Month: November 2020

A Prominent Mainer

This Photograph of Thomas B. Reed is from Sauk Valley Media.

The third chapter in Barbara W. Tuchman’s ‘The Proud Tower’ is entitled ‘End of a Dream – The United States: 1890-1902’. I finished reading it this afternoon. It can be no coincidence that she closed her period with the year in which the gentleman whose portrait appears above died on 2nd December.

A Republican from Maine, the Speaker of the House, this giant of a man in all respects according to Tuchman, dominated the political scene during this decade until the public mood brought about his retirement to his legal practice.

This was a period during which the struggle between the adherents of the basic constitutional principles and the bellicose expansionists resulted in the United States going to war against Spain in Cuba and the Philippines.

Reed had begun by successfully taking on Democrat filibustering techniques and changing the working of the house. He continued his isolated position battling against the popular imperialist tide until he realised he would be no more successful than had been England’s King Cnut.

‘Canute was 40 when he died in 1035. He was also known as Cnut the Great, King of England, Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden. By the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 his story was quickly becoming lost to time but his relationship with the tide lingers on.

We can thank the historian Henry of Huntingdon who recorded the story of the tide in the 12th Century. The general consensus is that Canute sat his throne on the beach and commanded the tide not to rise so that his royal presence would remain dry…… 

Apparently Canute was trying to prove a point about Kings and God: ‘Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.’ (https://www.firstclasssailing.com/blog/the-king-canute-dispute/)

The great man from Maine would have agreed with him.

It is perhaps significant that some United States soldiers in the Philippines perpetrated similar mass reprisals against villages any member of which was believed to have killed one of their men.

Later this afternoon we visited Elizabeth and enjoyed a lively conversation, interrupted by a call from Patrick.

Earlier I had received a similar call from the same gentleman. “This is Patrick”, he said, “I am calling about your Government grant for the lagging you have recently had installed in your loft”. Quick as a flash, because I am attuned to these things, because I hadn’t phoned anyone about it, and because we hadn’t had any lagging done, I replied: “Bugger off, Patrick and try and scam someone else”. He hung up. Had I had more time I might have strung him along a bit, but I wanted to finish my chapter.

Elizabeth’s Patrick may or may not have been the same as mine. “I think you’ve got the wrong number”, she said. He hung up.

This evening Jackie and I enjoyed a second sitting of the excellent Hordle Chinese Take Away fare with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra.

All My Ducks In A Row

On a bright, fresh, and crisp morning we took a drive into the forest. Slanting sunshine set the thawing frost glistening and lengthened shadows.

We tried a visit to Tanner’s Lane. This meant driving between rows of parked vehicles with no turning space. I walked while Jackie turned back.

We had imagined this little hidden beach would be safe enough. No such luck.

This was the only group keeping some distance from others on the sand and shingle.

There were other dogs, one in the water with three hardy humans.

I was not inclined to linger.

We continued to Sowley Lane where I was next decanted.

Some oak leaves dallied on gnarled limbs; others, grounded, glistened with dew drops; holly prickles had broken one’s fall.

Two men in a boat discussed their best fishing spot.

We stopped for a look at Buckler’s Hard,

where a robin drew our attention to the parking restrictions.

As we passed Beaulieu Mill Pond I spotted a pair of long necked log peacocks on the far bank.

Jackie parked and I walked back past the border of reeds to photograph them.

On the way there I managed to get all my ducks in a row.

Down a bank along Lymington Road a solitary donkey enjoyed a breakfast of spiky thistles.

Ponies preferred grass

or languorous cogitation of the thawing frost in the hazy sunshine.

In her Modus Jackie aroused the attention of an inquisitive field horse which she photographed along with

golden silver birches and glistening white terrain.

This evening we dined on Mr Chan’s Hordle Chinese Take Away’s fine fare with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra which involved opening another bottle.

On The Brink Of December

On a bright and sunny morning I wandered round the garden in my shirtsleeves.

Individual titles of these views can be found when accessing the gallery with a click on any image. The last two pictures show a Japanese maple before and after it had been pruned by Aaron and his A.P. Maintenance team who also

tidied up some of the beds.

Even a sleepy bee on a cobea scandens didn’t seem to realise that we are on the brink of December.

