Google Screenshot welcoming the Beginning of the Financial Year
At last, I can relax! Today, is the beginning of the Financial Year. I have been trying to get money into my pension. I wanted to take advantage of tax concessions before the end of the financial year. How hard was that! But now done and I won’t bore you with the tedious details. And of course, it was probably the wrong time to do it, given the Trumpian Meltdown on stock exchanges. Thanks, Mr Trump.
Here is President Ronald Reagan talking about the inevitable disaster of high tariffs. Surprisingly, erudite? It makes me wonder whether Mr Trump is actually a Conservative?
Why is April 6th the Beginning of the Financial Year?
If you remember, in the medieval period, the official New Year was on March 25th. This was the Day of the Annunciation, the Day Mary conceived Jesus. (for much more on this see my post march-25th-feast-of-the-annunciation/). But in 1752, we followed belatedly, the Pope’s reorganisation of the Julian Calendar. We had to put our days back in sync with the Sun. This had gone 11 days out of kilter since Julius Caesar’s Reorganisation (see my post here!). As we lost 11 days, we had to put them back. So the beginning of the Financial Year in 1753 was changed to April 5th. A further adjustment in 1800 was necessary as this would have been a leap year. So the new Financial Year moved to April 6th. And it has remained so ever since. For more on the Gregorian Calendar look here.
Churchill & Roosevelt
Today, I did my Jane Austen Walk. I took people to Bond Street past the statue of Churchill sitting on a park bench chatting with Roosevelt. Seemed like it was from a different world?
Allies by Lawence Holofcener. 2nd May 1995 to commemorate 50 years of Peace. Photo by K FludeDetails of the Statue
On my Chaucer Walk this afternoon, one of the attendees told me he has been signed up to my Almanac for several years. He said he was very happy to see posts reposted from previous years. Thank you and good to know.
Sketch from an old print. Francis Drake being knighted by Queen Elizabeth I. In fact, the Queen delegated the dubbing to a French Diplomat
The Queen’s half share in the profits of the Golden Hind’s circumnavigation of the world, amounted to more than her normal annual income. So it is no wonder she knighted the Captain, Sir Francis Drake, in the dock in what is now South East London at Deptford. The Spanish were furious that a Pirate should be so honoured. The Queen may have given a French man the honour of dubbing Sir Francis. She did this, perhaps to encourage the French to support the English against the Spanish.
The annual Royal Income for King Charles III is £86.3 million. This is paid in the Sovereign’s Grant. It gives you an idea of Drake’s booty. But I imagine she had a greater share of the nation’s wealth than Charles, as she was the Government not just a honorific cutter of ribbons.
Francis Drake. Hero or Bloodthirsty Pirate?
Francis Drake was one of the British heroes I read about as a child. I had a thick book with stories about people like Hereward the Wake, Drake, Charles II, Bonny Prince Charlie, David Livingstone etc. Many of them horrifically Imperialist and racist!
Drake was remembered for being the first English person to sail around the world. And his exploits in ‘singeing the beard of the King of Spain’ on his piratical raids on the Spanish Main.
In the books I read, the Spanish were the bad guys and we were on the side of the Angels. Drake was one of the swash-buckling heroes who turned Britain from a not very important country on the edge of Europe, to one of the World’s Great Powers.
Portrait of Francis Drake with Drake Jewel given to him by Queen Elizabeth I
On the other hand, he was also a pioneer in the Slave Trade, was involved in atrocities in Ireland and in the Spanish Territories. He summarily executed one of his crew in dubious circumstances. Perhaps more significantly, his contemporaries did not entirely trust him.
Francis Drake and the Spanish Armada
As the Spanish Armada sailed along the southern coast of England, the English Navy sniped at the heels of the Spanish. Drake was tasked with leading the night time pursuit of the Armada up the Channel. The idea was to stop them landing and to drive them away and into the North Sea. Drake in the Revenge was leading the pursuit, and the other ships were told to follow. He was to keep a single lantern alight in the stern of his ship. But the Lantern went out, and the British pursuit was disrupted.
The next morning, Drake comes back having captured the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario, flagship of Admiral Pedro de Valdés. The ship contained the gold to pay the Spanish Armada, which Drake seized. Was this a fortuitous accident which rebounded to Drake’s considerable financial advantage or something more deliberate?
