On a dull day we – mostly Jackie – spent time returning the kitchen to normal. Mrs Knight had washed, ironed, and now rehung the curtains. The glasses cupboard had its doors reinstalled and its contents brought back in from the library. The table returned to its normal position.
A number of bloggers, including us, have been beneficiaries of the late Pauline King’s delightful light catchers. It was therefore a priority for it be back in its rightful place hanging from the centre of the main window ready for when the sun shines again.
This afternoon I watched Television broadcasts of the Six Nations Rugby matches between England and Italy, and between Scotland and Wales.
During intervals I read the next three chapters of ‘Little Dorrit’ and, after dinner, scanned three more of Charles Keeping’s illustrations.
‘The History of a Self Tormentor’ uses Dickens’s device of employing a letter to progress the narrative.
The image of ‘Canalletto dropped on one knee’, with the backward tilt of the body displays the artist’s mastery of movement in the human form.
‘Affery headed the exploring party,’ each member of which is recognisable from Keeping’s earlier portraits. This image is cleverly framed by the sinuous candle smoke.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s toothsome sausages in red wine; creamy mashed potatoes; piquant cauliflower cheese; soft broad beans; and crunchy carrots, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Cabernet Sauvignon.
This morning, while Nick continued brightening up the kitchen, Jackie helped the ailing Modus to Downton Service Station. Unsurprisingly the diagnosis, which was delivered later, was the need for a new clutch. It is hoped that we will receive it back by the weekend.
This afternoon, having reached the 3/4 point of Charles Dickens’s ‘Little Dorrit’, I scanned seven more of Charles Keeping’s remarkable illustrations.
‘It was a deserted place and looked upon a deserted scene’ which was the side of the River Thames at night. The ladder scaling the wall to the left of the illustration was placed for easy access to the river bed. It was at such a location when the tide was low that I had to fish my late wife Jessica out of the mud.
Mr Keeping remains faithful to earlier portrayals of these two characters in ‘He rolled Mr Flintwinch about with a hand on each of his shoulders.’
‘I am now going to devote an hour to writing to you again’ depicts the unmistakeable letter-writer from the opposite side in a different location from the first such image.
With ‘It was a dinner to provoke an appetite’ the artist captures what I think is one of the rare boring passages of the prose.
‘Mrs Plornish, now established in a snug little shop at the crack end of the Yard’, contains typical details of the illustrator’s work, such as worn steps, feral pigeons, and a horse in the stable. These are Keeping’s own embellishments.
‘Mr Sparkler came and sat down on the other side of her’, for a happy announcement. The artist makes the varying feelings about this very clear;
equally in ‘Nobody noticed the Bridegroom’, whose insignificance is well depicted.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s succulent sausages in red wine; sage and onion stuffing; creamy mashed potatoes; piquant cauliflower cheese; crunchy carrots; and tender cabbage, with tasty gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I finished the Recital.
On another gloomy wet morning Jackie photographed a selection of our current garden blooms, some decorated with pearls of rainwater.
Here we have sarcocca Hoskeriana, cyclamen, daffodil, iris reticulata Katharine Hodgkin, snowdrops, hellebore, camellia, daphne odorata marginata, and crocus.
Barry, of New Forest Chimney Sweeping & Repairs, then visited to extend the
downpipe across the kitchen extension roof to the guttering.
With our friend reflected in the Velux window he and I enjoyed a very pleasant conversation.
Five chapters further on in ‘Little Dorrit’ prompts a scan of five more of Charles Keeping’s illustrations to this novel of Charles Dickens.
‘Mr Pancks requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle’ of the street pump, which were common sources of water for residents in the mid-nineteenth century. https://johnsnow.matrix.msu.edu/work.php?id=15-78-80 carries a long entry on “The Broad Street Pump: An episode in the cholera epidemic of 1854”.
in ‘My dear soul, you are my only comfort’, we recognise the earlier profile of the magnificent Mrs Merdle.
‘The three expensive Miss Tite Barnacles’ are somewhat less than delightful.
The jubilation of ‘The Collegians cheered him very heartily’ has the artist throwing his hats through the text.
‘The little procession moved slowly through the gate’ demanded the span of a two page spread. No doubt readers will recognise earlier acquaintances.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s savoury pilau rice topped with a five egg omelette served with both tempura and hot and spicy prawns with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Réserve de Bonpas.
