Nottinghamshire 18 - Eastwood /Lady Chatterleys Lover and a talk from a school head/ leek and potato soup/The trial of Christine Keeler

---

"Your most important task is to be here and how and enjoy the present moment " Thich Nhat Hanh So today although we were thinking about our next holidays and a short trip out to Northumberland next weekend . That given it was time to enjoy today. This weekend we watched the final episode of the Trial of Christine Keeler and we were taken back to the 1960's. We remember the trial well. We remember the stink when the story hit the newspapers . The clothes that people wore. Young girls with hats, short mini skirts, Biba , Mary Quant and Twiggy, the men wearing flat caps or bowlers. Knitted waistcoats and umbrellas. We had been transformed back over 50 years ago and it felt just like yesterday. The world was changing.

That change was intense and today we were taken back yet again to the coal mining background at Eastwood of the young D. H Lawrence of Lady Chatterley fame. It is a Monday afternoon. I cannot remember why I know it was a Monday but it was . It was an afternoon , a sunny one at that . It was 3pm in the afternoon and I was sitting in a classroom at the top of the Science Block at school. I was sitting at a science bench alongside around 30 schoolgirls . Dr Lloyd was teaching . General Science . We were all disinterested . Looking down from the 3rd floor over the playing fields counting down the time until we could go home. Over the afternoon we had heard the school secretary calling out classes and asking them to go down to the Headmistresses office. Firstly the 6th formers then slowly over the afternoon each year were called down. We were taken to the room where the Headmistress standing in her black gown asked us to sit down. She had something to talk to us about . It was important and we could tell the gravity of the situation . She started by telling us that something important had happened and that we would probably hear about it . A book had been published which was deemed not fit for anyone to read . The book had been found in school . Someone had been found reading this piece of literature and we needed educating about it . We were told about the book and what it contained . Our headmistress , white haired and liberal explained to us about the 1960 obscenity trial that lead to the acquittal of Penguin Books for publishing DH Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover. We were not to hide from reading it but we needed to know the context and she was bound to tell us the story. At the age of 11 we all were fascinated with the story that was considered pornographic but had now been deemed a work of literature .

So what has that got to do with what we did today? We headed off to Eastwood to the childhood home of D H Lawrence. I had always wanted to go and today seemed as good a day as any. We parked up at the Morrison supermarket and as it was sleeting called in for a hot drink . It seemed a good place to park . None of this 2 hour parking . We could stay as long as we wanted . The house we were looking for was on an old street of terraced brick houses built for the miners of the area. The two up , two down home was the first of the Lawrence family’s homes. It had been built around 1850 for miners, the Lawrences lived here between 1883 and 1887. It was the first of their four Eastwood homes, and their fourth child David Herbert Richards Lawrence was born here on 11^th September 1885. The house contained the rooms used by the Lawrence family plus a small museum and shop.

We entered and paid our entrance fee and were given a self guided tour map of the building . Wee climbed the stairs and entered the parlour - the best room of the house. Rag rugs on the floor and a gently light coming down from the gas lights . A small grate was burning. Pictures were on the walls and comfy chairs placed around the room. The kitchen held a small table with a black lead grate . A comfortable room probably the heart of the building . It was easy to imagine the Lawrence sitting on the chairs or eating at the table . Upstairs were two rooms . Large beds and firegrates keeping the rooms warm. An attic completed the rooms that Lawrence lived in . It looked a comfy house . Some of the authors artifacts filled the small museum. His pocket watch, early editions of books he wrote . Watercolours he painted and a large trunk he carried his clothes in on his travels . Outside was a small yard with a washhouse . A dolly tub stood in the corner and the sound of water whoosing through the tub sounded around the washhouse. Carbolic soap lay near the sink . I sniffed it and it brought back memories of childhood. Blue bags lay in a dish by the sink.

Lawrence died in 1930 in Vence in France and was buried there . His body was exhumed and he was later cremated No one knows what happened to his remains .

An interesting day out one that finished with leek and potato soup at a local pub.

---