tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278777662024-02-28T02:08:37.197-08:00Books and other thingsA blog for lovers of art, music, books and all things creative and beautiful. By an author who aspires to penetrate the dark, dense forest of the published world.Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.comBlogger79125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-20611883458062174322021-03-20T04:32:00.000-07:002021-03-20T04:32:00.794-07:00A Mysterious Island full of Magic and Misery<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Vhb0qzla51Sa7i5-ebW4cAMVZn7BTNl6oNoC9iyBnoWAQ9TbAy5EdrvXkvF1oi4j_lCoNclhX8iQS2qzK_cROYKpk67rxAm5UJkwySp_4mTpbtUSXNXXSLzrPUR5WmxQ8fzXzw/s800/The+Glass+Madonna+-+FINAL+600x800+300+dpi+Feb2021+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Vhb0qzla51Sa7i5-ebW4cAMVZn7BTNl6oNoC9iyBnoWAQ9TbAy5EdrvXkvF1oi4j_lCoNclhX8iQS2qzK_cROYKpk67rxAm5UJkwySp_4mTpbtUSXNXXSLzrPUR5WmxQ8fzXzw/w285-h380/The+Glass+Madonna+-+FINAL+600x800+300+dpi+Feb2021+%25281%2529.jpg" width="285" /></a> It's been a long time since I published another book despite being asked by friends each time they meet me or my husband, 'Is Loretta writing another book?' And I am touched that they are even politely interested. and have missd my outpourings! </p><p>The answer, up to now, has been a fervent 'No!' because I really wanted to stop writing, stop living in a world of images, fantasies and ideas and actually be here and in the Now. Very Zen, you might say. Well, yes, and to be honest I have never felt more peaceful and happy despite pandemics and lockdown strictures. I pottered round the house, cooked splendid meals in a newly designed kitchen and gardened, often twice a day, for several hours. I lost weight too which is always a bonus, especially as a lot of people have actually put weight on during lockdown. </p><p></p><p>So what has changed things? I was approached by an interesting new style of publishing called eglobal creative publishing. It's intended to appeal especially to Asian and South American markets but it is available to anyone who wants to sample a few free chapters and then opt to buy the book a chapter at a time or the whole lot. It's a great idea as long as the first chapters are riveting enough to entice a reader to carry on. I have to hope this is true of the book I decided to give them to put on this platform called The Glass Madonna. But as it's a non-exclusive contract, it is also available in other ebook forms such as Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo for Western readers. The first time I've ever gone as wide. It's actually rather fun and exciting.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjAEyqfu63IhGhZ9NeFtCc0XxNn5V6H8bslY2G6reQRYL8tgnu6EnOVtzDdoB4mah5_GmTEnFGYk-0-a0g0l119mNURdmxTG6uJq03BpHxtJeyNn_5T2r2DxV1wUD5RZNGks45w/s994/spinalonga+1980%2527s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="994" data-original-width="984" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZjAEyqfu63IhGhZ9NeFtCc0XxNn5V6H8bslY2G6reQRYL8tgnu6EnOVtzDdoB4mah5_GmTEnFGYk-0-a0g0l119mNURdmxTG6uJq03BpHxtJeyNn_5T2r2DxV1wUD5RZNGks45w/w317-h320/spinalonga+1980%2527s.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>The story takes place mainly in Crete and especially on the strange and mysterious island of Spinalonga which lies off the coast near Elounda. I visited this island in the late 1970's with the family when we were on holiday in Crete, a marvellous place. At that time tourism had hardly begun to take hold in Greece and Crete was peaceful and as yet undiscovered. An old fisherman took us over to see the island and there was only one other couple there. It was so quiet, so forsaken, crumbling, overgrown and eerie. I have always been fascinated by ruined and deserted places. <p></p><p>I knew this island had to have a good adventure story in it and sat and wrote this novel in a slightly different form shortly after our return. The children loved my tale which was all about the supernatural, magic and mystery. The main character is a fragile young girl who becomes caught up with the sad destiny of a Greek villager whose parents died as lepers on the island. She feels compelled to help him and is drawn into a terrifying adventure. Nothing like Victori Hislop's The Island. </p><p>Sadly for me, I left this story along with several others I had written at this time after a few feeble attemtps to find a publisher. There wasn't any easy self publishing then! Life was just too busy to deal with it all. So fair enough, Victoria got there first and she does have a husband and a foothold in publishing and believe me, that helps a lot! And hers is a great book.</p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZkZrEdz3o8ZBWbpIIlpjPm_XWi7fH-gZNRY1H-Uq4o-E-ThyphenhyphenFRWkONHofv3GWSAuIwoiSkQvbXhsazgeV6ZOVUuw8W3AIGV4iXvPAnmNCH3ZfDgDW2aOjRmrj46VzmOcDz9eiLw/s330/spinalonga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuzJtsp5kv6Ii8GfDTNkIAS4CoUbsnrPtjkXbnpEe3QpgqDJOWxqgOQsRcphmLkEoMc94e2BbRz-PPxzXdUS_zFw168yDSkbGJ7Gk12CMy9NOv-9zzIZMn17qT4imWmxOUN6tizQ/s979/Lol+at+Spinalonga+1979.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="979" data-original-width="954" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuzJtsp5kv6Ii8GfDTNkIAS4CoUbsnrPtjkXbnpEe3QpgqDJOWxqgOQsRcphmLkEoMc94e2BbRz-PPxzXdUS_zFw168yDSkbGJ7Gk12CMy9NOv-9zzIZMn17qT4imWmxOUN6tizQ/s320/Lol+at+Spinalonga+1979.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p>But The Glass Madonna, though it has a similiar setting, is absolutely nothing like The Island. It's a coming of age story and may not appeal to everyone but I hope the mystery and the strange characters will lure you all into a new adventure. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-88453490304489650982019-07-19T10:39:00.000-07:002019-07-19T10:39:19.768-07:00Montalbano’s Adventures in Wonderland: Death of Andrea Camilleri at 93 years old<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The dream town of 'Vigata' </td></tr>
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Like so many Camilleri fans, I was saddened to hear that
this wonderful, talented author died on 17<sup>th</sup> July 2019 from cardiac
arrest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was 93 years old and had
written so many books, about 100, many translated into English, and there is one
yet awaiting publication.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have loved
them all, spiced as they are with his unique sense of humour amidst the most
horrifying violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truly, humour is
what saves us human beings from total madness, defuses difficult situations and
Camilleri knew how to gently mock even the dreaded Mafiosa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He helped us to change our views of Sicily as
a gangster driven island filled with cowed people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see it now as place of strange barren
beauty, delightful, honey-coloured buildings, ruined ancient temples and baroque
architecture, interesting characters and good-hearted people, plus great and
healthy food dishes (mainly fish). He introduced Sicilian phrases and dialect
into his stories and many Sicilian actors or ordinary people of the town were
used in the TV series that followed on, adding authenticity and charm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the Sicilians have much to thank him for
helping their own renewed interest in their island history plus an upsurge in
tourism to help the economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently,
some of his books are now used in Sicilian schools. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andrea Camilleri (Getty Images)</td></tr>
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Camilleri was about 67 and had retired from a respected
career as a TV director and author when his first book on Montalbano was
published by Sellerio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s called <i>The
Shape of the Water.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It immediately
seized the Italian imagination and more followed on, often with intriguing
titles such as <i>The Voice of the Violin, The Scent of the Night, The Paper Moon</i>
and many others, all in 180 page format, ten pages per chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many stories commence with a strange dream
from which Montalbano awakes in a panic, dreams which are sometimes precognitive,
coming true in an alarming manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that Camilleri loved to hear the
stories from Alice in Wonderland as a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The strange dipping into the depths of the unconscious mind, the
alternative world of our dreams, the sense of things not being as they seem to
the rational mind must have arisen from this early fascination of his and a
sense of the supernatural enters the stories in subtle ways, flashes of
cognition, the Inspector’s solitary walks filled with pauses pregnant with
thoughtfulness and feeling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Montalbano
comes over as a man of great depths, modest, honourable and basically
kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He reflect Camilleri’s own
personality for the author was very left wing, advocating the rights of all
people and seeing them as human beings, not labelling them as immigrants,
criminals or deranged, but showing the motives that drove them, the poverty,
fear, greed and all the human foibles and human greatness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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What is it about the Inspector Montalbano series produced by
RAI TV which has captivated people in so many countries from Italy to Australia?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s that intriguing, indefinable
atmosphere, produced firstly by Franco Piersanti’s haunting title music that
accompanies a glorious swirling aerial view of the imaginary town of
Vigata.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The overhead shot moves over a hilltop
town and then pans down to the seascape where a lonely swimmer carves his way
to a totally empty shore, clambers out, seizes a towel on the beach and
towelling himself vigorously, walks up stone steps to his beautiful apartment
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The police HQ at 'Vigata'</td></tr>
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Here Montalbano thoughtfully ponders his
mysterious, complex cases over a strong cup of coffee or a solitary, silent
meal on the balcony (cooked by his amazing housekeeper, Adelina) or else in a
corner of Enzio’s restaurant. Here’s a
detective who loves his food and likes to concentrate on it and not chatter
while he eats (how I approve of that!) , keeps fit, is considerate of others,
gentlemanly towards women, but still exhibits a fine Sicilian temper with
fools. He cares about people, has strong
friendships and maintains a strangely distant, yet loyal love-affair with
Livia, a lady who lives on mainland Italy.</div>
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In order to evoke the surrealism in Camilleri’s
stories,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the streets are always
strangely empty of people and traffic and a brooding silence seems to pervade
the town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a Pirandello feel
about all this and Camilleri has sometimes been compared to that other great
writer (whose most famous work is <i>Six Characters in Search of an Author</i>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently the two writers were distantly
related.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This slightly unreal, almost
dreamlike atmosphere in the books has been captured by the direction of Alberto
Sironi and by the superb acting of the star, Luca Zingaretti, who had to adjust
his Roman Italian to a Sicilian accent in order to play the part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the most
delightful holidays of recent years was when we visited Sicily on a Montalbano
tour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were conducted around all the
locations which made up the imaginary town of Vigata, actually Scicli, with other
locations in Modica, Punto Secca and Donnafugata Castle, all in the province of Ragusa in
South Eastern Sicily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>We sat outside the
famous apartment on the beach and swam in ‘Montalbano’s sea’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a great experience to be with other
fans, all thrilled with the fact of ‘being there’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watching the series again afterwards made it
so much more fun when I could say gleefully, ‘Look, we were there!'</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Punta Secca, the apartment</td></tr>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just to add to the surreal atmosphere surrounding Camilleri’s work, he died on the night of a partial lunar eclipse that glowed a deep dark red for some minutes. A Paper Moon.</div>
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<o:p></o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eXmluyz9R9kTwNJzxqIRgl4s8yvW6qVXExcNWvAeIWPaA01vTAMce2Ku9DQDE_81Id-bhArZkm85afo1YOm6mWS3Y9vB3_giIIA0I26Ctk6OEOyaVr6Us3M0ljWuuuOghIDb7A/s1600/paper+moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0eXmluyz9R9kTwNJzxqIRgl4s8yvW6qVXExcNWvAeIWPaA01vTAMce2Ku9DQDE_81Id-bhArZkm85afo1YOm6mWS3Y9vB3_giIIA0I26Ctk6OEOyaVr6Us3M0ljWuuuOghIDb7A/s320/paper+moon.jpg" width="240" /></a> </div>
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<b>RIP Andrea Camilleri, we shall miss you, a wonderful man and a great author.</b> </div>
<br />Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-49128896923617677682019-03-13T04:28:00.000-07:002019-03-13T04:28:01.338-07:00J.M Barrie: Are his plays still relevant to our times?<br />
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<b>Here is a Guest Blog by Paul F. Newman, an excellent reviewer, who has kindly agreed to appear on my pages!</b></div>
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<b>Thank you Paul for these interesting summaries.</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>J.M. Barrie</b></td></tr>
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<b>His reviews are on three of J.M. Barrie's plays.</b></div>
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<b>From The Admirable Crichton to Peter Pan.</b></div>
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J.M. Barrie was fond of creating stories that featured fantasy islands and below are reviews of his two most well known, with another early drama sandwiched in between. Although he started as a novelist he soon turned his hand to plays yet could never resist adding copious acting or directing notes that read more like miniature novels in themselves. I read these plays again recently and enjoyed the journey into the past . . .</div>
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<b><i>THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON </i></b>by J.M. Barrie. (Originally
performed 1902)</div>
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Crichton is the unflappably correct and loyal butler in the Mayfair
household of Lord Loam. The only thing that distresses him is his master’s
leanings towards a more equal society, where on certain days the servants are
encouraged to eat and mix with the uncomfortable resident family and their
guests. Crichton abides by the theory that society is safer when everyone knows
their place and that people naturally fall into a hierarchical order if left to
their own devices.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When the accident of birth
is removed, the idea of finding and accepting one’s place is allied in a sense
to the survival of the fittest, and all this starts to take on a new meaning
when Lord Loam and his pampered daughters and a maid, together with a couple of
other upper class young men – plus Crichton (who is himself only about thirty)
– get shipwrecked on a Pacific island during the course of a travelling
holiday. Although at first everyone keeps to their place, other strengths and
weaknesses of individual character soon emerge with an almost total reversal of
roles.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is a comedy, a theatre
play geared for laughs, and Barrie’s stage directions are incredibly lengthy,
reading more like parts of a witty novel than a brief to the actors. It was an
early success for him a couple of years before his all<b>-</b>famous <i>Peter
Pan</i> and at first I thought it not dissimilar to the Victorian comedies of
Oscar Wilde. However its concept of turning society on its head gives it a more
modern relevance and it comes across as less old<b>-</b>fashioned than the
Wilde plays. While<i> Peter Pan</i> remains eternal, <i>The Admirable Crichton</i>
had a good fifty<b>-</b>year run of popularity, last made into a major film in
1957. </div>
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<b><i>WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS </i></b>by J.M. Barrie. (Originally
performed 1908) <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>What Every Woman Knows </i>is not at first the most self<b>-</b>explanatory
of titles although strong female characters certainly drive the play.
Historically Barrie wrote it in the first years of the twentieth century
probably unaware that during the next ten years when Women’s Suffrage and Votes
for Women were high on the public agenda, its title might be construed as a
play that dealt directly with such current issues, and it possibly drew many
people into the theatres for that reason. Not that they would have been totally
disappointed. As a play of social manners it’s a good one, humorous and
realistic, seeing things largely from a woman’s point of view and acknowledging
that women were often the unseen force behind many a husband’s career. This is
confirmed in the last paragraphs as the meaning of the title:</div>
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MAGGIE “Every man who is high up loves to think that he has done it all
himself; and the woman smiles, and let’s it go at that. It’s our only joke.
Every woman knows that.”</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If you weren’t married by
your mid<b>-</b>twenties in those days you were practically on the shelf, and
the plot involves Maggie, a plain woman in her twenties, and the efforts by her
loving bachelor brothers and widowed father to procure her a suitor. They make
a deal with an ambitious younger man to give him the £300 he needs to establish
himself in business on condition that he marry Maggie in five years time.
Maggie, however, has the option of not accepting him in five years if she
prefers. The young John Shand jumps at the offer even though he is not
particularly enamoured of Maggie. He professes in the politest of terms that
he’s not really interested in women, career always comes first, but he sees
that a wife could be a social asset to him when he rises in the world and in
that respect Maggie would be as good as any. Maggie, annoyed at first at her
treatment as chattel, comes to warm to both the idea and the young man as he
goes from strength to strength in the outer world, ending up being voted as the
local Member of Parliament. Now the designated time on the bargain is up. By
this time however other more worldly and sophisticated women have entered John
Shand’s social sphere...</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There’s a lot of
understanding of character behind what is basically a comedy. It’s hardly
women’s liberation stuff though: “Man’s the oak, woman’s the ivy” – that’s our
heroine Maggie speaking. It reflects a time when many marriages were those of
convenience and passion was found elsewhere, yet it remains an intriguing piece
of old<b>-</b>fashioned entertainment.</div>
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<b><i>PETER PAN </i></b>by J.M. Barrie. (Originally performed 1904) </div>
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The full title of the original play was <i>Peter Pan or The Boy Who
Would Not Grow Up</i> (as if he had some choice in the matter) and the author
never stopped fiddling around with it, the whole play I mean not just the
title. Sometimes he would insert an extra character or scene deliberately for
one night only in a theatre run, at other times he added lines, deleted
paragraphs, upgraded Tiger Lily, downgraded Wendy and vice versa, had mothers
turning up to claim the Lost Boys if they could pass certain tests, had Captain
Hook trail Peter to London disguised as a schoolmaster, had soliloquies spoken
by mermaids, and god knows what else... Peter Hollingdale’s 1995 <i>Notes on
the Text</i> in the front of my OUP edition opens with the assertion that “The
history of Barrie’s texts... is long and complicated”. And that is perhaps an
understatement. The version appended in this book is probably the most familiar
and dates in collected written form from 1928, although it is essentially what
was first performed in 1904.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To this day almost everyone
is familiar with the story and characters of <i>Peter Pan</i> and what struck
me as I read again the first scene in the nursery at the Darlings’ house was
how loving it was towards children. Was the choice of the name “darling” for
this family, deliberate? The impressions we usually nurture of Victorian
parents being stiff and aloof from their offspring and that children should be
seen and not heard is a million miles from the atmosphere of warmth and
security here, where the mother and father – especially the mother – is hands<b>-</b>on
in her dealings, reading goodnight stories and settling the high<b>-</b>spirited
youngsters down for the night. This is a prosperous middle class family home in
London, yet not run by servants. We’re candidly told amongst Barrie’s copious
notes and directions that they can’t afford them, and so the children’s special
nurse who helps with bath times and bedtime duties is a Newfoundland dog called
Nana. With three children, Wendy, Michael and John, sharing a bedroom, Nana on
guard and cosy night<b>-</b>lights above their beds, many a child watching the
play might have envied this almost perfect family arrangement. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And it has to be said, the
story grips you. Mary Darling is a little reticent at leaving the children so
as to go out with her husband that evening because she thinks she has
previously seen a boy’s face at the nursery window, despite their being several
floors up. A boy accompanied by a strange moving light who, we know, will
return to look for his shadow that he lost when he entered the room before. He
was initially drawn there, not so much to befriend the children but to hear Mrs
Darling’s bedtime stories, for he, like the other Lost Boys, is a child without
a mother. Tinker Bell, the moving light, takes her name from her skill at
mending fairy pots and kettles (she’s a little tinker). She’s a little bitch
actually, especially to Wendy, though her character is redeemed by her devotion
to Peter Pan for whom she gives up her life at one point by deliberately
drinking the poison that Hook has left for him. On stage her dying light is
restored by the applause of the audience. “If you believe [in fairies] clap
your hands.” </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There’s no specific mention
of this being Wendy’s last night in the nursery, at least not in this version,
in other words that she is on the brink of adolescence. She is the eldest of
the children and while her two brothers are still asleep she flirts with Peter
Pan in a childish way, goading him to give her a kiss – a concept he doesn’t
understand. Tinker Bell understands well enough and is aroused to one of the
first of her jealous fits. Wendy feels maternal when she learns that Peter has
no mother and tries to embrace him but he instinctively draws away, saying “No
one must ever touch me”. Peter is confused too when Wendy asks him about
fairies and says she would like one herself. He states that Tinker Bell is <i>his</i>
fairy then thinks that perhaps she can’t be because “I am a gentleman and you
[meaning Tinker Bell] are a lady”. All manner of sexual and gender issues run
beneath this first bedroom scene. With its tradition of the same actor playing
Wendy’s father and Captain Hook, with its assertion that the Lost Boys are the
babies that disappear from prams when the nurse maids are not looking, with the
escape to a perpetual childhood of Never Land, the whole play has always been
ripe for psychological analysis. But only if you want to take it that way.
Otherwise it’s a tale that hasn’t ceased to entertain children and adults since
it was first staged. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Barrie describes Never Land
(not <i>Never Never </i>Land in the main play, though he sometimes calls it
that elsewhere), the setting for the next four Acts, thus: “You have often half
seen it before, or even three<b>-</b>quarters, after the night<b>-</b>lights
were lit...” Captain Hook is a formidable creation – “Naught’s left upon your
bones when you have shaken hands with Hook!” – a blood<b>-</b>thirsty pirate
captain who prides himself on dandiness and gentlemanly politeness. He speaks
and dresses in the style of Charles II. Tiger Lily, now virtually forgotten in
modern American renderings because of the un<b>-</b>p.c. of mentioning Native
Americans at all, has a larger part than I remembered. More than just the
Indian Chief’s daughter in need of rescue, she acts as a tribe leader and
fighter in her own right. </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Lost Boys, who feature
largely, have individual names and personalities and possibly meant more to the
author than to most of the children in the watching audience who I imagine
would have identified more with the Darling siblings, or Peter, or even – today
– the sanitised princess version of Tinker Bell. A lengthy many<b>-</b>paged
Dedication by Barrie at the front of the play, probably written in the 1920s,
is headed “To the Five” and details his adventures and inspirations with and
from the five real life boys to whom he became a guardian.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The issue of “the boy who
would not grow up” is much apparent in the text, more so than in many modern
productions. “What are your exact feelings for me, Peter?” asks Wendy at one
point. It’s a puzzling question for Peter Pan, the heroic leader in a boy’s
world of adventure who often feels the lack of a mother but is nevertheless
surrounded by females (Tinker Bell, the mermaids, Tiger Lily...). He tells Wendy
that Tiger Lily is always asking the same kind of things as her, “there is
something or other she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.”</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The version of the play we
have here ends with an Afterthought. A short last act called <i>When Wendy Grew
Up. </i>The main story concludes with everyone returning safely to the London
home, to the joy of the parents who also adopt the lost boys into the family.
Peter doesn’t stay, much to Wendy’s chagrin, but promises to fly back to see
her once a year. He does this once, then forgets, as time has little meaning
for him. Wendy, sad at first, is to some extent relieved as<i> </i>she is
growing and maturing rapidly while Peter remains forever a boy. Then some years
later he does return. Wendy is now a mother with a small daughter of her own.
Little Jane is charmed by Peter and with Wendy’s approval flies away with him
“just for a week”. It’s an unnecessary scene really but typical of the way
Barrie was forever adding or subtracting bits to the story.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the best filmed
interpretations of the story must surely be Walt Disney’s 1953 full<b>-</b>length
cartoon that follows the original plot incredibly well. Even the dress of the
characters must have been based on early illustrations. The front cover picture
on this present book shows Peter Pan fighting Hook (from a 1907 <i>Peter Pan
Picture Book</i>) with Hook in 17th century garb and flowing locks and Peter
with a feathered cap and a red, rather than green, tunic. Disney would better
refine their features into caricatures and make Peter more elfin looking.</div>
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<br />Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-57910659773791740502017-10-17T03:08:00.000-07:002017-10-17T03:08:41.386-07:00By Grand Central Station: Learning life's lessons rather than weeping!<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>By Grand Central
Station I sat down and Wept<o:p></o:p></b><br />
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As book titles go this one is a stunner. I always wanted to find and read this elusive
book because I loved the title so much.
So seeing it recently in an Oxfam bookshop, I grabbed it with joy. </div>
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I started to read it the other day. The forward by Brigid Brophy seemed
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"I doubt if there are more than half a dozen
masterpieces of poetic prose in the world.
One of them, I am convinced, is Elizabeth Smart's <i>By Grand Central Station I sat</i> <i>down
and wept</i>...which was first published in 1945..when to the shame of those
professing to practice criticism at the time, it made small stir..." </div>
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However, a few pages into the turgid and over-inflated prose
and I was ready to throw it into the bin.<br />
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'<i>On her mangledness I am spreading my amorous sheets, but who will have any pride in the wedding red, seeping up between the thighs of love which rise like a colossus, but whose issue is only the cold semen of grief'</i><br />
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<i>'I am overun, jungled in my bed, I am infested with a menagerie of desires; my heart is eaten by a dove,a cat scrambles in the cave of my sex, hounds in my head obey a whipmaster who cries nothing but havoc as the hours test my endurance with an accumulation of tortures. Who, if I cried, would hear me amongs the angelic orders?'</i><br />
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This is a masterpiece, a cult literary classic? Some of the images taken separately are amazing but altogether, page after page of this sort of prose is just too much to bear. it alienates instead of inspiring pity.<br />
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I have to confess to a dislike of so called
'stream of consciousness' style novels.
I recently read - because required to for study, not by choice - William
Faulkner's <i>As I lay Dying</i>. I utterly disliked that book, disliked the
characters, the setting, the whole point of the tale and the pretentiousness of
those who felt it to be an epic odyssey of some sort. As far as I was concerned, it was dreary, holding out little hope, joy
or meaning. Yet, as some wit pointed out, 'you may hate the book or love it,
but you'll never forget it.' So true,
because I haven't. I class <i>By Grand Central Station</i> as one of those
types of books that annoys you but makes you wonder, think, query, consider and
oddly, in the end, even begin to understand.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqiA1d2805Po5cnsJWVY6FZH4C8tJ31Fu5AQUz2GN5PJeJyZbfwTdEK9A8ltmz3JZhJKV83ornCj29r062xf3paiVmCHRtTQG7rg0LkvRfv5Ea9-wnJSqi82wLBLiCyrFcR0DcDA/s1600/ElizabethSmart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="299" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqiA1d2805Po5cnsJWVY6FZH4C8tJ31Fu5AQUz2GN5PJeJyZbfwTdEK9A8ltmz3JZhJKV83ornCj29r062xf3paiVmCHRtTQG7rg0LkvRfv5Ea9-wnJSqi82wLBLiCyrFcR0DcDA/s1600/ElizabethSmart.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth Smart</td></tr>
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I'm not sure I will ever understand Faulkner. He is too alien for me. But Elizabeth Smart was a woman, she was a
woman truly, madly, deeply in love with a man who belonged to another. The whole set up was doomed to unhappiness. I have like many another woman experienced
intense love, the pain of separation, passion, grief and anguish. So I could relate to what Smart was
attempting to express. She wrote the
book at a time when her married lover, the English poet George Grenville Barker, left her to return to his wife. Apparently he returned through pity for the
wife despite his love for Elizabeth but I feel cynical about that. He seemed a man who tired of the same partner
and had many an affair. He was also a
lapsed Catholic and his wife never divorced him despite his serial
womanising and he managed to father fifteen children
with various women! (I've observed that
women often want to bear the children of these poetic but faithless men as if
to keep a portion of the man close to them in this way.) Smart bore him four of them and when asked if
the children came first or her man, replied at once, ' My man.' Yet George Barker wasn't an admirable sort of person at
all. He was a poet, it's true, compared often to Gerard Manley Hopkins. His poetry has the same mythic, mystical overtones that so appealed to Elizabeth Smart and which profusely invades her own work. It was his poetry that first drew her to him and she declared she would marry this man some day. She was utterly determined to have him, wife or no wife, have his soul you might say.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">George Grenville Barker</td></tr>
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Barker was indeed gifted but vain and convinced of his own genius, a genius not to be wasted in wars and fighting. Thus he managed to escape <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> and World War Two, by firstly accepting a post in Japan. There he realised he was in the midst of something even more frightening than the European conflict and recalling this women who had expressed so much excitement over his work, he made good use of
Smart's infatuation for him by persuading her to finance his escape from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region> to <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region>. He never worked, he never fought but Smart always made allowances and even
when he left her to return to his wife, stayed true to him. Even her son
couldn't understand why his mother loved his father who, as he said, was almost a Christ-like figure for her. Barker came and went as the impulse took him, was a drinker, could be violent and unpredictable and they often had vicious
rows. Smart even bit his lip once in a
fury (shades of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath but Smart was a tougher cookie than
the already suicidal Plath)</div>
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Her son wrote that he never understood her book either and Smart's mother was horrified and managed to have sales of the book banned in Canada, burning as many copies as she managed to get her hands on. People weren't used to such a raw, honest declaration of love and passion, so personal a book. I just wish she'd made it a proper story rather than couching it in the overblown, often meaningless metaphors and
images of her prose which Brophy so admires. Despite all, there is a sense of the passion; the
vulnerability and intensity that lovers feel in that time when they are swept
along by a mutually projected archetypal image from within themselves upon the mere
mortal before them. The mortal is still
a God in their eyes, not yet a fallible human creature like themselves. Elizabeth never seemed able to take back her God-like projection upon George till much later in life, if ever. It had been so deep, painful, joyful, an
almost mystical experience which would forever leave its indelible imprint on
her soul. One felt she would meet him
again in another life, that maybe they had chased one another through myriad lives
before, perhaps till the end of time, a novel in itself. I understand all that.</div>
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I also understand her half -mystical,
religious, inflated, archaic style of writing.