After two more chapters of ‘Little Dorrit’ I scanned two more of Charles Keeping’s excellent illustrations.
In ‘He ate all that was put before him’, Keeping has accurately depicted the character Christopher Hibbert described as the ‘one truly evil character in the book’.
‘You got out of the Yard by a low gateway into a maze of shabby streets’. Keeping has accurately represented the yard that Dickens knew.
‘Bleeding Heart Yard is a cul-de-sac leading off Greville Street, near Hatton Garden. The yard’s name probably derives from an old inn sign, the Bleeding Heart of Our Lady, which depicted the heart of the Virgin Mary pierced through by swords. However, the sanguinary imagery has inspired several colourful legends, which Charles Dickens summarises in Little Dorrit (1855–7) – where he also suggests that the name actually relates to “the heraldic cognisance of the old family to whom the property had once belonged.”
One tale has it that a lovelorn young lady, imprisoned in her bedchamber by her cruel father, pined away at her window, murmuring ‘bleeding heart, bleeding heart, bleeding away’ as she expired. Dickens says that this story was “the invention of a tambour-worker, a spinster and romantic, still lodging in the Yard.”
The goriest fable suggests that sometime in the early 17th century the much-wooed Elizabeth Hatton was murdered here by the Spanish ambassador – whom she had jilted – and was found at dawn with her heart still pumping blood onto the cobblestones. Another angle on this story, this time featuring Sir Christopher and Lady Alice Hatton and the Devil, was set to verse by Richard Barham in his Ingoldsby Legends.
“Of poor Lady Hatton, it’s needless to say, No traces have ever been found to this day, Or the terrible dancer who whisk’d her away; But out in the court-yard – and just in that part Where the pump stands – lay bleeding a large human heart …”
Richard Barham, ‘The House-Warming!!’ (1840)’ (hidden-london.com)
The Elizabeth Hatton story is thoroughly dismissed in https://d33c33.wordpress.com/elizabeth-hatton-and-the-legend-of-bleeding-heart-yard/
My own acquaintance with this historic street is detailed in https://derrickjknight.com/2017/12/06/changes/
The lamp in my photograph is very similar to that in Mr Keeping’s drawing.
This afternoon, the winds of three day storm Christoph having desisted, Jackie drove us to Ferndene Farm Shop. So smooth was the shop that my wait in the car was just a four page one, after which we diverted on our journey home via Forest Road, giving me the opportunity to wander among the ponies in
the soggy woodland alongside.
The damp, muddy, matted shaggy haired animals bore the effects of days in the wind and rain,
one adding the battle scars of torn out tufts.
Jackie photographed a helicopter flying overhead as I approached the ditch I needed to cross to enter the woodland.
The minute I returned to the car heavy rain set in once more.
This evening we dined on roasted sturdy chicken thighs, extremely tasty parsnips, and crisp potatoes; Yorkshire pudding, sage and onion stuffing; firm carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, and flavoursome gravy, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank vin de Bourgogne Macon 2019.
‘Little Dorrit’ is one of Charles Dickens’s great novels. My Folio Society Edition of 1986 is, at 834 pages with 72 of Charles Keeping’s exquisite illustrations, so great that I intend to deviate from my normal approach to books in this blog.
The tale has been reproduced so often in books and films and there are so many Internet pages on it that I think I do not need to refrain from any story spoilers, and my observations may or may not be superfluous.
Just as the author published the work in serial form I will do the same with my presentation of Mr Keeping’s drawings. I will write something about each picture as I make my leisurely journey through the weighty tome.
The frontispiece represents Marshalsea Prison.
