Judith Johnson's Blog, page 6

A Bite at Brodsworth Hall

Bedroom with French bed When our son was small we invested in a National Trust annual family pass  - it enabled us, at a time when funds were very modest, to take him regularly to Bodiam Castle, Scotney Castle, and Bateman’s (Rudyard Kipling’s House), all (almost) on our doorstep.  These days I’m the owner of an English Heritage pass, which means wherever I go I keep a weather-eye open for that nice brown castellated square sign!

Last week on a work trip I found myself early for an appointment in Adwick le Street, South Yorkshire, and observing lunchtime was nigh, in the happy position of spying one such serendipitous find: Brodsworth Hall - just three miles from my destination. I had a quick bit of snap (delicious leek tart and salad) in its tea rooms, then whizzed off round the house.

This is one of those properties which have not been refurbished and refurnished with items from elsewhere, but left largely as it was when its last owner, Sylvia Grant-Dalton, died there in 1988. In some ways it reminded me of Erddig, which I visited as a child, with its peeling wallpaper, and, in some areas like the kitchen, a charming unreconstructed mix of old and new. Brodsworth Hall, a grand Victorian family house, was built by Charles Thellusson, and the same family lived there for over 120 years. An earlier house, built in the 17th  century,  had been demolished and the site moved from beside the nearby church of St Michael and All Angels.

One of the guides told me that the Thellussons had come from French Huguenot ancestry, making their fortune in the 18th century originally, from banking, among other things, and sugar plantations in Montserrat. Might the Jamaican mahogany doors on the ground floor, recycled from the old house, have come from another plantation? I wonder how many great English country houses owe their grandeur to wealth partly gained from slave-owning?

It amuses me when people speak reverently of ‘old families’ (like for example the Brudenells, who are said to have been established as aristocrats before the Norman Conquest). Aren’t we all from old families, even if our ancestors haven’t lived in the same house for hundreds of years?

I didn’t have time to see the wonderful formal gardens at Brodsworth, but I was powerless to resist the room full of second-hand books for sale in aid of English Heritage’s work. I was delighted to find two good’uns:

Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays (particularly welcome as I was so disappointed with the National Theatre’s recent version of Everyman, re-modelled by Carol Ann Duffy, and am keen to read the original), and The Wreck of the Abergavenny - The Wordsworths and Catastrophe by my kinswoman Alethea Hayter*. Sadly I never had the pleasure of meeting her, though her brother Sir William Hayter was my godfather, so I’m very much looking forward to reading it.
 
Amazing what you can find when you’ve got your eyes open!

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Obituary of Alethea Hayter 
Click on Family photo under Childhood on this page - Alethea and William Hayter are 2nd and 3rd from the left in the back row

Children's Games

My son is an artist and an art teacher, and one of his favourite artists is Pieter Brueghel  the Elder. We both love the painting entitled Children’s Games, and much enjoy identifying the different activities.

When I worked at a large girls’ school which boasted an excellent library, I was known by the librarians for checking out the weighty tomes which, more often than not, no pupil or indeed teacher had ever borrowed. One such book was the acclaimed study by Iona & Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, which took me weeks to plough through, but not without reward!  One of the things that interested me was their conclusion that the learning of  games in the main by-passes adults: it is mostly children who communicate and pass them on to other children.

When I was a girl, it was fashionable to hold seances, and I remember the time I set up a circle of letters round a glass in my older sister’s bedroom (most of the family were out), and I and two cousins began to summon the spirits. As the glass started to move we rose as one and fled screaming from the room! Later in life I met a 1960s alumna of above school who recalled the time when a seance had been organised in one of the dormitories.

“Is there anybody there?” was asked.

At this, the glass began to move, and after affirming that there was, spelt out the word F-I-R-E. Seconds later, the school fire-bell went off, and it transpired that at that moment a fire had been discovered in the Domestic Science block, formerly the great house’s stables. Needless to say, the girls were terrified, and the story spread round the school rapidly. The Bishop of Dover was summoned by the Headmistress and spoke at Assembly the following Sunday on the evils of tampering with the dark arts of the Ungodly.

Reading Pepys’ Diary last night, I was delighted to come across a mention of a lunch-time game we played at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School in the late 1960s/early 1970s, which was clearly being played by children at least 400 years earlier. I recall six of us standing around another girl, who lay on a table in the empty art room. We went round the circle, ceremoniously uttering in turn the words:

“She looks pale.” This was followed, one line at a time, and each reciting by rote, by the following:

“She is pale.”

“She looks ill.”

“She is ill.”

“She looks dead.”

