Hooptedoodle #107 – The Mystery of the Missing Shoe Sizes

Today’s practical problem at Chateau Foy. Well, there are several problems, but I’ll spare you the broken gatepost and the window sash cord which suddenly, mysteriously became 12 inches shorter. Today’s treatise is on the subject of shoes.

My son is now 11, and is growing rapidly, as they do. He is, however, one of the youngest in his year at school, and is one of the smaller boys, so I can only assume some of the others are even scarier.

The immediate issue is a class outing to a concert tomorrow night – yes, that’s Friday night. As a brilliant interweaving of recent class projects on WW2 and orchestral music, some unspeakable genius has come up with the idea of sending almost two dozen 11-year-olds to an evening performance of Britten’s War Requiem.

I would welcome suggestions for better ways to turn kids off serious music for life – off the top of my head, I guess it could have been Gorecki, but I can think of no finer recipe for fidgety, bored children and stressed teachers – especially with a one-hour bus trip into Edinburgh and back and a 7:30pm start.

To make everything perfect, the dress order will be “smart casual”. Terrific. It makes sense on official school outings to get the children to wear uniform – it is smart and practical, and Lord knows we are obliged to buy a great deal of it from the approved suppliers. However, they who know best have decreed that smart casual it will be. There will now be a lot of social pressure to compete on the fashion and labels front, such as you might expect at a small, rural, private school.

There is no reason why the kids should behave any differently – there is a substantial clique of the mothers who obviously put a lot of emphasis on this sort of thing – the merit of an individual is judged by the weight of bling they carry to school and the degree of feigned carelessness with which they park the Range Rover. Within the last couple of years I have learned, for example, that there is a league table of prestigious manufacturers of rubber boots. Gosh.

Anyway, the immediate problem is that our son is fresh out of smart casual shoes. He has sports boots, trainers, hillwalking boots and actual school shoes galore, but nothing suitable for tomorrow’s outing. It’s not that he is deprived, you realize – he’s just between shoes (so to speak). No problem – just buy some, and make sure that he is not going to be humiliated by them.

Not so easy – his size is 5.5, which corresponds to US size 6, and takes a narrow fitting. Two days’ intense shopping effort by the Contesse – who is a world-ranked shopper, by the way – have produced nothing. I’ll repeat that – nothing. Boys’ sizes go up to 6, but none of our local shops stock anything over 4. Men’s sizes start at 5, but the shops do not stock anything below 6. Now such shoes must exist, but presumably the shops stock only what they are asked for.

From a scientific point of view, I am very interested in this:

1. Every man who has feet bigger than size 5.5 must have passed through size 5.5 at some point, and I can’t believe they all went barefoot or stayed indoors when it happened.
2. Most of my son’s friends had size 5.5 feet (approx.) about a year ago – we need more information about how they managed – we didn’t notice anyone in sandals or anything at the Christmas party, so they must have come up with some solution which has escaped us thus far
3. It seems we could probably get size 5.5 shoes online, but shopping online for shoes is a dodgy proposition – especially if you take a narrow fitting
4. Most interesting of all, there is no shortage of girls' shoes in any size you can think of - discuss...

Nature abhors a discontinuity – something has gone wrong here. We have to come up with something by tomorrow night, since even fashionable rubber boots will not do for the concert. A shopping trip into Edinburgh – or possibly New York – might be required.

Why are things always so complicated?

Hooptedoodle #106 – Charles Folkard (1878-1963)

I’m sorting out my office/den. Since there are now two desktop computers in here, it follows that there are also two desks and, since the books and CDs keep arriving from somewhere or other, a serious outbreak of re-organising is now under way.

A new bookcase is on order, and I managed to bring myself to throw out an old, though working, hi-fi system (ouch!), and shifted a few things around, and suddenly there is space for everything. Two notes, in passing:

(1) I have realised that lying-down A4 box files – such as one might keep soldiers in – fit beautifully, two abreast, in an 80cm-wide IKEA Billy bookcase. Good. Excellent, in fact.