My first writings were of this nature but now seem almost
incomprehensible, even to me. <i>My Little World</i> is the first novel (starting it in my teens) I ever wrote - and then re-wrote and wrote again. As Ignazio Sillone put it, 'I would willingly
pass my life writing and re-writing the same book . . . that one book every writer
carries within him . . . the image of his own soul' However, it's not a story I want to publish,
it's my 'cupboard book' as my daughter puts it . . . not one to inflict on others
who would criticise, mock, love or hate those feelings that are meaningful and magical
to me alone. It's too personal and
precious though presented in the form of an anguished love story with a resolution of sorts and as such, readable
at least. Which Grand Central isn't . .
. that's just a meandering cry of anguish.
My male characters are certainly my
inner ones, images of the splintered animus within my breast, yet at the same
time they are feelings and insights about real people I have loved and hated, now
clothed differently, given a different life. And through writing this, I discovered so much about myself and my motives in life. </div>
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In my opinion, Smart should have put this slight, yet intense
and yes, feeling book into a cupboard and pondered on it as life went on, rather
than indulging in a sort of vain longing to have others see her as some tragic
heroine in a story from the past.
Tristan and Iseult she may have felt herself to be as I always felt the
story of Cupid and Psyche, Beauty and the Beast so strong in myself. Jung said we all lived out a particular myth
and he is right. But this is for each person to
discover and understand. <i>Know Thyself </i>is a vital key to life, the
injunction over the gateway to Apollo's Delphic Temple. I feel Smart never truly understood herself
or the true meaning of her tortuous love affair.Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-76968489743515724592017-08-18T06:24:00.000-07:002017-08-18T06:38:47.144-07:00The Great Fire of Salonika August 18th 1917<div class="MsoNormal">
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On this day, August 18th 1917, a Great Fire (<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8.5pt;"> </span><span lang="EL" style="background: white; color: #222222;">Μεγάλη
Πυρκαγιά της Θεσσαλονίκης</span> )
broke out in <st1:city w:st="on">Thessaloniki</st1:city>, a thriving
city and the second largest in <st1:place w:st="on">Greece</st1:place>. It burned for 32 hours and spread throughout
the city right down to the seafront where it then set fire to the caiques and
boats in the sea. This at last brought
it to an end. This fierce fire had by
then destroyed businesses, homes and displaced 70,000 people. It was never again the same city. </div>
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<st1:place w:st="on">Salonika</st1:place>, as it was then
called, had only recently been liberated from Turkish rule in 1912.
But it still swarmed with people of many nationalities. The Greeks were still in the minority, while
Jews formed the majority, running many successful businesses along the wharves
and docksides, as well as clothing and jewellery shops in the great arcades in
the city centre. Apart from these were Turks,
Armenians, Albanians, Roma and a swarm of other ethnicities. Added to this <i>'macedoine</i>', this <i>pot pourri</i>
of humanity, were the Allied Forces of Italy, <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> who were
defending the borders of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Macedonia</st1:country-region>
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Though it was such a rich and important city it was totally
chaotic in structure, dilapidated and unhygienic amongst the poor. Some
said the fire was due to a careless housewife upsetting boiling fat, but a
subsequent investigation indicated that the fire had begun in the Mevlane or
Turkish district in a house occupied by some refugees. A spark from a kitchen fire is said to have
ignited a pile of straw. No one will
ever really know. Such fires often broke
out both in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Turkey</st1:country-region> and in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Macedonia</st1:country-region> as
the houses were mainly built of wood in these districts. In this instance it was ignored partly from foolishness
and partly as there was no fire fighting equipment or water available. The famously fierce Vardar winds of <st1:place w:st="on">Salonika</st1:place> were high that day and fanned the blaze sending
the flames raging through the city. The
water supplies had been commandeered by the Allied Forces to serve their camps
and hospitals, high up in the hills and city suburbs and they were not enthusiastic
about letting them be used for what they imagined was a small conflagration. Thus the fire swept through the rich business
districts and Jewish tradesmen were forced to flee, losing all their goods and
homes. Chaos ensued as people fled,
trying to save some of their goods, paying anything to the <i>hamals </i>(or porters) who profited nicely from the panic. Surprisingly,
due to the movement of the wind, most of the Turkish area, higher up by the
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The French half-heartedly blew up some houses to try and
halt the run of the fire but didn't continue with the operation and eventually withdrew. In the end it was the British forces who
helped the unfortunate people as they streamed out of the city, taking them in
their military lorries to their depots for tea and biscuits and on to refugee
camps, hastily erected outside the city.
Some soldiers in the French forces were accused of looting abandoned
shops and even asking for tips to take people away. Such is the greed of humanity that will
profit from the misery of others. </div>
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There is an interesting eye witness account online by Dr
Isobel Emslie Hutton worth reading. I
myself read many letters from nurses, soldiers and doctors recounting their own
eye witness accounts when writing my book <i>The
Long Shadow.</i> It was one of the most
devastating fires of the First World War but it did pave the way for the city
to be reconstructed in a better manner.
The beautiful <st1:street w:st="on">Aristotelous
Square</st1:street> was constructed during this time but sadly
the entire Hebrard plan was not totally implemented due to lack of funds. A typical Greek problem!</div>
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A good friend, Richard Devereux's grandfather, William, was
serving with the Salonika Campaign and no doubt was amongst the soldiers
helping the refugees. Richard has
written a splendid little book of poems about this period in his Grandad's life
called simply 'Bill'</div>
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<i>The soldiers gazed in
awe at the glow and smoke . . . <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>were sent on trucks to
give what help they could.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>'All hands to the
pumps!' But the fire brigade had none<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>that worked. Bill did what he could. He helped a bloke<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>load onto a cart his
few pathetic goods.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>In the photograph,
Bill having a fag. Job done!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTl-OwXcwGCOZB0qoAUQIdNMu4oejRerkeh_NdckmYlvc_lw1zdSYQRP2rs-qQnaDvcJm7Kt3B1VhMovkjbwPzDHONkFVsjyNPMYSkyjZdlhoyL81_UEpNu5dfVM_vn5mZh41qQ/s1600/YooniqImages_216337635.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="538" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTl-OwXcwGCOZB0qoAUQIdNMu4oejRerkeh_NdckmYlvc_lw1zdSYQRP2rs-qQnaDvcJm7Kt3B1VhMovkjbwPzDHONkFVsjyNPMYSkyjZdlhoyL81_UEpNu5dfVM_vn5mZh41qQ/s320/YooniqImages_216337635.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">from YooniqImages: Inspecting damage after the fire</td></tr>
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For another take on the fire, read my book <i>The Long Shadow</i>, set in <st1:place w:st="on">Salonika</st1:place> during this period, taken from first hand
accounts. In this extract Dorothy and
Captain Dunning have taken a shopping visit to town when they are caught up in the
melee of terrified people fleeing from burning homes.</div>
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<i>'Those smelly
creatures in my car!' said Dunning in horror but his natural sense of justice
prevailed and he agreed to drive down the Via Egnatia and see if anyone needed
picking up. When we got near there we
began to see the first stream of refugees pouring along the street, clutching
their foolish belongings as if they were gold dust. One woman held a mirror and a brass bowl
against her chest and appeared oblivious to the wailing infant yelling and
clinging in terror to her skirts. An old
woman was wandering about , calling for her family, looking lost and bewildered. Others pushed and jostled along, dropping
their useless and heavy goods at last in order to lift their children who
screamed to be picked up and carried. To
my disgust I saw men load up their womenfolk with precious sewing machines and
other items , then leaving them to struggle along in the crowd, took themselves
off speedily to save their own lives. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The noise was
unbelievable. Men were shouting to each
other, women and children screaming and behind all this one could hear the
crackling roar of flames, the crash of timber and glass shattering and the
smell of acrid smoke which billowed up into the air and driven by a fierce wind
down the streets which formed tunnels for it.
It was like some strange dragon breathing out through its nostrils.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<o:p><i> The Long Shadow</i> is available in Greek from Okeanida as <i>O Iskios tou Polemou</i> and English:</o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaOOJmIxw0KHG7gDfCt48T3g4eloRS1kSuyKn7gP1ArdDhyphenhyphenKi95dPyY5IQBaB62O5wz7HUjiR-LCAu6-9zj7ANebU1iS_b-jpGDKD6cT_Cck4HTBZPtODOJwnlAblVVsZe-R1C4A/s1600/The+Long+Shadow+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaOOJmIxw0KHG7gDfCt48T3g4eloRS1kSuyKn7gP1ArdDhyphenhyphenKi95dPyY5IQBaB62O5wz7HUjiR-LCAu6-9zj7ANebU1iS_b-jpGDKD6cT_Cck4HTBZPtODOJwnlAblVVsZe-R1C4A/s320/The+Long+Shadow+%25282%2529.jpg" width="213" /></a>Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-91935790716970003582017-06-16T04:51:00.000-07:002017-06-16T04:51:34.098-07:00Film fan or book buff? Elizabeth Gaskell's 'North and South'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXl08isRS_1BeIQbtZjYWNq6v1gnIdkWKL0DkNC-cirqdMSWDPA8_0myOKj4gV3kQCMxqwlvrYX-eD2DXndQ3yGeHv9hOSWPM9WG1iTki3EjkweMFypjLoj-HrU07hyphenhyphenQYua2uLCw/s1600/images+%25283%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXl08isRS_1BeIQbtZjYWNq6v1gnIdkWKL0DkNC-cirqdMSWDPA8_0myOKj4gV3kQCMxqwlvrYX-eD2DXndQ3yGeHv9hOSWPM9WG1iTki3EjkweMFypjLoj-HrU07hyphenhyphenQYua2uLCw/s400/images+%25283%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Why not Both?</b></h3>
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It always annoys me when people grumble about a film
adaptation of a famous book. They
complain that the screen play differs from the original, that not every
precious word uttered by their hero/heroine is included and search diligently
and gleefully for any discrepancies in the historical settings. What is not taken into account is that these
are two quite different mediums of expression; the written word where elaborate
descriptions can be included and conversations recorded in detail, and the
visual, sounds and evocative expression of film. A film is constrained by time and the producers demands and though many modern writers may feel equally constrained
by their editors and publishers, most classical novels had liberty to ramble
on at length. Our educated ancestors desired
long tomes and wordiness, lacking as they did the joys of television, cinema or
dvd's to amuse themselves in spare moments.
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I recently re-read Mrs Gaskell's <i>North and South </i>as<i> </i>my
literary tutor had set this book for our little group to study. I agree with her, a first reading tends to be
a little hurried, pages skipped in the desire to see how the story pans
out. Good books should always be read
again when time has helped the contents to be mentally digested, the thrust of
the story now half remembered with that delicious vagueness that time casts
over it so that all appears as if new. A second, even a
third reading, will bring out passages missed or forgotten. In Gaskell's novels, the central
love story, on first reading so gripping, can then be seen in its context of the social turmoil of the times. And her novels were certainly born in times of
great turmoil in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>. We think we have divisiveness, poverty and
problems now. In the mid 19th century <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> had a great and rich industrial and colonial empire
and yet the poverty and misery of the manufacturing towns was appalling, the
contrast of rich and poor beyond belief.
The smugness of the idle rich and even the educated, who liked to shield themselves
behind the idea that it was all God's will and a punishment on these wretches - for some unexplained
reason - is mind boggling to us now.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwnqN3-_CbX66wedwsLtBIwN2E-mLJllk07tlKyvjzXAdDRoRcs2pF0TF3mmhvX-Sarnrskgxv3D2z8q9ms6FMKemxM7Tnina1Acjf3jeUpJ_4NUfvNnM14uIN8-1lxyM9icAxMA/s1600/CBRichmond.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwnqN3-_CbX66wedwsLtBIwN2E-mLJllk07tlKyvjzXAdDRoRcs2pF0TF3mmhvX-Sarnrskgxv3D2z8q9ms6FMKemxM7Tnina1Acjf3jeUpJ_4NUfvNnM14uIN8-1lxyM9icAxMA/s200/CBRichmond.png" width="139" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charlotte Bronte</td></tr>
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The Chartist Movement had grown rapidly and there were problems such as the Luddite Riots which subject appears in Bronte' s book <i>Shirley</i>. Her treatment of the strike and the manner in whcih her heroine saves her lover are simliar to that in <i>North and South.</i> But Bronte had somewhat similiar heroines for whom love was their prevailing passion, the characters in Gaskell's novels are varied and though they fall in love, it is not the driving force of the story. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Manchester in 19th century</td></tr>
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<o:p>Gaskell felt the unfairness of it all deeply and became a strong defender of the problems and sufferings of the Lancashire poor, spilling forth her feelings and compassion in her first novel, <i>Mary Barton,</i> published in 1848. This appeared at about the same time as Charlotte Bronte's <i>Jane Eyre </i>and the two became firm friends. Both authors were amazed at the reaction to their books; the anger of Gaskell's circle of friends dismayed her and her attempts to remain incognito were easily flushed out as Milton was so obviously Manchester where she lived. Some chose to think she parodied them in her exposure of the middle class and wealthy mill owners. They felt she was being one sided in portraying only the misery of the poor as driven by circumstances and starvation and the 'gentlefolk', as tyrants who ignored their plight in the comfort of nice homes, laden tables, smart clothes on their backs and pleasurable pursuits. Nothing indicated the problems faced by the manufacturers, managers and mill masters who had the rise and fall of markets to consider and all the worries of keeping their businesses afloat in uncertain times. They had all the responsibility while the workers just had to work hard and accept the problems if things went wrong. Gaskell realised that the two sides simply did not communicate their problems to one another and in<i> North and South</i>, she redressed this by showing both sides of the question through the characters of Mr Thornton, the master of Marlborough mill, with Higgins, the intelligent and hard working Union man who strives to unite the workers in order to demand a fairer wage. The two men begin to listen one to the other and gain some middle ground of compromise and ways of working together instead of in enmity.</o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth Gaskell</td></tr>
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Elizabeth Gaskell was born on the 29th September 1810 in <st1:city w:st="on">Chelsea</st1:city>, <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>. Her parents were members of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Unitarian</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Church</st1:placetype></st1:place> and she met and later married William
Gaskell, a Unitarian minister. The
couple moved to <st1:city w:st="on">Manchester</st1:city>
to take up duties there amongst the many Unitarian churches of that area. Unitarianism was a radical breakaway from the
Anglican Church and did not see Jesus as divine but rather as a prophet of God. A somewhat arid belief system, lacking as it
did in mystery and feeling, it believed in the power of reason, education and
freedom to think and question while women were considered as equal as the men. <st1:city w:st="on">Elizabeth</st1:city>, as
a minister's wife, was to see both the comfortable middle class side of <st1:city w:st="on">Manchester</st1:city> and also move
amongst the poor and downtrodden. Like
Dickens she wanted to write about the terrible conditions she saw and was
better fitted to do so because she actually lived amongst them where he had
only visited such areas. Dickens had by
then established his magazine <i>Household Words </i>and invited her to include her story. Along with Dicken's <i>Hard Times,</i> a similar type of social indictment, it was published in monthly instalments, thus tending to have 'cliff hanger' chapters which certainly gave plenty of melodramatic excitement. In some ways, this style suits particularly well an adaptation to television series.<br />
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Their relationship began well but ended in difficulty as both were strong minded characters. Gaskell refused to let Dickens rule her to much, sticking to her own ideas of how <i>North and South </i>should appear in its serialised form. However, she did take up his idea that it should be called by the far more appropriate and thematic title and not <i>Margaret Hale </i>as was her original intention. Dickens could be demanding and did subject her to some editorship, pushing her
to finish <i>North and South</i>, which he felt was becoming far too long.<br />
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To quote Gaskell's own preface to the published edition ". . . the author found it impossible to develop the story in the manner originally intended and more especially was compelled to hurry on events with an improbable rapidity towards the close. . ." But she also admitted that the tale was obliged to conform to certain conditions required by a weekly publication. <br />
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<h3>
The Book: Full of Contrasts</h3>
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<o:p> There is no doubt that this is a long book by modern standards but it never drags for me. The characters in Gaskell's stories come alive through the keeness of her observation, the style and language is colloquial for she was interested in the Lancashire dialect, but easy to read. There is drama but somehow more down to earth and less overwrought than <i>Jane Eyre, </i>a story which Gaskell found puzzling. Her life and nature were very different to that of Charlotte, happy as she was in her husband's love, her children and pleasant home life. Gaskell </o:p>was a born storyteller, loved by many friends and admirers, socially in demand for the ease and interest of her conversation. She loved to quote anecdotes, enjoyed gossip and stored up memories and ideas in many short stories which at first she wrote to amuse herself and escape from the demands of her busy life as a mother and minister's wife. Though there is plenty of drama in her stories, they never seem unreal or impossible. </div>
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<o:p><i>North and South </i>is a book where one feels Gaskell achieved a balance in her self and in her own mind. She was a Libran, sign of the scales and lover of fairness equality and reason. It's title and the chapter headings are all a contrast of opposites. The characters too are all in contrast to one another. We have Margaret Hale, a gentleman's daughter, reduced to lesser circumstances purely because her father feels it necessary to leave his calling as a Vicar. Mr Hale is thus an educated, thinking man with the luxury of a conscience, he has choices and the ability to survive despite a lowered income and expectations. In contrast to educated, gentrified Margaret with her southern manners and notions we have a straight talking northern lass, Bessie Higgins, the daughter of an intelligent man but whose only choice in his life is to work like a slave in the mills and keep his motherless children. Yet he too can be proud and refuse charity. Bessie is nineteen, the same age as Margaret, but already sick and dying of a terrible lung disease (pneumoconiosis - which can be contacted even now by those working in the textile industries). Margaret is struck by the contrast in their lives and attitudes. The two girls form a deep, loving friendship and understanding. In the book Bessie, constantly yearns for her death, believing fervently that she will be going to Heaven and a happier afterlife while her father is agnostic. Higgins is thus opposite to Mr Hale who tussles with his beliefs but does not lose his faith in God. </o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcO52BDv7MoHZNYMK62-z6iHuBF5rW1xiHj3cBxTXWEbX4Feg_0bPBN8VykcwmNyuJ3pUaXzBVBV6SMW7DmF8SLNlzMRx52i5zoZFvkr9v1eRTlL6NTS-G_AordUxGyDCShRLMA/s1600/images+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="298" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbcO52BDv7MoHZNYMK62-z6iHuBF5rW1xiHj3cBxTXWEbX4Feg_0bPBN8VykcwmNyuJ3pUaXzBVBV6SMW7DmF8SLNlzMRx52i5zoZFvkr9v1eRTlL6NTS-G_AordUxGyDCShRLMA/s200/images+%25284%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a><o:p>Then there are the contrasts of Mr Thornton's proud, strong, stately mother to the weak, complaining, dissatisfied mother of Margaret, his silly idle sister, Fanny, to the industrious and dutiful Margaret Hale. And, of course, the whole contrasting change from the beautiful fields, lanes, cottages, roses and fresh air of Helston, the southern home of the Hales, uprooted as they are to the dark, dirty, smoky, greyness of Milton. Thomas Hardy spoke of the feudal attitudes and agricultural problems, but this book addresses a different set of people, the rise of the modern industrial, manufacturing man, proud, unyielding, equally harsh in the treatment of his workers though he may himself have risen from their ranks as Thornton did. </o:p><o:p>There is also the contrast of the noise of the mills and the constant whirring of the machinery, the busy crowded streets of the city to the peace of the countryside which the Hales have left behind them. It is so beautifully done.</o:p><br />
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<o:p>The book has often been compared to Austen's <i>Pride and Prejudice </i>and it does indeed contain similar themes such as Margaret's hostile, proud attitude and repressed dour character of Thornton. But he is a self made man, not from landed gentry as Darcy is and frankly, I prefer his character and the struggle he has had to undergo to rise in the world. He is allowed pride in his achievements where Darcy's are merely inherited. Margaret is a less cheerful and vivacious character than Elizabeth Bennett, her life much harder. But again, there is much to admire in her tenacity and strength in misfortune. The pride between the lovers is on both sides as well as the prejudice. Both novels have two proposals and in both the hero is rejected before his truth worth really impresses itself on our heroine. Both heroines have ineffectual mothers and somewhat absent fathers. Thornton's mother opposes the union as much as Darcy's aunt, Lady de Burgh. But whereas <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> is a comedy of manners, witty and charming,<i> North and South</i> is dramatic, passionate, intense and explores deeper themes of inequality and social injustices. It is a novel that is</o:p> physical, brutal in parts, the sexuality unusually clear for a Victorian novel, depicted through subtle moods, Margaret's physically saving of Thornton from the striking mob, scenes of anger, jealousy. Intriguingly there is also a constant reference to hands and handshakes or the refusal of touch (hands are mentioned 237 times!) and the touching scene when Thornton watches Margaret pouring out tea and is fascinated by a bracelet that falls down her soft, white arm as she moves and which is constantly pushed back again only to fall back once more. </div>
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<o:p>TV Adaptation: Amazing scenic effects</o:p></h3>
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Television is generally the best means to adapt a famous
classical novel. It can span
four, six or more parts and the story can be more inclusive of the dialogue of
the original book. However, it is still
time limited. So how to adapt
successfully without losing the force, feeling and cohesion of the
original? It is wonderful to be
transported visually into the days of yore, to see one's favourite characters
spring to life before one's eyes. If this is well done, the book becomes even more compelling to the mind and heart, fixed in one's consciousness. The BBC adaptation which I watched was made
in 2004, the screen play by Sandy Welch and directed by Brian Percival. The cast were superb. </div>
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In both the film and the book it is the characters of Thornton and his mother, Higgins the worker that remained with me. <br />
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Sinead Cusack as Mrs Thornton stayed in my mind perhaps more
than any other actor. She conveyed pride
and dignity, strength and devotion and her attitude towards Margaret isn't too surprising in the circumstances. She and her daughter, Fanny, see her as aloof and haughty, misunderstanding her southern attitudes. Richard Armitage as Thornton, the mill owner, was handsome, brooding,
dark, a little Heathcliffe-ish. He is
not so fierce and cruel in the book. But the scenes which depict him as harsh and unyielding to poor, weak, Boucher are far more likely to have been acted by such a man in truth. Plus, we have to recall the Mrs Gaskell upset her
friends greatly in her first book Mary Barton where she showed the misery and
plight of the downtrodden workers and attacked her own class by so doing. In N and S she was careful to show both sides
of the question and tamed <st1:city w:st="on">Thornton</st1:city>'s
attitude somewhat. <br />
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Margaret Hale is well played by Daniela Denby Ashe though I felt she wasn't quite my image of the character - but that's personal. The actress conveyed her sadness, intelligence, inner strength and feeling beautifully. And Brendan Coyle as Higgins gives a magnificent portrayal of that kind, proud, strong man, one of the noblest characters in the book. We see all the characters in the novel change
and grow from their Pride and Prejudice attitudes to become softened, more
feeling, more open and inclusive of each other's views. This change of feeling has to be shown in four one hour shows. Thus it has to be condensed into visually striking scenes that can say a great deal more than whole passages in the book. I feel it was admirably done.</div>
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"I believe I've seen Hell: it's white. It's snow white"</h4>
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This TV adaptation excels in the visual above all and this
can be dramatic and immensely moving in a direct manner which may elude one
through mere words. The opening shots of
the titles...which in themselves are very visual with the North in sturdy,
block like, dark letters, the South in gentle, curling scripts, already begin
to introduce us to the contrasts of the two areas. We open with evocative music and a scene of
the mill interior, the grinding of the machines, the monotonous, steady mechanical
movements of the workers, working in unison, in and out, in and out with the
long weaving engines. They have in
essence become a part of the iron monster they wield, individuality lost as
they move in monotonous rhythm with it. The air is
like a snowstorm as cotton flies around them everywhere, settling on clothes,
machines, floor, and entering their lungs. This scene is not in
the book, in fact we never enter the mills at all and I doubt Mrs Gaskell ever
did do so. But she knew of the effects
of such work. It is a stunning scene and
the sight of the little children employed to crawl beneath the machines to
retrieve cotton, then hastily moving out before the machines clank their way
back again is deeply moving as well as horrifying. It sets the tone for the whole story.</div>
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True, the TV adaptation doesn't stick totally to the book, how
could it? It's a long and detailed book,
some say overly long. For instance, Mr Bell, Mr Hale's <st1:place w:st="on">Oxford</st1:place> friend and the owner of the mill
properties, has to physically appear early on and plays a bigger part than he does in the
book which I think works well. The film shows plot movement through brief scenes, snatches of conversation and
expressions indicating how the characters feel.
Much is conveyed between the lovers in long, throbbing looks, between
all the varied characters in facial expressions of haughtiness, disgust, pain,
gladness (I love Fanny's curling lip and sneering face). Little shots here and there
contrast the teeming, busy streets of the city, the rich and poor houses, the ragged
participants with their starving children during the strike, the groaning
banquet at the <st1:place w:st="on">Thornton</st1:place>'s
home where the masters discuss how to squash the strikers and keep the mills
grinding.</div>
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The ending of this four part series is the one most talked about. In Gaskells story, as I have said, the ending
was a little hurried and to my mind out of character. Suddenly Margaret Hale, our brave, sensible
heroine, who usually spurns men's sexual admiration and advances, becomes coy
and quite daft, hiding her face in her hands and acting like any Victorian
maiden. The film ending, while keeping
her a little shy and charmingly apologetic for the fact that she was, in
essence, saving her man again, was far more visually dramatic, romantic and
delightful. This is after all a romantic
story as well as a social one. I feel
sure Mrs Gaskell would have approved. We ladies loved it!</div>
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Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-10764441974230255052017-03-21T05:43:00.003-07:002017-04-16T11:25:16.666-07:00An Exhibition of Women's Fashions: The madness of a Wasp Waist<div class="MsoNormal">
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We women like to blame men for some of the foolish fashions we
espouse, saying it’s what men like. But
the truth is that men can be conditioned into ‘liking’ a certain style of
fashion and then began to expect their women to follow it. Once a woman is seized by the idea that a
certain look is attractive, she will go to any lengths to adopt it, even if it
is harmful, punishing her body to conform with the fashionable look. Thankfully,
fashions flow back and forth like the tides of the sea while some particularly
obnoxious ones are washed away forever.</div>
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Amongst obnoxious fashions was the binding of feet by upper
class ladies of Old China. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39v66kqyLeThYNch4SX9TuFCBhFISuwAwYs9bV5QMN95CAHkCqfOrYnCD6C5XTWqthHbGOOsGre3aawXu52z-40hrDcwq4zjRFpadZEH7qc6Fn9GCFLn4lrxT9bhgF3vcvhEg9A/s1600/0937c5ec9c502b7e4581a8a80d12c948.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39v66kqyLeThYNch4SX9TuFCBhFISuwAwYs9bV5QMN95CAHkCqfOrYnCD6C5XTWqthHbGOOsGre3aawXu52z-40hrDcwq4zjRFpadZEH7qc6Fn9GCFLn4lrxT9bhgF3vcvhEg9A/s1600/0937c5ec9c502b7e4581a8a80d12c948.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">tiny pointed shoes for bound feet</td></tr>
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Young girls
had their toes broken and bound from an early age so that they would have tiny
little stumps to hobble on for the rest of their lives. This was deemed feminine and attractive. Apparently it made women walk in a certain
way, much as very high heels do nowadays, which had an erotic effect on the
men. Such dainty, feminine, shoes no
more than three or five inches at the most!
Can you imagine walking on such feet?
