetry is one of the mankind's great forms of communication; the words of some of the great poems cross the ages, generations and cultures and if used at some particular occasion - a funeral, a wedding or some important state occasion - are often the thing that symbolises and helps to make sense of that occasion in the hearts and minds of those present. 

Hoggart is not alone in his concern for the health of poetry in society and of praising of poetry and its importance to humanity as these few comments show:

·         “When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” (John F. Kennedy: President of the USA)

·         “A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language”. (W. H. Auden: Poet and author)

·         “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.” (Aristotle: Philosopher)

·         “Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.”  (Sir Walter Scott: Author)

·         “Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.”  (William Hazlitt: Author and philosopher)

From my evening table on the hotel verandah.

Can there be a finer view than this?

I couldn’t agree more. I am not a poet, nor do I profess to have any great poetical skills or understanding. But to read some of the great poems – or even just extracts from some of these poems is not only rewarding but invariably takes one to another place; in just a few words, a poet can create a universe.  Poetry, above all, is the very essence and highest form of communication for it not only communicates words and ideas but also feelings, emotions, morals, aesthetics and every other facet of the human condition. Its business is the very sprit and soul of mankind and its words continue to be true and have meaning and validity long after the poet is dead and gone. A piece of poetry, like great music and great art, is not limited by years or even generations, it is eternal.

To read lines and feel enriched by wonderful words such as those from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.

or to envisage the silent calm of evening sunset described by Thomas Gray in the opening lines of what many regard as the greatest of poems Elegy written in a country church yard:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.....

or to be moved by words such as these from A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad:

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
    Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
    Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
    Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
    I never kept before

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
    Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
    Falls the remorseful day.

or to have one’s to emotions shredded and one’s core beliefs and innermost senses questioned by reading one of the Great War poems by Siegfried Sassoon or Wilfred Owen’s damning and at the same time profound and elegiac:  Anthem for Doomed Youth:

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

"....And the flung spray and the blown spume

and the sea gulls crying...."

is to be reminded of the human condition and one’s place in the world and beyond. Philosopher, economist and to many the father of capitalism, John Stuart Mill’s words on poetry  are unquestionably apposite: “....poems are a medicine for my state of mind; they express not mere outward beauty, but states of feeling, and of thought coloured by feeling.......they seem to be the very culture of the feelings, which I am in quest of...”   Mill was not wrong.

And as I sat on the hotel verandah, sipping my red wine and looking out over Lyme Bay and reading Hoggart’s words, or as I sat on the bench on the sea front watching the waves crash onto the sandy beach below, I was reminded of two poems by John Masefield which, at some point, I always find myself silently quoting whenever I am near the sea:

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

With a cargo of ivory,

And apes and peacocks,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,

Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,

With a cargo of diamonds,

Emeralds, amethysts,

Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,

With a cargo of Tyne coal,

Road-rails, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

"....For the call of the running tide is a wild call

and a clear call that may not be denied..."

I am no great judge of poetry nor am I, unlike my wife, especially besotted by the sea but to sit near the shore and reflect on the words of these two great works - which I learned by heart at school - is both satisfying the quite magical. The sound and “feel” of Masefield’s great works confirm in my mind the truth of Matthew Arnold the great poet and educator's words: “Good poetry undoubtedly tends to form the character and the soul; it begets a love of beauty and of truth in alliance together; it suggests noble principles of action, and it inspires the emotions – hence its extreme importance to all of us”.