View allAll Photos Tagged Chasten
What a formidable but incredible momma, Keira is! She puts up with a lot from this lovable scamp! Inka and Keira photographed at Big Cat Sanctuary, Kent
The Marshall Plan was a great help for post-war Europe after WW II. What could happen if you chasten the defeated opponent, was seen in the radicalization that took place in Germany in the period between WW I and WW II.
I wasn't aware that Iceland also was a beneficiary of the Marshall Plan. But as obvious with this building, it was. The Marshallhúsið used to be a fishmeal factory and now is converted to a venue for contemporary art and also houses a restaurant.
Reykjavik Harbour #5
When we visited Castle Howard on March 16th we did not think it would be our last proper outing for some time . Only the gardens were open and on a working Monday visitors were few so you could explore the gardens lakes and woods in perfect peace. We were even able to have afternoon tea in the cafe. I hope we all remember when this is finally over to value life little pleasures .
This is a hot over the lake looking towards the house. I know many people may not know Castle Howard but you may have seen it it was the main setting for the TV drama Brideshead Revisited still possibly my favourite TV series .
Hope you are all doing fine out there .
I thought this quite from President Lincoln was rather apt
“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! -- how consoling in the depths of affliction! "And this, too, shall pass away." And yet let us hope it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.”
Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society
Milwaukee, Wisconsin September 30, 1859
THANKS FOR YOUR VISITING BUT CAN I ASK YOU NOT TO FAVE AN IMAGE WITHOUT ALSO MAKING A COMMENT. MANY THANKS KEITH. ANYONE MAKING MULTIPLE FAVES WITHOUT COMMENTS WILL SIMPLY BE BLOCKED
Chastened
(Sierra Range, CA)
I have been hiking all day, and I really just want to get back to camp before the sun sets completely, but it seems nature is having a temper tantrum—she wasn’t able to expend her rage on me earlier, and now I am driving into a wall of storm. It is the wind first, racing through a maze of mountain walls, sucked forward by the pressure gradient of those alpine peaks and the desert valley behind me. The rolling tumbleweeds and dust spirals of September’s dryness careen across the valley before I start to a climb with traffic up I-395, only to be hit by sheets of rain which stop after a few seconds to let me see a second wave coming on. So I pull over and plant myself here to weather the last of her wrath. If it’s provoked, it matters not...I haven’t changed, I have only been asked to endure more. As she moves towards me, the sinking evening light breaks through within the melee, like an arbitrator between anger and reason, between darkness and clarity. Chastened, she sheds her fury out across the flood plain, with all the heavens applauding in the sunset. A wise man once told me, never go to bed angry. If only I could take you into the warmth out there now.
Psalm 6:1-7
King James Version
1 O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
2 Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
3 My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O Lord, how long?
4 Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake.
5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?
6 I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
7 Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies.
2019 | Christian Music Video | Hymn | English Christian Song With Lyrics "Is the World Your Place of Rest?"
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/is-the-world-your-place-o...
Introduction
I
People who live outside God's words
and flee the suffering of trial,
they’re all just drifting through the world,
like autumn leaves, blown in the wind.
They flutter here, they flutter there.
They never have a place to rest,
much less God’s words of consolation.
They’re only beggars in the streets,
outside the kingdom of heaven.
They’re wandering from place to place,
though God’s chastisement and refinement
don’t ever follow them.
Can you be sure the world’s your place of rest?
Can you smile with ease in this world
if you’ve avoided God’s chastisement?
And can you use your fleeting joy
to cover up the empty feeling in your heart
that cannot be concealed?
You can fool anyone in your family,
yet you can never fool God.
II
Because your faith is all too weak,
you’ve not seen joys that life can offer.
God urges you to be sincere
and spend half your life for His sake.
It’s better than living your whole life
in mediocrity, in labor for the flesh,
enduring all the suffering and pain
that man can hardly bear.
Can you be sure the world’s your place of rest?
Can you smile with ease in this world
if you’ve avoided God’s chastisement?
And can you use your fleeting joy
to cover up the empty feeling in your heart
that cannot be concealed?
You can fool anyone in your family,
yet you can never fool God.
What purpose does it serve to love yourself so much
and flee from God’s chastisement?
What purpose does it serve to shun His brief chastening
and reap shame, punishment forever?
Can you be sure the world’s your place of rest?
Can you smile with ease in this world
if you’ve avoided God’s chastisement?
And can you use your fleeting joy
to cover up the empty feeling in your heart
that cannot be concealed?
You can fool anyone in your family,
yet you can never fool God.
from Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs
Recommended for You:musical documentary
Image Source: The Church of Almighty God
Terms of Use: en.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html
"...employed in a speech by Abraham Lincoln before he became the 16th president: “It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”
Zechariah 3:9) Zech 4:10) 11 Chronicles 16:9a) Revelation 5:6) Zechariah chp 4) Rev 11:4) Isaiah 11:1-5) Rev 2:17)
Shavout
Revelation 2:26-29) Psalm 110:1-7) (Melchizedek) Hebrews chp 7)
2 Corinthians 12:8-10)
8 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
2 Corinthians 2:14
Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
Jude 1: 20,21) Romans 8) Ephesians 6:18)
Heb 12:11
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
Heb 12:6,7 Read Hebrews 12:5-13)
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Rev 3:19-22)
Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times,
And the strength of salvation;
The fear of the Lord is His treasure. Isaiah 33:6)
Prayer for;
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, Ephesians 1:17,18)
James 1:1-8)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9s1ccMs8Uw
“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, "And this too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”
― Abraham Lincoln
Meditating on divine transcendence, Gregory of Nazianzus describes what it means to do theology by offering a picture of ho aristos theologos, the most excellent theologian. Such a theologian is not one who has discovered the whole of God’s being, he tells us, but one who has assembled more of truth’s shadow. 1 As elsewhere, Nazianzen here chastens would-be theologians, cautioning them about the treacheries of theologizing and directing them to epistemological modesty. Gregory of Nyssa also uses the imagery of light to name the fullness and poverty of theological knowing. Theology, for these friends, is done in the shadows. I take their image of the theologian as a shadow-dweller to display the character of my own work.
-Beauty a theological engagement with gregory of nyssa, Natalie Carnes
Tribute to Mother
by John Greenleaf Whittier
A picture memory brings to me;
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother's knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child's blind sense of wrong and pain.
But wiser now,
a man gray grown,
My childhood's needs are better known.
My mother's chastening love I own.
In salvation, the Holy Spirit operates on the human character to produce a new heart and a new life. By this operation the affections and faculties of the man receive a new impulse . . .
his dark understanding is illuminated,
his rebellious will is subdued,
his irregular desires are rectified,
his warped judgment is informed,
his vile imagination is chastened,
his sinful inclinations are sanctified, and
his hopes and fears are directed to their true and adequate end.
Heaven becomes the object of his hopes--and eternal separation from God becomes the object of his fears.
His love of the world, is transformed into the love of God.
The lower faculties are pressed into the new service.
The senses have a higher direction.
The whole internal frame and constitution receive a nobler bent . . .
his intents and purposes of the mind acquire a sublimer aim;
his aspirations gain a loftier flight;
his vacillating desires find a fixed object;
his vagrant purposes attain a settled home;
his disappointed heart has a certain refuge.
That heart, no longer the worshiper of the world, now struggles to overcome it.
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation!
Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!" 2 Corinthians 5:17
Hannah More
Greatness is effect far more than cause.
Each hero is the servant of his fate,
On whom is laid the sacrificial weight
Reserved for those who would heed higher laws.
Given peace, I would have shunned applause,
Electing to remain a farmer, great
With long-gestating plans for my estate,
A much-loved labor lost to much-loathed wars.
So was I the father of a nation,
Having given over life and love,
Instrument of some far greater hand,
Not by choice but of necessity.
Glory was the means by which to fashion
The myth that would a king's replacement prove:
Only I would do, and that demand
Narrowed, deepened, scoured, chastened me.
Somewhere between Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas
April 3, 2005
I got my travel arrangements for my seminar swing. I noticed that I was flying into Wichita and driving to Dodge City (roughly a 2.5 hour drive) to start the week. I asked the travel department why I wasn't flying directly into Dodge City.
Me: Do they not have airline service? That's a long drive after the flight.
Travel: Well, yeah. But they're...er...not the kind of airplanes you can stand up in.
Me: Ah...never mind. I'll drive.
So after renting a car, I started west on US 400.
After a while of cruising, I suddenly noticed lights flashing in the mirror. I pulled over.
Me: Sir, I'm sorry. What's the problem?
The Law: You were going about 20 over the speed limit back there.
Me: Really? I usually try to keep it pretty close to 5, maybe ten over the limit. Never 20.
The Law (with a slight grin): Well, the limit drops from 65 to 55 back there when the road narrows to a 2 lanes.
Me (Handing him my drivers license): Dang!
Him (looking at my license, noticing my Chicago area address): Uh, sir. What the hell are you doing way out here on a 2 lane blacktop in the middle of Kansas?
Me: I'm teaching a seminar on sales taxes in Dodge City tomorrow.
Me (suddenly coming up with an amazingly brilliant idea): Uh, I promise I'll tell them to pay more taxes if you let me off.
The Law (laughing): Here's your license. Drive safely sir.
I took this picture AFTER my encounter with the constabulary. Driving into this sunset was almost worth a ticket. Almost.
The next day, I told the class this story. And I suggested they pay more taxes, as promised. They had a good laugh. Then I packed up and was on to the next day and another seminar back in Wichita. Chastened, I paid attention to my speed.
COPYRIGHT 2005, 2024 by JimFrazier All Rights Reserved. This may NOT be used for ANY reason without written consent from Jim Frazier.