“She is dead.”

And with this, we each slipped one forefinger under the prone girl and, together, lifted her several feet in the air with seemingly no effort at all, as if she was weightless.  We had no idea how it worked, but it did work, and it afforded us great satisfaction!

So when I came across Pepys’ entry for 31 July 1665, I called out to my husband: “Listen to this!” (he had also, I knew, played the game at school):

This evening with Mr Brisband speaking of inchantments and spells, I telling him some of my Charmes, he told me this of his own knowledge at Bourdeaux in France. The words these:

Voicy un Corps mort
Royde comme un Baston
Froid comme Marbre
Leger comme un Esprit
Levons te au nom de Jesus Christ.

He saw four little Girles, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them upon one knee; and one begin the first line, whispering in the care of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through. And putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead. At the end of the words they did with their four fingers raise this boy as high as they could reach. And he being there and wondering at it (as also being afeared to see it - for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words in the room of one of the little girls, that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words), did, for fear there might be some sleight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, called the cook of the house, as Sir G. Carteret’s Cooke, who is very big, and they did raise him in just the same manner.
 
Fascinating, eh? Love to hear from any of you with your experiences and stories about children’s games - comments welcome!

A Peep at Pepys

Some years back an elderly lady who was moving into sheltered accommodation made me a present of three lovely gifts: a Himalayan blackberry briar from her garden, a vintage Creda Debonair spin-dryer, and a complete set of the Latham/Matthews version of The Diary of Samuel Pepys in hardback (ten volumes including Companion and Index).

My bedtime routine includes writing a diary, followed by a nightly dip into Mr Pepys’s - I’m currently up to July 1665,with the Plague building to a crescendo.

I’ve a few things in common with Samuel, I find. I hope, for instance, that I might be distantly related to his clerk, Mr Thomas Hayter, whose character, the Companion informs me “seems to declare itself in his neat and regular handwriting”. I lived for some years in both Islington and Hackney,  Pepys’s favourite summer jaunt , and may have cycled past some of his childhood haunts in Kingsland and Newington. We were both born under the sign of Pisces, love London, art, music, reading, and derive great pleasure from the execution of an administrative task well done! Were he alive today, I think Samuel would have been tickled to know that George Frederick Handel, another devoted Londoner, was born on his 52nd birthday. I hope he would also relish, as I do, the sea-stories of Patrick O’Brian featuring Captain Jack Aubrey & Stephen Maturin.

One of my birthday treats this year was a visit to the National Maritime Museum to see their exhibition: Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution. I love the NMM in its beautiful setting, with the Royal Observatory above on the hill. It never fails to touch me when I walk past the model of the Rawalpindi on the way in, and remember the fate of those who died in her in World War 2, including  a man from the town where I live.

I was a little bemused initially by the half-light in the exhibition rooms (emulating 17th century light levels ?), but it was great to see the many artefacts and portraits on display, including the John Hayls portrait of Pepys. I loved the large slipware plate which commemorated the Boscobel oak in which Charles II hid after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 (am I mistaken in recalling that the tomb of his companion on that day, Richard Penderel, was located in St Giles’ Churchyard off London’s Denmark Street? Last time I went there I found the lettering so eroded, it could no longer be read).

The engraving of a man being prepared for the surgical removal of a kidney stone was twingingly graphic, the medical instruments displayed even more so! The stark digital presentation of the numbers who died during the time of Plague showed  how shocking the mounting death levels must have been, peaking, in August and September 1665, in  over 7,000 per week in London alone. I was prompted, on my return home, to download the Kindle version of Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year for further reading!

Pepys’ diary, together with documenting the great dramas of life, recording historic events and encounters with the great and the good, also brings home the truth that people from earlier centuries shared similar concerns with our own: worries about job prospects, upsetting the boss, financial insecurity, family squabbles, aging parents, marital tiffs, overspending, aches and pains, and (for we churchgoers) the occasional boring sermon, etc! There was a reproduction in the exhibition of a large group portrait showing a visit to Christ’s Hospital of the King and courtiers, with Pepys (a Governor of the School) perusing a map. It included  some charming detail depicting schoolchildren doing the things children  do - and being ticked off in the same way they presumably have been since time immemorial!

Pepys dearly loved having family and friends over for a meal and a good time, and the day after our visit we enjoyed a jolly get-together. We were very merry, in true Pepys fashion, and, amazingly in this smartphone age, we realised, once everyone had gone, that no-one had taken the now almost obligatory photo for Facebook, so only fond memories and my diary must stand as a record of the occasion. I feel glad for that too!

