Cherry Potts's Blog, page 15

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 6th

So no particular birthday today, and I am seriously running out of unidentified birthdays to play with. So as it’s world book day, let’s have a writer:

Mary Constance Du Bois, 1879-1959 author of ripping yarns for  girls such as The League of the Signet Ring, Eleanor Arden, Royalist and The Lass of the Silver Sword (nowhere near as much fun as it sounds), the sort of book with very bad wishy-washy black and white illustrations of sylph-like girls of the 1910′s in white dresses and hats; and simply peppered with exclamation marks!  An overwrought American Angela Brazil for the slightly older Gal. Such fun.

There is so little information on Ms Du Bois I suspect her of being a Nom de Plume. (she isn’t even consistent in the spelling of her surname from cover to title page) Certainly no idea when her birthday is, and she would undoubtedly only come to a party is sworn to secrecy! and given a map without the real name places on to follow!! and if she were allowed to eat simply lashings of the most terrific cakes!!!

However, calming myself slightly, she is very fond of girls being fond of girls.

You get the idea.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 5th

Today’s celebrations are in honour of

Dr Louise Pearce, 5th March 1885- 9th August 1959.

Louise was an American research scientist who found a cure for sleeping sickness, doing tests on her own in the field in Zaire (Belgian Congo at the time) during a major outbreak in 1920, for which she was awarded medals and prizes by the Belgians. She also did much research into heredity in syphilis and cancer.

Louise shared her home with Sara Josephine Baker (another doctor) and Ida A R Wylie (novelist and screenwriter), both of whom we will hear more of as the year progresses…

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 4th

An actual Birthday! Hurrah, quick, light the candles before I find it’s a mistake.

Emma Cons 4 March 1838 – 24 July 1912

Feminist, educator and stage entrepreneur, Emma ran what is now the Old Vic, in London. At the time it was a coffeehouse-come-music-hall, and she put on operas and Shakespeare. She was an ardent feminist and was fined for voting after being appointed (not elected) the first female alderman on the London County Council, because although she could be an Alderman as a woman, she wasn’t allowed to vote.

Emma was the founder of the wonderful Morley college (I’ve taken courses there, so I know it’s wonderful) and Swanley Horticultural College for Women.

So far so lovely. It gets better.

Emma had deeply passionate emotional relationships with her niece Lillian Baylis, who helped run the Old Vic; and with Octavia Hill, founder of the National Trust, whom she had known from when they were both young, and who she assisted in her housing activities. Emma lived with Ethel Everest for twenty years, and when Emma died it was Ethel who made the funeral arrangements.

Henrietta Barnett described her friend Emma as

…spoke loudly and often aggressively, strode as if she were measuring a plot in yard steps, disliked, positively disliked the male sex…

Ms Cons definitely gets invited to the party, but given her temperance leanings, not to te one with the alcohol.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 3rd

Edith Lees Ellis, 1861-1916 socialist, feminist and writer, was the wife of Havelock Ellis, the sexologist.

Her birthday is not recorded anywhere I can find it, so today is a random and arbitrary attribution.

Edith was a member of the Fabian society and wrote regularly for The Freewoman.

Havelock  characterised her relationships with women as lesbian. I suppose this makes her the first ‘official’ lesbian.

There is some argument that Havelock was  trying to make out it was his idea that she be a lesbian (when in fact her relationships were all a-sexual)  even though her relationships with women predate their meeting; or that he was using this to justify their lack of a sexual relationship. She does not appear to have ever had sex with her husband, they often lived apart and kept separate finances.

I find myself supremely unconcerned about whether she consummated any relationships: her strongest emotional relationships were with women.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 2nd

So it turns out I was mistaken about not having a birthday party booked for the 1st – my spreadsheet lied to me. So pretend Emilia was today, and

Mercedes de Acosta March 1, 1893 – May 9, 1968

was yesterday – I’ll switch them round later when you aren’t looking.

Mercedes  was a not particularly successful playwright and poet. She would likely be completely forgotten were it not for her love life, and her flamboyant and extravagant behavior.

Described by Cecil Beaton as the most rebellious & brazen of Lesbians, Mercedes boasted she could get a woman from any man.

Her lovers included Greta Garbo, Isadora Duncan, Eva Le Gallienne, Alla Nazimova and Marlene Dietrich. She seems  in each case to have fallen hook-line-and-sinker for the woman in question, and to sometimes have made something of a nuisance of herself.

She wrote an autobiography Here Lies the Heart, in which she wrote about all of her women friends, and although she was not explicit in her description of her relationships, neither Eva nor Greta ever forgave her for ‘outing’ them.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party March 1st

Aemelia (or her sister Angela) Bassano

A new month, but no birthday to celebrate. I’ll have run out of people whose dates I haven’t found soon and then where will I be?

Ok, never mind. Today we are composing birthday odes for Emilia Bassano Lanier aka Aemelia Lanyer 1569–1645

Emilia was  Jewish, the  illegitimate daughter of Venetian musician Baptista Bassano and Margaret Johnson, her father worked as a court musician to Henry VIII. She married Alphonso Larrier, another musician when she became pregnant by her lover Lord Hunsden. The portrait here (by Hilliard) is almost certainly of one of the Bassano sisters, and even if it isn’t Emilia, gives us some idea what she may have looked like.

Emilia was a feminist and a poet – the first woman in England to publish a book of original poetry, Salve Rex Deus Judaeorum; in it she works her way through just about every woman in the bible, pointing out how important they are to Judaism and Christianity.