Wikipedia tells us ‘The Marshalsea (1373–1842) was a notorious prison in Southwark, just south of the River Thames. Although it housed a variety of prisoners, including men accused of crimes at sea and political figures charged with sedition, it became known, in particular, for its incarceration of the poorest of London’s debtors.[1] Over half the population of England’s prisoners in the 18th century were in jail because of debt.[2]
Run privately for profit, as were all English prisons until the 19th century, the Marshalsea looked like an Oxbridge college and functioned as an extortion racket.[3] Debtors in the 18th century who could afford the prison fees had access to a bar, shop and restaurant, and retained the crucial privilege of being allowed out during the day, which gave them a chance to earn money for their creditors. Everyone else was crammed into one of nine small rooms with dozens of others, possibly for years for the most modest of debts, which increased as unpaid prison fees accumulated.[4] The poorest faced starvation and, if they crossed the jailers, torture with skullcaps and thumbscrews. A parliamentary committee reported in 1729 that 300 inmates had starved to death within a three-month period, and that eight to ten were dying every 24 hours in the warmer weather.[a]
The prison became known around the world in the 19th century through the writing of the English novelist Charles Dickens, whose father was sent there in 1824, when Dickens was 12, for a debt to a baker. Forced as a result to leave school to work in a factory, Dickens based several of his characters on his experience, most notably Amy Dorrit, whose father is in the Marshalsea for debts so complex no one can fathom how to get him out.[6][b]
Much of the prison was demolished in the 1870s, although parts of it were used as shops and rooms into the 20th century. A local library now stands on the site. All that is left of the Marshalsea is the long brick wall that marked its southern boundary, the existence of what Dickens called “the crowding ghosts of many miserable years” recalled only by a plaque from the local council. “[I]t is gone now,” he wrote, “and the world is none the worse without it.”[8]‘
In his introduction to my copy, Christopher Hibbert, speaking of Dickens’s childhood experience, states that ‘throughout his life thereafter Dickens had been obsessed with prisons, prisoners and imprisonment. In England, in America, Italy and France he found his way to the prison in each new town he visited in the way that another man might seek out a museum or a church.’
The jailer of Marseilles Prison takes his little daughter on a tour of the cells.
During my brief spell of residence in Sutherland Place, W2 I served as a Committee member of the local Neighbourhood Association which enjoyed an annual gardens competition. In the summer of 2008 I toured the few streets around my flat making a series of photographic prints of likely contenders on which a small sub-group voted. A set of colour slides from the recently rediscovered cache dated July/August was my basic material. I scanned them this afternoon.
Although these West London properties are highly sought after and very expensive they mostly have negligible gardens. I was genuinely impressed by the ingenuity shown by the nurturing of colourful plants in all kinds of containers laid on paving and walls, on window sills, fixed to railings, and straggling down steps.
I wonder whether anyone will share my favourite. As a clue I will say it was not the stunning header picture.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s deliciously spicy pork paprika; roast potatoes, including the sweet variety, in their skins; firm broccoli; and tender runner beans, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Languedoc Montpeyroux Recital 2018.
Early yesterday morning Jackie photographed some of our current garden blooms. Each is labelled in the gallery.
We decided to hold these back to today because of the quantity we had published of the St John the Baptist Cemetery photographs. Later, Elizabeth e-mailed me a selection of hers.
This is her take on the inserted death medals;
she also added her version of the House memorial carved lilies;
she was intrigued by the cremation plaques and their offerings from loved ones and from autumn;
I had refrained from photographing these daffodils, but she made the best of them.
I spent much of today finishing reading
Christopher Hibbert in his knowledgeable and informative introduction places this work in the context of Dickens’s time and his works. He tells us that this begins the writer’s focus on social ills.
This is a well wrought story which largely keeps a good pace and culminates in conclusions with surprises and revelations which I will leave open to anyone wishing to read the book for the first time. The descriptions are good. Despite the harshness of the theme the author’s wry humour is much in evidence. I felt that the dialogue of two characters was irritating enough for me to skim them. One was conveyed in the supposed vernacular; another wath ath thpoken with a thevere lithp. The first indicated the humble origins of the man; the thecond I imagine wath a clownith interval. (I do apologithe WP, but I ethpect you get my point).
Regular readers will need no introduction to the exuberant, animated, illustrations of Charles Keeping, ever faithful to the text, and unbound by the page formats.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s variation on Cottage pie, with the addition of mashed potatoes and cheese; crunchy carrots and cauliflower, with tender cabbage, firm Brussels sprouts and tasty gravy. The Culinary Queen drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Shiraz.
Yesterday I finished reading the fifth and final of Charles Dickens’s Christmas Books. This morning I scanned Charles Keeping’s faithful, first-class, illustrations.
Christopher Hibbert, in his informative introduction to my Folio Society edition, offers the insight that this work reflects painful experiences of the writer’s own life. Seeking freedom from his phantoms ‘The Haunted Man’ of the novella appeals for forgetfulness. The story reveals that forgiveness is really what is required. Once more this tale has been overshadowed by ‘A Christmas Carol’. It does, however contain much of Dickens’s splendid descriptive writing laced with his wry humour.
