Gorse and Gold....

As Winter was drawing to a close, I idly pondered over the question as to why so many early Spring flowers seem to be yellow in colour - and then asked myself why I had never wondered about this point before! Apparently this is typically down to evolutionary adaptation, since such early flowering plants need to attract as many of the few pollinators that are available in the harsher, shorter daylight hours.

Yellow offers a distinct advantage as it is clearly visible and stands out against drab vegetation and undergrowth. However, it should be remembered that the human eye is unable to detect the same colour range as insects to the point that those with compound eyes make out colouration that does not exist for us! Not only that, but the production of yellow pigments - principally carotenoids - do not deplete the limited energy reserves of plants just emerging from the Winter months thus enabling them to thrive.

Beyond that, there is naturally very little physical resemblance between the wide selection of yellowing flowering plants, but each has its unique charm that is synonymous with Spring. The clusters of Lesser Celandine border the banks and hedgerows, with heart-shaped leaves of such an incredibly vibrant green. The flowers with their bright, lacquer-tipped petals marked with the same polished finition as the Common Buttercup, are set to burst open during the sunlit hours before sealing up at dusk. 

How different is the Primrose, with its pale rounded petals surrounded by a rosette of elongated leaves whose furrowed, puckered texture reminds me of a strange cow's tongue...  

The perfume of many of these flowers - when present - also bears a strange scent that is not typically floral. Gorse flowers are said to smell of coconut, wild daffodils have a curious powdery perfume whilst primroses release a light honey tone and as for celandines, well, I will have to check those! In the meantime, it is enough just to look at all those different shades of yellow...

Fishwives and Folk from Newlyn Past...

On display at the Penlee House Gallery and Museum are many of the works of the Newlyn School artists from the late 19th century, depicting life in the coastal communities set alongside the Cornish countryside. Despite being at a remove of well over a hundred years, the local scenes represented in these incredible paintings are still recognizable today, creating a strange feeling of familiarity and continuity. Parallel to that sense of continuum is the comforting feeling from the rediscovery these ‘old acquaintances’ – the works themselves – paintings that have always occupied a discreet yet significant place in my mind, coming up to the forefront every so often, like a treasured strain of music.

And yet for all the pleasure I derive from the Newlyn School paintings, these paintings truly deliver it as it was, with no or minimal mawkishness or excessive preoccupation with the maudlin, even if the material could have easily lent itself to such an approach. The plein-air technique largely employed by the Newlyn artists enabled them to capture the mood of the people and place in a unique way, reproducing the special play of light that is still specific to Cornwall today. It was this strange luminosity that initially drew many of these artists to the South-west, with the desire to capture on canvas the light and shadows that in turn illuminated the hardships and fleeting joys of the existence in the fishing communities in this particular setting.

In a fishing community such as that of Newlyn, daily life was marked and measured by the tides; albeit rhythmic they were nevertheless as precarious and unpredictable as the weather itself. The catches were dependent on the elements, at the mercy of the waves and skies, and as for the men bringing back their load, sometimes prayer alone could deliver them from the perils of the sea. Given the frequently treacherous conditions, boat losses were common and not all the fishing crew members returned safely to harbour. 

By the end of the 19th century, Newlyn had established itself as one of the key fishing ports in the southernmost part of England. Boats sailed out to catch pilchards, mackerel and herring, setting off from Newlyn harbour, across Mount’s Bay and beyond Mousehole, with the women folk taking care of the home and children prior to their return. Once the catch had been landed, the fishwives assumed their vital role in the fishing industry, deftly gutting, cleaning and preparing the fish for sale or helping to cure it for export. 

Depending on the weather, the ‘lugger’ boats went out daily -sometimes overnight or longer - with the exception of Sunday which was respected as the day of rest for the faithful Methodist community. This observation of Sunday worship indirectly led to the Newlyn Riots in 1896, when fleets from outside Cornwall came to fish off the Cornish peninsula for economic gain that could only be detrimental to the already vulnerable local community. 

Looking at the Newlyn School paintings, the strain and challenges of the fisherman’s life are etched on the unassuming, worn faces of the local people at work, some of whom appear in different works yet always illustrating the same themes. However, it is the female figures that always draw my attention, with their striking silhouetted forms that seem almost an emblematic as the lugger sailing vessels, set against the skyline. 

