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.25 Nine years later, in a short but revealing history ofCoventry, Hewitt devoted almost as much space to local decoration ofBasil Spence s three utility churches as to the impact of Epstein,Sutherland and Piper on the premier place of pilgrimage for ananxious, searching, hoping generation.26 92 THE CITY OF COVENTRYNot surprisingly, Hewitt s first formal proposals for assemblingand exhibiting a permanent art collection embraced a gallerymonitoring urban regeneration in Coventry, including construction ofthe cathedral.His foremost aim was to establish a unique assembly ofcontemporary work - British Life and Landscape - intended to reflecteveryday life and thus attract, the factory worker and his family whosethoughts will seldom if ever be caught up in the complicated tangle ofaesthetic theory.This was no green light for socialist realism, despitea deliberate policy to exclude abstract and non-representational work ,merely confirmation of Morris s insistence on rendering all facets ofartistic endeavour available and accessible to all.It was also ablueprint for selling modern art to a sceptical council.27Coventrians had always known how to enjoy themselves, butthe general consensus by 1945 was that the city was a cultural desert.Thus, a postwar alliance of industrial grandees such as Sir AlfredHerbert and Lord Rootes, council power-brokers and veteranautodidacts like George Hodgkinson, and a culture-starved professionalmiddle class, ensured the presence of the visual and performing arts atthe heart of urban regeneration.To appease the less high-minded,provision was made for a multi-floor dance hall - the Locarno - in thecentre of the Precinct.From its opening in 1958 the Belgrade Theatrepioneered community, youth, and schools-based work, as well aspremiering challenging new plays.Yet Bryan Bailey, the Belgrade sfirst Director, always ensured that a popular and familiar repertorywould appease the more culturally-challenged burghers of the city.28Hewitt appears to have found a similar formula for reconciling apersonal vision and a populist appeal.Morris, the definitivephilanthropic entrepreneur, would surely have endorsed Hewitt s laterdescription of his diapered-brick home as a:.token of our mixed economy, of private benevolence andpublic enterprise, the Museum with its cars and ribbons andantiquities, the Art Gallery with the challenge of its changingexhibitions.29Hewitt s 1966 celebratory essay, commissioned by thecouncil s public relations department to preface a photographic recordof a city basking in the warm glow of postwar prosperity, is wellresearched, beautifully written, and cleverly constructed (narrative THE COVENTRY FACTOR 93history complemented by a tourist-friendly easy-paced stroll around this complicated community ).Larkin appears on the first page, themost neutral lines from I Remember, I Remember (.watching menwith number-plates/Sprint down the platform to familiar gates ),juxtaposed with an earlier traveller s more favourable impression of thecity: Tennyson s 1840 visit to the railway station inspired him to write Godiva.30 Unlike Tennyson, Larkin in I Remember, I Remember istotally disorientated, finding no familiar landmarks (yet, as Hewittproudly - and ironically? - announces, the strikingly-new station didnot open until 1962 - seven years after Larkin s poem first appeared inprint):Things moved.I sat back, staring at my boots. Was that , my friend smiled, where you have your roots ? No, only where my childhood was unspent,I wanted to retort, just where I started:31Larkin s detachment and disappointment - his inability to fix Coventryin place and time - is further compounded by a counterfactual map ofchildhood memories and images.We must consider again mention of.that splendid family/I never ran to when I got depressed ; but fornow contrast Larkin s irritation at even considering a necessity forroots in both place and past, with Hewitt s enthusiastic embrace of thischanging, enduring city.symbol for the undefeated determination ofmen of goodwill.32This was no transfer of allegiance - Hewitt never compromisedhis nonconformist Ulster roots.Nevertheless, in his early years of exile Coventry matched up to his high expectations, its historyrunning parallel with his own radical agenda, rooted as it was in thePutney Debates, English Jacobins from Paine to Cobbett, Chartism,ethical socialism, and an early flirtation with dialectical materialism.33Morris, the Bible, and Marx all helped mould Hewitt s understandingof history.Certainly, his portrayal of life in late medieval and earlymodern Coventry suggests a recent re-reading of A.L.Morton, if notChristopher Hill.Similarly, Hewitt is unlikely to have let The Makingof the English Working Class pass him by.Yet, whether or not he readThompson, it is easy to understand Hewitt s enthusiasm: not only didthe common people foster Lollardy and shelter John Ball, butsucceeding generations rebuffed a Royalist assault, and rang out 94 THE CITY OF COVENTRY Lillibulero on the cathedral bells to welcome their Protestant heroes,first William of Orange and then the Governor of Londonderry.Nineteenth-century Coventry witnessed Cobbett contest its Commonsseat, Joseph Squiers coin the phrase Christian Socialism , FeargusO Connor rally a flagging Chartist cause, and the polymathic CharlesBray exhort a young Mary Ann Evans to exhort reform and defyconvention.34 No wonder the Planter in Hewitt could savour agood-humouredly romantic sense of homecoming when he discoveredthe family name prominent in the city records (including the lavishmenu for Alderman John Hewitt s mayoral banquet in 1755) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.25 