Hooptedoodle #315 - The Sun Made It Again

Yesterday, 07:50 - looking more or less due east, East Lothian, Scotland. Another interesting sky - this shot isn't from the usual window overlooking our garden, this was taken by my wife, here on the farm, on the way back from the school run. Our house is somewhere in the woods ahead. That may be my personal raincloud heading this way.

When it got going, the day was fine - a bit blustery and definitely colder, but sunny.

Later I hope to have some pictures of some more troops from the painting factory...

Hooptedoodle #314 - October - Unusual Visitor (and other stuff)

Nice, sunny day today - cold first thing in the morning, then the sun shone all day. We have started putting some food out for the birds again - starting with a suet block on the apple tree. Much excitement among the humble sparrows and dunnocks, but we also got a couple of visitors we seldom see here. They are not rare locally, but they don't come here.

Motacilla cinerea - Grey Wagtail

Grey Wagtails - despite the name, much more colourful than their cousins the Pied Wagtail, who are regulars here. Whatever the weather did in 2018, it has certainly produced a lot of insects in October, so the Wagtails of all varieties are very busy, and very entertaining they are too.

Photos, as ever, courtesy of the Contesse Foy.

While we are on about insects, this is the time of year when we get one of our visits from Cluster Flies - they arrive in large numbers, but always in the same rooms, on the same windows (how do they know?). They are harmless, in the sense that they don't bite, and they don't contaminate your food, but the sheer number of them is a menace. In October they come looking for somewhere to hibernate, and really they are small enough to go anywhere they want, so they are impossible to keep out if they wish to get in. A few years ago we had a scary episode when the Contesse discovered there were thousands of the beggars wintering in the tiny gap between the window sashes and the frames in a bedroom which overlooks the woods at the back of the house. Regular checking for uninvited squatters, occasional applications of the vacuum cleaner and some understated Raid spray in the crevices in the window, and we have had no repeats.

Don't panic - this isn't our photo - this is just what they look like

Their life cycle is interesting, if you are not eating a blueberry muffin at the moment. They swarm and mate in the early Spring (when they emerge from wherever it is they have been hibernating), and the females lay their eggs near earthworm burrows. When they hatch, the larvae tunnel down, attach themselves to earthworms and spend a gruesome summer in the dark, underground. When the weather turns colder (about now, in fact) the new adult flies emerge in great numbers, and set off looking for desirable winter quarters such as our bedroom windows. So you get two swarms a year - one at this time, when they move into a sheltered winter home, then another in the Spring, when it's time to wake up and mate. As far as I know, that's about it for Cluster Flies - seems a pretty pointless existence, though the earthworms might have something to add.

We also have a fine crop of toadstools in the lawn, which is seasonal - lots of moss in the lawn, plenty of rain recently, and bingo - here they are again. The last mowing of the lawns (which will be a little late this year because the long Summer has meant that the grass is still growing after we would have expected it to pack in) will get rid of them, and things can go to sleep until next year.

Oh yes - Dod the Gardener has planted a load more crocus bulbs in the grass verge in the lane, so we should get a nice show in the early Spring. Something to look forward to.

[I think Dod goes to sleep in the Winter as well, boys and girls.]


***** Late Edit *****

It is now the following morning, and the aforementioned Dod has already dug out the toadies (they are unpleasantly squishy) and is now applying lawn sand to - that's right, you  guessed - the lawns. This stuff is to be applied by a push-along rotary spreader, so we have jointly been searching out the reading glasses and reading the instructions on the plastic sacks. 

Right.

The instructions on the bag say you should go to the manufacturer's website at www.gardenhealth.com to get the correct setting for your particular job and your particular spreader (ours is a Scott's EasyGreen - I knew you wanted to know this). In fact I don't live too far from our garden, so was able to do this without much difficulty, and took a shortened version of a large printout for Dod's enlightenment. Set to number 30 on the adjuster, it says, and do the lawns twice, at right angles, in a sort of tartan pattern. First problem I had was trying to do the arithmetic in my head, before my first coffee. The table from the website says this will give you about 112-135gm/sq.m - at two passes, I estimate that my 2 large sacks of lawn sand will cover about one-third of one of the 3 lawns, though each sack is claimed to treat 200 sq.m. We have something like 300 sq.m of lawns. Spinning of head - does not compute.

Dod sets the trap-door in the bottom of the spreader to number 30, and can see right away that the thing is going to empty itself far too quickly. Thus he proposes to guess a reduced setting, see how thickly the sand goes on, and go over it again if it isn't enough. That, we agreed, is easier than trying to scoop the stuff back up if we run out. Something bothers me about this. Apart from the collapse of my ability with fractions (which is only one of a number of such concerns...), I have this mental image of a groundsman, half a mile from the nearest electricity, at the end of the cricket field somewhere, probably working in the rain, desperately trying to get a signal on his mobile phone to access the flaming website.

The triumph of gratuitous science.

