 Most of my writing energy these days is devoted to completing a good enough first draft of The Green Table by September, but I was amused by this whimsical cat flap. It’s built into the back gate of Number 8 Cavendish Cottages in Wirksworth, enabling someone’s cat to pop out from its back yard, through a Proscenium Arch into the auditorium of Old Lane Car Park. I haven’t yet encountered the cat, but I’m sure I’d enjoy meeting the owners.
Naturally it made me think of performing cats, other than Lloyd Webber’s, and I recall one afternoon in Chester Gateway Theatre watching ‘Sun King to Swan Queen’ by the touring company, Ballet For All. (What a great company that was – an off-shoot of The Royal Ballet, designed by Peter Brinson to bring ballet to small theatres out in the sticks). Just as the ballerina was performing a solo from Swan Lake, a small black cat wandered on from the wings, and wove its way nonchalantly around her legs. From then on, we were all riveted to the cat. A flicker of amusement crossed the dancer’s face, and she valiantly made it to the end of the dance. We’re led to believe that cats aren’t trainable, so a career in the theatre is out. However, a little research led me to this intriguing story in the New York Times about the Moscow Cat Theatre, and its owner, Yuri Kuklachev. ‘The idea of performing cats came to Mr. Kuklachev in 1971, he said, when he found a stray begging for food by performing on its hind legs and doing somersaults for onlookers. Mr. Kuklachev, the son of a truck driver and a factory worker, had attended clown school. He realized he and the cat might be able to do something together. He named her Strelka, and soon she was performing with him at the Moscow State Circus. "Cats are like actors," Mr. Kuklachev said. "They do what they want. Sometimes a cat doesn't want one trick, so he does another." I can’t imagine cats being relaxed about plane travel, nor a theatre full of cat houses and compliant cats – never mind the cat show itself. And the cats perform for love, not food. The world of theatre is full of the bizarre – much material for fiction here.
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 If you leave the High Peak Trail at Middleton-by-Wirksworth, just beyond the start of the steep incline up to the engine house at Middleton Top, the path winds down through banks of wild garlic, and pink Campion, to a disused coal yard. It descends by wooden steps to a long low dwelling surrounded by tumble down barns and the debris of old machinery, and beyond that to an expanse of wilderness that must once have been the gardens of the building.
The boggy land has grown wild, raspberry canes lost amongst Rosebay Willowherb, Horsetail ferns – thickets of Blackthorn and twisted Oak, clad in a blanket of moss. Beyond is a grander house that once belonged to the manager of Tarmac, and beyond that the land falls away to fields – the old spoil heaps, dips and hollows of the lead mines, broken walls, and an ancient colony of ant hills, that give the land a curiously bumpy texture when the sun falls low. Sometimes on my walks I encounter the owner of the low house, working on the laborious job of renovation – which involves draining the land, creating new waterways, laying pipes, pulling down and rebuilding stone barns. He works with meticulous care, but hasn’t touched the house yet – this way, he says, he’ll learn all the skills he needs before starting on the major task. He works with quiet focus, as if he’s totally in flow with the land, and with the materials he works with. As if by his slow thoughtful method he’s assisting the old place in its re-emergence to life, rather than putting his own mark on it. Yesterday I walked down for the first time in a couple of weeks. A patch of land that I’d scarcely noticed before had burst into flower after days of rain and sun – a meadow of purple and white Honesty, Buttercup and Campion. We stopped to talk. He told me he’d done little more than dig out the Hogweed, Bramble, Dock and Nettle, and then rake over the soil. That was enough to release the seeds that had lain dormant for so long. As I sat in the sunshine later in the day, transplanting the seedlings from the greenhouse into larger pots, I overheard two of the little girls who play on the orchard. They were talking about life. The older girl, who’s twelve, and seems to have cultivated a new voice over half term – rather refined, without a trace of Derbyshire accent, was talking at length about her ballet class. ‘Life without ballet is pointless,’ she said, unaware she’d delivered a perfect pun. To which the younger child replied. ‘I think life without giraffes is pointless.’ |
AuthorTricia Durdey dances, writes, and teaches Pilates. Archives
October 2017
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