The Digital Digger

Someone has come along and dug a big hole in the Crematorium. I don't know why they have done this - it would seem like a bit of a contradiction in terms. Anyway, it gives me a rare insight into what I am walking over each day. It's kind of fascinating, all those layers of different coloured earth. All of which must have their meaning. Perhaps I should take a sample and send it to JGC (she is an adept digger after all). But it is wet and muddy, so I walk on and hope that the analysis can be undertaken from photographic records.

Catch The Egg

If you try to watch BBC television at the moment, you are beset by constant and annoying announcements which say something like "Missed this programme? Well never mind because you can watch it on your computer using the BBC iPlayer" (which, if you think about it, is a bit like saying "give me a call if you don't get this letter"). They are annoying for several reasons, the main one being that - try as I might - I cannot get the iPlayer to work on my computer. The help page suggests that the problem is a conflict with my Norton Ant-Virus, but I have followed all the instructions on how to overcome this, none of which have had the slightest effect. In so doing, I have scripted my Norton to allow cookies, pop-ups, and tins of sardines from bbc.co.uk. I have given free rein to everyone from the Director-General to the BBC lift operator to wander around the inner-sanctums of my hard drive. But still all I get is an annoying grey screen.

The maddening thing is that the BBC has been concentrating on the development of their blasted iPlayer at the expense of almost everything else. Their podcasts are still disappointingly few and far between - although now you can catch up with what is happening in Ambridge whilst you walk the concrete urban sidewalks. They also seem to have adopted a path-of-least resistance in relation to the copyright problems that surround the new media. Why, for example, can't you "listed again" to Desert Island Disks - "for rights reasons" - whilst you can "listen again" to any number of Radio 2 programmes? And what is the point in turning a programme like Jazz Library into a podcast when you limit yourself to playing a 30 second bite (more like a sound bit) from each of the records discussed? It's like the audio equivalent of a prick-teaser.

Most annoying of all, why does the BBC limit the availability of its back-catalogue of radio programmes to just 7 days? If I can turn on my Cable TV station and access "television on demand" why can't I access "radio on demand"? It can't be storage - you could store a weeks' radio broadcasts in the space it takes to store one Eastenders episode. I apologise for starting the week with a moan but there are good reasons. The current BBC "Book At Bedtime" is a ten-part serialisation of a book by Betty Macdonald called "The Egg and I". I was not familiar with the book and came across it by chance whilst paging through the BBC website. I will not waste time summarising the plot - suffice it to say it is very funny and extremely well written. Go to the BBC website straight away and catch-up with the episodes you might have missed. It started last Monday, so the daft BBC seven-day rule means that you have until this evening to listen to the first episode. Catch it quick - it's worth it.

Over The Top

Amy and I took our walk this morning down by the edge of the woods. There was a freezing fog clinging to the scrub. All of a sudden it put me in mind of what it must have been like in the trenches of the Great War - the half-finished excavations looking for all the world like shell-holes. Luckily, Amy tugged on the lead and brought me back to the twenty-first century.

The Curious Case Of The Milliners' Wedding

Irrespective of anything else, this is just a gorgeous photograph. Again it came out of one of those boxes of old photographs which are handed down. There are no firm details as to who the subjects of the photograph are other than a scribbled note in pencil on the back which states "Harry's Father". I must confess that the handwriting looks suspiciously like mine and therefore it appears that at some stage, I half identified the happy couple and then abandoned them to a fate of dust and scratches at the bottom of a old cardboard box. For this I feel guilty and I am therefore determined to make some amends. I need to track down the details and release them to the waiting world. It will be like one of those wedding reports you see in the local paper. The difference will be that it will be a little late in appearing (as it turns out, 108 years late).

The Harry was the clue, for as regular readers of the Blog will know, I had an Uncle Harry. He was married to my fathers' sister and was therefore not a direct blood relative of mine. Luckily, amongst the various documents I have accumulated over the years, I have a copy of his birth certificate. He was born in 1903 and his parents were Abraham Moore and Alice Moore (formally Rotheray). So the chances are that this could be a photograph of Abraham and Alices' wedding. The one problem with this is that they all look a little too affluent . Abraham is listed on the birth certificate as being a "Piece Taker In" which sounds as though it is a run-of-the-mill textile process. Could a Piece Taker In have afforded those magnificent hats or attracted a girl from a family that could. The census records suggest that Alice's father was a "Butter Factor" : once again not likely to be able to afford all those ribbons and bows.