(2) My hi-fi was a decent collection of kit for its day, but its day was long ago, and its main attribute was that it was BIG. Enormous, matt black, separate components – mostly full of dust now – I believe that the unnecessary size was intentional. In those days, big stereo kit was impressive. Maybe small has become the new big, I don’t know, but among those units was the first CD player I ever bought. I was late on the scene with CDs – I’d already collected a mountain of vinyl LPs, the cassettes were starting to pile up, and I didn’t wish to commit to yet another technology switch until it looked as though it might last. The thing that settled the matter, I remember, was that John Scofield brought out a new album called Flat Out, and the title track was only on the CD, for goodness sake. I was so annoyed I just bought the CD – that’ll teach them, I thought – and then, of course, I had to buy a player to go with it. I bought a Kenwood unit – this was back in 1985. All these years later, after I have spent an amount I would rather not think about on optical media, and after a steady stream of broken and worn-out CD players has moved on to the landfill site, that 1985 Kenwood was still going perfectly when I ditched it on Sunday.

Anyway, it’s gone now. No doubt someone will rescue it from the town dump – I hope so.

I’ve been looking at how my books may be arranged once the new bookcase arrives, and I kept getting distracted, finding books I forgot I had, or hadn’t seen for a while. One such is The Land of Nursery Rhyme, which doesn’t sound very promising, but I retrieved it from my mum’s house recently, and the handwritten dedication in the front tells me that my Auntie Monica gave it to me on my first birthday.

As these things go, it is pretty much what you’d expect – the rhymes are nothing extraordinary, complete with the political insensitivity which you would expect, but it is charmingly illustrated throughout by Charles Folkard. Wow – stop right there. I opened the book and was transfixed – some of these illustrations are hard-wired in as some of the earliest recollections I must have. I can remember every picture in that book, though until recently I hadn’t seen it since infancy. The standard forms of elves and medieval kings in my imagination mostly come right out of Folkard - that's quite a legacy when your imagination is as off-beat as mine.

The end-papers show a simple little map which I used to gaze at for hours when I was little. I loved the river running past the villages and into the sea, the windmill on the hill, the whole idea that places fitted together into some kind of a whole. Never mind that the map was of The Land of Nursery Rhyme – it was the concept. I have always loved maps – I used to draw maps of imagined countries when I was 10 – maybe that book got me started. I love to see places from the air – as a toddler I imagined what it would be like to fly like a bird and see the world laid out beneath me. Right through life, I’ve always had a strange fondness for the idea of villages snuggled into valleys in rounded hills – when the radio tells me that it is raining all over Scotland tonight, I have a vision of little communities sheltering in a landscape very much like the work of Mr Folkard, bless him.

Anyway, it’s an image which once intrigued me, and which is still there somewhere in the wiring.

Chester Trip – Preamble

It isn’t Regensburg, but my ECW trip to Chester is on. I’ll be going there with a friend from 1^st to 3^rd December – the hotel is booked, so we’re going. We have both read John Barratt’s excellent book on the Great Siege, so the idea is to have a look at what remains of the Civil War sites, and the odd pub would be all right too.

Chester is not unfamiliar to me; as a child, I used to visit the place – and especially its zoo – but in those days the journey from Liverpool was a bit of an epic – long and tiring. We didn’t have a car (I had a rich Auntie in the Wirral who had a pre-war Vauxhall, but she didn’t really speak to us), so sometimes the journey involved a train from Birkenhead Woodside station (which I think you would struggle to find now), sometimes not, but it always involved a few of those green Crosville buses. It is an attractive city, and it looks the part for an ECW trip, but I am aware that very little of it dates back to the Civil War. For a start, much of the city was destroyed in the siege, and there have been frequent improvements over the years since then. The walls are marvellous, but a substantial part were widened and turned into a promenade for the townspeople in the 18^th Century.