What are we doing here? The lawn sand manufacturer has instructed us where to get details of the spreader settings (which may or may not be correct), but it isn't exactly handy, is it? Which banana thought this was good customer service? I suspect there will be a big increase in the number of mental health issues among gardeners and groundsmen in the near future.

*******************  

Hooptedoodle #313 - Shepherd's Warning

06:17, 18th Sept, South-East Scotland, looking - erm - South-East.

Only seems a few weeks since it was getting light at 3am - something shifted while I wasn't paying attention. This is actually a fine morning, after a very wet night, but the forecast is a bit wild - winds and more rain. Looks nice, though?

Photograph by permission of Contesse Foy, 2018. 

Hooptedoodle #312 - The Limpet and the Critic

This evening I have the house to myself, since my wife and my son have gone to an information evening at his school.

I like to dine simply on these occasions, so I made myself a sandwich of peanut butter (crunchy, of course), Jarlsberg cheese and just a touch of Marmite. Pretty good - all I needed apart from this was a glass of water and I was happy enough. Switched on BBC Radio 3 and caught part of a concert given in Edinburgh by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Main item on the programme was to be Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony, of which I've never been very fond, but we kicked off with Thea Musgrave's Turbulent Landscapes, which I really don't know at all. The theme of Ms Musgrave's suite is a musical interpretation of 6 paintings by the artist JMW Turner, and batting at No.4 was Turner's very quirky War: The Exile and the Rock Limpet, which I hadn't thought about in years. I have always found this picture very haunting, though I never quite knew what to make of it. You may write an essay on it for your homework - 1000 words will be fine. Perhaps you could bring out the implied contrast between imperial glory and the minutiae of Nature - or any other theme you like will be fine. You will have marks deducted if you mention the size of Napoleon's hat, by the way. Reference to the British guard will be OK, however.

Mention of marks deducted reminds me of a private joke which my late cousin Dave and I kept going for years. We lived through a period when it seemed that new works of art were judged by the weight of the justificatory text which accompanied them, rather than the work itself. We once attended a concert at the Liverpool Philharmonic at which the first item was a recently-commissioned orchestral piece about the coming of the Industrial Revolution to agricultural Britain (well, England, I guess). The composer himself gave an introductory talk lasting about a quarter of an hour, in which he described his interest in the subject, how (and why) he had been approached to compose the piece, and how he  had attempted with contrasting tone colours and symmetrical harmonies to create an image of smoke and fire against a rural idyll. He then conducted the piece himself, and I swear it lasted about 4 minutes.

Dave and I were transfixed. We were about 17, and we immediately declared war on critics, radio announcers and all pseuds in general, and we invented a scoring system, which awarded "faults", rather in the style of equestrian show-jumping. The speaker/writer could collect single faults for the use of undergraduate gushiness such as "lambent" or "plangent" (etc), and there were also a few biggies for words or phrases we really disliked. A "clear round" was a rarity - a text or talk which contained no offending words at all.

Back to the present, the night of the peanut-butter sandwich. Tonight's announcer on the BBC (who was only reading a prepared script about  the Musgrave piece, poor sod) scored 4 faults for "juxtaposition", which is always accompanied by a faint klaxon, but otherwise performed well enough. Dave died and dropped out of the game years ago, but I still keep my hand in with the scoring system when I get the chance. I have a few newbies since Dave's time - "Zeitgeist" gets 8 faults - which is a double-refusal or something - and I have a few others.

This all smacks a little of inverted snobbery, which is never attractive, but it really just reflects a long-held prejudice against the posturing bourgeoisie - though it occurs to me that it may reveal me as the biggest pseud of the lot!



**** Late Edit ****

Because the comments got me interested again, I thought I'd put a link to the relevant Part IV of Thea Musgrave's suite, as discussed.

Now here's an interesting idea: after you've heard the music, you could go and paint a picture giving your idea of what it portrays. Then someone could write another new piece of music interpreting your new picture, and so on, for ever. Great, eh? Like the most pretentious game of Chinese Whispers in history. If we produce a variation on the showjumping analogy, the limp little quote from La Marseillaise must be worth 8 faults on its own? And, just in case you missed it (because you were asleep?), there is a reprise at the end, which is no more inspiring and must be worth a further 8 - no VAR allowed.

****  ****

Hooptedoodle #311 - The Unbeatable Strategy - Do Nothing

There are few things more pathetic than the rage of an old man, so I'll spare you any tantrums this morning. I have to say, though, that I am saddened - though not really surprised - to observe that all charges against Sir Norman Bettison in connection with the Hillsborough disaster (1989) have now been dropped by the UK Crown Prosecution Service.

Given time, everything will pass away

If anyone feels suddenly weary, or stifles a yawn at mention of Hillsborough after all these years then I understand, but thereby lies the central theme. It was a very long time ago. That has always been the last hope of those with something to hide, or those who are already known to be responsible. It was a long time ago - if this can be spun out for long enough, there will be no-one left alive with any accurate recollection or any cause to pursue. I always knew this would be the last remaining strategy, it's just a bit of a shock when you see it in the papers, after all the noise and hypocrisy.

