here - Lime Wood Hotel

ISSUE 3
All the fun
of the Fair
Reinventing Wheels
Smoked & Uncut
Limewire 01
02
12
16
A
s well as plenty of information and ideas to help
you make the most of the glorious New Forest –
even more glorious as autumn approaches and the
leaves start to turn colour – this, the third edition
of Limewire, profiles several inspiring people: Wasfi
Kani, for instance, the founder of Pimlico Opera,
a company that stages operas and musicals inside prisons and has given
hundreds of inmates the confidence to do something positive with their
lives. And Nell Gifford, whose travelling circus is now a fixture of the
summer scene in the West Country. We learn, too, about a remarkable
scheme to help women with breast cancer by teaching them fly fishing.
As well as the inspirational, we have the aspirational: William Asprey,
whose family has been involved in luxury goods for centuries, tells us
about his love of fishing, shooting and fine wine. And Nick Edmiston
reminisces about sailing’s golden age, when classic six-metre yachts
from both sides of the Atlantic fought it out for the America’s Cup.
Like the guns and watches you can buy from Asprey’s shop, William
& Son in Mayfair, and the yachts available for sale or charter from
Edmiston, in St James’s, the beautifully crafted, custom-built motorcycles
that Battistinis sell blur the lines between function and art: Mark
Battistini tells us about the extraordinary pink motorbike he made
for Grayson Perry.
And, talking of art, we look back at the life and work of one of America’s
finest and most popular artists, Keith Haring, whose fame started with
drawings on the New York subway and ended with exhibitions all over
the world.
Plenty to nourish the soul... and plenty more tangible nourishment too,
whether it’s a pint of craft cider and a sausage sandwich on the Jurassic
Coast, or a box of something lovely for lunch from London’s splendid
Street Kitchen!
Published by: The Lime Wood Group, Beaulieu Rd, Lyndhurst, SO43 7FZ
Publisher: David Elton
Editor: Bill Knott ([email protected])
For advertising enquiries contact:
Victoria Gibbs on: [email protected]
Emma Cripwell on: [email protected]
Design and production: Strattons (www.strattons.com)
© Lime Wood Group 2012
Contents
02.
All the fun of the fair
04.
Cox and rocks
06.
Reinventing wheels
07.
09.
Debate
10.
Smoked & Uncut
12.
In rod we trust
13.
Pushing the boat out
15.
The doodle bug
16.
Meals on wheels
19.
Just William – Interview with
William Asprey
The performers of Giffords Circus travel the village
greens and commons of the West Country with their
particular brand of exuberant showmanship.
Cider is staging a comeback, as the plethora of cider
festivals around the south coast confirms, but just make
sure it’s the real stuff! And look out for the fossils.
The art of customising a motorbike, as demonstrated
by Mark Battistini.
Are newspapers a thing of the past?
Inside Story
A profile of Pimlico Opera, the opera company teaching
prisoners how to put on a show.
JC Caddy talks about his new Live At... CD releases,
and talks cooking and guilty pleasures with festival
legend Rob Da Bank.
The remarkable success of Casting For Recovery,
a charity that teaches women suffering with breast
cancer how to fly-fish.
Nick Edmiston, whose family firm is one of the world’s
leading yacht brokers, remembers the glorious races
involving the classic six-metre class.
From whimsical drawings on subway walls to exhibitions
at the world’s great galleries: the short but brilliant career
of Keith Haring.
Two London chefs take to the road in an attempt to
brighten up the street food scene.
William Asprey talks about his passion for guns, watches,
wine and fishing.
21.
Forest Bumf
A round-up of what’s happening around the
New Forest at this time of year.
02 Limewire
Should you be driving through the towns and
villages of the West Country this summer, you
might well find yourself stuck behind a string of
painted wagons. If you do, they probably belong
to Giffords Circus, the phenomenally successful
troupe set up by Toti and Nell Gifford in 2000.
Maisie Bagley knows all about Giffords Circus. “Nell and I have
known each other for ages: when I was a little girl, Nell and
her sister put on a circus together as a birthday party for me.
Nell always had a thing about circuses.” Maisie now manages
Circus Sauce, the Giffords’ travelling restaurant; her Californian
husband Shane is the chef.
After graduating from Oxford, Nell’s love for the circus took
her to the US and Europe, learning as much as she could about
the circus. The other great love of her life, husband Toti, had a
flourishing landscape gardening business in the West Country,
and Nell’s peripatetic lifestyle would clearly make a successful
marriage very difficult.
And so they hatched the plan for a miniature village green circus:
“packed, rowdy and glamorous”, as Nell describes it. “Birds and
horses and motorbikes bursting from a fluttering white tent.”
Photograph by Laurie Fletcher. www.lauriefletcher.com
The first show coincided with the launch of Nell’s book, Josser:
The Secret Life of a Circus Girl. Nell had been invited to the
Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival and suggested that she stage a small
circus. She and Toti cobbled together a show, then took it around
Limewire 03
several other venues that summer, building
the template for subsequent shows, with
Toti taking care of all the logistics and Nell
concentrating on the artistic side.
“It has all grown organically from there,”
recalls Maisie. “Our big top now seats 500
people. And the restaurant has grown, too: it
started as a little café just for the performers,
then we started selling teas, and now we
have a proper restaurant. Shane buys his
produce from local farm shops, we have a
small market garden growing salads, and we
even have a few Tamworth pigs.”
This year’s show is called The Saturday Book,
taking its name from the annual art-andliterature miscellany published from 1941
to 1975, its contributors including Philip
Larkin and P. G. Wodehouse. Its pages were
an enchanting mix of essays, verse, fiction,
photography and woodcuts.
“It’s a kind of vintage variety show,” says
Maisie. “We have a Parisian wire walker,
some Ukrainian acrobats, our jugglers Bibi
and Bichu – who even juggle while standing
on horseback at one point – and the
ever-popular Tweedy the clown. And there’s
Jan the German with his dogs, who do all
sorts of fabulous tricks, including a bit of
hat-catching.”
routines rehearsed, scenery built, costumes
stitched together. From late September to
early November, participants can learn about
equestrian circus skills; try their hands (and
feet) at various kinds of dance; learn how to
make cider bread, chutneys and game cookery;
or spend a day with Nell, learning the secrets
of costume design, set building, prop making
and direction.
