A Visit to the Statue

I’m just back from a trip to England – my first in a few years, since before pandemic, and the loss of my husband last year.  Being  in England again gave me a stunning feeling of recognition, of being reconnected to places and things I love dearly, and that bring joy.  My son Paul and I spent two weeks in a thrilled state, reminiscent of what Helene Hanff, author of 84 Charing Cross Road felt when she first visited the England she’d loved all her life, and on all her future trips thereafter.  Of course there were some glitches, such as a railroad strike that made for some trying logistics, and the state of my athritic knees, which are not what they were five years ago. They protested at walking for miles each day in city and country, but we more than managed, and the trip was a real reaffirmation of life.

High points included several days in Cambridge with friends who live there, and a walk to Grantchester, along the Cam (yes, near where the series is partially filmed). There we sat under the apple trees in The Orchard, in a tea garden where literary figures such as Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, and Rupert Brooke once held forth (and Brooke wrote the lines “Stands the church clock still at three/And is there honey still for tea?”). I’d always wanted to take my son there, and so this was achieved. Then we saw some plays in London – the best, “Underdog, the Other Other Bronte” by Sarah Gordon, was a brilliantly original interpretation of the lives of the Bronte sisters, treating of women’s ambition and sisterly rivalry. We did not neglect the beauteous English countryside in May, with several days in the Lake District, spent at Grasmere, where Wordsworth lived and is buried; we visited Rydal Mount, where he had his later home, and also  the beautiful house of John Ruskin, the art critic.

With son Paul at Grantchester

At Chawton House Library, Diana with Ron Dunning

But what I most want to tell you about in this post is our visit to Chawton. I’ve been there several times before, but it was my son’s first visit, and we were taken by a kind and distinguished old friend, Ron Dunning, who has the distinction of being  triple great-grandson to Jane Austen’s brother Frank (the admiral). It was a cloudy day but Chawton was still beautiful, and quite quiet, a little early in the season for a great many tourists. It felt like we had the place almost to ourselves, and we visited both the museum cottage and the Great House, and walked in the gardens. There we saw the tributes  in the Rose Garden donated by various JASNA regions and individuals, and I was glad to see the JASNA Southwest one, with a quote on it that I helped select, about how Catherine Morland’s loving a hyacinth might lead to her learning to love a rose!

With JASNA-Southwest’s Austen tribute in the Rose Garden at Chawton

Ron Dunning examining an exhibit of his ancestor Francis Austen’s writing

And then we came upon the new statue of Jane Austen, by sculptor Adam Roud, which was placed at St. Nicholas Church in 2018. I had seen pictures of it, but the physical sight of this beautiful statue was actually a revelation.  It was smaller and more delicate than I had thought, and not only succeeded in not ruffling my imaginings of what she may have looked like, but it really seemed to capture something of her spirit, and made you able to see her in that place, in her own time, near the church where she worshiped, as she looks out thoughtfully, meditatively, at the fields opposite.

It was a lovely moment, only slightly marred by the tribute of a pigeon atop our revered genius’s head.  My friend Ron Dunning, nothing if not gallant, and of a great height capable of performing the office, gently reached over and tactfully valeted Miss Austen with a pocket handkerchief!  It was a moment of love and respect, and I felt it was appreciated.

Hawthorne