To remind ourselves (all right - myself), 96 football fans died at the Hillsborough soccer ground, in Sheffield, at a match in 1989 - crushed to death - killed by a combination of poor safety provision, bad crowd management on the part of the authorities and (allegedly) inadequate emergency support on the day. I wasn't involved, I wasn't there, I didn't lose any friends or relatives in the accident (though, like everyone with connections with the City of Liverpool, I know a number of people who were directly affected). Subsequently there were a number of enquiries into the matter, none of which seemed to clear up very much. As I understand it, in 1997 the then UK Home Secretary, Jack Straw, advised Prime Minister Tony Blair that digging up Hillsborough again for yet another investigation was unwise, since (in effect) everyone was getting a bit fed up with the whole business. Work to set up another public enquiry at that time appears to have been hamstrung by a directive that enough time had been spent on this, and everyone would lose credibility if it found anything new.

The whole thing seems to have stunk to high heaven right from the beginning. From a completely personal point of view, I don't find that much of a surprise. Over my lifetime, I have sort of grown used to things which stank to high heaven, of cover-ups at all levels of officialdom to suit the political ends of the day. If in your heart you have a little light which believes that justice and truth will win in the end then I am glad for you and I envy you. My little light went out many years ago.

I have lived in a state of disbelief since September 2012, when an independent enquiry into Hillsborough overturned much of the previous work, and produced a stack of evidence which changed the earlier findings - there had been incompetence, there had been a massive cover-up and there were people who would be held accountable. It wasn't, after all, simply the dead fans' own fault.

I was actually in Liverpool on the day the report was published, and I saw crowds of people singing hymns in the rain outside St George's Hall - it felt unreal - a bit like when the Berlin Wall came down. The beginnings of the idea that there might, somehow, still be some Justice for the 96 was very strange, and yet it was really happening - there were apologies from the Prime Minister in the House of Commons (by this time it was David Cameron) for the previous failure of the legal system and of the Establishment. Good Lord, even the bloody Sun apologised (which somehow redefines, and cheapens, the whole concept of contrition). Whatever next?

Well, I guess I always knew what would happen next. We would enter a stage of official foot-dragging. A few token (lightweight) sacrifices would be lined up to carry the can, and then the system would wait until the passage of time washed away the case against the rest. Things proceeded, shall we say, very slowly. The identified bad guys came in various categories - those who had done their job badly at the time, and those who orchestrated the terrifying cover-up - including falsification of evidence and witness statements. Six years later, a couple of days ago, it still seemed unbelievable that we had got to the point where six prime suspects were now charged and sentence would proceed, but it was, apparently, going ahead (if we lived long enough).

Five of those now charged and held to be accountable are to return to the court in Preston - I'm not sure when, and I'm not sure if this next session will actually get as far as sentencing - my confidence in that is not helped by yesterday's news

Put this in perspective. Bettison was not directly involved in the tragedy, but has been a high-profile prime mover in the (alleged) blame-shifting and misrepresentation which has followed. Also - let's face it - he is an easy guy to dislike, but it's necessary to remember that he is a minor player in this. In the week the Independent Enquiry delivered in 2012, Bettison was in the papers and on TV, re-stating the original police version of events. Now that the charges have been dropped against him, he has the lack of grace to claim publicly that he is vindicated. No he bloody isn't. He is a very lucky boy indeed. The official foot-dragging paid off for him; he got off on a technicality. The case against him (telling lies in a public office, which in theory is more serious than it sounds) finally collapsed because it relied on three chief witnesses - one has died, and one of the others (now 85) shows some inconsistency in her evidence. Time up - the CPS says that's enough, the charges are dropped, and Sir Norman can go back to his public speaking and selling his justificatory books. If he has any integrity at all, he will go and sit in a very quiet, dark corner, and have a good think about himself.

What next? One theory is that dropping the Bettison charges is just a try-out. If the world doesn't erupt, and God doesn't strike us all down for this, then we can expect any subsequent sentences on the other five to be very trivial indeed. Well, if I were a betting man, I would risk a small punt that the lawyer who fiddled with the evidence and the then-secretary of Sheffield Wednesday (whose ground it is) might be the fall guys. I suspect the senior police officers will walk out of there with a stern warning. It's hardly going to affect their careers now, is it?

You see, it was a very long time ago, and the world has got pretty fed up with us lot from the Self-Pitying City of Liverpool. Move on - nothing to see here.

Hooptedoodle #310a - Further Adventures of Batty...

[Spoiler: Batty has a short rest on top of a stone wall, then climbs up a tree and flies off home into the woods. If this goes viral, I'm going to be kicking myself for not putting adverts in the blog.]

Hooptedoodle #310 - (Unintentional) Wildlife Rescue

I haven't tried directly uploading video to Blogger before, so this may not work, which means you'll never get to read this...

There's been some discussion of accidents involving wildlife recently, here and on Pierre le Poilu's fine blog page. Here's more of the same, but if I can get the videos to upload this should be a little more like daytime TV.