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The Word of God |
"Knowing God Is the Path to Fearing God and Shunning Evil"
Almighty God says, "'Fearing God and shunning evil' and knowing God are indivisibly connected by a myriad threads, and the connection between them is self-evident. If one wishes to attain to shunning evil, one must first have real fear of God; if one wishes to attain to real fear of God, one must first have real knowledge of God; if one wishes to attain to knowledge of God, one must first experience God's words, enter into the reality of God's words, experience God's chastening and discipline, His chastisement and judgment; if one wishes to experience God's words, one must first come face to face with God's words, come face to face with God, and ask God to furnish opportunities to experience God's words in the form of all sorts of environments involving people, events, and objects; if one wishes to come face to face with God and with God's words, one must first possess a simple and honest heart, readiness to accept the truth, the will to endure suffering, the resolution and the courage to shun evil, and the aspiration to become a genuine created being…. In this way, going forward step by step, you will draw ever closer to God, your heart will grow ever more pure, and your life and the value of being alive will, along with your knowledge of God, become ever more meaningful and wax ever more radiant. Until, one day, you will feel that the Creator is no longer a riddle, that the Creator has never been hidden from you, that the Creator has never concealed His face from you, that the Creator is not at all far from you, that the Creator is no longer the One that you constantly long for in your thoughts but that you cannot reach with your feelings, that He is really and truly standing guard to your left and right, supplying your life, and controlling your destiny. He is not on the remote horizon, nor has He secreted Himself high up in the clouds. He is right by your side, presiding over your all, He is everything that you have, and He is the only thing you have. Such a God allows you to love Him from the heart, cling to Him, hold Him close, admire Him, fear to lose Him, and be unwilling to renounce Him any longer, disobey Him any longer, or any longer to evade Him or put Him at a distance. All you want is to care for Him, obey Him, requite all that He gives you, and submit to His dominion. You no longer refuse to be guided, supplied, watched over, and kept by Him, no longer refuse what He dictates and ordains for you. All you want is to follow Him, walk alongside Him to His left or right, all you want is to accept Him as your one and only life, to accept Him as your one and only Lord, your one and only God" (The Word Appears in the Flesh).
Recomended for you: Who Will Be Raptured
This young fellow took a break from his grazing, just a few seconds after this pic was taken, to bluff charge me, momentarily rearing up, hissing loudly and racing in my direction, precipitating at least a few seconds of sheer terror on my part, during which I beat a hasty retreat to my van .... He apparently stopped about 20 meters from me.
Funny, All the time I've spent around Bears, I've never heard one growl ...In these parts, they just HISS, very loudly ... It's an impressive sound.
First time this season on the receiving of such a display .... It's always these spirited youngsters who do that. I am appreciative and respectful ... I do need to be chastened once in awhile.
Near Cottonwood Creek, on Kluane Lake, Yukon.
( Yeimaya correctly comments below that this look cannot indicate agression ... True, this guy did not seem hostile at all, and I believe that's usually the case ... Bluff-charging by these young Bears seems to be in "play" mode as much as anything else ..He did it merely because he could, and no doubt enjoyed it. Had he been truly upset, and openly displaying agression, then this probably would NOT have been a bluff ... He would have kept coming, and would almost certainly have gotten a bite in ..
As it went, As soon as he had given me a scare, he immediately forgot about us and returned to happily harvesting flowers. )
Coming soon as a hunt gift :) "Chastened"
Visit this location at Meander/Me & Sooty WIng in Second Life
These are the last photographs of this wasp. On the 28th she was there, and on the 29th she was gone. I am sad and chastened about the brevity of life.
She almost seems to be saying goodbye.
explore #427
I was flabbergasted (is that a German word?...) by the exquisite Hanseatic jewel that is Lübeck. With its UNESCO-protected old town, gorgeous market, cobbled streets leading to the rivers encircling this island city (think"town", no more), protestant spires, homes of Billy Brandt, Gunter Grass and Thomas Mann (we're playing German Who's Who here), this is Northern Europe saying "So, do you think you can do better?", while we all leave chastened by its beauty. Well, I did.
Those of you who are good enough to take the time to read these irreverent diversions may be aware that deep within the bowels of my camera bag lurks a 16-35mm lens, which has had a bit of a colourful history since it came into my possession. I bought it at the beginning of last year, not long after I'd decided to go full frame as it seemed an obvious necessity for the trip to Iceland the following summer. Within the first six months of owning it, it had almost vanished over the edge of the cliffs at St Agnes Head; it had survived a tumble on the secret beach in front of the famous sea stacks of Reynisdrangar in Iceland (my favourite 6 stop filter sacrificed itself to save the lens there); and it had taken a nasty jolt as I damaged both myself and my camera equipment during the split second it occurred to me that a slipway in Majorca might be slippery - at which point I was suspended in mid air over hard concrete. Following this series of near disasters I concluded the lens was cursed and resolved to limit its future use for the safety of my camera and myself.
You can read about the first escapade here.
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/33828822308/in/datepo...
And you can read about the second calamity here:
www.flickr.com/photos/126574513@N04/49974389827/in/datepo...
You can't read about the final instalment in this sad trilogy, because I didn't get a shot worth sharing. Nobody is going to be interested in a bit of sky filled motion blur when Majorca has so much more to offer the visitor.
Somehow, and I'm not sure whether I consider this is good luck or just that Canon like to build gear that can take a bit of abuse, the lens has survived all of these incidents. It's just that I barely ever use it, a bad thing because unloved lenses begin to look unloved very quickly and I've already lost a couple of older (and fortunately less frighteningly priced) lenses to fungus. Nowadays if I ask it to auto focus it groans a bit, tries whirring halfheartedly for a moment or two in a pathetic attempt to persuade me it's trying before it beeps at me plaintively as a red square appears on the viewfinder. It's a bit like having an elderly overweight dog that looks at the beach it used to bound across effortlessly before turning to gaze back at me as if to say "Nah! I'll just sit here. You go on without me. I'll be alright"
So last night I decided the old dog was getting some exercise. I'd been here with Lee a couple of months earlier on a superb evening when the beach was empty at low tide, patterns all over the sand with hundreds of tiny pools of seawater trapped in them. On that evening my attempt to catch a series of panels for a panorama had failed - they usually do with seascapes - but I reasoned I might get a decent result with the wide angle lens, which does a better job of getting a sharp image from back to front in any case. Or at least it does when it wants to play. Lee has told me half a dozen times about the place he recommends for a repair. I'm not very organised though.
Of course the beach had no such tiny pools on this occasion, and naturally the shot I've shared with you was taken at 33mm meaning I could have taken it with my much more compliant 24-70mm lens. But still, the old dog led me to this composition long after sunset, although the sense of utter calm is a lie because a large and noisy family had decided to invade my space and were standing right behind me throwing stones into the pool for a real dog called Spencer to race in after, something he did with a deal of enthusiasm. At some point I sensed Spencer sniffing the backs of my legs, but I pretended not to notice. Eventually and to my lasting relief, Spencer and his humans moved on to torment some other oddball loner and left this one to his own company.
But the old dog had won the day, and during the session the other two lenses remained in the bag untouched. I came away in almost total darkness feeling chastened by the experience, which had reminded how good this lens will be when I finally get around to sending it off to be repaired. I'd better phone Lee and get him to tell me who to use for a seventh time then.
Christian Music Video | Gospel hymn | "May You Always Stay in My Heart" | 2019 English Christian Song With Lyrics
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/may-You-stay-in-my-heart-...
Introduction
Verse 1
You stay with me through spring and fall,
walk with me through heat and cold.
Seeing Your lonely countenance,
my heart wells up with much woe.
Verse 2
I’ve never known Your solitude,
never comforted Your hurt.
Facing Your heartfelt exhortations,
many times I am stubborn.
Pre-chorus
I always cause You hurt, always disappoint You.
I’m unknowing until Your chastening ensues.
I stick close by Your side, Your burden I can’t ease.
How can one with no sense know of Your suffering?
Chorus
With dear love and true feeling, Your heart is most sincere.
Who could be fairer than You, who could be more revered!
Always in Your company, from You I’ll never part.
May joy appear on Your face, may You stay in my heart.
Verse 3
For my desires, for the flesh,
morals and truth I forgot.
When I’m overwhelmed with regret,
I’ve already broken Your heart.
Verse 4
No one understands Your sorrow.
Corrupt, I moan in miseries.
With greed I ask for things from You.
Who has sense to share Your worries?
Pre-chorus
I always cause You hurt, always disappoint You.
I’m unknowing until Your chastening ensues.
I stick close by Your side, Your burden I can’t ease.
How can one with no sense know of Your suffering?
Chorus
With dear love and true feeling, Your heart is most sincere.
Who could be fairer than You, who could be more revered!
Always in Your company, from You I’ll never part.
May joy appear on Your face, may You stay in my heart.
from Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs
Recommended for You:musical documentary
Image Source: The Church of Almighty God
Terms of Use: en.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html
I've gone away
where the winter winds play
and my heart has been left in it's shell
He chastened her soul
his love was a coal
from a fire of sulphur and hell
Now days they all end
just the same as begin
with cold hours one can only abhor
and she lingers there still
in that house on a hill
clinging fears that he'll darken her door
Each night comes on long
to the coyote's song
her tears flow a river to sea
Ever he sleeps alone
turned his body to bone
in a grave o'er hill near the lee
I've gone away
where the winter winds play
and my heart has been left in it's shell
—BG
© All rights reserved.
2 Corinthians 6:6-10 King James Version (KJV)
6 By pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
7 By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left,
8 By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true;
9 As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;
10 As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
Sand Martins over the Eden.
Again, my impression is that there’s fewer of these at this location. First noted these here over the town stretch of the Eden a long time past, maybe around 2009/10when using the old 7D mk1, with a chastening complete lack of success. But the birds were - or now, years later, are remembered as almost thick in the air. Which seems an exaggeration now. But since bird flu and other influencing factors seem to be forever pointing to all four of our Swift/Swallow/Martin species as getting ever more scarce, it seems likely that this is indeed the case. Possibly our wild shifts in weather would seem to be another factor here, as these birds are entirely dependent on flying insects to keep both themselves and their nestlings alive. Insects are less likely to take to flight if winds are likely to blow them to where breeding cannot happen, or when significant rainfall keeps them clinging to leaves and twigs. At such periods these birds can be seen conserving energy by perching in rows until the rain relents, allowing those vital insects to fly to hunting levels for these four species - and others.
WHEN I look forth at dawning, pool, Field, flock, and lonely tree, All seem to look at me Like chastened children sitting silent in a school;
Love the trees the flowers and fruits
Love all beings on the Earth as ourselves
What I inhale is your exhale
What is part of world, is part of us
The first breath of a new born life
Is the last breath of another life
With none to hate, not even foes
Who do ill to embitter our woes
But do them good in return
So as to make them ponder
Over their callousness and render
Thus our help to chasten their minds
- Anuj Nair
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Dedicated to my dear friend Steve
www.flickr.com/photos/komotini49/
Flower : Cape Honeysuckle ( Tecomaria capensis )
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© 2009 Anuj Nair. All rights reserved.
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________________________________________________
© 2009 Anuj Nair. All rights reserved.
All images and poems are the property of Anuj Nair.
