Jane Taylor

Jane Taylor

London

We’re standing here and this is where so many photographs are taken, postcard photographs are taken, and on calendars. You stand here and you see that ridge going along. And I look at them from time to time and I get a little pang in my heart that goes, “That landscape’s deep inside my soul and d I need to see it again. but how do I find it without too much nostalgia?”

It is a landscape of imagination, but also it’s because it’s westerly facing so you get that sort of extra blue in the sky and then you get the sunsets as well. For me it definitely feels very strongly a part of my imagination and my inner spirit. When I was younger and lived here, we’d go further south where there’s some very spiritual places. I know we used to feel the area around Midsummer Hill and Whiteleaved Oak. They had particularly strong vibrations about it.

It’s very easy on the eye here, isn’t it? It’s not so easy on the legs. But the ridge, the sort of the dinosaur back ridge, standing here, it just feels very easy and safe and pleasant. And it seems to be leading somewhere. And I want to go on and on.

Jane Story

I was looking for a break from London and I wanted to go somewhere where I could get fit. And Malvern, well Malvern’s my hometown.

But I haven’t visited for 13 years, so I felt a strong urge to come and do my ‘getting fit’ back in my hometown. I have also been trying to find new ways of being in the town, rather than going around going, “Oh, I used to do this here and that there.” It’s more about creating new experiences now. Which is why I haven’t come back for 13 years since my mother’s funeral. Because It just always felt a bit too intense and I feel that’s given me enough distance, 13 years, to be able to come and just enjoy Malvern for being a lovely place.

It’s a rediscovery of something that I know is very embedded in me. And some of the places I accidentally go by and then I remember, “Oh, you know, from the age of three to 15, I would walk up that path almost every day.” And that’s quite a deep, meaningful route. So I don’t want to go back along that path. I’m looking for new paths, but they’re here. It’s a deep-down feeling of being here in the landscape. I’m here to find a new way of experiencing it. I feel my ‘current day me’ is happily engaged in finding the easy way up and down hills. And apart from this one. And sitting on benches and drinking coffee. You know 60 years ago I’d have been running up and down here.

It’s a contrast to London. London is very crowded, very polluted, a very stressful place. And although I work hard at finding quiet places in London. I devote a lot of my time to volunteering for a project that’s looking at, at finding quiet ways to walk around places. So I enjoy that side of things in London. I am actually looking to leave London. I don’t think I’d come back to Malvern though. I don’t like the idea of going back to places.

We’re standing here and this is where so many photographs are taken, postcard photographs are taken, and on calendars. You stand here and you see that ridge going along. And I look at them from time to time and I get a little pang in my heart that goes, “That landscape’s deep inside my soul and d I need to see it again. but how do I find it without too much nostalgia?” And I’m, I’m pleased that I think I am getting the balance right. But also, when I look out to Herefordshire, that’s, from my teenage years, I would say, that’s always been a very inspiring view. And I’ve always had that thought of, “What happens behind that little ridge of hills and then the next little ridge of hills and how exciting to go exploring and finding the stories of the people who are there.” So in a way Malvern is a good place to stand and have that point of view, but to really experience the excitement you have to get off and go and walk through the landscapes that you can see from here.

It is a landscape of imagination, but also it’s because it’s westerly facing so you get that sort of extra blue in the sky and then you get the sunsets as well. For me it definitely feels very strongly a part of my imagination and my inner spirit. When I was younger and lived here, we’d go further south where there’s some very spiritual places. I know we used to feel the area around Midsummer Hill and Whiteleaved Oak. They had particularly strong vibrations about it. And then we all agree that Ragged Stone is like the devil’s work! (laughs). If we can do anything to avoid walking over ragged stone, we’ll go round the side, thank you very much! And it’s more intense going that way, I feel. There’s also some areas, I think, the lesser explored slopes of the Worcestershire Beacon, that people don’t tend to get to. We just have small paths and little corners, and something special might happen – a woodpecker lands in front of you, it’s just some little moment before the mountain bikes come crashing down on you.

It’s always going to have the layers of story. The thing that matters is being able to create new ones, rather than just looking for the old stories, it’s looking for the new ones. Like this will become a new part of my story. So people coming here for the first time, they’ve got their stories to create, but I’m sure that they will find things, wonderful things, on these paths.

I think living is about change. Living to me encompasses the whole birth, life and death. One of the things I find, one of the more hopeful things I find to think about is that the landscape will continue. You know, even if, if humans do manage to destroy more or less everything there’s still many millennia of resilience built in here. And, you know, we’ll just have been a fraction of time, won’t we, and the best thing to do is enjoy it and live in it.

I think of landscape as very much that humans have made such an impact, you have to go a long way to find somewhere where humans haven’t landed firmly and hard on a landscape. And the whole concept of landscape, I suppose is human, I don’t suppose animals, you know, foraging and following a trail think of landscape. They’re just thinking of their next meal. So landscape, I think theory in, you know, in theory, is a human construct. Whereas actually the land when humans have gone will become something. It won’t go back. It’ll go forward into something a bit different. but maybe the trees will be happier and people won’t be cutting down the sycamores at Hadrian’s Wall and all those sorts of things.

It’s very easy on the eye here, isn’t it? It’s not so easy on the legs. But the ridge, the sort of the dinosaur back ridge, standing here, it just feels very easy and safe and pleasant. And it seems to be leading somewhere. And I want to go on and on.