Episode 1 - The Baby Swallow

At the moment we are still troubled with nesting swallows in our woodshed, despite the ingenious introduction of a fake owl to scare them away. To put this into context, we actually like the swallows, but they make a dreadful mess of the place. If we can stop them getting in next year that will be a positive step. Mind you, we said that at the end of last Summer, too.

Anyway, this is a tale of a swallow that isn't one of ours - the Contesse was at Tescos the other day and found a baby swallow which had fallen off their roof. It seemed unharmed, if a little groggy, but it was right in the pedestrian footway, so she moved it to a safe place where its relatives could find it and take it home (or whatever). We just know this story will have a happy ending - it had better, the poor little thing is due to fly away to Africa in a few weeks. I'm sure it will be all right.

And - if it works - here's a short video of the little chap being rescued...

Episode 2 - The Bat

The business with the swallow was a few days ago. Today's excitement came when my wife was getting ready for her exercise session. Unwisely, a pipistrelle bat had decided to take a nap in her sports towel. Happily, both parties survived their chance meeting, and my wife had the advantage of having her pulse-rate nicely revved up before she started her static-bike workout. I took the trespasser outside into the garden. He seemed well enough, and we put him in a protected spot under the hedge to get his bearings.

We'll assume that is another happy ending. That's enough for this week, thank you.

Hooptedoodle #309 - What a To-Doo

A bit of a Scots play on words there, but no matter. This morning I went into the village very early - I had a parcel to post. Our post office opens at 8:30, which is quite civilised really, and at present our local arts and music festival is on, which means things get very busy later on - especially since some genius has also decided this is just the time to dig up the streets in the town centre, and as a result we have parking areas coned off, temporary traffic lights - all that.

So the early shift made sense. I got to the post office just after 8:30, did the necessary business and even had time and space for a quick chat with the manager. Heading back to my car I became aware of a minor stooshie developing across the road. Goodness me.

Stock picture of unharmed wood pigeon, nowhere near here

It seems a wood-pigeon had flown into a window somewhere high above the street, and had fallen to the pavement, where it now lay, twitching, eyes closed, apparently gasping its last - opening and shutting its beak, anyway. The worst of it was that a middle-aged lady had witnessed the incident, and she was now in mid-conniption, shrieking and carrying on in fine style. Suitably alarmed, the staff from Greggs (the bakers, next door) came out and swept her into the cafe, and coffee was produced. Since there is not much else to gawp at so early in the morning, I suddenly found I, too, was in Greggs. I was idly wondering whether there might be some complimentary sausage rolls on the go as well as the coffee.

The star of the episode was in full flow - sobbing. What distressed her most, she said, was that she couldn't help thinking that her husband would simply have broken the poor thing's neck, to put it out if its misery. It was only at about this point that the Greggs people realised that all this fuss was connected with an accident to a pigeon - the lady hadn't simply been taken ill.

A couple of us went out to see whether the tragic pigeon had died yet, but it was gone. The cause of all the upset appears to have picked himself up, shaken his head, and flown away. Probably a smart move.

Next week - Dog Heard Barking...

Hooptedoodle #308 - An Unknown Uncle

Back in my mother's archives - more from Cousin Dave's notes on family history (the last, incomplete work of one of the world's happiest librarians). Don't worry, this isn't the start of a whole new blog.

Starting point is the same people I was writing about yesterday - in particular the immediate family of Robert James Moore (1875-1930), the gentle, big man from an Irish family who was a coal merchant in Birkenhead and also drove armoured cars in the desert in WW1. [As an aside, it is a sad coincidence that RJM died of prostate cancer at 54 - which is the same illness and the same age which took away Cousin Dave - no matter.]

Robert James Moore married a very vigorous woman - Winifred Agnes Booth. She had a difficult childhood - it's her family I'm going to write a bit about today - beset with some real hardship. She became a local legend in Birkenhead. She was a devout Fabian socialist, and a Quaker (I was surprised to learn), and a prominent Labour firebrand on Birkenhead Town Council for many years. For such a small town, Birkenhead has a remarkable history of social innovation - first wash houses, first public parks, you name it - and that tradition was strongly embraced by Winifred. For all her good works, she seems, in fact, to have been something of a monster - she completely dominated her two sons (particularly my maternal grandfather) and must have worn out her poor, quiet husband. My mother remembers her as "a right battle axe", in fact, the actual wording was "a right, fat battle axe" - the grandchildren were terrified of her, and one of the great joys of my mum's childhood in Paris was the occasion when Grandma Winifred visited them and sat on a chair in the girls' bedroom, to lecture them about something or other (as was her way). The chair, bless it, broke under the strain and left Councillor WA Moore stuck fast for some time, her regal derrière protruding majestically from the fractured seat.

This is my great-great-grandmother, Sarah Jane Miller, with
her second husband and their son - anybody have any clues
about the cap badge?

Let's not dwell on Winifred - enough has been written and said about her over the years, and she surely worked very hard to ensure this was so. No, today's tale is really about Winifred's mother, a much more unassuming person, it seems. It's not an entirely cheerful story, to be sure, she had to overcome more than her fair share of trouble, but it also throws up another relative I didn't even know I had.

