A visit to Avening church and cemetery
By: Andrew Smaje
Sunday 17th October 2004
Hi Steve
I've attached 4 pictures of that recent visit I paid to Micky's grave - a day
without much in the way of light, so my grainy b/w film tried hard, but
failed, to pick out textural contrasts.
The flowers which are sprouting as tall as the grave, are ox-eye daisies, I
think; and Micky had some lush mushrooms just coming through too.
For anyone who hasn't visited the grave (and the beautiful church where Micky
and Thelma were married), I guess you'd start to search for the gravestone of
such a remarkable visual artist to be amongst the 17th and 18th century
headstones, tombs and mausolea which dot in slants around the church, which
itself rises on an unlikely knoll - the graves fall away down the hill with
ramshackle randomness.
But no, Micky is buried alongside Pamela Brown, who died of course much
earlier than he; so they are both in a side section of much more modern
headstones and absolutely flat land.
This means that the Powell headstone stands out with eccentric vigour amongst
some fairly plain production-line tributes: hewn from rock and resembling the
kind of stone you'd expect to see above a cliff on storm-battered Foula -
Peter Manson: Gone Over.
Sorry to say I didn't have a colour film, to capture the only colour in the
place on that day: the tree by the church gate, with berries as red as those
red shoes.
This would be the third or fourth time I've paid a short trip from Bath to
Avening, and it's always very moving.
And for a place full of centuries of those passed away, very alive.
Andrew
Michael Powell
1905 - 1990
Film Director and Optimist
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Another Avening Grave
Looking much graver
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Other P&P trips