‘So enchanting was the vision of a stateless society, without government, without law, without ownership of property, in which, corrupt institutions having been swept away, man would be free to be good as God intended him, that six heads of state were assassinated for its sake in the twenty years before 1914. They were President Carnot of France in 1894, President Canovas of Spain in 1897, Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1898, King Humbert of Italy in 1900, President McKinley of the United States in 1901, and another Premier of Spain, Canalejas, in 1912. Not one could qualify as a tyrant. Their deaths were the gestures of desperate or deluded men to call attention to the Anarchist idea.’ So begins the second chapter of my Folio Society edition of Barbara W. Tuchman’s ‘The Proud Tower’, namely The Idea and the Deed – The Anarchists: 1890-1914′.

This chapter deals with the Anarchism that swept Europe during this period leading to WWI – the theory of the intellectuals and the actions of those prepared to carry out ‘The Deed’ with which it was hoped the populace would be terrified into changing the orders of society. As always in such events, more ordinary people were killed than those for whom bombs or bullets were intended. Interestingly, it seems that Germany, who used the terror tactics espoused by their military theorists to suppress the Belgian people in August 1914, was the major European country least affected by the Anarchists.

Tuchman’s descriptions of the avowed terrorism bears alarming similarity to that technique practiced today. Unfortunately modern bombs are far more destructive than those that were available more than a century ago. Perpetrators are prepared now, as they were then, to sacrifice their own lives for their espoused cause.

The fluid writing in this work is far more literary than that permitted by the requirements of ‘The Guns of August’.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent shepherd’s pie; a leak and pork sausage; roast potatoes; moist ratatouille; and firm cauliflower, carrots and Brussels sprouts with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Coonawarra.

The Talented Tattooed Tiler

This morning and into the afternoon Darren Gregory (Facebook Page DG ceramics) tiled our kitchen.

Darren is cheerful, friendly, fast, and efficient.

After cleaning the surfaces to be covered, Darren applied a ridged primer on which he carefully fixed the individual tiles. While waiting for the panel behind the hobs to dry, the craftsman repeated the process beneath the hanging shelves and the granite work surface. The primer is kept in a small tub, liberally applied with a flat trowel thingy, a bit like the blackboard duster that the schoolmasters of my youth might lob around the classroom; once the tiles are in place the adhesive is tidied up with a forefinger, smoothed over, and sponged clean.

The tiles that have to be cut are carefully measured, sawn, and clipped to fit. Surrounding the light switches was perfectly done. “Stay there” said Darren, as he applied a length of sticky tape to hold one in place while he carried out the operation.

I was a little premature in photographing what I thought was the completed work. The silicon gun had yet to squirt the final trim.

This evening we dined on roast chicken thighs, potatoes, parsnips, pork and leek sausages, sage and onion stuffing; crisp Yorkshire pudding; moist ratatouille; firm carrots and Brussels sprouts, all with meaty gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank The Second Fleet Coonawara smooth blend of Cabernet, Merlot, and Petit Verdot 2019

Highland Games

Late this morning we visited Mum in Woodpeckers where she continues to thrive. This time she availed herself of the blanket provided.

Afterwards we drove into the forest for a picnic in the car.

The day was cooler and overcast. From the bridge on Rhinefield Road I obtained enough light to photograph reflections in the stream.

Still host to a small holly tree, the toppled ancient oak at Bramshaw has now been completely cleared away,

with the exception of fallen leaves now camouflaging foraging wagtails.

A pair of donkeys leaning beside a brick wall watched

a couple of Highland cattle pondering their next move. I have often photographed them before, but not until today have I been formally introduced to Splash and Blackie. They stood aloof while a young lady did the honours.

As I returned to the car they heaved their lumbering bulks onto the tarmac and with swaying gait set off in the direction of Furzley Common which was our destination. Fortunately Jackie was able to negotiate our way round them.

We parked beside a stream and settled into our lunch when

a regular clop of horses’ hooves alerted me to the approach of a carriage and four passing a herd of cattle who were themselves soon to feature in our story.

Having journeyed a lumbering mile from Bramshaw the two Highland cattle approached and set up a regular lowing. “I wonder if they are going to join those cattle over there?”, I mused.

They were, indeed. In Splash’s case somewhat vigorously. It is not just the local flora that are confused about the season.