The crowning piece of evidence was in the 1891 census records. By now Alice is 16 and her occupation is listed as being a "Milliner Apprentice". We therefore have a possible solution - the hats were stock in trade, borrowed for the big day from the brides' workplace. Whatever the explanation, it does seem likely that it was the wedding of Abraham and Alice which took place in the Spring of 1900. So, a little late in the day, we can finally publish the picture, and the report :

"The wedding took place on Saturday 23rd April 1900 of Abraham, son of Smith and Margaret Moore of Percy Street, Horton, Bradford and Alice, eldest daughter of Thomas and Lydia Rotheray of Smiddles Lane Bowling, Bradford. The bride wore a dress of starched white silk ....."

Coming Face To Face With Victor Grayson

Last night I saw Victor Grayson. It was in the upstairs room at Marsden Socialist Club. I was killing a few moments during the Beer Break of the Marsden Jazz Festival Committee Meeting. Victor was doing nothing other than smiling at me from an old photograph on the wall. I'm not sure how our meeting affected him, but for me it made me go home and re-read the very strange and very mysterious story of British socialism's lost leader.

Grayson was born in Liverpool, the son of a carpenter, in 1881. Like many great orators, he had a bad stammer as a child, but overcame this and became active in the nineteenth century trade union and socialist movement. In January 1907 the Colne Valley Branch of the Independent Labour Party - more than likely meeting in the very room in Marsden where his picture now hangs - adopted him as their candidate for the forthcoming elections. The leadership of the Labour Party tried to pressure the local ILP branch to drop their support for his candidacy (there was an informal electoral pact with the Liberal Party) but they refused and against all the odds, Grayson was elected. Politically, he stood on the extreme left wing of the Party and openly preached the need for revolution and the overthrow of capitalism. Angry at their opposition to his candidacy, Grayson refused to join the official Labour Group in Parliament, and sat as an independent socialist. He quickly fell foul of the rules and conventions of Parliament and was removed from the House on several occasions.

However, just as frequently, he removed himself from the House. He attended few debates, preferring to concentrate on lecture tours and increasingly frequent bouts of heavy drinking. Stories of his drunkenness and luxurious lifestyle quickly spread and in the 1910 election he lost his parliamentary seat. In the years that followed, there were episodes of heavy drinking and several attempts to re-launch his political career, all of which failed. He surprised many of his socialist supporters by becoming a ardent supporter of the First World War. In 1915 he left Britain to go to New Zealand, but immediately joined the New Zealand army and returned to the Western Front where, in 1917, he was badly wounded.

After the war he returned to Britain where he became involved in a bitter campaign against the then Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. He claimed to have proof that Lloyd George was involved in selling political honours and the involvement of an MI5 agent, Arthur Maundy Gregory, in this corrupt practice. In September 1920, Grayson was beaten up in The Strand. He claimed that it was an attempt to silence him and stop him naming the "monocled dandy" (Gregory) as a key player in the sale of honours. A few days later he received a telephone call whilst out drinking with friends. He told his friends that he would be back shortly and left them. Later that evening he was seen entering a house down by the River Thames. After that, he was never seen again.

No body was ever discovered, no trial ever took place. But there were rumours and sightings and theories and speculation. Many claim that he was murdered to silence him. Some claim he fled the country and lived under an assumed name in Australia. Nobody knows. What is known, however, is that Gregory continued to have a somewhat shady involvement in British politics (he was one of the people behind the forged Zinoviev Letter that helped defeat the Labour Party in the 1924 election) before finally being imprisoned in 1932 for attempting to sell political honours.

So many aspects of the story have a contemporary feel about them. I would have happily sat down with Grayson for an hour or two and attempted to find out what he knew and why he vanished. But Victor Grayson wasn't talking. He was just looking at me from his spot on the wall in the upstairs committee room. Smiling knowingly.

Let Shape Rule Supreme

I love it when the strong winter sun produces dramatic patches of intense burnt-out white. Colour becomes meaningless and shape rules supreme. This was our walk today.

That's How The Story Ends

Still trying to keep to my challenge of reading a different newspaper every day, today I try a variation on the theme. To test the validity of the claim that "nothing ever changes" I decide to limit myself to a newspaper published on the 7th January 1908 - just 100 hundred years ago. Access to the newspaper is easy thanks to the magnificent Library of Congress "Chronicling America" project which aims to make good quality digital images of newspaper archives available. But, be warned, only follow the link if you are prepared to get sidetracked from what you are supposed to be doing for a day or two.