Dressed in dark, coarse clothing, typically long skirts, layered petticoats and aprons, the women must have found these cumbersome and heavy to wear, especially once wet and buffeted by wind and rain. They also had little but practical shawls, headscarves and mop caps to protect them from the harsh, pitiless elements that were surely equally challenging in winter and summer. The footwear was equally stout and functional, giving them support as they carried heavy baskets of fish loads on the slippery quays to sell to local buyers, or as they transported basket cauls of fish strapped to their heads as they made their way up from the beaches once the luggers had landed the catch. 

Ssh... Fishwives from Brittany!

Home life would barely have been a respite from the harshness of the working activities outdoors. Indeed, the living conditions in such households must have been dire – not least for the overpowering, rank smell of fish – from the catches, clothes and fishing nets. With no real sanitation to speak of, no domestic washing facilities – or simply the most rudimentary equivalent - and obviously no central heating or electricity of any kind, day-to-day existence must have been hugely challenging on every possible level. Add to that the damp that would have been rife in these homes, the overcrowding and general insalubrious nature of the sites, and it was hardly surprising that many of the Newlyn dwelling places were labelled as slums, deemed unfit. 

Once the golden age of the Newlyn fishing industry was largely over, decades later in the 1930s, plans were drawn up to demolish these old buildings with the Newlyn Clearances project. This move nevertheless underestimated the attachment felt for the old community setting and soon led to protest from fishermen, local residents and artists alike, all seeking to block the demolition. Interestingly - but not all that surprising – many of the women were slightly more open to change and were not wholly set against the new housing proposed ‘up the hill’ in Gwavas. This would surely have been due to their hands-on experience of running a household in run-down conditions. The menfolk, meanwhile, apparently put up more resistance to the idea, perhaps more attached to the tightly-knit community they were accustomed to on land and sea, in spite of those same conditions.

The Magnificent Magnolia...

Back in Cornwall, the grand magnolia tree that I have known for a large part of my life was out in bloom, its imposing saucer-sized flowers with their distinctive petals, looming out against the night sky, like exotic, ghost-like birds, roosting in the branches. Scattered on the pavement below lay the strange petals and pod-like buds that had been blown down by the relentless gusts of wind that had buffeted and beaten the boughs and branches. 

Fortunately, this enabled me to take a closer look at the curious forms of what happens to be one of the oldest and most primitive species of flowering plant on Earth. Indeed, in a sense the magnolia is a living fossil, dating back to the Cretaceous period, some 100 million years, when dinosaurs still roamed! As such, this ancient plant enables us to get insight into the evolution of the angiosperm (the flowering plant). 

The petals have a curious wax-like appearance, yet to touch are far less delicate than expected – with a certain density and an almost rubbery texture. With their somewhat robust nature, they seem more susceptible to bruise rather than break or tear under extreme weather conditions. 

Meanwhile the closed buds resemble over-sized, excessively bristly almond drupes or even elongated kiwis, but once the encased petals have burst out from their confines, the scales of these curious pods split open in a dramatic fashion.

The cupped, curving petals are in fact ‘tepals’, a distinctive feature of ancient flowering plants such as the Magnolia, wherein the petals and sepals are not clearly different. Nestled in the heart of these is the reproductive system of the flower, namely the stamens and carpels – the male and female parts respectively – spiralled around a central cone-like structure. Such a simple arrangement is relatively primitive in terms of botanical evolution and evolved to be pollinated by beetles – one the earliest pollinators – as opposed to bees and butterflies.

The leaves are large and glossy with a fuzzy underside and their dark mysterious green adds an atmospheric note that was not lost on Daphne du Maurier. The gardens depicted in one of her most famous novels  – Rebecca (1939) – feature these grand ornamental flowering trees in the de Winter estate, their presence reinforcing the rather oppressive, haunting mood that shrouds the grounds and house and proves to be inescapable to the young heroine of the plot. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”. 

The fragrance of the flowers is slightly overbearing, like Rebecca’s lingering scent “a stab of perfume in the air”, again adding to the psychological unease, with elegant beauty linked to ambiguity, uncertainty and veiled threat. Hmm…. High time I went back to reading some Du Maurier!