Sarah Jane Miller was from an Irish family (from Galway - there must have been some English families in Victorian Liverpool, but it seems I'm not related to any of them), and she married a Scotsman, Richard Pithie Booth (he came from Peterculter, near Aberdeen). They had 5, possibly 6 children before Mr Booth was killed in an accident at Birkenead Docks in about 1890 - the Dock Authority refused to pay the normal compensation for such an accident because there was some dispute about whether Booth was officially supposed to be at work that day. Sarah and her family were left destitute, and she became a teacher in the village school at Bidston. One of her sons left home very early to go to sea, to help support his mother.

Eventually she remarried; a widower, another Scotsman (yes, all right), from Kirkcudbright, named William Beattie, who was a master bookbinder and whose business appears in trade listings for Birkenhead from 1883 onward. Beattie had children from his previous marriage, so the combined family was large, though now quite prosperous. In later life Sarah became active in the Birkenhead Cooperative Society and the Cooperative Women's Guild.

I knew some of this, in very little detail, but I never realised that William Beattie and Sarah had a child together. There he is in the picture - this is James - that's (let's see) my mother's father's mother's half-brother, James. Not a very close relative of mine, then, but I never knew he existed. He hardly did - James Beattie was killed in France in 1917, aged 19. This photo, which must have been taken in 1916 or 1917, was published in the Birkenhead News and the Wirral Advertiser in December 1923, after Sarah - who had become quite a prominent citizen after her personal struggles - passed away.

So there you go - a complete relative I had never been aware of.

I promise not to unload any more family history for a while. Back to the toy soldiers - I'm involved in a wargame this coming weekend...!

***** Late Edit *****

OK - did some further hunting around.

The cap badge is clearly that of the Cheshire Regt - that would make sense, since Birkenhead was in Cheshire in those days.

And I found great-great-uncle Jim. My dates were a bit out, but the idea was correct.

1 South Hill Rd, Birkenhead today, courtesy of Google Maps (on the
left of the two houses)

He was James Wallace Beattie, son of William Beattie, of 1 South Hill Road, Birkenhead. He was with the 10th Bn, Cheshire Regt, which, as part of the 75th Brigade, landed in France in Sept 1915. His serial number was 49435. Private JW Beattie was killed on 11th October 1916, almost certainly at the Battle for Ancre Heights, which followed the Battle of Thiepval Ridge. The history notes that the Germans put up a determined defence, and it was pissing with rain. James is buried at Thiepval. He was, as stated, 19 years old.

Ancre Heights, Oct 1916

Jesus Christ.

********************

Didn't mean to add anything further to this post, but I've now seen a scan of a form which was issued in 1922 to provide details of individuals to be included on a war memorial for the fallen of Birkenhead. The information was completed by James' mother (Sarah), and the only information additional to all the above is that his date of enlistment is given as 31st March 1916 - so he must have gone out to join the 10th Battalion, who were already in France, shortly after that date. That puts a very narrow window of time when the family group above was photographed. Must have been April 1916 - something like that.

And here is the Birkenhead War Memorial - located in Hamilton Square, opposite
the Town Hall. It's been cleaned recently. Unveiled in 1925, there were some additions
after 1945 to deal with yet another war - very obvious disproportion in the numbers
of losses for the two wars. Sarah, who died a year after completing the
form above, never lived to see it.

*********************

Hooptedoodle #307 - Auntie Kashie's Basket

This isn't Kashie's Actual Basket, of course, but it was just like this, only a different colour...

I've been sorting out some boxes of old papers that I am minding for my mother - partly because I was looking for some old photos, but mostly just to see what's in there. The problem with this kind of activity is that most of what is in there is, of course, rubbish, but occasional items of interest appear, and it is very easy to get distracted - drawn in, so to speak. I take care to write my name and address on the soles of my slippers before I get too far absorbed.

In there I found a sheaf of notes and photocopies compiled by my cousin Dave; when he found out he had terminal cancer he started (pretty much from scratch) researching his/our family. Sadly, he didn't get as long on the job as we would have all wished, but he certainly found some fascinating stuff. Yesterday I found some notes about "Auntie Kashie", and I sat up straight, because I haven't heard of her since I was a very small child.

From my very earliest memory, I used to keep my toys in a very old wickerwork laundry basket. It was Auntie Kashie's Basket, though I didn't know who Auntie Kashie was, and I'm not altogether sure my mother did either. It was very like the basket at the top of this post, except it was painted (or stained?) green. The basket went on its way before we moved house when I was 10, so I haven't thought about Auntie Kashie for a very long time. Well, I've never thought about her at all, really. Just another name in a bewildering family history.

All these years later, I know who she was, and Dave's notes fill in a lot of gaps. If I may start by way of a short detour, I wrote a blog post some years ago about my great-grandfather, Robert James Moore, who served in the Royal Armoured Corps in Egypt in WW1 - he drove a Ford Model T armoured car, which you can see in that post. Robert was my mother's father's father (that's not too complicated, is it?), and apart from his military service he lived most of his life in Liverpool and Birkenhead, where he was a coal merchant.

