My permanent tribute to Jean, my dear wife.

 

This is Jean as the Princess (Princess Pong and her governess in the show was Miss Ping) singing a love song to Aladdin (the Principal Boy) in the panto.

My full dedication to Jean is still here on the website, to reach it, click or tap on the number 2021 on the right of your screen, then on the month of May, then on the document title.  Then you can read the full article.  Jean, of course, appears in a number of articles and contributed to many of them.

The picture below is of Jean and her friend Mavis who was in many shows with Jean (including "The Mikado" where they were two of the three little girls) at our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary lunch.

Mount Tambora - the volcano that nobody has heard of, but they really, really should!

 

Copyright the Trustees of the British Museum

First read on Sussex Coast Talking News - Tuesday 17th September 2024.

1816 – The Year without a Summer.

“Bang!” – The sound of a distant explosion and its aftershocks rumbled through the air over Southern England late in the evening of the 10^th April 1815.  Two men are walking together.  They stop, one says “Did you hear that?” “Yes, probably cannon fire in France.”  Says the other.  “No, it was too long and rumbling for that …”  And their conversation moves to other topics.

But what they really heard was the volcanic explosion of Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa.  There had been a number of preliminary explosions, particularly in 1809; but, the one at 7 pm on the 10^th April 1815 was massive and is now recorded as the largest volcanic explosion that has taken place in humanities’ existence.  This was a magnitude of 7 (out of ten) on the Volcanic Explosivity Index.

It was said to have been ten times greater than the size of Mount Krakatoa.

That eruption had measured a 6 on the VEI scale.

And much larger than Mount Eyjafjallajökull (also known as Mount E15) in April 2010 which caused such disruption to airlines flying across the Atlantic.

And that eruption was a 2 on the VEI scale.

The Volcanic Explosivity Index was evaluated in the 1980s by Messrs Newhall and Self of the US Geological Survey and the University of Hawaii to bring some formality to categorising volcanic eruptions - in a similar way to monitoring wind speeds and earthquakes.  This is done by factoring together the volume of magma produced and the height the ash cloud reaches in the sky.  There may be other views and data available but this index covers most volcanic events.  And Mount Tambora was estimated to have erupted over 100 cubic kilometres of magma and 60 megatons of sulphur.

Incidentally, the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, which destroyed Pompeii was a high level 5 almost a 6 on that Index.

The following year, when the effects started to manifest themselves, was known in Europe as: “1816 – The year without a summer” or “The Poverty Year”.  And in North America it was: “Eighteen-hundred and froze to death”.

The world nowadays is fairly quick to respond to natural disasters but in those days, there was nothing.  Most of the mass of the volcano Mount Tambora was destroyed and millions of tons of ash, dust, débris, fire, pumice and sulphur were blasted into the atmosphere.

The immediate fire-storm killed and destroyed huge swathes of the population and life on the island.

Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Stamford Raffles (our man in Java) sent the British East India Company military vessel Benares to investigate and report back.  It was, of course, difficult to work out where the problem really came from because the ash cloud and darkness covered an enormous area over Indonesia.  When, eventually, the Benares reached Sumbawa the devastation was unprecedented.  The sea for miles around was covered in floating lumps of pumice.  Clouds of cinders and pumice were falling continually on all surfaces.  All but a few members of the population were dead and the rest were starving to death.

What aid or help could the single ship, Benares, offer?  Precious little.

But what they could do, they did and left water and medical supplies for the Sultan of Sumbawa to use.  When the ship got back to report to Lieutenant-Governor Raffles, the crew were traumatised by the experience.  They did not recognise PTSD in those days.

Raffles was appalled by what he was told, but he had few resources to provide any meaningful support; what he could do, he carried it out and sent a fact-finding mission to Sumbawa along with medical supplies.  And this record – along with his recorded time for the eruption - is the main basis for all that we know and have learnt since about this volcanic eruption.

Recovery was mainly up to the Sultan of Sumbawa.  He managed to organise re-population of the island by immigration of Muslim peoples from other islands of Indonesia.  Many survivors had fled the island, even selling themselves into slavery to get away.  The newcomers buried the dead and re-vitalised the island over the following years.

At the time, elsewhere, nobody knew or could state what had happened.  They could see that this was a terrible event and it had considerable impacts.

It was only later, when the science of vulcanology had developed, that trained people could work out the full facts of what had happened.  Taking core samples from the South and North Poles gave the vulcanologists huge amounts of data - which is still in use.  Amongst all the debris exploded by Mount Tambora were immense quantities of sulphur.  Most of this was expelled straight up and into the stratosphere; the outer layer of the Earth’s atmosphere right on the edge of Space.  This was beyond the reach of all types of weather except for high winds.  There, the sulphur formed tiny sulphuric acid particles which floated about in the stratosphere eventually forming a large, flat cloud which predominantly covered the Northern Hemisphere.  This cloud almost completely blocked light from the Sun.  The effects of this volcanic eruption were truly global, hardly anybody on the planet was unaffected.

Vulcanologists and Meteorologists also found that Landscape Artists could contribute to their knowledge - in the times before photography.  They found that the balance of the colours in pictures painted in different years could give them much useful background information.  JMW Turner’s actual sketch-books for the year 1816 were often muddy and water-logged.  He could not carry out one painting of the inside of a cave in Yorkshire because it was flooded for instance. 

Turner’s painting of “Lancaster Sands” really demonstrates the power of the climate.  This is a bleak vision of travellers desperate to get across that bay before the tide comes in, the ground and the horizon are already water-logged and the sky is red with menace.  This area is still today recognised as a treacherous flood-plain for foot travellers.

Also, John Constable, who was supposed to be enjoying his honeymoon at the time, painted landscapes that summer filled with incredibly threatening clouds.

As another example, the accurate paintings of Venice by Canaletto have demonstrated to Climate Scientists how much Venice’s buildings have sunk into the lagoon in the last two hundred & fifty years or so.

Most of the sulphuric acid particles started to fall to Earth in the next year or so, but it took about five or more years for the effects to clear completely.

Returning now to 1815 and 1816, there were many people who watched the weather daily and kept copious records of what was happening over the country.  But to get a better picture we can go to another source: Lord George Byron.

In the summer of 1816, he invited a group of guests to stay at his villa – Diodati – in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva.  His guests were: Dr JW Polidori, Percy Bysshe Shelley (the poet), Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (later to become Percy’s wife) and Claire Clairmont, Mary’s step-sister.