The exhibition has left me determined to take a trip some time to Magdalene College, Cambridge to see Pepys’s library, and another to the Historic Dockyard at Chatham. In the meantime, for those of you who might like to see the Exhibition at Greenwich, it closes at the end of this week on 28 March - so hurry if you want to catch it!

A Short Walk in the Taf Fechan Valley

Gravestone in Vaynor Churchyard ​On a recent trip to Wales, we visited an old friend of Martin’s family in the Taf Fechan Valley.  She and her husband are sheep farmers, and we were treated to a lovely meal seated at at a huge oak table, large enough, at shearing time, to seat sixteen!

En route we stopped off in Merthyr Tydfil to see Cyfarthfa Castle, and later parked  near Vaynor Church, at the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, to visit the grave of Robert Thompson Crawshay, known as the ‘Iron King’. His grave is covered with a massive stone, which our friends told us weighed seven tons. The lettering ‘God Forgive Me’, often assumed in modern times to be an expression of remorse for his action of closing the Cyfarthfa Works at Merthyr (thus making hundreds destitute), or his own moral shortcomings, was in point of fact not uncommon in Victorian times.
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I know I am not alone in finding graveyards fascinating. As the historian George Trevelyan once said: “The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today ... once, on  this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow.”

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Crawshay's Grave The church unfortunately wasn’t open but I hope to return sometime and attend a service there. We enjoyed reading the gravestones and visiting the earlier church, now a ruin, just a short walk away. One particularly poignant grave told of the Price family, and the grief that must have been the lot of Margaret Ann Price,  during almost a century of life. Her son Idris Lloyd died at 11 months old in 1921, her daughter Nancy Muriel at 5 years 9 months  in 1921, her son Trevor Glyn Price at 21  in 1940, and her husband William Henrey Lloyd Price in 1951, aged 68. She was to live as a widow for another 32 years, dying  aged 97 in 1983.
Thanks to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, I was able to look up the details of her son Trevor Glyn Price, who is buried at L’Herbaudiere, and learnt of another tragic story from the Second World War.

L'Herbaudiere is a hamlet of Noirmoutier-en-L'Ile, a small town on the island of Noirmoutier which is situated off the west coast of France. A causeway gives access to the island.

There are 40 Commonwealth graves from the 1939-45 war commemorated at this site, 22  unidentified. The majority of these forty were aboard the "Lancastria", hit by enemy action on the 17th June 1940 off St. Nazaire. All told about 4,000 men, women and children lost their lives when the ship sank 20 minutes after it was bombed by the Germans near the French port of Saint-Nazaire on 17 June 1940 , fewer than 2,500 surviving. The Lancastria was the largest loss of life from a single engagement for the British forces during World War Two and also the largest loss of life in British maritime history - greater than the Titanic and Lusitania combined. It occurred just a few weeks after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk, when the Lancastria had been sent to help bring home some of the estimated 150,000 British servicemen still in occupied Europe.

​Following the sinking of the Lancastria, Prime Minister Winston Churchill imposed a media blackout, as the government feared the news would be a terrible blow to British morale. American newspapers  finally broke the story at the end of July. I wonder how long it was before William and Margaret Price received the news of their son’s death? And whether they were ever able to visit his grave on that small island?
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For visitors to the Vaynor area, a remarkable sight locally is the ‘Spanish House’  - a now dilapidated but once stunning Italianate villa,  built I understand by a local solicitor and amateur astronomer in 1912 for his Italian wife. Our friend had been inside the house as a child, and recalled the beautiful Majolica tiles, the araucaria tree in its courtyard and an eagle statue. Local legend has it that after only about six months, the lady had had enough of Welsh weather, and returned to Italy, never to be seen again!

As an avid fan of anything to do with local history, I was delighted to buy a copy of Taf Fechan Valley: How and Why has the Taf Fechan Valley changed between the mid nineteenth century and the present day? which was researched and written by the Ponsticill Local History Study Group. A good read, which included many fascinating nuggets of information. It is likely that the lifestyle of those inhabiting the valley in the mid 19th Century was not dissimilar to that experienced there in the 16th, surviving by hard work and traditional farming, quarrying, and a range of rural crafts. The book details some of the changes since the construction of the reservoirs, the impact of the two World Wars, advent of the motor-car etc. Highly recommended!
 
