Julie's House

A postcard of Julie's House at Wrabness in Essex

It's 19th July, and here I am checking out an extraordinary building in the northernmost part of Essex, on rising ground above the River Stour, with a wide view of the estuary as a whole. It's A House For Essex, otherwise known as Julie's House.

If you're wondering how I managed to take that photo, the explanation is simple. Approaching Julie's House down a lane, I met a party of walkers coming up the other way. Here they are:

We chatted a bit, as you do, and one of the men - the one on the far left - offered to take my picture with LXV, with the house in the background. I think he made a good job of it.

Once we had parted company, I spent a bit of time walking around the house, to view it from different angles, and to get some close-ups of the exterior, which was unusually decorated. At this point I should mention, if you didn't already know, that the house was designed by the artist Grayson Perry in collaboration with Charles Holland of FAT Architecture, and completed in 2015. You can book a stay there. You can arrange that, and see some amazing pictures of the house - particularly of course its interior - at  

https://www.living-architecture.co.uk/the-houses/a-house-for-essex/overview/. Indeed, that website includes other houses in a similar vein that you can stay at, all over the country. Julie's House was not being let to anyone when I saw it, and in fact it looked as if there had been no recent bookings - doubtless a consequence of the general high cost of living right now. It has a garden, and is shielded from passers-by on the lane by bushes, so one could have some privacy if in residence. But as with any famous or picturesque building you can stay in, there would be constant gawping (or photography) from curious members of the public, which most would find intrusive, and positively irritating after a day or two. So not for everybody.

Getting back to Grayson Perry. Alice, a friend of mine, says she met him once and was fascinated. Alice is artistic - a poet, actually, as is Grayson Perry - and no doubt sensed a kindred spirit. I have never had any such contact, occasional glimpses of the man on TV being all I can claim. Back in 2014, when in Liverpool for the day, I noticed that he had an exhibition on at the Walker Art Gallery:

His art didn't have a strong appeal, and I couldn't have taken any pictures of the exhibition, so I passed this up. Subsequently, as I said, I caught him on TV now and then; and sometimes came across works of his in galleries, such as this pottery in Brighton Museum and Art Gallery:

Although working and experimenting in a variety of media, Grayson Perry has particularly embraced pottery. He's won important awards, and become a household name. He was recently honoured. It's now Sir Grayson Perry. But he's anything but a conventional establishment figure. He admired Jeremy Corbyn. (Hmm. I don't know whether I would find much in common with him, if ever we met, though I'd give it a go)

I remain undecided about his art. So far as I understand it, Grayson Perry sets out to be both celebratory and unsettling at the same time, though never crude. So an attractive piece might have something in its design that is revealed only with closer inspection, perhaps something of horror. A subtle seduction of the senses, with a jolt if you are prepared to see it. Above all, I think GP (let's call him that henceforth) aims to be all-inclusive with his art, intending to alienate nobody, and wanting to improve the world through art. I'm all for that.

He is well-known for his alter-ego Claire. I haven't heard Claire speak, and can't say whether Claire is the true person he yearns to be, or just the cross-dressing side of his personality. But it does seem clear that GP likes women, and is very in tune with them, and in a different existence would have been perfectly happy to be born female. For an artist, of course, which sex one is doesn't matter: it simply tips the bias, or point of view, slightly towards one side rather than the other. A different colouration, say. That said, I get the feeling - looking closely at Julie's House - that he regrets not having the experience of carrying a child and giving birth. But then perhaps that's something that many men wrestle with, either because their feminine side is strong yet thwarted, or because they resent women having this very special capability that they haven't got.

 

On to Julie herself. There is a back story, related in a poem GP wrote, The Ballad of Julie Cope. She is not an actual person, but Every Essex Woman. Her story stands for the typical life experience of a working-class-but-upwardly-mobile woman born in Essex. GP was himself born and raised in Essex, and although he has bad memories of his childhood there, he is nevertheless proud of Essex, and the poem resonates with love and understanding for that often-ridiculed county. I won't give away the poem's ending, but it explains why Julie's House was conceived and built. The excellent Community Shop at Wrabness, the local village, sells a booklet that contains the poem, has notes on the artworks inside it, and explains its spatial design. It also suggests that the reader approaches the house in a spirit of pilgrimage.  