In the end, the lantern incident did not stop the British forcing the Spanish to flee around the North of Scotland. On this perilous voyage only about 60 of their ships returned to Spain out of about 130. Britain was saved.
Nuestra Señora del Rosario and Agatha Christie
I used to lead an Agatha Christie program which included a visit to the Agatha Christie Poison Garden at Torre Abbey. And it was here that the captured Spanish ship’s crew were imprisoned after Francis Drake captured it.
The Abbey is now a lovely museum with the Poison Garden amidst the ruins of the Premonstratensian Abbey. Its tithe barn was used to hold the prisoners of war from the Ship. There were 397 of them. .
The Spanish Bar, Torre Abbey. Photo 2012 Kevin Flude
Sir John Gilbert, who was Sheriff of Devon at the time, used 160 Spanish Prisoners of War to develop his estate above the River Dart. The Estate is in a magnificent position, overlooking the drowned valley of the Dart. It is now enjoyed by those millions of visitors to what became the summer home of Agatha Christie (Greenway).
View of the River Dart from GreenwayView of Greenway from the River Dart
The Golden Hind & Deptford
Queen Elizabeth I decided that the Golden Hind should be permanently docked in Deptford. So the ship was placed in a ‘dry’ dock filled with soil. The ship decayed slowly with time, and by about 1660 nothing much was left.
I remember as a young archaeologist that some of our team took time out to work with Peter Marsden. He is one of the great experts in Naval archaeology, and he led a search to find Drake’s ship. There was a huge fanfare in the London newspapers. But, rather embarrassingly, given the build up, they failed to find anything of significance.
Another attempt was made in 2012. This also failed to discover any significant traces of an Elizabethan Galleon.
From an old history book
Golden Hind souvenirs
The Keeper of the Naval Stores at Deptford made chairs from the ruins of Drake’s ship, and one of them is on display at the Divinity Hall, Oxford.
Chair made from timbers of the Golden Hind in the Dinity Hall, Oxford, photo K FludeChair made from the ruins of the Golden Hind, photo K Flude
Sir Francis Drake and Middle Temple Hall
In London, Sir Francis Drake was a regular visitor at Middle Temple Hall, off of Fleet St. A table (called the cupboard) is reputedly made from the hatch cover of the Golden Hind. This is where the newly qualified barristers stand to have their registration entered into the Inn’s books. Sadly, it did not survive the bombing of 1941.
Middle Temple Hall. Photo K Flude 2021
The lantern which hung in the entrance to Hall allegedly came from the ship’s poop deck (so not the one he failed to keep lit!). Other famous mariners are also associated with the Middle Temple including Sir Martin Frobisher and Sir Walter Raleigh. Shakespeare’s company performed Twelfth Night in the Middle Temple Hall
The Romans celebrated the Great Mother, the Cybele in the festival of the Megalesia. To celebrate bringing of meteorite of Cybele to her temple in Rome in 204BC. Celebrated by the Games of the Great Mother
The First Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Nebra Sun disc from Stonehenge Exhibition British Museum (photo Kevin Flude) The Disc shows the Sun, the Moon, the Pleides, and illustrates the Summer and Winter Solstice movements of the Sun.
On the 25th December were born Jesus, Mithras, Attis, Saturn, Apollo, and the Invincible Sun.
The Sun Gods have quite a complicated interrelationship. Zeus, and Apollo are both also considered to be Sun Gods. Apollo is particularly interrelated to Helios, the Greek God who drives the Chariot that carries the Sun across the skies every day. The Romans had a God called Sol who some say was a deity who declined to be of minor importance, until the transexual Emperor Elagabalas and then Aurelian in 274 AD revived the cult. Sol Invictus was the focus of Constantine the Great, and has been suggested as a response of the Romans to a trend towards monotheism in the later Roman period. Sol for Constantine was a gateway God to Christianity.
It is also notable that early worship of Jesus is full of solar metaphors, Jesus being, for example, the light of the world. Churches are also virtually all orientated East West, aligned with the rising and setting suns. The Altar is always at the East End, and effigies on tombs face the East.
Did the Celts have a sun-god? Belenos is a contender, but linguists are proposing his name does not come from words meaning bright but from strong. The God Lugh’s name is suggested to mean ‘shining’ but his attributes are more of a warrior than a sun god. Taranis is probably the best candidate, but he is more of a sky or thunder god than specifically a sun god. However, his symbol is a wheel and the wheel is symbolic of the turning of the year.