Links:

Lancastria sinking:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-33092351
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/56/a4103056.shtml
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/72/a2334872.shtml

Taf Fechan Valley
welshwildlife.org/nature-reserve/taf-fechan-merthyr-tydfil/

Country Matters

Snowdrops at Bough Beech I've recently (rather late in the day, she’s 92!!) started to write a weekly letter to my mother, who lives about 35 miles away. She’s hard of hearing, and not always in a wakeful state, so phone calls aren’t an option, and it’s always a bit of a thrill to get post, isn’t it? (With the exception of bank statements or letters of an official nature!)  It’s quite therapeutic to get a pad of writing paper out of the old bureau inherited from my husband’s family, rather than boot up the computer for an email. Mum has a tablet, but doesn’t use it, and is still a voracious reader, so I thought a letter might be welcome.
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Earlier this week, on a beautiful January morning, I was looking out for things on my way to work I could include in my letter. I waved goodbye to Martin, (who had kindly scraped my frosty windscreen - he likes doing it, strange creature!) after pointing out to him the winter jasmine just beginning to unfurl its delicate small yellow flowers in a neighbour’s front garden. As I drove through Speldhurst I spotted daffodils blooming, and then in Poundhurst Lane the first primroses peeping out from a bank which, in a few weeks’ time, will be carpeted with them. At Penshurst the meadow between old stone bridges crossing two rivers at its edges, had flooded, and driving past Penshurst Place I saw some of the black-faced sheep had tiny new lambs. There were glossy crows high up in the trees at Chiddingstone Causeway church-yard surveying their demesne, and in the old orchard at Bough Beech reservoir I saw, and heard, robins and blue-tits. The birds always sing up when the sun shines. The birdwatchers’ board reported that over 250 fieldfare had been spotted in the last week.

At lunch time I strolled up the hill to see what stage the bluebell wood had reached in this mild winter (the snowdrops have been out for some time), and noticed clumps of  their thick green leaves were already pushing through the dead leaves, and wild honeysuckle is flaming into leaf along the hedgerows.

In all this bucolic splendour I finally met with a large Landrover and trailer which screeched to a halt in front of me at the gate to a muddy field. Out popped half a dozen men with shotguns, flat caps, and eager spaniels. As I walked past I saw more people inside the trailer, a sort of Anderson shelter on wheels with  benches inside. On the back of the trailer hung a bunch of dead pheasants. They all (the people, that is) looked very jolly. Pheasant-shooting seems a sad kind of sport to me ...  going out into the country and killing birds that are famously rather slow and stupid and stand little chance of getting away, bred specifically so that people can have a day in the country and kill large numbers of them? Sorry, I just don’t get that... I feel bad enough if I run into one on the road.

I recently came across, on my way home  in the dark, a young deer which had been hit by a car that had failed to stop. It sat in the middle of the road, blood seeping from its nostrils, unable to get up - I guessed its back or legs were broken. A helpful young man stopped and moved the deer to the side of the road under some trees so that it wouldn’t get hit again. I drove to the house of a vet I knew lived nearby. Sadly he was away, so I drove home and got on the internet to seek help. The RSPCA will come out to an injured wild creature, but you must have the animal in sight when you call, as many will crawl away before an inspector gets there, which is therefore a waste of precious resources for a hard-pressed charity. Martin kindly came out and sat in the car with me for two hours until an RSPCA worker reached the scene. She had been on call since early morning and drove 40 miles to get to us as soon as she’d finished an earlier call out (this was now about 10pm). She said that she would give the deer an injection and put it out of its misery, that this was necessary due of its severe injury and because a wild deer can only tolerate about half an hour’s travelling in a vehicle before receiving treatment, because the stress of being handled is too much for their nervous temperaments. She said it would only have lived so long after the initial impact because it was quiet and on its own in the dark. I’ve got the number on my mobile now, so if this ever happens again I can act immediately. In the meantime we’ll be making a contribution to the RSPCA to help with their compassionate work.

So, there you have it, plenty of news to tell my Mum. 