I originally had a picture of a wartime Crosville Guy Arab bus here
- it was pointed out that not only was it too early, but it was probably red.
Here's a proper Bristol Lodekka from the 1950s, with the correct livery of Tilling Green

We’ve made bookings with Ed Abram’s fine Chester Civil War Tours operation – we will definitely be going on the standard tour, and, though the Rowton Moor tour is not officially open so late in the year, we have the offer of going there too if the weather is passable and if the farmer is happy to let us on his fields. Serious walking boots will be taken. There is also an interesting tour of ECW public houses, but we may do that ourselves in the evenings. I was recently walked around the field of Eggmühl by a uniformed fusilier of the 5^th Bavarian infantry regiment from 1809, so being taken around Chester by a Royalist gentleman in full period costume for 1645 will be quite normal.

It would be nice to wander a little further afield – Brereton’s trip up to Mostyn is a possibility, as is a quick look at Nantwich, or Beeston Castle – but the main thing we have to decide is what to do about our 4^th day. Originally, my colleague found he had to be back in Scotland on the 4^th day, but he has subsequently got out of his prior engagement, so an extra day is again available. We could stay on in Chester, of course, but I fancied a trip to Ormskirk – they had a nippy battle there – quick but influential, it effectively finished off the Royalists in Lancashire in the First Civil War apart from the garrisons at Lathom, Greenhalgh and Liverpool. Also, we could have a look for the site of the original Lathom House, pay our respects to poor old Lord Derby, who is interred in the local parish church (in however many separate bits), and – failed trump card! – I have family in Ormskirk who kindly offered hospitality, but, alas, the dates don’t line up and they have other plans! Like many local people must have done in the 1640s when they learned that Rupert or Brereton were coming, they have obviously made quick evacuation arrangements when they heard about our trip. Not a huge problem – we can still go to Ormskirk, or we could go over to Yorkshire and have a look at Marston Moor, or Adwalton (less easy to find), and someone has suggested Pontefract Castle.

Homework

Now that we are definitely going, we can approach the details with a bit more focus.

What fun!

Montrose – History of a Different Feather

Hurrah!
James Graham, first Marquess of Montrose

Someone mentioned to me recently that he occasionally finds himself half-way up the stairs, unable to remember where he was going or why. At the time, we laughingly agreed that it was probably a gradual reduction in his ability to multitask rather than full-blown dementia.

Whatever, it rings a not-entirely-comfortable bell with me. Two contexts in which this happens a lot to me these days are

(1) online – trying to remember what it was I set out to do when I’m suddenly surprised to find myself reading a Wikipedia entry for Oswald Mosley (for example)

(2) my reading habits – trying to remember just why this particular book I have in my hand has managed to leapfrog the current reading pile

Over the last couple of days, I have read – and greatly enjoyed – CV Wedgwood’s Montrose, which certainly is a surprise to me, and I am trying to reconstruct just how this happened.

It’s at least partly Old John’s fault. He very kindly sent me some 20mm highlanders a while ago – nice little figures, but not entirely relevant to what I’m working on at  the moment. He said something to the effect that, one day, maybe I might like to extend my interest in the ECW as far as the campaigns of the Marquess of Montrose. I filed that away, alongside similar comments I’d heard from someone else.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a bit of a stock-take on the ECW lead mountain. I’ve pretty much completed what I originally sketched out as my “Phase One” ECW armies – I’ve even gone so far as to add some units of town militia and some firelocks, and there’s some siege artillery starting to collect, so a bit of an extension to the original plan is probably overdue. The ECW spares boxes now contain more Tumbling Dice figures than I thought I had (has anyone else noticed how accumulation of TD figures generates a parallel collection of human heads?), and I have enough to make up some more pike-&-shot units of foot, at least two of which are Covenanters.

