For my Durham friends

This summer I visited a small Bohemian village Malé Svatoňovice which is situated close to Czech-Polish borders. The village is a birthplace of one of the greatest writers, a seven-time Nobel Prize nominee (how unfortunate), Karel Čapek. Maybe you have heard about him. If you are interested,  there's a museum in the town dedicated to the works and lives of Karel and his older brother Josef.

Among many wonderful items from Karel's life displayed in a permanent exhibition, I found a photo. Once you realize what is on the photo, I grant you, it will immediately fill you with nice memories. Besides, who of you did not use the magnificent, awe-inspiring edifice of Durham Cathedral as a cover photo? Hah!

Durham Cathedral from St. Oswald's
Muzeum bratří Čapků v Malých Svatoňovicích

Invited by PEN Club, Karel Čapek visited UK in 1924. He spent several months going around the country, visited places in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. Čapek wrote sketches that were published in his Letters from England. If you are interested in what Čapek had to say about the English, read the book. It is worth it! Anyway, in one of the sketches, Čapek says:

The cathedral in Durham is ancient and looms on a high rock. Inside, services are held with preaching, singing and vergers. Nevertheless, I saw the grave of the Venerable Bede, hefty pillars and cloisters and an outing of pretty American Girls. These pillars are heavily covered with condensed fluting which gives a strange, almost polychromatic impression. Apart from this, there is the grave of St. Cuthbert, an old castle and old, stone houses, and the pretty, little town runs from hill to hill, and more than this I do not know. (p. 86, transl. by Geoffrey Newsome)

It feels good to find traces of Durham anywhere you go. I add my own view on the cathedral. I took the picture in the late spring of 2013.

If you are interested in more, in what Čapek had to say about the English, read his book.

K. Čapek: Letters from England (translated by Geoffrey Newsome, with a foreword by Roger Scruton). Continuum, London and New York, 2001.

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