The Golden Wheel from Haute Marne in France, (Public Domain, Wikipedia)
His 8 spoked wheel is said to be symbolic of the Sun and it represents the division of the year by the 4 quarterly sun festivals (Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox) and the 4 cross-quarter festivals, (Samhain or Halloween, Imbolc or Candlemas, Beltane or May Day, Lughnasa or Harvest Festival).
December 25th is a few days after our reckoning of the Solstice but it was the date of the Roman Solstice.
Christmas Cake
Today, you might be tucking into a Christmas Cake (originally eaten on Twelfth Night). Now, I know many Americans have a bizarre belief that fruit cake is the cake of the devil, something you receive as a gift and give away to someone else, as most Americans hate it. More fool them for missing out on one of the delights of the Christmas period, that and cold turkey sandwiches. Christmas Cake is made on stir up Sunday, the last Sunday in November, to let the ingredients develop their flavour. They are then covered with marzipan and decorative icing.
19th Century Christmas Cake, generally now the icing continues down the side of the cake.
In Germany, they also eat a fruit bread called Stollen or Weihnachtsstollen. The tradition is said to have been started in the 15th Century, when the Pope gave dispensation to allow the use of butter in the fasting period of Advent. The Germans had to use oil to replace the banned butter, but they could only make oil from turnips, so eventually the Pope allowed the use of butter, with which they made bread with added dried fruits.
Stollen By Gürgi – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3720379
In Italy, they eat Panettone, a fruit bread/cake. It is a sourdough, and a cross between a brioche and a cake. It often comes in a beautiful decorative tin, and is delicious. The centre of panettone production is Milan and this year is the 200th Anniversary of Milan’s famous Marchesi 1824 which makes artisanal Panettone from ‘fine ingredients such as six-crown sultanas, naturally candied fruit, Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar, Italian honey and eggs from free-range hens, blended in a slow-rising dough with the exclusive use of Marchesi 1824 sourdough starter‘. Thank you, Mara from Milan, for the heads-up.
Screen shot from website – does not click through to sales!
Which is best? The only way to find out is to eat several slices of each. America, you don’t know what you are missing.
For stir up sunday see the second half of this post of mine.
This is the second day of the Eel season. Jellied Eels have been a staple of East End diets since the 18th Century. They were to be found in many stalls dotted around the East End, from vendors venturing into pubs and in Pie and Mash shops. Tubby Isaacs is perhaps, the most famous and jellied eels are still sold in a diminishing number of places in the East End. Manze’s eel, pie, and mash shop at 204 Deptford High Street, London was listed in December 2023. The shop opened in 1914 and was a pioneer of commercial branding, and this is the fourth Manze’s shop to be listed: Tower Bridge Street, Chapel Market Islington, and Walthamstow High street. The current owner of the Deptford shop is retiring and so the shop will close.
There are three Pie and Mash shops near me in Hackney; the one in Dalston has become a bar, the one in Broadway Market has recently become an optician, but the one in Hoxton Market is surviving, and all three have retained their distinctive interiors.
Pie and Mash Shop. Established 1862, closed down 2021. Broadway Market, Hackney (photo, copyright the author)
My mum loved jellied eels. It took me until I was over 60 before I could bring myself to try them and have not wanted to repeat, what for me, was a revolting experience. On the River Lee Navigation is another piece of Eel history which is the excellent Fish and Eel Pub at Dobbs Weir.
By JanesDaddy (Ensglish User) – English Wikipedia – [1], CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1663124
Gervase Markham in his ‘The English Husbandman’ of 1635 provides instructions on how:
To take Eels in Winter, Make a long bottle or tube of Hay, wrapped about Willow boughs, and having guts or garbage in the middles. Which being soaked in the deep water by the river side, after two or three days the eels will be in it and you may tread them out with your feet.
Eel traps at Bray, on the River Thames (Henry Taught 1885)
Romans, Saxons,
Eels have been eaten for thousands of years. Apicius, author of a famous collection of Roman Recipes tells us of two sauces for eels:
Sauce for Eel Ius in anguillam
Eel will be made more palatable by a sauce which has pepper, celery seed, lovage, anise, Syrian sumach, figdate wine, honey, vinegar, broth, oil, mustard, reduced must.