Interesting. I hadn’t really thought about Covenanters just yet, though I have always known I would get there. My forthcoming early efforts in the ECW are to be based around Lancashire, Cheshire and North Wales in the 1642-45 period, and I have developed (or dreamed up) OOBs for this region at these dates. Covenanters – hmmm – what relevance have Covenanters in Lancashire? I am aware that these chaps were at the Siege of York, and provided a good whack of the troops opposed to Newcastle and at Marston Moor. It is maybe less well known that the Parliamentarian garrison of Liverpool in June 1644 included some 400 to 500 men of Sir John Meldrum’s regiment, who were Scottish, or that Sir William Brereton tried (unsuccessfully) in February 1645 to get some of the Scottish foot seconded from Yorkshire to help with his attempt to capture Chester. Also, of course, given even as tenuous a link as that, my own fake history of the war in Lancashire can easily be fudged to include any number of the fellows.

So, belatedly, I dug Start Reid’s Osprey title on Scottish ECW soldiers out of the bookcase, and I had a squint at the very useful army generation lists in the back of the Forlorn Hope rules, and Old John’s words echoed from somewhere, and Montrose was mentioned, and suddenly I decided I had better find out more about this, so I also dug out CV Wedgwood’s book on the ill-fated hero (that’s Montrose, not Old John) and got started.

A great read. Classic, story-telling, popular history, free of densely interwoven references. It isn’t a very big book, it has some nice pictures, it may even (whisper it) have quite large print, but I romped through it, and I learned a lot about Montrose – though I have to say I knew hardly anything about him before.

Booo!
Archibald Campbell, first Marquess of Argyll
He even has a black hat, for goodness sake...

This is kind of ironic, since I frequently sound off here about my enthusiasm for old-fashioned historical writing, but I did get a bit worried about the fact that the reading was so pain-free. I checked – a couple of times – to see if it was a book for children. Having spent a fair amount of time lately reading (and enjoying) Esdaile, and Rothenburg and suchlike, I was reminded that Ms Wedgwood is a breath of fresh air, but somehow this book was strangely unconvincing. I didn’t expect to find anything as dull (or useful) as OOBs, but I was surprised how partial this biography is. Montrose is a hero – he’s handsome, gifted, brave, noble and tragic all at once. His soldiers are always outnumbered, yet (for a while at least) claim crushing victories against all the odds. His opponents are mean-minded, ugly, cowardly and cruel, and generally perform like a nasty version of the Keystone Cops. I am not used to history being quite so clear cut, to be honest…

OK – what I have to do next is capitalize on my new enthusiasm and find some rather more detailed (I came close to writing “factual”) work on Montrose. It would be remarkably silly – even by my standards – if I finished up building up little armies for Montrose’s campaigns just so that I can utilize Old John’s highlanders, but stranger things have happened. It would also be silly if I did it just because Veronica Wedgwood had a bit of a thing about James Graham. I need to have a look at some rather more dense writing on the period, and think what to do next.

One big attraction is that the forces involved are small (if I only knew what they were…), so it would not be a very big digression, as these things go.

Hmmm. But why Oswald Mosley?

Hooptedoodle #105 - The Automaton Which Writes

You may have seen this before - I hadn't. This slightly scary clip about an 18th Century clockwork figurine which can do handwriting has excited and troubled me in equal measure. Robots are fun but a bit disturbing anyway, and I keep finding myself wondering how such a device might get on with the cross belts on a regiment of Spanish fusiliers.

Solo Campaign - Weeks 35 & 36

Dragging a gun to France - and you'd better not scratch it

Week 35

Random Events and Strategic Notes

King Joseph, at Burgos, has received a long letter with radical new orders from Minister of War Clarke, which confirm that the Emperor wishes to withdraw many of the troops from Spain to bolster his depleted forces in Russia and provide a veteran cadre for a new army on the Rhine to defend against an expected offensive from Prussia and (probably) Austria. Joseph himself is to prepare to end his time as King of Spain, and is to return to Paris immediately, to take up new and important duties which will better serve the interests of the Empire.