Imposed imprisonment and madness, typical exploitation of the female
body we might say these days. . . . yet this fashion was apparently started by
a tenth century court dancer, Yao Niang.
The men liked it, of course, as it kept women weak and in their place
but they were not entirely to blame. It
was the <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bound feet</td></tr>
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mothers who kept this up because it was not considered feminine to work
in the fields and no self respecting upper class girl wanted to look like a
servant or a farm woman with huge boats for feet. <br />
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Another horrible fashion or custom is genital mutilation
(and there's a case for male circumcision too but that's another issue) Again
it is the mothers who perform this ceremony on their daughters, a custom
intended to reduce the dread threat of female sexual desire and promiscuity,
keeping the girls virginal and pure. All it does is make coitus and childbirth
very painful, creating a lifelong trauma in the women and ghastly health problerms. As for the mothers, well,
it’s what they had endured, it was the ancient custom, it was what ‘men liked’
and deemed to be right – so why should their daughters escape what <i>they</i> had suffered? Plus who would marry a girl with normal feet
or genitals? By now, their men wanted
and expected such abnormalities. </div>
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It seems a woman's lot will always be connected with her
body image and the pain of trying to conform to some current fashion. Nowadays it’s all about dieting and keeping
fit in a gym so that women should look toned and healthy which is certainly
better than some of the weird practices of various native cultures and the
ridiculous, distorting fashions of so called civilised societies. We’re into
muscles now, not the soft, plump feminine flesh loved by men of yore. It's as if women want to look more like
pretty young boys. And the usual desire
to play about with the body is evident in the craze for breast implants, liposuction,
botox, hair colourings in astonishing dreamy shades and all the other aids to
youth and beauty – even though these are often proved to have harmful side
effects. The recent fashion is for youth
and nowadays men also enter with enthusiasm into these fashionable ideals. We cannot bear to age, we want to be
eternally young, mobile and energetic, always busy, always rushing around in a
frenzy of activity. Age and its
limitations, its calmer pace, its philosophical time for contemplation no
longer has dignity but is viewed with horror.
The psychologist, Carl Jung would have called this a ‘puer/puella’
mentality. The <i>puer</i> is the Greek name for the Eternal Youth, the Peter Pan
syndrome in other words. We are all, men
and women, becoming Peter Pans.</div>
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All fashions that involve, mutilation, piercing, tattooing
are ways of enhancing, elaborating or mortifying the flesh. The popularity of thin stiletto heels and the cramped pointed toes of the 1960's
often created deformed feet and bunions in women (apart from ruining parquet
floors and linoleums) And we still want
to wear enormously high heels despite the fact that the woman is constantly walking on tip toe and they can throw our pelvis
or back out and are so uncomfortable when worn for too long a period. They are considered erotic and make legs look
longer and more shapely . . . and so we
wear them. </div>
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Intriguingly, fashions also move around the body parts, the
so called 'erogenous zones.' The prudish
Victorians showed considerable areas of flesh round shoulders and bust when
young and single or when dressing up for theatre, opera and evening
activities. But showing an ankle or
petticoat was most inflammatory it seems. Hats also seem to have had an interesting
significance through time and the famous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, a
trend setter of her day, introduced hats that almost swept the ceiling with their
enormous plumes and piles of false hair.
They were often threatened by the candles in the chandeliers. And the wide skirts of the 18th and 19th
century were equally dangerous if a lady got too near to a fire or oil lamp.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire</td></tr>
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The advent of the corset is perhaps one of the oddest of all
fashion items used to alter a woman’s figure.
Men have also used a corset, of course, and still do so (one of my Greek
uncles used to wear one in his forties when his belly began to expand with too
much <i>moussaka)</i>. Nowadays a strong corset may be used medically
to help those with back problems, or in order to fit comfortably into certain
clothes, or for erotic purposes and fetish wear but they are not as dangerous
as some of the corsetry worn in other periods. The fashion went to its greatest
extreme in the Victorian age when wasp waists became the rage. </div>
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Corsetry has been used for centuries, even practised by
primitive tribes. Before this period,
corsetry was used by the Tudors but these corsets, which were fortified
by 'buckram', a canvas material stiffened with glue, were intended to <i>flatten</i> the bust and not make impossible
tiny waists. In fact they were
considered to be quite comfortable and supportive of all the heavy skirts and
clothing of the period. There is also
mention of whalebone for stiffening in the lists of Queen Elizabeth's
wardrobe. In the usual shifting of erogenous zones, this
was a time of flat busts. Even nowadays,
the flatter bust of clothes models is preferred to the big and busty look which
is always associated with more erotic clothing and activities. Though we all know that men generally prefer
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However, like the process of footbinding and genital
interference, corsets were introduced early
in a girl's childhood. She was put into tiny
little corsets to train her body into shape. In the mid to late 19the century the fashion amongst
young women took over to pull the waists in tighter and tighter until an
incredible tiny waist was achieved making the body a very strange, wasp like
shape. They were very proud of having a
waist that a man could span with his hands.
These began to be made less restrictive as doctors and wiser people began
to realise just how some of the wasp waists were affecting a woman's health,
squeezing her insides into a narrow and unnatural space. It certainly must be one of the reasons
heroines in books and in real life too were always fainting all over the place!
Interestingly there are also adverts for
young boys using corsets at the time. But we don't hear of them lacing up and
making wasp waists. It isn't a dead
fashion either. There are still
exponents of the wasp waist, both male and female in this day and age.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioougAnXmTpCvcA6uh8DhAY5W5QT7Q0R9WAVM2o3jft2ksARIQddFnCqxBnKBtAWgbkBVM5kcDRJsVYc2Wyx5h1E6RYxeroXPyn_jIHFi1-K1wtKbqLN21fjkeZwkq0n9pDU0e0g/s1600/corsets.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioougAnXmTpCvcA6uh8DhAY5W5QT7Q0R9WAVM2o3jft2ksARIQddFnCqxBnKBtAWgbkBVM5kcDRJsVYc2Wyx5h1E6RYxeroXPyn_jIHFi1-K1wtKbqLN21fjkeZwkq0n9pDU0e0g/s320/corsets.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DonnaFugata, Sicily exhibition</td></tr>
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The look in the Edwardian era shifted again and the oddest
shape, the 'S' bend now emerged , where the bust was thrust forward and bottom
thrust back. Tiny waists as well. Again, it affected a women's walk and
posture. Oh, oh, oh...the madness of
wasp waists!</div>
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At a recent exhibition at the Villa Donnafugata in <st1:state w:st="on">Sicily</st1:state> there were
several examples of corsetry for children and ladies. It has to be said these corsets look
attractive and sexy. The clothes of the
time so beautiful. But also
uncomfortable and fussy and formal. All
the same, I'd rather like to sweep around in some of these dresses I found in
an old fashion magazine!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wRqyl2go0o7-F1v8mhK5FogC1AjkbvLZEyKNvVyHI63vhaEr2lwxZqbzRKggMAtmWQQGyxztY40GgBiial8fbh_HBDeLQ4uCKbWTK8xFvNnF8kbcCCUVFKl0wY6FLv2d8Ipqzg/s1600/corset.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7wRqyl2go0o7-F1v8mhK5FogC1AjkbvLZEyKNvVyHI63vhaEr2lwxZqbzRKggMAtmWQQGyxztY40GgBiial8fbh_HBDeLQ4uCKbWTK8xFvNnF8kbcCCUVFKl0wY6FLv2d8Ipqzg/s320/corset.JPG" width="183" /></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
child corsets<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBPRPutrA6lWfOKPbAY_VHRgoSJYgGeFtTJBs6cYjSkbqXaaIMFofOFF7LMJL0ty1LZcnu4tdS9iuGTra5xxwgvRcjONA95RNrGLmRYZJa8s7XTkE1Udzabsjxz2wzyM6bUlGHw/s1600/child+corset+and+others.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjBPRPutrA6lWfOKPbAY_VHRgoSJYgGeFtTJBs6cYjSkbqXaaIMFofOFF7LMJL0ty1LZcnu4tdS9iuGTra5xxwgvRcjONA95RNrGLmRYZJa8s7XTkE1Udzabsjxz2wzyM6bUlGHw/s200/child+corset+and+others.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">a child corset and two varied adult shapes.</td></tr>
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Interesting sites:</div>
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<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-footbinding-persisted-china-millennium-180953971/">http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-footbinding-persisted-china-millennium-180953971/</a></div>
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<a href="https://thepragmaticcostumer.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/wasp-waists-the-ultimate-thin/">https://thepragmaticcostumer.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/wasp-waists-the-ultimate-thin/</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.elizabethancostume.net/corsets/history.html">http://www.elizabethancostume.net/corsets/history.html</a></div>
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Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-72127795254031615142016-05-01T07:07:00.000-07:002016-05-02T10:55:38.145-07:00Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Making his Homes reflect Art and Character<div class="MsoNormal">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioIp1YpqdcTX4sraG4wABkx9e2IVmpfMc8xVBj7iG7WLzbz_3R-RcbYEAmBub54FKDh9Mr2QffA5a6QMuhrbaS9qfSaV0aS5ruDsQM4qcmNWEKjtJxEJaCxZ4yJATlAJMpwrkyFw/s1600/s436.m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioIp1YpqdcTX4sraG4wABkx9e2IVmpfMc8xVBj7iG7WLzbz_3R-RcbYEAmBub54FKDh9Mr2QffA5a6QMuhrbaS9qfSaV0aS5ruDsQM4qcmNWEKjtJxEJaCxZ4yJATlAJMpwrkyFw/s320/s436.m.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
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Rossetti was one of those unique, brilliant men who stand
out amongst their contemporaries and remain fascinating figures for future
generations. It is true that his deep, searching,
sometimes tormented poetry may no longer be considered of such interest, but
his art still draws us with its colour, sensuality and mythical themes.<br />
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A home is a reflection of its occupants. And it is interesting to see how homes change
or are altered along with the character of the occupants, each new inhabitant
putting their personal stamp upon them. To
my mind, a house, or anywhere we consider as home, becomes a reflection of our feelings
and physical bodies, the symbolic place the soul inhabits. Often when a building becomes neglected and
starts to need repair, a person’s health also suffers as if the house is an
outer shell to the human bodies within it.
Jung might have considered this as synchronicity but I have observed a
definite relationship with bodies and surroundings and the places that draw us
to them or the type of house we may want to live in but which life and fortunes
deny us. We still dream. I always yearned for a villa in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Italy</st1:country-region> but that’s
not going to happen in this lifetime! It isn’t because I couldn’t do so but I choose
to stay in a country with which I am now familiar, near family and the English countryside
I love. </div>
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On the whole, woman was and still is largely the home maker
and a house reflects much of her taste. It’s
always interesting to see how single men furnish or neglect their home! Their taste is generally more sparse and
utilitarian but perhaps things are changing as men and women share the task of
homemaking far more. Gabriel Rossetti did share his first real home with his
eventual wife, Lizzie Siddal, but after her death remained a widower till he
died. In his case, both of his important
homes tended to reflect his own dominant, energetic, eclectic personality far
more than a shared one. And it was by
no means a utilitarian or sparse taste.
It befitted such an artistic, flamboyant nature with a love of unusual
and beautiful objects to delight the eye. </div>
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Rossetti moved around <st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place>
at first, renting studios. He and his
fellow Pre-Raphaelites, Hunt, Stevens and Collinson chanced upon a beautiful
old house along the riverside at <st1:city w:st="on">Chelsea</st1:city>. It was said to be built on the site of a
mansion used by Queen Catherine Parr, Henry the Eighth’s last wife, and named
Queen’s House or Tudor House. It had a many
bedrooms, sitting rooms, drawing rooms and a kitchen and cellars. The young artists easily envisaged having a
studio each. But the rent and the long
lease were more than they could afford and they regretfully gave up the idea,
going for separate studios instead.
Gabriel took a room in <st1:street w:st="on">Newman
St.</st1:street> over the top of a dancing academy and
continued to live at his parental home. </div>
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This was followed by a studio in the garden of a house
called The Hermitage on Highgate’s West Hill. During this time, Gabriel was
painting and falling deeply in love with his red-haired muse, Lizzie Siddal. His
fascination with the great Dante Alighieri, his namesake, led him to see Lizzie
as his own Beatrice. He often painted
her as such in his varied pictures with Dantesque themes. However, it was a complicated relationship
due as much to the fact that their social standing was very different and so
marriage seemed unlikely in those class-ridden times. They were said to be
engaged but it was nothing definite or declared publicly. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lizzie Siddal (Rossetti archive)</td></tr>
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<st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><i>Chatham Place</i></st1:address></st1:street><i>, Blackfriars:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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For various reasons, of which Lizzie was one, Gabriel needed
a new ‘crib’. He and his brother,
William, (who purportedly shared it and
paid half the rent) eventually found rooms on the second floor of a house in Chatham
Place, very close to Blackfriars Bridge and over the confluence of the Fleet
and the Thames. The buildings no longer
exist sadly, part now of Blackfriars Station.
There were two rooms; one was to be the studio, the other a small
bedroom with a balcony overlooking the river from whence arose the stench of
sewage, meat thrown in from Smithfield’s and other unpleasant odours. Londoners were used to the foulness of their
river. It was a busy river in those days
and no doubt interesting. It had its
charms according to Gabriel’s visitors.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhijs7BjE1H44_jOgZ5ihvZjcWnDSmlr421yZxUz0Tnrm3QwexdOL7FsDKlsrePdeGSkbrQxTXFN7iuw2CRE9FCLjfgZuQWkvYabD-S5gJ8ARckR58R3J8SCHvsS3xrxJQ72av6nw/s1600/rossetti90.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhijs7BjE1H44_jOgZ5ihvZjcWnDSmlr421yZxUz0Tnrm3QwexdOL7FsDKlsrePdeGSkbrQxTXFN7iuw2CRE9FCLjfgZuQWkvYabD-S5gJ8ARckR58R3J8SCHvsS3xrxJQ72av6nw/s320/rossetti90.jpg" width="244" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lizzie as Beata Beatrix painted after her death</td></tr>
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The rooms had windows on all sides and virtually hung out
over the river, which made it light and cheerful. As always, Gabriel begged and
borrowed furnishing from home, particularly mirrors which he considered
essential for his studio. He was always fond of mirrors. This, his first home, so to speak, reflected
the young Rossetti. It was cheerful,
bright, adequate to his simple needs and his beloved Lizzie lived just a short
distance away in the <st1:street w:st="on">Old Kent Rd.</st1:street> A convenient place therefore for her to model
as well as remain and dine with him, allowing them to enjoy each other’s
company without interference. George
Boyce, an artist friend, wrote that it was a picturesque place, especially at
night with the gas lamps on the bridge and wharf side shedding their wavering reflections
on the river. Here was enjoyed the
intelligent, good-hearted company of gentlemen
who could speak freely without need for coarseness or fear of public mores and
opinions. The whole ethos of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood . . . and they did indeed feel like brothers at
first . . . was that it was to be about truth, freshness, no pretentious
nonsense, secrecy or chiaroscuro. It
seems that these were Gabriel’s happiest days; deeply in love yet uncommitted,
his greatness rising and manifesting itself in his poetic and artistic works
with more beautiful work still to come.
Poetry in his heart and soul.
Simplicity was the order of the day then. He disliked ‘tobacco, tea, coffee,
stimulants’, drank water, allowing others in his usual easy going and
uncritical manner to imbibe what they would.
How different he became in later life when disappointment, tragedy and
depression overcame that sweet, pure young soul. </div>
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Rossetti at last committed himself to marriage with Lizzie
in 1860. They had been together for so
many years that love had altered to companionship and mutual understanding but
the fires of passion had long gone. By
this time Lizzie, always a sensitive, refined woman had become sickly, perhaps
a little hypochondriac, unhappy and sad, reliant on laudanum to ease her pains
of mind and body, feeling that Rossetti was now replacing her with younger
models and perhaps in love with them.
But his love for her was real and constant in its way even though, as
with all long-term relationships, well past the ‘first fine careless
rapture’. He had at one point broken
off their engagement but knowing she was very ill, married her as much from
pity as anything else. Sadly, in 1861
she lost her eagerly desired first child, a stillborn girl, becoming pregnant
again almost immediately that year. Whether she suffered from postnatal
depression, or was heart broken because she felt that Rossetti’s love was
slipping away and thus committed suicide, we shall never really know. Ford Madox Brown destroyed the note she left
and the verdict was recorded as an accidental overdose. </div>
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<i>Tudor House, Cheyne
Walk </i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewfw45r8O6xn3YKVSjWqEoCgJ1ODbbx9Qz8A-BCPLznOwy2XgkpCLDex8wyebMlVeiCURb0MptL-CkCwMW1NqVqqMubAuR47y0OgYSzFcJUn_iGQpWty8jlLwhP5FtiNRPF9ndQ/s1600/220px-Cheyne_Walk%252C_London%252C_c_late_18th-early_19th_century._People_strolling_by_the_banks_of_the_River_Thames_in_the_distance_is_Chelsea_Old_Church_MoL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewfw45r8O6xn3YKVSjWqEoCgJ1ODbbx9Qz8A-BCPLznOwy2XgkpCLDex8wyebMlVeiCURb0MptL-CkCwMW1NqVqqMubAuR47y0OgYSzFcJUn_iGQpWty8jlLwhP5FtiNRPF9ndQ/s1600/220px-Cheyne_Walk%252C_London%252C_c_late_18th-early_19th_century._People_strolling_by_the_banks_of_the_River_Thames_in_the_distance_is_Chelsea_Old_Church_MoL.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cheyne Walk in early 1800's</td></tr>
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By 1869, Gabriel had changed greatly. He was now addicted to drugs and alcohol . .
. this the young man once desirous of
being clear-headed and inwardly pure! From
a slender, handsome young man he was now corpulent, said to eat enormous
amounts of food where once he had lived simply and lightly. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibtGqZPCL2I2KpS0U1o2KcKiwVt_dJfq7guuMzDhoAI7ZpeMgr9HZeE57Ou2P3GC85I0Rz736mbEBTPlKVhyphenhyphenSZmaUGWxeSDt8bZs9Pith4ykR9ZlB7GME-tJ8YSmqVq0EuhFU-w/s1600/images%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjibtGqZPCL2I2KpS0U1o2KcKiwVt_dJfq7guuMzDhoAI7ZpeMgr9HZeE57Ou2P3GC85I0Rz736mbEBTPlKVhyphenhyphenSZmaUGWxeSDt8bZs9Pith4ykR9ZlB7GME-tJ8YSmqVq0EuhFU-w/s1600/images%25282%2529.jpg" /></a>After Lizzie’s death, Rossetti was able to
achieve his earlier dream of renting the house in Cheyne Walk in <st1:city w:st="on">Chelsea</st1:city>, the large,
rambling place called Tudor House. Thus, his new home was now enlarged like
himself! It was a quiet, out of town
location along the Thames close to the <st1:placename w:st="on">Chelsea</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Physic</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Garden</st1:placetype>
and the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Royal</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place>. Now as the centre of the bustling London
Metropolis, it is hard to imagine that it was once such a quiet peaceful
backwater with moorings, landing places and boats and barges sailing past. There was no embankment built at that time and
occasionally the tides would flow over from the river and flood his cellars. The
house itself is still there and very imposing, with its elegant courtyard and well-proportioned
windows and doorways. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXk8afM8uLHetyijzEH52Ehhj2ST188arqSlaIexq6Q8dogN5rhra8eg8JyoF6q2i9EvhQv2iHe44EouKbb3Iv8Ui2dE_Owy7V4zdO3XZTUkXuYAwP3eUEHrEKD9FCZdo0LQLeg/s1600/cheyne-walk-today-237x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCXk8afM8uLHetyijzEH52Ehhj2ST188arqSlaIexq6Q8dogN5rhra8eg8JyoF6q2i9EvhQv2iHe44EouKbb3Iv8Ui2dE_Owy7V4zdO3XZTUkXuYAwP3eUEHrEKD9FCZdo0LQLeg/s1600/cheyne-walk-today-237x300.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cheyne Walk today</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs8OkmJcumBeRiV_V4FOmTsPRXQlm8PE_1B0lIEwO96DMMDrtFMDFI7YTP3DrEl9-QNpWxg-ciXakZhnuMmD_ELPUkcNg0hfLdeDPeM08pusZPstwaF65RP_b9R7py0K-eI24rXg/s1600/outside+Cheyne+Walk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs8OkmJcumBeRiV_V4FOmTsPRXQlm8PE_1B0lIEwO96DMMDrtFMDFI7YTP3DrEl9-QNpWxg-ciXakZhnuMmD_ELPUkcNg0hfLdeDPeM08pusZPstwaF65RP_b9R7py0K-eI24rXg/s320/outside+Cheyne+Walk.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> 16 Cheyne Walk. You can just see the blue plaque behind me.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN08nRy9WBwA9HccUA39anhmTFT_W1gRcVz5NmuH-1YGJT4D5Ai2LddhOaapZEjyJVEyVVZc-OCebeS56YDqmGXhQbnZAJlmyGU2bsb7tu7XUr8AlJ7q5TyUub6fwdUQg-Tl7AqA/s1600/800px-Henry_Treffry_Dunn_Rossetti_and_Dunton_at_16_Cheyne_Walk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN08nRy9WBwA9HccUA39anhmTFT_W1gRcVz5NmuH-1YGJT4D5Ai2LddhOaapZEjyJVEyVVZc-OCebeS56YDqmGXhQbnZAJlmyGU2bsb7tu7XUr8AlJ7q5TyUub6fwdUQg-Tl7AqA/s320/800px-Henry_Treffry_Dunn_Rossetti_and_Dunton_at_16_Cheyne_Walk.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">The Sitting Room at 16, Cheyne Walk by Henry Treffry Dunn (a studio assistant of Rossetti)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMEgxBhkyA6eKTBzDKPYITCmo4Rco32yCNPYZl4GWn07T8RrlI4fJNmY8xENegrYOTN0N8iZm9e8k4-u0QWCvKfIUFvtXExHR7lQkPjlGGPSzk2jfIIcF1t0ai3YANPQeqrQViw/s1600/drawingroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMEgxBhkyA6eKTBzDKPYITCmo4Rco32yCNPYZl4GWn07T8RrlI4fJNmY8xENegrYOTN0N8iZm9e8k4-u0QWCvKfIUFvtXExHR7lQkPjlGGPSzk2jfIIcF1t0ai3YANPQeqrQViw/s1600/drawingroom.jpg" /></a></div>
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At first, Rossetti hoped to be able to bring all the women
of his family together in the large house to take care of the place and
himself. Marriage held no attractions
for him. One doubts if it ever did and
if his release from the invalid, Lizzie, was not a relief deep down in his
heart, much as he grieved her loss and grieved for old memories of passionate love.
However, grief or not, within a very short while, he
installed Fanny Cornforth, his golden haired model of many years, purportedly
as the housekeeper. Fanny, who did love
Rossetti, had by now left her husband whom she had married in a sort of pique
when Rossetti married Lizzie. She was followed by Swinburne the poet, Meredith
the novelist and William Rossetti who also now occupied the large house. Rossetti was an individualist and a loner,
yet like many such loners, he did not want his own company for too long. He needed people around him, needed
recognition while at the same time spurning it.
A complex character. The whole
idea of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded on the idea of non-conformity
to the given artistic values of his day.
Rossetti steadfastly refused to enter his pictures in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Royal</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Academy</st1:placetype></st1:place>
and exhibited them privately if at all. Yet
as he grew older, hopes of nomination did arise. Thus do we all change our tunes as we grow
older and become the very thing we once despised!</div>
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Tudor house began to take shape in the style of Rossetti. The large, spacious, beautiful rooms slowly
filled with amazing and unusual items picked up from curiosity shops, a mix of
high quality articles and junk. Many of
the items were used in his pictures as background; furnishings, materials,
peacock feathers, pieces of jewellery.
None of the decorative jewellery was of any real value, his favourite
being the pearl pin, which features in many portraits. Sadly, this has not survived though other
items did. While away with his brother
William in <st1:place w:st="on">Antwerp</st1:place>,
the two men enjoyed themselves scouring old shops for brooches, ‘a large jar
with blue birds’ old prints and varied items.
When a fried, Henry Munby, dined with Rossetti he was amazed and
fascinated by the wonderful drawing room filled with so many objects, curios,
mirrors on ever wall, pictures and Italian cabinets, Dutch blue tiles on the
fireplaces. He walked up and down the
room, examining everything with delight absorbing ‘the aroma of its manifold
romance’. On another occasion, an evening
this time, he found the room bathed in the glow of the firelight with huge
Elizabethan candlesticks gleaming on ebony furnishings, silver gilt dishes and flagons, creating a delightful ambience
of poetry and beauty. Rossetti lived out
his inner romance through his house and his unique style of furnishing. The intriguing and eclectic mix also
reflected Rossetti’s own interests and the breadth of his conversation which
all those who loved and knew him acknowledged to be erudite and filled with
arcane as well as modern knowledge. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg974qdA0v7EbbGbF2Q1htEaEctWukR8QnoAnl0P-rt2xFlFbCJZTsO010BJt2dtMze7ORICSNHshyphenhyphenlENpgs1bfj9lKn8nSeo4w0bLSqAotm1h4-GFmXJCkf_8cqO6NLjWoFXtrIg/s1600/384596.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg974qdA0v7EbbGbF2Q1htEaEctWukR8QnoAnl0P-rt2xFlFbCJZTsO010BJt2dtMze7ORICSNHshyphenhyphenlENpgs1bfj9lKn8nSeo4w0bLSqAotm1h4-GFmXJCkf_8cqO6NLjWoFXtrIg/s320/384596.jpg" width="287" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rossetti's bedroom reflected in a mirror by H T Dunn.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The strangest room in the house was Rossetti’s bedroom, which was particularly dark and heavy. In it he installed a dark black mantelpiece that rose to the ceiling. </div>
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According to Hall Caine, the bedroom ‘was entered from another and smaller room, used as a breakfast-room. This outer room was made fairly bright and cheerful by a glittering chandelier (the property once, he said, of David Garrick), and from the rustle of trees against the window pane one perceived that it overlooked the garden; but the inner room was dark with heavy hangings round the walls as well as the bed, and thick velvet curtains before the windows, so that candles seemed unable to light it and voices sounded thick and muffled.’</div>
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The thickly curtained windows, the heavy hangings around the dark oak four-poster bed reflected Gabriel’s inner state. While the rest of the house glowed with colours, imagination, brilliant objects as did his portraits, here were the dark, depressed thoughts with which Gabriel lay down to his slumbers and to which he awoke. </div>
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Rossetti now turned to becoming an avid collector. </div>
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<i>Blue Porcelain:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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One of Rossetti’s most obsessive and passionately acquired
collections was for blue porcelain. When
living with Lizzie, he had begun with standard willow pattern pieces. (Intriguingly, the willow pattern design appears
to have originated in <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region>
based on a tragic Chinese love story and then adapted by the Chinese for their designs.) Then Gabriel began to collect beautiful
pieces of ware from <st1:place w:st="on">Nanking</st1:place>. This particular porcelain, painted with
greater precision and detail and with finer glazes, was considered superior to
the <st1:city w:st="on">Canton</st1:city>
china. <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region>
produced a great deal of the blue and white ware in the 18/19<sup>th</sup>
century when it became highly popular both in the States and in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>. The exquisite blue colour was derived from
Persian Cobalt, exported to <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region>
and used to make bowls, ginger jars, vases, plates and so on. The craze for this blue found its way to <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>, where it took hold in Parisian circles. One can imagine how it might appeal to the
artistic society: something about this colour draws us to it all the time,
spiritual, sky, heaven, purity, calm and peaceful. Certainly, something needed in the rather zany
household of Rossetti and his friends. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Go2Bpc1Jj543C6I60qTc3uK02uVrAHxU31IoN1jtykssVgJ75uxJ1ROXW7bG5U8m5uq4VyZNE9pSjXlqn41r3EkLE3NauyZkyAKY9mq2oFACI1q8OjnGIekTs2PoJ9w3NCjSsA/s1600/thumb_m106.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Go2Bpc1Jj543C6I60qTc3uK02uVrAHxU31IoN1jtykssVgJ75uxJ1ROXW7bG5U8m5uq4VyZNE9pSjXlqn41r3EkLE3NauyZkyAKY9mq2oFACI1q8OjnGIekTs2PoJ9w3NCjSsA/s320/thumb_m106.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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His great rival in collecting was the artist Whistler who
lived close by. They tried to outdo one
another by buying up choice pieces from antique shops, the Oriental warehouse
in <st1:street w:st="on">Regent Street</st1:street>
and abroad. ‘My pots now baffle
description altogether. Come and see them!’ said the exultant Rossetti to his
friend Ford Madox Brown. Whistler was
said to eat his heart out with envy if Gabriel secured a particularly splendid
piece. And no doubt vice-versa as well!</div>
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<i>The Zoo</i></div>
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His other famous collection was of varied animals, which he
kept in his garden. The garden
flourished in a wild state, left as Nature intended for the ‘survival of the
fittest.’ In it roamed peacocks, whose irritating noise kept neighbours awake
and indeed resulted in Lord Cadogan inserting a clause into the lease of Tudor
House forbidding that these birds be kept in the garden. Other inmates of this
scatterbrained zoo were a deerhound, a barn owl, rabbits, dormice, hedgehogs,
wombats of which Gabriel was particularly fond, lizards, salamanders, parrots
armadillos and a kangaroo. A fierce zebu
(an Indian bull) was also brought in which turned out to be so ungovernable,
chasing Gabriel into the house and almost uprooting the tree to which it had
been tethered, that it was promptly resold.