Another Sauce for Eel Aliter ius in anguillam
Pepper, lovage, Syrian sumach, dry mint, rue berries, hard yolks, mead, vinegar, broth, oil; cook it.
Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, which tells of Britain as a land with “the greatest plenty of eel and fish.” Several fish traps have been found in and around the Thames, one for example in Chelsea.
Aristotle, Freud and the Deep Sargasso Sea
But eels had a great mystery no one knew where they came from or how they reproduced. Aristotle thought they spontaneously emerged from the mud. Sigmund Freud dissected hundreds of Eels, hoping to find male sex organs. It was only on 19th October 2022 that an article in the science journal Nature entitled ‘First direct evidence of adult European eels migrating to their breeding place in the Sargasso Sea‘ was published, proving beyond doubt that the theory that Eels go to the sea near Bermuda to spawn was, incredibly, true.
Eel Pie Island
Eel Pie Island . Ordnance Survey In 1871 to 1882 map series (OS, 1st series at 1:10560: Surrey (Wikipedia)
But Eels also have their place in Rock and Roll History – Eel Pie island is on the Thames, near Twickenham and Richmond. It is famous for its Eels, was home to an iconic music venue (the Eel Pie Hotel) that hosted most of the great English Bands of the 50s. 60s, and 70s. The roll call of bands here is awesome. The Stones, Cream, Rod Stewart, Pink Floyd, you name it, they were here:
David Bowie, Jeff Beck, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Memphis Slim, Champion Jack Dupree, Buddy Guy, Geno Washington, Long John Baldry, Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Ten Years After, Chicken Shack, and one of my all-time favourite bands. the Savoy Brown Blues Band. And I have forgotten the Nice, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Joe Cocker, and the Who. And many more!
The Rolling Stones played at the Railway Tavern, Richmond on Sunday, February 24, 1963, and were spotted by people from the nearby Eel Pie Hotel and booked for a 6 month residency, which they began as virtually unknown and ended as famous.
To my mind, THE genius of the electric guitar, and a great songwriter.
Born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle on 27th November 1942. He was spotted by ex-Animals Chas Chandler (bassist) when performing in small cafés In New York as Jimmy James. Chandler suggested he came to England. On the flight, they decided to change his name to Jimi. He arrived on September 24, 1966.
“It’s a different kind of atmosphere here. People are more mild-mannered. I like all the little streets and the boutiques. It’s like a kind of fairyland”
On his first day in London, he met Kathy Etchingham, and she found them a flat on the upper floors of 23 Brook Street, which is now part of Handel&Hendrix in London. This is a a small museum to the two musical giants who lived next door to each other (if they were time travellers that is!).
For the English middle class, it’s comforting to know that Jimi bought the furnishings of the flat from their favourite, the nearby John Lewis Department store. However, he got his swinging 60s look from Carnaby Street and Portobello Road Market.
London wasn’t an arbitrary choice for a young American Bluesman. The wave of British Bands that came to international prominence in 1964, was based on the almost forgotten (by the mainstream media) Black American Blues legends such as Woody Guthrie and Ledbelly. Bands like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and the Animals loved this music, and began their careers playing cover versions in Clubs in London. (For more on the British Blues Revival, look here🙂
Hendrix’s younger brother, Leon, spoke about the importance of London to Hendrix
“He loved England ‘cos it was like Seattle. It was like home. It was the same climate, y’know? And this is where all the music was. This is where all of his friends were – Eric Clapton, The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Brian Jones, everybody…”
He concluded: “After people played, they all went and jammed together. Like, when Jimi played a concert that was only the warm-up… After the concert, he was out and about lookin’ for somebody to play with and somebody’s studio to jam at. They’d just be jammin’ all night ’til, like, seven or eight in the morning. It was awesome.”
Chas Chandler was interested in managing bands, and thought Hey Joe, which he heard Hendrix play, could be a hit single. Hey Joe got to no 6, in January 1967) in the UK Top Ten, but failed to make an impression in the US.
Here is a YouTube film of Hendrix playing ‘Hey Joe’.
The Independent website above gives a good guide to Hendrix in London. An excellent documentary on Hendrix was recently aired on BBC Sounds, Everything but the Guitar.
Finally, have a look at this bill for bands on at the Saville Theatre.
One month in 60s London!
