This is the site where the commander of the New Jersey Brigade was headquartered at Valley Forge encampent during the Revolutionary War. The place is now called the Philander Chase Knox Estate, since he was the last owner of the property before it became part of the current park. He served both as U.S. Attorney General and as Secretary of State around the turn of the century. He was the last to remodel the home into it's current form, and even once had President Theodore Roosevelt as a guest there. (Maybe they even hung out together on this very cute back patio).

Built of native sandstone by skilled English stone masons, this early Anglican Church was erected to meet the spiritual needs of a group of people who came over from England in the 1830’s to settle the prairies of western Peoria county here in Illinois. One of the oldest churches in the area, there are sister churches to this one in Brimfield and Robin’s Nest (Jubilee). With Bishop Philander Chase nearby and a seminary for training young ministers established at Robin’s Nest, it looked like there was a fair chance that the western Peoria county prairie would be modeled after Yorkshire England. In Southern Illinois at a place called Albion, there was already an earlier successful English prairie settlement started by a man named George Flowers. At this early date the prairies of Illinois were completely up for grabs because they were considered undesirable for settlement due to a shortage of available wood for building housing and for heating and cooking. The English with their extensive knowledge of building with stone and heating with coal which is very abundant in Illinois were undeterred by the prairie conditions which caused American settlers to shun the prairies in their search for inhabitable lands. To this day a glance at the telephone book will reveal a large number of English surnames among the local population. These people came to stay and are an important part of the state’s establishment though they seem to be largely forgotten in discussions of early Illinois settlement. They were educated, skilled, and religiously devout.

As I write this, it’s kicking off big style outside. Monstrous gusts of wind and the electricity keeps flickering on and off. The woodburner is grumbling as it does its best against the blasts coming down the chimney and our highly strung cat is looking even more neurotic than she usually does. It’s going to be like this for a couple of hours at least before the eye of the storm moves eastward along the English Channel. Ah, the power has gone now. Apart from anything else, the fireside is providing some light. Latest update is that forty-three thousand homes in Cornwall are without power. Everyone is indoors, except for Ali’s nephew, whose job it is to try and restore the electricity supply to those forty-three thousand homes. Along with some colleagues I presume. Apparently he just told his wife that he’d see her in the morning. Just think, when you’re cowering under your kitchen table in a few hours from now, he’ll be at the top of an electricity pylon beating his chest as he tinkers about with an adjustable spanner and a pair of screwdrivers.

 

Earlier today I headed out for a very brief visit to Portreath after a morning of heavy rain that didn’t pause for a moment. I’d already checked the conditions and knew the tide was out and the sea flat, as it sometimes is in the build up to an Atlantic howler. As I arrived at the empty beach, the hard rain eased. Not what I wanted. I’d come prepared with the trusty old weather sealed gear built to withstand just about everything and a plan to try and capture the rain falling heavily across the water. Besides myself, the only other people on the beach were a pair of anglers. I’d seen them walking along the road towards the water just ahead of me. Fortune favours the intrepid from time to time, although the only thing I saw this chap catch was a lump of seaweed, which he studied carefully for some moments before deciding it wasn’t suitable for the dinner table later..

 

The sea was completely benign, with not a trace of what was due to follow as the darkness came along two hours later. Not much wind to speak of - just murky mizzly stuff, the bottom of the pile as far as shooting conditions go. Strangely silent. Precisely why I was here. And while the rain was no longer dropping in nice fat downward bullets, a soaking film of airborne grime was being driven horizontally across the beach. The sort of rain that drenches you from within before you’ve even noticed it. I have a very good raincoat, but I hadn’t bothered with the waterproof trousers, not for a fifteen minute stop on the beach. Within five of those fifteen minutes the trousers were sodden, but I really didn’t care. Nor did the guys with the fishing rods. In a few hours from now it would be too dangerous (and too dark) to be here, but for now this was fine. Even if the sea’s raging you can get close enough with the long lens. If I could just catch a moment with the rain charging from one side of the frame to the other.

 

I didn’t stay long. There were pasties to collect from the bakery, and there was work to be done at home. A few things in the garden needed taming before they could whomp into the house and the cars later. Trousers to dry. And then there were movies to download onto fully charged laptops, for when the electricity supply bade us goodnight. Ali’s already watching one - Jude Law seems to be philandering again. Phones, torches and candles, and we forgot to boil some water and pour it into thermos flasks. Besides which, once I’d taken a few shots, there wasn’t really much of a reason to stay here drowning under the sky. As I drove home, the heavens opened with full vent once more. In the early evening the family WhatsApp hummed with activity. We could all feel that strange air of calm before the battlefront in the sky charged over the coast and raced towards us with its teeth bared. Last time I looked out of the window the treetops were all waving about wildly at the edge of the garden. But at least this means they were all still standing I suppose.

 

I guess I’ll be able to share this story at some point - unless the world has ended. It’s difficult to be certain these days. So for now I’ll settle into a glass of Jameson’s and a film of my own. That fireside is looking like a nice comfortable spot right now.

 

This is George. I met him a few weeks ago on the slopes of Slieve Foye in the Cooley mountains. He said hes tired of all the philandering and wandering around and he`d love to settle down with a nice lady. He says as long as shes wooly, likes cuddles, isnt continually bleating on about something and has been footrot free for six months, he`s certain they could make a go of it!. Why do I not believe him?

Well,taking to some of the girls up there, they say hes not to be trusted and he has a bit of a reputation. Apparently he`ll just chew anybody`s` grass!!!

Keep smiling out there, stay in your own field and mind yourselves! Bah!!!!!

Pat.

 

Update; Never realisrd this photo was in explore till now,Feb 2022! Its another great honour for me especially when you really like the photo yourself. Thank you once again!!! Pat.

The window faces northeast, away from winter sun. During the darkest time of the year, in November, the mini Phalaenopsis sends out its new flower stem. For months it reaches, buds, and waits. When the window becomes brighter in February, it begins to bloom. Slowly but reliably, it blooms and blooms and blooms. In late spring when a few moments of morning sunlight begin to fall directly on the little orchid, its newest flowers open toward the philandering sun. It does not need these moments of warmth and light, but visibly luxuriates in them each morning for a few weeks.

 

Projecty 365, 2023 Edition: Day 134/365

 

Thank you to everyone who visits, faves, and comments.

Quatre-yeux gris, Gray four-eyed opossum

Philandering - Part 2: "It started with a fish"

Arctic terns. Fish works better than chocolate and flowers...

Stone structures are rather rare on the Illinois prairie. When the early settlers first came, buildings were put up using native timber. Later sawn lumber from the north woods and locally made bricks became available. Early houses are sometimes dated by the materials they are made of. This old stone farmhouse is an anomaly. It takes skilled stone masons and rock quarries to make such a structure, something that would not normally be found on the early prairie. Nearby are other stone buildings… a stone school, a stone barn, and a stone two story mansion or two. Where did the skilled laborers come from? This is not the work of prairie farmers or backwoods men. In 1839 an Anglican Bishop named Philander Chase came to the unsettled Illinois prairie to build a magnificent theological seminary and college for young men. He convinced a group of skilled laborers and farmers to immigrate with him from England to found a settlement and build the college. Native sandstone was quarried and transported and soon stone structures began to dot the landscape. Well built and durable, these 180 year old structures are still very serviceable and worthy of preservation. The old rural graveyards of western Peoria County are filled with the grave markers of these early English Pioneers. The college still stands at the settlement known as Robin’s Nest. A magnificent stone memorial marks the spot where Bishop Chase was laid to rest surrounded by the graves of his countrymen. Many English surnames survive among the people of this region all because an influential man had a dream. Cheers.

Until recently many of our birds were thought to be strictly monogamous, that is faithful to one partner. Then DNA testing was invented, and we now know that monogamy is the exception rather than the rule. In House Sparrows about 20% of nests contain at least one offspring that is not fathered by the male of the pair. In Starlings and Great Tits this rises to 30%, 40% in Blue Tits, and up to 75% in Coal Tits. But the prize for infidelity goes to Reed Buntings where around 90% of nests have chicks that are not fathered by the male of the pair. But in Jackdaws only 1% of nests were found to contain chicks from another male. This makes Jackdaws the most faithful of all British songbirds studied so far. Moreover they would have plenty of opportunity to philander as they often nest and feed in loose colonies. Moreover, Jackdaws usually stick with the same partner year after year, and the oldest Jackdaw lived to 17.

 

DNA testing has also resulted in Jackdaw being placed in a separate genus from the other British crows (Coloeus instead of Corvus), but the genus only contains this and its eastern counterpart, the Daurian Jackdaw (C. dauuricus). (Western) Jackdaw's scientific name is Coloeus monedula; Coloeus simply means Jackdaw whereas monedula literally means money-eating (but really means acquisitive or greedy). This comes from a Greek myth about Arne Sithornis who appeared in Ovid's Metamorphoses. She was a princess of a Greek Island who betrayed her homeland when she accepted a bribe of gold from King Minos of Crete, who then attacked her island. She was punished by the gods for her treachery and was metamorphosed into a Jackdaw, a symbol of greed. This is why Linnaeus named the Jackdaw monedula (money-eater) back in 1758.

 

Jackdaws are smaller than crows, with a body size similar to Magpie. The call is high-pitched and quite unlike the tuneless cawing of crows www.xeno-canto.org/671328 In my village they nest commonly in old chimney pots (and tree holes) but they are very wary and don't even like cameras being pointed at them. Probably because they are still shot by farmers and gamekeepers. I photographed this one yesterday at Brimham Rocks in North Yorkshire where they nest in rock crevices. This is a busy tourist attraction and they seem to have become more confiding with humans there. I thought it showed the plumage features particularly well; the pale eye, grey shawl and the slight purple iridescence on the flight feathers.

"It started with a fish". By Sis

I admit I have to many camera’s, more importantly to many systems, but lets just call it the philandering whims of an old man. Up until 2017 I had only one, Canon. Then with more time on my hands I had multiple short term flings with Olympus seduced by those sexy computational features going for one model then another. Then Fujifilm turned my head and at a whim I callously ditched Olympus, all that time Canon stays faithful. So Fujifilm becomes the other camera in my life and my relationships move into calmer waters, each camera knowing there place. Then pimped by another, Olympus calls its self OM and has more to offer to entice this sad old man and I’m suckered in again. Canon and Fujifulm wait in the wings while I go on another whirlwind romance. Eventually my head catches up to my fluttering heart to tell me I can’t support this trilogy and one must go. I haven’t taken Canon out for a while but surly I’m not thinking of getting rid of my old faithful. I take canon on a two day trip and go on a serious morning catchup together. The conditions are not what was expected and the date has no atmosphere, I even forget how to handle Canon’s finer features, I’m falling out of love. The last morning and the last try, even though OM is in the car I reluctantly take Canon again and Fujifilm tags along sporting a long lens, just in case. I have no guilt leaving OM as we’d just had a wild night together under the stars. I get to the lake shore and this morning the atmosphere is better than previously, I go through the motions of setting up Canon and then I look through the viewfinder and the magic reappears and I take this image.

Zurich, Switzerland

I like this old barn on the Philander Chase Knox Estate within Valley Forge National Park in Pennsylvania. Late on a Winter day it was all straight lines, bright surfaces and deep shadows.

 

Philander Knox was, at one time or another, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. Definitely an over-achiever. Even more significantly of course, General Washington over-wintered (and trained) the Continental Army not far away in 1777-78, while keeping a watch on the British, who were spending the off-season in Philadelphia 20-some miles to the south and east. Now the estate is mostly a venue for wedding parties. I do not know if the term "a philanderer" has any connection to this Philander.

I had forgotten about this photograph I took back in the spring. It is a stunning male Pied Flycatcher in full breeding plumage. In springtime males sing and display to attract a female but the females hold out as long as possible for very good reason. This is because females build the nest and incubate the eggs, but while they are preoccupied the male will sometimes go off and find a second or even third mate. But the male does catch insects to help rear the chicks, but if his attentions are divided the success rate is lower. Just say a female can rear three chicks with the exclusive help of a male, but only two chicks if a male divides his labours between two nests. But this would mean a male could rear four chicks from two nests but only three from a single nest. So it is in the male's interest to have a second nest. But it is not in the female's interest to share him as she will rear fewer chicks. This is why the female holds out as long as possible, as the longer she makes him wait, the more likely it is that other females will be paired up, so she will have his sole attention. A true battle of the sexes.

The first thought was that someone had thrown a football at my head. It seemed unlikely – I didn’t know anyone around here and I’d absented myself from five a side that evening because after nearly a week of incessant rain and doubtful grey skies I wanted to go out into the sunshine with the camera. But in those split seconds of this unwanted exchange it dawned on me. Footballs don’t have wings and feathers but seagulls do, and everyone down here knows about their famed air raids on innocent souls carrying food in an obvious manner. Even Belgian Chocolate ice creams are considered fair game by those scavenging sky hyenas, and most of mine was now lying on the ground in front of me. It was a double scoop as well. I now had two options – I could either return to the hut past all of the amused spectators and buy another one, of which I’d take much better care in open spaces, or I could adopt a nonchalant air, as with pace unbroken I strode to the nearest sand dune to sit and sulk in the sunshine. I chose the latter course of action. And you thought this stuff only happened to unwary tourists didn’t you? We locals smirk quietly behind our hands when hapless visitors get mobbed by Herring Gulls in pursuit of pasties at St Ives, so in truth it makes us look all the more idiotic when we're subjected to the same fate. I can still almost taste that lost dollop of Belgian Chocolate lying melting on the car park floor. Callestick Farm ice cream too - what I'd tasted before the airborne assault had been moments stolen from the very heavens. Ironic that something from the heavens should steal if from me really.

 

Some time after this disturbing setback Lee arrived, and he was looking very pleased with himself. Of course I already knew why. He’s a man who changes his camera systems almost as often as Elizabeth Taylor did her husbands, and more than once I’ve arrived on location to find him wielding something completely different from the time we last convened without prior warning. If he ever stops buying and selling things, your favourite auction website may just have to close down, and that time may in fact now have come. Not that I’ve studied the life and marital events of Ms Taylor that closely, but think of the Sony A7r3 as his Richard Burton – the one he returned to and remarried; his spiritual home if you will. Last time he had one of these, I rarely heard him talking about other cameras, and since he was parted with it, he’s often lamented on the shortcomings of whatever he was using at the time in comparison to the Sony. With the addition of the same lens that our much admired Mads Peter Iversen so often uses, it seemed that my friend’s ceaseless wandering through the labyrinthine pages pages of eBay may at last be over – although I’m not racing down to Ladbrokes to fill in the betting slip. Besides which he hasn't found a wide angle lens to complete the bag yet. To make his triumphant grin just that bit wider, he’d managed to secure both camera and lens at very agreeable prices. Understandably he was happy at the outcome.

 

While I was pleased to see that Lee’s inveterate habit of camera philandering might finally be over, I had to admit to the presence of Iago’s green eyed monster on the beach. With Iceland to come later this year, he’ll be carrying a much lighter set up than me when we go marching up those slopes to the vantage point over Reynisfjara and Dyrholaey. While he has experimented with almost every brand on the market over the last few years, I’ve stuck steadfastly to the one I know and have gradually begun to make sense of. I may have upgraded the cameras and lenses, but each time the leap has been incremental. The gear I have is limited by my skills (or lack of them) alone, with the only downside being the weight of both the camera and the lenses. Most of the time that isn’t really an issue; except when long walks and handheld photography are on the menu. But there is a fighting chance that sometime soon I might find myself dabbling with a Sony too.

 

We’d decided a visit to the Mount was long overdue. It’s such an obvious subject, and one we shot far more regularly in the early days of our landscape journey, but in the last two years I'd only been here twice, despite it only being half an hour away from home. We were caught in two minds about where to set up our tripods, the decision being made easier by the fact that someone has put up what I can only describe as a giant polytunnel right in the middle of the façade that everyone sees from the central part of the beach. While there must be a purpose, it's a hideous addition to the Mount and my Photoshop skills fall short of airbrushing it convincingly from the scene. But for that we might have looked to the sidelight for our inspiration. But huge plastic edifices aren't going to be part of the story today.

 

In winter you can grab silhouettes from the eastern beach below the cliffs with the sun setting close to the mount, and despite some misgivings about the almost total absence of cloud we agreed this option would enable us to continue shooting well into the blue hour. The retreating tide meant that the foreground selections were forever changing, never lasting for more than a few minutes before losing their appeal. I took a number of shots during the moments before sunset and into the blue hour and in truth I liked all of them, so choosing one to share here wasn’t an easy decision. The rest either have appeared or will appear on the other channels where I share more of my photographs, so you’ll probably make your own mind up on whether I chose the right one to tell the story, but I loved the leading line made by the rockpool and the colours of the deepening sky. Bringing the tripod low, so helping to reduce that tricky featureless mid-ground that can so often slice a scene irretrievably in half was also important, and the long exposure time smoothed the sea to reduce the distractions. Almost worth the trials of negotiating my way back across the beach over wet slippery rocks in semi-darkness towards the steps that would lead to the pub and a very expensive pint of Korev, which Lee in his benevolent mood paid for. At least the seagulls wouldn’t be troubling us here in the warmth, surrounded by four walls under a solid roof as we were. I sometimes wonder whether our obsession with clouds can sometimes mean we overlook the simplicity that a plain sky brings, especially when it’s packed with so much colour. The lessons never stop being learned.

 

Another snow scene shot in Valley Forge at the old estate of Philander Chase Knox. It is now a public library that is open by appointment.

 

Explored

Camera trapping photo from Cocha Cashu Biological reserve, Manu NP, Peruvian Amazon.

 

Notice the out-of-focus cricket jumping to avoid the opossum at the top of the photo.

Diego Maradona is the most important figure EVER in Buenos Aires and Argentina. Following his death Argentina declared three days of national mourning, and there was a global outpouring of grief among fans of the world’s most popular sport. Maradona, who died of a heart attack at age 60, was a controversial figure. Fans worshipped him for his extraordinary skills on the field, his charisma, and his championing of the poor. Critics pointed to his life of excess, including his drug addiction, philandering, paternity suits, his support of leftist leaders such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and allegations of domestic abuse of a girlfriend. Net-net, no matter how you look at him, Maradona is a larger-than-life persona with a legacy from here to Tokyo – La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Until recently many of our birds were thought to be strictly monogamous, that is faithful to one partner. Then DNA testing was invented, and we now know that monogamy is the exception rather than the rule. In House Sparrows about 20% of nests contain at least one offspring that is not fathered by the male of the pair. In Starlings and Great Tits this rises to 30%, 40% in Blue Tits, and up to 75% in Coal Tits. But the prize for infidelity goes to Reed Buntings where around 90% of nests have chicks that are not fathered by the male of the pair. But Jackdaws are at the other end of the spectrum as only 1% of Jackdaw nests were found to contain chicks from another male. This makes Jackdaws the most faithful of all British songbirds studied so far. Moreover they would have plenty of opportunity to philander as they often nest and feed in loose colonies. In addition, Jackdaws usually stick with the same partner year after year, and the oldest Jackdaw lived to 17.

 

DNA testing has also resulted in Jackdaw being placed in a separate genus from the other British crows (Coloeus instead of Corvus), but the genus only contains this and its eastern counterpart, the Daurian Jackdaw (C. dauuricus). (Western) Jackdaw's scientific name is Coloeus monedula; Coloeus simply means Jackdaw whereas monedula literally means money-eating (but really means acquisitive or greedy). This comes from a Greek myth about Arne Sithornis who appeared in Ovid's Metamorphoses. She was a princess of a Greek Island who betrayed her homeland when she accepted a bribe of gold from King Minos of Crete, who then attacked her island. She was punished by the gods for her treachery and was metamorphosed into a Jackdaw, a symbol of greed. This is why Linnaeus named the Jackdaw monedula (money-eater) back in 1758.

 

Jackdaws are smaller than crows, with a body size similar to Magpie. They have a diagnostic pale blue eye and a grey head shawl, and the call is high-pitched and quite unlike the tuneless cawing of crows. In my village they nest commonly in old chimney pots (and tree holes) but they are very wary and don't even like cameras being pointed at them. Probably because they are still shot by farmers and gamekeepers.

Until recently many of our birds were thought to be strictly monogamous, that is faithful to one partner. Then DNA testing was invented, and we now know that monogamy is the exception rather than the rule. In House Sparrows about 20% of nests contain at least one offspring that is not fathered by the male of the pair. In Starlings and Great Tits this rises to 30%, 40% in Blue Tits, and up to 75% in Coal Tits. But the prize for infidelity goes to Reed Buntings where around 90% of nests have chicks that are not fathered by the male of the pair. So why have I posted a Jackdaw under the title "Who's the Daddy?" Because the chances are, a male Jackdaw will be the daddy of his chicks as only 1% of nests were found to contain chicks from another male. This makes Jackdaws the most faithful of all British songbirds studied so far. Moreover they would have plenty of opportunity to philander as they often nest and feed in loose colonies. Moreover, Jackdaws usually stick with the same partner year after year, and the oldest Jackdaw lived to 17.

 

DNA testing has also resulted in Jackdaw being placed in a separate genus from the other British crows (Coloeus instead of Corvus), but the genus only contains this and its eastern counterpart, the Daurian Jackdaw (C. dauuricus). (Western) Jackdaw's scientific name is Coloeus monedula; Coloeus simply means Jackdaw whereas monedula literally means money-eating (but really means acquisitive or greedy). This comes from a Greek myth about Arne Sithornis who appeared in Ovid's Metamorphoses. She was a princess of a Greek Island who betrayed her homeland when she accepted a bribe of gold from King Minos of Crete, who then attacked her island. She was punished by the gods for her treachery and was metamorphosed into a Jackdaw, a symbol of greed. This is why Linnaeus named the Jackdaw monedula (money-eater) back in 1758.

 

Jackdaws are smaller than crows, with a body size similar to Magpie. They have a diagnostic pale blue eye and a grey head shawl, and the call is high-pitched and quite unlike the tuneless cawing of crows. In my village they nest commonly in old chimney pots (and tree holes) but they are very wary and don't even like cameras being pointed at them. Probably because they are still shot by farmers and gamekeepers. I photographed this one from my car while it perched on a seat at RSPB Dove Stone in Greater Manchester. I thought it showed the plumage features particularly well, including the iridescence on the flight feathers.

