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Five years ago I found myself in The Bull's Head in Craswall, on the Welsh Borders in Herefordshire. I was very taken by these two pictures on the wall of one of the rooms, snapping them in passing. Two years ago I found myself there again, but the pub had changed hands and the pictures had gone. On asking about them I was met by blank stares, but that happens increasingly these days.
Today they suddenly came to my attention again as I searched for something else. And I find I like them even more. Both were in beautiful black frames that looked late Victorian, but the paintings I imagine are later. Closer inspection revealed them to have been very neatly signed in red paint by an NWJ Smith. But I can find out nothing about the artist, not even if it's a woman or man. Can anybody out there help?
John Turner looked more carefully at the signature than I did, and saw that it is indeed 'Smyth' not 'Smith'. So that helped enormously, and he found Norman Smyth on the intraweb, an Irish painter who, it seems, is still at it. Thankyou John for your diligence.
So, there I was, roaming disconsolately around 'History Live!' the new wizzy and slightly queasy name for English Heritage's Festival of History at Kelmarsh. Why do they do this? It's like the English Tourist Board now being 'Enjoy England'. Yes, I will, thankyou. Anyway, I wandered about under the lowering skies, looking at Roman soldiers on their iPhones, chatting up WWII nurses doing each other's hair and generally feeling glum at the lack of light for my pictures when 'lo!', I walked into the beer tent and saw this on the bar. Now I don't normally drink the fruit of the apple, but how could I resist this? Quite apart from my well known penchant (in certain select quarters at least) for white on red polka dots, I just loved the design. It took me a while to get to the small print, but '100% cider apples' and 'Herefordshire' did it for me too. So what's it like? Let's put it like this. Come Christmas I want a reasonable quantity stowed in the cellars of Ashley Towers. As it says on the label: 'Well rounded, medium, still.' Thankyou to Celtic Marches who made it and designed the label- just for me it would appear.