Well, I was merely curious. Having said my goodbyes to those people I met there, I took my time over walking around the perimeter of the property, so far as the fences let me. It was a cloudy morning, and the bushes rather got in the way, but I secured some shots worth keeping.

There was something of a Norwegian church about it. The sharply sloping stepped roofs suggested it. A long building, with plenty of space inside, although it was hard to see exactly how it might be divided up from the outside. The intricate external wall decoration and rooftop embellishments next caught my eye.

Apparently the wheel of life turning at a snail's pace, a pregnant woman, an egg, and (perhaps) a diamond. Hmm. Best not to take any of those at face value!

Dark green panels full of pregnant women, about to give birth it seems, collectively reminding me of Ancient Egyptian scarab beetles, although electronic Space Invaders come to mind too. Above and underneath, triangular panels containing such things as hearts, nappy pins, audio tape cassettes, the Essex coat of arms, and a stylised 'J'. 

Aha. Another entrance, the rear one, facing the river, with an iron grille to repel attacking daleks, if the stairs aren't enough to stop them. (They glide around on wheels, and can't get up stairs) 

Rather Sci-Fi if you ask me. Dr Who-ish definitely. And I guessed that the hidden interior was Tardis-like.

And that was all you could see. The garden looked rough, almost wild - but then perhaps it was supposed to be like that. A strange and ethereal building rising up from a farmer's field, as if planted there years ago, but now grown to its full height.

I wished that the sun had been out, and the sky blue, but you have to take what you get on the day. One last shot, to show that I was there - necessary in case the one that the man took earlier didn't turn out well. (Thankfully both did)

My new global reach puts the world in a spin

The world is now in my grasp, at my very fingertips, and I can even make it spin backwards if I so wish. 

Am I mad? Or have I acquired superpowers?  

No, I have bought myself a globe - and not a modern one. It's not exactly an antique, but it dates from 1964 and is therefore very nearly sixty years old, and shows the countries of the world as they were back then. 

There you are. Made by George Philip & Son of Fleet Street, London (they are still publishing road atlases, though the firm is no longer family-owned), with the date '1964' clearly shown. The globe is made, I think, of very stiff cardboard or papier-mâché, with strips of thick printed paper stuck onto the spherical surface. That might have to be done by hand, very carefully, and therefore slowly. A bit like hand-finishing painted china. It could be that my globe was made in 1963, or certainly well in advance of Christmas 1964, its likely time of sale, and so really reflects the world as it was in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile crisis, and President Kennedy's subsequent assassination. The 1960s were turbulent, full of strife and assassinations, with the threat of nuclear annihilation ever present. And yet life carried on: it was also the decade in which foreign package holidays got going in a big way.  

I was eleven in 1963, and already the possessor of two world atlases. The mysterious and enticing places of the world fascinated me. But back then there was not the slightest prospect of my family travelling to any of them. So my travel dreams were all atlas-based. 

I had however seen another way of exploring the world, one that showed exactly where every place really was, and - critically - what the true distances were, which you couldn't appreciate from a map, because of the limitations of the projection used. Only a globe can show the world properly. I'd seen (and had gaped in wonder) at a large globe like this:

It was at the home of a boy friend whose parents lived in a very large house in the best part of Barry. This house had a large reception room with an elegant staircase leading upstairs, and near the huge stone fireplace, next to the sofas and chairs, was this big globe. It seemed immense to an eleven year old child. It was a large piece of furniture in its own right, and moved around the floor on castors. My parents had nothing to compare with this at my own home. They'd given me a very small metal-and-plastic globe, which really wasn't much practical use. This took my breath away. But then Grenville - that was the boy's name - lived in another world. He had one of the first electronic toys I ever saw. Of course it was crude compared to what was available for kids in the 1970s and later. But hey, amazing and eye-popping for the early 1960s!

