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CHRISTMAS BROCK BOOK OFFER!!

For the Christmas season, Fire-Raven Writing is offering The Fate of the Badger at the special price of 5 books for £10.00 including p&p: five books virtually for the price of one with no p&p.

We can also offer individual copies at £4.00 inclusive of p&p.

A great holiday gift, especially to wildlife and conservation groups as a way of spreading the word of the history and politics of UK government’s badger cull to members, as well as assisting in fund raising.
Selling at the cover price (£9.50) groups could feasibly make >£8 per copy or >£40 in all.

Please contact Richard Meyer (docrichardmeyer@gmail.com) or Pat Hayden (pat@teamopoly.com) for payment details.

Grab a Christmas gift bargain!
And wishing you a Prosperous and Happy Holiday Season!!

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These dark winter days

It is November afternoon, about half past four,
and the dark is beguilingly bright;
A long evening with no ‘fresh hell’ stretches ahead
and after that, let’s hope, a good good-night.
In the shortening hours when lowering light wanes
a weary brain can relinquish tension.
And God-fearing day with all its vicissitudes
exits the stage for a new dimension.

Vestiges of summer linger into October –
autumn or fall by another name.
December is always consumed by Christmas
lights tinsel baubles and the partying game.
Not content, even November, in commercial
hegemony, relinquishes spirit.
Embrace Mistress January (month of birth) –
and she, Clare says, ‘tells her tales by starts and fits’. 1

In childhood I would lament the sad old dying year
and never could celebrate the new.
Oh, go on then, fools!  Cheer and cheer on each which comes
and never mind the old which once you knew.
Crazily you celebrate the promise and fickleness
of each new lover’s eager grope.
Cast it off, throw it away, with the paper wrapping,
into a bin of discarded hope.

November, a time to reflect,
while resolute wildlife sees out the year as best it can.
Both sexes of Robins sing on, defending their space
from Nordic kin who come to Britain.
Soon, fleets of northern thrushes arrive,
to chatter and gossip over winter nutrition.
Come harder the winter, the farther they go,
matching energy spent with nourishment won.

In the deepening dusk, I leave my little shack and head home –
hoping for nourishment too.
Robins’ trills and chirrups come affectionately but
I know full well this is not their view.
A species so confiding, loved by man,
is merely declaiming stage and territory.
But still I hope it might find a true friend,
for wherever we are, there will be sanctuary.

© RM Meyer
The Highlands, January 2022

1 John Clare, The Shepherd’s Calendar

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A breakthrough – at long last

It may not be great news for anyone else but it’s great news for me, so please excuse me if I let you know about it.

I began my first [Easter] eco-adventure for grown-ups of all ages, say, 10-100, when my children were tiny little sprogs, and they’re now in their 40s – so that gives you some idea. I tried in vain for tens of years to get it published, even to find an agent after my last one retired [actually before he retired, he’d found celebrity authors and no longer really wanted an old naturalist with whom to bother]. But I never gave up; I so much believed in the story (based on fact in the Scillies). So alongside trying to place that title, I began a second (Summer, also based on a true story in the Lake District), and then a third (winter and back on the Scillies), making this my ‘accidental trilogy’ – working title ‘Omens and Havens’ (there have been many down the years but I think this is the best.

Now, a publisher has picked them up, not an agent (I’m still looking for one of those) and they’ll be published in 2024, I hope as a series rather than one great 270,000 word galumphing doorstop.

From being in the literary doldrums for so long, even though the new edition of my badger saga has done much better than we expected), I’ve now begun a sequel set up here in the Scottish Highlands, and already – let me see – 10,131 words into it.

We are just recovering from a fire which destroyed my shed with my lovely old easel and an antique oak chest which had been in my family all my life. The insurance company has taken an eternity to fulfil their obligations but I hope now it’s progressing, and that I can get on with drawings for the stories (which I very much want to do, and the publishers do too – I’m very cheap) and a painting commissioned by a collector in Gloucestershire. This I’ll be trying to do flat (a la Alfred Wallis) – a new technical challenge for me because I can’t see myself buying another studio easel, not now at my age. But writing and drawing I can manage fine.

It’s still glorious up here, near Skye, and we’ve heard the Cuckoo every day since May 27th, an amazing treat after so many silent years down south. One day I actually saw three: a pair and a rival male. Other notable birds: a Redstart and Garden warbler along with the usual summer migrants. A Pine marten visits regularly and badgers have followed me up here! The eagles have disappeared for the summer but should be back soon.

Wishing you all a great summer (if you’re in the northern hemisphere, and a fulfilling time wherever you are).

Richard

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High in Scotland

Scotland now has us under its thrall. Every day I go out to let the silence wash over me. A few yards up the lane and silence is lost to brawling falls streaming from the high moorland and forests.

