Gilbert & Sons
Close up photo of some moss and a twig on a woodland floor.
This is Gilbert & Sons, they are a travelling players group. Unlike other plants, these guys don’t exude oxygen but joy. As you can tell from their happy upright gesturing, they want you to pay attention, because the more attention you pay, the closer you’ll get to joy. Literally and figuratively. Gilbert & Sons are actually what happens to some lifeforms who achieve liberation from suffering. A liberation which, judging by my response to the non-stop electric sander somewhere outside, I’m still a long way off achieving.
In this play, Gilbert & Sons are demonstrating the maxim that “all things can be found in miniature”. It is an exhortation to pay attention to the small in order to dwell in the large. As you can see, Gilbert & Sons are trees, the feather moss is playing bracken, and the twig is doing a great job of acting as an ancient, fallen tree returning its life to the forest floor. If you had been there, you would have seen the motes of dust acting as birds, and the atoms playing insects. Unfortunately my iPhone 12 mini isn’t good enough to capture detail like that. However, if enough people buy 10,000 Delights, Vol. 1, I may be able to afford a decent camera for the next time I am on Holmbury Hill. Just saying…
During my interview, I asked Gilbert where he got his inspiration from as a travelling player. He told me that once upon a long time ago, an Ottoman miniaturist called Mehmet, the bastard son of the famous Nakkash Osman, came travelling to England in search of inspiration. He wanted to do his dear old dad proud and invent some new subject matter for his miniature paintings.
Sadly, whilst wandering the lush wooded hills of north Surrey, Mehmet-the-bastard-but-brilliant miniaturist was attacked by some highway robbers and murdered. Being uncouth robbers, they did not recognise the worth of his book of miniatures. They merely robbed him for his life, blade, and gold pennies. The book was left to rot underneath Mehmet’s mangled body and a rather splendid Douglas fir tree.
Several years and a few pigeon poops later, Gilbert’s great, great, great (etc.) granddad crept up upon Mehmet’s book. After slowly feeling his moss roots about, he set about absorbing the very essence of the paintings. Since then, Gilbert’s family lineage, and certain select friends, have travelled Holmbury Hill commemorating the talented life of Mehmet in the hopes that they can make up for his tragic ending.
So there we have it folks. Yet another fascinating legend found amidst the trees and bryophytes of the splendid wonder that is Holmbury Hill. As ever, I implore you to get up out of your chair and go visit the area to verify the legend for yourself, and potentially find one or two others. I do hope that I will see you there.