I hardly dared touch that huge globe on castors. But I never forgot it. The modern version, rather more high-tech, and costing a princely £12,500, would be (on cost alone) forever beyond my ownership ambitions. But a smaller globe, a table-top globe, costing a lot less: yes, I'd be very content with that.

But it was hardly a priority item. As the years passed, I inspected examples in antique shops and bric-a-brac shops shops, but I didn't buy, either because they were too expensive or because they weren't very useful as three-dimensional world maps. This collection of globes, seen in a shop at Petworth last year, was perhaps the best I ever came across. None of them was any good. 

Buying a globe remained on my list of possible presents to myself. It didn't have to be a brand-new globe. I was equally attracted to an older, pre-loved globe - if I could find one at a price I'd be prepared to pay. My budget went as far as £100 or so. But I really didn't want to pay much over £50, especially not for a second-hand example. I looked on the Internet, but the rule there seemed to be top prices for old globes, unless the thing were distinctly battered. I decided that it was risking serious disappointment to buy one on the basis of just a photograph and a brief description, and especially from some retailer I'd never heard of.

And then four days ago I was in Worthing, and saw this in the shop window of British Heart Foundation:

Aha! An old but nice-looking globe on a pedestal, for only £25. As it was a charity shop, no alarm bells need ring at the low price. I wanted to take a closer look, but they had just closed for the day (it was 5.00pm) So I took that picture, and studied it carefully once I'd processed it. The globe still looked all right. But social commitments meant I couldn't go back and perhaps buy it next day, nor the day after. Would someone else buy it meanwhile? Well, if it was meant to be mine, it would still be there. 

I went back first thing yesterday. It was in the window. Nobody had nabbed it.

Making enquiries, I learned that it had been in their window for some time, so I needn't have panicked. Was anything wrong with it? Not that I could see. It didn't fall apart as the man lifted it out of the window and placed it in my hands. It wasn't obviously damaged in any way. The globe turned on its spindles, though not very freely. Really, it seemed a lightly-worn example of a mid-twentieth century globe, datable to a period after the territories that were once part of the French and British empires had got their independence. But nevertheless there were many old-style names, like Persia, Ceylon, Burma and Siam; and Peking for Beijing. And of course the USSR was very much in evidence, as it would be for another twenty-five years. 

On the whole, a globe that conjured up the world I grew up in. £25 seemed a very good price, and I bought it without further ado.

Closer examination back home was reassuring. There were a few biro marks in blue here and there, like the random scribbles of a child. They were mainly on the oceans and didn't show up much. The chrome meridian and the black bakelite or plastic base were in great condition, dusty but perfectly firm and undamaged. The North Pole area was (as expected) almost pristine.

The South Pole area was however in trouble. The weight of the globe, small but telling over the years, had made it bear down on the chrome spacer, and this had enlarged the spindle hole until the spacer had fallen inside, where it was now doomed to stay for all time, rattling around. With the spacer gone, the globe touched the arc of the chromed meridian, and that was why it was not revolving freely. Clearly I needed to insert a new spacer, to lift the globe off the meridian, and stop further wear of the spindle hole, and scuffing of the paper gores. I rummaged around in the garage, and found a hard plastic disc with a hole in it. I cut out a section, so that I could push it onto the spindle. This would be its underside: the smooth flat upper side would rest against the globe.

It worked! I saved the planet!

My globe would now revolve at a light touch. There was still a bit of resistance to fast spinning, but the thing wasn't a toy, and I wouldn't be doing that. 

I was very pleased indeed with my purchase. It looked very good in one corner of my lounge, near the little window.

It struck me that the globe, viewed from the other end of my lounge, was the same size as the real Earth would appear, if I were looking at it from the Moon. 

You can be pessimistic about the future - people have been throughout human history - but from the Moon the Earth is a small and distant place, and it would be easy to feel that pressing terrestrial problems were in fact of no significance in the grand scheme of things. Still less so the decrees of dictators, or the sabre-rattlings of rogue states. Only gravity and the reactions of elements matter, if your viewpoint is cosmic enough.