Winterreise to Dortmund

Christmas Market, Hansaplatz At the end of the year we visited Dortmund for the first time, on a Christmas market Winterreise. I always try and take the opportunity on these brief Christmas flits, to do something more than just shopping. The Germany DK Guide has a lot to cover, and the two columns allocated to Dortmund  do not include the Steinwache, a 19th century police station and latterly Gestapo prison, details of which I found on Trip Advisor. It was very near our excellent hotel (NH Dortmund - great breakfasts!), so we checked it out on the first morning of our visit, and spent two hours viewing the superb exhibition, housed in the old cells over four floors and entry free.
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I thought I knew something about the domestic resistance to the Nazi regime, but I learnt so much more here, especially the activity in the Dortmund area, which had, with its coal-mining and steel-making history, a strong, established working-class left-wing culture. The exhibits were labelled in German, with no translation, but there was an excellent printed English guide to each room which you could either borrow or buy (half a Euro) from the reception office. It gave us a comprehensive narrative, from the economic crisis of 1929-32, political radicalisation and the collapse of the Weimar Republic, to the hastily-accelerated murders, in 1945, of the remaining prisoners opposed to Nazi ideology.  Displays included every aspect of political opponents inclouding gay activists, writers, newspaper editors, left-wing youth movements, unions etc. Even Jehovah’s Witnesses, I learned, were executed for their refusal to accept a higher authority than the Bible. Main stairs, Steinwache Cell in the Steinwache with no corners There has often been one picture among many shocking and moving images which has reduced me to tears, eg when I visited Prague, Berlin, Sachsenhausen etc, and here it was the photograph of a child with cerebral palsy shortly before he was killed  through the euthanasia programme. All the cells bore witness to tremendous suffering, but there was one I could not bring myself to step into: the cell in the basement where a brick-built ‘bed’ with a wooden top layer and a manacle in the wall beside it had been left as a reminder of the unthinkable tortures to which its prisoners had been subjected.

If you are interested in mankind, and the monstrous blot, in the 1930s and 1940s, on what had in former centuries been celebrated as one of Europe’s most civilised and enlightened nations, or what happens when people stand by while bad things are done around them, then I cannot recommend this exhibition highly enough * (after seeing how a regime had systematically set about dismantling all opposition, when I heard on BBC radio, shortly after returning home, that our current government planned to curb the influence of the House of Lords, after the latter had impeded its ambition to impose tax relief cuts, it did catch my attention).

The Dortmund Christmas markets enabled us to escape the horror of the Nazi past and return to the present reality of a modern, democratic European city. Having anticipated something more commercialised, we were pleasantly surprised.  Firstly, it was very friendly (a  bit like South Wales, another area with a coal and  steel-based history!) and relaxed - a bit less packed with people than Cologne’s Christmas markets. The many varied delights on offer included some excellent local foods (spit-roasted Westphalian ham, smoked eels, and to-die-for fresh salmon - Flammlachs - grilled/smoked over a wood-fire in the open air), a charming real life carousel, where children rode solemnly round on ponies, and beautiful handmade crafts. We bought a lovely mug for our son depicting a Ruhr miner’s lamp.  There was an atmosphere of geniality and goodwill, lots of people meeting up with friends for a mulled wine and a wander round.  The market is famous for its Christmas tree in the Hansaplatz:  it stands 45 metres tall, made of up to 1700 individual fir trees, and is reputed to be the biggest in the world. Our coach took us to nearby Hattingen late Saturday afternoon - which has a beautiful medieval town hall, its windows  made, each December, into an Advent Calendar.  The Grimm Fairy Tales character Frau Holle (who shakes out her pillows to send the snow) appears each evening at 5pm, and unveils one of the decorated windows, as she speaks to the crowd. It was very sweet to see not only children, but also accompanying parents and grandparents, singing along to traditional songs with her. Back in Dortmund, some of our party headed off in the evening for a Bach concert in the Reinoldi Kirche.
We agreed we’d definitely like to come back to Dortmund, perhaps at another time of year, and visit some of the other sights: the Art & History Museum, the German Football Museum and maybe take in a Borussia Dortmund football match. The team’s stadium takes up to 81,359 spectators, and enjoys the largest average home attendance in the football world:  its “Gelbe Wand” (Yellow Wall) ranks as one of the most colourful and fervent examples of home fan support anywhere, hailed by opposing players and visiting fans  as truly awe-inspiring. Its pricing structure means season tickets can average as little as £10 per match, and the club’s board has refused to hike-up prices on tickets, catering or shirt prices for years in order to preserve the all-inclusive fan experience.  We spotted a stall at the Christmas markets selling all kinds of Borussia articles, including baby-gros, plus a Steinway piano emporium boasting a Borussia colourway team-autographed model! (Incidentally, we noted on holiday in the Tyrol last summer a Borussia vending-machine at the ski-lift in Westhofen - manager must be a fan!).

Richard Thomas Pook - a victim of The Hythe tragedy

The Pook Family - photograph found on Richard's body On 31st October I attended a Service at St Matthew’s High Brooms which commemorated the loss of HMS Hythe 100 years ago. I sat next to a lady who had come to honour her grandmother whose first husband had died on board the ship. I was also pleased to meet two young men who are great-great-nephews of Captain Reginald Salomon.

