If you've got an interesting story to tell about the Common, you can e-mail it to [email protected], with 'Your Common' in the subject line. A selection will be posted here!
COMMON ROSIE
It was a misty, wet bonfire night and the fireworks in those days were particularly loud and noisy. Two lads in a van were crossing the Common when their headlights picked up the green eyes of an animal. Unsure of quite what it was, they decided to give chase and pulled their van over onto the verge and leapt out with powerful flashlights. In their haste the passenger left his door open and they started to push through the tall dying bracken. After fifteen minutes they had seen a furry shape briefly a couple of times in the undergrowth but were still unable to recognise the creature. They decided to call the hunt off and return to their vehicle.
There, sitting in the passenger seat of the van, was a terrified long haired lurcher. The lads were somewhat taken aback but were both a bit soft hearted. “We can’t just leave it here”, said one lad to the other, so off they trundled with the wet dog and headed for the local hunt kennels where the lads worked.
They discovered that the dog was a young female rose-brindle long haired bitch. They fed her and put her in a spare kennel next to the hounds. So began the rather exclusive diet of “slightly out of date” Peters Pasties and Pies. The dog thrived.
The lads made enquiries but no one came forward to claim the dog. Unable to justify keeping her for much longer the Kennels put an advert in the local farm food shop asking for a good home for the abandoned dog.
My husband and I saw the advert and made contact with the Hunt Kennels. We arranged to pick up the dog on the Bargoed side of the Common, just over the cattle grid. We parked on the verge and waited for the dog to arrive. Several vehicles passed us but none of them had a dog in the car. Then a blue saloon car pulled up in front of us but no sign of a dog. A man jumped out of the car and went round to the boot. As he opened the boot a dog emerged attached to a piece of orange baling twine. She was the most beautiful pinky-grey elegant creature with white stockings and a white shield on her chest.
There began our life with Common Rosie. Eighteen years on she is still with us. Her sight is going and she is a bit deaf but she has given us so much devotion and pleasure during that time. After all these years - if you lads read this article, we would like to thank you and those involved with her rescue.
Sylvia Wavell
There, sitting in the passenger seat of the van, was a terrified long haired lurcher. The lads were somewhat taken aback but were both a bit soft hearted. “We can’t just leave it here”, said one lad to the other, so off they trundled with the wet dog and headed for the local hunt kennels where the lads worked.
They discovered that the dog was a young female rose-brindle long haired bitch. They fed her and put her in a spare kennel next to the hounds. So began the rather exclusive diet of “slightly out of date” Peters Pasties and Pies. The dog thrived.
The lads made enquiries but no one came forward to claim the dog. Unable to justify keeping her for much longer the Kennels put an advert in the local farm food shop asking for a good home for the abandoned dog.
My husband and I saw the advert and made contact with the Hunt Kennels. We arranged to pick up the dog on the Bargoed side of the Common, just over the cattle grid. We parked on the verge and waited for the dog to arrive. Several vehicles passed us but none of them had a dog in the car. Then a blue saloon car pulled up in front of us but no sign of a dog. A man jumped out of the car and went round to the boot. As he opened the boot a dog emerged attached to a piece of orange baling twine. She was the most beautiful pinky-grey elegant creature with white stockings and a white shield on her chest.
There began our life with Common Rosie. Eighteen years on she is still with us. Her sight is going and she is a bit deaf but she has given us so much devotion and pleasure during that time. After all these years - if you lads read this article, we would like to thank you and those involved with her rescue.
Sylvia Wavell
Art & Design Coursework - Sylvia Wavell
Letter from Nova Scotia, Canada
Well, the DVD! Thank you so much. We were able to download a programme to ‘translate’ to our technology so no problems at all in being able to sit back and enjoy….and we were thrilled.
David was able to identify with this there being goodly amount of ‘upland moor’ and other similarities in Northumberland as you know. For me of course it was more personal it being my common. There was so much beauty in all three disciplines and it was intriguing to me that you had all captured so well the essence of the place that wrapped around me during my first fifteen years when it was all so much on my doorstep before my village was expanded and developed evidence of ‘urban sculptors’.
The simplicity and quiet of that time seemed to offer a strong connectedness with the nature and the layers of history, a place to find perspective and one’s place. Not lost on me at the age of eight or nine I had something of an epiphany when walking alongside the village green late one summer afternoon feeling acutely aware of a fuller picture of the fact that ordinary people living a life representing all those eras had walked along this way as I was doing and on such a day. My thinking ran….that it was now my turn and I wondered what people in the future would have to talk about of the history of my time. I had revealed for myself the continuity of the bigger picture and because I had thought in terms of it being my turn to walk that way, of my mortality. It was an experience that felt rather magical and stuck with me and also meant that I never underestimated the ponderings of a child!
It was a jolly good idea that you and Gigi had that lunch! This project really pays homage to the ‘sense of the common’, is a real delight and I have spread the word of course, this should be seen by many.
Pamela Imrie (formerly Dorset)
David was able to identify with this there being goodly amount of ‘upland moor’ and other similarities in Northumberland as you know. For me of course it was more personal it being my common. There was so much beauty in all three disciplines and it was intriguing to me that you had all captured so well the essence of the place that wrapped around me during my first fifteen years when it was all so much on my doorstep before my village was expanded and developed evidence of ‘urban sculptors’.
The simplicity and quiet of that time seemed to offer a strong connectedness with the nature and the layers of history, a place to find perspective and one’s place. Not lost on me at the age of eight or nine I had something of an epiphany when walking alongside the village green late one summer afternoon feeling acutely aware of a fuller picture of the fact that ordinary people living a life representing all those eras had walked along this way as I was doing and on such a day. My thinking ran….that it was now my turn and I wondered what people in the future would have to talk about of the history of my time. I had revealed for myself the continuity of the bigger picture and because I had thought in terms of it being my turn to walk that way, of my mortality. It was an experience that felt rather magical and stuck with me and also meant that I never underestimated the ponderings of a child!
It was a jolly good idea that you and Gigi had that lunch! This project really pays homage to the ‘sense of the common’, is a real delight and I have spread the word of course, this should be seen by many.
Pamela Imrie (formerly Dorset)
My youth on the common
It first started when I was 12 riding my mother’s horse Lady, to gather sheep for Miles Gilach farm, and my dad Edmond Williams.
Just looking at your paintings brings a lot of the raw, wild,and sometimes dangerous common to life. If someone asked me to sum up the common - it's rugged. My hands and feet where sometimes so cold after 5 to 6 hours on the common gathering sheep I wanted to shoot them and just go home. Now I look at your wonderful paintings and it comes flooding back Gigi - more of the same please!
Mike Williams
Just looking at your paintings brings a lot of the raw, wild,and sometimes dangerous common to life. If someone asked me to sum up the common - it's rugged. My hands and feet where sometimes so cold after 5 to 6 hours on the common gathering sheep I wanted to shoot them and just go home. Now I look at your wonderful paintings and it comes flooding back Gigi - more of the same please!
Mike Williams