Mind you, closer contemplation of my globe told me at once that North Korea's endeavour to make a missile that could reach the United States of America was truly a mighty one. Even California would be an extraordinary feat. New York or Washington DC would be harder still. But if North Korea did manage it, then my globe told me that every important place in the Northern Hemisphere would be within range, as would Australia and New Zealand. Only Africa south of the Sahara, and South America, would be too far away. 

So most nations need to keep an eye on what is happening in that little country. China is the best hope, the best shield as it were. True, China currently keeps North Korea afloat, like somebody might keep a fierce, half-starved tiger under control as a pet. I dare say that, despite the risks, China finds it convenient to let North Korea make threatening noises. But China is as vulnerable to North Korean attack as any more distant country. After South Korea and Japan, it's the next in line as a nuclear target. So I really hope that if treachery occurs, China can quickly press a few buttons and defend itself adequately, or even neutralise the missiles before they can do harm. If not, then Moon observers will have a good view of the fireworks. 

Jabba the Hutt at Frinton-on-Sea

Over the years I've acquired a definite penchant for English seaside resorts. Some of these are well-known and justifiably celebrated. Others are rather B-list. Others are even worse: dispiriting places, or at least they were when I came along to take a look at them. 

But they all have something enduringly English about them, some feature - maybe several features - that tell me this place could be in no other country. And often there will be some encounter or some happening while I'm there that fixes the resort in my permanent memory. I may castigate the place in a blog post (like bleak Withernsea, and super-naff Mablethorpe) or praise it (like Hornsea, with its heart-warming brass band concerts). But all of them draw me, with plenty still unvisited (but their moment will come), and plenty more deserving a fresh look - a reappraisal - after many years of absence.

One place recently revisited, not seen since 1985, was Frinton-on-Sea in Essex. 

Frinton was never typical of Essex resorts. It was decidedly not a Southend or a Clacton. It was superior, a place where posh people resided, who could afford nannies for their children. It had a broad greensward backing a neat and tidy seafront. Well, the days of nannies shepherding immaculate children are long gone; but the atmosphere of a quiet and well-off Chiltern suburb placed next to the bracing North Sea has survived. That atmosphere was strong when I went there for a weekend in February 1985, to mark my second wedding anniversary. It had hardly changed in July 2023, when I returned for an afternoon after a 28 year absence. 

After parking Fiona carefully, I walked out onto the south end of that greensward, in the direction of some beach huts. I wasn't expecting anything special. But I was in for a surprise. 

Most beach huts are small, often like these at Milford-on-Sea, Mudeford, Seaford and Southwold:

Southwold is the Mecca of beach hut enthusiasts, the place of all places to go to, if you want to see a fine collection of beach huts, nearly all with witty names. 

Some beach huts are a bit larger. Here are some examples at Southwold again, and at Whitstable:

Some beach huts right down on the sand itself need protection from especially high tides. The usual way is to build them on a raised platform held up by stilts, as with these huts at Wells-next-the-Sea:

But at Frinton last July I saw a fresh variation. Huts built out from a low cliff, the traditional roofed part held aloft over the beach by stout stilts, and behind that (this was new to me) a long gated deck area, big enough to seat an entire family. From down on the beach, you couldn't see the decking. It just looked like a long line of ordinary beach huts, albeit ones supported by stout timbers:

But once up on the pathway behind those huts, you saw the decking. It turned these huts into something remarkable. And clearly there was some competition between huts owners to paint their huts in bright and imaginative ways. I wondered whether the local council had a say in which colours to use, or at least the standard of workmanship, because most of these huts and rear decks were immaculately finished. 

Here are the ones that especially caught my eye. Actually there were several more that I could have shot, but I didn't want to point LXV's lens at any hut if there was a family sunning themselves on the decking, while munching their chicken and salad. That would have been too intrusive.

At intervals there were concrete steps down to the beach.

The light blue hut above was named Jabba, which I thought rather clever. (Jabba the Hutt: get it?) 

I was surprised those pastel-coloured huts above weren't named Barbie and Ken, or Bubblegum. But no.

What would those 1930s nannies have made of it? After this, I went out onto the greensward proper, and rediscovered the Frinton I remembered from 1985, the hotel included. A few more shots to fade out with.