She has been claimed as Shakespeare’s Dark Lady, (you know, – my mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun? - that one) and even more delightfully and controversially to have written or collaborated on some of his work… Her family certainly knew people Shakespeare knew, and there is a reasonable likelihood that her brother-in-law and Shakespeare worked together at some point. It’s an attractive idea, but let’s stick to what is certain.

But surely Adam cannot be excused,

Her fault though great, yet he was the most to blame;

what weakness offered, strength might have refused,

Being lord of all the greater was his shame…

… If Eve did err, it was for knowledge sake,

No subtle serpents falsehood did betray him

If he would eat it, who had power to stay him?

Not Eve, whose fault was only too much love,

which made her give this present to her dear,

That what she tasted, he likewise might prove

Whereby his knowledge might become more clear…

…Then let us have our liberty again,

And challenge to your selves no Sovereignty;

You come not into the world without our pain,

Make that a bar against your cruelty;

Your fault being greater, why should you disdain

Our being your equals, free from tyranny?

Eve’s Apology.

[men...] Forgetting they were born of woman, nourished of women, and that if it were not by the means of women they would be quite extinguished out of the world, and a final end of them all, do like vipers deface the wombes wherein they were bred.

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 28th February

Todays is another birth free day, so lets celebrate someone we missed in January; another cross-dresser: Charlotte Charke 13 January 1713 – 6 April 1760.

Charlotte was the youngest daughter of Colley Cibber a celebrated actor. She grew up independent and took to the stage herself, frequently playing ‘britches’ parts (18th Century theatre was obsessed with cross-dressing). Evidently she found cross-dressing suited her, and she took to doing the same off stage, but in 1733 she fell out with her father who sold the theatre, and although she went to work at another theatre a change in the licensing laws soon saw her out of a job. Her brief marriage was over and she was a single parent. She started to make a living  in a series of jobs under the name of Charles Brown, first running a puppet theatre, but illness led to debt and she had to sell the theatre. She was imprisoned for debt, but her bills were paid for her by a collection made by the ladies of Covent Garden (prostitutes). She had a young heiress fall for her, believing her to be a man, and was at some difficulty to persuade her of her mistake, much tot he disappointment of both!

No one seems to have been much bothered or suprised by her cross-dressing, nor apart from the poor heiress, to have been fooled into thinking her a man.

She worked for a time as valet to the notorious  Earl of Anglesey, then briefly as a sausage maker, before taking on her own theatre company where she wrote and produced  her own plays. around the same time she borrowed money and set up as a tavern owner, but this was not a success. She became a strolling player, and was arrested for vagrancy, before marrying again and moving to America. At last she settled to writing under her own name several novels and the all important autobiography (which you can read in full online.) She never persuaded her father to reconcile with her.

Charlotte sounds like a charming companion, and would be welcome to the party – provided she doesn’t offer to bring sausages – the eighteenth century was famous for the awfulness of food adulterated with all sorts of undesirable and in some cases poisonous additives.

LGBT History month – LoSoCo

LoSoCo is what I’ve always known as Lewisham College.

I did a reading there on Thursday for LGBT History Month. Here are a couple of snippets. (Apologies for the background noise – it’s the air-conditioning.)

Holiday Romance, in which Melanie goes on holiday with her mother and allows her imagination to run riot.

Download: holiday-romance-losoco-snippets.mp3

Baby Pink/ Electric Blue, in which Marlene can’t cope with a wedding.

Download: babypink-electricblue-losoco-snippet.mp3

both from Mosaic of Air.

Thanks to Mary Fudge for organising, and to the students and staff for coming along and asking interesting questions.

LGBTHM – Cafe of Good Hope

This event was very cosy – last public reading for LGBT History Month, and local, and with friends. I think we pulled out all the stops.

Sadly Rebecca Idris had been sent to the Ukraine by her employers (what had she done to deserve that?) so was not able to join us, so we each read more than we would otherwise have done.

Here are the results.

Catherine Blackfeather reading from her novel Mitchie, about a young woman cross-dressing to survive the western frontier of nineteenth century Canada.

Download: mitchie-snippet.mp3

Me reading from Leaving (London Lies) a story set in a pub just down the road from where we were reading.

Download: leaving-cogh-snippet.mp3

V A Fearon reading two sections from her novel The Girl with the Treasure Chest about gang negotiator, Dani.

Download: va-fearon-girl-with-treasure-chest-snippet.wav

Download: va-fearon-girl-with-treasure-chest-snippet2.wav

Back to Cath for a section of her latest (still looking for a publisher). I don’t think she gave us a title, so I’ve called it For the Boys for now: Gareth has an assignment…

Download: cath-blackfeather-for-the-boys-snippet.mp3

And finally me again, with a section of A Second-hand Emotion - in which preparations for a big date are in full swing.

Download: 2nd-hand-emotion-snippet.mp3

We all really enjoyed the event, thanks to Richard Shaw (Hither Green Hall) for organising and Bobby Mizen (Cafe of Good Hope) for hosting, and thanks for the audience for coming along, laughing in the right places, and contributing to the collection for Gay Switchboard.

By the way, at other events this month we’ve been collecting for Stonewall, and raised £35.22

The Historical Birthday-Tea Party 27th February

No birthday girl today so another one from yesterday Mabel Dodge Luhan

February 26, 1879 – August 13, 1962.

Much married New York Salonist, her memoir (so we are told, I’ve not read it) Intimate Memories (1933) details relationships with several women. She knew Natalie Barney and was a friend of Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas.

A fellow traveller rather than really one of us, I think. Apparently she knew how to throw a party, and was great at mixing people together, so maybe I’ll wait for an invitation from her, rather than the other way round…