At the Bay
Katherine Mansfield

I enjoyed reading this story, Katherine Mansfield captures the feeling of summer freedom so beautifully. The story is full of well observed details, from the encounter between Florrie the cat and the sheep dog to the inhabitants of the bay and their daily rituals to the physical nature of the place. I love the description of Lottie getting over the stile, I felt I was a secret observer, and you can just picture the 'exhausted-looking bathing-dresses and the rough striped towels' hanging over the veranda drying. She concentrates on individuals with the exception of the Samuel Josephs, but they are treated as a single organism working together, or possibly against each other. I was curious about the absence of Mrs Trout, there is no mention of her at all. All the children have individual characters and are given the same weight in the story as the adults.

As others have already commented, the story seems to be dealing with freedom or the perception of freedom. Freedom of childhood, of youth, widowhood and age. It is the parents who seem to have a raw deal, as they are aware that the freedom they are experiencing is short lived. Linda relaxed, for a short time alone in the garden escaping from the dread of having children. Jonathan Trout escaping for two weeks from the dreary office job, however his freedom continues because he can dream and plan for his great escape. Stanley caught in his own insecurities and Beryl waiting for life to begin. Short lived freedom can be very unsettling. All this is set against the daily changes in the landscape around them, the tide comes in and goes out, the sun rises and falls, how insignificant we really are. Is it about having the freedom to find our individual place in the natural world, or was she trying to capture a time from her past?From Kates posting it would appear that the story was special too her.

I must admit that I didn't feel the darkness of the story, but as I read I was waiting for something to happen.

It is a story that with live with me.

As a post script you may be interested to know that Persephone Books have just published a new edition of Katherine Mansfields Journal which includes a reprint of Virginia Woolf's 1927 review.

FireWorks

November 3rd and the house is surrounded by bangs, wizzes, shooshes and cracklings as people enjoy fireworks. Luckily Trixi is not too bothered by the bangs although she gets a bit spooked if she notices the lights. On our walk tonight I noticed that the sheep in the field we walk past were all on their feet and bunched together. They seemed to feel apprehensive about the loud and unusual noises.

I remember as a child being mesmerised by the Catherine wheels and roman candles, far tamer than the fireworks of today, they produced arks and fountains of coloured sparks. I used to try drawing them, one way I had was too cover a piece of paper in different coloured wax crayoning and then cover the whole piece in thick black paint. Once this was dry you could scrape off the black paint to reveal the colours underneath, like a scraper board. I never felt my efforts were satisfactory. I remember going to the village bonfire and having hot dogs and being well wrapped up. Communal bonfires seemed to be more popular, and we rarely had fireworks at home, although we were allowed sparklers. You could use them to write your name against the black sky.

At eleven I went away to boarding school, and we always had a big fire and spectacular fire works. Mr Ilife (froggy) the music teacher was always in charge of the fireworks. Baked potatoes wrapped in silver foil were cooked in the embers of the fire, one for everybody. It was always a good night, and I remember being in tears at the end of the night during my last year because it was the last firework night. It was the culmination of a fortnight of high excitement at school, which included the return to school from the half term break, and then we always had a Halloween party which was fancy dress followed by the fireworks on the Saturday nearest the 5th, a good start to the run up to Christmas. For Halloween the first year girls were given the job of hollowing out turnips, no pumpkins in those days, this task was done in the girls changing rooms and the smell of turnip lingered for weeks afterwards.

Since school I haven’t had much to do with fireworks, my last dog used to get terrified of any loud noises and since fireworks started to go off from the middle of October and continue well into November taking her for walks was a bit of a nightmare and I used to feel very stressed. In recent years though the letting off of fireworks appears to be concentrated to the weekend around the fifth.