The animals were mainly kept in specially
built cages but unfortunately, Rossetti was as ignorantly neglectful of these
myriad pets as he was of the women in his life. Many ate one another, burrowed
their way out of the garden or simply died from lack of adequate nutrition and
care. One of the armadillos was said to
have turned up in a neighbour’s kitchen much to the horror of the cook. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcvKaon-ya8mCQ8QZL7UkTAgCZdSXzNXf3rXdJwwba5-Heo7EEP6lPX0Pntjq91Hqn8rRrGM1e764Rz9j0ZUwT7OhgjaJAApgkdbCvrx-kJzOEFk-sJTsoFbJ1GCap9BwtyqZ8g/s1600/op23.m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcvKaon-ya8mCQ8QZL7UkTAgCZdSXzNXf3rXdJwwba5-Heo7EEP6lPX0Pntjq91Hqn8rRrGM1e764Rz9j0ZUwT7OhgjaJAApgkdbCvrx-kJzOEFk-sJTsoFbJ1GCap9BwtyqZ8g/s320/op23.m.jpg" width="317" /></a></div>
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There was even talk of buying a lion, gorilla or an elephant. Not a
garden for the dainty to enter!
Thankfully this didn’t happen. </div>
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<i>Images of Jane Morris<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioGQLNDjIrEY2IYTK0XtwN5wiqddKsZbVAk2mpMGEpz535xqq0JMP03UIgYSqhcZS09IiXuNtTy5UCamqxsO_DHdwCqCGCyfnRmINJry0gQOPNehC8OWCcswaawmWoWPrWy3uh9w/s1600/op2.m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioGQLNDjIrEY2IYTK0XtwN5wiqddKsZbVAk2mpMGEpz535xqq0JMP03UIgYSqhcZS09IiXuNtTy5UCamqxsO_DHdwCqCGCyfnRmINJry0gQOPNehC8OWCcswaawmWoWPrWy3uh9w/s320/op2.m.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Gabriel’s studio also reflected his desire to collect. He collected feminine beauty in the form of
first Lizzie, his Beatrice, then later with his compulsive longing to possess
Jane, the wife of his friend William Morris.
He could not quite do so (though it is generally assumed they were
lovers (perhaps not physically however) but he possessed her as his muse and
model’ Her image looked out on all sides
of his studio, the place where he could indeed possess his loved ladies,
stacked against the walls, sketches and drawings, paintings and photographs. Rossetti was searching all his life for this
inner muse, his anima figure and felt that she eluded him, as do all writers,
musicians and artists for we can never really capture this inner being in flesh
and blood. Both Lizzie and Jane became
beauties in his portraits though neither was especially handsome and even
slightly masculine in their looks. Dark haired Jane seemed to reflect the Italian
genes far more. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9CgC8kVwIZn2FLkWKylcCLzq16V3VSFK3kdtWEMvmuRKWPRzB0zchGyYDkSrVEERee-YCYKwHJYP-15xOVwkSic9QvT1x47DpJqMKNHS0_irNpREfbXq4FyHDN6z-qbReGRT9w/s1600/rossetti86.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr9CgC8kVwIZn2FLkWKylcCLzq16V3VSFK3kdtWEMvmuRKWPRzB0zchGyYDkSrVEERee-YCYKwHJYP-15xOVwkSic9QvT1x47DpJqMKNHS0_irNpREfbXq4FyHDN6z-qbReGRT9w/s320/rossetti86.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jane as Blanzifiore (Snowdrop)<br />
ArtMagick</td></tr>
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Gabriel did move into Kelmscott with Jane and William later in life but it was never his home as such, rather reflected the taste of Jane and William and their family. He kept the tenancy of Tudor House till he died. By then the animals were long gone, the garden totally overgrown and Rossetti a complete wreck. Fanny Cornforth remained faithful to him all his life but she was never a great love of his, rather a person
with whom he could relax, feel comfortable and cared for knowing she truly
loved him. It is always good to feel
loved. However, the mores of the times prevailed and Fanny was not considered a suitable person to attend his funeral and kept away. In April, 1882, Rossetti died on Easter Day, aged 54, at Birchington-on-Sea, Kent, his last and temporary home.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbtoSiBibAOfFG1SYhy8xx5DiDdqy2r0DkR98rDA9Q9fze1wWCcryB4IK9VoBGoEnZnxUVkP4b5aFe_mSo6YXeFAeiPQzJ9x8C7JFXHVyBzWzd-3ymbSJs04Cybr7rwLyQyZ2Zyg/s1600/images%25285%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbtoSiBibAOfFG1SYhy8xx5DiDdqy2r0DkR98rDA9Q9fze1wWCcryB4IK9VoBGoEnZnxUVkP4b5aFe_mSo6YXeFAeiPQzJ9x8C7JFXHVyBzWzd-3ymbSJs04Cybr7rwLyQyZ2Zyg/s1600/images%25285%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo of Jane Morris (Rossetti archive.org)</td></tr>
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Main Sources:</div>
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti Painter and Poet by Jan Morris
Weidenfield and Nicholson, <st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place>. To my mind one of the best accounts of his
life. </div>
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http://preraphaelitesisterhood.com</div>
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, An Illustrated Memorial of His Art
and Life</div>
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/nd497.r8.m33.rad.html <br />
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Blanzifiore (Snowdrops) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti :: artmagick.com</div>
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http://www.artmagick.com</div>
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Google Images<br />
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Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-35679843870235476212016-04-18T12:41:00.001-07:002016-04-18T12:48:50.737-07:00Thessaloniki..A Fair City of Greece<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBQkhncXXCbTn9qJrzH6syEcDfYVzJXXke3czT8hpTam0hzZpc2jMtV9G_1wq61I7qjdNJX3vGj8XT3H8y7bokZucKBYl58UZyuOJ0ryzbiudWDukC8vzCWBwGqOb4M0-e1H2rbw/s1600/20160411_191845_resized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBQkhncXXCbTn9qJrzH6syEcDfYVzJXXke3czT8hpTam0hzZpc2jMtV9G_1wq61I7qjdNJX3vGj8XT3H8y7bokZucKBYl58UZyuOJ0ryzbiudWDukC8vzCWBwGqOb4M0-e1H2rbw/s400/20160411_191845_resized.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Modern Thessaloniki, the waterfront</td></tr>
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Just back from a few wonderful sunny days in my favourite Greek city, Thessaloniki. My first visit here was in 1966 when I came from England to visit my Greek relations with a scant knowledge of Greek. I have written many wailing accounts of how much the city has changed. As we grow older we tend to live more and more in the golden, halcyon memories of our past and the delight of first encounters. Thus we feel deeply indignant when places we love alter with time and so-called progress. I miss the open fields and the little red tiled roofs and white houses round Kalamaria where my cousins had their homes. The houses were small and toilets often primitive but they were cool and airy, marble floored, with beautiful wrought iron doors, sheer curtains that covered windows to the floor like bridal veils, stirring gently in the breeze of open shutters. At lunchtime, the women went to the baker's to collect the meals they had taken there to cook in his hot ovens; delicous <i style="font-family: '';">makaronada, moussaka, imam bayil</i><i>di</i> and <i>papoutsakia. </i>People sauntered past as one sat replete with these good things, sunning on the little balcony and greeted one cheerfully. Ladies gathered in the afternoon in the cool of a porch and sipped coffees and gossiped, relaxing after their morning toils. It had character and it was Greek.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinVwjWepGPCrCYhsmQSNglNRePlaSQWBaR9_WABW939WIE5lemqxswIS802X7FYflRhAABgUe_9Qopbd9kklTiG9gmcpWrpPW-AssWt3iweQKKBxMFXh6YUCeFnc1Ihsa2umenSg/s1600/easter+dancing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinVwjWepGPCrCYhsmQSNglNRePlaSQWBaR9_WABW939WIE5lemqxswIS802X7FYflRhAABgUe_9Qopbd9kklTiG9gmcpWrpPW-AssWt3iweQKKBxMFXh6YUCeFnc1Ihsa2umenSg/s320/easter+dancing.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Easter dancing 1973</td></tr>
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Now these houses in Kalamaria have been demolished as the old owners died and their children raised high blocks of flats in their place. It's true the flats are spacious, well equipped, modern, beautiful but they now look like any city suberb in Spain, Portugal or Italy. No character.<br />
I can no longer see the church where my daughter was baptised one Easter Sunday, nor the sea in the distance where we used to go and bathe. People feel estranged and older folks are lonely, an occurrence that always seems to occur when people live in high rises. I go there and feel lost and sad. Only the fig tree remains in the cemented road, a tree planted by my cousin many years ago. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW8Z2uOrzVHKsTrr_8RrQu9owUnt8W6tOGqVHX8q4o-LMlpVDhozWSBJTKar92cwovf8j4FxRIZwTH36jqeIaQlwa2XGfFdPtci7OTz-LEHQVe1dNj5_69WQIM4-ZqXTexfTei9Q/s1600/Thalia+and+Petros.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW8Z2uOrzVHKsTrr_8RrQu9owUnt8W6tOGqVHX8q4o-LMlpVDhozWSBJTKar92cwovf8j4FxRIZwTH36jqeIaQlwa2XGfFdPtci7OTz-LEHQVe1dNj5_69WQIM4-ZqXTexfTei9Q/s200/Thalia+and+Petros.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Easter, roasting the goat in Yia yia's garden.1973</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf_ZRl5YwPR7i-fltB_cSTUvnxsgiTMInPQkgh18KUbI6o0OeatfVVGrGpQYh9owCgH6qCoGgdSjTg5w3TvMZ5s7PguNp0hmiKUEMdcbcRjefGpeUXTa8dgVv_4LUAJhxciS-cbw/s1600/easter+1973.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf_ZRl5YwPR7i-fltB_cSTUvnxsgiTMInPQkgh18KUbI6o0OeatfVVGrGpQYh9owCgH6qCoGgdSjTg5w3TvMZ5s7PguNp0hmiKUEMdcbcRjefGpeUXTa8dgVv_4LUAJhxciS-cbw/s320/easter+1973.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Under the fig tree, easter eggs and smiles</td></tr>
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Well, these are grumbles I have frequently aired and I understand perfectly that my younger cousins are far happier in their comfy, modern apartments! Even the Kalamaria I describe is nothing like the place described in the many letters which I read when researching my book <i>The Long Shadow.</i> In those days it didn't exist as more than a scattered village and the beach at Aretsou was filled with unhappy Greek migrants from Asia Minor who lived in tents and squalid conditions. So many would say things had progressed wonderfully! As for Thessaloniki as a whole, the first encounter for nurses and soldiers arriving during the First World War was of a very small city circling the beautiful horseshoe bay of the Thermaic gulf. Minarets vied with churches and synagogues then and the beautiful villas of the rich Jews lined the waterfront. The city in 1916 was only just liberated from four hundred years of Ottoman rule and not yet predominantly Greek; Jews and Turks formed the main population. But the Greek numbers swelled rapidly when the afore mentioned refugees from the Greek lands of Smyrna arrived after The Great Catastrophe (as the Greeks still call it) The ancient lands of Asia Minor fell to the Turks and now form part of that country.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjceZ6iPXDG2O70-MEQg4BEYjRtI78xOE72giXdOERF_25LXQMWQx2OOUNIz9Ex6doT9_t-DuNXkXT4P3g57J21BfDLAK7jVz8VAY-hCI0YCV0i8EPfxCoILNDnSj57zFQqFMOHcg/s1600/20160409_103709_resized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjceZ6iPXDG2O70-MEQg4BEYjRtI78xOE72giXdOERF_25LXQMWQx2OOUNIz9Ex6doT9_t-DuNXkXT4P3g57J21BfDLAK7jVz8VAY-hCI0YCV0i8EPfxCoILNDnSj57zFQqFMOHcg/s320/20160409_103709_resized.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still some beautiful old apartments in the city centre</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiFtBxGvOJqdvZg1_WY2BODKhf9mlb59fjehX2gWxmxgKk5NQBlxOA9LCIjZT025KtY1XUMa5ULuaDB3yVe2mAiBOW4PXs6Qe3nrLUL4oPLs_yX9c1JAKuUXwxcVnU5Nz-T5kbfQ/s1600/Saloniki_Fire_of_1917.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiFtBxGvOJqdvZg1_WY2BODKhf9mlb59fjehX2gWxmxgKk5NQBlxOA9LCIjZT025KtY1XUMa5ULuaDB3yVe2mAiBOW4PXs6Qe3nrLUL4oPLs_yX9c1JAKuUXwxcVnU5Nz-T5kbfQ/s320/Saloniki_Fire_of_1917.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fire of August 1917 </td></tr>
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Photo - "Popular Mechanics" Magazine Dec 1919, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5850057<br />
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A terrible fire ravaged the city in August 1917 which destroyed most of the Jewish quarter and many of the the lovely waterfront villas. Very little of the older architecture now exists, not even the attractive apartments and other planned vistas erected after the fire. Just as we experienced in London after our own great fire in 1666, many wonderful schemes were dreamt up to renew and beautify the city but few ever came to fruition. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeoWXzLAP8DSl5uK_06Dkkio8So3Yg1_XKXj6CMCMHBneJlX_ThzWeBLOcQ-EJwUagYxxRKwwttayFAeAJnra0F5wHrmvCfWUIoX2GHvvm2Tx9p2IR-cr5B7AMWx1ocG2GhIJEYg/s1600/aristotelous+sq+pigeons.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeoWXzLAP8DSl5uK_06Dkkio8So3Yg1_XKXj6CMCMHBneJlX_ThzWeBLOcQ-EJwUagYxxRKwwttayFAeAJnra0F5wHrmvCfWUIoX2GHvvm2Tx9p2IR-cr5B7AMWx1ocG2GhIJEYg/s320/aristotelous+sq+pigeons.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aristotelous Square</td></tr>
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However, Aristotelous Square remains the beautiful heart of the city, leading to the waterfront road Leoforis Nikis. It remains charming, open and interesting. There are many interesting excavations to see and the city has been named cultural capital of Europe in its day with an annual Fair in September and music, film and art festivals. Meanwhile the waterfront is packed with bustling cafes, wine and cocktail bars, packed solid with youngsters every evening and all weekend. The Greeks still perambulate along the waterfront (Paraleia) as they did in the old days, taking their Sunday stroll with the family, flirting boys and girls meeting up and enjoying the sunshine and sea breezes.<br />
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But I miss those old days so much.<br />
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<br />Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-38613826891930328762016-02-06T12:22:00.001-08:002016-02-06T12:22:37.320-08:00Crime Fiction Detectives become so real; Dorothy Sayers and her hero<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: -9.0pt; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dorothy Sayers</td></tr>
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For those of us who live in the
past like myself, Dorothy Sayers mystery novels are a fascinating read. They were written from the 1920’s to the
outbreak of World War Two and thus her authentic depictions of the times she
lived in are for me the main pleasure in reading these complex and astute
stories. There are many avid admirers of
her fictional hero, Lord Peter Wimsey, and eventually he evolves into a regular
paragon of all the virtues. To begin
with he appears as a take on Wodehouse’s delightfully idiotic fop, Bertie
Wooster, complete with attendant perfect butler (in this case a devoted man
called Mervyn Bunter) who treats him like a baby, Apparently Lord Peter needs to be bathed,
fed, dressed and inspected as to the propriety of his sartorial arrangements
before going out. Better than a mother is Mr Bunter! </div>
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At first we cannot help but wonder
what this cosseted aristocrat (his antecedents go way, way back, probably to
God Himself) is up to, taking a morbid and almost cheerful interest in crime,
regarding dead bodies without the normal sense of horror or fear. In Sayers first book, <i>Whose Body</i> (1923) an inoffensive little man, Mr Thripps, wakes to discover a dead, naked body in his
bath wearing only a pair of pince-nez.
Lord Peter is informed of this event by his mother, the Dowager Duchess
of <st1:place w:st="on">Denver</st1:place>
(delicious name!) and abandons his urgent desire to buy old books at an auction
in order to see what’s going on. His
attitude seems patronising in the extreme <i>‘Well,
thanks awfully for tellin’ me. I think
I’ll send Bunter to the sale and toddle round to Battersea now an’try and
console the poor little beast.’</i> Having surveyed the scene he sympathises with
something as crass as – <i>‘I’m sure it must have been uncommonly
distressin’, especially coming like that before breakfast. Hate anything tiresome happenin’ before
breakfast. Takes a man at such a confounded
disadvantage, what?’ </i></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ian Carmichael as Peter Wimsey</td></tr>
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So you see, quite correctly that
I have never really taken to Lord Peter.
However, as the tale progresses it becomes apparent that all this
burbling on like a shallow idiot is actually a useful mask for the real man who
hides pain and sadness beneath this masquerade and takes up criminology as a distracting
pastime. There’s no doubt about his cleverness and courage and he is indeed an
interesting and wounded figure, with a whole ancestral history attached to him
by the author who said herself that she fell in love with her character. (As
most authors do. I certainly fell in love with Ethan Willoughby in my book <i>The Long Shadow</i>!) </div>
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Eventually we discover that Peter
Wimsey was a Major in WW1 who still suffers from shell shock and nightmares at
times. His old Sergeant is the loyal and
devoted Bunter attached to him through
the comradeship of war time sufferings. Slowly
we begin to feel more sympathy for this hero as we learn throughout the stories
how he suffered in the war and how this now affects him, especially when he
actually does solve a murder and realises that the criminal is likely to be
hanged. It’s as if he plays at the puzzle of solving the case but then suddenly
realises it isn’t a game at all, but involves real people, who evil or not, are
human and faulty and culpable. </div>
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Wimsey does grow and mature
through the book, eventually meeting Harriet Vane, with whom he falls in love
after having helped her out of a charge of poisoning her former lover. At first she turns him down but eventually
marries him in <i>Busman’s Honeymoon</i> (1937) the last Wimsey novel. Sayers found it impossible to write crime
stories through the Second World War because she felt there was enough horror
abounding in life at this time without imagining it. </div>
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There is no doubt that Sayers was a very well read and
learned woman who was educated at <st1:place w:st="on">Oxford</st1:place>,
which was rare for a woman at that time.
Her father, the Reverend Henry Sayers, was a chaplain at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Christ</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Church</st1:placetype></st1:place>
and began teaching her Latin at the age of six.
I found this hard enough to learn at the age of eleven so she has my
deep admiration for such early signs of diligence. She translated Dante and wrote many non
fictional works which, as a scholar, she naturally considered her finest
efforts. Many criticise her character,
Harriet Vane, because she is obviously the author herself, eventually marrying
her own hero! Why should this be
criticised? Most authors put themselves
in their works because we write of our own substance and inner characters. Peter Wimsey was Sayers animus figure and the
‘marriage’ seems to me to be a delightful sign that something within the author
had become united. Wimsey is not killed
off like so many other detective heroes, Poirot and Holmes, for instance. He is quietly retired into a pleasant and
peaceful old age with Harriet and his many children. This allows him to remain forever fresh and
alive for the reader. And proves that, despite the problems of her own romantic
life, Sayers, known to be of a religious disposition, found some sort of inner
harmony in her soul. </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Nine Tailors</span><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Out of all her books with Peter Wimsey, this is considered
to be her finest. And though it could
become a little tedious to the un-initiated in bell ringing –which must surely
be the majority of her readers – it is a truly clever plot. In this story, Peter Wimsey finds himself and
his car plunged into a ditch during a snowstorm on New Year’s Eve and spends
the night (together with Bunter, of course, how could he manage otherwise?) at
the welcoming home of the rector of the fine local church, Fenchurch St. Paul,
which has nine splendid bells. These are
the Nine Tailors of the title (the original word was Tellers which became
corrupted.) I have learnt that six
Tailors are rung if a woman dies and Nine Tailors if a man dies, followed by a
steady peal for every year of their life thereafter. In small villages of the past, this was a way
of knowing who must have died; everyone knowing everyone for miles around. </div>
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Naturally a dead body turns up some time later and Lord Peter
is asked back to solve the mystery. He
toddles up a few blind alleys but works it all out eventually and it is a
subtle and ingenious business he has to unravel. The book is full of underlying emotion and
though tedious at times in its detail, still makes one want, even need to read
on. </div>
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The characters of all books from this era are sometimes accused of
stereotyping. But this accusation from
modern readers is because we have now seen these types of characters portrayed
so often on television and film, especially old films – from Agatha Chrisite novels, Midsomer Murders
and so forth. But in the years before and
between the Wars people <i>were </i>often more
typical and true to a type. We appear
far less so now that we are encouraged to air our uniqueness, though you might
say different stereotypes abound these days. We have created our own typology which will
amuse the future generations, no doubt. Personally,
I found many of the characters in this book to be interesting, even loveable,
such as the absent minded rector, or else pleasingly evil as a villain should
be. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3G563NFzFixLVssF_3EJwQM-OEscqWwFya39Y5IK1FYkoepE1bb4zPL1bG3k1n9pVty_AaXCll3AK44P34Kj3sGWgMPU5baAaVg4wmxjNNSVH1o5OkfrNub5TgGwBBVRcVfeMhQ/s1600/images%25285%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3G563NFzFixLVssF_3EJwQM-OEscqWwFya39Y5IK1FYkoepE1bb4zPL1bG3k1n9pVty_AaXCll3AK44P34Kj3sGWgMPU5baAaVg4wmxjNNSVH1o5OkfrNub5TgGwBBVRcVfeMhQ/s1600/images%25285%2529.jpg" /></a></div>
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There was so much to learn about the amazing mathematical
precision of change ringing, a subject I knew absolutely nothing about. To learn something new from a crime novel is
a rare thing nowadays. Modern crime
stories are expected to rattle along urgently from one dead body to another
without any descriptions. (Description in
any novel appears to be anathema to many modern editors.) But this is where,
Sayers, turns the genre into literature and art. Her evocation of the landscape and wintry
scenes of the <st1:place w:st="on">Fens</st1:place> where the novel is set, is
truly as brilliant as anything by Thomas Hardy.
We become drawn into this vast bleak landscape with its drains and its
sluices and dykes; a watery, strange wetlands where man struggles to keep
nature at bay. As I read this story,
which at one point describes a great flood, there has been a winter of deluges
and inundations on a major scale in the British Isles, not confined to the <st1:place w:st="on">Fens</st1:place> by any means but equally due to mismanagement of the
ancient land and waterways. It brought
it very much to life. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsoGmG9kYnGrn2gzflQHxGKCGH_cbtLxbqwFXAZpfC5iZ9OHyryi7UWJVyG-3wghdla_sWSLP_rb5cJHmh1cNTS2uWVpTz9_tELX7SrHJ4PwsDQCSODTNY6VXaguhFDrBM605KSg/s1600/images%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsoGmG9kYnGrn2gzflQHxGKCGH_cbtLxbqwFXAZpfC5iZ9OHyryi7UWJVyG-3wghdla_sWSLP_rb5cJHmh1cNTS2uWVpTz9_tELX7SrHJ4PwsDQCSODTNY6VXaguhFDrBM605KSg/s320/images%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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But above all there are the bells. These amazing bells; the sounds that are
emitted from them take over the novel and its pace and meaning. They seem to cover the gamut of human
feelings and emotions from the gentleness and grace of the tenor to the
terrifying cacophony of the huge deep bells; bells that are ancient, their rhythms timeless, their messages clear
and somehow indicative of something greater than the small happenings of the
men below them as, high in their tower, they crash, clang, echo, move in a
mathematical dance and pattern that must surely imitate something of the awe of
the Creator. I felt a sense that Sayers
herself, was lifted beyond the ordinary world as she wrote about them. </div>
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‘<i>The bells gave
tongue; Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor
Paul, ringing and rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower, wide mouths
rising and falling, brazen tongues clamouring, huge wheels turning to the dance
of the leaping ropes…..every bell in her place striking tuneably, hunting up,
hunting down, dodging, snapping, laying her blows behind, making her thirds and
fourths, working down to lead the dance again.
Out over the flat, white wastes of the fen, over the spear straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind
bent groaning poplar trees , bursting from the snow choked louvers of the
belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the
sleeping counties went the music of the bells….’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Brilliant.</div>
Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-15722934758163418982015-09-04T02:55:00.000-07:002015-09-04T02:55:41.172-07:00Two Mystic Poets and a Bed Bug<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;">Two Mystic Poets and a Bed Bug<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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One isn’t too surprised about the intimate knowledge of fleas
for people who lived in those times when beds and houses were filled with
varied creatures who lived alongside human beings very cosily. In the past we were certainly in touch with
Nature in all its moods and variety of living forms, be they pleasant to human beings
or not, an animal species alongside all the other animals. They were considered
as part of all the living things created by God and so must be studied,
tolerated, accepted even if sometimes utterly disliked. Nowadays, most of so called civilised
humanity (those who live in <i>civitas</i> –
Latin for towns) have a somewhat sentimental understanding of animals and a
perfect horror of insects, bugs,
bacteria , mice, rats and anything that penetrates the sanctity of their homes.
