General Chat

A few years ago, coming back from our brother's studio in Somerset with my sister, we came back the pretty way, over the North edge of the Quantocks, and down the Western side, to Bridgewater.
We passed through a small village called Nether Stowey, as we trundled through, on a small cottage, I saw a blue plaque to, what I thought was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but there was a small picture of him - and he was black!

Once we got home, I did some research.
The plaque was to commemorate the fact that Samuel Coleridge Taylor (can you see the similarity/difference?) had lived there.
Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875 - 1912) was indeed black - well, of mixed race - his father was from Sierra Leon, his mother a white Londoner, and Samuel was a composer, born in Croydon.

I watched 'Black Classical Music - the Forgotten History' in the hope he would be featured - and he was! :-D
He was also an advocate for Social Equality.

Well, when I phoned the 'driver' to check he was still alive, I mentioned seeing the programme, the plaque to Samuel Coleridge Taylor etc - then, in a flash, I was reminded about what had happened last time I mentioned the plaque.........

His response was 'Well he, and other poets Keates and Milton regularly haunted the Quantocks' (it was Coleridge and Wordsworth, but I didn't want to talk about poets)
'No' was my response, 'I'm not talking about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I'm talking about Samuel Coleridge Taylor'.
'Driver' had never heard of him, so carried on talking about poets - apparently, I was wrong, must have seen the picture in shadow etc etc.!

Similar response to last time I mentioned Coleridge Taylor.
In his defence, 'Driver' doesn't have any form of internet, not even a smartphone, so, unlike most of us, can't look up anything, unless it's in a book, and doesn't believe the internet if it doesn't fit with his pre-conceived ideas.

I let him ramble on about poets, then advised him not to go to the library tomorrow - he lives a few miles from my other brother - see 'Whoops!, (no internet - he wouldn't know) and said goodnight.

Still, there are times when it's good that I'm reminded of why I prefer to live alone.............

:-)