I Liked Right Well

The postcard is from Uncle Fowler's collection and shows Fleet Street in Bury, Lancashire. It is from Eliza Beanland, Fowler's sister, who was working in Lancashire during the Great War (Fowler and Eliza's brother, Albert, was my Grandfather). As far as I can make out Fleet Street no longer exists - I don't know Bury very well - but if I am wrong I am sure someone will point out my error. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the card is the message on the reverse in my Great Aunt Eliza's spidery hand. It reads as follows:

Dear Brother, Just a line to say I arrived allright. I went to the New Church at Haywood last night and I liked right well, Mrs Land went with me, and they were a man and woman sat with us and they gave us an invitation to their house. With love, Eliza.

In its own way this message is just as fascinating as the messages from the Venetian Ambassador I wrote about yesterday. It tells not of the death of powerful monarchs but the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. Wonderful stuff.

Picture Of The Day : Arcadia

This morning the tickets for our forthcoming holiday arrived so there can only be one subject for the Picture of the Day. It is the P&O Cruise ship Arcadia and in four weeks time I will be sat on one of those upper decks, watching the world go by. The tickets have arrived, the excursions are booked. All I need to do is to pack my shorts and Panama Hat and off I go.

Hunting Down History

I suppose there is something of the hunter-gatherer in all of us. Some people like to hunt foxes, with others it's truffles. With me, it's digital archives. The pleasure that the stag hunter probably gets when he sights a  mature hart in the cross-hairs, I get when I find a new digital archive. And the adrenaline coursed through my clerkish veins this morning when I discovered British History Online. To quote the website : "British History Online is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, we aim to support academic and personal users around the world in their learning, teaching and research". If that sounds boring take a look at some of the titles which have been added recently : things like the complete series of the Calendar of Treasury Books and Papers and  the complete series of the Calendar of Spanish State Papers. But pick a collection at random, pick a volume at random and pick a date at random and dip in : absolutely fascinating.

My dip took me into the digital collection of the State Papers of Venice for the period 1202 to 1675. The 38 volumes cover relations between the Venetian State and England and they are, I am glad to say, available in English translation. In the main they cover official reports and letters from Venetian diplomats and these provide a wonderful sidelight on English and European history. Here are a couple of illustrations from the records of 1649. They are taken from the texts of diplomatic reports which have been sent to the Venetian Doge and Senate: 

Alvise Contarini, Venetian Ambassador to the Congress of Munster, to the Doge and Senate : 19th February, 1649.

The king of England has on three different days been taken before the judges appointed by the military for his trial. They omitted to read a letter presented by the French ambassador, and both his guards and judges treated him throughout as a private individual, never taking off their hats or paying him any kind of mark of homage or respect. He took exception to the judges as having no authority over their sovereign, without whom and still less without the concurrence of the House of Lords they could not pretend to any form of parliament ; nor did he make any other reply to the charges which were read to him. They took four days for consultation, in order to pass sentence without admitting further defence.....

Alvise Contarini, Venetian Ambassador at Munster, to the Doge and Senate : 26 February 1649

The poor king of England has at last lost both crown and life by the hand of the executioner, like a common criminal, in London, before all the people, without any one speaking in his favour and by the judicial sentence of his own subjects. The accompanying narrative gives the particulars. History affords no example of the like. It is a shame to all contemporary sovereigns, who for the sake of revenge against each other about trifles have allowed themselves to be confronted by so imposing a spectacle, of the worst possible example. ....

Wonderful stuff. Hunting at its very best. And without any cruelty to animals. Now Kings, that's another matter.

Picture Of The Day : The Royal Geoff's

This picture was tucked away in a tin box which was amongst the possessions of my mother (Gladys). On the reverse is the following inscription in pencil : "Two pleasant looking brutes, eh Gladys. Taken out in the Western Ocean"  The final line is more difficult to read but seems to say "One of the Royal Geoff's". So did my mother have a friendship with a regal sailor? If anyone recognises their great-great grandfather, please let me know.

Read It, Catch It, Kill It, Bin It.

The UK Government is currently delivering a handy little leaflet on swine flu to every address in the country. My copy hasn't arrived yet, but I have to say that, even at this early stage, I have two problems with the initiative. 

First, as anyone who has read my previous post on the flu crisis will know, I have a spiritual objection to the use of the term "swine flu". It is a phrase calculated to cause offence to pigs and it is a description which is unwarranted by the virological facts of the case. Second, the production and distribution of twenty million or so paper leaflets advising people to sneeze into a paper hanky seems to have missed a potentially fruitful symbiosis. Did not anyone at the mighty Department of Health see the possibilities?  All they had to do was to print the leaflet on tissue paper : it would have been easier on the poor old postmen who had to deliver it and it would have served a very useful purpose once it had been read.  As the campaign slogan states : READ IT, CATCH IT, BIN IT, KILL IT.