This is an eternal sound; this is the sound that our pre-historic ancestors heard – no different.  There is little else that links us directly to the far past. These are the opening stanzas of a poem from 2019…

Beyond our ancestors and all of theirs,
There is one sound we hear with unchanged ears.
For every generation, in its way,
Hears that self-same primeval song today –
Over all the world’s uncountable years
And through all her wilderness areas.

This, an echo that even time ignores,
Belying, for me, many natural laws.
Constant. Changing in essence not a note
Nor resounding from any creature’s throat.
Had people time enough when work was through,
Who can tell, then, how it was listened to.

Wind – gale force to even the merest breeze,
Has long fingered forested canopies:
Woodwind! through flinty bush and bare branched tree
Plays the reeds which years change structurally.
Birch, pine, oak, maybe even unto Ent!
Each with vibrations made so different

If you’d like to read the remainder, it’s on my website http://www.fire-raven.co.uk/poetry.html under the title ‘Of all the sounds’.

News – Art

I’m currently without a studio, and the weather, beautiful though it is, is not for me encouraging to work outside – not the way I work. Additionally, I cannot amass any more works demanding storage, so, even though the marvellous Dr J has taken so many of my paintings, I still have stored or hanging on walls ~100 more – some to the distress of my family who do not appreciate the pinnacle of painting ambition – the human form. Odd this, we all have a body, yet so many people find it hard or embarrassing to look at. Have a look and judge for yourself here https://www.artfinder.com/artist/richard-meyer/ .

News – Wildlife

The friendly Weasel

A Weasel Mustela nivalis in a cattle grid seemed much more curious about these strange bipeds than scared, and a Buzzard Buteo buteo is as tame as a titmouse around our garden every day, over which an eagle often flies low.

Our friendly Buzzard


And we all know how phenomenal their eyesight is. I can only assume that fewer people means less disturbance, and I never hear a gun shot. Mind you, not far away I suppose are grouse moors and deer stalking. My search for the Scottish wildcat will have to wait for another time, and I do not expect, or want, it to be so friendly!

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I thought she was stolen

I could never remember getting her back from an exhibition at The Plough, and thought she’d been stolen. But she turned up in the vault of another gallery, slightly the worse for wear, mildewed and uncared for. Although I was of course pleased to see her again, there was a sliver of disappointment, not because of the mildew but because I thought that someone else had valued her enough to go to the trouble of stealing her. Is that the right seal of approval to seek? Probably not.

Anyway here she is, cleaned up a bit.



An (anonymous) Palestinian Protestor

The Palestinian lady whose name I regret I can’t remember made the journey from Palestine to England to north-west Scotland, and now resides in my kitchen, but she can be visited here. Maybe someone will buy her, rather than steal her. This is a detail…

At last, I feel I can begin writing again, and this is the first brief poem after arriving:

Eagles and orchids

They said, oh no, you’ll find it far too cold
And there are midges, midges everywhere.
Then they said, you’ll find it too far away.
Anyway, don’t you think you’re far too old?
So be sensible and don’t go up there.
But today after two weeks and a day…

The weather is pure Andalucian
And look! There! Eagles circling high above
The kind mountain monsters surrounding us
While pale orchids garland-down the garden
Swallows circle about a Collared dove
And gossip, gossip round our Highland house.

© RM Meyer
Ross-shire July 20th 2021

I don’t think anyone who reads it will recognise themselves, at least I hope not..

With all good wishes,
Richard

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Half price or worse (part 2)

Our move to near Skye in the Scottish Highlands should happen at the end of June – and what a fine time to move north.

My last screed announcing a sale of paintings, some of which date back to the 1980s, if not the 1970s, resulted in quite a few sales; and I hope the people who bought them are pleased now that they are hung in their house. Here is one such, courtesy of Léa Bourguignon.

Sweetpeas in a blue jug with lemons. Oil on canvas 50x40cms

However, I’m still left with a remarkable amount, and since I’ d prefer some went to a good home rather than lugged to the north of Scotland, or worse, I’ve decided to have another ‘Sale’. So here’s a chance to get a painting at a greatly reduced price – before I fulfil my ex-agent’s advice to die if I want my paintings to sell at ‘proper’ prices (thanks Celia!).

Until then all available paintings are here on Artfinder so please have a look.

I may not have time to write again from Devon but I sincerely hope to keep in touch with friends and clients when settled in Scotland. I hope to get back my appetite for painting, especially since I have over £300’s worth of paint, which must also go north. It’s been an anxious and incredibly busy and worrying two years, and my writing has suffered too during the trauma of building, selling and buying houses, so alongside the more cerebral stuff I’m hoping to begin my involvement in Wildcat conservation, and hope that being surrounded by such dramatic scenery and new wildlife, I’ll find lots of inspiration.

With good wishes to all.

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Half price or a jolly bonfire?

We are leaving my birth county of Devon and going almost as far away as possible on mainland Britain, to the Scottish Highlands. 

