Category: Memories

Great Train Journeys

17/2/2017

My family and I frequently traveled on trains, it was part of my life. The longest journey and most exciting, was to visit my grandparents in Cornwall. We always caught the Cornishman at Derby and on the whole we had the carriage, just like the one in the image, all to ourselves for most of the journey. We traveled over the the River Tamar on Brunel's bridge, looked at all the ships at Plymouth, stopped on the seaside station at Dawlish and passed through long dark tunnels on the way. What with sandwiches, chocolate, colouring books, joining the dots and a doll called Fingle Bunt. It was simply wonderful!

I know that advertisements can be misleading but this one, a vintage railway poster, is actually true to life.

However, on the 16th February in 1965, Dr Richard Beeching published his plans for what he called our 'bloated' railways.

This was Beechings second report as British Railways Board chairman, and in it he outlined the countries transport needs for the next quarter of a century. The report followed his first controversial review of the state of Britain's railways that had been published in 1963. In that report he said the railway system was uneconomic and under-used, and recommended that a quarter of the railway system should be shut down.

So was Beeching right with his idea of railway cuts 53 years ago or am I looking at train travel through rose coloured glasses?

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The Gainsborough Lady

2/8/2016

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As a child I used to watch a film, always historical, on a Sunday afternoon with my mother, on occasions the beautiful Gainsborough Lady would make an appearance.

The Gainsborough Lady, played by British actress Glennis Lorimer, was a lady dressed in a Georgian era period costume sitting in an ornate frame, turning and smiling. She is based on the famous portrait of Sarah Siddons by Thomas Gainsborough.

The music to this short film was written by Louis Levy and called Gainsborough Minuet.

youtu.be/62meHC0Retc

This piece was the opening logo of Gainsborough Pictures, a British film company whose studio was based on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Shoreditch, London. Gainsborough Studios were active between 1924 and 1951. During the middle of the 1940's the studio produced a series of 'morally ambivalent costume melodramas' such as Fanny by Gaslight, Madonna and the Seven Moons and my favourtie The Wicked Lady staring Margaret Lockwood and James Mason.

They don't make them like that anymore do they?

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Lincolnshire Sun Bonnett

20/7/2016

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On my way to school every morning I would pass a beautiful English country garden with is mass of lupines, foxgloves and daisies. The owner of the garden was a little old lady who I would see from time to time walking through her garden to the water pump.

This dear old lady always wore a hat just like the one above.

That image has stayed with me, it is my very own real picture of an English country garden!

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Man's Best Friend

3/7/2016

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This is our dog Chalkie.

She is the best little dog in the whole wide world.

She came into our lives one November evening, inside a large metal cage. She arrived with her back leg broken by her previous owners and was wearing a rather fetching luminous blue plaster cast and was a bald as a coot from the waist down. She peered through the cage with doleful eyes and looked straight at me, we knew then that she would be staying. We told her straight away that her new name was Chalkie, she was so excited on hearing this, saying that she was Rick Steins little dogs number one fan and I said how wonderful! I am too!

Now Chalkie is not really the brightest of sparks and spends most of her time a tad puzzled, wondering what’s going on. Sixty percent of her time is spent on her feet, twenty percent of her time on her back and the rest with her nose is buriedand bum is in the air! She has ears of a hawk and can be out of her basket, where she previously had been zonkedout in front of the fire, and down the bottom of the garden in two seconds flat! She greets anyone coming to thedoor with equal enthusiasm, whether it’s postman or a passing stranger but its the husband who gets her undivided attention. She barks and bounces, bounces andbarks until he comes through the door, over she goes on her back for a tummy tickle then the funniest thing happens, she goes round in circles waiting to hear her favourite words, “Ok Chalkie, go tell your mates I’m home” and she runs, hell for leather, leaving the cat flap swinging, yes she fits through our cat flap, to the bottom of the garden and pokes her nose through the fence and barks and barks and barks. She’s so cute, she telling all her friends the head of the house is home, awww! I bet she watched 101 Dalmatians!