Highgate West Cemetery, in September 2008, when I produced the batch of colour slides scanned this afternoon, was nowhere near as oppressively gloomy as the heavy atmosphere that prevailed outside my workroom window.
John Turpin, who wrote the text for ‘The Magnificent Seven’, and I needed to join the above paying group to visit this fine example of London’s Victorian landscaped burial grounds. Although wealthy enough to have afforded these final resting places, I have gleaned no information about the various residents.
Steps lead down to these lower levels which also house the columbarium, from the Latin for pigeon-house, which contains niches for storing funeral urns.
I do not know who warranted this elaborate marker.
These three are memorable for their animals. His mastiff guards the remains of Thomas Sayers.
This is what Wikipedia tells us about him: ‘Tom Sayers (15 or 25 May[1] 1826 – 8 November 1865) was an English bare-knuckle prize fighter. There were no formal weight divisions at the time, and although Sayers was only five feet eight inches tall and never weighed much more than 150 pounds, he frequently fought much bigger men. In a career which lasted from 1849 until 1860, he lost only one of sixteen bouts. He was recognized as heavyweight champion of England between 1857, when he defeated William Perry (the “Tipton Slasher”) and his retirement in 1860.
His lasting fame depended exclusively on his final contest, when he faced American champion John Camel Heenan[2] in a battle which was widely considered to be boxing’s first world championship. It ended in chaos when the spectators invaded the ring, and the referee finally declared a draw.
Regarded as a national hero, Sayers, for whom the considerable sum of £3,000 was raised by public subscription, then retired from the ring. After his death five years later at the age of 39, a huge crowd watched his cortège on its journey to London’s Highgate Cemetery.’ His origins are also related in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Sayers
John Atcheler, commemorated by a horse on a plinth, was reputedly horse-slaughterer to Queen Victoria. Maybe someone was indulging a wry sense of humour.
Menageries were popular in Regency and early Victorian England. The lion resting above the remains of George Wombwell represents a favourite exhibit of that individual who, according to Wikipedia
‘was born in Wendon Lofts, Essex in 1777. Around 1800 he moved to London and in 1804 became a shoemaker in Soho. However, when a ship from South America brought two boas to London docks, he bought them for £75 and began to exhibit them in taverns. He soon made a good profit.
Wombwell began to buy exotic animals from ships that came from Africa, Australia and South America, and collected a whole menagerie and put them on display in Soho. In 1810 he founded the Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie and began to tour the fairs of Britain. By 1839 it totalled fifteen wagons, and was accompanied by a brass band.
Wombwell bred and raised many animals himself, including the first lion to be bred in captivity in Britain; he named it William in honour of William Wallace. In 1825 Warwick, Wombwell, in collaboration with Sam Wedgbury and dog dealer Ben White’s assistant Bill George,[1]arranged a Lion-baiting between his docile lion Nero and six bulldogs. Nero refused to fight but when Wombwell released Wiliam, he mauled the dogs and the fight was soon stopped.
Over the years, Wombwell expanded three menageries that traveled around the country. Wombwell was a regular exhibitor at the annual Knott Mill Fair in Manchester, a venue he sometimes shared with Pablo Fanque‘s circus.[2][3] He was invited to the royal court on five occasions to exhibit his animals, three times before Queen Victoria. In 1847 the Queen Victoria noted the bravery of the “British Lion Queen”, the nickname of Ellen Chapmanwho appeared with lions, leopards and tigers. Chapman married Wombwell’s business rival George Sanger in 1850.[4]
On one occasion Prince Albert summoned him to look at his dogs who kept dying and Wombwell quickly noticed that their water was poisoning them. When the prince asked what he could do in return for this favour, Wombwell said, “What can you give a man who has everything?” However, Wombwell requested some oak timber from the recently salvaged Royal George. From this he had a coffin fashioned for himself, which he then proceeded to exhibit for a special fee.
Wombwell frequented Bartholomew Fair in London and even developed a rivalry with another exhibitor, Atkins. Once when he arrived at the fair, his elephant died and Atkins put up a sign “The Only Live Elephant in the Fair”. Wombwell simply put up a scroll with the words “The Only Dead Elephant in the Fair” and explained that seeing a dead elephant was an even a rarer thing than a live one. The public, realising that they could see a living elephant at any time, flocked to see and poke the dead one. Throughout the fair Atkins’ menagerie was largely deserted, much to his disgust.