Fat Dog To The Big Apple : Week 49 Crossing The State Line

"Now imagine a California casino surrounded by that magnificent landscape. A casino resort featuring Live Blackjack, Video Poker, Slots and Casino Bingo". Yes, here we were stood at the door of the Lucky 7 Casino a few hundred yards north of the mouth of the Smith River and reading from the Casino brochure. Why one would want to come to where the "giant redwoods kiss the mighty Pacific Ocean" to play on a fruit machine was beyond me, but what the hell, we were in California. Just.

I say "just" because we were now just a few miles short of the long-awaited border between California and Oregon. Amy and I had been walking for fifty virtual weeks and we had progressed up the California coast from our starting point outside Los Angeles Union Station. We had climbed mountains (well, OK a couple of small hills), crossed mighty rivers (via modern concrete bridges, but what the hell) and transversed numerous County lines, but those few steps just south of the Winchuck River were the big one. As we took the momentous step into Oregon, I declared to Amy, "Just two small steps for a man and his dog, but one giant leap for the blog". I thought the words had a momentous ring about them : it was the kind of statement that would live for ever. The implications were considerable : we had left behind California Dreamin', the Golden State, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we had said hello to ....? I wasn't quite sure, so I quickly Wiki'd Oregon. "It's called the Beaver State", I told Amy. As we walked north up the Oregon Coast Highway our minds were occupied : Amy was working out how to track and catch a beaver and her owner was pondering the meaning of words.

The State name may have changed but the scenery hadn't. There were still trees. Tree after tree after gas station after tree. If you have the mind - and if you have nothing better to do - you can follow this part of our journey on Google Maps as the Street View van has travelled the route. But don't expect too much excitement, there's an awful lot of concrete and wood. Tiring of the concrete, Amy and I left Highway 101 and followed Ocean View Drive which hugs the coast (the Street View van didn't make it up here so you will just have to imagine what it is like). With all the changes, being next to the ocean was somehow comforting. It was still the Pacific. It was still blue. And as Amy discovered as she explored the rock pools near Red Point, it was still wet. 

By the end of the week we had reached Brookings, our first Oregon city. Like so many of the places we had passed through in recent months, it is a timber town, indeed it was founded by the Brookings Lumber and Box Company just over 100 years ago and named in honour of the company President, John E Brookings. There is still a lot of wood around and if you walk down the curiously misnamed Centre Street you can still see the occasional Plywood Mill still in business. So it was with the familiar aroma of sawdust and tree-bark, that Amy and I ended our first week in our new State. Little seemed to have changed. But at least now, when my neighbour, seeing Amy and I on our daily walk, calls out, "Where have you got to?" I can reply with just a little pride : "Oregon".

Picture Of The Day : Blackpool Storm

It is a Bank Holiday and in the best traditions of Bank Holidays it is cold, wet and windy. People always used to go to the seaside on Bank Holidays and this card was posted in 1907 and has the title "Storm, North Shore, Blackpool". The card was published by the Scottish firm Valentines and a similar picture - not hand coloured like this one - forms part of the St Andrews University Archives and is dated 1904. On the reverse it is addressed to my Great Uncle Fowler and it has a rather cryptic message : "Methinks remark requires reversing". What that means, I have no idea.

Keep Your Porcine Head Down And Employ A PR Consultant

I've always been rather fond of pigs. Indeed, amongst one particular group of friends, I am known as "Hoggy" (their children - always paragons of politeness - address me as "Mr. Hogg"). Granted, my fondness for pigs extends to them in both their natural state and their sliced and fried state, but I would never condone needless cruelty and, if pushed by a logical vegetarian, I would limit my consumption to road-kill pigs. It is with sadness, therefore, that I note that the Egyptian Government has ordered the slaughter of all pigs in an effort to prevent the spread of "swine flu".  

The WHO have been at pains to point out that there is absolutely no evidence that flu can be caught from eating pig products but such reassurances are having little effect, as neurotic humans quickly decide who the swine in the pack is. Whilst criticising the Egyptian cull. it must be recognised that the damage was done once someone came up with a name for this new strain of flu. The European Union spotted the danger of careless nomenclature a week or so ago and, in an effort to protect the reputation of Danish Bacon (and other such brands), tried to get the outbreak renamed. They came up with a name - "Novel Flu" - which at first sight might appear less open to backlashes, but might well have brought about a spate of public book-burning. However, the idea of EU countries calling for a cull of all Jeffrey Archer books has its attractions.