Photographed in the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica

 

Virgil Talmadge McCroskey (October 5, 1876 – September 14, 1970) was an American conservationist who spent most of his life in eastern Washington. He created two state parks on the Palouse: Steptoe Butte State Park in Washington and McCroskey State Park in Idaho.

 

Born in Monroe County, Tennessee, McCroskey was the ninth of ten children born to Joshua Philander Theodore McCroskey and Mary Minerva Gallaher McCroskey, who moved from Tennessee and settled in eastern Washington in 1879 as pioneers and established a homestead near the foot of Steptoe Butte.[4][5]

 

McCroskey arrived in Washington at age two as a child; Steptoe Butte was his playground.

 

He earned a degree in pharmacy at Washington State College in Pullman and in 1903 purchased the Elk Drug Store in Colfax, the facade of which still bears his name. Although he never married, during this period he raised two orphaned nieces and a nephew. McCroskey inherited his parents' farm in 1910 and retired from the pharmacy business in 1920. He spent the next few years traveling the world; he also drove all over the West, visiting national parks.

Greetings from Buenos Aires… Maradona and Buenos Aires are inseparable from each other. Following his death Argentina declared three days of national mourning, and there was a global outpouring of grief among fans of the world’s most popular sport. Maradona, who died of a heart attack at age 60, was a controversial figure. Fans worshipped him for his extraordinary skills on the field, his charisma, and his championing of the poor. Critics pointed to his life of excess, including his drug addiction, philandering, paternity suits, his support of leftist leaders such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and allegations of domestic abuse of a girlfriend. Net-net, no matter how you look at him, Maradona is a larger-than-life persona with a legacy from here to Tokyo – La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Italian postcard by Modric, Editoria d'arte, Ancona, no. MX 104. Photo: Pierluigi Praturlon. Marcello Mastroianni during the filming of La dolce vita / The Sweet Life (Federico Fellini, 1960).

 

Film actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) was Italy's favourite leading man since the 1950s and one of the finest actors of European cinema. In his long and prolific career, Mastroianni almost singlehandedly defined the contemporary type of Latin lover, then proceeded to redefine it a dozen times and finally parodied it and played it against type.

 

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, a small village in the Apennines, in 1924. He was the son of Ida (née Irolle) and Ottone Mastroianni, who ran a carpentry shop. Marcello grew up in Turin and Rome. He appeared as an uncredited extra in Marionette (Carmine Gallone, 1939) and later appeared as an extra in Una storia d'amore/Love Story (Mario Camerini, 1942) and I bambini ci guardano/The Children Are Watching Us (Vittorio De Sica, 1944). He worked in his father's carpentry shop, but during World War II, he was put to work by the Germans drawing maps. During 1943–1944, he was imprisoned in a forced-labour camp, but he escaped and hid in Venice. In 1944, Mastroianni started working as a cashier for the film company Eagle Lion (Rank) in Rome. He began taking acting lessons and acted with the University of Rome dramatic group. In the university's production of Angelica (1948), he appeared with Giulietta Masina. His first real film credit was in I Miserabili/Les misérables (Riccardo Freda, 1948) with Gino Cervi. That year, Mastroianni joined Luchino Visconti's repertory company, which was bringing to Italy a new kind of theatre and novel ideas of staging. The young actor played Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire, Happy in Death of a Salesman, Stanley Kowalski in Visconti's second staging of Streetcar, and roles in Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya. He also acted in radio plays, and he had his first substantial film role in the comedy Una domenica d'agosto/Sunday in August (Luciano Emmer, 1949). In 1955 Mastroianni co-starred with Vittorio De Sica and Sophia Loren - an actress with whom he would frequently be paired in the years to come - in the screwball comedy Peccato che Sia una Canaglia/Too Bad She's Bad (Alessandro Blasetti, 1955) and later worked with De Sica again on the comedy Padri e Figli/Like Father, Like Son (Mario Monicelli, 1957). His roles gradually increased in importance, but for the most part, both the casts and crews of his projects were undistinguished, and he remained an unknown outside of Italy. Mastroianni permanently sealed his stardom in Italy, playing a timid clerk whose love is not reciprocated by Maria Schell in Le notti bianche/White Nights (Luchino Visconti, 1957). He soon became a major international star, appearing in films like I soliti ignoti/Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958) with Vittorio Gassman. In this classic crime caper, he displayed a light touch for comedy, playing the exasperated member of an inept group of burglars. In 1960, he played his most famous role as a disillusioned and world-weary tabloid columnist who spends his days and nights exploring Rome's high society in Federico Fellini's La dolce vita/The Sweet Life (1960) with Anita Ekberg. La dolce vita changed the look and direction of Italian cinema. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Throughout his adventures, Marcello's dreams, fantasies, and nightmares are mirrored by the hedonism around him. With a shrug, he concludes that, while his lifestyle is shallow and ultimately pointless, there's nothing he can do to change it, and so he might as well enjoy it. Fellini's hallucinatory, circus-like depictions of modern life first earned the adjective 'Felliniesque' in this celebrated movie, which also traded on the idea of Rome as a hotbed of sex and decadence. A huge worldwide success, La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival."

 

During the 1960s, Marcello Mastroianni played in many great films and regularly worked with top Italian and French filmmakers. He appeared as the title character in Il bell'Antonio/Bell' Antonio (Mauro Bolognini, 1960) and starred in Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpiece La notte/The Night (1961), where again his distanced, expressionless demeanour fit perfectly into the film's air of alienation and remote emotionality. He appeared in interesting films like L'assassino/The Assassin (1961, Elio Petri), La Vie Privée/A Very Private Affair (1962, Louis Malle) with Brigitte Bardot, and Cronaca familiare/Family Diary (Valerio Zurlini, 1962) with Jacques Perrin. Mastroianni followed La dolce vita with another signature role for Fellini, that of Fellini’s alter ego, a film director who, amidst self-doubt and troubled love affairs, finds himself in a creative block while making a film in Otto e Mezzo/8½ (Federico Fellini, 1962). The film won two Academy Awards. Mastroianni won the British BAFTA award twice for his roles in the black comedy Divorzio all'Italiana/Divorce, Italian Style (Pietro Germi, 1963) and the deliciously funny three-part sex farce Ieri, oggi, domani/Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Vittorio De Sica, 1963), costarring with Sophia Loren. He and Loren starred together again in the equally amusing sex comedy Matrimonio all'italiana/Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964). According to Elaine Mancini on Film Reference, “Mastroianni's masculinity blends perfectly with Loren's exuberant earthy personality” in both these films. While he was to become known for playing Latin lover roles (which he spoofed in Casanova 70 (Mario Monicelli, 1965), his characters often were far more complexly drawn. They were not one-dimensional pretty boys; rather, beneath their handsome exteriors, they were lazy, world-weary, and doubt-ridden. Other films were La decima vittima/The Tenth Victim (Elio Petri, 1965) with Ursula Andress and the Albert Camus adaptation Lo Straniero/The Stranger (Luchino Visconti, 1967) with Anna Karina. Mastroianni won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for Dramma della gelosia - tutti i particolari in cronaca/Drama of Jealousy (Ettore Scola, 1970). In 1987, he would win the award again for Oci ciornie/Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1987). Mastroianni, Dean Stockwell and Jack Lemmon are the only actors to have won the award twice. During the 1970s, Mastroianni continued to work in interesting films by prolific directors like Leo the Last (John Boorman, 1970), Permette? Rocco Papaleo/My Name Is Rocco Papaleo (Ettore Scola, 1971) with Lauren Hutton, Che?/What? (Roman Polanski, 1972) with Sydne Rome and La donna della domenica/The Sunday Woman (Luigi Comencini, 1975) with Jacqueline Bisset. He often worked with controversial director Marco Ferreri at Liza (Marco Ferreri, 1972) with Catherine Deneuve, La Grande Bouffe/Blow Out (Marco Ferreri, 1973), Touche pas à la femme blanche/ Don't Touch the White Woman! (Marco Ferreri, 1974), and Ciao maschio/Bye Bye Monkey (Marco Ferreri, 1978) with Gérard Depardieu. Other interesting films are Così come sei/Stay as You Are (Alberto Lattuada, 1978) with Nastassja Kinski, L'ingorgo - Una storia impossibile/Traffic Jam (Luigi Comencini, 1979) with Annie Girardot, and La terrazza/The Terrace (Ettore Scola, 1980) with Vittorio Gassman. He played against his Latin lover image in Scola’s Una giornata particolare/A Special Day (Ettore Scola, 1977), in which Mastroianni's homosexual and Sophia Loren's oppressed housewife come together on the day in 1938 when Adolph Hitler was cheered on the streets of Rome during his visit to Benito Mussolini. His seemingly detached air was perfectly suited to satire as well, as he demonstrated in films as diverse as the historical drama Allonsanfàn (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1974), and La città delle donne/City of Women (Federico Fellini, 1980).

 

In the latter stages of his career, Marcello Mastroianni continued to take serious dramatic roles. For instance, he played the senior citizen who simply looks back on his past. In Stanno tutti bene/Everybody's Fine (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1990), he is an elderly man who is absorbed in his memories and who travels through Italy to call on his five adult children. In Oci ciornie/Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, 1987), he gives a tour-de-force performance as a once young and idealistic aspiring architect who married a banker's daughter, fell into a lifestyle of afternoon snoozes and philandering, and proved incapable of holding onto what was important to him. His on-screen presence has also been directly linked to his earlier screen characterisations. In Prêt-à-Porter/Ready to Wear (Robert Altman, 1994), he was reunited with Sophia Loren, and at one point in the scenario, she recreated her famous steamy striptease sequence from Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Loren was as beguiling as she had been 30 years earlier, but Mastroianni was no longer the attentive young lover, so Sophia's seductive moves only put him to sleep. Mastroianni's appearance in two of Fellini's final features is especially sentimental. Ginger e Fred/Ginger and Fred (Federico Fellini, 1996) is sweetly nostalgic for its union of Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina, two of the maestro's then-aging but still vibrant stars of the past. In Intervista (Federico Fellini, 1987), he appears as himself with Anita Ekberg, with whom he had starred decades before in La dolce vita. Mastroianni's entrance is especially magical; the sequence in which he and Ekberg (who, he remarks, he has not seen since making La dolce vita) observe their younger selves in some famous clips from that film is wonderfully nostalgic. In 1988, Mastroianni was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the European Film Awards. He kept appearing in critically acclaimed films like To meteoro vima tou pelargou/The Suspended Step of the Stork (Theodoros Angelopoulos, 1991), in which he was quietly poignant as an obscure man who may have once been an important Greek politician who had disappeared years earlier. Other films were Al di là delle nuvole/Beyond the Clouds (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1995) and Trois vies et une seule mort/Three Lives and Only One Death (Raúl Ruiz, 1996) with Anna Galiena. His final film was Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo/Voyage to the Beginning of the World (Manoel de Oliveira, 1997). Marcello Mastroianni was married to Italian actress Flora Carabella (1926-1999) from 1948 until his death. They had one child together, Barbara. Mastroianni also had a daughter, actress Chiara Mastroianni, with French film star Catherine Deneuve, his longtime lover during the 1970s. Both Flora and Catherine were at his bedside in Paris when he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 72, as was his partner at the time, author and filmmaker Anna Maria Tatò. According to Christopher Wiegand and Paul Duncan in their book Federico Fellini, when Mastroianni died in 1996, the Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain), which is so famously associated with him due to his role in Fellini's La dolce vita, was symbolically turned off and draped in black as a tribute. His brother Ruggero Mastroianni (1929-1996) was a highly regarded film editor who edited several of Marcello's films directed by Federico Fellini, and appeared alongside Marcello in Scipione detto anche l'Africano/Scipio the African (Luigi Magni, 1971), a comedic take on the once popular Peplum, the sword and sandal film genre. Marcello Mastroianni had held starring roles in about 120 films throughout his long career.

 

Sources: Elaine Mancini (Film Reference; updated by Rob Edelman), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Jason Ankeny (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

My father passed away early this morning, as dawn was breaking upon the horizon. I was by his side as he reinquished his last breath and left this Earth. It is ironic that he should die so near to Christmas, because his father had died on Christmas day at an early age when my dad was a mere adolescent. After a hard night of restless struggling, the end came peacefully. His respirations became more shallow. He then made an expression as if pained by something. Then the expression turned to peace as he nodded his head, as if answering some cosmic question that only he could hear. And then, he was gone.

Earlier in the night, his last words had been " I love you, daddy"

I would like to say that my father was a paragon of parental love and wisdom, but he wasn't. I would also like to say that we had a strong father-son bond, but I can't. He wasn't like Ward Cleaver, Mike Brady, or any of those other television icons that made fatherhood appear like the noble calling that it should be.

His alcoholism and philandering didn't match up with his stern religiosity. In short, he was a man filled with contradictions. He was a diligent worker with a strong work ethic, but his money often went to support his mistresses-leaving mother to work harder to make up the difference.

But, despite his character flaws, I loved him. We all did. And I believe that, in his own odd way, he loved me too.

He was the quintessential likeable villain. He was a talented entertainer, public speaker, and pitch-man. He made his money as a salesman, and exceled at it.

He was a romantic dreamer. And just like most dreamers, he could sometimes be taken with dark moods and fits of rage. He was a troubled soul who never got over the injustice and poverty of his miserable childhood.

I want to remember my father with this old photo from October 1967, as a happy young man with a fast car and his whole life ahead of him.

 

I love you, dad, and I forgive you. And I hope to see you again one day in a better place.

We visited a couple of Guanajuato museums. The first one was Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Primer Depósito (Museum of Contemporary Art).

 

1 of 4.

 

The museum was founded in 2012.

 

I liked this piece by José Luis Cuevas - Los Siameses.

 

Cuevas' brooding figures graced exhibits from Paris to New York during a career as a painter, sculptor, writer, draftsman and engraver that spanned more than seven decades.

 

Cultivating the image of a philandering "tomcat", Cuevas drew on the work of Francisco de Goya and Pablo Picasso, and his depictions of dark, deformed, animal-like figures were a sharp break with the socialist-tinged muralism long popular in Mexico.

 

Cuevas was born in Mexico City 26 February, 1934 and died there in 2017.

  

The museum's permanent collection is made up of a series of bronze sculptures by internationally recognized artists such as , Leonora Carrington, José Luis Cuevas, Sergio Hernández and Gabriel Macotela and others like Javier de Jesús Hernández Capelo.

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 are at Glynes, 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. Lettice is visiting her old family home for the wedding of Leslie to Arabella, the daughter of their neighbours, Lord Sherbourne and Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt. Today is the big day, and earlier in the morning Lettice was amongst the guests to watch her brother and his now wife exchange vows at the chapel in Glynes village. Now the wedding guests have repaired to the grand country house where the couple’s wedding breakfast* is being held in the Glynes grand dining room.

 

“I say, Sadie has been busy!” exclaims Gerald as he walks through the doors of the dining room.

 

“The whole household has been busy.” corrects Lettice as she walks proudly on his arm. “I could barely get a cup of tea, a slice of toast and a scraping of jam for breakfast,” she moans. “Which I had to take in my room because in here was out-of-bounds.”

 

The Glynes dining room, a large space, has been transformed into an indoor winter garden with tributes to the house’s gardeners with hothouse flower arrangements everywhere. Cascades of soft lilac wisteria, white blossom and pastel roses spill from vases on the mantlepiece and from jardinières on stands placed around the walls. The usual dining table used by the Chetwynds for dinners and banquets has been transformed into the bridal table, whilst several other smaller oblong tables have been brought in to serve as places for the other wedding breakfast guests. Each table is covered in crisp snowy white linen tablecloths taken from the Glynes great Elizabethan oak linen chests and pressed by housekeeper Mrs. Casterton’s staff, and upon their surfaces fine gilt white china, glassware and silver gleam, with each place setting carefully arranged by Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler and Marsden, the first footman. Each table is graced with more fresh floral arrangements created by Lady Sadie herself and the parlour maid Emmery, whom the Countess has discovered has an aptitude for flower arranging. On the bridal table stands a grand three-tier wedding fruitcake made by Mrs. Honeychurch, the Chetwynd’s cook, its white royal icing edges decorated with pale yellow icing swirls and golden orange sugar roses.

 

“They look so happy,” Gerald remarks as they walk in front of the bridal table where Leslie and Isabella sit before the cake.

 

“I think Bella’s is your best wedding frock yet, Gerald.”

 

“Oh, do you really think so, Lettice?”

 

“I do.” she concurs proudly as they pass the bride and groom, admiring the creamy white satin boat neck of Bella’s wedding gown, trimmed with accents of antique lace, a gift to Isabella from Lady Sadie, taken from her own wedding dress.

 

‘Well, Bella was perfect to fit.” The pair move around to the table adjunct to the bridal table where they take their places. “She already had her ideas, which, unlike some women I see, were good ones, and I just had to bring them to life. She’s never has been a girl into fuss, and let’s be honest, she has so much natural beauty that no matter what I made for her would look wonderful on her.”

 

“And of course, I love my outfit too, Gerald.” Lettice smooths the pale buttery yellow crêpe of her frock which matches the pretty rose decorated wide brimmed straw hat made for her by Gerald’s friend Harriet.

 

“I should hope you do!” Gerald replies as he settles himself into his Chippendale style dining chair.

 

The pair watch as the country wedding guests, a mixture of family from both the Chetwynd and the Tyrwhitt clans, county society, guests from London and a smattering of local village folk, leisurely wend their way to their places, each marked with a handwritten card in Lady Sadie’s elegant copperplate script.

 

“I must say Lettice darling, I am grateful that you managed to convince Sadie to lift her embargo on me after the Hunt Ball and allow me to come.” Gerald remarks as he and Lettice nod at two of her distant spinster cousins from Guernsey as they make their way around them to their place much further down the table Lettice and Gerald are near the head of.

 

“Oh don’t thank me, Gerald.” Lettice replies. “Thank Leslie. He’s the one who confronted Mater and said that if he had to have cousins Eurphronia and Ethelreda from Guernsey,” She nods to the two rather horsey looking ladies now taking their places at the far end of the table. “Whom we haven’t seen nor heard from since Lally was married, then he and Bella were entitled to invite whichever guests they wanted, without question. And of course that included you.”

 

“Gosh! I must thank Leslie later then.”

 

“I still don’t know,” Lettice queries. “What was it you said to Mater that night of Hunt Ball that set her so against you. I’ve never known her to take against anyone so vehemently, except perhaps Aunt Egg.”

 

Gerald blushes, remembering the altercation he had with Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, at the ball. In a slightly inebriated state he told her that neither she nor Lettice had any sway over Selwyn Spencely’s choice of a wife, any more than Selwyn did himself, explaining that it was his mother, the Duchess of Mumford, Lady Zinnia, who would choose a wife for him. “I keep telling you, darling girl. I really don’t remember,” he replies awkwardly, covering his tracks as best as he can. “If you remember, I was rather tight** that night on your father’s champagne.”

 

“And I hope you will do so again today.” Lettice says cheekily, picking up the freshly poured glass of champagne set at her place just prior to her arrival.

 

“Try and stop me, darling!” Gerald picks up his glass and the two clink their glasses together in a conspiratorial toast.

 

“Lettice! Lettice stop that!” hisses her father, the Viscount, from his seat next to his wife at the bridal table, flapping his hand at her in an effort to gain her attention and growing red faced in the process. “Not until I make my speech.”

 

Lettice rolls her eyes and shakes her head, and like two admonished children, she and Gerald return their glasses, untouched, to their places with lowered heads.

 

“I am glad that Aunt Isobel was well enough to see Bella get married.” Lettice says with a satisfied sigh.

 

“Yes, I am too.” Gerald looks over the top of the wedding cake to see Isabella’s mother, whom they all call ‘Aunt Isobel’ despite her not being a blood relation, smiling proudly next to her husband, Sherbourne, as she looks down the table to her daughter and new son-in-law. “The radiotherapy*** seems to be having a positive impact on her health. Although evidently not enough for the Tyrwhitts to host the wedding breakfast.” he notes a little critically.

 

“Well, Mater thought it might tire poor Aunt Isobel out to arrange the wedding breakfast by herself, so she offered, and Isobel was probably too unwell at the time to refuse her.”

 

“Who would dare contradict Sadie’s wishes? Look, she is positively in her element, playing Lady Bountiful****, lording herself over all her minions, the great and good of the county.” Gerald says, nodding to Lettice’s beaming mother swathed in romantic soft pink floral silk de chiné wearing a floppy picture hat covered in satin roses in a matching shade.

 

“I do think Uncle Sherbourne looks rather tired though, don’t you Gerald?”

 

“Well, it isn’t every day that one loses one’s only daughter,” Gerald says dismissively. “He’s probably had a few sleepless nights worrying about her dowery and whether she has made the right decision.”

 

“Gerald!” Lettice slaps her friend playfully with her pale yellow kid gloves. “You surely can’t be suggesting that Leslie is a cad!” she laughs.

 

He chuckles in return and flashes her a beaming smile.

 

Returning her gloves to her lap, she glances up and over to where her eldest brother sits proudly in his morning suit gazing with fondness and laughing with his bride. Glowing can be the only adjective suitable to describe Leslie and Isabella as they radiate happiness.

 

“You must feel a little jealous,” Lettice remarks discreetly as she observes a slightly wistful look in her dear friend’s eyes as he too observes the happy couple.

 

“Of the sanctity of marriage?” Gerald scoffs with a dismissive snort. “Pray save me from that hell, Lettice darling!”

 

“You know what I mean, Gerald,” Lettice retorts. “Now that you’ve finally met someone.” she adds in a hushed tone.

 

Lettice bore witness to an exchange of affection between Gerald and a young oboe player named Cyril whilst visiting Gerald’s friend Harriet in Putney recently. As well as making hats, Harriet runs a boarding house for theatrical gentlemen where Cyril resides, and it is through her that Gerald met the handsome young musician.

 

“I hardly think we are at the marriage stage yet, Lettice darling.” Gerald whispers sagely. “Not that we could, mind you. We’ve only recently met. Anyway,” He glances meaningfully again at Leslie. “What’s the point in wishing for something you know you cannot have.”

