The Moon and Sixpence in The View from the Terrace

We always say here that if you can’t see the mountains it’s going to rain soon. Well, today we can hardly see the trees on the other side of the railway line. The shapes of their branches peering out from the mist looks quite magical but it’s not a day for going out, as I had hoped we might do, so instead I settled down to watch an episode of Civilisation online and it has left me in a philosophical mood.

One of our favourite places to go for a drive is Tintern. We first discovered it on a holiday together in a camper van in the early 70s. We fell in love with the Wye Valley and returned there on our honeymoon. We were living in London at the time and later that year Hubby was made redundant in London after his boss had a heart attack and the firm closed. We loved London but were getting tired of the commute in and out from our bedsit in Richmond and were finding it impossible to find a permanent place to live because prices were so high. On an impulse we decided to move back to the West Midlands where I grew up. We thought of returning to Shropshire, my home county, but it seemed better to make a fresh start but in that general area so that we could visit regularly. The obvious choice was the Wye Valley and we started visiting weekends to look at possibilities. We loved the lower Wye Valley leading down to Tintern, but accepted that we were unlikely to find jobs in such a rural area so we settled on Herefordshire. It was ideal, near enough to visit the lower Wye Valley on a weekend drive and near enough to visit my hometown of Shrewsbury from time to time. We are still here and still enjoying visits to Tintern especially in the autumn when the tree lined valley is a beautiful display of colours and in the spring when the woods are full of bluebells.

There is a hotel at Tintern called The Moon and Sixpence. The name always fascinated me. Eventually I looked it up and found it came from a novel by Somerset Maugham. I always planned to read it but somehow never got around to it. Part of the Civilisation programme that I was watching this morning was about the artist Paul Gauguin. My interest was piqued and I looked him up on Wikipedia. There I discovered that the Somerset Maugham novel The Moon and Sixpence was loosely based on his life. I went to the page about the novel and found the explanation of the title -

According to some sources, the title, the meaning of which is not explicitly revealed in the book, was taken from a review of Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage in which the novel’s protagonist, Philip Carey, is described as “so busy yearning for the moon that he never saw the sixpence at his feet.” According to a 1956 letter from Maugham, “If you look on the ground in search of a sixpence, you don’t look up, and so miss the moon.” Maugham’s title echoes the description of Gauguin by his contemporary biographer, Meier-Graefe (1908): “He [Gauguin] may be charged with having always wanted something else.”

I got to thinking about this idea and concluded that it is better to look at the moon even if you do miss the sixpence. I’ve been thinking about this and how it might relate to my own life. I think in my early life I spent too long looking for the sixpence on the ground and almost missed the moon. As a teenager I wanted to go to drama school but my mother was always worried about the insecurity of a career on the stage and wanted me to get qualified as something else first so that I would have something to fall back on. I felt this was ridiculous as it is preparing for failure, but she had a way of getting to me and somehow I fell between the two and ended up doing neither. Later I compromised by working in the theatre, but on the administrative side running the bookstall at the Chichester Festival Theatre and later in the box office at the Royal Opera House. I loved both of those jobs, they were some of the happiest times of my life. I still pursued my dreams of becoming a singer but didn’t get anywhere partly, because auditions were usually in the daytime and I was concerned about taking time off from my job and losing it. I did sing in folk clubs but when the children came along that also went by and board.

About 20 years ago there was a shift in my life. A dear friend died suddenly and I realised we need to get on with fulfilling our dreams as none of us know how long we have on this earth. I briefly did sing professionally at a local Regency banquet venue but unfortunately the firm collapsed after 6 months. Then I managed to get some engagements at local old people’s homes which I loved. Sadly my health deteriorated and it got so I couldn’t be relied upon so that ended. but I have got back to singing in folk clubs where you can just turn up when you feel like it so that suits me.

I think I really must read that Somerset Maugham novel. I’m fascinated by Gauguin as he left everything, even his family and followed his dream. It does sound as though that didn’t make him entirely happy but I will have to read more about him to find out. Now I’m not saying I’m dissatisfied with my life, but sometimes I do wish I had stayed focused on the moon and not worried so much about the sixpence. On the other hand Hubby and I did achieve our dream of coming to live in the part of the country that we fell in love with at the beginning of our relationship. Our love affair with the Wye Valley began in Tintern so maybe it’s appropriate that the pub is there.