Robert James Moore's father was also named Robert Moore (confusingly), and he was born in Tralee in Ireland in 1842. Robert senior was a professional soldier in the British Army, and his children were born on his travels - Robert James Moore was born at Pembroke Docks [it says on his birth certificate] in 1875, and a daughter, Kathleen Annie Marcella Moore, was born in Cork in 1876. The daughter was known as Kashie. Ah.

St Mary's Anglican Church, Walton, Liverpool

Both the children were confirmed at St Mary's Church, Walton, Liverpool in 1892 - by this date their father had been discharged from the army, and was living in Liverpool. He seems to have held various jobs as a night watchman, janitor at a school and similar.

Kashie was musical. When she grew up she worked as staff pianist at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool, where she met and married the manager of that theatre, one Kingstone Trollope (I am not making this up, I swear). Kingstone was an actor of some national reputation - quite why he was working as a theatre manager in Liverpool is a mystery. I think my mother has a suitably theatrical photo somewhere of Mr Trollope, but I can't find it at the moment - I need to have a good look through her piles of old family pictures again.

By 1911, Kingstone seems to have resumed his career as an itinerant Thespian - his name crops up in old theatre programmes - in 1937 he appeared in "London After Dark" at the Shaftesbury Theatre, London, in a pretty serious production, and in 1940 (by which time he must have been in his 60s) he was in "The Importance of Being Earnest" with Peggy Ashcroft and Jack Hawkins. I don't know what happened after that (you will be delighted to learn).

Queen's Road, Everton, when they were knocking it down (1960s?) - all new
houses there now

Whatever, in the 1911 Census a Mrs Kathleen Trollope is recorded as resident at 7 Breck Grove, Queen's Road, Everton, Liverpool, but there is no record of Kingstone, who must have gone back to treading the boards. Kashie kept a basket of Trollope's costumes and other gear for many years, and eventually it became my toy basket, so I guess he never came back for it.

Now I'll have to do some further reading in the boxes, and I must have a proper search through those piles of photos. I'll have to watch this - you need plenty of time to devote to it, and I am uncomfortably aware that my cousin has passed this way before, but he ran out of time.

If it turns out Kingstone Trollope is actually world famous, please someone let me know!

I could use that old basket for my wargame scenery now, I tell you.

***** Late Edit *****

Since I promised, here's that picture of Trollope - by the way, his full name was Norris Kingstone Trollope, and he was born in Camberley, Surrey. Kashie threw him out in 1908, so his basket was hanging around for a long time!

*** Even Later Edit ***

And here's an extract from a programme from the Prince of Wales Theatre, Cardiff, for a performance of "The Importance of Being Earnest" on 9th Oct 1939. This image kindly provided by Callum (see Comments). Kingstone seems to have worked a lot with John Gielgud at this time; it's a very heavyweight cast for a touring play!

*******************

 

Hooptedoodle #306 - A Rumination on the Other River Tyne

Hailes Castle

Yesterday the Contesse and I went for a pleasant walk along the River Tyne. We started at the village of East Linton (which was once quite an important toll-bridge crossing on the road from Edinburgh to London), walked upstream along the river bank for a couple of miles until we reached the first footbridge, crossed over to Hailes Castle, then walked back along the public road (more of a track really) into the village to collect our car. Very enjoyable, and an easy walk to suit a rather humid day.

Some photos from yesterday's walk - the water level is quite low, with the current
dry spell, and these streamers of weed and algae are not what we normally see

View from the footbridge at Hailes

The bridge on this new (2003) section of the A1. Traffic running between the capitals
of England and Scotland sweeps over the valley of the Scottish Tyne without even noticing.

Everyone knows of the River Tyne. It is a major river on which stands the mighty city of Newcastle, and it has a long, hardworking tradition of shipbuilding. When we mention that the River Tyne is near us, visitors assume we must live close to Newcastle (which is about 100 miles away - 2 counties away), or that we must mean the North Tyne (which runs into the Northumberland Tyne, and is also a long way from here), or that we must be mistaken (no comment on that one), or that the Scots are obviously so bloody stupid that they have named a river after a more famous one which is not so far away, or that by some peculiar coincidence the rivers were independently given the same name.

The last of these is probably closest to the facts, but I've always been intrigued that the situation exists. So I did a little (trivial) research, and I find that these rivers have existed, within a hundred miles of each other, with the same name for a very, very long time. Hmmm. Our River Tyne, you see, rises somewhere to the west of Pencaitland (a town most famous these days for the manufacture of Glenkinchie whisky) and flows 30 miles through the county of East Lothian, passing through the county town (Haddington), then through East Linton, and Tyninghame (yes, yes, that's right), emerging into the North Sea somewhere between North Berwick and Dunbar.