Using these images and poems without permission is in violation of international copyright laws (633/41 DPR19/78-Disg 154/97-L.248/2000). All materials may not be copied, reproduced, distributed, republished, downloaded, displayed, posted or transmitted in any forms or by any means,including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording without written permission of Anuj Nair. Every violation will be pursued penally.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we have headed a short distance north-east across London, away from Cavendish Mews and Mayfair, over Paddington and past Lisson Grove to the comfortably affluent suburb of Little Venice with its cream painted Regency terraces and railing surrounded public parks. Here in Clifton Gardens Lettice’s maiden Aunt Eglantine, affectionately known as Aunt Egg by her nieces and nephews, lives in a beautiful four storey house that is part of a terrace of twelve. Eglantine Chetwynd is Viscount Wrexham’s younger sister, and as well as being unmarried, is an artist and ceramicist of some acclaim. Originally a member of the Pre-Raphaelites* in England, these days she flits through artistic and bohemian circles and when not at home in her spacious and light filled studio at the rear of her garden, can be found mixing with mostly younger artistic friends in Chelsea. Her unmarried status, outlandish choice of friends and rather reformist and unusual dress sense shocks Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, and attracts her derision. In addition, she draws Sadie’s ire, as Aunt Egg has always received far more affection and preferential treatment from her children. Viscount Wrexham on the other hand adores his artistic little sister, and has always made sure that she can live the lifestyle she chooses and create art.
As Lettice pulls the well worn brass hand that triggers the doorbell next to the brightly painted red front door, she stands beneath the columned portico of her aunt’s house and admires the terracotta pots of brightly coloured tulips that flank the front doorstep, which make her terrace stand out from all the others in the row. A faint female voice with a Germanic accent calls from within before the door is answered by Augusta, Eglantine’s Swiss head parlour maid, dressed in her formal black uniform with a white lace trimmed apron and with a large black bow in her hair.
“Good morning, Augusta,” Lettice greets her brightly. “Is my Aunt home?”
“Good morning, Fräulein Chetwynd.” Augusta answers politely. “Please do come in. Ya, your Tante is in ze studio.”
Lettice steps across the threshold of her aunt’s terrace and is immediately enveloped in the rich mixture of exotic scents that she has always associated with the artist: a blend of heavy floral perfumes, cigarette smoke and oil paint. She sighs as she inhales the welcome smell and shirks off her dark blue coat with a mink collar into Augusta’s waiting hands. “Don’t bother to introduce me, Augusta. I’ll just show myself through to the studio.” she says.
“Ya! Ya!” the parlour maid enthuses as she watches Lettice disappear down the hall, which like the rest of the house, is filled with ornate, yet artistic, furnishings, paintings and a general jumble of clutter which keep her and the three maids under her very busy cleaning and dusting all year round.
“Aunt Egg! Yoo-hoo, Aunt Egg!” Lettice calls as she approaches the ivy covered studio at the rear of the rambling cottage garden filled with a hotchpotch of brightly coloured spring blooms.
She pushes down on the latch and opens the door to the studio, the familiar earthy smell of potter’s clay, oil paint and linseed oil greeting her as she does. The studio is flooded with light thanks to a large, almost full length window of plate glass that fills the northern wall. The space is filled with benches and shelves cluttered with everything from pieces of ceramics in different stages of completion to canvases to books on art. A sink stands at the rear of the studio with a row of fine Royal Doulton Art Nouveau tiles of white irises above it. An easel leans, unused against a bench next to it. And sitting at the large wooden table covered in a panoply of paints, brushes and ceramics that dominates the middle of the studio, is her beloved Aunt Egg.
“Well,” the older woman beams as she looks up from the pottery jug she is painting. “If it isn’t my favourite niece.”
“I’m sure you say that to Lally and all our female cousins.” Lettice replies as she walks over to her aunt’s seated figure and kisses her first on one proffered cheek and then the other.
“Well, you’ll never know, will you my dear,” the older woman answers with a cheeky smile and alert green eyes. “I like to keep you all guessing who will inherit my jewels when I die.”
“Oh Aunt Egg!” Lettice scoffs. “You mustn’t talk like that.”
“We all of us are going to die one day, Lettice. Anyway, you are probably the most like me out of all of you girls, with your artistic attributes, so why shouldn’t you be my favourite?”
Lettice pulls up a small stool and sits opposite her aunt. When she was young, Eglantine had Titian red hair that fell in wavy tresses about her pale face, making her a popular muse amongst the Pre-Raphaelites she mixed with. With the passing years, her red hair has retreated almost entirely behind silver grey, save for the occasional streak of washed out reddish orange, yet she still wears it as she did when it was at its fiery best, sweeping softly about her almond shaped face, tied in a loose chignon at the back of her neck. Large emerald coloured glass droplets hang from her ears that match the green glass necklace about her neck that cascades over the top of her white paint splattered dust coat. Lettice doesn’t need to see beneath it to know that her aunt is wearing her usual uniform of a lose Delphos dress** that does not require her to wear a corset of any kind, and a silk fringed cardigan of some description, both in beautiful colours.
“I hope Augusta brings us some tea soon,” Eglantine remarks as she focuses her attention once again on the task at hand a she paints a long green frond onto the jug with her adept hands, heavily bejewelled with an array of sparkling stones and gold.
“Shall I go and ask her, Aunt Egg?”
“No, no.” Eglantine says with a settling wave, her paint brush held in place by her interwoven fingers. “She’s been serving me for nigh on thirty years now. She knows when to serve tea.”
“What are you doing, Aunt Egg?” Lettice asks as she stares at her aunt’s delicate hands as they move up and down the bulbous body of the jug.
“I’m painting the ceiling, my dear,” she replies sarcastically without so much as a blink in her lowered eyelids. “Must you ask such obvious questions?”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Egg,” Lettice apologises, remembering that however much her aunt loves her, she cannot abide dull conversation and obvious questions, owing to the amount of time she spends with interesting and witty people. “I meant, what is the purpose of the jug you are painting? Where is it going?”
“Then that is what you should ask, Lettice.” Eglantine chides mildly, still not lifting her eyes from her task. “You will never succeed in business if you whitter away like most women do. Be clear, polite, and direct. Ask what you want to know without fear.”
“Yes, Aunt Egg.” Lettice replies, suitably chastened.
“Its not for anyone, yet. I’ve been inspired by the painted pottery of Capula*** in Mexico, and I also saw some of Carrington’s**** pottery recently. When I was visiting the Slade*****. I’m exploring the naïve style of folk art. What do you think?”
“I think it looks very beautiful Aunt Egg.”
“And how go your artistic pursuits, Lettice my dear?” Eglantine adeptly mixes a little more white paint into a pool of the gleaming dark green she shas been using and applies a thin line up the leaf’s middle to highlight a stem.
“My artistic pursuits?”
“Yes! How is the interior design business going?”
“I’d hardly call my business an ‘artistic pursuit’ Aunt Egg.” Lettice laughs.
“Nonsense my dear! Your interiors are just as artistic as my ceramics. It’s just your canvas is much bigger than mine, and involves many different facets.”
“Well, if you ask Mater, she’d say dreadfully.”
“Ahh,” the older woman sighs as she paints faint spiderweb thin veins coming off the stem of her leaf. “But I’m not asking Sadie, thank goodness. I’m asking you, Lettice. However, if Sadie says it’s not going well, that must mean business is flourishing. Is it?”
“It’s going swimmingly, Aunt Egg!” Lettice gushes. “I don’t need Mater to introduce me to people like the Duchess of Whitby anymore. I’m finally starting to develop a name for myself.”
“Good! Good!” replies Eglantine. “I’m pleased to hear it.” She dips her brush in the lighter coloured green again. “I’m not surprised of course. You’re very talented. However, I’m glad to hear it from your own lips. Too many people with talent are neglected, whilst ones with no talent get the recognition they don’t deserve.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t agree, Aunt Egg. After all, weren’t you the one to teach me that art appreciation is a subjective thing?”
“Very good Lettice.” She looks up from her work and smiles broadly at her niece, her eyes gleaming with pride. “I’m glad to see all those afternoons at the Slade and Omega Workshops****** weren’t wasted, or smothered by your mother’s lack of imagination.” She looks back down and begins to work again, the concentration etched in the furrows that line her forehead. “So, it’s going well then?”
“Oh yes! I’m actually in the process of designing a few rooms for Margot Channon.”
“Ahh yes!” Eglantine gasps. “Little Margot de Virre finally grew up and got married, to the Marquess of Taunton’s son.”
“Yes, Dickie Channon.”
“Poor dear. No doubt a match made by her own meddling mother.”
“You have a very poor opinion of marriage, Aunt Egg.” Lettice opines.
“Well, as you can see, my dear, I’ve never needed the institution of matrimony myself to feel fulfilled.”
“Oh, but Margot and Dickie are in love, Aunt Egg. They met, well through me really, at the Embassy Club. Mrs. de Virre had no hand in their matrimony.”
“Oh well. I suppose that’s alright then. I read about their wedding in The Times. St. Mark’s******* wasn’t it?” She waits for Lettice to affirm with a nod. “And I saw that Gerald Bruton designed her gown. I’m pleased to see that he developed some independence like you, and that he’s making something of himself too.” She pauses before continuing. “I don’t object to people marrying for love: another point, one of many, about which Sadie and I will never agree. Which is why I refused to come to the Hunt Ball this year, knowing it was intended as a marriage market for you, my dear.” She pauses and puts down her brush onto her palette, thickly coated in layers of dried oils and reaches out to her niece, clasping her smaller hand in her larger gnarled one, giving Lettice’s a friendly squeeze. “I don’t mind if you marry for love. However, the amalgamation of two great families through the marriage bed, simply for the sake of ‘good breeding’, whatever that is, I find quite repugnant.”
“Well, “ Lettice blushes as she casts her eyes down onto her aunt’s hands, where she gazes at her winking jewels in their gold and platinum settings. “I did meet someone, actually. I wouldn’t say that we’re in love, but we’ve agreed to see one another when his next visit to London coincides with me being available. I told Pater and Mater that I wanted to do this my own way, and not have any interference.”
“No doubt Sadie was furious about that, and probably blames me for putting such independent ideas into your head”
“Were you a fly on the wall of the morning room, Aunt Egg?” chuckles Lettice.
The older woman withdraws her hand, picks up her brush and sets to work highlighting the leaf again. “I don’t need to. I know what cloth your mother is cut from. So, who is it, then?”
“Selwyn Spencely.”
The older woman pauses again and stares off into the distance, out the window, lots in her own thoughts. “Selwyn Spencely. Selwyn Spencely. I vaguely know that name.”
