Oh Comely Issue 31

stories / film / music / fashion / mischief / ideas

Adventures, planned or otherwise The company of free-spirited women Infrequently asked questions issue 31 ď‚&#x; ÂŁ5

issue 31

Start where you are.

A joyful escape! Take the lane, go the long way.

Switch tracks and see how far the fare will get you.

Peer over the next hill, and the one after.

Go deliberately, headfirst into that thing that scares you the most.

Tell truths, skinny dip, tree-climb. Come back to earth exhilaratingly, outrageously free.

illustration pรกdhraic mullholland

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contents Features

Stories

In every issue

30 Adventures you plan for, adventures you don’t Unexpected journeys, told from the heart

11 Reader’s letters

92 The reluctant outdoorswoman Our staff writer tries something new…

104 The art of climbing trees …Jack Cooke tries something old…

16 Where there’s water, there’s life Four women share their love for open air swimming

118 Finding hope in speed dating …And our associate editor tries something that scares him

40 Jodie Whittaker An interview with the star of Adult Life Skills

28 Guest illustrator A conversation with this issue’s artist, Padhráic Mulholland 50 What we’re reading Books to read (and one to avoid) in the places they’re set

67 Competition Win £500 to spend at Anthropologie 74 Subscribe Treat yourself to a year’s worth of Oh Comely

56 Suburban standard Mix and match fashion for summer

76 Three questions We get to know Oh Comely reader Lauren Maccabee

68 Liela Moss We chat to The Duke Spirit’s frontwoman

82 Women who changed the world Meet Freya Stark, author and explorer

84 Quickles and flavour bombs Freddie Janssen teaches us to pickle

photo: liz seabrook; illustrations: pádhraic mulholland (castle), jennifer pitchers (tree)

27 Playlist The soundtrack to our adventures

53 Oh Comely Coffee Partnership

44 Their most treasured possessions An art project dedicated to the things people hold dear

90 One ingredient The not-so-humble banana

98 Rachel Zeffira One half of pop duo Cat’s Eyes talks mixing genres 110 Sara Bennett The visual effects Oscar winner reveals how it all works

Investigations

114 Caren Hartley A bike frame builder in conversation with a fan

38 Women who ruled the waves

122 Start where you are Meera Lee Patel’s new book encourages thoughtful journaling

14 Curious things The team’s pick of products for summer

24 The travels of birds

54 Unnecessary objects for adventures 64 Where does mini golf come from?

108 A brief cocktail history in six drinks

112 Wunderkammer Or, ‘curiosity cabinet’. We start with Mexican souvenirs 113 Reader events Come and join us at our next shindig 126 Infrequently asked questions Each issue, we pose a question in prose for you to answer 128 Mischief Ending with a bit of fun

Cover portrait is of LouLou Aherne by Ellie Smith. We’re on the go this issue, layering up for a British summer while still travelling light. See the full fashion story on page 56.

LouLou is wearing a T-shirt from Hawksmill Denim Co, trousers from YMC and a jumper from Studio Nicholson.

We opened with Tom Eagar’s landscape photography. “This photo captures the first glimpse my friend Toby and I got of the Cordillera Paine, the central massif of the Torres Del Paine National Park in Patagonia,” he says. “It took us three days to get there, and ahead of us lay 9 days of trekking in one of the most impressive mountain ranges I’ve seen."

The back cover features a gift from Liz Seabrook to Aimee-lee Abraham – handmade patches by Kirsty Lee, who used to intern for us. Aimee-lee was awarded in recognition of her achievements in outdoorsy-ness (read the story on page 92).

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Where there’s water, there’s life Four women talk about their love of open air swimming in sea, river, pool and pond introduction nell frizzell portraits liz seabrook

To have your mind temporarily overwhelmed by the physical sensation and the soaring presence of nature is, quite literally, the Romantic definition of the sublime. And it is sublime to glide your way through clear, salty, half-frozen, greenish, golden, lapping, still and biting water. To push your limbs through the rolling waves or glassy ripples.

To trust your heart to keep beating, despite the cold, the rush, the shock and the saline.

Open swimming, like the full white glare of sunshine, can silence our inner monologue utterly. It makes us, for a moment, pure body, pure flesh, pure carbon in a watery and wild world. As we slide our way through at duck height, we are taken out of ourselves. We are reborn, wet-lashed, with the thumping heart of a Viking. 

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Nell Frizzell swims in Hampstead Ponds, London.