The show is directed by Cal McCrystal, who
was the Physical Comedy Director of the West
End hit One Man, Two Guvnors, and it is,
by all accounts, a very funny show: “it’s very
light-hearted,” says Maisie, “and everyone has
said how much fun it is.”
Well, maybe not all her secrets. According to
Maisie, “Nell always comes up with an idea
for next year’s show the previous autumn,
travelling in search of new acts and finding
the best person to direct the show. But she
keeps it secret! Then the tent goes up in
March and the show starts all over again.”
One new string to the Giffords’ bow is the
establishment of various workshops: day
courses held at Folly Farm, in Bourton-on-theWater, Gloucestershire. Folly Farm’s Cotswold
barns are where each show is put together:
Cox
and
Rocks
Limewire 05
There are few things that sum up England at its
bucolic best more than a late summer picnic in
an orchard: hunks of cheese, thick slabs of ham,
crusty bread, a few pickles, and a big, cool stone
flagon of cider, made, perhaps, with the previous
year’s fruit from the orchard itself. Rustic bliss:
on a fine day, anyway. You can almost hear the
Morris men’s bells jangling in the distance.
“We sell three ‘expressions’ of cider,”
explains Kevin,
Everyone knows what cider is. It’s fermented apple
juice, isn’t it? Well, up to a point: for commercially
produced cider, the actual juice content can be as
low as a paltry 35%. The rest can be made up with
anything fermentable, and even the juice can actually
be imported apple concentrate. The “cider” can
then be carbonated, pasteurised and micro-filtered
before it reaches the bottle or the cask: remember
that next time you turn on the TV and see ravenhaired colleens cavorting through orchards in
traditional dress, advertising
“authentic” cider.
All of which is sold in the pub, where cider is starting
to approach 50% of all the pints pulled. “We sell
other ciders as well: Westons, from Herefordshire,
Hecks, from Street in Somerset, and Cider By Rosie,
made by Rose Grant in Mid Dorset.
Real cider – or “craft cider”,
as it is often known – is a very
different beast. At its simplest, it
is just milled apples, pressed to
extract their juice in early
autumn and left in barrels
somewhere cool for the winter:
the wild yeasts on the skins of
the apples ferment the sugars,
producing alcohol, which in turn
stops the cider from freezing in all but the harshest
of winters. Come springtime, it is dry, strong, still
and ready to drink.
You can find a fine pint of cider at the Square and
Compass any time of year, but perhaps the best time
to visit is on the first Saturday in November (the
3rd this year) when the pub hosts its annual Cider
Festival. The festival features not only a wide range
of local craft ciders, but there is freshly pressed apple
juice, some very toothsome sausages, lessons in
identifying different varieties of apples, and live
music later in the evening.
This style of cider is something of an acquired taste.
It can be mouth-puckeringly dry, and it can also have
a distinct smell of vinegar. Some craft cidermakers,
including Charlie Newman and landlord Kevin Hunt
of the Square and Compass in Dorset, prefer to use
a cultivated yeast, which controls the fermentation
more accurately than its wilder cousins, producing
a more reliable brew.
The Square and Compass sits in the little village of
Worth Maltravers, a few miles west along the Jurassic
Coast from Swanage. They have been making and
selling their own cider for the last six years, and were
awarded the prestigious title of “Real Cider Pub
of the Year” by CAMRA in 2008.
“Dry, medium and sweet. In the first year they
have a bit of cloudiness in them, then they get
clearer as they age. Charlie uses a mixture of
traditional cider apples and eating apples. We made
14,000 litres last year.”
“We do have Stowford Press as well: it’s our only
fizzy cider. I’m not here to upset the customers:
anyway, often people will move from lager to the
Stowford Press and then they’ll try a half of real
cider. Lager consumption has dropped off
big time.”
The Square and Compass also boasts another
attraction, unusual (if not unique) for a pub: it has a
small museum dedicated to fossils. The Jurassic Coast
– the 95-mile stretch of coastline from Orcombe Bay,
near Exmouth, in East Devon, to Old Harry Rocks,
not far from the Square and Compass – is a World
Heritage Site, and hugely popular both with walkers
on the South West Coastal Park and with
amateur paleontologists.
The area was home to the 19th-century fossil hunter,
Mary Anning, who famously discovered a fossil of an
entire ichthyosaur: she was just 12-years-old at the
time. Visitors these days may not be so fortunate, but
there are plenty of ammonites to be found, as well as
many other relics of prehistoric life.
For a wealth of information
about the Jurassic Coast, and
a comprehensive listing of
organised walks (from easy to
strenuous), talks, visitor centres
and museums, visit the excellent
www.jurassiccoast.com. Or you
can simply admire the collection
at the Square and Compass over
a pint or two of craft cider.
Not that the Square and Compass
is the only place to drink proper
cider in Hampshire or Dorset:
far from it. The exhaustive
website www.ukcider.co.uk lists every pub selling
cider in the two counties, as well as upcoming
festivals: real enthusiasts might try New Forest Cider’s
annual steam-pressing weekend, on the 13th and 14th
of October. The company’s “Workman” cider press is,
so they claim, the only steam-driven press in Britain
that is still working.
CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, are also fans of
real cider: most of their beer festivals feature several
ciders as well as excellent local beers. Both the South
Hampshire branch (www.shantscamra.org.uk) and
the West Dorset branch (www.camrawdorset.org.
uk) have plenty of information on cider stockists and
festivals: you could try the beer and cider festival at
the Gaggle of Geese in Buckland Newton, Dorset,
on 14th September (01300 345 249), where you
might pick up a goose for a snip at their charity
poultry auction.
Whether you are a dedicated rambler, a music fan,
a fossil fiend, or just someone keen to investigate in a
practical fashion the happy marriage of the fermented
apple and the cooked pig, the historic Jurassic Coast
and its pub-strewn hinterland has much to offer,
and much to enjoy. And the world seems much
rosier after a pint of proper cider.
06 Limewire
T
here are bikers, and there are Battistini bikers. The
Battistini workshop, in Dorset, builds just a small handful
of custom-made motorcycles each year, and they are truly
distinctive. The phrase “work of art” is often overused,
but in the case of at least one Battistini bike, it is literally correct.