“He is the son of the Duke of Walmsford. He used to come to Glynes******** when we were children. He’s only a few years older than me.”
“Well, whoever he is, just don’t let him come between you and your design business, will you? As you say, you’ve worked hard to build yourself a name, Lettice. Don’t throw it all away for a marriage not of your making, or a marriage for the wrong reasons.”
“I promise, I won’t Aunt Egg.” Lettice assures her aunt.
“You’re a lucky girl, Lettice. You have choices in life”
“Try telling Mater that.” Lettice replies disparagingly.
“Oh pooh Sadie and her blinkered ideas that she infects you and your father with!” Eglantine spits hotly. “You’re an independent woman now you’re of age Lettice. You have a sizable allowance, thanks to your forward-thinking grandfather, which no-one can take from you, and now you have your own money from your business. That’s more than a lot of women have. Don’t waste the advantages you have and whatever you do, be it in love, work or marriage, be true to yourself.”
A quiet tapping on the glass panes of the door interrupts the two women. Looking to the entrance, they see Clotilde, the second parlour maid looking hopefully through the glass.
“I’ll go.” Lettice says as she leaps up from the stool and hurries over to open the door.
“Danke schön, Fräulein Chetwynd.” Clotilde says gratefully as Lettice opens the door, to reveal the girl in her morning print dress and cotton apron carrying what looks like a heavy tray laden with tea things.
True to her independent form, when the Great War came and there was much resentment towards people of Germanic heritage in Britain, Eglantine refused to dismiss her three Swiss parlour maids, even though they all spoke German fluently and preferred to speak it in the household. She simply packed herself and her servants off to her brother’s estate of Glynes in Wiltshire, where they could live a sheltered life of safety with her in the disused Glynes Dower House, seeing very few people and not being subjected to bigotry. In spite of her immense dislike of her sister-in-law, whom she inevitably crossed paths with when she went up to the estate’s Big House, she had a pleasant enough war growing vegetables in the garden to help supplement their diet and assist with the war effort, without having to actually involve herself in the war, being a pacifist. It was also during this time that she had her greatest influence on Lettice, preparing her niece for the more independent life of a women after the war ended.
“Bitte schön,” Eglantine replies to Clotilde, standing herself and clearing a space on the crowded work space for the tea tray, a cloud of glowing dust motes filling the air around them as they tumbled through the spring sunbeams pouring through the window of the studio.
After Clotilde closes the door behind her and retreats to the house, Lettice and her aunt resume their conversation.
“So, you said you were decorating the new Mrs. Channon’s house then, Lettice?” Eglantine picks up the conversation.
“Well yes. Lord de Virre and I came up with a plan. Since Margot is used to new things, but their country house in Cornwall is quite old, and poor Dickie hasn’t enough money to pay for refurbishment, Lord de Virre is footing the bill for electrification, new plumbing and for a connection to the telephone exchange. He also suggested that I might redecorate a few of the principal rooms of the house.”
“Which rooms?” Eglantine asks, setting out the tea things.
“The drawing room, the dining room, their bedroom and what must have been a sunroom, which they want to use for cocktail parties and dancing. Which is why I’ve come to see you, Aunt Egg. I need your advice.”
“Advice on what, my dear?” Eglantine pours tea into their cups, to which they both add milk and sugar.
“Well, Margot wants all new furnishings, which as you know isn’t my style. I prefer a mixture of old and new. Gerald came up with the perfect solution, which is to paint some of the old pieces and present them in a new style.”
“Very clever, Gerald. So how can I be of assistance, Lettice?”
“I need to know what sort of paint I should use on wooden furniture. I thought that if anyone would know, you would.”
“Ahh, well.” Eglantine starts to stir her tea. “There I can indeed be of assistance. Tell me, do you have any house paint lying around at Cavendish Mews?”
Aunt and nice sit together over the tea at the bench and discuss priming wood, coats of paint and varnish, all the while bathed in beautiful sunlight as the disturbed dust motes continue to play around them, dancing and swirling in the sunbeams that pour through the window of the studio.
*The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" modelled in part on the Nazarene movement. The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse. The group sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. They rejected what they regarded as the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. The Brotherhood believed the classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art, hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite".
**The Delphos gown is a finely pleated silk dress first created in about 1907 by French designer Henriette Negrin and her husband, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo. They produced the gowns until about 1950. It was inspired by, and named after, a classical Greek statue, the Charioteer of Delphi. It was championed by more artistic women who did not wish to conform to society’s constraints and wear a tightly fitting corset.
***Capula is a small village in Mexico in Michoacan state with a pre-Hispanic pottery tradition. Clay tableware delicately decorated with flowers and fishes, kitchen plates painted with the town's unique dotting style.
****Dora de Houghton Carrington, known generally as Carrington, was an English painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytton Strachey. From her time as an art student, she was known simply by her surname as she considered Dora to be "vulgar and sentimental". She was not well known as a painter during her lifetime, as she rarely exhibited and did not sign her work. An accomplished painter of portraits and landscape, she also worked in applied and decorative arts, painting on any type of surface she had at hand including inn signs, tiles and furniture. Her naïve pottery, like all her art is now described as progressive, because it did not fit into the mainstream of art in England at the time.
*****Established by lawyers and philanthropist Felix Slade in 1868, Slade School of Fine Art is the art school of University College London and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the United Kingdom’s top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as a department of University College London's Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Two of its most important periods were immediately before, and immediately after, the turn of the twentieth century. It had such students as Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, C.R.W. Nevinson and Stanley Spencer.
******The Omega Workshops Ltd. was a design enterprise founded by members of the Bloomsbury Group and established in July 1913. It was located at 33 Fitzroy Square in London, and was founded with the intention of providing graphic expression to the essence of the Bloomsbury ethos. The Workshops were also closely associated with the Hogarth Press and the artist and critic Roger Fry, who was the principal figure behind the project, believed that artists could design, produce and sell their own works, and that writers could also be their own printers and publishers. The Directors of the firm were Roger Fry, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
*******St. Mark’s Church Mayfair, is a Grade I listed building, in the heart of London's Mayfair district, on North Audley Street. St Mark's was built between 1825 and 1828 as a response to the shortage of churches in the area. The population in Mayfair had grown with the demand for town houses by the aristocracy and the wealthy, as they moved in from the country. The building was constructed in the Greek revival style to the designs of John Peter Gandy. In 1878 the architect Arthur Blomfield made significant changes to the church, adding a timber roof, and introducing Gothic style features. The thirty-four feet (ten metre) façade, together with the elegant porch, is known as one of the finest in London. Being in Mayfair, it was a popular place for the weddings of aristocratic families. It was deconsecrated in 1974, and today it is used as a mixed use venue.
********Glynes is the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie.
This rather delightfully chaotic artist’s studio scene may look very real to you, yet it is in fact made up of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection, including some very special pieces that are very close to my heart.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The painted and glazed jug in the centre of the image, the brown one in the foreground, the jug standing on the edge of the trough, and the green and the white jugs on the bench all come from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The white jug is Parianware and is mid Victorian. The brown glazed jugs and pots are individually made and are impressed with Art Nouveau images, which is very apt considering that they were made as children’s toys in the early 1900s.
The unglazed pots on the table and the bench in the background were made by a Polish miniature potter and were given to me some twenty five years ago by one of my closest girlfriends as a gift for helping arrange her kitchen for her when she moved house. They are such beautiful pieces, and hold great sentimental value for me.
The trough on brick legs with its silvered taps and the easel leaning against the bench in the background come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom.
The paints, paint brushes and paint palette on the table were all acquired from Melody Jane Doll House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.
The ladderback chair to the left of the photo is a recent 1:12 miniature which has a hand-woven rattan seat. It was acquired from an estate of a miniature collector in Sydney and dates from around the 1970s.
The tile frieze that appears along the back wall above the sink is an Art Nouveau design from the Lambeth works of Royal Doulton and features white Irises.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today is Tuesday and we are in the kitchen of Lettice’s flat: Edith her maid’s preserve, except on Tuesdays, every third Thursday of the month and occasionally after a big party. That is when Mrs. Boothby, Lettice’s charwoman*, comes from her home in Poplar to do all the hard jobs and Edith shares the space with her. Although this can be a bit of challenge, especially as Mrs. Boothby likes to smoke indoors, Edith is grateful that unlike her previous positions, she does not have to scrub the black and quite chequered kitchen linoleum, nor polish the parquetry floors, not do her most hated job, black lead the stovetop. Mrs. Boothby does them all without complaint, with reliability and to a very high standard. She is also very handy on cleaning and washing up duty with Edith after one of Lettice’s extravagant cocktail parties. Edith also has to admit that after her original reluctance, Mrs. Boothby has turned out to be rather pleasant company and the two have had many fine chats over time.
“Oh Mrs. Boothby, after you’ve finished polishing the floors in the drawing room this morning, would you mind laying down this sheet on the space behind Miss Lettice’s chair and the Chinese screen?” Edith pushes a neatly folded white sheet across the kitchen table to the old char.
“Why ‘ave I got to put dahn an old sheet for?” She looks perplexed at the pile of fabric before her. “Don’t Miss Chetwynd ‘ave enough rugs?”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith trys somewhat unsuccessfully to cover her amused smile. “It isn’t for that.”
“Then what’s it for, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
“It’s a drop sheet, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith elucidates.
“Oh. She getting’ painters in then? I bet I could find her cheaper ‘ouse painters than ooever she got. My Bruvver does a bit a ‘ouse paintin’, an I reckon ‘e does a very fine job ‘n all.”
“Oh no, Mrs. Boothby. Miss Lettice is going to paint a table today.”
“Paint a table?” The old woman looks queryingly at her younger counterpart. “Why? Ain’t it any good as is?”
“Apparently not, Mrs. Boothby. However, it isn’t for her. It’s for Miss de Virre, I mean, Mrs. Channon. It’s a table from her house in Cornwall.”
“Tartin’ up tables!” The old cockney woman tuts as she casts her eyes to the ceiling. “What them rich fancy folk won’t fink up next. I just throw an oilcloth over my table when I got friends comin’ for tea. That covers up the marks good and proper.”
“Oh no, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith explains. “Miss Lettice is going to redecorate it as part of her re-design of Mrs. Channon’s drawing room.”
“Well,” grumbles the old woman. “Whatever she’s doin’ it for, I hope she don’t get paint on my nice clean polished floors.”