We are encouraged now to sanitise our houses into a safe, impenetrable
sterility. And I’m all for it as much as
anyone else.</div>
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We seldom see flies these days. But when meat hung on hooks over a fire, lay
on a platter in the larder or left
uncovered at times, flies were naturally attracted to the home. Now we have fridges and freezers; not places
where a fly feels comfortable or willing to search for a meal. I remember still
those frightful sticky fly catchers in the shape of colourful parrots dangling
from my grandmother’s ceiling covered in nasty black victims and feel grateful
for fridges and my little larder. I have
no objection to house spiders. They do a
useful job though those huge hairy creatures that seem to invade in the autumn
and are especially fond of getting stuck in the bath, have to be fished out and
sent off to the garden where they belong. </div>
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Many old erotic poems were written about fleas, strange as
such a subject might seem. The poet
addressing his loved one would be envious of the creature’s ability to be close
to his love in places he could not touch or reach, exploring her milk white
bosom, crawling beneath her petticoats to inhabit those areas he would love to
be able to explore himself! This small
creature had no boundaries, no conventions as the lover must needs have. Its death at her hands at the height of its
bliss as it sucks her blood was a metaphor for sexuality as the words ‘die’ and
‘kill’ were then considered to be. ‘The little death’ they called it because
orgasm for a man was said to shorten his life span and take away something from
him every time. Nowadays we believe the
exact opposite and say men who have regular sex live longer! </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpQLrkxQr1PUFpH6rIPT_Yw7GX2mxGYWiFK9smr161ma0Ce7V0iRQzp85SGx3_-N6Hhwzkbt863_AcbPQUi824re87149Y0kTe2v6yCjS1FZkVFFzgOfSMOU1GNq9P05Y53EYSg/s1600/Portrait_of_Bianca_Ponzoni_Anguissola%252C_by_Sofonisba_Anguissola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpQLrkxQr1PUFpH6rIPT_Yw7GX2mxGYWiFK9smr161ma0Ce7V0iRQzp85SGx3_-N6Hhwzkbt863_AcbPQUi824re87149Y0kTe2v6yCjS1FZkVFFzgOfSMOU1GNq9P05Y53EYSg/s320/Portrait_of_Bianca_Ponzoni_Anguissola%252C_by_Sofonisba_Anguissola.jpg" width="249" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bianca Pnzoni Anguissola<br /> (the artists mother) by Sofonisba Anguissola<br />Italy 1557</td></tr>
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Ladies apparently took to carrying around elaborately bejewelled little fur tippets or <i>zibellino</i> (italian for sable) which they apparently hoped might attract the fleas away from their bodies into the warm fur they held. A rather impossible notions as fleas like warmth it's true but they also want live creatures blood to feed on! </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYZW9Rn-eCghUrmX6ECABJBHBPfaEKMZqpPZ8aUkEG0yrLGJZuIJD7SADL5B5Nt5nZ0pgXUvM4N8xfXUxkcpWM3ssvs-OBxJO_3E9cUg-HGb_cJG30lFVOb2PDtkfMcbEndbiVA/s1600/Bernardino_Luini_Lady_with_a_Flea_Fur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYZW9Rn-eCghUrmX6ECABJBHBPfaEKMZqpPZ8aUkEG0yrLGJZuIJD7SADL5B5Nt5nZ0pgXUvM4N8xfXUxkcpWM3ssvs-OBxJO_3E9cUg-HGb_cJG30lFVOb2PDtkfMcbEndbiVA/s320/Bernardino_Luini_Lady_with_a_Flea_Fur.jpg" width="226" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bernardino Luini: Lady with a flea fur 1515<br />Walter's Art Museum </td></tr>
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The first ‘flea’ poem is said to have been written by Ovid
but there were others written or told before his. John Donne’s famous poem ‘The Flea’ is
following an older tradition but he uses it in a most effective, witty and
cheeky manner to put forward his case to his lady love (whom we assume might
have been the lady who later became his wife)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI9FFeq-6ZAYsaHqEpl0qsqjrK9MQrxjrzFA4119GJXnaJp_HQ7itBYuHqqX8omJOiZKONtTCDkbYxXB4wznPQ91stQH59ml9u4cngm9XSdk0GZtoNRHMrjtVHp327nYmSnMKbCw/s1600/JohnDonne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI9FFeq-6ZAYsaHqEpl0qsqjrK9MQrxjrzFA4119GJXnaJp_HQ7itBYuHqqX8omJOiZKONtTCDkbYxXB4wznPQ91stQH59ml9u4cngm9XSdk0GZtoNRHMrjtVHp327nYmSnMKbCw/s200/JohnDonne.jpg" width="163" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Donne</td></tr>
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John Donne is considered the foremost of the so called
‘metaphysical’ poets. He was born on
January22nd 1572 in <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city> to a Catholic family
at a time when Catholicism had been banned in <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region> and scarcely
tolerated. Catholics were banned from
many a career prospect in law, politics or the church. Several members of Donne’s family were
persecuted, tortured and considered as martyrs.
His own brother was imprisoned and forced under torture to give away a
priest he had been sheltering. The
priest, William Harrington, was hung drawn and quartered, a nasty death – for what sin? But, of course, he was considered a traitor
and dealt with accordingly. As for poor
Henry Donne, he died in prison of the bubonic plague. This affected John Donne deeply and made him
question his catholic faith. He was
ambitious and wished to prosper and no doubt realised that people were afraid
of the Papists, convinced they would create some sort of revolution and call in
support those countries still staunchly Roman Catholic and subservient to the
Pope in Rome. </div>
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Donne must have had a charming and
charismatic nature because he escaped all this family harassment. Or perhaps he had the kind of nature like the
tree that bent with the wind and thus survived the storm. He was educated at a school in <st1:city w:st="on">Oxford</st1:city>, admitted to <st1:placename w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> at 14 years of age, accepted
at 15 to study law at <st1:city w:st="on">Lincoln</st1:city>’s <st1:place w:st="on">Inn</st1:place>. People had
short lives in these days and packed action in from an early age. After his studies he began to travel
extensively abroad. He appeared bent on
some sort of diplomatic career, became a member of parliament and was
eventually asked by King James (well – ordered really) to become a cleric of the Anglican church. He accepted this post and eventually became
Dean of St. Paul’s in which great <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>
church lie his remains.</div>
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He seems to have been quite a womaniser in his youth, hence
many an erotic poem which he shared round his patrons for their amusement much
as we might do on Facebook today. The portrait below was possibly painted for a
lady he wished to attain. The undone
collar suggests this to some but it was in fact a fashion of the time. However,
he eventually fell in love with Anne More and in 1601 married her secretly
against the wishes of her father thus getting himself into trouble and even
landing in Fleet prison. He was
eventually released but it affected his career. Anne bore him twelve children,
of whom two were stillbirths. The poor
woman spent her life pregnant and nursing and caring for the family while Donne
scraped a meagre living so that poverty was never far away. Anne died after the last stillbirth in
1617. Donne had loved her deeply and
mourned her loss in his 17<sup>th</sup> Holy Sonnet. As far as we know, he was faithful to her,
turning more and more towards spiritual matters, laced with doubts, questions
and philosophies. </div>
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Donne’ poetry is unusual for the times, often beginning
abruptly, full of sudden twists and turns, with unusual metaphors and contrasting,
unexpected ideas (called conceits). It
was considered ‘physical’ poetry because poetic metres and styles changed after
the laws of Aristotle . . . in other words after physics. They are witty, ingenious poems, full of complex
themes both sacred and profane. His
poetry was written for a few patrons and never published in his lifetime. The love poems are sexual, sensual, quite
different to the ideal of courtly love that had flourished with the troubadors
where one’s lady was unobtainable, mysterious, a spiritual object rather than a
carnal one. Donne’s ladies are to be
bedded and urgently, lustfully! He
seldom used classical mythology in his poetry as many other poets were wont to
do a that time. Instead he chose plain words, plain speaking yet expressed in
such a way as to make them fresh, original and even startling.</div>
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Thus we come to his amusing poem The Flea. It has been conjectured that the letter ‘s’
in the fifteenth-sixteenth century looked very like an ‘f’ to gather the subtle
ribaldness of ‘it sucked me first and now sucks thee’. It’s a possibility that Donne might have
hinted at this idea and his poems generally contain barely disguised references
to states of arousal and bodily fluids being exchanged. Those Elizabethans were
a saucy lot.</div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Mark but this flea, and mark in this,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">How little that which thou deniest me is;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Thou know’st that this cannot be said<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Yet this enjoys before it woo,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">And pampered swells with one blood made of two,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">And this, alas, is more than we would do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Where we almost, nay more than married are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">This flea is you and I, and this<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">And cloistered in these living walls of jet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Though use make you apt to kill me,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Let not to that, self-murder added be,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Cruel and sudden, hast thou since<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Wherein could this flea guilty be,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 9.5pt;">Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Here’s an argument worthy of a lawyer’s<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"> </span></b>mind. The lustful lover argues that as the flea has
bitten them both, it contains them united in love, a marriage bed, a marriage
temple. There is no sin, no shame in
this - so why not make love and unite thus?
The lady isn’t convinced and makes to kill the flea and her lover tries
to stay her hand but no. ‘hast thou
since purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?’ and not only that but she is
triumphant in saying the flea’s death hasn’t affected them one little bit; it
certainly hasn’t weakened them. In
which case, retorts the cunning lover, the tiny amount of life blood taken by
the flea is like the tiny amount of honour she will lose by yielding to him. It’s a merry poem and treats his lady as a
person of equal wit and intelligence.</div>
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In contrast to this humorous look at the flea we turn to one
far more horrifying. The next poetical
flea is actually a painting rather than a poem.
It was painted by the mystical poet and artist William Blake whose story
I portrayed in my last blog. This tiny but exquisitely painted picture is
called <i>The Ghost of a Flea</i> and hangs
in the Tate Gallery in <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>. Apparently the drawing of the Flea came about
when Blake spent an evening with his friend John Varley. Varley was a student of esoteric subjects and
believed in the existence of spirits and those things which required ‘an eye to
see and an ear to hear’– in other words those visions beyond the limits of the
physical eye and ear and its limited capacities. He knew that Blake had daily seen visions
since an early age, one of which was a tree filled with bright angels and
celestial beings and claimed to often be surrounded by ghostly beings as he
painted. Varley and Blake would often
meet and hold a kind of séance together in which Varley would call up some
historical or mythological being and Blake would sketch the vision that
appeared to him. </div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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On this particular occasion it seems as if the image of the
Flea came spontaneously to Blake. Varley asked him to sketch it. Blake did so, saying he saw it very clearly
before him. The result became the little
painting now in the Tate. It is
beautifully finished with applied gold leaf on the stars. A monstrous bull like creature is striding
purposefully between rich brocade curtains as if on a stage, the background a
starry night perhaps depicting the universe, a symbol of the creation or
something greater than the creature, monstrous as it is. The Flea’s snake like tongue seeks the bowl
of food before it. A strange
vision. But not the first such vision to
be thus depicted by the artist. Blake
seemed to have had an inner or subconscious vision of such muscular, often
horrifying beings who, for him, were epitomes of all that was loathsome and
evil. The only time he saw a ghost,
according to Alexander Gilchrist, his Victorian biographer, was when he lived
in Lambeth. The ghost described was very
similar to the vision of the flea and terrified Blake so much he turned and
ran.</div>
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<o:p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Zumj4ys2FnlwWleLxt67rmxR-eVbS9swAn1Bl314OyMANXoTQq7A3z-y6jGpgdQhtGhXRS0290yhoMg5n00_nayNvUsMWrafsEQDpJf6vFXge8s65B8CVVs3MqihDmuOS-EMcQ/s1600/untitled%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Zumj4ys2FnlwWleLxt67rmxR-eVbS9swAn1Bl314OyMANXoTQq7A3z-y6jGpgdQhtGhXRS0290yhoMg5n00_nayNvUsMWrafsEQDpJf6vFXge8s65B8CVVs3MqihDmuOS-EMcQ/s1600/untitled%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Red Dragon<br /> and the Woman clothed with the Sun<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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What, we wonder, are these visions? Modern psychology would say they were sub
personalities drawn from his own unconscious mind, haunting him as such lost
and long-forgotten inner beings do. They
certainly seem to be the Shadow side of Blake’s angelic visions. Ghostly images do occur and many perfectly
sensible, intelligent people claim to have seen them, especially when
young. When we are young, we are open to
other realms and states of existence but this open state of mind narrows down
till all we see in the end is that tiny portion of existence before our
physical eyes – and even that but imperfectly – ‘as in a glass darkly’ – St.
Paul would have said. </div>
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Or as Wordsworth
had it in <i>Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Childhood<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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There was a time when meadow, grove and stream </div>
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The earth and every common sight</div>
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To me did seem</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Appareled in celestial light,</div>
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The glory and the freshness of a dream.</div>
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It is not now as it hath been of yore: - </div>
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Turn wheresoe’er I may</div>
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By night or day,</div>
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The things which I have seen I now can see no more.</div>
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<br /></div>
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But Blake carried on seeing his visions up to the moment of
his death. </div>
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<br /></div>
Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-12432497525271761832015-08-12T12:34:00.000-07:002015-08-12T13:23:49.945-07:00William Blake: An Unseen Enemy. <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-US"> William Blakes’
soujourn in “<st1:place w:st="on">Paradise</st1:place>”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> <i>“If a Man is the Enemy of my
Spiritual Life while he pretends to be the Friend of my Corporeal, he is a real
enemy..”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> <i>William Blake, letter to
Thomas Butts, Felpham April 25th 1803<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKvRxdYETzu2yCR9l2LJ9afe6ekCnet1t8pDvOuI_hxufk42UGuQ2lB8E8Ntjh6og6Zqwcoyvp_pcmYhliPP5FxhLvITVjI6b1uTfVCd3SQ_0t-6n88uWowl0HfBB-Yr4HDQZ6Vw/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKvRxdYETzu2yCR9l2LJ9afe6ekCnet1t8pDvOuI_hxufk42UGuQ2lB8E8Ntjh6og6Zqwcoyvp_pcmYhliPP5FxhLvITVjI6b1uTfVCd3SQ_0t-6n88uWowl0HfBB-Yr4HDQZ6Vw/s320/images.jpg" width="246" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Blake</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">That wonderful,
fiery, genius William Blake whose ‘flashing eye’ expressed the indignation he
felt at all forms of injustice and tyranny!
This ‘flashing eye’ and the vehement shouts of ‘False!’ were all that a
young Chichester lad recalled in his old age of the famous trial of William
Blake for evil, seditious and treasonable expressions against King George
111. *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This trumped up charge was the
strange and malevolent ending of a period in Blake’s life that had at first
promised to be financially successful; a time when he was apparently at his
happiest. Blake had as a friend a man
called John Flaxman, a well meaning, though mundanely inspired person, who felt
sympathetic towards Blake and wanted to help him along the ladder of
success. Flaxman recommended Blake as an
artist-engraver to another friend of his, named William Hayley, a country
gentleman who rather fancied himself as a poet.
Hayley was interested and agreed to befriend Blake and push his fortunes
up the ladder of fame. It was indeed a
splendid opportunity for Blake and could have been a turning point in his
career if he had so chosen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Thus in 1800, Blake and his
wife, Catherine, were invited to move to the pretty seaside hamlet of Felpham,
where Hayley lived, so that he would be the closer to his new patron. Blake now had a charming six-roomed cottage
by the sea in exchange for the small residence in his beloved Lambeth which had
been his for so many <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>
years. At this period of time everything
seemed set for a new and splendid life cycle.
Blake loved his new home and felt tremendously free and for once
surrounded by air, space and the glorious marine beauty of Nature. It was Paradise and he and Catherine revelled
in it all “<i>courting <st1:place w:st="on">Neptune</st1:place> for an
embrace”. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US"> “we are safely arrived at our
Cottage which is more beautiful than I thought it..... Heaven opens here on all
sides her golden Gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of
Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard and their forms more distinctly
seen; and my Cottage is also a Shadow of their houses...... And Now Begins a
New life because another covering of Earth is shaken off ”</span></i><span lang="EN-US"> (letter to Flaxman written
Sept.21.1800 Sunday Morning) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMYi92zI9hN6ifcCEeT7J3FUKeV8TBnXI7puJcgJ2B8u6E5XyuXsO0juSUhOk48Vbmod99ZwYf7UxFALM81rmQjGi03C9z0vUrqe-WbDb4ApM6sbF9VKjiLamTTu9lpfQZf8vrMg/s1600/untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMYi92zI9hN6ifcCEeT7J3FUKeV8TBnXI7puJcgJ2B8u6E5XyuXsO0juSUhOk48Vbmod99ZwYf7UxFALM81rmQjGi03C9z0vUrqe-WbDb4ApM6sbF9VKjiLamTTu9lpfQZf8vrMg/s1600/untitled.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">At the time that Blake wrote this
letter uneasiness even then made its insidious undermining at the roots of his
soul, the Dark Stranger had already entered Blake’s life and waited invisible
in the wings. We sense the underlying
feeling of sacrifice of dreams, visions and all that upheld Blake’s inner soul,
being traded in with a wrenching saturnine reluctance for the sober effort of
now having to get down to life’s nitty gritty, like it or not. Blake, after all, is what Jung would call a
puer type, an eternal child as are so many creative geniuses. Life’s boring realities are always at odds
with the celestial vision. But we all
need bread and a roof over our heads and here was Blake’s chance to make good
and make some money, fame and fortune.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Yet with all this promising
beginning, this paradisical setting, that lurking God, whom Blake both adored
and feared deeply and alternately named Satan, Urizen, Christ (as opposed to
the mystical, loving figure of the man Jesus) crept in within a mere three years
to sour it all, ending with the unpleasant incident of the trespassing soldier
and a court case. Thus the soldier in
his way took the role of the serpent whose sinuous undermining led to the
eviction of Adam and Eve from their <st1:place w:st="on">Paradise</st1:place>
home, a theme that Blake was forever depicting in his poetry and art. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">The
Soldier’s Story:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Sometime in July of 1803
Blake’s apparently innocent and peaceful Felpham Paradise was invaded by a
private from the troop of Royal Dragoons stationed nearby. The man had been invited in to help cut the
lawn by the gardener who omitted mentioning this to Blake. He was deeply angry
for he hated soldiers, war-mongers and other minions of the State. He had been an advocate of revolution,
followed the works of Thomas Paine, Godwin and other outspoken people of the
time, though like all these found the disturbing, grim reality nothing like the
ideal. Plus Blake was paranoid about his
privacy; a loner who felt immensely threatened and invaded by the outside
world. He therefore asked the man to
leave his garden. The soldier was
impertinent in reply; Blake asked again, the man threatened most unpleasantly
to knock his eyes out. Now Blake was
known as a peaceable, good-natured man
and at his later trial many attested to his kindliness and peacefulness. But there <i>was</i>
a hot tempered side to him as well. Here
intruded therefore his own inner warmonger, the invasive soldier within, into
the apparent peaceful <i>temenos </i>of his
Felpham cottage. Blake’s intense
emotional reaction smacks of a Shadow issue.
An incident which was nothing in itself suddenly became a regular drama.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The incident took place some
time between July and August 1803. Blake was already tired of William Hayley and
his demands and planning to return to the more secluded atmosphere of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city> where one might
lose oneself totally amidst the collective, while in Felpham he probably was
far more of an eccentric object of interest and curiosity. Certainly it would make Blake feel invaded by
some unpleasant transgressor, a Dionysian element as if Neptune, whom he had
welcomed at first as his friendly deity when he and Catherine moved to the seaside,
was now creeping in as an invader and also as a deceiver. For the soldier, fiercely ejected by Blake
and marched back to his barracks took his own nasty revenge by lying about
Blake and swearing that he had uttered words of sedition against the king and
country, “<i>damn the King, damn all his subject, damn his soldiers, they are
all slaves, when Bonaparte comes, , it will be cut throat for cut throat and
the weakest must go to the wall ; I will help him” </i>and so forth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">However, at the trial held at
Chichester Jan.11th 1804 10.am, the
soldier was proved to be a down and out ruffian and liar and Blake was aquitted
amidst the cheers of his many friends and well-wishers. The whole incident was nonetheless a peculiar
culmination to this time in his life when Blake could have chosen the easy path
of conforming to what his patron Hayley needed and for once securing himself a
less precarious mode of living which he sometimes seemed to yearn for. But did he really stand a chance? Flaxman, in introducing Blake to Hayley, had
hinted that Blake would do best at teaching engraving and drawing, making “neat
drawings of different kinds” and would be best to be discouraged from “any
dependence on painting large pictures, for which he is not qualified either by
habit or study”. This led to Hayley’s
well-meant rejection of Blake’s grander and individualistic ideas from the start. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">“Natural
Friends are Spiritual Enemies”.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Flaxman<b> </b>and Hayley were true friends,
one might say, but Blake would later state the fact that “natural friends are
spiritual enemies”. What did he mean by
this, we wonder? And why were
friendships and general dealings with the collective always so problematic for
him? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">These “friends” meant well from a
worldly point of view, but Blake was not a worldly person. If he had followed this path, sacrificed his
visions and stuck to ‘neat drawings’ we would have yet another mediocre
eighteenth artist who would have faded into obscurity with many others. Blake constantly found himself passed over
by those of lesser talents, illustrating books of inferior poets to
himself. By the time the incident took
place with the soldier, he had already come to the end of his tether and this
incident was probably an expression of his frustration and anger that <st1:place w:st="on">Paradise</st1:place> had after all turned so sour. He felt that it was in his native place, in
Soho, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>,
that he was more at ease, more in tune with his visions. And so he returned to live at <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">South Molton St.</st1:address></st1:street>, a
return to his beginnings so to speak for he was born near there. Here he lived for 17 years, scarcely going
out; here he wrote his great work “<i>Jerusalem; the</i> <i>Emanation of the
Giant Albion</i>”. So we cannot help
but feel the unpleasant soldier was a better friend than Blake’s supposed
benefactors. And yet while at Felpham,
Blake had written another of his great epic poems, “<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Milton</st1:place></st1:city>” and drawn some of his finest works,
so his time there was not at all bereft of angelic vision for all the
difficulties encountered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US">Angels
and Devils, visions of Heaven and Hell.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> <i>I will not cease from Mental Fight,<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US">Nor
shall my Sword sleep in my Hand<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US">Till
we have built Jerusalem<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US">On <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s green
and pleasant Land.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For a Sagittarian, with a
Sun-Jupiter conjunction, Blake was strangely insular by nature. But he has Cancer Rising plus the Moon in
that sign in the 12th house. Emotionally
and by habit, he preferred the introverted, inward poetic gaze to the external,
limited world of form. Form came through his fiery poetry and pictures. Though
he adored Nature he never did landscape drawing for he saw everything with the
mythic, imaginative eye that found meaning in all things. Nature was suffused with the Divine and played
upon his deepest emotions and feeling imbues all his works. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"> If we take a look again at this
important period round 1800-3 we sense
an inner reluctance to give up his dramatic, noble, fiery visions and
spiritual values for cramping, dulling, rational, materialistic ones. His visions are as meaningful now as they
were then. In fact, Blake was a very
modern man and many of his pictures border on surrealism. It is no wonder he appeals to modern man who
is equally tormented by the same strange Faustian mixture of atheism, mysticism,
cynicism and who tries to make sense of a politically correct ideal world were all is acceptable and united
in an all-embracing fusion yet oddly disintegrated, separate, chaotic,
boundary-less and full of incessant anxieties and horrors. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Blake did at least acknowledge
that he had both an Angel and a Devil in him which is more than most of us do
and his major works were centred round Milton who wrote Paradise Lost and
Regained and Dante’s visions of Heaven and Hell, which Blake magnificently
illustrated. Basically Blake felt his
view of God was all angelic and he criticised Dante ‘who sees Devils where I
see None’ but this was palpably not the case.
True his tendency was to be positive and optimistic and joyful and see
the good in everyone but this naturally had its judgmental, rejecting opposite lurking
in the Shadow. In fact, Blake had a
peculiar, confused and tormented vision of God yet there is also the opposing
vision of joyfulness, simplicity and colour, song, beauty which he called Orc,
his “spiritual Sun”...as opposed to the natural Sun which he called Satan, the
Greek Apollo. Here he seems to speak of
his own inner intuition of the Self, his inner core identity. He tried over and over again to embody this
fierce, highly personal vision of God in his work and to understand Him through
it. He painted, wrote of it all in his
verses and songs and gloriously illustrated books with intense passion (Mercury
in Scorpio square Mars-Neptune in Leo); the eternal struggle of the visionary
against the cramping, stifling bonds of realism. It also indicates the problems he always felt
over well meaning friends who, while feeling intuitively that he was a talented
person and genuinely trying to help him, seemed unable to truly understand his
work or appreciate his real genius except towards the end of his life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glad Day</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">Basically Blake was a true
alchemist who had to follow the solitary path of his own Great Work, magician,
distiller, dissolver, working unceasingly on his vision till the end of his
life. He needed to be alone and retreat from the world for he was engaged on a
supreme task. His efforts were the
superhuman efforts towards unity and cohesion of the disparate and confused
pieces of oneself that float about in the psyche like the pieces of Osiris
flung here and there by Dark Seth. His
beloved wife Catherine who worked patiently beside him, sublimating her own
personality to help him, was his Isis, his<i> soror mystica</i>, the spiritual
sister who labours with the alchemist on his task. If anyone was Blake’s true friend it was this
woman who gave up her life for him, grateful, loving, worshipping God through
him – his companion till the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">William Blake was born 28th November 1757 and died 12th August 1827</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">* The Life of William Blake by Alexander
Gilchrist Ch. X1X p.172. Everyman (J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd. )<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">It is first mentioned to Hayley in the letter
dated Aug 16th 1803 but there is no mention of it to Butts in a letter dated
July 6th 1803.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">see P.171-2 of Gilchrist’s book. for date of trial, charge against Blake.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">Other
books used: The Portable William
Blake: Viking Press <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> 1946<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US"> William Blake by Kathleen Raine Thames and <st1:city w:st="on">Hudson</st1:city>,
<st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city> 1977</span></i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-12661956245179334522015-03-23T06:59:00.000-07:002015-03-23T10:53:45.855-07:00Finding Your House in a Famous Hopper Painting!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKRFQCma0HRG95cgS65V3hY24zUADMKjp24Um1b-vYiUmb-pNYbzlYmtUDwEHbkm4ruvFxErGg0RywFetQ6zG7J2HtRkfmh248juRg-3Uxm2aR_yKLK3IL_nht3NEp9a0aAd9vaA/s1600/Rocks+and+Houses,+Ogunquit+Edward+Hopper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKRFQCma0HRG95cgS65V3hY24zUADMKjp24Um1b-vYiUmb-pNYbzlYmtUDwEHbkm4ruvFxErGg0RywFetQ6zG7J2HtRkfmh248juRg-3Uxm2aR_yKLK3IL_nht3NEp9a0aAd9vaA/s1600/Rocks+and+Houses,+Ogunquit+Edward+Hopper.jpg" height="272" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rocks and Houses, Ogunquit</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBK168M4255WQqDNENOjzb8R9JyQnsaQP9LtO4p3ujzGm_JYEZWie_kd_Nn62eHLwQuyk843nkZh88YwgOsQvKnIrJWhc8fGbPkKXp-ZlUgWd6uD8bAtvfvu5J3ncNhHORByt9xw/s1600/untitled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBK168M4255WQqDNENOjzb8R9JyQnsaQP9LtO4p3ujzGm_JYEZWie_kd_Nn62eHLwQuyk843nkZh88YwgOsQvKnIrJWhc8fGbPkKXp-ZlUgWd6uD8bAtvfvu5J3ncNhHORByt9xw/s1600/untitled.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Hopper</td></tr>
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Recently a friend sent me an article on a painting by Edward
Hopper called <i>Rocks and Houses, Ogunquit</i>.
The writer of this article, David
Millward, was astonished to discover that the house in the picture was his own, somewhat changed in the 100 years since Hopper painted the picture but the
scene still recognisable. The rock in the front had been partially blasted away to make easier access to Perkins Cove, the barn in the middle was gone and also the verandah - while the next door house had been flattened . . . yet, despite these changes, his house was there in the middle behind the remains of the rock. It had lost much of its quaintness and I wonder if Hopper would have felt it to be as interesting and worth painting if he was to see it now. Hopper was intrigued by interesting architecture and houses. But for Millward, it must have been so interesting to see how the scene appeared to the artist all that time ago. What a
delightful discovery to make!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0jqtomKwyrhgE7CRkl4fSTpBqfmOIQdeMX59IsaM30-WMORuAiZFvz9Bhs9gdZgtm9KeCZ_yRyo8ha1v2FgdGdsrplfdNPtVOBgrcMFhj62q0ZOHisu3heu05hq75q5lEXNDCw/s1600/images(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo0jqtomKwyrhgE7CRkl4fSTpBqfmOIQdeMX59IsaM30-WMORuAiZFvz9Bhs9gdZgtm9KeCZ_yRyo8ha1v2FgdGdsrplfdNPtVOBgrcMFhj62q0ZOHisu3heu05hq75q5lEXNDCw/s1600/images(2).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">House by the Railroad</td></tr>
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The picture had been bequeathed by Hopper’s wife, Jo
Nivison, an artist in her own right, to the <st1:placename w:st="on">Whitney</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Museum</st1:placename> in <st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place> along with many others. Hopper was a prolific painter. Many of his scenes have become very well
known. His <i>House by the</i> <i>Railroad</i> was
the model for Hitchcock’s film <i>Psycho, </i>the
tall, spooky house where poor Janet Leigh met her death in the infamous shower
scene. It has to be said, it is a strange
looking house! Millward managed to
persuade the museum to allow him to come and see <i>Rocks and Houses</i> , now in storage, in situ. They finally agreed and he was able to view
the original painting. Unfortunately, Millward would have been unlikely to afford to purchase it. Hopper’s painting now sell for millions. But when this early painting was done, he
wasn’t the famous artist of later years and it isn’t necessarily his best work.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaqUXCOOc2bT87SmOOaQdF9mDh5TZL-eRmTbDkd4GEGMRvNRLx3YZehLgB3AG6zHG0Fo9tjB-IBDNqhIwagu84nYeh9hhCSVLqSOW1CzrWrM8uScQy5Kl-XiyVnuhd-uGtC07wnQ/s1600/images(4).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaqUXCOOc2bT87SmOOaQdF9mDh5TZL-eRmTbDkd4GEGMRvNRLx3YZehLgB3AG6zHG0Fo9tjB-IBDNqhIwagu84nYeh9hhCSVLqSOW1CzrWrM8uScQy5Kl-XiyVnuhd-uGtC07wnQ/s1600/images(4).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Lee Shore</td></tr>
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My daughter introduced me to the paintings of Edward Hopper
and I absolutely love his work. They are
not only full of light, space and interesting scenes, they also tell stories.