 

Lettice reaches across to Gerald’s lap beneath the crisp white linen tablecloth and places her hand atop her friend’s, giving it a consoling squeeze. She sometimes forgets how her friend pined for many years with unrequited love for her eldest brother. Gerald has no more chance of marrying Cyril even if he does return Gerald’s affections, and Lettice can only imagine how careful her friend needs to be to avoid the authorities punishing him with imprisonment with hard labour just for loving another man.

 

“I wish Selwyn was here.” Lettice continues softly, casting her eyes down into her lap as she feels the sting of tears.

 

“What?” Gerald asks with a melodramatic gasp, quickly noticing Lettice’s sudden rush of emotion and trying to keep her from crying in front of her family and the rest of the county’s and the village’s society. “Am I not good enough for you as your squire?” He pouts at her and bats his long, dark eyelashes.

 

Lettice cannot help but let out a burst of laughter at his sad puppy dog face. “Oh Gerald! You know I don’t man that.”

 

“I know.” he says with a melancholy smile.

 

“You’re so good to me.”

 

“Agreed.” he nods. He then proceeds to add as a joking after thought, “Far better than you deserve.”

 

When Lettice laughs a little sadly, Gerald returns Lettice’s squeeze comfortingly. “I know you want Selwyn here. However,” he adds seriously. “You know it would be improper for him to be at such an intimate family occasion as your guest unless there has been a formal intention of marriage.”

 

“I know.” Lettice sighs.

 

“And Selwyn hasn’t made any such overtures, has he?”

 

Lettice looks down again. “Not yet.” she mumbles glumly.

 

“Well then. You shall simply have to settle for me, Lettice darling. I know I’m a poor second, and probably not even that. However, I will just have to do.”

 

“And you do splendidly, Gerald darling. You always know how to pick my spirits up when I’m feeling glum.”

 

“Isn’t that what best friends and chums of old are supposed to do?”

 

“Exactly right, Gerald.” Lettice replies, withdrawing her hands and discreetly dabbing the corners of her eyes with her pale yellow kid gloves. “What a pair we are, Gerald.” She sniffs. “Both of us crying for what we cannot have.”

 

“Don’t worry, everyone will think you are crying tears of joy for the happy couple, and that is how it should be. But don’t make a habit of blubbing when there is no conceivable reason to be crying, will you?”

 

“How do you do it, Gerald darling?”

 

“Do what?”

 

“Not break down and cry, sometimes?”

 

“Well, aren’t men supposed to be the superior race?” Gerald asks, mockingly. “It’s always a stiff upper lip and all that, don’t you know?” He smiles sadly at his friend and companion. “I suppose the truth of the matter is that Father probably beat it out of me as a child. I knew if I blubbed at the wrong time, I was in for a thrashing, or Roland would tell Father I was blubbing, so I was in for a thrashing, so I kept it hidden until I was alone.”

 

“I’m sorry Gerald.” Lettice mutters.

 

“Oh don’t be, Lettice darling. This is a wedding for heaven’s sake. Were supposed to be happy, not sad. No,” Gerald continues with a stoic sniff. “I’m happy for them and wish them well. Truly I do. It was inevitable really. They have always been destined to be together. Bella and Leslie are well suited for one another. They are both country folk. She loves riding and is interested in animal husbandry and all that awfully dirty estate business.” He waves his free left hand dismissively with a look of disgust at the thought of pigs in their muddy styes. “Whereas what I find best about the country is when we leave it to go back to the comfort and bright lights of London.”

 

“Don’t even mention animal husbandry, Gerald!” Lettice gasps, a shudder of revulsion running through her as she remembers the conversation she and her hated older brother Lionel had in Lady Sadie’s morning room a few days ago, when he spoke of women as fillies and mares, waiting to be sired by stallions.

 

“Oh, sorry Lettice darling!” Gerald apologises with a sombre glance at her. “I forgot.”

 

“I certainly can’t, even though I want to.”

 

“I knew things must have been looking bloody***** for you here when you sent that note across to me asking me to meet you at the Folly****** after dinner.”

 

“I can barely stand to even be in the same room as Lionel.” Lettice bristles as she looks across the Glynes dining room to the table set up on the opposite side of the bridal table, where her brother Lionel sits between their Aunt Eglantine, their father’s beloved younger sister, and Aunt Gladys, their mother’s parsimonious widowed elder sister. Emboldened by his imminent departure back to his place of exile in Kenya, he doesn’t even try and disguise his boredom at whatever the self-absorbed Gladys is saying to him.

 

“How can Aunt Egg stand to sit next to him?” Gerald asks.

 

“Because she doesn’t know about Lionel’s fathering of three illegitimate children in 1918.” Lettice elucidates quietly. “Lally and I joke openly about being Aunt Egg’s favourite niece depending upon the way the wind blows, but when it comes to her favourite nephew, there is no doubt as to who it is.”

 

“But why?” Gerald’s eyes grow wide in surprise. “I mean, she’s so lovely, artistic, and kind. And Lionel…” He shudders. “Lionel is such a… a…”

 

“A beast, Gerald?” She shrugs. “I guess there is no accounting for taste sometimes, even in our families. No, it would break her heart if she really knew what Lionel was like.”

 

“But that’s not fair to Leslie.”

 

“Oh, but Leslie is complicit in the subterfuge, Gerald. He’s so good and kind himself that he doesn’t want Aunt Egg upset by the truth. Besides, if she was upset, then Pater would be upset, and if he was upset, we all would be in for a beastly time.”

 

“How do you all do it?”

 

“Luckily Aunt Egg is safely ensconced with her own life in London, and with Lionel in Kenya, he’s barely ever mentioned. And if Aunt Egg does ask after him, we always glaze all the beastliness over with tales of derring-do******* from his sporadic letters to Mater and Pater, or what we’ve heard from friends who have passed through Nairobi and seen him.”

 

“I have to say that the Viscount and Sadie don’t seem too concerned about having him here.” Gerald observes as he glances in the direction of Lettice’s father and mother.

 

“Oh don’t be fooled,” Lettice elucidates as she glances at the smiling face of her father and her mother as she proudly plays mother-of-the-groom and gracious hostess to all the guests. “It’s all bravado: a show for Bella and the wedding guests. No-one wants to see a monster like Lionel spoil Bella and Leslie’s big day, except perhaps Lionel of course.”

 

“He always was unscrupulous.”

 

“Well, the last three years in exile certainly haven’t tempered his feelings of resentment and anger towards all of us, me especially.”

 

“But it was his own foolish philandering that got him banished to Africa.”

 

“Lionel doesn’t see it that way. As usual, he thinks that if I hadn’t told Mater and Pater about,” Lettice blushes at the thought. “About his indiscretion with Nelly, then those with Margaret and that poor simpleton Dora wouldn’t have come out and he would have gotten away with it.”

 

“It seems to me he did get away with it, and lightly.” Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper he adds. “Banishment and the absolution for three illegitimate children, all paid for by your father. It’s a rather splendid deal if you ask me. He could have done far worse.”

 

“Lionel doesn’t think so, and we’re all sick of his digs and barbs which he inflicts on us every chance he gets. Pater and Mater have been on pins and needles ever since Lionel arrived. I had to speak to Mrs. Casterton about cautioning the maids, and I still had to warn Moira, whom I caught making cow eyes******* at him.”

 

“That would certainly have encouraged him, the cad.”

 

“I’m sure it did, even though he swears to me that he’s only interested in older women now, and married ones at that.”

 

“Good god!” Gerald rolls his eyes and then stares harshly at Lionel who remains bored between his two aunts, totally unaware that he is being spoken of and scrutinised. “Can he get any more rakish?”

 

“Lally refused to come and stay as she finds him so abhorrent, and she doesn’t want the children exposed to his wickedness.”

 

“He wouldn’t…” Gerald scarlessly dares to speak the words. “Well, Lionel wouldn’t hurt the little dears, would he?”

 

“With Lionel,” Lettice shrugs. “You never can quite tell what his scheming and perverse little mind is planning next.” She sighs heavily. “That’s half the problem. Just when you think you have him worked out, and know his next move, he does something unexpected that throws you.”

 

“And the unexpected from Lionel is always nasty.” says Gerald wearily, remembering how horrible Lionel was to him as a little boy.

 

“Always. He’s so unpredictable, except in his predictability of being mean, nasty, spiteful or hurtful.”

 

“Well, he’ll be on board a train back to London tomorrow morning.” Gerald says with a sigh of relief. “When does he set sail?”

 

“The Walmer Castle******** leaves Southampton for Cape Town on Friday, and not a moment too soon with Lionel on board, if you ask me.”

 

The hubbub of the light chatter of the guests filling the dining room is suddenly shattered by the sharp and repetitious rap of metal against glass, silencing everyone as heads turn towards the bridal table, where Lettice’s father, Viscount Wrexham has raised himself to his feet, tapping his crystal champagne flute with a silver knife.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you all to take your places please,” the Viscount calls out loudly with his booming orator’s voice, usually reserved for the House of Lords. “As host for today’s wedding breakfast, I would just like to say a few words as the first course is served.”

 

Lettice and Gerald settle back into their seats as the Viscount commences his welcome speech to the assembled guests, all of whom pay attention to him, except for his eldest son Leslie and his new bride Isabella, who only have eyes for one another as they sit, smiling at one another in the centre of the bridal table.

 

*A wedding breakfast is a feast given to the newlyweds and guests after the wedding, making it equivalent to a wedding reception that serves a meal. The phrase is still used in British English, as opposed to the description of reception, which is American in derivation. Before the beginning of the Twentieth Century they were traditionally held in the morning, but this fashion began to change after the Great War when they became a luncheon. Regardless of when it was, a wedding breakfast in no way looked like a typical breakfast, with fine savoury food and sweet cakes being served. Wedding breakfasts were at their most lavish in the Edwardian era through to the Second World War.

 

**’Tight’ is an old fashioned upper-class euphemism for drunk.

 

**By the 1920s radiotherapy was well developed with the use of X-rays and radium. There was an increasing realisation of the importance of accurately measuring the dose of radiation and this was hampered by the lack of good apparatus. The science of radiobiology was still in its infancy and increasing knowledge of the biology of cancer and the effects of radiation on normal and pathological tissues made an enormous difference to treatment. Treatment planning began in this period with the use of multiple external beams. The X-ray tubes were also developing with replacement of the earlier gas tubes with the modern Coolidge hot-cathode vacuum tubes. The voltage that the tubes operated at also increased and it became possible to practice ‘deep X-ray treatment’ at 250 kV. Sir Stanford Cade published his influential book “Treatment of Cancer by Radium” in 1928 and this was one of the last major books on radiotherapy that was written by a surgeon.

 

****The old fashioned British term “looking bloody” was a way of indicating how dour or serious a person or occasion looks.

 

*****Lady Bountiful is a term used to describe a woman who engages in ostentatious acts of charity to impress others, and was often used in Edwardian times by titled ladies to describe themselves when conducting their charity or ministering works.

 

******In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings.

 

*******The phrase derring-do comes from Middle English, dorring don meant simply "daring to do." The phrase was misprinted as derrynge do in a 15th-century work by poet John Lydgate, and Edmund Spenser took it up from there. A glossary to Spenser's work defined it as "manhood and chevalrie.") Literary author Sir Walter Scott and others brought the noun into modern use.

 

********The RMS Walmer Castle was a passenger ship for Union-Castle Line, launched on the 6th of July 1901 and completed on the 20th of February 1902. The British government requisitioned her in 1917 and she then served as a troop ship in the North Atlantic. She returned to mercantile service, including sailings between Southampton and Cape Town after the war. She was scrapped in 1932.

 

Contrary to what your eyes might tell you, this upper-class country house wedding is actually made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures, some of which come from my own childhood.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Chippendale dining room bridal table - covered by a fine linen tablecloth - and matching chairs are very special pieces. They came from the Petite Elite Miniature Museum, later rededicated as the Carol and Barry Kaye Museum of Miniatures, which ran between 1992 and 2012 on Los Angeles’ bustling Wiltshire Boulevard. One of the chairs still has a sticker under its cushion identifying which room of which dollhouse it came. The Petite Elite Miniature Museum specialised in exquisite and high end 1:12 miniatures. The furnishings are taken from a real Chippendale design.

 

In centre stage on the bridal table stands a three tier wedding cake covered in white icing, decorated with yellow swirls of icing and orange roses. The cake is made entirely of plaster, and I have had it since I was given it for a Christmas gift when I was seven.

 

The bridal table is set correctly for a five course Edwardian wedding breakfast, using cutlery and glassware from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in the United Kingdom. Each glass is hand blown using real glass. The cutlery set is made of polished metal. The crockery is made by an unknown English company and each piece has been gilded by hand. The linen napkins and napkin rings were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The Georgian silver water jug in front of the floral arrangement and the cruet set which peeps from behind it, have been made with great attention to detail, and come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The flower arrangement on the table in the gilt double handled vase comes from M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures.

 

The Georgian style fireplace I have had since I was a teenager and is made from moulded plaster. On its mantlepiece stand two 1950s Limoges vases. Both are stamped with a small green Limoges mark to the bottom. These treasures I found in an overcrowded cabinet at the Mill Markets in Geelong. Also standing on the mantlepiece are two miniature diecast lead Meissen figurines: the Lady with the Canary and the Gentleman with the Butterfly, hand painted and gilded by me. There is also a dome anniversary clock in the middle of the mantlepiece which I bought the same day that I bought the fireplace.

 

The pink and white roses in the Limoges vases were made by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, whilst the larger floral arrangements of roses and cascading wisteria to either side of the fireplace come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House in the United Kingdom.

 

To the left of the photo stands a demilune table upon which stands a wine cooler also made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne in it is an artisan miniature and made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The other bottles of wine, also made of glass with great attention to their lables, come from Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes dining room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper from the 1770s.

It is the Age of Steam. Foreign Powers seek to bring down Queen Victoriana's Empire. The battle to secure as many Dark Matter Coal resources rages! With so many machines, "normal" coal resources were exhausted within a decade of the first steampowered fusion engines invention.

 

Coalition forces have banded together to hire the most treacherous band of cut-throats that money can buy!

 

Atlas - an automaton fellow created by the Evil Mr Hydrogen. a geographical encylopedia and specialist knowledge bank.

 

Horatiio Nevermind - Trapped in a mine collapse and left for dead. Nevermind is hell bent on revenge. He is a former employee of Cornelius Boatwright Smith who he holds responsible for the poor working conditions at the Colliery. A brutal fighter!

 

Mr Hydrogen - The secret alter ego of Dr Jeb. Kyll. a profilic inventor, he created Atlas and Neverminds replaced appendages.

 

The Masked Philanderer - A career jewel thief and master of disguise the fastest fingers in all of Yorkshire!

 

Minerva Pleasance - A harlot, expertly versed in the ways of seduction and manipulation.

 

See the Heroes of the realm here!

 

www.flickr.com/photos/strawdog316/8370465650/

 

Totally inspired by Evan B and Brickthings wonderful Steamrod character concepts! Take a look here and bow down to it's magnificence!

 

www.flickr.com/photos/legojunkie/8302767804/in/photostream

  

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.

 

Tonight however we are at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham, the heir, their eldest son Leslie, and his wife Arabella. Lettice, her fiancée, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, and his recently widowed sister returned from France, Clemance Pontefract, are visiting the Chetwynd family for Christmas and have stayed on to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them as well before heading off in a few days’ time to Rippon Court, Sir John’s vast ancestral estate in Bedfordshire, where he, Clemance and Lettice all have business.

 

Old enough to be Lettice’s father, wealthy Sir John was until recently still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intended to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. After an abrupt ending to her understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son and heir to the title Duke of Walmsford, Lettice in a moment of both weakness and resolve, agreed to the proposal of marriage proffered to her by Sir John. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them.

 

Christmas has been and gone, and with it, Lettice’s elder sister Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), her husband Charles and their children and Lettice’s Aunt Eglantine, leaving the house emptier and significantly quieter, especially in the absence of the children. It is New Year’s Eve 1925, and nearly midnight as we find ourselves in the very grand and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings where Lettice has gathered with her fiancée and future sister-in-law, her father, mother, Leslie, Arabella and the parents of her oldest childhood chum, Gerald Bruton, Lord and Lady Bruton. An eight course New Year’s Eve dinner prepared by the Chetwynd’s cook, Mrs. Casterton, and the Glynes kitchen staff, has been consumed, and the party have repaired to the drawing room to enjoy champagne, wine and for the more daring, cocktails. The gilded chinoiserie rococo galleried table has been moved to in the midst of the sumptuous drawing room by Bramley, the Chetwynd’s beloved butler, and he has covered it in glasses and bottles of alcohol, ice and soda syphons for his master, mistress and guests. A bottle of champagne from the Glynes’ well stocked cellar which has been chilling in a silver coolers is almost empty as the New Year looms.

 

“Oh, I am sorry to hear you won’t be staying in the county for Twelfth Night* celebrations, Sir John.” Lady Gwenyth remarks sadly. “Such a pity! Mrs. Maingot’s Glynes Village Players are really rather excited about their Twelfth Night performance this year.”

 

“Even though I am a relative newcomer to the district, Lady Gwenyth, having only acquired Fonengil Park last century,” Sir John replies with his nose crumpling in distaste as he gesticulates with his highball glass of hock and seltzer in his right hand. “One thing I do know from my experience of the Glynes Village Players, is that the more excited they are about their performance, the ghastlier it is sure to be!” He pulls an overexaggerated face of mock horror. “I shall be only too glad to be far away from Mrs. Maingot and her amateur dramatics.”

 

“Oh,” Lady Gwenyth replies with both a sad and startled face in response to Sir John’s harsh remarks. “I rather enjoy their performances each year, Sir John.”

 

“Well, I’d hardly compare their amateur dramatics to the plays produced in London’s West End, Lady Gwenyth.” Sir John retorts smugly, before sipping from his glass.

 

“Yes… well,” Lady Gwyneth says with distain as she takes a sip of her own champagne, peering with repugnance over the top of her glass with beady eyes at Sir John in his smart Jermyn Street** tailored set of tails, white dinner vest and bow tie, a large Glynes hot house red rose in full bloom serving as a rather overly garish boutonnière*** in his lapel. “I’ll have to acquiesce to your greater experience in these matters, Sir John. I haven’t been to the capital since the Jersey Lily**** made her debut on the London stage in ‘She Stoops to Conquor’.

 

“Indeed.” Sir John murmurs as he looks Lady Gwenyth up and down critically, eyeing her elegant, if somewhat old fashioned Edwardian beaded evening gown in pastel pink crêpe de chiné.

 

“Still, it will be a pity too, that the Glynes villagers will not have the opportunity to wassail***** you and dear Lettice,” Lady Gwenyth goes on, either ignoring Sir John’s rudeness politely, or simply not noticing it. “Especially now that you two are officially engaged.”

 

“Oh,” Sir John heaves a rather heavy sigh and waves his hand about, as though shooing an irritating insect away. “There were a great many wassails and good wishes to us both from the villagers over the festive period since Lettice and I motored down from London to spend Christmas here at Glynes.”

 

“Oh that must be rather nice for you and dear Lettice, Sir John.” Lady Gwenyth remarks. “I still remember all the good wishes I received from the villagers when Algernon brought me to Bruton Hall all those years ago as a new bride. It was lovely, and endeared me to them.”

 

“Endeared you to them? Indeed Lady Gwenyth?”

 

“Yes. It really was wonderful. As part of local gentry, you really should spend more time down in the village when you are at Fontengil Park, Sir John. You spend far too much time in London.”

 

“Ahh, but that is where my business requires me, Lady Gwenyth, not enfolded in the soporific bucolic bosom of the Wiltshire countryside.”

 

“Thinking of the countryside,” Lady Gwenyth remarks, coughing a little awkwardly at Sir John’s lightly veiled implication that she, her family the families of the other landed gentry live sleepy and dull lives. “I was a little surprised that you’re not spending New Year’s Eve with my son at Miss Fordyce’s country retreat. It sounds far more smart and select for an exciting man about London like yourself, than our dull, bucolic parties.” Lady Gwenyth cannot help herself as she adds an acerbic taint to her comment. “Gerald was rather thrilled by Miss Fordyce’s invitation to her private party in Essex, especially after the last one, which he said was frightfully enjoyable. You were there too, as well as Lettice, I believe, Sir John.”

 

“I was. My sister Clemance and I are very good friends of Sylvia’s.”

 

“Yes, Lettice told me that. She led me to believe that Mrs. Pontefract and Miss Fordyce went to finishing school together, or something like that.”

 

“We were hosted by the same German family, Lady Gwenyth,” Clemance utters clearly, correcting the Chetwynd’s neighbour politely as she steps up to join the conversation. “So, I’ve known Sylvia since we were fifteen years old.

 

“Clemmie, Lettice and I all received invitations from Sylvia for tonight’s bash, as it happens, Lady Gwenyth,” Sir John explains. “However, since we will be leaving in a day or two to go to Bedfordshire, and knowing Lettice enjoys the tradition of spending time with her family during Christmas, we erred on the side of coming down here to Glynes, rather than going to Sylvia’s.”

 

“I think I’m enjoying this party far more than I would have Sylvia’s anyway, Lady Gwenyth.” Clemance remarks. “Sylvia has always surrounded herself with all these rather passionate and loud performers and artists. There are bound to be high spirits and hijinks this evening – a spirited scavenger hunt about Belchamp St Paul****** no doubt.”

 

“Oh indeed.” chuckles Lady Gwenyth.

 

“No. This is a much more agreeable. I must also say that it was very good of Cosmo and Sadie to put Nettie and I up for Christmas and New Year.” Clemance adds gratefully.

 

“Yes. It saved me the fuss and bother of having to open up Fontengil Park just for a few days.” Sir John adds.

 

“Oh,” Lady Gwenyth responds, shuddering as she ignores Sir John’s rather tactless remark and focusses upon Clemance instead. “Cosmo and Sadie are always such gracious hosts at any time of the year, Mrs. Pontefract, especially at Christmas time. I’m sure they were only too delighted to welcome you, Mrs. Pontefract.” She allows herself to give Sir John a momentary hard stare. “However, I was just remarking to Sir John that it is a pity you have to leave before the Twelfth Night festivities.”

