Open Writing

If the large cities of Great Britain are currently in the process of forming a new cultural and historical identity in the evolving multiculturalism the small towns still retain their old flavour of Victorian (or Elizabethan?) England. This is the England of the living Cheshire smiling cat and little Alice; this is the England where people still drink afternoon tea and eat strawberries and cream in the summer; an England where they still remember the Queen’s birthday. Every citizen has a feel for the old traditions of their country in these old towns.

One of those towns I happened to visit. I mean the charming town of Shrewsbury. If you feel that London is very busy, you always have the opportunity to plunge into the world of magic somewhere else in the small world of an English province. I reached Shrewsbury at 3 o'clock one afternoon on the train from London. English and Ukrainian provinces are incomparable. In a small town in England you can find everything necessary for a comfortable and interesting life. In a small Ukrainian town there is no time for anything but looking at the ruins of historical monuments, carousing, viewing scores of abandoned houses and a sense of isolation from the world.

Shrewsbury - ancient and historic town – has everything, including several cultural dimensions: Celtic, Roman, English. On its site was Pengwern, the ancient capital of the Welsh kingdom Powis Another provincial Roman capital, Viroconium, lies not far away at Wroxeter., where its ruins are preserved.

Shrewsbury Town has a long history that began centuries ago in Anglo-Saxon times. In the year 1074 it was given to Roger de Montgomery, who built in the castle, and later founded the abbey. In 1403 the Battle of Shrewsbury took place between Henry IV and Henry Hotspur of the Percy family. And Shrewsbury’s proximity to the border with Wales (14 km west of the city) has identified its development as one of the major centres of the Welsh Marches - the traditional name for the region located on the border of England and Wales).

In literary terms Shrewsbury also has a special history. First of all because the town is mentioned in the historical chronicles of Shakespeare himself. The battle there is reflected in part one of "Henry IV”. So Shrewsbury should be incredibly proud of this entry into Shakespearean texts. Of course, Shrewsbury still retains its own special flavour of historicity: It sometimes feels that the town has had its own unique historical development, for it does not follow the current globalization of modern towns and cities with their sameness of architecture.

If you look at the map, it is possible to think that Shrewsbury is at the heart of England. There are excellent rail connections to all regions of the country; and the railway station in Shrewsbury is pure English Gothic in style. and even a little mystical! Coming here, I immediately started thinking about Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael stories. It has a medieval atmosphere. However, not only because of mention in the texts of Shakespeare is Shrewsbury worthy of literary attention. In this town Charles Dickens, one of the founders of the great English classic novels, loved to come here . In the heart of the town (the so-called old, Shrewsbury) is an hotel, The Lion Hotel, still perfectly preserved, in which, in the nineteenth century one could imagine Charles Dickens working on new novels. The Lion Hotel’s first floor in the restaurant is a little expensive, though the price for lunch includes an aura of the most classic of English novelists, Dickens. You felt as if he was dining at the next table.

But the greatest pride of Shrewsbury is Charles Darwin. In 2009 Shrewsbury with great celebration observed the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the scholar, who was the developer of the theory of evolution and struggle for survival. He is a true native of this small town and Shrewsbury is rightly very proud of their famous resident, though it acknowledges the problem that Darwin, the scientist, did not understand the metaphysical. Though he tried to convince us that people are descended from monkeys, he simply did not understand poetry.

On February 12, 2009, the British Natural History Museum prepared an exhibition on Darwin , noting the 200-year anniversary of his birth, and the 150th anniversary of the release of his "Origin of Species”. Ruth Padel, a leading British poet and descendent of Darwin, wrote a series of biographical poems about her esteemed family.

Shrewsbury has strong connections with a famous British war poet Wilfred Owen (Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 1893-1918). Owen is known primarily as a war poet, "the lost generation of British writers". Born March 18, 1893 in Oswestry, he was the oldest in the family of four children and was raised from childhood in the religious atmosphere of a Church of England school. However, Wilfred rejected much of what he believed in 1913 when he went into the First World War, though the influence of his religious education can still be traced in his poems, taking into account he himself was most affected by the war and its horrors.

In 1913 the poet moved to Bordeaux, in France, became a teacher of English; and later he became a private tutor in a rich family in the Pyrenees. During the war, Wilfred was in England, and France, and for that time he managed to see horror of war, feel the breath of death. That bloody war was finished on November 11, 1918 at 11 o'clock. Yet only a week before the war ended news came to Owens’ parents in Shrewsbury that their son was killed in one of the last battles of this senseless war. Since then the name of Wilfred Owen will always be associated with Shrewsbury.

In this picturesque town resides a contemporary English writer well known in Ukraine, John Waddington-Feather. A poem by him is written near where he lives on the crest of Lyth Hill on the panorama stone there. One of his collection of children’s stories “Quill's Adventures in Grozzieland” was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal, the highest British award in the field of children's literature. Waddington-Feather was also awarded the Bronte Society Prize in 1966, which is prestigious in Britain. He also received the International Literary Burton Prize for his play "Garlic Lane” being staged in London in January 2010 at the Rosemary Branch Theatre. But five years ago he became the first winner of the DeWitt Romig Prize in the U.S. for his poetic achievements. Two years ago John wrote a religio-philosophical adventure short story, whose action unfolded in the Soviet era in Odessa, and another of his short stories” A Keighworth Tale” relates to Ukraine.

However, in Shropshire I had the feeling I was living in another literary world, the world of another famous English writer, J. R.R. Tolkien. Shrewsbury and Shropshire seem part of the magic world Tolkien, whose peaceful and gentle little hobbits are actually the residents of Shrewsbury. Am I right?