The aim of the party – was to have a wonderful time, it was after all mid-summer in Switzerland.  They would stroll through meadows filled with grasses, wild-flowers and meadow-flowers all dancing in the breeze.  They would sail across the gentle Lake Geneva and sun-bathe on deck.

Well, NO.  It was not like that at all.  This was mid-July and when it snowed, the banks were not fluffy white – they were murky from the residue of the ashes and cinders of Mount Tambora.  When it was not snowing, it was raining, more and more heavily.  There were frequent land-slips and the area filled with mud.

The lake water was treacherous, constant waves and flows.  Gentle sailing was not possible.

The party’s only outdoor excursions were to watch the thunderstorms, and they frequently got soaked to the skin doing that.  But the effects of the lightning impressed the young poets and writers immensely.  It is from the sky that gods in many forms exert power over mankind in the form of lightning strikes.

Indoors, the group read ghost stories to each other and some took high quantities of laudanum (brandy laced with opium).  There was not much food to eat either as shortages of all types of produce were now beginning to take hold.

In the end, they were completely fed up with each other and Byron suggested writing their own stories to improve their entertainments.

Only two were of merit: John Polidori wrote “The Vampyre” (with a Y).  This story was distinguished by being the first ever story of a vampire that treated him as a rational, intelligent, renaissance figure.  All vampire stories before then were of foul ghoulish beings, but John Polidori started a trend, probably influencing Bram Stoker in particular.

Mary also had a story to create.  She thought and dreamt deeply to come up with the “Frankenstein” legend.  The being was made with stitched together, purloined body parts by Victor Frankenstein and galvanised into existence by the life-giving force of pure lightning.

Interestingly, she refers to the being as “Frankenstein’s Creature” whereas Hollywood preferred “Frankenstein’s Monster”.

These two stories – “The Vampyre” and “Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus” - were the ones that resonated and have since been widely remembered.

Separately, doomsayers were calling out and there were prophecies going around foretelling that this was truly the end of the world.  Many people were also transfixed by such images as the 8^th and 9^th Chapters of the Book of Revelations which dealt with the angels wreaking havoc with our Earth.

These were all taken very seriously and Lord Byron created his poem “Darkness”.  This was a truly apocalyptic vision.  It could be described as a prayer for light. 

It starts: “I had a dream which was not all a dream

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.”

 

Somehow, this reminds me of Dame Edith Sitwell’s poetry, but that is for another day.   And, we still read Byron’s poetry and the visions he creates.  But we are still here and the world is still going round.

The poets of the day: Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Shelley and others described the threatening landscape and cloudscape in their works giving us a reliable picture of the world that they suffered in.

When the party broke up, Claire Clairmont went to live in Bath and there prepared to give birth to her first (Lord Byron’s) child.  Mary, as her step-sister, moved nearby with Percy to care for Claire.  Whilst there, with Percy’s help, she completed her work on “Frankenstein” and had it published - anonymously at first and later in her own name, to great acclaim.  She was barely nineteen years old at the time.

In musical terms, Franz Schubert, for one, living in Vienna, did not mention the sun once in all the songs that he wrote in 1816 and a few years after.

But, what of the general population in Great Britain and Continental Europe at the time?  It was generally a terrible economic situation.  Most members of the Armies and Navies being redundant had simply been kicked out of their posts when Napoleon was captured and neutralised after the Battle of Waterloo.  There was a great deal of unrest and crops were failing just about everywhere.  Death by starvation was a reality to most people.

Not just crops, but farm animals suffered too: shepherds sheared their sheep at the usual times.  Then, a day or two later when the air temperature started to plummet, they resorted to the desperate measure of tying fleeces back onto their sheep to keep them warm during the ongoing freeze.

Because of these tragedies, many people across England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Continental Europe emigrated to North America.  The year 1816 probably saw more people migrate to America than at any other time.

And what had been happening in the United States and in Canada?

Well, until then, most of the immigrant population to the United States and Canada had stayed close to the Eastern Seaboard; but, the year “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death” saw crops fail at practically all of the farms that were there.  What were they to do?  Well, almost all the farmers packed up their belongings and moved inland to find new and more fertile territories, this becoming one of the biggest population movements in that Continent’s history.  Also, following on from the locals, the huge numbers of immigrants arriving from Britain and the Continent moved inland to find new places to live, work and feed themselves.

In Asia also, there were similar indications of the volcano’s activity.

In India, the monsoons for a number of years were far heavier and of longer duration.  This resulted in a rise in infectious diseases and, in particular, a strain of cholera that had an impact around the world.

And in Southern China, many rice-growing farms saw all their crops fail.  Rice-growing is a water-intensive activity, but it was the cold and the frozen ground that killed the crops.  When the weather settled and became warmer again, the farmers almost unanimously changed their crop to opium.  Opium is and was a hugely cash-generating crop; much more so than rice. The farmers would sell off most of their crop of opium each year.  They would keep a small amount for personal consumption, after all, television had not yet been invented, and they did not have endless repeats of “The Two Ronnies” to look forward to on Saturday evenings.

Farming and selling opium would give the farmers quite a good income, they would buy all the food and supplies they needed, and still have a good surplus at the end.  Everybody was happy.  Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge would also be happy as they had a good, continuing supply of opium for years to come.

But this situation would cause many problems for the Chinese Government some years in the future. 

Do we have any direct evidence nowadays of what happened after Mt. Tambora’s eruption? 

Well, if you speak to a Volcano expert, they might well detail some of the long-lasting impacts, but I might have an example closer to home for you.

If you happen to be a few miles to the North-West of the town of Worthing, I suggest that you join Long Furlong (the A280) then turn off that road to the village of Clapham.  Now go into St Mary the Virgin Church, the local parish church.

Inside, on the South wall is a white memorial tablet with just one name on it, although there is room for more names to be recorded here.

This memorial commemorates Thomas Parsons of Holt Farm who died on the 28^th February 1816 aged 47 years.

Now, the Parsons family were widely recognised as yeomen who had lived in the Parish for about two hundred years.

That much is known, now I must conjecture what might have happened next. 

After Thomas died, his widow (or relict as she would have been called in those days) tried to continue running the farm with their children.  Despite their best efforts, the farm probably failed that year.  Having no money to pay the rent, I think that Mrs Parsons will have been forced to relinquish the lease.  She, and the children, probably moved away to join her parents and so were lost to the parish.  And it is very sad that there were probably no more Parsons family members in the parish to go onto that tablet.  Well, I might be right or wrong about what I have conjectured, but at least it seems to fit with the facts that are available.  Holt Farm is, by the way, just to the North of the current route of the A27.