The company was founded in 1990 by Rikki and Dean Battistini,
with the aim of bringing to Europe some of the specialist,
custom-built bikes and parts they had discovered on their trips
to the USA’s West Coast.
Their passion for Californian bespoke creations turned into a
thriving business in Europe, especially in the UK and Italy, and
brother Mark joined as Italian Sales Manager in 1994. A year later,
Dean was tragically killed in a motorbike accident, leading the
remaining two brothers to remodel the business.
Nowadays, Rikki is based in the US, doing the circuit of motorcycle
trade shows and doing business with dealers eager to secure some
of Battistini’s custom-built “bolt-on” accessories – handlegrips, for
example – while Mark looks after the UK business from his
Dorset workshop.
Mark’s main business is selling hard-to-find parts for HarleyDavidsons and other high-end bikes – he is also starting to sell
some of his brother’s US accessories – and fulfilling orders for
custom-made motorbikes.
Hence the “work of art”. As Mark explains, “we were contacted
by [Turner Prize-winning artist] Grayson Perry, who wanted us
to build him a motorbike. He drew the design, and we built it: it
was a great project to work on. He rode it to Germany and back,
and now it’s insured as a work of art, for £250,000, I think.”
Perry’s bike is, as one look will confirm, unlike any other. An
extraordinary, custom-made bike, based on a Harley-Davidson
Knucklehead and named the “Kenilworth AM1”, it also features a
reliquary – a sort of saintly Wendy house – on the back, specifically
to carry his 50-year old teddy bear, Alan Measles. The stretched
petrol tank, painted in pink and blue, sports the words “Patience”
and “Humility” on either side: not qualities usually associated
with Harley riders. The bike was the star of the show at last year’s
Grayson Perry-curated show at the British Museum, “Tomb of
the Unknown Craftsman”, positioned at the top of the imposing
staircase in the museum’s atrium.
Mark has also built bikes for a variety of corporate clients, including
the Hogs Back Brewery, in Tongham, Surrey. Another HarleyDavidson, this time a Panhead, the bike also featured a sidecar
seemingly fashioned from a beer barrel. Battistini also built a bike
to promote a show for the now defunct “Men & Motors” channel,
and the royal blue, super-accessorised “Battistini Opex” for an
exhibition comapny of the same name.
How much does it cost to have your own bike custom built by
Battistinis? “Upwards of £80,000,” says Mark, “and you can
spend a lot more than that, depending on what you want.”
And what bike does Mark ride himself? “Well, we used to
have a showroom with about 20 different bikes in it, so I
just used to pick out whichever one I fancied. Now, though,
I mostly ride around on my 125cc Vespa!”
www.battistinisusa.com
Limewire 07
Limewire
Are newspapers a thing of the past?
A
round 1440 German inventor
Johannes Gutenberg invented
one of the most important and
influential inventions of the second
millennium, the printing press, and it
was from the advent of this technology
that the newspaper was born. Newspapers
went from strength to strength and they
became an important part of democracy.
George Washington in 1788 stated that:
“For my part I entertain a high idea
of the utility of periodical publications;
insomuch as I could heartily desire,
copies of... magazines, as well as
common Gazettes, might be spread
through every city, town, and village
in the United States. I consider such
vehicles of knowledge more happily
calculated than any other to preserve
the liberty, stimulate the industry, and
ameliorate the morals of a free and
enlightened people.” 1
In the 21st Century, however, with the
availability of other forms of media, such
as TV and the Internet, the once highly
important newspaper entered a state of
significant and rapid decline in many
places across the world with readerships
entering a seemingly never-ending
downward spiral. This has left many
commentators to suggest that newspapers
are a thing of the past, Phillip Meyer in
The Vanishing Newspaper suggests, by
extrapolation of current trends, that by
the first quarter of 2043 the newspaper
industry in the US will be completely
extinct. Others suggest, however,
that this is overstating the decline of
newspapers, it could be suggested that
there will always be a demand for printed
word despite the current decline, for
example in the UK on the 26th October
2010 the first daily newspaper to be
launched for 24 years hit the shelves and
as of April 2011 the “I” newspaper had
a regular readership of over 160,0002
suggesting that perhaps that some
demand still exists.
What is most certainly true of newspapers
today is that they are, in general, losing
their readerships, however, does this
necessarily mean that there is no longer
a place for them in the modern media
landscape, are newspapers dead or are the
rumors of their death greatly exaggerated?
1. Barber, A Brief History of the Newspaper. 2011.
2. ABC’s: National Daily Newspaper Circulation
April 2011. The Guardian.
FOR
AGAINST
1. People no longer consume media in a linear way, people
prefer to pick and choose what news they consume
1. Newspapers offer a better reading experience than
digital alternatives
2. In the internet age immediacy is everything, newspapers
can often contain out of date information by the time
they hit the shelves
2. Newspapers provide higher quality journalism than other media
3. Newspapers are a more trustworthy source of information
than independent bloggers
3. Newspapers cannot be environmentally sustained
4. Newspapers are financially unviable
4. The balance of analysis and relevancy is better struck
by newspapers
5. The internet edits what you can see without your knowledge
This debate has been made avaialable by IDEA (www.idebate.org). See the full debate at: http://idebate.org/debatabase/debates/culture/house-believes-newspapers-are-thing-past.
‘THIS HOUSE BELIEVES THAT NEWSPAPERS ARE THING OF THE PAST’ Copyright © 2005 International Debate Education Association. All Rights Reserved.
Limewire 09
Inside
Story
T
here cannot be many opera
singers, theatre directors or stage
managers – or, indeed, other
members of the public – who
would willingly spend seven
weeks of each year in prison.
And yet that is what the dedicated bunch of
professionals involved with Pimlico Opera do
every year. They do get to go home at night,
of course, but during the day their aim is to
turn prisoners, some of them convicted of the
most serious offences, into performers. Their
“residency” at various prisons all over southern
England – and one in Dublin – culminates in
a full-scale performance of whichever opera
or musical they have rehearsed: in the prison
itself, with an audience of 200 or so visitors.