Driver Richard Thomas Pook was another of the men drowned in the Hythe Disaster on 28 October 1915. He was born at Beaufort Farm, Battle, East Sussex*, then lived in Wadhurst before moving to Hill Street in Tunbridge Wells. He lived here with his wife Florence Edith Pook and  their daughters Frances and Edith.

Richard Pook worked as a driver for the coal merchant GH Smith, of Mount Pleasant. He enlisted on 31 May 1915.

His daughter wrote to Frank Stevens, author of Southborough Sappers of the Kent (Fortress) Royal Engineers, in July 2000 on behalf of herself and her sister:
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We were very young at the time, but learned from our mother that he was not one of the Company but was seconded to them at the last moment because of his skill with horses, and we understood that there were a number of mules on board. He was known as “nurse” to sick horses.

We believe our mother was the first to be notified of the tragedy as she had a letter from the Chaplain of the Hospital Ship ‘Soudan’ telling her that he had been picked up, but was subsequently buried at sea from that ship. We have looked for the letter which we know is around somewhere, but we do have two cards signed by the Chaplain AHG Creed - formerly Vicar of Ewshot, Aldershot, one dated 22nd August 1916 - a photograph of himself, and the second dated 23rd August 1916, a picture of the RN Hospital Ship No 1 “Soudan”. With the letter he did send a water-stained family photograph which was in our father’s pocket when he was picked up, which we still have.

We understand from our mother that a cousin of hers by the name of Gilbert**, who lived locally, was also a victim of the tragedy.

HMS Soudan Miss Pook did latterly locate the letter, dated 22nd August 1916, which included the following:

Dear Mrs Pook, I have been a long time, I fear, in replying to your letter, but just after receiving it, I went on leave, and I wanted, before I replied to it, to verify  several details that were among some of my papers, which I could not at the moment lay my hand on. Your husband was brought on board this Hospital Ship at Cape Helles on the night of Oct. 29.1915. He was dead when he was brought on board here. He was buried with Colour -Sergeant Carter the following morning at about 11.30 a.m I think it was. I remember the Captain put farther out to sea, so that the burial might take place. I took the Service. The Soudan had arrived off Cape Helles from Malta that afternoon. That evening the Hythe had arrived from Mudros (? the part of the Island of Lemnos) with troops. Your husband and Sergeant Carter being among them. The ‘Sarnia’ had also brought troops from Mudros that afternoon. In the dark, about 8.30 p.m I think it was,she was run into by the Sarnia and sunk. About 150 men were drowned. I understood from Dr Taylor, the doctor here, who went on board the ‘Destroyer’ to bring any men onto the ‘Soudan’, that artificial respiration had been tried upon your husband and Sergeant Carter, but with no effect. I should be inclined to think that many men were crushed by the two boats after they collided and came together again. This was what one of the survivors, whom we had on board, told me. We only had 3 men living bought on board - and they were not much the worse. Great preparations were made on board here after the collision, to receive a large number of men, but I think most of them were taken ashore by the destroyer and other craft. This I think is all I have to tell ... I see in the Official List your husband’s religion is put down as ‘not known’. If you tell me what it was I can see it is correctly listed... I hope I have answered all that you wish to know: and believe me, with much sympathy in your great loss, Very Truly Yours, A.H.G. Creed.

Ps I have just seen Dr Taylor again. He told me that both Sergt. Carter and your husband, when he saw them on the Destroyer, were quite unconscious. Artificial respiration had been tried for 2 hours, without success. He says he thinks both men had injuries to the head. he thinks too that they were really dead when they were brought on to the Destroyer. 
Driver Pook is also mentioned in the book The Unfinished Journey by Michael Pelham as being trapped and injured on the Hythe. As the ship sank, the water helped lift the wreckage and he was washed away. His daughters would live into old age, having lost their father tragically at the ages of seven and three.

Footnotes:
*Richard Thomas Pook born 15 April 1883, eldest son of James Pook, carter, of Normans Wood, Wadhurst. His mother was the daughter of Richard and Ruth Muggridge. Florence Edith Pook was the daughter of George Benge Gardner. She and Richard were married at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Wadhurst on 14 December 1907.

**There were two men named Gilbert who died on the Hythe. This may most likely be John Robert Gilbert, KF 2240, son of John William and Anne Gilbert of 6, Warwick Cottages, Cemetery Road, Tunbridge Wells. John was aged 21 when he died, and prior to enlistment he had worked as a gardener for Mr A Taylor-Jones of The Grange, Forest Road, Tunbridge Wells. He had attended St Mark’s and King Charles’ Schools, had sung in St Mark’s Choir and at one time had acted as organ-blower at St Mark’s.