Coincidentally, the Shelley family lived nearby and some of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s family are also recorded in this church in stone or brass.  Along with, at the back of the church, a family tree showing Percy and both of his wives.  Harriet was his first wife and Mary Shelley, whom we know well, was his second wife.

It is a beautiful place of worship, so, please, pop a couple of coins into the collection box at the back of the church to show your appreciation and help in its upkeep.

So many people suffered at this time, many are known and remembered, but many are forgotten.  One who is well known was Jane Austen, she died in July 1817 and it is sad to realise that she barely saw the Sun for the last year and a half to two years of her life.  Oddly enough, in one of her last letters to her niece she laughingly joked that this awful weather seemed to be going on for all of time.

To show when this awful weather had finally ended, John Keats wrote his “Ode to Autumn” in the late summer of 1819.  He was the first of the poets I mentioned earlier to write (and publish) about the sun - and this meant that our time with no summers was finally at an end.  I shall never be able to read this poem again without thinking of its full meaning in that it signalled the end of the influence of Mount Tambora on our seasons.

I hope that you enjoyed my miscellany about the Napoleonic-era volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora and can shake off the cold in your bones - then go out into the sunlight to warm up a bit or at least, turn up your thermostat a notch or two.

 

My Primary source of inspiration for this reading was

the BBC Radio Three Sunday Feature: “1816 – The Year without a Summer”.  First broadcast in April 2016.

Thank you once again and I hope you have enjoyed this article.

Thank you again and good-bye for now.

 

 

 

Ding-dong! The Bells are gonna chime.

 

Ding-dong!  The Bells are gonna chime!

First read on Sussex Coast Talking News: 29th August 2023.

The sound of a man or woman clapping: Clap, clap clap clap … Now, nowadays, you would say that clapping is the sound of applause.  But I read somewhere that 3,000 years ago if you were attending a play in a theatre in Greece, everybody would clap for one reason, and that is to frighten away the demons who would otherwise interrupt the performance.  I cannot remember the provenance so cannot verify this statement yet.
However, in the Bible in the Old Testament, 

Book of Lamentations Chapter 2 Verse 15 
“All who pass along the way clap their hands at you; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem: etcetera”

Demons are repelled by loud noises.  Men would also beat drums or hammer on a piece of wood with wooden sticks (later known as a semantron and widely used for calling the faithful to prayer in the Eastern Orthodox church).  They needed to be able to use bells, but in the Stone Age they did not have the means of making them.

During the latter part of the Stone Age, our ancestors had started to melt copper along with gold and silver to make utensils, but these were too soft. 

Then metal-workers started to experiment and make alloys with different proportions of (mainly) copper, zinc and tin and produced brass and bronze: these were much harder and more durable alloys.  Then, the Bronze Age had truly started – this was roughly 5,000 years ago in Anatolia or thereabouts.  And Bronze gradually replaced stone as the main – hard - material for tools.

Manufacture of Bronze spread around the world: the Far East, Asia, India, China, Russia, South America, Europe and by about 4,000 years ago the period known as the Early Bronze Age had begun in the British Isles.

So, what did they make with this new material?  Well, to start off with swords, spear heads and armour.  Then onto pots, pans and cooking utensils.  Then bracelets, amulets and decorative objects.  Then, they started making bells and cymbals using full-scale foundries.  And the manufacture of bells happened all over the world, it seemed that mankind everywhere needed an effective means of: one) frightening away the demons that assailed us and two) calling the faithful to prayer and religious services. 

And bells have been in use ever since, all around the world for the two main purposes of scaring demons and spreading prayer.  Metal is regarded as a powerful force to fight evil – witches are scared off by iron tools, bells are hung under eaves to frighten off evil spirits and iron objects placed around homes to protect residents and their infant children.  Priests would have small, metal bells sewn onto their robes so that they would frighten off demons all the time they were in movement.  Also, morris-dancers often have bells sewn onto leather gaiters strapped onto their shins – but that is definitely another story.

Bells have been part of human history – religious and social – for untold generations.  Villages, for instance, were protected by the bell in their parish church, all the homes within the village would have been within earshot of that bell.   Clustered around the parish church.  And, even today, the sound of bells is ever-present.  The chimes of bells to cheer births and baptisms, to celebrate weddings; also, the tolling of bells to mourn the dead.  To celebrate victories and announce wars.  Bells have been the loudest musical noise in our lives for countless generations.

In the 15^th century, St Thomas Aquinas said that “the atmosphere is a battleground between angels and devils”.  This belief was not just held by Christian Europeans, but all around the world; and it was strongly believed that the inscriptions carved into bells were effective as spells for GOOD and when the bell rang, its message would be sent in all directions to carry out its beneficial effects.

In 15^th century Peking (now Beijing), there was a fifty-ton bell etched with numerous Buddhist verses to protect the citizens by virtue of its metal and its noise.

Interestingly, please allow me to digress slightly, the siege of Troy happened during the Bronze Age.  This is one of the subjects that has inspired numerous Hollywood films over the years.  The fighting armies are always shown as highly disciplined bodies armed with iron swords etcetera – another anachronism for my collection – most of the senior heroes and kings would have carried bronze swords and spears, but many warriors in both armies would have carried cudgels.  When I read Homer’s Iliad, more of the heroes and warriors who died on the battlefield were killed by being bashed over the head with a rock or a stone than with a sword thrust.  Similarly, in the Bible, Old Testament Judges chapter 15 verse 16 where Samson found the jawbone of an ass the easiest weapon to hand to smite a thousand Philistines.

The Iron Age itself started just over 3,000 years ago.  Iron was an even harder metal than bronze and marked a great change not only in the development of tools but allowed foundries to manufacture much larger and more powerful bells for mankind to use.

Amazing how bells are part of our lives.  What does “Ding, dong” mean to you?  It could be many things – besides Alfred P Doolittle’s song in “My Fair Lady”.

“Ding, dong”, a chucklesome chortle from Leslie Phillips as he greets a lovely young lady for the first time and is rushing over to get to know her better and invite her to dinner;

Or “Ding, dong”, Avon calling;

Or “Ding, dong bell, pussy’s in the well”;

Or “Ding dong merrily on high” the very popular Christmas carol.

 

Spells in the form of Inscriptions were used generally to reinforce the sound of the bell ringing over the parish, and phrases such as:

“Through the sign of the Cross, let all evil flee” Were used.