If this sounds like a stunt prompted by too
many TV reality shows, it isn’t. Wasfi Kani,
who founded Pimlico Opera 25 years ago,
grew up in Wormwood Scrubs, near the jail
of the same name in West London. “I always
thought ‘you know, that could be me in there,
or any of us.’ It’s to do with circumstances,
upbringing, all sorts of factors... but everyone
has talents, and I wanted to nurture them.”
Kani is a talented musician – she was a violinist
in the National Youth Orchestra and is a
professional conductor – so “putting on a
show” seemed like a natural development. In
1990, the newly-formed Pimlico Opera staged
The Marriage of Figaro and Walton’s The
Bear for the prisoners at Wormwood Scrubs;
the following year, they staged their first
collaboration, a production of Sweeney Todd.
Subsequent annual productions, like the
first, have hardly shied away from the themes
of crime, punishment and social justice:
Chicago, Assassins, Threepenny Opera and Les
Misérables have all been popular productions
in their repertoire.
The process of rehearsing and staging a
production is inevitably disruptive to the
routine of prison life – movement within the
prison needs to be relaxed, and banned items
like power tools, ladders and costumes are
permitted - but is welcomed by the governors
of the prisons in which they work. Ian
Mulholland, Governor of HMP Wandsworth,
is one of them: “My job is to send people out
of prison less likely to offend than when they
came in. The effect of programmes like the
Pimlico Opera’s productions is huge.”
And what of the audience? “More than
50,000 people have come to see one of our
shows,” says Kani. “For many of them, it is
their first time inside a prison. The immediate
reaction is sheer astonishment at the quality
of the performance they see.”
It is the prisoners who benefit most, however,
picking up the skills and the confidence that
give them a fighting chance of a successful life
once they are released. “One of our potential
actors was asked if he had ever performed
before,” recalls Kani. “Yes,’ he replied, ‘in the
dock of No.1 Court at the Old Bailey.” His
future appearances, one hopes, will be for an
audience of more than a dozen.
Erlstoke Prison and Pimlico Opera
perform West Side Story in March next
year: visit www.pimlicoopera.co.uk
for more details.
10 Limewire
Music Manager at Lime Wood Group
We are excited to have recently launched
Smoked & Uncut, a label with a unique
twist. We pick the music to reflect the
atmosphere of each hotel, and have just
released our 3 CD box set: Smoked
& Uncut.
SMOKED
We launched the series of gigs in May,
welcoming BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music
favourites The Slow Show, then the
soulful chill-out sounds of Stereofixx and
Capitol K in June, with many more bands
scheduled for the rest of the year.
Music at Lime Wood, The Pig and Le
Portetta has had a major restyle over the
last year: all bedroom iPods and hotel
music systems are now loaded with cool
new musical discoveries from emerging
and established artists from cinematic,
indie-folk to chill-out.
All the music is refreshed every six
months, creating new playlists to
make sure we have interesting new
sounds playing.
Nowadays, music festivals sum up the
magic of the British summer for many,
ranging from the intimate farmyard
festival (Truck Festival, Secret Garden
Party) to the major festivals (Isle of
Wight, V Festival, Glastonbury, Bestival).
More are appearing each year, aiming
to meet the growing demand from both
musicians and the public.
The live sector is where artist and bands
generate the majority of their income:
because of downloads and streaming,
record sales are severely depleted. The
revenue produced by these festivals is
crucial to the future of music, and the
UK does festivals best!
Photograph by Dominic Marley
Limewire 11
Rob Da Bank
UNCUT
I got a few answers from one of the UK’s
coolest festival founders, Radio 1 DJ
Rob Da Bank, founder of Bestival, Camp
Bestival and the ‘Sunday Best’ label.
Tell me how it all started, Rob?
I started Sunday Best as a club night in
1995. Playing boardgames and chatting
to mates was quite a novelty in a club
and it lasted seven years week in, week
out. Eventually I thought why don’t we
try this in a field and Bestival was born.
The magic of Bestival is mostly in the
people who come – the most amazing
mix of everyone imaginable but all up
for some fun and exposure to new and
exciting music.
What’s your favourite film music?
Until recently, I’d have said Love Theme
by Vangelis from Blade Runner but I’ve
just watched Drive and fallen for its
excellent score and soundtrack in a
big way.
What are your guilty musical
pleasures?
I have many! Dolly Parton and Tears
For Fears are just two of them.
Are you good in the kitchen?
I’m terrible in the kitchen, as my wife and
kids will attest! Luckily, Mrs Da Bank is a
gourmet chef so I get away with it. I have
many other duties around the house, but
I get steered away from the kitchen.
What’s your favourite town in
Britain?
Has to be jolly old Yarmouth, one of the
smallest towns in the UK. We spend about
a third of our year on the Isle of Wight,
and Yarmouth has the best mix of posh
delis and hotels, with regular pubs and
a classic chandlery.
What are your musical inspirations?
John Peel, Lee Scratch Perry, Michael
Eavis and Thom Yorke, to name just a few.
What will it say on your gravestone?
Rob Da Bank – he lived to the ripe old age
of 143.
The Smoked & Uncut 3 CD box
set is available to purchase from
Lime Wood and The Pig, and online
at www.limewoodhotel.co.uk or
www.thepighotel.co.uk
12 Limewire
In Rod
We Trust
This September will see the fifth anniversary of
one of Britain and Ireland’s most extraordinary
charities. Casting For Recovery, which
organises fly-fishing retreats for women who
have suffered – or are suffering – from breast
cancer, held its first retreat in West Sussex,
in September 2007.
A
s Jill Grieve, Casting For Recovery’s chairman,
explains: “It all came about when our
Executive Director Sue Hunter, who had
suffered from breast cancer, was invited
fishing by a male friend. She wasn’t sure
about going, but eventually said ‘why not?’...
and she loved it!”
“Then she found out about fly-fishing schemes to help women
in the USA and Canada who had been affected by breast
cancer, and decided to bring it over to Britain and Ireland. She
approached the Countryside Alliance, who wrote out a cheque
to get the idea off the ground, and the charity has been growing
steadily ever since.”
The idea is quite simple. Casting For Recovery funds weekend
retreats in a number of locations around Britain and Ireland –
“they need to be high-end, beautiful locations, with suitable
residential accommodation” – at which groups of women meet to
try their hand at casting flies. Most have little or no experience of
fishing, but are guided through every step by a team of dedicated,
voluntary tutors.
