Slow down, you move too fast

click photo to enlarge
It is said that the genesis of the Slow Movement was the journalist, Carlo Petrini's protest against the opening of a McDonald's café (they are not restaurants whatever the company may think) near the Spanish Steps, Rome, in 1986. I recall reading about this in the press at the time. What I didn't know is that it led to the Slow Food Movement that sought to promote the virtues of locally-sourced produce, cooked traditionally and eaten socially, over the ubiquitous fast-food chains with their industrialised, homogenised products. Out of the central belief that people and societies need to slow down and give more time to preparing and eating better food came the the idea that the application of "slowness" to other areas of life would be very beneficial. Guttorm Fløistad wrote a useful summation of the idea underpinning Slow: "The only thing for certain is that everything changes. The rate of change increases. If you want to hang on you better speed up. That is the message of today. It could however be useful to remind everyone that our basic needs never change. The need to be seen and appreciated! It is the need to belong. The need for nearness and care, and for a little love! This is given only through slowness in human relations. In order to master changes, we have to recover slowness, reflection and togetherness. There we will find real renewal."

Over the years I became aware of the Slow Movement and how it was being applied to areas such as travel, design, fashion and architecture. It influenced me in my decision to forgo the acquisition of a smartphone and is part of the reason that I don't "do" social media. However, more recently it was the publicity in 2008 surrounding the publication of Carl Honoré's book, "Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture Of Hyper-Parenting", that brought Slow to the forefront of my mind. I recognised, through my involvement in education, the way in which many children were being shepherded, directed and cosseted virtually every waking hour, how they had little time that they organised and directed for themselves, and how parents felt failures if they didn't provide a wide range of weekend and after-school activities for their offspring. This kind of parenting remains all too common today with the result that young children, who should be exploring and enjoying what the world offers at their own pace, are subjected to the intense lifestyle and pressures that adults suffer.

I don't know where the adult and child in the photograph were going or what they were doing but they appeared to be in a hurry. Perhaps they had a bus to catch. However, the way they were purposefully striding out, eyes seemingly set on some future event, caused me to reflect on the Slow Movement and how we would all benefit if its precepts were more widely adopted.

Incidentally the stone-built Georgian houses in this corner of Stamford, Lincolnshire, have stood up well to what the past couple of hundred years have thrown at them. They were built on sound principles with an eye to the future and will doubtless grace the town for a few more centuries yet.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 25.9mm (70mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation:  -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Old walls

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Old walls seem so much more appealing than new ones: I've photographed and posted a few recently. I don't think that's simply a natural proclivity: growing up in the Yorkshire Dales exposed me to many fine old walls early in life, and may be responsible for my predilection. When I think about what draws me to them it's surely the interesting textures and materials, the random elements, the greater variety of colours, and the sense that an aged wall has seen and been through a lot, that is at the heart of their attraction.

This part of the Marriott Warehouse on the east side of South Quay, King's Lynn, Norfolk, is a good example of such a wall. It shows the north end of the ground floor of the river-facing elevation of the old warehouse. The lower wall with the large pieces of ashlar dates from the early 1300s when it was first built, perhaps for the Hanseatic League, as a single storey structure. At that time its walls were probably wholly made of stone. It was extended upwards in brick in the 1400s and 1500s. In the 1700s the building was extensively re-modelled with new doors and segmental arched windows (like the one shown) inserted. Further modifications kept the building usable in the 1800s and 1900s. The iron tie-beam, an "S" shaped end of which can be seen in the photograph, probably dates from the Georgian or Victorian period, and the unpainted wood window must date from a restoration around the turn of the Millennium.

This piece of wall appealed to me for the attractive mix of elements, the diversity of the bricks from many ages, the poorly laid courses above the window, and the way it seemed to summarise the trials and tribulations of the building down the centuries. I placed the window on the left of the frame and was grateful for the visual weight of the tie-beam end on the right.

Incidentally, for those who are interested in such things, Marriott's Warehouse is one of the 18,000 Grade II* structures in England and Wales. More details about what that means here.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 53mm (106mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Roofs, walls and windows

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A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days cycling around Rutland, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. I was looking at church architecture, travelling from village to village on quiet country roads. That corner of England has many stone-built churches and houses, and the wonderful architectural legacy that they represent is the product of local builders and architects, and of the quarrymen of Barnack, Collyweston and Ancaster.

The churches date from the 1100s to the present day, but most of the houses go back no further than 1600. Cycling through a village one notices how the style of these buildings changes over the centuries, moving from "mud and stud", to rubble walls, cut stone, and locally made brick. There is a fair sprinkling of thatched roofs, many of split stone tiles, orange clay pantiles, and from the nineteenth century onwards, Welsh slate. Humble homes have low-ceilinged rooms, rough stone and mortar walls, small windows, and dormers poking up through the roof. Grander buildings use cut stone (ashlar), have columned and pedimented doorways, tall windows, string courses and carved classical ornament. The history of the development of the settlements can be read through their architecture. However, one development that was slightly depressing was the number of "cod-old" (sorry "traditional") buildings that were being erected. These were traditional only in the sense that they borrowed the details of the original houses and stuck them on a twenty first century frame. One large house I saw under construction was made of concrete blocks, steel girders and timber, but a veneer of thin stone slabs, stone mullioned and transomed windows, and a cornice was being carefully applied to the outside by a "builder of traditional homes". No doubt the columned doorway was stored somewhere, ready to complete the transformation. I'd much rather have seen modern, imaginative buildings of today, that respect their context being built, structures that add to the story of the village rather than plunder and mock it as these sham-old properties do.

Today's photograph shows part of a street in Stamford, Lincolnshire. I liked the way that the buildings clearly show the styles and incremental additions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the variety of materials and the pleasant jumble of the roofs, walls and windows.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 51mm macro (102mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On