Between blotch and blok

Went off to Denny Abbey this afternoon, since Looby Loo wanted to go back after her visit with school and we'd never been and there were archers and other things medieval.

Wandered around the stripped back buildings, regretting that it was busy, there was a small child telling us to move along, and that I'd brought neither camera nor sketchpad. Still, not spending much of my time squinting through a view tinder or staring at the LCD on the digital camera did mean I read all the placards as we went around the abbey. And how polite they were. The end of the knights templar, whilst correctly mentioning that the handful of residents of the abbey including one madman were imprisoned first at the jail in Cambridge (on Castle Hill in the old castle in fact, where several died, I think [the relevant book's upstairs]) and then the Tower, made the situation sound like some kind of minor event, bloodless and unthreatening. It was left to the folk doing the demonstration of arms and armour to mention the politics, briefly, tho' again not the fates of the templars. (Note I have no particular axe to grind in favour of the templars, although, like many other secretive organisations past or present, they do inspire a certain curiosity.) Similarly, maybe on the grounds of simplifying the language used, the end of the abbey's life as a religious building by Henry Viii was nowhere mentioned as anything other than Henry "closing down" the religious houses. Evidently, the dissolution of the monasteries is no more. It's all so mealy-mouthed.

I wonder how far this is to do with making the information accessible to children. If so, it seems like the wrong way to go. If all those horrid histories books sell so well, then what ignites kids' interest is upheaval and violence. When I was Looby Loo's age, I was obsessed with Tudor and Stuart England, especially crime and punishment. Hanging, drawing and quartering, ducking witches, were the things that attracted my attention.

Good visit--including bumping into ex-boss from last job and ex-colleague from job before that and having my skirt admired by ladies in very fine medieval garb, and chocolate cake. Mainly tho', it was patched and repatched walls, stone and brick and concrete, bricked up windows and holes punched through walls, fireplaces halfway up walls and a bread oven in a church wall.