“That’s what the drop sheet is for, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Ere dearie, pop the kettle on so as we can ‘ave a nice cup of Rosie-Lee** before I get started on the floors.” Mrs. Boothby says to Edith. “Washin’ floors can be firsty work for a woman, so best I get a cuppa before I start.”
“Yes, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith replies, lighting the gas ring underneath the bright copper kettle and walking over to the pine dresser to fetch two Delftware cups, saucers a milk jug and the sugar bowl.
Mrs. Boothby groans as she bends her wiry body to the floor to check what she calls her ‘Boothby boxes’, which are two boxes kept in the corner of the kitchen next to the dresser. One contains her scrubbing brushes, dustpan, and polishing rags, whilst the other contains a plethora of cleaning products.
“Ah,” the old Cockney woman mutters as she delves through the latter, metal cans clunking against one another as she does her inventory. “Pop Vim on the shopping list, will you Edith love. This can’s all but empty nah.” She continues fossicking. “Oh, and we need some more floor polish too.”
“Do you like that Kleen-eze Mr. Willison sent me last time, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks as she lays out the tea things on the deal kitchen table above the char’s head.
“It weren’t bad stuff, that. Yeah, ta. Get ‘him to get us some more of it if ‘e can.” The old woman affirms.
“I’ll see if Frank can get me some,” Edith says blithely, yet as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realises her mistake as a frisson of energy electrifies the kitchen.
Edith likes Mrs. Boothby, but she knows that any news will soon be spread around Poplar and the surrounding area once Mrs. Boothby hears it. She and the other charwomen she knows run a very well informed gossip chain, and there is little Mrs. Boothby can’t tell Edith about the comings and goings on in the household of her former employer Mrs. Plaistow, thanks to her charwoman friend Jackie who does work for her and quite a few other houses in Pimlico, including that of Lettice’s former client, successful Islington Studios*** actress, Wanetta Ward. Edith, who is a little starstruck by the glamourous American, often gets tasty titbits of gossip about her from Mrs. Boothby thanks to Jackie who also cleans for her, however Edith does not fancy the shoe being on the other foot. However, as she turns back from fussing unnecessarily over the kettle, she sees it is too late. Mrs. Boothby’s pale and wrinkled face, framed by her wiry grey hair tied up in a brightly coloured scarf is paying close attention to the young maid. Her dark eyes are gleaming with delight, and she smiles like the cat who ate the cream.
“Oh!” she says with one of her bushy eyebrows arching upwards. “Frank now, is it?”
“Well I…” Edith stutters, her own pale cheeks growing warm as a blush fills them with colour.
“Yes my girl?” Mrs, Boothby asks, as with another groan she resumes her upright state. “And just when did Mr. Willison’s young delivery boy go from bein’ Mr. Leadbeater or bein’ Frank? Last I ‘eard, you weren’t interested in ‘im.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested in him, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith worries the blue rimmed edge of a saucer self-consciously. “I’d just never considered him as a prospect, is all. And I hadn’t Mrs. Boothby. Not until,”
“Yes,”
“Well, not until you’d mentioned it, Mrs. Boothby.”
“Aha!” the old cockney woman crows. “Ada Boothby does it again!”
“Does what, Mrs. Boothby?” Edith asks.
“Matchmakes, of course.” She smiles broadly, a glow of pride emanating from her slender figure in her grey dress and brightly printed cotton pinny. She rubs her careworn hands together with glee. “Oh I can’t wait to tell that damned Golda Friedmann dahn the end of my rookery****. She’ll be fit to be tied.”
“Wait!” Edith gasps, not understanding. “Who’s Golda Friedmann, and how she know about Frank and I? I don’t know her. She doesn’t work in the haberdashers in Poplar you sent me to.”
“Oh Lawd love you,” chortles Mrs. Boothby, the action resulting on one of her fruity hacking coughs that seem remarkably loud from such a diminutive figure. After catching her breath, she continues breathily, “She don’t know anyfink about you an’ your Frank.” She gulps again. “Nah! She’s the local matchmaker round our way, along with a few other Yids***** in Poplar. Goes around wiv ‘er nose in the air wrapped up in a fancy paisley shawl tellin’ folk she’s the one to match their son or daughter, like she was the Queen of Russia ‘erself.”
“Well she didn’t match me with Frank.” Edith says defensively.
“I know, Edith love.” Mrs. Boothby assures her with a calming wave of her hands.
“And nor did you, Mrs. Boothby,” Edith continues. “So I don’t see why you should feel so proud of yourself.”
“But you just said that if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t of considered ‘im!”
“Well,” Edith takes the kettle off the stove and pours hot water into the white teapot. “That’s true, but I’m the one that mentioned what you’d said to me about he and I on the night of Miss Lettice’s supper party for Mr. Channon and Miss de Virre.” She puts the lid on the pot with a clunk. “Err, I mean Mrs. Channon.”
Mrs. Boothby drags up a chair to the deal kitchen table and takes a seat, never taking her eyes off Edith’s face. “So ahh, when did you and Mr. Leadbeater, or should I say Frank, start, walkin’ out togevva?” She walks her index and middle finger across the clean table in front of her, as if to demonstrate her meaning.
“Only a few weeks now.” Edith admits with downcast eyes and a shy smile.
“A few weeks?” Mrs. Boothby gasps in outrage. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I guess it just slipped my mind, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith defends herself, setting out the tea cups in the saucers, pushing one across to the charwoman. “What with one thing an another. Besides,” she adds. “I didn’t want to tell you unless I was sure. I wouldn’t want to go disappointing you if it all came to aught.”
“But nah fings is workin’ out for the two of you then?” Mrs. Boothby asks as she accepts the cup and saucer and reaches for the milk jug, slopping a good glug into the bottom of her empty cup******.
“We seem to have struck a nice rhythm, and Frank and I have a lot in common.”
“Oh that’s lovely to ‘ear, dearie.” the old woman watches as Edith pours tea into her cup. “I told you, youse was pretty, didn’t I?” She takes hold of the sugar bowl and greedily spoons in several heaped teaspoons of fine white sugar into her tea before stirring it loudly. “And you never knew ‘till I told you. So where’ve you been goin’? The ‘Ammersmith Palais*******?”
“Yes, we’ve been there a few times, along with my friend Hilda.”
“She’s the parlour maid from your Mrs. Plaistow’s isn’t she?” Mrs. Boothby asks, before adding unnecessarily, “The plain one.”
“Oh I wouldn’t call her plain, Mrs. Boothby!” Edith defends her friend hotly as she pours tea into her own empty cup, before then adding a dash of milk. “That’s most uncharitable.”
“I didn’t say that, Jackie told me when I mentioned to ‘er that you was still friends wiv ‘er from when you worked there togevva.”
“Oh yes, I remember Jackie,” Edith picks up her cup and sips her tea. “Always with an ear out for gossip.”
“We chars ‘ave to take our pleasures where we can get ‘em, dearie.” Mrs. Boothby says with a slightly haughty tone as she slurps her own tea loudly. “Bein’ a char is ‘ard graft day in, day out. And you can ‘ardly take the moral ‘ighground, what wiv you askin’ me about the goings on at Miss Ward’s, nah can you?”
Edith, suitably chastened, remains silent, her lack of response serving as an affirmation of the old Cockney’s statement.
“Anyway, I might never ‘ave met your ‘Ilda, but I bet she’s not a patch on you deary, what wiv your peaches n’ cream complexion and beautiful hair. What you got natural from God, so many women I know get from lotions and potions. Nah wonder Frank was nervous ‘bout askin’ you to step out wiv ‘im. Youse a real catch Edith love.”
“I never said he was nervous, Mrs. Boothby.” Edith giggles.
“But ‘e were, weren’t ‘e?” The old woman chuckles knowingly as she cradles her warm cup in both her hands. “All little boys what fink they’re big men, get nervous round a pretty girl.”
“Well,” Edith admits. “Maybe just a little.” Then she adds, “But I was nervous too.”
“Well, that’s nice, dearie. Youse just enjoy bein’ young an’ ‘appy togevva.” The old woman gazes into the distance, a far away look sodtening the sharpness of her gaze and the squareness of her jaw as her mouth hangs open slightly. She stays that way for a moment or two before she regains her steely composure and sharp look. Turning back to Edith she says, “Nah, ‘ow does this sound, Edith love? Mrs. Ada Boothby, Matchmaker and ‘Igh Class Char? That would shove it right up that uppity Golda Friedmann and ‘er matchmaker friends!”
“Oh Mrs. Boothy!” Edith giggles.
*A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
**Rosie-Lee is Cockney slang for tea, and it is one of the most well-known of all Cockney rhyming slang.
***Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
****A rookery is a dense collection of housing, especially in a slum area. The rookeries created in Victorian times in London’s East End were notorious for their cheapness, filth and for being overcrowded.
*****The word Yid is a Jewish ethnonym of Yiddish origin. It is used as an autonym within the Ashkenazi Jewish community, and also used as slang. When pronounced in such a way that it rhymes with did by non-Jews, it is commonly intended as a pejorative term. It is used as a derogatory epithet, and as an alternative to, the English word 'Jew'. It is uncertain when the word began to be used in a pejorative sense by non-Jews, but some believe it started in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century when there was a large population of Jews and Yiddish speakers concentrated in East London, gaining popularity in the 1930s when Oswald Mosley developed a strong following in the East End of London.
******In the class-conscious society of Britain in the 1920s, whether you added milk to your cup of tea first or the tea was a subtle way of defining what class you came from. Upper-class people, or those who wished to ape their social betters added milk after the tea, whereas middle-class or working class people comfortable in their own skins were known to add milk before the tea.
*******The Hammersmith Palais de Danse, in its last years simply named Hammersmith Palais, was a dance hall and entertainment venue in Hammersmith, London, England that operated from 1919 until 2007. It was the first palais de danse to be built in Britain.
This busy domestic kitchen scene is a little different to what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
In front of Mrs. Boothby’s box is a can of Vim with stylised Art Deco packaging and some Kleeneze floor polish. Vim was a common cleaning agent, used in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight. Kleeneze is a homeware company started in Hanham, Bristol. The company's founder, Harry Crook, had emigrated to the United States with his family several years earlier, and whilst there joined Fuller Brush as a sales representative. He returned to Bristol several years later, and started a business making brushes and floor polish which were sold door-to-door by salesmen. Technically Kleeneze didn’t start until 1923, which is one years after this story is set. I couldn’t resist including it, as I doubt I will ever be able to photograph it as a main part of any other tableaux. Thus, I hope you will forgive me for this indulgence.
