Leaves From My Sketchbooks. 26. Another View Of Chiesetta, Barga, Tuscany

Having done a watercolour of the house from beside the piscina, I quickly did this pen sketch because, hearing some falcons mewing in the sky above me, I was inspired to write a lyrical, illustrated article.

This drawing done, I started to write on the same paper, and this shows part of the essay, which covered several pages and was subsequently published by the Wellington Evening Post back in New Zealand.

Our bedroom was on the upper floor, the one with the shutters closed.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz    www.don-donovan.blogspot.co.nz
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Leaves From My Sketchbooks. 25. Chiesetta No. 2, Barga, Tuscany, Watercolour

I sat by the swimming pool and did this daub of the upper house called Chiesetta No.2. It's so wonderfully Italian that it could exist nowhere else in the world.

A historic casa it stood on the Gothic Line in World War Two, one of Hitler's lines of last retreat as the Germans slowly lost the war. Our relatives found bullet holes and ammunition as they were restoring the house. Now, surrounded by chestnut covered slopes it is so peaceful that one could hardly imagine such a cruel history.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz    www.don-donovan.blogspot.co.nz
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Leaves From My Sketchbooks. 24. Chiesetta Numero Due, Barga, Tuscany. Black and White

In Italian, Chiesetta means 'little church'. This house, No. 2, which belongs to our relatives, stands near a tiny two-person wayside prayer kiosk on an ancient mule road on the slopes of the Apennines.

I sketched it a number of times (more in later posts) but this rendering, done from below the slopes where olives, vines and raspberries grow, shows the whole, two-part casa. The main house is to the left. The smaller house was once used for animals but has been converted into living accommodation.

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz    www.don-donovan.blogspot.co.nz
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The Evacuee Child: World War Two

When World War Two broke out I was evacuated with my school to get away from London and the expected bombing - which eventually came in the form of The Blitz. I was taken to a hall at Worplesdon, in rural Surrey.

There, all the children were split up into individuals and then allocated to local foster parents. Not yet seven years old, I had never before been separated from my parents; I was utterly lost and frightened. Some years later I wrote some poems about my childhood and this was one of them...

There I stood

Labeled like a shop-bought shrub.
Bemused, confused,
With gas mask slung over shoulder
By string
In a cardboard box
With 'TOP' embossed on the lid.
(It was never used.
But everywhere I walked
The mask went with me
'Til it perished, who knows, perhaps
On a heap of wobbling rubber and muck metal!)

I wet my pants in fear
And shivered, lost,
Regardless of the friendly, droning tone
Of billeting officer
Lost, so lost.
Solicitous faces
Seen through a blur of tears.

'Mrs Dayborn'll take this one.'
They drove me in an Austin Seven Ruby
Along the unfamiliar rural lanes.
Holly and hawthorn now replaced
The edges where I'd known familiar brick.
I still remember now
The vivid excitement of a close-up cow!
Of a green waste of fields
Trimmed with skeletal elms,
Sky speckled with grating crows,
Blackbird and thrush; lamb and horse
Eyeing the small intruder from the town,
Intimidating me with silent country eyes
Keeping their peace and seeming deeply wise.

'This is your boy.' (I heard bucolic burr.)
'He's a bit of a sniveler!'
I felt ashamed and hurt
For was I not a Tough, a townie kid?
I looked into her face
The hazel eyes
Looked with compassion from the simple face.
Her arms reached out
And only then I sagged
Sobbing, relieved
To bury my grateful head
In the warmth of her apron
The journey done.

© DON DONOVAN. (PHOTO © William Vandivert ex internet)

donovan@ihug.co.nz
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