 

“Oh I know. It is a great pity. However, a Royal command is not one my brother can readily ignore, Lady Gwenyth,” Clemance answers. “Or refuse. And since the Prince of Wales has specifically expressed his wish to meet Lettice again as John’s fiancée, I am going simply as chaperone.”

 

“I am surprised that His Royal Highness would want to leave Sandringham*******,” Lady Gwenyth opines. “I would have thought he would have stayed on the Sandringham Estate with Their Majesties for the duration of the festive season.”

 

“Somehow, I think Rippon Court offers more entertaining pursuits for His Royal Highness than watching his father play with his postage stamp collection******** or his mother fuss over her Fabergé eggs*********.” Sir John says in a superior fashion.

 

“Our father was a fine rider, a mad keen steeplechaser********** and a bloodthirsty hunter.” Clemance explains with a shudder. “Mother was too. Between them, they established the Rippon Hunt.”

 

“Being a keen steeplechaser and foxhunter himself, His Royal Highness has expressed his wish to ride in the Rippon Hunt***********, so however reluctantly, I am taking up my official duties as host of the hunt.”

 

“Not Master of the Hounds************, Sir John?” Lady Gwyneth queries politely.

 

“Our parents were the Nettleford-Hughes with hunting in their veins, Lady Gwenyth.” Clemance explains kindly. “They couldn’t understand why Nettie didn’t enjoy, nor have the aptitude for, the outdoor sports they embraced with such gusto.”

 

“We’re a little more cerebral in our pursuits, rather than Neanderthal*************” Sir John adds. “No, I’m far better placed to entertain His Royal Highness and his coterie after their hunting pursuits in the comfort of Rippon Court, and Lettice as my intended will be offering the winners’ trophies.”

 

Across the room by the white marble fireplace in which a fire roars, keeping the cold of the Wiltshire winter at bay, the Viscount, Lady Sadie and their eldest son and heir chat together, with Lady Sadie in her usual seat in a gilt Louis Seize armchair, her husband on the high backed gilt salon chair embroidered with delicate petit-point by his mother, and their son standing next to his father, warming his backside as he faces out to the room. Across from Lady Sadie in a matching armchair, Lord Bruton snores deeply.

 

“Looks like Lord Bruton’s had a bit too much of your firewater**************, Pappa.” Leslie opines, nodding at their neighbour slumped in his seat with his head lolling to his left heavily, his mouth hanging slightly open. “I’d best go wake him.”

 

Lady Sadie glances up at the dainty ornamental rococo clock on the mantelpiece. “No, no, Leslie.” she fusses. “Let poor Algernon sleep. It’s only a quarter to midnight. Your father or Gwenyth can wake him just before midnight, not that I think he’s care too much if he missed the start to 1926, judging by how tired he looked tonight.”

 

“Too many unpaid bills keeping him awake at night I’d say.” Leslie remarks.

 

“Still?” Lady Sadie asks. “I thought all that was behind them now with that last sale of pockets of land to that London man.”

 

“I think it will take more than that to solve the Bruton’s cash flow problems.” Leslie remarks. “Wouldn’t you agree, Pappa?”

 

The Viscount doesn’t reply.

 

“Father?” he asks again.

 

“Cosmo?” Sadie asks her husband, as she gently reaches out and places a bejewelled hand upon her husband’s left knee.

 

“Eh? What?” the Viscount blusters.

 

“You’re miles away, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie says with disappointment, shrinking back into her seat and picking up her nearly empty champagne flute. “You aren’t listening to Leslie or I at all, are you?” She pouts petulantly as she lifts the glass to her lips. “You could at last pretend to be listening to me.”

 

“Just listen to him, that superior sounding old lecher.” the Viscount seethes, seemingly unaware of his wife’s statement as he nods towards Sir John who stands in his cluster with Lady Gwyneth and Clemance near Lady Sadie’s Eighteenth Century painted drawers, his back turned to the Viscount.

 

“Cosmo!” Lady Sadie hisses. “Quiet! He’ll hear you.” She looks aghast at her husband. “Like him or not, he’s our guest.”

 

“He won’t hear me,” mutters the Viscount in a comfortably assured reply. “Not over the sound of his own deafening pomposity.”

 

Leslie and Lady Sadie exchange knowing glances over the top of the Viscount, Lady Sadie cocking an eyebrow and Leslie rolling his eyes, both silently acknowledging that the Viscount is the pot calling the kettle black***************.

 

“Oh, His Royal Highness is a fine hunter and steeplechaser,” the Viscount mimics Sir John’s statement in a mewling voice. “As if we didn’t all know it’s more about like being drawn to like, with our wastrel future King seeking a sympathetic audience and place to sleep with his mistress, that damnable trollop Freda Dudley Ward****************, rather than doing his duty and staying at Sandringham with his family.”

 

“Ahh, the worst kept secret in England*****************.” Leslie ventures.

 

“The poor King and Queen.” Lady Sadie opines with a sigh. “I pity them.”

 

“I pity us!” the Viscount retorts. “Having to tolerate that damn philanderer under our roof, as long as Lettice insists on being churlish and keeping up the pretence that this ill-fated marriage will be anything other than a disaster, the magnitude of which we have never seen the likes of in the Chetwynd family before.”

 

“Pappa!” Leslie exclaims, looking over to Lettice, who luckily for the Viscount, is involved in an animated conversation with Leslie’s wife Arabella on the sofa nearby.

 

“Stop being so melodramatic, Cosmo,” Lady Sadie chides. “It doesn’t become you, as head of the household. And I say again, keep your voice down, for goodness’ sake. Sir John may be completely hedonistic and self-absorbed, but our youngest child is not.”

 

“I’ve a mind to go over there, punch the cad in his snooty nose, and fling him out of the house by the ear.”

 

“Oh no you won’t, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie disagrees calmly and matter-of-factly, slapping him on his knee this time. “It would be the wrong thing to do, and even in the pique of a fit of rage, you know it. It would be too, too embarrassing to conduct such a scene before a houseful of guests, even if most of them present are family: for Sir John, Leslie, Arabella, me, you,” She lowers her voice and adds sadly. “For your favourite, Lettice.”

 

“It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to.” the Viscount mumbles under his breath between gritted teeth.

 

“You aren’t alone in that, Pappa. We’d all like to.” Leslie says, looking down to his father. “But he is Lettice’s fiancée, and it is New Year’s Eve after all.”

 

“What the devil has that to do with anything, Leslie?” the Viscount barks.

 

“Well, you know, Pappa, the season of peace, good will to all men and that all that.” Leslie elucidates with animated gesticulations directed towards the Christmas tree, its golden glass baubles, ribbons and tinsel****************** sparkling and glowing in the drawing room light.

 

“Good will to all men be damned!” the Viscount retorts in a fiery fashion.

 

“Language, Cosmo.” Lady Sadie scolds her husband.

 

“I fail to understand how a man as odious, hedonistic and self-obsessed as Sir John, can have such a lovely and selfless sister like Clemance.” Leslie remarks. “She is kind, considerate, generous of her time, and utterly charming.”

 

“Perhaps she is compensating for her brother’s character flaws,” Lady Sadie suggests. “I determined that I was going to despise her when I met her up in London, but try as I might, I can’t help but like her.”

 

“Why can’t Lettice see what a vile old lecher Sir John is?” the Viscount ponders in exasperated disbelief. “I mean, she’s not dim, is she? She’s got the brains and the nous to establish her own very successful business, in spite of everyone, including us, suggesting it was folly, and that she’d fail. How can she be so blind? Has she lost the use of her eyes, or worse yet, her senses?”

 

“I don’t think Lettice has lost either, my dear Cosmo,” Lady Sadie soothes purringly. “And furthermore,” she adds with a satisfied smile. “I do believe the sheen is starting to rub off this quixotic******************* engagement to Sir John.”

 

Both the Viscount and Leslie turn and look at Lady Sadie, her son smiling knowingly, and her husband gazing at her in disbelief.

 

“Alright Sadie.” the older man says. “You have my full and uninterrupted attention.” He heaves a sigh. “Go on. What do you know that I don’t?”

 

“I told you the day she announced her engagement to Sir John to us almost twelve months ago, that we were going to have to play the long game with Lettice.” Lady Sadie explains.

 

“You did.” the Viscount buts in. “And we have. What of it?”

 

“Well, it’s finally starting to pay dividends without our intervention in the matter, thus preventing Lettice from being driven further into Sir John’s arms because of our perceived interference and bias against the match. I can see by your response, Leslie darling, that being the perceptive young man you are, like me, you too have noticed a change come over Lettice and her attitudes to Sir John.”

 

“I have Mamma.” Leslie admits. “A definite cooling”

 

“What the devil do you mean, Sadie?” the Viscount splutters in exasperation. “What’s all this about Lettice’s attitudes towards that ghastly old lecher? Stop being so damn cryptic, woman!”

 

“I’m not quite sure when exactly, but it seems that at least since her return from that decorative arts exhibition in Paris, Lettice has taken a cooler attitude towards her fiancée, Cosmo. When they arrived to stay, I asked Lettice whether she and Sir John have settled on a date for the wedding yet, and she fobbed me off with some fanciful story that they haven’t had time to settle on one yet. It’s all nonsense of course.” Lady Sadie scoffs. “A happily engaged couple would have settled on one by now, no matter how busy they were. You mark my words.” She holds up a wagging bejewelled finger. “She’s stalling, and I am quite sure she is reconsidering her engagement. Furthermore,” she adds. “If you think about how she was when their engagement first became public, Lettice hung off Sir John, and his every word. Not a cross word was had between them.” Lady Sadie nods, steeling her jaw as she speaks. “Yet now look at her. She’s sitting with Arabella.”

 

“Tice hasn’t stood next to him all this evening.” Leslie adds. “Haven’t you noticed, Pappa?”

 

The Viscount sits up more straightly in his seat as he glances between Sir John and Lettice, who sits on the sofa with Arabella, her back clearly turned to her fiancée. “No,” he says, a brightness lightening his gruff tones, his glower lifting a little. “I can’t say I have.”

 

“And she’s given him critical, or even openly hostile glances when he’s said things she doesn’t like or agree with since they both motored down from London to stay.” Lady Sadie adds. “It’s not the look a happily engaged woman gives her fiancée, Cosmo.”

 

“Bella even told me last night before bed that Tice confided in her the other day that she and Sir John had the fiercest argument up in London over the Prince of Wales’ visit and their need to leave here just after New Year. Apparently, she told Sir John he could jolly well go on his own, Royal Highness or not, as she was staying here until after Twelfth Night like usual. It was only because of Clemance’s imploring that she recanted and agreed to go with them to Rippon Court the day after tomorrow.”

 

“Really?” Sir John asks, whilst Lady Sadie gasps and smiles at their son’s revelation.

 

“According to Bella, and she’s less of a Sir John despiser than we are, so I can’t imagine her fabricating or gilding such a tale.”

 

Just at that moment, Arabella scuttles past her husband and in-laws, vacating her seat as she goes to the side of the fireplace and rings the servants’ call bell by turning the metal and porcelain handle discreetly built in under the mantle. “We must call for Bramley!” she exclaims excitedly. “We need fresh champagne. It’s nearly midnight!”

 

Seeing an ample opportunity to talk to Lettice, Leslie leaves his parents’ side and moves over to talk to her.

 

“To your health, little sister.” Leslie says, slipping down onto the seat vacated by his wife on the Louis Quinze sofa, raising his champagne flute to Lettice’s.

 

“To your health, dear Leslie.” Lettice parrots, raising her own glass so that it clinks merrily against his.

 

Leslie settles back against the soft embroidered gold satin upholstery back of the sofa and appraises Lettice as she sits opposite him, arrayed in a simple sleeveless tube frock of madder coloured satin with a drop waist and an asymmetrical hemline designed for her by Gerald. The colours warms her pale complexion and accentuates the golden tones of her marcelled waves******************** Her elbow length white kid evening gloves make for a nice contrast to the bright colour of the frock’s fabric. A diamond bracelet, a gift from Sir John to Lettice, winks and sparkles expensively under the illumination of the Glynes electrified drawing room chandeliers above.

 

“What?” Lettice asks her brother.

 

Leslie doesn’t answer straight away, which causes Lettice to blush and glance down to see if she has inadvertently spilt something from New Year’s Eve 1925’s dinner onto her gown, where it has remained unnoticed by her.

 

“What is it, Leslie?”

 

“You’re up to something.” he replies matter-of-factly after a moment of deliberation.

 

Lettice laughs in startled surprise at Leslie’s effrontery. “No I’m not, Leslie!”

 

“Yes you are, Tice.” Leslie retorts before taking a sip of gin and tonic. “Do you remember when you were six and I was sixteen, and I caught you coming out of the barn on the home farm********************* with that pail********************** of molasses for the cows***********************, which you intended to pour into Lionel’s bed?”

 

“He deserved a taste of his own medicine, after he deliberately poured water on my mattress, making it look like I’d wet the bed.” Lettice defends herself. Nanny Tess was fit to be tied, and I received such a dressing down and a punishment of no nursery tea for a week.” She scoffs and rolls her blue eyes. “You stopped me doing it.”

 

“I wouldn’t have stopped you, if you hadn’t been so Janus-faced************************ when I asked you whether you were going to try and reciprocate punishment on Lionel, and you said you wouldn’t. I immediately suspected foul play, so I followed you, and as it turns out, I was right.”

 

“You stalked me, Leslie.” Lettice takes a sip of her own champagne, the bracelet of gemstones sliding down her raised forearm until it comes to a gentle halt where its circumference and that of her arm match.

 

“I saved you from your own impetuousness, Tice.”

 

“Says you.” Lettice laughs. “We’ll never know now. I was so guilty being caught red handed as it were by my own big brother, whom I worshipped and adored, that I did as you told me and suffered my punishment in silence without retribution upon Lionel.”

 

“He would have done something even worse to you, Tice. You know he would.”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

“Lionel’s depths of depravity and evil were evident long before he was seven, Tice my dear.”

 

“True.” Lettice admits begrudgingly.

 

“Anyway, you are being Janus-faced now. Mamma noticed it, and so did I.” Leslie remarks. “So, what is going on between you and sleazy old Sir John? You’re saying all the right things, but Mamma and I both sense a shift in you, ever since you came home from Paris.” Leslie looks his sister directly in the eyes. “Is the sheen of your ill-considered engagement to Sir John finally wearing off?”

 

Lettice laughs again at Leslie’s impudence. “Why don’t you say what you really think, Leslie darling.”

 

“Is it?” Leslie persists.

 

“I’m not six any more, Leslie. I don’t need rescuing.” Lettice assures her sibling, reaching out her empty glove clad left hand and patting him on the knee consolingly. “I’m twenty-five, and I can manage this situation myself, and I am, in my own way.”

 

The concern painted on Leslie’s handsome face give away his misgivings. “I just hope, whatever you are up to, you’re doing the right thing.”

 

“I appreciate you wanting to come to my aid, Leslie darling, but I don’t need my knight in shining brotherly armour this time.”

 

Leslie sighs in tired exasperation. “You always were the most independent of all the Chetwynd children, forging your own destiny: not like Lally, who married well as Mamma intended, or me who as the heir apparent has grown up with his future mapped out for him.”

 

“Lionel, for all his faults, is independent too.” Lettice suggests.

 

“Yes, but stupid too with all his hedonistic actions to end up having his fate chosen for him against his will, shrouded in scandal, by being banished to British East Africa************************* by Pappa.”

 

“Please trust me on this, Leslie darling. I know what I’m doing this time.” Lettice promises Leslie. “Whether the outcomes are good, bad or a mixture of both. I’m prepared. I’ll be fine.”

 

“What are you two talking about over there?” the Viscount calls over to Lettice and Leslie from the drinks table, holding aloft one of two chilled bottles of champagne supplied by Bramley. “Come! It’s almost midnight. Time to toast to 1926.”

 

“Yes, Pappa.” the siblings say, arising from the sofa and walking over to the table where they join all the other guests and their hosts.

 

The Viscount hands them both fresh glasses of cool, sparkling French champagne.

 

The clock on the mantle chimes midnight prettily, in the distance the Glynes Church of England bell rings out across the quiet night and the muffled sound of cheers drift up from the servant’s quarters.

 

“Happy New Year!” Viscount Wrexham cheers. “Happy nineteen twenty-six!”

 

“Happy nineteen twenty-six!” everyone echoes as they raise their glasses and clink them together happily.

 

*Dating back to the fourth century, many Christians have observed the Twelfth Night — the evening before the Epiphany — as the ideal time to take down the Christmas tree and festive decorations. Traditionally, the Twelfth Night marks the end of the Christmas season, but there's reportedly some debate among Christian groups about which date is correct. By custom, the Twelfth Night falls on either January 5 or January 6, depending on whether you count Christmas Day as the first day. The Epiphany, also known as Three Kings' Day, commemorates the visit of the three wise men to baby Jesus in Bethlehem.

 

**Jermyn Street is a one-way street in the St James's area of the City of Westminster in London. It is to the south of, parallel, and adjacent to Piccadilly. Jermyn Street is known as a street for high end gentlemen's clothing retailers and bespoke tailors in the West End.

 

***A boutonnière or buttonhole is a floral decoration, typically a single flower or bud, worn on the lapel of a tuxedo or suit jacket. While worn frequently in the past, boutonnières are now usually reserved for special occasions for which formal wear is standard, such as at proms and weddings.

 

****Emilie Charlotte, Lady de Bathe, known as Lillie Langtry and nicknamed "The Jersey Lily", was a British socialite, stage actress and producer. Born and raised on the island of Jersey, she moved to London in 1876, two years after marrying. Her looks and personality attracted interest, commentary, and invitations from artists and society hostesses, and she was celebrated as a young woman of great beauty and charm. During the aesthetic movement in England, she was painted by aesthete artists. In 1882, she became the poster-girl for Pears soap, and thus the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product. In 1881, Langtry became an actress and made her West End debut in the comedy She Stoops to Conquer, causing a sensation in London by becoming the first socialite to appear on stage. One of the most glamorous British women of her era, Langtry was the subject of widespread public and media interest. Her acquaintances in London included Oscar Wilde, who encouraged Langtry to pursue acting. She was known for her relationships with royal figures and noblemen, including Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII), Lord Shrewsbury, and Prince Louis of Battenberg.

 

*****Wassail refers to a hot, mulled holiday punch, traditionally made with spiced cider or ale, and also to a winter solstice custom of visiting orchards to bless the trees for a good harvest. The word "wassail" comes from an Old Norse phrase meaning "be in good health" and is a salute to good health.

 

******Belchamp St Paul is a village and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. The village is five miles west of Sudbury, Suffolk, and 23 miles northeast of the county town, Chelmsford.

 

*******The Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor, celebrated Christmas 1925 at Sandringham House in Norfolk, which was, and remains, the traditional Royal Family location for the festive season. His father, King George V, was the reigning monarch at the time, and the family gathered at their country estate for the festivities.

 

********King George V was a very enthusiastic and obsessive stamp collector who amassed a world-class collection. He began collecting stamps as the Duke of York in the late 1800s and continued obsessively throughout his life. He was so passionate about it that he declared, "I wish to have the best collection and not one of the best collections in England". He made high-value purchases to build his collection, including setting a world record at the time by paying £1,450.00 for a Mauritius two pence blue stamp in 1904. He famously acknowledged that he was the "damned fool" who paid such a high price. He had his collection housed in 328 albums, and it was focused on British Empire stamps. His private collection formed the foundation of the Royal Philatelic Collection, which is now considered one of the most valuable stamp collections in the world.

 

*********Queen Mary collected a wide variety of objects, including Eighteenth Century furniture, lacquerware, gold boxes, and jewellery. She also collected miniatures, enamelwork, and Fabergé eggs, and was particularly interested in restoring and acquiring pieces that had previously been part of the Royal Collection. Her collection was eclectic and also featured items like the famous Queen Mary's Dolls' House and a significant number of photo albums documenting her life and travels.

 

**********A steeplechase is a long-distance race involving both galloping and jumping over obstacles, primarily fences and water jumps. In horse racing, steeplechases involve horses jumping over various obstacles like fences and ditches.

 

***********During the 1920s the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor, was ranked among the most daring horsemen in England. Having forged an impressive reputation in the hunting field for courage, determination and skill, he moved on to steeplechasing furthering the indignation of George V and Queen Mary who urged their son to abandon the dangerous sport. Unheeded Edward broke his collar bone, blacked his eyes and suffered concussion with what seemed to be alarming regularity. The Prince’s addiction to his hazardous hobby even caused the Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald to request discontinuance. The prince stubbornly refused. Only after the near fatal illness of the King in 1928, did the he finally renounce the sport and order the sale of his entire stud.

 

************The Master of the Hounds was in charge of the hunt and supervised the field, hounds, and staff. The huntsman, who had bred the hounds and worked with them, would be in charge of the pack during the hunt. Once the group was assembled, the huntsman would lead the pack of hounds and field to where a fox might be hiding.

 

*************The term "Neanderthal" was first used in 1864 when Irish geologist William King proposed the species name Homo neanderthalensis for the fossils found in Germany's Neander Valley. However, the first known use of "Neanderthal" to describe the fossil itself dates to 1874 in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

 

**************Referring to a strong alcoholic drink like whisky or gin, the origins of the use of the word “firewater” came from two sources: one started with the adulteration of alcohol with tobacco juice, hot peppers or opium, and the other began with the custom of testing the proof of alcohol by throwing it in the fire, if flammable alcohol would be acceptable for purchase.

 

***************Referring to hypocrisy, highlighting a situation where someone criticises another person for a fault that they themselves share, the idiom originated in the early 1600s from the Spanish novel “Don Quixote”, which was translated into English by Thomas Shelton in 1620.