River Tyne at Haddington

So why "Tyne"? In fact the answer is laughably simple, and I'm sure you either know or have guessed the truth already. Both rivers appear to get their name from an ancient word, tin, meaning river. This may be Brythonic, or may be some older, pre-Celtic word, but neither of our rivers seems actually to have been known as Tyne until Anglo-Saxon times. Interesting. Gradually, the word for river is handed down from a defunct language until, by default, it becomes the name of the river. One imagines some medieval incomer - maybe a tourist or some sort of bureaucrat from whatever new lot are taking over - and he asks, "what's this, then?", and the locals say, "oh, that's the river" - in fact, they may already be using the old word as a name, without realising - and the newcomer takes note that this is what the river is called.

This must have been fairly common. The River Avon must also, I guess, be named "river"; certainly the modern Welsh word afon is a close relative, you would think. So I am building a picture where the unsophisticated locals, who didn't have that many rivers to worry about, just called the thing "the river" in their own language, and eventually the language changed but the name had stuck.

Tantallon

It doesn't necessarily suggest a lack of creative imagination - they must have had other things to worry about; coming up with some more decorous (or pretentious) name for the river might have seemed unnecessary. Locally, we have another example of this sort of thing. Next door to the farm where I live is the ruin of an ancient seat of the Douglas family, Tantallon Castle, on which topic I have posted before. "Tantallon" has a splendid, wild sound - in keeping with the rugged appearance and setting of the place. The name, however, has a fairly mundane pedigree. Around 1300, it is referred to on a map as "Dentaloune", and later in the same century the Earl of Douglas writes of his castle at "Temptaloun", and both these names are now thought to come from the Brythonic din talgwn, meaning "high fortress". So the romantic Tantallon just means "big castle" in an older language. Right. That could be disappointing, but I find it interesting enough as it stands.

I'd like to leave the last word with one of the greatest 20th Century philosophers - possibly the greatest: Gary Larson.

Hooptedoodle #305 - Stone Cold Dead in de Marketplace

I get so used to the convenience of online shopping that it really stings when it goes wrong. Nothing major - no big deal - just a routine shopping story, straight from the pages of Bicycle News [private joke]. The real problem is that we take things for granted - no contingency margins at all - so any pain is mostly self-inflicted.

This week I needed to get some musical kit in a hurry - nothing particularly interesting - just a long-overdue replacement for a carrying case. Had a look around, and eventually bought something on Amazon. I could have looked further, but our experience with Amazon is so overwhelmingly positive in recent years, and they always look after any (rare) mishaps professionally and quickly, so their name has become a bit of a safeguard.

£58, with free delivery. Fine. Easy. In fact the item was supplied by one of Amazon's Marketplace sellers, a big music shop in Yorkshire which also deals with real customers in a real bricks-&-mortar shop. All good. The chances of a staff member in an actual music shop knowing what they are doing must be at least as good as what might be expected in the dungeons of a Corporate Fulfilment Centre.

My parcel was much, much bigger than this...

On Saturday, even quicker than expected, a DPD van brought me a fine big parcel. At the time I was up to my knees in tidying up the garage, so it wasn't until later on that I opened my package. Ouch. Wrong item. They had sent me an enormous case of a different type - same make, but about three times the size (and, incidentally, twice the value). Let's not panic here.

I got online to Amazon, recorded my wish to return the item, which was accepted straight away, and I printed off labels and documents they emailed me to send the parcel back. I also rang up the music shop (they were still open at nearly 6pm - business must be either very good or very poor - take your pick).

Gentleman at the music shop said that these things happen, but didn't seem to care unduly. If I send the item back, they will refund the cost. He certainly wasn't at all apologetic - I got a faint hint that Amazon customers are a bit of a pain in the capodastro.

Now, here's the rub. Normally, in a situation like this, where the music shop knows that you are in a bit of a hurry, the guy might well say, "very sorry, we screwed up - we'll rush the correct item to you, and our courier will collect the wrong one when he calls with it".

Not in the Marketplace. The guy cannot do anything like that, because Amazon have to call all the shots on the refund - this is probably how it should be - I'm sure all you auditors will agree. SO THE SELLER IS HAMSTRUNG BECAUSE HE IS WORKING FOR AMAZON ON THIS SALE.

OK - over to Amazon themselves. I had a pleasant on-screen "chat" exchange with one of Amazon's customer reps, and he said that I have to mail the thing back to the seller, at my own cost, and the seller will refund purchase price plus my postage when they receive it. But, I said, I thought you would send me a label which would get me free return mailing.

Ah, well. This is what would happen if the item had been supplied direct from Amazon's warehouse, but it's different for a Marketplace sale. The seller, you see, has to process the refund and accept the item back into stock. I can understand that, but it does mean that AMAZON ARE ALSO HAMSTRUNG BECAUSE THEY ARE USING A MARKETPLACE SELLER.

To be fair to them, Amazon awarded the princely sum of £5 as a goodwill payment for my inconvenience. They also explained that the procedure is now thus: I repackage the parcel, attach the labels Amazon have sent me, take it to a courier [I used Royal Mail Parcelforce this morning, registered - that's £13.40] and pay the postage to get it back to the seller. When the lads in Yorkshire get their case back, they will check it's OK and will refund my £58 - any betting that they'll remember the return postage without being chased? Once I have seen on my credit card statement that everything is in order I may start again, re-ordering the same item from the same supplier, through Amazon. Just as though it never happened.