Any pig with a half decent knowledge of history will have been keeping its porcine head down for some time. They only needed to note how Spaniards were treated during the great "spanish flu" outbreak of 1918 and 1919 to know what was in store. They could also note that the serious attempt to get the outbreak re-named "german flu" (in a believe that it originated in the German trenches in Flanders) came to nothing : once a name had become widespread it is - like flu itself -  rather difficult to shake off.

The only advice I can give to my fellow swine is watch your back and, maybe, go in search of a good PR consultant. If we, as a breed, were to employ Max Clifford or the like, perhaps he could start by pointing out that whilst it is very difficult for humans to catch "swine flu" from pigs it appears to be much easier for pigs to catch it from humans. Now how about a cull of all humans? Just to be on the safe side

Picture Of The Day : Humyak House

Humyak House on Duke Street Liverpool is an interesting place for two reasons. First, it is a genuinely photogenic building : with its column of rust-red doors and contrasting rendered façade, no seasoned snapper - including myself - can walk passed without taking a photo or two. Secondly, the name makes it eminently Googlable : there is only one Humyak House in the world and most of the 55 Google results repeat the same, limited, information. The date of the building is known, as is the fact that it is now listed. But who (or what) was Humyak?

Picture Of The Day : Liverpool Overhead Railway

No it's not new and no it's not mine. During my Liverpool visit yesterday I bought a copy of the history of the Liverpool Overhead Railway ("The Docker's Umbrella" by Paul Bolger) and this is one of the illustrations from the book. It was taken in the 1950s and it was in this period that I travelled on the railway : a trip through the docks on the Overhead was always a high spot of our summer holidays in New Brighton. Sadly the Overhead Railway is long gone.

Who Do You Think You Are In The Rain?

Went to Liverpool yesterday on a whim and a Trans-Pennine Express. Isobel was going to a conference on some dreadful disease and I decided to travel over with her and have a wander around. If it had been a plan rather than a whim I would have carefully re-read the family history file before departing and made a list of places to visit. But it was a whim and therefore all I had with my was my MP3 player and a bag of crisps. Such is the start of all great adventures.

I caught a bus to Crosby which is about six miles north of the city and the place where Isobel's Great Grandfather, William Henry Usher, was born. It was grey and cold and I cursed my lack of preparation as I tramped around the graveyard of St Luke's Church looking for any friendly Ushers. Eventually I decided to abandon the exercise and head for the nearest pub, but on the way I found a small bookshop which was advertising a slim volume on the history of Great Crosby, entitled "Mills, Mollies and Marl Pits : The Story Of The Township Of Great Crosby" by John Cochrane. By now it was raining heavily and therefore clutching a slightly damp copy of the book, I headed for the pub on the corner. And there I found the following passage on page 63.

"In 1912 Cooks Lane, which now started from Victoria Road, was renamed Manor Road with great plans for the extension of the Crosby housing stock over the fields to the right and left. At this time the only building to the north of the brick works was White Cottage owned by the local farming family the Somervilles. It is often called Somerville Cottage. In 1866 Henry Usher and his family moved their rope making business from Liverpool to Crosby. They settled at No. 13 Alma Vale and established the business in Cooks Lane roughly between where Manor Drive and St Michaels Road now run. It consisted of a long barn-like structure where the long lengths of twine could be stretched and plaited to form the necessary thickness of rope. This type of building was known as a rope walk. In 1871 Henry moved over Liverpool Road to York Road and in the early 1880s he was joined by Levi, who moved into No. 3 Lune Street, and Thomas who lived at No. 13 Hornby Street. Henry left the firm in 1890 and it was then run as Levi and Thomas Usher with an office at 89 Victoria Road until 1894 when it was taken over by the rope makers Radcliffe and Brown. This became S.J Radcliffe and Company in 1898 and had one of the earliest telephone numbers, Waterloo 231. By 1904 the rope walk was no more."

Now all this, I am sure you will agree, is very fascinating, but it raises more questions than it answers. Henry Usher can't "have left the firm in 1890" as he had died two years before. It must have been his son William Henry (brother of Levi and Thomas) who left the firm and this was Isobel's Great Grandfather. And where exactly was the ropeworks? According to family sources it was in Coronation Road, but according to the book it was much further north on Manor Road. Any attempt to conduct further research was curtailed by the fact that it was pouring it down so I found a bus and headed back to the city centre with the determination to return when the sun was shining and my notebooks were with me.

I know that this might not sound like an adventure to you, but when you are getting on in life and walking the dog is the high spot of the day, it was an exciting day out to me. What else is there to do but to stay at home waiting for Swine Flu?