Carlisle's Talk of the Town

Pete, Nicola, Lola and Nell love to travel but stay off planes to keep their carbon footprint down. Here's how they satisfy their passion for travel

Best way of getting to know a place besides walking it? Reading it. And so in Carlisle I've come across Jacob Polley's new book – Talk of the Town. He's better known as a poet and this is his first novel but it is hauntingly good. Good enough to win a Man Booker. I like the way he used to work in Waterstones in Carlisle and plenty of the current shop assistants remember him well.

No point giving away the story - a 13 year old boy's confusion about everything - but I can't shake off the need to see if the huge statue of Queen Victoria in Bitt's Park really does have an unnecessary bit of anatomy!
Just shows how easy it is to be susceptible to rumours whatever age you are. See Jacob talk about his book on You Tube here.

Best museum ever

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

“Excuse me, this is the best museum I’ve ever been to,” said Lola very sweetly to the man on the desk at Tullie House in Carlisle. He beamed and then helped supply the date that Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed at M&S – 1745 – to key in and enable Lola to lift the sword out of the stone on the first floor galleries. Later on we looked for the plaque and were amused to see that Butcher Cumberland had also stayed there, a year later.

At Tullie House www.tulliehouse.co.uk the kids got in free (they were even given a free gift and a sticker when we arrived), the collection is fantastic and brings the area to life. When we left we’d tried out a Roman saddle (they may have worked out how to build roads but they didn’t know how to do stirrups, tsk, tsk); fired a Roman stone shot; found out a lot more about the horrors of living in the Marches (ie, the Borders) during the time of the Reivers from a specially made film; seen a leather post bag hooked on to a train; climbed through a Roman mine and eyeballed various stuffed animals that are distinctive to the uplands and dales of this gorgeous area. And the children got a free gift when they arrived. You must go if you are ever in Carlisle – and don’t forget to look at the Cursing Stone (which I’ve written about before) and have now gone back and eyeballed for the second time. Carlisle is so interesting I feel that I could spend a lot more time there, though I’m sure part of that is pure nostalgia from having a VSO boss who came from somewhere around there. Nell had insisted we went back because she wanted to see the guns at Carlisle Castle and during our second walk around it we ended up in the local militia museum getting a much more English view of the Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie problems (Catholic absolutists according to one of the curators, a Revier named Forster with an r). I still can’t believe that back in June I’d never heard of the troublesome Reivers.

Power of words

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

Even in this site – a gloomy underpass between town and castle the polished granite rock commands attention. As you draw closer the 14 tonne rock seems to grow in height and girth. Every sentence – and there are many carved carefully on to this vast stone – radiates furious power. As it is intended to do. For this is the final solution from the Bishop of Glasgow, Gavin Dunbar, in a bid to control the troublesome Border Reivers forever.

“…I curse them gangand (going) , and I curse them rydand (riding); I curse thaim standand, and I curse thaim sittand; I curse them etand, I curse thaim drankand; I curse them walkand, I curse thaim sleepand; I curse thaim rysand, I curse thaim lyand; I curse thaim at hame, I curse thaim fra hame; I curse thaim within the house, I curse thaim without the house; I curse tahir wiffis, thair barnis, and thair servandis paticipand with thaim in thair deides...”

This spectacularly violent cursing – and this midway within another 900 more explicit sentences – ensures that the Reivers have nowhere to escape God’s fury. Not even the dunny.

When the Bishop wrote out his curse to stop the Reivers more than 500 years ago everyone felt the fear, the word “reiver” is created from “bereaved” because that’s how the Reivers left anyone not in their anarchic group or those who dared to leave it. At the time everyone knew which trouble makers living on the English/Scottish borders deserved to quiver.

And we do now too because the stone mason/artist, Gordon Young (born in Carlisle and the bearer of a Reiver name) has carved the names of the families into the underpass, in larger and smaller letters and fonts. Here you can find Armstrong, Graham, Noble, Robson, Watson, Young and many others (100 or so) a mix of opportunistic, violent Border families – English and Scots – who ruled the area by fear. As a result Carlisle Castle has a record of being the most attacked of all Britain’s castles – there are still soldiers there. The Bishop issued his curse in 1525 but the area had been famously ungovernable for centuries, which is why the Romans built a huge stone defence across the north of England, Hadrian’s Wall 2000 years ago.

Those names on the paving stones are still owned by many local families. You may well recognise them as your best friends, the school bully, your boss, builders, brewers, media magnets (Dacre, Maxwell), politicians … everyone. The names, the history, the power of memory this evokes is quite astonishing – more gift than curse for the underpass visitor.