 

****************Winifred May Mones, Marquesa de Casa Maury, commonly known by her first married name as Freda Dudley Ward, was an English socialite. She was best known for being a married paramour of Edward, Prince of Wales, who later became Edward VIII. She was twice married and divorced. Her first marriage was on 9 July 1913 to William Dudley Ward, the Liberal MP for Southampton. Her first husband's family surname was Ward, but 'Dudley Ward' became their surname through common usage. They divorced on the ground of adultery in 1931 and were the parents of two daughters. Although married in 1913 to William Dudley Ward, Freda was also in a relationship with Edward, Prince of Wales from 1918, until she was supplanted by American Thelma Furness from 1929 to 1934 before he then took up with Wallis Simpson, whom he eventually married and abdicated for.

 

*****************Freda Dudley Ward was the Prince of Wales's paramour for many years, with their affair beginning in the early 1920s. Their relationship was not a secret; it was openly acknowledged by their social circles, families, and the public. His parents the King George V and Queen Mary were concerned about the Prince of Wales's affair with Freda Dudley Ward, as it was a public relationship that threatened to cause scandal and damage his reputation, especially given the expectation that he would marry a foreign royal. They disapproved of the affair, viewing it as a public scandal and hoping the situation could be managed and kept out of the papers to protect the monarchy and the future king. It was a source of considerable tension between father and son. The constant disapproval from his father contributed to Edward's already existing resentment and hatred for his royal role and the constraints it placed upon him.

 

******************One of the most famous Christmas decorations that people love to use at Christmas is tinsel. You might think that using it is an old tradition and that people in Britain have been adorning their houses with tinsel for a very long time. However that is not actually true. Tinsel is in fact believed to be quite a modern tradition. Whilst the idea of tinsel dates back to Germany in 1610 when wealthy people used real strands of silver to adorn their Christmas trees (also a German invention). Silver was very expensive though, so being able to do this was a sign that you were wealthy. Even though silver looked beautiful and sparkly to begin with, it tarnished quite quickly, meaning it would lose its lovely, bright appearance. Therefore it was swapped for other materials like copper and tin. These metals were also cheaper, so it meant that more people could use them. However, when the Great War started in 1914, metals like copper were needed for the war. Because of this, they couldn't be used for Christmas decorations as much, so a substitute was needed. It was swapped for aluminium, but this was a fire hazard, so it was switched for lead, but that turned out to be poisonous.

 

*******************Taken from the name of the hero in Miguel de Cervantes 1605 novel, “Don Quixote”, to be quixotic means to be extremely idealistic, unrealistic and impractical, typically marked by rash and lofty romanticism.

 

********************Marcelling is a hair styling technique in which hot curling tongs are used to induce a curl into the hair. Its appearance was similar to that of a finger wave but it is created using a different method. Marcelled hair was a popular style for women's hair in the 1920s, often in conjunction with a bob cut. For those women who had longer hair, it was common to tie the hair at the nape of the neck and pin it above the ear with a stylish hair pin or flower. One famous wearer was American entertainer, Josephine Baker.

 

*********************A "home farm" is typically a farm that is part of a large country estate and provides food for the main house. In a British context, it was historically the land farmed directly by the landowner or an employed manager, often while the rest of the estate was rented out to tenant farmers.

 

**********************Although often assumed to be American, the word “pail” is actually an English word that originated in the Middle English period (1150 – 1500) and is used in both American and British English, though it is considered more common in American English today, where it is often synonymous with "bucket". While "bucket" is the more dominant term in British English, "pail" is still understood and can be considered a more old-fashioned or regional variant.

 

***********************In farming, molasses provides an energy-rich supplement for livestock, helps them to better digest fibre in their feed.

 

************************Arising in the late Seventeenth Century, referring to the Roman deity of beginnings and endings often depicted with two faces, “Janus-faced” refers to deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another.

 

*************************The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya or British East Africa, was part of the British Empire in Africa. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1920. Technically, the "Colony of Kenya" referred to the interior lands, while a 16 km (10 mi) coastal strip, nominally on lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar, was the "Protectorate of Kenya", but the two were controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony came to an end in 1963 when an ethnic Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually declared independence as the Republic of Kenya.

 

This festive upper-class scene is not all that it may appear to be, for it is made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The champagne glasses are 1:12 artisan miniatures. Made of glass, they have been blown individually by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering and are so fragile and delicate that even I with my dainty fingers have broken the stem of one. They stand on an ornate Eighteenth Century style silver tray made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The wine cooler is also made by Warwick Miniatures. The Deutz and Geldermann champagne bottle is also an artisan miniature and made of glass with a miniature copy of a real Deutz and Geldermann label and some real foil wrapped around their necks. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The clear glass soda syphon and porcelain ice bucket and tongs was made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures. The cranberry glass soda syphon was made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The remaini g bottles of alcohol were made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures. The gilt tea table in the foreground of the photo on which they all stand is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

The Chetwynd Christmas tree, beautifully decorated by Lettice, Harold and Arabella with garlands, tinsel, bows golden baubles and topped by a sparking gold star is a 1:12 artisan piece. It was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio.

 

The Palladian console table behind the Christmas tree, with its two golden caryatids and marble top, is one of a pair that were commissioned by me from American miniature artisan Peter Cluff. Peter specialises in making authentic and very realistic high quality 1:12 miniatures that reflect his interest in Georgian interior design. His work is highly sought after by miniature collectors worldwide. This pair of tables are one-of-a-kind and very special to me.

 

The gilt chair to the right of the photo is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which also makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects.

 

The elegant ornaments that decorate the surfaces of the Chetwynd’s palatial drawing room very much reflect the Eighteenth Century spirit of the room.

 

On the console table made by Peter Cluff stands a porcelain pot of yellow and lilac petunias which has been hand made and painted by 1:12 miniature ceramicist Ann Dalton. It is flanked by two mid Victorian (circa 1850) hand painted child’s tea set pieces. The sugar bowl and milk jug have been painted to imitate Sèvres porcelain.

 

On the bombe chest behind the Louis settee stand a selection of 1950s Limoges miniature tea set pieces which I have had since I was a teenager. Each piece is individually stamped on its base with a green Limoges stamp. In the centre of these pieces stands a sterling silver three prong candelabra made by an unknown artisan. They have actually fashioned a putti (cherub) holding the stem of the candelabra. The candles that came with it are also 1:12 artisan pieces and are actually made of wax.

 

The sofa, which is part of a three piece Louis XV suite of the settee and two armchairs was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, JBM.

 

The Hepplewhite chair with the lemon satin upholstery you can just see behind the Christmas tree was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper of Chinese lanterns from the 1770s.

nrhp # 86001064- St. Philip's Episcopal Church is an historic Episcopal church located at 129 West Mound Street in Circleville, Ohio. The first Episcopal service in Circleville was held on May 26, 1817, by the Rev. Philander Chase, who in 1819 became the first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. The stone church building was built in 1866 in a mixed Gothic and Tudor Revival style and was consecrated in 1868.[2] Besides its actual name, the church has been known as the "Little Church on the Mound,"[2] because it sits on the base of what was formerly one of Circleville's numerous Native American mounds that was historically known as "Mount Gilboa."[3]

 

In 1918, the church was modified by the construction of a Tudor Revival structure that has since been used as a parish hall. Despite this addition, the church's historic integrity was not damaged, as both its Gothic Revival style and the addition's Tudor Revival style are meant to resemble older English structures.[3] In recognition of its well-preserved historic architecture, St. Philip's was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.[1]

 

St. Philip's today is an active parish in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio. The Rev. David E. Getreu is the 43rd Rector.

 

from Wikipedia

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 are at Rippon Court, the ancient sprawling Baronial style* house and family seat of Sir John Nettleword Hughes, buried deep within his vast estate of Rippon in Bedforshire. Old enough to be Lettice’s father, wealthy Sir John was until recently still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intended to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. After an abrupt ending to her understanding with Selwyn Spencely, son and heir to the title Duke of Walmsford, Lettice in a moment of both weakness and resolve, agreed to the proposal of marriage proffered to her by Sir John. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them.

 

Lettice, her fiancée, Sir John, and his sister Clemance have motored over from Lettice’s family home of Glynes in Wiltshire to host the Rippon Hunt. Being a keen hunter, His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales has sent word to Sir John that he and a party of his equally enthusiastic foxhunting friends wish to participate in the Rippon Hunt, so Sir John has cut short his sojourn to Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, near to his fiancée’s family seat and has reluctantly returned to his sprawling, draughty and slightly tumbledown, dreaded childhood home to host the Prince in a few days’ time. The Prince has also expressed his express wish to reacquaint himself with Lettice, now that she is Sir John’s fiancée, so she is playing hostess to His Royal Highness, and as the future Lady Nettleford Hughes, has been bestowed the honour of handing out the trophies. Clemance is attending as chaperone.

 

Last night before dinner, Clemance suggested to Sir John that as she is to be the future chatelaine of Rippon Court, he must show Lettice the Book Tower, a tower used by both Sir John and Clemance to escape their parents. Now he leads her slowly up a winding and narrow spiral staircase. Although the walls are solid, Lettice can hear the howl of the southerly wind outside, and she feels decidedly cold in spite of her thick black stockings, navy wool jersey frock and thick woollen cardigan in matching navy, although she is grateful for their protection. The pair’s footsteps echo as they slowly tread upwards, the hollow sound mixing with the distant sound of doves cooing from somewhere high above and the constant whistle of the wind outside. Occasionally a windowpane in the stairwell rattles with the force of the wind, and the wooden beams creak, as they do in all old houses.

 

Lettice has not found Rippon Court to her liking. At least twice the size of her own childhood Georgian home of Glynes, it is too large to be a cosy family home, and the draughts, along with gloomy Victorian style furniture make the rooms so cold and unwelcoming. She pauses and places the palm of her leather glove clad hand against the great grey chiselled stones that make up the wall. “Goodness!” she gasps with a swift intake of breath, withdrawing her hand quickly after feeling the cold cut right through the protection of the leather.

 

“I told you it was cold up here, didn’t I, Lettice?” Sir John laughs lightly.

 

“But the walls are so thick, John.” she replies a little breathily from the exertion of climbing so many stairs.

 

“The winds so high up have nothing to strop their force, and in winter it gets cold. It’s why I told you to wear warm clothes.”

 

“And yet you and Clemance used to come up here willingly?”

 

“Well, it started off being a case of necessity, Lettice my dear.” Sir John looks sad. “As you know from the conversations we had last night, Rippon Court was no happy childhood home for Clemmie and I, like Glynes was for you. Our parents were cold, remote, cruel and only too happy to mete out punishments for the very smallest perceived infraction of their strict rules,” He visibly shudders. “Or signs of dislike of any of their ghastly bloodsports they pursued with such passion and gusto.”

 

“Surely it would have been easier for you to hide in the Temple of the Winds folly*** built by your Great, Great, Great Grandfather.”

 

“It would have,” Sir John agrees, as he upturns the fox fur collar of his jacket against the breeze he can feel on the back of his neck. “But it’s far more obvious a hiding place, and we would have been more easily discovered. As you’ve now witnessed, you have to wend your way through a rabbit warren of narrow corridors and backstairs to get this far, and few people, least of all my parents, would have ventured here.”

 

“But how did you find it. John?”

 

“How did you find your favourite secret hiding places at Glynes, Lettice?”

 

“Ahh…” Lettice muses with a smile. “Through exploration.”

 

“Of course, and Clemmie and I were born explorers. And we were beloved by the staff below stairs that we were able to get kindling from the gardeners to build a fire in the grate and keep a basket full next to it all year round, and a picnic hamper made up for us by our old cook back in the day, Mrs. Paternoster.”

 

“After climbing all these stairs, I wish we had brought a small hamper of food with us. I could do with some sustenance.” Lettice sighs. “I’m glad to hear there is a fire up there though.”

 

“There is, Lettice my dear,” Sir John offers his fiancée his hand. “Not much farther to go now, and its only small, so it won’t take long to warm the room up.” He smiles encouragingly at Lettice. “And the views are spectacular.”

 

“I do hope so, John darling.” Lettice remarks. “I still can’t believe you and Clemance climbed all these stairs as children.”

 

They begin to climb again.

 

“Oh, after a short while it became our safe haven, and then it seemed like nothing to ascend the tower to escape our parents and the goings on of the household or the park. We both still love it. Clemmie made a point of coming up here after we arrived yesterday.”

 

“I thought she was having a snooze and a freshen up before dinner.”

 

“Well, she didn’t want to spoil the pleasure I will derive from showing it to you, and reasonably, the tower will be too small for more than two of us to sit comfortably.”

 

Changing the topic of conversation, Lettice asks as she follows in Sir John’s wake, “How old is Rippon Court? It’s an enigma. From the outside it looks Victorian Picturesque Baronial, yet this part with its great hewn stone walls seems so much older.”

 

“The Victorian Picturesque Baronial façade is only recent, having been built by my Great Grandfather in the 1840s. He, like Queen Victoria, had a passion for everything Scottish, which explains some of the ghastly plaid and tartan carpets and upholsteries downstairs. He determined that if he couldn’t make a Scottish castle his family seat, he could convert his family seat into a Scottish castle. There are reports in the family archives that mention a motte-and-bailey castle**** built on this site as early as the Eleventh Century, but that was replaced by a stone keep in the Twelfth Century. I think I would be in my rights after researching Rippon Court’s history so thoroughly, to hazard a guess that this is certainly the original keep, or at least part of, if not the oldest part of the crumbling, ramshackle old place. It is so central, with all later editions and extensions of the house built around it, and as far as I can tell, the Book Tower is in every painting or sketch of Rippon Court that I have ever seen.”

 

“Your ancestors certainly knew how to build things to last, John. It’s so solid and sturdy.”

 

“My ancestors’ serfs*****, you mean, Lettice my dear.” Sir John laughs. “My ancestors would have been too noble, even if only in their eyes, to build a tower with their own hands.”

 

Lettice giggles. “May apologies, John darling.”

 

“Ahh!” Sir John says as he comes to a halt before a small and narrow door of ancient oak inserted into a hole in the wall framed by some rude and rough early gothic carving in the stone around it. “Here we are, my dear.”

 

“Finally!” Lettice sighs heavily with relief. “I thought we might ascend to Heaven before we reached the Book Tower!”

 

“It will be worth the wait, Lettice my dear. I’m sure that you will like it. Now,” he says, looking appraisingly at the door. “The Book Tower is so small, that the door opens outwards, which will be fine so long as the door hasn’t warped and swelled in the damp since winter commenced.”

 

He gingerly lifts the latch bolt by turning a well worn ancient metal loop handle and tries the door, which in spite of the creaking protestations of its hinges, which startle the doves above as the air fills with the flutter of wings, opens quite easily and readily.

 

“Excellent!” Sir John says pleasurably. “Welcome to the Book Tower, Lettice my dear.” He puts his left hand through the doorframe in an open gesture, encouraging Lettice to step inside.

 

Lettice takes advantage of Sir John’s invitation and steps into a small octagonal tower room with stone benches set into all but one wall, in which is built a small fireplace of dark stone, like that Lettice found in the Rippon Court drawing room and those found in several other principal rooms of the stately old house. The walls are papered below large narrow lancet windows****** above which floor the tower with light, even on an overcast wintery day and offer tantalising views of the cloudy sky above, which almost seems to reflect Sir John’s downcast mood at being at Rippon Court. She is hit with an immediate blast of warmth, and she delights to find a blazing fire cracking cheerfully in the grate.

 

“Oh John!” Lettice laughs.

 

“I couldn’t very well bring my fiancée all the way up here and not have a fire already laid.” Sir John says proudly.

 

Lettice shivers as the word fiancée escapes Sir John’s thin lips. She understands the enormity of the situation she finds herself in, and she hears Gerald’s voice echoing in her head, drowning out whatever Sir John is saying now as it reminds her to stall for time and not to set a date for their pending nuptials******* unless she absolutely has to.

 

“I hope you like cucumber.” Sir John’s well elocuted syllables break into her thoughts.

 

“What?” Lettice asks in a distracted tone, shaking her head as if ridding herself of an annoying insect flying around her.

 

“Cucumber sandwiches.” Sir John says, indicating to the small round walnut table situated in the middle of the room upon which is set a tray of thinly sliced triangle sandwiches******* arranged prettily on a plate, next to a Thermos******** of tea and two cups and saucers, a milk jug and a sugar bowl of fine floral sprigged Chelsea China*********. “Courtesy of Mrs. Taberner, with her compliments.” Sir John beams. Seeing the somewhat startled look on Lettice’s face, he adds, “Of course, I also had Mrs. Taberner pack some crumpets which we can toast on the fire and have with some of Rippon Court’s own freshly churned home farm************ butter and damson preserve from the Rippon Court walled orchard.” With a rasp of metal against stone, he withdraws an old toasting fork*********** from a spot next to the hearth, the flagstone floor in front of it scored with many marks to indicate that it has been kept there and used for many years. “Many is the time I have toasted crumpets from a string of our house’s cooks, and” he adds proudly. “I’m actually quite a dab hand at it, even if I do say so myself.”

 

“I’m sure you are, John darling.” Lettice says with a light-hearted chuckle as she watches him hold the toasting fork rather like a sword, looking lovingly at it.

 

“Please, take a seat. Whilst I fix Milady her tea!” Sir John says chivalrously as she replaces the toasting fork to its place by the fireplace and bends to unscrew the lid of the Thermos.

 

“Why thank you, Milord!” Lettice replies with a giggle, lifting her skirts slightly and making a bob curtsey, since the space is only small.

 

There are old and worn, yet comfortable looking cushions spread along the benches around the walls of the Book Tower, some made of dark red velvet and others mossy green, all of them featuring faded patches of orange or yellowish green from where the sun had fallen on them too long. Lettice picks up one and drapes it down on the bench behind her before taking a seat on it.

 

“So,” Lettice begins. “You used to use this tower to hide from your parents, then? “

 

“Yes,” Sir John says wistfully as he pours tea into one of the dainty Chelsea cups. “I gather Clemmie told you last night about the Mother’s riding crop and Father’s strop*************.”

 

Lettice nods shallowly.

 

“Our parents were sadistic, at least towards us, if not to each other, although I suspect that too in hindsight. They had a very intense, complicated and competitive relationship. If we were caught doing things you take for granted, we’d get a thrashing.”

 

“Yes, Clemance said that reading for pleasure outside of classes was frowned upon.” Lettice says sadly.

 

“And so it was. It is only because of the haven the Book Tower afforded me that I was able to read more than anything rudimentary. My Father was lazy when it came to reading. Then again, lazy might be too disingenuous a description. He had no aptitude towards higher learning. He was a member of the landed gentry, having inherited a fast fortune build up by his more scholarly and adroit father, grandfather and great grandfather. He used to leave all the hard reading work, the accounts, the writing of leases of farms and the like to his steward**************, which left him with time to pursue the things he loved and was good at.”

 

“Hunting.” Lettice says laconically.

 

“Exactly.” Sir John agrees.

 

“Which you weren’t very skilled in.”

 

“No,” Sir John agrees again, his voice serious. He passes Lettice her cup of tea and then walks the two paces over to the fireplace and reaches out grasping an old copy of Walter Crane’s*************** An Alphabet of Old Friends**************** from the back of the mantlepiece which is cluttered with old children’s books in higgledy-piggledy piles as well as a selection of painted lead soldiers, their colours dulled over the passing years, and even a model ship with its sails fully unfurled. “Both my parents enjoyed outdoor pursuits as much as I loathed them. The despised my bookish ways and my love of literature, music and the arts.” He flicks through the children’s book looking at it as if reminiscing the quiet and happy times he spent reading it up here in the Book Tower.

 

“Sissified***************** is how Clemance described your parent’s naming of your interests.”

 

“Just so.” He replaces the volume back where it came from.

 

“I see you used to play chess up here too,” Lettice indicates with a nod to a small wooden box on top of and around which stand several red and white chess pieces.

 

“Yes,” Sir John chuckles as he looks thoughtfully at them. My old friend the Red Queen and the White knight.” He picks up the queen and rolls her around in his left hand, his look wistful again as he contemplates the piece in his palm. “Clemmie and I used to play, although my aptitude for strategy was greater than hers. I even used to try and beat myself.”

 

“How can you beat yourself, dear John?” Lettice bursts out laughing.

 

“That is exactly my point, Lettice my dear, but one I had to learn the hard way. When Clemmie was away visiting friends or relations, or packed off to Germany to be finished off******************, I had no-one to play with, so I played myself,” He snorts derisively. “But of course it is hard to outwit yourself at a game of chess!”

 

Lettice laughs and takes a sip of her tea. “I don’t understand, John.”

 

“What don’t you understand, my dear?”

 

“If your parents were disinclined to indulge your thirst for knowledge, how was it that you ended up at Cambridge?”

 

“Ahh,” Sir John replaces the Red Queen back on top of the chess set box in the same spot, as if anxious not to destroy a shrine to his lost childhood haven. “Now there is an interesting story.” Sir John’s spirits seem to pick up and be suddenly becomes more animated.

 

“I’m all ears*******************, dear John.”

 

“Well, you probably know that the Rippon Estate adjoins the Wimpole Estate********************.”

 

“I do. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Wimpole House.”

 

“And you won’t on this trip, Lettice my dear. Wimpole House has fallen from its zenith when the 4th Earl of Hardwicke, Vice Admiral Charles Yorke********************* entertained Queen Victoria and Prince Albert there. The maintenance on the house means it is seldom used these days. It is occupied occasionally, usually only for game shooting, racing at Newmarket or a cricket match in front of the house. And the 4th Earl and cricket are the reasons why I was able to go to Oxford.”

 

“The Earl sponsored you, John?”

 

“Good heavens no, Lettice!” Sir John throws his arms up in the air in protest. “Father may have been a dolt, but he was a proud one, and he wasn’t going to be outdone by the Vice Admiral when he became the 4th Earl. He heard that whilst the Earl’s eldest son, Charles**********************, was studying at Trinity College, Cambridge, he played first-class cricket on four occasions for Cambridge University Cricket Club in 1856 and 1857, when I was growing up on the Rippon estate.”

 

“So your father thought you might play cricket successfully as well, a respectable gentleman’s outdoor game, if you went to Cambridge.”

 

“Indeed yes, Lettice. He was to be sadly disappointed, but I ended up with the kind of education I desired amongst the literary and artistic circles I moved in there.”

 

“Oh John!”

 

“Come,” Sir John says kindly, offering her hand as he steps up onto a bench near to Lettice. “I want to show you the wonderful views from here.”