Popular on a number of bells is the following:

Vivos voco - mortuos plango - fulgura frango : I call the living (to prayer), mourn the dead, break the thunderbolt.

Then, being British, those who commissioned the bells started to get the foundries to engrave the bells with their details and using the Latin word “fecit” to indicate they made the bells - or paid for them.

St Nicholas Priory Church in Arundel currently has eight bells, all donated by the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, Henry Charles and Charlotte, in 1855.  Manufactured by C & G Mears at their foundry in London and simply inscribed with details of the donors.  Two of the bells are adorned with the magnificent seal of the Dukes of Norfolk.

Then, those who commissioned the bells started to promote themselves somewhat:

One at Bath Abbey leaves you absolutely certain of who made the payment:

"All you of Bathe that heare me sound

Thank Lady Hopton’s Hundred Pound."

 

Then, the manufacturers had to point the finger at those parishioners and villagers who did not contribute to the cost of their bell, like this 1607 bell in Cambridgeshire:

"Of all the bells in Benet, I am the best

And yet for my casting, the parish paid the least."

And this one from Derbyshire:

"Mankind like me are often found

Possessed of naught but empty sound."

 

Did you know there is a website called “The History of Bells”?  No, neither did I until I started on this article.

Anyway, looking at the largest or heaviest bells ever created, these two come out top:

The biggest ever bell was cast in Rangoon in Burma (now Yangon in Myanmar) by order of King DHAMMAZEDI in 1484.  It weighed 327 tons, a ton is 2,240 pounds weight and, in comparison, a bag of sugar weighs two pounds, so that is an unimaginable amount of sugar.  Obviously, King Dhammazedi was no shrinking violet and intended the world to know just how powerful he was by commissioning this bell.

The bell was placed in the Shwedagon Pagoda until Portuguese invaders seized it for loot.  But the vessel they placed it on capsized, the bell sank to the bottom of the river and has not seen daylight since.

So, if you have access to a large ship, a mobile crane and a colossal amount of counter-ballast, you might be able to raise it.  Good luck, but you might be disappointed with the sound, the only noise they got from this bell when it was hit by a striker was a dull clonk.  Not very impressive.

The next big bell is the Tsar Bell which is the largest and heaviest bell in Russia.  It was cast in the 1730s for the Russian Empress Anna Ivanovna.  The bell weighed more than 200 tons and was over twenty feet tall.

Whilst it was nearing completion – in 1737 – a fire broke out in the Kremlin and its wooden supports caught fire, the guards threw water over the fire causing the bell to start cracking and one section weighing eleven tons fell off.  Some years later, the bell was placed on a stone pedestal and in 1836 services were held inside it, as a chapel.

The heaviest working bell in Great Britain is ‘Great Paul’ which hangs in St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London.  This great bell was cast in 1881 and weighs a mere 17 tons, it has a diameter of 9 feet 6 inches and (unlike the Dhammazedi and Tsar bells) it rings and is tuned to E-flat.

The next – and most well-known bell – is Big Ben in the clocktower of the Palace of Westminster.  According to the Houses of Parliament website there are four other bells hanging there to make a peal of five.

Big Ben weighs 13 tons and fourteen cwt (hundredweight);

The first quarter bell weighs 1 ton and 2 cwt; the second bell weighs 1 ton and 6 cwt; the third bell weighs 1 ton and 14 cwt and the fourth bell weighs 4 tons.

That’s a lot of heavy iron!

Just a second, I’ve got to check my watch.  Oh, just coming up to the hour.  Shall we listen to the strokes now and I will resume in a few moments …

To go to the Westminster Chimes: Click on the words below and then, click on the link that appears and click on the 'Play' button:-

 Google Search 

That was nice, wasn’t it?  Oh, you were expecting to hear Big Ben.  Never mind, there are lots of peals in churches and grandfather clocks all over the country ringing the “Westminster Quarters” – NOT “Westminster Chimes”.  This one was made by the Howard Miller family of clockmakers and I very much appreciate them making this recording available.

The tower that Big Ben (and the other bells) are in was simply called the Clock Tower until 2012 when it was renamed Elizabeth Tower to mark the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  The clock and its face were recently refurbished and re-opened to great fanfare in 2022.  But it has stopped a couple of times in May this year – although it should be alright now …

As I mentioned, the tune played over the four quarters of the hour is called “Westminster Quarters” and it contains only four notes and these are G sharp, F sharp, E and B.  The hour tones are chimed by Big Ben – tuned to E.

The tune was originally called “Cambridge Quarters” because it was written in 1793 for Great St Mary’s Church in Cambridge.  There is some confusion over who exactly wrote the tune.  But it was adopted by the Palace of Westminster in 1859.

Big Ben, the bell itself was cast in 1858 but sometime in 1859, it cracked in situ and could not be repaired, so it was rotated by 90 degrees and a smaller striker was used from then on as the bell continued to give a good tone.  Also, the tune was given words originally and these are (I promise not to sing them):

"All through this hour

Lord be my guide

And by Thy power

No foot shall slide"

I feel it would be nice to re-introduce the words and have them sung by a small choir of MPs and Lords standing outside the Elizabeth Tower every quarter of an hour throughout the day and night to the music of the bells playing above them.  That would certainly keep them busy!

The bell is the largest musical instrument that has been created by mankind.  Some might argue that some church and cathedral organs are larger, but very few of them are larger than bells.  It is interesting that most bells and organs are installed in churches and cathedrals.  Mind you, the ringing of a bell is, very much, an open-air sound and the noise travels much further than an organ’s notes.

So, all the villagers, towns-people and city-dwellers who live and work within range of the sound of “their” bell or bells can appreciate the musicality and protection that they provide.

But it is the sound, the noise, the musical note that the bell produces that is significant (sonically).  Listen to the jangling sound of a small hand-bell and there is just one simple note that is being produced.  But, listen to the sound of a large church bell from close proximity, but not too close, and you hear a much more complex sound.  There is a reverberation of sound and you can hear a number of different notes all at the same time, this seems to be more so with the larger and heavier bells as there is more metal in the construction to generate the dominant note and sub-notes. 