In the box are two containers of Zebo grate polish, a bottle of Bluebell Metal Polish and a can of Brasso. Zebo (or originally Zebra) Grate Polish was a substance launched in 1890 by Reckitts to polish the grate to a gleam using a mixture that consisted of pure black graphite finely ground, carbon black, a binding agent and a solvent to keep it fluid for application with a cloth or more commonly newspaper. Brasso Metal Polish is a British all-purpose metal cleaning product introduced to market in 1905 by Reckitt and Sons, who also produced Silvo, which was used specifically for cleaning silver, silver plate and EPNS. Bluebell metal cleaning products were a household name in the 1920s and 1930s after the business was incorporated in 1900.
The tin buckets, wooden apple box, basket, mop, brush and pan are all artisan made miniatures that I have acquired in more recent years.
It is funny how we forget things we have done.
Below, I state that this was my first visit to the cathedral as a churchcrawler.
When I began to post shots, I looked for the album to put the shots in, only to find there wasn't one.
A search of my photostream showed two visits to the cathedral, complete with interior shots from 2013 and the previous years.
I had no memories of these visits.
What else have I forgotten?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norwich is a fine city. Or so the signs say on every road into it. But, and there can be no denying it, it is a jewel in the Norfolk countryside.
For me it is “just” Norwich Where used to go for our important shopping, for football and later for concerts. We, and I, would take for granted its cobbled streets, Norman cathedral and medieval churches by the dozen. Also it’s a pub for every day, the ramshackle market, and the Norman castle keep looking down on the city sprawled around.
Just Norwich.
Later, it also became where I bought new records from Backs in Swan Lane, and searched for punk classics in the Record and Tape Exchange.
Norwich is lucky that the industrial revolution passed by the city leaving few changes, the character and history intact. World War II did damage, some churches were abandoned, some rebuilt, but many survived.
And Norwich is a friendly city. It sees warm and colourful, and on a hot summer’s day when the locals were in shorts and t-shirts, much white flesh was on display. I also take the football club for granted. I have supported it from nearly 49 years, and being away from the city means I get my news and views largely second hand, but I also forget how central the club is to the people.
Other cities would have children dressed in any one of a dozen Premier League club’s replica shirts. In Norwich yellow and green was the dominant colour, even after a chastening season that saw us finish rock bottom of the league. The local sports “superstore” has a Norwich Fan’s fanzone, and a third of the window is given to the home city club.
I knew the city like the back of my hand, so knew the route I wanted to take to provide me with views that would refresh those in my mind. I didn’t dally, pressed on to my two targets, the Anglican Cathedral and St Peter Mancroft.
This wasn’t the original plan; that was to meet two friends I used to go to the football with, Ian and Ali, but they both caught a bug in Manchester watching the women’s Euros, so couldn’t meet with me. But I had an alternative plan, maybe with a pub stop or two.
The trip happened as I got a mail offering a tempting 20% off the trip that had been selling poorly, I checked with Ian and Alison, they said they were free, but had yet to fall ill. So seats were booked, as Jools liked the sound of an afternoon in Norwich and meeting my friends.
Up at quarter to five so we could catch the first High Speed service out of Dover, so to be in London in time to catch the railtour to Norwich.
Sun had yet to light up Dover Priory when we arrived, but a few people milling around, including two still at the end of their night out.
Folkestone was light by the warm light of the rising sun, and well worth a shot as we passed over Foord Viaduct.
Later, I was hoping the calm morning meant the Medway would be a mirror, but a breeze disturbed the surface ruining the reflections I had hoped for.
Finally, emerging into Essex, the line climbs as the go over the Dartford Crossing, just enough time to grab a shot.
It was already hot in London, so we stayed in the shade of the undercroft at St Pancras, had a coffee and a pasty from Greggs before walking over to Kings Cross to see if our tour was already at the buffers.
We walked across the road to King's Cross, and find the station packed with milling passengers, all eyes trained on the departure boards waiting for platform confirmations.
Ours was due to be platform 3, and the rake of carriages was indeed there, top and tailed by class 66 freight locomotives.
We get on the train and find we had been allocated a pair of seats nearest the vestibule. This meant that they were a few inches less wide than others, meaning Jools and I were jammed in.
Almost straight away, Jools's back and Achilles began to ache, and the thought of four hours of this in the morning and another four in the evening was too much, and so she decided to get off at the first stop at Potters Bar.
In the end, a wise choice I think.
The guy in the seat opposite to us talked the whole journey. I mean filling any silence with anything: how much he paid for the components of his lunch, his cameras and then his job. In great detail. He also collected train numbers. I didn't know that was really a thin in the days of EMUs, but I helped out from time to time telling him units he had missed.
We had a twenty minute break at Peterborough because of pathing issues, so we all got out to stretch our legs and do some extra trainspotting.
An Azuma left from the next platform, and another came in on the fast line. I snapped them both.
From Peterborough, the train reversed, and after the 20 minute wait, we went out of the station southwards, taking the line towards Ely.
Now that we had done our last stop, the train could open up and we cruised across the Fens at 70mph, the flat landscape botted with wind turbines and church towers slipped by.
Instead of going into Ely station, we took the rarely used (for passenger trains) freight avoiding line, now a single track. Emerging crossing the main line, taking the line eastwards towards Thetford.
Again, the regulator was opened, and we rattled along. Even so, the journey was entering its fourth hour, and with my travelling colleague and without Jools, time was dragging.
We were now back in Norfolk, passing the STANTA training area, all warning signs on the fences telling the trainee soldiers that that was where the area ended. I saw no soldiers or tanks. My only thought was of the rare flowers that would be growing there, unseen.
And so for the final run into Norwich, familiar countryside now.
Under the southern bypass and the main line from London, slowing down where the two lines merged at Trowse before crossing the River Wensum, before the final bend into Norwich Thorpe.
At last I could get off the train and stretch my legs.
Many others were also getting off to board coaches to take them to Wroxham for a cruise on the Broads, or a ride on the Bure Valley Railway, while the rest would head to Yarmouth for four hours at the seaside.
I got off the train and walked through the station, out into the forecourt and over the main road, so I could walk down Riverside Road to the Bishop’s Bridge, then from there into the Cathedral Close.
The hustle and bustle of the station and roadworks were soon left behind, as the only noise was from a family messing about in a rowing boat in front of Pulls Ferry and a swan chasing an Egyptian Goose, so the occasional splash of water.
I reached the bridge and passed by the first pub, with already many folks sitting out in the beer garden, sipping wines and/or summer beers. I was already hot and would loved to have joined them, but I was on a mission.
In the meantime, Jools had texted me and said if I fancied getting a regular service back home, then I should. And a seed grew in my brain. Because, on the way back, departing at just gone five, the tour had to have a 50 minute layover in a goods siding at Peterborough, and would not get back to Kings Cross until half nine, and then I had to get back to Dover.
I could go to the cathedral the church, walk back to the station. Or get a taxi, and get a train back to London at four and still be home by eight.
Yes.
I walked past the Great Hospital, then into the Close via the swing gate, round to the entrance where there was no charge for entry and now no charge for photography. But I would make a donation, I said. And I did, a tenner.
I have been to the cathedral a few times, but not as a churchcrawler. So, I made my way round, taking shots, drinking in the details. But the walk up had got me hot and bothered, I always run with a hot engine, but in summer it can be pretty damp. I struggled to keep my glasses on my nose, and as I went round I knew I was in no mood to go round again with the wide angle, that could wait for another visit.
The church is pretty much as built by the Normans, roof excepted which has been replaced at least twice, but is poetry in stone. And for a cathedral, not many people around also enjoying the building and its history.
At one, bells chimed, and I think The Lord’s Prayer was read out, we were asked to be quiet. I always am when snapping.
In half an hour I was done, so walked out through the west door, through the gate and into Tombland. I was heading for the Market and St Peter which site on the opposite side to the Guildhall.
I powered on, ignoring how warm I felt, in fact not that warm at all. The heat and sweats would come when I stopped, I found out.
I walk up the side of the market and into the church, and into the middle of an organ recital.
Should I turn round and do something else, or should I stop and listen. I stopped and listened.
Everyone should hear an organ recital in a large church. There is nothing quite like it. The organ can make the most beautiful sounds, but at the same time, the bass pipes making noises so deep you can only feel it in your bones.
Tony Pinel knew his way round the organ, and via a video link we could see his hands and feet making the noises we could hear. It was wonderful, but quite how someone can play one tune with their feet and another with their hands, and pulling and pushing knobs and stoppers, is beyond me. But glad some people can.
It finished at quarter to two, and I photograph the font canopy and the 15th century glass in the south chapel. Font canopies are rare, there is only four in England, and one of the others is in Trunch 20 miles to the north. Much is a restoration, but it is an impressive sight when paired with the seven-sacrament font under it.
The glass is no-less spectacular, panels three feet by two, five wide and stretching to the vaulted roof. I can’t photograph them all, but I do over 50%.
I go to the market for a lunch of chips, for old times sake. I mean that was the treat whenever we went either to Norwich or Yarmouth; chips on the market. I was told they no longer did battered sausage, so had an un-battered one, and a can of pop. I stood and ate in the alleyway between stalls, people passing by and people buying chips and mushy peas of their own.
Once done, I had thought of getting a taxi back to the station, but the rank that has always been rammed with black cabs was empty, and two couples were shouting at each other as to who should have the one that was there. So I walked to the station, across Gentleman’s Walk, along to Back of the Inns, then up London Street to the top of Prince of Wales Road and then an easy time to the station across the bridge.
I got my ticket and saw a train to Liverpool Street was due to depart at 14:32. In three minutes.
I went through the barrier and got on the train, it was almost empty in the new, swish electric inter-city unit. I was sweating buckets, and needed a drink, but there appeared to be no buffet, instead just electric efficiency and silence as the train slid out of the station and went round past the football ground to the river, then taking the main line south.
In front of me, two oriental ladies talked for the whole journey. I listened to them, no idea what they talked about to fill 105 minutes.
I thought it would be nearly five when the train got in, but helped by only stopping at Diss, Ipswich, Manningtree and Colchester we got in, on time, at quarter past four.
I walked to the main concourse and down into the Circle Line platforms, getting a train in a couple of minutes the four stops to St Pancras. I knew there was a train soon leaving, and after checking the board and my watch I saw I had five minutes to get along the length of the station and up to the Southeastern platforms.
I tried. I did, but I reached the steps up to the platforms and I saw I had 45 seconds, no time to go up as they would have locked the doors. So, instead I went to the nearby pub and had a large, ice-cold bottle of Weiss beer.