Wool War One - Delit Maille

Indian Corps I was thrilled to have the chance to meet French visual artist known as Delit Maille from Lille (her nom de plume is a play on the Daily Mail newspaper title) at the World Travel Market last week, and to have a tour with her of the 540 knitted soldiers lined up, as if they were marching, part of the Wool War One art installation (there are 750 soldiers in total), originally commissioned for an exhibition at La Piscine Museum, Roubaix, dedicated to remembrance of the First World War.

The artist had initially declined the invitation to contribute a piece to the exhibition. Part of her work, which, as a writer and artist, she sees as an aspect of her desire to tell stories, is knitting a response to what’s happening on the news. She felt that the First World War was too serious a subject for her to address, but, after an extensive tour visiting the War Cemeteries in the Somme, she was moved and inspired to accept the offer.

Maille appealed, via her blog delitmail.blogspot.com, for help from interested volunteers  in the task of  knitting a collection of miniature soldiers representing the French War Dead, but quickly realised that there was a desire from many to include their own lost countrymen, and subsequently enlisted 500 knitters out of around 1500 volunteers  from around the world, including France, Germany, Great Britain, China, India, Newfoundland and Belgium.

Each knitter received a pack in the post including patterns and wool, and a request for a specific piece of uniform - coats, hats, trousers, rucksacks;  an average of ten knitters worked on each soldier. Maille supervised the knitting of the soldiers themselves which were made locally, and also met and knitted with volunteers across France (at events named Woolstock), at which they discussed what the work would mean to them. Finally she assembled the soldiers.

One line of  figures represents the men from Newfoundland. Maille told me she was particularly touched, on visiting the Beaumont Hamel Memorial Park, 9k from Albert, to learn what had happened to them. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, no unit suffered heavier losses than the Newfoundland Regiment. They had gone into action 801 strong; roll call the next day revealed that the final figures were 233 killed or dead of wounds, 386 wounded, and 91 missing. Every officer who went forward in the Newfoundland attack was killed or wounded. Young Canadian volunteers  spend a year guiding visitors around the Park, telling  the men’s stories. I promised to send Maille details of one more brave Newfoundlander, George Furey. Who knows, it may move her to knit the story of George and HMS Firedrake. Australians British Delit Maille Germans Italians Moroccan Spahis & Turks Newfoundlanders Scots Senegalese Tirailleurs

Honey or Fluff?

​Doing my regular supermarket shop recently, and reaching out for the honey, I was struck by an item on the shelf above, and how the price difference, considering the quality of the foodstuff, was comparatively small.  I’m always fascinated to see what is in other people’s baskets at the till (but then as my husband will tell you, I was born nosey!).

Littleover Pure Organic Wildflower Honey costs £11.80 per kilo. Ingredients: Organic Wildflower Honey
Littleover says “We do not heat-treat or blend our honey, we are 100% chemical and drug free in all our hive operations, and we only use gravity filtration to ensure that our honey is in the jar in as natural a state as possible.” Marshmallow Fluff costs: £9.39 per kilo. Ingredients:
Ingredients: Corn Syrup, Sugar Syrup, Dried Egg Whites and Vanillin.
 
There’s an increasing amount of media coverage about sugar. The following is one view:
 
"Table sugar (sucrose) has been condemned by dentists, nutritionists, and physicians for scores of years. It is the greatest scourge that has ever been visited on man in the name of food. Endocrinologists agree that the endocrine system of glands and the nervous system cooperate to regulate the appetite so that the right amount of the right kind of food is taken in. Sugar spoils this fine balance. Being almost 100 percent “pure”, this high-calorie dynamite bombs the pancreas and pituitary gland into gushing forth a hypersecretion of hormones comparable in intensity to that artificially produced in laboratory animals with drugs and hormones. Sugar is the culprit the endocrinologists have been looking for that has been throwing the finely regulated endocrine balance completely out of kilter."  
(Edward Howells, DDS Enzyme Nutrition)
 
We are advised by the majority of common-sense nutritionist sources that all sweeteners should be taken in moderation, even honey, but for value, taste and wholefood reasons, I think I’ll stick with honey!

One more example of choice I spotted in the same shop:
National Geographic Magazine - October issue - 148 pages
OK, now £5.50, but it’s a long, satisfying and informing read about, amongst other things,  fossils found in a South African cave raising new questions about what it means to be human; Laponia, one of Europe’s largest wilderness areas in the heart of Sweden; The Congo River in modern times; and beachcombing wolves which swim among Canadian islands. A truly fascinating and mind-broadening experience involving many happy reading hours.