Physically she may be half a dog but personality wise she certainly not. On walkies we call her “ten men Chalkie” because she thinks she can take on the whole of doggy world by herself. She has a ten foot retractable lead because she thinks she's in charge, she likes to bound up to other dogs, her little tail wagging, to talk doggy gossip and is sometimes miffed when there not interested in what she has to say. In her favourite places she zooms on ahead, her nose picking up all the exciting doggy smells then she zooms past in the other directions checking out all the smells she missed due to over excitement.When her little head is not darting from side to side, up and down looking for squirrels she’s marking her territory with a squirt here a squirt there. There are so many things that make us laugh about Chalkie, after a bath she will run around the house like a bullet out of a gun, she only plays with squeaky toys abandoning them once they are silenced, she chases and never catches our two cats, she loves tennis balls and has never noticed that’s all she ever gets at Christmas and birthdays.

We like seaside holidays, she hates the sea, we like to go out in the car, she doesn't like sitting in the back, shelikes to talk about bones, we don't, but in all relationships there's give and take and Chalkie is good at that!

In a previous blog I wrote about teddy bears and what they mean to us, Chalkie is a real live teddy bear, she, like them,
gives love unconditionally and is ready to go out at a moments notice. She is just as happy to sit with me by the fire of an evening while I crochet, only one thing though she doesn’t know how to wind wool, but she’s learning!

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Ivanhoe by Charles Hunt

5/6/2016

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Victorian artist Charles Hunt is most famous for his idealised paintings depicting the lives of country folk where he often adds a touch of humour. Hunt's works were exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1846 on wards, this particular piece is entitled Ivanhoe.

Hunt painted Ivanhoe in 1871, it is an oil on canvas and features children taking part in a reenactment of the story of Sir Walter Scott's medieval hero. Scott's most famous book is a tale of rivalry, romantic conflict, battles and tournaments, it is probably the tournament scene that Hunt depicts here. In Scott's book Ivanhoe defeats everyone who faces him and is finally set against Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert, the villain of the book.

The name of Guilbert can be seen on the chest armour of the second boy who has been knocked off his chair, whilst Ivanhoe himself straddles his quilted wooden mount and charges at his opponent at full tilt. Rowena, the fair maiden Ivanhoe is a keen on and her maidservant look on and are sheltered from the sun by a collapsed and broken umbrella, being held by a boy who feels that he has definitely been miscast! In the far left another character is being made ready for his part in the children's play. Hunt suggests that the boys have been reading Scott's book which is abandoned on the floor whilst the two boys in the right of the painting seem more interested in the real thing than their friends adaptation. Looking at other paintings by Charles Hunt this one is typical, there are no adults insight for it is the world of children and their wonderful world of make believe.

It is a certainly a lovely painting and reminds me of many happy summer afternoons in our garden watching my own children along with their friends as they performed plays for us, their version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears still makes me laugh today. I still have a copy of the wonderfully colourful illustrated homemade programme especially made the show, which I have to say is worth as much as the original of Hunts Ivanhoe.

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Heirlooms and Keepsakes

3/6/2016

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"I wish I had realised that family history is a perishable commodity. It disappears with time, as memories fade, and as loved ones pass on. I wish I had known that the most important aspect of family history is preserving a record of the present for the future."

A Treasured Memory

I wonder why we feel the need to keep and store objects that have come into our lives at differing times and why do we feel we have to keep what we no longer use. Usefulness is one reason, those things we keep in sheds and cupboards under the stairs just in case we need them. Memories are another, items that represent good times in our lives, these things we keep in our loft spaces. At the time they became of no real use we still cannot bear to part with them, in my case, the hat my grandmother wore to my wedding, the upside down metal frame of a small coffee table that my number one daughter used to take her first steps, old books and toys, the list goes on and my loft is full of such things. My incentive for a good clear out was to find the baby rocker and Moses basket I promised my daughter she could have. She is no longer a baby, and my grandmother has been gone for over thirty years, it is with slow realisation I have come to the point that I can now part with most of the things I have kept, and I am determined to stay cheerful and bravely make a start.