George Wombwell died in 1850 and was buried in his Royal George coffin in Highgate Cemetery, under a statue of his lion Nero.
The book George Wombwell (1777 – 1850): Volume One recalls the lion and dog fight in Warwick with well researched evidence, but questions whether it ever actually took place. George Wombwell (1777 – 1850): Volume Two covers Wombwell’s life as the most famous showman, from his arrival in London around 1800 to his death in 1850.[5]
In 1851 a tapir broke out of its den at Wombwell’s Menagerie in Rochdale, causing panic among the spectators.[6]
The cedar of Lebanon in the second and third of these pictures is one of the cemetery’s original plantings.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s substantial, wholesome, chicken and vegetable stoup and crusty bread with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Fleurie.
This morning I produced an A3 print of his choice for the paraglider from “Sunset Dancing”. Now we are back in National Lockdown handover will probably have to wait a while.
In the meantime Jackie photographed the farmer across Christchurch Road trimming his hedge. He didn’t really cause any disruption to traffic, although it was a little tight at times. The owls on our front fence were undisturbed. Note the thriving carpet rose.
Charles Dickens’s ‘Christmas Books’ is definitely a mixed bag. This afternoon I read ‘The Battle of Life – A love story’, first published in 1846. The narrative begins with a lovely bucolic description and a delightful dance giving us hope for joyful times ahead. There follows a rather boring sequence, more poetic word pictures, and a somewhat far-fetched conclusion, all featuring the author’s entertaining wry humour. Christopher Hibbert, in his introduction to my Folio Society edition, describes this ‘slight but dismal tale’ as a version of relationships and events in the author’s own life at this time. That rings true to me.
Beginning with the dance,
Charles Keeping’s wonderfully moving illustrations are as true as ever to the text.
This evening we dined on Jackie’s well-filled flavoursome beef and onion pie; crisp roast potatoes; crunchy carrots, cauliflower, and firm Brussels sprouts, with tasty, meaty, gravy, with which she drank Hoegaarden and I drank Mendoza Malbec 2019
The weather today, albeit dry, was at its most gloomy.
Even the animals kept away. When we took a brief forest drive there was a definite dearth of donkeys and a patent paucity of ponies,
except for a few grazing alongside Furzey Lane at Beaulieu. The first grey in this group, and the lone bay both bear the scars of torn fur. Maybe that is why the smaller bay gave the gentler grey a hefty kick out of the way before continuing with the matter in hand.
On our return I finished reading Charles Dickens’s third Christmas book, namely ‘The Cricket on The Hearth – A fairy tale of home’. I am happy to report that our great Victorian novelist, in this work, has recovered the deft touch that eluded him in ‘The Chimes’. This magical mystery story is well constructed, keeps the reader wondering, and contains all the writer’s ready humour and wry description. Beginning in a fog, all is revealed in a neatly packaged ending.
My Folio Society edition is enhanced by the apt illustrations of Charles Keeping, the frontispiece featuring a foggy scene.
This evening we dined on a second sitting of Hordle Chinese Take Away’s excellent fare with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank more of the Malbec,
‘The Chimes’ was Charles Dickens’s second Christmas Book. Dealing with England’s social ills in the first half of the 19th century through the medium of spirit goblins, in a somewhat similar manner to ‘A Christmas Carol’. This novella is subtitled ‘A Goblin Story of some bells that rang an old year out and a new one in’. I read my Folio Society edition today.
As usual, I will refrain from giving details so I will not reveal the ending which gives some sort of meaning to a story which, to my mind, does not hang together. A rather long-winded description of the kind of storm that we have just experienced introduces the bells and their nature; thereafter the tale limps along to a weak conclusion which, according to Christopher Hibbert’s introduction, brought the writer to ‘burst into tears’, seemingly of relief. Just as ‘A Christmas Carol’ focuses on a life-changing Christmas Eve, ‘The Chimes’ are concerned with a memorable New Year’s Eve.
The characters are unmemorable,
although the illustrator, Charles Keeping, has, as usual, brought them to life.
This evening we reprised yesterday’s dinner of lemon chicken and savoury rice with the addition of omelette topping with which Jackie drank Valle Central reserva privada rosée cuvée 2019 and I drank Trivento reserve Malbec 2019 – a present from Helen and Bill.