As I was about to return to the car a quartet of portly porkers approached. I was forced to attempt to evade the attentions of the Gloucester Old Spot. Jackie’s cackles from within almost drowned the snorting slobbering of my new admirer as she raised her dripping snout for a kiss. I was scared of this, but even more scared of her feet as she rounded me beside the car door. Being trodden on by a creature weighing up to 280kg was no joke. In the circumstances I thought my Chauffeuse was a little harsh.

This evening we dined on crisply roasted chicken thighs, sage and onion stuffing, parsnips, and Yorkshire pudding; piquant cauliflower cheese; creamy mashed potatoes; firm carrots, peas, and Brussels sprouts, and tasty gravy, with which we shared the last of the Rioja.

The Menagerist

In her Foreword to her ‘The Proud Tower’, Barbara W. Tuchman states that ‘this book is an attempt to discover the quality of the world from which the Great War came’. First published in 1966, this is largely a collection of previously published writings gathered together. The first, entitled, ‘The Patricians – England: 1895-1902’, describes the powerful ruling classes whose complacency, based on the assumed right to govern accumulated over centuries of inherited position, wealth, and advantaged education, was unassailed at that time. According to the writer their status as leaders was seen to be natural and unquestioned, and would always be rewarded with success. The setbacks of the Boer War came as a great shock.

On a drizzle-miserable day I finished reading this chapter.

Later I scanned a few colour slides from Abney Park Cemetery produced in March 2009.

The last three of this set are of the multi-denominational chapel which has been graffiti-desecrated at the rear, bricked and boarded up. When making these images I was told that the building is intact inside. I do hope some renovation has been undertaken in the years since then.

I have converted those in this gallery to black and white.

The last two, bearing the sculpture of a docile lion, are of the tomb, shared with his wife, Susannah, of Frank Charles Bostock who ‘was part of the Bostock and Wombwell dynasty, famed for the presentation of travelling Menageries throughout the nineteenth century and the first third of the 20th century. George Wombwell commenced this tradition by exhibiting exotic animals from around 1804. This fascination for exhibition informed the emerging trends of entertainment throughout the Victorian period, with all manner of beasts, curiosities and displays of human endeavour on regular display in fixed and floating locations.

Wombwell took to presenting a travelling animal show from around 1805, competing with many other Menagerists of the time. He had a fierce drive to become the most famous animal showman in the country, and his partnership with the Bostock family established Bostock and Wombwell as the country’s leading operation.

The Bostock family were land-owning farmers in Staffordshire. In 1832 James Bostock turned his back on his farming destiny and worked as a waggoner with Wombwell’s Menagerie. His marriage to Emma Wombwell in 1852 saw the start of the Bostock and Wombwell dynasty, all capable and willing animal handlers and showmen. The core axis of this dynasty was the three sons of James and Emma (there were other children also): Edward Henry (EH) Bostock became the successor to running the main show, James William Bostock managed separate Menageries and presented ‘Anita the Living Doll’, whilst Frank Charles Bostock set off on his own direction by touring Europe and America.

Frank Bostock was equally as ambitious as his Menagerie-founding grandfather. In his memoirs he talks about how he introduced the ‘big cage’ to England in 1908 and how he discovered that big cats were wary of the underside of a chair. His time in America possibly led him to doing things differently, with contact at the vibrant Coney Island, and the tradition of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ pioneered by PT Barnum.

Frank C Bostock arrived in the United States in the summer of 1893 at twenty seven years of age. He set up near 5th and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn. It is said that Frank and his family lived in one wagon and had another two wagons housing four monkeys, five parrots, three lions, a sheep and a boxing kangaroo.

It could be said that the arrival of Frank Bostock and the Ferari brothers in 1893-94 (Francis and Joseph Ferari were his partners at the time, they were the sons of Italian-born English showman James Ferari) was the beginning of the touring carnival business in America. The wild animal shows they brought became the nucleus around which many of the early street-fair showmen built their midways.

The elaborate carved fronts of the wild animal shows Frank Bostock brought from England, some of them made by the Burton-upon-Trent company Orton and Spooner, served as the prototype for wagon-mounted show fronts on American carnivals for the next half century’. (https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca/projects/frankbostockbio)

This evening we dined on smoked haddock; Jackie’s piquant cauliflower cheese; creamy mashed potato; firm carrots and peas with which the Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank Nivei white Rioja 2018.