“Just getting out in the countryside is part of the therapy for
many women”, says Jill. “We have ladies from Clapham Junction,
or the middle of Manchester, who tell us that they just wouldn’t
get the chance to do something like this normally. Many of them
are worried about holding their families together during their
illness, and they really appreciate having everything done for
them for a change: coming back from the river to a cream tea,
for instance.”
“There are many types of cancer, and many different surgeries,
but casting is always possible, and the weekends offer the chance
to talk to other women who are at different stages in the recovery
process, and realise that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Counselling sessions are available to guests, too, and, as Jill puts
it, “the focus is definitely on wellness, not illness. The American
retreats are a bit more touchy-feely: we’ve anglicised them
a bit, but there is a real feeling of togetherness. And a bit
of competitiveness usually creeps in! One of our ladies from
Ireland, who had never fished before, is now an international
fly-fisherman.”
The charity has attracted a remarkable response from people all
over the UK and Ireland: Clay Brendish, owner of the superb
Kimbridge on the Test fishery in Hampshire, is Patron of Casting
For Recovery, and many of the other venues for retreats have
become actively involved in fundraising.
Casting For Recovery now holds half a dozen retreats a year, and,
according to Jill, many more are planned. “Our eventual aim is
to hold a retreat every weekend, but in the meantime we’re just
building slowly each year.” As they say in fly-fishing, more power
to their elbows.
www.castingforrecovery.org.uk
Limewire 13
pushing
the boat out
Happily, that is by no means the end of the story for
the aristocratic J-Class yachts. In 1984, Elizabeth
Meyer, a yachting enthusiast from a wealthy East
Coast family – her ancestors had founded the World
Bank and owned the Washington Post – started
the restoration of Endeavour, and then turned her
attention to Shamrock V. Endeavour sailed again
for the first time in 52 years on 22nd June 1989.
Nick Emiston was delighted to present the
trophy the following year, when Endeavour raced
Shamrock V once more, and media mogul – and,
according to Emiston, “a fine sailor, one of the
great amateur yachtsmen” – Ted Turner triumphed
on two-time America’s Cup winner Intrepid.
The resurgence of interest in the J-Class sparked by
the enthusiasm of Elizabeth Meyer has now led to
several more J-Class yachts being built, including
replicas of Ranger, Rainbow and Endeavour II, the
only one of the British J-Class yachts to be scrapped.
Several more J-Boats are under construction.
A gentleman could spend an entire day in St James’s Street without missing the capital’s other
attractions in the slightest. He might start by nipping in to Lock & Co. for a Montecristi
Panama hat; choose a new pair of brogues at Lobb; restock the claret cellar at Berry Bros &
Rudd, or Justerini & Brooks; top up the humidor at J. J. Fox or Davidoff; and then potter off
for lunch at the Carlton Club, White’s or Brooks’s, whichever takes his mood.
Should his post-prandial thoughts turn to thoughts
of the ocean, he could do worse than stop at
Edmiston, at 62 St James’s Street, opposite J. J. Fox
and next door to Justerini & Brooks. Chairman
Nick Edmiston founded the company in Monte
Carlo, in 1996; since then, the company has grown
to include offices in New York, Antibes and Mexico
City, as well as London and Monaco. Edmiston
are world leaders in the chartering of large yachts
– “superyachts”, as they are known – and the
company now employs more than 80 people
around the world.
Nick Edmiston seems thoroughly at home in St
James’s: his taste for fine wine and cigars may have
something to do with that. He has another great
passion, however: yachts, of course, but specifically
J-Class yachts. Ten of these great boats were
designed and built between 1930 and 1937 – six in
the United States, four in Great Britain – and they
raced three times for the America’s Cup, perhaps
the greatest prize in international yachting.
“Yachts should be elegant,” says Edmiston, “and
the J-Class yachts were the most elegant ever
built. I admire modern yachts a great deal, but
there is something special about the J-Class. They
have tremendous power and they are so exciting to
sail: you can do 16 or 17 knots downwind, which
may not sound a lot but it certainly feels it.”
The development of the J-Class yacht would not
have happened without the additional spur of the
prestigious America’s Cup. Wealthy industrialists on
both sides of the Atlantic – tea magnate Sir Thomas
Lipton, from Ireland, and aviation tycoon Sir
Thomas Sopwith, from Britain; Harold Vanderbilt,
of the shipping and railroad dynasty, and Gerard
Lambert, heir to the Listerine fortune, from the
USA, as well as various well-heeled syndicates –
competed for the trophy.
Despite strong British challenges, however, the New
York Yacht Club (and hence the USA) triumphed
each time, although they had the rules on their side,
as Edmiston points out. “The rules stated that the
British yachts had to be constructed in Britain
and sailed to New York, so they had to be built
to cope with the Atlantic crossing as well as the
races themselves. The American boats could just
be built for speed, which was a great advantage.”
The seaworthiness and high specification build of
the British yachts may be part of the reason that
the only three original J-Class boats that survive –
Shamrock V, Endeavour and Velsheda – are British,
all designed by Charles Ernest Nicholson and built
at his yard at Gosport, in Portsmouth harbour.
Velsheda never challenged for the America’s Cup,
while Shamrock V was defeated in Sir Thomas
Lipton’s last challenge for the trophy, in 1930, and
Sir Thomas Sopwith’s Endeavour narrowly lost out
four years later, to Vanderbilt’s Rainbow.
Many J-Class yachts were sold for scrap during or
after World War II, and the class was deemed too
expensive for the America’s Cup. A new class of
yacht, the Twelve-Metre, was introduced, and a
Golden Age of sailing had come to an end.
The great news for J-Class lovers is that these boats,
along with the surviving boats from the 1930s, are
now regularly to be seen racing each other once
more. Between the 18th to 21st July this year,
several J-Class yachts – Velsheda, Lionheart, Ranger
and Rainbow – competed on the Solent, over the
round-the-island course originally used for the
first ever America’s Cup (then known as the 100
Guineas Cup) in 1851. There will also be races in
the last week of September in St-Tropez, but the
Solent is the spiritual home of the British J-Class
yacht, and Nick Emiston, in particular, is delighted
to see them back.