More details will follow about how power is to be handed over (there is a rumour that Marshal Soult may be appointed Viceroy on an interim basis). The original instruction was that Marshal Jourdan should assume overall military command in Northern Spain, but Joseph has been granted his request that Jourdan should go with him to Paris as his Chief of Staff. Thus Marmont will take over as head of a consolidated Army of the Pyrenees, with its headquarters initially at Vitoria. This new army will be reduced by the immediate return to Bayonne of the following formations:

• General Bonet’s French division, from Galicia and the coastal forts
• All remaining troops of the Confederation of the Rhine and the former Vistula Legion
• All troops of the Kingdom of Italy
• All Garde Nationale units in garrison in Spain

Spanish line units in the French service and the King’s Guard will remain with Marmont, but these detachments will reduce Marmont’s total force by some 40,000 men.

All civil governors in the area are to pack up their operations, destroying anything that they do not wish to leave behind. Until Marshal Soult publishes details of new arrangements for the government of Spain, the army has complete authority in the northern theatre. It is important that units returning to France should be over the Pyrenees by November, so all such units should be on the march by the end of September. All artillery and other military materiel is to be preserved and returned to Bayonne in good order – anything else (especially officers’ baggage) will not be allowed to utilise draught animals or wagons, and must not slow down the march. Officers may take with them only what they can carry themselves. Any lack of discipline or inappropriate looting to be treated with considerable severity.

News of this development has reached Tarleton, at Salamanca, very speedily but in a rather confused form, thus the Allies are trying to clarify what is happening. All orders are directed to scouting this week, and spies and information sources are working hard to gain more details.

Housekeeping

The 3D3 activation throws give the Allies 5 and the French 8. The French choose to move first.

Moves

French (8 allowed)

1 – K (Jourdan/Joseph, at Aranda) detaches all German and Italian troops, and they are to march for Bayonne within the week – all troops marching to France are removed from the army returns

2 – K – Jourdan & King Joseph also set out for Paris – command of Force K is assumed by General Maupoint, who is left with only a single brigade of French cavalry

3 – A (Gautier, with a brigade of Bonet’s Divn at Santander) to set off for Bayonne – removed from returns

4 – B (Col Bouthmy, at Oviedo) similarly

5 – E (Abbe, at Zaragoza) to detach 4e Vistule, who will march for Bayonne

6 – Clauzel (at Valladolid) to return his Confederation, Italian and Vistula units to Bayonne

7 – L, P, Q, R & S (Garde Nationale garrisons at San Sebastian, Burgos, Jaca, Tudela and Pamplona) to march for Bayonne

8 – K (Maupoint, with the cavalry which was attached to the Army of the Centre) to march from Aranda to Burgos

 [Intelligence step –

• No new information.]

 Allies (5 allowed)

1 – A (Aigburth, at Salamanca) to scout into Valladolid

2 – B (Graham, at Zamora) to scout into Leon

3 – Sp E (Mira, with irregulars at Madrid) to scout northwards into Aranda

4 – Sp B (Giron, at Madrid) to rest to allow the remains of the Third Army to recover

 [Intelligence step -

• Many communications intercepted – much of information is conflicting, but obvious that big changes taking place
• Mira, at Madrid, reports that Jourdan’s Army of the Centre has abandoned Aranda, and the roads are littered with rubbish and documents.]

Supplies and Demoralisation

Strictly, the French no longer occupy Pamplona, which – since it is a “brown” area – means that it can fall into Spanish hands and thus break the French supply route. Since the road is solid with French troops marching to Bayonne, the fortress at Pamplona will be assumed to be French held for a period of 3 weeks without the tedium of plotting the progress of each force headed for Bayonne.

Proper army returns will be resumed next week, once the French have worked out what they have left.

Contacts

None.

