Mushroom Town

Oliver Onions

Description

English artist and author George Oliver Onions is credited as one of the most important figures in the development of the psychological thriller. In the classic novel Mushroom Town, Onions puts his keen eye for detail to work in a loving portrait of a fictionalized village in Wales.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775457619
• Langue: English

Extrait

MUSHROOM TOWN
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OLIVER ONIONS
 
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Mushroom Town First published in 1914 ISBN 978-1-77545-761-9 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Dedication The Invitation PART ONE I - The Year Dot II - Its Nonage III - The Minder IV - "Dim Saesneg" V - The Hafod Unos VI - The Foot in the Door VII - The Member VIII - Thelema PART TWO I - Railhead II - The Clerk of the Works III - The Curtain Raiser IV - Ynys PART THREE I - The Holiday Camp II - The Giant's Stride III - The Blank Cheque IV - Pawb PART FOUR I - The Blind Eye II - June III - Delyn IV - An Ordinary Young Man V - The Dwelling of a Night VI - The Glyn PART FIVE I - The Wheel II - Adieu Endnotes
Dedication
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In the following pages I have permitted myself to take a number ofliberties—geographical, historical, etymological, and evengeological—with a country for which I have conceived a strongaffection; I trust I have taken none with its beauty nor with itshospitality. It will be useless to search for Llanyglo on any map. It isneither in North Carnarvonshire, in Merioneth, nor in Lleyn. Of certainfeatures of existing places I have made a composite, which is the "MUSHROOM TOWN" of this book.
The kindnesses I have received in Wales during the past six years havebeen innumerable; indeed, much of my work has consisted of writing down(and not always improving) things told me by one of my hosts. For thisand other reasons I should like to render him such acknowledgment as aDedication may express. "MUSHROOM TOWN" is therefore inscribed, ingratitude and affection, to
ARTHUR ASHLEY RUCK
Hampstead , 1914
The Invitation
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"We'll take the little cable-tram, if you like, but it's not far towalk—twenty minutes or so—the Trwyn's seven hundred feet high. You'llsee the whole of the town from the top. The sun will have made the grassa little slippery, but there are paths everywhere; the sheep began them,and then the visitors wore them bare. And we shall get the breeze....
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"There you are: Llanyglo. You see it from up here almost as the gullsand razorbills see it. The bay's a fine curve, isn't it?—rather like astrongly blown kite-string; and the Promenade's nearly two miles long.But as you see, the town doesn't go very far back. From the Imperialthere to the railway station and the gasometers at the back isn't muchmore than half a mile; the town seems to press down to the front just asthe horses draw the bathing-vans down to the tide. Shall we sit down?Here's a boulder. It's chipped all over with initials, of course; so arethe benches, and even the turf; but you'd wonder that there was a bit ofwood or stone or turf left at all if you saw the crowds that come herewhen the Wakes are on. It's odd that you should never see anybodyactually cutting them. Some of them must have taken an hour or two witha hammer and chisel, but I've been up here countless times and neverseen anybody at it yet.
"Yes, that's Llanyglo; but look at the mountains first. This isn't thebest time of the day for seeing them; the morning or the evening's thebest time; the sun isn't far enough round yet. But sometimes, when thelight's just right, they start out into folds and wrinkles almost asquickly as you could snap your fingers—it's quite dramatic. Foels andMoels and Pens and Mynedds, look—half the North Cambrian Range. Youcouldn't have a better centre for motor-cycle and char-à-banc tours thanLlanyglo.... Then on the other side's the sea. That's only a tinny sortof glitter just now, but you should see the moon rise over it. Peoplecome out from the concerts on the pier-head just to have a look....
"The Pier looks tiny from up here? Yes, but it's three furlongs long forall that, and those two tart-tin-looking things at the end hold nearly athousand people apiece. But, as you say, it is rather like one of thosechildren's toy railways they sell on the stalls in Gardd Street forsixpence-halfpenny. And that always strikes me as rather a curious thingabout Llanyglo. It's a big place now—nine thousand winter population;but somehow it has a smaller look than it had when it was just a scoreof cottages, all put together not much bigger than the Kursaal Gardensthere. I don't know why the cottages should have seemed more in scalewith the mountains than all this, but they did. I suppose it was becausethey didn't set up for anything, like the Kursaal and the Majestic andthe Imperial.... But it doesn't do to tell the Llanyglo folk that. Theylook at it in quite another way. To them the sea and the mountains areso many adjuncts, something they can turn into money by dipping peopleat sixpence a time and motoring them round at four-and-sixpence thetour.... And sometimes you can't help thinking that it wouldn't takevery much (a wind a bit stronger than usual or an extra heave of thesea, say) and all these hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of stoneand iron and paint and gilding would just disappear—be sponged out likethe castles and hoof-marks on the sands when the tide comes in—or likea made-up face when you wipe the carmine and pencilling from it....Eh?