Hopper himself was a taciturn fellow but his pictures spoke volumes. The idea came to me one morning at breakfast
with a good friend in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Alexandria</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state></st1:place> to write a story about
some of the pictures. I have written six
so far and hope to add more as time goes on.
Interestingly I began with <i>House
on the Railroad</i> and it became a bit of a spooky story involving a
mother! I didn't realise at the time
that <i>Psycho</i> was based on such an idea and I still haven’t watched the film . . . it
gave me the creeps just seeing the trailer. But it’s interesting that this is what the picture drew out of people.
Something interesting in Hopper’s psyche, no doubt! Houses, the sea are associated psychologically with the idea of Mother and the Feminine. And houses, sea, boats and women appear in so many of the Hopper pictures. I love the one above . . . <i>The Lee Shore.</i> It is so full of movement and light. And like so many Hopper paintings, taken from strange angles that make the house appear to be in the sea itself. Hopper spent time in Paris in his youth and learnt a lot from Degas who tended to use interesting and different perspectives. </div>
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My Hopper stories can be read on my website <a href="http://www.lorettaproctor.co.uk/">www.lorettaproctor.co.uk</a> . I would have loved to make a book of them but
it would have entailed writing to varied sources to gain permission to print
the pictures with the story. Without the
pictures, the meaning of the story would not be as dramatic. I hope some of you will take a look at see if
you feel the stories fit the pictures.
All I can say is, these are the stories that came to my mind. You may have others, far better.<br />
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Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-69449009690239108092014-09-01T10:48:00.002-07:002014-09-01T10:48:52.147-07:00Discovering a Treasure Trove: the poems of Seamus Heaney <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Seamus_Heaney_Photograph_Edit.jpg/225px-Seamus_Heaney_Photograph_Edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Seamus Heaney Photograph Edit.jpg" border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Seamus_Heaney_Photograph_Edit.jpg/225px-Seamus_Heaney_Photograph_Edit.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b>Seamus Heaney</b></div>
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I have to confess to something very sad. I had never heard of Seamus Heaney till
recently. I mean to say, he is a greatly
acclaimed Irish poet, the winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature who
died only a year ago in 2013. <b>And</b> there
was a programme about him on Country File.
I missed all this. Where was I?</div>
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I think this dire omission is because my mind has always been somewhat
closed to ‘modern’ poetry. I’m an
unashamed Romantic Philosopher myself and my joy in poetry is derived from
the works of William Blake, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth and I might kindly go as far as the
War Poets, Yeats, Ted Hughes - just about - and a few others. Then I stop.
(I’m sorry, I can’t abide Sylvia Plath and always felt sorry for Ted
faced with this neurotic, narcissistic wife) </div>
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So basically, in the eyes of many, I am a poetry ignoramus.</div>
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But thankfully I have a wonderful literature tutor who talks
to us about many styles and aspects of literature. This lady is 80 years old but with a mind sharp
as a razor, a memory that holds a library of literary knowledge and who walks about
as if she was still only 40. Her
undying enthusiasm and love for her subject, her readiness to learn about new
subject matter herself is so inspiring.
I went rather reluctantly to her afternoon talk on Seamus Heaney. The poems she sent us to bone up on looked
incomprehensibe, even pecualiar at times. Did
I really care about this poetry? </div>
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However
I went. And as always, Angela turned the
afternoon to one of fascinated interest and exploration into many aspects of
this poetry. Interesting understanding I'd like to share. </div>
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It's all so different when poetry is read aloud. We then hear the melodic cadences,
the unusual words that suddenly aren’t so strange but perfectly appropriate. Hearing Heaney read his poetry in his soft Irish lilt gave new meaning to it all. When we learns the story behnd it the poem
and understand the background and life of the poet, it gives his work a new dimension, a background picture. All springs to life as if a
light has been cast upon a dark corner to reveal a treasure hiding there. </div>
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Seamus Heaney was born in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Northern
Ireland</st1:country-region> but lived all his life in <st1:city w:st="on">Dublin</st1:city>
and always associated himself with the Republic of <st1:place w:st="on">Eire</st1:place>. He is not an overtly political poet and yet
there many little words and phrases that give away his background and the constant underlying fear that was in the hearts of the Irish people.
One poem called <i>A Constable Calls</i>
from an album called <i>North</i> (1975)
shows this fear well. It describes a
scene from Heaney’s young life when a policeman came to visit the family. he bore with him an official ledger to take
tillage returns, in other words to assess exactly what was produced and grown. The poem is full of references such ‘the
pedal treads (of the policeman’s bicycle)
hanging relieved of the boot of the law’
</div>
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<i>Arithmetic and fear.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>I sat staring at the
polished holster<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>With its buttoned
flap, the braid cord<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Looped into the
revolver butt.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The Americans might not find this so alarming but the British are unused to policemen with revolvers. However, it was a necessary fact of life in Northern Ireland at that time. The poem ends with the knowledge that his father has
withheld the fact he had planted a few turnips at the bottom of the potato
field and not declared them. Guilt and fear enters the boy's heart on his father's behalf. As the
policeman goes we have the lines:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>A shadow bobbed in the
window.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>He was snapping the
carrier spring<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Over the ledger. His boot pushed off<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>And the bicycle
ticked, ticked, ticked.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The last line evokes the sound of the wheels perhaps on
cobbles or rough ground but it also has the menacing notion of a bomb. And there were plenty of those going off in Ireland during the troubles. So many troubled young people living with this kind of fear as an everyday image even today.</div>
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Heaney wrote a good deal about his childhood as have many
poets. My favourite is <i>Blackberry Picking </i>from his first album <i>Death of a Naturalist</i> (1966). Most of these remembered childhood scenes
start with a sense of innocence and joy which suddenly turns to dismay and even
revulsion as he encounters Nature’s darker side. The blackberries so plump and sweet and
delicious when picked can't be kept. They begin to grow mould and turn sour and stink. He wants to keep them forever but it’s
impossible (certainly in those days of no freezers!) But nature cannot be captured like this, all is death and decay eventually. Thus is Paradise Lost and the garden of Eden left behind and the boy is
obliged to grow up and face the adult world of toil, violence and
disillusion. This always reminds me of
Wordsworth’s ‘<i>shades of the prison house
begin to close upon the growing boy’</i> or the poetry of William Blake which speaks with equal sorrow about our lost innocence and childhood joy. I’ve even written a poem like this myself, a
feeble one I know. There are so many poets who have expressed that intense sense of loss of a childhood time when the mind and heart is free of the corruption of adult knowledge, empty of later experiences and ready to find
every new experience a source of wonder and awe. </div>
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Heaney, the eldest of nine children, lost his young bother
aged four in a car accident. He
describes the sadness and pain of this in his poems. He wrote many poems about family which are
full of tenderness and love. His
ability to paint a portrait or a scene is wonderful and many words in the poems appeal to the senses.</div>
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<i>The automatic lock
</i>clunks<i> shut (The Blackbird of Glanmore)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>She sat all day as the
sun sundialled<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Window </i>splays<i> across
the </i>quiet<i> floor. (Chairing Mary)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>…its flesh was </i>sweet <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Like thickened summer
wine; summer’s blood was in it<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Leaving </i>stains<i> upon
the tongue. (Blackberry-Picking)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I could go on but maybe you should just take a look at this
poems for yourself! Thank you my dear
tutor for bringing this poetry to me and opening my mind to something new and wonderful. And thank you Seamus for writing these evocative poems. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-57003841611714555782014-08-26T09:49:00.001-07:002014-08-26T09:50:24.808-07:00The Diamonds that Destroyed a Palace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The best books are often those given to you by a friend or family. These are people who understand your taste and you can trust that. Bailey's book above, 'Black Diamonds' came from a lady I had met only a few times before but she hit the right note with this one. I had over indulged in crime stories and needed something real and moving not a load of corpses and overweight police inspectors. And this amazing true story of the rise and fall of Wentworth, the beautiful Fitzwilliam family home, was very moving indeed.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">second marquess of Rockingham</td></tr>
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The house was built for Thomas Watson Wentworth, ist marquess of Rockingham in the 1700's but Bailey begins her narrative with the death of the 6th Earl Fitzwilliam, one of the richest men in Britain at the time, who had by then inherited the estates, the villages, coalmines and the mining and agricultural people that went with it. It was a grand building, the facade said to be the longest of any house in the whole of the British Isles. Hundreds of servants were employed to manage the house and grounds and they had to walk five miles of passageways amongst the hundreds of rooms, one for each day of the year. Humphrey Repton had landscaped the beautiful park and filled it with follies, towers and columns. But over everything lay a very fine pall of dust, the coal dust that darkened the facade and lay on the furniture and gardens. The house itself stood on hundreds of tons of coal that lay deep in the ground beneath the house. It was a jewel set on top of the black diamonds so coveted, so needed at the time to help fuel the maws of the Industrial revolution and later to keep afloat the huge British Empire. The coal was exported to other countries as well making millionaires of the pit owners.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wentworth House</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: left;">In the end, the coal which made the 6th Earl so rich a man proved to be the undoing of the house and family and others' greed mixed with political power struggles almost brought the house itself down by undermining its foundations. The family, also undermined by scandals, hate, jealousies brought about their own ruin, strange stories of bastard heirs, changelings and mothers who turned against their own sons! But there was also a series of sad tragedies that led to their fall. The later descendants became associated with the Kennedys, another fated and seemingly accursed family. It is at times as if some malign God takes a dislike to a rich, successful, beautiful family and wreaks revenge for their foolish hubris and misdeeds. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wentworth village</td></tr>
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The Fitzwilliams were actually much loved by the community of miners who worked their coalfields for them. The Earl owned the pits, owned, the villages they lived in and paid their wages. He made sure their homes were reasonable and comfortable, the wages fair, listened to their complaints and on the whole, the men were glad to work for him and not some of the less philanthropic pit owners. The village was considered wonderful compared to many other depressing, run down miner's villages around the country. Yet, oddly, it was Wentworth that bore the brunt of the Miner's Strike in the deeply depressed era of the 1930's and the aftermath of the war because the ire of the Labour government of the time was aroused against the Fitzwilliams and all their kind. They became the scapegoats of this wrath.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQoWvNESUaRAQG-jZxCxAdU3VE0csRtvpWL7gFdzESy150jkWeaFl_Hsk9yrIVbvW4rnGxpTiHUneYv28WrlmuxQt9foo6lpp7oEFVsIU86qhi4TBxzugICVlrMa_g-l4wgRXI6A/s1600/1c_labor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQoWvNESUaRAQG-jZxCxAdU3VE0csRtvpWL7gFdzESy150jkWeaFl_Hsk9yrIVbvW4rnGxpTiHUneYv28WrlmuxQt9foo6lpp7oEFVsIU86qhi4TBxzugICVlrMa_g-l4wgRXI6A/s1600/1c_labor.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a>Sad as it is to read of the demise of this spoilt, beautiful, privileged family, sad as it is to see an old feudal way of life disappear into the mists of time, it was sadder to learn of the terrible poverty, hardships, squalor and slavery the mining communities had to undergo. It is true to say that they built between them a real spirit of giving, sharing, helping one another. In the right hands, the feudal system worked well and everyone was well provided for. But by the 20th century, greed was paramount amongst the pit owners and they were merciless in squeezing every drop of coal from the ground. The miners were slaves, as bad as the slaves of Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt, if not worse. They lived in the century of mechanisation, enlightenment, wealth in Britain. Yet their short, endangered lives were spent in the bowels of the earth, they had no choice, where else to go and work in such depressed times but in the mines as their fathers had done before them? </div>
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I felt for the miners. My uncle was one in Newcastle and I always remember staying with them and having to leave the room when he got home. His bath was a tin on set before the fire, filled by my auntie who scrubbed his back for him. But he was always cheerful and gave me a shilling for being good. I loved him, but like many miners, he died young. It wasn't a life that made old bones.</div>
Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-34710721999436322632014-07-01T12:57:00.000-07:002014-07-01T12:57:31.248-07:00I'm not too sure about FlowersEnjoy this poem by my friend and great poet, Richard Devereux. He and his family joined us for a walk on our lovely Malvern Hills and we took them to see the famous bluebells.<br />
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<b>bluebells</b><br /> bluebells and beyond the bluebells bluebells<br /> a whole hill-side of bluebells<br /> the famous Blackhill bluebells<br /> May Day bluebells<br /> <br /> run-away bluebells<br /> scampering bluebells<br /> drawn to the sunshine – sunshine bluebells<br /> ding-a-ling bluebells<br /><br /> my little girl lies in the bluebells<br /> in the long grasses and bluebells<br /> her hair is dressed with bluebells<br /> I see a painting – girl in the bluebells<br /><br /> a cry of pain – from the bluebells<br /> my girl is hurt – stung – forget the bloody bluebells<br /> she’s been stung by a bee in the bluebells<br /> no – by a stinging nettle nestling in the bluebells<br /><br /> there is always a nettle<br /> in the bluebellsLoretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-62595691551927745552014-05-18T12:50:00.005-07:002014-06-05T10:26:40.814-07:00A Stunning Tale: Return of The Native by Thomas Hardy<br />
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Recently I came across a paperback of <i>Return of the Native</i> in a second hand bookshop and grabbed it at once. It was a long time since I had read a novel by Thomas Hardy and this was one I had never tackled.<br />
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The trouble with reading a lot of modern fiction (especially thrillers and crime fiction which I do love) is that the dialogue and action are all important with virtually no descriptive passages. You are carried along at a helter-skelter pace most of the time as the crime is resolved and the characters play their part for a brief moment. It's the storyline that is important, the special style of the detective and his sidekick and often there is a sameness in the characters making them mere appendages to the required action. Such stories are marvellous when you need something to grab your attention and keep you mesmerised for a while, say at airports, on train journeys or snatched moments of rest in a busy day. But too much of this fast food diet is like eating too many hamburgers. Tasty and filling at the time but not really satisfying or even good for mental and emotional growth. I always feel a need for a little bit of <i>bon cuisine</i> after such a diet, a yearning to delve into something more thoughtful and thought provoking after a few of the fast paced thrillers (though I have been known to live on a feast of Earl Stanley Gardner books for quite a while. Perry Mason is quite addictive!).<br />
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I read many of the great English, Russian, French and American classics from ten years old and onwards and that is thanks to my Greek mother who had a wide ranging taste and education. It seems amazing now but as a child I was introduced to Charles Dickens at the age of ten at our primary school. Can you imagine this happening nowadays? David Copperfield was the first literary book I read and loved and it led me to many other wonderful books. We had a splendid local library were we lived then and I haunted it, avid for the good books available. Thankfully I read only classics for years, actually avoiding and even scorning 'modern' writers. But no getting away with it - my daughter was like all our family a great reader and enamoured of crime books in particular and introduced me to crime thrillers. I thank her for it because I enjoy them so much and have since been introduced to other modern writers by her. And some of them use stunning and wonderful opening descriptions. One of my favourites is the writer, Nicholas Evans, (<i>The Horse Whisperer</i>) - just read those first few pages of <i>The Divide</i> - his descriptions of the snow covered mountains are sublime.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catherin Zeta Jones as Eustacia Vye</td></tr>
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I say 'thankfully' because the result of all these 'fast food' books is that I do now find it hard work to get into a thick, meaty classic. They can seem so dauntingly slow and long drawn out in the description department and even the dialogue can be hard work. People's conversations in past times weren't as snappy as ours today! <br />
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However, I began to read <i>Return of the Native</i> but sadly confess that at first I struggled with the lengthy opening pages of the descriptions of Egdon Heath. (And I still wish they had been cut back by the author- just a little) However, the brilliance of the prose, the flow of dialogue and unusual characters soon drew me into the story and in no time I was totally immersed in the unhappy lives of Eustacia Vye, her lover, Damon Wildeve, Tamsin Yeobright and the native himself, Clym Yeobright. I began to feel more and more that the full, rich descriptions of Egdon Heath, this wild, almost desolate natural surrounding in which these people lived and loved, was as much a character as they were. It formed them and they grew forth from it, part of Nature themselves with the same wild moods and passions that often corresponded to their dramas. Eustacia hated it, hated the Heath and longed to escape it. She saw no beauty in its manifold changes and colours. For her it was a desolation that echoed the state of her own soul. To Clym Yeobright, the heath had grandeur, beauty and a meaningfulness which the city and its bright lights never held for him. Their different aspirations and inner lives were in total opposition and they were destined to drive one another apart. One felt deep sympathy for all the characters in this tale. They suffered as always the pain of misunderstandings and misapprehensions which for Hardy forms the warp and woof of life's dramas. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Egdon Heath</td></tr>
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<i>'The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to waken and listen . Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had awaited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the cries of many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last crisis - the final overthrow. '</i><br />
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The Heath becomes an impassive, impersonal watcher and listener to the little fates of those who live there. It is like some enormous Deity without pity, without anything but being itself for itself. Human lives come and go but it has been untouched almost since the dawn of time. Night, Nature, the Great Mother is the backdrop to most Hardy stories in which the compelling and passionate lives of his characters dwindle into insignificance in the presence of Nature's ancient detachment. <br />
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Many of the lines in this book tuned into my own feelings. 'The vision of what ought to have been is thrown aside in sheer weariness and browbeaten human endeavour listlessly makes the best of the fact that is.' Many such passages abound and ring a bell for us. One of the stunning descriptions is of the sound of the night wind blowing through the husks of the dead harebells which can be heard in the immense silence of the heath. Amazing. To spend time listening like this, listening to a silence so profound that the faint sound of these brown husks can be heard like a gentle song. <br />
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I feel this is one of Hardy's best novels and I hope you agree. <br />
<br />Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-36333996806404098692014-02-24T10:08:00.001-08:002014-02-24T11:45:28.038-08:00The Poetic Soul and the Dark Lover: the Haunted Bronte Women<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bronte Parsonage</td></tr>
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The Bronte family are perhaps one of the most outstanding literary families of all times. The sentimental myths that have grown around them and their lives since Mrs Elisabeth Gaskell published her famous, though somewhat biased biography , can now be perceived with more honesty through the work of modern biographers with more material to hand and less prejudice in favour of Charlotte. Yet none of the fascination is lost for having a spotlight turned upon the darker corners. We can still read such works as Emily Bronte's <i>Wuthering Heights</i>, Charlotte's <i>Jane Eyre</i> and Anne's <i>The Tenant of Wildfell Hall</i> and ask ourselves, as did their contemporaries, how on earth did these three young women, living fairly sheltered and parochial lives in a little Yorkshire town, write such passionate and feeling masterpieces. I invite you to look at this from a Jungian psychological perspective in which we explore the animus figure of these women. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Patrick Bronte</td></tr>
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This was a family with a literary soul. Patrick Brunty, their father, came from a labouring family in Ireland and changed his name to Bronte as a young man. He achieved a great deal, studied theology at St. John's College, Cambridge, receiving his BA in 1806 and eventually was given the living at a small Church in Howarth, Yorkshire. Patrick wrote varied articles and books on serious topics and encouraged his children to read literature and talk politics with him. He wasn't the Victorian ogre painted by Gaskell but neither was he a tender or demonstrative father. He left the child rearing to his wife's spinster sister, Lizzie, who came from Cornwall during the fatal illness of his wife, Maria Bronte, in order to care for his six children. This wasn't at all strange for the times; men seldom had much to do with their children. And certainly the children saw little of him for Patrick Bronte preferred to be left alone in his study, writing poetry, articles, organising sermons and other parish matters. There is no doubt that he was so wrapped in his own activities that he lacked sensitive care and attention to their welfare. He meant well enough when he sent his eldest two girls, Elizabeth and Maria, to Cowan Bridge School (an institution that was to be made famous by Charlotte as the dreaded Lowood). They were not wealthy and thus the girls needed an education in order to survive later in life as there was no guarantee they would marry. However, the Clergy Daughters School was poorly run at the time, the food so bad that the children ate little. First Maria died of consumption followed by Elizabeth shortly after. It seemed to take Patrick some time to realise he would lose all his girls. His first daughter, Maria, was said to be precocious beyond her ten years and with a brilliant imagination; we can only speculate about the books she too might have written.he bitterly mourned her loss.<br />
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Patrick hastily brought back Emily and Charlotte from Cowan Bridge and thus the remaining four children were educated at home. Branwell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne were now left to create their own amusements and entertainments and read extensively thanks to their father's liberality and encouragement, writing vast reams of material in their childhood, making up journals and tiny little books in which they recorded the adventures of their imaginary as well as heroes and heroines who were surprisingly sophisticated and worldly. <br />
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But in the main the characters in their imaginative play reflected inner characters, portions of their own nature brought to life. There is an emotional intensity to their work from an early age. Later we still see this intensity mixed with a down to earth Yorkshire quality which makes the male characters of the Bronte stories deeply fascinating for men and women alike. They are real and yet unreal, passionate, insistent, wild and in the case of Heathcliffe, untamed <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne Bronte</td></tr>
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There is no doubt that the early death of a mother creates a trauma in the lives of children, leaving a sense of loss and abandonment. Even though Anne was too small to remember her mother, this loss is still observable in her writings. In all the Bronte <i>ouevre</i>, there is seldom a warm, caring mother figure. There is also no doubt that a mother's unlived creative and spiritual character lives on in the children she has brought to birth. If she has not fulfilled her own creative yearnings, it is likely to be left to those who come after to try to contain her frustrated, enraged spirit it or live it out in some way. Maria Branwell Bronte, their mother, was herself an intelligent and educated woman but an early death with uterine cancer left her no time for development of her gifts.<br />
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Jung coined the term 'animus' for the 'masculine' part of a woman's psyche and Branwell in many ways took on the role of this figure and became a scapegoat for the family. He was too weak to sustain the greatness they wished upon him and his early talents led to nothing but drink, drugs, despair and an early death. The unlived animus of the mother instead percolated through her daughters in the form of those amazing creations, Rochester, Heathcliffe and Arthur Huntingdon (who is said to be based to some extent on Branwell Bronte) The dark animus is a part of the unlived, unconscious Shadow side which we all have. Men and women alike have written, painted and been fascinated by the Dark Lover aspect of their souls. We have 'The Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets, the innumerable 'fallen women' of painters and writers like Zola, D H Lawrence, Rider Haggard's 'She' - as well as the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's beloved Jane Morris and his obsession with the image of Persephone, the Goddess of the Underworld. And even now this archetype has taken form as a vampire image, devouring and yet fascinating in his deadliness. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charlotte Bronte</td></tr>
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Thus for the Bronte children, their dead mother became the mother who had been taken by Hades, living on in her children's psyches as something unknown, unlived, consuming yet also transformative. The archetype of the Dark Lover became Rochester and Heathcliffe and Arthur Huntingdon for the girls and a devouring, destructive reality for Branwell who actually lived it all out for them - a fate which often befalls the one who is a weak sensitive link in the family wiring and blows the family fuse. As children, the Brontes invented imaginary characters that inhabited their inner worlds and imagination; war, powerful men and women figures, strange islands and countries with peculiar people. Later these figures and pent up sexual and dark images were to explode upon us as the strong male characters of their books. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emily Bronte</td></tr>
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In Emily's Heathcliff, we come closest to the archetype. The characters of Catherine and Heathcliff, despite their wild, dramatic passion are oddly sexless; their union is on some other plane entirely ---a cosmic union of great archetypal forces beyond our understanding. Emily was never close to people but lived in a world of her own, a sexless free spirit, roaming the moors and at one with Nature and God. In Rochester, we have a warmer more human element but still Jane flees from his forcefulness, pathos, despair and can only possess him when he is humbled, maimed, half blinded. Charlotte was far more dependant on warmth and contact than that of Emily. Yet even when she at last describes in Villette the real man whom she loved and lost, she cannot be dishonest, she cannot possess him and Paul Emmanuel has to die at sea in the end. Of them all however, Charlotte it was who married in the end and had a brief moment of happiness and normality before death claimed her also. In Anne's Arthur Huntingdown we find a far more human character again. Huntingdon is almost redeemable at the end and has some contrition over his evil past.<br />
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These stories all seem to show that all this family had a lack of faith that anyone could find love, be sexual and human, and not have to die because of that love- as their mother had died - as many women at that time died from the exhaustion brought about by the sexual and procreative act. Branwell searched for love, falling for a woman much older than himself who cruelly betrayed his trust and naivete. Emily, caught by her archetypal animus did not even search for love, her soul filled with something more mystical and divine. The Dark Lover for her was a shadow side of God Himself. Charlotte married at last but even then seemed at some unconscious level to feel unworthy of happiness and love. She was expecting her first child but died before she could bring into this world a real human being. Perhaps the only one who died in peace was Anne, for unlike her character, Huntingdon, she firmly believed in her soul's redemption through the love of God and went gently into that good night.<br />
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<br />Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-65410371489642639362014-02-09T10:15:00.000-08:002014-02-09T10:15:22.086-08:00Another Amazing Woman: Grace Darling a Victorian Heroine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grace Darling</td></tr>
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Long before the tragedy of the ill fated <i>Titanic</i> was the sinking of the <i>Forfarshire. </i>Like the former, the ship was considered one of the greatest of Northern steamships. It had left Hull for Dundee in Scotland on September 7th 1838 with a large quota of wealthy passengers, mainly merchants and their wives returning from holidays in England. The ship left in good weather but on its way up North suddenly ran into a terrible storm.<br />
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Grace Darling was the twenty two year old daughter of William Darling whose family had been lighthouse keepers for many years. In those days the keeper lived on his light with his family, a strange, wild, lonely existence. This was especially the case here on Longstone Light, set on one of the windswept, rugged Farne islands off the coast of Northumberland. The situation was so bleak and wild that the family were often driven to the upstairs rooms to escape the crashing waves at the base of the Light. There was plenty to do, spinning, cleaning, gathering sea bird eggs to eat or catching birds when possible, fishing, books to read and the family members were used to their quiet life.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Longstone Light</td></tr>
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During the early hours of the morning of the 8th September, Grace climbed up the stairs to the lantern after a Night Watch and saw a large black hulk on the distant rocks. She wasn't sure if there were people on the wreck but couldn't rest easy unless they went out to see. Her father told her it was impossible to take their small boat out in this foul weather; they themselves would be dashed to pieces on the jutting rocks. It normally took three men to row it in bad weather and Grace's brothers were on the mainland at that time. Grace may have been a small girl but she was also a brave one and said she'd take the boat herself. her father reluctantly agreed to go with her.<br />
Dressed in her normal muslin dress with just a small cape, her father in his seaman's clothes, they set off and on reaching the rock they found the unhappy survivors clinging desperately to the hulk and fighting to reach their little boat. They took as many as they could and then returned again and took the rest of the people back to the lighthouse and safety; it was an incredible feat.<br />
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From then on Grace was lionised and made the heroine of the nation. But hers had been a quiet life on the light and she felt she had done nothing special. Her father had, after all, saved countless lives himself and his father before him. However, Victorian society was as silly over its celebrities as we are today and endless portraits were made of Grace, locks of her hair requested. She was given a small annuity and a silver gilt watch but the promiised silk dress never arrived...and she had always longed for a silk dress.<br />
She died at the age of twenty seven, exhausted by the attention and the loss of her peaceful existence. Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-91304069845705451282013-11-16T10:12:00.000-08:002013-11-16T10:12:16.990-08:00Amazing English Women: Role Models of the Past<div class="MsoNormal">
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When I was a young girl in the Fifties, we had a small
school library and I eagerly devoured everything there was to read. It ranged from children's favourite classics
to books of geography, history and so on. One book I was very fond of was about the English heroines, names that were then as familiar to us all as Britney Spears and Madonna are to today's kids. But rather a different set of role models. It contained stirring pictures of Grace
Darling who helped to rescue the survivors from the wreck of the <i>Forfarshire</i>, Florence Nightingale holding
aloft her lamp as she moved amongst the wounded at Scutari and Elizabeth Fry with
the prisoners of Newgate, a place she helped to reform.</div>
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This book left a deep impression on me, one of awe and
gratitude for these brave, strong minded women who defied the attitudes of their time
when women were considered as a second class race without talent, voice, or much
intelligence. Any woman who dared to
stand out and show herself to be an equal if not a superior to perceived male
intellect was deemed unfeminine, brazen, unchristian, or accused of
neglecting her family. So it took some courage
and conviction to stride out alone against the ideal of feminine sweetness,
gentleness, vapidity and colourlessness much trumpeted in Coventry Patmore's
famous poem 'The Angel in the House'.<a href="http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/thackeray/angel.html">http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/thackeray/angel.html</a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nowadays, despite a far less unbalanced attitude to women,
we no longer hold up such historical figures of women in the past as role
models. In fact, few children even know
who they are except in the vaguest manner, don't even spot their image on their
£10 and £5 banknotes. Most young people
seldom even use banknotes, do they? - but wield their piece of plastic instead. Role models now are pop stars, actors,
sporting figures perhaps. Some of these
figures are worthy, especially the latter, but many are not and simply appeal
to a youthful desire to be rich or simply to 'get on the telly.' Few girls now want to be nurses or do good
for those less fortunate than themselves. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wFKcwwpaY-AjIWNWkI5vto4ti2Csn8HDquWc6ZhoGVEIBS6UrLZLxqGOQG7c5pOpkuCdqS5McIW2vECTM5RVKoB854e9ILIQbk5w8LOQWHJYrCoogoPJ8ZsTm44p0pyzCX8s_A/s1600/2013-03-07-Elizabeth_FryNote460x231.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wFKcwwpaY-AjIWNWkI5vto4ti2Csn8HDquWc6ZhoGVEIBS6UrLZLxqGOQG7c5pOpkuCdqS5McIW2vECTM5RVKoB854e9ILIQbk5w8LOQWHJYrCoogoPJ8ZsTm44p0pyzCX8s_A/s320/2013-03-07-Elizabeth_FryNote460x231.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth Fry on the £5 banknote (to be replaced by Churchill)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So I hope to write a few lines now and then to remind us
about these incredible women of the past.