 

Lettice accepts his help and scrambles up onto the bench beside him. He directs her movements and envelopes her with his larger, wiry and fit frame, bulked by his heavy coat which he is still wearing whilst he, like Lettice acclimatises to the warmth of the room.

 

“Look out there, Lettice my dear.”

 

“What am I looking at, John?” Lettice asks, trying to keep the awkwardness out of her voice as she feels Sir John pressing against her. She cannot help but imagine him lying with his old French flame Madeline Flanton, the glamorous silent film star actress employed at Cinégraphic*********************** on their recent trip to Paris, or him making love to Paul Young, the social climbing West End actress, whom he said he was going to quit, but seemingly hasn’t yet.

 

“Your future estate, when we are married, my dear.” Sir John breathes heavily down her neck, each breath hot on the nape of her neck. “The Rippon estate of the Nettleford-Hughes family for almost as far as the eye can see in all directions.”

 

“Really?” Lettice says, the single word choking her as she tries desperately to push the thoughts of her fiancées elicit carnal affairs with countless chorus girls, actresses and who knew who else, out of her mind.

 

“Really.” Sir John concurs. “It’s vast isn’t it.”

 

“Yes.” Lettice agrees uncomfortably.

 

“You know now how much I hate Rippon Court, and why I hate it, Lettice. I’m sure you are wondering why I don’t just sell off the damnable pile.”

 

“Well before I knew that this was a place of unhappy memories for you, I was wondering why with a fortune at your disposal, why you didn’t add a few modern conveniences to make it more comfortable.” She squirms in her place, trying not to feel him suffocating her. “But now you mention it, why haven’t you sold it if you dislike it so.”

 

“Tradition, my dear, tradition. I do it for my tenants. Where would they live if I sold the estate? I do it for Potton************************, Sutton Courtenay************************* and the other villages in these parts. The Rippon estate is the biggest employer. What would happen to all those people if I sold Rippon Court and the estate? I may not be active in county affairs, but I do care about the people here.”

 

“That’s very good of you, John.” Lettice says. Seeing a chance to escape his clutches, she points in the distance and takes a few steps away from Sir John. “Is that Potton I can see over there?”

 

“It is.” Sir John confirms as Lettice then jumps down, unassisted, from the bench and resumes her seat.

 

“So,” Lettice says, taking up her cup of tea and looking around her, as Sir John clambers down. “This is where Master John used to hide, and indulge and develop his intelligence. The Book Tower.”

 

“It was, Lettice my dear.”

 

“I think I would have liked to have met him.” Lettice muses.

 

“Young master John?” Sir John laughs with incredulity.

 

“Yes.” Lettice confirms. “Then again,” she adds thoughtfully as she picks up a sandwich daintily. “I think I’ve caught glimpses of him from time to time.”

 

“Oh really?” Sir John asks as he pours himself some tea. Arching an eyebrow quizzically, he asks, “When?”

 

“Take the evening I accepted your proposal of marriage. You were playing the Willow Song************************** on the gramophone, and recited Wordsworth*************************** to me. I may fan the flames of romanticism, from the glowing embers that remain, dear John.”

 

Sir John tuts and shakes his head sadly, but firmly. “Now, do not forget Lettice, that on that same evening, I also said I was listening to The Willow Song because I happen to like Nellie Melba’s**************************** voice. I am a businessman. I am a pragmatist.”

 

“Well, perhaps you can be both, John darling.” Lettice says, her eyes sparkling with a sudden burst of hope.

 

“How is that?”

 

“Well, it may be practical to arrange some provisions and for a nice fire to be lit for us, but from my perspective, it is also a very chivalrous gesture. It was also very chivalrous of you to offer to toast me a crumpet.”

 

“Is that your veiled way of requesting I toast you one, Lettice my dear?” Sir John asks with a half smile.

 

“It may be, dear John.”

 

And with that, Sir John bows shallowly to Lettice and sets about skewering a crumpet onto the end of the toasting fork.

 

As Lettice looks at her fiancée, her emotions feel torn. One minute she despises Sir John for his philandering, which she is struggling to cope with, especially now that it has gone from mere words and she has witnessed his amorous attentions towards both Paula Young and Madeline Flanton for herself. The next moment, he does something chivalrous an charming, like organise a surprise tea in the Book Tower and toast her crumpets with his own hands, and she is utterly charmed by him. A painted smile graces her face, hiding her inner turmoil as she wonders what on earth she should do.

 

*Baronial style, primarily Scottish Baronial, is a Nineteenth Century Gothic Revival architectural style mimicking medieval Scottish castles, featuring crow-stepped gables, conical towers (tourelles/witches' hats), battlements, and turrets, creating a romantic, fortified look with asymmetrical plans and heavy stonework, heavily popularized by Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford. It blends Scottish vernacular with French and Gothic elements, evolving from fortified tower houses into grand country homes and public buildings.

 

**Bloodsports are sports or entertainment involving bloodshed, pain, and suffering, typically between animals or humans, like cockfighting, dog fighting, bullfighting, and often including certain types of hunting (like fox hunting or hare coursing) where killing or severe harm is integral to the "sport". These activities are often illegal and controversial today, focusing on violent combat for gambling or amusement, rather than traditional, regulated field sports like normal hunting or fishing. However, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, fox hunting, grouse shooting and hare coursing were not only commonplace amongst the aristocracy, but a standard part of the London Season, with wealthy families decamping London and retreating to country estates before Christmas to pursue the hunting season and the county balls that went with them throughout January and February.

 

***A folly is an ornamental building, often eccentric, built purely for decoration in large gardens or parks, and are especially popular and almost unique to Britain. Follies serve no practical use, but designed to look like a castle, temple, or other fanciful structure, and are often meant to draw the eye to a landscape or view. They were often elaborate, costly, and sometimes bizarre addition to a landscape, taking the form of fanciful towers, fake ruins, or small ornamental temples. Popular in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, famous British architectural follies include quirky towers like Broadway Tower, strange structures such as the Dunmore Pineapple, mock ruins like the one at Scotney Castle, classical temples like Beckford's Tower, and eccentric towers like Wainhouse Tower, all built for decoration, amusement, or to create picturesque landscapes on grand estates, reflecting aristocratic whims and tastes.

 

****A motte-and-bailey castle is an early medieval fortification featuring a raised earth mound (the motte) with a tower or keep, and a surrounding, enclosed courtyard (the bailey) for living quarters and livestock, both protected by ditches and wooden palisades. Popularised by the Normans in the Eleventh Century, these castles were quick and cheap to build using unskilled labor and local materials (earth and timber), making them a common sight across Britain, France, and Ireland after conquests.

 

*****Britain had serfs in medieval times. They were a large part of the peasant class, legally tied to the land, owing labour and dues to their lord, and couldn't leave without permission, though the system gradually declined after events like the Black Death, leading to more freedom for the peasantry.

 

******Lancet windows are a distinctive feature of Gothic architecture, particularly in the Early English period (Thirteenth Century), and were frequently used in cathedrals, churches and fortified castles. They are tall, slender, and topped by a sharp, pointed arch, typically without complex stonework tracery within the arch itself. In general, any window with a curved or arched top is simply referred to as an arched window, a radius window, or an arch-top window. These can come in many different specific styles depending on the type of arch used.

 

*******Nuptials is an alternative word for marriage. The term “nuptials” emphasizes the ceremonial and legal aspects of a marriage, lending a more formal tone to wedding communications and documentation.

 

********Sandwiches cut into four triangular quarters are commonly called triangle sandwiches in Britain, especially for parties or afternoon teas. Elsewhere in the world they are commonly referred to as a "club sandwich cut" or simply "quarter cut". This method is frequently used for club sandwiches to make them more stable.

 

*********When we think of thermos flasks these days we are often reminded of the plaid and gawdy floral varieties that existed in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Invented in 1892 by Sir James Dewar, a scientist at Oxford University, the "vacuum flask" was not manufactured for commercial use until 1904, when two German glass blowers formed Thermos GmbH. They held a contest to name the "vacuum flask" and a resident of Munich submitted "Thermos", which came from the Greek word "Therme" meaning "hot". In 1907, Thermos GmbH sold the Thermos trademark rights to three independent companies: The American Thermos Bottle Company of Brooklyn, New York; Thermos Limited of Tottenham, England; Canadian Thermos Bottle Co. Ltd. of Montreal, Canada. The three Thermos companies operated independently of each other, yet developed the Thermos vacuum flask into a widely sought after product that was taken on many famous expeditions, including: Schackelton's trip to the South Pole; Lieutenant Robert E. Peary's trip to the Arctic; Colonel Roosevelt's expedition to Mombassa and into the heart of the African Congo with Richard Harding Davis. It even became airborne when the Wright Brothers took it up in their airplane and Count Zepplin carried it up in his air balloon.

 

**********Founded by silversmith, Nicolas Sprimont, and jeweller, Charles Gouyn, Chelsea China" refers primarily to two distinct English porcelain manufacturers: the Eighteenth Century Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory, England's first, known for luxury soft-paste porcelain with anchor marks, and the Twentieth Century New Chelsea Porcelain Co. (later Royal Chelsea), famous for affordable bone china with colourful designs, especially popular in North America. It would be unlikely that a man of Sir John’s standing would have something as middle-class as New Chelsea Porcelain Co., so we can safely assume that the tea set that has been placed out for his and Lettice’s use is made by the Century Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory. Century Chelsea Porcelain Manufactory’s first factory, founded in London around 1743, produced highly coveted wares inspired by Meissen and Chinese designs.

 

***********A toasting fork is a long-handled, pronged utensil used to hold food, like bread, in front of an open fire or other heat source to toast or cook it, keeping the user's hands safely away from the flames. Historically used for bread and cheese, modern versions often have telescopic handles for camping and are great for marshmallows and sausages, often featuring decorative designs.

 

************A home farm is traditionally a farm on a large estate, located near the main house, that directly supplies the household with food and supplies, often run by the landowner or a manager, rather than rented to tenants, while today the term also refers to small lifestyle properties or even modern indoor growing systems for personal use.

 

*************A strop is a flexible strip (usually leather) or surface used for the final stage of sharpening blades like razors, knives, and chisels to polish, straighten, and refine their edge, removing any burrs left by stones, often with an applied compound for ultra-fine honing.

 

**************In Britain, a steward historically managed large estates or royal households, acting as a trusted official for property, finances, and staff. The role evolved from managing a lord's household (stigweard - "hall guard") to high-ranking court officers, similar to viceroys, and modern interpretations focus on responsible management or service.

 

***************Walter Crane was a Victorian era English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the later Nineteenth Century. Crane's work featured some of the more colourful and detailed beginnings of the child-in-the-garden motifs that would characterize many nursery rhymes and children's stories for decades to come. He was part of the British Arts and Crafts Movement and produced an array of paintings, illustrations, children's books, ceramic tiles, wallpapers and other decorative arts. Crane is also remembered for his creation of a number of iconic images associated with the international socialist movement.

 

****************Walter Crane's ‘An Alphabet of Old Friends’ was originally published in 1874 by George Routledge and Sons, featuring classic nursery rhymes and whimsical illustrations for each letter of the alphabet.

 

*****************The word "sissy" first appeared in American English around the 1840s-1850s as a term for "sister," but its modern derogatory sense, meaning an effeminate or weak boy/man, emerged later in the late 1880s, between 1885 and 1890 (which would have been around the time Clemance married her American fiancée, Harrison, making her use of the word not unusual having been influenced by her husband’s vernacular throughout forty years of marriage). This shift marked a tightening of gender expectations for boys around the turn of the 20th century, moving away from earlier times when young boys were closely associated with mothers and less rigid gender roles.

 

******************A finishing school is a private institution that teaches social graces, etiquette, and soft skills, traditionally for young women from elite families to prepare them for high society. These schools were highly desirable to finish a girl’s “education” (thus the term “finishing off”) before presenting her in society as a suitable candidate for marriage. These schools supplemented academic learning, focusing on deportment, fine dining, conversation, personal image, and cultural awareness, aiming to develop well-rounded individuals with poise and self-assurance for various social environments. Today finishing schools still exist, but the modern versions also cater to men and focus on professionalism, confidence, and cross-cultural communication.

 

*******************Although we often think of it as modern, the idiom "I'm all ears," meaning to be ready and eager to listen, first appeared in print in the Eighteenth Century, with early recorded uses in publications like The London Magazine in 1752. The phrase uses the ear as a symbol for total attention, becoming common in English during the 1800s to show someone is giving full interest to what's being said.

 

********************Wimpole Estate is a large estate containing Wimpole Hall, a country house located within the civil parish of Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, nine miles southwest of Cambridge. The house began in 1640 and its 3,000 acres of parkland and farmland are now owned by the National Trust. However, in 1926, when this chapter is set, it was owned by Thomas Charles Agar-Robartes, the 6th Viscount Clifden. The Wimpole Estate is the only visitor attraction in the National Trust portfolio that has a working farm, Home Farm, which is one of the largest centres for rare breeds in the UK.

 

*********************Admiral Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke, PC was a Royal Navy officer and Conservative politician. Hardwicke represented Reigate in the House of Commons between 1831 and 1832 and Cambridgeshire between 1832 and 1834. In 1834, on the death of his uncle, he became the fourth Earl of Hardwicke, and inherited the substantial Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire. He was a member of Lord Derby's cabinet in 1852 as Postmaster General and as Lord Privy Seal between 1858 and 1859. In 1852 he was sworn of the Privy Council. Born in 1799, he died in September 1873, aged 74, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son, Charles. The Countess of Hardwicke, the Honourable Susan Liddell died in November 1886.

 

**********************Charles Philip Yorke, 5th Earl of Hardwicke, PC, DL (23 April 1836 – 18 May 1897), styled Viscount Royston until 1873, was a British aristocrat, Conservative politician and dandy. An inveterate gambler in the circle of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) he was known as 'Champagne Charlie' after his death. He amassed huge debts, and the Wimpole Estate was put up for sale but failed to find a buyer. Lord Robartes took over the house and estate.

 

***********************Cinégraphic was a French film production company founded by director Marcel L'Herbier in the 1920s. It was established following a disagreement between L'Herbier and the Gaumont Company, a major film distributor, over the film "Don Juan et Faust". Cinégraphic was involved in the production of several films, including "Don Juan et Faust" itself. Cinégraphic focused on more experimental and artistic films.

 

************************Potton is an historic market town known for its Georgian square, and civil parish in the Central Bedfordshire district, about ten miles east of the county town of Bedford. The parish had a population of a few thousand in the 1920s, so it was significant enough to have a railway station, and a post and telegraph office. In 1783 the Great Fire of Potton destroyed a large part of the town. The parish church dates from the Thirteenth Century, and it is dedicated to Saint Mary. Potton's horse fairs were some of the largest in the country.

 

*************************Sutton Courtenay is a village and civil parish in the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire, England. It is situated on the south bank of the River Thames two miles south of Abingdon-on-Thames and three miles northwest of Didcot. Historically part of Berkshire until 1974 boundary changes, Sutton Courtenay is home to some important structures, such as the Abbey, the Manor House, All Saints' Church, a Twelfth Century Norman hall, the Sutton Bridge, and the Didcot power station.

 

**************************Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887. One of the songs performed by Desdemona is The Willow Song, which originated as an anonymous Elizabethan or earlier folk song used in the penultimate act of Shakespeare's Othello, which Verdi recreated for his opera. The earliest record of the Willow song is in a book of lute music from 1583, while Shakespeare's play was not written until 20 years later in 1604. The willow is the conventional symbol of disappointed love. In Othello, Othello believes that Desdemona has been unfaithful, despite her unyielding loyalty to him. Their love has become discontented at the hands of Iago and the Willow Song foreshadows Desdemona's fate.

 

***************************Born in 1770, William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication “Lyrical Ballads” in 1798. Wordsworth was Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850.

 

***************************Dame Nellie Melba was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early Twentieth Century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town.

 

This little tableau of items on a mantlepiece may look real to you, but it is in fact made up entirely of miniatures from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for include:

 

The hand painted tiny lead soldiers including the one on horseback are all tiny miniatures that I obtained through Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House shop in the United Kingdom. The wonderfully detailed red and white chess pieces also came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop. The set came in its own hand crafted compartmented wooden box with a working sliding lid which can be seen at the right of the photograph. The sailing ship is also a miniature artisan piece that came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop.

 

The children’s books you see stacked around and the Little Lord Fauntleroy stationery set are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. Each book is a 1:12 replica of a life sized volume with an authentic cover. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

Senator Philander Chase Knox House.Headquarters of General William Maxwell.Built 1738-1835

Love is a basic emotion, yet love’s a dangerous thing

A horribly vicious monster, held by a delicate string

The love of money is risky, the love of self even worse

The love of something forbidden, has netted mankind the curse

Instructed to love our neighbors, well-advised to not get caught

Despite an ancient profession, love cannot be sold or bought

Love is a matter of giving, which most are quite loath to do

Our focus is on receiving, if not—we’re ready to sue

Way too much is made of beauty, of riches and also fame

Loyalty is so forgotten, why bother to change your name?

The object of our affection, is often a movie star

Or maybe a rock musician, that’s strumming a fake guitar

Searching for love is normal, but finding it somewhat rare

Locating that certain someone, who’s game for a lifetime dare

But it’s when he fails to notice, or perhaps she spurns his date

That love ends in raw frustration, then quickly turns to hate

So take a lesson from nature, where matings are made for life

With no philandering husbands, and nary a wayward wife

Since each of us loves a puppy—we know their love is sincere

To express your love quite simply, just learn how to wag your rear!

 

Copyright © 2006 Jake Von Canon

The Bard of the Brazos

  

no rules, no limitations, no boundaries it's like an art

© All Rights Reserved by ajpscs

 

Everybody's Free

(to wear sunscreen)

Mary Schmich

Chicago Tribune

 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97... wear sunscreen.

 

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

 

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

 

I will dispense this advice now.

 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

 

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

 

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

 

Do one thing every day that scares you.

 

Sing.

 

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

 

Floss.

 

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

 

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

 

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

 

Stretch.

 

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.

 

Get plenty of calcium.

 

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

 

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

 

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

 

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

 

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

 

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

 

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

 

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

 

Travel.

 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

 

Respect your elders.

 

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

 

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

 

But trust me on the sunscreen.

  

After a violent shipwreck, billionaire playboy Oliver Queen was missing and presumed dead for 5 years before being discovered alive on a remote island in the North China Sea. When he returns home to Starling City, his devoted mother Moira, much-beloved sister Thea, and best friend Tommy welcome him home, but they sense Oliver has been changed by his ordeal on the island. While Oliver hides the truth about the man he has become, he desperately wants to make amends for the actions he took as the boy he was.

As Oliver reconnects with those closest to him, he secretly creates the persona of Arrow, a vigilante archer, to right the wrongs of his family, fight the ills of society and restore Starling City to its former glory. By day, Oliver plays the role of a wealthy, carefree, and careless philanderer he used to be, while carefully concealing the secret identity he turns to under the cover of darkness.

 

A lego version of the Tv show Arrow very detailed minifigure from Christo, this is version 2.0 for me since I replaced the original plain legs for these printed ones from eclipsegrafx, I'll post another one just to show the second version of its printed face, beforehand comments and faves are always well appreciated!

Ecuador

Ecuador

Knox Bridge

 

Named after Philander C. Knox (1855-1921) United States Senator from Pennsylvania who owned 256 acres of land near the bridge and General Henry Knox (1750-1806) an officer quartered at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-1778.

 

Built 1865 by Robert Russell

  

aka....

Valley Forge Park Bridge

Valley Forge Dam Bridge

General Knox Covered Bridge

   

The Postcard

 

A postally unused postcard that was published by Fotofolio of Box 661, Canal Sta., NY, NY. The photography was by Rollie McKenna. The card has a divided back.

 

Dylan Thomas

 

Dylan Marlais Thomas, who was born in Swansea on the 27th. October 1914, was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night' and 'And Death Shall Have No Dominion.'

 

Dylan's other work included 'Under Milk Wood' as well as stories and radio broadcasts such as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' and 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'.

 

He became widely popular in his lifetime, and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a roistering, drunken and doomed poet.

 

In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later.

 

Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' caught the attention of the literary world.

 

While living in London, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara. They married in 1937, and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy and Colm.

 

Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found it hard to earn a living as a writer. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the late 1940's brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.

 

Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950's. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, however, and he went on to record to vinyl such works as 'A Child's Christmas in Wales'.

 

During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on the 9th. November 1953, and his body was returned to Wales. On the 25th. November 1953, he was laid to rest in St Martin's churchyard in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire.

 

Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic and ingenious use of words and imagery. He is regarded by many as one of the great modern poets, and he still remains popular with the public.

 

-- Dylan Thomas - The Early Years

 

Dylan was born at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, the son of Florence Hannah (née Williams; 1882–1958), a seamstress, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from University College, Aberystwyth and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local grammar school.

 

Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior. The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home.

 

Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which means 'Son of the Sea', after Dylan ail Don, a character in The Mabinogion. Dylan's middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a Unitarian minister and poet whose bardic name was Gwilym Marles.

 

Dylan caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the 'Dull One.' When he broadcast on Welsh BBC, early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation, and gave instructions that it should be spoken as 'Dillan.'

 

The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.

 

Dylan's childhood featured regular summer trips to the Llansteffan Peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire, where his maternal relatives were the sixth generation to farm there.

 

In the land between Llangain and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem 'Fern Hill', but is portrayed more accurately in his short story, 'The Peaches'.

 

Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood, and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, and he was skilful in gaining attention and sympathy.

 

Thomas's formal education began at Mrs Hole's Dame School, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in Reminiscences of Childhood:

 

"Never was there such a dame school as ours,

so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with

the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons

drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom,

where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over

undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling

of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick

under the table during English literature".

 

In October 1925, Dylan Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading.

 

In his first year, one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. In June 1928, Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St. Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death.

 

During his final school years Dylan began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27th. April 1930, is entitled 'Osiris, Come to Isis'.

 

In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, only to leave under pressure 18 months later. Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.

 

In his free time, Dylan joined the amateur dramatic group at the Little Theatre in Mumbles, visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along Swansea Bay, and frequented Swansea's pubs, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles.