Even though many orchestras nowadays contain tubular bells – and anvils – within their battery of instruments, composers over the years have attempted to re-create the sound of bells by using other instruments (and human voices).  In my opinion, Claude Debussy came among the closest with one of his solo piano preludes: La Cathedrale Engloutie (the sunken cathedral) dated 1910.  I am not a musician, but I think that his use of the loud pedal on the piano, opens all the strings and allows them to vibrate along with the ones being struck generating a wonderfully rich but gentle sound to wash over the listener, hearing the cathedral’s organ and bells as it sinks again beneath the waves.  In my opinion, Debussy really captures the reverberations of a heavy church bell – also the sound which resonates all around.

What each of us hears is often different, so what one person finds musical, another might find cacophonous.  So, I am perfectly comfortable if you do not agree with me and find another composer’s work captures the essence of the bell more intimately for your hearing.

One thing about bell ringing that is peculiar to Great Britain is change ringing.  I am not going to go into any detail here as this is such a large and complex subject for this article.  But the teams of bell-ringers in their towers use a system of ringing the bells in different sequences for different purposes and services: baptisms, weddings and funerals for instance.  Not only do they declare the function of the peal, but they use specific patterns to weave a magical tapestry of sound both mathematical and musical where all the bells are used equally.

The loudest ever piece of music specifically written for bells was created in 2010 to 2011 by the British composer and conductor: Charles Hazlewood.  He found that there was only one place in the country that had three working church peals in fairly close proximity and this was in the university city of Cambridge.   The churches were Great St Mary’s (yes, that one again) – the University Church, St Edward’s the King and Martyr Parish Church and St Andrew the Great Parish Church.  Unfortunately, the bells of each church were tuned differently.  Which did cause Charles problems.  He solved these by bringing in teams of hand-bell ringers, thirty-plus in all from teams across Eastern England.  And, he re-designed the ringing process in one of the churches so that the bells remained static in place and the clappers were pulled by the ringing team.

He scored an arrangement of “Greensleeves” (appropriately, because of King Henry VIII’s association with Cambridge Colleges) for the bells of three churches and a corps of hand-bell ringers and this was performed in 2011 to the assembled citizens of Cambridge in the Market Square as a one-off outdoor musical experiment.

I personally find the sound of church or cathedral bells wonderful to listen to, but I do appreciate that it may not be to everybody’s taste and sometimes the sound is not too appropriate.  One example occurred in a church in Somerset that I knew.

St Mary Magdalene Church is on Hammet Street in Taunton, Somerset.  It has a peal of fifteen bells in total.  It also has a carillon – a mechanical device using the same concept as a player piano – to play a tune on the bells.  In this case, it played the tune for the song: “Oh, we come up from Somerset where the cider apples grow”.  So far, so good, but it played and repeated this tune every hour for the number of times that a single bell would strike on the hour in most churches.  This could be very irritating for people who lived close to the church or worked in offices or shops close by – particularly at mid-day.  We lived on the edge of the town so were not badly affected.  I do not know whether they had many complaints over time, but now the carillon only operates four times a day: 9 o’clock in the morning, 12 noon, and 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock in the afternoon.  Which, I suppose, is a reasonably happy balance for all concerned.

  

My father worked in the textile industry for many years.  Then he was called to be a Church of England vicar and chaplain.  He trained for the priesthood in a Benedictine monastery in Yorkshire.  The students there (each for two or three years) lived there as monks and took part in all the tasks and services of monastic life as well as their studies in preparation for their vocation.  This included the eight chapel services of the monastic day from matins (just after midnight) right through to compline (at 9 o’clock in the evening).  They were all called throughout the day to chapel services and their duties by hand-bells ringing across the monastery.

My father, having a very good bass voice, was part of the three-strong team who led the singing in the chapel.  Now, the services in chapel would all take place at their appointed hours, but one service in the year - on Easter Day - was timed almost to the second.  This was Prime (about 6 o’clock in the morning).  A table would be set up outside the chapel piled high with hand-bells and cymbals.  As the Prior, the monks, the novices and the students were called into chapel for Prime, they would each pick up a bell or a cymbal and would quietly carry it in with them.  As they were singing one particular psalm, instead of singing the last two verses, EVERYBODY would ring their bells with great clamour and gusto.  Now, and this is the reason for the timing of this service, at exactly this point, the sun would rise above the horizon, the East window above the High Altar would be illuminated and the chapel would be flooded with LIGHT as the brethren of the Community of the Resurrection WELCOMED the RISEN LORD back to His world and kingdom.

What a glorious start to Easter Day!

 

You would think that with all the noise being made all around the world by all these bells that the demons would not be running like the clappers, but would have bought themselves a good set of ear defenders by now – obviously not!

 

I am going to finish this article by sending a prayer to YOU through the medium of a bell.  The prayer was written last year by my uncle and I am holding a copy in my hand whilst tightly holding my bell and through THIS recording I am passing on this prayer and the blessing of the ringing of this bell to you. 

Bless us all this day.

Ting Ting Ting Ting.

Excellent listening: 

“The Listening Service” – BBC Radio 3 – Tom Service edition “The Bells, the Bells.”

Reading: 

David Hendy “Noise – A Human History of Sound & Listening” Profile Books – 2013.

Websites:

List of Heaviest and Largest Bells (historyofbells.com)

A brief history of Big Ben and Elizabeth Tower - UK Parliament

Arundel, St Nicholas - The Bells of Sussex - THE BELLS OF SUSSEX (weebly.com)

Assorted ringing videos. | Page 2 | St Georges Bells - France's First Set of English Change-Ringing Bells - Vernet-les-Bains - Pyrénées Orientales (vernetbells.com)

 

A First World War Soldier's Journey

This item was first read as a magazine article for Sussex Coast Talking News in November 2022.

A First World War Journey.

 

My father’s, mother’s elder brother – my Great-Uncle - was called John Townsend; this is something of his story.  John was born in January 1893 in Honley – a bustling village south of Huddersfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire.  John was a small child but always bright and cheerful, he did well at school and in sports (football particularly).

He went to study at Sheffield University in 1911 (joined the debating society, the OTC, Officer Training Corps, which gave him, and others, useful experience and the sports clubs), graduating as a Bachelor of Arts.  He had worked hard and was awarded his degree at the Universities’ ceremony on the 27^th June 1914. 

 

John was quickly offered a post as an Assistant Teacher at one of Sheffield’s schools and was due to start work in September 1914.  But war was then declared on the 4^th August 1914 and Lord Kitchener had called on the 7^th for 100,000 volunteers to enlist in the British Army.  John only worked in teaching for two weeks as he was to offer himself for military service; the school released him but confirmed that his role would be held open pending his return.