You can swim in Hampstead Mixed Bathing Open Ponds from 7 May to 25 September 2016 and the Ladies’ and Mens’ Open Ponds all year round. cityoflondon.gov.uk

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Jodie’s found the sweet spot Jodie Whittaker is hitting her mark. We chat about the film she’s just made with her pals – black comedy, Adult Life Skills

interview jason ward portrait liz seabrook

It would be an understatement to say that Adult Life Skills is personal for Jodie Whittaker. The actor’s latest film – a sharp, good-natured comedy about a bereaved twin living in her mum’s shed – was shot near where she grew up in Yorkshire, written and directed by her best friend Rachel Tunnard, and sees her character Anna’s best friend Fiona played by her other best friend Rachael Deering. The inspiration came from a holiday the trio took together in 2009, where they commiserated over how rarely they saw women like themselves believably represented on screen. Jodie’s enthusiasm for their project is clearly evident, but perhaps most telling is her description of what happened when she learned she was pregnant, six weeks before the start of shooting. The idea of postponing for 18 months was raised, then promptly dismissed: “Fuck it,” she concluded, “put me in a baggy T-shirt and let’s go.”

The film takes Anna’s grief seriously but she isn’t consumed by it at all times. What was appealing about that approach?

Anywhere else this story would probably be a kitchen sink drama, but instead it’s a heightened, bizarre comedy. That’s important because if something terrible happens you’re not a different person. It changes you but you’re not fundamentally different. Even in the darkest times you still laugh, you still find things funny. There’s humour in the process of mourning – it doesn’t go away forever.

You’re still you.

A consequence of that is she’s often terrible to those around her.

The thing I love about Anna is sometimes she’s a pain in the arse, particularly with her mum, but no one gives up on her. The people that get you through these things are your friends and your family, so it was lovely that it was about that, rather than her being saved by some huge love story. The sisterhood between her and Fiona was particularly great to play. I can’t think of another film I’ve been in where my character has even had a best friend. In other things I have scenes with girls where we’re talking about boys. We don’t get to just prat about.

What was it like filming where you grew up?

It was strange and funny. I’ve known Rachael Deering since we were five and it was the first time since 18 that we were living back at home. There was one night when it was really cold so I went to hers, sat in front of the fire, ate a chocolate orange and watched Frozen.

We’d been to the shops to buy matching pyjamas because we didn’t have any and I slept over. We just reverted back. On one occasion an old mate walked past the end of the drive of the house we were shooting in, and we asked her to come back the next day to be an extra. That was her day off – she’s a solicitor, she’s got a proper job – but she dressed as a paramedic for us. We roped in everyone we knew. If you keep watching the credits at least three Whittakers show up.

People couldn’t say it was too far for them to travel: “No it isn’t, we’re at the bottom of your road.” 

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books

What we’re reading This issue, four writers share reflections on books set in the very place they read them The Cairngorms: The Living Mountain

by Nan Shepherd words: Jason Ward I knew she was dead. It’s the first line of the book. The ninth, tenth and eleventh words.

I’ve seen the stone slab in Edinburgh, run my fingers over its dates. We were born in different centuries. We’ve never even been alive at the same time. How, then, to explain my disappointment as I failed to run into Nan Shepherd in the Cairngorms?

Nan would appreciate the discombobulation, I suspect. Even upon its release, her non-fiction work The Living Mountain had stepped out of time. Written during the second world war, Nan kept the manuscript in a drawer for three decades before publishing it. “Now, an old woman, I begin tidying out my possessions and reading it again,” she wrote in 1977. “I realise that the tale of my traffic with a mountain is as valid today as it was then.”

This assessment remains true. Although Nan was an influential early modernist writer and mountain poet, not to mention a lecturer of English for 41 years, it is The Living Mountain that I return to again and again. A lyrical meditation on hill walking in the Cairngorms, the book documents the full breadth of life on the mountain range: its plateaux and recesses, its water and snow, the light, the air, the plants and animals. It is dizzying, one of the most vivid books I have read about a physical landscape. The pages seem to thrum as you hold them.

Whether emotional or geographical, the greatest power of the written word is its capacity to make the reader experience a place where they have not stepped. When I

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was finally able to visit the Cairngorms properly on a long, lonesome cycle trip, it felt as if I had already been there. It was just as she had described it. This should have been unsurprising: as she observed when the book made its first leap in time, 30 years in the life of a mountain is nothing. The only thing missing was Nan herself, but that isn’t quite right.