Limiting myself to just the front page, here is a quick analysis of the stories that made the headlines in the San Francisco Call of the 7th January 1908:

* The start of the second trial of wealthy coal and railroad heir Harry K Thaw for the murder of the New York architect Stanford White. The article contains a sensational description of the opening of the trial - at which Thaw pleads insanity - and the part played by his wife, Evelyn Nesbit. The illustration is of the good lady herself who - it is said - testified on behalf of her husband in return for a divorce and a $1 million settlement.

* A developing row between the US President - Theodore Roosevelt - and the head of the Navy personnel department, Rear Admiral Willard Herbert Brownson. Brownson resigned following the decision by the President to appoint medical officers to be in charge of hospital ships, which was seen as an insult to the US Navy. The headline - "President Puts Navy In Uproar Over Brownson" - has a nice contemporary feel about it.

* The report of an "incident" in which a noted San Francisco capitalist - George Whittell - is accused of pushing the son of the President of Guatemala down a flight of stairs. The dictators' son - D Cabrera - bruised his bottom and his pride and demanded $50,000 in compensation. The incident occurred after Cabrera had been out on the town with Whittell's son and, it would appear - led him into bad ways.

* Other choice bits include a report of how the Navy has decided to encourage its sailors to take exercise and has therefore agreed to pay the bill for a Navy rating's broken jaw which he received in a football game. The re-arrest of a businessman who faces charges or perjury and corruption with regard to the purchase of public land. It appears that he was sentenced to 24 hours in jail but was released at tea-time, his sentence having been halved for "good behaviour"! A competition in which you can win yourself $5 by writing a witty and original answer to the question "why do women kiss when they meet?"

So, there we have it. A political scandel including the President, a sensational murder trial, a society scandel resulting from a drunken night out on the town, a corrupt businessman getting a few hours in jail; ..... very little has changed in 100 years,

One of the great advantages of reading newspapers which are 100 years old is that you know how the story ends. Thaw was convicted or murder and found insane. He spent some time in an asylum but his money bought him a degree of freedom and he went on to commit further crimes before dying, aged 76, in 1947. His partly-fictionalised story forms the basis of the current best-seller "An Interpretation of Murder". Roosevelt survived his row with Rear Admiral Brownson and went on to have a century of stuffed bears named after him. Brownson had two battleships named after him. I have been unable to discover whether Whittell ever paid Cabrera's son the $50,000 in compensation. Cabrera senior - a nasty piece of work by all accounts - went on to rule Guatemala until 1920 when he was forced out of office. Something of an eccentric he tried to get the cult of Minerva adopted as the official religion of Guatemala and built several Temples to Minerva.

It would be quite nice if we knew how the various stories that populate the newspapers of the 7th January 2008 ended. But there again, perhaps we are better off not knowing.

Could Eunice and Leslie Please Contact Me

I got this new Family Tree software package for Christmas. It is all very swish and organised and allows you to attach images to the various records. Thus, in addition to knowing that your Great Aunt Ruth Annie was born in September 1874, you can gaze into her sepia eyes (or you could if you had a photograph of her). Searching for such a photograph I dipped into one of those old cardboard boxes that are a part of most of our households. I couldn't find anything which could possibly have been Ruth Annie, but I did find two photographs of Eunice and Leslie. I know it is Eunice and Leslie because each photograph is signed on the back. One is dedicated to Peggy and the other to Eddy. My problem is that I haven't the slightest idea who Eunice and Leslie are.

From the cut of their jib they look far too posh for my immediate family. Those round eyeglasses give an almost intellectual appearance to Leslie and you can also tell that he is a man used to wearing a tie. As for Eunice, she looks like someone who is unfamiliar with the daily grind of housework. That suspicious cast to her lower face makes me mindful of a Librarian. The "Peggy" of the dedication is most likely my Aunty Annie (always known as Peggy) and I believe that her husband (Harry) had a brother called Eddy. The picture was taken by the Jerome Company of Manchester, if that helps.

So do me a favour Eunice and Leslie if you are out there. Drop me an e-mail and let me know who you are and how come we know you. I can file you away in the correct data set then.

The Tale Of A Confiding Young Wife

It is a wet, cold, dark Thursday afternoon and there are a dozen jobs that need doing. But yet I find myself browsing through the on-line archives of the Liverpool Daily Post and, at random, reading the edition for Saturday August 7th 1897. I was always of the opinion that the best way to teach history is to give someone an old newspaper. A good newspaper reflects not only the great and the good of the history books but also the daily triumphs and disasters of ordinary people. I don't know why the following article appealed to me, it was just interesting. And for that reason I reproduce it here.