 

Mr HAL Fisher, Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University, along with Sheffield Council decided it would be a great boost for morale to form a local (Pals) battalion and agreed this with the Army Council.  And thus, was created the 12^th (City of Sheffield) Service Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment, the local infantry regiment.  The word Service indicates that the Battalion was formed for active service and was not part of the Army reserves.

 

John quickly joined up, his army number was 252/12 indicating that he was the two-hundred and fifty-second man to join the newly-formed battalion.

 

Sheffield Football Club initially offered their grounds and pitch as a camp and training area for the battalion.  But, as the recruits turned all the beautifully cared for grass into mud in a few days, the Battalion was moved very quickly to Redmires Camp away from Sheffield, near Catterick Garrison.

 

The Sheffield Battalion then went through rigorous training and travelled to various camps: Penkridge, Staffordshire in May 1915, Ripon in August, Salisbury in September and Wickford in Essex in December.  This was so for all new battalions training new recruits as the Army kept moving huge numbers of men around the country until they were ready for overseas service.

 

John had known for a while that they faced a long wait getting to the Front as the 12^th York & Lancaster Battalion was part of the Fourth Army and the Second Army had only just mobilised overseas in mid-1915.  On the 14^th December, the 12^th Battalion was formed into the 94^th Brigade in the 31^st Division of the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force to be posted to Egypt in the New Year.  The 94^th Brigade was comprised of four Battalions: the 12^th plus two other Battalions from the York and Lancaster Regiment (both Barnsley Pals) and one from the East Lancashire Regiment (Accrington Pals).

 

Then, just before Christmas 1915, the Brigade was transported (by ship – HMT Nestor) to Egypt via Gibraltar and was based near Port Said on the Suez Canal to protect it from an anticipated Turkish attack.

 

John had been promoted to Corporal by then.  He wrote home frequently (and had done since joining up).  He often had to ask his parents for various supplies: paper, ink, cigarettes (when troops did not get their tobacco rations), sweets and chocolate, coffee, biscuits, cake (Parkin was very popular), tinned goods (fruit, sardines, meat pastes) – not pork pies, these did not travel well apparently!  The postal services really came up trumps for all these soldiers who depended so much on the little extras they got from home.

 

Troops could buy necessities locally, but the prices were often exorbitant and, occasionally, pay did not arrive on time leaving men a bit short sometimes.

For quite a while, when John’s Battalion was stationed in Egypt, water was rationed to a gallon per day per man, although salt water for washing and cleaning clothes was, I think, extra.  John, at one point, mentions swimming from Europe to Asia (I think he meant Africa not Europe, but an easy slip to make) and back again – although I think this was to clean his shirt rather than make any particular point.  Port Said might be very hot during the daytime; but, at night it was exceedingly cold.  John wrote that when coal was delivered to their Base Depot in railway wagons which were “emptied” and returned for re-supply, there would often be plenty of scraps of coal left in the wagons.  The men would use their initiative and very carefully collect up these scraps to take back to their huts.  In John’s hut, he and his colleagues made a fireplace out of an old biscuit tin.  Thus, they were able to keep warm, brew tea at any time of the day and they fried eggs, bread and cheese to supplement their rations and shared the treats and supplies they received from their families and, all in all, make their situation as civilised as they could manage.

 

Interestingly, the fact of John’s promotion to Corporal (then later to Lance Sergeant) is barely mentioned in his letters; but, the contents of his parcels from home (and, I presume that it was the same for all of his fellow soldiers) are of more concern to him.  The necessities and the niceties of life.  These become much more important when the men are posted off to picquet duty a few hours hard march into the desert and away from Port Said.

 

John was promoted to Lance Sergeant in February 1916.  This was a fairly new rank of Non-Commissioned Officer, dating approximately from the early seventeenth century.  Up to Henry VIII’s and Elizabeth I’s time, foot-soldiers fought with bill-hooks and pikes (twenty-two-foot-long ash spears tipped with wickedly sharp blades).  Some cannons and hand-munitions were used in battle, but, in James I’s time, numbers of infantry companies ceased using pikes and were re-armed with match-lock, muzzle-loading muskets.  By the time of the English Civil War in Charles I’s reign a good proportion of infantry companies were issued with matchlock muskets.  These, along with all the equipment that the musketeers were carrying, were very cumbersome; and the process of loading their muskets took about three minutes – compared to about a minute for an infantryman in the British Army of the Napoleonic Wars.  This being the case, besides keeping order in the ranks, the Lance Corporals and Lance Sergeants armed with six-foot half-pikes would face OUT whilst the men in their ranks were otherwise occupied in loading their muskets.  They would defend their rank against enemy attack from the side and warn officers of any threats.  Once their rank was loaded, the Lance-Corporals and Lance-Sergeants would resume their disciplinary duties.

 

The threat of an attack by the Turkish army on the Suez canal had dwindled away and, on the 12^th March 1916, the 94^th Brigade took ship once again and sailed to Marseilles in Southern France to take part in an offensive currently being planned over the river Somme.  They were taken by train most of the way and route marched the remainder.

 

They found the regions they passed through very interesting and enjoyable.  In the main, cherries, almonds and grapes were being intensively cultivated.  Mainly idyllic, but in certain areas, the war was not too far away and the attitude of the locals was darker – not hostile, just understanding of the dangers.

 

They reached their point in the Line and the Sheffield Battalion took their place in the front-line trenches for the first time, experiencing a hot German bombardment at the beginning of April.  Three men were slightly wounded at this time even though they were bombarded by shells, whizz-bangs, tear-gas and canister shot.  Quite a show - and most of the men were on the firing steps cheering on the British Artillery responses.  John looked at the faces of the men in his platoon as he was moving along the trench and noted the intensity of their feelings; all were very angry and ready to fight if the Germans had mounted an infantry attack and were almost disappointed that they did not.  In fact, the men were probably in more real danger from the rats that infested the dugouts.  John mentioned the rats in their dug-outs in one of his letters, then, it appeared that his mother had offered to send out a tin of rat poison.  John politely said “No, Thanks”.  He advised that they would probably need a ton or so of poison to make any difference, then they would be inundated by dead, rotting rats all over the place, so it was better to leave them as they were and live round them as much as possible.

 

In heavy wind and rain, a few days later, the Battalion was moved behind the lines; this happened regularly, as battalions were moved around behind the lines and then to the Front for a short spell before being relieved again.