That was better.
I was all hot and bothered again, but would have an hour to cool down, and the beer helped.
At ten past five, I went up and found the Dover train already in, I went through the barriers and took a seat in a carriage I thought would stop near the exit at Dover Priory. I called Jools to let her know I would be back at quarter to seven, and she confirmed she would pick me up.
She was there, people got off all out on a night on the town, dressed in shiny random pieces of fabric covering boobs and bottoms. I was young once, I thought.
Jools was there, she started the car and drove us home via Jubilee Way. Across the Channel France was a clear as anything, and four ferries were plying between the two shores. Take us home.
Once home, Jools had prepared Caprese. I sliced some bread and poured wine. On the wireless, Craig spun funk and soul. We ate.
Tired.
It was going to be a hot night, but I was tired enough to sleep through it. Or so I thought.
--------------------------------------------
Norwich has everything. Thus, the normally dry and undemonstrative Nikolaus Pevsner began his survey of the capital of Norfolk in his 1962 volume Buildings of England: Norwich and north-east Norfolk. And there is no doubt that this is one of the best cities of its size in northern Europe. Living in Ipswich as I do, I hear plenty of grumbles about Norwich; but really, although the two places have roughly the same population, Ipswich cannot even begin to compare with regard to its townscape. The only features which the capital of Suffolk can claim to hold above its beautiful northern neighbour are a large central park (Norwich's Chapelfield gardens is not a patch on Ipswich's Christchurch Park) and a large body of water in the heart of the town, perhaps Ipswich's most endearing feature and greatest saving grace.
But Norwich has everything else - to continue Pevsner's eulogy, a cathedral, a castle on a mound right in the middle, walls and towers, a medieval centre with winding streets and alleys, thirty-five medieval parish churches and a river with steamships. It even has hills...
I think it would be possible to visit Norwich and not even know this cathedral was there. The centre of the city is dominated by the castle, and the most familiar feature to visitors is the great market square widened by the clearances of the 1930s, and the fine City Hall built at that time which towers above it. In comparison, Norwich Cathedral sits down in a dip beside the river, walled in by its close, and is visible best from outside the city walls, especially from the east on the riverside, and to the north from Mousehold Heath. If you arrive by road from the south or west, you may not even catch a glimpse of it. The great spire is hidden by those winding streets and alleys, and many of the city's churches are more visible, especially St Giles, St Peter Mancroft in the Market Place, and the vast Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist, on Grapes Hill. It is said that the nave floor of St John the Baptist is at the same height above sea level as the top of the crossing of the Anglican cathedral.
With the possible exception of Lincoln Cathedral, I think that Norwich Cathedral is my favourite cathedral in all England. Call this East of England chauvinism if you like, But Norwich Cathedral has everything you could possible want from a great medieval building. But there is more to it than that. It is also one of the most welcoming cathedrals in England. There is no charge for admission, and they positively encourage you to wander around through the daily business of the cathedral, in the continental manner. No boards saying Silence Please - Service in Progress here. Because of this, the Cathedral becomes an act of witness in itself, and you step into what feels like it probably really is the house of God on Earth. They even used to say the Lord's Prayer over the PA system once an hour, and invite you to stop and join in - I wish they'd go back to doing that. The three pounds you pay for a photography permit must be one of the bargains of the century so far.
Norwich Cathedral is unusual, in that this is the original building. It has been augmented over the centuries of course, but this is still essentially the very first cathedral on this site. This is because the see was only moved to Norwich after the Norman invasion. The Normans saw the wisdom of drawing together ecclesiastical and civil power, and one way in which this might be achieved was by siting the cathedrals in the hearts of important towns. At the time of the conquest, Bishop Herfast had his seat at Thetford, and it was decided to move the see to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. It had moved several times during the previous four centuries, from Walton in Suffolk to North Elmham in Norfolk before Thetford, where the first proper but simple stone building had been raised. But as well as an eye for efficient administration, the Normans brought the idea that Cathedrals should be glorified; already, vast edifices were being raised in Durham, London and Ely. and Bury St Edmunds, with its famous Abbey, was the obvious place for the Diocese of East Anglia to sit.
However, such a move would have removed the Abbey's independent direct line with Rome, and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Province of Canterbury. The Abbey community was determined that this would not happen, and Abbot Baldwin sent representations to the Pope that ensured the survival of St Edmundsbury Abbey's independence. Bishop Herfast would not be allowed to glorify his position in East Anglia in the way his colleagues were doing elsewhere. But his successor, Herbert de Losinga, was more determined - and, perhaps, steeled by his conscience. A Norman, he had bought the Bishopric from the King in 1091, an act of simony that required penance. Building a great cathedral could be seen as that act of penance. But where? Bury was a lost cause; instead, he chose to move the see to a thriving market town in the north-east of his Diocese; a smaller, more remote place than Bury, to be sure, but proximity to the Abbey of St Edmund was perhaps not such a good thing anyway. It tended to cast a rather heavy shadow. And so it was that the great medieval cathedral of the East Anglian bishops came to be built, instead, at Norwich.
Work began in 1094, and seems to have been complete by 1145. It is one of the great Romanesque buildings of northern Europe, its special character a result of responses to fires and collapses over the course of the next few centuries. At the Reformation in the sixteenth century, it became a protestant cathedral of the new Church of England, losing its role as a setting for ancient sacraments and devotions, but being maintained as the administrative seat of a Diocese which covered all of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the ceremonial church of its great city. In the 19th Century, the western part of the Norwich Diocese was transferred into that of Ely, and at the start of the 20th Century the southern parishes became part of the new Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. Today, the Diocese of Norwich consists of north, south and east Norfolk, and the north-eastern tip of Suffolk.
The absence of this great church from the Norfolk Churches site has long been the elephant in the room, so to speak. And having it here at last is, I feel, a mark of how things have changed. When I first started the Norfolk and Suffolk sites back in 1999, I did not have a decent camera, and the earliest entries did not have any photographs at all. How the wheel has turned. Now, the photographs have become the sites, and with no apologies I don't intend to make this a wordy entry.
The perfection of Norwich is of distant views, the cloisters, and the interior. The exterior is hemmed in, and the most familiar part of the building, the west front, is a poor thing, the victim of barbarous restorations in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is almost a surprise to step through its mundanity into the soaring glory of the nave. Above, the famous vaulting is home to one of the largest collections of medieval bosses in the world. There are more in the beautiful cloisters.
The view to the east is of the great organ, looking very 17th Century but actually the work of Stephen Dykes Bower in the 1950s. Beyond is the intimacy of the quire and ambulatory with its radial chapels, the best of which is St Luke's chapel, containing the Despenser retable. Bishop Despenser is one of history's villains, putting down the Peasants Revolt in East Anglia with some enthusiasm. It is likely that this retable was made for the cathedral's high altar, possibly even to give thanks for the end of the Revolt. It was discovered upside down in use as a table in the 1840s. This chapel is, unusually, also a parish church; the parish of St Mary in the Marsh, the church of which was demolished at the Reformation, moved into the cathedral. They brought their seven sacrament font with them, and here it remains.
In the ambulatory there are many traces of medieval paint, almost certainly from the original building of the Cathedral. Two curiosities: at the back of the apse is the original Bishop's chair, and rising across the north side of the ambulatory like a bridge is a relic screen.
There is a good range of glass dating from the 14th to the 21st centuries. Highlights include the medieval panels in the north side of the ambulatory, Edward Burne-Jones's bold figures in the north transept, Moira Forsyth's spectacular Benedictine window of 1964 in a south chapel, and the millennium glass high in the north transept, which I think will in time become one of the defining features of the Cathedral. The figure of the Blessed Virgin with the Christ Child seated on her lap is the work of Norfolk-based artist John Hayward, who died recently, but the glass above is Hayward's reworking of Keith New's 1960s glass for St Stephen Walbrook in London, removed from there in the 1980s, and now reset here. Towards the west end of the nave are two sets of Stuart royal arms in glass, a rare survival.
I grew up in a city some sixty miles away from Norwich, but I didn't come here until I was in my mid-teens. I remember wandering around this building and being blown away by it, and I still get that feeling today. There is always something new to find here. My favourite time here is first thing in the morning on a winter Saturday. Often, I can be the only visitor, which only increases the awe. Another time I like to be here in winter is on a Saturday afternoon for choral evensong. Perhaps best of all, though, is to wander and wonder in the cloisters on a bright sunny day, gazing at fabulous bosses almost within arm's reach.
Several English cathedrals have good closes, but Norwich's is the only one in a major city, I think. It creates the sense of an ecclesiastical village at the heart of the city; and then, beyond, the lanes and alleys spread out, still hanging on despite German bombing and asinine redevelopment. And now I think perhaps it is part of the beauty of this building that it is tucked away by the river, a place to seek out and explore. Norwich has everything, says Pevsner. But really, I think this is the very best thing of all.
www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/norwichcathedral/norwichcathedr...
no rules, no limitations, no boundaries it's like an art
© All Rights Reserved by ajpscs
The lotus symbolizes the Buddhist way of life.
It is bom in the depths of the impure mud. It grows through the unclean waters of the pond. It blossoms forth in all its multi petalled purity and glory on the surface of the pond. In spite of its unclean origin and surrounding its beauty pleases the eye, and its purity chastens the mind and spirit of the onlooker.
Introduction
2019 English Christian Hymns With Lyrics "Is the World Your Place of Rest?"
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/videos/is-the-world-your-place-o...
I
People who live outside God’s word
and flee the suffering of trial,
they’re all just drifting through the world,
like autumn leaves, blown in the wind.
They flutter here, they flutter there.
They never have a place to rest,
much less God’s words of consolation.
They’re only beggars in the streets,
outside the kingdom of heaven.
They’re wandering from place to place,
though God’s chastisement and refinement
don’t ever follow them.
Can you be sure the world’s your place of rest?
Can you smile with ease in this world
if you’ve avoided God’s chastisement?
And can you use your fleeting joy
to cover up the empty feeling in your heart
that cannot be concealed?
You can fool anyone in your family,
yet you can never fool God.
II
Because your faith is all too weak,
you’ve not seen joys that life can offer.
God urges you to be sincere
and spend half your life for His sake.
It’s better than living your whole life
in mediocrity, in labor for the flesh,
enduring all the suffering and pain
that man can hardly bear.
Can you be sure the world’s your place of rest?
Can you smile with ease in this world
if you’ve avoided God’s chastisement?