Head To Head

On a bright, crisp, afternoon Jackie drove us to Bisterne Close,

where she parked and sat in the car while I wandered into the forest with my camera, rustling the dried autumn leaves, across which the low sun cast long shadows. One lone cow wandered off into the distance. Golden gorse glowed; a few beech and oak leaves lingered on the branches; some fallen limbs bore lichen and fungus; holly berries shone for Christmas.

Jackie photographed a bouncing squirrel

and a pedestrian me.

Ponies were mostly waiting expectantly at the far end of close. What for was unclear.

This evening we dined on well roasted gammon and parsnips; creamy mashed potatoes; piquant cauliflower cheese; firm carrots; and tender green beans, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Comté Tolosan.

Up The Lane

This morning I finished reading the justifiably Pulitzer Prize- (for Non-Fiction, 1963) winning work ‘The Guns of August’ (1962) by Barbara W. Tuchman. With painstaking research, shrewd judgement, and skilful prose, the author analyses and describes the first month of the First World War. We are so accustomed to books and films about the madness of the four years’ destructive trench warfare that I found Ms. Tuchman’s tour de force most informative.

I knew the war had been sparked off by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, but had no idea why such a conflagration had followed. This book explains the reason and the method.

Germany had been preparing for war on both Eastern and Western fronts for two decades. It was simply accidental that the blue touch paper was lit in the east.

We learn of the desecration of the Belgian neutrality, the courage of its population; the invaders’ belief in the spread of fear as a method of quelling resistance, and their means of exercising it; the speed of the German advance; the infighting within and between the leaders of the allies.

Tuchman closes with an eye to the following four years. I would have welcomed such a work on them.

The details of manoeuvres would probably be more fascinating to serious students of military history than to me, for I found the passages of descriptive writing rather more to my liking.

My Folio Society edition contains copious notes, clear maps, and two batches of photographs which are not really of good enough quality to reproduce here.

On another comparatively mild afternoon we visited Elizabeth and invited her to dinner, which she accepted with alacrity.

We returned home via South Baddesley from where we could view the Isle of Wight in the distance,

and autumn scenes in the fields.

Beside the unnamed lane down which I walked lay moss covered fallen branches.

Gradually a jogger came into view running up the lane. Soon after he passed Jackie’s parked Modus, my Chauffeuse followed me down and picked me up.

As we neared Lymington I photographed a silhouetted tree line.

This evening we dined on succulent roast gammon; creamy mashed potato; piquant cauliflower cheese; crunchy carrots; and tender green beans, with which Elizabeth and I drank Chevalier de Fauvert Comté Tolosan Rouge 2019, and Jackie drank Hoegaarden.

Lucky For Pigs

On a gloomier and warmer afternoon than yesterday we took a drive into the forest.

The pannage season has this year been extended into December.

A group of snuffling, snorting, competitive, piglets on the muddy verge at Ibsley burrowed as far into the leafy coverlet as they could to emerge with acorns from the tree above. The little fellow in the road in the last picture was making his way to plant a round snotty kiss on my trousers.

Further along, at North Gorley, much of the green was now under water which reflected the trees, one of which had now lost all its leaves; ponies grazed beside a Winterbourne stream.

The recently filled ditches of South Gorley did not deter a pair of Gloucester Old Spot sows from unearthing acorns. Sloshing and grunting they nose-dived, grabbed their mast, and rose to the surface dripping, grinning, and crunching. The year 2020 has been lucky for pigs.

Half way down Pentons Hill at Stockton, a thatcher’s straw ducks waddled across a roof he had produced.

This evening Jackie reprised yesterday’s delicious roast chicken dinner with her savoury vegetable rice and green beans. She drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Merlot.

Clogged Up With Visitors

This afternoon I printed photographs for Aaron, Mark, and Steve, of their tree-cutting work of three days ago. Some profile pictures are about to be changed.

Late on a very dull afternoon we drove to Keyhaven to catch the last of the meagre light.

There is so very little graffiti in the New Forest that our granddaughter, Flo thought she must be an “alternative universe” when she saw no graffiti on carved wooden benches in Ringwood. A rare example adorns the

Electricity Sub-Station in Barnes Lane, where we now notice crosses on the trees alongside warning signs on the gates.

Saltgrass Lane in Keyhaven was clogged up with the transport of

visitors walking, kite surfing or sailboarding.

This evening we dined on chicken thighs marinaded in Nando’s chilli and mango sauce served with Jackie’s savoury vegetable rice accompanied by Hoegaarden in her case and more of the Merlot in mine.