 

In the Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet Vernon Watkins.

 

-- 1933–1939

 

In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.

 

Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published:

 

-- 'And Death Shall Have no Dominion'

-- 'Before I Knocked'

-- 'The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'.

 

'And Death Shall Have no Dominion' appeared in the New English Weekly in May 1933:

 

'And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the

west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and

the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they

shall rise again

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion'.

 

When 'Light Breaks Where no Sun Shines' appeared in The Listener in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London - T. S. Eliot, Geoffrey Grigson and Stephen Spender. They contacted Thomas, and his first poetry volume, '18 Poems', was published in December 1934.

 

'18 Poems' was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic Desmond Hawkins writing that:

 

"The work is the sort of bomb

that bursts no more than once

in three years".

 

The volume was critically acclaimed, and won a contest run by the Sunday Referee, netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including Edith Sitwell and Edwin Muir. The anthology was published by Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers, and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors, including Philip Larkin.

 

In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Dylan introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends. The group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "The Kardomah Gang".

 

In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt.

 

On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him.

 

In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem 'The Hand That Signed the Paper' to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse.

 

In 1936, Dylan's next collection 'Twenty-five Poems' received much critical praise. In 1938, Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.

 

In early 1936, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara (1913–94), a 22-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed dancer of Irish and French descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and at the age of 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium.

 

Introduced by Augustus John, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's West End. Laying his head on her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed. Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met.

 

Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with Augustus John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and by the second half of 1936 they were courting. They married at the register office in Penzance, Cornwall, on the 11th. July 1937.

 

In early 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of Laugharne, Carmarthenshire. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on the 30th. January 1939.

 

By the late 1930's, Thomas was embraced as the "Poetic Herald" for a group of English poets, the New Apocalyptics. However Thomas refused to align himself with them, and declined to sign their manifesto.

 

He later stated that:

 

"They are intellectual muckpots

leaning on a theory".

 

Despite Dylan's rejection, many of the group, including Henry Treece, modelled their work on Thomas's.

 

During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930's, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the communists, as well as being decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist. He was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement, and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.

 

-- 1939–1945

 

In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as 'The Map of Love'.

 

Ten stories in his next book, 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in 'The Map of Love', and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.

 

Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances.

 

Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic John Davenport in Marshfield, Gloucestershire. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire 'The Death of the King's Canary', though due to fears of libel, the work was not published until 1976.

 

At the outset of the Second World War, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "An Unreliable Lung".

 

Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a reserved occupation, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service.

 

Saddened to see his friends going on active service, Dylan continued drinking, and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income. Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.

 

In February 1941, Swansea was bombed by the Luftwaffe in a three night blitz. Castle Street was one of many streets that suffered badly; rows of shops, including the Kardomah Café, were destroyed. Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick. Upset at the sight, he concluded:

 

"Our Swansea is dead".

 

Soon after the bombing raids, he wrote a radio play, 'Return Journey Home', which described the café as being "razed to the snow". The play was first broadcast on the 15th. June 1947. The Kardomah Café reopened on Portland Street after the war.

 

In May 1941, Thomas and Caitlin left their son with his grandmother at Blashford and moved to London. Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry, and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information (MOI). After initially being rebuffed, he found work with Strand Films, providing him with his first regular income since the Daily Post. Strand produced films for the MOI; Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942.

 

In five film projects, between 1942 and 1945, the Ministry of Information (MOI) commissioned Thomas to script a series of documentaries about both urban planning and wartime patriotism, all in partnership with director John Eldridge:

 

-- 'Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain'.

-- 'New Towns for Old' (on post-war reconstruction).

-- 'Fuel for Battle'.

-- 'Our Country' (1945) was a romantic tour of Great

Britain set to Thomas's poetry.

-- 'A City Reborn'.

 

Other projects included:

 

-- 'This Is Colour' (a history of the British dyeing industry).

-- 'These Are The Men' (1943), a more ambitious piece in which Thomas's verse accompanied Leni Riefenstahl's

footage of an early Nuremberg Rally.

-- 'Conquest of a Germ' (1944) explored the use of early antibiotics in the fight against pneumonia and tuberculosis.

 

In early 1943, Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage. The affairs either ran out of steam or were halted after Caitlin discovered his infidelity.

 

In March 1943, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter, Aeronwy, in London. They lived in a run-down studio in Chelsea, made up of a single large room with a curtain to separate the kitchen.

 

The Thomas family made several escapes back to Wales during the war. Between 1941 and 1943, they lived intermittently in Plas Gelli, Talsarn, in Cardiganshire. Plas Gelli sits close by the River Aeron, after whom Aeronwy is thought to have been named. Some of Thomas’ letters from Gelli can be found in his 'Collected Letters'.

 

The Thomases shared the mansion with his childhood friends from Swansea, Vera and Evelyn Phillips. Vera's friendship with the Thomases in nearby New Quay is portrayed in the 2008 film, 'The Edge of Love'.

 

In July 1944, with the threat of German flying bombs landing on London, Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain, Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing 'Holy Spring' and 'Vision and Prayer'.

 

In September 1944, the Thomas family moved to New Quay in Cardiganshire (Ceredigion), where they rented Majoda, a wood and asbestos bungalow on the cliffs overlooking Cardigan Bay. It was here that Thomas wrote the radio piece 'Quite Early One Morning', a sketch for his later work, 'Under Milk Wood'.

 

Of the poetry written at this time, of note is 'Fern Hill', believed to have been started while living in New Quay, but completed at Blaencwm in mid-1945. Dylan's first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon wrote that:

 

"His nine months in New Quay were a second

flowering, a period of fertility that recalls the

earliest days, with a great outpouring of poems

and a good deal of other material".

 

His second biographer, Paul Ferris, concurred:

 

"On the grounds of output, the bungalow

deserves a plaque of its own."

 

The Dylan Thomas scholar, Walford Davies, has noted that:

 

"New Quay was crucial in supplementing

the gallery of characters Thomas had to

hand for writing 'Under Milk Wood'."

 

-- Dylan Thomas's Broadcasting Years 1945–1949

 

Although Thomas had previously written for the BBC, it was a minor and intermittent source of income. In 1943, he wrote and recorded a 15-minute talk entitled 'Reminiscences of Childhood' for the Welsh BBC.

 

In December 1944, he recorded 'Quite Early One Morning' (produced by Aneirin Talfan Davies, again for the Welsh BBC), but when Davies offered it for national broadcast, BBC London initially turned it down.

 

However on the 31st. August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast 'Quite Early One Morning' nationally, and in the three subsequent years, Dylan made over a hundred broadcasts for the BBC, not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.

 

In the second half of 1945, Dylan began reading for the BBC Radio programme, 'Book of Verse', that was broadcast weekly to the Far East. This provided Thomas with a regular income, and brought him into contact with Louis MacNeice, a congenial drinking companion whose advice Thomas cherished.

 

On the 29th. September 1946, the BBC began transmitting the Third Programme, a high-culture network which provided further opportunities for Thomas.

 

He appeared in the play 'Comus' for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's 'Agamemnon', and Satan in an adaptation of 'Paradise Lost'.

 

Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who stated:

 

"He is useful should a younger

generation poet be needed".

 

He had an uneasy relationship with BBC management, and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem. Despite this, Thomas became a familiar radio voice and well-known celebrity within Great Britain.

 

By late September 1945, the Thomases had left Wales, and were living with various friends in London. In December, they moved to Oxford to live in a summerhouse on the banks of the Cherwell. It belonged to the historian, A. J. P. Taylor. His wife, Margaret, became Thomas’s most committed patron.

 

The publication of 'Deaths and Entrances' in February 1946 was a major turning point for Thomas. Poet and critic Walter J. Turner commented in The Spectator:

 

"This book alone, in my opinion,

ranks him as a major poet".

 

From 'In my Craft or Sullen Art,' 'Deaths and Entrances' (1946):

 

'Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon, I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art'.

 

The following year, in April 1947, the Thomases travelled to Italy, after Thomas had been awarded a Society of Authors scholarship. They stayed first in villas near Rapallo and then Florence, before moving to a hotel in Rio Marina on the island of Elba.

 

On their return to England Thomas and his family moved, in September 1947, into the Manor House in South Leigh, just west of Oxford, found for him by Margaret Taylor.

 

He continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts, and worked further on his ideas for 'Under Milk Wood'.

 

In March 1949 Thomas travelled to Prague. He had been invited by the Czech government to attend the inauguration of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union. Jiřina Hauková, who had previously published translations of some of Thomas' poems, was his guide and interpreter.

 

In her memoir, Hauková recalls that at a party in Prague, Thomas narrated the first version of his radio play 'Under Milk Wood.' She describes how he outlined the plot about a town that was declared insane, and then portrayed the predicament of an eccentric organist and a baker with two wives.

 

A month later, in May 1949, Thomas and his family moved to his final home, the Boat House at Laugharne, purchased for him at a cost of £2,500 in April 1949 by Margaret Taylor.

 

Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems. To see a photograph of the interior of Dylan's shed, please search for the tag 55DTW96

 

Just before moving into the Boat House, Thomas rented Pelican House opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents. They both lived there from 1949 until Dylan's father 'D.J.' died on the 16th. December 1952. His mother continued to live there until 1953.

 

Caitlin gave birth to their third child, a boy named Colm Garan Hart, on the 25th. July 1949.

 

In October 1949, the New Zealand poet Allen Curnow came to visit Thomas at the Boat House, who took him to his writing shed. Curnow recalls:

 

"Dylan fished out a draft to show me

of the unfinished 'Under Milk Wood'

that was then called 'The Town That

Was Mad'."

 

-- Dylan Thomas's American tours, 1950–1953

 

(a) The First American Tour

 

The American poet John Brinnin invited Thomas to New York, where in 1950 they embarked on a lucrative three-month tour of arts centres and campuses.

 

The tour, which began in front of an audience of a thousand at the Kaufmann Auditorium in the Poetry Centre in New York, took in a further 40 venues. During the tour, Thomas was invited to many parties and functions, and on several occasions became drunk - going out of his way to shock people - and was a difficult guest.

 

Dylan drank before some of his readings, although it is argued that he may have pretended to be more affected by the alcohol than he actually was.

 

The writer Elizabeth Hardwick recalled how intoxicated a performer he could be, and how the tension would build before a performance:

 

"Would he arrive only to break

down on the stage?

Would some dismaying scene

take place at the faculty party?

Would he be offensive, violent,

obscene?"

 

Dylan's wife Caitlin said in her memoir:

 

"Nobody ever needed encouragement

less, and he was drowned in it."

 

On returning to Great Britain, Thomas began work on two further poems, 'In the White Giant's Thigh', which he read on the Third Programme in September 1950:

 

'Who once were a bloom of wayside

brides in the hawed house

And heard the lewd, wooed field

flow to the coming frost,

The scurrying, furred small friars

squeal in the dowse

Of day, in the thistle aisles, till the

white owl crossed.'

 

He also worked on the incomplete 'In Country Heaven'.

 

In October 1950, Thomas sent a draft of the first 39 pages of 'The Town That Was Mad' to the BBC. The task of seeing this work through to production was assigned to the BBC's Douglas Cleverdon, who had been responsible for casting Thomas in 'Paradise Lost'.

 

However, despite Cleverdon's urgings, the script slipped from Thomas's priorities, and in early 1951 he took a trip to Iran to work on a film for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The film was never made, with Thomas returning to Wales in February, though his time there allowed him to provide a few minutes of material for a BBC documentary, 'Persian Oil'.

 

Early in 1951 Thomas wrote two poems, which Thomas's principal biographer, Paul Ferris, describes as "unusually blunt." One was the ribald 'Lament', and the other was an ode, in the form of a villanelle, to his dying father 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night". (A villanelle is a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated).

 

Despite a range of wealthy patrons, including Margaret Taylor, Princess Marguerite Caetani and Marged Howard-Stepney, Thomas was still in financial difficulty, and he wrote several begging letters to notable literary figures, including the likes of T. S. Eliot.

 

Margaret Taylor was not keen on Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if he had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there. She bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat. Thomas described the flat as his "London House of Horror", and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.

 

(b) The Second American Tour

 

Thomas undertook a second tour of the United States in 1952, this time with Caitlin - after she had discovered that he had been unfaithful on his earlier trip. They drank heavily, and Thomas began to suffer with gout and lung problems.

 

It was during this tour that the above photograph was taken.

 

The second tour was the most intensive of the four, taking in 46 engagements.

 

The trip also resulted in Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year. One of his works recorded during this time, 'A Child's Christmas in Wales', became his most popular prose work in America. The recording was a 2008 selection for the United States National Recording Registry, which stated that:

 

"It is credited with launching the

audiobook industry in the United

States".

 

(c) The Third American Tour

 

In April 1953, Thomas returned alone for a third tour of America. He performed a "work in progress" version of 'Under Milk Wood', solo, for the first time at Harvard University on the 3rd. May 1953. A week later, the work was performed with a full cast at the Poetry Centre in New York.

 

Dylan met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they put on their makeup.

 

During this penultimate tour, Thomas met the composer Igor Stravinsky. Igor had become an admirer of Dylan after having been introduced to his poetry by W. H. Auden. They had discussions about collaborating on a "musical theatrical work" for which Dylan would provide the libretto on the theme of:

 

"The rediscovery of love and

language in what might be left

after the world after the bomb."

 

The shock of Thomas's death later in the year moved Stravinsky to compose his 'In Memoriam Dylan Thomas' for tenor, string quartet and four trombones. The work's first performance in Los Angeles in 1954 was introduced with a tribute to Thomas from Aldous Huxley.

 

Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair.

 

During this time, Thomas fractured his arm falling down a flight of stairs when drunk. Reitell's doctor, Milton Feltenstein, put his arm in plaster, and treated him for gout and gastritis.

 

After returning home, Thomas worked on 'Under Milk Wood' in Wales before sending the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on the 15th. October 1953. It was copied and returned to Thomas, who lost it in a pub in London and required a duplicate to take to America.

 

(d) The Fourth American Tour

 

Thomas flew to the States on the 19th. October 1953 for what would be his final tour. He died in New York before the BBC could record 'Under Milk Wood'. Richard Burton featured in its first broadcast in 1954, and was joined by Elizabeth Taylor in a subsequent film. In 1954, the play won the Prix Italia for literary or dramatic programmes.

 

Thomas's last collection 'Collected Poems, 1934–1952', published when he was 38, won the Foyle poetry prize. Reviewing the volume, critic Philip Toynbee declared that:

 

"Thomas is the greatest living

poet in the English language".

 

There followed a series of distressing events for Dylan. His father died from pneumonia just before Christmas 1952. In the first few months of 1953, his sister died from liver cancer, one of his patrons took an overdose of sleeping pills, three friends died at an early age, and Caitlin had an abortion.

 

Thomas left Laugharne on the 9th. October 1953 on the first leg of his trip to America. He called on his mother, Florence, to say goodbye:

 

"He always felt that he had to get

out from this country because of

his chest being so bad."

 

Thomas had suffered from chest problems for most of his life, though they began in earnest soon after he moved in May 1949 to the Boat House at Laugharne - the "Bronchial Heronry", as he called it. Within weeks of moving in, he visited a local doctor, who prescribed medicine for both his chest and throat.

 

Whilst waiting in London before his flight in October 1953, Thomas stayed with the comedian Harry Locke and worked on 'Under Milk Wood'. Locke noted that Thomas was having trouble with his chest, with terrible coughing fits that made him go purple in the face. He was also using an inhaler to help his breathing.

 

There were reports, too, that Thomas was also having blackouts. His visit to the BBC producer Philip Burton a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout. On his last night in London, he had another in the company of his fellow poet Louis MacNeice.

 

Thomas arrived in New York on the 20th. October 1953 to undertake further performances of 'Under Milk Wood', organised by John Brinnin, his American agent and Director of the Poetry Centre. Brinnin did not travel to New York, but remained in Boston in order to write.

 

He handed responsibility to his assistant, Liz Reitell, who was keen to see Thomas for the first time since their three-week romance early in the year. She met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance. He looked pale, delicate and shaky, not his usual robust self:

 

"He was very ill when he got here."

 

After being taken by Reitell to check in at the Chelsea Hotel, Thomas took the first rehearsal of 'Under Milk Wood'. They then went to the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, before returning to the Chelsea Hotel.

 

(Bob Dylan, formerly Robert Zimmerman, used to perform at the White Horse; Dylan Thomas was his favourite poet, and it is highly likely that Bob adopted Dylan's first name as his surname).

 

The next day, Reitell invited Thomas to her apartment, but he declined. They went sightseeing, but Thomas felt unwell, and retired to his bed for the rest of the afternoon. Reitell gave him half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of phenobarbitone to help him sleep, and spent the night at the hotel with him.

 

Two days later, on the 23rd. October 1953, at the third rehearsal, Thomas said he was too ill to take part, but he struggled on, shivering and burning with fever, before collapsing on the stage.

 

The next day, 24th. October, Reitell took Thomas to see her doctor, Milton Feltenstein, who administered cortisone injections. Thomas made it through the first performance that evening, but collapsed immediately afterwards.

 

Dylan told a friend who had come back-stage:

 

"This circus out there has taken

the life out of me for now."

 

Reitell later said:

 

"Feltenstein was rather a wild doctor

who thought injections would cure

anything".

 

At the next performance on the 25th. October, his fellow actors realised that Thomas was very ill:

 

"He was desperately ill…we didn’t think

that he would be able to do the last

performance because he was so ill…

Dylan literally couldn’t speak he was so

ill…still my greatest memory of it is that

he had no voice."

 

On the evening of the 27th. October, Thomas attended his 39th. birthday party, but felt unwell, and returned to his hotel after an hour. The next day, he took part in 'Poetry and the Film', a recorded symposium at Cinema 16.

 

A turning point came on the 2nd. November. Air pollution in New York had risen significantly, and exacerbated chest illnesses such as Thomas's. By the end of the month, over 200 New Yorkers had died from the smog.

 

On the 3rd. November, Thomas spent most of the day in his room, entertaining various friends. He went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments. After returning to the hotel, he went out again for a drink at 2 am. After drinking at the White Horse, Thomas returned to the Hotel Chelsea, declaring:

 

"I've had eighteen straight

whiskies. I think that's the

record!"

 

However the barman and the owner of the pub who served him later commented that Thomas could not have drunk more than half that amount, although the barman could have been trying to exonerate himself from any blame.

 

Thomas had an appointment at a clam house in New Jersey with Todd on the 4th. November. When Todd telephoned the Chelsea that morning, Thomas said he was feeling ill, and postponed the engagement. Todd thought that Dylan sounded "terrible".

 

The poet, Harvey Breit, was another to phone that morning. He thought that Thomas sounded "bad". Thomas' voice, recalled Breit, was "low and hoarse". Harvey had wanted to say:

 

"You sound as though from the tomb".

 

However instead Harvey told Thomas that he sounded like Louis Armstrong.

 

Later, Thomas went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel. Dr. Feltenstein came to see him three times that day, administering the cortisone secretant ACTH by injection and, on his third visit, half a grain (32.4 milligrams) of morphine sulphate, which affected Thomas' breathing.

 

Reitell became increasingly concerned, and telephoned Feltenstein for advice. He suggested that she get male assistance, so she called upon the artist Jack Heliker, who arrived before 11 pm. At midnight on the 5th. November, Thomas's breathing became more difficult, and his face turned blue.

 

Reitell phoned Feltenstein who arrived at the hotel at about 1 am, and called for an ambulance. It then took another hour for the ambulance to arrive at St. Vincent's, even though it was only a few blocks from the Chelsea.

 

Thomas was admitted to the emergency ward at St Vincent's Hospital at 1:58 am. He was comatose, and his medical notes stated that:

 

"The impression upon admission was acute

alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain

by alcohol, for which the patient was treated

without response".

 

Feltenstein then took control of Thomas's care, even though he did not have admitting rights at St. Vincent's. The hospital's senior brain specialist, Dr. C. G. Gutierrez-Mahoney, was not called to examine Thomas until the afternoon of the 6th. November, thirty-six hours after Thomas' admission.

 

Dylan's wife Caitlin flew to America the following day, and was taken to the hospital, by which time a tracheotomy had been performed. Her reported first words were:

 

"Is the bloody man dead yet?"

 

Caitlin was allowed to see Thomas only for 40 minutes in the morning, but returned in the afternoon and, in a drunken rage, threatened to kill John Brinnin. When she became uncontrollable, she was put in a straitjacket and committed, by Feltenstein, to the River Crest private psychiatric detox clinic on Long Island.

 

It is now believed that Thomas had been suffering from bronchitis, pneumonia and emphysema before his admission to St Vincent's. In their 2004 paper, 'Death by Neglect', D. N. Thomas and Dr Simon Barton disclose that Thomas was found to have pneumonia when he was admitted to hospital in a coma.

 

Doctors took three hours to restore his breathing, using artificial respiration and oxygen. Summarising their findings, they conclude:

 

"The medical notes indicate that, on admission,

Dylan's bronchial disease was found to be very

extensive, affecting upper, mid and lower lung

fields, both left and right."

 

The forensic pathologist, Professor Bernard Knight, concurs:

 

"Death was clearly due to a severe lung infection

with extensive advanced bronchopneumonia.

The severity of the chest infection, with greyish

consolidated areas of well-established pneumonia,

suggests that it had started before admission to

hospital."

 

Thomas died at noon on the 9th. November 1953, having never recovered from his coma. He was 39 years of age when he died.

 

-- Aftermath of Dylan Thomas's Death

 

Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging, or even that Thomas had drunk himself to death. Later, speculation arose about drugs and diabetes.

 

At the post-mortem, the pathologist found three causes of death - pneumonia, brain swelling and a fatty liver. Despite Dylan's heavy drinking, his liver showed no sign of cirrhosis.

 

The publication of John Brinnin's 1955 biography 'Dylan Thomas in America' cemented Thomas's legacy as the "doomed poet". Brinnin focuses on Thomas's last few years, and paints a picture of him as a drunk and a philanderer.

 

Later biographies have criticised Brinnin's view, especially his coverage of Thomas's death. David Thomas in 'Fatal Neglect: Who Killed Dylan Thomas?' claims that Brinnin, along with Reitell and Feltenstein, were culpable.