Heat Magazine - 128 pages: £2.10 special offer including a copy of Closer
Articles include: Kourtney won’t let Caitlyn see her kids; Jamie is Fifty Shades of Hot on Hols; Kate’s Break up gets messy; and Posh Parties Very Hard.

I have to confess I’ve never read Heat or Closer. They appear to be a mix of celebrity gossip and real-life stories mirrored by similar television programmes. Given the close attention many people pay these publications, it seems that, like sugar, they are part of an epidemic of  fast-rush addiction, rather than the slow-digesting experience of  a read like National Geographic.
 
Here’s Julian Norman’s piece about Closer in The Guardian.

As the saying goes, you pays your money and you makes your choice.

Futuroscope - theme park with a difference

When our son was small we didn’t have funds for theme parks, but we had no regrets about that - we had long, interesting walks together, played board games, enjoyed family meals with conversations about our days, and, of course, visited museums! Our idea of an excellent time was seeing Stonehenge, Avebury Circle and Silbury Hill over one weekend!

My parents-in-law did take us to Blackpool for a weekend, and we went up the Tower and thrilled to the acrobatic acts in the circus, but we didn't fancy the big rides. Even when I was small I wasn’t too keen on the Dive-Bomber or rollercoasters, though I was always up for the Dodgems. These days my limit is a turn on the Big Wheel or a whizz round on the Chairplanes!

No surprise then that my only visit to the best-known Paris theme Park (fronted by that world famous mouse!) was not a standard experience. If you don’t go on any of the rides you’re left with watching parents trailing overtired kids on a sugar-high looking for the costume characters, occasionally seen hiding round the back of buildings with their heads off, having a sly Gauloise! My favourite bit was watching house-martins flying in and out of their nests on the walls of the nearby TGV station...

I have, however, wanted to visit Futuroscope, in Poitiers, for a while, so was pleased to be offered a short trip there recently. We travelled by train, so some quality time for catching up on reading! We arrived in time for the evening laser show, Lady O, which takes place at the lake in the middle of the park. We sat on the open-air amphitheatre seats in the warm southern air, with a large enthusiastic crowd of all ages, and watched the spectacular display of light and music, relating a story about nature versus machines. Futuroscope is in a beautiful  setting, and has a uniquely French feel to it, with modernistic buildings, sculptures, and tastefully planted flowers beds and borders with aromatic Mediterranean shrubs, which waft their fragrance as you walk past. There are some lovely touches, like the softly-glowing red globes hanging high up among the branches of trees in the evening. When I described the large abstract sculptures of outsize females to my son he correctly identified them as works by the French artist Niki de Saint Phalle. Fun and culture, what's not to like?

The rides include Dancing with Robots, where some of our party (non merci!) were whirled around by a giant robot arm to music by Martin Solveig in dance-club lighting, and plenty of 3D simulator experiences. We laughed a lot on the Time-Machine ride, which features Les Lapins Chretins (the crazy rabbits), not least while queuing for entry, where the walls are covered with versions of famous paintings featuring aforementioned crazy rabbits,  which included Munch’s The Scream and Botticelli’s Venus Rising from the Sea. This is just one example of the wit and  imagination that characterises the whole park. I tried one more ride, but it was all a bit too much for me, and I sat on one of the static seats at the side for Arthur, the 4D Adventure! Our guide quipped that a lot of teenagers  consider themselves cheated if they don’t feel queasy after a ride...  There are also some great open-air play areas and games in Children’s World, which I’m certain it would be hard to drag younger family members away from.

My personal favourites were the IMAX films, which I’d also been looking forward to most: Cosmic Collisions,  and Deep Sea. It was really relaxing to sink into the comfy seats in the dark and become immersed in stunning, narrated films about outer space and  the ocean depths - an opportunity to see things I’m unlikely to experience in the flesh. I learnt that our moon was formed in just 4 weeks from the debris which circled Earth after a massive asteriod collided with our planet. Always nice to find out new things, and  be reminded of our place in a huge universe!

I hope to go back to Futuroscope - there are always new things being developed, and I’d really like  to see the rest of the park, particularly Mission Hubble, where visitors join the rescue mission to repair the Hubble space telescope, and Journey into the Dark, where blind guides take you through three areas in the dark, which give you a sense of what it is like to make your way without sight - from the Louisiana bayou to New York city, and up to the highest Himalayan peak. This last is the only attraction in the park which incurs a cost - a requested donation of 5 euros per person which goes to charities aiding the visually-impaired.