Nine years later, in a short but revealing history ofCoventry, Hewitt devoted almost as much space to local decoration ofBasil Spence s three utility churches as to the impact of Epstein,Sutherland and Piper on the premier place of pilgrimage for ananxious, searching, hoping generation.26 92 THE CITY OF COVENTRYNot surprisingly, Hewitt s first formal proposals for assemblingand exhibiting a permanent art collection embraced a gallerymonitoring urban regeneration in Coventry, including construction ofthe cathedral.His foremost aim was to establish a unique assembly ofcontemporary work - British Life and Landscape - intended to reflecteveryday life and thus attract, the factory worker and his family whosethoughts will seldom if ever be caught up in the complicated tangle ofaesthetic theory.This was no green light for socialist realism, despitea deliberate policy to exclude abstract and non-representational work ,merely confirmation of Morris s insistence on rendering all facets ofartistic endeavour available and accessible to all.It was also ablueprint for selling modern art to a sceptical council.27Coventrians had always known how to enjoy themselves, butthe general consensus by 1945 was that the city was a cultural desert.Thus, a postwar alliance of industrial grandees such as Sir AlfredHerbert and Lord Rootes, council power-brokers and veteranautodidacts like George Hodgkinson, and a culture-starved professionalmiddle class, ensured the presence of the visual and performing arts atthe heart of urban regeneration.To appease the less high-minded,provision was made for a multi-floor dance hall - the Locarno - in thecentre of the Precinct.From its opening in 1958 the Belgrade Theatrepioneered community, youth, and schools-based work, as well aspremiering challenging new plays.Yet Bryan Bailey, the Belgrade sfirst Director, always ensured that a popular and familiar repertorywould appease the more culturally-challenged burghers of the city.28Hewitt appears to have found a similar formula for reconciling apersonal vision and a populist appeal.Morris, the definitivephilanthropic entrepreneur, would surely have endorsed Hewitt s laterdescription of his diapered-brick home as a:.token of our mixed economy, of private benevolence andpublic enterprise, the Museum with its cars and ribbons andantiquities, the Art Gallery with the challenge of its changingexhibitions.29Hewitt s 1966 celebratory essay, commissioned by thecouncil s public relations department to preface a photographic recordof a city basking in the warm glow of postwar prosperity, is wellresearched, beautifully written, and cleverly constructed (narrative THE COVENTRY FACTOR 93history complemented by a tourist-friendly easy-paced stroll around this complicated community ).Larkin appears on the first page, themost neutral lines from I Remember, I Remember (.watching menwith number-plates/Sprint down the platform to familiar gates ),juxtaposed with an earlier traveller s more favourable impression of thecity: Tennyson s 1840 visit to the railway station inspired him to write Godiva.30 Unlike Tennyson, Larkin in I Remember, I Remember istotally disorientated, finding no familiar landmarks (yet, as Hewittproudly - and ironically? - announces, the strikingly-new station didnot open until 1962 - seven years after Larkin s poem first appeared inprint):Things moved.I sat back, staring at my boots. Was that , my friend smiled, where you have your roots ? No, only where my childhood was unspent,I wanted to retort, just where I started:31Larkin s detachment and disappointment - his inability to fix Coventryin place and time - is further compounded by a counterfactual map ofchildhood memories and images.We must consider again mention of.that splendid family/I never ran to when I got depressed ; but fornow contrast Larkin s irritation at even considering a necessity forroots in both place and past, with Hewitt s enthusiastic embrace of thischanging, enduring city.symbol for the undefeated determination ofmen of goodwill.32This was no transfer of allegiance - Hewitt never compromisedhis nonconformist Ulster roots.Nevertheless, in his early years of exile Coventry matched up to his high expectations, its historyrunning parallel with his own radical agenda, rooted as it was in thePutney Debates, English Jacobins from Paine to Cobbett, Chartism,ethical socialism, and an early flirtation with dialectical materialism.33Morris, the Bible, and Marx all helped mould Hewitt s understandingof history.Certainly, his portrayal of life in late medieval and earlymodern Coventry suggests a recent re-reading of A.L.Morton, if notChristopher Hill.Similarly, Hewitt is unlikely to have let The Makingof the English Working Class pass him by.Yet, whether or not he readThompson, it is easy to understand Hewitt s enthusiasm: not only didthe common people foster Lollardy and shelter John Ball, butsucceeding generations rebuffed a Royalist assault, and rang out 94 THE CITY OF COVENTRY Lillibulero on the cathedral bells to welcome their Protestant heroes,first William of Orange and then the Governor of Londonderry.Nineteenth-century Coventry witnessed Cobbett contest its Commonsseat, Joseph Squiers coin the phrase Christian Socialism , FeargusO Connor rally a flagging Chartist cause, and the polymathic CharlesBray exhort a young Mary Ann Evans to exhort reform and defyconvention.34 No wonder the Planter in Hewitt could savour agood-humouredly romantic sense of homecoming when he discoveredthe family name prominent in the city records (including the lavishmenu for Alderman John Hewitt s mayoral banquet in 1755) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]