It’s been brewing a while and after ten years here the time seems right.  Before entering true dotage I’d like to re-engage with my beloved Scottish wildcat Felis sylvestris and do what I can to help its terrible plight – one of the world’s rarest carnivores. This is Britain’s elusive tiger but very few people know about it; even fewer ever see it.

Anyway, the MOVE! My ranks of unsold paintings are viewed with dismay, and when we told the removal man there were about 180 he went away, chatted with a colleague, came back and trying hard but unsuccessfully not to snigger raised the price of our trip by a £1k!  So, I have to face the inevitable, and though I relish non-commerciality (as appraised by most unimaginative galleries), my stock of paintings is I guess far too much. 

Paintings on death row (or out on probation possibly)

All are oil, either on canvas or wood panels. Some have been through earlier moves and all are tough battle-hardened characters – up for anything – but I’d so rather not sacrifice them to some funeral pyre.

OK, so be it, therefore here is my alternative to a grand bonfire: all paintings at half price or more (if you really want one). Please go to my Artfinder site https://www.artfinder.com/artist/richard-meyer/#/. You might see something you’d like: any reasonable offer accepted!

Paul Jackson – the fine potter – tells me that to lower the prices undervalues my work.

Maybe, but I’m in no position to be precious!

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    Elegy to a giant

    Elegy to a giant

    A great silent giant was felled this year
    And no-one much seemed to shed a tear.
    The great mother beech, there since the war,
    Has had all its days and is no more.
    I counted the rings, as old as me.
    But unlike me, good for a century.
    It took a day, maybe a bit more:
    Just two cheerful blokes with a chainsaw.

    They did the unnecessary deed
    While agreeing there was no need.
    I think all their jokes were just cover.
    They knew the job, and would have spared her;
    So they claimed, yay, so they claimed, but who’s
    To know if they care what they lose?
    They will never see the autumn gold
    And will never hear the tales it told.

    Tough funny guys with all their gear;
    They gather it up and disappear.
    Strangely, the owners disappeared too –
    Best not to watch when bombs drop near you.
    The excuse they proffered – was there one? –
    It cast some shade and cost them the sun.
    But then they erect a canopy
    Is that really better than a tree?

    A tree that’s stood for seventy years
    Seeing children’s dens and children’s tears
    Providing sustenance and shelter,
    Nests, resting and food for all manner
    Of animals with or without flight
    Then there’s ferns, lichens and bryophytes
    All these denied for a whim of one
    Father who feels deprived of some sun.

    A tiny part of the year maybe,
    For a nature-loving family.
    Or so the mother once claimed to me
    So she claimed, yay, so she claimed to be.
    People love nature on the TV
    But better let it not directly
    Get in their way or then you will see
    A ruthless disdain for wild beauty.

    © RM Meyer
    Winswell Water, January 2021

    Before
    After
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    Two paintings gone

    I was aghast not that long ago to find I have about 180 unsold paintings! So, in an attempt to save some storage space (not having a kindly brother, called Theo, to whom I can send them), I decided to have a bit of a Sale. The prices are as low as I can make them without destroying the value of the work – I must remain faithful to past buyers. So all are now on Artfinder – please have a browse sometime.

    One thing that fascinates me is that most of my paintings sold recently have gone to the States. I wonder why?

    Regarding undervaluing one’s own work, I would rather give a painting away to a good home than sell it to a poor one. All said and done, it’s more about art than money, isn’t it? But one has to live I suppose.

    One collector when offered a painting at a lower price (my appreciation of her loyalty) said, “No, this is our way of contributing to art, if we can’t do it ourselves.” I remain impressed by this statement and have never forgotten it. If you’re reading this, you know who you are!

    These are the two paintings, I’ll leave you to guess which went stateside and which to Surrey.

    Left: Amanda in the meadow, before it was cut; Right: In the woods (Blue woodscape #1)
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    A poem for lockdown

    Where you are not
    I
    Where you are not is where you want to be.
    When you are there do you think ‘Somewhere new’?
    Why do we move? Some notion to be free?
    Or to some place else for a better view?
    II
    Today I find freedom in a locked room
    But yesterday I moved on anxiously.
    Now I find the near view to be the moon
    And see the old wall microscopically.

    Look deep! A detailed vista lies within
    Another new mysterious landscape
    Awaits and by scale alone is hidden;
    But square it up and make the detail great.
    III
    The miniature expands in essence
    Overlooking far and wide distance.
    Study hard the tiny inflorescence
    And jewel-like crustose lichens will entrance.

    Fruticose ones, emerald mosses creep through
    Crumbled joints of mortar into chasms
    Inch miles deep, and astonish the narrow view.
    Stay put, look hard and behold new prisms.
    IV
    Let’s lock ourselves down and swap our places,
    We might be settled, even happier.
    Forsake streams of cars in endless races
    Going to some new place where once we were.

    © RM Meyer
    Winswell Water December 2020