As I explored the hills that had once brought her such joy, all those years ago – “How crisp, how bright a world!” – I often reread a passage where she describes the pleasure of walking in the winter snow, and seeing the tracks of different birds and animals that had gone before her: “One is companioned, though not in time.”

London: Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes words: Frances Ambler Written in 1958, and set over that year’s hot summer, Absolute Beginners shows London’s stiff upper lip and seedy underbelly through the eyes of a 19-year-old photographer.

As a fresh arrival to the city, the book captures the thrill of experiencing London for the first time.

Spending hours mentally cataloguing the style of those strutting the streets around me, I loved the book’s descriptions of “grey pointed alligator casuals” paired with a “pink neon pair of ankle crepe nylon-stretch”, and the city cool of its slang and its coffee bars. I escaped into music and I discovered that in the 1950s it was jazz clubs where “not a soul cares what your class is, or what your race is, or what your income, or if you’re boy, or girl, or bent or versatile, or what you are – so long as you dig the scene and can 

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Opposite Dress, YMC; Bangle, Triwa; Sandals, Toast This page Blue silk shirt, model’s own; Cactus jumper, Peter Jensen

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Photo credits: First row, left to right@angelafernandez, @adelesagayam, @nattalynno; Second row: @clouds_and_roots, @gh0stling, @ priscillaandherbooks; Third row: @Manolita_lasencilla, @sophie____bear, @photosbyrosie

Quickles and flavour bombs Freddie Janssen, founder of London’s F.A.T pop-up café shares her love of pickling, and some tangy new recipes interview aimee-lee abraham portrait liz seabrook photos helen cathcart

Whether eggs or watermelons, Freddie Janssen believes you can pickle everything.

If you’ve had the pleasure of sampling her famed kimchi hot sauce (for the uninitiated, kimchi is a traditional fermented Korean dish made of seasoned veg), you’d be inclined to agree. While selling her food stuff in street markets and pop-ups around London, she’s also been working on a book, Pickled, which contains 60 taste budtingling recipes for aspiring picklers to try at home. We’ve picked out two for you, from page 88. Before you rush to the kitchen, find out more about the rewards of unexpected flavours and why Freddie thinks you’ll want to drink pickletinis this summer.

Pickled: Over 60 inspiring recipes for pickles, kimchi, vinegars and more, by Freddie Janssen (Hardie Grant) is out now.

You talk about getting ‘Food Serious’ – when did that happen for you?

I love that term. It was coined by James Lowe, who I work with at Lyle’s in Shoreditch.

At the start of my pop-up at Sharps, Fitzrovia, about two years ago, we were prepping for the start of the lunch service and he came over and commented on me not wearing an apron. I didn’t really want to wear one as I thought it would make me look like someone I’m not – I wasn’t really taking my food-making seriously at the time. He told me to get food serious. Which I then tried, and with the help of some really nice people

in the industry, I managed to pick up some great tips and do things properly!

What’s the difference between pickling and fermenting? Would you give us a little lesson please?

Not all pickles are fermented and not all fermented foods are pickled. In short, pickling is the process of preserving a food in an acidic medium, usually vinegar (which in itself is a product of fermentation).

With pickling, raw or lightly cooked ingredients are often immersed in hot brine, which has the effect of diminishing the nutrients. This means that unlike fermented foods, pickles don’t actually give you that probiotic health boost.

Fermenting, on the other hand, actually creates nutrients. With some salt, filtered water and sometimes a starter, you can convert sugar into acids. This can only happen in an oxygen-starved space, which is why people use special fermenting crocks, where the food is pressed down as much as possible, to eliminate or minimise the amount of air bubbles. During fermentation the food will create its own acidic liquid called lactic acid, and the process that produces it is called lacto-fermentation. It preserves the food safely, and also gives it that nice zingy flavour. Think kimchi, sauerkraut, 

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Bananarama compiled by sarah mccoy and charlotte melling photos liz seabrook

The humble banana, star of on-the-go breakfasts and packed lunches, often found three days later tragically squished.

No more. Here are three of our favourite, easy banana recipes

One ingredient: Banana ice cream

More ingredients: Banana bread

You scream, I scream, we all scream for this ridiculously simple, very tasty recipe

A classic loaf gets a gluten-and-sugarfree remix

Take one banana or a whole bunch.