Day One

The entrance to our loft, like those you find in some houses, is a small door on the top floor of our house. Its a bit like the loft space in C S Lewis's book The Magicians Nephew where Digory and Polly explore the attic that connects their houses. Fortunately, there is no chance of me opening the wrong door and finding assorted guinea pigs or my very own wicked Uncle Andrew. If I had of course, I'd be in some strange woodland jumping in and out of puddles being chased by some angry woman in a chariot and not sitting among dust, cobwebs and a very well thumbed Cricketer's Almanck.

So into the darkness I proceeded, torch in hand, expecting to find all sorts of goodies that might be worth millions. Sadly, I surfaced hours later without so much as a sniff of an antique or a fifteenth century skeleton that would send the worlds media into a frenzy! However I did not emerge empty handed, here is a list of what I found and I must say I am amazed.

Maternity wear, late 1980's early 1990's. Can you believe that I actually kept them? All you 80's mum's will know what I mean. Those awful farmer Giles smocks with bows, bat winged tops and multi-coloured dungarees with adjustable waists. My goodness, I must have looked like I'd been graffitied!
HP fax machine...no cables...in the loft due to someone spilling a bottle of perfume over it! No, I don't know why or how! Monstrous 1980's computer screen.....no cables, found along side a wafer thin plasma screen tv, which we must have deemed to small to watch blockbuster movies in style.
Assorted primary school, GCSE and A Level work...dusty. I obviously didn't have the heart to dispose of it all when I watched all three daughters work so hard.
Toy dog with battery pack attached by a wire. 1960's...there was no such thing as wireless in those days, kept because my Dad brought it back from an unaccompanied tour of duty in the Middle East. Bless him.
One CDi gun for cowboy computer game unopened and unused (confiscated as violent item). No need to explain my reasoning for that.

Magic trick box, also confiscated due to eldest daughters squabbling and shouting they would turn each other into toads and the fact that the finger trapping device was a lethal weapon.

Day Two

With the support of the dog I approached the second day in the loft with enthusiasm. The dog, just like me the day before discovered no bones and cleared off at the sound of a tin Happy Dog Chicken in Gravy being opened. Alone in the loft I felt quite chuffed that I had made more headway than I thought and squinting my eyes could actually see part of the brick chimney breast at the other end of the roof space, as it turned out said chimney was hidden behind two huge piles of jigsaws, yes I know, who keeps jigsaws? After much moving of stair gates, old suitcases, a flat teddy and a box of homemade faded paper chains I found what I was in the loft for the baby rocker. This baby rocker was a godsend, it enabled us to rock our daughters to sleep and change channels at the same time. Putting the rocker to one side I spent another half an hour in the loft and found the following.

Mahogany rocking chair, which according to my mother, I had said "Gran, when you are dead can I have this rocking chair" Was obviously a horrid child and inattentive parent. See above mentioned baby rocker!
Half finished macrame owl....obviously the novelty had worn off pretty quickly.
Amstrad laptop c 1990...must be worth something?
Squash rackets...novelty wore off quicker than the macrame owl.
Four large boxes of baby and toddler clothes 99.9% girls .1% boys
Wedding Dress....... still very pretty but slightly yellow and a tad dated. I'd never get into it now!
Two christening robes c 1930 hand made by my great grandmothers. The best find of all.

I am pleased to say that all of the items from day one are now at our local tip, apart from the school work and the items
from day two have been replaced in the loft. Do I hear you cry they are no use? Of course they are.

Let me explain, the rocking chair will fit nicely in a corner when I get my new extension, the macrame owl I hope to finish on the nights after I've beaten my husband at squash. My daughters may like to pick some bits and pieces from the clothes boxes, the christening robes and wedding dress are heirlooms, I cannot get rid of those can I?

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Great Train Journeys

The Gainsborough Lady

Lincolnshire Sun Bonnett

Man's Best Friend

Ivanhoe by Charles Hunt

Heirlooms and Keepsakes

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