{"id":889,"date":"2019-07-03T14:14:40","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T14:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/?p=889"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:22:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:22:17","slug":"writer-as-intellectual-and-physical-drifter-dr-rob-m-francis-reflects-on-his-role-as-david-bradshaw-creative-writer-in-residence-and-two-of-his-favourite-oxford-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/2019\/07\/03\/writer-as-intellectual-and-physical-drifter-dr-rob-m-francis-reflects-on-his-role-as-david-bradshaw-creative-writer-in-residence-and-two-of-his-favourite-oxford-sites\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer as Intellectual and Physical Drifter: Dr Rob M Francis reflects on his role as David Bradshaw Creative Writer in Residence and two of his favourite Oxford sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s been an absolute pleasure to be the inaugural full time David Bradshaw Writer in Residence. I\u2019ve been thrilled in so many ways and by so many aspects of this amazing project. One such thrill has been how welcome I\u2019ve been made by Worcester College and the Weston Library – their fantastic teams have been so supportive; going over and above what was required of them to make sure of the project\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

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As regular followers will know, I\u2019ve spent much of my time over the last two months wandering around Oxford and absorbing as much of the culture, sense of community and spirit of place I could – including the off-kilter, the clashes and connections of this vibrant city. In this final blog I want to share some thoughts on two of my favourite sites.<\/p>\n

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Oxford Canal and Duke\u2019s Cut<\/strong><\/p>\n

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One of my preoccupations (obsessions) as a writer and walker is the UK\u2019s canal network. I come from a region famed for its Industrial Heritage; canals playing an important part in that. As such, it was really important to me to investigate Oxford\u2019s canals too. For me, canals are exemplar of a liminal landscape: betwixt urban and rural, industrial and wild, wholesome and seedy, safe and unsafe. There are secrets here. There are treasures. There are strange, discarded things. Sophie (fellow Writer in Residence) and I took a walk from the city, along the canal and out to Kidlington. We let ourselves be drawn by curious digressions as we did; even tracing the non-path that cuts between the A40, a still and silent wetland pool and railway tracks. Just four miles north of the city there\u2019s a taste of wilderness, of bored commuters, of half-decayed litter and fly-tipped waste, of nesting birds, of barge holidays, and the homemade camps of rough sleepers. For me, this epitomises the divergent landscapes and cultures of Oxford in 2019. I wrote several pieces based on this and other canal explorations. Here\u2019s my favorite:<\/p>\n

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Sophie Steps the Cut<\/p>\n

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Sophie turns back on city –
\nits constant current. Out passed
\nrusted remains and shattered screen
\nof a discarded TV, facing lush allotments
\nrife with roots, legumes and brassica,
\nnext to orphaned bicycle – bent, deformed,
\nfront wheel amputated. A freight train sush-hums
\npassed graffiti under A40 traffic
\nand ruined farm tools. Barges loaded
\nwith potted plants, canal-weed and solar panels
\nrock on the slight chop of breeze blown channels.
\nRosary beads hung on paling.
\nPigeon remains nailed to a fence.
\nA homemade hawthorn garland hung to a branch. Here,
\nSophie cuts through cow path down to Duke\u2019s Cut,
\nsafety curtains the alder, cattail, reed and willow,
\nfaces the still silence of its swamp:
\nlilly pads still; rail line still; swan nest still; fallen tree still.
\nSophie steps perimeter.
\nSays to self, Shit! I needed this stillness.
\nI needed the stern stare of the heron, guarding nest.<\/p>\n

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Folly Bridge<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Another example of this beautiful edgeland liminality or threshold state is where St Aldates meets Abingdon Road. In the shadow of Christ Church, we move down passed the more modern side of the city, home to the law courts, Tesco Express and residential flats and out towards leafy suburbs. Here, we cross the Thames \/ Isis at Folly Bridge. We cross the river, and we cross the brink of Oxford\u2019s genius loci. Here, if tales are to be believed, is where the Anglo-Saxon settlers led their Oxen over the ford during the time of Ethelfred of Wessex – this is the baptismal location of Oxenforda. Here birthed the name. Here birthed the place.<\/p>\n

Today it\u2019s home to wildbirds and reeds, a beautiful stretch of river pathway, heavy traffic and the occasional horse rider. It is where groups of friends gather for riverbank picnics and drinks, where poets contemplate the currents of time-space, where a tired boater retires his dilapidated dingy amongst the goosegrass, where those in the know pluck crayfish from shallows. And, if you look carefully, where Norman Brickwork and Saxon woodwork fuse with the asphalt of the hyper-modern. Something I\u2019m always awestruck by, and that I hope to have captured somewhat in this poem:<\/p>\n

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St Aldate\u2019s<\/p>\n

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In the old sheep shop
\nwhere nothing stays still
\nand tidal waters mock the knit-obsessed clerk,
\nI should find that low door in the wall,
\nwhich others, I knew, had found before me,
\nto underground streams
\nthat eddie me to foreigner.
\nHere, where Isis sends Alice-types
\nwayward without wayfinding
\nto bridges built of silk screens
\nand innocence dissolves in a humbug suck,
\nso we might, like Campion, go barefoot
\nback to the genius loci. This time,
\nthe water-rotten remains
\nof a discarded two-man boat:
\nhome to covens
\nof invertebrates, bramble, nettle, goosegrass,
\nthe wood remains of Aethelfred\u2019s Oxenforda,
\nBacon\u2019s alchemical deposits and rank froth
\nof a flash lock rill.<\/p>\n

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Overlooked Oxford<\/p><\/div>\n

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Overlooked Oxford<\/p><\/div>\n

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Overlooked Oxford<\/p><\/div>\n

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This residency has given me the chance to engage in the cultural bricolage that makes a place. To be both an intellectual and a physical drifter through varied landscapes, through history, culture and rumour. I\u2019ll miss Oxford and this residency, it\u2019s been good to me.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  It\u2019s been an absolute pleasure to be the inaugural full time David Bradshaw Writer in Residence. I\u2019ve been thrilled in so many ways and by so many aspects of this amazing project. One such thrill has been how welcome I\u2019ve been made by Worcester College and the Weston Library – their fantastic teams have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,32,2,6,34,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-33","category-david-bradshaw-creative-writing-residency","category-evelyn-waugh-archive","category-guest-writers","category-oxford","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":907,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions\/907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/waughandwords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}