“It’s a great thing that they are back in the water.
I remember seeing Endeavour, Endeavour II and
Velsheda lying in the mud on the Hamble river:
it was very sad. As a company and a family,
Edmiston are passionate about these beautiful old
boats, and restoring them has been so worthwhile.
“I’ve been sailing for 63 years, since I was fouryears-old: I suppose I should be on an allotment
somewhere, but I love yachting at this level.
Whatever the money in sailing these days, there
is still a Corinthian spirit to be found: I’ve never
been paid for sailing.”
Owning a boat, it must be said, is not cheap: as
J. P. Morgan famously pointed out, “if you have to
ask the price, you can’t afford it.” Nick Edmiston
recommends that you “never spend more than
10% of your net worth on boats. Somebody once
said that owning a yacht was like standing under
a shower, tearing up £20 notes: these days it’s
more like €500 notes, and I’m not sure you could
tear them up fast enough!”
“Mind you, if you want to try J-Class boats,
you can charter Shamrock V from us, or you can
buy Ranger.”
And what would be Edmiston’s cigar and wine
of choice for sailing? “I think I’d have a box of
Partagas Serie D No. 4s, and then a case of
Château Lafite 1982 would do very nicely.”
And the yacht? A J-Class, naturally.
Limewire 15
O
n May 4th this year, visitors
to Google – in other words,
almost every computer user
on the planet – would have seen,
in place of Google’s normal logo,
a series of exuberantly colourful,
cartoon-like men.
The artist for whom this was the
most modern of accolades, Keith
Haring, did not live long enough
to witness the global spread of the
Internet: he died in 1990, aged just
31. He would have appreciated
the tribute, though: Haring was an
artist who rose to fame in the New
York street art scene, and had little
time for the cliquey, stuffy world
of art galleries and private views.
The Google Doodle is the logical
extension of his quest to make art
available to the many, not the few.
He described it as “breaking down
the barriers between high and
low art.”
Haring was born in Reading,
Pennsylvania, on May 4th, 1958.
The young Haring briefly studied
commercial art in Pittsburgh before
deciding on Fine Art, moving to
New York when he was 19 and
enrolling at the School of Visual
Arts. As he puts it in the first lines
of The Universe of Keith Haring,
Christina Clausen’s exhaustive and
fascinating 2008 documentary,
“I was in exactly the right place
at exactly the right time.”
Influenced by the graffiti around
him, Haring’s first forays into pop art
were chalk drawings on the blank,
black spaces awaiting advertisements
on the New York subway: “Radiant
Baby”, a crawling infant surrounded
by a starburst of lines, was an
early motif.
His drawings chimed neatly both
with the Warhol-influenced street
art scene and with the emerging
dance and street music scene of the
early 1980s: it was Warhol, in fact,
who helped Haring develop his art
further, later encouraging him to
open his SoHo boutique, Pop Shop,
in 1986. On sale were Haring’s
thoughtful, cheerful designs in a
huge variety of formats: everything
from key fobs to badges, posters to
Untitled, 1982 © Keith Haring Foundation Used by permission
Self-portrait Polaroid, circa 1980 © Keith Haring Foundation Used by permission
toys. His simple, life-affirming art
was open to all; as he said himself,
it was a place where “not only
collectors could come, but also
kids from the Bronx.”
As Haring’s fame grew, commissions
started to arrive from all over the
world, often for large murals: the
mural at Collingwood College in
Victoria, Australia, for instance,
painted with the help of local
children in 1984. Over the next four
years, he worked in Rio de Janeiro,
Minneapolis, Manhattan and Paris,
painted a mural on the Berlin Wall,
and held exhibitions in Antwerp,
Helsinki and Bordeaux. Bordeaux
was the source of another honour,
too: in 1988, Haring joined the
select group of artists (including
Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dali, Pablo
Picasso and Andy Warhol) who
have been asked to design the label
for Château Mouton Rothschild.
His unique fusion of art and pop
continued, too: designing a jacket
for Madonna, painting Grace Jones’s
body for her music video “I’m Not
Perfect”, and painting the set for
an MTV programme hosted by his
friend Nick Rhodes, of
Duran Duran.
Haring’s art was always fun, but
never trivial. From 1986 onwards,
his work started to reflect social
issues more strongly; in particular,
the menace of crack cocaine, the
anti-apartheid struggle in South
Africa, and the AIDS epidemic.
Openly gay, Haring was a keen
promoter of the “safe sex” message:
in 1988, however, he was himself
diagnosed with HIV. The following
year saw the launch of the Keith
Haring Foundation, established by
Haring to raise funds through the
licensing of his images, with the
proceeds to be spent on activism and
awareness-raising programmes about
HIV and AIDS, and on programmes
to help disadvantaged children.
Haring died the following year, but
his philanthropic work continues
to this day: you can even visit the
virtual Pop Shop – the original
shop closed in 2005 – at
www.haring.com and buy
Haring-designed merchandise from
fridge magnets to condoms. The
Foundation also loans his works to
exhibitions around the world, as
well as continuing to fund projects
related to children and AIDS, and
new generations will no doubt
discover the ebullient, accessible,
colourful art of Keith Haring just as,
forty years ago, passengers on the
New York subway saw his whimsical
drawings and smiled.
16 Limewire
MEALS ON WHEELS
N
ot so very long ago, the British idea of what
consitituted street food was simple: ice cream,
basically, or – at festivals and seaside resorts –
hamburgers and hot dogs of distinctly dubious
provenance. Maybe a tub of whelks if you
were lucky.
Contrast this with the USA, where freshly-cooked, restaurant-standard
meals served from a van are all the rage: known as “gourmet food
trucks”, specialities include cupcakes, tacos, grass-fed burgers, schnitzels,
dim sum and waffles, each cooked and served from a customised van.
You might ask why nobody has done it over here: which is exactly
what chefs Jun Tanaka, from Pearl on High Holborn, and Mark Jankel,
formerly head chef at Notting Hill Brasserie, wondered. “You can’t
really blame it on the weather,” says Jun, “New York gets much
harsher winters than us. Anyway, Mark and I thought it was
worth trying in London.”