Let's begin with my favourite:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Elizabeth Fry<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqrzYxJaAcZZbex2lvyn1T_VcqQFZ5iHh-NYgX0mzKYxus50RFkQI1id1jqQHzQVbQX7ECm7GWIWx0i1TH5d3NG1toxUAOYHkHTCvhm8PHvOA98jUXqveqA734dRKYEt2rxM2Xw/s1600/Box+1+img022.preview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqrzYxJaAcZZbex2lvyn1T_VcqQFZ5iHh-NYgX0mzKYxus50RFkQI1id1jqQHzQVbQX7ECm7GWIWx0i1TH5d3NG1toxUAOYHkHTCvhm8PHvOA98jUXqveqA734dRKYEt2rxM2Xw/s320/Box+1+img022.preview.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elizabeth Fry</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:city w:st="on">Elizabeth</st1:city>
was born Elizabeth Gurney, her father a banker in <st1:city w:st="on">Norwich</st1:city> and her mother part of the Barclays
family. Her mother died when she was twelve
years old and as an older daughter, she had her hands full helping to raise the younger siblings. She enjoyed a good life when
young and admitted to loving dancing and riding in a scarlet habit! However, at the age of 18 she attended a
Quaker meeting and was deeply moved by the words of the American preacher,
William Savery. From then on she adopted
the simple, unadorned Quaker dress. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 1813 she married Joseph Fry another banker and also a Quaker
and had eleven children by him. She managed her household duties perfectly well
but always found time to visit the poor children in the school and workhouse at
Islington. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her real work began when she visited Newgate prison in the
company of Sir Fowell Buxton's sister. She
was horrified by the overcrowded state of the prisons, the women and children
living together in vile conditions of dirt and damp. Some of the women had not even been tried in
court but simply arrested and flung into these hell holes. <st1:city w:st="on">Elizabeth</st1:city> returned the
next day with clothes and food and even stayed the night with them, inviting
other members of the public to come and see for themselves what it was like in
there. The prisoners loved her and she
gained their respect. She eventually
managed to set up schools for the children, appointing one of the inmates as a
governess. The women gained some self
respect and began to see to their washing and cleaning and made efforts to
improve themselves. No one else was
going to do it. Matrons were installed
in the prisons where before they had been overseen by men and one can only guess
what that might mean. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Edith Sitwell reminds us in her article about Elizabeth Fry in the above wartime book that a 'destitute child of nine was committed to death for stealing four
pennyworth of children's paints. Eventually,
after considerable delay, the sentence was commuted. To what? Transportation to <st1:place w:st="on">Botany
Bay</st1:place>?' (<i>English Women</i>: Edith Sitwell) </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Les Miserables</i> was
fact not fiction. Here in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>
and also <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> and everywhere else in so
called 'civilised' countries. Mercy was
an unknown quality. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:city w:st="on">Elizabeth</st1:city>'s influence became
great and she was supported by Queen <st1:state w:st="on">Victoria</st1:state>. Other monarchs admired her and even the Czar
of Russia was influenced by her. When he
visited the debtor's prison, three old men threw themselves at his feet and
begged for his mercy. He told them that
their considerable debts would be paid by him, an astonishing act of kindness in a harsh and stern regime. Mrs Fry
visited <st1:city w:st="on">Copenhagen</st1:city>
and spoke to the monarchs there about slavery, the state of the prisons and
persecution of various religious sects and was befriended by the Kind of Prussia who came to visit the prisons himself. She founded a school for nurses that later
inspired Florence Nightingale. These were just a few of the societies,
libraries, schools and other institutions which this amazing and indefatigable womae set up. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She was said to be a warm and
wonderful person who moved all to tears when she prayed with them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prayer, she said, was always in her heart. 'Even in sleep I think the heart is lifted
up.' And as she lay dying of a stroke in 1845 her last words were, 'Love, all
love, my heart is filled with love for everyone.'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The seamen flew a flag at half mast for her passing, an
honour reserved for royalty. And thousands
stood in silence at her burial. A truly
noble lady. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com3Unknown location.48.922499263758255 -2.8125-26.409617236241743 -168.046875 90 162.421875tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-37134960138738977142013-08-12T10:06:00.000-07:002013-08-13T03:34:02.599-07:00Echoes of the Great War<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Echoes of the Great
War<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQiyCTE1actwHfZnrXE9vw9cVZzYKuqXJl8t1kMuyPvz41y-EHuJ8X9dCviRJDzizL_W4P65FIXydkIbiAirowKDGh85ag-VzyDyF3rag1XoJPSqlHAcmFRPcT5XhjgWsEcwtwTA/s1600/echoes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQiyCTE1actwHfZnrXE9vw9cVZzYKuqXJl8t1kMuyPvz41y-EHuJ8X9dCviRJDzizL_W4P65FIXydkIbiAirowKDGh85ag-VzyDyF3rag1XoJPSqlHAcmFRPcT5XhjgWsEcwtwTA/s320/echoes.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In August 1984, Radio
4 ran a programme on an intriguing War diary kept by a rector called Dr Andrew
Clark . By a strange coincidence this
was the name of my 'hero' in The Long Shadow, a story of World War One as it
was experienced by the Allies in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Salonika</st1:city>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Greece</st1:country-region></st1:place>. My husband was busy
sorting out a load of old newspapers and copies of the Radio Times that he's
kept all these years for various reasons of his own and this article caught my eye as he rifled through them </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The real Andrew Clark was a quiet scholarly rector in the peaceful
<st1:placetype w:st="on">village</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Great
Leighs</st1:placename> in <st1:place w:st="on">Essex</st1:place>. He was born in 1856 in Dollar, Clackmannanshire. As a young man he went on to <st1:city w:st="on">Oxford</st1:city>
and took a first class degree in Greats, returning to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region> where
he married and had children. He
eventually moved to <st1:city w:st="on">Oxford</st1:city>
where he became known as a skilled historian. He left Oxford with some reluctance
due to the fact that his wife hated university life and preferred the quiet of
a rural backwater such as Great Leighs proved to be He was a popular and
successful rector there and well liked by his contemporaries.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwV6F3bzzYmZEdqPChH1GsLrniUeplKcKloDBCq_Jm8N2h8Gi8NalYLqzr5xyAvcrlSC-OufqwZFGVbrHU9aIVXLLInOK14gLwBGhDqhlOcI2HoNZvJmEuNbrsnCTEcREvmKrp3w/s1600/andrew+clark.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwV6F3bzzYmZEdqPChH1GsLrniUeplKcKloDBCq_Jm8N2h8Gi8NalYLqzr5xyAvcrlSC-OufqwZFGVbrHU9aIVXLLInOK14gLwBGhDqhlOcI2HoNZvJmEuNbrsnCTEcREvmKrp3w/s320/andrew+clark.JPG" width="238" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Andrew Clark</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When war was declared in August 1914, <st1:place w:st="on">Clark</st1:place>
decided that he would collect as much information as possible about the reactions
and events that occurred to ordinary people as the war progressed. No one dreamt it would last as long as it did
or that one million British soldiers would not return home again. <st1:place w:st="on">Clark</st1:place>'s
historical background served him well and with meticulous care and a keen eye
for observation he determined to <span style="color: #333333;">note everything he
heard or saw relating to the War, from air raids to billeting, and from health
issues to news of fatalities. He also
collected letters, recorded rumours and conversations he overheard, compared
them to the officially released news with all their edited propaganda and useless
information. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;">He also collected ephemera,
recruitment posters, pasted and transcribed letters from soldiers in Flanders,
Salonika and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Italy</st1:place></st1:country-region>
that had been sent to villagers and commissioned the local schoolchildren to
write essays with their impressions of any events that took place locally. For
instance there was the occasion when 8,000 troops marched through the village
on the way to war. At the time the children
would have been enormously thrilled and excited by such a spectacle in a quiet farming
village like Great Leighs where life had been slow quiet and orderly for centuries. He also wrote to his daughter in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region> and gathered news from whatever sources
he could find such as YMCA officials, travelling salesmen, wounded soldiers,
men on leave and academic men in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oxford</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Dr Clark wrote up his diaries at
night and noted events hour by hour until the 28th June 1918, when the war
ended with the signing of the treaty of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Versailles</st1:place></st1:city>. He had once been a curator at the Bodleian
library and the librarian there encouraged Clark to send in his diaries as each
one was compiled, foreseeing that these would have value one day as records of
the period as seen from the ordinary lives of people who were not soldiers but
nonetheless drawn perforce into what was in effect a 'people's war'. There was not one, city, town, village or
family in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region></st1:place>
that remained unaffected. Even Great
Leighs, a small village of 600 people, sent 72 men to war and 19 of these never
returned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;">These books lay forgotten in the Bodleian
library for 70 years but were at last published as </span><i style="color: #333333;">Echoes of the Great War</i><span style="color: #333333;"> in 1985, edited by Dr James Munson who also
gave the talk on radio 4.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69-OsPbQ2fzl2NuQTfcnxQcs-7IkxmrYo1U0RmioYwYgjZGQJfRJ_iMJyrdKRvWWqI4Xvu1m-U44ZxEblIBaJY-2mFExOzGxJZQ9mI2aCwxmpfV-cQ9AlCR10Kh4dnJRdGoJ2yw/s1600/st+mary's+church.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh69-OsPbQ2fzl2NuQTfcnxQcs-7IkxmrYo1U0RmioYwYgjZGQJfRJ_iMJyrdKRvWWqI4Xvu1m-U44ZxEblIBaJY-2mFExOzGxJZQ9mI2aCwxmpfV-cQ9AlCR10Kh4dnJRdGoJ2yw/s320/st+mary's+church.JPG" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">St Mary the Virgin, Great Leighs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo9_mov1qOO0kajJO8PZ20eCWV_sFx_S0QAsRJV-sp2Kqci5YkLkm7LA2dHTz5CQWG3GIhkgFtLvF4B0Pg2yk04NucT2iagRyLYQexjnGu-Mji64o0rYILfKu0XYmxHq3_RBzVFQ/s1600/lyon+hall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: transparent; clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo9_mov1qOO0kajJO8PZ20eCWV_sFx_S0QAsRJV-sp2Kqci5YkLkm7LA2dHTz5CQWG3GIhkgFtLvF4B0Pg2yk04NucT2iagRyLYQexjnGu-Mji64o0rYILfKu0XYmxHq3_RBzVFQ/s320/lyon+hall.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lyon Hall home of the Tritton family</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;">My interest aroused, I recently made a visit to the
village, Great Leighs. It was always a
spread out village, now bordered by a great deal of new housing. The trees had grown and little remained of the wide empty country lanes of early last century. However, we began with the church where the Rector held his services, St Mary the Virgin. This attractive little church has an unusual tower. In the graveyard we found many of the Tritton family who had lived at Great Leighs for years and still do live there at Lyon Hall opposite the church. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Poor Dr Clark! He had quite a walk from his own home at the Rectory to the church. Imagine doing this in the dark of a snowy winter morning or early evening, hardly any heating allowed in the church because coal was rationed. Yet, he seldom allowed himself to shirk his duty unless sick.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1-3RYvWxKve8bjVKfWsATnZwLIhENwPkEfIKeXUFlEvFCpfIh_ErFMiz7hu5ALc5Y4VrjDKfM92MwvkmUiyG2DhOODgfLBxN5ecFnoMriMRFj_0Bbp_rG0dG4h38PEMYVLu3nvw/s1600/old+rectory.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1-3RYvWxKve8bjVKfWsATnZwLIhENwPkEfIKeXUFlEvFCpfIh_ErFMiz7hu5ALc5Y4VrjDKfM92MwvkmUiyG2DhOODgfLBxN5ecFnoMriMRFj_0Bbp_rG0dG4h38PEMYVLu3nvw/s320/old+rectory.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Old Rectory</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;">We found the Old Rectory, now looking very
magnificent with wrought iron gates and sweeping driveway. I suspect Andrew Clarke would have liked to
see it looking as smart as this. He
struggled hard to keep up the work and the big garden during the war years when
his groom/gardener, Charles Ward, was taken away to fight. Charles had come to work for him as a lad of fifteen
in 1909 and was responsible for the pony, drove the trap when required, looked
after the paddock, kitchen garden, orchard and lawns, drains and various other jobs. For this he got 16 shillings a week. Dr Clark did his best to keep Charles at home
with him because the young man was short in stature and did not have the required chest
measurement. Other village lads were at first
rejected on such grounds and felt very upset. They had thought it would be good to be paid
to enlist and see <st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Malta</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
or <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
It was still considered a splendid
opportunity to see the world and get away from the village and the hard work of farming and labouring. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br />
<span style="color: #333333;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="color: #333333;">Dr Clark did his best to keep Charles
Ward with him because the young man suffered badly from weakness of the chest
and wet weather would send him to hospital at once. However, letters to the
Recruitment Office were of no avail as they considered that if the young man
could do all that work, he should manage army life. Dr
Clark, however, knew he wouldn't be of much use to them on the Front and sure enough,
young Ward was in hospital within a few weeks of joining up. As soon as he was well, he was sent back to
the front again. He adored the Rector
and wrote regularly with his news; simple, ordinary little letters of a country
lad, but often quite touching. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1NF0xfwhpVyNRQS0fHgLDamTZwXrxYQ13KjRo0_KrznQFNjLKpX14GZJ_UFl4Tbf5008BWUHi1cMnjkyfkybsBqMFgCtbFRllgNB8qMYYGZNSXqLf1JD13jaCFNMpslzTHQhWgw/s1600/charles+ward.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1NF0xfwhpVyNRQS0fHgLDamTZwXrxYQ13KjRo0_KrznQFNjLKpX14GZJ_UFl4Tbf5008BWUHi1cMnjkyfkybsBqMFgCtbFRllgNB8qMYYGZNSXqLf1JD13jaCFNMpslzTHQhWgw/s320/charles+ward.JPG" width="176" /></a><span style="color: #333333;">Meanwhile the ageing Rector
struggled with the upkeep of his home, his sick and dying wife, though he made
no allusion to his private life in the diaries. He was also obliged to join a
form of Home Guard as he was too old to go to war himself. This meant walking around at night, patrolling
the streets and lanes to ensure all light were out and no strangers hanging about. Spy stories were constantly flying about and anyone vaguely foreign looking or odd was regarded with deep suspicion. Zeppelins were often heard going close by and
making bombing raids on nearby <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chelmsford</st1:place></st1:city>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Some of the stories brought back
by soldiers on leave were truly horrendous.
They put paid to the official bulletins which gave away little or nothing of
the true state of affairs in order to keep up morale at home. But the problem was that rumours then flew
around, fuelled by gossip and were</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">often more alarming than the truth. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Little by little old class systems were being
swept away and even women were being called upon to work as all the able bodied men had to enlist. The girls had as yet, a confused idea of identity and could at times dress in a rather comic fashion, unsure whether to
look like a man or a woman. Nothing like
as elegant as in a BBC TV production, I'm afraid, where they all look pretty and smart!. Andrew Clark describes a day when he saw some
land girls walking through the village dressed in riding breeches, a long smock
over these, an ordinary woman's hat atop their heads and a rattan cane in hand.
There was still a good deal of disapproval
of girls who worked on the land or in factories and often from other women. The wages, however, were high and many local girls
went off to do factory work, spending the money as fast as they earned it and
flaunting their 'wealth'. But when the
war ended and munitions factories closed down, wages also lowered with the
resultant discontent and difficulty in re-adjustment for both men and women. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;">It was a strange period in human history and the diaries of Dr Andrew Clark have captured it in all its
everyday detail full of moments of pathos, deep meaning and ridiculous trivia
and gossip. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc84laMEsWOeWwOmnxl9pRzbtsgmP3hptEOHW-gYAAzCFzxgBZalCMJROn11dFbJndiO1WJOHfILzwVuqyzW1J4vHFRn_i4uPF-wmw2MKy5NgqLOklCLiPd-OIERZaAdljKJksnQ/s1600/the+End+way.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc84laMEsWOeWwOmnxl9pRzbtsgmP3hptEOHW-gYAAzCFzxgBZalCMJROn11dFbJndiO1WJOHfILzwVuqyzW1J4vHFRn_i4uPF-wmw2MKy5NgqLOklCLiPd-OIERZaAdljKJksnQ/s320/the+End+way.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the End Way, Great Leighs</td></tr>
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Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-68354235493186208722013-07-17T10:53:00.000-07:002013-07-19T06:35:39.243-07:00The Changing Vision of the Bronte Legend<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5CbdSjaazD4qXwTxIrFid-qfT7K-mqK6w-pFwv9r94GbxYSLTcntKho4BjWLWYjrliAoo4jht2jHGZ_o_l0xYnLyGsXu6R07ISJbr6JQZo8Fq7v3HZIQDndzxZnXHjX0HsrOyfA/s1600/images+(3).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5CbdSjaazD4qXwTxIrFid-qfT7K-mqK6w-pFwv9r94GbxYSLTcntKho4BjWLWYjrliAoo4jht2jHGZ_o_l0xYnLyGsXu6R07ISJbr6JQZo8Fq7v3HZIQDndzxZnXHjX0HsrOyfA/s400/images+(3).jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Lately I had a fit of tidying and sorting my bookshelves and
came across three little volumes called The Story of English Literature published as Murray's Literature Series in 1908. These were only a few of the original series
intended for use at colleges and in schools. (Children learned about real literature in those days.) My three volumes spanned the Elizabethan era
to the nineteenth century.</div>
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I sat down to
read them knowing that many of the views and attitudes of 1908, a period of
Edwardian history, would influence and colour these worthy commentaries on our
gems of English Literature – nor was I wrong.
The writers and compilers of these volumes had the usual moralistic and
religious tone of the time which now seems so outmoded. So much research has since been done, many
biographies written and meticulously researched with more detachment than was possible
then, plus letters and other data have come to light. We can now view the great ones with modern
allowances for drug taking, romantic and sexual misadventures, political
extravaganzas. We can view things
through psychological interpretations and deeper understanding of the flaws of
human nature that go to colour and instil a man or woman with the genius of
creativity. We can wonder at their
brilliance but not feel we must whitewash their character to suit the
sensibilities of the times. But is that really true? Works once hailed as the best are coloured by a <i>new</i> sense of morality. Rudyard Kipling has lost much of his one time
popularity because he is now seen as a relic of the jingoistic, outmoded
attitudes of the <st1:place w:st="on">British Empire</st1:place>. However, he still holds his own because
stories like <i>Kim</i> and <i>The Jungle</i> <i>Book</i> are philosophic and great imaginative creations. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXQCRO8M1pJGFfvBrVh5r07O_xsEOxhVy6PJpH51KXVf6radYfIRnCYn0MZNCpg-YLvXTdWpNtdtv2BfCsd73uyDLjOtmJN9XopH7c0hZnB12BOr1MGkystYu630xq1_VIn1KSg/s1600/600full-jane-eyre-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXQCRO8M1pJGFfvBrVh5r07O_xsEOxhVy6PJpH51KXVf6radYfIRnCYn0MZNCpg-YLvXTdWpNtdtv2BfCsd73uyDLjOtmJN9XopH7c0hZnB12BOr1MGkystYu630xq1_VIn1KSg/s320/600full-jane-eyre-poster.jpg" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tim Dalton and Zelah Clarke were for me the best interpreters of the story</td></tr>
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This shift in attitude certainly applies to the work of the three
Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.
At the time that <i>Jane Eyre</i> and
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on"><i>Wuthering</i></st1:placename><i> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Heights</st1:placetype></i></st1:place> were published in 1846, the
works were regarded with some astonishment and even much disfavour at
first. The unmistakable power of the
novels was recognised and made them instant successes. But they soon began to receive condemnation
from the moral brigade who declared these stories were too outspoken. In one unkind review, <i>Jane Eyre </i>was reviled as 'if written by a woman it was one who for some
reason had long forfeited the society of her sex.' Women were meant to be 'the angel in the
house,' quiet, decorous, unseen, The boldness
with which, for instance, Jane raises herself above her 'station' and dares to
declare her love for <st1:place w:st="on">Rochester</st1:place>,
so much her social superior, was anaethema in those days. You knew your place. A governess declaring her love so passionately
and boldly to her master! How awful! How unwomanly! But Jane
refuses to accept his superiority. Where,
after all, does it lie, she wonders? His
may be superiority of education, rank, sex but she is far superior to him
morally and in the purity and innocence of her heart and mind. And she is not afraid to declare it.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUCMcodmr8ssDG9W-zVLAiHqfUXiOuGuzNfLsMbvYGrqTk-q8uOs91HiNmMHU1w4CiYqNv6IX3horIYKT_5eUTK2Wa7JWtom8z3ZrFwkUoq52QP0S7ww5YfhsUO2pbp1hL9fPIw/s1600/images+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfUCMcodmr8ssDG9W-zVLAiHqfUXiOuGuzNfLsMbvYGrqTk-q8uOs91HiNmMHU1w4CiYqNv6IX3horIYKT_5eUTK2Wa7JWtom8z3ZrFwkUoq52QP0S7ww5YfhsUO2pbp1hL9fPIw/s1600/images+(2).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">my very favourite Rochester, Tim Dalton</td></tr>
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<o:p> </o:p>Let us suppose the synopsis of Jane Eyre was to be sent to a
modern publisher; they would surely refuse it outright. The story now seems slightly ludicrous; the
mad wife in the attic, the unlikely coincidence of Jane falling by chance amongst
her unknown but loving cousins and being restored to her own rank and
status. Then there is the fire, the blinding
of <st1:place w:st="on">Rochester</st1:place>,
all the melodrama and operatic tragedy of the ending. Written thus, it sounds quite barmy. But so great is the writing, the passion of
feeling, the atmosphere and working up of the story to its climax that we are
swept along with it and we believe it to be possible. That's the Bronte genius.</div>
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I remember walking with my children along a darkening beach
in Northumberland many years ago and telling them the story of Jane wandering
and lost on the moors, begging for food and eating the scraps left for the
pigs. How apt a tale to tell, a picture
to paint, in the deepening loaming, the empty loneliness of a windswept
seashore with rain beginning to soak us as we walked home. How we enjoyed being scared and thrilled by
these scenes of Jane's life. </div>
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To me, this will be a favourite book of all times. <st1:city w:st="on">Charlotte</st1:city>
put all her deepest feelings, pain and longings into this book. Something in her practical <st1:place w:st="on">Yorkshire</st1:place>
nature never allowed her characters Jane or Lucy to have the man they loved;
just as in real life she was unable to have her beloved master, Mr Heger. Jane<i> is </i>allowed to have Rochester at last, though he has to be a cripple and dependent on her at first until at last she can say with triumph ... 'Reader I married him'.
Though this was not to be in <i>Villette</i>
or <i>The Professor</i>. <st1:city w:st="on">Rochester</st1:city> arises
from <st1:city w:st="on">Charlotte</st1:city>'s
deepest, inner world; he is her animus figure, a figure she transposed onto
Heger with his difficult but brilliant intellectual nature when she met the
real man. But the archetypal character
she paints in Jane Eyre belongs to her youth, the heroes of her earlier
childish works. However, by the time she
was to write Jane Eyre, she had already known real love and a real man and so
Rochester becomes more than an archetype. He is that but flavoured with real
feeling now and this is what gives him such mysterious and compelling
fascination. Jane was <st1:city w:st="on">Charlotte</st1:city> become a great deal more human and
real because she had been scalded by real feeling and love by then. Her heart
knew better. </div>
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So, modern attitudes?
We still have our critical standards but how they differ from
Charlotte's Victorian ladies and gents!
I have heard a feminist writer declare that though she loved Jane Eyre when
young (and to my mind untainted) having re-read it of late, decided that <st1:place w:st="on">Rochester</st1:place> was a dreadful immoral
bully and Jane a fool to put up with him.
Others would wonder why Jane agonised so much over becoming <st1:city w:st="on">Rochester</st1:city>'s
mistress. Who would care nowadays? But, it is foolish for us to judge Jane
Eyre's attitudes by modern standards of sexual equality and freedom. We have to recall that in her day, <st1:place w:st="on">Charlotte</st1:place> was being
extremely bold and honest. It was this
honesty that caused the reviewer to say 'if this was written by a woman, she had no
knowledge of her sex.' Well, she did.
And she wasn't afraid to admit that a woman <i>could
</i>love and could declare that love with passion and feeling and not pretend
to hide it, playing charm games and flirting as Genevra does in <i>Villette.</i></div>
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My English Lit book was surprisingly admiring of Emily Bronte's
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on"><i>Wuthering</i></st1:placename><i> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Heights</st1:placetype></i></st1:place><i> </i>saying it is 'an imperishable testimony to her genius.' It also
recognised the strange, psychological power of the book, its force and
darkness. 'It is not a beautiful story but a terrible one.' People found then - and still to some extent
find it difficult - to see that a young girl, brought up in a lonely <st1:place w:st="on">Yorkshire</st1:place> parsonage could conceive such a peculiar forceful character as
that of Heathcliffe. But here again we
speak of a dark animus figure within Emily Bronte, a woman who was known to have a tremendous
strength of character and mind. Emily,
as far as we know, never fell in love with a real man. She and her sister Anne continued with their
Gondal games and writings into adult life, immersed always in this
subterranean, unconscious world of their childhood full of its heroes and
villains. She wrote purely archetypal
figures and images from within her soul untainted by the confusion and errors
of normal human love encounters. The
loves and passions of her major characters are oddly sexless and unreal, in another world
than the human one. Only when we come to
the growing feeling between the young Catherine Linton and Hindley Earnshaw do
we approach a more natural human encounter and many of the minor characters are portraits drawn with real observation. </div>
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In its day <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on"><i>Wuthering</i></st1:placename><i> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Heights</st1:placetype></i></st1:place>
was acclaimed but not liked. Now, of
course, it is considered a work of great genius and the best of all the Bronte
novels.</div>
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When it comes to Anne Bronte, my book dismisses her in a
brief paragraph. According to this
writer, her two books <i>Agnes Grey</i> and <i>The Tenant of Wildfell Hall</i> 'ought
probably never to have been published.