For details of Hendix Gigs look at the Set list Web site, which shows he performed at the Saville Theatre in Jan,May and June 1967 on his First European Tour, and again in Aug and Oct on his 2nd European Tour.
On this Day:
Eels are now in Season. (for Eels, Eel Pie Island, and its amazing musical heritage click here🙂
1703– The Great Storm
About one this morning, the terrible storm arose, which continued till past seven, the wind southwest, the light not known in the memory of man; blew down a vast number of the tops of houses, Chimneys, etc.; the damage incredible., the lady Nicholas and a great many people killed and many wounded: most of the boats and barges forced ashore; an East India ship cast away near Blackwall, besides several merchant ships and colliers; divers of the great trees in St James’s Park, Temple Grayes Inn, etc, blown down; and we are apprehensive we shall hear of great losses at sea.
From Narcissus Luttrell, diary, 1703, quoted from ‘A London Year’ compiled by Travis Elborough and Nick Rennison, you
First published on Nov 27th 2022, as part of Stir Up Sunday! And revised onto its own page on the same day, 2023, and updated 2024.
The original Book of Days 1878 title pageThe 2004 Chambers Book of Days
As you may have noticed, I am beginning to add a section called ‘On this Day’ which highlights some notable events that have happened on this day in history. I am doing this particularly when I am republishing a previously published post. Normally, the post is at least proofread better, but I try, if I have time, to improve it and sometimes expand it. Otherwise, I am trying to add the new ‘On this Day’ section. So if you find you have read the post before, just scroll down to the new content at the bottom.
My main source for the ‘On this Day’ section is Chambers’ ‘Book of Days A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities’in connection with the Calendar’. The original was published, in 1864, by Robert Chambers one of the original founders of Chambers Publishing. The new one takes is inspiration from the original. I found out about it from Sir Roy Strong and Julia Trevelyan Oman’s ‘The English Year, which is itself a personal selection from the Chambers Book of Days. Sir Roy was my boss when I was an Assistant Keeper at the V&A.
November 22nd is the dawning of Sagittarius.
According to the Kalendar of Shepherds 1604, women born on this day should marry at age 13, shall have many sons and live to 72 years old. Men born on November 22nd will be merciful, far-travelled, prosperous after early dangers and live to 72 years and 8 months.
Martinmas Old Style and Pack-Rag Day
Three men for hire (wikipedia)
Martinmas was the Festival of Winter’s Beginning and is celebrated on November 11. It was one of the most famous medieval festivals. In 1752, the calendar was transformed when Britain transferred from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar, 11 days were lost from the Calendar, so the original date of the festival would be what we know as November 22nd. So this is Martinmas Old Style.
In the East Riding of Yorkshire, hiring fairs were held around this time. It was also called Pack-Rag Day as servants carried their clothes to their new place of work.
A hiring fair is how Gabriel Oak is hired by Batheseba Everdene in ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy. They were often also held at Michaelmas, and in Warwickshire are called Mops. See my post on the Mop here.
On this Day we have two joyous events, and one terrible tragedy
1963 President Kennedy and Governor John Connally were shot while part of a motorcade in Dallas.
1968 The Beatles White Album was released
1990 British Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher resigned.
Originally published as two separated posts on 22nd November 2022, republished on 22nd November 2023, merged 2024, and expanded.
Chrysanthemums Flowers for the Dead (the author’s back garden)
How the Celtic festival that marked the beginning of Winter became All Hallows is not clear. Some say the Church set up its own festival independent of the Northern European traditions, but it is as likely that the Church adopted existing pagan festivals, and gave them a Christian spin.
Samhain, on October 31st, was, for Celtic religions, not only the beginning of Winter but also the beginning of the Year. As I noted on my Halloween post the Festivities began on the evening before the day because Celtic and Germanic traditions began their day at Dusk. So Halloween is not, in fact, the evening before, it is the start of the day of the festival.
Facebook Image
The Church adopted the Roman tradition of the day beginning not at Dusk but at Midnight. So the festival of All Hallows is on November 1st not October 31st. But the Church mimicked the old ways of doing things by celebrating the evening before as the Vigil of All Hallows’ Day which was called All Hallows Evening or Halloween.