Just a minute - you mean they can't take the initiative to send me the correct item without further action from me? No - the transaction ends when they have their goods back, I have my money back, and Amazon's audit trail rings the Angelus. Then I may feel free to start all over again.

Mustn't make a fuss - things usually do go very well. My hopes for a quick, convenient purchase of an instrument case have vanished without trace, however, and I have the additional hassle of checking I get all my money back. Then I have to decide whether I am sufficiently impressed with this episode to risk going round the process one more time.

No. In fact I had already ordered the same item online (outside Amazon, from a shop in Derby - for only £48), within an hour of the conversation. If the original seller in Yorkshire had given even a token pretence of contrition I'd have considered ordering from them again - they will have to pick up the tab for my return shipping, after all. But he didn't. Fair enough. If he doesn't give a stuff, then neither do I, and whether the world is a warmer and more caring place as a result is well beyond me.

Move on - nothing to see here.

Hooptedoodle #304 - The Haar

View from the upstairs bathroom window - somewhere out there, there should be a
distant view of Dunbar, and the Lammermuir Hills. But not today. This is a day for
staying indoors, and listening to the guy on the radio complaining about how
hot he is in London.

What you might call a characteristic regional phenomenon here is the haar (otherwise known as a sea fret) which blows in off the North Sea during warm weather. As an incomer, I always assumed that haar was probably a Viking word - a number of our local words - especially weather-related ones, have a pleasingly rough, Nordic twang, but it turns out that the origins of this one are almost certainly Dutch - there are similar, ancient words in use in Friesland and the Netherlands which simply describe cold, foggy weather.

Whatever the etymology, the haar is the reason why for the last couple of days, while most of the rest of the country is enjoying a minor heatwave, we have our central heating switched back on and the view out of the window stretches about as far as the trees on the far side of the nearest field.

One of my older sons visited North Berwick on Sunday, and he reassured me that Edinburgh was also cold and misty that morning, but yesterday, when my wife returned from a shopping trip, she arrived at the end of our farm road in bright sunshine, and could see our very own haar sitting like a pancake on top of our woods, so it is probably OK to take it just a little personally. Microclimate.

My first memorable experience of such weather came when I first moved here, in 2000, and my parents came to visit - all the way from (warm, West Coast) Liverpool, during a remarkably fine, warm spell in October. One late afternoon we were sitting on the terrace, with glasses of chilled white wine and straw hats deployed, when suddenly the mist began pouring down from over the trees at the bottom of the garden, and it became gloomy and bitterly cold while you watched. Show over - remarkable. [As a footnote, I have to say that my parents were not put off, and they duly upped sticks and came to live in this area the following year.]

[Drat.]

The haar, as I'm sure you are aware if you live on the East Coast, anywhere from Norfolk to John o' Groats (or could care less, if you don't), is the result of warm air passing over the cold sea - the water vapour condenses into thick mist, and the sea breezes waft it back in over the coastal land - the fog obliterates the sunshine, the temperature drops, and we start wondering about the heating. It's always been like this here.

We have had a good number of bright days, too, of course. Here is a swallow resting on
our electricity cable, gathering his strength for nest-building in the woodshed...

And our beloved white lilac has had its brief few days of glory. We really do love the
show it produces, and each year, as the blossoms start to turn brown, I ponder the fact
that it will be another year before we see it again. That's a thought that becomes more
profound each time, I guess. 

The Contesse continues to produce some terrific wildlife photos - here's a very
scruffy robin at his ablutions.

We've also had some remarkable exhibitions of raw aggression recently from those icons of peace, the Collared Doves. They have been beating up the wood pigeons on a regular basis. They have now been seen chasing magpies out of our garden - very scary - they really are surprisingly vindictive little beggars. We're still trying to get a photo of that - maybe even a little video, but no luck yet.

Hooptedoodle #303 - Flushed with Success [EXPLICIT]

Today was our day for a visit from the Septic Tank Man. The wagon duly arrived - all the way from Motherwell - to pump out our domestic drainage system.

As expected, it was all very professional and inoffensive. The driver/operator got about his business very quickly and efficiently - half an hour and we were done, and he was on his way to his next call.

It's not a big tank (1000 gallons), but it only services part of our house, so usage is very light really. This is our first clean-out in 13 years, and there were no problems - it was not an emergency. In the light of this (and the one-off service cost £250), consider, if you will, that Scottish Water, whom we approached late last year, will not touch your tank system unless you sign up for a 5-year minimum contract, with yearly visits which each cost more than Henderson's job this morning. Sometimes local authorities are not unlike the Mafia in their business model.

Anyway, all done, and now we are good for some years. Thank you, Mr Henderson. Remember: it may be just sewage to you, but it's his bread and butter.

...and, in case you missed their marketing push...