Going Up and Coming Down «

Going Up and Coming Down

Thursday 10th December 2020

It’s up in the cable car to the Botanical Gardens and down in another to the wild seashore in a different part of Madeira only accessible on that wire. My nerves were bad in the car, especially when Anthony Mottram insisted on standing up and rocking it. Just hanging on by a thread which could snap at any moment or what if the cable got jerked out of the wheel it depends on? You never know if anybody’s thought of these things.

The Bot Gardens were incredibly charming and vertical but I had such a hangover that day. Could hardly move. Flora is huge in Madeira. Flowers everywhere, most of them in the brightly coloured tropical range – the Bougainvillea, the large flowered hibiscus, a cactus plant with flowers like red-hot pokers. Many species are unique to the island and labelled ‘Maderense’, such as Geranium Maderense. Everything grows so well in the even climate with plenty of rain. Only in the Bot Gardens, where they display other flora, such as cacti, were there signs of failure as always seen in English gardens. The cacti were remarkable, though – those great tall ones like persons by Henry Moore.

Another day we went to the museums of Madeira – incredibly brown and unvisited. One with boiling standard Flemish works for some reason. In the basement was a contemporary installation. Anthony Mottram said it was lace-based, as is the whole of Madeira. It wasn’t quite lace actually but drawn-thread work. But Anthony Mottram insisted lace was the foundation of Madeira and could be of many countries if only they tried.

It didn’t seem very likely, looking at all the rocks and embattled nautical buildings that there would be a lace basis to it all.

The other museum was devoted to the works of two brothers from the late 19th to early 20th, one was a painter and the other a sculptor. The place was beautifully kept, the lino gleaming and 4 or 5 attendants managing the free entry. There must be a huge foundation. The works were perfectly adequate, in different styles from the period.

It was important to pay these visits in order to give back something of what Madeira had given to us as an opportunity for exile. Only Reid’s Hotel remained to be visited, where the Ducal Grandson said there were vitrines containing abandoned wedding dresses of long ago. On the last night we went there – at last the in and out drive of Reid’s Hotel. But it had been taken over by the Belmont chain, the atrium now international polished luxury from the central issuing office of international luxury and the vitrines abolished.