XTC English Settlement

[jw@math.mit.edu]

   The white horse in question is etched into a hillside somewhere in
Wiltshire, I think in the Vale of Pewsey. It is an ancient monument,
which means it is old enough that noone knows who first put it there,
although it has certainly been retouched.
   It is made by carving away the top layer of sod, revealing the very
white chalk underneath. Much of the surrounding downs near Salisbury
Plain are made of chalk, giving others the idea of copying the horse.
There are a number of more modern, and indeed more modern-looking,
horses on nearby hills, but none have the antiquity or the class of
the Pewsey horse. There are also a number of regimental insignia
carved by bored soldiers with time on their hands, who were in the
area when Salisbury Plain was being used as the staging ground for the
Normandy invasion in the European civil wars of the 1940s.
   XTC are themselves from Wiltshire, from a town named Swindon which
also happens to be where I was born. It was, when they and I were born
there, a young town which had grown up quickly since the age of the
railways. It is now a high-tech growth centre, and the fastest-growing
town in Europe, mostly due to excellent transportation links to
London, the Midlands, and Heathrow airport.
   It is also smack dab in the middle of the most astonishing set of
ancient monuments in Europe, including the Pewsey horse, a large
number of barrows (ancient burial mounds), Woodhenge, Avebury, and
Stonehenge.  The horse represents an excellent graphical choice for
the cover of English Settlement, therefore.
   Anyone further interested in the history of the area might want to
look up the book "Sarum," by Edward Rutherford (I might have the
author's name wrong), which was published last year and was a moderate
best-seller and a Book of the Month Club alternate selection. It is a
fictionalised history of the area around Salisbury, Wiltshire,
including the building of Stonehenge and the magnificent cathedral
church in Salisbury, which has the tallest spire in England.
   The book is a little dry, and is best viewed as a series of
short-stories rather than related chapters, since in covering 5000
years of history it does rather jump around a bit. However, it does a
good job of conveying the history of England by focussing on a few
connected blood-lines in one place, and so managing to take a detailed
look at England, at least in microcosm. (Sounds a bit like James
Michener, no?)

                                  Cheers
                                     Julian