And can you use your fleeting joy
to cover up the empty feeling in your heart
that cannot be concealed?
You can fool anyone in your family,
yet you can never fool God.
What purpose does it serve to love yourself so much
and flee from God’s chastisement?
What purpose does it serve to shun His brief chastening
and reap shame, punishment forever?
Can you be sure the world’s your place of rest?
Can you smile with ease in this world
if you’ve avoided God’s chastisement?
And can you use your fleeting joy
to cover up the empty feeling in your heart
that cannot be concealed?
You can fool anyone in your family,
yet you can never fool God.
from Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs
Recommended for you: Judgement Will Begin in the House of God
Image Source: The Church of Almighty God
We gather together to ask the Lord's blessings,
He hastens and chastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing,
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.
Beside us to guide us, Our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His Kingdom Divine;
So from the beginning the fight we are winning,
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!
~written in 1597
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I've always loved this old hymn we sing every
year during Thanksgiving Services. It takes me
back many years! I'm so thankful that I was
brought up in a Christian environment and was
taught, from an early age, to be thankful for and
in all things. And, I thank you now, Lord, for all
my many blessings!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May you all have a blessed "Lord's Day!"
~Mary Lou
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq1n2ZDZI8M
(Dallyn Vail Bayles)
Savior, Redeemer of my soul,
Whose mighty hand hath made me whole,
Whose wondrous pow'r hath raised me up
And filled with sweet my bitter cup!
What tongue my gratitude can tell,
O gracious God of Israel.
Never can I repay thee, Lord,
But I can love thee. Thy pure word,
Hath it not been my one delight,
My joy by day, my dream by night?
Then let my lips proclaim it still,
And all my life reflect thy will.
O'errule mine acts to serve thine ends.
Change frowning foes to smiling friends.
Chasten my soul till I shall be
In perfect harmony with thee.
Make me more worthy of thy love,
And fit me for the life above.
"The lotus symbolizes the Buddhist way of life.
It is bom in the depths of the impure mud.
It grows through the unclean waters of the pond.
It blossoms forth in all its multi petalled purity and glory on the surface of the pond.
In spite of its unclean origin and surrounding its beauty pleases the eye, and its purity chastens the mind and spirit of the onlooker.
Even so the lotus of the individual unfolds itself in the pond of human society.
The circumstances of his birth, of procreation and parturition, are impure and unclean.
His growth and sustenance, his upbringing and education are associated with suffering and sacrifice, folly and frustration, poverty and privation, disappointment and discouragement, success and failure, gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and censure, and happiness and misery.
These are the waters of life, the circumstances of the world.
But the perfected being, the "arya sravaka", the true disciple of the Buddha, rises above these worldly waters and shines in all his impeccable purity and perfection".
("THE WAY OF THE LOTUS" by Professor W.S. Karunaratne)
I took this picture a few days ago, as I was driving from Varanasi to Bodh Gaya.
It was early at sunrise and the colours came on my camera just as I could see them at that time on this pond somewhere in the Indian state of Bihar.
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OT:
🐵 A quote from "The blind watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins:
"... It isn't just zoological classification that is saved from awkward ambiguity only by the convenient fact that most intermediates are now extinct. The same is true of human ethics and law. Our legal and moral systems are deeply species-bound. The director of a zoo is legally entitled to 'put down' a chimpanzee that is surplus to requirements, while any suggestion that he might 'put down' a redundant keeper or ticket-seller would be greeted with howls of incredulous outrage. The chimpanzee is the property of the zoo. Humans are nowadays not supposed to be anybody's property, yet the rationale for discriminating against chimpanzees in this way is seldom spelled out, and I doubt if there is a defensible rationale at all. Such is the breathtaking speciesism of our Christian-inspired attitudes, the abortion of a single human zygote (most of them are destined to be spontaneously aborted anyway) can arouse more moral solicitude and righteous indignation than the vivisection of any number of intelligent adult chimpanzees! I have heard decent, liberal scientists, who had no intention of actually cutting up live chimpanzees, nevertheless passionately defending their right to do so if they chose, without interference from the law. Such people are often the first to bristle at the smallest infringement of human rights. The only reason we can be comfortable with such a double standard is that the intermediates between humans and chimps are all dead.
The last common ancestor of humans and chimps lived perhaps as recently as five million years ago, definitely more recently than the common ancestor of chimps and orang-utans, and perhaps 30 million years more recently than the common ancestor of chimps and monkeys. Chimpanzees and we share more than 99 per cent of our genes. If, in various forgotten islands around the world, survivors of all intermediates back to the chimp/human common ancestor were discovered, who can doubt that our laws and our moral conventions would be profoundly affected, especially as there would presumably be some interbreeding along the spectrum? Either the whole spectrum would have to be granted full human rights (Votes for Chimps), or there would have to be an elaborate apartheid-like system of discriminatory laws, with courts deciding whether particular individuals were legally 'chimps' or legally 'humans'; and people would fret about their daughter's desire to marry one of 'them'. I suppose the world is already too well explored for us to hope that this chastening fantasy will ever come true. But anybody who thinks that there is something obvious and self-evident about human 'rights' should reflect that it is just sheer luck that these embarrassing intermediates happen not to have survived. Alternatively, maybe if chimpanzees hadn't been discovered until today they would now be seen as the embarrassing intermediates."
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Vegan FAQ! :)
The Web Site the Meat Industry Doesn't Want You to See.
Please watch Earthlings.
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You can reach me at yoze83 [AT] yahoo.com
I watched a wonderful film ‘The Reader’ with a beautiful Kate Winslet.
‘The Reader’ is the film about fates of different generations, love, inner principles, spiritual wounds and remorse. This film is about secrets we all have and the price we are ready to pay for keeping them hidden.
Let’s admit it: we all have secrets. We share our opinions on interesting films we’ve watched, on political situation in the country or on the behavior of a close person. But there are certain things that we want to be kept only in our hearts. There is something in us that we don’t want to share, something too much personal, intimate.
We don’t want to be an opened book and therefore we put on a mask. We act as the words of the stranger don’t hurt us. With the desire to give revenge we put on the mask of chastener, bringing sadness and frustration to our friends. We look away when the question of the speaker hurt us to the marrow of our bones.
The mankind has always worn masks. Someone puts on the mask of the winner, another the mask of the prison warden, the third the martyr-mask. We all do it from time to time.
The main character of ‘The Reader’ Hanna Schmitz asks the judge: ‘What would you do in my place?’ and receives on answer. For sure, there is no answer. The judge is not in her place.
In the desire to hide true feelings, motives and intentions the mankind has turned the life into theatrical farce. Sincerity is the way to the humanity. And we choose the punishment for our insincerity by ourselves.
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“Innocent amusements are such as excite moderately, and such as produce a cheerful frame of mind, not boisterous mirth; such as refresh, instead of exhausting, the system; such as recur frequently, rather than continue long; such as send us back to our daily duties invigorated in body and spirit; such as we can partake of in the presence and society of respectable friends; such as consist with and are favorable to a grateful piety; such as are chastened by self-respect, and are accompanied with the consciousness that life has a higher end than to be amused.”
- William Ellery Channing
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BIBLICAL CONTEXT: Psalm 118:18-21 NIV
(from biblegateway.com)
18 The Lord has chastened me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.
19 Open for me the gates of the righteous;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.
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5 MORE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Like it or not, we are ALL sinners: As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
2. The punishment for sin is death: When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12 NLT)
3. Jesus is our only hope: But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8 NLT) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NLT)
4. SALVATION is by GRACE through FAITH in JESUS: God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT)
5. Accept Jesus and receive eternal life: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 NLT) But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12 NLT) And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12 NLT)
Read the Bible for yourself. Allow the Lord to speak to you through his Word. YOUR ETERNITY IS AT STAKE!
The Hymn of Life Experience
Through Thick and Thin, Faithful Till Death
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/hymns-of-experience/through-thic...
I
From heaven to the earth,
hiding in the flesh.
Working among men,
through winds and rains.
Taking a rough path,
open a new age.
To redeem mankind,
lay down Your life
and shed blood.
Wind and rain,
so many years.
Forsaken by every man.
Humble and hidden,
enduring all along.
Humble and hidden,
enduring all along.
II
Sacrifice for Your will;
this is my wish.
Though flesh’s in trials,
stronger is my will.
Love You more intensely;
bitterness most sweet.
Eyes blurred by tears,
but my life is so bright.
Broken and smashed
time after time,
care about Your will
even more.
Faithful till death,
through thick and thin.
Faithful till death,
thick and thin.
III
Going through pains,
tasting hardships.
Chastened and disciplined,
reviving from death.
Under Your care again,
adore You all the more.
Thinking of the past,
great regrets in my heart.
Broken and smashed
time after time,
care about Your will
even more.
Faithful till death,
through thick and thin.
Faithful till death,
thick and thin.
IV
Heavy burden on,
hesitate no more.
Small stature as mine;
thanks to Your love,
my journey till today,
experienced
Your great love.
Bitter and sweet,
happiness with sorrows.
Broken and smashed
time after time,
care about Your will
even more.
Faithful till death,
through thick and thin.
Faithful till death,
thick and thin.
V
Bestow Your mercy,
pity my weakness.
Unleash Your anger,
curse my disobedience.
Abundantly merciful,
profoundly wrathful.
Seen Your majesty,
experienced Your wisdom.
Broken and smashed
time after time,
care about Your will
even more.
Faithful till death,
through thick and thin.
Faithful till death,
thick and thin.
VI
Live in Your love,
offer myself up.
Painful refining,
all You predestined.
To be perfected,
fulfill Your commission,
and satisfy Your heart;
it’s the life of mine.
Sweets and bitters,
I’ve tasted much.
Hardships fill in my life.
Suffering or bitterness,
I won’t complain.
I won’t complain
till my life’s end.
from Follow the Lamb and Sing New Songs
Eastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God was created because of the appearance and work of Almighty God, the second coming of the Lord Jesus, Christ of the last days. It is made up of all those who accept Almighty God's work in the last days and are conquered and saved by His words. It was entirely founded by Almighty God personally and is led by Him as the Shepherd. It was definitely not created by a person. Christ is the truth, the way, and the life. God's sheep hear God's voice. As long as you read the words of Almighty God, you will see God
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In this sequel to “Frankenstein” (Universal Pictures, 1931), a chastened Henry Frankenstein attempts to abandon his plans to create life, only to be tempted and finally coerced by his old mentor Dr. Pretorius, along with threats from the Monster, into constructing a mate.
Movie trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR2uBTMBKVg