2 bananas 210g coconut oil 240g ground almonds 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp cinnamon 2 eggs a pinch of salt maple syrup (or other sweet drizzle like Agar, Honey or Syrup)

1. Peel.

2. Chop.

3. Freeze it (overnight works best, but three hours or so should do the trick).

4. Blend in a food processor.

5. Eat. For an extra flourish, consider sprinkling cinnamon, mixing in peanut butter or drizzling chocolate over it.

Two ingredients: BBQ bananas Good (and gooey) things happen when you introduce a banana to a Mars bar 1. Leaving the skin on, cut length ways down the banana.

2. Unwrap your Mars bar (any chocolate will work, but Mars adds extra gooeyness), sandwich it into the middle of your banana.

3. Wrap in tin foil.

4. Pop on the BBQ for long enough that the chocolate melts.

5. Optional extra: add a dash of rum.

6. Enjoy!

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1. Preheat your oven to 200C and line a square baking tray with greaseproof paper.

2. Peel the bananas and whizz in a blender with the eggs.

3. In a separate bowl mix all the dry ingredients.

4. Over a low heat, gently melt the coconut oil before adding to the dry mix.

5. Combine both mixtures and spread in tray.

6. Bake for 20 minutes or so (depending on the thickness of your cake).

7. Once baked, prick some holes in the cake and pour over the maple syrup – as much or as little as you like.

8. Bake in the oven for five minutes more.

9. Leave to cool, then cut up and serve.

recipe

We want to hear your banana rescue recipes!

Share your ideas with us online. #ohcomelybananas.

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The reluctant outdoorswoman Can we convert our not so intrepid staff writer, Aimee-lee Abraham into a hiking, camping, explorer? words aimee-lee abraham photos liz seabrook It’s 2002 and I’m crammed into a town hall that smells of old people, stale socks and thirty bottles of So?KissMe! sprayed simultaneously. I’m secretly overjoyed we’re sleeping inside tonight, but my camp bed is lopsided and the splinter in my elbow is going septic.

Brown Owl confiscated my phone and turned the flashlight off. Brown Owl is a bitch.

Left Rolltop backpack, Poler Stuff; Jacket, Arc’teryx Page 95 Tent, Poler Stuff; Stove, Coleman’s Page 96 Jacket, Finisterre

I didn’t want to come here and I don’t care about earning my stupid Camper badge. Since swearing my allegiance to God and the Queen, I have sidestepped every outdoor pursuit on the Girlguiding task list. I can’t tie my shoelaces — let alone the 40 knots deemed a rite of passage — I can’t ride a bike without stabilisers, and the only way I tell my left from my right is by positioning my hand as if holding an imaginary quill. When I slice my finger open preparing a basic fruit salad for the camp, I decide it’s time to hang up my sash and never look back.

At 22, little has changed. The closest I get to the great outdoors is a blanket in Finsbury Park, and I’ve been known to go home mid-festival to have a shower and straighten my fringe. I’m no outdoorswoman but here I am, en route to meet the prophet who promises to change that in just two days. I’m talking about Liz Seabrook — Oh Comely’s angel-faced answer to Bear Grylls. Liz is not phased by the elements. She once cycled to Copenhagen just because it was cheaper than flying, and she maintains the poise of a swan even in padded cycling shorts. I’m not entirely convinced we belong to the same species.

I knew Liz would have a solution, but I hadn’t imagined she’d come back to me with a full itinerary and an offer to see me through it. We’re going on a two-day hike, leaving London for Lewes then making our way through the South Downs and on to Brighton where, Liz promises me, there will be victory chips on the beach. Routes are drawn, tickets booked, and kit borrowed from some of most reputable companies in the camping game. This is real.

The jackets we’re borrowing are built for Arctic conditions, but they’re so featherlight I feel like they could disintegrate in my hands. The mug handle folds in on itself. The sleeping mat is self-inflating and wafer thin. With gear this advanced, I’m convinced I’ll transform into Cheryl Strayed within seconds. Initially, Liz says we’re going wild camping — walking into the middle of nowhere and sleeping there without permission. I hate this idea, but part of the deal is that I go in blind and do whatever she says, so I smile and nod and then spend 20 minutes trying to hunt down pepper spray “just in case”. She eventually books us into two perfectly legal campsites, but a stack of unanswered questions circle in my head.

“What happens if I need to pee?”

“We’ll find a bush.”

“But I’ll get stage fright and won’t be able to do it.”

“Why? I’m not going to watch you.”

“But how do I manage without peeing all over my own feet?”

“You’ll find a way,” she smiles. “See you Sunday.” 

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