And so, for the London Restaurant Festival two years ago, the
two chefs kitted out a rather sleek Airstream van and served up
meals to hungry and grateful City workers.
Limewire 17
STREET
KITCHEN
The experiment was a great success, and the bus’s
distinctive aluminium curves have spent most of
this summer parked at Finsbury Avenue Square,
near Liverpool Street, doling out decidedly superior
lunches to office folk. The bus moved east for the
Olympics, another advantage for a restaurant with
mobile premises.
There is no skimping on ingredients. For the lamb dish,
Elwy Valley supplies top quality meat from the hill
farms of North Wales, the shoulders of which Jun and
Mark patiently brine and then confit, giving meltingly
tender lamb which keeps a rosy hue even after 36 hours
of preparation, done in their Battersea production
kitchen.
The bus may hail from Ohio, but Jun and Mark’s
ingredients come from considerably closer to home:
nothing, in fact, is from outside the UK. Rapeseed oil
replaces olive oil; garlic, salt and sugar are all British;
black peppercorns are nowhere to be found. It is an
extreme philosophy, but the chefs want to make the
point that good, fast food can be entirely British and
sustainable. Typical dishes include soft poached eggs
with broad beans, pickled red onions, warm crushed
potatoes, mixed leaves, tarragon mayo and rosemary
breadcrumbs, or slow roast lamb with tomato, cucumber
and pickled onion salad. Customers can expect to pay
less than half of what they might pay in a restaurant:
around £7.
“We use a combi oven, and we cook four shoulders at
a time: it might seem like a lengthy process – and it is
– but it doesn’t take a lot of work, and the lamb comes
out appetisingly pink at the end of it all,” says Jun.
If you still hanker after something a bit plainer, like a
hamburger, Jun and Mark can sort that out for you, too:
just head down to their Battersea offshoot, The Hatch,
for Burger Night on Fridays. And keep an eye on the
Street Kitchen website: as Jun points out, “even we
don’t know exactly what we’ll be cooking tomorrow.”
www.streetkitchen.co.uk
Limewire 19
Just William
Interview with William Asprey
Born into the famous Asprey luxury
goods dynasty, William Asprey
started his own business, William
& Son, on Mount Street, Mayfair
in 1999, four years after the family
business was sold to the brother of
the Sultan of Brunei.
William & Son specialises in bespoke
watches and, two doors down in
Mayfair, bespoke sporting guns:
Asprey has a keen interest in both.
Jewellery, luxury leather goods and
country clothing are other specialities.
BREGUET MARINE ROYALE ALARM
Available at William & Son
Price – £30,700.00
When did you first work
for the family firm?
When I was still at school:
I worked as a porter and packer
in the holidays. It was great fun.
And you originally
wanted to be a chef?
I wanted to try my hand at hospitality,
yes, but I eventually decided on the
Army, and I spent four years in the
Royal Green Jackets.
The Army must have prompted
an interest in guns...
Actually, I got more into guns after
I left. I grew up with it all: my family
were all shooting people.
Do you have a favourite gun?
A side-by-side shotgun, I suppose, but
I’ve shot with different guns all over
the world: Berettas, shooting for doves
in Argentina, and rifles, of course: I
was once shooting in Russia and was
rather alarmed to be handed a sniper’s
rifle complete with night sight. But
“have gun, will travel” is
my motto!
Who buys guns from
William & Son?
We have a lot of overseas clients,
especially Americans. The British
tend to inherit their guns, so it’s more
difficult to get them to buy a pair.
Our guns take a year and a half, on
average, to complete: we have a team
of highly skilled outworkers who make
them. You’re looking at £45,000
plus VAT per gun, but they are
very beautiful.
Where is your favourite shoot?
I like the Well Barn Estate in
Oxfordshire, for partridge and
pheasant, and Reeth’s estate in North
Yorkshire, for grouse: grouse are
the most exciting, the most difficult
birds to shoot. You can’t be entirely
certain of shooting anything in a
day. And I’ve shot woodcock on the
Pembrokeshire coast, and snipe
in Scotland.
What’s the perfect size
for a shoot?
I think eight guns, and maybe 200
good, high birds. A good shoot should
be challenging and exhilarating.
One of my favourite places is the
Angmering Estate near Arundel,
West Sussex, run by Nigel Clutton...
although you have to watch out
for his fairly lethal vodka and
gin concoctions!
They’re delicious, so they’re hard
to turn down: there’s one he makes
called “Cat’s Piss”, which is
flavoured with gooseberry. Definitely
not to be sampled if you’re driving.
You’re a keen fisherman: have
you ever thought of selling rods
as well as guns?
As with shooting, I’ve been lucky
enough to travel the world fishing:
from the Kennet for trout to Alaska
for wild salmon, Arctic char and
rainbow trout, and Mexico
for sailfish.
It’s a very different science, though,
making fishing rods. I have a rod
custom-made in America by an
amazing guy called Ira Stutzman
at Hell’s Canyon Custom Rods, in
Oregon – motto “Because you only
have one life to fish” – and it’s a
thing of beauty.
Watches are another passion of
yours: do you collect them as well
as sell them from the shop?
Yes, although I do own a Swatch as
well! I have 60 or so classic watches,
though, and they all have proper
Swiss movements. Once you start
collecting them, it’s very hard to stop.
Now everyone has a mobile phone,
they’re not essential for telling the time
anymore, but some of them are great
works of art. Also, what jewellery can
a man wear? Just cufflinks, maybe
a St Christopher, and a watch.
And you have a well-stocked
cellar, too?
I do love good food and fine wine:
I’m a bit of a traditionalist, I suppose.
I was brought up on Bordeaux and
Burgundy and I rarely stray too far
from that. The Château Figeac 2000
is drinking very well at the moment
– I tend to drink claret fairly young,
partly out of curiosity or impatience,
but mainly because I like it when it
still has plenty of fruit. And I visited
Château Pontet-Canet recently: the
owner, Alfred Tesseron, is such
a gentleman.
Do you have a
favourite restaurant?
I love The Ledbury, in Notting Hill:
Brett Graham is a great chef, and the
food seems to get better and better
each time I visit. He made a dish of
frozen foie gras on green beans with
white peaches and almonds last time I
was there: wonderful. And Brett is a
very keen shot, too!
