The Word Cloud

Yesterday I saw ‘My Week with Marylin’.   I enjoyed the film and would be interested in discussing the plot.  But I will wait until the film is off general release before making a post as I would not want to give the story away.

Over the past month,  on odd days, I have been ambling around a valley in  Kent and the plot of a film has arisen out of my researches -almost as a by product.  I have been looking into a part of Kent that is well documented and, partly, mythologised.  This is the Kent of hop-picking.  Once upon a time, my hobby had been landscape photography, and the star of the film would be Kent.  This particular valley has been painted by a well-known, but forgotten painter. (I am not thinking of Churchill, though he is a major figure in the valley) There are  possible visual references - literally picture postcard Kent.  I could include this painter's best known painting in the plot - even as the first cause!

The Plot.   An Australian couple and their Republican daughter take a holiday in Kent, but the mother has another scenario. She wants to investigate why her great-grandmother emigrated to Australia in the 1860’s,  to begin a life farming in the Australian outback.  (Her grandmother had emigrated on her own and nothing is known about her until some facts appear on the internet.)  One story is set in the nineteenth century and the other in the twenty first century.

Can pop music be used as the sound track?   I was thinking of a group like ‘Fairport Convention.’  The folk songs of the nineteenth century could used to illustrate the ‘period’ and then ‘updated’ to folk/rock for the twenty first.  Mind you, I don’t know of any hopping songs.  Does this use of folk/rock make sense?  The two plots should  mirror each other.  But would the music alienate a possible audience - even though I am thinking of a 1960’s/1970’s ambience.

I can take this one step further and include a pop group in the plot.  I had been looking into what contemporary use is made of the buildings and countryside (the past being visible in the present)   One use of land is for pop-concerts, but what about pubs and village greens fairs, etc? Folk music would fit here. 

( The sub- plot)   The republican daughter, a Kylie figure, falls for an aristocratic, pop-singing rotter, a Hugh Grant figure, who is the son of a local farming dynasty.  As she travels around Kent, with her parents, the daughter continually sees him  singing at various events and falls in love.
  Her great-great grandmother had left for Australia out of shame for a ‘Breach of Promise trial that had been extensively reported in the ‘Times’   The ‘Hugh Grant’ figure would be a descendant of the defendant who was an absolute rotter and history might repeat itself.  ( I think The ‘Times’ has reported enough of the case for it to be dramatised in flashback and this would certainly bring the Victorian era alive.  I, and another relation, have been trying to research three generations of the farming community, so my family material should be authentic)

There is one flaw in my enterprise and that is, probably, me.  I am stuck with a short story. (the plot) Someone is seated at the pub in Chiddingstone (National Trust.)   He has discovered the grave of a great-great, great great grandfather buried in the cemetery opposite the pub (the church is also National Trust’)  Three castles are nearby.   It is dusk and he opens up his lap-top.  Along with the light ‘fact’s emerge about the buried figure.  These illuminate the surrounding area. (The ghosts of the machine)  We are back to the time of Jane Austen.  If you think the daughter of the local miller was of low descent, you might be mistaken. The ghost might be in Westminster Abbey.  I am still trying to research this, but the trails always peter out at about this period.  I am on strike at the moment and should be out picketing.  Not really, i am on leave, which i booked some time ago, and might go to Westminster City Archives, to see if they have anything about ghosts there.

The usual music score for this sort of film would be Percy Grainger or Delius as they used folk music for inspiration.  Folk songs are are sung by Kathleen Ferrier but she has no connection with Kent,