Fortune-Telling At Knowsley

A Confiding Young Wife

At Woolton Petty Sessions yesterday, before Mssrs James Marsh and Holbrook Gaskell, an interesting case of fortune-telling was heard. Mary Boswell, a typical daughter of the picturesque Romany race, was charged with having told fortunes at Knowsley on July 19th.

Marion Jane Airey, a young married woman living in Knowsley, said that the prisoner called at her home on the date named and on two other occasions, and asked her to purchase articles of lace or fancy work. The prisoner also offered to tell witness her fortune and the latter gave her altogether 3s 6d. While in the house the prisoner picked up a dress skirt, several antimacassars, and some chinaware, which she coolly appropriated. She also asked if witness had any gold, saying that her palm should really be crossed with that precious metal in order to tell her destiny properly. Witness, however, had no gold and consequently gave none.

Mr. Riley, who appeared for the prisoner, cross-examined Mrs Airey at considerable length with a view to showing that she gave the Gypsy the articles mentioned voluntarily. Witness admitted that she did not really believe prisoner's power to tell her fortune and she gave the money because she asked for it. It was not true that she took prisoner into her confidence about her troubles, though she offered her a cup of tea. It was understood that the things which the prisoner took were to be returned. She has since got some of them back, but not all.

The Chairman : She is not summoned for taking these things but for fortune-telling. (To witness : Did she tell you her fortune?)

Witness : Yes.

Mr Holbrook Gaskell : She evidently didn't know her own fortune (laughter).

Mr Riley : She advised you not to get into debt without your husband's knowledge?

Witness : Yes, of course.

Mr Riley : And gave you much good advice, I dare say?

For the defence, Mr Riley said the prisoner belonged to one of the principal Gypsy tribes, and had never before been prosecuted. She went to Mrs Airey's house simply in order to sell her wares, and it was at witnesses own request that she told her fortune. The things which prisoner took had been returned and he asked that she might be dealt with under the First Offenders Act.

The magistrates, after retiring to consider their decision, sentenced the prisoner to fourteen days' imprisonment, declining to entertain the suggestion that the punishment should be a pecuniary one."

You could teach an entire term's social history course based on that press cutting alone. At least, you can avoid a little bit of work by reading it.

A Pint Of Beer And A Chickpea Salad

Determined to start the year with a good news story I trawled the Internet until I netted this little beauty from a splendid publication called Earthtimes.org. It relates to a German study undertaken by the Technical University of Munich which indicates that xanthohumol - a a natural constituent of hops - can help to kill breast, colon, ovarian and prostate cancer. Tempted as I am to put pen to digital paper and send off a request to the Chief Medical Officer calling on him to replace current alcohol guidelines, I hesitate. I should know by now, official health advice is fad and fancy driven rather than research driven. Take for example junk food.

On the 1st January 2008 new rules came into force in the UK banning the advertising of so-called "junk food" during television programmes likely to be watched by children under the age of 16. There are several problems with this nonsensical rule. First, the definition of "junk food" is based on the breathtakingly complex, but scientifically unproven, Food Standards Agency Nutrient Profiling Model. According to this model, cheese is classified as a "junk food". Indeed, if you apply the models' principles to breast milk it must also be classified as junk food. Secondly, the belief that the problem of obesity can be countered by pretending that fish and chips and bacon sandwiches don't exist, would seem to be replacing free and informed choice with a kind of Orwellian smokescreen. "Don't mention the waffle" will become the order of the day.

One almost longs for the idiots in charge of such initiatives to have the courage of their strange convictions and go all the way and ban those things they do not like. At least that would have a kind of puritanical honesty about it. Fish and chip shops could be closed by law. Burger bars could be limited to the half-lit back streets of foreign cities. The carrot would be king and we could all pretend we were happy. Would I be allowed to still sip my cancer-busting pint of best bitter whilst a nibbled a chickpea salad? I doubt it.

I am afraid that my attempts to start the new year in an optimistic way have failed. In case it helps I will leave you with the "nutritional advisory label" from a splendid chocolate pudding that was enjoyed in this household over Christmas. But don't tell the food police.

In With The New

All New Years' Eve parties should involve friends and family. So we started at a family party which meant that we were amongst friends as well as family. And then - as midnight approached - we moved on to the Rock Tavern to see the New Year in with our friends there (and they also included a good number of family members as well). The first picture shows a curious game in progress, the rules of which I am still unsure about.

The second picture was taken this morning as I came back from collecting Xan from some all-night party or another. The mist was still clinging to the sides of the valley. But the Calder Valley line - at the cutting above Salterhebble Hill - cuts through all that mellowness.