 

When in the front line, John took part in a number of wire patrols in No Man’s Land, on the first of which he kicked up a number of old meat tins and shell canisters making an awful din, fortunately, the Germans did not hear him.  Then he got caught on the wire and tore his trousers getting free. Carrying his rifle and bayonet about caused a lot of difficulty.  On future patrols, whether on his own or leading men from his platoon, he armed himself with a bag of bombs as it was easier to manoeuvre.

 

Was John frightened of the situation he was in?  Like many soldiers, he was something of a fatalist; he could do nothing about his situation, he took all the care that he could but appreciated that an incident could happen at any time that would kill him.  Often, when he was in command of his platoon at night in the front line, he would have to bolster up any men who were in a bit of a funk about where they were.  This meant that he was often moving about in the trenches far more than was strictly safe as he risked being spotted by German snipers (mind you, the soldiers were pretty disparaging about the accuracy of most of the enemy’s rifle fire).

 

Then, on the 21^st April (1916), the Colonel sent for John and offered him a commission.  John accepted the offer immediately but had to get certificates for his education and personal references to start the process.  He declined time off for officer training and only took one week of his promotion leave as he wanted to get straight back to his unit – the Colonel had said “Well, I suppose you will want 3 months in England, now?”  To which, John immediately responded: “If my commission depends on any more training, I’ll resign it to go back to the trenches.”  The CO clapped him on the back and said: “That’s right, young man, that’s the sort of spirit we want.”

 

He was made a Second Lieutenant in the 12^th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment at the end of May, but took just one week of leave at home in Honley before joining his new unit.  This was a very full week, getting his new uniform and speaking to people at Sheffield University and Town Hall to tell them how well his comrades in the City Battalion were doing and that they were all in good spirits.

 

When his leave was over, John returned to France to join his new unit, the 12^th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment.

 

Let us leave John there, and return briefly to the Sheffield Battalion.  They were carrying out their military duties in and out of the Somme area and were scheduled to take part in the first attacks of that battle near a town called Serre on the left of the Front.

 

The 94^th Brigade (Sheffield City Battalion along with the two Battalions of Barnsley Pals and one of Accrington Pals) attacked at 7:30am on the 1^st July 1916; within an hour German machine-gun and rifle fire had brought the attack to a stand-still and over 500 men of the Sheffield’s had been killed or wounded.  Eventually, months later, the City Battalion was disbanded as they could not get enough replacements to bring them back to full fighting strength.

 

John Townsend did not know about this set-back to the Sheffield City Battalion for quite a few days, but he was very happy in his new Battalion, and fitted in well with the officers and men of the West Yorkshire Regiment.  He was kept very busy as the Intelligence Officer for the 12^th Battalion.  Early in July, the newspapers reported the death of a Second Lieutenant John Townsend of the East Yorkshire Regiment; John had his work cut out writing to friends and family that it was not him in the report and he was very much alive.

 

They took part in sports against other units, particularly the Royal Fusiliers.  Horse-riding and football in the main and the West Yorkshires did very well.  One day, John wrote that they were going to go swimming in a local lock, but the lock-keeper had let out the water in “revenge” for some of the officers leaving their horses in his field without his permission, this did not go down too well with the men who wanted a swim that day.

 

Then, it happened.  On the 24^th July, the official telegram arrived for Mr and Mrs Townsend in Honley.  The King and Queen and Army Council regretted that their son John had been killed in action on the 14^th July 1916.

 

A few days later, John’s parents received a letter from a Private FG King (later Corporal) who had been John’s Batman.  He apologised that he was writing – usually letters to families of the deceased soldier are written by his senior officer in the Battalion, but as many of the officers had been killed or wounded in the action on the 14^th July, it fell to him (and to return John’s effects).   He had died as a result of a shell blast – concussion, not a scratch on him.  Now, John’s parents announced to Sheffield University, the chapel and the local paper, that John had died whilst on a patrol in No Man’s Land to gather intelligence and find & recover the wounded.  This was the story that had been passed down in our family – but it was not true, maybe it was to save his younger sisters’ feelings.

 

The facts were, as explained by John’s Batman and also featured in an article in the Yorkshire Post newspaper (written by a fellow officer, who was also killed in action but a few days later on the 24^th July) that his Battalion in the West Yorkshire Regiment was involved in a very hotly fought action that night to take two lines of German trenches.  Private King saw John as the force was mustering and John was pressing forward to be close to the head of the Push.  He lost sight of John due to the mass of men and that was the last time he saw him alive. 

 

They succeeded, but at a huge expense in lives including one Captain Cyril Sharp who was John’s Company Commander and immediate superior as well as being a good friend from their university days.

 

The action took place at Bazentin-le-Grand and the casualties were buried properly in a nearby field.  However, this was later destroyed by German shell-fire.  The names of the men who had been buried there are all included on the Thiepval Memorial.  Interestingly, Bazentin is only a few miles along the front line from Serre, where the Sheffield City Battalion had suffered so severely themselves.

 

Memorials to John are at the Methodist Chapel in Honley along with the local war memorial in Honley.  One day I will visit the village to pay my respects, but I doubt that I will get to Thiepval.

 

Interestingly, both my grandfathers enlisted at the beginning of the Great War – one serving as a Private in the South Staffordshire Regiment posted to Egypt and India and the other as a Corporal in the Royal Field Artillery in France.  They both returned home after the conflict - without a scratch.

 

This is just one story from the Great War – there are a million more yet to be told and I do hope that you have enjoyed hearing the history of my cousins’, my brother’s and my Great-Uncle John Townsend.

 

Thank you for listening today.

 

A dedication to my dear wife, Jean. ( and Belshazzar! Bling-king of the Old Testament)

 

The following article is dedicated particularly to Jean, who appears and plays a crucial part in it.  She has appeared in a number of articles of mine, and will play a part in more to come.  Over the years, dear Jean contributed to so much that I have written; I would always print out sections as I finished them and we would discuss the content together, so everything was a joint creation.

Over the last year or so, I did talk through with her what I was working on, but Jean was not always able to comprehend what I was telling her.  I was particularly eager to get this piece finished as I wanted her to be able to read it, but the research took a long time and, in the end, it was too late …

There is so much that I wanted to tell her, so much that I still want to tell her; but I did say the most important words in the English Language to her – often – and she said the same to me.

I love you.

I love you, Jean.

This is for you …

Belshazzar!  Bling-king of the Old Testament.  The Sitwells!  Jean and Me?