In London there is a Church called All Hallows, which was associated with Barking Abbey which was founded in the 9th Century. It is known as All Hallows Barking or All Hallows by the Tower. It has a prominent position on Tower Hill, which would have been visible from boats coming up the Thames. It has the earliest Post Roman arch in a Church in the City of London which is made of reused Roman bricks and in the crypt were Roman tessellated floors.
The Roman floors look domestic rather than from a Roman temple or church but its position on the hill would have made it a good position for a Roman temple. In the 6th Century Pope Gregory wrote to St Augustine suggesting to him that he should adapt pagan practices into Christian ones, so a temple should not be wrecked but should be converted to a Church and a sacrifice of an ox into a feast dedicated to God. Is this what happened at All Hallows? Here is what the Pope wrote:
Now, I don’t want to be shot down in flames because there is no evidence that there was a Roman Temple here, nor indeed a Roman or immediately Post Roman Church. But it is one of the earliest Churches in the City of London, and there must have been Christian Churches in Roman London, and this would be on my list of candidates. It is simply that the attribution to All Hallows provides a possible link to Celtic festivals.
For the Celts Samhain was an uncanny day when all the sprites and spirits are alive and in the world. The Church took that, and span in on its heads, so it became a ‘hallowed’ holy day when all Saints are celebrated and alive to us, and celebrated on October 31st and November 1st.
A celebration of All Saints was originally in May in the Church but was changed to the 1st November in the 7th Century by Pope Boniface, later swapped back to May, and in the 9th Century fixed on the 1st November. It is followed on the 2nd by All Souls’ Day.
So on the 1st November, those celebrating the pagan festival would be in full swing after a hard night of celebration. The embers of the Fire would be still burning, stones left around the fire would be inspected for the prophecy they told of the future. Each person had a stone, and if it was still intact it was good luck, if it had disappeared the future was not good.
In France, All Hallows or All Saints is called La Toussaint, and flowers such as Chrysanthemums, which blossom in late October, were put on the graves.
In Spain, it is Dia de Todo Los Santos and is a national holiday upon which people put flowers on the graves of the dead.
In Mexico, Dia de los Muertos celebrates Holy Innocents on the 1st – Dia de los Inocentes. People create altars to the lost ones, with their favourite flowers, toys, food stuffs,, photographs. People argue about the pre-colombian aspects of the festival as there are similarities to European All Saints Days celebrations but Quecholli, was a celebration of the dead that honoured Mixcóatl – the god of war. It was celebrated between October 20th and November 8th.
My correspondent in Mexico has sent back these pictures of the festivities in Mexico.
Day of the Dead in Mexico. Photos by Sylvie Morice
The female figure to the left is La Catrina. This image was popularised by an early 20th Century design by José Guadalupe Posada and developed in a mural by Diego Rivera. For more details click here.
A Day Off for the English
In the the Laws of King Alfred the Great, this day was a day off for freemen. I will be writing about Days off in the Anglo Saxon Calender on august 15th.
First published in 2022, revised in 2023 and 2024.
One of the joys of my Spring & Summer is revisiting places I know and love in my role as a Course Director for Road Scholar. Sunday, I was in Broadway, once considered the most beautiful village in Britain. It was also the model for Riseholme in the wonderful ‘Mapp and Lucia’ books by E. F. Benson (made into a TV series by the BBC starring Prunella Scales, Geraldine McEwan and Nigel Hawthorne).
This weekend was the:
The artists register in the morning and have their paper or canvas stamped, or given a block of Maltese stone. They then go off to create a work of art in the village. At 3pm or so, they are judged. At 5pm, the art works are exhibited and often on sale in the Marquee on the village green.
Another artist participating Artist in the ‘Great Broadway Paint off’
It’s always a delight walking around Broadway in the sun, but with an artist and easel every 50 yards or so even more enjoyable. By the tent on the village green were about 10 sculptors chipping away at identical blocks of stone.
Sculptors at the Great Broadway Paint off
I believe ceramic, textile, and artists in other media are also willing to have a go at making art in a limited timescale.
The appellation of most beautiful village, came in the late 19th Century. Broadway, once made rich by selling wool and then as a stop off on the stage coach route from Aberystwyth to Worcester, Oxford and London, fell on hard times with the arrival of Brunel’s Great Western Railway to the Cotswolds. Half the village, the Broadway Museum says, moved away as their livelihood serving the coaching trade died.