 

FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Thomas's demise.

 

Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days, and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death.

 

Many sources have criticised Feltenstein's role and actions, especially his incorrect diagnosis of delirium tremens and the high dose of morphine he administered. Dr C. G. de Gutierrez-Mahoney, the doctor who treated Thomas while at St. Vincent's, concluded that Feltenstein's failure to see that Thomas was gravely ill and have him admitted to hospital sooner was even more culpable than his use of morphine.

 

Caitlin Thomas's autobiographies, 'Caitlin Thomas - Leftover Life to Kill' (1957) and 'My Life with Dylan Thomas: Double Drink Story' (1997), describe the effects of alcohol on the poet and on their relationship:

 

"Ours was not only a love story, it was

a drink story, because without alcohol

it would never had got on its rocking

feet. The bar was our altar."

 

Biographer Andrew Lycett ascribed the decline in Thomas's health to an alcoholic co-dependent relationship with his wife, who deeply resented his extramarital affairs.

 

In contrast, Dylan biographers Andrew Sinclair and George Tremlett express the view that Thomas was not an alcoholic. Tremlett argues that many of Thomas's health issues stemmed from undiagnosed diabetes.

 

Thomas died intestate, with assets worth £100. His body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne. Dylan's funeral, which Brinnin did not attend, took place at St Martin's Church in Laugharne on the 24th. November 1953.

 

Six friends from the village carried Thomas's coffin. Caitlin, without her customary hat, walked behind the coffin, with his childhood friend Daniel Jones at her arm and her mother by her side. The procession to the church was filmed, and the wake took place at Brown's Hotel. Thomas's fellow poet and long-time friend Vernon Watkins wrote The Times obituary.

 

Thomas's widow, Caitlin, died in 1994, and was laid to rest alongside him. Dylan's mother Florence died in August 1958. Thomas's elder son, Llewelyn, died in 2000, his daughter, Aeronwy in 2009, and his youngest son Colm in 2012.

 

-- Dylan Thomas's Poetry

 

Thomas's refusal to align with any literary group or movement has made him and his work difficult to categorise. Although influenced by the modern symbolism and surrealism movements, he refused to follow such creeds. Instead, critics view Thomas as part of the modernism and romanticism movements, though attempts to pigeon-hole him within a particular neo-romantic school have been unsuccessful.

 

Elder Olson, in his 1954 critical study of Thomas's poetry, wrote:

 

"There is a further characteristic which

distinguished Thomas's work from that

of other poets. It was unclassifiable."

 

Olson went on to say that in a postmodern age that continually attempted to demand that poetry have social reference, none could be found in Thomas's work, and that his work was so obscure that critics could not analyse it.

 

Thomas's verbal style played against strict verse forms, such as in the villanelle 'Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night'.

 

His images appear carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death, and new life that linked the generations.

 

Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity. He saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life. Therefore, each image engenders its opposite.

 

Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud. Explaining the source of his imagery, Thomas wrote in a letter to Glyn Jones:

 

"My own obscurity is quite an unfashionable one,

based, as it is, on a preconceived symbolism

derived (I'm afraid all this sounds woolly and

pretentious) from the cosmic significance of the

human anatomy".

 

Thomas's early poetry was noted for its verbal density, alliteration, sprung rhythm and internal rhyme, and some critics detected the influence of the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins, had taught himself Welsh, and used sprung verse, bringing some features of Welsh poetic metre into his work.

 

However when Henry Treece wrote to Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Thomas wrote back denying any such influence. Thomas greatly admired Thomas Hardy, who is regarded as an influence. When Thomas travelled in America, he recited some of Hardy's work in his readings.

 

Other poets from whom critics believe Thomas drew influence include James Joyce, Arthur Rimbaud and D. H. Lawrence.

 

William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, 'A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas', finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas.

 

Although Thomas described himself as the "Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive", he stated that the phrase "Swansea's Rimbaud" was coined by the poet Roy Campbell.

 

Critics have explored the origins of Thomas's mythological pasts in his works such as 'The Orchards', which Ann Elizabeth Mayer believes reflects the Welsh myths of the Mabinogion.

 

Thomas's poetry is notable for its musicality, most clear in 'Fern Hill', 'In Country Sleep', 'Ballad of the Long-legged Bait' and 'In the White Giant's Thigh' from Under Milk Wood.

 

Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:

 

"I should say I wanted to write poetry in the

beginning because I had fallen in love with

words.

The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes,

and before I could read them for myself I had

come to love the words of them. The words

alone.

What the words stood for was of a very

secondary importance ... I fell in love, that is

the only expression I can think of, at once,

and am still at the mercy of words, though

sometimes now, knowing a little of their

behaviour very well, I think I can influence

them slightly and have even learned to beat

them now and then, which they appear to

enjoy.

I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began

to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later,

to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I

had discovered the most important things, to

me, that could be ever."

 

Thomas became an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog' (1940) and 'Quite Early One Morning' (1954) showing he was capable of writing moving short stories. His first published prose work, 'After the Fair', appeared in The New English Weekly on the 15th. March 1934.

 

Jacob Korg believes that one can classify Thomas's fiction work into two main bodies:

 

-- Vigorous fantasies in a poetic style

-- After 1939, more straightforward

narratives.

 

Korg surmises that Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.

 

-- Dylan Thomas as a Welsh Poet

 

Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet, and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry. When he wrote to Stephen Spender in 1952, thanking him for a review of his Collected Poems, he added:

 

"Oh, & I forgot. I'm not influenced by

Welsh bardic poetry. I can't read Welsh."

 

Despite this, his work was rooted in the geography of Wales. Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that:

 

"Dylan's inspiration and imagination

were rooted in his Welsh background".

 

Caitlin Thomas wrote that:

 

"He worked in a fanatically narrow groove,

although there was nothing narrow about

the depth and understanding of his feelings.

The groove of direct hereditary descent in

the land of his birth, which he never in

thought, and hardly in body, moved out of."

 

Head of Programmes Wales at the BBC, Aneirin Talfan Davies, who commissioned several of Thomas's early radio talks, believed that the poet's whole attitude is that of the medieval bards.

 

Kenneth O. Morgan counter-argues that it is a difficult enterprise to find traces of cynghanedd (consonant harmony) or cerdd dafod (tongue-craft) in Thomas's poetry. Instead he believes that Dylan's work, especially his earlier, more autobiographical poems, are rooted in a changing country which echoes the Welshness of the past and the Anglicisation of the new industrial nation:

 

"Rural and urban, chapel-going and profane,

Welsh and English, unforgiving and deeply

compassionate."

 

Fellow poet and critic Glyn Jones believed that any traces of cynghanedd in Thomas's work were accidental, although he felt that Dylan consciously employed one element of Welsh metrics: that of counting syllables per line instead of feet. Constantine Fitzgibbon, who was his first in-depth biographer, wrote:

 

"No major English poet has

ever been as Welsh as Dylan".

 

Although Dylan had a deep connection with Wales, he disliked Welsh nationalism. He once wrote:

 

"Land of my fathers, and

my fathers can keep it".

 

While often attributed to Thomas himself, this line actually comes from the character Owen Morgan-Vaughan, in the screenplay Thomas wrote for the 1948 British melodrama 'The Three Weird Sisters'.

 

Robert Pocock, a friend from the BBC, recalled:

 

"I only once heard Dylan express an

opinion on Welsh Nationalism.

He used three words. Two of them

were Welsh Nationalism."

 

Although not expressed as strongly, Glyn Jones believed that he and Thomas's friendship cooled in the later years because he had not rejected enough of the elements that Thomas disliked, i.e. "Welsh nationalism and a sort of hill farm morality".

 

Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of the literary magazine 'Wales', Thomas's father wrote:

 

"I'm afraid Dylan isn't much

of a Welshman".

 

FitzGibbon asserts that Thomas's negativity towards Welsh nationalism was fostered by his father's hostility towards the Welsh language.

 

Critical Appraisal of Dylan Thomas's Work

 

Thomas's work and stature as a poet have been much debated by critics and biographers since his death. Critical studies have been clouded by Thomas's personality and mythology, especially his drunken persona and death in New York.

 

When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet, he opened by addressing the assembly:

 

"Dylan Thomas is now as much

a case history as a chapter in the

history of poetry".

 

He queried how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes. David Holbrook, who has written three books about Thomas, stated in his 1962 publication 'Llareggub Revisited':

 

"The strangest feature of Dylan Thomas's

notoriety - not that he is bogus, but that

attitudes to poetry attached themselves

to him which not only threaten the prestige,

effectiveness and accessibility to English

poetry, but also destroyed his true voice

and, at last, him."

 

The Poetry Archive notes that:

 

"Dylan Thomas's detractors accuse him

of being drunk on language as well as

whiskey, but whilst there's no doubt that

the sound of language is central to his

style, he was also a disciplined writer

who re-drafted obsessively".

 

Many critics have argued that Thomas's work is too narrow, and that he suffers from verbal extravagance. However those who have championed his work have found the criticism baffling. Robert Lowell wrote in 1947:

 

"Nothing could be more wrongheaded

than the English disputes about Dylan

Thomas's greatness ... He is a dazzling

obscure writer who can be enjoyed

without understanding."

 

Kenneth Rexroth said, on reading 'Eighteen Poems':

 

"The reeling excitement of a poetry-intoxicated

schoolboy smote the Philistine as hard a blow

with one small book as Swinburne had with

Poems and Ballads."

 

Philip Larkin, in a letter to Kingsley Amis in 1948, wrote that:

 

"No one can stick words into us

like pins... like Thomas can".

 

However he followed that by stating that:

 

"Dylan doesn't use his words

to any advantage".

 

Amis was far harsher, finding little of merit in Dylan's work, and claiming that:

 

"He is frothing at the mouth

with piss."

 

In 1956, the publication of the anthology 'New Lines' featuring works by the British collective The Movement, which included Amis and Larkin amongst its number, set out a vision of modern poetry that was damning towards the poets of the 1940's. Thomas's work in particular was criticised. David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated:

 

"Dylan Thomas was made to stand for

everything they detest, verbal obscurity,

metaphysical pretentiousness, and

romantic rhapsodizing".

 

Despite criticism by sections of academia, Thomas's work has been embraced by readers more so than many of his contemporaries, and is one of the few modern poets whose name is recognised by the general public.

 

In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Thomas was placed 10th.

 

Several of Dylan's poems have passed into the cultural mainstream, and his work has been used by authors, musicians and film and television writers.

 

The long-running BBC Radio programme, 'Desert Island Discs', in which guests usually choose their favourite songs, has heard 50 participants select a Dylan Thomas recording.

 

John Goodby states that this popularity with the reading public allows Thomas's work to be classed as vulgar and common. He also cites that despite a brief period during the 1960's when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place.

 

Goodby believes that Thomas has been mainly snubbed since the 1970's and has become: "... an embarrassment to twentieth-century poetry criticism", his work failing to fit standard narratives, and thus being ignored rather than studied.

 

-- Memorials to Dylan Thomas

 

In Swansea's maritime quarter is the Dylan Thomas Theatre, the home of the Swansea Little Theatre of which Thomas was once a member. The former Guildhall built in 1825 is now occupied by the Dylan Thomas Centre, a literature centre, where exhibitions and lectures are held and which is a setting for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. Outside the centre stands a bronze statue of Thomas by John Doubleday.

 

Another monument to Thomas stands in Cwmdonkin Park, one of Dylan's favourite childhood haunts, close to his birthplace. The memorial is a small rock in an enclosed garden within the park, cut by and inscribed by the late sculptor Ronald Cour with the closing lines from Fern Hill:

 

'Oh as I was young and easy

in the mercy of his means

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like

the sea'.

 

Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is now a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council. Thomas's writing shed is also preserved.

 

In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30. In 2005, the Dylan Thomas Screenplay Award was established. The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival.

 

In 1982 a plaque was unveiled in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. The plaque is also inscribed with the last two lines of 'Fern Hill'.

 

In 2014, the Royal Patron of The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival was Charles, Prince of Wales, who made a recording of 'Fern Hill' for the event.

 

In 2014, to celebrate the centenary of Thomas's birth, the British Council Wales undertook a year-long programme of cultural and educational works. Highlights included a touring replica of Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on 'Under Milk Wood', and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Thomas's work.

 

Towamensing Trails, Pennsylvania named one of its streets, Thomas Lane, in Dylan's honour.

 

-- List of Works by Dylan Thomas

 

-- 'The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The New Centenary Edition', edited and with Introduction by John Goodby. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014.

-- 'The Notebook Poems 1930–34', edited by Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1989.

-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Film Scripts', edited by John Ackerman. London: Dent 1995.

-- 'Dylan Thomas: Early Prose Writings', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent 1971.

-- 'Collected Stories', edited by Walford Davies. London: Dent, 1983.

-- 'Under Milk Wood: A Play for Voices', edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud. London: Dent, 1995.

-- 'On The Air With Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts', edited by Ralph Maud. New York: New Directions, 1991.

 

-- Correspondence

 

-- 'Dylan Thomas: The Collected Letters', edited by Paul Ferris (2017), 2 vols. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Vol I: 1931–1939

Vol II: 1939–1953.

-- 'Letters to Vernon Watkins', edited by Vernon Watkins (1957). London: Dent.

 

-- Posthumous Film Adaptations

 

-- 2016: Dominion, written and directed by Steven Bernstein, examines the final hours of Dylan Thomas.

-- 2014: Set Fire to the Stars, with Thomas portrayed by Celyn Jones, and John Brinnin by Elijah Wood.

-- 2014: Under Milk Wood BBC, starring Charlotte Church, Tom Jones, Griff Rhys-Jones and Michael Sheen.

-- 2014: Interstellar. The poem is featured throughout the film as a recurring theme regarding the perseverance of humanity.

-- 2009: A Child's Christmas in Wales, BAFTA Best Short Film. Animation, with soundtrack in Welsh and English. Director: Dave Unwin. Extras include filmed comments from Aeronwy Thomas.

-- 2007: Dylan Thomas: A War Films Anthology (DDHE/IWM).

-- 1996: Independence Day. Before the attack, the President paraphrases Thomas's "Do not go Gentle Into That Good Night".

-- 1992: Rebecca's Daughters, starring Peter O'Toole and Joely Richardson.

-- 1987: A Child's Christmas in Wales, directed by Don McBrearty.

-- 1972: Under Milk Wood, starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter O'Toole.

 

-- Opera Adaptation

 

-- 1973: Unter dem Milchwald, by German composer Walter Steffens on his own libretto using Erich Fried's translation of 'Under Milk Wood' into German, Hamburg State Opera. Also at the Staatstheater Kassel in 1977.

 

-- Final Thoughts From Dylan Thomas

 

"Somebody's boring me.

I think it's me."

 

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

 

"When one burns one's bridges,

what a very nice fire it makes."

 

"I think, that if I touched the earth,

It would crumble; It is so sad and

beautiful, so tremulously like a dream."

 

"An alcoholic is someone you don't

like, who drinks as much as you do."

 

"I hold a beast, an angel, and a madman in me,

and my enquiry is as to their working, and my

problem is their subjugation and victory, down

throw and upheaval, and my effort is their self-

expression."

 

"The only sea I saw was the seesaw sea

with you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy.

Let me shipwreck in your thighs."

 

"Why do men think you can pick love up

and re-light it like a candle? Women know

when love is over."

 

"Poetry is not the most important thing in life.

I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading

Agatha Christie and sucking sweets."

 

"And now, gentlemen, like your manners,

I must leave you."

 

"My education was the liberty I had to read

indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes

hanging out."

 

"I'm a freak user of words, not a poet."

 

"Our discreditable secret is that we don't

know anything at all, and our horrid inner

secret is that we don't care that we don't."

 

"It snowed last year too: I made a snowman

and my brother knocked it down and I knocked

my brother down and then we had tea."

 

"Though lovers be lost love shall not."

 

"Man’s wants remain unsatisfied till death.

Then, when his soul is naked, is he one

with the man in the wind, and the west moon,

with the harmonious thunder of the sun."

 

"And books which told me everything

about the wasp, except why."

 

"We are not wholly bad or good, who

live our lives under Milk Wood."

 

"Love is the last light spoken."

 

"... an ugly, lovely town ... crawling, sprawling ...

by the side of a long and splendid curving

shore. This sea-town was my world."

 

"I do not need any friends. I prefer enemies.

They are better company, and their feelings

towards you are always genuine."

 

"This poem has been called obscure. I refuse

to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence,

or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime,

it is more compressed."

 

"One: I am a Welshman; two: I am a drunkard;

three: I am a lover of the human race, especially

of women."

 

"I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they've ever

questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn't

know, because I won't ever dare ask that question."

 

"These poems, with all their crudities, doubts and

confusions, are written for the love of man and in

praise of God, and I'd be a damn fool if they weren't."

 

"Before you let the sun in, mind he wipes his shoes."

 

"Nothing grows in our garden, only washing.

And babies."

 

"Make gentle the life of this world."

 

"A worm tells summer better than the clock,

the slug's a living calendar of days; what shall

it tell me if a timeless insect says the world

wears away?"

 

"Time passes. Listen. Time passes. Come

closer now. Only you can hear the houses

sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt

and silent black, bandaged night."

 

"Rhianon, he said, hold my hand, Rhianon.

She did not hear him, but stood over his bed

and fixed him with an unbroken sorrow. Hold

my hand, he said, and then: Why are you

putting the sheet over my face?"

 

"Come on up, boys - I'm dead."

 

"Life is a terrible thing, thank God."

nrhp # 74001423- Gaston's Mill-Lock No. 36, Sandy and Beaver Canal District- Gaston's Mill was built by Samuel Conkle around 1837, on land that was then part of his father Jacob's farm; the land came into his possession in 1843 after his father's death. Conkle employed the mill with a wide range of grains, including corn, wheat, oats, and buckwheat.[6] In 1849, he sold the mill along with the land and water privileges to James Gaston. The mill is named for Philander Gaston, James Gaston's son, who owned the mill longer than any other owner. The mill was water powered until Gaston sold it in 1886.[4] Subsequently, the source of power changed to steam and then to gasoline. The mill was in operation until World War I.[7] At its peak, the mill produced nearly 200 pounds of flour per day.

 

from Wikipedia

contact me on nick.volpe3@hotmail.com for use of this image.

 

This adorable juvenile opossum was found on a small sapling at night in Peru. They are known to be the most fierce of all Opossum species, regularly putting on an aggressive display and fighting off larger predators.

 

Èyùn the Seventeenth is a mostly likable future king from the year 8493. In this year, events set in motion in the present (year 776) day. He has come back and found only misfortune for a period: he worked as a sellsword prior to being found by Èyùn the Second (my Self-MOC). He's a terrible philanderer, and hides his serious demeanor in favor of a morale and hope boosting smile, but is among the friendliest of the Ghost Toa.

However, his firearms didn't make the jump back with him, and he now relies on an energy lance and throwing metal blades as defence.

 

Based on two MegaMan characters- GutsMan and MetalMan, and Fire Emblem's Inigo. (Which has also usurped Metroid Fusion as my favorite game of all time)

Czech Republic - Old Movie from Year 1911

Currently houses the Horace Wilcox Library at Valley Forge.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be

it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by

scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable

than my own meandering

experience…I will dispense this advice now.

 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not

understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.

But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and

recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before

you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you

imagine.

 

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as

effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing

bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that

never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm

on some idle Tuesday.

 

Do one thing everyday that scares you

 

Sing

 

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with

people who are reckless with yours.

 

Floss

 

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes

you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with

yourself.

 

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you

succeed in doing this, tell me how.

 

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

 

Stretch

 

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your

life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they

wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year

olds I know still don’t.

 

Get plenty of calcium.

 

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

 

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe

you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky

chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t

congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your

choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body,

use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people

think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever

own..

 

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

 

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

 

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

 

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for

good.

 

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the

people most likely to stick with you in the future.

 

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you

should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and

lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you

knew when you were young.

 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live

in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

 

Travel.

 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will

philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize

that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were

noble and children respected their elders.

 

Respect your elders.

 

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,

maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one

might run out.

 

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will

look 85.

 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who

supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of

fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the

ugly parts and recycling it for more than

it’s worth.

 

But trust me on the sunscreen…

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI&feature=related

I have kinda been in a weird place the last few weeks. Not sure how I feel about Flickr and some of the stuff that goes on around here. Or even why I bother taking photos......

 

I wanted to do an HBCCT photo for today but I didn't know what to do, so I checked out Musically Challenged for inspiration. Thats where I found this song: Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen!. I sat and listened to it and started smiling and I realized that this was exactly what I needed. The photo doesn't matter, it's the message of the song.

 

Baz Luhrmann - "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen!" If you can't listen then just read it :-)

 

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99...

 

Wear Sunscreen

 

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

 

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You're not as fat as you imagine.

 

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

 

Do one thing everyday that scares you

 

Sing

 

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

 

Floss

 

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind…the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

 

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

 

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

 

Stretch

 

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds know still don't.

 

Get plenty of calcium.

 

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

 

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own..

 

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

 

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

 

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

 

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

 

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

 

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

 

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

 

Travel.

 

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

 

Respect your elders.

 

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

 

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time it's 40, it will look 85.

 

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

 

But trust me on the sunscreen...

 

Happy Big Cushy Chair Tuesday everyone !

 

I was tagged by Toni_Catherine quite a while ago to do this:

Name: Jason

Gender: Male

Age: 41

Where You're From: South Dakota

Eye Color: Hazel/green

Hair Color: Brown

Favorite Sport: Snowboarding

Favorite Color: Red

Favorite Band: Rush

Siblings: Two brothers and one sister

Tattoos: none

Piercings: none

Hobbies: photography, sports of almost any kind, drinking beer, being happy!

 

I was also tagged by emeraldgirl to take a photo of my favorite rings/necklace, jewelry, etc. and explain why it is your favorite. Well....I don't wear any jewelery, not even a watch and for that matter I don't wear any accessories of any kind. No hats, no sun glasses, no nothing. The only thing I put on everyday other then clothes are my contacts, so I can see!

 

(8 of 52)²