—No, I'm not saying they've spoiled the place—nor yet that theyhaven't. You mustn't come here if you want a couple of miles of beach toyourself. It all depends how you look at it. If Llanyglo's cheapjack inone way, perhaps it isn't in another. It's merely that I remember it asit used to be....
"Would it surprise you to learn that the whole place is only aboutthirty years old? That's all. It grew like a mushroom; there are peoplewho were born here who don't know their way about their own town....Mostly Welsh? Oh dear no, not by any means. I should say abouthalf-and-half. I suppose you're thinking of the Welsh names of thestreets? They don't mean very much. There's Gardd Street, for instance;'gardd' is only the Welsh for 'garden,' and Edward Garden, John WillieGarden's father, built the greater part of it (for that matter, he builtthe greater part of Llanyglo). And if anybody called Wood (say) had putup a house here, he'd probably have called it 'Ty Coed.' And some of it,of course, is genuine Welsh. The Porth Neigr Road does go to PorthNeigr, and Sarn, over there, has always been Sarn. But people thinkthey're getting better value for their money if they come away for afortnight and see foreign names everywhere; they've a travelled sort offeeling; so they give the streets these names, and print all theplacards in two columns, with 'Rhybudd' on one side and 'Notice' on theother.
"And that's given rise to one rather amusing little mistake. As youknow, this headland that we're on is called the Trwyn, and 'trwyn'simply means a nose or a promontory. But over past the Lighthousethere, there are the remains of an old Dinas, a British camp, andhalf these Lancashire trippers think the headland's called afterthat—'t'ruin'—'th' ruin'—you know how they talk....
"I'm interested in the place for several reasons (not money ones, I'msorry to say). For one thing, I like to watch the Welsh and Lancashirefolk together; that's been very amusing. And then, it's not often youget the chance of seeing a whole development quite so conciselyepitomised as we've had it here. Llanyglo started from practicallynothing, and it's grown to this before John Willie Garden has a singlegrey hair on his head (though, to be sure, that cowslip colour doesn'tshow grey very much). Then there's that curious essence—I don't knowwhat you call it—the thing a town would still keep even though youcleared every brick away and built it all over again, and sent everyinhabitant packing and re-peopled it. There's a field for speculationthere, too, though perhaps not a very profitable one. But most of allI've been interested in seeing what various sets of people have givenLlanyglo, and what it's given to them in return—how the stones and thepeople have taken colour from one another, if you understand me, andwhat colour—in fact (if it doesn't sound a little pompous) in Llanygloas an expression of the life of our time. It's sometimes hard to believethat something almost human hasn't got into its stone and paint andmortar. The whole place, as it's spread out down there now—two-mileline of front, houses, hotels, railway, gasometers and all—has hadalmost a personal birth, and adolescence, and growing-pains, and sownits wild oats, and has its things that it tells and its things that itdoesn't tell, in an extraordinary way—or else, as I say, it seemsextraordinary, because you get it all into a single focus. There mayeven be a bit of me in Llanyglo. If you came half a dozen times there'dbe a bit of you too.
"I should like you to meet John Willie Garden. He's the man to go to ifyou want to know anything about these streets and hotels and the seasideand the stations on the front. Why not come to the Kursaal, on theTerrace, at about nine to-night?—Good. He's a capital chap; a Somethingor other on the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, adopted ConservativeFree Trade candidate for his division (but a Protectionist in othercountries) and probably worth a quarter of a million, a good deal of itout of Llanyglo. Not bad for a little turned forty, eh? He'll probablyask you to dinner. You can't see his house from here; it stands backfrom Gardd Street. It was the first house to go up in Llanyglo—no, I'mforgetting. There was one before it—just one before it, not countingthe original cottages, of course....
"What do you say to a turn? We've time to have a look at the Dina