@dawnjordanart
But artists, led by Americans Frances Millet and Edwin Abbey, turned Broadway into a much sort-after country retreat. Visitors included Oscar Wilde, J. M. Barrie, Singer-Sargeant, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Gabriel Dante Rossetti, American actress, Mary Anderson, Edward Elgar, E. F, Benson. Mark Twain visited for Millet’s marriage.
J.M. Barrie being bowled by Mary de Navarro. (aka Mary Anderson, who played many roles including Juliette at Stratford-on-Avon)
What made the visit particularly interesting was the story told to me by the Volunteer at the Gordon Russell Museum in Broadway. (More about Gordon Russell in a future post) This is the story as I understood it:
The Russells restored the Lygon Arms in Broadway using Arts And Crafts architects. They also restored antique furniture. The son, Gordon Russell, became a leading designer of modernist Furniture and so advertised to passengers on the Cunard Line in order to attract the attention of rich American visitors. One, Henry T Ford, was interested, came to Broadway, staying at the Lygon arms. He asked for help to purchase a Cotswold Cottage. He was taken to nearby village Snowshill, where Ford bought a complete Blacksmith’s workshop, and shipped them back stone by numbered stone to Brentford on the Thames, then to the London Docks and across the Atlantic to set them up in a Museum in Michigan where they still are!
Research suggests it’s a little more complicated, in so far as he purchased his first Cottage before coming to Broadway, but it still leaves a delightful story about American ideas of Quintessential English village life. More on this story here:
By the way, Frances Millet planned to return to the States on the Titanic. He was one of the 1500 who drowned, but a letter he wrote while on the ship was posted, probably in France and is on display in the Broadway Museum.
First Published in June 2023, Republished in June 2024
North Atlantic chart of weather for June 6th 1944. Showing occupied Europe with observations obtained from the enigma machine
In 2014 or thereabouts I went to a play by David Haig which was based on the true story of weather forecaster James Stagg’s advice that the weather on June 6th 1944 would be the best day to go ahead.
The play was called Pressure and was great because it really conveyed the enormity of the decision that Ike, Churchill and others had to make. To go ahead in bad weather risked enormous casualties and the failure of the Landings. To postpone, might mean Hitler discovered the location of the invasions and disaster.
Major characters portrayed in the play included Ike and his driver, Kay Summersby with whom he was very close, and an American forecaster who disagreed with the British meteorologist James Stagg. How much of the play was for dramatic effect and how much is true, I’m not entirely sure but it is a fascinating D Day story.
The maps were hand drawn and partially based on intercepted data decoded by the enigma machine. Stagg recommended postponing the landings one day from the 5th to the 6th of June, when it was hoped the ideal combination of calm seas, low water at first light and a full moon would occur.
Thanksgiving is a festival given over to celebrating God’s Bounty. There are unanswerable debates about which was the ‘First’ Thanksgiving but the date of the 4th Thursday in November was set by Abraham Lincoln. It is basically a harvest festival, but was adopted by Lincoln as one method to unite a divided nation during the Civil War.
Thanksgiving today is mostly roast turkey with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, with many other variants and additions such as a first course of soup, and vegetables like brussel sprouts and broccoli. Very like an English Christmas dinner, but replacing the Christmas Pudding with pumpkin pie.
As to what the first Pilgrims would have eaten is not known, but their chronicler Edward Winslow noted:
“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week.”
So the birds shot by 4 marksmen would have been wild turkey but also other birds such as ducks, geese, and swans. Seafood; Mussels, lobster, and eel were also available.
As to ‘gathering the fruits of our labors’. This might have included onions, beans, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, carrots, and peas. Stuffing might be seasoned with sage, thyme, parsley, marjoram, fennel, anise or dill, The Pilgrims had plenty of Corn from their first harvest which would have been turned into cornmeal, and eaten as a mush if savoury or sweetened with molasses as a porridge, or made into cornbread, or for stuffing.
Indigenous Wampanoag Americans might have been present, but only to investigate the shooting of canons in celebration by the Pilgrims. Relationships were tense between the natives and the immigrants. Some Indigenous Americans consider it a day of mourning; others use it as a day of gathering for the family, but generally, consider images of the Pilgrims and Indigenous Americans sitting down peacefully celebrating together to be ‘a lie’. (Native Americans and the First Thanksgiving.)
First Published on 24th November 2022, Republished on 23rd November 2023
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