Blow this for a game of soldiers

Week 36

Random Events and Strategic Notes

Nothing new since the bombshell of last week. Marmont is forced to protect his supply roads, and is planning to withdraw further towards the French border. There is chaos at Burgos, as gendarmes attempt to keep the soldiers away from Joseph’s abandoned baggage train – a great deal of Joseph’s treasure trove has disappeared into the knapsacks of the army. Thiebault, military governor of the fortress at Burgos, has made brave efforts with the authority and men available to him, but there are major problems in maintaining any kind of discipline in this area.

Joseph and his immediate entourage are gone – moved on to another chapter of history. Soult has not communicated with his northern colleagues…

Housekeeping

The 3D3 activation throws give the Allies 5 and the French 5. Since they had the initiative last week, the French again opt to move first.

Moves

French (5 allowed) 

1 – F (Barbot, with garrison of Bilbao) march to San Sebastian

2 – E (Abbé, with garrison of Zaragoza) march to Tudela

3 – I (Clauzel) marches from Valladolid to Burgos…

4 – … where he absorbs K (Maupoint’s cavalry)

5 – N (Marmont) marches from Leon to Sahagun

[Intelligence step –

• No scouting orders, no new information.]

 Allies (5 allowed)

1 – Sp E (Mira, with irregulars from Junta de Castilla) marches from Madrid to Aranda

2 – A (Aigburth) advances from Salamanca to Valladolid

3 – B (Graham) advances from Zamora to Leon

4 – Work commences on setting up a new British supply depot at the port of Oviedo

5 – B (Graham, now at Leon) to scout towards Sahagun

[Intelligence step -

• Mira and Graham both find plentiful evidence of the French retreat
• Surprisingly small number of stragglers taken – French soldiers keen to avoid falling into the hands of Spanish irregulars or civilian population]

Supplies and Demoralisation

The French now have a secure supply route from Bayonne, through San Sebastian to Vitoria, and thence to Sahagun and Burgos. All units in all armies are in supply.

Contacts

None.

Solo Campaign – A New Role for Joseph Bonaparte

With all due credit to a number of excellent and imaginative ideas received (thank you, John, Francis, Louis and others), I think I have a plan…

Joseph, with grateful thanks from the French nation for his valiant work in successfully removing the Spanish threat from our borders and furthering the glory of the Empire, is to be appointed King of the new state of Germania, an important and challenging new role which he will carry out with the energy and humanity with which [… and blah blah blah].

Germania will contain a number of regions, some of which will retain their current, traditional rulers, all now to be subjects of the King. Since details are not complete we do not yet have a map, but a view of the current version of the Rheinbund is included here, for reference.

The new Kingdom will stretch from the River Ems in the west to Vorpommern in the east, bordered by Schleswig-Holstein in the north and Westfalia to the south, and will contain the following territories:

• The recently-created French Departments of Bouches du Weser, Bouches de l'Elbe, Ems Oriental and Ems Superieur (formerly Lower Saxony, Bremen, Oldenburg, Hamburg)
• The duchies of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
• The grand-duchy of Stralsund-Rügen (formerly Swedish Pommerania) 

Politically and strategically, this will:

• Put more direct French control over the weaker (and less committed) Confederation states adjacent to Prussia.
• Give back a German identity to areas which were included in the expanded French nation in 1810 – an event which has caused simmering resentment ever since.
• Pre-empt independent efforts to divide the allegiances of the Confederation states by a growing pan-Germanic movement promoted by Austria, championed by German academics and – as ever – sponsored by the accursed British.

Germania will be a key member of a new, stronger, redrafted Confederation, though whether it will absorb the armies of its constituent regions into a unified army is uncertain. The capital will probably be Hamburg.

And that’s really all we need to say about that for the moment, other than to note that Joseph will now disappear from the solo campaign, taking Jourdan with him as his military Chief of Staff. Perhaps he will return to my table some time in campaigns associated with a Prusso-Swedish invasion of Vorpommern, or a French move to absorb Holstein – I’ll need someone to provide some new armies if it happens…

Now I need to get on with re-organising the French army in Spain – what’s left of it – and arrange for someone to take all Joseph’s empty bottles to the dump.