Well that was an attention-grabber wasn’t it?  Anyway, it will all make sense, so let us move on.  Everybody has heard of the Bloomsbury Set, one of the great literary and artistic groupings of the post-Great War era; but equally influential in those circles were the Sitwell sister and brothers.  They were very much avant-garde (in the vanguard) in the artistic circles of the day being very close to Cecil Beaton and William Walton among many others in the Arts; their mission was to protest against dullness and nobody can deny that they spread colour everywhere.

William Walton lived with the Sitwell family for a number of years and when he commenced work on his great choral piece: “Belshazzar’s Feast”, Osbert Sitwell worked alongside him to produce the libretto.  The libretto is the framework on which the music is built to produce a coherent whole and Osbert went beyond just the Book of Daniel to craft the poem / libretto for the composition.  Out of the 117 lines of the finished poem and vocal score, only 53 come from Daniel Chapter 5 which tells the story of Belshazzar’s Feast.  Osbert Sitwell has woven together elements of the Psalms (81 and 137).  Number 137 is the psalm that expresses the plight, most eloquently, of the Israelites being held captive by beginning “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. … How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

Also, there are extracts from the books of Isaiah and Revelations woven together to create a poem which succinctly establishes the situation of the Israelites, the events at the Feast, Belshazzar being slain during the night (I always wonder How? and by Whom?) then general rejoicing at the fall of Babylon (not exactly how it happens in the Book of Daniel, but never mind).

The poems of Osbert Sitwell that I have read are portraits of people of all types and conditions that he knew in England and in Italy.  As you read, each person is alive on the page, and Osbert captures succinctly the essence of his subject, their vanity, their weakness or their nobility and you feel that you know them well.  An air of melancholy, like dust, hangs over some of his subjects and that is not a feeling that we want at this time.

I enjoyed his writing and, when I have the time, will definitely add one or two of his earlier books to my reading list.

 

Sacheverell decided to pre-empt his autobiography by writing about his childhood and early adulthood whilst the memories were fresh in his mind rather than waiting until his older age when he might have forgotten quite a lot.  What he has done with four experiences as a child (and one as a young man) is to create an “One Thousand and One Arabian Nights” experience with digressions and diversions all the time so that you have almost forgotten each original story in reading all the pictures that he conjures up from literature, myths, architecture, horticulture, art and wherever inspiration has struck him.  He paints a realistic picture of a privileged life for a child in the first dozen or so years of the twentieth century but overlaid with a wonderful kaleidoscope of images which sparkle constantly before you.  I wonder what this work would have been like if he had delayed writing until much later in life?

Edith, the elder sister, is the one most known about generally.  A major figure in literary circles and promoter of young poets of promise.  Ridiculed by many, but her poetry and reading tours, particularly in the United States of America, were exceedingly popular.  She was awarded doctorates by Leeds, Durham, Sheffield and Oxford Universities and made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in the early 1950s.

I have read a lot of poetry in my time and a fair amount of Dame Edith’s, but, I am afraid that I did not find much of it to my taste.  A lot of it is surreal.  Surrealism is a form of art in which an attempt is made to represent and interpret the phenomena of dreams and similar experiences (*).  Unfortunately, that being the case, many of Dame Edith’s dreams must have been quite dark and terrifying.  I would not recommend a parent of a young child to read the poem: “Lullaby” aloud.  The images are quite unsettling:

“Thy mother’s hied to the vaster race:

The Pterodactyl made its nest

And laid a steel egg in her breast –

Under the Judas-coloured sun.

She’ll work no more, nor dance, nor moan,

And I am come to take her place.”

But, on reading her personal letters, she comes out as warm, funny, clever, interesting and sympathetic.  I must read more, one day, perhaps one of her novels and then I will have to knuckle down to the poetry and recite until the rhythm and the rhyme is right.

My mother was very interested in the Sitwell family and was absolutely certain that she was related to them through her mother’s line.  She wanted to find the connection and spent many years searching through family records without success but eventually produced a substantial family tree.  The details go back to the 1570s and cover a wide range of ancestors; but no connection to the Sitwell family.  Never mind, it was a valiant effort.

Some years ago, Jean and I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum one day for a good look around.  Whilst there, we saw the sign for the Jewellery Collection and made our way over to Level 2 to have a look.  This Collection is in its own individual strong-room and, as you know, I have worked in many strong-rooms during my banking years.  This one was particularly impressive and as secure as you can get.  After you pass through the outer armoured doors with the dual combination locks, there is a small vestibule leading to the inner steel-barred gate.  When we walked through, we were stopped in our tracks by a framed photograph of Dame Edith Sitwell on the wall.  It was photographed by Cecil Beaton, I think, and showed Dame Edith in magnificent profile wearing a typically flamboyant turban and bedizened in jewellery: ear-rings, rings, bracelets and more necklaces than some ladies would wear in a fortnight.  We gazed at it silently together whilst other patrons walked straight past us and into the exhibition  After a few moments, Jean started chuckling, then laughingly she said:  “You can’t deny it, of course of course you’re related!  Look at that conk, her whopping great hooter – distinct family resemblance you can tell.”

Silently, I gazed down my proboscis – I mean my nose – at her.  We went into the exhibition which was a glittering delight.  But, do you know?  Virtually all that I can remember of that visit is the portrait of Dame Edith Sitwell, who is definitely not related to me or my family.  I just wonder whether the picture is still in place though?

Background reading:

Dame Edith SITWELL       “Poems New and Old” Faber and Faber – Fifth Impression 1946

Dame Edith SITWELL       “The Penguin Poets – A selection by the Author” Penguin Books 1952

Dame Edith SITWELL       “Selected Letters” Edited by John Lehmann and Derek Parker, Macmillan and Co Ltd 1970

Osbert SITWELL                “Poems about People or England Reclaimed” Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd – First published 1965

Sacheverell SITWELL       “All Summer in a Day – An Autobiographical Fantasia” Duckworth 1926

William WALTON              “Belshazzar’s Feast for mixed choir, baritone solo and orchestra”  Vocal Score Oxford University Press Revised Edition 1955

The Holy Bible – Revised Standard Version 1952 – Books: Psalm 137, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Revelations.

 

(*) The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary – Third Edition reprinted with corrections – 1964.

 

Rembrandt painted (I think!) the best image of Belshazzar (it is in the National Gallery if you want to go and have a look), but, here it is!

 

 

Download Receipt Number: 828686 / 4314995

 

If you want to see some of the images of the “Nest of Tigers”, click on this link to go to the National Portrait Gallery, enjoy them!

Osbert, Sacheverell & Edith Sitwell 1927