I’ve thought about owning my own
restaurant occasionally, but if I did
then it would have to be with someone
who could run it properly. Never say
never, though.
How has Mayfair changed in the
dozen years you’ve been there?
There’s a lot of building work these
days! Other than that, though, it’s
definitely still the place to be, and
people from all over the world make
their way here. It’s a wonderful area.
Lime Wood has a selection of
William & Son’s country clothing
available for purchase.
Forest
Limewire 21
Smoked
and Uncut
The New
Forest Centre
Forest Fit
For anyone unfamiliar with the area,
perhaps the best place is the New Forest
Centre. Handily located in the middle of
Lyndhurst, in the heart of the National
Park, the Centre has much to engage,
inform and entertain, including an
interactive museum, a reference library,
an information centre and a well-stocked
gift shop.
We’re launching a brand new Boot Camp for
women on October 14th, in collaboration with
Tim Weeks.
What is it?
We have taken the traditional boot camp and
given it a twist. This isn’t a 3-day military regime.
It is the ultimate women only lavish health
and fitness experience – 3 days of physical and
mental invigoration, which is tailor made to your
wishes, needs and goals. In the natural setting of
the New Forest, we have a full range of outdoor
activities so that clients absorb the surroundings
both inside and outside the spa. Designed by our
in-house team in consultation with top women’s
fitness, health and wellness consultant and
trainer Tim Weeks. Visit our website to find
out more www.limewoodhotel.co.uk/pamper
What does it cost?
£2,200 per person single occupancy, £1,750
per person double occupancy including room,
fitness sessions, spa facilities and bespoke
treatment package.
When?
Our first camp will run from 14th – 17th October.
Camps will also run in November and January.
The New Forest Centre, High Street,
Lyndhurst, SO43 7NY, 023 8028 3444,
www.thenewforest.co.uk. Open daily
from 9am – 5pm: last entry to the
Gallery at 4pm.
Farmers’ Markets
As you will have noticed from the menus at
Lime Wood and The Pig, we are lucky to have
an abundance of splendid produce right on
our doorstep. The New Forest is, of course, a
fabulously unspoilt treasure trove for foragers:
mushrooms, wild herbs and vegetables, nuts and
berries; and the nearby coastline provides sea
vegetables, wild mussels and seaweeds. Just ask
Garry Eveleigh, The Pig’s forager, who regularly
returns from shore and forest with baskets full
of greenery: three-cornered garlic, ramsons,
alexanders, moon daisies (ox-eye daisies, as they
are also known), and trugs full of claytonia, a
fleshy-leafed relative of purslane also known
evocatively as “streambank springbeauty”.
But the area also has a plethora of small farmers
and producers, rearing or growing everything
from rare breeds of pigs and cattle to heritage
varieties of apples and pears. The best places to
track down some of this wonderful produce are
local farmers’ markets: some may have just a few
stalls, but they offer the chance not just to touch,
smell and feel the produce, but also to meet
the people who produced it: shopping over the
internet just isn’t quite the same.
One of the biggest farmer’s markets in the
region is Sunnyfields Market, at Totton, on
the edge of the New Forest, just three or four
miles from Lyndhurst. What’s on offer changes,
of course, with the seasons, but you can be
assured of finding a huge range of fresh, locally
grown fruit and vegetables, as well as local jams,
preserves, honeys, breads and cheeses: look out
for Loosehanger’s cheeses from their dairy at
Redlynch, in the north of the New Forest. Their
prize-winning cheeses include nettle and wild
garlic and goat’s curd with tarragon.
It also boasts a gallery, staging several
different exhibitions each year. This
summer is dedicated to the winners of
The Olympics Open Art Competition,
jointly sponsored by the National Park
Authority and the Forestry Commission.
Entrants were allowed to choose their
medium – photography, painting and
sculpture are all represented – and asked to
follow the Olympic theme of “gold, silver
and bronze” in their work. Expect plenty
of images of the New Forest at its most
colourful and beautiful, at sunrise, sunset
and covered in frost.
Giffords Circus
Sunnyfields Farm Shop, open 9.30am – 6pm
Mon-Fri, 9am – 5pm Sat, 10am – 4pm Sun.
Sunnyfields Market open every Saturday,
9am – 2pm
More local markets can be found at
www.thenewforest.co.uk: you might also
try these monthly markets:
New Forest Local Producers’ Market, Everton
Nurseries Farmers Walk, Everton, near
Lymington, SO41 0JZ. Open from 9am to
3pm on the first Saturday of each month.
Offers a range of products: honey, bread, cakes,
eggs, wool, beef, local game, pork and bacon,
cheese, vegetables and specialist plants.
East Boldre Farmers’ Market, East Boldre
Village Hall, Main Road, East Boldre,
Brockenhurst, SO42 7WL, open on the
fourth Saturday of each month.
Sixteen stalls selling a wide variety of local
produce, plus the Kitchen Café for tea, cakes
and other refreshments.
The rowdy and glamorous village green
circus that has been entertaining audiences
in the rural southwest for more than
a decade, returns with its 2012 show
“The Saturday Book”. See article on
pages 2 and 3.
Lime Wood and The
Pig’s high-spirited
monthly live music
sessions, in aid of chosen
charities, Action Against
Hunger and The ARK
Foundation, continue
until November.
23rd September:
Lime Wood – Police Dog
Hogan and The Voodoo
Trombone
14th October:
The Pig – The
Miserable Rich
11th November:
Lime Wood – Shake
Tiger Shake
On the water
Southampton Boat Show,
14th – 23rd September
The biggest water-based
boat show in Europe,
featuring a massive range
of nautical-themed
attractions and boats of
every shape and size – you
can even try your hand at
sailing – as well as food
villages and a fish-themed
cookery theatre hosted by
chef Mark Sargeant.
www.southamptonboatshow.com
Stratton Meadows, Cirencester,
Gloucestershire, from 6th – 16th September
More details at www.giffordscircus.com
Beer Festival
5th – 7th October
The Red Shoot are proud
to host their Autumn Beer
Festival with over 30 real
ales and 10 traditional
ciders available over the
weekend. This is a popular
event, with live bands
playing each night.
www.redshoot.co.uk