Their only interest lies in the contribution which they make to the
fuller story of this remarkable family'.
Poor Anne to be thus dismissed!
Her works have now risen in status and though lacking the peculiar
passion of her elder sisters' works are, in fact, the most down to earth and realistic
of all the Bronte writings, holding up to view the life led by a governess who
was a servant and yet not quite a servant, a person of genteel background but
no real position in a household. In <i>The Tenant of Wildfell Hall</i>, she
explores with feeling and much common sense the predicament of a married woman
in her times when, no matter how she might be abused and used by a drunken,
lout of a husband, she and all she had was considered as his property and he
could claim her and her child back if he wished. Thus Anne, of all the Bronte girls, was an
early champion for women's rights and is seen as such nowadays. Anne's books are the more true to life
because of all the girls, Anne it was who went and became a governess, put up
with many difficulties in the family with whom she lived, had to keep an eye on
their unruly brother Branwell. She also
loved greatly and lost the man she loved to illness. Anne knew real life. </div>
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When these English Lit books were compiled, much reliance was placed on the biography written by Elizabeth Gaskell, <i>The Life of Charlotte</i> <i>Bronte</i>. But Mrs Gaskell is now known to have written this book in an attempt to make Charlotte's passion and temperament more acceptable to Victorian sensibilities; thus the dwelling on their supposedly hard and flinty father and the terrible life spent amongst the graveyards of the poor, miserable village of Haworth. We now know Patrick Bronte was a well read, highly intelligent, good man, not especially aware of his children but few Victorian men were. The child rearing was left to the women and the Brontes lost their mother young and were brought up by a preachy old aunt and a couple of servants. But this gave the youngsters great freedom and Patrick never prevented them from reading what they liked or discussing what they liked. He allowed them to flourish in their own unique manner. </div>
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How will we view the Brontes in another 100 years? Who knows! </div>
Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-84593669837284168342013-06-14T10:06:00.002-07:002013-06-14T10:06:38.051-07:00The Strange Failure of the Battle of Crete RelivedA very detailed and detached documentary film was shown locally this morning on The Battle of Crete in WW2. This was of interest to me because my parents were involved in the evacuation of British troops to Crete during April 1941 and fled from Crete to Alexandria.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Operation Mercury</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFYH9__qMzE7qzFK47gDpZY2mFeK8PGw4GsRlIWI-u5-JY7_NMbU1BxssOiI2XfikP8tBdowkWr638wEP8y9MA3hyphenhypheni5pPJBJIE23hEd5J50GdCoGgwmEPOI8yxYBohYyp1goM_w/s1600/so+young+dad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFYH9__qMzE7qzFK47gDpZY2mFeK8PGw4GsRlIWI-u5-JY7_NMbU1BxssOiI2XfikP8tBdowkWr638wEP8y9MA3hyphenhypheni5pPJBJIE23hEd5J50GdCoGgwmEPOI8yxYBohYyp1goM_w/s320/so+young+dad.jpg" width="207" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Cairns, my father</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My mother was a Greek living in Athens and met my father, who was then serving in the Royal Air Force in Signals. They had a whirlwind romance and married in Athens. After the wedding, my father was obliged to leave and join his unit while my mother, now a British civilian followed on as best she could.<br />
They were re-united on Crete and my father, despite his lowly rank, was allowed to leave with my mother when she was evacuated along with some officers and taken to Alexandria where an aunt of hers lived. They had pity on the newly weds and so he was allowed to sit at mother's feet on the Sutherland sea plane that took them away!<br />
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It seems the RAF were not much use in defending Crete as most of the planes had been taken off the island and sent to Alexandria due to the constant German bombing which was already taking place in preparation for the air assault. Thus the air force was evacuated quite quickly, leaving behind them all their possessions. We lost some beautiful photographs of my mother (at the time an admired young actress and singer in Greece) and pictures of other important family members, as well as other papers and family possessions that were in my father's kit bag.<br />
However, more importantly, they escaped safely to Egypt and later on I was born in Cairo. Thus does Fate work.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJgRDRuwGMPktxNnDVlRwYBC_JdtYOjuHJan5ZY5OzjfhlCipTMwO_8L_CAwb7BAH8PcTj1K2BNehGTss1UJGiIoV0-0BCqL1qILgPOYNICxL6OFY0vvUiwv35_K72UXMwyXiGEQ/s1600/Diana+and+Loretta+in+Egypt+1945.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJgRDRuwGMPktxNnDVlRwYBC_JdtYOjuHJan5ZY5OzjfhlCipTMwO_8L_CAwb7BAH8PcTj1K2BNehGTss1UJGiIoV0-0BCqL1qILgPOYNICxL6OFY0vvUiwv35_K72UXMwyXiGEQ/s320/Diana+and+Loretta+in+Egypt+1945.JPG" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">with my mother, Diana, in Egypt</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilrZpwPSzWGuYHin63YWGzThUazMRLbjvTchyphenhypheneriP3gUSZyjQlfuBpoiTKWtb2Xk9WFvxybBH-Rkluob7pY4ijBYXHJyyDwOEaF7Myq251_JO0LuT4-aI4PHl3DXZkO0xNCVamKw/s1600/images+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilrZpwPSzWGuYHin63YWGzThUazMRLbjvTchyphenhypheneriP3gUSZyjQlfuBpoiTKWtb2Xk9WFvxybBH-Rkluob7pY4ijBYXHJyyDwOEaF7Myq251_JO0LuT4-aI4PHl3DXZkO0xNCVamKw/s1600/images+(1).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">falling from the sky</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7VcU_5eg63ANLNCkdW_BF3IRcrS3XpkJVvOsRJYJBWVwUxAaG7WiQAF87AFbA5Lv1QLAD1EFnsD7WO5nlxomMJdnGDOCIb3rxThki8KIQTT8bFslQuCEi4D8CiIAL0RfC1uXb5w/s1600/images+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7VcU_5eg63ANLNCkdW_BF3IRcrS3XpkJVvOsRJYJBWVwUxAaG7WiQAF87AFbA5Lv1QLAD1EFnsD7WO5nlxomMJdnGDOCIb3rxThki8KIQTT8bFslQuCEi4D8CiIAL0RfC1uXb5w/s1600/images+(2).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">dead parachutist</td></tr>
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Operation Mercury was the German name for the invasion of Crete by airborne troops, a crack division of testosterone filled Hitler Youth who had been trained into a brilliant force. The idea was a daring one and the only airborne invasion ever made. However, it went badly wrong because surprisingly the parachutes were poorly made. And even more damaging, the supplies were sent down separately by parachute, and so the men were armed with a pistol and little else. They made easy targets for the New Zealand troops defending the airfields. Aiming for the legs so that they would catch the falling parachutists in heart or head, the Allied soldiers made short work of the invading force. But what shocked the Germans even more was the passionate reaction of the Cretan civilians who issued forth from their villages and fields armed with anything they could find, bill hooks, scythes, walking sticks, clubs, old muskets from the Turkish wars. Sadly the brutal reprisals, once the Germans captured the island were heavy, a whole region wiped out in retaliation. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv0Ddfa9-DFmaXvg3gHfLgiaQSECKCow17K4VauaD5HucWV5Qr6tOtJjLgSL-y4YWPqLoqrdkpYPDLp5c4eZPkVw4qg9da9rK4k4b_6FUIN7ZUVUXHlLa0cZr7Zi46gGOq5ZhYRA/s1600/images+(3).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv0Ddfa9-DFmaXvg3gHfLgiaQSECKCow17K4VauaD5HucWV5Qr6tOtJjLgSL-y4YWPqLoqrdkpYPDLp5c4eZPkVw4qg9da9rK4k4b_6FUIN7ZUVUXHlLa0cZr7Zi46gGOq5ZhYRA/s1600/images+(3).jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General Freyberg</td></tr>
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It seems with hindsight that the British with the help of the Australians, New Zealanders and Greeks could have won this battle but communication was almost nil and, as ever, many mistakes made. Churchill's insistence on using veterans of WW1 like General Freyberg was certainly one mistake. Freyberg was indeed a hero in that war but what he had witnessed then made his attitude cautious about sending in troops as cannon fodder. Thus he may have held back when it was necessary to push forward. But hindsight is full of blame for mistakes made in the heat and confusion and uncertainty of battle.<br />
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The saddest part of all this for me was the suffering of the Cretan population during the years of occupation. They put up great resistance from the mountains but whole villages were wiped out, men women and children. Many of these villages have never recovered from these terrible times. These people are amongst the bravest and the help of the Greek soldiers in holding the enemy while the British army was hurriedly evacuated at last has been little recognised. The Cretans, as well as the brave Maltese, should also have been awarded the George Cross for bravery in my opinion.<br />
<br />Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-26994956765355588912013-06-06T07:46:00.002-07:002013-06-06T08:34:20.705-07:00Thessaloniki: An Experience at the American College (Anatolia) Life never ceases to have surprises. Thanks goodness. Mind you, no one wants unpleasant surprises and I've had a few of those as well of late. But the invitation from the lovely American College in Thessaloniki earlier this year was a wonderful honour and I went there the last week in May to join a most interesting workshop organised by Maria Kyriakidou, the Assistant Principal. It was called <b>Art, Aesthetics and Power </b>and there were nine speakers including myself. Topics included several discussions on famous photographers such as Fred Boissonas, a Swiss pioneer of photography, Leni Riefenstahl and her film <i>Olympia </i>which she produced for Hitler's 1936 Nazi version of the Olympic Games, and Edward S. Curtis who photographed Native American people.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBs9fjN7SuNCs-5IK83TGMonb-YgRZvi8vT49kg_JqzNn2Xyu_UbRmNNC_CqHnKi8AxTfewccxWx8Cc4-xIyvcFxJa91p_5EM3Ek6-dr7pAnalt4ZUEt-JnZ7A2Pal1SFMoGYCQ/s1600/3346459391_5bceab365b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBs9fjN7SuNCs-5IK83TGMonb-YgRZvi8vT49kg_JqzNn2Xyu_UbRmNNC_CqHnKi8AxTfewccxWx8Cc4-xIyvcFxJa91p_5EM3Ek6-dr7pAnalt4ZUEt-JnZ7A2Pal1SFMoGYCQ/s320/3346459391_5bceab365b.jpg" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sioux maiden by Edward S Curtis</td></tr>
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By this time the indigenous Americans were safely corralled in reservations and these pictures were staged to make it seem the Indians were still in their former free state. All the same they are works of art and capture a time long lost. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWmJWOGt0KdcsHF0CrJUZDF9eXk1YgKx_OBp9m8krVpcO6uC3u2W5HnHBH0n9taLUhDP-Ph6OCXBBNwRJthQ6zz6lsJxna3QVkSM5n_meXxNO3w2w37Zxu3hrbdAK7azUVuDAqKQ/s1600/tumblr_ml759bL6g71rkotcoo1_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWmJWOGt0KdcsHF0CrJUZDF9eXk1YgKx_OBp9m8krVpcO6uC3u2W5HnHBH0n9taLUhDP-Ph6OCXBBNwRJthQ6zz6lsJxna3QVkSM5n_meXxNO3w2w37Zxu3hrbdAK7azUVuDAqKQ/s320/tumblr_ml759bL6g71rkotcoo1_1280.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greek village house by Fred Boissonas</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidaDuJNOmZ9fFfdXKKVNFc7pz6t8qr-0Bdw1EIn-q4Bfc_waYGz-ruRAGfemCm6Y73vIPigRWrfLXuj-2GT8fN22Ff1cvc1lPhxwdpMZjPa-zRZlTazFy8szoIReQprO1Efrf5HQ/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidaDuJNOmZ9fFfdXKKVNFc7pz6t8qr-0Bdw1EIn-q4Bfc_waYGz-ruRAGfemCm6Y73vIPigRWrfLXuj-2GT8fN22Ff1cvc1lPhxwdpMZjPa-zRZlTazFy8szoIReQprO1Efrf5HQ/s320/1.jpg" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leni Reifenstahl</td></tr>
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Other topics covered aspects of gender such as the importance of Mary Magdalene whom the Church denigrated as the repentant harlot and the story of Esmeray, a Kurdish transvestite from Kars. The last talk was based on interviews and research made in Cyprus on gay, and transgender Cypriot people and 'normal' attitudes towards them. Some other beautiful photographs of Thessaloniki and its architectural changes in the late 19th - early 20th century due to war, earthquake, fire also formed a most interesting discussion.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkvnQt1PTMShH5a5E55Fnd9K3KfjM3OrPypsMqAl0dHVKJpOSXbfrQsQMC4jtdkIG6fhkbR9FgmK5iivhWcphSxby-rzD1d29_9PzV079HJZRWwK39dM7NUXKwFcFcd3PMHtJvqg/s1600/viewer+(5).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkvnQt1PTMShH5a5E55Fnd9K3KfjM3OrPypsMqAl0dHVKJpOSXbfrQsQMC4jtdkIG6fhkbR9FgmK5iivhWcphSxby-rzD1d29_9PzV079HJZRWwK39dM7NUXKwFcFcd3PMHtJvqg/s320/viewer+(5).png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Thessaloniki</td></tr>
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My own talk was on my first book <i>The Long Shadow</i> which was mainly set in Salonika in World War One. Ypres, the Somme, Passchendale and all the other haunting names of the Western Front are well known events, lived over again and again in films and documentaries. We conjure up pictures of slithering mud, cold trenches and other harrowing scenes of Western battle zones. But who knows much about Macedonia and the freezing Vardar winds, the barren but beautiful mountains, the treacherous ravines and raging summer heat filled with malarial mosquitoes? The troops entrenched in Salonika behind barbed wire barricades called it The Birdcage, hence the title of the talk The Barbed Wire Birdcage. The Long Shadow is a novel that explores the events of the Salonika Campaign through the imaginary diary of a Red Cross nurse with true as well as fictitious events based on letters, diaries, magazines and books of that period. We see Salonika as a fascinating, multicultural city described through the eyes of doctors, nurses and ordinary Tommies, many of whom laid down their lives there. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIYhKiWyc5brqO_qp5Xq6gzqvjK1DiiQ9muiujgiDInAcNeFQF3NRsMsYHnU3YAhcxAOuNCX0yjDZVWwpOwI45KiqAW9j-3_i6h5KepGHqqcZPeA6UtYDmiF8GZfOeWGSOtdxz1A/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIYhKiWyc5brqO_qp5Xq6gzqvjK1DiiQ9muiujgiDInAcNeFQF3NRsMsYHnU3YAhcxAOuNCX0yjDZVWwpOwI45KiqAW9j-3_i6h5KepGHqqcZPeA6UtYDmiF8GZfOeWGSOtdxz1A/s400/download.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Talking about the Struma Front</td></tr>
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It has been a most enjoyable experience. Thank you all at ACT for inviting me there.<br />
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Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27877766.post-57556835227520824792013-04-21T03:35:00.000-07:002017-03-07T07:34:13.221-08:00Elgar's Last Love<h2>
<b>Elgar's Last Love</b></h2>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_rNPnQK2lrC4w_nSS3PkPAmAwPxHv8i-GFCsTZKY9LuB2JKviVS6IZejRMLmRXdlTqNZBoSwddgXWMqlEsWX1Ke7XWi0l3wlxzjwXEVmPGH73a8pfklxs6WNQLbXqucvZZv2QLw/s1600/220px-Edward_Elgar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_rNPnQK2lrC4w_nSS3PkPAmAwPxHv8i-GFCsTZKY9LuB2JKviVS6IZejRMLmRXdlTqNZBoSwddgXWMqlEsWX1Ke7XWi0l3wlxzjwXEVmPGH73a8pfklxs6WNQLbXqucvZZv2QLw/s400/220px-Edward_Elgar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sir Edward Elgar</td></tr>
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There can be nothing closer to a heavenly sound, a world
known only in distant dreams and visions, than the slow, exquisite diatonic
melody that opens the first part of Elgar's First Symphony. The sound is
stately yet haunting; as Elgar would himself say, 'broad, noble, chivalrous.' His wife Alice called it the 'great and
beautiful tune.' It is more than that;
listening to the sombre depth of the woodwind and the haunting long drawn out
sigh of the violins and violas sends shivers through me. It's another world, another land which
beckons and awaits one . . . somewhere.
I could listen to it again and again.
He has been called the greatest composer of the symphony there is and I
agree with this judgement It's no
surprise to know that this long awaited symphony, played for the first time by
the Halle Orchestra in <st1:city w:st="on">Manchester</st1:city> and four days
later in <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>,
met with such rapturous applause. Elgar was called back again and again; the audience
would not let him go with many standing up on their chairs in order to see him.
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The 'great and beautiful tune' began while he tinkled idly
on the piano. His wife suddenly
exclaimed. 'I like that tune' and from
then on it remained in Elgar's head for a long time before at last becoming the
opening passage of his symphony. Nor did
the symphony itself come with ease. It
seemed to waver always somewhere in the back of his psyche and the opening
theme may be said to be his 'soul' sound, held there since a young boy sitting in
the reeds by Severn side and heard music flowing through the river, the trees,
the air . . . </div>
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In an interview Elgar once said, 'my idea is that there is
music in the air, music all around, the world is full of it. . . and you simply
...simply...simply...take as much of it as you require.' </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEOvkSUIKrZXkUUbapUYbTeL82wTKrLLb0OAJZRXYmijGj5avfZQrkqnxodGGPRxrS0DuVhDKn4yrqgXKnEWrblMH3y-CpQr2Rrz0PoFfruKlZ85e867rOJljTaRGoGHLWC8KJg/s1600/Elgar-Alice-c1891.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCEOvkSUIKrZXkUUbapUYbTeL82wTKrLLb0OAJZRXYmijGj5avfZQrkqnxodGGPRxrS0DuVhDKn4yrqgXKnEWrblMH3y-CpQr2Rrz0PoFfruKlZ85e867rOJljTaRGoGHLWC8KJg/s1600/Elgar-Alice-c1891.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elgar and Alice Roberts</td></tr>
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Like all creative men, the 'puer' type, Elgar needed a
strong, mother figure in his life to sort out all the practicalities while he
could dream, compose, conduct, weave his glorious melodies. I's a great and natural arrangement , one which he found through a staunch, loyal wife. Alice Roberts met Elgar when he was teaching the
piano at Malvern. He was twenty nine,
always a significant age in human life. She
was just turning thirty eight and the daughter of a Major General, a social
class way above that of the piano tuner's son. These foolish social complexities mattered in
those days. However, <st1:place w:st="on">Alice</st1:place> felt convinced of Elgar's genius and
they married despite the disapproval of many, including her parents who refused
to attend the wedding. She ended her life as Lady Elgar so that must have proved her point.</div>
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In many important ways, it is <st1:city w:st="on">Alice</st1:city> we have to thank for Elgar's
music. She was a keen poetess but
abandoned her own interests in order to urge and encourage her husband in his own pursuits. As she once said, 'The care of a genius is
enough of a life work for any woman'. Without her strong and dominant nature,
he might never have brought his attention fully to work on longer, deeper compositions; part of him seemed always to want to escape and dream, cycle endlessly around
the lovely Worcestershire countryside, gaze from his window at the rolling
hills. So true of the creative
type! The actual production of the work
is the hardest part of all and often seems like giving birth, as if something
is born but parts from within one's soul, never to return. The unborn is always full of possibilities,
once born it is in some ways already dead. </div>
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Like so many creative people, he seldom made much
money and had to produce a variety of songs and small pieces to earn their
keep. This is a sad reflection on our modern
age which pays much to the mediocre but doesn't foster the talents of the
great. 'All about the money' . . . as Elgar
would have said despairingly. </div>
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Elgar sought for his anima, his soul figure in a variety of
women and he in turn was extremely attractive to them. <st1:city w:st="on">Alice</st1:city>
was the rock, the mainstay, the mother figure, but such men need a passionate
romantic interest to fire their creativity.
This inner figure is like the mate of the creative spirit, rather than the mate of
the body, belonging within the psyche rather than in prosaic outer life. Projected onto a
real woman, it can stir the creative impulses and produce the wonderful
'child'. There might or might not be
physical mating as well. In a way, that
is unimportant, in fact it might even destroy the illusion, the romance. It is a spiritual quest, the quest of the Troubador. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg634HyzTnu5aH9doF2t_YUbRsnaVX0riv-C9BOxcRGAGmCb0oIYGh-35c7NB5vRoUNczaQeHhDxp_4tD-6STfS1WgiRn1rVwpaG-32uglo0bRueIzIysAn7Mj4RSegxWOBZMoDXw/s1600/Alice-stuart-wortley-by-millais.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg634HyzTnu5aH9doF2t_YUbRsnaVX0riv-C9BOxcRGAGmCb0oIYGh-35c7NB5vRoUNczaQeHhDxp_4tD-6STfS1WgiRn1rVwpaG-32uglo0bRueIzIysAn7Mj4RSegxWOBZMoDXw/s320/Alice-stuart-wortley-by-millais.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alice Stuart Wortley</td></tr>
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Like Dickens, Elgar had a first love when he was a young man. This girl broke their engagement and left for
<st1:place w:st="on">New Zealand</st1:place>.
How different things might have been if
he had made this more ordinary, provincial marriage rather than meeting the
strong minded Alice Roberts! Would his
genius have flowered then, one wonders? Elgar was later to meet another Alice,
daughter of Millais the Pre Raphaelite painter.
He formed a lifelong romantic friendship with Alice Stuart Wortley and
though he, his wife and her husband were all friends, the couple did meet up
clandestinely on occasions. Elgar called
this <st1:city w:st="on">Alice</st1:city>
'Windflower' and dedicated his Violin Concerto to her. He was fond of putting the sounds of his
friends into music as we see in Enigma variations. There is no doubt that the relationship with 'Windflower' was very special to him for many years and Elgar alludes to summer evenings full of
romance in some of his letters. </div>
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When his wife Alice died in 1920 Elgar was devastated and
ceased to write any more after this. 'All I have done was owing to her and I am
at present a sad and broken man.' He
wrote to a friend after her funeral. He had lost his driving force in the shape
of this strong and supportive woman and he mourned her. The energy of composition seemed to go with
her but it was also his sense of the change in the world since the horrors of
the First World War. He knew nothing
would ever be the same again and his music was no longer appreciated by the younger
generation who saw him as part of the old regime that had created the war. George Bernard Shaw deplored the fact that
Elgar's music was being neglected and the Shaw festivals were created at Malvern
to honour it and also Shaw's plays. Nowadays,
Elgar is once more appreciated as a great composer and belongs especially to
Worcestershire and the beauty of the great rivers and the rolling <st1:place w:st="on">Malvern Hills</st1:place> which Elgar loved so much. He is everywhere here in Worcestershire, his
music flows about one as one walks the hills, soft echoing, rolling melodies,
gentle as the scenery about one, full of space, light and yet tinged with
sadness.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXBxdSTzwhzjoZzCmTjVvzZYEXzvBk-p9pS5BeQ9efnJXhqAopV-M3xyEXPZBUvSNxDbBvGWH4guDiRhcVIMmE0EgHVXNjtsl-YXr_rpDFWEr8LyHR0OTQlZexLeWJpsL-QcySQ/s1600/carice+Elgar.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPXBxdSTzwhzjoZzCmTjVvzZYEXzvBk-p9pS5BeQ9efnJXhqAopV-M3xyEXPZBUvSNxDbBvGWH4guDiRhcVIMmE0EgHVXNjtsl-YXr_rpDFWEr8LyHR0OTQlZexLeWJpsL-QcySQ/s320/carice+Elgar.JPG" width="236" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carice Elgar</td></tr>
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Elgar cut off his relationships with many of his previous
lady admirers and friends apart from 'Windflower' with whom he kept up a distant friendship,
passion long gone. His only child, Carice, grew closer to him now whereas in her youth she had been sent away to boarding shcools and generally kept out of her father's way so as not to disturb him. He seemed to feel his
time was over, a lonely, unhappy man.
His energies turned to the pursuits of a country gentleman with dogs,
horse-racing and walks. But at the same
time, he no longer seemed interested in convention, freer to be himself, one of
the joys of old age.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPjMwPqbOuNSccJrir99tkgOIWo2I9jZweqyKfR9ZbK33oBwdnHoSSM5YSvvyAJPnmWkEvwrnsvhwc4jTMgWMbz4jXCAeZ9zJoR2wrD2TnFdhN3lQUJkdbh5iLMS4FpvoFnazi3A/s1600/rememberance.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPjMwPqbOuNSccJrir99tkgOIWo2I9jZweqyKfR9ZbK33oBwdnHoSSM5YSvvyAJPnmWkEvwrnsvhwc4jTMgWMbz4jXCAeZ9zJoR2wrD2TnFdhN3lQUJkdbh5iLMS4FpvoFnazi3A/s320/rememberance.JPG" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The programme in which Elgar noted their first meeting</td></tr>
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Thus he was open and like fallow ground when the momentous
story of November 1st 1931 unfolded.
Momentous for him and for a young violinist in the orchestra he was
conducting that day. The date became a
part of their private story, a sudden and amazing meeting of soul mates. The
name of the violinist was Vera Rebecca Hockman, a sweet natured, gentle, warm, Jewish girl. She already had a hero
worship for the great composer and felt she knew him through his music as if
already a part of his soul. She was
thrilled to be among the first violins when Elgar was asked to conduct 'Dream
of Gerontius' at the Croydon Triennial Festival. As she played she realised he
kept looking at her over and over again and afterwards asked to be introduced
to her. They swiftly struck up a deep
loving friendship. Vera accompanied him
often as he couldn't bear to part with her company.
She was a married woman with a daughter but she and her husband had
separated long before but nonetheless, conventions required that they kept their unusual (and likely to be misunderstood) friendship fairly low key in the eyes of others. Elgar may have
considered marriage but his own daughter Carice was alarmed by the idea
although she had no personal animosity towards Vera. In fact they became very good friends and
Carice really enjoyed the other girl's company, a fact she often noted in her
diary. Vera was one of those happy people who brought joy and peace to others.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOJsOSdAqAAb0wy4mIcEyqk02g9V-nzrcUmL26qkSXLMcweHsGtBX4Hah_18Yg4bU59cP_zE9mc2mGuYXUBATLExg-kpB41Wyg15GCjM_mUF2bYmpSymkA_DI4xVAc8S30kmZObQ/s1600/DSCN3374.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOJsOSdAqAAb0wy4mIcEyqk02g9V-nzrcUmL26qkSXLMcweHsGtBX4Hah_18Yg4bU59cP_zE9mc2mGuYXUBATLExg-kpB41Wyg15GCjM_mUF2bYmpSymkA_DI4xVAc8S30kmZObQ/s320/DSCN3374.JPG" width="205" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vera Hockman </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Elgar said that Vera made him so happy and his great regret was there was so little time due to the vast age difference. He had been a sad and troubled man all his
life but this warm, accepting, tender woman was able to give him this joy in
his old age and remained with him till he died in 1934. The feeling she created in him at last brought him out of his creative lethargy and he began to compose the Third Symphony, dedicating one of its movements to VH. He said that she was 'my mother, my child, my
lover and my friend.' </div>
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How wonderful a tribute for any woman. How I envy her!<br />
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The Third Symphony sadly remained unfinished, a 'great tragedy' as T.H. Lawrence put it. Perhaps in another world, Elgar and Vera may meet and the symphony finish there. It's a nice thought. </div>
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<br />Loretta Proctorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08086372952753615041noreply@blogger.com9